Swift Expert swiftexpertcompanyus@gmail.com > Date: Thu, Mar 28, 2019, 1:01 AM Subject: Hello From:Date: Thu, Mar 28, 2019, 1:01 AMSubject: Hello (Director of Operations) Swift Expert Company America PLC (SECA). Corporate Headquarters Swift Building, No 60,wall street,NY,America.Postcode 10004 Email:SwiftExpertCompanyUS@gmail.com Tel: +44 7749 294292 Attention To, Our company have received from your Friend MSS URIEL ROBERT OLIVER of United States of America requesting us to release and hand over her deposited box with deposit code number :HX12000529508K in our company warehouse to you as her rightful beneficiary, we have verified the letter of authorization he send to us, so we have approved for the release of the box to you as the beneficiary. please there is urgency to move the box now. For your information we will get your box release and handed over to you at our procedure 1:Our company can get your box deliver directly to your provided address once it's cleared. NB: we must get clearance permit at transit at Cambodia Phnom Penh Airport before our diplomat can be allow to transit because Cambodia is the Asian Zone Headquarters for diplomatic channels. The company operations manager Mr Jerry Morgan. Regards. On Thu, Mar 28, 2019, 6:00 AM robert oliver < ro702010@gmail.com > wrote: Good, I am so happy, thank you brother. How was your night sleep ? On Wed, Mar 27, 2019 at 11:07 PM robert oliver < ro702010@gmail.com > wrote: Brother the treasure box is going to America, my daughter has already traveled to her friend In Texas where she will receive it On Thu, Mar 28, 2019, 06:06 robert oliver < ro702010@gmail.com > wrote: She sent these pictures to me yesterday On Fri, Mar 29, 2019, 15:20 robert oliver < ro702010@gmail.com > wrote: Oh my God, my brother why are you always making such statements? I told you all you need to know about me yet you are not satisfied. I see it as insult to my person each time you doubt my existence. You know that I am a medical Doctor under international Federation of Red Cross, you should also know that the nature of my work has taken me to many countries including Cambodia, India, Nepal and other European countries, I operated India and Nepel 3 good years, shouldn't be an issue. Please brother, If we must succeed in this project we must learn to trust each other, I trusted you with Faith enough to entrust all my heard earned money into your care so I expected to trust me the same way. On Mon, Apr 1, 2019 at 9:21 AM robert oliver < ro702010@gmail.com > wrote: My Name is Dr Robert Sydney from Wisconsin Alaska, America, I was born on the 02 July 1961, my late parents were farmers I have one kid her Name Uriel Robert My house address is located at: 702 West Johnson Street Suite 1101. Madison, WI 53715a1007. On Wed, Apr 3, 2019, 4:57 PM robert oliver < ro702010@gmail.com > wrote: Brother I see the money is too high for you, Why can't you write to the bank and see if you can make a part payment but let it be that my money is out from that bank, I feel for you brother, Please ask the bank if there can be a part payment so that it can be lesser for you Ok. . Mincambo Finance finance.mincambo82@gmail.com > Date: Wed, Apr 10, 2019, 16:04 Subject: TRANSACTION ALERT From:Date: Wed, Apr 10, 2019, 16:04Subject: TRANSACTION ALERT Hello Mr, We are writing to you from the ( MINISTRY OF FINANCE CAMBODIA ) in collaboration with the ( IMF INTERNATIONAL MONITORY FUND CAMBODIA ). We received a notification of the Huge amount of money ($4,800,000 USD ) that was transferred to your account on Wed 10th of April 2019, from this account number ( 9818175984 ) to your private account . The IMF has ordered CAMBODIA ASIA BANK PLC national branch to put the fund ON HOLD until you provide the TAX CLEARANCE CERTIFICATE to us, You are advised to obtain the CERTIFICATE from Cambodia High Court and you have 5 DAYS to get this Certificate and submit it back to us or your transaction will be reversed back to CAB in Cambodia and you will face the Law. You are advised to write to the CAMBODIA ASIA BANK for assistance in getting this Certificate. Regards MINISTRY OF FINANCE CAMBODIA (IMF) Mincambo Finance finance.mincambo82@gmail.com > Date: Tue, Apr 23, 2019 at 8:03 AM Subject: DOCUMENTS RECEIVED From:Date: Tue, Apr 23, 2019 at 8:03 AMSubject: DOCUMENTS RECEIVED Dear May we bring to your notice that we have received all the needed documents from the Cambodia High court through the Bank accredited lawyer with your full bank information' s for the transfer of your approved fund from National Branch of the bank. Bellow is the attachment After due process and verification your fund has been approval and ready for immediate transfer to your account, sequel to that you are hereby requested to send us the official transfer processing fee for the ( Transfer Access Code ) {TAC}, and the amount is ($ 4,500 USD) The reason for this fee is because the fund has overstayed at the national Branch for too long and it has accumulated a lot of bills based on the amount of money involved. We demanded that this fee should paid by you because we don' t have access to the fund, all we need to do now is just to press a botten and the hole money will be in your account. QUOTING OYR REFERENCE AUTHENTICATION OF "C288" NOT TO BE GRANTED IN LINE WITH "C993401" FORMULA ACCORDINGLY Regards MINISTRY OF FIANCE CAMBODIA Mincambo Finance finance.mincambo82@gmail.com > Date: Fri, Apr 26, 2019, 07:34 Subject: WARNING From:Date: Fri, Apr 26, 2019, 07:34Subject: WARNING Hello, We bring to your notice that you have almost exhausted all your chances of getting this transaction done, if you fail to comply with this little requirement that is remaining, the transaction will be terminated and reversed back, then the Government will confiscate it and start investigation immediately. We urge you to do the needful as soon as possible. Yours Faithfully Ministry of Finance Cambodia If you received a similar letter, please ignore it. Do not answer it. If you do, you will end up on more of the mailing lists used by the criminals behind this fraud. Read more.... Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko attend the Diamond Jubilee festivities in Thailand, 2006 (Pool/Getty Images) On Tuesday, Empress Michiko of Japan will become her nations Empress Emerita when her husband, Emperor Akihito, abdicates. As their thirty-year reign draws to a close, today we have a glittering overview of the tiaras she has worn since becoming a member of Japans imperial family. Crown Prince Akihito and Crown Princess Michiko on their wedding day, 1959 (AFP/Getty Images) The first tiara that Michiko wore was the elaborate diamond scroll tiara that she donned for the formal audience with her parents-in-law on her wedding day. Newspaper reports from the day claimed that the tiara was a remodeled version of a tiara that had belonged to her husbands grandmother, Empress Sadako, noting that it contains 1000 diamonds set in platinum. (Read more about their imperial wedding here!) Crown Princess Michiko, 1971 (AFP/Getty Images) Michiko wore the tiara and its matching necklace for several years, eventually handing it off to her daughter-in-law, Crown Princess Masako, in 1993. (More on the tiara here!) Crown Princess Michiko and Mamie Eisenhower at the White House, 1960 (Everett Collection Historical/Alamy) This modern diamond and pearl tiara is one of the most stunning diadems in the imperial vaults. Michiko began wearing the tiara and its coordinating jewels early in her marriage, including a famous outing for dinner at the Eisenhower White House in September 1960. Today, the tiara is worn by Crown Princess Masako. (See a close-up here!) Empress Michiko before her husbands enthronement, 1990 (AFP/Getty Images) One of the most important Western-style jewels in the imperial vaults, this grand diamond tiara was made in the late nineteenth-century, likely by a European jeweler. It can be worn with various toppers, including a set of diamond stars. The piece is reserved for the use of the empress, so Michiko began wearing it after her husbands accession in 1989. Empress Michiko on Crown Prince Naruhito and Crown Princess Masakos wedding day, 1993 (KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP/Getty Images) Michiko wore the tiara for important events, including state banquets, official portraits, and the wedding of Crown Prince Naruhito and Crown Princess Masako in 1993. (Read a detailed timeline of the tiaras history here!) Empress Michiko attends a banquet at the Guildhall in London 1998 (PAUL VICENTE/AFP/Getty Images) This all-diamond tiara features one of the most important symbols of the Japanese imperial family: the chrysanthemum flower. The piece was a favorite of Michikos mother-in-law, Empress Nagako, who wore it on Akihito and Michikos wedding day in 1959. (More on that here!) Empress Michiko attends a banquet honoring the King of Morocco in Tokyo, 2005 (MAP/AFP/Getty Images) Michiko has often chosen this piece for banquets, including the Guildhall banquet during an important state visit to the United Kingdom in 1998. She also wore the tiara on the wedding day of her younger son, Prince Akishino, in 1990. Empress Michiko attends a dinner at Uppsala Castle in Sweden, 2007 (SVEN NACKSTRAND/AFP/Getty Images) In later years, Michiko often reached for this lovely tiara, which features stylized honeysuckles in its design. It originally belonged to her husbands aunt, Princess Chichibu, who wore it on her wedding day. (See a photo here!) Empress Michiko attends a banquet honoring the King and Queen of Spain in Tokyo, 2008 (KOJI SASAHARA/AFP/Getty Images) The diadem was one of the last tiaras that Michiko wore regularly. Health problems led her to stop wearing tiaras altogether several years ago, generally appearing at gala functions in elaborate necklaces and brooches instead. Montreal, CA (H4T1V6) Today Snow showers around this evening. Clearing skies later. Low -1C. Winds WNW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of snow 40%.. Tonight Snow showers around this evening. Clearing skies later. Low -14C. Winds WNW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of snow 40%. Titusville Womens Services Counselor/Advocate Jennifer Wellington speaks at the first meeting of the Titusville High School Sexuality and Gender Alliance on Friday. The group is made up of students and is dedicated to educating and normalizing the LGBTQ+ community, while also providing a safe space for students of the community to gather. Saudi-based Securities Depository Center Company (Edaa) said it has signed an agreement with Euroclear Bank, a move aimed at setting up cross-border links to develop the local capital market The agreement falls within the framework of cooperation between the two parties, aiming to support the creation of the right conditions for developing the local capital market in Saudi Arabia, it stated. This will also enable the creation of cross-border links between the depositories and enhancing access for the international and domestic investors, it added. "This partnership reflects Edaas commitment to ongoing contribution in enhancing the capital market through enhancing the investment environment for all investors and market participants," remarked Edaa CEO Mamdooh Al Sedairy after signing the deal with Bernard Ferran, General Manager of Europe, Middle East, Africa and CIS at the Financial Sector Conference (FSC). "We realize the important role played by depositaries in promoting cross-border investment relations as a vital gateway for foreign and local investments," it stated. Bernard Ferran said: "We are extremely pleased to sign this MoU with the Securities Depository Center. This is a powerful first step in this market becoming Euroclearable which can help it expand its institutional investor base and drive further capital market efficiencies." Edaa is a closed joint stock company fully owned by Tadawul. The depository centre's main activities include registering investment portfolios in the deposit and settlement system; ownership registration, deposit, transfer, settlement, and registry of ownership limitations for deposited securities in addition to linking market members and settlement agents with the deposit and settlement system.-TradeArabia News Service Dividend Gate Capital (DGC), a leading private equity firm based in Bahrain, said it plans to enlist all its underlining entities on Bahrain Investment Market (BIM). An innovative stock market, BIM is designed specifically to offer the regions fast-growing companies an alternative cost and time-effective means for raising capital. It also meets global investors increasing demand to invest and profit from successful companies in the region, as indicated by a hike in trading volumes in recent years. The company founders - CEO Khaled Al Hammadi, and Managing Director Mohamed Khonji - recently met Bahrain Bourse CEO Shaikh Khalifa bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa to discuss the underlining portfolio of companies under DGC. During the meeting, DGC expressed its intent to enlist their underlying entities on the Bahrain Investment Market this year. Al Hammadi said: "DGCs underlying entities are expanding rapidly and require capital to finance this growth. We are exploring the possibility of accessing capital markets through Direct Public Offerings facilitated by the Bahrain Investment Market." "The potential of our portfolio is massive and we look forward to listing some exciting investment opportunities in the public markets this year," he stated. Bahrain Bourse has recently introduced Bahrain Trade, an innovative online trading solution being offered to licensed retail financial institutions. Bahrain trade enables individuals holding accounts with participating banks and brokers to trade directly on the Bahrain Bourse through an online platform which is expected to enhance market liquidity even further. DGC aims to prudently invest and build worldclass businesses to generate and deliver consistent annual returns, stated the top official. By achieving its goals DGC will create a knowledge bank that will benefit the Bahrains goals in achieving Bahrainisation across the economic spectrum, he added. According to him, the fundamental resources of DGC are in their highly competent executive team that will provide management support and mentorship to the portfolio companies under DGC management. DGC leverages its network of key experts and advisers across GCC, Europe and US, to provide added-value expertise on investment management and strategic planning to develop growth in the value of companies within its investment portfolio, he added.-TradeArabia News Service Bahrain Tourism and Exhibition Authority (BTEA) played host to a major Indian wedding for the Agarawal and Singh Uppal families of New Delhi from April 23 to 26 at Sofitel Bahrain Zallaq Thalassa Sea and Spa Hotel. The event brought together more than 550 guests who who flew down into the kingdom from various Indian cities, including Mumbai and Delhi, on national carrier Gulf Air. The ceremony was held over a period of four days and included a number of events beginning with a special dinner ceremony to welcome the newlyweds, said a statement from BTEA. The Indian Henna occasion was celebrated the following day followed by a traditional pre-wedding ceremonySanjeet at the hotel. Bahrain Tourism and Exhibitions Authority also organized a Bahraini Souq Bazar which featured Bahraini craftsmen, such as pottery makers, ship modelers and palm leaf basket makers who exhibited their unique products to visitors in addition to a traditional live Ardha performance. At the end of the ceremony, the groom rode on a decorated horse for a ceremonial introduction to his bride. Commenting on the special event, BTEA Advisor Dr Ali Hassan Follad said: "The success in hosting this occasion stems from the prominent role of the Authority in planning and organizing the ceremony efficiently." "We worked closely with the Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Information Affairs and other semi-official authorities including Bahrain Airport Company, the Airport Duty-Free market and Bahrain's national carrier, Gulf Air, to organize the events logistics and ensure the selection of appropriate locations. Further communications were also made with various suppliers and specialists," he stated. We are pleased to host more of such events over the coming years which will further promote the Bahrain as an ideal destination for hosting weddings and other happy occasions, he added.-TradeArabia News Service The Dubai Supreme Council of Energy has announced the launch of the fourth edition of the Emirates Energy 2020 Award at Casablanca in Morocco. These awards are aimed at promoting practices and techniques to help improve energy efficiency, rationalise consumption and increase renewable energy. It is being hosted under the patronage of HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai. As part of the council's strategy, the aim is to encourage innovative ideas from individuals and research centres, as well as public and private sector institutions to participate in the forthcoming award. The launch ceremony witnessed the presence of representative of UAE embassy in Morocco and Ahmad Buti Al Muhairbi, Secretary General of the Dubai Supreme Council of Energy (DSCE), and Vice Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Emirates Energy Award (EEA). The other top speakers at the event including Taher Diab, secretary general of EEA and Ali Al Suwaidi, vice chairman of EEA Marketing and Events of EEA. A high-level delegation from the Moroccan Ministry of Energy and Minerals, representatives of public and private sector institutions, universities and research centres working on the development of renewable energy technologies and means of rationalization and energy efficiency in the Kingdom of Morocco also attended. The Emirates Energy Award this year runs under a new theme - Inspiring Innovation for Sustainable Energy, to attract state-of-the-art innovations, technologies, solutions and practices on energy efficiency, water efficiency and renewable energy production, said the organisers. The award is a leading international platform for various public and private sector organizations, research centers and innovators to learn about the latest technology, solutions and energy technology. It also aims to serve as a forum to share insights and experiences in the development and application of energy projects that reduce the negative impacts of climate change and carbon emissions. In addition, EEA honours excellence across varied categories to encourage individuals and organisations to devise new mechanisms and techniques to accelerate energy efficiency and conservation as well as renewable energy production, they stated. Speaking at the press conference in Casablanca, the council's representatives underlined the importance of Emirates Energy Award in supporting and acknowledging best practices of energy conservation as well as they underscored the importance of innovation and low-cost measures in generating renewable energy. Al Muhairbi expressed his delight at the launch of the Emirates Energy Award in Morocco which is known for its international reputation and pioneering projects in the field of renewable energy. "The award is a reflection of the vision and direction of the UAE's leadership. In line with the objectives of the UAE Vision 2021 and the UAE Energy Strategy 2050 that aims to support the country's endeavours, we hope to achieve sustainable development and preserve the natural resources for future generations," he noted. "The award is in line with the eight principles of governance launched by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, that underscores the importance of improving people's lives, attracting talent and the best minds," he added. He emphasised that the Emirates Energy Award primarily focuses on encouraging individuals and institutions to adopt innovative and pioneering solutions and policies in the field of energy conservation, renewable energy production, rationalization of energy and water consumption. The award also provides an ideal environment for the exchange of ideas, insights and solutions on innovative technologies to maximize and achieve the best possible results in future innovations, he added.-TradeArabia News Service Tempting the taste buds thats what Yerguzlar Caddesi is becoming an expert at. Yerguzlar Caddesi is the street in Fethiye that runs from the courthouse, past the Cals Sunday Market. Recently, a whole new neighbourhood of shops and eateries have sprouted. So now, should your stomach be rumbling whilst youre in the area, you have all manner of places to choose from. One such place, Lokum Kokorec, particularly excites us Lokum Kokorec, Fethiye Why are we so happy about the arrival of Lokum Kokorec? Well, we just love a kokorec half bread, thats why. In Istanbul, a favourite pastime is sitting on a wall in the Galata neighbourhood devouring a half bread from the oh-so-popular street cart of Nazmi Usta. But, in Fethiye we never had a go-to kokorec joint. A post-night-out early hours of the morning sit down on a plastic stool by the kokorec van, the tell tale aroma filling the air, red hot chillies being guzzled as fast as the sandwich itself, smoke spewing into the night sky from the barbecue chimney. Visit Lokum Kokorec Day Or Night All good fun but sometimes the van wouldnt be there. And it also meant we werent treating this street food delicacy with the respect it deserved. Places like Lokum are part of a new wave of places that are bringing this tasty offal into the 21st century. No longer a post-night-out inebriated necessity, we can visit Lokum Kokorec at any time of day for a tasty half bread. Sit outside at Lokum Kokorec and you still get that feeling of sitting at the mobile van. Were on a main road, here. The tables and stools are impossibly small, just like the mobile units. Its just that everything is a lot more clean and modern, here. And theres branding, too. Clean And Modern Yes, Turkey has definitely entered the fast food world of local and international burger and pizza joints no shortage of those around Fethiye. But its also great to see that places like Lokum Kokorec are part of the scene, too, keeping kokorec on the foodie map and being enjoyed by the next generation of Turksand us! Inside is smart and modern. If you prefer a table of a more regular size, you can sit inside at the snack bench or you can have a dining table. Lokum Kokorec is a place that is trying to appeal to the masses. Most Turks dont need that appeal. Theyre more than aware of how tasty this offal is. Give It A Go Kokorec Ye ve Mutlu Ol Eat Kokorec and Be Happy. A sign in English, too, for the international visitors. From our own experience, we know so many Brits who just will not entertain the idea of kokorec. We get it. We know lambs intestine doesnt sound appetising. Lokum Kokorec is doing its best to entice wary customers to try it. And were more than happy to back that idea up! The kokorec at Lokum is cooked on horizontal spits over open coals. As it spits and sizzles, the aroma whets the appetite. To Chilli Or Not To Chilli Order a half bread and pickled chillies and gherkins arrive at your table. Youll be asked if you want acl (with chillies). At this point, you can either nod eagerly (like we do), or shake your head. And then your bread is placed on the griddle to toast a little, absorbing those sizzling juices. A slice is cut from the skewer and chopped into small chunks before being deftly manoeuvred with the large blade to your waiting, open half bread. Bread closed, popped in a paper pocket so you can hold it in your hands and your street food snack is served. Seriously, for us, this is a photo of foodie loveliness! Organ meats such as intestines are packed with nutrients, as well as being fantastically tasty. If you are in Fethiye and you think you might want to try this prized Turkish snack, Lokum Kokorec could be a good place to start. This is tasty kokorec prepared in full view. If you want to try it but cant persuade your friends to join you, you can also get Izmir stuffed mussels from Lokum Kokorec. For us this is definitely our new Fethiye go-to place for a famous offally treat. Lokum Kokorec Useful Information 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. You have permission to edit this article. Edit Close 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. No More Shame Responds to Govt Draft Bill for Abortion Services in Gibraltar No More Shame Gibraltar says it "notes and welcomes the publication of the Abortion Bill with combined interest and dismay. It goes without saying that the Government should be applauded for its decision to change the law on an issue such as abortion in a small community like Gibraltar." Whilst welcoming reform in this area, NMS feels this does not go far enough to meet the needs of the women of Gibraltar. The availability of abortion services up to 12 weeks locally is appreciated and has been well received, but the Bill lacks clarity and direction regarding the services available to women with high risk pregnancies over the 12 week threshold. Such ambiguity, as it presently stands, presents a challenge of how medical practitioners might interpret it in the face of a pregnant person needing potentially life-saving treatment at 13 weeks, by way of example. Is it the Governments intention to refer such a patient abroad for a termination? NMS refutes the suggestion there is no available expertise in Gibraltar to look after these women post-12 weeks. The GHA has highly skilled and committed healthcare professionals who do not appear to have been consulted regarding the drafting of this legislation, or the provision of these services. Continuing to send these vulnerable women, many with wanted pregnancies, to the UK at a time when they most need their families support, is not in keeping with either the letter or spirit of Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights (reflected in Section 7 of the Constitution Order 2006), which calls for the right to privacy and family life. Yet it is on the basis of this right that HM Government has claimed the legislation in Gibraltar needed reforming. An NMS advocate, who experienced such an abortion and wishes to remain anonymous, said: To have to endure the pain and suffering of the late termination of a wanted pregnancy away from home and go through the referral process, repatriation process of the aborted foetus and the grieving, was a gross violation of my familys right to privacy and contributed to the shame and stigma of my termination. It is imperative that any Regulations the Minister of Health subsequently provides regarding the issue of what happens with pregnancies post-12 weeks, be enshrined clearly in law, in this Bill, so there is no doubt in any health professionals or pregnant persons mind that they are acting within the law, with all the legal protection and rights this affords. In fact, the Explanatory Memorandum of the draft Bill is ambiguous as it does not reflect accurately the content of the new law regarding post-12 week pregnancies. Not many of the suggestions from submissions, which HM Government requested after publication of the Command Paper, appear to have been incorporated in the final Bill, such as decriminalisation and the need for only one health professional to prescribe a termination. The consultation process, which so many citizens of Gibraltar and international health and legal experts contributed to, seems to have been in vain. NMS feels that having grasped the nettle of abortion reform, an important opportunity has been lost by HM Government to be creative and imaginative to design much needed reform to the already outdated UK 1967 Bill, where this draft Bill is taken from. To not welcome and incorporate the opinion of experts, instrumental in writing the legislation of Ireland and the Isle of Man, falls short of providing the women of Gibraltar with modern fit for purpose abortion legislation and services. NMS have said they will write to HM Government with recommendations for the draft Bill and seek a consultation meeting with the Minister for Health on the importance of a participatory process in developing clinical guidelines in line with human rights; such as the provision for home use for medical abortion in early pregnancy as per draft NICE guidelines; for GPs, Nurse practitioners and midwives to be able to prescribe early medical abortions at primary care and not just in hospital; and a seamless and fast pathway for post-12 week pregnancies being referred to the UK. By West Kentucky Star Staff Apr. 23, 2019 | 04:22 PM | PADUCAH The Chairman's Roll of Honor designation is reserved for the chapters that raised between $250,000 and $999,999, while those that raised between $100,000 and $249,999 were named as President's Elite chapters. Rounding out the three categories, President's Roll of Honor chapters raised between $65,000 and $99,999. "These fundraising events are the backbone of DU's habitat conservation efforts, and the volunteers who make up these chapters are the force making a difference for North American waterfowl populations," said DU President Rogers Hoyt Jr. "It takes a great deal of effort to achieve these prestigious levels, and these chapters deserve to be congratulated by every person who enjoys the outdoors." This year's President's Elite chapters from Kentucky include: Lake Cumberland Chapter, Somerset McCracken Chapter, Paducah The chapters honored this year earned their spots on the nationally recognized lists out of more than 2,400 DU chapters nationwide that hosted more than 3,900 fundraising events. DU's event fundraising system has become a model for other conservation organizations worldwide and has helped conserve more than 14 million acres of waterfowl habitat since 1937. Some chapters will also have the distinction of being honored during DU's 82nd National Convention in Waikoloa Village, Hawaii, May 28 June 2, with many chapter representatives in attendance. "The hard work and dedication from DU's event system volunteers and staff drive the organization's conservation mission from a financial, membership and policy strength perspective. DU chapters across the country are showing that the future of waterfowl populations and the wetlands that filter our water and protect us from flooding are important to them and to their communities," Hoyt said. "The more money we raise, the more habitat we can conserve and the closer we are to preserving our waterfowl hunting heritage." For more information, visit www.ducks.org. Ducks Unlimited recently announced the top volunteer chapters across the nation honored in three categories: Chairman's Roll of Honor, President's Elite and President's Roll of Honor. Advertisement By West Kentucky Star Staff Apr. 26, 2019 | MCCRACKEN COUNTY By West Kentucky Star Staff Apr. 26, 2019 | 07:04 PM | MCCRACKEN COUNTY The McCracken County Sheriffs Office STORM Team made the following arrests, for the week of April 21st through 26th: Jason D. Holleman, 38-year-old, of Paducah - Served with a Hopkins County arrest warrant for 1 count of sexual abuse 1st degree, victim under 12 years of age and 1 count of attempted sexual abuse 1st degree, victim under 12 years of age - Possession of marijuana - Possession of drug paraphernalia - Served with a McCracken County criminal summons for shoplifting Michael T. Cursey, 42-year-old, of Paducah - Served with a McCracken County Bench Warrant for failure to appear - Possession of marijuana - Possession of drug paraphernalia Brittany L. Carr, 27-year-old of Mayfield - Served with a McCracken County arrest warrant for assault 4th degree Cody L. Gentry, 27-year-old, of Paducah - Possession of a controlled substance 1st degree methamphetamine - Possession of a controlled substance 1st degree drug unspecified - Possession of a controlled substance 3rd degree drug unspecified - Operating on a suspended or revoked operators license - Possession of open alcoholic beverage container in a motor vehicle - Failure of owner to maintain required insurance - Carrying a concealed weapon - Fleeing or evading police 2nd degree motor vehicle - Possession of drug paraphernalia Throughout the week STORM TEAM efforts resulted in the seizure of 12 grams of methamphetamine, 25 grams of marijuana, and a quantity of prescription pills. Units also issued 2 other possession of marijuana citations, 2 other possession of drug paraphernalia citations, 2 other operating on a suspended operators license citations, and 7 other traffic citations. By West Kentucky Star Staff Apr. 23, 2019 | 03:54 PM | PADUCAH The Merryman House Domestic Crisis Center will hold its fifth annual PaDucky Derby Duck Race on today at 3 pm at the Noble Park pond in Paducah.All proceeds from the PaDucky Derby will benefit the Merryman House, a non-profit organization who offers both residential and outreach services to meet the needs of victims of intimate partner abuse and their dependents as they strive to live free of violence in their home.You can still adopt a duck for $5, or opt for a "quack pack," which is six ducks for $25. A new option this year is to adopt a "flock" of 12 ducks for $50.The 1st place wins $2,500, 2nd place wins $1000, and 3rd takes home $500.Merryman House Executive Director Mary Foley said the derby always draws a big crowd, but this year's event will be quite a bit bigger than originally planned. We were a 5000-duck race this year, but we have we are anticipating going over that number for the fifth anniversary, so 7000 ducks could race."As of Friday, more than 5800 ducks had already been adopted.Foley said Merryman House has become a comprehensive advocacy and support center that is devoted to addressing the needs of survivors. The PaDucky Derby is a good way to raise money and provide public outreach so victims of domestic violence know there is a place they can go for help."Domestic violence is a comprehensive problem," Foley said. "We know that one in four will experience it, so it is certainly something that we've got to respond to, and this is just a great way to have a very difficult conversation to engage people about a very important issue."Click the link below to adopt a duck or learn more about Merryman House. On the Net: By WestKyStar & American Red Cross Staff Apr. 27, 2019 | 08:28 AM | PADUCAH In December 2017, Jeff Gosliga was rushed to the hospital following a car accident. To treat his serious injuries, he needed 11 units of blood about the amount of blood in an average adults body. I never had reason to think a lot about blood, where it came from or how it arrived at hospitals; my accident changed all of that, said Gosliga. It was touch-and-go for a while, and because the blood that I needed was available, Im here today. I am so grateful to all of the volunteer blood donors who give of themselves so generously. I will never forget them or take blood donation for granted again. Donors of all blood types are urged to give now to help meet the needs of trauma patients and others with serious medical conditions. Make an appointment to donate blood by downloading the free Red Cross Blood Donor App, visiting RedCrossBlood.org or calling 1-800-RED CROSS (1-800-733-2767). In thanks, all those who come to donate blood, platelets or plasma with the Red Cross May 1 through June 10, 2019, will receive a $5 Amazon.com Gift Card via email. (Restrictions apply; see amazon.com/gc-legal. More information and details are available at RedCrossBlood.org/Together.) Major traumas can quickly deplete a hospitals blood supply. By giving blood, platelets or plasma regularly, donors can help ensure that enough blood is on the shelves for patients when every second matters. In trauma situations, when theres no time to check a patients blood type, emergency personnel reach for type O negative red blood cells and type AB plasma because they can be transfused to patients of any blood type. Less than 7 percent of the population has type O negative blood, and only about 4 percent of the population has type AB blood. Platelets may also be needed to help with clotting in cases of massive bleeding. Because platelets must be transfused within five days of donation, there is a constant often critical need to keep up with hospital demand. Upcoming blood donation opportunities May 17-23: Knights of Columbus Hall 1418, 106 Picnic Blvd. Fancy Farm, KY 42039 5/19/2019: 9 a.m. - 1 p.m. American Legion, 211 South 7th Mayfield, KY 42066 5/21/2019: 11 a.m. - 5 p.m. Trace Creek Baptist Church, 3577 State Route 131 Mayfield, KY 42066 5/22/2019: 1 - 6 p.m. First United Methodist Church, 210 South Washington St. Clinton, KY 42031 5/20/2019: noon - 6 p.m. Woodmen Life, 1005 Poplar St. Benton, KY 42025 5/20/2019: noon - 6 p.m. Paducah Blood Donation Center, 4635 Falconcrest Drive Paducah, KY 42001 5/18/2019: 7:45 a.m. - 2:45 p.m. 5/19/2019: 7:45 a.m. - 2:45 p.m. 5/20/2019: 11:45 a.m. - 6:45 p.m. 5/21/2019: 8:45 a.m. - 3:45 p.m. 5/23/2019: 11:45 a.m. - 6:45 p.m. Centerville Church of Christ, Outreach Center, 138 North Central Ave. Centerville, TN 37033 5/22/2019: 2 - 6 p.m. Cornersville First Baptist Church, 2966 Pulaski Hwy . Cornersville, TN 37047 5/21/2019: 2 - 6 p.m. To donate blood, simply download the American Red Cross Blood Donor App, visit RedCrossBlood.org or call 1-800-RED CROSS (1-800-733-2767) to make an appointment or for more information. All blood types are needed to ensure a reliable supply for patients. A blood donor card or drivers license or two other forms of identification are required at check-in. Individuals who are 17 years of age in most states (16 with parental consent where allowed by state law), weigh at least 110 pounds and are in generally good health may be eligible to donate blood. High school students and other donors 18 years of age and younger also have to meet certain height and weight requirements. Blood and platelet donors can save time at their next donation by using RapidPass to complete their pre-donation reading and health history questionnaire online, on the day of their donation, before arriving at the blood drive. To get started, follow the instructions at RedCrossBlood.org/RapidPass or use the Blood Donor App. The American Red Cross shelters, feeds and provides emotional support to victims of disasters; supplies about 40 percent of the nations blood; teaches skills that save lives; provides international humanitarian aid; and supports military members and their families. The Red Cross is a not-for-profit organization that depends on volunteers and the generosity of the American public to perform its mission. For more information, please visit redcross.org or cruzrojaamericana.org, or visit us on Twitter at @RedCross. Theres no way to predict when or where an accident will happen. Thats why the American Red Cross needs donors to give blood and platelets during Trauma Awareness Month this May and throughout the year to help ensure that trauma centers are prepared the moment an injured patient arrives. Vets, first responders can get free tickets to Open Season Expo Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing, capital of China, April 26, 2019. [Xinhua/Ju Peng] Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday announced a package of proposals to advance high-quality development of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) at a key forum widely considered a milestone in promoting win-win cooperation. The international community should join hands to work out a "meticulous painting" of the BRI to continuously promote its high-quality development toward a bright future, Xi said in a keynote speech at the opening of the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF). Global Influence About 5,000 participants from more than 150 countries and 90 international organizations attended the event. Among them were nearly 40 heads of state and government. Russian President Vladimir Putin, the first President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, Chilean President Sebastian Pinera, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres addressed the opening ceremony. The principle of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits should be upheld, said Xi, stressing open, green and clean approaches, as well as goals of high-standard, livelihood-improving and sustainable development. "The BRI will not become an exclusive club," Xi said. Proposed by Xi in 2013, the BRI has opened up new space for world economy with better-than-expected results. In less than six years, the BRI has been extended from Asia and Europe to Africa, Americas and Oceania. The collective action under the BRI is unprecedented in history. "We should forge a global connectivity partnership to achieve common development and prosperity," Xi said. "As long as we work together to help each other, even if thousands of miles apart, we will certainly be able to find a mutually beneficial and win-win road." Addressing B&R concerns, Xi announced a series of ambitious and concrete measures, including building infrastructure of high quality, sustainability, risk resilience, reasonable pricing, inclusiveness and accessibility. China will also negotiate and sign high-standard free trade agreements with more countries and support massive personnel exchanges among B&R countries, according to Xi. "At the time of trade tensions and rising protectionism, keeping the door open for trade and investment is a stabilizer of global economy. And this is what the BRI can exemplify," said Arancha Gonzalez, executive director of the International Trade Center. International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde said the BRI is an important manifestation of China's leadership in international affairs. Experts believe that the number and quality of outcomes of this forum will be greater and the BRI will proceed from a new height to inject even stronger momentum into building a community with a shared future for humanity. Legend of 21st Century Since the 2008 financial crisis, the world has focused on pushing the sluggish economy into a new growth cycle, but multilateralism and the free trade system have encountered setbacks. Since its inception, the BRI has received unprecedented strong endorsement and support. The vision has been included in documents of major international institutions, such as the UN and the G20, and covered by think tank studies of different countries and financial reports from multinational corporations. Over the past six years, Xi has frequently promoted the BRI on various international platforms. He also visited the sites of BRI projects during his overseas visits. So far, more than 150 countries and international organizations have signed BRI cooperation documents with China. From 2013 to 2018, the trade volume between China and other B&R countries surpassed 6 trillion U.S. dollars, and China's investment in B&R countries exceeds 90 billion dollars. Thanks to the BRI, eastern Africa has its own expressway, the Maldives has its first inter-island bridge, Belarus can produce sedans and the number of freight trains between China and Europe is on the rise. The once rusted Greek port of Piraeus has become one of the world's fastest-growing container terminals. Mahathir said the BRI is a great initiative with huge potential, which will not only help deal with the infrastructure and transport bottlenecks that are impeding the development of different countries, but also address the problem of unbalanced development among countries and promote cultural dialogue and exchanges. People-centered The vision of making development people-centered has run through the process of building the B&R. Xi in his keynote speech called for focusing on eradicating poverty, increasing employment and improving people's livelihoods, so that the BRI would better benefit all people and make a tangible contribution to local economic and social development while ensuring commercial and financial sustainability. The practice has proven that the BRI is in line with the "strong desire of the people of all countries for a better life." China helped Uzbekistan build a tunnel in 900 days, creating a less difficult way for people in the remote Andijan region to get to the capital. In Pakistan, the once remote and quiet port of Gwadar is booming with urban construction, creating jobs that bring new hope for life. Streetlights now illuminate Myanmar's once dark streets in Kyau Pyo. China has strengthened cooperation with the UN in the areas of green development, child care, climate change, agriculture, health, disaster reduction and water resources and has worked hard to narrow the development gap. According to the latest report of the BRF Advisory Council, the BRI and the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development have many things in common with the potential to derive mutual synergy. "We see the BRI as the most relevant project today in the world, in the context of South-South cooperation, which would contribute to fairer globalization, and fairer globalization is the best way to have a future of shared prosperity among the different nations of the world," UN chief Guterres said. More Open China The BRI has not only advanced China's opening-up and development but also created new opportunities for the development of all countries. Xi announced a series of major reform and opening-up measures to be taken by China: broadening market access for foreign investment, strengthening international cooperation in intellectual property rights protection, increasing imports of goods and services on a larger scale, more effectively implementing international macroeconomic policy coordination, and attaching greater importance to the implementation of the opening-up policies. China will set up a number of new free trade pilot zones, strengthen the protection of the legitimate rights and interests of foreign intellectual property owners, prohibit forced technology transfer, further reduce tariffs, avoid beggar-thy-neighbor exchange rate depreciation, establish a binding mechanism for the implementation of international agreements, and treat all enterprises and operators fairly. He also expressed the hope that all countries in the world can create a favorable investment environment, treat Chinese enterprises, overseas students and scholars on an equal footing, and provide a fair and friendly environment for their normal international exchanges and cooperation. "A more open China will further integrate itself into the world, and deliver greater progress and prosperity for both China and the world at large," Xi said. Chairman of China-Italy Chamber of Commerce Davide Cucino who is attending the forum said that nobody should doubt how positive the BRI idea is, and there is a heated discussion in Europe about how to join the B&R. "Sooner or later, all countries will embrace the initiative." The opening ceremony of the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation is held at the China National Convention Center in Beijing, capital of China, April 26, 2019. [Xinhua/Ju Peng] Photo taken on May 25, 2018 shows a general view of the Piraeus port in Greece. [Xinhua/Lefteris Partsalis] Photo taken on Aug. 22, 2018 shows a view of the China-Maldives Friendship Bridge in the Maldives. [Xinhua/Wang Mingliang] Photo taken on May 21, 2018 shows a cross-border e-commerce freight train from Hamburg of Germany arriving in Xi'an, northwest China's Shaanxi Province. [Xinhua/Li Yibo] (Source: Xinhua) The story of a man who sacrificed his life as a secret telegraph operator in the war against Japanese invaders, a ballet inspired by paintings in the Mogao grottoes of Dunhuang and the backstory of China's first domestically manufactured aircraft are among the diverse repertory of the 12th China Art Festival that opens next month in Shanghai. China's top arts festival, held every three years, is coming to Shanghai for the first time. It will bring 51 shows from art troupes across the nation to 19 city venues that include the Shanghai Museum of Art and the Shanghai Exhibition Center. The festival will run from May 20 to June 2. There's a genre to please every art lover, from dance, stage drama and folk opera to more than 1,200 works of calligraphy, photography and paintings. "It is important to bring performances, artworks and cultural products to the people," said Yu Xiufen, head of Shanghai's culture and tourism bureau. "We will also host more than 60 charity performances, taking artists to neighborhoods, public areas and schools." Live streaming will be used to take the shows to larger audiences outside venues. Sixty percent of tickets, which range up to 380 yuan (US$56), are mid-to-low price. Marking this year's 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the festival is a mix of reinterpreted classics and new creations inspired by true stories to showcase the nation's ancient heritage and modern, contemporary life. The festival will end with two awards: the Wenhua Award for professional theatrical artwork and the Qunxing Award for the best amateur artists. Here is a sample of the festival's playlist. The dance drama "The Unfailing Radio Wave". [Shanghai Daily] The martyr as a common man who overcomes frailties The festival will open with the dance drama "The Unfailing Radio Wave," an adaptation of the popular 1958 namesake spy movie. The show, an experimental theater performance of the Shanghai Dance Theater, was critically acclaimed when it premiered in Shanghai at the end of last year. "A hero is a man who has love and fear, joy and anger, but his faith leads him to sacrifice himself," Wang Jiajun, the theater's lead dancer, told Shanghai Daily. Based on a true story, Wang plays protagonist Li Bai, a young man who set up a secret station in 1930s Shanghai during Japanese invasion. He sent telegraph messages conveying key intelligence for the next 12 years, until he was arrested and killed just before Shanghai was liberated in 1949. There have been dozens of adaptations since the original movie first screened in the 1950s. In many of them, Li has been portrayed as a martyr, sometimes too glorious to be believed. The new dance drama received a 9.3/10 rating on douban.com, China's IMDB. Many netizens said they were impressed by the refreshing retelling of a story so familiar to them. They cited the superb combination of realistic set designs and lighting that recreated the atmosphere of the city in the 1930s, with shikumen, or stone - gate houses, and longtang, or back alleyways. The script was faithful to the most dramatic and visually spooky parts of the original movie, including thrilling espionage and romantic love scenes. The seamless integration of projections, live performances, sound effects and music portray familiar, ordinary man who fell in love with a comrade, struggled with fear and died for a noble cause. "The hero stories from our childhood are kind of vague today, leaving just a general image of a patriot who sacrificed himself for the birth of a new China," said 24-year-old office clerk Xu Liyan, who became a fan of the Shanghai Dance Theater after watching the show. "It's a pity that such fascinating stories are left to vague cliched impressions." Xu said portraying heroes more like ordinary people makes their sacrifices more convincing. "Young people like me are not easily impressed by patriotic stories, but I cried while watching this dance," he said. The stage drama "The Heart of Heroes" is inspired by the real stories of the men and women behind Chinas first domestically manufactured aircraft. [Shanghai Daily] Unsung heroes behind the nation's aviation breakthrough The stage drama "The Heart of Heroes" is one of the most highly anticipated shows in the festival. It is inspired by the real stories of the men and women behind China's first domestically manufactured aircraft. The China-made ARJ21 and C919 jets have been much in the news, especially after the C919, the country's first domestically developed narrow-body passenger aircraft, made its maiden flight in Shanghai in May 2017. Despite all the fanfare, little was known about the people behind the huge aviation success. "The birth of home-developed aviators was like adding a pair of extraordinary wings to Chinas dream of building a strong nation," drama scriptwriter Wang Jian explained. "Showcasing their touching stories is our tribute to them." "The Heart of Heroes," a work by Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center, is based on true stories of the engineers, pilots and other technicians, across different generations, who worked for more than a decade on the C919. Playwright Wang and director Hu Zongqi faced the challenges of distilling very technical work into something that would resonate with general audiences. The creative team collected stories from interviews the engineer who could only see her child once a month because she devoted all her time to her work and the pilot who risked his life to test every jet model under different weather and circumstances. The set and multimedia designers of the drama also explored new avenues of visualizing the experiments, the failures and the countless discussions surrounding the project. The ballet "Dunhuang"; [Shanghai Daily] Ancient Silk Road stories given a modern makeover The Mogao caves, famed for the statues and murals that depict the diversified cultures of the ancient Silk Road in Gansu Province, are one of Chinas most popular tourist attractions. The ancient grottoes outside Dunhuang are a sacred site that has inspired artists since they were discovered. Many contemporary artists, filmmakers and dramatists have created new works inspired by the Mogao caves. The ballet "Dunhuang" by the National Ballet of China is a standout example. First staged two years ago, it answered the question: Could Dunhuang be presented through ballet? The mural-rich cave paintings that so impress visitors illustrate scenes that involve dance and music. The rich costumes and vivid gestures of the ancient dancers that decorate the grotto walls inspired modern artists to create a unique genre of dance. But how can ballet, a Western dance form, fit in here? The dance troupe's artistic director Feng Ying said inspiration from visits to Dunhuang was combined with elements from Chinese folk operas and martial arts. "Most people are impressed by the glorious paintings of the Mogao caves, and we wanted to remind them of those who have made the preservation of such arts possible," said ballet choreographer Fei Bo. Fei visited the grottoes many times, even once living there for three months to work with grotto museum personnel every day. To bridge the past and present, Western and Chinese, the ballet drama tells the story of a Paris-based Chinese violinist who visits the Mogao caves and falls in love with an artist who works there doing painting and sculpture replicas. Fan Jinshi, former director of the Mogao caves, once said many talented artists devote their lifetimes to doing replicas of the artwork when they could make a lot more money in the outside Chinese art market. She attributed their devotion to their pure hearts in pursuit of beauty and to the magical charm of Dunhuang. The story of Fan, a Shanghai native who worked in Dunhuang for decades until she recently retired, is in itself an inspiration for many scriptwriters. The Huju (Shanghai) opera "Dunhuang Daughter" tells Fan's life story through folk opera. (Source: Shanghai Daily) North Wales health board staff help deliver training to improve emergency response in Lesotho This article is old - Published: Saturday, Apr 27th, 2019 African volunteers and emergency workers have received essential training thanks to efforts of the Betsi-Quthing International Health Partnership. The partnership is a district to district level partnership between Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board and Quthing District Health Team in Lesotho. Its current project, in partnership with Lesotho Red Cross, focused on training local police officers and correctional officers as first responders in Moyeni as well as village health workers from across remote areas of Quthing district in basic community first aid. Aaron Pritchard, Co-ordinator for the Betsi-Quthing International Health Partnership, explained: Myself and Tom McLay, from the Welsh Ambulance Service, worked closely with Lesotho Red Cross to design and deliver the first responder and first aid training in Quthing. In total 19 village health workers were trained in basic first aid skills and will in turn cascade this training to 400 colleagues across remote areas of Quthing. Two Red Cross volunteers, two traffic officers and two correctional officers were trained in basic pre hospital emergency care with a focus on responding to road accidents and trauma. Also Quthing hospital doctors were trained in pelvic immobilisation and treatment of mid-shaft femur fractures. The teams involved have benefited greatly from this training, especially as there is currently no formal emergency ambulance service provision in the country and death or serious injury from road traffic incidents, industrial and agricultural accidents are high. The Betsi-Quthing link was established 10 years ago with the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, Lesotho as part of the Welsh Government Wales for Africa Programme, which has encouraged partnerships with sub-Saharan Africa. The Health Board actively supports the partnership because of the opportunities for health workers in Wales and in Africa to gain skills through mutual learning. Dr Kathrin Thomas, chair of the Betsi Quthing International Health Partnership, said: The partnership is committed to supporting our partners in Quthing through co-development of bespoke training and adopting a public health minded and system based approach to all that we do. Through visits in both directions we learn from each other and to date our work has spanned public health, maternal healthcare, mental health, emergency care and rural primary care nursing. (Click for large) Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-24 03:42:00|Editor: yan Video Player Close UNITED NATIONS, April 23 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese envoy on Tuesday asked to root out the breeding ground for sexual violence in conflict by preventing or ending armed conflict through peaceful means. Ma Zhaoxu, China's permanent representative to the United Nations, made the appeal at a high-level open debate of the Security Council on women and peace and security: sexual violence in conflict. The Security Council should provide solid safeguards for the protection of women by supporting the political settlement of disputes through dialogue and consultation, by playing a greater role in conflict prevention and peacekeeping, and by effectively combating terrorism, said Ma. Since the adoption of Security Council Resolution 1325 in October 2000, the international community has created a good framework for the women and peace and security agenda. The relevant resolutions of the council should be properly implemented on the ground, he said. China strongly condemns and stands firm against the use of sexual violence as a means of war and all acts of sexual violence against women and girls, said the Chinese ambassador. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-24 04:32:27|Editor: yan Video Player Close UNITED NATIONS, April 23 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese envoy on Tuesday asked to root out the breeding ground for sexual violence in conflict by preventing or ending armed conflict through peaceful means. Ma Zhaoxu, China's permanent representative to the United Nations, made the appeal at a high-level open debate of the Security Council on women and peace and security: sexual violence in conflict. Today, the international security situation remains complex with the high prevalence of armed conflict and rampant terrorism, while women, girls and other vulnerable groups bear the brunt of sexual violence in armed conflict, said Ma. The Security Council should provide solid safeguards for the protection of women by supporting the political settlement of disputes through dialogue and consultation, by playing a greater role in conflict prevention and peacekeeping, and by effectively combating terrorism, said Ma. Since the adoption of Security Council Resolution 1325 in October 2000, the international community has created a good framework for the women and peace and security agenda. The relevant resolutions of the council should be properly implemented on the ground, he said. Ma asked for synergy among relevant UN bodies in addressing the scourge of sexual violence in conflict. The Security Council should fulfill its primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security, strengthen coordination with the UN General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council, and the Peacebuilding Commission, among others, and conduct cooperation in a way that is consistent with its mandate and expertise, said Ma. The United Nations as a whole should strengthen cooperation with the relevant regional and subregional organizations to build synergy in combating sexual violence in conflict, he said. Ma asked the international community to fully respect the sovereignty and will of the countries concerned and respect the measures taken by their governments in line with their national realities in the fight against sexual violence in conflict. Individual countries have the primary responsibility for preventing and combating sexual violence in conflict and protecting their women and children, said Ma. The international community should vigorously support capacity building of the countries concerned, provide targeted assistance, enhance capacity building in security, social governance and other areas, and effectively safeguard the rights and interests of women in conflict, he said. The Chinese ambassador also asked to scale up the protection of women's rights and interests in the post-conflict reconstruction process. Due regard should be given to the rights of the victims of sexual violence in conflict, he said. The international community should, from a long-term perspective, provide development assistance and technical support for the realization of gender equality and women's empowerment in developing countries, so as to protect women's rights and interests at the fundamental level, said Ma. The international community should actively help post-conflict countries ramp up their economic and social development, and ensure that the dividends of development are shared by all, including women. Attention should be given to guiding women's organizations and civil society to play a constructive role to that end, he said. China strongly condemns and stands firm against the use of sexual violence as a means of war and all acts of sexual violence against women and girls, said the Chinese ambassador. China stands ready, along with the international community, to continue stepping up cooperation to jointly create a peaceful, secure, and stable international environment for the effective protection of the rights and interests of women and girls, and for an early end to sexual violence in conflict, in order to make greater contributions to the further advance of the cause of women and peace and security, he said. File Photo: Wu Haitao, China's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, addresses a meeting of the UN Security Council at the UN headquarters in New York March 26, 2019. (Xinhua/Li Muzi) UNITED NATIONS, April 25 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese envoy on Thursday said that China opposes interference in Ukraine's internal affairs by any foreign forces. "China takes an objective and impartial position on the issue of Ukraine," Wu Haitao, deputy permanent representative of the Chinese mission to the United Nations, told a Security Council meeting on Ukraine. "We respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, including Ukraine," he added. The signing of the new Minsk agreement in 2015, which is a renewal of its first protocol reached in 2014, has played a crucial role in politically mediating the Ukrainian crisis, said Wu, adding that the authority of the agreement has been highly recognized by all parties over the past four years. Regrettably, many provisions of the agreement have yet to be fully and concretely implemented, said the Chinese envoy. "Efforts to politically mediate the crisis have stalled. In conflict areas, people's life and property safety are still hard to be effectively guaranteed," he said. China calls on relevant parties to implement the new Minsk agreement in earnest, remain committed to political settlement of the crisis and seek a comprehensive solution to it, and resolve current problems through dialogue and consultation, Wu added. The Minsk agreements consist of a first protocol that the Ukrainian government and the rebels reached under the mediation of Russia, France and Germany in September 2014 in the Belarusian capital of Minsk, and a more detailed renewal was signed in February 2015. The agreements were designed to peacefully end the conflict in Donbas in eastern Ukraine, which has been plagued by conflicts between Ukrainian government troops and pro-independence armed groups since April 2014. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-26 23:48:03|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (R) meets with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, who is here attending the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, in Beijing, capital of China, April 26, 2019. (Xinhua/Liu Weibing) BEIJING, April 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Friday met with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, who is here attending the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. Li said China is willing to enhance high-level contacts with Vietnam, deepen pragmatic cooperation, and better align the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) with Vietnam's "Two Corridors and One Economic Circle" plan. China is willing to expand bilateral trade and achieve balanced and sustainable development in trade with Vietnam, and welcomes the entry of quality Vietnamese products into the Chinese market, Li said. China supports Vietnam in assuming its role as the rotating chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in 2020, and is willing to work with Vietnam and other parties to steadily advance the consultations on the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea, the premier said. Nguyen Xuan Phuc said Vietnam actively supports the BRI and is willing to build greater synergy of the two countries' development strategies. Vietnam is willing to work with China in implementing the high-level consensus and safeguarding the long-term stability in the South China Sea, he said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-26 23:53:09|Editor: yan Video Player Close MUMBAI, April 26 (Xinhua) -- PepsiCo, the snack food and drinks maker, has sued Indian farmers for cultivating a specific protected licensed variety of potato, infringing its patent, the company said on Friday. At a hearing held in Ahmedabad court in Gujarat state Friday, PepsiCo submitted that the matter can be settled if the farmers refrain from using the registered variety or choose to obtain license from it for continuing the cultivation. Reacting to this submission, the farmers' counsel said that it will seek instructions from his clients by the next hearing date, due on June 12. Farmers were sued for cultivating the potato variety used in the Lay's potato chips manufactured and sold by PepsiCo India. Theses potatoes are cultivated and supplied by 24,000 farmers in 10-12 states of the country on contractual basis. This specific variety of potato is registered under The Protection of Plant Varieties and Protection of Farmers Rights Act 2001. The PepsiCo counsel had submitted that the farmers were illegally growing, producing and selling it without permission of the company in violation of its statutory right granted to it under the act. Earlier this month, the Ahmedabad City Commercial Court had issued an ex-parte ad-interim order restraining the farmers from growing the potato variety after PepsiCo filed case against four farmers. As per a study, potato chips market in India is estimated at 370 million U.S. dollars and expected to grow at 9.7 percent at a compounded annual growth rate till 2023. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 00:23:41|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (R) meets with British prime minister's special envoy and Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond, who is attending the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, in Beijing, capital of China, April 26, 2019. (Xinhua/Liu Weibing) BEIJING, April 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Friday met with British prime minister's special envoy and Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond, who is attending the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing. Li said China hopes the two countries can respect each other's core interests and major concerns based on mutual respect and equal treatment, and push forward sound and stable development of the relations between the two countries. Noting that the two sides have reached consensus to resume the China-UK Economic and Financial Dialogue, Li said China is willing to work with Britain to meet each other halfway and accumulate positive factors for important bilateral exchanges in the next stage. Hammond forwarded British Prime Minister Theresa May's signed letter to Li and said Britain highly praises China's further opening-up and its efforts to safeguard multilateralism and free trade. Britain is willing to strengthen dialogue and communication with China, expand cooperation in areas including finance and services trade, and push the relations between the two countries to a new height, he said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 02:49:57|Editor: yan Video Player Close ANKARA, April 26 (Xinhua) -- Ankara and Tehran will seek a bartering system to pass through the U.S. sanctions after Washington announced its decision to end sanction waivers for countries importing Iranian oil, a move could further jeopardize the strained relations between the two NATO allies. U.S. President Donald Trump has decided not to extend the sanction waivers allowing major importers to continue buying Iran's oil when they expire in early May, White House said Monday. The U.S. government re-imposed sanctions on Iranian oil exports in November after Washington pulled out of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Turkey was one of those given a six-month waiver from the unilateral sanctions, which will expire on May 2. Turkey said it would not accept sanctions on oil imports from Iran and warned that the U.S. move to end exemptions "will not serve regional peace and stability ". "We do not accept unilateral sanctions and impositions on the issue of how we will establish relations with our neighbors," said Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Monday. He slammed comments by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggesting Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as alternatives to Iran in oil trade. "Pushing to buy oil from other countries besides Iran goes too far," Cavusoglu said, stressing the U.S. move "violates the regulations of the World Trade Organization (WTO)." Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif paid a visit to Ankara days before the U.S. move to end exemptions and he had discussions with Turkish officials on alternative mechanisms to continue bilateral trade. Speaking at the joint press conference on April 17, Cavusoglu said Turkey and Iran seek alternative mechanisms, such as the Instrument In Support Of Trade Exchanges, a non-dollar payment channel the EU has set up with Iran, in order to overcome U.S. sanctions and continue bilateral trade in a bid to reach a trade volume of 30 billion U.S. dollars. Turkey will be negatively influenced in economy and in bilateral relations with Tehran if it ends its import of Iranian oil, as Iran is one of Turkey's leading suppliers of oil and gas, said Necdet Pamir, energy editor of Sigma Insight Turkey. "Iran preferred to supply crude oil in more favorable conditions than their competitors, like less barrel price and more appropriate payment, for some countries, including Turkey, in order not to lose its market share," he said. Turkey promotes using national currencies in international trade. In October 2017, the Turkish and Iranian central banks formally agreed to trade in their local currencies. However, Ankara could hardly bypass U.S. sanctions and conduct trade with Iran due to political difficulties it has already been facing in bilateral relations with Washington, Pamir said. "It will be difficult for Turkey to conduct a sustainable bartering system with Iran," he said. The expert recalled Turkey's dispute with the United States over its decision to purchase Russian S-400 missile systems with fears that a standoff between the two NATO countries could lead to American sanctions which would exacerbate the economy in the country. Pamir also reminded a court case in New York for Reza Zarrab, a Turkish-Iranian businessman, and Mehmet Hakan Atilla, deputy chief executive of Turkish lender Halkbank, who are being held in the United States on charges of violating sanctions against Iran. Elaborating on alternative trade mechanisms with Iran to avoid U.S. sanctions, the expert said a new scheme would deteriorate already shaken U.S.-Turkey relations. Pamir stated that Turkey has already been following a "pragmatic" strategy in line with the U.S. sanctions for its purchase of Iranian oil in the past one year since Washington launched sanctions against Iran, and significantly diminished its import of Iranian oil. The Turkish government rejects U.S. sanctions in rhetoric for domestic political reasons and for keeping political ties with Tehran, but in fact reduces Iranian crude oil import, he said. Turkey's biggest oil importer Tupras has cut back purchases of Iranian crude since last May, even before Washington said it would re-impose sanctions on Tehran, the expert said, noting its imports fell to zero in November. Turkey used to import about 200,000 barrels per day of Iranian crude before the United States announced in 2018 that it would pull out of the Iran nuclear deal. Reducing oil imports from Iran, Turkey turned to Iraqi crude as a substitute, Pamir said. As of January 2019, Iran was Turkey's third-largest source of oil imports with 12.3 percent of the total, following Iraq and Russia. According to data of the Energy Market Regulatory Authority, Turkey did not import crude oil from Iran in November 2018. In December, it imported 104,000 tons of crude oil, and in January, 381,214 tons of crude oil from its neighbor, falling nearly half from the same month in 2018. Ankara will continue oil purchases from Iran without violating U.S. sanctions, Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said last week after his talks in Washington aimed at extending its waiver. Kalin said Turkey has already reduced its purchases of Iranian oil. In February, Iran's Minister of Petroleum Bijan Zangeneh said all European countries, except Turkey, have stopped buying Iranian oil since the imposition of U.S. sanctions on the country. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 03:20:17|Editor: yan Video Player Close GENEVA, April 26 (Xinhua) -- The UN Children's Fund, (UNICEF) said Friday it has "growing concerns" about grave violations against children, such as the unprecedented killing of 46 children in the March 23 attack in Bankass, along with school closures. "In Mali, the sharp deterioration of the humanitarian situation in the central region of Mopti, which is due to inter-communal violence and the presence of armed groups are increasingly affecting the most vulnerable children," said Christophe Boulierac, UNICEF spokesperson in Geneva at a UN briefing here. In addition to "growing concerns about grave violations against children, such as the killing of the 46 children in Bankass," UNICEF said it is particularly concerned about the increase in school closures. Citing Mali government and IOM figures, UNICEF said nearly 70,000 displaced people are registered in the Mopti region, mainly in areas close to the border with Burkina Faso, an increase of more than 13,000 people since the end of 2018. On April 19, Malian Prime Minister Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga and his government submitted a letter of resignation following a motion of no confidence over the brutal violence in one village of the country, according to the presidential office. Mali has experienced massive attacks by armed groups since Islamist extremists linked to Al-Qaeda took control of the country's restive north since 2012. Throughout the 2018/2019 school year, UNICEF and partners have observed a systematic and steady increase of school closures in Mopti. At the end of March 2019, 525 schools were closed in the region of Mopti (out of 866 schools closed in the country). "Nearly a third of all schools in the Mopti region are now closed due to insecurity, compromising the right to education of over 157,000 children, out of a total of 260,000 children affected by school closures in Mali," said Boulierac. He explained that school closures are linked to the overall deterioration of the security situation in Mopti. These are explicitly linked to direct and indirect threats to communities, schools, and teachers, though other factors such as a lack of pedagogical material or the absence or displacement of teachers are also at play. UNICEF said it is working closely with the education cluster and the Mali Ministry of Education to provide constant learning for affected children through temporary mechanisms such as informal community learning centers. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 03:25:19|Editor: yan Video Player Close KHARTOUM, April 26 (Xinhua) -- Sudan's Transitional Military Council on Friday denied reports that a number of officials of the former regime were released. The two former vice presidents, Osman Mohamed Yousif Kibir and Hassabo Mohamed Abdul-Rahman, are in prison, while the secretary-general of the Islamic Movement Al-Zubair Ahmed Al-Hassan is under house arrest, said Shams-Eddin Kabashi, spokesman of the council, in a statement. The concerned authorities have embarked on legal procedures and investigation with the detainees, he added. Earlier in the day, Sudanese media said a number of officials of the former regime have been released, including two former vice presidents. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 04:15:33|Editor: Xiaoxia Video Player Close U.S. President Donald Trump is pictured at the White House in Washington D.C., the United States, on April 26, 2019. Trump announced on Friday that the United States is withdrawing from an international arms trade treaty signed by the Obama administration, marking Washington's latest exit from an international pact. (Xinhua/Ting Shen) WASHINGTON, April 26 (Xinhua) -- President Donald Trump announced on Friday that the United States is withdrawing from an international arms trade treaty signed by the Obama administration, marking Washington's latest exit from an international pact. Trump made the announcement while attending an annual meeting of the National Rifle Association (NRA) in the U.S. city of Indianapolis, saying that he will be revoking America's status as a signatory of the pact supported by the Untied Nations. "We're taking our signature back," Trump told the audience. He also noted that the UN will soon receive formal notice of the U.S. withdrawal. The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), which regulates international trade in conventional weapons from small arms to military aircraft, was approved by the UN General Assembly in 2013. It was signed by then U.S. President Barack Obama but has not been ratified by the U.S. Senate. The White House said later in a statement that Trump will ask the Senate to return it. The White House claimed the pact is "misguided" and constrains U.S. ability to sell arms to its allies and partners. The Trump administration's new move has drawn criticism from some international human rights groups. The United States will now behave as a non-signatory to "this historic treaty whose sole purpose is to protect innocent people from deadly weapons," Oxfam America President Abby Maxman told U.S. media. Kris Brown, the president of an anti-gun violence organization in the United States, said in a tweet, "This is a reckless move that will endanger countless Americans and other innocent people worldwide." So far more than 100 countries have formally joined the agreement. Since Trump took office in 2017, the United States has retreated from several global treaties, including the landmark Paris climate agreement and the Iran nuclear deal. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 04:25:38|Editor: yan Video Player Close UNITED NATIONS, April 26 (Xinhua) -- The rocket and mortar shelling of residential areas in Tripoli "is completely unacceptable by any measure," a UN spokesman said on Friday. "The United Nations is gravely concerned about the continued reports of indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas in Tripoli," said Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Dujarric stressed the need to protect civilians and grant immediate, unconditional access for humanitarian partners. Our colleagues say the humanitarian situation in Tripoli continues to deteriorate with heavy fighting ongoing, including in populated areas, the spokesman said. Civilians in conflict-affected areas are experiencing electricity cuts and water shortages as a result of damaged infrastructure, while access to essential items such as food, medicine and fuel is being severely hampered, he said. The UN Migration Agency reported that nearly 39,000 people have been displaced from their homes. Humanitarian partners evacuated 655 refugees and migrants from the Qasr Bin Ghashir detention center, Dujarric said. The spokesman reported earlier in the week of violence erupting in the center on Tuesday but gave no details. Now, Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in a release issued in New York and Tripoli on Thursday said that refugees and migrants in Qasr Bin Ghashir were shot and injured during the incident. "More than 700 unarmed men, women and children were trapped in the center," MSF said. "Several reports suggested several deaths and at least 12 people injured." Analysis of photographic and video evidence by MSF doctors concluded that the injuries shown were consistent with gunshot wounds. "These observations were also supported by numerous accounts from refugees and migrants who witnessed the event and reported on being brutally and indiscriminately attacked with the use of firearms," the humanitarian group said. More than 3,000 refugees and migrants remain trapped in seven detention facilities around Tripoli, Dujarric said. The refugees and migrants were stopped in their attempts to sail across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe and were being held in Libya. Tripoli is witnessing armed conflict as the east-based army, led by Khalifa Haftar, has been leading a military campaign since early April to take over Tripoli from the UN-backed government. The UN mission in Libya remains in touch with all the parties to try to reach a cessation of hostilities or at least a humanitarian pause, the spokesman said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 04:35:44|Editor: yan Video Player Close ADEN, Yemen, April 26 (Xinhua) -- Armed confrontations erupted between rival factions loyal to the Saudi-backed Yemeni government in the southwestern province of Taiz on Friday, killing at least 10 people, a security official told Xinhua. The intra-faction fighting was between two pro-government Islamist groups in and around the old neighborhood of Taiz, killing at least 10 and injuring dozens from both sides, said the security official on condition of anonymity. He said the two pro-government factions exchanged gunfire from heavy weapons in downtown Taiz, the province's capital city that bears the same name. Many families were forced to evacuate their homes near the site of the fighting amid panic over the safety of their properties, the official added. The dispute between various pro-government armed groups over the control of military and security institutions frequently lead to intense street fighting in the turbulent province of Taiz. The city center of Taiz is currently under the control of the government, while the outskirts of the city and areas in the countryside of the province are still witnessing armed confrontations between pro-government forces and the Houthi rebels. The impoverished Arab country has been locked into a civil war since late 2014, when Shiite Houthi rebels overran much of the country and seized all northern provinces, including the capital Sanaa. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 04:45:49|Editor: yan Video Player Close ROME, April 26 (Xinhua) -- The 21st edition of the Far East Film Festival (FEFF), which will showcase a total of 77 movies from 13 countries and regions, started on Friday in Italy's northeastern city of Udine. According to organizers, nearly 20 Chinese films will be screened in competition this year. The country with the next biggest line-up after China is South Korea with 12 films, followed by Japan with nine. Other countries include Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Chinese movie star Yao Chen would be one of the special guests and will be collecting a Golden Mulberry Award for Outstanding Achievement. There will be eight movies from Chinese mainland, including A Cool Fish, a low-budget comedy by Rao Xiaozhi, and Han Han's Pegasus, both making their international film festival premiere. Huo Meng's road movie Crossing the Border makes its international premiere, while the film Dying to Survive by Wen Muye, Lue Yue's Lost, Found -- described as "a kidnapping and two mothers" and starring Yao Chen -- screen in what will be their European premiere. The Crossing by Bai Xue will be making its Italian premiere. On the business side of the film industry, the FEFF has organized a Co-Production Day as part of its Focus Asia market, bringing together European and Asian filmmakers and producers to analyze the potential and possible developments of the Italy-China film co-production agreement. The festival will also feature a special event called The New Silk Roads, organized along with the local chambers of commerce and the local division of Confindustria business association. According to organizers, it will be a precious opportunity to discuss the economic changes taking place in Asia and the relations between Italy and China. The Far East Film Festival runs through May 4. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 05:26:15|Editor: yan Video Player Close LOS ANGELES, April 26 (Xinhua) -- The 2019 China-California Business Forum will be held in June in Los Angeles in the U.S. state of California. The forum will be held to promote California's trade and investment cooperation with Chinese provinces, and encourage business leaders from California and China to explore and develop business opportunities. A delegation of about 150 senior Chinese business leaders from nine provincial regions is expected to join the forum to be held on June 5 in downtown Los Angeles, according to a statement released by the Chinese Consulate General in Los Angles on Friday. Among them, a group from Guangdong Province, the Guest Province of Honor of this year's forum, will highlight business opportunities in the newly established Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. The forum is jointly organized by the California Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development, Los Angeles Regional Export Council, China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products and the Chinese Consulate General in Los Angeles, in partnership with Milken Institute, Bay Area Council, China General Chamber of Commerce Los Angeles, Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, and Department of Commerce of Guangdong Province. Former California Governor Jerry Brown had participated in all three previous events since 2016, which attracted more than 1,200 business executives. "Sub-national cooperation is the foundation of China-U.S. economic and trade relations. The China-California Business Forum plays an important role in promoting this cooperation," said Zhang Ping, Chinese Consul General in Los Angeles. "The Forum is a joint effort by both sides, not only brings business opportunities, but also enhances China-U.S. sub-national exchanges and cooperation. I look forward to welcoming more Chinese and California business leaders at the event," he added. "California was the number one recipient of foreign direct investment from China, totaling more than 16 billion U.S. dollars in 2017. We are also home to a vibrant Chinese American community," said Eleni Kounalakis, Lieutenant Governor of California. "This forum will build on our strong business and cultural ties, strengthen our international partnerships, and grow our economy," she noted. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 05:56:41|Editor: yan Video Player Close RABAT, April 26 (Xinhua) -- Morocco attaches great importance to the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), said Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Nasser Bourita on Friday. "The initiative is of particular interest to Morocco as it aims to promote regional integration, interconnection and the construction of major infrastructure," Bourita said in an interview with the Moroccan official MAP news agency on the sidelines of the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing. The initiative will create important economic bridges between continents, he noted. The Moroccan minister also expressed his country's support for the BRI within the framework of the strategic partnership between China and Morocco. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 06:01:43|Editor: yan Video Player Close CHICAGO, April 26 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Department of Justice has opened a criminal investigation into Ford's emissions testing practices, the automaker said Friday. Ford in the Friday regulatory filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission wrote that the "potential concern does not involve the use of defeat devices," like those used in the Volkswagen AG emissions scandal. Ford characterized the Department of Justice investigation as "still in the preliminary stages" but said "we cannot predict the outcome, and we cannot provide assurance that it will not have a material adverse effect on us." It also said in the filing that it is cooperating with all government agencies in the investigation. The Department of Justice declined to comment on the investigation following media inquiry. Emissions-tests cheating has been an issue for large automakers in recent years, most notably Volkswagen AG. Volkswagen paid 14.7 billion U.S. dollars in civil penalties in 2016 after settling a widespread emissions-cheating scandal with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The German auto company was accused of using what are called "defeat devices" that turned on during emissions testing, but not in normal driving. In January, Fiat Chrysler agreed to pay 800 million dollars in settlement over its use of illegal software to produce false results on emissions tests. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 08:10:20|Editor: Xiaoxia Video Player Close This combination photo shows an aerial view of Hongcun Village, east China's Anhui Province, April 20, 2019 (above, photo taken by Shi Yalei), and Hallstatt, Austria, April 25, 2019(bottom, photo taken by Guo Chen). Hongcun and Hallstatt, both world cultural heritage sites, attract tourists from all around the world. In 2018, Hongcun received some 36,000 foreign tourists, while Hallstatt hosted over 21,000 Chinese tourists who stayed overnight. (Xinhua) Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 08:22:17|Editor: Liu Video Player Close RIO DE JANEIRO, April 26 (Xinhua) -- Formula One officials have raised the prospect of staging the Brazilian Grand Prix in Rio de Janeiro, according to a report in Brazil's O Globo newspaper on Friday. F1 commercial operations director Sean Bratches wrote to Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, Rio state governor Wilson Witzel and city mayor Marcelo Crivella to seek meetings with their representatives "in person or by telephone", the newspaper said. It added that Crivella had also been contacted by German racing circuit design company Tilke and Dorna Sports, the commercial rights holder for MotoGP. Brazilian government officials are understood to be open to the prospect of bringing Formula One to Rio. However the city currently lacks a suitable track and would need major funding to develop a proposed circuit in the western neighborhood of Deodoro. The Brazilian Formula One Grand Prix is currently held at Sao Paulo's Interlagos, which is contracted to stage the event until 2022. Interlagos was Brazil's first Grand Prix home in the 1970s before losing its host status to Rio de Janeiro's Jacarepagua circuit in 1981. The event returned to Interlagos in 1990 and has remained there since. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 09:27:40|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close Chinese economists attend a meeting with members of the Japan Business Federation in Tokyo, Japan, April 23, 2019. A delegation of Chinese economists headed by China's former Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao visited Japan on April 22-26, conducting extensive exchanges with Japanese government officials, businessmen, academicians and lawmakers. (Xinhua/Du Xiaoyi) TOKYO, April 27 (Xinhua) -- A delegation of Chinese economists headed by China's former Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao paid a visit to Japan on April 22-26, conducting extensive exchanges with Japanese politicians, businessmen, academics and lawmakers. During the visit to Japan, the delegation and the Japanese ministry of finance jointly held a high-level seminar on China-Japan economic cooperation, during which they had in-depth discussions on the global economic situation, the G20 Osaka summit, and other issues. The delegation had extensive exchanges on topics including China-Japan relations, economic and trade cooperation, global economic governance with the heads of Japanese business associations, financial institutions, research institutes, as well as Japanese lawmakers. The Japanese representatives said that Chinese President Xi Jinping's attendance at the Group of 20 Osaka summit is highly expected, as his presence is crucial to the success of the summit. They said that at present China-Japan relations are back on the right track. The two sides should seize the opportunity to further deepen economic and trade cooperation, jointly promote infrastructure construction under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative and third-party cooperation, and support cooperation within the framework of the rules-based multilateral economic system. The visit of the Chinese economists delegation has drawn great attention from all walks of life in Japan. Japan National Press Club held a press conference for the delegation and the visit was widely covered by Japan's mainstream media. Long Yongtu, China's former deputy minister of commerce, Lin Yifu, dean of Peking University's New Structural Economics Research Center and some other economists also participated in the visit. Aerial photo taken on June 8, 2018 shows fields which will benefit from a China-funded irrigation project at Pinukpuk City, the Philippines. (Xinhua/Wang Yu) MANILA, April 26 (Xinhua) -- Countries and people around the world will stand to benefit most from the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) through cooperation, a senior Philippine finance official told Xinhua in an interview on Friday. Assistant Secretary of the Philippine Department of Finance Antonio Lambino hailed BRI, saying the initiative is perhaps "one of the most exciting global ideas that has come around over the past four decades." "This is a rising tide that will benefit all ships," Lambino said, adding that the initiative will make logistics costs cheaper for everybody and open markets, ideas and intercultural exchanges to all. "All of these things will flow more easily." No wonder, he said, BRI "has captured the imagination of millions of people" around the world. "They are watching this very closely because it is an exciting idea," he added. The BRI, proposed by China in 2013, aims at enhancing all-around connectivity through infrastructure construction, exploring new driving forces for the world economic growth, and building a new platform for world economic cooperation. So far, some 126 countries, including the Philippines, have signed cooperation documents on BRI with China. Lambino said the Philippines is grateful to be a part of the BRI. An archipelagic country, he said, infrastructure development is on top of the priorities of the Philippines. Infrastructure building is indeed at full throttle in the Philippines. Accelerating infrastructure is one of the Philippine government's policy agenda to usher in the country's "Golden Age of Infrastructure" through the Build, Build, Build program, a massive infrastructure development program. "As we build in the Philippines and as the BRI is built in the region, those two will connect and access to various markets, including China, our entrepreneurs, our large corporations, including small and medium enterprises can now take advantage of all these opportunities. This is a very good thing for the world," he added. Lambino stressed the need to harness the benefits of BRI, saying the initiative will make the infrastructure-building program "future-proof." "We need to future-proof all our endeavors because we owe this to the next generation. It's not just about our connectivity today, it's also connectivity for our children and the connectivity that our grandchildren will enjoy. So, being able to harness the power of knowledge and the economies that are built around knowledge is so important for the sustainability of our connectivity efforts," he said. Indeed, he said "there is certainly a very strong resonance between the priorities" of the BRI and the Philippine Build, Build, Build program. Now China has signed several infrastructure projects cooperation agreements with the Philippines, including the Chico River Pump Irrigation Project, which will provide water to 8,700 hectares of agricultural land in the northern Philippines. Lambino said the project will benefit 4,350 farming families and serve 21 villages in the two provinces in main Luzon island. Moreover, the financial official said BRI offers "a great opportunity for all of the countries to become more competitive in terms of accessing the Chinese market, one of the largest markets that you can imagine." "So being able to access a large market such as that of China is certainly a very big incentive for industry, for businesses, for entrepreneurs to really work very hard in order to produce products that the Chinese market will want to buy. So that is a positive signal as well as to industry and to entrepreneurship," Lambino said. The Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte with other leaders, including heads of state or government from a number of countries are currently attending the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing. Lambino said the Phillipines' cooperation with China on BRI will be "certainly deepening the relationship between our two countries." As part of the confidence measure, Lambino said the Philippines makes sure that any projects under BRI that Manila brings to the table "is solid in terms of the economic internal rate of return." "Then I think that will do justice to the relationship and make the relationship better over time," Lambino said. "It is very hopeful signal to all involved that there are benefits to cooperation and the social investments that are coming from this cooperation are the dividends that we will enjoy as peoples working together," he added. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 10:35:49|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close Chinese and foreign officers work together during a joint naval exercise on the sea off Qingdao, east China's Shandong Province, on April 26, 2019. China conducted a joint naval exercise with Southeast Asian countries in Qingdao, with focus on jointly handling pirate threats and maritime emergency rescues. (Xinhua/Li Ziheng) Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 10:53:17|Editor: Xiaoxia Video Player Close U.S. President Donald Trump (L) meets with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the White House in Washington D.C. April 26, 2019. (Xinhua/Ting Shen) WASHINGTON, April 26 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump met with visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at White House on Friday to discuss bilateral trade and other issues. Before his meeting with Abe, Trump told the press that trade negotiation between the two countries was underway, saying that it is "the primary reason that the prime minister is here." Trump noted Washington and Tokyo have a chance to reach a long-term deal. The two leaders, however, disagreed on the tariff issue. "Japan puts very massive tariffs on our agriculture ... and we want to get rid of those tariffs," said Trump. In response, Abe claimed Japan puts no tariffs on U.S. automobiles while the United States puts 2.5-percent tariff on Japanese cars. "We would like to proceed with the further negotiation that we are now having for that. We'll see a mutually beneficial outcome for both of our countries," Abe added. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 11:13:22|Editor: Xiaoxia Video Player Close COLOMBO, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Two gunmen have been killed in the fire exchange between Sri Lanka's special forces and suspected terrorists in Kalmunai city, in the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka on Friday evening, the military confirmed on Saturday. Two armed gunmen suspected to be from an Islamic terrorist organization were killed. One civilian also fell victim and died in the crossfire and three to four persons were reportedly injured, the military said. Army troops have cordoned the entire area and are conducting clearing operations. Earlier on Friday evening, the military said security forces also had recovered flags belonging to the Islamic State, literature and some other objects from a house in the Ampara District, also in the east, which is said to be the terrorist organization's place for oath-taking. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 11:18:24|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close The first President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev, who is here attending the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, receives an interview in Beijing, capital of China, April 26, 2019. Nazarbayev on Friday hailed the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as "a very great idea that has a perspective," which mankind can rely on to achieve further integration. (Xinhua/Li He) BEIJING, April 26 (Xinhua) -- The first President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev on Friday hailed the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as "a very great idea that has a perspective," which mankind can rely on to achieve further integration. In a joint interview with Chinese media on the sidelines of the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF), Nazarbayev said Kazakhstan immediately joined the construction of the Belt and Road, after the "completely new and very important initiative" was put forward in 2013. Good synergy has been developing between Kazakhstan's Bright Path development plan and the BRI, said Nazarbayev. The BRI "has had a tremendous impact on Kazakhstan," he said, noting that currently there are six railways and 11 highways passing through the country within the BRI framework. Nazarbayev also mentioned the logistics base in China's portal city of Lianyungang, which connects the landlocked Kazakhstan to the Pacific Ocean through freight trains. "Thanks to these routes, Kazakhstan has become a country that can reach all the seas. Cargoes from the country can go to all the countries around the world," Nazarbayev said. China and Kazakhstan have signed contracts for the construction of 55 projects, which will be of great benefit to Kazakhstan, he said, adding that "thousands of people will get jobs." According to Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan needs industrial development to shift from the pattern which much depends on rich natural resources. "Currently the country is building up its industry together with China ... A jointly built automobile factory is already operating in Kazakhstan." The first president also sees the possibility of a broader integration between the Eurasian Economic Union and the BRI. "Many countries would like to join the BRI in order to communicate more, trade more," Nazarbayev said. The initiative is "very beneficial for the prosperity of all countries," as more than 150 countries and international organizations are connected within the framework and enjoying great benefits, he said. Congratulating the Chinese people on the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, Nazarbayev noted that over the past 70 years, China has undergone continuous development, achieved great prosperity and has become the second largest economy in the world. Its 40 years of reform and opening-up has brought the country earthshaking changes and has had a positive influence on the whole world, Nazarbayev said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 12:03:34|Editor: zh Video Player Close COLOMBO, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Two gunmen and four suspected suicide bombers were killed when Sri Lankan forces engaged in a gun battle with suspected terrorists in Kalmunai city in Eastern Sri Lanka on Friday night, the military confirmed on Saturday. A military official told Xinhua that terrorists opened fire when Sri Lankan troops were attempting to raid a safe house used by terrorists affiliated to Islamic terrorist organization. Some suicide bombers later blew themselves up inside the safe house. The military official said that following a clearing operation, troops recovered 13 more bodies along with the bodies of the two gunmen, which included three females, six children and four males, from inside the safe house. The official said some of those killed maybe civilians. Search operations are ongoing to see if more suspected terrorists are hiding in the surrounding areas and the entire area remains cordoned off. A curfew is still in place in Kalmunai city and its surrounding areas after it was imposed last night. Earlier on Friday evening, the military said security forces also had recovered flags belonging to the Islamic State, literature and some other objects from a house in the Ampara Distinct, also in the east, which is said to be the terrorist organization's place for oath-taking. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 12:38:40|Editor: zh Video Player Close BRUSSELS, April 26 (Xinhua) -- When Hungary signed a cooperation document with China on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2015, it was the first European country to do so. Almost four years later and ahead of the ongoing Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing, 22 European countries had inked BRI cooperation documents with China. Heads of state or government from such European countries as Austria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Serbia and Switzerland, as well as high-level representatives from France, Germany, Britain, Spain and the European Union are now in Beijing for the BRI forum. MORE PARTNERS In the month leading up to the forum, Italy and Luxembourg became the latest European countries to sign BRI cooperation documents. In a joint interview with Chinese media before heading to Beijing, President Ueli Maurer of the Swiss Confederation said that the BRI is a rare long-term strategic plan and has created a new dimension for the development of the world economy. As some landmark projects for sustainable development will be launched in the near future, the positive results of these projects could dispel the doubts of certain sideliners, thus laying the foundation for a better global development in the future, Maurer said. Sustainable development was highlighted by Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday at the opening ceremony of the forum. He said China will work with other parties to promote a coalition of sustainable cities and an international coalition for green development under the BRI. While Europe increasingly embraces the BRI, Hungary is proud to be the first European country to sign an intergovernmental cooperation agreement. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told Xinhua before the forum that his government is making efforts to achieve tangible benefits through dovetailing the BRI with Hungary's "Opening to the East" policy. INCREASED INVESTMENTS In Hungary, Chinese investors and companies have contributed to the success of the national economy, Szijjarto said. "They have brought technologies to the Hungarian economy which helped us to enter this new digital era of global economy," he said. "We are happy that companies in the field of the automotive industry proved to be very active in the market, since the automotive industry is the number one in Hungary, and now the automotive industry enters a new phase from the combustion era to the era of electro-mobility and autonomously driven cars," he added. The BRI is also helping to revive old towns. In the German city of Duisburg, China Railway Express has increased from three trains per week to 35 to 40 per week right now, stimulating the growth of port industry and creating over 6,000 jobs. In Serbia, Chinese investment has brought the Smederevo steel mill back to life, and now a one-billion-USD tire manufacturing plant is established. The joint building of the Belt and Road has also created a new platform to boost international trade and investment, expanded new practices to optimize global economic governance, and made new contributions to improving people's well-being of all countries, Xi said on Friday. BOOMING TRADE Improving bilateral trade and especially tapping China's huge market has been a hallmark under the BRI. For example, 16 Central and Eastern European countries have signed BRI cooperation agreements with China, and trade between them and China has increased more than 50 percent in the recent seven years. The trade volume reached 82.23 billion U.S. dollars last year, up 21 percent year-on-year, with China's imports from the 16 countries rising faster than its exports. On Friday, Xi said China will increase the import of goods and services on a larger scale, continuously open up its market and welcome quality products from around the world. This is exactly what many Europeans have in mind. Renzo Cavalieri, a professor of juridical institutions of East Asia at Ca'Foscari University in Venice, noted that Italy has a trade deficit with China. "As Chinese markets open up, that could mean more exports to China, and more jobs in Italy. Maybe over time, that trade deficit will shrink," he said. SHARED BENEFITS In a landmark BRI investment, China's COSCO SHIPPING acquired a 51-percent stake in Greece's Piraeus port in 2016. In just two years, Piraeus' container throughput increased from 880,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in 2016 to 4.9 million TEUs in 2018, ranking second among all Mediterranean ports. "I would like to stress besides the economic success the social success of this investment," Greek Foreign Minister George Katrougalos told Xinhua earlier. "COSCO with the encouragement of our government has completed collective agreements with the workers in the port of Piraeus so as to ensure not just profits for the economies of the two countries, but also very good working conditions for those working in the port of Piraeus," the minister said. Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell has said recently that "Spain is especially interested in exploring ways of collaboration in third-party markets." Referring to the forum, he said "in this international event we hope that our companies have the chance to make contact with Chinese companies and other countries that are interested in finding synergies in third-party markets." Chair of the Policy and Resources Committee of the City of London Corporation Catherine McGuinness said the BRI is a centennial project and could bring about some 1.8 billion British pounds (2.4 billion U.S. dollars) to Britain's gross domestic product (GDP) if her country fully joins it. "As an unrivalled hub for international infrastructure investment, British firms stand ready to provide much of the private financing required by the project, and can also support in green finance, consultancy, rule of law and foreign exchange" McGuinness said before going to Beijing for the forum. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 12:43:44|Editor: Liu Video Player Close NEW DELHI, April 27 (Xinhua) -- India's state-owned carrier -- Air India Saturday suffered a global shutdown following a server breakdown, officials said. The problem in the airline's main server hampered operations and caused delay in its morning flights across the world. "Due to a breakdown in our server system, some of our flights are getting affected all over the world. Work is on in full swing to restore the system. We sincerely regret inconvenience caused to passengers," a statement issued by Air India said. The glitch in the server left hundreds of passengers stranded at various airports. "We were supposed to reach Mumbai around this time today but so far there is no information from the airline whether the flight will take off," Sameer, a flyer stranded at Delhi airport told Xinhua. "The airline officials aren't saying anything." Meanwhile, the complaints of passengers, pictures and videos of crowded airports in Mumbai and Delhi about delayed flights are making rounds on social media. According to officials, the server has been down since 3:00 a.m. Saturday (local time), and the airline was unable to issue boarding passes to its passengers at airports across the world. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 12:53:50|Editor: zh Video Player Close PYONGYANG, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Kim Jong Un, top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), returned home by train Saturday morning after concluding his first visit to Russia, the official Korean Central News Agency reported. Kim was greeted by senior officials of the Workers' Party of Korea, the government and military bodies, the report said. During his visit to the far-eastern Russian city of Vladivostok, Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks on bilateral issues and the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. On his departure, Kim said that he was leaving with good impressions and friendly feeling after finishing the visit to the Russian Federation with satisfaction amid the special care and cordial hospitality of President Putin and the Russian government and people, the KCNA said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 13:03:55|Editor: Xiaoxia Video Player Close U.S. President Donald Trump is pictured at the White House in Washington D.C., the United States, on April 26, 2019. Trump announced on Friday that the United States is withdrawing from an international arms trade treaty signed by the Obama administration, marking Washington's latest exit from an international pact. (Xinhua/Ting Shen) WASHINGTON, April 26 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Friday that his country is withdrawing from an international arms trade treaty signed by the Obama administration, marking Washington's latest move to quit an international pact. Trump made the announcement while attending an annual meeting of the National Rifle Association (NRA) in the U.S. city of Indianapolis, saying that he will be revoking U.S. status as a signatory to the pact supported by the United Nations. "We're taking our signature back," Trump told the audience. He also noted that the UN will soon receive formal notice of the U.S. withdrawal. The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), which regulates international trade in conventional weapons from small arms to military aircraft, was approved by the UN General Assembly in 2013. It was signed by then U.S. President Barack Obama but has not been ratified by the U.S. Senate. The White House said later in a statement that Trump will ask the Senate to return it. The White House claimed the pact is "misguided" and constrains U.S. ability to sell arms to its allies and partners. A senior Trump administration official told reporters on Friday that Washington is also concerned that the treaty is opening for amendment in 2020. "There are significant concerns about proposals that are out there in discussion ... for how to use that amendment period to further constrain what countries like the United States might do to undermine our sovereignty," the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told reporters in teleconference briefing. "The United States already has significant controls in place to regulate our conventional arms transfers," the official added. The Trump administration's new move has sparked criticism. The United States will now behave as a non-signatory to the "treaty whose sole purpose is to protect innocent people from deadly weapons," Abby Maxman, president of Oxfam America, a global organization on poverty reduction, told U.S. media. Since Trump took office in 2017, the United States has retreated from several global treaties, including the landmark Paris climate agreement and the Iran nuclear deal. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 13:39:09|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close BEIJING, April 27 (Xinhua) -- The following are highlights of China's key local business news from the past week. -- HUAWEI REVENUE Chinese tech giant Huawei's revenue rose 39 percent year-on-year to 179.7 billion yuan (about 26.8 billion U.S. dollars) in the first quarter of the year. Huawei continued to see robust growth of its consumer business as its smart devices led by smartphones continued to expand market presence. In the first quarter, it shipped 59 million smartphones. By the end of March, the company had signed 40 5G commercial contracts with carriers around the globe, with more than 70,000 5G bases shipped to markets around the world. -- EXXONMOBIL LNG DEAL ExxonMobil signed a 20-year agreement to supply liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Zhejiang Provincial Energy Group. Zhejiang Energy is expected to receive 1 million metric tons of LNG from the U.S. energy giant each year. -- BAOSTEEL PROFIT Baoshan Iron and Steel Co. Ltd. saw its net profit slump 45.7 percent year-on-year to 2.7 billion yuan in the first quarter of 2019. Its gross profit margin for the main business of steel-making fell by 8 percentage points from a year earlier to 9 percent last quarter. During the three months, Baosteel generated a revenue of 65.4 billion yuan, down 3.1 percent year-on-year. -- BYD FACILITY Leading Chinese new energy vehicle (NEV) maker BYD will set up an industrial base for passenger vehicles and key components in the city of Changzhou, east China's Jiangsu Province. With a total investment of 10 billion yuan, the base is designed to produce 400,000 NEVs each year with an annual output worth of 50 billion yuan. -- CATL PROFIT Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. (CATL), China's leading lithium-ion battery and energy storage system producer, posted a 153.4 percent year-on-year growth in net profit in the first quarter of 2019 amid a booming NEV market. CATL's net profit reached 1.05 billion yuan while revenue surged 168.9 percent year-on-year to 9.98 billion yuan. During the first quarter, China's NEV production and sales amounted to 304,000 units and 299,000 units respectively, up 102.7 percent and 109.7 percent year-on-year. -- CHANGAN PROFIT Chongqing Changan Automobile Co., Ltd. saw net profit plunge 90.5 percent year-on-year to 680.7 million yuan and revenue fall 17.1 percent to 66.3 billion yuan in 2018 amid falling sales. Its automobile sales totalled 2.14 million units in 2018, roughly one-quarter less than 2.87 million units in 2017, as China's auto market experienced a bumpy year. Yang Yuan, a famous Chinese artist, performs Peking Opera in the China Cultural Center in Fiji on April, 26. (Xinhua/Zhang Yongxing) SUVA, April 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese and Fijian officials on Friday stressed the need to strengthen cultural exchanges between the two countries under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). As genuine and close friends, China and Fiji have a comprehensive strategic partnership and have inked a number of cooperation agreements on the Belt and Road Initiative, Huang Xuehu, charge d'affaires of the Chinese Embassy in Fiji, said at the annual summary meeting for 2018 cultural exchange programs between Fiji and China and the opening of a Chinese traditional painting exhibition in the China Cultural Center in Fiji. He urged the two sides to conduct more cultural exchanges in the coming years under the framework of BRI. "I hope China Cultural Center in Fiji will have more interesting cultural events and our cultural exchanges will be taken to a new height," Huang said. Huang told Xinhua that Fiji was among the first countries in the South Pacific region to participate in the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative. A Fijian government delegation is in Beijing to attend the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. Echoing Huang's views, Deng Xianfu, director of China Cultural Center in Fiji, said cultural exchanges are vital for enhancing mutual understanding and friendship between peoples of the two countries, and both sides should use BRI as a great platform to strengthen cultural exchanges. "Apart from infrastructure, BRI also involves people-to-people exchange. I hope that with the cooperation and assistance of the governments of Fiji and China, we will be able to do something more to further promote our cultural exchanges in the next few years," Deng told Xinhua. Yang Yuan, a famous Chinese artist whose exhibition of Chinese Traditional Painting of Peking Opera Characters is being held in the China Cultural Center, told Xinhua that art is so unique that people speaking different languages can understand each other through it and it can enhance the mutual understanding between peoples of different countries. "What I am doing here is to integrate Peking Opera into the Chinese traditional painting, the most shining parts of Chinese cultural heritage, through more than 30 pieces of paintings. I believe that BRI is a good thing which can provide a fresh impetus to people-to-people exchange," he said. For her part, Fiji's Minister for Education, Heritage and Arts Rosy Akbar thanked the Chinese government for organizing and sponsoring a series of successful cultural exchange programs for senior government officials and artists to travel to China since 2015. The minister said such cultural exchange programs not only built relationships with the host countries, but also taught those traveling for the program the importance of culture and heritage. She believed that the bilateral relationship between the two countries will continue to grow in the years to come. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 14:19:22|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close WASHINGTON, April 26 (Xinhua) -- A total of 37 Chinese students studying in the United States on Friday received the 2018 Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-Financed Students Abroad at the Chinese Embassy in Washington. Minister of the Chinese Embassy to the United States Li Kexin told the ceremony that overseas students are the facilitators of the future China-U.S. relations. He expected awarded students to contribute to the exchanges and cooperation between the two countries in academia and education. The Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-Financed Students Abroad is a scholarship set up by the China Scholarship Council in 2003 to honor overseas Chinese students with outstanding academic accomplishments. Yao Yuangang, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Maryland, won the top award of the scholarship. "I am so grateful to have the award. I hope overseas students could focus more on China's development, and contribute to the home country after finishing their study," he told Xinhua. According to official statistics, 500 Chinese students studying abroad received the scholarship in 2018. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 14:24:24|Editor: Xiaoxia Video Player Close MEXICO CITY, April 26 (Xinhua) -- Mexico's exports fell 1.2 percent in March year-on-year, according to a report published by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) on Friday. Mexican exports totaled 38.961 billion U.S. dollars during the third month of the year, with manufacturing shipments down 0.9 percent in March year-on-year to 34.346 billion U.S. dollars, said the report. The country sent slightly more than 80 percent of its non-petroleum exports to the United States, its main trading partner, INEGI said. Mexican imports declined by 0.5 percent in March year-on-year, totaling 37.531 billion dollars, it said. Purchases of consumer goods fell 4.6 percent in March year-on-year, while intermediate goods increased by some 0.1 percent in the same period, said the report. Mexico registered a surplus of 1.429 billion dollars in its trade balance in March for the second consecutive month, said INEGI. On April 1, the Mexican government reduced its economic growth forecast for 2019 to a range between 1.1 and 2.1 percent from the previous projection of 1.5-2.5 percent, in line with the global economic slowdown. In 2018, Mexico's gross domestic product grew 2 percent. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 14:29:27|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close BEIJING, April 27 (Xinhua) -- The fast-growing Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is bringing opportunities to countries both close to and far from the ancient Silk Road, officials from around the world said here at an ongoing international forum. The BRI is "a very good platform for international cooperation, which is emerging and gaining a lot of momentum," said Ethiopian Finance Minister Ahmed Shide at a sub-forum of the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF). "Through this initiative we were able to build the railway from Addis Ababa to Djibouti. This is an early harvest of the BRI," said Shide. "We will continue to be an active player." Since its launch in 2013 by Chinese President Xi Jinping, the BRI has attracted worldwide attention from countries big and small, developing and developed, alike. So far, 126 countries and 29 international organizations have signed on to partake in the initiative to expand connectivity, trade and people-to-people exchanges and pursue common development throughout Asia, Europe, Africa and beyond. Thomas Trikasih Lembong, chairman of the Indonesia Investment Coordinating Board, said his country holds a "key geography" in the BRI and efforts are underway to further link trading zones in Indonesia to the initiative. "The Belt and Road is ambitious and complex, but it has a noble purpose" to connect the peoples of the world, Lembong said. Despite their distance from the traditional Silk Road trade routes, there is growing interest among the countries of Latin America to join in. For Luis Renato Alvarado Rivera, Costa Rica's agriculture minister, the BRI "is an excellent opportunity to grow our relationship" with China. Costa Rica could learn from China's use of technology to advance its agricultural sector, added the minister. "We want to be close to China. That's why we're here," he said. "If we stay close to China, then we can grow up with China too." Argentine State Secretariat for Agro-industry Luis Miguel Etchevehere said his country has strong trade complementarity with China and, for example, can become a main food supplier for the Asian nation. The BRI, he noted, would strengthen globalization and is a positive development in global affairs. "We believe that the signal given by China is the right one," he said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 14:39:37|Editor: Xiaoxia Video Player Close LONDON, April 27 (Xinhua) -- A landmark British Library exhibition showcasing 5,000 years of writing history across the globe opened here on Friday. Beginning with the origins of writing in Mesopotamia, Egypt, China and the Americas, the exhibition Writing: Making Your Mark charts the evolution of writing through technology and innovation, exploring more than 40 different writing systems, from the 5,000-year-old Jemdet Nasr clay tablet with very early cuneiform to digital typefaces and emojis. Featuring an ancient wax tablet with a schoolchild's homework from the year of 100 to 199, and Florence Nightingale's diary alongside a 10th-century psalter, as well as a 60,000-strong petition from 1905 protesting against the first partition of Bengal, the exhibition highlights how writing can be personal, functional, beautiful or political and will challenge our preconceptions of what writing is through examples of writing as art, expression and instruction. The woodblock-printed Diamond Sutra from Dunhuang, China, dating to the year of 868 and the earliest known printed book in the world, is one of the most important exhibits. British Library's Chinese specialist Emma Harrison told Xinhua that woodblock printing is one of China's greatest inventions and legacies to the world. Besides the Diamond Sutra, the British Library also displayed other Chinese exhibits such as Oracle Remnants, Shuowen Jiezi, ancient movable type printing and modern Chinese typewriters. It introduced the evolution of Chinese writing and printing from different angles across history. With many items going on display for the first time, a 3,600-year-old Ancient Egyptian limestone monument covered in hieroglyphs, which contains a hymn to the god of the netherworld, Osiris, is the oldest item in the British Library. In addition, William Caxton's first printing of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer from 1476-77, which is the earliest substantial book printed in Britain, is also on display. The exhibition "asks what the future holds for writing and how we will choose to make our mark in the decades to come," said Adrian Edwards, lead curator of the exhibition. There will be a series of events inspired by the exhibition, featuring leading experts exploring everything from hieroglyphics and alphabets to typography and tattoo. There will also be free school workshops, a range of inspiring adult courses including master classes on Japanese calligraphy and Ancient Greek, audio-description tours for visitors who are blind or partially-sighted and the Library's first autism-friendly private view of the exhibition. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 14:49:43|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close HAVANA, April 26 (Xinhua) -- The second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF), which is taking place in Beijing, marks a milestone for the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)'s future development and win-win cooperation worldwide, said Gladys Hernandez, a renowned Cuban economist. "It's a forum that brings together the most important international economic actors and developing countries under the idea of win-win cooperation, one of the fundamental premises in China's international collaboration with the world," Hernandez, a leading academic at Cuba's World Economy Research Center, told Xinhua in a recent interview. Hernandez, who has researched China's reforms and economy for over two decades, said the new development plans and agreements which come out of this meeting will be highly significant because they encompass a shared future for humanity. "These projects are alternatives against protectionism and unilateralism and a joint answer to international trade and cooperation by over 120 nations led by China," Hernandez added. The Cuban expert believes the BRI is poised to become one of the top international cooperation initiatives because it offers economic development, industrial development and shared technologies. "The BRI also has a strategic component which is the development of infrastructures like ports, airports, logistic areas and industrial parks. Connectivity is a key work within this initiative," said Hernandez. Building infrastructure of high quality, sustainability, reasonable pricing, inclusiveness and accessibility are key elements under the BRI, she said. The researcher cited railways and industrial parks built in Kenya and Ethiopia as examples, which have boosted economic development and social sustainability in those nations. Since the initiative was proposed six years ago, some 126 countries and 29 international organizations have signed BRI cooperation documents with China. Based on the principle of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits, the BRI has evolved from a Chinese proposal to a global consensus. The BRI is also an initiative that shares a number of principles of the new Chinese economic model for high-quality development, said Hernandez. The Cuban economist also said the initiative will be a cornerstone of Beijing and Latin America and the Caribbean ties. "Joint projects in Latin America are in line with the initiative's goals like infrastructure development, logistics, increased trade, cultural exchanges, people-to-people relations, expansion of innovation and technology," she said. Enditem Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 14:54:45|Editor: Xiaoxia Video Player Close MEXICO CITY, April 26 (Xinhua) -- Mexico will continue to help Central American migrants, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Friday. "We are helping our Central American brothers, both the people of the countries and the governments, in an attitude of fraternal collaboration," Lopez Obrador said in his daily press conference. His government will continue to give work visas to "those who want work opportunities," as well as protecting them from organized crime, he said. "So they don't become victims of abuse, so they are not assaulted by gangs, so they are not deceived by smugglers," he said. The migration phenomenon at the borders is a "complex matter" due to a lack of opportunities and jobs in Central America, the Mexican president said. He insisted that Mexico is not looking to have a confrontation with the United States, its neighboring country with which it "always wants to maintain a good relationship of friendship and cooperation." During the first three months of the year, more than 300,000 people have crossed from Mexico into the United States without proper documents, according to data from the Mexican government. Although migrants from Central America have been crossing from Mexico to the United States for years, the number increased at the end of 2018 with the formation of caravans. In the past few weeks, migrant caravans have strained relations between Mexico and the United States after U.S. President Donald Trump complained that it should stop the flow of migrants through its territory in light of the massive number of migrant caravans arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 15:04:57|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close FAIZABAD, Afghanistan, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Four Taliban militants were killed and two others injured as their explosive device exploded prematurely in Wardoj district of Afghanistan's northern Badakhshan province on Saturday, local police official Abdul Haq said. A group of armed insurgents, according to the official, were planting a mine on a road in Tirgaran area of Wardoj district when the device went off accidentally, killing four on the spot and injuring two others. Taliban militants who are heavily reliant on suicide and roadside bombings have yet to comment on the report. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 15:25:02|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close BEIJING, April 27 (Xinhua) -- The National Center for the Performing Arts (NCPA) will hold a music festival from May 2 to 18, presenting 18 concerts featuring wind music. The May Festival, established in 2009, enters into its 11th year. Themed "Wind Chamber Music in Spring," the festival invites famous wind musicians, including Paul Meyer, Gilbert Audin and Dai Zhonghui, to perform distinctive Chinese and foreign wind instruments in various styles. In addition, "Fanfare Overture" and "The Deer of Nine Colors," two symphonies by the reputed composer Tan Dun, will have their world premieres at the festival. Over 20 public welfare performances will take place from April 30 to the end of May in communities, malls and schools in Beijing, as well as in Tongzhou District, Beijing's sub-center, and Xiongan New Area. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 16:10:19|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close QALA-E-NAW, Afghanistan, April 27 (Xinhua) -- The security forces after weeks of fierce fighting were able to wipe out the militants in the restive Bala Murghab district of Afghanistan's western Badghis province and restore law and order there, said an army statement released here Saturday. According to the statement, the beleaguered district was utterly cleared of the armed insurgents early Saturday and the security personnel have been deployed in sensitive areas to ensure lasting peace there. The security forces, according to the statement, have also discovered and defused 50 explosive devices including anti-vehicle and anti-personnel mines during the cleanup operations in Bala Murghab district, north of provincial capital Qala-e-Naw, 555 km northwest of Kabul. Taliban militants who launched a massive offensive on Bala Murghab district weeks ago and captured major parts of the important area, have yet to make comment on the situation. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 16:30:25|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close PUL-E-KHUMRI, Afghanistan, April 27 (Xinhua) -- At least one protester was killed and four others wounded when a peaceful demonstration turned violent in Afghanistan's northern Baghlan province, an official said Saturday. "One dead and four injured persons were shifted to the provincial hospital late on Friday," Abdul Alim Ghaffari, the deputy provincial public health director told Xinhua. Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani formally inaugurated the country's new parliament amid tight security on Friday. It was the third Afghan parliament since the collapse of Taliban regime in late 2001 and the 17th parliament in the history of the country. The third post-Taliban parliamentary election was held on Oct. 20 last year and the election commission has yet to announce the final result of some of the constituencies. Blaming the election commission for committing corruption in the voting process, the protestors vowed to continue their protest until the transparency ensured in recounting the votes. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 16:35:47|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close Artist Sun Lixin poses for a photo at the Sun Lixin Ceramic Art Exhibition held in Prince Kung's Mansion in Xicheng District of Beijing, capital of China, April 27, 2019. About 60 pieces of porcelain made in recent years by Sun Lixin, the only one of the family's fourth generation to have inherited the blue-and-white painting skill, are on display till April 28 in Beijing-based Prince Kung's Mansion. A collection of blue-and-white porcelain paintings created by Sun featuring the ancient silk road are also exhibited to echo the Belt and Road Initiative. Combining exquisite craft with cultural elements of the ancient silk road including Dunhuang Feitian and camel bells, these porcelain paintings reflect the history and culture in regions along the route. Sun's love for porcelain dates back to the 1980s, when he followed the footsteps of his father Sun Tongxin, a then renowned porcelain artist, and secured a job at the state-owned Hongqi Porcelain Factory in Jingdezhen of east China's Jiangxi Province. As the factory went downhill and Jingdezhen suffered poor air quality in the 1990s, Sun went to Shenzhen to work as a designer. In 1998, Sun returned to his hometown and opened his own workshop "Sun Gong Yao", or Mr. Sun's Kiln, as a way to inherit the handicraft art of porcelain from his forefathers. Currently, "Sun Gong Yao" focuses on making porcelain of traditional styles, especially blue-and-white wares. Sun wishes his workshop could be a brand name with superior quality and a business model for others to follow in the future. (Xinhua/Cui Bowen) Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 16:35:27|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close DENVER, the United States, April 26 (Xinhua) -- At least four people were killed and 10 hospitalized in Thursday afternoon's fiery crash involving 28 vehicles on Interstate 70 (I-70), the major highway across Colorado. The accident occurred in Lakewood, a western suburb of Colorado's capital and eight miles (about 13 km) from downtown Denver. It was described by local officials as one of the worst vehicle crashes in the city's history. I-70 opened in both directions late Friday afternoon, more than a day after the deadly crash. "It is true carnage there -- as far as the debris -- what's left of cars and trucks along with the cargoes that were in the semi's," Lakewood Police Department agent Ty Countryman told local media. Countryman said an 18-wheel tractor-trailer truck carrying lumber, traveling at high speed, slammed into traffic that was stopped due to rush hour traffic -- triggering an explosion that incinerated several cars. "It was crash, crash, crash and explosion, explosion, explosion," Lakewood Police spokesman John Romero said at a briefing conference, describing a chain reaction of explosions from ruptured gas tanks that filled the Denver skies with black smoke. The driver of the 80-foot-long truck that caused the pile-up, Rogel Lazaro Aguilera-Mederos, 23, from Texas, was arrested and incarcerated on two counts of vehicular homicide-reckless driving, according to the police. Aguilera-Mederos is of Cuban descent and a permanent resident of the United States, and the police said he was cooperating with the investigation. Countryman told the media that there was no indication that drugs or alcohol played a role in the crash. A day after the crash, the police still had not announced those killed because their bodies had been burned beyond recognition. The Colorado Department of Transportation spent most of Friday milling out asphalt burned by the inferno and repaving a 100-yard section of the interstate. I-70 is a major east-west Interstate highway in the United States that runs from Baltimore, Maryland through Colorado into Utah, for 2,151 miles (about 3,462 km), and was built in 1956. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 17:10:44|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close CHENGDU, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Many people love dinosaurs, but perhaps not as much as the group of Chinese designers and craftsmen dedicated to making the perfect life-size dinosaur toys. The city of Zigong, in southwest China, is home to a Jurassic period site Dashanpu, where workers building a parking lot unearthed a large number of dinosaur fossils in 1979. The city's prehistoric ties with dinosaurs have nurtured the success of the animatronics production industry. Zigong has 19 companies making animatronic dinosaurs for theme parks and safaris in more than 60 countries and regions. Its annual export totaled 62 million yuan (9.25 million U.S. dollars) in 2018. Deng Peilin, a local in Zigong, knows a lot about the animal species that ruled the world long before humans did. As the owner of Zigong Dinosaur Landscape and Art Co., Ltd, Deng has become a successful businessman. His company makes over 1,000 life-size dinosaurs for clients both domestically and overseas each year. He is a frequent visitor of the Zigong Dinosaur Museum, built on top of the fossil site and home to the remains of almost all the dinosaur species who lived between 205 million to 135 million years ago. "Zigong was once a haven for dinosaurs. I've learned a lot from the fossils. The paleontologists teach me about dinosaurs so I can make them look as real as possible," Deng said. At Deng's factory, workers brush finishing paint on a gigantic tyrannosaurus to be exported to Jordan. Knowledge about dinosaurs helps Deng and his workers meet varied demands from customers. "For example, carnivorous dinosaurs have brightly colored skin, while a herbivore's skin looks less shiny and similar with the environment it lived in," he said. Deng has memorized the specifications of a lot of dinosaurs. "For example, the Omeisaurus lived in the middle Jurassic period of what is now China. An Omeisaurus tianfuensis was 22 meters long, while a Tyrannosaurus was usually 12 meters long," he said. "Sometimes customers ask us to inflate the size of animatronic dinosaurs," he said. The company's largest product was a Diplodocus, 23 meters tall with a 66-meter-long spine, doubling the size of a real Diplodocus. It was sold to a buyer in Ankara, Turkey. Zigong's animatronic industry started in the 1990s when a businessman from Taiwan invested in a production line to make props for theme parks. Deng was an art designer for the company. "Simulated animals were a huge success. I remember people got up at six o'clock in the morning to wait in line to buy a ticket to see an animatronic dinosaur. I made up my mind to open my own factory," he said. Over the years, materials and techniques used for making the dinosaurs have upgraded. Now they use aluminum alloy and stainless steel for bones, and high-quality silica gel and sponges for the skin. In Zigong, animatronic dinosaurs are still made by hand, and it takes as many as 26 steps to make them. To produce a single dinosaur, 10 to 20 people have to work for as many as 40 days. Besides dinosaurs, Deng and his colleagues make other animals. A gorilla and a mammoth will be shipped to Orlando in the United States, and several brown bears are ready to be sent to Guatemala. Manager Jiang Qiaoyu wants to get creative about the three-story-tall Tyrannosaurus. "I'm thinking of stuffing a used car into its mouth, which I think will make it look more stunning," he said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 17:45:59|Editor: Lu Hui Video Player Close BEIJING, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Green development was part of the consensus reached by countries attending the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF) in Beijing. At the forum, a series of cooperative documents on the joint pursuit of green development was signed, highlighting the focus on sustainability of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). "The Belt and Road is not just a road of prosperity, it is also a road of green development," said China's Minister of Ecology and Environment Li Ganjie at a thematic forum of the BRF. At the thematic forum, a proposal on green cooling was raised, which tries to enhance policy and standard coordination as well as technology exchanges among Belt and Road countries in the air conditioning industry. "The demand for cooling has been growing for people in countries and regions along the Belt and Road, posing potential environmental challenges that need to be addressed through collaboration," said Zou Ji, president of the Energy Foundation China, which helped initiate the proposal. China has called for advancing the BRI through open, green and clean approaches and achieving the development featuring high standards, livelihood improvement and sustainability. "The Belt and Road Initiative pursues the vision of green development and a way of life and work that is green, low-carbon, circular and sustainable," read a report published this month on the progress, contributions and prospects of the BRI. The commitment to green development in the BRI has attracted more global companies and associations to participate in the BRI. Mohamed Helal, vice president of Gizatec, an Egyptian company that focuses on eco-friendly fertilizer technology, said the BRI has provided a platform for companies with different advantages to work together to address environmental challenges. "It is important that countries can form strategic alliances through the Belt and Road Initiative to work on developing eco-friendly and low carbon emission technologies that are committed to climate change issues. These technologies are always found to be economical and more effective," said Helal. Davide Cucino, chairman of the China-Italy Chamber of Commerce, said that he is glad to see the forum put a lot of emphasis on high-quality development of the BRI. "High quality implies sustainability. We are not only talking about environmental and economic aspects but also social sustainability. These are the values we need to share when we do business," Cucino said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 18:01:07|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close MOGADISHU, April 27 (Xinhua) -- The United States military said Saturday its special forces conducted an airstrike against ISIS terrorists in northern Somalia on Friday, killing three militants. The U.S. Africa Command (Africom), which oversees American troops on the African continent, said the latest strike was conducted in cooperation with Somali government in the Golis Mountains. "This airstrike eliminated ISIS-Somalia members staged in a remote location in northern Somalia," Gregg Olson, U.S. Africa Command director of operations said in a statement. "Removing these extremists impacts ISIS-Somalia's ability to terrorize innocent Somalis in the region and it creates confusion within the terrorist network," Olson added. The Friday's strike was the second the U.S. army has executed against ISIS-Somalia this month. The first airstrike occurred on April 14, killing the second in command of ISIS-Somalia, Abdihakim Mohamed Ibrahim. Pro-IS militants split from al-Shabab in October 2015 and later occupied Qandala, a key location in Bari region under Puntland State Administration north Somalia since 2016. Africom said no civilians were injured or killed as a result of this airstrike, adding that a detailed post-strike analysis continues and more details may be released as appropriate. The strikes have largely targeted al-Shabab figureheads and based in southern Somalia where the group still maintains a strong grip in some regions. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 18:36:23|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close KATHMANDU, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Nearly 1 million Nepal's labour force are unemployed, a Nepali government's report, revealed on Friday. According to the Nepal Labour Force Survey 2017-18, unveiled Friday by Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), the main government body dealing with country's vital statistics, as many as 908,000 people out of total labour force of 7.99 million are unemployed. This represents unemployment rate of 11.4 percent compared to total labour force. Although Nepal has working age population aged over 15 years stands at 20.7 million, the survey has identified only 7.99 million people as labour force as they are either working or are trying to find a job where either they are paid or they get profit for engaging in the work. The survey showed that a large portion of working age population is still not in the labour force. "There is significant unemployment within the labour force too," Suman Raj Aryal, director general at CBS, told Xinhua on Saturday. Of total unemployed labour force, 56.3 percent are male, 43.7 percent are female. The report says high unemployment rate of male compared to female is not due to female are better employed. "This is due to under-representation of female in the labour force," the report states. The unemployment is also the urban phenomenon because 70.5 percent of total unemployed labour force is living in urban areas, according to the report. According to Aryal, a large portion of workforce in Nepal is unemployed because a significant portion of population is engaged in subsistence farming who are not considered as employed as per the new definition of employment. "This is due to lack of commercialization of agriculture sector in Nepal," he added. A container is unloaded from a ship at the 19th berth in Mombasa Port, Mombasa, Kenya, Jan. 9, 2017. Being East Africa's largest port, Mombasa port serves as an important logistic hub in the region, transporting containers to Tanzania, Uganda, South Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi and etc. China helped with its 19th berth expansion project which significantly improved the port's operational efficiency. Together with the under constructing Standard Gauge Railway which will connect Mombasa Port with Kenya's capital Nairobi, the port will help develop the economy of this country as well as the whole East Africa. (Xinhua/Sun Ruibo) NAIROBI, April 27 (Xinhua) -- China could play a key role in helping Africa to achieve the benefits of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), a Kenyan expert said on Friday. Economist Kennedy Manyala told Xinhua in Nairobi that intra-Africa trade faces a lot of challenges partly due to the high cost of transporting goods across borders. "China could play a crucial role in helping unlock the business potential of African Continental Free Trade Area, by helping the region bridge the huge infrastructure deficit in an affordable way," Manyala said during an AfCFTA policy forum. Manyala said that Chinese have emerged as one of the biggest financiers and contractors of road, rail and energy projects in Africa. "Some of these infrastructure projects link neighboring Africa countries and help to lower the cost of transport in the region," he added. He observed that lower cost of logistics will help to improve the competitiveness of products made in Africa. According to the economist, Chinese are also interested in setting up manufacturing facilities in Africa. "This is a positive move that could help Africa benefit from modern technology from China," he added, urging African states to tap into the huge Chinese consumer market. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 19:16:41|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close JERUSALEM, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Israel will release two Syrian prisoners after the remains of an Israeli soldier, who has been missing since 1982, were returned to Israel earlier in April, an Israeli government official said on Saturday. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed to Xinhua that two Syrian nationals imprisoned in Israel would be released. He did not elaborate on the identities of the prisoners or the date of their release. His remark came after Russian President Vladimir Putin's Special Envoy for Syria Alexander Lavrentiev told Russia's RT broadcaster that Israel has agreed to a swap deal to release Sergeant First Class Zachary Baumel, an Israeli soldier who died during Israel's invasion to Lebanon in 1982. Baumel's remains were found in a cemetery in Syria and were brought back to Israel about four weeks ago. Lavrentiev said that the return of Baumel's remains, brokered by Russia, "was not a one-sided move" but part of a swap deal. He added that Israel has agreed to release two Syrian prisoners in the near future. The Israeli official denied a swap deal, saying that the two Syrian citizens will be released "as a goodwill gesture" and the move was not agreed ahead of the return of Baumel's remains. Baumel went missing during a battle in Lebanon along with two of his fellow tank mates. Local residents walk on the platform of a light rail station in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Sept. 20, 2015. (Xinhua/Sun Ruibo) ADDIS ABABA, April 27 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese-built 34-km Addis Ababa Light Rail Transit (AALRT) network has transported more than 29 million people in just nine months, says the Ethiopian Ministry of Transport (MoT). In a report submitted to Ethiopian parliament, MoT said the AALRT has earned around 3 million U.S. dollars transporting more than 29 million passengers in Addis Ababa during the first nine months of the current Ethiopian Fiscal Year 2018/19, which started July 8. Commissioned in September 2015, AALRT is the first light railway in Africa built at a cost of 475 million U.S. dollars, with 85 percent of funding coming from the Export-Import Bank of China. Photo taken on Sept. 20, 2015 shows a train operating on the light rail in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.(Xinhua/Sun Ruibo) The rail project was constructed by China Railway Engineering Corporation Limited (CREC) and is currently operated by Chinese firm Shenzhen Metro Group Company. It is estimated that AALRT currently transports about 60,000 people daily, significantly reducing traffic congestion in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, home to around 4 million residents. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 19:21:47|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close BEIJING, April 27 (Xinhua) -- The Maritime Silk Road Index (STI) revealed more robust trade in March than in February between China and the countries along the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. The overall import and export index surged by 46.42 percent month on month to 146.49 in March, marking a rise of 11.89 percent year on year, according to the data released Friday by the Ningbo Shipping Exchange. The March sub-index for export jumped by 59.54 percent from February to 153.94, up 21.17 percent from a year earlier, while that for import reached 137.71, up 32.11 percent month on month and 1.65 percent year on year. The sub-index tracking the imports and exports between China and Southeast Asia surged by 57.93 percent from February to 148.65, the highest among all five region-specific sub-indexes. The sub-index for China and South Asia came in with the second-highest month-on-month rise of 33.84 percent in March, followed by 30.92 percent for China and Central and Eastern Europe, 30.85 percent for China and the Middle East and 29.16 percent for China and Red Sea region. Sub-indexes for containerized cargo, bulk cargo and liquid cargo all reported a month-on-month rise of more than 30 percent in March. According to an analysis of the exchange, China's trade with major regions along the 21st Maritime silk Road rebounded by varying degrees in March after a seasonal decline caused by the Spring Festival. The monthly index was officially launched in May 2017 to track the trade development between China and the major countries participating in the Maritime Silk Road cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 19:42:12|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close TOKYO, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Two knives were found bedside the classroom desk of Prince Hisahito, the 12-year-old grandson of Emperor Akihito, with police saying Saturday they are investigating security footage of an intruder entering the school grounds a day earlier. Police investigators said the two blades were found in Prince Hisahito's classroom at Ochanomizu University Junior High School in Tokyo's Bunkyo Ward on Friday. The police said, however, that no students were present in the room at the time the weapons were put there, as they were attending activities elsewhere in the school. According to video footage taken Friday, a middle-aged man wearing a blue uniform, possibly to disguise himself as a construction worker, and hiding his face with a helmet, entered the school premises. He is believed by the Metropolitan Police Department here to have left the knives near the classroom desk of Prince Hisahito. The incident comes less than a month after Prince Hisahito began his studies at the junior high school and ahead of next week's imperial succession. The imperial succession will mean Prince Hisahito will be second in line to the Chrysanthemum Throne following the abdication of his 85-year-old grandfather, Emperor Akihito, on Tuesday and the enthronement of Crown Prince Naruhito the following day. Investigators, while searching for the intruder, are also looking into whether the planting of the knives was in any way connected to the current imperial events involving the emperor's abdication and enthronement of Crown Prince Naruhito. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 19:52:19|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close DAMASCUS, April 27 (Xinhua) -- At least 17 government soldiers were killed and 30 others wounded on Saturday when the rebels attacked military positions in Syria's northern province of Aleppo, a war monitor reported on Saturday. The rebels' attacks in the southern countryside of Aleppo started on April 20 and extended to other nearby areas in the countryside of Hama and Idlib provinces, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The UK-based watchdog group also mentioned the Syrian government forces are shelling on the rebel positions in Idlib. It said the situation is escalating in those areas, including the demilitarized zones, where a deal established last September under the mediation of Turkey and Russia. The Observatory said the Russian airstrikes targeted rebel-held areas in Idlib on Saturday, noting that the airstrikes on Friday killed 15 people. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 19:52:20|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close DAMASCUS, April 27 (Xinhua) -- As many as 16,700 Syrian refugees have so far left Jordan and returned to Syria, a war monitor reported on Saturday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that those refugees returned home voluntarily. The Syrian refugees started returning in batches from Jordan since last October when the Nasib crossing between the two countries reopened. It's estimated that 1.4 million Syrian refugees are located in Jordan, according to Jordanian report. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 19:57:24|Editor: zh Video Player Close Photo taken on April 27, 2019 shows the inside view of the No. 5 nuclear power unit in Fuqing, southeast China's Fujian Province. Cold functional tests began Saturday on a reactor of China's first nuclear power project using Hualong One technology, a domestically developed third-generation reactor design. The test was conducted on a circuit of the No. 5 nuclear power unit in the city of Fuqing, to evaluate the performance of the circuit system and its supporting facilities under high-pressure conditions, according to the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC). (Xinhua/Wei Peiquan) FUZHOU, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Cold functional tests began Saturday on a reactor of China's first nuclear power project using Hualong One technology, a domestically developed third-generation reactor design. The test was conducted on a circuit of the No. 5 nuclear power unit in the city of Fuqing, eastern China's Fujian Province, to evaluate the performance of the circuit system and its supporting facilities under high-pressure conditions, according to the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC). The CNNC said the test started 50 days ahead of schedule. Hualong One reactors were jointly designed by two nuclear power giants, China General Nuclear Power Group and the CNNC, and passed inspection by a national panel in August 2014. China has since approved the use of Hualong One technology to build two reactors in Fujian, the No. 5 and No. 6 units. Bulgarian girls throw roseleaves to welcome guests during the Rose Festival in the Kazanlak city, the center of Bulgaria's Rose Valley, June 8, 2014. The annual Rose Festival is held in Kazanluk on the first weekend of every June, with activities including rose picking, dance performances and parade after the election of the Rose Queen. (Xinhua/Chen Hang) SOFIA, April 27 (Xinhua) -- China's Belt and Road Initiative is usually associated with massive infrastructure and trade investments, but for one Bulgarian entrepreneur, the prospect of joining the initiative is literally strewn with roses. For Mihail Mihaylov, head of Bulgarian Organirose Ltd., it all started in 2016 at Cosmoprof Worldwide, a leading beauty industry trade fair in Bologna, Italy. Mihaylov teamed up with partners from China to showcase facial masks -- a traditional method of facial care in China -- made from petals of roses, of which Bulgaria is famous. The country produces an average three tons of rose oil each year, which represents around half of global demand for this essential oil. COMBINING TRADITIONS Visitors and experts were equally appreciative, Mihaylov recalled in an interview with Xinhua, because such a product combining the traditions of two geographically remote cultures "had not been presented at such a big fair before." "Italy, the first Group of Seven member state to endorse the Belt and Road Initiative, has become our stepping-stone for Europe," Mihaylov explained, recalling the evolution of Organirose's marketing strategy. Back in 2016, Mihaylov's company concluded a contract with an Italian partner, and Cosmoprof's facial mask went on sale in Italy. The Italians tend to be "fashion-oriented," and they found the unique product from the company attractive and innovative, he said. Organirose's hydrating mask is recommended to be applied for 15-20 minutes, as opposed to moisturizing creams, which are normally dabbed or rubbed on the skin. The effect is much better, Mihaylov explained, as this way all the mask's active ingredients can seep into the skin. Rose water and rose oil have around 400 active ingredients, and their effect is highly beneficial, he said. Professional cosmetologists were also "very impressed with this combination of silky film, rose oil or rose water," Mihaylov said. Since the trade fair, many companies have begun to launch similar products. "Of course, none of them do it like us, with 100 percent natural rose water," Mihaylov claimed. "The combination of Bulgarian roses, facial masks and the Chinese tradition of using facial cosmetics turned out to be a hit among customers," Mihaylov said. A traditionally dressed picker collects rose at the Rose Valley near the town of Kazanlak, some 200 kilometers east of Sofia, capital Bulgaria, June 5, 2011. (Xinhua/Wang Meng) EASTWARD EXPANSION The oil-bearing rose Rosa Damascena was brought to Bulgaria from the Middle East more than 300 years ago. Technology for the production of rose oil has also been well developed in Bulgaria. Today, Italy is responsible for about 30 percent of Cosmoprof's business in Europe, and Mihaylov is busy exploring other markets along the Belt and Road route. In Romania, sales developed rapidly thanks to the two countries' geographic proximity, kindred mentality and Mihaylov's previous contacts. "There we have a very large distributor with its own big chain of stores and network that works very well," he said. Greece was the first country where his partners agreed to jointly establish a large chain of stores in several tourist destinations like Santorini and Mykonos, Mihaylov said. The first store is scheduled to open later this year. Mihaylov's next target is Russia, although this project is no bed of roses. "I have been in the business for over 20 years. At the beginning, the best cosmetics business was with Russia, but it has fallen to zero," he said, citing the trade embargo and very difficult payment, supply and import conditions as causes. "I very much want to have business with Russia, but unfortunately it is not possible for now. I hope the Belt and Road Initiative will create normal conditions for all types of relationships -- cultural, economic and people-to-people," Mihaylov said. Mihaylov first visited China 12 years ago to participate in a trade show. Today, he conducts the best part of his business with China, and his company's prospects are looking up. North Korea and trade topped the agenda for President Donald Trump's meeting Friday with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan. Trump was to welcome Abe to the White House for talks focused on trade and North Korea's nuclear program. The meeting follows Thursday's summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and President Vladimir Putin of Russia. Trump's second summit with Kim in Hanoi in February ended with no agreement. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 21:28:18|Editor: zh Video Player Close Wang Huning (R), a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and a member of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, meets with Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen in Beijing, capital of China, April 27, 2019. (Xinhua/Liu Weibing) BEIJING, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Senior Communist Party of China (CPC) official Wang Huning on Saturday met with Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen, who attended the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. Wang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and a member of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, said China is willing to work with Cambodia to jointly build the Belt and Road, deepen cooperation across the board, and bring more benefits to the two countries' peoples. Hun Sen said Cambodia is willing to better align its Rectangular Strategy with the Belt and Road Initiative and push forward the Cambodia-China cooperation to achieve more outcomes. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 21:38:24|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close BEIJING, April 27 (Xinhua) -- China concluded a joint naval exercise with Southeast Asian countries on Friday, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Daily reported Saturday. The three-day exercise was conducted in nearby sea areas and airspace of Qingdao, an eastern coastal city, with focus on jointly handling pirate threats and maritime emergency rescues. The exercise helps improve the understanding and trust among the navies, deepening their cooperation on defense and security of the sea, and contributes to the maintenance of regional peace and stability, according to the newspaper. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 21:53:27|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close ULAN BATOR, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Famous Chinese modern drama "Sunrise" was performed by Mongolian artists at Mongolia's State Academic Drama Theater on Saturday, as part of the celebration of the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries. Mongolian audiences were on the edge of their seats for two hours, watching the artists of the Mongol Tuurgatan Theater performing the "Sunrise" written by Chinese playwright Cao Yu. Speaking at the premiere of this play, Dorjsuren Munkhbat, director of the performing team, expressed gratitude to the Chinese Cultural Center in Ulan Bator for its support in staging the play. Art is the best way to learn more about other cultures, he said. The "Sunrise," published in 1936, is among the most frequent productions at China's famous theaters. In the play, the stories of several Shanghai women show their lives disintegrating in response to the lack of affection and acknowledgment by the society surrounding them, leading them down a tragic path from which they cannot escape. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 21:58:29|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close BEIRUT, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Lebanon's Tourism Minister Avedis Guidanian said on Saturday that Lebanon will host a tourism forum in May with the participation of more than 150 countries, local media reported. "The forum aims at boosting ties of the Lebanese private sector with foreign companies," Guidanian was quoted as saying by Elnashra, an online independent newspaper. The minister said that he will also take part in an exhibition soon in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where he will meet representatives from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE and other Gulf countries to promote the tourism in Lebanon. Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain and Kuwait warned in November 2017 their citizens against traveling to Lebanon because of a Lebanese-Saudi crisis caused by Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri's controversial resignation in Riyadh which he rescinded soon after. Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Walid al-Bukhari announced in February that Saudi has lifted the travel warning against Lebanon given the improved security in the country. The minister hoped to discuss with other countries on the possibility of removing the travel ban imposed on Lebanon. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 22:03:34|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close BEIJING, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping announced that extensive consensus was reached on promoting "high-quality cooperation" under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) at the closing of the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF) in Beijing Saturday. "We spoke positively of the progress and significance of the cooperation under the BRI. We shared the view that cooperation under the BRI has opened a gateway to opportunities for common prosperity," Xi said, when briefing the press about the outcomes of Saturday's roundtable meeting attended by leaders from 40 countries and international organizations. Proposed by Xi in 2013, the BRI has extended from Asia and Europe to Africa, Americas and Oceania, opening up new space for world economy with better-than-expected results. More than 150 countries and international organizations have signed BRI cooperation documents with China. At the roundtable meeting, the leaders enriched the concept of BRI cooperation and reaffirmed their commitment to a high-quality development path, while clarifying the priorities for the future cooperation and deciding to strengthen overall cooperation in all areas, according to Xi. "We all supported the idea of developing a global partnership for connectivity and agreed to strengthen cooperation mechanisms," he said. "We all supported more pragmatic cooperation to achieve more concrete outcomes." A total of 283 items of practical outcomes were achieved in the preparatory process and during the forum, and cooperation agreements worth more than 64 billion U.S. dollars were signed at a CEO conference during the forum, according to Xi. About 5,000 participants from more than 150 countries and 90 international organizations attended the forum. In a keynote speech at the forum's opening ceremony Friday, President Xi announced a package of proposals to advance high-quality development of the BRI, calling on the international community to join hands to work out a "meticulous painting" of the BRI. The principle of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits should be upheld, said Xi, stressing open, green and clean approaches, as well as goals of high-standard, livelihood-improving and sustainable development. Strong support was expressed by leaders and business people from outside China. Addressing the opening ceremony of the forum, Nursultan Nazarbayev, first president of Kazakhstan, said the BRI has "transcended the challenges of geography and unequal development," and China "has proven itself as a reliable, responsible partner in the international arena." Chairman of China-Italy Chamber of Commerce Davide Cucino said that nobody should doubt how positive the BRI idea is, and there is a heated discussion in Europe about how to join the BRI. "Sooner or later, all countries will embrace the initiative." The BRI's five pillars -- policy coordination, facilities connectivity, unimpeded trade, financial integration, and people-to-people exchanges -- serve as "conceptual pillars that can be translated into real-life progress for all people," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said at the opening ceremony. From 2013 to 2018, the trade volume between China and other B&R countries surpassed 6 trillion U.S. dollars, and China's investment in B&R countries exceeds 90 billion dollars. Thanks to the BRI, eastern Africa has its own expressway, the Maldives has its first inter-island bridge, Belarus can produce sedans and the number of freight trains between China and Europe is on the rise. The once rusted Greek port of Piraeus has become one of the world's fastest-growing container terminals. Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, attended the first BRF in 2017. Recalling the first forum, he described the BRI then as "still a child growing up." "Now the BRI has become an adult, which means that it has become an important factor in the global economy. It has grown up," he told Xinhua at the second BRF. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 22:03:39|Editor: zh Video Player Close Chinese Vice Premier Han Zheng (L), also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, meets with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in Beijing, capital of China, April 27, 2019. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi) BEIJING, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice Premier Han Zheng on Saturday met with United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who attended the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF) in Beijing. Han, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said that the second BRF had achieved important outcomes, and expressed gratitude to Guterres for his contributions to the forum. China firmly upholds multilateralism and the international system with the UN at its core, Han said, adding that the country is willing to constantly deepen cooperation with the UN across the board. China supports the UN in holding the climate change summit, Han said. Guterres extended congratulations on the success of the second BRF, and said that the UN endorses and supports the Belt and Road Initiative. The UN looks forward to working with China to support the developing countries in addressing climate change and achieving the sustainable development goals. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 22:03:40|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close NEW DELHI, April 27 (Xinhua) -- The Indian government Saturday issued a travel advisory to its citizens urging them to avoid non-essential travel to Sri Lanka in view of the recent serial bombings that killed over 250 people, including 10 Indians. "In view of the prevailing security situation in Sri Lanka in the aftermath of terror attacks last Sunday (April 21, 2019), Indian nationals intending to travel to Sri Lanka are advised not to undertake non-essential travel," a statement issued by Indian foreign ministry said. However, the ministry said those undertaking emergency travels to the island nation can contact Indian foreign ministry officials. The ministry said the government of Sri Lanka has beefed up security in the country. A nationwide emergency including night time curfew is in place at present which may also affect travel within Sri Lanka. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 22:23:49|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close COLOMBO, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Over 100 suspects have been arrested since last Sunday's explosions which targeted churches and luxury hotels in Sri Lanka, killing over 250 people and injuring over 500, police said on Saturday. Police spokesperson SP Ruwan Gunasekara said that 20 suspects had been arrested in search operations conducted within the last 24 hours, and raids were ongoing to search for more. The suspects had been arrested from across the island, he added. Police re-imposed a curfew for the seventh consecutive day, as abandoned explosives continued to be found. Gunasekara said the curfew would be re-imposed from 10 p.m. and would last till 4 a.m. Sunday local time. In the eastern town of Kalmunai where forces killed two gunmen and four suspected suicide bombers in an overnight gun battle, a curfew has remained in place since Friday evening. The curfew has been imposed on the outskirts of Kalmunai as well, the police said. President Maithripala Sirisena said on Friday that there were about 140 people suspected to have linked to the Islamic State group and assured all would be arrested in the coming days. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 22:34:03|Editor: yan Video Player Close Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) meets with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, April 27, 2019. (Xinhua/Huang Jingwen) BEIJING, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Saturday met with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, who attended the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing. China highly commends Italy's signing of a memorandum of understanding with China on jointly building the Belt and Road, taking the lead among major Western countries, according to Xi. The country is ready to work with Italy in advancing the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and make the bilateral relations a model of Belt and Road cooperation between China and European countries, Xi said. Xi called on both sides to firmly grasp the strategic significance of the bilateral ties, step up coordination and collaboration in improving global governance system and safeguarding free trade and multilateralism, and forge a new form of international relations featuring mutual respect, fairness, justice and win-win cooperation. Conte said the speeches delivered by Xi at the forum helped the international community understand the significant benefits of the BRI for the world. Italy is firmly committed to participating in the BRI, he said, adding that the initiative is a good opportunity for the world and more countries will join. Italy welcomes Chinese companies to invest in the country, and will not adopt discriminatory policies against them, Conte said, calling on the two countries to reinforce solidarity and cooperation, and safeguard multilateralism. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 22:54:17|Editor: zh Video Player Close Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan (R) meets with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan in Beijing, capital of China, April 27, 2019. (Xinhua/Zhang Ling) BEIJING, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan on Saturday met with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, who attended the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing. As a major pioneering project of the Belt and Road Initiative, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor has achieved important early outcomes, Wang said. Wang called on both sides to continue implementing the consensus reached by leaders of the two countries, strengthen cooperation in all respects, promote exchanges and mutual learning between the civilizations, and make the China-Pakistan relations more substantive and result-oriented in the new era. Imran Khan said Pakistan stands ready to work with China in developing the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and elevate bilateral ties to a new level. . - -300, -400 -500 - . ... Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 23:09:31|Editor: yan Video Player Close TEHRAN, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Iran traded 4.49 million tons of non-oil commodities worth 2.66 billion U.S. dollars with Eastern European countries during the 11 months to February, Eghtesadonline news website reported on Saturday. The figures registered a 31.77 percent rise in weight and 25.21 percent growth in value compared with the same period of the previous year. During the period, Iran's exports stood at 2.38 million tons worth 1.13 billion dollars and its imports stood at 2.11 million tons worth 1.53 billion dollars. Iran mainly exported liquefied natural gas, pistachios, bitumen, apples and tomatoes to Eastern Europe. Major commodities imported into Iran from those countries included sunflower oilseeds, barley, sheep carcasses and radio navigation devices. Russia's trade with Iran topped the list among Eastern European countries, with 2.23 million tons valued at 1.38 billion dollars. Major Iranian commodities exported to Russia were kiwis, apples, tomatoes and pistachios. Russia mainly exported nuclear reactor parts, field corn, barley and sunflower oilseed to Iran. Azerbaijan, Georgia and Ukraine were among other major trade partners of Iran in the Eastern Europe. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 23:14:35|Editor: yan Video Player Close BEIJING, April 27 (Xinhua) -- The National Center for the Performing Arts (NCPA) will stage a series of performances in May to mark the 110th anniversary of the birth of late Peking Opera virtuoso Yang Baosen. The performances, to be staged from May 16 to 19, will feature masterpieces of Yang starring famous Peking Opera performers, including students of Yang's school, from eight major opera troupes in China. Born in October 1909, Yang once learned performance from Tan Xinpei and Yu Shuyan and later developed his own approach of performance -- the Yang School -- with his unique artistic style in presenting middle-aged and old male characters. He was hailed as one of the four greatest performers of such characters of his time, on a par with Ma Lianliang, Tan Fuying and Xi Xiaobo, and the Yang School became one of the most influential styles in performing these characters. Yang died at the age of 49 in 1958. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-27 23:34:55|Editor: yan Video Player Close BEIJING, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Musical "Monsters in the Forbidden City" will hit the stage in Tianjin on May 1, marking the start of its national tour. Adapted from the children's book series of the same title by Chang Yi, a Bing Xin Children's Literature Award winner, the musical tells the adventures of Li Xiaoyu, a little girl who broke into the world of the monsters by mistake and became friends with a dragon's son. "I want children to know that mysterious stories happen around us, not just in Europe or the United States," said Chang Yi, original author and screenwriter of the musical. The musical will also tour other cities across the country, including Beijing, Dezhou, Shanghai, Handan, Zhuhai, Guangzhou, Zhongshan, Shenzhen and Nanjing. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-28 00:00:02|Editor: ZX Video Player Close CANBERRA, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Australia's opposition has pledged a significant tourism boost for Tasmania - one of the nation's top destinations for visitors - if it wins the general election. Bill Shorten, leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), visited Tasmania on Saturday to announce the 120-million-Australian dollar package, including 50 million AUD for Hobart's Museum of Old and New Art (MONA). If victorious in the election on May 18, a Labor government will fund developments at MONA including a convention center, library, auditorium and playground. "We want to back in the future of Tasmanian tourism, we want to back in the investment which has been made by private investors in MONA," Shorten told reporters, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). "Paris may have the Lourve, you've got the Guggenheim and other great international exhibits but it's Australia, not just Tasmania that has the MONA. "It's not only leading in Australia, it's leading throughout the world, and it's fun." According to Tourism Research Australia, 307,000 international tourists visited Tasmania in the 12 months to September 2018 - a 15-percent increase over the previous 12 months. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-28 00:05:04|Editor: ZX Video Player Close JERUSALEM, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Israeli media named on Saturday the Syrian prisoners who would be released in return for an Israeli soldier's remains, identifying them as a Fatah activist and a drug dealer. Hebrew-language Ynet news site identified the Syrian citizens as Ahmad Hamis, a 35-year-old Palestinian from the al-Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus, and Zidan Tawil, a 57-year-old man from the village of Khader. Hamis is an activist with the Fatah, the main branch of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, who was arrested in 2005 after crossing into Israel from Syria in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights. Israel's Haaretz newspaper reported that he attempted to infiltrate an Israeli military base in the Golan Heights in order to kidnap an Israeli soldier. The attack was planned to be a revenge for the killing of Khalil Ibrahim al-Wazir, also known as Abu Jihad, a co-founder of Fatah, who was assassinated by Israel in 1988. Hamis has been imprisoned in Israel for the past 14 years and was expected to be released in 2023. Tawil, imprisoned in Israel since July 2008, was part of a drug smuggling network, according to local Israeli media. He was convicted of trafficking drugs into Israel and was expected to be released in July. An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed to Xinhua that two Syrian nationals jailed in Israel would be released. However, the official denied the release is part of a swap deal, defining the move as a "goodwill gesture." The official did not elaborate on the date of their release. Russia's special envoy for Syria, Alexander Lavrentiev, told Russia's RT broadcaster earlier on Saturday that the expected release is the second stage of a Russian-brokered exchange deal. Under the deal, the remains of Zachary Baumel were returned to Israel some four weeks ago. Baumel went missing along with two of his fellow tank mates in a battle known as "the Battle of Sultan Yacoub" during Israel's invasion to Lebanon in 1982. Baumel's remains were found in a cemetery in Syria. His return was brokered by Russia, a key ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-28 00:25:12|Editor: ZX Video Player Close HELSINKI, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Antti Rinne, the chairman of the Finnish Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the likely next prime minister, on Saturday underlined European education issues as a key point during the Finnish EU presidency later this year. Interviewed on national television Yle, he said action is needed to compensate the exit of British universities from Europe, if Brexit happens. Rinne underlined that Europe can only succeed with know-how and education. He said university structures must be developed in the EU to secure basic research, "with unlimited resources through a European university network". A "Super-Erasmus" program would ensure stronger development of research. Erasmus is the name of a European student exchange system created in the late 80s. Rinne also said the EU must take the lead in defending the rules-based international cooperation and trade. In practice, this means strengthening the World Trade Organization and the United Nations. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-28 00:40:15|Editor: yan Video Player Close KIGALI, April 27 (Xinhua) -- The Rwanda Development Board (RDB) has signed a 25-year concession with a private company for the development of a conservation and tourism program in Gishwati-Mukura National Park in western Rwanda. Imizi Ecotourism Development Ltd, a subsidiary of conservation organization Wilderness Safaris, will develop and operate an exclusive chimpanzee and primate trekking experience under the Wilderness Safaris brand, RDB said in a statement on Saturday. As Rwanda's fourth national park, Gishwati-Mukura is made up of two separate forests -- Gishwati and Mukura -- forming a total of 34 square kilometers plus a buffer zone. It is home to a group of 20 chimpanzees which live alongside golden monkeys, L'Hoest's and blue monkeys. The park is currently part of a landscape restoration program, where activities are due to begin in 2019, according to RDB's Visit Rwanda website. The area was nearly depleted largely due to resettlement, illegal mining in the mineral-rich forest and livestock farming. The formalization of its national park status in 2015 aims to help redress the balance, to increase the number of trees to improve soil fertility, stabilize slopes and regulate stream flow. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-28 01:10:21|Editor: ZX Video Player Close A group of Taiji enthusiasts practice Taiji in Valletta, capital of Malta on April 27, 2019. The World Taiji (Tai Chi) Day was celebrated on Saturday in Valletta, with a series of Chinese Taiji performances. (Xinhua/Yuan Yun) VALLETTA, April 27 (Xinhua) -- The World Taiji (Tai Chi) Day was celebrated on Saturday in Valletta, capital of Malta, with a series of Chinese Taiji performances. Addressing the opening ceremony, Chinese ambassador to Malta Jiang Jiang said that the World Taiji Day has been held in Malta for many years, with the number of participants increasing year by year and the influence gradually expanding. "Practicing Taiji is not only to keep the body fit, but also an experience of the profound philosophy and the traditional Chinese culture," he added. Ryan Borg, head of Malta's Parliamentary Secretariat for Youth, Sport and Voluntary Organisations, said that "we are grateful of China sharing their heritage with us." Stating that there are no words to describe the health benefits and happiness of Taiji, Adrian Axisa, President of Malta Martial Art Association, encouraged that everyone should practice and appreciate Taiji. Around 150 local Taiji enthusiasts gathered in the Maltese capital to showcase various Taiji performances, attracting thousands of people. The event was hosted by the China Cultural Centre in Malta. Stranded passengers wait at the service counter of Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) at Arlanda Airport, Stockholm, Sweden, April 27, 2019. A total of 1,409 Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) pilots from Sweden, Norway and Denmark went on strike on Friday morning, causing 673 departures being canceled so far and over 70,000 passengers affected, Swedish News SVT reported. SAS warns that the continuing strike could affect a further 100,000 passengers over the weekend. (Xinhua/Wei Xuechao) STOCKHOLM, April 27 (Xinhua) -- A total of 1,409 Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) pilots from Sweden, Norway and Denmark went on strike on Friday morning, causing 673 departures being canceled so far and over 70,000 passengers affected, Swedish News SVT reported. SAS warns that the continuing strike could affect a further 100,000 passengers over the weekend. In the early hours of Friday morning, last-minute salary negotiations between SAS and the Swedish Air Line Pilots Association broke down. As a result, 492 Swedish SAS pilots went on strike, followed by 545 Norwegian and 372 Danish colleagues. "It is deeply regretful that the pilots strike will have a negative impact on our customers. SAS is prepared to continue to negotiate, but if the requirements were to be met, they would have very negative consequences for the company," SAS Director of Communications Karin Nyman said in a press release on Friday morning. Stranded passengers wait in front of the Departure board at Arlanda Airport, Stockholm, Sweden, April 27, 2019. A total of 1,409 Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) pilots from Sweden, Norway and Denmark went on strike on Friday morning, causing 673 departures being canceled so far and over 70,000 passengers affected, Swedish News SVT reported. SAS warns that the continuing strike could affect a further 100,000 passengers over the weekend. (Xinhua/Wei Xuechao) SAS is the leading airline in Scandinavia, operating a third of all flights to and from the region. According to SAS, about 70 percent of the company's flights are affected. Flights operated by SAS Ireland and SAS partner airlines will not be affected. Friday's strike follows unsuccessful salary negotiations between SAS pilots and their employer. According to SVT, an eleventh-hour bid offered on Thursday night included a salary increase of 2.2-2.3 percent, significantly lower than the 13 percent the pilots' union is demanding. SAS has offered passengers travelling on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday the opportunity to rebook their journey free of charge. It's unclear how long the strike will last, so passengers travelling in late April and early May are advised to check for updates on the situation. "Our first priority now is to take care of our passengers and at this moment in time, all SAS employees are doing everything they can to help customers affected," Nyman said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-28 04:31:20|Editor: ZX Video Player Close PARIS, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Two days after French President Emmanuel Macron offered additional concessions worth billions of euros, thousands of "yellow vests" marched across French cities on Saturday for the 24th weekend in a row, though with noticeable fatigue. The protest drew 23,600 participants countrywide, of which 2,600 were in the capital Paris, the second lowest turnout since the movement started five months ago, Interior Ministry estimated. Last Saturday, 27,900 people took to the streets across the country, including 9,000 in the capital. The number of protesters have dwindled over the past weeks. At its start in November of 2018, the movement had drawn 287,710 people. It has been losing steam after Macron offered 10 billion euros (11.15 billion U.S. dollars) to bolster purchasing power and make his fiscal policy fairer. On Thursday, presenting the conclusions of month-long national consultations, the president decided to silent criticisms of him being out of touch, pledging additional 5 billion euros to further cut income tax and help retired people enjoying higher pensions. Amid signs of weakening and as some want more convergence, hard-left trade union confederation CGT joined "yellow vests" in a calm rally, unlike violent scuffles of past weeks. Same atmosphere was reported in other French cities, notably in Toulouse, Bordeaux, Montpellier and Marseille. In eastern city of Strasbourg, however, tension flared when riot police fired tear gas to push back a group of demonstrators who tried to reach the barricaded neighborhood where the European Parliament is located. Videos showed hooded individuals torching several rubbish bins and throwing stones and other projectiles at the police, while the latter used tear gas to disperse them. The clash had led to the arrest of 42 people, according to regional authorities. The "yellow vest" movement, a nationwide protest against weak economic performance and stagnant income increase, started as a campaign against surge in fuel prices last November. It has since turned into a bigger uprising denouncing a squeeze on household spending, high living costs while demanding better participation in the country's democratic process, with some pressing the president to step down. (1 euro = 1.115 U.S. dollar) Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-28 04:46:29|Editor: ZX Video Player Close LONDON, April 27 (Xinhua) -- With more than 2,000 job opportunities, over 100 Chinese and British companies joined a high level talent fair here on Saturday. The 2019 UK-China High-level Talent Fair, held in downtown London, was crowded with overseas Chinese students and scholars from prestigious universities in the UK, as well as talents from France, Germany, Italy and other countries. Companies, research institutes and universities came from over 20 Chinese provinces and municipalities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Shandong, Hunan and Fujian. According to the fair's organizer UK China Talent Development Association, demands for talents mainly concentrate on the emerging fields, in particular, education, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, biomedical and new energy. This year's fair features a substantially increased proportion of Chinese enterprises based in the UK and British enterprises, as companies such as Bank of China (UK) Limited, China Certification & Inspection London Company Limited and Huawei reached out to applicants with competitive positions. Liu Xiaoming, the Chinese ambassador to Britain, said in a congratulatory message that the talent fair, in its second year, would continue broadening communication channels for Chinese and British talents, so as to attract these brightest minds to China. The fair also saw a round table discussion on innovation, entrepreneurship and education, attended by scholars and enterprise managers from Britain and China. The talent fair was supported by the Chinese Embassy in Britain and the Chinese Service Center for Scholarly Exchange. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-28 04:51:31|Editor: yan Video Player Close LOS ANGELES, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Several people have been shot and injured at a synagogue in San Diego, California, on Saturday, said San Diego County authorities. A man has been detained for questioning in connection with the shooting at the Chabad of Poway synagogue, said San Diego Sheriff's Department. "There are injuries," it tweeted. Deputies from the Poway station were called to Chabad Way, where the synagogue is located, just before 11:30 a.m. Those wounded were taken to Palomar Medical Center. Their conditions have not been disclosed so far. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-28 04:51:33|Editor: yan Video Player Close ADEN, Yemen, April 27 (Xinhua) -- At least six Yemenis, including three children, were killed on Saturday in a bombardment that targeted their vehicle in the southern province of al-Dhalea, a security official told Xinhua. The security source, who asked to remain anonymous, said that a car belonging to a citizen named Ali Maarshi was bombarded while traveling on a sub-road in Qatabah district, west of al-Dhalea, 245 km south of the country's capital Sanaa. He said that the unidentified bombardment led to the "killing of six civilians, including three children," and completely destroyed their vehicle. "Residents rushed to the bombardment site and recovered the victims but some of their bodies were torn apart," the source said. The area where the bombardment took place was a frontline of military confrontations between the pro-government forces and the Houthi fighters, he added. Local Yemeni government officials based in al-Dhalea province did not comment on the incident. The Houthis accused the Saudi Arabia-led coalition of targeting the civilian vehicle in al-Dhalea, according to the Houthi-affiliated Masirah television network. Over the past days, the Houthi rebels continued to achieve rapid military progress into Yemen's southern provinces following fierce battles with the Saudi-backed government forces. On Wednesday, scores of Houthi fighters launched a series of intense armed attacks on the positions of government forces and succeeded in seizing the district of Al Husha in the west of al-Dhalea. The areas in the north and west of al-Dhalea have been witnessing continuous fighting between government forces and Houthi fighters for nearly four years. Yemen has been plagued by a civil war since late 2014 after Houthi rebels revolted against the internationally recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. The rebels advanced from their far northern stronghold of Saada province toward the south, and seized control over much of the country's north including the capital Sanaa, thus triggering the civil war. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-28 05:21:47|Editor: yan Video Player Close TRIPOLI, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Libya's interior ministry on Saturday announced seizing an Iranian ship under U.S. and European sanctions off the coast of the western city of Sabratha. "We issued instructions to the port's security to gather information on the vessel and its procedures. It was found out that the ship is the Iranian SHAHR E.KORD," the ministry said in a statement. "The ship also turned out to be under U.S. and European sanctions," the statement said, confirming that the ship carried no illegal items. The ship was taken to the port of Misurata city, some 200 km east of the capital Tripoli, and all necessary procedures have been made, the ministry said, adding that the vessel is currently "under custody." Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-28 05:36:54|Editor: yan Video Player Close LOS ANGELES, April 27 (Xinhua) -- One person died and several others were injured at a synagogue in San Diego, California, on Saturday, San Diego County authorities confirmed. A man has been detained for questioning in connection with the shooting at the Chabad of Poway synagogue, said San Diego Sheriff's Department. Deputies from the Poway station were called to Chabad Way, where the synagogue is located, just before 11:30 a.m. Multiple law enforcement sources told local media that four people were shot. Poway Mayor Steve Vaus told media that the facility was targeted because it was a place for the Jewish community to gather. "I understand that this was someone with hate in their heart, hate for the Jewish community," he said of the shooter. Those wounded were taken to Palomar Medical Center. Their conditions have not been disclosed so far. The synagogue was hosting a Passover holiday celebration at 11 a.m. on Saturday, according to a post on its Facebook page. The Sheriff's Department asked the public to remain clear of the areas as the investigation will take several hours. "Please respect the medical privacy of victims and their families during this difficult time," it tweeted. It also asked the public not to spread misinformation that could cause concern or panic. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-28 06:02:08|Editor: ZX Video Player Close TRIPOLI, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Libya's state-owned National Oil Corporation (NOC) on Saturday condemned "militarization" of the country's energy infrastructure, as the capital Tripoli is witnessing violent clashes between the UN-backed government and the eastern-based army over control of the city. "NOC strongly condemns the militarization of Libyan national energy infrastructure, following a number of incidents in the past week, including capture of an NOC airfield, the attempted requisition of NOC tug boats, and use of oil terminals by warships and other military vessels," NOC said in a statement. NOC said it urged the Public Prosecutor to take all legal steps necessary to protect its staff and facilities, rejecting the use of oil facilities for military purpose or political bargaining. The eastern-based army, led by Khalifa Haftar, has been leading a military campaign since early April to take over Tripoli from the UN-backed government. The fighting has so far killed more than 270 people and injured more than 1,300 others, and forced more than 13,000 people to flee their homes. Libya has been struggling to make a democratic transition amid insecurity and chaos ever since the fall of former leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-28 06:07:12|Editor: yan Video Player Close KHARTOUM, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Sudan's Transitional Military Council (TMC) on Saturday condemned an attack by an unidentified group against a meeting of Sudan's opposition Popular Congress Party (PCP). "This hostile act is irresponsible and rejected," said the TMC in a statement. It noted that measures should be adopted to prevent recurrence of such acts and decisively face them. The TMC has been keen on security and stability in a manner that avails political exercise and peaceful expression for all parties without confrontation among the groups and entities at this delicate phase, said the statement. The TMC urged all parties to refrain from violence, assault on citizens and their properties and state utilities, saying "freedom is for everybody and must be exercised with the spirit of national responsibility so that our country would surpass this phase." Angry citizens on Saturday attacked a meeting for the PCP in the Sudanese capital Khartoum which resulted in injury of more than 60 PCP members, besides arrest of around 140 of the party members for hours. The PCP participated in the government of the ousted President Omar al-Bashir at the executive and legislative levels and was a supporter of the national dialogue initiative. The PCP political secretary Idris Suleiman said in a statement Saturday that a small group of young people were responsible of attacking the party's meeting. Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-28 06:27:18|Editor: yan Video Player Close LOS ANGELES, April 27 (Xinhua) -- One person died and three were injured at a synagogue shooting in San Diego, California, on Saturday, San Diego County authorities confirmed. A man has been detained for questioning in connection with the shooting at the Chabad of Poway synagogue, said San Diego County Sheriff's Department. Deputies from the Poway station were called to Chabad Way, where the synagogue is located, just before 11:30 a.m. Multiple law enforcement sources told local media that four people were shot. Poway Mayor Steve Vaus told media that the facility was targeted because it was a place for the Jewish community to gather. "I understand that this was someone with hate in their heart, hate for the Jewish community," he said of the shooter. Those wounded were taken to Palomar Medical Center in Escondido. Their conditions have not been disclosed so far. A spokesperson for Palomar Medical Center confirmed they received four patients, declining to give any more details. The synagogue was hosting a Passover holiday celebration at 11 a.m. on Saturday, according to a post on its Facebook page. A large group of congregants had gathered behind the temple following the shooting, said Sgt. Aaron Meleen of the San Diego County Sheriff's Department. It was unclear so far how many people were attending services. Some children were initially reported missing, he said, but they have been found. "As you can imagine, it was an extremely chaotic scene with people running everywhere when we got here," he told reporters. The Sheriff's Department asked the public to remain clear of the areas as the investigation will take several hours. "Please respect the medical privacy of victims and their families during this difficult time," it tweeted. It also asked the public not to spread misinformation that could cause concern or panic. In Los Angeles, police said they were closely monitoring the synagogue shooting in Poway and "communicating with our local, state and federal partners." "At this time, there's no nexus to Los Angeles, but in an abundance of caution, we will conduct high visibility patrols around synagogues and other houses of worship," the Los Angeles Police Department tweeted. Russia-backed militants violated the ceasefire regime 13 times in the Donbas combat zone today on April 26. As a result of the attack, two Ukrainian servicemen were wounded. The Joint Forces Operation (JFO) HQ reported this on Facebook. The occupant fired with the Minsk-banned weaponry, in particular with 120 and 82 mm mortar. The enemy shelled the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine with weaponry of the infantry fighting vehicle, anti-tank missile complex, grenade launchers of various system, heavy machine guns, and small arms. The Ukranian soldiers stopped the fire by opening fire as well. The enemy's casualties have been checking. The situation in the Joint Forces operation remains under control of Ukrainian Armed Forces. Earlier today, the occupant fired the houses of Chermalyk village in Donbas combat zone. The enemy used the mortar. The OSCE observers spotted the gunshot residue in Chermalyk village during the monitoring of territories 300 meters far from the demarcation line. The traces were found on the wall of the building 15 meters far from the residential house. According to the report, the damage was inflicted by the enemys shelling with the special weaponry. In 2018, Gazprom rejected the possibility of extending the contract with Naftogaz for the transit of gas across Ukraine Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia Open source Ukraines gas supply is completely dependent on the transit of the Russian gas through its territory. Russian President Vladimir Putin said that at a press conference in Beijing, Interfax-Ukraine reports. "And if there is no transit? You understand that then there will be no reverse. After all, reverse is virtual. There are branches of the transit gas pipe to the whole of Ukraine. These are absolutely well-known things for professionals, the public just may not understand it.... There is no real reverse! There is gas transit to Europe, branches from transit gas pipes go to the whole territory of Ukraine. Then it is written on papers that it is a reverse. Imagine that there is no transit. So then there will be no gas supply to Ukraine. This is a serious issue!" Putin said. Earlier Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Pavlo Klimkin stated that Ukraine prepared new package sanctions against Russia due to Putins order on the issuance of the Russian passports to the Ukrainian citizens of Donbas. Klimkin stated this on the air of Inter TV channel, as MIA reported on its Twitter. The diplomats are actively working on the creation of the new wave of political pressure on the Russian Federation. They also are preparing the new package of Ukrainian sanctions against Russia: the sectorial and economic ones, Klimkin said. According to the report, Ukraine will insist on the implementation not of the personal sanctions, as it was after the aggression at the Kerch Strait, but of the most rigid sanctions, in particular, the sectorial and economic ones. Ukraines Minister of Foreign Affairs added that those people can be persons and companies who are the basis of the Kremlin regime. Russian President Vladimir Putin Open source In case of loss of gas transit from the Russian Federation, Ukraine will not be able to organize its virtual reverse, despite the fact that direct deliveries would cost Kyiv twice as cheap. This was stated by Russian President Vladimir Putin, reports "TASS" agency. Putin noted that he would like to understand Kyivs plans as to whether a new agreement on gas transit from the Russian Federation through Ukraine would be signed after all. And if there is no transit? You understand that then there will be no reverse. After all, the reverse is virtual ... This is nonsense, this is deception - there is no real reverse, Putin said. He explained that it is impossible, for example, to launch gas in the averse mode in the morning - in transit to Europe, "and to turn into reversing mode at night - it is technologically impossible." Open source Friday morning, three trucks of the Russian Emergencies Ministry with blue emergency lights passed through the checkpoint in the controlled part of the border of Ukraine to the occupied territories. The press service of OSCE reported this. April 26, the observers spotted three vehicles with the sign the Ministry of Emergencies of the Russian Federation at the checkpoint Donetsk (Rostov region). The trucks were crossing the border from Russia to Ukraine, the report said. It should be noted that the means of transport arrived from the territory of the Russian Federation. Trucks passed to the Ukrainian territory without opening tents through a lane designed for those leaving Ukraine for the Russian Federation. Besides, according to the report, the vehicles had blue flashing lights with registration numbers of the Rostov region of the Russian Federation. The members of the Local Orthodox Church of Ukraine could not attend the meetings at the Jerusalem Patriarchate. This was reported by the Vesti correspondent from Jerusalem on the eve of Orthodox Easter. They cannot even hold prayers with representatives of other Orthodox churches. They will have expected problems even with the approach to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. In order to get closer to the place where the Holy Fire comes down, they need special badges, he said. According to the policemen who guard the church, the badges specially and in advance (for six months earlier) were given to those believers who can get close to the place where the Holy Fire will condescend. 13 bodies of miners, who died during the explosion in the coal mine SkhidKarbon, were taken to the surface in Yurivka village of occupied Luhansk. RBC reported this, referring to the press of the occupied territories. According to the report, four miners remain under the rubble, and it is still unknown where they are. A number of explosions occurred at SkhidKarbon coal mine near Luhansk on the occupied territory of Luhansk region, eastern Ukraine. The blasts reportedly took lives of 19 people. TASS reported this, citing the Emergency Ministry of the Russian Federation. Officers of Russias Emergency Ministry headed for the accident scene on request of the so-called Luhansk Peoples Republic that controls the area. SkhidKarbon is the only mini-mine on the territory of Lutuhyne Raion in Luhansk region. Due to hostilities, the mine wasnt operating since 2014, however, production operations were resumed in January 2018. Ukrainian oligarch Igor Kolomoisky says he is ready to advise future president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky. This is reported by the Russian channel NTV. When asked in what status the oligarch plans to work with Zelensky, Kolomoisky replied: "Well, at best, I can give him a piece of advice on something." I am ready to help him with advice and sometimes I help him, but this is not a mass phenomenon, he added. He added that he had last called Zelensky "two-three days ago" (the interview was published on April 27, but it is unknown when the conversation took place). The President of the Russian Federation wants to discuss the ways of settling down the conflict in Donbas Russian President Vladimir Putin Open source Russian President Vladimir Putin does not rule out the possibility to meet the newly elected president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky in person. Putin stated this at the press conference in Beijing on April 27, as Izvestia reported. According to the report, Putin claimed he would speak about the ways of solving the Donbas crisis during the meeting if it takes place. In particular, the President of the Russian Federation stated he was ready to discuss with Zelensky the ways of settling down the conflict in Donbas without abiding by the Minsk agreements. He pointed out he was interested in the position of the newly elected Ukrainian president concerning the Donbas crisis. Earlier, Volodymyr Zelensky's team advises the president-elect not to meet Russian leader Putin in person. The team's defense and security expert said he did not believe Putin, who would 'guarantee things' during a personal meeting. He assumed that one could only believe the Russian leader if 'powerful states', namely Great Britain and the U.S. are involved in the negotiation process. PLEASE NOTE! Due to the March 23, 2020 NM DOH Public Health Order, These Event Listings Are Not Accurate! All non-essential businesses are closed, public gatherings are prohibited! (One day some of these events will be rescheduled or will resume, but they are not happening now!) 19:07 | Curitiba (Brazil), Apr. 26. "Barata says he (Toledo) had asked for bribes for the Stretches 2 and 3. He had also asked (for bribes) to another consortium. Logically, this means he may have asked for two bribes," Prosecutor Juarez told reporters following the audience. Intersur consortium composed of Camargo Correa, Queiroz Galvao, and Andrade Gutierrez was in charge of building the South Interoceanic Highway's Stretch 4. Likewise, Barata stated that Toledo's ex-presidential security team chief Avi Dan On had asked him on more than one occasion to talk with Intersur so they would pay the agreed bribe. Positive balance Moreover, Juarez informed they do not expect to receive further statements from Barata, who must appear at oral trials once the investigation reaches that phase. Prosecutor German Juarez on Friday affirmed ex-President Alejandro Toledo (2001-2006) had requested a bribe for the construction of the South Interoceanic Highway Project's Stretch 4 executed by Intersur consortium according to information provided by former Odebrecht representative in Peru Jorge Barata.Published: 4/26/2019 " " Nile Crocodiles Retiring to South Florida? Carousel: Anup Shah/Photoview Plus/David Sacks/Getty; Video: HowStuffWorks An April 2016 study in the journal Herpetological Conservation and Biology has confirmed the presence of Nile crocodiles (Crocodylus niloticus), native to Africa, in South Florida. These massive, predatory beasts can grow up to 20 feet (6 meters) long and weigh more than 1,600 pounds (725 kilograms). The possibility of Florida becoming host to an invasive population of Nile crocodiles is somewhat frightening, given their reputation as a predator of large mammals, including human beings. In their natural range, they are responsible for hundreds of attacks on humans every year. Advertisement Fortunately, the researchers only found three so far, and they suggest there's no evidence of an established, reproducing population in Florida. But at least one of the introduced crocodiles was an animal that was recaptured after several years in the wild, during which it not only survived, but grew 28 percent faster than some Nile crocodiles in their natural range. So it seems possible that South Florida would make a more-than-suitable home for any population of Nile crocodiles attempting to become a permanent part of the local fauna. So how did these African crocodilians arrive in North America? There's no chance they swam across the Atlantic Ocean, so someone must have brought them. Identical genetic markers demonstrate that at least two of the animals sampled in the study were directly related to one another, meaning they probably came from the same source. But what was that source? Nobody knows, but researchers suspect the pet trade. If you personally feel the temptation to import an apex predator from one continent to another, ecologists would urge you to reconsider. There are many introduced and invasive species already thriving in the state of Florida. The Everglades in particular are home to many invasive plants, fish and reptiles. For example, South Florida is today dealing with an invasive population of Burmese pythons, which prey on local wildlife and can do great damage to the local food web. It's worth emphasizing that if you're a resident of South Florida, there's no reason to panic about invasive man-eating crocodiles just yet. There is not currently a known danger of Nile crocodile attacks in Florida, but if you're really concerned about how to be safe in croc-infested areas, here are a few tips. First: If you see a crocodilian, do not go near it, and definitely don't try to capture or kill it. No good will come of this. Move away and alert the relevant authorities. Second: Avoid water. More than 92 percent of Nile crocodile attacks occur in the water, during swimming, wading or just being at the water's edge. This general principle holds true for other species of crocodilians as well if you're not sure whether water is safe for swimming or wading, stay out. Advertisement Advertisement YEREVAN, APRIL 26, ARMENPRESS. Kremlin positively reacted to US President Donald Trumps call addressed to Russia, the United States and China for giving up nuclear weapons, but added that there is no information yet about the details and content of this initiative, Russian presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Vedomosti, reports RIA Novosti. Earlier Trump told Fox News that the US, Russia and China should give up nuclear weapons. Today I saw how Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that he is happy for the opportunity to help the US together with Kim Jong-un and North Korea. We want to get rid of the nuclear weapon. China and Russia should get rid of that, Trump said. In his turn Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov announced that Moscow welcomes Trumps call addressed to Russia, the United States and China for giving up nuclear weapons. In a situation where the role of nuclear weapons in US doctrine-related documents and their gradual transition to a class of weapons that can be used on the battlefield such statements can be only welcomed, he said, as quoted by TASS. YEREVAN, APRIL 27, ARMENPRESS. Citizens Day is being celebrated in Armenia for the first time on the last Saturday of April, reports Armenpress. A number of events are scheduled on this Day across the Republic. On April 9 the Parliament adopted the bill on making amendment in the Law on Holidays and Remembrance Days. According to the bill, last Saturday of April would be celebrated as the Day of Citizen of the Republic of Armenia. In case when May 1 coincides with Saturday, the Citizens Day will be celebrated on the last Sunday of April. The Armenian government has provided 124 million drams from the reserve fund for the holding of events on the occasion of the Day of the Citizen. The funds will be used for properly holding events on this day in Yerevan and all provinces of Armenia. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, APRIL 27, ARMENPRESS. The US State Department has urged the American citizens to reconsider travel to Sri Lanka due to terrorism. In a statement the State Department ordered the departure of all school-age family members of US government employees in Kindergarten through 12th grade. Terrorist groups continue plotting possible attacks in Sri Lanka. Terrorists may attack with little or no warning, targeting tourist locations, transportation hubs, markets, shopping malls, government facilities, hotels, clubs, restaurants, places of worship, parks, major sporting and cultural events, educational institutions, airports, hospitals, and other public areas, the statement says. Nearly 321 people have been killed in the terror attacks during Easter celebrations in Sri Lanka. The Islamic State terrorist group claimed the responsibility for the attacks. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, APRIL 27, ARMENPRESS. On the Day of the Citizen in Armenia, the Presidential Office hired another citizen, Liparit Melkonyan, who was wounded and became disabled while defending the Homeland, reports Armenpress. A year ago President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian has made a call to assist the defenders of the homeland. The talk was about providing soldiers, who were wounded and became disabled while defending the homeland, with jobs. As an example, as a moral duty, the Presidents Office made this step months before by hiring soldier Gor Darmanyan who receives treatment in the Rehabilitation Center for the Defender of the Homeland and has professional skills. President Sarkissian also stated that this process will be continuous. And today, on the Citizens Day in Armenia, another defender, Liparit Melkonyan, starts working at the Presidential Office. Another citizen of Armenia is provided with job. Lets continue assisting our soldiers, who sacrificed their health for the peace and security of our country and all of us, by providing them with jobs, the Presidential office said in a statement on Facebook. Citizens Day is being celebrated in Armenia for the first time on the last Saturday of April. A number of events are scheduled on this Day across the Republic. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, APRIL 27, ARMENPRESS. Secretary of the Security Council of Armenia Armen Grigoryan says for him the Citizens Day is one more chance to talk to the citizens and listen to their issues of concern. This day is another chance to appreciate the citizen and talk about the role of the citizen. Its also an opportunity to meet with the citizens and listen to their issues of concern. Its another opportunity to appreciate the citizen and talked to him/her. For me a citizen is perfect who talks about the problems, is active and tries to control and be demanding to the leadership, he told reporters. Citizens Day is being celebrated in Armenia for the first time on the last Saturday of April. A number of events are scheduled on this Day across the Republic. On April 9 the Parliament adopted the bill on making amendment in the Law on Holidays and Remembrance Days. According to the bill, last Saturday of April would be celebrated as the Day of Citizen of the Republic of Armenia. In case when May 1 coincides with Saturday, the Citizens Day will be celebrated on the last Sunday of April. The Armenian government has provided 124 million drams from the reserve fund for the holding of events on the occasion of the Day of the Citizen. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, APRIL 27, ARMENPRESS. Today I am here as a citizen, not as a Prime Minister, Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan told reporters on April 27 on the occasion of the Day of the Citizen. The PM asked the journalists not to ask questions on this day. Nevertheless, the reporters managed to get the responses of several questions. Asked to what extent it was right to provide 124 million drams for holding the events on the Citizens day, if it was possible to spend these sums in another direction, the PM stated: Sums will be spent on other directions as well. This year the citizen overfulfills the budget revenues by 40 billion drams. Pashinyan added that the money provided by the government from the budget will also be equally spent in the provinces. Asked what has changed in his life within a year, Pashinyan said with a joke: This has changed in my life that I cannot walk freely in my home town. Photos by Tatev Duryan Citizens Day is being celebrated in Armenia for the first time on the last Saturday of April. A number of events are scheduled on this Day across the Republic. On April 9 the Parliament adopted the bill on making amendment in the Law on Holidays and Remembrance Days. According to the bill, last Saturday of April would be celebrated as the Day of Citizen of the Republic of Armenia. In case when May 1 coincides with Saturday, the Citizens Day will be celebrated on the last Sunday of April. The Armenian government has provided 124 million drams from the reserve fund for the holding of events on the occasion of the Day of the Citizen. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, APRIL 27, ARMENPRESS. Within the framework of the working visit to Uruguay, the delegation of Artsakh met with members of the Nagorno Karabakh Forum in Uruguay established in 2016 at the initiative of a group of legislators, public figures and scholars, the Artsakh MFA told Armenpress. Head of the delegation, Foreign Minister of Artsakh Masis Mayilian noted the importance of the Forums activities and expressed conviction that its efforts would continue to be effective in protecting Artsakhs interests and fostering awareness of the Republic of Artsakh in Uruguay, as well as promoting the development of bilateral and multilateral relations between Artsakh and Uruguay. At the request of the forum members, Masis Mayilian briefed on the processes of international recognition and decentralized cooperation of the Republic of Artsakh. During the meeting, the sides exchanged views on the activities of the Forum. Further steps towards the international recognition of Artsakh and the expansion of cooperation with Uruguay were outlined. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, APRIL 27, ARMENPRESS. Anna Hakobyan, spouse of Armenias Prime Minister, chairwoman of the Board of Trustees of My Step and City of Smile charity foundations, on April 27 hosted the representatives of the Board of Governors of the Armenian Bar Association located in Los Angeles famous lawyers Garo Ghazarian, Karnig Kerkonian and Executive Director of the Tufenkian Foundation Raffi Doudaklian. The meeting was also attended by Executive Director of the My Step foundation Hovhannes Ghazaryan, Mrs. Hakobyans Office told Armenpress. Garo Ghazarian and Karnig Kerkonian thoroughly introduced their activities and expressed a wish to cooperate with the My Step foundation in the legal sector. Anna Hakobyan thanked the lawyers and proposed to organize training courses for the Armenian students in the legal field within the framework of the My Step foundations educational program. Garo Ghazarian in turn noted that their union has carried out a number of educational programs with the Yerevan State University (YSU) and the Artsakh State University, thus the cooperation in this field can bring serious results. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, APRIL 27, ARMENPRESS. The Day of the Citizen is the day of establishment of power of the people of Armenia, Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan told ARMENPRESS, adding that he is taking part in the Citizens Day celebrations together with his daughter Sofi. I think this Day is the day of establishment of the power of the Armenian citizen and the Armenian people in general. From the early morning I am touring the city with my daughter because we have planned to spend this day in this way, the deputy PM said. He informed that he has already taken part in several events. My daughter enjoys participating in these events and doesnt want to go home, he said. Citizens Day is being celebrated in Armenia for the first time on the last Saturday of April. A number of events are scheduled on this Day across the Republic. On April 9 the Parliament adopted the bill on making amendment in the Law on Holidays and Remembrance Days. According to the bill, last Saturday of April would be celebrated as the Day of Citizen of the Republic of Armenia. In case when May 1 coincides with Saturday, the Citizens Day will be celebrated on the last Sunday of April. The Armenian government has provided 124 million drams from the reserve fund for the holding of events on the occasion of the Day of the Citizen. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, APRIL 27, ARMENPRESS. Speaker of Parliament of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan participated in the Citizens Day celebrations in Yerevan on April 27, the Parliament told Armenpress. Congratulating the citizens on their Day, the Speaker of Parliament said today the values, which are based on the recent revolution of Armenia and enshrined by the Constitution, are being strengthened. He highlighted the rights, freedoms of the citizens and their protection. The revolution was really the victory of the citizen, and this day aims at strengthening and valuing this victory, Speaker Mirzoyan said. Ararat Mirzoyan toured the streets of Yerevan with his family. He talked to the citizens and tourists in Armenia. Citizens Day is being celebrated in Armenia for the first time on the last Saturday of April. A number of events are scheduled on this Day across the Republic. On April 9 the Parliament adopted the bill on making amendment in the Law on Holidays and Remembrance Days. According to the bill, last Saturday of April would be celebrated as the Day of Citizen of the Republic of Armenia. In case when May 1 coincides with Saturday, the Citizens Day will be celebrated on the last Sunday of April. The Armenian government has provided 124 million drams from the reserve fund for the holding of events on the occasion of the Day of the Citizen. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, APRIL 27, ARMENPRESS. The dates of the next meeting of Armenian foreign minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan and foreign minister of Azerbaijan Elmar Mammadyarov are not clarified yet, the Armenian FM told reporters today. We had several discussions, outlined how we are going to implement the next step, how it will be, where it will take place and etc. But the hosting side will decide and determine the dates and location of the meeting, and when the hosting side invites us, we will be able to announce in an agreed upon way that time, he said. The last meeting of the Armenian and Azerbaijani FMs took place on April 15 in the Russian capital of Moscow. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan Earlier, at a dramatic media conference in parliament house in Port Moresby late Friday morning, broadcast live throughout PNG, six of ONeills closest supporters in the ruling Peoples National Congress dropped a bombshell. And as for ONeill, in an audio statement released from Beijing Friday evening he reassured supporters that his coalition still had plenty of numbers in parliament and was well able to continue as a stable government. With a parliamentary vote of no confidence to be brought on in a little over a week from now, PNGs eight million people wont be kept in suspense much longer. In the wake of the exit of many of his high profile political cronies, and with more MPs likely to follow, can prime minister Peter ONeill hang on to his leadership? NOOSA Political turmoil is not unknown in Papua New Guinea but it's the only story occupying people's attention this weekend. They collectively announced their resignation from the party setting up a showdown when parliament sits. In quitting, they followed the footsteps of onetime ONeill confidante and PNG finance minister James Marape, who had walked a fortnight before hurling a long laundry list of complaints at his former colleague. Each of the leaders, sitting in a row facing a huge media contingent, delivered a homily on why they were exiting and all grasped the money quote from William Powi that this is a private sacrifice for public good. Given previous political experience in PNG, that virtuous rhetoric has yet to be observed in practise. Behind a string of tables covered by what looked like a bed sheet and many corded microphones were Enga governor Sir Peter Ipatas, Southern Highlands governor William Powi, Hela governor Philip Undialu, Jiwaka governor Dr William Tongap, former attorney-general and Esaala (Milne Bay) MP Steven Davis, and vice-minister for petroleum and energy and Komo-Magarima (Hela) MP Manase Makiba. James Marape was absent and this was noticed, with Undialu explicitly challenging him to follow their example and join the group. More on this later It was interesting, though, to listen to each of these influential figures offer their rationale on why they were deserting ONeill at this time. In these explanations, corruption loomed large. It would be wrong to write that none of these leaders has ever benefited from corruption, but it seems that its great scale under the ONeill government of which they have been such a prominent part for many years - has proven too much even for them. Corruption was specifically mentioned in remarks by Ipatas, Undialu, Davis and Makiba as were the related issues of law and order and institutional decline. Another key issue was what the leaders saw as a failure by ONeill to effectively share power - and equitably share the benefits from major mining projects. Landowners in particular have been dudded - but so have the people of PNG more generally. Greedy politiciand and resource companies . The extremely high level of overseas loans, public service salaries and service delivery were also mentioned as troubling matters for these senior national figures. Enga governor Ipatas, who along with Marape and Sam Basil must be looked upon as a possible successor to ONeill, said that the two outstanding issues for him were the lack of consultation and consensus in the delivery of services and corruption in the government, which he said had reached unprecedented levels in recent years under Peoples National Congress rule. Southern Highlands governor Powi a provincial colleague of ONeill said a fundamental issue of national importance was the continuous failure of the prime minister to strengthen provincial and local level governance and empower the people. He said the PNG constitution made it clear that elected leaders have a moral obligation to the people they represent and this has been greatly undermined by the current political and administrative structure in PNG. Hela governor Undialu said bluntly that his own resignation was the result of the government failing to honour its commitments under the PNG LNG project. It has not delivered the promised royalties, grants and other funds under a whole range of agreements. I cannot be continue to be like a fool in front of my people who are yet to see real and tangible benefits in terms of promised project, funds and others, he said. "Hela is the host province of the over K40 billion first LNG project but there are many unanswered questions that continue to haunt this government. Undialu pointed out that, since the first shipment of gas five years ago, over K70 billion had been earned but the ONeill government was not telling the country where the money was parked and why. Where is all the money earned from the PNG LNG project and revenue from forestry, fisheries and other exports? he asked. Im very frustrated that the prime minister has gone away to China yet again to borrow money, placing a huge burden on our people - this and future generations who will repay the debt. Why do we have to still continue to borrow, when we are so blessed with abundant natural resources? Why have we not learnt from the first PNG project? All good questions. Former attorney-general Davis blamed the current leadership of failing to put in place anti-corruption measures or to promote and strengthen the rule of law. Makiba said he resigned from Peoples National Congress because, as vice-minister for petroleum and energy, he clearly witnessed breaches in the recent signing of the Papua LNG agreement. Three day before signing I opposed it because certain procedures were not complied with. My view is that, in such important investments, members of parliament together with provincial and local level government leaders must be given the opportunity to have their views [considered]. "In this case it was rushed and there are still many outstanding issues that need to be put right, Makiba said. Meanwhile, stress fractures are continuing to grow in the Pangu Pati, from which its high profile leader, current finance minister Sam Basil, was expelled after he took the party from opposition into government in 2017. Basil is registering a new party but the Pangu executive is urging other Pangu MPs not to join him. If ONeill and Peoples National Congress are ejected from power in the next few weeks, Basil and Marape will undoubtedly be seeking to replace him. And perhaps deputy prime minister Charles Abel will see an opportunity to emerge as a compromise candidate. But, as Radio New Zealand journalist Johnny Blades says: Peter O'Neill has been the dominant political player in PNG politics for seven or eight years now. He's a master at garnering the numbers, and we can't count him out just yet. We can't and shouldn't, but the count is on. Best States for People Who Love Beer If You Really Love Beer, You'd Better Live Here Like beer? These are the states youll want to live in. RELATED: Best Alcohol Subscription Boxes America has a longstanding love affair with beer, whether it be a Budweiser or the latest craft beer off the line. According to new data compiled by Groupon, we now know which states are best for beer lovers. Best States for Beer Lovers California Colorado Michigan Illinois Massachusetts Iowa Pennsylvania Minnesota New Jersey Arizona The criteria? According to Groupon, the data is a combination of their own data as well as publicly available data. Each state was scored on three primary scales the quality of the beer, affordability of the beer, and how enthusiastic the residents of the state are about beer. To determine beer quality, Groupon simply added up the average score of the best five beers in each state. For affordability, they looked at how much a typical 12 oz. beer would cost within the confines of that state's lines. And finally, to gauge enthusiasm, researchers examined how many of their own coupons they'd sold to the citizens of each state that were somehow related to beer. Who's got the best beer, in terms of quality? According to the data, residents of Massachusetts the Bay State are perhaps the luckiest Americans alive. And according to the numbers, that's largely due to the Tree House Brewing Companys efforts. Located in Charlton, a small and intimate community, the brewery boasts 28 different beers on tap with names like Candy Shop Oreo, I Will Not Be Afraid, and Somewhere, Something Is Waiting To Be Known. And while Colorado and Michigan round out the top 3, states for quality beer, the less fortunate are Hawaii, South Dakota, and Idaho which ended up at the bottom of this list. When it comes to affordability, the ranking is a bit different. Michigan again gets a mention here, because as it turns out, their Walmart stores sell the cheapest Miller Lite and Bud Light. If being a barfly instead of a homebody is more your speed, Colorado's got you covered with the cheapest bar rates. There are some pretty odd facts in the mix to consider in this category, too. For instance, Pennsylvania boasts the biggest price gap between bar prices and beer prices at the store. Alaskans, as one might expect, pay the most for their brew. RELATED: AskMen Beer Club Nevada takes home the prize for the state that simply enjoys beer the most, though their enthusiasm might be bolstered by the massive influx of partygoers and other rowdy tourists flooding the famous institution that is Sin City Las Vegas. Some may say it's not a fair competition, but statistics don't care, and the data supports this. Finally, which state can lay claim to the crown overall? Sunny California, of course. Scoring high in all three categories yet winning none California ended up victorious over second-place Colorado and bronze-medalist Michigan. Dead last? Kansas, Hawaii, and North Dakota, in that order. You Might Also Dig: PARIS, April 25 (Reuters) - France is in contact with Chinese authorities after a French warship passed through the Taiwan Strait earlier this month, a source close to French Defence Minister Florence Parly told Reuters on Thursday. China's Defence Ministry said earlier that Beijing lodged stern representations with France about the passage, which comes as the United states and its allies increasingly assert freedom of navigation in international waterways near China. "The (French) Navy transits through the Taiwan Strait on average once a year without incident or reaction. France reaffirms its attachment to freedom of navigation in line with international maritime law," the source said. (Reporting by Sophie Louet; writing by Leigh Thomas; Editing by Richard Lough) FILE PHOTO: Gucci logo is seen in a store at Fiumicino airport in Rome, Italy, April 11, 2016. REUTERS/Max Rossi By Emilio Parodi MILAN (Reuters) - French luxury group Kering is close to agreeing to pay between 1.3 billion and 1.4 billion euros ($1.5-1.6 billion) to settle a dispute with Italian authorities over unpaid taxes by its fashion brand Gucci, three sources told Reuters on Thursday. An agreement between the group and the Italian tax authority is expected to be signed in the first few days of May, said one of the sources, who all have direct knowledge of the matter. This would be the biggest tax settlement ever agreed by a company with the Italian tax authorities. Kering said in an emailed statement it had held regular discussions with the Italian tax service, adding the meetings took place in "an open and collaborative climate". "At this stage, no agreement has been reached yet on any specific figure," it added. The tax authority could not immediately be reached for comment. Earlier this year, Kering said it faced a claim for 1.4 billion euros in unpaid Italian taxes, adding it contested the preliminary findings. The group has consistently denied avoiding tax, saying its activities were fully compliant with all tax obligations. The company's Swiss-based Luxury Goods International (LGI) subsidiary has been under investigation for allegedly avoiding tax on earnings generated elsewhere. Most of the allegations centre on Gucci, whose offices in Milan and Florence were raided by Italian police in late 2017. In November, Milan prosecutors wrapped up their probe into alleged tax evasion of more than 1 billion euros by Gucci for revenues booked in the years between 2010 and 2016. The prosecutors say that revenues booked through LGI should be taxed in Italy and not in Switzerland. By agreeing to a settlement, Kering would be spared from having to pay interest and sanctions for late tax payments, which one source said would have added around 500 million euros to the final bill. Gucci's Chief Executive Marco Bizzarri and former CEO Patrizio Di Marco are under investigation in the case. That investigation is expected to conclude with a separate settlement once the agreement on the tax dispute has been signed, one of the sources added. Lawyers for Bizzarri and Di Marco declined to comment. (Reporting by Emilio Parodi; Additional reporting by Sarah White; Editing by Alexander Smith and Mark Potter) (Removes stray product code; text of story unchanged) * Putin, Kim met on island off Russian Pacific port * Russia hoped to burnish credentials as global player * Visit follows failure of Kim's nuclear talks with Trump * Putin says he'll inform U.S., China about the talks By Vladimir Soldatkin and Maria Vasilyeva VLADIVOSTOK, Russia, April 25 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said after holding his first face-to-face talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Thursday that U.S. security guarantees would probably not be enough to persuade Pyongyang to shut its nuclear programme. Putin and Kim held a day of talks on an island off the Russian Pacific city of Vladivostok two months after Kim's summit with U.S. President Donald Trump ended in disagreement, cooling hopes of a breakthrough in the decades-old nuclear row. The talks between Putin and Kim did not appear to have yielded any major breakthrough. But Putin, keen to use the summit to burnish Russia's diplomatic credentials as a global player, said he believed any U.S. guarantees might need to be supported by the other nations involved in previous six-way talks on the nuclear issue. That would mean including Russia, China, Japan and South Korea as well as the United States and North Korea, a long-standing format that has been sidelined by unilateral U.S. efforts to broker a deal. "They (the North Koreans) only need guarantees about their security. That's it. All of us together need to think about this," Putin told reporters after talks with Kim. "...I'm deeply convinced that if we get to a situation when some kind of security guarantees are needed from one party, in this case for North Korea, that it won't be possible to get by without international guarantees. It's unlikely that any agreements between two countries will be enough." Such guarantees would have to be international, legally-binding, and vouch for North Korea's sovereignty, said Putin. The two leaders appeared to get on well. The first session between Putin and Kim, comprising one-on-one talks with just a few aides present, lasted twice as long as the 50 minutes allocated in the schedule. Story continues Putin described Kim as "quite open" and as "thoughtful" and "interesting". MUSIC AND GIFTS Promising to brief the Chinese and U.S. leadership about his talks, Putin said he thought a deal on Pyongyang's nuclear programme was possible and that the way to get there was to move forward step-by-step in order to build trust. Kim, who arrived in Vladivostok on Wednesday on board his armoured train, said the situation on the Korean peninsula "is an issue that the world is very interested in". He did not speak to the media afterwards, but shook hands with Putin before being driven away in his limousine. The two leaders had earlier attended a gala dinner where they toasted each other and watched traditional musical numbers and dancing performed by Russian artists. The numbers included the Russian classic song "Black Eyes" and a Korean song called "the Great Commander," Russian state media reported. The two men also exchanged gifts. Kim gave Putin a traditional Korean sword, while the Russian leader gave Kim a sabre and a tea service suitable for use on his armoured train. "When modern weapons did not exist, they used such swords," Russian state media cited Kim as telling Putin. "They embody strength, my soul and our people who support you." With North Korea-U.S. talks stalled, the summit in Vladivostok has provided Pyongyang with an opportunity to improve ties with its giant neighbour Russia. For the Kremlin, the summit was a chance to show it remains an important actor on the global stage despite efforts by the United States and other Western states to isolate it. But with Moscow committed to upholding international sanctions until North Korea dismantles its nuclear programme, Russia's room for manoeuvre, beyond putting on a show of camaraderie, was limited. Putin's last summit with a North Korean leader was in 2002 when his counterpart was Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Un's father and predecessor. Kim Jong Il also met in 2011 with Dmitry Medvedev, then Russia's president and now its prime minister. (Additional reporting by Hyonhee Shin and Joyce Lee in SEOUL and Maria Kiselyova, Darya Korsunskaya and Maxim Rodionov in MOSCOW Writing by Christian Lowe/Andrew Osborn Editing by Gareth Jones) Valtteri Bottas hopes to turn pole position into a victory that will erase bad memories on Sunday when he lines up for the start of Sunday's Azerbaijan Grand Prix. The Finn, who claimed the eighth pole of his career in Saturday's extended accident-strewn qualifying session, was on course to win last year's race until his car suffered a puncture with three laps remaining. That gifted victory to his Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton who on Saturday wound up second behind him after a closely-fought final session. It was Bottas' first pole in Baku and second this year. Ferrari's Charles Leclerc had looked likely to take pole before he crashed out of contention in Q2. His team-mate Sebastian Vettel was third. "I am really happy for this pole," said the bearded Bottas, who has become more competitive this year. "And it is a nice feeling to get it on the last lap. "It was a nice last lap and, like I said, Ferrari have been really strong. Obviously, Charles is out with a mistake, but, as a team, we did a really good job to be where we are now after such a difficult practice. "It is all about small margins -- and I did get a good tow on that last lap. Of course, the corners I have to drive as well. It is all about small details and I managed to hit the sweet spot. "It was getting trickier and trickier. We are not supposed to race that late here, but I got them (the tyres) to work somehow." Valtteri Bottas poses with his pole position trophy ASOS billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen has described losing three of his four children in the Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka as completely incromprehensible. The words of Mr Povlsen, Denmarks richest man and CEO of fashion company Bestseller, were read out at a memorial service for the children in the town of Brande on Thursday. Priest Arne Holst-Larsen read out a text message from Mr Povlsen and his wife, Anne, in front of 700 gatherers, Danish news site Herning Folkeblad reported. Anders Holch Povlsen and his wife Anne in 2018. Source: AP The loss of our beloved children Alma, Agnes and Alfred is completely incomprehensible, he said. With the many lovely people we have around us, close friends, talented colleagues and our loving family we will come together through it. We greatly appreciate the humanity that is also shown in Brande tonight - not only to our families and children, but to all the victims of the cruel acts in Sri Lanka. About 700 people were present at the service. Source: TV2 The couples other child, daughter Astrid, survived the bombing. Many gatherers held burning torches in memory of the children. The family had been on holiday in Sri Lanka at the time with one of Mr Povlsens daughters, Alma, posting a photo to Instagram of her siblings on the island just days before the attack. Many held burning torches at the service. Source: TV2 Astrid and Agnes pictured with Alfred just days before the bombings. Source: Instagram Mr Povlsen was briefly hospitalised in Colombo after the attacks, according to tabloid Ekstra Bladet. Denmark's ambassador to India told the paper on Tuesday he had already returned to Denmark. Sri Lankan officials revised the death toll from the Easter Sunday bombings down by about 100 on Thursday, blaming the difficulty in identifying body parts at bomb scenes for the earlier inaccurate number. The new official figure was 253, down from an earlier 359, Deputy Defence Minister Ruwan Wijewardene said. He blamed inaccurate data provided by morgues for the discrepancy. Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com. You can also follow us on Facebook, download the Yahoo News app from iTunes or Google Play and stay up to date with the latest news with Yahoos daily newsletter. Sign up here. Germany has stopped processing some applications for asylum by Syrian refugees, pending a new assessment of the security situation in the war-torn country, according to a report on Saturday. German media group Funke, quoting the interior ministry, said decisions on some asylum applications from Syrians have been 'postponed' with changes expected to be made to ministry guidelines. Delegations from Iran, Russia and Turkey met in Kazakhstan on Thursday seeking an end to the Syrian conflict. As a consequence of the Germany's halting of some asylum applications, refugee organisations fear Angela Merkel's government will reject more applications from Syria if there is no longer armed conflict there, say Funke. According to the Funke report, those affected are asylum seekers awarded "subsidiary protection" -- exposed to serious danger, acts of war, the death penalty or torture in their home country. According to government figures, 17,411 Syrians were awarded the status in 2018. Germany has been deeply polarised by Chancellor Angela Merkel's 2015 decision to open the country's borders to those fleeing conflict and persecution at the height of Europe's migrant crisis. Since then, the influx of over a million asylum seekers -- mainly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan -- has fuelled the rise of the far-right, anti-Islam AfD party. The civil war in Syria has killed more than 370,000 people and displaced millions since it started with the brutal repression of anti-government protests in 2011. The German interior ministry said decisions on some asylum applications from Syrians have been "postponed" with changes expected to be made to ministry guidelines World number one Naomi Osaka joked that she had jinxed herself after pulling out of the WTA tournament in Stuttgart due to an abdominal injury on Saturday, but hopes to return to action in time for the French Open. The 21-year-old Japanese was scheduled to play a semi-final against Estonian eighth seed Anett Kontaveit, but announced in the afternoon that she would be unable to play. Having spoken about her tendency to get injured on clay before the tournament, Osaka joked that she should watch her mouth in future. "They say you can speak things into existence. I feel like I do that a lot," she said. Yet the world number one said she was confident that she would return to fitness in time to play at Roland Garros at the end of next month where she will be bidding for a third successive Grand Slam title. "Even though it is bad that I got injured here, I am happy that it happened at the beginning of the clay season, and not in Rome where it is really close to the French Open." "It's an ab strain, something that I've had before. Thankfully, because I've had it so many times I am able to tell what it is and I know what to do." "I have it at least once every year. It takes a few days to not feel it, and then I just have to strengthen. It really depends on how badly I tore it." "I don't think it's that severe, but it's still a bit concerning." Osaka said that she had to roll out of bed on Saturday morning after picking up the injury during her quarter-final win over Donna Vekic on Friday. "I couldn't lift my upper body. I don't expect that I will be able to serve," she said. The Japanese star said she had broken the news that she was in pain to her team after her dramatic comeback against Vekic. "We were in the gym to cool down and they were all happy," she said. "I was like er, I have some bad news, and sort of sprung it on them that I was in pain. They were cool about it, so I am grateful to them." Yet having reached the last four of a WTA tournament for the first time since winning the Australian Open last January, Osaka said she was happy with how things had gone in Stuttgart. "I am happy that I won two matches here. This was a really good boost for me, because it let me know that even though I am internalising pain or feelings, I can still win matches." Osaka's withdrawal handed Estonian eighth seed Kontaveit an automatic place in the final on Sunday. She will face world number three Petra Kvitova, who beat the Netherlands' Kiki Bertens 7-6 (7/3), 3-6, 6-1 in her semi-final. The Czech is in the final for the first time in Stuttgart, having twice been knocked out in the last four in past years. "It won't be easy against Anett. We practised a bit together before the tournament, which was fun," said Kvitova. Japan's Naomi Osaka announced that she was unable to play in her WTA semi-final in Stuttgart on Saturday The sexual assault trial of disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein will take place on September 9, three months later than expected, a New York judge said Friday. Weinstein -- a catalyst for the #MeToo anti-harassment movement-- has been charged over the alleged assaults of two women and faces life in prison if he is convicted at the trial, which could last for five weeks. One of the 67-year-old's lawyers, Jose Baez, welcomed the postponement, saying: "This is going to give us ample opportunity to dig into the case, talk to those people who are coming forward and telling us about other matters that are very helpful to Mr Weinstein's case." The delay was announced after a four-hour closed-door hearing to decide whether women other than the two accusers could give evidence at the trial. Judge James Burke suggested that his decision on this key point may not be made public until the start of the trial. Since October 2017, Weinstein -- one of the most powerful men in Hollywood before a cascade of sexual misconduct allegations precipitated his downfall -- has been accused of sexual harassment and assault by more than 80 women, including prominent actresses such as Ashley Judd, Angelina Jolie and Salma Hayek. Because the session was closed, it is unclear how many of those women -- many of whose allegations are too old to be brought to trial -- prosecutor Joan Orbon-Illuzzi would like to call on. Their testimony could be key, as it was at the trial of former television star Bill Cosby, who was sentenced to at least three years in prison in the first courtroom victory of the #MeToo era. But Baez said after the hearing that when prosecutors want testimony from women other than the alleged victims in the charges, it is generally "good for the defense." That is because it means the prosecution can't prove their case based on the complainants' testimony alone, he said. Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, right, arriving at court in New York April 26 2019: he is facing charges of rape and sexual abuse WARNING - DISTURBING CONTENT: A woman has shared a shocking video of the moment a dog was taken by a crocodile at a Far North Queensland beach. In the clip, two dogs can be seen running after one another, frolicking along the shore at Cardwell Beach. A man recording the scene can be heard saying, Oh how close is this, as a dark shadow in the water can be seen getting closer to the dogs. The man says he tried to call out to the dogs but they wouldnt listen to him, implying they dont belong to him. Seconds later, one of the canines is dragged underwater with a loud splash, apparently taken by the crocodile. Two dogs can be seen frolicking along the shore of a Far North Queensland beach while a crocodile watches on the sand. Source: Cindy-lou Togo Tuku-Tuku Kwarri/Facebook F*** me man, the man said in the video. Cindy-lou Togo Tuku-Tuku Kwarri shared the mobile phone clip on social media as a warning that crocodiles frequented the beach. She wrote on Facebook that the attack happened at Cardwell on Friday morning. Responding to someone who asked why the man didnt try to intervene instead of recording the heart-breaking moment, Ms Togo said: Dont know whose dogs they are, and he did try to call the dogs but they didnt come to him. One of the dogs disappeared into the water with a loud splash, apparently taken by a second crocodile. Source: Cindy-lou Togo Tuku-Tuku Kwarri/Facebook Ms Togo, who has reportedly lived in Cardwell for 26 years, told the Townsville Bulletin the beach was a well known crocodile habitat. Youve just got to keep an eye on the water, she said. Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com. You can also follow us on Facebook, download the Yahoo News app from iTunes or Google Play and stay up to date with the latest news with Yahoos daily newsletter. Sign up here. Robert Kubica and George Russell will demonstrate the defiance and resilience of the Williams team on Sunday when they line up on the grid for Sunday's Azerbaijan Grand Prix with the struggling outfit adamant that they are not for sale. After two high-speed incidents, one on Friday that saw British rookie Russell survive running over a loose drainage cover that wrecked his car and one on Saturday when Kubica crashed into a wall, the struggling outfit were left flattened. Deputy team principal Claire Williams, daughter of founder Frank Williams, admitted as much when on Saturday she also had to reject renewed claims that her family were set to sell their former champion team. "It's one thing after another at the moment. I saw those stories, I paid little attention to them," she said, dismissing reports that Russian businessman Dmitri Mazepin was set to make a bid. "I haven't met Mr Mazepin to talk about that. We had a brief conversation in the mid-part of last year, but subsequent to that there have been no conversations. "I'd just like to be really categorical about it: Williams is not for sale. I have no intention of putting Williams up for sale. I don't see why we would." The team lost its title sponsor Martini when their deal ended last year and has no backing this year from Canadian businessman Lawrence Stroll, whose son Lance Stroll has left and moved to Racing Point. But it has a new sponsorship deal with Rokit telecommunications and some support from the Polish sponsors of Kubica, who on Saturday walked away after a big accident at Turn Eight, a sharp corner by the Baku castle, when he plunged into the barriers. In a statement, the team said it would repair the car in time to race on Sunday. "I clipped the inside with the front left which pushed me into the wall," said Kubica. "It's the worst place and unfortunately I paid quite a high price. That's how it is." Kubica went to the medical centre. "It's not a huge impact, but of course they had to, for precautions, do all the tests. I feel good so no problem." Russell was able to take part in Saturday's action after the team used their only spare chassis to build him a car. Williams was defiant. "This is what we do. We don't have anything else to do so it is not on the market. I don't want to sell to anybody. "I want to go out and prove that we can do what we are in this sport to do -- and that's to get back on the podium and to win races again. "That may take us a long time, but it took Frank more than 10 years to do it when he first started in this sport and I?m sure we?ll have a lot more stuff thrown our way. "But you don't give up when times get tough. For me it's a test of your character that you continue and prove to everybody that you can do it." Crash: Williams driver Robert Kubica climbs from his car after hitting the wall in qualifying A teenage gunman who wrote a hate-filled manifesto opened fire at a synagogue in California on Saturday, killing one person and injuring three others including the rabbi as worshippers marked the final day of Passover, authorities said. The shooting in the town of Poway, north of San Diego, came exactly six months after a white supremacist killed 11 people at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue -- the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in US history. San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore said those wounded included the rabbi -- who had injuries to both index fingers -- as well as a female minor and 34-year-old man who were injured by shrapnel. A 60-year-old woman died from her wounds. Gore identified the suspect, who was arrested after fleeing the scene, as 19-year-old John Earnest and said he had no prior arrest record. He said Earnest burst into the Chabad of Poway synagogue -- where there were around 100 people -- shortly after 11:20 am local time and opened fire with an assault weapon that appears to have malfunctioned, preventing him from inflicting more harm. Gore said an off-duty border patrol agent who was at the synagogue at the time of the shooting opened fire on the gunman as he was fleeing, striking his car but missing the suspect. The man was eventually apprehended by a San Diego police officer who had been monitoring dispatch radio and raced to the scene, San Diego police chief David Nisleit said. "He clearly saw the suspect's vehicle, the suspect jumped out with his hands up and was immediately taken into custody by the San Diego police department," Nisleit said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the "atrocious" incident, calling it "an attack at the heart of the Jewish people". Two Israelis -- an eight-year-old girl and her 31-year-old uncle -- were wounded in the attack, an Israeli foreign ministry spokesman said, adding that their condition was "good". - Hate-filled manifesto - Gore said authorities were examining Earnest's social media activity and establishing the authenticity of an anti-Semitic open letter he apparently published on a far-right message board hours before the attack. "We have copies of his social media posts and his open letter and we'll be reviewing those to determine the legitimacy of it and how it plays into the investigation," he said. The manifesto, seen by AFP, is similar to one posted on the same message board by Brenton Tarrant, a white supremacist who was behind the March 15 mosque attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand, that left 50 people dead. The hate-filled letter lauds Tarrant's actions and that of the Pittsburgh shooter and claims responsibility for a fire at a mosque in California a week after the Christchurch shootings. Following the attack, a vigil was set to take place Saturday evening at the Rancho Bernardo Community Presbyterian Church in San Diego. Meanwhile, Los Angeles officials said that they were boosting patrols around synagogues and other places of worship in light of the attack. Speaking at a rally in Wisconsin, President Donald Trump denounced the shooting as a "hate crime" and offered his support to the victims. "Tonight, America's heart is with the victims of the horrific synagogue shooting in California," he said. "Our entire nation mourns the loss of life, prays for the wounded and stands in solidarity with the Jewish community. We forcefully condemn the evil of anti-Semitism and hate which must be defeated." California's Governor Gavin Newsom also denounced the tragedy. "While we continue to learn more about what transpired, we can't ignore the circumstances around this horrific incident," he said. "No one should have to fear going to their place of worship, and no one should be targeted for practicing the tenets of their faith." And German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas also expressed solidarity with the victims: "On the last day of the Passover celebration, another violent anti-Semitic act shocks us. The attack on the Chabad of Poway Synagogue in San Diego impacts us all." - 'Flames of hatred' - Minoo Anvari told the local CNN affiliate that her husband was inside the synagogue during the shooting. "Just one message from all of us from our congregation that we are standing together," she said. "We are strong. You can't break us. We are all together." The Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles said in a statement that the shooting was "a horrific reminder that the flames of hatred still burn strong among some." "An attack, on any house of worship, from churches in Sri Lanka and France to synagogues in Jerusalem or Pittsburgh to mosques in Christchurch, are an assault on human dignity and our rights as people of faith to pray to God," it added. Saturday's shooting comes amid a rise in hate crimes in the United States, the majority targeting those of Jewish faith. Last year, the Anti-Defamation League, which combats anti-Semitism and discrimination, reported a 57 percent leap in the number of anti-Semitic incidents in 2017, the sharpest yearly spike since the 1970s. jz-ia-ska-qan/gle The shooter burst into the packed Chabad of Poway synagogue and opened fire with an assault weapon that appears to have malfunctioned A woman puts up a note across the street from the Chabad of Poway Synagogue A vigil was set to take place Saturday evening after the attack Rafael Nadal shrugged off any suggestion of a French Open crisis of confidence, insisting he had enjoyed a "positive week" in Barcelona despite a dispiriting semi-final exit at a tournament he has won 11 times. The Spanish great slumped to a 6-4, 6-4 loss to Dominic Thiem on Saturday, just a week after he had been dethroned as Monte Carlo Masters champion by Fabio Fognini, also at the semi-final stage. Saturday's win was Thiem's fourth on clay over Nadal who had never previously lost in the semis at Barcelona. With just four weeks to go until the start of Roland Garros, where he is the defending champion and an 11-time winner, 32-year-old Nadal says he has finally come to life on his favourite surface. "It's been a very positive week," the 17-time Grand Slam winner said. "I came from a lot of low moments in Monte Carlo." "Today was the first day I felt really confident on the clay, it's my best match on the surface this year. My confidence is back thanks to this week. "I really believe that I've made improvements. This is a good base to try and achieve my goals for the next couple of weeks." Austrian third seed Thiem, who was defeated by Nadal in the 2018 French Open final, saved three break points in the final game on Saturday to deliver his upset win. However, he did not want to call the success his best ever on the dirt. "For sure, this was one of my best wins on clay. It always requires an incredible performance to beat Rafa," he said. "It's his best surface, he's the best to ever play on it but if it's my best, I don't know." Thiem advanced to a Sunday final against Daniil Medvedev, a 6-4, 3-6, 7-5 winner over Japan's Kei Nishikori, a two-time Barcelona champion. "This win doesn't feel different than my other ones against Rafa," added Thiem who is only the second man after Novak Djokovic to have beaten Nadal on clay at least four times. "It's always very special to beat him on clay or any other surface." Nadal was optimistic about his immediate future with Masters events in Madrid and Rome to come before the start of Roland Garros. "I enjoyed the match, I'm feeling the way I want to feel about my game. I'm happy and I'm confident," he said. 'Positive week': Rafael Nadal acknowledges the crowd after his defeat to Dominic Thiem In the United Kingdom, where online porn sites will be blocked starting July 15 for anyone unwilling to upload age-verification documents, as AVN.com reported, the leading LGBTQ porn film event has now been pushed underground by anti-porn protesters. The three-year-old London Porn Film Festival was scheduled to hold screenings at an arts venue known as Horse Hospital, but after threats of picketing by what festival organizers called a transphobic hate group, the festival will screen its films at an undisclosed venue that will be revealed only to ticket holders. According to the festivals site, the groupwhich the organizers said they did not want to name so as to not give them undue attentionnot only threatened to disrupt the festival, they filed complaints with the London Borough of Camden, which was then legally obligated to commence an investigation, which has caused a lot of logistical and financial issues. Janice Williams, who heads the activist group Objectwhich, as its name implies, objected to the festivaltold the Guardian that the films screened at the LPFF would promote degradation and oppression. But festival co-organizer Rude Jude said that Williams was part of the moral panic gripping the U.K. when it comes to pornespecially porn that explores LGBTQ sexuality. Britain likes to think of itself as a place tolerant of queer people, but when queer people assert ourselves, were attacked, Rude Jude told the paper. The festival was conceived, Rude Jude explained, as a response to a 2014 U.K. law that banned the depiction of certain sexual acts in porn films produced in that country. It banned the depiction of female ejaculation, caning, breast play, flogging. These things are part of queer sexuality, the festival organizer told the Guardian. The festival was formed as a protest. At the time the law was passed, independent porn producer Erika Lust told The Guardian that the legislation would send U.K. porn back to an age where porn is simply the boring, unrealistic, male fantasy of bimbos eagerly pleasing men as if it is their duty, where women are submissive and lack ownership of their sexuality. The group Women Against Pornography denied the festivals accusation of transphobia, but added in a Twitter post cited by the Guardian, if transgenderism is apparently so closely linked with pornography then thats not a very good advert for it. Photo By London Porn Film Festival On the night of April 14, Jim Grantham walked his 3-year-old pitbull mastiff Brute around the Flagstaff Medical Center before returning to the RV he and his partner Shirley Rininger shared. After he put Brute in the RV, hiding his keys inside the vehicle, Grantham returned to the hospital to spend the night with Rininger, who had been admitted to the hospital a few days before for intense seizures six months into her pregnancy. Around 4:35 a.m. the next morning, Grantham went to check on Brute and have a cigarette. The RV was nowhere in sight. At 24 feet in length, the yellow and white 1973 Cabana is hard to miss. Brute was also gone. At first, Grantham thought the RV had been towed, even though he had cleared keeping it on the hospital parking lot with FMC staff. They assured Grantham that they hadn't towed it, then called the Flagstaff Police Department for him. The police looked at [FMCs] footage that morning, Rininger said. Officers told the couple the footage showed a dark SUV pulling into the parking lot near the pediatrics department at 4:20 a.m. Two subjects could be seen crossing Beaver Street and approaching the RV, one wearing all black, the other with a white hoodie. Another camera's footage shows the dark SUV drive away, followed closely by an RV. Both vehicles headed east on Cedar Avenue. The dog was nowhere to be seen. I dont know how those people got that RV, Rininger said. Brute wasnt aggressive, but he definitely stood his ground. He lived on a ranch with javelinas and coyotes that he went after. I would have thought he would at least act like he would tear the [intruders] apart. Grantham and Rininger had been living in the RV and traveling between Yavapai County and Flagstaff since they bought it off Craigslist for around $3,000 in late January, Rininger said. Moving into the RV was a combination of needing to cut ourselves off from everything and start new, Rininger said. We knew we needed a better environment for ourselves and the child. The situation proved ideal for the couple: Grantham was able to work remotely with his IT business, while Rininger could do her occasional freelance writing. The two planned for their daughter to be delivered at Flagstaff Medical Center, where Granthams child from a previous marriage was born eight years ago. Grantham, who lived in Flagstaff from 1998 to 2018, tried to get Rininger to move to Flagstaff with him not long after they met. When Rininger visited, she knew it would be a great place to raise their daughter. It has everything a big city has, but its very quiet. Theres green, and its out and open not oppressive like in the Valley, she said. [Jims] favorite place in Arizona is Flagstaff, and then our home and belongings and everything was stolen in the one place hes trying to get me to in the past year. I was like wow, the place you cant say enough about this happens there while Im at the hospital. Rininger said hours before she was hospitalized at FMC on April 10, the two had gone shopping to renovate the RV. We had bought brand-new hardwood flooring. I had bought electrical supplies, we were replacing all the lighting. Jim had replaced the light fixtures. I had picked out the paint for the bathroom and the kitchen area, she said. A few hours after the RV was stolen, Rininger was transferred from FMC to a hospital in Las Vegas where there was more room for high-risk pregnancies and Riningers particular neural condition. Rininger was able to get transferred through Guardian Medical, but it took Grantham five days to join her after trying to round up funds for a Flixbus ticket. The search continues In the interim, Rininger said, the stress of losing their home, vehicle, dog and work supplies while dealing with her illness took its toll. I lost my ever-loving mind, I went into a panic attack and they couldnt even get me to take medicine, Rininger said. After being discharged from the Las Vegas hospital, the couple was able to stay at a cheap hotel for a few days, thanks to Granthams sister. Even though the two were no longer in Flagstaff, they were still adamant about searching for their belongings and the dog they said was like a child to them. I dont believe in social media whatsoever, but Jim thought that by putting the RV out on social media it might be found because its so old, it stands out, Rininger said. But when he told me a GoFundMe page got started I was like what?! That totally floored me. After reading about Grantham and Riningers experience on Granthams viral Facebook post, a woman from California decided to start a GoFundMe page to raise funds for the couple. So far, $2,050 out of the $10,000 goal has been raised by more than 50 people. Now back in Phoenix, the couple has used some of the money to stay in a hotel for a few days, get Riningers drivers license reinstated and purchase some new clothing and shoes -- since they'd been wearing the only clothes they had on the night the RV was taken. The money also allowed them to buy food. They have also paid a few people back that have helped them out the past two weeks. Im a penny-pincher, so we are making the money go pretty far, Rininger said. Whats left will go towards a rental car and corporate housing in the Phoenix area so Grantham can get to his IT jobs at various residences and businesses. Grantham wrote on the GoFundMe page, I want to thank all of you again for your donations, your thoughts, and your prayers. Every little bit has helped keep us going these last few days. Grantham temporarily removed the Facebook post about the stolen RV because he said he was getting hurtful comments and visitors who were writing that the two had started a scam, something that Grantham wrote makes no sense. According to FPD spokesperson Charles Hernandez, flooding social media and sending out BOLO (be on the lookout) and ATL (attempt to locate) bulletins to neighboring jurisdictions helps improve the likelihood the property or stolen vehicle will be located. With regard to this specific investigation, the vehicle was entered into the stolen vehicle database and information related to the dog inside the vehicle was included, Hernandez wrote. The criminal investigations unit is continuing the investigation and working to help locate the vehicle and potential suspects. Readers can follow the couple's journey or donate at https://gofundme.com/dog-and-rv-stolen-from-flagstaff-medical-center. Love 2 Funny 2 Wow 1 Sad 11 Angry 3 Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Less than three hours after deliberation began on Friday morning, a jury found James Womble, 23, guilty of second-degree murder for stabbing Peter Gillespie, 63. The jurors in the case were asked on late Thursday to consider both closing arguments from prosecutor Bryan Shea and Wombles attorney Adam Zickerman. On Friday, Womble dressed up in the courtroom, making time to take deep breaths and talk to people who showed up in support of him. After the verdict, Womble accepted his aggravation charges for causing emotional harm to Gillespies family, meaning his possible sentence will increase. The sentence can range from 10 to 25 years in prison. The stabbing happened in July 2017 when Gillespie came to collect overdue rent from Womble and his roommates, and ended with Womble stabbing Gillespie eight times with scissors. Gillespie had several family members present during the trial and on the day of the verdict. His four sisters Susan Knesel, Lynne Braine, Ethel Standlee, Paula Porreca said they appreciated the work done by the investigators, prosecutors and victim advocates. We feel the jury listened and understood a complicated case, they wrote in a statement to the Arizona Daily Sun. They did a good job to see justice for our brother was served. Our brother will be missed, but the verdict was just. Prosecutor Bryan Shea argued to jurors on Thursday that Womble had lied multiple times at multiple moments to multiple investigators in order to create a better look for his case. Eight stabs to the torso in response to a chair? A 63-year-old man? Shea said to the jury. Ladies and gentleman, theres no reasonable person that would believe in the worst version of his story that it was necessary to stab Peter over and over again. Second-degree murder can be committed when a person, without premeditation, intentionally causes the death of another person, among other conditions, according to the Arizona Revised Statutes. Youre only allowed to use deadly physical force in self-defense to meet the other persons unlawful deadly physical force, Shea said. There isnt a version of these facts, isnt a story the defendant told, that puts Peter using unlawful deadly physical force. According to police interviews, when Womble first spoke to police at the scene of the crime, Womble said Gillespie came at him with clenched fists. Later, Womble said that Gillespie had come at him with a chair during their fight. Shea posed to the jurors that forgetting about a chair before you stab someone is a pretty big detail to forget about. Its hard to maintain made-up facts in subsequent recitations of stories. One, because other facts will prove, theyre at fault; two, because you cant remember the stuff you said when you cant remember what you heard or said previously. County Attorney Bill Ring, Sheas boss, was present for the closing arguments and thanked the jury for their service in a statement to the Arizona Daily Sun. We emphasize that, in all cases, mere quarrels are not resolved through murder, Ring said. Law-abiding citizens understand this, and our community is safer tonight because Mr. Wombles guilt has been determined beyond any reasonable doubt. In his closing arguments, Zickerman described to the jury a scene with Womble coming home from work to get his inhaler and a quick-tempered Gillespie. The lawyer argued that the intent Womble was required to have in order to satisfy a second degree murder charge was not present. Zickerman described Gillespie as the aggressor, citing Wombles testimony that Gillespie chest-bumped him first. That is in and of itself the beginning of all of this, Zickerman said. That is Pete being the aggressor. He further attempted to defend conflicting facts by addressing a stab wound Gillespie received that came down at a downward angle at his chest, when Womble testified to only stabbing horizontally at his stomach. The stab wounds and their trajectory were recorded and presented by the Coconino County Medical Examiners Office. This is not second degree murder. This isnt intent, even if the state says this is reckless, Zickerman said. This is self-defense. Zickerman told the Arizona Daily Sun after the case that despite his efforts, he respected the jurys decision and the system. The jurors had a hard decision, a lot of facts and things that they had to consider, Zickerman said. They came up with what they felt was appropriate. I know my client disagrees with it. Wombles sentencing is currently set for June 5 at 1 p.m. in Judge Mark Morans courtroom. Scott Buffon can be reached at sbuffon@azdailysun.com, on Twitter @scottbuffon or by phone at (928) 556-2250. Love 2 Funny 5 Wow 0 Sad 2 Angry 0 Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. 53 Paths to Freedom: The Four Foundations of Mindfulness: Thursdays, 6:30-8:15 p.m. Federated Community Church, 400 W Aspen, Flagstaff. In this year long series, we will explore the Four Foundations of Mindfulness from historical and traditional points of view, with a focus on learning practical meditation techniques that can help modern practitioners find liberation from the daily challenges that can hold us down. Pez Owen, Pez@dakotacom.net, 9288149851. http://StillpointMeditation.weebly.com. Flagstaff Friends Meeting (Quakers): 10 a.m.-12 p.m. 402 S. Beaver Strteet, Flagstaff. Unprogrammed Meeting for Worship and children's First Day School every Sunday at 10 a.m. followed by hospitality at 11. Casual mid-week fellowship Wednesdays at 5:30 p.m. Instructional worship every first Sunday of the month 8:30-9:45 a.m. Come join us, learn about Quakers. All welcome. www.flagstaffquakers.org. Steven Finger, stevencfin@gmail.com, 9286075725. http://www.flagstaffquakers.org. Christian Science Society of Flagstaff: 10-11 a.m. 619 W. Birch Ave. We hold Sunday worship services and Sunday School (for children and young people up to the age of 20) at 10 a.m. The subject of this week's sermon is "Probation After Death." We also have Wednesday testimony meetings at 5:30 p.m. each week. Our Christian Science Reading Room, a quiet place for prayer and study, is open from 4-5:30 on Wednesdays and 10:00 - noon on Saturdays or by appointment (Call 556-0510 for full Church information or to make an appointment.) All are welcome to our services and to use our Reading Room. Derek Swire, rdswirecs@hughes.net, 9285265982. Calvary Bible Church: 9:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday teaching by Pastor Aaron Hulbert: Living in a Gray World from James 4:1-3.Sunday 9:30am Overview of the Old Testament.Mid-Day Worship Service 10:45am.6pm Study on The Life of Christ.Child care and Children's Church. Wednesday 6pm: Bible Study/Matthew, then prayer time. Also Teen AWANA meets.2nd Saturday of every month: Men's breakfast and Bible Study 7am.April 29 AWANA at 6:15. Birthday Night, Double Share night. http://calvarybibleflagstaff.com. Riverside Church: 11:15 a.m.-12:45 p.m. Riverside Church , 419 S. Verde Street, Flagstaff. Sunday Worship MorningSunday School 09:30 AMSunday Morning Service 11:15 AM Pastor Leonard L Bryant, riversidecogic@gmail.com, 6026211878. http://www.riversidecogic.com. Holy Cross Orthodox Church: 6134 Black Bill Rd, Flagstaff. Saturday, please join us for 11:30am Resurrection Services (Pascha Liturgy) with Father Earl. Community Meal following Liturgy. Sunday, Please join us for 8:55 am Orthos and Divine Liturgy for St. George with Father Earl. parishcouncil@holycrossflagstaff.org, (928) 225-3814. http://www.holycrossflagstaff.org. Unity of Flagstaff: 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. , 417 W Santa Fe Ave, Flagstaff. Do you criticize yourself or apologize for asking for help? Feel exhausted or isolated because you resist accepting support, become angry or frustrated when others ask how they can support you? Let's talk about an empowered life and how to get on the other side of our push against "leaning". Join Unity of Flagstaff and Rev. Penni Honey along with special music by Shawn Dennehy of Lucky Lenny as we talk about the power of "Lean On Me" Rev. Penni Honey, office@unityofflagstaff.org, 9285268893. http://unityofflagstaff.org. First Congregational Church of Flagstaff: 10:30-11:45 a.m. 740 N Turquoise Dr. Pastor Nathan Watts will preach on "Can I Get a Witness" based on Acts 5: 27-32. Please join us for fellowship after worship. All are welcome. fccflagstaff@hotmail.com, 928-774-0890. http://fccflagstaff.org. Peace Lutheran Church: 10-11:30 a.m. 3430 North 4th street, Flagstaff. We will only have one service on Sunday April 28th at 10 am. It will be a blended service celebrating Holy Communion. plcflagstaff@gmail.com, 928-526-9578. http://peacelutheranflagstaff.org. Spiritual Center for Intentional Living: 10-11:10 a.m. Ponderosa HS, 2384 N Steves Blvd, Flagstaff. If you are curious about the Science of Mind Philosophy, and our Spritual Center, this Sunday is a time to have your questions answered. On the last Sunday of each month we hold an interactive dialog service based on the theme of the month, instead of having a Guest speaker. Our theme for April is Renewal. Carrie Hargrave will facilitate small group discussions, and we welcome your questions and input. Bracken Davis, scfilbd@gmail.com, 9285229103. Living Christ Lutheran Church: Pastor Kurt Fangmeier will be leading worship at 10:00 a.m. on Sunday, April 28 with scripture readings from Acts 5: 27 - 32 and Gospel reading from John 20: 19 - 31. On Wednesday, April 24 Living Christ will hold an event titled Teaching Seder at 6:00 p.m. On Sundays from March 31 through May 19, services will be held at Living Christ will start at 10:00 a.m. Living Christ, livingchrist.lutheran@gmail.com, 9285268595. http://livingchristflagstaff.org. Calvary Bible Church: 9:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday teaching by Pastor Aaron Hulbert: Living in a Gray World from James 4:1-3.Sunday 9:30am Overview of the Old Testament.Mid-Day Worship Service 10:45am.6pm Study on The Life of Christ.Child care and Children's Church. Wednesday 6pm: Bible Study/Matthew, then prayer time. Also Teen AWANA meets.2nd Saturday of every month: Men's breakfast and Bible Study 7am.April 29 AWANA at 6:15. Birthday Night, Double Share night. http://calvarybibleflagstaff.com. Shepherd of the Hills ELCA: 1601 N San Francisco St, Flagstaff. Our services include a Spoken Word service at 5 p.m. on Saturday, a Contemporary service at 9 a.m. on Sunday, and a Traditional service at 11 a.m. on Sunday, all led by Pastor Adam Barnhart. Kevin Bowling-Swan, office@sothflagstaff.org, 9287744832. http://sothflagstaff.org. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon): Sunday services held at four Flagstaff locations: 4165 S. Lake Mary Road, 625 E. Cherry Ave., 2401 E. Linda Vista Dr. and, for young single adults, 239 E. Saunders Dr. Meetings are also held in Williams at 1111 Stockmens Road and at the Shrine of the Ages on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Check azdailysun.com or "Locations and Schedules" at LDS.org for meeting times by ward/branch. Sunday services consist of Sacrament Meeting, Sunday School and special instruction for various age and interest groups (Priesthood Meeting for men, Relief Society for women, Young Men/Young Women for youth and Primary for children). Beacon Unitarian Universalist Congregation: 10-11 a.m. 510 N Leroux St., Flagstaff. Discovering Inner Gold: What happens when we make time to connect with our deepest selves and share that authentic self with the world? Worship Associatie Char Tarashanti will share two stories, some useful tools, and a prediction regarding this question. Beacon Unitarian, office@beaconuu.com, 928-779-4492. http://www.beaconuu.com. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Part 2: Seven Freakiest Things I've Seen on the Oregon Coast Published 04/27/2019 at 3:53 PM PDT By Andre' Hagestedt (Oregon Coast) Freaky glowing sand, an unexplained glow on the horizon, and sea foam performing bizarre aerial stunts. Sounds like an alternate dimension or an alien world, doesnt it? Nope, its simply the Oregon coast. In part one of this list of the weird, I went back decades, almost to the very beginning of my experiences with the area (which actually would be as a kid, growing up in Salem and visiting Yachats around 1970, but thats another story). The above examples started in the 80s, and then I moved forward to 93 and just a tad beyond. I also let loose one bit truly stranger than fiction: I grew up hating the coast. An absolutely crazy concept for someone who now admits a complete obsession for the region. These early experiences helped cement my fanaticism for these beaches, and theres a lot more on these and other finds in the book series Ive written recently (theres currently four soon to be ten of them). This list of seven had to be broken up into two parts because the article was so huge. Here are the final four of the weirdest stuff I've personally seen on these beaches. Rainbow in a Raging Pink Sky (above). Sometime in spring 2002, this scene presented itself just east of Pacific City. A crazy, angry bank of clouds was moving in from the east, while the coastal sunset hit it with wild colors and tinted it in pinks and reds. Rain was beginning to fall, and lightning could be seen in the distance. For a brief time, this collection of conditions created a rainbow in the midst of this almost sepia-toned moment. Its blues and greens were largely cut out by the fierce cast of the reds from behind, but it remained visible. Down the road, in Neskowin, the lightning was directly overhead, and created the most thunderous, cataclysmic noise imaginable. Lighthouse In a Bubble. Sometime in the early 2000s, Cape Meares Lighthouse went under the knife for a few months of renovations and refurbishing. Few things were more startling than to walk up to this beauty and find it all covered up in a white bubble reminiscent of those scenes in the movie E.T when the government covered up the familys house in a kind of quarantine. It was freaky and pretty funny, and I was lucky enough to see it in person. Crusty Historic Cannon. One of the more remarkable finds of the last century happened at Arch Cape in 2008, when a teenager from Lake Oswego stumbled across the remnants of two legendary cannon that were first spotted here in the 1840s, but had been missing since. They came from a shipwreck way up in Astoria, and the third cannon was pulled from the surf back then, later creating the name Cannon Beach. For awhile, Oregon State Parks and Recreation Department (OPRD) had them soaking in giant tubs at Nehalem Bay State Park, part of the preparation for restoration. They were covered in a thick layer of concretion - various earthy elements that had compacted around them over 150 years. I was lucky enough to be at the big press conference on the subject and got to see and touch them in this state. Its a rare moment in Oregon history that I got to be a part of (and admittedly its not weird, per se, just remarkable.) Theyve since been fully restored and are at the maritime museum in Astoria. See the original press conference Bubbles in the Surf of North Oregon Coast. Periodically, visitors and residents alike on the coast get startled by the occurrence of brown waves, usually appearing in the form of brown goo or large blobs of the stuff. This happens in the Seaside/Gearhart area more than anywhere else, and it often causes visitors there to run to local stores and tourism agencies to inquire about whether this is pollution or an oil spill or whatever unsavory possibility. Theres nothing to be alarmed about, and in fact its a sign of a healthy ocean. The cause is a lot of phytoplankton in the water, something that happens in great numbers in that area because of the nutrients coming down from the Columbia River. These feed the tiny, microscopic plants and allow for enormous blooms of the stuff so much so they appear as bundles of brown bubbles. The picture here is from about 2011. Oregon Coast Lodgings in these areas - Where to eat - Maps - Virtual Tours - More photos below: More About Oregon Coast hotels, lodging..... More About Oregon Coast Restaurants, Dining..... Coastal Spotlight LATEST Related Oregon Coast Articles Back to Oregon Coast Contact Advertise on BeachConnection.net All Content, unless otherwise attributed, copyright BeachConnection.net Unauthorized use or publication is not permitted On the heels of its best financial year ever, the Billings Catholic Schools Foundation will hold its annual Mayfair fundraising event on May 4 at the Radisson Hotel and Convention Center. The Foundation supports the Billings Catholic Schools K-12 system, which includes St. Francis School and Billings Central Catholic High School. The group was the primary fundraiser for the new St. Francis building, and offers dozens of scholarships each year. But Mayfair raises money for additional projects. "They enable us to do more things," said school system president Shaun Harrington. Last year's haul a record $571,000 purchased new English textbooks and curriculum materials, plus ongoing training for teachers for grades K-12. This year, the schools hope to buy a similar overhaul for math and some new religion materials. "Our teachers are having to take the time to go out and match (math) lessons to standards and then teach lessons to kids," Harrington said. "It won't require as much time for our teachers to put all of that together. ... They can put more time into instruction." Latin America smiles 'like no one else' People were also quizzed on positive emotions, prompting some brighter news. Globally, more than 7 in 10 people said they experienced enjoyment, felt well-rested, and smiled or laughed a lot on the day before the survey, while 87% said they were treated with respect. Paraguay regained the top spot as the world's happiest and most positive country. It fought off close competition from Panama, Guatemala, Mexico, El Salvador and Honduras despite such nations having high levels of poverty and violence. People in Latin America "may not always rate their lives the best ... but they laugh, smile and experience enjoyment like no one else in the world," Gallup global managing partner Jon Clifton wrote in the report. Their high scores "at least partly reflect the cultural tendency in the region to focus on life's positives," the report added. Indonesia, meanwhile, was the most positive nation outside of the Americas. "These are scary times for educational budgets that deal with minorities," Campbell said. Proposed cuts Tom Harnisch, director of state relations and policy analysis for the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, said the Trump administration has proposed deep cuts to education programs in general 12.5% and some program consolidations. He said one danger in consolidation is that it creates a new program without a history of funding and is therefore vulnerable to cuts. The other danger is discrete programs lose their identities and constituencies, and therefore lose support from lawmakers. Harnisch, though, said he does not believe Congress will approve a budget that slashes funding for NASNTI programs. "We haven't seen much appetite for these changes on Capitol Hill," he said. Nonetheless, Harnisch said it's a good time to share successes and the reasons such programs merit support. The gains they are making are impressive, he said, and the "vast majority" of Native American students attend public institutions that are nontribal. "It's critical that we raise the student retention and graduation rates for them, and this program invests in the capacity of institutions so they can foster increased student success," Harnisch said. Please sign up on Missoulian.com to subscribe to Under the M, the weekly email about the University of Montana and higher education news in Montana. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 There is a growing theft epidemic in our state affecting Montanas small businesses and merchants. The good news is the Legislature has just given Gov. Steve Bullock an opportunity to do something about it. The problem dates back to legislation passed in the 2017 session. House Bill 133, which eventually became law, took away jail time for theft under $1,500 and left only a $500 fine. Among other things, it also removed the possibility of jail time for disorderly conduct and only allowed for a $100 fine. In essence, what the Legislature did with HB133 was to undermine a lesson we try to teach our children: Crime doesnt pay. But when a penalty for an offense is only a third of what may have been stolen and no possibility of jail time, we have signaled to some very sophisticated criminals that crime may, in fact, pay. We know that some of this crisis facing retailers and stolen merchandise had to do with our states growing substance abuse crisis. People addicted to meth, opioids or other substances look to theft to find money to fuel their addictions. The 66th legislative session has come to an end. As speaker of the House, it was my goal to uphold the integrity of the House. As a leader in my caucus, it was my goal to foster unity, not conformity. We can be united behind the primary ideals of our party without losing individuality. It has been an honor to be selected by my peers to fill this roll. In looking at our accomplishments this session, several positive actions stand out. First, it was a goal of ours to keep taxes low and we were successful in stopping over a billion dollars in increased taxes or fees proposed by the governor and legislators who support a tax and spend policy. Some of those taxes included, raising individual income taxes, a tax on carbon, a tax on rental cars, tobacco tax and a tax on alcohol. In addition to these proposed tax increases we were able to stop an elimination of the capital gains credit. A Republican goal for the session was to look for waste in state government and trim in those areas. Our Republican-led Appropriations Committee took aim at waste in state government agencies in the form of vacant positions. We cut over 200 vacant positions which had been vacant for more than a year. This resulted in a savings of over $12 million a year. It was, in effect, a slush fund and poor management. Rivers shape human behavior just as much as they shape terrestrial geography. Take a look at the way a rancher captures spring runoff for irrigation, or how our roads adhere to the bend in a river, or on a finer scale, observe how a river current dictates how one chooses to paddle a whitewater line, or where and why a seasoned angler casts a fly. At a deeper level, rivers dont just shape behavior; rivers shape the human psyche. On my first trip to Montana in the '90s, I followed the Yellowstone River from its confluence with the Missouri to the Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone and then up to the headwaters of Rock Creek on the Beartooth Plateau. I chose to drive my old Ford Bronco unhurried, steady, and matching the pace of the scenery. With windows down, I wanted to smell the sage of Eastern Montanas prairie, feel the heat of early August on my skin, hear meadowlark calls in the lowlands transition to redtail hawk screams as I ascended toward the high country. Most of all, like many a traveler in new terrain, I wanted to cover distance without missing the many nuances of the river that captured my attention. Lawmakers passed more than 520 bills of about 900 introduced during the 2019 legislative session before adjourning sine die after 10 p.m. Friday. Heres a look at what has become law and what also awaits Gov. Doug Burgums signature: Theodore Roosevelt presidential library Burgum signed the budget bill for his office that includes an endowment fund for the long-pondered Theodore Roosevelt presidential library at Medora. The endowment comes from $15 million of combined excess funds and authorization for a $35 million loan, only available after $100 million in donations are raised to build the library. Sunday shopping ban lifted A narrow Senate vote in March sent the repeal of North Dakota's Sunday morning shopping ban to Burgum, who signed it. For the first time, on Aug. 4, North Dakota businesses will be able to open before noon on Sundays. Ethics commission Lawmakers passed a framework for a voter-approved ethics commission from Measure 1 in the 2018 election, which also restricts lobbyists and prohibits gifts, among other "anti-corruption" initiatives. Burgum and Senate leaders will name the five-member ethics commission in early June. Applications are due May 24 to the governor's office. A two-year study also will address ethics issues. Civil asset forfeiture Lawmakers approved a bill reforming civil asset forfeiture in North Dakota. The reform requires a conviction to forfeit property involved in a crime, but with numerous exceptions, including evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. The bill also mandates reporting and raises the standard of proof to clear and convincing evidence, among other components. Tribal oil tax compromise Lawmakers reached a compromise with the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation for sharing oil tax revenue, resolving a long-running dispute that caused uncertainty for oil operators. A new agreement signed by Burgum and MHA Chairman Mark Fox changes how revenue is shared for new wells on trust and fee lands, sending a greater share of tax dollars to the tribe. Oil industry leaders say they expect additional investment at Fort Berthold that would increase revenues for the entire state. Pore space Senate Majority Leader Rich Wardner, R-Dickinson, said one of the toughest bills of the session dealt with clarifying rules for pore space, or the void or cavity in underground rock formations. The legislation has implications for saltwater disposal wells, which are necessary for oil and gas production, and enhanced oil recovery operations. Supporters of the legislation said it provides certainty for underground injection. But opponents viewed it as stripping private property owners of their rights and said it will lead to lawsuits or a referral to voters. Homeless shelter grants The Department of Commerce budget approved in the final hours of the session included $1.5 million for homeless shelter grants, returning funding to the level that it was in the 2015 session. The grant program has benefited homeless programs and domestic violence shelters across the state, including the Abused Adult Resource Center, the Missouri Slope Areawide United Way and Youthworks, all in Bismarck. In 2017, legislators reduced the grant dollars available to $300,000. Homeless advocates urged lawmakers to restore the funding and said the increased dollars will allow more focus on prevention and helping people find permanent housing. Human trafficking funding Legislators approved $1.4 million for programs that support human trafficking victims. The funding in the Attorney Generals Office budget will be awarded through a competitive grant process to victim service providers statewide. The North Dakota Human Trafficking Task Force, established by lawmakers in 2015, served 110 victims of human trafficking in 2018. Nearly 80 percent were North Dakota residents. Lawmakers approved $825,000 in state funds for human trafficking victims in 2017 and $1.25 million for the program in 2015. Operation Prairie Dog Legislation to fund local infrastructure improvements with oil tax money sailed through the House and Senate, providing for up to $250 million every two years to be distributed to city, county, township and airport projects, such as roads and bridges. Funding will be first available in mid-2021. Human services zones Lawmakers continued their longtime efforts to take on the cost of local social services in redesigning counties into regional human service zones. The states 47 county social services have until Dec. 1 to form up to 19 multi-county zones to be fully implemented with zone directors and plans by 2021. Lawmakers and Burgum noted the property tax relief brought by the bill, one of the largest policy bills of the 2019 session. State employee raises Lawmakers have pointed to finding common ground in March on raises for state employees as key for speeding along the session. House and Senate budget writers agreed to 2% and 2.5% raises for state employees in each year of the 2019-21 biennium, which begins July 1. State employees did not receive raises from the 2017 session. The state also maintained full coverage of health insurance. Referred measures North Dakota voters will see two referred constitutional measures on the 2020 ballot, for the first time since 2016. One measure would require legislative approval of a constitutional initiative passed by voters. The Legislature would then have to approve it or reject it and sent it back to voters, who could then pass it into effect. The second referred measure asks voters to increase membership of the State Board of Higher Education from eight to 15 members. Reach Jack Dura at 701-223-8482 or jack.dura@bismarcktribune.com. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 Two bills pushed by Grand Forks legislators that improve life for the states military community are officially law after being signed by Gov. Doug Burgum. That includes Senate Bill 2306 from Sen. Scott Meyer, R-Grand Forks, to create licensing reciprocity for eligible trailing spouses of military personnel, along with House Bill 1053 from Rep. Steve Vetter, R-Grand Forks, to reduce income taxes for veterans. Meyer and Vetter both serve District 18, which encompasses downtown Grand Forks and a chunk of Grand Forks Air Force Base. Burgum signed Meyers bill Thursday night and it was filed with the Secretary of State Friday morning. Amended versions of the bill passed both the House and Senate unanimously before entering conference committee and eventually ending up on the governors desk. Meyer said Friday the bill comes from a new quality of life standard U.S. military officials are using to grade communities for missions and base retention. Now that this quality of life metric is being used, licensing reciprocity is so important, Meyer said. Being able to have that pass in North Dakota finally is a tremendous step in the right direction. The issue was proving troublesome for many military families, since their length of stay in a particular state may only be two years. Meanwhile, it sometimes took more than a year to complete requirements for state licensing for a job they have done their entire professional careers. With licensing reciprocity, many leaders -- at both the state and local level -- feel it creates a tighter bond between the state and the military bases located here. Now that the bill is law, Meyer said the state Department of Commerce will begin collecting data to make sure the bill is working. And maybe later we can use it not just on military spouses, but other reciprocity for people moving into our state, Meyer said. Burgum signed Vetters bill April 8. Two weeks earlier the bill had passed the Senate 38-6 after passing the House in February. HB1053 applies to benefits received by veterans for their time in the U.S. military, and it also applies to those benefits received by a veteran's surviving spouse. During a presentation to the House floor in February, Vetter said his bill would help North Dakota overcome a workforce shortage and help the state fill the roughly 13,000 open jobs it reported in December 2018 with military veterans who have experience in cybersecurity, maintenance, security, technology and more. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 North Dakota lawmakers see positive work from their 2019 session, but also some missed opportunities. After the gavels dropped around 10 p.m. Friday, lawmakers had sewn together a record $14.7 billion overall budget including federal funds with more than $4.8 billion state general fund spending. They adjourned on their 76th legislative day, reserving four days of their 80-day limit should they need to reconvene in Bismarck in the interim before 2021. Senate Majority Leader Rich Wardner, R-Dickinson, called the session the smoothest of his time as leader. He and Senate Minority Leader Joan Heckaman, D-New Rockford, embraced on the Senate floor before adjourning sine die. "People just came and worked hard and did their job," Wardner said. House Majority Leader Chet Pollert, R-Carrington, pointed to "heavy lifts" in legislation for voter-approved ethics initiatives and "Operation Prairie Dog" for infrastructure projects. He said lawmakers approached spending "fairly." "Certainly at the end, it feels like there is a lot more cooperation and collaboration between the House and Senate this go-around," Sen. Nicole Poolman, R-Bismarck, said as senators awaited their final bill Friday night. "I think there was a lot to be proud of coming out of this session," said Sen. Erin Oban, D-Bismarck, pointing to gains for education, infrastructure and behavioral health. "Always room to improve, but they came a long way. Finding balance Lawmakers were able to balance the next two-year budget with transfers to the general fund totaling $773 million from two funds derived from oil tax revenue. Rep. Jeff Delzer, R-Underwood, said that will leave a $44 million ending fund balance at the end of the next budget cycle in June 2021. But Gov. Doug Burgum criticized the transfer as last-minute and lacking transparency in budgeting. His budget blueprint proposed bypassing transfers of oil tax revenue to provide a clearer picture of funding sources. The governor had proposed a $14.3 billion budget plan with $4.6 billion in general fund spending, less than what lawmakers approved. In a statement, Burgum commended the session's work but also pointed to "missed opportunities" such as making "additional strategic investments in workforce" and shoring up reserves and the state pension fund. The new biennium begins July 1. Most new laws take effect Aug. 1. Check list Lawmakers wrestled with implementing the ethics initiatives, repealing North Dakota's Sunday shopping ban, addressing hunting access on private land and reforming civil asset forfeiture for property involved in crimes. There were bills to raise the highway speed limit, to design a new state logo, to tighten cottage food sales and most high-profile of all to create an endowment fund for a Theodore Roosevelt presidential library. Not all of those passed. Even in their final hours of session, House lawmakers debated deeply, spending two hours on two bills Friday morning as the Senate kept a watchful eye. For another consecutive session, lawmakers failed to pass legislation banning discrimination based on sexual orientation. House Minority Leader Josh Boschee, D-Fargo, said that and other legislation could have helped address North Dakota's workforce shortage, such as advancing efforts for paid family leave and early childhood education. "We didnt accomplish some of the things we needed to do to make sure that North Dakota is a place that people want to stay and people want to come to work," Boschee said. Were trying to fill 30,000 jobs. More than 520 bills passed of 905 introduced in the 2019 session. Burgum said late Friday he was still signing bills that night and would resume Monday. He has so far issued two vetoes, one of them overridden. Freshman year The only bill Burgum has successfully vetoed was from first-time Sen. Mike Dwyer, R-Bismarck. The bill sought to increase driver's license fees. "It was a good bill," said Dwyer, who introduced five bills this session. As a former lobbyist representing water interests, Dwyer said he was familiar with the legislative process and people, but found "steep learning curves" in serving on judiciary and transportation committees. He said those committees brought him into contact with criminal law as well as components of infrastructure funding. "The biggest challenge was all of the issues that I, prior to being elected, hadn't paid much attention to," Dwyer said during a break between floor sessions Friday. Fellow first-time Rep. Bill Tveit, R-Hazen, was a previous sergeant-at-arms in the Senate chamber in 2017. He found himself carrying one of the most contentious bills of the 2019 session as a lawmaker: the "trespass bill," which ultimately failed. "I knew how things worked but I wasn't involved in committees and that process," Tveit said. "It's an opportunity I think everyone should at least long for or try for." Bringing it home Now adjourned, lawmakers head home after four months away. Poolman said she'll be back Wednesday at Century High School in Bismarck, where she teaches English. She commended increases to K-12 per-pupil payments from this session, as well as higher education improvements, such as building projects at North Dakota State University. General fund spending for K-12 education increased nearly 20% to $1.7 billion for the 2019-21 budget cycle, while funding for higher education jumped about 8% to $660.5 million for the same period, according to state budget data. Poolman, who wrapped her fourth session, was also a new member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. "I learned more in this year about how everything fits together than I have learned in my three past sessions, so it's been a really great experience," she said. Rep. Pat Heinert, R-Bismarck, said he'll take some time off now after the session. The former Burleigh County sheriff revived a bill allowing certain schools to have an "armed first responder," which passed and Burgum signed, but he doesn't count that as his major success this session. Instead, it's a bill to fly the prisoner of war flag outside the state Capitol. "It's just a small piece of legislation, but it means so much to those veterans and the people that they left behind," Heinert said. Sen. Dwight Cook, R-Mandan, points to Operation Prairie Dog as a success, supplying infrastructure funding for the city of Mandan and other cities, counties and townships around North Dakota. "That's big," said Cook, who plans to work on tax policy issues in the 2019-20 interim. Even after adjourning late Friday, lawmakers' work wasn't done, as the powerful committee of Legislative Management met past 10:30 p.m. to discuss some early business. Pollert is the new chairman. The new budget, which goes to Burgum, represents about a 12% increase in general fund spending from what lawmakers appropriated in 2017, after a $1 billion revenue shortfall in 2016. "It was nice to be able to have enough to prioritize the needs and not be in the same position we were two years ago when we were just making cuts everywhere," Poolman said. "I think that also contributed to the mood of the session." The Associated Press contributed to this report. Reach Jack Dura at 701-223-8482 or jack.dura@bismarcktribune.com. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get Government & Politics updates in your inbox! Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. The North Dakota Senate approved a bill requiring local governments to justify larger setbacks imposed on animal feeding operations Tuesday. The new version of Senate Bill 2345 was approved along party lines in a House-Senate conference committee Monday afternoon before it passed the full Senate in a 36-11 vote Tuesday. It still must pass the House before it's sent to Gov. Doug Burgum. Critics have warned that the bill represents an infringement on local control, while proponents say it will help boost the state's livestock industry and thus promote rural economies and crop markets. As passed by the House earlier this month, the bill would have removed local governments' ability to impose longer setbacks than the state's requirements for livestock feeding operations. For the largest such facilities, the state's setback is 1 miles. The compromise version of the bill still gives local governments the ability to impose larger setbacks, but requires that they "demonstrate compelling, objective evidence" that they're needed. Setbacks are buffers designed to minimize a facility's impact to homes and businesses. Under the bill, a person whose animal feeding operation is affected by a larger local setback would be able to request the state agriculture commissioner to review the ordinance. The agriculture commissioner could then seek an attorney general's opinion on whether the setback is lawful. Sen. Larry Luick, R-Fairmount, who chaired the conference committee, defended the setback requirements included in the bill and argued it didn't take away local authority. "Current code is that they don't have to do anything. They can say out of a whim, 'I don't like you ... so I'm not going to allow you to do anything, I'm going to mandate that your setback is going to be an extra 50 percent distance,'" he said. Rep. Gretchen Dobervich, D-Fargo, who was a member of the conference committee, said she was concerned that the bill was "limiting" local governments based on a small amount of issues. Proposed hog farms in Cass and Ramsey counties have run into local opposition and spawned lawsuits. But Dobervich welcomed an amendment requiring a report from the new state Department of Environmental Quality on animal feeding operation permit applications that were approved or denied. Aaron Birst, legal counsel for the North Dakota Association of Counties, said the new setback requirements alleviate some concerns stemming from the House version of the bill. The legislation also institutes a "shot clock" giving local governments 60 days to decide whether a proposed facility complies with zoning regulations, he said. Birst said that timeline is "kind of tight," especially for townships officers who meet less regularly. Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 2 PIERRE, S.D. State Circuit Judge John Brown on Friday sentenced Hunter Canode to five years in prison, with two of the years suspended, for dealing drugs and possessing child pornography and ordered him to be taken into custody in a Pierre court room. Based on state guidelines, Canode likely will serve about 30% of the three years in prison, or about a year of actual time behind bars, Brown told him. Brown granted Canodes request for a suspended imposition of the sentence on child pornography charge, meaning if Canode follows through on probation conditions, the felony conviction will be taken off his record. It also means his required registration as a sex offender will end after the five years of prison and probation, Brown said. Initially facing a raft of child porn possession and drug charges, including a gun-related felony charge, after his arrest in June 2016 in his residence in his fathers basement in Pierre, Canode faced more than 100 years of possible prison time, including mandatory minimum sentences of more than five years. But after more than two years of case work by both sides, Canode struck deals with state prosecutors in recent months. Prosecutors dropped most of the charges and Canode pleaded guilty in recent months to three counts for which Brown sentenced him Friday: possession with intent to distribute more than a pound of pot, a Class 3 felony with a maximum sentence of 15 years; ingestion of cocaine, a Class 5 felony with a top sentence of five years; and possession of child pornography, a Class 4 felony with a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. Assistant Attorney General Kelly Marnette told Brown on Friday that on the drug charges, "We are recommending 20 years in prison with five years suspended. She said the prosecution team recommended that the sentence run concurrently with the sentence for child pornography. Canodes attorney, Brad Schreiber, said Canode admitted being ashamed and embarrassed at the child porn crime. What I have seen of Hunter in the past (two years), this young man is not going near this stuff again, Schreiber told Brown. Canode has been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and chemical and addiction issues, Schreiber said. He was in a bad place for a few years, the defense attorney said of the period when Canode was committing the child porn and drug crimes. But now Canode has been on the right path . . . taking care of his son, Schreiber said, turning to indicate the young boy being held by his stepfather, and Canodes mother, father, sister and handful of other family members and friends in the courtroom. Schreiber said that shows the family support that Canode has that could help him do well on probation. "One statement Hunter has made," Schreiber said, "is 'I want to be a great father but I don't want my son to be like, or turn out like, me.'" Canode told Brown, I know I could do probation and know I could be very successful at it. Prosecutor Marnette told Brown that Canode had been deep into dealing drugs, not just for his own use, with a system and network for moving large amounts of illegal drugs. Marnette said she was concerned that Canode had not been working recently. Schreiber told Brown that Canode hurt his back several months ago while working construction in Sioux Falls and may need back surgery. The case had a strange start. Canode, who will turn 23 next month, was arrested in June 2016 after a bicyclist told police that a man in a gold car had harassed him on a Pierre street. Police traced the car information to Canode. In trying to contact Canode at his home in the basement of his fathers house, police officers said they quickly saw and smelled obvious signs of illegal drug activity as well as liquor, illegal for Canode who was 20 at the time. The investigation led to more than a dozen counts related to alleged drug-related crimes. That led to seven counts of child pornography possession based on images investigators said they found on computers and other electronic devices in Canodes possession, including one showing a victim about six years old, according to court documents. In the spring of 2017, the man on the bicycle told police that Canode had confronted him at the Pierre YMCA in a threatening manner, yelling You ruined my life. After his sentencing Friday, Canode hugged his family members in tearful goodbyes before deputies took him into custody. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 2 BLACK REPUBLICAN BLOG - The Republican Party is the party of civil rights and the four Fs: faith, family, freedom and fairness. The Democratic Party is the party of the four Ss: slavery, secession, segregation and socialism (Quote By Author Michael Scheuer). Yahoo! JAPAN Yahoo! JAPAN Fitness isn't just an activity, it's a lifestyle. Plus, if you want to be your happiest and healthiest self possible, it's easier than ever to start taking care of yourself. That means not having to struggle your way to the dreaded gym at the crack of dawn. There are plenty of ways to bring the READ THE REST Dan Lipiniski is the worst Democrat in Congress, a man who literally inherited his seat from his father and has spent his career in Congress opposing minimum wage laws, access to abortion, and rights for LGBTQ people, taking massive contributions from literal railbarons in exchange for fighting railroad safety rules. Lipinski sits in one of the Democrats' safest seats, meaning whomever wins the Democratic primary in his Illinois district automatically gets sent to Congress, so the only way to oust him is to defeat him in a primary race. Enter the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, who have banned any primary challenges to any sitting Democrat in 2020, with a policy that says that no DCCC-backed candidate may procure services from consultants or suppliers who work on a primary challenge. The DCCC and the Democratic establishment have a long history of backing Lipinski, and in 2018, they helped fend off a primary challenge by Marie Newman (@Marie4Congress, donate here), a progressive, small-money-backed Democrat. Newman (whose 2018 challenge fell short by 2.2%) wants to challenge Lipinski in 2020, and the DCCC has already begun to sabotage her campaign. Last week, Campaign Pro's Laura Barron-Lopez announced that she was quitting Newman's campaign because of pressure from the DCCC. Newman has also lost the services of two mail firms because of the DCCC's ban. The DCCC's ban on primary challenges has the full support of the party establishment, including Nancy Pelosi. I have just donated $200 to Newman's campaign. I will not give one dime to the DCCC. 31 colleges' Young Democrats chapters are also boycotting the DCCC and calling on supporters to directly support individual candidates, including progressive primary challengers to reactionary scumbags like Lipinski. "The DCCC would rather stand with a so-called Democrat who has stood against reproductive, immigrant, and LGBT rights and a $15 minimum wage rather than allow a fair competition and choice for voters," said Alexandra Rojas, head of Justice Democrats. "The Democratic Party leadership is choosing machine politics over ushering in a new generation of leaders and the fundamental idea of democracy. Dan Lipinski needs to go and Marie came within 1,600 votes of defeating him with progressive support in 2018. We look forward to Marie finishing the job, but have not made a formal endorsement at this time." Newman told Politico and confirmed to The Intercept that the two mail firms that dropped her campaign did so specifically because of the DCCC policy implemented by Rep. Cheri Bustos, who chairs the committee. Newman said that a number of consultants unaligned with the DCCC reached out to her on Friday and that she is putting her campaign back together. "It's tricky," she told The Intercept. "This has been very expensive for my campaign it's cost time and money and effort and frustration, but we're working through it. DCCC Defense of Anti-Gay, Anti-Choice Democrat Sparks Pushback [Akela Lacy/The Intercept] News / National by Staff reporter ALL is set for the official opening of the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) today with President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his Ugandan counterpart, Yoweri Museveni, expected to arrive in Bulawayo this morning to preside over the event and interact with exhibitors.Vice Presidents, Dr Constantino Chiwenga and Kembo Mohadi are already in the city and yesterday conducted a tour of exhibition stands and participated in key investment meetings sharing the stage with industry and commerce executives.Cabinet ministers and their deputies and representatives from the diplomatic community, among other distinguished guests, have also arrived and have been sharing their insights at different platforms across the city.Indications are that official proceedings would begin earlier than during previous years with delegates expected to be seated at the ZITF main arena by 12 noon. Traditionally the official opening is preceded by a tour of stands by the President and the guest of honour.A total of 532 local direct exhibitors and 16 foreign countries are participating while all available exhibition space has, for the first time in 60 years, been sold out, showing strong desire to do business in Zimbabwe under the new dispensation.Dr Chiwenga and Mohadi conducted separate tours of stands where they had lengthy interactions with exhibitors.Mohadi was accompanied by his wife, Mai Mohadi, Industry and Commerce Minister, Mangaliso Ndlovu, Minister of State in his Office, Davis Marapira and his permanent secretary, Reverend Paul Damasane. His first stop was at the Ministry of Health and Child Care where he was briefed about the services offered before moving to the Health Service Board where he asked why the desk was manned by gentlemen only, as if there were no ladies, drawing laughter from the crowd around him.Mohadi then moved to the Econet stand where officials took him on a tour of the big stand showcasing their services. He was particularly interested in the EcoFarmer service and asked quite a number of questions.Mohadi also toured the Zanu-PF Hall 5 and visited all party departments exhibiting there. He also had a brief explanation from Zanu-PF Youth League national deputy secretary, Lewis Matutu, about the youth league programmes. The VP marvelled at the stand showcasing pictures of the Presidium and remarked, "It's nice, very nice."Mohadi also visited the Command Agriculture stand where he was taken through its processes and growth over the year as well as the supporting stakeholders who are also exhibiting. He proceeded to the Agricultural Show Society where he saw the few cattle being showcased before going to Hall 2A where small to medium enterprises are exhibiting.Mohadi and his delegation made a stop at the Belarus Embassy where he was welcomed Ambassador Alexander Sidoruk before proceeding to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development stand.He concluded his tour at the Office of the President and Cabinet stand where he was welcomed by Ambassador Mary Mubi who explained their thrust of ease of doing business and drive towards Vision 2030. In an interview after the tour, Mohadi said he was optimistic that this year's attendance would result in more business linkages."My impression is that everything is good and is going on well. It seems as if this year's trade fair has been oversubscribed. Everybody else is very happy. I'm sure they are going to clinch some business deals at the end of the trade fair. It has been a very good show," said VP Mohadi."I'm just walking out of OPC and they have been taking me through steps on ease of doing business, one stop, ZIDA and others. It is quite relevant because we are going to be working on improving the way we do business and the time it takes for business to be registered and start business, so it's quite relevant."The VP said the "Zimbabwe is Open for Business mantra" was beginning to yield results hence the appearance of states that had long been absent such as the United States and Belarus.Chiwenga conducted his tour of exhibition stands at mid-day and made stops at NetOne, Cassava Smartech, United Refineries, and Maka, which deals with irrigation equipment before proceeding to the Zanu-PF Hall where he visited several party departments showcasing in Hall 5. He also toured the Command Agriculture stand and was briefed on the model and also met some of the supporting stakeholders.At the SeedCo stand, VP Chiwenga asked if they had seeds for kale, the popular leafy vegetables and the hosts seemed not to have them on display.From Command Agriculture VP Chiwenga stopped at the Lupane State University and Harare Institute of Technology where he was welcomed by its Vice Chancellor, Engineer Quinton Kanhukamwe.He concluded his tour at the Office of the President and Cabinet Stand (OPC) where he was taken through the work being undertaken by department. News / National by Staff reporter GOVERNMENT has begun a process of simplifying its tax system while the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) continues to roll out operational reform strategies aimed at enhancing voluntary compliance and increasing domestic resource mobilisation, Finance and Economic Development Minister, Professor Mthuli Ncube, said yesterday.Addressing industry and commerce executives during a breakfast conference on taxation organised by Zimra alongside the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) in Bulawayo, he said increased interaction between taxpayers and the tax collector was critical as it presents a wonderful opportunity for business to forge synergies with the authority.Prof Ncube said taxation was a matter of national importance hence the need for increased stakeholder dialogue as a foundation for solid economic development. As such he said simplifying taxation procedures, improving compliance to widen the tax base and fighting corruption were major areas of focus for economic transformation."We continue to work on long-term plans to have the tax rules simplified while the revenue authority continues to implement tax reform strategies which include effective and extensive taxpayer education, business process re-engineering and automation through investing in robust ICT systems and building enabling infrastructure for revenue collection," said Prof Ncube.A simplified tax system is one that has tax rules, which are easy to understand, tax procedures to follow and tax processes to undertake by taxpayers, in their bid to comply with the tax laws, said the minister.Based on results from the Tax Administration Diagnostic Assessment Tool (TADAT) Assessment done by the IMF in 2018, he said Government was now able to assess the performance of the tax administration system and urged Zimra to improve its service delivery.He said: "Use risk-based compliance strategies, as well as use modern tax data analytics approaches, including data matching or use of third party data to bring non-compliant taxpayers into the net."Prof Ncube said systems that were key in curbing transit fraud such as the Electronic Cargo Tracking System were important given their positive impact to compliance and revenue collection. He said widening the tax base requires a high level of compliance by companies, which will result in enhanced collections by Zimra for the benefit of the fiscus and the country at large."We remain committed to current and future tax reforms geared at widening the taxbase so that the tax burden is shared by all including by the informal sector for that matter. Going forward, therefore, our policy thrust is to continuously reform our tax system so that taxes are modernised or restructured to broadly capture all economic activity/transactions - including the informal and shadow ones - raise revenue, close the fiscal deficit and restore confidence through low budget deficit and reduced domestic debt," he said.The ongoing reforms have already seen Government revenue collections surpass targets with Treasury recording surpluses of average $100 million per month in the past few months.A latest Zimra report shows $2 billion was collected in the first quarter of 2019, above target by about 41 percent.However, Prof Ncube said more needs to be done to cultivate the culture of voluntary compliance by waging a tough war against corruption, tax evasion, profit shifting among other vices."Corruption is a scourge, which derails economic development. It is abuse of authority for personal gain leading to unjust enrichment. The fight against corruption cannot be won by Zimra on its own as it is systemic and entrenched not only in Zimra but in the fabric of our society as a whole and, hence, requires cooperation and partnership with all stakeholders," said Prof Ncube.He called on Zimra and all arms of Government, and the private sector "to tenaciously fight tax and duty corruption unless" to ensure progress achieved so far is not reduced."My clarion call is for all of us to seize the opportunity to close all corruption loopholes. It is essential, therefore, that we adopt international best practices in dealing with tax corruption. It is critical that all stakeholders, including the law enforcement agencies, the judiciary, the legislature and the executive, speak with one voice and enact laws that have deterrent penalties," said Prof Ncube."The future for us as a nation is intricately interwoven and rests squarely on our drive to forge impermeable alliances as business and the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority."Speaking earlier, Zimra Commissioner General, Ms Faith Mazani, said the tax collector was reforming its operations with the view of facilitating investment and trade for industrial growth.She said Zimra has a mandate to enhance ease of doing business as a key pillar in the economy and promoting legitimate trade hence the drive to collect adequate resources to enable Government to finance critical development projects.Ms Mazani urged business to play their role by paying taxes saying those still owing taxes should come forward and make payment plans as Zimra was not keen to see businesses closing. She said efforts were being made to increase focus on non-registered small business to ensure they pay tax too.Ms Mazani admitted that tax payers were facing challenges in getting tax refunds but said processes were being done to urgently address the issue.Zimra board chair Mr Callisto Jokonya paid tribute to business sector for providing revenue to fiscus through tax saying Zimra has met targets because of honesty and integrity by tax payers who appreciate that their money was being used for national development. News / National by Staff reporter Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni jetted into the country yesterday and is today expected to officially open the ongoing 60th edition of the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) in Bulawayo.Last night, President Mnangagwa held a dinner reception for the visiting Head of State at State House in Harare.The ZITF began on Tuesday and is being held under the theme, "Propagating Industrial Growth through Trade and Investment" and will be officially opened around mid day.The Ugandan leader was met at the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport by President Mnangagwa, senior Government officials, service chiefs and several African diplomats.President Museveni was greeted with a 21-gun salute and inspected a Guard of Honour mounted by members of the Presidential Guard. His presence at the annual show adds to the international flair where 16 countries, including Belarus, Botswana, Ethiopia, Japan, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, United States of America and Zambia, are participating.The United States of America has also returned to the ZITF after a three-year absence, a development which observers say is an indicator of Washington's commitment to re-engage with Zimbabwe.Under the new political order led by President Mnangagwa, the country has been on a re-engagement drive with the international community with a view to attract the much-needed foreign direct investment from across the globe.Some of the major highlights of this year's trade fair include the ZITF International Business Conference that was held on the Wednesday and the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI)/ ZITF Original Equipment Manufacturers' Forum held yesterday.For the first time in the history of the trade fair, all the available exhibitor space has been sold out and special arrangements to accommodate more exhibitors have been made through pitching up tents. Today and tomorrow are public days.Meanwhile, MDC leader Nelson Chamisa has slammed President Emmerson Mnangagwa for inviting Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni to officially open this year's Zimbabwe International Trade Fair in Bulawayo on Friday.Chamisa was addressing the media at his party's headquarters Wednesday."I don't know why Mr Mnangagwa chose Mr Museveni to be in trade with him. We don't know perhaps it's a way of confirming that he belongs to a club of dictators because Mr Museveni's behaviour in his own country leaves a lot to be desired," said the opposition leader.Museveni, Uganda's sole ruler since 1986, has been accused of rights abuses in his bid to maintain control of the East African country.Lately, his government has come under fire for arresting firebrand musician Bobi Wine for allegedly failing to comply with safety precautions ahead of a concert he had organised.Because of that, Chamisa felt the Ugandan strongman's invitation to Zimbabwe was in bad taste."The choice of friends defines the man's character and we are worried that Mr Mnangagwa invited Mr Museveni at a time when he is terrorising his own opposition."Bobi Wine, my dear friend, is being terrorised. I'm told that he has been arrested. He has been arrested several times. That kind behaviour is not acceptable on the African continent."We don't take it lightly whenever dictators come in cahoots or in unison. We have an obligation to fight them."We don't take it lightly Mr Museveni coming to our country to just come and grace the trade fair with yet another trade of dictatorship, with yet another trade union of people who oppress their own citizens, an alternative voice of on the continent of Africa."Why should he invite questionable credentials unless you are confirming that you are just calling the boys from the same hood to try and send a particular message on the continent." News / National by Staff reporter TWO pirate taxi operators lost their Honda Fit vehicles to unknown carjackers in separate incidents in Bulawayo on Wednesday night.The first incident involved four unknown men who carjacked a Honda Fit driver they had hired from Plumtree Town to Bulawayo.The second one involved an unknown man who hired a Honda Fit driver to take him to Lochview suburb and when they arrived at his destination he tricked the driver into exiting the car before speeding off in it.Bulawayo acting police spokesperson Inspector Abednico Ncube said the incident involving four men was being treated as a carjacking and robbery while the second is theft of vehicle."Both incidents occurred on Wednesday with the first one involving four men who hired a Honda Fit driver from Plumtree to take them to Bulawayo."The driver charged P400 and they paid him P200 before embarking on the journey. When they reached Emganwini turn in Bulawayo, they instructed the driver to drive to Emganwini suburb."As the driver made the turn, one of the passengers instructed him to stop as he wanted to relieve himself," he said."Instead, he moved to the driver's door and opened it and started pulling him out of the car with his accomplices also joining in. Fearing for his life the driver escaped to a bushy area and they drove away in his car."Insp Ncube said the second incident occurred at about 11PM where an unknown man likely in his 30s approached a Honda Fit driver who had parked his car near Haefelis Restaurant and Fast Food outlet. He said the man requested to be driven to Lochview suburb and offered to pay $30."The driver drove him to a house in the suburb. The passenger requested the driver to wait for him as he was collecting something and wanted to go back to town."He entered a house and within five minutes he brought an empty 20 litre container which the driver ordered him to put it in the car boot," he said."However, he told the driver that he couldn't open the boot, forcing the driver to exit his car and assist him. But he rushed to the driver's seat and when the driver tried to pursue him, he pushed him to the ground and entered the car and locked himself inside before speeding off."Insp Ncube said both cars and the suspects have not been located yet. He urged motorists to be on the lookout as some of their purported clients are turning out to be criminals. News / National by Staff reporter America is known for flash. But all that glisters is not gold, according to the latest United Nations report on President Trump's country. From the outside, America is heaven, "God's own country" they call it in fact. That is what American propaganda - spread by its media and Hollywood film industry - has made the world to believe. According to that narrative, the US is a land paved with gold, where everybody (provided they are hardworking) can achieve the "American Dream" of prosperity and liberty.Therefore, it comes as a massive shock that an official United Nations 2018 Report says, "40 million Americans live in poverty, 18,5 million in extreme poverty, and 5,3 million live in Third World conditions of absolute poverty."Not only that: American "citizens live shorter and sicker lives compared to those living in all other rich democracies".On top of it, America "now has one of the lowest rates of intergenerational social mobility of any of the rich countries", to the point where "high child and youth poverty rates perpetuate the intergenerational transmission of poverty very effectively", thus "ensuring that the American dream' is rapidly becoming the American illusion."Today, therefore, "the equality of opportunity, which is so prized in theory, is in practice a myth, especially for minorities and women, but also for many middle-class white workers."Worse still, "in imagining the poor, racist stereotypes are usually not far beneath the surface. The poor are overwhelmingly assumed to be people of colour, whether African Americans or Hispanic immigrants'. The reality is that there are 8 million more poor whites than there are poor blacks.The face of poverty in America is not only black or Hispanic, but also white, Asian and many other backgrounds."This is hard to believe yet it is true. For the last 74 years - since the end of World War II - America has been the dominant empire of the world, commanding all it surveys. Therefore, to see the kind of poverty that the UN Report says stands tall in the supposedly mighty US, is a huge indictment of the American Empire.America has a population of 237 million (according to the US Census Bureau's 2018 estimate), compared with China's 1,39 billion, and Russia's 144,5 million.But as the former US Senator Mike Gravel confirms: "China is moving its citizens out of poverty while US citizens fall deeply into poverty. China is building roads and bridges and railways while the US policymakers take our tax dollars and blow them up! There is something terribly wrong with a system that creates war as its energy and industrial policy, immigration as its labour policy, and debt as its investment policy."Somehow, the US political system has inserted a banker between the student and his or her professor, an insurance bureaucrat between the doctor and his or her patient. The US is seriously on the wrong track, and we need revolutionary political thought to come to grips with what we are currently doing in order to begin thinking about how to put us back on the right track," Senator Gravel adds.Truly incredibleThe shocking UN Report was done by Philip Alston, the UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur On Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, after his mission to the US in December 2017 in accordance with the Human Rights Council Resolution 35/19.Alston visited the US from 1 to 15 December 2017, and his 20-page Report was released on 4 May 2018 as part of the Human Rights Council's 38th Session, which took place from 18 June to 6 July 2018. The Report was Agenda Item 3 of the 38th Session.The purpose of Alston's visit was to report to the Human Rights Council on the extent to which the US government's policies and programmes relating to extreme poverty are consistent with its human rights obligations and to offer constructive recommendations to the government and other stakeholders."During his visit, the Special Rapporteur met with government officials at the federal, state, county and city levels, members of Congress, representatives of civil society, academics and people living in poverty. He also received more than 40 detailed written submissions in advance of his visit."He visited California (Los Angeles and San Francisco), Alabama (Lowndes County and Montgomery), Georgia (Atlanta), Puerto Rico (San Juan, Guayama and Salinas), West Virginia (Charleston), and Washington DC."Fortunately, there is already much excellent scholarship and many civil society analyses of the challenges of poverty in the United States.In the present Report, the Special Rapporteur aims to bring together some of those analyses, identify the key poverty-related problems, and explain the relevance of the international human rights obligations of the United States in this context."Alston's Report was included as the last chapter of a new book edited by the former US congresswoman and political activist, Cynthia Mckinney, which came out in late 2018. Titled "How the US Creates Sh*thole' Countries", the book is a parody of President Trump's insulting remark in January 2018 characterising Africa, Haiti and El Salvador as "shithole countries".Interestingly, from the analyses of the 25 contributors of the book, including myself who wrote a lengthy chapter on Africa, it is the US itself whose imperial and foreign policies turn these nations into "shithole" countries. And worse, as the UN Report and other contributors of the book care to point out from empirical evidence, the US itself is a big "shithole country".My chapter on Africa deals with how the US and Western foreign policy and their multinational companies, especially those in the extractive sector, exploit Africa and create the conditions for what Trump calls shithole countries on the continent.Cynthia McKinney takes up the cue. A wonderful African American woman who, while in Congress, stood up for justice for all across the world and fought tenaciously against the American Empire's predatory attitude towards Africa (in 2011 she famously stood on the floor of Congress and spoke passionately against the imposition of economic sanctions against Zimbabwe), she explains in the Introduction of the book that America's relationship to conditions in the so-called shithole countries "is clear from US military occupation of Haiti, financing of death squads in El Salvador, and support for dictators in all of them, indeed all over the African continent."Therefore, for our purposes, a sh*thole' country is a country whose residents' present quality of living conditions can be tied to historical or current US foreign and military policies that have negatively impacted the ability of that state to deliver quality of life policies to its residents."In this regard, for too many US residents, the United States itself, can also be characterised as a sh*thole' country, resulting from its deliberate choice to fund the war machine and corporate policies that produce negative consequences for the countries and territories, in some cases colonies, that are profiled [in the book]."A must-readThe book is in four parts. Part One deals with "understanding US foreign policy". Part Two deals with "some victims to remember (and how they got that way)." Part Three is about "why getting the truth out is so difficult." Part Four is about "the United States as a sh*thole' country."One of the contributors of Part Four, Dr Kevin Barret (an American Islamic studies scholar, writer, and popular contributor to the top echelons of the American media), writes that "America is in decline primarily and precisely due to its misallocation of resources in favour of the military-industrial complex.Barret quotes Alfred McCoy who endorses in his new book, In the Shadows of American Empire, "the prediction of the National Intelligence Council that the US hegemony will end by 2030". Barret says "imperial collapse will bring a major crash in Americans living standards and an accompanying decline towards sh*thole country' status."Another "Part Four" contributor, Richard Falks (an American author of 30 books, who is also professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University), dwells on how the US actually creates sh*thole' countries around the world.He explains that ever since the decline and fall of European colonialism, US foreign policy has generally done its best to control the economic, political and social development of countries in Africa, Asia, Middle East and Latin America."Stripping away the ideology of US expansionism," Falk writes, "exposes a set of realities devoted to squeezing wealth from [developing countries], confiscating or unjustly appropriating their resources, and as a result producing sh*thole conditions of impoverishment, corrupted elites, oppressive government, as well as a mixture of nationalist resistance and the collective loss of self-esteem."What motivated the political leadership of the United States to engage in this kind of predatory behaviour around the world? It was, at the first, materialist greed, civilisational arrogance, and the need for export markets and sources of raw materials to satisfy the compulsions of 19th century industrial capitalism, essentially maximising profits while ignoring massive poverty."We as a country have never truly acknowledged the full extent of these crimes or the degree to which treating others so wretchedly deforms the national character of the perpetrator, contributing to elaborate rituals of denial so as to avoid confronting unpleasant realities embedded in an accurate rendering of the national narrative.We employ a variety of euphemisms and prohibitions designed to cover depraved behaviour with a thick veil of ignorance and deception."Then Falks pronounces matter-of-factly: "We are a sh*thole country to the extent that our leaders and citizenry accept extreme poverty, police brutality, environmental degradation, and global warming as non-issues, while scapegoating Muslims, Hispanics, non-white immigrants, and refugees while projecting a world of drug addicts and Islamic radicals posing dire threats to the future. Such an inversion of societal realities and challenges does warrant the sh*thole labelling in the spirit of honest disclosure."As the lead international actor for the past century, the United States needs to accept some responsibility for making foreign societies so unlivable that people flee elsewhere in desperation, and take steps to improve the situation."Remarkably, after cheating its way around the world and trampling on other people's rights, America, Kevin Barrett says, is no better. "The petrol dollar - so named because Saudi Arabia has propped up the otherwise overvalued greenback by refusing to sell oil in any other currency - will almost certainly lose its status as the de facto global reserve currency during the coming decade," Barrett predicts."As in Sigmund Freud's favourite folktale, the devil, that head usurer of the empire of usury, will suddenly vanish from our shores, and Americans will discover that [the devil's] gold has turned to shit.The resulting crisis in the US domestic economy will likely push the erstwhile world hegemon further down the road toward sh*thole nation status, giving Americans a noxious taste of the foul medicine their leaders have been foisting on the world."This will mark the end of the American century' - the roughly 100 years during which the US profited, at least relative to the rest of the world, from the international usury cartel's depredations."Poverty in the midst of plentyThe shocking UN Report is clear in its conclusions. "The United States is a land of stark contrasts," the Report says. "It is one of the world's wealthiest societies, a global leader in many areas, and a land of unsurpassed technological and other forms of innovation. Its corporations are global trendsetters, its civil society is vibrant and sophisticated, and its higher education system leads the world."But its immense wealth and expertise stand in shocking contrast with the conditions in which vast numbers of its citizens live. About 40 million live in poverty, 18,5 million in extreme poverty, and 5,3 million live in Third World conditions of absolute poverty. It has the highest youth poverty rate in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and the highest infant mortality rates among comparable OECD states."Its citizens live shorter and sicker lives compared to those living in all other rich democracies, eradicable tropical diseases are increasingly prevalent, and it has the world's highest incarceration rate, one of the lowest levels of voter registrations among OECD countries, and the highest obesity levels in the developed world."Shockingly, "in 2018 the United States had over 25 percent of the world's 2,208 billionaires. There is thus a dramatic contrast between the immense wealth of the few and the squalor and deprivation in which vast numbers of Americans exist."The UN Report goes on: "The United States has the highest rate of income inequality among Western countries. The $1,5 trillion in tax cuts in December 2017 overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy and worsened inequality. News / National by Staff reporter Finance minister Mthuli Ncube has said austerity measures adopted by government to cap expenditure and free up funds for capital projects are expected to ease the burden on the taxpayer next year.Zimbabwe which is currently operating on limited fiscal space and no budgetary support adopted a cocktail of belt-tightening measures and taxes that have largely eaten into consumers spending power.Under the new economic blueprint, the Transitional Stabilisation (TSP), government undertook a raft of reforms which seek to attract foreign direct investment, boost domestic production and contain expenditure. Official figures show that wages and recurrent expenditure currently account for over 90 percent of government revenue.The TSP was launched in October last year as an economic blueprint to stimulate growth after President Emmerson Mnangagwa was elected into office last year. The economic plan is also seen as a precursor to government's aspiration of creating a middle income economy by 2030.In his address at the ZITF international business conference in Bulawayo yesterday, Ncube said austerity will be a thing of the past by next year."Next year we will be starting entering the prosperity period because my understanding is that it can only be austerity for a year and you cannot have austerity for three years that's not fair. The beginning of next it will be less and less austerity," Ncube said.Austerity measures have seen government cutting expenditure and reviewing tax heads such as the intermediated transfer tax and excise duty on fuel to raise more revenue to meet government's growing obligations.Ncube said government was solvent with the Treasury recording an average of ZWL$100m monthly surplus, a figure critics say could be too little given the weakening of local currency against major currencies. Treasury is targeting above ZWL$200m per month.The finance minister said government ensure that the interbank market operates efficiently to reduce market distortions. Premiums on the formal market are currently lagging behind parallel market rates which are nearly approaching the 500 percent mark.Ncube said treasury was not injecting new money into the economy, blaming speculative behaviour for the movements on the informal market."Money supply is not growing on the market and my question is where the pressure for foreign currency is coming from. That has mainly been driven by speculation in the market and I urge private sector to utilise the interbank market," said Ncube.Mthuli said efforts are underway to reform state enterprises so that their contribution to GDP is enhanced.Ncube said despite the headwinds the domestic economy remains on a growth trajectory adding that government has set a per capita income target of at least $4,500 by 2030. The figure is currently below $1,000.This implies growth in nominal GDP from 2018 levels around ZWL$25bn to around ZWL$65bn by 2030.Ncube said the private sector was expected to stimulate growth with Zimbabwe assuming the position of a factory to the world.Ncube said payments towards clearance of domestic debt amounted to ZWL$1,62bn in 2018. The domestic debt topped ZWL$9,6bn in September last year as government borrowed from the domestic market to finance the budget deficit. Government has been borrowing from the domestic market through the issuance of Treasury Bills, a move analysts say was crowding out the private sector as banks turns to the securities instead of giving loans.In January and February 2019 payments towards domestic debt amounted to ZWL$195m, Ncube said. News / National by Staff reporter A self-styled prophet from Mberengwa has been ordered to pay three beasts after he bedded a married woman.The man of the cloth, Sydney Moyo, had an illicit affair with Sinikiwe Mhlanga for three years before being caught by Mhlanga's husband, Jericho Moyo.Mhlanga's husband dragged Prophet Moyo to Chief Mapiravana's traditional court for sleeping with his wife.Chief Mapiravana in whose jurisdiction the area falls under confirmed the incident."I presided over a matter of a prophet who slept with a married woman. He denied having an affair, but unfortunately the woman admitted and she even produced messages as proof of their illicit relationship," he said.Chief Mapiravana said Mhlanga told the court that she used to tell her husband that she was going to church, each time she had an appointment with her lover."The woman confessed to the court that she would lie to her husband that she was attending evening prayers in church, and they would indulge in sex in the bush and sometimes in church," he said.Chief Mapiravana said he ordered Prophet Moyo to pay three head of cattle to Mhlanga's husband for disrespecting his home."I ordered him to pay three cows for sleeping with a married woman because he disrespected another man's marriage," he said.Contacted for comment, Prophet Moyo denied having an affair with Mhlanga."I did not have any relationship with Mhlanga, she is only a member of my church. As a matter of fact, I have approached the courts to nullify chief Mapiravana's ruling because I am innocent. For now I cannot comment much because the matter is before the courts," he said. News / National by GroundUp. "I miss my fellow Zimbabweans. We used to stay as a family but we are now scattered in Limpopo"A number of Zimbabweans who had been living and working in Tshino village, Thohoyandou, Vuwani, have moved to other areas of Limpopo or returned to Zimbabwe after xenophobic violence erupted last month.Spokesperson for SAPS in Limpopo Colonel Moatshe Ngoepe said about eight houses belonging to immigrants had been torched on the night of 17 March. Two suspects were arrested and are to appear in court on 25 April on charges of public violence, malicious damage to property and arson.Some Zimbabweans were accommodated by their employers on farms in Levubu several kilometres away."I miss my fellow Zimbabweans. We used to stay as a family but we are now scattered in Limpopo," said Tevera Mucheka. He lost his bakkie and the house he has rented for over ten years. He has now moved to Duthuni, 20km from Tshino village."I lost my Zimbabwean passport, driver's licence and customers who usually brought cars for repairs," said Mucheka, who is a mechanic."I have to start all over again My previous employers donated clothes and food," he said.He did not know why his home was torched, but said the crowd had shouted that "they no longer want Zimbabweans around"."Since 2008, foreigners have been subjected to such attacks and we do not notice any meaningful intervention from the government," he said.Spokesperson for the Limpopo Premier, Kenny Mathivha, said, "Compared to other provinces, Limpopo has had less such attacks because of its integrated communities. For example, you can't have such in Musina because South African citizens in Musina have relatives in Zimbabwe and speak same languages. In Giyani and Phalaborwa, it's difficult to distinguish a Tsonga-speaking person from a South African or Mozambican; same with Lephalale the Limpopo people in that area speak Setswana."He said the Department of Community Safety had been dealing with the attacks and liaising with the district municipality.Vhembe District Mayor Mavhungu Lerule-Ramakhanya said immigrants should register any business operations with the council so there would be no question about them since they'd be ratepayers. News / National by Staff reporter The MDC-Alliance national executive was last night left divided over the inclusion of a woman vice president as bickering continues to rock the opposition party ahead of its congress next month.There was heated debate on whether the party should earmark a woman as one of the vice presidents in line with international trends of upholding the women's quota or that they should contest on an equal footing with their male counterparts.So divided was the national executive that the issue was deferred for deliberation by the national council which is set to sit today. At present the party has three vice presidents, namely Professor Welshman Ncube, Mr Morgen Komichi and Engineer Elias Mudzuri.At least four women have been nominated to contest the post of vice president during the provincial congresses but were selected to run alongside their male counterparts.The four are Mrs Lillian Timveous, Mrs Lynette Karenyi-Kakore, Ms Paurina Mpariwa and Mrs Theresa Makone who were nominated to contest alongside Messrs Tendai Biti, Murisi Zwizwai, Komichi and Prof Ncube.A source who attended yesterday's meeting that took more than five hours said there was a heated debate on how to handle the issue."Some people argued that we should respect the party and national constitution that provides for gender parity. They said at least one of the VPs should be a woman. One of those who argued for a female VP was the secretary-general, Mr Douglas Mwonzora."But others shot down the proposal arguing that it was untenable to introduce new rules when the election process was getting to its tail end. Those who opposed the idea on that basis included Prof Ncube, Biti and Komichi," said a highly placed source."President Nelson Chamisa was caught in between but from the look of it, he will be compelled to observe the party's constitution. But at the end of the day the issue was deferred for further debate by the national council that is meeting tomorrow."When contacted, party spokesperson Mr Jacob Mafume said the party was aware of its obligation to ensure gender parity but did not say how the issue was resolved."The issue of gender representation is in our constitution. It is an aspiration that we should have a 50-50 representation. Our members are clear on that and our constitution is clear on that. We will aspire to have it in terms of the constitutional provision," said Mr Mafume.Preparations for the congress have been characterised by bickering and accusations of vote fraud and manipulation. News / National by Staff reporter Residents have denounced plans by Bulawayo City Council (BCC) to increase rates and service charges. Council has proposed to increase rates and service charges by more than 100 percent and the move has since been rejected by residents.In the event the council's proposal is approved, residents in high density suburbs will pay at least $40,70 a month up from about $20,29 while residents in medium density suburbs will pay $70,99 up from $35,61 per month.In a letter addressed to the local authority, the Bulawayo Progressive Residents' Association (BPRA) spokesperson, Mr Emmanuel Ndlovu, urged the City Fathers to find creative ways of ensuring service delivery given the harsh economic climate."It is our view that the Bulawayo City Council management must take time to ponder about the 'human cost' of the decision and treat residents as 'clients' and not mere bystanders. In the past, Bulawayo City Council has been a leader in service delivery excellence and consultation but such command decision making is a serious setback on democracy and a return to authoritarian rule," said Mr Ndlovu.He said due to the closure of industries in Bulawayo, some residents were surviving on vending and as such have very little income."In light of the above, it has become obvious that BCC should begin the process of thinking outside the box and not over-rely on rates as the only source of revenue.""In exploring other revenue schemes outside ratepayers, BCC should maximise on council assets and farms. Council must think of repossessing some of its farms and make them productive. What happened to the nature reserves that council used to own? Most of these places have been left derelict to such an extent that they are no longer attractive," said Mr Ndlovu. News / National by Mandla Ndlovu Presidential Advisory Council member Trevor Ncube has blocked exiled former Cabijnet Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo on Twitter after the pair had an altercation during the Easter holidays.Prof. Moyo on Friday posted a screenshot of a blocked message from Twitter informing him that he is blocked form accessing Ncube's Tweet feed.During the Easter holidays Prof Moyo called Ncube a tribalist, wife basher who insults his own tribe to get a seat at the Gukurahundist Advisory Committee.Moyo had earlier on said some members of the Presidential Advisory Team were not happy that Ncube had failed to reign in on his newspapers so that they magnify the work of the President. News / National by Mandla Ndlovu Shadowy Investigative group Team Pachedu has announced that three leaders of the Amalgamated Teachers Union of Zimbabwe were abducted by suspected state agents in Harare on Saturday.The three include ARTUZ Secretary General Robson Chere.Said Pachedu, "Robson Chere, Jess Drury, Precious Ndlovu and Munyaradzi Ndawana have been abducted in Greystone Park by 4 plain-clothed men using this vehicle (REG: ADL 7066). They are not at Harare Central and nearby police stations and their whereabouts remain unknown."The below car is the one suspected to have been used in the abduction.More details to follow Electricity high voltage pole and sky The utility industry is an interesting one. While it isnt a material, it still has the potential to combat many an economic downturn. Its one of those few industries that buying on a dip could reap some real rewards in the long term. That because no matter what, people will need gas, electricity, water the staples of life, frankly. Thats why today Ill be talking about Algonquin Power & Utilities (TSX:AQN)(NYSE:AQN), Fortis (TSX:FTS)(NYSE:FTS), and Canadian Utilities (TSX:CU) as some great options to buy. Just not yet. Algonquin This utility company operates across Canada and the United States, generating, distributing, and transmitting utility assets and electrical energy through renewable and clean energy facilities. Given its vast distribution, it should come as no surprise that this company rakes in cash quarter after quarter. Most recently, it reported earnings of $555.01 million and $0.19 earnings per share, beating analyst estimates. The only downside is that right now this stock is overvalued at its all-time high of $15 and should drop during the next 12 months. But once it does, you should absolutely buy it up and take the benefits of its 4.58% dividend yield while you wait for another rise. Fortis This gas and utility company also operates in Canada and the United States, but stretches beyond to the Caribbean. After a few acquisitions, this company is mainly a U.S. utility with about 65% of its earnings coming from the U.S. The company is now focusing on internal growth rather than acquisitions, which analysts believe could see the company grow by 6% through 2023. Just like Algonquin, this company continues to collect cash. Its last earnings came in at $2.21 billion, with earnings per share at $0.56. Its diverse, low-risk operations provide the company with not only this continuing streamline of cash, but also consistent dividend growth, which its had for the last four decades. In fact, its raised its dividend faster than most of its peers, with it sitting at 3.64% at the time of writing. Story continues There are also more opportunities Fortis could get into, such as renewable energy and grid modernization. When that hopefully happens, shareholders will be thankful they bought this stock. Its also near its all-time high, but analyst believe it could rise to $55 per share in the next 12 months, so you might want to wait a bit, but I wouldnt wait too long on this one. Canadian Utilities Canadian Utilities focuses more on electricity, pipelines and liquids, and the retail sector of the energy business. Its business is international, stretching from Canada to Australia and Mexico, and it now is under the banner of ATCO after being acquired recently. This has proven positive for this company, with its last quarter earnings at $1.04 billion at earnings per share of $0.69. That should increase even further, as the company has invested $315 million in capital growth projects for the first quarter of 2019. Until 2021, it plans to invest a further $3.5 billion to Canada and Australia to strengthen high-quality earnings. And, again, theres that attractive dividend of 4.63% at the time of writing, with the company having a record of raising it every year since 1972, which is the longest streak among most Canadian publicly traded companies. Like Algonquin, this stock is slightly overvalued at $37.18 per share and should remain around there for the next year. However, when the next dip happens, I would buy up this stock and take advantage of that dividend, then watch it steadily creep up for the long term. More reading Fool contributor Amy Legate-Wolfe has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fools purpose is to help the world invest, better. Click here now for your free subscription to Take Stock, The Motley Fool Canadas free investing newsletter. Packed with stock ideas and investing advice, it is essential reading for anyone looking to build and grow their wealth in the years ahead. Motley Fool Canada 2019 By Ranga Sirilal and Shihar Aneez COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lanka's president on Saturday outlawed two Islamist groups suspected to be behind the suicide bombings on churches and hotels while the wife and child of the suspected ringleader were wounded during a military raid in safe house, his family and police said. The National Thawheedh Jamaath (NTJ) and Jamathei Millathu Ibrahim were banned under his emergency powers, President Maithripala Sirisena said in a statement, nearly a week after the Easter Sunday attacks that killed more than 250 people. Authorities could not act earlier to ban the two little known groups because the law required them to show firm evidence against them, officials said. Police believe the suspected mastermind of the bombings, Mohamed Hashim Mohamed Zahran, led either the NTJ or a splinter group. Less is known about Jamathei Millathu Ibrahim, whose members are also believed to have played a role in the bombings. Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attacks. Nearly 10,000 soldiers have been deployed across the island to carry out searches and boost security since the bombings in three churches and four hotels, most of which were in the capital Colombo. Security forces have detained 100 people, including foreigners from Syria and Egypt, police said. A gunbattle erupted on Friday evening during a raid on a safe house in Sainthamaruthu in Ampara district on the island's east coast, killing at least 15 people including three people with suicide vests and six children, a military spokesman said. The wounded included the wife and a daughter of Zahran, his family said. "Yes, the wife and daughter were injured in the attack, said Mohamed Hashim Mathaniya, sister of Zahran. "I was asked to come to identify them but I am not sure I can go," she told Reuters from the town of Kattankudy in the east where Zahran was originally based. Zahran's driver was detained in a separate raid, according to a police statement. Bomb-making materials, dozens of gelignite sticks and thousands of ball bearings were found in a search of a separate house in the same area, along with Islamic State banners and uniforms, the military said. Zahran appeared in a video released by Islamic State days after the bombing, the only one showing his face while seven others were covered. In the video the men stand under a black Islamic State flag and declare their loyalty to its leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. FEAR OF MORE ATTACKS Authorities have said there could be more attacks against religious centers. Last Sunday's bombings shattered the relative calm that the Buddhist-majority country has seen since a 26-year civil war with mostly-Hindu ethnic Tamil separatists ended a decade ago. Sirisena and the government of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe have faced strong criticism after it emerged that India had repeatedly given warnings of the possibility of attacks. Both Sirisena and Wickremesinghe have said intelligence was not shared with them, exposing rifts at the top of the government and raising questions about its ability to deal with the security crisis. The national police chief had refused to accept Sirisena's request to step down, two sources told Reuters on Saturday, a further embarrassment for the president. The U.S. State Department said terrorist groups were continuing to plot attacks and cautioned its citizens against traveling to Sri Lanka, as well as ordering the departure of all school-age family members of U.S. government employees. India and Britain have also warned their nationals to avoid traveling to Sri Lanka. The security forces' response has included raids on mosques and homes of people in the town of Negombo where scores died in the bombing of a church. Police said on Friday they were trying to track down 140 people they believe have links with Islamic State. The president said some of the country's youth had been involved with the group since 2013 and that there were drug trafficking links. Muslims were urged to pray at home on Friday after the State Intelligence Services warned of possible car bomb attacks, amid fears of retaliatory violence. Many have fled their homes amid bomb scares, lockdowns and security sweeps. The archbishop of Colombo, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, told reporters he had seen an internal security document warning of further attacks on churches and said there would be no Catholic masses celebrated anywhere on the island this Sunday. Sri Lanka's 22 million people include minority Christians, Muslims and Hindus. Until now, Christians had largely managed to avoid the worst of the island's conflict and communal tensions. Most of the bombing victims were Sri Lankans. The dead also included 40 foreigners, including British, U.S., Australian, Turkish, Indian, Chinese, Danish, Dutch and Portuguese nationals. GRAPHIC: Sri Lanka bombings - https://tmsnrt.rs/2Xy02BA A decade of peace shattered - https://tmsnrt.rs/2W4wZoU (Writing by John Chalmers and Sanjeev Miglani; Editing by Frances Kerry) Leaving aside the personal and human toll, stressed-out workers cost countries a lot of time and money. The U.K.'s Health and Safety Executive said more than 11 million days were lost to work-stress, anxiety and depression in 2015-2016. In 2012, the German labour minister said stress leave and early retirement from worker burnout was costing the country up to $10 billion a year. But even when governments act, it's not clear policy alone can solve the problem. Take Japan, where overwork thrives. "Blue and white collar workers ... have a sense of guilt to leave the office," says Keiichiro Hamaguchi of the Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training. Last year, an Expedia survey found 58 per cent of Japanese respondents felt guilty for taking a vacation. This year, some workers are even complaining about the special 10-day nationwide holiday at the end of the month to mark Emperor Akihito's abdication. "The Japanese workplace is a very collective atmosphere," Hamaguchi says, adding that it's as if each worker has no individual job description. "The job description is attributed to the division or department," he says. "So if the department hasn't completed their task, then any member should not leave the office." At its most extreme, this work mentality leads to "karoshi," the well-worn term in Japanese society for death from overwork. WATCH: How the physical and mental demands of shift work can take a toll on workers: In 2017, karoshi was officially blamed for 190 deaths. One case that has made headlines in recent weeks is that of a 31-year-old space agency contractor who killed himself after working more than 70 hours of unpaid overtime a month. It's believed there are far more than the officially reported cases, with some estimating that unreported deaths due to overwork in Japan number in the thousands each year. It's an open secret in Japanese society that has rarely prompted serious action from governments. Until now. Story continues A law went into effect in April limiting overtime to 45 hours a month for big companies and mandating the use of vacation days (although overtime caps can still be increased to 100 hours during busy periods). The government also started a national "stress check" program, including a questionnaire that asks employees to rate everything from office dynamics to their exhaustion levels even whether they've had diarrhea. Preliminary research on the "stress check" shows some promise in figuring out which high-stress workers may go on disability leave, but little effect on actually reducing stress and mental health disorders. Meanwhile, critics of the new overtime law say it has too many exemptions and may end up encouraging unpaid overtime. France's 'right to disconnect' Then there's France. The land of the 35-hour workweek isn't entirely free from burnout. As many as a quarter of French employees say they're "hyper-stressed" and anxious about work. Surprising, perhaps, from a country that in 2017 enshrined the "right to disconnect" into law. Now, employees don't have to deal with work emails during their off hours. "We have many people who talk about how they wake up and the first thing they do is check their emails," says Anna Cox of University College London, who studies our constantly connected culture. "So they're already thinking about work before they're even out of bed." She says it's too early to say whether France's policy has been effective, but in order for it to work elsewhere, there needs to be buy-in at the company level. "It's one thing saying that people have the right," Cox says. "It's quite another thing for people to feel that the culture within their organization is supportive of that right." WATCH: How can governments help stop overwork among workers? The "right to disconnect" is yet another brick in the wall that is the French labour code more than 3,300 pages laying out worker protections, including five weeks of vacation. But just as it is loved, it is loathed by those who feel it is part of the reason for France's current economic woes. "Over the last 10 years, France has suffered from a high unemployment rate and weakened productivity," French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said earlier this month. Emmanuel Macron's government has enacted reforms, bringing what it calls "flexibility" to businesses, including loosening the standards for firing employees. The move has drawn massive protests during Macron's presidency, including by the "yellow vest" movement who see him as favouring business over workers. A lesson for Canada What can Canada learn from different approaches to workplace burnout around the world? "I think what we're seeing in both the Japanese case and in the French case it's hard to legislate culture," says Sunil Johal, policy director at the Mowat Centre, a University of Toronto think-tank. Johal is leading an expert panel advising the Canadian government on modern labour standards, including how best to deal with worker stress. Johal says blanket policies won't work because each business is different, even within sectors. "Trucking is different than banking, is different than law, is different than retail," Johal says. "I don't think it's really the government's place to get into those very fine details. But I think there should be a little bit of a push to have people think about these issues [and] be transparent about what their plans are." He adds that employees are now talking about burnout in a real way, so it's in the interest of businesses to take action without waiting for new government policy. "In a competitive marketplace, if you're a company that's moving ahead with progressive policies, you're going to get the best talent." With files from Jasmine Mani and Adam Miller Burnout: Stress at Work From how we think about our jobs, to where and when we do them, the stress of modern work is affecting Canadians in a lot of ways and across industries. This week, CBC News and The National take a look at the forces behind this stress and the ways we can avoid burning out. We'll examine new approaches to productivity and creativity, how we structure shift work, the mental health effects of telecommuting and what Canada can learn from other countries. For more on our series "Burnout: Stress At Work," watch The National and read more at CBCNews.ca. Kelowna artist Charles Chau is creating a vibrant new mural that will commemorate the contributions of Chinese pioneers in the Okanagan from the early 19th century to the 1960s. The mural is being painted on two courtyard walls at the Gospel Mission Shelter in collaboration with the Okanagan Chinese Canadian Association. "We are trying to recreate a little bit of the visual story of the historic Chinatown and the early Chinese settlers in Kelowna," said Chau. Farm theme The shelter, located on Leon Avenue, is in the same area where the city's historic Chinatown used to be up until around the 1960s. Submitted by Charles Chau In the 1930s and 1940s, there was significant farming activity in the area. "So, I picked the farming days, early Chinese farmers in Kelowna [and] in the Okanagan region, as the main theme that drives the whole painting," Chau told Daybreal South's Laurence Watt. Through his research, The Hong Kong-born artist discovered that many of the first Chinese settlers in the area were involved in mining, and then later, railway construction. In 1909, Chinese-Canadians made up around 15 per cent of Kelowna's population. In 2016, Stats Canada found that less than 2 per cent of Kelowna's population is of Chinese descent. Symbolism So far, Chau has painted one wall a "radiant yellow" and the other a "sharp green." Next, he plans to paint trees. "The trees symbolize... the fruits and the harvest. [It's] about growing," he said. "We treasure what our ancestors have done for us and we're enjoying the benefits of that, and that also ties in with the Christian value of raising hope and giving." On the outside he will be painting a traditional Chinese hand scroll that will be about 15 metres long. "I'm borrowing that concept to draw a timeline of the early Chinese settlers from the from the mining, and to the railway, then to the farming and then to Chinatown," said Chau. He hopes the mural will be done by mid-June. There will also be a documentary film released around the same time with interviews with seniors talking about the history of Chinese culture in the area. "I love it because it's very engaging with the community," said Chau. Unable to work because of her cancer diagnosis and under mounting financial pressure, Inez Rudderham decided to sell her family home in Windsor, N.S. On the day she found out the house had sold, she also heard that she would not get a mental health appointment, to help her cope, until the summer. That's when she decided to hit record and speak directly to the premier of Nova Scotia. "It just broke me," said Rudderham in an interview with CBC. "It was done in a moment of emotion and passion and vulnerability. So I didn't think it through. I just shared what I was feeling and I posted it." Rudderham, 33, challenged Premier Stephen McNeil to meet with her during the emotional video describing how her cancer went undiagnosed for two years because she didn't have a family doctor. She said she went to the emergency room three times before she was given an exam to diagnose her stage three anal cancer. "I dare you to take a meeting with me, and explain to me, and look into my eyes and tell me that there is no health-care crisis in my province of Nova Scotia," said a tearful Rudderham in the video. After going through 30 rounds of radiation treatment and two rounds of chemotherapy, she is now in full remission as of January. But the fallout from her cancer has affected her physically and emotionally. Elizabeth Chiu/CBC She began pursuing mental-health services in January. She won't be seen until July. "I have a support network. I'm very fortunate. But not everybody has that," said Rudderham. "My community deserves more. Canadians deserve more. And I want that for them. I want it for me." She said she feels a responsibility to advocate for all Nova Scotians who are demanding better health care. "I have a story that people can relate to and I think that that's important that I use my voice in a way that can help because I don't ever want to see any 31-year-old mother being told that she's crazy and that the symptoms are all in her head," she said. Story continues Rudderham hasn't heard from McNeil or his staff. But she is preparing herself to return a phone call to the Nova Scotia Health Authority. On Wednesday, McNeil said he asked the Health Department to reach out to Rudderham to find out more about her situation. He said he will not commit to meeting her until he hears back from the department. 'Denial will get us nowhere' "I just wanted him to acknowledge the fact that there is an issue with the health care system in Nova Scotia," said Rudderham. "I'm not particular on what terms he wants to use. He doesn't have to call it a crisis. But denial will get us nowhere. "I just want to sit down with him and I want to be educated. I want to know why this isn't working and what I can do as a citizen to help make it better." Despite it all, Rudderham said she is resilient and sees cancer as an opportunity to grow stronger. She is now being followed by a family doctor. Shocked by the response Her impassioned video, which has been viewed over 2.5 million times since Tuesday, has garnered national attention. "Never in a million years did I think that it would reach the audience that it has," she said. Enormously grateful for the support, Rudderham said she wants to thank everyone in her community and Canada for rallying around her. "Thank you doesn't seem enough. But just thank you to everybody." "When you see people who are hurting step up and support you in your own hurt that, I think, is just such an indicator of who we are as a country." 'She has a lot of power' A friend, Mary Moore, said she hopes Rudderham's voice will help spur change in the province. "She has a lot of power and she has a lot of passion about what she's speaking of and knows very much first hand what it feels like to be feeling stuck. That there's no real answer and no where to find that answer," said Moore. Elizabeth Chiu/CBC Nataly Regan, another friend, said it was Rudderham's determination that got her through cancer. "She was not just fighting for herself, she was fighting for her daughter and her husband.". Brian MacKay/CBC Regan said she is proud of the strength Rudderham has shown in sharing her story. "I could be any one of us that is in her position. I don't think I'd be brave enough to do that video. Good on her for doing it, because people are finally listening." MORE TOP STORIES Ottawa River now predicted to rise 50 cm over 2017 levels The Ottawa River could rise 50 centimetres above peak levels seen during the devastating flooding of May 2017, officials now warn. Under the worst-case scenario, record-high water levels could be reached in some areas by the middle of next week, according to the latest forecast. The updated prediction is based on data from the Ottawa River Regulation Planning Board (ORRPB), which controls reservoir levels along the length of the river basin. It comes less than 24 hours after Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson declared a state of emergency based on a prediction of levels rising 11 centimetres over the 2017 peak. The prediction, issued Friday morning, is "subject to a high degree of uncertainty," according to the board, which keeps records dating back to 1950. Pembroke About 150 kilometres up the Ottawa Valley from the capital, the river is expected to peak in Pembroke on Sunday. The highest water level ever recorded in Pembroke was in 1960. If levels surpass 113 metres above sea level this year, it will mark the sixth time since 1950 that's happened. Arnprior The Chats Lake station saw its highest-ever water level in 2017. It could set a new record this year. The river is forecast to peak there on Monday. Britannia The board's monitoring station on Lac Deschenes, which also collects data affecting Aylmer, also set a new record in 2017. It's expected to peak on Monday. Hull This monitoring station for Hull is near the Alexandra Bridge, behind Parliament Hill. It also saw record levels in 2017. It's expected to peak on Tuesday. Grenville This station, on the Quebec side of the river near the Ontario-Quebec border, set its record in 1951. It's forecasted to peak on Tuesday. Other areas Thurso, Que., across from Clarence-Rockland, is monitored by the ORRPB, but isn't included in a graph because it doesn't have historic data. It could rise by as much as 70 centimetres from its Friday morning levels, which would be 40 centimetres higher than the 2017 peak. Story continues While the ORRPB doesn't have monitoring stations in these areas, local conservation authorities do. The Rideau Valley Conservation Authority said in its latest update Thursday afternoon water levels in eastern Cumberland, around Boise Lane, could rise 20 to 40 centimetres higher than in 2017. The Mississippi Valley Conservation Authority said in that same update water levels in Constance Bay could top 2017's peaks by 50 to 70 centimetres. It's going to be a wet day in the GTA, Environment Canada says. Heavy rain is expected to fall on the region until about 10 a.m. Friday, when it will gradually taper off into lighter showers, the national weather agency forecasts. The dreary conditions are set to stick around throughout the day, with between 25 and 40 millimetres of rain possible by this evening. Toronto and Region Conservation Authority is advising residents to be cautious around bodies of water. "The combination of slippery and unstable banks could create hazardous conditions close to any river, stream or other water bodies. All shorelines, rivers and streams within the GTA should be considered hazardous," TRCA said in a statement issued late Thursday. Flurries are also possible overnight as the mercury drops to the freezing mark in the early morning hours on Saturday before clearing around noon. Rain is forecast to return on Sunday. CBC More rain for cottage country To the north, Environment Canada has issued rainfall warnings for large swaths of cottage country, including in the Parry Sound Muskoka region. The towns of Bracebridge and Huntsville have been dealing with severe flooding in recent days. Bracebridge Mayor Graydon Smith said Thursday that a pair of lakes north of the community don't have the capacity to contain any more water. Fairy Lake and Mary Lake, which drain into the river that runs through Bracebridge, are "stressed" already and more rain could be a significant "jolt" to the system, he explained. Officials in eastern Ontario are also warning that water levels on the Ottawa River could reach levels last seen during the floods of 2017. Michael Sarich, senior water resources engineer with the Ottawa River Regulation Secretariat, says levels have been "sharply increasing" over the last week. "Snowmelt runoff and recent precipitation have led to a forecast that indicates we're going to be meeting at least levels that were experienced back in 2017, which was the flood of record," Sarich said. "In 2017, levels and flows reached unprecedented historic levels, pretty well for most of the length of the Ottawa River. So there was significant damage: large sectors of some municipalities were affected and low-lying areas were significantly flooded." Sarich added that the impact on people in the area could be "catastrophic," but noted that the region is much better prepared this time around. Sask. doctor charged with improper prescribing, sex with patient and impersonating another doctor Saskatchewan doctor Jordan Alexander Velestuk is facing multiple charges of unprofessional conduct, including impersonating another doctor, having a sexual relationship with his patient and improperly prescribing drugs. The College of Physicians and Surgeons posted the charges online. The provincial regulatory body alleges Velestuk also billed Medical Services improperly and failed to provide a proper urine drug sample. Velestuk previous admitted to stealing ketamine from the Pasqua Hospital in Regina for personal use in 2012. The new charges are unrelated to that incident, according to Bryan Salte, who is legal counsel for CPSS. Velestuck did not return CBC's request for comment. He currently practices in Moosomin, Sask, under supervision and with restrictions. Improper prescribing The college detailed Velestuk's alleged conduct with a patient named "L.B.," saying he provided prescriptions for "drugs of possible abuse" to "L.B.," despite indications of a problem. This patient reportedly had her prescriptions stolen at least three times and admitted to selling her pills. One of her drug tests was positive for meth, THC, opiates and benzodiazepines, according to the documents. The college alleges Velestuk didn't act appropriately after learning L.B. had been found unconscious with pill bottles. It says he also injected her with a substance that produced an altered state of consciousness, but did not stop her from driving and did not notify Saskatchewan Government Insurance (SGI). The college outlines several other instances where Velestuk allegedly failed to take steps appropriate for his position. Velstuck allegedly provided injections to four of his patients without recording what had been injected. The college also alleges he injected a patient identified as "K.T." in November 2017, after which the patient reportedly had an adverse reaction and was taken to the hospital. Velestuk didn't discuss the substance with the patient afterward and then discharged "K.T." as his patient without explanation, according to the documents. Story continues The college also alleges Velestuk did not provide information to "N.K." that would have allowed the patient to provide informed consent about the use of fentanyl patches. It says the doctor did not provide this patient information that would allow "N.K." to consider different therapies. Sexual boundaries The college alleges Velestuk first took on "Patient Number 1" in March 2014 and later entered into a sexual relationship with the patient. It says he prescribed medication to this patient multiple times. The government became aware that "Patient Number 1" had become Velestuk's spouse in 2017 though the Personal Health Registration System. In another allegation, the college says Velestuk billed Medical Services for work apparently done while he was not supposed to be practicing. He had agreed to stop practicing medicine in December 2016, then returned in November 2017 with permission from the college. Further to improper billing, the college says the doctor pretended to be a "Dr. Rossouw" and "Chelsea" in email correspondence to Medical Services Branch in June 2017. Ketamine theft and urine samples This isn't the first time Velestuk's conduct has come under scrutiny. He previously admitted guilt to unprofessional conduct for stealing ketamine from Regina's Pasqua Hospital for personal use in 2012. Police charged Velestuk and he entered an alternative measures program. Velestuk signed an agreement in 2013 stating he would abstain from any opiates, benzodiazepines, or other controlled substances unless they were prescribed by a family physician or specialist. He was also required to provide random body fluid samples for analysis between April 2014 and June 2016. "On one or more occasions you provided urine to be tested that which you did not produce on the date of testing." Hearing a possibility Velestuck's case will proceed to a hearing if he denies the allegations. There's no set timeframe for when Velstuck must respond, Salte said. "We want to give the other side sufficient time to actually look at all of the evidence and make a decision," Salte said. He said the college works with physicians or their lawyers, "so that we can make sure that doesn't sort of extend indefinitely without clarity." A group of students from Charlottetown's Colonel Gray High School is circulating a petition to have the federal government ban "military-style" semi-automatic weapons from private ownership. The students were inspired by the example of New Zealand, where those kinds of weapons were banned within days of a mass shooting in Christchurch in March. Their teacher suggested the petition as a school project. "We don't believe that anybody other than military or a proper authority should be handling them," said student Shaeya Thibodeau. "Because they're so dangerous and because they can do such harm rather quickly, we thought why don't we get those out of the hands of everyday people and avoid a possible risk in the future." The students created a petition on a website created by the Government of Canada specifically for citizen petitions. It has gathered more than 600 signatures, including people in every province. Bill Blair, the federal minister of border security and organized crime reduction, was on P.E.I. this week. "I think it's great that, that young people are taking an active interest in safety in their communities," said Blair about the petition. The federal government is actively looking at gun control laws, he said, but he went on to say the government is not in a position to move quickly the way New Zealand did. "There was an overwhelming consensus in that country about prohibiting those firearms in New Zealand. We have not been able to acquire that consensus across Canada," said Blair. "It's a very polarized issue and there's a great diversity of perspectives on this." Blair said it is unlikely there will be time for any legislative changes before the fall election, but he said some changes to regulations are possible. In particular, he is looking at storage requirements, with an eye toward better protecting weapons from theft. More P.E.I. news Its every kids dream to have her own supersuit. S.Borisov/Shutterstock.com I loved the Thundercats cartoon as a child, watching cat-like humanoids fighting the forces of evil. Whenever their leader was in trouble, hed unleash the Sword of Omens to gain sight beyond sight, the ability to see events happening at faraway places, or bellow Thunder, Thunder, Thunder, Thundercats, Hooo! to instantaneously summon his allies to his location to join the fight. What kid didnt want those superpowers? I didnt really notice this until a few months ago. On that day, my childhood dreams were at once destroyed and fulfilled. Standing in a line, I noticed that everyone was focused on their smartphones screens. Suddenly it hit me: I already had Sword of Omens superpowers. With my smartphone, I can see video of faraway events and text my friends to meet up. Billions of people now have what used to be considered superpowers. But what about the physical superpowers? I wanted those, too like superhuman endurance or strength. Those may not be too far behind: Im working on them in Vanderbilts Center for Rehabilitation Engineering & Assistive Technology. Humanity has begun to enter the age of wearable exoskeletons and exosuits that offer support and strength to peoples bodies. A spring-powered back-support exosuit. Joe Howell/Vanderbilt University Exoskeletons under development Over the past five years, wearable exoskeletons that assist and aid movement have begun to shift out of research labs and into public use. Theyre still early versions, and the science is still emerging, but they include the first of several FDA-approved exoskeletons to assist individuals with spinal cord injury or after stroke, as well as exoskeletons to help keep workers safe and reduce the fatigue of physically demanding jobs. Toyota even requires workers to wear exoskeletons as mandatory personal protective equipment when performing certain overhead work tasks, where fatigue and muscle stress could lead to injury. However, most people who could potentially benefit dont yet have access to exoskeletons, because theyre generally too bulky, too expensive, interfere too much with other tasks or are not yet comfortable enough to wear. Ive become fascinated by the prospect of regular people turning themselves into everyday superheroes. Preventing injuries with supersuits From my research lab, I can walk across the street and within two minutes be at the Veterans Affairs Hospital or the Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The nurses and other medical professionals who perform strenuous lifting, leaning and carrying tasks to care for patients are likely to develop low back pain or may already be experiencing it. A supersuit could help prevent this pain. Low back pain is a complex problem with many potential sources, but one common source is due to stress from repetitive forces on the muscles and discs. Most adults experience low back pain at some point in their lifetime, and its a leading cause of physical disability. The prestigious medical journal The Lancet recently published a three-part series calling on everyone from national and international policymakers to funding agencies to researchers, engineers and clinicians to help improve the effectiveness of care and develop innovative new solutions to combat this global epidemic. Over the last three years, the research team I lead has been developing a clothing-like exoskeleton, which might be more aptly described as mechanized clothing, a spring-powered exosuit or even just a supersuit. It consists of a vest and shorts made of common clothing materials, plus assistive fabric elastic bands and a switch that lets the wearer turn the suits assistance on or off. When its switched off, the wearer can move freely and fully, which isnt typically the case with exoskeletons. Our suit doesnt have any motors or batteries and weighs less than three pounds. No part of it protrudes out from the body, so its easily concealed under everyday clothes. At any moment, though, it can be switched on, so the suits elastic bands bear some of the load that typically goes through the persons back muscles. In an initial series of laboratory tests, the suit reduced loading on the low back muscles by about 20% during lifting and up to 40% during leaning, and it reduced the rate at which back muscles fatigue by 30% to 40%, on average. We recently formed a spin off company from this research, aptly named HeroWear LLC, to make this supersuit available to individuals and organizations who might benefit. We expect the product to be on the market in 2020. We have also begun a multi-year study funded by the National Institutes of Health to integrate wearable sensors and machine learning into our supersuits. With those additions, we may be able to develop future suits that monitor stress on the wearers back and automatically activate the assistance when its needed. Boundless possibilities for supersuits The goal for many exoskeletons is like that of a good cartoon supersuit not to do the work for its wearer, but to enhance and support that persons natural abilities. Assisting back muscles is just the beginning. We have also designed a similar spring-powered exosuit to assist the ankle muscles during walking and running. It may help increase endurance or reduce force on calf muscles and tendons as someone recovers from an injury. Similar supersuits might also be designed to support the necks of nurses and surgeons who lean forward for long periods of time during procedures, or to reduce arm fatigue for a construction worker carrying heavy objects or for a parent carrying a child. An exosuit for the ankle that assists ankle muscles when walking or running. Yandell et al., 2019, CC BY-ND Through the use of wearable sensors and biomechanical algorithms, supersuits might even be trained to teach proper lifting technique or to provide resistance training to help strengthen weak muscles and enhance fitness. My hope is that 30 years from now by the time my children are my age performance-enhancing supersuits will be as common and mundane in society as smartphones are today. Perhaps people might even forget the amazing physical superpowers that they provide, and take for granted supersuits individual and societal benefits to health, fitness and well-being. ___ Karl Zelik, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, Vanderbilt University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Richard Leinenkugel, president of Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Company, was recently honored by Marquette University in Milwaukee. The class of 1980 graduate was awarded the Distinguished Alumnus of the Year Award by the universitys College of Business Administration. The university said in its announcement of the award that the Marquette Universitys Alumni National Awards celebrate alumni who represent the true spirit and mission of the university, and that Leinenkugel lives out the Marquette values daily through volunteering and giving back. Leinenkugel graduated from Marquette and went on to serve in the U.S. Marine Corps. Afterwards he returned to the brewing business for his first sales job in 1987. Since then, the university said, he has upheld his familys history of hard work and excellence. In the press release, Leinenkugel credited the university with helping push him forward. Marquette challenged me to think critically, to set goals and prepared me both intellectually and morally to accomplish those goals, Leinenkugel said. In addition to work in public service with the Waukesha County Board of Supervisors and as Wisconsins secretary of commerce, Leinenkugel has been director of the College of Business Administration Alumni Association, a reunion committee member and a host for CIRCLES events. Dick also serves on the boards of the United Way of the Greater Chippewa Valley and the Marshfield Clinic Health System. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The 5-year-old who was thrown off a third-floor balcony at the Mall of America in Minnesota earlier this month is 'alert and conscious,' his family said. His family is expecting him to be released from the hospital by June, the family's spokesman said Friday. The boy, who has not been publicly identified, was in critical condition immediately after the incident on April 12. His family said last week that he was still in intensive care. The boy fell nearly 40 feet when Emmanuel Deshawn Aranda, 24, picked him up and threw him over a balcony's railing at the famed mall, police said. Aranda has been charged with attempted murder. The boy and his mother were outside the Rain Forest Cafe when Aranda came up close to them, according to a criminal complaint. The mother had never seen Aranda before, and she asked if she and her son should move. Instead, Aranda picked up the boy and threw him over the railing, the complaint states. Aranda told police he had come to the mall a day earlier intending to kill an adult, but that did not "work out," according to the complaint. So he returned the next day and apparently chose the boy instead. Aranda told police he knew what he was planning to do was wrong. He explained he had visited the mall for years, trying to speak to women there, but they rejected him. Aranda said that made him lash out. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 I was reading AP reporter Scott Bauer's article in last week's Herald about Gov. Tony Evers wanting to sit down with Foxconn to look at how the company's plans have changed and how that should change the terms of the deal between Foxconn and the state of Wisconsin. Here's something Evers and the Republican legislators can finally agree on, I thought. Republicans insist that the rules and regulations on businesses must keep changing in line with the changes in how businesses must operate. So I was surprised at the end of the article to see that both Sen. Scott Fitzgerald and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos object to Evers' plan. They're afraid, they claim, this would amount to the state reneging on its commitment, that it would "undermine" the "ironclad" contract, and that changing it now will discourage other companies from expanding here. That's when I remembered one of past Gov. Scott Walker's first acts in office: He canceled the ironclad contract with a foreign manufacturer to build equipment for passenger rail service between Milwaukee and Madison, for which Wisconsin was to receive an $800 million grant, as I recall, from the federal government. I don't recall either Fitzgerald or Vos objecting to Walker's action. Wisconsin got sued as a result and we still have no modern passenger rail service. Times, needs and governors change, and so do the excuses of politicians like Fitzgerald and Vos. Curt Rohland, Chippewa Falls Love 3 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 In this week's political podcast click the play button above to listen Milfred and Hands play clips from the State Journal editorial board's meeting this week with Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney. The sheriff talks about his three trips to the Oval Office to discuss immigration with Republican President Donald Trump. Mahoney, a Democrat who faced no opposition in last fall's election, also denies he's a 'sanctuary sheriff,' though he doesn't cater to federal immigration officials at his jail. "Center Stage with Milfred and Hands" is the State Journal's weekly podcast from the sensible center of Wisconsin politics, featuring editorial page editor Scott Milfred and political cartoonist Phil Hands, half of the Wisconsin State Journal editorial board. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Father Paul Rutten was a beloved member of the Aquinas Catholic family all the way up until his March 20 death. Rutten, a long-time priest and guidance counselor at Aquinas High School from 1965-1984, is remembered for his kind words and caring actions, positively impacting numerous students during his tenure. And although he is gone, his memory continues living on through a $1.2 million gift recently presented to the schools endowment fund by Ruttens power of attorney in the wake of his passing. The donation is the single largest endowment gift received since the fund was created in 1981 with gifts totaling just over $100,000. The fund was created by donors with the desire that the fund would grow into something that would help support the schools annual budget down and keep parish assessments down, according to information released by the school. With the gift from Rutten, the fund has grown from about $4.7 million to $6 million. The school receives about $200,000 from the fund yearly which goes toward its annual budget. The gift from Rutten, school officials said, will add about $50,000 to that total moving forward for years to come. The gift came as a complete surprise, said Deb Svec, assistant development director/alumni director for Aquinas and St. Marys Catholic Schools. Many monetary gifts are prepared leading up to peoples passing through the schools Heritage Club. This one, however, was not. Its people who have come forward and shared with us that they are remembering us with a planned gift, Svec said of the Heritage Club. We did not know about this gift, it was a complete surprise. A very pleasant surprise. Prior to Ruttens contribution, the largest endowment gift was donated by Father Gerald Messman in the amount of just over $1 million in the early 2000s, said Father Sean Timmerman, chief administrative officer at Aquinas High School. Rutten, a Butler County native, graduated from Assumption High School in Dwight in 1950 before attending Saint Thomas Seminary in Denver, becoming ordained in June 1958 at Saint Francis Church in David City. After serving at Saints Peter and Paul Parish in Falls City, as well as Sacred Heart Parish in Lincoln, Rutten taught at Pius X High School before settling into his career at Aquinas. There, he emphasized the importance of education while forming bonds with staff and students. Fr. Rutten was a nice man and a great priest! He was a people person, said Mike Adamy, in a written statement to Svec. He gave the best sermons, attested to by many who were fortunate enough to be present for any of his sermons. They were personal, to the point and short. He would always be available to people and he knew everyones names and what they did Im sure hes enjoying heaven now, as he definitely deserves. After retiring from active priest duty in 2008, Rutten moved to the Bonacum Retirement Home for Priests. Rutten served the Lincoln Diocese for 60 years prior to his passing at Madonna Rehabilitation Center in Lincoln. He is buried in St. Francis Cemetery in David City. Timmerman noted how Ruttens presence will be long felt, and that his generosity will continue benefiting students for the foreseeable future. He was so well-known and respected, Timmerman said. And we are just very fortunate that he did this for us. Sam Pimper is the news editor of The Banner-Press. Reach him via email at sam.pimper@lee.net Love 0 Funny 2 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. More than one person called Friday's session of the Nebraska Legislature a group therapy session. Or it might have been a Festivus moment with the airing of grievances. When senators hit their buttons to speak, the talk was about partisanship and sexism. It came at the end of a hard week that included debate on the death penalty filled with passionate speeches and peevish comments, and as senators looked toward next week's start of late nights and upcoming debates on a tight state budget and contentious property tax proposals. The session got underway with Sen. Carol Blood of Bellevue responding to a news release issued after Thursday's adjournment with comments from Ryan Hamilton, executive director of the Nebraska Republican Party. Blood called her speech "a point of privilege for the greater good of the body." Hamilton chastised Blood and Sens. Lynne Walz and Dan Quick, all Democrats, for being excused and not voting on the death penalty repeal bill, sponsored by Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers. Hamilton said they lacked strength of conviction, and their constituents deserved better representation than that. He noted they face reelection in 2020. He did not mention the Republicans who were either excused or present not voting: Sens. Tom Brewer (excused), Robert Hilkemann (present), Mark Kolterman (present) and Brett Lindstrom (present). Blood explained she had already told Chambers she wouldn't support his bill. Then she got caught in her office on a phone call in which she was trying to arrange transportation for her adult son who has a disability, and then another call from her daughter, whose duplex neighbor died suddenly. Partisanship has to end, Blood said, adding she represents her district, not a party. Blood also talked about the "conservative shock jocks," including former Sen. Chip Maxwell, who last year had called her use of the term "vagina-gate" vulgar. "I used anatomically correct words on this floor that I will use again in the future," she said. Another "shock jock" allowed people to make comments about her breasts, how much makeup she wears, and the size of her body. "Shame on you guys that aren't bold enough to come and speak to me, that use social media to tell me what's wrong with me physically. Because right now, I think my body is serving me well," she said. When men are taken to task, people aren't talking about their bodies, she said. Senators can pretend this kind of thing is not going on, she said, but it is. "I am sick and tired of the backstabbing," she said. "I am sick and tired of you looking the other way while particular parties and people who are your minions tear people apart on this floor." Blood said she had heard from people in seven districts outside of her own asking her to continue to speak on behalf of women in the Legislature, because they need to be heard. The battle women face is much different than the ones men face in the Legislature, she said. "I know it's tough to be a woman in this body right now," Blood said. "It's probably tough in every state." Omaha Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh noted that systemic sexism exists in the Legislature. Telling female colleagues not to share thoughts and feelings is sexist. "Our constituents know who we are. And if we get emotional, or we're not emotional at all, that's our prerogative," she said. "It would be great if everyone could treat the women with the respect that we have earned from our constituents, just as you have earned it from yours." Men in the Legislature aren't criticized for putting on a few pounds during the session, because it's stressful, or for what their hair looks like, or what outfit they are wearing. Omaha Sen. Sara Howard, as she has talked to at least a couple of her male colleagues this session in her role as chairwoman of the Health and Human Services Committee, has observed how they behave with her as a female leader as opposed to how they would behave with a male chair. Like bullying her when they disagree with a decision or explaining what doesn't need to be explained. "I'm really trying to make sure those boundaries are clear," she said. "Everyone that I've talked to about it has apologized." Howard takes an old-school approach to how senators conduct themselves in the Legislature. "I rest very heavily on civility. I rest very heavily on transparency, on talking to every single person," she said. Knowing about what's going on in people's lives will help senators remember they are working with people not parties, because parties don't belong there, she said. "So whenever we feel like we have those moments where it's like, 'I want to get on the mic and I want to do a gotcha and I want to make you look foolish,' try to remember that everyone here is fighting battles that we don't understand and we maybe don't know about," Howard said. Lincoln Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks warned of what happens when parties get involved inside the chamber. "We're fighting tooth and nail to make sure we remain independent," Pansing Brooks said. "Nebraska, I hope you're hearing this, because you have an opportunity to continue to force, and advocate for, your senator to remain as independent as possible." Reach the writer at 402-473-7228 or jyoung@journalstar.com. On Twitter @LJSLegislature. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The Legislature's Revenue Committee on Friday made substantial progress in revising its tax reform package to address concerns expressed by its opponents in an effort to fashion a filibuster-proof plan. In other action, the committee sent to the floor an amended version of Gov. Pete Ricketts' proposed constitutional amendment to place a 3% limit on annual property tax increases after transforming the measure (LR8CA) into a proposed statutory change. Under that proposal, any such increase would need approval by a majority of voters at a special election. That amended plan cleared the committee on a 5-1 vote. But most of the action during a three-hour executive session was directed at attempting to develop a package to provide substantial property tax relief that can gain the support of at least 33 of the Legislature's 49 members in order to break through a filibuster waged by its opponents. The measure would then require at least 30 votes to override a certain gubernatorial veto. Revenue Committee Chairwoman Lou Ann Linehan of Elkhorn told the group that she believes the pathway to 33 votes can open if the eight diverse members of the committee are able to agree on a revised tax reform plan. The committee is composed of four rural senators and four who hail from metropolitan Omaha. The committee subsequently reached 7-0 agreement and 8-0 agreement on amendments to help meet some of the concerns that have been expressed by big cities and urban school districts. No school would receive less than one-third state funding support and no less than $4,000 in support per student under the amended proposal. Every taxpayer would receive "a significant cut" in property taxes as a result of the plan, Linehan said. The overall goal is a 20 percent reduction in property taxes paid to K-12 schools. In other action, committee members generally agreed that they would oppose any Appropriations Committee decision to place the $55 million of increased state revenue anticipated by the latest Nebraska Economic Forecasting Advisory Board estimate into the state's cash reserve fund instead of directing it into the property tax relief fund. That could set the stage for a floor battle between key legislative committees. Following Friday's session, Linehan said she believes the committee made "significant progress" in fashioning a plan that can gain support on the legislative floor. If the Legislature approves the package, or a revised version of the proposal, other changes still could be made in the 2020 legislative session before a possible vote in the November general election on an initiative proposal to enact a constitutional amendment that would provide a state income tax credit for 35 percent of local property taxes paid. The petition drive was launched in 2018. Still on the table for consideration by the Revenue Committee is action on a lengthy list of sales tax exemptions that might be eliminated in order to raise revenue for property tax reduction. Some discussion on whether to refashion property tax reduction into a trust fund remained unresolved and Sen. Mark Kolterman of Seward served notice that he would like the committee to act on his proposal (LB720) to create a new state business tax incentive program to succeed the Nebraska Advantage Act, which expires in 2020. At the outset of Friday's meeting, one committee member suggested his colleagues might want to consider the possibility of continuing to fashion a property tax reform package during the interim before the 2020 legislative session if they cannot reach agreement now. But the ensuing collaborative discussion led by Linehan pointed to the prospect that they may be able to reach substantial agreement soon. "I feel good about today," Linehan told her colleagues as they dispersed for the weekend. The committee will meet in executive session again Monday morning. Reach the writer at 402-473-7248 or dwalton@journalstar.com. On Twitter @LJSDon. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 A Columbus man who in February was located in Colorado after being classified as missing for more than a year now faces sexual assault charges in Platte County. Joseph A. Voecks, 22, last week pleaded not guilty before Judge Robert Steinke in Platte County District Court to the lone charge of first-degree sexual assault of a minor, a Class II felony. Voecks, who is being held on a $100,000 bond with a 10-percent option, faces a maximum prison sentence of 50 years in the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services. The defendant at the time of his arrest also faced a felony charge out of Nance County, according to information provided by the Nebraska State Patrol. The alleged sexual assault occurred long before the defendant was presumed missing or dead in January 2018. In July 2017, an officer with the Columbus Police Department responded to a treatment center in Omaha to speak to a child wishing to report a sexual assault. Contact was made with the alleged victim who reported that she had been violated by a man at least 19 years old when she was younger than 16. The female reported that the sexual encounter happened when she was 14 years old in August 2016. While walking near the 33rd Avenue bridge that crosses the Loup River, Voecks and the girl were reportedly near the north bank near the levee when the defendant allegedly tripped her to the ground. Court records show she got up off the ground and that the Voecks pushed her to the ground again before allegedly sexually assaulting her. The defendant is scheduled for a 9 a.m. jury trial on Aug. 5. In other district court news: *Steven A. Armenta-Price, 26, of Norfolk, pleaded not guilty to being a prohibited person in possession of a firearm, a Class ID felony; theft by receiving stolen property in the amount of $5,000 or more, a Class IIA felony; being in possession of deadly weapon while committing a felony, a Class III felony; being in possession of a controlled substance, a Class IV felony; and being a habitual criminal. In December 2018, the defendant allegedly led Columbus Police on a chase in a stolen vehicle before being apprehended. In the vehicle, court records show that police found two baggies of methamphetamine, a Bowie knife, handgun and drug paraphernalia. A criminal history check revealed that Armenta-Price was convicted on a felony offense in September 2017. The defendant is scheduled for an Aug. 5 jury trial. *Christopher R. Helmick pleaded not guilty to being in possession of a controlled substance and theft by shoplifting third offense. In March, an officer with the Columbus Police Department was dispatched to a convenience store in the 500 block of East 23rd Street in reference to a suspected shoplifting, court records show. The reporting party indicated that he or she saw three individuals running out of the station with handfuls of unpaid items. The officer conducted a traffic stop after seeing the vehicle leaving the station, according to a warrantless arrest affidavit. Helmick, one of the three people in the car, had two outstanding Platte County warrants and was subsequently taken into custody. While being searched following his arrest, a meth pipe containing drug residue was allegedly found in his shorts pocket. Helmick is scheduled for an Aug. 5 jury trial. *Sabrina R. Reeves, 22, of Elgin, pleaded not guilty to being in possession of a controlled substance and theft by unlawful taking. She is scheduled for a June 17 jury trial. *Bobbie I. Kleinberg, 40, of Columbus pleaded no contest and was found guilty of being in possession of methamphetamine, a Class IV felony. A pre-sentence investigation report was ordered and sentencing is scheduled for 10 a.m. on June 19. *Jesse R. Blanchard, 41, of Columbus, pleaded not guilty to attempting a Class I/IA/IB/IC/or ID felony, a Class II felony. The charge was amended from being a prohibited person in possession of a firearm, a Class ID felony. A plea hearing is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. on May 1. Sam Pimper is the news editor of The Columbus Telegram. Reach him via email at sam.pimper@lee.net. Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Sign up for our Crime & Courts newsletter Get the latest in local public safety news with this weekly email. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Who was Daniel Freeman? According to recorded history, Daniel Freeman is known as the first homesteader. Born in Preble County, Ohio, he grew up in New York and Illinois, traveling frequently with his family. He was a graduate of a medical institute in Cincinnati, Ohio and then enlisted in the 17th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment. He was a soldier for the Union Army during the Civil War on secret duty at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Knowing that water was crucial to start his homestead, Freeman had his eye on a piece of land by Cub Creek in southwest Nebraska near Beatrice. Freeman heard the act was going into effect on Jan. 1, 1863, and he had to be back in Fort Leavenworth on Jan. 2. As a result, he persuaded the clerk of the land office in Brownville to open up shortly after midnight on Jan. 1, making Daniel Freeman the first homesteader in the entire nation! When Daniel Freeman finished his military service in 1865, he returned to Nebraska and built the required twelve by 14-foot log cabin to prove up his homestead. He later acquired a considerable amount of land around his original homestead. Daniel Freeman was a highly respected member of his community and lived on his Nebraska homestead until his death in 1908. In 1930, the National Parks Service bought Freemans homestead and preserved it as a national monument. Why are you learning about Daniel Freeman? Darrel Draper from Humanities Nebraska is coming to the Columbus Public Library on May 4, Saturday, at 2 p.m., in full costume as Daniel Freeman to tell the humorous and historically factual account of Americas first homesteader, and the impact of the Homestead Act in settling the West. Darrel Draper is a dynamic speaker who will make the story of Daniel Freeman come to life for his audience. You will not want to miss this program! Make plans to bring your whole family; Grandma, Grandpa, cousins and kids. They will be entertained and learn history at the same time. Treats are served at the program. You do not need to make reservations and entrance is free. The end of May brings us to our Summer Reading Registration! Yeah! Even adults get to read for prizes. The adult and young adult summer reading registration will begin on May 28, right after Memorial Day. The childrens summer reading registration will begin a week later on June 3. The volunteer sign up meeting for the childrens program will take place at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, June 1. We are excited to present to you all the fun programming we have lined up this summer. To get a list of the summer programs you will need to register for the summer reading program. You will receive a packet when you sign up telling you all the events provided for the summer. Everything is free! You and your children can turn in reading logs throughout the summer for prizes. There are drawings for big prizes that you will want to enter. The adult program is for adults 19 years old and up. The young adult program is for students in sixth through 12th grade, and the childrens program is for birth up to fifth grade. Mr. H invited the Horn T Zoo to bring in animals for everyone to see during the childrens registration week. Come and sign up for summer reading fun! Call 402-564-7116 for more information. Kelli Keyes is the customer service manager at Columbus Public Library. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 For the third time in his political life, Old Joe Biden has started down the road to the White House. On Thursday he used a misleading and Trump-bashing video to announce he's running because he wants to save the country from four more years of Donald Trump. The 76-year-old immediately became the front-runner in the Democrat Party's over-crowded presidential primary, thanks to his name ID and his long, gaffe-filled career as a liberal senator from Delaware and loyal Obama VP. Biden is the Democrat's strongest candidate for many political reasons, but my big question is whether he still has that feeling in his gut that all presidential candidates must have to succeed. His first and probably hardest feat will be to win the nomination of his own crazy party. It's not that he is too old, too male, too white, too establishment or too creepy-feely for the new Democrat Party, which has suddenly lurched hard left, splintered into factions and become leaderless. It's not that he supposedly treated Anita Hill unfairly as a senator three decades ago at the Clarence Thomas hearings. Or that he held some embarrassing, now very politically incorrect, not-very progressive positions on race, crime, civil rights and forced school busing in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. It's that Old Joe is too darn moderate for the Democrats. Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg and the other increasingly radical presidential wannabes he has to defeat in the primary have spent the last several months promising they'll give everyone in America free healthcare, free college tuition and free whatever else they want or need from government. They all are trying to be more radical than Sanders, the lifelong socialist who's even older than Biden and not the least bit ashamed to admit he's a millionaire with three homes. Meanwhile, Biden's campaign pitch to voters apparently is going to be a plate of boring liberal leftovers from the last century. It's likely to include raising taxes on the rich, rewriting tax laws to help the middle class, jacking up the federal minimum wage and spending a trillion or so on fixing the infrastructure. Biden's candidacy is not going to please or energize the young radicals in the noisy Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wing of his party. Yet, he's probably the only Democrat presidential wannabe with a realistic chance to defeat President Trump in 2020, mainly because his moderate platform could win back the voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin that Hillary lost in 2016. Still, it's hard to deny that Old Joe is four years past his elect-by date. His best chance to be president - his only real chance - was to run in 2016, before everything in national politics was turned upside down by Trump's victory. Going into that election lots of Republican voters hated Trump so much that they were looking for an exit ramp. But they wouldn't take the Hillary Off-ramp and vote for her because they despised her even more. If Biden had been running in 2016 instead of Hillary, many Republicans might have seen him as the lesser of two evils, and he might have defeated Trump. That's old history, though. In the last two-and-a-half years President Trump has made most Republicans extremely happy, so very few GOP and independent voters in those key Rust Belt states will be looking for someone else to vote for in 2020. Now that he's in, Biden will be running up a steep hill from now until next fall. He'll be beaten black and blue by his own party and Republicans. He thinks he can raise hundreds of millions of dollars, withstand the leftward pull of his party, figure out how to win the Democrat primary without having to become a member of the Communist Party and then rush back to the political center to capture enough Rust Belt voters to defeat Trump in the general election. Good luck with that plan, Old Joe. You're going to need a lot of it if you aim to save the soul of America. Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan, a political consultant, and the author of "Lessons My Father Taught Me: The Strength, Integrity, and Faith of Ronald Reagan." He is the founder of the email service reagan.com and president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Visit his websites at www.reagan.com and www.michaelereagan.com. Send comments to Reagan@caglecartoons.com. Follow @reaganworld on Twitter. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Carlisles second Born Learning Trail is ready for visitors. The trail, located in Lindner Park at 629 W. Louther St., is a joint United Way of Carlisle & Cumberland County and Carlisle Rotary Club project. The United Way chose that park because it is near Dickinson Child Care Center, Grace Baptist Christian School and Carlisle High Schools child care center where students pursuing a career in early education are trained. The neighborhood surrounding Lindner Park is also full of families with children that use the park regularly. Stormy weather Friday limited the volunteers work, but Rotary members recruited by Bill Blankmeyer, Rotary Club member and United Way board member, came out to set posts and attach signs for the trail. Painting had to be delayed until the weather cleared and the pavement dried. The Rotary Club provided funds for the trail and PPG of Carlisle donated paints for the stencils on the asphalt. The trail is interactive and is designed to help parents, caregivers and communities support early learning by boosting childrens language and literacy skills, and to encourage families to get active. The Trike Track component of the trail was spearheaded by a local resident, Eric Anderson, who thought it would be great to have miniature road signs for children to start to comprehend on their tricycles and bicycles. The track features miniature stop, yield, speed limit and cross walk signs. In April 2017, the Carlisle Rotary Club implemented the first Born Learning Trail in Cumberland County at Heberlig Palmer Park. Email Tammie at tgitt@cumberlink.com. Follow her on Twitter @TammieGitt. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. The fate of the middle school German program could hinge on the outcome of a May 9 meeting of the Carlisle Area School Board education committee. Board members last week tabled a proposal to cut German language instruction in the eighth grade next school year at the Lamberton and Wilson buildings. Cutting German from the middle schools will not result in a cost savings, Superintendent Christina Spielbauer said on Wednesday. Instead, the current instructor will be retained but have his workload shifted to a language that carries a greater demand among students. Because Robert Lyon is dual certified in Spanish and German, he teaches both languages at the two schools. He currently teaches three sections of Spanish and two sections of German, Spielbauer said. Her recommendation is to have Lyon teach only Spanish next school year. First choices Student interest and enrollment in classes are factors that administrators consider when weighing the viability of any academic program, she said. Over more than 15-plus years, our German numbers have vacillated greatly to the point where we had to eliminate positions and then add a little bit back. There has been a lack of consistency. We had no German program at the middle school last year [2017-18], Spielbauer said. A resignation in the language department prompted a German teacher in the middle school to request a transfer to the high school program. That left a vacancy in the middle school program, which the district could not fill for 2017-18 despite a four-month search for qualified teachers certified in German language instruction. Throughout Pennsylvania, the number of college students graduating with a teaching certificate in German has been below five each year, Spielbauer said. There are almost 500 school districts in the state though not all of them offer German. When asked whether cutting middle school German is a sign that Carlisle may phase out the language in high school, Spielbauer said, Its a possibility, but not a foregone conclusion. She said German is being looked at primarily because of its history of enrollment trends. The majority of our students are interested in Spanish and then French. Our Spanish classes fill up and then by default, if a student wants to take a language, they are placed in either German or French. We do the best we can with first choices. Spanish has a very high volume. Teacher cuts Carlisle Area School Board typically schedules committee meetings on the first and second Thursdays of each month to start at 7 p.m. in the large group instruction room of the Fowler building of Carlisle High School. There are no plans to schedule committee meetings on May 2, Spielbauer said. Instead, all the committee meetings for next month are scheduled for May 9, one week prior to the May 16 meeting when the board is expected to vote on a preliminary budget for 2019-20. In what could be a busy night, Spielbauer may also brief the budget and finance committee on a recommendation to eliminate six full-time equivalent teaching positions next year. This could save the district $450,000 in personnel costs and help reduce a projected $3.7 million budgetary shortfall. During an interview Wednesday, Spielbauer declined to specify what six positions could be eliminated. She said the district may be able to cut five of the positions through attrition by not hiring replacements for teachers who either resign or retire. One of the six positions could involve a furlough. Rather than act on her recommendation, the school board on April 18 voted 8-0 to table the resolution to cut German language instruction from the middle schools next year. The consensus was to have the resolution appear before the education committee as an agenda item. Keep German Word of the resolution prompted local residents to speak out in favor of maintaining the program at the middle schools. This is a short-sighted move that hurts our students, said Alex Bates, an associate professor of Japanese language and literature at Dickinson College. It limits their choices and makes them less competitive in an increasingly globalized world. We should not be taking languages away, his wife Amy Bates said. We should be adding to them. I can only suppose you are getting rid of it in the middle school level as some pathway of getting rid of it later on. Amy Bates presented the school board with a petition of 42 signatures compiled by her daughter from students concerned about limiting language choices. Cutting German from the middle schools would be unfair to those students who took German Club in elementary school, said Tori Smarr, a local parent. My daughter was one of them, and she couldnt wait to take German. Now she might not get her chance. The middle school German program has rebounded since Lyon started teaching it with 22 students enrolled at Wilson and 31 students enrolled at Lamberton, Smarr said. For not having a program in place last year, thats a pretty good number. She said loss of the middle school program would run contrary to the districts focus on Science, Technology, Engineering and Math education, or STEM. If you are looking to create STEM leaders, you need to be able to teach a language they can communicate in, Smarr said. According to Boston University, German is the second most common language used in scientific journals. Smarr cited other reasons to offer the language. She said Germany is the largest economy in Europe and is ranked fourth worldwide. That is comparable to all the worlds Spanish speaking economies combined, she said. German is the most common language used in Europe and is the official language of six European countries. With all this in mind, it is important we keep the option of German open. Email Joseph Cress at jcress@cumberlink.com. Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 2 Angry 3 Want to see more like this? Get our local education coverage delivered directly to your inbox. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Britain pledged 4 million to support global anti-slavery projects, from sexually exploited girls in Ethiopia to migrant workers in Malaysia and Mauritius. It also committed about 200 million pounds in aid funding to combat modern-day slavery overseas, and given millions of pounds to nations from Albania to Vietnam. Six organisations, including Anti-Slavery International ( a UK based international NGO, registered charity and a lobby group) and United Nations University ( a research institution) will share the aid money from The Modern Slavery Innovation Fund. Modern Slavery Innovation Fund It was announced in 2016 and earlier gave 6 million to schemes such as awareness-raising campaigns in Nigeria, Philippines and Vietnam. It will be used to run modern slavery workshops in South Africa, increasing support for survivors in India, and developing online data hub to boost anti-slavery policies. The projects funded will help protect few most vulnerable people on planet and encourage more innovative approaches for victim identification and pursuing the exploiters. Recently Funded The Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI), a coalition of trade unions, firms and charities promoting workers rights received the latest funding. It will help towards informing migrant workers in Malaysia about their rights and remediation, help improve conditions of migrant workers those working with global businesses in their supply chains worldwide and provide remedy for workers who have suffered abuse. A bill has been passed in the Missouri House of Representatives regarding the distribution of clean syringes by health organizations. House Bill 168 would exempt healthcare entities registered with the Department of Health and Senior Services, that distribute hypodermic needles or syringes, from the crime of unlawful delivery of drug paraphernalia. Introduced in January by Rep. Holly Rehder, D-Sikeston, and co-sponsored by Rep. Martha Stevens, D-Boone County, the bill passed the House last week with more than a three-quarters majority. Stevens said the bill would essentially decriminalize needle exchange programs allowing health departments to distribute hypodermic needles. The co-sponsor went on to say that this bill, and similar ones, have been filed in response to the opioid epidemic. Its considered a harm-reduction policy. The real goal is to reduce the spread of HIV and Hepatitis C. Thirty-five other states have allowed for similar programming and theres good evidence of needle exchange programs acting as an effective point of entry for treatment, according to Stevens. Research shows that individuals who access these programs are five times more likely to seek treatment ... I think that displays why this is really good evidence-based public health policy. Im proud to co-sponsor this bill and have introduced similar bills myself. In late 2016, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) released a study highlighting counties in the United States that were at the greatest risk for the spread of HIV. In that study, 13 of the 220 counties at greatest risk were in Missouri with 10 in 100,000 people in state infected, according to the CDC website. Rep. Mike Henderson, R-Bonne Terre, ultimately voted in favor of the bill but had some reservations. That was a tough vote for me. I get that [the bill] is helping people, My only hope is that we're not empowering people to think it's OK to continue that lifestyle or the using of the drugs, he explained. I know what results in people sharing needles at the same time ... I'll be real honest, I just as easily could have voted no. "It's just one of those tough votes, I talked with [other Representatives] about it but in the end, I listened to the people talking about public safety and public health, and if they're going to do it anyway It wasn't an easy vote but that's why we're elected-to make the best decision we can. Rep. Elaine Gannon, R-De Soto, voted in favor of the bill as well. "With 13 counties in Missouri at risk for HIV outbreaks, the syringe access program is the only thing statistically proven to slow down the spread of the disease," she said. Gannon continued saying,"It is my understanding that people who access these programs are five times more likely to get into treatment. "If people are using these exchange programs and trying to get help at the same time then they are aware that they need help ... hopefully this will be a way to get the people who need help into the treatment they need sooner." Also voting in favor of the bill was Rep. Chris Dinkins, R-Annapolis. Among those voting against the bill was Rep. Dale Wright, R-Farmington. I see both sides. I just have an issue with handing out needles to drug addicts ... I think there are better ways to deal with the issue like treatment programs, Wright said. But again, I understand both sides and Im not condemning anyone, but I just didn't feel like that was something I wanted to vote yes on. Ultimately, when the bill was put to a vote, it was passed with 124 representatives voting in favor of the legislation and 27 opposed. The bill was then turned over to the Senate on April 8 and put to First Read before being referred to the Senate Health and Pensions Committee where it currently resides. The proposed effective date for this legislation is Aug. 28. However, the bill must first pass the Senate and be signed into law by the governor. Bobby Radford is a reporter for the Daily Journal. He can be reached at 573-518-3628, or at bradford@dailyjournalonline.com. Love 2 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 4 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. We could not have had a more beautiful Easter weekend. I certainly enjoyed being home and spending time with my family and friends and I hope that all of you had the chance to do the same. In a few weeks, I will be back in the district and will be available to meet with you regarding any state issues or concerns that you may have. This week at the Capitol, I met with different members from the Department of Transportation to discuss road concerns on Hwy 61 and Hwy 221. MoDOT is looking into both areas. I also met with several Freshman Representatives (retired teachers or administrators) to brainstorm ideas to make our education system be the best it can be. The Missouri State Capitol held a Commemoration Ceremony for the 50th Anniversary of the Vietnam War. There were over 400 Veterans from across the State that were being welcomed home by Governor Parson. I was honored to play a small part in this ceremony by being one of the Representatives to pin a welcome home medal on one of the Veterans. I would like to say a very heartfelt Thank You to all the Vietnam Veterans in our district. We all appreciate the sacrifices you have made for our great country. More information is provided later in this report. (HJRs 48, 46 & 47) Members of the Missouri House want to give voters an opportunity to strengthen and change some of the provisions contained in the Clean Missouri constitutional amendment that was approved last November. Lawmakers gave first-round approval to a proposed constitutional amendment that supporters say would clarify and improve the ethics reforms and redistricting process put in place by Clean Missouri. The proposal is meant to give voters a choice with clear ethics reform and a much better way to draw districts where communities and families mean something. This proposed amendment provides a better solution to keep districts and communities in closer proximity to each other through a bipartisan process so more people have a seat at the table to say how Missouri House districts are drawn. The newly proposed constitutional amendment would: Prohibit all gifts from lobbyists to lawmakers. The current version of Clean Missouri allows for gifts up to $5; Lower campaign contribution limits for state senate candidates from 2,500 down to $2,000, the same as the House of Representatives. Create bipartisan citizens commissions to draw redistricting maps rather than using a state demographer appointed by the State Auditor to oversee the redistricting process which is in the current Clean Missouri amendment; and Establish criteria that ensures the redistricting process is compliant with the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act, that it provides communities of interest with localized representation and participation in the political process, and that it produces districts that are compact and contiguous and achieve partisan fairness. The proposal offers a more complete version of ethics reform. It is a true 100% gift ban. It provides total transparency and fairness in drawing the districts with the priority of keeping communities together. The legislation now requires another vote in the House before moving to the Senate. If approved by both chambers, it would go on the November 2020 ballot for voters to approve it. The Missouri House of Representatives has a proud tradition of recognizing and honoring the service of Vietnam Veterans. In 2012 the state legislature passed legislation to establish a Vietnam Veterans Day, which takes place on March 30, and has held ceremonies each year in the State Capitol to pay tribute to the service and sacrifices of the heroes who served during the Vietnam War. This years event was held in conjunction with the 13-year Commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Vietnam War that began in 2012. Other Bills Sent to the Senate HCB 1 and HB1237 authorizes the conveyance of specified state property and provides the legal description for each property. One such parcel is in the Farmington Industrial Park. This legislation clears the path for the Farmington IDA to keep ownership of land which had previously been acquired from the state but had some contract language which needed to be cleaned up. The Governor is authorized to sell, transfer, grant, convey, remise, release, and forever quitclaim all of Missouri's interest in real property specified in the bill which is in the best interests of the state. HB 919 creates the "Save the Family Farm Act," creating new provisions regulating the partition of property among heirs. Supporters say the bill would help keep family farms and other property within the family by establishing a process to allow an heir to assert an interest in the property and proceed through a judicial process of equitably purchasing the property. HB 1099 defines "concession agreement," as any license or lease between a private developer and an institution of higher education regarding capital projects. The bill allows institutions of higher education to enter into long-term concession agreements as long as they follow the competitive bidding process for public private partnerships. This bill also gives Southeast Missouri State University authority to develop a statewide mission in visual and performing arts, computer science, and cybersecurity without having to submit an application to the Coordinating Board for Higher Education. Supporters say the bill will allow facilities to be built on campus property, leased to the institution of higher learning, and allow private business to generate revenue to offset costs. HB 337 establishes the "Senior Services Growth and Development Program" within the Department of Health and Senior Services to provide additional funding for senior services through area agencies on aging. Supporters say this is a small step toward restoring badly needed funding for significant unmet needs of seniors. HB 685 requires that for purposes of property zoning classifications, any sawmill or planing mill must be classified as agricultural property. Supporters say that in some counties which have planning and zoning with an agricultural exemption, saw mills are being zoned commercial and must follow the ordinances for commercial property when in fact the property should be zoned agricultural. The bill would clarify that saw mills are agricultural operations and should be classified as such. Senate Bills in the House of Representatives SB 182 reauthorizes the prohibition on the issuance of incentives under the BUILD program, the new or expanded business facilities program, the Urban Enterprise Loan program, or the Missouri Works program for businesses that relocate from certain counties in Kansas to certain counties in Missouri, contingent on similar action taken by Kansas. Such prohibitions expired on August 28, 2016. Supporters say the use of these incentives rarely create new economic activity in this unique situation since businesses can move across the states' border to take advantage of these incentives. An amendment added in the House would establish the Land Bank Act, which authorizes St. Joseph to create a land bank. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 This has been a very busy week at the State Capitol. On Thursday, the Missouri Veterans Commission hosted a Commemoration Ceremony recognizing the 50th Anniversary of the Vietnam War. There were over 400 Vietnam Veterans and their families in attendance. Governor Parson welcomed them home, thanked them for their service and for the sacrifices they made for our country. This week the House and Senate have approved the budget for the Department of Corrections. Starting in January all corrections staff will receive a 3% raise. All staff will also receive steps for years of service receiving a 1% raise for every two years of service up to 20 years. This has been needed in the Department of Corrections for years. I am very proud that we as a state are finally able to step up to help our corrections staff. HJR 48 was perfected this week. The Resolution does nothing to change Clean Missouri. What it does, if approved in the House and Senate, is let the people vote to make changes to Clean Missouri. The people of Missouri would be free to reject or approve the changes. Upon voter approval, this proposed Constitutional amendment repeals an existing exception to the lobbyist gift ban for members of the General Assembly that allows small gifts of under $5.00. If the amendment passes, then no gifts from lobbyists or lobbyist principals to members of the General Assembly are allowed. It also addresses the redistricting procedures. (a) Districts should be composed of contiguous territory as compact as may be such that they approximate squares, rectangles, or hexagons to the extent permitted by natural or political boundaries; (b) Districts should achieve partisan fairness and, secondarily, competitiveness where these criteria are further specified in the resolution; (5) Specifies a procedure for gubernatorial appointment of six member House and Senate bipartisan redistricting committees. The process of selection allows each of the two major political parties to nominate candidates using majority votes of their congressional district committees and state committees. Congressional committees submit two candidates and state committees submit five with the Governor selecting two from each state committee and one member from those nominated by the political party congressional district committees. Additional criteria for service as a member on the committees or selection of members if the political party committees fail to nominate candidates is specified in the resolution. Bipartisan commissions will always have equal numbers of members from the two political parties receiving the most votes in past elections and the same person is barred from service on more than one bipartisan committee; (7) Requires the bipartisan committees to meet within 15 days, excluding Sundays and state holidays, of appointment to select officers, adopt an agenda, and file a tentative plan of apportionment and map with the Secretary of State within five months after appointment. Public hearings will be held after filing and a final map will be filed within six months of appointment which must be approved by seven-tenths of the commission members; and (8) Specifies that a panel of appellate judges will create a redistricting map if a bipartisan commission fails to agree by the requisite seven-tenths vote. Deadlines and requirements for the map are further specified in the resolution. Bills of Interest HB 1162 requires the Department of Economic Development to maintain funds received from any governmental entity for the purposes of providing, maintaining, and expanding rural broadband in the state of Missouri. I believe it is vitally important that we continue to expand access to Broadband. To track the legislation that I have filed, click here https://house.mo.gov/MemberDetails.aspx?year=2019&code=R&district=117 Bills Truly Agreed and Finally Passed HB 898 establishes a "Back the Blue" special license plate which will be available for a $10 contribution to the Missouri Law Enforcement Memorial Foundation and a $15 fee in addition to normal registration costs. Supporters say many people are looking for some way to support law enforcement, and this is a good way to do it. It is an honor to serve as your Representative. Please feel free to contact our office with thoughts or concerns on State Legislation and Issues. Our Phone number is 573-751-2317 Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 This week, my fellow senators and I focused on the state budget for the 2020 fiscal year. Creating and approving a balanced budget is the only constitutional requirement of the Legislature during session. The Missouri House of Representatives prepares the budget as a series of House bills, with the governors recommendations in mind, and then the Missouri Senate is tasked with making recommendations and improvements to the Houses version of the state budget. The Senate Appropriations Committee is instrumental in preparing the budget for the Senates consideration, and I would like to thank the members of the committee for their hard work on the budget. Prior to passing the Senates version of the state budget, I met with the chair of the Appropriations Committee to discuss the education budget and to ensure that sufficient funding was allocated for the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Department of Higher Education. Education is one of my top priorities, so it was important for me to ensure that early childhood programs, K-12 schools and higher education would receive the funding they need for the upcoming school year. Also, I was able to increase by $50,000 what the House recommended for the Public Placement Fund for Lesterville School District. The proposed funding for higher education has increased by approximately $28 million from last years budget. I am also pleased to see that the foundation formula for the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education received a funding increase of $61 million from last year, again fully funding the foundation formula for the third year in a row. Increased funding allows schools to grow and improve the education they provide our students. It also gives teachers additional resources when it comes to educating our students, as well as the opportunity to participate in professional development opportunities. On Wednesday, April 24, the Senate Gubernatorial Appointments Committee heard the appointments of two of my constituents. Lindell Lindsey was appointed to the Well Installation Board, and Deborah Sue Peterson was appointed to the Missouri Health Facilities Review Committee. On Thursday, April 25, they were both confirmed before the entire Senate. I want to congratulate both of these individuals for this achievement and wish them the best of luck as they begin their service to our state. I always appreciate hearing your opinions and concerns regarding your state government. Please feel free to contact me in Jefferson City at (573) 751-4008. You may write me at Gary Romine, Missouri Senate, State Capitol, Jefferson City, MO 65101; or email me at gary.romine@senate.mo.gov. For more information, please visit my official Senate webpage at www.senate.mo.gov/romine. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 FOCUS ON DEFENSE CAPABILITY DEVELOPMENT IN SOUTHEAST ASIA AND OCEANIA The Arts Center in downtown Corvallis is hoping to replace three flags that were destroyed this week in what appears to be a random act of vandalism, not an act of intimidation as some had feared. Staff of the nonprofit art gallery and education center at 700 SW Monroe Ave. arrived at work Tuesday morning to find the charred remains of three colorful nylon banners at the base of a scorched lamppost on the plaza in front of the building. Two of the banners were part of a public art piece that stood next to The Arts Centers main entrance, facing Central Park. The piece by artist Jason Saunders was designed as a memorial to Esther Strom Henderson, a longtime member of the citys parks board who died in 2000. The third was a rainbow flag denoting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender pride that hung near the front door. At 12:26 a.m. Tuesday, Corvallis police were called to the plaza for reports of a burning flagpole. Officers arrested Diana Leigh Roberts, 37, near the scene and charged her with reckless burning, resisting arrest and attempted assault of a public safety officer. Roberts, who also had a half-dozen warrants for her arrest for failure to appear in court on theft, criminal mischief and other charges, is being held in the Benton County Jail on $115,000 bail. After information about the incident was posted on The Arts Centers Facebook page, some people on social media expressed concern that it might have been a hate crime. Not only was a rainbow pride flag set on fire, but The Arts Center is hosting an exhibition by artist Annette Sabater, titled An Iris Stands Tall, that deals with transgender issues. That community was very afraid at first, said Cynthia Hadlock-Spencer, The Arts Centers executive director. I have to say it was a bit of a shock to have this happen when were trying to build bridges and have some awareness. After speaking with someone from the Benton County District Attorneys Office, however, Hadlock-Spencer said shes confident there was no intent to intimidate the transgender community or even to target The Arts Center. Lt. Dan Duncan, a spokesman for the Corvallis Police Department, said there was nothing in the arresting officers report to suggest the incident was anything other than an act of vandalism. He also noted that Roberts has a history of destructive behavior. To be honest, shes got arrests for criminal mischief and vandalism in our city going back to 2015, Duncan said. She just damages things. Hadlock-Spencer said she feels fortunate that the fire didnt spread to The Arts Center itself, a wooden Gothic-style structure built in 1889. Were just thankful it wasnt worse, she said. The three flags are damaged beyond repair and will need to be replaced at an estimated cost of $500-$600, Hadlock-Spencer said. Because the large banners were part of a public art piece, the Corvallis Parks and Recreation Department would be the agency to take the lead on replacing them. Hadlock-Spencer said shes been encouraging people to make donations to the Friends of Corvallis Parks & Recreation, a nonprofit group that supports the department. Gifts can be made online at http://www.lovecorvallisparks.org/donate/. Reporter Bennett Hall can be reached at 541-758-9529 or bennett.hall@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter at @bennetthallgt. Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Here is a look at government meetings in Linn and Benton counties coming up in the next week or so. Saturday Ward 7 Corvallis Councilor Bill Glassmire is the 10 a.m. to noon government comment corner guest at the Corvallis-Benton County Public Library, 645 NW Monroe Ave. Monday The Albany Community Development Commission meets at noon at the Santiam Room at City Hall, 333 Broadalbin St. SW. and will discuss Community Development Block Grant activities that will go into the 2019 action plan. The Corvallis Climate Action Advisory Board subcommittee working on integration with other plans meets at 1:30 p.m. at New Morning Bakery, 219 SW Second St. Tuesday The Linn County Board of Commissioners meets at 9:30 a.m. at the Linn County Courthouse, 300 SW Fourth Ave. in Albany. Commissioners are scheduled to act on sealed bids for 0.01 acres of property off Lacomb Drive in Lebanon that was deeded to the county in 1998 and hear from Diane Turnbull, executive director of the Upward Bound Camp in Gates. The Corvallis Brownfields Coalition has set a public meeting and open house for 4:30 p.m. at the downtown fire station to discuss how the group, which consists of representatives of Corvallis, Albany, Philomath, Monroe and Benton County, will use a $400,000 grant that was awarded by the Environmental Protection Agency. The funds must be used for planning on properties in which development is complicated by environmental concerns. Wednesday The Albany Transient Lodging Tax Advisory Committee meets at 3 p.m. in the Municipal Courtroom at City Hall. The committee will discuss a grant request from the Albany Visitors Association and the Albany Downtown Association for media and marketing materials. The Corvallis Community Involvement and Diversity Advisory Board meets at 5:15 p.m. at the Madison Avenue Meeting Room, 500 SW Madison Ave., to finalize its recommendations on neighborhood and community empowerment grants to the City Council. The Philomath Finance and Administration Committee meets at City Hall, 980 Applegate St. and will discuss and make recommendations on social service funding requests. The Albany Parks and Recreation Commission meets at 6 p.m. in the Calapooia Room at City Hall. The Corvallis Planning Commission meets at 7 p.m. at the downtown fire station, 400 NW Harrison Blvd. Commissioners will hold a public hearing on the citys update of its buildable lands inventory and deliberate on the Carson map amendment, which seeks to change the zoning on 6 acres of property at the intersection of Southwest 53rd Street and Country Club Drive from low-density residential (RS-6) to high-density residential (RS-20). Thursday The Corvallis Airport Advisory Board meets at 7:30 a.m. at the Madison room. A Corvallis livability code public hearing will be held at 10:30 a.m. at the Madison room to review costs associated with city abatement and administrative work on a nuisance property at 812 SW 11th St. The Philomath Public Works Committee meets at 3 p.m. at City Hall to discuss a tree removal and see a presentation on Kamtrup meters. The Corvallis School District Budget Committee meets for the first time this budget cycle at 6:30 p.m. at the district administration building, 155 SW 35th St. The meeting will include the election of committee officers and a presentation on the proposed budget for 2019-20, which includes a $96.8 million general fund. That general fund total represents revenue growth of about 7% and expenditure growth of about 11%, which the draft budget said is mostly due to the districts increased Public Employee Retirement System obligations. Friday The Corvallis Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Board meets at 7 a.m. at the Madison room. Board members will receive an update from the Oregon Department of Transportation on the Crystal Lake Drive multiuse path, hear the quarterly crash report from the Corvallis Police Department and receive a briefing on planned summer street reconstruction work. The Corvallis City Legislative Committee meets at 4 p.m. at City Hall, 501 SW Madison Ave. The Corvallis Climate Action Advisory Board meets in a special Sunday strategic planning workshop at 10 a.m. at the Tunison Community Room, 365 SW Tunison Ave. Contact reporter James Day at jim.day@gazettetimes.com or 541-758-9542. Follow at Twitter.com/jameshday or gazettetimes.com/blogs/jim-day. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get Government & Politics updates in your inbox! Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. CORVALLIS POLICE Gun theft 9:30 p.m. Thursday, 1300 block NW Van Buren Ave. A man reported a handgun was stolen from his vehicle sometime in the previous two days. Car theft 10:30 p.m. Thursday, 400 block SW Third St. A man reported his 1996 Honda Accord was stolen from the Safeway parking lot. Car theft 6:37 a.m. Friday, 3000 block NW Grant Ave. A man reported he woke to find his Honda CRV stolen from his driveway overnight. BENTON COUNTY SHERIFF Theft of tires 1:25 p.m. Thursday, 2000 block SW Third St. An employee at Les Schwab reported someone cut a hole in their fence and stole six tires valued at $1,500, then left on a bike with a trailer. Suspicious activity 3:45 p.m. Tuesday, 340 NE Granger Ave. An unknown woman reportedly went to Mountain View Elementary School and said she was there to pick up a student. The after-school program coordinator reportedly asked to see the womans identification and the woman said she would get it from her vehicle, but never returned. The students parents said they had no idea who the woman was and had not given anyone permission to pick up the student from the after school program. DUII 7:35 p.m. Monday, Highway 99W at milepost 96. A deputy arrested Kim Wayne Powell, 65, of Dexter, for charges of DUII, reckless driving and three counts of reckless endangering. Powell reportedly had a blood alcohol content of 0.0 percent and provided a urine sample because a drug recognition expert was not available. Burglary 7:50 a.m. Monday, 20000 block Highway 99W. A man reported that around $4,000 in tools and machines were stolen overnight from a place he was remodeling. LINN COUNTY SHERIFF Missing tools 8:51 a.m. Thursday, 35000 block Riverside Drive, Albany. A caller reported the theft of $600 in construction tools. Inventory problem About 11:48 a.m. Thursday, deputies issued a warning from the city of Halsey to Diamond K Sales. The city is asking that Diamond K stop parking its trailer inventory at multiple city locations. Citations will be issued weekly if the company does not comply. Missing trailer noon Thursday, 27000 block Fern Ridge Road, Sweet Home. A caller reported the theft of a homemade utility trailer. Missing cables 2 p.m. Thursday, 33000 block Brewster Road, Lebanon. A caller reported the theft of a roll of fiber optic cable and a roll of wire from his driveway. The caller has video of a suspect. LINN COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT Vehicle theft Karoline Marie McKnight, 26, of Albany, was charged with unauthorized use of a vehicle. The crime allegedly occurred on April 14, and the Albany Police Department was the investigating agency. Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 1 Sad 0 Angry 0 Summer 2019 arrived last week at your local movie house as "Avengers: Endgame" slammed into theaters, signaling the annual onslaught of seasonal high-concept, low-brainpower fare and sending a distinct message to moviegoers of a certain age: There's nothing to see here for you folks. Come back in late September, when we start rolling out the Oscar bait. Sure, the screens will be dominated this summer by superheroes and sequels and CGI Simbas (and, yes, we are curious about Jon Favreau's live-action "Lion King"), but adults need not steer clear of the multiplex this summer. You'll just need to know where to look. Here's my annual list of summer films that might offer pleasures for older moviegoers. My rules: No sequels. No spinoffs. No movies in which characters are forced to wear spandex superhero costumes. And a couple of warnings: Release dates can change. And I haven't seen any of these flicks, so it could be that some of them might not be very good. (I worry, in particular, about "Where'd You Go, Bernadette," which should be a slam dunk but has been frequently delayed, rarely a good sign.) One other note: I haven't included documentaries in this list, but if you go to the online version of the column, I've listed some of interest (and other titles that I couldn't cram into the print column). Here we go: "Fast Color" is already out in some markets. It's an offbeat story about a recovering addict (Gugu Mbutha-Raw) whose seizures can set off earthquakes, and the government agents on her trail. "Long Shot" (May 3) depicts the unlikely romance between political journalist Seth Rogen and Charlize Theron, the secretary of state who's considering a run for president. There are lots of ways this could go wrong, but the early buzz is promising. "Poms" (May 10) stars Diane Keaton, Pam Grier, Jacki Weaver and Rhea Perlman in a comedy about a group of women in a senior community who launch a cheerleading club. I know: This seems almost like a sequel to last year's "Book Club," but in my defense, "Book Club" was more fun than it had any right to be and this new movie has Pam Grier. "Rocketman" (May 31) stars Taron Egerton in a biopic about the early days of Elton John. Should be better than "Bohemian Rhapsody," but that's not setting the bar too high. "Late Night" (June 7) stars Emma Thompson as the host of a late-night talk show; with ratings tumbling, she hires the show's first female writer (Mindy Kaling, who also wrote the script). "The Dead Don't Die" (June 14) is a zombie comedy from director Jim Jarmusch. Check out the cast: Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Chloe Sevigny, Tilda Swinton and Steve Buscemi. "Yesterday" (June 28), from director Danny Boyle, is about a struggling musician who wakes up after being hit by a bus and discovers he's the only person in the world who's heard of The Beatles. Richard Curtis wrote the script. I'm still bummed that Boyle isn't directing the new James Bond flick, but this might make up for that. "The Farewell" (July 12) features Awkafina of "Crazy Rich Asians" in a Sundance favorite. It's about a Chinese family that discovers a beloved grandmother has only a short time to live; instead of telling her, they whip up an impromptu wedding to unite the family. "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" (July 26), from director Quentin Tarantino, features a huge cast led by Brad Pitt, Leonardo DeCaprio and Margot Robbie (as Sharon Tate) in a film set in 1969 Los Angeles, when the city was rocked by the Manson murders. "The Kitchen" (Aug. 9) features Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish and Elisabeth Moss in a crime drama about three wives who are forced to take over their husbands' mob empire in 1970s New York. Horror is Hollywood's hottest genre, and the summer brings a couple of intriguing new entries: "Ma" (May 31), from "The Help" director Tate Taylor, stars Octavia Spencer as a lonely woman who becomes obsessed with a group of high school students. "Midsommer" (July 3), from the director of last summer's "Hereditary," features rising star Florence Pugh visiting a remote Swedish village, where she runs afoul of a pagan cult. And finally: "Where'd You Go, Bernadette" (Aug. 9) is the Richard Linklater adaptation of Maria Semple's wonderful novel about a Seattle architect (Cate Blanchett) who goes missing and the daughter who searches for her. This was on the list last year, a worrying sign, but it's hard to see how Linklater and Blanchett could bungle this material. I'll see you at the movies. Save me an aisle seat, because I'm too old these days to scramble into the middle. (mm) Mike McInally is editor of the Democrat-Herald and the Gazette-Times. Contact him at mike.mcinally@lee.net. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Now that the Mueller report is finished and available in a heavily redacted form, it is time to consume and digest what it actually says and means. Since I am not a fan of the current administration my conclusions will certainly differ from those of someone who supports it. I believe the report does not exonerate Trump but clearly demonstrates that if he was not the sitting president he would surely be indicted for obstruction. I also believe the report outlines willingness by the Trump campaign to accept help from the Russians and, while not explicitly complicit in their efforts, they certainly encouraged it. Redactions made to protect ongoing investigations indicate to me that the damage done by the Russians and their witless cohorts is not yet fully known. We can, however, be certain that this administration has not undertaken the steps necessary to ensure that foreign interference does not happen again. There can only be one conclusion drawn from that fact. Trump and his sycophants are either continuing to be patsies of the Russian effort to confuse and divide the nation or they are actually complicit and are using it to bolster their chances of a second term. For the sake of the country, I hope the other investigations come to fruition before the 2020 election. I am a retired newspaperman. I live in Poca, WV, with my wife of 44 years, Lou Ann. I grew up in Cleveland. Three kids. Grandfather. Report all errors to DonSurber@GMail.com Texas Monthly asked, trying to be provocative, I suppose: driven by inner demons, especially not a primary. The headline is idiotic. Theasked, trying to be provocative, I suppose: Can Out-of-State Liberals Oust a Texas Democrat? The answer, of course, is NO. Only a solid home-grown progressive Democrat from Webb or Bexar County is going to oust Henry Cuellar. Good candidates aren't found on top shelves in an old WalMart and they don't get invented. No one wins a race who isn't positivelyby inner demons, especially not a primary. Six of the nine counties that make up Texas' 28th district are deep blue. Tiny Atascosa, Wilson and even tinier McMullen Counties are the exceptions. Trump won Atascosa with 63.2%, Wilson with 72.7% and McMullen with 91.3%. It didn't make any difference. The massive majorities Hillary ran up in the more populated counties-- Webb (74.4%), Bexar (54.5%) and Hidalgo (68.6%)-- gave her a districtwide 58.3% to 38.5% win over Trump. Last year the Republicans didn't even bother running an opponent against Cuellar, not just because he votes with them more than any other Democrat in Congress, but because the district is too blue for them to win (PVI is D+9). Republicans in TX-28 are lucky if they can get a third of the vote. In Congress, Cuellar's Trump adhesion score is 55.9% , the highest of any Democrat... by far. Maria Recio wrote, so simplistically as to be almost misleading, that "Now the same group of young activists from Bernie Sanderss 2016 presidential campaign who boosted Ocasio-Cortez are looking to replace other moderate and conservative Democrats across the country with leftist candidates. Their first target? U.S. representative Henry Cuellar, of Texass Twenty-eighth Congressional District. 'His votes and his rhetoric are not upholding Democratic values,' says Alexandra Rojas, the executive director of the political action committee Justice Democrats, which launched its 'Primary Cuellar' campaign in January. In arguing why the eight-term congressman must go, Rojas points to the frequency with which Cuellar votes with President Donald Trump-- about 60 percent of the time, more than almost any other House Democrat-- despite representing a district that favored Hillary Clinton over Trump by nearly 20 percent in the 2016 election. The Justice Democrats say they believe, contrary to the results of recent elections, that the values of Texans arent significantly different from those of New Yorkers-- and, furthermore, that those values are progressive. 'In poll after poll, Americans everywhere want change in immigration, health care, climate change, and income inequality,' Rojas says." Justice Democrats didn't invent Ocasio-Cortez. Their support for her was very important in her victory. But it was her victory, based primarily on how smart and effective she was as a campaigner and how charismatic she is. The way to do this is to start with a candidate, not with an enemy. "Their effort," wrote Recio, "is something of a proxy war for a larger conflict that has erupted within the Democratic party about the right way to mobilize voters and take the White House back from Trump in the 2020 election. Did Clinton lose the presidency because she failed to excite progressives by not tacking far enough to the left or because she didnt hew close enough to the center to attract moderates? And is the answer to that question the same in all parts of the country?" Jesus, what a bunch of amateur and idiotic question-- well-meaning, terribly put. The writer is so inept than she tries to say TX-28 Democrats should be discouraged because Beto didn't win Texas, seeming to have forgotten that he did win TX-28-- and massively so. Beto took Webb County 71.2% to 28.0%, Bexar 59.5% to 39.6%, Hidalgo 68.8% to 30.6% and so on. Of course, she's absolutely correct in pointing out that "Cuellars slice of South Texas and AOCs corner of the Bronx and Queens are culturally worlds apart" and maybe even that "the Justice Democrats may be deluding themselves into thinking that they can replicate in Texass Twenty-eighth District the success they achieved in New Yorks Fourteenth." There's no replication in politics. The Justice Democrats-- and the rest of use hoping to replace Cuellar with an actual Democrat-- need to find a good solid Texas candidate and then support her or him with all our might. much redder than Texas (R+8), Yarmuth is, across-the-board, far more progressive than Cuellar despite representing a less blue district. TX-28 has a PVI of D+9 while Yarmuth is far more vulnerable in a D+6 district. Instead of Cuellar's strong Trump adhesion score (55.9%), Yarmuth's is more like a normal Democrat ( Recio veers off course though when she implies that the Justice Dems, in "their desire to shift the party sharply to the left could undermine the Democrats renewed attempts to turn the state blue." What does "blue" mean to Rechio; she doesn't say in her piece. Cuellar-like? Is that the blue she means. I can't speak for the Justice Democrats, but I sincerely doubt they would consider that electing more Henry Cuellars-- something Cheri Bustos' DCCC has made clear that that's exactly what they want to do-- would equate to turning anything blue at all. Nor is there a need for that. There are dozens and dozens of districts that are less blue than Cuellar's with more progressive congress members than he is. Take a guy like John Yarmuth. Not only is Kentucky (R+15)redder than Texas (R+8), Yarmuth is, across-the-board, far more progressive than Cuellar despite representing ablue district. TX-28 has a PVI of D+9 while Yarmuth is far more vulnerable in a D+6 district. Instead of Cuellar's strong Trump adhesion score (55.9%), Yarmuth's is more like a normal Democrat ( 16.5% ). Babbling imbeciles like Recio, shrieking about leftists and mixing up facts-- citing Filemon Vela, for example as a liberal, when Vela is also a right-of-center Blue Dog with a solid "F" ProgressivePunch score in an even bluer district than Cuellar's-- spit out pseudo analyses that just confuse her readers. Vela supports Cuellar, she reports. Wow! Amazing, two right-wing corrupt Blue Dogs support each other. Unheard of! She did stumble upon a fact worth noting though. Gilberto Hinojosa, the chairman of the Texas Democratic party, disagrees with the DCCC policy protecting worthless incumbents like Cuellar from primary challenges. Hinojosa doesnt believe the Justice Democrats efforts pose any threat to the partys plans because the TX-28 itself is already 'deep blue' and is likely to remain so, regardless of the nominee who emerges from the primary. Exactly what establishment hacks rarely seem capable of grasping. Politico found someone as hackish and ignorant as Recio, Steven Perlberg, to write a posy for them yesterday, found someone as hackish and ignorant as Recio, Steven Perlberg, to write a posy for them yesterday, How The Intercept Is Fueling The Democratic Civil War . Because, you know, primaries between progressives and the Republican wing iff the Democratic Party are always terrible civil wars. "For a broad swath of Democrats," wrote Perlberg, a [Mark] Kelly campaign is precisely what the party needs." Really? A Republican suddenly pretending to be a Democrat is just what the party needs? Perlberg described him as "a patriotic, mediagenic, center-friendly liberal who has a rare chance to turn the longtime Republican stronghold of Arizona into a state with two Democratic U.S. senators." He's wrong about "liberal" and very correct about "center-friendly," not as in center of the Democratic Party, but center of the political spectrum... so the place where the GOP meets the Democratic Party, home to shitheads like the aforementioned Henry Cuellar, as well as other corrupted right-wing corporatists who usually join the Blue Dogs and New Dems in the House and vote with Joe Manchin (WV), Mark Warner (VA), Michael Bennet (CO), Dianne Feinstein (CA), Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) and Tom Carper (DE) in the Senate. You know who was defeated in the midst of the big anti-red wave last year? While Democrats were capturing dozens of Republican-held House seats across the country, "center-friendly" faux-Dems like Joe Donnelly (IN), Heidi Heitkamp (ND), Bill Nelson (FL) and Claire McCaskill (MO) all lost their seats, failing to win their gamble that Republicans would vote for them and that the Democratic base would go with a lesser-of-two-evils strategy. Meanwhile, Tammy Baldwin (WI) and Sherrod Brown (WI), similarly targeted by the GOP, stuck to progressive platforms and won solid reelection battles in states Trump won. Perlberg is angry that an Intercept reporter reported that Kelly, who pretends to be free of building a political career based on fealty to corporate special interests-- which Democratic and independent voters are demanding nationwide-- "made at least 19 paid corporate speeches in front of audiences including Goldman Sachs" and was enjoying the inherent corruption of having slimy lobbyists raise money for his campaign from DC fat-cats. Perlberg is freaking out because suddenly the less vigilant Arizona Republic and CNN picked up on the story and because the embarrassment caused Kelly to return the $55,000 the Emeratis had given him as a legalistic bribe for services they expect will be rendered. "For The Intercept, wrote the foolish Perlberg who probably never imagined the Republicans would use this kind of thing against Kelly when it would be too late for Democrats to find a better candidate, "it was another notch on an increasingly crowded belt-- mostly decorated with attacks on Democrats." The Politico hit job on The Intercept is funny. I wonder if The Intercept is encouraging it. Politico, like The Hill and other Beltway trade publications exist to puff up the establishments of both parties. That's very, very different from the actual reporting The Intercept does. Real journalists don't write for Politico and Politico isn't able to grok what writers like Ryan Grim, Lee Fang, Kate Aronoff, David Dayen, Akela Lacy and Mehdi Hasan do. Politico is a press release-based operation. The Intercept isn't part of their sad little world. Joseph Cox and Jason Koebler posted a pretty funny terribly sad piece at Vice's Motherboard website Thursday morning. I have a feeling some GOP loudmouths in Congress, like Gym Jordan (R-OH), Mo Brooks (R-AL), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Mark Meadows (R-NC), Andy Biggs (R-AZ) and Louie Gohmert (R-TX), are flipping their lids today-- or will be as soon as someone points this out to them. Ever wonder how Twitter was able to excise ISIS from its pages but can't do the same thing with the ugly vitriolic racism coming from the Trump base? It's a decision made at the top levels of the company. At a Twitter all-hands meeting on March 22, an employee asked a blunt question: Twitter has largely eradicated Islamic State propaganda off its platform. Why cant it do the same for white supremacist content? An executive responded by explaining that Twitter follows the law, and a technical employee who works on machine learning and artificial intelligence issues went up to the mic to add some context. (As Motherboard has previously reported, algorithms are the next great hope for platforms trying to moderate the posts of their hundreds of millions, or billions, of users.) With every sort of content filter, there is a tradeoff, he explained. When a platform aggressively enforces against ISIS content, for instance, it can also flag innocent accounts as well, such as Arabic language broadcasters. Society, in general, accepts the benefit of banning ISIS for inconveniencing some others, he said. In separate discussions verified by Motherboard, that employee said Twitter hasnt taken the same aggressive approach to white supremacist content because the collateral accounts that are impacted can, in some instances, be Republican politicians. The employee argued that, on a technical level, content from Republican politicians could get swept up by algorithms aggressively removing white supremacist material. Banning politicians wouldnt be accepted by society as a trade-off for flagging all of the white supremacist propaganda, he argued. There is no indication that this position is an official policy of Twitter, and the company told Motherboard that this is not [an] accurate characterization of our policies or enforcement-- on any level. But the Twitter employees comments highlight the sometimes overlooked debate within the moderation of tech platforms: are moderation issues purely technical and algorithmic, or do societal norms play a greater role than some may acknowledge? Though Twitter has rules against abuse and hateful conduct, civil rights experts, government organizations, and Twitter users say the platform hasnt done enough to curb white supremacy and neo-Nazis on the platform, and its competitor Facebook recently explicitly banned white nationalism. Wednesday, during a parliamentary committee hearing on social media content moderation, UK MP Yvette Cooper asked Twitter why it hasnt yet banned former KKK leader David Duke, and Jack, ban the Nazis has become a common reply to many of Twitter CEO Jack Dorseys tweets. During a recent interview with TED that allowed the public to tweet in questions, the feed was overtaken by people asking Dorsey why the platform hadnt banned Nazis. Dorsey said we have policies around violent extremist groups, but did not give a straightforward answer to the question. Dorsey did not respond to two requests for comment sent via Twitter DM. Do you work at Twitter? We would love to hear from you. Using a non-work computer or phone, you can contact Joseph Cox securely on Signal on +44 20 8133 5190, OTR chat on jfcox@jabber.ccc.de, or email joseph.cox@vice.com. Twitter has not publicly explained why it has been able to so successfully eradicate ISIS while it continues to struggle with white nationalism. As a company, Twitter wont say that it cant treat white supremacy in the same way as it treated ISIS. But external experts Motherboard spoke to said that the measures taken against ISIS were so extreme that, if applied to white supremacy, there would certainly be backlash, because algorithms would obviously flag content that has been tweeted by prominent Republicansor, at the very least, their supporters. So its no surprise, then, that employees at the company have realized that as well. This is because the proactive measures taken against ISIS are more akin to the removal of spam or child porn than the more nuanced way that social media platforms traditionally police content, which can involve using algorithms to surface content but ultimately relies on humans to actually review and remove it (or leave it up.) A Twitter spokesperson told Motherboard that 91 percent of the companys terrorism-related suspensions in a 6 month period in 2018 were thanks to internal, automated tools. The argument that external experts made to Motherboard aligns with what the Twitter employee aired: Society as a whole uncontroversially and unequivocally demanded that Twitter take action against ISIS in the wake of beheading videos spreading far and wide on the platform. The automated approach that Twitter took to eradicating ISIS was successful: I havent seen a legit ISIS supporter on Twitter who lasts longer than 15 seconds for two-and-a-half years, Amarnath Amarasingam, an extremism researcher at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, told Motherboard in a phone call. Society and politicians were willing to accept that some accounts were mistakenly suspended by Twitter during that process (for example, accounts belonging to the hacktivist group Anonymous that were reporting ISIS accounts to Twitter as part of an operation called #OpISIS were themselves banned). That same eradicate-everything approach, applied to white supremacy, is much more controversial. Most people can agree a beheading video or some kind of ISIS content should be proactively removed, but when we try to talk about the alt-right or white nationalism, we get into dangerous territory, where were talking about [Iowa Rep.] Steve King or maybe even some of Trumps tweets, so it becomes hard for social media companies to say all of this this content should be removed, Amarasingam said. In March, King promoted an open white nationalist on Twitter for the third time. King quote tweeted Faith Goldy, a Canadian white nationalist. Earlier this month, Facebook banned Goldy under the sites new policy banning white nationalism; Goldy has 122,000 followers on Twitter and has not been banned at the time of writing. Last year, Twitter banned Republican politician and white nationalist Paul Nehlen for a racist tweet he sent about actress and princess Meghan Markle, but prior to the ban, Nehlen gained a wide following on the platform while tweeting openly white nationalist content about, for example, the Jewish media. Any move that could be perceived as being anti-Republican is likely to stir backlash against the company, which has been criticized by President Trump and other prominent Republicans for having an anti-conservative bias. Tuesday, on the same day Trump met with Twitters Dorsey, the President tweeted that Twitter [doesnt] treat me well as a Republican. Very discriminatory, Trump tweeted. No wonder Congress wants to get involvedand they should. JM Berger, author of Extremism and a number of reports on ISIS and far-right extremists on Twitter, told Motherboard that in his own research, he has found that a very large number of white nationalists identify themselves as avid Trump supporters. Cracking down on white nationalists will therefore involve removing a lot of people who identify to a greater or lesser extent as Trump supporters, and some people in Trump circles and pro-Trump media will certainly seize on this to complain they are being persecuted, Berger said. There's going to be controversy here that we didn't see with ISIS, because there are more white nationalists than there are ISIS supporters, and white nationalists are closer to the levers of political power in the US and Europe than ISIS ever was. Twitter currently has no good way of suspending specific white supremacists without human intervention, and so it continues to use human moderators to evaluate tweets. In an email, a company spokesperson told Motherboard that different content and behaviors require different approaches. "For terrorist-related content we've a lot of success with proprietary technology but for other types of content that violate our policieswhich can often [be] much more contextual-- we see the best benefits by using technology and human review in tandem, the company said. Twitter hasn't done a particularly good job of removing white supremacist content and has shown a reluctance to take any action of any kind against world leaders even when their tweets violate Twitters rules. But Berger agrees with Twitter in that the problem the company is facing with white supremacy is fundamentally different than the one it faced with ISIS on a practical level. With ISIS, the group's obsessive branding, tight social networks and small numbers made it easier to avoid collateral damage when the companies cracked down (although there was some), he said. White nationalists, in contrast, have inconsistent branding, diffuse social networks and a large body of sympathetic people in the population, so the risk of collateral damage might be perceived as being higher, but it really depends on where the company draws its lines around content. But just because eradicating white supremacy on Twitter is a hard problem doesnt mean the company should get a pass. After Facebook explicitly banned white supremacy and white nationalism, Motherboard asked YouTube and Twitter whether they would make similar changes. Neither company would commit to making that explicit change, and referred us to their existing rules. Work on HCMC's Metro Line 1 continues to be delayed and unpaid bills for its Japanese contractor continue to pile up. At a meeting with Deputy PM Vuong Dinh Hue on Friday, Japanese Ambassador to Vietnam Umeda Kunio asked the Vietnamese government to amend its note on ODA loan disbursement in order to fast track payments for Japanese contractors working on HCMC's Metro Line 1. Hue responded that the government is working to speed up the process and completely resolve payment issues. He said the government is interested in safeguarding the interests of both parties on the basis of full compliance with the law and "respect for equality in the interests of related parties." Kunio also said that the Japanese government was actively encouraging its small and medium enterprises to invest in projects in Vietnam, and asked for a reduction in personal income tax for Japanese investors in Vietnam's economic zones. The Japanese ambassador noted that Vietnam's economy has enjoyed good growth and was currently at an important stage, with new opportunities as well as new challenges for future development. This is not the first time Japan is officially asking for payment of Japanese contractor Sumitomo Corporation's unpaid bills. Earlier this year, the issue was raised at a meeting with Ho Chi Minh City Chairman Nguyen Thanh Phong. Phong had pledged then that while waiting for the metro project's adjusted total investment to be approved, the city would advance money from its own budget to pay for the works the contractor had done in 2018 and early 2019, which was estimated at over VND2 trillion ($86 million). Approved in 2005, the Ben Thanh-Suoi Tien metro or Metro Line 1 will run 20 kilometers (12 miles) through the city's 1, 2, 9, Binh Thanh and Thu Duc districts, and the neighboring Binh Duong Province's Di An District. Work on the line started in August 2012 with a total investment of nearly VND50 trillion ($2.14 billion), which was to be sourced from both ODA funds disbursed by the central government and from the city's budget. For the 2016-2020 period, Ho Chi Minh City was to receive VND7.5 trillion ($326.1 million) for the project, and in 2016 and 2017 it received a total of VND2.71 trillion ($117.83 million). However, the city has yet to receive the remaining amount due to a delay in the approval of the project's adjusted total investment. This has led to a lack of funding for the project, with the Vietnamese side not paying the Japanese contractor for work already completed. The metro line is also unlikely to be finished by 2020 as currently scheduled. To cope with a crippling water scarcity, the Sa Pa administration has instructed paddy farmers to stop irrigating their fields. Authorities in the resort town in the northern mountain province of Lao Cai have spoken with the 25 local farming families. One of the countrys most popular tourist destinations, the town has been suffering from a severe water shortage this month due to abnormally low rainfall. The available water can only serve a third of the 61,000 people in Sa Pa, Pham Hong Quang, CEO of the Lao Cai Water Supply Joint Stock Company, said. Sa Pas sole waterworks normally supplies 6,000 cubic meters a day with water drawn from five sources, but four of them are now dry. From the last remaining source, Suoi Ho 2, a stream and lake which yield 4,000 cubic meters a day, the town was able to use only half the water since rice farmers have been using the other half. "A water shortage this time of the year is a common story, but the situation is much more serious this year and it is likely to last longer than usual," Quang said. Sa Pa has not received decent rains so far this year while tourists have come flocking, leading to higher demand for water, he added. Le Tan Phong, the town chairman, said authorities have negotiated to take the entire supply from Suoi Ho 2 for household use. "The 25 farming families will stop growing paddy and will be compensated later." But officials have not clarified for how long the farmers need to stop work and how much compensation they will be paid. With water being saved from the rice fields, there will be enough to meet the demand of local people and businesses during the coming holidays, Phong said. Vietnam has a five-day holiday starting Saturday for Reunification Day, April 30, and Labor Day, May 1. Since early this month locals have had to buy water for daily use at the cost of VND300,000-500,000 ($13-22) per cubic meter. Hospitality businesses have been hit hardest. Pham Quoc Tuan, owner of a hotel in Sa Pa, said he has to spend VND1.5 million ($65) every day to buy water and has refused many bookings for the holidays because of the water shortage. "The cost of buying water has been rising but we have no choice because we have to maintain the prestige of our hotel. If the situation continues, we really dont know what we will do." Dinh Van Hung of another hotel near the town center told VnExpress International on Wednesday that his hotel has been buying water brought from outside the province for the last few days. "We had to refund two room bookings the other day due to the water shortage. We have faced this problem in previous years too, but this time its more severe." Canned water is about to be transferred to local houses and hotels in Sa Pa. Photo by VnExpress/Phan Anh Who's to blame? Asking farmers to stop watering their fields is a temporary solution, Dao Trong Tu, director of the Center for Sustainable Development of Water Resources and Climate Change Adaptation based in Hanoi, said. It is Sa Pas tourism development plan that has caused the serious water shortage, he claimed. "Hotels have kept coming up in Sa Pa without any plans. A waterworks with a capacity of just 6,000 cubic meters a day cannot allow Sa Pa to serve millions of visitors a year." His center is also studying the effects of hydropower plants built in the area on Sa Pas water supply, he said. "We cannot conclude anything yet, but we assume hydropower plants and the disappearance of upstream forests might affect the town's water sources." But Phong, the town chairman, disagreed with this, saying no power plant has been built on Sa Pas five major water sources. Lao Cai authorities are looking for investors to build another waterworks with a capacity of 15,000 cubic meters a day, he said, adding work is expected to start this year and finish next year. Crowds of tourists in Sa Pa during the Reunification Day holiday in April 2018. Photo by VnExpress/Vy An Sa Pa has 700 lodging facilities with almost 7,000 rooms, including hotels in its center and rental apartments on the outskirts. In the first three months this year it received 800,000 visitors, including 100,000 foreigners. Last year 2.5 million tourists came. In 2017 Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc had called for "careful development" of Sa Pa to preserve its nature and culture. Development must not "mess it up" and all it would take for Sa Pa to become an international tourism destination was preserving its "green forest and ethnic culture," he had said. Lao Cai officials had earlier revealed plans for construction in the town by 2020, including a new administrative center, a high-end service complex, a park and an urban center to prepare to welcome four million visitors by then. The town, perched at 1,600 meters, or nearly one mile above sea level, is already under great threat from commercial tourism development. Large portions of the town look like a construction site, and a cable car system now runs to the top of Mount Fansipan. In its 2019 Global Risks Report, the World Economic Forum had listed water scarcity as one of the largest global risks over the next decade. ELKO Women in the workplace were celebrated April 24 with a catered lunch, glass of wine and a history lesson at the 2019 Women in Business luncheon hosted by the Elko Daily Free Press. More than 100 women attended the sold-out event at the Elko Conference Center that featured keynote speaker Dana Bennett, president of the Nevada Mining Association. Bennett shared the stories of women who were pioneers in mining at a time when it was considered back luck for females to enter a mine. Some of those trailblazers included those who worked their own claims to the first women students of the Mackay School of Mines at the University of Nevada, Reno. Other speakers were Elaine Cassell of Soroptimist International of Elko; and Pam Lansford, legal advocate for the Committee Against Domestic Violence. This years raffle drawing proceeds of more than $800 were donated to CADV. Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The business news you need Get the latest local business news delivered FREE 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. November 2, 1968 April 22, 2019 Kirk Lee Brush, age 50 passed away April 22, 2019 at Huntsman Cancer Institute in Salt Lake City, UT from cancer. He was born November 2, 1968 in Fillmore, Utah to Bryce and Nancy Brush. Kirk grew up in Delta, Utah where he attended school and graduated from Delta High School in 1987. Kirk married his high school sweetheart, Carrie in 1989 in Delta. Kirk and Carrie made their home in Carlin, NV for the last 30 years, later welcoming two daughters; Jordan and McKenna Brush. He worked at Barrick Goldstrike as a heavy equipment operator for 31 years, which was his pride and joy. Kirk made numerous friendships throughout the years, but nothing gave him more joy then being a father to his two beautiful daughters. He was a selfless human being never putting himself before his familys needs and never once complained during his last 12 days after finding out his diagnosis of cancer. Kirks only concern was his family. That is just how special he really was. Kirk is survived by his wife of 30 years Carrie Brush, daughters, Jordan and McKenna Brush; sister, Cammie (Richard) Bochman; many aunts, uncles and cousins. He was preceded in death by his mother, Nancy Jordt; father, Bryce Brush; brother, Kyle Brush; grandparents, Wilfred and Phyllis Munster and Dee and Mara Brush. A memorial service will be held for Kirk at Saint Josephs Catholic Church in Elko, NV on May 4, 2019 at 10:30 am with graveside interment to follow at Elko Cemetery. Lunch will be served afterwards. Its spring, so its time to plan for fall hunting. The application deadline for Nevadas 2019-20 big game season is coming up April 29 at 11 p.m. All applications are now done online. The draw results will be released May 24. This week the Nevada Department of Wildlife released their 2019 big game quota recommendations. At their monthly meeting next Tuesday night, the Elko County Advisory Board to Manage Wildlife will be welcoming public comments on the recommendations. This annual quota discussion draws a lot of public interest. Last years Elko Wildlife CAB meeting on big game quotas lasted about four hours. A couple of years ago, when there were some controversial recommendations, close to 100 people came to the meeting. Next weeks Wildlife CAB meeting will be April 30 at 6 p.m. at the Nannini Administration Building in downtown Elko. This is the opportunity for sportsmen and hunters, outdoor enthusiasts, to have input in the process, said Elko County Advisory Board Chairman Jim Cooney. This is the grassroots point where we take that input. Were representing all of the sportsmen and outdoor enthusiasts in Elko County. And Elko County has a very significant wildlife population, and a lot of people from around the state come up and like to enjoy the resources that we have here. Cooney said last year someone pointed out that there was rifle hunting and archery elk hunting scheduled for adjacent areas at the same time. That was not a good situation, it was a safety concern, Cooney said. Nobody had caught that before the meeting. So the public comment is very valuable. The Elko Wildlife CAB will share the public input at the Nevada Board of Wildlife Commissioners public hearing which will start at 8:30 a.m. May 4 at the Washoe County Commission chambers. Video streaming and teleconferencing of this hearing will be available at the Nevada Department of Wildlife office at 60 Youth Center Road in Elko. NDOW biologists look at lots of factors to develop each years quota numbers. Some of the factors that have had big impacts on area wildlife this year are last summers wildfires and this winters heavy and late snowfall. Cooney commented that although the big fires swept across nearly a million acres and burned lots of significant habitat, he is seeing some good recovery this spring. Going to Owyhee the other day, I was encouraged to see the amount of bunch grass thats coming back right now, rather than the invasion of the cheatgrass, Cooney said. Thats positive to me that the antelope and the elk especially are going to be experiencing something positive after that devastating fire. Ups and downs Looking at this years big game quota recommendations for Elko County, for elk and antelope the numbers are generally down. The mule deer numbers generally are down for the western portion of the county and are up for the eastern part of the county. There will be some elk depredation hunts to deal with the problems caused by overpopulation. For these hunts, quota numbers are continuing to drop for the northeast corner of the county, but in the Ruby Mountains the antlerless elk depredation quota is going up from 100 last year to a recommended 150 this year. California bighorn sheep can be hunted in the western portion of the county, and this years quota recommendation is 14, up from nine last year. The Ruby Mountains are the only place in the state to hunt mountain goats, and this years quota recommendation is eight, the same as last years quota. Shed hunting Another issue the Elko Wildlife CAB is currently working is shed hunting. Last year the Nevada Board of Wildlife Commissioners approved a regulation prohibiting people from taking or gathering shed antlers from public lands in Elko and five other counties from Jan. 1 through April 30. People came to the Elko Wildlife CABs February meeting to say that the shed hunting regulations are not working very well. The Wildlife CAB formed a subcommittee which met March 28, and more than 40 members of the public went to that meeting to talk about ways to improve the regulations. People said the current regulations are difficult to enforce, and people from out of state and some hunters who are unaware of the shed hunting prohibitions are still taking sheds during the off season. Cooney said the Wildlife CAB has put together several proposed changes to the regulations. They are proposing that the shed hunting closure should be shortened to Feb. 1 to March 31, with the option to extend the end date to April 15. They are also suggesting stricter penalties, an ethics course, and a requirement that only people with a resident or non-resident hunting license can hunt sheds. The Wildlife CAB will talk about these proposed changes at the May 1 Elko County commission meeting and will ask for the commissioners endorsement. Cooney has also been talking with other county wildlife advisory boards asking for their support. Legislative bills Cooney said the Elko Wildlife CAB supports two bills which local sportsmen have been involved with and which have been under consideration during the current Nevada legislative session. Matt Murray, the president of Nevada Outdoorsmen in Wheelchairs, has been involved with AB 474, which would use money from the Wildlife Heritage Account and would authorize a person to transfer his or her big game tag to a qualified organization. Tyler Ingram, who is Elko Countys district attorney, heard about this bill from Murray, and then worked with Assemblywoman Robin Titus to develop AB 404, which would allow a person to transfer his or her big game tag to their child or grandchild. This bill has been extensively amended in the Legislature, making it broader in scope. The bill now says that under extenuating circumstances, a person would be able to transfer his or her tag to another person, or defer it to the next open season, or return the tag to the state for the restoration of bonus points. Ingram said the new bill still allows a tag to be transferred to a hunters child, which was his original intent for the bill. The reason I was so passionate about this bill, Ingram said, is because for over two decades Ive been applying for desert bighorn sheep and Ive yet to draw a tag. Its very possible that I will be of an age where I shouldnt be walking up the mountain before I actually draw my desert bighorn sheep tag, and I thought it would be wonderful to use my, by then, 30-some years of applying, which is not cheap at all, to be able to give my desert bighorn sheep tag to one of my daughters. At their April 17 meeting, county commissioners approved a motion to write a letter in support of AB 404. Cooney said that AB 404 and AB 474 are both great ideas which will provide opportunities to get more people involved in the sport of hunting. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 ELKO A charge of sexual assault against an Elko man was reduced to two misdemeanors Friday in justice court. Ernesto Cruz-Castaneda, 26, is now charged with one count of battery and one count of coercion in an amended criminal complaint, dropping a charge of sexual assault, a category A felony. On March 22, Cruz-Castaneda was arrested on a warrant stemming from an incident on Jan. 3 when he visited the alleged victim at her parents home in the Hamilton Stage area. They had met several days earlier on an online dating site called MeetMe. The woman, whose age was not given in the police report, and Cruz-Castaneda sat on the couch in the living room together where he allegedly tried to kiss her, look down her shirt, and gave her a hickie that she did not want. After the two went into her bedroom to cuddle, the woman told police detectives that she rejected his sexual advances and tried to leave, but he prevented her from leaving and sexually assaulted her. In the amended criminal complaint, Cruz-Castaneda is accused of willfully and unlawfully [using] force and/or violence upon the victim, and restraining her legs with his arms and refusing to let go. Cruz-Castaneda entered a plea of not guilty before Judge Mason Simons and the case was set for trial on June 28. Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 2 Sad 0 Angry 7 All social obligations to Donbas residents, who are to acquire Russian passports, will be honored, it will cause no serious strain on the Russian budget, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said. "As for the fulfillment or non-fulfillment of our social obligations to new Russian citizens, undoubtedly, all social obligations, really all of them - welfare benefits, pensions, increasing them, those pensions - everything will be fulfilled. There are no doubts at all," he said, replying to an Interfax question, at a press conference in Beijing. "It will cause no serious strain on the Russian budget related to some possible, future failures in the Russian social system itself," the Russian president said. "It is absolutely unlikely, it was not a spontaneous decision, and it wasn't made on the spur of the moment. We estimated everything. Both the number of people seeking to obtain our passports and the amount of pensioners among them. It is approximately one-third of that contingent, which we believe may claim our citizenship," Putin said. It's possible to facilitate granting Russian citizenship to all Ukrainian citizens Russian President Vladimir Putin has not ruled out the facilitation of the acquisition of Russian citizenship not only to the residents of Luhansk and Donetsk regions of Ukraine, but all citizens of the country. "We're providing such a way to acquire our citizenship not only to the people who live in the LPR or the DPR," Putin said at a press conference in Beijing, replying to an Interfax question. "Actually, we are considering facilitating the acquisition of our citizenship for Ukrainian citizens," Putin said. On April 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on determining categories of individuals entitled to apply for Russian citizenship in line with a simplified procedure for humanitarian purposes, which grants this right to those permanently residing in certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Russian President Vladimir Putin said he does not rule out the possibility of a meeting and talks with Ukrainian President-elect Volodymyr Zelensky. "If we meet someday, begin some talks, and I'm not ruling this out, then we must talk how to end the conflict in southeastern Ukraine in the first place," Putin said at press conference following his visit to China. "Unfortunately, Mr. Zelensky has already made a statement before the election that he, firstly, is not going to sign a decree on a bill on amnesty and, secondly, [is not going] to grant special status to those territories [certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine]," Putin said. "Both are the key elements of the content of the Minsk Agreements and how can the issue of the LPR and the DPR be resolved without implementing the Minsk Agreements?" the Russian president said. "I would gladly ask him these question, discuss these matters with him," Putin said. Mentioning that the majority of Ukrainian citizens voted for Zelensky, the Russian president expressed the opinion that "first and foremost, the people expect the future Ukrainian political leadership to resolve these issues." "Everyone is fed up with this conflict, everyone is tired of it, and everyone expects this from the new political leadership, including the future president," Putin said. "But if from the very threshold, from the start the future president says he is not going to implement the Minsk Agreements, how will he resolve this issue then? I would be glad to discuss that with him, I would like to understand his stance," the Russian president said. Accusation about Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's wealth has stirred controversy in political circles in Iraq as Shiite factions close to Iran have reacted to a Facebook post about financial corruption in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Facebook page of U.S. Embassy in Baghdad wrote in an April 25 post, "Corruption is rife in all parts of the Iranian regime, starting at the top," adding that "The possessions of the current supreme leader Ali Khamenei alone are estimated at $200 billion, while many people languish in poverty because of the dire economic situation in Iran after 40 years of rule by the mullahs." Reactions to the post include one by Shiite cleric Ammar Hakim, the leader of Al-Eslah Coalition, who wrote on his Twitter page without any reference to the disclosure about Khamenei's wealth: "We reject any insult by anyone or any government against religious leaders and sources of emulation," and warned against "provoking the people." Hakim had previously condemned the designation of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps by the United States as a foreign terrorist group. Meanwhile, during a meeting with the visiting chairman of Iranian Parliament's Foreign Relations and National Security Committee Alaeddin Boroujerdi, Hakim said last week, "Using Iraq as a platform for the political, economic and media war against Iran is in violation of Iraq's sovereignty and against bilateral diplomatic relations." In another development, the Iraqi news agency reported that "Fath coalition" has called on the Iraqi government to summon Joey Hood, the Charge d'affaires of the U.S. Embassy to the Foreign Ministry. The charge d'affaires is the highest ranking U.S. diplomat in Iraq while Baghdad is waiting for a new U.S. ambassador to be appointed by Washington. Previously, a comment by Mr. Hood about the diplomatic implications of continued gas import from Iran had created negative reactions at the Iraqi Parliament, where lawmakers demanded the summoning of Mr. Hood to the Foreign Ministry. Iraq will be exempted from U.S. sanctions on purchasing natural gas from Iran until late June. Some Iraqi groups such as the Hashd al-Sha'bi militia maintain close ties with Tehran. A recent deployment of Iraqi militia to Iran's flood-hit areas caused uproar among some Iranian MPs and other Iranians on social Media. The revelation on the U.S. Embassy's Facebook page is not unprecedented. In October 2013 Reuters released a special report which said one of the offices operating under the aegis of Khamenei's household has $95 billion in assets. However, Reuters had added that there is no document to prove that Khamenei was using these assets for his personal benefits. The brief Facebook message, however, does not include any evidence. Nevertheless, the figure is nearly seven times the amount the Islamic Republic claims the Shah of Iran had accumulated during his 27 years reign. This comes while the estimate by Reuters is based on figures released by Iran's Stock Exchange and the websites of companies affiliated with Khamenei's office as well as some information released by U.S. Treasury. Reuters wrote that only one person controls' Khamenei's financial empire, and that is Khamenei himself. Reuters wrote at the time that the gigantic assets lend Khamenei financial independence. It goes without saying that controlling billions of dollars of the countrys wealth also provides political leverage to Khamenei by enabling him to buy loyalty among religious leaders and possibly the military. There is little transparency in the Iranian state or the economic system and the media has been totally subdued. In December 2018, the U.S. Department of State wrote in a report marking the international day of campaign against corruption that the Islamic Republic is full of corrupt hypocrites including Ayatollah Khamenei who has a tax-free fund at his disposal with an assets that surpass billions of dollars. The comment was challenged only by - then Judiciary Chief Sadeq Amoli Larijani who called it "unethical." Less than four days ahead of the International Labor Day, May 1, several members of the Free Workers Trade Union of Iran (FWTUI) have been detained in Tehran on Friday 26 April, reports say. The detainees had reportedly gathered in a park in the capital city, Tehran, to plan for celebrating the international Labor Day. Tens of labor activists had assembled in the capital city's Jahan Nama Park, off the Tehran-Karaj motorway, when security forces stormed the place, detained and took away up to twelve of them. Most of the detainees were released later, but several others, including Misses. Parvin Mohammadi, Haleh Safarzadeh, and Valeh Zamani, as well as Alireza Saqafi, were transferred to a notorious prison, Gohardasht, west of the capital. Following a significant increase in labor protests in recent months in Iran, the number of detained labor activists has also risen in the country. Prominent labor activists, including the Secretary of the Board of the Free Workers Trade Union, Jafar Azimzadeh, the spokesman of the Haft Tapeh Sugar plant workers trade union, Esmaeil Bakhshi, well as the teachers' rights defenders, Esmaeil Abdi, Mahmoud Beheshti Langarudi, Mohammad Habibi, Rouhollah Mardani, and Abdul Reza Qanbari are currently behind bars. They are all accused of various security crimes, but labor rights activists say they were jailed for their participation in teachers union activities. Habibi has been sentenced to lashes, too. One of the main demands of labor activists is raising the minimum wage. The minimum subsistence need for workers in Iran is currently around $400 monthly, according to the Kermanshah Electrical and Metal Workers Union, while the minimum wage is about $110 A senior adviser to Irans Ministry of Health has warned that the countrys population is aging fast and in 20 years 20 percent of the population will be made up of senior citizens. Mohammad Esmaeel Akbari told local media that Irans population growth has slowed and until 2050 Iranian population will become one of the worlds oldest. Although he did not mention what is the percentage of the elderly in Iran, in 2011 it was close to nine percent and now it is above 10 percent based on trends from pre-2011 period. To make a comparison, current percentage of senior citizens in the United Sates is 14.5. Turkey with a similar social, religious and cultural environment to that of Iran has 8.8 percent older population. In contrast, Saudi Arabias population is very young. The elderly constitute only 4.2 percent of the population in the affluent society, although the trend shows an upward growth. Iran had an explosion in population in the 1980s with birth rates close to 4 percent. But by early 90s population growth slowed, with fertility declining to under 2 percent and population growth at around one percent in 2018. Irans Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has repeatedly called for boosting population growth but with a struggling economy and high unemployment, family size has been shrinking and marriages declining. The spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Abbas Mousavi, says there is no possibility of negotiations with the U.S. and only limited talks with Saudi Arabia are possible. Speaking to the media in Tehran on Saturday April 27, Mousavi said that Tehran has not called for negotiations with Washington, and that talks with Saudi Arabia are simply about the formalities regarding Haj pilgrimage. ISNA reported that Mousavi made the comments in response to "claims" by "some foreign media," but did not name which media outlets and what claims. Last week, in response to the U.S. Special Representative for Iran, Brian Hook, who had said Washington was ready for negotiations for a better deal with Iran, President Hassan Rouhani said Iran will not talk with "those who stab." Meanwhile, according to ISNA, Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told reporters in New York that the U.S. is not a "reliable negotiator." Zarif has been reported as having said repeatedly in New York last week that he was "ready and authorized" to negotiate with America over a prisoners swap. U.S. President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe both expressed their commitment to eliminating all oil exports from Iran, a top U.S. diplomat official says. U.S. Ambassador to Japan William Hagerty on April 27 told reporters in a call that Trump and Abe also discussed a "desire to see Iran change its path and seek a more peaceful course forward." The two leaders met at the White House on April 26. Washington has been stepping up the pressure politically and financially on Tehran since President Donald Trump took office in January 2017, saying Iran is attempting to develop nuclear weapons and is supporting extremist violence in the region. Tehran has denied the charges. Trump has demanded nations stop purchasing Iranian oil by May 1 as he attempts to bring Tehrans crude exports down to zero, further hitting the countrys economy and currency. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has threatened to disrupt oil shipments from Gulf countries if Washington tries to block Tehran's oil exports. Ambassador Hagerty also said Trump is planning to attend the Group of 20 summit in June, scheduled for the Japanese city of Osaka. Based on reporting by Reuters and The Washington Examiner Baku, Azerbaijan, April 27 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, Trend reports with reference to the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry. 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 27 Trend: Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has sent a congratulatory letter to Orthodox Christian Community of Azerbaijan on the occasion of the Holy Easter. I sincerely congratulate you, the entire Christian community of Azerbaijan, on the Holy Easter and convey to you the wishes of good health, happiness and prosperity, Ilham Aliyev said in his letter. For hundreds of years, representatives of various religions and peoples have lived in Azerbaijan in peace, mutual respect and trust, which is why our country has gained fame in the modern world as an exemplary space of tolerance and one of the centers of multiculturalism, reads the letter. The preservation and promotion of the ethnic and religious diversity and multicultural traditions is one of the priorities of our state policy. Azerbaijans extensive experience in this field clearly demonstrates that multiculturalism is the only way to strengthen solidarity, harmony and mutual understanding in society. I want to note with a sense of satisfaction that the Christian community, which is an integral part of our society along with representatives of other religions, is actively involved in great creative work carried out for the benefit of the progress of our republic in all spheres of public, political and socio-cultural life today, the letter noted. I am convinced that our Christian countrymen will continue to make every effort in the name of further strengthening of Azerbaijan, which is our common home. Easter, which epitomizes rebirth, renewal and a feeling of mercy, awakens of faith and hope for the future peoples hearts and urges them to be kind, Ilham Aliyev said. On this joyful day, I once again wish you a pleasant festive mood, and joy and well-being to your families. Baku, Azerbaijan, April 27 Trend: First Vice-President of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva has viewed the work done at Icherisheher State Historical and Architectural Reserve. Chairman of Icherisheher State Historical and Architectural Reserve Asgar Alakbarov informed First Vice-President Mehriban Aliyeva of the work done here. First Vice-President Mehriban Aliyeva described Icherisheher as a native and dearest place for the people of Azerbaijan. First lady Mehriban Aliyeva then responded to the questions of the correspondent of BBC News Azerbaijan on the work carried out at Icherisheher State Historical and Architectural Reserve. First Vice-President Mehriban Aliyeva was informed that the restoration work of cafes and restaurants along the fortress walls in Kichik Gala street is to be completed in summer. Mehriban Aliyeva gave instructions and recommendations on the implementation of work here at the highest level. Baku, Azerbaijan, April 27 Trend: On April 26, a meeting was held between Ambassador Ariel Bergamino, acting Minister for Foreign Affairs of Uruguay, and Rashad Aslanov, ambassador of Azerbaijan accredited to Uruguay, Trend reports with reference to Azerbaijans Foreign Ministry. The main objective of the meeting held upon the request of the Azerbaijani ambassador was to discuss the various issues of bilateral agenda, as well as bringing clarity to the information spread in press on the visit of the so-called representative of the illegal regime created in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan and meetings held including with some officials of the country. At the meeting the sides exchanged views on various issues of bilateral agenda, including the existing high-level relations. The participation of Uruguayan Foreign Minister Rodolfo Nin Novoa at the V Forum of Intercultural Dialogue to be held in Baku was also discussed. With regard to the visit of the so-called foreign minister of the puppet regime created in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, the official of the Foreign Ministry stressed that the position of Uruguay is fundamental and unchangeable. It was stated that Uruguay respects the rule of international law and territorial integrity of states, and Uruguay does not recognize the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh. It was noted that the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict should be settled peacefully, and Uruguay supports the efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group and related resolutions of the UN Security Council. As a result of the meeting press information was released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Uruguay. The Azerbaijani Ambassador met also with the chair of the Uruguayan Senate Luisa Topolanski. During the meeting, Topolanski noted that she had a meeting with the Armenian community in Uruguay during the event at the parliament and not with any representative of the so-called regime. As a result of the meeting, a press release was issued by the Uruguay General Assembly (Parliament). In the press release, it is stated that the leadership of the General Assembly and the Senate supports the press information issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Uruguay and especially the last paragraph of this statement, which reads as: Expresses once again its position on Uruguay's respect for the rule of law of international law and the territorial integrity of states, declares once again that it does not recognize the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh and Uruguay supports the efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group and related resolutions of the UN Security Council. Ambassador Rashad Aslanov held a meeting with the former President of Uruguay Jose Mujica. At the meeting, held in a friendly atmosphere, the former president stressed the importance of resolving conflicts in a peaceful environment. He wished the Azerbaijani people prosperity and success. Baku, Azerbaijan, April 27 Trend: The Second Road and Belt International Cooperation Forum has continued in Beijing. President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev attended the Forum. Chairman of the Peoples Republic of China Xi Jinping welcomed Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and other heads of state and government. In his remarks, Chairman of the Peoples Republic of China Xi Jinping noted that the second Forum opened up new opportunities in terms of cooperation between the countries. The first session of the Forum was held under the motto Boosting connectivity to explore new sources of growth. The heads of state and government then posed for photos. President Ilham Aliyev then attended the second session on Strengthening policy synergy and building closer partnership. The head of state also participated the Forums third session on Promoting green and sustainable development to implement the UN 2030 Agenda. Addressing the session, President Ilham Aliyev thanked Chairman of the Peoples Republic of China Xi Jinping for the invitation. The head of state congratulated the Chinese people on the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Peoples Republic of China. President Ilham Aliyev described Azerbaijan and China as partner countries. The head of state noted that a Memorandum of Understanding on the establishment of Silk Way Economic Belt was signed during his state visit to China in 2015. President Ilham Aliyev said that Azerbaijan attaches great importance to the development of infrastructure. Solid base of infrastructure was created in Azerbaijan, which serves to the benefit of us and our partners. Azerbaijan is also an energy exporting country. Exporting energy has created a substantial base and foundation for our development. We have used and continue to use our energy resources for the benefit of our people, and have achieved sustainable development. The diversification of economy is one of the key tasks today, the Azerbaijani President said. Pointing to the transport infrastructure, the head of state underlined the Alat Sea Trade Port and the newly launched Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway. Over 15,000 km of roads were built, the railroads were modernized in Azerbaijan. We are particularly actively involved in the East-West transport corridor, as well as in the development process of the North-South transport corridor. Air transportation infrastructure was created in Azerbaijan. Six international aiports were built. Azerbaijan is a country which has a largest fleet of 260 ships in the Caspian Sea. Azerbaijans potential continues increasing which creates good potential for international cooperation. Thanks to the economic development, the unemployment and poverty were reduced to 5 percent in Azerbaijan. Transport and energy security are a key element of national security, the head of state added. The President described the One Belt One Road as not only a transportation project, but also a project which contributes to peace, security and cooperation. On April 27, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev completed his working visit to Peoples Republic of China. Baku, Azerbaijan, April 27 By Elnur Baghishov - Trend: In the last Iranian year (March 21, 2018-March 20, 2019), Iran's exports to Azerbaijan amounted to $411 million, Trend reports referring to Iran Trade Promotion Organization (TPO). According to the TPO, Iran's exports to Azerbaijan reached 824,000 tons in the last year. During the reported period, exports to Azerbaijan amounted to 0.9 percent of Iran's total exports in terms of value. Compared to the preceding Iranian year (March 21, 2017-March 20, 2018), Iran's exports to Azerbaijan increased by 26 percent both in terms of value and by 16 percent in terms of weight. Azerbaijan ranked 12 among the export destinations of Iranian goods. Meanwhile, Iran's exports to Russia amounted to $281 million in terms of value and 500,000 tons in terms of weight. Compared to the preceding Iranian year, Iran's exports to Russia decreased by 4 percent in terms of value and Russia ranked 14th among the export destinations of Iranian goods. Iran's exports to Turkey, during the reported period, amounted to $2.369 billion in terms of value and Turkey ranked 69th among the export destinations of Iranian goods. Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, April 27 By Huseyn Hasanov Trend: Turkmenistan has signed two memorandums on cooperation in the organization of insurance and reinsurance with UK insurance brokers, Trend reports referring to the State News Agency of Turkmenistan. In particular, the local company Hazar atiyaclandyrys OJSC (Hazar insurance) has entered into agreements with insurance brokers Ed Broking LLP and United Insurance Brokers Ltd. In Turkmenistan, 27 enterprises with the participation of UKcapital and 180 investment projects with the participation of UK companies totaling over $1.7 billion are registered. It was mentioned during the Turkmenistan-UK Trade & Industry Council (TUKTIC) held in Ashgabat, in which the trade representative of the UK Prime Minister Baroness Emma Nicholson took part. Turkmenistan, as a country that has rich resources and economic potential and demonstrates high dynamics of development, is open to effective interaction with the UK as one of its strategic partners, Turkmenistan State News Agency said. During the negotiations, it was also stated that there are huge opportunities and mutual potential for a significant increase in foreign trade relations, including through the implementation of new investment projects. Tesla Inc Chief Executive Elon Musk has reached a deal with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to settle a dispute over his use of Twitter, agreeing to submit his public statements about the companys finances and other topics to vetting by its legal counsel, according to a court filing on Friday, Trend reports citing Reuters. If it is approved by a judge, the deal means the Tesla founder no longer faces the prospect of being held in contempt for violating an earlier settlement with the agency, which had required him to submit statements material to investors for prior review. The new agreement, disclosed in a filing in Manhattan federal court, lays out in more detail exactly what kinds of statements must be reviewed. Shares of Tesla rose 1.4 percent to $238.50 in after hours trading. The agreement lifts a cloud that has hung over Musk as Tesla tries to ramp up production of its most important vehicle, the Model 3 sedan, and make a profit at the same time. It could really have turned out far worse for him, said Stephen Diamond, a professor of securities law at Santa Clara University. The consequences of thumbing his nose at the SEC could have been far worse for him and the company. Tesla has struggled with logistics difficulties in delivering its Model 3 to global customers, a declining share price and lingering questions about the sustainability of demand. Earlier this week, the electric vehicle maker posted a $702 million loss, and warned of a loss in the second quarter. Musks lawyer did not immediately return a request for comment. Pakistans new interior minister, appointed in a major cabinet reshuffle this month by Prime Minister Imran Khan, is a former spy chief and close ally of the countrys last military ruler who has long been accused of deep ties to militant groups, reports Trend citing to Reuters The appointment of retired Brigadier Ijaz Shah has been heavily criticized by the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), whose slain former leader Benazir Bhutto regarded him as a deadly enemy. Some analysts said it suggested Pakistans powerful military continued to wield heavy influence over the civilian administration - a persistent allegation since Khan took office eight months ago that both his government and the generals deny. In an interview with the BBC after his appointment, Shah said: What power can I give the military as interior minister? I left the army a long time ago, I am a civilian and have participated in elections. The prime ministers office and the information ministry did not respond to requests for comment. Shah was among four members of the civilian-military establishment named by Bhutto in a letter written to then President Pervez Musharraf months before her assassination as suspects who should be investigated if she was killed. Many Pakistanis have long suspected that elements of the intelligence agencies colluded with militants in Bhuttos assassination in a gun and bomb attack in the garrison city of Rawalpindi in December 2007. An investigation at the time blamed an al Qaeda-allied Pakistani Taliban leader. Are you trying to send a message to the world that we have terrorists and the abettors of terrorists in our cabinet? Bhuttos son and chairman of the PPP, Bilawal Bhutto, told the countrys parliament this week, referring to Shahs appointment. This cannot happen. Shahs office did not respond to a request for an interview or a list of questions sent by Reuters, but earlier this month then Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry told local newspaper Dawn that he is a clean man and had been cleared of all allegations against him in a government inquiry. SPY CHIEF The sweeping cabinet reshuffle comes as Pakistan is trying to attract foreign investment and present itself as a reformed country. But critics say the inclusion of an old school figure such as Shah in the government shows little has changed. Under Musharraf, who as army chief seized power in a 1999 coup and ruled until 2008, Shah served as head of the militarys leading spy agency in the Punjab province, and was later appointed the head of the civilian Intelligence Bureau. He oversaw the surrender of wanted militant Omar Saeed Shaikh, who masterminded the kidnapping and killing of Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl in 2002. That contributed to allegations he had been close to Islamist groups based along lawless border with Afghanistan, where Pakistans security services have long been accused of playing a double game. The biggest controversy is his links with the Afghan jihad and figures like Omar Saeed Sheikh, author and analyst Ayesha Siddiqa told Reuters, a longstanding critic of Pakistans military. Looks very much like the army chiefs choice. The military did not respond to a request for comment on this article, but in the past has said it does not interfere in politics. The military has also repeatedly denied allegations leveled by the United States, Afghanistan and others that is has covertly sheltered militants based along its borders. Under Khans government, Islamabad has been trying to convince the outside world that it will not tolerate militants operating from inside Pakistan. Pakistan currently finds itself on the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list for inadequately dealing with money laundering and terrorism financing, a designation that makes it harder for the country to access international markets at a time when its economy is stumbling. Convincing the FATF that it is making sufficient efforts to crack down on militancy will be harder with a controversial figure such as Shah in the cabinet, said PPP Senator Mustafa Khokhar. Some analysts agree. Ijaz Shahs appointment just reinforces the perception that nothing has changed in Pakistani politics, political analyst Aamer Ahmed Khan told Reuters. Malaysias national carmaker Proton has secured 1.88 billion ringgit ($455.10 million) in banking facilities from China Construction Bank to fund expansion around the region, reports Trend with reference to Reuters The loans are earmarked for Protons growth plans to be the number one automotive brand in Malaysia and number three in ASEAN by 2027, the company said. Expansion to foreign markets is critical for sales growth while obtaining financing allows the company to invest in the many projects required to turn Proton into a truly global automotive brand, Chairman Syed Faisal Albar said in the statement. In August, Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co Ltd which owns 49.9 percent of Proton, had agreed to extend its existing partnership with the carmaker to upgrade its line-up of cars and help expand Protons presence in China and other international markets. Proton said it also exchanged documents with Pakistans Alhaj Automobile in Beijing, where Malaysias prime minister is attending the Belt and Road Forum. Proton signed a licensing and technical assistance agreement with Alhaj to build a manufacturing plant in Karachi with an initial investment of $30 million, to assemble and distribute Proton cars for the Pakistani market. U.S. congressman Seth Moulton, one of 20 Democrats running for president, criticized rivals Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren on Friday, saying they were so liberal they risked handing President Donald Trump a second White House term, reports Trend with reference to Reuters Moulton is a long-shot candidate at this stage. But his comments reflect a growing conflict between the Democratic Partys moderate and progressive wings that will likely be laid bare during the battle to decide who will take on Republican Trump in next years presidential election. A representative from Massachusetts and Iraq war veteran, Moulton said Trump is a much more difficult candidate to defeat in 2020 than many Democrats realize because of his appeal to voters in the heartland who are frustrated with Washington. We cant go too far left or we will lose middle America, Moulton said in an interview in Los Angeles, part of a tour to California and other early voting states since he announced his candidacy on Monday. He said the message of candidates such as Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren was going to make it difficult to win Congress and take back the White House. While he agreed the wealthy ought to pay their share of taxes, Sanders and Warren wanted to punish the rich, Moulton said, which he called un-American. Moulton, 40, built his political career on challenging the Democratic Party establishment, entering Congress in 2015 after winning a primary challenge against John Tierney, who had held the seat for 18 years. After Democrats took control of the House of Representatives in 2018, Moulton helped organize opposition to Representative Nancy Pelosis bid to become Speaker for a second time. In Fridays interview, Moulton sounded particular alarm over Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist elected to the Senate as an independent. Sanders has emerged as an early Democratic front-runner along with former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, who entered the 2020 field on Thursday. In some of the harshest words yet uttered by a Democratic presidential candidate against a rival, he said: Bernie wants to change us into a socialist country, and were not a socialist country. He added: Thats not what America is all about. I dont think that a socialist nominee is going to win the presidency. Im a Democrat, Im not a socialist Hes a socialist, not a Democrat. Sanders spokeswoman Sarah Ford responded to the charge by saying the candidate was doing well in the polls because he is a champion for working people. Senator Sanders has a long and well-known record leading the effort to create a government that works for all Americans, she told Reuters in an email. Warren proposes raising taxes on Americas 75,000 richest families to pay for programs such as universal childcare and universal free public college. The problem with some of the candidates in our party is that theyre divisive in the same way that Trump has been so divisive, Moulton said. They are pitting different parts of America against each other. He said most Americans aspire to be rich. Thats the sprit of America, thats the American dream, he said. Warrens campaign did not respond to an email for comment. Moulton said his candidacy would gain traction by focusing on foreign policy, a subject he said many Democratic rivals were afraid to address, and by running as a change agent against the old guard in Washington. A delegation of Chinese economists headed by China's former Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao paid a visit to Japan on April 22-26, conducting extensive exchanges with Japanese politicians, businessmen, academics and lawmakers, Trend reports citing Xinhua. During the visit to Japan, the delegation and the Japanese ministry of finance jointly held a high-level seminar on China-Japan economic cooperation, during which they had in-depth discussions on the global economic situation, the G20 Osaka summit, and other issues. The delegation had extensive exchanges on topics including China-Japan relations, economic and trade cooperation, global economic governance with the heads of Japanese business associations, financial institutions, research institutes, as well as Japanese lawmakers. The Japanese representatives said that Chinese President Xi Jinping's attendance at the Group of 20 Osaka summit is highly expected, as his presence is crucial to the success of the summit. They said that at present China-Japan relations are back on the right track. The two sides should seize the opportunity to further deepen economic and trade cooperation, jointly promote infrastructure construction under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative and third-party cooperation, and support cooperation within the framework of the rules-based multilateral economic system. The visit of the Chinese economists delegation has drawn great attention from all walks of life in Japan. Japan National Press Club held a press conference for the delegation and the visit was widely covered by Japan's mainstream media. Long Yongtu, China's former deputy minister of commerce, Lin Yifu, dean of Peking University's New Structural Economics Research Center and some other economists also participated in the visit. Armed confrontations erupted between rival factions loyal to the Saudi-backed Yemeni government in the southwestern province of Taiz on Friday, killing at least 10 people, a security official told Xinhua, Trend reports citing Xinhua. The intra-faction fighting was between two pro-government Islamist groups in and around the old neighborhood of Taiz, killing at least 10 and injuring dozens from both sides, said the security official on condition of anonymity. He said the two pro-government factions exchanged gunfire from heavy weapons in downtown Taiz, the province's capital city that bears the same name. Many families were forced to evacuate their homes near the site of the fighting amid panic over the safety of their properties, the official added. The dispute between various pro-government armed groups over the control of military and security institutions frequently lead to intense street fighting in the turbulent province of Taiz. The city center of Taiz is currently under the control of the government, while the outskirts of the city and areas in the countryside of the province are still witnessing armed confrontations between pro-government forces and the Houthi rebels. The impoverished Arab country has been locked into a civil war since late 2014, when Shiite Houthi rebels overran much of the country and seized all northern provinces, including the capital Sanaa. Over 100 suspects have been arrested since last Sunday's explosions which targeted churches and luxury hotels in Sri Lanka, killing over 250 people and injuring over 500, police said on Saturday, Trend reported citing Xinhua. Police spokesperson SP Ruwan Gunasekara said that 20 suspects had been arrested in search operations conducted within the last 24 hours, and raids were ongoing to search for more. The suspects had been arrested from across the island, he added. Police re-imposed a curfew for the seventh consecutive day, as abandoned explosives continued to be found. Gunasekara said the curfew would be re-imposed from 10 p.m. and would last till 4 a.m. Sunday local time. In the eastern town of Kalmunai where forces killed two gunmen and four suspected suicide bombers in an overnight gun battle, a curfew has remained in place since Friday evening. The curfew has been imposed on the outskirts of Kalmunai as well, the police said. President Maithripala Sirisena said on Friday that there were about 140 people suspected to have linked to the Islamic State group and assured all would be arrested in the coming days. Members of the Boko Haram terrorist group have attacked and overrun an outpost belonging to the Nigerian government troops in the northeastern parts of the African country, stealing weapons before fleeing, military sources say, Trend reported citing Press TV. Militants of the terror group launched their attack against the outpost at Mararrabar Kimba in the volatile Borno state late on Friday, two unnamed military sources told AFP on Saturday. The assailants were reportedly driving more than a dozen pickup trucks with heavy machine guns mounted on their top. Terrorists were accompanied by three armored personal carriers stolen from security forces. The terror convoy, flanked by a fleet of armed men firing from motorbikes, emerged from the woods and sped straight towards the outpost. There was a serious gunfight, one of the sources said, adding, The troops put up a good fight, but they were outgunned and overwhelmed... unfortunately, the base fell to the terrorists, who took away weapons and fled. The base lies some 135 kilometers from the state capital Maiduguri. It was not yet clear whether there were casualties, especially as some troopers reportedly scattered into the woods to escape the attack. One eyewitness had told the sources that some of stranded soldiers arrived at Biu, a town around 45 kilometers away from the outpost, a number of them wounded. Boko Harams nine-year militancy is estimated to have killed more than 27,000 people and forced 1.8 million others to flee their homes. In 2015, Boko Haram pledged allegiance to the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group. Islamic State claimed on Saturday that three of its members clashed with Sri Lankan police for several hours before detonating their explosive vests on them in the east coast city of Kalmunai late on Friday, the militant groups news agency Amaq said, Trend reported citing Reuters. The group said 17 policemen were killed or injured in the attack. The group did not give evidence for its claim. Baku, Azerbaijan, April 27 By Rufiz Hafizoglu Trend: The Turkish Foreign Ministry criticized the resolution adopted by the Portuguese parliament regarding the events of 1915, Trend reports on April 27 with reference to the Turkish Foreign Ministry. Ankara doesnt recognize the resolution adopted in the Portuguese parliament, recognizing the events of 1915 as the Armenian genocide, according to the report. The Turkish Foreign Ministry also calls on the Portuguese parliament to respect international law, the report noted. On April 26, the Portuguese parliament adopted a resolution recognizing the events of 1915 as the Armenian genocide. Earlier, a source of the Turkish government told Trend that Armenia is afraid to open its archives from 1915. According to the source, opening the archives will show the world that the events of 1915 were not "Armenian genocide"; on the contrary, an extermination and genocide of the Muslim population of the Ottoman Empire by Armenian gangs occurred during the events in 1915. The Turkish government noted that Ankara appealed to Yerevan back in 2005 to open the archives from 1915 and create a joint independent committee for investigating the events of that period. "If the events of 1915 were indeed the "Armenian genocide" , Yerevan would be ready to open these archives," the governmental representative said. Armenia and the Armenian lobby claim that Turkey's predecessor, the Ottoman Empire, allegedly carried out "genocide" against the Armenians living in Anatolia in 1915. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu Baku, Azerbaijan, April 27 By Rufiz Hafizoglu Trend: If genocide took place in 1915, there wouldnt be any Armenians in the West and in neighboring countries, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, Trend reports on April 27 with reference to the Turkish Foreign Ministry. Erdogan was commenting on the events of 1915. Turkey is not ashamed of its history, on the contrary, the country is proud of it, said Erdogan. He also noted that Turkey opened its archives to investigate the events of 1915. Earlier, a source of the Turkish government told Trend that Armenia is afraid to open its archives from 1915. According to the source, opening the archives will show the world that the events of 1915 were not "Armenian genocide"; on the contrary, an extermination and genocide of the Muslim population of the Ottoman Empire by Armenian gangs occurred during the events in 1915. The Turkish government noted that Ankara appealed to Yerevan back in 2005 to open the archives from 1915 and create a joint independent committee for investigating the events of that period. "If the events of 1915 were indeed the 'Armenian genocide' , Yerevan would be ready to open these archives," the governmental representative said. Armenia and the Armenian lobby claim that Turkey's predecessor, the Ottoman Empire, allegedly carried out "genocide" against the Armenians living in Anatolia in 1915. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu Seven members of a family, including three children and a baby, were killed on Saturday in a traffic accident in Turkey's western province of Izmir, Trend reported citing Xinhua. The tragedy happened when two light commercial vehicles crashed head-on in the Kaynaklar neighborhood of the Buca district. Just before the crash, the driver, who was reportedly taking his family to a picnic, lost control of the vehicle and crossed to the other side of the road. According to the report, the driver of the other vehicle was wounded and rushed to a nearby hospital. The US Department of State ordered the departure of all school-age family members of US government employees from Sri Lanka as it issued a Level 3 Travel Advisory for American citizens when visiting the country, Trend reports citing Sputnik. "On April 26, 2019, the Department of State ordered the departure of all school-age family members of US government employees in Kindergarten through 12th grade. The Department also authorized the voluntary departure of non-emergency US government employees and family members", the statement reads. The department highlighted that the US government has limited ability to provide emergency services to US citizens in Sri Lanka due to the security environment. "Terrorist groups continue plotting possible attacks in Sri Lanka. Terrorists may attack with little or no warning, targeting tourist locations, transportation hubs, markets, shopping malls, government facilities, hotels, clubs, restaurants, places of worship, parks, major sporting and cultural events, educational institutions, airports, hospitals, and other public areas", the statement reads. The Level 3 Travel Advisory recommends American citizens reconsider traveling to a country "due to serious risks to safety and security." Earlier, the US Embassy in Sri Lanka issued a statement warning about the possibility of more terror attacks over the upcoming weekend. To share with friends and brethren The Gospel of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (the Everlasting Gospel), and to prepare a people to stand when He returns to redeem His remnant. Also, to share relevant information of current events, and to show how they relate to prophecy; By means of articles, editorials, opinions, scripture readings, and poetry. Disclaimer Endrtimes does not necessarily endorse or agree with every opinion expressed in every article/video posted on this site. The information provided here is done so for personal edification; It's up to the reader to separate truth from error, and to examine everything (like the Bereans) from a Biblical perspective. Let the Holy Scriptures be you guide! - - - FAIR USE NOTICE: These pages/videos may contain copyrighted () material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available to advance understanding of ecological, POLITICAL, HUMAN RIGHTS, economic, DEMOCRACY, scientific, MORAL, ETHICAL, and SOCIAL JUSTICE ISSUES, etc. It is believed that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior general interest in receiving similar information for research and educational purposes. KYODO NEWS - Apr 27, 2019 - 11:30 | All, Japan Hospitals in Japan have been scrambling to secure enough doctors during the unprecedented 10-day Golden Week holiday period that began Saturday, which has been extended to accommodate the historic transition between the old and new emperors. By hiring doctors to work temporarily, many medical institutions have sought to give their physicians enough days off as they and businesses have been aiming to change the notorious culture of long work hours. However, some hospitals in rural areas have given up plans for temporary recruitment and are asking their own doctors to work longer instead. M. Stage Co., a Tokyo-based medical personnel resource service company, said, as of April 22, it had received 4,538 requests to dispatch doctors between April 27 and May 6, about 800 more than what it received during last year's Golden Week period. While medical institutions usually seek doctors who can attend to inpatients during the holiday period, there is more demand this year for those who can see outpatients, according to the company. "Many medical institutions have secured personnel well ahead of the holidays, but those that are still short have decided to offer higher pays," said an M. Stage official. Japan has enacted a law to have one-off public holidays that will stretch the length of Golden Week this year. The government hopes that the nation as a whole will celebrate the enthronement of Crown Prince Naruhito on May 1 following the abdication of his father Emperor Akihito the previous day and help address the country's long work hours. The move has not been entirely welcome though because many businesses including banks and regular nursery schools will be closed during the period, and the longer holiday season can mean longer work hours and disruption of work-life balance for those working in service industries. "I wonder if the government thoroughly considered the impact on the medical front," said an official at a hospital in Hokkaido. Hospitals in rural areas are chronically short of staff and have struggled to find replacements. The Hokkaido hospital itself began looking for substitute doctors to fill night shifts during Golden Week but their efforts were in vain. Consequently, it decided to have its staff physicians work longer to fill overnight shifts, according to the official. In Tokyo, Hamadayama Hospital in Suginami Ward, which conducts well over 1,000 orthopedic surgeries a year, has hired two doctors to work temporarily during the holidays. They will lend support to the hospital's seven full-time doctors so that it can open some of its departments for four days during the vacation period and see patients who must come in for treatment at least once a week. "We wanted staff physicians to take days off as much as possible as we are urged to reform the way they work," said an official at the hospital. Japan has introduced a labor reform law in a bid to change long-held working behaviors, setting a legal cap on overtime work and implementing an equal pay for equal work principle. Starting this month, major firms will be punished if they violate the overtime work limit of less than 100 hours per month and up to 720 hours per year. Very talened actress Alia Bhatt and her father and also filmaker Mahesh Bhatt are collabarting for the film Sadak. After days of recce in Romania, the makers of Sadak 2 have decided to shoot the film in India. Actress Pooja Bhatt, who starred in the original 1991 film Sadak and will also be a part of the sequel, took to Twitter to share the reasons behind the change in the shooting locations. She said: "Romania is a stunningly beautiful country. We were very happy with the locations but logistics and emotional IQ of local crew are key factors in determining a location for a film. The actress further added that, eventually no one is bigger than a film and the film demanded we shoot only in India. Good work has a snowball effect: Richa Chadda Sadak 2 will see filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt back in the director's chair after almost twenty years. The film also features actors Alia Bhatt, Sanjay Dutt and Aditya Roy Kapur. Alia Bhatt to be a part of the 'Hook Up' song from SOTY 2 Meanwhile Alia Bhatts latest released Kalank recived negative response and failed at the Box-office. The actor is also preparing for the much-awaited film, Brahmastra. The film Brahmastra, helmed by Ayan Mukerji, has been extensively shot in Bulgaria, New York, and Mumbai, among other places. Filmamker Boney Kapoors doting daughter Janhvi Kapoor made her Bollywood debut with Ishaan Khatter, the actress has been rumoured to be dating Shahid Kapoor's brother. Janhvi and Ishaan's on-screen chemistry was too cute for words and their off-camera camaraderie is the same. On various occasions, the Dhadak actors have dismissed the rumours of their relationship but the speculations refuse to die down. Tara Sutaria reveals 'It's Padosi pyaar' on link up rumours with Sidharth Malhotra Recently, when Janhvi appeared on celebrity stylist Anaita Shroff Adjania's chat show, the 21-year-old spilled a lot of beans. Speaking to Anaita, the Dhadak star said that her 'pink bottle', which is called 'chuski, is her love interest. She went on to add that her bottle has two-three accounts on Instagram. Strangely though, someone has opened an account called, Chuska Chuski, the former one being Ishaan Khatter's bottle. While we were at it, she later revealed what Boney Kapoor thinks of her rumoured boyfriend Ishaan. "Dad thinks Ishaan is a lovely actor and a nice boy. Thats all he thinks," said the millennial. Here is why the shoot of Sadak 2 has been shifted from Romania to India On the work front, Ishaan has not signed any film yet. But Janhvi has three exciting projects coming up. She will be seen opposite Rajkummar Rao in Rooh Afza which is a horror-comedy. For Gunjan Saxena biopic, she has been taking flying lessons as Janhvi essays the role of India's first female combat aviator who was posted in Kargil during the 1999 war. Abhishek Bachchan is gearing up for the release of 'Brahmastra' which is directed by Ayan Mukerji and stars Alia Bhatt and Ranbir Kapoor. Abhishek, on the other hand, was last seen in 'Manmarziyaan' along with Taapsee Pannu and Vicky Kaushal. Now, Megastar sahred a throwback black and white picture with his father Amitabh Bachchan is sure to take his fans on a trip to the golden era. Alia Bhatt to be a part of the 'Hook Up' song from SOTY 2 Dhoom actor shared a monochrome picture with his father, captioned, "Flashback Friday." In the picture, Big B looks dapper in casuals and a funky pair of sunglasses. A young and curious Abhishek stands in front of him while shutterbugs capture the duo at what appears to be a public event. The photograph also features producer Romesh Sharma. Good work has a snowball effect: Richa Chadda Recently, Abhishek Bachchan celebrated his 12th wedding anniversary in the Maldives and posted a photograph his "girls" - wife Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and daughter Aaradhya - enjoying quality time in the pool. He had been actively sharing images from his vacation on Instagram. In one of the images, Aishwarya is seen sporting a pair of sunglasses and is striking a pose with her daughter in her arms. Paul Liotta Man arrested in Meiers Corners hit-and-run axi that killed woman, 89 STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Police arrested and charged a man Tuesday in connection to the hit-and-run death of an 89-year-old woman in Meiers Corners. Johnson Kim, 74, was the operator of an older-model, two-tone Toyota Sienna that struck Anastasia Diaz at the intersection of Bradley and Purdy avenues Saturday at around 10:30 p.m., police said. The West Brighton resident was arrested at around 3:45 p.m., and charged with three counts related to his alleged action in the hit-and-run, according to police. Click here to read the full story Don't Edit Irene Spezzamonte Unprovoked stabbing of boy, 13, rattles Manor Road strip-mall merchants, area residents STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Business owners and residents were shaken after an unprovoked stabbing attack at a Castleton Corners strip mall sent a 13-year-old boy to the hospital more than 10 days ago. Louis Reyes, 29, attacked the boy in front of 778A Manor Road on April 12 at about 9 p.m. with a sharp wooden object" that left several lacerations on his face and head, according to allegations in the criminal complaint. The suspect and victim did not know each other prior to the incident, a law enforcement source said. The attack happened right in front of the CVS entrance, according to the manager, who did not wish to disclose any further information. Of course I am concerned, said a female shopper who said she frequents the drug store. The CVS, however, is not the only business located in the busy shopping area on Manor near Schmidts Lane, and the attack left other merchants worried. Click here to read the full story Don't Edit Frank Donnelly Prison for van driver who pleads guilty to running over, dragging pedestrian STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A van driver, accused of running over a pedestrian on a Stapleton street two years ago and then dragging the badly-injured victim for half a block before fleeing, wont get back behind the wheel for a while. Dwight Scott, 34, was sentenced Wednesday to four years in prison and three years post-release supervision under a plea agreement. Police said Scott was driving a gray 2004 Nissan Quest when it struck Anthony Figueroa, then 36, at the intersection of Targee and Frean streets at about 2:10 p.m. on May 29, 2017. Click here to read the full story Don't Edit Maura Grunlund New Archdiocese list of priests accused of sex abuse includes prominent Island clergy STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The Archdiocese of New York on Friday unveiled a list of about 120 bishops, priests and deacons, including clergy who served on Staten Island, who were credibly accused of sex abuse. The list consists of clergy whose cases were brought before the archdioceses Independent Reconciliation and Compensation program, according to information supplied by the archdiocese. It includes the names of some of the most prominent clergy who have served on Staten Island in decades Names on the list include archdiocesan bishops, priests and deacons who have been credibly accused of sexually abusing a minor or possessing child pornography, or who were the subject of a claim made to the Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program (IRCP) that was deemed eligible for compensation, according to a statement by the archdiocese. Click here to read the full story Don't Edit Frank Donnelly Will ex-con return to prison? Heres how its all up to him. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. Whether a Port Richmond felon returns to prison is entirely in his own hands. Jason Strong, 29, who was accused of injuring three cops who were trying to arrest him four months ago during a traffic stop, has reached a plea agreement that will keep him out of prison if the defendant completes a drug program. Failing to finish will earn Strong a return trip upstate. The events underlying Strongs arrest unfolded at 1:10 a.m. on Dec. 4, according to police and a criminal complaint. Click here to read the full story Don't Edit Don't Edit Kyle Lawson Report: Fan threatens to assault family, flashes kids at Citi Field STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A Long Island man will face a judge after allegedly threatening a young family and exposing himself to the children at a Mets game. Richard Patrylo, 20, asked the 39-year-old father if he could use his cell phone, to which the father replied that he could not, according to a New York Daily News report. Police said Patrylo then threatened the family of four, which included a 12-year-old boy and a 10-year-old girl, according to the report. I will f--k up your entire family," he said, then exposed his genitals, police said. Patrylo, who, according to police, had been drinking, was charged with acting in a manner injurious to a child and public lewdness. Don't Edit Frank Donnelly Former teen home invader who duct-taped woman now jailed for unlicensed driving STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. A Castleton Corners resident once served a seven-year federal prison sentence for his role at age 18 in a Greenridge home invasion in which a victim was duct-taped at gunpoint. But Kyriakos Evangelous latest stint behind bars this time for aggravated unlicensed driving is a mere drop in the bucket by comparison. Evangelou, 36, was sentenced Monday to 30 days in jail and fined $1,000, stemming from an arrest in Stapleton 20 months ago. The incident unfolded at 5:18 p.m. on Targee Street and Irving Place, said a criminal complaint. Evangelou was behind the wheel of a 2006 BMW stopped at a red light when cops pulled him over for excessive tint on the windows, said the complaint. Click here to read the full story Don't Edit Frank Donnelly Man, 31, admits to sexually abusing girl under age 11 STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A 31-year-old Stapleton man accused of sexually abusing two young girls over several months last year has pleaded guilty to a sex crime. An indictment alleged Sergio Paz-Guzman subjected one girl to sexual contact between Jan. 1 and June 1, 2018. He abused the other victim between April 6 and June 1, 2018, alleged the indictment. Both youngsters were under age 11, the indictment said. The defendant forcibly touched each girls private parts and performed a sex act on one girl, the indictment alleged. Click here to read the full story Don't Edit Paul Liotta Drug company, executives charged in connection to opioid distribution practices STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Department of Justice officials announced Tuesday that for the first time a drug distribution company and two executives will be charged for their role in the unlawful distribution of opioids like oxycodone and fentanyl. Rochester Drug Co-Operative (RDC), its former CEO Laurence F. Doud III and former chief compliance officer William Pietruszewski were charged in connection to their role distributing the drugs, and their efforts to defraud the Drug Enforcement Administration, according to a media release from the office of Geoffrey S. Berman, the Manhattan-based U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. This prosecution is the first of its kind: executives of a pharmaceutical distributor and the distributor itself have been charged with drug trafficking, trafficking the same drugs that are fueling the opioid epidemic that is ravaging this country, Berman said in a statement. Click here to read the full story Don't Edit Kyle Lawson Judge orders new hearing for 1992 murder, fate of convict hangs in balance STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Two years after the district attorney's office declined to re-open a controversial 1992 murder case, a judge has ordered a new hearing that could determine the fate of the man convicted in the slaying who continues to profess his innocence. State Supreme Court Justice Alexander Jeong will hear new witness testimony following three trials a quarter century ago that, according to Advance reports at the time, were wrought with conflicting witness accounts, an apparent attempt to sway a juror and a near acquittal. The new hearing will allow the opportunity for Foster Thompsons defense to prove his innocence, which is more difficult than a jury trial in which the defense must only provide reasonable doubt of the defendants guilt, according to court documents. Click here to read the full story Don't Edit Don't Edit Maura Grunlund D.A.: Man, 42, accused of peddling drugs, caught with plate of crack cocaine STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A 42-year-old man from New Brighton allegedly served drugs instead of dinner on a plate. Officers armed with a search warrant raided the home of Dwayne Logan, 42, of the 100 block of Hendricks Avenue, on April 18 and placed him under arrest at about 6:05 a.m., according to the criminal complaint and public records. Police participating in the Narcotics Borough Staten Island investigation entered the master bedroom, where they allegedly found loose crack cocaine and empty plastic bags on a dinner plate located on a shelf below a desk. More plastic bags were found on the top shelf of the desk. On a nightstand were two plastic twist bags filled with marijuana, according to the criminal complaint. The suspect has been charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell, criminal possession of a controlled substance, criminal use of drug paraphernalia and unlawful possession of marijuana, according to the criminal complaint. Logan is being held at Rikers Island in lieu of bond set at $20,000 and is due back in Criminal Court on May 7, according to public records. An attorney for the suspect did not immediately comment about the case. Eldorado Gold (NYSE: EGO), a mid-tier gold and base metals producer, is expected to report its first-quarter earnings on May 2. Management has high hopes for 2019, including an increase in annual gold production and a reduction in all-in sustaining costs (AISC) compared with 2018. Ultimately, the company aspires to generate enough free cash flow by the end of the year so that it can shore up its balance sheet by retiring debt. Investors may be eager to see the company's quarterly results and evaluate whether it is well positioned to realize its lustrous expectations for the coming year, but digging through a miner's earnings report can be overwhelming, and it's not uncommon to feel buried under the piles of facts and figures. So, let's prepare for the company's report by keying in on some points we can expect management to address. A businesswoman works at a computer in an office beside a co-worker. Image source: Getty Images. What to watch with production Meeting its gold production forecast is critical if the company expects to generate significant cash flow to lighten its balance sheet and retire debt. Whereas management estimates 2019 gold production of 390,000 ounces to 420,000 ounces, it is expected to be higher in the second half of the year, so investors shouldn't raise the red flag if it seems to hover around the 86,000 ounces that it produced in Q1 2018. At Lamaque, for example, where gold production for 2019 is expected to be 100,000 to 110,000 ounces, commercial production only began late in the first quarter. In order to meet this target, Eldorado expects to mine and process 500,000 metric tons of ore at an average grade of 7.0 grams per metric ton (g/t). Similarly, in late January, Eldorado announced the decision to resume mining and heap leaching at Kisladag, with 2019 gold production forecast to be 145,000 to 165,000 ounces, so production for Q1 should be lower than subsequent quarters. Keep an eye on costs Besides digging more yellow stuff out of the ground, the company believes that controlling its costs will help it to achieve better flow of the green in 2019. Reporting 2019 AISC of $994 per gold ounce, Eldorado estimates AISC per gold ounce of $900 to $1,000. According to management, one of the main drivers of this reduction will be Lamaque. While the company, overall, reported cash operating costs of $625 per gold ounce in 2018, management estimates cash operating costs per gold ounce of $550 to $600 for Lamaque in 2019. Story continues Gold bars on a financial chart. Image source: Getty Images. Another factor contributing to lower costs, presumably, will be Olympias. Whereas the mine's cash operating costs were $730 per gold ounce in 2018, Eldorado estimates they will be $550 to $650 in 2019. In the first quarter, however, investors can expect the mine, located in Greece, to report at the upper end of this range. On the company's Q4 2018 conference call, Paul Skayman, Eldorado's COO, said that "costs at Olympias are expected to decrease quarter-on-quarter due to higher production of other metals." Digging into the debt Looking beyond the performances of the company's individual mines, investors can expect management to address the company's debt. This is an especially relevant topic because the company has $600 million in senior notes coming due in December 2020. Although internally generated cash will provided one avenue toward repaying the debt, it's likely that the company will have to resort to additional means. On the Q4 2018 call, for example, Jason Cho, Eldorado's executive vice president of strategy and corporate development, stated that the company is "looking at various alternatives, whether it is considering bank debt or some sort of term debt, whether it is a partial refi of the high yield plus utilization of cash on balance sheet," and, when asked by an analyst, added that the company is not discounting the possibility of asset sales. Considering the recent flurry of activity in the gold industry, such as Yamana Gold's sale of Chapada and the joint venture in Nevada between Barrick Gold and Newmont Goldcorp, it wouldn't be especially surprising if Eldorado had a major announcement that revealed a significant influx of cash to help it address its looming debt. What's at stake for Eldorado While the market celebrated Eldorado's decision to restart operations at Kisladag, it will be interesting to see if the company met its expectations for the mine's performance in the first quarter, and it will be equally interesting to see what additional insights that management shares regarding the mine's forecasted performance. Likewise, I'll be curious to see if Lamaque remains on track to meet its gold production and cost estimates for the year. But the most important thing will be commentary regarding the significant debt due in 2020 and how management intends to handle it. More From The Motley Fool Scott Levine 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. NEW YORK, April 26, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ABM (ABM), a leading provider of facility solutions, is pleased to share that President and Chief Executive Officer Scott Salmirs has received a Business Achievement Award from the international business honor society Beta Gamma Sigma . Its an honor to receive this award from Beta Gamma Sigma and to be recognized along with such amazing corporate leaders, said Scott Salmirs. I am grateful to the faculty at SUNY Oneonta, whose relentless focus on applied learning and excellence continues to set a high bar for me and my fellow alumni. As the most prestigious business honor society, we receive nominations from around the world for our Business Achievement Award. We are proud to honor Scott Salmirs leadership and business acumen, said Christina Carosella, Chief Executive Officer at Beta Gamma Sigma. Scott is the seventh person to hold the position of president and CEO of ABM Industries in the companys 110-year history. Under Scotts guidance, ABM has flourished; the $6.4 billion Fortune 500 company has more than 140,000 employees across the world and a focus on long-term growth. Since Scott began his tenure in this role, and initiated an enterprise-wide business transformation, ABM has received many accolades; last year, Forbes named it one of the best employers for new graduates. Before joining ABM, Scott held leadership positions managing building portfolios at Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, and CBRE. After getting his bachelors degree in business economics from the State University of New York College (SUNY) at Oneonta in 1984, Scott earned an MBA in finance from the State University of New York at Binghamton. Scott is a member of the business advisory council for the School of Economics and Business at SUNY Oneonta. He also serves on the board for The Outreach Project, an organization that helps adolescents and families dealing with substance abuse addiction. He is also a founding board member of Donate Eight, a nonprofit focused on increasing organ donation awareness and registration in the State of New York. Story continues Beta Gamma Sigmas Business Achievement Award honors individuals for significant achievement in business through the traditional corporate route. The achievement may be demonstrated over a career or by a singular achievement that has advanced the field of business and contributed to a community and to humankind. Scott was nominated for this honor by his undergraduate alma mater, SUNY Oneonta. For a full list of Beta Gamma Sigma Business Achievement Award recipients in 2019, visit: https://www.betagammasigma.org/mainsitedev/events/bgs-awards/business-achievement/ba-recipients . ABOUT ABM ABM is a leading provider of facility solutions with revenues of approximately $6.4 billion and approximately 140,000 employees in 350+ offices throughout the United States and various international locations. ABM's comprehensive capabilities include janitorial, electrical & lighting, energy solutions, facilities engineering, HVAC & mechanical, landscape & turf, mission critical solutions and parking, provided through stand-alone or integrated solutions. ABM provides custom facility solutions in urban, suburban and rural areas to properties of all sizes - from schools and commercial buildings to hospitals, data centers, manufacturing plants and airports. ABM Industries Incorporated, which operates through its subsidiaries, was founded in 1909. For more information, visit www.abm.com . CONTACT Media: Alex Varjan (212) 297-9737 alex.varjan@abm.com NEW YORK, April 26, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ABM Industries Incorporated (the company) is providing notice of an incident that may affect the security of some personal information. While the company is currently unaware of any actual or attempted misuse of the impacted information, the company is providing this notice with details about the event as well as the steps taken in response. What Happened? After noting suspicious activity related to certain employee email accounts, the company immediately launched a detailed and exhaustive investigation which determined the company was the victim of an email phishing incident that resulted in unauthorized access to certain employee email accounts between January 8, 2018 and August 7, 2018. The companys investigation included working with leading cyber security experts to investigate the incident and ensure the security of the companys systems. The contents of the email accounts at issue were reviewed through an in-depth manual and programmatic process to determine what sensitive data may have been accessible. On December 26, 2018, the investigation determined that the emails affected by this incident contained certain personal information related primarily to current and former employees. What Information Was Involved? While the information present in the impacted emails varies by individual, the investigation determined that the information that may have been affected includes: name, Social Security number, bank account/financial information, credit/debit card information, drivers license number, passport number, birth/marriage certificate, medical information, health insurance information, username and password, and unique electronic identifiers related to certain current and former employees. While this information was contained within the impacted email accounts, the company currently has no evidence that any such information experienced attempted or actual misuse. What the Company is Doing. The company has an ongoing commitment to data security, with a focus on continued improvement, including implementing enhanced security technology, engaging outside security vendors, and enhancing company-wide phishing awareness and cyber-security training. The company provided notification by way of first-class mail to impacted individuals for whom it had available address information. The company is also offering impacted individuals free identity protection and credit monitoring services through Kroll. Additionally, the company is providing written guidance on how consumers can better protect themselves against identity theft and fraud, which includes reporting any suspicious account activity to their credit card company and/or bank, as well as encouraging individuals whose username and password information was impacted to change their login credentials. As part of its response to this incident, the company notified the FBI and all applicable regulatory agencies. Story continues What You Can Do. If you have additional questions, please call our dedicated assistance line at 1-833-231-3357, Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Eastern Time. For More Information. Phishing is a type of electronic attack where outside individuals impersonate a trusted person or company to obtain information, such as email credentials. The company is encouraging potentially impacted individuals to remain vigilant against incidents of identity theft and fraud, to review account statements and to monitor credits reports for suspicious activity and to detect errors. Individuals can obtain a free credit report annually from each of the three major credit reporting bureaus by visiting www.annualcreditreport.com, calling 877-322-8228, or contacting the three major credit bureaus directly at: Equifax, P.O. Box 105069, Atlanta, GA 30348, 800-525-6285, www.equifax.com; Experian, P.O. Box 2002, Allen, TX 75013, 888-397-3742, www.experian.com; TransUnion, P.O. Box 2000, Chester, PA 19016, 800-680-7289, www.transunion.com. Potentially impacted individuals may also find information regarding identity theft, fraud alerts, security freezes and the steps they may take to protect their information by contacting the credit bureaus, the Federal Trade Commission or their state Attorney General. Individuals have the right to place a security freeze on their credit reports, which will prohibit a consumer reporting agency from releasing information without their express authorization. The security freeze is designed to prevent credit, loans, and services from being approved in an individuals name without their consent. However, individuals should be aware that using a security freeze to take control over who gets access to the personal and financial information in their credit report may delay, interfere with, or prohibit the timely approval of any subsequent request or application made regarding a new loan, credit, mortgage, or any other account involving the extension of credit. Pursuant to federal law, individuals cannot be charged to place or lift a security freeze on their credit reports. Should individuals wish to place a security freeze, they may contact the major consumer reporting agencies listed above. In order to request a security freeze from the consumer reporting agencies, you will need to provide the following information: Your full name (including middle initial as well as Jr., Sr., II, III, etc.); Social Security number; Date of birth; If you have moved in the past five (5) years, provide the addresses where you have lived over the prior five years; Proof of current address, such as a current utility bill or telephone bill; A legible photocopy of a government-issued identification card (state drivers license or ID card, military identification, etc.); If you are a victim of identity theft, include a copy of either the police report, investigative report, or complaint to a law enforcement agency concerning identity theft. The Federal Trade Commission can be reached at: 600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20580; www.identitytheft.gov; 1-877-ID-THEFT (1-877-438-4338); and TTY: 1-866-653-4261. Instances of known or suspected identity theft should also be reported to law enforcement or the individual's state Attorney General. This notice has not been delayed by law enforcement. You may have the right to obtain a police report filed in regard to this incident. For North Carolina residents, the Attorney General can be contacted at 9001 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-9001, 1-877-566-7226 or 1-919-716-6400, www.ncdoj.gov . For Maryland residents, the Attorney General can be contacted at 200 St. Paul Place, 16th Floor, Baltimore, MD 21202, 1-888-743-0023, www.oag.state.md.us . You may also write to ABM at Attn: Legal Department, One Liberty Plaza, 7th Floor, New York, New York 10006. For New Mexico residents, you have rights pursuant to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, such as the right to be told if information in your credit file has been used against you, the right to know what is in your credit file, the right to ask for your credit score, and the right to dispute incomplete or inaccurate information. Further, pursuant to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the consumer reporting agencies must correct or delete inaccurate, incomplete, or unverifiable information; consumer reporting agencies may not report outdated negative information; access to your file is limited; you must give your consent for credit reports to be provided to employers; you may limit prescreened offers of credit and insurance you get based on information in your credit report; and you may seek damages from violators. You may have additional rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act not summarized here. Identity theft victims and active duty military personnel have specific additional rights pursuant to the Fair Credit Reporting Act. We encourage you to review your rights pursuant to the Fair Credit Reporting Act by visiting www.consumerfinance.gov/f/201504_cfpb_summary_your-rights-under-fcra.pdf , or by writing Consumer Response Center, Room 130-A, Federal Trade Commission, 600 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20580. For Rhode Island residents, the Rhode Island Attorney General can be reached at: 150 South Main Street, Providence, Rhode Island 02903, www.riag.ri.gov , 1-401-274-4400. Under Rhode Island law, you have the right to obtain any police report filed in regard to this incident. There are 134 Rhode Island residents impacted by this incident. By Chris Prentice, Jarrett Renshaw and P.J. Huffstutter NEW YORK/CHICAGO (Reuters) - Biofuels pioneer Archer Daniels Midland took another step toward abandoning its pure-play ethanol assets on Friday, the latest sign of the industry's struggles with U.S. President Donald Trump's trade wars, thin margins, and overproduction. U.S. law requires ethanol to be blended into gasoline but domestic demand for the biofuel added to gasoline has flatlined in recent years as consumers have opted for greater fuel-efficiency and electric vehicles. Ethanol producers have been forced to look abroad for demand growth. They had banked on China to buy excess capacity, but punitive tariffs in the last two years have halted buying, exacerbating the industry's substantial overcapacity. ADM executives acknowledged that problem on Friday when the company reported that profit tumbled 41 percent in the first quarter. ADM said it may spin off three large dry mills, which primarily produce only ethanol, after unsuccessfully searching for a buyer for those mills since 2016. At the time, its move to exit ethanol shocked the industry due to ADM's status as a leading biofuels producer. ADM Chief Financial Officer Ray Young said on an earnings call that the industry must stop the self-inflicted wounds. "Our decision to monetize the dry mills is frankly a strategic decision on our part to basically help the industry consolidate," Young said. Last week, U.S. ethanol production hit 1.05 million barrels per day, highest in at least five years seasonally, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data. Inventories climbed to 22.75 million barrels, not far from the record of 24.45 million hit in March. Producers such as Green Plains and Pacific Ethanol have laid off workers and idled or sold plants to stay afloat during the sustained downturn. Ethanol prices are down 42 percent in the last five years, while Green Plains and Pacific Ethanol have seen their shares fall 33 percent and 92 percent, respectively, in that time. Story continues "We don't have a demand problem as much as we have a supply problem. There are just too many inefficient plants out there, and they need to go before we see a rebound," said one ethanol trader on Friday. "It's not like we are producing DVDs or CDs that no one wants." China emerged in 2015 as a significant buyer for the first time, and subsequent plans to use ethanol in gasoline nationwide by 2020 raised hopes that the world's second largest economy would scoop up excess U.S. supply. But Beijing hiked import taxes on the biofuel in 2017, and then twice in 2018 as the United States and China ratcheted up the stakes in a trade war that has killed demand for U.S. imports. The two countries are still negotiating a trade deal that would end the tariff conflict. Young said margins will improve with resolution of the trade dispute and purchase commitments from China expected to accompany any pact. Still, some say that will be a temporary boost. "Exports may provide some temporary relief," said Scott Irwin, an agricultural economist at the University of Illinois. "(But) without substantial growth from higher ethanol blends you are looking at situation where the U.S. ethanol industry has to shrink" over the next 5-10 years." (Reporting by Chris Prentice, Jarrett Renshaw and P.J. Huffstutter; Editing by David Gregorio) Mo Ibrahim was raised to get an education and idolized scientists such as Marie Curie He was raised to respect professions such as engineering and medicine and says he was suspicious of business people. Ibrahim founded African mobile network Celtel in 1998 and sold it for $3.4 billion in 2005. When Mo Ibrahim was growing up in Alexandria, Egypt, he idolized scientists such as Marie Curie and Albert Einstein and eventually became a telecommunications engineer. Fast-forward several decades and Ibrahim is now a billionaire business person something he never expected would happen, because he didn't initially trust those running companies. "Because of my (up)bringing, because of my social background we assume businessmen are crooks or people involved in funny stuff. We respect professions, you know. You need to be a doctor, an engineer, to earn honest money and to do (the) right work, but guys involved in wheeling and dealing, we are suspicious of that," he told CNBC's " The Brave Ones ." Ibrahim has two engineering degrees and a PhD in mobile communications and worked for the U.K.'s BT (then British Telecom) as its technical director but left after becoming frustrated with the bureaucracy he found there. "It was strange, because I'm not supposed to be the business (person), I'm supposed to be the technocrat. And I go work in the big organization. So what do you do when you get fed up working in a large company and the bureaucracy? I said, 'OK, I'm going to be a consultant.'" He founded technology consultancy MSI in 1989, selling it for around $900 million in 2000, and set up African mobile operator Celtel in 1998. He sold that company for $3.4 billion in 2005. "I started as an academic, then I became an engineer and a manager, then became (an) unintended businessman or (an) accidental businessman," Ibrahim told "The Brave Ones." Ibrahim has since started a foundation that aims to improve political leadership and governance in Africa. More From CNBC Logo of jester cap with thought bubble. Image source: The Motley Fool. Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd (NYSE: AEM) Q1 2019 Earnings Call April 26, 2019, 8:30 a.m. ET Contents: Prepared Remarks Questions and Answers Call Participants Prepared Remarks: Operator -- Good morning. My name is Karina and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Agnico Eagle First Quarter Results 2019 Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions) Thank you. Mr. Sean Boyd, you may begin your conference. Sean Boyd -- Chief Executive Officer Thank you, operator and good morning everyone and welcome to our first quarter 2019 conference call. We're going to be going through some forward-looking statements today, so please be forewarned. Just to sort of step back and look at 2019 as we've said we expect record production at 1.75 million ounces at cash costs in the midpoint of the range of $645 and all-in sustaining cost of the midpoint in the range of $900. After the first quarter, we're tracking extremely well toward that target and will be revisiting those numbers in our second quarter update in late July as we move through the commissioning both Meliadine and Amaruq. So the other thing that I think we've been focused on this year is just simply the execution of those two projects, because what that does in the second half of the year, it drives a significant bump in production in earnings per share and also in cash flow per share. From a quarterly perspective, we produced almost 400,000 ounces of which about 18,000 ounces came from Meliadine in the pre-commercial stage report, our first part Meliadine in the third week of February. Our cash cost in the quarter were very good. We'll talk about some of the components of that at $623, all-in sustaining cost at $836. At Meliadine, as we mentioned, we're very close to commercial production. We will expect commercial production in May. At Amaruq, we would expect commercial production in the third quarter of this year. So everything is tracking well. Both projects are ahead of the original schedule and we would expect both projects to come in slightly below the total budget for both projects which was $1.23 billion. Story continues We also had some exploration results in our press release. We continue to get good results at Amaruq. In the underground, we've got some interesting new results at Santa Gertrudis, what looks like a higher grade structure in the area of past mining small pit and at Kirkland Lake and Upper Beaver were extending the mineralization there. So these are three projects that we've talked about providing an update as we move through the balance of this year and the update we'll continue obviously the exploration, but also will give you a project update on potential development scenarios for those projects as we move through the balance of this year. Looking at the specific properties and the contribution to production of almost 400,000 ounces. If we look at the Abitibi and look at LaRonde, Goldex and Canadian Malartic, we produced a combined a little over 200,000 ounces. The weighted average cash cost of those mines for the quarter was $544 an ounce, so we're getting good performance and good cash generation coming out of our operations in the Abitibi. We also had good production at Kittila, almost 50,000 ounces. We continue to produce good quantities of gold at Meadowbank as we continuing to mine in Portage, so that's extended a little bit longer than we had expected and we talked about the 18,000 ounces roughly coming out of Meliadine in pre-commercial production. In Mexico, combined cash costs for those operations, below $600. So those mines continue to generate good cash flow. So if you think about roughly 400,000 ounces of production in the quarter, that's roughly what we've been averaging per quarter for the last several years plus or minus, but as we move into the second half of this year and into 2020 when we expect to produce 2 million ounces and then go beyond 2 million ounces post 2020, we'll have quarters of 500,000 ounces plus, which is really the inflection point that we've been talking about in terms of both earnings per share and cash flow per share. Just going to the earnings and cash flow for the quarter, normalized was $0.14. So good quarter from an earnings perspective. Operating cash flow, $0.63. But as we said, as we go into the second half, we would expect to see improvements in both of those financial metrics. The balance sheet, we closed the quarter with about $200 million in cash. Good position as we move forward given the financial flexibility that we will have moving into the second half as we ramp-up production. We will talk a little bit about the assets, talking about LaRonde, produced 77,000 ounces in the first quarter. We would expect to see higher rates in the second half of this year. That's just simply due to mining sequence and the mine. We will have about a 10-day maintenance shutdown in May of this year, will be offsetting some of that with material from the LZ5 Zone net storage. LZ5 continues to generate good cash, but I think the importance of that particular operation is the testing of the automated equipment. So good cash flow, good return on investment there, but also allowing us to test our automated mining equipment and communication system. Canadian Malartic, over 80,000 ounces, work on the Barnat Extension is going according to plan. We would expect to begin production in late 2019 on Barnat. So no change to that schedule. We have a very active exploration program ongoing at Canadian Malartic, focused largely on underground opportunities and zones there, but it's still early there. Still a lot more work to do. Nothing has been approved in terms of additional capital to move forward there, but all we can really say at this point is there's active exploration going on there. We continue to add to our land package there. We continue to fill-in the blanks and open spaces on that belt and the partnership just picked up the Rand Malartic property, which is immediately to the east of the Canadian Malartic ground and there is potential for the zones to continue onto that ground. At Goldex, a record production since restarted at 2013, seeing some high-grade coming under the south zone, which is not unexpected. That is a higher grade area, although small. We'll see continued tonnage coming out of the south zone for the balance of this year. The Akasaba project is still on hold. It's a quality project, but in terms of capital allocation it's one that we've just put on hold for the moment. We would expect at some point to give us the go-ahead given that it meets our investment hurdle rate and we can leverage-off of the existing skills that we have at Goldex. At Meadowbank, 44,000 ounces. So as we said, we're winding down the deposits in and around the Meadowbank processing facilities, but I think it's important just to stop and reflect on how effective the transition has been in Nunavut from the Meadowbank deposits to the Amaruq satellite deposit. As we roll back two or three years ago, there was an expectation that we would possibly be faced with a 12 to 18 months gap in production and at the time all we can say, it was just allow our people to work through the issues and the opportunities and come up with a plan that narrowed that production gap and also allowed for seamless transition from the Meadowbank deposits to the new Amaruq deposits and they've done an exceptional job because that's had a very positive impact on the workforce, because there is no negative impact of having people without a job for a period of time. So very good work from that team. And we've been transitioning both people and equipment to the Amaruq facility and we've also completed all the mill upgrade work at Meadowbank for the Amaruq material. So Amaruq is well advanced in terms of dewatering and mining and truck fleet. We're still working on permits for the Whale Tail and the V Zone expansion. we would expect to get those in late 2020. There's nothing special about those permits compared to the permits we've already been issued to start Whale Tail. So we don't see any issue with that. And I think it will be -- we're still very much focused on the underground opportunity at Amaruq and how we can potentially bring that into production at the same time as we're mining the pit, because that could have a significant impact on the production profile for two or three years where they are potentially operating at the same time. So we'll have an update as we move through the balance of this year on our thoughts around the Amaruq underground opportunity. At Meliadine, we've talked about. It's going well in terms of commissioning. We poured our first bar as we said in the third quarter of February. We're getting good recoveries. We're ramping up the mining rate. There is no showstoppers there. We're confident on our guidance this year. We continue to get good exploration results there, demonstrating that the deposit continues at depth with good grades and decent thicknesses. So I think also looking at that decision back in early 2017 to invest $900 million, that was the right decision. Timing was right. We had slowed the projects down in 2016. We got better prepared and as a result that project is ahead of schedule as we said and low budget. So good decision and I think that decision, how positive that is, is really reflected in the fact that although the economic study was done on 14 years of mine life, we have an extensive resource and we see with the latest drilling at deposit is likely going to continue to grow. At Kittila, we talked about solid production quarter at 49,000 ounces. We will have a scheduled shutdown to realign the autoclave in this quarter. So that's done every four to five years. So that was in our plan. So it doesn't impact our guidance at all and we continue to push forward on the mill expansion and the shaft project. In the southern business, as we said at the start, very good performance from a cost per ounce standpoint and from a cash generating standpoint. So they continue to operate effectively, generate good solid cash flow while they worked on satellite deposit such as Sinter and Cubiro and Reyna de Plata, effectively just leveraging-off of infrastructure and skills in the region to maximize our investment there. Creston Mascota also good cost performance and good production in the quarter. At La India, we continue to focus on expanding the heap leach and the ore stacking which is going well and we're drilling the El Realito Satellite Zone which we are going to expect to extend the mine life at La India. From an exploration standpoint before I open it up for questions, just wanted to highlight Santa Gertrudis. We bought that in December, before December 2017 and we've got some nice high grade intersections on an area that had some past small open-pit mining on it. Interesting opportunity because we feel if we extend the drill hole, some of the earlier drill hole did not extend enough to capture what we see as a potential new zone. So already almost 1 million ounces. So we would expect that to continue to grow and that's the type of tailor-made project for our skill-set in Mexico. Right region, Sonora, we know how to operate there with La India. So as we said earlier, we will be providing an update on that project as we move through this year. So operator, I'd like to open the line for questions. Questions and Answers: Operator -- Thank you. (Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from the line of Fahad Tariq with Credit Suisse. Please go ahead. Fahad Tariq -- Credit Suisse Securities LLC -- Analyst For Meliadine, you mentioned that mill throughput for the second quarter will be 3,000 tons per day. Curious what was the average in April so far? And you mentioned that the plan has gone up to 3,700 tons on several occasions, is that the right way to think about maybe the potential run rate or close to that for the second half of the year? Thanks. Sean Boyd -- Chief Executive Officer Yeah, I think we're targeting about 30 to 50 for the rest of the year roughly and the plant has been averaging close to 3,000 tons per day and it has operated at the higher throughput that you quoted. Fahad Tariq -- Credit Suisse Securities LLC -- Analyst Okay, great. And then just switching gears for a second, more on capital allocation. As the free cash flow profile gets better in the second half of the year and certainly in 2020, How do you think about higher dividend, debt repayment coming due in 2020 and maybe keeping dry powder for potential asset acquisitions from the other large M&A divestitures, maybe some color on the way you're thinking about that strategy? Sean Boyd -- Chief Executive Officer Yeah. I think it's a balance. It will clearly be given the track record of paying a dividend for 36 years. We'll certainly be looking to increase the dividend. The dividend in fact in total dollars has gone up in each of the last five years. So that was done during a period when gold was relatively flat at $1200 and we were in a biggest capital program in our history. So we've clearly indicated that that's important. And as we also said we're working on some key projects in terms of development opportunities in Kirkland Lake at Upper Beaver, Santa Gertrudis, the Amaruq underground. So certainly, there'll be capital at some point allocated there and that capital will be allocated at a time when we start to wind-down the capital in Finland, but the shaft in mill expansion. So I think those are timed fairly well. Debt repayment is also a focus. We have a maturity next year. So certainly, we'd like to improve our financial flexibility. So looking at all those three options and as we said, we're in that sweet spot in terms of capital coming down dramatically from the average over the last two years when production is rising significantly in the second half of the year. So good position at the end. Fahad Tariq -- Credit Suisse Securities LLC -- Analyst Thank you. Operator -- Your next question is from Stephen Walker with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Stephen Walker -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst Thank you, operator Good morning. Just a follow-up question on Meliadine. When we were there last fall and had a look at the plant, given the excess capacity that's been built into the back-end of that plant. There was talk at the time that with a modest investment you could get the plant up to 4,500 maybe 5,000 tons a day plus where are you in the planning process as far as the further optimization and do you have a sense of the capital number that might be required to get it up to these higher levels? Sean Boyd -- Chief Executive Officer At this stage we're entering our next life of mine planning phase and before we complete the commercial production decision, that specific tonnage number we'd like to be in a position to be testing. So we will probably test total capacity of the plant in the next two weeks and we will evaluate as we continue to ramp-up the underground mining and potentially advance some small bits, try to see what's the best scenario, advance the expansion with the bits as originally planned or simply invest in just stripping and accelerate the development underground to maximize the current capacity of the plant. So these are scenarios we are going to be evaluating over the next few months. Stephen Walker -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst Just a follow-up on Meliadine as well. In the testing that you're doing so far, with respect to the grinding and residency time in that part of the plant and then the leaching times and the recoveries that you're seeing, is there anything in the metallurgy or the grain size that is different from the original test that suggests that recoveries could be improved or there could be challenges with respect to recoveries or throughputs? Sean Boyd -- Chief Executive Officer No, not at this stage Steve. Front-end and the back-end of the plant have actually responded very strongly. No surprise in that area. We've had some, we've had to adjust in the -- on this ionization circuit introduced slight nitrate in the circuit, but so far recoveries are on plan and there is no concerns about grains or other elements at this stage. Stephen Walker -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst Great. And if I might on the Whale Tail ore that you're getting into now, is there anything visible in the metallurgy that wasn't picked up in the drilling, is there anything in the way of additional minerals or types or grain size that wasn't picked up in the original test work? And then secondly, presumably, you're going to start batching that through the Meadowbank plant, when will that occur and if it has occurred already, how is the batch recoveries being or how is the reactivity of that ore through that plant at this stage? Yvon Sylvestre -- Senior Vice President of Operations-Canada and Europe Well, we have commissioned the -- we're in the process of commissioning the gravimetric metric in addition to the Meadowbank plant. So that's ongoing now and say exclusively on Meadowbank ore, recovery is actually going up. We will probably processing some wealthier ore quite later in Q2 because we're sort of progressing with the ramp-up there. And as far as the questions on mineralogy, no surprise at this stage. I think the only area that we've been pleasantly surprise is that the block model on surfaces responded quite well and in grades, in fact these grades have been little bit better in some areas. So that's the encouraging part. Stephen Walker -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst Thank you very much Yvon. Operator -- Your next question is from the line of John Tumazos with John Tumazos Very Independent Research. Please go ahead. John Tumazos -- John Tumazos Very Independent Research LLC -- Analyst Thank you. Congratulations on all the progress (inaudible). Sean Boyd -- Chief Executive Officer Thank you. John Tumazos -- John Tumazos Very Independent Research LLC -- Analyst One of the other companies are selling things, I was kind of wondering how you might react if you're looking at considering acquiring a property what rate of return would you require? Or second, would you simply not evaluate the things, because why distract yourself from your good projects to look at someone else's losers or how much should they pay you to look them, I don't know. Sean Boyd -- Chief Executive Officer Yeah. That's a good question. I think that we -- let's have a laugh for a minute. So we see the press release, Newmont Goldcorp and several of us are in the office are quite early, before 6:30 and we had people running around saying, there could be some things coming out of here and I think the message was everybody just got to relax, have a cup of coffee and calm down. We've been doing this for a long, long time and there's no bargains out there. We've never been a company that sort of bought things as fixer uppers, because that doesn't really pay, and it's hard to get a return. The things we tend to pay attention to are those things that we've assessed have geological potential. So we've built this company on assessing geological opportunity and then proving that theory very patiently through consistent drilling and mine building. So that's the framework that we sort of used to determine whether we spend any time on things. So we do have a group that looks at things. But I would say the things we're looking at are more sort of smallish development opportunities in regions and belts rather than buying production to say we're a bigger producer. And if you look at the M&A dance that's going on for the last sort of six months or so or nine months and even going back to 2014 with Barrick and Newmont. If you look at the top five market cap companies we were sort of sitting at number four with Goldcorp following to number five, Newcrest at 3 and then Barrick and Newmont. Every one of those other four companies had talked to each other in some form or another. At Agnico, we typically just minding our business and focused on sort of executing and none of it bringing these projects online, because we could see the inflection point coming in EPS and cash flow per share. And our audience is very much a generalist investor audience and we spent a lot of time focused on that market and that market sort of wants discipline. So that's sort of going on here. I'm getting ready for the AGM. It's at 11 O'clock this morning. So I'm sort of getting pumped up. But I think that the answer is we're going to continue to sort of be disciplined and move forward in a way that drives cash flow per share for our shareholders. John Tumazos -- John Tumazos Very Independent Research LLC -- Analyst Thank you. Operator -- Your next question is from the line of Mike Parkin with National Bank Financial. Please go ahead. Mike Parkin -- National Bank Financial -- Analyst Guys, just a quick question. With the Kittila Q2 shutdown that you mentioned there earlier on the call, how many weeks will that roughly be and should we expect -- what should we kind of expect for sustaining CapEx for that quarter? Yvon Sylvestre -- Senior Vice President of Operations-Canada and Europe Well, the shutdown will -- is presently scheduled for 60 days. As far as the CapEx on the quarter, we'll have to get back to you on that number. I don't have that number specifically at this stage. Mike Parkin -- National Bank Financial -- Analyst Okay. No, I appreciate that. Congrats on the quarter and all the best with Nunavut. Thanks. Operator -- Your next question is with Anita Soni with CIBC. Please go ahead. Anita Soni -- The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce -- Analyst Good morning. My question, a little bit more on some of the grades. Let's start with Goldex. It outperformed on grade this quarter versus your guidance, I think substantially. I think it was 1.77 versus about 1.57. Do you expect that to sort of average out over the course of the year or is that just a bonus for Q1 and move on with the rest of 1.57? Yvon Sylvestre -- Senior Vice President of Operations-Canada and Europe I think the -- as they continue to accelerate the -- and get maturity on the Rail-Veyor system we've -- on this quarter, we've had a larger proportion of work from Deep 1 sectors, which have contributed the portion of that. We're also mining about a stope per month from the higher grade South Zone, so all of these factors are sort of contributing. And South Zone, this tendency will continue for the rest of the year. And I think we should continue to see pretty regular grade profile for the next little while at Goldex. Anita Soni -- The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce -- Analyst Okay. That sounds great. And then on Malartic, a similar question. I think the guidance was about 1.16 and you start at 1.18. And as I recall, as you get down to the bottom of the pit, the grades continue to get better. Is that, again, something that we should expect to have better grades than what was probably anticipated at the beginning of the year? Yvon Sylvestre -- Senior Vice President of Operations-Canada and Europe Well, quarter-over-quarter we'll have slight variance, but the grades in certain periods tend to go up. But at this stage, it will meet -- you will meet the guidance for the end of the year. And as we get into Barnat late in '19 and early 2020, it will be additional grade improvements. Anita Soni -- The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce -- Analyst Additional grade improvements, but does this start out higher grade at start, because you were sort of higher up in the pit it's going to start out a little bit lower and then progress as you go down. Yvon Sylvestre -- Senior Vice President of Operations-Canada and Europe Sorry, I didn't hear the question, Anita. Anita Soni -- The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce -- Analyst Sorry. With the Barnat start-up is that immediately higher grade than what you're -- than what the average is for the year or what you would see at the bottom of the pit at Canadian Malartic or is that start off with a slightly lower grades? Yvon Sylvestre -- Senior Vice President of Operations-Canada and Europe Well, it will start probably at average grade and build up to what the grade in Barnat is. I think the average grade there is about 1.2 or so. Anita Soni -- The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce -- Analyst All right. And then the last question is with regards to LaRonde, on the byproducts. It seems like some of the recoveries for lead and zinc, I think in particular, maybe even copper -- sorry, not copper -- and silver were, I guess, a lot better than expected. Is that something that you expect to continue or was that just something you're not willing to predict at this point? Yvon Sylvestre -- Senior Vice President of Operations-Canada and Europe Well, we've had quite a bit of variability on some of our base metal streams as some of our zinc is cyclical, depending on the mining sequence. Copper has been quite steady. But, overall, the performance and the finalization circuit have been pretty strong both on the gold and silver side. So I think what you see now should be close to what you should see going forward. But it's highly grade dependent. Anita Soni -- The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce -- Analyst Okay, thank you very much. Operator -- Your next question is with Carey MacRury with Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead. Carey MacRury -- Canaccord Genuity -- Analyst Hi, good morning. Just a question on Upper Canada -- Upper Beaver. You've talked about evaluating different scenarios there. I'm just wondering if you can provide a little more color on what specifically you're looking at there at the stage? Sean Boyd -- Chief Executive Officer Well, actually, we're mostly focusing on upgrading our resources model, fine-tuning the resources for year-end, adding some more interest. I mean, in the meantime, as you mentioned, we're looking at what could be done at both Upper Beaver and Upper Canada. And recently we've been paying attention to the near surface portion of Upper Beaver where we see potentially an opportunity to end scenario at Upper Beaver. And we'll get a better grasp about potential scenario as 2019 goes by and we should be in a better position by year-end to provide more color on that. Carey MacRury -- Canaccord Genuity -- Analyst Thank you. Operator -- Your next question is with Ralph Profiti with Eight Capital. Please go ahead. Ralph Profiti -- Eight Capital Management -- Analyst Thanks, operator. Thanks for taking my question. I don't want to jump again on Kirkland. But you are seeing these deeper intercepts down to 400 meters and in this recent drill hole then you're seeing mineralization down even further. Can I assume that the work that you're doing includes both open pit and underground options? And then what's the plan for the copper at Kirkland? Is it significant enough that you'd potentially want to monetize that as a credit? Sean Boyd -- Chief Executive Officer Well, to answer maybe the first part of your question, we were at first, obviously, investigating how much we can grow that resources and we know that it's always nice to have confidence that we can continue to grow. So we've been testing both the deep extension that have been successful, demonstrating that keeps on going for another 400 meter of depth. But in the meantime, we know that closer to surface through a ramp potentially that we could track the near surface portion of the deposit. But we're not that point in time for Upper Beaver. It is very unlikely that we'll do anything from an open pit. And for Upper Canada, we don't know enough about it yet to figure out what is the best development scenario for Upper Canada. Ralph Profiti -- Eight Capital Management -- Analyst Right, got it. Okay. And maybe just to follow up. I'd like to just talk a little bit about opportunities to control costs in Nunavut. Can you talk maybe a little bit about the lessons that you've learned? And as you potentially try to manage costs there, are there opportunities in the area of, say, power or logistics that you're going to continue to look at? Where are the opportunities? Yvon Sylvestre -- Senior Vice President of Operations-Canada and Europe Well, I think on the power side, there is several ideas that are under way to look at adding cleaner energy and wind turbines. The rest is -- I think, we -- lot of discussions with the government on infrastructure that would be quite helpful down the road in trying to reduce the overall logistic reality of dealing in Nunavut. But at this stage, we'll be more focused over the next year and a half on trying to get the plant up to -- plants and the mine up to speed, but also focus more on productivity to keep the cost structure down. I think that'll be mostly our focus. Ralph Profiti -- Eight Capital Management -- Analyst Yeah, yeah. Got it. Okay, thanks for that. Very helpful. Operator -- Your next question is with Steve Butler with GMP Securities. Please go ahead. Steven Butler -- GMP Securities L.P. -- Analyst Thank you, operator. Guys, just coming back to Amaruq, where you had this slightly higher grades reported in the Whale Tail from pit initial ores. I guess, obviously, it's still very early days. But maybe you can make a -- do you have a, say, general comment on how slightly higher grade it is percentage wise, if you can share that? And if you're considering to any changes to your top cut factors or it's obviously, still early days? Yvon Sylvestre -- Senior Vice President of Operations-Canada and Europe Yeah. Since it's certainly early days, Steve, I'll get back to you on that part in Q3, Q4. Steven Butler -- GMP Securities L.P. -- Analyst Okay. And then the ore sorting, you talked about ore sorting at Pinos Altos and Sinter. Obviously, again, it's still at preliminary stages there. But can you comment on what you're seeing in the Sinter results and where do you see ore sorting going next in terms of pilot studies at the other assets? Jean Robitaille -- Senior Vice President of Business Strategy and Technical Services Hi, Steve, Jean speaking. We have a process presently and this is a pilot plant and we have -- it's following the result that we are obtaining to exactly in line with what we were expecting, but it's really early stage. So eventually, throughout the organization or on the other side, we have some plan and we have to do the demonstration at -- of those first. But it's encouraging up to now, but it's really early stage. Steven Butler -- GMP Securities L.P. -- Analyst Okay. Better head on the questioning there on two fronts. Thanks guys. Operator -- And your last question comes from Tanya Jakusconek with Scotiabank. Please go ahead. Tanya Jakusconek -- Scotiabank -- Analyst Hi, everybody. And congratulations on the good quarter. A lot of my questions have been answered. I just wanted to come back to Yvon and maybe Dave Smith on Amaruq and Meliadine. Just on the commercial production, let's start with Amaruq. Yvon, how are you going to define that? It appears that you are already going to be putting some ore and have been putting ore through the Meadowbank mill. So could we potentially have production in Q2? I know, Sean mentioned production and commercial production in Q3. So I'm just kind of wondering the definition of commercial and whether we have ore -- pre-commercial production in Q2? Sorry I can't hear you. Yvon Sylvestre -- Senior Vice President of Operations-Canada and Europe Sorry, the microphone was closed. The definition of commercial production in this case will mainly be on profitability and the commissioning of the plant were already been done on the Meadowbank ore. So I think once we've processed about 30 days of Amaruq ore, we'll probably be in a position to declare commercial production there. Tanya Jakusconek -- Scotiabank -- Analyst So sorry -- again, you're breaking up, is it like 30 days -- is that what I heard? Yvon Sylvestre -- Senior Vice President of Operations-Canada and Europe Yeah. Tanya Jakusconek -- Scotiabank -- Analyst Because I think your pre-commercial production guidance for Amaruq was 40,000 ounces. And I think that implies about 1.5 to 2 months. Is that about correct? Yvon Sylvestre -- Senior Vice President of Operations-Canada and Europe Correct, yeah. But we might be processing some ore in June as well, so -- we'll in Q2, so we'll thread that reality going forward. Tanya Jakusconek -- Scotiabank -- Analyst Okay. So that one might be a bit conservative then. And just on the Meliadine, I think there was 60,000 of pre-commercial production there. If you look like you're going commercial in May that would imply more 30,000 to 40,000 ounces of pre-commercial. Is that about right? Yvon Sylvestre -- Senior Vice President of Operations-Canada and Europe It could be, yes. But I think at this stage, we're probably targeting a little bit higher than that and you'll find out over the next several weeks, I guess. Tanya Jakusconek -- Scotiabank -- Analyst Yeah. Also a good news though. Okay. Thank you so much. Sean Boyd -- Chief Executive Officer Yeah. Just as a follow up on that, Tanya. Ultimately, if it -- is it 60,000 credited on Meliadine or 40,000 credited on Amaruq, it's too early to say. We're certainly getting closer on Meliadine. So that impacts where we land in terms of capital on the projects. But I think we're comfortable enough to say, if we're early and we don't have the credits of 60,000 against Meliadine and 40,000 against Amaruq, because we've come to the commercial production earlier, we should still be in a position where the total -- and in Nunavut collectively for both projects is slightly under budget. So we're just working through a lot of those parameters as we commission both operations. Tanya Jakusconek -- Scotiabank -- Analyst Absolutely. And also you would be closer to actually having free cash flow. Sean Boyd -- Chief Executive Officer Yeah. Tanya Jakusconek -- Scotiabank -- Analyst Okay, thank you so much. Sean Boyd -- Chief Executive Officer Thank you. Operator -- (Operator Instructions) We have no further audio questions at this time. I now turn the call back over to you, Mr. Boyd. Sean Boyd -- Chief Executive Officer Thank you, operator and thanks, everyone for the good questions. And hope to see some of you at our Annual Meeting this morning at 11 O'clock. Thanks again. Operator -- This concludes today's call. You may now disconnect. Duration: 38 minutes Call participants: Operator -- Sean Boyd -- Chief Executive Officer Fahad Tariq -- Credit Suisse Securities LLC -- Analyst Stephen Walker -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst Yvon Sylvestre -- Senior Vice President of Operations-Canada and Europe John Tumazos -- John Tumazos Very Independent Research LLC -- Analyst Mike Parkin -- National Bank Financial -- Analyst Anita Soni -- The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce -- Analyst Carey MacRury -- Canaccord Genuity -- Analyst Ralph Profiti -- Eight Capital Management -- Analyst Steven Butler -- GMP Securities L.P. -- Analyst Jean Robitaille -- Senior Vice President of Business Strategy and Technical Services Tanya Jakusconek -- Scotiabank -- Analyst More AEM analysis Transcript powered by AlphaStreet This article is a transcript of this conference call produced for The Motley Fool. While we strive for our Foolish Best, there may be errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in this transcript. As with all our articles, The Motley Fool does not assume any responsibility for your use of this content, and we strongly encourage you to do your own research, including listening to the call yourself and reading the company's SEC filings. Please see our Terms and Conditions for additional details, including our Obligatory Capitalized Disclaimers of Liability. More From The Motley Fool Motley Fool Transcribers 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. * Autoliv 2019 forecasts above analysts' consensus * First-quarter profit lags forecasts * Shares up 3 percent (Adds background, details, context, shares) STOCKHOLM, April 26 (Reuters) - Autoliv , the world's largest maker of airbags and seatbelts, on Friday published organic sales growth and margin forecasts for 2019 that topped analysts' estimates, sending its shares higher. Weak car production, in mainly China and Europe, has put pressure on sales at Autoliv and its rivals since last year. The company, which competes with Joyson Safety Systems and ZF TRW, reported a first-quarter operating profit of $173 million, down from 243 million a year earlier. This fell short of a $212 million forecast from analysts. Profits were partly hit by one-off costs of more than $20 million due a labor dispute in Mexico. The company stuck with its previous forecast for full-year organic growth of 5 percent and an adjusted operating margin of 10.5 percent, above the mean forecast for 4.2 percent and 10.3 percent respectively in an analyst poll. Autoliv's Sweden-listed shares were up 3.0 percent by 1107 GMT, compared with a 2 percent drop ahead of the results release. "Our people did well managing the largest quarterly light vehicle market decline in a decade, and consequently the quarter developed in line with our expectations, excluding the effects of the labor conflict in Mexico," Autoliv CEO Mikael Bratt said in a statement. Autoliv said the conflict had now been resolved with production returning to normal levels. The company said it was able to affirm its operating margin forecast with the help of cost reductions, including a hiring freeze as well as other measures. (Reporting by Johannes Hellstrom; editing by Niklas Pollard and Jane Merriman) American Water Works Company AWK is scheduled to release first-quarter 2019 results on May 1, after market close. In the last four quarters, the company delivered a positive earnings surprise of 3.30%. Lets see how things are shaping up for this water utility prior to the earnings announcement. Factors to Consider American Water consistently makes considerable investments toward infrastructure upgrades and gets rate approval from the Commission to recoup expenses, which is a positive for the to-be-reported quarter as well. New rates effective February 2019 in Maryland and West Virginia will have a positive impact on the upcoming earnings. The company has been working to lower O&M expenses through operational efficiency, which is likely to benefit the to-be-reported quarter. Expansion of customer base by organic means, and acquisitions made in Pennsylvania, Indiana and Kentucky during the quarter are likely to have a positive impact on its first-quarter earnings. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for first-quarter revenues and earnings per share is pegged at $803 million and 69 cents, which indicates growth of 5.5% and 6.8%, respectively, from the year-ago reported figures. American Water Works Company, Inc. Price and EPS Surprise American Water Works Company, Inc. Price and EPS Surprise | American Water Works Company, Inc. Quote Earnings Whispers A stock needs to have a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) to beat estimates. However, American Water does not have the required combination, as elaborated below. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. Earnings ESP: The companys Earnings ESP is -0.32%. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before theyre reported with our Earnings ESP Filter. Zacks Rank: American Water currently has a Zacks Rank #2. The companys favorable Zacks Rank, when combined with the negative ESP, lowers the possibility of an earnings beat. However, we caution against stocks with a Zacks Rank #4 or 5 (Sell rated) going into the earnings announcement, especially when the company is seeing a negative estimate revision momentum. Utility Stocks With Favorable Combination Pinnacle West Capital Corporation PNW is expected to release first-quarter results on May 1. It has an Earnings ESP of +1.41% and a Zacks Rank #2. Eversource Energy SO is expected to release first-quarter results on May 1. It has an Earnings ESP of +0.10% and a Zacks Rank #2. Entergy Corporation ETR is slated to report first-quarter results on May 1. It has an Earnings ESP of +3.99% and a Zacks Rank #2. Zacks' Top 10 Stocks for 2019 In addition to the stocks discussed above, would you like to know about our 10 finest buy-and-holds for the year? Who wouldn't? Our annual Top 10s have beaten the market with amazing regularity. In 2018, while the market dropped -5.2%, the portfolio scored well into double-digits overall with individual stocks rising as high as +61.5%. And from 2012-2017, while the market boomed +126.3, Zacks' Top 10s reached an even more sensational +181.9%. See Latest Stocks Today >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Southern Company (The) (SO) : Free Stock Analysis Report Pinnacle West Capital Corporation (PNW) : Free Stock Analysis Report Entergy Corporation (ETR) : Free Stock Analysis Report American Water Works Company, Inc. (AWK) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research 'I would love it back' Wu-Tang Clan's RZA wants the album he auctioned off to 'pharma bro' fraudster Martin Shkreli Wu-Tang Clan member RZA says he "would love" to get back the hip-hop group's single-copy album, which was ordered forfeited to the federal government from convicted "pharma bro" fraudster Martin Shkreli. Shkreli has been locked up since 2017, when a judge revoked his release bond for offering Facebook followers a $5,000 bounty for a lock of hair pulled off Hillary Clinton's head. Wu-Tang Clan member RZA said Friday that he "would love" to get back the hip-hop group's single-copy album, "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin," which was ordered forfeited to the federal government from convicted "pharma bro" fraudster Martin Shkreli as part of his criminal sentence. But that could take some time, given Shkreli's pending appeal of his conviction for a trio of criminal charges. "You know, I would love it back," RZA said during an interview with CNBC's "Closing Bell." Shkreli bought the album at auction for a reported $2 million in 2015. "That album felt like a child of mine," RZA said. RZA also said the album of which only one copy exists is sitting in a government office somewhere. However, that's not the case, at least not at the moment. When Shkreli was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2018 in Brooklyn federal court, a judge ordered him to forfeit $7.36 million in assets, which included "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin," his stake in the drug company Phoenixus AG, the Lil' Wayne album "The Carter V," and a painting by Pablo Picasso. But Judge Kiyo Matsumoto stayed the execution of that forfeiture order and the seizure of the assets to satisfy the monetary amount pending Shkreli's appeal of his conviction. And even if the Justice Department eventually does seize the album if Shkreli loses on appeal, it is not clear that the record will be worth anywhere close to the $2 million he paid for it. RZA told Rolling Stone in 2018 that he "actually tried to get" the album back when Shkreli earlier put it up for sale on eBay. Story continues "But the paperwork and the contract stops me from getting it back. When [Shkreli] put it on eBay, the first thing I did was call my lawyer, and I was like, 'Yo, let's go.' And they said, 'All right, check with your contract.' And it's no, you can't do it," RZA said in the Rolling Stone interview. The sale contract for the album reportedly barred Shkreli from releasing it commercially for 88 years. Shkreli, while free on release bond before his trial, had played snippets of the album while streaming video of himself online. Asked by CNBC on Friday whether the public ever will hear the full album, RZA said, "You know, I guess time will tell on that." CNBC revealed earlier this week that Shkreli was transferred from the federal prison in Fort Dix, New Jersey, to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, after a Wall Street Journal article reported that he was running his drug firm while locked up with the help of a contraband cell phone. Shkreli's lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, said he is being kept in that federal jail while awaiting transfer to another federal prison, in Allenwood, Pennsylvania. Brafman did not immediately respond to a query Friday about RZA's comments. Shkreli, 36, gained notoriety in 2015 when his company hiked the price of the drug Daraprim used to treat a parasitic infection sometimes found in pregnant women, infants and people with HIV by more than 5,000%. He was convicted in 2016 of defrauding investors in two hedge funds he ran, and of conspiring to fraudulently manipulate stock shares of Retrophin RTRX , the pharmaceuticals company he founded after his hedge funds collapsed. Shkreli has been locked up since September 2017, a month after his criminal conviction, when Matsumoto revoked his $5 million release bond because of his offer to pay Facebook followers a $5,000 bounty for each lock of hair pulled from Hillary Clinton's head. More From CNBC The CFO of Bitfinex assured key shareholders that the $851 million in missing funds revealed by the NYSAG lawsuit are in fact safe and will be accessible in a few weeks, per reporting by CoinDesk, which spoke with large Bitfinex shareholder Zhao Dong. According to Dong, Bitfinex CFO Giancarlo Devasini personally assured him that the exchange only needs a few weeks to unfreeze the funds. Earlier today Bitfinex issued an official response saying the court filings were written in bad faith and are riddled with false assertions. The company further denied the loss of $851 million from Crypto Capital and instead claimed the funds have been seized and safeguarded. Another shareholder, Tian Jia, told CoinDesk that the exchange's executives have continued to communicate with shareholders, noting that they are working on resolving the issue. Because it is customers money, its not stolen cryptocurrency, its fiat. It cant be stolen. Its only frozen by the [regulators], and [Bitfinex is] trying to get it back by approaching Panama and the [U.S. Attorney General.] They have been communicating all along," Jia told CoinDesk. Details from the suit paint a very different picture, with Bitfinex and Tether engaging in undisclosed, conflicted transactions to cover Bitfinexs losses by transferring money out of tether reserve funds. According to the Attorney Generals office (OAG) at least $700 million was drained from Tethers reserves to cover the funds that went missing. (Repeats item first published on Friday with no changes to text) By Tom Lasseter and Shri Navaratnam KATTANKUDY, Sri Lanka, April 26 (Reuters) - Mohamed Hashim Mohamed Zahran was 12 years old when he began his studies at the Jamiathul Falah Arabic College. He was a nobody, with no claim to scholarship other than ambition. Zahran and his four brothers and sisters squeezed into a two-room house with their parents in a small seaside town in eastern Sri Lanka; their father was a poor man who sold packets of food on the street and had a reputation for being a petty thief. "His father didn't do much," recalled the school's vice principal, S.M. Aliyar, laughing out loud. The boy surprised the school with his sharp mind. For three years, Zahran practiced memorizing the Koran. Next came his studies in Islamic law. But the more he learned, the more Zahran argued that his teachers were too liberal in their reading of the holy book. "He was against our teaching and the way we interpreted the Koran - he wanted his radical Islam," said Aliyar. "So we kicked him out." Aliyar, now 73 with a long white beard, remembers the day Zahran left in 2005. "His father came and asked, 'Where can he go?'." The school would hear again of Mohamed Zahran. And the world now knows his name. Sri Lankan officials have identified him as the suspected ringleader of a group that carried out a series of Easter Sunday suicide bombings in the country on April 21. The blasts killed more than 250 people in churches and luxury hotels, one of the deadliest-ever such attacks in South Asia. There were nine suicide bombers who blew apart men, women and children as they sat to pray or ate breakfast. Most of the attackers were well-educated and from wealthy families, with some having been abroad to study, according to Sri Lankan officials. That description does not, however, fit their alleged leader, a man said to be in his early 30s, who authorities say died in the slaughter. Zahran was different. Story continues INTELLIGENCE FAILINGS Sri Lanka's national leadership has come under heavy criticism for failing to heed warnings from Indian intelligence services - at least three in April alone - that an attack was pending. But Zahran's path from provincial troublemaker to alleged jihadist mastermind was marked by years of missed or ignored signals that the man with a thick beard and paunch was dangerous. His increasingly militant brand of Islam was allowed to grow inside a marginalized minority community barely 10 percent of the country's roughly 20 million people are Muslim against a backdrop of a dysfunctional developing nation. The top official at the nation's defence ministry resigned on Thursday, saying that some institutions under his charge had failed. For much of his adult life, Zahran courted controversy inside the Muslim community itself. In the internet age, that problem did not stay local. Zahran released online videos calling for jihad and threatening bloodshed. After the blasts, Islamic State claimed credit and posted a video of Zahran, clutching an assault rifle, standing before the group's black flag and pledging allegiance to its leader. The precise relationship between Zahran and Islamic State is not yet known. An official with India's security services, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that during a raid on a suspected Islamic State cell by the National Investigation Agency earlier this year officers found copies of Zahran's videos. The operation was in the state of Tamil Nadu, just across a thin strait of ocean from Sri Lanka. "LIKE A SPOILED CHILD" Back in 2005, Zahran was looking to make his way in the world. His hometown of Kattankudy is some seven hours' drive from Colombo on the other side of the island nation, past the countless palm trees, roadside Buddha statues, cashew hawkers and an occasional lumbering elephant in the bush. It is a town of about 40,000 people, a dot on the eastern coast with no clear future for an impoverished young man who'd just been expelled. Zahran joined a mosque in 2006, the Dharul Athar, and gained a place on its management committee. But within three years they'd had a falling out. "He wanted to speak more independently, without taking advice from elders," said the mosque's imam, or spiritual leader, M.T.M. Fawaz. Also, the young man was more conservative, Fawaz said, objecting, for instance, to women wearing bangles or earrings. "The rest of us come together as community leaders but Zahran wanted to speak for himself," said Fawaz, a man with broad shoulders lounging with a group of friends in a back office of the mosque after evening prayers. "He was a black sheep who broke free." Mohamed Yusuf Mohamed Thaufeek, a friend who met Zahran at school and later became an adherent of his, said the problems revolved around Zahran's habit of misquoting Islamic scriptures. The mosque's committee banned him from preaching for three months in 2009. Zahran stormed off. "We treated him like a spoiled child, a very narrow-minded person who was always causing some trouble," said the head of the committee, Mohamed Ismail Mohamed Naushad, a timber supplier who shook his head at the memory. Now on his own, Zahran began to collect a group of followers who met in what Fawaz described as "a hut". At about that time, Zahran, then 23, married a young girl from a small town outside the capital of Colombo and brought his bride back to Kattankudy, according to his sister, Mathaniya. "I didn't have much of a connection with her she was 14," she said. Despite being "a bit rough-edged", Zahran was a skilled speaker and others his age were drawn to his speeches and Koranic lessons, said Thaufeek. He travelled the countryside at times, giving his version of religious instruction as he went. Also, Zahran had found a popular target: the town's Sufi population, who practice a form of Islam often described a mystical, but which to conservatives is heresy. Tensions in the area went back some years. In 2004, there was a grenade attack on a Sufi mosque and in 2006 several homes of Sufis were set afire. Announcements boomed from surrounding mosques at the time calling for a Sufi spiritual leader to be killed, said Sahlan Khalil Rahman, secretary of a trust that oversees a group of Sufi mosques. He blamed followers of the fundamentalist Wahhabi strain of Islam that some locals say became more popular after funding from Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Wahhabism, flowed to mosques in Kattankudy. It was, Rahman said, an effort "to convert Sufis into Wahhabis through this terrorism". Rahman handed over a photograph album showing charred homes, bullet holes sprayed across an office wall and a shrine's casket upended. ONLINE RADICAL It was an ideal backdrop for Zahran's bellicose delivery and apparent sense of religious destiny. He began holding rallies, bellowing insults through loudspeakers that reverberated inside the Sufis' house of worship as they tried to pray. In 2012, Zahran started a mosque of his own. The Sufis were alarmed and, Rahman said, passed on complaints to both local law enforcement and eventually national government offices. No action was taken. The then-officer in charge of Kattankudy police, Ariyabandhu Wedagedara, said in a telephone interview that he couldn't arrest people simply because of theological differences. "The problem at the time was between followers of different Islamic sects - Zahran was not a major troublemaker, but he and followers of other sects, including the Sufis, were at loggerheads," Wedagedara said. Zahran found another megaphone: the internet. His Facebook page was taken down after the bombings, but Muslims in the area said his video clips had previously achieved notoriety. His speeches went from denouncing Sufis to "kafirs", or non-believers, in general. Zahran's sister, Mathaniya, said in an interview that she thought "his ideas became more radical from listening to Islamic State views on the Internet". In one undated video, Zahran, in a white tunic and standing in front of an image of flames, boomed in a loud voice: "You will not have time to pick up the remains of blown-up bodies. We'll keep sending those insulting Allah to hell." "HARD TO TAKE" Zahran spoke in Tamil, making his words available to young Muslims clicking on their cellphones in Kattankudy and other towns like it during a period when, in both 2014 and 2018, reports and images spread of Sinhalese Buddhists rioting against Muslims in Sri Lanka. In 2017, Zahran's confrontations boiled over. At a rally near a Sufi community, his followers came wielding swords. At least one man was hacked and hospitalized. The police arrested several people connected to Zahran, including his father and one of his brothers. Zahran slipped away from public view. That December, the mosque Zahran founded released a public notice disowning him. Thaufeek, his friend from school, is now the head. He counted the places that Zahran had been driven away from his school, the Dharul Athar mosque and then, "we ourselves kicked him out, which would have been hard for him to take". The next year, a group of Buddha statues was vandalised in the town of Mawanella, about five hours drive from Kattankudy. There, in the lush mountains of Sri Lanka's interior, Zahran had taken up temporary residence. "He was preaching to kill people," said A.G.M. Anees, who has served as an imam at a small mosque in the area for a decade. "This is not Islam, this is violence." Zahran went into hiding once more. On the Thursday morning before the Easter Sunday bombings, Zahran's sister-in-law knocked on the door of a neighbour who did seamstress work near Kattankudy. She handed over a parcel of fabric and asked for it to be sewn into a tunic by the end of the day. "She said she was going on a family trip," said the neighbour, M.H. Sithi Nazlya. Zahran's sister says that her parents turned off their cellphones on the Friday. On Sunday, when she visited their home, they were gone. She does not know if Zahran arranged for them to be taken somewhere safe. Or why he would have carried out the bombing. But now in Kattankudy, and in many other places, people are talking about Mohamed Hashim Mohamed Zahran. (Reporting by Tom Lasseter and Shri Navaratnam; Additional reporting by Sanjeev Miglani, Shihar Aneez and Alasdair Pal; Editing by John Chalmers and Alex Richardson) Boeing Inc.s (BA) costs to defend lawsuits tied to the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes of its 737 Max 8 aircraft that resulted in the deaths of 346 people remain uncertain as the company issued its quarterly earnings report Wednesday. The company reported a steep drop in first-quarter earnings, its first financial filing since the second fatal crash, in part due to at least $1 billion in setbacks anticipated from the global grounding of its most profitable jetliner. The report referenced undetermined potential litigation costs based on the two crashes, saying We cannot reasonably estimate a range of loss, if any, that may result given the ongoing status of these lawsuits, investigations, and inquiries. Shortly after takeoff from Jakarta, Indonesia on October 29, Lion Air Flight 610 crashed into the Java Sea. Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 similarly crashed shortly after takeoff from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on March 10. Boeing did not respond to an email from Yahoo Finance asking how many crash-related lawsuits have been filed. However, a search of court documents and news reports shows the company is facing at least 34 claims from victims families and one claim seeking class certification on behalf of shareholders. The claims allege Boeing is responsible for losses after installing an unsafe anti-stall system, called MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System), on its 737 Max 8 planes, suspected to have played a role in both crashes. Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg said it was apparent the system had been activated in both crashes. Boeing 737 Max 8 lawsuits Liability will not truly be in dispute here. Boeing is at fault. Their equipment failed. Their planes crashed twice, Mark Lindquist, an attorney with the Herrmann Law Firm who is representing the families of 26 victims of the Lion Air crash, told Yahoo Finance. Other foreseeable complaints could come from airlines that have been not only forced to ground all 737 Max 8 aircraft, but also must calculate whether consumers will be willing to fly on the troubled jets, if regulators re-certify the model as airworthy. That calculation could impact whether airlines seek to cancel or modify purchase contracts. Story continues According to the Capa Fleet Database, Boeing had delivered 378 MAX 8 aircraft, globally as of March 11, the day after the Ethiopian crash, at which time another 5,526 were on order. List price for the MAX 8 was $117.1 million in 2018. Added to the uncertainty of potential expenses for Boeing are pending regulator probes. The U.S. Justice Department initiated a criminal investigation into Boeings Federal Aviation Administration certification, as well as how it marketed its 737 Max 8 planes. The U.S. Department of Transportations Office of Inspector General is also conducting an inquiry. Shareholders say Boeing misled investors On April 9, the lawsuit seeking class certification was brought on behalf of shareholders who purchased Boeing stock between January 8, 2019 and March 21, 2019. The proposed class period covers a time frame beginning after the Lion Air crash, and extending beyond the Ethiopian Airlines crash, when Boeings stock experienced a steep decline. According to the complaint, Boeings share price dropped as the truth began to emerge that its new automated anti-stall system may not have been fully disclosed to pilots. A man offers lays a flower at portraits of victims of the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX crash. (Photo by EDUARDO SOTERAS / AFP) (Photo credit should read EDUARDO SOTERAS/AFP/Getty Images) A preliminary report issued by Ethiopian regulators said an investigation clearly showed that the Ethiopian Airlines Pilots who were commanding [the Ethiopian Airlines flight] followed Boeing's recommended and FAA's approved emergency procedures, yet could not prevent the planes nosedive. Investigations to determine definitive causes for the crashes have not been completed. The shareholder suit, filed in federal district court for the Northern District of Illinois, claims Boeing violated securities laws by failing to disclose the MCAS issue following the Lion Air crash. Defendants misled investors about the sustainability of Boeings core operation its Commercial Airplanes segment by touting its growth prospects and profitability, raising guidance, and maintaining that the Boeing 737 Max was the safest airplane to fly in the skies, the lawsuit claims. In an email to Yahoo Finance, Boeing said it would not comment on the class action litigation. More victims lawsuits to come At least 29 wrongful death claims have been filed in U.S. courts against Boeing on behalf of victims of the Lion Air crash that killed all 189 people on board. At least five U.S. lawsuits have been initiated over the Ethiopian Airlines crash that resulted in the deaths of all 157 passengers and crew. Very few have been filed thus far, Thomas Demetrio, a plaintiffs attorney who has represented the families of multiple air crash victims, including those of Lion Air crash victims, told Yahoo Finance. Im sure there will be more to come. Lindquist said Lion Air has illegally sought consent from victims families to settle legal claims, including those they may have against Boeing and other potential defendants, by coupling a proposed liability release with a unique Indonesian law that requires airline carriers to pay roughly $94,000 U.S. dollars to crash victims families without needing to show fault. The lawyers for Lion Air offered different families slightly more than [the required amount] and in exchange asked these victims families to sign away all their legal rights, not only against Lion Air, but against Boeing, and literally hundreds of other corporate entities, Lindquist said. At some point, Boeings going to try to move the cases out of the United States to Indonesia, Lindquist added, though he says he is confident the litigation will remain in the U.S. because evidence concerning the allegedly defective equipment is located in the U.S. and because the U.S. has a significant interest in the safety of planes manufactured within its jurisdiction. The second crash could prove more costly for Boeing to settle wrongful death claims if the company is found to have known about, and failed to address, a safety issue that became apparent after the first crash. Demetrio said he is waiting to hear the outcome of the FAA and international investigations before filing a complaint on behalf of victims of the Ethiopian Airlines crash. Lion Air victims The Herrmann Law Group filed a claim on behalf of 17 Lion Air crash victims in King County, Washington, where Boeing is headquartered and where its 737 Max 8 is manufactured. The case, since moved to the federal district court for the Northern District of Illinois, now includes 24 families. The Herrmann firm expects to add two more victims to the litigation. Soerjanto Tjahjono (R), the head of Indonesia's national transportation safety committee (KNKT) and Nurcahyo (L), head of the flight accident sub-committee of KNKT, brief journalists during a press conference about the Lion Air Boeing 737 Max 8 crash in 2018, in Jakarta on March 21, 2019. (Photo by BAY ISMOYO / AFP) (Photo credit should read BAY ISMOYO/AFP/Getty Images) The estate of one victim, Rohmanir Pandi Sagala, who died in the Lion Air crash filed a federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The father of Indonesian man, Dr. Rio Nanda Putrama, filed a wrongful death lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Cook County. Deceased Lion Air passengers Rudi Roni Lumbantoruan and Remand Ramadhan are represented by their families who also filed wrongful death actions on behalf of their estates in federal district court in the Northern District of Illinois. Lion Air co-pilot, Harvino, who died in the Java Sea crash, is represented in a lawsuit filed by his family in December. Ethiopian Airlines victims The first wrongful death action filed in the U.S. based on the Ethopian Airlines crash was brought in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, where Boeing is headquartered, by the family of 24-year-old, Samya Stumo, the grandniece of former presidential candidate, Ralph Nader. The family of 31-year-old victim, Jackson Musoni, a Rwandan man who died in the Ethopian crash, filed a wrongful death lawsuit claiming Boeings MCAS system was defectively designed. American victim Mucaad Hussein Abdalla is also among victims whose family has sued Boeing, alleging the company actively concealed the nature of the automated system defects. A similar action was filed by siblings of a 29-year-old engineer, George Kabau. Kabaus family hopes that by filing an action Boeing will be forced to release documents, including communications, concerning its 737 Max aircraft model. Minnesota resident Mucaad Siraaj Hussein Abdalla, 31, was among the victims of Ethiopian Airlines whose family filed a complaint in federal court. Among cases filed on behalf of crash victims, Boeing faces claims of wrongful death, product liability, negligence, failure to warn, and civil conspiracy. Some litigants who have also filed claims against Lion Air or Ethiopian Airlines, as well as the FAA, and Rosemount Aerospace which manufactured the MCAS sensor. Boeing had an opportunity to tell the world We care about you by grounding these planes. Instead theyre still trying to cast guilt or fault on these pilots of both aircraft, Demetrio said. Its very clear to me that the PR and legal teams are not working together at Boeing. In its quarterly filing Wednesday, Boeing scrapped its prior estimates saying, previously issued 2019 guidance does not reflect 737 MAX impacts. The company said it would issue new guidance on a future date. Boeing has not said when its 737 Max 8 model will be permitted to fly. See also: Boeing faces a very, very serious criminal probe Heres what to expect Alexis Keenan is a New York-based reporter for Yahoo Finance. She previously worked for CNN and is a former litigation attorney. Follow on Twitter @alexiskweed. RIO DE JANEIRO, April 26 (Reuters) - Brazil's government is not currently considering privatizing state-run oil producer Petroleo Brasileiro SA, but President Jair Bolsonaro has shown openness to the idea for the first time, the nation's economy minister said on Friday. Addressing reporters after meeting with Argentine Finance Minister Nicolas Dujovne, Economy Minister Paulo Guedes added that he is working on a program to make domestic natural gas cheaper, which should result in a downward price "shock" in 30 to 60 days. Earlier in April, Bolsonaro said he had "initial sympathy" for the idea of privatizing Petrobras, as the firm is known, a shift in tone from prior statements. (Reporting by Rodrigo Viga Gaier; Writing by Gram Slattery; Editing by Christian Plumb) BT has been operating in Ireland since 2001. Photo: Reuters Telecoms giant BT (BT-A.L) is planning to auction off its Irish unit for around 400m ($515.6m) in the wake of the accounting scandal in its Italian division. The move would mark a retreat from Ireland for the 22bn group, which has operated there since 2001. In 2018, BTs 600-person Irish company, which mainly handles corporate customers, made a profit of 34m (29m) on sales of 425m (368m). In addition to its connectivity, IT outsourcing, and call-centre business in Ireland, BT also owns extensive infrastructure assets in the country, including around 2,500km of fibre-optic cabling. The potential sale of the unit, which was reported by the Telegraph, will be handled by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, which is already assessing first-round bids. BT has not yet been able to offload its scandal-plagued Italian division, whose accounting irregularities have cost it hundreds of millions. Italian prosecutors this week alleged that senior executives at BT were involved in artificially inflating the financial performance of the company. Senior executives in the companys Global Services division have already exited, and Gavin Patterson stepped down as CEO in January amid pressure about revenues. As a result of the scandal, BT has chosen to focus on 800 of its largest corporate accounts and has moved to improve profitability by selling off its network assets across the world. Nearly two decades ago, BT spent billions acquiring Esat Telecom, a joint venture between Norwegian operator Telenor and Irish entrepreneur Denis O'Brien. The mobile division of Esat Telecom formed part of BTs stock market float of O2 in 2001, and BT sold off the rest of its consumer operations in Ireland to Vodafone in 2009. Federal officials have ordered Celadon to pay shareholders $42.2 million in restitution after the company's stock plummeted in the wake of ongoing investigations into the company's past accounting practices. The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana announced on April 25 that the Indianapolis-based truckload and cross-border carrier entered into a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on April 24, as part of a criminal case charging the company with securities fraud. DOJ officials said the case centered on the fact that Celadon had knowingly filed false and misleading statements to investors, and had also falsified books and accounting records to inflate the value of assets involved in four equipment transactions. "Celadon executives misled the investing public for a simple reason: profit," said Assistant Attorney General Benczkowski in a statement. Celadon announced on April 25 that it had also agreed to a $7.5 million settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on a final judgment that permanently prohibits the company from violating certain SEC regulations. The company said the SEC the settlement is fully satisfied by the DPA. The DOJ and SEC settlements mark "an important milestone" said Celadon CEO Paul Svindland. "We have now settled the governmental investigations and other legal proceedings related to the events that arose under prior management," Svindland said in a statement. "We appreciate the government's recognition of the significant changes we have made, our ongoing commitment to legal and regulatory compliance, and our significant cooperation in the investigations. With these legal issues resolved, we will focus on continuing to strengthen our corporate controls and procedures and pursuing a long-term capital structure and the operational turnaround of our core, asset-based truckload transportation business." According to Celadon, the DPA requires an initial payment of $5 million within 90 days and final payment of any remaining balance on June 30, 2024. In addition, on or prior to October 28 in calendar years 2020-2023, Celadon will pay toward the restitution amount 50 percent of any remaining excess cash flow generated during the fiscal year (ended June 30) immediately preceding such dates, "after first paying all expenses and making all required payments to its term loan and revolving lenders," it stated. The company noted the DPA does not require paying a criminal fine. Story continues Celadon's stock was down almost 5 percent to $2.30 per share by mid-day April 25 after news of the agreement. According to the DOJ, Celadon's equipment leasing subsidiary, Quality Companies (recently divested), which had grown to 11,000 tractors and trucks in 2016, began to struggle that year due to the market slowdown, with much of the equipment sitting idle and overvalued by "tens of millions of dollars." Instead of reporting this to investors, however, members of Celadon's and Quality's senior management team "participated in a scheme that resulted in Celadon falsely reporting inflated profits and inflated assets to the investing public through Celadon's financial statements," the DOJ said. Between approximately June and October in 2016, company officials made a series of trades to dispose of aging and unused trucks using invoices "purposely inflated well above market value" to avoid disclosing the losses. "Celadon ultimately used these invoices and inflated truck values to hide millions of dollars of losses from investors," according to the DOJ. Federal officials also pointed out that beginning in approximately January 2017, in response to an independent audit of financial misconduct, members of the management of Celadon and Quality falsely represented to auditors that the transactions were done at fair market value and weren't trades. "Celadon's auditor ultimately withdrew its audit opinion for certain Celadon financial statements," DOJ stated. "The resulting disclosure by Celadon of the auditor's withdrawal caused a significant drop in the price of Celadon's stock, which resulted in investors losing tens of millions of dollars." The latest development in Celadon's legal issues comes less than two weeks after the company announced the sale of Celadon Logistics, its freight brokerage and managed transportation business, as part of its ongoing strategy to simplify its business and reduce debt. 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. VICTOR, N.Y., April 26, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Constellation Brands, Inc. (NYSE:STZ and STZ.B), a leading beverage alcohol company, today announced it has appointed Robert Hanson as the companys new Executive Vice President and President, Wine & Spirits. Hanson previously served as a member of Constellations Board of Directors from February 27, 2013 to April 24, 2019. Constellations Board accepted Hansons resignation from the Board prior to his acceptance of this new role with the company. Hanson will officially assume this new role on June 3, 2019. Roberts strategic orientation, brand-building abilities in high-end segments, understanding of global operations, and leadership capabilities have been a huge benefit to our Board of Directors over the past six years, said Bill Newlands, President and Chief Executive Officer. He will bring valuable perspective to our Wine & Spirits team that will help enhance our efforts to build strong brands consumers love, while delivering industry-leading growth and shareholder value in the years ahead. Hanson brings extensive consumer product goods and senior management experience to this role, having served as Chief Executive Officer at John Hardy Global Limited, a leading global luxury jewelry brand, where he will continue to serve as the companys Board Chair. During his tenure at John Hardy, Hanson played an instrumental role in evolving the companys strategy by strengthening its presence in the U.S. market, developing a line of distinctive artisan-crafted luxury products that resonate with todays high-end jewelry customers, and launching differentiated marketing campaigns and influencer programs that helped extend the brands reach and foster meaningful connections with new customers. Prior to joining John Hardy, Hanson also served as Chief Executive Officer at American Eagle Outfitters and Global Brand President at Levi Strauss & Co. I have developed a deep admiration and respect for Constellation Brands, its talented team members, and the companys iconic beverage alcohol portfolio over the years, said Hanson. In particular, Constellations Wine & Spirits strategy and portfolio of brands is highly aligned with evolving consumer trends and has tremendous potential and a very bright future ahead. I look forward to working with Bill Newlands and the rest of the team to capitalize on the opportunity that lies ahead and help drive the next phase of growth at Constellation. Story continues About Constellation Brands Constellation Brands (NYSE:STZ and STZ.B), a Fortune 500 company, is a leading international producer and marketer of beer, wine and spirits with operations in the U.S., Mexico, New Zealand, Italy and Canada. Constellation is the No. 3 beer company in the U.S. with high-end, iconic imported beer brands such as the Corona and Modelo brand families and Pacifico. Its high-quality, wine and spirits brands include the Robert Mondavi and The Prisoner Wine Company brand families, Kim Crawford, Ruffino, Meiomi and SVEDKA Vodka. The companys portfolio also includes a collection of highly-rated, wine brands such as SIMI and Mount Veeder Winery wine brands, High West Whiskey and Casa Noble Tequila, as well as new wine innovations such as Cooper & Thief and Spoken Barrel. Based in Victor, N.Y., the company believes that industry leadership involves a commitment to brand building, our trade partners, the environment, our investors and to consumers around the world who choose our products when celebrating big moments or enjoying quiet ones. Since its founding in 1945, Constellations ability to see, meet and stay ahead of shifting consumer preferences and trends across total beverage alcohol has fueled our success and made us the No. 1 growth contributor in beverage alcohol in the U.S. To learn more, follow us on Twitter @cbrands and visit www.cbrands.com . MEDIA CONTACTS INVESTOR RELATIONS CONTACTS Mike McGrew 773-251-4934 michael.mcgrew@cbrands.com Patty Yahn-Urlaub 585-678-7483 patty.yahn-urlaub@cbrands.com Amy Martin 585-678-7141 amy.martin@cbrands.com Bob Czudak 585-678-7170 bob.czudak@cbrands.com Tom Conaway 585-678-7503 thomas.conaway@cbrands.com A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/9ec824d9-bdee-4960-8532-daf58248ac1e A downloadable PDF copy of this news release enhanced with multimedia links can be found here: http://ml.globenewswire.com/Resource/Download/b73d5302-4ec2-414d-89c0-7004d8b51b0d By Andres Gonzalez, Martinne Geller and Agnieszka Barteczko MADRID/LONDON/WARSAW, April 26 (Reuters) - Private equity firm CVC Capital Partners is in talks with potential bidders about a possible sale of its Continental Foods business, which could be worth as much as 1 billion euros ($1.12 billion), five sources familiar with the matter said. Among those interested in the packaged soup and sauce business are Spanish food group Agrolimen and Polish group Maspex, according to three of the sources, who declined to be identified as the situation is private. Agrolimen has shown interest in Continental Foods previously. CVC, Maspex and Continental Foods declined to comment. Agrolimen could not be reached, though its GB Foods business declined to comment. Continental, home to brands like Liebig in France and Erasco in Germany, is the latest in a string of packaged food assets to come on the block as consumer tastes are moving away from processed food. Companies including Nestle, Unilever and Campbell Soup have all pursued divestitures as they try to boost profits and efficiency in an increasingly competitive market. CVC bought Continental in late 2013 from Campbell Soup for 400 million euros. It tried to sell the business in 2017, but was unsuccessful. Barcelona-based Agrolimen is the frontrunner in the unofficial process launched by CVC, according to two of the sources. The Spanish company has two businesses - GB Foods, which makes Gallina Blanca soup and Grand d'Italia pasta with revenue of 758 million euros in 2018, and Affinity Pet Care, the world's sixth largest pet food company, according its website. Maspex is a leading producer of juices and drinks in central and eastern Europe and also sells pasta, cereal and jams. ($1 = 0.8959 euros) (Editing by Jane Merrman) Democratic 2020 contender Pete Buttigieg will return donations from lobbyists, campaign says Democratic presidential contender Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, will return thousands of dollars donated to his campaign by registered federal lobbyists and will not accept such contributions any longer, his campaign said Friday. Buttigieg faced mounting pressure from his party's progressive base to disavow lobbyist money. He was the last major Democrat running for president to swear it off. Democratic presidential contender Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, will return thousands of dollars donated to his campaign by registered federal lobbyists and will not accept such contributions any longer, his campaign said Friday. Buttigieg faced mounting pressure from his party's progressive base to disavow lobbyist money. He was the last major Democrat running for president to swear it off. "Mayor Pete will not be influenced by special-interest money, and we understand that making this promise is an important part of that commitment," campaign manager Mike Schmuhl wrote in an email to supporters. The campaign said it will return $30,250 from 39 individuals that it had received so far. It will also bar registered lobbyists from serving as bundlers a type of major fundraiser. Like other Democratic presidential campaigns, Buttigieg also rejects money from fossil fuel industry executives and political action committees tied to corporations, a pledge Schmuhl re-iterated in the email to supporters. "We understand that making this decision and being vocal about our values is important; that the decision means more than just whether or not we are willing to accept money from a specific individual," Schmuhl wrote. Buttigieg's campaign has attracted enthusiasm from a number of top Democratic fundraisers since it launched in late January. One early supporter was Steve Elmendorf, CNBC has reported , a registered lobbyist who raised funds for Hillary Clinton during the last presidential race. Story continues Observers were waiting to see whether former Vice President Joe Biden would take lobbyist money. On Thursday, Biden officially entered the race and his campaign said it will not. Critics, however, including liberal Democratic contenders Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, have questioned Biden's attempt to distance himself from K Street. Hours after entering the race, Biden attended a fundraiser at the home of Comcast executive David Cohen, who oversees the firm's lobbying arm. Buttigieg's campaign has quickly gained steam, ascending from essentially zero name recognition to the top levels of the crowded Democratic field in a matter of weeks. The campaign raised $7 million in the first quarter of 2019 , according to filings submitted to the Federal Election Commission. WATCH: Buttigieg on the future of American capitalism More From CNBC The launch of the highly anticipated Digitex Futures platform has been postponed until further notice, with the associated DGTX token plummeting in price as a result. The commission-free exchange had been aiming to debut on 30th April. But Founder and CEO Adam Todd has now released an explainer video and public apology. Development projects are often delayed due to various reasons. However, the Digitex team is fully aware that its credibility and reputation are now in question. After missing the Beta launch deadline earlier in the year, the company was extremely cautious about putting out the official launch date, he said. According to Todd, the 30th April date was announced only after extensive and exhaustive discussions with the new development team Spotware, The launch of the highly anticipated Digitex Futures platform has been postponed until further notice, with the associated DGTX token plummeting in price as a result. The commission-free exchange had been aiming to debut on 30th April. But Founder and CEO Adam Todd has now released an explainer video and public apology. Development projects are often delayed due to various reasons. However, the Digitex team is fully aware that its credibility and reputation are now in question. After missing the Beta launch deadline earlier in the year, the company was extremely cautious about putting out the official launch date, he said. According to Todd, the 30th April date was announced only after extensive and exhaustive discussions with the new development team Spotware, to which Digitex had outsourced the final build of the exchange. However, despite understanding and agreeing to the specifications given to them for the functionality of the exchange and the timeframe, the Cyprus-based developers who had (until now) an unblemished reputation for building robust exchange software, were unable to deliver. I have been totally blindsided by this, really, really let down by Spotware, Todd claimed in an online post listing a series of problems and flaws that have delayed the launch. Not going back to a blank page So, where does Digitex go from here? After the huge error of outsourcing its exchange technology to Spotware, the company says that it will not now attempt to develop an exchange from scratch. It insists that it has a well-built, fully documented codebase and will soon have a full development team once again working on bringing that to market as fast as possible. The plan is to have a robust and launchable exchange in several months from now. Were not going back to a blank page, we have a code base that we built in Dublin. We were not happy with the time frame, which is why we went with Spotware, but we are now going to use the original code base and build up a team around that. Spotware did not respond to our request for comment. The post Digitex Futures boss hits out at Spotware as platform launch date is delayed appeared first on Coin Rivet. The two parties originally settled the charges in September, but the SEC later sued Musk saying he violated the terms of that agreement. Tesla(TSLA) CEO Elon Musk has reached an agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission over his use of Twitter, according to an amended filing in U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York. The late Friday agreement, which still needs to be approved by a judge, lays out exactly what kind of information requires formal legal review before being shared. This oversight process is now required for the company's blog, statements made on investor calls, as well as social media posts for material information. The filing laid out the following items in that list: the Company's financial condition, statements, or results, including earnings or guidance; potential or proposed mergers, acquisitions, dispositions, tender offers,or joint ventures; production numbers or sales or delivery numbers (whether actual, forecasted, or projected) that have not been previously published via pre-approved written communications issued by the Company ("Official Company Guidance") or deviate from previously published Official Company Guidance; new or proposed business lines that are unrelated to then-existing business lines (presently includes vehicles, transportation, and sustainable energy products); projection, forecast, or estimate numbers regarding the Company's business that have not been previously published in Official Company Guidance or deviate from previously published Official Company Guidance; events regarding the Company's securities (including Musk's acquisition or disposition of the Company's securities), credit facilities, or financing or lending arrangements; nonpublic legal or regulatory findings or decisions; any event requiring the filing of a Form 8-K by the Company with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including: - a change in control; or - a change in the Company's directors; any principal executive officer, president, principal financial officer, principal accounting officer, principal operating officer, or any person performing similar functions, or any named executive officer; or such other topics as the Company or the majority of the independent members of its Board of Directors may request, if it or they believe pre-approval of communications regarding such additional topics would protect the interests of the Company's shareholders; Tesla did not immediately reply to a request for comment. Story continues Shares of Tesla gained about 0.9% in postmarket trading. The stock had shed 5% during the normal session and has fallen 29% so far in 2019. Friday's agreement "removes an overhang" for Tesla shareholders, said Dan Ives, managing director for equity research at Wedbush Securities. "Some feared the SEC situation was not going to be resolved favorably so this resolution is a sigh of relief for the bulls. Tesla has enough bad news on its plate so this removes one headache for the Street with the focus now core demand and profitability," he said. This superseding agreement settles a dispute between the SEC and Musk about whether the Tesla chief violated the terms of their original deal in which he had agreed to clear his tweets containing material information about the company before posting. The SEC had asserted that Musk never sought clearance for any tweet. The U.S. regulatory agency had claimed that Musk broke the terms of that agreement in February when he tweeted about Tesla production numbers for 2019. The SEC first charged Musk last year, alleging he made fraudulent statements on Twitter. On Aug. 7, Musk tweeted that he had "funding secured" to take Tesla private at $420 per share. In the first deal, Musk had also agreed to pay a civil penalty of $20 million and forfeit his role as chairman of the board for at least three years. The company also paid a $20 million fine. CNBC's Lora Kolodny contributed to this report. * Most EU states want to pursue Belt and Road together -minister * China is Europe's partner and competitor at same time -minister * Europe needs to have own connectivity strategy -minister (Recasts, adds comment from Altmaier spokesman) By Tom Daly BEIJING, April 26 (Reuters) - Major European Union countries want to deal with China as a group rather than sign bilateral agreements as individual states, German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said on Friday, attending a summit in Beijing on China's Belt and Road plan. European countries have generally signalled their willingness to participate in China's programme to re-create the old Silk Road joining China with Asia and Europe. But key states like France and Germany have said China must in turn improve access and fair competition for foreign firms. Italy in March became the first major Western government to back China's initiative, even as some EU leaders cautioned Rome against rushing into the arms of Beijing. Nonetheless, Altmaier said Germany, France, Spain and the United Kingdom had shown at the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing on Friday that the EU was "in its great majority" united in its belief that "we can only implement our positions together." "In the big EU states we have agreed that we don't want to sign any bilateral memorandums but together make necessary arrangements between the greater European Economic Area and the economic area of Greater China," Altmaier said when asked if he could see Germany signing a similar bilateral agreement to Italy. A spokesman for Altmaier's office later said he was talking about general arrangements and not specifically the Belt and Road. The minister said he was encouraged by Chinese President Xi Jinping's pledge to pursue free trade, multilateralism and sustainability as part of Belt and Road. "We will take this promise seriously" and make suggestions on how to achieve these goals in both Asia and Europe, he said. China is a partner and a competitor at the same time and the EU must define its interests, Altmaier said. "And for that we need an industry strategy. For that we need our own connectivity strategy," he added. (Reporting by Tom Daly; writing by Beijing Monitoring Desk; editing by Darren Schuettler) Oslo, 26 April 2019: Scatec Solar continued to deliver strong growth and solid financial results in first quarter 2019 with proportionate revenues of NOK 1,528 million (572), and EBITDA of NOK 315 million (109). Power production reached its highest level ever with 133 GWh on proportionate basis, almost doubling production compared to the same period last year. First quarter revenues and EBITDA increased almost threefold compared to the same quarter last year. This reflects continued high construction activities in the Development & Construction segment with revenues of NOK 1,297 million (417), EBITDA of NOK 159 million (15) and a gross margin of 14%. In the Power Production segment, it was the first full quarter of production for the new plants in Brazil and Malaysia which both contributed to increased revenues and EBITDA. We continue our solid deliveries in the first quarter with high construction activity on four continents and significant project development activity. With the first 65 MW in Egypt grid connected in April, our installed capacity reached 649 MW, and we plan to grid connect substantial new capacity in the next few quarters. With continued strong market growth, we will utilise our market position to further grow a diversified business, says CEO of Scatec Solar Raymond Carlsen. Scatec Solar's first quarter consolidated revenues were NOK 327 million (289), and EBITDA reached NOK 242 million (150). For further details, please see the attached first quarter report and presentation. A presentation of the results will be held today at 08.00 at Hyres Hus, Stortingsgata 20, Oslo. The presentation and Q&A session can also be followed through a live webcast from our website www.scatecsolar.com . For further information, please contact: Mikkel Trud, CFO tel: +47 976 99 144 mikkel.torud@scatecsolar.com Ingrid Aarsnes, VP Communication & IR tel: +47 950 38 364 ingrid.aarsnes@scatecsolar.com About Scatec Solar Scatec Solar is an integrated independent solar power producer, delivering affordable, rapidly deployable and sustainable clean energy worldwide. A long- term player, Scatec Solar develops, builds, owns, operates and maintains solar power plants and has an installation track record of more than 1 GW. The company has a total of 1.7 GW in operation and under construction in Argentina, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Honduras, Jordan, Malaysia, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Africa and Ukraine. Story continues With an established global presence and a significant project pipeline, the company is targeting a capacity of 3.5 GW in operation and under construction by end of 2021. Scatec Solar is headquartered in Oslo, Norway and listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol 'SSO'. To learn more, visit www.scatecsolar.com . This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to Section 5-12 the Norwegian Securities Trading Act Attachments (Bloomberg) -- Hundreds of Google staffers met on Friday and discussed what activists allege is a frequent consequence of criticizing the company: Retaliation. Two leaders of recent company protests said theyve been mistreated by managers and collected similar stories from other workers at the worlds largest internet company. The claims of retaliation are the latest in a series of internal upheavals over issues ranging from the use of artificial intelligence for military purposes to executive misconduct and the rights of contract workers. Alphabet Inc.s Google set the standard in Silicon Valley for employing and retaining scores of highly-trained computer scientists. But the recent troubles have hurt its reputation. Employees registered a decline of faith in Googles executives in recent internal surveys. Several software coders refused to work on a project for the Pentagon last year, spiking the contract, and some resigned in protest. In November, several employees organized a company walkout over payouts to executives facing sexual assault allegations. Around that time, the activists gathered 350 accounts of employee concerns. On Monday, two of those organizers, Meredith Whittaker and Claire Stapleton, wrote an email saying Google had punished them because of their activism. The two asked staffers to join them on Friday to discuss the companys alleged actions, and during the meeting they shared more than a dozen other stories of internal retribution that they had collected over the past week. Like many meetings at Google, participants could watch via a video live-stream and submit questions and comments. High Stakes Now more than ever we need to reject retaliation, and reject the culture of fear and silence that retaliation creates, read an email from the event organizers, which Bloomberg News viewed. The stakes are too high. We prohibit retaliation in the workplace and publicly share our very clear policy, a Google spokeswoman said in an emailed statement. To make sure that no complaint raised goes unheard at Google, we give employees multiple channels to report concerns, including anonymously, and investigate all allegations of retaliation. Story continues Whittaker is a researcher at Google specializing in artificial intelligence. She co-founded a research group, AI Now, that is affiliated with New York University. Whittaker wrote to her colleagues in an email that she was told she would have to abandon my work on AI ethics. Stapleton, who works in the marketing department at YouTube, alleged that she was informed she was being demoted and later told to take a medical leave she didnt need. After she retained a lawyer, Stapleton said, the company walked back my demotion, at least on paper, but the environment remains hostile and I consider quitting nearly every day. Sick Leave In the email, Stapleton said that she arranged a meeting with Googles human resources division after flagging changes to her job. She was told to go on sick leave. When she replied that she wasnt sick, Stapleton wrote, the HR director said: We put people on it all the time. On Friday, Whittaker and Stapleton shared additional information about their situations in an internal post to colleagues. Whittaker said that her manager, whom she did not name, told her that her AI ethics work was no longer a fit. The manager said Googles cloud division had plans to massively increase sales by being everywhere Lockheed is, according to Whittaker. Thats a reference to the defense company Lockheed Martin Corp. Googles work with the U.S. military was the subject of employee protests last year. A Google spokeswoman declined to comment on the mention of the cloud business. Whittaker tried to get transferred to another Google AI team, a move she said was supported by Jeff Dean, the companys head of artificial intelligence. Soon after, Whittaker was involved with another protest: an employee petition against the appointment of Kay Coles James to an AI ethics counsel organized by Google. The company ended up scrapping the group. Two weeks after the petition, Whittaker said she learned that her planned transfer had been canceled and that her role at Google would be changing. Continuing my work at AI Now and my work in AI ethics was not on the table, she wrote. Oona King, Googles director of diversity strategy, rejected at least one of the employees claims. I can genuinely say when Ive looked at the details of one of the cases, it isnt as it appears here, she wrote, according to a message viewed by Bloomberg News. #NotOkGoogle Executives at YouTube and Google Cloud sent messages to staffers earlier this week disputing the accounts of Stapleton and Whittaker, according to a person who had seen them. Several current and former employees took to Twitter on Friday to register complaints using the hashtag #NotOkGoogle, a riff on the companys virtual assistant product. This is just the tip of the iceberg, wrote Alex Hanna, a member of Googles cloud division. I am grateful that I quit Google, wrote Liz Fong-Jones, an engineer and outspoken critic who left the company earlier this year. This is a pattern, these are systemic issues, and we will change it only by speaking up and acting together, Stapleton wrote in the email. Google management publicly endorsed the employee walkout in the fall, giving the blessing for staff to vent frustration. But as dissent continued to rise inside Google, the companys lawyers urged the U.S. government to give companies more leeway to reign in rebellious employees from organizing over workplace email. NLRB Complaint Google made that argument in an ongoing case before the National Labor Relations Board involving alleged retaliatory discipline against an employee. On Monday, a new complaint was filed with the agency accusing Google of retaliating against staff for discussing and protesting working conditions. The filing alleges that within the last six months, one or more employees suffered transfer, demotion, or other adverse action, and that the company acted in order to discourage employees from engaging in the type of collective action that is protected by U.S. federal law. The identity of the person who made the filing was redacted in the copy obtained by Bloomberg News via a Freedom of Information Act request. The matter has been assigned to the NLRBs regional office in New York. (Updates with information on NLRB complaint at end.) To contact the reporters on this story: Mark Bergen in San Francisco at mbergen10@bloomberg.net;Josh Eidelson in Washington at jeidelson@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jillian Ward at jward56@bloomberg.net, Emily Biuso, Virginia Van Natta For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com 2019 Bloomberg L.P. ROME (Reuters) - The Italian government denied media speculation on Friday it had sought to tempt infrastructure group Toto Holding to invest in loss-making airline Alitalia, dampening hopes that the flag carrier could soon be rescued. The office of Economic Development Minister Luigi Di Maio denied a report by news agency Ansa which said the minister and one of Toto's controlling family shareholders had met in southern Italy this week to discuss Alitalia. "There have been no contacts between Luigi Di Maio and the Toto group on the matter of Alitalia," a spokesman said. The government is desperate to orchestrate a rescue of Alitalia to avoid mass layoffs at the airline. Alitalia, which has been under special administration since 2017 when workers rejected the latest in a long line of rescue plans, needs to find investors ready to inject fresh funds by April 30. State railway operator Ferrovie dello Stato and U.S. carrier Delta Air Lines are ready to contribute to a new rescue bid worth around 1 billion euros (863 million pounds), but there is still a shortfall of around 400 million euros. The government has said it could invest around 145 million euros in equity in any rescue vehicle. A person familiar with the matter said on Friday that the denial by Di Maio's ministry appeared to pour cold water on media reports that the Toto family, which invested in a previous Alitalia rescue in 2008, was set to inject more money into the ailing airline. Daily newspaper La Repubblica reported on Friday that Toto Holding was close to agreeing to invest in Alitalia and could make an announcement as early as next Tuesday. Toto Holding declined to comment on Friday. (Reporting by Angelo Amante and Silvia Aloisi; Editing by Mark Bendeich) 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\ By Charlotte Greenfield WELLINGTON (Reuters) - China's Huawei Technologies said Britain's decision to allow the firm a restricted role in building parts of its next-generation telecoms network was the kind of solution it was hoping for in New Zealand, where it has been blocked from 5G plans. Britain will ban Huawei from all core parts of 5G network but give it some access to non-core parts, sources have told Reuters, as it seeks a middle way in a bitter U.S.-China dispute stemming from American allegations that Huawei's equipment could be used by Beijing for espionage. Washington has also urged its allies to ban Huawei from building 5G networks, even as the Chinese company, the world's top producer of telecoms equipment, has repeatedly said the spying concerns are unfounded. In New Zealand, a member of the Five Eyes intelligence sharing network that includes the United States, the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) in November turned down an initial request from local telecommunication firm Spark to include Huawei equipment in its 5G network, but later gave the operator options to mitigate national security concerns. "The proposed solution in the UK to restrict Huawei from bidding for the core is exactly the type of solution we have been looking at in New Zealand," Andrew Bowater, deputy CEO of Huawei's New Zealand arm, said in an emailed statement. Spark said it has noted the developments in Britain and would raise it with the GCSB. The reports "suggest the UK is following other European jurisdictions in taking a considered and balanced approach to managing supplier-related security risks in 5G", Andrew Pirie, Spark's corporate relations lead, said in an email. "Our discussions with the GCSB are ongoing and we expect that the UK developments will be a further item of discussion between us," Pirie added. New Zealand's minister for intelligence services, Andrew Little, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. British culture minister Jeremy Wright said on Thursday that he would report to parliament the conclusions of a government review of the 5G supply chain once they had been taken. Story continues He added that the disclosure of confidential discussions on the role of Huawei was "unacceptable" and that he could not rule out a criminal investigation into the leak. The decisions by Britain and Germany to use Huawei gear in non-core parts of 5G network makes it harder to prove Huawei should be kept out of New Zealand telecommunication networks, said Syed Faraz Hasan, an expert in communication engineering and networks at New Zealand's Massey University He pointed out Huawei gear was already part of the non-core 4G networks that 5G infrastructure would be built on. "Unless there is a convincing argument against the Huawei devices ... it is difficult to keep them away," Hasan said. (Reporting by Charlotte Greenfield; Editing by Himani Sarkar) Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - April 23, 2019) - Iconic Minerals Ltd. (TSXV: ICM) (OTC Pink: BVTEF) (FSE: YQGB) ("Company" or "Iconic") has finalized plans for its 2019 drilling program (the "Drilling Program") at Bonnie Claire. Five drill holes averaging 90 meters (300 feet) depth will be drilled in the southern portion of the project area in an area of anomalous surface lithium values and interpreted faults. The purpose of the Drilling Program is to define shallow lithium mineralization which the Company can utilize for bulk sampling and extend the resource to the south. If results are favorable, one or more of the shallow holes will be deepened to +600 meters (2,000 feet) to further enlarge the resource. A map of the drilling, surface lithium sampling results and interpreted faults can be found on the Company website (www.iconicmineralsltd.com). The Drilling Program is located 2-5 kilometers (1.3-3.1 miles) south of drill hole BC1602 (see map). The shallow holes will be drilled using a tracked or buggy reverse circulation (RC) rig suitable for the salt flats being tested. Down-hole sediment samples will be collected continuously in 6 meter (20 feet) intervals and sent to a geochem lab for analysis. Drilling will be initiated when the wet season has ended and the salt flats dry sufficiently to allow access. This year has seen the fourth wettest season in history. The Bonnie Claire Lithium Property Characteristics: The Property is located within Sarcobatus Valley that is approximately 30 km (19 miles) long and 20 km (12 miles) wide. Quartz-rich volcanic tuffs, that contain anomalous amounts of lithium, occur within and adjacent to the valley. Geochemical analysis of the local salt flats has yielded lithium values up to 340 ppm. The gravity low within the valley is 20 km (12 miles) long, and the current estimates of depth to basement rocks range from 600 to 1,200 meters (2,000 to 4,000 feet). Four drill holes have identified an open ended, 43-101 compliant resource of 28.58 billion kilograms of lithium carbonate equivalent. The drilling that defined the current resource only covered an area of 3.0 km2 (1.2mi2), while previously run MT geophysics show a potentially mineralized area of 27.3 km2 (10.5mi2). Drilling to date has shown strong correlation between the MT results and the lithium mineralization. The thickness of the lithium mineralization is unknown, but drilling indicates it is greater than 600 meters (2,000 feet). The current claim block covers an area of 57.5 km2 (22.2mi2). Further drilling has been permitted and metallurgy to determine the most efficient recovery method is currently in progress. Story continues Richard Kern, Certified Professional Geologist (#11494) and CEO of Iconic is the Qualified Person who has prepared and reviewed this press release in accordance with NI 43-101 reporting standards. On behalf of the Board of Directors SIGNED: "Richard Kern" Richard Kern, President and CEO Contact: Keturah Nathe, VP Corporate Development (604) 336-8614 For further information on ICM, please visit our website at www.iconicmineralsltd.com. The Company's public documents may be accessed at www.sedar.com Forward Statement: This news release includes certain forward-looking statements or information. All statements other than statements of historical fact included in this release are forward-looking statements that involve various risks and uncertainties. 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. Iconic expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise except as otherwise required by applicable securities legislation. 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. Corporate Logo To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/44232 Every day, Wall Street analysts upgrade some stocks, downgrade others, and "initiate coverage" on a few more. But do these analysts even know what they're talking about? Today, we're taking one high-profile Wall Street pick and putting it under the microscope... Canadian pot stocks are on fire. Since the year began, shares of HEXO (NYSEMKT: HEXO) are up 35%, Aurora Cannabis (NYSE: ACB) has gained 71%, and Canopy Growth (NYSE: CGC) has soared 87%. Yesterday evening after close of trading, Canadian financial holding company Desjardins added fuel to that fire with a trio of new buy ratings for all three of these stocks. According to the analyst, a share of Hexo stock that costs $7.65 today could sell for $10.41 -- a 36% profit in just one year. Aurora Cannabis shares now selling for less than $9 could rise a similar 36% to fetch $12.26. And Canopy Growth -- the most expensive pot stock on the market, with a market capitalization of $17.3 billion and a share price of more than $50 -- could tack on an additional 10% and rise to $55.01. All three stocks surged this morning as investors got their first chance to trade on the news -- but it's the reasoning behind why Desjardins is predicting this that should worry you. Marijuana leaf atop a rising stock chart Image source: Getty Images. Slow burn Canadian cannabis sales shot out of the gate after Canada became the first major industrialized nation to legalize recreational marijuana sales in October last year. But as my fellow Fool.com contributor Sean Williams pointed out last month, enthusiasm for legal pot cooled rather quickly, and sales aren't really up to snuff. From legalization to the close of the year, recreational pot sales at Canadian cannabis stores amounted to just $115 million, implying an annualized rate of sale of just $500 million or so -- a far cry from the $4 billion, $5 billion, or even $10 billion market opportunity that some investors were forecasting. Why have Canadian cannabis sales failed to measure up? There are a number of factors at play, ranging from the fact that this is a market in its infancy, and pot producers haven't yet had much time to scale up production -- resulting in a supply crunch -- to delays in Health Canada issuing permits to grow, process, and sell marijuana. Story continues Betting on hype And in making its buy recommendations last night, Desjardins didn't ignore this fact. Acknowledging that early marijuana sales data from Canada has been "underwhelming," Desjardins cites production ramp challenges, as well as logistical and distribution issues as obstacles to overcome, in a note covered by TheFly.com. Nevertheless, Desjardins has decided to recommend HEXO, Aurora Cannabis, and Canopy Growth anyway, arguing that there's still a lot of "hype" regarding the legalization of marijuana in Canada. Furthermore, Desjardins believes the legal marijuana market is a "global" one -- or at least, it will become more and more global as the U.S. and more countries follow Canada's lead and legalize recreational marijuana use within their own borders. But is that really a good reason to buy? Of course, there still remains the question of whether "hype" can outweigh the fact that all three of these companies -- Hexo, Aurora, and yes, even market leader Canopy Growth -- are expected to lose money in the first full year of Canadian legalization, according to analysts polled by S&P Global Market Intelligence. Plus, the global profits that Desjardins is anticipating are far from guaranteed. As Sean pointed out in his March column, in California, legal marijuana sales generated barely half the tax revenue they were expected to in 2018 -- just $345 million when $643 million had been baked into the budget. One of the problems with that thesis: "rampant dried flower oversupply" is driving down prices (and consequently, taxes on sales) in California and other U.S. states that have legalized. This suggests that, even after broader legalization, cannabis companies struggling to earning a profit on marijuana may turn out to be more than just Canadian problem. To borrow the term from Desjardins: It could be a "global" one. More From The Motley Fool Rich Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends HEXO. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. (Bloomberg) -- A regulatory fight over Elon Musks tweeting habit may be over -- at least for now. Tesla Inc.s chief executive officer and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said in a court filing Friday that they are settling a legal dispute over how Musk posts news about his electric-car company, avoiding a decision by a federal judge in New York on whether the billionaire should be held in contempt of court. The SEC and Musk agreed to amend an earlier settlement to add specific topics he cant tweet about or otherwise communicate in writing without advance approval from a Tesla lawyer. They include the companys financial condition, potential mergers or acquisitions, production and sales numbers, new or proposed business lines, projections and forecasts that havent been previously published, and Musks purchase or sale of Tesla securities. This is a clear win for Elon Musk, said Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities in New York. This removes an overhang on the stock because many feared this would not end well for Tesla. The bark ended up being worse than the bite. Theres no structural changes. Tesla shares climbed as much as 1.6 percent to $238.88 at 6:10 p.m. in New York. In regular trading, which ended earlier, the stock had its worst week since Musks effort to take the carmaker private fell apart in August. There was no mention in the court papers filed Friday of any new fines or additional controls on Musk, which had been a possibility. The agreement must be reviewed and approved by U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan before it can take effect. Musk, in an exchange on Twitter hours later, said the foolish things I say are entirely my fault. Responding to a tweet saying his posts are mostly cool, often funny, sometimes random, he replied: Tweet Trouble Musk came under criticism from the SEC after a Feb. 19 tweet that the regulator said violated an October settlement between them, which had ended an earlier brouhaha over his proclamations on Twitter. Musk said he hadnt violated the agreement. Had Musk been found in contempt, the judge had the authority to impose hefty fines and new controls on how he communicates with the public. Story continues At an April 4 hearing, Nathan told both sides to put on your reasonableness pants and gave them two weeks to work something out. She extended the deadline to April 25. Musk and the SEC on that date then asked for five more days to continue discussions. The judge had urged both sides to try to eliminate ambiguities in the earlier settlement, which required Musk to get internal approval before issuing some tweets. By reaching a compromise, Musk avoids more penalties while the SEC affirms the Tesla CEOs obligation not to release misleading information on social media. Musk and the SEC have been fighting since the CEO tweeted Aug. 7 that he had funding secured to take Tesla private, sending the shares surging. After an investigation, the regulator sued, saying Musk had misled investors. Musk and Tesla ended that dispute by agreeing to each pay $20 million, without admitting wrongdoing. Twitter Sitter The regulator argued that Musk was required to have his tweet approved in advance under the terms of the settlement. Musks attorneys countered that the post wasnt material and that the Tesla CEO has been complying with the accord. This past weekend, Musk repeated his February claim, responding to another Twitter users post by tweeting "Tesla will make over 500k cars in next 12 months." Musks social-media troubles dont end with the SEC. In a separate case, a federal judge in Los Angeles on Friday said Musk cant escape a lawsuit by a British cave rescuer who took offense at being called a pedo guy after he ridiculed Musks mini-submarine. The case is U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission v. Musk, 18-cv-08865, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan). (Updates with Musk tweets in seventh paragraph.) --With assistance from Hailey Waller. To contact the reporters on this story: Bob Van Voris in federal court in Manhattan at rvanvoris@bloomberg.net;Dana Hull in San Francisco at dhull12@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Steve Stroth, Elizabeth Wollman For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com 2019 Bloomberg L.P. The state of Ohio is embracing blockchain tech. | Source: Shutterstock By CCN.com: A bill introduced this week in the Ohio House of Representatives urges government entities to adopt blockchain, the technology underpinning bitcoin. Republican state representative Rick Carfagna sponsored the bill. The legislation, called House Bill 220, is part of Ohios plan to provide a legal framework for distributed ledger technology such as blockchain (see text below). Rep. Carfagna did not return CCNs calls for comment. The legislation would enable the establishment of a decentralized online record for transactions such as car titles or hunting licenses, according to Cleveland.com. Ohio has been making strides to become more crypto-friendly as part of a major effort to woo tech entrepreneurs to transform the state into a blockchain hub. ohio blockchain bill house 220 Ohio wants to woo tech entrepreneurs In August 2018, Governor John Kasich signed a bill that recognized the use of blockchain-based transactions as having legal bearing in a court of law. The bill made Ohio one of the first U.S. states to provide legal protection to companies developing new uses for blockchain. Read the full story on CCN.com. FILE PHOTO: The logos of car manufacturers Renault and Nissan are seen in front of a common dealership of the companies in Saint-Avold, France, Jan. 15, 2019. REUTERS/Christian Hartmann/File Photo By Maki Shiraki TOKYO (Reuters) - Renault will propose a plan to create a joint holding company that would give the French carmaker and Japanese partner Nissan equal footing, a person with knowledge of the issue told Reuters. Under the proposal, both firms would nominate an equal number of directors to the new company, which would be headed by Renault Chairman Jean-Dominique Senard, according to the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity as the plan is not public. The proposal would aim for further integration between the two automakers, the source said. The proposal was first reported on Friday by the Nikkei business daily, which said that Renault expects to soon put a plan to Nissan under which ordinary shares in both automakers would be transferred to the new company on a balanced basis. That would effectively dilute the French government's Renault stake to about 7-8 percent from 15 percent. The newly-created company would be headquartered in a third country, such as Singapore, the Nikkei and other Japanese media reported, without citing sources. The proposal comes after the French automaker had approached Nissan with a merger idea ahead of an alliance operational meeting earlier this month, but Nissan CEO Hiroto Saikawa declined to discuss the issue with Senard, according to the Reuters source. He added that the proposal could be modified before it was presented to Nissan. The Financial Times newspaper reported that Nissan and the Japanese government refused to engage in merger talks with Renault and that Saikawa had refused to meet SMBC Nikko bankers appointed by the French carmaker to work on a deal. "I have nothing to say about this. We're not in a position to be discussing (merger issues)," Saikawa told reporters late on Friday. "Improving our financial performance is our top priority." The outlook for the Renault-Nissan alliance - one of the world's leading automaking partnerships - has clouded since the arrest in November of its main architect, Carlos Ghosn, for suspected financial misconduct. A weakening financial performance at Nissan has also sparked concerns that the pursuit of overly ambitious sales targets under Ghosn, particularly in the United States, may have done lasting damage to the carmaker's brand and profitability. Story continues FORECAST SLASHED This week, the Japanese company cut its profit forecast for the year just ended to its lowest in nearly a decade, citing weakness in U.S. operations. Renault has long been vying for a closer merger with Nissan, which it rescued from the brink of bankruptcy two decades ago. Ghosn had been working to achieve deeper integration before his arrest in November. While the automakers have been consolidating many of their operations over the past decade, including procurement and production, many Nissan executives have opposed an all-out merger. Instead, Nissan has argued for a more equal footing with Renault, which holds a 43 percent stake in its bigger partner. Nissan holds a 15 percent stake in Renault. It was unclear whether Renault would hold the casting vote in major decisions at the new company, as it did in Renault-Nissan B.V. (RNBV), a strategic management company jointly held by both companies and which oversaw operations for the partnership. That company was mothballed last month after an internal investigation by Nissan following Ghosn's arrest indicated that RNBV may have been involved with financial misconduct by the former chairman. Nissan's partnership with Mitsubishi Motors, in which it holds a 34 percent stake, would remain unchanged under the new proposal, the Nikkei said. (Reporting by Ran Kim and Naomi Tajitsu; Editing by Christopher Cushing, David Goodman and Joseph Radford) Campus Open House Hosts Dr. Will Roper, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics; Space Symposium Booth Features Campus Virtual Reality Tours; Catalyst Space Accelerator Kicks Off Third Cohort; Catalyst Campus Set to Expand Colorado Springs, April 26, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A busy two weeks of Space-related activities filled Catalyst Campus, including an Open House supported by the Catalyst Campus for Technology and Innovation (CCTI) & the Center for Technology, Research and Commercialization (C-TRAC) and crowned by an exciting and successful visit from Dr. Will Roper, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics. Scheduled to coincide with the 35th Space Symposium, where CCTI and C-TRAC hosted a booth, activities on the Campus ranged from a catered Open House, with tours of facilities normally closed to the public, to the capstone, Dr. Ropers visit, which proved so captivating it lasted an hour longer than originally planned. The nationally acclaimed Catalyst Space Accelerator also kicked off its third cohort in concert with these events, including sending the cohort to do some intense networking at the Space Symposium as part of the Accelerators programming. Finally, Catalyst Campus set the stage for its next phase of growth by announcing an impressively large expansion to the Campus facilities. Catalyst Campus Open House The second annual Catalyst Campus Open House was held Wednesday, April 10, luring Space Symposium attendees with tours of Campus aerospace activities, exhibits by academia, industry and government partners and tenants, and overflowing complimentary hors doeuvres and beverages. Despite a weather forecast that included the words bomb cyclone, Catalyst Campus Executive Director Rich Burchfield was pleased by the attendance: To me, our focus on high quality engagement was really important. In addition to the great visitors, I'm really proud of our new relationship with the Upper Arkansas River Valley Technology Partnership, who had a booth this year, folks down in Canon City who are bringing high tech to the rural areas. They see great value in being teamed up with Catalyst Campus. Story continues Space Symposium Booth The 35th Space Symposium, held each year in The Broadmoor Hotel by the Space Foundation, is considered to be the premier gathering of space professionals in the world. The CCTI and C-TRAC booth was notable for its Virtual Reality Catalyst Campus Tours, whereby visitors could watch an information-filled wild ride through the Campus while wearing a VR headset. Startling in its 3D tangibility, the virtual reality tours were both great fun and an excellent way to showcase this beautiful campus, according to Rich Burchfield, as well as an introduction to the many teaming possibilities inherent to the collaborative ecosystem Catalyst Campus is continuously growing. Assistant Secretary for the Air Force Visits The high point of Space Symposium week was a much-anticipated visit from Dr. Will Roper, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics. During a revelatory tour of the Campus, Rich Burchfield reports that Dr. Roper turned to Catalyst Campus visionary founder, Colorado Springs developer Kevin ONeil, and said, I had no idea how mature Catalyst Campus was. Greatly interested in the innovative work being done by Catalyst Campus two non-profits Catalyst Campus for Innovation and Technology (CCTI) and the Center for Technology, Research and Commercialization (C-TRAC) for various Air Force programs designed to bring technology to the warfighter faster, Dr. Roper was quoted a few days later in the article A New Century Series? Will Roper Takes Air Force Back to the Future praising the innovations represented by the Space CAMP program he toured on Catalyst Campus[1]. When asked about the visit, Campus Executive Director Rich Burchfield waxed eloquent: It was a wonderful opportunity to get to spend quality time with Dr. Roper to see how invested he is in the acquisition community. It was very rewarding to see his appreciation and understanding of how mature the Campus is, both physically and in the programs we are a part of, and for him to see the value of what we bring to the warfighting community, including our ability to draw in the non-traditional businesses and other commercial entities needed to speed up innovation. Catalyst Space Accelerator Kick-Off Dr. Ropers visit ended with a Fireside Chat that included the Catalyst Space Accelerators current and former participants, as well as some members of the advocacy group SmallSat Alliance (http://smallsatalliance.org/). Featuring an informal talk from Dr. Roper, this Fireside Chat was an unexpected privilege extended to the current, third cohort, which kicked off on Tuesday, April 9. Focused on Resilient Commercial Space Communications, the third cohort has already learned about a wide array of topics, meeting with various Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) as well as both their Air Force Sherpas and their Commercial Sherpas. Another exciting highlight for the new cohort was the opportunity for a long visit to the Space Symposium. According to Program Director KiMar Gartman, The Catalyst Space Accelerator team is excited to welcome these companies, who bring amazing innovative technology to the Accelerator and ultimately to DoD and the warfighter. Our community is rallying around to help them succeed in every way. Catalyst Campus Expansion Kevin ONeil, CEO of The ONeil Group, and Catalyst Campus founder and owner, announced early last week that Catalyst Campus will be adding the neighboring structure, 545 E. Pikes Peak Ave., to its footprint, as well as constructing two new buildings: a mixed use structure that will include offices, restaurants and housing, and an office building, thus almost doubling the Campus to 250,000 square feet. Joining the Campus collaborative ecosystem is a high priority for many companies, agencies and organizations, so the current demand for offices has long outstripped supply. Housing and restaurants are envisioned to support and bolster Catalyst Campus future plans, as well as current programs, some of which have residential components.2 This large expansion is a solid expression of Mr. ONeils strong commitment to growing the Campus ecosystem while supporting Colorado/Front Range economic development. * About Catalyst Campus Catalyst Campus for Technology and Innovation (CCTI) is a collaborative ecosystem where industry, small business, entrepreneurs, startups, Academia and venture capital intersect with aerospace and defense industries to create community, spark innovation and stimulate business growth. Located in downtown Colorado Springs, Catalyst Campus provides a neutral environment where the Department of Defense can engage with organizations and technologies from multiple companies as needs and threats emerge in various sectors: aerospace, defense and homeland security, cybersecurity, information technology and other advanced technologies. CCTI is a 501 (C)(3) non-profit. About C-TRAC The Center for Technology, Research, and Commercialization (C-TRAC) is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization that serves our customers by bringing together the latest technologies from government, education, and industry partners. C-TRAC creates relationships that provide the government customer with rapid development, cutting-edge technology and capabilities that ensure our warfighters achieve and maintain superiority. 1 https://breakingdefense.com/2019/04/a-new-century-series-will-roper-takes-air-force-back-to-the-future/ 2 https://gazette.com/business/colorado-springs-space-focus-office-park-doubling-its-size/article_bb203fba-5b1b-11e9-b955-5b642c767ca6.html Attachment Lora Premo Center for Technology, Research and Commercialization 7196596418 lora.premo@c-trac.org Equinix, Inc. EQIX is set to report first-quarter 2019 earnings results on May 1, after the market closes. The companys results will likely reflect year-over-year growth in revenues and funds from operations (FFO) per share. In the last reported quarter, this global connectivity leader delivered a positive surprise of 4.27% in terms of adjusted FFO per share. This was supported by robust top-line growth and solid operating performance. The company witnessed a remarkable streak of beating earnings estimates, especially when looking at the previous four quarters. In fact, Equinix surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate in each of the trailing four quarters, the average positive beat being 4.27%. Equinix, Inc. Price and EPS Surprise Equinix, Inc. Price and EPS Surprise | Equinix, Inc. Quote Lets see how things are shaping up prior to this announcement. Factors at Play A study by Equinix indicated that the Interconnection Bandwidth capacity a measurement of direct and private data exchange between businesses is expected to witness a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 51% from 2017 to 2021 in Asia-Pacific. This will account for more than 27% of global Interconnection Bandwidth. Amid this, Equinix continues expanding its international footprint in strategic markets and strengthen the companys global inter-connection platform. In January, the company announced a new IBX data center in Seoul, South Korea, and concluded the acquisition of a commercial building in Hamburg, Germany, for $11 million. Further, it plans to invest an additional $25 million to redevelop the 130,000-square-foot-property into a facility that will be renamed to Equinix HH1 International Business Exchange (IBX) data center. These acquisitions will likely enable the company to generate higher revenues in these markets. In fact, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for geographic revenues from Asia-Pacific is pegged at $280 million and indicates a year-over-year increase of around 20%. Likewise, revenues from Europe are expected to be up 10.8% year over year to $421 million. Story continues Moreover, the companys focus to expand its footprint in a disciplined and balanced manner along with an improving leverage level enabled it to witness a rating upgrade to "BBB-" by S&P Global Ratings. Equinix projects revenues at $1.342-$1.352 billion for the March-end quarter. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the same is pegged at $1.35 billion. Also, prior to the first-quarter earnings release, the company has been witnessing upward estimate revisions. As such, the Zacks Consensus Estimate of FFO per share for the quarter under review has been revised marginally upward to $5.60 over the past month, reflecting analysts bullish sentiments. Also, it represents year-over-year growth of 7.5%. However, fierce competition from established Internet data-center operators and hyperscale providers might depress the companys margins and revenues. In fact, the weighted average price per cabinet (MMR per cabinet) in Asia-Pacific is expected to be $1,859, down 9.4% year over year. Earnings Whispers Our proven model does not conclusively show that Equinix is likely to beat estimates this quarter. This is because a stock needs to have both a positive Earnings ESP and a favorable Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) for this to happen. But that is not the case here, as you will see below. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before theyre reported with our Earnings ESP Filter. Earnings ESP: Equinix has an Earnings ESP of -2.48% Zacks Rank: Equinix carries a Zacks Rank of 3, currently. Stocks That Warrant a Look While the other players in this space are lined up to report their financial results, below are three stocks, poised to beat on earnings per the proven Zacks model. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. ARE, scheduled to release earnings on Apr 29, has an Earnings ESP of +0.3% and currently carries a Zacks Rank of 2. Mack-Cali Realty Corporation CLI, slated to report first-quarter results on May 1, has an Earnings ESP of +1.2% and holds a Zacks Rank of 3, at present. Welltower, Inc. WELL, scheduled to release earnings on Apr 30, has an Earnings ESP of +0.09% and carries a Zacks Rank of 3, currently. Note: Anything related to earnings presented in this write-up represents funds from operations (FFO) a widely used metric to gauge the performance of REITs. Zacks' Top 10 Stocks for 2019 In addition to the stocks discussed above, would you like to know about our 10 finest buy-and-holds for the year? Who wouldn't? Our annual Top 10s have beaten the market with amazing regularity. In 2018, while the market dropped -5.2%, the portfolio scored well into double-digits overall with individual stocks rising as high as +61.5%. And from 2012-2017, while the market boomed +126.3, Zacks' Top 10s reached an even more sensational +181.9%. See Latest Stocks Today >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Equinix, Inc. (EQIX) : Free Stock Analysis Report Mack-Cali Realty Corporation (CLI) : Free Stock Analysis Report Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. (ARE) : Free Stock Analysis Report Welltower Inc. (WELL) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Following a four-week voting period, Frontier Cooperative and Midwest Farmers Cooperative members approved the unification of their cooperatives. The unification of the two cooperatives will be effective September 1, 2019. Frontier Cooperative passed the unification resolution with 69.30% voting yes. Midwest Farmers Cooperative passed the unification resolution with 70.45% voting yes. Each membership base met Nebraskas state voting requirement for a successful cooperative unification as certified by independent auditing firm of Gardiner Companies. The name of the unified cooperative has not yet been chosen. That decision as well as other work related to the integration of the two companies will take place over the coming months. As a unified company, Frontier and Midwest Farmers will operate approximately 50 grain, agronomy, energy and feed locations across 14 counties in East Central Nebraska. The unified cooperative will be led by current Midwest Farmers Cooperative CEO, Jeremy Wilhelm. The board will be made up of 18 directors, nine from each cooperative. More information regarding the integration process will be made available throughout the summer. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Fremont police officer Brianna Ryan had enough reason to believe the car shed pulled over contained drugs. So she sought assistance from a furry consultant of sorts: a chocolate Labrador retriever named Apollo. Ryan is the K9 officer at the Fremont Police Department and since September she and Apollo have gone on deployments in a battle against drugs. He has a good schnozz, Ryan said, referring to Apollos drug-detecting nose. The 3 -year-old drug dog has served on the local police force since 2017. But when his first handler Fremont Officer Dominic Savio went to a new position, Apollo needed a new partner. Thats where Ryan came in. Ive always loved animals, Ryan said. I wanted originally to be a vet and then my dad was in the military and I wanted to be in the military, so I had those two interests and put them together with law enforcement and being a K9 handler. When I started in law enforcement, this was my end goal. This is what I wanted to do. Ryan and Apollo already were acquainted, because she fed and let the dog go outside when Savio was out of town. We had a bit of a relationship prior to me taking over, Ryan said of Apollo. After Savio was promoted, Ryan applied for the position of K9 officer. Ryan and her husband, Brett, married in July 2018 and she became Apollos handler the next month. He (Brett) knew thats what I wanted and was very excited for me, she said. Before Apollo, the Ryans already had two golden retrievers at home. We were adding another dog so that was kind of a lot for him to process, but he and Apollo and all of us have adjusted extremely well, she said. They all get along and we couldnt imagine Apollo not being in our family. Ryan and Apollo went for training in Bellevue to become certified through the Nebraska Law Enforcement Training Center. Apollo, whod previously gone through the training, accelerated in it. Much of the training involved Ryans learning about the dog and how to know if hes found a drug. The dog is trained to detect heroin, cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine. The training guys up at Bellevue call him, Happy. They always say they want him. Hes got a good nose. Hes good at what he does, she said. Ryan was in the training for about two months. She worked with nine other handlers who were certifying their dogs. It was an awesome experience, she said. I got to sit and watch all those other dogs, too, and learn from them seeing different training perspectives, learning from these other handlers and the trainers. Every other week, the two go for training in Bellevue with multiple agencies, including the Nebraska State Patrol and Dodge County Sheriffs Department. We do trainings at least two or three times a month, where he does about four or five training finds to keep him up to par, she said. Back in Fremont, Apollo goes on three to four or more deployments a month. A deployment can occur when an officer has pulled over a car and has enough reasonable, articulable suspicion to use the dog and isnt getting consent from the driver for a search. The officer can contact the dispatcher or Ryan, who will come to the scene with Apollo. Ill take Apollo out and well start a deployment, she said. Ill run him around the car at least three times and if he indicates theres drugs we can get in the car and search it and hes done his job. Apollo helps the III Corps Drug Task Force with investigations. He also can be involved in whats called a School Sniff. For instance, if a principal or some other official is concerned about drugs in a school, they may ask for Apollo to be brought in to sniff the lockers. Ryan and a handler from the Dodge County Sheriffs Department recently went to an area school. Ryan and Apollo work nights and even when theyre off-duty, the two may be called in even if its 4 a.m. or 10 a.m. They obviously dont expect me to be on-call 24-7. Its just a matter of not turning down every call I get, she said. The two have been working together since last fall. And Ryans first deployment with Apollo occurred when she had enough reasonable suspicion during a traffic stop. I had enough to pull him (Apollo) out and run him on the car, she said. And we ended up getting drugs out of the car. Ryan has high praise for Apollo. Hes awesome at what he does and hes also awesome at coming home and turning off his work, she said. Apollo knows when Ryan is getting ready for work and stays right by her side, following her throughout the house. When we get home, hes just like one of my other dogs hes carefree, loving, she said. And hes protective. Even when her husband gives her a hug, Apollo sits nearby watching to make sure everything is OK. Ryan has enjoyed all of the new experiences shes had with Apollo. Were pretty close, she said. Were with each other every single day. Hes at home with me. My other dogs stay at home, but he comes to work with me. Its me and him in the car at 3 a.m. Were pretty good friends. Love 14 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 1 Angry 0 Sign up for our Crime & Courts newsletter Get the latest in local public safety news with this weekly email. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Lydia Privett of Wahoo was one of seven Chadron State College students who attended the Sigma Tau Delta International Convention in St. Louis in late March. Dr. Kimberly Cox, and Dr. Mary Clai Jones, co-advisers of CSC's chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, attended the convention with the student group. Spring training Larry Klahn, Dodge County Weed superintendent, recently attended the Nebraska Weed Control Associations Spring Training on April 3-4 at the Ramada Inn, Kearney. This was the second opportunity for required continuing education in 2019. At each training session, superintendents must answer roll call twice a day, complete and pass the exam at the end of each day to receive his or her continuing education credit hours. Wednesdays topics included: Cropland Weeds, Jenny Rees, UNL Extension Educator; Flora, Fauna and Photography, Justin Haag, NE Game and Parks; Surveys and County Responses, Mitch Coffin, NE Dept. of Ag; Invasive Species Impact Assessments, Dirac Twidwell, UNL Agronomy Dept. and Dillon Fogarty, UNL PhD Student; ATV and UTV Safety, Ric Voelker, Nebraska Safety Council. Thursdays topics included: Weed Free Forage and Gravel Inspection, Rod Stolcpart, Rock County Weed Supt.; Japanese Hop Identification, Todd Boller, Fillmore County Weed Supt.; NWCA Weedmapper Update, Marty Craig, Dawson/Gosper County Weed Supt.; Watch List Weed ID, Kristi Paul, Sheridan County Weed Supt.; Endangered & Threatened Species Permitting, Michael Bernhardt, NE Game & Parks; Organic Certification, Angie Tunink, OCIA International, and Prescribed Fire for Weed Control, Scott Stout, Nebraska Prescribed Fire Council. New superintendents training was held at the same location April 2 for those with three or less years of experience. All programs must be approved by the NDA, as described in the Nebraska Noxious Weed Act. The next opportunity for continuing education will be the NWCA Fall Training, Nov. 6-7, at Kearney. Fall training also will be recertification for commercial applicators licenses for county weed superintendents. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 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. 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 DENVER The Colorado House passed one of the legislative sessions most contentious bills Saturday afternoon, but it still has a tough road ahead before the General Assembly adjourns Friday. House Bill 1312 would create a standard form for parents and guardians who want their children exempted from having to get immunizations to attend school. Parents who choose not to vaccinate their children have testified at the Capitol that they see that as an intrusion by government. Supporters say collecting data is a necessity to track how many children are immunized in the wake of measles outbreaks across the country. The goal also is to increase participation by reducing the number of people who skip vaccinations out of convenience. Exemptions otherwise remain unchanged for those who dont want to exempt their children immunized for medical reasons or personal beliefs. Make no mistake, we have a problem in this state, said Rep. Kyle Mullica, D-Northglenn, the bills sponsor. He said the experts he talked to said the states poor accountability on vaccination rates makes it at risk of an outbreak like a puddle of gasoline waiting for a match to be thrown on it. Mullica, a nurse, said every exemption the state allows remains in place in his bill. After a month of contentious debates in the House, the bill got a 39-20 send-off Saturday. The only Democrat to vote against it was Rep. Brianna Titone, D-Arvada. To become law, the bill still has to make it through the state Senate in under a week. Democrats behind the bill also must appease Gov. Jared Polis, who suggested he might not sign it because the measure would require parents to obtain the form in person from a local health department or the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. The bill will need at least one committee hearing, and in the House testimony took 14 hours. When the bill made it to the House floor, lawmakers debated until the early hours of the morning. The Senate has a crowded itinerary for the next week, but the bill might be too hot to die on the calendar. Its sponsored by Sens. Julie Gonzales, D-Denver, and Kevin Priola, R-Henderson. Republicans tried to stall the bill Saturday, including a failed motion to route the bill to the House Education Committee. This bill has really been amazing for how politically charged its been, said Rep. Shane Sandridge, R-Colorado Springs. He and other Republicans said they wouldnt infringe on the right of parents to make decisions concerning their children. This is a God-given right we have to protect with all our being, said Rep. Rod Pelton, R-Cheyenne Wells. Rep. Tim Geitner, R-Falcon, said compiling such a database of those with exemptions is risky. (House Bill) 1312 says, Go ahead, exempt your kids. Were going to know where you are, were going to know your name, were going to know what youre exempt from. And there is zero reassurance that information wont be stored, shared, passed on or breached. A Broadmoor Bluffs man committed fraud when he sold a half-million dollar home in a landslide zone without disclosing that it one day could collapse, a judge found in ruling against him in a 2-year-old lawsuit. Fourth Judicial District Judge David A. Gilbert rendered the October 2016 sale of 4780 Broadmoor Bluffs Drive void and ordered that Mahmoud Atala must buy back the home for $506,000, the original sales price plus closing fees. Whether that will happen is unclear. Instead of celebrating, plaintiffs John and Bo Kolodgy are girding for a new battle to collect on the judgment, which could be appealed or complicated if Atala follows through on plans to file for bankruptcy. They feel validated by the ruling, but they understand that the fight isnt over, said their lawyer, Brian Stutheit of Littleton. Unfortunately, theyre living in a house that, unless they get that money, theyll never be able to sell to anyone except at a terrific loss. The ruling comes as the city recently demolished two landslide-ravaged houses on Broadmoor Bluffs Drive and prepares to ultimately demolish up to 19 there and in Lower Skyway, provided all the owners join the buyout program. Much of Broadmoor Bluffs Drive will convert to open space, and by law, nothing ever can be built on those sites again. Atala has 90 days from April 18 to appeal Gilberts order. If he files for bankruptcy, Kolodgy must seek an exclusion in court for assets related to the home sale on the grounds it was the result of fraud, Stutheit said. Kolodgy, a military retiree who bought the house as part of a move from Fort Bliss, Texas, testified during a March trial that he lies awake at night listening to his house shift and moan, knowing it might be slowly crumbling. One of the hardest things he had to do, when they discovered their situation, was to confess to his wife that he had spent their retirement savings on a house that was on a landslide, Stutheit said. Atala testified that he was confused as to whether the home was affected by landslides and said he and his real estate agent made all necessary disclosures. But in a 15-page order, Gilbert disagreed, citing text messages showing that Atala himself was angered that a previous seller failed to disclose that it could be affected. Atala initially threatened to sue but instead put the house up for sale without reporting information he had learned during an in-person visit from Tim Mitros, the citys former emergency management engineering program manager, who notified Atala that his house was in immediate danger. According to Gilbert, Mitros conveyed that several neighboring homes had been purchased and slated for demolition under a Federal Emergency Management Agency buyback program. Mitros told Atala he would have recommended that his house be part of the program, but the previous owner didnt apply for the federal buyout, and the home was no longer eligible. Knowing that Atala intended to sell, Mitros told him he was legally obligated to disclose the landslide zone and would need to perform a geologic study. Instead, Atala commissioned a visual inspection without furnishing complete information to the company that performed it, the judge found. Atala worked in part as a real estate investor who specialized in fix and flip properties and was therefore a relatively sophisticated seller aware of his legal obligations, the judge found. Atalas attorney did not return a phone message requesting comment. Stutheit said several homes in the area, including the Kolodgys residence, develop new cracks as time passes. A neighbor one street below him makes a habit of covering new cracks with chicken wire to keep rodents from entering the house, the lawyer said. A 29-year-old man fatally shot Wednesday during a violent and chaotic incident at a southeast Colorado Springs apartment complex allegedly brandished a weapon and moved toward officers, the El Paso County Sheriffs Office said Friday. Jonathan Patzel was shot at the Arbor Pointe Apartments, 2475 Hancock Expressway. Police have not said who shot Patzel, but police spokesman Lt. James Sokolik said Wednesday that one of the two officers investigating the disturbance fired his weapon. Both officers are on administrative leave while the Sheriffs Office investigates the shooting. The names of the officers have not been released. Details about the shooting remain sketchy: The disturbance was reported about 4:30 p.m. About the same time, Colorado Springs firefighters received a report of a fire at the complex. When officers arrived, they saw smoke coming from a third-floor apartment where Patzel apparently was staying with a resident who lives at the complex. Shots were fired, and Patzel was taken to a hospital, where he died. Dina Julie Franklin said Thursday that Patzel was staying with her. Franklin said she used to be homeless and referred to Patzel as her street kid who is emotionally disturbed. I let him stay a couple of days, she said. He showed up and was not treating me right and went off the deep end. She said the situation escalated and Patzel assaulted her and tried to rape her. He also fatally stabbed her cat and refused to let her call AspenPointe, a crisis mental health provider, she said. Eventually, a neighbor called the police, Franklin said, and when officers pounded on the door, Patzel set fire to the apartment. The Sheriffs Office is investigating the shooting because a neutral agency typically investigates whenever deadly force is used by an officer to avoid conflicts of interest. Patzel has had previous run-in with Colorado Springs police. He was accused of knocking a police officer unconscious in 2010, although charges of second-degree assault of a peace officer, criminal impersonation and false reporting ultimately were dismissed. Members of the departments Homeless Outreach Team were near Interstate 25 and Cimarron Street, helping with a cleanup effort. Patzel, a homeless camper, allegedly gave police a false name and pushed an officer backward into a metal beam when officers pressed for his true identity. The officer suffered two head lacerations that required staples. About 70 people who live in the same wing of the complex where the shooting and fire happened were forced out of their homes for a day because of the investigation, Fire Department Capt. Brian Vaughan said. The Red Cross provided shelter for them, he said. The majority of the residents were allowed to return by Thursday afternoon. The Gazettes Liz Forster contributed to this report. In the wake of the deadliest year on Colorado Springs streets, The Gazette is hosting a town hall to hear from experts about how the community can work together to keep the city safe for drivers, pedestrians and cyclists. Last year, 48 people died in crashes across the city, surpassing the previous record of 43 set in 1986. This year appears to be on a similar pace, with 14 fatal crashes one more than last year at this time. KKTV anchor Don Ward will moderate a panel discussion May 6 with Police Chief Vince Niski, Sgt. Jim Stinson of the Major Crash Unit, city traffic engineer Todd Frisbie and Drive Smart Colorado Executive Director Maile Gray. Click here to submit questions for our panelists. The free event will be from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs Ent Center for the Arts, 5225 N. Nevada Ave. Doors open at 5 p.m., and it is not necessary to RSVP. Crashes often are caused by speeding, impairment or distracted driving, police say. Officials also have blamed an increasing number of crashes on roads crowded by an ever-growing population. In Colorado Springs, 26 of last years fatal crashes more than half involved drugs or alcohol, police records show. Thirteen of the people who died were pedestrians, eight of whom were homeless. Of the 35 people who were killed while in a car, riding a bicycle or driving a motorcycle, 16 werent wearing a seat belt or helmet. This year, two pedestrians have died in crashes, in addition to 10 people in vehicles and one cyclist. Police turned on red-light cameras this month at the eastbound approach to Platte Avenue and Chelton Road and the westbound approach at Briargate Boulevard and Lexington Drive a move touted as a safety measure after last years record number of traffic fatalities. The red-light camera program began with a 30-day grace period during which drivers were issued warnings. Beginning May 9, those caught on camera running red lights will be sent a ticket. Across Colorado, 630 people died in crashes last year, the Colorado Department of Transportation reported. El Paso County had the most deaths, with 81, followed by 63 in Weld County and 60 in Denver County. The Gazettes Community Conversations are public forums convened on important issues of the day for Colorado Springs. Past conversations have focused on issues including homelessness, affordable housing, bike lanes, marijuana and veterans health care. The "Iowa Rocks Talent" event Saturday in Mason City has been postponed due to weather. The Iowa Rock 'n Roll Music Association made the announcement on its Facebook page. "Today's Iowa Rocks Talent at The Main Event has been postponed due to crazy Iowa weather. Stay tuned for a new date," the post said. The regional youth music competition was scheduled for 1 p.m. Saturday. "Iowa Rocks Talent" is a statewide competition designed to encourage participation in music outside school and provide professional development opportunities for young musicians. The Mason City regional competition is among five scheduled between March and June. Winners of the regional events advance to the finals in August. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Stay up-to-date on what's happening Receive the latest in local entertainment news in 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. WATERLOO Rep. Abby Finkenauer is concerned about the future of Iowa farmers. During a town hall at Waterloo's United Auto Workers 838 Hall in Waterloo Friday, she addressed questions about the new North American Free Trade Agreement being negotiated called the United States, Mexico, Canada agreement or USMCA. This was Finkenauer's first town hall in Waterloo since being elected in November 2018. About 40 to 50 people came to see one's the state's newest Congresswomen. The USMCA and tariffs have caused some Iowa farmers and Finkenauer to worry about the future of produce prices. "We were supposed to have a deal in March, and then it was supposed to be April and now we're about to be in May and nothing has been done," Finkenauer said. "We have to make sure the administration is hearing the stories I'm hearing." Congress has yet to receive a copy of the USMCA. "It hasn't yet been delivered," Finkenauer said. Finkenauer talked about numerous Iowans who have been impact by tariffs and an certain future. She is worried about her brother-in-law and sister who are corn and soybean farmerswith two children. "We need a deal and we need it done," Finkenauer said. "It's not just about numbers. It's people's lives." During the event a ticket system was used to ask questions. If a person wanted to ask a question they got a ticket at the beginning and put in fish jar and if their number was pulled they asked a question during the town hall. One question was about her views on the assortment of policies put out by other freshman Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives including the Green New Deal, Medicare for All and a $15 minimum wage. Finkenauer supports a public option for Medicare. "The reality is you've got folks all across our state and all across the country who are struggling right now and not able to get care that they need because they can't even afford it," Finkenauer said. "That something that should've, quite frankly, been done with the (Affordable Care Act) to begin with and wasn't." She went on to pledge that a Democratic controlled U.S. House of Representatives would never take away protections for people with preexisting conditions. "We have to do more than what we are doing, especially on the federal level, when it comes to health care," Finkenauer said. She wants to see the minimum wage increase incrementally, Finkenause said. She was happy to see discussions about climate change because of the Green New Deal. "Climate change is real. I believe science, I think we all do," she said. She wants to see something stronger than resolution go forward. "I want to figure out ways where we can actually have real policy here, through the committees I'm working on, that address climate change and take it seriously," Finkenauer said. Love 1 Funny 3 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The National Weather Service in Des Moines has issued a winter storm warning for all of north central Iowa. Total snow accumulations of 4 to 6 inches are expected with locally higher amounts near eight inches possible. Winds will gust as high as 35 mph. Roads are expected to be become sloppy and slick from the wet snow. Gusty winds will create significant visibility restrictions and buffet high profile vehicles at times. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The Americans needed the valley for strategic and economic reasons. The U.S. strategy was to attract immigrants, and for that, it needed land, but the Eastern Seaboards economy could not support a vast population. The land it needed was west of the Appalachians, its value augmented by its plentiful rivers. The French, unlike the Americans, had no desire to settle the Rocky-Appalachian valley. The French were constantly fighting wars in Europe and could not spare manpower from defending the motherland. France was fighting for its life and needed money, not land in North America. The United States needed that land urgently, so it could grow and develop exports. So the French sold the land to the United States. George Washington, in his Farewell Address, had divided the U.S. into three regions: North, South and West. He argued that, without the West, there would not be enough wealth to build a navy, and without a navy, the U.S. could not survive. His successor, Thomas Jefferson, made the deal to secure the West. The Louisiana Purchase was a geopolitical imperative for the United States. What it created was something rare, with global implications: a class of smallholder farmers who could produce more than they could consume, and who had the ability to take the surplus to markets as far away as Europe. This made the Industrial Revolution in Britain possible. With food coming in from the United States, British farm workers could take work in factories without triggering a famine. Washington needed to make sure that an attack on the East Coast would not by itself crush the United States. Settlers were encouraged to move west, and quickly. The first wave of settlers was led by the Scotch-Irish, who were regarded by English settlers as unassimilable because of their drunken brawling and lack of respect for law and social proprieties. The attraction of cheap land transformed a vast area, making it inhabited and productive in less than two generations. It also set a key American dynamic in motion: the use of immigrants as a labor base that would drive the American economy. The key to all of this productivity, however, was New Orleans. If New Orleans were in hostile hands, the river transport system would not function, and the exports that were generating surplus capital to help fuel Americas Industrial Revolution would not get past the mouth of the Mississippi. So, for the United States, the defense of New Orleans became a key strategic imperative. (That imperative continues today; the Port of South Louisiana still moves more tonnage per year than any other port in the United States.) It is no surprise, then, that in the War of 1812 the British moved on New Orleans (even if the Treaty of Ghent had already been signed when they attacked). Andrew Jackson was able to defeat the British there. Jackson, a settler himself, was obsessed with New Orleans and wanted Mexico pushed back, so when he became president, he sent the former governor of Tennessee, Sam Houston, to Texas to foment a pro-American rising. The eastern border of Texas was on the Sabine River, just a few hundred miles from New Orleans. There is no evidence for this, but it seems possible to me that when Gen. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna came north to crush the Texan rising and swung east toward San Jacinto, he was heading to New Orleans. Had Santa Anna won at the Battle of San Jacinto, the road to New Orleans might have been forced open. Control over New Orleans is closely related to control over Cuba; holding the island means you can close access to New Orleans. The U.S. wanted Spain out of Cuba (and it would later want the Russians out as well). The U.S. obsession with Cuba is not as strange as it may seem. Geography creates a logical framework for American history, dictating the imperatives the U.S. must achieve. This is not a simple or mechanistic concept, as I tried to show in the opening pieces, and this story is far more complex than what I have written here. Still, the logic of American geography is powerful; when you go to New Orleans, look at the vast grain elevators, still very much in use, across the river. Consider how that city built the American economy. Washington was right, and Jefferson did what he had to do. Grand Old Partisan honors James Nelson Lockhart, born in Nova Scotia this day of 1821. He entered the carpentry trade while still a child. In his twenties, he moved to Maine and then Massachusetts. From 1861 until his death age eighty-nine, he worked for a New York City company that manufactured steam heating equipment. Lockhart moved to Mount Vernon, NY in 1876. Eight years later, he became a U.S. citizen. He served as president of the village board of trustees as well as a building and loan association. And, as noted by his obituary, "All his life he was a staunch Republican." His savvy wife Elizabeth wrote after the GOP swept the state in 1894: "There is general rejoicing over the great Republican victory everywhere. If the Democrats had won they would have howled all night." Here is a letter from the Fourth Ward Republican Association to Lockhart on his eighty-sixth birthday: Dear sir: The Fourth Ward Republican Association congratulates you upon attaining the 86th anniversary of your birth. Your neighbors and fellow-members of this Association rejoice that you have advanced so far beyond the allotted human span of four score and ten, and are still in the enjoyment of excellent health. We deem it an honor to number among our neighbors and friends one whose years extended over so long a period and embrace so many important events. You were born at a time when this Republic was still in its experimental stage. You have seen it pass triumphantly through wars and panics, through political strife and discords, through industrial depression and discontent; and you now live to behold it, under the wise guidance of a Republican administration, foremost among the powers of the earth in material prosperity and in the promotion of universal peace. You have assisted in the growth of the Grand Old Republican Party, and have participated in many of its famous battles and glorious victories. Although not a native of our country, up you have been a most faithful and loyal citizen, and have discharged with honor the public trusts reposed in you. We deeply appreciate the valuable service you have rendered to the community and to our Fourth Ward Republican organization in its building up and its early struggles, and we trust we may long continue to benefit by your wise counsel and ripe experience. We congratulate you upon having lived so long and useful a life; We congratulate you upon the great respect and esteem in which you are held by your fellow-citizens; And we congratulate you upon your staunch and loyal Republicanism. May God prosper you in mind, body, and estate, and grant you many happy returns of the day. Very respectfully yours, THE FOURTH WARD REPUBLICAN ASSOCIATION Lockhart's great-great-great-granddaughter is Heather Olsen, former Chairman of the Prince George's County, Maryland Republican Party. She owns a table and a washstand made by her illustrious ancestor. Here is a Video Version of this article on YouTube: https://youtu.be/a7seq91XrIs Michael Zak is author of Back to Basics for the Republican Party, a history of GOP civil rights achievement. Each day, Michael Zak's grandoldpartisan YouTube channel and Grand Old Partisan blog celebrate more than sixteen decades of Republican heritage. And, see Speech Raves for audience feedback from his presentations in thirty-one states so far. He also wrote the 2005 Republican Freedom Calendar. Clarence Thomas cited Back to Basics for the Republican Party in a Supreme Court decision. Buy the book at Amazon "This is the most amazing book about politics that I have ever read. The Overview should be required reading for anyone with even a minor interest in government. The remainder is an enthralling history lesson that I will never forget. For years, we have all been misled about the true nature of the GOP. This is the real deal! Read it and be proud!" "Michael Zak wrote the definitive history of the GOP." "Back to Basics for the Republican Party is the most significant contribution to the Republican Party in the last twenty years apart from Ronald Reagan." "Back to Basics for the Republican Party is more important to our party now than ever before." and "one of the best books I ever read" In Our Care PENDING DEAN, Carol J., age 74, of Helena, passed away Tuesday, April 23, 2019. Services are pending at this time and will be announced when theyre complete. Please visit www.aswfuneralhome.com to offer a condolence to the family or to share a memory of Carol. TODAY SPILKER, William Bill," age 82, of Helena, passed away on Saturday, April 20, 2019. A memorial service will be celebrated at 11 a.m. today, April 26, at St. Peters Episcopal Cathedral, 511 N. Park Ave. in Helena. A reception will follow in the lower level of the church. The family requests donations in Bills name be made to St. Peters Health Foundation, 2475 E. Broadway, Helena, MT 59601, St. Peters Episcopal Cathedral Foundation, P.O. Box 819, Helena, MT 59624, or the Lewis and Clark Humane Society, P.O. Box 4455, Helena, MT 59604. Please visit www.aswfuneralhome.com to offer the family a condolence or share a memory of Bill. HELLER, Lawrence Larry," age 77, of Helena, passed away on Sunday, April 21, 2019. A graveside service will be held 2 p.m. today, April 26, at Resurrection Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to St Peters Hospice, or the organization of your choice. Please visit www.aswfuneralhome.com to offer a condolence to the family or to share a memory of Larry. KEELER, Kelly, age 55, of Helena, passed away on Wednesday, April 3, 2019. A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. today, April 26, at Anderson Stevenson Wilke Funeral Home, 3750 N. Montana Ave. A reception will follow the service in the social hall of the funeral home. The family asks, in lieu flowers, donations may be sent to the Grandstreet Theatre School, 325 Park Ave., Helena, MT. 59601, or The Angel Fund, P.O. Box 7463, Helena MT. 59604. Please visit www.aswfuneralhome.com to offer the family a condolence or share a memory of Kelly. MONDAY BRANNMAN, Dennis L., age 72, of Helena, passed away on Saturday, April 20, 2019. Viewing will be held from 10:30 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. on Monday, April 29, in St. Joseph's room at St. Mary Catholic Community, 1700 Missoula Ave. A funeral Mass will follow at 12:10 p.m. on Monday, April 29, 2019, at Saint Mary Catholic Community with a funeral reception to follow in the lower level the church. Rite of Committal with military honors will be held at Resurrection Cemetery, 3700 N. Montana Ave. in Helena following the reception. Please visit www.aswfuneralhome.com to offer the family a condolence or share a memory of Dennis. FRIDAY SMITH, Allen Tom, age 87, of Helena, passed away Thursday, April 25, 2019. Graveside services with military honors will be held at 3 p.m. on Friday, May 3, at the Montana State Veterans Cemetery at Fort Harrison. A reception will follow in the social hall at Anderson Stevenson Wilke Funeral Home, 3750 N. Montana Ave. In lieu of flowers, memorials in Toms name are suggested to the DAV, 1900 Williams St., Helena, MT 59602 or to the Lewis & Clark Humane Society, P.O. Box 4455, Helena, MT 59604. Please visit www.aswfuneralhome.com to offer a condolence to the family or to share a memory of Tom. In 1972, my brother, Gary (1956-2017), and I (1951-) ventured to the Sangre de Christo mountains -- about 100 miles southwest of our Colorado Springs home. We drove to a trailhead; then we hiked miles searching for a cave above timberline -- a cave marked by a Maltese cross chiseled into the rock. We found it! Here, legend chronicled conquistadors secreting gold -- and, more: supposedly, a large gymnasium room opened up under the mountain. Headlamps shining, we entered the tunnel -- about three feet high, three feet wide with an icy floor. After crawling in about 50 feet, Gary, behind me, retreated. Shouting ahead, my voice echoed. Was the gymnasium room ahead? Gary, Im pressing on. Minutes later, my hand slipped over the edge of a large hole. I saw a bit of a ledge. Did that lead to the gymnasium? I tossed a pebble in. I waited and waited and waited. Finally, it hit bottom. Later, I learned this vertical shaft was 400 feet deep. With haste, I escaped. Escape comes from a dramatic Latin compound word: ex out of + cappa cape. Picture your enemy grasping for you but getting only your cloak. You escape by the skin of your teeth. Pheugo, the Greek word for escape, is used 29x in the New Testament (NT). Picture the urgency of Pheugo in these NT stories Joseph and Mary fled to Egypt -- protecting baby Jesus from Herods blood lust (Mt 2:13). After Jesus arrest in Gethsemane, all the disciples deserted him and fled (Mt 26:56). A young man, wearing nothing but a linen garment, was following Jesus. When they seized him, he fled naked, leaving his garment behind (Mk 14:51,52). Escape indeed. In Hebrews 11 some heroes of faith suffered ignominiously; others triumphed; some escaped the edge of the sword (11:34). In our world, we may need to escape physical danger. Spiritual urgency in the NT Friends, the NT also shows us our soul danger. Can we apply the physical urgency of the stories above to the fleeing urged here? Paul warns: 1 Cor 6:18 Flee from sexual immorality. 1 Cor 10:14 - My beloved, flee from idolatry. 1 Tim 6:11, 6-10 - As for you, O man of God, flee envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, constant friction and the love of money. 2 Tim. 2:22 Flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace. Are you still with me? Has your soul laced up its track shoes? Do the above spiritual dangers evoke in us our need for urgent escape? Upping our urgency with the ultimate escape question Jesus, the Word made flesh, sharply probed religious leaders: Mt 23:33 -- You snakes. You brood of vipers. How are you to escape being sentenced to hell? How? Can we hear Jesus warning us too? Will we continue to fake godliness/niceness? Will we continue in godlessness whether naive or sullen? Jesus warns eternal judgment is coming unmediated judgment stripped of the present ameliorating effects of Gods common grace. Except for profanity, we hear little about hell, even in Scripture. But Jesus vividly talks about hell more than anyone else. Ponder that Jesus, not some overreaching, over-zealous preacher. Ponder his words No one ever spoke the way this man does (Jn 7:46). Ponder his miracles. A former blind man testifies: Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind (Jn 9:32). Ponder his compassion for the woman taken in adultery: Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more (Jn 8:11). Ponder his promise to the repentant thief on the cross: Truly I tell you, today, you will be with me in paradise (Lk 23:43). Ponder Martin Luthers (1483 1546) question about our disregard of hell: If a doctor was at the side of a person who had been poisoned and promised to help, and if the sick person knew the doctor could help, but nonetheless said: Oh, get out; the poison will not hurt me, would you not say: This spiritual madness that we do not want to accept help when Gods Son wants to help us is ten times worse? (Plass, What Luther Says, 2:695). Jude (23) urges: Save others by snatching them from the fire. To others, show mercy with fear, hating even the clothes (chiton, a long garment worn under the cloak next to the skin) stained by their sinful lives. Aha, escape again. Asking ourselves How do we escape hell? Friend, Jesus is our only hope. Only Jesus, an eternal being, can satisfy the eternal punishment we deserve. How he must love broken sinners. Real trauma needs real treatment. El Grecos (1541 1614) painting, The Disrobing of Christ (1579) shows Jesus did not escape prior to his crucifixion. And, we remember Jesus first disrobing came when he humbly laid aside his heavenly robe. No one snatched it. And during his passion, his love allowed him to be caught. More than nails, his love held him skewered on the cross. With love, he bought back his dearly loved ones, opening a door of grace for the great escape of so many. Novelist Larry Dixon (1966- ) comments: A faithful youth worker thirty years ago challenged a small, insecure, pimpled group of adolescents with a simple question: If you were to die tonight, where would you spend eternity? Like only a few questions we hear in life, this one sank deep into my heart. That question of eternity burned in my mind. I barely made it to my room before dropping on my knees beside my bed and receiving Christ. It was a teenagers sense of guilt -- and rightfully deserved judgment in hell -- that the Holy Spirit used to bring me to Christ (The Other Side of the Good News, 9). And so, friend, trust Jesus bought you; come to Jesus; make the great escape! Surprising postscript A word about pheugo -- partnership with Jesus brings more than a heavenly destination. Note this present remarkable ability. James 4:7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Steve Bostrom, a descendant of Swedish homesteaders, husband of Via, father of eight, and grandfather of 11, loves Helena and serves here as a pastor at large. He is ordained by the Presbyterian Church in America. To contact him, email: stevebostrom@gmail.com. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Montana needs more health care providers and, where that's not possible, more access to doctors through telemedicine, advocates and officials told the state's congressman Friday in Billings. Greg Gianforte, Montana's lone member of the U.S. House of Representatives, met with regional experts on Friday to discuss the best ways to address mental health, suicide and substance abuse. Gianforte was recently appointed to a health care subcommittee in the House and said he's eager to learn what systems and programs for combating suicide and addiction work at a local and state level, and what could be improved. "I appreciate you being engaged," he told the group. "This is the beginning." Claire Oakley, the division director of health promotion at RiverStone Health, spoke specifically about school-based programs designed to help students and teachers identify suicidal tendencies and educate them on how to respond. The program has been effective in giving both students and teachers the tools they need to better address suicide, Oakley said. But she acknowledged it's hard to measure the program's effectiveness because there's no way of knowing for sure how many attempt suicide and survive. Eric Arzubi, the department chair of psychiatric services at Billings Clinic, agreed. "It's difficult to measure what's not happening," he said. So to gauge how successful these suicide prevention programs are, public health and other care providers look at who has accessed the care they offer and how many have taken advantage of the program. One of the biggest issues facing the state is the shortage of mental health care providers across Montana. In many cases, school counselors or primary care providers have no one to refer to once they've identified someone who needs mental health care. To reach the more rural corners of the state, the experts in the room talked about the importance and efficacy of telemedicine health care provided through mobile connections between major hospitals in the state's population centers and small, rural clinics. Stephanie Iron Shooter, a grant manager in the state office of public instruction, talked about how devastating the lack of access to mental health care can be on the state's rural and vulnerable population, particularly on reservations. She agreed with the other experts in the room in calling for more providers and expanding telemedicine to help address the issues. Arzubi agreed and said the best, immediate way to address the unique mental health needs in a state as geographically large and rural as Montana is through telemedicine connections. "Technology is going to be critical," he said. It was language Gianforte understood. The congressman founded the tech firm RightNow Technologies in 1997, which sold to Oracle in 2011 for $1.5 billion. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Ducks and dogs are proving to be a winning combination for artist Catherine Temple. The Clarkston, Washington, resident, who is an avid hunter and birder, was recently selected by the Washington Waterfowl Association to paint the 2019-20 Washington duck stamp. The nonprofit group selected Temple based on her portfolio, which includes portraits of sporting dogs, wildlife art with a heavy dose of birds and a painting that became the 2017 Delaware Duck Stamp. The rules of the Delaware contest required all the artists vying for the duck stamp to submit paintings featuring a Chesapeake Bay retriever and canvasback ducks. As the owner of a Chessie, the contest protocols were perfect, and Temples work featuring her dog Balin was selected to be reproduced on the stamp. This time around the rules were a bit different. Temple said they called for artists to submit their portfolios instead of a single work. The group sorted through all the entries, picked her as the winner and commissioned a piece featuring a chocolate Lab and ring-necked ducks. Even before she was chosen Temple began preparing for the painting. She knew the stamp would have to feature a chocolate Lab and ring-necked ducks. So she started looking for models. I got ahold of a friend and said, We need to do a photo shoot with your dog in case I get selected, she said. I did, however, have to go out and do a lot of photography work down at the West Levee Pond to get ring-necked ducks. I spent a lot of hours down at the pond waiting for just the right moment and just the right light and for the ducks to fly. The painting features her dog-friend Lilly in the foreground, a drake and hen pair of ring-necks with wings cupped as they prepare to land on a lake with a snow-capped Mount Rainier in the distance. They pretty much set the whole parameter of what was going to be in it, and I came up with the design, she said. Washington once required hunters to purchase and affix a state duck stamp to the back of their hunting licenses. That requirement went away about 2012. Now waterfowl hunters must simply pay for a migratory bird permit, which is noted on their license. The change did away with the state duck stamp artwork program. It was revived by the Washington Waterfowl Association. The group now runs the program. It selects an artist each year to produce a painting from which a print is made. People can order stamps or prints of the artwork. Proceeds are pumped back into the program. When you purchase a stamp for collecting or your limited-edition print, you are supporting a tradition that we do not want to see go extinct, says the groups website. The tradition around duck stamps is rich. The federal government still requires hunters to purchase a federal migratory waterfowl stamp and affix it to their licenses. Each year hundreds of artists vie to be chosen to have their art featured on the federal stamp. Temple has yet to enter that competition but said she is increasingly thinking about jumping in. I have not been brave enough to enter that yet, but I am thinking this year I might, she said. The competition is so fierce, and even at the state level it is fierce. People take it so seriously and the level of talent (of the artists) who enter these things is so amazing. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Today's Highlight in History: On April 27, 1978, 51 construction workers plunged to their deaths when a scaffold inside a cooling tower at the Pleasants Power Station site in West Virginia fell 168 feet to the ground. On April 27: In 1521, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan was killed by natives in the Philippines. In 1791, the inventor of the telegraph, Samuel Morse, was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts. In 1865, the steamer Sultana, carrying freed Union prisoners of war, exploded on the Mississippi River near Memphis, Tennessee; death toll estimates vary from 1,500 to 2,000. In 1941, German forces occupied Athens during World War II. In 1950, Britain formally recognized the state of Israel. In 1965, broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow died in Pawling, New York, two days after turning 57. In 1968, Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey declared his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president, less than a month after President Lyndon B. Johnson said he would not run for re-election. In 1978, convicted Watergate defendant John D. Ehrlichman was released from an Arizona prison after serving 18 months. In 1982, the trial of John W. Hinckley Jr., who shot four people, including President Ronald Reagan, began in Washington. (The trial ended with Hinckley's acquittal by reason of insanity.) In 1992, the new Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was proclaimed in Belgrade by the republic of Serbia and its lone ally, Montenegro. Russia and 12 other former Soviet republics won entry into the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Betty Boothroyd became the first female Speaker of Britain's House of Commons. In 2006, construction began on the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower at the site of the World Trade Center in New York City. In 2009, a 23-month-old Mexico City toddler died at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston, becoming the first swine-flu death on U.S. soil. A strong earthquake struck central Mexico, rattling nerves among residents already tense from a swine flu outbreak. One of President Barack Obama's Air Force One jets, a Boeing 747, and an F-16 fighter jet panicked New Yorkers as they circled over lower Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty for what turned out to be a photo op. General Motors announced plans to cut 21,000 hourly jobs and scrap the Pontiac brand. In 2011, powerful tornadoes raked the South and Midwest; according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, more than 120 twisters resulted in 316 deaths. In 2014, two 20th-century popes who'd changed the course of the Roman Catholic church become saints as Pope Francis honored John XXIII and John Paul II; Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI joined him in the first celebration of Mass by a serving and retired pontiff in the church's 2,000-year history. In a rare acknowledgement, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called the Nazi Holocaust "the most heinous crime" of modern history. A tornado tore through parts of Arkansas, killing 16 people. Lydia Ko birdied the final hole for her third LPGA Tour victory and first as a professional in the inaugural Swinging Skirts LPGA Classic, three days after celebrating her 17th birthday. In 2018, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made history by crossing over to South Korea to meet with President Moon Jae-in; it was the first time a member of the Kim dynasty had set foot on southern soil since the end of the Korean War in 1953. The Republican-led House Intelligence Committee released a lengthy report concluding that it found no evidence that Donald Trump's campaign colluded with Russia in the 2016 presidential campaign. The members of the Swedish pop supergroup ABBA announced that they had recorded new material for the first time in 35 years, with two new songs. Thought for Today: "The newest computer can merely compound, at speed, the oldest problem in the relations between human beings, and in the end the communicator will be confronted with the old problem, of what to say and how to say it." Edward R. Murrow (1908-1965). Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 POWELLS POINT, N.C. A rooster named Earl has become one of the boys at a local garage. Soon the mechanics will don T-shirts featuring his feathery form. Earl showed up one day last August at R & R Garage about a year after a pair of friends opened the shop here along U.S. 158. Business partners Nevin Kenan and Joe Gallo asked around thinking he must belong to a neighbor. He didnt. After a few days, a customer began buying him chicken feed and the friendly rooster kept coming back. Nevin named him Earl as a nod to a stereotypical mechanics name back in the day. It would have been Joe, but of course they already have a Joe. Now, Earl has become a well-known mascot of the garage. Customers bring their friends and family to watch him peck up bugs around the shop and hear him crowing his loudest in the middle of the day. Hes a little off on the sunrise crowing. Hes become a celebrity, Gallo said. He sits near the cars and watches the guys work, gets grease on his feathers and gets in the way at times. He sleeps with his head tucked under his wing in the shade of the shop. Occasionally he poops in the walking area, and they have to watch their step before cleaning it up. Its like having a dog, Kenan said. We havent figured out how to house-break him. Hes had a few close calls since moving in. Once he parked under a Mustang, observing the work while it was up on the rack. He did not move when it was time to bring it down, until at the last minute he bolted just as it was about the touch the floor. He nearly got squashed, Gallo said. Another time the crew was working with the bay doors open and heard Earl coming from the woods, loudly clucking like he was in trouble. The sound began muted at first as he approached, then grew loud as he ran by the open door. Kenan described it like an approaching motorcycle, rumbling softly in the distance before roaring by. Kenan ran outside to see a dog in close pursuit of Earl. The dog even had a few tail feathers in his mouth. The pair ran into the middle of U.S. 158, stopping traffic in both directions. They circled in the highway a few turns until a woman recognized the dog as a neighbors and pulled him off the road. Earl ran to the opposite side and was not seen for a couple of days. The mechanics figured that might be it for Earl, but then he turned up again, back to his old routine. He roosts about 30 feet up a gum tree in back of the shop. Helps him sleep better, knowing dogs cant climb that high. In the morning when the doors open, he scampers down the tree and runs to the shop, anxious for a ration of chicken feed. He loves the oats and seeds, but leaves the cracked corn until he gets desperate, Kenan said. He likes a share of the lunchtime leftover French fries. One of his favorite foods is caramel popcorn. Hell get closer than ever when youve got that stuff, Kenan said. Some of his habits are a bit off putting. Patrolling the shop corners for bugs to eat, he once found a spider about 3 inches in diameter from leg tip to leg tip. He picked it up and slammed it onto the concrete floor two or three times, knocking it senseless before swallowing it whole. He grossed out a customer once as she waited. Earl was at the front door when he picked a lizard up by the tail, slammed it onto the concrete walkway a few times before throwing it into the air to a hard landing a couple more times. He picked it up head first, threw his head back and worked the creature down his throat. It took a while to get that thing down, Kenan said. Earl lets out warning clucks when a hawk flies overhead, just in case his guys dont know what a chicken considers dangerous. The garage is expanding and plans new T-shirts. The logo will feature a photo taken of a 1979 Chevrolet pickup parked outside the garage with Earl standing on top. That ought to make him feel like crowing. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 DECATUR The Macon County Workers Memorial Day ceremony was supposed to be a somber event, but those attending found a bright spot. No new names were added to the monument. Maybe the message is finally getting out to some of these employers that maybe they should look a little deeper into employee safety, said co-organizer Lloyd Holman. Late Friday afternoon, about 50 people gathered near the stone monument located on the northwest corner of the Macon County Courthouse grounds in Decatur. Although organizers are aware more work needs to be accomplished in ensuring worker safety, they are happy with the lack of names in this years ceremony. Its good. People are being more cautious, said co-organizer Jim Taylor. The Workers Memorial Day is working. Holman emceed the event. The intent behind this monument is to heighten awareness and unity about working safety, he said. Everyone should be expecting to go to work and come back in the same condition. The 13,000 pound monument was erected in 2000. The names of 131 workers are etched in the granite boulder. They represent occupations in various fields, such as police, fire fighters, factory workers and railroad workers. The oldest name dates to 1888. During the ceremony, two employees from the Decatur Trades and Labor Assembly were given the responsibility of laying the wreath. In the past, a family of one of the recently inscribed names would have had the honor. The event was attended by local union representatives, politicians and families. State Sen. Andy Manar, D-Bunker Hill, was one of the guest speakers. He listed occupations known for their high risks, such as police, fire fighters and soldiers. We think of those workers for good reason, he said. But it turns out, that just as dangerous, if not more so, are the jobs of lots of other people we know and interact with everyday here in Decatur. Truck drivers, electricians, roofers, farmers, steel workers, waste haulers, mechanics, landscapers and groundskeepers, those are all dangerous jobs. Manar said he obtained his list from the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics annual National Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries. Workers in these occupations, every single day, are at higher risk of injury for death, he said. The only criteria for being included on the Macon County Workers' Memorial is that someone lived or worked in Macon County and died as a result of a workplace accident or job-induced illness. Workers' Memorial Day is celebrated nationally on April 28 to remember those who have suffered and died on the job and to renew the fight for safe jobs, the national AFL-CIO website stated. In 1970, congress passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act to ensure worker and workplace health and safety. A year later the Occupational Safety and Health Administration was established. According to U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics, since the passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, the rate of reported serious workplace injuries and illnesses declined from 11 per 100 workers in 1972 to 3.6 per 100 workers in 2009. In the latest data compiled by U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics, a total of 5,147 fatal work injuries were recorded in the United States in 2017. Down slightly from the 5,190 fatal injuries reported in 2016, the report stated. Michael Kleinik, Illinois acting director of the Department of Labor, spoke at Fridays ceremony. His department enforces Illinois OSHA and safety for workers. With the lack of names added to the monument, Kleinik sees a positive sign. That means that the people that went to work got to go home, he said. He explained how the companies and workers have found a common ground on safety. They all work together and can be safe, Kleinik said. Contact Donnette Beckett at (217) 421-6983. Follow her on Twitter: @donnettebHR Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. DECATUR Marquavion Woodland admitted that he was a little nervous before setting off on one of Cape Air's blue, twin-engine Cessna 402 planes for the first time Friday. "Because I never flew before and I watch too many movies," said the Durfee Technology Magnet School student as he stood inside Decatur Airport. Cape Air and the airport hosted Marquavion and a group of his fellow Durfee fifth-graders for a series of 20-minute flights. Despite his nerves, Marquavion said, he was able to see many familiar places from a whole new perspective while in the air, including his house. "I might be nervous again, but I'd fly again," Marquavion, 12, said after looking back on the experience. Fifth-grade teacher Heather Herron said the idea behind the field trip was not only to introduce many of the students to flying for the first time, but also to expose them to all of the different people and jobs that are necessary to get the planes off of the ground. Teaching the students about the various career opportunities that they can pursue is a key part of fifth-grade classes at Durfee, she said. "In fifth grade, we try to focus on jobs that are obtainable to our students around our community," Herron said. "... There's many different jobs here that have to happen in order to make a simple flight work, and so there's different things of different capacities that all these kids might be good at." Herron said 32 students participated in the airport visit Friday. In addition to getting a chance to fly in one of the planes, airport staff also gave tours inside of the facility's control tower and offered chances to see big machinery like a runway snowblower and rescue truck up close. "(The students') enthusiasm bounces right back onto us," said Michelle McCoy, Cape Air's station manager at Decatur Airport. "We love it when we have a group of youngsters in here; whether they're taking our normal flights or if they're just coming in for a tour of the airport." Cape Air, based in Massachusetts, is in the midst of its second year as Decatur Airport's commercial air provider. Its service in the city is subsidized by the U.S. Department of Transportation's Essential Air Service program. Officials for the airline have said offering people the chance to take a short flight over the communities serves as an introduction to the airline's services and could potentially bring them back to fly out of the airport. "My gut feeling tells me that 90 percent of these kids have probably never been on an aircraft before," McCoy said. "So giving them that little extra that they may not be able to do for quite a while was a thrill." Herron said the students' opportunities to learn about what it's like to work at an airport wouldn't stop at the end of their visit Friday. There will still be discussions about how planes work, what career opportunities they could pursue in aviation and other topics over the next week, she said. "What we are teaching them now are building blocks getting them to what they want to be in the future," Herron said. Marquavion said he could see himself working the front desk at an airport or working up above in a control tower someday. Anijah Clemmons, 10, has flown before and said she's interested in being a flight attendant. "Because you get to explore a lot around the world," she said, adding that she'd someday like to visit China. History photos: Decatur Airport and aircraft Contact Jaylyn Cook at (217) 421-7980. Follow him on Twitter: @jaylyn_HR Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Want to see more like this? Get our local education coverage delivered directly to your inbox. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Thank you for reading! Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading. TAYLORVILLE Vickie Barker, 67, chose to build on the same Coal Street lot where her last house stood, before the storm roared through and blasted the structure that Dec. 1 evening. Heavily damaged, it had to be razed and a cement foundation was poured, ready for a new modular house on the way. Were ready to come home, Barker said. Barker is one piece of the sprawling, ongoing recovery underway in Taylorville this winter and spring. Wednesday marks five months since a violent EF-3 tornado tore an 11-mile gash through this Christian County community, leaving behind a trail of destruction and debris. More than 700 buildings were damaged in some way, but against all odds, no one was killed. The story of Taylorvilles reconstruction is a lesson in the importance of emergency preparedness, hard work and community togetherness at a time of critical need. There is a lot of remodeling going on, said Mike Crews, the Taylorville fire chief who also runs the county emergency agency, as he took at Herald & Review reporter and photographer on a tour of the community. Crews is credited with cancelling the Twilight Christmas Parade the night of the cyclone, saving countless lives in the process. He also relocated equipment and staff to be outside the path of the twister. Today, hes still on the front lines of getting his community back in one piece. The mission, he said, comes down to a simple goal. Were really just trying to get people back in their homes, he said. The warm weather means work has been ramping up. Construction work was in limbo during the winter months, and some storm-damaged buildings havent been touched. Siding, roofing, painting, clean up yards, rebuilding and repairing that needs to go on, said Bill Kerns, an organizer for Missions for Taylorville, a group that turned into the primary fundraiser for the recovery effort. Drive through Taylorville, you can see repairs, but also homes are still gone. Mayor Bruce Barry said $700,000 was raised through local ministerial alliances and Missions for Taylorville. Their goal now is to develop long-term plans for rebuilding, long after the debris is carted away. Its slow, Barry said, but everybody is still rallying around us. How they responded Crews said a severe weather threat was indicated nearly 12 hours before the storm hit, and they decided about an hour before the Christmas parade there was a substantial risk. We also determined the means to alert those already lining the parade route, Crews said. Barry was supposed to be the parades grand marshal and raced with city and county officials to the command center in the fire station. By the numbers 155 Estimated speed, in miles per hour, of Dec. 1 Taylorville tornado 11 Miles traveled by twister 26 Reported injuries in storm 0 Deaths 23 Storms that touched down statewide on Dec. 1 By 5:20 p.m., the tornado was moving through Taylorvilles south side with estimated winds speeds of 155 mph and a half-mile width. The twister would eventually travel more than 12 miles through Taylorville and Stonington. The National Weather Service issued a Tornado Emergency due to the severity of the storm, one step higher than a Tornado Warning. That had only been issued twice in 20 years, Crews said. The Taylorville and Christian CouCnty emergency teams had prepared for intense weather, but not like this. We practice every call, said fire department Assistant Chief Andy Goodall. But we never practiced it to that level. Weather spotters were dispatched, and tornado reports from around the Raymond-Harvel area southwest of Taylorville came in. For an added warning, the fire department activated the weather warning sirens twice. In the hopes residents would not confuse that activation as an all clear, Crews said. The second siren activation was immediately followed by a post on social media. Social media played a key role: As the tornado was coming through, we were getting good, solid reports, Crews said. Barker, the Coal Street resident, said it sounded like one of the freight trains that pass by off Illinois 48. The next thing I know, my windows in my back bedroom started flying and I had branches in the dining room, she said. I froze. I just stood there and watched. Her two dogs, cat and cockatiel huddled with her husband in safety in the center of the house. It was a rough night, she said. Then came the emergency calls. And more. And more. One of those calls would be bad, much less 12 or 15, Crews said. The darkness and debris made rescue and clean-up tasks difficult, but every house was searched by midnight. Rural Stonington and Blue Mound also had damage. Another twister was reported in the Maroa area. Statewide, 22 tornados had been sighted that night. One of the 21 injured in Taylorville was Barkers husband, Larry, who was hospitalized after inhaling natural gas fumes. He had gone outside to inspect the house and there was a gas leak. I got him in the house and he went into a heart attack, she said. Altogether, 15 are fire departments arrived at the Taylorville fire station. We had an immense amount of help, from EMS, fire, police, public works, Crews said. By the next morning, donations of food, clothing and money arrived. Thats how Taylorville is, said Shirley Neithe, manager of the Ace Hardware store on West Spresser Street, who was part of the first clean-up wave and whose work continues today. Next door to the store is a warehouse in which building materials, water and other goods were stored. You name it, they had it over there, Neithe said. It still looks like a war zone Neithe said a side benefit of the storm is that it helped local businesses. It was a tragedy, but it pulled everyone together," she said. Nearly 4,000 truckloads of trees and debris were carted away in the immediate aftermath. There is still substantial work needed, even five months later, Neithe said. It still looks like a war zone, she said. There are houses sitting there that basically dont have any walls. Barry, the mayor, is meeting weekly with about 15 people to talk about long-term recovery plans. There are also public meetings with insurance officials. Its amazing how much work has been done in the last month and a how much more still needs to be done, he said. This recovery will go on for at least two years, if not longer. Kerns, the Missions for Taylorville official, said theyre transitioning to how to fund the long-range plans. Shortly after the tornado hit, the organization began receiving calls from others outside the community. But we werent ready to accept them, Kerns said. The long-term recovery team is starting from scratch. We had to learn about what to do. Crews said progress is being made. He credits the work of city officials to notify people quickly. He also was a representative for the rescue and emergency personnel as the guest of U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville, during the State of the Union address in February. Crews said the Taylorville story is seen as an example of how to be address emergencies. We are trying to help other communities out with these issues, Crews said. Springfield, Champaign, Litchfield, Decatur, I have talked to a lot communities. It is important to help others. Recovery also continues for Vickie Barker. They live in a rental home for now, and her husband is recovering there. The plumbing and utilities for the new house is expected to be installed in coming weeks, then the home will be assembled. She never thought about going anywhere else. We surely could have got another house, but this is my home, Vickie Barker said about her neighborhood. We are starting all over again. PHOTOS: Taylorville tornado damage Contact Donnette Beckett at (217) 421-6983. Follow her on Twitter: @donnettebHR Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. A lawyer seeking the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the handling of the Jussie Smollett prosecution subpoenaed Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx and her top deputy Friday to appear at the first court hearing on the matter. Sheila O'Brien, a former appellate judge, also filed a "notice to appear" in an attempt to get Smollett to attend the hearing Thursday as well. Court documents show that O'Brien requested that Foxx and her top deputy, Joseph Magats, as well as Smollett produce their original files and documents on the case to ensure "that they have not been altered or destroyed." At an unannounced hearing March 26, prosecutors abruptly dropped all charges against Smollett with little explanation, sparking a firestorm of criticism and calls for Foxx's resignation by the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police. Just weeks earlier, the "Empire" actor, who is African-American and openly gay, had been indicted on 16 counts of disorderly conduct alleging he staged a racial and homophobic attack on himself. O'Brien, saying she had no agenda "other than seeking the truth and restoring public confidence" in Foxx's office and Cook County courts, filed a petition earlier this month seeking the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate how Foxx's office handled Smollett's prosecution. Her petition said that Foxx's actions created "an appearance of impropriety, a perception that justice was not served here, that Mr. Smollett received special treatment." Smollett's attorneys have objected to the petition, saying in a filing last week that special prosecutors may be appointed only if cases are still pending. In addition, they noted that a special prosecutor would duplicate the efforts of the county inspector general's office, which already is conducting a review of the prosecution. O'Brien's petition came on the heels of a similar filing from attorney Saani Mohammed, who worked as a Cook County prosecutor for a few months before leaving last month to start his own practice. Hearings on both petitions are slated for Thursday before LeRoy Martin Jr., presiding judge of the Circuit Court's Criminal Division. O'Brien also is asking that a judge from outside Cook County, not Martin, decide her request for a special prosecutor. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Every hour, every day, your local hospitals provide life-saving care to everyone who comes through their doors. However, lawmakers in Springfield are considering a proposal House Bill 2604 that would take away the ability of local hospitals and healthcare professionals to decide how best to care for patients and keep healthcare close to home, where it should be. This proposal mandatory nurse staffing ratios would dictate exactly how many patients a nurse can serve at any given time at every Illinois hospital. This rigid, one-size-fits-all approach ignores the seriousness of each patients injury or illness and the skills, specialized training and experience of each nurse in a hospital unit. The number of patients and their conditions, change quickly in hospitals. Local healthcare professionals need flexibility to adjust to properly staff the emergency room and hospital units. Healthcare shouldnt be boiled down to a simple set of numbers. While supporters of ratios say it will help patients, it will do the opposite. Hospitals will have to lay off key support staff and reduce services. At critically busy times, when your local hospitals are needed most, they will be forced to divert patients further away to other hospitals to comply with the ratio mandate. Illinois doesnt have enough nurses to meet the ratios with a shortage of 21,000 nurses, and one-third of registered nurses planning to retire within five years. Only one state in the country, California, has adopted nurse staffing ratios. After many studies on the experience in California, there is no conclusive evidence that ratios improve quality or patient outcomes. On behalf of 200 hospitals and health systems across the state, the Illinois Health and Hospital Association urges lawmakers to reject House Bill 2604 or any other proposal imposing nurse staffing ratios. Its not good for patients. AJ Wilhelmi, president, Illinois Health & Hospital Association, Naperville Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 " " People in traditional outfits hold hands between dances at the annual Festa Confederada, or Confederate Party, on April 24, 2016, in Santa Barbara d'Oeste, Brazil. Mario Tama/Getty Images If you were traveling the world and wanted a taste of America without trekking back to the States, where should you go? That's what Will Pearson and Mangesh (Mango) Hattikudur discuss in an episode of Part-Time Genius called "What's the Most American Place in the World? (Outside the States, that is)." One contender for this prize might be the various Disneyland theme parks around the globe. A 2016 study conducted by Branding Magazine, asked 4,750 Americans which of 248 brands best personified the patriotism of the U.S. "Ninety-eight percent associated the Disney brand with U.S. patriotism," says Will. Advertisement But for a truly unusual taste of America outside U.S. soil, head for Americana, Brazil. The city of about 230,000 people in the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo welcomed 10,000 Southerners after the Confederates lost the Civil War in the mid-1800s. Today, that connection to the Old South remains strong. "You can spot rocking chairs on porches ... and people still make sweet potato pie," says Will. The settlers mainly folks from Alabama, Georgia and Texas came to Brazil because they wanted to preserve their unreconstructed Southern way of life, and also escape possible prosecution for treason. Brazil offered cheap land and still-legal slaves to help rebuild their plantations. Further, Brazil's emperor, Dom Pedro II, wanted his country to become as skilled and knowledgeable about agriculture as the U.S. So, the government offered to pay moving costs for Southerners willing to relocate even further down south. Of the thousands who accepted the deal, only one group of Alabama settlers thrived. They held surnames like Baird, Buford, Clark and Currie. They began growing cotton, a new crop to the Brazilians, and named their settlement Americana. The settlers' descendants spoke English with a Southern accent for generations. Eventually, as they intermarried with the Brazilians and their numbers soared, the group became more Brazilian than American. But they still love Western movies and country music. While the story of this group of settlers is little-remembered in U.S. history today, it's commemorated in Americana's history. Every year for the last quarter-century, descendants of the Confederate settlers (Confederados) gather for a huge party. Joined by Confederate enthusiasts from the U.S. states, they don gray rebel uniforms and hoop skirts and twirl around a dance floor to fiddle and banjo tunes. Their food of choice? Southern barbecue, fried chicken and beer. " " A monument to the original Southern American settlers stands during the annual Festa Confederada, or Confederate Party in Santa Barbara d'Oeste, Brazil. Here, the Confederate flag doesn't carry the racial or political implications that it does in the U.S. Mario Tama/Getty Images Custom dictates partygoers pay a visit to the nearby Confederate cemetery. Many today are quick to insist they are not racist, especially in light of recent movements in America to remove the Confederate flag from government buildings. No, celebrants say, they're simply celebrating their history. Nevertheless, historians note that Confederados have downplayed their ancestors' interest in maintaining slavery as a big reason for their move to Brazil. Brazil was the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery (in 1888.) To learn more about other contenders for "America overseas" (Canada? Guam?) and to hear an interview with Doug Mack, author of "The Not-Quite States of America," which is about America's overseas territories, download this Part-time Genius episode. NOW THAT'S INTERESTING Residents of American Samoa, a U.S. territory, are considered U.S. nationals, but not citizens. Yet, as cohost Mango point out, they have the highest military enlistment and casualty rates, beating out all 50 states and America's four other territories (Guam, U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and the Northern Marianas Islands). 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 New Braunfels, TX (78130) Today Mainly clear. Low 52F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Mainly clear. Low 52F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. But make no mistake, this is merely for show. The militias have really shown up because Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is terrified that the Iranian people will rise up and overthrow the mullahs and he knows that his foreign militias will do whatever it takes to stop that, including intimidation, harassment, torture, and murder. However, this shows that Khamenei has a major weakness and it may be his biggest mistake. The floods and the Regimes lacklustre reaction have caused widespread anger in Khuzestan and Lorestan provinces, where many of those affected as ethnic minorities such as Arabs, Lors, Bakhtiaris, etc, who have long been subject to harsh discrimination. Khuzestan is an oil-rich province, but the people are poor. Still, they are resilient and like millions of Iranians over the past year-and-a-half, theyve been taking part in the massive uprising against the Iranian Regime. Of course, the mullahs are scared. They know these are the end times for them. But Khameneis recruitment of foreign militias to suppress the people shows that he may not trust Irans suppressive forces, the Basij and the Revolutionary Guards; who may be slightly more reluctant to kill their fellow citizens. Indeed, many IRGC members left the group to join the protesters last year. The floods have come at the worst time for Khamenei because he is also besieged by US sanction and a populace that wants his Regime gone, but how can the world increase pressure on the Regime and decrease it on the people? Simply put sanctions pressure on Hezbollah and the Hashd. This would decrease their ability to harm the Iranian people and their pro-Regime influence in Lebanon and Iraq, which would help stabilise the Middle East as a whole. Its also a wise idea to take a look at the Regimes lobbies and influence networks in the West, which are engaged in shady activities to manipulate public opinion and politicians. Another idea is to increase financial support for independent journalism in Farsi media so that the Iranian people have free and fair access to information. However, the most important thing of all is to publically stand with the Iranian people and support their calls for freedom. A spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry disavowed the specific proposal on Friday, which would have supposedly seen an Iranian-British mother and child returned to the United Kingdom in exchange for the release of an Iranian woman who gave birth in Australia after being convicted of deliberate and deceptive violations of US sanctions. Although Zarif did expressly cite both of these cases in order to compare the two women, the Iranian government insists that his remarks were misinterpreted. The broader point about the prospective exchange of Irans hostages for prisoners in foreign countries, however, was reaffirmed. Zarifs commentary on this topic has met with condemnation by international human rights groups and former political prisoners. While most of these persons and groups embrace the notion of engaging the Iranian regime in dialogue over the plight of the hostages, they also tend to regard the proposed prisoner exchanges as confirmation of those detainees status as hostages. The Center for Human Rights in Iran said on Wednesday that Zarifs assertion of personal authority over the cases of detained dual nationals constitutes a glaring admission that those persons are being used as political pawns. Similarly, in an editorial published on Wednesday, Jason Rezaian called Zarifs remarks a blunt acknowledgement by Zarif that Iran practices hostage-taking. A former Tehran correspondent for the Washington Post, Rezaian himself was held as a political prisoner for nearly two years and was one of five individuals released on January 2016 in exchange for the Obama administration releasing seven Iranian nationals and dropping charges against 14 others. Some of the administrations critics also allege that a simultaneous 700 million dollar cash payment as part of a debt resettlement was a form of ransom for Rezaian and the other American citizens. Perhaps in part because he himself had benefited from the previous prisoner exchange, Rezaian did not reject out of hand the notion of taking Zarif up on his offer. While observing that the public nature of the current discussion could be a way for the Iranian regime to normalize its unlawful behavior, Rezaian credits Zarifs statement with serving as a necessary prelude to starting talks on freeing the prisoners. For its part, CHRI took no clear position on how to respond to the Foreign Ministers proposal. On one hand, the organization highlighted the plight of Irans hostages, who have invariably been denied due process, held in long-term solitary confinement, and harshly interrogated. These observations potentially lend credence to Rezaians suggestion that securing the prisoners freedom should be the US governments top priority. But on the other hand, CHRI also called attention to the contradictions that have characterized Tehrans discussion of these cases. This phenomenon may cast further doubt upon whether the regime can be expected to negotiate an agreement in good faith. CHRI notes that when Zarif said of a potential exchange, I am ready to do it and I have the authority to do it, he was undermining a familiar talking point that had previously been employed on several occasions by both him and President Hassan Rouhani, the head of a supposedly moderate faction of Iranian politics. When pressed by Western leaders over the issue of imprisoned foreign nationals, both men have insisted that they cannot intervene in the proceedings of an independent judiciary. CHRI Executive Director Hadi Ghaemi thus concluded that Zarifs recent statement lays bare the politicized nature of Irans judiciary and entire justice process. The implicit contradictions in the Foreign Ministers statements about his relationship with the judiciary were joined on Friday by his own departments insistence that he had never intended to offer an exchange involving the Iranian-British woman, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, whom he had brought up in New York. The UK newspaper The Independent reported upon that supposed correction by saying that hopes for the release of the Thomson Reuters charity worker have been dashed. But it is not at all clear that the UK would have pursued the exchange as it was originally interpreted. Agence France-Presse reported on Thursday that the British government had dismissed the idea, with Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt calling it a vile diplomatic ploy. Meanwhile, the prisoners British husband Richard Ratcliffe opined that the exchange would be almost impossible, largely because it had been made public in what he suggested could be a displacement tactic by the Iranian Foreign Ministry. Nonetheless, The Independent quoted Hunt as saying it was unfortunate that Zarif had somewhat retracted his apparent offer. Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been mentioned in the Asia Society speech alongside Negar Ghodskani, who is currently detained in Australia, where she is a legal resident, after falsely presenting herself as an employee of a Malaysian company in order to gain access to digital communications technology and transfer it to an Iranian company with ties to the countrys state media apparatus. Whether or not Hunt would have pursued the one-to-one exchange, his initial response to his Iranian counterparts comments emphasized the false equivalence involved in comparing their cases. The woman in jail in Australia is facing due process, a proper legal procedure, and she is alleged to have committed a very serious crime, Hunt said. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is innocent she has done nothing wrong. What is unacceptable about what Iran is doing is that they are putting innocent people in prison and using it as leverage. Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested in April 2016 as she was attempting to leave the country with her 21-year-old daughter Gabriella, after a visit with family members. No clear explanation for her arrest has ever been given, although the intelligence arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps quickly labeled her as a leader in some manner of infiltration network working toward the soft overthrow of the Islamic Republic. Western commentators have invariably concluded that she was targeted solely on the basis of her dual national status and her former employment by the charitable arm of the British Broadcasting Corporation. Irans English-language propaganda network Press TV did nothing to undercut this explanation on Friday when it communicated the Foreign Ministrys rejection of the apparent offer to release her in exchange for Ghodskani. The article cited no evidence to support the allegations of espionage, saying only that the 39-year-old was arrested after it became clear that she had run an illegal course to recruit and train people for the BBC Persian Television, a channel Iran deems an extension of Britains anti-Iran propaganda machine. The Press TV report relied heavily upon a misstatement by Jeremy Hunts predecessor Boris Johnson in order to justify this narrative. In off-the-cuff comments on the prisoners case, Johnson simply repeated Irans preexisting allegations, noting that even if she had been teaching journalism, it would not be recognized as a crime in any modern democratic country. However, those same allegations had been roundly rejected by Zaghari-Ratcliffes supporters, who noted for instance that she had been employed only by the BBCs charitable arm and had never held a position related to journalism or training. Nevertheless, Johnsons misstatement appeared to complicate the case, possibly contributing to a situation in which the new Foreign Minister saw fit to offer diplomatic protection to Zaghari-Ratcliffe last year. This comparatively rare step allows the UK to challenge Iran under international law, concerning the prisoners treatment. And as evidenced by some contents of the Press TV statement, this maneuver may have frustrated the Iranian regime enough to make them separate the Zaghari-Ratcliffe case from the half-dozen cases of American citizens and dual nationals who are serving prison terms in Iran as a result of equally questionable charges. As Euronews noted on Thursday, Zarif initially identified Zaghari-Ratcliffe by name in order to say the he felt sorry for her, before adding, I put this offer on the table publicly now. Exchange them. All these people that are in prison. But in subsequent remarks to Reuters News Agency, Zarif appeared to backtrack, declaring that his general offer would be applicable only to American nationals and persons detained in the US or in other countries upon extradition orders from Washington. The Iranian-British woman is a separate case, he concluded. It remains to be seen whether this separation also applies to the several other British nationals who, according to The Independent, are also being held in Iran but have not been identified publicly by their families. On one hand, Press TV says simply that the prisoner swap offer has nothing to do with Britons. But on the other hand, it adds that this is the case because in the case of Zaghari-Ratcliffe specifically, the UK government is responsible for her situation. This is arguably a veiled reference to diplomatic protection, which the same article described as an unexpected turn in the case. But even so, it is surprising to see that Iran would take a harder line with the UK than the US in this matter, considering that the US has dramatically increased sanctions on the Islamic Republic in recent weeks. On April 8, the White House announced that it would be designating the Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization, and two weeks later it announced that no further sanctions waivers would be granted to importers of Iranian oil. There is little doubt that the Trump administration and its supporters will highlight the prisoner exchange offer, and the exclusion of British nationals, in order to argue that the American strategy of maximum pressure is proving effective and that the UK should stop supporting the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and instead adopt a similarly assertive posture. EAC Secretariat The East African Community, in partnership with the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the Indian Ocean Commission (IOC) have over the last three years been implementing the ESA-IO Maritime Security Strategy with a Euro 37.5 Million seed funding from the European Union. Among the interventions envisaged is the enhancement of the Capacity of the Criminal Investigations Authorities of the participating states to effectively and efficiently investigate crimes at sea in a manner that provides a successful legal finish. The EAC was entrusted with this result area and commenced training of investigators on General Investigations, Forensic Investigations and Criminal Analysis. Six intermediate trainings, targeting 50 officers per cluster were held between January and June 2018. The advanced trainings for the same officers in each of the clusters commenced with the training of 50 officers on Criminal Analysis that commenced on 23rd April 2019 in Mauritius. The trainings will take place within a two week period ending May 5th 2019. The trainings are being held at the Mauritius Prisons Training School in Port Louis. INTERPOL, within the context of the MoU between EAC and it (INTERPOL) concluded in 2012, is providing the technical expertise. The trainings were formally launched by the Attorney General and Minister for Justice, Human Rights and Constitutional Reforms of the Republic of Mauritius Hon Maneesh Gobin. In his speech the Minister underscored the need for collective action by regional states in combating transnational organized crime. He noted that with the increase in the movement of people, money and goods, the level of sophistication of crime that rides on economic and social integration has increased. He called for the intensification of both horizontal and vertical information sharing among and within agencies and across states. He re-emphasized the need to strengthen commonality of purpose and where possible expansion of the training program to encompass more states particularly the French Speaking island states whose legal systems are different yet whose security is inextricably tied to other regional states (both littoral and inland). The opening session was also graced by the Deputy Head of the EU Delegation in Mauritius Mr. Michael Gobalek, the Deputy Commissioner of Police Mr. Muktar Din Taujoo, and the Commissioner of Prisons, Mr. Premananda Apadoo. Participants for the trainings are drawn from Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Seychelles, Mauritius, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda. The Attorney General and Minister for Justice, Human Rights and Constitutional Reforms of the Republic of Mauritius, Hon Maneesh Gobin (far left) being welcomed at the venue by the Commissioner of Prisons, Mr. Premananda Apadoo (in the middle) and the EAC Peace and Security Expert, Mr. Leonard Onyonyi (far right). The Attorney General addresses the course participants. Seated (far left to right) are the INTERPOL Training Mission Leader, Ms. Irina Koulatchenko; the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Muktar Din Taujoo; and the Deputy Head of EU Delegation, Michael Gobalek. MATTOON -- Potential students interested in pursuing a career in the medical field are welcome to explore career options at the Health CareeRX college fair on Monday, April 29, from 6:30-8 p.m. at Lake Land College, Neal Hall. Area health care professionals from several colleges and businesses will discuss their health career programs and hiring practices. Tours of the Lake Land College nursing lab will be provided. Colleges currently scheduled to attend include Danville Area Community College, Eastern Illinois University, Eureka College, Indiana State University, Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis, Iowa Wesleyan, Lake Land College, Lakeview College of Nursing, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale School of Medicine, University of Illinois Springfield, Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville School of Pharmacy. More colleges and universities are anticipated to attend. The college fair is coordinated through the Health CareeRX Club partnership. Health CareeRX is a student club organized for high school students interested in pursuing a career in health care, which is supported by the Area Health Education Centers organization, Carle Foundation Hospital, Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center, Eastern Illinois Education for Employment Systems, Eastern Illinois University, Lake Land College and Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. All interested high school and college students, parents and general public are welcome to attend. Pizza and drinks will be provided. For more information email CareeRX at healthcareerx@gmail.com. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 100 years ago, April 27, 1919 Sunday. No paper. 50 years ago, 1969 Sunday. No paper. 25 years ago, 1994 PARIS -- Under Gov. Jim Edgars five-year highway improvement program, Coles County-area residents will see multi-million-dollar roadway improvements in the near future. Improvements include a $1.5 million bridge replacement on Interstate 57 over U.S. Route 45 south of Mattoon, traffic signals on Hospital Road near Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center, resurfacing of Illinois Route 16 east and west of Ashmore and resurfacing of Illinois Route 16 on Charleston Avenue in Mattoon from Fifth Street to the Lerna Road. Projects in Coles County will cost about $5 million MATTOON -- A $2.5 million Mattoon Public Library construction project is in place and still has room to grow. The library board yesterday agreed to a contract with Heritage Builders of Effingham to be the general contractor. Heritage had the low bid of $1,437,870 for the renovation and expansion of the library. The board also accepted other bids for things such as reroofing and waterproofing the existing structure. Not accepted but still possible is an alternate to put limestone along the west and north wall ARCOLA -- A tornado touched down southwest of Arcola yesterday evening, damaging several implement sheds and downing power lines and tree limbs. Arcola and Arthur firefighters responded to calls and power was interrupted in Arthur from about 9:30 to 9:50 p.m. Strong winds were reported in Coles and area counties as tornado watches and warnings were in effect throughout the night. 100 years ago, April 28, 1919 CHARLESTON -- Mrs. Izora Warren, living at 709 10th Street, Charleston, known all over this region as a "fortune teller," was arrested Friday afternoon. It is stated that Mrs. warren's offense was telling a woman "customer" that the latter's husband was living a life that a good Christian should not live. It is also said that Mrs. Warren told the woman that the latter's son, with the American Expeditionary Forces in France, was badly wounded in battle and he badly needed the attention of his mother. These "revelations" supposedly preyed upon the woman's mind that for a time there was talk of having a medical commission examine her sanity. It is stated that Mrs. Warren has been engaged in the profession of "fortune telling" for years and that she numbers among her customers men and women from Mattoon, Oakland, Paris and virtually all the towns and cities in this section of the state... NEOGA -- Ervin Curry, aged 73 years, a well-known farmer living two miles north of Neoga, passed away at noon Saturday at the home of Mrs. Mary E. Butler, living seven miles southwest of Mattoon, as a result of injuries received from the kick of a mule earlier in the week. Mr. Curry had gone to the Butler home on an errand, and in handling a mule on the Butler place received a blow from the animal's hoof in a vital place. 50 years ago, 1969 MATTOON -- Mrs. Margaret Schooley, formerly of Mattoon and Toledo and famed for her quips and sayings which appeared in numerous publications, died today in Escondido, Calif. Mrs. Schooley's wit delighted readers of the Journal Gazette, Chicago Tribune, Reader's Digest, Saturday Evening Post and others. "When a baby gets a toe in his mouth it's the only time in his life he ever makes both ends meet" was typical of Mrs. Schooley's epigramatic quips and sayings. She moved to California from Mattoon last year. Mrs. Schooley was born Aug. 29, 1892, in Toledo, a daughter of Mary Ellen and Wellington Norton Pinkard. She married J.B. Schooley in 1912. They moved to Mattoon in 1929... OAKLAND -- Cleo A. Duzan, general chairman of a of a new farmers organization, United Grain Farmers of America, said yesterday its members will drive 1,000 tractors to Washington July 19 unless U.S. Agriculture Secretary Clifford Hardin comes to this Coles County community within two weeks to talk about a new farm program. The organization approved a three-point program for farm policy reform, calling on Congress to pass amendments to the Agriculture Act of 1965, called for elimination of payments on land taken out of production and demanded a national referendum of grain farmers to vote on the recommendations... CHARLESTON -- Eastern Illinois University's Alpha Phi Omega national service fraternity chapter recently elected new officers. Those elected are Keith Kohanzo, president; Joe Goldstein, first vice president; David Harder, second vice president; Bob Sabin, recording secretary; Larry Carbonari, corresponding secretary; Gary Small, treasurer. 25 years ago, 1994 MATTOON The wind storm that whipped through Coles County Tuesday evening left behind more than $500,000 in damage. Most of the damage occurred about two miles south of Arcola in the northwest part of Coles County. Tom Watson, director of the emergency services and disaster agency, said he monitored a funnel cloud in that area of the county about 10:30 p.m. Watson said the winds resulted in a three-mile long patch of damage about 400 yards wide. About one hour earlier, Arcola Fire Chief Tony Wingler reported a tornado about four miles south of Arcola and five miles west of U.S. Route 45. The destruction of one entire farm and damage to three others caused at least $250,000 in damage, he said CHARLESTON -- Howard Taylor first planned to write a book about his mothers life achievements. He mostly wanted to write about her years as the Coles County radio reporter -- particularly at WLBH radio station. But as he began his research he also began to add information about other media in the county. The book on his mothers life grew into Coles County News, The Gatherers and Reporting. In it, he has chapters on Ray Livesay, owner of WLBH; Ben Weir, publisher of the Charleston Courier; and his mothers cousins, former Coles County Coroner Dick Lynch and Lee Lynch, who was the original Coles County Reporter and later served as a state representative CHARLESTON -- Two Eastern Illinois University graduate students traveled to Chicago this week to take part in a historic event. The two black South Africa residents went to the consulate in Chicago to vote in their countrys presidential election. It is the first time that everyone in South Africa over the age of 18 can vote in the countrys 342-year history. Before, only the countrys white minority population could vote. EIU grad students Dolores Mashishi and Tselane Letzeli said the opportunity to vote was a celebration at the consulate. Both women said they voted for African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela. 100 years ago, April 29, 1919 MATTOON -- Guy Reid, son of Mr. and Mrs. Charles K. Reid of Mattoon, arrived home yesterday after a rather extended service overseas. Reid entered the air service on Oct. 13, 1917, going first to Jefferson Barracks, St. Louis, then to Kelly Field, Texas. Reid was in the construction department of the air service the entire time he was in France. Although he was far from the front lines, he had a number of interesting experiences. He counts as one of the most pleasant chapters of his service his acquaintance with Lt. Quentin Roosevelt, son of the late President Theodore Roosevelt. Guy and the young officer came to know each other well, and it was a great shock when he received news of the intrepid young officer's death when shot down by the Germans... MATTOON -- Engines 47 and 44 of the Frisco Railroad passed through Mattoon yesterday en route home from an eastern road where they were in service during the war. The two engines, being larger than the local mikado locomotives and too large for turntable service by the Big Four Railroad, could not be run into the roundhouse. 50 years ago, 1969 CHARLESTON -- Thomas Charles Fuller II returned to Coles County today and in a surprise move requested that the court appoint an attorney to represent him on petitions he has filed. The 19-year-old Mattoon youth was brought to a Coles County courtroom where for months he had made appearances on charges of murder. Fuller acted in his own behalf during a 1 1/2-hour hearing on two cases filed by him earlier this year. Fuller filed a petition in February seeking his release from prison after he was convicted for the murder of five children of the William Junior Cox family of Mattoon. When the hearing began, Fuller stated he had no legal experience and no legal education. He requested a public defender. Circuit Judge Robert F. Cotton said he would take the matter under advisement and Fuller was returned to the Menard State Penitentiary... CHARLESTON -- U.S. Sen. Charles Percy, touring seven university campuses in Illinois, addressed Eastern Illinois University students this morning. Percy called for U.S. policy "to guarantee a job for every American willing and able to work." He said Americans should not be satisfied with a society where, for lack of education, training or opportunity, people are forced to go on relief rather than payrolls. He said he would introduce a tax incentive plan to involve the private sector in employment and upgrading of skills. 25 years ago, 1994 CHARLESTON The month isnt over quite yet, but this years April showers already have exceeded the all-time record. Up until yesterday, April 1957 was the wettest on record with 8.22 inches of rain falling. However. 8.45 inches of rain have fallen in the area so far this April, according to Dalias Price, local weather observer. Price said 2 inches of rain fell in Charleston yesterday afternoon. In Mattoon, slightly more than 2 inches of rain was recorded. About three-10ths of an inch fell overnight Wednesday and 1.85 inches came down during the day yesterday CHARLESTON -- The deadline for developers to submit bids to build a coffeehouse on Eastern Illinois University property came and went yesterday without a single proposal. But that doesnt mean the idea is dead. Charles Colbert, EIU vice president for business affairs, said the university might extend the deadline. One prospective coffee entrepreneur said he and his partners are still considering making a bid but thought the one-month time frame was quick when they just got the building costs yesterday. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 A Boeing 777 that carries more than 266 passengers is more work than a 70-seat regional jet, but a single aircraft can take four or five days to paint, said Krolick, who declined to say how much the process is expected to cost. United said planes are repainted every seven years, on average. The work is getting done by a vendor, and not in Chicago. Designs emphasizing motion have been trendy in recent years, with carriers adopting curving lines as well as more complex patterns, said Patrick Smith, who flies a Boeing 767 and writes a column called Ask the Pilot. They can be attractive but all begin to look the same, said Smith, who hadnt yet seen Uniteds new design. An effective corporate brand isnt about cleverness or some abstract meaning, he said. While United has kept the look of its fleet relatively consistent, it occasionally shakes things up with one-off specialty designs. Some involve a partnership with another brand, like a Star Wars-themed aircraft that will begin flying this fall, before the release of the latest film in the franchise. United declined to say how much a brand would pay to paint its logo on a plane. Jonathan Gregory, assistant curator of exhibitions at the International Quilt Study Center and Museum, has been awarded the Lincoln Quilters Guild $1,000 scholarship for 2019. Gregory earned a doctorate in Human Sciences with a specialization in Textiles, Clothing and Design from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His newest research project is titled Nebraskans and the 1970s Quilt Revival. He intends to interview and report on the women that kept the knowledge of quilting alive through the 1950s and '60s before the revival that occurred in the 1970s. Several Nebraskans were key in promoting and accelerating the interest in quilting during the revival. At the conclusion of his research, Gregory will establish an exhibition in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the Whitney exhibit at the International Quilt Study Center and Museum. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Fridays show was the unofficial kickoff to Lincolns summer of music that will see at least 15 big outdoor concerts on the streets, at Pinewood Bowl and outside Pinnacle Bank Arena. Fridays weather, however, wasnt summer-like at least in the view of the band. To us boys who live in the South, its a little cold for us, T.J. Osborne said. Its probably warm for you all. Well, not that warm. Temperatures had dropped into the 50s by shows end and a swirling breeze made things a bit on the chilly side, sending a good third of the crowd down the street before the two-song encore. Song No. 1 was Pushing Up Daisies (Love Alive), with another John Osborne guitar workout, and the show-ender was a take on The Beatles With a Little Help from My Friends with help from opener Devon Gilfillian, who delivered a solid set of soul/blues/rock sure not country. The Beatles cover was one of three in the Brothers Osborne set the others, a pretty faithful take on Dierks Bentleys Burning Man, a song on which the brothers are guests, and a rowdy version of Steve Earles Copperhead Road. Chipotle Mexican Grill donated $25,000 to United Way Nebraska and Iowa flood relief efforts after hosting a fundraiser on Wednesday, April 10. More than 6,000 Nebraska and Iowa residents showed their support for flood victims by visiting participating Chipotle restaurants in Sioux City, Iowa and Nebraska during the fundraiser event. We believe in giving back to our communities and felt it was important to do our part for those affected by the devastating floods in Nebraska and Iowa, said Laurie Schalow, chief corporate reputation officer at Chipotle. Being part of the community means taking care of each other, and we hope this donation will help do just that for the individuals and families impacted by these historic floods. Funds donated to United Way are fueling mid- and long-term recovery assistance to residents affected by the devastating floods in Nebraska and Iowa. This is part of more than $1.4 million that Chipotle has donated since 2017 to help United Way rebuild communities after natural disasters. Chipotle donated to United Way relief efforts for the Mexico earthquake and Hurricanes Harvey and Irma in 2017, as well as the California wildfires in 2018. For more information on how to support local flood relief efforts, visit UnitedWay.org/Recovery. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 CHICAGO It is a few weeks before the final season of Game of Thrones begins, and I am standing in the Art Institutes arms and armor galleries, some 30 pounds over my standard weight. I am wearing, naturally enough, key components to a suit of armor: an intricately decorated blue-and-gold cuirass covering my chest and back, a plackart that is an extra layer of chest metal, and the pretty metallic collar known as a gorget that shields my delicate throat, aka the gateway to the jugular. If anybody tries to lance me in the vital organs, I shall not be penetrated. If anybody tries to sneak-garrotte or -guillotine me, Im good, too. I could probably even survive for a little while, I imagine, if suddenly conscripted into battle against one bastard or another, although dragons would pose more of a challenge. Somewhat predictably on account of current societys lack of day-to-day swordplay, a general peacefulness that is even more pronounced in an encyclopedic art museum nobody tests my metal. Instead, a burly guy in a Blackhawks shirt looks at my get-up and says, I would die. I cant even carry my wallet. A little kid seems both excited and intimidated by the plackart, now resting on the floor. People take turns hoisting it. And a group of MIT students on spring break approaches, puzzled by the 21st-century fellow in dress slacks, sweater and a half-Gallahad, ready to handle anything from the waist up and the neck down but massively vulnerable everywhere else. Is this authentic? one of them asks. This is mine, I explain. I have it on all the time. Ahhh, he says in mock understanding, before I give the real story: Its a high-end modern imitation of one of the museums most prized pieces, the proud item from Henry VIIIs royal workshops in Greenwich, England displayed under glass as Portions of a Field Armor. Well, it goes with the sweater, he says. How does it feel? Truth be told, the torso and neck pieces the museum has available for me to try are not all that unwieldy, although a full battle armor like this one, with leg and arm pieces and helmet, could get up to 70 to 80 pounds. I take a few tentative steps around the gallery, then quicker ones. I can move just fine, although I have to focus more than normal on the footing. It feels like overnight hiking but with less Gore-Tex or like teenagers must feel trudging off to high school with their ridiculously overloaded backpacks; their chests may be exposed, but no weapon alive can reach their shoulder blades. Indeed, the armor is backpack-like in construction. Leather straps riveted inside the breast go over the shoulders and help connect the back piece. Straps, buckles, latches and even a pin around the waist area help complete the connection. The gorget clicks in above, as simple to use as a pre-tied bow tie. We cant get the torso pieces closed completely. It was very snug against the rib cage, on purpose to take some of the weight, explains Jonathan Tavares, the museums armor curator who volunteered to suit me up. The original of this suit was likely made for William Compton, the Earl of Northampton, a nobleman of about 5 feet, 8 inches, about four inches below my stature. But we get it on-ish over the shoulders and with one side buckled around the ribs so that I can feel it and be surprised by its suitability to purpose. The week before, I covered Wired to Wear at the Museum of Science and Industry, a new exhibition of modern garmentry employing all the latest technology. What is this armor if not a candidate for the 16th-century version of that exhibition? This was all the rage in Elizabethan England: broad shoulders, slim waist, long belly, says Tavares. So youd have this V shape, and that comes out in the designs, too, for the armor. Despite its nods to fashion, the stuff was made to move, on horseback and in combat. If it hindered you severely it would be failing at its job. And by way of comparison, Tavares says, remember, our servicemen today wear outer tactical vests that are about 30 pounds; thats about the same as this cuirass. And theyre carrying 80 pounds too. One caveat about the metal stuff: There are real issues of ventilation, especially on hot days. I wanted to wear the armor (pro tip: a suit of armor is properly an armor) because, well, wouldnt you? Especially if you, like me, pay attention to every detail of Game of Thrones or if you are like Tavares, who dreamed about this stuff as a kid and now gets to spend his days amidst it. Big time, he says. Its total childhood fantasy coming to life. These are special armor pieces that have already starred on a different kind of TV series. Tavares commissioned it, working with an armor maker on Long Island and metalsmiths in Door County, to see if an armor like the Greenwich piece could be made today by rediscovering lost techniques. The fabrication process was detailed in a fascinating 2017 episode of the PBS science series Nova, titled Secrets of the Shining Knight. (Its on YouTube.) Nova and Tavares also wanted to answer a key question: Could armor, the heyday of which was ending as the spread of firearms began, withstand a bullet? I wont give away exactly what happens in the show, but it does contain a lot of Tavares fretting about whats going to happen to these beautiful new armor pieces, cuirass under plackart, when they are fired on. And today, on roughly the lower left ribcage of the plackart you can see a musket-ball shaped indentation but not a piercing! and barely a hint of a mark on the cuirass below. This is this arms race that this moment captures, the curator says. This is unusual armor. It is heavier than it usually is because it was designed for a nobleman who was absolutely conscious that hes going to be in firing range. Tavares and the armorist were supposed to do a public talk on the suit at the Art Institute in late January but got polar vortexed; hes hoping to reschedule it later in the year. When the metalwork is complete, he hopes to use it in more public demonstrations for museum-goers. For now, though, hes got me in the gallery, wearing the outfit as I hold a notebook and tape recorder and steer Tavares into talking about the HBO fantasy series. When you watch Game of Thrones, and I do, I always pick it apart like, OK, what did they use as an influence for that costume and that armor and this armor? he says. And it is of course, as you would expect, a melange of different things. Do you see this helmet with the three cones on it? he asks, pointing to a display. That probably reminds you of the kind of helmets that youre seeing in Westeros, right, being worn by the guards? They looked at this series of bodyguard helmets for the Emperor Charles the Fifth to inform them. Youll find a fair amount of grousing online about the Game of Thrones armor, essentially that the pieces are chosen more for looks than protection, Brienne of Tarth being an exception. Common themes include characters wearing partial armor but not pieces that would protect vital areas like the arms, hands and legs. Tavares, though, is fairly forgiving of the show as a fantasy and a costume designers pastiche of armor styles, especially considering the way the show has boosted general interest in his area of expertise: Theyre being very creative with these forms, but they are looking at things that absolutely did exist and thats fun for me. The armor for King Joffrey in the early years was good, he agrees, because it looked extremely well maintained, almost peacock-like, more for show than for use, as a status piece. It was similar in a sense to the Greenwich armor, which was meant for the battlefield, but its still proclaims your status in life, says the curator. As for being interviewed by a guy wearing neck armor, I find it absolutely normal in some ways that people would probably find frightening. But its entertaining for me always to see people wearing armor. Its meant to be on the human body. Its meant to move. We lose half the artistry every time we look at an armor in a case. So seeing you talking to me in this gorget, having it move ever so slightly here and then catching the light, that excites me. And it excites everyone else too. Thats what is the power of armor. 2019 Chicago Tribune Visit the Chicago Tribune at www.chicagotribune.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 A presentation by University of NebraskaLincoln Chancellor Ronnie Green will highlight a community prayer breakfast on the National Day of Prayer, Thursday, May 2, from 6:30-8:30 a.m. at Sheridan Lutheran Church, 6955 Old Cheney Rd. Doors open and breakfast will be served at 6:30 a.m. Program and remarks by Green will begin at 7 a.m. Reservations can be made on the registration link at nationaldayofprayernebraska.org. This years prayer topic is Love One Another. We are a country today that is in tremendous need of this love. From the church house to the state house, and all the way to the White House, we need to learn to love one another. This is the very message of Jesus Christ "Love one another, just as I have loved you! Green is the 20th chancellor at UNL. He has served as executive secretary of the White Houses interagency working group on animal genomics within the National Science and Technology Council. Prior to returning to the University of Nebraska, he served as senior global director of technical services for Pfizer Animal Healths (now Zoetis) animal genomics business. Green and his wife Jane are members of Sheridan Lutheran Church. For more details, see nationaldayofprayernebraska.org or contact Jon Fredricks at j.fredricks@nelcm.com. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 A Lincoln High School freshman was killed in a crash involving a stolen vehicle early Friday morning. The driver died at the scene, and a passenger suffered nonlife-threatening injuries, Lincoln police Capt. Robert Farber said Friday evening. Lincoln High Principal Mark Larson sent a letter home to parents Friday afternoon that identified the driver as 14-year-old Kaydance Potter. Lincoln police did not identify the passenger. The school said it had a crisis response team available Friday and will again Monday in the school's counseling center. Witnesses reported that an eastbound 2015 Honda Civic traveling at high speeds on Superior Street near 55th Street lost control and crashed into a pole just after 4 a.m. The crash closed Superior Street in both directions from 48th to 56th streets for several hours. The Honda was reported stolen April 15 from a residence in the 5600 block of Canterbury Lane. Police did not say how Potter came to be in possession of the stolen car. Derrick Eells was in the very first Youth Leadership Lincoln class. Hes gone on to start and run TenDot, a Lincoln-based business, volunteer with Junior Achievement, help start TEDxLincoln, and serve on the board of the Nebraska chapter of the Entrepreneurs Organization. Then theres Ann Hunter-Pirtle, who participated in the youth program in the early 2000s and is active in supporting Nebraskas public schools. When youre in high school, you sort of live in a little bubble, noted Hunter-Pirtle. You stay on your side of town and interact with people in your school. When I participated in Youth Leadership Lincoln back in 2002, I began to realize just what it takes to make a city function. During my Leadership Lincoln experience, we learned about business and government, plus we really began to understand all of the great services such as the Food Bank and what they do. The Youth Leadership Lincoln program is the only one of its kind across Nebraska. Most leadership programs are focused on adults who are living and working in their community. From 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. three days a week, Hartzell works with firefighter/paramedics David Oborny and Eric Kluever, heading wherever the job takes them. Typically, Hartzell said they respond to about six calls a day. Alex watched for the first few days and got a feel for how we perform and do things, Oborny said. He learned from our assessments, learned from what tools we use, how we call reports to the hospital. And now, we really let him go. We watch, and then if there is anything that he needs help with, we step in. He is basically our lead medic. Fire Chief Dan Miller said the Columbus department has had a working relationship with SCC for years, but noted that the way the program runs has been altered. Previously, one student would come for a single day and then he or she would go somewhere else for training, said Kluever, a 15-year department veteran. Its a huge benefit having Hartzell on his shift for three months because it allows for everyone on the team to get a "real feel." Miller added this was one of the reasons SCC staff made the shift to students working with a department over a longer term. The phone rings with a familiar looking number appearing on the caller ID. Answer it, and its not the person you thought you knew; its a scammer looking for money -- and sometimes getting it. Hanging up ends the call. But that does nothing to stop more of the spoofing calls from coming in. Last week, Nebraska lawmakers give first-round approval to a bill that takes aim at those callers. It provides the attorney general with more latitude to investigate call spoofing, particularly those that mimic phone numbers to defraud others. The Neighbor Spoofing Protection Act, as it is titled, wont stop spoofing calls from happening. Nor could any state legislation. Spoofing must be addressed at the federal level and, even then, as Sen. Ernie Chambers pointed out during the debate on LB693, the spoofers will likely have figured out a new scam to pursue before they are caught and prosecuted. That said, any legislation, state or federal, that could, in any fashion, put a damper on spoofing should be supported and implemented as soon as possible. And, hopefully, the fake calls will start to decrease. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 MOUNT PLEASANT Foxconn Technology Group on Friday announced that it will hold an advanced manufacturing interview event May 7 and 8 to fill approximately 30 additional Gen6-related openings. The jobs will range from entry level to senior positions across a number of job categories, including manufacturing engineers, equipment technicians, manufacturing associates, industrial engineers and environmental health and safety specialists. Foxconn said it plans to fill the positions rapidly. New employees will travel to Foxconn facilities in Japan and Taiwan for a six-month training period, during which they will learn about Gen6 advanced manufacturing technologies in depth. Upon completion of the training program, employees will return to Wisconsin where they will mentor future employees on Gen6 processes at the companys Wisconsin manufacturing facilities. Gen6 means the sixth generation of a particular technology. Selected candidates will become part of the second group of newly hired Foxconn employees to take part in overseas training for thin-film-transistor technology, fab construction and operations. The first batch is comprised of approximately 20 trainees who have been in Asia for over four months. The interviews will be conducted at Foxconns facility located at 13315 Globe Drive, southeast of the intersection of Highway 20 and Interstate 94. Foxconn is excited to commence recruitment for the second wave of employees for our manufacturing operations at the Wisconn Valley Science and Technology Park, stated Alan Yeung, Foxconn director of U.S. strategic initiatives. These Wisconsin-based professionals will travel to Asia to study leading advanced manufacturing processes never before implemented in North America. They will bring this knowledge and experience back to Wisconsin and will be critical to our success as we continue to expand our footprint in the state. Individuals with strong engineering or technical skills, experience and qualifications are encouraged to apply. Registration will be limited to the first 300 applicants, and interviews will be granted from among the pool of registrants. Registration is required, and interview times will be assigned and emailed in advance of the event. No walk-ins on the day of the interviews will be permitted. More information on the event and how to register is at: https://www.fewidev.com/events/#/mtpleasant-05-07_08-2019 Love 2 Funny 2 Wow 0 Sad 1 Angry 3 The business news you need Get the latest local business news delivered FREE 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. RACINE During the course of this week, multiple arrests have been made thanks to the use of video technology assets, the Racine Police Department announced on Friday. In one example, during the early morning hours of Sunday, April 21, a suspicious party was captured on video while in the act of attempting to unlawfully enter a private residence. Video of the suspect was quickly shared with area residents and law enforcement via social media. Through the use of social media, such as the Ring Neighbors portal, the suspect in the case was located, positively identified (by use of security video), and taken into custody within 24 hours of the attempted burglary incident, according to Sgt. Adam Malacara, spokesman for the Police Department. The suspect in the case was identified after officers responded to a separate complaint of a suspicious party who was sleeping near a private patio. Without the private security video from the previous call for service, officers would not have had the legal probable cause to connect this suspect with the previous attempt to enter a private dwelling, Malacara said. The suspect in the case remained in custody as of Friday on a probation hold while additional charges are considered. Special enforcement vehicles In a separate illustration of the value of technology, the Police Department reported Friday that two juveniles had been taken into custody within the previous 24 hours as a result of the recent deployment of the departments Special Assignment Focused Enforcement (S.A.F.E.) vehicles. The S.A.F.E. vehicles (two units) were recently deployed in the 1000 block of Hilker Place in response to an increase in criminal activity, most notably shots-fired incidents. On Thursday, two individuals damaged the hood of one vehicle, in addition to puncturing one of its tires. This vehicle is equipped with new digital camera technology, which enabled officers to quickly identify the parties involved. A 17-year-old male was taken into custody shortly after the damage was done to the S.A.F.E. vehicle. The second offender was involved in a separate tire slashing incident on Friday. Due to the immediate availability of high-resolution digital security footage from the S.A.F.E. vehicle incident from Thursday, the subject of the call for service on Friday was immediately identified and taken into custody. Also, in response to recent shots-fired incidents, the departments Mobile Command Vehicle was deployed in Uptown over the Easter weekend. No major incidents were reported during this deployment however, two teenagers were taken into custody following a weapons violation call near 12th and Racine streets on Thursday. As we approach the busy summer months, these referenced public and private assets will continue to be deployed and used to increase public safety, Police Chief Art Howell said. Under the broader citywide Smart City Initiative, a strategic public-private neighborhood safety and security partnership will soon be announced. For more information regarding S.A.F.E vehicles, go to: https://www.cityofracine.org/Police/Safe/ Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 KENOSHA Five months after she slammed at high speed into the back of a police squad car on Interstate 94, Yessica Trevino wept quietly as she waited to hear her sentence. Trevino, 31, pleaded guilty Thursday to operating while intoxicated causing injury and operating without a license causing great bodily harm for the Dec. 2 crash. Trevino admitted driving drunk with her three children in the car when she lost control and struck a Wisconsin State Troopers car and a tow truck that were stopped in the southbound lanes of the interstate in Bristol, responding to an earlier emergency call. Trevinos 11-year-old son was ejected from her car and struck the median but survived. Her other two children an infant and a toddler were not properly secured in the car and were also injured. You are, in my opinion, the luckiest woman who has ever walked into my courtroom, Judge Mary K. Wagner told Trevino, saying she could have easily killed six people in the crash, including herself and her three children. You are also a foolish woman. ... You are going to prison today. You deserve to go to prison. Trevino, of Fond du Lac, was driving from her home to her brothers home in Waukegan, Ill., when the crash occurred. She told deputies she had been drinking before leaving home, but said she felt fine to drive. Investigators also found open containers of alcohol and a pill bottle filled with marijuana in her vehicle. I have always referred to this as the miracle case in the office, said District Attorney Michael Graveley, saying it was miraculous that no one was killed in the crash given the damage to the vehicles and the fact that a child was ejected. Tony Wistert, the tow truck driver involved in the crash, spoke at the sentencing. He said he was so shaken up by the crash that he had to leave his job. What happened, what I seen, it still messes with my mind and it messes with my sleep, he said, saying he saw Trevinos son crawling out from under my truck. Wistert said when he saw the damage to the squad car he thought the trooper could have been decapitated. For Ms. Trevino to get in that car with three of her kids, driving, that was crazy, he said. I think she needs to think about what shes done. Trevino spoke briefly to Wagner, weeping, asking for a second chance and an opportunity to return to her children. Her defense attorney Barry Bouches asked that Trevino be given a suspended sentence, saying she had never been arrested in the past and had never before been separated from her children. Shes been living a nightmare that she created, Bouches said. I think the time has come to end this nightmare and let her go back to her kids. Wagner disagreed. She sentenced Trevino to 18 months in prison followed by six months of extended supervision and three years of probation. She said Trevino needs treatment for substance abuse. Trevino was also ordered to pay nearly $50,000 in restitution. She will receive credit for 145 days spent in jail. Im very grateful that no one died, and Ive very grateful that you are alive to see another day, Wagner said. Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 1 Sad 0 Angry 2 BURLINGTON Raymond dairy farmer John Scott grew up hearing the phrase that farmers feed the world. Thats not necessarily true, Scott said. We feed the world that pays us and thats why these trade agreements are important. Scott, along with several other individuals involved in farming and agriculture financing, spoke to U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Wisconsin, and other representatives of state and federal agencies about the current state of farming during a listening session on Thursday in Burlington. Steil, who represents Racine County in Congress, brought representatives of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Small Business Administration, a federal agency charged with providing support to small businesses, with him to hear testimony. I wanted to make sure that they got the benefit of information that we received today, Steil said. That theyre able to use that information to make better policy in Washington. The panel also talked about the United States, Mexico, Canada Free Trade Agreement (USMCA), which was recently evaluated by the International Trade Commission and is currently making its way through the halls of Congress. Wisconsin dairy products are sought after, not only throughout the nation as the highest quality available, theyre sought after worldwide, Scott said. We are invested in exports and we need Congress to invest in us. Over and over, different attendees told Steil and the other agency representatives that the USMCA needs to pass as soon as possible. Cindy Leitner, president of the Wisconsin Dairy Alliance, said the dairy industry is in a recession. We cannot add cows and milk our way out of this recession, Leitner said. The dairy industry is in a crisis. Leitner said giving farmers access to other markets outside of the United States is key to the survival of farms. Were not talking about steel, were not talking about plastic we are talking about food and our food source, Leitner said. We need to pass this legislation. With President Donald Trump visiting Wisconsin on Saturday, April 27, Leitner said she hopes someone speaks to him about the dire state of farming. The retaliatory tariffs have got to be removed, Leitner said. If we can do nothing else, weve got to remove those retaliatory tariffs. Its very critical. Every day we are not signing this agreement or pursuing this agreement we are losing. Aaron Stauffacher, associate director of government affairs for Brown County-based Edge Dairy Farmer Cooperative, said one of the good things about the USMCA is it retains access to Mexico and Canada established under the North American Free Trade Agreement. I dont think we can talk about the importance of USMCA without talking about the success of NAFTA has been, Stauffacher said. In the dairy industry, pre-NAFTA we were exporting about 3% of our product and today based off of last years numbers were exporting about 15.8% of all dairy products in terms of milk solids. If USMCA passes and signed into law, Scott said it will bring some stability to the market. It would have an impact over the next 15 years, Scott said. Taking the message to Washington After hearing the testimony of producers and financers, Steil said he got a sense of how real the situation is regarding farming in America. The commodity prices are low and thats making it really hard for farmers to hold on to their farms, Steil said. We need to find a way to drive those commodity prices up and making sure that farmers have an ability to sell their product freely, fairly, reciprocally around the globe, is going to be an essential piece to that puzzle. Steil said he plans to go back to Washington, armed with new information, to advocate for farmers and workers in agriculture. I have to take the information that I learned from dairy farmers and corn growers and soybean growers and share that with members of districts that might not have that experience and have that dialogue on how do we get trade agreements that benefit all American workers and American farmers, Steil said. In the meantime, Scott will have to be patient. Farmers are always optimistic, especially in the spring, Scott said. Having Congressman Steil take the time to listen to what we had to say makes us a little more optimistic. Love 1 Funny 3 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 2 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. YORKVILLE Village officials have decided not to hire a full- or part-time administrator this year. The decision, made at Yorkvilles Village Board Monday night, came as a result of budgetary restraints and liability insurance concerns, village officials said. In the meantime, duties of the administrator role will be handled by Village Clerk-Treasurer Michael McKinney and Village President Douglas Nelson. Rather than put ourselves in a bind budget-wise, its better to be cautious, said Nelson, who ran his first meeting as president Monday, after being elected on April 2. As nice as it would be to have one, its more responsible to wait. Yorkville officials were considering using a staffing service that would conduct the search for the administrator position and actually employ the selected person. That candidate would be a contractor, and not an employee of the village, leading to some concerns Village Board members had regarding that individual not being covered by the villages liability insurance policy. Another reason cited for the postponement were some expensive road projects coming up in the village, including a paving and drainage project on 67th Drive that is expected to come in over budget. McKinney said that although it would be ideal to have an administrator who could focus on assignments such as grant-writing, the village staff should be able to handle the extra work load. We can definitely push through in the next few months and get things taken care of without having someone else come on, he said. Village officials will likely begin the search for an administrator about the time they start planning the next budget this October. Ideally, McKinney said they would like to hire an administrator who could start Jan. 1. This would be the first village administrator for Yorkville, which incorporated as a village just over a year ago. The former Town of Yorkville never had an administrator. Emergency prep Yorkville officials on Monday also discussed how best to prepare for any future emergencies that could occur within the village. David Maack, Racine Countys emergency management coordinator, prepped village officials on what they will need to if disaster strikes. Its better to plan ahead, before something happens than afterwards, said Maack. Maack said the village will need to develop an emergency management plan that meets state standards and appoint a head of emergency management services. He also said the village will need to think about where their emergency command center will be, and who will be in charge of getting information out to the public. Even small things such as managing donations and volunteers is something the village will need to consider. Yorkville can also apply for state and federal assistance in the case of emergency. At a very minimum you have to start thinking about who is going to be your feet on the ground and how you are going to compile that damage information so that you can get it up to the county and we can get it to the state, said Maack. Nelson, who is also on the executive staff of the Racine Correctional Institution, said he already performs emergency drills with the institution. He said village officials will start considering emergency plans right away. Being there (at Racine Correctional) has helped immensely, said Nelson. It needs to be a well-coordinated effort. The past honored The Village Board on Monday also honored past board members Sherry Gruhn and Terry McMahon at the beginning of the meeting. Were losing 70 years of experience on this board. And thats invaluable, said Nelson. If we can do half the job they did well be in good shape. Gruhn served for 38 years in Yorkville, as town supervisor, village trustee and most recently as village president. McMahon served for 34 years, as a town supervisor and village trustee. Nelson said Gruhn and McMahon will be missed, but he also said the current board is ready for the future. Its the way they deal with people. They have time for everybody. They listen to everyone, he said. But Im excited to be here and Im excited about the future. Were losing 70 years of experience on this board. And thats invaluable. If we can do half the job they did well be in good shape. Doug Nelson, Yorkville village president, speaking of former board members Terry McMahon and Sherry Gruhn Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 WASHINGTON (AP) Rallying in Michigan, President Donald Trump bragged about a surging auto industry that isn't surging, a Republican rescue for health care that has yet to take shape, a "total" exoneration in the Russia investigation that was not offered. And Trump, as he routinely does, took credit for a veterans health care initiative that his predecessor achieved and ignored the reality when veterans seek treatment waiting times that still last for weeks. Here's a look at rhetoric from his Grand Rapids rally on Thursday night, as well as his remarks leading up to it: 2016 ELECTION TRUMP, on electoral votes: "We won 306 to 223." rally. THE FACTS: No. He won 304 to Hillary Clinton's 227, according to an Associated Press tally of the electoral votes in every state. He routinely misstates the result. ___ TRUMP: "We did really well with women." rally. THE FACTS: Not that well. He actually lost the women's vote. About 54 percent nationally voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton, according to exit polls, compared with Trump's 41 percent. He won 52 percent of white women, according to those polls. ___ HEALTH CARE TRUMP: "The Republican Party will become the party of great health care. ... Republicans want you to have an affordable plan that's just right for you." rally. TRUMP: "If the Supreme Court rules that Obamacare is out, we will have a plan that's far better than Obamacare." remarks Wednesday to reporters. THE FACTS: Republicans may aspire to great health care but they don't have a comprehensive plan for it. And there's no indication that the White House, executive branch agencies like Health and Human Services, and Republicans in Congress are working on one. Trump's recent budget called for repealing "Obamacare" and setting hard limits on federal spending for Medicaid, which covers low-income people. Some Republicans argue that would be better, because the federal government would create a new program of health care grants to states. But when the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office analyzed similar proposals a couple of years ago, it estimated such changes would result in deep coverage losses, not to mention weaker insurance protections for people with pre-existing medical conditions. Trump's budget also called for hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicare cuts to hospitals and other service providers, a nonstarter with lawmakers in Congress worried about re-election next year. The Supreme Court has upheld the health care law twice in previous challenges. The five justices who first upheld it in 2012 are still on the court. Congressional Republicans are generally trying to steer away from Obamacare spats. Some are trying to focus on areas where they might find common ground with Democrats and the president, such as reducing prescription drug costs. ___ TRUMP: "We will always protect patients with pre-existing conditions, always." rally. THE FACTS: He's not protecting health coverage for patients with pre-existing medical conditions. In fact, the Trump administration is pressing in court for full repeal of the Affordable Care Act including provisions that protect people with pre-existing conditions from health insurance discrimination. Trump and other Republicans say they'll have a plan to preserve those safeguards, but the White House has provided no details. And it's a stretch to think they could get a Republicans-only plan passed through Congress with the House under Democratic control. Meanwhile House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has unveiled her own plan to shore up and expand the ACA, which would make many more middle-class people eligible for subsidies to help pay their premiums, and also make the subsidy amounts more generous. Former President Barack Obama's health care law requires insurers to take all applicants, regardless of medical history, and patients with health problems pay the same standard premiums as healthy ones. Bills supported in 2017 by Trump and congressional Republicans to repeal the law could have pushed up costs for people with pre-existing conditions. ___ AUTOS TRUMP: "We're bringing a lot of those car companies back. They're pouring back in." rally. TRUMP: "We're opening up car plants in Michigan again for the first time in decades. They're coming in, really pouring in. ... And this has been happening pretty much since I've been president. It's really amazing what's going on ... We've brought back so much industry, so many car companies to Michigan, so we're very happy." remarks while departing for Michigan. THE FACTS: There is very little truth in those remarks. The only automaker announcing plans to reopen a plant in Michigan is Fiat Chrysler, which is restarting an old engine plant to build three-row SUVs. It's been planning to do so since before Trump was elected. GM is even closing two Detroit-area factories: one that builds cars and another that builds transmissions. Automakers have made announcements about new models being built in the state, but no other factories have been reopened. Ford stopped building the Focus compact car in the Detroit suburb of Wayne last year, but it's being replaced by the manufacture of a small pickup and a new SUV. That announcement was made in December 2016, before Trump took office. GM, meantime, is closing factories in Ohio and Maryland. Trump can plausibly claim that his policies have encouraged some activity in the domestic auto industry. Corporate tax cuts freed more money for investment and potential tariff increases on imported vehicles are an incentive to build in the U.S. But automakers have not been "pouring in" at all, as he persistently claims, and when expansion does happen, it's not all because of him. Fiat Chrysler has been planning the SUVs for several years and has been looking at expansion in the Detroit area, where it has unused building space and an abundant, trainable automotive labor force. Normally it takes at least three years for an automaker to plan a new vehicle, which is the case with the three-row Jeep Grand Cherokee and the larger Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer SUVs that will fill the restarting Detroit-area plant and an existing one. Several years ago then-CEO Sergio Marchionne said the Wagoneer would be built in the Detroit area. Detroit automakers usually build larger vehicles in the U.S. because the profit margins are high enough to cover the higher wages paid there versus Mexico or another lower-cost country. ___ RUSSIA INVESTIGATION TRUMP: "After three years of lies and smears and slander, the Russia hoax is finally dead. The collusion delusion is over. The special counsel completed its report and found no collusion and no obstruction. ...Total exoneration, complete vindication." rally. THE FACTS: Mueller did not vindicate Trump in "total" in the Russia probe. Mueller's exact words in the report, as quoted by Attorney General William Barr, say: "While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him." The four-page summary by Barr released Sunday 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 wrote in the summary that 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. Barr's summary also notes that Mueller did not find that the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with Russia to tip the 2016 presidential election in Trump's favor. To establish a crime, Mueller must generally meet a standard of proving an offense beyond a reasonable doubt. The summary did not clear the president of improper behavior regarding Russia but did not establish that "he was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference," Mueller said in a passage from the report quoted by Barr. The summary signed by Barr gave the bottom line only as he and his deputy saw it. Democrats are pushing for release of Mueller's full report, which is more than 300 pages. Barr is expected to release a public version of the document in the coming weeks. ___ TRUMP, speaking about allegations in a so-called dossier about contacts between Russia and the Trump campaign during the 2016 election: "It came out after the election and everybody had a big fat yawn. ...All of a sudden I heard, 'Were you involved with Russia? I said, 'Russia? What the hell does Russia have to do with my campaign?'" rally. THE FACTS: There actually was plenty that Russia had to do with Trump's campaign. According to U.S. intelligence agencies and lengthy indictments brought by Mueller's team, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a multipart influence campaign aimed at hurting Democrat Hillary Clinton's candidacy, undermining American democracy and helping Trump get elected. That effort included the hacking of the Democratic National Committee, Clinton's campaign and other Democratic groups. Russian intelligence officers then coordinated the release of stolen emails and internal documents. There were also plenty of people around Trump receptive to Russia's help, though Mueller's report ultimately did not find that those contacts amounted to a criminal conspiracy, according to Barr's summary. In the middle of the campaign, Donald Trump Jr. met at Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer thinking he would be getting "dirt" on Clinton. Trump Jr. agreed to the meeting, which included Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, despite it being described to him as part of a Russian government effort to help his father. ___ IMMIGRATION TRUMP, on diversity visas: "They're giving us their worst people." rally. THE FACTS: That's false. The diversity visa lottery program is run by the U.S. government, not foreign governments. Other countries do not get to sort through their populations looking for bad apples to put in for export to the U.S. Citizens of qualifying countries are the ones who decide to bid for visas under the program. Trump repeatedly blames foreign states. The program requires applicants to have completed a high school education or have at least two years of experience in the last five years in a selection of fields. Out of that pool of people from certain countries who meet those conditions, the State Department randomly selects a much smaller pool of winners. Not all winners will have visas ultimately approved, because they still must compete for a smaller number of slots by getting their applications in quickly. Those who are ultimately offered visas still need to go through background checks, like other immigrants. The lottery is extended to citizens of most countries, except about 20. The primary goal is to diversify the immigrant population by creating slots for underrepresented parts of the world. ___ VETERANS TRUMP: "They've been trying to get VA Choice for over 40 years. Couldn't do it. I got it. We signed it six months ago." rally. THE FACTS: Not true. He's not the first president in 40 years to get Congress to pass a private-sector health program for veterans; he expanded it. Congress first approved the program in 2014 during the Obama administration. The program currently allows veterans to see doctors outside the VA system if they must wait more than 30 days for an appointment or drive more than 40 miles (65 kilometers) to a VA facility. Now they are to have that option for a private doctor if their VA wait is only 20 days (28 for specialty care) or their drive is only 30 minutes. ___ TRUMP: "Instead of waiting online for 1 day, 1 week, 2 months, ...they now go outside, they see a private doctor, we pay the bill, they get better quickly." rally THE FACTS: Also not right. Veterans still must wait for weeks before they can get private care outside the VA system. The program currently allows veterans to see doctors outside VA if they must wait more than 30 days for an appointment or drive more than 40 miles (65 kilometers) to a VA facility. Under new rules to take effect in June, veterans are to have that option for a private doctor if their VA wait is only 20 days (28 for specialty care) or their drive is only 30 minutes. But the expanded Choice eligibility may do little to provide immediate help. That's because veterans often must wait even longer for an appointment in the private sector. Last year, then-Secretary David Shulkin said VA care is "often 40 percent better in terms of wait times" compared with the private sector. In 2018, 34 percent of all VA appointments were with outside physicians, down from 36 percent in 2017. At a hearing Tuesday, the top health official at VA, Dr. Richard Stone, described the start of the expanded Choice program to "almost be a non-event," in part because wait times in the private sector are typically longer than at VA. The VA also must resolve long-term financing because of congressional budget caps after the White House opposed new money to pay for the program. As a result, lawmakers could be forced later this year to limit the program or slash core VA or other domestic programs. ___ Associated Press writers Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar in Washington and Tom Krisher in Detroit contributed to this report. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 - Jessy Mendiola's mother slammed bashers of the Kapamilya actress - A certain netizen accused her of boyfriend stealing which is alluding to Luis Manzano and Angel Locsin breakup - The actress' mother threatened to drop something shocking if false accusations against daughter wont be stopped PAY ATTENTION: Click "See First" under the "Following" tab to see KAMI news on your News Feed! Jessy Mendiola is one of the Kapamilya actresses who experienced intense bashing especially when she got involved in the breakup of Luis Manzano and Angel Locsin. The TV host had been defending Jessy from these bashers. They had long refuted the issue. However, some bashers were persistent and never ceased on bombarding the actress. Most of her Instagram post had trolls and bashers saying nasty things about Jessy. In one of the actress' Instagram post, another netizen brought back the issue of her stealing boyfriend. 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! This prompted Jessy's mom to reply and defend her daughter. She wrote, "Basa basa din kayo kung anu yung totoo open open din ng eyes.. kaso matagal na rin ako nag titimpi sa inyong lahat baka lang may ilabas ako sa totoong pangyayari mawendang kayo.. kaya di bale na.. oks lang yan habang kaya pa ng anak ko mga pang aapi nyo kakayanin ko po Jessy Mendiola's mom claps back at basher accusing her daughter of boyfriend stealing Source: Instagram Jessy Mendiola's mom claps back at basher accusing her daughter of boyfriend stealing Source: Instagram Jessy Mendiola's mom claps back at basher accusing her daughter of boyfriend stealing Source: Instagram This elicited raise eyebrows and speculations. Some netizens got curious of what she threatened to reveal. Jessica Mendiola Tawile is a Filipino actress. She played the titular character in the 2013 remake of the 1992 Mexican telenovela Maria Mercedes. She is currently in relationship with Luis Manzano. POPULAR: Read more about Jessy Mendiola here Enjoyed reading our story? Download KAMI's news app on Google Play now and stay up-to-date with major Filipino news! Blackpink: Kill This Love Dance Prank | HumanMeter Check out the public prank video filmed in the Philippines. Watch us do the Blackpink's Kill This Love Dance Pank in public. Some people laugh, some are shocked, others just don't care at all. Enjoy! Source: Kami.com.ph POWAY, Calif. (AP) A 19-year-old gunman opened fire inside a synagogue near San Diego as worshippers celebrated the last day of a major Jewish holiday, killing a woman and wounding the rabbi and two others Saturday, authorities said. President Donald Trump and other elected officials decried what they called an anti-Semitic attack exactly six months since 11 people were killed at a Pittsburgh synagogue in the deadliest assault on Jews in U.S. history. An off-duty Border Patrol agent working as a security guard at the Chabad of Poway fired at the shooter as he fled, missing him but striking his getaway vehicle, San Diego County Sheriff William Gore said. The gunman, identified as John Earnest, used an AR-type assault weapon, Gore said. There were indications that the gun might have malfunctioned after firing numerous rounds inside the synagogue, the sheriff said. Shortly after fleeing, Earnest called 911 to report the shooting, San Diego Police Chief David Nisleit said. When an officer reached the man on a roadway, "the suspect pulled over, jumped out of his car with his hands up and was immediately taken into custody," Nisleit said. A girl and two men were wounded as the Jewish congregation gathered for Passover, a weeklong commemoration of the deliverance of the ancient Hebrews from slavery in Egypt. The three were in stable condition, authorities said. Earnest has no criminal record, but investigators were looking into a claim he made in an online manifesto about setting a fire at a mosque in nearby Escondido last month, Gore said. There was damage but no injuries. Gore said authorities were reviewing copies of his social media posts and were investigating the attack as a possible hate crime. A person identifying themselves as John Earnest posted an anti-Jewish screed online about an hour before the attack that contained some elements not to be believed, like an allegation a YouTube star helped plan and fund the shooting. The post says he was in nursing school and cited the suspects accused of carrying out deadly attacks on mosques in New Zealand last month and at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue Oct. 27. There was no known threat after Earnest was arrested, but authorities boosted patrols at places of worship as a precaution, police said. Minoo Anvari, a member of the synagogue, told media outlets that her husband was inside during the shooting. She said he called to tell her the shooter was shouting and cursing. She called the shooting "unbelievable" in a peaceful and tight-knit community. "We are strong; you can't break us," Anvari said. Donny Phonea, who lives across the street from the synagogue, turned off his power drill and heard someone shout, "Police!" Then he heard three or four shots. The 38-year-old bank auditor looked over his backyard fence facing the synagogue and saw people hiding behind an electrical box in the parking lot of a neighboring church. At that point, he knew something was "very, very wrong," went inside and closed his doors and garage. "I'm a little taken aback," said Phonea, who moved to Poway two weeks ago. "I moved here because safety was a factor. Poway is very safe." Trump offered his sympathies Saturday, saying the shooting "looked like a hate crime" and calling it "hard to believe." The mayor of Poway, who tweeted that he got a call from the president offering help, also denounced what he called a hate crime. "I want you know to you this is not Poway," Mayor Steve Vaus said. "We always walk with our arms around each other and we will walk through this tragedy with our arms around each other." Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom said he joins the community in grief. "No one should have to fear going to their place of worship, and no one should be targeted for practicing the tenets of their faith," he said. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 Appeals Court Denies Rehearing of Ex-Sheriff Lee Bacas Appeal Former Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca is one step closer to prison after a federal appeals court today rejected a request to reconsider the appeal of the ex-lawmans conviction on charges of obstruction of justice and lying to the FBI. The 76-year-old former sheriff, who has Alzheimers disease, was sentenced in May 2017 to three years in federal prison, but has remained free pending appeal. In February, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena rejected his first attempt. In Fridays decision, the court denied Bacas petition for rehearing before a full panel of 11 judges. The ruling does not automatically mean Baca will be going to prison. He could now appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. ADVERTISEMENT Bacas attorneys could not immediately be reached for comment. The ex-sheriff was convicted in Los Angeles federal court on charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice, obstruction of justice and making false statements. During his two trials, prosecutors described the ex-lawman as being the top figure in a multi-part conspiracy, which also involved his former right-hand man, Paul Tanaka, and eight deputies who took orders from the sheriff. Baca who ran the nations largest sheriffs department for more than 15 years was first tried in December 2016 on obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice counts, and prosecutors had planned a second trial on the false statements count. But a mistrial was declared after jurors deadlocked 11-1 in favor of acquittal, and the judge in downtown Los Angeles combined all three counts in the retrial that ended with Bacas conviction. Baca did not take the stand in either trial. The charges stemmed from events more than seven years ago when a cellphone was discovered in the hands of an inmate/informant at the Mens Central Jail. Sheriffs deputies quickly tied the phone to the FBI, which was conducting a secret probe of brutality against inmates. At that point, sheriffs officials closed ranks and began an attempt to halt the formerly covert investigation by concealing the inmate-turned- informant from federal prosecutors, who had issued a summons for his grand jury appearance, prosecutors said. ADVERTISEMENT Baca became sheriff in December 1998 and won re-election on several occasions. He was poised to run again in 2014, but federal indictments unsealed in December 2013, related to excessive force in the jails and obstruction of that investigation, led him to retire the following month. In addition to the 10 people convicted in connection with the Baca conspiracy case, 11 other now-former sheriffs department members also were convicted of various crimes uncovered during the FBI investigation. During arguments before the Pasadena appeals panel in November, Baca attorney Benjamin Coleman contended that the trial judge in the case had abused his discretion by barring jurors from hearing evidence of the former sheriffs Alzheimers diagnosis. Coleman argued that the ruling could have affected all of Bacas criminal convictions and urged the appellate panel to overturn the guilty verdicts. But the court found that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by rejecting as unreliable testimony about the extent of the diseases impact on Baca when he lied to investigators. Coleman argued that Bacas conviction for making false statements during an FBI interview in 2013 was the direct result of mild impairment caused by early stages of the disease. Baca was diagnosed with the disease in May 2014. During the FBI interview, which focused on events in 2011, Baca was found guilty because he couldnt remember every single little detail from two years earlier, Coleman alleged. But prosecutors responded that while Baca may have been in the early stages of the disease in 2013, the defenses own expert witness could not prove that the ex-lawman was likely to have been suffering from memory loss at the time of the interview. What the jury decided, ultimately, was that this was a man who believed he was above the law but wasnt, Assistant U.S. Attorney Bram Alden said. Closing the Opportunity and Achievement Gap for African American Students The Los Angeles Unified Board of Education approved a resolution to help boost the academic achievement of African-American students. In Los Angeles Unified, black students as a subgroup and despite individual standouts, perform at the lowest levels when compared to their white, Asian-American and Latino classmates. Without urgent actions, Black students, in general, will continue to languish at the bottom of the academic rankings in Los Angeles Unified, said Veteran African American educator and school board member Dr. George J. McKenna III, who sponsored the resolution. Los Angeles Unified has committed for years to close this achievement and opportunity gap. At issue is how to close it quickly and permanently. We need to make sure every child in Los Angeles Unified has the opportunity to succeed in school and life, said Superintendent Austin Beutner. For too long, this opportunity gap has existed, and its time we redouble our efforts to address all of the issues. ADVERTISEMENT Board Member Kelly Gonez, a co-sponsor, said, The equitable education of our African American students is a civil rights issue. Unfortunately, we know our African American students are one of our lowest-performing student groups on a number of measures, and that it is not a reflection of their potential. It is a reflection of systemic inequities, economic and racial injustice and a lack of resource equity. We can and must do better for our African American students and families. Today is a critical first step. We are well when all of us are well, said Board President Monica Garcia. Today I am proud to support Dr. McKennas resolution to close the opportunity gap for our African American students because it is our responsibility to serve all kids well. We are constantly learning, and this will be yet another opportunity to learn and change to meet the demands of our community. Black students make up just over eight percent of Los Angeles Unifieds enrollment. In addition to posting the lowest test scores, the resolution points out they are least likely to be identified as gifted and talented. They are also disproportionately referred to special education classes and out-of-classroom suspensions. To address these inequities, the resolution calls for a five-year plan that includes an extensive range of academic and social emotional supports, new strategies and expected outcomes. The plan would be developed within six months. It would include consistent funding and provide quarterly updates to the superintendent and community. Other goals include increasing enrollment in honors, advanced placement courses and early childhood education programs; expanding opportunities in testing for gifted and talented programs; designating dedicated investments for Standard English learners; providing greater access to dual language and linked-learning programs; and expanding mentorship opportunities and other services that promote a positive campus environment. School Board Vice President Nick Melvoin said, Its long past time to end decades of systemic opportunity and achievement gaps for our African-American students I look forward to this District undertaking the work set forth to disrupt the status quo and improve academic outcomes for African-American students. ADVERTISEMENT Board Member Scott M. Schmerelson said, Currently, the Los Angeles Unified Access, Equity and Acceleration Unit strives to ensure equitable access and learning opportunities to close achievement disparities for historically underserved students. I believe that Dr. McKennas resolution will focus additional attention and provide additional resources toward eliminating the achievement gap, once and for all, and demonstrate our Districts commitment to the success of our African American students and families. Board Member Dr. Richard Vladovic said, Children learn when they have the opportunity to learn. They thrive when we give them the tools to thrive. Race, socioeconomic or ethnic background should not be a determinant of a childs accessibility to a quality education. It is not enough for us to be complacent with what we offer our young African American students; in fact, we should not be complacent in regards to any of our students. We should be loud and boisterous advocates demanding change in our schools and our communities. In the past, the Board has approved resolutions and projects but the job has been left unfinished and our African American students have been left underserved. We cannot allow that to keep happening. We have to fight for all our students and their futures. Georgetown Students Approve Reparations Measure Georgetown University could become the first college in the nation to mandate a fee to benefit descendants of slaves sold by the university nearly 200 years ago a debate, as first reported by ABC News, that takes place against the backdrop of a broader political conversation unfolding on the 2020 presidential campaign trail about reparations. By almost a 2-to-1 margin, students approved the measure, which still must be approved by the university to go into effect. If the university does approve the plan, it would be one of the first major American institutions to provide financial restitution for its role in slavery. ADVERTISEMENT The schools undergraduates voted Thursday, April 11, on the referendum, which would increase tuition by $27.20 per semester to create a fund benefiting descendants of the 272 slaves sold to pay off the Georgetown Jesuits debt a move that saved the university financially. The results of the referendum are as follows: 66.08 percent for yes (2541 votes), 33.92 percent for no (1304 votes), which means that the referendum passes, according to ABC News. In a statement, Todd Olson, vice president for student affairs at Georgetown University, praised the students efforts saying the university values the engagement of our students and appreciates that 3,845 students made their voices heard in yesterdays election. Our students are contributing to an important national conversation and we share their commitment to addressing Georgetowns history with slavery, Olson said. Reparations have become a major platform for Democratsseeking the 2020 presidential nomination. But, its long been a topic among African Americans whose forefathers were tortured, abused and enslaved by European Americans during the transatlantic slave trade. ADVERTISEMENT Like many of the nations other acclaimed colleges and universities, Georgetown was complicit in the slave trade. In 1838, Maryland Jesuits sold 272 enslaved individuals to help prevent Georgetown from shutting down. A 2017 reportrevealed that dozens of American colleges and universities had begun investigating their historic ties to the slave trade and debating how to atone. Profits from slavery and related industries helped fund some of the most prestigious schools in the Northeast, including Harvard, Columbia, Princeton and Yale, according to the report. And in many southern states including the University of Virginia enslaved people built college campuses and served faculty and students. In 2018, the University of Virginia (UVA) organized a consortium called Universities Studying Slavery (USS) that brought together over 40 colleges and universities across the country and world to share resources as they confront the role of slavery and racism in their histories and its impact today. USS reportedly began as an informal working group between several Virginia institutions undergoing similar initiatives to research and be more open about their relationship to slavery and slave labor. As an alumnus [of Georgetown], I supported the plan for paying reparations 100 percent, Lynda Gage wrote on Twitter. It is awesome that the students are supporting this initiative. Is More Attention Finally Being Given to Missing Black Girls? Minneapolis police have a located a 12-year-old girl who went missing last week. Dejah McCondichie had last been seen sometime between 5 and 6 p.m. on Saturday, April 13, at her home on the 3200 block of 4th Street North. By Sunday afternoon, the police department posted an update with good news: Dejah had been found and is safe. Greenville, South Carolina Police who went searching for 2-year-old Asaiah Nelson and her 50-year-old grandmother Michelle Matthews, also reported good news: the pair has been found safe. ADVERTISEMENT In Georgia, police said theyve safely located 14-year-old Anastasia Foxworth who had been missing for more than 24 hours. Could this series of good news updates mean that the tide is finally turning for black girls who go missing? Its a step in the right direction, when you hear that authorities are finally having success, especially with black girls, said Yvonne Russ, a clinical psychologist. But, theres still too many missing and too many have been missing for too long. Organizations like Black and Missing But Not Forgotten, the Black and Missing Foundation (BAM) in Landover Hills, Maryland, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) in Alexandria, Virginia, have struggled to shed light on the real emergency that is of the nations missing. More than 424,066 girls of all races have gone missing since the beginning of 2018, according to NCMEC. More than half of that total are women and girls of color, according to BAM, which, like NCMEC, rely on statistics from the FBI. Many said the media hasnt done enough to shine the spotlight on the crisis of the missing particularly black girls. The majority of these children most likely come from marginalized communities, and are primarily low-income people of color, said Dr. Ronnie A. Dunn, an interim chief diversity and inclusion officer and associate professor of urban studies at Cleveland State University. ADVERTISEMENT Given this nations racially stratified socioeconomic class hierarchy, as evidenced throughout institutions in America where poor children of color have worst outcomes on all quality of life indicators, their lives are devalued in relation to upper class white youth, said Dunn, who has authored two books, Race Profiling: Causes & Consequences, and Boycotts, Busing, & Beyond: The History & Implications of School Desegregation in the Urban North. And even within that, while this nation espouses the valuing of children in general, this does not appear to be the reality as evidenced by the failure to act in the face of the onslaught of mass school shootings from Sandy Hook to Stoneman Douglas where the majority of those killed were middle class white youth, Dunn said. Therefore, we see less media attention paid to missing children, particularly those of color, he said. Since the beginning of the month, numerous young girls have gone missing. This week, police said theyre searching for a missing woman from Montgomery County, Maryland. Officers say 20-year-old Carolyn Janiece Miller was last seen by family on Tuesday, April 9 when she left her Quintana Drive home in the Potomac area. Police said Carolyn was driving her 2019, red Toyota Corolla with Maryland temporary tag: T889737 when she was last seen. Carolyn is described by authorities as an African-American female, 5-feet-tall and weighing 160 pounds. She has black hair and brown eyes. Her family has been unable to contact her since they last saw her leaving her home and are concerned for her welfare. Anyone with information regarding Carolyns whereabouts are asked to call the Montgomery County Police non-emergency number at 301-279-8000. In New Mexico, Albuquerque Police issued a Brittany Alert for 18-year-old Shara Pinder. According to police, Pinder went missing April 11, 2019, at the Albuquerque Transit Center. They said she was trying to catch a bus to the Westside Shelter and left by officers. According to KRQE Media, police announced that the missing Albuquerque woman has been found. Naturally, the missing doesnt only include girls. The Mississippi Department of Public Safety said Dakota Elliott Kelly was reported missing On Monday, April 15. Dakota is black, 52 tall, weighs 140 pounds, with brown eyes and short, black hair. He was last seen wearing dark and light blue Kobe Bryant sneakers, white socks, gray and black Puma sweatpants, a white t-shirt, and black and gray Columbia sweat suit jacket. Authorities said Dakota may be accompanied by Dallas Elliott Kelly or possibly Gabriel Fleming. Dallas Kelly is black, 63 tall, weighs 240 pounds, with brown eyes and black, short hair. He was last seen wearing a red jogging suit, red hat, red sneakers, and has faded tattoos on his arms. Authorities said they were last seen traveling west from Dakotas home on Highway 404 toward I-55. Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Dakota, Dallas, or the vehicle is asked to contact the Montgomery County Sheriffs Department at (662) 858-0019. Oversight Commission Asks Inspector General to Review Deputy Cliques The watchdog panel that oversees the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department asked the countys inspector general to conduct an inquiry into secret deputy cliques that have proliferated for years and been implicated in violence against jail inmates and harassment of fellow deputies. This is an issue that requires bold leadership and action from the commission, Civilian Oversight Commission Executive Director Brian Williams said. We are working to create transparency and accountability within the Sheriffs Department, and this is an important step to do just that. The review will focus on why, how and to what end personnel join these groups and whether members violate department policy or the law. ADVERTISEMENT There have been complaints for years about cliques or gangs within the Sheriffs Department one called the Little Devils was active as far back as 1971 and a watchdog panel called for their elimination in 1992. The Citizens Commission on Jail Violence reported in 2011 that cliques at the Mens Central Jail were highly resistant to supervision, committed acts of open insubordination, and sought to intimidate, bully and undermine supervisors whose policies they did not like. Civilian Oversight Commissioner Lael Rubin, a former deputy district attorney, said the cliques remain a significant problem and criticized remarks made by Sheriff Alex Villanueva at last months meeting. While he may call it hazing and a generational thing this goes far beyond hazing and a generational thing, Rubin said. This sheriff, at least for now, appears to be taking this subject lightly. In remarks to the Board of Supervisors in March, the sheriff defended his response to the cliques, saying he replaced leadership in the East Los Angeles Station because of related concerns and has taken every single affirmative step we can take at this time, including relieving deputies of duty pending potential criminal charges. Villanueva also said he would cooperate with any review, which is also expected to include input from the deputy unions and community members. ADVERTISEMENT The language of the COCs motion refers to the cliques as deputy sub-groups, which drew objections from community activists. Its not a sub-group, its a gang, Michele Infante of Dignity & Power Now told the commission. Its an organized group of criminals. Just because they havent been prosecuted doesnt mean theyre not criminals. A report back is expected within 90 days. The Board of Supervisors voted in March to have the Office of Inspector General and the COC study the cliques, prompted by legal claims filed by a group of young Latino deputies from the sheriffs East L.A. Station who say they were terrorized and assaulted by members of the Banditos. Villanueva told the board then that an investigation was underway and the results would ultimately be presented to the District Attorneys Office for review. Friday, April 26, 2019 Friends-of-Blog Ann McGinley and Ruben Garcia send along the first announcement regarding COSELL this year which will be held at UNLV: 14th Annual Colloquium on Scholarship of Employment & Labor Law (COSELL) The 14th Annual Colloquium on Scholarship of Employment & Labor Law (COSELL) will be take place in Las Vegas, Nevada at UNLV Boyd School of Law on Columbus Day weekend (October 11-12). To register for the conference (we urge you to do so early), please click this link: https://law.unlv.edu/event/14th-annual-colloquium-scholarship-labor-and-employment-law IMPORTANT: Hotels in Las Vegas for Colloquium COSELL will be held during a very busy weekend (Columbus Day Oct. 11-12) in Las Vegas, and we urge you to make your reservations RIGHT AWAY. There are a number of nice hotels with good rates. We would recommend the following hotels, whose employees are represented by the Culinary Workers Union (and other unions as well). The prices listed on the Internet for the following hotels as of April 24, 2019 are reasonable for Strip hotels on the weekend (in the low $100s per night) will go up. Some Recommended hotels: Mandalay Bay This is our top recommendation; our dinner on Friday night will be at Border Grill, which is located in Mandalay Bay. The Miller and Zimmer awards will be presented at the dinner at Border Grill. Park MGM Paris Las Vegas If these hotels do not fit your budget, there are other hotels that are even cheaper. Check fairhotel.org and search Las Vegas for a list of hotels. WARNING: Prices and availability do not last long. PLEASE BOOK EARLY. https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/laborprof_blog/2019/04/cosell-xiv-at-unlv-on-oct-11-12-registration-available.html Many women who were part of the Islamic State (IS) remain loyal to the group, even after it fell this year. But a few say they regret joining it. The Associated Press spoke with four women from foreign countries who came to Syria to be part of the so-called caliphate. They said they joined IS for different reasons. But all four now believe they made a mistake and want to go back to their home countries. Today, they live in a camp in northern Syria with tens of thousands of other IS family members. The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces or SDF controls the camp. Their situation shows the difficult question of what do with the men and women who traveled from other countries to join the IS. In general, their home governments do not want to take them back. The SDF complains that it is forced to deal with them. And to many, the womens regret is not believable or not important. They all willingly joined a group that was well-known to be extremely violent. But here is what they told Western reporters. Aliya Aliya is a 24-year-old Indonesian. She says she grew up in a conservative Muslim family, but she did not follow the religion. Then, one day she decided to change her behavior sharply. She joined IS to make up for her past. She believed that if she moved to the caliphate, her sins would be cleared. In 2015, Aliya married an Algerian man who was also thinking about joining IS. They settled in Raqqa, Syria, the city that IS used as its capital. The couple soon had a son. But Aliya said the situation was not what she expected. IS took the couples passports. They did not permit the couple to communicate privately. She said her husband was sent to jail because he refused to become a fighter. In 2017 IS militants gave Aliya and her son permission to leave. Her parents are trying to convince Indonesian officials to permit her to come home. I was young, Aliya said. Some people still love IS. Me, because Ive lived there, I see how they are, so Im done with them. Lawson Gailon Lawson is from Trinidad and Tobago. She is 45 years old. She became Muslim only a few years ago. Shortly after she accepted the new religion, she married a man in Trinidad who followed IS teaching. Lawson became the mans second wife. She said she followed him to Syria in 2014, along with her then 12 year old son. Lawson said she knew immediately she had made a mistake. Not long after they arrived in Syria, the couple divorced. Lawson said her main concern quickly became keeping her son from being enlisted as a fighter. To get him out of Baghouz this year, she dressed him as a woman in robes and a veil. The two escaped the city, but then Kurdish security forces detained the young man. Lawson says she has not heard from him in weeks. Samira Samira is a 31-year-old Belgian woman. She said that when she was younger and lived in Europe, she drank alcohol and went dancing at clubs. Then, she said, I wanted to change my life. I found Islam. She said she accepted IS messages that Europe would never accept Muslims. She believed she could be truly Muslim only if she was part of the so-called caliphate. It was very stupid, I know, she said. When she reached Syria, IS militants permitted her to choose a husband. Samira chose a French citizen. In 2016 the couple had a son. That year they also hired a smuggler to help them escape. But the smuggler took their money and reported them to IS instead. Finally, in 2018 the family surrendered themselves to forces that opposed IS. Samira says she is now trying to get home and become part of Belgian culture again. She says she hates IS. They sold us a dream, but it was an open prison. They kill innocent people. All that they do, these things, its not from Islam. Polman Kimberly Polman is a 46-year-old Canadian woman. She came to Syria to join her new husband, a man she knew only from online. But she says he became abusive, and they soon divorced. She married again and worked in a hospital. Polman treated children who had been wounded in the fighting. I saw an incredible number of children die, she said. Polman came to blame the militants for the suffering she saw. Early this year, she and her husband surrendered to the SDF. She wants to return to Canada. She says she is not safe in the camp because she has spoken out against IS. I feel so badly that I think I dont deserve a future, she said. I shouldnt have trusted. Im Kelly Jean Kelly. And Im Anna Mateo. Kelly Jean Kelly adapted this story for Learning English based on a report from the Associated Press. Hai Do was the editor. _______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story caliphate - n. an area controlled by an important Muslim political and religious leader incredible - adj. difficult or impossible to believe Bruce Sams is no stranger to fighting for his life and fighting to save others lives. As a McMinnville firefighter, its right there in his j "Its just a fun process," Seth said about brewing, "I am able to change things up and experiment with new ideas." He added the wine recipes are established and people have their favorites they dont want changed. To incorporate the beer taps, the showroom at Macs Creek has been revamped and changed. Seth said some people are intimidated or turned off by just a winery, but hopes, especially men, will give the place a chance if they never have before. Professionally, now both as a winemaker and brewer, Seth said it is refreshing for him to spend one day in the brewery and the next day in the vineyard. The entire brewing process takes roughly a month, Seth said, the lighter beers only take three weeks, others take up to four weeks and the lagers can be left to mature for as long as needed he said. Per batch roughly 60 to 65 gallons are brewed and Macs Creek has the ability to do three at one time. During each batch cycle, 200 gallons can be brewed Seth said. OVERTON A semi-trailer containing three classic cars caught fire on I-80 on Tuesday morning. Around 11:45 a.m. on April 23, 2019 The Overton Volunteer Fire Department was dispatched to the Overton off ramp of the eastbound lane of I-80 for a semi-trailer which had caught fire, said Dawson County Sheriffs Deputy Ivan Castellanos. The Interscity Lines semi driver said he was driving along when he noticed the smoke coming from the back half of the trailer and pulled off the interstate, said Castellanos. The trailer contained three classic cars, a Dodge Challenger, Chevy Camaro and a vintage Mercedes. The Overton firefighters arrived on scene with two utility rigs and a tanker. Law enforcement on hand was the Dawson County Sheriffs Office and the Nebraska State Patrol. Overton Fire Chief Steve Ryan said the fire occurred in the back axle, but the exact cause of the fire was unknown at the moment. Damage had been done to the trailer's airbags, brake lines and tires. Damage was estimated between $8,000 and $10,000 after repairs. Ryan said the fire was contained to outside the trailer and the cars inside were undamaged. On January 9th, 2019, Dianne Feinstein introduced the Assault Weapons ban of 2019 to the United States Senate. In the authoritarian left's endless attempt at complete social control, Feinstein has made it her goal to ban guns as small as the Ruger 10/22. Feinstein and her supporters justify this in the name of safety. While one may have sympathy for one's desire for safety, basic logic refutes this claim. In fact, there is nothing that could make a physically weak person safer than a gun. It must be made clear that all gun laws are infringements. There is no compromise on fundamental rights. The Case For Complete Gun Rights The Constitutional Argument The Second Amendment reads as follows: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Many anti-gun authoritarians make the claim that the Second Amendment only protects the right of militias to have weapons, this is not the case. The Second Amendment is divided into two clauses. The first clause states that a militia is needed for a free state to be secure. The second clause is the WHY of the first clause. If asked why the right of the people to bear arms exists, it is because it is the duty of the people, not the government, to keep themselves safe and free. The Natural Right to Resist Tyranny Also, this is not a right that the government bestows. It is a right that exists in nature. The most important words in the Second Amendment are "the" and "people." "The" demonstrates that this is a right that exists beyond government. Whether the government recognizes it or not, you do have the right to bear arms. This is a natural right, not a government institution. Next is "people." One does not have to be in a militia to have this right. It is a right that all human beings have. The reason this right is so important, however, is because of the idea of a militia. ..... The full article is also archived here. A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these is legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked these out. Here are the real facts: CLAIM: Man who threw boy over Minnesota mall balcony is a Somali immigrant. THE FACTS: The man arrested in the case did not emigrate from Somalia, as posts circulating on social media said. Emmanuel Aranda, 24, who was charged with attempted premeditated first-degree murder in the April 12 attack, was born in Chicago at the University of Illinois Hospital, according to Cook County birth records. He has two prior convictions for assaults at the mall, both in 2015, the AP reported. The Minneapolis metropolitan region, where the Mall of America is located, has one of the country's largest populations of Somali immigrants, many of whom are Muslim. Posts circulating with the false information attempt to portray those immigrants in a negative light. Police said Aranda has admitted to throwing the child off the balcony and told authorities that he had come to the mall a day earlier seeking to kill someone. The boy suffered head trauma and multiple broken bones after being thrown nearly 40 feet. He was hospitalized in Minneapolis. CLAIM: "A Muslim woman in Paris was arrested three days ago for planning a terrorist attack at Notre Dame Cathedral. Today, 3 days later, Notre Dame is in flames." THE FACTS: No terrorism-related arrest or charge was made days before the fire broke out at Notre Dame, the Paris prosecutor's office said in a statement Wednesday to the AP. Paris police investigators have said they think an electrical short-circuit most likely caused the fire. The false claim is linked in some posts on Facebook and Twitter to stories about a failed car bomb attempt near the cathedral in 2016. Some of the posts also link to a story about an unrelated court sentencing on April 12 for one of the women accused in the 2016 case. In September 2016, France's anti-terrorism prosecutor accused that woman and four other female suspects of a plot, guided by the Islamic State group, to fill a car with gas canisters near the Notre Dame Cathedral, the AP reported at the time. The women intended to target the Eiffel Tower but could not find a place to park, said Robin Simcox, a national security analyst who monitors terrorism at The Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based conservative think tank. "It was one part of a broader set of plots that were connected to this all-female cell and obviously has nothing to do with what happened yesterday," said Simcox, who studied the case. CLAIM: Presidential hopeful and U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris introduced a bill to forbid a police officer from drawing a gun without permission from their supervisor. THE FACTS: Harris has not introduced such legislation. Posts on Facebook falsely suggested Harris recently proposed new restrictions on police officers that would impede their ability to respond to active shooters. The claim originated on Blue News Network, a satire website that says it is the work of "a few bored cops," said Chris Fisher, who runs the site. Last month it posted an article that said Harris proposed "A Second Chance Act," which would require officers to call their supervisors for permission before responding with gunfire in life-threatening situations. Facebook users shared posts that combined the false information with photos of Harris, and comments on those posts suggested that some readers thought it was factual. The posts have been shared thousands of times. Harris, a Democrat from California, has sponsored several pieces of legislation this year, from a bill that would require carbon monoxide detectors in federal housing to a legislative package that would add public land protections for more than a million acres in California. Harris spokesman Ian Sams confirmed the claim is "fake" in an email to the AP. CLAIM: Photo purports to show Somali gang members beating a man on the street in Minnesota. THE FACTS: The photo of the attack circulating on social media was falsely captioned as "Somali gangs in Minnesota grow more dangerous." It was taken in Birmingham, England, in 2009. According to caption information on the original photo, the man is being attacked during a right-wing demonstration in Birmingham. The photo was taken by Reuters photographer Darren Staples. The AP, which also covered the demonstration, reported that there were sporadic clashes between the far-right demonstrators and groups opposing them in the city center. More than 30 people were arrested during the protest against Islamic fundamentalism, the AP reported. The false caption circulating online is one of many that have targeted the Somali community in Minnesota. Lori Hinnant contributed to this report from Paris. This is part of The Associated Press' ongoing effort to fact-check misinformation that is shared widely online, including work with Facebook to identify and reduce the circulation of false stories on the platform. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Ali Ahmadi, a Navy veteran and nuclear field engineer, became a caregiver for his mother-in-law after she was diagnosed with lymphoma. He and his wife turned to the states Department of Health Services for help. What the state thought we needed was respite, in-home care, possibly adult daycare resources, said Ahmadi. It turns out what we needed was marriage counseling My wife and I were struggling with giving care. We were struggling with our caregiving duties. And we were on the verge of divorce. That experience would lead Ahmadi to co-found a Madison-based startup called TCARE in 2014 that, using an evidence-based approach developed at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, connects people who care for sick, elderly or disabled loved ones with the help they need to avoid burnout or a crisis. A DNR spokesman acknowledged that Congress has failed to allocate sufficient funds for the Department of Defense to clean up the PFAS and other pollutants it has generated. So Madison must wait in line, and the line is long. A good time to bring in a new breed of fighter jets to add more air and noise pollution to the mix, right? Many members of Congress would rather spend more money on building a new aircraft carrier, so the cleanup program is underfunded, former DNR Secretary George Meyer was quoted as saying. Could this have been an allusion to Baldwin, much enamored by Madison liberals, whove failed to notice that she long ago surrendered her heart to Lockheed Martin? Baldwin fought like a tiger to stick another littoral combat ship (LCS) into the 2018 defense budget. The ship has a price tag of $1.2 billion. The Project on Government Oversight noted that the LCS program was forced into multiple changes due to large cost overruns, lack of combat survivability and lethality discovered during operational testing and deployment, and the almost crippling technical failures and schedule delays. Baldwin got her additional ship, which the Navy did not want, in what the Project on Government Oversight described as record-breaking speed in pork pressure politics. 'Gun Control' Is Re-Branded 'Gun Violence' Opinion by TJ Roberts. From 71republic.com, April 24th 2019 Source Article. On January 9th, 2019, Dianne Feinstein introduced the Assault Weapons ban of 2019 to the United States Senate. In the authoritarian left's endless attempt at complete social control, Feinstein has made it her goal to ban guns as small as the Ruger 10/22. Feinstein and her supporters justify this in the name of safety. While one may have sympathy for one's desire for safety, basic logic refutes this claim. In fact, there is nothing that could make a physically weak person safer than a gun. It must be made clear that all gun laws are infringements. There is no compromise on fundamental rights. The Case For Complete Gun Rights The Constitutional Argument The Second Amendment reads as follows: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Many anti-gun authoritarians make the claim that the Second Amendment only protects the right of militias to have weapons, this is not the case. The Second Amendment is divided into two clauses. The first clause states that a militia is needed for a free state to be secure. The second clause is the WHY of the first clause. If asked why the right of the people to bear arms exists, it is because it is the duty of the people, not the government, to keep themselves safe and free. The Natural Right to Resist Tyranny Also, this is not a right that the government bestows. It is a right that exists in nature. The most important words in the Second Amendment are "the" and "people." "The" demonstrates that this is a right that exists beyond government. Whether the government recognizes it or not, you do have the right to bear arms. This is a natural right, not a government institution. Next is "people." One does not have to be in a militia to have this right. It is a right that all human beings have. The reason this right is so important, however, is because of the idea of a militia. The Founding Fathers concluded a war against a tyrannical government fewer than 10 years before the ratification of the Second Amendment. The Founders were aware of the dangers of a standing army. To give the state a monopoly on security is to ensure violations of liberty in exchange for "security." With that in mind, the Founders stated the importance of a militia, a private entity that fights against both foreign and domestic threats; this includes their own government. The Federalist Papers Assuming one does not concur with the argumentation above and believe the Second Amendment has a different meaning, one has to look no further than the Federalist Papers to see the truth. In Federalist 29, Alexander Hamilton explains the importance of the militia: "By thus circumscribing the plan, it will be possible to have an excellent body of well-trained militia, ready to take the field whenever the defense of the state shall require it. This will not only lessen the call for military establishments, but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist." James Madison's Defense James Madison elaborated on this in Federalist 46, making it quite explicit that the militia is a private entity that relies on private individuals using their right to bear arms: "Those who are best acquainted with the last successful resistance of this country against the British arms, will be most inclined to deny the possibility of it. Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." The Moral Argument The constitutional argument is not enough. Not all people are constitutionalists. Some people would argue that the Constitution is outdated. I disagree, but even if they are right, the right to bear arms is still legitimate. As stated before, governments do not create rights. This includes gun rights. Your rights exist whether the state agrees or not. Regardless of the Constitution, you have the moral right to bear arms. Owning a gun violates no one's rights. I could have as many weapons as I please. So long as I did not steal these weapons and I do not use them against an innocent, I am within my rights. A gun is just like any other item. Ownership of the item alone does not cause any harm. In other words, the ownership of a gun (or any weapon for that matter) does not constitute as aggression per se. Because the ownership of a gun violates no one's rights, one cannot ethically call for the prohibition of a gun or any other weapon. It is your right to do as you please so long as you do not violate the rights of others. If someone does not want guns on their property, it is their right to ban them on their property alone. If you choose to enter that property with a gun, you are trespassing. This is a violation of people's rights. Owning a gun does not violate rights. Carrying a gun on property that doesn't prohibit them doesn't violate rights. Regardless of the consequences, it is your right to own a gun. Practical Arguments Do Guns Kill? Anyone can kill anyone with a gun. That is one of the purposes of weapons. It is important to realize, however, that guns have saved far more lives than they have ended. Studies show that there are anywhere between 500,000 to 3 million defensive gun uses per year in America. The threat of immediate lethal force is a powerful deterrent to crime. In an overwhelming majority of these defensive gun uses, no one died or suffered injuries. The mere presence of a gun is enough to stop a violent crime. People with guns save lives. Anytime someone talks about gun homicides (approximately 35,000 gun deaths occurred in 2017 with 22,274 of these were suicides and many of the homicides being self-defense) and gun injuries (approximately 90,000 gun injuries occurred in 2017), they are lying if they do not talk about how guns save lives. Is Gun Control Possible? Even if this bill passes, gun control will still fail. First and foremost, no criminal willing to commit murder or assault would follow a gun prohibition. If this person is willing to murder, what makes you think they will follow gun laws? This speaks to the intentions of Feinstein and other gun grabbers. It is so obvious that criminals don't follow the law, that it shows that safety isn't the goal of gun control. The goal is disarming citizens so they cannot defend themselves from an overreaching government. Gun control cannot possibly achieve safety. Up until recently, gun control could only achieve safety for government agents. Now, even they can't do that thanks to the work of Defense Distributed. Thanks to the 3D-printed firearm, gun control is finished. No one can enforce this gun ban. It is literally impossible. What Even is an Assault Weapon? Since this is a response to Feinstein's Assault Weapons Ban, it is important to consider that "assault weapon" is a charismatic term with no meaning. It is a term that invokes fear among the public to vilify gun owners. It is a frame that puts pro-liberty individuals at a disadvantage. Calling a gun an assault weapon is entirely illogical. For the Full Right to Bear Arms You have the right to own a weapon. You do not have a right to harm someone with a weapon. This goes far beyond guns. You have the right to own anything so long as you do not violate the rights of others with it. This includes rocket launchers, artillery, explosives, nuclear weapons and all the rest. If there is any restriction on the right to bear arms, there is a precedent to eliminate the right to self-defense. In order to have the right to defend yourself, you must have the right to own whatever gun you want without exception. Repeal all weapon laws and restore liberty. This article was originally published on LIFE. Back to Top Budget assumptions In crafting the preliminary budget, Kelly Ruppel, the districts chief financial officer, said the district has made a series of assumptions on different funding components that could be affected as the divided state government works on its own budget. The district is assuming there will be a $100-per-student increase in revenue limit authority next school year based on Democratic Gov. Tony Evers call to raise the limit by $200 per student. Under the districts assumption, it would be able to levy an additional $2.7 million. Not knowing whats going to come out of the state budget, considering the political environment at the state, we thought $100 per pupil in revenue limit adjustment was a moderate estimate to make, hopefully it does go up from there, Ruppel said. She said the district is also taking a cautious estimate it will lose $6.5 million, or 15%, in state general aid the districts second-largest source of money behind property taxes. While Evers has proposed a $606 million increase in special education funding, Ruppel said the preliminary budget doesnt account for any potential changes in state special-education money. Ive learned to have respect for him One of Saturdays rallygoers, Jeff Graupner of Mountain, said he didnt start as a Trump supporter. He voted for Sen. Ted Cruz in the 2016 presidential primary and voted Trump in the general election because he said he didnt want Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton picking U.S. Supreme Court justices. But Graupner said he has come around to Trump. Hes pleased with Trumps Supreme Court picks, his stance on funding the U.S. military and that he pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement to fight climate change. I wasnt a big fan of his in the beginning, Graupner said. Ive learned to have respect for him even though his mouth gets him in trouble. Graupner said hes likely to vote Trump again in 2020. He doesnt rule out voting for a Democrat but says he doesnt see any of them running now that hed support. For Graupner, supporting Trump means coming to terms with a president he feels sometimes crosses the line. When Trump ridiculed the late Sen. John McCains war service in 2015, Graupner, a U.S. Army veteran, said he nearly ruled out voting for Trump. He speaks his mind. Sometimes I cringe and say, Why did he say that? But sometimes he says things that needed to be said, Graupner added. Hes not afraid to say No more! Get Government & Politics updates in your inbox! Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Another strategy Akhtar believes could help is increasing access to higher education to fight economic insecurity for all groups, so he is planning to launch a mentoring and college loan forgiveness initiative. Is rising hate what your project came out of? We are going to use a platform or a movement to bring all of these people to deal with this rising hate that we anticipate over the next few years or even longer. But then I was thinking, you know, how are we going to accomplish this goal? Because you have the divided government in Washington, D.C., (so) getting anything done is not possible. So we said, OK, well, lets focus in two major areas. One of them is education and the second one is nonpartisan policies. We strongly believe the biggest enemy that we see in this kind of environment is fear and anger. A lot of these people dont know each other. They just go with what they are seeing in the media, or sometimes our elected officials move things around and use it for their political gain. Do you have an ultimate goal or objective, or is there something youd like to have accomplished, when after 10 or 15 years, you look back at the movement? It started off as a 60s-era protest against the Vietnam War, but over the past five decades, the Mifflin Street Block Party has evolved into something radically different trading politics for drunken camaraderie. This year marks 50 years since the initial protest, which in 1969 brought hundreds of UW-Madison students to the 400 and 500 blocks of West Mifflin Street and resulted in a three-day riot during which police used tear gas and night sticks to try to break up the crowd and protesters hurled bottles and rocks at police. Now, the city and UW-Madison have largely given up on efforts such as alternative, sponsored events to divert students from the raucous party. Instead the Madison Police and Fire departments closely monitor apartments and the thousands of partiers on the block to curtail the booze fest thats become a tradition. It would be nice, if this has to continue on, if it could go back to those causes ... instead of being a pretext for drinking, Police Chief Mike Koval said. Unfortunately, I think those days are far behind us. UW-Oshkosh held a public meeting Friday to respond to racist images that officials say may have involved students on campus. An image posted Thursday on Twitter showed several people at a party at an off-campus house in front of a banner with a hand-drawn swastika. Another depicted a dry-erase message board with the words No Liberals, Jews, Muslims, Queers, or Hmongs. To anyone who brings hate into the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh community, I invite you to leave, Chancellor Andrew Leavitt wrote in a campuswide email that was also posted to the universitys social media pages Friday. Leavitt said school officials began investigating Thursday night after university allies notified them of the images, which he said appear to involve UW-Oshkosh students. We take it seriously, he wrote. I am angry, and I am sorry for the pain these images cause. They are examples of hate and bias that defy everything we stand for as a university and inclusive community. We do not and will not tolerate it. The world will hear and see our voices and our values in action, Leavitt wrote. If Democrats in Congress succeed in their quest to get Donald Trump to cough up his tax returns, theyll have another Republican president to thank: Warren G. Harding. A century ago, the Teapot Dome corruption scandal engulfed Hardings administration, spurring Congress to pass legislation that finally reclaimed its right to review private tax returns. It was a solid law, and remains so today: The legislative branch has the power to tax and spend, and the review of personal tax returns falls well within its rights and obligations. The battle over the privacy of returns is as old as the income tax itself. The nations first such levy originated during the Civil War, and anyone could get the information. In fact, newspapers regularly published the amounts paid by the wealthy a radical form of transparency that critics said went too far. Congress prohibited the practice in 1870, and the income tax itself was rolled back not long after. In 1894, as part of a drive to reinstate the tax, Congress made the unauthorized disclosure of tax returns a misdemeanor, further strengthening privacy protections. But the Supreme Court soon ruled the tax unconstitutional, making the point moot. China pledges Rs 16.8 billion in assistance for Nepal The major takeaway of the agreement is that Nepal can use four Chinese seaports, three land ports for third-country import, and export through the six dedicated transit points between Nepal and China. BURLEY A witness at a Friday court hearing said he saw Gilberto Rodriguez dump Regina Kriegers body in the Snake River 24 years ago. Rodriguez was charged in February with first-degree murder in the 1995 death of the Burley teenager. Court documents at that time described similar witness accounts that led to Rodriguezs arrest, but Fridays court hearing was the first time witnesses in the case have publicly described what they saw and heard. The eight-hour preliminary hearing adjourned without lawyers finishing their arguments. Witness Cody Thompson told the court he was 16 years old when he stopped at Rodriguezs house one night and took a ride in a car with Rodriguez that ended in Kriegers death and Thompson helping Rodriguez throw Kriegers body into the river. Thompson said that on Feb. 28, 1995, he waited in Rodriguezs car in an alley while Rodriguez went to Kriegers home. Thompson said he got out of the car twice and was ill and went over the Kriegers fence to defecate while Rodriguez was inside the house. When Rodriguez came out of the house, Rodriguez had blood on him and said he had messed up and he needed to know if he could trust Thompson. Thompson said Rodriguez then drove to the front of the house, went back inside and came out with a body wrapped in a blanket, covered in blood. He told Thompson to help him put the body in the back of the station wagon. Thompson said they then went to a mutual acquaintances house, where they changed clothes and washed the blood off, and then they drove toward the river. Thompson said he helped Rodriguez dump Kriegers body into the river. Thompson said he asked Rodriguez to let him out of the car or drop him off somewhere multiple times. When Thompson finally went to his Rupert home, he barricaded himself in his room. He said his mother woke him up later because he was screaming in his sleep. He told the court he did not know the body was Kriegers, who was his classmate, until he later saw her missing person flier at a gas station. Thompson is serving a life sentence for rape. He also has felony convictions for burglary, intimidation of a witness and other charges. He testified in court wearing jail clothing and handcuffs. Rodriguezs attorney, Keith Roark, grilled Thompson about the multiple lies Thompson told police about the incident over the years and Thompson admitted his story had changed many times. He also admitted to previously lying in court under oath. Im not gaining anything here, Thompson said after a barrage of questions by Roark about his lack of honesty. Im putting my life in jeopardy. Thompson said he is afraid of Rodriguez and his familys associations and that he and his family have been threatened. Ive been running from this for the past 24 or 25 years, he said. Roark said Thompsons lies to the police always involved Rodriguez, so his testimony did not make sense. Cassia County Prosecutor Doug Abenroth asked Thompson if he was lying now. No, Thompson said. Krieger was missing for weeks before officials found her body on the river bank. A former forensic pathologist testified Friday that Krieger had more than one fatal wound but he said she likely died from an air embolism after her throat was slashed from ear to ear, which severed both jugular veins. She also had a deep penetrating wound to her heart that was likely caused after she was dead. A forensic dentist testified that he identified her badly decomposed body through dental records. Another witness, Carlos Tena, told the court he has known Rodriguez for 30 years as a distant relative and through their mutual work, which he said was dealing in firearms and illegal drugs for a Mexican cartel. Tena said Rodriguez talked to him multiple times about Gina saying that it was unfortunate that she had to be disposed of that way, and that the feds were poking at him again. Roark also questioned Tenas stories and his record as a convicted felon. Tena said he has not been promised anything in return for his testimony against Rodriguez. The Cassia County hearing is scheduled to reconvene at 2:30 Monday. Roark said he may call Cassia County Sheriff Detective Robert Taylor to testify for the defense on Monday. Love 1 Funny 3 Wow 6 Sad 16 Angry 21 BUHL At 54 years old, AJ Gray operates the water systems for three municipalities and is a backup operator for a fourth. In Buhl, hes the water superintendent overseeing day-to-day maintenance, operations and testing of the citys wells, water lines and arsenic treatment facility. But he also contracts out as the operator for Rogerson and Hollister, while being a backup operator for Castleford. Idahos rural municipalities are struggling to find licensed water and wastewater operators. No one wants to do it, Gray said. With the unemployment rate so low, were literally fighting for people. Hes also keenly aware of the aging workforce throughout the industry. In Idaho, one-third of licensed water and wastewater operators are 55 and older. And another 29% are older than 45. Rural areas, in particular, have a hard time recruiting younger workers, Gray said. We need some young blood, he said. In an effort to make recruiting easier for these municipalities, the Idaho Rural Water Association started a new apprenticeship program last year with the Idaho Department of Labor. Six rural communities have already taken advantage of the program, including Buhl, which now has two water operator apprentices working toward getting their licenses. Colton Avey and Garrett Williams are the local 20-year-olds apprenticing under Gray at Buhls water department. Each day, theyre responsible for testing well water for quality measuring iron, pH and temperature. We want to make sure it is always safe, always within standards, Avey said. But their jobs also entail filling work orders, checking for leaks or water pressure, and reading meters. We experience everything here, Avey said. Even if we dont like the holes with spiders in them, Garrett added. Spiders arent the only creepy critters water operators are likely to find in a meter box. Also on the list are snakes, cockroaches or Aveys least favorite ants. Despite the scary elements of the job, the two have ample reason to stick with it. They receive full-time pay and benefits even while attending school. And theyre on the fast track to receive licensing with on-the-job experience and provided training. We want them to have a well-rounded education, water association apprenticeship coordinator Kelsie Cole said in a phone interview. Both education and on-the-job training are required for licensure, Gray said. He earned his license the long and hard way, which took about four years; hes been in the industry for 14 years. Avey and Garrett can earn their licenses in two years because they can substitute some experience with additional education. I had one book, Gray said. These guys get five or six books. Garrett is taking courses at the College of Southern Idaho, coupling his water resource management classes with agriculture and business degrees. Avey is likely to start his college courses this summer. Both are also required to attend training offered by the water association. They are probably the premier water trainers, said Gray, who recently joined the associations board. John Russ, apprenticeship coordinator for the Idaho Department of Labor, says apprenticeship programs are useful because they combine education with on-the-job experience. The water association approached the Department of Labor about establishing the program, and theyve been building it since last summer. The association received a $30,000 grant to help establish a committee and pull together training requirements. It took a little bit of time to gather all the pieces together on their end and make sure it was effective, Russ said in a phone interview. Participating employers start apprentices out earning 60% of what an experienced journeyman would make in that area, Cole said. Wages get bumped up 10% every six months so by the end of the apprenticeship, the apprentice makes 90% of an experienced journeymans wages. Starting wages range from $13 to $22 per hour depending on location. Employers are not required to pay for classroom time, but most opt to, Cole said. They do get some reimbursement from the Department of Labor after the apprentice completes a certain number of hours. Avey was previously attending school studying to be a marine biologist while working at Clear Springs Foods. While he hasnt given up his other career aspirations, he figured an apprenticeship would provide job security and a good start on retirement. He started his apprenticeship in June. I just wanted job security, somewhere where I didnt feel pressured to do a hundred different things, Avey said. I wanted to specialize in something. Water and wastewater operators are always in demand, Gray said, because everyone needs to drink water and everyone needs to flush the toilet. Garrett previously worked for a construction equipment supplier and was attracted to the water operator position because of the job quality. He started in October. Employers do take some risk in taking on an apprentice for two years because there is no guarantee the apprentice will stay on with the employer. But statistically, Russ said in a phone interview, the retention rate among apprentices rises to around 90%. Very few actually leave, he said. For Gray, its not just about securing the future of his department. He also takes personal pride in ensuring apprentices are well-trained. If they choose to leave, he will stay in contact with them. If we keep investing in more people, more people, more people, whether they stay or not, theyll be quality operators, Gray said. Love 2 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The CEO of Melaleuca has started a legal fund to push back against a local medical debt collection company. Society is built so that the big guys can shove the little guy around, Frank VanderSloot said April 25. The attorney can shove the unsuspecting person around. And were in a position where we have resources, and were trying to make sure that the little guy has an opportunity to fight back. My dad was a little guy. I grew up as a little guy. My wife grew up in a poor family. We know what its like to live in that situation. VanderSloot, a well-known businessman and conservative political donor whos reported to be the richest man in Idaho, said in a news release and a letter to the media Thursday that he and his wife Belinda are establishing a $500,000 fund to protect East Idaho citizens from attorneys who appear to be using unscrupulous methods to take small debts of a few hundred dollars and transform them into huge debts of thousands of dollars by adding outlandish attorney fees. Belinda and I have decided that we simply cannot stand by and allow our neighbors to go through the kind of financial duress and emotional pain that is apparently being perpetrated by (Medical Recovery Services), he wrote. Dozens or perhaps even hundreds of local families have been the targets of these aggressive tactics. Many find the behavior of these attorneys ruthless, unethical, and heartless. If the stories are true, its difficult not to agree. Fortunately, MRS seems to be the only collection firm that is operating with these principles. VanderSloot said he has signed a contract with a Boise law firm some local lawyers, he said, were reluctant to take the job and they will be sending someone to Idaho Falls to represent people being sued by Medical Recovery Services, an Idaho Falls medical debt collection firm used by many hospitals and doctors locally and in other parts of the state. Our phone is already ringing off the hook with people that are asking for help, he said. VanderSloots announcement comes after a series of stories by East Idaho News, which VanderSloot founded, looking at MRS and highlighting the case of an anonymous Melaleuca employee whom MRS tried to charge $5,864.25 in legal fees and costs on a now-paid $294 medical bill. The law firm Smith, Driscoll and Associates, which is co-owned by local lawyer and GOP activist Bryan Smith and employs Rep. Bryan Zollinger, R-Idaho Falls, handles MRSs cases. Smith is the second vice chairman of the state Republican Party, and he represented the plaintiffs in an unsuccessful attempt to overturn the Medicaid expansion ballot initiative voters passed in November. Smith refused to answer East Idaho News questions about whether he owns MRS, although publicly available paperwork has listed Smith as a partner in the company and Zollinger as a manager. Smith and Zollinger got an original judgment in 2018 for $976.41 against the Melaleuca employee and an order to garnish her pay. However, Melaleucas lawyer said the company got papers that didnt match her real name. Melaleuca and Smith faced off in court, and in July 2018 Smith got an order garnishing her wages for $1,272.55. In March 2019, Smith filed for supplemental attorney fees seeking $5,583.25. After the story came out, VanderSloot said Smith, Driscoll and Associates offered to drop the case if she agreed to stop speaking out, which she refused to do. With attorneys fees and other costs, judgments in medical debt cases are routinely for twice or more what the original debt was. While VanderSloot said he doesnt like that, he said he would mostly be defending people in cases that are more extreme, where the amount of money being sought is 10, 20 or more times the original bill. Thats the kind of situation that you say, This shouldnt happen, he said. Smith defended his practices in an email. We take our professional and ethical obligations very seriously, he said. In representing the interests of our clients, we always ensure to follow all applicable rules, regulations and statutes as well as our professional ethical obligations. When collecting owed debts earned by medical professionals our practices are fully supported by the applicable laws of our highly regulated industry, and the court determines post-judgment fees on a case-by-case basis. The fees in question are for the time and resources we have invested in these cases to best support our clients. David Lyon, who used to work for Smith as a process server and now helps Rep. Chad Christensen, R-Ammon, run his campaign, said the way Medical Recovery Services is being portrayed in the media doesnt line up with his experiences with Smith. Lyon recounted instances where he would try to serve someone at home, only to be told the person no longer lives there, then go to their place of employment and find the same person who denied being the one he was trying to serve. The narrative is completely wrong, Lyon said. VanderSloot said he plans to push for changes to the law to protect people from excessive legal fees. Idahos laws, he said, are mostly written to protect businesses rather than consumers. We want to make clear that we believe that people should pay their bills, VanderSloot wrote. Doctors and hospitals have the right and the need to collect for services rendered. We will not be helping people avoid paying legitimate bills. But, going forward, we will be defending people from unscrupulous, unreasonable or unnecessary attorney fees. VanderSloot said he doesnt have a problem with making people pay for services theyve received, but debtors should be protected from having to pay many times what the original bill was. A bill that would have put some limits on legal fees and court costs in debt cases passed the state Senate unanimously this year but never got a vote in the House. Were going to look to other states to see what other states have done, VanderSloot said. Its my understanding our laws in Idaho are way behind. VanderSloot wrote anyone who feels they are being treated unfairly by a collection company in southeastern Idaho can reach out confidentially at 208-534-2208 or idahomedicaldebt@gmail.com, or post publicly on the Idaho Medical Debt Facebook page. Love 1 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Is Idaho charter school performance reminiscent of a Clint Eastwood movie, or is it the Idaho charter school movement and its current leadership that is like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Recent headlines tout the amazing performance of Idaho charter schools and point out that Idaho public charter schools outperform traditional public schools across the state. In a Feb. 6 Idaho Press Tribune Guest Commentary, Terry Ryan, Director of Bluum and the Idaho Charter School Network compares Idaho charter school performance to the Clint Eastwood movie The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. On the surface, the analogy sounds like it fits. Traditional brick and mortar charter school students have higher ISAT scores than traditional public schools . . . the good. Charter schools in poverty or with larger percentages of English learners and/or students with disabilities have lower ISAT scores than traditional public schools . . . the bad. Online charter schools have lower ISAT scores than the rest of the charter schools. Online charter school performance, according to Mr. Ryan, is so bad that it wipes out the positive growth of brick and mortar charter students . . . obviously, the ugly! But what is the real Idaho charter school story and is anything about that story reminiscent of a movie about dishonest con men in search of financial reward? Idaho public school (charter and traditional) performance is a complex issue to tackle. Student demographics, attendance and mobility play a much bigger role in school performance than the type of school (brick and mortar, online, STEM, dual language, arts, etc.) School funding, statewide teacher shortages, lack of access to early childhood education, lack of access to health care and insufficient social services have a much larger impact on school performance than type of school. The good news about the Idaho charter school movement is that it started conversations about students needs. When legislation was initially proposed almost 20 years ago, Idaho charter school advocates wanted a pathway to offer parents and students different choices in education. Charter school advocates, most of them educators and parents, wanted all Idaho students to have access to a strong foundation in reading, language arts, mathematics, social studies and science. Advocates recognized, as all good educators do, that students may need different approaches to meet their individual needs and increase engagement. The goal was not to create schools that were better than other public schools. The goal was to create schools with different approaches so that all Idaho students could succeed. The bad news about the Idaho charter school movement is that is has strayed from its original goal. In our ultra-competitive society, charter school leaders have focused on portfolios of high performing schools and reports that point out how much better some schools are than other schools. Charter school leaders have designed performance reports that give gold stars to schools with high state test scores and red marks to those with lower scores. The ugly news is that the move to high performing portfolios, annual performance reports that list the best schools, and the continuous flow of private and federal grant funding to support expansion and replication of high performing charter schools is similar to the activities of the con men in the famous Clint Eastwood movie. The goal is to do whatever it takes to get the Confederate gold. The ugly fact about the Idaho charter school movement is that it has strayed so far from its original goal that it is difficult to find its way back. The very concerns that charter school opposers raised are coming to fruition because leaders in the current charter school movement are caught up in comparisons of ISAT scores and performance ratings that do not recognize the complexity of students and variables that public schools address. These scores are high stakes beyond what the No Child Left Behind could have ever imagined. Idaho charter schools are expected to achieve excellence, as measured by single test scores, or they face the constant threat of closure. Schools that serve high poverty communities, at-risk students, students with disabilities, English learners or students not on track to graduate in four years are expected to achieve the same results, in the same amount of time as schools without those challenges. The ugly result is that the high performing brick and mortar charter schools that are highlighted as successful and targeted for additional funding and replication are those that mirror the public schools that existed before the landmark United States Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that students in separate but equal schools were being deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the 14th Amendment (Justice Warren). If Idaho continues to highlight, reward and fund schools that enroll primarily white, upper-middle class students who are native English speakers and do not have disabilities, is our state moving back to a system that was determined to be unconstitutional? In addition to comparing the performance on ISAT, the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) full report includes comparisons of demographic data from traditional and charter schools in Idaho. The following table includes demographic information from the CREDO report and information taken from the Idaho Public Charter School Commissions (IPCSC) Annual Performance reports for each Commission-authorized schools. The data paint a different picture when looking at the demographic characteristics of schools labelled low-performing or the bad and the ugly, as Mr. Ryan states. Many of the low performing charter schools serve a significantly greater percentage of at-risk students. These data only reflect race/ethnicity, socio-economic status, EL and disability. When considering additional factors such as mobility, repeated failure in traditional educational settings and issues related to physical and mental health, the population of at-risk students served by low performing schools grows. In fact, many of the schools labeled as low-performing serve students who have not succeeded in a variety of school settings. Idaho public schools are full of professional educators who work extremely hard to ensure students learn and grow. The charter school movement could have, and still can, provide options for students who need different approaches to achieve the rigorous standards that prepare them for successful futures. It is important for all students to have opportunities to grow and learn. Instead of rewarding charter schools that enroll high performing students, it would be wise for our charter school leaders to recognize and reward those public schools (charter and traditional) that choose to serve diverse and challenging students as well as those that are already earning high test scores. Lets stop comparing charter schools to each other, or to famous movies and start recognizing the hard work that all public schools do to serve students in our state! Christine Ivie is the superintendent of Heritage Academy, Jerome, and previously served as the deputy superintendent in the Idaho Department of Education and director of education for NASA Ames Research Center. Love 9 Funny 0 Wow 2 Sad 0 Angry 0 There is not enough analysis data for Bahamas Petroleum. 4.0 Community Rank Outperform Votes Bahamas Petroleum has received 157 outperform votes. (Add your outperform vote.) Underperform Votes Bahamas Petroleum has received 103 underperform votes. (Add your underperform vote.) Community Sentiment Bahamas Petroleum has received 60.38% outperform votes from our community. MarketBeat's community ratings are surveys of what our community members think about Bahamas Petroleum and other stocks. Vote Outperform if you believe BPC will outperform the S&P 500 over the long term. Vote Underperform if you believe BPC will underperform the S&P 500 over the long term. You may vote once every thirty days. Previous Next A new study aims to actively involve birthing hospitals to improve health and social outcomes for the maternal infant dyads impacted by Opioid Use Disorder (OUD). Findings from the study will be presented during the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) 2019 Meeting, taking place on April 24May 1 in Baltimore. "Since 2016, the Perinatal-Neonatal Quality Improvement Network of Massachusetts along with other state level stakeholders, launched an initiative to actively involve birthing hospitals in the state to improve overall health and social outcomes for the maternal infant dyads impacted by OUD," said Dr. Rachana Singh, MD, one of the authors of the study. "This process included sharing best practices; a shared database to collect de-identified data; educational materials; serial webinars; biannual quality summits; sharing of statewide and comparative individual hospital reports; and hospital site visits." All voluntarily participating hospitals were invited to identify, share and adopt best care practices as was feasible within the resources available. Commonly shared materials included: a shared database storing de-identified data; educational materials (antenatal screening tools; NAS toolkit; Eat, Sleep, Console scoring); webinars to share hospital-based successes; biannual quality summits; sharing of statewide and individual hospital reports; and hospital site visits. With these efforts, of the 47 birthing hospitals caring for mothers or newborns, over 30 are participating in this initiative, including 26 sharing data to the database since 2017. Between January 2017 to November 2018, data for 1,434 maternal-infant dyads was reported in the central database. Of these, approximately 80% mothers with OUD were receiving medication assisted treatment (MAT) with <40% using illicit drugs during pregnancy, 69% opioid exposed newborns (OENs) received skin-to-skin care in the first 24 hours of life, 70% roomed-in for at least one night prior to maternal discharge and 80% of eligible OENs received any mother's milk during hospitalization. Less than or equal to 50% of OENs needed pharmacotherapy. The average hospital length of stay (LOS) for all OENs born greater than or equal to 37 weeks was approximately 14 days and while for those not requiring pharmacotherapy was approximately 6 days. Eighty percent of OENs were referred to early intervention prior to discharge and 72% of OENs were discharged home to a biologic parent. Significant increases in skin-to-skin contact (median 64.7% to 72.3%) and significant decreases in pharmacologic therapy (median 52.5 % to 45.8%) were seen by run chart rules. This statewide multidisciplinary collaborative effort was able to engage a majority of birthing hospitals in improving care provision for OUD impacted pregnancies resulting in a trend toward less need for pharmacologic treatment through greater focus on non-pharmacologic methods. Dr. Singh concluded, "Through these efforts we have been able to engage a majority of birthing hospitals in improving care provision for OUD impacted pregnancies resulting in a trend toward less need for pharmacologic treatment through greater focus on non-pharmacologic methods." Explore further Opioid-affected births to rural residents increase in rural and urban hospitals More information: Dr. Singh will present findings from "Improving Outcomes for Pregnancies Impacted by Opioid Use Disorder: The Massachusetts Experience" on Monday, April 29 at 1 p.m. EDT. Painter Edouard Manets Olympia shocked viewers who locked eyes with the brazen nude in the Paris Salon in 1865. This year, artist Jessie Kwasney painted another "Olympia," a reclined and provocative nude paying homage to the French modernist at the University of Montana Gallery of Visual Arts. Exploring the influence of religion in American society, Kwasney's exhibit prompted a rare warning sign at the gallery entrance. Director Cathryn Mallory estimated it's just the second time in 25 years the gallery has posted a caution to visitors. "Please Note: Some artworks may require viewer discretion." Behind the advisory and a wall blocking direct view of the exhibit, this Olympia smokes a fat joint, maybe cigar. The stylized figure leans on an elbow, breasts falling to one side, a penis doing the same. Provocation isn't new for Kwasney, an artist born in Oakland, California, and 10-year military veteran working in paint, ceramics and photography. Last year, his black and white portraits of veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder and corresponding audio pieces also confronted viewers with difficult material, true stories of rape and attempted murder. This time, he's using "humanoid" figures in nude and sexually explicit poses in an attempt to challenge viewers to face their own biases about nudity and the human body. Here, Olympia isn't just a twist on the classic nude, the figure represents one in 2,000 babies born with both male and female sex organs. "People are so scared of difficult ideas, and they're just so afraid to be uncomfortable, people as a whole," Kwasney said this week in the gallery. With four paintings and a series of sculptures, the UM student seeking a bachelor's in fine arts wanted to push the conversation. Mallory said he pushed it so far, his peers encouraged the advisory, and she made the call to post it. "Believe me, this was a think-long-and-hard-about decision," Mallory said. UM faculty encourage students to explore and follow their own voices, she said. That ethic made it difficult to consider a warning sign, but she said the practice is also common for many museums. "It is a public space, and we're not a private gallery," Mallory said. Conversation about shame The exhibit was born out of Kwasney's own childhood steeped in religion and beliefs he now rejects that nakedness, sex and sexual exploration outside marriage are sinful. The artist sees the same ideas of morality influence people far outside church, too. "I grew up in an extremely religious family, so even I get uncomfortable with some of the things that I paint," Kwasney, 31, said. One work shows a figure with a strap-on and one with splayed legs, and dark voyeurs peep through pictures he created into the artwork. The characters are cartoonish and graphic at the same time, some caricatures on the brink of sex acts. "I intentionally stylize them heavily and put them in certain scenarios," said Kwasney, who noted George Condo among the artists whose work he emulates. "But the way I see it is it's no different than any other nude painting, which are highly celebrated everywhere." The paintings contain representations from other artists whose ideas were attacked, such as Picasso and Van Gogh. Kwasney said he paints in part to start a conversation about shame, the human body and constructed moral values. The paintings line two walls in the gallery. Between them stand three bulbous sculptures, one painted bright pink and stamped with the word "Toy," and another pale one dripping at the top and scratched with the word "wet." "I want to explore these ideas of why we think certain things, whether it has to do with nude figures or sexuality or veteran experiences," Kwasney said. "I'm interested in why people believe and feel certain things, especially when they can't give you answers to why they feel." Viewer discretion advised The exhibit is part of UM's senior thesis show, which runs through May 2. As of this week, Mallory said at least 500 people have come through the gallery since it opened, and possibly as many as 700. One group of students from Helena opted to skip the gallery after the teacher asked if there was any nudity or sexual content, Mallory said. She said the students did tour the artwork in the University Center, a part of the show without a posted warning. "I don't make the judgment call for them. I allow them to decide if it's something they would like to do," she said. She said much thought and conversation took place about how to present the show and Kwasney's work. Mallory said she did not want a sign that singled out Kwasney, but she and others in the art program did want to let viewers know they would face some sexually explicit content. "How do we let people become aware of that before they enter the exhibit?" she said. In many cases, she said parents aren't ready to have a conversation with their children about sexual content. In this case, the gallery posted the warning sign at the entrance, and it placed a wall that partially obscures Kwasney's pieces. "But the work is not completely blocked off," Mallory said. She said some people have rolled their eyes at his pieces. Others have been inquisitive and wanted to know why an artist would want to express himself as Kwasney does, and the gallery directs them to the artists' statement. The gallery isn't just a place to exhibit student art, it's a teaching lab for faculty and a place for classes to evaluate artwork, Mallory said. In this case, it also offers students a glimpse into the way different venues will handle controversial work. "We're trying to prepare them for an entrance into the professional world, and that's based on a lot of individuality, artwork, being true to your own voice," Mallory said. "But as we all know, there's also realities in the world, and you have to operate under different constraints sometimes." Hard conversations Brandon Reintjes, senior curator at the Missoula Art Museum, said he wasn't necessarily surprised to see the warning sign at the Gallery of Visual Arts. The MAM also has received requests at times from public schools or community members to offer warnings about challenging work. "We always like to have a conversation around art, I think even when the content is graphic or explicit or sensitive," Reintjes said. "It can be a variety of things that sets people off." The MAM has shied away from warning signs in favor of "a softer touch," he said, although it will gauge content on a case-by-case basis. In the last year, the museum has opted to have its visitor engagement officers alert people who arrive with children that they might want to preview certain work before their youngsters see them. "We usually try not to warn them off. If we didn't think it was a worthy exhibit or a worthy piece of art, we wouldn't have installed it," Reintjes said. When school groups visit the MAM, guides explain that artists sometimes use strong language to get their points across, he said. In viewing a difficult work, they note it is an example of such communication. If someone is shocked, he said the museum apologizes for not adequately warning them, and MAM workers also then "try to unpack why it was so alarming." "Sometimes, just the act of talking about that helps mitigate any sort of lasting negative impression," Reintjes said. The wording of warning signs is particularly tricky, and he applauded the language used at the Gallery of Visual Arts. The words alert viewers, but they don't stop them from seeing work; UM students work hard, he said, and their art is an important part of the community. "It's the hard conversations that help us learn, that really challenge us, so that's what we like to do is to have those conversations," Reintjes said. Emerging artist So far, people have had strong reactions to Kwasney's exhibit, both positive and negative, he said. He thought an older audience would be turned off, but that hasn't been the case. "I had a lot of them come up to me and say they grew up a similar way I did and the paintings helped them," Kwasney said. The current exhibit has given him an opportunity to broach a conversation he's been wanting to have with a wider audience, and he intends to continue to explore similar themes in his work. Studio Visit Magazine, a national publication, will feature him as an emerging artist later this summer. In this show, Kwasney meant to provoke, and he's looking at the warning sign as evidence of success. "I guess it worked 100 percent," Kwasney said. Please sign up on Missoulian.com to subscribe to Under the M, the weekly email about the University of Montana and higher education news in Montana. You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Stay up-to-date on what's happening Receive the latest in local entertainment news in 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. In the midst of preparations for the great Easter feast came news of the devastating fire at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. And, on Easter morning, we awakened to the news of the bombings of churches in Sri Lanka. In the midst of resurrection, we still live with the cross. Many have opined on the meaning of the fire in Paris: Notre Dame is not only a church but a symbol of France. Might this event lead to a rebirth/reconsideration of the place of religion in a secular society? What is the place of great buildings in a faith that obliges us to care of the poor? Can a church that took centuries to build be restored in a mere five years? And then there are the questions about the bombings on the other side of the world: How can persons of faith hear a call to kill persons of another faith? What will this mean in a country and government that has barely moved out of civil war, seemingly ended after 30 years? What about the lives of those who survived the bombings but watched others die all around them how will they be restored? One could ask, Which is the greater tragedy? Or one could ponder about both, a building and a people who gather in a building. Miraculously, in the first, the many works of art that have been housed at Notre Dame, including the grand organ, were nearly unscathed. And one person was injured. In the second, gathered in buildings that were not nearly so grand but certainly cared for, over 200 persons died. Over the centuries, it would be impossible to count the number of people who have worshipped together in Notre Dame. In Sri Lanka, these 200-plus people continued a tradition of many generations who had prayed together, a small minority of Christian people in a country that is largely populated by other religious traditions. Both tragedies go to the heart of the gathering of faithful people, the first about the place in which they gather, the second about those who gather in a place. And both tragedies lead us to important questions about who we are, believers and non-believers, members and non-members of world religions. Both history and archaeology tell us that faith has been a focus of gathering for all the years of human existence. When the physical environment made the gathering difficult, a shelter was created to house the gathering. Over the centuries, the places of gathering became symbols for the gatherers and for others who were drawn to faith by the very structures themselves. In Catholicism, the church, or ecclesia, is literally the house for the church (i.e. the members who gather). Those who gathered came to cherish the structures and made them reflections of the faith that were shared, creating great works of art sculpture, art glass, murals, even the furniture that was needed for worship works of human hands to make the faith shared visible to all. The works of faith, based on hospitality and welcome, are also taken to the world from these imposing buildings. Thus, the mission to the poor, the vulnerable, all those in need, whether physical or spiritual, might be accomplished by and through those who gather to pray. Whatever the building that houses the faith community becomes a beacon of hope for all those who pass by. Hopefully, the building leads one to ask, Who are those who gather here? Will those faithful people lead me to new hope in the midst of great sorrow? The church buildings in Sri Lanka will also be restored, but will probably take place in a less public way than the restoration of Notre Dame. As we watch this rebuilding and restoration, let us be mindful at the same time of the restoration of the people of Sri Lanka, a much longer task. In the midst of great sorrow will continue the abiding faith in the resurrection. S. Mary Jo Quinn, a Sister of Charity of Leavenworth, Kansas, is Pastoral Assistant with responsibility for music, liturgy and outreach at Blessed Trinity Catholic Community, Missoula. She may be reached at maryjoq@blessedtrinitymissoula.org. You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Law enforcement seized cocaine, firearms and multiple vehicles from a Missoula residence on Tuesday during a raid on a suspected drug trafficker. Charging documents filed Wednesday state the Missoula Drug task Force executed a search warrant on a "Country Christian Center" bus they believe was used to transport drugs between Spokane and Missoula. Along with the bus, authorities impounded a 1977 Volkswagen van with "PHISH" spray painted on the exterior, four motorcycles and a utility trailer. On the "Christian" bus, registered to 39-year-old Nathaniel Vincent Long, police reportedly found 114 grams of field-tested cocaine. Long was booked into the Missoula County Detention Facility on Tuesday several hours after the raid. Inside the home, police also seized six firearms, including a Masterpiece Arms Inc. fully automatic 9-millimeter machine gun, a 12-gauge shotgun and multiple handguns. Charging documents state law enforcement observed Long driving the bus on Interstate 90 from the Idaho border to Missoula. Police then executed the search warrant immediately after Long parked the bus at his residence at 114 S. 6th St. West, according to court documents. Long faces 15 felony charges following the raid, including possession of dangerous drugs with intent to distribute, another drug charge related to a baggie of psychedelic mushrooms found on the property and unlawful use or possession of property subject to criminal forfeiture. Missoula Detective Sean Manraksa said in charging documents that drug dealers commonly hold the profits of distribution in assets such as the vehicles and firearms in this case. County jail records available online show Long was released on Thursday. His bond had been set at $10,000. You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 5 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. After going through something as life-altering as a car accident, the best thing you can get out of it is... Discarding age-old taboos, more Nepalis are eating pork Once explicitly forbidden for these upper castes, pork has started to become a new favourite, reflecting changing attitudes and more cosmopolitan approach to the variety of cuisines available in the Kathmandu Valley, brought in by migrants from across the country. Pigs are raised primarily by Limbus, Rais and Tharus, for whom the animal is an instrinsic part of culture. But more Bahuns and Chhetris are eating pork today. Post Photo: Kabin Aadhikari CHARLO The school board election under way in this town is small, but ugly. Charlo School District 7J serves fewer than 300 students, and three of its nine Board of Trustee seats are contested this year. In recent weeks, residents have seen signs and received flyers urging them, in all-capitals, boldface font, to VOTE AGAINST: ABUSE OF SPECIAL EDUCATION CHILDREN; BULLYING OF STUDENTS & PARENTS; CORRUPTION OF SCHOOL TRANSPORTATION DEPARTMENT; VIOLATION OF OUR CHILDRENS RIGHT TO PRIVACY. Cari Rosenbaum, one of the residents pushing this message, centers her critique on how she says the district treats students with special needs. Principal Bonnie Perry, Superintendent Steve Love and the Board of Trustees all have a hand in these policies. Rosenbaum and her relatives have spent years fighting them, and said they've often felt stymied. For his part, Love says "I would totally disagree with that characterization," and that the district takes those children's needs "very seriously." Nonetheless, Rosenbaum said, our choice was to try and get new people on the board, in the hope that they would possibly be more interested in listening. Special-education complaints Both Rosenbaum and her brother-in-law Terry now seeking a seat on the board allege that the district mishandled the medical and educational plans prepared for their respective children. Terry and Kasey Rosenbaum claimed that these missteps were nearly fatal. A lawsuit they filed last February in Lake County District Court explains that their 11-year-old, mostly nonverbal son is prone to rapid-onset, life-threatening medical conditions. Under plans signed by school administrators, staff were to administer an emergency stress dose of hydrocortisone if they noticed any one of several symptoms. But on Feb. 4, 2016, their complaint alleged, staff let these symptoms persist for more than three hours before finally contacting Terry, who directed them to administer the dose. The districts subsequent actions aggrieved the parents further. According to court documents, the principal and superintendent failed to reform their response procedures, and denied any wrongdoing when the parents filed a complaint. Terry and Kasey Rosenbaum next went to the Board of Trustees, but that group declined to hear their appeal. The couple allege that after two years of working to craft new medical plans, the district informed them it would not abide by those plans. As a result of the Districts refusal, parents determined that allowing [their son] to continue to attend Charlo public school posed an untenable risk to his health and life, wrote their attorneys, Andree Larose and Matthew ONeill. The Rosenbaums sued in Lake County and also sought an administrative hearing before the Montana Office of Public Instruction. Both cases were dismissed after they settled last month. The settlement agreement, provided by school district attorney Megan Morris, required Charlo Schools to pay $52,500 in damages and legal fees, set up a $15,000 fund to pay for their sons educational needs and implement an Individualized Educational Program and health care plan. Morris, an attorney with Missoulas Kaleva Law Offices, stated in an email that the school district does not admit fault or liability, but determined that resolution of the outstanding litigation was in the best interests of the District, its students, and staff. As Terry and Kasey Rosenbaum fought this battle, Cari Rosenbaum was also exhausting her options. She and her husband spent the 2013-2014 and 2015-16 school years working their way through the districts complaint process, moving from principal to superintendent to Board of Trustees, alleging that the district failed to rectify severe bullying against her son, all while trying to create an individualized education program that met his needs. None of it was settled to their satisfaction. At the end, she remembers deciding, We wont be sending him back. "He was expendable that's how it felt to us, he was expendable because he wouldn't be of any value." Rosenbaum says that her son now attends a private school, and that she still receives two to three phone calls per year from parents requesting help with district complaints. The Missoulian has received allegations of special-education mismanagement from six different Charlo parents and former employees, and has filed a public-records request with the Montana Office of Public Instruction for reports of violations of disability guidelines. Among those who came forward, Cari Rosenbaum and Polson special-education teacher Angie Mock shared documents. In April 2016, Mock was assisting a Charlo family with an individualized-education plan, and alerted district and Lake County leaders about a lack of necessary data in the process. Three years later, she remains skeptical. The problem I keep seeing is that the law is not followed, the parents are not given information, the students are not served as law is required, and theres no advocacy, Mock said. Love, superintendent since 2015, differs. He signs off on the districts individualized educational programs and says staff take seriously the mandate to follow them. There is an avenue for parents to voice concerns, but at the end it's a team decision, he said. In his wood-paneled, certificate-lined office, Love declined to comment on students specific cases, citing privacy concerns. But he and other district staff did discuss their work to provide Special Olympics and other programming to students with disabilities, and to strengthen these plans implementation Love estimates that, of approximately 260 students, about 15 percent receive some kind of special-education services.I feel like there's probably a lot of parents who are the silent majority (who) are plumb-tickled with how their students have been treated and what their kids are getting out of it, he said. Love was hired by the Board of Trustees, and shared its annual evaluations of his performance. The members gave the superintendent mostly high marks and favorable comments for his handling of the district. But one anonymous remark, from last school year, echoed the special-education parents experiences. More than once I have seen parents come in to a meeting with a complaint. The administration just turns their back and passes it off as no big deal. Now, that sentiment has crept into the election. Contested race In recent weeks, a few residents calling themselves the Concerned Charlo Citizens have put up four large, stenciled signs and mailed out hundreds of flyers, calling on residents to vote in new board members and accusing the existing board of grave misconduct. We can't do anything about any of it until we get more board members, said Randy Doty, a parent, grandparent and great-grandparent of Charlo students whos been working with Cari and Andrew Rosenbaum to get the message out. Three of the nine board members terms are expiring this year. In one race, incumbent Tracy Olsen faces Dion Carey for a two year-term. The other is for two three-year terms. Board member Dave DeGrandpre is stepping down, while Adrian Roylance is seeking another term, and three challengers have entered the race, resulting in a four-way contest where voters will pick two board members. One of the challengers is Terry Rosenbaum. While he and the district have settled, he now wants to have a hand in changing its course. I thought I could be one of these community members, which there are several of them, which keep complaining about how the school is run or I could be one of those people who does something about it, said Rosenbaum, a Montana Highway Patrol trooper. He stopped short of specifying changes he would pursue if elected, saying he would have to do more research. But he said that obviously, if theres people who want new school board members in there that should tell you the community is wanting answers. Two of his opponents, Roylance and Stephanie Smith, said they supported the administration and voiced confidence in the districts special education programs. The other candidate in this race, Jake Wadsworth, did not reply to a request for comment. Meanwhile, Rosenbaums former classmate Dion Carey is challenging Tracy Olsen, who did not reply to a request for comment, for a two-year term. Maybe theres right and wrong on both sides of the controversies, Carey said, but it doesnt appear to me that the administration wants to acknowledge any of these problems. The call for change has been loudest from the Concerned Charlo Citizens. Cari Rosenbaum, Terry Rosenbaum and Randy Doty all agree that the signs and flyers are separate from Terrys campaign. But after her frustrations with the Board of Trustees and administration, Cari Rosenbaum is pinning her hopes for change on this vote. I have to, just a little bit, go on faith that (by) getting three candidates in there with a new perspective, that they will do a good job, she said. I haven't had a whole lot of good interactions with the current board. Ballots were mailed out April 17 and are due back May 7. As that date ticks closer, the campaign is heating up. And some of the tactics may have strayed into a legal gray area. There is no political group called the Charlo Concerned Citizens registered anywhere, Love said, and so I think it's hypocritical for them to accuse the school, accuse its administration, its staff and its trustees of being corrupt and breaking rules, and yet here they are blatantly ignoring the election laws. Montana law requires that most political committees file information with the Commissioner of Political Practices office, and that election-related communications include the statement Paid for by, followed by the financiers name and address. The group Concerned Charlo Citizens has no documents on file with the Commissioner of Political Practices, and neither the flyers nor the signs included the paid for by message. The former attributed it to Concerned Charlo Citizens and included Dotys address. A provision in the states election laws exempts certain classes of small school districts from registration requirements, Commissioner of Political Practices Jeff Mangan explained in an email. If the school district falls into one of those categories (which it does), they (Concerned Charlo Citizens) would not have to file or report its activity regarding that school election, he wrote. They should, however, attribute any election communications. It appears they have CCC and address but not paid for by on the flyer. I dont understand what difference it makes who pays for it, Doty said. He did include his address on the flyer, and produced receipts showing about $125 in mailing costs. He also wrote CCC and his phone number on the signs. I put my phone number on the signs, I dont know what more I can do, he said. Anytime they want to call me, they can call me. Cari Rosenbaum, too, took steps to explain her actions. My husband and I helped Randy Doty with the signs you see around Charlo, she posted on her Facebook page last Thursday. I want to be very clear so that no one misunderstands, I believe everything on those signs to be truth! Addressing fellow Charlo parents in the post, she continued, I am very glad that some of you have had wonderful experiences at Charlo Schools. I am so grateful that your child wont have long lasting effects from their treatment by Charlo Schools. But, she added, Not every child has been that lucky. You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Librarian Shari Curtis didnt come up with the idea for the Butte-Silver Bow Public Librarys annual Edible Book Festival, but some might say its kind of in her wheelhouse. Before becoming a librarian, Curtis was a chef who specialized in baking. On Saturday, Curtis and others will bring edible works of art to the library for the fourth iteration of the festival, which she said has been growing in popularity with evermore elaborate snacks and desserts that pay homage to works of literature. Curtis, programming librarian and the manager of the librarys Carle Gallery, explained the festival is part of an international campaign and that it was a colleague of hers who came up with the idea of bringing the event to Butte. For Curtis, the concept seemed like a no-brainer. You know, its literary and its food, the librarian said. To take part in the festival, entrants create sweet or savory dishes that draw inspiration from both fiction and non-fiction books. The creations can be based on characters, events, cover art, and just about anything industrious home cooks can think of related to their favorite books. One year, for instance, Butte resident and proprietor of Montana Cake Whisperers Mary Mathews made the Monster Book of Monsters from the Harry Potter series, replete with claws and chomping, jagged jaws. During the first year, Curtis made the caterpillar from the childrens book The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by stringing together balls of fruit. For Saturdays event, shes fashioned pieces of cake and fondant icing into bright yellow yarn balls, a reference to the mystery novel Knit One, Kill Two. In an ironic, not ironic, twist, the kind that Alanis Morissette might sing about, Curtiss cat made off with some of the yellow fondant for her yarn balls, which her dog later ate. Last but not least, B-SB librarian Sara Karbassi previously tried to make the tower from Wuthering Heights, but the cake collapsed, so she changed the theme to Things Fall Apart. As Curtis noted, the creations dont have to be made of cakein another state, someone turned a canned ham into the face of Earnest Hemingwayand the books dont have to be novels. In fact, during a previous year a friend made a lentil dish in honor of one of her favorite non-fiction books, Lentil Underground by Liz Carlisle. The festival starts at 3 p.m., Saturday at the library, 226 W. Broadway St., and registration is from noon to 2 p.m., so theyll be time in the morning for last-minute creative cooks to whip up inspiration from their favorite books. After 3 p.m., the creations will be judged and prizes will be handed out. Judging this year is KXLF reporter John Emeigh, Maggie Davis from Butte Broadcasting and local author and library trustee Marian Jensen. Afterward, participants feast on the edible books, perhaps proving that the best works of art are transitory. Butte resident Diane Larson has been helping the library spread the word about the festival by handing out fliers and alerting local businesses. She noted that she isnt a baker or a cook, so she has a plan and a backup plan for Saturday. Her idea is to make a cake based on All the President's Men. And if that doesnt work out, shell make a cookie recipe included in the back of the mystery novel Decaffeinated Corpse. Also making a repeat appearance Saturday will be residents from The Springs at Butte senior-living facility on Mt. Highland Dr. Last year residents made a cake based on Chicken Soup for the Grandparent's Soul. To give residents a taste of what young readers are into these days, said staff members Tonya Kish and Andrew Zemljak, this year residents made a cake honoring the cover of Twilight the first book in the young-adult vampire series The Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer. The book cover is black and shows a pair of outstretched hands holding an apple. Residents Mary Hecker, Helen Maichel and LaVera Kalsater displayed the edible book at The Springs facility Friday. They, and other residents, used fondant to create the hands and placed a real apple in the center. At first someone came up with the idea of putting the fondant, known for its malleability, into a pair of gloves to create a hand-like shape. When that didnt work, they simply made the hands by shaping the icing. Kish and Andrew said residents have a lot of fun preparing for the festivaltheyve even become involved in more library events because of last years eventwhile Kalsater said the residents get a little silly while baking. As for Curtis, she sees the festival as a fun way for people to learn new things, get more involved in the library and combine their passions. Weve had it here for four years and people really love it, Curtis said, reflecting on the event. Its celebrating books and food. And for a chef-turned-librarian, it doesnt get any better than that. Love 2 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. The communications director for Gov. Steve Bullock is departing at the start of next month, and the position will be filled by the governor's press secretary. Ronja Abel has worked with Bullock for more than three years and is leaving to start her own business. Press Secretary Marissa Perry will take over when Abel departs. I'm proud to have worked alongside Gov. Bullock fighting for Montanans," Abel said in a press release Friday. The rest of the country could learn a thing or two from the way he gets things done. It's been a heck of a ride, but now it's on to the next adventure for me." Bullock praised Abel's work in his administration, as well as Perry's transition. I am lucky to have had these two very strong and talented women by my side through some of the most memorable moments of my time as governor, Bullock said in the release. I am extremely grateful for my friendship with each of them and confident they will be successful in the opportunities they are taking on next. Before taking over as communications director, Abel was the deputy communications director. She came to the governor's office after working as communications director for the Department of Commerce. Perry said in a statement she's looking forward to moving into the director role. Its an honor to continue serving with an effective leader who is always focused on Montanans best interests and doing whats right for this state, Perry said. She has been press secretary since January 2017. She worked on Bullock's re-election campaign in 2016 as deputy communications director and before that was the communications director for the governors Office of Community Service. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 MUSCATINE What does it take to make a profit in the real world market of buyers and sellers? Economics students at Muscatine Community College will soon find out. Around 40 students working in small groups will try to sell products to the public Monday morning during the MCC Market Expo. Instructor John Dabeet said students have been working on developing a company over the semester and will test out concepts they learned in class during the three-hour event. Teams will set up, then run their storefronts from 9 a.m. to noon in the MCC Student Center. "I am using this as a venue for them to practice what they are learning in the classroom," Dabeet said. "They get to apply every market concept they learn in class on the ground. They see what works and what does not, they deal with marketing, sales, pricing strategies and even setting the store and welcoming customers." Important stuff you won't get from the liberal media! We do the surfing so you can be informed AND have a life! Retired Vallejo Police Officer, William G. Bill Donovan, 62, passed away Wednesday at Queen of the Valley Medical Center in Napa surrounded by his family. Visitation will be held 11 AM-9 PM Thursday, May 2 with Vigil Services beginning at 7 PM Thursday at Twin Chapels Mortuary, 1100 Tennessee St., Vallejo. Mass of Christian Burial will be held 12 noon Friday, May 3 at St. Vincents Catholic Church, Florida and Sacramento Sts., Vallejo. Burial will follow at All Souls Catholic Cemetery, Vallejo. A change in the governors office and expanded Democratic supermajorities in the Legislature have emboldened long-frustrated advocates of increasing taxes to expand health, welfare and education services. The California Tax Foundation calculates that bills already introduced this year would raise Californians taxes by $6.2 billion a year with others to come. Gov. Gavin Newsom is clearly not tax-averse, since hes proposed a new tax on water to finance improvements to substandard local water systems and an indirect tax on corporations, via partial conformity with federal tax law changes, that would finance a $1 billion expansion of the states earned income tax credit for low-income working families. While wrangling over taxes heats up in the Capitol, the same dynamics are playing out in dozens of California cities, counties and school districts. The last couple of election cycles have seen hundreds of local tax measures placed before voters, and more are on the way. The conflicts over those local taxes are increasing in intensity, as a situation in Los Angeles illustrates. The financially strapped Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is seeking voter approval in June of an unusual form of parcel tax on property, hoping to raise as much as a half-billion dollars a year. Parcel taxes typically levy a fixed dollar amount on each parcel of land, regardless of value. LAUSD proposes, however, to tax property 16 cents a square foot and it has drawn strong opposition from the local business community. The jousting over LAUSDs Proposition EE turned nasty this month. Tracy Hernandez, chief executive of the Los Angeles County Business Federation, alleged that Measure EE campaign manager Rick Jacobs told her that federation members who campaigned against the measure would be frozen out of dealings with the City of Los Angeles, whose mayor, Eric Garcetti, is backing the tax. Jacobs, a long-time Garcetti advisor, denied Hernandezs account to the Los Angeles Times, saying, I am insulted that she would accuse me of being so trite as to use the old wont do business in this town line. Meanwhile, sharp conflicts over local taxes are playing out in Oakland and San Francisco. While the LAUSD tax, placed on the ballot by the school board, would require approval by two-thirds of the districts voters, the state Supreme Court implied in a ruling two years ago that local special purpose tax measures proposed by initiative petition, rather than directly by officials, might need only a majority vote. A $198 per year parcel tax in Oakland to improve early childhood services, placed before voters via initiative, attracted 62 percent of votes last November. Mayor Libby Schaff and other officials declared, based on the Supreme Court ruling, that it had passed. They now want to begin collecting the tax while a legal battle over the voting margin plays itself out. A similar battle is underway in San Francisco over Measure C, a gross receipts tax on business to raise about $300 million a year to combat homelessness. Measure C, also an initiative, garnered 61 percent of the votes in last Novembers election but citing the Supreme Court decision, local officials declared it a winner. Business groups have sued, declaring that state law clearly requires two-thirds votes for special taxes. The Oakland and San Francisco cases are headed to the state Supreme Court, which must tell us whether the lower vote implication of its previous ruling is valid, as tax increase advocates hope, or whether taxes not reaching the two-thirds vote threshold are failures. CALmatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how Californias state Capitol works and why it matters. For more stories by Dan Walters, go to calmatters.org/commentary. Bangladesh and Indian intelligence have been duly alerted about a pro-Islamic State telegram in Bengali doing the rounds in Internet that promises militant action soon. Top Bangladesh intelligence officials say they have interacted with their Indian counterparts and decided to sound a nationwide alert over the poster in Bengali that says Shigroi Asche Inshallah (God, willing, coming soon). It has the logo of an unknown group Al Mursalat, which could well be the Arabic code for Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) which carried out the deadly attack on Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka three years ago. That this threat of action is in Bengali has been interpreted by Bangladesh intelligence as a prelude to possible suicide attacks in Bangladesh and in east and Northeast India, where the neo-JMB (formed after reorganisation following death or arrest of most of its leaders in Bangladesh in a police crackdown after the Holey Artisan attack) is active. Also read: Arrested JMB activist testifies to ISI terror plot in Northeast, Bangladesh It is an Islamist terror group comprising of recruits from Bangladesh, West Bengal and Assam and operates on a trans-regional basis with some of their activists even nabbed from southern Indian states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu. In fact, at the moment, the group is said to have equal number of activists from Indian states and Bangladesh. Bangladesh intelligence is looking into reports that the neo-JMB has links with Sri Lankas National Towheed Jamaath (NTJ) which carried out the deadly suicide bombings on Easter Day (April 21). Also read: NSCN (IM) ready to defeat ISIS if Nagaland faces terror attack Like the NTJ, the neo-JMB is loosely connected to the Islamic State, which owns up domestic radical groups across the world if they conform to its ideological tenets of hardline Salafist Islam. For the IS and the neo-JMB, India is an oppressor Hindu state while Bangladesh , though a Muslim majority country, is run by a Murtad (apostate) regime, which is how it belittles the Sheikh Hasina government that runs on secular principles. We dont rule out simultaneous attacks in Bangladesh and adjacent Indian states like West Bengal and Assam and so we take this threat on the IS handle seriously. We will not make the mistake that the Sri Lankans made of neglecting the alert, said a top Bangladesh intelligence official. He added, We share a high degree of intelligence cooperation with India. Since India alerted Sri Lanka early in April about the impending suicide bombings with very specific details and since it has better intelligence capabilities, we expect the Indian agencies will check out the IS threat sooner than later, he said, but was not willing to be named. Economic growth projected at 6.81 percentshort of government target, but still best in recent years The countrys economy is projected to grow by 681 percent in 2018-19, which is a little short of the government target of 8 percent growth for the current fiscal year, but still one of the best growth rates in recent years Armen Grigoryan clarifies why Ruben Rubinyan was appointed Armenia's envoy for negotiations with Turkey Armenia Security Council Secretary on '3+3' format: If there is opportunity, we will go to Baku and Ankara Armenian Security Council Secretary: There is still no Armenia-Turkey agenda, we need to sit at table and talk Security Council Secretary: Document signed by Armenian, Russian MODs was not about pullout of Armenian troops in Syunik Yerevan Council of Elders member Lilit Pipoyan also drops mandate IRGC uses suicide drones during drills in southern Iran U.S. diplomat arrested on suspicion of selling fake passport to Syrian citizen for $10,000 in Turkey Iran FM: '3+3' format may contribute to strengthening of peace and stability in the region Robert Kocharyan expresses condolences over the death of National Hero Karen Demirtchyan's wife Baku admits that it is blocking opening of communications in region by setting forth different conditions Member of 'My Step' faction of Yerevan Council of Elders applies to leave, but says he won't drop mandate Armenia President: Azerbaijan has been using its position of victory to impose that game 17-year-old boy commits suicide in Armenia's Ararat Province Russian companies have pretension to participate in development of Karabakh's sector occupied by Azerbaijan Iranian FM reminds Aliyev about Iran President's invitation to visit Tehran Body of 34-year-old citizen of Russia found at parking lot of Dvin Hotel in Yerevan Russia MOD: Russian Armed Forces are guarantor of peace in Syria and Nagorno-Karabakh Yerevan mayor's spokesperson Hakob Karapetyan quits NEWS.am daily digest: 22.12.21 Lavrov, Mirzoyan agree on steps to launch practical activities for demarcation of Armenian-Azerbaijani border Turkey hopes construction of Igdir-Nakhchivan natural gas pipeline is launched as soon as possible Inter-agency task force holds first session at Armenia Emergency Situations Ministry Armenian and Russian FMs hold phone talks Georgian and Azerbaijani MODs sign 2022 Bilateral Cooperation Plan Deputy PM: Armenia seeks to diversify its energy system Analyst: At this rate, Armenia's authorities might refuse to visit Armenian Genocide Memorial Complex soon Papikyan, Zas discuss CSTO priorities during Armenia chairmanship Iran-Armenia Friendship Group member: Tehran won't tolerate any territorial change in the region Armenia opposition party leader is arrested One dollar falls below AMD 480 in Armenia Erdogan rejects possibility of snap elections in Turkey Iranian FM: Iran welcomes further economic and trade cooperation with Azerbaijan Peskov says Putin-Biden video call might be held before end of the year Lavrov urges NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to resign Saakashvili to not attend trial in Tbilisi court today Azerbaijan extends special lockdown regime Peskov: Russia has informed Turkey that it doesn't approve of naming of a park after Dudayev Yerevan has new mayor Yerevan hosts meeting of Armenia-Russia intergovernmental commission on economic cooperation Armenia Deputy PM: Most realistic projects are being considered in this stage Armenia PM expresses condolences over death of wife of statesman and National Hero Karen Demirtchyan Russia presidential spokesman informs about CIS leaders summit on December 29 Armenia Security Council Secretary meets with Stanislav Zas Armenias Sarkissian, Kuwait diplomat confer on regional issues President, PM discuss challenges facing Armenia Member of ruling faction is chairing session of Yerevan Council of Elders after recess, not mayor Azerbaijan defense minister tells details of their operation to seize Karabakhs Shushi International Studies expert: For first time Armenia enters process with Turkey, meeting Ankaras main preconditions Yerevan Mayor on Armenias ruling political force: These people are trying to privatize the revolution Artsakh official: Why international leaders praise Baku for releasing Armenian captives if its international law duty? Armenia President signs law on 2022 state budget 1 more person dies of coronavirus in Artsakh Iran FM heading for Azerbaijan 152 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia Armenia premier, Russia deputy PM discuss prospects for restoration of communications in South Caucasus World oil prices going up City council majority faction: Current situation will not enable to work, serve Yerevan effectively for next 2 years Newspaper: Another bonus pay distributed in Armenia parliament Yerevan city council convenes special session, no-confidence motion against Mayor Marutyan on agenda Newspaper: Heated discussion occurs during meeting with Armenia PM Armenian judges address justice minister, say draft laws will put their independence at risk 26 Italian MPs express satisfaction with release of 10 Armenian POWs Mayor of Armenia's Kajaran Manvel Paramazyan greeted pompously after release from custody Aliyev meets with Georgian defense minister Iran's Ambassador to Yemen Hassan Irloo passes away after contracting COVID-19 Japan hangs three suicide bomber convicts It's snowing for the first time this year in Yerevan (PHOTOS) Opposition and police clash in Sukhumi Russian servicemen get stuck under an avalanche in South Ossetia Turkey's TRT covers normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations Islamabad-Tehran-Istanbul railway project launched Armenia FM receives Ile-de-France's Regional Council president, humanitarian issues discussed Armenian cross-stone placed and consecrated in Ukraine's Severodonetsk Armenia Parliament ex-Speaker Karen Demirtchyan's widow dies at 88 EU Special Representative welcomes handover of 2 Azerbaijani servicemen by Armenia Putin, Macron discuss settlement of Karabakh conflict Georgians holding demonstration demanding Saakashvili's release in Tbilisi Armenia Parliament Speaker receives head of France's Ile-de-France region Armenia customs attache: There are nearly 400-500 Armenian truck drivers at Upper Lars checkpoint Armenia Ombudsman, UNICEF release teacher's guide about children's rights Armenia health minister receives leaders of several Russian companies Armenia President, Japan Ambassador discuss current agenda of Armenian-Japanese relations Sarkissian to Pecresse: During war we were convinced once again that France is our real friend Putin assigns to enhance military-technical cooperation with Shanghai Cooperation Organization and CSTO Armen Sarkissian receives India Ambassador Armenia ex-Prosecutor General Aghvan Hovsepyan files report to incumbent Attorney General Members of Armenia ruling party boycott first session of Council of Elders in Aparan Deputies of Iranian Majles visit Armenian Genocide Memorial Complex Yerevan main Christmas tree to be lighted Thursday Dollar gains value in Armenia Ruling power lawmaker: Azerbaijan servicemens capture by Armenia soldiers is deterrent for Baku Ruling force MP: Armenia envoy for dialogue with Turkey will have quite representative apparatus Vladimir Putin: Humanitarian situation in Karabakh has improved thanks to Russian peacekeepers Armenia premiers working visit to Georgia concludes Russia, Turkey discuss current situation in Syria Russia deputy PM to arrive in Armenia today Armenia President congratulates Emmanuel Macron 15th attempt to elect Armenia legislature committee deputy chair also fails Armenia National Security Service launches criminal case on fight in parliament Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: It is states duty to ensure MP Gevorgyan's participation in PACE work Interpol Red Notice issued against Gautam, the first person without arms to climb Everest An Interpol Red Notice has been issued against Sudarshan Gautam, the first person without arms to climb Mount Everest without the use of prosthetics, on the charge of human trafficking. When Patricia Trish White became dean of the University of Miami School of Law in June 2009, she was faced with an unprecedented challenge. It was the height of the recession, and 843 new students had sent deposits for the incoming classmore than double the anticipated 400 enrollees. Fortunately, the new dean was able to come up with an effective solution that allowed Miami Law to deliver high-quality courses without overly straining the schools resources. The first thing I did was send a congratulatory letter to every student who sent a deposit, White said. I reminded them about the tight legal market and suggested that they first do a year of public service, in which case we would accept them in 2010. That brought our enrollment down to 527 students, which we were able to manage by adding extra classrooms and instructors. I wound up teaching an introductory course that fall. In the following years, White brought her innovative thinking, intellectual skills and personal compassion to bear on the evolving needs of Miami Law students, faculty, and staff. She launched new programs like Legal Corps, which paid to place new graduates in not-for-profit and public sector organizations, and LawWithoutWalls, which links students and faculty from more than 30 academic institutions around the world to examine and develop new solutions to evolving issues in legal education and practice. Recognizing the communitys growing need for accessible legal services, White also guided the expansion of Miami Laws clinics, externships and public interest programs, while supporting interdisciplinary learning throughout the J.D. and LL.M. curricula. Trish is a visionary and innovative leader, said Hilarie Bass, a member of the UM Board of Trustees, founder of the Bass Institute for Diversity and Inclusion, former co-president of Greenberg Traurig, and the 2017-18 president of the American Bar Association (ABA). Deans throughout the country have looked to Trish for her wise counsel. At Miami Law, she has done a phenomenal job of bringing in new and exciting faculty, and launching innovative programs that will benefit the school for years to come. Whites vision for Miami Laws academic program has emphasized what she calls the 3 Isinnovative, interdisciplinary and international. Today, Miami Law has 22 joint degree programs that take advantage of the universitys interdisciplinary resources. Students can take elective courses in fields like medicine, architecture and nursing. One example is a Saturday short course called The Idea of the Hospital, that brings graduate students from different schools together to work on collaborative projects. We also pay close attention to innovations that affect the practice of law, such as artificial intelligence (AI), e-discovery processes and legal informatics, White said. Now, after a decade at the helm of Miami Law, White is looking forward to retiring from her administrative responsibilities in June, while continuing to teach on the faculty and to serve as chair of the ABAs Commission on the Future of Legal Education, which aims to address new challenges facing the legal profession. Ten years is about right, said White in announcing her retirement as dean. An institution is seldom best served by having the same dean for more than 10 years. Good institutions must avoid becoming complacent and they benefit from the challenge of welcoming and confronting new energy. Jeffrey L. Duerk, executive vice president for academic affairs and provost, credited White with having deftly navigated the challenges facing law schools and higher education across the country. While her expertise is vast, throughout her career she has demonstrated a steadfast focus on four key areas: students, the transformation of legal education, the interdisciplinary role of law, and public service. Throughout an academic career that began in 1979 while still a practicing tax attorney, White has been in the forefront of legal education. At Miami Law, she has repeatedly been recognized for her innovative strategies and influential thinking. To take just one example, White was named one the most influential people in legal education in the United States by National Juristmagazinein each of the years the list was published. In 2012, she was named the top woman on that list. One wrote a stirring poem for a U.S. presidents inauguration, and three have served as presidentof our nations oldest university, Latin Americas largest country, and Americas largest public media enterprise. Three others have left indelible marks on legal justice, global health, and the way the world conducts business, and stays connected. Seven extraordinary men and women who have made significant contributions in their fields and to the greater good will share their wisdom with 4,000 University of Miami students who will graduate during seven commencement ceremonies taking place over three days, May 9-11, at the Watsco Center on the Coral Gables campus. The speakers and the dates and times of their ceremonies are: Drew Gilpin Faust at the Graduate Degree Ceremony for the College of Arts and Sciences, College of Engineering, Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, Miller School of Medicine, and School of Nursing and Health Studies at 10 a.m. on Thursday, May 9 Drew Gilpin Faust was the 28thpresident of Harvard University, and the first woman to lead the 383-year-old institution, a position she reached not only through her impressive scholarship, leadership, and administrative abilities, but her drive to knock down both gender and racial barriers. Growing up in the 1950s in a privileged tradition-bound family in rural Virginia, she spent much of her formative years rebelling against the restrictions imposed on what she, but not her three brothers, could do or be, and the even worse injustices African-Americans endured. Her February 2007 appointment to Harvard capped an already distinguished career as an accomplished historian and scholar of the Civil War and the South, an award-winning author of six books, and an admired educator and administrator who, after 25 years at her alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, served as founding dean of Harvards Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. During her 11-year tenure as Harvards president, Faust guided the institution through significant financial challenges, and improved access for students of all economic backgrounds, promoted diversity and inclusion, raised the profile of the arts, launching edX, the online learning partnership with MIT, and promoted collaboration across academic disciplines and administrative units. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Society of American Historians, and the American Philosophical Society, Faust was awarded the Library of Congress John W. Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanity last year for her exploration of themes of deep relevance to our national conversation on race and gender. Fernando Henrique Cardoso at the Graduate Degree Ceremony for the School of Architecture, Business School, School of Communication, School of Education and Human Development, and Frost School of Music at 3 p.m. on Thursday, May 9 A professor, researcher, and sociologist at heart, Fernando Henrique Cardoso served as Brazils 34thpresident from 1995-2002, when he ushered in a new era of reforms aimed largely at closing the chasm between Brazils rich and poor. The son and grandson of military generals, FHC, as he is widely known, initially pursued a career in academia, earning a doctorate in sociology in 1961 from the University of Sao Paulo and exploring such issues as slavery, social change, development, and democracy. But persecuted after Brazils 1964 military coup for his efforts to improve public education, he went into exile, coauthoring the classic book, Dependency and Development in Latin America. Returning to Brazil in 1968, FHC forged his reputation as one of Brazils leading thinkers and foremost members of the left-wing opposition. A decade later, he began his political career in the senate, pushing for changes that paved the way for Brazils return to democracy. As Brazils minister of finance in 1993, he stabilized the hyperinflated economy, implementing debt reforms, monetary controls, and a new currency that eventually lifted millions of Brazilians out of poverty and set the stage for his two presidential terms that were so successful at improving the quality of life in Brazil the United Nations awarded him its first Mahbub ul Haq Award for Outstanding Contributions to Human Development. A former president of the International Sociological Association who speaks four languages, Cardoso has taught at Brown, Princeton, the University of California, and in Paris and Cambridge. Richard Blanco at the Undergraduate Degree Ceremony for the College of Arts and Sciences at 8:30 a.m. on Friday, May 10 A poet, essayist, memoirist, and civil engineer, Richard Blanco first appeared on the national stage on Jan. 21, 2013, when he recited One Today, the powerful poem he wrote for President Barack Obamas second inauguration. As Obama wrote in announcing Blanco as the first Latino, the first immigrant, and the first openly gay person to serve as an inauguration poet, Blancos contributions to the fields of poetry and the arts have already paved the path forward for future generations of writers. Richards writing will be wonderfully fitting for an inaugural that will celebrate the strength of the American people and our nations great diversity. An outspoken activist for diversity, LGBTQ rights, immigration, arts education, and other sociopolitical issues, Blanco has long explored the boundaries of race, gender, class, and ethnicity that divide societyexplorations prompted by his search for unity and answers about his cultural identity and personal history. As he likes to say, he was made in Cuba, assembled in Spain and imported to the U.S. Thats because he was conceived in Cuba, but born in Madrid, where his family stayed very briefly before settling in Miami. Now an associate professor of English at Florida International University, where he earned his initial degree in civil engineeringa profession he practiced for a whileBlanco is the author of a dozen books of poetry and prose. Since the inauguration, he has been named a Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow and the Academy of American Poets first education ambassador. Pat Mitchell at the Undergraduate Degree Ceremony for the School of Architecture, School of Communication, School of Education and Human Development, Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, Frost School of Music, and School of Nursing and Health Studies at 1 p.m. on Friday, May 10 The first woman to serve as president of the Public Broadcasting Service, journalist and producer Pat Mitchell was just a girl when television sets began trickling into stores in her rural Georgia town. Worried about their effect on his daughter, her father, an appliance salesman, refused to bring one home. Yet Mitchell would see the power of television to influence culture, open minds, and shape opinion, and throughout her four-decade career as a pioneering journalist, producer, and executive, she leveraged its potential for positive changeespecially in behalf of women. She was among the first women to report and anchor the news and produce and host a national program for women, and her A Century of Women series that aired on CNN was syndicated around the world, launching her eight years as president of CNN Productions. In that role, she was the executive producer for hundreds of hours of programming that netted 35 Emmy Awards, five Peabody Awards, and two Academy Award nominations. In 2000, Mitchell left CNN for PBS, where, working with 344 local public television stations, she led the fight to sustain government funds for the countrys only public service media and added new programming to its schedule. In 2011, she partnered with the TED organization to launch, curate, and host TEDWomen, the annual global conference focused on the ideas and innovations of women, and she chairs the Sundance Institute, which nurtures independent artists and produces the Sundance Film Festival. The recipient of The Womens Media Center first Lifetime Achievement Award, Mitchell continues to advise foundations and corporations on womens empowerment, leadership development, media relations, and governance. Frederick W. Smith at the Undergraduate Degree Ceremony for the Business School and the College of Engineering at 5:30 p.m. on Friday, May 10 As a student at Yale University in the early 1960s, Frederick W. Smith conceived his idea for a company that would guarantee overnight delivery of time-sensitive goods. Though his term paper on the subject earned him only an average grade, the core concept became the basis for the global transportation and logistics giant we know as FedEx. Now a $69 billion enterprise that delivers more than 14.5 million packages around the world each day, the company that Smith founded in 1971 would change the way the world does business. During Smiths more than 45 years at the companys helm, FedEx has delivered it allfrom a collection of 3,000-year-old King Tut artifacts transported from Los Angeles to Paris to a 3,000-pound piece of the Titanics hull shipped from Milan, Italy, to Atlanta, Georgia. And since FedEx networks span the globe, the company works with organizations to provide relief after such disasters as earthquakes, floods, storms, and wildfires. After graduating from Yale with a bachelors degree in economics in 1966, he joined the U.S. Marine Corps, and, during two tours of duty in Vietnam, he carefully observed military logistics, which had a big influence on the way he eventually structured FedEx operations. Two years after he founded what was then called Federal Express, the company began operations, delivering to 25 cities with a fleet of 14 Dassault Falcon jets. The first nights haul: 186 packages. Today its 450,000 team members, nearly 700 aircraft, and 180,000 vehicles deliver shipments to more than 220 countries and territories, and FedEx has repeatedly been recognized as one of the best companies to work for, not just in the U.S., but around the world. Named a top CEO by both Barrons and Chief Executive magazines, he has been inducted into the Aviation Hall of Fame and the Business Hall of Fame. Roy Black, B.A. 67, J.D. 70, at the School of Law Ceremony at 10 a.m. on Saturday, May 11 A proud double Cane, adjunct professor, and senior partner of Black, Srebnick, Kornspan & Stumpf, P.A. in Miami, Roy Black is routinely recognized as one of the nations premier trial lawyers. After graduating from Miami Law in 1970, he spent five years at the Dade County Public Defenders Office, where he honed his renowned trial skills. Every year since 1987, his peers have selected him for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America, a widely used guide to the nations top legal talent. An internationally prestigious legal guide, Chambers and Partners, also has recognized Black as a top criminal defense attorney with the the best national reputation in Florida. Perhaps best known for his successful 1991 defense of William Kennedy Smith in West Palm Beach, he has defended scores of high-profile clients, including three-time Indy 500 winner and Dancing With the Stars champion Helio Castroneves for income tax evasion trial and BuzzFeed, against a libel suit brought by a Russian entrepreneur who claimed he was defamed by its publication of the so-called Steele Dossier on President Trumps alleged ties to Russia. Other well-known clients have included Rush Limbaugh, Kelsey Grammar, Justin Bieber, and Miami police officers Luis Alvarez and William Lozano. For several years, Black also served as NBCs legal analyst on the Today show and has frequently appeared as a commentator and legal analyst on ABCs Good Morning America, and other national news programs. The author of Blacks Law, he continues to teach advanced criminal law at his alma mater, which he began doing 46 years ago, fresh out of law school. Sir George Alleyne at the Miller School of Medicines Ceremony at 3 p.m. on Saturday, May 11 As chancellor of the University of the West Indies, director of the Pan American Health Organization, and a United Nations special envoy for HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean, George Alleyne has devoted his life to reducing disease, poverty, and infant mortality, making it possible for countless families across the region to enjoy healthier, safer lives. Growing up in Barbados, he was surrounded by social degradation, rampant health problems, and a dearth of health and educational services, an environment that he says sowed the seeds for his social conscience and propelled him to study medicine. But Alleyne wasnt just a compassionate physician, but a deep thinker with keen political instincts. He is credited with pushing the growing incidence of noncommunicable diseases to the world agenda, an effort which culminated with the United Nations holding a summit on the subject in 2011. Alleyne also was a member of the independent commission that produced the 2013 report Global health 2035: a world converging within a generation. Published in The Lancet, it focused on how low- and middle-income countries and their development partners should target future investments to tackle such challenges as infectious and noncommunicable diseases, injuries, and emerging threats such as antimicrobial resistance, new pandemics, and global climate change. Over his lifetime, Alleyne has received numerous honors for his work. In 1990, Queen Elizabeth II anointed him Knight Bachelor for his service to medicine and in 2001 he was awarded the Order of the Caribbean Community, the highest honor conferred on a Caribbean national. Anup Ojha is a reporter for The Kathmandu Post primarily covering social issues and human interest stories. Before moving to the social beat, Ojha covered arts and culture for the Post for four years. The battle lines have been drawn. A day after the much-anticipated Mueller report was released to the public, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee issued a subpoena for the full, unredacted report, setting up a potential legal battle with the U.S. Justice Department for the special counsels full findings and underlying evidence. Chairman Jerry Nadler has asked for the department to comply by May 1, the day U.S. Attorney General William Barr is scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Mueller report contains nearly 1,000 redactions, with seven entire pages blacked out. Frances R. Hill, professor of law and Deans Distinguished Scholar for the Profession at the University of Miami School of Law, who has read the 448-page report, brings us up to speed on its contents and answers key questions such as why it is important that the full report be released to the public. What issue in the report did you find the most important or concerning? The report provided a comprehensive analysis of what the Russian government did during our 2016 election (See Vol. I at 14-65). The Russian government was not merely meddling. The redacted Report documents systematic cyber attacks on all aspects of our election and even more pervasive and fundamental attacks on our democratic system. These attacks were designed and implemented by Russian Army intelligence units as well as by other cyber warfare organizations financed by oligarchs with very close ties to Vladimir Putin. These attacks were intended to elect Donald Trump. The larger goal was to weaken our country by inciting and amplifying our differences and making us distrust each other, our values, and our institutions. The detailed descriptions of how three types of cyber attacks were conducted, in some cases over several years, are stunning. It included sending operatives to tour parts of the United States to learn more about issues and the terms in which they were being discussed. The Russians recruited unsuspecting Americans to organize rallies, including in Florida, to support Trump by raising tensions among Americans. This section of the redacted Report states that the Russian government sent spear phishing emails to public officials involved in election administration and personnel at companies involved in voting technology. In August 2016, the Russians targeted employees of a voting technology company (name redacted) that developed software used by numerous U.S. counties to manage voter rolls, and installed malware on the company network. The Russians did not overlook Florida. In November 2016, the Russians sent spear phishing emails to over 120 email accounts used by Florida county officials responsible for administering the 2016 U.S. election. The FBI conducted an investigation of this matter. The redacted report states the FBI believes that this operation enabled the GRU [Russian Army intelligence] to gain access to the network of at least one Florida county government. (See Vol. I at 51.) Did the redacted report shed any light on national security issues arising from these activities? The redacted report states that the investigation dealt with national security and counterintelligence matters but that these issues were largely handled by the FBI. (See Vol. I at 13). Learning more about this aspect of the investigation makes access to the complete, unredacted report, as well as all the underlying evidence, vitally important. Leaders of Congressional committees from both political parties have security clearances allowing them to read these very sensitive materials. The public should support this access in the interest of developing defenses, even at this late date, of similar measures by more bad actors on a greater scale in the 2020 election. These national security issues are not addressed by the special counsels conclusion that the president did not enter into a formal conspiracy with the Russians. The absence of a crime is not the same as a determination that there is no national security threat. The president has never definitively admitted that the Russians assisted his campaign and that he welcomed their assistance. He has not only failed to take steps to interdict such intrusions into our elections going forward but has actively discouraged efforts to preserve the integrity of our elections by reducing budget allocations for such activities and by directing officials not to spend their time on such matters. Congress needs to gain greater insight into these matters and exercise oversight with respect to these matters. What other issues in the report did you find particularly informative? Volume II deals with issues of obstruction of justice. The material on obstruction of justice presents the White House dysfunction in vividly appalling detail. The people closest to the president in the White House recounted numerous instances of being ordered to do things they regarded as crazy and in several instances illegal. The presidents closest aides described how he ordered them to lie to Mueller and the FBI and to prepare deliberately untruthful memoranda to the file to create a false narrative of the presidents actions and requested actions. One could see these themes in action by reading any of the multiple instances of behavior that raised possible issues of obstruction of justice. All of these narratives are based on depositions given under oath to the special counsels investigators. For example, the redacted report chronicles the events surrounding the presidents repeated orders to the White House counsel to fire Special Counsel Mueller. White House Counsel Don McGahn refused to follow these orders, as did many other members of the White House staff in other situations. (See Vol. II at 84-87 and 113-120.) The redacted report presents a thorough, careful, and cautious legal analysis of the elements of a criminal obstruction of justice, which requires evidence of an obstructive act, evidence of a nexus between the obstructive act and an official proceeding, and evidence of the intent to obstruct justice. The redacted report appears to provide strong evidence for charges of obstruction of justice in several of these situations. Whether the president was not indicted because the Department of Justice has taken the position since the Watergate scandal that a sitting president cannot be indicted while in office remains unanswered. How much do we know about the presidents written responses to Muellers questions? The president claimed to want to sit down with Mueller but never did. He did respond, after a fashion, in writing to written interrogatories. The special counsel received the responses in November 2018. In December 2018 the special counsel informed counsel [for the president] of the insufficiency of these responses in several respects. Citing the special counsels letter, the redacted report states that the president stated on more than 30 occasions that he does not recall or remember or have an independent recollection of information called for by the questions. Other answers were incomplete or imprecise. The special counsel again requested an in-person interview, but the president declined. Committees of the House of Representatives have subpoenaed the full, unredacted Mueller Report as well as the evidence on which it was based. Is this necessary? Why is it important and what purpose does it serve? Having access to the full, unredacted Mueller Report, as well as to the underlying evidence, is crucial on two levels. First, Congress has a constitutionally mandated oversight role and a constitutional role in protecting national security and election integrity. The leadership from both parties from the relevant committees routinely review very sensitive national security materials and have security clearances required for such review. Second, making as much of the redacted material and the underlying evidence available to the public is important for people to be able to reach their own conclusions about trust in their institutions and in the persons who are now entrusted with the integrity of these institutions. There will be information that cannot reasonably be made public. But that decision should be made based on the national interest, not on the interests of any particular political party or any political leader. Should Mueller himself by compelled to testify before Congress, and why would it be important that he testify? Special Counsel Mueller would be able to increase the understanding of members of Congress of the decision not to indict the president on one or more counts of obstruction of justice. His testimony would also be useful to members of Congress with respect to other technical legal issues. Special Counsel Mueller might also provide greater understanding of any lessons his investigation provides for conducting the 2020 election. Finally, he could discuss national security issues not included in the report, although this session would not be public. The most important reasons for seeking the special counsels testimony, however, is to help the rest of us, ordinary Americans, understand his investigation, his insights into what he determined to be true, and what this tells us about the state of our democracy. We all need to hear this and deserve to hear this. We need to know why and on what grounds the special counsel concluded that if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him. The requested page is currently unavailable on this server. Back to [RTHK News Homepage] (Adds currency resolution from SNP conference) By Elisabeth O'Leary EDINBURGH, April 27 (Reuters) - Support for Scottish independence from the United Kingdom has risen to its highest point in the past four years, largely driven by voters who want to remain in the European Union, according to a poll published on Saturday. As the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) meets for its two-day spring conference, the YouGov poll showed support for secession had risen to 49 percent from 45 percent at the last YouGov poll carried out for The Times in June 2018. The SNP is preparing a new independence push after it was defeated in a 2014 referendum by concerns over the economy. Their proposal for an independent Scotland to continue using the pound in a currency union with Britain was perceived as a particular weakness. On Saturday the SNP leadership proposed that if the country voted for independence it should use Britain's pound until a Scottish currency meeting six economic tests could be introduced. Delegates rejected that in favor of a more pressing timeframe and formulation urging preparations to introduce a new currency "as soon as practicable after Independence Day," preserving the six economic tests. Scots rejected independence by 45-55 percent in a 2014 referendum. Then the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union in a 2016 referendum, but among its four nations Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to stay, feeding political tension. Britain is mired in political chaos and it is still unclear when or even if it will leave the EU. YouGov also found that 53 percent of Scots thought there should not be another referendum on independence within the next five years. Scotland's First Minister and SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon is pushing for one before 2021, when the current Scottish parliamentary terms ends. YouGov polled 1029 adults in Scotland following a new guideline on independence set out by Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon on Wednesday. Story continues The poll also showed voters moving away from both the Conservatives and the Labour Party north of the English border. The Scottish Conservatives, part of Prime Minister Theresa May's Conservative Party, are set to lose their only representative in the European Parliament in next month's election as 40 percent of those who backed them two years ago switch to Nigel Farage's Brexit Party. "These patterns represent a clear warning to the Unionist camp that the pursuit of Brexit might yet produce a majority for independence," Professor John Curtice, Britain's leading polling expert, wrote in a column for The Times. (Reporting by Elisabeth O'Leary Editing by Clelia Oziel and Alexandra Hudson) * Shooting on east coast, 3 with suicide vests among dead * Bomb-making material seized in raids * U.S. tells citizens to avoid travel to Sri Lanka * Rifts within government deepens over police chief (Recasts with banning of Islamist groups, relatives of ringleader wounded) By Ranga Sirilal and Shihar Aneez COLOMBO, April 27 (Reuters) - Sri Lanka's president on Saturday outlawed two Islamist groups suspected to be behind the suicide bombings on churches and hotels while the wife and child of the suspected ringleader were wounded during a military raid in safe house, his family and police said. The National Thawheedh Jamaath (NTJ) and Jamathei Millathu Ibrahim were banned under his emergency powers, President Maithripala Sirisena said in a statement, nearly a week after the Easter Sunday attacks that killed more than 250 people. Authorities could not act earlier to ban the two little known groups because the law required them to show firm evidence against them, officials said. Police believe the suspected mastermind of the bombings, Mohamed Hashim Mohamed Zahran, led either the NTJ or a splinter group. Less is known about Jamathei Millathu Ibrahim, whose members are also believed to have played a role in the bombings. Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attacks. Nearly 10,000 soldiers have been deployed across the island to carry out searches and boost security since the bombings in three churches and four hotels, most of which were in the capital Colombo. Security forces have detained 100 people, including foreigners from Syria and Egypt, police said. A gunbattle erupted on Friday evening during a raid on a safe house in Sainthamaruthu in Ampara district on the island's east coast, killing at least 15 people including three people with suicide vests and six children, a military spokesmkan said. The wounded included the wife and a daughter of Zahran, his family said. "Yes, the wife and daughter were injured in the attack, said Mohamed Hashim Mathaniya, sister of Zahran. "I was asked to come to identify them but I am not sure I can go," she told Reuters from the town of Kattankudy in the east where Zahran was originally based. Story continues Zahran's driver was detained in a separate raid, according to a police statement. Bomb-making materials, dozens of gelignite sticks and thousands of ball bearings were found in a search of a separate house in the same area, along with Islamic State banners and uniforms, the military said. Zahran appeared in a video released by Islamic State days after the bombing, the only one showing his face while seven others were covered. In the video the men stand under a black Islamic State flag and declare their loyalty to its leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. FEAR OF MORE ATTACKS Authorities have said there could be more attacks against religious centers. Last Sunday's bombings shattered the relative calm that the Buddhist-majority country has seen since a 26-year civil war with mostly-Hindu ethnic Tamil separatists ended a decade ago. Sirisena and the government of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe have faced strong criticism after it emerged that India had repeatedly given warnings of the possibility of attacks. Both Sirisena and Wickremesinghe have said intelligence was not shared with them, exposing rifts at the top of the government and raising questions about its ability to deal with the security crisis. The national police chief had refused to accept Sirisena's request to step down, two sources told Reuters on Saturday, a further embarrassment for the president. The U.S. State Department said terrorist groups were continuing to plot attacks and cautioned its citizens against traveling to Sri Lanka, as well as ordering the departure of all school-age family members of U.S. government employees. India and Britain have also warned their nationals to avoid traveling to Sri Lanka. The security forces' response has included raids on mosques and homes of people in the town of Negombo where scores died in the bombing of a church. Police said on Friday they were trying to track down 140 people they believe have links with Islamic State. The president said some of the country's youth had been involved with the group since 2013 and that there were drug trafficking links. Muslims were urged to pray at home on Friday after the State Intelligence Services warned of possible car bomb attacks, amid fears of retaliatory violence. Many have fled their homes amid bomb scares, lockdowns and security sweeps. The archbishop of Colombo, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, told reporters he had seen an internal security document warning of further attacks on churches and said there would be no Catholic masses celebrated anywhere on the island this Sunday. Sri Lanka's 22 million people include minority Christians, Muslims and Hindus. Until now, Christians had largely managed to avoid the worst of the island's conflict and communal tensions. Most of the bombing victims were Sri Lankans. The dead also included 40 foreigners, including British, U.S., Australian, Turkish, Indian, Chinese, Danish, Dutch and Portuguese nationals. (Writing by John Chalmers and Sanjeev Miglani Editing by Frances Kerry) * Flooding in some areas of northern Mozambique after cyclone * Authorities urge population to move to higher ground * As rains continue, aid agencies fear floods could worsen * Death toll rises to five (Recasts with floods, adds UNICEF statement, details, bullets) JOHANNESBURG, April 27 (Reuters) - Mozambican officials on Saturday urged those living near two rivers in the country's north to move to higher ground, as Cyclone Kenneth dumped heavy rains and caused some flooding. The cyclone killed five people and flattened homes around Mozambique's northern coast before moving inland and pounding the province of Cabo Delgado with rain, fueling fears rivers could burst their banks and leave huge areas under water. The National Directorate of Water Resources Management said the Megaruma river had registered a marked increase in volume, causing some flooding in river-side and low-lying areas in the districts of Mecufi and Chiure, south of the provincial capital of Pemba. The Messalo river was also expected to cause flooding in the districts of Muidumbe and Macomia, north of Pemba, it said in a statement. "Faced with this scenario, [the directorate] recommends the population living in areas referred to above withdraw immediately to high and safe areas." Kenneth slammed into Mozambique just six weeks after Cyclone Idai, which leveled the port city of Beira before bringing deadly floods that submerged villages and vast stretches of land. Idai killed over 1,000 people across Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi. The World Food Programme warned that Kenneth could in the coming days dump twice as much rain on northern Mozambique, raising concerns of a repeat of the flooding in a region prone to floods and landslides. "Worryingly, it is still raining heavily," said Daw Mohammed, CARE's director of humanitarian operations, who is in the port city of Pemba, the provincial capital. DEATH TOLL RISES The death toll from Kenneth - marking the most powerful storm to ever strike Mozambique's northern coast - rose to five on Saturday, a spokesman for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said, citing the government. Story continues It had already killed three people in the Comoros when it made landfall in Mozambique on Thursday night, packing storm surges and winds of up to 280 km per hour (174 mph). UNICEF said an additional 368,000 children were now at risk in Mozambique, one of the world's poorest countries and already struggling to cope with the impact of Idai, which left an estimated 1.85 million people in the country in need. Michel Le Pechoux, UNICEF deputy representative in Mozambique, said the organization was "deeply worried" that communities in Cabo Delgado - which has no history of cyclones -would not have been prepared for the scale of the storm. "The soil is saturated with rain and the rivers are already swollen, so the emergency is likely to get worse from flooding in the next few days," he said in a statement. With power and communications knocked out in many areas, aid agencies were struggling to assess the extent of the devastation. Mozambican officials said almost all of the homes on the island of Ibo had been destroyed, while the neighboring mainland district of Macomia had suffered heavy damage. Trees were ripped from their roots and banks, petrol stations and hotels were also damaged. Aid workers said some areas, such as Mocimboa de Praia in the north, were also a concern as there had been little communication with them. The government and aid agencies said 30,000 people had been moved to safety before the storm struck, however it was estimated a total of almost 700,000 were at risk. (Reporting by Emma Rumney Editing by Andrew Heavens and Alexandra Hudson) (Adds statement from New York attorney general, paragraph 7) By Lucas Jackson INDIANAPOLIS, April 27 (Reuters) - Retired U.S. Marine Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North will step down as president of the National Rifle Association, North said on Saturday, adding he was being forced out due to his allegations that NRA leaders engaged in financial improprieties. In a letter read to the organization's annual meeting in Indianapolis by an NRA board member, North, a conservative commentator best known for his central role in the 1980s Iran-Contra affair, said he had hoped to run for re-election when his term ends on Monday. "I am now informed that will not happen," North said in the letter. His departure came after NRA Chief Executive Wayne LaPierre accused North of trying to oust him by threatening to release "damaging" information about him, according to a letter from LaPierre to NRA board members that was published by the Wall Street Journal on Friday. NRA officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The New York Times reported on Saturday that the New York attorney general, Letitia James, opened an investigation into the group's tax-exempt status, sending letters on Friday to the NRA and affiliated entities, including its charitable foundation, telling them to preserve relevant financial records. James' office confirmed she has launched an investigation related to the NRA, and that she has issued subpoenas as part of the investigation, but declined to comment further. North, 75, who was named by the NRA as its president in May 2018, was a pivotal figure in the Iran-Contra affair involving secret sales of arms to Iran by Republican President Ronald Reagan's administration and the unlawful diversion of the proceeds to Nicaraguan rebels. The NRA, with more than 5 million members, is by far the most powerful and well-connected gun lobby in the United States. It has worked closely with legislators to protect firearms manufacturers from liability for gun violence and pushed a ban on U.S. health officials from promoting gun control. Story continues When North was appointed president of the organization, LaPierre hailed him as "a legendary warrior for American freedom, a gifted communicator and skilled leader." But the pair have since fallen out, with LaPierre telling NRA board members in his letter on Thursday that North was seeking to humiliate him, discredit the NRA, and "raise appearances of impropriety that hurt our members and the Second Amendment" which gives Americans the right to keep and bear firearms, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. According to the newspaper, North sent board members a response to LaPierre's letter later on Thursday in which he defended himself, said his actions were for the good of the NRA, and that he was forming a crisis committee to examine financial matters inside the organization. North, long a hero to some on the political right, was convicted in 1989 of three felonies related to the Iran-Contra affair, but his convictions were overturned on appeal in 1990. He later became a conservative radio talk show host and frequent commentator on conservative television networks. (Reporting by Lucas Jackson in Indianapolis; Additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York; Writing by Daniel Wallis Editing by Matthew Lewis and Jonathan Oatis) (Recasts with Putin pledge, adds quotes, context) BEIJING, April 27 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday Moscow was considering offering all Ukrainian citizens fast-tracked Russian passports, a move likely to anger some politicians in Ukraine which has been at war with pro-Russian separatists since 2014. Putin made the statement days after signing an order to simplify the procedure for obtaining a Russian passport for residents of separatist-controlled eastern Ukraine, prompting calls from Kiev for more international sanctions. Five years of war between Ukrainian troops and Russian-backed forces have killed 13,000 people despite a notional ceasefire signed in 2015. Putin's earlier move was seen as a test for the Ukrainian president-elect, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who won a landslide victory in Sunday's presidential election and has pledged to find a peaceful solution to the conflict. Speaking in Beijing, Putin said Moscow was now considering extending its fast track passport scheme to the whole of Ukraine. "We are considering whether to grant Ukrainian citizens our citizenship using a simplified procedure," Putin told reporters, without providing further details. The Russian leader said he also wanted to know Zelenskiy's position on the conflict in eastern Ukraine, saying he had the impression that Zelenskiy would not implement the terms of a peace deal sealed in Minsk in 2015 despite Ukrainians being tired of the war. "I'd discuss this matter with him with pleasure as I want to understand his stance," said Putin, who said Ukraine was overpaying for gas which it could get much cheaper if it signed a transit deal with Russia. (Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin; writing by Polina Devitt/Andrew Osborn; editing by Alexander Smith and Andrew Heavens) (Adds quotes/context) By Vladimir Soldatkin BEIJING, April 27 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday he did not rule out Syrian forces, backed by Russian air power, launching a full-scale assault on militants in Syria's Idlib province, but that such an operation was unpractical for now. Russia, one of the Syrian governments staunchest allies, and Turkey brokered a deal in September to create a demilitarized zone in the northwest Idlib region that would be free of all heavy weapons and jihadist fighters. The deal helped avert a government assault on the region, the last major bastion of opponents of President Bashar al-Assad. But Moscow has since complained about escalating violence in the area and said that militants who used to belong to the Nusra Front group are in control of large swaths of territory. Speaking in Beijing, Putin said that Moscow and Damascus would continue what he called the fight against terrorism and that any militants who tried to break out of Idlib, something he said happened from time to time, were bombed. But Putin said the presence of civilians in parts of Idlib where militants were also active meant the time was not yet ripe for full-scale military operations. "I don't rule it (a full-scale assault) out, but right now we and our Syrian friends consider that to be inadvisable given this humanitarian element," Putin told reporters. Moscow is keen to help Assad retake territory, including eventually Idlib province, but Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has argued against a Russian-backed offensive in a region that borders his own country. Ankara is concerned about potential refugee flows from Idlib in the event of a military operation, and wants to retain its influence there. (Additional reporting by Polina Devitt in Moscow Writing by Andrew Osborn Editing by Andrew Heavens) * Military council, opposition held first joint meeting * Thousands continue sit-in in central Khartoum * Opposition party leader says Sudan should join ICC (Recasts with agreement in principle on joint council) By Khalid Abdelaziz and Maha El Dahan KHARTOUM, April 27 (Reuters) - Sudan's military rulers and opposition agreed in principle on Saturday to the formation of a joint body to lead a transition from 30 years of autocratic rule by Omar al-Bashir, but not on the new council's make-up, two sources said. The two sides were holding their first formal discussions as opposition groups and protesters push for a rapid handover to civilian rule following Bashir's fall earlier this month. Sudan's Transitional Military Council (TMC), which ousted and arrested Bashir after months of protests, has said it will rule for up to two years ahead of elections. Anti-Bashir opposition groups and protesters who have kept up a sit-in outside the Defence Ministry want a civilian-led transitional council with military representation. They continued their thousands-strong demonstration on Saturday evening. "I came to support the sit-in for a civilian government because the army ruled Sudan since 52 years ago and the result is nothing," said Nour el-Dayem Gaafar, a 23-year-old student from South Darfur state who had traveled by bus to the capital. Opposition groups and activists are represented by an umbrella group called the Declaration of Freedom and Change Forces, which held two meetings with the TMC on Saturday. Both sides expressed optimism after an initial session around the middle of the day. After a second, evening session, the sources said there was agreement over the formation of a joint council, but not over how many seats either side should have. The TMC has arrested some former officials, announced anti-corruption measures and promised to give executive authority to a civilian government. But it has signaled that ultimate authority would remain in its hands, leaving protesters frustrated. Story continues 'HALF A REVOLUTION' "Half a revolution is the perishing of a nation," said Osman Abadi, a 26-year-old sit-in security supervisor draped in a Sudanese flag, who said he was staying even if negotiations between TMC and the opposition failed. Bashir was overthrown after 16 weeks of protests triggered by a deepening economic crisis. He is being held along with other former officials at Khartoum's Kobar prison. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has indicted Bashir for alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, charges he denies. On Saturday Sadiq al-Mahdi, the veteran leader of Sudan's opposition Umma Party, which is part of the Declaration of Freedom and Change Forces, said he thought Sudan should join the court. "Now I have no objection to responding to its demands, and it's necessary immediately to join (the ICC), but this position has to be coordinated with the military council," Mahdi told reporters. The military council has previously suggested that Bashir would be tried in Sudan, where the public prosecutor has already begun investigating him, according to a judicial source. Separately, the Declaration of Freedom and Change Forces condemned a reported raid on a meeting of the Popular Congress Party, which was allied to Bashir before turning against him. The alliance said in a statement that though the party bore responsibility for what had happened over the past 30 years, there was "no place for the exclusion of rights by force in the nation that our fearless revolutionaries are working to promote." State TV reported that more than 140 people were evacuated from the hall where the meeting took place and more than 60 had suffered minor injuries. (Additional reporting by Ahmed Tolba and Hesham Hajali Writing by Aidan Lewis Editing by Alexander Smith, Alexandra Hudson, Frances Kerry and Jonathan Oatis) (Adds paragraph on China discussions) By Jan Wolfe April 27 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Saturday confirmed a joint desire to eliminate oil imports from Iran, a U.S. official said. The two leaders also discussed a "desire to see Iran change its path and seek a more peaceful course forward," U.S. Ambassador to Japan William Hagerty said in a call with reporters. Trump and Abe also confirmed a joint desire to see China cease militarization of disputed territories in the East China Sea, Hagerty said. (Reporting by Jan Wolfe; editing by Jonathan Oatis) 1. Yes. If a department head is doing a bad job and the city manager wont act, its needed. 2. Yes. Its a crucial safeguard against poor hiring decisions and conflicts of interest. 3. No. It would only muddle the leadership structure and damage employee morale. 4. No. It would make it harder to recruit and retain qualified city leaders at all levels. 5. Unsure. Council oversight may be good, but perhaps not to such a significant extent. Vote View Results (Adds Trump's comments on Japanese investment plans at campaign rally) WASHINGTON, April 27 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump pressed Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to have Japanese automakers produce more vehicles in the United States, according to a readout of their recent meeting provided by the U.S. ambassador to Japan on Saturday. The two discussed recent public announcements by Japanese car makers, including Toyota Motor Corp's decision to invest more in U.S. plants. "We talked about the need to see more movement in that direction but I think the president feels very positive that we will see such movement because all the economics support that," said Ambassador William Hagerty. Trump told a campaign rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on Saturday that Abe said Japan would invest $40 billion in U.S. car factories, though Trump did not give details on the timeline for the planned investments. Toyota, Japan's largest automaker, said last month it would exceed a 2017 pledge to invest $10 billion over five years with a new commitment to reach nearly $13 billion over that period. Trump has prodded Japanese automakers to add more jobs in the United States as the White House threatens to impose tariffs of up to 25 percent on imported vehicles, on the grounds of national security. Trump on Friday said it is possible that the United States and Japan could reach a new bilateral trade deal by the time he visits Tokyo in May, but he and Abe cited areas where they differ on trade. "We want to ensure that the U.S. has trading terms with Japan that are no less favorable than any other nation," Hagerty said in a phone call with reporters. He added that Trump is planning to attend the summit of the Group of 20 industrialized nations set to take place in Osaka, Japan in June. Separately, Trump was optimistic trade talks with China would be successful, the ambassador said. (Reporting by Chris Sanders, Jan Wolfe and Jason Lange Additional reporting by Richard Cowan in Green Bay, Wisconsin Editing by Andrea Ricci) (In Saturday's story, amends the word "gonna" to "going to" in quotes in paragraphs 2 and 9) CAIRO, April 27 (Reuters) - U.S. Central Command chief General Kenneth McKenzie said on Saturday the United States would deploy the necessary resources to counter any dangerous actions by Iran, Sky News Arabia reported. "We're going to continue to reach out to our partners and friends in the region to ensure that we make common cause against the threat of Iran," McKenzie, on an official visit to the Gulf region, was quoted as saying by Sky News Arabia. "I believe we'll have the resources necessary to deter Iran from taking actions that will be dangerous," he said, according to a transcript released by the Abu Dhabi-based channel. "We will be able to respond effectively." Tensions between Tehran and Washington have risen since the Trump administration last year withdrew from an international nuclear deal with Iran and began ratcheting up sanctions. Earlier this month, the United States blacklisted Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards. Washington on Monday demanded buyers of Iranian oil stop purchases by May or face sanctions, ending six months of waivers which allowed Iran's eight biggest buyers, most of them in Asia, to continue importing limited volumes. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and some senior military commanders have threatened to disrupt oil shipments from Gulf countries if Washington tries to strangle Tehran oil exports. McKenzie also said a reduction of U.S. troops in Syria would be done cautiously. "On the long term, we're going to reduce our forces in Syria, we recognize that, that's the guidance in which we are operating. That will be something that we will look at very carefully as we go forward," the general said. President Donald Trump had ordered the withdrawal of U.S. troops Syria in December after he said they had defeated Islamic State militants in Syria. In February, a senior administration official said the United States will leave about 400 U.S. troops split between two different regions of Syria. McKenzie also said he was confident that the U.S. is going to have "a long term presence in Iraq, focused on the counter-terror mission." (Reporting by Hesham Hajali in Cairo and Stanley Carvalho in Abu Dhabi; Writing by Rania El Gamal; Editing by Alexandra Hudson and Ros Russell) The government now have to respond to the petition, that has gathered signatures from over 116,000 parents. [Photo: Getty] Over 116,000 parents have signed a petition calling for the government to review its current free childcare guidelines. The government will now have to respond to the petition and the parliament will consider the issue for debate. The government currently offers at least 15 hours of free childcare for all three and four-year-olds in the UK. This is available for 38 weeks of the year. Parents are now petitioning for this to be lowered from three years old to nine months old. READ MORE: Should parents pay grandparents to look after children? Currently, working parents who earn at least the minimum wage or living wage for 16 hours per week but fall under the 100,000 threshold may also qualify for an extra 15 hours of free childcare on top. At the moment, some two-year-olds can also get free childcare if their parents are on some benefits, including income support or Universal Credit. Parents also must have a combined income of 15,400 or less after tax, in order to qualify. READ MORE: Couple hunt for nanny willing to dress like a Disney princess However, the new petition is encouraging the government to review the current guidelines. The parents would like to see the free childcare policy lowered to nine months, when statutory maternity pay ends. Harley Cuthbert, who started the petition, said: It makes more sense to provide this funding from 9 months instead of 2 years. Many working families struggle week to week due to the cost of childcare. You are required to go back to work after a year of maternity pay however many go back after 9 months due to funds. She continues: Once you go back the majority of your wage goes to childcare and in some cases you are better of not working. This should not be the case. Watch the latest videos from Yahoo Tripoli (AFP) - Air raids were carried out Saturday night on the Libyan capital Tripoli, according to AFP journalists and residents who heard loud explosions. The exact locations of the strikes were not known, but the roar of airplanes over the city was accompanied by heavy explosions between 11.00 pm and midnight. "We are hearing sustained, uninterrupted fire" from machine guns and anti-aircraft guns "and occasional air strikes, but we do not know where exactly," a resident of west Tripoli told AFP. "On Facebook, users are saying that you must leave your house if you live near a barracks or a place where armed groups have taken position," she added. "But we are afraid to go out into the street so late at night." Forces loyal to the UN-recognised government of national unity and fighters under commander Khalifa Haftar, have been engaged in battle for three weeks. Haftar's forces launched an offensive on April 4 to seize the capital. After forces loyal to the Tripoli-based government of national unity launched a counter-attack last weekend, the International Committee for the Red Cross warned that residential areas of Tripoli were being turned into battlefields. At least 278 people have been killed and more than 1,300 wounded in the clashes, according to the World Health Organization. More than 35,000 people have been forced to flee their homes, according to the United Nations. Most of the fighting happens on the ground, but there are occasional air raids. Tripoli claims Haftar's forces have killed and displaced civilians, destroyed property, recruited child soldiers and used heavy artillery and Grad missiles on populated areas. It has asked the UN to investigate. By Lamine Chikhi ALGIERS, April 27 (Reuters) - Algeria needs six months to prepare free elections, a protest leader said on Saturday, and called for the transition from 20 years of rule by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to be managed by a former minister respected by protesters as well as Islamists. The call by Seif Islam Benatia for Ahmed Taleb Ibrahimi, an 87-year-old former minister, conservative and author to play a leading role, comes a day after hundreds of thousands marched peacefully for the tenth consecutive Friday demanding the departure of Algeria's ruling elite. Benatia told a meeting of activists and academics in Algiers neither interim president Abdelkader Bensalah nor Prime Minister Nouredine Bedoui, named by Bouteflika just before he left, could lead the transition as they were part of the elite. He also called for a six month transition period, longer than the 90-day period foreseen by the constitution. "Definitely the interim president and the prime minister have to leave," said Seif Islam, a 31-year-old dentist. Ibrahimi, a son of prominent Muslim preacher Bachir Ibrahimi, served under two previous presidents, including as foreign minister. He was not allowed under Bouteflika to register his own political party, a reason why he is now perceived as being outside the ruling elite. "Taleb Ibrahimi is ready to help us open a new era and end the crisis," he said, adding that he had met him. "Taleb will not be a candidate for the presidential (vote). He is competent and honest and credible," said Benatia. There was no immediate comment from Ibrahimi. Bouteflika stepped down this month, bowing to pressure from the army and after weeks of demonstrations mainly by young people seeking change. Protests have continued as demonstrators rejected the appointment of Bensalah as interim president, who as upper house head runs a transition period of 90 days before a presidential election on July 4. Bouteflika resigned after mass protests and pressure from army chief Lieutenant-General Ahmed Gaed Salah who had declared him unfit for office, in a bid to avoid prolonged turmoil. The army has since offered to secure a smooth transition under the framework of the constitution. (Editing by Ulf Laessing and Alexandra Hudson) BARCELONA, Spain (AP) An uncertain outcome and the likelihood of a far-right party entering parliament are the backdrop for Spain's most polarized national election in decades. A look at why the country's voters were called to cast ballots early and what's at stake when do Sunday: __ HOW DID SPAIN GET HERE? Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez came to power last June when he succeeded in ousting the conservative Mariano Rajoy, who retired from politics after he lost a no-confidence vote following a major court ruling in a corruption case that implicated his Popular Party. Sanchez*s minority government was able to cling to power for a short time. But it failed to pass a national budget in February, resulting in him calling early elections. Spain*s third national election in four years is the result of the emergence of new parties born from discontentment about the global economic crisis, which has hit Spain particularly hard. The economy is back growing again, but long gone are the days when the Socialists and Popular Party divvied up most of the electoral spoils. ___ WHO'S RUNNING Sanchez is the front-runner according to all the polling data, but the increased fragmentation of Spanish politics means that the combined forces of two rightwing parties and the upstart extremist party Vox could win the day. Joining the Popular Party on the right are the pro-business Citizens party, and the nationalist Vox, which defends bull-fighting as an essential Spanish tradition, is hostile to women's rights, and promises to stop illegal immigration. Voters angry with austerity measures have United We Can on the far left. Around one-third of potential voters were still undecided heading into the final week of the campaign, according to polls. Up for grabs are the 350 members of the Congress of Deputies, who then choose a government. Voting stations open at 9 a.m. (0700GMT) and close at 8 p.m. (1800GMT), with results expected a few hours later. Story continues __ THE LEFT'S CHANCES Even if the Socialists get the largest share of votes, their ability to stay in power will likely depend on forging alliances. Sanchez has hinted that he could end up inviting United We Can to form a center-left government like the one that rules Portugal. There has also been speculation that the Socialists could move the other way toward the center-right Citizens, but Sanchez says that option is "not in his plans." But it is likely that Sanchez would still need to woo some small regionalist parties into backing him. __ A RIGHTWING COALITION? Vox is poised to give Spain's Parliament its first openly far-right lawmakers since the 1980s. Instead of promising to isolate Vox like mainstream parties have done in some other European countries to keep extremists out of government, both the Popular Party and Citizens are radicalizing their messages to stem the flow of voters to Vox. New Popular Party leader Pablo Casado says the three parties on the right should 3/8pool3/8 their votes if they have enough to kick Sanchez out of the presidential palace in Madrid. The three right-wing parties have already shown they can join forces. In January, the Popular Party struck a deal with Vox to get its backing so the Popular Party and Citizens could form a government in southern Andalusia following regional elections. __ WHAT'S AT STAKE? The incoming government faces the task of dealing with chronic unemployment and dwindling funds for the public pension system. But the most divisive question is how to deal with the festering political crisis caused by wealthy Catalonia's push for secession. The Socialists are defending the current model of Spain*s government, which gives its regions sweeping powers to run social services, such as education and health. But all three right-wing parties Popular Party, Citizens, and Vox are vying to tap into the widespread anger in Spain toward Catalonia after its leaders tried to secede two years ago. All three criticize Sanchez for opening talks with the region's pro-secession leaders. Vox has even pledged to recentralize all power from Spain's regions. Catalan separatists are also aiming to increase their current 17 seats to have more leverage in parliament. Five of the 12 separatist leaders on trial for the failed 2017 breakaway bid are running as candidates from a jail cell. WASHINGTON (AP) Russia keeps reverberating even with special counsel Robert Mueller's report now part of history. As much as President Donald Trump says he wants the United States to move on, he's found it hard to turn away himself, as seen in a torrent of tweets and remarks railing against Democrats, trashing Mueller and painting his own actions in a saintly light. There is little truth to be found in these statements. A review of a week of Russia-heavy rhetoric from Trump and his team, also touching on the census and the economy: RUSSIA TRUMP: "No Collusion, No Obstruction - there has NEVER been a President who has been more transparent. Millions of pages of documents were given to the Mueller Angry Dems, plus I allowed everyone to testify, including W.H. counsel." tweet Wednesday. ATTORNEY GENERAL WILLIAM BARR: "The White House fully cooperated with the special counsel's investigation, providing unfettered access to campaign and White House documents, directing senior aides to testify freely, and asserting no privilege claims." remarks at the Justice Department on April 18. THE FACTS: It's a huge stretch for them to cast the White House as being "fully" cooperative and open in the investigation into Moscow's interference in the 2016 U.S. election and the Trump campaign's relationship with Russian figures. Trump declined to sit for an interview with Mueller's team, gave written answers that investigators described as "inadequate" and "incomplete," said more than 30 times that he could not remember something he was asked about in writing, and according to the report tried to get aides to fire Mueller or otherwise shut or limit the inquiry. In the end, the Mueller report found no criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia but left open the question of whether Trump obstructed justice. Also on the matter of transparency, Trump is an outlier among presidents in refusing to release his tax returns . Providing tax information as a candidate in 2016 and as president is something party nominees have traditionally done for half a century. Story continues ___ TRUMP: "In the 'old days' if you were President and you had a good economy, you were basically immune from criticism. Remember, 'It's the economy stupid.' Today I have, as President, perhaps the greatest economy in history." tweet Tuesday. THE FACTS: You can assume many previous presidents would beg to disagree that a good economy shielded them from criticism. Under President Bill Clinton, whose top campaign staffer James Carville coined the phrase "the economy, stupid" to underscore what the campaign should be about, the unemployment rate fell to 3.8% and the nation's economy grew 4% or more for four straight years. Yet Clinton was under independent counsel investigation for all but one year of his presidency, 1993. The House impeached him in December 1998, at the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, though the Senate acquitted him in February 1999. In January 1998, Hillary Clinton alleged a "vast right-wing conspiracy" to take down her husband, a widely mocked complaint about the relentless criticism the Clintons faced from the right (which extended to ridicule over the title of Hillary Clinton's 1996 book, "It Takes a Village.") Under President Ronald Reagan, the economy expanded 3.5% or more for six years in a row, with growth rocketing to 7.2% in 1984. Yet Reagan was dogged in his second term by the Iran-Contra investigation, which focused on covert arm sales to Iran that financed aid to Nicaraguan rebels. Both presidents saw much faster growth than Trump has presided over, despite Trump's faulty claim to have "perhaps the greatest economy in history." Growth reached 2.9% last year, the best in four years, but far below the levels achieved under Clinton or Reagan. The unemployment rate touched 3.7% last September and November, the lowest in five decades, but just one-tenth of a percentage point below the 3.8% in April 2000 under Clinton. ___ TRUMP: "Mueller was NOT fired and was respectfully allowed to finish his work on what I, and many others, say was an illegal investigation (there was no crime), headed by a Trump hater who was highly conflicted." tweet Thursday. THE FACTS: Trump is wrong to suggest that the FBI acted illegally by investigating him. The FBI does not need to know if or have evidence that a crime occurred before it begins an investigation. Many investigations that are properly conducted ultimately don't find evidence of any crime. The FBI is empowered to open an investigation if there's information it has received or uncovered that leads the bureau to think it might encounter a crime. Apart from that, the investigation into the Trump campaign was initially a counterintelligence investigation rather than a strictly criminal one, as agents sought to understand whether and why Russia was meddling in the 2016 election. Trump also makes a baseless charge that Mueller was "highly conflicted." Mueller, a longtime Republican, was cleared by the Justice Department's ethics experts to lead the Russia investigation. Nothing in the public record makes him a "Trump hater." According to the special counsel's report, when Trump previously complained privately to aides that Mueller would not be objective, the advisers, including then-White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, then-White House counsel Don McGahn and Reince Priebus, chief of staff at the time, rejected those complaints as not representing "true conflicts." Bannon also called the claims "ridiculous." ___ TRUMP: "I DID NOTHING WRONG. If the partisan Dems ever tried to Impeach, I would first head to the U.S. Supreme Court." tweet Wednesday. THE FACTS: He'd have a tough hearing at the Supreme Court. Justices ruled 9-0 in 1993 that the Constitution grants sole power of impeachment to the House and Senate, not the judiciary. Under the principle of separation of powers, Congress is a co-equal branch of government to the executive branch and judiciary. The House is afforded power to impeach a president by bringing formal charges and the Senate convenes the trial, with two-thirds of senators needed to convict and remove a president from office. The Constitution does not provide a role for the judiciary in the impeachment process, other than the chief justice of the United States presiding over the Senate trial. In its 1993 ruling, the Supreme Court said framers of the Constitution didn't intend for the court to have the power to review impeachment proceedings because they involve political questions that shouldn't be resolved in the courts. ___ KELLYANNE CONWAY, White House counselor, saying there's no need for Congress to continue investigating with the Mueller probe concluded: "We all know if Director Mueller and his investigators wanted to or felt that it was right to indict they would have done that. He had every opportunity to indict and declined to indict. Investigators investigate and they decide to indict, they refer indictment or they decline indictment. That's the way the process works." remarks Wednesday to reporters. THE FACTS: That's not how Mueller's process worked. According to the report, Mueller's team declined to "make a traditional prosecutorial judgment" on whether to indict that is, do what prosecutors typically do, as Conway describes it because of a Justice Department legal opinion that said sitting presidents shouldn't be indicted. "Fairness concerns counseled against potentially reaching that judgment when no charges can be brought," the report states. As a result, the report factually laid out instances in which Trump might have obstructed justice, leaving it open for Congress to take up the matter or for prosecutors to do so once Trump leaves office. Mueller's team wrote that its investigation was conducted "in order to preserve the evidence when memories were fresh" and documentary material available. "Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him," the report states. ___ HOGAN GIDLEY, White House deputy press secretary: "He's already denounced, multiple times, Russian involvement." remarks Tuesday to reporters. THE FACTS: Trump has had it both ways, at times criticizing that involvement but more often equivocating, and long after U.S. intelligence agencies and other parts of his administration became convinced of Russian meddling. "Every time he sees me, he says, 'I didn't do that,'" Trump said of Putin in November 2017. "I really believe that when he tells me that, he means it." In February 2018, he tweeted: "I never said Russia did not meddle in the election, I said 'it may be Russia, or China or another country or group, or it may be a 400 pound genius sitting in bed and playing with his computer.'" Now he's assailed the report by Mueller, whose investigation fleshed out the audacious Russian effort to shape the election in favor of Trump and resulted in indictments against 25 Russians accused either of hacking Democratic email accounts or sowing discord in America through social media, as well as Trump associates. ___ TRUMP: "Isn't it amazing that the people who were closest to me, by far, and knew the Campaign better than anyone, were never even called to testify before Mueller. The reason is that the 18 Angry Democrats knew they would all say 'NO COLLUSION' and only very good things!" tweet Monday. THE FACTS: Trump's wrong to suggest that the people "closest" to him weren't called to testify before Mueller's team. Plenty of people close to him, including in his own family, interviewed with the special counsel's investigators or were at least asked to appear. And of those who did, some said not very good things about their interactions with the president. Among the advisers and aides who spoke with Mueller was McGahn, who extensively detailed Trump's outrage at the investigation and his efforts to curtail it. McGahn told Mueller's team how Trump called him at home and urged him to press the Justice Department to fire the special counsel, then told him to deny that the entire episode had taken place once it became public. Mueller also interviewed Priebus, Bannon, former White House chief of staff John Kelly, former White House communications director Hope Hicks and White House press secretary Sarah Sanders. Michael Cohen, Trump's former personal lawyer who once said he was so close to the president that he'd "take a bullet" for him, also cooperated with Mueller and delivered unflattering details. Mueller certainly wanted to hear from Trump's family too, even if not all relatives were eager to cooperate. His eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., declined to be voluntarily interviewed by investigators, according to Mueller's report. Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, spoke multiple times to Mueller's team. One of the president's daughters, Ivanka Trump, provided information through an attorney. ___ GIDLEY: "It was Barack Obama who leaned over to Dmitry Medvedev in the Oval Office and said, 'Listen, we'll have more flexibility when the election's over.'" remarks Tuesday. THE FACTS: First, the conversation was in South Korea, not the Oval Office. Gidley accurately recounted the gist of what Obama was heard telling the Russian president on a microphone they didn't know was on. But Gidley did not explain the context of the remark. Obama was suggesting he would have more flexibility postelection to address Russia's concerns about a NATO missile defense system in Europe. The conversation with Medvedev, who was soon succeeded by Vladimir Putin, had nothing to do with Russian meddling that would be exposed in the U.S. election four years away. ___ CENSUS TRUMP: "The American people deserve to know who is in this Country. Yesterday, the Supreme Court took up the Census Citizenship question, a really big deal." tweet Wednesday. GIDLEY, when asked whether Trump believes an accurate census count isn't necessary: "He wants to know who's in this country. I think as a sovereign nation we have that right. It's been a question that's been on the census for decades." remarks Tuesday. THE FACTS: Not since 1950 has the census collected citizenship data from the whole population. Moreover, Trump's position that asking a citizenship question in the census is needed to "know who is in this country" ignores the judgment of the Census Bureau's own researchers, who say that it would not result in the most accurate possible count of the U.S. population. The question is already asked in other government surveys. According to January 2018 calculations by the Census Bureau, adding the question to the once-a-decade survey form would cause lower response rates among Hispanics and noncitizens. The government would have to spend at least $27.5 million for additional phone calls, home visits and other follow-up efforts to reach them. Federal judges in California, Maryland and New York have blocked the administration from going forward with a citizenship question after crediting the analysis of agency experts. The experts said millions would go uncounted because Hispanics and immigrants might be reluctant to say if they or others in their households are not citizens. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has argued that a citizenship question is needed to help the government better comply with the Voting Rights Act. But the Justice Department has been enforcing the 1965 law, which was passed to help protect minority groups' political rights, with citizenship data already available from other government surveys. The count goes to the heart of the U.S. political system, determining the number of seats each state has in the U.S. House and how the electoral votes that decide presidential elections are distributed. It also shapes how 300 federal programs distribute more than $800 billion a year to local communities. ___ ECONOMY TRUMP retweet of RONNA MCDANIEL, Republican National Committee chairwoman: "If Joe Biden wants to keep score: In 8 years, Biden & Obama had a net loss of 193,000 manufacturing jobs. In just over 2 years, @realDonaldTrump has created 453,000 manufacturing jobs." tweet Thursday. THE FACTS: McDaniel is right but presents a misleading portrait of economic growth during Barack Obama's presidency, with Biden serving as vice president. Obama's eight years in office began with the final five months of the 17-month Great Recession, which began under his predecessor and included some of the worst stretches of job loss since World War II. Manufacturing jobs bottomed out in February 2010, then grew steadily for the next six years before declining during Obama's last year in office. Still, during that stretch the economy added 915,000 manufacturing jobs. ___ Associated Press writers Christopher Rugaber, Eric Tucker and Darlene Superville contributed to this report. ___ Find AP Fact Checks at http://apne.ws/2kbx8bd Follow @APFactCheck on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APFactCheck EDITOR'S NOTE _ A look at the veracity of claims by political figures WASHINGTON A federal judge sentenced Maria Butina to a total of 18 months in prison on Friday for her role in a Russian effort to infiltrate U.S. political organizations. The sentence means Butina will serve another nine months in custody before she is deported to Russia. She already has spent nine months in jail while her case was pending. Butina, 30, was accused of engaging in a years-long campaign to court politically connected Americans and infiltrate political organizations on behalf of the Kremlin. She was indicted and arrested in July and pleaded guilty in December to acting as a foreign agent for Russia without registering in the United States. "This case is not simply about failing to notify the attorney general," U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan said. "It is because she didn't register that her conduct was so dangerous." Chutkan acknowledged that Butina, who attended graduate school in Washington, was a "legitimate" and "hardworking" student. But the judge also said that while studying at American University, Butina sought to collect information about U.S. political figures under the direction of a Russian official at a time when the Kremlin was trying to undermine the American political system. Butina appeared in court in glasses and green jail uniform. Her long hair that extended down to her waist is no longer the bright red hue seen in media photos. Reading from a written statement, she told the judge "it has never been my intention to harm the American people," but conceded she "did just that" by not notifying American officials of her activities. If she had known the law requires her to register, Butina said she "would've done so without delay." "For all the international scandal my arrest has caused, I am deeply embarrassed," she said in a packed courtroom, her voice shaking. More: Maria Butina is not a spy, but a 'spotter': DOJ revives intrigue over gun-totting Russian native Story continues More: Maria Butina pleads guilty to conspiracy as agent of Russia in USA Get the app: Like what youre reading? Download the USA TODAY app for more The arrest of the gun-toting, red-haired Russian graduate student and activist sparked a speculative frenzy about the nature of her activities in the U.S. In a court filing last week, prosecutors said for the first time that her efforts had the hallmarks of a Russian espionage operation, suggesting that she was acting as a "spotter" to help Russian spies identify Americans they could cultivate. Butina's defense attorneys had asked Chutkan to set her free and allow her to go back home to Russia. In a sentencing memo filed last week, lawyers described Butina as a civil activist who is passionate for gun rights and politics, but whose "amateur diplomacy efforts" became her undoing. They said Butina deeply regrets not disclosing her foreign-agent status to U.S. officials, and had she done so, there would not have been a crime. "Maria is not a spy ... She has never engaged in covert activity. Maria is not a proxy for the Russian government ... In truth, nothing about Maria has been secret," one of her attorneys, Alfred Carry, said, adding that Butina's diplomacy efforts happened in public through "friendship dinners" with political figures and organizations. "She just can't see how anyone would think she's a spotter," Carry said. Butina's interests, Carry said, were to pursue her graduate studies and help foster better relations between the U.S. and Russia. But prosecutors, who asked for an 18-month prison sentence, said Butina's crimes are far more serious. Although she's not a spy in the traditional sense of the word and did not steal secrets to send back to Russia, prosecutors said in a sentencing memo filed last week that her actions "had potential to damage the national security" of the U.S. Assistant U.S. Attorney Erik Kenerson said Butina was not simply a graduate student. While she was studying and even before she enrolled, Butina "spent a significant amount of time" trying to create backchannels on behalf of the Kremlin. Butina's conduct, Kenerson said, showed how easily foreign agents with nefarious motives could infiltrate U.S. politics. Prosecutors alleged that Butina worked at the direction of a high-level Russian official who was a member of the legislature of the Russian Federation and became a top official of the Russian Central Bank. This description matches that of Alexander Toshin, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The pair identified political organizations and politically connected individuals they can "exploit" to advance Russia's interest, prosecutors said. Butina, who came to the U.S. in June 2016 on a student visa, sought to create back-channel lines of communication with American politicians and infiltrated organizations, including the National Rifle Association, to gain influence for Russia, prosecutors said. Butina's attorneys submitted two dozen character letters from her parents, friends, ministers and professors. Her father wrote in a letter that Butina dreamed of studying in the U.S. and believes U.S. and Russia should keep a good relationship. Any violation of American laws "could not have possibly been intentional," Valeri Butin wrote. Butina said her parents found out about her arrest from the morning news in Russia. Although she has three college degrees, Butina said she is now a convicted felon with no money and job prospects. "I feel terrible for Maria's family," Robert Driscoll, one of Butina's attorneys, told reporters after the hearing. "We hoped to get their daughter home as soon as possible." Driscoll said he does not believe an additional nine months in prison was necessary. He said the punishment could have a chilling effect on other foreign agents in the U.S. who aren't doing any illegal acts. Before the hearing ended, the judge addressed Butina, who clutched her attorney's hand as she waited to hear her sentence "You are a young woman. You are smart. You are hardworking. You have a future ahead of you. I wish you the best luck," Chutkan said. Butina's case attracted particular attention because she was arrested in the midst of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian efforts to sway the 2016 presidential election. Butina was not prosecuted by Mueller, and the Justice Department has never acknowledged a connection between her case and the special counsel investigation, but the charges against her offered additional detail of the Kremlin's efforts to crack into U.S. politics. Contributing: Bart Jansen and Christal Hayes This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'I am deeply embarrassed.' Russian agent Maria Butina sentenced to 18 months in federal prison Apple is working on new iPhones for later this year, but dont expect them to have dramatically different designs. Reports this week said that Apples planned iPhones look nearly identical to the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max from last year. This time around, Apple will focus more on the components inside the devices that power sophisticated apps and games. The rumors, which Apple hasnt confirmed, followed reports that Apple is working on new AirPods wireless earbuds. Apple CEO Tim Cook also made headlines when he spoke on stage at the Time 100 Summit in New York City about politics, the tech industry, and why he believes Apples future is in healthcare. This is Fortunes latest weekly roundup of the biggest Apple news. Heres last weeks roundup. Suffice to say, its been a busy week in Apple news. Heres a roundup of the biggest headlines: Earlier this week, tech sites OnLeaks and CashKaro leaked details about this years planned iPhone, saying they would have three rear cameras instead of the two in the currently available iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max. Apple is sticking to a glass backplate in the upcoming iPhones, according to the leaks, and will continue to include a black notch at the top of the screen that houses the iPhones front-facing camera and earpiece. Of course, the notoriously secretive Apple hasnt confirmed any of those details, and those reports may be inaccurate. Although Apple released the second version of its AirPods wireless earbuds earlier this year, the company will introduce two new models later this year or early next year, TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo told investors this week, according to 9to5Mac. Kuo said that Apples AirPods 3 will have a new design, but he didnt say what the earbuds would look like. Another model will have the same design as Apples AirPods 2 but will have a longer battery life while still being cheaper for Apple to manufacture. Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke at the Time 100 Summit in New York City this week, explaining that Apple wants to have a voice in political conversations when it has a legitimate position or lens on the issue like climate change, immigration, and education. He added that Apple is pushing deeper into health and believes that many years from now, people will say that Apples greatest contribution to mankind was in health care. Apples design team has lost three key members, the Wall Street Journal said this week. Rico Zorkendorfer and Daniele De Iuliis left the company recently, and Julian Honig will move on later this year, the Journals sources said. Combined, the designers have dozens of years of experience at Apple and played prominent roles in developing everything from the iPhone to the iPad. They all reported to Apples design chief Jony Ive. Apples iPhone XR, the cheapest phone the company released last year at $749, was the top-selling Apple smartphone in the U.S. during the first quarter, according to researcher Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP). During the period, the iPhone XR accounted for 38% of iPhone sales in the U.S. while Apples iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max together accounted for 22%. Apple analysts are a bit more positive about the companys future. This week, several analysts raised their 12-month price targets on Apples shares because they said that Apples next quarterly earnings release on Tuesday should deliver stable revenue and profit. Wolfe Research lifted its price target from $175 to $185, and UBS upped its estimate $20 to $235 (Apples share price in mid-day trading on Friday was $203.87.). The analysts cautioned that weakness in Apples iPhone business could put pressure on the companys future earnings. One more thingWhen Apple releases its new iPhones this year, dont expect to find a 5G modem inside. That technology, which allows smartphones to connect to ultra-fast 5G networks, will be included in Samsung smartphones this year. But according to industry experts and researchers, Apple wont be able to get a 5G iPhone into stores until 2020 at the earliest. The Hill Rep. Madison Cawthorn and his wife are divorcing after less than a year of marriage, with the North Carolina Republican citing his job in Congress as part of the reason for the split."When my wife Christina and I were engaged, I was not a member of Congress," Cawthorn, 26, said in a statement posted by his spokesman on Wednesday. "I felt called to serve and we both agreed that I should run. Our victory was unprecedented. But overnight, our lives... Madrid (AFP) - Julian Assange's lawyers have filed a court complaint in Spain against a group of Spaniards they allege extorted the WikiLeaks founder whom they say may have been the victim of "espionage", a source in his defence team said Saturday. Assange, who for seven years lived holed up in London's Ecuadoran embassy where he had taken refuge to avoid extradition to Sweden on rape accusations, was arrested on April 11 after Quito terminated his asylum. The 47-year-old founder of WikiLeaks, which exposed everything from US military secrets to the wealthy's tax evasion, is now awaiting sentencing for breaching his British bail conditions in 2012. The source, who wished to remain anonymous, said the complaint was against "a group of Spaniards who allegedly engaged in extortion." The source told AFP the complaint was also against various employees of the embassy and Ecuador's foreign ministry "who could be responsible," without detailing how. The source added a probe was ongoing into the alleged extortion, as well as "espionage" that could have taken place against Assange, without giving further details. According to online daily eldiario.es, four Spaniards have videos and personal documents of Assange which they somehow obtained via an alleged spying system that included security cameras set up in the embassy in London. The Spaniards allegedly tried to extort three million euros ($3.3 million) out of WikiLeaks not to publish any of it, the report says. If confirmed, it is unclear how the Spaniards got access to the alleged spying system and were able to get the information about Assange. It is also unclear whether his lawyers accuse the embassy and ministry employees targeted in the complaint, reportedly made to Spain's top-level National Court, of being behind the alleged espionage. The National Court could not comment when contacted by AFP. The accusations of espionage contrast with Ecuadoran President Lenin Moreno's version of events. In an interview with the Guardian newspaper, he alleged Assange had himself tried to set up a "centre for spying" in Ecuador's embassy. Now in prison in Britain, Assange is also fighting a US extradition warrant relating to the release by WikiLeaks of a huge cache of official documents. ST. LOUIS (AP) Dallas goalie Ben Bishop rebounded at his hometown team's expense. Bishop made 32 saves, Roope Hintz scored twice and the Stars beat the St. Louis Blues 4-2 in Game 2 to even the Western Conference semifinal series. Bishop grew up in St. Louis and often attended Blues games. He recalled chanting Chicago Blackhawks goalie Ed Belfour's name as a teenager in the stands. St. Louis fans did the same thing to Bishop on Saturday, screaming his name to try and throw him off his game. "It's pretty crazy," Bishop said. "I was that kid screaming Belfour's name and then you're on the ice and they're screaming your name. Never in a million years when I was watching playoff games as a kid here that I'd be in the net playing against the Blues. Obviously, it's kind of cool." Miro Heiskanen and Mattias Janmark also scored for the Stars. Jaden Schwartz and Colton Parayko scored for St. Louis, and Jordan Binnington made 31 saves. The Blues had won three straight. Game 3 is Monday night in Dallas. Bishop bounced back after allowing three goals on 20 shots in a 3-2 loss in Game 1 on Thursday night. "It's a long season, there's going to be shots you want to have back," Bishop said. "Every game is a new game, that's the way I've done it in my career." Dallas scored three times in the opening 14:51 before Bishop took over. Hintz, who added an empty-net-net goal with 3 seconds left, converted on a pass from Mats Zuccarello at 7:11. Heiskanen scored on a give-and-go with Hintz just over six minutes later. The Blues answered 46 seconds later on Parayko's drive from the top of the circle. Dallas needed just 26 seconds to restore the two-goal lead, with Janmark scoring off Jason Dickinson's pass. Schwartz tipped in a shot from Parayko just 1:48 into the third. Schwartz has a team-high five goals in the first two rounds. Bishop improved to 11-3 when coming off a loss in the playoffs. Story continues "I've been pulled, I've given up six (goals), it happens," Bishop said. "That's the cool thing about the playoffs. You forget and move on." Bishop made big saves on Ryan O'Reilly and Oskar Sundqvist in the third period. Bishop used his arm to clear a shot from David Perron that hit the boards and bounced behind him in the second. "We knew Bishop would be great," Dallas coach Jim Montgomery said. "He's been great for us all year and he's a Vezina (Trophy) finalist because of it. He's our brick wall back there." Hintz scored nine goals in 58 regular-season games before his breakout performance. "He's calm," Zuccarello said. "It's like he's played 100 playoff games." The Finn leads all rookies in playoff scoring with four goals and three assists. "We were skating and getting pucks deep," Hintz said. "We're confident now, and it's good." The Blues came out flat in the first period and never fully recovered, according to Schwartz. "Our puck-play wasn't as sharp as it usually is," said Schwartz, who had a game-high six shots. "And they took advantage. We did a good job coming back. But that was a lapse we couldn't have." St. Louis interim coach Craig Berube said his team wasted too many good chances. The Blues were 0-for-5 with the man advantage. "Our power play could have helped us tonight, it didn't," Berube said. "That might have made the difference in the game." NOTES: The series is the 14th between the teams. St. Louis has won seven. Dallas holds a 38-37 advantage in games. ... The Stars have killed 21 of 22 penalties in the playoffs. ... Binnington allowed two goals or fewer in his previous four games. UP NEXT Game 3 is Monday night in Dallas. ___ More AP NHL: https://apnews.com/tag/NHL and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports We listen to local police and fire departments scanner traffic, but sometimes miss crimes, wrecks, fires or other incidents, especially if they happen overnight. If you know of something were not covering yet, please let Managing Editor Jeff Pownall know by emailing him at jpownall@lufkindailynews.com, or submit a news tip online by visiting lufkindailynews.com/tips. Shares of Boardroom Limited (SGX:B10) will begin trading ex-dividend in 2 days. To qualify for the dividend check of S$0.02 per share, investors must have owned the shares prior to 30 April 2019, which is the last day the company's management will finalize their list of shareholders to which they will send dividend payments. Should you diversify into Boardroom and boost your portfolio income stream? Well, keep on reading because today, I'm going to look at the latest data and analyze the stock and its dividend property in further detail. See our latest analysis for Boardroom 5 questions I ask before picking a dividend stock When researching a dividend stock, I always follow the following screening criteria: Does it pay an annual yield higher than 75% of dividend payers? Has it paid dividend every year without dramatically reducing payout in the past? Has it increased its dividend per share amount over the past? Is its earnings sufficient to payout dividend at the current rate? Will the company be able to keep paying dividend based on the future earnings growth? SGX:B10 Historical Dividend Yield, April 27th 2019 How well does Boardroom fit our criteria? The company currently pays out 57% of its earnings as a dividend, according to its trailing twelve-month data, meaning the dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Furthermore, analysts have not forecasted a dividends per share for the future, which makes it hard to determine the yield shareholders should expect, and whether the current payout is sustainable, moving forward. When considering the sustainability of dividends, it is also worth checking the cash flow of a company. Cash flow is important because companies with strong cash flow can usually sustain higher payout ratios. If dividend is a key criteria in your investment consideration, then you need to make sure the dividend stock you're eyeing out is reliable in its payments. Not only have dividend payouts from Boardroom fallen over the past 10 years, it has also been highly volatile during this time, with drops of over 25% in some years. These characteristics do not bode well for income investors seeking reliable stream of dividends. Story continues Compared to its peers, Boardroom generates a yield of 2.6%, which is high for Professional Services stocks but still below the market's top dividend payers. Next Steps: After digging a little deeper into Boardroom's yield, it's easy to see why you should be cautious investing in the company just for the dividend. On the other hand, if you are not strictly just a dividend investor, the stock could still be offering some interesting investment opportunities. Given that this is purely a dividend analysis, you should always research extensively before deciding whether or not a stock is an appropriate investment for you. I always recommend analysing the company's fundamentals and underlying business before making an investment decision. Below, I've compiled three relevant aspects you should further examine: Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for B10s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for B10s outlook. Valuation: What is B10 worth today? Even if the stock is a cash cow, it's not worth an infinite price. The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether B10 is currently mispriced by the market. Dividend Rockstars: Are there better dividend payers with stronger fundamentals out there? Check out our free list of these great stocks here. 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 Kayon Raynor KINGSTON, April 27 (Reuters) - Jamaican Winter Olympian Jazmine Fenlator-Victorian has been given a one-year ban for using the banned steroid clenbuterol ahead of the 2018 Winter Olympics, the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation (IBSF) said. Fenlator-Victorian had been provisionally suspended since March 2018, when she was notified of the test results, so the ban had effectively been served, the federation said. "The parties agreed on a sanction consisting of a period of ineligibility of 12 months, commencing on 8 March 2019, against which the period of provisional suspension served since 8 March 2018 shall be credited," the IBSF said in its ruling. The bobsledder had faced the possibility of a four-year ban following the positive test on Jan. 13 last year, less than a month before she competed at the Pyeongchang Winter Games. However, the federation accepted her explanation that the positive test was caused by a contaminated nutritional supplement. "The IBSF concluded that the athlete had committed an anti-doping rule violation but established no significant fault, given that (a) the detected prohibited substance came from a contaminated supplement, (b) she checked the product information/ingredients before use, and (c) she declared the product on the doping control form," it said. "The IBSF... also noted the very small quantity of the prohibited substance found in the sample and considered the fact that the athletes next doping control sample, provided on 25 Jan. 2018, did not result in an adverse analytical finding (AAF). The (hearing panel) therefore concluded that, in agreement with the athletes explanation, the likely source of clenbuterol in her sample was the nutritional supplement." American-born driver Fenlator-Victorian and former track sprinter Carrie Russell finished 19th in the two-woman bobsleigh in South Korea where they received a lot of attention as the first female athletes from the Caribbean island nation to compete at a Winter Olympics. Story continues Fenlator-Victorian did not immediately respond to e-mailed queries about the IBSF ruling on Saturday. However, Jamaican Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation president Christian Stokes told Reuters he was pleased the IBSF had accepted that Fenlator-Victorian was not at fault. "I... am pleased that they have concluded what we have long held which is that no attempt was made to cheat, no advantage was gained, best practices were followed at all times, and full disclosures made," Stokes said by telephone in Kingston. "It is though a warning that even with the best programs in place contamination and an AAF is possible. We learn and move forward," Stokes added. (Editing by Clare Fallon) TUCSON, Ariz. Border Patrol officials have begun releasing migrant families in Tucson because they lack the space to detain them and immigration officials are unable to take them into custody. The practice has been going on for about a month, according to the Border Patrol's Tucson sector, which covers most of Arizona's border with Mexico. It was a central topic of a meeting Border Patrol officials in Tucson held Friday with local law-enforcement, elected and community leaders. The number of migrant families released in Tucson has surpassed the ability of local nonprofits to house them. This past week, the city of Tucson and Pima County opened temporary overflow shelters to house migrants, although those shelters are once again empty, at least for now. 'Zero tolerance' update: Judge gives Trump team 6 months to identify additional separated migrant families The goal of Friday's meeting was to "alleviate some of the stressors that we've been seeing with this increase in people," said Pete Bidegain, a special-operations supervisor for the Border Patrol. "One of the major concerns that was brought up numerous times in the meeting really comes down to better communication between federal officials, county officials, city officials," he added. One of the big takeaways, Bidegain said, is the possibility of giving nonprofits and city leaders an earlier heads-up as soon as border officials notice any increases in the numbers of migrants they encounter at the border. "That heads-up may be hours or it may be days," he said. "But any type of communication, just keeping that open, is going to help us and it's also going to help them." Border Patrol has not disclosed how many migrants it has released directly into Tucson in the past month since it began the practice, which the agency officially refers to as migrants released on their own recognizance. As they are released, the migrants are issued notices to appear in court at later dates. Story continues States' legislative walls: Trump changes in immigration policy slowed, but states are cranking out their own new laws The direct releases of migrants add to an already unique situation that has strained existing resources in Tucson. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency that normally takes custody of asylum-seeking families once they have been processed, has continued releasing families in Tucson. That includes migrants apprehended in the Tucson sector as well as migrants who crossed through the Yuma area. Pima County officials estimate that ICE has released about 7,000 migrants in Tucson in the past eight months. In Yuma, Border Patrol officials said in March they had begun releasing migrant families from their custody. On top of that, Border Patrol officials in El Paso have been busing hundreds of migrants each day to Tucson so they can be released there instead of El Paso, which has also been struggling greatly with the sheer number of migrant families. As a result, when ICE is unable to take migrants into custody, Border Patrol has begun releasing families directly in Tucson. Border Patrol works with nonprofits to find space to house the migrants, but it doesn't always work out. "If they are at capacity, that's when the decision is made to release people out into the community, and that's traditionally been done ... at local transportation hubs," Bidegain said. The Wall: A 2,000-mile search for answers That's something both city leaders and nonprofits want to avoid. Their concern is that, if left to fend for themselves, families will end up stranded or unable to navigate the transportation system in an unfamiliar country. Tucson Mayor Jonathan Rothschild, who attended the Friday meeting, said that was one of the big concerns he took from the Border Patrol discussion. "If the loaded buses from Border Patrol can go not to the bus station, but to the site of where the (nonprofit) is located, that would be a big help because that saves us a lot as a community," Rothschild said. Another concern Rothschild brought up was that migrant families from El Paso were being transported to and released in Tucson. He said such a move made little sense, especially when the asylum-seeking families were headed to the Eastern United States. "If they're moving east, why would you ever move them west?" he said. More: New Mexico city asks for donations as Border Patrol drops off migrants for the first time Border Patrol officials said they would consider the concerns. As a result of the meeting, Bidegain said, they also agreed to create a steering committee to help implement some of the ideas discussed. The committee would be composed of nonprofits, as well as representatives from the local, state and federal levels. Have any news tips or story ideas about the U.S.-Mexico border? Reach the reporter at rafael.carranza@arizonarepublic.com, or follow him on Twitter at @RafaelCarranza. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Border Patrol is now releasing migrant families directly in Tucson (Reuters) - The 5-year-old boy thrown off a third-floor balcony at Minnesota's Mall of America by a stranger is no longer in critical condition, said his family, who hopes he will be home by June. More than 28,000 well-wishers from around the globe donated a total amount of more than $1 million to an online fundraiser set up for Landen Hoffman, who was hospitalized after the April 12 attack in the Bloomington mall, a major tourist attraction in the state. "We are so elated to let you know that our son is now alert and conscious and is no longer in critical condition," an attorney for Hoffman's family said on Friday in a statement. "We are now turning our focus to additional surgeries, healing, rehabilitation and eventually a return home, which we hope will happen by June." Emmanuel Aranda, 24, of Minneapolis was charged with attempted premeditated first-degree murder and was being held in lieu of a $2 million bond. Aranda, who has a history of mental issues and arrests on minor charges, is accused of dropping the boy nearly 40 feet (12 meters). According to prosecutors, he admitted the attack, telling investigators he had been visiting the mall for years to try to talk to women, but their rejection "caused him to lash out and be aggressive." Aranda said he initially intended to kill an adult, but chose the boy instead, prosecutors wrote in a criminal complaint. (Reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York; Editing by Matthew Lewis) Rio de Janeiro (AFP) - Former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Friday said the country is governed by a "gang of madmen" in his first interview from prison, where he is serving an almost nine year sentence. The leftist ex-leader, 73, reiterated his innocence and told newspapers El Pais and Folha de Sao Paulo he is "obsessed" with "unmasking" those behind his conviction, which has seen him incarcerated for the past year for bribery and money laundering. "I know very well the place history holds for me. And I also know who will be in the dumpster," said Lula, charismatic as ever in video clips published by Spanish newspaper El Pais's Brazilian edition. The interview is the first Lula has given since he was arrested in April of last year. "It can't be that this country is governed by this gang of madmen ... the country doesn't deserve that and above all the people don't deserve that," Folha de S. Paulo reported Lula as saying of President Jair Bolsonaro's far-right administration. Bolsonaro entered office in January, defeating Workers' Party candidate Fernando Haddad, who replaced Lula after he was banned from running. Lula was convicted as part of Operation Car Wash, a wide reaching probe into corruption surrounding state oil firm Petrobras. But from the start, Lula has maintained he is the victim of a campaign to prevent a leftist leader from returning to power. This week, an appeals court reduced his 12 year sentence to eight years and 10 months. The ruling could mean Lula is eligible for "semi-open" prison later this year. Lula is also appealing a second sentence of almost 13 years handed down in February for accepting renovation work by two construction companies on a farmhouse in exchange for ensuring they won contracts with Petrobras. If that sentence is upheld, it will be added to the previous one. EDINBURGH, April 27 (Reuters) - Support for Scottish independence has risen to its highest point in the past four years, largely driven by voters who want to remain in the European Union, according to a poll published on Saturday. As the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) meets for its spring conference, the YouGov poll showed support for secession from the United Kingdom had risen to 49 percent from 45 percent at the last YouGov poll carried out for The Times in June 2018. Scots rejected independence by 45-55 percent in a 2014 referendum. Then the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union in a 2016 referendum, but among its four nations Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to stay, feeding political tension. Britain is mired in political chaos and it is still unclear when or even if it will leave the EU. YouGov also found that 53 percent of Scots thought there should not be another referendum on independence within the next five years. Scotland's First Minister and SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon is pushing for one before 2021, when the current Scottish parliamentary terms ends. YouGov polled 1029 adults in Scotland following a new guideline on independence set out by Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon on Wednesday. The poll also showed voters moving away from both the Conservatives and the Labour Party north of the English border. The Scottish Conservatives, part of Prime Minister Theresa May's Conservative Party, are set to lose their only representative in the European Parliament in next month's election as 40 percent of those who backed them two years ago switch to Nigel Farage's Brexit Party. "These patterns represent a clear warning to the Unionist camp that the pursuit of Brexit might yet produce a majority for independence," Professor John Curtice, Britain's leading polling expert, wrote in a column for The Times. (Reporting by Elisabeth O'Leary Editing by Clelia Oziel) Kampala (AFP) - Nasasi Belinda, a Ugandan businesswoman, has won the east African country's first-ever "Miss Curvy" beauty pageant, vowing to act as a role model for other women with "plus-size" figures. "I am going to be an inspiration," an overjoyed Belinda said after winning the title in Kampala late Friday, beating 24 other finalists for the grand prize. "Being plus-size is not a problem," she continued. "So be happy about yourself and make sure you don't quit. Just keep going." The pageant was part of a government campaign to attract tourists to the east African nation. But the campaign caused controversy in February when tourism minister Godfrey Kiwanda suggested Ugandan women's curvaceous beauty was "a product to be marketed along with what we already have as a country ranging from Nature, the language and food, to make it a tourist attraction." Women's rights activists were outraged by the comments and called for the minister to resign. "This is perversion. To think women can be used as sex objects in this age and time is an absurdity and we condemn it," Rita Aciro, executive director of the Uganda Women's Network, told AFP at the time. Ugandan entrepreneur and activist Primrose Nyonyozi Murungi launched an online petition to stop the campaign, which she said was "totally unacceptable and demeaning to us". "Women in Uganda have been attacked while on the streets. What happens now is that the government is confirming a stereotype that women are sexual objects and can be touched regardless and more so made a product of tourism," she told AFP. Former opposition leader in parliament, Winnie Kiiza, told AFP the move came "at a time (when) women face fear and stigma in a male-dominated society". Minister Kiwanda sought to play down the controversy on Friday. "I also believe that there is a new wave that is going to come to Uganda, a new confidence that is going to be built among plus-size ladies," he said. Libreville (AFP) - Even by the turbulent standards of the Central African Republic, the sight was remarkable: a regional warlord stood next to VIPs at ceremonies in a city where his name is widely feared. Less than four months earlier, Ali Darassa's militia, the Union for Peace in the Central African Republic (UPC), had been battling the forces of the government and the United Nations. Today, though, their representatives now stood alongside him in the key city of Bambari --the next phase in a controversial bid to bring peace in the troubled country. After seven failed peace deals since 2013, an accord reached in Khartoum in February has allotted government roles to 14 militia chiefs who control most of the country's territory, frequently fighting over resources and clashing over ethnic or religious affiliation. The big hope is to encourage the warlords to work together, beefing up security and shoring up governance. But critics fear the concessions could be a free pass to men who should be prosecuted for extrajudicial killing, rape, looting and other crimes. The new posts risk a "sacrifice of the need for justice", warned Thierry Vircoulon, a specialist observer, after previous peace deals were undermined by the prospect of trial for war crimes. "'Zero tolerance for impunity'," said Vircoulon, referring to a UN watchword, "has become 'zero tolerance for justice'." - Local fears - The ceremony in Bambari on April 15 was to present future members of mixed units that will help provide security -- an innovation incorporating rebel fighters and members of the armed forces. Darassa, a self-appointed four-star general, was joined on the town hall steps by Prime Minister Firmin Ngrebada, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, UN under secretary-general for peacekeeping operations, and Smail Chergui, African Union commissioner for peace and security. On March 24, three warlords were formally appointed as special military advisers to the prime minister. Story continues Two of them are Mahamat Al Khatim, leader of the Central African Patriotic Movement (MPC), and Sidiki Abass, commander of a group called Return, Reclamation, Rehabilitation, known as 3R. The third is Darassa, who took up the post in Bambari, a crossroads town in the centre of the country. An anonymous UN source told AFP the appointment "means that he is taking charge of Bambari with the approval of Bangui". Townsfolk turned out in strength for the ceremony but "the population was on edge", Mayor Abel Matchipata told AFP. "The conflict has led to many victims and many abuses -- we have a lot of trouble with the armed groups." But, he said, "We have no alternative but to accept the Khartoum accords. We have to make concessions, that is the only way if we want peace." In 2017, MINUSCA -- the UN mission in CAR -- drove the UPC out of town and Darassa became persona non grata there. But his men adopted a low profile and went on imposing "taxes" on cattle and minerals, before returning to open hostilities by May 2018, attacking police headquarters, church premises and several non-governmental organisations, according to a UN report. "Ali Darassas appointment as a military adviser for the area where his men may have committed war crimes should not be used to give him immunity from investigation into the UPC's abuses," said Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch (HRW). - Promises - Facing mounting criticism, the authorities have sought to provide assurance. In a joint statement issued six days after the Bambari ceremony, the UN and MINUSCA insisted that Darassa "has not been entrusted with an official security role" for Bambari. "The security of the town of Bambari remains and will remain the responsibility of the national authorities, with the support of MINUSCA," stressed the communique, which noted that the mixed brigades "are not yet operational". And on Thursday, the CAR presidency said the peace agreement "does not grant amnesty" and was "subject to the constitution." The deal also "attaches importance to the fight against impunity," it insisted. But many question whether the unusual cohabitation can last, or whether it will simply be exploited by militia chiefs. "There is a real risk that these new advisors or ministers will work to increase their military power and finance their armed groups," said Nathalia Dukhan of the US think-tank Enough Project. Many investors are still learning about the various metrics that can be useful when analysing a stock. This article is for those who would like to learn about Return On Equity (ROE). By way of learning-by-doing, we'll look at ROE to gain a better understanding of Lindsay Australia Limited (ASX:LAU). Lindsay Australia has a ROE of 9.1%, based on the last twelve months. Another way to think of that is that for every A$1 worth of equity in the company, it was able to earn A$0.091. Check out our latest analysis for Lindsay Australia How Do You Calculate Return On Equity? The formula for ROE is: Return on Equity = Net Profit Shareholders' Equity Or for Lindsay Australia: 9.1% = AU$8.4m AU$93m (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 Signify? ROE looks at the amount a company earns relative to the money it has kept within the business. The 'return' is the profit over the last twelve months. A higher profit will lead to a higher ROE. So, all else being equal, a high ROE is better than a low one. That means ROE can be used to compare two businesses. Does Lindsay Australia 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 is clear from the image below, Lindsay Australia has a lower ROE than the average (12%) in the Transportation industry. ASX:LAU Past Revenue and Net Income, April 26th 2019 That's not what we like to see. We'd prefer see an ROE above the industry average, but it might not matter if the company is undervalued. Nonetheless, it might be wise 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. 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. Lindsay Australia's Debt And Its 9.1% ROE Lindsay Australia does use a significant amount of debt to increase returns. It has a debt to equity ratio of 1.33. Its ROE isn't too bad, but it would probably be very disappointing if the company had to stop using debt. Debt increases risk and reduces options for the company in the future, so you generally want to see some good returns from using it. The Key Takeaway 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 the same ROE, then I would generally prefer the one with less debt. 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. Profit growth rates, versus the expectations reflected in the price of the stock, are a particularly important to consider. So you might want to check this FREE visualization of 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. Lunaticoutpost.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program , anaffiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.Amazon, the Amazon logo, MYHABIT, and the MYHABIT logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.Don't be a pest to the forum.No profanity in thread-titles or usernamesNo excessive profanity in postsNo Racism, Antisemitism + HateNo calls for violence against anyone..This website exists for fun and discussion only. The reader is responsible for discerning the validity, factuality or implications of information posted here, be it fictional or based on real events. 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The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.In accordance with industry accepted best practices we ask that users limit their copy / paste of copyrighted material to the relevant portions of the article you wish to discuss (no more than 50% of the source material) provide a link back to the original articleIf you are a legal copyright holder or a designated agent for such and you believe a post on this website falls outside the boundaries of "Fair Use" and legitimately infringes on yours or your clients copyright please contact [email protected] This website is owned by :Marco ZwaneveldDrijfriemstraat 522516 XR The HagueNetherlands.I will not rent, sell, share or otherwise disclose your personal information to any third party.We might contact you from time to time regarding your purchases or the services (like forums and announcement lists) you have subscribed to.Some of the 3rd party advertisers on lunaticoutpost.com may use cookiesto track peformance and/or to serve relevant ads.If you wish to read more and/or opt out of such cookies, please visit: http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/ Taqueria El Rey. | Photo: Al P./Yelp It's the United States' favorite day to celebrate Mexican culture, but it's not, as many believe, Mexico's Independence Day that comes Sept. 16. Cinco de Mayo instead commemorates a significant military victory, in which the Mexican army defeated French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. Want to celebrate the occasion and show off your newfound knowledge of Mexican history? Hoodline crunched the numbers to find the best Mexican restaurants in Detroit, using both Yelp data and our own methodology. Use our list to score a delicious Cinco de Mayo meal. 1. Taqueria El Rey Photo: rodrigo t./Yelp Topping the list is Taqueria El Rey. Located at 4730 W. Vernor Highway in Southwest Detroit, the Mexican spot and beer bar is the highest-rated Mexican restaurant in Detroit, boasting 4.5 stars out of 326 reviews on Yelp. 2. El Asador Photo: suzy p./Yelp Next up is Springwells' El Asador, situated at 1312 Springwells St. With four stars out of 307 reviews on Yelp, the Mexican spot and steakhouse, also serving seafood and more, has proven to be a local favorite. 3. E & L Supermercado Photo: E & L Supermercado/Yelp Southwest Detroit's E & L Supermercado, located at 6000 W. Vernor Highway, is another top choice, with Yelpers giving the Mexican spot, meat shop and grocery store 4.5 stars out of 47 reviews. 4. La Fogata Mexican Grill Photo: Al P./Yelp La Fogata Mexican Grill, a Mexican spot that offers sandwiches and more, is another much-loved go-to, with five stars out of 10 Yelp reviews. Head over to 5015 Livernois Ave. to see for yourself. 5. El Salpicon Detroit Photo: sam m./Yelp Finally, over in Springwells, check out El Salpicon Detroit, which has earned four stars out of 17 reviews on Yelp. You can find the Mexican and Latin American spot, which offers seafood and more, at 8600 W. Vernor Highway. This story was created automatically using local business data, then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. Photo: iStock At the heart of the Great Lakes region, Detroit was one of Conde Nast's must-visit destinations for 2018. Not only is Detroit known as a leader of American industry, the city's diverse communities also boast major contributions to music, art and architecture. Detroit was the first U.S. city to be named a "City of Design" by UNESCO, and is known as the home of Motown Records and the birthplace of techno. The city also offers many historic museums and arts institutions. Thankfully, there are plenty of relatively inexpensive flights between Jacksonville and Detroit. We pulled from travel site Skyscanner to provide you with a short list of flights and hotels handpicked with the trendy adventurer in mind. (Hoodline offers data-driven analysis of local happenings and trends across cities. Links included in the articles may earn Hoodline a commission on clicks and transactions. Prices and availability are subject to change.) Flight deals to Detroit The cheapest flights between Jacksonville and Detroit are if you leave on May 2 and return from Michigan on May 4. Spirit Airlines currently has roundtrip tickets for $102. There are also deals to be had later in May. If you fly out of Jacksonville on May 31 and return from Detroit on June 2, Spirit Airlines can get you there and back for $110 roundtrip. Top Detroit hotels To plan your stay, here are some of Detroits top-rated hotels, that we selected from Skyscanner's listings based on price and customer satisfaction. The MotorCity Casino Hotel (2901 Grand River Ave.) Photo: Trip by Skyscanner For an all-around top recommendation, consider The MotorCity Casino Hotel. The hotel has a 4.7-star rating on Skyscanner, and rooms are currently available for $178. It's located near the Masonic Temple and Fox Theatre. The Westin Book Cadillac Detroit (1114 Washington Blvd.) Photo: Trip by Skyscanner Another 4.7-star option is The Westin Book Cadillac Detroit. Rooms are currently set at $179/night. Attractions in the neighborhood include Joe Louis Arena and the GM Renaissance Center. Story continues The Atheneum (1000 Brush Ave.) Photo: Trip by Skyscanner If you're looking for an inexpensive place to stay, try The Atheneum. The 4.7-star hotel has rooms for $129/night. Featured Detroit food and drink Detroit has plenty of top-notch dining options. Here are a few of the most popular, according to Skyscanner. Green Dot Stables (2200 W. Lafayette Blvd.) Photo: Trip by Skyscanner For a popular option, check out Green Dot Stables, which has an average of five stars out of six reviews on Skyscanner. "The menu of Green Dot Stables is very eclectic. Each slider, side, salad or dessert you order ranges from $2 to $3," wrote visitor Kenny. Public House (241 W. 9 Mile Road) Photo: Trip by Skyscanner Another popular option is the Public House, with five stars from five reviews. "This is a cute little place that serves awesome sliders for a super low price," wrote reviewer Megan. New Parthenon Restaurant (547 Monroe Ave.) Photo: Trip by Skyscanner One of Detroit's most popular restaurants is the New Parthenon Restaurant, with five stars from five reviews. "This is my favorite place to go in Greektown! As others have mentioned, the best starting dish is flaming cheese," wrote Richard. Top Detroit attractions To round out your trip, Detroit offers plenty of popular attractions worth visiting. Here are two top recommendations, based on Skyscanner's descriptions and reviews. The Detroit Institute of Arts (5200 Woodward Ave.) Photo: Trip by Skyscanner First up is The Detroit Institute of Arts. It has 4.7 stars from 45 reviews. The museum features over 60,000 pieces including collections from America, Asia, Africa and Europe. Greenfield Village (20900 Oakwood Blvd.) Photo: Trip by Skyscanner Then, there's Greenfield Village in nearby Dearborn. It has 4.8 stars from 11 reviews. The building offers exhibits ranging from early aviation to famous inventions. Car-related pieces include Ronald Reagan's limousine and the last known 1896 Duryea model. "This is a great place to spend the day learning about history," wrote visitor Yvonne. This story was created automatically using flight, hotel, and local attractions data, then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. Photo: iStock If you're looking to escape to the tropics, head to San Juan, Puerto Rico, the destination with the top spot on the New York Times' list of places to visit in 2019. The island's capital and largest city faces the Atlantic Ocean, and it has plenty to offer. Plan to visit both the Isla Verde resort strip, known for its bars, nightclubs and casinos and Old San Juan, which features colorful Spanish colonial buildings, cobble-stoned streets and 16th-century landmarks. There is also the Paseo de la Princesa bayside promenade, a number of imposing fortresses and the close proximity to El Yunque National Forest, all of which are worth visiting. Thankfully, there are plenty of relatively inexpensive flights between Pittsburgh and San Juan. We pulled from travel site Skyscanner to provide you with a short list of flights and hotels handpicked with the trendy adventurer in mind. (Hoodline offers data-driven analysis of local happenings and trends across cities. Links included in the articles may earn Hoodline a commission on clicks and transactions. Prices and availability are subject to change.) Cheapest San Juan flights The cheapest flights between Pittsburgh and San Juan are if you leave on April 30 and return from Puerto Rico on May 4. Spirit Airlines currently has tickets for $315, roundtrip. There are also deals to be had in May. If you fly out of Pittsburgh on May 28 and return from San Juan on June 4, jetBlue can get you there and back for $357 roundtrip. Top San Juan hotels Regarding where to stay, here are two of San Juans top-rated hotels, according to Skyscanner, that we selected based on price, proximity to things to do and customer satisfaction. The Hotel El Convento (100 Cristo St. Old, San Juan) Photo: Trip by Skyscanner If you're looking to treat yourself, consider The Hotel El Convento. The hotel has a 4.9-star rating on Skyscanner, and rooms are currently available for $280. This San Juan boutique hotel is located in the historical district, near the Museo del Nino, San Juan Cathedral and the Puerta de San Juan. Story continues The Marriott San Juan Resort & Stellaris Casino (1309 Ashford Ave.) Photo: Trip by Skyscanner There's also the 4.7-star rated The Marriott San Juan Resort & Stellaris Casino. Rooms are currently set at $261/night. This beachfront resort is close to the Plaza del Mercado and Condado Beach. Additional attractions include the Puerto Rico Convention Center. Featured San Juan food and drink If you're looking to snag a bite at one of San Juan's many quality eateries, here are a few popular culinary destinations from Skyscanner's listings that will help keep you satiated. Kasalta (1966 Mc Leary) Photo: Trip by Skyscanner One of San Juan's most popular restaurants is Kasalta, which has an average of 4.6 stars out of 29 reviews on Skyscanner. "It's great for breakfast even though it has a bar and deli as well," wrote Dani. Santaella (219 Calle Canals) Photo: Trip by Skyscanner Another popular dining destination is Santaella, with five stars from 10 reviews. "Santaella celebrates the roots of the island, and incorporates techniques, flavors and fusions from around the world into its food," wrote reviewer www.puertorico-rentals.com. Marmalade Restaurant & Wine Bar (317 Calle Fortaleza) Photo: Trip by Skyscanner If you're looking for a solid place to grab a drink, plan to visit Marmalade Restaurant & Wine Bar. It has 4.8 stars from 19 reviews. El Jibarito (280 Calle Sol) Photo: Trip by Skyscanner Finally, there's the El Jibarito, with 4.9 stars from 12 reviews. "San Juan dining at its best," wrote Aaron. Featured San Juan attractions Not sure what to do in San Juan, besides eat and drink? Here are a few recommendations, provided by Skyscanner. Old San Juan (San Juan) Photo: Trip by Skyscanner First up is Old San Juan. It checks in with 4.9 stars from 152 reviews. "Old San Juan is beautiful. I highly recommend coming here if you're interested in learning about history, local food, museums and more," wrote visitor Sofia. Castillo San Felipe del Morro (501 Calle Norzagaray) Photo: Trip by Skyscanner The Castillo San Felipe del Morro is another popular destination, with 4.7 stars from 123 reviews. Constructed in 1540, this six-story fort hides a warren of prison cells, barracks and hallways. It was attacked on many occasions by both English and Dutch forces. It is listed in the National Historic Register. The Bacardi Rum Factory (Catano) Photo: Trip by Skyscanner Lastly, consider checking out The Bacardi Rum Factory. It has 4.6 stars from 89 reviews. See how Bacardi is made and sample it on a tour of the Bacardi Rum Factory. This story was created automatically using flight, hotel, and local attractions data, then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. 3320 Fait Ave. | Photos: Zumper Need a budget-friendly new spot? Though apartment hunting can be challenging, don't despair just yetthere are deals to be had. So what does the low-end rent on a rental in Canton look like these daysand what might you get for the price? According to Walk Score, the neighborhood is extremely walkable, is quite bikeable and has good transit options. It also features median rents for a one bedroom that hover around $1,375, compared to a $1,000 one-bedroom median for Baltimore as a whole. A look at local listings for studios and one-bedroom apartments in Canton, via rental site Zumper, offers an overview of what budget-minded apartment seekers can expect to find in this Baltimore neighborhood. Take a look at the cheapest listings available right now, below. (Note: prices and availability are subject to change.) Hoodline offers data-driven analysis of local happenings and trends across cities. Links included in this article may earn Hoodline a commission on clicks and transactions. 3320 Fait Ave. Listed at $890/month, this one-bedroom, one-bathroom, located at 3320 Fait Ave., is 35.3 percent less than the $1,375/month median rent for a one bedroom in Canton. In the unit, which comes furnished, look for air conditioning, in-unit laundry and a dishwasher. When it comes to building amenities, expect assigned parking and outdoor space. Pet owners, inquire elsewhere: this spot doesn't allow cats or dogs. Future tenants needn't worry about a leasing fee. (See the complete listing here.) 500 S. Collington Ave., #B This studio, situated at 500 S. Collington Ave., #B, is listed for $950/month for its 670 square feet of space. In the unit, you'll find air conditioning. Outdoor space is offered as a building amenity. Pet owners, inquire elsewhere: this spot doesn't allow cats or dogs. There's no leasing fee required for this rental. (See the complete listing here.) 907 S. Linwood Ave. Here's a one-bedroom, one-bathroom townhouse at 907 S. Linwood Ave., which is going for $1,000/month. Story continues In the apartment, expect air conditioning, carpeted floors and exposed brick. The building offers outdoor space and storage. Pets are not allowed. Future tenants needn't worry about a leasing fee, but there is a $55 application fee. (See the full listing here.) 130 S. Patterson Park Ave. Then there's this at 130 S. Patterson Park Ave., listed at $1,100/month. Inside, anticipate hardwood flooring and natural light. If you've got a pet, you'll be happy to learn that cats and dogs are welcome. Future tenants needn't worry about a leasing fee. (See the listing here.) 510 S. Madeira St. Check out this one-bedroom, one-bathroom rental at 510 S. Madeira St., listed at $1,150/month. In the unit, look for carpeted floors, exposed brick, storage space, natural light and in-unit laundry. Canine companions are welcome. There isn't a leasing fee associated with this rental. (Here's the listing.) This story was created automatically using local real estate data, then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. 2015 SW 27th Street. | Photos: Padmapper According to rental site Zumper, median rents for a one bedroom in Coral Way are hovering around $1,660, compared to a $1,900 one-bedroom median for Miami as a whole. But how does the low-end pricing on a Coral Way rental look these days and what might you get for your money? We took a look at local listings for studios and one-bedroom apartments to find out what price-conscious apartment seekers can expect to find in the neighborhood, which, according to Walk Score ratings, has excellent walkability, is very bikeable and is a haven for transit riders. Read on for the cheapest listings available right now. (Note: prices and availability are subject to change.) Hoodline offers data-driven analysis of local happenings and trends across cities. Links included in this article may earn Hoodline a commission on clicks and transactions. 2700 S.W. 33rd Court, #B This one-bedroom, one-bathroom residence, situated at 2700 S.W. 33rd Court, #B, is listed for $1,250/month. In the unit, you can anticipate air conditioning. Pet owners, inquire elsewhere: this spot doesn't allow cats or dogs. Outdoors space is listed as a building amenity. There's no leasing fee required for this rental. (See the complete listing here.) 2015 S.W. 27th Ave. Check out this 600-square-foot one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment at 2015 S.W. 27th Ave., listed at $1,400/month. Amenities offered in the building include assigned parking and outdoor space. In the unit, which comes furnished, anticipate air conditioning, a walk-in closet and in-unit laundry. Cats and dogs are not welcome. (Here's the listing.) 2955 S.W. First Ave. Over at 2955 S.W. First Ave., there's this 890-square-foot one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment, going for $1,550/month. In the unit, you'll find hardwood floors. The building offers assigned parking, an elevator and on-site laundry. If you have furry friends, look out for a $250 non-refundable pet fee. (View the listing here.) 2600 S.W. 27th Ave. Story continues At 2600 S.W. 27th Ave., you'll find this 655-square-foot one-bedroom, one-bathroom condo going for $1,595/month. The building features assigned parking, a swimming pool and a fitness center. In the unit, look for air conditioning, a balcony and in-unit laundry. Pet owners, inquire elsewhere: this spot doesn't allow cats or dogs. Future tenants needn't worry about a leasing fee. (Check out the complete listing here.) This story was created automatically using local real estate data, then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. Caspian Grill. | Photo: Erica F./Yelp Visiting Southeast Fresno, or just looking to better appreciate what it has to offer? Get to know this Fresno neighborhood by browsing its most popular local businesses, from chilaquiles to sushi. Hoodline crunched the numbers to find the top places to visit in Southeast Fresno, using both Yelp data and our own secret sauce to produce a ranked list of neighborhood businesses. Read on for the results. 1. Caspian Grill Photo: Jose N./Yelp Topping the list is Mediterranean, and Persian/Iranian spot Caspian Grill. Serving authentic Mediterranean dishes, including falafel platters and salmon kabobs, it's the highest rated business in the neighborhood. Located at 6105 E. Kings Canyon Road, Suite 103, this place boasts 4.5 stars out of 244 reviews on Yelp. 2. Las Mananitas photo: anna n./yelp Next up is Mexican breakfast and brunch spot Las Mananitas, situated at 1329 S. Hazelwood Blvd. Serving chalupas, chilaquiles and other Mexican favorites, it's proven to be a local favorite. With five stars out of 64 reviews on Yelp, head over to see for yourself. 3. Sunnyside Diner photo: vinny s./yelp Traditional American and Mexican spot Sunnyside Diner, which offers breakfast burritos, pastrami cheeseburgers and more, is another top choice. Yelpers give the business, located at 5235 E. Kings Canyon Road, Suite 105, 4.5 stars out of 210 reviews. 4. Ichiban Photo: Arlene B./Yelp Ichiban, a Japanese spot, is another neighborhood go-to, serving dishes like teriyaki bowls and sushi. With four stars out of 68 Yelp reviews, head over to 4863 E. Butler Ave. to see for yourself. This story was created automatically using local business data, then reviewed and augmented by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) Chiefs owner Clark Hunt said he was "deeply disturbed" by audio of Tyreek Hill discussing injuries to his 3-year-old son but declined to elaborate on the case citing an ongoing criminal investigation. The most visible face of the Chiefs' ownership family, Hunt spoke briefly with reporters Saturday while the team was holding its annual draft party. He declined to discuss the team's plans for Hill but did acknowledge that the star wide receiver's legal problems are an embarrassment for the team. "It is obviously a tough situation for the organization," Hunt said." Hill has been suspended from all team-related activities after audio surfaced Wednesday in which he discusses abusing his son. Hill also told his fiancee, Crystal Espinal, that she should be "terrified" of him during an 11-minute discussion that took place in a Dubai airport. The audio surfaced one day after prosecutors declined to press charges against Hill following a domestic violence investigation. They said at the time that they were convinced a crime had occurred, but were unable to determine whether it was Hill or Espinal that hurt their son. Prosecutors reopened the case on Friday after receiving the audio from a local TV station. Hunt said the team was conducting its own investigation, though it's unclear how much information that Johnson County District Attorney's office will make available. The NFL is also involved in the case, and it's possible that Roger Goodell could place Hill on the commissioner's exempt list. "We were deeply disturbed by the audio, which we heard on Thursday, and that's why he's not with the organization at this point," Hunt said, "and we expect that will be the case until we have a chance to work through whatever information we are able to get." There has been speculation that the Chiefs could release Hill once this weekend's NFL draft is over, but Hunt declined to discuss those internal deliberations. He did say that "there are a couple of ongoing investigations relating to Tyreek and we're going to have to let that process play out." Story continues The Chiefs have been lambasted by fans league-wide for their history in domestic violence cases. In 2012, linebacker Jovan Belcher killed his girlfriend before driving to the team facility and committing suicide. And last year, the Chiefs quickly cut star running back Kareem Hunt when video surfaced of him shoving and kicking a woman in an Ohio hotel hallway. Hill was drafted by the Chiefs and then-GM John Dorsey despite numerous red flags. He had been kicked off the team at Oklahoma State after punching Espinal while she was pregnant, and many teams said off the record that the incident caused them to take Hill off their draft boards altogether. Dorsey and Chiefs coach Andy Reid insisted at the time that they did "due diligence" in selecting Hill, and that they were confident that he would make the most of a second chance. "Before you are given the opportunity for a second chance, you better be doing the right things," Reid said. "We have a great support system here for that, with quality people. We feel good that he is trying to right a wrong a big wrong. It is a big wrong, but he is trying to do better and be a better person for it. That part, we feel very confident in." Hunt said that the Chiefs have not necessarily changed how they vet players, whether in the draft or acquired through trades and free agency. But he did admit there is risk with every player. "Could be his playing ability. Could be things that distract him off the field as well as the trouble they get into," Hunt said. "That's a risk you take. It's something that as a franchise we have to be willing to own when it doesn't go the right way. That's something I believe in." ___ More AP NFL: https://apnews.com/NFL and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL Chinese police have dismantled a ring accused of manufacturing some $30 million worth of counterfeit Lego sold across the country, authorities said. Police earlier this week raided the premises of Lepin -- a Chinese toymaker manufacturing Lego knockoffs in the southern city of Shenzhen -- arresting four people, Shanghai police said on Friday. "In October 2018, the Shanghai police found that Lepin building blocks available on the market were extremely similar to that of Lego," the statement said. The toys were copied from Lego blueprints and sent to a factory in Shenzhen to be manufactured before they were sold all over China. "Across more than 10 assembly lines, over 90 moulds had been produced... (police seized) some 630,000 completed pieces worth more than 200 million yuan ($30 million)," the statement said. Images from the Tuesday raid -- posted on official law enforcement social media accounts -- showed moulds and boxes that looked remarkably similar to lines produced by the Danish toy giant. A Star Wars knock-off is called "Star Plan", while sets released in conjunction with the new "Lego Movie 2" have also been copied and sold under the name "The Lepin Bricks 2". The counterfeit products could be a safety concern for consumers, said Lego's China and Asia Pacific vice president Robin Smith, the official Xinhua news agency reported. Foreign companies have long complained about lax intellectual property enforcement in China where counterfeiting is rampant. In an attempt to end its trade war with Washington, Beijing has pledged to clamp down on intellectual property infringements. The knockoffs are popular in a price-conscious market: a small city-themed Lepin set retails for $3 a box, whereas similar Lego sets start at $15. A check by AFP showed that the imitation sets were still available on e-commerce platform Taobao on Saturday afternoon. The Danish toy giant in February opened its first flagship store in Beijing -- which features replicas of the Forbidden City made of plastic bricks -- and has two other shops in Shanghai. Lego has in recent years seen a renewed popularity thanks to premium collectors' editions and a movie tie-up. By Ben Blanchard and Brenda Goh BEIJING, April 27 (Reuters) - China sought to put a gentler face on its massive plan to recreate the old Silk Road at a summit that ended on Saturday, saying it must do more to explain the program and boost sustainability even as state media hit back at critics. President Xi Jinping has made the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), as it is formally called, one of the cornerstones of his administration. But it has run into opposition in some countries over fears that opaque financing arrangements lead to unsustainable debt and that it is more about promoting Chinese influence than bringing development. China has at times reacted angrily to such doubts, tending to characterize critics as harboring anti-Chinese prejudice and wishing to contain the country's rise, while overlooking what Beijing says are genuine good intentions. The Belt and Road scheme seeks to build a modern version of the Silk Road to link China with Asia, Europe and beyond through large-scale infrastructure projects. On Friday, Xi told foreign leaders - including close allies such as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan - that the initiative must be green and sustainable, adding that the plan would deliver "high-quality" growth for all. Meeting Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, Xi said Belt and Road was about promoting mutually beneficial, win-win international cooperation, not a "you lose, I win" scheme, according to a read-out from China's Foreign Ministry. "We must explain this point to the world, to win even greater understanding and support," the ministry paraphrased Xi as saying. China has been keen to show that Belt and Road is even winning acceptance in Western nations, especially after Italy became the first G7 country to sign on last month. Britain's finance minister, France's foreign minister and Germany's economy minister all made the trek to Beijing for the event. Story continues Those countries reminded China of the need for high standards and transparency. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told the summit that the success of Belt and Road projects "will depend on our determination to keep our commitments." "Commitment to openness, commitment to transparency, commitment to fair competition and, of course, commitment to environmental sustainability as well," he said. British Chancellor Philip Hammond said that for Belt and Road to be successful it had to deliver "the highest international standards of transparency, of governance, but also of environmental integrity." "President Xi made a speech this morning in which he committed China to all of those things and set out his vision for the next stage of Belt and Road and we will be looking very carefully at how that is operationalised," he said on Friday. Even Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of another good Chinese friend, Myanmar, said Belt and Road had to take into account realities on the ground. "The projects must not only be economically feasible but also socially and environmentally responsible and, most importantly, they must win the confidence and support of local communities," she told the summit. This year's summit was more low-key than the first one two years ago. Xi did not offer details of any new funding for the initiative, though he did announce deals worth more than $64 billion signed during the meeting. State media also reined back a propaganda offensive that in 2017 featured songs in awkward-sounding English on their social media feeds praising Belt and Road. TALKING DURIAN China's fearsome propaganda machine was never going to be entirely absent, however. For example, China's embassy in Thailand put out a video with a Chinese-speaking, animated durian showing how Belt and Road was good for the pungent-smelling fruit, regarded as a delicacy in Southeast Asia and increasingly popular in China, as better roads meant it could be exported faster and cheaper. "Thanks to the Belt and Road initiative, our journey has become smoother," the durian explains. Beijing has been unable to win over Washington though, with no senior U.S. government officials appearing at the summit. The U.S. embassy in Beijing reiterated "serious concerns that China's infrastructure diplomacy activities ignore or weaken international standards and best practices related to development, labor protections, and environmental protection." The Global Times, a widely-read tabloid published by the ruling Communist Party's official People's Daily, said in a Friday editorial that the United States and other critics "have lost their abilities to use logic and common sense, and even rational thinking" when it comes to Belt and Road. "Lying, being far-fetched, and holding such opinions will not have any real influence," it said. "BRI is a groundbreaking international endeavor for the 21st century." While China has sought to sketch a clearer vision for Belt and Road, it has increasingly taken a defensive tone in saying what it isn't. On the eve of the summit, on Wednesday, the People's Daily WeChat account ran a question-and-answer piece to "verbally fight back with the facts" against critics. "Is the Belt and Road China creating a debt trap?" reads one of the questions. "The causes of a country's debt are complex. Some have problems with the fundamentals of their economy, some are old accounts left over from history," part of the answer reads. "The Belt and Road Initiative is only six years old. It's utterly unjustifiable to simply blame the long-standing debt problems of these countries on China!" China put its best foot forward as host for the summit, offering foreign journalists uncensored internet access at the venues, and at least some senior officials happily chatted with the media on its sidelines, though Xi himself took no questions at a closing news conference on Saturday. In another softer side to Belt and Road, a list of 283 deliverables reached at the summit listed more than just traditional areas like railways and ports. China will set up both Silk Road museum and library alliances, the lengthy document reveals. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Brenda Goh; Additional reporting by Yilei Sun and Tom Daly; Editing by Alex Richardson) Dozens of troops used soap and water jets at the devastated Catholic church but could not clear the stench of death that makes many Sri Lankan faithful fearful of returning to services after the horrific Easter Sunday suicide bombings. Nearly a week after the attacks on churches and hotels that left 253 dead, the navy contingent on Saturday put on a major operation with detergent and water at St Anthony's Shrine. Dozens were killed at the 18th century church. Reminders of the carnage unleashed by the jihadist bomber were everywhere -- bloodstains on the ceiling, walls pockmarked with shrapnel, and the hands of the church clock tower stuck at 8:45am, the moment the attacker blew himself up. For K.A. Francis, who has been the cleaner at St Anthony's for 16 years, seeing the destruction in the church felt like a blow to the heart. "The first time I went inside after the blast and saw the damage, on Tuesday morning, I felt this huge weight pressing down on my heart, so much pain -- like a physical ache," he told AFP. The blast was so powerful it brought parts of the wooden roof down and ripped off tiles and plaster from columns near the entrance, exposing the red brick underneath and loosening electrical wires inside the walls. - Painful return - The 55-year-old Francis has been coming to church every day since the clean-up began, trying to assist the soldiers. But nothing in his years spent sweeping and cleaning pews and carefully wiping fingerprints off the glass cases that protect the church's statues had prepared him for such stomach-churning conditions. Even as he struggled to hold back tears, Francis said he was determined to help the church in any way possible so services could resume. "My faith is even stronger after the attack," he said, adding that he believed his years of service had helped him survive an earlier heart attack. "I will work for this church as long as I am able to work," he said. Story continues - 'Prayer gives solace' - The jihadist attacks on three churches and three luxury hotels have sparked fears for the safety of the island's minority Christian community. Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, archbishop of Colombo, said Friday that services would not resume until security could be guaranteed. He was to hold a televised private address on Sunday instead and urged worshippers to pray at home. Pravin Anthony, a Catholic living near the church, told AFP he planned to stay indoors and watch the archbishop's mass on Sunday. "I dont know whats happening now," he said, adding that it was not just Christians who feel afraid. "All over the place, all people are unsafe." For many Christians, the attacks have cast a grim shadow over their daily lives, cutting off access to their community and houses of worship and forcing them to practise their faith in silence and isolation. "I used to go to this church every day before work. It made me happy," said John Livinus, whose home is a short walk from St Anthony's. "Prayer gives me solace -- when I am in the church, I feel relaxed, but now I don't feel that way because I am afraid of bombs going off," the 64-year-old said. "But I also know that I won't feel at ease again until I have returned to church." 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 Chicago is the fastest shrinking major metro area silversides The bare necessities of life User ID: 148291 04-27-2019 03:42 PM Posts: 32,437 Post: #1 Chicago is the fastest shrinking major metro area Advertisement Black and low-income residents continue to move out, but unlike other groups, a majority of African-Americans exiting the Chicago area didn't have a job when they left. By Matt Kiefer | April 26, 2019 Photo by Alan Light / Flickr The Chicago area continues to shrink as low-income residents leave the region and fewer international immigrants arrive to take their place. These are the findings of a recent analysis conducted by the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, a regional planning organization that monitors population changes as well as economic, housing and transit trends in northeast Illinois. Here are the key takeaways: Chicago is shrinking faster than any other major metro. New York and Los Angeles saw declines in 2018, but at lower rates than Chicago, which is now in its fourth straight year of population loss. Black residents continue to move out. This isnt happening in other major metros. And unlike other racial and ethnic groups, a majority of black residents exiting the Chicago area didnt have a job when they left. https://www.chicagoreporter.com/chicago-...etro-area/ ------------------------------------ Chicago Areas Population Drops For Fourth Year In A Row April 18, 2019 at 10:55 am CHICAGO (AP) New U.S. Census Bureau data shows the Chicago areas population has fallen for the fourth year in a row. Data released Thursday shows the Chicago metropolitan area lost an estimated 22,068 residents from 2017 to 2018, but the Windy City remains home to nearly 9.5 million people. https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2019/04/18/...ion-drops/ Mele Kalikimaka Chicago is the fastest shrinking major metro areaBlack and low-income residents continue to move out, but unlike other groups, a majority of African-Americans exiting the Chicago area didn't have a job when they left.By Matt Kiefer | April 26, 2019Photo by Alan Light / FlickrThe Chicago area continues to shrink as low-income residents leave the region and fewer international immigrants arrive to take their place.These are the findings of a recent analysis conducted by the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, a regional planning organization that monitors population changes as well as economic, housing and transit trends in northeast Illinois.Here are the key takeaways:Chicago is shrinking faster than any other major metro. New York and Los Angeles saw declines in 2018, but at lower rates than Chicago, which is now in its fourth straight year of population loss.Black residents continue to move out. This isnt happening in other major metros. And unlike other racial and ethnic groups, a majority of black residents exiting the Chicago area didnt have a job when they left.------------------------------------Chicago Areas Population Drops For Fourth Year In A RowApril 18, 2019 at 10:55 amCHICAGO (AP) New U.S. Census Bureau data shows the Chicago areas population has fallen for the fourth year in a row.Data released Thursday shows the Chicago metropolitan area lost an estimated 22,068 residents from 2017 to 2018, but the Windy City remains home to nearly 9.5 million people. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 499234 04-27-2019 03:46 PM Post: #2 RE: Chicago is the fastest shrinking major metro area Do they have free homes like Detroit...sans the taxes? LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 498995 04-27-2019 03:50 PM Post: #3 RE: Chicago is the fastest shrinking major metro area San Franshitco, Shitcago, Detroit, Philadelphia, NYC, Houston, Dallas! Liberal POLICIES & Over Taxation & Gun Control. The Three Factor Murder of the MegaCities! All the Liberal ShitHole MegaCities! AUSTIN Is Rapidly Turning Into a LIBERAL SHITHOLE MegaCity! San Antonio Is Going That Way! LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 498995 04-27-2019 03:56 PM Post: #4 RE: Chicago is the fastest shrinking major metro area LoP Guest Wrote: (04-27-2019 03:46 PM) Do they have free homes like Detroit...sans the taxes? Selling Old Houses for $1 Dollar and Tax Forgiveness Just to Get PEOPLE to Move to their SHITHOLE MegaCity! Little ShitHole Liberal Cities Like Gary Indiana! Buy a HOUSE For $1, To Save It, Help Steven King Save Gary! Liberal Policies MURDER The LivingShit Out Of CITIES! Selling Old Houses for $1 Dollar and Tax ForgivenessJust to Get PEOPLE to Move to their SHITHOLE MegaCity!Little ShitHole Liberal Cities Like Gary Indiana!Buy a HOUSE For $1, To Save It, Help Steven King Save Gary!Liberal Policies MURDER The LivingShit Out Of CITIES! Back to Forum Reply to This post Post New Thread BOGOTA, April 27 (Reuters) - Colombia's Trasandino oil pipeline was bombed late on Friday in western Narino province, spilling crude into a nearby stream, state-run oil company Ecopetrol SA said, the seventh time it has been attacked this year. The attack took place in Casas Frias in the municipality of Pupiales, causing oil to leak into La Pinuela water source, Ecopetrol said in a statement on Saturday. The pipeline was not in operation at the time, it said. Ecopetrol has dispatched personnel to the area and is in the process of cleaning the spill, it said. The 306-kilometer (190 miles) pipeline has capacity to transport some 85,000 barrels of crude daily to the southern port of Tumaco. Although Ecopetrol does not usually name the group responsible for attacks, oil infrastructure bombings are regularly carried out by leftist National Liberation Army (ELN) rebels, considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union. (Reporting by Helen Murphy in Bogota Editing by Matthew Lewis) BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia's Trasandino oil pipeline was bombed late on Friday in western Narino province, spilling crude into a nearby stream, state-run oil company Ecopetrol SA said, the seventh time it has been attacked this year. The attack took place in Casas Frias in the municipality of Pupiales, causing oil to leak into La Pinuela water source, Ecopetrol said in a statement on Saturday. The pipeline was not in operation at the time, it said. Ecopetrol has dispatched personnel to the area and is in the process of cleaning the spill, it said. The 306-kilometer (190 miles) pipeline has capacity to transport some 85,000 barrels of crude daily to the southern port of Tumaco. Although Ecopetrol does not usually name the group responsible for attacks, oil infrastructure bombings are regularly carried out by leftist National Liberation Army (ELN) rebels, considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union. (Reporting by Helen Murphy in Bogota; Editing by Matthew Lewis) Cryptocurrencies are a ponzi scheme and should be banned in order to protect the interests of investors, according to an Indian government official. When it comes to investor protection, the Investor Education and Protection Fund (IEPFA) has to take a stand against certain things. Against ponzi schemes, we are taking a stand. We think that cryptocurrency is a ponzi scheme and it should be banned, IEPFA CEO Anurag Agarwal said this week. Agarwal, also a Joint Secretary in the corporate affairs ministry, added that the government planned to take a stand here. While the latter has yet to green light a ban on cryptocurrencies, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has tightened the rules to discourage use of Bitcoin et al. Zebpay exits stage left Last year, Indian cryptocurrency exchange Zebpay officially commenced operations from Blockchain Island, Malta. The company had been a major player in the Indian market, once boasting an estimated five to six million investors on its platform. But problems arose when the countrys government and the RBI sanctioned a mass crackdown on crypto exchanges and trading sites and it subsequently announced that it was stopping its exchange activities. Governments and regulators around the world are waking up to the potential of blockchain-based technologies. But Malta stands out with its progressive regulations for this emerging sector, said Zebpay CEO Ajeet Khurana. Choosing Malta as our global launchpad was a no-brainer, and I would like to wholeheartedly thank Prime Minister Dr. Joseph Muscat for his visionary approach. The post Cryptocurrencies should be banned in India, government official appeared first on Coin Rivet. By Emma Rumney and Stephen Eisenhammer JOHANNESBURG/LUANDA (Reuters) - Cyclone Kenneth killed at least one person and left a trail of destruction in northern Mozambique, destroying houses, ripping up trees and knocking out power, authorities said on Friday. The cyclone brought storm surges and wind gusts of up to 280 km per hour (174 mph) when it made landfall on Thursday evening, after killing three people in the island nation of Comoros. It was the most powerful storm on record to hit Mozambique's northern coast and came just six weeks after Cyclone Idai battered the impoverished nation, causing devastating floods and killing more than 1,000 people across a swathe of southern Africa. The World Food Programme warned that Kenneth could dump as much as 600 millimetres of rain on the region over the next 10 days - twice that brought by Cyclone Idai. One woman in the port town of Pemba died after being hit by a falling tree, the Emergency Operations Committee for Cabo Delgado (COE) said in a statement, while another person was injured. In rural areas outside Pemba, many homes are made of mud. In the main town on the island of Ibo, 90 percent of the houses were destroyed, officials said. Around 15,000 people were out in the open or in "overcrowded" shelters and there was a need for tents, food and water, they said. There were also reports of a large number of homes and some infrastructure destroyed in Macomia district, a mainland district adjacent to Ibo. A local group, the Friends of Pemba Association, had earlier reported that they could not reach people in Muidumbe, a district further inland. Earlier in the week the government expressed concern that five rivers and coastal waterways could burst their banks. Mark Lowcock, United Nations under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, warned the storm could require another major humanitarian operation in Mozambique. "Cyclone Kenneth marks the first time two cyclones have made landfall in Mozambique during the same season, further stressing the government's limited resources," he said. Story continues Antonio Carabante, relief delegate with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), highlighted the risks from expected heavy rainfall. "While attention is often given to wind speed, we know from experience that it is rainfall - and subsequent flooding and landslides - that can be even more dangerous from a humanitarian perspective," he said. The IFRC said it had teams in Mozambique providing first aid and preparing for potential flooding. Mozambique's National Institute of Disaster Management (INGC) also has teams out assessing the impact. FLOOD WARNINGS Shaquila Alberto, owner of the beach-front Messano Flower Lodge in Macomia, said there were many fallen trees there, and in rural areas people's homes had been damaged. Some areas of nearby Pemba had no power. "Even my workers, they said the roof and all the things fell down," she said by phone. Further south, in Pemba, Elton Ernesto, a receptionist at Raphael's Hotel, said there were fallen trees but not too much damage. The hotel had power and water, he said, while phones rang in the background. "The rain has stopped," he added. In the days after Cyclone Idai, heavy inland rains prompted rivers in central Mozambique to burst their banks, submerging entire villages, cutting areas off from aid and ruining crops. There were concerns the same could happen again in northern Mozambique. Before Kenneth hit, the government and aid workers moved around 30,000 people to safer buildings, however authorities said that around 680,000 people were in the path of the storm. The area which bore the brunt of Kenneth is not as densely populated as the one where Idai struck. (Additional reporting by Manuel Mucari in Maputo and Alexander Winning in Johannesburg; Writing by Emma Rumney; Editing by Janet Lawrence, Alexandra Zavis and Raissa Kasolowsky) Photos: Petfinder Looking to add a new companion to the family? There are dozens of cuddly canines up for adoption at animal shelters in and around Washington, so you won't have to look far to find the perfect fit. Hoodline used data from Petfinder to power this roundup of dogs currently available for adoption near you. Read on to meet some friendly, furry locals. Hercules, Labrador retriever mix Hercules is a male Labrador retriever mix being kept at Lucky Dog Animal Rescue. Hercules is the life of the party he loves other dogs and cats. He's vaccinated, and he's been neutered. He's still working on getting house trained. From Hercules's caretaker: Hercules needs a foster or forever home! He gets along with other pups and is okay with cats. We aren't sure about kids yet, but we can always test for it! He's looking for a family who can keep me strong and help me be healthy forever. He's currently living at a shelter in Hawaii. We don't know how he ended up in this shelter, and while Hawaii is a nice place, an even nicer place would be a forever home. Read more about how to adopt Hercules at Petfinder. Molly, Labrador retriever mix Molly is a female Labrador retriever mix currently residing at Lucky Dog Animal Rescue. Her vaccinations are up to date, and she's been spayed. She's still working on getting house trained. No other dogs, please: Molly is looking for family. From Molly's caretaker: Molly is particular about her dog friends. We haven't seen her around cats yet. Molly would do best in a quiet home without other dogs and with no kids under 15. She is particular about the dogs she likes and can be reactive to some dogs. She's looking for a family who will have the patience to work with her on the things that make her nervous. She likes long walks and loves to play and cuddle with her humans! Read more about how to adopt Molly at Petfinder. Pup Daisy, boxer mix Pup Daisy is a female boxer mix currently residing at K-9 Lifesavers. Story continues Pup Daisy is ready to make friends she's happy to keep company with other dogs. Her vaccinations are up to date, but she hasn't been spayed yet. She's still working on getting house trained. From Pup Daisy's caretaker: Pup Daisy is a playful little girl anxious to learn. She would make a great pet for a family. Your new pet will require a refresher in house-training. K-9 Lifesavers strongly recommends all new adopters enroll their new pet into obedience training. This provides for an easier transition into a new home, ensures the dog remains well socialized, and helps form a bond between the dog and the new family. Read more about how to adopt Pup Daisy at Petfinder. Tootsie, shepherd mix Tootsie is a male shepherd mix currently residing at Lucky Dog Animal Rescue. Tootsie is a social butterfly he gets along well with other dogs. He's vaccinated, and he's been neutered. He's still working on getting house trained. From Tootsie's caretaker: Tootsie is a little guy who is just as cute as can be and is an absolute delight! He is settling in very well. He listens very well. He is not at all shy and greets people and other dogs with enthusiasm. He is also with kids. I have not seen him with very little ones but has enjoyed the ones he has been with. He is food motivated so should make training easy. Read more about how to adopt Tootsie at Petfinder. Lilo, shepherd mix Lilo is a female shepherd mix being cared for at K-9 Lifesavers. Her vaccinations are already up to date, and she's been spayed. She still needs some guidance on proper house training. Contact K-9 Lifesavers for information about Lilo's compatibility with kids and other pets. From Lilo's caretaker: Lilo is very sweet. She is good with others dogs, though she can be shy initially. It doesn't take her long to warm up and then she gets really playful. Lilo is heartworm positive but the cost of the treatment is being covered so don't let this deter you from meeting her. She deserves a second chance at a happy home! Read more about how to adopt Lilo at Petfinder. Leo, shepherd mix Leo is a male shepherd mix currently housed at Lucky Dog Animal Rescue. Leo is a social butterfly he's happy to keep company with other dogs. He has all of his shots, and he's been neutered. He still needs some guidance on proper house training. From Leo's caretaker: Leo loves people and is looking for a forever family to love him back! He has a lot of energy would benefit from mental and physical stimulation through frequent trips to the dog park or even doggie daycare so he can socialize with his canine friends! If his adopter works full time, Leo will need a midday dog walker and is also looking forward to attending obedience school to hone in his doggie manners and be the best dog he can be. Read more about how to adopt Leo at Petfinder. This story was created automatically using local animal shelter data, then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. By Tim Reid LOS ANGELES, April 27 (Reuters) - U.S. congressman Seth Moulton, one of 20 Democrats running for president, criticized rivals Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren on Friday, saying they were so liberal they risked handing President Donald Trump a second White House term. Moulton is a long-shot candidate at this stage. But his comments reflect a growing conflict between the Democratic Party's moderate and progressive wings that will likely be laid bare during the battle to decide who will take on Republican Trump in next year's presidential election. A representative from Massachusetts and Iraq war veteran, Moulton said Trump is a much more difficult candidate to defeat in 2020 than many Democrats realize because of his appeal to voters in the heartland who are frustrated with Washington. "We can't go too far left or we will lose middle America," Moulton said in an interview in Los Angeles, part of a tour to California and other early voting states since he announced his candidacy on Monday. He said the message of candidates such as Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren was going to make it difficult to win Congress and "take back the White House." While he agreed the wealthy ought to pay their share of taxes, Sanders and Warren wanted to "punish the rich," Moulton said, which he called un-American. Moulton, 40, built his political career on challenging the Democratic Party establishment, entering Congress in 2015 after winning a primary challenge against John Tierney, who had held the seat for 18 years. After Democrats took control of the House of Representatives in 2018, Moulton helped organize opposition to Representative Nancy Pelosis bid to become Speaker for a second time. In Friday's interview, Moulton sounded particular alarm over Sanders, a self-described "democratic socialist" elected to the Senate as an independent. Sanders has emerged as an early Democratic front-runner along with former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, who entered the 2020 field on Thursday. Story continues In some of the harshest words yet uttered by a Democratic presidential candidate against a rival, he said: "Bernie wants to change us into a socialist country, and we're not a socialist country." He added: "That's not what America is all about. I don't think that a socialist nominee is going to win the presidency. I'm a Democrat, I'm not a socialist Hes a socialist, not a Democrat." Sanders spokeswoman Sarah Ford responded to the charge by saying the candidate was doing well in the polls because he is a "champion for working people." "Senator Sanders has a long and well-known record leading the effort to create a government that works for all Americans," she told Reuters in an email. Warren proposes raising taxes on America's 75,000 richest families to pay for programs such as universal childcare and universal free public college. "The problem with some of the candidates in our party is that they're divisive in the same way that Trump has been so divisive," Moulton said. "They are pitting different parts of America against each other." He said most Americans aspire to be rich. "That's the sprit of America, that's the American dream," he said. Warren's campaign did not respond to an email for comment. Moulton said his candidacy would gain traction by focusing on foreign policy, a subject he said many Democratic rivals were afraid to address, and by running as a "change agent" against the old guard in Washington. (Reporting by Tim Reid; Editing by Frank McGurty and Sonya Hepinstall) Tata Motors Limited (NSE:TATAMOTORS) shareholders should be happy to see the share price up 27% in the last month. But if you look at the last five years the returns have not been good. You would have done a lot better buying an index fund, since the stock has dropped 48% in that half decade. View our latest analysis for Tata Motors While Tata Motors made a small profit, in the last year, we think that the market is probably more focussed on the top line growth at the moment. As a general rule, we think this kind of company is more comparable to loss-making stocks, since the actual profit is so low. For shareholders to have confidence a company will grow profits significantly, it must grow revenue. In the last half decade, Tata Motors saw its revenue increase by 4.7% per year. That's not a very high growth rate considering it doesn't make profits. Given this fairly low revenue growth (and lack of profits), it's not particularly surprising to see the stock down 12% (annualized) in the same time frame. The key question is whether the company can make it to profitability, and beyond, without trouble. It could be worth putting it on your watchlist and revisiting when it makes its maiden profit. The graphic below shows how revenue and earnings have changed as management guided the business forward. If you want to see cashflow, you can click on the chart. NSEI:TATAMOTORS Income Statement, April 27th 2019 Tata Motors is a well known stock, with plenty of analyst coverage, suggesting some visibility into future growth. Given we have quite a good number of analyst forecasts, it might be well worth checking out this free chart depicting consensus estimates. A Different Perspective We regret to report that Tata Motors shareholders are down 36% for the year. Unfortunately, that's worse than the broader market decline of 0.6%. Having said that, it's inevitable that some stocks will be oversold in a falling market. The key is to keep your eyes on the fundamental developments. Unfortunately, last year's performance may indicate unresolved challenges, given that it was worse than the annualised loss of 12% 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 deciding if you like the current share price, check how Tata Motors scores on these 3 valuation metrics. Story continues If you would prefer to check out another company -- one with potentially superior financials -- then do not miss this free list of companies that have proven they can grow earnings. 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. Daisy stuck by the body of her owner after he died during a hike in the woods, apparently from injuries sustained from a fall. Her barking ultimately led a search team to find them both. (Photo: Pierce County Sheriff's Office) Authorities in Washington state located the body of a 64-year-old man who died while hiking in the forest this week, and they say they couldnt have done it if his dog hadnt remained by his side. While this story has a sad ending, the love & loyalty of the missing mans dog Daisy will amaze you, the Pierce County Sheriffs Office tweeted . All day yesterday our deputies & Search & Rescue Teams were out searching for a missing hiker near Eatonville. While this story has a sad ending, the love & loyalty of the missing man's dog Daisy will amaze you. We never would have found him w/o her help: https://t.co/OuORgqx0dw pic.twitter.com/9GMkhd7444 Pierce Co Sheriff (@PierceSheriff) April 26, 2019 The department said in a statement on Facebook that deputies and a search and rescue team began a search for the hiker at daybreak on Thursday. In Thursdays early morning hours, the mans wife had called 911, saying that her husband and the couples dog, Daisy, had gone for a hike on Wednesday but not returned home after dark. Complicating matters, the hiker had not told anyone where he was going, but internet searches revealed he had been looking up locations near Washingtons Evans Creek area, the Tacoma News Tribune reported. The search team ultimately located the mans vehicle and began searching nearby, but didnt make any breakthroughs until an hour later, when one person heard a barking dog. The deputy followed the sound and spotted Daisy up a very steep embankment, the statement said. It then took about a 30-minute hike through thick woods and brush to get to Daisy, who was near the mans body. The man had apparently fallen and died from his injuries. The department called the outcome a very sad end to a tough search, and credited Daisys devotion to her owner with them finding his body. Story continues Without the barking of his loyal companion Daisy, we never would have located the missing man, the department wrote. It was amazing. Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. By Ulf Laessing TRIPOLI, Libya (Reuters) - Air strikes hit the Libyan capital late on Saturday as eastern forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar pursued a three-week campaign to take Tripoli and also confirmed for the first time they had dispatched a warship to an oil port. The Libyan National Army (LNA) force of Haftar, which is allied to a parallel government, has repeatedly flown air strikes since starting an offensive three weeks ago to take the capital held by the internationally recognized government. The offensive has exacerbated chaos in Libya since the toppling of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, threatens to disrupt oil supplies, boost migration across the Mediterranean to Europe and scupper U.N. plans for an election to end rivalries between rival administrations in east and west. The Tripoli forces have pushed back the LNA on the ground in some southern suburbs in recent days. A suspected drone could be heard for almost one hour and half followed by at least eight loud explosions, witnesses said. Anti-aircraft fire could be heard. Reuters was unable to establish with certainty whether an aircraft or drone was behind the strikes though residents reported a humming sound similar to unmanned aircraft. Supporters of the Tripoli government had blamed a UAE drone for previous air strikes. The United Arab Emirates and Egypt have helped Haftar, a former Gaddafi general, in the past with air strikes when he was gradually taking control of the east. Both countries have in past years provided the LNA with military equipment such as helicopters, even building an air base, previous U.N. reports have said, helping Haftar turn into a major player in Libya. OIL The air strikes came before the LNA had sent a warship to the eastern Ras Lanuf oil port, after days of unconfirmed rumors of a foreign navy ship having been sighted. LNA spokesman Ahmed Mismari told reporters his forces had sent the Alkarama patrol vessel to Ras Lanuf in Libya's key Oil Crescent region as part of a "training mission" to visit the operations room and to secure oil facilities. The LNA last year had received the patrol vessel, which was previously owned by a firm with a postal address in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), according to U.N. report monitoring violations of an arms embargo on Libya. A port engineer said the navy ship's berthing had not affected oil exports which were going normally. It was not immediately clear whether the ship had left. State oil firm NOC said several Libyan warships had used the oil port, while military personnel had also entered the nearby Es Sider terminal, located in the east of the OPEC producer in trouble since the toppling of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. It did not say who was responsible for this but the two terminals, Libya's biggest oil export ports, are controlled by the LNA. The LNA controls eastern oil ports and the county's oilfields but had technically left state firm NOC to run them as foreign buyers of oil only want to deal with NOC, which they have known for decades. NOC is based in Tripoli and has sought to stay out of the conflict between the two governments, handling the oil and gas exports, Libya's lifeline. The export proceeds are given by NOC to the Tripoli central bank which mainly works with the Tripoli government but also pays some public servants in LNA-controlled eastern Libya. Haftar is allied to a parallel administration which has set up its own state oil firm and repeatedly sought to take over oil exports from NOC Tripoli. NOC condemned in a statement the use of its facilities for military purposes without mentioning the LNA or naming who was behind the acts. "Incidents recorded by NOC include: The seizure of the Es Sider airstrip for military use, military personnel entering the port of Es Sider as well as attempts to requisition NOC tug boats, the berthing of warships in the Ras Lanuf terminal and its use by Libyan military vessels." "NOC strongly condemns the militarization of Libyan national energy infrastructure," it added. The NOC also said revenues rose to more than $1.5 billion in March, up 20 percent from the previous month, but that fighting posed a serious threat to production. "The latest outbreak of hostilities ... poses a serious threat to our operations, production and the national economy," said NOC Chairman Mustafa Sanalla. Separately, the Tripoli-based interior ministry said it had seized an Iranian ship "carrying a mysterious shipment" in Misrata, a western city allied to Tripoli forces. (Reporting by Ulf Laessing, Ayman al-Warfalli, Hesham Hajali and Ahmed Elumami; Writing by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Alexandra Hudson and Jonathan Oatis) QUITO, Ecuador (AP) An indigenous Amazon tribe in Ecuador has won an early court victory in its fight to stop oil extraction in its ancestral territory. A judge in a provincial court determined Friday that the Waorani people have a right to be consulted before any oil drilling takes place. Lawyers for Ecuador's government are vowing to appeal the decision. The ruling sets up what could be a protracted court battle that will in the meantime protect the tribe's territory. Sixteen Waorani communities claim they were deceived by workers who lavished them with gifts without making them aware they were in exchange for access to their lands. The tribe's leaders say they will "never sell our lands to the oil companies." The Air Force announced on Wednesday that it has chosen Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota to be the first base to house an operational B-21 bomber unit, as well as the formal training unit for the Raider. Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri and Dyess Air Force Base in Texas will follow, and receive B-21s as they become available, the Air Force said in a release. These three bomber bases are well-suited for the B-21, Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said in the release. We expect the first B-21 Raider to be delivered beginning in the mid-2020s, with subsequent deliveries phased across all three bases. The release said Ellsworth was chosen as the preferred location for the first of the advanced long-range strike bombers because it has enough space and existing facilities to accommodate simultaneous missions at the lowest cost, and with minimal impact across all three bases. But it will probably be 2021 before the final decision on where to base the B-21 is made. The Air Force said that decision will be made after it complies with the National Environmental Policy Act and other regulatory and planning processes as part of the services strategic basing process. Air Force announces bases that will test, maintain the new B-21 stealth bomber Last November, the Air Force announced that Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma would maintain and sustain the B-21, and Edwards Air Force Base in California would handle testing and evaluation. Robins Air Force Base in Georgia and Hill Air Force Base in Utah were also chosen to support Tinker on maintaining, overhauling and upgrading the B-21, the Air Force said last fall. The Air Force plans to gradually retire the B-1 Lancers and B-2 Spirits once enough B-21s have been delivered, the Air Force said. We are procuring the B-21 Raider as a long-range, highly survivable aircraft capable of penetrating enemy airspace with a mix of weapons, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Goldfein said in the release. It is a central part of a penetrating joint team. The Air Force will keep operating B-52 Stratofortresses at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana and Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota. The B-52 is expected to continue conducting operations through 2050 nearly a century after it first became operational in 1955. Ankara (AFP) - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan upped his war of words Saturday with French counterpart Emmanuel Macron for creating a day of remembrance for the 1915 Armenian "genocide". Macron decided in February to formally to mark the mass killings and forced deportations of Armenians by troops from the Ottoman Empire -- which preceded modern-day Turkey and sided with German and Austro-Hungary in World War I. France on Wednesday held its first "national day of commemoration of the Armenian genocide". It was the first major European country to recognise the massacres as genocide in 2001 and Macron has said his decision on a commemoration is designed to show Paris "knows how to look history in the face". But Erdogan, who has urged "political novice" Macron to "focus on massacres committed by French troops during the colonial era" on Saturday again denounced the idea. "Delivering a message to 700,000 Armenians who live in France will not save you, Monsieur Macron," Erdogan told a gathering of his ruling party in Kizilcahamam, north of Ankara. "Learn first to be honest in politics -- if you are not you cannot win," said Erdogan, adding he had told Macron his views several times face to face. Turkish officials have indicated France should look first at its own record, notably in Algeria and its role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Rwanda's current government accuses Paris of being complicit in the atrocities committed by the majority Hutu community on minority Tutsis. France has always denied the allegations and Macron announced the creation of a panel of historians and researchers earlier in April which will be tasked with investigating France's role. Some 30 countries and a number of historians recognise the 1915 massacre of between 1.2 and 1.5 million Armenians as genocide. Ankara rejects the term, saying World War I brought countless fatalities on both sides against a further backdrop of famine and civil war. Story continues Armenians commemorate the massacres on April 24 -- the day in 1915 when thousands of Armenian intellectuals suspected of harbouring nationalist sentiment and being hostile to Ottoman rule were rounded up. At the Paris commemoration, French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe declared France wanted to contribute to having the massacre internationally recognised as a crime against humanity. He added Paris "will not be impressed by any lies" on the matter nad supported "historical accuracy and reconciliation". Photo: iStock Looking for an adventure in one of the worlds great megacities, but without the hassle of flying halfway around the world? Mexico City is North Americas largest, at over 8 million people (and more than twice that number in the greater metro area). It's the oldest capital city in the Americas, rich in history and culture, and a major economic center in the region today. In addition to Aztec ruins, the city has the worlds largest single-metropolitan concentration of museums, plus extensive art galleries, concert halls and theaters. And the citys 16 boroughs and many colorful neighborhoods offer an abundance of shopping, restaurants, bars and nightlife. Whether youre trying to jet set ASAP or youre looking to plan your travels around upcoming deals, take a look at these forthcoming flights between Las Vegas and Mexico City, which we pulled from travel site Skyscanner. We've also included top-rated hotels, restaurants and attractions in Mexico City to get you excited about your next excursion. (Hoodline offers data-driven analysis of local happenings and trends across cities. Links included in the articles may earn Hoodline a commission on clicks and transactions. Prices and availability are subject to change.) Flight deals to Mexico City The cheapest flights between Las Vegas and Mexico City are if you leave on June 21 and return from Mexico on June 24. Viva Aerobus currently has tickets for $180, roundtrip. There are also deals to be had in August. If you fly out of Las Vegas on Aug. 20 and return from Mexico City on Aug. 27, Volaris can get you there and back for $207 roundtrip. Top Mexico City hotels To plan your accommodations, here are two of Mexico Citys top-rated hotels, according to Skyscanner, that we selected based on price, proximity to things to do and customer satisfaction. The Four Seasons Mexico City (Paseo de la Reforma 500) Photo: Trip by Skyscanner First there's The Four Seasons Mexico City, which has rooms for $179/night. Story continues Set in the heart of Mexico City on the busy Paseo de la Reforma, this luxury hotel has a 4.9-star rating and is close to the Monumento a los Ninos Heroes and the Monumento a los Heroes de la Independencia. The St. Regis Mexico City (Paseo de la Reforma 439) Photo: Trip by Skyscanner If you're looking to splurge on top quality, consider The St. Regis Mexico City. The hotel has a five-star rating on Skyscanner, and rooms are currently available for $255. Top picks for dining and drinking Don't miss Mexico City's food scene, with plenty of popular spots to get your fill of local cuisine. Here are two of the top-rated eateries from Skyscanner's listings. Panaderia Rosetta (Colima 179) Photo: Trip by Skyscanner If you're looking for a local favorite, head to the Panaderia Rosetta, which has an average of 4.9 stars out of 11 reviews on Skyscanner. "It's a very cozy breakfast spot with only a few bar stools for seating. Get there early to get your hands on the good pastries," wrote visitor Leila. El Moro (Eje Central Lazaro Cardenas 42) Photo: Trip by Skyscanner Another popular dining destination is El Moro, with 4.8 stars from 17 reviews. "This 1930s churreria is a must-visit," wrote reviewer Harold. Featured local attractions Mexico City is also full of sites to visit and explore. Here are two popular attractions to round out your trip, again from Skyscanner's listings. Callejon Regina (Calle Regina Centro Historico) Photo: Trip by Skyscanner The top-rated visitor attraction in Mexico City, according to Skyscanner, is the Callejon Regina. "Undoubtedly, this is one of my favorite areas of the historic center. It's the home of very trendy cafes and restaurants as well as the refuge of urban and independent artists," wrote visitor Rebeca. The Palacio de Bellas Artes (Av. Juarez) Photo: Trip by Skyscanner Finally, spend some time at The Palacio de Bellas Artes. It has 4.8 stars from 74 reviews. Inaugurated in 1934, the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City is a major cultural center where you can attend poetry readings, operas, dance recitals, art shows and more. This story was created automatically using flight, hotel, and local attractions data, then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. Brussels (AFP) - The European Union warned Saturday that US President Donald Trump's rejection of a UN treaty designed to regulate the global arms trade would hamper the global fight against illicit weapons trafficking. "A decision by the US to revoke its signature would not contribute to the ongoing efforts to encourage transparency in the international arms trade, to prevent illicit trafficking and to combat the diversion of conventional arms," said the EU's chief diplomat, Federica Mogherini. "The EU will continue to call on all states, and in particular the major arms exporters and importers, to join the Arms Trade Treaty without delay," she said. Trump said Friday the United States would not abide by the 2013 treaty aimed at regulating the global arms trade, calling it "misguided" and an encroachment on US sovereignty. The US Senate never ratified the treaty after former president Barack Obama endorsed it. Trump said he was revoking his predecessor's signature. Mogherini said the EU viewed the pact -- which seeks to regulate the flow of weapons to conflict zones -- as key to "contributing to international efforts to ensure peace, security and stability. "All 28 Member States have joined the ATT and are determined in pursuing its objectives and its universal ratification and implementation," Mogherini said. The treaty, which entered into effect in December 2014, requires member countries to keep records of international transfers of weapons and to prohibit cross-border shipments that could be used in human rights violations or attacks on civilians. While 130 countries originally signed the treaty, only 101 have ratified it. Those include major powers like France, Germany and the United Kingdom. The world's largest arms traders, the United States, China and Russia, have not joined. "The unregulated arms trade continues to cause major suffering in many parts of the world, fuelling conflicts, terrorism and organised crime," Mogherini said. Story continues "Small arms and light weapons kill around 500,000 people every year, in addition to the victims of other conventional weapons." Trump has already withdrawn the United States from the Paris Agreement on curbing Earth-warming carbon emissions, signed by most of the world's nations. He has also taken the country out of a multilateral nuclear deal on Iran, as well as a Cold War-era arms treaty with Russia. The EU has hit out at each of these moves, which have soured transatlantic ties and relations between Washington and its European allies in NATO. By Tom Daly BEIJING (Reuters) - Major European Union countries want to deal with China as a group rather than sign bilateral agreements as individual states, German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said on Friday, attending a summit in Beijing on China's Belt and Road plan. European countries have generally signalled their willingness to participate in China's programme to re-create the old Silk Road joining China with Asia and Europe. But key states like France and Germany have said China must in turn improve access and fair competition for foreign firms. Italy in March became the first major Western government to back China's initiative, even as some EU leaders cautioned Rome against rushing into the arms of Beijing. Nonetheless, Altmaier said Germany, France, Spain and the United Kingdom had shown at the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing on Friday that the EU was "in its great majority" united in its belief that "we can only implement our positions together." "In the big EU states we have agreed that we don't want to sign any bilateral memorandums but together make necessary arrangements between the greater European Economic Area and the economic area of Greater China," Altmaier said when asked if he could see Germany signing a similar bilateral agreement to Italy. A spokesman for Altmaier's office later said he was talking about general arrangements and not specifically the Belt and Road. The minister said he was encouraged by Chinese President Xi Jinping's pledge to pursue free trade, multilateralism and sustainability as part of Belt and Road. "We will take this promise seriously" and make suggestions on how to achieve these goals in both Asia and Europe, he said. China is a partner and a competitor at the same time and the EU must define its interests, Altmaier said. "And for that we need an industry strategy. For that we need our own connectivity strategy," he added. (Reporting by Tom Daly; writing by Beijing Monitoring Desk; editing by Darren Schuettler) DETROIT (AP) Prosecutors on Friday asked a judge for a six-month timeout in the criminal case against Michigan's former health director after finding a "trove of documents" related to the Flint water crisis in the basement of a state building. The 23 boxes included a file titled "phones/wiped" with the names of eight state employees, prosecutors said. "Only within the past few weeks did the People learn of a trove of documents and other materials that should have been, but was not, provided to it months or even years ago," the attorney general's office said in a court filing. It's unclear what connection, if any, the boxes have to former health chief Nick Lyon, who is charged with involuntary manslaughter in an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease. He's accused of failing to timely warn the public about the disease while Flint was using water from the Flint River in 2014-15 . The water wasn't properly treated, which caused lead to leach from old pipes, among other problems. Lyon has been ordered to trial , but Genesee County Judge Joseph Farah is considering an appeal. He planned to release a decision no later than May 17, more than three months after hearing arguments. "We were in full overdrive working to get this done," the judge told The Associated Press. But prosecutors now want him to suspend the case for six months. Farah said he'll hold a hearing on May 3. "We will vigorously oppose it. This is another stall tactic by the prosecution," said Lyon's attorney, Chip Chamberlain. Prosecutors didn't suddenly stumble upon the documents and computer hard drives. They said they were informed in February by Peter Manning, a division chief in the attorney general's office, that the boxes "were languishing in the basement of a state-owned building." Other attorneys in the office were aware of the records because they were defending state officials in civil lawsuits related to the Flint water scandal, Assistant Attorney General Daniel Ping said. Story continues They indicated that the records were duplicates of what already had been given to prosecutors, but investigators said that wasn't true, Ping wrote. The criminal investigation was led by a special prosecutor, Todd Flood, until earlier this year when Dana Nessel, the new attorney general, brought the cases into her office and formed a new team. Flood charged 15 people; so far seven have pleaded no contest to misdemeanors. This week was the fifth anniversary of Flint's switch to the Flint River. The city used the river for 18 months until fall 2015. ___ Follow Ed White at http://twitter.com/edwhiteap Panama City (AFP) - Former Panama president Ricardo Martinelli has asked to be allowed to vote from prison in next month's elections, days after authorities barred him from standing as a candidate. The 67-year-old is in jail awaiting trial on a raft of charges after being extradited from the United States last year where he fled in 2015 to evade arrest. Martinelli was put forward as a candidate for both mayor of Panama City and a national assembly seat by his Democratic Change party in elections scheduled for May 5. The election commission declared his candidacy illegal because he had not lived in the constituency for at least a year prior to the vote. In a recording broadcast by NexTv, Martinelli complained he was "illegally deprived of my freedom and of all my rights," and demanded to be able to vote -- endorsing Romulo Roux for president. Martinelli is accused of using state resources to spy on around 150 opponents during his time in office from 2009 to 2014. He is also being investigated for multiple corruption scandals. Martinelli denies all charges, and says he is a victim of "political persecution". DeSano Pizza Bakery. | Photo: Prizzi M./Yelp Visiting East Hollywood, or just looking to better appreciate what it has to offer? Get to know this Los Angeles neighborhood by browsing its most popular local restaurants, from a Filipino restaurant to a taco spot. Hoodline crunched the numbers to find the top places to visit in East Hollywood, using both Yelp data and our own secret sauce to produce a ranked list of neighborhood businesses. Read on for the results. 1. Scoops Photo: Kenji K./Yelp Scoops, a spot to score ice cream, is another top choice. Yelpers give the business, located at 712 N. Heliotrope Drive, 4.5 stars out of 2,358 reviews. The shop serves ice cream, floats, milk shakes, ice cream sandwiches and bread pudding. 2. DeSano Pizza Bakery Photo: Jo Anne G./Yelp DeSano Pizza Bakery, an Italian spot that offers pizza and more, is another much-loved neighborhood go-to, with 4.5 stars out of 1,040 Yelp reviews. Head over to 4959 Santa Monica Blvd. to see for yourself. The menu offers Neapolitan pizzas and calzones, specialty pizzas, meatballs, salads and dessert. (View the menu here.) 3. Boo's Philly Cheesesteaks Photo: Boo's Philly Cheesesteaks/Yelp Check out Boo's Philly Cheesesteaks, which has earned 4.5 stars out of 978 reviews on Yelp. You can find the New American spot, which offers cheesesteaks and sandwiches, at 4501 Fountain Ave. The restaurant specializes in cheesesteaks and hoagies. On the menu, look for the sweet pepper cheesesteak and the ham and cheese hoagie. (View the menu here.) 4. HomeState Finally, there's HomeState, a local favorite with 4.5 stars out of 873 reviews. Stop by 4624 Hollywood Blvd. to hit up the Tex-Mex breakfast and brunch spot, which offers tacos and more, next time you're in the neighborhood. The menu offers breakfast tacos, migas, Frito pie in a bag, queso, guacamole and more. (View the menu here.) This story was created automatically using local business data, then reviewed and augmented by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. Mojito. | Photo: Eric and Arisa C./Yelp Spending time in Roosevelt? Get to know this Seattle neighborhood by browsing its most popular local businesses, from a vegan cafe to a bar with burgers. Hoodline crunched the numbers to find the top places to visit in Roosevelt, using both Yelp data and our own secret sauce to produce a ranked list of neighborhood businesses. Read on for the results. 1. Mojito Topping the list is Cuban, Colombian and Venezuelan spot Mojito. Located at 7545 Lake City Way NE (between 75th Street and North 11th Avenue.), it's the highest rated business in the neighborhood, boasting 4.5 stars out of 620 reviews on Yelp. The restaurant serves up Latin American fare like vaca frita, pabellon, tres leches and more. Mojito opened in 2006. 2. An Nam Pho Photo: Megan R./Yelp Next up is Vietnamese and vegetarian spot An Nam Pho, offering sandwiches and more, situated at 6510 Roosevelt Way NE (between 66th and 65th streets). With 4.5 stars out of 196 reviews on Yelp, it's proven to be a local favorite. Order up banh mi, spring rolls, pho, bubble tea and more. The restaurant opened in 2015. 3. Urban Luxe Cafe Photo: Marie B./Yelp Cocktail bar and Mediterranean spot Urban Luxe Cafe, which offers coffee and tea and more, is another top choice. Yelpers give the business, located at 6105 Roosevelt Way NE, Suite A (between 62nd and 61st streets), five stars out of 61 reviews. Flatbreads and Turkish coffee are just some of the items on this cafe's menu. The bistro opened in 2018 and offers catering options. 4. Rain City Burgers Photo: JD H./Yelp Rain City Burgers, a beer bar that offers burgers and more, is another neighborhood go-to, with four stars out of 670 Yelp reviews. Head over to 6501 Roosevelt Way NE (between 66th and 65th streets.) to see for yourself. Rain City Burgers opened in 2010. The bar features fresh, natural beef patties and vegetarian options. Locals will want to order the Huskies Burger, Mariners Burger, Roosevelt Special and the Sonics Burger. 5. Wayward Vegan Cafe Photo: Sharon J. /Yelp Check out Wayward Vegan Cafe, which has earned four stars out of 569 reviews on Yelp. You can find the breakfast and brunch, vegan and vegetarian spot at 801 N.E. 65th St., Suite C (between North Weedin Place and North Eighth Avenue). Bite into avocado toast, quesadillas, seitan and tempeh meat substitutes and more at Wayward Vegan Cafe. The restaurant opened in 2004. This story was created automatically using local business data, then reviewed and augmented by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. Lumi Snow. | Photo: S.E./Yelp Spending time in Summerfields? Get to know this Fort Worth neighborhood by browsing its most popular local businesses, from a Hawaiian food truck to a Vietnamese eatery. Hoodline crunched the numbers to find the top places to visit in Summerfields, using both Yelp data and our own secret sauce to produce a ranked list of neighborhood businesses. Read on for the results. 1. Coco Shrimp Photo: COCO SHRIMP/Yelp Topping the list is food truck and Hawaiian spot Coco Shrimp, which offers seafood and more. Located at 4440 Basswood Blvd., it's the highest rated business in the neighborhood, boasting five stars out of 315 reviews on Yelp. 2. Lone Star Bar-B-Que Next up is Lone Star Bar-B-Que, a spot to score barbecue, situated at 3665 Western Center Blvd. With four stars out of 107 reviews on Yelp, it's proven to be a local favorite. 3. Lumi Snow Photo: BURT A./Yelp Lumi Snow, a spot to score ice cream and frozen yogurt, desserts and shaved snow, is another top choice. Yelpers give the business, located at 7355 N. Beach St., Suite 141, 4.5 stars out of 263 reviews. 4. Taste of Asia PHOTO: HANNAH H./YELP Taste of Asia, a Chinese, Japanese and Thai spot, is another neighborhood go-to, with four stars out of 269 Yelp reviews. Head over to 7420 N. Beach St., Suite 250, to see for yourself. 5. Banh Mi Viet Photo: BRANDON K./Yelp Finally, there's Banh Mi Viet, a local favorite with four stars out of 130 reviews. Stop by 7630 N. Beach St., Suite 110, to hit up the Vietnamese spot, which offers sandwiches and bubble tea, next time you're in the neighborhood. This story was created automatically using local business data, then reviewed and augmented by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. El Toro Mexican Cuisine. | Photo: Kay R./Yelp Visiting College Park, or just looking to better appreciate what it has to offer? Get to know this Indianapolis neighborhood by browsing its most popular local businesses. Hoodline crunched the numbers to find the top places to visit in College Park, using both Yelp data and our own secret sauce to produce a ranked list of neighborhood businesses. Read on for the results. 1. Steak Escape Willow Lake Photo: Steak Escape WIllow Lake/Yelp Topping the list is Steak Escape Willow Lake, a spot to score cheesesteaks and sandwiches. Located at 2440 Lake Circle Drive, it's the highest rated business in the neighborhood, boasting 4.5 stars out of 67 reviews on Yelp. 2. Einstein Bros Bagels Photo: Kara M./Yelp Next up is Einstein Bros Bagels, a spot to score bagels, situated at 3450 W. 86th St. With four stars out of 29 reviews on Yelp, it's proven to be a local favorite. 3. El Toro Mexican Cuisine Photo: Rosa C./Yelp Mexican spot El Toro Mexican Cuisine is another top choice. Yelpers give the business, located at 8840 Michigan Road, four stars out of 61 reviews. 4. McAlister's Deli McAlister's Deli, a deli that offers salads and sandwiches, is another neighborhood go-to, with four stars out of 62 Yelp reviews. Head over to 8840 N. Michigan Road, Suite 104, to see for yourself. 5. Dragon House Photo: Star J./Yelp Check out Dragon House, which has earned four stars out of 30 reviews on Yelp. You can find the Chinese spot at 2436 Lake Circle Drive. This story was created automatically using local business data, then reviewed and augmented by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. By Richard Cowan (Reuters) - At least half a dozen committees of the U.S. Congress are investigating President Donald Trump, who is refusing to cooperate with most of them since the April 18 release of the Mueller report on Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, setting up a likely court battle. The clash between Trump and the Democrats who lead the House of Representatives committees intensified after Trump framed Special Counsel Robert Mueller's findings as an exoneration, though Mueller neither charged nor exonerated the president. The report, in the view of Democrats, provided plentiful leads for their further inquiries into ties between Moscow and the 2016 Trump campaign, as well as Trump's subsequent efforts to stifle the long-running Mueller probe. Committees are also looking into Trump's still undisclosed taxes, potential conflicts of interest involving the sprawling business interests he has not divested since taking office, and other aspects of his turbulent presidency. Congressional subpoenas are being issued and contempt-of-Congress citations are being considered for administration officials who are being advised by Trump to ignore the probes. Civil enforcement actions in the courts may follow. With the 2020 election campaigns underway and casting both sides' efforts in an increasingly partisan light, here are the key congressional committees involved. HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE The committee's Democratic Chairman Jerrold Nadler is an old foe of Trump, going back years to a fight between the two New Yorkers over a large Trump real estate project in Manhattan. Nadler's panel has subpoenaed the Justice Department seeking the full, unredacted Mueller report and underlying evidence, as well as former White House counsel Don McGahn to testify in May. Committee investigators are also focused on contacts Trump's campaign had with Russia during the 2016 presidential race. Any effort to impeach Trump would likely begin in the committee. Story continues In a book he published in 2000, Trump called Nadler "one of the most egregious hacks in contemporary politics." HOUSE OVERSIGHT AND REFORM COMMITTEE Democratic Chairman Elijah Cummings' panel in February held 2019's first public hearing on Trump's many issues, taking testimony from former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, who is scheduled to report to prison next month. On April 2, the committee voted to subpoena Carl Kline, a former White House official, over a probe into security clearances granted by the administration. The White House said it told Kline to ignore the committee's subpoena. Cummings said the panel will soon vote on whether to hold Kline in contempt of Congress over the matter. Trump has filed an unprecedented lawsuit attempting to squash a committee subpoena seeking his past financial records from Mazars USA, an accounting firm long used by Trump. The administration has rebuffed a committee request for an interview with John Gore, an official who was involved in a decision to include a citizenship question in the 2020 census. Also, the White House has refused a request from the panel for Trump's top immigration aide Stephen Miller to testify. HOUSE WAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE The House tax committee, led by Democrat Richard Neal, has asked the Treasury Department's Internal Revenue Service to hand over six years of Trump's personal and business tax returns. Unlike presidents in recent decades, Trump has refused to disclose his returns, which committee Democrats want to obtain and review. Committee Republicans argue the committee's request oversteps its authority. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin did not meet an April 23 committee deadline for handing over the returns and said that a "final decision" on the request would be made by May 6. HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE The committee's chief, whom Trump has mocked as "sleazy" and "little pencil neck Adam Schiff," is examining Russian influence in U.S. politics and whether any foreign countries hold leverage over Trump, his family, his business or his associates. Like other panels, Schiff's has expressed an interest in having Mueller testify about his findings. SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE Republican Chairman Mark Warner's committee is also looking into Russia's role in influencing U.S. elections. The committee could release its findings later this year. In late March, Trump adviser Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, made a second appearance before the panel, according to congressional sources. Topics discussed in the closed-door sessions were not made public. HOUSE FINANCIAL SERVICES COMMITTEE Democratic Chairwoman Maxine Waters, whom Trump has also frequently mocked, is leading a probe into Trump's ties with Deutsche Bank AG, one of the world's largest financial institutions, as well as potential Russian money laundering through the bank. The committee oversees the financial services industry including banks. Waters has said the House should impeach Trump. (Compiled by Richard Cowan; Editing by Caroline Stauffer, Kevin Drawbaugh and James Dalgleish) By Kiyoshi Takenaka TOKYO, April 27 (Reuters) - When Crown Prince Naruhito succeeds his father as Japan's new emperor on Wednesday, he will receive the "Three Sacred Treasures" that seal his accession to the Chrysanthemum Throne. The regalia - a sword, a mirror and a jewel - symbolize the legitimacy of the emperor. They are so crucial to the royal family that Naruhito's grandfather, Emperor Hirohito, said that protecting them was a factor in his decision to surrender in World War Two. Here are details about the treasures: MYTHICAL ORIGIN According to Japanese mythology, a mirror and a jewel were used to lure the sun goddess Amaterasu Omikami from the cave where she had withdrawn, plunging the world into darkness. Later, the goddess granted to her grandson, Ninigi-no-Mikoto, the mirror and jewel as well as a sword that had been found in the body of an eight-headed serpent when she sent him to earth to rule Japan. Legend has it the treasures were passed down to Ninigi-no-Mikoto's great-grandson, Jimmu, Japan's first emperor. An eighth-century chronicle says Jimmu became emperor in the 7th century B.C., but there is doubt as to whether he ever existed. WHERE ARE THEY? The mirror, called Yata-no-Kagami, is kept at the Ise Grand Shrine, the holiest site in Japan's Shinto religion. The sword, Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi, is stored at the Atsuta Shrine. Both are in central Japan. The third treasure, a jewel called Yasakani-no-Magatama, is stored at the Imperial Palace. At Wednesday's ceremony, the new emperor will be presented with the jewel and a sword representing the original relic kept at the Atsuta Shrine. The mirror is not present at the ceremony but is inherited by the emperor as part of the royal succession. WHAT DO THEY LOOK LIKE? As sacred objects, the treasures are always encased in boxes and cannot be seen by anyone, including the emperor. Palace officials and scholars cannot see them either, so nobody knows exactly what they look like, experts say. Story continues Ancient records refer to one emperor who tried to open the box containing the jewel. White smoke came out and the terrified emperor ordered his aide to close it. However, experts have drawn clues from unearthed mirrors made in the 4th and 5th centuries, when ancestors of the emperor were gaining power in Japan. The mirror is probably made of bronze, with intricate designs engraved on one side, and bigger than typical ancient mirrors excavated, which are 20-30 cm (8-12 inches) in diameter, said Naoya Kase, an associate professor at Kokugakuin University. The jewel probably comprises of a number of comma-shaped beads used as accessories and ceremonial objects in ancient times, likely red in color, Kase said. The sword was probably not ornamental, but a practical weapon with an iron blade, he said. EMPEROR'S DECISION Emperor Hirohito said that in addition to stopping further bloodshed, his desire to keep the three treasures from falling into enemy hands was a factor in his decision to surrender in World War Two, according to an interview conducted by his aides in 1946 and published in 1990. "If the enemy had landed near the Bay of Ise, both the Ise Grand Shrine and Atsuta Shrine would have been put under enemy control immediately, without any chance of us moving the sacred treasures away," Hirohito was quoted as saying. "I found it necessary to seek peace even at the sacrifice of myself," he said. (Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka; editing by Malcolm Foster and Darren Schuettler) (Reuters) - President Donald Trump is flatly refusing to cooperate in numerous U.S. congressional probes of himself and his administration, taking a defiant stance that could trigger protracted court fights with House of Representatives Democrats. In an unprecedented step, the Trump administration has filed a lawsuit to try to block one congressional subpoena; some Trump advisers have been told to ignore other subpoenas; and a request for Trump's tax returns has not been fulfilled. In most instances, Trump risks trouble with Congress over subpoenas, "contempt of Congress" citations and civil enforcement actions in court. Trump's stonewalling has hardened since the release last week of a redacted report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller on the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Trump viewed the report as an exoneration because the special counsel did not charge him with conspiring with Russia or with obstruction of justice. However, the report detailed the Trump campaign's welcoming of help from the Russians and his later efforts to thwart Mueller's inquiry. Like other senior Democrats who are treating the Mueller report as a road map for further investigations by Congress, House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings accused the Trump administration on Wednesday of a "massive, unprecedented, and growing pattern of obstruction." [nL1N2261DE] The following are ways Trump has defied Congress in recent days: MCGAHN Don McGahn, former White House counsel, was a key witness in the Mueller probe and House Democrats want to hear from him. But the White House plans to assert executive privilege to prevent McGahn and other current and former administration officials from testifying to Congress, the Washington Post has reported. UNREDACTED MUELLER REPORT Parts of the Mueller report were redacted, leaving some questions unanswered. Democrats have issued a subpoena in an attempt to obtain the full report without redactions and evidence Mueller relied on. Attorney General William Barr must decide by May 1 whether to comply. Story continues Barr has said he has a legal obligation to keep secret information obtained from grand jury proceedings, and that other redactions were necessary to protect U.S. intelligence sources and avoid harm to ongoing law enforcement matters. TAX RETURNS Unlike past presidents in recent decades, Trump has refused to make public his tax returns, raising questions about what is in them. Democrats are probing Trump's past business dealings and possible conflicts of interest posed by his continued ownership of extensive business interests. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin failed to meet a congressional deadline on Tuesday for turning over Trump's tax returns to the House tax committee, setting the stage for a possible court battle between Congress and the administration. Mnuchin said he planned to make "a final decision" on whether to provide Trump's tax records by May 6. Legal experts said House Democrats could vote to hold Mnuchin or IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig in contempt of Congress if they ignore a subpoena, as a step toward suing in federal court to obtain the returns. MAZARS Trump on Monday filed a lawsuit attempting to keep U.S. lawmakers from obtaining his financial records. The unprecedented suit seeks to block a subpoena issued by Cummings, whose panel is looking into Trump's financial record. The subpoena sought eight years of documents from Mazars USA, an accounting firm long used by Trump to prepare financial statements. Cummings issued the subpoena after Michael Cohen, formerly Trump's personal lawyer, testified to Congress in February that Trump had misrepresented his net worth. SECURITY CLEARANCES Cummings said on Tuesday that his panel will soon vote on whether to cite a former White House official with contempt for failing to appear for questioning on allegations that the Trump administration inappropriately granted security clearances to some of the president's advisers. The White House told the Oversight Committee that it had directed Carl Kline, who was White House personnel security chief for the first two years of Trump's presidency, to ignore the committee's subpoena to appear. CENSUS AND CITIZENSHIP On Wednesday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) rebuffed the Oversight Committee's request for an interview with John Gore, an official who was involved in the administrations decision to include a citizenship question in the 2020 census. The Justice Department said Gore, a lawyer in its Civil Rights Division, would not participate in a deposition set for Thursday if he could not have a department lawyer at his side. The committee had offered to let a lawyer sit in a different room. A DOJ official said the committee had provided "no legitimate or constitutional basis for excluding a DOJ lawyer from assisting at the deposition." IMPEACHMENT Trump on Wednesday vowed to fight any effort by congressional Democrats to launch impeachment proceedings against him, promising to go to the Supreme Court, even though it plays no role in the constitutional impeachment process. FBI ABOUT-FACE Congressional Democrats said in March that a U.S. government agency was responding too slowly to their requests for documents about the Trump administration's abandonment of a plan to move the FBI. Before he became president in January 2017, Trump supported moving the Federal Bureau of Investigation headquarters to the suburbs of Washington, Democrats looking into the matter said. They said that after Trump was elected and disqualified from bidding to acquire the site for commercial development, he switched his position. Democrats have subsequently raised questions about a possible Trump conflict of interest. Trump's about-face would "block potential competitors from developing the existing property on Pennsylvania Avenue across the street from the Trump Hotel," the Democrats said. IMMIGRATION AIDE The White House refused a request for Trump's top immigration aide Stephen Miller to testify to Congress in a letter on Wednesday to the House Oversight Committee. Miller, a former Senate aide, has helped shape some of Trump's most controversial immigration policies, from the first Muslim travel ban shortly after he took office in 2017 to the child separation policy for migrants who illegally crossed the U.S.- Mexico border, both of which were rejected by courts. (Compiled by Caroline Stauffer; editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Leslie Adler) By John Stonestreet and Belen Carreno MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's Vox party, aligned to a broader far-right movement emerging across Europe, has become the focus of speculation about shifts in voting intentions since official polling for Sunday's national election ended four days ago. No single party is anywhere near securing a majority, and chances of a deadlocked parliament and a second election are high. Leaders of the five parties vying for a role in government get final chances to pitch for power at rallies on Friday evening, before a campaign characterised by appeals to voters' hearts rather than wallets ends at midnight. By tradition, the final day before a Spanish election is politics-free. Two main prizes are still up for grabs in the home straight. One concerns which of the two rival left and right multi-party blocs gets more votes. The other is how big a score Vox, the newcomer challenging the conservative PP and centre-right Ciudadanos, can get. Pollsters have been struggling to predict this and media outlets with access to unofficial soundings taken since Monday suggest Vox could do better than expected. The right's loose three-party alliance is led by the PP, the traditional conservative party that has alternated in office with outgoing Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's Socialists since Spain's return to democracy in the 1970s. The PP stands at around 20 percent, with Ciudadanos near 14 percent and Vox around 11 percent, according to a final poll of polls in daily El Pais published on Monday. Since then, however, interest in Vox - which will become the first far-right party to sit in parliament since 1982 - has snowballed. In odds published on Friday, Spain's leading betting firm Sportium said Vox's Santiago Abascal had a one-in-ten chance of becoming the next prime minister, making him the third most likely behind Sanchez and PP leader Pablo Casado. Vox was founded in 2013, part of a broader anti-establishment, far-right movement that has also spread across - among others - Italy, France and Germany. Story continues While it is careful to distance itself from the ideology of late dictator Francisco Franco, Vox's signature policies include repealing laws banning Franco-era symbols and on gender-based violence, and shifting power away from Spain's regional governments. TRENDING According to a Google trends graphic, Vox has generated more than three times more search inquiries than any other Spanish political party in the past week. Reasons could include a groundswell of vocal activist support at Vox rallies in Madrid and Valencia, and its exclusion from two televised debates between the main party leaders, on the grounds of it having no deputies yet in parliament. Conservative daily La Vanguardia called its enforced absence from Monday's and Tuesday's debates "a gift from heaven", while left-wing Eldiario.es suggested the PP was haemorrhaging votes to Vox in rural areas. Ignacio Jurado, politics lecturer at the University of York, agreed the main source of additional Vox votes would be disaffected PP supporters, and called the debate ban - whose impact he said was unclear - wrong. "This is a party polling over 10 percent and there are people interested in what it says. So we lose more than we win in not having them (in the debates)," he said For Jose Fernandez-Albertos, political scientist at Spanish National Research Council CSIC, Vox is enjoying the novelty effect that propelled then new, left-wing arrival Podemos to 20 percent of the vote in 2015. "While it's unclear how to interpret the (Google) data, what we do know is that it's better to be popular and to be a newcomer, and that Vox will benefit in some form," he said. For now, the chances of Vox taking a major role in government remain slim, however. The El Pais survey put the Socialists on around 30 percent, making them the frontrunners and likely to form a leftist bloc with Podemos, back down at around 14 percent. The unofficial soundings suggest little change in the two parties' combined vote, or the total vote of the rightist bloc. That makes it unlikely that either bloc will win a majority on Sunday, triggering horse-trading with smaller parties favouring Catalan independence - the single most polarising issues during campaigning - that could easily collapse into fresh elections. Election graphic: https://tmsnrt.rs/2ENugtw (Reporting by John Stonestreet and Belen Carreno, Editing by William Maclean) Choosing a name for a company is never easy, especially when youre bringing a new idea to market, like the farm-to-table app Arrivage. Its former name, Chef514, managed to fulfill the provincial language requirements of Quebec, Canada, which stipulates all enterprise names be in French, while also resonating in English. Five-one-four, Montreals area code, is also cinq-un-quatre after all. The new name, announced with the relaunch of the app last October, reflects the trailblazing ethos of its founder, 3. Arrivage translates to arrival in French, but the noun also carries shipment connotations. It is a key subtext for the supply-chain-shortening startup, which has farmers deliver fresh produce directly to restaurateurs. As defined by its founders, Arrivage is the art of capturing the full potential of each and every seasonal ingredient that people and the land have to offer. While it sounds grand, the setup is simple. Farmers, vintners, butchers, and other producers can create a profile on the app and list their available products with descriptions and pictures. Pricing and conditions are set at their own discretion. Chefs, who pay an annual subscription fee to join, can discover new vendors, browse products and specials, direct message each other, and place orders. One might consider it akin to Tinder for chefs and producers. But Renouf doesnt fully embrace the comparison: What we want is to connect people in long-term relationships. Photo: Arrivage. To build the network, Renouf first approached vendors who were already delivering to Montreal. Now, with at least 70 chefs and more than 200 producers using the app, shared transport is on the table. From the beginning we knew that would be necessary, says Renouf, adding other improvements and expansion plans are in the works. Currently, a pilot program is testing the feasibility of delivering to grocery stores. For now, suppliers still deliver directly to chefs. Our bread guy comes on his bike; its so cool, says Kamille Farrell, sous chef at Clairon, a contemporary Quebecois restaurant in Plateau that opened last year. Farrell and head chef Maxime Descoteaux have used the app to procure everything from sea buckthorn from Ferme Les Petites Ecores, to black walnuts and Gorria pepper from Au Fil du Vent. Its fun to just be able to browse and say, Oh, whats this? Alight, lets try to make something out of it, says Descoteaux. Huitlacoche, a truffle-like fungus that grows on corn, is one such discovery hes keen to experiment with. Story continues Photo: Katie Sehl. Working with Arrivage inspired Simon Mathys, head chef of Manitoba, an acclaimed New Canadian restaurant in Mile Ex, to bring his team on an excursion to Tresors du Fleuve to learn how to wrangle eel in Riviere-Ouelles dark, cold waters. When you see Simon Beaulieu, the fisherman, go out in cold water up to his waist at 2 a.m. because its low tide, you respect the product after that, he says. Mathys has also sponsored the native American Arikara Sunflower this summer as part of Arrivages second annual Seed Guardian program, which aims to revive the biodiversity of indigenous plants in the province. This year the initiative has partnered more than 50 seed patrons with farmers in order to mitigate the risk of growing a lesser-known crop. In other words, it switches supply with demand. Photo: Katie Sehl. Renouf, a French ex-pat, and many of the chefs involved hope the project will cultivate deeper appreciation for provenance and terroir in Quebec. We want people to discover their own terroir, says Descoteaux. To discover what the ground, the soil, has to offer here. As Mathys notes, It gives you an identity. Username: Password: or Register Back to Forum Reply to This post Post New Thread Thread Rating: 9 Vote(s) - 4.11 Average 1 2 3 4 5 Page: 1 2 3 Navy SEALs tried for months to report superior for war crimes and were told to: He Man Subscriber User ID: 426188 04-27-2019 07:50 PM Posts: 40,702 Post: #1 Navy SEALs tried for months to report superior for war crimes and were told to: Advertisement Navy SEALs tried for months to report superior for war crimes and were told to let it go "Navy SEALs who witnessed their platoon chief commit war crimes in Iraq were encouraged not to speak out, and told they could lose their jobs for reporting him at a private meeting with a superior officer last year, according to new reports from The New York Times. A confidential Navy criminal investigation obtained by the Times reveals that the commandos saw Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher stab and kill an unarmed teenage captive, shoot to death a young girl and old man, and fire indiscriminately into crowds of civilians. But when the men on Gallaghers team called a private meeting with their troop commander and demanded an investigation, they were told to stay quiet on the matter, and no action was taken. The group of seven SEALs eventually were able to force an investigation, and Chief Edward Gallagher was arrested in September on more than a dozen charges, including premeditated murder and attempted murder. The court-martial centers on a charge that Gallagher stabbed to death a teenage member of the self-proclaimed Islamic State while the unarmed youth was being treated by a medic. The trial begins May 28. If convicted, Gallagher could face life in prison. We speak with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and national correspondent for The New York Times Dave Philipps. His latest piece is headlined Navy SEALs Were Warned Against Reporting Their Chief for War Crimes" https://www.alternet.org/2019/04/navy-se...let-it-go/ My Lai Massacre: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_Massacre Making LOP Great again since 06-07-2013! If you give up on democracy, you might as well give up on everything. -- Robert Reich So glad these Navy Seals did not take no for an answer and forced the investigation. Reminds me of the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam, where the heroic efforts of the helicopter crew to stop the killing."Navy SEALs who witnessed their platoon chief commit war crimes in Iraq were encouraged not to speak out, and told they could lose their jobs for reporting him at a private meeting with a superior officer last year, according to new reports from The New York Times. A confidential Navy criminal investigation obtained by the Times reveals that the commandos saw Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher stab and kill an unarmed teenage captive, shoot to death a young girl and old man, and fire indiscriminately into crowds of civilians. But when the men on Gallaghers team called a private meeting with their troop commander and demanded an investigation, they were told to stay quiet on the matter, and no action was taken. The group of seven SEALs eventually were able to force an investigation, and Chief Edward Gallagher was arrested in September on more than a dozen charges, including premeditated murder and attempted murder. The court-martial centers on a charge that Gallagher stabbed to death a teenage member of the self-proclaimed Islamic State while the unarmed youth was being treated by a medic. The trial begins May 28. If convicted, Gallagher could face life in prison. We speak with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and national correspondent for The New York Times Dave Philipps. His latest piece is headlined Navy SEALs Were Warned Against Reporting Their Chief for War Crimes"My Lai Massacre:Making LOP Great again since 06-07-2013!If you give up on democracy, you might as well give up on everything.-- Robert Reich (This post was last modified: 04-27-2019 07:51 PM by He Man .) Izzy Registered User User ID: 421592 04-27-2019 08:07 PM Posts: 27,557 Post: #2 RE: Navy SEALs tried for months to report superior for war crimes and were told to: "Supporters rally for Navy SEAL accused of war crimes: They fed with the wrong family" snips: Recently, it was revealed that Gallagher is at the center of another investigation, the shooting death of a goat herder in Afghanistan in 2010. "Gallagher's supporters said the mission of Friday night's fundraiser was to raise money to help with his legal battle. Speakers also included Gallagher's wife Andrea, and New York's 9/11 police commissioner Bernard Kerik." "The President directed that SOC Gallagher be moved into "less restrictive confinement" and the Navy has fully complied. The terms of his pretrial restriction are reasonable and appropriate. As has been the case throughout, he has full access to his legal team and medical care, and the ability to communicate with and receive visits from his family. Chief Gallagher has a laptop computer from which he is able to work on his case with his defense team. He also has a cell phone with pre-programmed numbers from which he can call his family and legal team from his barracks room. He is able to have that phone with him all the time." https://wtvr.com/2019/04/27/they-f-ed-wi...ar-crimes/ snips:"Gallagher's supporters said the mission of Friday night's fundraiser was to raise money to help with his legal battle.and the Navy has fully complied. The terms of his pretrial restriction are reasonable and appropriate. As has been the case throughout, he has full access to his legal team and medical care, and the ability to communicate with and receive visits from his family.Chief Gallagher has a laptop computer from which he is able to work on his case with his defense team. He also has a cell phone with pre-programmed numbers from which he can call his family and legal team from his barracks room. He is able to have that phone with him all the time." He Man Subscriber User ID: 426188 04-27-2019 08:20 PM Posts: 40,702 Post: #3 RE: Navy SEALs tried for months to report superior for war crimes and were told to: Isabella Wrote: (04-27-2019 08:07 PM) "Supporters rally for Navy SEAL accused of war crimes: They fed with the wrong family" snips: Recently, it was revealed that Gallagher is at the center of another investigation, the shooting death of a goat herder in Afghanistan in 2010. "Gallagher's supporters said the mission of Friday night's fundraiser was to raise money to help with his legal battle. Speakers also included Gallagher's wife Andrea, and New York's 9/11 police commissioner Bernard Kerik." "The President directed that SOC Gallagher be moved into "less restrictive confinement" and the Navy has fully complied. The terms of his pretrial restriction are reasonable and appropriate. As has been the case throughout, he has full access to his legal team and medical care, and the ability to communicate with and receive visits from his family. Chief Gallagher has a laptop computer from which he is able to work on his case with his defense team. He also has a cell phone with pre-programmed numbers from which he can call his family and legal team from his barracks room. He is able to have that phone with him all the time." https://wtvr.com/2019/04/27/they-f-ed-wi...ar-crimes/ Figures Trump supports war criminals and psychotic mass murderers. He sure loves Putin, and the Saudi Crown prince and Kim and other war criminals and psychotic mass murderers. Trump is so pathetic and evil. Figures Trump supports war criminals and psychotic mass murderers.He sure loves Putin, and the Saudi Crown prince and Kim and other war criminals and psychotic mass murderers.Trump is so pathetic and evil. Making LOP Great again since 06-07-2013! If you give up on democracy, you might as well give up on everything. -- Robert Reich Izzy Registered User User ID: 421592 04-27-2019 08:29 PM Posts: 27,557 Post: #4 RE: Navy SEALs tried for months to report superior for war crimes and were told to: He Man Wrote: (04-27-2019 08:20 PM) Isabella Wrote: (04-27-2019 08:07 PM) "Supporters rally for Navy SEAL accused of war crimes: They fed with the wrong family" snips: Recently, it was revealed that Gallagher is at the center of another investigation, the shooting death of a goat herder in Afghanistan in 2010. "Gallagher's supporters said the mission of Friday night's fundraiser was to raise money to help with his legal battle. Speakers also included Gallagher's wife Andrea, and New York's 9/11 police commissioner Bernard Kerik." "The President directed that SOC Gallagher be moved into "less restrictive confinement" and the Navy has fully complied. The terms of his pretrial restriction are reasonable and appropriate. As has been the case throughout, he has full access to his legal team and medical care, and the ability to communicate with and receive visits from his family. Chief Gallagher has a laptop computer from which he is able to work on his case with his defense team. He also has a cell phone with pre-programmed numbers from which he can call his family and legal team from his barracks room. He is able to have that phone with him all the time." https://wtvr.com/2019/04/27/they-f-ed-wi...ar-crimes/ Figures Trump supports war criminals and psychotic mass murderers. He sure loves Putin, and the Saudi Crown prince and Kim and other war criminals and psychotic mass murderers. Trump is so pathetic and evil. Yep, Trump's kind of guys, Gallager and the Crown Prince both love beheading people, Gallager was in a photo holding a man's head. CP just had 37(?) men beheaded and I guess because it was during the Christian Holy Days one of the men was crucified. Yep, Trump's kind of guys, Gallager and the Crown Prince both love beheading people, Gallager was in a photo holding a man's head.CP just had 37(?) men beheaded and I guess because it was during the Christian Holy Days one of the men was crucified. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 442324 04-27-2019 08:51 PM Post: #5 RE: Navy SEALs tried for months to report superior for war crimes and were told to: You slugs have him guilty before he ever steps into a courtroom. You have no clue what you're talking about. Yet somehow, you managed to inject your TDS into the conversation. When Gallagher gets off because this has all been proven to be bullshit, what will you say then? LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 499227 04-27-2019 08:56 PM Post: #6 RE: Navy SEALs tried for months to report superior for war crimes and were told to: LoP Guest Wrote: (04-27-2019 08:51 PM) You slugs have him guilty before he ever steps into a courtroom. You have no clue what you're talking about. Yet somehow, you managed to inject your TDS into the conversation. When Gallagher gets off because this has all been proven to be bullshit, what will you say then? They will have other fake BS threads saying other BS They will have other fake BS threads saying other BS LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 494311 04-27-2019 09:05 PM Post: #7 RE: Navy SEALs tried for months to report superior for war crimes and were told to: He Man Wrote: (04-27-2019 08:20 PM) Trump is so pathetic and evil. Irish Graham lop guest User ID: 414816 04-27-2019 09:34 PM Post: #8 RE: Navy SEALs tried for months to report superior for war crimes and were told to: If he was of sound mind, then he was doing what he knew to be right. If not, then he should be allowed to recover. War is hell. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 461633 04-27-2019 09:35 PM Post: #9 RE: Navy SEALs tried for months to report superior for war crimes and were told to: The entire US Congress, all current and previous administrations as well as all top military officers should be convicted of various war crimes, going back decades.. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 414816 04-27-2019 09:53 PM Post: #10 RE: Navy SEALs tried for months to report superior for war crimes and were told to: We only try those who are defeated. History shows this to be true. He Man Subscriber User ID: 426524 04-28-2019 12:26 AM Posts: 40,702 Post: #11 RE: Navy SEALs tried for months to report superior for war crimes and were told to: LoP Guest Wrote: (04-27-2019 08:51 PM) You slugs have him guilty before he ever steps into a courtroom. You have no clue what you're talking about. Yet somehow, you managed to inject your TDS into the conversation. When Gallagher gets off because this has all been proven to be bullshit, what will you say then? The US military is not well known for providing justice to the psychotic killers among their ranks. In the My Lai massacre over 500 vietnamese old men, women and children were slaughtered and only one person was found guilty and that was a close call. Then he got off with a very light sentence. Three years for killing 22 - mostly women and children. (Lt.) "Calley was found guilty of personally murdering 22 civilians and sentenced to life imprisonment, but his sentence was reduced to 20 years by the Court of Military Appeals and further reduced later to 10 years by the Secretary of the Army. Proclaimed by much of the public as a scapegoat, Calley was paroled in 1974 after having served about a third of his 10-year sentence." https://www.history.com/this-day-in-hist...ai-murders In this case there are so many witnesses and supporting evidence but he may get off lightly of found innocent. He may actually be innocent. If he stands trial and get off with no charges, I will have to see the details before I decide how I will feel about it. Based on the media accounts he seems to be fairly vicious. The US military is not well known for providing justice to the psychotic killers among their ranks. In the My Lai massacre over 500 vietnamese old men, women and children were slaughtered and only one person was found guilty and that was a close call. Then he got off with a very light sentence. Three years for killing 22 - mostly women and children.(Lt.) "Calley was found guilty of personally murdering 22 civilians and sentenced to life imprisonment, but his sentence was reduced to 20 years by the Court of Military Appeals and further reduced later to 10 years by the Secretary of the Army. Proclaimed by much of the public as a scapegoat, Calley was paroled in 1974 after having served about a third of his 10-year sentence."In this case there are so many witnesses and supporting evidence but he may get off lightly of found innocent.He may actually be innocent. If he stands trial and get off with no charges, I will have to see the details before I decide how I will feel about it. Based on the media accounts he seems to be fairly vicious. Making LOP Great again since 06-07-2013! If you give up on democracy, you might as well give up on everything. -- Robert Reich (This post was last modified: 04-28-2019 12:27 AM by He Man .) NormalIsSubjective User ID: 497785 04-28-2019 12:30 AM Posts: 22,323 Post: #12 RE: Navy SEALs tried for months to report superior for war crimes and were told to: He Man Wrote: (04-27-2019 08:20 PM) Isabella Wrote: (04-27-2019 08:07 PM) "Supporters rally for Navy SEAL accused of war crimes: They fed with the wrong family" snips: Recently, it was revealed that Gallagher is at the center of another investigation, the shooting death of a goat herder in Afghanistan in 2010. "Gallagher's supporters said the mission of Friday night's fundraiser was to raise money to help with his legal battle. Speakers also included Gallagher's wife Andrea, and New York's 9/11 police commissioner Bernard Kerik." "The President directed that SOC Gallagher be moved into "less restrictive confinement" and the Navy has fully complied. The terms of his pretrial restriction are reasonable and appropriate. As has been the case throughout, he has full access to his legal team and medical care, and the ability to communicate with and receive visits from his family. Chief Gallagher has a laptop computer from which he is able to work on his case with his defense team. He also has a cell phone with pre-programmed numbers from which he can call his family and legal team from his barracks room. He is able to have that phone with him all the time." https://wtvr.com/2019/04/27/they-f-ed-wi...ar-crimes/ Figures Trump supports war criminals and psychotic mass murderers. He sure loves Putin, and the Saudi Crown prince and Kim and other war criminals and psychotic mass murderers. Trump is so pathetic and evil. The US has been supporting war criminals and psychos for decades. Why would Trump be any different? The US has been supporting war criminals and psychos for decades.Why would Trump be any different? He Man Subscriber User ID: 426524 04-28-2019 12:37 AM Posts: 40,702 Post: #13 RE: Navy SEALs tried for months to report superior for war crimes and were told to: NormalIsSubjective Wrote: (04-28-2019 12:30 AM) He Man Wrote: (04-27-2019 08:20 PM) Figures Trump supports war criminals and psychotic mass murderers. He sure loves Putin, and the Saudi Crown prince and Kim and other war criminals and psychotic mass murderers. Trump is so pathetic and evil. The US has been supporting war criminals and psychos for decades. Why would Trump be any different? Trump goes much to further to pander to psychotic despots then any POTUS in history. Trump is likely to support this current military mass killer just because he is evil like that. Trump goes much to further to pander to psychotic despots then any POTUS in history. Trump is likely to support this current military mass killer just because he is evil like that. Making LOP Great again since 06-07-2013! If you give up on democracy, you might as well give up on everything. -- Robert Reich NormalIsSubjective User ID: 497785 04-28-2019 12:37 AM Posts: 22,323 Post: #14 RE: Navy SEALs tried for months to report superior for war crimes and were told to: LoP Guest Wrote: (04-27-2019 08:51 PM) You slugs have him guilty before he ever steps into a courtroom. You have no clue what you're talking about. Yet somehow, you managed to inject your TDS into the conversation. When Gallagher gets off because this has all been proven to be bullshit, what will you say then? I'll say he's probably got something on somebody higher up the food chain. If he doesn't he'll be the sacrificial goat under the bus. The Vietnam lessons still haven't sunk in: Kill Anything That Moves The Real American War in Vietnam by Nick Turse Based on classified documents and first-person interviews, a startling history of the American war on Vietnamese civilians Winner of the Ridenhour Prize for Reportorial Distinction Americans have long been taught that events such as the notorious My Lai massacre were isolated incidents in the Vietnam War, carried out by just a few bad apples. But as award-winning journalist and historian Nick Turse demonstrates in this groundbreaking investigation, violence against Vietnamese noncombatants was not at all exceptional during the conflict. Rather, it was pervasive and systematic, the predictable consequence of official orders to kill anything that moves. Drawing on more than a decade of research into secret Pentagon archives and extensive interviews with American veterans and Vietnamese survivors, Turse reveals for the first time the workings of a military machine that resulted in millions of innocent civilians killed and wounded-what one soldier called a My Lai a month. Devastating and definitive, Kill Anything That Moves finally brings us face-to-face with the truth of a war that haunts America to this day... https://www.amazon.ca/Kill-Anything-That...1250045061 I'll say he's probably got something on somebody higher up the food chain.If he doesn't he'll be the sacrificial goat under the bus.The Vietnam lessons still haven't sunk in:Kill Anything That MovesThe Real American War in Vietnamby Nick TurseBased on classified documents and first-person interviews, a startling history of the American war on Vietnamese civiliansWinner of the Ridenhour Prize for Reportorial DistinctionAmericans have long been taught that events such as the notorious My Lai massacre were isolated incidents in the Vietnam War, carried out by just a few bad apples. But as award-winning journalist and historian Nick Turse demonstrates in this groundbreaking investigation, violence against Vietnamese noncombatants was not at all exceptional during the conflict. Rather, it was pervasive and systematic, the predictable consequence of official orders to kill anything that moves.Drawing on more than a decade of research into secret Pentagon archives and extensive interviews with American veterans and Vietnamese survivors, Turse reveals for the first time the workings of a military machine that resulted in millions of innocent civilians killed and wounded-what one soldier called a My Lai a month. Devastating and definitive, Kill Anything That Moves finally brings us face-to-face with the truth of a war that haunts America to this day... http://americanempireproject.com/kill-an...hat-moves/ NormalIsSubjective User ID: 497785 04-28-2019 12:45 AM Posts: 22,323 Post: #15 RE: Navy SEALs tried for months to report superior for war crimes and were told to: He Man Wrote: (04-28-2019 12:37 AM) NormalIsSubjective Wrote: (04-28-2019 12:30 AM) The US has been supporting war criminals and psychos for decades. Why would Trump be any different? Trump goes much to further to pander to psychotic despots then any POTUS in history. Trump is likely to support this current military mass killer just because he is evil like that. No he doesn't; there are Presidents, from both parties, responsible for the deaths of millions and misery for countless more. He's just too stupid to be as diplomatic about the mayhem as his predecessors. No he doesn't; there are Presidents, from both parties, responsible for the deaths of millions and misery for countless more.He's just too stupid to be as diplomatic about the mayhem as his predecessors. Advertisement Back to Forum Reply to This post Post New Thread Sri Lankan soldiers stand guard under the rain at St. Anthony's Shrine in Colombo - AFP The British government is advising against all but essential travel to Sri Lanka after reviewing threat levels in the wake of the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office changed its official advice to UK nationals upgraded its travel advice as a temporary measure on Thursday afternoon. Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary, said: Following the horrific attacks on Easter Sunday, and the ongoing Sri Lankan security operation, I have received updated advice from the Foreign Office and decided to update the travel advice to British nationals to Sri Lanka to advise against all but essential travel. There are believed to be around 8000 British visitors currently in Sri Lanka, as well as around 10,000 expats residents there. Officials said visitors should consult with their travel providers and insurers to arrange a timely departure from the island. They not advising tourists to leave immediately because of congestion at the islands main international airport, where it is currently taking up to four hours for travellers to pass customs and passport control. Civil servants are consulting with the insurance industry, travel operators and airlines to facilitate the evacuation. The FCO's announcement came shortly after the US Embassy in Sri Lanka tweeted a warning that people should avoid "places of worship" in the island nation over the weekend because of possible extremist attacks. The embassy in Colombo sent the tweet after security was stepped up in the capital city and elsewhere in the country. The tweet read: "Sri Lankan authorities are reporting that additional attacks may occur targeting places of worship. Avoid these areas over the weekend, starting tomorrow, April 26th through Sunday, April 28th. Continue to remain vigilant and avoid large crowds." (Corrects to 24th consecutive weekend in first paragraph, not 25th. Update number of protesters) PARIS, April 27 (Reuters) - French police fired tear gas to push back protesters who tried to march towards the European Parliament building in the eastern city of Strasbourg on the 24th consecutive weekend of protests against President Emmanuel Macron's policies. The so-called "yellow vests" protesters were back on the streets across France two days after Macron outlined policy proposals including tax cuts worth around 5 billion euros ($5.58 billion) in response to the protests. The protests, named after motorists' high-visibility jackets, began in November over fuel tax increases but has morphed into a sometimes violent revolt against politicians and a government they see as out of touch. Many in the grassroots movement, which lacks a leadership structure, have said Macron's proposals did not go far enough and most of what he announced lacked details. Around 2,000 protesters gathered near the seat of European Union institutions in Strasbourg, where organizers had planned make to the protest international by symbolically marching to the parliament building, a month ahead of EU-wide parliamentary elections. Previous yellow vests protests in Strasbourg have mostly been peaceful. Fearing violence and destruction of public buildings that have sometimes marred the demonstrations, authorities had banned protests and barricaded the neighborhood where the parliament and other EU institutions are located. A Reuters witness said police fired several canisters of tear gas to push back the demonstrators. French television showed some hooded protesters throwing back stones and other objects at the police. In the capital Paris, which has witnessed some of the worst violence in past protests, Saturday's demonstration, jointly organized with hard-left trade union confederation CGT, was mostly calm. Protesters also gathered in Lyon and Bordeaux. Story continues French interior ministry said around 5,500 protesters were taking part in yellow vests marches across France by 1200 GMT, compared with 9,600 a week earlier. The number of protesters have dwindled from highs of over 300,000 nationwide in November to around 30,000 over the past weeks, according to government estimates. ($1 = 0.8969 euros) (Reporting by Gilbert Reilhac in Strasbourg, Catherine Lagrange in Lyon, Claude Canellas in Bordeaux, Simon Carraud and Bate Felix in Paris Editing by Clelia Oziel) BEIJING, April 27 (Reuters) - A full-scale assault against militants in Syria's Idlib province "is not expedient now" and civilians' security needs to be taken into account, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday. Speaking in Beijing, Putin said Russia would work with the Syrian opposition to finalize the make-up of a constitutional committee, part of efforts to secure a political settlement of the conflict. Russia has helped forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad take back most of the country in the eight-year-old war but fighting continues. (Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin Writing by Olzhas Auyezov Editing by Andrew Heavens) NEW YORK (AP) New York's Madison Avenue was awash with live Indian music, food and dancing as it hosted the city's annual Sikh (SEEK') Day Parade. Saturday's celebration came with an effort to raise funds for a national TV ad campaign aimed at combating what organizers say is the bullying of Sikh children, especially those wearing the turban that is their traditional headwear. The hourslong Manhattan parade is hosted by the New York-based Sikh Cultural Society. The Sikh religion was born more than 500 years ago in India's Punjab region. After a 1984 genocide, many left. In New York, Sikhs are most visible in the borough of Queens, though the parade was held in Manhattan. Former Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn's trial, which was expected to begin in September, will be delayed, local media said Saturday, hinting that it may not start this year. The 65-year-old tycoon, currently on bail, is preparing for his trial on four charges of financial misconduct ranging from concealing part of his salary from shareholders to syphoning off Nissan funds for his personal use. The Tokyo District Court had proposed to start his trial in September during its pre-trial meetings with his defence lawyers and prosecutors, news reports said, quoting unnamed sources. But the court told the lawyers and prosecutors on Friday that it had retracted the plan without proposing a new time frame, Kyodo News said, adding that the move could mean the trial will not start this year. The court also decided not to separate the trial for Ghosn, his close aide Greg Kelly and Nissan -- all indicted on the charge of violating the financial instruments law by underreporting Ghosn's compensation, according to Kyodo. His lawyers have so far demanded he be tried separately from Nissan and have voiced fears he will not receive a fair trial. The Sankei Shimbun also said prosecutors gave up filing an appeal to the Supreme Court against his bail, a move to erasing a chance of his return to jail unless he is arrested again on fresh charges. Immediate confirmation of the news reports was not available. On Thursday, Ghosn exited his Tokyo detention centre after accepting bail of $4.5 million under strict conditions, including restrictions on seeing his wife. His case has captivated Japan and the business community with its multiple twists and turns, as well as shone a spotlight on the Japanese justice system which critics say is overly harsh. Ghosn denies all the charges, with a spokesperson for the executive saying on Monday he would "vigorously defend himself against these baseless accusations and fully expects to be vindicated". In a statement hours after his release, Ghosn said: "No person should ever be indefinitely held in solitary confinement for the purpose of being forced into making a confession." The dramatic case has thrown international attention onto the Japanese justice system, derided by critics as "hostage justice" as it allows prolonged detention and relies heavily on suspects' confessions. London (AFP) - Prince Harry and his wife Meghan's baby will be a girl called Diana born at home early next month -- or so say the odds being offered by British bookmakers. As royal watchers await the couple's first baby, punters are having a flutter on its gender, whether it will have Harry's ginger hair, when it will be born, and, of course, the name. It should be an even chance, but betting firms are convinced the baby, who will be seventh in line to the throne, will be a girl. Bookmakers William Hill priced the odds on a girl as low as 2/5, which means betting 5 to win 2 implying a five in seven chance of it being the correct outcome. But punters have still been piling on big money, forcing the chain to suspend taking bets on April 9. "In a normal market, that means people know," said William Hill spokesman Rupert Adams, adding that the only other possibility was that gamblers were simply following other people's bets, assuming the secret was out. "I would be astonished if it's not a girl," he said. The odds on a red-haired baby are 3/1. - Diana, LeBron or Genghis? - The name of Harry's mother, tragically killed in a 1997 car crash, has captivated punters. "Diana is the red-hot favourite. I don't understand it at all. I wouldn't want to be reminded about it every morning. Sixty percent of all name bets are on Diana," said Adams. Bookmakers Paddy Power have Diana at 3/1, Grace 7/1, Alice 10/1, Isabella 12/1, Victoria and Alexandrina at 14/1 and Elizabeth at 20/1. Boys' names start with Arthur at 12/1, Charles 14/1, James and Edward at 16/1, Alexander 20/1 and Jacob and Francis at 25/1. Considered more unlikely names are Barry, Tyrone, Rhys and Theresa at 250/1; and Genghis, Thor, Buddha, Muhammad, Jesus and Donald at 500/1. Several bets have been placed on the names LeBron and Chardonnay, said Adams. Besides Diana, punters have increasingly been backing Isabella, Rose and Grace. Story continues "We've seen a flood of bets both online and in shops on the royal baby to be named Isabella, forcing us to slash the price," said Paddy Power spokeswoman Amy Jones. The children of Harry's brother Prince William and his wife Kate are called Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis. For each of them, "the final favourite when we closed the book has been correct", said Adams. Most bets are placed on the name, after the birth has been announced. - Clooneys, Beckhams as godparents? - Bookies seem certain the baby will be born in May, and at the couple's new Frogmore Cottage home near Windsor Castle, west of London. "We're now as short as 1/5 for the baby to be born next week. We're 7/2 for it to arrive over the weekend. May looks by the far the most likely now," Ladbrokes spokesman Alex Apati told AFP. The average royal baby bet is around 4 ($5.20, 4.65 euros). The whole market is expected to turn over around 5 million for the betting industry, said Adams. Punters can bet on whether the new arrival or its one-year-old cousin Louis, will get the best school results, get married first and even go bald first. Bets are also being offered on the baby's godparents, with George and Amal Clooney, David and Victoria Beckham, Serena Williams, Elton John, Priyanka Chopra and Oprah Winfrey among the celebrity contenders. Worker activists at Google held a town hall on Friday where they alleged that the company regularly retaliates against employees who speak out about workplace problems and announced plans for a company-wide day of action on 1 May. The meeting, livestreamed for Google employees in offices around the world, was announced after two of the organizers of the November 2018 global walkout circulated a letter internally alleging they were being punished for their activism. The two employees, Meredith Whittaker and Claire Stapleton, provided further details of their cases during the Friday event. Their statements, along with anonymous reports of retaliation of 11 other Google employees, were published in internal documents seen by the Guardian. I didnt walk out because Im against Google, I walked out because Im for it because I wanted to make it better, Stapleton said in her written statement. Im not speaking out now against Google Im speaking up for all the people who have been too afraid to tell their stories and I understand that fear. The group subsequently published an internal document with a new set of demands, which include a transparent, open investigation of HR and its abysmal handling of employee complaints relating to working conditions, discrimination, harassment and retaliation. The document notes that even Uber undertook an independent investigation of workplace issues, a reference to the ride-hail companys response to the publication of a viral blogpost alleging gender discrimination and sexual harassment. Other demands include a public response from Google co-founder Larry Page, and that Google meet the demands that were issued for the November walkout. Google has had six months to meet [those] demands; in that time, theyve partially met only one of them, the document states. Google seems to have lost its mooring and trust between workers and the company is deeply broken. The company has no clear direction and is just progressing from crisis to crisis lately. Story continues Fridays meeting is the latest manifestation of employee discontent at Google, which has faced worker-led protests over issues ranging from the ethics of performing work for the US Department of Defense to the handling of sexual harassment claims and expansive use of subcontracted workers. Related: Google staff condemn treatment of temp workers in 'historic' show of solidarity On Monday, an anonymous Google employee filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) alleging that their employer had violated the federal law prohibiting retaliation against workers engaging in protected concerted activity. The allegation was first reported by Bloomberg. And, on Tuesday, a former Google research scientist published a New York Times op-ed detailing his efforts to blow the whistle on the companys controversial plan to create a censored search engine for China. The former employee, Jack Poulson, wrote that after he resigned in protest, he was given the following parting advice during his exit interview: We can forgive your politics and focus on your technical contributions as long as you dont do something unforgivable, like speaking to the press. On Thursday, Google published a blogpost announcing a number of updates to workplace policies related to reporting misconduct and investigations, following an initial round of reforms implemented after the November walkout. The commitments we made in November arent just about changing policies or launching new programs, wrote Melonie Parker, global director of diversity, equity and inclusion. We want every Googler to walk into a workplace filled with dignity and respect. Google did not respond to specific questions about Fridays meeting. A spokeswoman said in a statement: We prohibit retaliation in the workplace and publicly share our very clear policy. To make sure that no complaint raised goes unheard at Google, we give employees multiple channels to report concerns, including anonymously, and investigate all allegations of retaliation. Whittaker, a 13-year Google employee and prominent researcher focusing on ethics in artificial intelligence, said in her statement that the company had supported her work until after the November walkout, when things suddenly changed. At that point, she was told she would have to leave the companys cloud computing division and find another organization within the company, according to the statement. The transfer was moving ahead until April, when she helped organize a public letter calling for the removal of a rightwing thinktank leader with a history of making anti-LGBT and anti-immigrant statements. Shortly thereafter, the transfer was killed, she alleged, and her manager informed her that she would have to move into a new role. In the role now open to me, I would be tasked with administrative work balancing the open source budget and coordinating Season of Documentation, and would serve as a Google liaison to the Linux Foundation and other standards organizations, she wrote. The implication was that my choice was to quit or take this new role. Stapleton, a nearly 12-year Google employee, said that Google has been making an example of her since Monday, when she alleged internally that the company had attempted to demote her and pushed her to take an unnecessary medical leave in the months since the walkout. Theyve sent emails to thousands of my colleagues, theyve spoken in company meetings saying there is no truth to my claims, she said in her written statement. Its an attempt to destroy my character and my career and to intimidate others from speaking out. Theyre making an example of me and Im afraid its working; my colleagues are scared. My question for them is: why in the world would I subject myself to that if this isnt true? Why would I volunteer for this public humiliation if I didnt believe something deeply wrong had happened here? Pemba (Mozambique) (AFP) - Heavy rains from a powerful cyclone lashed northern Mozambique Saturday, sparking fears of flooding as the death toll rose to five, the prime minister announced on Saturday. "Uptil now we have had five deaths," Carlos Do Rosario told reporters in Pemba, the capital of the northern province of Cabo Delgado which was ravaged by Cyclone Kenneth. The earlier toll given was one -- a death caused by a falling coconut tree in Pemba. The Category Three storm on the hurricane scale struck after swiping the Comoros islands. It made landfall on Friday. "Tropical Cyclone Kenneth has now 'stalled' over Cabo Delgado ... where it is expected to bring heavy rains in the coming days," said OCHA, the UN's humanitarian coordination office, adding that it would remain in the area "for at least two days." "The stalling of the weather system is likely to cause significant flooding in Cabo Delgado, as well as high rainfall in southern Tanzania, over the next 10 days," it warned. Mozambique's emergencies agency, the INGC, reported severe flooding, mudslides and widespread power outages. It said Kenneth -- which has now receded into a tropical depression -- had damaged or destroyed 3,300 homes while about 18,000 people were housed in emergency shelters. On Saturday morning, emergency workers including Brazilian soldiers, OCHA personnel and officials from the UN children's agency UNICEF, arrived in Pemba to assess the damage. "The INGC tell us to come here to make an evaluation of the situation," Captain Kleber Castro of the Brazil rescue service told AFP on the tarmac at Pemba airport. "Pemba had a minimal disaster impact. But we really need to know about the cities with 90 percent damage. Now we look for some aircraft and evaluate all the locations," he said. On the tourist island of Ibo, home to 6,000 people, 90 percent of homes had been flattened, according to a spokesman for the INGC, Antonio Beleza. Story continues "It looks like the island has been bombed... It is biblical," said Kevin Record, a South African tour operator and owner of a hotel on Ibo. The work of rescuers has been hamstrung by damaged infrastructure, including communications. "A lot of people can be impacted in the region where the flooding is large and widespread," said Castro. "The most difficult thing is transportation -- we don't have helicopters yet. We need a lot of support, if you can help us we need support from helicopters." Communities in central Mozambique are still reeling from Cyclone Idai, which hit on the night of March 14-15, causing killer floods that swept away homes, roads and bridges. The storm also smashed into Zimbabwe and Malawi. In the three countries, more than a thousand lives were lost, and damage is estimated at around $2 billion (1.8 billion euros). Photo by Sued Sheila Sarmento from Flickr Theres more to being part of a community than simply where you live. Hoodline examined the city's past week on Twitter, particularly those accounts that are devoted to community life things like parks, animals, healthy living and education. We wanted to reveal and report on the things that inspired your social media conversations on those topics. Parks Hoodline helps you keep up with news and events from the city's parks and trails. Tampa witnessed essentially the same volume of Twitter conversations on the subject of parks last week compared with the past week. But users in the city were still active on Twitter, amplifying tweets about parks. Here's a case in point, by @tampaparksrec: We are extremely excited to offer new recreational programming opportunities to the #Wellswood neighborhood. This newly renovated activity center will come to be the new hub of youth and adult activity in the community. https://t.co/OO7S7xFBMW Tampa Parks & Recreation (@tampaparksrec) In all, the tweet got eight local retweets and 15 total retweets, quotes and favorites. Schools The quality of the schools matters to everyone in the city, regardless of whether they have kids in the education system. Some local tweets got attention locally. Here's an example, from @HillsboroughSch: CONGRATS I Meet the new HCPS security officers! 64 men and woman took the oath to serve and protect our schools! https://t.co/UM3ANhEcWK Hillsborough Schools (@HillsboroughSch) As of this publication, the tweet racked up seven local retweets, four local quotes and 228 total retweets, quotes and favorites. Then there was this tweet from @AchievementSch on Thursday: We arent just an Achievement School-our students are achievements! In this weeks Why #WeAchieveTogether @gibsontondogs Teacher Catherine Gilmore says her students are her & helps them succeed w/data & by setting measurable goals. @HillsboroughSch https://t.co/Ygt3lY1DAr https://t.co/AckfmfnWuZ Achievement Schools (@AchievementSch) All told, the tweet received three local quotes and 10 total retweets, quotes and favorites. Story continues Health Here are some of last week's can't-miss tweets on the topic of public health in the city. Tampa saw only a slight change in Twitter conversations around health last week compared with the week before. One was this tweet from @NM_Seminars on Friday: TAKE 30% OFF ALL #Southeast Trainings! Gottman Levels 1-3 EFT Private Practice Counseling Online and & More! Go to https://t.co/2SP1GkquIr! Coupon Code: NMS30 #nms #lmft #mft #therapists #counselors #cehours #sale #spring #gottmanmethod #eft #pp #online #couples NatiMarriageSeminars (@NM_Seminars) How popular was it? The tweet garnered two local retweets and four total retweets, quotes and favorites. Additionally, @BayCare tweeted this Thursday: Today we celebrated the passing of the #ACEKidsAct with @USRepKCastor, who championed the bipartisan bill, and and our St. Josephs Childrens Hospital patient advocates who inspired this legislation that will improve care for medically complex kids. @speaknowforkids https://t.co/lu180WLBmZ BayCare (@BayCare) How popular was it? The tweet garnered four local retweets, four local quotes and 31 total retweets, quotes and favorites. This story was created automatically using data from Twitter, then reviewed by an editor before publication. Click here for more about how and why Hoodline is automating local news. Got thoughts about what we're doing? Go here to share your feedback. 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 Zelensky - Regarding the statements of Russian President Putin LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 498469 04-27-2019 11:26 PM Post: #1 Zelensky - Regarding the statements of Russian President Putin Advertisement https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_f...7211555008 First, I would not advise the Russian authorities to waste time trying to seduce Ukrainian citizens with Russian passports. Perhaps there is someone, and is still under the influence of propaganda. Perhaps someone will do it for the sake of earnings or hiding from criminal investigations. But the difference between Ukraine, in particular, is that we, Ukrainians, have freedom of speech in our country and free media, and the Internet. Therefore, we know very well what the Russian passport actually gives. It's the right to be arrested for peaceful protest. It is the right not to have free and competitive elections. This is the right to forget about the existence of natural human rights and freedoms. Ukraine will not give up its mission to be an example of democracy for post-Soviet countries. And part of this mission will be to provide protection, asylum and Ukrainian citizenship to all who are willing to fight for freedom. We will provide shelter and assistance to all-all who are willing to fight side by side with us for our and your freedom. We will provide Ukrainian citizenship to representatives of all peoples suffering from authoritarian and corrupt regimes. In the first place the Russians, who today suffer the most. Volodymyr ZelenskyFirst, I would not advise the Russian authorities to waste time trying to seduce Ukrainian citizens with Russian passports. Perhaps there is someone, and is still under the influence of propaganda. Perhaps someone will do it for the sake of earnings or hiding from criminal investigations.But the difference between Ukraine, in particular, is that we, Ukrainians, have freedom of speech in our country and free media, and the Internet. Therefore, we know very well what the Russian passport actually gives.It's the right to be arrested for peaceful protest. It is the right not to have free and competitive elections. This is the right to forget about the existence of natural human rights and freedoms.Ukraine will not give up its mission to be an example of democracy for post-Soviet countries. And part of this mission will be to provide protection, asylum and Ukrainian citizenship to all who are willing to fight for freedom. We will provide shelter and assistance to all-all who are willing to fight side by side with us for our and your freedom.We will provide Ukrainian citizenship to representatives of all peoples suffering from authoritarian and corrupt regimes. In the first place the Russians, who today suffer the most. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 453007 04-27-2019 11:27 PM Post: #2 RE: Zelensky - Regarding the statements of Russian President Putin excelent comedian... LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 466534 04-27-2019 11:33 PM Post: #3 RE: Zelensky - Regarding the statements of Russian President Putin Nice try funny man! Posted on Facebook. Website that bans free speech.Nice try funny man! Back to Forum Reply to This post Post New Thread GROVE CITY, Ohio (AP) An Ohio health system is opening a new hospital in suburban Columbus as it deals with a scandal involving a doctor accused of ordering excessive painkiller doses for dozens of patients who died. The 210-bed Mount Carmel Grove City hospital opens Sunday. Mount Carmel Health System is moving inpatient services and hundreds of employees to the $361 million facility from Mount Carmel West, the flagship hospital it's closing in the lower-income Franklinton neighborhood. That plan was underway long before West became the focus of allegations about now-fired doctor William Husel (HYOO'-suhl), who's under investigation. In response to lawsuits, he denies negligently or intentionally causing deaths. Meanwhile, nearby residents worry how West's closure will affect local development and access to medical care. Mount Carmel still plans a new emergency department there. By Jose Cortes IXTEPEC, Mexico (Reuters) - Hundreds of migrants hoping to reach the United States boarded a freight train in southern Mexico late on Thursday, frustrated by efforts to slow their progress by the Mexican government, which is under pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump. The risky move to board the train, known as "La Bestia" (The Beast), followed a mass breakout of migrants from a holding center in the southern border city of Tapachula on Thursday night. The government estimated some 1,300 people escaped but said a majority later returned to the center. Men, women and children from various countries boarded the slow train as it pulled out of the town of Arriaga in the southern state of Chiapas, Mexican media reported. Migration authorities said at least 395 people had boarded the train. The large group descended from the train on Friday after it reached the town of Ixtepec to the northwest of Arriaga. "We hope our God above will keep helping us. We had to keep moving forwards," said Michael Hernandez, a Honduran, after disembarking. "They won't let us walk, so we climbed on the train. It's our only option." Erick Morazan, 28, a Honduran migrant in Zapata, a few towns north of Ixtepec, said he knew several people on the train, adding that he had wanted to jump aboard himself. "I know it's very dangerous, but this is the life of a migrant," he told Reuters by telephone. Trump has threatened to close the U.S.-Mexico border if the administration of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador does not put a stop to illegal immigrants reaching the U.S. frontier. Migrants are paying little heed so far. The breakout from the Tapachula holding center was one of the biggest in recent years, and came after Mexico stepped up efforts to round up and send home migrants. Mexico's migration institute said on Friday that of the roughly 645 people who had fled, 35 people had since returned. It added in a statement that the group consisted largely of Cubans, who have been coming to Mexico in growing numbers. The Tapachula facility is holding 980 Cubans out of a total of 1,745 people. Migrant advocacy groups have said the space is designed for about half of that number. Cubans, and migrants from other regions outside Central America, have added to the pressure on Mexico's already overwhelmed shelters and detention centers. Costa Rica's migration office said on Friday that, for the past week, more than 100 Cubans and Africans have crossed into Costa Rica on average every day from Panama, headed north. Video footage of the escape from the Siglo XXI facility posted on social media showed people sprinting from the gates of the holding center, the biggest of its kind in Mexico. Families of migrants held at the center say conditions inside are difficult. Detainees, they say, sleep on the hard floor, eat poorly and lack medical attention. Mexico's National Migration Institute did not reply to requests for comment on conditions at the facility. (Reporting by Jose Cortes in Ixtepec and Delphine Schrank in Mexico City; Additional reporting by Alvaro Murillo in San Jose; Editing by Steve Orlofsky, Bill Berkrot and Sandra Maler) Paris (AFP) - Thousands of anti-government protesters have been camped outside the Sudan army headquarters in Khartoum for three weeks, staying put to demand civilian rule even after Omar al-Bashir quit power on April 11. The sit-in started on April 6 and has grown in size as pressure mounts against the military authorities in scenes reminiscent of other iconic places of protest in cities around the world. Here are some examples. - Kiev: Maidan, 2014 - Independence Square -- often known just as Maidan -- was in 2013-2014 the epicentre of three months of bloody protests in Ukraine that led to the toppling of Russia-backed president Viktor Yanukovych. The pro-Western demonstrations began in November 2013 when Yanukovych scotched a political deal with the European Union. Hundreds of thousands of people converged on the square, setting up tents and building barricades to keep the security forces out. There were also health centres, a library, heating facilities and free food. The tensions came to a head in February 2014 when police opened fire, killing dozens and bringing to over 100 the number of protestors killed in the uprising. Yanukovych fled. - Istanbul: Taksim, 2013 - On May 31, 2013 Turkey's security forces cracked down on demonstrators who staged a rally against government plans to redevelop a park near Istanbul's Taksim Square. It sparked protests that quickly grew into the first major demonstrations against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan since he took power in 2002. Protesters occupied the area and put up tents, remaining on site around the clock before being evicted on June 15. The nearly three weeks of demonstrations left four people dead and some 8,000 injured. - Cairo: Tahrir, 2011 - The massive Tahrir Square near the Nile River is most famous for the two-week sit-in that pushed Hosni Mubarak to quit in 2011 after 30 years in power. Hundreds of thousands of protesters occupied Tahrir -- which means freedom -- from January 25 to February 11, sleeping under plastic sheets or at the foot of army tanks. Story continues The revolt was one of the first in the Arab Spring uprisings. It led to Islamist Mohamed Morsi being elected before he too was removed in July 2013. - Manama: Pearl Square, 2011 - Pro-democracy demonstrations that erupted in Bahrain in February 2011 focused on Pearl Square in the capital Manama, the site of a large monument of a giant pearl on top of sweeping arches. People began to rally there on February 14, with the Shiite majority demanding more rights from the Sunni authorities. After three days of protests, riot police charged the square in a pre-dawn raid that left several dead. People returned and demonstrations escalated until security forces moved in to clear the month-old protest camp. The Pearl Square roundabout and its central monument were razed. - Beijing: Tiananmen, 1989 - One of the biggest public squares in the world, it is here that Mao Zedong in 1949 proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China. But Tiananmen Square is better known for the unprecedented weeks-long 1989 uprising that ended in a bloody crackdown. Students, intellectuals and workers began gathering on the square in April 1989 to mark the death of a pro-reform figure and demand democratic changes. At its peak, more than a million were assembled. On the evening of June 3, tanks, armoured personnel carriers and tens of thousands of troops converged on the square, using automatic weapons to shoot unarmed citizens. Estimates for the number killed vary from several hundred to more than 1,000. China's government has never released a definitive death toll. By Rajendra Jadhav MUMBAI (Reuters) - India has raised its import duty on wheat to 40 percent from 30 percent, the government said late on Friday, as the world's No. 2 producer of the grain tries to support local farmers. The step comes as Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party looks to contain rural discontent due to lower crop prices amid voting in a general election that began on April 11 and ends on May 19. Local wheat prices have fallen over 11 percent in 2019 due to ample supply from last year's crop and forecasts of record output. The hike in duty is likely to make imports of wheat unviable for flour mills even after recent declines in global prices, potentially dragging further on global grain markets. "Local wheat production is higher. The government is now trying to ensure prices remain above support levels," said Harish Galipelli, head of commodities and currencies at Inditrade Derivatives & Commodities in Mumbai. India has raised the price at which it buys new-season wheat from local farmers by 6 percent to 1,840 rupees per 100 kg for 2019. The government usually purchases about a quarter of such wheat from farmers at state-set prices to build stocks to run a major food welfare programme. India's wheat production will rise 2 percent in 2019 from the year before to a record 99.12 million tonnes, according to estimates from the country's agriculture department. Only one wheat crop is grown in India each year, with planting starting in late October and harvesting in March. Government wheat stocks stood at 17 million tonnes as of April 1, up nearly 30 percent from the same time a year ago. "At 40 percent import duty, imports are not viable for flour mills. They have to buy local crop," said a Mumbai-based grain dealer with a global trading firm. He declined to be identified as he was not authorised to speak with media. Indian flour millers imported 1.65 million tonnes of wheat in the 2017/18 fiscal year, down from 5.7 million tonnes the year before. Those shipments were mainly from Australia, Russia and Ukraine. (Reporting by Rajendra Jadhav; Editing by Joseph Radford) The oil and gas industry pumps, transports, and processes more than 100 million barrels of crude oil and over 355 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day worldwide. The upstream part of the oil and gas sector does the initial heavy lifting; it's engaged in the exploration and production of hydrocarbons -- oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids (NGLs). It then transfers this output to the midstream sector, which focuses on the transportation, processing, and storage of hydrocarbons. From there, oil and gas flow downstream, where the oil is refined into finished petroleum products such as gasoline and diesel, and distributed to end users. This guide will walk investors through how the upstream oil and gas sector operates. We'll explore the types of companies needed to find and produce oil, how they make money, and the role oil prices play in this particular segment of the industry. That should help investors make better-informed decisions when buying upstream oil stocks. Several oil pumps Upstream oil and gas companies either pull hydrocarbons out of the ground, or directly assist those companies that do with goods and services. Image source: Getty Images. What is the upstream oil and gas sector? The upstream oil and gas sector contains two main components: Exploration and production (E&P): The E&P segment encompasses companies that explore for new sources of oil and gas and then drill wells to extract these resources. E&P companies range in size from private family-run businesses that operate a handful of wells, to multinational corporations with globe-spanning assets. E&Ps can also have a narrow focus -- such as conventionally drilled vertical wells -- or operate several different types of oil fields, including offshore, oil sands, and unconventional shale wells that are drilled horizontally and hydraulically fractured (fracked). E&P companies typically lease land from individuals or the government, then drill exploration wells to test whether the rocks beneath contain commercially viable hydrocarbons. If they make a discovery, then they'll invest more money to drill additional wells and build the necessary infrastructure to develop the resources. The E&P business demands lots of capital -- oil companies need to continually invest money to find and develop new oil and gas resources to replace the production of legacy wells, which steadily decline and eventually are depleted. Story continues Oil-field services and equipment: This segment supports E&P companies by providing a range of services, equipment, and products so they can find and produce oil. Oil-field services provide support along the three main stages of the drilling process: Exploration services such as seismic and geophysical testing that help E&P companies discover prospects worth exploring. They also conduct reservoir testing to determine a discovery's commercial viability as well as how to develop the resources. Drilling services, including operating onshore and offshore drilling rigs. Well completion services such as cementing and fracking newly drilled wells so that they can produce oil and gas. The oil-field services segment also provides both E&Ps and other service-focused companies with a wide array of specialized products and equipment. What are the different types of upstream oil and gas companies? The upstream oil and gas industry consists of four types of companies: 1. Integrated oil companies These are "wellhead to end user" operations that span the upstream, midstream, and downstream segments of the oil market. ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) is the biggest publicly traded integrated oil company in the world. It operates one of the largest E&P businesses, with assets spanning the globe, a growing midstream segment, and a meaningful downstream portfolio that includes oil refineries, petrochemical plants, and distribution and marketing operations such as retail gas stations. That diversification across the sector enables integrated oil and gas companies like Exxon to maximize the value of each barrel they produce. It also helps mute some of the impacts of oil price volatility, since their downstream assets benefit from lower prices. 2. Independent E&P companies These companies focus primarily on the upstream segment. While some independent E&Ps will operate midstream assets that support their production, they make most of their money by producing oil and gas. Because of that, they're much more susceptible to changes in oil prices since their earnings tend to rise and fall with commodity prices. 3. Diversified oil-field service companies These companies provide a range of services, equipment, and products to support their E&P customers. They're akin to a one-stop shop for developing oil and gas resources. In addition to providing a variety of much-needed services, they often manufacture mission-critical equipment such as: Drilling rigs. Oil production systems and pump jacks. Remotely operated vehicles used in developing deepwater resources. Specialized drilling pipe, valves and fittings, and separations systems. Storage tanks. Raw materials like sand used in fracking wells. 4. Pure-play oil-field service or equipment companies These companies focus on one aspect of the service sector. Some, for example, only own and operate offshore drilling rigs. Others provide services specific to completing newly-drilled oil wells, or they produce sand used in fracking wells. This focus on one aspect of the oil-field service sector enables these pure plays to make lots of money during boom times. But they can be much more susceptible to trouble when market conditions deteriorate. That was the case during the oil market downturn of 2014 through 2017, when several pure-play oil service companies declared bankruptcy. How upstream oil and gas companies make money E&P companies are known as price takers, which means they sell their oil and gas for the going market rate. That price point can fluctuate significantly, and it's influenced heavily by changes in supply and demand. If oil producers pump more oil than the market needs, it can cause crude prices to plunge, which eats into the profitability of E&Ps. Oil-field service companies, on the other hand, make money by providing services and equipment to E&P companies. While some service companies sign long-term contracts with E&Ps or other service providers that give them some revenue visibility, most operate under shorter-term contracts or sell products as needed. That can be problematic: Demand -- and rates -- for oil-field services, products, and equipment tends to ebb and flow with oil prices. That's because E&Ps often base their capital spending on their anticipated cash flow, which also rises and falls with oil. As a result, oil-field service companies -- especially pure plays -- tend to be highly sensitive to oil prices. Because of the upstream oil sector's exposure to price volatility, investors should look for companies with low costs. For E&P's, that means finding those that can sustain their current production rate at oil prices well below $50 a barrel. Meanwhile, low-cost service companies will have peer-leading margins. While it will take some digging -- including sifting through investor-relation presentations on company websites -- that work will be well worth it in the end. That's because low-cost upstream companies can still make money at lower oil prices, which sets them up to generate a gusher of profits when they rebound. The 10 largest upstream oil and gas stocks by market capitalization Governments of several major oil-producing countries control many of the world's largest upstream oil producers. However, given the massive size of the worldwide oil industry, investors still have plenty of options from which to choose. The following chart lists the 10 largest publicly traded upstream stocks that aren't controlled by foreign governments: Upstream Stock Category ExxonMobil Integrated oil and gas Royal Dutch Shell Integrated oil and gas Chevron Integrated oil and gas Total Integrated oil and gas BP Integrated oil and gas ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) Independent E&P Schlumberger (NYSE: SLB) Diversified oil-field services EOG Resources Independent E&P Suncor Energy Integrated oil and gas Occidental Petroleum Semi-integrated oil and gas Data source: Company investor relations websites. To give investors a flavor of the different types of upstream stocks, we'll drill down a bit deeper into the largest in each group: ExxonMobil (integrated), ConocoPhillips (independent E&P), and Schlumberger (diversified oil-field services). ExxonMobil: An investment covering the entire oil value chain ExxonMobil is one of the largest oil and gas producers in the world. In 2017, it was the world's third biggest natural gas producer as well as the No. 2 oil producer in America. Exxon also has a sizable midstream footprint and a meaningful downstream business consisting of the world's largest refining operation and one of the biggest chemical manufacturing businesses. This diversification gives the company three notable advantages: It helps generate steadier profits and cash flow. Its downstream businesses tend to produce higher earnings during periods of lower oil prices, which helps mute some of the impacts of price volatility on the upstream operations. It helps the company maximize the value of its production. Instead of selling its output at the wellhead for the going market price, Exxon can transport oil and gas via its midstream assets to its downstream facilities, where it can transform this production into higher-value refined products or petrochemicals. It opens more opportunities to expand, since the company can invest capital not only around the globe but also across the oil and gas value chain. ExxonMobil plans to invest $50 billion into expanding its integrated operations in the U.S. through 2025. This includes drilling more oil and gas wells in the Permian Basin and building pipelines to move its production to the Gulf Coast, where it's expanding its downstream footprint. These projects are a key aspect of Exxon's ambitious plan to double its earnings and cash flow by 2025 from 2017's baseline, without any assistance from higher oil and gas prices. Exxon's diversification makes it a lower-risk way to invest in the oil sector. It has the upside to higher oil prices thanks to its upstream business, with less downside risk during periods of lower prices because its midstream and downstream segments partly mitigate that impact. Add in Exxon's top-tier balance sheet and attractive dividend, and it's an ideal way for investors to gain exposure to the oil industry. An offshore drilling rig Image source: Getty Images. ConocoPhillips: A pure-play upstream E&P ConocoPhillips used to have integrated operations like Exxon, but the company separated from its downstream and midstream businesses by spinning off Phillips 66 to shareholders in 2012. That enabled ConocoPhillips to focus on expanding its global E&P operations while freeing Phillips 66 to grow the refining, chemicals, and midstream businesses. ConocoPhillips has further streamlined since then by selling off many noncore operations so that it could focus on its lowest-cost assets, using the cash proceeds to pay off debt and buy back its stock. As a result, the company controls a slimmed-down portfolio of low-cost oil and gas assets that include unconventional shale properties in North America, traditional conventional oil fields such as those in Alaska, liquified natural gas export facilities in Australia, and interests in oil sands in Canada. This balanced portfolio enables the company to generate lots of cash flow at oil prices above $40 a barrel. E&P companies have traditionally plowed all their available cash flow into drilling more wells. But ConocoPhillips has spearheaded a new approach within the sector by investing its capital to earn high returns on investment. Because of that, it only invests in its best opportunities, which frees it up to generate excess cash. That allows it to pay a growing dividend and buy back stock, which has the potential to create more value for shareholders. ConocoPhillips has worked hard to reduce the impact of oil price volatility by focusing on operating low-cost oil and gas assets. That allows the company to sustain its production rate on the cash flows it can produce at $40 oil. Because of that, the company is well positioned to cash in on higher prices, with it aiming to return a significant portion of its excess cash flow to investors via share buybacks. That should help the company generate healthy total returns for its shareholders throughout the ups and downs of the oil market. Schlumberger: The other side of the upstream oil and gas segment Schlumberger is the largest oil-field service company in the world. It provides E&P companies with a comprehensive suite of services to find, drill, and produce oil and gas. The company also manufactures a broad array of products and equipment, especially for supporting offshore operations. Schlumberger operates four businesses segments: Reservoir characterization , which provides tools and services that help E&P companies understand reservoir rocks and fluids. Drilling services , which offers a range of services, equipment, and tools to drill exploration and development wells. Production services , which provides producers with the services, tools, products, and equipment needed to maximize and extend the life of an oil and gas reservoir. Cameron, which manufactures pressure control systems, rig equipment, drilling tools, and valves. Schlumberger's diversification has several competitive advantages. For starters, it helps mute some of the impacts of weaker market conditions in one subsector of the upstream industry. That has been evident in the fact that international and offshore markets had been slower in bouncing back from the oil downturn that started in 2014, which hurt companies focused on those areas. Schlumberger has been able to offset some of this weakness because North American onshore shale drilling bounced back much quicker. Meanwhile, another advantage of its large scale is that it enables Schlumberger to offer comprehensive service contracts at competitive prices. That puts it in a better position to win the business of major oil companies, which prefer to have one service partner since it's easier to coordinate activities. Because of its diversification and scale, Schlumberger isn't as susceptible to market downturns as smaller pure-play peers. While the company's revenue, margins, and cash flow all declined alongside oil prices during the market downturn, it significantly outperformed its rivals since its financial performance held up much better. That ability to continue making money when market conditions deteriorated allowed Schlumberger to take advantage of the situation by making acquisitions, including buying Cameron, which improves its ability to prosper during the next up cycle. While pure-play service and equipment companies can make more money during the boom times, Schlumberger's diversified approach, when combined with its top-notch balance sheet, ensures that it can survive oil market downturns so that it's still around to thrive when conditions improve. A word on upstream exchange-traded funds (ETFs) Picking the right upstream oil stock can be challenging. Unanticipated company-specific issues, such as poor drilling results, mismanagement, or other problems, can cause an oil stock to significantly underperform its peers even if oil prices are rising. That's why investors might want to consider buying an oil-focused exchange-traded fund, which is a stock-like vehicle that invests in several oil companies. One oil ETF worth considering is the SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF. This fund owns an equal amount of roughly 70 companies spread across both the upstream E&P segment and the downstream refining and marketing sector. This broad-based approach sets investors up to profit from higher prices due to the exposure to the E&Ps. Meanwhile, it partly cushions the blow of oil price volatility thanks to the inclusion of some downstream operations. Why investing in upstream stocks could make sense for your portfolio While oil prices ebb and flow, demand for crude has continued to trudge higher and isn't expected to plateau for several more years. So the upstream oil and gas sector has the potential to enrich investors. But they do need to be mindful of which upstream stocks they buy because oil price volatility enhances risk. One of the better ways to reduce this risk is by focusing on larger, more diversified companies. Their scale and diversification should help mute some of the impacts of the inevitable ups and downs of the oil market. More From The Motley Fool Matthew DiLallo owns shares of ConocoPhillips and Phillips 66. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. TEHRAN, Iran (AP) Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard successfully managed a surveillance flight over a U.S. aircraft carrier, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported Saturday. The report included footage apparently from a Guard drone that flew over the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and another U.S. warship in the Persian Gulf. The images show fighter planes parked on the carrier deck. Tasnim did not say when the footage was shot. The development comes after the U.S. government earlier this month designated the Guard as a terrorist group to increase pressure on Iran and further isolate the country. Iran responded by labeling all U.S. forces as terrorists. Lt. Chloe J. Morgan, a U.S. Naval Forces Central Command spokesperson, said in an email that the Eisenhower has not been in the Persian Gulf since 2016. She said the U.S. and its allies are committed to freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz. The strait, which sees nearly a third of all oil traded by sea pass through it, has been the scene of past confrontations between the U.S. and Iran, including a one-day naval battle in 1988. In recent years, the U.S. Navy has accused Iranian patrol boats of harassing American warships in the waterway. The drone that took the footage is an Ababil-3 with an eight-hour flight capability at 12,000 feet (3,658 meters) and a 250-kilometer (155-mile) range. The Trump administration said Monday that it will no longer exempt any countries from U.S. sanctions if they continue to buy Iranian oil, stepping up pressure on Iran in a move that primarily affects the five remaining major importers: China and India and U.S. treaty allies Japan, South Korea and Turkey. The move is part of the administration's "maximum pressure" campaign on Iran that aims to eliminate all of its revenue from oil exports, which the U.S. says are used to destabilize the region. Iran reiterated its long-running threat to close the Strait of Hormuz if it's prevented from using the crucial waterway in the Persian Gulf, through which about a third of all oil traded at sea passes. Story continues In 2016, Iran's navy similarly took video footage of the nuclear-powered carrier USS Harry Truman, based in Norfolk, Virginia, while it was in the Persian Gulf region launching airstrikes and supporting operations against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria. ___ Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report. CAIRO, April 27 (Reuters) - Islamic State claimed on Saturday that three of its members clashed with Sri Lankan police for several hours before detonating their explosive vests on them in the east coast city of Kalmunai late on Friday, the militant group's news agency Amaq said. The group said 17 policemen were killed or injured in the attack. The group did not give evidence for its claim. (Reporting by Hesham Hajali; editing by Jonathan Oatis) JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel will release two prisoners after the remains of an Israeli soldier missing since 1982 were recovered by Russian special forces in Syria, Israeli and Syrian officials said. Russia, a key Damascus ally, this month handed over the remains and personal effects of Zachary Baumel who was 21 when he was declared missing in action along with two other soldiers in the Battle of Sultan Yacoub during Israel's invasion of Lebanon. A Syrian government source told Reuters that two or more Syrians would be freed from Israeli prisons after Russian mediation. The source said authorities had pressured Moscow to secure the prisoners' release after the news of the Israeli soldier's remains were being handed over. Both sides appeared to step away from any suggestion that the release was part of a negotiated swap between the two enemy states Israel and Syria. "Israel decided in the past few days to release two prisoners as a goodwill gesture, only after the return of Zachary Baumel's remains," the Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Saturday. There was no immediate comment from Russian authorities. Israel's Prison Service identified the two prisoners as Ahmed Khamis and Zidan Taweel. It said Khamis, from Yarmouk, a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria, was a member of the Palestinian Fatah group and was jailed in 2005 after he tried to infiltrate an Israeli military base in order to carry out an attack against soldiers. Taweel, from the Syrian Druze village of Hader, was jailed in 2008 for drug smuggling, the Prisons Service said. A spokesman for the service said it was not yet clear when they would be released. (Reporting by Maayan Lubell; Additional reporting by Kinda Makieh in Damascus; Editing by Alexander Smith and Ros Russell) Username: Password: or Register Back to Forum Reply to This post Post New Thread Thread Rating: 5 Vote(s) - 4.2 Average 1 2 3 4 5 Page: 1 2 I grabbed a hammer and broke the machine Bao2 Banned User ID: 422170 04-28-2019 01:10 AM Posts: 12,562 Post: #1 I grabbed a hammer and broke the machine Advertisement "I was experimenting with vibrations. I had one of my machines going and I wanted to see if I could get it in tune with the vibration of the building. I put it up notch after notch. There was a peculiar cracking sound... I knew I was approaching the vibration of the steel building. I pushed the machine a little higher. Suddenly all the heavy machinery in the place was flying around. I grabbed a hammer and broke the machine. The building would have been down about our ears in another few minutes. Outside in the street there was pandemonium. The police and ambulances arrived. I told my assistants to say nothing. We told the police it must have been an earthquake..." That experience inspired Tesla's invention of the Gravity Motor, tapping the limitless power of acoustic resonance by generating standing waves within a drum. Tesla's finest, most suppressed invention was discussed in a psychic reading for Thomas T. Brown given by trance channel Edgar Cayce on March 8, 1928 in Chicago, at the LaSalle Hotel, a luxurious palace hotel conveniently located across the street from the Masonic Lodge, a well known establishment of the American-Nazi industrialists (Reading 4665-1): EC: Yes, we have the body and enquiring mind of Nikola Tesla, also the associations and those conditions surrounding the perfection of motor which will develop power in its own action. As has been given, the idea and the plans as have been worked out in part along those lines that pull more of the power as produced in compression in drum, with the leads made in these forms that gather vibrations from the air as is forced through drum, are, as we find, the better application of the created energy. In the cams [as] have been used too much slack or play is allowed in their rotation. This is in the drum's head action that these must be shortened in play. The connection of Thomas Townsend Brown and John George Trump with same --best that these have Tesla's operations closer under their observations when the completed product is near attained. Q: How may we bring him under our observation? A: Bring him to Dayton, Ohio or N.Y. Q: Is this machine the same as brought to Washington now by [Charles A.] Lindbergh? A: No. As is here, the Tesla machine would operate on stationary conditions impelling forces; even for now that in gas motors --for, as tested by others, has more to do with that thrown in air and gaining its impelling force from that source. Q: Would it operate perpetually if perfected? A: Not perpetually, but once started could be kept in motion by created energy of its own source. Other has to have some source of impellation. Q: Would Tesla's machine be good for [an] airplane? A: Would be better than other --one that would start as well as keep in motion. Pressure will be regulated by altitude. Q: When ought this be finished? A: In seven or eight days when material is put in shape. Q: Who had we best see in Washington regarding this? A: Get in shape first, then go to those through whom T. Townsend Brown has had associations regarding same and protecting rights of same. Q: Mr. Blumenthal and Mr. Brown have [a] letter to Hoover's [Bureau] man. Is he one to present it to? A: This [is] very good... [and may be] very effectual. Q: It was given from [this Source] here that Clinton gave information to Tesla? A: DeWitt Clinton. Judge DeWitt Clinton (1769-1828), former Governor of New York. Q: How many times will this machine whirl a ten foot propeller per minute? A: Sufficient to keep same going in air. Stationary engine that would and could be raised to 160 horse power or increased in build and in drum to almost infinite power. Q: How much would a machine equal to four hundred horse power weigh? A: 200-300 pounds. Q: How many times would it whirl a ten foot propeller? A: 4,600 times a minute. Q: Any other advice you would give to Tesla concerning construction of machine or anything you would give to us regarding same? A: In this relation might be considered first, to Tesla, that there must be perfect cooperation of the self and the will with those who would assist in perfecting this from the material side. Also there must be perfect cooperation with inner self to obtain that information that would give self knowledge to apply same in connection with cosmic relation. For force is one and in obtaining proper relation of energies as set forth and released, these must coordinate. This somewhat veiled warning for Tesla was given in a positive form, but in light of the negative outcome...... http://www.human-resonance.org/gravity_motor.html Tesla's breakthrough realization of the nonlinear dynamics of multi-frequency oscillations in the infrasonic range was seeded during experimentation with a pocket-sized electro-mechanical oscillator in 1888:"I was experimenting with vibrations. I had one of my machines going and I wanted to see if I could get it in tune with the vibration of the building. I put it up notch after notch. There was a peculiar cracking sound... I knew I was approaching the vibration of the steel building. I pushed the machine a little higher. Suddenly all the heavy machinery in the place was flying around. I grabbed a hammer and broke the machine. The building would have been down about our ears in another few minutes. Outside in the street there was pandemonium. The police and ambulances arrived. I told my assistants to say nothing. We told the police it must have been an earthquake..."That experience inspired Tesla's invention of the Gravity Motor, tapping the limitless power of acoustic resonance by generating standing waves within a drum. Tesla's finest, most suppressed invention was discussed in a psychic reading for Thomas T. Brown given by trance channel Edgar Cayce on March 8, 1928 in Chicago, at the LaSalle Hotel, a luxurious palace hotel conveniently located across the street from the Masonic Lodge, a well known establishment of the American-Nazi industrialists (Reading 4665-1):EC: Yes, we have the body and enquiring mind of Nikola Tesla, also the associations and those conditions surrounding the perfection of motor which will develop power in its own action. As has been given, the idea and the plans as have been worked out in part along those lines that pull more of the power as produced in compression in drum, with the leads made in these forms that gather vibrations from the air as is forced through drum, are, as we find, the better application of the created energy. In the cams [as] have been used too much slack or play is allowed in their rotation. This is in the drum's head action that these must be shortened in play.The connection of Thomas Townsend Brown and John George Trump with same --best that these have Tesla's operations closer under their observations when the completed product is near attained.Q: How may we bring him under our observation?A: Bring him to Dayton, Ohio or N.Y.Q: Is this machine the same as brought to Washington now by [Charles A.] Lindbergh?A: No. As is here, the Tesla machine would operate on stationary conditions impelling forces; even for now that in gas motors --for, as tested by others, has more to do with that thrown in air and gaining its impelling force from that source.Q: Would it operate perpetually if perfected?A: Not perpetually, but once started could be kept in motion by created energy of its own source. Other has to have some source of impellation.Q: Would Tesla's machine be good for [an] airplane?A: Would be better than other --one that would start as well as keep in motion. Pressure will be regulated by altitude.Q: When ought this be finished?A: In seven or eight days when material is put in shape.Q: Who had we best see in Washington regarding this?A: Get in shape first, then go to those through whom T. Townsend Brown has had associations regarding same and protecting rights of same.Q: Mr. Blumenthal and Mr. Brown have [a] letter to Hoover's [Bureau] man. Is he one to present it to?A: This [is] very good... [and may be] very effectual.Q: It was given from [this Source] here that Clinton gave information to Tesla?A: DeWitt Clinton. Judge DeWitt Clinton (1769-1828), former Governor of New York.Q: How many times will this machine whirl a ten foot propeller per minute?A: Sufficient to keep same going in air. Stationary engine that would and could be raised to 160 horse power or increased in build and in drum to almost infinite power.Q: How much would a machine equal to four hundred horse power weigh?A: 200-300 pounds.Q: How many times would it whirl a ten foot propeller?A: 4,600 times a minute.Q: Any other advice you would give to Tesla concerning construction of machine or anything you would give to us regarding same?A: In this relation might be considered first, to Tesla, that there must be perfect cooperation of the self and the will with those who would assist in perfecting this from the material side. Also there must be perfect cooperation with inner self to obtain that information that would give self knowledge to apply same in connection with cosmic relation. For force is one and in obtaining proper relation of energies as set forth and released, these must coordinate.This somewhat veiled warning for Tesla was given in a positive form, but in light of the negative outcome...... Bao2 Banned User ID: 422170 04-28-2019 01:27 AM Posts: 12,562 Post: #2 RE: I grabbed a hammer and broke the machine Edgar Cayce Readings 4665-1 through 4665-13 for Brown describe Tesla's fuelless resonant motor: a medium-sized, stationary cylindrical drum with a central axle around which rotates a smaller inner drum, eccentrically mounted and in Fibonacci proportion with the outer drum. While the inner drum is completely sealed, the outer drum is drilled with large air intake holes which provide water vapor for ignition as HHO plasma by rotation of the motor. Sprangled electrical leads create a spark gap that discharges with each turn of the inner drum when passing complimentary electrodes of the stationary outer drum (Readings 4665-8,13): Now we have that in this motor as is seen in varied elements that are as octaves in music. There are forces or pitches above and below the scale, as are applied in the human voice. There are colors above and below the spectrum, as applied by man in a nominal manner. There are the same octaves of force seen or applied in the various elements as go to make up the forces as applicable to elements in any generative force... These, then, are only to be worked out along the channels and lines as has been designated in that given as applied to the mechanical arrangement of leads, drums, cams, carriers, balls, circles, and radiated elements. Work it out! Bao2 Banned User ID: 422170 04-28-2019 01:30 AM Posts: 12,562 Post: #3 RE: I grabbed a hammer and broke the machine Edgar Cayce does a reading to Nikola Tesla: (Reading 4666-1) Conductor: Now you have before you the body of Nikola Tesla, present in this room. You will go over this body carefully, examine it thoroughly, and tell me the conditions you find at the present time, giving the cause of the existing conditions, also the treatment for the care and relief of this body. You will also answer such questions that I may ask you. You will speak distinctly, and at a normal rate of speech. EC: Yes, we have the body of Nikola Tesla here --this we have had before. Now we find there are rather those conditions existent of which the body should be warned, and corrections made before these form such holds or such conditions in the physical forces of the body as to become detrimental to the best physical functioning of the body. First, it should be understood by the body that the psychic forces that manifest through the body may guide the body as respecting its own health with the body to concentrate on such conditions. Now as to the physical conditions existent in this body. First, in the blood supply, there is found evidences of congestion of the nature that shows in the portions of the system the eliminations are not carried on properly, hence in such places as in the antrum and in the tissue of various portions of the bone in the head and neck there are evidences of the drosses being left there, and that unless these are absorbed or removed, these would in time bring detrimental forces for the best physical condition of the body. In the nerve system. Here we find the greater cause of distress or the basic conditions that produce these conditions. In times back there was an injury or hurt to the body that in the upper dorsal region produces a lesion that has prevented the action through impulse of blood supply, hence with the addition of cold, congestion, these portions of system are hindered or kept from the impulse of perfect circulation and perfect elimination have gradually shown signs of drosses giving trouble to the body. Without the removal of these conditions then, these would of necessity bring distressing forces unless others are added or taken from to correct the condition. A New Cosmic Day Registered User User ID: 441934 04-28-2019 02:06 AM Posts: 2,761 Post: #4 RE: I grabbed a hammer and broke the machine Jealousy. A New Cosmic Day Registered User User ID: 441934 04-28-2019 02:14 AM Posts: 2,761 Post: #5 RE: I grabbed a hammer and broke the machine Cosmic Day Wrote: (04-28-2019 02:06 AM) Jealousy. And revenge... And revenge... Bao2 Banned User ID: 422170 04-28-2019 02:21 AM Posts: 12,562 Post: #6 RE: I grabbed a hammer and broke the machine Cosmic Day Wrote: (04-28-2019 02:14 AM) Cosmic Day Wrote: (04-28-2019 02:06 AM) Jealousy. And revenge... Yeah, Nikola Tesla was jealous and in revenge ... Yeah, Nikola Tesla was jealous and in revenge ... udis Philosopher User ID: 498995 04-28-2019 04:41 AM Posts: 32,930 Post: #7 RE: I grabbed a hammer and broke the machine DO You Have Any IDEA How Hard it Is to SMASH a Hard Drive With a Hammer? It really helps If You Use a Titanium Drill On them FIRST To weaken the case. Hemmer Technology is the only way to fix Stuff sometimes!DO You Have Any IDEA How Hard it Is to SMASH a Hard Drive With a Hammer?It really helps If You Use a Titanium Drill On them FIRST To weaken the case. This Claim Is Disputed Pending Fact Checkers. udis The Ministry Of Thought Crime. Does Not Approve Of Your Thoughts! (This post was last modified: 04-28-2019 04:43 AM by udis .) LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 499026 04-28-2019 05:33 AM Post: #8 RE: I grabbed a hammer and broke the machine udis Wrote: (04-28-2019 04:41 AM) Hemmer Technology is the only way to fix Stuff sometimes! DO You Have Any IDEA How Hard it Is to SMASH a Hard Drive With a Hammer? It really helps If You Use a Titanium Drill On them FIRST To weaken the case. sounds way hard I shred an ample amount of paper that is loaded with lots of information into little tiny indecipherable pieces just about every workday - not only is it way easy but also if the paper that I had previously filled with lots of information does require extinction - it gives me a small emotional uplift when I do make it no more by way of shredding sounds way hardI shred an ample amount of paper that is loaded with lots of information into little tiny indecipherable pieces just about every workday -not only is it way easy but also if the paper that I had previously filled with lots of information does require extinction - it gives me a small emotional uplift when I do make it no more by way of shredding black widows in my bed springs lop guest User ID: 498553 04-28-2019 06:24 AM Post: #9 RE: I grabbed a hammer and broke the machine Elon musk was given that hammer and started pounding out those vibrations of evil. John Galt lop guest User ID: 446797 04-28-2019 08:22 AM Post: #10 RE: I grabbed a hammer and broke the machine LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 499294 04-28-2019 08:39 AM Post: #11 RE: I grabbed a hammer and broke the machine quick turn it off! It's gonna blow!....event horizon next exit LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 481502 04-28-2019 09:11 AM Post: #12 RE: I grabbed a hammer and broke the machine LoP Guest Wrote: (04-28-2019 08:39 AM) quick turn it off! It's gonna blow!....event horizon next exit @nother Tesla on fire? @notherTesla on fire? black widows in my bed springs lop guest User ID: 498553 04-28-2019 10:02 AM Post: #13 RE: I grabbed a hammer and broke the machine black widows in my bed springs Wrote: (04-28-2019 06:24 AM) Elon musk was given that hammer and started pounding out those vibrations of evil. Musk is not what you think , he is just as vial as edison was . Tesla was used simply as s tool by these heretics . This man boasts the invention of a flame thrower , during the wake of the thousands that were incinerated in paradise Ca . I hold no quarter for this fallen. Musk is not what you think , he is just as vial as edison was . Tesla was used simply as s tool by these heretics .This man boasts the invention of a flame thrower , during the wake of the thousands that were incinerated in paradise Ca . I hold no quarter for this fallen. Ludikrus Registered User User ID: 204121 04-28-2019 12:19 PM Posts: 15,547 Post: #14 RE: I grabbed a hammer and broke the machine udis Wrote: (04-28-2019 04:41 AM) Hemmer Technology is the only way to fix Stuff sometimes! DO You Have Any IDEA How Hard it Is to SMASH a Hard Drive With a Hammer? It really helps If You Use a Titanium Drill On them FIRST To weaken the case. Hey, Ridley, you got any Beeman's? LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 481502 04-28-2019 12:27 PM Post: #15 RE: I grabbed a hammer and broke the machine Man up and smash your samsumg Advertisement Back to Forum Reply to This post Post New Thread Rome (AFP) - Italy's populist government is on its last legs, its bitterly warring coalition partners putting up with each other merely to avoid losing votes at the upcoming European elections, analysts say. The far-right League and anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) have been at each other's throats since coming to power last June, with the "contract for government" that was supposed to unite them trampled underfoot. The government "is already dead, but remains on its feet, a bit like a zombie, waiting for the European elections", political commentator Stefano Folli said this week. Italy, he said, was suspended "between farce and drama". The latest row erupted when an undersecretary close to League head Matteo Salvini was accused of corruption. Armando Siri is alleged to have accepted a 30,000 euros ($33,000) bribe -- or the promise of it -- from a businessman, for promoting the interests of renewable energy companies. Prosecutors also suspect the businessman of being in league with a Sicilian who has links to a Mafia boss. The M5S, which made "honesty" a keyword of its political campaign, has demanded Siri resign. Even the movement's leader, Luigi Di Maio -- who usually makes some effort to keep the peace with fellow deputy prime minister Salvini -- has called for the undersecretary's head to roll. Salvini insists Siri is innocent until proven guilty -- and has played up the fact the bribe may not have ever changed hands. But Siri is not the only fuse lit under the coalition. Salvini angered many in Italy on Thursday by skipping Liberation Day commemorations, which celebrate the end of the Nazi occupation in 1945. His snub follows a rise in hate crimes in Italy, and the M5S is under increasing pressure from its left wing to take Salvini to task over his courtship of the far right. - 'Battles to win the war' - "Under normal circumstances, the M5S-League government would have disintegrated long ago", La Repubblica daily said, while La Stampa simply asked: "is there still a government?" Story continues "We can't go on like this. We can't work in this climate, under attack on a daily basis," Salvini reportedly complained to Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, according to La Stampa. Salvini and Di Maio "cannot win the war by trying to win battles to use as a springboard in the election", Folli said. Both parties are determined to keep the government alive until May 26, the date of the EU elections in Italy, for fear of losing votes. The ballot results could strengthen their hands at home -- or weaken them. "After that, we will have to take decisions, the situation is no longer sustainable", Salvini is said to have told his entourage. The League, which won 17 percent of the general election in March and is now polling at around 32 percent, is hoping a good showing in the EU ballot will allow it to ditch the M5S at home and rule alone. The M5S, which took home 32 percent at the general election but has since seen its popularity drop to the low 20s, hopes a good result in Brussels will slam the breaks on its decline. Whether their rocky marriage can make it intact to the EU vote is yet to be seen. After the body of 5-year-old Andrew "A.J." Freund was discovered in an Illinois field, tragic details of his short life are coming to light. The boy's remains were found wrapped in plastic and dumped in a shallow grave in Woodstock on Wednesday, Crystal Lake Police Chief Jim Black said during a press conference. Both of A.J.'s parents, JoAnn Cunningham and Andrew Freund, are being charged with five counts of first-degree murder, as well as battery and failure to report a missing child, in their son's disappearance and death. A recently released 60-page police report has revealed the poor living conditions and alleged abuse A.J. was subjected to before he died. A.J. was taken into protective custody in 2013 by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), less than a month after he was born with opioids in his system. He spent the first several months of his life a foster home before he was returned to his mother. In 2014, an unidentified woman called police on the boy's parents after finding a syringe on their kitchen floor, claiming they were using heroin. In 2015, A.J.s father was disciplined and had his law license suspended for violating court orders dealing with his divorce and drug use, WGN reports. DCFS was also called to the family's home twice in 2018 on allegations of neglect in March and of abuse and neglect in December although both sets of accusations were determined to be unfounded. A.J. was first reported missing by his parents on the morning of April 18 from their home in Crystal Lake, approximately 50 miles northwest of Chicago. His parents claimed they had last seen their son around 9 p.m. the night before. Responding officers reported that the residence, which is said to be in foreclosure, was "cluttered, dirty and in disrepair," with broken windows, dog feces and urine observed throughout the home. In December 2018, police responding to a reported burglary at the home observed similarly deplorable conditions, noting that the smell of feces in A.J.'s room was "overwhelming." Story continues A neighbor had also called police in September 2018 to express concern about the home, claiming the dilapidated house had no power. The Crystal Lake Police Department thanked the community for their "support and assistance" following a week-long search for the victim. "To AJs family, it is our hope that you may have some solace in knowing that AJ is no longer suffering and his killers have been brought to justice," it wrote. "To AJ, we know you are at peace playing in heavens playground and are happy you no longer have to suffer." Beirut (AFP) - Attacks by two jihadist groups killed at least 22 Syrian government troops and militiamen in the northern province of Aleppo early on Saturday, a war monitor said. Thirty others were wounded in the assaults by Al-Qaeda's former Syria branch, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), and its ally Hurras al-Deen, which remains affiliated to the global jihadist network, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The attacks in the southern and southwestern countryside of Aleppo province were launched shortly after midnight and triggered clashes that continued until dawn, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said. He said the fighting subsided after Russian aircraft struck jihadist positions in the area, prompting the fighters to pull back. Eight jihadists were killed, he added. Russia aircraft also carried out strikes in neighbouring Hama province early on Saturday, killing five civilians, the Observatory said. On Friday, Russian strikes killed 10 civilians in Idlib province, the hub of territory held by the jihadists of HTS in northwestern Syria. Russia and rebel-backer Turkey in September inked a buffer zone deal to avert a massive government offensive on the Idlib region, but the deal has never been implemented. The region of some three million people has come under increasing bombardment since HTS took full control of it in January. The latest Russian air raids came after two days of talks on the Syrian conflict between Turkey, Russia and fellow government backer Iran in Kazakhstan earlier this week. The three governments expressed concern over the growing power of HTS in Idlib and parts of adjacent provinces, and determination to cooperate to eliminate the jihadist group. The civil war in Syria has killed more than 370,000 people and displaced millions since it began with the bloody repression of anti-government protests in 2011. By Hyonhee Shin GOSEONG, South Korea, April 27 (Reuters) - Along forest trails below a bare mountain peak that until last year was a vantage point for a North Korean guard post, a group of around 20 ordinary South Koreans took a rare hike on Saturday near the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas. The hikers were chosen by lottery to explore a "peace trail" near the heavily fortified frontier, launched to mark the first anniversary of a landmark summit between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Hours later at the Joint Security Area (JSA) in the border village of Panmunjom, where Moon and Kim met, a series of music performances and other events were held to highlight cross-border rapprochement fostered since the summit. But conspicuously absent from the peace-themed celebrations was North Korea, which failed to send any official or message in response to the South's invite. North Korea has effectively pulled back from engagement since a second meeting in Hanoi in February between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump fell apart without any agreement on dismantling Pyongyang's nuclear program. In the South, Moon's administration is forging ahead with its peace drive without it. The trail hiked on Saturday, dubbed the DMZ Pathway to Peace although it does not enter any part of the zone, was introduced after the North refused to implement an agreed plan to provide tourists from both sides with greater access to the JSA. Public access to the area was strictly limited as the two Koreas remain technically a war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. "I wish I could freely go down this road into the North," said Song Hae-sook, a 71-year-old hiker. "It's too bad that they're not keeping their promise, which is what always worries us." STALEMATE The failed Hanoi summit was a blow for Moon, who has offered to mediate between Kim and Trump for a deal that he hoped would help ease U.S. sanctions in return for the North taking steps toward denuclearisation, leading to a restart of inter-Korean economic cooperation. Story continues Moon's efforts to meet Kim again and send an envoy to Pyongyang to discuss a possible compromise after the breakdown have made little headway. Planned weekly talks at an inter-Korean liaison office in the North's border city of Kaesong have not taken place since the Hanoi summit, and the North briefly pulled out of it without giving a reason. "It may look like a bride walking down the aisle when there's no groom waiting from the other side to greet her," a South Korean official said, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue. "But many in the Blue House would just be happy as long as the soldiers keep finding some remains from the DMZ." Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul expressed regret over the North's absence, but requested understanding citing the "change of the situation." "But it isn't less meaningful for us to once again reaffirm our resolve to implement the agreement made in Panmunjom through these events," he told reporters during a rehearsal for the celebration on Friday. DIGGING ALONE The DMZ tourism plan was part of a military pact, sealed during a September summit in Pyongyang, which calls for a set of tension-defusing measures. Both Koreas implemented some steps last year, halting major military drills, setting a no-fly zone around the border and removing landmines and guard posts within the DMZ, including the mountaintop watchtower above the "peace trail." But the North snubbed the South's proposal last month for talks to discuss follow-up action. This month, the South began excavating the remains of soldiers missing from the war from the DMZ on its own. Moon's unfazed push for peace has triggered worries that Seoul may be moving faster than anyone else is prepared to. U.S. officials have openly said since last year that inter-Korean relations should keep pace with progress on the North's denuclearisation. . Marking the anniversary of the Panmunjom summit, the North's state media released a series of articles on Saturday blasting the South's "submissive" alliance with the United States, which it said tries to "interfere" in inter-Korean ties, and urging Seoul to "take a proper stand." "North Korea is expressing discontent and disappointment after the South raised hopes for a deal but then failed to deliver as a 'mediator' eventually," said Hong Min, a senior fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul. Saturday's ceremony was titled "Long journey," which Moon's office referred to a "path that is long but must be taken" until lasting peace is established on the Korean peninsula. "This is a new path, and as we all must take it together, we need, sometimes, to wait for those moving slower to catch up," Moon said in a video message, conveying his greetings to Kim. (Reporting by Hyonhee Shin; Additional reporting by Joyce Lee; Editing by Alex Richardson) Former US vice-president Joe Biden is understood to be launching his third attempt at securing the Democratic Party nomination to run for president in next years US general election. He will announce his bid by video on Thursday, Reuters reports, citing a source familiar with the plans. He is then expected to make his first public appearance as a candidate next week at an event in Pittsburgh featuring union members, a key constituency. Mr Biden enters a crowded Democrat field all hoping to take on Mr Trump in 2020. His move comes after months of speculation as to whether hed run or not. He will take on 20 other hopefuls, but for now he leads the pack, opinion polls show. His candidacy will face numerous questions, including whether he is too old and too centrist for a Democratic Party increasingly propelled by its more vocal liberal wing. Furthermore, questions have arisen about his propensity for touching and kissing strangers at political events, with several women coming forward in recent weeks to say he had made them feel uncomfortable. Mr Biden struggled in his response to the concerns, at times joking about his behaviour. He eventually apologised and said he recognised standards for personal conduct had evolved in the wake of the #MeToo movement. Many believe the 76-year-old is also offering US voters experience and the promise of exposing the scandals and chicanery of Mr Trumps administration. In the US, commentators have said among the USs working population, Mr Bidens experience and dignity could be the antidote to Mr Trumps angry outbursts. We cant be divided by race, religion, by tribe, he Biden said last month. In America, everybody gets a shot. Despite failing to win over Democrats in his previous attempts to secure the nomination in 1988 and 1998, Mr Biden is in a strong position in national polls and early voting states. He will run as a centrist Obama-Biden Democrat anchored by strong union support. He will reportedly attack Mr Trump as a populist and a friend of Wall Street bosses who hit the jackpot with US tax laws. Story continues In a speech to union members in April, Mr Biden called Mr Trump a tragedy in two acts. This country cant afford more years of a president looking to settle personal scores, he said. Mr Bidens candidacy will offer early hints about whether Democrats are more interested in finding a centrist who can win over the white working-class voters who went for Trump in 2016, or someone who can fire up the partys diverse progressive wing, such as Senators Kamala Harris of California, Bernie Sanders of Vermont or Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Additional reporting by Reuters BELLS BEACH, Australia (AP) John John Florence won the men's event after fellow American and 11-time world champion Kelly Slater was eliminated in the quarterfinals, while American Courtney Conlogue took the women's competition at the Bells Beach World Surf League stop. Florence beat Filipe Toledo of Brazil in a close final Saturday. Toledo needed a score of 6.98 points when he caught his last wave with 12 seconds left, but the judges awarded 5.90 and Florence won 14.30 to 13.98. Australian Ryan Callinan defeated Slater 12.67 points to 5.67 in the first quarterfinal heat of the day in two-meter (6 1-2 feet) swells. Slater was eliminated in his second-round heat in the WSL's season-opening event two weeks ago on the Gold Coast in Australia's Queensland state. Conlogue beat fellow American Malia Manuel in the final, scoring the first 10-point wave ride on the world tour this year, among both the men and the women, to take the lead in the final. She won 15.83 to 14.84 to add to her 2016 and 2017 Bells Beach titles. "Right when I finished the wave, it felt right," Conlogue said of her perfect score. "You don't always know, but you feel it." It was only the second 10 of Conlogue's career. "Right when I dropped in, I thought 'wow, this canvas is just so beautiful' and it was a classic Bells bowl wave," she said. "It was definitely a thrill." It was Manuel's first Bells Beach final after she upset Australian defending champion and seven-time world titleholder Stephanie Gilmore in the quarterfinals. In the semifinals, Manuel beat 17-year-old American Caroline Marks, who won the opening Gold Coast event. The WSL circuit will help determine qualifiers for next year's Tokyo Olympics, where surfing will make its debut. The top 10-ranked men and eight highest-ranked women on the 2019 tour will be among those qualifying for the 2020 Games. Slater has said he hopes to qualify for the U.S. team. He will be 48 next February. ____ More AP sports: https://apnews.com/apf-sports and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports By Saad Sayeed ISLAMABAD, April 27 (Reuters) - Pakistan's new interior minister, appointed in a major cabinet reshuffle this month by Prime Minister Imran Khan, is a former spy chief and close ally of the country's last military ruler who has long been accused of deep ties to militant groups. The appointment of retired Brigadier Ijaz Shah has been heavily criticized by the opposition Pakistan People's Party (PPP), whose slain former leader Benazir Bhutto regarded him as a deadly enemy. Some analysts said it suggested Pakistan's powerful military continued to wield heavy influence over the civilian administration - a persistent allegation since Khan took office eight months ago that both his government and the generals deny. In an interview with the BBC after his appointment, Shah said: "What power can I give the military as interior minister? I left the army a long time ago, I am a civilian and have participated in elections." The prime minister's office and the information ministry did not respond to requests for comment. Shah was among four members of the civilian-military establishment named by Bhutto in a letter written to then President Pervez Musharraf months before her assassination as suspects who should be investigated if she was killed. Many Pakistanis have long suspected that elements of the intelligence agencies colluded with militants in Bhutto's assassination in a gun and bomb attack in the garrison city of Rawalpindi in December 2007. An investigation at the time blamed an al Qaeda-allied Pakistani Taliban leader. "Are you trying to send a message to the world that we have terrorists and the abettors of terrorists in our cabinet?" Bhutto's son and chairman of the PPP, Bilawal Bhutto, told the country's parliament this week, referring to Shah's appointment. "This cannot happen." Shah's office did not respond to a request for an interview or a list of questions sent by Reuters, but earlier this month then Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry told local newspaper Dawn that "he is a clean man" and had been cleared of all allegations against him in a government inquiry. Story continues SPY CHIEF The sweeping cabinet reshuffle comes as Pakistan is trying to attract foreign investment and present itself as a reformed country. But critics say the inclusion of an "old school" figure such as Shah in the government shows little has changed. Under Musharraf, who as army chief seized power in a 1999 coup and ruled until 2008, Shah served as head of the military's leading spy agency in the Punjab province, and was later appointed the head of the civilian Intelligence Bureau. He oversaw the surrender of wanted militant Omar Saeed Shaikh, who masterminded the kidnapping and killing of Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl in 2002. That contributed to allegations he had been close to Islamist groups based along lawless border with Afghanistan, where Pakistan's security services have long been accused of playing a double game. "The biggest controversy is his links with the Afghan jihad and figures like Omar Saeed Sheikh," author and analyst Ayesha Siddiqa told Reuters, a longstanding critic of Pakistan's military. "Looks very much like the army chief's choice." The military did not respond to a request for comment on this article, but in the past has said it does not interfere in politics. The military has also repeatedly denied allegations leveled by the United States, Afghanistan and others that is has covertly sheltered militants based along its borders. Under Khan's government, Islamabad has been trying to convince the outside world that it will not tolerate militants operating from inside Pakistan. Pakistan currently finds itself on the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) "grey list" for inadequately dealing with money laundering and terrorism financing, a designation that makes it harder for the country to access international markets at a time when its economy is stumbling. Convincing the FATF that it is making sufficient efforts to crack down on militancy will be harder with a controversial figure such as Shah in the cabinet, said PPP Senator Mustafa Khokhar. Some analysts agree. "Ijaz Shah's appointment just reinforces the perception that nothing has changed in Pakistani politics," political analyst Aamer Ahmed Khan told Reuters. (Reporting by Saad Sayeed; Editing by Alex Richardson) Tokyo (AFP) - Two kitchen knives have been found at the school desk of Japan's Prince Hisahito, grandson of Emperor Akihito, with security camera footage showing a suspicious man trespassing on the grounds, media reported Saturday. The incident comes as authorities are beefing up security ahead of the popular emperor's abdication next week after a 30-year reign. Officials of the Tokyo junior high school found the knives Friday at the desk used daily by the 12-year-old prince, public broadcaster NHK and other news reports said, quoting unnamed investigators. Hisahito, who began attending the school this month, was not in the classroom when the knives are believed to have been left. There were no reports of any injuries or damage at the school, the reports said, adding that police did not find any threatening note related to the case. Security camera footage showed a man with a helmet trespassing on the school grounds at around noon, they said. Police were searching for the middle-aged man who was dressed as a construction worker. A police spokeswoman declined to comment while no immediate confirmation was available from the school. Threats to the imperial family are relatively rare. In 1975, Akihito was almost hit by a Molotov cocktail in Okinawa, a major World War II battlefield where there was strong anti-emperor sentiment. The incident comes as Japan is preparing for the abdication on Tuesday of Akihito, the first monarch to relinquish the throne of the world's oldest imperial family for two centuries. Akihito's eldest son, 59-year-old Crown Prince Naruhito, will take the throne the following day in a series of ceremonies. Hisahito is the son of Naruhito's younger brother and the last eligible male heir. Japan's centuries-old succession would be broken if Hisahito does not have a male child as the Imperial Household Law, in place since 1947, does not allow women to ascend the Chrysanthemum Throne. Lara Trump has denounced Germanys acceptance of refugees, claiming Chancellor Angela Merkels immigration policies have led to the European nations downfall". Ms Trump, who serves as the face of Donald Trumps 2020 re-election campaign, joined Fox Business to discuss the presidents immigration agenda when she made the controversial remarks about the influx of people in 2015. It was the downfall of Germany, she said about refugees and migrants being accepted into the country. It was one of the worst things that ever happened to Germany. This president knows that, she continued, hes trying to prevent that from happening here, but Congress has got to get their act together and do the right thing here for the American people. Her comments immediately sparked backlash online from critics, who pointed to the rise of the Nazi regime, the Holocaust and World War Two as several examples of other historic afflictions to beset Germany. The presidents 2020 spokesperson also failed to note research indicating the influx of migrants has benefited the German economy. The countrys GDP grew steadily by an average of 0.2 per cent each year from 2011 to 2016 due to EU immigration, according to research conducted by the German Institute for Economic Research. Ms Trump was echoing the presidents hard-line stance on migration on Thursday when she suggested the German chancellor should not have allowed an increase of refugees to enter the country. Ms Merkel, meanwhile, has defended the countrys decision to open its doors to migrants, saying in a 2016 speech: A rejection of the humanitarian stance we took could have led to even worse consequences. Under Mr Trump, the federal government has sought to sharply reduce the number of refugees and migrants seeking asylum at the US-Mexico border. The president has threatened to close the southern border outright, as his administration seeks to include a citizenship question on the upcoming US census. WASHINGTON The Trump administration on Friday asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the father of Hoda Muthana, the American-born woman who fled Alabama in 2014 to marry an Islamic State fighter in Syria. Hoda's father, Ahmed Ali Muthana a former diplomat at the United Nations for Yemen who is a naturalized U.S. citizen filed the lawsuit in February seeking to overturn the Trump administration's determination that Muthana is not an American citizen. Muthana's father wants the U.S. to help bring Muthana now 24 and the mother of a toddler boy back to the United States. She has expressed remorse for her decisions and said she's willing to face prosecution and jail time for her affiliation with ISIS, but Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has labeled her a terrorist. More: The making of an American terrorist: Hoda Muthana joined ISIS. Now she cant come back The legal case turns on factual questions about when Ahmed Ali Muthana's diplomatic status ended before or after his daughter was born. But the outcome could have far-reaching implications for Americans all over the world. "Muthana is not and never has been a U.S. citizen , and her son also is not a U.S. citizen," Justice Department lawyers argued in Friday's court filing. Hoda Muthana was born in Hackensack, New Jersey, in October of 1994, and raised in Hoover, Alabama. A few months before her birth, her father left his post at the U.N., and he and his wife applied for permanent residency in the U.S. In 2014, Muthana secretly joined the Islamic State after telling her parents she was going to Atlanta as part of a field trip connected with her studies at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Instead, she withdrew from college and used her tuition reimbursement to travel to Syria. In Syria, she called for the death of Americans and helped spread ISIS propaganda on social media. But in December of last year, Muthana fled to a refugee camp, as the Islamic State lost control of its territory in Syria and Iraq. She now says she was brainwashed, has expressed remorse and is willing to face the U.S. justice system and serve jail time. Story continues The State Department argues that Muthana never qualified for U.S. citizenship because, at the time of her birth, the U.S. government had not yet been notified that her father was no longer a diplomat. Foreign diplomats are immune from U.S. laws and their children are not granted automatic U.S. citizenship at birth. The Muthana family has provided documents from the U.N. showing Ahmed Muthana was terminated from his diplomatic job in July 1994, and the U.S. has twice issued Muthana an American passport based on those records. But in Friday's brief, the Justice Department notes that the U.S. government didn't receive official notification of Ahmed Muthana's termination until February 6, 1995, months after Hoda Muthana's birth. Under the "plain terms of the Vienna Convention, and consistent with the practice of the United States regarding individuals accredited to permanent missions to the United Nations," Muthana's diplomatic status ended on Feb. 6, 1995, the government's brief states. The government also argued that Ahmed Muthana did not have standing to bring the case on his daughter's behalf and questioned whether she truly wants to return to the U.S. "Plaintiff alleges that Muthana wishes to return to the United States and is ready to face the consequences of her actions including possible criminal prosecution and incarceration," the brief states. "But Muthanas own past statements raise questions regarding whether Muthana and (her father) are aligned on this point." Those statements include this quote from a 2015 interview Hoda Muthana gave to Buzzfeed News: It would never cross my mind to come back, she told the outlet in confessing she had lied to her father to see if he would send her money. I wanted to see if hed help me out during troubling times. It was just a test. I knew he wouldnt send me anything anyway. Such "contradictory statements" raise questions about whether her father can pursue the lawsuit in her stead, the government argued. The Muthana family's attorney, Charles Swift, said that under the State Department's argument, ex-foreign diplomats in the U.S. would be free to commit horrific crimes without fear of prosecution as long as their home countries didn't send official notification of their termination. "The governments position is that a diplomat retains immunity until its country tells the U.S. that theyve been terminated," Swift, director of the Constitutional Law Center for Muslims in America, a Texas-based group, said after a hearing in the case in March. " ... (So) theyre free to terminate them and then have that individual go out and commit all kinds of criminal acts such as espionage, sabotage, murder, maiming." The Justice Department called that "wildly implausible." The government's lawyers noted that the U.S. could quickly terminate a diplomat's immunity if it had concerns about that person's mission or activities in the U.S. The case being handled by Judge Reggie Walton, of U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. Its not clear when he will hold the next hearing in the case. But Swift said earlier this year he expected a decision by summer. During the March hearing, Walton denied Ahmed Muthana's request for the case to be fast tracked, but the judge also seemed favorable to the legal arguments made by the Muthana family's attorneys. More: Should Hoda Muthana be allowed to return from ISIS for trial in the U.S.? Trump says no. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: ISIS bride case: Muthana lawsuit should be dismissed, Trump administration lawyers argue Yaounde (AFP) - The chairman of Cameroon's main opposition party Ni John Fru Ndi has been released after being kidnapped earlier Saturday in the Northwest Region, one of two English-speaking provinces in the grip of an armed conflict for over a year, his party said. The SDF leader was abducted while leading a funeral procession, his party said earlier, without giving any indication of whether the kidnappers were believed to be separatists. "President Ni John Fru Ndi has just been freed at 1834 (1734 GMT)," Social Democratic Front (SDF) official Jean Robert Wafo said in a statement. A number of officials and members of the SDF have already been targeted in similar attacks. In October 2018, Fru Ndi's home was attacked by arsonists and his sister kidnapped and later released. His party is the main opposition to 86-year-old President Paul Biya who has ruled Cameroon since 1982. It has always opposed any partition of the country and defied separatists in the English-speaking regions who called for a boycott of the last presidential election in October. Conflict in Cameroon, a majority French-speaking nation, broke out in October 2017 when anglophone militants declared an independent state in the Northwest and Southwest Regions. The International Crisis Group has said the death toll since the start of the fighting had topped 500 for civilians and more than 200 for members of the security forces. Around 530,000 people have fled the fighting, according to the United Nations. English-speakers, who account for about a fifth of Cameroon's population of 24 million, have chafed for years at perceived discrimination in education, law and economic opportunities at the hands of the francophone majority. The self-declared entity, the "Republic of Ambazonia," which has been named after the local Ambas Bay, has not been recognised internationally. COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) The leaders of several Midwest states hit recently by flooding along the Missouri River said Friday they've received assurances from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that the states will "have a seat at the table" when it comes to river management decisions. "That was crystal clear when we left that table, that the states were going to have some say in how the river is managed," said Republican Missouri Gov. Mike Parson immediately after leaving a meeting with Corps officials in the western Iowa city of Council Bluffs. Parson was joined by Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, both Republicans, and Kansas Democratic Lt. Gov. Lynn Rogers. It was the second such meeting since last month's flooding that devastated farms and communities and ripped apart roads and bridges, causing more than an estimated $3 billion in damage. Ricketts said the four states are considering pushing for formation of a Missouri River management group similar to the Mississippi River Commission that would include representatives from the states. "We're going to work together and pull together as four states ... to be able to change the way the river is controlled," he said. The Mississippi River Commission was formed 140 years ago to recommend policy regarding flood control, navigation and environmental projects on the Mississippi River. Its membership consists of three Corps officers, a member of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and three civilians, two of whom must be civil engineers. The U.S. president appoints the commission's members. "We along the Missouri River don't have that," Ricketts said. "I think it's something we should look at." The state leaders also received an update Friday from the Corps on the progress of repairing the largest levee breaches along the river, most of which occurred in southwestern Iowa. Reynolds said repair contracts for three of the four largest breaches have already been awarded and that some of the repairs could be finished as early as July. The Corps announced Friday that it awarded a $6 million contract to repair a 1,200-foot breach on the levee south of Highway 34 in Mills County, Iowa. The initial repair will provide flood protection to areas behind the levee, including work to repair Highway 34 and Interstate 29, both of which were heavily damaged by the flooding and remain closed. The Corps expects that repair to be finished within 45 days of the work beginning. Rabat (AFP) - At least 16 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa died Saturday when the vehicle they were travelling in plunged into an irrigation canal, state news agency MAP reported. The agency said 17 other "sub-Saharan Africans looking to become illegal immigrants" were injured and transported to hospital after the accident on a minor road near the Spanish territory of Melilla. Local authorities quoted by MAP said the driver fled the scene and an investigation had been launched into the crash. Local NGO the Moroccan Association of Human Rights said the death toll was at least 19 and added around 50 people had been travelling in the vehicle. It said the vehicle was "often used by traffickers to transport migrants". Melilla is one of two Spanish territories attached to northern Morocco that mark the European Union's only land borders with Africa. The International Organization for Migration says that 1,605 migrants crossed by land into Spain in the first four months of this year. The Moroccan authorities said they stopped 89,000 "attempts at illicit immigration" last year, including some 29,000 by sea. CAIRO (Reuters) - Libya's National Oil Corporation (NOC) said on Saturday that revenues rose to more than $1.5 billion in March, up 20 percent from the previous month, but that fighting between rival factions posed a serious threat to production. The $270 million rise in revenue was mainly due to the ending of a three-month armed blockade at the south-western oilfield of Sharara, NOC said in a statement. But the state-run firm said fighting around the capital Tripoli, where forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar launched an offensive early this month, put future output at risk. "The latest outbreak of hostilities ... poses a serious threat to our operations, production and the national economy," said NOC Chairman Mustafa Sanalla. "The corporation is gravely concerned about the threat to national energy infrastructure and attempts to use NOC facilities and equipment for military purposes," he added, calling for an "immediate cessation of hostilities". Possible fuel shortages would impact both the civilian population and NOC operations, Sanalla said. Non-essential NOC staff living and working near conflict areas have been ordered to stay at home. OPEC member Libya's oil production has been repeatedly disrupted by conflict and blockades since the 2011 uprising that toppled former leader Muammar Gaddafi. (Reporting by Aidan Lewis; Editing by Alexandra Hudson) In David Mitchells enthralling 2004 novel Cloud Atlas, the author considers how quickly an event well known to collective history, such as the sinking of the Titanic, can become shrouded in an impenetrable fog of mythology. The reason? The disaster as it actually occurred descends into obscurity as its eyewitnesses die off, documents perish, and the wreck of the ship dissolves in its Atlantic grave. Soon enough, Mitchell contends, all that remains is a virtual sinking of the Titanic, created from reworked memories, papers, hearsay, fiction. As a consequence of this evolution, history in any real sense is undiscoverable, abstruse, hovering always just beyond the reach of the present. And thus is the reader introduced to one of the central assertions of postmodernism. Or should I say reintroduced? Dotting contemporary literature like archipelagos on a nautical chart are moments of strikingly similar reflection, all sharing the conclusion that the pasts complexity is too great for the human mind to comprehend that it can be consumed only in small, easily digestible bites, none of which give the full flavor of the meal. For W. G. Sebald, the German master whose Austerlitz won the 2001 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, such morsels often take the form of cliche, as when epic military engagements are summed up in the ridiculous phrase, The fortunes of battle swayed this way and that. Sebalds argument, which anticipates Mitchells, is that any attempt to reproduce the reality of the past inevitably runs up against our tendency to rely on preformed images: useful but insufficient mental snapshots (think of the beautiful but static Gettysburg Diorama) that ultimately crowd out any comprehensive understanding. In part, our impoverished view of the past is due to nothing more complicated than the limitations of our memories, which, as Marilynne Robinson argues in Housekeeping (1980), are by their nature fragmented, isolated, and arbitrary as glimpses one has at night through lighted windows. Yet there is something else at work, too, in our failure. What we . . . refer to confidently as memory, William Maxwell writes in So Long, See You Tomorrow (1980), is really a form of storytelling that goes on continually in the mind and often changes with the telling. As a result, Maxwell wryly suggests, in talking about the past we lie with every breath we draw. Story continues What these and similar passages in contemporary fiction have in common is the debt that they owe to Roland Barthes, the French philosopher and critic whom English majors have been pretending to read for at least five decades. Barthes is most famous for The Death of the Author, of course, but far more compelling today is his 1957 essay The Brain of Einstein, in which Barthes asks the reader to recall the famous formula E = mc and to consider that equations rendering in popular imagery. Photographs of Einstein, Barthes writes, show him standing next to a blackboard covered with mathematical signs of obvious complexity; but cartoons of Einstein . . . show him chalk still in hand, and having just written on an empty blackboard, as if without preparation, the magic formula of the world. Why the visual shorthand? Because Einstein cartoons are mythology rather than history, and through the mythology of Einstein, one of the greatest intellectual feats ever undertaken by a human being can be reduced to a formula. Eventually, Barthes readers understand, that equation will be all that remains of Einsteins three-quarters of a century on this planet. A full rendering of his life will be left to the biographers, and even they will flub it. How could they not? In the end, the past eludes us all. That this truism contains lessons for present-day American voters is not, I like to think, a particularly outlandish assertion. What it means for us as consumers of the daily news cycle, for example, is that a great deal of humility is called for. How many of our most confident memories are flawed? Or based on unsubstantiated media assertions that were bias-driven in the first place? How much of the present do we contextualize with a poorly constructed sense of the past? Re-reading Christopher Hitchenss contributions to The Weekly Standard last weekend (on Easter Sunday, no less), I was startled to find among his essays a full-throated defense of Tony Blair, who is now remembered, at least in this country, as the compliant lapdog of a warmongering president. Yet so far from being an American poodle, as his taunting and ignorant foes like to sneer, Hitchens writes, Blair had in fact leaned on [Bill] Clinton over Kosovo and was insisting on the importance of Iraq while George Bush was still an isolationist governor of Texas. Is there room in the popular imagination for the mitigating facts to which Hitchens points? No, there isnt. The damage is done, and Blairs reputation is now preserved in amber. If the past is ultimately unknowable, then so, too, is the hopelessly complicated present especially in this age in which the superabundance of information at our disposal is the very enemy of clarity. As an example, readers need only consider the undying saga of the presidents behavior during the Russia probe. We, the average citizens of this nation, are separated from what actually occurred by an uncrossable divide. On one side are events as they really unfolded. On the other is the curious public, able to gaze across only by peering through a series of darkened veils. Between us and the truth lies what the participants told Robert Mueller, what Mueller wrote in his report, what the attorney general said in his summary, how the media covered both documents, and how we as individuals inevitably view that coverage through our respective partisan lenses a game of Telephone so convoluted that no one even needed to lie to obfuscate the facts. Americans could erase a few of those layers by reading the Mueller report for themselves, of course, but how many of us will actually do so before drawing conclusions? My guess is that the number is low indeed. What all of this points to is the incontrovertible superiority of first principles to the hourly political machinations so prized by the program directors at CNN and MSNBC. I will never know no one can exactly what the president did, and why, where Russia is concerned. But I can see with my own eyes that he is less likely than his opponents to rip infants from the womb, seize private wealth for fantastical ends, or persecute Christians for their sincerely held beliefs. Those are my principles; others have their own. In the end, they may be all that we can rely upon. More from National Review Made in Chelsea star Charlie Mills (Photo by David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images) Made in Chelsea star Charlie Mills has apologised after making tasteless rape joke while on a night out in London. The 25-year-old uploaded a drunken video to his Instagram story, including himself and two friends. In the video he was in the back of a taxi with a female friend and British polo player Josh Cork. The clip sees the banking heir introduce Josh, followed by showing the young woman in their company. While the camera panned on to her, Mills said: This is our sexy b**ch who we are going to f****** rape tonight. Read more: Debut of new Made In Chelsea cast like mating of the tigers in India The made in Chelsea star then uploaded a second video, in which he commented to the same female, who looked visibly uncomfortable: What are you doing, youre a s**t. LONDON, ENGLAND JANUARY 31: Charlie Mills attends Bunga Bunga Covent Gardens 1st birthday party on January 31, 2018 in London, England. (Photo by David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images) After posting the video to his 37,000 Instagram followers, Mills was inundated by female charities blasting him for his inappropriate comments. Mills has since spoken to The Sun, making a grovelling apology for the videos. He said: I made a tasteless comment. What I said was unacceptable, and I sincerely apologise for the offence caused by my childish and insensitive remark. The former model has now deleted his Instagram account. Read more: Spencer Matthews apologises after wooden Good Morning Britain debut Channel 4, who broadcast Made in Chelsea, have said socialite Mills will no longer be a part of the show after a series of concerning drunken incidents since joining the programme in 2017, including being arrested for suspicion of drink driving. His ancestor founded a bank in the 1700s called Glyn Mills and Co, which has since been bought out by Royal Bank of Scotland, thought the company still trades in several businesses with offices in London and Nottinghamshire. Made in Chelsea, or MIC as it is affectionately known by fans, started in 2011, chronicling the lives of the young and rich of the West London areas of Knightsbridge, Kings Road and Belgravia. The show is currently on its seventeenth series. Police are still hunting for a man who abducted and raped two women in less than 12 hours (Picture: Getty) Police are hunting a man who abducted and raped two women in less than 12 hours. The attacker grabbed a woman in Chingford, east London, in the early hours of Thursday before striking again around 15 miles away in Edgware, north west London, on Thursday lunchtime in a second attack. Both women - who appear to have been targeted randomly - managed to escape following a struggle in Watford, Hertforshire. Police are urging anyone with information to come forward amid fears the man could strike again. Osborne Road in Watford, where both women managed to escape after a struggle (Picture: Google Maps) Met Police Detective Chief Inspector Katherine Goodwin, who is leading the investigation, said the first victim was abducted from a street in Chingford just after midnight on Thursday. The second woman was abducted from a street in Edgware at 12.15pm on Thursday lunchtime. DCI Goodwin said the victims, both in their 20s, managed to escape from the suspect following a struggle in Osborne Road, Watford, at around 2.30pm on Thursday. READ MORE Foot and lower leg found by dog walker belonged to a woman Storm Hannah brings 82mph winds to the UK The UK has the lowest opinion of the EU out of all its members She said: This was a terrifying ordeal for both women who were abducted by the suspect in separate areas. "At this stage there is nothing to suggest either victims were specifically targeted for any reason, but both appear to have been selected at random. A number of active leads are being followed up urgently including reviewing CCTV footage and forensic analysis. "We are also working closely with our colleagues in Hertfordshire to establish what links the suspect may have in that area." DCI Goodwin said both women are receiving support from specialist officers. She added: Stranger attacks like this are extremely rare. That being said, I would urge everyone in these areas to remain vigilant and report anything suspicious to police immediately via 999. The suspect is described as white and of muscular build and drives a car, police said. As the hunt for the attacker continues, patrols have been stepped up in the North Watford area, Hertfordshire Police confirmed. Maoist rebels opened fire on Indian police late Saturday, killing two constables and wounding a villager, the police said. They were attacked while riding a motorcycle in the Bijapur district of Chhattisgarh state, the Press Trust of India said, citing a police deputy inspector. One constable and an assistant constable died at the scene and the villager, shot in the chest, was taken by local residents for treatment, he said. A roadside bomb attack on a political convoy in early April killed five people in Chhattisgarh, two days before voting began in India's national election which runs until May 19. The blast killed a state assembly lawmaker from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, his driver and three state bodyguards. Rebels often call for a boycott of elections as part of their campaign against the Indian state. A rebel ambush last October in Chhattisgarh killed a journalist and two police officers, ahead of local polls. Indian forces have been fighting Maoists for decades in the mineral-rich central state. The Maoists are believed to be present in at least 20 other Indian states but are most active in Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand and Maharashtra. Their insurgency has left tens of thousands dead. Santiago (AFP) - With songs like "We'll Beat the State," Chilean rappers Wechekeche Ni Trawun are on a mission to support the Mapuche indigenous people's fight for justice and land rights. Before the Spanish arrived in 1541, the Mapuche -- or "people of the earth" in the Mapudungun language -- controlled a territory that stretched 500 kilometers south of central Chile's Biobio River. Following centuries of conflict with the Spanish conquerors and then the Chilean government, that land has been reduced to just five percent of its former expanse -- leaving the Mapuche fighting both for official recognition of their culture and the restitution of ancestral lands. "Music plays a crucial role, it accompanies the process of the struggle," Filutraru Paillafilu, one of Wechekeche Ni Trawun's five members, proudly told AFP. It's a struggle that has at times descended into violence, with some of the most radical indigenous elements resorting in the last decade to arson attacks against logging companies, churches and homes. At the end of last year, the government claimed 20 people had been killed in Mapuche-related violence since 2011, with more than 900 firebomb attacks amongst almost 3,000 acts of violence. For the band, music offers the chance to protest in a different way against the appropriation of their land and to denounce security services' use of force against Mapuche people. In December, Chile's president Sebastian Pinera sacked top police chief General Hermes Soto after video emerged of the unprovoked murder of a 24-year-old Mapuche man, which contradicted the official version of events. - 'Oppressors' - In "We'll Beat the State," written in 2017, the group speaks directly to those it brands "oppressors." "You imprison and murder and then ask for forgiveness. Your forgiveness is an insult to my nation." As well as campaigning for the restitution of indigenous lands, the musicians also want to convey to future generations their Mapuche pride. Story continues "Our lyrics speak about everything that concerns our culture, our struggle. We also add our musical instruments," said Paillafilu, a traditional music teacher at a school in the capital Santiago. Another aim is to demonstrate the omnipresence of Mapuche culture in the city. "People don't realize that half the names" of streets and neighborhoods are Mapuche, he added. The Mapuche, originally from the south of the country and Argentina, are the largest indigenous group in Chile, making up nine percent of the 18 million population. The entire indigenous population is just under 13 percent of the total, or nearly 2.2 million people according to the 2017 Census. Carolina, a teacher who went to watch the band at a concert in a Santiago square, said more people have "Mapuche blood" than they realize. "We're all mixed," she said. "Mapudungun should be taught at school so that our children are aware of our country's interculturality." - Twice as much poverty - In the summer, Wechekeche Ni Trawun travel from the capital Santiago to the southern regions of La Araucania, Biobio and Los Rios to play in front of their families, who mostly live in small communities where life is tough. Statistics show that there is twice as much poverty in the Mapuche community as the general population. Wechekeche Ni Trawun, who formed in 2004, are not the only Mapuche band but their concerts generate great excitement. Some concert-goers accompany the group by playing the "Trutruka," a traditional wind instrument that was once used by the Mapuche at gatherings ahead of battles. From an artistic point of view, Wechekeche Ni Trawun combine rap with rock, salsa, cumbia and R&B, to attract as many "brothers" as possible, the band says. They sing in both Spanish and Mapudungun, denouncing police brutality and calling for the liberation of "Wallmapu," as they call Mapuche territory. Wearing traditional bandanas, band members beat out the rhythm with their "wada" instruments, a type of Mapuche maracas. And culture and their community is at the heart of their existence: they recently held a concert in Santiago to raise funds for a child who needs to travel abroad for medical attention. WASHINGTON Maria Butinas arrest last year produced breathtaking headlines about a young, attractive woman spying on Americans on behalf of the Russian government. Butina is neither a covert agent nor a trained intelligence officer. And the only crime she was accused of committing acting as an unregistered foreign agent has nothing to do with stealing secrets, let alone engaging in "cloak-and-dagger activities," the Justice Department acknowledged. But as Butina, 30, waits to be sentenced, the Justice Department revived the question that hung over her case from the moment she was arrested: Was she a spy? Nearly a year after they first filed charges against her, prosecutors said last week that she isn't at least in the traditional sense of the word. But they alleged for the first time that her courting of influential Republicans in the months before the 2016 election appeared "entirely consistent" with an intelligence operation to spot Americans who will be potentially valuable to the Russian government. This claim, which Butinas attorneys say were baseless, reinvigorated the intrigue over the gun-toting, red-haired Russian graduate student and activist whose arrest last summer sparked a speculative frenzy about who or what she really is. Prosecutors accused Butina of engaging in a years-long campaign to find politically connected Americans and infiltrate political organizations on behalf of the Kremlin. She pleaded guilty to acting as an unregistered foreign agent, and is scheduled to be sentenced in federal court on Friday. More: Feds: Russian operative tried to infiltrate National Rifle Association, other groups Get the app: Like what you're reading? Download the USA TODAY app for more Her sentencing and the government's new allegations, made in a court filing by a former FBI agent last week, come against a backdrop of a political fallout over special counsel Robert Mueller's findings that Russia interfered in the presidential election in "sweeping and systematic fashion" to help elect President Donald Trump and undermine his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. Story continues Last week, prosecutors filed a declaration by Robert Anderson, Jr., the former assistant director of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division, alleging that she was part of an espionage scheme by the Russian government. Anderson, who retired from the FBI in 2015 and is now chief executive officer of a cybersecurity and research company in Texas, wrote that Butina was what U.S. spy-catchers call a "spotter," an untrained person used to gather information about Americans who could be susceptible to Russian influence. Such "spot-and-assess operations" don't "require secret encryption, dead drops, or any other trappings of a Hollywood spy story," Anderson wrote. Yet, it's a common method that provides a country's intelligence service plausible deniability if spotters were ever exposed, he added. Prosecutors have asked Judge Tanya S. Chutkan to sentence Butina to 18 months in prison and order her deportation. They said Anderson's assessment puts "the nature and seriousness" of Butina's crimes into context. By beefing up their assessment of Butina, prosecutors are hoping to deter others who engaged in similar campaigns. Butina's defense attorneys said Anderson's assessments were speculative, saying there's no evidence that Butina's work in the United States resulted in "spotted" Americans, or that she had passed along sensitive information to Russians, according to a motion asking the judge to exclude Anderson's findings. Defense attorneys also criticized prosecutors for what they described as a new theory rolled out for the first time "in the metaphorical bottom of the ninth inning." In a sentencing memo filed last week, Butina's lawyers described her as a civil activist who is passionate for gun rights and politics, but whose "amateur diplomacy efforts" became her undoing. Butina had admitted to being an agent, but not "a secret agent, not an intelligence agent," her attorneys wrote. Prosecutors charged Butina with conspiracy and failing to register as a Russian agent, not espionage, her attorneys pointed out. But Butina's case shows the difficulty of prosecuting someone whom the government believes engaged in clandestine acts on behalf of a foreign country, said Joseph Augustyn, a veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency's clandestine service and former deputy associate director of the Department of Homeland Security. He said prosecutors would have struggled to build an espionage case against Butina even if they thought she was aiding Russian intelligence. "The charges against Butina are like getting Al Capone for tax evasion. You're not really getting to the espionage aspect," Augustyn said. "To pin her down in an espionage case is a really tough sell ... Even in an espionage case, before you can prosecute somebody for espionage, you have to see them conduct the act before they're arrested. They have to be caught in the act of passing information." More: Grand jury indicts Russian accused of infiltrating US political organizations, expands on charges against her Augustyn said he doubted Butina engaged in espionage. "There are different levels of spy," he said. Chutkan on Thursday denied the defense attorneys' motion to exclude Anderson, allowing Butina's sentencing hearing to move forward. Anderson will likely testify. Butina pleaded guilty in December to acting as a foreign agent for Russia without registering in the United States. She's been in jail for nine months. Prosecutors said she worked at the direction of a high-level Russian official who was a member of the legislature of the Russian Federation and became a top official of the Russian Central Bank. This description matches that of Alexander Toshin, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Prosecutors said the pair identified political organizations and politically connected individuals they can "exploit" to advance Russia's interest. Butina, who came to the United States in June 2016 on a student visa to attend graduate school at American University, sought to create back-channel lines of communication with American politicians and infiltrated organizations, including the National Rifle Association, to gain influence for Russia, prosecutors said. Butina was not prosecuted by Mueller, and the Justice Department has never acknowledged a connection between her case and the special counsel investigation, though her arrest coincided with that probe and happened in the midst of a heightened interest over Russian meddling in U.S. politics. Contributing: Bart Jansen and Christal Hayes This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Maria Butina is not a Russian spy, but a 'spotter': DOJ revives intrigue over gun rights activist Cannabis stocks have become some of the most popular investments on the planet, and across the globe, investors are trying to figure out how best to capitalize on the growing trend toward making marijuana legal. Some have done a good job of picking out top-performing individual marijuana stocks. But for those who would rather bet on the entire industry through an exchange-traded fund, just about the only option made specifically for U.S. investors was ETFMG Alternative Harvest ETF (NYSEMKT: MJ). Alternative Harvest has climbed above $1 billion in assets under management, showing just how heavy demand is for a marijuana ETF. Now, there's new competition in the cannabis ETF space, and many investors are taking a first look at AdvisorShares Pure Cannabis (NYSEMKT: YOLO) as a possible alternative to Alternative Harvest. Going active on pot stocks The AdvisorShares cannabis ETF just started trading on the NYSE Arca exchange on April 17, but already it's started to generate a lot of interest. With Alternative Harvest typically seeing volume of around 1 million shares per day, AdvisorShares' showing of roughly 275,000 might seem lackluster. Yet for a fund that has just $15 million in assets under management, the amount of interest that the new marijuana ETF is getting is a promising start for the upstart fund. Two fingers holding a marijuana leaf, with cannabis plants in the background. Image source: Getty Images. Perhaps the most interesting way in which the Pure Cannabis ETF differs from Alternative Harvest is in its investment philosophy. Pure Cannabis takes an active approach toward choosing marijuana stocks, with portfolio manager Dan Ahrens and his team of analysts working to select the cannabis companies they believe will perform the best in the current environment. By being able to adjust its portfolio much more quickly than an index-driven ETF like Alternative Harvest, Pure Cannabis hopes to react faster to changing trends in the rapidly evolving cannabis market. In particular, Pure Cannabis will be able to add newly available stocks to its portfolio as soon as they're available to the general public -- rather than having to wait for a quarterly rebalancing. Story continues Overcoming a key hurdle When AdvisorShares first filed to offer Pure Cannabis, there was one important obstacle that it needed to overcome: finding a custodian willing to work with the fund. Because of the complex legal framework governing cannabis in the U.S., many financial institutions have shied away from dealing with funds that concentrate on marijuana stocks -- even those operating in jurisdictions in which cannabis is completely legal. Alternative Harvest has had its own experience with this, and it had to switch custodians last fall in response to concerns from its previous custodial institution. However, AdvisorShares managed to enlist one of the most reputable companies in the industry to serve as its custodian. Bank of New York Mellon acts as Pure Cannabis' custodial institution, lending its experience to build confidence in the staying power of the new ETF. Trying to make a splash Looking at Pure Cannabis' holdings, you can see a definite shift from the approach of Alternative Harvest. The two ETFs don't share any of the same names in their respective top five holdings, with Pure Cannabis choosing to concentrate more on the smaller companies that have more recently made their way into the spotlight. For instance, Green Organic Dutchman tops the holdings list, while CannTrust, OrganiGram, Aphria, and Innovative Industrial Properties round out the top stocks in Pure Cannabis' portfolio. Together, they make up 36% of the fund's assets. That's not to say you won't find the mid-cap giants of the cannabis space within the AdvisorShares marijuana ETF. But industry leaders like Canopy Growth and Aurora Cannabis get much smaller 4% to 5% allocations, rather than the 8% to 10% weightings they get within Alternative Harvest. Pure Cannabis has also tried to establish lower costs, although the difference is trivial. With a total expense ratio of 0.74%, Pure Cannabis comes in under the 0.75% that Alternative Harvest charges -- but only by a token amount that's insignificant. See how Pure Cannabis does With fewer shares outstanding, the Pure Cannabis ETF comes with greater liquidity risk than Alternative Harvest, and that might make some conservative cannabis investors want to wait until the fund has better established itself. However, with its active approach, Pure Cannabis stands a chance to outperform Alternative Harvest over the long run. It will be interesting to see what happens to the two ETFs' relative asset levels if the upstart produces superior returns coming out of the starting gate. More From The Motley Fool Dan Caplinger has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends CannTrust Holdings Inc, Innovative Industrial Properties, and OrganiGram Holdings. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Melinda Gates has done a lot in her lifetime. Shes a computer scientist and former manager at Microsoft; co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the world's largest private charitable organization; and traveled the world to champion womens rights and promote education among other major accomplishments. Now she can add author to the list. In her new book The Moment of Lift, Gates reveals insights on how to empower women based on her lessons from meeting people through all walks of life. Gates tells Yahoo Finance that it just felt like the right time to pen the book. Societies are better off when we have men and women equal. And I feel like we have this moment in time because of what happened with the MeToo movement all over the world. ... And I want to make sure this window doesn't pass us by, Gates says. Yahoo Finances Brian Sozzi talks with Gates about her book, husband Bill and how to empower women globally. Note: The interview has been edited for length and clarity. Brian Sozzi: Why write this book right now? Melinda Gates: Because equality, it can't wait. And societies are better off when we have men and women equal. And I feel like we have this moment in time because of what happened with the MeToo movement all over the world. You see so many women running for Congress in 2018 in the midterm elections. And I want to make sure this window doesn't pass us by. And so now is the time. We've got all pull up together. Sozzi: What will it take to have more women to have their moment of lift in the business community? Gates: It will take us all looking at what's actually going on. A company needs to look at what's going on for their women inside their company. You know, what percentage of women are actually in management roles? What does pay look like? Are we-- in meetings, are men over explaining things that women have already said? So business by business, everybody has to look at those issues. And men have to also say we're going to help women. It takes men and women to help lift up women. Story continues Sozzi: Well, what is the roadblock? Why aren't people moving fast enough? You say in your book that you're an impatient perfectionist. What is taking so long to move that needle? Gates: Well, I think we just in society, sometimes, we don't look at what we've done in the past and the barriers that hold women back. And so we think, of course, women are moving up. But even if you look at this last rate of women going into Congress, which I think we all thought was fabulous news, at that rate, it's going to be 60 years until all women have parity in Congress with men. And so I think there are these barriers like unpaid work, or the fact that we have no paid family medical leave policy. We're the only industrialized nation that doesn't have that. And yet of our U.S. workforce, 47% are women. Sozzi: How do you expect policy to change given that we do have more women in Congress? Gates: Well, I think what you're seeing is women putting policies forward, and then and sometimes, what I call many enlightened men, too, and saying, it's finally time. So unpaid family medical leave for the first time, we actually have a bill from both the Democrats and the Republicans. Neither one of them are perfect yet. But the fact we will actually eventually have a bill move forward in Congress, it takes women bringing issues like that forward. Bill Gates, left, Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett take questions during a press conference Monday, June 26, 2006, in New York. Buffett, the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, announced his intention of giving 10 million shares of his company to charitable organizations, the majority going to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig) Sozzi: But you also write in the book it's important to have male allies. Gates: Absolutely, because ... men are part of these families, and they do a great job. But I think one of the things I talk about in the book is that men have to support women, open their networks of power, create seats at the table, move venture capital funding. So we have to look they have to look at what roles they have in business and how are they helping bring women along. And then they have to look in their home and say, what's actually in the distribution of labor in our home, and how do we maybe look at redistributing that a little bit. Sozzi: We've had a lot of tech IPOs. I don't see a lot of women involved certainly at the top, but involved at these companies. What's the root problem of this? Gates: Well, because so women come forth in droves with ideas for businesses that could be very successful. Less than 2% of women get venture capital funding. Less than 1% of people of color get venture capital funding. So to me, that talks about a structural inequity. And I know there are people of color and women who have fabulous business ideas. And so one of the things I'm doing is not only using my voice I'm a computer scientist to say that shouldn't be. I'm also putting capital down. Sozzi: Through Pivotal Ventures? Gates: Through a company an office I have called Pivotal Ventures, yes. And putting money in and believing in these early stage investments. I'm trying to show the way. And I expect a good return on that money. And I'm certain I'll get it. Sozzi: Is there a path out of this? When will we see more women bringing companies to public markets? Gates: I think once we start moving funding towards their businesses. That early seed stage funding, then Series A, then Series B. Then you will have far more female led companies taking companies public. Sozzi: And on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, phenomenal initiatives there, where are you taking some your biggest risks? Gates: I would say our biggest risk that we took was stepping into this contraceptive space. Because of intense political pressure in the United States, and some religious pressure, the global health community had backed off on contraceptives. And in 2012, we led an initiative and stepped back in, because it is the greatest anti-poverty tool in the world. When women can time and space ... the children are healthier, they can educate the kids, women can stay in school longer, and they can enter the workforce. We forget in the United States that it was the advent of the birth control pill that allowed women to work. And I believe that women should be able to do whatever they want. Raise a family, work, or work and raise a family. But without contraceptives, they can't realize that dream. Sozzi: Do you think the issues around Medicare and Medicaid are potentially destabilizing, from an economic standpoint? Gates: I think they could be. We know that we have the highest health care costs in the world. And we have a phenomenal health care system. However, the costs are disproportionate in terms of our GDP right now. Melinda Gates pictured with husband Bill Gates. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson) Sozzi: What about Warren Buffett? What have you learned from him? Gates: Oh my gosh, I could list about 100 things. He has been our shining light, I would say, for Bill and me in terms of our inspiration. You know, and just also, the wind at our back. You know, when I do something like step into the contraceptive space, he constantly says to me, That is right. The other thing, Warren, it was his big idea to make sure that people of great means joined something that we formed called The Giving Pledge. And he's gone out and called, as have Bill and I a number of billionaires we now have 190 billionaires who've committed in 22 countries to give away half their wealth, either at their death or during their lifetime. That was Warren's big idea. Sozzi: Does he encourage you to take risks? Gates: Absolutely. When he gave his fortune from Berkshire Hathaway to his children's three philanthropies and to ours, he told all four of us, swing for the fences. I want you to take risks. The job of philanthropy, which Warren knows well, is to take this catalytic to be the catalytic wedge, to take risk where government can't take risk but you wouldn't want them to with taxpayer money. And he said, you were trying to fill in the gaps where capitalism has failed. So absolutely, swinging for the fences, take educated risks, and I'm here to watch you and to applaud when you do, and see what works. Sozzi: Any interesting story you can share just from working with him? Gates: Oh my gosh. Warren is just he's just a delight. And so when you pick up the phone and call Warren or he calls you, he's always got a story to tell you, and a chuckle, and a laugh. And he just I don't know, he just for Bill and me, he is our lift. That's what I would say Warren is our lift. Bill talks to him now, I think, at least once every about 10 days. And whenever he gets off the phone, he'll come to dinner that night, say, oh, I talked to Warren today. He's talking about the following three things. And so Warren has been both of our lift in philanthropy. Sozzi: Key to giving back, and giving money, and helping the next generation is capitalism the ability to earn a return on your investments. Where do you fall in capitalism? Is it broken? What tweaks need to happen? Gates: I absolutely want to live in a capitalistic society. And the people I meet in so many countries in Africa and Asia want to live in the United States because of capitalism and democracy. We don't have it all right, though. And so I think it's time for us to look at our tax policy. We should be taxing the wealthy more than middle class, middle class more than low income. We have too much inequity in society. So we need to have some of these policy discussions, and we need to tweak our capitalistic system so it works for everybody, not just the wealthy. Sozzi: What does the future of tech look like? I know you believe in the power of software, as you write in the book. Gates: Yes and I believe I see tech is so pervasive in all of our lives, right? And even when I go in the developing world, people have cell phone in their pocket. And can save $1 a day in the Philippines, and Bangladesh, and Tanzania, and Kenya. And then they have the means to put their kids into school. So tech is transforming our lives. But I'm a computer scientist by training. When I was in school, we were on the way up just like in law and medicine, to reach parity in terms of men and women. Those numbers have dropped precipitously, and that is a concern to me, and why I'm using my voice through Pivotal Ventures to talk about why we need more women in computer science and AI. Because it is setting our future for the world, and women have to have a seat at that table to innovate and create great products, and to make sure we don't bake bias into our system. Sozzi: Do you think some of this tech is just being created is not for good, per se? It seems very service oriented, and more needs to be done in health care. Gates: I think you're going to see more work being done in health care in the United States. What I would like to see, though, is more done in health care to help people around the world, not just in the highest income nation in the world. Sozzi: Melinda Gates, thank you for joining Yahoo Finance. Gates: Thanks, Brian. Watch more: The New York Mets activated ace right-hander Jacob deGrom to start Friday night's game against the visiting Milwaukee Brewers. The reigning National League Cy Young Award winner went on the injured list after experiencing elbow pain last week. An MRI exam displayed no problems and deGrom had no issues in throwing sessions. The Mets optioned right-hander Jacob Rhame to Triple-A Syracuse to open up a roster spot. Rhame was given a two-game suspension on Thursday for throwing two pitchers over the head of Philadelphia Phillies first baseman Rhys Hoskins on Tuesday. Rhame will appeal the suspension, New York manager Mickey Callaway told reporters. Rhame has an 8.10 ERA in three appearances with the Mets this season. Meanwhile, deGrom (2-2) was roughed up badly in each of his past two starts to see his ERA soar to 3.68. After allowing no runs and eight hits over 13 innings while winning his first two starts, deGrom allowed nine runs and 13 hits in nine innings over the past two. Most alarming was that he served up five total homers in the two setbacks. The 30-year-old recently signed a five-year, $137.5 million extension. DeGrom posted a spectacular 1.70 ERA and struck out 269 in 32 starts last season while winning the Cy Young Award despite having a 10-9 record. New York also recalled right-hander Corey Oswalt from Syracuse and optioned infielder Luis Guillorme to the same affiliate. Oswalt gave up five runs in 3 2/3 innings in his one appearance with the Mets this season, while Guillorme was 3-for-18 in 11 games with New York. --Field Level Media Mexico City (AFP) - Mexico expressed fresh concern to the United States Friday about delays in the movement of goods and people across their border, after becoming Washington's biggest trade partner for the first time earlier this year. The diplomatic note from the foreign ministry is the latest sign of tension between the north American neighbors since President Donald Trump last month threatened to close the border if Mexico didn't stop illegal immigrants from reaching the US. "During the month of April there has been an economic impact to Mexican and American companies caused by the delays in customs," the foreign ministry said in a statement. The situation on the border "negatively impacts trade as well as the sources of employment and consumers in both countries," it said. According to the Foreign Ministry, in the first two months of the year Mexico was "for the first time in history" the main trading partner of the United States, with goods worth $97 billion changing hands. Data from the Ministry of Finance shows that from January to November 2018, bilateral trade was worth $527 billion. Some 80 percent of Mexico's exports are to the United States. In March Washington ordered the re-assignment of 2,000 customs officers to support the border patrol in the processing of a wave of migrants seeking to enter US territory. The stepped-up surveillance has sparked delays in processing the passage of goods and people. Tens of thousands of Central Americans have traversed Mexico in so-called "caravans" in the hope of reaching the United States. Trump says the migrants are a threat to US national security and has demanded that Mexico detain them and send them home. He has also threatened to close the border if Mexico doesn't act. More than 1,000 migrants have broken out of a detention in southern Mexico, one of the largest mass escapes in recent years. While more than half of the 1,300 migrants have so far returned to the Siglo XXI facility in the border city of Tapachula, about 600 are still unaccounted for, the National Migration Institute said in a statement. Migrants from Cuba make up the majority of those held at the centre in Chiapas state but the escapees who broke out of the centre with no major confrontation with facility officials also included Haitians and Central Americans, according to Mexican newspaper Reforma. Federal police with riot shields streamed into the compound, as a crowd of Cubans whose relatives were being held at the facility gathered outside. Some of those gathered said their family members claimed poor and unsanitary conditions in the facility. My wife and child have been in there for 27 days in bad conditions, Usmoni Velazquez Vallejo told the Associated Press. There is overcrowding, insufficient food and there isnt even medicine for them. The Independent has contacted state officials for a response to the claims over the conditions inside the centre. The facility is officially listed as having a capacity of around 1,000 which means the centre was likely filled far beyond that given that not all of the people held there escaped. The break-out comes as Mexican officials face press from Washington to stem the movement of people towards the US border. Mexico has returned 15,000 migrants in the past 30 days, with President Donald Trump threatening once again this week to close the border with Mexico if numbers of those crossing do not fall. Can anyone comprehend what a GREAT job Border Patrol and Law Enforcement is doing on our Southern Border. So far this year they have APPREHENDED 418,000 plus illegal immigrants, way up from last year. Mexico is doing very little for us. DEMS IN CONGRESS MUST ACT NOW! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 24, 2019 While some, including Mr Trump, have spoken about a crisis on the border, the majority of those seeking asylum in the US do so by other means. Critics point to hardline Trump administration polices, such as a tightening of asylum rules and the fact that those seeking shelter in the US must remain in Mexico while their cases are processed, for making the situation worse. Story continues In California, one of San Diegos long-term shelters for asylum-seekers will be shutting down, saying they can no longer cope with demand in a building that is already over capacity. We knew that we were violating fire code and other codes by having as many people in our building, Pastor Bill Jenkins, the director of the Christ Ministry Center, told NBC News. But no one would take them ... We were the only place where they could have a roof over their heads and not be on the streets. It seems as though [the Trump] administration is trying to make life as miserable as possible for the people who are seeking asylum, Mr Jenkins added. And theyre doing a pretty good job of it. I think our administration wants to prove that theres a crisis. Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report 100 N. Santa Rosa St. | Photos: Zumper According to rental site Zumper, median rents for a one bedroom in Downtown are hovering around $1,251, compared to ann $865 one-bedroom median for San Antonio as a whole. So how does the low-end pricing on a Downtown rental look these daysand what might you get for the price? We took a look at local listings for studios and one-bedroom apartments to find out what price-conscious apartment seekers can expect to find in the neighborhood, which, according to Walk Score ratings, is a "walker's paradise," is convenient for biking and boasts excellent transit options. Read on for the cheapest listings available right now. (Note: prices and availability are subject to change.) Hoodline offers data-driven analysis of local happenings and trends across cities. Links included in this article may earn Hoodline a commission on clicks and transactions. East Houston Street Listed at $800/month, this 300-square-foot studio apartment, located at East Houston Street, is 15.8 percent less than the $950/month median rent for a studio in Downtown. In the unit, you'll get hardwood flooring and a ceiling fan. Dogs and cats are not allowed. (See the complete listing here.) 222 E. Houston St., #600 This one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment, situated at 222 E. Houston St., #600, is listed for $1,000/month for its 575 square feet of space. In the unit, which comes furnished, you'll find a walk-in closet, granite countertops and in-unit laundry. Amenities offered in the building include assigned parking, secured entry and storage. Cats and dogs are not allowed. (See the complete listing here.) 100 N. Santa Rosa St., #4254 Here's a one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment at 100 N. Santa Rosa St., #4254, which is going for $1,225/month. In the unit, expect high ceilings. Future tenants needn't worry about a leasing fee. Sorry, but the building does not allow pets. (See the full listing here.) This story was created automatically using local real estate data, then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. Los Angeles (AFP) - A man opened fire at a synagogue in California, injuring multiple people, police said Saturday after they arrested him. "A man has been detained for questioning in connection with a shooting incident at the Chabad of Poway synagogue," tweeted San Diego Sheriff Bill Gore. "@SDSOPoway Deputies were called to Chabad Way just before 11:30 a.m. There are injuries. This is a developing situation." Local news outlet KGTV reported at least four victims have been transported. It added that the synagogue was hosting its Passover Holiday Celebration, which was scheduled to begin at 11:00 am. The shooting comes exactly six months after a gunman killed 11 people at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in the history of the United States. Photo: The Poni Room/Yelp Looking for a new wine bar to check out? Look no further than this new arrival. Called The Poni Room, this fresh bar is located at 316 Bowery in NoHo. According to its website, The Poni Room gets its inspiration from Japanese izakayas, which are casual eating and drinking establishments found all over Japan. The wine list boasts a selection of rose wines, and the menu features Asian-inspired seafood and small plates. (See the full menu here.) The wine bar also has an interactive beverage room, where guests are invited to pour their own drinks, according to the NoHo Business Improvement District. The Poni Room has gotten an enthusiastic response thus far, with a five-star rating out of 14 reviews on Yelp. Danielle G., who was among the first Yelpers to review the new spot on April 8, wrote, "Such a fun space! ... Great food, totally ideal for sharing, especially the small plates. Seafood forward but great meat options as well." Yelper Camille C. added, "Fun place! Tasty food and a lovely vibe for dinner. They had a selection of drier wines and some nice rose cider in a bottle, which I got. They also had a self-serve wine section in the back!" Intrigued? Stop in to try it for yourself. The Poni Room is open from 610 p.m. on TuesdayThursday and 511 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. (It's closed on Monday and Sunday.) Its wine oclock somewhere. Hitting up new and buzzy hotspots is all well and good but it usually involves leaving your pajamas at home. Skip the hassle and get straight to the good stuff with Winc, the wine club that curates bottles based on your personal taste, and delivers em straight to your doorstep. Like berry-forward flavors, hate bitterness, and crave earthy notes? Winc has the wines for you, for as little as $13 a bottle. Get swigging This story was created automatically using local business data, then reviewed and augmented by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. By Greg Scruggs SEATTLE, April 26 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - As plans for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border are raising fears that the ancestral lands of Native Americans in the south will be divided, indigenous people in the north are calling attention to their own border problems. The United States and Canada share the largest undefended border in the world, but free passage across it for indigenous tribes is easier in one direction than the other, tribal leaders and immigration lawyers said at the Arctic Encounter Symposium this week. A tribal member born in Canada can come to the United States to work or live without the paperwork usually required by immigration law thanks to a 200-year-old treaty. Canada, not a party to the treaty, has different rules. "We should be allowed to travel freely within our own territory and create economic opportunity for our people in what has always been our homeland," Ed Alexander, a Gwitchin tribal member in Fairbanks, Alaska, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. The Gwitchin, an indigenous tribe that populates both sides of the U.S.-Canada border along the Yukon River, need teachers on the Canadian side but members of the tribe born in the United States, like Alexander, can not easily make the move. Alexander, himself a teacher and co-chair of the Gwitchin International Council, said that Canada's refusal to recognize the treaty has created obstacles for the Gwitchin in Alaska. They cannot follow caribou herds across the border for subsistence hunting, he said, and U.S. resident Gwitchin without passports or with criminal records for infractions like drunk driving cannot enter Canada. They also can not visit Tl'oo Kat, a sacred place for the Gwitchin for generations where the Niintsyaa ceremonial gathering for political decision making and traditional dance takes place. Immigration lawyer Greg Boos pointed to a case wending its way through Canada's legal system as particularly egregious. Story continues In it, a U.S. citizen member of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Nation crossed into British Columbia to hunt elk and was charged with a hunting violation. Prosecuting a case against someone whose ancestors have hunted in the same geographic area for thousands of years is the unwelcome byproduct of border enforcement, said former Yukon Premier Tony Pickett. "The border has created a kind of fiction in the sense they drew a line across these traditional territories," he said. Over 750,000 Native Americans live in U.S. states that border Canada, according to census figures. Indigenous Canadians make up about 5 percent of Canada's 36 million people. A 2017 report by the Canadian government recommended ratifying the treaty to adhere to the free movement across borders enshrined in the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, but it has not done so. The Canadian government did not respond to requests for comment. (Reporting by Greg Scruggs; Editing by Jason Fields; 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) By Amanda Ferguson and Padraic Halpin BELFAST/DUBLIN (Reuters) - The British and Irish governments announced on Friday a resumption of talks to restore Northern Ireland's devolved government, spurred into ending a hiatus in dialogue of more than a year by the killing of a journalist last week. The British-run province has been without a devolved executive for over two years since Irish nationalists Sinn Fein withdrew from the compulsory power-sharing government with the pro-British Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). But the shooting dead last week of 29-year-old reporter Lyra McKee during rioting by militant Irish nationalists has raised pressure on the parties from voters and the two governments to re-establish the regional government that is central to Northern Ireland's 1998 peace agreement. "We are leaving far too much wide open space for other kinds of voices that don't believe in democracy, that peddle hate and fear," Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney told a joint news conference with his co-broker of the talks, Britain's Northern Ireland minister Karen Bradley. "People have no patience for another show of a process or talks that go on and on and on, and then in the end go nowhere. We've had enough of that. It needs to be different this time." The talks will begin on May 7 after local elections in the province with the aim of concluding well in advance of mid-July, when annual parades often raise tensions between pro-British Protestants and Irish nationalist Catholics, Coveney said. At McKee's funeral on Wednesday, Roman Catholic priest Father Martin Magill received a spontaneous standing ovation when he made a direct appeal to the politicians in the church to use McKee's death as a catalyst to start talking again. "There are moments in politics when things change. I think the emotion of the last week has given a spark to the process," Coveney said. "We'd be very foolish if we allowed that time to pass." Story continues Attempts to find a compromise have been complicated by poor relations between Sinn Fein and the DUP, the DUP's role in propping up May's minority government in London, and the impact on the region of Britain's planned exit from the European Union. The talks most recently collapsed in February last year when Sinn Fein said that they had reached an accommodation with the leadership of the DUP that put an agreement within reach but that the DUP failed to close the deal and collapsed the talks. While both sides welcomed the talks, neither have shown much willingness to budge in recent days, despite the pressure. "Anyone who thinks agreement can be reached through a one-sided wish-list being implemented is not routed in reality," DUP leader Arlene Foster, who cited Sinn Fein's call for additional rights for Irish-language speakers as the main reason for the impasse last time, said in a statement. Sinn Fein's leader in Northern Ireland, Michelle O'Neill, said the talks had to deliver on rights-based issues so that all people in the province are "treated equally." "Nothing's changed in terms of what we need to deliver on. We can't acquiesce in the denial of rights," she told reporters. (Editing by Kate Holton and Toby Chopra) By Valerie Volcovici (Reuters) - The Trump administration failed to adequately consider oil spills, climate change and the welfare of polar bears in its expedited study of proposed drilling in Alaskas Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, according to comments published by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service this week. The unusually harsh criticism from federal wildlife regulators could deal a blow to one of the most high-profile items in President Donald Trumps energy agenda, and reflects the pitfalls of the administrations drive to speed up big projects with quicker, shorter environmental studies. The Interior Department wants to hold its first lease sale of at least 400,000 acres in ANWR, America's largest wildlife sanctuary, later this year, but could face lawsuits if its permitting process is flawed. The Fish & Wildlife Service said the ANWR Coastal Plain draft environmental impact study (EIS) failed to include oil spill response plans, analyze the effects of climate change on the Arctic, or ensure that surveys of polar bear denning habitats are required. The Interior subagency also listed dozens of other information gaps in its 59 pages of comments and implied that the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management wrote the study without properly consulting wildlife regulators. "The Service has managed the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and its resources for several decades and has information and expertise that is valuable in formulating a final EIS that can withstand the scrutiny of legal sufficiency," the agency's Alaska director Gregory Sikanie wrote. The Fish & Wildlife Service declined to provide further comment. The Interior Department said its Bureau of Land Management had received thousands of comments on the draft study, all of which would be considered. "BLM has an obligation to consider all of these comments -including those from its sister agency (Fish & Wildlife) - and anticipates they will inform the Final EIS inmultiple ways," spokeswoman Molly Block said in an email. Story continues BLM completed the draft environmental impact study at the end of December, after Trump expressed an interest in opening the zone to drilling. The comment period ended on March 13. The study was among the first of its kind since Trumps Interior Department in 2017 issued an order that assessments under the National Environmental Policy Act be completed within one year and be no longer than 150 pages. NEPA studies under past administrations have taken years and filled out thousands of pages, a major source of frustration for drillers, miners and other industries that argue the process creates unnecessary delays. Experts said the effort to streamline environmental permitting, however, could also cause problems. "Imposing the timelines and page limits will mean significant impacts go un-analyzed. Tribal consultation and coordination will likely get shortchanged, important scientific data will not be considered, and the publics ability to provide meaningful input on alternative courses of action will be compromised," said Geoff Haskett, former Fish & Wildlife Service director for Alaska and president of the National Wildlife Refuge Association. ANWR covers some 19 million acres of Alaskas North Slope, home to bears, carbou, lynx and muskox, and overlying around 16 billion barrels of recoverable crude oil reserves, according to federal officials. It has been a lightning rod of contention between energy companies that want to develop it and conservationists that want to protect it since the 1970s. (Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Tom Brown) Oliver North said Saturday he will not serve a second term as president of the National Rifle Association, in a surprise move after a bitter fight with Wayne LaPierre, the chief executive and longtime public face of the gun rights organization. North's announcement came after LaPierre charged that North, a controversial figure in the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal, was trying to drive him out of the organization. North's decision not to run for re-election came in a letter from North that was read to the group's convention in Indianapolis by Richard Childress, the NRA's second vice president. "I've been on the NRA board for more than two decades," said North, a former lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Marines. "It was a great privilege to serve as your president this past year, an honor second to only serving our country as a U.S. Marine in combat. "So if you ever need me in the future, just call me. I will come. Semper Fi." Former U.S. Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North speaks before North, 75, was finishing out his first year as president this week. NRA presidents normally serve two consecutive terms in the unpaid position. "I hoped to be with you today as NRA president, endorsed for re-election. I'm now informed that will not happen, North said. He said that after he assumed office in September, he was confronted by NRA members and board members who expressed concern over how much money the NRA was paying to a law firm. "We were rebuffed repeatedly," he said of attempts to address the situation, then pointed to recent media reports of financial mismanagement among NRA leaders. If true, the NRA's nonprofit status is threatened. Other financial issues: NRA says it faces financial crisis, claims it might be 'unable to exist' in future In a memo to the board this week calling for an emergency management committee, North said the NRA faces a "clear crisis that needs to be dealt with immediately and responsibly so the NRA can continue to focus on protecting our 2nd Amendment." Story continues The simmering dispute between North and LaPierre burst into the open this week in a letter LaPierre sent to the NRA board, according to The Wall Street Journal. The Associated Press reports it has confirmed the contents of the letter. In it, LaPierre accuses North of trying to drive him out of the gun-rights organization by threatening to release damaging information about him to the NRAs board. Delivered by a member of our Board on behalf of his employer, the exhortation was simple: resign or there will be destructive allegations made against me and the NRA, LaPierre wrote in the letter, which was published Friday by The Wall Street Journal. LaPierre, who is also the NRAs executive vice president, said he refused to comply, adding that he was alarmed and disgusted by the situation. The Journal reports that North, who became NRA president last year, defended himself in his own letter to the board Thursday, indicating his actions were for the good of the NRA. In a previous, longer letter to the boards executive committee, North had alleged that LaPierre made more than $200,000 worth of wardrobe purchases and charged them to a vendor. The dispute is apparently driven by a lawsuit the NRA has filed against its longtime advertising agency, Ackerman McQueen, according to the Journal. The NRA filed a lawsuit against Ackerman McQueen this month in Virginia alleging the firm had not been transparent in justifying its billings. In a statement to the Journal, Ackerman McQueen argued that it was complying and called the lawsuit frivolous, inaccurate and intended to cause harm to the reputation of our company. Ackerman McQueen operates NRATV, the NRA's sharp-tongued media arm that often weighs in on controversial high-profile gun issues. The Journal says the suit specifically mentions a contract between Ackerman McQueen and North, who was hired by the agency last year to host an NRATV documentary program. LaPierre says the contract nets North millions of dollars annually. LaPierre also points to a purported phone call this week between one of his staff members and North. In it, he said, North suggested Ackerman McQueen was prepared to release an allegedly damaging letter to the entire NRA board. The letter would contain a devastating account for our financial status, sexual harassment charges against a staff member, accusations of wardrobe expenses and excessive staff travel expenses, LaPierre wrote. But then, Col. North explained that the letter would not be sent if I were to promptly resign as your Executive Vice President. And, if I supported Col. Norths continued tenure as president, he stated that he could negotiate an excellent retirement for me. The 76-member board is set to meet on Monday, which the issue is likely to come to a head. North, a political commentator and TV host was a central figure in the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s while serving as a staff member of the National Security Council during the Regan administration. The scandal involved an arms-for-hostages deal with Iran in which the proceeds were funneled to secretly arm a Contras rebel group in Nicaragua. North's conviction on three felony accounts stemming from the affair was late overturned. At the Indianapolis convention on Friday, President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence addressed the Lucas Oil Stadium crowd, where they talked about gun control, socialism, international treaties and what Trump called a coup at the highest levels of government. Contributing: Andrew Clark in Indianapolis This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NRA power struggle: President Oliver North tells Indy convention he won't serve 2nd term Poway (United States) (AFP) - A teenage gunman who wrote a hate-filled manifesto opened fire at a synagogue in California on Saturday, killing one person and injuring three others including the rabbi as worshippers marked the final day of Passover, authorities said. The shooting in the town of Poway, north of San Diego, came exactly six months after a white supremacist killed 11 people at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue -- the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in US history. San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore said those wounded included the rabbi -- who had injuries to both index fingers -- as well as a female minor and 34-year-old man who were injured by shrapnel. A 60-year-old woman died from her wounds. Gore identified the suspect, who was arrested after fleeing the scene, as 19-year-old John Earnest and said he had no prior arrest record. He said Earnest burst into the Chabad of Poway synagogue -- where there were around 100 people -- shortly after 11:20 am local time and opened fire with an assault weapon that appears to have malfunctioned, preventing him from inflicting more harm. Gore said an off-duty border patrol agent who was at the synagogue at the time of the shooting opened fire on the gunman as he was fleeing, striking his car but missing the suspect. The man was eventually apprehended by a San Diego police officer who had been monitoring dispatch radio and raced to the scene, San Diego police chief David Nisleit said. "He clearly saw the suspect's vehicle, the suspect jumped out with his hands up and was immediately taken into custody by the San Diego police department," Nisleit said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the "atrocious" incident, calling it "an attack at the heart of the Jewish people". Two Israelis -- an eight-year-old girl and her 31-year-old uncle -- were wounded in the attack, an Israeli foreign ministry spokesman said, adding that their condition was "good". Story continues - Hate-filled manifesto - Gore said authorities were examining Earnest's social media activity and establishing the authenticity of an anti-Semitic open letter he apparently published on a far-right message board hours before the attack. "We have copies of his social media posts and his open letter and we'll be reviewing those to determine the legitimacy of it and how it plays into the investigation," he said. The manifesto, seen by AFP, is similar to one posted on the same message board by Brenton Tarrant, a white supremacist who was behind the March 15 mosque attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand, that left 50 people dead. The hate-filled letter lauds Tarrant's actions and that of the Pittsburgh shooter and claims responsibility for a fire at a mosque in California a week after the Christchurch shootings. Following the attack, a vigil was set to take place Saturday evening at the Rancho Bernardo Community Presbyterian Church in San Diego. Meanwhile, Los Angeles officials said that they were boosting patrols around synagogues and other places of worship in light of the attack. Speaking at a rally in Wisconsin, President Donald Trump denounced the shooting as a "hate crime" and offered his support to the victims. "Tonight, America's heart is with the victims of the horrific synagogue shooting in California," he said. "Our entire nation mourns the loss of life, prays for the wounded and stands in solidarity with the Jewish community. We forcefully condemn the evil of anti-Semitism and hate which must be defeated." California's Governor Gavin Newsom also denounced the tragedy. "While we continue to learn more about what transpired, we can't ignore the circumstances around this horrific incident," he said. "No one should have to fear going to their place of worship, and no one should be targeted for practicing the tenets of their faith." And German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas also expressed solidarity with the victims: "On the last day of the Passover celebration, another violent anti-Semitic act shocks us. The attack on the Chabad of Poway Synagogue in San Diego impacts us all." - 'Flames of hatred' - Minoo Anvari told the local CNN affiliate that her husband was inside the synagogue during the shooting. "Just one message from all of us from our congregation that we are standing together," she said. "We are strong. You can't break us. We are all together." The Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles said in a statement that the shooting was "a horrific reminder that the flames of hatred still burn strong among some." "An attack, on any house of worship, from churches in Sri Lanka and France to synagogues in Jerusalem or Pittsburgh to mosques in Christchurch, are an assault on human dignity and our rights as people of faith to pray to God," it added. Saturday's shooting comes amid a rise in hate crimes in the United States, the majority targeting those of Jewish faith. Last year, the Anti-Defamation League, which combats anti-Semitism and discrimination, reported a 57 percent leap in the number of anti-Semitic incidents in 2017, the sharpest yearly spike since the 1970s. jz-ia-ska-qan/gle On the surface, Carlo Ratti Associatis proposal for the Italian Pavilion at Expo Dubai 2020 seems innocuous enough: three boats turned upside down to form the roof of a building. The architecture firm says the design explores the ways in which beauty connects people, the exact theme of Italys participation in next years World Fair. But critics say the boats carry a dark and perhaps unintended symbolism in regards to the countrys ongoing reluctance to accept immigrants. Set to open between October 20th, 2020 and April 10th, 2021 in Dubai, U.A.E., the Italian Pavilion was made to celebrate the long lineage of explorers who sailed the seas over many centuries, weaving together a shared Mediterranean cultural heritage. CRA along with Italo Rota Building Office, F&M Ingegneria, and Matteo Gatto & Associati was tapped for the project after winning a contest to design the pavilion, which itself will take up around 3,500 square meters (about 38,000 square feet) and stand over 25 meters (82 feet) tall. Reusing the ships once on land was an act that had a profound appeal to us: not only because it is laden with historical value, but because it represents the realization of a circular architecture from the projects beginning, says Carlo Ratti, founding partner of CRA and director of the MIT Senseable City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He adds that the ships that become part of the pavilion can continue to be used in different ways even after the end of the Expo. In a recent piece for Domus, architect Giovanni Comoglio offered a sharp rebuke of the concept and the connotations it carries given Italys hostility towards asylum seekers. The recently passed Salvini law cracks down on asylum rights by abolishing humanitarian protection permits, eventually leading to the closure of asylum centers. Italy has also closed its ports to rescued migrants, reportedly driving up the number of deaths at sea. Story continues Its this connection to the imagery of upturned boats that has people like Comoglio questioning how nobody involved in the process of designing and approving this project seemed to see a potential problem. The narrative of three capsized hulls the only disclosed visual to powerfully reach the public was given a stormy reception, and submerged mostly by critiques of the highest historical inconvenience, he writes. Representing by some upturned boats a country that has recently faced a period of harsh polemics concerning policies of closure to migration, implicitly and explicitly connected to several fatal shipwrecks in the Mediterranean, may surely result to many, in times of instant visual communication, as a proper communication stumble. A Tower of Babel of incommunicability has arisen out of the dust of a debate consisting mostly of statements circulating on social media. The conversation blurred the borders between critique of design and critique of a communication concept. To be fair, the Italian-Italian nature of the architectural component of the debate has to be remarked. Still, something of a more general value comes out of the sands of Babel, the most formidable critical issue, at least for critics: it is highly difficult if not plainly unnecessary to make a properly architectural critique of such architecture. A runner-up in the competition designed by Dodi Moss and Eduardo Tresoldi generated a decidedly more positive reaction on social media. Their teams proposal features a path through layers of transparent materials and greenery for a ghostly effect meant to conjure an Italian identity that has its roots in thousands of years of cultural history. Lima (AFP) - Peru's former president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, who is under arrest in connection with the Odebrecht corruption scandal and has been hospitalized for heart problems, underwent emergency surgery Saturday to install a pacemaker, his brother said. "He has come out of a fairly long operation ... the doctors are happy with the results of the operation," Miguel Kuczynski told reporters. The 80-year-old former president was urgently hospitalized on April 16 suffering from high blood pressure, lawmaker Gilbert Violeta told RPP radio at the time. Hospital officials said Kuczynski was suffering from ventricular tachycardia, a condition considered potentially life-threatening for someone of his age. The former head of state was arrested earlier this month and was being held under preliminary detention, accused of money laundering. He is one of four Peruvian ex-presidents embroiled in various corruption scandals linked to Odebrecht, alongside Ollanta Humala, Alan Garcia and Alejandro Toledo. Garcia died in hospital on April 17 after shooting himself in the head as police were about to arrest him over the graft investigation. Kuczynski has been accused of passing laws to favor Odebrecht when he was finance minister during Toledo's government. In 2018, he resigned from office over the Odebrecht scandal, the first sitting president to do so. Odebrecht has been accused of spreading some $788 million in bribe money to a dozen countries over more than a decade to win big construction contracts. By Arshad Mohammed and Jonathan Landay WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, hoping to boost workforce morale, unveiled an "ethos" statement on Friday that some former officials viewed with skepticism, partly because an early draft had language they saw as an admonition not to leak to the media. Two former officials knowledgeable about the effort said the language rankled them because it implied diplomats could not be trusted and they questioned the need for an "ethos" statement laying out the agency's characteristic attitudes and beliefs. The two former officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the initiative was driven by Ulrich Brechbuhl, the State Department counselor who is a close aide to Pompeo and was his classmate at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. A third former official knowledgeable about the effort said the language alluding to leaks ultimately had been dropped and that the statement itself sought to burnish the esprit de corps at the department. "There was something that could be taken as a no-leak pledge that was in an early draft. It did not (survive)," said that former official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Marking his first anniversary as the nation's top diplomat, Pompeo presided at a ceremony in the State Department's main lobby as a curtain was lifted from a giant facsimile of the statement at one end of the half-filled, marbled hall. "These principles will now be the operating principles of our department," he said. He then recited the statement that read in part, "I am a champion of American diplomacy" who "will protect the American people and promote their interests and values around the world" with "unfailing professionalism." A senior State Department official involved in the effort said he did not recall specific discussion about leaks but that there was a wider discussion of accountability and professional responsibility. Story continues The official, who spoke on behalf of the department on condition of anonymity, said he could not categorically rule out that there had been any talk about leaks but stressed that it was by no means the main focus. "To do so (categorically rule it out) means you want me to say that nobody ever had this on their mind or it was not one of the sort of elements that we would define as professional responsibility or accountability," he said. "It might have been in people's minds. ... It was never a principal or major one." More than a dozen current and former officials questioned the need for the statement of ethos, noting that U.S. diplomats take an oath to "defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." The agency also has a mission statement that says: "The U.S. Department of State advances the interests of the American people, their safety and economic prosperity, by leading America's foreign policy through diplomacy, advocacy, and assistance." FOCUS ON MORALE Pompeo has worked to improve morale by increasing promotions, lifting a hiring freeze and making it easier for diplomats' family members to work at missions abroad - reversing policies pursued by his predecessor, Rex Tillerson. Pompeo has also said that he wanted to focus on the State Department "getting back our swagger," a phrase that rang false to some U.S. diplomats who are taught to be understated rather than overbearing, given U.S. economic and military might. Several current and former officials said the latest effort may backfire at an agency where many are disheartened by chaotic national security decision-making, unfilled senior positions and perceived White House distrust of U.S. diplomats. Told of the statement and the effort to enhance the agency's esprit, Richard Boucher, a former State Department spokesman or deputy spokesman under four Republican and two Democratic secretaries of state, said: "You mean 'swagger' didn't do it?" "Nothing speaks like leading with diplomacy and if we are going to start doing that, then we don't really need ... (a new) statement," said Boucher, who teaches at Brown University. (Reporting by Arshad Mohammed and Jonathan Landay; Editing by Mary Milliken, Peter Cooney and Jonathan Oatis) SAN FRANCISCO (AP) The possibility of a $5 billion federal privacy fine for Facebook suggests that U.S. regulators may be taking a cue from the large penalties their European counterparts have been handing out to U.S. technology giants. While investors appear to have shrugged it off for now, the potential fine from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission would be more than a slap on the wrist for Facebook, especially if it comes with strings that limit how the company targets advertising to its massive user base. Facebook said Wednesday it is planning for a fine between $3 billion and $5 billion and formally set aside $3 billion for the FTC, which is investigating whether the social network violated its users' privacy. The amount is a contingency against a possible penalty; Facebook noted that the "matter remains unresolved." The company's disclosure is the latest indication of U.S. moves toward tighter regulation of the technology industry, which has enjoyed years of nearly unrestricted growth with little oversight. Talk of a national data-privacy law is swirling around Capitol Hill, states like California have already forged ahead with their own measures, and U.S. presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has proposed breaking up the biggest U.S. tech companies. In Europe, regulators have routinely slapped Google and other U.S. firms with major fines. Google now owes almost $10 billion in such penalties for alleged anticompetitive behavior; its parent company Alphabet is appealing. EU watchdogs also hit Apple with a back-taxes bill of more than $15 billion . Facebook, meanwhile, is already preparing for a future where targeted ads play a smaller role in its business, flexing its muscles in e-commerce and payments and touting a coming shift toward private communications. The one-time charge slashed Facebook's first-quarter profit considerably, although revenue grew by 26% in the period. The FTC has been looking into whether Facebook broke its own 2011 agreement promising to protect user privacy. Story continues Investors shrugged off the charge and sent the company's stock up more than 9% to nearly $200 in after-hours trading. Wall Street in general tends to forgive one-time accounting dents in companies' earnings reports and focus instead on how the overall business is doing. Besides, even if Facebook ends up paying $5 billion this year, it's unlikely to seriously harm a company that's expected to rake in profit of $22 billion this year. EMarketer analyst Debra Aho Williamson, however, called it a "significant development" and noted that any settlement is likely to go beyond a mere dollar amount. The FTC move, she said, "may impact the ways advertisers can use the platform in the future." Facebook has had several high-profile privacy lapses in the past couple of years. The FTC has been looking into Facebook's involvement with the data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica since last March. That company accessed the data of as many as 87 million Facebook users without their consent. The 2011 FTC agreement bound Facebook to a 20-year privacy commitment and violations could subject Facebook to fines of $41,484 per violation per user per day. The agreement requires that Facebook users give "affirmative express consent" any time that data they haven't made public is shared with a third party. Cambridge Analytica accessed information from so many users because it was able to access the data of people's friends, and not just people who explicitly permitted access when they took a personality quiz. While Facebook did have controls in place that allowed people to restrict such access, they were buried in the site's settings and difficult to find. The FTC's investigation and anticipated sanction against Facebook has put a spotlight on the agency's role as an enforcer of privacy protections. Consumer privacy advocates and Democratic lawmakers, saying the FTC is hampered, have pushed for legislation to expand its powers and funding to police privacy. Republicans have generally opposed an expansion of federal authority, but in the wake of the Facebook and other privacy scandals some have taken a more open view. The FTC would be expected to write the rules for the privacy legislation if it were to become law. Beyond consumer advocates, some business interests also are proposing an expanded role on privacy protection for the FTC. The Business Roundtable, representing CEOs of major companies, has put forward a proposed framework for national legislation that includes "adequate funding and staffing to effectively enforce the consumer privacy law." In addition to the FTC investigation, Facebook faces several others in the U.S. and Europe, including by the Irish Data Protection Commission , and others in Belgium and Germany . Ireland is Facebook's lead privacy regulator for Europe. The FTC is also reportedly looking into how it might hold CEO Mark Zuckerberg accountable for the company's privacy lapses. __ AP Business Writer Marcy Gordon contributed to this story from Washington. Makhanda (Afrique du Sud) (AFP) - A quarter of a century after the end of the apartheid in South Africa many people remain trapped in poverty, in part because of rampant corruption, President Cyril Ramaphosa said Saturday. "We cannot be a nation of free people when so many still live in poverty," Ramaphosa said at a ceremony in Makhanda, formerly Grahamstown, in the south of the country. "We cannot be a nation of free people when so many live without enough food, without proper shelter, without access to quality health care, without a means to earn a living," he added. "We cannot be a nation of free people when funds meant for the poor are wasted, lost or stolen (...) when there is still corruption within our own country." Ramaphosa was speaking 25 years to the day that black South Africans -- who make up three quarters of the population -- finally got to vote in the country's first democratic elections. In South Africa, April 27 is known as Freedom Day. That election brought to an end three centuries of white rule and the apartheid regime that had been in place since 1948. "Bound by a common cause, we fought apartheid together and triumphed," said Ramaphosa. "We are gathered here to celebrate the day we won our freedom. "We remember the moment we placed a cross on a ballot paper for the first time in our lives," he added, paying homage to Nelson Mandela, the anti-apartheid campaigner who was elected South Africa's first black president in 1994. But, he added: "Ours is still a deeply unequal country. "There are great divisions between rich and poor... between those with jobs and those who are unemployed." Ramaphosa is head of the African National Congress (ANC), the party that has been in power since the end of apartheid. He took over as president in 2018 from Jacob Zuma, who was forced to resign as a result of a number of corruption scandals. - Elections looming - Story continues Despite the emergence of a middle class in South Africa, the continent's economic powerhouse, 20 percent of black households still live in dire poverty, compared with only 2.9 percent of white households, according to the Institute of Race Relations. Between 2011 and 2015, three million South Africans have fallen into poverty, according to the World Bank. And the unemployment rate in South Africa currently stands at 27 percent, compared with 20 percent in 1994. "As we celebrate 25 years of democracy, we need to focus all our attention and efforts on ensuring that all South Africans can equally experience the economic and social benefits of freedom," Ramaphosa told the crowd. The president was speaking ahead of the May 8 legislative and provincial elections, in which the ANC looks likely to keep its parliamentary majority, according to the latest opinion polls. But for some in the audience at Makhanda, Ramaphosa's message hit home. "There's no such thing as freedom," said local resident 31-year-old Vuyiswa. "Were still in apartheid. "We are unemployed, no house, no water. We are really struggling," she added. "Older women have to go poo in buckets and throw them outside at night. It's not safe." In Cape Town meanwhile, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, celebrated the anniversary by attending an exhibition and book launch of notable photographs of his life, which have been turned into paintings. Tutu won the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize for his role as a unifying figure fighting the apartheid regime. Karamo Brown speaks onstage at WE Day California at The Forum on April 25, 2019. (Photo: Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images for WE Day) Karamo Brown knows something about success. The Queer Eye star was one of several celebs who shared what hes learned with 16,000 students at WE Day California on Thursday at the Forum in Los Angeles. Brown urged them to ignore the haters, because he remembered being told he was too black, too gay and too poor to achieve his dreams of working in fashion or even politics. But luckily, as I was finishing high school, I heard something that changed my life forever, Brown said. I heard, Stop being afraid of the word no. I realized that every time someone said that I wasnt going to be able to do something, they were basically telling me no. And what I know to be true about every human being is that when we hear the word no, we start to believe we arent good enough. He told the young activists, who each earned their ticket to the event by taking action on a local or global issue, that they should use the negative feedback to fuel their dreams. Believe me, the word no is actually helping you to get the life you want, Brown said. Anytime you are told the word no, you have to think of it as a stepping stone toward the life you want. Trust me. I know its easier to get a yes, but no is actually getting you one step closer to your dreams. Each no is a lesson. NBA legend and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient Kareem Abdul-Jabbar told students that knowledge is power. Accumulate as much of it as you can and use that knowledge to make the world right, the way you see it to be right, Abdul-Jabbar said. Thats all, just take that power and use it the right way. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, right, speaks to Kardinal Offishall at WE Day California. (Photo: Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images for WE Day) He advised them to resolve their differences with respect. If we have to change some peoples minds, were not going to change their minds with our anger, Abdul-Jabbar said. Were gonna change their minds with our rational complaint that makes sense. So we speak to them with respect, and if they listen with respect, were gonna get a whole lot done. Story continues He continued: Youve got to respect the people that you have to change. So, have the patience and take the time to talk to them like you respect them and, if you do that, theyre gonna respect you and listen to you and maybe understand what youre complaining about. Then, thats how you guys can change things. It takes time and it takes patience and it takes respect. In her time onstage, British supermodel Naomi Campbell led the students in saying, Never give up. We need to set goals for ourselves and then work on achieving them day and night, and never get disheartened if they dont come right away, Campbell said. Never let anyone bring you down and never let anyone make you feel like giving up. So Im gonna say to you, never give up. Naomi Campbell takes the stage at WE Day California. (Photo: CraSH/imageSPACE/MediaPunch /IPX) Campbell emphasized the importance of hard work and dedication. Once you do decide which way you want to go, just go for it. Theres no hesitation. Do everything 110 percent with conviction, she said. Its a hard road to travel sometimes. Its not always you know, you dont want anything that comes easy, because then it goes easy. Campbell cited her late close friend and adopted grandfather, anti-apartheid activist and South African President Nelson Mandela, as well as female education activist Malala Yousafzai and former first lady Michelle Obama, as examples of people who persevered and changed the world. Read more on Yahoo Entertainment: Want daily pop culture news delivered to your inbox? Sign up here for Yahoo Entertainment & Lifestyles newsletter. (Removes extraneous words from paragraph 2) By Sanjeev Miglani and Ranga Sirilal COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lankan police are trying to track down 140 people believed linked to Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for the Easter Sunday suicide bombings that killed 253, as shooting erupted in the east during a raid. Muslims in Sri Lanka were urged to pray at home after the State Intelligence Services warned of possible car bomb attacks, amid fears of retaliatory violence. And the U.S. Embassy in Sri Lanka urged its citizens to avoid places of worship over the weekend after authorities reported there could be more attacks targeting religious centres. Archbishop of Colombo Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith told reporters he had seen a leaked internal security document warning of further attacks on churches and there would be no Catholic masses this Sunday anywhere on the island. The streets of Colombo were deserted on Friday evening, with many people leaving offices early amid tight security after the suicide bombing attacks on three churches and four hotels that also wounded about 500 people. President Maithripala Sirisena told reporters some Sri Lankan youths had been involved with Islamic State since 2013. He said information uncovered so far suggested there were 140 people in Sri Lanka involved in Islamic State activities. "Police are looking to arrest them," Sirisena said. Nearly 10,000 soldiers were deployed across the Indian Ocean island state to carry out searches and provide security for religious centres, the military said on Friday. The All Ceylon Jamiyathul Ullama, Sri Lanka's main Islamic religious body, urged Muslims to conduct prayers at home in case "there is a need to protect family and properties". Illustrating the tension that has gripped the country, shooting erupted between security forces and a group of men in the east during a search and cordon operation, a military spokesman said. The raid took place in the town of Ampara Sainthamaruthu near Batticaloa. The spokesman said there was an explosion in the area and when soldiers went to investigate they were fired upon. No details of casualties were immediately available. Story continues Police have detained at least 76 people, including foreigners from Syria and Egypt, in their investigations so far. Islamic State provided no evidence to back its claim that it was behind the attacks. If true, it would be one of the worst attacks carried out by the group outside Iraq and Syria. The extremist group released a video on Tuesday showing eight men, all but one with their faces covered, standing under a black Islamic State flag and declaring their loyalty to its leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. DEFENCE, POLICE CHIEFS QUIT The government said nine homegrown, well-educated suicide bombers carried out the attacks, eight of whom had been identified. One was a woman. Authorities have so far focused their investigations on international links to two domestic Islamist groups - National Thawheed Jama'ut and Jammiyathul Millathu Ibrahim - they believe carried out the attacks. Government officials have acknowledged a major lapse in not widely sharing an intelligence warning from India before the attacks. Sirisena said top defence and police chiefs had not shared information with him about the impending attacks. Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando resigned over the failure to prevent the attacks. "The police chief said he will resign now," Sirisena said. He blamed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's government for weakening the intelligence system by focusing on the prosecution of military officers over alleged war crimes during a decade-long civil war with Tamil separatists that ended in 2009. Sirisena fired Wickremesinghe in October over political differences, only to reinstate him weeks later under pressure from the Supreme Court. Opposing factions aligned to Wickremesinghe and Sirisena have often refused to communicate with each other and blame any setbacks on their opponents, government sources say. Cardinal Ranjith said that the church had been kept in the dark about intelligence warning of attacks. We didnt know anything. It came as a thunderbolt for us, he said. The Easter Sunday bombings shattered the relative calm that had existed in Buddhist-majority Sri Lanka since the civil war against mostly Hindu ethnic Tamil separatists ended. Sri Lanka's 22 million people include minority Christians, Muslims and Hindus. Until now, Christians had largely managed to avoid the worst of the island's conflict and communal tensions. Most of the victims were Sri Lankans, although authorities said at least 38 foreigners were also killed, many of them tourists sitting down to breakfast at top-end hotels when the bombers struck. They included British, U.S., Australian, Turkish, Indian, Chinese, Danish, Dutch and Portuguese nationals. Britain warned its nationals on Thursday to avoid Sri Lanka unless it was absolutely necessary. Fears of retaliatory sectarian violence have already caused Muslim communities to flee their homes amid bomb scares, lockdowns and security sweeps. But at the Kollupitiya Jumma Masjid mosque, tucked away in a Colombo side street, hundreds attended a service they say was focused on a call for people of all religions to help return peace to Sri Lanka. "It's a very sad situation," said 28-year-old sales worker Raees Ulhaq, as soldiers hurried on dawdling worshippers and sniffer dogs nosed their way through pot-holed lanes. "We work with Christians, Buddhists, Hindus. It has been a threat for all of us because of what these few people have done to this beautiful country." (Reporting by Sanjeev Miglani and Joe Brock; Writing by Michael Perry; Editing by Paul Tait and Nick Macfie) 110 N. 3rd St. | Photos: Zumper Curious just how far your dollar goes in Columbus? We've rounded up the latest rental listings via rental site Zumper to get a sense of what to expect when it comes to scoring an apartment in Columbus with a budget of $1,300/month. Take a peek at what rentals the city has to offer, below. (Note: prices and availability are subject to change.) Hoodline offers data-driven analysis of local happenings and trends across cities. Links included in this article may earn Hoodline a commission on clicks and transactions. 120 E. Mound St., #2 (Downtown) Listed at $1,300/month, this 772-square-foot one-bedroom, one-bathroom condo is located at 120 E. Mound St., #2. The unit offers high ceilings, a walk-in closet and in-unit laundry. When it comes to building amenities, expect assigned parking. Animals are not welcome. Future tenants needn't worry about a leasing fee. Per Walk Score ratings, the area around this address is quite walkable, is convenient for biking and boasts excellent transit options. (See the complete listing here.) 110 N. 3rd St., #509 (Downtown) Next, there's this one-bedroom, one-bathroom condo situated at 110 N. 3rd St., #509. It's listed for $1,295/month for its 759 square feet of space. In the apartment, expect high ceilings, in-unit laundry, concrete flooring and stainless steel appliances. The building has assigned parking, a fitness center, outdoor space and storage space. Pet owners, inquire elsewhere: this spot doesn't allow cats or dogs. Future tenants needn't worry about a leasing fee. Walk Score indicates that the area around this address is friendly for those on foot, is quite bikeable and is a haven for transit riders. (Check out the complete listing here.) 789 Dennison Ave. (Victorian Village) Next, check out this 701-square-foot studio that's located at 789 Dennison Ave. It's listed for $1,295/month. Inside, you'll get a fireplace, quartz countertops, a five-burner gas range and stainless steel appliances. The building offers garage parking, a roof deck, storage space and secured entry. Both cats and dogs are welcome. There's no leasing fee required for this rental. Story continues According to Walk Score, the area around this address is quite walkable, is convenient for biking and offers many nearby public transportation options. (See the complete listing here.) 1378 King Ave. (Tri-Village) Located at 1378 King Ave., here's a studio that's listed for $1,250/month. In the apartment, you can expect hardwood floors, granite countertops and stainless steel appliances. The building boasts assigned parking. Good news for animal lovers: both dogs and cats are allowed here. Future tenants needn't worry about a leasing fee. Per Walk Score ratings, the area around this address is friendly for those on foot, is convenient for biking and has a few nearby public transportation options. (See the complete listing here.) 720 Michigan Ave. (Harrison West) Located at 720 Michigan Ave., here's a 647-square-foot one-bedroom, one-bathroom that's listed for $1,184/month. In the furnished unit, you can anticipate high ceilings, a dishwasher, in-unit laundry, a walk-in closet and a balcony. The building offers a swimming pool, a residents' lounge and a fitness center. Pet lovers are in luck: cats and dogs are welcome. This rental doesn't require a leasing fee. Walk Score indicates that the area around this address is moderately walkable, is convenient for biking and offers many nearby public transportation options. (Take a gander at the complete listing here.) This story was created automatically using local real estate data, then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. 551 Massachusetts Ave. | Photos: Zumper Curious just how far your dollar goes in Indianapolis? We've rounded up the latest rental offerings via rental site Zumper to get a sense of what to expect when it comes to finding a rental in Indianapolis if you don't want to spend more than $1,000/month on rent. Take a peek at what rentals the city has to offer, below. (Note: prices and availability are subject to change.) Hoodline offers data-driven analysis of local happenings and trends across cities. Links included in this article may earn Hoodline a commission on clicks and transactions. 115 S. Pennsylvania St. (Downtown) Listed at $1,000/month, this 788-square-foot one-bedroom, one-bathroom is located at 115 S. Pennsylvania St. In the unit, the listing promises hardwood flooring, air conditioning and a dishwasher. Amenities offered in the building include on-site laundry, a fitness center and secured entry; when it comes to pets, both meows and barks are allowed. According to Walk Score, the area around this address is friendly for those on foot, is easy to get around on a bicycle and offers many nearby public transportation options. (See the complete listing here.) 551 Massachusetts Ave. (Downtown) Next, there's this one-bedroom, one-bathroom located at 551 Massachusetts Ave. It's also listed for $1,000/month for its 690 square feet of space. The building offers on-site laundry, a fitness center and a swimming pool. In the unit, you'll get a dishwasher, a walk-in closet and a balcony. Both cats and dogs are welcome. Walk Score indicates that the surrounding area is a "walker's paradise," is easy to get around on a bicycle and has good transit options. (See the complete listing here.) 50 N. Illinois St. (Downtown) Here's a one-bedroom, one-bathroom at 50 N. Illinois St. that's going for $999/month. In the unit, you'll get a dishwasher, a walk-in closet and a balcony. The building offers on-site laundry, assigned parking and a fitness center. Pet lovers are in luck: cats and dogs are welcome. Story continues According to Walk Score, the surrounding area is extremely walkable, is easy to get around on a bicycle and has good transit options. (See the full listing here.) 1704 N. College Ave. (Near Northside) Next, check out this one-bedroom, one-bathroom that's located at 1704 N. College Ave. It's also listed for $999/month. In the unit, you'll find in-unit laundry. The building offers assigned parking. Animals are not permitted. Future tenants needn't worry about a leasing fee. According to Walk Score, the area around this address is quite walkable, is quite bikeable and has some transit options. (Check out the complete listing here.) 4545 Scarlet Oak Way (South Perry) Located at 4545 Scarlet Oak Way, here's a 702-square-foot one-bedroom, one-bathroom that's listed for $978/month. In the furnished unit, you can anticipate a mix of hardwood and carpeted flooring, in-unit laundry and a fireplace. Building amenities include a swimming pool, garage parking and a fitness center. For those with furry friends in tow, know that cats and dogs are allowed on this property. According to Walk Score's assessment, this location requires a car for most errands, is relatively bikeable and offers limited transit options. (Check out the complete listing here.) This story was created automatically using local real estate data, then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. 4726 N. Broad St. | Photos: Zumper Curious just how far your dollar goes in Orlando? We've rounded up the latest rental offerings via rental site Zumper to get a sense of what to expect when it comes to locating a place in Orlando if you've got a budget of $1,300/month. Read on for the listings. (Note: prices and availability are subject to change.) Hoodline offers data-driven analysis of local happenings and trends across cities. Links included in this article may earn Hoodline a commission on clicks and transactions. 4726 New Broad St. (Baldwin Park) Here's a 650-square-foot one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment at 4726 New Broad St. that's going for $1,295/month. In the unit, you'll get air conditioning, in-unit laundry and a balcony. The building features a swimming pool. If you've got a pet, you'll be happy to learn that cats and dogs are allowed. There's no leasing fee required for this rental. According to Walk Score's assessment, this location is quite walkable, is very bikeable and has a few nearby public transportation options. (Take a look at the full listing here.) 5100 Millenia Waters Drive (Florida Center North) Listed at $1,276/month, this 709-square-foot one-bedroom, one-bathroom is located at 5100 Millenia Waters Drive. In the apartment, you can expect hardwood floors, high ceilings and a balcony. Building amenities include a swimming pool, a fitness center and garage parking. Pet owners, take heed: cats and dogs are welcome. Per Walk Score ratings, this location is moderately walkable, is convenient for biking and has a few nearby public transportation options. (Take a look at the complete listing here.) 155 S. Court Ave., #1103 (Central Business District) Next, there's this studio condo located at 155 S. Court Ave., #1103. It's listed for $1,275/month for its 615 square feet of space. The building features assigned parking outdoor space. In the unit, expect air conditioning. Cats and dogs are not welcome. Future tenants needn't worry about a leasing fee. Story continues According to Walk Score's assessment, the area around this address has excellent walkability, is quite bikeable and has good transit options. (See the complete listing here.) 10955 Moss Park Road Here's an 898-square-foot one-bedroom, one-bathroom at 10955 Moss Park Road that's going for $1,266/month. Building amenities include garage parking, a fitness center and a swimming pool. In the unit, there are hardwood floors, high ceilings and a balcony. When it comes to pets, both meows and barks are welcome. According to Walk Score, this location requires a car for most errands and is relatively bikeable. (See the full listing here.) This story was created automatically using local real estate data, then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. 325 N. Front St. | Photos: Zumper Curious just how far your dollar goes in Philadelphia? We've rounded up the latest rental listings via rental site Zumper to get a sense of what to expect when it comes to locating an apartment in Philadelphia if you've got $1,200/month earmarked for your rent. Read on for the listings. (Note: prices and availability are subject to change.) Hoodline offers data-driven analysis of local happenings and trends across cities. Links included in this article may earn Hoodline a commission on clicks and transactions. 1431 W. Girard Ave., #2F (North Central) Listed at $1,200/month, this one-bedroom, one-bathroom condo is located at 1431 W. Girard Ave., #2F. The unit features central air, stainless steel appliances, natural light and hardwood floors. Pet owners, inquire elsewhere: this spot doesn't allow cats or dogs. Future tenants needn't worry about a leasing fee. Per Walk Score ratings, this location is friendly for those on foot, is very bikeable and is a haven for transit riders. (Check out the complete listing here.) 325 N. Front St., #B (Riverfront) Next, there's this studio apartment situated at 325 N. Front St., #B. It's also listed for $1,200/month. In the unit, expect hardwood floors and in-unit laundry. Permit parking is available. Good news for animal lovers: both dogs and cats are welcome here. The rental doesn't require a leasing fee. According to Walk Score, the area around this address is quite walkable, is very bikeable and has excellent transit. (Take a gander at the complete listing here.) 2633 W. Oxford St. (Brewerytown) Located at 2633 W. Oxford St., here's a 750-square-foot one-bedroom, one-bathroom that's listed for $1,200/month. In the apartment, you can expect hardwood floors, in-unit laundry, central air and a balcony. Pet owners, take heed: cats and dogs are welcome. There isn't a leasing fee associated with this rental. Walk Score indicates that the area around this address is very walkable, is fairly bikeable and offers many nearby public transportation options. Story continues (See the complete listing here.) 2218 Delancey Place (Rittenhouse) Listed at $1,200/month, this zero-bedroom, one-bathroom abode is located at 2218 Delancey Place. It's available July 1. In the unit, you can anticipate high ceilings and central air conditioning. Neither cats nor dogs are welcome. There isn't a leasing fee associated with this rental. Per Walk Score ratings, the area around this address has excellent walkability, is easy to get around on a bicycle and has excellent transit. (Check out the complete listing here.) 407 Pierce St. (Dickinson Narrows) Next, there's this one-bedroom, one-bathroom townhouse situated at 407 Pierce St. It's listed for $1,200/month for its 800 square feet of space. In the apartment, expect hardwood floors, generous closet space and central air conditioning. Amenities offered in the building include storage and garage parking. Pet owners, inquire elsewhere: this spot doesn't allow cats or dogs. Future tenants needn't worry about a leasing fee. Per Walk Score ratings, this location has excellent walkability, is very bikeable and offers many nearby public transportation options. (Take a gander at the complete listing here.) This story was created automatically using local real estate data, then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. 2838 Keats St. | Photos: Zumper Curious just how far your dollar goes in San Diego? We've rounded up the latest rental listings via rental site Zumper to get a sense of what to expect when it comes to locating an apartment in San Diego if you don't want to spend more than $1,600/month on rent. Read on for the listings. (Note: prices and availability are subject to change.) Hoodline offers data-driven analysis of local happenings and trends across cities. Links included in this article may earn Hoodline a commission on clicks and transactions. 2776 B St., #221 (Golden Hill) Listed at $1,600/month, this 560-square-foot one-bedroom, one-bathroom abode is located at 2776 B St., #221. In the unit, there are granite countertops, ceiling fans and in-unit laundry. The building features on-site laundry, assigned parking and a fitness center. If you've got a pet, you'll be happy to learn that cats and dogs are allowed. According to Walk Score, the surrounding area is friendly for those on foot, is bikeable and has some transit options. (Check out the complete listing here.) 101 Market St., #407 (Marina) Next, there's this studio abode over at 101 Market St., #407. It's also listed for $1,600/month for its 585 square feet of space. Building amenities include assigned parking, a fitness center and a roof deck. In the unit, there are high ceilings, a walk-in closet and a fireplace. Pet owners, take heed: cats and dogs are welcome. The rental doesn't require a leasing fee, but there is a $30 application fee. Per Walk Score ratings, the area around this address is a "walker's paradise," is quite bikeable and is a haven for transit riders. (Take a gander at the complete listing here.) 2838 Keats St. (Roseville / Fleet Ridge) Here's a 625-square-foot one-bedroom, one-bathroom at 2838 Keats St. that's going for $1,600/month. In the unit, you'll get hardwood flooring, stainless steel appliances and a ceiling fan. The building boasts on-site management. Neither cats nor dogs are welcome. There isn't a leasing fee associated with this rental, but there is a $1500.00 deposit. Story continues Per Walk Score ratings, this location is very walkable, has some bike infrastructure and has some transit options. (Take a look at the full listing here.) 3952 Iowa St. (North Park) Next, check out this 500-square-foot one-bedroom, one-bathroom that's located at 3952 Iowa St. It's listed for $1,600/month. In the unit, you'll have hardwood flooring and stainless steel appliances. Building amenities include assigned parking and on-site laundry. If you've got a pet, you'll be happy to learn that cats and dogs are permitted. Future tenants needn't worry about a leasing fee. Per Walk Score ratings, the area around this address is extremely walkable, is fairly bikeable and has good transit options. (See the complete listing here.) 4392 W. Point Loma Blvd. (Point Loma Heights) Located at 4392 W. Point Loma Blvd., here's a 595-square-foot one-bedroom, one-bathroom that's listed for $1,600/month. In the unit, you can anticipate a dishwasher, a walk-in closet and a balcony. The building offers on-site laundry, assigned parking and a swimming pool. If you've got a pet, you'll be happy to learn that cats and dogs are permitted. Future tenants needn't worry about a leasing fee. According to Walk Score's assessment, the surrounding area is somewhat walkable, is convenient for biking and has a few nearby public transportation options. (Check out the complete listing here.) This story was created automatically using local real estate data, then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. 660 Bush St., #406. | Photos: Zumper Curious just how far your dollar goes in San Francisco? We've rounded up the latest rental offerings via rental site Zumper to get a sense of what to expect when it comes to hunting down a rental in San Francisco if you don't want to spend more than $2,500/month on rent. Take a look at the listings, below. (Note: prices and availability are subject to change.) Hoodline offers data-driven analysis of local happenings and trends across cities. Links included in this article may earn Hoodline a commission on clicks and transactions. 660 Bush St., #406 (Chinatown) Listed at $2,500/month, this one-bedroom, one-bathroom residence is located at 660 Bush St., #406. When it comes to building amenities, expect on-site laundry and an elevator. Cats and dogs are not allowed. There isn't a leasing fee associated with this rental. Per Walk Score ratings, the surrounding area has excellent walkability, is relatively bikeable and has excellent transit. (Take a look at the complete listing here.) 490 Lombard St., #5 (North Beach) Next, there's this studio apartment situated at 490 Lombard St., #5. It's also listed for $2,500/month. Building amenities include garage parking and storage space. In the unit, there are hardwood floors, high ceilings and a walk-in closet. Pet owners, inquire elsewhere: this spot doesn't allow cats or dogs. The rental doesn't require a leasing fee. According to Walk Score's assessment, the area around this address is extremely walkable, is fairly bikeable and boasts excellent transit options. (See the complete listing here.) 237 Shipley St., #301 (SoMa) Then, check out this 331-square-foot studio apartment that's located at 237 Shipley St., #301. It's listed for $2,499/month. In the unit, you'll get high ceilings, a dishwasher, a fireplace and a balcony. Amenities offered in the building include on-site laundry, a roof deck, an elevator, secured entry and on-site management. Pet owners, inquire elsewhere: this spot doesn't allow cats or dogs. The listing specifies a broker's fee equal to one month's rent. Story continues According to Walk Score's assessment, the surrounding area is extremely walkable, is easy to get around on a bicycle and boasts excellent transit options. (Take a look at the complete listing here.) 721 Ashbury St. (Cole Valley) Check out this studio that's located at 721 Ashbury St. It's listed for $2,495/month. In the unit, you'll get hardwood floors and stainless steel appliances. The building boasts on-site laundry. Hairball alert: cats are welcome. Future tenants needn't worry about a leasing fee. According to Walk Score's assessment, the surrounding area is a "walker's paradise," is very bikeable and boasts excellent transit options. (Take a look at the complete listing here.) 861 Post St. (Lower Nob Hill) Located at 861 Post St., here's a 376-square-foot studio apartment that's also listed for $2,495/month. In the unit, you can expect hardwood floors and high ceilings. Building amenities include on-site laundry. If you've got a pet, you'll be happy to learn that cats and dogs are welcome. Future tenants needn't worry about a leasing fee. Walk Score indicates that the area around this address is extremely walkable, is convenient for biking and boasts excellent transit options. (See the complete listing here.) Better dentistry does exist Not all dentists in San Francisco provide you with the same experience, which is why we make your life easier by rewarding you with a $50 gift card for visiting one of the top rated dentists in your area on Opencare. Don't believe us? Opencare is also proud to offer a 100% Satisfaction Guarantee, so if your new dentist doesn't live up to the hype, we'll also reimburse you up to $100 to cover your appointment costs! Click here to book an appointment and claim your $50 reward This story was created automatically using local real estate data, then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. 2422 17th St. NW. | Photos: Zumper Curious just how far your dollar goes in Washington? We've rounded up the latest rental listings via rental site Zumper to get a sense of what to expect when it comes to finding housing in Washington if you're on a budget of $1,600/month. Take a look at the listings, below. (Note: prices and availability are subject to change.) Hoodline offers data-driven analysis of local happenings and trends across cities. Links included in this article may earn Hoodline a commission on clicks and transactions. 129 Florida Ave. NW (Ledroit Park) Listed at $1,600/month, this 622-square-foot one-bedroom, one-bathroom townhouse is located at 129 Florida Ave. NW. In the unit are air conditioning and a washer and dryer. The building has off-street parking and a patio. Luckily for pet owners, both dogs and cats are permitted. The rental doesn't require a leasing fee. Walk Score indicates that the surrounding area has excellent walkability, is very bikeable and is a haven for transit riders. (See the complete listing here.) 1822 Ingleside Terrace NW (Mount Pleasant) Next, there's this one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment situated at 1822 Ingleside Terrace NW. It's also listed for $1,600/month. The apartment features laundry facilities in the unit and a patio outside. Luckily for pet owners, both dogs and cats are welcome. Future tenants needn't worry about a leasing fee. According to Walk Score, this location is very walkable, is bikeable and boasts excellent transit options. (Take a gander at the complete listing here.) 2422 17th St. NW, #305 (Adams Morgan) Here's a 310-square-foot studio unit at 2422 17th St. NW, #305 that's going for $1,600/month. In the furnished unit, you'll get hardwood floors, a Murphy bed, a dishwasher and in-unit laundry. The building has a roof deck and extra storage space. Both cats and dogs are permitted. There's no leasing fee required for this rental. Per Walk Score ratings, this location is extremely walkable, is very bikeable and has excellent transit. Story continues (Check out the complete listing here.) 490 M St. SW (Southwest) Next, check out this studio condo that's located at 490 M St. SW. It's listed for $1,600/month. Inside, you'll find hardwood floors, big windows, lots of closet space and a balcony. Pets are not permitted. There isn't a leasing fee associated with this rental. According to Walk Score, the area around this address is quite walkable, is convenient for biking and is a haven for transit riders. (Check out the complete listing here.) 833 Decatur St. NW (Catholic University-Brookland) Finally, located at 833 Decatur St. NW is a 700-square-foot one-bedroom, one-bathroom spot that's listed for $1,600/month. In the English basement unit, you can anticipate granite countertops, in-unit laundry and stainless steel appliances, including a dishwasher and a gas range. When it comes to building amenities, expect assigned parking and plenty of outdoor space. Pet owners, take heed: cats and dogs are welcome. There isn't a leasing fee associated with this rental. Per Walk Score ratings, this location is friendly for those on foot, is very bikeable and offers many nearby public transportation options. (Take a gander at the complete listing here.) This story was created automatically using local real estate data, then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. Macomia (Mozambique) (AFP) - Thousands of people in remote areas of storm-lashed Mozambique were homeless Saturday and bracing for imminent flooding, food and water shortages as Cyclone Kenneth flattened entire villages, leaving rescuers struggling to reach them. Kenneth, which has killed five people, struck northern Mozambique late Thursday, barely a month after the country was hit by one of the worst storms in its history, which claimed hundreds of lives. "Too many small communities are completely destroyed, not a single house is standing anymore. I could see around 10 communities in this situation," said Saviano Abreu, a spokesman for the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). "On Ibo (island), not only the main village but also other communities are destroyed," he added after a first air reconnaissance mission. In the village of Nacate, south of Macomia in the cyclone-ravaged Cabo Delgado province, many homes were destroyed, leaving families to fend for themselves in the open. Maria Mendosa and Assan Madal and their young children Pizere, Naturesa, Ancha, Ida and Luigi managed to salvage a few chairs, a table, a mattress and cooking pots from their ravaged home. "This will be a very complex humanitarian operation. I would say shelter is a huge priority, as rains are forecast in the coming days and water and food will be urgently needed," Abreu said. The UN's children's agency UNICEF said about 368,000 children were "at risk and potentially in need of lifesaving humanitarian support" following the second storm. Prime Minister Carlos Do Rosario told reporters in Pemba -- capital of Cabo Delgado -- the death toll stood at five. - 'Significant flooding' - The first reported death was caused by a falling coconut tree in Pemba. The Category Three storm reached Mozambique after swiping the Comoros islands. "Tropical Cyclone Kenneth has now 'stalled' over Cabo Delgado... where it is expected to bring heavy rains in the coming days," the OCHA said. Story continues "The stalling of the weather system is likely to cause significant flooding in Cabo Delgado, as well as high rainfall in southern Tanzania, over the next 10 days," the agency warned. In the coastal Macomia district, people were beginning to repair the damage by Saturday evening. Engineers were busy repairing power lines, while, in the light of a lorry's headlamps, others set about reconstructing a bank which had been destroyed. Mozambique's emergencies agency, the INGC, has reported severe flooding, mudslides and widespread power outages. It said Kenneth -- which has receded into a tropical depression -- had damaged or destroyed 3,300 homes, and about 18,000 people were housed in emergency shelters. On Saturday morning, emergency workers including Brazilian soldiers, OCHA personnel and officials from UNICEF, arrived in Pemba to assess the damage. "We really need to know about the cities with 90 percent damage. Now we look for some aircraft and evaluate all the locations," Captain Kleber Castro of the Brazil rescue service told AFP on the tarmac at Pemba airport. On Ibo, home to 6,000 people, 90 percent of homes had been flattened, a spokesman for the INGC, Antonio Beleza, said Friday. "It looks like the island has been bombed... It is biblical," said Kevin Record, a South African tour operator and owner of a hotel on Ibo. The work of rescuers has been hamstrung by damaged infrastructure and communications lines. "A lot of people can be impacted in the region where the flooding is large and widespread," said Castro. "The most difficult thing is transportation -- we don't have helicopters yet. We need a lot of support, if you can help us we need support from helicopters." Communities in central Mozambique are still reeling from Cyclone Idai, which hit on the night of March 14-15, causing killer floods that swept away homes, roads and bridges. The storm also smashed into Zimbabwe and Malawi. In the three countries, more than a thousand lives were lost, and damage is estimated at around $2 billion (1.8 billion euros). Following is a summary of current health news briefs. Women snore too - and just as loudly It's long been assumed that snoring is a man's problem. But a new study finds that women snore too and often don't own up to it. And even when they do admit to snoring, they insist, incorrectly, that theirs isn't as loud as men's. Researchers studying nearly 2000 patients who came into a lab for sleep studies found that nearly 40 percent of women who declared themselves to be non-snorers turned out to have severe or very severe snoring intensity, according to the study published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine. FDA approves expanded label for Regeneron/Sanofi's cholesterol drug The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc's cholesterol drug Praluent as a treatment to cut the risk of heart attacks, stroke and other major cardiovascular events. The FDA's decision will allow the drug, developed along with Sanofi SA, to be prescribed to reduce the overall risk of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE). GSK's HIV drug wins European panel thumbs-up GlaxoSmithKline Plc's two-drug treatment for HIV infections won marketing approval from a European Medicines Agency (EMA) panel on Friday, after the British drugmaker received a nod from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration earlier this month. EMA's human medicines committee (CHMP) cleared the combination of dolutegravir and lamivudine, to be branded as Dovato, for treating newly diagnosed adults, boosting GSK's growth prospects against competitors. Kids' cavities probably not caused by bad genes Environmental factors appear to play a bigger role than genetics in shaping children's risk for cavities, a study of Australian twins suggests. Researchers followed 345 twins from 24 weeks' gestation through six years of age, when they all had dental checkups. At age six, 32 percent of the kids had tooth decay and 24 percent of the children had advanced cavities. Story continues Drugmakers Astellas, Amgen to pay $125 million in U.S. charity kickback probe Two drugmakers will pay nearly $125 million to resolve claims they used charities that help cover Medicare patients' out-of-pocket drug costs as a way to pay kickbacks aimed at encouraging the use of their high-priced medications, the U.S. Justice Department said on Thursday. The department said Japan-based Astellas Pharma and Amgen Inc, the world's largest biotechnology company, were the latest to settle claims stemming from an industry-wide probe of drugmakers' financial support of patient assistance charities. Trump tells Americans: Go get your measles vaccination U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday urged Americans to protect themselves with the measles vaccination as the number of cases of the once-eradicated disease in the United States hit the highest levels since 2000. The growing outbreak in pockets across the country has triggered multiple public health efforts seeking to limit exposure to measles, including quarantines at two California universities. Cancer patients using alternative therapies may hesitate to tell doctors One in three U.S. patients with a cancer diagnosis has recently used non-standard therapies to manage their disease - but many haven't told their doctors, survey data suggest. Among patients who said they used so-called complementary and alternative therapies, such as herbal supplements and yoga, nearly 30 percent did not disclose this use to their physicians, researchers wrote in a letter published in JAMA Oncology. U.S. measles outbreak triggers quarantine at two Los Angeles universities A nationwide measles outbreak has led health officials to quarantine dozens of people at two Los Angeles universities, officials said on Thursday. The quarantine affects the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and California State University, Los Angeles (Cal State LA) and comes as the United States battles the highest number of measles cases since the country declared the virus eliminated in 2000. Parents bring newborns to ER for many non-urgent reasons One of the hardest things about being a new parent is figuring out when babies are so sick they need to go to the emergency room and when worrisome signs or symptoms might actually be perfectly normal, doctors say. Anxious parents bring babies to the ER for all kinds of things that could go either way like goopy eyes, concerns about how the stump from the cut umbilical cord looks, vomiting, strange looking stool, irregular breathing, and jerky or unusual body movements, doctors write in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine. Top Kansas court rules state constitution protects abortion rights The Kansas Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the state's constitution protects a woman's right to an abortion and upheld an injunction blocking a state law that would have banned a common second trimester abortion procedure. The ruling would protect the right to abortion in Kansas even if the conservative-leaning U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling that recognized a right to abortion in the U.S. Constitution. Following is a summary of current science news briefs. Oldest human footprint found in the Americas confirmed in Chile: researcher A 15,600-year old footprint discovered in southern Chile is believed to be the oldest ever found in the Americas, according to researchers. The footprint was first discovered in 2010 by a student at the Universidad Austral of Chile. Scientists then worked for years to rule out the possibility that the print may have belonged to some other species of animal, and to determine the fossil's estimated age. SpaceX escape engines were test fired before mishap: panel A NASA safety panel said on Thursday that Saturday's accident on a SpaceX astronaut capsule happened after eight engines were test fired, but offered scant details on what caused the mishap or the extent of the damage. NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) told reporters Elon Musk's rocket company continues to investigate the cause of the 'anomaly' during a test of engines designed to propel the crew to safety at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. China's rocket start-ups go small in age of 'shoebox' satellites During initial tests of their 8.1-meter (27-foot) tall reusable rocket, Chinese engineers from LinkSpace, a start-up led by China's youngest space entrepreneur, used a Kevlar tether to ensure its safe return. Just in case. But when the Beijing-based company's prototype, called NewLine Baby, successfully took off and landed last week for the second time in two months, no tether was needed. German scientists create see-through human organs Researchers in Germany have created transparent human organs using a new technology that could pave the way to print three-dimensional body parts such as kidneys for transplants. Scientists led by Ali Erturk at Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich have developed a technique that uses a solvent to make organs such as the brain and kidneys transparent. Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs. Over 1,000 migrants break out of southern Mexico detention center More than a thousand migrants broke out of a detention center in southern Mexico on Thursday evening, authorities said, in a fresh sign of how a surge in arrivals has stretched the country's resources to the limit. More than half of the roughly 1,300 migrants later returned to the Siglo XXI facility in the border city of Tapachula in Chiapas state, but about 600 are still unaccounted for, the National Migration Institute said in a statement. Trump says U.S. paid no money to North Korea over Warmbier U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said the United States did not pay any money to North Korea as it sought the release of comatose American student Otto Warmbier. The Washington Post reported on Thursday that Trump had approved payment of a $2 million bill from North Korea to cover its care of the college student, who died shortly after he was returned to the United States after 17 months in a North Korean prison. U.S. warrant issued for accused ringleader of North Korean embassy raid in Madrid U.S. authorities are focused on Southern California in their manhunt for a one-time human rights activist accused of leading a violent takeover of North Korea's embassy in Spain, according to a federal arrest warrant unsealed on Friday. Adrian Hong Chang is wanted by Spain in connection with the alleged embassy raid in February, but his lawyer denounced the U.S. Justice Department for seeking his arrest and extradition based on "the highly unreliable accounts of North Korean government witnesses." Russian agent Butina begs U.S. judge for mercy, gets 18 months in prison Admitted Russian agent Maria Butina was sentenced to 18 months in prison on Friday after the Siberia native, her voice breaking with emotion, begged a judge for mercy and expressed remorse for conspiring with a Russian official to infiltrate a gun rights group and influence U.S. conservative activists and Republicans. U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan imposed a sentence that matched the prison term prosecutors requested and also agreed to have Butina, 30, deported back to Russia after she completes her incarceration. The sentence included the nine months Butina already has served in jail since her July arrest, meaning she has about nine more months behind bars. Story continues Ex-Minnesota cop denies overreacting when he shot Australian woman A former Minnesota policeman on trial for murder on Friday denied overreacting when he fatally shot an Australian woman who approached his patrol car in a dark alley. Mohamed Noor, 33, was testifying for a second day in a Minneapolis court. He is charged with murdering 40-year-old Justine Ruszczyk Damond, whom he shot through his car window on the night of July 15, 2017 while responding to her 911 call to report a possible sexual assault. Uptick in Trump white collar prosecutions may ease lawyers' pain An uptick in white-collar prosecutions by the Trump administration could bring relief to high-end defense lawyers, who have been searching for work after years of declining federal prosecutions. Many white-collar lawyers have been fretting about their caseloads since the Trump administration took charge of the U.S. Department of Justice, worrying that it would continue or accelerate the declining level of activity under the last years of the Obama administration. Top Kansas court rules state constitution protects abortion rights The Kansas Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the state's constitution protects a woman's right to an abortion and upheld an injunction blocking a state law that would have banned a common second trimester abortion procedure. The ruling would protect the right to abortion in Kansas even if the conservative-leaning U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling that recognized a right to abortion in the U.S. Constitution. New York Archdiocese lists 120 former clergy accused of abuse The New York Archdiocese, one of the largest in the United States, on Friday identified 120 former Roman Catholic bishops, priests and deacons who were accused of sexually abusing children. The archdiocese was the latest in the United States to publicly list the names of former clergy members accused of abuse as the church faces state and federal investigations into its handling of decades of allegations of sexual misconduct by priests. Not so fast: Trump's Alaska drilling study slammed by U.S. wildlife regulator The Trump administration failed to adequately consider oil spills, climate change and the welfare of polar bears in its expedited study of proposed drilling in Alaskas Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, according to comments published by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service this week. The unusually harsh criticism from federal wildlife regulators could deal a blow to one of the most high-profile items in President Donald Trumps energy agenda, and reflects the pitfalls of the administrations drive to speed up big projects with quicker, shorter environmental studies. Pentagon to send more troops to Mexico border, some in contact with migrants The Pentagon said on Friday that it expected to send about 300 additional troops to the border with Mexico including roughly 100 cooks who would hand out meals, breaking with past policy to avoid troops coming in contact with migrants. It is the latest sign of a growing U.S. military support role for President Donald Trump's politically charged immigration policies. Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs. Trump tells Americans: Go get your measles vaccination U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday urged Americans to protect themselves with the measles vaccination as the number of cases of the once-eradicated disease in the United States hit the highest levels since 2000. The growing outbreak in pockets across the country has triggered multiple public health efforts seeking to limit exposure to measles, including quarantines at two California universities. Over 1,000 migrants break out of southern Mexico detention center More than a thousand migrants broke out of a detention center in southern Mexico on Thursday evening, authorities said, in a fresh sign of how a surge in arrivals has stretched the country's resources to the limit. More than half of the roughly 1,300 migrants later returned to the Siglo XXI facility in the border city of Tapachula in Chiapas state, but about 600 are still unaccounted for, the National Migration Institute said in a statement. Trump says U.S. paid no money to North Korea over Warmbier U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said the United States did not pay any money to North Korea as it sought the release of comatose American student Otto Warmbier. The Washington Post reported on Thursday that Trump had approved payment of a $2 million bill from North Korea to cover its care of the college student, who died shortly after he was returned to the United States after 17 months in a North Korean prison. Russian agent Butina begs U.S. judge for mercy, gets 18 months in prison Admitted Russian agent Maria Butina was sentenced to 18 months in prison on Friday after the Siberia native, her voice breaking with emotion, begged a judge for mercy and expressed remorse for conspiring with a Russian official to infiltrate a gun rights group and influence U.S. conservative activists and Republicans. U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan imposed a sentence that matched the prison term prosecutors requested and also agreed to have Butina, 30, deported back to Russia after she completes her incarceration. The sentence included the nine months Butina already has served in jail since her July arrest, meaning she has about nine more months behind bars. Story continues Ex-Minnesota cop denies overreacting when he shot Australian woman A former Minnesota policeman on trial for murder on Friday denied overreacting when he fatally shot an Australian woman who approached his patrol car in a dark alley. Mohamed Noor, 33, was testifying for a second day in a Minneapolis court. He is charged with murdering 40-year-old Justine Ruszczyk Damond, whom he shot through his car window on the night of July 15, 2017 while responding to her 911 call to report a possible sexual assault. Uptick in Trump white collar prosecutions may ease lawyers' pain An uptick in white-collar prosecutions by the Trump administration could bring relief to high-end defense lawyers, who have been searching for work after years of declining federal prosecutions. Many white-collar lawyers have been fretting about their caseloads since the Trump administration took charge of the U.S. Department of Justice, worrying that it would continue or accelerate the declining level of activity under the last years of the Obama administration. Top Kansas court rules state constitution protects abortion rights The Kansas Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the state's constitution protects a woman's right to an abortion and upheld an injunction blocking a state law that would have banned a common second trimester abortion procedure. The ruling would protect the right to abortion in Kansas even if the conservative-leaning U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling that recognized a right to abortion in the U.S. Constitution. New York Archdiocese lists 120 former clergy accused of abuse The New York Archdiocese, one of the largest in the United States, on Friday identified 120 former Roman Catholic bishops, priests and deacons who were accused of sexually abusing children. The archdiocese was the latest in the United States to publicly list the names of former clergy members accused of abuse as the church faces state and federal investigations into its handling of decades of allegations of sexual misconduct by priests. Not so fast: Trump's Alaska drilling study slammed by U.S. wildlife regulator The Trump administration failed to adequately consider oil spills, climate change and the welfare of polar bears in its expedited study of proposed drilling in Alaskas Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, according to comments published by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service this week. The unusually harsh criticism from federal wildlife regulators could deal a blow to one of the most high-profile items in President Donald Trumps energy agenda, and reflects the pitfalls of the administrations drive to speed up big projects with quicker, shorter environmental studies. Pentagon to send more troops to Mexico border, some in contact with migrants The Pentagon said on Friday that it expected to send about 300 additional troops to the border with Mexico including roughly 100 cooks who would hand out meals, breaking with past policy to avoid troops coming in contact with migrants. It is the latest sign of a growing U.S. military support role for President Donald Trump's politically charged immigration policies. Following is a summary of current world news briefs. Putin says Russia and Syria are not planning assault on Idlib for now Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday he did not rule out Syrian forces, backed by Russian air power, launching a full-scale assault on militants in Syria's Idlib province, but that such an operation was unpractical for now. Russia, one of the Syrian governments staunchest allies, and Turkey brokered a deal in September to create a demilitarized zone in the northwest Idlib region that would be free of all heavy weapons and jihadist fighters. Putin says Russia may offer fast-tracked passports to all Ukrainians President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday Moscow was considering offering all Ukrainian citizens fast-tracked Russian passports, a move likely to anger some politicians in Ukraine which has been at war with pro-Russian separatists since 2014. Putin made the statement days after signing an order to simplify the procedure for obtaining a Russian passport for residents of separatist-controlled eastern Ukraine, prompting calls from Kiev for more international sanctions. China's Xi touts more than $64 billion in Belt and Road deals President Xi Jinping on Saturday hailed deals worth more than $64 billion signed during China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) this week as he sought to reassure skeptics the project will deliver sustainable growth for all involved. Xi said market principles will apply in all Belt and Road cooperation projects and that his signature initiative to recreate the old Silk Road joining China with Asia and Europe will deliver green and high-quality development. Trump proposals on nuclear arms disarmament 'not serious': Kremlin U.S. President Donald Trump's proposals on nuclear arms disarmament is "not serious," a Kremlin spokesman said on Saturday. Trump has ordered his administration to prepare a push for a new arms-control agreements with Russia and China citing the cost of the 21st-century nuclear arms race, The Washington Post reported on Thursday citing administration officials. Story continues Israel to free two Syrian prisoners after recovering soldier's remains Israel will release two prisoners after the remains of an Israeli soldier missing since 1982 were recovered by Russian special forces in Syria, an Israeli official said. Russia, a key Damascus ally, this month handed over the remains and personal effects of Zachary Baumel who was 21 when he was declared missing in action along with two other soldiers in the Battle of Sultan Yacoub during Israel's invasion of Lebanon. Turkey's Erdogan vows to confront opponents inside party after vote loss Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan vowed on Saturday to confront opponents inside his own party weeks after he suffered shock election defeats in the capital Ankara and commercial hub Istanbul. Erdogan and his supporters have up to now blamed the losses on electoral fraud by unspecified groups and launched a string of legal challenges against the results. U.S. air strike kills three ISIS fighters in Somali region A U.S. air strike killed three fighters from the Islamic State in the Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region on Friday, a U.S. military official said, two weeks after the group's deputy leader was killed in a strike. A witness said missiles struck two wells on the outskirts of Timirshe village, some 60km southeast of Puntland's commercial capital Bosaso. Putin calls U.S. treatment of admitted agent Butina an outrage Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday made his first comments on a U.S. court sentencing admitted Russian foreign agent Maria Butina to 18 months in prison, calling her treatment a travesty of justice. Butina was sentenced on Friday after the Siberia native, her voice breaking with emotion, begged a judge for mercy and expressed remorse for conspiring with a Russian official to infiltrate a gun rights group and influence U.S. conservative activists and Republicans. "Jilted bride": As South Korea marks peace summit, North stays aloof Along forest trails below a bare mountain peak that until last year was a vantage point for a North Korean guard post, a group of around 20 ordinary South Koreans took a rare hike on Saturday near the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas. The hikers were chosen by lottery to explore a "peace trail" near the heavily fortified frontier, launched to mark the first anniversary of a landmark summit between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Sri Lanka gun battle with militants kills 15, U.S. pulls citizens out A gun battle between troops and suspected Islamist militants on Sri Lanka's east coast left 15 dead, including six children, a military spokesman said on Saturday, six days after suicide bombers killed more than 250 people on the island. The shootout at a safe house erupted on Friday in Sainthamaruthu in Ampara district, to the south of the Sri Lankan town of Batticaloa, site of one of the Easter Sunday blasts which have been claimed by Islamic State. Following is a summary of current world news briefs. Sri Lanka police hunt 140 after Easter bombings as shooting erupts in east Sri Lankan police are trying to track down 140 people believed linked to Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for the Easter Sunday suicide bombings that killed 253, as shooting erupted in the east during a raid. Muslims in Sri Lanka were urged to pray at home after the State Intelligence Services warned of possible car bomb attacks, amid fears of retaliatory violence. Bolsonaro's sons bash vice president, widening rifts in Brazil government A barrage of criticism this week from the sons of Brazil's right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro aimed at the vice president has laid bare stark divisions in his cabinet, raising serious concerns from senior members of his four-month-old government. People close to the president say the retired military officers who make up a third of Bolsonaro's 21-member cabinet fear the attacks on Vice President Hamilton Mourao, a former general, are threatening to derail an uphill effort to pass the president's economic reform agenda. Venezuela's opposition-run congress says lawmaker detained, violating immunity Venezuela's opposition-run National Assembly said on Friday that opposition lawmaker Gilber Caro had been detained, calling the move a violation of his parliamentary immunity in a Twitter post. Caro spent a year and a half in jail before being freed in June 2018. His detention comes as Juan Guaido, the National Assembly's leader, presses on with his challenge to President Nicolas Maduro, arguing that his 2018 re-election was illegitimate. Guaido in January invoked the country's constitution to assume an interim presidency. Exclusive: Sri Lankan ex-defense chief Gotabaya says he will run for president, tackle radical Islam Sri Lanka's former wartime defense chief, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, said on Friday he would run for president in elections this year and would stop the spread of Islamist extremism by rebuilding the intelligence service and surveilling citizens. Gotabaya, as he is popularly known, is the younger brother of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the two led the country to a crushing defeat of separatist Tamil rebels a decade ago after a 26-year civil war. Story continues North Korean leader warns of return to tension; Trump thanks Putin North Korean leader Kim Jong Un told Russian President Vladimir Putin that peace and security on the Korean peninsula depended on the United States, warning that a state of hostility could easily return, North Korean media said on Friday. Kim's remarks during talks with Putin on Thursday appeared aimed at pushing Washington to be more flexible on North Korean demands for an easing of international sanctions. 'Black sheep': The mastermind of Sri Lanka's Easter Sunday bombs Mohamed Hashim Mohamed Zahran was 12 years old when he began his studies at the Jamiathul Falah Arabic College. He was a nobody, with no claim to scholarship other than ambition. Zahran and his four brothers and sisters squeezed into a two-room house with their parents in a small seaside town in eastern Sri Lanka; their father was a poor man who sold packets of food on the street and had a reputation for being a petty thief. U.S. tells citizens to reconsider travel to Sri Lanka The U.S. State Department on Friday said American citizens should reconsider travel to Sri Lanka due to the threat of terrorism after more than 250 people were killed in suicide bombings on Sunday. In a statement, the department also said it had ordered the departure of all school-age family members of U.S. government employees. Hundreds of migrants in southern Mexico board 'The Beast' heading north Hundreds of migrants hoping to reach the United States boarded a freight train in southern Mexico late on Thursday, frustrated by efforts to slow their progress by the Mexican government, which is under pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump. The risky move to board the train, known as "La Bestia" (The Beast), followed a mass breakout of migrants from a holding center in the southern border city of Tapachula on Thursday night. The government estimated some 1,300 people escaped but said a majority later returned to the center. Prepare for power, Spain's party leaders tell supporters as vote campaign ends The leaders of all of Spain's main political parties invited their supporters on Friday night to prepare for power, as campaigning for one of the tightest national elections in decades drew to a close. No single party will get an overall majority in Sunday's ballot, and opinion polls suggest all five leading contenders have a realistic chance of playing a role in government. Turkey indicts third U.S. Consulate worker in Istanbul on terrorism charges Turkey has indicted a third U.S. Consulate employee and his wife and daughter on charges of membership of a terrorist group, according to a copy of the indictment seen by Reuters, a move likely to further strain ties between Ankara and Washington. Nazmi Mete Canturk, a security officer at the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul, and his wife and daughter are accused in the indictment of links to the network of Fethullah Gulen, the U.S.-based Muslim cleric blamed by Ankara for a failed 2016 coup. Russia will not immediately raise oil output after the United States ends sanctions waivers for buyers of Iranian crude in May, President Vladimir Putin said Saturday. The United States announced this week that, in a bid to reduce Iran's oil exports to zero, it would from May 2 end US waivers that countries such as India, China, South Korea and Turkey currently have on buying Iranian crude. Eight countries including China, India and Turkey had been given temporary waivers by the US when it reimposed sanctions on Iran last year. "Russia is ready to meet the needs of not just China, but of all our partners around the world," Putin told reporters on the sidelines of a summit in Beijing. "We currently produce 1.5 million barrels of oil per day and we can produce more. We have colossal potential," Putin said. "But we have an agreement with OPEC to maintain production at a certain level and this agreement is in force until July," he added. The end of the exemptions sparked fears of supply shortages, pushing oil prices to near six-month highs. "I can't imagine how the world energy market will react" after the waivers end in May, Putin said. But, he added, "none of our partners, including Saudi Arabia, is withdrawing from our agreements within OPEC." Saudi Arabia, the world's top crude exporter, has also said it had no immediate plans to raise oil output after the sanctions waivers end. There had been speculation that Riyadh could step in to plug the gap left by the removal of Iranian crude. Maria Butina, who admitted to conspiring to act as a covert Russian agent and charmed American conservative leaders with her gun-rights activism, was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison on Friday. The prison term was what the Justice Department requested for Butina, though shell spend closer to nine months behind bars thanks to time already served in jail. The conduct was sophisticated and penetrated deep into U.S. political organizations, D.C. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan said before handing down the stiff sentence. Butina is a 30-year-old Russian national who came to the U.S. to study at American University in Washington, D.C. and courted gun-rights and conservative activists, especially in the National Rifle Association. She was arrested last July and charged with violating a U.S. law that bars people from acting as foreign agents without telling the attorney generala charge Justice Department lawyers characterize as espionage-lite. Butina pleaded guilty in December and agreed to cooperate with the government. Just before she was sentenced, Butina made an emotional plea for leniency. Her voice shook as she spoke. My parents discovered my arrest on the morning news they watch in their rural house in a Siberian village, she said. I love them dearly, but I harmed them morally and financially. They are suffering from all of that. I destroyed my own life as well. I came to the United States not under any orders, but with hope, and now nothing remains but penitence. While living in the U.S., Butina communicated with then-Russian Central Bank official Alexander Torshin about her efforts to build relationships with Americans. In one instance, she claimed she had influence over who would become Trumps secretary of state. In December 2015, she even helped arrange for a delegation of NRA leaders to visit Moscow, where they met with powerful figures in the Russian government. Story continues Butina said she would have registered as a foreign agent with the Justice Department, but she claimed not to have known U.S. law. I deeply regret this crime, not merely because it has harmed me, my beloved friends, and my cherished family, but ironically, it has harmed my attempts to improve the relationships between the two countries, she said. Chutkan had none of it. This was no simple misunderstanding by an overeager foreign student, Chutkan said, saying the crime Butina pled guilty to is serious, and jeopardized this countrys national security. Erik Kenerson, the prosecutor handling her case, told Chutkan that Butina was executing a plan to establish contact between the two governments, for the benefit of Russia. The information was of extreme importance to the Russian Federation, he said. There is no doubt that she was not simply a grad student, he said. Her conduct shows how easy it can be for a foreign government to target Americans in the U.S., he added. One of her lawyers, Alfred Carry, pushed back against Kenersons argument. Maria is not a spy, he said. Shes not intelligence. Shes never been employed by the Russian government. She knows of no secret codes, safehouses, illegals. She has never engaged in covert activity and she has never lied to our government. During her time in the U.S., Butina also entered a romantic relationship with Paul Erickson, a longtime conservative-movement insider who helped her befriend people in the NRA. Erickson was indicted this year in South Dakota on charges of several financial crimes, none of which involved Butina or Russia. The sentence marks the end of a two-year saga that has riveted Washington and embodied tensions between the U.S. and Russia stemming from Moscows interference in the 2016 election. The Justice Department asked for Butina to receive an 18-month sentence. Butina asked the judge to sentence her to the time she has already served. Butina noted that she has cooperated with federal investigators extensively since entering her guilty plea last December. And she said that in the wake of her plea, her future looks bleak. I have three degrees, but now Im a convicted felon with no job, no money, and no freedom, she said. My reputation is ruined, both here in the United States and abroad. And while I know that I am not this evil person who has been depicted in the media, Im responsible for these consequences. Butina will be deported back to Russia after she is released from prison. I still hold a whisper in my heart to one day return to this country, she added, but I know this wish is only a dream. Read more at The Daily Beast. Moscow (AFP) - Russia on Saturday released a former student convicted for trying to enter Syria in a high profile 2016 case after she was granted parole this month. Varvara Karaulova was freed from prison in Vologda, a city around 450 kilometres northeast of Moscow, the RIA Novosti news agency reported. She was released a year and 10 months early. A military court sentenced Karaulova to four and a half years in prison in 2016 for trying to enter Syria after falling in love with an Islamic State jihadist. She was detained a year earlier after she tried to cross into Syria from Turkey while still a philosophy undergraduate at the renowned Moscow State University. This month a court ruled she posed no threat to society and should be released earlier. Karaulova's case shocked Russia in 2016, as the then 21-year-old wept in court and said her attempt to cross in Syria was "all a mistake". It was also widely covered by state media. Karaulova was charged with preparing to participate in a terrorist organisation, but pleaded not guilty, saying she was motivated by love for a Russian jihadist fighting in Syria. She met him online while still a teenager and they wrote to each other for three years without meeting. In 2014, he went to Syria and told her he was fighting for IS. Karaulova converted to Islam and began warning a hijab. She disappeared without warning in May 2015, prompting a frantic search by her parents. They found that she had flown to Turkey and travelled to the border with other women hoping to join men fighting for IS. Turkish border guards detained the group and she was forced to fly back to Russia with her father. Thousands of people from the former USSR have travelled to Syria to fight with Islamists, according to Russian President Vladimir Putin, since Moscow intervened on the side of the Damascus regime in 2015. Karaulova's case was particularly unusual in Russia since her family is not Muslim. Photo: Ella Dining Room and Bar/Yelp Looking to try the best cocktail bars in town? Hoodline crunched the numbers to find the top cocktail bars in Sacramento, using both Yelp data and our own secret sauce to produce a ranked list of the best spots to fulfill your urges. 1. Ella Dining Room And Bar Photo: ella dining room and bar/Yelp Topping the list is Ella Dining Room and Bar. Located at 1131 K St. downtown, the event space, cocktail bar and New American spot is the most popular cocktail establishment in Sacramento, boasting four stars out of 1,642 reviews on Yelp. 2. The Red Rabbit Kitchen and Bar Photo: Sandy L./Yelp Next up is Capital Avenue's The Red Rabbit Kitchen and Bar, situated at 2718 J St. With four stars out of 1,006 reviews on Yelp, the cocktail bar and New American joint has proven to be a local favorite. 3. Woodlake Tavern photo: josiah h./yelp Old North Sacramento's Woodlake Tavern, located at 1431 Del Paso Blvd., is another top choice, with Yelpers giving the cocktail bar, which offers comfort food, barbecue and more, 4.5 stars out of 253 reviews. 4. The Press Bistro Photo: jenni t./Yelp Over in Capital Avenue, check out The Press Bistro, which has earned four stars out of 707 reviews on Yelp. You can find the cocktail bar, Italian and French business at 1809 Capitol Ave. 5. River City Saloon photo: jacob c./yelp Last but not least, there's River City Saloon, an Old Sacramento favorite with four stars out of 335 reviews. Stop by 916 Second St. to hit up the cocktail bar and karaoke spot, which offers sandwiches and more, next time you're looking to satisfy your cravings. This story was created automatically using local business data, then reviewed and augmented by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. A woman was killed and three people, including a rabbi and a juvenile, were injured at a shooting in a synagogue in Poway, Calif., on Saturday. Police say that a 19-year-old white man allegedly entered the Chabad of Poway at about 11:23 a.m. PST carrying an assault rifle. He shot an older woman, two men and a girl. The four victims were brought to Palomar Medical Center at 12:30 p.m., hospital spokesperson Derryl Acosta confirmed. An off-duty Border Patrol agent opened fire at the suspect as he left the temple, striking the suspects car. The alleged shooter drove his vehicle away from the scene and called the police, giving them his location near Rancho Bernardo Road, north of San Diego, and Interstate 15. Police said the suspect left his vehicle with his hands up and surrendered to authorities without incident. Police say that a rifle was seen in the front seat of his vehicle. According to a statement from the San Diego County Sheriffs Department, the older woman did not survive the shooting. A rabbi had surgery from defensive wounds he suffered on his fingers. A 34-year-old man and the juvenile suffered wounds from shrapnel caused by bullets. The statement says that both the 34-year-old man and the juvenile are now doing well and the girl has been transferred to Radys Childrens Hospital in San Diego. Police have identified the suspect as John T. Earnest of San Diego and said that law enforcement could find no prior engagement with him. Authorities are currently investigating his possible involvement in the March 24 arson and vandalism of a mosque in Escondido, Calif. They are also investigation the authenticity of claims the subject made online of a written manifesto. The Associated Press reports that a person who identified themselves as Earnest posted a long, anti-Semitic message online about an hour before the Poway attack. The message praised alleged shooters in attacks like last months Christchurch mosque massacre and last Octobers Tree of Life synagogue shooting. Story continues Police believe Earnest acted alone. Saturday was the final day of the Jewish holiday of Passover. The Chabad of Poway announced on Facebook on Thursday that it would be holding a celebration at 11 a.m. on Saturday, and a final Passover meal at 7 p.m. The San Diego County Sheriffs Department said that there are currently no known threats to religious gatherings in the county and that additional deputies have been assigned to religious centers for the weekend. Poway Mayor Steve Vaus told reporters at a press briefing that the shooting is not Poway. We will get through this. Poway will say strong. We will always be a community that cares for one another, Vaus said. Update #1: A man has been detained for questioning in connection with a shooting incident at the Chabad of Poway synagogue. @SDSOPoway Deputies were called to Chabad Way just before 11:30 a.m. There are injuries. This is a developing situation. Poway Station (@SDSOPoway) April 27, 2019 Police asked that the public avoid sharing misinformation on Twitter, and asked people to check their official account for updates. Continue to follow @SDSheriff for updates on @SDSOPoway shooting. Please dont spread misinformation that could cause concern or panic. We urge you to allow deputies to safely do their job. This is a developing situation and the information provided here may later change. San Diego Sheriff (@SDSheriff) April 27, 2019 Update#2 Those wounded in the Chabad of Poway #synagogueshooting were taken to Palomar Medical Center @PalomarHealth. Please respect the medical privacy of victims & their families during this difficult time. Remain clear of the area as this investigation will take several hours San Diego Sheriff (@SDSheriff) April 27, 2019 President Donald Trump sent the community his thoughts and prayers after the shooting. Thoughts and prayers to all of those affected by the shooting at the Synagogue in Poway, California. God bless you all. Suspect apprehended. Law enforcement did outstanding job. Thank you! Trump tweeted. Thoughts and prayers to all of those affected by the shooting at the Synagogue in Poway, California. God bless you all. Suspect apprehended. Law enforcement did outstanding job. Thank you! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 27, 2019 The Presidents comments came a day after he appeared at the annual NRA convention, where he discussed his plans for the U.S. to leave an arms treaty. Melania Trump also responded to the shooting on Twitter, writing, On this last day of Passover, I was heartbroken to hear of another senseless shooting in a place of worship. My heart & prayers go out to all affected in the community. On this last day of Passover, I was heartbroken to hear of another senseless shooting in a place of worship. My heart & prayers go out to all affected in the community. Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) April 27, 2019 This is a developing story; check back here for updates. A man opened fire a synagogue in the city of Poway, just outside San Diego, leaving one woman dead and three other people injured, authorities in southern California have said. The shooting began at the Chabad of Poway synagogue just before 11.30am on Saturday. County sheriff William Gore said a white man had opened fire on worshippers with an AR-type assault weapon. San Diego Police chief David Nisleit said the 19-year-old suspect called police to report the shooting, and was subsequently arrested by a California Highway Patrol officer. Mr Nisleit said the suspect got out of his car with his hands up and was taken into custody without incident. Mr Gore confirmed a woman died from her injuries, while a girl and two men are in hospital in a stable condition. He said an off-duty Border Patrol agent believed to be inside the synagogue at the time shot at the suspect as he fled. The sheriff said the agent did not hit him, but struck his car. Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, the man conducting the Passover service, was among those shot and suffered hand injuries, a witness told ABC affiliate KGTV. Mayor of Poway Steve Vaus also said the rabbi had been shot in the hand. Aside from the person who died, the mayor said my understanding is none of the other injuries were life threatening. We are grateful to those in the congregation there that engaged the shooter and prevented this from being a much more horrific incident, he added said. Synagogue members stand outside of the Chabad of Poway Synagogue following shooting (AP) Derryl Acosta, a spokesman for Palomar Health Medical Center Hospital, said four patients had been admitted around 12.30pm on Saturday. Children were among the injured being treated at the Palomar Medical Centre, local media reported. The Chabad of Poway was worshipping on the last day of Passover, exactly six months since a shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue killed 11 people. Hate has no place in ANY community... least of all Poway. We will put our arms around each other and walk through this tragedy as the family we have always been and always will be. #PowayStrong Steve Vaus (@SteveVaus) April 27, 2019 The shooting came exactly six months since a shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue killed 11 people. A truck driver who authorities said expressed hatred of Jews has been charged in the deadliest attack on Jews in US history. Story continues He has pleaded not guilty to the 27 October rampage at the Tree of Life synagogue. Passover, otherwise known as Pesach in Hebrew, is regarded as one of the most important festivals in Judaism, celebrating the liberation from slavery in ancient Egypt. Traditionally observed for eight days, it ends this year on the evening of Saturday 27 April with a final Passover meal. Additional reporting by agencies Comedor. | Photo: Scott M./Yelp If you've got Mexican fare on the brain, you're in luck: we've found the freshest Austin eateries to quell your cravings. Here are the newest places to check out the next time you're in the mood for Mexican food. Comedor 501 Colorado St., Downtown Photo: celeny b./Yelp Comedor is a New Mexican and Mexican spot. It serves authentic and exotic cuisine, such as Spanish octopus in a black garlic mole, pork belly and Texas quail milanesa with red mole. Wash it all down with a cocktail, craft beer or glass of wine. (Click here to view the full menu.) Comedor currently holds five stars out of eight reviews on Yelp, indicating good reviews. Yelper Rome S., who reviewed Comedor on April 20, wrote, "Comedor is incredible across the board great ambiance, cocktails and food. We ordered nearly everything on the menu and it was nothing short of amazing. Especially a big fan of the bone marrow tacos." And Scott M. said, "The drinks were refreshing and creative, the food was excellent and the service could not have been better." Comedor is open from 510 p.m. on Monday-Wednesday and 511 p.m. on Thursday-Saturday. (It's closed on Sunday.) Vamonos 4807 Airport Blvd., North Loop photo: mary l./Yelp Vamonos is a Tex-Mex spot. On the menu, expect traditional fare such as quesadillas, queso, tacos and enchilada plates, as well as entrees grilled on Texas Oak, including skirt steak, Texas gulf shrimp and the adobo-marinated chicken. The drink menu features Mexican and domestic beer. (See the full menu here.) Vamonos currently holds four stars out of 11 reviews on Yelp, indicating a strong start. Shawn C., who reviewed Vamonos on April 19, said, "I went with the Power Bowl (arroz, charro beans, jack & Oaxaca cheese, super greens, pico de gallo, shredded carrot, radish, avocado and shrimp) for my meal and it looked and tasted great. My kids all loved their selections, too." Yelper Fernando B. wrote, "We absolutely loved the food. The Queso Blanco is amazing. We loved the carnitas and skirt steak excellent service." Story continues The new restaurant has yet to post its hours online. Kerbey Lane Cafe 2200 Aldrich St., Suite 100, RMMA Photo: dawn h./Yelp Kerbey Lane Cafe is a bar and traditional American and Tex-Mex spot. The new spot offers a 24-hour menu that includes breakfast options like chicken and pancakes, migas and breakfast tacos. For lunch and dinner, there are sandwiches and burgers, salads and favorites such as the chicken fried platter, bacon-wrapped meatloaf and green chile mac. The Tex-Mex menu has spicy shrimp enchiladas and fried avocado tacos. Kerbey Lane Cafe's current rating of three stars out of 69 reviews on Yelp indicates the newcomer is finding its way, but it's still early days. Yelper Dawn H., who was one of the first users to visit it on March 4, wrote, "You can get their great pancakes and famous queso, but with dishes like Moroccan beef and braised short ribs on the menu it can easily be described as upscale casual. Don't pass up on that Bacon Wrapped Meatloaf either." Elsa J. noted, "Kerbey Lane has a great diner feel and serves all of the best comfort food. Its menu crosses from classic breakfast to true American to flavorful Tex-Mex. They've also got an assortment of salads and desserts. As the patrons range from toddlers to grandmas, almost anyone finds something they like here." Kerbey Lane Cafe is open from 6:30 a.m.midnight on weekdays and Sunday, and 6:30 a.m.1 a.m. on Saturday. This story was created automatically using local business data, then reviewed and augmented by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. Tunis (AFP) - Seven women day labourers being transported to work on a Tunisian farm in the back of a pickup were among 12 people killed when it collided with a minivan on Saturday, the emergency services said. The deaths triggered an outcry on social media, with users accusing farm owners of treating their low-paid, mainly female workforce "like cattle". Both drivers were also killed in the dawn crash with the minivan carrying poultry in the poor central region of Sidi Bouzid, emergency services spokesman Moez Triaa said. Health ministry spokesman Chokri Nafti said 21 people required hospital treatment for injuries sustained in the crash. Photo: Museum of Ice Cream/Facebook In this edition, the city welcomes Nepalese and shabu-shabu eateries; permits to serve boozy items at an ice cream museum are rejected; and a longtime Mission eatery faces closures and changes. Opening SoMa Binis Kitchen (1001 Howard St.) Momos at Bini's Kitchen. | Photo: Angelina Hong Nepalese eatery Binis Kitchen is now open at 1001 Howard St. (at Sixth Street) in SoMa. Known for its momos, or Nepalese dumplings, the restaurant is currently open only for lunch on weekdays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., with breakfast and dinner hours to be added later this summer. Chef/owner Chef Binita Pradhan, a native of Kathmandu, Nepal, is a La Cocina alumnus. Her mother cooked for the Nepalese royal family, "so delicious food has always been woven into the fabric of my everyday life, she said in a statement. After joining La Cocina in 2012, Bini began making weekly appearances at Off the Grid's food truck events and selling prepared foods in some Bay Area Whole Foods markets. In December 2015, she opened a kiosk at 1 Post St. to serve her momos and curries, and now she's expanding to SoMa. For lunch, Binis will serve build-your-own rice plates with momos on the side. Customers can choose a main dish like gurkha chicken, pork choila, or baigun bharta eggplant, and their preferred momo filling. Dessert items include Nepalese popsicles (in flavors like chai, mango lassi and whipped yogurt) and kheer (rice pudding). You can see the full menu here. Sunset Sunset Shabu (1360 9th Ave.) Shabu-shabu at Sunset Shabu. | Photo: Amy Y./Yelp Tipster Kevin alerted us that Sunset Shabu has opened its doors at 1360 9th Ave. the former location of Nan King Road Bistro, which closed in late 2018. The menu features all-you-can-eat Japanese hot pot meals for $21.99 from Monday Thursday and $24.99 and on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and holidays. Options include a choice of up to two broths, and diners can select from beef, lamb, pork and shrimp for dipping. The deal also includes appetizers like gyoza and chicken karaage. The space currently doesn't offer alcohol, but a beer and wine license is on the way. Here's the full menu; hours are 5-10 p.m. nightly. Story continues Updates Union Square Museum of Ice Cream (1 Grant Ave.) Photo: Ron G./Yelp On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors rejected a permit for the Museum of Ice Cream to serve alcohol. Supervisors voted 11-0 against granting the business a beer and wine license, in alignment with a recommendation from the boards Neighborhood Services and Public Safety Committee. This is the second time the Instagram-centric "museum," where visitors can take photos with a variety of ice cream-themed installations, has been foiled in its attempts to open a bar in its mezzanine. Its first attempt at obtaining a Type 42 beer and wine license was also rejected by the board in February. Founders Maryellis Bunn and Manish Vora told the Examiner that they strongly disagree with the Boards decision. This delay will not deter us from our steadfast mission to offer a city so deeply imbued in technology and dominated by multi-billion dollar tech companies, with a safe, family-friendly, offline space that fosters happiness and joy, they said in a statement, adding that they will be appealing the license decision. They may be incorrect on that score: Supervisor Aaron Peskin, whose district encompasses the Museum, told the Examiner that no appeal was possible. Mission Bissap Baobab & Little Baobab (3388 19th St.) Marco Senghor in front of Little Baobab. | Photo: Love/Speak Productions Over the past year, Marco Senghor, the owner of longtime Mission Senegalese restaurant and dance club Bissap Baobab, has faced serious legal challenges that would have automatically withdrawn his U.S. citizenship. Last month, federal prosecutors dropped some of the charges against Senghor in a plea deal that allows him to retain his citizenship. However, Senghor will continue to be charged on one count of false claim or statement involving an immigration document," a felony with a maximum 10-year sentence. With more legal difficulties ahead, Senghor has decided to close Bissap Baobab, whose last day is this Sunday. (The space and its liquor license have been sold to Peruvian restaurant El Porteno, which also purchased the former Alba Ray's space around the corner at 2293 Mission St.) Senghor is in the process of shifting all of his operations to his original location, the neighboring Little Baobab. Though it's a smaller space than Bissap Baobab, with just 700 square feet, it feels much bigger than ever now," he said, and he's in the process of making updates to it. I am back to my little house," he told Hoodline. "I feel like thats where I was born in America." From left: Eliu Valenzuela, Oumar Diouf, Marco Senghor, and Koudous Moutairou. | PHOTO: ALISA SCERRATO/HOODLINE Senghor plans to add some new menu items at Little Baobab, such as a kale salad with quinoa and akara, a West African dish made from peeled beans formed into a ball and then deep-fried. He's also working on building a small sidewalk patio in front of Little Baobab, with outdoor heaters and room for 10 diners at two tables. If all the permits are approved as expected, he said, it should be up and running by May 15. Over the past week, Senghor and his crew have been working to move his favorite items of art and decor from Bissap Baobab into Little Baobab. Last weekend, friends helped him move a large mosaic from next door, made for him 15 years ago by friend and artist Laurel True. Bissap Baobabs final soiree on Sunday will be a pop-up dinner, with an a la carte menu created by Senegalese-American chef Serigne Mbaye and cocktail pairings by Senghor. Thank you very much to Kevin for the tip! If you've seen something new in the neighborhood, text your tips and photos to (415) 200-3233, or email tips@hoodline.com. If we use your info in a story, we'll give you credit. Yes, it is snowing in Chicago and other parts of the Midwest. Yes, it is April 27 a mere four days until May. Yes, people are heading to Twitter and social media to freak out. And finally, yes, we'll forget our shock as soon as the next extreme weather event happens. That's what a study from earlier in 2019 conducted by the UC Davis environmental science and policy researcher Frances Moore found after examining 2 billion tweets over a two-and-half year period. It found that we tweet about unusual weather because it stands out, but as it becomes more normal, we accept it as how it is and post about it less. In this way we slowly acclimate to extreme weather from climate change, the study asserts. So Saturday's late-April snowstorm in Chicago stands out now, but in the long-run it'll blend into the February heatwaves, torrential flooding, and other once-remarkable-but-now-not-so-notable weather we experience as the climate changes. SEE ALSO: This Twitter bot forecasts the weather with emoji In this particular situation, as more snow and cold temperatures strike later into spring, we're more likely to not notice the strangeness and bizarre patterns and eventually accept May snowfall as a normal trend, even if it's not. Who says Chicago isn't a great place to live? Snow today! pic.twitter.com/OTetTgtdNz michaelj (@mjc5169) April 27, 2019 Helsinki-based blockchain-powered social marketplace SOMA has closed a 1.1 billon bridge funding round, which includes the Finnish Government and private angel investors. These funds will empower us to continue our strong growth trajectory, says Jukka Hilmola, one of SOMAs co-founders. We are in a very good position going forward. The venture will open its marketplace to a limited group in June, and to the public in July. It will use its bridge funds for the likes of performing market research and acquiring users. Initially focusing on the high-end watch sector, SOMA has thus far signed up more than 50 brands. The venture plans to begin a Series A round in early to mid 2020. The good, the bad and the ugly Blockchain is messy, chaotic, and full of the good, bad and everything in between, Jacob Andra, Chief Marketing Officer, SOMA, told Coin Rivet last year. Theres no doubt that distributed ledger technology has the potential to revolutionise the way human beings transact. Id say thats pretty substantial. But theres hype aplenty, as well, he added. As for cryptocurrencies, everybodys so obsessed with the bubble metaphor. Ocean tide is a better one; it waxes and wanes. Weve had this cycle over and over. Right now, the tide is definitely out. Itll come in again. And each time, the sector is further along from lessons learned, more advanced infrastructure, and greater mainstream recognition. The lean times keep the genetic pool healthy (if I may horribly mix my metaphors), Andra argued. The post SOMA lands government funding, eyes Series A round appeared first on Coin Rivet. The South Carolina state House passed a bill which prohibits abortion when a heartbeat is detectable. Current law in South Carolina permits abortion up to 20 weeks. This bill, called the South Carolina Fetal Heartbeat Protection from Abortion Act reduces that to a mere six weeks, before many women know that they are pregnant, with exceptions for rape, incest, and if the pregnancy endangers the life or health of the woman. This bill is not the first of its kind, heartbeat abortion bills are becoming more popular in states like Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio, Georgia, Oklahoma, and now, South Carolina where the bill passed along party lines. Despite their increasing popularity, heartbeat bills are hard to enforce due to questions on the constitutionality of abortion restrictions beyond those outlined in Roe V. Wade. Anti-choice bills similar to this one have been introduced in the South Carolina state legislature previously, but died before making it to the floor. Despite this bill passing in one chamber of the state legislature, as the 2019 legislative session is ending, it is unlikely the state Senate will have the opportunity to take it up for a vote. Republican governor Henry McMaster has pledged to sign the heartbeat abortion bill into law if it crosses his desk. What is making its way through suits me fine- its pro-life. This is a pro-life state and I will be glad to sign that bill, Mr McMaster said. South Carolina Democrat David Mack, who serves as a state representative, said. This waste of time is sickening to me. Mack continues, We go through this every year and the bottom line is, its a womans body and its her right to choose. Hotels in Sri Lanka are seeing a steep uptick in cancellations following the bombing attack that killed at least 253 people on Easter Sunday at churches and hotels, including the luxury Shangri-La. The Mandarina Colombo hotel in Sri Lanka, which opened in early 2017, has seen a nearly 40% drop in bookings and an equal amount of cancellations because of the terrorist attack. At full capacity the hotel can accommodate about 190 to 200 people. "Over the last two years and two months we have never had anything less that 80 to 85% (occupancy) except for this month where this disaster has put us at a record low of 42% occupancy," the hotel told USA TODAY in a statement. Mandarina Colombo was still encouraging tourists to come to the property, but the hotel warned "guests have to be very vigilant and expect a lot of security." The president of the Hotels Association of Sri Lanka, Sanath Ukwatte, told travel industry publication Skift that the Mount Lavinia hotel saw 20% of bookings cancelled so far. Ukwatte owns the hotel. "Everyone is in shock right now," he told Skift. "This is the first time tourist hotels have been targeted in this manner. Every hotel has increased security." The Onyx hotel chain in Sri Lanka, too, is experiencing cancellations mainly in the next six to eight weeks. That includes a mix of guests both already in the country planning to leave early and those booked and scheduled to arrive soon, said Russell Cool, area general manager at Onyx Sri Lanka. "Our hotels, including Amari Galle, Ozo Kandy & OZO Colombo all remain open and continue to welcome travelers to the region and we have also heightened our security protocols," Cool told USA TODAY. "We have experienced cancellations as one would expect in these circumstances, our recommendation to all guests planning on travelling to the country is to check with their respective governments for travel advisory updates." Story continues A Sri Lankan Police officers inspect the site of a bomb blast at the Shangri-la hotel in Colombo, Sri Lanka on April 21, 2019. 'We are nervous': Sri Lankan PM warns of suspects with bombs at large amid fears of new attacks The U.S. travel advisory for Sri Lanka most recently updated on Sunday is a level 2, meaning "exercise increased caution." The highest warning is a level 4, or "do not travel," while the lowest is a level 1, meaning "exercise normal precautions." The warning for Sri Lanka cautions travelers: "Terrorist groups continue plotting possible attacks in Sri Lanka. Terrorists may attack with little or no warning, targeting tourist locations, transportation hubs, markets/shopping malls, local government facilities, hotels, clubs, restaurants, places of worship, parks, major sporting and cultural events, educational institutions, airports, and other public areas." The U.S. Embassy warned on Thursday: "Sri Lankan authorities are reporting that additional attacks may occur targeting places of worship. Avoid these areas over the weekend, starting tomorrow." The embassy also encouraged U.S. citizens on Friday to enroll in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program to stay up-to-date on safety security alerts. Sri Lanka saw 2.3 million tourists in 2018, according to the nation's Tourism Development Authority. Tourism numbers have been on the upswing since the end of Sri Lanka's civil war in 2009. Britain, meanwhile, advised its citizens against traveling to the island country. For his part, Cool, of Onyx Sri Lanka, isn't planning to leave. "If I may put it in perspective, I am an Australian living in Colombo with my wife and three children all under 10 and I am not leaving." Sri Lanka had aimed to boost its tourism efforts by giving away free visas to travelers from more than 30 countries. That program is now on hold as a result of security concerns, according to a statement from the Ministry of Tourism Development, Wildlife and Christian Religious Affairs. Tourism boost effort planned: Sri Lanka to offer free visas to tourists from 30 countries, including US Contributing: Julia Thompson, Associated Press This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Sri Lanka hotels grapple with cancellations after bombing attack COLOMBO, April 27 (Reuters) - Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has banned two Islamist groups suspected of being behind the Easter Sunday suicide bombings that killed more than 250 people, his office said on Saturday. The National Thawheedh Jamaath (NTJ) and Jamathei Millathu Ibrahim (JMI) were banned under emergency regulations that came into effect this week following the bombings, Sirisena's office said in a statement. Security officials have said the NTJ was suspected to be the main group that carried out the attacks. (Reporting by Alasdair Pal and Shihar Aneez Editing by Frances Kerry) High winds and heavy rain have battered parts of the country as Storm Hannah swept into the UK. Homes across Ireland and Wales were left without power and travel disruption was also expected as winds were expected to continue through Saturday. Just a week after Britain basked in scorching weather, instead Ireland was battered by 82mph gales and heavy rain. A yellow wind warning covering Wales and central and southern England is in force until 3pm while Northern Ireland is covered by a yellow rain warning, with the flooding of some homes and businesses "likely". Storm Hannah caused disruption as winds of up to 82mph took out power lines and blocked roads (Picture: SWNS) Western Power Distribution said more than 1,700 properties - the majority in Wales - had been left without power on its network on Saturday morning. Transport for Wales said storm damage on the Conwy Valley line meant buses were replacing trains between Llandudno Junction and Blaenau Ffestiniog. READ MORE Australian police investigated Sri Lanka bomber five years ago The highest winds were recorded on the Llyn Peninsula, where a gust of 82mph was clocked at Aberdaron, while a gust of 78mph was recorded at Pembrey Sands in Carmarthenshire and 64mph at the Needles off the Isle of Wight. Forecasters said the highest winds were expected in exposed coastal areas, although gusts could reach up to 50mph as the storm moves inland. The swirl of #Cloud and #Rain on the latest satellite and radar imagery picks out the arrival of #StormHannah across the UK pic.twitter.com/K06E9ZEXD9 Met Office (@metoffice) April 26, 2019 Wet and windy conditions were set to continue through Saturday, with temperatures expected to reach 9C (48F) and 12C (53F) - much lower than the 26C (79F) seen over the Easter weekend. Story continues Western parts could also see frost on Saturday night under clearer skies in Storm Hannah's wake. Met Office forecaster Marco Petagna said: "We are seeing quite hefty bursts of rain moving across Northern Ireland and into Wales, with elsewhere a bit more showery in nature. "There are also quite lively gusts of wind, certainly for the UK, between 70 to 80mph and the highest at Aberdaron of 82mph at around midnight. "The winds will pick up through the morning across the rest of southern England as the low tracks its way eastwards. "The most persistent rain will be across Northern Ireland and Wales, with some showery outbreaks across parts of northern England as well." Storm Hannah brought high winds of up to 82mph in parts of the country (Picture: PA) Named by Irish weather service Met Eireann, Storm Hannah brought several weather warnings, including a red warning of "violent gusts". The highest recorded were 76mph at Mace Head in Galway, while gusts reached 74mph at Shannon Airport. ESB Networks said on Friday night that strong winds had caused damage to the electricity network affecting approximately 10,000 homes, farms and businesses, predominantly in counties Kerry and Cork. Khartoum (AFP) - A joint committee representing Sudan's military leadership and protesters is to hold its first meeting on Saturday to discuss their demand for civilian rule, the leading protest group said. Protest leaders have held several rounds of so far inconclusive talks with the ruling military council since the army toppled veteran president Omar al-Bashir on April 11 following four months of nationwide protests. Earlier this week, the two sides agreed to set up a joint committee to chart the way forward. The Alliance for Freedom and Change, which brings together grassroots organisers with opposition and rebel groups, has kept up mass protests for a return to civilian rule since Bashir's overthrow after three decades in power. "The joint committee with the transitional military council will hold its first meeting today, Saturday," the AFC said in a statement. It gave no details of who would represent it on the panel or how long it expected the meetings to last. The military council has so far refused to step down, insisting that it has assumed power for a two-year transitional period. But on Friday, it said it was in "continuous communication" with the protest movement and was waiting for it to choose delegates to the new joint panel. The protesters have kept up the pressure on the military, continuing their round-the-clock sit-in outside army headquarters and mobilising tens of thousands on Thursday for a "million-strong" march for civilian rule. Western governments have expressed support, but Sudan's key Gulf Arab lenders have backed the military council, while African states have called for more time for the army to hand over to civilians. Khartoum (AFP) - Sudan's protest leaders and army rulers agreed Saturday to establish a joint civilian-military ruling council, a major breakthrough in talks between the two sides over demonstrators' demands for a handover to civilian rule. The agreement on the highly disputed issue came as thousands of protesters remain encamped outside the military headquarters since the army ousted longtime leader Omar al-Bashir on April 11, demanding that the army rulers step down. "We agreed on a joint council between the civilian and the military," one of the leaders of the protest campaign, Ahmed al-Rabia, who was involved in the talks, told AFP. "We are now in consultation about what percentage of the council should be represented by civilians and how much by the military." The agreement between the two sides is a major breakthrough as the current army leaders had refused to hand over power to a civilian administration despite pressure from the street and the international community. "I'm happy with the outcome of the talks. Other protesters too will be happy," said protester Ahmed Najdi, who has regularly camped outside the army complex over the past weeks. "We are still waiting for the final composition of the joint council." The new council will be the sovereign ruling body that will then form a transitional civilian administration. The decision to have a joint council came during talks held since Saturday morning by a joint committee representing the current ruling military leadership and protesters. The talks were the first such by the joint committee. - 'We won't leave' - Bashir was ousted by the army after months of protests against his three-decade rule. Thousands of demonstrators reached the sprawling military headquarters in central Khartoum on April 6, demanding that the army support those opposing Bashir. Five days later, the army toppled Bashir but then took power into its own hands through a 10-member transitional military council. Story continues Another demonstrator Rawan Al-Fateh said those camped out would not leave until their demands were met. "We won't leave until we have civil rule and laws guaranteeing freedom of expression." Buses bringing protesters kept arriving Saturday, with hundreds of protesters coming from the eastern province of Kassala, an AFP photographer said. Protest leaders had previously held several rounds of inconclusive talks with the military council since Bashir was ousted. Earlier this week, the two sides agreed to set up the joint committee to chart the way forward. The military council has so far insisted that it has assumed power for a two-year transitional period. Western governments have expressed support for protesters' demands, but Sudan's key Gulf Arab lenders have backed the military council, while African states have called for more time for the army to hand over to civilians. Meanwhile the country's top opposition leader Sadiq al-Mahdi called for Sudan to join the International Criminal Court which has indicted Bashir. Mahdi, a former prime minister and head of the opposition National Umma Party that has backed the protests, also told reporters that the army's ouster of Bashir was "not a military coup". - Call to join ICC - Mahdi also said that "it is possible to agree on a civilian authority with the military council because they did not plan a coup". But he said his party would not join a civilian transitional government. He insisted Sudan should "immediately" join the Hague-based International Criminal Court where Bashir is wanted for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for his alleged role in the conflict in Darfur. Bashir, 75, has consistently denied the charges against him. The war in Darfur erupted in 2003 when ethnic minority rebels took up arms against Khartoum's Arab-dominated government, accusing it of social and political marginalisation. The United Nations says about 300,000 people have died in the conflict, with another 2.5 million displaced, many of them still living in miserable camps across the western region of the country. Protest group spokesman Amjad Farid told reporters that Bashir and other regime figures could be tried in Sudan. "We are not seeking retaliatory measures against them, but we want to rebuild our justice system to hold them accountable for their crimes," he said. Mahdi, who was forced from office by Bashir in a 1989 coup, said the president's regime was clinging on despite the upheaval. "The toppled regime might still try to do a coup," he said without elaborating. As protesters were pushing the military on civilian rule Saturday, assailants hurled rocks at a meeting of members of the Islamist Popular Congress Party, an ally of Bashir's, injuring 32 of them. The group leading the protests and the military council condemned the incident. KHARTOUM, April 27 (Reuters) - Sudan's military rulers and an opposition coalition have agreed in principle on the formation of a joint transitional council, but not on the share of seats, two sources said on Saturday. The two sides were holding their first formal discussions as opposition groups and protesters push for a rapid handover to civilian rule following the ouster of former President Omar al-Bashir earlier this month. (Reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz Writing by Aidan Lewis Editing by Jonathan Oatis) Consumer Reports has no financial relationship with advertisers on this site. Consumer Reports has no financial relationship with advertisers on this site. Fern Becker can reel off a list of store-brand items that draw her each week to the Trader Joe's grocery near her Hartsdale, N.Y., home: dried mangoes, Five Seed Almond Bars, Crunchy Salted Peanut Butter With Flax & Chia Seeds, Sweet Potato Tortilla Chips, refrigerated minestrone soup, and Extra Dark Chocolate Wedges. "They're not sweet," she says of the chocolate. "If I need something after dinner, one or two is enough to satisfy me." Not so the Kirkland Cashew Clusters, a blend of nuts and seeds bound with cane sugar, rice syrup, and honey, that she used to pick up at a nearby Costco. "I had to stop buying them," she says. "I became addicted." Choice of Store Based on 'Private Label' Grocery-store loyalties can run deep. Price is a major factor. So are produce quality and variety. But sometimes it's the store-brand productsthose items that carry the grocer's namethat impel shoppers through the sliding doors and up the aisles. And when CR members were surveyed about the grocery stores and supermarkets they liked best, only three grocers earned top marks for their store brands: national names Trader Joe's and Costco; and San Antonio, Texas-based Central Market, a subsidiary of the privately owned H-E-B supermarket chain. Twenty-two percent of surveyed CR members told us that store brand figured into their choice of grocery store. Store brandalso called private labelwas the fourth-most-popular factor for choosing a grocer, following price (44 percent), wide variety of goods (33 percent), and good-quality produce (25 percent). (Respondents could give more than one answer.) Store-brand items often are a retailer's version of a name-brand product. Trader Joe's version of Oreo cookies, for instance, is a favorite with the Becker kids, their mother says. Story continues Store-brand products now account for 25 percent of all grocery store sales by unit, says Burt Flickinger III, managing director at the New York-based retail consulting company Strategic Resource Group and co-publisher of "The Explosive Growth Of Private Labels In North America, Past, Present & Future" (Global Press, 1998). In some stores, such as Trader Joe's and German import Aldi, the figure is much higher. "For the consumer, the cost of store-brand foods and beverages is at least 20 to 25 percent less than name brands of the same product," Flickinger says. "And the store brands quality is typically as good or better." Flickinger's research has shown that a typical American family of five can save $2,500 to $3,000 a year, on average, by buying store-brand foods and beverages. Texas Destination What appears to attract the most ardent store-brand followers, however, aren't the copycat products. They're the store-brand items that are unique to a retailer. Flickinger says retailers are increasingly partnering with university food research centers and small, high-quality name-brand food manufacturers and processors to develop new, unique private-label products. The passion for such foods is evident, for instance, on the Facebook page of high-end Central Market, which regularly posts swoon-worthy photos of prepared original recipes and products from its shelves. A recent post featuring the retailer's private-label small-batch ice creamwhich comes in flavors like coconut ginger, Saigon cinnamon, chile pepper pecan, whiskey honey, and dark chocolate ganachegarnered rapturous responses. "I do not need to be eating any ice cream but man this looks so good!!" said a commenter named Kim Loan Ngo. "My favorite is the whiskey honey," said Heather Evans, another poster. Another, less committed commenter, Charice Shannon, fantasized about combining the dark chocolate and the cinnamon. "Think I'll do that when I'm in town Friday," she said. "Driving 30 miles for this!" More from Consumer Reports: Top pick tires for 2016 Best used cars for $25,000 and less 7 best mattresses for couples Consumer Reports is an independent, nonprofit organization that works side by side with consumers to create a fairer, safer, and healthier world. CR does not endorse products or services, and does not accept advertising. Copyright 2019, Consumer Reports, Inc. New York (AFP) - Elon Musk and US stock market regulators told a US court on Friday that they have reached a deal to settle their differences over the Tesla chief executive's Twitter use. The settlement between Musk and the Securities and Exchange Commission sets out clearer guidelines on topics Musk should avoid on Twitter or other social media, including statements about acquisitions, mergers, new products and production numbers. Musk would have to adhere to Tesla rules regarding potentially significant comments by executives, and have tweets or other social media posts pre-approved by "an experienced securities lawyer employed by the company," according to the proposed settlement. "The parties have reached an agreement to resolve the commission's pending contempt motion," a joint court filing said. A Friday deadline set by US District Judge Alison Nathan was extended until April 30 after Musk and the SEC asked for time to have a final version of the settlement ready to submit for court approval. The SEC said in the filing that the settlement "is fair, reasonable, and in the interest of the parties and investors because the proposed revisions will provide additional clarity regarding the written communications for which the defendant is required to obtain pre-approval." SEC officials had originally argued Musk should be held in contempt of court for allegedly violating an earlier settlement on tweeting potentially market-sensitive information without having it reviewed by counsel. At a hearing earlier this month, Nathan ordered both sides to try to work out their differences, suggesting she could rule on the case if the talks failed. The judge appeared sympathetic at times with some of the government's arguments, but she also expressed significant reservations about finding Musk in contempt, which she said was "serious business" and a ruling that placed a "significant burden" of proof on the government. Story continues - Truce? - If approved, the settlement would mark a truce in Musk's dispute with the SEC after an October agreement required him to step down as chairman and pay $20 million to settle charges he defrauded investors with false claims on Twitter in August about a possible bid to take the company private, which was quickly aborted. The settlement, which allowed Musk to remain as CEO, required him to obtain pre-approval from Tesla counsel before making written communications "that contain, or reasonably could contain, information material to Tesla or its stockholders." The SEC cracked down after Musk tweeted on February 19 that Tesla would make 500,000 cars in 2019 -- up from the 400,000 that the company had estimated until then, an apparent increase on a benchmark tied to profitability. Musk corrected himself four hours later, saying that Tesla would indeed produce about 400,000 cars this year. SEC attorney Cheryl Crumpton argued that the February 19 tweet and the fact that Musk had not submitted any tweets for pre-publishing review showed he had made no serious effort to follow the requirement. John Hueston, an attorney representing Musk, had countered that Musk's February 19 tweet was not consequential to investors, and that the language in the settlement was ambiguous on what types of information needed to be reviewed prior to publication. He also argued that the SEC had been hasty in seeking a contempt ruling without first trying to confer with Musk. - Sputtering deliveries - Word of a settlement came just days after Tesla disclosed a heavy loss in the first quarter as car deliveries sputtered overseas and a US tax credit that made its prices more attractive was reduced. The California-based company reported a loss of $702 million in the first three months of this year after two consecutive quarters of profit. Tesla produced about 63,000 Model 3 vehicles in the period, an increase of three percent from the same quarter a year earlier but fewer than had been anticipated. The company attributed its disappointing financial results to Model 3 shipping delays, particularly in Europe and China. Overall company revenue in the period rose 33 percent to $4.5 billion in a year-over-year comparison, but fell far short of Wall Street forecasts. Tesla was confident it would get past the financial speed-bumps and into a smoother road to improved fortune. The company expected to remain on course to deliver between 360,000 and 400,000 vehicles in total this year, topping 2018 numbers by at least 45 percent. Tesla shares that finished the official trading day down five percent regained a little ground to $237.31 in after-market trading. New York (AFP) - Elon Musk and US stock market regulators told a US court on Friday that they have reached a deal to settle their differences over the Tesla chief executive's Twitter use. The settlement between Musk and the Securities and Exchange Commission sets out clearer guidelines on topics Musk should avoid on Twitter or other social media, including statements about acquisitions, mergers, new products and production numbers. Musk would have to adhere to Tesla rules regarding potentially significant comments by executives, and have tweets or other social media posts pre-approved by "an experienced securities lawyer employed by the company," according to the proposed settlement. "The parties have reached an agreement to resolve the commission's pending contempt motion," a joint court filing said. A Friday deadline set by US District Judge Alison Nathan was extended until April 30 after Musk and the SEC asked for time to have a final version of the settlement ready to submit for court approval. The SEC said in the filing that the proposed settlement "is fair, reasonable, and in the interest of the parties and investors because the proposed revisions will provide additional clarity regarding the written communications for which the defendant is required to obtain pre-approval." SEC officials had originally argued Musk should be held in contempt of court for allegedly violating an earlier settlement on tweeting potentially market-sensitive information without having it reviewed by counsel. At a hearing earlier this month, Nathan ordered both sides to try to work out their differences, suggesting she could rule on the case if the talks failed. The judge appeared sympathetic at times with some of the government's arguments, but she also expressed significant reservations about finding Musk in contempt, which she said was "serious business" and a ruling that placed a "significant burden" of proof on the government. Story continues - Truce? - If approved, the settlement would mark a truce in Musk's dispute with the SEC after an October agreement required him to step down as chairman and pay $20 million to settle charges he defrauded investors with false claims on Twitter in August about a possible bid to take the company private, which was quickly aborted. The settlement, which allowed Musk to remain as CEO, required him to obtain pre-approval from Tesla counsel before making written communications "that contain, or reasonably could contain, information material to Tesla or its stockholders." The SEC cracked down after Musk tweeted on February 19 that Tesla would make 500,000 cars in 2019 -- up from the 400,000 that the company had estimated until then, an apparent increase on a benchmark tied to profitability. Musk corrected himself four hours later, saying that Tesla would indeed produce about 400,000 cars this year. SEC attorney Cheryl Crumpton argued that the February 19 tweet and the fact that Musk had not submitted any tweets for pre-publishing review showed he had made no serious effort to follow the requirement. John Hueston, an attorney representing Musk, had countered that Musk's February 19 tweet was not consequential to investors, and that the language in the settlement was ambiguous on what types of information needed to be reviewed prior to publication. He also argued that the SEC had been hasty in seeking a contempt ruling without first trying to confer with Musk. Tesla shares that finished the official trading day down five percent regained a little ground to $237.30 in after-market trading. Austrian Dominic Thiem handed Rafael Nadal his first-ever loss in the semifinals or finals of the Barcelona Open, dropping the top-seeded Spaniard 6-4, 6-4 on Saturday. Heading into play, Nadal was 22-0 in matches and had lost just one of 47 sets in the final rounds of his home tournament. He is an 11-time champion. The third-seeded Thiem, the only player to have beaten Nadal on clay courts the past two years, wore down Nadal with a steady stream of balls hit to the baseline while also challenging him at the net, winning nine of 12 net points. "I'm always super proud if I beat him because he's the best player ever on this surface, and it's always very special to beat him here on clay," Thiem said after winning in two hours, five minutes. "We always had great matches in the past, and also today was very good and I was more lucky today and I got the win." In Sunday's final, Thiem will face seventh-seeded Russian Daniil Medvedev, who had eight aces while beating two-time Barcelona champion Kei Nishikori of Japan 6-4, 3-6, 7-5 for his first clay-court final. Medvedev battled back from a break down in the third set to beat Nishikori, the fourth seed, in two hours and 25 minutes. "He was up a break in the third, and I felt that I lost the momentum. The match was going away from me," Medvedev said. "I'm really happy that I managed to hold my nerves, to try to come back, and I managed to come back. I'm just happy to be in the final." Hungarian Open Filip Krajinovic of Serbia and Italian Matteo Berrettini cruised through their semifinal matches and will meet Sunday in the final in Budapest. Krajinovic will be seeking to become the ninth first-time ATP Tour titlist this year. In the semifinal, he topped Pierre-Hugues Herbert of France 6-2, 6-2 in just an hour. He lost only six service points, and Herbert never had a service break opportunity. Krajinovic broke Herbert's serve four times in the match. Story continues "Playing in a final, it's a big achievement for me," Krajinovic, a qualifier, said. "I think I played really well today. I served really well and I'm really happy. I will enjoy tomorrow." In another quick match, Berrettini took just one hour and 19 minutes to defeat fifth-seeded Laslo Djere of Serbia. "I have to realize what I did today. I have to recover for this match. It was a short match, but very intense," Berrettini said. "I have to stay focused and prepare for tomorrow." --Field Level Media Photo: iStock International travel doesn't necessarily mean long, expensive flights, foreign languages and days of jetlag Canada is so close. If you're looking to explore America's northern neighbor, consider Vancouver. The bustling west coast seaport, located in British Columbia, is one of Canadas densest, most ethnically diverse cities. The city is surrounded by mountains and boasts thriving art, theater and music scenes, not to mention a delicious food scene closely tied to the region's bountiful seafood offerings. Whether youre trying to escape ASAP or youre looking to plan ahead based on the cheapest fares, take a look at these forthcoming flights between Columbus and Vancouver, which we pulled from travel site Skyscanner. We've also included top-rated hotels, restaurants and attractions in Vancouver to get you excited about your next excursion. (Hoodline offers data-driven analysis of local happenings and trends across cities. Links included in the articles may earn Hoodline a commission on clicks and transactions. Prices and availability are subject to change.) Cheapest Vancouver flights Currently, the cheapest flights between Columbus and Vancouver are if you leave on May 4 and return from Canada on May 7. WestJet currently has tickets for $326, roundtrip. There are also deals to be had in June. If you fly out of Columbus on June 7 and return from Vancouver on June 10, WestJet can get you there and back for $348 roundtrip. Top Vancouver hotels To plan your accommodations, here are two of Vancouvers top-rated hotels, that we selected from Skyscanner's listings based on price and customer satisfaction. The Four Seasons Hotel Vancouver (791 W. Georgia St.) If you're looking to treat yourself, try The Four Seasons Hotel Vancouver. Rooms are currently set at $247/night. It checks in with 4.8 stars. The Four Seasons is a luxury hotel in the center of downtown Vancouver, bordering the business district and a short walk to the Vancouver Art Gallery, Pacific Center Mall and the Vancouver Convention Center. Story continues OPUS Hotel Vancouver (322 Davie St.) Photo: Trip by Skyscanner Another option is the OPUS Hotel Vancouver. The 4.7-star hotel has rooms for $201/night. Located in Yaletown, the OPUS Vancouver Hotel is steps from the inner harbor, Canada Line rapid transit, outdoor recreation and Vancouver's best restaurants, spas and shops. Local restaurant picks Vancouver has plenty of top-notch dining options. Here are a few of the most popular, according to Skyscanner. Meat & Bread (370 Cambie St.) One of Vancouver's most popular restaurants is Meat & Bread, which has an average of 4.7 stars out of 18 reviews on Skyscanner. "Get the porchetta and never look back," wrote visitor Stephen. Cactus Club Cafe (1790 Beach Ave.) Photo: Trip by Skyscanner Don't forget the essentials: where to get a drink. For a popular option, check out the Cactus Club Cafe, with 4.9 stars from 10 reviews. "This hip and trendy bar sits right on the beach at English Bay," wrote reviewer Travis. Hokkaido Ramen Santouka (1690 Robson St.) Photo: Trip by Skyscanner Also worth considering is the Hokkaido Ramen Santouka, with 4.8 stars from seven reviews. "The slow-cooked pork ramen broth made me want to have bad table manners and lift the bowl to my lips," wrote SaraLua. Miku (200 Granville St., #70) Photo: Trip by Skyscanner Finally, there's Miku. It has 4.8 stars from 11 reviews on Skyscanner. "This spot has amazing sushi!" wrote Maggie. Top Vancouver attractions To round out your trip, Vancouver offers plenty of popular attractions worth visiting. Here are two top recommendations, based on Skyscanner's descriptions and reviews. Stanley Park (Vancouver) Photo: Trip by Skyscanner First up is Stanley Park. It has 4.8 stars from 256 reviews. With over 8 million visitors each year, Stanley Park is one of Vancouver's top destinations for locals and tourists alike. The park is home to art events, acclaimed restaurants and landmarks such as Prospect Point and the Nine O'Clock Gun. Granville Island Public Market (1669 Johnston St.) Photo: Trip by Skyscanner The Granville Island Public Market is another popular destination. It has 4.7 stars from 173 reviews. "This is a massive place, and you can find everything from fresh seafood to a butcher shop here," wrote visitor Stephen. This story was created automatically using flight, hotel, and local attractions data, then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. Del Frisco's Grille. | Photo: I Am M./Yelp As fans of cronuts and cake pops can attest, food trends come and go. So how can you tell which tastes are trending today? We took a data-driven look at the question, using Yelp to discover which restaurants have been getting outsized notice this month. To find out who made the list, we looked at Philadelphia businesses on Yelp by category and counted how many reviews each received. Rather than compare them based on number of reviews alone, we calculated a percentage increase in reviews over the past month, and tracked businesses that consistently increase their volume of reviews to identify statistically significant outliers compared to past performance. Read on to see which spots are extra cool this spring. Del Frisco's Grille Photo: damon m./Yelp Open since December 10, 2018, this bar, diner and breakfast and brunch spot is trending compared to other businesses categorized as "Breakfast & Brunch" on Yelp. Citywide, breakfast and brunch spots saw a median 1.8 percent increase in new reviews over the past month, but Del Frisco's Grille saw a 28.2 percent increase, maintaining a convincing four-star rating throughout. It's not the only trending outlier in the breakfast and brunch category: Le Pain Quotidien has seen a 4.6 percent increase in reviews. Located at 225 S. Broad St. in Washington Square, Del Frisco's Grille offers morning favorites, like Crabcake Benedict, made with jumbo lump crabmeat, poached eggs, asparagus, an English Muffin and Cajun lobster sauce. On the sweet side, you've got Nonna's Pan Cinnamon Rolls, with bourbon-espresso caramel sauce and toasted pecans. Pizzeria Beddia Photo: michelle p./Yelp Whether or not you've been hearing buzz about Fishtown's Pizzeria Beddia, the bar, which offers pizza and more, is a hot topic according to Yelp review data. While businesses categorized as "Bars" on Yelp saw a median 2.7 percent increase in new reviews over the past month, Pizzeria Beddia bagged a 9.7 percent increase in new reviews within that timeframe, maintaining a convincing 4.5-star rating. It significantly outperformed the previous month by gaining 7.7 times more reviews than expected based on its past performance. Story continues There's more that's trending on Philadelphia's bar scene: Tio Flores has seen a 6.3 percent increase in reviews. Open at 1313 N. Lee St. since March, Pizzeria Beddia offers smaller plates, featuring cheese, chorizo, beans and more, as well as salads, in addition to signature 16-inch pizzas. Soft-serve ice cream is available for dessert. Giuseppe & Sons Photo: nick d./Yelp Rittenhouse's Giuseppe & Sons is also making waves. Open since late 2018 at 1523 Sansom St., the bar and Italian spot has seen a 14.9 percent bump in new reviews over the last month, compared to a median review increase of 2.9 percent for all businesses tagged "Italian" on Yelp. Giuseppe & Sons offers soups, salads, sandwiches and hoagies on the luncheonette side. On the ristorante side, you'll find classics, such as gnocchi and linguine and clams. Specialties include Sunday Gravy, with meatballs, sausage and spaghetti. Over the past month, it's maintained a mixed 3.5-star rating among Yelpers. This story was created automatically using local business data, then reviewed and augmented by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. A former White House official has agreed to answer questions over allegations that the Trump administration improperly granted security clearances to some of the presidents advisers. Carl Kline, the former White House Personnel Security Director, has offered to appear before the House oversight committee for an on-the-record interview, accompanied by his lawyers. We understand the scope of the interview will be limited to White House personnel security policies and practices, consistent with our prior offers for Mr. Klines voluntary cooperation with the Committee, Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, wrote in a letter to Jim Jordan, a Republican member of the committee. He added that Mr Kline was available to appear before the House of Representatives panel on 1 May. The White Houses agreement comes after a whistleblower told the committee that officials had acted questionably while granting security clearances. Tricia Newbold, a manager in the Personnel Security Office, told the oversight committee earlier this month that 25 individuals including two current senior White House officials, and contractors and employees working for Donald Trump were granted clearances after being denied them initially. She said the reasons the applications were rejected included foreign influence, conflicts of interest, concerning personal conduct, financial problems, drug use, and criminal conduct. The committee is scrutinising the security clearances obtained by Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, according to two Reuters sources. The presidents daughter and son-in-law allegedly obtained high level clearances despite security officials advising against the move. Ms Newbold was suspended from her job in January after making the allegations. Her former boss, Mr Kline, agreed to appear before the oversight committee only after Mr Jordan wrote to the Trump administration and urged the White House to agree to a voluntary interview. The committee has already subpoenaed Mr Kline, compelling him to testify under oath, but on Friday the White House appeared to ignore the subpoena. Story continues In his letter, Mr Cipollone said the subpoena was unnecessary in light of the additional accommodation offer made over three weeks ago for the voluntary appearance. The White House had earlier advised Mr Kline to defy the subpoena. The oversight committee then responded by threatening to hold the former official in contempt of Congress It is unclear if Democrats on the oversight committee, including its chair Elijah Cummings, will accept the Trump administrations new terms. Additional reporting by agencies President Trump displays a signed document rejecting the Arms Trade Treaty at a recent NRA event in Indianapolis. (Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images) President Trump chose the backdrop of the National Rifle Associations leadership forum to announce his latest blow to multilateral institutions. In a speech to the pro-gun group in Indianapolis, President Trump announced he would pull the United States out of the Arms Trade Treaty, an agreement intended to strengthen rules on the global weapons trade. While the move upset backers of the agreement, Trumps decision might have little impact beyond thrilling the NRA. Rachel Stohl, managing director of the Stimson Center and a consultant to the UN Arms Trade Treaty process, dismissed Trumps withdrawal from the treaty as stagecraft designed to please his allies in the gun lobby. It was very theatrical. This was a well-choreographed pandering to special interest groups, she said. The NRA has long opposed the treaty, which was approved by the United Nations General Assembly in April 2013. Trumps predecessor, President Barack Obama, signed it soon after, but the treaty was never ratified by the U.S. Senate. On stage before the NRA, Trump dramatically signed a letter calling for the Senate to end the ratification process before tossing the pen to the cheering crowd. We will never allow foreign bureaucrats to trample on your Second Amendment freedom, Trump said of the treaty, which the United States helped negotiate. The treaty was designed to encourage other countries to adopt stronger arms control measures, and has no impact on domestic gun laws. And while the NRA has cast it as an effort to curb gun rights, the United States already has tighter arms transfers than many other countries and the treaty would not call for changes to the current U.S. system. Stohl suggested the NRAs motives in opposing it were purely political. The only sort of discussion around it has been by the NRA and other gun groups who have opposed the treaty, not based on any substantive opposition, but through mischaracterization of what this treaty is, and who see it as a tool for fundraising and political access, she said. Story continues However, the White House echoed the NRAs line that the treaty posed a threat to American gun rights. In a conference call with reporters on Friday afternoon, a senior Trump administration official acknowledged the U.S. already has tighter curbs on arms transfers than much of the rest of the world, but said the treaty could expose the Second Amendment rights of the American people to risk. The official cited the possibility amendments could be added to the agreement, though they declined to name any specific proposals they were concerned about. According to Stohl, the concerns over amendments are a red herring. If you read the treaty text, the amendments are only binding on states that ratified those amendments, she said. You cannot be bound by future amendments. The Arms Control Association, which advocates for stronger protections on weapons, released a series of statements describing Trumps move as a boon to other countries with more unregulated arms markets. The group noted America was joining Iran, Syria and North Korea in opposing the adoption of the treaty. The treaty text explicitly says that each country is responsible for implementing the treaty in accordance with its own constitutional law, Arms Control Association Executive Director Daryl Kimball said. The United States already has the most detailed legislation that govern the substance and process of U.S. arms sales. Sharon Weinberger contributed to this article. _____ Read more from Yahoo News: Donald Trumps decision to pull the United States from the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty could lead the country into future foreign wars and exacerbate the immigration crisis at the southern border with Mexico, critics have claimed. Speaking at the annual convention of the National Rifle Association (NRA) in Indianapolis, the president said he was withdrawing US support or the accord because it gave a degree of sovereignty to other countries. But some critics decried the move, saying it would create more problems, rather than solve them. If you look at it downstream, I think it creates real risk that the we are drawn into conflicts that are filled with guns manufactured and sold in the United States to these entities, Kris Brown, the president of the national gun safety group Brady, told The Independent. Ms Brown explained the UN Arms Trade Treaty was designed to forbid the sale of firearms to dangerous foreign actors and human rights abusers, and that the deal was supported by 100 countries across the world, including Americas European allies. Pulling out of the deal essentially allows the sale of US firearms to foreign actors, which could then be used in wars that threaten American interests abroad, and then pull the US into those conflicts. Weve seen this movie before many times over, Ms Brown said. During his speech on Friday, the president said that he decided to remove Americas signature from the treaty because he believed the deal hands over some sovereignty to foreign decision makers. That announcement represented a major policy victory to the NRA, which broke its own record for campaign spending to support the former reality television star in 2016. We will never allow foreign bureaucrats to trample on your Second Amendment freedom, Mr Trump said. Im officially announcing today that the United States will be revoking the effect of Americas signature from this badly misguided treaty. But proponents of the treaty which was first developed during the administration of George W Bush and finalised during Barack Obamas presidency say that the treaty would have no impact on US domestic firearm laws. Story continues Ms Brown said that pulling out of the treaty could even fuel the kind of violence that has sent thousands of migrants north from Central American to the US, seeking asylum. She said the idea was pretty simple: US guns are sold with less regard to whether the weapons are getting into the hands of human rights abusers, and those weapons are used to spread fear among populations who are then forced to flee. That flow of migrants has prompted Mr Trump to declare an emergency in the US, and provided reason for Mr Trump to push for a border wall on the US-Mexico border. Thats an impact and quite frankly the logical outgrowth of this is you also have many people in those regions who are displaced as a result of the conflicts that are fuelled with these weapons, and we see often in countries neighbouring the Untied States the impact on many of those people is to flee, Ms Brown said. She continued: It increases strain and stress around immigration. All of these issues are connected to one another. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump will discuss security cooperation and other issues with Slovak Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini in Washington on May 3, the White House said on Friday. It said "recent, positive gains in bilateral security cooperation as well as our shared concerns on cyber threats and the importance of energy security" would be discussed at the White House meeting. Pellegrini said last week NATO-member Slovakia would boost defense spending to 2 percent of gross domestic product by 2022, two years faster than planned. Trump has pressed other NATO countries to increase their defense spending beyond the 2 percent level prescribed by the U.S.-led alliance. (Reporting by Mohammad Zargham; Editing by Sandra Maler) April 27 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Saturday confirmed a joint desire to eliminate oil imports from Iran, a U.S. official said. The two leaders also discussed a "desire to see Iran change its path and seek a more peaceful course forward," U.S. Ambassador to Japan William Hagerty said in a call with reporters. (Reporting by Jan Wolfe; editing by Jonathan Oatis) Donald Trump railed against "radical left-wing" 2020 hopefuls and praised members of the National Rifle Association during a speech hosted by the guns right's group Friday. "Far-left radicals in Congress want to take away your voice, your jobs, your rights," the president said. "And they especially want to take away your guns." He went on to slam the press as "fake news" and vowed to protect the Second Amendment in the US. Mr Trump also called in to Sean Hannitys Fox News show on Thursday evening to accuse the Democrats and Obama-era Justice Department of orchestrating a coup against him and Hillary Clinton of allowing thousands of private messages to be leaked and destroying the lives of his campaign staff. The chairmen of the House Oversight, Judiciary and Homeland Security committees have meanwhile launched a joint investigation into the departures of Kirstjen Nielsen, Randolph Alles and other officials earlier this month as a potential threat to national security. With pro-gun legislation largely stalled in Congress, Mr Trump also revealed Friday he was withdrawing the US from an international agreement on the arms trade, calling it badly misguided. He made the announcement as he vowed to fight for gun rights and implored members of the nations largest pro-gun group struggling to maintain its influence to rally behind his re-election bid. Its under assault, he said of the constitutional right to bear arms. But not while were here. Mr Trump said he would be revoking the United States status as a signatory of the UN Arms Trade Treaty, which regulates international trade in conventional weapons, from small arms to battle tanks, combat aircraft and warships. Former President Barack Obama signed the pact in 2013 but it has never been ratified by US lawmakers. Under my administration, we will never surrender American sovereignty to anyone," Mr Trump said, before signing a document on stage asking the Senate to halt the ratification process. We will never allow foreign diplomats to trample on your Second Amendment freedom. Additional reporting by AP. Please allow a moment for our liveblog to load BEIJING, April 27 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's proposals on nuclear arms disarmament is "not serious," a Kremlin spokesman said on Saturday. Trump has ordered his administration to prepare a push for a new arms-control agreements with Russia and China citing the cost of the 21st-century nuclear arms race, The Washington Post reported on Thursday citing administration officials. "It would be ideal to clean up the whole world from the nuclear weapon...but on the other hand we would have been deprived from the deterrent factor," Dmitry Peskov told reporters on the sidelines of a summit on China's Belt and Road plan. "Don't forget about the deterrent factor, about the deterrent parity," he said. Peskov also said Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping held substantial talks and exchanged views on Syria, Venezuela and Libya when they met on Friday. (Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin; writing by Beijing Monitoring Desk; Editing by Michael Perry) BEIJING (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's proposals on nuclear arms disarmament is "not serious," a Kremlin spokesman said on Saturday. Trump has ordered his administration to prepare a push for a new arms-control agreements with Russia and China citing the cost of the 21st-century nuclear arms race, The Washington Post reported on Thursday citing administration officials. "It would be ideal to clean up the whole world from the nuclear weapon...but on the other hand we would have been deprived from the deterrent factor," Dmitry Peskov told reporters on the sidelines of a summit on China's Belt and Road plan. "Don't forget about the deterrent factor, about the deterrent parity," he said. Peskov also said Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping held substantial talks and exchanged views on Syria, Venezuela and Libya when they met on Friday. (Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin; writing by Beijing Monitoring Desk; Editing by Michael Perry) WASHINGTON (AP) Since George Washington's time, presidents have used executive privilege to resist congressional inquiries in the name of protecting the confidentiality of their decision-making. President Donald Trump threatened this past week to broadly assert executive privilege to block a number of current and former aides from testifying, including some who have cooperated with special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. It's a strategy that could lead to a messy, protracted legal fight, but even if the White House is eventually defeated in court, the president and his allies could have the chance to run out the clock to the 2020 election. "This is all about delaying things. The strategy of every administration is to drag it out," said the University of Virginia's Saikrishna Prakash, an expert on presidential power. Trump in recent days has complained about House Democrats stepping up their investigations in the aftermath of the special counsel's probe , which ended last month without concluding the president colluded with Russia or obstructed justice. "With all of this transparency, we finished 'no collusion, no obstruction,'" Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday. "Then I get out, the first the day they're saying, 'Let's do it again.' And I said, 'That's enough.'" "So, if I'm guilty of anything, it's that I've been a great president and the Democrats don't like it, which is a shame," he said. Executive privilege is the president's power to keep information from the courts, Congress and the public to protect the confidentiality of the Oval Office decision-making process. The privilege to withhold documents and prohibit aides from testifying rests on the proposition that the president has an almost unparalleled need to protect the confidentiality of candid advice that goes into presidential judgments. There is no reference to executive privilege in the Constitution, but the Supreme Court has held that it derives from the president's ability to carry out the duties the commander in chief holds under the Constitution. Story continues It has become a flashpoint after Trump's administration signaled it was considering invoking the privilege to block Congress' attempt to subpoena former White House counsel Don McGahn, an important figure in the Mueller investigation, to appear and provide documents. That reflects a shift in legal tactics for Trump's lawyers. At first, they cooperated with Mueller's 22-month investigation, encouraging officials to testify and turning over more than a million documents. But starting last spring, the White House took a far more adversarial approach, publicly questioning the investigation's integrity and resisting some requests. Advisers to the president, trying to depict the Democrats as guilty of partisan-fueled overreach, want to snarl the congressional investigations. They believe a drawn-out court fight could tire voters' patience and shift public opinion their way. While they are hopeful that the courts support them, a legal battle that ends in defeat could stretch close to the 2020 election and make it easier for Republicans to claim the other party was predominantly interested in playing politics. The haste with which House Democrats have issued subpoenas and promise more is itself a reflection that time is on Trump's side, not Congress', Prakash said. "The speed with which we've come to an impasse is different" from past fights over documents and testimony that involved at least a semblance of negotiations, he said. Courts have not had much to say about executive privilege. But in the 1974 case over President Richard Nixon's refusal to release Oval Office recordings as part of the Watergate investigation, the Supreme Court held that the privilege is not absolute. In other words, the case for turning over documents or allowing testimony may be more compelling than arguments for withholding them. In that context, the court ruled 8-0 that Nixon had to turn over the tapes. When it came to the Watergate tapes, the Supreme Court said it had the final word, and lower courts have occasionally weighed in to resolve other disputes. But courts also have made clear they prefer that the White House and Congress resolve their disagreements without judicial intervention, when possible. Court fights over documents and testimony can take years to resolve. One potential roadblock for the White House: Trump already allowed McGahn to talk to Mueller's team, and Attorney General William Barr has said the president did not invoke executive privilege to prevent release of any part of Mueller's report. "In view of that, the White House has waived a good portion of any privilege it might claim," said Steven Schwinn, a constitutional law professor at the John Marshall Law School in Chicago. Trump seems to be arguing that the risk that McGahn might reveal the substance of high-level conversations he had with the president or other high-level advisers is sufficiently high to keep him out of the witness chair in a House hearing, Schwinn said. "But that's not the way privileges work," he said. "You don't prevent someone from testifying entirely just because you think one of their answers may raise executive communications. You raise a privilege in response to a question." Recent presidents have leaned on the approach. President George W. Bush used it to shield some sensitive information from Congress after the Sept. 11 attacks. The Clinton administration used it to try to keep private Hillary Clinton's answers during the Monica Lewinsky investigation. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally who is chairman of the Judiciary Committee, backs the president's efforts not to engage in what the senator called "a complete partisan thing now." Graham said he told the president when the two spoke earlier in the week that he wouldn't have let "half these people" testify earlier. Now, with Muller's work complete, the South Carolina senator said Democrats are acting like filmmaker Oliver Stone trying to get to the bottom of the Kennedy assassination. Stone's controversial 1991 film "JFK" dramatized allegations that several people conspired to kill the president. "I think Congress is going crazy here," Graham told The Associated Press. Over just the past few days, the Trump White House has thrown up a series of hurdles for congressional investigators: The Trump Organization sued the chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee to stop his efforts to obtain the company's financial records. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin blew past Tuesday's House deadline to turn over the president's tax returns, saying he will decide next month. The administration instructed its former personnel security director, Carl Kline, not to testify before Congress over how some West Wing aides, including Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, obtained security clearances. That led the House to hold Kline in contempt. One potential problem Schwinn identified is a lack of clarity in the White House's claims that Trump aides, including Stephen Miller, Trump's top immigration policy adviser, should not cooperate with Congress. "In a regular administration, we expect the White House to make aggressive constitutional arguments," Schwinn said. "But what President Trump is doing is something different. He's making these assertions that are both overly broad, even ridiculously broad, and in a slippery way so that we can't get our arms around what he is asserting." ___ Associated Press writers Eric Tucker and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report. ___ Follow Lemire on Twitter at http://twitter.com/@JonLemire and Sherman at http://twitter.com/@shermancourt ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan vowed on Saturday to confront opponents inside his own party weeks after he suffered shock election defeats in the capital Ankara and commercial hub Istanbul. Erdogan and his supporters have up to now blamed the losses on electoral fraud by unspecified groups and launched a string of legal challenges against the results. "While we're fighting outside, I have to say, we had people doing us wrong from the inside too," Erdogan said during a speech at an AK Party retreat, without naming any individuals. "What is going on in which province, in which district, all that information come to us. We know it all ... For the future of this organisation, we will call them to account. We're not going to carry them on our backs." The president did not spell out what actions he would take. Authorities have suspended or sacked 150,000 civil servants and military personnel in recent years, accusing many of them of being involved in a failed 2016 military coup. More than 77,000 people have been jailed pending trial and widespread arrests still regularly happen. Initial results of the March 31 local election showed the main opposition Republican Peoples Party (CHP) won the mayoralty of Ankara and control of Istanbul - which AKP and its Islamist predecessors have dominate for 25 years. Erdogan said the party would keep up its legal campaign challenging the results and calling for recounts. "Until the last moment, we will continue our legal struggle. It is certain that there is a scam here. We have to get the case resolved, so that we can find peace," he said. "Although we have won the districts, we will question why we lost the big cities," he added. "We need to focus on what to do and how to evaluate this process, especially in the metropolitan cities." (Reporting by Sarah Dadouch; Editing by Andrew Heavens) North and South Korea Saturday struck different notes as they marked the first anniversary of a summit between their leaders that fuelled a whirlwind of diplomacy which has died down amid deadlock over Pyongyang's denuclearisation. Kim Jong Un and President Moon Jae-in held their first meeting on April 27 last year in the Demilitarized Zone dividing the peninsula amid a rapid diplomatic thaw, paving the way for a historic summit between Kim and US President Donald Trump in Singapore in June. But one year later, little progress has been made on North Korea's nuclear weapons, with Pyongyang and Washington deadlocked since a second summit between Trump and Kim in Hanoi in February broke down without a deal. Moon, who brokered the first meeting between the two mercurial leaders, has tried to salvage the diplomacy although the North has remained largely unresponsive. Since Hanoi, the North has not attended any of the weekly meetings of the heads of their joint liaison office in Kaesong, and has not taken part in other joint projects. North Korea did not respond to the South's invitation this week for a ceremony later Saturday at Panmunjom -- where Moon and Kim exchanged warm smiles and hugs -- to commemorate their landmark meeting last year. Instead, the North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Country, which handles inter-Korean relations, urged Seoul Saturday to take "more active measures" to improve ties. The Kim-Moon summit a year ago had restarted the "ticking of the reunification clock", it said, but the US was pressuring Seoul to lock steps in their approach towards the nuclear-armed North. "A grave situation is being created that may see a return to the past of reaching catastrophe in the thickening dangers of war," it said in a lengthy statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). - 'Dream and reality' - Moon and Kim met three times last year -- including a second impromptu encounter after Trump threatened to cancel the Singapore summit just weeks before it was due. Story continues But exchanges between Seoul and Pyongyang have significantly decreased since the failure to reach agreement in Hanoi. A commentary carried by the South's conservative Dong-A Ilbo newspaper Saturday noted that inter-Korean relations have returned to the "old pattern" where Seoul unilaterally tries to engage Pyongyang despite being repeatedly snubbed by its neighbour. "A year ago, the North Korean leader appeared to listen attentively to the words of President Moon on the footbridge (at Panmunjom), but now he is blatantly ignoring the South," the paper said. "The celebration event held only by South Korea today presents both dream and reality of the first anniversary," it added. Kim slammed the South in a speech to his country's rubber stamp legislature earlier this month, saying it should not "pose as a meddlesome 'mediator' and 'facilitator'" between the US and the North. At his first summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin this week, Kim accused the US of acting in "bad faith" in Hanoi and warned the situation "may return to its original state". North and South Korea Saturday struck different notes as they marked the first anniversary of a summit between their leaders that fuelled a whirlwind of diplomacy which has died down amid deadlock over Pyongyang's denuclearisation. Kim Jong Un and President Moon Jae-in held their first meeting on April 27 last year in the Demilitarized Zone dividing the peninsula amid a rapid diplomatic thaw, paving the way for a historic summit between Kim and US President Donald Trump in Singapore in June. But one year later, little progress has been made on North Korea's nuclear weapons, with Pyongyang and Washington deadlocked since a second summit between Trump and Kim in Hanoi in February broke down without a deal. Moon, who brokered the first meeting between the two mercurial leaders, has tried to salvage the diplomacy although the North has remained largely unresponsive. North Korea did not respond to the South's invitation this week for Saturday's ceremony at Panmunjom -- where Moon and Kim exchanged warm smiles and hugs -- to commemorate their landmark meeting last year. Instead, the North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Country, which handles inter-Korean relations, urged Seoul Saturday to take "more active measures" to improve ties. The Moon-Kim summit a year ago had restarted the "ticking of the reunification clock", it said, but the US was pressuring Seoul to lock steps in their approach towards the nuclear-armed North. "A grave situation is being created that may see a return to the past of reaching catastrophe in the thickening dangers of war," it said in a lengthy statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). - 'New path' - At Saturday's ceremony, musicians from South Korea, the US, Japan and China performed at the South's side of Panmunjom. Both Moon and Kim were absent at the low-key event, which was attended by some 500 diplomats, government officials and civilians. Story continues "This is a new path, and as we all must take it together, we need, sometimes, to wait for those moving slower to catch up," Moon said in a video message. The meeting last April -- the first inter-Korean summit in 11 years -- was high on headline-grabbing symbolism, with Moon stepping briefly into the North and the two sharing an intimate one-on-one woodland chat before live TV cameras. The pair met twice more last year -- the second, an impromptu encounter after Trump threatened to cancel the Singapore summit just weeks before it was due, and Moon flew to Pyongyang for his third meeting with Kim. Cross-border exchanges increased, several guard posts either side of the border were dismantled, and a reunion was held for families separated by the decades-old Korean War. But little substantive progress has been made on the North's denuclearisation and exchanges between Seoul and Pyongyang have significantly cooled after the collapse of Kim's second summit with Trump. Since Hanoi, the North has not attended any of the weekly meetings of the heads of their joint liaison office in Kaesong, and has not taken part in other joint projects. Still, Moon -- who has long backed engagement with the nuclear-armed North -- offered earlier this month to meet Kim for a fourth summit at any time and said he will continue efforts to restart suspended joint economic projects. South Korea on Saturday opened to the public one of the three new hiking trails along the DMZ -- in the eastern coastal county of Goseong -- for the first time since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War. - 'Dream and reality' - A commentary carried by the South's conservative Dong-A Ilbo newspaper Saturday noted that inter-Korean relations have returned to the "old pattern" where Seoul unilaterally tries to engage Pyongyang despite being repeatedly snubbed by its neighbour. "A year ago, the North Korean leader appeared to listen attentively to the words of President Moon on the footbridge (at Panmunjom), but now he is blatantly ignoring the South," the paper said. "The celebration event held only by South Korea today presents both dream and reality of the first anniversary," it added. Kim slammed the South in a speech to his country's rubber stamp legislature earlier this month, saying it should not "pose as a meddlesome 'mediator' and 'facilitator'" between the US and the North. A commentary carried by KCNA Saturday also slammed the South's joint military drills with the US, warning Seoul and Washington to be "mindful that their thoughtless saber-rattling will bring miserable repentance and catastrophic results only." By Abdiqanai Hassan BOSASO (Reuters) - A U.S. air strike killed three fighters from the Islamic State in the Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region on Friday, a U.S. military official said, two weeks after the group's deputy leader was killed in a strike. A witness said missiles struck two wells on the outskirts of Timirshe village, some 60km southeast of Puntland's commercial capital Bosaso. The U.S. military has sharply stepped up its campaign of air strikes in Somalia since President Donald Trump took office, saying it has killed more than 800 militants in two years. "This air strike eliminated ISIS-Somalia members staged in a remote location in northern Somalia, Maj. Gen. Gregg Olson, U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) director of operations, said in an emailed statement on Saturday. AFRICOM also claimed responsibility for the killing of IS deputy Abdulhakim Dhuqub on April 14. Somalia has been riven by civil war and Islamist militancy since 1991 when clan warlords overthrew a dictator before turning on each other. "We heard the crash of four missiles on the outskirts of Timirshe village," resident Ahmed Nur told Reuters by telephone. He said the wells were used by militants from both IS and their more powerful Islamist rivals al Shabaab, an al Qaeda affiliate who have been fighting Somalia's U.N.-backed government for years. Al Shabaab was pushed out of the capital Mogadishu in 2011, but retains a strong presence in parts of southern and central Somalia. It has frequently clashed with the much smaller IS force in the north who are thought to number fewer than 200 fighters. A Puntland intelligence official said the air strike targeted both groups. "There are casualties and we are investigating. In recent battles al Shabaab captured three bases from IS," he told Reuters by telephone, requesting anonymity. (Writing by Hereward Holland; Editing by Clelia Oziel) By Sharon Bernstein SAN FRANCISCO, April 26 (Reuters) - Democratic presidential hopeful John Hickenlooper, a two-time former governor of Colorado, called on Friday for beefing up U.S. anti-trust laws, part of a business-friendly yet progressive agenda he hopes will set him apart among 20 candidates seeking the party's presidential nomination. His plan, first reported by Reuters, could challenge the dominance of such companies as Amazon.com and Google . "Capitalism is based upon competition," Hickenlooper, who made his fortune as a small-business owner, said in a wide-ranging interview. "I think we should be aggressively looking at everything we can do to make sure we have more competitive landscapes." Citing the dominance not only of the big tech companies but of hardware store chains and heavy-handed franchisers, Hickenlooper in his first detailed economic policy proposal said as president he would push for laws limiting such practices as non-compete agreements for employees, and would increase enforcement of laws meant to rein in monopolistic practices. He called for better data on corporate dominance, and said his administration would more closely examine proposed mergers, possibly unwinding mergers that had already taken place. Hickenlooper is not the first Democratic candidate to make the dominance of the big tech companies a campaign issue. Senator Elizabeth Warren last month vowed to break up Amazon, Google and Facebook if she is elected president. Hickenlooper announced his proposal amid a sweep of fundraisers and speeches in Western states, as he seeks to survive in a field dominated by better-known candidates including former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders. On Friday, he attended a fundraising breakfast in Silicon Valley before driving to nearby San Francisco for an appearance before a lunchtime crowd at the city's Commonwealth Club. NO CALL FOR IMPEACHMENT Hickenlooper blasted the Trump campaign's interactions with Russian operatives during the 2016 campaign, but stopped short of calling for Democrats, who hold a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, to impeach him. Story continues On healthcare, Hickenlooper called for universal coverage and a so-called public option, under which Americans could opt to receive care from a government program or maintain private coverage, rather than moving immediately to the "Medicare-for-All" system that many progressives, including Sanders, have embraced. Medicare-for-All would shift all Americans into a Medicare-based, single-payer healthcare plan. Eventually, Hickenlooper said, consumers might all move to Medicare, but a plan would be more likely to pass in Congress offering the more incremental step first. A former entrepreneur who reinvented himself as a bar and restaurant owner after a job layoff, Hickenlooper styles himself as an outsider to Washington politics who brought environmentalists and oil company executives to the table to craft energy policy, and presided over his state's pioneering but complicated transition to legalized marijuana. In a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Wednesday, Hickenlooper was among several Democratic hopefuls who fell near the bottom of the pack in terms of name recognition. Former Vice President Joe Biden, who had not yet declared his run for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination when the poll was conducted, led all other candidates. (Reporting by Sharon Bernstein Editing by Leslie Adler) WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Friday imposed sanctions on Venezuela's Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza, saying it would pursue those in President Nicolas Maduro's government for corruption as well as officials conducting diplomacy on his behalf. Arreaza and a judge in the Court of Appeals for Caracas, Carol Padilla, were targeted in the latest round of U.S. sanctions against Maduro's government over the crisis in Venezuela, the Treasury Department said. Washington blames Maduro for the country's economic collapse and for undermining democracy. The Trump administration recognised Venezuela's opposition leader Juan Guaido as the South American nation's interim president and has asked Maduro, a socialist in power since 2013, to step down. "The United States will not stand by and watch as the illegitimate Maduro regime starves the Venezuelan people of their wealth, humanity, and right to democracy," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement. "Treasury will continue to target corrupt Maduro insiders, including those tasked with conducting diplomacy and carrying out justice on behalf of this illegitimate regime." Venezuela's foreign ministry responded by "energetically" rejecting the sanctions, which it called "unilateral and illegal." "With these new measures, the Trump administration is trying to silence Venezuela's voice in the world," the ministry said. In a separate statement, the U.S. Department of State said Friday's designation was "a reminder" that Venezuelan authorities have detained Guaido's top aide, Roberto Marrero, since March and that such actions would have consequences. "If Nicolas Maduro and those aligned with him continue to use imprisonment and intimidation against the legitimate government and people of Venezuela, the United States will respond," the department said, reiterating the U.S. demand for Marrero's release. Story continues Since the United States recognised Guaido in January, Arreaza has been a regular visitor to the United States, specifically the United Nations in New York, where he has lobbied countries to build support for Maduro. He is married to the eldest daughter of Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's former president who died in 2013 of cancer. It was not immediately clear whether the sanctions would affect his travel to the U.N. Arreaza has spoken at U.N. Security Council meetings on Venezuela and held lengthy press conferences. On Thursday he addressed a meeting of the 193-member U.N. General Assembly on multilateralism. He met with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday and discussed the humanitarian situation in the country, a U.N. spokesman said. Arreaza also met with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in New York on Wednesday. He is active on Twitter, directly taking on U.S. President Donald Trump and White House national security adviser John Bolton. (Reporting by Susan Heavey, Makini Brice and Lesley Wroughton, and Michelle Nichols at the United Nations; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Jonathan Oatis and Richard Chang) (Refiling to fix typo in 6th paragraph; should be Spanish 'court') By Steve Gorman LOS ANGELES, April 26 (Reuters) - U.S. authorities are focused on Southern California in their manhunt for a one-time human rights activist accused of leading a violent takeover of North Korea's embassy in Spain, according to a federal arrest warrant unsealed on Friday. Adrian Hong Chang is wanted by Spain in connection with the alleged embassy raid in February, but his lawyer denounced the U.S. Justice Department for seeking his arrest and extradition based on "the highly unreliable accounts of North Korean government witnesses." The warrant, citing information from Spanish authorities, describes Hong Chang as the mastermind of a raid by seven individuals on the North Korean Embassy in Madrid on Feb. 22 that began with Hong Chang posing as a visiting businessman. He and six fellow intruders, armed with knives, iron bars, machetes and imitation pistols, then stormed the embassy, restrained and physically beat the charge d'affaires and several other employees and held them captive for several hours before fleeing the compound, according to the warrant. They got away with computer equipment and a mobile phone stolen from the embassy, which Hong Chang, also known as Adrian Hong, presented days later to the FBI in New York after fleeing back to the United States, the warrant says. A Spanish judicial court said earlier this week that the FBI later handed the material over to Spanish authorities who have since returned it to Pyongyang's mission in Madrid. The incident at the embassy came at a sensitive time, just days ahead of a second summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that abruptly collapsed without the two men reaching a deal on Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program. North Korea's foreign ministry denounced the incident as a "grave terrorist attack" and cited rumors that the FBI was partially behind the raid. The U.S. State Department has said Washington had nothing to do with it. Story continues Spain is seeking Hong Chang's extradition to face charges of breaking and entering, illegal restraint, robbery, causing injuries and being a member of a criminal organization. Similar charges are pending against an accused accomplice, Christopher Philip Ahn, 38, a former U.S. Marine who was arrested April 18 in Los Angeles on a separate warrant stemming from the same incident. He remains in U.S. custody. Spanish authorities have described Ahn as belonging to a group that calls itself Cheollima Civil Defense and seeks the overthrow of the Kim government. The anti-Kim group, which also calls itself Free Joseon, has denied attacking the embassy in Madrid and insisted its members were invited inside. Hong Chang, a Mexican citizen who holds permanent U.S. residency, was an activist who co-founded the non-profit human rights group Liberty in North Korea but later left that organization. His lawyer, Lee Wolosky, who also represents Free Joseon, accused U.S. authorities of accepting at face value a false North Korean account of events. "In due time, we expect to be able to present additional evidence that contradicts the story made up by the North Korean government," Wolosky said. The warrant for Hong Chang's arrest said U.S. authorities had traced his home to a Los Angeles address and believed he remains at large somewhere within the U.S. Central District of California, an area comprising Los Angeles and adjacent counties. (Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball in Washington; Editing by Michael Perry) By Steve Gorman LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - U.S. authorities are focused on Southern California in their manhunt for a one-time human rights activist accused of leading a violent takeover of North Korea's embassy in Spain, according to a federal arrest warrant unsealed on Friday. Adrian Hong Chang is wanted by Spain in connection with the alleged embassy raid in February, but his lawyer denounced the U.S. Justice Department for seeking his arrest and extradition based on "the highly unreliable accounts of North Korean government witnesses." The warrant, citing information from Spanish authorities, describes Hong Chang as the mastermind of a raid by seven individuals on the North Korean Embassy in Madrid on Feb. 22 that began with Hong Chang posing as a visiting businessman. He and six fellow intruders, armed with knives, iron bars, machetes and imitation pistols, then stormed the embassy, restrained and physically beat the charge d'affaires and several other employees and held them captive for several hours before fleeing the compound, according to the warrant. They got away with computer equipment and a mobile phone stolen from the embassy, which Hong Chang, also known as Adrian Hong, presented days later to the FBI in New York after fleeing back to the United States, the warrant says. A Spanish judicial court said earlier this week that the FBI later handed the material over to Spanish authorities who have since returned it to Pyongyang's mission in Madrid. The incident at the embassy came at a sensitive time, just days ahead of a second summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that abruptly collapsed without the two men reaching a deal on Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program. North Korea's foreign ministry denounced the incident as a "grave terrorist attack" and cited rumors that the FBI was partially behind the raid. The U.S. State Department has said Washington had nothing to do with it. Spain is seeking Hong Chang's extradition to face charges of breaking and entering, illegal restraint, robbery, causing injuries and being a member of a criminal organization. Similar charges are pending against an accused accomplice, Christopher Philip Ahn, 38, a former U.S. Marine who was arrested April 18 in Los Angeles on a separate warrant stemming from the same incident. He remains in U.S. custody. Spanish authorities have described Ahn as belonging to a group that calls itself Cheollima Civil Defense and seeks the overthrow of the Kim government. The anti-Kim group, which also calls itself Free Joseon, has denied attacking the embassy in Madrid and insisted its members were invited inside. Hong Chang, a Mexican citizen who holds permanent U.S. residency, was an activist who co-founded the non-profit human rights group Liberty in North Korea but later left that organization. His lawyer, Lee Wolosky, who also represents Free Joseon, accused U.S. authorities of accepting at face value a false North Korean account of events. "In due time, we expect to be able to present additional evidence that contradicts the story made up by the North Korean government," Wolosky said. The warrant for Hong Chang's arrest said U.S. authorities had traced his home to a Los Angeles address and believed he remains at large somewhere within the U.S. Central District of California, an area comprising Los Angeles and adjacent counties. (Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball in Washington; Editing by Michael Perry) Paris (AFP) - Thousands of trade unionists and left wing activists joined "yellow vest" protesters in Paris Saturday in rejecting French President Emmanuel Macron's proposed tax cuts as too little too late. The march in the capital, organised by the militant CGT union, came ahead of the main rally in the eastern city of Strasbourg, where demonstrators clashed with police. Veterans of the "yellow vest" movement, which started in rural France six months ago in opposition to planned rises in the diesel price and tax on pensions, led the Paris procession. But in a new development, senior figures from the political left marched with them, including lawmaker Jean-Luc Melenchon, a political rival and vocal critic of Macron. In the early months of the movement, which has ballooned into an anti-government rebellion with weekly marches drawing thousands, leading figures resisted attempts by parties on the far left or far right to get involved, fearing their cause would be hijacked. Macron rolled back some of his more controversial measures within weeks of the first protest, and on Thursday announced more tax cuts and measures to help people on small pensions. For his critics however, this came too late -- and Macron remains under fire for refusing to reverse a cut in the "fortune solidarity tax" on high earners. - Clashes in Strasbourg - The interior ministry said 23,000 people demonstrated across France on Saturday, some 2,600 of them in Paris. The movement, however, estimated the turnout at over 60,000 nationally, and 9,000 in the capital. The official figure was one of the lowest yet -- at its height last November the movement drew 282,000 to Saturday marches countrywide, according to an official count. In Strasbourg, police sealed off access to major European Union institutions in keeping with a local ban on protests in the city centre. Clashes broke out after police blocked the protesters' route to the European Parliament building. Some threw stones and bottles at riot police, who fired tear gas in turn. Story continues Police also pushed back a group of activists, some masked and dressed in black, who tried to force their way to the Council of Europe building. Local officials said about 2,000 people took part in the Strasbourg protests, with 42 arrested after protesters damaged property, setting fire to a car. Three police officers, three demonstrators and a local resident were hurt in the clashes, and received medical treatment. In the south, police fired tear gas in the city of Marseille where about 1,000 people turned out. "The questions of social justice, the central question of the yellow vest movement, have not been addressed," said 46-year-old Natacha, one of an estimated 1,500 demonstrators in Montpellier. Extremist groups have issued calls on social media for yellow vest supporters to join forces with the so-called "Black Bloc" -- radical activists blamed for some of the damage and violence that has marred the weekly protests -- at May Day rallies in Paris next Wednesday. According to interior ministry figures, 2,400 protesters and 1,700 law enforcers have been injured since the yellow vest movement started. Paris (AFP) - Thousands of trade unionists and activists from left-wing parties marched with "yellow vest" protesters through Paris Saturday to present a united front against French President Emmanuel Macron's latest reforms package. The Paris march, organised by the militant CGT union, came ahead of the main yellow vest march in the eastern city of Strasbourg, where protesters clashed with police trying to enforce a ban in parts of the city centre. Veterans of the protests, which have been running for six months now, led off the Paris march. But in a new development, many senior figures from the radical left marched with them, including Jean-Luc Melenchon, the leader of France Unbowed and one of Macron's most vocal critics. Welcoming this show of political unity, Melenchon told BFM TV: "It's the first time that there has been a call of this kind, that's to say union organisations, associations and political movements." That in itself made it a political event, he added. It was a government plan to increase diesel prices and raise taxes on pensions last November that sparked the protests in rural France, which quickly ballooned into a full-scale anti-government rebellion. But in the early months of the movement, its leading figures resisted attempts by parties on the far left and the far right to hijack their cause for their own ends, as they saw it. Macron rolled back some of his more controversial measures within weeks of the protests starting and on Thursday announced more measures to help people on low pensions. For his critics however, this was too little too late -- and he is still under fire for refusing to go back on his controversial decision to cut a "fortune solidarity tax" on high earners. In Paris, Green Party senator Esther Benbassa said she had attended every yellow jacket demonstration since they began in November. "It's good that today that we are with the CGT, because the people of the left have to be united," she said. Story continues - Clashes in Strasbourg - In Strasbourg, police sealed off access to the major European institutions in the city in line with a ban by local officials on demonstrations in parts of the city centre. The march started peacefully but clashes broke out after police blocked the route of the protesters to the European Parliament building, AFP journalists said. Some protesters threw stones and bottles at riot police, who fired rounds of tear gas. Earlier, police pushed back a group of activists, some of them masked and dressed in black, who tried to force their way through to the Council of Europe building. Local officials said around 2,000 people took part in the Strasbourg protest. The Paris march passed off peacefully, and organisers see it as a dry run for Wednesday's May Day rally that will bring together several unions from different sectors. A separate Paris march of a few hundred 'yellow vests' protested media coverage of the movement and smaller marches also took place in several other French cities. Minneapolis (AFP) - A former US police officer on trial for fatally shooting an Australian woman told a Minneapolis court Friday that he fired to protect his partner, but never saw a gun - only a blonde woman in a pink T-shirt with her right arm raised. At issue in the trial of Mohamed Noor, the 33-year-old officer who killed Justine Damond in the Midwestern city in July 2017, is whether the use of deadly force was justified. Prosecutors have insisted that the shooting was unreasonable and contrary to police department training policy. "I had to make a split-second decision to protect my partner," Noor said in testimony that began Thursday. He said he believed there was an imminent threat after he saw a cyclist stop near their police cruiser, heard a loud bang and saw partner Matthew Harrity's "reaction to the person on the driver's side raising her right arm." Noor added when he reached from the cruiser's passenger seat and shot Damond, 40, through the driver's side window, it was because he thought his partner "would have been killed." He said that after Damond aapproached the cruiser, his partner screamed "Oh, Jesus!" and began fumbling to unholster his gun. "I fired once, she took a couple of steps back and was falling to the ground," Noor said, describing how Harrity immediately began exiting the cruiser. Determining that he had "stopped the threat," Noor said, he also got out, holstered his gun and joined Harrity in assisting Damond as she fell. Damond, a yoga instructor, had approached the cruiser after calling twice to report a possible rape in the dark alley behind her home. No such assault was ever found to have occurred. She had moved to the Midwestern city to marry her American fiancee Don Damond. She had changed her name from her maiden name. Closing arguments are expected next week in the month-long trial. Caracas (AFP) - The US oil embargo on Venezuela that comes into effect on Sunday will deepen the South American country's economic crisis without necessarily forcing President Nicolas Maduro from power and force Caracas to turn to China and Russia for salvation. Until now, US sanctions directly targeted the upper echelons of Maduro's regime in the hope of weakening his grip on power in favor of a transition to opposition leader Juan Guaido, who in January declared himself acting president. Then, Washington led more than 50 countries in endorsing his claim. But these new sanctions will bite hard in a country that has suffered five years of recession marked by shortages of basic necessities such as food and medicines. Venezuela is almost entirely reliant on oil revenue, with 96 percent of its income from crude and the US its single largest customer. Michael Shifter from Inter-American Dialogue says "there is certainly no guarantee that the petroleum embargo will result in the end of Maduro's rule." But he added: "It may contribute to the desperation that fuels street protests and that ultimately leads to the regime's collapse." Caracas is exporting 500,000 barrels a day to US companies, which accounted for three-quarters of its liquidity by the end of 2018. The new sanctions not only ban US companies from buying Venezuelan crude but also all foreign entities from using the American banking system to purchase the black gold from Caracas. It means China and Russia may have to be Venezuela's "lifesavers," specialist Luis Oliveros told AFP. - Oil production to fall? - US-based consultancy Rapidan Energy Group says Venezuela's state oil company PDVSA's production could temporarily fall by 200,000 barrels a day. That would be a grave loss in production that has already crashed from a high of 3.2 million in 2008 to just 840,000 in March. "It will get even harder" for the government to keep supplying heavily discounted fuel to its people, says Gorka Lalaguna, from consultants Ecoanalitica, which could lead to rising discontent. Story continues In a bid to circumvent the sanctions, Caracas has turned to Chinese and Russian companies to act as intermediaries. "It's using (Russians) Rosneft and other companies to place its crude," said Oliveros. Rosneft denies the claims. Venezuela had its eyes on India to try to make up its shortfall. After the US measure was announced in January, PDVSA president Manuel Quevedo traveled to India with the goal of doubling the 300,000 barrels a day Venezuela sells to companies such as Reliance Industries and Nayara Energy, which is part owned by Rosneft. India has emerged as the "largest cash flow generating market" for Venezuela, according to the Washington-based Wilson Center. Indian companies bought 22 percent of Venezuela's crude in 2017, behind only US (41 percent) and Chinese (25 percent) firms, according to the US Energy Information Administration. However, Reliance told AFP last week it was reducing its imports of Venezuelan crude and suspending the export of diluents -- which Caracas needs to refine its oil -- due to the new sanctions. India backing off leaves China and Russia as Venezuela's main customers. But crude supplies to those two countries are mostly to pay off loans amounting to a fifth of Venezuela's $150 billion in foreign debt. It won't bring in desperately needed liquidity. - 'Share of the blame' - Maduro has hung onto power thanks to the armed forces, one of the main beneficiaries from PDVSA's revenue. If the purse strings tighten, Maduro's government "will use what resources it has coming in to prioritize the military," says David Smilde, the Venezuela expert at the Washington Office on Latin America. While the latest sanctions will crank up the pressure on Maduro, Shifter says Guaido will not be immune to criticism. "Guaido runs a big risk if the embargo fails to bring down the government and only exacerbates a profound humanitarian crisis. As interim president, he could well get a share of the blame." But Hakim says the added pressure could turn the military against Maduro -- something Guaido has failed to achieve -- although that won't necessarily benefit the opposition leader. He says the economic collapse itself may not force out the socialist president but rather lead "to a military action to replace Maduro -- perhaps with a military leader." In any case, Hakim says, history shows that US sanctions rarely work. "Maduro may just end up with the staying power of the Kims of North Korea, (Bashar al-) Assad in Syria or the Iranian supreme power." Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A, BRK-B) CEO Warren Buffett, the third richest person in the world, said in a new interview that college and business school arent necessary for professional success. Some people are going to get a lot out of advanced education, and some people are going to get very little, Buffett says. It depends on the person, much more than it depends on the school. The expense and time that higher education demands may not be worth it, Buffett said in a wide-ranging interview with Yahoo Finance's editor-in-chief, Andy Serwer. Buffett said, referring to college, I dont think its for everybody. It's a big commitment to take four years, and the cost involved, and maybe the loans involved, he says. There ought to be a reason you're going. The comments come amid heightened scrutiny focused on a total of $1.5 trillion in student loan debt among Americans, a figure that has tripled since 2005. A survey this month from GoBankingRates, which polled 500 Americans with college degrees, found 42% feel that their college degree wasnt worth the student debt it created. But 88% said that they did not regret their ultimate decision to go to college. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, a 2020 presidential candidate, proposed on Monday a relief plan that would erase student loan debt for for more than 75% of Americans who have it. Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, gestures during a game of bridge outside Berkshire-owned Borsheims jewelry store in Omaha, Neb., Sunday, May 6, 2018 (AP Photo/Nati Harnik) I actually was not keen on going to college myself Buffett initially opposed attending college but ultimately completed undergraduate and graduate business programs. I actually was not keen on going to college myself, he says. He applied to college because his father, Howard H. Buffett, advised him to consider an undergraduate program at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. My dad kind of jollied me into it, Buffett says. He could get me to do anything. If they'd had an SAT test, in those days, he would have taken the test for me. Buffett attended The Wharton School for two years, then transferred to the University of Nebraska, where he earned an undergraduate degree in business administration. He later received a masters degree in economics from Columbia University. Story continues Since 1965, Buffett has run Berkshire Hathaway, which owns over 60 companies, like Geico and Dairy Queen, plus minority stakes in Apple, Coca-Cola, among others. He holds a net worth of $82.5 billion, and has vowed to give away nearly all of it. Max Zahn is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Read more: Trump confidante Steve Schwarzman says US and China will reach deal 'in next two months' How black women could give Kamala Harris a financial boost in 2020 Amazon's HQ2 was a showdown between a union city and a tech giant The National Rifle Association is in turmoil amid allegations that Oliver North, recently installed as the gun lobbying organizations president, threatened to release damaging information about longtime CEO and Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre unless he agreed to resign. In a letter to the NRA board of executives on Thursday, obtained by The Wall Street Journal, LaPierre accused North of extorting him and pressuring him to resign over alleged financial improprieties. The extortion was simple: resign or there will be destructive allegations made against me and the NRA, LaPierre wrote. Alarmed and disgusted, I refused the offer. LaPierre alleged that the NRAs longtime advertising firm, Ackerman McQueen Inc., had drafted a letter with damaging information about him and would send it to the board if he refused to resign. North, who hosts a documentary show on NRATV thats produced by Ackerman McQueen, reportedly relayed this information to LaPierres staff on Wednesday, claiming the letter would be bad for LaPierre. The letter would be a devastating account of our financial status, sexual harassment charges against a staff member, accusations of wardrobe expenses and excessive staff travel expenses, according to La Pierre. North also said Ackerman McQueen wouldnt send the letter if LaPierre agreed to resign, LaPierre wrote to the board. And, if I supported Col. Norths continued tenure as President, he stated that he could negotiate an excellent retirement for me, LaPierre wrote. Nation Rifle Association President Oliver North speaks at the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action Leadership Forum in Indianapolis on April 26, 2019. (Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS) LaPierre also said he had been pressured to withdraw the NRAs lawsuit against Ackerman McQueen, filed over concerns that it over-billed the organization and had resisted providing financial records. Ackerman McQueen did not immediately respond to HuffPosts request for comment. In his own letter to the board later on Thursday, North said he would create a special committee to investigate allegations of financial impropriety, including allegations of financial misconduct related to Mr. LaPierre, according to The New York Times. Story continues I did this because I am deeply concerned that these allegations of financial improprieties could threaten our nonprofit status, North wrote. The confrontation between LaPierre, who has led the NRA for nearly 30 years, and North, a former Marine Corps officer and a central figure in the Iran-Contra scandal, falls during the gun rights groups annual meeting, which is being held in Indianapolis. President Donald Trump spoke at the convention on Friday. The NRAs 76-member board is scheduled to meet on Monday. LaPierre has been one of the most prominent faces of the NRA in recent years, often speaking out after mass shootings to deflect the blame from the powerful gun lobby and wide availability of guns in the U.S. He called for an increase in effective, trained armed security at schools after the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. To stop a bad guy with a gun, it takes a good guy with a gun, LaPierre said a week after the shooting at the Conservative Political Action Conference, using his oft-repeated and debated catchphrase. LaPierre also blamed school shootings on elites and socialists in the U.S. who support gun control measures. Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. By Mark Hosenball WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said on Friday it has consented to a former staffer appearing before a congressional panel for an "on the record interview," accompanied by his lawyers, regarding security clearance policies and procedures. The "reasonable accommodation offer" of a voluntary appearance by former White House Personnel Security Director Carl Kline before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Reform was disclosed in a letter to the panel's ranking Republican, Jim Jordan. It came after Jordan, better known for stoking than soothing partisan frictions, sought to defuse tensions between House Democrats and the Trump administration with a letter urging the White House to agree to a voluntary committee interview on April 30 or May 1, according to two sources who saw Jordan's letter. The House Oversight Committee is probing allegations that the administration inappropriately granted security clearances to some Trump advisers during Kline's tenure as personnel security director for the White House. White House Counsel Pat Cipollone responded to Jordan, saying on Friday that Kline "is available to appear for an interview on Wednesday, May 1," with the committee, according to a copy of the Cipollone letter obtained by Reuters. "We understand the scope of the interview will be limited to White House personnel security policies and practices, consistent with our prior offers for Mr. Kline's voluntary cooperation with the Committee," Cipollone said in the letter. The committee, chaired by Democratic Representative Elijah Cummings, has issued a subpoena to compel Kline to testify before the panel under oath. While acceding to an "on the record interview," the Cipollone letter makes no mention of sworn testimony. He calls the subpoena "unnecessary" in light of the "additional accommodation offer made over three weeks ago" for Kline's voluntary appearance. No immediate comment was available from Cummings or other Democrats on the committee, and it was not clear whether they would accept the terms laid out by Cipollone. Still, the approach by Jordan was the first sign since the release last week of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report on Russian interference in the 2016 elections that House Republicans might be willing to cooperate with Democrats on probes into national security issues. Among recipients of the security clearances at issue, said congressional sources who asked not to be named, were Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner. Both allegedly obtained high-level clearances, despite recommendations from career security officials against it. In a dispute over the terms of Kline's appearance before the committee, the White House had advised him to ignore the subpoena. The committee responded by moving to hold Kline in contempt of Congress, possibly followed by legal action. Two congressional sources told Reuters that Jordan's letter to Cipollone on Friday had urged the White House "to avoid unnecessary conflict between Congress and the Executive Branch and to deescalate Chairman Cummings's orchestrated inter-branch confrontation." Jordan warned that Cummings might proceed with contempt of Congress proceedings against Kline as early as next week. Cummings launched the investigation after Tricia Newbold, a career security official at the White House, disclosed that the administration overruled experts to give questionable security clearances to more than two dozen people. (Reporting by Mark Hosenball; Editing by Steve Gorman and Michael Perry) Chicago White Sox left fielder Eloy Jimenez exited Friday's contest against the visiting Detroit Tigers in the third inning after injuring his right ankle while crashing into the wall in pursuit of Grayson Greiner's two-run home run. X-rays were negative for a fracture on Jimenez, who will be re-evaluated on Saturday. Jimenez returned from the bereavement list on Friday after visiting the Dominican Republic due to the death of his grandmother. He raced back to the wall on Greiner's fly ball and appeared to get his right foot caught on the padding. Adam Engel replaced Jimenez, with Leury Garcia moving from center field to left. --Field Level Media Adam Shapiro, co-anchor of Yahoo Finances On the Move, brings you the top headlines for Friday, April 26, 2019. FILE - Saudi Arabias Interior Ministry said Tuesday, April 23, 2019, that 37 Saudi citizens have been beheaded in a mass execution that took place across various regions of the country. Saudi King Salman ratified the executions for terrorism-related crimes by royal decree. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File) Saudi beheadings and crucifixion The United Nations is condemning the shocking mass execution carried out earlier this week in Saudi Arabia. Thirty-seven people accused of terror-related crimes were beheaded, and one was crucified as a warning to others. But some of the condemned were tortured before their confessions and insisted they were innocent. Among the dead are Mujtaba al-Sweikat, who was 17 years old when he was arrested in 2012, just before boarding a plane for the United States. He planned to study at Western Michigan University. His family says Sweikat was repeatedly beaten and held in solitary confinement up to 90 days at a time before he signed a false confession. FILE - In this March 16, 2016, file photo, American student Otto Warmbier, center, is escorted at the Supreme Court in Pyongyang, North Korea. North Korea on Friday, Nov. 16, 2018, said it is expelling American Bruce Byron Lowrance after he slipped unlawfully into the police state known for its anti-U.S. fervor. (AP Photo/Jon Chol Jin, File) North Koreas $2,000,000 bill President Trump says no money was paid to North Korea to obtain the release of Otto Warmbier. He was the young man from Ohio who died from severe beatings while he was detained by North Korea. The Washington Post reports that North Korean submitted a $2 million bill for Warmbier's medical care. The report says the medical bill was sent to the US Treasury, but it's not clear if it was ever paid. The president tweeted "No money was paid to North Korea for Otto Warmbier, not two Million Dollars, not anything else." FILE - In this Oct. 11, 1991 file photo University of Oklahoma law professor Anita Hill testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court on Capitol Hill in Washington. Hill testified that she was "embarrassed and humiliated" by unwanted, sexually explicit comments made by Thomas when she worked for him a decade ago. (AP Photo, File) Joe Biden apologizes to Anita Hill Anita Hill says a phone call from former Vice President Joe Biden left her deeply unsatisfied. Biden announced his campaign for president Wednesday and called Hill to express his regret for events that took place in 1991 when he was a Senator chairing the Judiciary Committee. Hill testified before the committee during Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas's confirmation hearing. She accused Thomas of sexual harassment, but was grilled by the all-white, all-male committee about her accusations. Hill told The New York Times, I cannot be satisfied by simply saying, Im sorry for what happened to you." Story continues Pepsico product Lays potato chips on display at a grocery store in Palo Alto, Calif., Wednesday, Oct. 6, 2010. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma) Trademarked potatoes PepsiCo, which owns Lays potato chips, is suing four farmers in India, accusing them of violating trademark law. PepsiCo says the farmers are growing a type of potato used to make Lays chips, which violates agreements the company has with thousands of other farmers to grow it. CNN reports PepsiCo's Indian subsidiary, which filed the lawsuit, is pleading its case today in court despite protests from groups defending the farmers. If you want to become a successful real estate investor in Miami, you have to decide the type of investment property to get the maximum return on investment or ROI. Also, its crucial to consider where to buy an investment, trends in inventory, current market value, and the demands for Miami investment properties. In this post, youll learn some helpful tips when real estate investing in Miami. Check Online Resources Online resources, like real estate directories, can help you decide if Miami is the best place to invest. If you want to invest in real estate in Miami, check and make money bestrealestatedirectory.com. Real estate directories provide you a good idea about the demographics, economic performance, current market value, and specific properties for sale. Here are the other online resources you can use to your advantage as a real estate investor: Roofstock: This tool is the answer so you dont have to worry about finding new tenants for your rental property investment, most especially if youre out of state and cant manage your properties on your own. AppFolio: This tool can help you with leasing, accounting, marketing, and tenant communication, which is built for full-service property managers. It is infused with artificial intelligence or an AI engine called Dynasty, which automates tasks, such as tenant follow-ups and lease renewals. Carrot: It is a fast-growing website provider for real estate investors so you can build your brand and grow your online presence. REIPro: This is a standard tool to make an excellent team for better customer relationship management. You can build and nurture relationships with people until homeowners are eventually ready to sell their properties. As a newbie, you have to make sure that you follow up with your leads enough. Consider Important Factors When Choosing a Miami Investment Property If you want to become a successful real estate boss, you have to consider important factors when choosing an investment property. The Miami real estate market still favors investors or real estate buyers because of the stronger economy, job growth, weather, and the beautiful location of the place. Many people, most especially millennials, favor renting in Miami, so rental properties do well. But whats the best Miami investment property for you? Here are the essential factors to consider when choosing the type of Miami investment property: Miami real estate market condition Demographics Location of the investment property A real estate investment strategy Commercial establishments and government amenities Choose a Good Miami Investment Property Once you have taken into account the important factors when choosing an investment property in Miami, its time to select the type of property youll invest in. Here are the different types of Miami investment properties: Residential Real Estate: Many tenants are looking for residential real estate to rent in Miami, so this type of investment property should be your top priority. Single Family Home: It is a solid property investment with a steady rise in prices, so youll benefit from more predictable appreciation with increasing return on investment. Single-family homes are great property investments because of relatively low prices per square foot. Also, you can turn it into long-term rental properties for higher ROI. Condos: Miami condos have a higher inventory than single homes, which causes real estate investors (owners) to sell at lower prices (25% less) than the real estate market value. Miami condos are still more expensive than a single family home per square foot, and you also have to consider the restrictions and condo fees if you wish to use them as rental properties. However, if you want a buy and hold strategy and bank on rental properties, Miami condos will provide you a good ROI. Apartments or Multi-family Homes: Miami apartments have given an excellent ROI to real estate investors because this type of property investment is stable and reliable as compared to the single-family home investment. Due to higher rent prices and low vacancy rates, Miami apartments sound to be one of the best property investments. Airbnb Miami Rentals: Airbnb rentals can bring a high ROI, as many investors can back up. Just make sure to check the laws to make sure you wont pay hefty fines because of the issue in legal restrictions. Conclusion As a newbie in real estate investing, its a smart move to know the past and current market of Miami. Choose a reliable type of Miami property investment like single-family homes and other rental properties because of the growing workforce and economic growth in the state. You can achieve your short-term and long-term investment goals by keeping these tips in mind. What is he going to do? Fuck someone's face up on stage? Reply Thread Link When I read this, I thought the exact same thing. Fuck them. Reply Parent Thread Link I was wondering. Like, he doesnt sing does he, so its not a concert tour. Im pretty damn sure its not a book tour. Does he mean a vacation tour for himself? Like a road trip? LOL, a makeup tour? Okay. I dont know much about him, but he seems insufferable. Reply Parent Thread Link Like, he doesnt sing does he I mean, he thinks he sings.../shudder Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Well that answered my first question coming into this post, including, but not limited to: Literally, who? Reply Parent Thread Link I know you're talking about makeup, but now I'm picture him just beating up his fans on stage lol Reply Parent Thread Expand Link lmao this narcissist What is he even going to DO on his tour? What kind of performing talents does he have??? Is he just going to do mediocre makeup on himself the whole time? I just... I do not understand! Reply Thread Link Maybe walk the runway? LMAO Reply Parent Thread Link Omg I thought they were the same person. Reply Parent Thread Link oh dear, he really thinks he's the shit, doesn't he? Reply Parent Thread Link why is a youtuber going on tour? what is he going to do? a get ready with me live? Reply Thread Link He's gonna kiss Jeffree Star's ass live on stage Reply Parent Thread Link this is what I don't get but hey if idiots are idiot enough to be idiots then more power to this idiot I guess Reply Parent Thread Link lmao right? i was watching a video that talked about this and my mom was like BUT WHAT IS HE GOING TO DO ON TOUR?! Reply Parent Thread Link He also considers himself a talented singer so theyll probably be getting 90 minutes of: Reply Parent Thread Expand Link why did I click play? this shit is gonna haunt my dreams. Reply Parent Thread Link honestly better than i expected Reply Parent Thread Link I'm screaming lmaooooo Reply Parent Thread Link And the fact that he drops a lot of money to have a vocal coach... He is delusional Reply Parent Thread Link Lmfaoooooooo I am fucking crying Reply Parent Thread Expand Link he ha$ hi$ rea$on$ Reply Parent Thread Expand Link You gotta watch that documentary Chasing Cameron on Netflix about YouTubers and other talentless influencers going on tour. My bf and I loved hate-watching it. It was ridiculous Reply Parent Thread Link i mean Grace, Hannah and Mamrie did many tours. But they also did comedy lol is he just gonna do someones makeup live hahaha Reply Parent Thread Link hopefully something as iconic and cringey as this Reply Parent Thread Expand Link His makeup doesn't even look good in most of the pics I've seen of him. Reply Thread Link He also photoshops/facetunes his pictures to hell and back to make his makeup look better than it actually is. Reply Parent Thread Link 100% who would pay to get makeup advice from james Charles and this photo taken of him is from no less than 4 months ago lol pic.twitter.com/GtHuBkwHa7 impy (@luvjesuscrisp) April 26, 2019 Sis can't even use the right foundation shade Reply Parent Thread Expand Link he and his makeup have always been truly awful and i cannot believe he was chosen to be the first male covergirl Reply Parent Thread Link Oh, to be white and thin while gay. I wish I could be so mediocre and get paid thousands. I really don't know why he's popular. People that pay to see are being scammed by him but they should've known the second they started watching his videos. Reply Thread Link Oh, to be white and thin while gay. I wish I could be so mediocre and get paid thousands. mte. Reply Parent Thread Link a white thin gay MALE. if he was a female white thin gay makeup artist no one would care at all. Edited at 2019-04-27 08:29 pm (UTC) Reply Parent Thread Link blame covergirl or whichever stupid magazine gave him the jumpstart Reply Parent Thread Link Tour for fucking what? Anyone can be famous these days, it's really tragic. Reply Thread Link The folks need to assess their life and choices to be supporting this in the first place but welp I saw he tweeted something along the lines of 'no one's forcing you to buy the tickets' and ngl he has a point. A Khloe Kardashian fan buying expensive jeans momentThe folks need to assess their life and choices to be supporting this in the first place but welp Reply Thread Link He does have a point and Im judging anyone over the age of 21 buying tickets to this mess. I saw a 10 y.o girl in a "sisters" sweatshirt in one of my stores and I assume thats majority of his fan base. And these oblivious parents just buy them the merch, palettes and tickets smh Reply Parent Thread Link Between Bill Eyelash, this, and Pissiepie I dont know what the children are up to Reply Parent Thread Expand Link literally who "Sister's Tour" ugh meh no :/ Reply Thread Link $550 is more than A list singers charge for meet and greet packages lmao. Imagine being so delusional that you think being an obnoxious, talentless nobody warrants that price Reply Thread Link Thats more than what a list rock bands that do m&gs charge too lmao! And more than what musicians that are in bands charge! Reply Parent Thread Link I hate youtube for open the doors for these idiots to become famous for nothing. Reply Thread Link his parents bought his career and his "viral" yearbook story is full of lies Reply Parent Thread Link Btw, the $500 is the cost AFTER he worked hard to lower the price. Theyre were originally $550 plus a service charge. He also lowered the lowest ticket by a whopping $7.50 Reply Thread Link Hes touring and doing what on stage? This? Reply Thread Link lmao Reply Parent Thread Link LOL I'm crying Reply Parent Thread Link lmao James Charles wishes he was as talented as the makeup gun Reply Parent Thread Link lmfao Reply Parent Thread Link homer did it better Reply Parent Thread Link LMAO Reply Parent Thread Link LMFAO Reply Parent Thread Link LOL iconic Reply Parent Thread Link Lol Reply Parent Thread Link Lmfao I needed this. Reply Parent Thread Link lmaooo Reply Parent Thread Link but...wtf will he do on tour? I DON'T GET IT. Reply Thread Link Terrible personality aside, I fucking HATE his voice and how fast he verbalizes. How can ppl listen to him talk? Reply Thread Link His voice is like..nasaly? like his nose is clogged all the time while also being deep-i dont know. it's just a very off putting voice Reply Parent Thread Link YES. He needs his adenoids removed pronto. His stuffy sounding voice drives me crazy. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I watch 2 minutes of the video at Newsweek and understood about 15 seconds Reply Parent Thread Link I'm glad it's not just me. Soon as I heard him speak I clicked out Reply Parent Thread Link What drives me crazy too is his enunciation. I'm not a native English speaker, so I can't tell if it's maybe just a dialect thing, but to me he always sounds like he has something in his mouth while talking or something like that. When I first saw a video of his, I thought maybe he'd just gotten new veneers or something and still had to get used to that, but then I watched another video of his a few months later and he still sounded exactly like that. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link All these make-up/beauty gurus/influencers stay in mess. Scamming, shilling, lying and crying. Reply Thread Link It be like that. Reply Parent Thread Link remember when they were shilling ring lights lmao Reply Parent Thread Link Whos in your avi boo? Reply Parent Thread Link After the Trump administrations Monday announcement that the United States would not renew its six-month waivers to third party countries for their continued purchase of Iranian oil, India has been put in an extremely tough position, and its still not clear which way the nation will go. Will India defy U.S. sanctions and continue to import Iranian oil, or will the nations leaders be willing to lose their third biggest crude supplier in favor of maintaining a good relationship with the United States? India is the third-largest oil consumer in the world, and nearly 80 percent of its oil demand is met with imported oil. India is also the second-biggest purchaser of Iranian oil, after China. All this is to say that the loss of Iranian oil due to sanctions would be a major blow to the fast-developing subcontinent. India was one of eight countries that has been granted a waiver to continue importing Iranian oil (although in smaller quantities) for a six-month grace period. That period ends May 1st, leaving India (not to mention China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, Italy and Greece) in the lurch. There has been wide speculations as to what approach India will take, with plenty of op-eds claiming that they will stand in defiance of the United States and plenty claiming just the opposite, that they will fill in the Iranian oil gap with crude oil supply from other oil-producing nations. Now, Indias Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has given us a clue as to which way the Indian subcontinent is leaning. Pradhan took to Twitter on Tuesday to announce that India will fill the gaps left by Iranian oil with imports from other major oil producing nations, saying that Indian refineries are fully prepared to meet the national demand for petrol, diesel and other petroleum products. according to Reuters reporting, Indian refineries are already planning to ramp up their imports from nations included in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), as well as from Mexico and the United States. On Monday, when the Trump administration announced that the Iranian oil waivers would not be renewed, the president himself said that crude oil supplies from Saudi Arabia and its fellow OPEC nations are prepared and able to more than make up for supply losses due to U.S.-imposed Iranian oil sanctions. Saudi Arabia, for their part, said that it would establish a strategy, in coordination with other oil producing countries, to make sure that they would produce enough crude to meet any newfound demand and as well as to maintain a balanced global market. Related: Trumps Executive Order Is A Gamechanger For Oil Shipping India is already well on their way to being able to wean themselves off of Iranian oil completely thanks to the conditions of the six-month waiver granted by the United States in November 2018, which required waiver recipients to import heavily reduced quantities of Iranian oil (the waivers are officially called significant reduction exceptions). India had already almost halved their Iranian oil imports during this time period. Many energy analysts remain unconvinced, however, that the U.S. decision--which took many market insiders by surprise and pushed up crude trading prices when the decision was announced on Monday--will be able to unilaterally cut Iran out of the international oil market. Chinese authorities have already publicly expressed their distaste for the decision, and some analysts think that China could even increase Iranian imports in defiance of U.S. politicking. Bjarne Schieldrop, chief commodities analyst at SEB, said Tuesday, We think that China cant and wont back down this time and we could easily see an increase of Chinese oil imports from Iran up towards maybe 1 million bpd. When it comes to India, analysts similarly feel that this will not be the end of Iranian imports. In a note published Monday, the same day as the Trump administrations announcement, analysts at Eurasia Group said New Delhi will cut imports substantially but probably maintain approximately 100,000 bpd of Iranian imports paid for using a rupee payment system. This is less an energy security decision than a political one [...] In the past several months India has worked hard to significantly diversify its energy sources in preparation for this situation. But Indias ties with Iran are significant and historic, and New Delhi will work hard to maintain some links By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Traveling can be exciting but also scary at times. But when youre venturing into a destination that you are unfamiliar with, you have to be more cautious in order not to fall victim to roughnecks. Nevertheless, follow these safety tips to protect yourself and ensure a happy and secure journey. Dont show off your cash or valuables Keep your cash separated, with some spending money easily accessible and the rest hidden, so that youre not showing off a big wad of cash every time you pay. Although its tempting to have your smartphone out constantly to look up directions or take photos, be mindful of your surroundings. Leave an itinerary and emergency contact After booking your package on Jumias hotel and flight marketplace, and you are ready to unplug, a mistake you should never make is to go under the radar, especially if youre traveling alone. Leave your itinerary with a trusted friend or family member back home, and try to check in with him or her every day. That way, if something happens, they can alert authorities on your behalf. ALSO READ : FAAN issues travel warning over Lagos Airport road gridlock Confirm visitors with the hotel desk Youre in your hotel room and theres a knock on the door from someone claiming to be maintenance or housekeeping. Before you let this person in, call the front desk to verify that someone from the property needs access to your room. Criminals have been known to pose as hotel workers in order to get inside the rooms. Scan a copy of your passport Before you leave, scan a copy of your passport, email it to yourself and take a photo of it to save on your smartphone. That way, if you need your passport while out (but its locked up in your hotel safe), youll have access to all your details. Plus, if its stolen, getting a replacement will be much easier. Bring only what you need Only bring a passport with you if youre travelling abroad, and always avoid bringing your Social Security card or birth certificate with you, the report advised. Also, dont bring all of your credit and debit cards; choose instead to carry only a select few. If you do bring sensitive documents with you on your trip, lock them up in a hotel safe or other secure location. Dont post location or agenda on social media Sharing your agenda or location on social media allows potential thieves to keep track of where you are, making it easier for them to time a crime. Instead, wait to post about your trip until you get home. Post Views: 74 Jonah Sokolo, a driver with the Abua Odual Local Government Transport Service, Rivers State, has been shot dead by kidnappers. They also made away with all passengers in the 30-seater Coaser Bus. The incident occurred on Thursday evening along Emohua axis of the East-West road in Rivers. The bus was heading to Abua Oduah town when the kidnappers ambushed them along the deadly route, which has become road users nightmare. Nnamdi Omoni, Public Relations Officer of the Rivers State Police Command, confirmed the incident but said the details were still sketchy. Recently, four human heads were chopped chopped off in a cult attack in the area. One person who narrated his harrowing experience to SR said his brother was a victim of the kidnappers last weekend. My brother who is driver was kidnapped from that same Emohua Axis of East West Road; we had to paid N500,000 for them before my brother come out. If this didnt happen to you, you will not understand. Invest In Social Force & Get 50% Click HERE >> To Buy Cheap MTN & GLO Data Click HERE >> At least three people have lost their lives in a fresh crisis in Kasuwan Mangani area of Kaduna State. As of the time of filing this report, security operatives were yet to apprehend or identify perpetrators of the killings, while the identities of the casualities are still unknown too. In reaction to this latest security threat, the Kaduna State government announced the imposition of a 24-hour curfew on Kajuru Local Government Area of the state. Speaking on the incident, Samuel Aruwan, spokesman of the Kaduna State government, said the imposition of the curfew is to avert any further breakdown of law and order and also to prevent the crisis from spilling over to neighboring villages in the local government council. Aruwan urged citizens to comply and support efforts of government and security agencies to ensure peace and stability in the community. SaharaReporters had earlier reported how the Kaduna State government beefed up security in Kajuru to thwart the fresh wave of killing sweeping across Kasuwan from reaching Kajuru and other communities. The federal government has declared that foreign professionals will no longer be engaged in the execution of projects involving national security. The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, made the announcement in Abuja yesterday, when he declared open the 2019 Architects Colloquium organised by the Architects Registration Council of Nigeria (ARCON). Fashola who was represented by the Head of Power Public Private Partnership, Ministry of Power, Mrs Eucharia Alozie, said that government was now placing premium on the use of indigenous professionals and firms to execute projects where national security is at stake. He said foreign experts will only be engaged when their Nigerian counterparts are not available, adding even at that, Nigerian professionals will be assigned to understudy them. Fashola who decried the spate of collapsed buildings in the country as national embarrassment, tasked architects to lead the debate and give guidance to government at all levels for the best way forward for the housing and built industry. He tasked ARCON to tutor its members to design houses in line with the cultural and religious sentiments of Nigerians and reflect the changing contemporary social and technical climates in the designs. The minister also disclosed that government is earnestly awaiting the implementation of ARCON concept to tag projects with registration numbers while also calling on town planning authority to insist on the seal of a licensed architect before approving any project drawing. In his welcome address, the President of ARCON, Dipo Ajayi, said the colloquium afforded the body opportunity to deliberate on issues affecting the nation and make robust contributions to Nigerias national development agenda. Ajayi stressed that the council instituted the ARCON Project Registration Number System (APRN) to ensure that projects are thoroughly done by properly constituted teams of building professionals. He also added that the Council will collaborate with all seven professions in the built environment. Ekiti State Governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi who was the guest of honour at the colloquium, tasked ARCON to sanitise the industry by applying sanctions like withdrawal of the licences of erring practitioners, in order to restore public confidence in the profession. He also tasked architects to incorporate the use of local materials like bricks in building design rather than overly concentrating on sand bricks. There is red alert over the discovery that over four million children in Nigeria are yet to be immunized against various vaccine-preventable diseases. This discovery compelled the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency to begin mass vaccination of children in all parts of Nigeria to commemorate the 2019 African vaccination week. It has been observed that immunization remains the cheapest and most effective life-saving health intervention for children. Despite this, many children still missed out on vaccination and it is attributed to lack of awareness, insecurity and the attitude of health workers. Presently, four point two million children have been identified in Nigeria yet to be immunized from various vaccines preventable diseases. ALSO READ: Policeman bags 25 years jail term for killing motorist The National Primary Healthcare Development Agency has drawn up activities to begin a mass vaccination of children to reverse the trend and improve the health of the Nigerian child. National Daily learned that development partners have indicated that they will continue to contribute their quota to ensuring that every child is vaccinated. They, however, want the private sector to step in. It was indicated that the last week of April is set aside as African immunization week to draw the attention of all critical key players to the unlimited opportunities vaccines offer humanity. The African Development Bank, AfDB says it has approved a $70m loan for a road project in Ebonyi. The bank said on its website on Friday that it would provide $40 million, while its co-financier, the Africa Growing Together Fund (AGTF), would contribute $30 million for the project. It also said that the bank groups funding would cover the rehabilitation and asphalting of a 51 km stretch between Nwezenvi and NDoko, and part of the corridor between NDoko and Ezzamgbo spanning 38.91 km. The bank noted that the project was expected to be completed in five years. AfDB said the project would aid the agricultural state of Ebonyis aspiration to develop special agro-industrial zones dedicated to processing of subsistence crops. It will improve road safety and accessibility of farming communities and small-scale industrial areas. Some 1,400 jobs will be created during the construction phase. Once completed, the road network is expected to serve also as an international link between the State of Ebonyi and Nigerias eastern neighbour, Cameroun, in addition to connecting Ebonyi to Benue and Enugu, it said. ALSO READ : CBN to implement new collateral mgt regime The bank added that the project was in line with its development agenda. It said that the project attested to its commitment to improve the quality of life of Africans by improving accessibility and road safety in its member countries. The bank began financing transport projects in Nigeria in 1972 and has since provided the equivalent of $630 million in financing the sector, including a $69.9 million facility through the private sector, it said. NAN Post Views: 82 The owner of Italian fashion giant Gucci is set to pay a record fine of nearly 1.5 billion euros ($1.7 billion) in a tax evasion case, according to media reports Friday. Lawyers are still negotiating with the tax authorities over a few hundred million euros, but the fine that the (French luxury) Kering group is about to pay is the highest (in Italy), the La Stampa newspaper said. Its a cheque for nearly 1.5 billion euros, it added. ALSO READ : NYSC Diary: From Kingston University to Iyana-Ipaja, once I got to the camp, look around, I started planning my escape route It follows a probe by Milans public prosecutor into the fashion house on suspicion of declaring several years worth of Italian sales in Switzerland, thereby saving around 1.3 billion euros in domestic tax. Kering is expected to sign an agreement on the amount due on May 2, according to the financial newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore. At this stage, no agreement has been reached on any specific amount, the French group told AFP. AFP Post Views: 75 Adewara A young Nigerian woman identified as Adewara Damilola Blessings, alleged to be a student of Ogun State Institute Of Technology, Igbesa has reportedly killed herself by drinking deadly insecticide known as sniper. The reason for the suicide is yet to be known. A close friend of the deceased identified as Yetunde Oluwatobi Omidiji, revealed that Damilola left no clue for her friends to know before deciding to take her life in such a dramatic way. Another friend of the deceased, Mhiz Khadeejah Abiodun, took to Facebook to mourn the death. She wrote: RIP to my bestie for life, my roomie, gist partner still cant believe you are gone. I cant hold the tears back. It wasnt fair that your life had to end. I will always keep you in my heart. May Almighty Allah Grant you Al-janat firdauis. Adewara Damilola Blessings is gone oooo. My Harikeade is gone. A 13-year-old boy, Abubakar Isa, on Friday died in a well at Madawa in Minjibir Local Government Area in Kano, NAN reports. Spokesman of Kano State Fire Service, Alhaji Saidu Mohammed, told newsmen in Kano that the incident occurred at about 7:45 a.m. We received a distress call in the early hours of Friday from one Idi Lele, at about 7:45 am, that a boy had fallen into a well. On receiving the information, we quickly sent our rescue team to the scene at about 8:50 am. The cause of the incident is still under investigation to know what happened. Bello was found dead and his corpse was later handed over to the police, the spokesman said. Delta State Governor, Arthur Ifeanyi Okowa, said that Nigeria as a country will divide the very day the South-South region decided to join struggle for the actualisation of Biafra Republic. Governor Okowa stated this at the Niger Delta Peace and Security Summit held in Koko, Warri North Local Government Area on Thursday. Governor Okowa, who was represented by his Executive Assistant/Directorate of Orientation, Barr. Eugene. A. Uzum, said: Nigeria will divide the very day the South-South agrees to join Biafra. He warned that some parts of Nigeria were being oppressed, and at such, peace may continue to elude us as a people. He noted that the, Federal Character system and ethnics in the country have been grossly mismanaged by our leaders. Governor Okowa, who identified ethnicity as one of the biggest problems of Nigeria said, Unless you are from a particular tribe in this country, you cannot secure a job. Unless you have one big man somewhere, you cannot get a job. Those who control the security apparatus are Hausas. A particular tribe runs the security apparatus. Governor Okowa also said hate speeches are also part of the problems of Nigeria. The Governor, who lamented the alleged injustice in the country, said the crude oil in the South-South region is being used to develop every part of the country, stressing that, This is denigration. He also pointed out that the gold in Zamfara State and other solid minerals in the Northern region were left only for a few cabals and some generals with their companies to mine until bandits started killing people. While noting that the mineral resources in the South-South region are very attractive, Governor Okowa said peace has deluded the Niger Delta people just as he blamed its leaders in the area for their woes. Governor Okowa, who spoke on the topic, Peace and Security in the Niger Delta, the way forward, said for the security operatives to have peace in the Niger Delta, they must keep the peace, stressing that, Niger Delta is a wounded territory. hen one of the leading inbound tour companies in the country decided to have a special package for the Easter festivity period, it was to offer Nigerians and non-Nigerians the opportunity to enjoy one of the iconic tourist sites in the north, the Kajuru Castle, in Kajuru council area, southern Kaduna, Kaduna State. Kajuru Castle is pitched on a rocky hill giving visitors a bird-eye view of the surrounding area. It is a medieval style fortress edifice with baronial style hall with suites and armour; however, it is pitched on top of the rocky hill like a Barian castle. The bedrooms look like dungeons. The castle, like the ones of old, has towers. There is also a swimming pool in the centre of the castle. All these have become a pull for local and inbound tourists. It has enjoyed a steady tourist traffic until the black Easter Friday in Kajuru when bandits snuffed out life from two out of 11 tourists that had gone hideaway to relax, rejuvenate and return to the city. In the hellish attack by the bandits, two tourists, Faye, a British aid worker, and Mathew Danjuma Ogwuche, were unfortunately killed. It was a black day for tourism in Nigeria. In the last two or three years, there has been a buzz about tourist sites in Nigeria. These sites have become exciting to visit and enjoy the ambience. The positive about this new found interest in Nigerian tourist sites is that the push is coming from the young and vibrant in search of adventure and new experiences. The current difficult economic climate in the country has made it difficult for many to go on holiday outside the country. Ghana that used to be a favourite destination for the Nigerian tourists has also become expensive for Nigerian tourists, hence the desire to explore Nigerian sites. The castle was built by a German national, Gerhard Huebner. It all started sometime in 1975 when the District Head of Kajuru, acting on the instruction of the Emir of Zaria, granted permission to the German to build a temporary weekend hospitality resort on a hilltop in Kajuru village. It was initially a temporary structure but it later became a permanent structure, which he named The Kajuru Castle. Although the construction started in the early 80s, it was not completed until around 1989. Since then, it had become a hit to both local and international tourists. The tourists who arrived the castle last Easter Friday, were among the thousands that had visited the place in the last 20 years with no incident. Hitherto, there had never been any serious security issue at the castle, nevertheless, adequate security has always been provided for visitors. Before the Easter tragedy, Motley Tours and Logistics Company had released a beautiful flyer for the tour it intended to package to Kajuru Castle, titled: Explore Kajuru Castle. Other activities lined up for the tour included train ride, castle tour, lunch, pool fun, hike, game and more. It was to be at the cost of N19,999 for single lodgers and N39,999 for two persons sharing a room. Read also: Three killed in fresh Kaduna attacks There had not been anything out of the ordinary from Kajuru packaged tours, but this time, tragedy struck. An insider with the tour company narrated what subsequently happened. He said: On Friday, April 19, 2019, a group of tourists from various parts of Nigeria assembled in Abuja and took the train to Kaduna, numbering 11 guests, accompanied with a representative of the tour operator and two mobile policemen. In Kaduna, we took a coaster bus which transferred us from the train station to the destination, Kajuru Castle, in Kajuru council area. In the night, around 22:30, a gang of heavily armed bandits attacked Kajuru Castle. While the tourists were climbing the hill, the attackers were shooting sporadically. The policemen within the walls returned fire and repelled the attackers so they could not enter. However, some of the staff members were outside the walls at that time and five of them were abducted. Two of the guests tried to come down from their rooms and, most unfortunately, they were shot by the bandits on the stairs from outside. The two killed turned out to be Mooney and Matthew. Because of the fierce resistance of the policemen, the bandits left the scene towards Kajuru Station, where they intercepted a motorcycle coming towards them. They laid ambush and killed the passenger, but the rider escaped. Two out of the five abducted staff, however, later escaped as they ran into the bush. The Nation contacted a staff of the Kajuru Castle on the fate of the staff of the resort kidnapped by the bandits, he replied: The bandits have been calling. Weve been in talks but today(Thursday), we couldnt talk to them because we have been having meetings on the issue. The Kajuru attack has become a source of worry to practitioners and stakeholders in the tourism industry. As a result of this, many stakeholders are calling for the creation of a Tourism Police Department within the Nigerian Police Force. The President of the Federation of Tourism Associations of Nigeria (FTAN), Alhaji Saleh Rabo, said about the incident: FTAN unequivocally condemns the dastardly attack on Kajuru Castle. We are saddened by the news of this brazen banditry that led to the death of Ms. Faye Mooney, a British aid worker, and Mr. Matthew Oguche, a Nigerian, while visiting Kajuru Castle in Kajuru council area of Kaduna. As the private sector representatives of the tourism industry, over the years, we have consistently called on both the federal and state governments to provide adequate security at every tourist site across Nigeria. This is necessary because, aside the protection of Nigerian tourism sites and investments, tourism is an international service trade and social endeavour, which can improve Nigerias image globally. Hence, tourism business in Nigeria should be encouraged, not poorly unprotected. Insecurity in any country is an anathema to tourism development. This latest attack on Kajuru Castle is a sad commentary and a glaring wake-up call. The government should immediately rise to the occasion and prevent a recurrence before it escalates and become entrenched in Nigeria. Such attack on tourists can deeply hurt Nigerias tourism development efforts and destroy our growing brand as a cultural tourism destination. We, therefore, recommend the establishment of Tourism Police to be deployed in popular tourist destinations in Nigeria. The idea of Tourism Police is not new, it is a tested policing structure currently being implemented at several international tourist destinations in Africa and the West. Additionally, we call on the Nigerian Police and Department of State Security to readily avail tour operators with armed escorts, as they move around with tourists at known flash points in Nigeria. One individual who has championed tourism development in in Nigeria, Chief Mike Amachree, also described the event as a sad development for Nigerian, saying that if people cant travel freely without fear, then the business of tourism in the country would collapse. He also called on the government to create a special police department that would be in charge of handling issues that have to do with tourism as it is obtainable in other countries. The fear among practitioners now is that the attack would dissuade international tourists from visiting Nigeria despite the fact that places where most tourist attractions are situated in the southern part of the country are safe. However, the Federal Government has moved to assure the visitors that the country is safe. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs had issued a statement, saying: The ministry also wishes to assure foreign nationals working in Nigeria that the Federal Government is committed to guaranteeing their safety by ensuring the security of lives and property. Photos have emerged from the burial of the Boys Brigade members who were killed on Easter Sunday in Gombe. It will be recalled that that the boys were killed during an Easter procession when a vehicle allegedly driven by an officer of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps ASC Adamu Abubakar rammed into the procession by members of the group. Many others were injured. The slain boys have now been buried. According to Punch Metro, the burial held at the Christian cemetery in Gombe amidst bitter tears which flowed freely at the event. See more photos below: President of Guinea Bissau, Jose Mario Vaz and President Muhammadu Buhari during the foreign presidents visit to Nigeria last November. File photo It is said: It is better to give than to receive. But I think, some giving(s) do not come from the quarters of charity, sacrifice, wisdom or chivalry, but from a place of deep insecurity and delusion of grandeur. When the purpose of giving is to maintain an appearance, then that is a self-esteem problem. Over the years, Nigeria has had Africa as the centrepiece of its foreign policy. The country has played supportive and stabilising role in the affairs of most countries on the continent. It took the throttle in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa; it funded the ANC, and provided academic and corporeal sanctuary to the blacks of the country. Today, Nigerians are, perhaps, the most hated people in that country, routinely harassed, abused and intimidated. Also, in the past, Nigeria provided substantial financial and material support to Chad and Niger; in fact, it has maintained this tradition. But as a matter of fact, these countries have not been very committed in helping Nigeria extirpate Boko Haram. There have been reports of both countries withdrawing their troops from the border areas, where the insurgents are secreted, over issues of command superiority. It is not out of place to play the big-brother, but it is unwise to keep playing the role when effort is unrequited and when there is a blistering image problem. Nigeria, today, contributes 15.7 percent to the global poverty rate. It suffers from serious infrastructure denudation and its debt profile is perilously high. And the truth is our depressing situation is known to the world. So, who are we trying to impress? Why must we keep up appearances? Our charity will be counted as foolishness as long as the ranks of the poorest of the poor keep swelling. Where is the logic in a man throwing steak in the marketplace at a time his family is in dire need of protein and suffering from kwashiorkor? President Buharis $500,000 gift to Guinea Bissau for its elections may be well-intentioned, but good intentions do not make great countries. There is no morality in international relations. What does Nigeria hope to get out of this gesture? Countries like, the US and UK, are notorious for putting strings to every act of charity; this is because they understand the law of sowing and reaping. There is no free money anywhere. However, the $500,000, which is about N180,000,000, could have been much useful in providing about 500 water pumps for the people of Ogugu in Olamboro, Kogi state, who drink from a stream or in building about 50 classrooms in Rimin Kebe, Ungogo local government area, Kano state, where 499 pupils share a single classroom. Our priorities have always been conflicted. I recall when our athletes had to resort to begging on social media to represent the country at an international event; yet they had a government. It is bravery to decline a request when the weather is not favourable. And in exigent times, priority must be given to that which is most important. Charity begins at home. *** Written by Fredrick, a media personality. Twitter:@FredrickNwabufo 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... " " A new meta-analysis shows that Boomers and Millennials have the same work ethic. Mirrorpix/Getty Images Lazy, entitled and self-absorbed. Ask most people over 40 what they think of Millennial workers and that's what you'll hear. Thanks to popular books like "Generation Me" and a rash of kids these days cover stories in major magazines, it's easy to believe that Millennials usually defined as people born between 1981 and 1999 are wildly different than their Generation X (born between 1965 and 1980) and Baby Boomer (1946-1964) coworkers. Employers have so much faith in the Millennial mythology that they've changed the way they recruit, hire, train and develop employees. Teams of well-paid consultants have convinced CEOs that Millennials represent an entirely new species of worker that's less focused, less loyal and far less willing to work hard than proceeding generations. Advertisement But is it really true? Not even close. When researchers have gone digging for hard data to back up the negative stereotypes of Millennial workers, they've repeatedly come up empty. The real explanation for the perceived differences between the work ethic and commitment of Millennials vs. Xers vs. Boomers has much less to do with the year they were born than the age on their driver's license. Wait, isn't that the same thing? Not exactly, explains David Costanza, associate professor of psychology and organizational sciences at George Washington University. Generational assignments like Boomer or Millennial are somewhat arbitrary, but age is a strong predictor of work experience. And more experienced and tenured workers tend to have a stronger work ethic and more corporate loyalty than younger workers. In other words, being a Boomer is a weaker predictor of work ethic than simply being 65. If you look back 20, 40 or 60 years, the same pattern of differences shows up again and again, says Costanza, who co-authored an influential study on generational differences in 2015. The youngest generation is always the least dedicated, the least satisfied and the most mobile. Twenty years ago, that was Generation X. Forty years ago, it was the boomers. Now it's the Millennials. For example, here's a 1961 journal article bemoaning the decaying system of values known as the Protestant work ethic (PWE). This concept originated with German sociologist Max Weber who said that the belief in the importance of hard work and a disapproval of too much leisure time and activities was responsible for the economic success of Europe and the U.S. Apparently, there was widespread consensus that the younger generation of Midwestern farmers were straying from the rugged self-reliance of their fathers and [finding] meaning and strength through constant associations with others rather than [themselves]. They were also shameless consumer[s]. Just imagine if those farmers had Facebook and Amazon Prime back then! A new study from Wayne State University backs up Costanza's conclusion that age is a much better predictor of worker attitudes than being a Millennial or Boomer. Lead author Keith Zabel and his team performed an in-depth meta-analysis of 77 work ethic studies published between 1960 and 2015 and found absolutely no empirical difference between the responses of, say, 18- to 22-year-old college students in 1968 and 18- to 22-year-old college students in 2008 regarding the PWE. The real change happens as these young punks get older and more experienced. In 40 years, this current group of Millennials will think that the younger cohort is lazier and has a lower work ethic, says Zabel. The most important takeaway from this research is that the popular public perception of lazy Millennials is not only inaccurate, but also bad for business. It leads to these sweeping generalizations that can prompt organizations to make these really poor decisions, says Costanza, and to invest in training, development or compensation systems that don't do any good. If managers are telling the CEO that younger employees don't seem to be engaged and committed to their work, that's definitely a problem. But it's not a Millennial problem. If workers aren't committed or they're not satisfied or they're not sticking around, find out why that is and address it, says Costanza. Don't rely on these myths and stereotypes. Costanza equates the Millennial myth with the stereotypes that employers had about women workers half a century ago, that there was no point promoting a woman to a management position because she'd eventually get married, have kids and leave. Or the painful racial and ethnic stereotypes historically faced by minority workers. " " A protester holds a poster stating 'Journalism is not a crime' during a demonstration in support of press freedom in Berlin in 2015. A treason investigation had begun against two writers of a news blog which had published domestic security documents. BRITTA PEDERSEN/AFP/Getty Images In 1971, a RAND Corporation analyst named Daniel Ellsberg surreptitiously released what became known as the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times. The papers revealed a damning history of the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War and essentially showed that the war could never be won with the resources that U.S. allocated to the effort. But more importantly, the Pentagon Papers proved that the government intentionally lied to the American public and to Congress about the conflict [source: Cooper and Roberts]. After the excerpts started appearing in the Times, the Nixon Administration got a court order preventing the publication from printing more of the documents, alleging they violated national security. This was the first time a government had successfully ordered prior restraint (an order to censor news in advance of publication) on national security grounds. Advertisement In response, Ellsberg gave copies of the Pentagon Papers to the Washington Post which began printing excerpts as well. The Nixon Administration sought another injunction but was refused. The government appealed and the case went all the way to the Supreme Court. The Court ruled that the prior restraint was unconstitutional, arguing, "Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government...In revealing the workings of government that led to the Vietnam War, the newspapers nobly did that which the Founders hoped and trusted they would do." [source: Bill of Rights]. New York Times v. United States was one of the biggest victories for the freedom of the press, one of the most overused and increasingly, misunderstood phrases in modern society. At its core, the term refers simply to the ability of people to publish materials on paper or through digital media without government interference (i.e., censorship). But even in the U.S., where press freedom is enshrined in the Constitution, there are some limits, which we'll explain later. In other parts of the world, press freedom is not a given, and in those areas, it's easier for powerful people to take advantage of unknowing citizens. In this article, we'll look at the history of press freedom, how it is deployed in different places and why press freedom is good for the economic development of a country. " " Two men observe the Israeli settlement of Ma'ale Adumim in the Palestinian West Bank with the Judean desert in the background. THOMAS COEX/AFP/Getty Images Just a few miles to the east of Jerusalem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Ma'ale Adumim started out as an encampment of two dozen Israeli families in 1975. Today, it's a city of 41,000 residents with a shopping mall, a library, a theater, 15 schools and an industrial park. When a New York Times reporter visited Ma'ale Adumim in early 2017, construction workers were busy at work, adding more homes to the clusters of white buildings in the hills [sources: Fisher, Jewish Virtual Library]. To supporters of the Israeli settlement movement, Ma'ale Adumim is a success story a prosperous community built on what was once just empty hillside. But to Palestinians including Bedouins in the Ma'ale Adumim area who've lost access to land where they once raised goats and sheep such settlements are a threat to their dreams of someday having a Palestinian nation. Advertisement Ma'ale Adumim is just one of numerous settlements, communities that Israelis have established on land that Israel captured in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, including the West Bank, the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem. Most of the settlements are in the West Bank, an area that Israel controls but never has formally annexed. Over the past 50 years, the population of Israeli settlers in areas outside its 1967 borders has grown dramatically. Today, there are nearly 400,000 settlers living in 131 settlements officially sanctioned by the Israeli government, plus another 97 unapproved outposts, according to Peace Now, an Israeli political group opposed to settlements that gathers data on them. Add to that another 200,000 Israelis who live in East Jerusalem and about 20,000 in the Golan Heights areas also seized in the 1967 war that Israel eventually annexed and you've got roughly 600,000 Israelis or 10 percent of Israel's 6.3 million Jewish citizens living outside Israel's pre-war borders [sources: Myre and Kaplow, BBC News]. To the Israeli government and supporters of the movement, including many people in the U.S., the settlements represent Israelis returning to live in places that once were part of ancient Israel, and where Jews lived in the centuries that followed. But to the Palestinians and much of the rest of the world including 14 nations belonging to the U.N. Security Council who voted in December 2016 to condemn the settlements they violate international law and are a major obstacle to the long-elusive vision of a two-state Israeli-Palestinian solution. In this article, we'll look at the history of the settlements and how they've added to the quandary of lasting Middle East peace. " " HowStuffWorks Now: Peyote Paved the Way for Georgias Religious Liberty Bill HowStuffWorks The legal precedent for Georgia's controversial religious liberty bill has nothing to do with Jesus. On the day after Easter, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal vetoed House Bill 757, aka the Free Exercise Protection Act. Advertisement If passed, it would allow private individuals, businesses and nonprofit organizations to deny services to customers on the basis of religious principle. Or, in the words of the proposed legislation, to "protect against infringement of religious freedom." But conservative lawmakers vowing to override the governor's decision might clutch their Bibles a bit closer if their constituents knew the legal precedent for these types of religious freedom acts, or RFRAs. They all trace back to the 1990 U.S. Supreme Court case Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith. Native Americans Alfred Smith and Galen Black were fired from a private drug rehabilitation facility after their employer discovered they had ingested peyote as a sacramental rite in the Native American Church they attended. Smith and Black were later denied unemployment benefits by the Oregon state government since their firing was attributed to "misconduct." As a result, Smith sued the state for violating his First Amendment rights to religion and speech. In 1990, the case arrived at the Supreme Court for the second time, and SCOTUS ruled in favor of Oregon's government. Writing the majority court opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia presented a slippery-slope argument: If such religious exemptions are upheld it "would open the prospect of constitutionality required exemptions from civil obligations of almost every conceivable kind." Disagreeing with the high Court's verdict, the U.S. Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 barring state and federal governments from "substantially burdening a person's exercise of religion." Immediately upon signing the bill, a crew of U.S. senators hightailed it out of the Capitol building to a peyote ceremony. Just kidding. But to learn how many other U.S. states have jumped on the RFRA bandwagon, just watch the video above. " " Death often conjures thoughts of superstition, but why are the deaths of albatrosses especially distressing? Fuse/Thinkstock Sailors have a plethora of superstitions to help them feel safe on the sea. Many of us follow superstitions in everyday life without even thinking about them, but maritime-related superstitions seem to be more common and enduring than others. Psychologists believe these superstitions -- avoidance of bad luck -- likely stem from the fact that taking to the sea is always risky, with so many factors out of a crew's control. Most psychologists believe that superstitions evolve from that lack of control. Writer and psychology professor Stuart Vyse states that, "When something important is at stake yet the outcome is uncertain, then superstitions are likely to be used to fill the gap and make us feel more confident" [source: Lallanilla]. Even though we may logically know that a superstition really doesn't do anything, just performing the action makes us feel better. Advertisement One interesting maritime superstition is that it's very bad luck to kill an albatross. Because the albatross can fly long distances without flapping its wings, soaring up and down using surface winds to glide, sailors used to believe these birds were supernatural. They thought the albatross held the souls of lost sailors, so they held the sea birds in high respect. To kill one would bring bad luck to the crew and the ship [source: Wells]. And then, of course, there is Samuel Taylor Coleridge's classic 1834 poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." In this epic ode, the narrator kills an albatross, bringing disaster and death to his ship and crew: And I had done a hellish thing, And it would work 'em woe: For all averred, I had killed the bird That made the breeze to blow. Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay, That made the breeze to blow! To punish him for killing the albatross, the crew makes the narrator wear the dead albatross around his neck. Ah! well a-day! what evil looks Had I from old and young! Instead of the cross, the Albatross About my neck was hung. The albatross remains around the narrator's neck until he blesses some water snakes, but he is cursed to carry the symbolic weight of the guilt around for the rest of his life. Even as recently as 1959, a cargo vessel crew went on strike after transporting an albatross on board -- an albatross that died in its cage in transit. The main generator of the ship broke down, and the hot water and heating systems failed. The captain stated to a local newspaper, "That albatross may be to blame for the strike. I had courage bringing that ... thing on board." [source: Toledo Blade] THE Philippines is blessed to have just the right mix of sun and rain. Usually, the rainy season can be felt around the month of July until February. Things begin to heat up come March, leading to a spectacular THE Philippines is blessed to have just the right mix of sun and rain. Usually, the rainy season can be felt around the month of July until February. Things begin to heat up come March, leading to a spectacular sunny summertime! That said, there are several things to take note of when it comes to our own health, well-being and safety this time of the year. The heat is no joke, as the country just recently logged in its highest maximum heat index recorded at 49.6 degrees Celsius in Dagupan City, Pangasinan on Easter Sunday. Here are 10 reminders on how to enjoy the sun without ruining the fun. Stay hydrated A very common misconception is to drink water when youre thirsty. Unfortunately, the feeling of thirst may be deceiving. Just because youre not thirsty, does not mean youre well hydrated. So whether your thirsty or not, drink up all the time. Dont even trust energy drinks or juices. Its best to stick to water. Water buddies When youre enjoying the beach or the pool, make sure everybody knows where everybody is at. Experienced swimmer or not, you cant be overconfident as fatigue can quickly set in anytime, anywhere. Avoid untoward incidents and accidents like drowning or fainting on top of the grill. Keep your eyes on everyone. It pays to be safe. Never swim alone. Use sunscreen The sun is packed with harmful rays that youll never see or be able to measure just by feeling the warm light against your skin. If youre going to be spending tons of time outdoors, make sure you load up on sunscreen, and generously apply it on your face, neck, arms, legsjust about anywhere your skin is exposed to sunlight. Function over fashion Okay. So were not saying you go out looking like you just got off of bed. The point is, you should pick your clothes and dress wisely; be more worried about comfort than that leather-slick OOTD look. Stock up on cotton loose-fitting shirts. Stick to brighter colors to allow some of the heat to bounce off of your clothes. White is the best option. Think loose, breathable fabrics. Story continues Numbers game Remember a bunch of emergency numbers just in case situations go beyond your control. Theres the Emergency Rescue Unit Foundation, your neighborhood fire station or even your trusty car mechanic. The last one, because of the next reason... Drive smart If you drive your own vehicle, or are assigned to drive your friends car on the way to your next beach outing, never assume that your ride is all set and ready to go. Check the radiator if its been filled up with water. Check the oil if the vehicle has enough of it. Check the brake fluid. Make sure the tires are okay. Sometimes, cars get abused during summer vacations. Drive smart and safe. Bugs battle For the campers and trekkers, watch out for ticks or mosquitoes. As the sun dries up most rivers and puddles, mosquitoes tend to camp and stay near still water. We do not want any more of the Dengue fever, do we? Food safety Most food items, when not refrigerated, tend to spoil faster under the heat of the sun. Keep your food in a cool yet dry place. When going out on trips, its best to bring with you a cooler filled with ice. When cooking, be conscious enough not to mix cooked meat with raw meat on the same container. Also, dont use the utensils used for cooking to serve the food. Your best pet Dont forget about your pet! Be sure to give them access to fresh water all the time, and check that theyre staying in a cool, shaded place. Give them regular showers (assuming theyre not goldfishes or parrots). When walking dogs, be conscious of how hot the concrete or asphalt may be. Last, make sure your pets are vaccinated, as other people will be going out more with their own pets as well. Youll never know! Fire out Think about fire hazards or highly flammable liquids or devices and keep them cool, dry and out of the suns reach. Summer flings and disasters have this in commonall it takes is one spark. AHEAD of their scheduled debate on May 6, two mayoral candidates in Cebu City have started to share their vision for the city if they get elected.For education, Vice Mayor Edgardo Labella plans to establish AHEAD of their scheduled debate on May 6, two mayoral candidates in Cebu City have started to share their vision for the city if they get elected. For education, Vice Mayor Edgardo Labella plans to establish the Cebu City College. In a Facebook post, Labella said Cebu City, as an urbanized city, should have its own college. The Cebu City College will address the needs of our young constituents who cant afford but want to earn a vocation, technical, agricultural or a college degree, he said in Cebuano. The vice mayor, who is the standard bearer of the Barug PDP-Laban, said even the cities of Talisay, Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu that are smaller compared to Cebu City and the town of Consolacion have established their own city and municipal colleges, respectively. Mayor Tomas Osmena, for his part, said he would continue the Citys college scholarship program that he started during his previous term as mayor. A video posted on Osmenas Facebook page showcases success stories of those who benefited from the program. The scholarship program provides tuition and academic and school supply assistance to college students who graduated in any public high school in the city. Students from mountain barangays get an additional transportation allowance. No empty promises, just dreams come true, reads Osmenas video caption. The Integrated Bar of the Philippines originally scheduled the debate last April 22. Labella and Osmena will face each other during the May 13 election in their bid to lead the city. PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte on Friday, April 26, prodded Chinese entrepreneurs to invest in the Philippines, as he promised to build an environment conducive to business.Duterte made the remark during the PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte on Friday, April 26, prodded Chinese entrepreneurs to invest in the Philippines, as he promised to build an environment conducive to business. Duterte made the remark during the signing of 19 business agreements between the Philippines and China which are expected to yield $12.165 billion in investments and generate 21,165 jobs. The Philippines welcomes responsible foreign investors as partners for national development. The Philippine government guarantees, through good governance, an enabling environment that allows business and investments to prosper, the President said in a keynote speech. I want you guys, all businessmen, whether really -- be Japanese [or] Chinese -- I want you to go to the Philippines, do business and I will create an environment which you will find comfortable, he added. Duterte made the vow amid the reported influx of Chinese workers into the Philippines supposedly robbing Filipinos of jobs. The Chief Executive guaranteed that the Philippine government is undertaking several measures to promote ease of doing business. He noted that one initiative is the establishment of the Philippine Renminbi Trading Community, which would significantly reduce the cost of doing business across the two economies. We are strengthening domestic policies and regulations to promote ease of doing business, and enhance the competitiveness of new enterprises and industries, Duterte said. And that is the reason why I am asking everybody for his utmost cooperation. I guarantee you that there will be no hassles, no asking for money, no nothing. And if you think that the permit or the concession privilege about to be given is unduly delayed, please let me know, he added. Duterte acknowledged that China is now the Philippines largest trading partner and a major source of foreign investments. Thus, he assured Chinese investors that he would not allow corruption in his government. Thank you for taking part in this Philippine growth story and in partnering with our government as we pursue inclusive growth and shared prosperity for our people, he said. I will not allow corruption in my government. It has been at the start of my administration and it will be until the day I step out of office, he added. (SunStar Philippines) 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 CARMEN, Davao del NorteA pilot of an aerial spray plane died after his plane crashed around 6:45 a.m. on Saturday, April 27, at Purok 1, Barangay Mangalcal, here. The victim, identified as Jessie Kevin Roska Lagapa, 25, resident of Block 2, Lot 6, Ibabao Road, Baywater, Agus, Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu, was declared dead at around 7:55 a.m. by Dr. Jacouline Agustine after he was rushed to a nearby hospital by the rescuers from the Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (MDRRMC)-Carmen. Initial investigation by the Carmen Municipal Police Station said an aerial spray plane owned by Davao Aerowurkz Corp. with body number RP-R5388, was conducting an aerial spraying operation on a banana plantation when it crashed. According to residents, they noticed that the plane was flying low when it got entangled in a power line of the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines and crashed. The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines is now assisting in the investigation to determine the cause of the crash. The victim is now at a morgue of Carmen District Hospital in Carmen, waiting for his family to bring his body to Cebu. (Jeepy P. Compio of SunStar Davao) FROM the creators of Chefs Table, Netflixs new Original Series, Street Food, explores the rich culture of street food in some of the worlds most colorful cities. Season one, which FROM the creators of Chefs Table, Netflixs new Original Series, Street Food, explores the rich culture of street food in some of the worlds most colorful cities. Season one, which premieres on April 26, explores nine countries across Asia, including Thailand, Japan, India, Indonesia, Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam, Singapore and the Philippines. Street Food goes beyond the delicious food to document the blood, sweat and tears that goes into each iconic dish. Episode 9 ventures into the streets of Cebu City to meet four hard-working locals who bring joy to their communities through their passion and love for food. On April 24, Netflix launched Street Food in Manila with an intimate salu-salo at Toyo Eateryall to celebrate the unique and inspiring stories behind the dishes these local cooks create. The four Cebuano culinary heroes collaborated with the young and passionate chefs from Toyo Eatery to create the special street food that have transformed the lives of their respective communities in Cebu. Toyos talented chefs then put their own culinary twist on the dishes, which were served to guests and the invited Cebuanos. Meet the four Cebuano chefs: With his eatery, Florencio Entoy Escabas found a way to reverse the cycle of poverty not only for his family, but also for the fishermen in his community. He discovered a way to make his community a destination to which people travel from far and wide. Nilarang Bakasi is a soured stew made with reef eel. It can be made from many types of fish, but when its made with reef eel, its truly something special. It has an aphrodisiac quality that cannot be achieved with other ingredients. Salty, juicy Lechon Cebu is the most popular street food in Cebu City. Leslie Enjambres grandmother started the lechon business in Talisay in the 1940s and its been passed down through the generations ever since. Theres not a party or feast that doesnt have a lechon as its centerpiece. Story continues Tuslob-Buwa, a thick, bubbling gravy made with sauteed onions, garlic and pig brains has been around Cebu for centuries and was historically eaten by those who couldnt afford meat or fish. Ian Sekong brought a new (and hygienic) Tuslob-Buwa into the mainstream culture with Azul, a popular restaurant for the younger generation. To support her family, Rubilyn Diko Manayon opened a roadside carenderia in Cordova where she sells 18 different dishes. The most popular food by far is her lumpia (Chinese-style spring rolls). The Chinese made a big impact on the street food of Cebu when they introduced the wok, allowing Cebuanos to saute their aromatics, fry food and make those glorious spring rolls. From the creators of Chefs Table, Street Food takes viewers to some of the worlds most vibrant cities to explore the rich culture of street food all over the globe. Season One explores nine countries across Asia, from the hawker stalls of Singapore to the food carts of India. Each episode highlights the stories of perseverance and culture that bring life to each countrys cuisine. Street Food is now streaming on Netflix. (Contributed Photos/Magic Liwanag) 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 Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) 7 has temporarily suspended the distribution of the fuel subsidy cards to public utility jeepney (PUJ) operators. LTFRB 7 Director Eduardo Montealto Jr. said the Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) has asked the Commission on Elections (Comelec) if the distribution of Pantawid Pasada Program (PPP) cards is included in the election ban. Under the Omnibus Election Code, release/disbursement of public funds are prohibited during this period. Montealto said the LBP does not want politicians to use the PPP cards for their political advantage. Maybe we should release these after the election because we know that if we do it now, many politicians will take advantage, Montealto said on Friday, April 26. On March 28, the second batch of PPP cards totalling 5,000 arrived at the LTFRB 7. The first batch of PPP cards arrived in August 2018 totalling 5,354 cards. Of this, 1,800 are still to be claimed. A total of 6,800 cards are being withheld from distribution. Montealto said since the second batch of cards arrived, they have not distributed these to PUJ operators because they want to make sure that this will not be included in the Comelec ban. There are 12,000 PUJ units in Central Visayas based on registered franchises or certificates of public convenience (CPC) at the LTFRB 7. Theres one franchise that has 10 or five units. What we did is place it one is to one because when we distribute the cards, this is based on per unit, he said. He added they still could not determine if they had received the exact number of cards since they still need to update their database. He said some operators had not renewed their franchises while other franchises were already inactive. Each cash card has P5,000 worth of subsidy, which cannot be used for a different unit. (from SCG of SuperBalita Cebu) 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 STUDENT leaders from the Acatech Aviation College in Cagayan de Oro City were dismissed after acting upon the schools violations of democratic rights and charging of questionable fees. Students of Acatech have been denied training for which they paid P3,000 per semester. The students are also subjected to sudden policy changes such as adjusted late enrollment fees and summer on-the-job trainings not originally included in the course syllabus. These issues pushed the Student Government to take action. After a consultation with other student leaders, they decided to take up their concerns directly with the school administration. They complained three timesto no avail. Outrage sparked among the students, who fought back by boycotting their classes for a day. The admin retaliated by dismissing teachers who they deemed are supportive of the students cause. The Student Government, alarmed by the intensifying student repression, took up the matter to higher authority: they wrote to the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) and to Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary Arthur Tugade. In response, the Acatech admin dissolved the Student Government. The National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP), the broadest alliance of student councils nationwide, vehemently condemns the dismissal of Student Government (SG) officers, gross violations of democratic rights, and anti-student policies of the Acatech Aviation College. We applaud the militancy displayed by the Acatech Student Government in asserting for the demands of the student body. Similarly, we commend the student body of Acatech for choosing to speak up and take action even in the face of grave student repression. We demand that the administration of Acatech Aviation College uphold the rights and welfare of their students. We call on the school officials to scrap all repressive policies in the school. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading. Get a dose of adorable in your inbox Receive local adoptable pets PLUS updates for pet lovers in your inbox every week! Sign up! Already a Subscriber? Already a Subscriber? Sign in Terms of Service Privacy Policy Motorcyclist who died identified EASTON Police said a Schenectady man was the rider of a motorcycle who died in a crash Tuesday night. Russell D. Berry, 55, was pronounced dead at the scene of the 6:48 p.m. crash on Route 113. Police said he was heading north when he went off the road and was thrown from the motorcycle as it hit a ditch. The Washington County Sheriffs Office is investigating the circumstances of the crash, and Sheriff Jeff Murphy said it appeared excessive speed was a factor. Berry was riding with three other motorcyclists when the accident occurred. Man pleads guilty to felony QUEENSBURY A Lake George man who police believe was a major dealer of marijuana and concentrated cannabis pleaded guilty Wednesday to a felony charge and was put on probation. Anthony M. Fidd Jr., 36, pleaded guilty to third-degree criminal sale of marijuana for a sale of more than 8 ounces of pot during a Warren County Sheriffs Office investigation. He was arrested in January when police seized unspecified amounts of marijuana and concentrated cannabis. Warren County Judge John Hall put him on interim probation for a year. If he does well, he will avoid a jail term and potentially be allowed to withdraw his felony plea and plead guilty to a misdemeanor instead. If he does not do well, he faces a jail or prison term. Man sent to prison for felony DWI FORT EDWARD A Vermont man found driving with a blood alcohol content nearly triple the threshold for driving while intoxicated in Granville has been sent to state prison. Joshua T. DeKalb, 32, pleaded guilty to felony aggravated DWI in connection with an arrest last July 31 in Granville, court records show. He was pulled over by Washington County sheriffs officers after he was seen driving out of his lane. He had a BAC of 0.22 percent, and at least one prior DWI conviction, which led to felony charges being filed. Washington County Judge Kelly McKeighan imposed a 1- to 3-year prison sentence. Police: Man charged with DWI GLENS FALLS A Hudson Falls man was charged with felony driving while intoxicated after he was pulled over Thursday night on Warren Street, police said. Frederick A. Tietz, 47, was arrested after he was stopped for failing to signal when making a turn just before 6 p.m., according to Glens Falls Police. He was found to be intoxicated, with a blood alcohol content of 0.15 percent, and because of prior DWI convictions, was charged with felony DWI, police said. His bail status was not available Friday afternoon. Glens Falls Police Officer James Neal made the arrest. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Eventually, all trails will merge into one and bicycles will run through them. Washington County has experienced decades of roadblocks and disappointment when it comes to creation of a continuous bike trail up through Whitehall and beyond. David Perkins, a citizen adviser for a county trails committee, said problem after problem arose, from bridges that needed building to agreements with private property owners that needed arranging. It had been many years of discouragement that this bike trail was ever going to happen, Perkins said. It was affecting people in the communities. They just wouldnt get behind it because they didnt believe it was going to happen. But now, Perkins hopes, they will believe. Trails are taking precedence in New Yorks tourism industry, and with the 750-mile Empire State Trail scheduled to be done by 2020, the boost has benefited Washington and Saratoga counties Champlain Canalway Trail as well as the Slate Valley Rail Trail. The Empire State Trail is knitting together more than 20 regional trails, said Andy Beers, executive director of the initiative. That includes about 62 miles from Waterford to Whitehall, and 110 more miles to the Canadian border. When completed, the Empire State Trail will be the longest state multi-use trail in the country. Multi-use can mean pedestrians and bicyclists, but also horseback riding, snowmobile use or whatever else individual municipalities decide to designate and maintain. Certainly, in the last two years, my optimism has soared, Perkins said. Hundreds of miles, thousands of visitors The Empire State Trail alone is expected to attract about 70,000 visitors a year to Washington County, Perkins said. Members of the trails committee, which includes town supervisors and county officials, are discussing ways to promote their local towns and villages and prepare for an influx of visitors. Theyre also looking for ways to connect to existing trails, including the Warren County Bike Trail from Glens Falls to Lake George. The Champlain Canalway Trail is currently following the Empire State Trail, which connects New York City to Canada and Albany to Buffalo. South Street project receives $1.5 million in state funding GLENS FALLS Money to construct a new parking garage on South Street and a new hotel at Gore Mountain, and to clean up a demolished building New state funding is kicking into gear work on the Slate Valley Rail Trail, connecting a path through Salem and Granville into the extensive trail network in Vermont. The hope, too, is to connect that to the Champlain Canalway Trail, creating a multi-use trail system hundreds of miles long. This is really across the whole state, said Andy Beers, director of the Empire State Trail. The Eerie Canalway Trail is largely completed. Hudson Falls is partially completed. The section of the Champlain Canalway Trail, were closing and eliminating gaps. ... So what were working on is creative engineering solutions to place the trail in and around these obstacles, to create long sections of trail. Champlain Canalway The Champlain Canalway Trail travels through 19 municipalities; along three rivers, including the Mohawk, Hudson and Batten Kill; and along three canals including the Champlain Barge, Old Champlain and Glens Falls Feeder canals. Washington County officials await state contract for Champlain Canalway Trail FORT EDWARD Washington County officials are hoping to get the Champlain Canalway Trail off of Route 4, but the process is taking longer than It will, in theory, be finished alongside the Empire State Trail in 2020, but local officials are working on a much longer trail and timeline because of safety concerns. From Fort Ann to Whitehall, the state plunked down Empire State Trail markers along Route 4 without making any alterations to the road. The highway is a popular thoroughfare to and from Vermont for truck traffic, commuters and visitors. The thought of running a biking trail along the shoulder shocked supervisors and county staff. All of us seriously object to that, because its dangerous, said Laura Oswald, director of economic development for Washington County. When the trail was announced, we said we need to find an alternative to this. Beers said the Empire State Trail is investing $12 million in helping build off-road sections, and at this point about 40 percent of the bike route will be off-road. It is certainly our belief and hope that additional off-road sections will be created in the future to shift off-road from public roads, he said. Locally, county and town leaders are planning for a 77-mile multi-use trail from Waterford to Whitehall, which includes the Champlain Canalway Trail and Glens Falls Feeder Canal Trail. They plan to follow the historic Champlain Canalway Towpath, shoreline and existing local and regional trails, as well as on-street bike lanes. Washington and Saratoga counties have worked with The LA Group on identifying gaps and designing the trails. During a trails meeting in January, Tracey Clothier, a senior planner with The LA Group, said about 46.5 miles of the trail is in Washington County and about 31 miles are in Saratoga County. In Washington County so far, about 9 miles of trails are complete and nearly 38 miles are in the design and construction phase. In Saratoga County, about 11.5 miles are complete, about 6 miles are in design or construction and just under 14 miles are still in the planning phase. The LA Group took an extensive look at the trail system, going through each municipality, highlighting public facilities and events nearby, connector trails, how the trail work would get done and which local groups are supporting the effort. All eyes on Kingsbury In the past, sections of the trail in Kingsbury have included some of the biggest hurdles, including getting over the Old Champlain Canal and Bond Creek. Now the state is prepping to put in two pedestrian bridges over those water bodies. Its also embarking on an even bigger project digging a big hole under Route 196 and building a tunnel. The project was proposed in 1999, according to a presentation given in March last year by the New York State Canal Corp. In 2005, it was scaled back because of a lack of funding. The Empire State Trail funding, however, will now be used to cover the estimated $2.42 million cost of the project. The tunnel will be a precast concrete box culvert about 50 feet long, 11 feet high and 14 feet wide. It will connect Rabideau Road to Towpath Road. The two bridges, both 12 feet wide, will have trusses made of steel and timber decks. The bridge across the Old Champlain Canal will span 40 feet, while the one across Bond Creek will span 110 feet. Beers said the stretch is the single largest project being undertaken, and he anticipates construction will start this spring. The bridges and tunnel wont be finished until 2020, he said. I know therell be a lot of interest once work begins and people see it happening, Perkins said. Slate Valley Rail Trail Granville Supervisor Matt Hicks said the 22-mile Slate Valley Rail Trail is coming along. Its southern part will connect with Batten Kill Railroad in Salem. The Granville portion, according to The Chazen Companies, will connect Granville to the Vermont D&H Rail Trail system. Local officials are still working to extend the trail from Middle Granville to the Vermont border. Theyre able to do that now with $250,000 from the state, given through the Regional Economic Development Awards announced in December. Its been dead-ended for years in Middle Granville, Hicks told The Post-Star after the awards were announced. If we could get to Poultney (Vermont), the trail could go to Fair Haven (Vermont) and then to Whitehall. Future Eventually, the state will place kiosks at spots along the Empire State Trail, which will include maps listing nearby attractions. The state will also set up bicycle repair stations along the trail so bikers can pump up tires and perform other quick fixes. As the trails take shape, Washington County planning staff are making maps that list the closest bathrooms, restaurants, gas stations, places to stay overnight and historical and cultural attractions. They hope to make that information available online. Oswald and her staff have told supervisors at the trail committee meetings to consider more economic development in their towns. We want to be working with communities to anticipate, what do we do with these visitors when they get here? Oswald said. I think were fortunate that we got some funding, and we got the light shined on trails in general, so I think years of slow progress, were going to see a little bit of increase in the speed at which things get done. But again, were still years away, but thats better than many, many decades. Reporter Gwendolyn Craig can be reached at (518) 742-3238 or gcraig@poststar.com. Follow her on Twitter @gwendolynnn1. Love 6 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 3 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. JACKSON The public will learn more about the states trespassing laws at an education forum that will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday, May 2, at the Dionondehowa Wildlife Sanctuary, 148 Stanton Road. Matt Krug, an officer with the state Department of Environmental Conservation who handles cases in Washington County, will lead the talk. He will not only cover New York state law but Vermont law regarding trespassing. He also plans to discuss how other states handle trespassing issues. For example, in Missouri and some other states, they have a purple paint law. Rather than posting No Trespassing signs, a streak of purple paint signals a person not to trespass. Some feel the paint is easier than signs because signs can be ripped down. Krug will also cover tips and tricks for landowners to protect their property. He has assisted Bonnie Hoag, director and co-founder of the sanctuary, with several trespassing issues on her property. Three people were ticketed for trespassing on her land during deer hunting season in 2017. Shushan wildlife sanctuary balances education and protection of nature JACKSON Theres a sanctuary, tucked away in the hamlet of Shushan, where Mother Nature nur Washington County often has received complaints of road hunters, Krug said people who drive around with a rifle in their laps or next to them on the car seat so they can easily shoot an animal. The practice is illegal, but Hoag and Krug hope to educate the public about the law and discuss ways it might be strengthened. Hoag hopes the talk will inspire attendees to contact their local lawmakers to advocate for better trespassing legislation. Im hoping to get enough people to come that there would be a few people who would say, I would be willing to work on finding out what the law is now, and how it could be strengthened in New York state, Hoag said. The talk is free and open to the public, but registration is required. To reserve a seat or for more information, call 518-854-7764. Attendees are also encouraged to dress in layers, as the meeting space is insulated but not heated. Reporter Gwendolyn Craig can be reached at (518) 742-3238 or gcraig@poststar.com. Follow her on Twitter @gwendolynnn1. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. QUEENSBURY A registered sex offender who fled Warren County 6 years ago while on probation for soliciting sex from a child was jailed again this week on charges he violated probation and didnt register as required. George M. Matott Sr., 82, a former Queensbury resident, had been hiding in North Carolina and Virginia after he left Warren County, but returned in recent weeks as he had extensive health problems. Matott was sentenced to 4 months in Warren County Jail and 10 years on probation after he pleaded guilty to a felony in December 2012 to asking a 14-year-old girl to have sex and trying to watch her use a bathroom. He was deemed a Level 1 sex offender. Warrants were issued for his arrest for not registering as a sex offender and for violating probation in 2013, but he was able to avoid police until he got to the point where his apparently terminal health problems resulted in him returning home. He was hospitalized at Glens Falls Hospital, and arrested by police after his release in recent days. His lawyer, Warren County Public Defender Marcy Flores, said he has a brain tumor and had eight heart attacks. He was brought into Queensbury Town Court on Friday in a wheelchair, hooked up to an oxygen bottle. Flores said Matott had contact with police in North Carolina at one point during his stay there, and their warrant check for him did not find any pending warrants despite those that were pending in New York and one in Virginia as well. It was unclear what charge he faced in Virginia. She argued for his release in light of his serious health issues, but Warren County Assistant District Attorney Robert McCarty asked for bail and Queensbury Town Justice Eric Schwenker set bail at $10,000 cash or $20,000 bail bond. Matott had not been able to post it as of early Saturday. Love 1 Funny 2 Wow 1 Sad 3 Angry 7 Kathleen Phalen-Tomaselli reporter - Washington County Follow Kathleen Phalen-Tomaselli Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today GREENWICH The Agricultural Stewardship Association is offering a paid summer internship as part of the Cambridge Community Forest pilot project. The special project assistant intern will gain hands-on experience in coordinating, researching and implementing components to help with the creation of the proposed 145-acre working forest. ASA is proud to be able to offer a paid summer internship for an undergraduate student, said Renee Bouplon, ASA associate director. Many of our past interns have gone on to work for other land trusts and are conservation leaders for other agricultural organizations. Designed for an undergraduate, the internship is suited for a college student interested in community conservation, forestry, planning and land trusts. The selected student will spend the majority of time working from the ASA Greenwich office, along with periodic site visits in Cambridge. The deadline to apply is May 6 and requires a resume and cover letter sent to Bouplon, renee@agstewardship.org. For more information, visit www.agstewardship.org. Supervisors explore property tax payment options During the April Board of Supervisors meeting, a county resident spoke to the board, asking for property tax payment relief. Detailing the difficulty of having to pay the most recent tax bill before the delinquent tax bills, the resident said it was almost impossible to catch up. She said she had tried repeatedly to pay the older tax bills on her home, but the money was applied to the newest bill, leaving her at risk of losing her home. Hartford Supervisor Dana Haff expressed his concerns about the issue to the woman. And during a recent Board of Supervisors Government Operations Committee meeting, Haff said that Assemblywoman Carrie Woerner, D-Round Lake, has sponsored a bill allowing a taxpayer to pay their oldest bill first. According to County Treasurer Al Nolette, that will give some relief, but some will still struggle to pay the entire bill, suggesting that an installment plan would spread the payments over 24 months. Additionally, Nolette said that Warren and Essex counties have had success with the installment plan. Nonetheless, a local law would have to be passed to enact the change, he added. The committee passed a motion to forward the installment plan idea to the supervisors Finance Committee for consideration. Haff also said that Woerners bill reverses the order of payment, with the oldest tax bill getting paid first. Kathleen Phalen-Tomaselli covers Washington County government and other county news and events. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. If you are heading into the Adirondacks late Saturday or during the day Sunday, be prepared for some frozen precipitation. An inch or two of snow is expected in higher terrain as a storm combines with cold temperatures to make for wintry conditions in higher elevations of northern Warren and Essex, Hamilton and Franklin counties. If you are headed east to Vermont, the Green Mountains will see some snow as well. Cold, dreary weather is expected for the rest of the region this weekend, as rain showers and temperatures in the low 40s linger Saturday morning and return for the latter part of the weekend as well. Love 1 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 2 Wed like to tell Shawn Asghar, the new owner of the Landmark Motor Inn in South Glens Falls, that he has many friends, and we are here for him. Were talking about this community. It was disheartening to read Asghars story of buying the local motel and the unwelcome reception he received from some of his employees. OUR VIEW Three cheers for our readers standing up to hate. Asghar is from Pakistan, and despite the fact he is an American citizen who has lived here for decades, he almost immediately began encountering racist remarks from his own employees. When they set up a penny jar, it was part of a competition where the winner would get the money for coming up with the best Pakistani joke of the day. After that point, he let several employees go. New Landmark Motor Inn owner attacked for being born in Pakistan MOREAU The Landmark Motor Inn has been attacked in racist posts on a Facebook page masquerading as the inns official page. But recently he learned that someone had retaliated by writing unflattering things about his business on the Landmark Motor Inn Facebook page, a page Asghar did not even know existed. One written remark, reading The worst place to stay, was written multiple times. A second post read, The worst place to stay north of Saratoga. Owned by Pakistani with no respect for the USA. Please tell all your friends. That was heartless and cruel, and most of all un-American. We were all set to enact a tongue-lashing of epic proportions when we took a peek at the comments underneath Kathleen Moores news story on poststar.com. By Friday morning, there were 24 comments all in support of Asghar and we thought the readers said it as well as we ever could. Here is a sampling: Hang in there, Mr. Asghar! It makes no difference where somebody is from. I really dont understand why people hate. Its so easy to be friendly with people. And, I applaud you for your accomplishments! I hope everything works out for you! The town board and supervisor and other officials should visit the owner to express their solidarity and appreciation for having such a good business grace the entrance to the town. Invite the media as well as all state and federal elected officials who represent the area then post the good feelings on all social media to counter the negative image perpetrated by low-life, racists Haters gotta hate but more important is that good people not remain silent. I plan to report the page as false to FB. I think NY passed an anti-harassment law which would seem to be applicable to this case. Usually it is to protect employees from employers but it should work the other way too. Something the PS could investigate. You couldnt pay me enough to use that cesspool of opinions called Facebook. I tried it once and considered it a total waste of time. Sad what is being done to this business and person. Surprised Facebook wont take it down. This really angers me that his employees are so disrespectful when they are lucky to have a job! People forget that we are all from some other country. I tried to go on the FB page to lend support but couldnt get to it which is a good thing since it has been hacked by haters. I am sorry sir, that you are encountering this in our beautiful area. Beyond sad that in a country made of many different colors and cultures, a fellow citizen would be treated like this. For what? Not looking like the majority of our local population. I support Shawn Asghar. The business was for sale, so the previous owners could move on. This American stepped up and paid a fair price, like a capitalist. The actions of some previous employees is a mark against our community. Fight racism when you see it. Fight for what is right. There were times when No Irish need apply and those who posted those signs were wrong too. As a local economy based largely on tourism, we need to address this head on. While it is totally unacceptable to ostracize a legal immigrant from Pakistan, and should never be condoned, Pakistani is not a race or ethnicity. Ignorant people are out there among us. These types of behaviors should be called out, and those whom practice these behaviors need to be called out for their intolerance. So he is different ethnicity. He is a person, has feelings, seems compassionate and fair and yet because he is different he is persecuted. If people always listen to rumors from the haters no business or person would ever be safe and our world would cease to be. Stop the hating, give people the benefit of doubt and give them a chance to show the good they have in their hearts. Why destroy someone when you dont even know them? We think that says it perfectly. Post-Star editorials represent the opinion of The Post-Stars editorial board, which consists of Interim Publisher Brian Corcoran, Editor Ken Tingley, Projects Editor Will Doolittle and citizen representatives Jean Aurilio, Connie Bosse and Barbara Sealy. Love 13 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 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 "As it sits now, we have completed the necessary demolition. We have air scrubbers and dehumidifiers running to control the moisture levels and cut down on dust,'' Werner added. "We are waiting to do any cleaning and sanitization until this next crest has come and gone.'' Werner wrote that he understands what Nancy is going through. "We take a lot of pride with this aspect of our job,'' he wrote. "The vast majority of our work is disaster-related, so we see people on their worst of days. We talk about this a lot at the office, different ways that we can help, support and just be there to help them through whatever the project may require. "It's tough, but theres a great deal of personal satisfaction that comes with helping those in need. '' Hundreds of you responded with financial assistance for Nancy. Anyone who wants to make a donation can send it to P.O. Box 274, Moline IL 61266-0274. Many of you have offered to assist with remodeling Nancy's home once she is able to move back there. Until that time, a member of her Healthy Lifestyles family is putting up Nancy and Toby, her pet poodle. Republican U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst says Special Counsel Robert Mueller is under fire from Democrats because they did not see their desired outcome following the Justice Departments nearly two-year investigation of conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia. She made the comments after a town hall forum at St. Ambrose University in Davenport on Friday. Findings from Muellers report, which dropped on Washington last week, concluded that no coordination occurred between President Donald Trumps campaign team and Russian operatives, an aspect Republicans including Trump have seized on as vindication of the president. But Democrats have recently aligned focus around the reports indication that the president may have sought to stop the investigation from happening altogether, with some questioning whether he should face criminal charges. Such an action would constitute obstruction of justice, but U.S. Attorney General William Barr has claimed there is insufficient evidence to support criminal action against the president. Asked for her thoughts about a Trump attempt to thwart the investigation, Ernst said the main takeaway is that the investigation was allowed to continue. Here are 20 photos of holiday lights around the world. In the darkest days of the year, in a very dark time, there is a longing for illumination. DES MOINES In what is becoming a legislative tradition, lawmakers on the final day of the session approved an expansion of Iowas medical cannabis program. The latest proposal would remove the cap on how much THC the chemical in marijuana that creates the users high sensation and instead limits the amount of medical cannabis a patient can be prescribed at any one time. It passed the Senate by a 40-7 vote Saturday, the final day of the 2019 legislative session. It was one of the final bills debated. The program itself was created on the final day of the 2014 session and expanded on the final day of the 2017 session. This has been a long journey, said Sen. Thomas Greene, R-Burlington, a pharmacist who became emotional and had to pause while expressing his support for the bill and praising fellow senators for their work on it. I know many patients who need this medication. This is a small step, but we need to keep the ball rolling. Currently, the state limits the amount of THC 3 percent. The provision would remove that cap and instead limit the amount of medical cannabis a physician can recommend to no more than 25 grams in 90 days. DES MOINES The Iowa Legislature gave final approval Saturday to a $1.94 billion health and human services budget despite emotional opposition from lawmakers who argued it failed to meet the needs of vulnerable Iowans, did not address problems in the private management of Medicaid and endangered the lives of transgender individuals. In the final hours of the 2019 session, lawmakers also approved changes in Iowas judicial nominating system by increasing the sway of the governor over who sits on the Iowa Supreme Court and appeals court. House Democrats were sometimes angry and tearful in calling for the rejection of amendments to the health and human services budget to bar state money from being used to cover sex reassignment surgery for transgender Iowans on Medicaid and block Planned Parenthood from participating in state-funded sex education programs. Rep. Bruce Hunter, D-Des Moines, accused majority Republicans of homophobic bigotry and called the measure offensive on its face. Republicans seem intent on doing everything you can to deny the basic human rights to the LGBTQ+ community, he said. You have proven today that while rights can be given, they can also be taken away. A: Oh gosh, a lot of things. When I first got elected I thought 12 years would probably be plenty of time. I guess a lot of people didnt believe me when I said I didnt want to do this forever, but I really meant it, actually. And then when Donald Trump got elected, it became apparent to me and a whole lot of other people that I was talking to that it would be a good idea for me to try to continue for two more years and thats where we are now. So after considering it and thinking about it, talking about it with my family, I decided to run again. I do want to see my children more, and my grandchildren, and maybe there are other things that I can do with my life. Im still young enough that I might be able to do other things. What those might be Im not sure at this point. But I also thought it was time to turn it over to someone else. To do what's best for the river, Dorothy takes science and applies it to law. That is, "how do you make better regulations based on emerging science and new science?" she said. A prime example of this was American Rivers' recent listing of the Upper Mississippi as one of the 10 "most endangered" rivers in the United States because of increased flooding and because of illegal raising of levees that it says has intensified flooding downstream. While the people building the levees were just trying to protect themselves, American Rivers' stance is that the country can no longer rely on bigger and higher floodwalls as a means of flood protection. Instead, there needs to be a mindset shift that promotes natural and nature-based solutions, such as wetland and floodplain restoration and levee setbacks, the organization states. With more rain and snow forecast to fall this weekend in the Mississippi River Valley north of the Quad-Cities, the Mississippi River at Lock and Dam 15, Rock Island, could exceed the 20.5-foot crest that is forecast for Tuesday. Meteorologist Tom Philip of the National Weather Service, Davenport, said that as of Friday night, the North Central River Forecast Center in Chanhassen, Minnesota, did not have in its river forecast for Rock Island the snow and rain the area to the north of the Quad-Cities is expected to receive. Philip said that data likely will be in the river forecast Saturday night. That snow and rain, plus the rain that is expected throughout next week could send the river higher than the forecasted 20.5 feet. Friday and over the weekend, Philip said the forecast calls for 3-6 inches of snow north of U.S. 20 and a rain-snow mix or just rain south of that. Its a sharp gradient, so its tough to tell where it will be rain, a rain-snow mix, and accumulating snow, he said. The north side of the U.S. Highway 20 corridor could see on the order of 3-6 inches or so of wet, heavy snow. The definition of "open" meetings in the Iowa Code is clear: "to assure that the basis and rationale of governmental decisions, as well as those decisions themselves, are easily accessible to the people." "Easily accessible" is a relative term. For instance, in 1970 I thought cash was easily accessible because I took a bus to the bank and a teller passed my money to me through a slot in a barred window. I dont consider that "easily accessible" today. Does anyone? To access "the basis and rationale of governmental decisions" in Scott County today, people must skip work to attend an 8 a.m. meeting on Tuesdays, perhaps 45 minutes away. By the way, there is no bus. Or, people can visit the County Auditors office during business hours and listen to an indecipherable audio recording. "Easy" is relative. And, the unstoppable advance of technology defines what "easily accessible" means today. Scott County supervisors should implement the technology that meets the legislative intent. Transparency is more than a responsibility. It is an opportunity to engage people, especially young people, in the business of government. The Box Elder City Council has expelled one of its members for alleged misuses of power, disorderly conduct and conflicts of interest. The council voted April 16 to expel Ward 1 Alderman Scott Allen. The councils reasons for the expulsion are detailed in an eight-page resolution that accuses Allen of engaging in threatening behavior, subjecting city officials to profanity-laced tirades, and using his public position to benefit his private business, among numerous other alleged misdeeds. Allen denies that he committed any expulsion-worthy offenses. In a written statement provided to the Journal by his attorney, John Rusch, Allen said city officials are trying to silence his opposition to a rezoning effort that he contends will be devastating for small business owners. Rusch said Allen plans to appeal the expulsion in court. The events leading up to the expulsion began with a grievance filed against Allen by a city employee on Aug. 20, 2018. The city hired an investigator, Robert Brancato, who looked into the matter and prepared a written report. Brancato reported, according to the city councils resolution, that fear of both reprisal and retaliation by Allen prevented other city employees from reporting Allens behavior prior to mid-2018. Brancatos other investigative findings, which are too numerous to fully list here, are summarized in the councils resolution. Allen denied some of the allegations in a written response he provided to city officials. Under the heading of misuse of power, the findings in the resolution include an allegation that Allen operates his business, AC/DC Automotive, without a required conditional use permit from the city. Allen, in his written response, said his business predates certain zoning requirements and is therefore grandfathered in. A portion of the resolution's disorderly conduct findings states that Allen followed a female employee home in his vehicle at the end of her workday, which Allen denies. The resolution also alleges that Allen made threatening and abusive comments to city officials. In Fall of 2016, says a portion of the resolution, Allen, during a heated meeting regarding the ethics policy told Council President [Jeff] Hollinshead to Go f**k yourself! Allen denies he made the comment but acknowledges he had many disagreements with Hollinshead about agenda items. The conflict of interest findings in the resolution include an allegation that Allen placed himself on the police departments rotation for towing services. Allens written response said he tows vehicles that belong to people who have been arrested by city police officers, and he charges those people rather than the city. The city council voted unanimously March 26 to temporarily suspend Allen, and then voted 4-1 on April 16 to expel him. South Dakota law makes city councils the judge of their members' qualifications and gives councils the power to expel a member with a two-thirds vote. A special election will be conducted June 25 to fill Allen's position. Contact Seth Tupper at seth.tupper@rapidcityjournal.com You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. FORT MEADE | The USS Constitution earned the nickname Old Ironsides for good reason. The wooden-hulled, three-masted frigate only the third warship commissioned by the fledgling United States Navy in 1797 gained that reputation prevailing in epic sea battles, especially during the War of 1812. The 222-year-old vessel remains the oldest commissioned warship in the world still afloat, and a small part of her also now survives, far from the ocean where the ship gained its fame, on display at the Old Fort Meade Museum east of Sturgis. The Meade School District recently agreed to loan a watercolor painting of the ship for display when the museum opens for its summer season next month. It only seems natural that we do that, have it in a museum where we can take a look at some history, Meade School District superintendent Jeff Simmons said. And the history of the print itself is also an interesting tale, as museum board president Randy Bender learned. Bender said he first noticed the USS Constitution print on a visit to the high school a couple years ago. The painting, by noted maritime artist Gordon Grant, was hung in an inauspicious location at the high school, toward the end of a hallway otherwise dominated by trophy cases. If you werent looking for it, you would never see it, Bender said. But Bender did take notice of the old sailing ship. The history buff in him took over and he took a closer look. I grew up hearing stories of Old Ironsides and the USS Constitution, and that really got me interested, he said. Closer examination revealed the frame was fashioned from actual wood salvaged from the ships hull during a 1920s restoration, and that the framed print had been presented to Sturgis High School as a gift from the Class of 1929. Bender contacted the USS Constitution Museum in Charlestown, Mass., near where the frigate remains berthed in the Charlestown Navy Yard, and learned that unframed lithographs of the Gordon watercolor were sold from 1927 through 1931. Proceeds from the prints, sold for 25 to 50 cents each, went to help with the ships restoration begun in 1927. Prints framed with actual wood salvaged from the ships hull were sold beginning in 1929, Bender said. A period of negotiation began with the school district to bring the framed print to a more prominent display at the museum, located on the north side of parade ground at Fort Meade, home since 1944 to a veterans hospital, VA Black Hills Health Care System. We wanted to bring it here so more people can see it. At the high school I dont think anybody saw it, Bender said. Simmons said the school district, which had initially declined to allow the painting to leave school property, eventually agreed on a loan of the artifact. It seemed like a good place to have it and get it out where we could see it, Simmons said. The framed print takes its place on display next to a musical score for the Star-Spangled Banner, whose words, based on a poem by Francis Scott Key, also are linked to the War of 1812. The song, first played for evening retreat ceremonies at the fort starting in 1892, eventually became the U.S. national anthem. The fort still serves as a training site for the South Dakota National Guard and an Army National Guard Officer Candidate School. The museum houses a large collection of memorabilia from the posts cavalry days and its role as a prisoner-of-war camp for captured German soldiers during World War II. The museum is open seasonally from May through September and by appointment the rest of the year. You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and its national, tribal and community partners will host the 17th National Prescription Drug Take Back Day today from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Rapid City Police Department Public Safety Building. Individuals can dispose of expired, unused and unwanted prescription medications. This service is free and anonymous, however DEA cannot accept liquids, needles or other sharp objects. The month of April has been designated as the Month of the Military Child. This is a time to appreciate the sacrifices made by the children of service members. We are forever grateful to the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States. We are also grateful to their family members who support them while they are away protecting our country. This month, we celebrate and honor the children who love and support their moms and dads serving in our armed forces. South Dakotans have a long history of service to our country. We are proud supporters of our military members and veterans. South Dakotans fought hard to keep Ellsworth Air Force Base operational when it was being considered for closure in 2005. At the time, I was working as governor and Ill never forget how communities across the state, especially Box Elder and Rapid City, came together to show their unwavering support for the base and the families who were stationed there. They played an important role in protecting the base from closure. Now, Ellsworth is in a stronger position than ever. It has been announced Ellsworth will be home to the B-21 Formal Training Unit and will be the first base to receive an operational squadron of the B-21 Raider bomber, the Air Forces next-generation stealth bomber. Ellsworth will continue to play a critical role in our defense strategy for years to come. This means Ellsworth and the surrounding communities will see an increased number of military members and their families in the coming years. I know we will welcome them the way weve welcomed thousands of military families since the 28th Bomb Wing was activated in 1947. In the Senate, I serve on the Armed Services Committee and the Veterans Affairs Committee. I work with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to improve the quality of life for service members and veterans, and their families. We also work to strengthen our armed forces to make sure service members have all the tools available to them to protect our country and return home safely to their loved ones. Last years National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) included a pay raise for our troops the largest pay increase in nearly 10 years. It also included provisions to make sure our armed forces remain the best in the world by providing adequate resources so our forces can fully rebuild our military and address the many challenges facing our nation. The most important asset of our armed forces is their people the men and women in uniform who defend our nation, and the families who give them the support to do so. This year, the Army National Guards Charlie Company, 189th Aviation in Rapid City received a Department of Defense Reserve Family Readiness Award for being one of the best programs in the country for supporting Reserve Component families. These units play an important role in helping families feel cared for and connected during loved ones deployments. Jean and I thank all the military families in South Dakota and South Dakota military families serving around the world for the sacrifices they make while their loved ones are protecting our country. And this month, we say a special thank you to the children whose parents are serving in our armed forces. Your support means everything to them as they work hard to defend our country. Mike Rounds represents South Dakota in the U.S. Senate. You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 WASHINGTON | President Trump has called the Mueller investigation a "witch hunt" nearly two hundred times on social media alone. Well, the special counsel concluded he was not a witch. After carefully scrutinizing any links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign, Robert Mueller definitively declared "the investigation did not establish that the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities." He didn't do it. Still, several leading Democrats have called for Trump's impeachment on obstruction-of-justice charges. This is absurd. The lesson of Watergate, we are told, is that the coverup is always worse than the crime. But in Watergate, there was a crime to cover up. We now know that Trump committed no crime. There was nothing to cover up. As Mueller put it, "unlike cases in which a subject engages in obstruction of justice to cover up a crime, the evidence we obtained did not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference." This lack of an "underlying crime" is the source of Trump's justified outrage over the Mueller investigation. Imagine that you were accused of a crime you knew you did not commit, and a special counsel was appointed who spent nearly two years and more than $25 million investigating you. You'd be angry and frustrated. You'd want someone to stand up for you, defend your interests and stop the insanity. For two years, Trump watched as the investigation dragged on, weighing down his presidency. He had to endure being accused of "treason" and crimes of "a size and scope probably beyond Watergate." He listened as members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, and former intelligence officials, led Americans to believe that they had seen secret evidence showing he had colluded with Russia evidence he knew did not exist. Of course, he wanted the investigation to end. But he didn't end it. He didn't obstruct justice because nothing was obstructed. Mueller was allowed to finish his work. The White House cooperated, sharing millions of pages of documents and giving Mueller access to dozens of senior officials. The fact that Trump railed against Mueller to aides and told White House counsel Donald McGahn to fire Mueller (which McGahn did not do and Trump did not press the matter) is not evidence of obstruction; it is evidence of exasperation. The president has a right to vent in private to his staff. Remember, the only reason Mueller knew about his private exchanges with McGahn is because Trump put no restrictions on McGahn's cooperation. The president could have asserted privilege, but declined to do so. He let McGahn spend some 30 hours with Mueller, sharing details, according to The New York Times, "that investigators would not have learned of otherwise." This is evidence of Trump's cooperation, not obstruction. As a result of this cooperation, the special counsel's report contains some embarrassing moments for the president. But it also proves that Trump was telling the truth when it came to the central question of the investigation: He did not conspire with Russia. If Democrats want to purse impeachment nonetheless, then to quote Ronald Reagan quoting Clint Eastwood: "Go ahead, make my day." Impeachment over anything other than a conspiracy with Russia will backfire with the American people and help ensure Trump's reelection. First, it will fail, because two-thirds of the Senate will not vote to convict the president. Second, Trump's supporters will see an impeachment effort as an attempted coup d'etat, energizing his base ahead of the 2020 election. And third, it will be seen as partisan and unfair by persuadable voters, who will not appreciate politicians second-guessing the conclusions of an impartial investigation. Want to push Trump's approval above 50 percent? Try to impeach him. While Democrats debate pursuing impeachment, they are also abusing their powers to get Trump's tax returns in the hope they will provide what the Mueller investigation did not: evidence of something incriminating. Does anyone really believe that the House Ways and Means Committee wants Trump's returns to assess how "the IRS audits and enforces the Federal tax laws against a president"? Please. There is no legitimate legislative purpose for this request. Both the Democrats' attempt to misuse a 1920s law to violate Trump's privacy and their partisan response to the Mueller report make clear that they are seeking any pretext to oust Trump. But the only thing they will succeed in doing is eliciting sympathy for an otherwise unsympathetic president. Marc Thiessen is a columnist for the Washington Post. You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Barrs performance no surprise A.G. Barr's disgraceful and contemptible performance while being questioned by the Senate the second week of April shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone. After all, we all know that Trump (with total Republican approval) sent him to the Justice Department to subvert justice and he was doing exactly what he was hired to do. He refused to answer questions, changed the subject, made false accusations and showed contempt for the institution he's supposed to be leading. In short, he was doing his duty as a Trump lackey by defying the laws of the USA while protecting his master from being rightfully prosecuted for his many crimes and backing his goal to replace our system of government with a dictatorship. Over the edge statement? I think not. Trump's actions and his choice of appointees blatantly reveal that he does not believe in our checks and balances system. He obviously prefers the type that his pals Kim Jong-un and Putin have, and the Barrs of the world are there to help him get it. Terry Painter Rapid City Thune never helps the workers Sen. Thune recently posted columns in the Journal bragging about individual South Dakotans giving him good ideas. He talked about a rancher out west who complained to him that the drought monitor was wrong and therefore she could not claim as much money (taxpayers money) from Uncle Sam as she deserved. Thune, in fact, wrote a whole bill to help her. I do not think I have ever heard Thune talk about helping a single hourly worker. Not once. Is that because he does not see the hourly worker as being as important as the business owner? I think so. Thune also wrote about the wonderful tax break he helped pass, and how it lowered unemployment. He forgot to mention that we borrowed $1.5 trillion from future generations to pay for this tax break. We now have the greatest deficit in American history with no end in sight. People yet born will be forced to pay off this debt. But not one word by Thune about this debt or the fact that unemployment had been going down for six straight years under Obama. The one thing Thune wants is to destroy Social Security to pay for his tax break. Brent Cox Sturgis You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 People did not want to miss their one and only opportunity to cross the red line for a close-up look at Marcus Daly Memorial Hospitals shiny-new surgery center Friday afternoon. Before the doors opened, the line reached around the block. The hospital chief operating officer Troy Hanson was there when the people began the tour of the new $15 million surgery center that some said Friday was the finest in the state. I just kept hearing the words wow and its amazing, Hanson said. It warms my heart to see the community turn out like this and come in to check it out for themselves. Without walking through, they would have no idea of just what we have here. Hanson has seen a lot of changes at the hospital since he first started working there as a lab tech 24 years ago, but the addition of the 26,000-square-foot surgery center filled with state-of-the-art equipment may be the most important. This is the largest addition that weve done in my 24 years here, he said. Its as large as the ER and physical therapy combined. The original hospital was 55,000 square feet. The old operating rooms were 340 square feet, which isnt large enough to fit a surgical team and the new equipment. The new operating rooms are 650 square feet and include lights and high-tech monitors that drop from the ceiling. The difference between the new surgical center and what we had before is like night and day, he said. After having this opportunity to walk through it, people now are going to know that they dont have to go to Missoula or anywhere else for their surgical needs. Standing along the edge of one of the surgerys operating rooms, Annie Coe was pointing out different aspects of the DaVinci Robotic Surgery unit to her parents, Dr. John Coe and his wife, Nancy. For 20 years or so, shes traveled across the country working as an operating room nurse in large hospitals. She was impressed by what she saw at Marcus Daly. I know these units well, Coe said. They are beautiful. They are the wave of the future This is really fabulous. Its going to be a great investment for this community. Coe thinks shell be submitting her resume to the hospital in hopes of being able to come home. Sonny LaSalle has seen that kind of reaction before. LaSalle served on the hospital board for nine years. When his tenure ended in 2012, discussions were just beginning about building the new surgery center at a time when the demand for the services was starting to grow. LaSalle was often involved in showing potential new physicians around Marcus Daly Memorial Hospital. Even back then, everyone reacted in the same way, LaSalle said. They had never seen a facility like this in a community of this size. It made a huge difference when it came to recruit the best medical staff possible. When physicians can come here and see the quality of this community and then see this really nice facility, its a huge draw, he said. This is going to make a big difference for our community. Linda Eggebrecht worked at the hospital for 25 years before retiring. She and her husband, Tom, spent some time visiting with Dr. Luke Channer. Ive really been amazed at what Ive seen, said Linda Eggebrecht. Im really glad that they have the robotic arm here now. People wont have to go to Missoula any more. Tom Eggebrecht said he was excited that the community would have these services available to them now. Looking around at all the people milling about, Tom Eggebrecht said I think half the community is here today. Im sure that all of these people are pretty impressed by what they are seeing. Its going to be nice that you wont have to travel. People do so much better when they can stay close to home. Wayne and Dianne Craw of Hamilton have watched the hospital grow from the ground up from their home on Pine Street where theyve lived the last 41 years. The Craws owned the old hospital for 18 years before selling it to Ravalli County for its administrative building. Weve seen the operating rooms in the old hospital, Craw said as they watched the robotic arm unwrap a piece of candy. Weve come a long way since those days. Marcus Daly Memorial Hospitals Chief of Surgery, Dr. James Zubernis, told the crowd who gathered in front of a large blue ribbon that ran across the red line on the floor that his goal when this project started was to make sure the surgical center had the very best tools that were available. Im happy to tell you all that not only do we have the best tools, but weve exceeded my expectations on a number of different levels, Zubernis said. Not only is this a physically beautiful facility, we are the state-of-the-art operating room in the state of Montana. As a physician, my number one focus has always been the patient, he said. I have to make sure that we have the best tools, the best staff, the best processes. This facility allows us to do all of those things with ease. Now I can focus on my patients and do the best that I can for my patients and I dont have to worry, in the least bit, that what I have to work with is going to be a problem. So it allows me to do what I really love to do, and thats take care of my patient, Zubernis said. The hospitals director of philanthropy, Stacie Duce, said two longtime community members recently decided to honor the love-of-their-lives by offering generous donations to help support the new addition. Valerie Gates gave $75,000 to name operating room No. 2 in honor of her husband, Dr. Greg Gates. Frank and Agnes Godchaux gave $150,000 for the waiting room. Duce said it was the longtime desire of Frank to have something named after his wife. They were both just loving gestures, Duce said. And something that people will appreciate for years to come. Love 7 Funny 1 Wow 1 Sad 0 Angry 2 Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. EVERGREEN Montana Highway Patrol says a 15-year-old girl has died after a vehicle crashed into her home while she slept and a 31-year-old man is in custody pending formal charges. The Flathead Beacon reports that troopers say a pickup truck veered off a road, struck a sign and some bushes and crashed into the home in Evergreen about 2 a.m. Friday. It then left the scene. The Flathead County Sheriff's Office says the victim, identified as Erin Howk, died at the scene. Authorities say they later detained Jared A. Parsons of Kalispell who was being held without bond at the Flathead County Detention Facility. It was not immediately known whether he had an attorney. The incident remains under investigation. ___ Information from: Flathead Beacon, http://www.flatheadbeacon.com Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 2 Angry 0 Hunting and livestock groups faced off regarding a plan to let cattle graze on the Spotted Dog Wildlife Management Area north of Deer Lodge. On Thursday, the Montana Fish and Game Commission unanimously approved letting Deer Lodge rancher Dan McQueary run cattle on a rotating set of pastures in the public property in return for letting elk use part of his ranch for winter range. But while some praised the lease agreement for helping private landowners co-exist with public wildlife, many sporting and wildlife groups complained they were cut out of the process. I feel more and more we are hearing from the public wanting to be engaged well before an environmental assessment comes out, Fish, Wildlife & Parks Director Martha Williams told the commissioners. The public demand to be engaged earlier has grown. FWP Region 2 Wildlife Manager Mike Thompson acknowledged he had not kept area sportsmens groups included to the extent they wished. He explained that the deal was between the agency representing the public and the landowner, not the interested outside groups, landowner and agency. For his part, McQueary said the deal was needed to compensate him for the losses hed incurred since the Spotted Dog went from a century of private ranching to public ownership. When the cattle grazing was removed, in my opinion the grass got tall, rank and stale, McQueary said. The elk went gradually toward where there was better feed for them. Over last five years, thats moved more and more elk toward our property. Ranchers like Chase Hibbard argued in written comments that allowing cows to graze there would improve forage for elk. Hibbard testified he had been running cattle on the Beartooth Wildlife Management Area for 37 years, which improved both plant health and water-holding capacity in the soil. He said since 1992, elk numbers there had gone from about 2,000 to 4,500. If our experience is any indication, there is great potential that properly managed cattle grazing on the Spotted Dog will be good for range, good for the elk, good for the hunters and good for the community, Hibbard wrote the commissioners. Others doubted that theory, pointing out that elk had evolved on those grasslands for thousands of years before ranchers added cattle to help them out. Montana Wildlife Federation Executive Director Dave Chadwick cited recent research showing wildlife habitat on the Spotted Dog had been hurt by past grazing activity and still hadnt recovered. Allowing more grazing would increase potential for invasive weeds like cheatgrass to get established there and risked damaging its wetlands. While the proposal indicates FWP and the ranchers will fence and monitor cattle activity to avoid those problems, Chadwick said the costs of that activity arent included in the plan. Chadwick also questioned why FWP appeared to be providing services to private landowners at the expense of hunters and the general public. Additionally, we feel that the use of sportsmen dollars to pay for the temporary fencing and continued maintenance by FWP is not in line with the intent of managing for wildlife within (Spotted Dog) and for the benefit of the general public, Chadwick wrote. He added, We question why the department is trying to advance the proposal without properly involving local sportsmens groups. While we understand that some negotiations are best done individually with landowners, sportsmens groups have not had an adequate opportunity to participate in the development of this proposal. Rocky Mountain Stockgrowers Association President Dan Conn wrote the proposal could be a model for elk refuges across Montana. The grazing system proposed in the DEA would provide some relief for the nearby landowners who bear the brunt of the impacts from elk trespassing from the (Spotted Dog) onto private property, while also resulting in the public achieving access to public elk on public property, Conn wrote. Approximately 8 percent of the (Spotted Dog) would be part of the study in total hardly enough to negatively impact the (area). Additionally, 2,100 acres of private property will be rested every year, which will also provide additional elk habitat. That didnt mollify many speakers at Thursdays commission meeting in Helena. Chris Marchion pointed out the Spotted Dog was bought as a wildlife refuge with public money from a settlement between mining companies and the state for toxic waste damage done to the Clark Fork River. As public owners, weve got to have some respect and were not getting it, Marchion said. He mentioned examples where volunteer hunting groups had helped landowners fix fencing and build calving areas to offset the impacts of wildlife grazing and hunter access. He said FWP should at least include stronger provisions to protect against the spread of noxious weeds from cattle grazing. Hellgate Hunters and Anglers President Adam Shaw added the plan didnt address how wolves and grizzlies might be dealt with if they attack livestock on the WMA. He noted the Spotted Dog is a critical corridor for grizzlies to connect their major recovery areas in the Northern Continental Divide and Greater Yellowstone ecosystems. University of Montana wildlife biologist Joshua Millspaugh said the research on livestock and wildlife sharing grasslands can be contradictory. While some show cattle grazing can improve the quality of vegetation for elk, other studies show they compete for the same plants. My opinion is that many of these papers that report negative effects can be tied back to overgrazing, Millspaugh said. One challenge is that each studys results depend greatly on the specific ground studied, so its hard to say if one conclusion applies to a different place. The lease will run for six years, after which all parties will re-evaluate how cattle and elk are reacting to the arrangement. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 1 Sad 0 Angry 0 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. Gold has failed to gain traction over the past couple months, normally a seasonally-strong time. That has really weighed on sentiment, leaving traders increasingly bearish. Gold investment demand has flagged dramatically with lofty stock markets spewing great euphoria. Thats given gold-futures speculators the run of the market, where they have sold aggressively including extreme shorting. But thats actually very bullish. Gold price action is driven by the collective trading of both investors and speculators. The former control vast amounts of capital, which dominates gold prices when it is migrating in or out. But investors interest in gold withers when stock markets are super-high. When stocks seemingly do nothing but rally, theres no perceived need to prudently diversify stock-heavy portfolios with counter-moving gold. It falls out of favor. Extreme stock-market euphoria is golds primary problem now, acting like kryptonite for gold investment. This week the flagship US S&P 500 broad-market stock index clawed back to a new all-time record high. That extended its monster rebound rally since late Decembers near-bear lows to 24.8%! The farther the stock markets advance, the more gold is forgotten. Investors have relentlessly pulled capital back out of gold. The best proxy for gold investment demand is the physical gold-bullion holdings of the worlds dominant gold exchange-traded fund, the American GLD SPDR Gold Shares. In early October soon after the S&P 500 peaked but before it started plunging in its severe 19.8% correction, GLDs holdings slumped to a deep 2.6-year low of 730.2 metric tons. I explained these stock-market and GLD dynamics in depth last week. Then the very day the stock markets first dropped hard, investors remembered gold. Over the next 3.8 months into late January, GLDs holdings surged 12.8% to 823.9t on heavy capital inflows from American stock investors. That helped push gold 8.9% higher in that span. But as euphoria came roaring back as the S&P 500 rebounded sharply from its deep selloff, golds relative luster again faded in investors eyes. (Click to enlarge) Between late January and this week, theyve dumped GLD shares much faster than gold itself was being sold. That has forced GLDs holdings 9.2% lower in the last 2.8 months to 747.9t, helping push golds price down 2.7%. Over 4/5ths of golds stock-market-correction-driven investment surge has now been erased, leaving GLDs holdings just 2.4% above their secular lows of early October before stocks plunged! The gold-investment selling via GLD in recent months has been relentless, especially in February and now April. During Februarys 19 trading days, 13 saw GLD draws averaging 0.4%. And as of the middle of this week, Aprils 17 trading days so far have seen 12 GLD-draw days also averaging 0.4%. Gold has faced unyielding selling pressure from American stock investors as the S&P 500 levitated ever higher. Theres an old proverb stating when the cats away, the mice will play. That concept perfectly applies to the gold market. When investors are away, the gold-futures speculators will play. Investors capital just dwarfs speculators, so when gold investment demand is robust spec trading is drowned out and usually irrelevant. But when investors arent interested, the gold-price impact of gold-futures trading is magnified. These traders already punch far above their weights, their capital being far more potent than investors on a dollar-for-dollar basis. Gold futures allow extreme leverage far beyond anything legal in the stock markets. Each gold-futures contract controls 100 troy ounces of gold, which is worth $127,500 at $1275. But gold-futures speculators are only required to keep $3,400 cash in their accounts for each gold-futures contract. That gives them absurd maximum leverage up to 37.5x, compared to the decades-old 2.0x limit in stock markets! At 30x leverage, every dollar deployed in gold futures has literally 30x the price impact on gold as another dollar used to buy gold outright. Just $1 of gold-futures capital flows yield the same gold-price result as $30 of investment capital flows. Gold-futures tradings impact on gold is wildly disproportionate. Further amplifying gold-futures speculators outsized influence, the American gold-futures price is golds global reference one. So when heavy gold-futures selling blasts that headline price lower, the resulting negative psychology quickly infects the rest of the world gold markets. Gold-futures trading is effectively the tail that wags the gold-investment dog. This vexing problem shouldnt be allowed to exist, but it does. Over the past couple months as mounting stock-market euphoria seduced investment capital out of gold, speculators gold-futures selling has soared to extremes at times. That really exacerbated the counter-seasonal downside pressure on gold prices. This heavy selling is evident in the weekly Commitments of Traders reports from the CFTC, which detail speculators collective long and short positions in gold futures. This chart superimposes several years of daily gold prices in blue over the weekly CoT data. Total spec long contracts are shown in greed, and total shorts in red. The falling longs and rising shorts since gold last peaked near $1341 in mid-February are a big reason for its recent weakness. But the lower specs push their longs and the higher they ramp their shorts, the more bullish golds near-term outlook grows. (Click to enlarge) A couple weeks ago I dug deeper into gold futures impact on gold prices in recent years, so Im going to focus on recent months here. On February 19th when gold surged to $1341, total spec longs and shorts were running 305.0k and 138.5k contracts. While those longs remained way below recent years peaks, they were still near the highest levels seen in the past year. I developed a simple metric to quantify that. This chart shows the general rule on gold-futures trading driving gold price action. When speculators are buying by either adding new longs or covering existing shorts, gold rallies. When they are selling existing longs or adding new shorts, gold retreats. So the lower spec longs, and the higher spec shorts, the more bullish golds near-term outlook. The opposite is also true, higher longs and lower shorts are bearish for gold. Golds biggest uplegs in recent years emerged from relatively-low spec longs and/or relatively-high spec shorts. Figuring out how low or high both sides of this trade happen to be can be done by looking at current levels compared to their trading ranges over the past year. When gold peaked at $1341 9 weeks ago, total spec longs were running 96% up into their 52-week trading range. That was certainly relatively high. That left speculators little room to buy more gold-futures long contracts unless they expanded their total capital allocation back to bigger prior-year levels. If they didnt, they had a lot more room to sell than to buy. That same CoT week, total spec shorts were running 32% up into their own past-year trading range. Thus the short-side guys had probable remaining room to cover 1/3rd of their shorts, which was relatively low. If investors had been buying gold, if the mounting stock euphoria hadnt been sucking capital out of gold, speculators gold-futures positioning wouldnt have mattered much. But with investors missing in action, the gold-futures traders were ruling the roost. And they started selling heavily in the CoT week ending on Tuesday March 5th. Be aware that CoT weeks always run from Tuesday closes to Tuesday closes. Gold began that CoT week looking great, trading at $1328. But speculators started selling gold futures, pushing gold down towards $1300. That is a hugely-important psychological level for gold, which seems to attract gold-futures stop losses like gravity. So as $1300 neared and failed, gold-futures selling ramped up massively. That CoT week ended with specs dumping 34.0k long contracts while adding 11.9k short ones! A 20k+ contract change in either spec longs or shorts in a single CoT week is the threshold where huge begins. 20k contracts control the equivalent of 62.2 metric tons of gold, way too much for normal markets to absorb in a single week. That big bout of spec gold-futures long selling that kicked off the last couple months gold slump was exceptional. At that point 1053 CoT weeks had passed since early 1999, a long span. That CoT weeks spec long selling ranked as the 20th largest ever witnessed, a rare event. And in terms of speculators total gold-futures selling including both longs and shorts, it was the 11th largest on record! Its important to realize that gold-futures selling of that magnitude is unusual, unsustainable, and self-limiting. The lower spec longs and the higher spec shorts, the less gold futures these traders have left to sell. Related: China's Economic Growth Exceeds Analyst Expectations That extreme selling blitz puking out the equivalent of 142.6t of gold in a single CoT week would probably have been the end of it without the growing stock-market euphoria. Gold usually carves a major seasonal low in mid-March before powering higher in its spring rally. But with the S&P 500 levitating and investors still selling gold on balance, sentiment stayed fairly bearish so gold-futures specs had the run of the market. Still gold defied the surging stock markets to rally like usual, climbing back to $1322 by March 25th. The gold-futures speculators were responsible, adding 20.4k new long contracts while covering 15.4k short ones in the CoT week ending a day later. That was the equivalent of 111.3t of gold buying. But over the next CoT week, that reversed into heavy selling. That again surrounded gold plunging back under $1300. For decades now Ive intensely studied and closely watched the markets in real-time. I get up at 5am and follow the data and news feeds until 4pm or later. Usually, when gold or the stock markets make some big intraday move, its explainable by news or data. Neither golds 1.7% plunge on March 1st, nor its later 1.4% drop on March 28th, had any apparent catalysts! But both days saw gold break back below $1300. Running extreme leverage up to 37.5x, gold-futures speculators cant afford to be wrong for long. A mere 2.7% gold price move against their positions would wipe out 100% of their capital risked at such leverage! So these guys have to maintain an ultra-short-term price-dominated focus, and they have to run tight stop losses or risk quick ruin. Long-side gold-futures traders have long clustered stops near that key $1300 level. So when gold falls back through $1300 from above, mechanical stop-loss orders start triggering resulting in forced long selling. That quickly pushes gold even lower, tripping more stops to fuel cascading selling. By the time the dust settled in that CoT week ending on April 2nd with gold battered back to $1291, total spec gold-futures longs had plummeted 35.3k contracts! They werent short selling then, as shorts fell 2.1k. That massive long dump was again exceptional, ranking as the 18th largest ever witnessed out of 1057 CoT weeks since early 1999 at that point. Speculators cant maintain such crazy selling rates for long, as just 7 weeks at that pace would drive their longs to zero which will never happen. For the second time in 4 CoT weeks, extreme spec gold-futures long selling hammered gold from well above $1300 to back below. But gold soon started recovering even while investors mesmerized by stock euphoria exited. Gold again climbed up over $1300, hitting $1308 on April 10th. This metal really wants to power higher even with investment capital fleeing to chase the lofty stock markets. Yet once again extreme gold-futures selling erupted in the latest CoT week reported before this essay was published, which ended last Tuesday April 16th. For the third time in 7 weeks, extreme gold-futures selling flared as gold passed back down below $1300. Once again there were no significant data or news catalysts around the world, gold-futures selling just snowballed to a stunning degree. That CoT week total spec longs dropped another 17.5k contracts, close to that 20k+ huge threshold. But total spec shorts exploded an utterly-astounding 36.9k contracts higher! That single-CoT-week shorting was so crazy it ranked as the 2nd highest ever witnessed out of the 1059 CoT weeks since early 1999! The only bigger shorting week was back in mid-November 2015, soon after the Fed telegraphed its first rate hike of the recent cycle. Yet that record shorting would soon prove very bullish for gold, birthing a major bull market. Gold surged 29.9% higher in 6.7 months in the first half of 2016. Considered together in that latest reported CoT week ending April 16th, speculators total long and short selling rocketed to 54.4k contracts! That is the 5th highest on record, incredibly extreme. The 1st and 4th weighed in at 70.4k and 56.7k, and both occurred in December 2017. That record gold-futures selling also proved very bullish, as gold soon surged sharply to challenge a major bull-market breakout above $1350. Big gold-futures selling is always bullish for gold, because those bearish bets will soon be unwound with proportional buying. This current episode wont prove an exception, especially with near-record shorting. While making bullish long-side gold-futures trades is voluntary, short covering is mandatory. Shorting is effectively borrowing gold futures that traders dont own, those contracts have to be repurchased and paid back. Between golds latest interim high in mid-February to this extreme latest-reported CoT week, total spec longs collapsed 68.5k contracts or 22.5%. Thats a lot in a short span, leaving longs running just 32% up into their past-year trading range. That means specs easily have room to do over 2/3rds of their likely near-term long buying, and much more if higher gold prices excite traders enough to bet at previous years scales. And over the last 8 reported CoT weeks, total spec shorts rose 19.5k contracts. That left them 37% up into their own past-year trading range. Thats not high, but it still leaves a lot more shorts that have to be covered with offsetting buying as gold reverses higher again. Total spec selling since February 19th ran 88.0k contracts, the equivalent of 273.9t of gold. Thats helped force gold 4.8% lower from $1341 to $1276. The bright side of all this gold-futures selling is it is inherently self-limiting and self-correcting. The more these traders sell, the less they have left to sell. And the higher the odds they will start buying in a big way to mean revert their recent bearish bets back to normal. One of these days some catalyst will arise that will spark major spec gold-futures buying. Gold will surge sharply for weeks as buying normalizes bets. The biggest casualty of recent months extreme near-record gold-futures selling was the gold miners stocks, which amplify moves in gold. The major gold miners of the leading GDX VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF tend to leverage golds action by 2x to 3x. That has weighed on gold-stock prices and psychology since mid-February. GDX slumped while gold-futures speculators battered the gold price lower. Despite that extreme gold-futures selling nearing records, and incredible stock-market euphoria stunting gold investment demand, the gold stocks have weathered this storm really well. GDX did knife back under its uplegs support, nearing its 200-day moving average which is much-stronger support. But the major gold stocks have proven impressively resilient overall, largely consolidating high as gold swooned. Again gold was pounded 4.8% lower over those 8 CoT weeks starting near $1341 and ending way down near $1276. At 2x to 3x normal leverage, the gold stocks wouldve plunged almost 10% to 15%. Yet over that exact span GDX merely slid 5.7%, just 1.2x golds loss! And GDXs leverage was healthy before that as gold rallied, running 2.8x at best by mid-February. The gold stocks have really been holding their own. Related: What's The Federal Reserve's Next Move? Gold stocks are set to surge again once gold reverses decisively higher, which is increasingly likely any day now. These lofty euphoric stock markets are going to inevitably encounter some catalyst sparking significant selling, which will snowball after such a massive and long rally steeped in such epic complacency. Gold investment demand will turn on a dime as stock markets roll over, just like back in early October. And when gold starts moving higher, the hyper-leveraged gold-futures speculators will rush to buy and pile on to its upside momentum. And after slashing their longs and ramping their shorts over the past couple months, they have major buying to do to reestablish bullish positioning relative to gold to ride its next rally. As leveraged gold-futures capital inflows force gold higher, gold stocks will really amplify its gains. The last time major gold investment buying lined up with major gold-futures buying by the speculators was in roughly the first half of 2016. That catapulted gold 29.9% higher in 6.7 months kicking off this bull. The major gold stocks as measured by GDX soared 151.2% in essentially that same span, amplifying the big gold gains by 5.1x. Gold stocks are the place to be when traders are pouring capital back into gold! The bottom line is gold has been bludgeoned by extreme gold-futures selling in the past couple months, culminating in near-record shorting. Thats what forced gold lower during its usual spring-rally timeframe. With investors seduced by the lofty euphoric stock markets, gold-futures speculators have been running roughshod over gold prices. But their heavy selling is self-limiting, and will reverse into proportional buying. Speculators big bearish shift in gold-futures positioning will have to be normalized, resulting in big buying that will push gold higher. That upside momentum could really grow, especially when stock markets roll over and again rekindle gold investment demand. The biggest gains as gold mean reverts back higher will come in the stocks of its miners. Theyve proven resilient as gold swooned, and are poised to surge again. By Adam Hamilton More Top Reads From Safehaven.com: CALmatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California's state Capitol works and why it matters. For more stories by Dan Walters, go to Commentary. e-STEM or e-STEAM - STEM or STEAM curriculum with an environmental focus. FACMAC - Facilities and Capacity Management Advisory Committee. A district committee comprises of an all-volunteer citizen group created in 2012 to help bring research and ideas to capacity management issues in the district. FERPA - Family Education Rights and Privacy Act. A federal law that protects students' privacy FRL - Free and reduced lunch. FTE - Full Time Equivalent FY - Fiscal Year Highly Capable Services - NEW name (as of 2014) as umbrella name for these programs: Highly Capable Cohort (formerly APP), Spectrum and ALO (Advanced Learning Opportunities). HSPE - High School Proficiency Exam, state assessment that replaced the WASL for 10th graders, required for graduation HQT - Highly Qualified Teacher, a standard set by federal law IA - Instructional Assistant IB - International Baccalaureate program. An international program of advanced classes that can either be taken as stand alone or as part of an overall IB program. IDEA - Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The federal law that governs special education IEP - Individual Educational Plan, a federal requirement for students with disabilities (special education) JSCEE - John Stanford Center for Educational Excellence (see headquarters) MAP - Measures of Academic Progress. A computer-based adaptive assessment made by NWEA and originally purchased by the district for use as a district-wide formative assessment but now used for a wide variety of purposes. MSP - Measurement of Student Progress, the state proficiency assessment that replaced the WASL for students in grades 1-8 NCLB - No Child Left Behind, a provision of the federal education law, ESEA, introduced during the George W. Bush administration OSPI - Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction PCP - Planning, Conference and Preparation PD - Professional Development PG & E - Professional Growth and Evaluation, the teacher (and principal) evaluation procedure RIF - Reduction in Force RttT - Race to the Top, see Arne Duncan RIT - Rasch Unit - scoring used in MAP testing RTI - Response to Intervention, the old name for MTSS SBE - State Board of Education (or BOE) SEA - Seattle Education Association (Seattle Teachers' union) SEAC - Special Education Advisory Committee SIT - School Intervention Team STEAM - Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math STEM - Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. TIF - Teacher Incentive Fund WASL - Washington Assessment of Student Learning (former state test) WSF - Weighted Student Formula, the old method of determining school funding WSS - Weighted Staffing Standards, the current method of determining school funding MTSS - Multi-Tiered Systems of Support- No Child Left Behind, a provision of the federal education law, ESEA, introduced during the George W. Bush administration- Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction- Planning, Conference and Preparation- Professional Development - Facilities and Capacity Management Advisory Committee. A district committee comprises of an all-volunteer citizen group created in 2012 to help bring research and ideas to capacity management issues in the district.- Family Education Rights and Privacy Act. A federal law that protects students' privacy- Free and reduced lunch.- Full Time Equivalent- Fiscal YearHighly Capable Services - NEW name (as of 2014) as umbrella name for these programs: Highly Capable Cohort (formerly APP), Spectrum and ALO (Advanced Learning Opportunities).- High School Proficiency Exam, state assessment that replaced the WASL for 10th graders, required for graduation- Highly Qualified Teacher, a standard set by federal law- Instructional Assistant- International Baccalaureate program. An international program of advanced classes that can either be taken as stand alone or as part of an overall IB program.- Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The federal law that governs special education- Individual Educational Plan, a federal requirement for students with disabilities (special education)- John Stanford Center for Educational Excellence (see headquarters)- Measures of Academic Progress. A computer-based adaptive assessment made by NWEA and originally purchased by the district for use as a district-wide formative assessment but now used for a wide variety of purposes.- Measurement of Student Progress, the state proficiency assessment that replaced the WASL for students in grades 1-8 Note: not a complete list. Here's a link to the district's list. - SPS' three-tier program for advanced learners. Made up of APP, Spectrum and ALOs. (Note: the name of the district program is "Advanced Learning Services and Programs" but these three programs fall under "Highly Capable Services" of AL Services and Programs.- Advanced Learning Opportunity, the third tier of SPS' Advanced Learning program- Advanced Placement. A national program of college-level classes given in high schools.- Accelerated Progress Program. One of the levels of the Advanced Learning Program. NOTE: the name of this program is now "HIGHLY CAPABLE COHORT." This change occurred in 2014.- Associated Student Body. High school leadership groups.Adequate Yearly Progress. Part of NCLB.- Building Excellence. SPS' capital renovation/rebuilding program that is funded via the BEX levy. Every 3 years there is the Operations levy and either the BEX or BTA levies as those two levies rotate in six year cycles).- Building Leadership Team. Staff members at a school who meet regularly to discuss building issues.Buildings, Technology, Academics. The major maintenance/other capital fund for SPS. Originally BTA was to cover major maintenance like HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning), roofs, waterlines, etc.) but now covers wide swaths of items like athletic fields, technology and funding academic needs.- Community Advisory Committee for Investing in Educational Excellence. Created by former Superintendent Manhas in 2008, to issue a report about reform recommendations for SPS.- Continuous School Improvement Plan, the plan for improvement for each school as required by state law.- Career and Technical Education (formerly Voc Ed)- Essential Academic Learning Requirement- Everyday Math, the board-adopted instructional materials for elementary math- English Language Learners- End of Course Assessments, given in math and science, required for high school graduation Seventh Circuit finds Indiana approach to revoking good-time credits in sex offender program violates Fifth Amendment right against compelled selfincrimination | Main | NYU Center reviewing historical state clemency grants ... starting with Pennsylvania April 27, 2019 Should reform advocates urge Prez Trump to embrace new proposed federal Clean Slate Act as sound Second Step? The question in the title of this post is prompted by these two recent press stories about federal criminal justice reform: Let's begin my pitch with excerpts from the first of these pieces: President Trump began the month hosting a White House celebration with people freed from prison by the First Step Act. He told the April Fools' Day gathering the White House would work on a Second Step Act "right away." Despite the day, Trump was not joking. But he was also not correct. Sources tell the Washington Examiner that the White House is in fact not preparing a Second Step Act package to follow the landmark criminal justice reform law, which is Trump's only major bipartisan legislative achievement. Theres definitely not a Second Step Act, said a source who works on White House reform efforts and helped with Trumps April 1 speech, a draft of which did not mention new legislation. The White House is focused instead on implementing the First Step Act in a way that denies ammunition to opponents such as Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark. One of the most important things we do in the second step is to get the first step implemented, said Mark Holden, general counsel of Koch Industries and a prominent reform advocate. It is unclear if Trump misspoke when he said: "Today, I am announcing that the Second Step Act will be focused on successful reentry and reduced unemployment for Americans with past criminal records. And thats what we are starting right away." A White House official said that Trump "wants to bring more fairness" to the legal system and "you can expect more legislation to address the second steps in the future," but that the First Step Act "will take a year to fully implement," diverting focus from additional legislation.... Theres a lot of concern that they have to get this right. Folks like Tom Cotton are just waiting for someone to do something stupid, said the source who has worked on White House efforts. People are going to want to wait and see how this [First Step Act] works out. Because there are so many important elements to the FIRST STEP Act, I think reform advocates are well advised to be laser focused on implementation issues in the short term. The impact of FIRST STEP is still very much under development as the reach of the new sentencing/prison reforms are being defined by the judiciary and determined by executive branch officials (especially related to the risk/needs tools and prison programming). It is not unreasonable for legislators to want to assess the initial impact of the new sentencing and prison laws before moving on to further proposals. (This is one reason I am so eager for the US Sentencing Commission to start providing real-time updates on the FIRST STEP Act. Lawmakers cannot assess the FIRST STEP Act without data on its implementation.) Further, as the 2020 election season heats up with criminal justice reform already becoming a topic of considerable conversation, the politics surrounding additional sentencing and prison reforms grow dicier. The recent commentary by Jared Kushner states that the FIRST STEP Act "nearly died dozens of times along the way" due to the persistent challenges of navigating the tribal politics of DC. The political tribes, between and within parties, are likely to be even harder to manage over the next 18 months with a major election looming. And yet, given Prez Trump's important statement about the importance of "successful reentry and reduced unemployment for Americans with past criminal records," I think a new bipartisan bill concerning record clearing could and should be worth focused support. Here are a few details about a federal Clean State Act proposal via the Politico article linked above: An unlikely pair of House members are making a push for a second chance law for people convicted of certain low-level federal offenses, with hopes to repeat Congress unexpected victory on criminal justice reform last year. Reps. Lisa Blunt Rochester, a Democrat from Delaware, and Guy Reschenthaler, a Republican from Pennsylvania, introduced the Clean Slate Act on Tuesday, which would automatically seal a persons record if he or she has been convicted of possession of drugs, including heroin, as well as any nonviolent offense involving marijuana. The intention, they say, is to eliminate barriers to employment, education and housing that are common for people convicted of crimes. Ive seen so many stories of people who, because of a minor offense, it has stuck with them for the rest of their lives, Blunt Rochester said in an interview Tuesday, calling her bill the next logical step after last years landmark package of sentencing and prison reform. The bill has won support from what Blunt Rochester described as strange bedfellows the liberal Center for American Progress and the conservative FreedomWorks.... Both lawmakers said they hope the bill can be a rare area of common ground in the coming weeks as Senate GOP leaders have flatly rejected most bills sent to them by House Democrats. Blunt Rochester said shes spoken with House Democratic leaders and is optimistic about a floor vote.... Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) plans to introduce a similar bill on the Senate side and is in talks with Republicans to become a co-sponsor. Because the Clean Slate Act addresses criminal records after a persons has fully completed a sentence, there really is no direct overlap between its provisions and laws altered by the FIRST STEP Act and so there really is no reason to await FIRST STEP implementation before taking action on this important distinct front. Indeed, the Clean Slate Act seeks to address reentry and employment issues mentioned by Prez Trump earlier this month and does so in a manner that could itself further enhance the long-term success of the FIRST STEP Act. As long-time readers know, I am always pragmatically pessimistic about the work of Congress in this space. But I think the next 18 months provides a unique window of time for moving forward with a Clean Slate Act or some other expungement reform, and I hope reform advocates will all consider jumping on this particular reform bandwagon. April 27, 2019 at 02:00 PM | Permalink Comments Spellcheck your headline :) Posted by: AC | Apr 29, 2019 10:20:34 AM Thanks, AC. Now fixed, but I kind of liked the mistake, too. Posted by: Doug B. | Apr 29, 2019 2:51:38 PM I'd be ok with expungement for low-level offenses after a period of years. Speeding tickets fall off of one's insurance premiums after 3 years. I don't know if it is ever really expunged, but it's not that big of a deal as employers just don't care. So if one doubles that to 6 years for simple possession of small quantities of pot, I think that would be fine. Heroin? No, that's going too far. Posted by: William Jockusch | Apr 30, 2019 9:40:02 PM Post a comment Foreign tourists to Indonesia hit a record 15.8 million last year, 13% higher than a year ago, according to Indonesias statistics bureau. Bali, the most popular tourist destination in Indonesia, had the lions share at 6.07 million, 38% of the total and up 6.6% from the previous year. Topping the chart in terms of foreign visitors to Bali is China in first place with 22.5%, followed by Australia (19.3%) and India (5.8%). Balis Tourism Promotion Agency has set a target of eight million foreign visitors by the end of this year, or 40% of Indonesias total foreign tourist arrival target in 2019. This year, 1,764 new hotel rooms are expected to open in Bali by 3Q2019, says Colliers International in its 1Q2019 research report. These comprise 969 four-star hotel rooms and 795 five-star hotel rooms. The average hotel occupancy rate for Bali was 71.1% last year, said Ferry Salanto, Jakarta-based senior associate director of Colliers International Indonesia, in the report. On the back of stronger inbound tourism, he is projecting occupancy rates to reach 75-80% this year. The average daily rate of hotels in Bali was US$116 ($158) last year, and is expected to increase to US$117-118 by end of 2020. While the overall average hotel occupancy rate in Bali may be around 71%, beachfront properties like those in Canggu tend to enjoy higher occupancy rates (Credit: Edwin Chua) Capitalising on strong tourism The strong tourism figures in Bali have also ushered in the popularity of apart-hotels, says Alice Tan, Knight Frank director of residential project marketing. The apart-hotel concept is refreshing as investors can count on the strong tourism numbers to support hotel occupancy rates in such assets, especially in an established international tourist destination like Bali. However, there are three factors to consider before investing in any project, cautions Tan: its location; background and track record of the developer; and the type of guaranteed rental return (GRR) package offered. The success of such a concept hinges on the commitment of the developer, she says. Typically, the GRR schemes are only for two to three years, or five years at most. Story continues Tan points to the upcoming Citadines Berawa Beach as an example. Developed by Indonesian developer Genesis Indojaya, the 226-unit serviced residences is located on a 17,800 sq m (192,000 sq ft) site at Berawa Beach in Canggu. The property will be managed by The Ascott Ltd, the hospitality arm of Singapore-listed property group CapitaLand, for 10 years, with an option for another 10-year extension. Genesis Indojaya is offering buyers a notarial lease of 80 years on their investment and a net annual GRR of 5% for seven years. It solves the problem of restrictions on foreign property ownership in Indonesia, including Bali, according to Darren Chua, Singaporean co-founder and equity adviser of Genesis Indojaya. The strong tourism figures in Bali have also ushered in the popularity of apart-hotels" (Credit: Knight Frank) Limited new supply in Canggu beach area While the overall average hotel occupancy rate in Bali may be around 71%, beachfront properties tend to enjoy higher occupancy rates, notes Tan. Canggu appeals to the younger hipster crowd, and there isnt a lot of new supply around the beach area, she observes. Meanwhile, Nusa Dua being a more established area sees a lot more competition among the five-star hotels and appeals to a more mature crowd. Occupancy rates are also lower. Colliers International Researchs Indonesian report showed that of seven hotel properties that opened in 1H2018, only one is located in Canggu, namely the five-star, luxury hotel property, the 119-room Como Uma Canggu. Between now and 2022, another 19 new hotels are in the pipeline, and are expected to yield a total of 2,759 new rooms, according to Colliers. Most of them are in the four- and five-star categories. Beyond the established areas of Kuta and Nusa Dua, many of the new hotels in the pipeline are in Jimbaran-Uluwatu areas as well as Seminyak and Ubud. Only one is located in Canggu. Citadines Berawa Beach is located just a two-minute walk from the beachfront, notes Knight Franks Tan. The property is also within proximity to the famous Finns Beach Club, a five-minute drive to the upcoming Cafe Del Mar, the famous lifestyle club from Ibiza and near Potato Head Beach Club. Canggu is an up-and-coming area with a vibrant start-up scene, beach clubs such as Finns, Potato Head and Como, as well as indie cafes and eateries on a strip within a five- to 10-minute bike ride, says Tan. Citadines Berawa Beach is also within proximity to the famous Finns Beach Club (Credit: Knight Frank) Taxes to look out for What should Singaporean and other foreign investors look out for when investing in Bali? A first-time buyer in a new development will be subjected to a 10% value added tax (VAT) on the final purchase price from the developer. There is also a nominal stamp duty of Rp6,000, the equivalent of 58 Singapore cents. For the resale market, there is a 10% tax on the sale price. By default, it is payable by the seller, notes Tan. However, it is often subject to negotiation between the buyer and seller, she adds. As the GRR is classified as rental payment and falls under land and building rental (final tax), there is a 10% withholding tax on the 5% rental return. In the case of Citadines Berawa Beach, the developer, Genesis Indojaya, is absorbing the 10% withholding tax on behalf of the buyer for the entire seven-year GRR period. Thereafter, the owner will have to pay the withholding tax on the annual rental income. However, there will not be any capital gains tax, says Tan. EdgeProp International Property Show 2019 EdgeProps first International Property Show is taking place on 4 and 5 May 2019 at the Level 3 Concourse of Suntec Singapore Convention and Exhibition Centre. The International Property Show is an ideal starting point for first-time buyers who seek a better understanding of investing in overseas markets. Visitors can also expect exclusive discounts and offers at the show. Complimentary tickets can be obtained now at: http://edgepr.link/ips2019 See Also: Singaporeans Darren Chua and Remy Ng, co-founders of the Jakarta-based property development company Genesis Indojaya, previewed their maiden hospitality project in Bali, Citadines Berawa Beach, on March 9-10. The duo subsequently held a weekend launch in Singapore on April 6-7 at Marriott Tang Plaza. The developer released an initial phase of 150 units within the property, which contains a total of 226 serviced residences ranging from studios to one- and two-bedroom suites. Located on a 17,800 sq m (192,000 sq ft) site at Berawa Beach, in the up-and-coming coastal village of Canggu, the project is scheduled to be completed by end-2020. It will be managed by Ascott Ltd, the hospitality arm of Singapore-listed property group Capitaland for 10 years, with the option of another 10 years. At the Marriott Tang Plaza, the weekend show drew over 100 attendees. To date, 25 units have been sold (Credit: Genesis Indojaya) The developer is offering investors is a guaranteed rental return (GRR) of 5% for seven years, with no lock-in period, and also absorbing the withholding tax of 10% on the GRR of 5% for the entire seven-year period. The weekend show in Singapore drew over 100 attendees. To date, 25 units have been sold. For now, the developer has been inundated by enquiries from overseas. One of the main reasons for us to start the sales campaign in Singapore is Remys and my familiarity with Singapore, says Darren Chua, equity adviser at Genesis Indojaya. The partners intend to showcase the project in key markets around the region, including China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, from May to July. Of course, Indonesia will also be one of our target markets, says Remy Ng, managing director of Genesis Indojaya who is based in Jakarta. Wide spectrum of buyers Buyers in Singapore come from a wide spectrum, from a senior risk management professional seeking stable, long-term yield and a design director with an international architectural firm who liked the design of the project, to a homemaker who wanted to invest so she and her family could visit Bali regularly for holidays. Story continues All except two of the 25 units were sold in Singapore. The remaining two units were scooped up by a French buyer who was holidaying in Bali when he wandered into their site office. The name Citadines struck a chord with the French buyer, recounts Chua. The location in Canggu and on the beachfront has proven to be a lure for buyers. Singaporeans are familiar with Bali with places like Nusa Dua, Kuta and Seminyak, which are very close to our project, says Chua. Talking to the attendees at the weekend roadshow in Singapore helped establish a bond between the developer and their prospective buyers. They were able to share the reasons they ventured into Bali and invested in a hospitality project. Singaporeans have a healthy appetite for overseas property investment, and a hospitality investment play in Bali appeals to many potential investors, he notes. Full payment, 5% return The developer is offering three payment schemes: full payment with a 15% discount; progressive payment with a 10% discount; and a seven-year payment scheme with a 5% discount. Thus far, the most popular scheme is the full-cash payment scheme, where the investor pays the full quantum within a few months of signing the definitive agreements with us, says Ng. We believe this is because of the relatively bite-sized investment quantum and comfort that they have after meeting and speaking with us. Chua agrees. The studio suites at Citadines Berawa Beach start from $230,000, the equivalent of just the downpayment for a condo in Singapore or some properties in the more mature markets, he points out. Most of the buyers were also convinced by the seven-year guarantee period for the GRR. The typical GRR periods offered by many sellers in the market are in the range of two to three years, says Ng. However, we believe in long-term stability and, most importantly, we have full confidence in our property and our operator. This speaks volumes to an investor seeking long-term, stable, passive income. At 5% nett per annum, the rate of return is compelling, he adds. This is not a marketing gimmick, nor have we priced in the guaranteed return. EdgeProp International Property Show 2019 EdgeProps first International Property Show is taking place on 4 and 5 May 2019 at the Level 3 Concourse of Suntec Singapore Convention and Exhibition Centre. The International Property Show is an ideal starting point for first-time buyers who seek a better understanding of investing in overseas markets. Visitors can also expect exclusive discounts and offers at the show. Complimentary tickets can be obtained now at: http://edgepr.link/ips2019 See Also: FILE PHOTO: FILE PHOTO: A gas flare on an oil production platform in the Soroush oil fields is seen alongside an Iranian flag in the Persian Gulf FILE PHOTO: A gas flare on an oil production platform in the Soroush oil fields is seen alongside an Iranian flag in the Persian Gulf, Iran, July 25, 2005. REUTERS/Raheb Homavandi/File Photo/File Photo/File Photo By Timothy Gardner and Humeyra Pamuk WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two Trump administration officials said on Friday that neither a wind-down period nor a short-term waiver on China's oil purchases from Iran are being contemplated after Washington surprised Irans customers on Monday by demanding they halt the purchases by May 1 or face sanctions. The administration has been clear to China, Iran's top oil consumer, about no additional waivers to the sanctions after the ones granted last November, one of the senior officials said. They've known about it, so to my knowledge thats not being contemplated, said the official, adding that ultimately questions about any wind-down period are for the State Department. The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Under U.S. sanctions law, importers of Iranian oil including China, India and Turkey, could be allowed a wind-down period before getting to zero oil purchases, including a short-term waiver. Any wind-down measures would be different than the 180 day exceptions the Trump administration granted in November to China and seven other importers for significantly reducing oil purchases from Iran, measures set to end in May. China has alternative oil suppliers including the United States and Saudi Arabia said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "We understand they dont like this," the official said about China's aversion to sanctions on Iran from the United States alone. "But at same time they tend to act pragmatically and they are going to take what the best most reliable deal is." President Donald Trump left the Iran nuclear deal between Tehran and six world powers last May. Trump is now reapplying the oil sanctions, without exceptions, for reducing oil purchases, a step the Obama administration never took when it slapped sanctions on Iran. Trump's sanctions on Iran are intended to curb its nuclear and ballistic missile program and reduce its influence in Syria, Yemen and other countries in the Middle East. Obama's sanctions targeted only Iran's nuclear program. Story continues After the Trump administration announced on Monday its intent to sink Iran's oil exports to zero, Iran's Revolutionary Guards repeated a threat to block the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping route linking Middle East oil producers to markets in Asia, Europe and North America. One of the Trump officials said such a move would hurt both Iran and its allies. "Any attempt to disrupt freedom of navigation would be debilitating to Iran first and foremost ... and then to the range of the international community ... working hard to advocate on their side," the official said. If China does not cut Iran oil purchases to zero, the Trump administration may have to make a decision on blocking Chinese banks from the U.S. financial system. That could have unintended consequences for finance and business between the world's two biggest economies, already in negotiations over trade disagreements. "It could," one official conceded about the potential for unintended consequences, "but that's why China's decision is easy, it's not a difficult decision for them mathematically. They do business with the U.S. which is critical, they do business with Iran which is not critical." (Reporting by Timothy Gardner and Humeyra Pamuk in Washington; Editing by James Dalgleish and David Gregorio) Prices of retail space decreased by 1.9% q-o-q in 1Q2019, compared to the increase of 1.5% q-o-q in the previous quarter, according to the latest URA statistics. Rentals of retail space fell by 0.2% q-o-q, compared to the 1.2% q-o-q rise in 4Q2018. Tay Huey Ying, head of research and consultancy, JLL Singapore, says that with both the rent and price indices of retail space in the Central Region returning to the contractionary mode following 4Q2018s expansion, the statistics point to a retail property market that is still trying to find its footing. She says that the marginal 0.2% q-o-q decline for rents in the Central Region in 1Q2019 is likely due to a changing tenant profile such as the increasing take-up of prime retail space by rent-sensitive occupiers with large space requirement. In 4Q2108, SuperPark opened in Suntec City and Holey Moley opened in Clarke Quay. Tay notes that Nerf Action Xperience and Kiztopia will be opening in Marina Square in the coming quarters. Stocks and vacancy URA says the net amount of occupied retail space shrank by 14,000 sq m in 1Q2019. The previous quarter saw a net increase of 24,000 sq m. Overall vacancy rate of retail space rose to 8.7% at end-1Q2019, from 8.5% at end-4Q2018. Desmond Sim, head of research, Southeast Asia, CBRE, notes that with new supply coming onto the market, vacancy rates have risen from 9.6% in 4Q2018 to 9.9% in 1Q2019. The Orchard Road area has seen a higher vacancy rate of 6.1%. Tricia Song, head of research for Singapore at Colliers International, says recent retail mall Reits financial results saw some improvement in shopper traffic in their malls in 1Q2019, as well as positive rental reversions, underscoring some success in their proactive asset and lease management. She expects retail space supply in the Central Region, city fringe and suburban areas in 2019 to rise by 2% of the current stock. Upcoming supply in 2019 includes Raffles Hotel Arcade, Funan, and PLQ Mall, says Song. She says supply should taper off significantly from 2020. Story continues Sim expects overall vacancy rates to compress. This takes into account the physical occupation of recent completions like Jewel Changi Airport and the asset enhancement of TripleOne Somerset. The supply pipeline is also expected to tighten over the next few years, he adds. Outlook This year, ground-floor retail rents in prime shopping centres along Orchard Road will rise marginally by 1-2% y-o-y, due to the lack of new stock, says Song, while prime floor rents for suburban regional centres should stabilise. JLLs Tay says the expansion plans of Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Sentosa should inject confidence in the medium-term prospects of Singapores tourism and retail industries. This would in turn lend support to demand for retail space. CBREs Sim sees the retail market remaining a two-tier market with resilience in the prime spaces while secondary spaces and floors remain challenging. He adds: Landlords for such secondary spaces would have to strike a fine balance between occupancy and rental values. Tay says ongoing restructuring in the retail space will likely see the URA rental rental index flip-flopping between marginal up- and down-ticks in the short term. See Also: SINGAPORE (Apr 27): Drink manufacturer Yeo Hiap Seng saw its 1Q18 earnings decline to $1.4 million from $140 million a year ago. The lower earnings compared to that of 1Q17 was largely due to a one-off $138.35 million gain on disposal of investment in Super Group, which was recorded in the corresponding quarter last year. Group revenue for the latest quarter grew 12.1% to $91.8 million from restated 1Q17 revenue of $81.9 million, mainly due to higher sales booked over Chinese New Year during the period. In particular, the F&B division recorded an improvement in segment profit of $1.03 million in the current quarter. This was mainly due to a higher gross profit of $2.15 million, which was partially offset by higher administrative expenses of $1.11 million which was partly contributed by Yeo Hiap Sengs commencement of its Cambodia backend operations. Yeo Hiap Seng says that it expects its F&B margins to remain under pressure over the next 12 months due to a weak consumption outlook for its key markets, in addition to competitive selling prices and fluctuations in raw material prices and regional currencies. Nonetheless, the group says it will continue to grow its sales with a three-pronged strategy to rejuvenate its brand, grow its food business, and develop its agency business as it launches new products to cater to consumer tastes. On the operational front, it intends to continue to enhance operational efficiencies, mitigate risks from market fluctuations and make improvements on a continual basis. Shares in Yeo Hiap Seng closed 2.7% at $1.15 on Friday. (Yahoo News Singapore file photo) SINGAPORE More than 300 students from the National University of Singapore (NUS) sent a letter to NUS President Professor Tan Eng Chye on Saturday (27 April) to criticise the town hall meeting on sexual harassment on campus held last Thursday. The students expressed disappointment with NUS over three specific issues that surfaced at the meeting: The absence of initial members of the Review Committee of Sexual Conduct; The lack of accountability on the part of the administration, and transparency regarding the review process; The senior administrations lack of knowledge about student life. During the town hall, several NUS students revealed incidents of sexual harassment that they had experienced and lambasted the university for the subsequent mismanagement by its staff in handling their grievances. They also questioned the lack of transparency over the formation of the Review Committee and the inadequate security facilities on campus to deter would-be perpetrators of sexual misconduct. The meeting was prompted by the furore over the handling by the university of the incident involving Nicholas Lim, a male NUS student who was caught filming undergraduate Monica Baey, 23, in a hostel toilet in November last year, and the perceived light punishments that Lim received. It was organised for NUS students, faculty and staff and chaired by Professor Florence Ling, Vice-Provost (Student Life) and Associate Professor Peter Pang, Dean of Students. The NUS Board of Discipline had ordered Lim, also 23, to be suspended for one semester. In addition, he was banned from entering into hostel premises on campus, had to undergo counselling sessions and was ordered to write a letter of apology to Baey. Lim, who was a first-time offender, was also given a 12-month conditional warning by the police. If he were to commit another offence over the following 12 months after the warning, he would be prosecuted for both offences. In the letter, the students criticised the absence of the initial members of the Review Committee at the town hall to address their concerns on the issue. As such, they expressed a lack of confidence that their recommendations communicated via the panel or through email will be taken seriously. Story continues This raised the question among some students as to whether the town hall was merely an exercise in rehabilitating the universitys public image, the students said. The students urged NUS to hold another town hall with the initial members of the Review Committee before the end of the semester to address the issue. This meeting would be in addition to the scheduled town hall after the Review Committee report is released, they said. In the second issue highlighted in the letter, the students said the lack of accountability by the NUS administration to tackle sexual misconduct was not adequately addressed during the town hall. Citing the controversy over sexualised orientation activities in 2016, they said NUS had failed to carry through its plan to work on a course covering sexual respect and consent for all NUS students. In addition, there has been a lack of transparency about the review process and how the recommendations of the Review Committee will be implemented, according to the letter. Hence, the students proposed several recommendations including asking the NUS to clarify the review process, increase the number of student representatives on the Review Committee, and reveal and commit to a timeline on the deliberations of the Review Committee. The students also flagged the third issue on the absence of awareness by senior NUS administrators about the cases of students who had experienced sexual misconduct on campus. During the Town Hall, Vice Provost Prof Ling and Dean OSA Assoc Prof Pang expressed that they were disturbed by the testimonies of survivors of sexual misconduct who have been failed by our university. Given that both senior administrators are directly responsible for student life, it was shocking that this Town Hall was the first time they seemed to have heard about the serious shortcomings of the universitys sexual misconduct policies, the students said. To resolve this clear knowledge gap, the students urged the senior administrators to take a more proactive approach in gathering student feedback and improve the channels of communication on the issue. Yahoo News Singapore has reached out to NUS for comment regarding the letter. Related stories NUS hears students grievances on sexual misconduct issue, promises immediate change NUS voyeur can be rehabilitated, prosecution would ruin his future: police Ong Ye Kung concerned over manifestly inadequate penalties in NUS sexual misconduct case NUS student leaves Great Eastern after being suspended for inappropriate misconduct NUS to hold town hall this week to address concerns of sexual misconduct on campus Almost 500 NUS students issue statement of concern on sexual harassment at NUS The sun sets at the Mamiraua Sustainable Development Reserve in Uarini, Amazonas state, Brazil, February 9, 2018. REUTERS/Bruno Kelly/Files BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil led the world in rainforest destruction last year, although deforestation in South America's largest country fell by 70 percent compared to 2017, according to an independent forest monitoring network. Brazil lost 13,471 square kilometers (5,201 square miles) of rainforest in 2018, an area nearly the size of the U.S. state of Connecticut, according to annual data from Global Forest Watch, which is run by the U.S.-based World Resources Institute (WRI). That represents a significant drop from the previous year however, when large-scale forest fires drove higher losses in Brazil. Losses of old-growth forest, which are key to preserving biodiversity, in particular fell after two years of historic fires, but still remain elevated above levels earlier in the decade, according to the Global Forest Watch data released on Thursday. "Though some of the 2018 loss can be attributed to fire, most of it appears to be due to clear cutting in the Amazon, putting at risk the declines in deforestation the country achieved in the early 2000s," researchers wrote on the groups website. Brazil is home to 60 percent of the Amazon, the world's largest tropical rainforest that sucks up vast amounts of carbon dioxide and is seen as a vital protection against global warming. The Democratic Republic of the Congo ranked second in forest loss with 4,812 square kilometers cleared. Brazil said last year that deforestation rose to its highest point in the decade for the 12 months through July. Deforestation spiked 13.7 percent to 7,900 square kilometers, according to the agency. Activists and non-government organizations fear that deforestation could rise in Brazil under the administration of Jair Bolsonaro, who assumed the presidency on Jan. 1. Bolsonaro has said that the country must end an "industry of fines" for environmental infractions in Brazil, one of the primary tools for enforcing environmental protections, and created a body earlier this month with the power to pardon fines. He has also called for mining protected indigenous areas and a major reserve in the Amazon to encourage economic development. (Reporting by Jake Spring; Editing by Bill Berkrot) By Ranga Sirilal and Shihar Aneez COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lanka's president on Saturday outlawed two Islamist groups suspected to be behind the suicide bombings on churches and hotels while the wife and child of the suspected ringleader were wounded during a military raid in safe house, his family and police said. The National Thawheedh Jamaath (NTJ) and Jamathei Millathu Ibrahim were banned under his emergency powers, President Maithripala Sirisena said in a statement, nearly a week after the Easter Sunday attacks that killed more than 250 people. Authorities could not act earlier to ban the two little known groups because the law required them to show firm evidence against them, officials said. Police believe the suspected mastermind of the bombings, Mohamed Hashim Mohamed Zahran, led either the NTJ or a splinter group. Less is known about Jamathei Millathu Ibrahim, whose members are also believed to have played a role in the bombings. Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attacks. Nearly 10,000 soldiers have been deployed across the island to carry out searches and boost security since the bombings in three churches and four hotels, most of which were in the capital Colombo. Security forces have detained 100 people, including foreigners from Syria and Egypt, police said. A gunbattle erupted on Friday evening during a raid on a safe house in Sainthamaruthu in Ampara district on the island's east coast, killing at least 15 people including three people with suicide vests and six children, a military spokesmkan said. The wounded included the wife and a daughter of Zahran, his family said. "Yes, the wife and daughter were injured in the attack, said Mohamed Hashim Mathaniya, sister of Zahran. "I was asked to come to identify them but I am not sure I can go," she told Reuters from the town of Kattankudy in the east where Zahran was originally based. Zahran's driver was detained in a separate raid, according to a police statement. Bomb-making materials, dozens of gelignite sticks and thousands of ball bearings were found in a search of a separate house in the same area, along with Islamic State banners and uniforms, the military said. Story continues Zahran appeared in a video released by Islamic State days after the bombing, the only one showing his face while seven others were covered. In the video the men stand under a black Islamic State flag and declare their loyalty to its leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. FEAR OF MORE ATTACKS Authorities have said there could be more attacks against religious centres. Last Sunday's bombings shattered the relative calm that the Buddhist-majority country has seen since a 26-year civil war with mostly-Hindu ethnic Tamil separatists ended a decade ago. Sirisena and the government of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe have faced strong criticism after it emerged that India had repeatedly given warnings of the possibility of attacks. Both Sirisena and Wickremesinghe have said intelligence was not shared with them, exposing rifts at the top of the government and raising questions about its ability to deal with the security crisis. The national police chief had refused to accept Sirisena's request to step down, two sources told Reuters on Saturday, a further embarrassment for the president. [L3N22904A] The U.S. State Department said terrorist groups were continuing to plot attacks and cautioned its citizens against traveling to Sri Lanka, as well as ordering the departure of all school-age family members of U.S. government employees. India and Britain have also warned their nationals to avoid travelling to Sri Lanka. The security forces' response has included raids on mosques and homes of people in the town of Negombo where scores died in the bombing of a church. Police said on Friday they were trying to track down 140 people they believe have links with Islamic State. The president said some of the country's youth had been involved with the group since 2013 and that there were drug trafficking links. Muslims were urged to pray at home on Friday after the State Intelligence Services warned of possible car bomb attacks, amid fears of retaliatory violence. Many have fled their homes amid bomb scares, lockdowns and security sweeps. The archbishop of Colombo, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, told reporters he had seen an internal security document warning of further attacks on churches and said there would be no Catholic masses celebrated anywhere on the island this Sunday. Sri Lanka's 22 million people include minority Christians, Muslims and Hindus. Until now, Christians had largely managed to avoid the worst of the island's conflict and communal tensions. Most of the bombing victims were Sri Lankans. The dead also included 40 foreigners, including British, U.S., Australian, Turkish, Indian, Chinese, Danish, Dutch and Portuguese nationals. (Writing by John Chalmers and Sanjeev Miglani; Editing by Frances Kerry) Malaysias top trade official on Saturday said China and the US had a global responsibility to consider other countries interests, as the worlds two biggest economies near a deal to end their trade war. Darell Leiking, Malaysias international trade and industry minister, also said the uncertainty created by the trade conflict had caused a shift in the regions supply chain that would have a global impact for years to come. Whatever solutions they come up with, [the US-China trade war] has already impacted the world for five to 10 years, said Leiking, who was in Beijing for the Belt and Road Forum as part of the Malaysian delegation led by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. Leikings remarks came after US President Donald Trump on Friday said his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping would visit the White House soon as there had been higher hopes the two sides could reach a deal to bring their dispute, which has dragged on for nearly a year, to an end. But officials involved in negotiations have also warned that discussions could continue for weeks or even months, and there could still be further escalation. The uncertainty on what America and China will do and can do or what they will likely carry on to do, has made a lot of people more careful than ever in the trade and economy, Leiking said. The Malaysian trade minister said he recently led a trade delegation to the United States, conveying the Southeast Asian countrys concerns to senior American and Chinese officials including US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Chinese Vice-Premier Liu He, who were holding talks in Washington at the time. Leiking said he told the Chinese and US officials that whatever decision they make, they will have to consider a lot of people. Our small economy is minuscule compared to those two. But they would not have reached the way they are today if not for all these economies combined, he said. They have a global responsibility now because both of them, whether they like it or not, will impact everyone in the global value chain and supply chain. The entire economy is connected to both. Story continues Leiking also said that while other countries had seen both good and bad impacts from the US-China trade war, Malaysia had benefited from American and Chinese companies relocating their businesses to the country to hedge against the risk of the conflict worsening. The ongoing trade tensions have split opinion among Chinas neighbouring countries in Southeast Asia. While some worry that the tariff war could further slow the world economy, others have seen a boom in foreign direct investment as companies seek to shift production to the region, including to Malaysia. China and the US are the two biggest trading partners of Malaysia, a nation that relies on exports of electrical components and auto parts, which account for 23 per cent of its total trade. Leiking said that as Malaysia braced for the potential impact of a trade deal between Beijing and Washington, it also welcomed the economic boost from Chinese and US firms relocating factories to the Southeast Asian nation. A lot of people have come in to Malaysia, restarted what they started before China took a lot of [the manufacturing] away. And some have even moved a huge chunk of their business into Malaysia, he said. Maybe its their hope that Malaysia will become the lead in [the Association of Southeast Asian Nations] again. And this is what we are trying to reassure them with the new government right up to our private sectors, everybody wants to rebuild our nation. More from South China Morning Post: This article Malaysian minister says China and US have global responsibility on trade first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2019. Weve previously written about the gorgeous new water attractions opening up at Jewel Changi Airport, such as a gorgeous waterfall spilling from the roof and a fabulous new flood or should we say, pond that Jewel officials were hurriedly cleaning up. What can we say? Jewel is the mall that keeps on surprising us with new water attractions as if their vortex waterfall wasnt enough of an attraction. Two videos were uploaded on Facebook on Friday and Saturday showcasing these new marvels, proving that Singapore really is the country that continues to impress with its airport facilities. In one video uploaded by Facebook user Klein Yeoman on Friday, what appeared to be sprinklers were in full blast, spraying a gorgeous mist all around the shopping floor. Klein was visibly angry at the video which he said was sent to him by a friend, as he wrote the caption: This is a S$1.7 billion project?! This kind of standard?! The video, which has been viewed more than 16,000 times, attracted some pretty hilarious comments too with Facebook user Calvin Yap saying: We are showing Malaysia we have lots of water to spare. Another Facebook user Orlando Hilary Scully had other ideas: Next time bring soap and towel can shower here. In another video uploaded by Facebook page All Singapore Stuff on Saturday, Jewel looked to be raining indoors as a massive stream of water pattered down to the floor from the roof. The video, which was viewed more than 26,000 times, was similarly lauded by netizens for its creative usage of water, but one comment took the cake. Facebook user Han Lian Kwang had this to say: Actually Jewel is telling the whole world our waterfall is one of a kind that incorporates natural rainfall from the sky! Remember we always strive to be Number One! Fortunately for Jewel, we think these mini-waterfalls might be closing up soon as officials race to clean up the surprises to direct visitors to the actual attraction instead: the worlds tallest indoor waterfall in Jewel. Story continues However, given the steady stream of roof leaks spouted from viral videos of Jewel, were not sure if well be seeing more of such surprise attractions at Jewel. After all, there has to be a clear reason why Singapore has the worlds best airport, right? If youve made it to the end of this article and cant detect the heavy sarcasm weve used in this article and the fact that there are no official new water attractions at Jewel, heres a tip: read up more. Just saying. This article, Viral: New mini-waterfall attractions open up at Jewel Changi Airport, with sprinklers bringing Songkran to Singapore, originally appeared on Coconuts, Asia's leading alternative media company. Want more Coconuts? Sign up for our newsletters! Dr Thum Ping Tjin, historian and Managing Director of New Naratif. (Photo courtesy of Dr Thum) SINGAPORE The academic who sparred with Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam over the history of Operation Coldstore for almost six hours at a hearing last year said the impending fake news law would enable the government to selectively and arbitrarily prosecute their critics while pretending to uphold the rule of law. Dr Thum Ping Tjin, a historian who attended the Select Committee hearing on Deliberate Online Falsehoods on 29 March 2018, told Yahoo News Singapore in an email interview on Tuesday (9 April) that the law is part of the same legislative strategy that the Peoples Action Party (PAP) government had used in the past to cow critics. He cited previous changes in laws such as the Protection from Harassment Act and the Public Order Act. In particular, Dr Thum referred to two outrageous sections in the fake news bill which are of great concern to him: the wording of what constitutes a false statement and the exemption clause. Under the bill, which went through a first reading in Parliament on 1 April 2019, a statement is false if it is false or misleading, whether wholly or in part, and whether on its own or in the context in which it appears. Dr Thum slammed the definition as it stands and said, Given that it is virtually impossible to include every single fact about any issue, especially if you are writing to a word limit, this guarantees that virtually anything can be deemed misleading. In such a way, the Bill, if passed into law, would allow the PAP (government) to arbitrarily and selectively take down virtually any statement. Clause 61 of the bill states that The Minister may, by order in the Gazette, exempt any person or class or persons from any provision of this Act. Calling it a shocking clause, Dr Thum said the government could potentially use it to exempt people from this law and that these people would be authorised to spread falsehoods. The proposed sanctions in the bill include fines of between $30,000 and up to $1 million, and/or jail time of up to 10 years. The penalties could be doubled if the falsehood will or is likely to impact public interest as defined in the law. Story continues Debate with Shanmugam over Coldstore In his written submission to the Select Committee, Dr Thum said, Beginning with Operation Coldstore in 1963, politicians have told Singaporeans that people were being detained without trial on national security grounds due to involvement with radical communist conspiracies to subvert the state. Declassified documents have proven this to be a lie. Operation Coldstore, carried out by the police and Special Branch officers in the wee hours of 2 February 1963, led to the arrests of more than 100 people including top leaders of opposition party Barisan Sosialis. Some historians have argued that Coldstore was primarily motivated by political considerations. Shanmugam slammed Dr Thum for his work into Coldstore at the hearing, pointing out that his research ignored critical circumstances leading to the arrests and accounts given by leaders of Communist Party of Malaya. The minister argued, You ignore and suppress what is inconvenientIm suggesting to you, based on what you have said to us, what we have seen is not scholarship, but sophistry. In his interview with Yahoo News Singapore, Dr Thum said the fake news law could adversely affect historians whose works are at variance with the official narratives. He said the government could order their works to be taken down and be declared falsehoods under the law. While the courts are the final arbiter of the truth, as specified in the bill, Dr Thum added that academics are not well paid and they would be unable to afford legal recourse should their works be challenged by the government. I cant say if the PAP (government) would be foolish enough to take such an extreme step, of course, but then again I didnt think they would be foolish enough to challenge my research in the Select Committee either, thereby blowing up the legitimacy of their own Select Committee, said Dr Thum. The Select Committee hearings were an exercise in political theatre to legitimise the law and a waste of public funds, according to Dr Thum. Testimonies from key witnesses such as himself, media professor Cherian George, freelance journalist Kirsten Han, The Online Citizens editor Terry Xu, and others, were ignored and they were treated with disdain, he added. Impact on New Naratif Yahoo News Singapore also asked Dr Thum about the potential impact of the law on the operations of regional news website New Naratif, which he heads as Managing Director. New Naratif was in the news in April last year when the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (Acra) rejected the application by Dr Thum and Han to set up OSEA Pte Ltd and provide editorial services to the website. Acra said New Naratifs purposes are clearly political in nature and that it had received a grant from a Swiss charitable institute, which was linked to an organisation with a history of political involvement in other countries. In response, New Naratif said then, Any notion that we are, as Acra alleges, being used by foreigners to pursue a political activity in Singapore is unfounded. The website emphasised that it is an open and transparent platform for Southeast Asian journalism. Dr Thum told Yahoo News Singapore that New Naratif has no legal, financial, or physical presence in Singapore. While New Naratif is a UK-registered non-profit company with regional offices in Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta, Dr Thum noted that the new law could apply beyond Singapores borders. He said, All media outlets must be alarmed by this unjust and Orwellian attempt to monopolise the truth and to arbitrarily declare what is factual and not, and should resist the passage of this law. Related stories COMMENT Fake news bill: Time for lawyers, MPs to stand up and be counted Fake news bill: Media professionals favour fact-checking body, divided on its role Parliament: Draft bill proposes up to 10 years jail for individuals who deliberately spread fake news Singapore government should pass laws against fake news: Select Committee Shanmugam, historian Thum Ping Tjin spar over communist activities in 1950s-1960s COMMENT: Keep an open mind on history of Operation Coldstore Top image: Yahoo News Despite the title, this article is not about Monica Baey, Nicholas Lim or NUS. Its about how Singaporeans are talking about the case, and how this discourse reveals deeper issues that might be worth thinking about. What is Justice? The term justice is not in many Singaporeans vocabularies, but the majority of discourse and disagreements have revolved around this concept. In the Monica Baey case, justice (or lack of it) can be analysed at three levels 1. At the case level: was the outcome unjust in the case of Monica vs Nicholas? 2. At the institutional level: has NUS and/or SPF been handling cases of sexual misconduct unjustly? 3. At the systemic level: as a society, have we been blinded to the injustice of such cases due to our cultural biases? While I believe all three questions are legitimate (and also controversial), part of the complexity of this discussion is the inability of many Singaporeans to differentiate the three levels (as well as whether NUS or the police ought to be the rightful target of critique). But more fundamentally, all three questions hinge on the concept of what is just or unjust. This is something many people believe to be straightforward and intuitive, but I will attempt to show you that its not quite so simple. We cant avoid the fact that we now live in an age of moral outrage fuelled by social media. First observation: many people have different intuitions on whether or not, at the case level, the punishment meted out to Nicholas was just. Many people felt the punishment was too light, but many people have also felt that it was sufficient and justifiable, on grounds that Nicholas was a first-time offender who did not distribute the recorded video. Second observation: people disagree on the purpose of a just punishment. After all, punishment serves a combination of up to four different purposes: retribution, deterrence, incapacitation and restoration. Retribution is about making sure a guilty person suffers in a way commensurate with the seriousness of his offense. Deterrence is about discouraging other people from committing similar crimes, preventing future victims. Incapacitation is for dangerous criminals who need to be removed from society such that they can no longer harm innocents. Restoration is about helping a perpetrator reintegrate back into society to reduce the likelihood of repeat offences. Story continues In Nicholas case, people disagree on what the primary purpose of the punishment ought to be (or the correct proportion of a mix of purposes). One party values retribution and deterrence more (and feel that Nicholas punishment was too light); the other party values restoration more, thus the punishment was appropriate, and a harsher punishment would compromise its restorative aim. Im not a lawyer or a theorist on jurisprudence, but it seems clear to me that our concept of what is just depends on a few things: our personal capacity to empathise, who we choose to dehumanise, and the value we place on various conflicting things that we also consider good. The first two are related. If we empathise with Monica more, were more likely to dehumanise Nicholas. If we empathise more with Nicholas, were more likely to dehumanise Monica. Our degree of moral outrage, and towards whom it is directed, is directly correlated to our empathy levels. One important point to note is that since this is a criminal offence, there is indeed a victim and a perpetrator. One can argue that the victim demands more sympathy and the perpetrator deserves to be dehumanised. I wont refute this argument directly, but this position potentially leaves no space for restorative justice, and I also think it stems from an overly simplistic understanding of human nature: only bad people commit crimes, and thus they do not deserve to be treated as humans. I hope most adults realise that the world is much more grey than this, and that even the best of us are capable of causing grievous hurt and pain under the right circumstances. But the issue I most wish to discuss is about different value judgements on competing good things. To make sense of this, lets discuss a somewhat parallel case: the discourse around marital rape. Those who advocate for criminalising marital rape value something goodthe right for people who have been legitimately raped by their spouses to seek criminal justice. On the other hand, their opponents also desire something goodfor spouses to not be falsely accused of rape. The question then becomes about which good you value more. Not surprisingly, our intuitions differ on this, partly because our intuitions are likely uninformed by facts. For most of us, we dont really know the likelihood that someone will be falsely accused of rape, and we dont really know the number of people who suffer in silence due to marital rape. We can use only our own intuitions to guess, and our intuitions tend to side with which scenario we personally fear more. In the case of Monica vs Nicholas, what are the two competing goods that we differ intuitively upon? For the pro-Monica camp, it is certainly that NUS can be a safe campus for ladies, and perhaps some kind of desire for society to better address the hidden fears of women which have been unaddressed a for a long time. But what about the pro-Nicholas camp? This brings us to the next point. Social Media and the Age of Outrage The bulk of the pro-Nicholas camp isnt defending Nicholas for his offence, but are upset about the means Monica has used to address her concerns. In particular, her use of social media to mobilise mob justice, which arguably has been successful in getting NUS to reform their disciplinary policies. The weaponising of social media isnt new in Singapore of course; Amy Cheong losing her job at NTUC and Avijit Das Patnaik losing his job at DBS are two such examples. Most recently, the last minute banning of the Watain concert can also be interpreted as a successful example of mob justice. In the backdrop of Singaporeans who appear to be increasingly thin-skinned, making police reports over anything they find offensive, there is a legitimate fear that certain kinds of advocacy via social media might actually perpetuate injustice instead of justice (arguably, this has already happened in the doxxing of Nicholas and his family members). While I think this is a legitimate fear, I also feel the ship has sailed on this. We cant avoid the fact that we now live in an age of moral outrage fuelled by social media. [If you are tempted to think that POFMA will save us from this, I believe you are quite deeply mistaken]. And depending on how you feel about unaddressed injustices in Singapore, you might even feel that on the whole there is a net increase in justice (as is the case of Monica and NUS and/or SPF), and therefore this age of outrage isnt such a bad thing. To me, the real downside isnt new injustices being introduced (although that is definitely a bad thing), but that Singapore society is moving towards the kind of polarisation as seen in America, and rational discourse may soon become impossible (if not already). I believe the discussion around the Monica Baey case is further evidence of this. I see the polarisation of Singapore society as inevitable, although more optimistic souls exist and they believe greater media literacy as the solution. Why I am more pessimistic has to do with what I said above about our individual differences in empathy and values, and our lack of ability to engage meaningfully with someone from a different worldview. These wont go away even if we all attend a lecture series in media literacy. Perhaps the only sustainable solution lies in educationtraining students from young in empathy, discourses on justice, and the ability to disagree well. But as of now, that has no place in our current exam-driven education system. I dont have a good solution, and perhaps a solution is the wrong term, since not everybody sees this as a problem. I just think we all need to brace ourselves for a new kind of Brave New Singapore, and try to live our lives as wisely as possible. What are your thoughts on Nicholas Lims punishment, and what NUS should do? Tell us at community@ricemedia.co. The post Monica Baeys Case, and Whether Nicholas Lim Got the Punishment He Deserved appeared first on RICE. Photo credit: Tria Giovan From House Beautiful No matter the size or style of your house, one design challenge is universal: Making "each room different from one another, but still match the overarching theme of the home," says designer Courtney Hill Fertitta , who faced that issue head-on when she decorated this 10,000-square-foot Houston, Texas estate. The key, it turned out, was working with the architectural details in the space. She replaced a lot of the door and window details, for example, with a nude trim-in this way, each room had a blank palette upon which to work upon. But that was far from the only impact she made. Photo credit: Tria Giovan The two-story entryway, in particular, is very grand when you walk in. We wanted that space to be light and bright, explains Courtney, who used it as the jumping-off point for the entire downstairs area. I think that pop of color allowed us to play with the patterned rug in the next-door family room, she elaborates. In this way, as you walk into each room, you kind of have a peep at what the next space is going to be, be it a color tone we used in one room, or a particular texture or furniture piece. The purple-toned office space, green-walled library, and living room with gold accents are equally bold, all tying into the striking theme of the downstairs. High ceilings can be a challenge for most designers, but Courtney enjoyed playing with both wall color and decorative fixtures to draw ones eyes up, as well as have a little fun in the space. While the huge glass chandelier in the entry is obviously the showstopper, even the subtle pendant lights in the kitchen and sleek gold fixtures in the guest bedroom add a pop. I think layered lighting in a home really allows you to change things up based on your mood, or even the weather outside, she elaborates. Most of the lighting is actually vintage, and we sourced it right at the beginning of the project because it had to fit several different effects in the space. Story continues Photo credit: Tria Giovan Patterns and textural details also played a huge role in the home, particularly because of the modern accents throughout. Courtney knew that she was playing with a particularly formal space, but because the family also has little kids, it was vital that the house didnt lose its comfort and charm. A key here, when youre playing with patterns and texture, is to not overdo it, she explains. We tried to make sure that we picked only one part with color, and then the rest of the room was really richly toned and saturated. This more layered approach is seen in the dining room, where a rich, scenic wallpaper is juxtaposed with softer fabrics on the chairs and carpeting. Two fun bar areas in the room granted Courtney the opportunity to take more risks, as small spaces tend to allow. I think the smaller areas in the home give it a more intimate feel, says Courtney. Theyre all attached to larger spaces, so we could play around a bit-but we had to remember to still keep the spaces consistent to the overarching theme of the home. See Even More of the Home: The downstairs bar, for instance, is attached to the breezy kitchen, where most of the entertaining takes place. Since the kitchen is bright with metallic accents, the attached bar also had to stick to that theme by use of reflective, back-painted glass and open shelving. Alternatively, the coffee bar upstairs is attached to the guest bedroom, which is brown and neutral toned overall (although the satin blue wallpaper is a definite fun addition). For that space, Courtney wanted to add soft details to make the all-brown space still stand out-suede wallpaper, gold accents, and hidden storage all elevated it. Its no surprise, then, that Courtneys favorite room in the home is yet another smaller area-the sophisticated green library, which also doubles as a more casual dining space. I wanted to mix the library with a more intimate space where the family can have dinner, which isnt a dining room, says Courtney. It can also be used for casual lunches or for socializing, and again for quiet reflection. Photo credit: Tria Giovan To make sure the room was completely multipurpose, Courtney therefore focused on several elements-lighting, furniture, cozy accents, and grandness in scale. I think this room is akin to a jewelry box, she gushes. Courtney used tortoiseshell wallpaper behind the bookcases for interest, a huge chandelier for grandness, wooden chairs for a homey feel, and a patterned wall to draw ones eyes up. Although this combination might seem like too much for a small space, Courtney knew that by using the same shades of a single color, it wouldnt overwhelm the eye. I balanced the rich colors throughout the home, and the natural light and French doors also help, says Courtney. Overall, this gives the home a more calming feel than youd expect. Follow House Beautiful on Instagram. ('You Might Also Like',) SIOUX CITY -- The top administrator for the Sioux City public school district on Friday hailed passage of long-awaited state legislation aimed at extending a revenue source the district has tapped to build more than a dozen new schools. "We celebrate passage of the SAVE legislation in the Iowa Legislature, and look forward to the governor signing this extension of the penny sales tax for school infrastructure into law," Sioux City superintendent Paul Gausman said in a statement. "We have worked diligently to exhibit responsible use of this funding, and the extension, once signed into law, will allow us to continue to use this long-term alternative to property taxes for school facilities and make further investments in school safety, 21st century technology, STEM and CTE (Career and Technical Education), science labs, and fine arts facilities." The Iowa House on Thursday night gave its approval to SAVE, short for Secure an Advanced Vision for Education, which would extend the 1 percent sales tax until 2051. With the tax currently set to sunset in 2029, the Sioux City leaders said they had nearly run out of bonding authority to fund future infrastructure projects. A 22-year extension, they said, would help the district replace one or more aging elementary schools and modernize the three high schools, which were all built nearly 50 years ago. The idea for funding school infrastructure with sales tax proceeds started in Sioux City in the late 1990s as local leaders looked for an alternative to raising property taxes to replace a long list of crumbling and aging school buildings. Since local voters first approved the 1 percent tax in 1998, the Sioux City district, which has devoted more than $240 million in sales tax revenue to finance 18 renovation or construction projects. The work has included replacing all the middle schools and most of the again elementary schools, some of which had dated to the late 1880s. Under construction are two new elementary schools that will bear the same names as their old counterparts. Bryant is scheduled for completion in August at a cost of $24 million and Hunt is projected to be finished by August 2022 at a cost of $20.5 million. State lawmakers in 2008 expanded the school infrastructure tax statewide, with a formula distributing funding to the state's K-12 districts. Efforts to renew the tax had bogged down in recent years, with some lawmakers wanting to scoop up the revenue for some non-school infrastructure projects, while others wanted to devote some funding to reducing property taxes. In the bill that passed Thursday, House members, some reluctantly, accepted the Senates increase of how much of the 1 percent sales tax would go to property tax relief. The bill now specifies 70 percent would go to school infrastructure and 30 percent to property tax relief, up from the Houses proposed 15 percent. Despite the change, Rep. Jacob Bossman, R-Sioux City, called the bill a win-win because with the addition of new revenues from digital media and internet taxes SAVE revenue is increasing faster than projected. It is projected to raise almost $5.8 billion over 30 years. Rep. Sharon Steckman, D-Mason City, wasnt as enthused because of the doubling of the property tax relief, but Ill hold my nose and vote for it. SAVE, or House File 546, was approved, 95-4, with two Democrats and two Republicans voting no. It passed the Senate, 48-2. Gausman said the amendment increasing the portion of sales tax dollars to property tax relief "is also good for our local community, as the property tax equity relief that will come will help us most significantly because of our property value status in Sioux City." Sioux City has long struggled with having one of the lowest property tax valuations per student in the state because the district takes in less commercial and industrial property than most other districts. That's forced the local district to levy higher property tax rates to generate the same revenue as so-call property-rich districts. The Journal Des Moines Bureau contributed to this story. Copyright 2019 The Sioux City Journal. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 3 A roundup of legislative and Capitol news items for Saturday: NEW APPEALS JUDGES: Gov. Kim Reynolds on Saturday announced her appointments of Sharon Soorholtz Greer of Marshalltown and David May of Polk City as judges of the Iowa Court of Appeals. Greer received her undergraduate degree from Iowa State University and a law degree from the University of Iowas College of Law and is in private law practice. She fills a vacancy created when Reynolds appointed Christopher McDonald to the Iowa Supreme Court earlier this year. May received his undergraduate degree from the University of Missouri and a law degree from Drake University. He serves as a district court judge. He fills a vacancy created by the retirement of Judge David Danilson. ELECTRIC VEHICLE FEE: After a politically charged debate Saturday, Iowa senators sent Gov. Kim Reynolds legislation to impose a new state fee for electric vehicle registration. House File 764, which passed the state Senate, 34-14, will add a supplemental registration fee. When fully phased in, it will cost owners of electric vehicles an additional $130 a year. Backers said the goal is to maintain the Road Use Tax Fund (RUTF) that supports the construction and maintenance of Iowa roads and bridges. The RUTF provides 45 percent of the money for state, county and city roads, she said. The goal of House File 767 is for every vehicle owner to support the transportation system. The Iowa Department of Transportation is concerned that, as electric vehicle sales grow, federal and state motor fuel tax revenues that have supported transportation will continue to decline. The measure had passed the House, 78-20. SENATE CONFIRMATION: The Iowa Senate adjourned the 2019 session Saturday without taking up the confirmation of Gov. Kim Reynolds reappointment of Janet Phipps Burkhead to lead the state Department of Administrative Services. Minority Democrats had expressed reservations about supporting the DAS director, who served as the states chief negotiator in collective bargaining talks, at a time when Republicans revamped the law. She would be the top human resources officer during a period in which the state had to pay settlements to employees who alleged sexual harassment by the former head of the Iowa Finance Authority. Reynolds spokesman, Pat Garrett, declined to comment on the confirmation outcome for Phipps Burkhead, who will have to exit her post in May after failing to win the minimum 34 votes for a two-thirds majority of the 50-member Senate. Sen. Roby Smith, R-Davenport, said a vote was not taken because Democrats communicated that they were going to take her down and its disappointing they would do something like that. She was one of the most qualified and accomplished woman that has every served the state of Iowa, Smith said. He said it is up to Reynolds whether she would appoint Phipps Burkhead to a different assignment. Also, senators adjourned with reconsidering the vote for Phil Hemingway of Iowa City to serve on the state Board of Educational Examiners. He also had failed to muster the 34 votes needed for confirmation. Senators voted 49-0 on Friday to confirm Mark Schulings reappointment as the states consumer advocate. EXPLOSIVE WINE: Officials in the states Alcoholic Beverages Division released an advisory Friday that bottles of wines manufactured by a Missouri winery pose a risk of exploding. The bulletin followed a warning by the Missouri Division of Alcohol and Tobacco Control that certain products manufactured by the Casa de Loco winery, based in Eldon, Mo., might pose a danger and should immediately be secured. Six brands of Casa de Loco wine have been identified as posing a risk of explosion: Applesauced, Bellini Gold, Coming in Hot, Kona Lover Port, OCD and Peachy Thoughts. We dont believe these products have been sold in Iowa, but may have been purchased by Iowans traveling to Missouri, said Josh Happe, Iowa ABD chief of regulatory compliance. Anyone in possession of these products should immediately store them in a safe location should they explode and contact the Missouri Division of Alcohol and Tobacco Control at (573) 751-2964. The brands were known to have been sold in the following Missouri locations: Camdenton, Glasgow, Keytesville, Lebanon, Newburg, Osage Beach, Salisbury, St. Joseph, St. Robert, Stoutland, Sunrise Beach, Warsaw and Wright City. The wines also might have been distributed to consumers in other locations. REGENT REQUIREMENT: State legislators reversed course Friday on a policy proposal that would have imposed at 40 percent match requirement for the University of Iowa and Iowa State University and a 20 percent match requirement for the University of Northern Iowa on future construction projects at the three campuses. Match-requirement language had been included in an infrastructure budget bill that won legislative approval, but Sen. Michael Breitbach, R-Strawberry Point, said Friday the 40-40-20 language was scrapped in favor of more study of the financing issue. Language calling for a study was included in a fiscal 2020 standing appropriations bill that won Senate approval, 31-18. DIESEL SPILL CLEANUP: Department of Natural Resources officials said Friday the cleanup of a 50-gallon diesel fuel spill south of Iowa Falls was near completion. The fuel reached the South Fork of the Iowa River after a shut-off valve failed Monday as Agvantage FS was refueling a farm tank, according to the DNR. Agvantage FS worked with an environmental contractor to place floating booms in the river to contain and absorb the fuel, state officials said. The contractor contained fuel to just south of Highway D41 to about three-quarters of a mile west of KK Avenue. DNR officials say they revisited the area Thursday and saw active fish and aquatic life in the river. The contractor will leave booms in place until all oil sheen has disappeared, according to the DNR, which will continue to monitor cleanup and consider enforcement action, DNR officials said MANURE SPILL CLEANUP: Department of Natural Resources officials say they are investigating a complaint received late Wednesday about manure overflowing north of Charlotte, about 15 miles northwest of Clinton. DNR officials found evidence manure had overflowed from a concrete storage structure at the D&D Dairy, running overland to a small tributary of Bear Creek. Darryl Banowetz, the dairys owner, said the overflow began April 22, and he had built an earthen berm to retain it, state officials said. DNR field tests showed elevated levels of ammonia in the creek, but no sign of dead fish. The state agency will monitor cleanup and consider enforcement action, according to DNR officials. Gazette-Lee Des Moines Bureau Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 DES MOINES -- Fridays march to final adjournment of this years legislative session was slowed by a partisan fight over state funding for sex education and transgender surgery. Republicans who control the Iowa Senate amended a major budget bill with language that would bar state money from being used to provide for sex reassignment surgery for transgender Iowans and would block Planned Parenthood from participating in state-funded sex education programs. Backers said changes to amend the Iowa Civil Rights Act to block the use of public funds in covering sex reassignment surgery for transgender Iowans was in response to a recent court ruling forcing the states Medicaid program to cover it. Critics called the 11th-hour GOP power play a cynical and cowardly political use of a legislative procedural nuclear option that stifled open debate, attacked the medical health and well-being of transgender Iowans and jeopardized programs that effectively have curbed unwanted pregnancies and reduced abortions. The (Iowa) Supreme Court ruled just a couple months ago that Medicaid had to cover sex-change surgeries, so we had a discussion as a caucus and determined that we didnt believe that taxpayer dollars should be used to fund the sex-change surgeries, said Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver, R-Ankeny, who supports the effort to change the statute. It is over $50 million of total money with the pent-up demand and the demand for sex-change surgeries by people on Medicaid, including almost $20 million of state dollars and $35 million of federal dollars. Republicans, who hold majorities of 32-18 in the Iowa Senate and 53-47 in the Iowa House, placed language in the budget bill that amends the Iowa Civil Rights Act to block the use of public funds in covering sex reassignment surgeries. Sen. Jake Chapman, R-Adel, said he has heard from a lot of Iowans who felt Medicaid tax dollars should be reserved for other health-priorities and worried the court system has opened up a hot bed for people who want this surgery paid for and will come to Iowa to have it done. Fundamentally, I think a lot of people have no problem if you want to have that operation done, great just not with taxpayer money, Chapman told reporters. Senate Democratic Leader Janet Petersen of Des Moines called provisions of House File 776 a mean-spirited attempt at discrimination and she hoped Iowans would pressure Gov. Kim Reynolds to use her item-veto authority to remove the two controversial provisions if they managed to reach her desk. I think its an attack on Iowans civil rights both of these measures, said Petersen, and I think its cowardly that they do it on the last day of session and they have not allowed Iowans to weigh in on the process and run a policy bill through a policy committee. If they really felt strongly about this, they should have run these bills through the process instead of sneaking them in in the last minute with a backroom deal. Language in an amendment to HF 766 provides that no state or local government unit or tax-supported district would be allowed to provide for sex reassignment surgery or any other cosmetic, reconstructive or plastic surgery procedure related to transgender, hermaphroditism, gender identity disorder or body dysmorphic disorder. The amendment to be debated before the Iowa Legislature adjourns expected yet this week also had a separate section that restricts government funding for sex-education, personal responsibility education or community adolescent pregnancy prevention and services program to a provider who performs or promotes abortion. You are using Iowa children to make a political statement, Petersen told majority Republicans during Fridays floor debate. Youre putting politics ahead of public health. Daniel Hoffman-Zinnel, executive director of One Iowa Action, the largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning group in Iowa, condemned the GOP proposal to exclude transition-related medical services for transgender Iowans from all insurance coverage funded by public dollars, including Medicaid. Protecting transgender people from discrimination is settled law in Iowa, and has been since 2007, he said in a statement. The Iowa Supreme Court made clear that the Iowa Civil Rights Act protects transgender Iowans against Medicaid discrimination in their unanimous ruling just over one month ago. In response, a small group of legislators want to pick and choose who deserves protections under the law, and its clear they think of transgender Iowans as second-class citizens. This amendment is a harmful attempt to deny transgender Iowans medically necessary care, and it will not stand up to legal muster, Hoffman-Zinnel added. He pointed out that the proposal is coming as the session winds down for the year, calling the timing deeply troubling. Its clear that these legislators know they are doing something shameful, his statement said. Minority Democrats called the sex-education grants language another targeted attack on Planned Parenthood. Any reasonable person who wants to see fewer abortions should work to promote access to sex education and family planning, said Erin Davison-Rippey, state executive director of Iowa/Planned Parenthood North Central States. Its shameful that elected officials would put their own narrow political agenda above the health and well-being of their constituents. Petersen agreed. They say theyre fixing something and its not broken, she said. Its a highly successful program that works. The GOP language, which was drafted in a way that procedurally could not be amended further, would have the effect of shutting down all state-funded sex-education programs for months while a new process is undertaken to enlist qualified bidders, she noted. Its just ridiculous, said Petersen. I dont why we would be trying to put the brakes on a teen-pregnancy prevention program that we know works. The Legislature already had banned Planned Parenthood from participating in state-funded health care clinics. Whitver said the proposal is a continuation of that. We have addressed Planned Parenthood in the last couple years and there is just one little small piece that they have left, which is the sex-education, he said. There are other vendors to do that and we wanted to keep that with other vendors. The issues follows an Iowa Supreme Court decision in March striking down an administrative code that restricted Iowans from using Medicaid funds for gender-assignment surgeries. In the ruling, justices upheld a decision made in the 5th District Court that agreed with the two transgender women who filed the suit that denying Medicaid reimbursement for surgeries to treat gender dysphoria is in violation of the Iowa Civil Rights Act. The permanent injunction on the administrative rule remains in place, meaning it cant be used as a basis to deny Medicaid dollars to individuals seeking these medical procedures. The courts decision put a bookend on a two-year legal battle over the Iowa Department of Human Services rule that held gender reassignment surgeries are not considered medically necessary to restore bodily function, and are therefore exempt from coverage. The controversial policy language was placed in a $1.94 billion budget bill designed to fund human services and public health services and programs in fiscal 2020 that impact a huge portion of the states most-vulnerable and needy populations. Included was a $150.3 million supplemental appropriation to help cover Iowas privately managed Medicaid program for the current fiscal year. The Health and Human Services budget and the $3.86 billion standing appropriations that included the states K-12 school foundation aid approaching $3.3 billion were key final pieces as Republicans assembled an overall $7.643 billion state spending plan for fiscal 2020. A total of 31 GOP senators voted for the Human Services budget bill while Sen. Tom Greene, R-Burlington, joined 18 Democrats in opposing the measure. The standings bill passed the Senate on a 3-18 party-line vote. Love 2 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 DES MOINES -- The Iowa Legislature gave final approval Saturday to a $1.94 billion health and human services budget despite emotional opposition from lawmakers who argued it failed to meet the needs of vulnerable Iowans, did not address problems in the private management of Medicaid and endangered the lives of transgender individuals. In the final hours of the 2019 session, lawmakers also approved changes in Iowas judicial nominating system by increasing the sway of the governor over who sits on the Iowa Supreme Court and appeals court. House Democrats were sometimes angry and tearful in calling for the rejection of amendments to the health and human services budget to bar state money from being used to cover sex reassignment surgery for transgender Iowans on Medicaid and block Planned Parenthood from participating in state-funded sex education programs. Rep. Bruce Hunter, D-Des Moines, accused majority Republicans of homophobic bigotry and called the measure offensive on its face. Republicans seem intent on doing everything you can to deny the basic human rights to the LGBTQ+ community, he said. You have proven today that while rights can be given, they can also be taken away. Democrats also warned Republicans that in withholding support from Planned Parenthood for sex education, they likely will see an increase in unwanted pregnancies and abortions. Rep. Lisa Heddens, D-Ames, said House File 766 did absolutely nothing to address the problems in the Medicaid program that has been under private management for three years. Maybe some people think these vulnerable people are a little bit more expendable, Heddens asserted. I think its quite shameful what the body has not done this session despite increasing payments to the managed care companies so their shareholders get their funding. In the end, representatives voted 52-47 for the bill. The Senate concurred 31-17 and sent it to the governor. Before debating the Human Services budget, representatives approved changes in the state judicial nominating process. They were included in the more than $3.86 billion standing appropriations budget, Senate File 638. Currently, the governor and the Iowa bar appoint equal numbers of nomination commission members. The senior-most Iowa Supreme Court Justice who is not the chief justice also serves as the chair. The standing appropriations budget, which also included $3.3 billion for K-12 education, was amended to have eight members selected by the bar and nine appointed by the governor supplanting the chair with a gubernatorial pick. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Steve Holt, R-Denison, said the change gives people a little more voice through their elected governor. Rep. Andy McKean of Anamosa, who earlier in the week defected from the Republican Party, in part due to the judicial nominating proposal, called it the latest of many desperate attempts to corral 51 votes for a piece of very questionable legislation. Rep. Rick Olson, D-Des Moines, said the GOP was practicing ostrich politics in changing the system legislators created and voters approved in 1962 by constitutional amendment. He said Republicans stick their heads in the sand and give the great citizens of the state of Iowa the full moon. However, Holt argued the amendment preserved the integrity of the merit-based judicial nominating system. If he ignored deficiencies of the current system, then Im sticking my head in the sand and mooning my fellow citizens. The standings budget was approved 53-45 and sent to the Senate, where it was approved 32-16. Earlier in the session, the Senate had passed a stand-alone version of judicial nominating changes, 32-17. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 1 Angry 0 DES MOINES --A scaled-back proposal to tweak the process that places judges on the bench in Iowa was given consideration Friday by state lawmakers. Republican state legislators set out this year to alter the citizen panels that nominate Iowans to serve as judges. The plan they introduced early during the legislative session was an expansive overhaul of those panels; the proposal introduced Friday was much more narrow in scope, the result of negotiations in order to garner enough Republican votes to get it passed. I think our initial proposal was very good, but we did not have the support to get there, said Rep. Steve Holt, R-Denison, saying some members had concerns --- with which he disagreed --- that the initial proposal politicized the process by allowing state lawmakers to appoint commission members. But in addressing those concerns, we looked at is there a way to achieve a similar objective. ... I like where weve landed. Iowas state judicial nominating commission interviews applicants to the Iowa Supreme Court and state appeals court, and creates a list of finalists for openings. The governor then appoints a judge from that list of finalists. Currently, half of the state judicial nominating commissions members are attorneys and half are appointed by the governor, subject to approval by the Iowa Senate. And the senior-most Supreme Court Justice who is not the chief justice also serves on the commission, as its chairperson. Republican state lawmakers earlier this year proposed taking away the attorneys nominations, giving those appointments instead to legislative leaders. That proposal passed the Senate, but did have enough votes to pass the House, where Republicans hold a slim, 53-47 majority. The new proposal, introduced Friday as legislators crept closer to adjourning for the year, would eliminate the Supreme Court member and give the governor one more appointee, and the commission members would elect their chairperson. Hundreds of thousands of people elect the governor, so having her have that one more (appointment to the commission), I think, does give that additional voice to the people while leaving the important aspect of the attorneys voice in the process, Holt said. Democrats have not been supportive of the proposals. They have accused Republicans of trying to insert politics into the courts. Rep. Mary Wolfe, D-Clinton, an attorney, called the streamlined proposal even more blatantly political. The judicial nominating proposal was placed in the budget bill Senate File 638 https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislation/BillBook?ga=88&ba=sf638, which lawmakers still needed to debate and approve in order to finish their work for the session. Republican leaders in both the House and Senate appeared to be in agreement on the revised proposal. Im pleased with the progress that has been made. Weve upheld our principle of trying to make at least a majority of people on the commission picked by someone whos accountable to the state of Iowa, and I think this achieves that, said Sen. Dan Dawson, R-Council Bluffs. Officials with the Iowa Bar Association did not respond to requests for comment Friday night, and lobbyists for the association at the Capitol declined to comment. Drew Klein, of Americans for Prosperity, said the conservative tax policy organization, which had been pushing for judicial nominating reform, is not real excited. There are a few things that signify modest improvements. I have a hard time uttering the words, Im supportive, Klein said. I think it became, This is all they could get done this year. The proposal also lowers the number of signatures required for an attorney to be considered for a judicial vacancy and limits the Iowa Supreme Court Chief Justice to two-year terms, after which a leadership vote must be retaken. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Eastern Iowas 58th House District appears to be popular with politically flexible candidates. Iowa Rep. Andy McKean created a statehouse stir this week when he announced his decision to change his political party affiliation from Republican to Democrat. McKean has served two stints in the Iowa House for a total of nearly 20 years. He represents the Houses 58th District, which includes all of Jackson County, much of Jones County and a small piece of southwestern Dubuque County. The district is no stranger to the political pendulum swinging for its statehouse representatives. Before McKean returned to the statehouse in 2017, the district was represented for six years by Brian Moore, a former Democrat who became a Republican. Moore in 2010 ran unsuccessfully in a Democratic primary for an Iowa Senate seat, then switched parties and ran that fall for the Iowa House seat and won as a Republican. From that twist in 2010 to McKeans announcement this week, it would seem for Iowa Republicans that the 58th District giveth and the 58th District taketh away. Its quite the coincidence that the same district, one of 100 in the Iowa House, would be represented by consecutive political shape-shifters. Or maybe its not. The 58th District is certainly not the most politically divided: 31 percent Democrats, 25 percent Republicans and 44 percent no-party voters as of the most recent state data. And its in the heart of Obama-Trump country. The district swung 33 points between 2012, when Democrat Barack Obama won it, and 2016, when President Trump was the victor. Only one Iowa House District the 51st, in north Iowa swung more. Maybe in the 58th District the candidate is more important than the letter after his or her name. McKean hopes so, since he plans to run for re-election in 2020, this time with a different letter. "I hope the people back home will know that Im still the same Andy McKean I always was. Ive just changed my party affiliation. But Ill still be working for the very same goals and priorities that Ive had over many years in public service," McKean said. "I fully expect that there will be some ramifications. I know there will be people who will be disappointed. There will probably be people who will be pleased, too." The reaction to McKeans announcement was indeed as mixed as it was widespread. National media outlets picked up on the news of a statehouse Republican disavowing his party, in large part due to his disagreements with President Trump's policies and behavior. Among Iowa Republicans, some at the statehouse wished McKean well and outwardly, at least, showed no frustration with his decision. His move is especially stressful for Iowa House Republicans, who saw their majority which was pared in the 2018 election from nine to four trimmed by one more. Outside the Golden Dome, some Iowa Republicans were less forgiving. State party chairman Jeff Kaufmanns statement lambasted McKean and his criticism of Trump. And there was some Iowa GOP social media chatter that McKean had sealed his electoral fate by switching parties in a district that Trump carried. Predicting McKeans defeat in 2020 may be premature. That is not to say he is guaranteed a victory, only that it seems short-sighted to suggest McKean will lose just because he switched parties in a district that Trump carried. McKean has significant name recognition, a critical component in elections and especially in local races. He has been on the ballot regularly, and voters have elected him repeatedly. In a local election, McKeans party affiliation may not matter as much as candidates further up the ballot. And McKean is well-known in his district. In addition to serving as a statehouse representative for roughly two decades, he also was a Jones County supervisor. Independent of McKean and his district, political scientists will tell you voters view statehouse elections far differently than presidential elections. It is not at all uncommon for voters to split their tickets and vote for a local candidate regardless of which party they support atop the ballot. What is safe to assume is the 58th District race will be interesting in 2020. Republicans surely will work to field a strong candidate who can help them win back a seat that, with McKeans change, they have lost for the next 20 months. Erin Murphy covers Iowa politics and government for Lee Enterprises. His email address is erin.murphy@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter at @ErinDMurphy. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get More Slate Money Slate Plus members get extended, ad-free versions of our podcastsand much more. Sign up today. Join Slate Plus Subscribe to Slate Money Copy this link and add it in your podcast app. copy link copied! For detailed instructions, see our Slate Plus podcasts page. Listen to Slate Money via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play. This week, Taffy Brodesser-Akner comes on the show to talk about her New York Times Magazine piece on Sterling Jewelers, the parent company that owns brands like Kay, Jared, and Zales. Plus, Taffy weighs in on the celebrity-industrial complexa topic she knows a lot about after spending eight months with Gwyneth Paltrow for a story. And in the Slate Plus segment: Chip and Joanna Gaines new network. Email: slatemoney@slate.com Twitter: @felixsalmon, @Three_Guineas, @EmilyRPeck Podcast production by Jessamine Molli. This article is published through a partnership with New York Medias Strategist. The partnership is designed to surface the most useful, expert recommendations for things to buy across the vast e-commerce landscape. We update links when possible, but note that deals can expire and all prices are subject to change. Every editorial product is independently selected by New York Media. If you buy something through our links, Slate and New York Media may earn an affiliate commission. Lots of brands claim to be natural or organic, but knowing the difference between products that are truly organic, nontoxic, and better for the environment and those that simply claim to be green can require a level of expertise most shoppers dont have or care to acquire. Unfortunately, there are still no federal regulations forcing manufacturers to list the ingredients in their products on packaging and consumer advocacy groups cant always keep up with the influx of new products. Advertisement One way to ensure that you know whats in your cleaning products is to make them yourself. Ask any green-living expert or organic devotee, and theyll tell you that the best natural cleaning products are regular white vinegar and baking soda, with a little lemon or orange thrown in. But if you dont want to mix and bottle your own cleaning products, or would like something with a more pleasant smell, there are many, many options. We consulted a bunch of experts ranging from authors, bloggers, TV hosts, and eco-conscious cleaning services on which kitchen sprays, laundry detergents, and all-purpose baking-soda scrubs are actually healthier for our homes. The best natural all-purpose cleaners Bon Ami was recommended by two experts Saudia Davis of Best of New York GreenHouse Eco-Cleaning and Cindy DiPrima of CAP Beauty who use it as a scrubbing powder when they need something stronger than baking soda. I use Bon Ami, which has been around forever, and has a very simple ingredient deck, DiPrima says. Meliora Cleaning Products Gentle Home Cleaning Scrub In the same universe as Bon Ami is Melioras line of gentle cleaning scrubs. This one has the refreshing scent of peppermint and tea tree. I like this product because it adds that extra kick to your cleaning power and can be used on several surfaces, including stainless steel, stove tops and ceramic tiles. says Gay Browne, author of Living With a Green Heart. Its tough, yet gentle and its peppermint tea tree scent is a pleasant alternative to simple baking soda. Better Life All-Purpose Cleaner A plant-based cleaner that works just as well as the chemical-filled ones. Micaela Preston of mindfulmomma.com recommends the all-purpose spray, but theres also a stainless-steel polish, a product that not many other natural cleaning brands carry. Dr. Bronners Pure Castile Soap As anyone whos ever read a Dr. Bronners label knows, this liquid castile soap was designed for truly all-purpose use. As in, it cleans your body and your floors and your dishes. (Technically, you can even brush your teeth with it.) Dilute as needed and marvel at how far you can stretch this stuff. Mrs. Meyers Clean Day Basil Scent Multi-Surface Everyday Cleaner Green living expert Danny Seo who hosts his own show on NBC called Naturally, Danny Seo recommended the eponymous Mrs. Meyers surface spray for its cleaning power and its addictive scent. It doesnt just smell amazing, it gets surfaces throughout the whole house really clean. Plus its made with plant-derived ingredients and essential oils, so its gentle and wont irritate skin. Citra Solv Multi-Purpose Spray Orange peel plays a major roll in a lot of natural cleaning products because its the source of a naturally occurring solvent and great at cutting grease. We only use one natural cleaning product, says Daniil Dimitrov, a cleaning expert from Fantastic Services in London, whose preferred product Citra Clean is made from natural citrus solvent. It will clean any surface that you can spray, mop or wipe with a damp cloth. Also works in pressure washers and carpet cleaners. You get the idea if it is dirty, this cleans it. This consumer-sized spray has nearly exactly the same ingredients and is easier to store. Branch Basics Concentrate Branch Basics was recommended by two of our experts Kimberly Button, creator of the Ultimate Home Detox Guide, and Browne. The multipurpose, all-in-one-cleaner not only is made of only plant- and mineral-based nontoxic ingredients, but it also cuts out packaging waste, says Browne. The concentrate can also be used for laundry, hands and body (when diluted), and as a streak-free window cleaner. The best natural dish soaps Davis says that she usually makes her own cleaners, but that she uses Ecovers dish soap. The Amazon link is for a pack of six, if you want to go all-in. Seo uses this CFDA-certified organic hand sanitizer, but to clean any bacteria and dirt on his fruits and veggies, not hands. It also removes the wax coating that often covers apples and cucumbers. The Environmental Working Group, a consumer source for green product testing results and rankings, gave this baby-bottle wash and gentle dishwashing liquid an A for its natural and nontoxic ingredients. It can also be used to clean toys and teething rings. Truly, the best way to clean wood floors is with simple white vinegar, DiPrima says. This one is scented with lavender to take some of the edge off. The ingredients in Truces cleaning supply products are natural (the company uses lots of vinegar, for example), but the company also uses a refill model that aims to eliminate packaging waste. If you have wood floors, this cleaner also uses olive oil to help nourish them and keep them smooth. Could also work on wood furniture or windowsills. For a lot of consumers, going green includes limiting packaging that does harm to the planet. Our mission is to make families happier by creating clean, healthy home environments, says Abe Navas, general manager of Emilys Maids, a natural home-cleaning service in Dallas, Texas. We use this product because its organic and reusable. After you buy the bottle you can buy the refill blister packs at any time. It has a good price attached to it and its simple and easy to use. The best natural fabric cleaner Biokleens most well-known product has an enzyme that breaks down odors, but also removes stains like chocolate and wine. A natural toilet-bowl cleaner Prestons favorite pine toilet-bowl cleaner comes with Ecovers recently redesigned packaging. And a natural pet odor and stain remover Like Biokleen, Earthworm pet and stain eliminator uses enzymes to break down a whole host of pet stains, and its highly rated by the Environmental Working Group. Earthworm beat Natures Miracle in that its fragrance-free and so less likely to cause potential allergies. Plus, supplies for making your own cleaners Seo, who founded his own natural-goods-focused magazine, prefers DIY cleaning sprays, so he makes a mixture of white vinegar, water, and lemon that breaks down grime and grease, while also disinfecting and removing odors. This bottle conveniently holds it all in one place. When mixing up his own cleaning supplies, Navas likes to fill these amber glass spray bottles with a combination of DIY cleaning products and essential oils. The honey-brown colored glass is attractive and also keeps UV rays from degrading your cleaner. A good natural or metal bristle brush does wonders as do good, quality French pop-up sponges, DiPrima says. Seo uses these natural fiber sponges over and over again. His tip to make them last: zapping them every once in a while. Place them in the microwave to sterilize and they pretty much last forever. Plain white vinegar and baking soda works to remove dirt and wax from produce, but scrubbing with these Japanese Tawashi brushes will increase the amount of dirt and germs removed. You can also use these to scrub your prized cast-iron skillet. 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. Did Joe Biden exploit racism 40 years ago? Critics are raising that question about the former vice president based on letters and interviews in which, as a young senator, he argued against court-ordered busing. Biden supported civil rights, voting rights, and fair housing. But in recent months, tipsters and reporters have unearthed a stash of letters and a pair of 1975 interviewsone with NPR, the other with a print outlet called the People Paperthat, in the almost identical words of CNN and the Washington Post, could tarnish Biden in the eyes of a Democratic Party that has moved to the left and grown more ethnically diverse. Advertisement The implication is that Biden sucked up to fearful whites in the 1970s and now must answer for that demagoguery in a party that has become more vigilant against racism. So lets look more closely at what he wrote and said. The issues were complicated, as were Bidens positions and arguments. Whether those arguments were correct or in good faith is up to voters to decide. But here are some of the questions he needs to answer. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement 1. Did he underestimate economic segregation? In the busing debate, Biden focused on a distinction between de jure and de facto segregation. De jure segregation, as he described it, meant that school district lines had been deliberately drawn to segregate children by race. In those situations, Biden supported court-ordered busing. But where there was no evidence that the governmental officials intended to discriminate, Biden concluded that any observed segregation was unintentional, and he proposed to ban court-ordered busing in such places. In his 2007 memoir, Promises to Keep, Biden reaffirmed that he opposed busing to remedy de facto segregation owing to housing patterns. Advertisement Advertisement Was that a mistake? Does Biden believe that economic segregation, in the form of rich white neighborhoods and poor black neighborhoods, can be overcome without aggressive interventions such as busing? Or has this kind of stratification proved to be so persistent that stronger action is warranted? 2. Did he endorse a version of separate but equal? In his memoir, Biden spoke with reverence of the heroic Brown v. Board of Education decision, which ruled that separate schools were inherently unequal. But in his 1975 print interview, he scorned the idea that black children could learn only if they sit next to white children. Biden said it wasnt necessary for black kids to rub shoulders with white ones. Unlike segregationists, he confined this argument to de facto segregation. But in retrospect, was he wrong? Does he believe that equal educational opportunity requires integration? Advertisement Advertisement 3. Did he misapply the idea of black pride to justify segregation? In the NPR interview, Biden said the concept of busing, the idea that we are going to integrate people so that they all have the same access and they learn to grow up with one another, was a rejection of the whole movement of black pride. It was a rejection, he argued, of the idea that black is beautiful, black culture should be studied, and the cultural awareness of the importance of their own identity. Does he still believe this? Or does he think, looking back, that this argument falsely assured whites that de facto segregation was good for blacks? Advertisement Advertisement 4. Did he misjudge the necessity of quotas? In the print interview, Biden denounced quota systems [designed] to assure a certain number of blacks, Chicanos, or whatever in each school. He proposed legislation that, in his words, would prevent federal officials from deciding that any child, black or white, should fit in some predetermined ratio. Under the legislation, Biden explained, no bureaucrat could tell a school district whether it is properly segregated or desegregated. He also endorsed legislation that would block federal officials from collecting data on how many students or teachers in a school were black or white. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Without such data, how could the government monitor or rectify de facto segregation? Does Biden regret opposing the use of racial metrics? As president, would he direct the Department of Justice to defend the use of racial statistics in affirmative action? 5. Does he believe busing did more harm than good? Biden made serious arguments against busing. He warned that diverting kids to faraway schools, against the will of their parents, would antagonize parents. It makes no sense to people that they cant send their child to the school thats two blocks down the street, Biden observed. He worried that it would take people who arent racist and fill them with hatred. In his memoir, Biden recalled that with the arrival of court-ordered busing, many whites fled to suburbs or pulled their kids out of public schools. He described strikes by teachers who faced mandatory transfers and in some cases pay cuts. Busing was a liberal train wreck, and it was tearing people apart, he wrote. Advertisement Was he right? Did court-ordered busing rend the fabric of families and communities? Was it socially and politically untenable? If so, would Biden oppose any of todays remedial policies or ideas, such as reparations, on the same grounds? Advertisement Advertisement 6. What measures does Biden support to equalize opportunity? There are other things besides busing that we should be addressing to deal with these problems, Biden proposed in the print interview. For example, during my [1972] campaign I went on record in support of a single statewide school district tax. That measure, he argued, would have balanced the distribution of educational benefits. He also touted his work on behalf of public housing in the suburbs of New Castle County, which could rectify discrimination in housing patterns. Biden said the government should put more money into the black schools, upgrade facilities, and open up housing patterns. Does he think weve done enough in these areas? What more would he do? Advertisement Today, Bidens role in the busing debate is again being portrayed as evidence of his complicity in racism. Does he feel, on reflection, that he earned this criticism? 7. Does he believe race-based policies are morally wrong? Biden didnt just criticize the social effects of busing. He also challenged remedial racial policies on moral grounds. He argued that quota systems, such as those used in busing, forced people into a planned society, which I abhor. A true liberal, Biden reasoned, stood for as much flexibility in society as possible. Second, he argued that such policies dehumanized people, reducing every individual to part of a racial percentage instead of a person. Third, he said it was wrong to penalize someone who has committed no wrong, based simply on the generalization of his races violation of the civil rights of another race. Advertisement Advertisement Looking back, does Biden recant those arguments? Or does he still believe them? Advertisement 8. Does he think some accusations of racism are unjust? In his memoir, Biden complained that his position on busing in the 1970s was misunderstood as racist. He wrote: For my effort to restore a little common sense, a few of my colleagues pulled me aside to ask how and when the racists had gotten to me. At one of those hearings I was accused of attempting to propel us back to the segregated policies of the fifties. Advertisement Advertisement Today, Bidens role in the busing debate is again being portrayed as evidence of his complicity in racism. Does he feel, on reflection, that he earned this criticism? Or does he think that today, much like 40 years ago, he and other moderates are unfairly accused of bigotry? 9. Was he influenced by the political power of white resentment? Throughout the busing debate, Biden distanced himself from overt racists. I dont want to be mixed up with a George Wallace, he said. But in his memoir, he conceded that as the anti-busing movement surged in Delaware, I started to get the feeling that busing might cost me my seat in the coming election. He recalled being counseled by two Southern senators to go home and demagogue the shit out of the issue. Biden claims he didnt do that. But he did assure crowds at campaign events in the 1970s that busing should be prohibited in situations of de facto segregationi.e., in Delaware. Did fear of alienating white voters contribute to his advocacy of restrictions on busing? And does that make him complicit in a racial backlash? Advertisement Advertisement 10. Was he biased by his perspective as a white man? Some of the language in Bidens print interview is jarring. He ridiculed the idea that in order to learn, your child with curly black hair, brown eyes, and dark skin needs to sit next to my blond-haired, blue-eyed son. He asked, Who the hell do we think we are, that the only way a black man or woman can learn is if they rub shoulders with my white child? He spoke of whites as us but of blacks as them. In the NPR interview, Biden assured listeners that he had examined himself for prejudice. He described meeting with leaders and calling the blacks in my staff together to ask, Is there something in me that deep-seated, that I dont know? He implied that these consultations had cleared him. Did they? Looking back, does he believe that he identified more with whites than with blacks? Does he think this skewed his understanding of economic segregation and busing? Advertisement Advertisement To his credit, Biden is introspective. He understands humility. We tend to make instant heroes out of our public figures, he mused in the 1975 print interview. [We] turn them into clay, which then becomes very brittle. Then we break them. We say, See, they never were what they said they were. But they never said they were what we said they were. The young senator reminded his interviewer, Every individual makes mistakes. Biden, too, makes mistakes. But in his memoir, recalling his role in the busing debate, he didnt really acknowledge any. Now hell have to think harder. A woman was killed and three were injured in a shooting at a synagogue outside San Diego Saturday. A law enforcement source tells ABC News the suspect appeared to fire more than 10 rounds before leaving, noting it all happened very quickly. [We were] outside in front of our house and heard about six gunshots, a pause, some yelling and then another six or seven gunshots, neighbor Chris Folts said. The San Diego County sheriffs office said on Twitter that a man has been detained in connection with a shooting incident that took place at the Chabad of Poway synagogue. Poway is located around 20 miles north of San Diego. Advertisement Update #1: A man has been detained for questioning in connection with a shooting incident at the Chabad of Poway synagogue. @SDSOPoway Deputies were called to Chabad Way just before 11:30 a.m. There are injuries. This is a developing situation. Poway Station (@SDSOPoway) April 27, 2019 Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The sheriffs office said on Twitter that all those injured were taken to Palomar Medical Center. The hospital has confirmed it received four injured people. Mayor Steve Vaus later said one person had been killed in the shooting, which he described as a possible hate crime. The three other people who were injured have non-life-threatening injuries. One of the victims appears to be the rabbi who was conducting service, who suffered hand injuries, according to the local ABC affiliate 10News. Advertisement Advertisement Hate has no place in ANY community... least of all Poway. We will put our arms around each other and walk through this tragedy as the family we have always been and always will be. #PowayStrong Steve Vaus (@SteveVaus) April 27, 2019 Rabbi Yisorel Goldstein reportedly continued with his sermon after he was wounded as he called on members to stay strong, reports the San Diego Union-Tribune. The rabbi and two other people were injured, synagogue member Minoo Anvari, whose husband was inside when the shooting broke out, said. One guy was shooting at everybody and cursing. Advertisement The synagogue was targeted by someone with hate in their heart towards our Jewish community and that just will not stand, Vaus said. Update#2 Those wounded in the Chabad of Poway #synagogueshooting were taken to Palomar Medical Center @PalomarHealth. Please respect the medical privacy of victims & their families during this difficult time. Remain clear of the area as this investigation will take several hours San Diego Sheriff (@SDSheriff) April 27, 2019 The synagogues website states that prayers are held at 10 a.m. on Saturdays followed by a childrens program at 11 a.m. The synagogue was also hosting a Passover Holiday Celebration on Saturday that was set to start at 11 a.m. The shooting took place exactly six months after a shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue killed 11 people on October 27. Joe Biden has barely begun his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, and it looks like hes already given up on the gender stuff. On Thursday, soon after Biden announced his entrance into the race with a tweeted video, the New York Times published Anita Hills account of a phone call hed made to her a few weeks earlier. Ostensibly, the point of the call was to make amends with the woman hed famously failed as the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1991, when Hill testified that thenSupreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas had repeatedly sexually harassed her. Advertisement But according to both Hill and Bidens team, the former vice president didnt apologize for asking Hill skeptical questions about her alleged harassment or for failing to call three witnesses who were willing to echo or back up Hills allegations. He didnt apologize for allowing Republicans on the committee to badger her with accusations that she suffered from erotomania, a condition characterized by delusions that a higher-ranking person has the hots for them. Biden didnt even apologize for telling Hill shed get to testify first, then, without notifying her, allowing Thomas to go first instead. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In fact, Hill told the Times, Biden didnt apologize at all. Bidens team said he conveyed his regret for what she endured. What she endured. Not what he did. Advertisement Advertisement Over the past couple of years, as Biden has been mulling a presidential run, hes occasionally expressed sympathy for Hill in public. Every time, hes refused to put any blame on his own shoulders. Im so sorry that she had to go through what she went through, he told Glamour in 2017. Later that year, he gave an interview to Teen Vogue. My one regret is that I wasnt able to tone down the attacks on her by some of my Republican friends, he said. I wish I had been able to do more for Anita Hill. I owe her an apology. And when Biden appeared on The View on Friday, in his first sit-down interview since launching his campaign, he again declined to take any responsibility. Im sorry for the way [Hill] got treated, he told the shows panel of women. I dont think I treated her badly. Advertisement The fact that he gave these dutiful half-apologies to outlets and shows that are designed to appeal to women is typical of the Biden approach to gender: more concerned with where and how he appears than what he says and does. None of this is surprising given Bidens reaction to the personal accounts of women who said hed touched them in ways that made them feel uncomfortable. He couldve responded with a gesture of humility, saying hed learned a valuable lesson and would take responsibility for his habitual disregard for the wants and needs of the women he meets. Instead, he released a video that spun his touchiness as an integral part of his humanity, erased the gendered aspect of his actions (he said he touches both women and men in the ways the women described, though no men have said he kissed their heads), and failed to offer so much as a perfunctory apology. Then, just a couple of days after publishing the video, Biden made two jokes mocking the women hed discomfited and the very notion of consent. Then, on The View, Biden started to apologize for his handsiness, then said, Im not sorry in the sense that I think I did anything that was intentionally designed to do anything wrong or be inappropriate. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The message Biden is sending is that he cares about women as a political bloc but not as individuals whose perspectives merit concerted empathy. He either thinks female voters will be satisfied by a pat on the head accompanied by a roll of the eyes, or he believes his strong support among older Democratsmany of whom share his eye-rolling impulse when it comes to gender issueswill be enough to win a contested primary without getting the buy-in of progressive feminists. Nothing encapsulates that wager better than the opening lines of the first email of the Biden campaign: America is an idea. Based on a founding principle that all men are created equal. The men in this statement would raise the hackles of anyone who has given even a passing thought to the way women were written out of the countrys founding document and the reasons why women shouldnt be written out of contemporary political messaging. I cant decide which would be worse: Bidens camp neglecting to employ anyone with a rudimentary instinct for gender inclusion or the campaign making a deliberate decision to exclude women from its paraphrasing of the Declaration of Independence so as not to alienate Biden supporters who grumble about oversensitive feminists. Either way, this is the work of a campaign that sees women as an obstacle to circumvent, a collection of voters whose niche concerns can be quelled with an appearance on The View. The bitter leadership battle that has engulfed the National Rifle Association and recently burst into public view has come out with a clear winner. Oliver North surprised attendees at the groups annual convention by announcing that he would not serve a second term as president of the organization, as is tradition. Although he doesnt outright say it, the letter North had someone read on his behalf at the convention makes clear that he was forced out following his efforts to get longtime CEO Wayne LaPierre out of the organization. In the statement, North says he was informed that he would no be nominated for reelection after his term ends Monday. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ive been on the NRA board for more than two decades, North said. It was a great privilege to serve as your president this past year, an honor second to only serving our country as a U.S. Marine in combat. North went on to say that shortly after he took office in September he was faced with a spate of complaints about how much money the NRA was paying a contractor. North also called for a committee to be set up to review the NRAs finances. Advertisement Advertisement The shocking turn of events at the organization that is embroiled in an intense leadership battle comes a day after it was revealed that LaPierre wrote a letter to the board accusing North of extortion. In the letter, LaPierre said North, the former Marine Corps lieutenant colonel who is best known for the role he played in the Iran-contra affair, had threatened to release damaging information about him to the board. Delivered by a member of our Board on behalf of his employer, the exhortation was simple: resign or there will be destructive allegations made against me and the NRA, LaPierre wrote in the letter that was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. Advertisement The leadership dispute also comes at a time when the New York attorney general, Letitia James, has opened an investigation into the groups tax-exempt status, reports the New York Times. That looming investigation is in part what sparked the confrontation. The current situation, North wrote in his statement, means that the organizations non-profit status is threatened. James actions were hardly a surprise. Before he relection last year, she had vowed to investigate the NRAs tax-exempt status, saying in an interview that while the group claimed to be a charitable organization it was actually a terrorist organization. President Donald Trump did it again. After angering many in France (and around the world) last year when he used finger guns and sound effects to act out the 2015 terrorist attacks on Paris that killed 130 people, he was at it again this week. Speaking to the National Rifle Association convention, Trump once again used the attack as an example of why the United States needs lax gun laws. Last year, that little skit by the president led to complaints both from the French Foreign Ministry and Francois Hollande, who was French president at the time of the attacks. But that didnt stop Trump from repeating the same talking point. Advertisement Paris, France, they say has the strongest gun laws in the world, Trump told the crowd in Indianapolis Friday. If there was one gun being carried by one person on the other side, it very well could have been a whole different result. Trump then went on to act out the massacre: Get over here! Boom! Get over here! Boom! And then they left. They were captured later. The president went on to say that even if a there were a couple of guns in the crowd, the attacks probably wouldnt have happened because the cowards would have known there are people in there having guns. Last year, the spokeswoman for the French foreign ministry issued a statement condemning the presidents remarks: France expresses its firm disapproval of the comments by President Trump about the attacks of 13 November 2015 in Paris and asks for the memory of the victims to be respected. Such objects were usually owned by the richest people. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Archaeological research has uncovered an iron fork with an antler encased handle in a former town-house under Trencin castle, the SITA newswire reported. Read also: Read also: Boars dug out a treasure of coins from the turn of 15th and 16th century Read more The unique finding is probably about half a millennium old. Early findings suggest the fork was probably a part of a set of cutlery. The house in Mierove square is currently the seat of the Slovak Gemological Institute. Enclosing the handle in antler suggests a higher social status for the objects user, said Trencin archaeologist Tomas Michalik, as quoted by SITA. Such objects were owned only by really rich people. (Source: Courtesy of Tomas Michalik, Museum of Trencin) Read also: Read also: Archaeological research uncovered 17 cremation graves Read more This precious finding is now a bit of a mystery because heavy corrosion has made identification harder. Detailed information will be available after conservation and restoration by the specialists of Trencin museum. However, we do know the owners of the cutlery were among the rich, said Martin Mikus from the Slovak Gemological Institute, as quoted by SITA. The fork will become part of the collection of the Museum of Trencin. A lot of skeletons in the ol closet. Photo: Mark Reinstein/Corbis via Getty Images Intelligencer staffers Benjamin Hart, Irin Carmon, and Ed Kilgore discuss Joe Bidens mishandling of an ignominious episode from his past. Ben: On Thursday day one of Joe Bidens 2020 presidential bid he was already caught in an awkward situation involving Anita Hill. We learned that earlier this month, he called Hill to well, it didnt sound like apologize, exactly but to regret the way Hill was treated during the infamous Clarence Thomas hearings in 1991, which he chaired. But the conversation didnt go the way Biden wanted it to. Hill told the New York Times she left it unsatisfied, and that she wont be backing Bidens candidacy. What was he thinking here? Ed: Were regrouping for a moment, Ben, at this juncture to put ourselves into the Mind of Joe Biden. Ben: [Loud whirring sounds.] Irin: There was this great piece that assembled the pattern of Joe B. non-apologies. It appears that he is congenitally unable to do so, and that if it sounds like a non-apology, thats by design. Im struck by how many times Hillary Clinton said Im sorry and it wasnt enough. Ed: Being Joe Biden means never having to say youre sorry. That, children, is an allusion to a line in a book/movie that was popular about the time Biden entered the Senate (Love Story). Ben: I got the reference, boomer. Ed: Cant be too sure these days. Irin: I got it too! Biden may believe apologies make him sound weak. But what I heard in his appearance on The View today and his spokespersons statement was utterly feckless. Ben: I was thinking to myself, as I watched that, that President Trumps utter aversion to ever admitting fault may have bled over to the Democratic side. But, as you said, this is a long-running thing with Biden. Irin: Weakness was letting the GOP steamroll Anita Hill when you were the chairman of the committee, and confirming Clarence Thomas in a Senate controlled by Democrats. Trump may be a reason Democratic voters will accept it from Biden this time. Ed: The spokespersons fumble raises the question of what appeared to be massive staff as well as candidate failure. Maybe Biden blindsided his own staff with this. Biden has been known to be a tad freelance-y, and it would actually be less alarming if his supposed steamroller of a campaign apparatus didnt screw this up, too. Irin: It is weak to let this drag out for 28 years because of your ego. Ben: Yes why not do this years ago? Why save it up for the month youre announcing? Seems like political malpractice and the kind of thing that might be indicative of future lapses. Irin: Ultimately, I think he thought he wouldnt have to, and he made it abundantly clear on The View that he doesnt think he did anything wrong. Ed: Theres nothing more feckless, though, than an attempted non-apology apology, particularly to someone with the power to damage your about-to-be-announced presidential candidacy. Just wallowing in his own illusion of innocence would have been much smarter. Ben: Also today, Bidens campaign announced that he had raised $6.3 million in his first 24 hours, a very impressive figure that surpasses all other Dem candidates at that stage. Hes consistently leading in national and state polls, and we know his voters are mostly older Democrats on the conservative side of the party. Does the Hill stumble matter, politically speaking? Or is it (as I believe) more just a troubling sign of things to come, in terms of his iffy judgment? Irin: It may not. I think some voters dont care about what we would perceive as weaknesses because theyre terrified over Trump and have talked themselves into thinking he would be the one to beat him. Itll be interesting to see how black women, the backbone of the Democratic Party, react to being reminded of how Hill was treated. Which weve been talking around! But he allowed her to be put on trial, failed to rein in Republican railroading of her, and failed to call corroborating witnesses. This is supposed to be the match for Trump? Ben: Thats where the no apology thing could be perceived as an advantage we Democrats need to stop being weak, a.k.a. owning up to mistakes! Ed: Oh please. Ben: Hey, I didnt say I endorsed that idea. Irin, good point re black women. I think theres a good chance that the attack wont stick, the way the superpredators stuff didnt stick for Hillary she still dominated among that demographic. Irin: You could argue it did eventually stick for her, if you consider that black voters in key states didnt show up for her in the general. Ed: All the talk about Joe appealing to white working-class men in the general election is pointless if he loses African-Americans in the primaries. Hes toast if that happens. Getting back to your question of why this may matter: I wrote a post yesterday morning analyzing Bidens strategy for winning the nomination, and concluded the key thing for him was to avoid early stumbles. Then he committed one like an hour later. So yeah, I think its a sign of future mistakes. Irin: Its comically inept. And yet Democratic voters are so willing to forgive his bumbling, if my in-box and Twitter mentions are any indication. Ben: The thing thats going to be a problem for him is anything that dents this notion of electability, which is his biggest asset right now. And watching him fumble around for an answer to basic questions (which he did during some of his appearance on The View) may ultimately be more damaging than what hes actually saying. Because it makes him look unsure of himself and a little weak. Irin: Yes, and old. Ben: And old. Ed: Well, Nate Silver made the point that for a front-runner, Joe Biden doesnt have much margin for error, even in the primaries, so every little bit of Mr. Magooism hurts. Irin: Its possible that until now, Biden has been coasting on gauzy memories of the Obama administration. Today was the first day we saw Biden himself as a candidate, unscripted. Ben: And thus were reminded of all his previous unsuccessful presidential bids. There was a reason those didnt go so great. Ed: Every time Ive brought up the past campaigns and other baggage to Biden fans, they generally say, Nothing before 2009 matters any more. But if the fresh slate starts looking like the old one Irin: The question is whether Biden has learned from those past mistakes. Today it looked like he had no interest in even listening to any criticism. Ben: Im certainly a lot less confident that a candidates obvious flaws and baggage will bring them down after 2016. Irin: My mantra is going to be, no one knows whos actually electable, vote for the person you want to be president. Ed: Ive long thought that us non-conservatives vastly underestimated the extent to which Republicans relished Trumps evil nature and baggage because they wanted to sic him on their enemies. Siccing Biden on Democrats enemies would be like (to borrow a phrase from the late Hunter Thompson) sending out a three-toed sloth to take turf from a wolverine. Ben: Hunter who? Never heard of him. Ed: He was a character in Love Story. University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou) in Columbia offers a hybrid Executive MBA program that is 75% online and 25% on campus. Students meet on campus 4 times each year for a total of 8 visits, while the rest of the program is completed online. The program follows a cohort model, totals 48 credits, and can be completed in 21 months. Students also participate in a required international residency in Europe that lasts 10 days. Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis has an on-campus Executive MBA program that requires students to meet once a month on a Thursday through Saturday. The program can be completed in 20 months and totals 60 credits. Students must complete 2 residencies in St. Louis, as well as a residency in Washington D.C. and a residency in China for hands-on learning experience. The program also requires a final capstone course that includes a pitch competition. Rockhurst University Rockhurst University in Kansas City is a Jesuit institution that provides an on-campus Executive MBA program. The program follows a cohort model, can be completed in 21 months, and meets once a month for a full Friday and Saturday. Students in the program must complete a business capstone course and 2 executive projects during the last year of the program. As a part of their electives, students may choose to participate in a global residency. University of Missouri - Kansas City The University of Missouri - Kansas City offers an on-campus Executive MBA program that can be completed in 21 months. The program admits students in cohorts and meets 3 days during each month for classes, typically a Friday and two Saturdays. Students must complete 4 residencies, with 2 on campus, 1 in Washington D.C., and 1 international. The program also requires a capstone where students create a new venture business plan. California Coast University California Coast University in Santa Ana has an online MBA in Human Resource Management. The program totals 39 semester units and is a self-paced program. Students in the program must complete a comprehensive exam prior to graduation as a culminating experience. Students also take coursework in topics like human relations, ethics, organizational behavior, employee development, and human resource management. Brandman University Irvine's Brandman University provides an MBA in Human Resources that can be taken online or in a hybrid format. The program requires 36 to 48 credits, depending on a student's educational background. Students are required to complete a capstone course that discusses topics in strategy and competitive advantage. Students in the human resources emphasis may take courses in topics such as talent management, negotiation, labor relations, workforce planning, and rewards. La Sierra University La Sierra University in Riverside is a Christian institution that offers an MBA in Human Resource Management. The program offers small class sizes and provides students with courses in theory, as well as hands-on learning experiences. Some of these experiences include internship opportunities, student-led projects, and Service-Learning courses. Each year, the school holds a Meet the Firms Night where students can interact and connect with possible employers. California State University, East Bay California State University, East Bay in Hayward has a unique MBA program with a concentration in human resources management and organizational behavior. The program totals 42 units with 27 units of core courses and 12 units in a student's given concentration. The program concludes with a 3-unit capstone course that requires a final project. Students can complete this on-campus program in as little as 18 months. California Lutheran University California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks offers an MBA with a professional track in human capital management to prepare students for human resources careers. The on-campus program totals 45 units and can be completed in 12 to 24 months. Students can take the program full- or part-time and must complete a capstone course to graduate. Other courses for this professional track include subjects in strategy, personnel selection, employment law, training, and compensation management. The Net has described me as a 'mad scientist of RPG blogging,' and a 'Quixotic bastard' ... and also 'the most gonzo - and the grouchiest - old school DM.' Began playing Dungeons and Dragons at the age of 15, forty-two years ago. I am a steadfast AD&D gamer, but I have made so many changes to the original system that my present model is something of a Frankenstein's monster of role-playing design. I continue to make new changes every day to my game's structure and function. Kalama student serves as a page Reegan Jenkins served as a page from Feb. 25 to March 1 for 20th District Rep. Ed Orcutt of Kalama. Her responsibilities included delivering messages and documents to state lawmakers in their offices, in committee meetings and in the House chamber along with attending the Legislative Page School. To serve as a page for the Washington State House of Representatives, a student must have permission from a parent or guardian, have permission from his or her current school in the current , or be sponsored by a member of the Washington State House of Representatives and be 14 to 16 years old. Orcutt is quoted in a prepared press release that it was a pleasure to have Reegan help serve the constituents, visit with her and show her how the Legislature works. Reegan, 15, attends Kalama High School and is the daughter of Harlyn and Cari Jenkins of Kalama. Students or parents interested in the page program should visit https://bit.ly/1wlSB1b. Deichsel receives doctorate degree Emily Lathrop Deichsel recently received a doctorate of philosophy in epidemiology degree from the University of Washington. She previously received a bachelor of arts degree in chemistry from Lewis and Clark College and a masters degree in public health from the University of California, Los Angeles. In 2013, she was awarded a Fulbright-Fogarty Scholarship and conducted public health research in Cusco, Peru. Dr. Deichsel is a post doctoral fellow at the University of Maryland in Baltimore. Her research focuses on pediatric infections and childhood growth among vulnerable populations. A 2005 graduate of Mark Morris High School, her parents are Ellie Lathrop and Al Deichsel of Longview. Price attends conference Clatskanie Middle High School student Veronica Price has been selected to represent Westport, Ore., as a National Youth Correspondent to the 2019 Washington Journalism and Media Conference at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. She joins a select group of students from around the country for an intensive study of journalism and media, according to a press release from the university. She was chosen based on her academic accomplishments and a demonstrated interest and excellence in journalism and media studies, notes the release. The chosen correspondents participate in hands-on, experiential learning through decision-making simulations that challenge them to solve problems and explore the creative, practical and ethical tensions inherent in journalism and media, according to the release. Speakers, who are well-known leaders in the media community and presenters include prominent journalists, chief executive officers of major media outlets, researchers and recent college graduates who are successfully entering the journalism field. Past speakers include Hoda Kotb from NBC, Brian Lamb from C-SPAN, Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Carol Guzy and Sonya Ross from the Associated Press. The conference is set to take place July 14-19. Financial adviser travels to Capitol Eric Brudi, a Kelso financial adviser for the financial services firm Edward Jones, recently met with legislators in Washington, D.C., to seek retirement savings incentives for individual investors and business owners. This is the 34th year for this effort, making it one of the longest-running nationwide grassroots outreach efforts to Congress in existence, according to information in a prepared statement. Brudi was one of 53 financial advisers chosen from among the firms 17,500 who traveled to the nations Capitol on behalf of individual investors. He is a member of the firms Grassroots Task Force, a group dedicated to voicing the investment concerns of individual investors to local, state and national lawmakers. We are grateful for the opportunity to communicate the concerns of individual investors, especially those here in Kelso, and make sure they are heard on Capitol Hill, Brudi is quoted in the press release. Edward Jones is the only large financial services firm in the nation to organize this kind of grassroots effort, notes the press release. The financial advisers carry significant weight with legislators because they speak for the needs and concerns of more than 7 million clients, states the release. While meeting with legislators, Brudi discussed preserving and expanding investors ability to contribute to retirement funds at their workplace and on their own, as well as potential incentives for small business owners to create employer-sponsored retirement plans for their employees, according to the release. Locals named to honor roll Seven area residents have been named to the honor roll for the fall 2018 term at Oregon State University in Corvallis. Castle Rock: Andrew Walling (3.5 grade-point average), freshman majoring in business information systems. Ilwaco: Emma Fleck (3.5 GPA or better), junior majoring in biohealth sciences. Kelso: Brayden Liebe (3.5 GPA) or better, junior majoring in pre-chemical engineering. Longview: Emily Davelaar (3.5 GPA or better) post baccalaureate in fisheries and wildlife sciences; Kirk Downer, (3.5 GPA or better), senior majoring in forest engineering; and Kelsey Engebo (3.5 GPA or better), senior majoring in bioengineering. Woodland: Ryan Forcier (4.0 GPA), senior majoring in bioengineering. Dole named to deans list Jordyn Dole of Kelso has been named to the 2019 winter term dean's list at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill. To be named to the list, a student must receive a 3.6 or higher grade point average for the term and have earned at least 2.5 credits in the term. Kaminski joins honor society Jonathan Kaminski of Clatskanie recently was inducted into the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society, the nation's oldest and most selective all-discipline honor society, according to a press release from the group. Kaminski is pursuing a degree in engineering at Oregon State University. He is among approximately 30,000 students, faculty, professional staff and alumni to be initiated into Phi Kappa Phi each year. Membership is by invitation only and requires nomination and approval by a chapter. Only the top 10 percent of seniors and 7.5 percent of juniors are eligible for membership. Graduate students in the top 10 percent of the number of candidates for graduate degrees may also qualify, as do faculty, professional staff and alumni who have achieved scholarly distinction, notes the press release. Two named to SCC honor roll Mikayla LaFontaine of Castle Rock and Logan Schoonover of Woodland have been named to the 2019 winter quarter honor roll at Spokane Community College. Pool fundraiser a big success The 36th Annual Broomstick Pool Tournament benefiting the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital took place at the end of February. Sponsored by members of the Alpha Kappa chapter of Epsilon Sigma Alpha, 28 teams of pool enthusiasts made donations to play pool with broomsticks at several bars and clubs in the area with the money going to the hospital. Five thousand, 500 dollars was raised for the Memphis hospital founded in 1962 by actor Danny Thomas. Families of children who receive medical care at the hospital are not charged for the services and are provided free accommodations while the children are hospitalized. A local awards dinner was held April 1 a the Longview American Legion. First- and second-place awards went to The Big Foot Bar and Grill in Washougal, Wash.; and the third-place award went to the Longview Legion. The Daily News Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Photo: Found Image Holdings Inc/Corbis via Getty Images The Trump presidency has been a golden age for hard news but often hard times for offbeat reporting. When each day brings a new avalanche of major headlines, its easy for quirky profiles and deep dives into subjects other than Beltway politics to get buried. And this past week was no exception. While news junkies fixed their eyes on the launch of Joe Bidens 2020 campaign, the fallout from Robert Muellers report and Donald Trumps many tweet storms a bevy of fascinating features (largely) escaped their view. Take the Washington Posts How angry pilots got the Navy to stop dismissing UFO sightings. The papers esoteric expose explains how a resilient band of patriots persuaded the armed forces to make a formal record every time an unidentifiable, futuristic aircraft zooms through military-designated airspace a phenomenon that has been happening on a regular basis since 2014. As the Posts Deanna Paul writes: In some cases, pilots many of whom are engineers and academy graduates claimed to observe small spherical objects flying in formation. Others say theyve seen white, Tic Tac-shaped vehicles. Aside from drones, all engines rely on burning fuel to generate power, but these vehicles all had no air intake, no wind and no exhaust. Its very mysterious, and they still seem to exceed our aircraft in speed, [former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence Chris Mellon] said, calling it a truly radical technology. On first brush, this subject matter might look dull compared to, say, the latest developments with the White House Correspondents Dinner. But Pauls taut prose turns a controversy over naval record-keeping protocols into the stuff of high drama. And hers was far from the only diverting feature to fall through the cracks this week. Here are four other excellent pieces of journalism that didnt quite penetrate the news cycle: Drill or Be Drilled? Faced With Texas-Size Asteroid, NASA Seeks Help From Unlikely Hero (The New Yorker) Rachel Avivs profile of Harry Stamper, a renowned deep-sea oil driller and soon-to-be astronaut reads like three fine pieces rolled into one. It is a comedy of manners, charting a blue-collar roughnecks awkward adjustment to his new role in Americas most highly educated bureaucracy. Its a tender portrait of a fraught though loving father-daughter relationship. But, above all, it is a clarion call about an unsexy but important issue: the 260,000-square-mile asteroid that is poised to plunge into the Pacific Ocean in 18 days. In Surprise for Fans of Fast-Casual Dining, Chipotle Reveals Barbacoa Is People (Grub Street) If youre like me, youve found both the new crop of meat substitutes and the journalism about those products dry and overhyped. But Grub Streets Chris Crowley has finally found a story about the future of meat thats actually appetizing (intellectually, anyway). After the 2015 E. coli outbreak took a bite out of its share price, the Mexican chain cooked up a muy picante plan for reestablishing its relevance. While other fast-casual restaurants looked to vendors like Beyond Meat to satisfy the rising demand for green eats, Chipotle sought to derive cheap, ecofriendly protein from a very different source Americas burgeoning retirement crisis. As Armies of the Undead Descend on Shopping Malls, Investors Warn of Retail Apocalypse (Bloomberg Businessweek) Just a few months ago, reports of the death of retail looked to have been greatly exaggerated. Despite years of doomsaying from market analysts and reporters, store openings actually outpaced closings in 2018 by nearly 4,000. Conventional wisdom began to revise itself. Sure, Amazons dominance was likely to grow but with a wide variety of products, there simply was no substitute for in-person browsing (and touching, and trying on). But as a team of reporters document in the latest issue of Bloomberg Businessweek, the rise of the living dead has fatally undermined the outlook for brick and mortar. So long as brain-hungry, reanimated corpses remain a fixture of Americas shopping centers, commerce is expected to shift ever-more rapidly out of meat space. And that seems like a safe bet, given how little interest cable news or Congress has taken in the zombie crisis. For its part, Businessweek offers few insights into the origins of the epidemic, but sheds a great deal of light on its grisly implications: When a recession finally puts an end to this recovery, expect it to take a hefty chunk of service-sector employment down with it. Sharp Rise in Arctic Temperatures Now Inevitable U.N. Finally, in the Guardian, Fiona Harvey analyzes a new report from the United Nations, which finds that potentially devastating temperature rises of 3C to 5C in the Arctic are now inevitable even if the world succeeds in cutting greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Paris agreement. Such warming could be sufficient to trigger a climate tipping point as melting permafrost releases the powerful greenhouse gas methane into the atmosphere, which in turn could create a runaway warming effect. (The world has not been cutting greenhouse-gas emissions at a pace in line with the commitments made under the Paris agreement, and there is no sign that it will begin doing so anytime soon). Harveys report gets into the weeds; some readers will doubtlessly find parts of it a tad abstruse. And certainly, long-term temperature change in the Arctic can seem irrelevant when compared with say, Nate Silvers case for why Pete Buttigieg is now a tier 1b candidate. But sometimes, the stories that fail to catch our eye catch up to us in the end. Sarah Rice, an Intensive Care Unit nurse at St. John Medical Center, said in her 10 years on the job she hasnt worked a full week that shes gotten to take all her allotted breaks. Thats not a knock against the hospital, Rice said, but a problem within nursing and hospital culture. In what Rice calls a big win for nurses, a bill the Washington Legislature passed over hospital industry objections requires hospitals to give nurses uninterrupted breaks. Employers tried but couldnt guarantee us a break, Rice said. Passed Wednesday, the bill provides us protection to say, I need to take care of myself so I can take care of my patients. Starting Jan. 1, House Bill 1155 will require hospitals to provide uninterrupted meal and rest breaks for licensed practical nurses and registered nurses, with exceptions for emergencies. It also bans mandatory overtime and includes new regulations on overtime and prescheduled on-call time. Beginning in July 2020, the measure would also apply to surgical technologists, diagnostic radiologic technologists or cardiovascular invasive specialists, respiratory care practitioners and certified nursing assistants. The new law will affect about 545 staff members employed by PeaceHealth in Longview, including 450 nurses, according to hospital spokesman Randy Querin. St. Johns Chief Medical Officer Dr. Sheila Lynam said in an email that the hospital is beginning its evaluation of the final version of the measure. We have a strong track record of ensuring our nurses and clinical colleagues take breaks, recognizing that break interruptions are not fully preventable in certain patient care situations, Lynam said in an email statement. We will partner with our caregivers to determine how we will meet the spirit and intent of HB 1155, empower caregivers to exercise their professional judgment, and continue to provide the best outcomes for our patients. For Rice and her coworkers, the measure allows them to give the best care they can, she said. The issue has been a priority for the Washington State Nurses Association union for years. Rice, an association member, said she has been following the issue and lobbied for it in years past. I reached a point in my career where I felt like I didnt have the tools necessary to give my all to my patients, Rice said. We all know theres those days where you cant get away, but they were becoming more frequent and it was hard to take care of myself.Rice said she and many other nurses at St. John work 12-hour shifts that can quickly turn to 13 or even 16 hours. In her unit, each nurse can care for up to six patients at a time, which can make it difficult to step away for a break, she said. The longer we go without break, the more tired and worn down we are, Rice said. It can be hard to think critically and catch subtleties in patients. Its a safety issue. The legislation also prevents nurses from being required to work mandatory overtime unless there is an unforeseeable emergency. Nurses and other staff may be required to work prescheduled on-call time as long as the hospital isnt using it in lieu of scheduling employees to work regular shifts. Rice said although mandatory overtime is common in nursing, it didnt happen too much at St. John until recently. The Washington State Hospital Association was concerned that the measure could have unintended consequences for patients. Requiring uninterrupted breaks could stifle relaying patient information among staff members and delay patient care, the statement said. According to a fiscal note prepared by the state Department of Commerce, the measure will increase costs for hospitals to hire staff to allow breaks and prevent excessive use of on-call time. The legislation could lead to an increase of public hospital district costs equal to $42.9 million each year to staff the all affected hospitals, according to an analysis by the State Hospital Association. But the fiscal note said costs for each facility would vary depending on hospital size and number of staff affected. Now that the measure has passed through several iterations, the association said Thursday it is much better than the original bill. We remain committed to addressing nurse fatigue and we will continue to work toward solutions that protect access to care in all communities and address the constantly changing needs of patients, said Cassie Sauer, association president and CEO, in a press release. The association is concerned that the measure will negatively affect Critical Access Hospitals, which are located in rural communities and have fewer than 25 beds. These hospitals will be subject to the new law July 1, 2021. The hospital association said will develop an plan to help all Washington hospitals comply with the new law prior it taking effect in January. Rice said the measure gives hospitals and nurses guidelines of how to work together to help solve scheduling problems. We just want to be able to give the best care we can give, she said. We just want patients to get quality, safe care. In a perfect world we wouldnt need laws for that. Love 2 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. SALEM Oregon child welfare officials got a chance Thursday to push back against concerns raised in news reports and by advocates for foster children that the state is caring for some of those children in repurposed juvenile jails. I wanted to thank you for titling this presentation refurbished juvenile correctional facilities because it has been reported inaccurately we put our kids in jail cells, Department of Human Services director Fariborz Pakseresht told lawmakers. We never put any (foster) child in a jail cell. Sen. Sara Gelser, a Corvallis Democrat who has pushed for years to improve the states foster system, scheduled a series of hearings on the child welfare divisions use of such placements as well as its increasing reliance on sending children to out-of-state facilities. Im on a quest to get them to say theyre not going to place kids in these facilities anymore, Gelser said of repurposed juvenile jail facilities in an interview on Monday. The hearing on Thursday grew out of reporting by The Oregonian/OregonLive in March that the state has increasingly relied on institutional programs rather than foster families to house children, including repurposed juvenile jails operated by county governments. In at least one case, the bedrooms in those settings where Oregon foster children were assigned to live had a toilet inside the room. A year ago, Oregon child welfare leaders signed a court settlement promising to stop housing vulnerable foster children in hotels, state offices and juvenile detention centers instead of with families. Since the settlement, the state has placed dramatically more children and teens in institutional settings including repurposed juvenile jails. Additionally, the news organization reported that a program at Klamath Countys juvenile detention facility, which housed both girls in foster care and girls in state custody for committing crimes, did not provide free tampons at a time state lawmakers are considering a bill to make free tampons mandatory at the womens prison. The facility did offer tampons to girls who earned points for good behavior. A lawyer for a foster child at the facility, who is also among the federal lawsuit plaintiffs, had raised the issue with lawmakers and the state subsequently visited the facility and decided to temporarily remove all foster children. Among other issues, a state licensing inspection of the program concluded that girls there gave credible accounts that they were strip searched. A federal lawsuit filed last week by a national child advocacy group and an Oregon disability rights group also accuses the state of housing some foster children in converted juvenile jails, where the childrens lawyers said the young people were in some cases locked in their rooms at night. Child welfare officials explained to lawmakers on Thursday why they felt The Oregonian/OregonLives news coverage was unfair: several of the spaces where foster children live within juvenile detention buildings either were never previously used as detention centers or were not designed as such, they said. Regarding a wing of Douglas Countys juvenile detention center that a reporter from The Oregonian/OregonLive visited in January, Child Welfare director Marilyn Jones said it was never used as a jail. The building has two very similar-looking wings, one of which currently houses foster youth and the other of which is used for detention. Sen. Dallas Heard, a Republican whose district includes the Douglas County facility, made the same point that the wing of the building was never actually used for juvenile detention. It is not unheard of in Oregon for juvenile detention facilities to have vacant space as a result of locking up fewer youth than anticipated. After the hearing, Gelser said she still was not convinced foster children should stay in juvenile detention complexes, even if they live in a wing that was never used as detention. It still looks like a jail, whether anybody (in custody on suspicion or convicted of a crime) slept there or not, Gelser said. Only two programs, in Multnomah County and Klamath County, actually house foster children in areas that were ever used or intended for juvenile detention, Jones said. Three foster children were at the Multnomah County juvenile program as of Thursday. Three other counties Douglas, Josephine and Lincoln care for foster youth in buildings that Jones said should not be described as refurbished detention pods. Jones said that contrary to the federal lawsuit, youth are never locked in their rooms. Pakseresht said he had just returned from a visit to Klamath Falls where he met with three county commissioners, who asked him to pass along a message to lawmakers that they were upset about how their countys Youth Inspiration Program had been portrayed in the media. Pakseresht said the county, which used to depend heavily on logging revenue and needs new sources of money, had opened the program to help the state foster care system as it faces a shortage of places to house children, and they asked you to please consider not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Last year, Gov. Kate Brown proposed $12 million in state funding to expand the countys program. They classify this as completely unfair for a rural county thats trying to help the state, Pakseresht said. Jones said the state is giving Klamath County a chance to address issues identified by state licensing officials, which could result in foster children who have been involved in the juvenile justice system once again being sent to the program. Sara Fox, manager of the states child welfares treatment program, told lawmakers her agency is centralizing its process for referring foster children to these and other behavior rehabilitation services programs and expects to complete that work in the next month. Currently, caseworkers individually make the decision to refer children to these programs. Unfortunately, this results in at times inappropriate referral, Fox said. Fox also said the state will stop referring foster children who are not accused of committing crimes to programs that serve youth in correctional custody. After the hearing, Gelser said she was encouraged by the changes Fox outlined. I am seeing change that I do not believe would have happened if we had not been pushing, she said. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 Sexually transmitted diseases continue to spread in the United States and Clark County. Clark County Public Health Director Dr. Alan Melnick said theres a variety of reasons why infection rates are increasing for gonorrhea, syphilis and chlamydia. I think theres all kinds of challenges in terms of dealing with and addressing sexually transmitted disease, Melnick said. The stigma. The way the symptoms present. The populations that are affected. The lack of resources to interview cases, identify cases, track down contacts, and make sure they get treated all presents a real challenge. Clark County gonorrhea rates have increased every year since 2013, jumping from 34.2 cases per 100,000 residents in 2013 to 137.4 cases per 100,000 residents in 2018. All told, there were 659 cases of gonorrhea last year in Clark County. Syphilis rates have increased from 10.2 cases per 100,000 residents in 2013 to 17.7 cases per 100,000 residents in 2018, and chlamydia cases have risen from 326.5 cases per 100,000 residents in 2013 to 411.3 cases per 100,000 residents in 2018. There were 1,972 cases of chlamydia in 2018, and 85 cases of syphilis 59 early syphilis cases and 25 latent syphilis cases. Melnick said a lack of government funding makes it harder for Public Health to combat the rising rates. But he also explained that other areas have likely led to the increasing rates. A 2015 study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that condom use among sexually active high-schoolers decreased from 63 percent in 2003 to 57 percent in 2015. Skyn Condoms, a condom company, conducted a survey of 5,117 millennial men and women, which reported that 48 percent of millennials never or rarely wear condoms. Theres less frequent condom use, Melnick said. Im not exactly sure the reason for that. Some of it may be education. Condoms have dual uses. They have use for birth control as well as a use for preventing sexually transmitted disease. HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP a pill that helps prevent HIV infection has risen in popularity, and The Lancet Journal published a study last year that PrEPs rise had lead to a decrease in condom use among gay and bisexual men. Rates for sexually transmitted diseases in the U.S. have risen sharply, just like Clark County. From 2013 to 2017, the most recent CDC stats report that diagnoses of gonorrhea have risen 67 percent, cases of syphilis have risen 76 percent and cases of chlamydia have risen 21 percent. The CDC stats show there were nearly 2.3 million cases of gonorrhea, syphilis and chlamydia in the U.S. in 2017. Melnick said comprehensive health education that includes sexual education on STDs could help decrease rates. But hesitancy to act around the issue can create problems. Given the stigma around STDs, its more difficult to get the community galvanized, or develop more community concern around sexually transmitted diseases, Melnick said. But there are threats for having increased rates for sexually transmitted diseases. It has potential effects for all of us. Love 0 Funny 2 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 After reading a couple of letters to the editor, one on April 16 and the other on April 20, I would like to set the letter writers straight on the facts. Both writers suggested that the Mueller report exonerates Donald Trump. As the documentation is spelled out in the report, that is not the truth at all. In fact Mueller states that it does not exonerate Donald Trump at all. In all reality, the Mueller report states at least 10 reasons that Donald Trump could be in court for obstruction of justice. Mueller stated that he cant file against a sitting president because of Department of Justice limitations, but he did lay out enough evidence in the report for someone else to step up and do the job. Sri Lanka clamps down on social media in the wake of Easter massacres. Authorities suspect an Islamist group, but no terrorist organization has so far claimed responsibility. CIA intelligence is said to have the goods on Chinese security services hold over Huawei. Marcus Hutchins, also known as MalwareTech, and famous as the sometime hero of the WannaCry kill-switch, has taken a guilty plea to charges connected with the distribution of Kronos banking malware. Joe Carrigan from JHU ISI on password research from WP Engine. Researchers at Ben Gurion University in Israel have developed techniques to infiltrate medical imaging system networks and alter 3D medical scans within, fooling both human and automated examiners with a high rate of success. Yisroel Mirsky is a cybersecurity researcher and project manager at Ben Gurion University, and he joins us to share what his team discovered. The original research can be found here: A video demonstrating the exploit is here: Multinational food and beverages firm, PepsiCo India offered to settle lawsuits against farmers in Gujarat on Friday. PepsiCo, during a hearing in a Commercial Court in Gujarat said the farmers could either join the group of growers who exclusively grow the FC5 variety for its Lay's potato chips or cultivate other varieties of potatoes. "PepsiCo India has proposed to amicably settle with the people who were unlawfully using the seeds of its registered variety. PepsiCo has also proposed that they may become part of its collaborative potato farming programme," the company spokesman said in a statement. If the farmers do not wish to grow the FC5 potato variety for PepsiCo, they can simply sign an agreement with the company to cultivate other available varieties, he added. Nine farmers from Sabarkantha and Aravalli districts have been sued by the firm for allegedly cultivating the FC5 potato variety, grown exclusively for its PepsiCo's Lays potato chips, for which it has claimed Plant Variety Protection (PVP) rights. Senior counsel Anand Yagnik, who appeared for the four farmers of Sabarkantha district, told the court he would discuss the settlement proposal with the farmers and inform the court about the outcome in the next hearing. M C Tyagi, Commercial Court judge has extended the previous order restricting the farmers from using the patented seeds till the next hearing on June 12. The multinational giant is seeking damages of Rs 1 crore from each of the four farmers of Sabarkantha in its suit at the commercial court, and Rs 20 lakh from each of the farmers sued at a district court in Modasa town of Arvalli district. Two days ago, over 190 activists came out in support of these farmers and requested government to ask PepsiCo to withdraw its 'false' cases against the Gujarat farmers. In a letter to the Ministry of Agriculture, 194 signatories sought financial aid and protection of rights of farmers who have been sued for growing and selling the potato variety called FC-5 potato, for which PepsiCo India Holdings claimed to have obtained "exclusive rights in the country in 2016". PepsiCo is the second large American company to face patent infringement issues in India. (With agencies inputs) Also read: PepsiCo seeks Rs 1 crore from four farmers it sued for patented Lay's potatoes 9 hours ago Tesla Dips Into Year End - Whats Next? It wouldnt be like Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) to keep their investors guessing would it? After rallying more than 100% from July through the start of November, the brakes were firmly applied when CEO Elon Musk announced his intention to start unloading huge portions of his stock holdings to meet his tax obligations. Read Article Ajay Piramal, Chairman of both Shriram Capital and the Piramal Group, is evaluating options to exit Piramal Enterprises' seven-year-old strategic investments in the Shriram Group. "We are evaluating options to create value for both the shareholders of Shriram and Piramal. As far as the shareholders of Piramal Enterprises are concerned, we are evaluating options like whether an exit is possible. There is no time limit to it and if we get the right value and the right partner will look at the exit," Ajay Piramal said on Friday on a conference call announcing Q4 and annual performance of Piramal Enterprises. However, he declined to elaborate further and did not clarify whether he would continue as the Chairman of Shriram Capital, once the exit is complete. He said the Shriram Group was also evaluating to merge the unlisted holding company of the Shriram Group, Shriram Capital with the listed Shriram Transport Finance Company and Shriram City Union Finance, to create value for its investors. A merger would help in the exit of its investors like TPG and Piramal. Recent unconfirmed reports say Piramal has been discussing with Anand Mahindra to exit his Shriram investments, valuing about Rs 9,000 crore. In September last year, reports had surfaced saying private equity giants KKR and Blackstone were in the fray to buy Piramal, employees' trust and TPG's stake in Shriram Group companies for over $3 billion, in a three-way merger of the Shriram group companies. In May 2013, Piramal Enterprises invested Rs 1,636 crore for a 9.9 per cent stake in Shriram Transport Finance Co, which has a pan-India network lending mainly to small and medium scale entrepreneurs in the transport sector. A year later, Piramal Enterprises bought 20 per cent stake in Shriram Capital, the holding company of the financial services and insurance entities of the Shriram Group for Rs. 2,014 crore and another 9.99 per cent stake in Shriram City Union Finance, the retail lending arm of the Shriram Group for Rs. 790 crore. Together, Piramal Enterprises invested close to Rs 4,500 crore in the company and became the single largest shareholder in the Shriram Group. R Thyagarajan, Founder Chairman of the Shriram Group, vacated his position to make Ajay Piramal the chairman of the group. His entry was welcomed by the Shriram Group as the group was grappling with succession and leadership issues, funding and the presence numerous private equity partners in the management. Initially, Ajay Piramal was viewing his investments in Shriram as strategic investments, to monetise the $3.8 billion (Rs 18,500 crore) Piramal Enterprises received from the sale of formulation division of Piramal to Abbott in 2010. From the sale proceeds, he bought an 11 per cent stake in Vodafone India for Rs 5,856 crore (in two tranches in August 2011 and February 2012) and exited that investment for Rs 8,900 crore. According to sources, the trigger for Ajay Piramal to exit Shriram is primarily not linked to raising funds for redeploying it in his own financial services business. Piramal Enterprises had raised Rs 16,500 crore via non-convertible debentures and bank loans from September 2018 to March 2019 and so far has no made substantial big investments. Of this, over Rs 10,000 crore is meant to be for expanding financial service business. The company, which is growing in excess of 20 per cent plus revenues and net profit consistently, over past 15 quarters, has nearly Rs.5,400 crore in the form of cash and several unutilised bank lines. After the sale to Abbott, Ajay Piramal focused more on financial services, which is the thrust area of business. Both wholesale and retail funding opportunities across sectors contributed 53 per cent to Piramal Enterprises' revenues of Rs 13,215 crore in 2018-19. Piramal brought his financial services business under one umbrella and has been introducing new financial services verticals every year in the past seven years-real estate, housing finance, early-stage private equity, structured debt, senior secured debt, construction finance, and flexi lease rental discounting. The wholesale business in non-real estate sector includes separate verticals-Corporate Finance Group (CFG) and Emerging Corporate Lending (ECL). Piramal also launched a distressed asset investing platform with Bain Capital Credit-IndiaRF and was planning another such fund to acquire renewables. (Piramal on Friday said wholesale real estate lending exposure will come down to about 10 per cent (excluding hospitality and lease rental discounting) from the 63 per cent in March 2019). Sources say though Piramal wanted to create an end-to-end financial services platform under one umbrella, Shriram was seen as a cultural misfit in the scheme of things. That is primarily because Piramal's retail operations are confined to the safer upper segment of the business that involves corporate and medium to large scale enterprises and Shriram's success was based on the grass root-micro, mini and SME (small and medium enterprises) sectors. Further, Piramal's all acquisitions in the past were either multinational companies or companies following MNC practices. "Shriram is a good investment as it has a strong brand name and it will be a good long term play for us. It has worked out reasonably well in terms of investment, though the current value is not huge. We are confident that in the long term it will be a good investment and we see them as a long term partner," Piramal had told Business Today about three years ago. Sources say Piramal's entry into Shriram resulted in the exit of some old senior executives at Shriram. Piramal brought some of his key executives to lead and guide Shriram and brought global consultants like McKinsey to study entities like Shriram Transport and Shriram City Union, with an intention to merge or partner with Piramal's financial business. "As of now, there is no sense in thinking about a merger of Shriram and Piramal. The culture of 60,000 people in Shriram is different from the culture of people in Piramal and I think we will waste a lot of time in this. Both are doing well and let them grow and we will look at the right time for a merger," Piramal told Business Today a year ago. Another attempt was made last year was to merge Shriram Capital with IDFC bank to create a big banking powerhouse, but it did not get shareholders' support. There were some governance issues as well as Shriram Transport had made a Rs 870 crore undisclosed exposure to a group distressed entity in infrastructure sector, through its promoter Shriram Venture. In the past 2-3 years, Shriram's business was going through a slump as RBI reduced the non-performance asset (NPA) recognition time from 180 days to 90 days and also due to the after-effects of demonetisation and GST implementation. Ajay Piramal says he was evaluating the right time to carve out financial services business from Piramal Enterprises and go for a listing to unlock its value. Piramal's plans, which include a $20 billion asset empire by 2020, is to become one of the top five housing finance companies in India within the next 4-5 years and for that a year ago Piramal Enterprises merged Piramal Finance and Piramal Capital into Piramal Housing Finance with the intent of streamlining the financial services business. Also read: BT Buzz: Yes Bank reports record losses, new CEO Ravneet Gill gets cracking Also read: Hapless Jet CEO says stakeholders not assuring salaries, 'highest authorities' haven't listened CARBONDALE Lindsey McKinzies ag journey has barely begun. But she has already come a long way. A native of Albion in Edwards County, she arrived at Southern Illinois University Carbondale without a clear career path and still doesnt know exactly what she will be doing. One thing she does know is that SIUs Agronomy Society has opened up new doors for her. She served as president of the club for the 2017-18 academic year and is now a graduate student, something she hadnt considered before setting foot on the Carbondale campus. Caught in Randy Dunn controversy, Brad Colwell leaves SIU System office CARBONDALE A top administrator at Southern Illinois University has left a high-paying post to which he was hired improperly by former SIU Pr I learned so much, not just from the professional development side, but I grew as a young professional, she said. I was doing things that were out of my comfort zone. I really grew a lot in that one year. The society is a revival of a plant and soil science club that began in the 1950s. The club shut down in 1999. At an on-campus soybean workshop, the husband-and-wife team of Jason and Sarah Bond were approached by alumni of the College of Agricultural Sciences, who wondered what happened to the club. The couple both long-time ag educators decided that it was a good time to start it up again. We came up with the term agronomy society, said Jason, a professor of plant pathology at SIU. We wanted it to be an honor society. SIU has tons of RSOs (registered student organizations), but the majority of students are here only two years because so many transfer from community colleges. We wanted only students who are stable in regard to academic work. There are about 70 students in the society. Each must carry a grade point average of 3.0 or better. The monthly meetings include guest speakers, most from ag companies in the region. SIU made an impression two years ago when members of the club competed for the first time in an annual meeting of a national agronomy society. The club won three awards, including a first-place title. Thats competing against Texas A&M, the University of Illinois and other top ag schools, Bond said. Were now taking up to five students a year. Wed like that number to be higher. The SIU clubs slogan is connect, grow, go. One goal is to provide undecided students like McKinzie with tools for making career decisions. Were trying to help them grow, said Sarah, who teaches agribusiness economics at SIU. We let them somewhat guide us. We do surveys, asking that they are interested in, and give them advice on how to negotiate for salary and other things. We bring in experts to help guide them. In so-called gratitude workshops the students learn skills they may seem passe in the modern world of digital communication, such as how to prepare a hand-written letter of thanks to those who have helped them in some way. They have to use complete sentences as opposed to texts, Sarah Bond said. They put the letter in an envelope and mail it. Thats certainly not common today. McKinzie is doing grad work on processing information collected from drones. The research involves determining how accurate drone scouting is in identifying plant disease. She believes she made the right decision in staying at SIU. Going into my senior year, I thought about doing grad school. I was looking at different schools, she said. It all came back to SIU, and Im so glad that I stayed. I dont really know at this point what I will do. Theres a possibility I could go for my Ph.D. or go into industry. Ill figure it out one of these days. Meanwhile, she serves as a mentor to other students. Ive had a couple of students ask me about what I did my senior year, she said. Im glad Im able to share that knowledge with them. And the club provides the Bonds with a unique opportunity to work together while helping students. To be able to walk alongside my husband to provide these opportunities for students is such a blessing, said Sarah, who started at SIU in 1991. NAT WILLIAMS writes for Illinois Farmer Today, a Lee Enterprises sister publication of The Southern. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The S.C. Law Enforcement Division is investigating the shooting death of a Denmark man. Bamberg County Coroner Billy Duncan said Eugene M. Folk, 35, died of a gunshot wound as a result of homicide. SLED spokesman Thom Berry said the state agency received a call on Thursday night from the Bamberg Police Department after one of their officers discovered a body inside a truck. Duncan said Folks body was discovered near 745 2nd St. in Bamberg. We sent agents from our crime scene unit and regional office to investigate. That work is ongoing, Berry said. The shooting incident occurred at about 9 p.m. Thursday, according to a Bamberg Police Department incident report. An officer said he was in the dispatch parking lot when he heard about six shots on the other side of the building. He drove to the corner of 2nd Street and Bridge Street. He found a man and woman waving their arms next to a blue pickup truck, screaming someone was shot. The officer pulled out his sidearm and ordered the two people to the ground. He had them show their hands. After the officer cleared the two, he saw a man on his back with his legs still in the floorboard of the truck. Contact the writer: mbrown@timesanddemocrat.com or 803-533-5545. Follow on Twitter: @MRBrownTandD Love 10 Funny 18 Wow 7 Sad 42 Angry 10 Sign up for our Crime & Courts newsletter Get the latest in local public safety news with this weekly email. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. 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. Two days before the Phase 4 of Lok Sabha Elections 2019, Congress President Rahul Gandhi said at a rally in Amethi that the Prime Minister wants two Indias but that he and the Congress party won't let that happen. He also said that PM Modi gave away the money meant for farmers' insurance to people like Anil Ambani. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi lashed out at the Opposition parties at a rally in Kannauj, UP. He said that SP-BSP abuse him but can't abuse terrorists. He also said that his campaigning is done by the people - by women beneficiaries of the Ujjwala scheme, by daughters who now have a toilet in their homes and by farmers who have benefited from the PM Kisan scheme. Also, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley dedicated a fresh blog post to the Congress. Criticising the Opposition party, Jaitley said that the 'New India' rejects negativism of Rahul Gandhi, Mamata Banerjee, Arvind Kejriwal. He added that when the entire nation was celebrating Balakot strikes, Rahul Gandhi positioned himself against it. Follow Lok Sabha Election 2019 updates on the BusinessToday.In LIVE blog here: 8:30pm: A comparison of vote shares of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress party in the 2009 and 2014 Lok Sabha elections 7:51pm: Kerala Chief Electoral Officer Teeka Ram Meena has sought a report from the returning officers in connection with the allegations of bogus voting in Kasaragod constituency, ANI reported. Teeka Ram Meena has sought reports from the collectors of Kannur and Kasaragod districts. Kerala Chief Electoral Officer Teeka Ram Meena has sought a report from the returning officers in connection with the allegations of bogus voting in Kasaragod constituency. Teeka Ram Meena has sought reports from the collectors of Kannur and Kasaragod districts. ANI (@ANI) April 27, 2019 7:32pm: Congress leader Abhishek Manu Sighvi met Election Commission officers, with the demand to either remove all EVMs which mention BJP clearly or include names of other parties as well. Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Congress: We have demanded either remove all machines which mention BJP clearly or all other parties' names should be added in all machines. Till then the use of these machines should be totally stopped in the elections. https://t.co/xnUkQzxpmi ANI (@ANI) April 27, 2019 6:40pm: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh calls upon Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh. Home Minister Rajnath Singh today met former UP CM and SP leader Mulayam Singh Yadav at the latter's residence in Lucknow. pic.twitter.com/nSV28QhZlu ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) April 27, 2019 6:06pm: "Shatrughan Sinha has just gone to Congress. When he was in BJP he used to talk about nationalism. Now,he says that Jinnah was a great leader like Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel. Congress leaders are praising Jinnah, who has divided the country," BJP president Amit Shah said during a rally in Mayurbhanj, Odisha. BJP's Amit Shah in Mayurbhanj, Odisha: Shatrughan Sinha has just gone to Congress. When he was in BJP he used to talk about nationalism. Now,he says that Jinnah was a great leader like Mahatma Gandhi & Sardar Patel.Congress leaders are praising Jinnah,who has divided the country. pic.twitter.com/PmwKn1ycQv ANI (@ANI) April 27, 2019 5:25pm: Actor Govinda campaigned for Congress candidate Rijju Jhunjhunuwala from Ajmer Lok Sabha seat. Ajmer: Actor Govinda campaigned for Congress MP candidate from Ajmer parliamentary constituency, Rijju Jhunjhunuwala, today. #Rajasthanpic.twitter.com/udAmu2VySr ANI (@ANI) April 27, 2019 5:05pm: Visuals from election rally of Samajwadi Party's Akhilesh Yadav and Dimple Yadav in Kannauj. #LokSabhaElections2019 : Samajwadi Party's Akhilesh Yadav and Dimple Yadav held a roadshow in Kannauj, today; Polling in Kannauj will be held in the fourth phase of general elections on 29th April pic.twitter.com/hz446xJAPv ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) April 27, 2019 4:57pm: Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis campaigns for BJP's Mumbai North Central candidate Poonam Mahajan. She will be facing Congress MP Priya Dutt in the 2019 Lok Sabha election Mumbai: Maharashtra CM & BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis campaigns for party's Mumbai North Central candidate Poonam Mahajan; Priya Dutt is the Congress MP candidate from North Central Mumbai #LokSabhaElections2019pic.twitter.com/CnCaZ3mfWP ANI (@ANI) April 27, 2019 4:50pm: "We are confident of winning more than 3 parliamentary seats in Jammu & Kashmir in Lok Sabha elections. BJP has become the main stream party of the Kashmir Valley, today. We will work for peace and development in the region," said BJP General Secretary Ram Madhav. BJP General Secretary Ram Madhav in J&K: We are confident of winning more than 3 parliamentary seats in Jammu & Kashmir in Lok Sabha elections. BJP has become the main stream party of the Kashmir Valley, today. We will work for peace and development in the region. pic.twitter.com/4f44XxWfG3 ANI (@ANI) April 27, 2019 4:35pm: In more trouble for Congress President Rahul Gandhi, A Patna court has summoned himto appear before it on May 20 in relation to a with defamation case filed against him by Bihar Deputy Chief Minister and BJP leader Sushil Modi. Bihar: Case registered against Congress President Rahul Gandhi for repeatedly asking the crowd to chant 'chowkidar chor hai' in a rally in Samastipur where RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav was also present . Case registered in Ara Civil Court by an advocate against both the leaders. ANI (@ANI) April 27, 2019 4:22pm: Case filed against Rahul Gandhi and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav in Ara Civil Court after the Congress president repeatedly asked the crowd to chant 'chowkidar chor hai' in a rally in Samastipur. Delhi's Rouse Avenue Court issues summon against Congress's Shashi Tharoor as an accused over his 'scorpion' remark on the PM Narendra Modi. Court asks Shashi Tharoor to appear before it on 7th June. pic.twitter.com/SE2jBfUmjr ANI (@ANI) April 27, 2019 4:20pm: Delhi's Rouse Avenue Court has summoned Congress leader Shashi Tharoor over his 'scorpion' remark on the PM Narendra Modi. Tharoor has been asked to appear before the court on June 7. 4:17pm: The Bharatiya Janata Party has moved Election Commission of India againat Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, alleging that he has presented wrong information during his election campaign about Centre's aid to the national capital. 4:09pm: Re-polling to be held on 29th April at polling stations number 19 at Dhologachh SSK, 37-Patagora Balika Vidhyalay in Islampur assembly segment and polling station no. 191-Loha Gachhi Aadi Basipada in Goalpokhar assembly segment in Raiganj parliamentary constituency in West Bengal. 4:00pm: Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi click photos amid campaigns in Uttar Pradesh. Barmer: Sunny Deol holds his first roadshow after joining BJP, campaigns for BJP LS candidate from Barmer, Kailash Choudhary. Manvendra Singh is the Congress candidate for the Barmer LS constituency. #Rajasthan#LokSabhaElections2019pic.twitter.com/mqIooCybgI ANI (@ANI) April 27, 2019 3:45pm: BJP writes to CEO, Bhubaneswar demanding deployment of adequate central forces for the guarding of strong rooms across Odisha and immediate ouster of political functionaries, party workers and non voters of BJD from Kendrapara during 48 hrs of silence period ahead of polls: ANI. 3:37pm: Visuals from Sunny Deol's roadshow in Barmer. Congress General Secretary for UP East Priyanka Gandhi holds a roadshow in Unnao. pic.twitter.com/uPUXWWJDXr ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) April 27, 2019 3:35pm: Visuals from Priyanka Gandhi's roadshow in Unnao. Biju Janata Dal (BJD) writes to Chief Electoral Officer Odisha, alleging "distribution of cash among voters" by four associates of Baijayant Panda, BJP's Lok Sabha candidate from Kendrapara. pic.twitter.com/Uw1g5GD8Vs ANI (@ANI) April 27, 2019 3:33pm: PM Modi said at a rally in Sitapur, "Try and remember the kind of country Congress handed over when they gave up their government after ten years. Scams that ran into thousands of crore, bad name in the world due to corruption, everyone in a state of distress and there were continuous threats of bomb explosions and security lapses." 3:29pm: PM Modi said at a rally in Uttar Pradesh's Sitapur, "Congress, BSP and SP can't figure out on what issue they should be asking for votes. The entire game they have constructed around caste and class is proving to be harmful for them." 3:24pm: Makers of biopic 'PM Narendra Modi' write to EC seeking clarification on its decision staying its release. Letter states "We seek clarification in this regard from your office as we intend to promote film in areas which are no more affected by MCC after end of polling on 29.4.19.": ANI. 3:20pm: At a rally in Amethi, Rahul Gandhi said, "Farmers are put in jail for not being able to repay their loans but Modi ji's friends roam free.We won't let this happen anymore. Now if any farmer is unable to repay his loan, he won't be jailed. We will also make a different budget for farmers." 3:11pm: Rahul Gandhi said at a rally in Amethi, "I do whatever I say I will. I don't lie. Chowkidaar wants to make two Hindustans but we will not let that happen. There is only one Hindustan." 3:05pm: Rahul Gandhi said at a rally in Amethi, "Modi ji gave away Rs 10,000 crore of farmers' insurance to people like Anil Ambani." 3:00pm: Rahul Gandhi said at a rally in Amethi, "Narendra Modi has lied to the nation for the last 5 years. In his speech, he doesn't speak about employment, farmers or 15 lakh. He speaks by looking at the teleprompter and his speech is controlled by a controller from behind. Time is about to change." 2:45pm: UP CM Yogi Adityanath said at a rally in Shahjahanpur, "When our govt came, Suresh Khanna ji became a minister, he asked what should be the issues for cabinet meeting. I asked him what issues were brought up by Samajwadi Party in their meeting, he said 'They used to drop cases against terrorists.'" 2:34pm: "I had never spoken about my caste. Till the time the Opposition leaders hurled abuses on me, the country didn't know my caste. But I am thankful to 'Behenji' (Mayawati), Akhilesh, Congress and the 'Mahamilawati', that they are openly talking about my backwardness," said PM Modi at a rally in Hardoi. 2:20pm: Congress President Rahul Gandhi said at a rally in Amethi, "Not a single youth in the country can say 'Yes, chowkidar gave me employment' because unemployment rate in country is highest it has been in 45 years. In 70 years nobody did something as foolish as demonetization & Gabbar Singh Tax." 2:18pm: Amit Shah at a rally in Mayurbhanj, Odisha said, "In Odisha, more than 20 of our karyakartas have been attacked and many killed. There is be no place for violence." 2:15pm: At a rally in Hardoi, PM Modi said, "BSP formed governments in the name of Babasaheb. But how much respect Behenji has for Babasaheb is getting clear now." 2:10pm: "Our government has worked to the best of its abilities to take Babasaheb's legacy forward," said PM Modi at a rally in UP's Hardoi. 2:00pm: A scrutiny of voter turn out at the end of Phase I brought some glaring discrepancies to the fore. The number of people eligible in 'other' category according to official documents stood at 9. But interestingly the number of people who voted in the same category were 1,912. Additionally, Andaman & Nicobar saw maximum VVPATS replacement almost 25%. 1:55pm: "Whatever I said yesterday was slip of tongue. I wanted to say Maulana Azad but uttered Muhammad Ali Jinnah," said Shatrughan Sinha. He had said yesterday that from Mahatma Gandhi to Muhammad Ali Jinnah, all belonged to Congress. 1:45pm: BJD writes to EC alleging BJP candidate Baijayant Panda of distributing money. Over the last five years, the BJP has destroyed every pillar of democracy. But the #Endgame has begun. #MahaGathbandhan Sarkar Coming soon pic.twitter.com/dOIYobwRge Akhilesh Yadav (@yadavakhilesh) April 26, 2019 1:30pm: Election Commission directs East Delhi Returning Officer to file an FIR against Gautam Gambhir, BJP's candidate from East Delhi parliamentary constituency for "holding a rally in East Delhi without permission." 1:20pm: At a rally in Uttar Pradesh's Hardoi, PM Modi said, "Before I became Prime Minister, when there used to be a remote control government, there were only 2 mobile phone manufacturing companies in the country, now within 5 years there are more than 125 factories manufacturing mobiles in India." 1:09pm: Referring to Avengers: Endgame, Akhilesh Yadav said that the endgame for BJP is near. Delhi: 7 veteran officers join Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in presence of Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. Lt Gen JBS Yadav, Lt Gen R N Singh, Lt Gen SK Patyal, Lt Gen Sunit Kumar, Lt Gen Nitin Kohli, Colonel RK Tripathi, WG Cdr Navneet Magon joined the party at the BJP HQ. pic.twitter.com/bA00JrWCKs ANI (@ANI) April 27, 2019 1:07pm: Seven veteran officers join Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in presence of Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. #WATCH Shatrughan Sinha, Congress in Chhindwara, MP: Congress family from Mahatma Gandhi to Sardar Patel to Mohd Ali Jinnah to Jawaharlal Nehru...it's their party, they had the most important role in development & freedom of the country. This is the reason I've come here. (26.4) pic.twitter.com/HJg3EV8rNE ANI (@ANI) April 27, 2019 1:00pm: P Chidambaram said, "Shatrughan Sinha, whatever his views are, he must explain. But a few days ago, he was part of BJP. So let BJP explain why he was a part of BJP for so many years. I don't have to explain statement of every member.I can only speak for party's official position." 12:55pm: Mumbai Congress president Milind Deora has said if PM Modi truly respects the Maharashtra Police, he should withdraw the candidature of Malegaon blast accused Pragya Singh Thakur, who is contesting as a BJP nominee from Bhopal Lok Sabha constituency. In a statement, Deora said Mumbaikars should ask why the Prime Minister is encouraging those who insult the armed forces and brave police. "If the prime minister truly respects the Maharashtra Police, he should withdraw Pragya Thakur's ticket immediately. That's the least he can do to honour martyr Hemant Karkare," Deora said. 12:45pm: PM Modi said at a rally in Kannauj, "Congress, SP, BSP have only one mantra - jaat paat japna, janta ka maal apna (talk about caste, class and take away all of the public's money)" 12:35pm: PM Modi said at a rally in Kannauj, "Some people are spreading rumours that Modi will take back the PM Kisan money after elections. This means that they have accepted that on May 23, Modi will only for the government. I promise you that this money is yours and no one will take it back." 12:25pm: PM Modi said at a rally in Kannauj, "There are such intelligent people in our country who can make gold out of potatoes. Neither I nor my party can do such stuff. Whoever wants to make gold out of potatoes can approach those leaders, it is beyond us." 12:15pm: PM Modi said at a rally in Kannauj, "New India will not be afraid anymore. New India will go to the homes of terrorists and destroy them. When the country is protected, only then will the lives of its citizen go on peacefully." 12:10pm: PM Modi said at a rally in Kannauj, "Those who believe the lies spread by Pakistan in order to defeat PM Modi, those who want to become Pakistan's hero, what can we hope from them?" 12:00pm: PM Modi said at a rally in Kannauj, "Today that sister is campaigning for Modi who has benefited from the Ujjwala scheme. Modi's campaigning is done by that daughter who now has a toilet in her home. Modi's campaigning is done by that farmer who received support from the PM Kisan scheme. Modi's campaigning is done by that family whose son has received bullet-proof jackets to defend the country's borders." 11:55am: PM Modi said at a rally in Uttar Pradesh's Kannauj, "Should India be protected from terrorists or not? Did SP-BSP leaders mentioned terrorism even once? They abused Modi so much but did they abuse terrorism? Are they scared of terrorists or do they want to protect them?" 11:50am: Kavita Khanna, wife of late actor Vinod Khanna on being denied a ticket by BJP from Gurdaspur: It is my decision that I'm not going to make this a personal issue and make a personal sacrifice and put my entire might and support behind Prime Minister Narendra Modi. I felt hurt because I understand party the has right to decide candidate but there is a way of doing it, and the way it was done I felt abandoned and rejected, I was made to feel insignificant. 11:40am: Shiv Sena has appointed Priyanka Chaturvedi as the 'upneta' of the party. 11:20am: Case registered against SP leader Azam Khan for violating Model Code of Conduct at a rally in Shahabad, Rampur. 11:15am: RJD leader Tejaswi Yadav said, "We are fighting against BJP on all 40 seats. Tanveer Sahab is going to win Begusarai seat and that too by a huge margin. Whatever environment one creates, we aren't bothered, because public has made its mind." 11:10am: RJD leader Tejaswi Yadav said, "Raids are being held against Mayawati, against our family. BJP people are trying to frame opposition leaders. Because they know that in these polls, they're going to get defeated by 'mahagathbandhan' in respective states. CBI, ED, IT are working like IT cell of BJP." 11:00am: Congress President Rahul Gandhi will address rallies in Amethi and Raebareli today. 10:45am: "Will it be a repeat of 2014 in terms of votes or will it be more? The euphoric reaction at the ground suggests a mandate larger than 2014. A 65% to 70% approval rating for an incumbent Prime Minister is unprecedented in India. It is reflecting in the groundswell," wrote FM Jaitley in a blog post. 10:30am: In the blog post, FM Jaitley said, "The Congress Party and Rahul Gandhi are 48 years behind the times. 2019 and 1971 are 48 years apart. India's social combination and economic profile has completely changed. The Congress is contesting the 2019 election on the 1971 agenda." 10:14am: In a blog post, FM Jaitley said, "Rahul Gandhi, in the last one year, built up a fake narrative on Rafale and loan waiver to business houses, which was contrary to the truth. The fake issues evaporated and now strike no chord in the electorate." 10:09am: "The Congress Party's Manifesto on national security was completely against the nationalistic mood in the country," said Arun Jaitley in the blog post. 10:02am: In a blog post, Arun Jaitley said, "Instead of sharing the nationalist mood in the country post Balakot, Rahul positioned his party against both the national interest and the national mood. He considered Balakot not a blow to Pakistan sponsored terrorism but to the Congress Party." 10:00am: In a blog post, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said: The 'New India' is a positive India. It does not accept the negativism of Rahul, Arvind Kejriwal, Mamata Banerjee and TDP. The 'New India' wants to look up rather than be cynical and critical about their own country. 9:55am: BJP MLA from Uttar Pradesh Surendra Singh on Friday said, "Chanting Vande Mataram may be an emotion. But if you are living in India then Vande Mataram is a must. It is in Sanskrit and it can be translated into Urdu too. Those who do not want to chant it by heart have no right to live in India. If it is in my hand, I would send such people to Pakistan within one week after making their passports." 9:45am: NCP chief Sharad Pawar said on Friday night that Opposition parties and people have the right to ask Prime Minister Narendra Modi what happened to the development model promised by him and the BJP. He was addressing an election rally here for NCP candidate from Thane Anand Paranjpe. "You and I have the right to ask PM what happened to his development model," the NCP chief said. Modi won the last Lok Sabha elections by promising Gujarat-like development model for the country, but in the last five years he did not say anything about unemployment and the plight of small traders, labourers, Dalits and tribals, Pawar said. 9:40am: Congress leader Shatrughan Sinha says that from Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel to Mohd Ali Jinnah and Jawaharlal Nehru, all belonged to the party, which is why he has joined them. {blurb} 9:35am: Union ministers Ravi Shankar Prasad, R K Singh, Ashwini Kumar Choubey and former Speaker Meira Kumar were among 59 candidates who filed their nominations for eight Lok Sabha constituencies in the seventh and last phase of general elections in Bihar. The constituencies of Nalanda, Patna Sahib, Pataliputra, Ara, Buxar, Jehanabad, Karakat and Sasaram will go to polls in the seventh phase on May 19. A total of 59 candidates submitted their nomination papers for the final phase of Lok Sabha elections, Additional Chief Electoral Officer Sanjay Kumar Singh told reporters here. 9:30am: Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav is scheduled to hold a press conference in Kannauj at 4 pm today. Ramblings of a badly aged Baby Boomer who went from Rebel Without a Cause to Bozo Without a Clue in, seemingly, the same afternoon. According to Greenpeace Luxembourg, plastic pollution is not just an issue affecting the world's oceans - more and more plastic can be found in the Grand Duchy's waters, too, such as in the Moselle. Greenpeace Luxembourg drew attention to the fact that samples taken from waters between Trier(Germany) and Remich were tested for traces of micro plastic. With the anti-plastic campaign on their Beluga II ship in Remich, the environmental organisation aimed to raise awareness about the issues and consequences surrounding the use of plastic. Two samples were taken from the Moselle, and both came back positive. Both pieces of plastic and micro plastic were found. Whilst the latter cannot be seen with the naked eye, it does affect the living organisms in the Moselle, according to Greenpeaces Florence Menage. She explained that fish and birds partly live off the microplastic, which is carried over to our food chain. Consequences thereof are not yet known. Affected animals are not able to get rid of the plastic in their bodies naturally. As a consequence, their stomachs are often filled with plastic to the point that they no longer feel hungry, resulting in starvation. Samples from the Moselle were analysed for the presence of pieces of plastic under a microscope, before being taken to a laboratory. Greenpeace Luxembourg director Raymond Aendekerk explained that the lab is able to detect micro plastic that cannot be seen under the microscope. This is then used to evaluate the overall situation of our rivers and whether there is a co-relation with pollution in oceans, which is a difficult task. On the one hand, the organisations aim is to raise awareness and get people to decrease their use of plastic. However, in order to inspire large-scale change, multinational corporations must change their behaviour. Notably, Greenpeace recommends that multinationals stop wrapping foods and other goods in plastic, or considerably decrease their use of plastic. It would be helpful if, at least, plastic was to be used multiple times rather than ending up in the landfill right away. As an example, Nestle alone produced over 1.7 million tons of plastic last year. This weekend, Greenpeace is offering a visit on the sailing boat on the Marie-Astrid Quay, as well as an exhibition about plastic. Spears and poisoned blowguns at hand, the Waorani people say they are ready to strike down invaders of their Amazon homelands, just like their forefathers did. But now their battle is in court, and their enemies -- Ecuador's government and oil multinationals -- are faceless. The prize is their corner of Ecuador's Amazon rainforest, ancestral lands where exploration licenses are up for grabs under a government plan to sell lucrative land concessions to oil companies. A judge in the provincial capital Puyo is to rule on Friday on the tribe's legal challenge to the government's selloff, and a shiver of apprehension is running through their village of Nemompare, deep in the dripping rainforest. "The government sees oil and money but the Waorani see it is full of life," says community leader Nemonte Nenquimo. The 4,000 or so Waorani scattered across the vast Pastaza province in eastern Ecuador believe their land is the front line in a battle for the future of the planet. Some communities have rejected all contact with the outside world, but the Waorani are sufficiently worldly to know that the battle is being lost elsewhere. - Time to act - The 4,000 or so Waorani scattered across the vast Pastaza province in eastern Ecuador believe their land is the front line in a battle for the future of planet / AFP "Humans are changing the planet because big companies, big factories are destroying it. It is the moment now for the peoples to join and protest, to live well. If we don't protest, if we don't carry out actions, it means we are destroying the planet," said Nenquimo. The tiny settlement of Nemompare is home to around 50 Waos. Many flit through the thick leaves along the shaded forest pathways in scant traditional garb as they gather leaves for weaving or plants for food. Others wear shorts and tee-shirts. The men use blow-guns to hunt small animals. Debanca, another community leader, her face painted red underneath a feathered headdress, gestured across the muddy brown Curaray river on the settlement's edge. "Do you want oil companies to enter and kill the jungle, do away with clean territory, with clean water?" she asked AFP's reporters through an interpreter. The settlement is located 40 minutes by small plane from Shell, the local town that adopted the oil company's name since its first incursion into the jungle in the late 1930s. With the support of other Wao communities across the province, the Nemompare community went to court to try to block exploration licenses to prevent more destruction of the kind which contaminated their water and gouged out large areas of once-pristine rainforest. With the support of other Wao communities across the province, the Nemompare community went to court to try to block exploration licenses to prevent more destruction of the kind which contaminated their water and gouged out large areas of once-pristine rainforest / AFP/File "I am not here for myself, rather for the future, all the kids that will come," says Nenquimo, president of the Waorani Council of Pastaza, which filed the lawsuit last month to set aside 180,000 hectares from any exploration. "Thanks to my father, thanks to my grandfather, I still have forest that is alive, with no contamination. They were defenders, caretakers, guardians of the jungle and they are doing this with me -- I don't feel alone." - Defend the jungle 'with our lives' - Ecuador's constitution recognizes the Waorani rights to 800,000 hectares of jungle; crucially, the wealth in the subsoil belongs to the state / AFP/File In Nemompare, the Wao store rainwater in huge tanks for their consumption, supply themselves with energy with solar panels and sleep in hammocks. Although they learned to write with the "Kowori" or outsiders -- mainly missionaries -- they do not use paper. Instead, they keep alive their unique language, wao terere. Sitting near an open fire in the center of a hut, Wina Omaca, a grandmother recognized as a wise elder or "Pekenani," summed up the mood of resistance. "It's not just the 'tapaa' (spear), but the 'campa' and 'aweka' (machete and hatchet) are ready too," she said. Nobody speaks of armed resistance here, let alone a war, but the message appears to be that the Waorani could turn their home into hostile territory for oil company engineers. "Let it be clear. We will defend our jungle, our culture and our rights, with our lives," said Nenquimo. Ecuador's constitution recognizes the Waorani rights to 800,000 hectares of jungle. Crucially, the wealth in the subsoil belongs to the state. The legal challenge to safeguard 180,000 hectares represents less than 1 percent of Ecuador's area. The state reached an agreement with the Waorani during a consultation process over oil exploration in 2012, but the tribe's leaders say they were duped and refuse to recognize the agreement. - 'Our land is not for sale' - For now the fight is in the courts, but there are fears over their reaction to an adverse decision. Two of the more far-flung clans, the Taromenane and Tagaeri have been involved in deadly clashes. "They have not had a friendly relationship," said Miguel Angel Cabodevilla, a Spanish missionary who has studied the tribe for three decades. Tribal elders reported between 20 and 30 dead in clashes in 2013. But "the main violence has been against them, almost always, and been more aggressive," said Cabodevilla. "Their lands have been taken from them, they have been persecuted and killed, they have been enslaved, and now the wealth in the subsoil is being taken from them without adequate compensation." Tribal elder Peke Tokare -- his earlobes stretched by wooden discs -- points a long finger at the slogan on his tee-shirt, written in wao terere: "Our land is not for sale." In the end, the 2019 Montana Legislatures major Colstrip plan was a stalled solution that couldnt catch a ride. Lawmakers ended the 87-day session Thursday afternoon with amendments drawn up to commit customers of NorthWestern Energy to covering debts associated with the utilitys potential purchase of Colstrip Power Plant generation and transmission lines. Billed as a way to keep Colstrip Power Plant operating as the coal-fired generators other utility owners left, the proposal failed to pass both chambers of the Legislature. Afterward, Republican leaders lamented the loss. The Senate saw the merit of it and we pursued it. We did it in a transparent fashion. We heard from people that they had some concerns about the bill and we modified it on its way over to the House, said Scott Sales, senate president. Its a huge issue. I dont think its going to go away. We need to pay attention to it and hopefully future generations, at least in the next legislature, it will get the attention it deserves. House lawmakers killed the proposal, embodied in Senate Bill 331, on a strong bipartisan vote April 16, after which the bills sponsors, Republican Sens. Tom Richmond, of Billings, and Duane Ankney, of Colstrip, drafted amendments to be added to two surviving energy bills. But neither of those bills were ever amended. One potential vessel for the Colstrip bill died awaiting action in conference committee. House Bill 22, which dealt with energy contracts, needed a committee upgrade to accommodate a Colstrip overhaul. I attribute it to kind of an agreement across the aisle that this is not the right thing to do and that came from the progressive Democrats and the hard right, said Rep. Tom Woods, D-Bozeman, summarizing the coalition that turned back the legislation. Those lawmakers recognized the Colstrip bill not as a means to save the power plant, but rather a way to bind NorthWestern customers to debt without exposing the terms to the scrutiny of the Public Service Commission. As part of the plan, the commission, which balances customers right to a fair price with the utilitys opportunity to earn an authorized cost of capital, was prevented from turning back NorthWesterns Colstrip purchase, even if the commission concluded the deal was bad for ratepayers. Theres nothing stopping the utility from presenting to the commission a plan to buy a larger share of Colstrip generation and transmission. If the company doesnt want to bake the costs into customer rates, it can make the purchase without the commissions approval. NorthWestern says it will only pay a dollar for its increased share of the power plant but hasnt said what an added ownership share of Colstrip transmission lines would cost. I would assume that people appreciate that for once the company lost and didnt get their way, Woods said. At the end of the day, the company could have done what theyre saying they wanted. They can still buy Colstrip on their own. Go for it. Take the risk. Do you want to grab more of the transmission? Go for it. Take the risk. Thats what businesses do. What this has been about is getting this into the rate base. NorthWestern Energy still sees acquiring a larger share of Colstrip transmission and generation as beneficial, said Jo Dee Black, a company spokeswoman. The company sees a need for a reliable baseline amount of power, and thats not going away. We support this effort and well certainly develop a plan to address this ongoing critical need, Black said. Were disappointed, obviously. Black said NorthWestern saw increased Colstrip ownership as a way to secure electricity at a low generation cost. Theres more than generation rolled into the electricity bills of utility customers, but the cost of generation for the newly acquired Colstrip share was expected to be less than what NorthWestern currently incurs on its 30 percent share of Colstrip Unit 4. There was a second piece of legislation, House Bill 597, that appeared headed to conference committee for a Colstrip makeover, but never made it that far. Thursday, the bills sponsor, Rep. Daniel Zolnikov, persuaded lawmakers to pull HB597 back from conference to be passed as is without the Colstrip amendments. The bill should help customers, Zolnikov said. Im just excited to be actually fixing some of the energy laws and allowing oversight on planning. And more importantly, this allows the Montana Consumer Counsel to ensure that competitive solicitation is overseen correctly, Zolnikov said. The Consumer Counsel is the constitutionally-created state advocate for customers of monopoly utilities. When it comes to utilities like NorthWestern or Montana Dakota Utilities selecting energy projects to power Montana customers, Zolnikov wants that advocate involved early, looking at available options and not just a single project brought forth by the utility at a later stage. Its the latter situation that now occurs, which Zolnikov wrote HB597 to fix. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 In a sign of the shifting landscape of Wyoming school construction, the Natrona County school board recently approved $4.8 million worth of renovation and expansion to Park Elementary. The work will include the addition of four new classrooms, along with the building of a new corridor to better connect areas of the school. Repairs will include $250,000 for a new roof, $350,000 for sprinklers and $600,000 for air conditioning replacements, according to Natrona County School District documents. In all, the lengthy list of repairs will cost $2.75 million, while the additions will run $2.1 million. School board members explained that the work was necessary to simultaneously accommodate a recent influx of students to Park, which hosts one of the districts dual-language immersion programs. The new rooms will expand how many students Park can hold, which in turn will help the district avoid having to replace the building in the years to come. Such is the goal of the renovations, as well. Built in 1956 and located in central Casper, Park is already well over its capacity, by both local and statewide metrics. In years past, this work may all have not happened. Before the bust, the district may have considered building a new, larger school. But in the wake of the recent economic downturn, theres very little money available to Wyoming school districts to build new facilities. The Legislature has been signaling for years that the wave of construction that spanned the majority of the 21st century thus far has ended and that local educators and school boards need to make their buildings last as long as possible. Park (Elementary School) is one hundred and ninety-fifth (195th) on the State of Wyomings school list for replacement, district officials wrote in a report supporting the construction. As a result, it is unlikely the State of Wyoming would fund the replacement of Park ES in the foreseeable future. Still, the prospect of the district expanding an elementary school less than a year after it shuttered three other schools can raise eyebrows. Indeed, it did on the board: Angela Coleman asked Mike Jennings, one of the districts point people for facilities, if enrollment at Park had ticked up after the schools closed. He said that no, Park had consistently maintained enrollment of 350 students or so. Coleman, who lives in Mills, had been a vocal opponent of the school closure decision last year, a move that resulted in the shuttering of Mountain View, the last school in Mills. Though the decision to renovate Park would pass, she did not vote. Nor did trustee Ray Catellier. Crucially, though, the money that will be used to renovate Park comes from two pots of money one set aside for construction and another for major maintenance. Neither pot can be tapped for day-to-day costs, like running a school or paying salaries. Other members of the board expressed support for the plan. Dave Applegate called it outstanding and said it was a prudent expenditure. Kevin Christopherson said the work will help Park stay viable for another 50 years. The bulk of the construction is set to take place in two phases: October through December 2020, and January through August 2021. The schools windows and HVAC system, plus some other repairs, will be made in summer 2022. Follow education reporter Seth Klamann on Twitter @SethKlamann Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Want to see more like this? Get our local education coverage delivered directly to your inbox. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Racing star Alex Tagliani kicks of Food Allergy Awareness Month Posted by: newsla on Apr 26, 2019 - 08:48 PM Racing star Alex Tagliani kicks of Food Allergy Awareness Month Food Allergy Canada Ambassador Alex Tagliani will be visiting Kimberley/Beaches Alternative School in Toronto on the morning of May 1st to help kick-off Food Allergy Awareness Month and promote allergy awareness. Alex, who has food allergies, will share his experience and tips on managing food allergy safely, as well as how to support students at risk of a serious reaction. Together with the students, Alex will be designing his 2019 NASCAR season opener #18 race car with team 22 Racing, which will be onsite at the school. Alex will unveil the car to race fans at the first NASCAR Pinty's Series race on May 19th at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in Bowmanville, Ont., where students will be invited to attend to see the race trackside. "Food allergy is a very serious issue, but I approach it like I do a race - preparation, teamwork, and being careful," said Alex. I look forward to meeting the students and answering their questions about food allergy and encouraging them to learn more and support their friends who may be at risk." Food allergies are a growing public health concern affecting more than 2.6 million Canadians. Given that even a small amount of an allergen, if ingested, could cause a serious allergic reaction and be potentially life-threatening, avoidance is the only means of staying safe. Public education, particularly for young people, is a key component of a strategy of safe and responsible food allergen management. "We are excited to welcome Alex to our school to talk about food allergy and show his support for this important day-to-day issue," said Kimberley Public/Beaches Alternative School Principal Lilian Hanson. "Our school strives to provide a safe and inclusive environment for all our students, and we look forward to hearing Alex's inspiring message." "Having Alex talk about his allergies is a great way of reaching students directly, letting them know that food allergy is a serious issue, but one that can be managed safely with support from those around you, including their teachers and friends," said Beatrice Povolo, Director of Advocacy & Media with Food Allergy Canada. PaddockTalk Perspective The black-tailed prairie dog, an adored, hated, feared and beloved staple of the landscape of the American West, may soon see its range cut just a little bit smaller. Prairie dogs were once ubiquitous in grasslands across most of Wyoming and other Great Plains states, moving in waves across the prairie. And upon their colonies depended a host of other species from black-footed ferrets, which need them for food and shelter, to burrowing owls, which use their abandoned burrows for houses. But they also eat grass that ranchers need for grazing. And now they carry the plague. Black-tailed prairie dogs occupy less than 5 percent of their historic range, with a portion of that contained within the Thunder Basin National Grassland in northeast Wyoming. A proposed revision to a plan by the National Forest Service may shrink that range even further, allowing for possible poisoning and shooting across the entirety of the national grassland. The Forest Service and proponents of the plan say it is a compromise, and a way to address more quickly and effectively fluctuating prairie dog populations. Critics of the proposal say it is unbalanced and threatens the future of prairie dogs and the many species that depend on them. Meetings begin May 6 to solicit feedback from the public. Long history Changes to how the Forest Service manages prairie dogs across a patchwork of grasslands were a long time coming, said Russell Bacon, supervisor of the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest and Thunder Basin National Grassland. The current plan was created in the early 2000s, and prioritized the expansion of prairie dogs across the landscape. It set aside 18,000 acres where people could not shoot or poison prairie dogs, and provided some guidance on management across the rest of the grasslands. No one thought black-tailed prairie dogs would extend much further than 18,000 or 20,000 acres, said Dave Pellatz, executive director of the Thunder Basin Grasslands and Prairie Ecosystem Association, a local nonprofit of landowners, ranchers and other area interests. But they did. In 2016, the critters had exploded across more than 75,000 acres. By the time forest managers knew how big the problem had become and began discussing solutions, plague a deadly, nonnative pathogen carried by fleas that primarily impacts prairie dogs began to tear through the area, Pellatz said. In response, the Forest Service removed the shooting ban and allowed people to kill prairie dogs even in the original 18,000 acres. Hundreds of thousands of prairie dogs were dead, and you would walk through the colonies and it would stink. To some of us here who lived through things in the past, this isnt good management and isnt good for anyone let alone the prairie dogs, he said. We need to do something that allows us to keep those catastrophic highs and lows from happening. Today prairie dogs cover only about 1,000 acres of that original 18,000 acres, prompting concerns from wildlife and conservation groups. The management plan in place didnt give the Forest Service the ability to quickly deal with an expanding prairie dog population, Bacon said. The new proposal would. Under the new plan, which Bacon said came from years of discussions between ranchers, landowners, energy groups and conservationists, no area will be off-limits to prairie dog shooting and poisoning if populations expand. The plan also shrinks the original 18,000 acres set aside for prairie dog-dependent species to a scattered 10,000 acres to be managed as a shortgrass ecosystem. We believe the target objective acres will provide for the long-term viability of those species like mountain plover and burrowing owl and swift fox, Bacon said. Polarizing creature The battle for and against white-tailed and black-tailed prairie dogs has been a long one in Wyoming and the West. Ranchers point to a landscape covered in prairie dog burrows and see breeding grounds for plague and a loss of grass for their livestock. Wildlife advocates see prairie dog colonies as an integral part of the ecosystem, a necessary component no different than the grass itself. Dozens of species including the mountain plover, endangered black-footed ferret, burrowing owl, ferruginous hawk and swift fox depend at least in part on the existence of the colonies. The new plan states part of its purpose is to place greater emphasis on control and active management of prairie dog colonies to address significant concerns related to health, safety, and economic impacts on neighboring landowners. Johnathan Proctor, Rockies & Plains program director for Defenders of Wildlife, said the purpose is to gut the minimal protections that now occur. For Pellatz, whose family has ranched in the Thunder Basin area for more than a century, the solution is somewhere in between. In most of life you have people saying its going to be terrible and on the opposite side you have folks who say, the only good prairie dog is a dead prairie dog, and we dont want any of them, he said. We walk somewhere in the middle. I can see both perspectives. I think that the opportunities do exist for trying to maintain a little more balance and perhaps a little more wholistic approach. Unfortunately, said Proctor, in this proposed plan prairie dogs and other species lose. Prairie dogs are an ecosystem. They are a key part of the Great Plains of North America and 95 percent of that is gone, Proctor said. These are multiple use lands that wildlife is a part of it, and theyre writing them off the land. The black-footed ferret which was once considered extinct and now has been reintroduced into eight states likely depends on the Thunder Basin Grassland for its future delisting, he said. If prairie dog colonies are reduced too much, ferrets will never return. Black-footed ferrets havent been reintroduced into the area yet, Pellatz said, and likely wont in the near future not because of prairie dog numbers but because of social pressures. The Wyoming Game and Fish Department will not release the endangered predator onto any lands where they will face opposition from adjacent private land owners. Game and Fish officials declined to comment on the plan and its possible impact on other nongame species until theyve had a chance to fully review it. Bacon stressed the revised proposal is not final. The public comment period is open until May 20, and a final decision may come within 18 months. Love 1 Funny 3 Wow 0 Sad 1 Angry 2 BEATTIE GULCH, Montana The scavenger-cleaned bison carcass scattered across the grassland provided the perfect punctuation point for Nathan Varley. Varley was lobbying a group of officials Wednesday to modify how the winter bison hunt is conducted in the Gardiner Basin in Montana, just north of Yellowstone National Park. The hunter-killed bison bones, fur and offal emphasized his argument: hunts are being conducted close to nearby residences. Our contention is that some of the hunting that does take place hasnt been safe, he said. Residents variously referred to the area as the killing field or the kill zone, noting that as soon as bison cross the park boundary they are fair game for hunters. The issue isnt new, as hunts have been conducted in the area since 2005. Seeking help Varley is a member of the Bear Creek Council, a conservation group based in Gardiner, Montana, at the North Entrance to Yellowstone. He also grew up in Gardiner, the son of the parks one-time chief scientist. After leaving and then returning to the region, Varley now runs a wildlife tourism business. Hes concerned not only about wildlife, but how the public perceives the state of Montanas treatment of animals like bison. We are hyper-vigilant of things that may influence tourism, he said. Some (tourists) are appalled and dismayed by what they see. Once bison leave the park in the Gardiner Basin they can be legally killed during two winter seasons by state hunters, as well as by tribal hunters with treaty rights. Some tribal hunts extend into April. The problem has been that the areas where hunters have the easiest access to bison is relatively small and not far from residences. Three-hundred and fifty eight gut piles in one winter. Picture it, said Bonnie Lynn, who lives across from Beattie Gulch, one of two prime bison hunting areas north of Gardiner. The gut piles attract scavengers, everything from eagles and ravens to bobcats, coyotes, wolves and bears. Together they can pick clean the backbones, rib cages and gut piles in a matter of days. Some of the scavengers are killed by predator hunters; others have died from lead poisoning caused by consuming bullets. We are concerned about collateral damage, Varley said. Lobbying Varley, other residents and partners of the Bear Creek Council were lobbying members of the Inter-Agency Bison Management Program, which includes state, federal and tribal officials. About 60 people toured the two hunting areas as residents spoke. The requests were varied: Could the Forest Service land near the old Yellowstone Trail Road that leads to Beattie Gulch be closed to push the bison hunt farther away from residences? Could all bison carcasses be removed from the fields? Last winter, one resident estimated that out of the 300 animals killed more than 8,000 pounds of gut piles were left on the landscape. The Bear Creek Council is not against hunting, Varley said, a message all of the other residents echoed. But we are here to say the way hunting currently is conducted is not safe. Dan Stahler, who owns a home just off Eagle Creek Road, has lived close to the other main bison hunting area for five years. A hunter himself, Stahler said he has turned in many violators hes seen trespassing, shooting from roads and hazing bison. Ive been a witness to a lot of the negative activities, he said. He suggested the hunting area at Eagle Creek be pushed farther east, away from the houses, to increase safety for residents. Ilona Popper, who lives farther up the road near the small community of Jardine, said during hunting season the icy road she commutes on becomes dangerous as hunters park in one lane of traffic to load or butcher their kill. Its not being conducted as a safe hunt, she said. Something has to change. Considering Officials from the IBMP were willing to listen to the many tales of residents, but didnt want to offer hope for changes before consulting with the rest of the group. No one partner wants to take on any of the issues individually, always seeking a consensus as well as a cost-share for any expense incurred. Im glad to see people talking about it and what the residents deal with, said Mike Volesky, chief of operations for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. But theres not an easy solution or we would have done it already. Last year FWP proposed closing Beattie Gulch to state hunters, a suggestion that never made it past muster because it wouldnt affect tribal hunters, who are more numerous. Maybe by getting people together and hearing other peoples concerns, we could reconsider some things, Volesky said. But its tough when you have a number of tribes, a number of sovereigns who see things differently. Tribes with treaty rights to hunt in Montana are not governed by state game laws, although they often work in concert with FWP. Carl Scheeler, wildlife program manager for the Umatilla Tribe, agreed that the tour provided a great opportunity for the IBMP to hear the concerns of the local community. He suggested a bounty paid for carcasses could monetize what is now considered waste, encouraging some locals or hunters to pick up the dead bison parts now left lying in the field. The question then arises: Where would the carcass parts be taken, and what would be done with them? They could be incinerated or maybe turned into compost, all issues that would have to be worked out between the IBMP partners. We need to keep all options open right now, he said. We clearly care about it. Bison matters Yellowstone National Park's bison are hunted only once they leave the sanctuary, but they are also removed inside the park by officials. Under an agreement with the members of the Inter-Agency Bison Management Program and the state of Montana, Yellowstone captures and ships to slaughter bison each winter to reduce the population, the idea being that once the herd is smaller maybe fewer will migrate out of the park and be killed. The animals shipped to slaughter are butchered with the meat going to participating tribes. Yellowstone is also working with the Fort Peck Tribes to increase the number of live bison removed from the park. The problem is the bison can't be moved until they are certified free of the disease brucellosis. That doesn't occur until the animals pass a lengthy quarantine period. The tribes have built their own quarantine facility in hopes of speeding up the transfer, but the state of Montana has refused to allow them to be moved out of fear of spreading brucellosis to another region of the state. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 As APS continues implementing an even cleaner generation mix, we have made the decision to end our membership with Utility Air Regulatory Group, the company said in an emailed statement. But TEP has no intention of dropping out of the UARG at this time, company spokesman Joe Barrios said. The company used ratepayer funds for dues of more than $170,000 to the UARG in 2017 and nearly $157,000 to the group in 2018. It offers value to the company and our customers because so many utilities have been members in the past. That ultimately reduces the costs for us to have access to experts in federal air regulation, with which we are required to comply, Barrios said. None of the dues TEP pays to the UARG is for lobbying, though the group provides advocacy before administrative and regulatory bodies, he said. Barrios said TEP plans to fully respond to Commissioner Kennedys information request and is in the process of compiling the requested data, which includes all of TEPs communications with the UARG since 2012. An injured 11-year-old child was found in the lobby of an office building before deputies discovered two adults dead from gunshot wounds Saturday afternoon, authorities said. At 11:30 a.m., Pima County Sheriff's deputies responded to a report of shots fired at the building in the 1000 block of West Ina Road. The child was taken to a hospital for treatment for non-life-threatening injuries, the Pima County Sheriff's Department said. Deputies then found two adults who were pronounced dead inside an office. Detectives determined that the adults suffered fatal gunshot wounds. There are no outstanding suspects, the Sheriff's Department said. The investigation is ongoing. No further information had been released as of Saturday afternoon. Contact Star reporter Shaq Davis at 573-4218 or sdavis@tucson.com On Twitter: @ShaqDavis1 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. He points to a number of county-funded projects, including millions spent on the construction of the 131-mile multi-modal path known as The Loop and millions spent to build new facilities that have been leased by a high-altitude balloon company known as World View as examples of poor funding decisions. Those are millions of dollars that could have been spent on road repair, he argues. DeBonis notes that these arguments are complicated and shifting county funding away from projects is not as cut and dry as critics like to suggest. The Loop, for example, was initially funded as part of a massive flood control measure, although the Army Corps of Engineers also paid for a large portion of the project. Neither of these funding sources could have been easily shifted to road repair. But DeBonis concedes that changing public opinion, which is a prerequisite for any new publicly supported road project like a bond or a tax increase, is going to be a long process. Trust is earned and not given, DeBonis said. We need to continue to do things to gain the trust of people who may feel otherwise. The veto is an apparent about-face for the governor, at least as far as this approach to dealing with the problem. In January, in the wake of the death of a Salt River police officer killed by a texting motorist, the governor noted that there was talk of a bill last year of distracted driving. Had that gotten to my desk, I would have signed it, Ducey said at the time. I want to make sure that we prevent and avoid this type of tragedy in the future. And Sen. J.D. Mesnard, R-Chandler, who crafted the vetoed measure, said what the governor said in his Friday veto is different than what his office had previously told me about my bill. Gubernatorial press aide Patrick Ptak denied that Ducey committed to signing any specific legislation. We reviewed this bill in relation to the hands-free law signed on Monday and had concerns, Ptak said. Mesnard said his approach was a preferable way of dealing with the fact that people with phones in their hands as well as food, makeup and anything else are hazards. And it was also far simpler than HB 2318, the measure Ducey signed Monday. WASHINGTON A new report says Latinos are on track to be the largest minority voting group in 2020, when an estimated 32 million will be eligible to vote. The Latino Vote Project, a collaboration of several advocacy groups, said the influence of those voters was already felt in 2018, with no question that a surge of Latino votes tipped Senate races in Arizona and Nevada to Democrats. But they warned that the momentum they saw in 2018 could end, unless advocacy organizations mobilize and keep communities engaged in politics. Alex Gomez, co-director of LUCHA Living United for Change in Arizona called the 2018 turnout eight years in the making, noting that it was 2010 when SB 1070 took effect. The Arizona law required police to check the citizenship status of anyone they stopped. When SB 1070 happened, our communities came together and decided, with the little investment we had, to start doing voter registration, Gomez said. Those children that were experiencing their parents being detained and deported are actually 18 years old or older now and are ready to vote. Selee and the institute note that CIS hearing officers already handle the entire length of each case for a different subset of asylum cases, the so-called affirmative asylum cases by which people already in the country seek to stay. These CIS hearing officers could and should handle the entire case, from credible-fear to the ultimate asylum decision, he said. There also is capacity among the officers who judge refugee cases, because so few refugees are being admitted into the country under President Trump, he added. This is the kind of thing reasonable people on both sides can agree to, Selee said. McSally The U.S. senator from Tucson noted when we spoke Friday that many people who are being released have not actually requested asylum. They are being released because they have children with them, and there are strict time limits for how long children can be held in detention. One of the things that would reduce the flow, she said, is reducing the incentives for children to come to the United States, on their own or with their families. The Arizona Department of Child Safety will have to defend how it handles the more than 14,000 children in foster care now and all those who will be there in the future, a court says. In a unanimous ruling Friday, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decided that most of the claims against the state should be handled in a class-action lawsuit. That means the department will face questions on not just how it has handled the care of a handful of children who filed suit, but whether its policies endanger others in the system. Fridays ruling does not force DCS to do anything yet. Instead, it sends the case back to U.S. District Court Judge Roslyn Silver, who will hear evidence of the departments practices. It allows us to go forward with the case and prove the claim that the children who are in the foster care system are not receiving the services they need to be successful and theyre not being placed in appropriate living arrangements and theyre not being reunited with their families, said attorney Anne Ronan of the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest. She is part of the legal team suing the state. Create a device that can be used to determine the age of a bruise. The idea stems from bilirubin scanners, Woolridge said, which medical professionals have been using regularly for the last several years to test for jaundice in newborns. Bilirubin is a yellow pigment formed from the breakdown of hemoglobin, and sometimes newborns have trouble excreting it, which makes their skin look yellow. Checking on bilirubin levels in a mark on the skin can also distinguish a birthmark from a bruise, he said, because birthmarks will not contain bilirubin. The new device developed at Woolridges suggestion will take that process further and, eventually, could show not only whether a mark is a bruise, but also when it occurred by measuring how it reflects light. So far, an all-female team of engineering students which includes five from the biomedical department and one majoring in mechanical engineering have created a device that collects data on bruising and shows whether a bruise is old. They also had help from a Ph.D. student, Devesh Khosla, who is studying electrical engineering. Legendary Foyt Cements Legacy with Bronze Brick at IMS Posted by: newsla on Apr 26, 2019 - 08:49 PM Legendary Foyt Cements Legacy with Bronze Brick at IMS Before placing a commemorative bronze brick into Indianapolis Motor Speedway's famed Yard of Bricks start/finish line on a rainy Thursday morning, legendary A.J. Foyt recalled what it was like back in the day to race on that surface. The four-time Indianapolis 500 winner's name and the four years he won "The Greatest Spectacle in Racing" - in 1961, '64, '67 and '77 - are carved on the specially produced brick. "All I can say is I won it with the whole straightaway of bricks," said Foyt, 84, referring to his first win 58 years ago. "I won it with the Yard of Bricks. It was a lot better when they took the bricks up (and paved the front straight with asphalt) because it was rough. It would take the fillings out of your teeth when you'd run across them." Two more bricks, honoring fellow four-time Indy 500 winners Al Unser and Rick Mears, will be added at a later date. "I'm glad to be the first one," said Foyt, appropriate since he was the first four-time winner. "You always want to be first. That means a lot to me. I never was happy when I ran second or third. That was my whole life. I didn't want to settle for second or third. I had to a lot, but I wasn't happy about it." Hulman & Company President and CEO Mark Miles, IMS President Doug Boles and brick creator Bud Tucker of IMS were on hand to unveil the brick. Tucker used silicone bronze to create the 18-pound brick in the welding shop on IMS grounds. Foyt was also given an identical brick mounted in granite to take back home to Texas. "I'm glad to have been a part of it," said Tucker, who has worked at IMS as a welder and fabricator for 15 years. "His legacy will go on. As an artist, that's what I wanted to make sure of." Boles explained how this new tradition was a twist from 1909, when Indiana Gov. Thomas Marshall helped IMS founding partner Carl Fisher place a commemorative brick at the start/finish line when the original 3.2 million paving bricks were installed. In 1961, that tradition continued when IMS owner Tony Hulman placed a gold brick at the start/finish line, joined by Ray Harroun, winner 50 years earlier of the first Indy 500, and Louis Schwitzer, the first winner of a 5-mile, two-lap race at the track in 1909. Boles reminded this is the second time Foyt has placed a brick among the 573 remaining on the track. He joined IMS chairman Mari Hulman George to do the honors in 2011 in commemoration of the centennial anniversary of the Indianapolis 500. "The driver bricks are going to be in the fourth row, four rows from the center," Boles said. "We're playing off the fours. "There's one spot left, and we're hoping maybe Helio Castroneves can join that group," Boles said. "We're trying to give him extra incentive this year to really go after his fourth win, so we can celebrate another four-time winner." Tucker confided that when he created the first brick, he thought he had made a mistake because of all the nicks in the creation. "Then I got the original brick out and saw that it picked up every detail in the original," Tucker said. That made sense to Foyt, who said of those old bricks, "They had a lot of marks in them." Foyt, a native of Houston, was in town for Wednesday's NTT IndyCar Series Open Test to see how his two-car team looked in preparation for the 103rd Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge on Sunday, May 26. He recalled how he arrived at the track as a rookie in 1958 and never imagined he would still be coming back 61 years later. "It's nice to be honored here, but who thought I'd still be living and talking to you today," Foyt said. "I damn sure didn't think I'd be here, but I'm here." Then he repeated a familiar testimony of what Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Indianapolis 500 mean to him. "A lot of drivers who won this race felt they built Indianapolis," Foyt said. "Indianapolis is what made A.J. Foyt what he is today. I won a lot of great races all over the United States, but the one race that's always important to me was right here, and it still is." Not known for being overly sentimental, Foyt likes the idea of knowing his name will be remembered literally in the track long after he's gone. "It's a great honor to be back here this many times," Foyt said. "I'd like to be here another 50 or 60 years. I know that's not going to happen. At least I'll have a brick that people can look at." PaddockTalk Perspective Last year he agreed to allow some new hurdles put in the path of initiative circulators to remain on the books, at least for the time being. Beene, who wrote the opinion for the three-judge appellate court, did not dispute the contention of challengers that a 2017 statute approved by GOP lawmakers requiring strict compliance with all election laws could keep some individuals and groups from crafting their own laws and asking voters to approve them. But Beene said the court cannot rule on the issue because no one was actually being penalized at the time and no initiative was at risk of being thrown off the ballot for failing to comply with the new standard, meaning the case is not yet ripe for a decision. He also wrote a ruling upholding a lower-court decision that heterosexual couples who have always had the right to marry in Arizona are not entitled to the same benefits provided to gay couples who, at the time, were not entitled to wed. Beene said refusing to recognize a womans claim she was the domestic partner of her boyfriend was not illegal discrimination. From December 19th through December 26th we will be granting free access as a gift to our readers presented by Copenhagen Imports Growing Pima County is an ongoing series from the Arizona Daily Star's editorial board. Below are each of the pieces in the series. Google Station, a global free Wi-Fi initiative of the Internet giant, appears to have made its presence felt at several universities in some major Vietnamese cities. Google Station allows partners to roll out Wi-Fi hotspots in public places by providing software and advice on hardware to turn fiber connections into Wi-Fi. It was first implemented in India in December 2016, and has then extended its reach to Indonesia, Mexico, Thailand, Nigeria and the Philippines. Vietnam might be the seventh country in the world and the fifth in Asia to receive Google Station-powered free Wi-Fi services. Several students at Vietnamese universities such as the Electric Power University in Hanoi, the University of Technology in the central city of Da Nang, the Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology and Education, and the Post and Telecommunications Institute of Technology in Ho Chi Minh City have reported that they have been using Google free Wi-Fi service at their campuses since earlier this week. Nguyen Van Tang, a student at the Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology and Education, said he has been online with the free Wi-Fi since Tuesday. The connection quality is good, Tang told news website VnExpress, adding that he can watch YouTube, access websites and social media at normal speed using the free Internet service. Users have to watch an advertisement to get an hours worth of free Internet access from Google Station, according to the students. The free wireless network is named FreeGoogleStation Swifi and a Swifi logo will appear during the connecting process. With S-wifi being a public Internet provider under the Saigon Postel Corporation, it is speculated that Google is partnering with the Vietnamese company to introduce Google Station at these universities in Ho Chi Minh City. Thanh Nien (Young People) newspaper reported on Friday a Google executive has confirmed the tech giant is testing its Google Station in Vietnam but declined to give further comment, saying the company would make an official announcement later. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! From May, households in Ho Chi Minh City will be able to sell to the grid any excess electricity generated by solar panels installed on their roofs. The Ho Chi Minh City Power Corporation (EVN HCMC) on Thursday signed its first solar power purchase agreements with residents in District 1 and District 3. Accordingly, excess power generated by these households solar panels will be sold to the grid for VND2,143 (9.35 U.S. cents) per kilowatt-hour (kWh). Over 1,400 solar roof systems in Ho Chi Minh City are already connected to the grid with a total installed generation capacity of 17.46 megawatt-peak (MWp), according to Nguyen Ngoc Tuong Vi, acting head of sales at EVN HCMC. In reality, these households can add over four million kWh in capacity to the grid, Vi said. This will help increase clean energy output on the national grid, she added. EVN HCMC expects to finish signing power purchase contracts with all households with solar panels on their roofs in the southern metropolis by the end of May 2019. These contracts will be valid for 20 years, with money from sale of generated electricity being transferred directly to customers bank accounts on a monthly basis. Revenue from selling solar power will be taxed, but only at a mere rate of two percent, if it exceeds VND100 million (US$4,300) a year. For enterprises, a ten-percent tax is applicable and deduced directly from their income from selling solar power to the grid. Vietnam is targeting 50MWp in installed solar power capacity by the end of 2019, Vi said. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! The first seaplane flights between the ancient capital of Hue and its neighboring city of Da Nang was launched on Friday, offering both transportation and sightseeing services in the two famed destinations in central Vietnam. The service provider, Hai Au Aviation JSC, said this is the first time the two central coastal cities have been connected by its air route, which promises spectacular experience for sightseeing lovers. The service connects Phu Bai Airport in Hue with the Da Nang International Airport, with one daily flight from each of the cities. Besides the air travel service, tourists can choose either to enjoy famous attractions of both cities in a 40 minute flight. They can also take a 30-minute sightseeing sky tour to get an overview of the Imperial City within the Hue Citadel and other popular sites in the ancient capital city of Vietnam. This tour also allows passengers to admire Da Nang must-see tourist attractions including a 30km magnificent beach from Son Tra Peninsula to the city center, the iconic Han River, and the famous Golden Bridge in Ba Na Hills. The services are offered with the 12-seat Cessna Grand Caravan 208B-EX Airbus aircraft from 300m above the ground. Ngo Quang Vinh, director of the Da Nang tourism department, said that the new flights to Hue City would be the best-selling service in upcoming years. Central Vietnam is famous for its natural and magnificent beauty, so this kind of service will definitely hold the appeals of both domestic and international tourists, he said with confidence. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Vietnam equities ended higher on Friday boosted by positive cues from an impending free trade pact with the European Union, while Thai markets dropped in overall subdued trade across Southeast Asia ahead of U.S. economic growth data. A string of solid numbers has led analysts to revise upwards their outlook for U.S. growth and the latest median polled by Reuters is for an annualised 2.0 percent. A strong reading could result in heavy foreign fund outflows for regional risk assets. Vietnam's benchmark closed about 0.6 percent higher in broad based gains, as investors took positive cues from a free trade pact to be signed with the European Union by June end. Real estate and financial stocks led gains, with Vinhomes JSC and Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam ending up 2 percent and 0.9 percent, respectively. Joint Stock Commercial Bank was also bolstered after it said it was targeting nearly 9 percent growth in its 2019 profit. The benchmark index gained about 1.4 percent for the week, outpacing its regional peers. Indonesian stocks shrugged off initial weakness to end 0.4 percent higher, snapping two straight sessions of heavy losses. By Thursday's close, the Jakarta index had lost about 1.4 percent over two sessions after a sell-off in consumer stocks bled into other sectors. Financials and telecommunication stocks led gains for the day, with Bank Danamon Indonesia Tbk PT and Telekomunikasi Indonesia ending 4.7 percent and 2.1 percent higher, respectively. For the week, Indonesian stocks shed 1.6 percent, their worst weekly drop since early-March. On the other hand, the Thai index ended about 0.4 percent down, as heavyweight oil and gas producers PTT and Thai Oil were undercut by a retraction in oil prices. Total Access Communication was the biggest drag on the benchmark after its first-quarter results were seen as lower than expected. "The 1Q19 results were below our forecast and the consensus by 4 percent and 10 percent, respectively," local brokerage KT-ZMICO said in a research note. The Thai index snapped three straight weeks of gains this week and ended 0.4 percent lower. Read todays leading news stories. Politics -- Vietnams Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang witnessed the exchange ceremony of the three documents on economic and technological cooperation, veterinary and public health requirements for Vietnamese dairy products exported to China, and cultural and tourism cooperation between the two countries during the talks held on Friday on the occasion of the Vietnamese government leaders trip to China to attend the ongoing second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. Society -- Traffic congestion in the area around Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City on Friday caused several passengers to miss their flights as people started to take their five-day holiday to celebrate Reunification Day (April 30) and International Labor Day (May 1). -- Ho Chi Minh Citys District 4 Hospital has launched its motorcycle ambulance service, increasing the number of hospitals operating the service in the city to four, the municipal Department of Health said on Friday. Business -- The first flights of Vietjets five new routes from the northern city of Hai Phong, the north-central province of Nghe Ans Vinh City, the north-central province of Thanh Hoa, the south-central province of Khanh Hoas Nha Trang City and the Central Highlands province of Lam Dongs Da Lat City landed in the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho on Friday morning. -- Sense Market, Ho Chi Minh Citys first-ever subterranean venue that combines a shopping center and a food court, will not be closed by April 30 as stipulated by an order by the municipal chairman in August 2018, its operator Saigon Co.op announced on Friday. -- The U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) has announced its final decision of the DOCs 14th Period of Review on anti-dumping tariffs on Vietnams catfish batches imported into the country during the period from August 1, 2016 to July 31, 2017, with much higher rates for Vietnamese exporters. Lifestyle -- Vietnamese young director Pham Thien Ans Stay Awake, Be Ready has been listed to compete with ten other entries in the short films category at the 2019 Directors Fortnight, an independent section held in parallel to the Cannes Film Festival. -- Hundreds of people in Hanoi, from young to old, have taken part in an environment conservation campaign that has started at the Banking Academy of Vietnam since the beginning of this week by exchanging old batteries, paper, books, and milk paper cartons for green trees. -- The Hue Traditional Craft Festival 2019, the 8th edition of the event, opened in the former imperial capital of Hue on Friday. -- The 100th festival of Khau Vai Love Market a unique cultural practice of locals in Khau Vai Commune, Meo Vac District of the northern mountainous province of Ha Giang, will be held from April 28 to May 1. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! The wife of a Vietnamese man who is being investigated for child molestation has penned a heartfelt letter describing how life has turned dark for her family after their husband and father was caught on camera groping and forcefully kissing a young girl in an apartment elevator. Police in Ho Chi Minh City on Sunday last week initiated legal proceedings against Nguyen Huu Linh, a former procuracy official in central Da Nang City, for molesting an under 16-year-old person. The decision came 20 days after his alleged sexual abuse was caught on the CCTV of an elevator of the Galaxy 9 apartment building in the southern metropolis. It has been 25 days since the case was first reported, a period Linhs wife, Tran Thi Thanh Tan, described as being the toughest and most painful time in my life. In a letter sent on Friday to Da Nang police, using the email account of her daughter , Tan said she and her children have tried to deal with public pressure during this tough time, but they are now no longer able to do it anymore. The public had been pressing police to file charges against Linh, who retired as deputy head of the municipal Peoples Procuracy in June last year, shortly after his alleged child molestation grabbed local headlines. During the 20-day period when Linh had not been charged, his house in Da Nang were repeatedly smeared with paints and dirty substances. Someone also painted a large text reading child sex abuse on his houses metal fence gate. The text 'child sex abuser' is seen painted on the gate of the house of Nguyen Huu Linh in Da Nang, central Vietnam. Photo: Doan Cuong / Tuoi Tre These actions have made myself and my children homeless, the wife said in her letter. We were too frightened to return to our own house. Tan said the family had to temporarily move to a safe place, fearing possible violence from the angry mob. The wife acknowledged that what her husband did was wrong and extended her apologies, saying she is partly responsible for his mistake. But my children and other family members have nothing to do with this, she wrote. She said it was like her family was given a life sentence, adding what happened is a painful memory I would never in my life afford to forget. At the end of the letter, Tan sent her gratitude to Da Nang leaders and police for enacting measures to ensure safety for my family. One day after sending the heartfelt letter, Tan also filed an official denunciation against several individuals and organizations who had insulted and humiliated her and her family. Tan reiterated how her house was defaced and smeared with paints and dirty substances, and how photos of herself and her children were shared on social media for public shaming. Police in Hai Chau District said they had received the denunciation and will handle it as per regulations. Month-long case The child molestation suspect Linh has yet to be arrested, but he is required not to leave his place of residence. His wife mentioned nothing about his being charged in her letter to the police. Molesting a person under 16 years old is a crime punishable by six months to three years in prison in accordance with Vietnams Penal Code. A screenshot from CCTV footage shows Nguyen Huu Linh forcefully kissing a young girl in an elevator of the Galaxy 9 apartment complex in District 4, Ho Chi Minh City on April 1, 2019. The alleged sexual harassment occurred at around 9:10 pm on April 1 and was caught on CCTV installed in an elevator of the Galaxy 9 apartment building in District 4, Ho Chi Minh City. In the video, Linh can be seen grabbing and kissing a young girl, estimated to be somewhere between five and seven years old. He was visiting a relative who lives at the apartment building on the day of the incident. In a brief interview with Phap Luat Thanh Pho Ho Chi Minh (Ho Chi Minh City Law) newspaper on April 4, Linh said he was just petting the young girl and refused to provide further information. The management board of the Galaxy 9 last week submitted a petition to the municipal Peoples Committee and Peoples Procuracy, demanding that legal proceedings be launched against Linh. The document had previously been signed by many people living at the apartment complex, as no update regarding Linhs charges was announced at the time. The identity of the child has not been revealed so far to protect her. The family of the victim claimed they had reached a consensus with Linh so they did not want him to be criminally charged. But the Vietnamese law allows police to overrule the family's desire to press charges against the suspect, given the clear video evidence. A screenshot of the wife's letter Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Any start of a holiday in Vietnam would be incomplete without news reports about traffic congestions when people left big cities for their vacations. A five-day break that began from Fridays late afternoon was no exception. Vietnam will celebrate the Reunification Day on April 30 and International Workers'Day on May 1, with many public workers given a five-day breaking from today, April 27. In both Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, a flood of holidaymakers, as in every other time, already rushed out of big cities on the final working day yesterday, causing traffic gridlocks in the areas near the airports and bus stations, as well as at the citys exits. In the southern metropolis, traffic jams occurred on the streets around Tan Son Nhat International Airport on the west side of the city shortly after the end of Fridays working hours. All types of vehicles including buses, cars, trucks, taxis, and motorcycles had to inch step by step. A severe traffic jam on Truong Son Street in Ho Chi Minh City on April 26, 2019. Photo: Cong Trung / Tuoi Tre Many passengers were reportedly late for their flights as they got stuck in the long lines to the airport. Several of them had to give up taxis and walk to the airdrome. The situation was not any better in the east side of the city, where a sea of vehicles flooded the Binh Trieu Bridge that leads to Mien Dong (Eastern) Bus Station. Traffic police units were dispatched to locations susceptible to traffic jams in order to manage the situation. In Hanoi, commuters faced bottlenecks near the major bus stations Nuoc Ngam and Giap Bat. Several streets including Truong Chinh, Giai Phong, and Ring Road 3 experienced severe congestions for nearly two hours. It took people 20-30 minutes to pass some sections that span only two kilometers. The traffic nightmare is expected to reappear after the holiday when people return to the cities for work on May 1. Passengers crowd inside Tan Son Nhat International Airport on April 26, 2019. Photo: Duyen Phan / Tuoi Tre A section of Ngoc Hoi Street in Hanoi is congested on April 26, 2019. Photo: Ha Thanh / Tuoi Tre A section of Truong Chinh Street in Hanoi is congested on April 26, 2019. Photo: Ha Thanh / Tuoi Tre Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! The Interrogation, a film by Laurent Richard, looks at a controversial police technique putting innocent people behind bars in the US, this Monday on Four Corners. When I finally realised what had happened in that interrogation room, it was like an Oh my God moment. Former homicide detective The idea that anyone would willingly confess to a crime they didnt commit sounds unbelievable, particularly when the punishment may be life in prison or even the death penalty. They get to a breaking point where they decide that it is in their best interest to confess. Professor of Psychology But a series of high-profile cases across America has revealed a slew of wrongful convictions based on false confessions and placed the spotlight on a widely used police interrogation technique designed to make people confess. Anybody whos been the victim of a high-pressure sales tactic knows what this feels like. Anybody who says that they would never ever confess to a crime that they didnt do, they havent been under this sort of pressure. Former homicide detective The technique sees police officers wage psychological war on suspects through a nine step interrogation process. If you let him talk, hell say the words, I didnt do it. And the more often a person says they didnt do it, the more difficult it becomes for us to get a confession. Interrogation training video. Wrongful conviction investigators say the process is a travesty of justice. It is not based on any science whatsoever. It is just based on their own observations. The real science says its baloney, it doesnt work. And, when they have done experiments with it, they pretty much show that the accuracy is like flipping a coin. Its 50/50. Former homicide detective One man, who spent almost his entire adult life in jail for a murder he didnt commit, tells of how he was convinced to confess to a shocking crime. I was just ready to do whatever they wanted me to do. Whatever you want me to sign, Im signing so, in my mind, once I got an attorney, he would be able to do whats necessary to show that I was innocent, and I didnt commit this crime. Former prisoner Another, locked up for two decades, say no amount of compensation can match what he has been through. They could have offered me 100 million dollars. Would it give me comfort? Yesbut that doesnt give me my years back. Former prisoner. The families who fought to free them say they were badly let down by law enforcement. They took an oath to help, to save lives and fight for people. And they did not do that, not in my sons case. They were comfortable. They were satisfied that they had a man, and thats all they really wanted, was a body. So, they took my son, for 21 years and 12 days. Lawyers warn that wrongful convictions will continue to occur without changes to the justice system. There is a culture of unaccountability. And, police officers know that they can engage in misconduct that has nothing to do with solving a crime and everything to do with pointing the finger at, perhaps, the easiest person to point the finger at. And, there will be no consequence. And so, it happens over, and over, and over in the United States. Lawyer Monday 29th April at 8.30pm on ABC. SKY News will screen a Warringah Debate between Liberal MP Tony Abbott and Independent candidate Zali Steggall on Thursday 2 May. Political Editor David Speers moderates the event, conducted jointly with the Manly Daily. The battle for Warringah is one of the most fascinating contests in this election. This debate will give everyone a chance to see two very different candidates go head-to-head on the local and national issues, said Speers. Robbie Patterson, Manly Daily Editor said: Manly Daily has a proud history of reporting on the local community and is delighted to partner with SKY News for this important public debate. Our Warringah debate brings the two frontrunners together with just over two weeks to go until the Federal Election, giving our readers the chance to ask the tough questions on issues in their community. Thursday 2 May 4:00pm AEST Speers with David Speers Live from Manly 4:30pm AEST SKY News/ Manly Daily: Warringah Debate hosted by David Speers 5:30pm AEST Speers with David Speers Live from Manly Two suitcases have been located in a lake by Cypriot police searching for more victims of a suspected serial killer. The alleged murderer, named locally as Nicos Metaxas, a 35-year-old Greek Cypriot army officer, claims he has killed five women and two girls and says he put some of the victims' bodies in suitcases. Officers have been searching a man-made lake which is part of an abandoned copper mine, and a police official said the suitcases have been discovered using remote-control cameras. The suspect has been held for a week and a court has now extended his detention for another eight days. Officers have been searching three different locations west of Cyprus' capital Nicosia for victims and are also looking for a third suitcase. The bodies of three women, including two thought to be from the Philippines, have been recovered. Police sources said he had indicated the location of the third body, found on Thursday, and said the person was "either Indian or Nepali". Officers said they were searching for a further four victims, including two children, based on the suspect's testimony. The case has shocked the Mediterranean island and exposed authorities to accusations of "criminal indifference" because all the victims were foreign. A team of British detectives is due to arrive on the island on Monday to help with the investigation, police said. Opposition AKEL politician Irene Charalambides said: "These women came here to earn a living, to help their families. "They lived away from their families. "And the earth swallowed them, nobody was interested. "This killer will be judged by the court but the other big question is the criminal indifference shown by the others when the reports first surfaced. I believe, as does my party, that the justice minister and the police chief should resign. "They are irrevocably exposed." A 70-year-old Cypriot man who did attempt to alert the authorities over the disappearances has said his motives were questioned by police. Story continues Officers have said they will investigate any perceived shortcomings in their handling of the case. The bodies of the two Filipino women reported missing in May and August 2018 were found in an abandoned mine shaft this month. Police discovered the body of the third woman at an army firing range about nine miles (14km) from the mine shaft. Police are now searching for the six-year-old daughter of the first victim, a Romanian woman who disappeared with her eight-year-old child in 2016, and a woman from the Philippines who vanished in December 2017. By Peter Szekely (Reuters) - Police in Colorado have arrested a Texas truck driver on suspicion of vehicular homicide on Friday after they said he triggered a fiery multi-vehicle crash that killed at least four motorists on a busy interstate highway near Denver. The crash turned a stretch of Interstate 70, a major east-west highway, into a raging inferno on Thursday that involved at least 28 vehicles and may have damaged the road surface and an overpass, authorities said. Lakewood, Colorado police said they arrested Rogel Lazaro Aguilera-Mederos, 23, after he lost control of his tractor-trailer truck and started a chain-reaction during the late afternoon rush hour. "At that time of day we all know that I-70 can be very jammed," police spokesman Ty Countryman told reporters near the scene. "He can't stop, doesn't stop and ends up colliding with several cars. And as a result of that the fire ensues." Aguilera-Mederos is expected to appear before a judge at the jail where he is being held in a closed hearing on Saturday afternoon, a spokeswoman for local district attorney said. The local coroner was still working to identify the four confirmed victims, each of whom had been the sole occupant of their vehicles, Countryman said. The crash, which also sent six motorists to hospitals, left a pile of debris on the highway that officials were still clearing away on Friday. The condition of those hospitalized was not known. "The carnage was significant," Countryman said. "Just unbelievable. There was no indication that Aguilera-Mederos intentionally caused the crash or that he was under the influence of drugs or alcohol, he said. Investigators were also trying the determine whether the truck's brakes failed, Countryman said. The stretch of Interstate 70, which runs through Denver west into the Rocky Mountains, will remain closed in both directions at least until sometime on Saturday, Colorado Department of Transportation Chief Engineer Josh Laipply told reporters. Parts of the highway will need to be resurfaced and, while a preliminary check showed a bridge over the crash site was undamaged, it will need a full safety inspection, Laipply said. (Reporting by Peter Szekely in New York; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Bill Berkrot) Step aside Mickey Mouse, we could have found a new rodent superstar. This adorable hamster was filmed in Badung, Indonesia, demonstrating its tremendous acting talent by dramatically freezing, rolling backwards and playing dead after a tourist pretends to shoot at it with his finger. Hopefully the little guy is hamming it up somewhere this weekend! In a scathing rebuke to President Emmanuel Macron, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has again condemned France's recognition of the Armenian genocide during the First World War. "Delivering a message to 700,000 Armenians who live in France will not save you, Monsieur Macron," Erdogan said during a political meeting.Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan upped his war of words Saturday with French counterpart Emmanuel Macron for creating a day of remembrance for the 1915 Armenian "genocide".Macron decided in February to formally to mark the mass killings and forced deportations of Armenians by troops from the Ottoman Empire -- which preceded modern-day Turkey and sided with German and Austro-Hungary in World War I.France on Wednesday held its first "national day of commemoration of the Armenian genocide".Facing historyIt was the first major European country to recognise the massacres as genocide in 2001 and Macron has said his decision on a commemoration is designed to show Paris "knows how to look history in the face".But Erdogan, who has urged "political novice" Macron to "focus on massacres committed by French troops during the colonial era" on Saturday again denounced the idea."Delivering a message to 700,000 Armenians who live in France will not save you, Monsieur Macron," Erdogan told a gathering of his ruling party in Kizilcahamam, north of Ankara."Learn first to be honest in politics -- if you are not you cannot win," said Erdogan, adding he had told Macron his views several times face to face.Turkey points to France's record in Algeria and RwandaTurkish officials have indicated France should look first at its own record, notably in Algeria and its role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.Rwanda's current government accuses Paris of being complicit in the atrocities committed by the majority Hutu community on minority Tutsis.France has always denied the allegations and Macron announced the creation of a panel of historians and researchers earlier in April which will be tasked with investigating France's role.France wants Armenian genocide to be recognised internationallySome 30 countries and a number of historians recognise the 1915 massacre of between 1.2 and 1.5 million Armenians as genocide.Ankara rejects the term, saying World War I brought countless fatalities on both sides against a further backdrop of famine and civil war.Armenians commemorate the massacres on April 24 -- the day in 1915 when thousands of Armenian intellectuals suspected of harbouring nationalist sentiment and being hostile to Ottoman rule were rounded up.the Paris commemoration, French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe declared France wanted to contribute to having the massacre internationally recognised as a crime against humanity.He added Paris "will not be impressed by any lies" on the matter nad supported "historical accuracy and reconciliation". In a scathing rebuke to President Emmanuel Macron, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has again condemned France's recognition of the Armenian genocide during the First World War. "Delivering a message to 700,000 Armenians who live in France will not save you, Monsieur Macron," Erdogan said during a political meeting. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan upped his war of words Saturday with French counterpart Emmanuel Macron for creating a day of remembrance for the 1915 Armenian "genocide". Macron decided in February to formally to mark the mass killings and forced deportations of Armenians by troops from the Ottoman Empire -- which preceded modern-day Turkey and sided with German and Austro-Hungary in World War I. France on Wednesday held its first "national day of commemoration of the Armenian genocide". Facing history It was the first major European country to recognise the massacres as genocide in 2001 and Macron has said his decision on a commemoration is designed to show Paris "knows how to look history in the face". But Erdogan, who has urged "political novice" Macron to "focus on massacres committed by French troops during the colonial era" on Saturday again denounced the idea. "Delivering a message to 700,000 Armenians who live in France will not save you, Monsieur Macron," Erdogan told a gathering of his ruling party in Kizilcahamam, north of Ankara. "Learn first to be honest in politics -- if you are not you cannot win," said Erdogan, adding he had told Macron his views several times face to face. Turkey points to France's record in Algeria and Rwanda Turkish officials have indicated France should look first at its own record, notably in Algeria and its role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Rwanda's current government accuses Paris of being complicit in the atrocities committed by the majority Hutu community on minority Tutsis. Story continues France has always denied the allegations and Macron announced the creation of a panel of historians and researchers earlier in April which will be tasked with investigating France's role. France wants Armenian genocide to be recognised internationally Some 30 countries and a number of historians recognise the 1915 massacre of between 1.2 and 1.5 million Armenians as genocide. Ankara rejects the term, saying World War I brought countless fatalities on both sides against a further backdrop of famine and civil war. Armenians commemorate the massacres on April 24 -- the day in 1915 when thousands of Armenian intellectuals suspected of harbouring nationalist sentiment and being hostile to Ottoman rule were rounded up. the Paris commemoration, French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe declared France wanted to contribute to having the massacre internationally recognised as a crime against humanity. He added Paris "will not be impressed by any lies" on the matter nad supported "historical accuracy and reconciliation". A former soldier facing prosecution in Northern Ireland has warned that veterans could bring Britain to a standstill over Troubles-related legal action. Dennis Hutchings is a former member of the Life Guards Regiment and is due to be tried for attempted murder in connection with a fatal shooting in 1974. Mr Hutchings addressed a rally in support of another former serviceman known only as Soldier F outside Belfast City Hall on Saturday. Soldier F is to be charged with murdering two people after Parachute Regiment troops opened fire on civil rights demonstrators in Londonderry in January 1972, on what became known as Bloody Sunday, killing 13. Mr Hutchings told the crowd of supporters: We need this to continue and it will continue. A British Army veteran stands holding the flag of Royal Engineers outside Belfast City Hall (Liam McBurney/PA) He said: Eventually our politicians are going to have to listen because if they wont we will bring this country to a standstill. The prosecution of Soldier F has polarised opinion as part of a wider campaign mounted by some MPs and veterans groups for former servicemen to be protected from prosecution for actions committed while on duty. Mr Hutchings addressed the crowd via a phone call relayed on loudspeakers. Several hundred supporters of Soldier F listened while holding Union flags and banners with the crest of the Parachute Regiment. Some aged veterans wore berets and sported medals on their chests in the pouring rain. The rally was held in support of soldier F (Liam McBurney/PA) Among those present were senior Democratic Unionists Sir Jeffrey Donaldson and Gavin Robinson, MPs who support official action to provide legal protection for members of the Armed Forces in all conflicts. Sir Jeffrey said: It is evident that they are very angry about the witch hunt against the veterans of the Armed Forces in Northern Ireland and feel very strongly that veterans are being singled out. He said those who engaged in terrorism were responsible for more than 90% of Troubles deaths. Some relatives of those killed on Bloody Sunday have campaigned for justice for decades. Story continues Many unionists in Northern Ireland oppose a statute of limitations because they argue everybody should face the rule of law and a cut-off date could allow former paramilitaries off the hook. It is not part of the Governments proposals on addressing the toxic legacy of the past. Veteran Wilfie Brown addressing protesters outside Belfast City Hall (Liam McBurney/PA) Parachute Regiment veteran John Ross, from the loyalist Shankill Road in Belfast, did his first tour of duty in the country aged 18 in 1971. He said: Right from the outset my regiment has been branded murderers, killers, all sorts. He added: We served with pride, we served with dignity, we were disciplined, we did our duty. Yes, we we were a robust regiment, and if you wanted the job done we would have done it. But we were just like any other regiment that served in Northern Ireland in Op Banner. Whilst at the minute the Parachute Regiment is taking the brunt of the prosecutions, believe me there are many more coming down the line. According to the Pat Finucane Centre, a human rights group, only a handful of soldiers have been convicted of shooting civilians while on duty in circumstances where the courts ruled they were guilty of murder. Tens of thousands of republicans and loyalists spent time in prison and were responsible for the majority of deaths. The Stormont House Agreement proposes a new police unit to investigate all outstanding homicide cases. Demonstration organiser Mel Brown claimed no soldier or police officer would receive a fair trial in Northern Ireland and such cases should be tried elsewhere. Members and supporters of the Ballymurphy families stage a counter protest (Liam McBurney/PA) Families of those who died in disputed circumstances involving soldiers in west Belfast, known as the Ballymurphy Massacre group, support prosecutions. Spokesman John Teggart held a banner near the City Hall and said: No one is above the law and justice must be served. The fact that these crimes happened nearly 50 years ago is irrelevant. It might have been a long time ago, but the illegal acts of these soldiers is affecting the families to this day. They committed murder and what compounded that was the apparatus of the British state then tarnished the names of many of the victims by labelling them as gun men and gun women. Police raided the province of Kalmunai, where the jihadists suspected of organising last week's Easter attacks were hiding out. In the ensuing battle, suicide bombers killed 15 people.An Islamic State flag and explosives were found at the location.Suicide bombers cornered by security forces in a hideout in eastern Sri Lanka blew themselves up killing 15 people, including six children, police said on Saturday.A civilian was also killed in the crossfire during the night-time raid near the predominantly Muslim town of Kalmunai, with hundreds of families later fleeing their homes.Kalmunai is in the home province of the jihadist suspected of organising the Easter Sunday attacks that left 253 dead.Three men set off explosives killing three women and six children inside the house on Friday night, police said.Gunmen opened fire on troops when they attempted to storm the house under cover of darkness, military spokesman Sumith Atapattu said.An ensuing gun battle lasted more than an hour, a military official said, adding that the bodies were recovered following a search operation.Explosives and Islamic State flag found in KalmunaiCharred bodies and at least one gunman cradling an assault rifle, were seen in video footage shown on state television.Explosives, a generator, a drone and a large quantity of batteries were seen inside the house. * Some 600 Muslims fled a neighbouring settlement built to house displaced survivors of the 2004 Asian tsunami because of the fighting and took shelter in a school, residents said.The civilian was hit in crossfire and died while a wounded woman and child were taken to hospital.The operation followed a tip off that extremists linked to the Easter suicide bombings were holed up in Kalmunai, 370 kilometres east of the capital.Zahran Hashim, founder of the National Thowheeth Jama'ath (NTJ) group blamed for the attacks and one of the Colombo suicide bombers, comes from the same province.The clashes came hours after security forces raided a nearby location where they believe Hashim and other suicide bombers recorded a pledge of allegiance to Islamic State armed group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi before carrying out the bombings of three churches and three hotels.Police said they found an IS flag and uniforms similar to those worn by the eight fighters in a video used by IS to claim responsibility for Sunday's attacks."We have found the backdrop the group used to record their video," the police said in an earlier statement.The Islamic State armed group released their video two days after the bombings.Police showed the clothing, the flag, some 150 sticks of dynamite and about 100,000 ball bearings seized from the house on national television.Security forces armed with emergency powers have stepped up search operations for Islamic extremists since the bombings. Police raided the province of Kalmunai, where the jihadists suspected of organising last week's Easter attacks were hiding out. In the ensuing battle, suicide bombers killed 15 people. An Islamic State flag and explosives were found at the location. Suicide bombers cornered by security forces in a hideout in eastern Sri Lanka blew themselves up killing 15 people, including six children, police said on Saturday. A civilian was also killed in the crossfire during the night-time raid near the predominantly Muslim town of Kalmunai, with hundreds of families later fleeing their homes. Kalmunai is in the home province of the jihadist suspected of organising the Easter Sunday attacks that left 253 dead. Three men set off explosives killing three women and six children inside the house on Friday night, police said. Gunmen opened fire on troops when they attempted to storm the house under cover of darkness, military spokesman Sumith Atapattu said. An ensuing gun battle lasted more than an hour, a military official said, adding that the bodies were recovered following a search operation. Explosives and Islamic State flag found in Kalmunai Charred bodies and at least one gunman cradling an assault rifle, were seen in video footage shown on state television. Explosives, a generator, a drone and a large quantity of batteries were seen inside the house. Some 600 Muslims fled a neighbouring settlement built to house displaced survivors of the 2004 Asian tsunami because of the fighting and took shelter in a school, residents said. The civilian was hit in crossfire and died while a wounded woman and child were taken to hospital. The operation followed a tip off that extremists linked to the Easter suicide bombings were holed up in Kalmunai, 370 kilometres east of the capital. Zahran Hashim, founder of the National Thowheeth Jama'ath (NTJ) group blamed for the attacks and one of the Colombo suicide bombers, comes from the same province. The clashes came hours after security forces raided a nearby location where they believe Hashim and other suicide bombers recorded a pledge of allegiance to Islamic State armed group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi before carrying out the bombings of three churches and three hotels. Story continues Police said they found an IS flag and uniforms similar to those worn by the eight fighters in a video used by IS to claim responsibility for Sunday's attacks. "We have found the backdrop the group used to record their video," the police said in an earlier statement. The Islamic State armed group released their video two days after the bombings. Police showed the clothing, the flag, some 150 sticks of dynamite and about 100,000 ball bearings seized from the house on national television. Security forces armed with emergency powers have stepped up search operations for Islamic extremists since the bombings. Search teams in Cyprus have located two suitcases at the bottom of a lake where a detained military officer told investigators he has dumped bodies. The suspect, a 35-year-old National Guard captain, has allegedly confessed to killing seven foreign women and girls. A robotic camera found the potential evidence and will be used to keep scouring the man-made lake for a third suitcase suspected to be under water, fire service chief Marcos Trangolas said. Police officers at the lake (Petros Karadjias/AP) Under questioning, the suspect said he put the bodies of three victims inside luggage that he ditched in the lake, a police official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to disclose details of an ongoing investigation. Located some 20 miles west of the capital of Nicosia,the lake is part of an abandoned copper pyrite mine where a womans body was found in a flooded shaft on April 14. The discovery triggered a homicide investigation that led to the captains arrest before a second womans body was found in the mineshaft on April 20. Police said the suspect admitted killing them both. But they said the scope of case sickeningly expanded when the suspect told them on Thursday about four more victims, bringing the total to five women and two of their daughters. A diver gets out from the lake after searching for female bodies (Petros Karadjias/AP) The suspect has not been named because he has not been charged yet. He faces charges including premeditated murder and kidnapping for alleged crimes dating back to September 30 2016. Police told a judge at a court hearing on Saturday the suspect gave details of the slayings in 10 handwritten pages. The judge ordered him held for eight more days. The Cyprus News Agency reported he is married with two children but separated from his wife. It said investigators found photos of the mineshaft were in his possession. Shocked Cypriots are grappling with the mounting evidence from police that a serial killer was in their midst preying on women who came to work on the east Mediterranean island nation. Story continues Women from the Philippines at a vigil outside the presidential palace in Nicosia on Friday (Petros Karadjias/AP) Hundreds of people turned up for a protest vigil outside the presidential palace on Friday to mourn the victims and to question if authorities failed to adequately investigate when women who worked as housekeepers or in low-paying jobs were reported missing. In a poignant moment, a group of tearful Filipino women held lighted candles and bowed their heads in prayer for the three women and one girl of Filipino descent who are believed to be among the dead. The child is the six-year-old daughter of the first woman found at the mine, Mary Rose Tiburcio, 38. Both had been missing since May of last year. Investigators zeroed in on the captain as a suspect based on online chat communications between him and Ms Tiburcio during a six-month relationship. Cypriot media have identified the other victim from the mineshaft as 28-year-old Arian Palanas Lozano, also from the Philippines. A diver in the water and an investigator conduct a search (Petros Karadjias/AP) During the interrogation on Thursday that produced four more potential victims, the suspect provided directions to a military firing range where police found decomposed remains in a pit within hours. The captain thought the woman he killed and discarded in the pit was of Nepalese or Indian descent, according to police. At Saturdays court hearing, an investigator said she might have been Ashita Khadka Bista from Nepal. Cypriot police think the other three victims they know about so far are a 31-year-old Filipino woman who has been missing since December 2017, Maricar Valtez Arquiola, and a Romanian mother and daughter. Cypriot media identified the mother as Livia Florentina Bunea, 36, and her eight-year-old daughter as Elena Natalia Bunea. The two are believed to have been missing since September 2016. RTHK: Two militants, civilian killed in Sri Lanka raids Sri Lankan soldiers raided an eastern neighborhood early on Saturday after a gunfight between troops and suspects linked to the Islamic State-claimed Easter suicide attacks killed at least two militants and one civilian, the military said. Raids and police curfews shut down areas of eastern Sri Lanka as Catholic leaders canceled Sunday Masses indefinitely. Officials also urged Muslims to stay home for prayers in an extraordinary call by the clergy to curtail worship as fear of more attacks plagued the island nation. The assault near Sammanthurai began on Friday night after police tipped off soldiers to a suspected safe house, where militants set off three explosions and opened fire, the military said. At least three others were wounded in the attack. Major General Aruna Jayasekara, the local military commander, said soldiers and police waited until daylight Saturday to carry out further raids given houses being built so close together. Meanwhile, the military said security forces have recovered explosives, detonators, "suicide kits," military uniforms and Islamic State group flags in the raids. In the same area, police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara said officers acting on information from intelligence officials found 150 sticks of blasting gelatin and 100,000 small metal balls, as well as a van and clothing suspected to be used by those involved in the Easter attack. Suicide bomb vests often are packed with such balls to increase the shrapnel in the explosion, making them even deadlier. Officials from the police to the prime minister say militants remain on the loose and have access to explosives. That has led to increased security at shrines, churches, temples and mosques across the multiethnic country of 21 million off the southern coast of India. Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith told journalists Friday that church officials had seen a leaked security document describing Roman Catholic churches and other denominations as a major target. Ranjith, who is the archbishop of Colombo, asked the faithful across Sri Lanka to stay home for their own safety. "We don't want repetitions," Ranjith said. It was an extraordinary request for a Catholic clergyman to make, as churches often remain a refuge. Giovanni Maria Vian, a church historian and emeritus editor of the Vatican newspaper, said he believed it was the first time the church had canceled Masses across a country for security reasons. On Saturday, cleaning crews arrived to St. Anthony's Shrine in Colombo, where broken glass still littered a blood-stained floor. They collected debris, tossing it into a truck parked outside as a heavy contingent of security forces stood guard. The US Embassy in Sri Lanka has warned the public to stay away from places of worship over the weekend, a stark alert underlining that authorities believe that attackers remain at large. Authorities told Muslims to worship at home rather than attend communal Friday prayers that are the most important religious service of the week, but several mosques held services anyway. At a mosque in Colombo, police armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles stood guard outside for hundreds of worshippers as the imam inside and others wept while praying to Allah to help their country. The Easter attackers are "not Muslims. This is not Islam. This is an animal," said Akurana Muhandramlage Jamaldeen Mohamed Jayfer, the chairman of the mosque. "We don't have a word (strong enough) to curse them." Sri Lanka's government, crippled from a long political crisis between the president and prime minister last year, promised swift action to capture militants still at large. President Maithripala Sirisena said about 140 people had been identified as having links to the Islamic State group. A "major search operation has been undertaken," Sirisena said. "Every household in the country will be checked." Earlier on Friday, police confirmed the militant group's leader, Mohamed Zahran, died in the suicide bombing at the Shangri-La Hotel, one of six hotels and churches attacked. Zahran appeared in an Islamic State video claiming responsibility for the coordinated assault, and authorities in both Sri Lanka and Australia confirmed links between IS and the attack. On Thursday night, Sri Lanka's Health Ministry drastically reduced its estimated death toll from the bombings. A statement said "approximately" 253 people had been killed, nearly one-third lower than an earlier police estimate of 359 dead. The discrepancy was not immediately explained, but it fit a pattern of confused reports by Sri Lankan officials that have muddled the investigation. On Friday, police apologized to a Brown University student and a human rights activist after they posted her picture to Twitter and erroneously identified her as a wanted militant. The police then deleted their Twitter account. (AP) This story has been published on: 2019-04-27. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. It was an exhausting Day 2 for the remaining six players in the 10,300 No-Limit Hold'em High Roller as they battled it out for nearly 13 hours. Many of the top players from all around the world have gathered for the 2019 PokerStars and Monte-CarloCasino EPT to play in some of the largest buy-in events in the world. Heading into the final day of this event, Charlie Carrel will hold a commanding chip lead over his five other tablemates. Carrel had a dominating day at the felt that was accelerated even more at the final table. Entering the final table as the chip leader, Carrel continued his dominance by eliminating two more players in a short process. The English poker pro will carry 1,499,000 chips into Day 3 in search of the first-place prize of 198,610. Carrel has fond memories of playing at the Monte Carlo Bay Resort and Casino with a total of seven cashes coming in this same building, including the largest of his career. In 2015, Carrel topped the 25,500 High Roller for a whopping 1,114,000 payday. He will be in tough competition though as the other five players at the table have been around the high roller circuit for quite some time. In second place, Seth Davies (791,000) also held the chip lead for periods of time on Day 2. Georgios Kitsios (433,000) may be the biggest unknown player of the remaining six but his rollercoaster day ended on an upswing as he rounds out the top three. Seat Draw Seat Player Country Chip Count Big Blinds 1 Georgios Kitsios Greece 433,000 36 2 Sylvain Loosli France 182,000 15 3 Charlie Carrel United Kingdom 1,499,000 125 4 Joao Vieira Portugal 258,000 22 5 Erik Seidel United States 337,000 28 6 Seth Davies United States 791,000 66 Coming into the day, Erik Seidel held the chip lead pretty much from the start of the tournament. He didn't relinquish that lead until halfway through the day and he found himself at risk on multiple occasions but managed to survive thus far. A total of 13 new entries passed through the registration desk before the start of play to bring the total number of entries to 70. It didn't take long for players to start hitting the rail in the opening few minutes. Surprisingly enough, Kristen Bicknell who returned with one big blind, wasn't the first player eliminated today. Some other early bust-outs included Ivan Deyra, Michael Addamo, Michael Soyza, Aviv Meiri, and Jack Salter. It took until the last level of the night to finally break through into the money when Philipp Gruissem was eliminated on the bubble. There were multiple double ups that took place during the hand-for-hand process, including Gruissem himself, but he was unable to survive one last time. He ran into the steamrolling Carrel who out-flopped him and the final nine players were guaranteed some cash. Philipp Gruissem Pablo Melogno (9th Place - 19,690) had been battling with Carrel in some large pots throughout the bubble process but it finally came to a halt when Carrel turned the nut flush and Melogno rivered trips. Just a couple of hands later, Thomas Muehloecker (8th Place - 25,800) ran his pocket fives into the pocket aces of Kitsios and he also hit the rail. It seemed like just a matter of minutes when Carrel sent another one to the payout desk. Ole Schemion (7th Place - 33,270) moved in with ace-jack and Carrel called with pocket sixes. A six on the flop spelled the end to Schemion's run and he was the final elimination of the night. The final six players held on throughout the last level to bag up their chips and return for the final day. The action will get back underway at 12:30 p.m. and play until a winner is crowned. The levels will continue to be 60 minutes in length and the blinds will resume at 6,000/12,000 with a 12,000 big blind ante. Be sure to follow the PokerNews live reporting team for all of the updates throughout this and many other events. Mark Zuckerberg, as Facebook CEO, testifies before a joint hearing of US Commerce and Judiciary Committees, Washington, DC. Photo: AP Wei Zhou, the CFO of Binance, one of the worlds biggest cryptocurrency exchanges, isnt excited about Facebooks closely watched blockchain experiments. I suspect its going to be a closed Facebook ecosystem, Zhou told Yahoo Finance UK. Their goal is to wall off other people from coming into their system, their goal is not to open up their system to other people. Facebook publicly announced in March it had formed a blockchain research group with over 60 staff working on the technology. What exactly theyre up to is a closely guarded secret, but there is speculation the social media giant could launch its own cryptocurrency. Whatever Facebooks plan, Zhou is sceptical as long as CEO Mark Zuckerberg is at the helm. One of the key things that weve seen is that the blowback against Facebook is its not a community driven organisation, he said. Key decisions are made by one person. The thesis behind [crypto] tokens in general, the blockchain in general its an open system where anyone can use it if they spend the time to adopt the technology. READ MORE: Crypto price crash actually good for business, say entrepreneurs Zhou sat down with Yahoo Finance UK at the Paris Blockchain Week summit to talk about Facebook, Binances growth plans, the crypto bear market, and why he thinks almost all big corporations will have some form of token in the future. His comments are significant given that Zhou sits atop one of the most successful global tech startups that has emerged in recent years crypto or otherwise. Its about increasing more access points The Binance logo is seen at the Delta Summit, Malta's official Blockchain and Digital Innovation event promoting cryptocurrency, in St Julian's, Malta. REUTERS/Darrin Zammit Lupi Binance was only founded in 2017, but it has quickly grown to be one of the worlds biggest cryptocurrency exchanges. The private company had estimated profits of close to $500m last year despite a collapse in crypto prices and trading volumes. It remains profitable even with the continued downturn estimated quarterly profits were around $90m in the first quarter of 2019. Zhou said he believes that Binances continued success means the company has a duty to help grow the sector as a whole. Story continues Our priority at the moment is basically how to help the ecosystem to grow: How do we grow the blockchain and cryptocurrency ecosystem, he said. Alongside operating Binances core exchange, which trades around $1bn daily, the company has recently invested in an Australian startup bringing bitcoin to travel, launched a Jersey-based subsidiary where people can buy bitcoin with British pounds or euros, and launched Binance Lite in Australia, which lets people buy bitcoin from local convenience stores. READ MORE: Supercar rallies and nurseries on the blockchain: Remnants of crypto boom remain despite bear market Its about increasing more access points, Zhou said. A lot of people say it, but you dont know [about crypto] until youve done it and once you experience that freedom then I think more adoption will come. The company has also debuted Launchpad, a crypto crowdfunding platform based on the Binance exchange, and made a seed investment into a Malta-based bank that will accept crypto customers. One of the biggest barriers crypto startups face is traditional banks wont touch them. We believe in blockchain as a whole and for that you need an ecosystem, he said. And for that you need a bank that will work with our industry. Its taken a lot of the fluff out Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao speaks at the Delta Summit, Malta's official Blockchain and Digital Innovation event promoting cryptocurrency, in St Julian's, Malta. Photo: REUTERS/Darrin Zammit Lupi The industry is currently in the depths of what insiders have dubbed the crypto winter. Bitcoin, the bellwether of the market, has recently shown some signs of revived interest, but still remains well below its 2018 high of close to $20,000. Trading activity also remains depressed. I dont think it has changed much in terms of how we operate, Zhou said. We have actually become more focused on the projects that were doing. He said the crash is actually good for the market as its taken a lot of the fluff, the bubble, out of the marketplace so that people who remain continue to build and deliver quality services and will survive. This view was echoed by others at the conference who said the crypto winter was actually good for business. Still, Zhou ultimately hopes for a revival in interest and activity. He said a lack of certainty from global regulators has contributed to the decline. Clear regulation was one reason why Binance relocated its headquarters from Hong Kong to the small island of Malta. (That, and a crackdown on crypto exchanges by China.) We see Malta as a place that has a really talented workforce, Zhou said. Theyve been able to embrace risk and make it compliant. We are not stakeholders anymore Talk of regulation brings the conversation back to Facebook. The technology of this industry will always run ahead of regulation as weve seen with the internet across the board: e-commerce, ride share, hotel share, social media, Zhou said. Now regulation is catching up with social media as well, because those things have more ramifications on real lives and democracy and freedom than our industry to be quite honest. Zhou was Zuckerbergs contemporary at Harvard University and estimates that he was among the first 2,000 people to sign up to the service that became Facebook when it was initially set up as a college networking website in 2004. Im as much a part of that community and helped to contribute to that success as the shareholders that put money in it, as the engineers who worked on it none of those people get representation, Zhou said. Thats why people are leaving. Were not stakeholders in that business anymore. READ MORE: France pushes to become global hub for blockchain the tech behind bitcoin Zhou thinks blockchain and cryptocurrencies could help solve these issues by creating more decentralized systems that reward users rather than just owners. One of the projects we invested in is basically how do we compensate content creators through the token economics? he said. As a viewer, as a creator, YouTube is taking all my money, Instagram is taking all my money. As an influencer I have to go hustle shaving cream or sweatshirts to make money because Instagram is making all that money and theyre not giving me a dime. How do you balance that out? I think token is a good way to start. He doesnt expect to see this type of innovation to come from Facebook. I dont think its going to come from Facebook because I dont think its in Zuckerbergs DNA to let go, he said. The mindset is very clear from day one if youve read the book, watched the movie, see what he does. Even the way he lives before he moved into the neighbourhood he bought every house in that neighbourhood. But Zhou does expect to see other companies embrace crypto. Youre going to have a lot more tokens in the world, he said. I think all consumer facing companies are to a certain extend going to have their own token. Carrefour has put chicken and potatoes on the blockchain now. Its real. Uprooted Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next. Japan is helping to fight shoplifting. It remains a huge problem around the world. In America, and elsewhere it costs retail stores billions of dollars every year. Now, a Japanese company has claimed that it has developed software that can catch shoplifters in the act and alert staff members about it. They named it VaakEye. How does VaakEye work? As reported by CNN, VaakEye is a surveillance software developed by a startup named Vaak which is based in Tokyo. What makes vaakEye different from other surveillance products is that it monitors the body language of a person. On the contrary, similar surveillance AI software operates by matching a person's face with criminal records. However, vaakEye identifies even the slightest change in a person's behavior and informs staff members about it. Vaak company founder and software developer Ryo Tanaka said that the software is capable of monitoring facial expressions, body postures, and even clothing of shoppers. It took 100,000 hours worth of surveillance data that was fed into the software's algorithm to make it smart enough to pick up these imperceptible changes. The software was launched in March 2019. Since then it has been installed in 50 stores across Japan for testing purposes. Vaak claims that stores experienced a 77 percent drop in shoplifting losses and the software has the potential to reduce global retail costs from shoplifting which was recorded at around $34 billion in 2017 by Global shrink index. Criticism on VaakEye However, this type of surveillance has been criticized all over the world as its morally not correct to stop someone from shopping just because he or she appears to be a thief as judged by AI software for their body language. When retail analyst Michelle Grant asked the software developer, Tanaka about the legality and morality to refuse someone from entering into a store based on an AI software's shrewdness, he replied that it is not the software that decides who is going to get into the store or whether someone is a thief or not. Discuss this news on Eunomia It is the security team who decides these issues. The software just provides the information to make the best decision. Tanaka further explained that vaakEye doesn't take race or gender into account, rather it is a software which is based on behavior. However, Grant and Tanaka both agreed upon taking the consent of customers regarding surveillance software before entering the store so they can opt out if they aren't comfortable. Laws regarding surveillance software Tanaka further said that governments should formulate laws to bind store owners to disclose information to their customers relating to surveillance software, what they analyze, and how they work. However, as related by Christopher Eastham, is an expert in AI at the law firm Fieldfisher, these type of regulations are not yet in place. He said that clarity is needed for regulators and lawmakers regarding the use of technology. They would need to decide under what circumstances its use should be contemplated, appropriate, or at least desirable and then formulate the public policy from there. A few weeks ago I was talking about the Omer journey with my Journey Into Judaism class. Counting the Omer, you may remember, is this practice we do during the 7 weeks between Pesach and Shavuot, between liberation and revelation. Each week is linked with a different quality -- lovingkindness, boundaries and strength, harmony and balance, endurance, humble splendor, roots and generations, and the ineffable quality we call Shechinah: presence, in the sense of Divine Presence. Each week, and each day within each week, is mapped to one of these qualities. This seven-week journey of counting gives us the opportunity to reflect on these qualities as they manifest in us. We get to ask ourselves: how do I express chesed, lovingkindness? How do I receive lovingkindness? What kind of repair do I need to do in my capacity to give or receive love? And how do I express gevurah, boundaries and strength? Do I need stronger boundaries between myself and toxic people or institutions in my life? Or do I need more permeable boundaries so that my relationships have better give-and-take? What kind of repair work do I need to do in my boundaries and my strength? And so on. In my class that day, someone noted that this sounds an awful lot like the inner work of teshuvah -- returning again, turning ourselves around, the work of discernment and repair in our relationship with self and God and others -- that we do in the weeks leading up to the Days of Awe. And I said: yes indeed! During the Omer, we're doing our inner work in order to prepare ourselves to be ready to receive Torah anew at Sinai on Shavuot. During the weeks leading up to the Days of Awe, we're doing our inner work in order to prepare ourselves to be ready to enter into a new year and to stand before God on Yom Kippur. The two journeys are parallel. And this week's Torah portion offers a couple of connections between this journey in the spring and that journey in the fall. (This week, following Reform practice, we're reading from the first half of Acharei Mot.) One piece of today's Torah portion tells the story of the scapegoat ritual, which is also read in many synagogues on Yom Kippur. Torah tells us to take two goats, draw lots and offer one goat up to God, and then symbolically confer the sins of the community onto the other goat and then send it into the wilderness. It was a way of cleansing the community of its missteps and misdeeds so they could have a clean slate and begin again. And if that weren't enough of a link between this season and the fall holidays, then the Torah actually mentions Yom Kippur: And this shall be to you a law for all time: In the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall practice self-denial; and you shall do no manner of work, neither the citizen nor the alien who resides among you. For on this day atonement shall be made for you to cleanse you of all your sins; you shall be clean before the LORD. Sefaria translates it as, on the tenth day of the seventh month which is Tishri, we practice self-denial (many translations say "afflict our souls"), and abstain from work, and atonement is made for us. But my friend and hevruta Rabbi David Markus notes that a different reading can be offered here: t'anu et nafshoteichem can be read either as "afflict your souls," or as "answer with your souls." (The only difference in the two words is in the vowels, which are not written in the Torah scroll.) How different that verse feels to me when it's an instruction not to afflict our souls, but to answer for them -- to take a reckoning of who we are and who we want to be; to seek to reconnect ourselves with what matters most; to cultivate and strengthen our good qualities and seek to shed our bad ones, so that we can live out the fullest expression of who we're meant to be in the world! (Rabbi David has written a beautiful d'var Torah exploring this teaching for AJR; it's now online here.) Answering for our souls is the work of Yom Kippur. And it's the work of the Omer count too. Each day is an invitation to pause and notice where we are in time, and an invitation to pause and notice who we are and how we are and what spiritual muscles we need to strengthen. Because taking a good hard look at my relationship with love and boundaries and my own strength and my sense of balance and my perseverance and my humility and my willingness to shine and my willingness to really be present -- that is not a onetime task. And taking a good hard look at my habits and my practices and my excuses and the places where I let myself off the hook but shouldn't -- and the places where I don't let myself off the hook but should! -- that's not a onetime task either. This is the work of spiritual life. Discerning who we aspire to be. Answering for our souls, answering to our souls. And then living out our intentions of becoming the people we're called to become. I think our tradition gives us these two seven-week windows during the year to focus on this stuff because our ancestors were human too. They knew that inner work isn't one-and-done. Some of us just went seven days without leaven. And that can feel like an affliction of our souls, or at least an affliction of our bodies! But it doesn't have to be an affliction, it can be an opportunity. To realign our relationship with food. To realign our relationship with sustenance. To think about the metaphysical hametz of old stories and old hurts that we need to shed in order to be free. Counting the Omer could feel like an obligation, just one more item to cross off the to-do list every day (or another place to fall short when we inevitably forget.) But it doesn't have to be. It can be an opportunity. What would happen if we made space during these seven weeks of the Omer to listen to our souls? I mean -- sit still, sit in silence, or sit in prayer, or walk the labyrinth, go running, do yoga, shut off the distractions and the devices -- whatever it takes to help us listen to that still small voice, the spark of divinity within? What spiritual muscles do we need to strengthen in order to do that listening -- and what spiritual muscles might our souls ask us to strengthen so that we can receive Torah anew at Sinai this Shavuot as the best versions of ourselves that we can become? Deep thanks to R' David Markus for his teaching on . This is the d'varling I offered at my shul this morning, cross-posted to CBI's From the Rabbi blog. The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) has asked Bamboo Airways to provide documents that prove its capacity to operate 30 more aircraft as requested. The firms current air transport license caps the fleet at 10 airplanes. How will Bamboo Airways affect the aviation market? Vietjet Air buys 100, Bamboo Airways buys 10 planes from Boeing When will aviation logistics take off? Bamboo Airways receives another Airbus A321 plane on April 26 PHOTO: BAMBOO AIRWAYS In a proposal to the Ministry of Transport, Vietnams fledgling airline has asked for the reissuance of its air transport business license. The airline wants to change its legal representative, open more branches and raise its charter capital from the current VND700 billion (US$30 million) to over VND1.3 trillion (US$55.8 million). It also seeks to adjust its operational scale to both a domestic and international transport business and to operate more than 30 planes. CAAV said that on assessing the proposal, the regulator had found that the airline is eligible for a new license. However, regarding the change in operational scale and aircraft number, the regulator stressed that many factors should be taken into account. These include regulatory rules, market demand, airport infrastructure and Bamboo Airways capacity, as well as the assurance of CAAVs aviation safety oversight. CAAV has requested the airline to provide recruitment and ground service contracts and its detailed plans to recruit and train workers. The move is meant to prove its capacity to operate up to 40 aircraft safely. The authority also said that CAAVs current employees are able to oversee 256 Vietnamese aircraft. However, aside from the 40 aircraft owned by Bamboo Airways, other airlines in the country are expected to receive 277 new jetliners until the end of this year. SGT Vietnamese garment makers expect the CPTPP to exert positive impacts on their exports in the second half of 2019, when documents guiding the implementation of the trade agreement are to be promulgated. Vietnam remains worlds second largest footwear exporter Localization ratio in textiles & garments goes up Made-in-Vietnam products facing trade lawsuits Vietnamese shoemakers have high expectations for the CPTPP. According to Diep Thanh Kiet, a member of WEC Saigons board of directors, Vietnam is second only to China in terms of footwear export volume, with roughly 1 billion pairs each year. However, in the long term, Vietnams footwear industry can still compete with China in terms of labour costs, income per capita, economic policies and export market. Furthermore, the CPTPP trade agreement is expected to help Vietnamese footwear makers to enhance their competitiveness thanks to tariff preferences in the final months of 2019. Kiets expectations are also echoed by many other footwear producers as the ministries concerned are working hard to formulate directives and circulars guiding the implementation of the trade pact, fully known as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. Phan Thi Thanh Xuan, General Secretary of Lefaso, an association of leather and footwear companies, stated that, among the CPTPP members, Vietnam has yet to sign a bilateral agreement with Canada and Mexico, while trade pacts have been inked with Japan and Chile. Therefore, the CPTPP is a great opportunity for Vietnamese producers to boost their exports to these markets. In addition, the interest of a number of Canadian and Mexican importers in Vietnamese footwear and handbag products is a favourable factor for Vietnamese producers to explore the new markets. In fact, Vietnamese footwear and leather products are already exported to these markets but the revenues are relatively low, earning approximately US$100 million in the Canadian market, for instance. Revenues from footwear exports to Mexico are even much lower.More importantly, most of the products were imported to the United States and then distributed to Canada and Mexico. However, due to obstacles in re-negotiating the NAFTA, Canadian and Mexican importers have become more active in approaching other markets without relying too much on the US market. According to Ngo Chung Khanh at the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the CPTPP will bring significant value to Vietnamese producers when opening the three new markets of Canada, Mexico and Peru at the same time. Khanh emphasised that Canada is a market with great potential because it has a strong demand for products which are Vietnamese strengths, especially footwear items, adding that Canadian consumers can pay for more expensive products and Canada could act as an important bridge for Vietnamese exporters to expand to other countries in the Americas. Xuan stated further that, in the second half of 2019, when the guiding documents are issued, enterprises will be trained to take better advantage of opportunities from the trade agreement. In order to capitalise on the opportunities provided by the CPTPP, many enterprises, especially foreign-invested companies, have made active preparations and requested their suppliers to provide all the necessary documents to prove the origin of their products. Enterprises have also added the stage of producing soles into their production chain so that their shoes will be able to meet the requirements set out in the trade agreement. In order to support enterprises, in the first quarter, Lefaso worked with the MOITs Department of Export-Import to organise training courses on the CPTPP for enterprises. Xuan stated that, in the near future, Lefaso will step up providing information and work with the specialised agencies in order to organise training sessions for enterprises, adding that the association will also collect enterprises feedback on the obstacles they face during the implementation of the trade pact so that they can be promptly addressed by the MOIT. She also advised enterprises to stay fully updated with the relevant information, not only the CPTPP regulations but also the specific technical standards of each country that must be met if goods are to be exported to these markets. Nhan Dan The CEOs of Ahamove and GoViet resigned from their posts within one week. I decided to leave Ahamove because I no longer fit the companys development strategy. The fact that Truong and I left Ahamove must not be blamed on the pressure or money from Grab, wrote Tran Duc Huy, marketing director of Ahamove on his personal page. Just three days before, Go-Viets CEO Nguyen Vu Duc and deputy CEO Nguyen Linh resigned from their posts due to the companys standstill in business growth. The company has made no headway with three major services e-hailing, food ordering and delivery. Since the day e-hailing firms began joining the delivery market, many forwarding firms have fallen into deadlock. The collapse of GNN Express is an example. In September 2018, it unexpectedly filed for bankruptcy. Since the day e-hailing firms began joining the delivery market, many forwarding firms have fallen into deadlock. The collapse of GNN Express is an example. In September 2018, it unexpectedly filed for bankruptcy. Hoang Ngoc, who was CEO of VNN Express at the time, took responsibility for mismanagement and the loss of VND5.5 billion. Currently, Grab (with Grab Food, Grab Express services), Go-Viet (Go-Send, Go-Food) and Now are the biggest players in the inner-city delivery market. Go-Food and Grab Food offer 50 percent discount rate and free delivery to those who place orders via apps. Grab has attracted many customers with its 999 zero-dong glasses of bubble tea program. The delivery firms are accepting losses to lure customers. And in order to keep operating, they have to have long-term capital. Grab and Go-Jek, the holding company of Go-Viet, have successfully called for huge capital of up to billions of dollars. Meanwhile, Now is backed by the powerful Tencent. Go-Viet, after eight months of operation, raised the discount rate to 20 percent, which caused drivers to leave for other companies. Grab continues running sale promotion programs, and its rivals seem to be leaving for provincial markets. According to the latest report of the Vietnam E-commerce Association (Vecom), Vietnam Post and Viettel Post are still holding the largest market share. However, their market share in the two largest cities of Hanoi and HCM City has shrunk because of the strong rise of Grab, Go-Viet and Now in a short-distance delivery service. The hot development of the e-commerce market, analysts believe, will cause the high growth in the delivery industry. The e-commerce market was valued at $8.06 billion in 2018 and the figure is expected to rise to $15 billion, according to Vecom. RELATED NEWS Narrowing digital divide: a focus of Vietnam\ E-commerce players need to be patient, seek profit in long term VNE The digital economy has been key to the development of Vietnam's startup community. Like elsewhere in the world, digitalization or digital transformation is emerging in all fields in Vietnam, from trade and banking and finance to health, education, tourism, and transportation. Vietnamese startups have been seizing the opportunities the digital economy presents to develop and thrive, with most based on technology platforms and many providing technology services to Vietnamese customers. Abreast of trends A typical example in the field of transport, the Vietnam-based logistics startup LOGIVAN offers a central technology platform that tracks the location of freight and trucks, enabling it to optimize truck routes and reduce empty load return rates. To book a truck, customers need only contact LOGIVAN online and indicate how many trucks they require and what type of cargo they need delivered. Technology is LOGIVANs biggest business advantage compared to traditional businesses, Ms. Pham Khanh Linh, Founder of LOGIVAN, told VET. It currently has 26,000 truck drivers and 14,000 customers around Vietnam, with the total value of its services standing at around $13.7 million per year. Of note, it raised $5.5 million in a funding round from angel investors and venture capital firms in Asia during February. There are more than 1,300 logistics enterprises now operating in Vietnam, according to the Vietnam Logistics Business Association. Eighty per cent are domestic concerns, but they hold just 20 per cent of the logistics market share in the country, with the remaining 80 per cent held by foreign-invested enterprises. Ms. Linh believes, however, that the digital economy opens up opportunities to conquer the world, especially for Vietnamese startups. Once the technology is fully-mastered, smart and flexible startups have a huge advantage to catch and even surpass world leaders in their field of business, she said. One of the first e-commerce startups in Vietnam, in 2010, Tiki offers two unique sales propositions: two-hour delivery and a single detailed page that makes it easier to locate the right product, both of which are very much tech-driven initiatives and ensure a world-class customer experience. When customers visit an e-commerce site, different vendors may offer the same product but at a different price, which can be confusing. Tikis single detailed page, however, presents clear and concise listings under a master Stock Keeping Unit (SKU). This makes shopping easy and less stressful. Instead of being confused by a bunch of similar products at different price points, customers now can land on a single detailed page. Its a heavy investment in platforms and technology to offer a simpler customer experience. Tiki offers authentic products and services to millions of customers nationwide. Its revenue during the recent Tet holiday increased 300 per cent year-on-year. Mr. Kartick Narayan, Chief Business Officer at Tiki, told VET that technology is at the forefront of decision-making. Its not only our biggest asset but also a great driver of all our activities, including the user experience, pricing technology, and operations, he said. While also in the online shopping business, Leflair offers premium brands and uses a flash-sales model, providing customers with limited-time-only deals on premium brands, with discounts of up to 70 per cent. It records buying and selling activities in a database, which gives it an insight into customer behavior so it can adjust its methods and increase efficiency. Mr. Loic Gautier, Co-founder and CEO of Leflair, said the development of the digital economy and online platforms such as e-commerce, social networking, and online payment, helps people access products and services faster. This is an important change, with businesses not having to wait for the development of infrastructure before expanding their business, he said. They can now take advantage of the internet and online platforms to develop their business. Choosing an online business model helps us approach and provide more value to those who love luxury brands. Whether they live in major cities like Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City or anywhere else, through Leflairs online platform they can find branded goods at the best prices. Thanks to the digital technology, Leflair has notched up over 1.5 million monthly visits and offers more than 1,500 local and international brands in its exciting flash-sales programs. It recently announced a Series B funding round of $7 million, from GS Shop and Belt Road Capital Management, bringing its total financing to date to close to $12 million. Among major startups in the field of tourism, home-sharing platform Luxstays technology platform links demand for vacation rentals among travelers with homeowners. It has developed a network of more than 10,000 apartments owned by more than 3,000 homeowners in Vietnams cities and provinces. Average revenue to homeowners over the last three months stands at some VND30 million ($1,290). It recently raised $3 million in the Bridge Round from several investors, including CyberAgent Ventures (CAV) and Y1 Ventures. Luxstays Brand Manager Mr. Le Nhat Linh believes the potential of the digital economy has been exploited well by Vietnamese startups, creating opportunities to expand markets, cut business costs, and promote after-sales services. Digital economic development will also help local startups join global supply chains more conveniently and at a lower cost, he added. Luxstay is now working to improve its technology platform to optimize the user experience. Deals by top industries Source: Topica Founder Institute (TFI) Barriers to overcome Figures from the Topica Founder Institute (TFI) released in mid-January confirm that investment in startups exploded last year, totaling $889 million and up three-fold against 2017s $291 million. Vietnams startup community has clearly contributed significantly to the development of the countrys digital economy via technology platforms. But the startup community also faces a host of challenges. Mr. Narayan said the digital economy providing consumers with a variety of online purchase options creates challenges in winning customer trust and loyalty. Another challenge for us is increasing customer awareness, explaining to them that they can find and buy anything online and receive it faster than if they were to go to a store and wait in line, he added. Customer awareness about convenience and product choice is also a challenge for many other e-commerce businesses. According to the General Statistics Office (GSO), more than 60 per cent of Vietnams population in rural areas faced difficulties in accessing the internet last year. A substantial number of people also cant or dont access banking services. These and other issues limit peoples ability to shop and pay online and hinder the development of the tech industry. Meanwhile, Mr. Gautier said that one of the greatest challenges for businesses during the development of the digital economy, including for Leflair, is finding staff with sufficient experience and skills. Vietnam has a young and dynamic population earning increasingly higher incomes, and this represents huge potential. But a young population also means that new industries that have only emerged recently and are based on the digital economy find it extremely difficult to locate experienced staff. A report from Vietnamworks last year showed that the information technology (IT) industry will be short of some 500,000 staff by 2020. Human resources in e-commerce, from marketing to engineers, have generally only been involved in the industry for five or ten years, said Mr. Gautier. Businesses must be very flexible in finding suitable staff and may even have to expand their search for senior personnel to those working elsewhere. Similarly, Mr. Nhat Linh said Luxstay is always racing against time, trying to train staff to understand and adapt quickly to the industry given the overall lack of experience in IT job candidates. The 2018 Vietnamese Enterprises Annual Report from the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) noted that many foreign enterprises have captured high market shares in Vietnams digital economy and are present in many sectors. The influence, power, and application of digital technology by enterprises such as Facebook, Google, and Microsoft is huge in Vietnam. The tourism industry has also proven profitable for foreign enterprises like Traveloka and Booking.com. If they cant grasp and deal the latest trends, the VCCI report notes, Vietnamese enterprises are likely to lose out right in their own backyard. In the digital economy, its not necessarily the big companies that survive but those that adapt best. This is a good opportunity for startups, who are sensitive to changes and quick to adapt, to take a lead in the market in terms of innovation. Mr. Kartick Narayan, Chief Business Officer at Tiki The digital economy, through the application of technology, has provided major benefits to customers, enabling the delivery of goods and services on a large scale. It also is an open, creative model, so the government needs to establish a complete legal framework to encourage businesses to start and test new models. Mr. Nguyen Ba Diep, Vice Chairman of MoMo VN Economic Times Tariffs on Chinese goods exported to the US have accelerated manufacturing activity moving from North to Southeast Asia, and Vietnam is best positioned to benefit from this trend, according to Viet Dragon Securities Company (VDSC). In the January April period, foreign investors committed to pour US$14.59 billion in Vietnam in the January April period, marking a four-year high and up 81% year-on-year, revealed the Ministry of Planning and Investment. Notably, among 51 countries and territories that had fresh projects in Vietnam in the first four months of 2019, China was the largest investor with US$1.31 billion, accounting for 24.53% of the total and nearly double that of Singapore in the second place with US$700 million. As of present, most attention would go to the Sino-US trade friction given China accounts for nearly half of the total US trade deficit. Although VDSC does not expect this trend to reverse once a deal is struck but it will move Trumps attention to the next countries that have large trade deficit with the US. And so maybe as long as the focus is solely on China, Vietnam is safe. Since former President Bill Clinton lifted the trade embargo against Vietnam in 1994, relations between the former foes have grown ever warmer, despite or perhaps because of Chinas rise as a major regional power. Alliances, however, have not deterred the US administration from aggressively pushing the renegotiation of bilateral deals while multilateral deals seem a no-go for Trump. He quickly withdrew from the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) upon entering office. Targeted are those countries with whom the US runs a large trade deficit. Convinced running a trade deficit equals losing, the administration has made trade deals one of its priorities. Just recently, President Trump sent a clear message to the international community that his trade wars arent finished yet and a weakening global economy will just have to deal with it. Among countries that have large trade deficits with the US, Vietnam ranks 5th and is the only country not explicitly and publicly labeled as making advantage of the US. Its position is remarkable given it is not a major trading partner accounting for just under 2% of total US trade. But the deficit nearly tripled in the past 10 years. In fact, since the global financial crisis, the trade deficit with Vietnam grew 17.9% per annum on average compared to 7.3% for China over the same period. Perhaps the US administration is not too bothered by the situation given Vietnams main exports to the US are garments, textiles and footwear, accounting for about 40% of total, or perhaps Washington is simply too busy dealing with the EU (US$151 billion trade deficit), Japan and China at the moment. It is hard to predict when or whether Vietnam will become a target, but it is naive to rule it out on the premise that Vietnam is of strategic importance to the US in Asia, so is Japan. As little as VietJet Air reconsidering its Boeing purchases on safety concerns could trigger President Donald to tweet. The next day, the market would tremble. Hanoitimes Footwear industry has opportunities to expand export market as free trade agreements were signed or in the progress to be signed. Workers make leather bags for export at a company in District 12 in Ho Chi Minh City. (Photo: SGGP) However, in order to take advantage of these opportunities, the industry needs to tackle its shortcomings and improve its competitiveness based on the activeness of firms and the support of policies and representative organizations. According to Mr. Nguyen Duc Thuan, chairman of the Vietnam Leather, Footwear and Handbag Association (LEFASO), Vietnam has been facing fierce competition from some countries in the ASEAN. However, it is forecast that demand for footwear products at main markets of the footwear industry remains at high level this year so the industry will continue to develop. The forecast of LEFASO is grounded because although there were several holidays in the first quarter of this year, the production and trading results of the footwear industry still continued to post growth at a two-digit number. Statistics showed that footwear production in the first quarter of this year was estimated at 62.9 million pairs of shoes, up 11.7 percent over the same period last year. Footwear exports were estimated at US$3.97 billion, up 15.3 percent over the same period last year. According to calculation of LEFASO, this year the industrial index of footwear sector will go up 11 percent compared to last year. The industry will try to raise localization ratio of footwear products to 60 percent. Export of footwear will rank fourth and export of handbags will rank tenth. In addition, footwear and handbags will be in the list of top ten key export products of Vietnam. One of the advantages and opportunities for the domestic footwear industry in the coming time is that China will continue to reduce investment incentives in the fields of garment, textile and footwear to focus on high-tech industries. Therefore, footwear and handbag processing orders will maintain a tendency to shift from China to Vietnam to make use of opportunities from the effective Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA). Noticeably, CPTPP and EVFTA will possibly bring big opportunities for Vietnams footwear industry to develop, helping firms to lower input costs, easily approach new technology, increase productivity and maintain market share in the US, the EU and Japan. On the other hand, the trade war between the US and China will affect domestic import and export and boost investment of foreign direct investment enterprises in the footwear industry. At the same time, building of material production areas in Vietnam will help local firms to step by step participate deeply into the global supply chain, strengthen competitiveness when joining major free trade agreements, increase added value in export turnover and improve growth quality of the industry. According to experts, although these aforesaid new generation free trade agreements will open opportunities for footwear producers, they also pose various difficulties and challenges. Especially, in comparison with signed free trade agreements, the rules of origin in CPTPP have some new points, including the rules of origin of goods, rules of origin of refurbished goods, recycled goods, formula to calculate regional value content (RVC) and the list of product specific rules (PSR) regulated in detail according to specific production stages. Meanwhile, technology application in management and production of the footwear industry remained low and labor productivity was merely equal to 60-70 percent compared to that of FDI enterprises. Several local firms have not participated in the global supply chain as most of them do outsourcing. They do not have departments for product research and development and usually are not independent of materials and designs while labor costs are on increase day by day. Besides, footwear producers also have to deal with challenges such as rising trade protectionism from import countries. As for rules of origin when participating in the CPTPP, Ms. Phan Thi Thanh Xuan, general secretary of LEFASO, said that localization ratio of the industry has climbed rapidly, reaching the level of 50 percent at the present. With such ratio, rules of origin will not be a big obstacle for local footwear firms. It is worrisome that local firms will encounter difficulties in production management and practice of quality standards to meet technical and trade barriers and standards on social responsibility, said Ms. Xuan. CPTPP is a large playground, forcing firms to be well-prepared before taking part in, she added. Firms should establish a department to study thoroughly regulations of CPTPP, prepare material supply suitable with the rules of origin, upgrade equipment and technology to meet requirements about quality of each member of the CPTPP and speed up trade promotion. The Government needs to complete decrees and circulations detailing the roadmap of tax reduction, rules of origin and other terms of CPTPP to help firms to easily approach and implement in accord with requirements so as to make the most out of preferential treatments brought by CPTPP, increase added value and enhance growth quality. SGGP Deputy Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son talks to the press on the outcomes of the countrys international integration in recent years, with a focus on the defence and security fields. A conference to review the operation of the National Steering Committee for International Integration is scheduled for April 24 in Hanoi under the theme Strengthening international integration in a proactive, creative and effective fashion for rapid and sustainable development. Deputy Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son talks to the press on the outcomes of the countrys international integration in recent years, with a focus on the defence and security fields. Deputy Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son. VNA Photo What political, defence and security outcomes do you think the international integration process has so far brought to the country? The comprehensive political, defence and security outcomes of the international integration process are significant, which has contributed to maintaining a stable and peaceful environment for the development and protection of the Fatherland. I can list three main outcomes: First, the process has raised the trust in Vietnam of its partners, particularly its strategic and comprehensive partners. With their high confidence in Vietnam, they all want to expand cooperation with the country. Second, as part of the international integration process, Vietnam has actively participated in and contributed positively to promoting peace, stability and development in the region and world. Particularly, Vietnam has sent its troops and a unit to UN peacekeeping missions, which has in return strengthened our defence and improved the countrys status in the region and world. In participating in UN peacekeeping operations, the country has expanded cooperation in both multilateral and bilateral spheres facilitating the national defense building and the protection of the countrys sovereignty and territorial integrity. Third, the positive political, defence and security outcomes of the international integration process have laid a firm foundation for the countrys cooperation with international partners in the other fields of trade and economics, science and technology, healthcare and education. Regarding trade and economic benefits, eight out of Vietnams strategic and comprehensive partners represent eight out of its 10 largest export markets with more than 60 per cent of its export values, nine out of its 10 largest import markets with more than 74 per cent of the total import values, more than 76 per cent of the total foreign visitors to the country, and 74 per cent of the total foreign investment in the country. Additionally, Vietnam has improved the national capacity during international integration. Absorbing good experience around the world, the country has issued sound policies for socio-economic development, human resource development, science and technology, culture as well as defence and security consolidation. In line with the Partys and States guidelines, the country is taking and will take various positions at international organisations, and has contributed importantly to finding solutions to major international issues, such as the East Sea (South China Sea) issue, nuclear non-proliferation, climate change response, at multilateral forums led by ASEAN and the UN. What is the importance of the country's preservation of a peaceful and stable environment to make full use of benefits that the international integration process in the fields of politics, defence and security would generate? The international integration process in the fields of politics, defence and security creates favourable conditions for the country to maintain a peaceful and stable environment. When promoting international integration in these fields, Vietnam has also contributed to promoting peace and stability in the world. With its contributions to the international community, the country has gained more prestige and support from the international arena, which in return can help strengthen national defense and capabilities, in line with the Partys and States guideline To protect the country from afar. We have been a proactive, responsible participant of regional and international forums such as the Association of South East Asia Nations (ASEAN), ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting (ADMM +), Asia - Europe Cooperation Forum (ASEM), and the United Nations. We have also actively collaborated with partners to promote common strength, contributing to the maintaince of a peaceful, stable and cooperative environment in the region and the world. Could you elaborate on the guideline To protect the country from afar in the current context? This is the motto of our ancestors from the past and is also the guiding point that we always follow in the process of national integration and development. In the current international context, combining the nations strengh and the eras strength is one of the most important factors to ensure a peaceful and stable environment and to protect our homeland. Therefore, international integration in the fields of politics, security and defence will help us to not only strengthen and deepen relations with important partners, especially strategic partners, but also ensuring a peaceful and stable environment. Particularly when Vietnam has successfully hosted international events, it has raised the national status and position. More countries wish to boost relations and cooperation with Vietnam. When relations and cooperation between Vietnam and other countries and international cooperation increase and develop, this will create interwoven interests between Vietnam and other countries, which will contribute to protecting the countrys peace and stability as well as national sovereignty and territorial integrity. Furthermore, Vietnam can expand defence and security cooperation with other countries via its international integration activities, which also contributes to increasing the countrys defence capabilities and national security. Therefore, in such a context, international integration contributes to repressing risks to our country, including traditional security risks as well as non-traditional security ones. Such process of international integration and cooperation contributes to minimising risks and maximising the support and assistance of international friends for the cause of national construction and defence. VNS RELATED NEWS Milestones in intl economic integration in 2018, tasks for 2019 Tertiary educations role in intl integration highlighted Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc expressed wish to raise two-way trade with Singapore from the current level of nearly 8 billion USD during a meeting with his Singaporean counterpart Lee Hsien Loong in Beijing on April 26. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc (R) and his Singaporean counterpart Lee Hsien Loong The meeting took place on the occasion of their attendance to the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF). Both sides expressed their delight that economic, trade and investment links are always a bright spot in bilateral relationship. Singapore remains the third largest foreign investor in Vietnam while Vietnamese firms have invested in Singapore with over 100 projects worth nearly 300 million USD. Singaporean PM Lee spoke highly of Vietnams potential and strengths, especially its young workforce capable of mastering modern technology. Singapore will encourage firms to enhance investment in infrastructure, smart urban development, hi-tech areas, seaports exploitation and management in Vietnam, Lee said. They agreed to promote connectivity, especially in pillar fields of science-technology and innovation; launch projects such as the Vietnam Singapore Industrial Park in the central province of Quang Tri, software park No.2 in the central city of Da Nang and the national innovation centre; and share experience in building e-government. The two PMs discussed regional and global issues of shared concern, including joint work to build a strong ASEAN community, especially when Vietnam undertakes the role of ASEAN Chair by 2020. The leaders wished that parties concerned would step up the implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC), build an effective and legally binding Code of Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (COC) in the near future.-VNA PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc on April 26 held talks with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on the occasion of the Vietnamese Government leaders trip to China to attend the ongoing second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. PM Phuc appreciated active cooperation across fields between the two countries ministries, sectors and localities in recent times, affirming that Vietnam attaches importance to the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership with China and wishes to promote the bilateral relations in a stable and sustainable manner. He expressed his support for China to uphold its increasing important role for peace, stability and development of the region and the world, saying that he applauds and supports the implementation of the Belt and Road initiative (BRI) PM Phuc suggested the two sides maintain high-ranking exchanges and meetings, enhance political trust, and improve practical and effective cooperation in all fields. He valued Chinas effort to open its market for Vietnams dairy products and mangosteen, asking the Chinese side to open door for other Vietnamese farm produce, especially pork and swallow nest, as well as facilitate rice trade between the two nations. PM Phuc applauded Chinas implementation of projects using modern and environmentally friendly technologies in Vietnam, while asking for coordination from the Chinese side to handle a number of problems related to payment procedures, capital increase, slow construction progress, and low efficiency, in cooperation projects between the two parties; and give suitable take-off and landing time for Vietnams airlines. The two sides need to accelerate the signing of the agreement to connect the railway route between Lao Cai province of Vietnam and Hekhou of China, and create favourable conditions for Vietnamese and Chinese firms to effectively join the Chongqing-Singapore transport route, he said. The Vietnamese leader also underlined the necessity for the two sides to boost and improve the efficiency of cooperation in the spheres of agriculture, culture, education, tourism, environmental protection and climate change adaptation, sustainable use of Mekong river water, and nuclear safety monitoring; well implement the three documents relating to land border between the two countries; and enhance coordination at regional and international forums. Regarding the issues at sea, PM Phuc proposed to strictly implement the common perception of the high-ranking leaders, Agreement on basic principles guiding the settlement of sea-related issues, well control differences, and have no actions to complicate the situation and increase disputes; promote negotiation mechanisms relating to the sea to achieve real progress; and achieve progress in the demarcation of waters off the mouth of the Tonkin Gulf in 2020. He also asked for efforts from the two sides for handling fisheries and fishermen-related issues in a humanitarian spirit; soon signing the Vietnam - China search and rescue cooperation agreement and extending the bilateral agreement on the sea fishing hotline; fully and effectively implementing the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC); and promote substantive negotiations towards an effective and substantive Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC) in line with the international law, to maintain peace and stability in the East Sea. For his part, Premier Li affirmed that China attaches importance to developing relations with Vietnam; and persists the guideline of good neighbourliness, friendship, comprehensive cooperation and long-term stability with Vietnam. Agreeing with major directions and measures proposed by PM Phuc, Li said China does not pursue trade surplus to Vietnam but encourages Chinese enterprises to strengthen trade cooperation and expand investment in Vietnam. China will join Vietnams efforts to well control the differences in order to maintain peace and stability in the East Sea, he said. After the talks, PM Phuc and Premier Li witnessed the exchange ceremony of the three documents on economic and technological cooperation, veterinary and public health requirements for Vietnamese dairy products exported to China, and cultural and tourism cooperation between the two countries. On the occasion of PM Phucs attendance in the Belt and Road Forum, the two countries ministries and sectors signed other agriculture cooperation agreements. PM meets Japanese ruling party chief on BRF sidelines Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc (R) meets Toshihiro Nikai, Secretary-General of Japanese ruling Liberal Democratic Party, in Beijing on April 26 Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc had a meeting with Toshihiro Nikai, Secretary-General of Japanese ruling Liberal Democratic Party, in Beijing on April 26. At the meeting, held on the sidelines of the second Belt and Road Forum (BRF) for International Cooperation, the two sides agreed to continue promoting the friendship and partnership between the two countries, while continue fostering trade and investment collaboration to strengthen linkage between the two economies. Japan is currently among the most important partner of Vietnam, the leading ODA provider, the second biggest investor, the third largest tourism market and fourth biggest trade partner, noted the Vietnamese PM. Toshihiro Nikai, who is also President of the Japanese-Vietnamese Parliamentary Alliance, said that Japan and Vietnam have enjoyed increasingly close relationship, with more than 300,000 Vietnamese people living and working in Japan. He informed the Vietnamese PM on a plan to organise a Lotus Festival to showcase specious lotus species of Vietnam and Japan in Okayama city to strengthen mutual cultural understanding between people of the two countries. He expressed his hope that the Vietnamese Government will continue backing the Vietnam-Japan University project. PM Phuc said that he hopes the Japanese Government will continue supporting the Vietnamese community in Japan the third largest foreign community in the country. Vietnam will turn the Vietnam-Japan University into a symbol of education cooperation between the two countries, he said, asking the two Governments as well as ministries and sectors of the two countries to continue working closely together to implement the project soon. As the coordinator of the ASEAN-Japan relations in the 2018-2021 period and the ASEAN Chair in 2020, Vietnam will continue coordinating closely with Japan in further deepening the partnership between the ASEAN, Mekong sub-regional countries and Japan in the future, he declared. VNA PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc received leaders of a number of foreign enterprises on April 26 in Beijing as part of the activities in his trip to the country to attend the ongoing second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Chairman of the Chinas Hong Kong-based Sunwah Group Jonathan Choi In the meeting with the Vietnamese Government leader, Chairman of the Chinas Hong Kong-based Sunwah Group Jonathan Choi said the visit of PM Phuc helps enhance the Vietnam-China relations, thus creating impetus for stronger cooperation between the two sides enterprises. The official, who is also Chairman of the Hong Kong-Vietnam Chamber of Commerce, said he had working sessions with representatives from the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to discuss cooperation related to agriculture. He added that he would lead a delegation of Hong Kong enterprises to visit Vietnam and invite Vietnamese firms to come to China for seeking cooperation opportunities in this field. An investment promotion forum will be held in Hanoi in the coming time, aiming to foster investment ties between Hanoi and Guangdong province of China, he said, expressing his hope that the Vietnamese Government and PM Phuc will support the activity. Apart from investment activities, Sunwah has also established a culture centre at the Vietnam National University - Hanoi, and it plans to open one more of this kind in Ho Chi Minh City, Choi said. For his part, PM Phuc said the Vietnamese Government is willing to facilitate cooperation between Hanoi and Guangdong, affirming that Vietnam is ready to welcome Chinese firms using environmentally friendly high technologies to invest in Vietnam. He called on Hong Kong firms to expand their investment in more fields in Vietnam, while suggesting Choi continue to promote the consumption of farm produce in the Chinese market - the sphere that Vietnam boasts strength and great potential. He proposed Sunwah to set up an innovation centre in Vietnam, and assigned the Ministry of Planning and Investment to work with Sunwah on this plan. The same day, PM Phuc met with David Chow Kam Fai, Chairman of Legend Development Ltd in Macau, China, during which the Chinese entrepreneur said he is very interested in the Vietnamese market and wants to pour investment into tourism and hi-tech agriculture in the country. The official said he spent 10 years to develop a technology for agriculture development, hoping that he can apply this in Vietnam. Legendale wants to invest in a tourism project in the central city of Da Nang, he said, expressing his hope that the Vietnamese Government will support and create favorable condition for the plan. PM Phuc stressed that investment in hi-tech agriculture can bring benefits to farmers, and promised to assign Vietnams ministries, sectors and localities to consider the proposal and work with the firm on relevant issues.-VNA Environmentalists and scientists have expressed concern about construction projects on the Han River in Da Nang, saying that such works may affect the most livable city in Vietnam. The Vietnam River Network (VRN) has voiced its concern about Marina Complex, a villa and marina project in Son Tra district on the east side of the Han River. The river runs across the inner city of Da Nang between two densely populated areas. In its official announcement released on April 29, VRN said the encroachment on rivers in any form violates the 2012 Law on Water Resources, the 2014 Law on Environment Protection, the 2013 Law on Natural Disaster Prevention and the 2014 Law on Inland Waterway Traffic. The association has also warned that encroachment on the river will change the natural flow of the river, cause landslides on riverbanks, and affect the lives of the people in Nai Hien Dong Ward. In the rainy season, rainwater will gather in sunken areas, and will not drain, thus causing flooding. The project, if implemented, will create a bad precedent, seriously affect valuable natural resources, and affect people's lives and the sustainable economic development of the country, VNR commented. The Vietnam River Network (VRN) has voiced its concern about Marina Complex, a villa and marina project in Son Tra district on the east side of the Han River. The river runs across the inner city of Da Nang between two densely populated areas. Huynh Van Thang, an expert on water resources, and former deputy director of the Da Nang agriculture department, said in Tuoi Tre newspaper that it is necessary to consider the project thoroughly by calculating the impact on flow, geology, landslides and sedimentation. In principle, when water is poured into river at the mouth of the river, it will limit the current. When it rains, it will take longer to drain. Also in Tuoi Tre, lawyer Do Thanh Nhan, former member of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee in Da Nang City, said the encroachment on Han River in Marina Complex project is an example of the attempt to develop urban areas without concern for natural law. Da Nang leaders need to check all the licensed projects to ensure the sustainable development of the city and respect for natural law, Nhan said. A representative of the Da Nang Construction Department told Phap Luat TP HCM that the project would not affect the river current, especially in the flood season. He said this is an open-space project, with planned public service facilities (yacht club, marina and club house), with a 9-meter wide walking route along the river. However, the explanation has not lifted concerns. Thanh Nien reporters discovered that seven projects are expected to rise on the river, causing concerns about the future of the river current and landscapes. RELATED NEWS Danang to build tunnel under Han River The beauty of four masterpiece bridges in Da Nang Dat Viet The year 2018 witnessed new efforts in preventing and fighting against wildlife trafficking in Vietnam with a number of strict judgments made. Heavy punishment In 2018, two jail sentences were given to two people allegedly leading a transnational wildlife trafficking ring after a trial that cited the 1999 Penal Code which was amended in 2009. Hoang Tuan Hai was sentenced to 4 years and 6 months in prison for trafficking sea turtles. Nguyen Mau Chien, the leader of a large wildlife trafficking ring in Vietnam, was given 16 months for storing and illegally transporting rhino horns and products of other wildlife species. In other important cases, in accordance with the 2015 Criminal Law which was supplemented and amended in 2017, two tiger trafficking cases attracted the attention from the public. In the first case, an individual was caught trafficking 5 frozen tigers, 4 kilograms of tiger meat and other organs, 30 kilograms of African pangolin scales and other wild animals in January 2018. The person was sentenced to 10 years in prison. The second case involved the trafficking of one tiger in Hanoi. Four people were sentenced to spend 9-15 months in prison. Also in 2018, a person was sentenced to 10 years in jail in Dien Bien City for carrying 4 bear limbs and 27 big-head turtles (Platysternon megacephalum). A person in Hanoi also received 10-year sentence for carrying bear limbs and 8 frozen pangolins. The year 2018 witnessed new efforts in preventing and fighting against wildlife trafficking in Vietnam with a number of strict judgments made. We now can see encouraging changes in arresting and handling wildlife trafficking criminals throughout the country, said Bui Thi Ha, deputy director of ENV, an education organization on nature. Investigation agencies and prosecutors have shown their important role in the efforts to mitigate the wildlife poaching and trafficking, she said, adding that the strict verdicts can deter criminals. Justice ministrys view In 2016, a debate between the police and Con Dao districts peoples procuracy arose about turtle eggs (Chelonia mydas). As a result, the case of stealing and carrying 116 turtle eggs in Con Dao Island faced delays. The Ministry of Justice (MOJ), in its document to the Con Dao National Park, asked to put the case to trial soon. Surveys show that the prison sentences have influenced poaching and trafficking sea turtles after the case in Khanh Hoa province. Some fishermen told surveyors that they were facing a higher risk of being captured by the police. RELATED NEWS Wildlife trafficking still at serious levels in Vietnam Raising wildlife for conservation faces big challenges Thien Nhien The ninth Asia-Oceania Esperanto Congress (AK9) opened in the central city of Da Nang on April 26, attracting the participation of nearly 300 delegates from 22 countries. The ninth Asia-Oceania Esperanto Congress (AK9) opened in the central city of Da Nang on April 26. This is the second time Vietnam has hosted the congress, during which the delegates will discuss methods to further Esperanto and connect Esperanto movements worldwide, for peace, cooperation and sustainable development. So Jinso, President of of the Commission for The Asian Esperanto Movement, said through AK9, delegates will have a chance to explore culture, life and viewpoints of Vietnamese. The congress will last until April 28. Esperanto is a language invented by Dr. L.L. Zamenhof in the late 1800s. It is an artificial or constructed language as opposed to natural human languages whose vocabulary and grammars developed randomly over time through custom and usage, rather than a plan. Established on December 9, 1956, the Vietnam Esperanto Association currently has about 200 members.-VNA Afghanistan to convene loya jirga KABUL: Afghanistan on Monday will convene a rare loya jirga a massive meeting for delegates from across the country to discuss the war and US efforts to forge a peace deal with the Taliban. More than 2,000 people have been invited to gather amid tight security for four days of debate under a large tent in Kabul. The jirga is being held three days after the inauguration of the newly elected parliament on Friday. A loya jirga, literally grand assembly in Pashto, is traditionally comprised of Afghan elders. The most recent jirga was held in 2013, when Afghan officials endorsed a security agreement that allowed US troops to stay in Afghanistan beyond their planned withdrawal in 2014. In August 2007, the first joint Afghan-Pakistan jirga was held in Kabul after relations between the neighbours deteriorated amid Afghan accusations that Pakistan was harbouring Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters. In 2003, former president Sibghatullah Mojaddedi chaired a loya jirga that approved Afghanistans new constitution for a post-Taliban era. The events usually comprise political figures, religious scholars, teachers, activists and community leaders. Delegates typically break into smaller groups to tackle various matters. The upcoming loya jirga is being held at a time when the US and Taliban militants have held several rounds of talks. The two sides have discussed a possible troop withdrawal from Afghanistan in exchange for a ceasefire and various pledges from the Taliban. But crucially, the talks have thus far cut out the government of President Ashraf Ghani, whom the Taliban view as a US stooge. Mr Ghanis government is jostling for influence in the peace talks and the jirga aims to set out Kabuls red lines for any deal, including the continuation of the constitution and the protection of womens rights, the media, and free speech. Mr Ghani has invited the Taliban to participate, but the insurgents, having waged an unrelenting guerrilla war since 2001, have refused. In the past, the Taliban have blasted rockets at the loya jirga tent, and much of Kabul is being locked down under a massive security operation for this years event. In a statement, the Taliban vowed that any decisions or resolutions made at a loya jirga were never acceptable to the real and devout sons of this homeland. Top politicians including Ghani, former president Hamid Karzai, ex-foreign minister Zalmay Rassoul, former warlord Abdul Rab Rasoul Sayyaf and many other Afghan officials are attending. DES MOINES Determined to wrap up their 2019 session today, Iowa House majority Republicans set a time certain for votes on two remaining must-do budget bills. The House gaveled in minutes after 8 a.m. Saturday and Republicans immediately moved to cut off debate at 1 p.m. to begin voting on the $1.94 billion health and human services budget and the more than $3.3 billion standing appropriations budget. House Speaker Linda Upmeyer, R-Clear Lake, believed that by adjourning shortly after midnight Saturday morning the majority party was giving Democrats time to craft amendments to those budgets as well as get some sleep and come back refreshed. I think it will be a better day for everyone having some sleep, she said. House Minority Leader Todd Prichard, D-Charles City, saw it as another example of Republicans shutting Democrats out of the legislative process and refusing to listen to the minority party. Lets just be honest, time certain limits debate, he said. These are two very lengthy, far-reaching bills that were filed in the 11th hour and were time certaining debate on them to a few hours. This is not the way to do broad, far-reaching, controversial legislation. Obviously, there is no interest in finding compromise, Prichard said. Democrats are ready to fight over a GOP proposal in the standing appropriation bill to change the judicial nominating process in a way Democrats say would politicize the courts. Theyre also opposed to language in the health and human services budget that would prohibit state money from being used to provide for sex reassignment surgery for transgender Iowans and would block Planned Parenthood from participating in state-funded sex education programs. Adding those changes in what was expected to be the final 24 hours of the session was by design, Prichard said. Read between the lines. They didnt introduce this and talk about it earlier in the session because they knew it was controversial, Prichard said. Now here it is and it is being rammed through on a rainy Saturday morning or snow Saturday morning depending on where you are in the state. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 Get Government & Politics updates in your inbox! Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. WATERLOO --The Cedar Valley just witnessed its snowiest winter on record. The National Weather Service Office in Des Moines on Saturday said the Waterloo area beat the old record for seasonal snowfall by midafternoon, putting it atop the board with a new record. Snow began falling in the metro area in the late morning. While the ground temperature kept most of the snow from sticking, it didn't stop it from falling. At 1 p.m., the Waterloo area had tied the record -- 59.4 inches of snow had fallen in the 2018-19 winter season. It tied the amount same amount last set in the 1961-62 winter season. By 7 p.m. Saturday, the National Weather Service announced the new record -- 60.0 inches. Weather officials said the area received a total snowfall Saturday of 0.7 inches. Northern counties were getting even more snow. Officials were reporting some snowfall sticking and others warned of slippery conditions with the fresh snow. A winter storm watch was in effect all day Saturday for Allamakee, Bremer, Butler, Chickasaw, Clayton, Fayette, Floyd, Franklin, Howard, Mitchell and Winneshiek counties in Northeast Iowa, according to the National Weather Service. Officials issued a freeze warning for today for the Waterloo area. Overnight lows were expected to drop below freezing across much of central Iowa until 9 this morning. Love 4 Funny 0 Wow 2 Sad 2 Angry 5 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. 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29 (1) Oct 01 (1) Jul 29 (1) May 11 (1) Jul 11 (1) Coco Fusco at the NYRB: Vivien Green Fryds new book, Against Our Will: Sexual Trauma in American Art Since 1970, arrives at this historical moment to offer an overview of American feminist artists treatment of rape. Fryd takes the first part of her title from Susan Brownmillers best-selling Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (1975), which called for a redefinition of rape as a political crime against women. Although some readers criticized the book for its comparisons of rape with lynching, Brownmillers argument that rape was an instrument of oppression against all women and that Freudian psychoanalysis had unjustly discredited womens accounts of rape (by presuming them to be fantasies) helped to change laws relating to sex crimes. Rape shield laws were adopted in the late 1970s to prohibit the admission of evidence of or the questioning of rape complainants about their past sexual behavior. Similarly, Fryd concentrates on feminist art that foregrounds the pervasiveness of rape, proposing that such art should be valued for its capacity to empower survivors and enhance public awareness. She focuses on how the experience of the survivor rather than the action of the perpetrator is represented in art and how it affects viewers. more here. Edward-Isaac Dovere in The Atlantic: Joe Biden. He understands whats happening today. The newspaper ad ran a few weeks before the 1972 Senate election in Delaware, when the upstart 29-year-old was challenging a 63-year-old incumbent. The ad, which appeared in the News Journal, Delawares major newspaper, happened to run under a column that described Bidens newly combative strategy in the closing days of the race. Bidens approach then, according to the columnist, was in effect, Dear old dad may have been right for his timeand I love himbut things are different now. The world was changing in the 1970s. Its changing even more now. But the early months (at least) of the 2020 race are going to be dominated by three white men in their 70s arguing about how to make America great again: Donald Trump is turning 73 in June, Biden is 76, Bernie Sanders is 77. Trump wants age to be an issuehe thinks it helps him. I look at Joe, I dont know about him. Theyre all making me look very young, both in terms of age, and in terms of energy, he said on Friday, getting onto a helicopter on the White House lawn. I am a young, vibrant man. More here. Deputy Speaker suspended membership of three MPAs Deputy Speaker Sardar Dost Muhammad Mazari on Friday suspended the membership of three provincial lawmakers belonging to the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) until the prorogation of the current session, as they protested against the harsh conduct of Mazari. As the session began, Punjab Minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs Raja Basharat tabled a report of the standing committee on the local government bill in the House. The PML-N raised several objections on the bill, and said the standing committee had not passed the bill, so its report could not be tabled in the House without the approval of the committee. Speaking on the occasion, PML-Ns Samiullah Khan wondered why the government was in a haste to pass the bill. The bill has over 300 clauses, and therefore it demands rigorous debate in the standing committee before bringing it in the House, he said. Lawmakers Malik Ahmed and Azma Bukhari also said that a comprehensive debate should be held on the bill before bringing it in the House, as it would be tantamount to bulldozing the parliamentary norms of this House to pass it in haste. We know that you will bring a new local government system at any cost, but you should also pay attention to our suggestions, said Malik Ahmed. He said he came to know through the media that the said bill had been approved by the standing committee. Raja Basharat said that it was really difficult to bring the opposition on the same page as the government. He said the opposition members had to follow their party policy, so they could not support the government. As the deputy speaker moved on for the question-hour during the ruckus, Azma Bukhari once again stood up for a supplementary question, but was snubbed by Mazari. You start speaking on every issue time and again. Just sit down, said Mazari. These remarks provoked the PML-N lawmakers, who started shouting slogans against the conduct of the deputy speaker. Heated arguments were exchanged between Mazari and Azma, as she said that he should be ashamed over his conduct. Mazari expunged her remarks and Azma said that his comments should also be expunged from the proceeding. PML-Ns Pir Ashraf Rasool also came down hard on Mazari, saying that the deputy speaker didnt have the manners to talk to a woman. This provoked the deputy speaker, who suspended his membership, along with those of Azma Bukhari and Mian Rauf. The PML-N lawmakers later staged a walkout from the House in protest against the conduct of the deputy speaker, who didnt allow them to speak. Later, talking to the media outside the Punjab Assembly, Malik Ahmed said that the conduct of Mazari was condemnable, as the House could not be run through the use of insulting and derogatory remarks. What kind of new Pakistan it is, where the change starts from abusing and levelling accusations against the opponents, Malik Ahmed said, adding that Prime Minister Imran Khan introduced this culture of hate speech, which was way is party members were following suit. He further lamented that the PTI had made parliament a rubber stamp, and the local government system bill was a prime example of that behaviour. Mint chocolate chip cookies perfect for last-minute bakers No matter what the reason, if a quick batch of Christmas cookies is needed, these mint chocolate chip cookies are perfect. SANTA FE, N.M. A federal grand jury has indicted on a weapons charge the leader of an armed group that has been detaining asylum-seeking families from Central America near the Mexican border, the U.S. Attorneys Office announced Friday. The indictment charges Larry Mitchell Hopkins with being a felon in possession of firearms and ammunition, drawing on details of a 2017 visit by an FBI agent to Hopkins home in northwestern New Mexico. The indictment cites previous criminal convictions against the 69-year-old resident of Flora Vista for impersonation of a police officer and repeated firearms violations. Hopkins was arrested April 20 in Sunland Park, New Mexico, near the U.S. border with Mexico where his group has been stopping migrants and ordering them to wait as they alerted Border Patrol. Hopkins is scheduled for an arraignment Monday. Defense attorney Kelly OConnell said Friday that Hopkins intends to dispute the charge from the grand jury. OConnell called into question the motivation and timing of a charge that is not linked to activities along the border, and said that Hopkins deserves to be released pending court proceedings because of his poor health. Hes obviously not a flight risk to Mexico, the Las Cruces-based attorney said. The indictment against Hopkins, made public on Friday, offers no new details about Hopkins and his involvement with an armed group called the United Constitutional Patriots, who say they want to draw attention to immigration violations and help federal law enforcement in patrolling the border. The FBI has declined to comment on why it waited to bring charges against Hopkins following a search at his home in 2017. His arrest follows widespread criticism after videos surfaced of their members carrying firearms and detaining groups of immigrants crossing the border. In 2017, Hopkins allegedly invited an FBI agent into his home and showed him at least nine weapons and ammunition. According to the complaint, he first told the agent that the weapons belonged to his live-in girlfriend, but he then referred to one of the weapons as his. An earlier complaint filed in U.S. District Court maintains that Hopkins told members of the Patriots in 2017 that they were training to assassinate George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama, because of these individuals support of Antifa, or anti-fascists. If convicted on the charge in the indictment, Hopkins faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. Armed civilian groups have been a fixture on the border for years, especially when large numbers of migrants arrive. Amid the current rise in people seeking asylum, a larger portion of migrants are children. Ashley Napalitano isnt the first Rio Rancho High School graduate to give birth before accepting her diploma and she wont be the last. Im still gonna graduate on time, but it was a lot of work to get there, Napalitano, a member of the Class of 2019, said. She was one nominee honored Monday evening at the schools annual Phoenix Dinner. This years 30 Phoenix Award winners arent necessarily academic aces or awesome athletes, but winners in the school of hard knocks. They may have battled health issues, faced the death of a family member, been abandoned by their family or gotten back on track after making bad choices. And theyve still met RRHSs rigorous standards to earn a diploma. Phoenix Award recipients are nominated by high school counselors, teachers and staff. Napalitano is proud of navigating motherhood she has a 2-year-old son, Daniel and multiple moves to graduate on time, thanks to her grandmother taking care of her son and at least two RRHS teachers who showed confidence in her and provided advice. I dont want to say I necessarily deserve it, because I know a lot of teen moms who have pushed through, she said of the Phoenix honor. Theres another girl in my grade with a son thats a year older than mine. And shes doing great she got right back into school. When I need help, I text her. Recapping her early years Napalitano spent much of her childhood in the City of Vision, attending four elementary schools, by her count, and then Eagle Ridge Middle School. As a little girl, she thought itd be cool to someday be a doctor, then a vet, then in pre-natal care, then a lawyer, she recalled. Now, she says, shell spend two years at Central New Mexico Community College and then transfer to the University of New Mexico, targeting a career in criminology subject to change. Two of her most-inspiring teachers at RRHS have been Michael Mascone in culinary arts and English teacher Christine Carson. Both have been there, done that and graduated from RRHS. Mascone told her to do three things: breathe, evaluate the situation and, if you dont like it, change it. Hes been there since freshman year, she said, which wasnt a good year because of a nasty rumor about her that began in an athletes locker room. The rumor-mongering ended after Mascone took care of it. With all the adversity and challenges that she has faced, I am happy to see her be on track to graduate with her class, Mascone said. Her perseverance and dedication, both as a student and as a person, are admirable and show a strength of character that is unusual in students her age. She is a constant leader in class and is a mentor to younger students who are going through rough times. It has been an honor to be part of the growth and success that she has had, despite her trials and tribulations. Carson, Napalitano said, focuses on something more abstract: heartbeats. I always know when I get into Carsons classroom, like everything stays at the door and its a positive attitude, she said. I dont think Ive had a bad day in this (English) class the entire year. Carson, she said, is like my distant mother. Ashley is not only a positive individual, but one who has turned many of her challenges into opportunities as she concludes her senior year, Carson said. She is well-deserving of the Phoenix Award, as I believe she truly embodies one who will continue to rise above the ashes and embrace her future aspirations. Baby on the way I moved around a lot when I was little, with my mom, Napalitano recalled. Life was pretty normal until ninth grade. In June, after my freshman year, my mom decided we were going to up and move to Arkansas, so that was a fun time. And then in September of my sophomore year, I found out I was pregnant, she said. I kinda had to leave school the last half of my sophomore year. When he was born, he had the umbilical cord double-knotted around his neck, so he was in the hospital for 3 weeks. I actually found out I was pregnant the day I got baptized at my new church, she recalled. I didnt know I was pregnant. My mom looked at me and she was like, Youre taking a pregnancy test. So I was, like, OK, Im not pregnant, so go ahead.' The result of the home pregnancy test was positive. I remember every limb in my body left and I hit the floor. I started crying so hard, she said. I had Daniel a month after I turned 16. She was afraid to leave her newborn son, named after that Biblical character in the lions den. I was super into church back then, she said, which helped because doctors werent optimistic about Daniels chances of survival. Wanting to continue her education, she took online high school courses before that became problematic. Daniels father was a no-show: He is not involved, because he got into drugs and things, and I didnt feel that was something I wanted my son around, she said. I did give him the opportunity, but he just stopped talking to me after a while; I got blocked on everything. After Napalitano and her mother had a big fight, her mother sent her back to New Mexico to live with her father. She enrolled again at Rio Rancho High School, where she supplements her education by attending the Secondary Learning Center (night school). She lives with her grandmother so she doesnt have to pay for day care. Her father hasnt provided much help. Daniel, she said, is having trouble with speech therapy, but everything else is where it needs to be. Napalitano is carrying a decent grade-point average and enjoying her circle of friends. Find your people and realize theyre your people and stay with them, she advises. The group of friends I have now, I can go to them with absolutely anything and I dont get judged, and it helps so much. And shell still be listening to those voices in her head. Its kinda funny, because whenever Im, like, in a situation at home or in a different part of the school, she said, I hear I dont want to say Ive been brainwashed by Mascone and Carson, but its always their voices I hear in the back of my head. Copyright 2019 Albuquerque Journal Dressed in red, yellow and blue feathers and beads, Skweltapis Ned awaited anxiously to enter the dance floor in Tingley Coliseum, at Expo New Mexico, where much of the 36th annual Gathering of Nations Powwow was unfolding Friday. Its my first year here, and Im very excited, the 16-year-old said. This is a big deal and a big event. All the Native people are gathering in one place to show their strength and pride in our dance, and to demonstrate that were continuing our culture. Ned, from the Statimc Reservation in British Columbia, Canada, has danced at other powwows, but never one as big as the Gathering of Nations. Everyone here is dancing for the same reasons for their families, their loved ones, and for the culture to continue on and thrive, he said. No dancer dances for themselves. About 3,000 dancers representing 750 tribes in the United States, Canada and Mexico, cycled through the crowded dance floor as Native drumming and chanting urged them on. The spectacle of the largest powwow in the world overwhelmed first-time observers and continued to awe those who return year after year. Ive never been to a powwow before, said Connie Unger, despite growing up on privately owned land on the Tulalip Reservation in Washington state. Im not of Indian descent, but Ive been around that culture my whole life and went to school with Indian kids, she said. Her husband learned about the Gathering of Nations on the internet, and, for five years, theyve been trying to get to Albuquerque to see the event. Aesthetically, its just gorgeous, but were a bit confused about what exactly is going on, what each dance is and what it means, so we have some catching up to do, she said. Robert Morrison, a mechanical engineer from Chicago, was in Albuquerque for business but delayed his return a couple of days to meet up with a friend at the Gathering of Nations. His friend, a fellow mechanical engineer he met in the Windy City and who grew up on tribal land in Michigan, was dancing in the powwow. Ive met urban Indians, of course, but this is a whole other side of that culture that I was clueless about, he said. Morrison said he couldnt recall the name of the tribe to which his friend belongs. I just always thought of him as another numbers nerd like me but man, he sure can dance! Erica Pretty Eagle Moore has been dancing in the Gathering of Nations for years, though she took a hiatus for a few years to devote full attention to her schoolwork in Oklahoma, where she was studying graphic design. I grew up dancing, and Ive been around and participated in cultural activities all my life, said the 26-year-old member of the Osage Nation. Being here is just who I am. It makes me feel proud. Outside of Tingley Coliseum, live music echoed from Stage 49 and lines of people waited to purchase food from vendors with names like Thank Goodness Its Frybread and Nibble on My Ears. It was even more congested inside the Indian Traders Market, where hundreds of Native artisans and craft traders sold jewelry, paintings, dream catchers, blankets, quilts and hats with slogans like Water is Life, and Make America Native Again. Vadare Cornelison and a friend were walking the grounds of Expo New Mexico, taking in some of the sights. Its simply beautiful, wonderful, she said. I love the dancers. Cornelison, a member of the Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma, said the sheer size of the Gathering was overwhelming. But more than that, its an acknowledgment that we all belong together, and that we survived, she said. Even the United States government tried to wipe us out, and here we are, surviving and educating our children. Those people in there dancing, many of them are physicians, lawyers, statesmen, legislators. The fact that they are here in their regalia doesnt mean thats all they do. They are contributing to the nation. The Gathering of Nations began Thursday with the Miss Indian World competition at the Albuquerque Convention Center. The event this year is dedicated to the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women campaign. Melonie Mathews, who coordinates the competition, said women in general are victims of domestic violence and many of them killed. But Native women on reservations and living in urban areas in the United States and Canada are particularly at risk. Its almost an epidemic, she said. One of the problems is there isnt a lot of great statistical research or data. However, stories coming out of reservations and Native communities are compelling. Women go to the grocery store or go out for a walk and never return, their whereabouts remaining a mystery until someone stumbles across a body. Were just trying to bring attention to it and put the word out and let people know there is a problem, Mathews said. Within our own communities and among our mothers and fathers, sons, brothers, aunties, uncles, grandparents, everybody needs to look after one another. If were going to manage this problem, if were going to solve it, the starting point is in the home. Those who had wishfully hoped that Secretary of State Mike Pompeos Cairo speech in January would enunciate a new policy doctrine toward the Middle East were sorely disappointed. The speech was devoid of any serious analysis or constructive scenarios for the region. After his visit, the Middle East will remain mostly a place where dictatorships thrive, repression continues unabated, innovation is stifled and wars, not rapprochement, drive coalition building and alliances. Terrorism will trump every other human activity. The tepid reaction to Pompeos speech 10 years after Obamas by some regimes and the people of some countries was a verdict on its tone-deafness. Arab populations saw no hope, and their regimes saw no clear path for relations among each other and between them and Iran. Their polite applause in reaction to the speech was a sign of Arab hospitality, not an endorsement of its thesis. Pompeos real new beginning is a rejection of the carefully articulated new beginning that underpinned President Obamas Cairo speech on June 4, 2009. Obama sought a new relation based upon the truth that America and the Muslim world share common principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings. Pompeo said nothing of the sort. Pompeo accused his predecessor of telling his Cairo audience 10 years ago that 9/11 led my country to abandon its ideals, particularly in the Middle East. Clearly neither Pompeo nor his speechwriters have truly digested the key message in Obamas speech. What Obama conveyed to his Arab listeners in 2009 and Pompeo failed to do in 2019 was that American values and commitment to justice, respect, fairness and peace are the most effective weapon the United States has in its arsenal in the fight against radicalism and terrorism. Pompeo, instead, said that containing Iran was their hope for the future. Obama wanted to engage regimes and peoples. Pompeo reached out only to autocrats, as if their peoples and thousands of innocent protesters languishing in their jails didnt matter. Obamas draft speech was reviewed by advisers and experts within and outside the government for weeks before he delivered it. He kept refining the draft up until the last few hours before delivering it. Was Pompeos speech vetted by regional experts and analysts within the appropriate government agencies? Obama did not view Muslims only through the prism of radical Islamism or Iran. He talked about human rights and dignity. Not once did Pompeo raise the issue of human rights or repression in his speech. Pompeos speech painted the entire Muslim world with a broad brush of terrorism and dystopia without distinction between the vast majorities of mainstream Muslims and the minority of extremists. Oblivious to his autocratic hosts despicable human rights record, the secretary assured them that the Trump administration has their back. Contrary to Pompeos claim, both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama confronted radical Islamism and terrorism head on. Whereas Pompeo bragged that airstrikes in the region will continue as targets arise, Obama called for a new era of smart diplomacy. The new Middle East will continue to be shaped by what Pompeo did not emphasize in his speech. He did not urge the Saudi crown prince to end to the war in Yemen and the illegal Saudi-led blockade of Qatar. He offered no policy prescriptions regarding investment in education, entrepreneurship and job creation initiatives and startups. He did urge his hosts to form anti-Iran coalitions. Does Pompeo really believe that Iran is the source of all aggression, poverty, famine, hunger, environmental degradation, lack of innovation and violations of human rights in the region? Why does he ignore the record of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain? Although Iran has supported some terrorist organizations, much of Islamist terrorism that Pompeo railed against is Sunni, not Shia. And most of it has emanated from Saudi Arabia and its Sunni Arab neighbors. Several Arab countries do not view Iran in the same way as the Saudi crown prince and the American secretary of state. Nor are they sanguine about a war-like relationship with their Persian neighbor. Secretary Pompeo must realize by now that his speech and visit were not the tour de force he had hoped for. The Middle East that he left behind remains as conflict-ridden, as hopeless and as tyrannical as when he arrived. Its sad that he wasted such a precious opportunity. Emile Nakhleh is director of the Global and National Security Policy Institute at UNM and a former senior intelligence service officer at the CIA. A longer version of this article was published on LobeLog. WASHINGTON For years after graduating from business school, I used to joke, I was living on Ramen and Cheez Doodle Surprise the surprise being that youre 32 years old and still carrying so much student-loan debt that you cant afford brand-name ramen. Ah, well. Id decided to use my MBA to go into journalism. I couldnt really have expected anything different. But Elizabeth Warren thinks we shouldnt have to suffer for our educations. This week, she announced that she wants to forgive some or all of the student-loan debt for anyone earning less than $250,000 a year, while making tuition at public colleges effectively free. I have, you might say, a visceral appreciation for this plans appeal. But I do have some questions. For example: How will Warren make sure public-college tuition stays at what the federal government is willing to pay? Those colleges are run by the states, and the federal government has no constitutional authority to set tuition at state institutions. The benefit could be limited to schools that voluntarily cap tuition at the federally guaranteed rate, of course. But making college free for students, while setting a ceiling on the revenue they generate, will increase the number of students and decrease the resources available to serve them. Which brings me to my next question: How is Warren going to prevent the overcrowding and deteriorating conditions that tend to afflict free university systems in Europe? The United States has the best tertiary education system in the world; will it still be the best when Warren is done with it? Easy answer: Make those federal payments generous. But, sorry, one more question how do we pay for it? Warren says that the whole cost can be covered by her Ultra-Millionaire Tax. Oh, no, more questions, like Is that tax plan constitutional? Answer: maybe not. Also, Warren already promised a chunk of that money to her new child-care subsidy. After giving everyone cheap day care, how much will be left over for forgiving nearly $1.6 trillion of outstanding student-loan debt, and sending every public-college student to school for free? But the biggest question I have is simply: Why spend federal money on this? College graduates are the best-off people in the country, in almost every way. There are probably better candidates for new spending about two-thirds of the population, in fact. The burden of student loans doesnt even begin to erase the economic benefits of the degree they paid for. Over a lifetime, college graduates will earn hundreds of thousands of dollars more than their less-educated peers. Meanwhile, the median student loan balance is around $17,000 more like new economy car than perpetual debt slavery. Americans have about $1.1 trillion of outstanding auto debt, not that far from that $1.6 trillion in student loans, but without already-generous government repayment subsidies. If you wouldnt claim that Toyota Corollas are imposing a grievous, unsupportable burden on the nations youth, then you probably shouldnt make similar claims about student loans. The difference, of course, is that the sort of people who peruse campaign planks tend to be the kind of people who have borrowed against a major chunk of their income to get a degree, not a car. And the people who write the planks, or write about them, may well have borrowed a lot of money to get a fancy degree and then gone into something personally rewarding, such as writing or political activism, instead of something lucrative. Those people do face real difficulties, but they tend to think that their own struggles are more common, and of greater national significance, than those struggles actually are. And these people appear to be increasingly more concentrated among the Democratic base, as Democrats become the party of the professional class, and of the working poor. Naturally, Democrats want to appeal to their educated voters, since that group drives a lot of votes in the primaries. Which is why, when they announce new programs to help struggling American families and levy new taxes on the rich to pay for them, the cutoff for both is so often set at $250,000 well above any reasonable definition either of rich or struggling. Theres always a danger in any high-low economic coalition that the agenda gets set by the elite members, and justified by the poor ones. And indeed, Warren touts the benefits of her proposals for low-paid teachers, single mothers, first-generation minority college students even though the big-ticket items seem exquisitely tailored to the biggest financial burdens of affluent young professionals. Which prompts one more question about Warrens plan: cui bono (who benefits)? Twitter, @asymmetricinfo. 2019, Washington Post Writers Group. AMPARA, Sri Lanka Militants linked to Easter suicide bombings opened fire and set off explosives during a raid by Sri Lankan security forces on a house in the countrys east, leaving behind a grisly discovery Saturday: 15 bodies, including six children. The gunbattle that began Friday night and the carnage that followed come amid widespread fear of more attacks as officials hunt for militants with explosives believed to still be at large after the coordinated bombings of churches and luxury hotels that killed more than 250 people last weekend. Raids and police curfews have shut down areas of eastern Sri Lanka, and Catholic leaders have canceled Sunday Masses indefinitely. Officials also urged Muslims to stay home for prayers in an extraordinary call by the clergy to curtail worship. The government on Saturday also formally banned two extremist groups purportedly linked to the attacks, allowing officials to confiscate their property, presidential spokesman Dharmasri Ekanayake said. The U.S. Department of State, citing terror groups plotting more possible attacks, urged Americans to reconsider travel to Sri Lanka and ordered the school-age children of government workers to leave the country. The U.S. Embassy in Sri Lanka has previously warned the public to stay away from places of worship over the weekend, a stark alert underlining that authorities believe some attackers remain at large. The gunfight Friday came after police tipped off soldiers about a suspected safe house near the town of Sammanthurai in Sri Lankas Ampara District, where authorities said the militants set off three explosions and opened fire. Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara said some of the dead likely were militants who blew themselves up in suicide bombings. Earlier, the military said at least one civilian had been killed in the attack. A girl and a woman survived the explosion at the suspected safe house but were critically injured and being treated at a hospital, Gunasekara said. Photographs taken by The Associated Press show the charred remains of one child and the body of another wearing a green T-shirt with the words good boy written on the back. The bodies of an adult woman and man were found after the explosion with their clothes burned off. Meanwhile, the military said security forces had recovered explosives, detonators, suicide kits, military uniforms and Islamic State group flags in the ongoing raids. Gunasekara said officers acting on information from intelligence officials also found 150 sticks of blasting gelatin and 100,000 small metal balls, as well as a van and clothing suspected of being used by those involved in the Easter attacks. Suicide bomb vests often are packed with such balls to increase the shrapnel in the explosion, making them even deadlier. Fear of more attacks has led to increased security at churches, shrines, temples and mosques across the multiethnic island nation of 21 million off the southern coast of India. Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the archbishop of Colombo, told reporters Friday that church officials had seen a leaked security document describing Roman Catholic churches and other denominations as a major target. He asked the faithful across Sri Lanka to stay home for their own safety. We dont want repetitions, Ranjith said. It was an extraordinary request for a Catholic clergyman to make, as churches often remain a refuge. Giovanni Maria Vian, a church historian and emeritus editor of the Vatican newspaper, said he believed it was the first time the church had canceled Masses across a country for security reasons. In Galle Face, a normally crowded ocean side park in Colombo near some of the hotels that were bombed, only a few people could be seen Saturday. Kiosks were closed and traffic was lighter than usual, with security officials blocking streets and checking vehicles at barricades. Yashwant Kumar Singh, 23, a worker from India, said he wants to go back to his homeland because he fears another attack. If it only happened on one day, then that wouldnt have been so difficult, but bombs are going off here every day. That is why there is an atmosphere of fear. We are feeling very scared, he said. Meanwhile, cleaning crews worked at St. Anthonys Shrine in Colombo, the capital, where broken glass still littered a blood-stained floor, the remnants of one of the Easter attacks. They collected debris, tossing it into a truck parked outside as a heavy contingent of security forces stood guard. Authorities told Muslims to worship at home rather than attend communal Friday prayers that are the most important religious service of the week, but several mosques held services anyway. At a mosque in Colombo, police armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles stood guard outside for hundreds of worshippers. The Easter attackers are not Muslims. This is not Islam. This is an animal, said Akurana Muhandramlage Jamaldeen Mohamed Jayfer, the chairman of the mosque. We dont have a word (strong enough) to curse them. There were also reports by some Muslims of harassment because of their religion. A local television channel showed people on a bus asking a Muslim woman wearing a traditional burqa to either remove it or leave the bus. She later left the bus. Abdul Azeez Abdul Sattar, 63, an auto-rickshaw driver, said a man in his neighborhood refused to hire him, telling him, You are a terrorist; you have a bomb. I wont take your auto. There were several armed police officers guarding the Holy Cross Church in Gampaha, a predominantly Buddhist town. People are shocked, because this came years after the war ended, and after all these years, we have been living in peace, said Pradeep Kumara, 36, a clerk at a private company, referring to Sri Lankas long civil war, which ended in 2009. This has disrupted our work, and our ordinary and normal life. We dont want to go back to that troublesome period. Sri Lankas government, crippled from a long political crisis between the president and prime minister last year, promised swift action to capture militants still at large. President Maithripala Sirisena said about 140 people had been identified as having links to the Islamic State group. A major search operation has been undertaken, Sirisena said. Every household in the country will be checked. On Friday, police confirmed that the leader of the local militant group blamed for the attack, Mohamed Zahran, died in the suicide bombing at the Shangri-La Hotel, one of six hotels and churches attacked. Zahran appeared in an Islamic State video claiming responsibility for the coordinated assault, and authorities in both Sri Lanka and Australia confirmed links between IS and the attack. ___ Mallawarachi reported from Colombo, Sri Lanka. ___ Associated Press journalists Rishabh Jain, Emily Schmall and Foster Klug in Colombo, Sri Lanka, contributed to this report. IMF to visit Pakistan on April 29 ISLAMABAD: A staff mission of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) would be visiting Pakistan on Monday (April 29) for negotiations on a three-year bailout package for economic reforms including the introduction of a single Value Added Tax (VAT) regime. The announcement came following a meeting between Prime Minister Imran Khan and IMF Managing Director Ms Christine Lagarde in Beijing on Friday on the sidelines of the Belt and Road Forum. The IMF team will visit Pakistan starting April 29 to continue technical discussions for an IMF supported programme, said Finance Ministers spokesman Dr Khaqan Najeeb hours after the Beijing meeting. He said the Pakistan side for negotiations with the IMF will be led by Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, Adviser to PM on Finance. Dr Khaqan said extensive preparation for data and macroeconomic framework finalisation and structural reforms had been ongoing among all key stakeholders including State Bank of Pakistan, Power and Gas Division, Privatisation Commission, Federal Board of Revenue and Benazir Income Support Programme among others for sharing with the IMF. The successful conclusion of the talks would translate into a Federal Budget 2019-20 envisaging at least additional resource mobilisation of close to Rs500bn or around 1.2pc of GDP under a three-year fiscal adjustment and stabilisation programme. The talks are taking place at a time the IMF had early this month forecast Pakistans fiscal deficit continuously elevated at close to 8pc and deteriorating debt-to-GDP ratio to reach 86pc over the next five years. Pakistan authorities on the other hand have finalised the governments strategy to deliver on Medium-Term Economic Framework 2019-23 (MTEF) targets to be finalised by the IMF. The two sides have been engaged since August last year but talks were suspended in November when they could not reach agreement on economic adjustment plan as the IMF wanted upfront steep policy actions to reduce fiscal deficit through higher taxes and increase in gas and electricity prices and allow a market based exchange rate. The government was, however, reluctant to take severe economic decisions of political nature at the earliest even though it increased electricity and gas prices and devalued currency significantly and wanted to stagger the burden on the people in the coming budget. This will be followed by 0.9pc of GDP additional revenue generation in FY21 and then 0.3pc in FY22. The provincial taxes are committed to go up 0.1pc of GDP every year to achieve 1.6pc tax to GDP ratio in FY22 from current years 1.3pc tax to GDP ratio. Broadly, the tax measures expected to deliver the targets include drastic reduction in tax expenditures by removing exemptions and excessive tax credits from incomes tax, sales tax and federal excise duty law and moving to a single sales tax (VAT) regime by doing away with special procedures and reduced rate taxation, according official papers seen by Dawn. The MTEF aims to address three chronic deficits fiscal deficit, current account deficit and the savings and investment gap. Named a Roadmap For Stability, Growth and Productive Employment, the government had announced recently that all numbers would be put to the MTEF on reaching an agreement to enter into an IMF programme. We will share all the numbers and targets (of MTEF) once the staff level agreement is signed with the IMF, former finance minister Asad Umar had announced. Distraught, her voice shaking, a woman called 911 to report a suicide bomber outside her apartment in southeast Albuquerque. They blew themselves up, I believe, she told the dispatcher, describing what she thought had just taken place. Theres body parts It was one of multiple frantic calls fielded by 911 operators the evening of March 23 after a Kirtland Air Force Base airman, 20-year-old Calvin Cooper, struck pedestrian Angelica Baca with his car, instantly killing the 39-year-old woman before crashing into a nearby apartment complex just outside the base. Cooper and two of the three airmen in the car with him were injured. An Albuquerque Police Department crash report obtained by the Journal on Friday cites driver inattention, excessive speed, improper lane change as contributing factors in the crash. The report noted that Cooper had not been drinking and driving. His passengers were two 19-year-old men and a 22-year-old woman. Officials said earlier this month that Cooper will not face charges from local authorities and the case was handed over to the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. A spokesman for KAFB told the Journal that OSI would not be releasing any details, including the names of the airmen, until the investigation is completed. Afterward a staff judge advocate will decide how to go forward. That could mean a dismissal, a hearing or an indictment, which could lead to a court martial. Police say the crash happened around 7:30 p.m. at Louisiana and Ross SE when Cooper used the center painted median to pass a vehicle. Witnesses told police Cooper was driving at a high rate of speed and struck Baca, who was standing in the median. Cooper then swerved across two lanes and drove into the Rising Phoenix apartments. At least nine people based on recordings provided by APD on Friday called 911 to report the crash, including panicked witnesses describing a grisly and chaotic scene as well as base officials trying to gather information. A few of the calls are heavily redacted at the point where dispatchers ask witnesses to describe the crash. Ive never seen anything like this; its terrible, one woman says. She describes body parts strewn about the street as multiple people can be heard screaming in the background. Another caller requested grief counseling for his daughter after she witnessed the crash. She saw it all unfold, he told the dispatcher. At least three base officials also called 911, asking where the airmen were taken and for more information about the incident. One of those officials, identified as Special Agent Mike Thrasher of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, told the dispatcher they were trying to gather information after investigators were turned away by APD officers at the crash scene. I think the guys on scene probably didnt really understand exactly who we were, what our purpose was, they seemed a little confused by it, he said. Thrasher asked if he could speak with an APD supervisor to get more details on the crash and if any criminal charges are possible. We know who the driver is. The thing were concerned about is whether or not theres any concerns of any criminal activity, Thrasher told the dispatcher. If its a DUI crash and they caused a death, which is going to be very concerning to us if theres any negligence or criminal activity reckless driving. SANTA FE A Santa Fe District Court judge denied a motion Friday to keep a former priest charged with raping a child decades ago behind bars pending a trial. The state Attorney Generals Office asked Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer to revoke 81-year-old Marvin Archuletas conditions of release for making unauthorized trips to an Albuquerque Walmart and a post office on March 19. Archuleta, under house arrest in Albuquerque, had permission to go to a doctors appointment that day but did not have permission to go anywhere else, according to court documents. Marlowe Sommer quickly denied the motion Friday after Tino Alva of the Santa Fe County electronic monitoring program told the judge that Archuleta is allowed to go to medical appointments and go grocery shopping as long as he lets electronic monitoring personnel know ahead of time. Archuletas attorney, Ryan Villa, argued that Archuleta is not used to being on electronic monitoring and has lost some comprehension in his old age. Archuleta faces one count of criminal sexual penetration and one count of attempting to commit kidnapping for allegedly raping a 6- or 7-year-old boy at Holy Cross Catholic Church in Santa Cruz, near Espanola, in either 1986 or 1987. Prosectuors wanted Archuleta held in jail until trial after he was taken into custody in February, but Santa Fe District Judge Matthew Wilson released him under house arrest. HOLLOMAN AIR FORCE BASE The 6th Attack Squadron MQ-9 Reaper Remotely Piloted Aircraft Formal Training Unit at Holloman Air Force Base includes more than 100 active-duty airmen, reservists, contractors and civil services students from all over the world and more than 100 instructors. But the 69-room building used by the unit is not in good shape. U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, who visited the unit this week, said its condition is totally unacceptable. The building is threatened by a sinkhole, said Lt. Col. Alfred Rosales, 6th Attack Squadron commander. We do have challenges, and I will show you all of them, Rosales told Heinrich. Aside from the sinkhole, there are problems with the plumbing and electrical systems in the building. So, I have to replace the entire unit every time a light is out, Rosales said. Everywhere you see power outs and light bulbs, I have to do that procedure every time. In some parts of the facility offices and classrooms some things were being held together by duct tape. Youll see a variety of duct tape not because we cant replace it but because this building has always been on the chopping block, Rosales said. Heinrich secured $85 million to construct a new building, but that money, along with money for some other projects in the military construction fund, could be diverted to help fund President Donald Trumps border wall. There are $85 million in funds that are already programmed to replace this facility, and making sure that that happens needs to be our top priority, Heinrich said. This mission is one of the most urgent security needs for the Air Force. But to have people working in an environment that has very real health and safety issues, to me, is not acceptable. On Feb. 15, Trump declared a national emergency at along the Mexican border. Trump moved $8 billion, including $3.6 million in military construction funds, to build 234 miles of border wall after Congress refused to authorize $5.7 billion for the border wall the president had requested. SANTA TERESA The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has issued waivers of environmental and other laws, expediting the construction of new bollard wall in New Mexico and Arizona. The barriers are needed to help impede and deny illegal border crossings and the drug and human smuggling activities of transnational criminal organizations, according to a statement released Friday by Homeland Security. The construction projects cover 53 miles, with most of the wall going up in New Mexico in Dona Ana and Luna counties. The new bollard wall would replace dilapidated and outdated designs, in addition to road construction and improvement and lighting installation, according to Homeland Security. The new section of bollard wall will extend the existing structure 20 miles west of the Santa Teresa Port of Entry through the rest of Dona Ana County into Luna County and about four miles west past the Columbus Port of Entry. The waivers published in the Federal Register on Wednesday clear the way for construction because the Department of Homeland Security does not have to comply with laws involving public lands, water and wildlife. The waiving of these laws sends a clear message to our border communities that our rights and our voices do not matter, said Amanda Munro, field organizer for the Southwest Environmental Center. The Las Cruces-based conservation organization said the waivers cover 27 laws ranging from those affecting endangered species to archaeological and historic preservation. These laws are intended to protect people from bad decisions that will negatively impact their environment, health and history, and yet we border residents are deemed unworthy of even the right to give our opinion on the construction happening in our own backyards, Munro said. The Southwest Environmental Center is among 22 organizations that sent a letter Thursday asking Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan and Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost for a 30-day extension to the comment period in Dona Ana and Luna counties. The letter points out that CBP issued a $789 million construction contract for the New Mexico project one day after the comment period began. Others who submitted the letter include the Indivisible Tohono, a border tribal organization; the National Parks Conservation Association; and the Center for Biological Diversity. This wall will destroy New Mexicos incredible public lands and hurt the local economy, which relies on the outdoor industry. And it could deal a death blow to Mexican gray wolves in the U.S., said Laiken Jordahl, borderlands campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity. But some New Mexico farmers and ranchers on the border support building a wall in New Mexico and want it done quickly. Were pleased that the government recognizes the urgency of the situation, said Caren Cowan, executive director of New Mexico Cattle Growers and Wool Growers associations. Cowan said she is not concerned about the waivers being used to expedite the building of the wall. Our members deserve protection, and this is a step in that right direction, and we greatly appreciate it, she said. President Donald Trump declared a national emergency after Congress refused to approve the $5.7 billion he wanted to pay for his promised border wall. The president is diverting up to $1 billion in Department of Defense funds to add barriers in New Mexico and Arizona. Its bad enough that Trumps bulldozing the borderlands for a senseless wall, but now hes stealing money from the military to do it, Jordahl said. Construction on the wall in New Mexico is expected to begin next month, despite multiple lawsuits. The only thing permanent about Trumps wall will be the destruction to wildlife and wild places, Jordahl said. It will do nothing to stop asylum seekers or illegal drug smugglers. Waiving these laws is an affront to borderland communities, and well continue to challenge this in court. Copyright 2019 Albuquerque Journal SANTA FE After debate on gun-related legislation nearly reached a boiling point during this years 60-day session, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and some New Mexico sheriffs who met this week at the Roundhouse sounded a more conciliatory tone. Although time will be the judge, the first-term Democratic governor and sheriffs at the meeting even discussed working together on gun bills in the future possibly as soon as next year on a red-flag law that would allow a family member or police officer to seek a temporary court order to take firearms from people deemed a threat to themselves or others. The general message that was expressed on both sides was, Lets work together to ensure the laws we have work as well as possible for New Mexicans, Lujan Grisham spokesman Tripp Stelnicki said. There was much more agreement than disagreement, he said. The meeting, which included at least five sheriffs and several New Mexico Association of Counties officials, came about after a legislative session during which Lujan Grisham criticized rogue sheriffs for threatening to not enforce the states new background checks law for gun sales and one Republican state lawmaker stormed out of a committee hearing on the bill, which will take effect this summer. Cibola County Sheriff Tony Mace, president of the New Mexico Sheriffs Association and a critic of the governors gun control initiatives, described this weeks meeting in the Governors Office as cordial and said both sides agreed on the need for better communication. The ones you want to enforce these bills should have some say-so in developing them, Mace told the Journal. We just want to make sure that when we enact gun laws theyre enforceable and have some teeth in them. All but a few of the states 33 county sheriffs including Mace opposed the expanded background check requirement and other gun legislation debated by lawmakers this year. In addition, at least 26 counties in New Mexico passed Second Amendment sanctuary ordinances in opposition to the proposed gun laws. That prompted Attorney General Hector Balderas to send a letter earlier this month reminding sheriffs and police chiefs of their legal obligation to enforce state laws, and warning them that they risk legal liability if they refuse to do so. In an interview, Mace acknowledged that background check requirements for gun sales have been found to be constitutional but said he remains concerned that the new law will be logistically difficult to enforce. He also said that sheriffs agree there are huge issues around mental health in New Mexico but that lawmakers should focus more on behavioral health treatments programs than access to guns to reduce gun violence. The proposed Extreme Risk Protection Order Act or red-flag law passed the House during this years session but eventually stalled in a Senate committee. It would have been similar to laws passed in 14 other states in recent years that supporters have touted as a way to reduce suicide and homicide rates. Although Lujan Grisham has not committed to putting the bill on the agenda for the 2020 legislative session, Stelnicki said the governor asked sheriffs during this weeks meeting to take the lead on helping to craft workable legislation. He also said sheriffs at the meeting seemed receptive to the request. Mace said hes optimistic sheriffs will be more closely involved in negotiations over firearm legislation in the coming year. I do believe the lines of communication will be open, but we also believe the governor is firm in her stance, Mace said. Were just hoping we have a seat at the table for the next legislative session when that stuff comes up. New Mexicos overall rate of firearm deaths per capita has been consistently higher than the national average. As of 2017, the state had the nations 10th-highest rate at 18.5 per 100,000 people of deaths caused by firearms, according to state Department of Health data. But until this year, gun control bills had found little traction at the Roundhouse, as many rural lawmakers including some Democrats have opposed such measures as impractical and misguided. While the Governors Office said Lujan Grisham will not back away from her commitment to gun legislation aimed at keeping New Mexicans safer, her spokesman said shes also committed to respectful compromise. We all have a responsibility to ensure the rhetoric is not harmful, remains at a certain volume and is fact-based, Stelnicki said. CINCINNATI The Nagels home is a house divided. Mindy Nagel usually votes Democratic, while husband Tom usually goes Republican. But thats only part of it their bedroom is in Ohios 2nd congressional district, while their garage is in the 1st. They say theyve voted in both districts within the last three years. They were in House 1 until Ohio lost two seats in Congress because of U.S. population shifts recorded in the 2010 census. Republican-controlled redistricting followed for the 2012 elections, and the Nagels started voting in House 2, held by Republican Brad Wenstrup. Until 2018, when the ballots at their polling place were again for House 1, Republican Steve Chabots seat, the Nagels said. Confused? The Nagels were, too. What didnt change is that they and everyone else in Democrat-dominated Cincinnati have a Republican representative in Congress. Redistricting yielded a statewide map that has produced both an unbending 12-4 Republican advantage in the traditional swing states delegation, and an ongoing court battle that could affect the 2020 U.S. elections. As a Democrat in a city that similarly votes blue, Mindy Nagel sees the map as absurdly unfair. Its so clear that they (Republican mapmakers) wanted to divide up the city of Cincinnati so we wouldnt have a Democratic congressman, the 39-year-old physical therapist said, sitting in her living room that straddles districts in the College Hill neighborhood. A three-judge panel could rule soon on arguments made by voter rights and Democratic Party groups in a March federal trial that Ohios map is unconstitutionally partisan, violating voters rights to democratically choose their representatives. Whatever the panels decision, the case will likely be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which is already considering challenges to congressional maps in North Carolina, drawn by Republicans, and Maryland, drawn by Democrats. In a case similar to Ohios, a three-judge panel ruled Thursday that Michigans congressional and legislative maps are unconstitutionally gerrymandered, and ordered the state Legislature to redraw some districts for 2020. The judges wrote that GOP mapmakers in 2011 drew maps with the goal of ensuring durable majorities for Republicans. An appeal is likely. In the Ohio case, defense attorneys pointed out the map will change again after the 2020 census, and that Ohio voters have already passed a bipartisan ballot initiative to reform the mapmaking process. Anyone who thinks that federal courts can fix political polarization by injecting themselves into the most highly political disputes in the nation is sadly mistaken, attorney Phil Strach said in the Cincinnati trial, which ran on an accelerated schedule. Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups, however, say voters shouldnt have to wait until after 2020 for fair districts. Newly competitive congressional races would likely energize Democrats in 2020 as they try to win back Ohios 18 electoral votes in the presidential race Republican Donald Trump carried Ohio in 2016, after Democrat Barack Obama twice won the state. Congressional Democrats nationwide had a good year in 2018, gaining 40 seats. But Republicans held fast with 75% of Ohios House seats, despite winning only 52% of Ohios congressional vote total. Not a single seat has changed hands, said David Niven, a University of Cincinnati political scientist who testified for those challenging Ohios map. Not a single seat. The point of this map was to build a seawall against the storm, and it has held. Attorneys for Republican state officials and House members countered that the map had Democrats input and some bipartisan support. This is called democracy in action, Strach, based in Raleigh, North Carolina, told the judges. He said incumbency protection gives all Ohioans more clout in Washington as representatives build seniority. As for oddly shaped districts, the defense said keeping district populations even trumps neatly drawn boundaries. Longtime Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur has held onto the redrawn northern Ohio district dubbed the Snake by the Lake for its shape. She testified that splitting communities to create safe seats has hurt America by making House members less responsive to minority-party constituents and less willing to seek bipartisan compromise in Washington. Critics of the existing map also say dividing communities into districts with unclear boundaries leads to confusion among voters and even poll workers. Sherry Poland, director of Hamilton Countys board of elections, said its records show the Nagels voting precinct hasnt changed, though she acknowledged rare cases in which voters have been redirected since the map changed. In Franklin County, which includes the state capital Columbus, elections board spokesman Aaron Sellers said nearly 2,700 voters House districts were corrected in 2018, after a review found some werent voting in the right district. Columbus is divided into three districts, with two held by Republicans. Kenny Burck, 71, a Republican in a northwest Cincinnati suburb, said he expected to be in Chabots westside Cincinnati-based district, House 1, forever. But to get the numbers right, they had to carve us out and put us on the other side into the east, he said. So he now hes represented by Wenstrup, which is OK by him, although he agrees redistricting produced some strange lines. First elected in 1994, Chabot himself is a key beneficiary of the remapping. He has expressed gratitude to mapmakers for adding the Republican-dominated Warren County to his district. Its a gift to have Warren County and Hamilton County. And the city of Cincinnati, as far as Im concerned, Chabot recently said, after a town hall meeting in Harrison Township, west of Cincinnati. He insisted the districts are fairly drawn, and benefit Cincinnati by giving residents of the one city two representatives in Congress. He said the lawsuit was wasting the courts time. Mindy Nagel disagrees: In a healthy democracy, voters choose their representatives. Our representatives are choosing their voters. She got another reminder of her homes unclear political terrain after querying Chabots office about a pending bill this week. She received an automatically generated response: It appears that you live outside of House 1. The official www.house.gov site places the Nagel home back in House 2. __ Associated Press journalist Angie Wang in Cincinnati contributed to this report. __ Follow Dan Sewell at https://www.twitter.com/dansewell . Imran Khan asked BRI to plant 100 billion trees Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday asked the participant countries of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to join hands in fighting climate change by planting 100 billion trees, establish tourism corridor and combat corruption. Addressing the opening ceremony of the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation here at the China National Convention Center, the prime minister suggested a five-point roadmap to direct efforts and focus on the peoples of the participating countries, and towards addressing impediments on their way to sustainable growth. Speaking on the theme of Shaping a Brighter Future, Prime Minister Imran Khan told the gathering comprising around 37 nations the urgency to create a poverty alleviation fund and the importance of efforts to further liberalize trade and investment flows. The three-day meeting is being attended by leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, UK Chancellor Philip Hammond, and the heads of state of the 10 ASEAN states, besides over 5,000 participants from more than 150 countries. The United States has sent a low-level delegation, while India opted not to attend. Prime Minister Imran Khan while elaborating his five-points called for joint efforts to mitigate climate change. He recalled how the provincial government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province has successfully planted a billion trees and said that the president of Chile has also mentioned this initiative. We launched a nationwide project to plant 10 billion trees. I suggest we launch a joint project to plant 100 billion trees in the next two years, so that we can mitigate the effects of climate change for our coming generations, he added. Imran Khan, who has been very vocal about encouraging tourism in the country, suggested establishment of a BRI Tourism Corridor to promote people-to-people contacts and inter-cultural understanding. He also suggested setting up of an office of anti-corruption cooperation to combat the scourge of white-collar crimes. Speaking about the importance of fighting poverty, Imran Khan spoke for creating a poverty alleviation fund that can supplement national efforts in the fight against poverty and malnourishment. In Pakistan, we have recently launched a targeted poverty alleviation programme called Ehsas, he said, adding that it was aimed at emulating Chinas spectacular success in lifting 800 million people out of poverty within a matter of decades. Prime Minister Imran Khan also called for making concerted efforts to further liberalise trade and investment flows, encouraging the private sector and businesses to collaborate in projects. He said the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), one of BRIs major components and one of its earliest manifestations, has made substantial progress. Pakistans energy supplies have increased massively. Our critical infrastructure gaps are being plugged. Gwadar, once a small fishing village, is transforming rapidly into a commercial hub. Gwadar Airport will be the largest in the country, he added. Imran Khan said Pakistan and China are entering the next phase of CPEC, with greater emphasis on socioeconomic uplift, poverty alleviation, agricultural cooperation and industrial development. We are expanding the frontiers of knowledge through closer engagement and deeper cooperation in the fields of education, innovation and technology, he said, adding that special economic zones are being set up along the length of the corridor and will offer opportunities for investments for Pakistani, Chinese and foreign entrepreneurs. Prime Minister Imran Khan said supplementing the next phase of CPEC, the two countries will sign an expanded free trade agreement. We are changing Pakistans economic landscape and the destiny of our people. I want to thank China and its leadership for their unwavering support for Pakistan, he said. Our deep-rooted friendship, partnership and brotherhood with China remains strong, resilient and unbreakable, standing tall in the face of every challenge, he added. He said Pakistan will continue to work with China and other BRI partners on the basis of mutual respect and equal opportunity for a better future of the people. Pakistan will partner with all those who share the vision for a peaceful and prosperous world. We will work together to realize a future of hope and happiness, he added. CHICO, Calif. - A Chico woman accused in a deadly DUI crash has pleaded not guilty to a felony manslaughter. The Butte County District Attorney says Emery May Sweany entered the plea yesterday in court. She is accused of killing Virgil Santos in a crash on East Avenue on April 13. Police say Sweany ran a red light while intoxicated. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for May 9. CHICO, Calif. - Habitat for Humanity is hosting a number of meetings coming up for people to attend that are interested in being a Habitat for Humanity homeowner. In response to a severe housing crisis in Butte County, Habitat for Humanity will be building homes on Mulberry Street in Chico. The construction is expected to begin in Fall of 2019. Below are the dates and times of the upcoming orientations: St. John's Episcopal Church, Chico - Thursday, May 2, from 6 - 7 p.m. 2341 Floral Avenue, Chico - Thursday, May 2, from 6 - 7 p.m. Paradise Alliance Church - Saturday, May 4 from 10 - 11 a.m. 6491 Clark Rd., Paradise - Saturday, May 4 from 10 - 11 a.m. Bidwell Presbyterian Church - Monday, May 6 from 6 - 7 p.m. 208 W. 1st St., Chico - Monday, May 6 from 6 - 7 p.m. Applications will be available starting May 2. Applications are due by May 17 at 4 p.m. For more information, visit Butte County's Habitat for Humanity website by CLICKING HERE. SHASTA COUNTY, Calif. - A Shasta County man was arrested for brandishing a sword in front of a deputy and resisting arrest. At around 11:29 a.m. on Friday, a deputy responded to the area of Dersch Road for reports of illegal camping. He found Timothy Sedmak, 63, in a travel trailer. He was being uncooperative and was yelling at the deputies to leave him alone. The deputy learned that Sedmak was a Sovereign Citizen with the potential for violence. Sedmak came out of the trailer when the deputy walked further down the road and was brandishing a 3-foot sword. Sedmak thrashed the sword around in the middle of the road and motioned for the deputy to come to him. Multiple deputies responded to the scene. Sedmak entered and exited his trailer numerous times. Deputies were able to close the road so that Sedmak would not pose a threat to any citizens. Eventually, Sedmak exited the trailer without the sword and met with deputies. He was taken to Shasta County Jail on charges of brandishing a weapon and resisting arrest. Authorities said this was the third time in four months Sedmak has been arrested for resisting arrest. POWAY, Calif. (AP) - The Latest on a shooting at a synagogue in Southern California (all times local): 5:20 p.m. Authorities have identified the suspect in a shooting at a synagogue outside San Diego as John Earnest and say he's also being investigated in a fire at a mosque in a nearby city last month. San Diego County Sheriff William Gore told reporters Saturday that the 19-year-old had no prior arrests. He's accused of killing a woman and wounding three others at Chabad of Poway on the last day of Passover. Gore says his department will work with the FBI and the city of Escondido to investigate Earnest's possible connection to an arson that caused property damage at Dar-ul-Arqam mosque last month but no injuries. A person who said they are John Earnest wrote an anti-Jewish screed online that contained some elements not to be believed, like an allegation a YouTube star helped plan and fund the attack. The post says he was in nursing school and cited the suspects accused of carrying out deadly attacks on mosques New Zealand and Pittsburgh synagogue last year. ___ 4:15 p.m. Pittsburgh officials hearing of the synagogue shooting in California are offering sympathy from the city that six months ago was the site of the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history. Pittsburgh Public Safety Director Wendell Hissrich said Saturday that their thoughts were with those in the San Diego area and "we understand this heartache all too well." Authorities say a 19-year-old man armed with a rifle opened fire inside a synagogue near San Diego on Saturday, the last day of Passover. A woman was killed and three other people were wounded. The attack came exactly six months after 11 people were killed in the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. San Diego County Sheriff William Gore said at a news conference that he had no details on motive for Saturday's shooting. ___ 3:30 p.m. U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and California Gov. Gavin Newsom offered their condolences to the Jewish community after a man opened fire Saturday at a synagogue outside San Diego. Authorities say a 19-year-old man opened fire on Chabad of Poway on the last day of Passover, killing one woman and wounding three others, including a girl. Newsom said "no one should have to fear going to their place of worship." Pelosi said on Twitter that she stands with the Jewish community against "this act of hate." San Diego County Sheriff William Gore said at a news conference that he had no details on motive. The attack comes six months after 11 people were killed in the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. ___ 2:50 p.m. President Donald Trump has offered "deepest sympathies to the families of those affected" by a shooting at a synagogue outside San Diego. At the White House, Trump said Saturday that the shooting "looked like a hate crime" and called it "hard to believe." He spoke from the South Lawn before flying to a rally in Wisconsin. Authorities say a 19-year-old man opened fire on Chabad of Poway on the last day of Passover, killing one woman and wounding three others, including a girl. They say he reported the shooting and surrendered without incident after an officer pulled him over. San Diego County Sheriff William Gore said at a news conference that he had no details on motive. Authorities say they were reviewing copies of his social media posts. --- 2:40 p.m. Authorities say a woman has died and three others are hospitalized in stable condition after a shooting at a synagogue outside San Diego. San Diego County Sheriff William Gore said at a news conference that a white man entered Chabad of Poway on Saturday and opened fire on worshippers with an AR-type assault weapon. Gore says an off-duty Border Patrol agent believed to be inside the synagogue shot at the suspect as he fled. The sheriff says the agent didn't hit him but struck his car. San Diego Police Chief David Nisleit says the 19-year-old suspect called police to report the shooting and a California Highway Patrol officer heard it on a police scanner, saw the suspect and pulled him over. Nisleit says the suspect got out of his car with his hands up and he was taken into custody without incident. Gore says a woman died from her injuries, while a girl and two men are in the hospital. ___ 1:30 p.m. A hospital says it's treating four people injured in a synagogue outside San Diego but didn't know the extent of their injuries. Derryl Acosta, a spokesman for Palomar Health Medical Center Hospital, says the four patients were admitted around 12:30 p.m. Saturday. San Diego Police Chief David Nisleit said there was no known threat after a man was detained in the shooting. However, he said authorities stepped up patrol at places of worship in the area as a precaution. The Chabad of Poway was worshipping on the last day of Passover, exactly six months since a shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue killed 11 people. ___ 1 p.m. Authorities say a shooting at a synagogue outside San Diego has left people injured but the extent is unclear. San Diego County sheriff's office also said Saturday on Twitter that a man has been detained in connection with the shooting at the Chabad of Poway. A handful of police cars were parked outside the synagogue in the city of Poway, just over 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of San Diego. Crime tape surrounded the street in front of the building. Officials say deputies were called just before 11:30 a.m. The shooting came on the last day of Passover and exactly six months since a shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue killed 11 people. (Copyright 2019 The Associated Press) --- POWAY, Calif. (AP) - Authorities in Southern California say a shooting at a synagogue has left people injured but the extent is unclear. San Diego County sheriff's office also said Saturday on Twitter that a man has been detained in connection with the shooting at the Chabad of Poway synagogue. It's in the city of Poway just over 20 miles north of San Diego. Officials say deputies were called just before 11:30 a.m. (Copyright 2019 The Associated Press) Discovery Communications India and Byjus - The learning app, have joined hands to launch Indias biggest ever integrated school quiz show DISCOVERY SCHOOL SUPER LEAGUE POWERED BY BYJUS which transverses across on-ground, digital and television media. Conceptualized at a never-before scale, DISCOVERY SCHOOL SUPER LEAGUE POWERED BY BYJUS (DSSL) reached out to more than 12300 schools across 29 states and 1 union territory. A total 43.7 lakh students participated on-ground in the initial round; an additional 3.7 lakh wild card entries came through Byjus app. The on-air phase will feature 30 state-wise teams (2 students per team) who will compete in 5 semi-finals (6 teams per episode). DSSL premieres April 28 at 1:00 pm on Discovery Channel and Discovery HD World. The quiz show will also be showcased on Discovery Science and Discovery Kids starting May 01, 2019. The show will be hosted by the multi-talented personalities Mini Mathur and Cyrus Sahukar. These Two Quiz Masters will lead their respective rival camps called the Cyruss Champions and Minis Mavericks. There will be 6 teams in each episode, and the winner of each episode will make their way to the finals where they will battle it out to make their home state proud. The quiz offers an exciting reward - top 3 teams, along with their school principals, will win a coveted trip to NASA along with a cash prize. Vikram Tanna- VP, Head of Advertising Sales and Business Head of Regional Clusters, Discovery Communications India, said, DSSL is already the Gold standard in quiz contests across the country. This landmark IP is setting new benchmarks, clearly emerging as Indias biggest ever integrated quiz show traversing across on-ground, digital and television. I wish all the best to the 60 students who have made it to the semi-finals. Atit Mehta, Head of Marketing, BYJUS, said, DSSL is a quiz show which encourages students to approach learning with a whole new perspective. Celebrating the importance of life-long learning, this quiz show aims at making learning fun, exciting and engaging. Watch Discovery School Super League POWERED BY BYJUS on 28th April at 1 PM, every Sunday on Discovery Channel and Discovery HD World. Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) Indias Ad Fraud roadshow series culminated in Mumbai today. After Delhi and Bangalore, the roadshow came to Mumbai gathering a congregation of leading marketers and subject matter experts to spread awareness and highlight several key challenges related to brand safety, accountability in mobile advertising and solutions for incremental increase of ad fraud. With the primary role of educating the marketer community about ad fraud through ACT Assess, Combat and Track, the roadshow addressed the growing concerns in the mobile marketing industry and agreed that building standards, guidelines and best practices is the need of the hour to deter adfraud. Moneka Khurana, Country Head - MMA India, said, Ad fraud is pernicious problem for the entire digital advertising ecosystem and specially India where ad fraud is on the rise by 40%asper MMA India survey and is leading to losses to the tune of 22%of digital spends. It is MMA Indias endeavour to bring together industry experts who help and guide the industry to drive solutions to combat Ad Fraud. MMA Indias Brand Safety Council is an outcome of their initiatives towards strengthening the mobile marketing community with an aim to enable marketers to overcome issues of weak brand safety and build standards, best practices and guidelines to safety guard brand safety/ensure transparency across the eco-system. MMA also conducted a survey to benchmark the current practices that marketers use in order to assess and combat mobile ad fraud. Results from the survey will be published in an industry best practices reckoner which will benefit MMA members and the industry at large. Here are some of the highlights from the survey: Although 22 per cent of mobile ad budget falls victim to ad fraud, exploring new technologies or approaches to counter it is not a high priority for most marketers exploring new technologies or approaches to counter it is not a high priority for most marketers 9 of 10 marketers are hiring dedicated external vendors or are planning to do so in the near future to detect and prevent fraud or are planning to do so in the near future to detect and prevent fraud The top 3 areas in which ad fraud is highest are: Brand campaigns, Social, Publisher direct Most marketers expect real-time analysis and proactive blocking of fraudulent impressions . However, services provide often offer Periodic analysis which is seem to less important to marketers . However, services provide often offer Periodic analysis which is seem to less important to marketers Marketers are not very familiar with blockchain, but almost all of them believe that it has the potential to help against ad fraud Rahul Sethi, SVP Marketing & Head of Digital Acquisitions - Edelweiss Financial Services commended the role played by industry bodies, MMA India is playing a vital role in building a strong and reliable networking opportunity for the advertisers and the publishers to debate and discuss Ad fraud. Such forums enable the marketers to analyse and decipher data models. It is critical to understand and track the ongoing patterns to be able to catch any fraud instantly. There are lot of specialised platforms which use multi-track attribution to ensure that marketers are ahead of these fraudsters. Digital ad fraud is getting huge attention from the C-level executives of well-known organizations all over the world. The impact of ad fraud can jeopardize the entire digital transformation of any organization. In 2018, the total size of digital ad-fraud stood at a staggering $1.63 Billion, which is 8.7% of the global size. India contributed 42% of the total ad fraud and this is expected to rise by the year 2020, said Rahul Pandey, Director - Digital Marketing, Flipkart, who delivered the Keynote address in the Delhi edition of the roadshow series. According to Rohit Dadwal, Managing Director MMA APAC, Ad fraud is an issue mainly in the SEA region and India and the reason for that is the vast population. The fragmented nature of many mobile app landscapes in APAC makes it tempting to work with anyone who claims reach, but its better to limit partners to those who take anti-fraud seriously. Speaking about the thumb rule for e-commerce marketers tackling brand safety, Venkatesh Kamath - Associate Director, Flipkart said, I think I will be too optimistic if I will say that this problem can be eradicated. I dont think the solution is elimination. I think the solution is deterrent. We make our deterrent policies very clear. We have taken lots of steps, which have ruffled a lot of feathers, but we are persistent at that. As I have said the problem cannot be eliminated. But we want to things to keep evolving, we want the solution keep to keep evolving. We want the data to speak for its self. We view the whole lot of data to make sure we able to detect fraud and use data again to quantify the penalties itself. Uday Sodhi, Business Head Digital - Sony Pictures Networks India, said, I dont think too many CMOs today pay attention to ad fraud and the amount of leakage that it can cause. I would be very worried about ad fraud when there is lack of awareness at the clients end who say they have put in Rs. 100 but actually only Rs. 50 is going into a valuable campaign and Rs. 50 is really getting leaked out and that leakage is what the client is not aware of. I think there is enough technology today in terms of protecting yourself but we are ignoring ad fraud when it happens. Increasing the security of every transaction is a learning process for everybody; whether its a client or a publisher or intermediaries or agencies. MMAs roadshows were partnered by Affle, inMobi, Mobvista and mFilterIt. The Mumbai edition featured speakers from brands such as GroupM, HDFC Bank, Jio, Edelweiss, Sony Pictures, Deloitte and many others. Speakers in the Delhi & Bangalore roadshows represented companies such as Cleartrip, BARC India, Flipkart, Google, Myntra, OYO and many others. 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. Sri Lanka govt need Pakistan help to trace terrorists Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has said that his government will, if necessary, seek Pakistans help to trace the terrorists involved in the recent Easter Sunday bombings. In an exclusive interview with an international newspaper published on Friday, Wickremesinghe pointed out that Pakistan had in the past fully supported Sri Lankas war on terror. If necessary, we will seek their help to trace the terrorists and eliminate them. I see this tragic event as further strengthening the trust that exists between our countries and increasing cooperation, he said. Prime Minister Wickremesinghe said that although Sri Lanka is investigating the possibility of foreign links in the attack, there is no evidence yet to suggest that any particular country has backed the terrorists involved in the string of bombings that left approximately 250 people dead. All the countries in our region are faced with the same threats [] Even the best of defences can sometimes be breached by ruthless terrorists, as we have seen time and again, all over the world. Our intelligence has worked with their counterparts [foreign intelligence agencies] abroad. But this is the first time that global terrorism has struck Sri Lanka. This is a new experience for us and we will work with our international allies to apprehend all the perpetrators, he said. When asked about anti-Muslim sentiment in the country, the Sri Lankan prime minister said there had been a marked improvement since 2012-2014, when the minority community was under pressure. He noted that since 2015, anti-Muslim sentiment has not been not allowed to raise its head. There was only one unfortunate incident in Kandy, which was brought under control. They have been patient in the face of these provocations, and I must commend their political leaders for maintaining inter-religious harmony, he said. But again, the wave of anti-Muslim sentiment spreading across the liberal world and our region, has had some impact on Sri Lanka as well. We must provide constitutional guarantees to every community to coexist within one Sri Lanka, he asserted. The militant Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the attacks. It released a video that showed eight men, all but one with their faces covered, standing under a black Islamic State flag and declaring their loyalty to its leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. The government said there were nine suicide bombers, eight of whom had been identified. One was a woman. Authorities have focused their investigations on international links to two domestic Islamist groups National Thawheed Jamaut and Jammiyathul Millathu Ibrahim they believe carried out the attacks. A picture has emerged of a group of nine well-educated, home-grown suicide bombers. Two were brothers, sons of a wealthy spice trader, a source close to the family said. At least 76 people, including several foreigners, have been rounded up since Sunday. A plan to allow a state lottery in Alabama survived by the slimmest of margins on Thursday and moves on for consideration by the House of Representatives. House Speaker Mac McCutcheon said in a text message Friday he was not sure when the House would take up the bill but said it will be addressed. The bill by Sen. Greg Albritton, R-Atmore, passed the Senate a 21-12 vote, with two Democrats joining 19 Republicans to get it over the top. Twenty-one was the minimum needed to pass. Constitutional amendments require a three-fifths vote. So the amendment will need 63 votes in the 104-member House. If the bill passes, it would be on the ballot for voter approval in March 2020, during the presidential primary. The Legislative Services Agency estimates the lottery would generate about $167 million a year after prizes and expenses. An amendment added by the Senate on Tuesday tweaked the plan for how that money would be used. The revenue would initially be directed to repay $184 million transferred from the Alabama Trust Fund to prop up the state budget in 2013, 2014 and 2015. After the Alabama Trust Fund is repaid, half of the lottery revenue will go to the state General Fund, which helps support the operating budgets of Medicaid, prisons, state law enforcement, courts and dozens of other agencies. As for the other half, an amendment by Sen. Clyde Chambliss, R-Prattville, provides that it will initially go into a new reserve fund for the state General Fund. When the amount in the reserve fund reaches 10 percent of the General Fund budget, that half of the lottery revenue would then go to the Alabama Trust Fund. Chambliss said that was a sound way to allocate the money, paying debt first and then storing half of the money for a rainy day. Chambliss is the sponsor of a separate bill that creates the new General Fund reserve. It has passed the Senate. Albritton, who is chairman of the Senates General Fund committee, was asked Thursday if it will be harder to convince voters to approve a lottery that supports the General Fund, as opposed to education. Albritton said he didnt know but said the General Fund has the most need. Revenue projections will allow the Legislature to appropriate up to $7.1 billion from the Education Trust Fund next year, $482 million more than this year. Thats because of surging individual state income taxes in a relatively strong economy. A half billion dollars, Albritton said. Now thats a lot of money. The General Fund has a little more money." The General Fund budget bill passed by the House appropriates $2.1 billion from the General Fund, about $90 million more than last year. Although the General Fund is on sounder footing than in most recent years, Albritton said increased obligations for Childrens Health Insurance, courts and other programs are looming. A major need is increased funding for the state prison system, which faces federal court orders and pressure from the Department of Justice to dramatically increase staffing and improve safety and health care for prisoners. The General Fund has always been strangled, Albritton said. It always funds everything else. And it has a lot less money and a lot more hands. This story was corrected at 8:40 a.m. to say that Sen. Clyde Chambliss is sponsor of the bill creating a General Fund reserve account. A Bessemer man is accused of traveling to Decatur for what he believed would be sex with a 14-year-old girl, but she was actually an undercover cop, authorities said. Jason Rupil is charged with traveling to meet a child for an unlawful sex act and electronic solicitation of a child, according to Decatur police. Rupil was released from the Morgan County jail on a $150,000 bond Friday afternoon. His attorney didnt immediately reply to an emailed request for comment on Saturday. On Wednesday, 38-year-old Rupil traveled to Decatur believing he would be meeting the 14-year-old girl, court records state. For several days before his trip, Rupil exchanged online messages with the undercover officer, Decaur police Detective Jodie Fuller wrote in an arrest affidavit. Rupil told the female that he liked younger girls and described things he would like to do to her, the affidavit says. If convicted of both felonies, Rupil faces up to life in prison. An inmate has been recaptured after escaping from a work-release center in south Alabama overnight, authorities said. Jonathan Crook surrendered early this morning, according to the Alabama Department of Corrections. The 34-year-old escaped around midnight from a work-release center in Elba, a city in Coffee County. Crook is serving a 16-year sentence for a robbery conviction in Talladega County, court records show. He was sentenced in 2006. The capital murder case against an Alabama man has been dismissed after his attorney provided alibi evidence that shows him about 160 miles away around the time of the crime, records state. Demorris Senyon Lauderdale, 28, was released from the Madison County jail late Friday after spending weeks in custody without bail. Attempts to reach Lauderdale for comment werent immediately successful. The State does not wish to proceed on these charges at this time, Madison County Assistant prosecutor Bill Starnes wrote in court records earlier Friday. Lauderdale had been charged in the March 20 fatal shooting of 19-year-old Austin Dmar Rich. The killing happened during a drug-related robbery at Brixworth at Bridge Street apartments early that morning, according to Huntsville police. It is physically impossible for the accused defendant to have committed the crime for which he is accused, said Lauderdales attorney, Gregory Varner, in court records. Varner provided a receipt and screenshot from surveillance video that show Lauderdale was in Woodstock, Georgia about 160 miles away from Huntsville around the time of the killing, according to court papers. Additionally, Lauderdale logged into a security checkpoint at his job at Dean Rusk Middle School in Canton, Georgia within about an hour of the time police say the slaying happened, court records show. Lauderdale can be seen on surveillance video entering the school around 7:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, leaving for a 30-minute lunch and ending his workday around 4 p.m. (EST), his lawyer wrote. The homicide happened around 7:30 a.m. Central Standard Time, according to police, and the scene is more than three hours away in driving distance from Lauderdales job, records show. Demorris Lauderdale is shown in surveillance video in Canton, Georgia at 7:29 a.m. Eastern time on May 20, 2018, his attorney says. Police had alleged Lauderdale was involved in a murder around 7:30 a.m. Central time that same day, more than 160 miles away in Huntsville, Alabama. (See more of the alibi evidence and Lauderdales court motion at the bottom of this story) Lauderdales arrest was at least partially based on eyewitness identification, his attorney wrote in court records. However, eyewitness identification has been the greatest contributing factor in wrongful convictions proven by DNA testing, the attorney wrote. Police are still investigating the slaying of Rich, who is one of eight people killed in Huntsville homicides this year. Rich was killed at 6620 Old Madison Pike, an apartment complex just east of Bridge Street Town Centre, near El Coyote Mexican Restaurant. We are in the process of following all leads in the case, said Sgt. Tony McElyea in an email to AL.com. Police have said the slaying is a capital murder case because it happened during a robbery. In Alabama, capital murder is punishable by execution or life in prison without the possibility of parole. Updated at 12:37 p.m. to include a statement from Huntsville police. If youre out here and youre not having fun, you better go and see your psychiatrist on Monday, Joe Gilchrist advised onlookers at the 2019 Interstate Mullet Toss on Friday. This was late in the afternoon, after hours and hours of festivities in which hundreds of people lined up to take their turns flinging mullet -- a small, otherwise innocuous fish -- from Florida into Alabama, or at least in the direction of it. The throws ranged from three feet to 116, and not all the ultra-short ones were the work of small children. The state line wasn't marked on the strip of beach sand where the event is held, but one likes to think the longer shots lived up to the event's name. Gilchrist and his fellow partners in ownership of the Flora-Bama helped bring the action to a close by taking their own ceremonial throws and offering a few thoughts to the crowd. Among other things, Gilchrist thanked folks for lowering their standards enough to come out. (Though tacky, the event has a long history of raising thousands of dollars every year for local charities.) Day One of the 2019 Mullet Toss, which continues Saturday and Sunday, had started much, much earlier. Nominal start time was 10 a.m. and by 9:30 a.m. there was already a line and on-site parking was rapid evaporating. Friday parking passes bore a promise that nobody would be towed until noon Saturday, which right off the bat tells you something about the level of partying at the 'Bama.) The famed roadhouse's labyrinth of corridors, bars and music rooms was mostly empty because the action was all outside. Bad weather on Thursday had delayed the setup, so the first mullet wasn't tossed until well after 11 a.m. No one present seemed the least bit stressed about keeping to a schedule. "Doc" Wallach, the boss of the mullet-tossing court, mustered his troops shortly before the start of the action to preach a customer-service mentality. "They're not here because they know how to measure or count," he said. "We are." Wallach has been doing this for 10 years. He's retired Navy, and he uses that connection to recruit his volunteers. They're all from the Corry Station (Pensacola) Chief Petty Officers' Mess, he said. Wallach's approach to managing the chaos is simple, he said: "Get the management stuff out of the way at the git-go, then everybody can have a good time." It takes about 40 volunteers a day to run the actual toss, working in a couple of shifts, he said. By a quarter past 11, three of them were on station as the first-shift measuring crew: Alex "McLovin" Harper; Neil Hofstrand, toting the all-important tape measure; and Chuck Dibella, using a bullhorn to relay throw distances back to Wallach. "Good morning, Flora-Bama," called Wallach over the P.A. "How is everybody on the Redneck Riviera today?" He offered several points of advice to onlookers, among them the first of many pleas for them not to walk across the firing range on the way to the nearest beachside bar. "You may get hit with a fish and it may be on purpose," he warned. First up was Jacob Myers, 10, followed by his younger brother Owen Myers, 9, both of Wisconsin. "We just happened to be down here for spring break," said their dad, Tony Myers. When they found out the Toss was happening, it was a no-brainer to join in. "You kind of have to," he said. Then he admitted there was a little more to it. "I was going to drive home today, but we were supposed to get snow tomorrow," he said. "I decided to stay an extra day." It's not a choice many people have to make, but there you have it: Mullet Toss beats driving into a blizzard. After them came the Abercrombies: Anna Ruth, 7; Jacob, 10; and Elias, 11. Down from the Birmingham area with parents Zach and Kristie, this was their first time at Mullet Toss. And after them came a whole cornucopia of people, paying $15 for their piece of the fish-flinging glory and a sweet commemorative T-shirt. Through the morning, one guy stood out, thanks to a grass skirt, a fake hardbody bib that covered only a modest portion of his actual body and a blonde wig. This was Bryan Hunter of Indiana, Penn., and his explanation for being here was simple. "Bucket list," he said. "This specifically and Flora-Bama in general." Given that level of significance, had he practiced? "Twelve ounces at a time, baby," he said, flexing his beer arm. Maybe it paid off. His throw wasn't bad. As the day progressed, Wallach mastered ceremonies with a relaxed, conversational style. He critiqued the penmanship on people's registration cards. He encouraged ladies to take off their cover-ups on the grounds that the extra clothing would hamper their freedom of movement, costing them five to 10 feet on their throws. He asked men and women alike to run "Baywatch"-style. He also displayed a very, very high tolerance for repetition. He'd ask people crossing the course not to cross the course and they'd wave and keep going no matter how many times he said it. He ceaselessly reminded contestants they had to retrieve their fish after they threw them, but not before the measuring crew did its job. Every competitor heard this dozens of times while waiting in line, and nearly every one seemed to forget it amid the thrill and pressure of being in the Mullet Toss spotlight. Meanwhile the measuring crew steadily grew more confident. In the beginning they'd stand off to the side at a respectful distance. You might hear Dibella say something like, "I got 15 feet on this kid, over-under." They'd wait for a mullet to hit the sand, then move in to measure its progress. By the end of the day the crew just stood in the middle of the course chatting, maybe 50 feet downrange, sometimes less, in a brutally frank assessment of the thrower's threat level. Their judgment proved remarkably good: More than once, the fish came down between them. And Wallach was never at a loss for words of wisdom. Near the end of the opening-day action, the crowd reacted to a particularly wild throw. "Go over there and apologize," said Wallach. "Say you're sorry." For the next competitor, he offered a lesson: The whole idea is to keep it in the middle, he said. Efforts to identify Francos victims have become a hot-button election issue as far right ascends. Madrid, Spain As Spain prepares to vote in national elections on Sunday, old wounds have come to the forefront of the campaign season. The question of Spains treatment of its dictatorial past, and its causalities, has become a hot-button election issue, thanks to a rising far-right. The remains of 40,000 Spaniards who died in the countrys civil war, which lasted from 1936 to 1939, rest at an imposing memorial near Madrid called The Valley of the Fallen. Spains former fascist leader Francisco Franco, whose repressive government ruled from 1939 until 1975 and was responsible for the deaths of thousands of political opponents, is also interred there. Franco ordered the construction of the imposing monument allegedly aided by forced labour after his civil war victory. The monument features a Catholic Basilica carved into a hillside and a 150-metre-tall cross which sits above it, visible from 32 kilometres. The leader of the centre-left Socialist Workers Party of Spain (PSOE), Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, has called for Francos remains to be removed from the monument, which belongs to the Spanish state. Sanchez also attempted to include 15 million euros (nearly $17m) to identify Francos victims in a budget that failed to pass in February, which led to snap polls. The far-right Vox party, which has seen surprising gains in regional elections and is projected to take roughly 12 percent of the vote, said it would block plans to exhume Franco and the thousands of mass graves for which his forces were responsible. When Vox helped mainstream the centre-right Peoples Party (PP) wrest control of Andalucia from PSOE, it was partly on the condition they negate laws which allow the exhumation of mass graves. Forgetting traumatic events does not help to overcome them ... Jordi Font Agullo, director of the Democratic Memorial For Mauricio Cela, a waiter in his sixties who works at a traditional restaurant in Madrids centre, the issue is complicated. My family believes my grandfather is [in] one of those graves, Cela told Al Jazeera. Cela said he considers himself conservative, but he would like to know his ancestors resting place. He had hoped his family would get the chance to do so, even if PSOE-allocated funds were responsible. Its not a political thing, its personal. I want to vote for the right, but I dont know if I want to give up this opportunity. Historical memory The PSOE-headed government that ruled Spain from 2004 until 2011 passed the law of Historical Memory in 2007, which condemned atrocities under Franco, called for symbols of his rule to be removed from public spaces and claimed that the state would help in locating and identifying those still missing as a result of the civil war and Francoist oppression. The law did away with the pact of forgetting made between PP, PSOE and the Spanish communist party after Francos death that had governed Spains stance towards its history. 190425204740082 There is no official count of the people killed or disappeared during the civil war, but estimates exceed 100,000. Experts say there are over 3,000 mass graves across Spanish territory. Roughly 740 of these have been exhumed since 2000, leaving about 114,000 bodies in 2,500 more graves. Still, many view the law as too little, too late, according to Heather Graham, an historian who specialises in the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath and is also a history professor at Royal Holloway, University of London. The law putatively gave rights to victims, it did so in such a way as (often) to block their enquiries because it also gave absolute protection to perpetrators, Graham said. Furthermore, the law was hobbled by not explicitly providing funding for the efforts to identify and exhume victims. No money was allocated to these efforts by PP, which ruled from 2011 to 2018. Graham stressed that the movement to exhume mass graves originated in civil society at the beginning of the 21st century, which pressured the national government to confront Spains past. It remains very much the exception rather than the norm for [a government] anywhere to deal with their own difficult pasts in an open and honest way, she said. Regional trauma Spain is home to four minority national identities and languages, including Basques, Catalans, Valencians and Gallegos. The majority group are known as Castilians, and their language is commonly known as Spanish. The Franco government was known for its efforts to homogenise Spain. Catholicism was the only state-sanctioned religion and minority languages and culture were made illegal. Catalonia bore the brunt of this oppression, with many of their leaders, including their regional president, Lluis Companys, being executed by Francoist firing squads. Jordi Font Agullo, director of the Democratic Memorial, an institution inside the Department of Justice of the Government of Catalonia, said these wounds are still open for many Catalans: For a great part of the Catalan society the memories of that historical period civil war and dictatorship are still alive. The region has attempted to attain independence in recent years, citing their unique culture and language, as well as continued discrimination from the Spanish state, as reasons for separating. This perceived discrimination harkens back to Franco, Agullo said. When asked about this election seasons policy proposals of a return to willful ignorance towards Francos policies, Agullo said he thinks its a serious mistake not to confront the past with all its complexity. Forgetting traumatic events does not help to overcome them, but [entrenches] them and [fosters] phenomena such as negationism and historical manipulation. A mature society must be capable of a critical and rigorous reading of its immediate past, he concluded. Zalmay Khalilzad praised Imran Khan statement on Afghanistan US Special Representative for Afghan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad has praised Prime Minister Imran Khans statement on Afghanistan. Greatly appreciate @ImranKhanPTIs statement on #Afghanistan. His appeal for reduction of violence and policy against promoting internal conflict in other nations has potential to positively transform the region and give #Pakistan a leading role, Khalilzad tweeted on Friday. Describing the Afghan peace process a historic opportunity for peace in the region, Prime Minister Imran Khan had on Thursday said that Pakistan was fully supporting the process and would not be a party to any internal conflict in Afghanistan anymore. Afghanistan conflict has brought great suffering for both Afghanistan and Pakistan over the last 40 years. Now, after a long wait, the Afghan peace process presents a historic opportunity for peace in the region and Pakistan is fully supporting the process including the next logical step of Intra-Afghan Dialogue wherein Afghans will themselves decide upon the future of their country, he had said in a statement issued by the PM Office. Recently, Kabul has been extremely indignant at what it sees as Islamabads interference in Afghanistans affairs, having recalled its ambassador twice over a statement from Prime Minister Khan regarding a possible interim setup in Afghanistan while a peace is brokered. Assaults by Hayet Tahrir al-Sham and Hurras al-Deen also wounded 30 others in northern province of Aleppo. At least 17 Syrian government troops and their allies were killed by two armed groups in Syrias northern province of Aleppo, a war monitor said. About 30 others were also wounded in the Saturday morning assaults by Hayet Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its ally Hurras al-Deen, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The HTS-linked Ibaa news agency said the attacks killed more than 20 soldiers. It added the attacks were in retaliation for the bombardment by the Syrian and Russian militaries of rebel-held areas in recent days. Saturdays attacks in the southern and southwestern countryside of Aleppo province were launched shortly after midnight and triggered clashes that continued until dawn, said Rami Abdel Rahman, the Observatorys chief. He said the fighting subsided after Russian aircraft struck the armed groups positions, prompting the fighters to pull back. Eight armed attackers were killed, he added. Russian aircraft also carried out raids in neighbouring Hama province early on Saturday, killing five civilians, the Observatory said. On Friday, Russian raids killed at least 10 civilians in Idlib province, the hub of territory held by HTS in northwestern Syria. Syrias state news agency SANA said rebels shelled the northern government-held village of Hader killing two civilians and wounding others. Buffer zone Russia and rebel-backer Turkey in September inked a buffer zone deal to avert a massive government offensive on Idlib, but the deal has never been implemented. The region of some three million people has come under increasing bombardment since HTS took full control of it in January. The latest Russian air raids came after two days of talks on the Syrian conflict between Turkey, Russia and fellow government backer Iran in Kazakhstan earlier this week. The three governments expressed concern over the growing power of HTS in Idlib and parts of adjacent provinces, and determination to cooperate to eliminate the group. The civil war in Syria has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions since it began with the bloody repression of anti-government protests in 2011. As President Xi allays debt concerns, analysts say the projects success requires foresight and honesty from all sides. Ramped-up efforts to rebrand Chinas mammoth Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) were in full swing this week as the country hosted a giant forum and President Xi Jinping touted the benefits of multinational cooperation and sustainable infrastructure while pointing to efforts to address concerns. The size and breadth of The Second Belt and Road Forum For International Cooperation in Beijing, which covered everything from environmental policy to corruption and Chinas lending practices, underscored the effort China is putting on recreating the image of the BRI. Beyond the hundreds of meetings and the agreements signed, photo-ops with three dozen heads of state, and promises of both private and public investment into infrastructure and trade, Xi took pains to underscore Chinas good intentions and commitment to transparency and building high-quality, sustainable, risk-resistant, reasonably priced, and inclusive infrastructure, as he said during his keynote speech on the opening day of the three-day forum. 190107030233089 He worked hard to assuage increasingly loud fears that the BRI is a vehicle for China to extend its influence and make some money in the process, repeating this message during a leaders roundtable and a rare meeting with journalists on Saturday afternoon. Xi said a total of $64bn worth of agreements had been signed during the forum, but he gave no details or acknowledged who signed them. The initiative which he launched in 2013 is in sync with the times and widely supported, he said. It looks like this is a sort of readjustment of the original One Belt One Road, now the BRI, said Bruno S Sergi, an instructor on the economics of emerging markets and the political economy of Russia and China at Harvard University and an associate at the Harvard Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies. Zero corruption, green, multilateral, quality, sustainability are the new glossary terms of the Chinese president, said Sergi. No doubt these new terms point in the right direction. The forum shed little light into whether all these new terms translate into more than speeches and a large marketing effort. Debt trap concerns At six years old, it is still early days for a plan that is very long term, said Sergi. To date, about $90bn have been invested in multiple BRI-related projects, but several hundred billion more have been loosely committed and it will be years before all that capital is invested, even though Chinas two policy banks have more than $300bn in outstanding financing. The plan has certainly attracted attention and 125 countries have signed up. Italy joined, at the end of March, the first major European economy to do so. But the backlash over the past couple of years has grown. Some countries worry that China is forcing them into a debt trap, or that the plan is another form of colonialism. Malaysia cancelled some BRI projects linked to widespread corruption. Turkey skipped the forum citing fears of debt-trap diplomacy. In Montenegro, BRI financing has drastically expanded national debt. Xi took pains to address these concerns at the forum by committing to ensuring both environmental and financial sustainability in projects and investments. Still, it remains hard to pin down exactly what the BRI is and what benefits it will generate, not because there arent any but because the initiative is so big that it defies easy definition. At the forum, Xi linked the BRI to connectivity and cooperation, to the challenges and risks confronting mankind, global economic growth, international trade and investment, governance, multilateralism, green development and innovation. He committed to inviting 10,000 representatives of political parties, think-tanks and non-governmental organisations, expand market access, enhance intellectual property protection, boost imports, engage in macro-economic policy coordination, and greater opening up. 180904191436002 Long-term vision The BRI may have started out as ostensibly an investing and lending programme for infrastructure but it has evolved into a catch-all for virtually everything China does abroad, blending the lines between economics, politics and military into one giant programme, said Joshua Eisenman, an assistant professor at the Lyndon B Johnson School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin, and a China expert who has followed the BRI since its inception Over time BRI has evolved into a moniker for everything, Eisenman said. When people ask will the BRI work? What they are essentially asking is will Xi Jinpings foreign policy work?' Nevertheless, China is filling a funding gap that exists for many countries, particularly emerging economies. It is a gap that, at least for the time being, no other large economy seems to be willing to fill and in so doing, is lending huge amounts to countries that may not necessarily be able to afford to maintain those loans. Workers inspect railway tracks, which serve as a part of the Belt and Road freight rail route linking Chongqing to Duisburg at Dazhou railway station in Sichuan province, China [Reuters] When the option is to take money or dont take money, people will take the money every time, said Eisenman. Still, for all its pros and cons the BRI may be a vehicle for a new type of national entrepreneurship, said Sergi. For the effort to be effective the BRI will require equal efficiency and foresight on the part of the many countries and actors interested in the new Silk Road. Only a commonly felt new approach that moves things in the proper direction could make the BRI a gigantic win-win solution towards better infrastructure, growth and progress and to avoid hegemonic or predatory forms, on the one hand, and prevent indebtedness in some countries as well, Sergi said. He suggested the jury is still out on the ultimate effect of the BRI and will be out for a long time to come. It looks like the BRI is becoming a waiting for Godot vision. While a powerful long-term vision, it requires that all actors from the Chinese side and all other countries act with care and commitment to honesty and discernment. Recent attacks are focusing on refugees and IDPs in southeast Nigeria, people who were already forced from their homes by the fighting. The armed group Boko Haram has been fighting the Nigerian government from more than 10 years and that conflict has spilled over into neighbouring Niger, Cameroon and Chad. Boko Haram fighters have recently increased attacks on civilians with suicide bombings, kidnappings and burning entire villages. Many families have fled Nigerias Borno state, the centre of the Boko Haram rebellion, but the attacks have followed them across the border and they are still looking for safety. Al Jazeeras Alexi OBrien reports. Subscribe to our channel http://bit.ly/AJSubscribe Follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/AJEnglish Find us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera Check our website: http://www.aljazeera.com/ #AlJazeeraEnglish #Niger #News Flanked by a fleet of gunmen firing from motorbikes, attackers burst out from the bush and target overwhelmed troops. Boko Haram fighters in northeastern Nigeria attacked and overran an army outpost, stealing weapons before fleeing. Gunmen from the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), the ISIL-linked faction of Boko Haram, attacked the base in Borno state late on Friday, two military sources said on Saturday. The fighters, driving more than a dozen pick-up trucks with heavy machine guns welded onto the back, were accompanied by three armoured personnel carriers stolen from security forces. 190413192517739 Flanked by a fleet of fighters firing from motorcycles, they burst out from the bush and sped straight towards the base. There was a serious gunfight, said one military officer, who asked not to be named. The troops put up a good fight, but they were outgunned and overwhelmed Unfortunately, the base fell to the ISWAP terrorists, who took away weapons and fled. There was no immediate official response from the army or casualty figures. The base at Mararrabar Kimba lies 135km from the state capital Maiduguri. One witness in the town of Biu 45km away reported that soldiers arrived on Saturday from the sacked base and some were wounded. The decade-long Boko Haram conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and forced millions from their homes. The violence has spread to neighbouring Niger, Chad and Cameroon, prompting a regional military coalition against the fighters. In recent weeks, coalition forces involving Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon have pounded Boko Haram hideouts in the Lake Chad area with air raids, as well as launching ground assaults. 190322154007633 Abductions Elsewhere, gunmen in Rumuji district of Rivers state killed two police guards and kidnapped two Shell workers. The violence on Thursday was the latest in a long line of attacks in Nigerias southern Rivers state, where kidnapping for ransom is rife. Efforts are in top gear towards ensuring that we get them out from the custody of their abductors, police spokesman Omoni Nnamdi said on Saturday. The Royal Dutch Shell oil workers were escorted by police in a pick-up truck, but fighters reportedly ambushed the convoy by opening fire on the guards to stop the vehicles. Two policemen were killed while attackers dragged out the workers from their vehicle. The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited confirmed the attack on its staff and police escort, but gave no further details. It was not clear what the nationalities were of those kidnapped. Antonio Guterres did not mention the Uighur community during his speech at summit marking Chinas Belt and Road initiative. Human rights activists are unhappy about a visit to China by the head of the United Nations. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has been accused of ignoring what activists say is the persecution of the Uighur Muslim minority. Guterres is currently in Beijing for a summit marking Chinas Belt and Road initiative, an ambitious global network of infrastructure and trading projects all linked to China, something that in itself is controversial. He made a public speech in China, with no mention of the Uighur community in Xinjiang. This was a glaring omission, according to human rights groups who claim that as many as one million Uighurs could be held in detention. Al Jazeeras James Bays reports. Commission on International Religious Freedom says Washington must stop giving Riyadh a free pass after 37 executed. The United States government commission on religious freedom has urged action against ally Saudi Arabia after its mass execution of 37 people, most of them Shia Muslims. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom, whose members are appointed by the president and legislators across party lines but whose role is advisory, said the US State Department must stop giving a free pass to Saudi Arabia. On Friday, the commission issued a statement after reports emerged the youngest of the 37 men executed on Tuesday was only 16 when he was charged. Abdulkarim al-Hawajs death sentence had prompted an outcry from the United Nations, which had urged the kingdom to overturn the ruling. Hawaj reportedly confessed to his crimes after being beaten and tortured with electricity while his hands were chained above his head, human rights charity Reprieve has said. Another of the men executed on Tuesday was Mujtaba al-Sweikat, who was 17 when he took part in a pro-democracy rally in 2012. According to Reprieve, al-Sweikat was severely beaten all over his body, including the soles of his feet. It said he was convicted on the basis of a confession extracted through torture. Tenzin Dorjee, the chair of the commission, called the executions shocking and urged the State Department to end waivers to the kingdom. The Saudi governments execution of minority Shia Muslims on the basis of their religious identity and peaceful activism is not only shocking, but also directly contradicts the governments official narrative of working towards greater modernisation and improving religious freedom conditions. The State Department must stop giving a free pass to the Saudi government, which, for many years, has punished numerous Saudi citizens and expatriate workers for exercising their fundamental right to freedom of religion or belief, she said. The State Department classifies Saudi Arabia among its countries of particular concern for violations of religious freedom, which would normally require Washington to take punitive actions such as imposing economic sanctions. However, successive secretaries of state have each year issued waivers on punishing Riyadh, citing national security interests. Top five executioner Human rights groups have said that nearly all of the Saudi citizens beheaded on Tuesday were Shia, with one of the mens body put on public display after his death. US President Donald Trump has vowed to preserve a close relationship with Saudi Arabia, pointing to its major purchases of US weapons, its giant oil exports and its hostility towards US rival Iran. Trump has not commented on the executions, although the State Department said it urged Saudi Arabia and all governments to respect freedom of religion. According to data released by the SPA, at least 100 people have been executed in Saudi Arabia since the beginning of this year. The oil-rich Gulf state is ranked among the top five executioners in the world, and according to Amnesty International carried out the death sentences of 149 people last year. Beirut, Lebanon At least 50 Syrian refugees, including children, have been evicted from an informal settlement along Lebanons Litani River as part of an anti-pollution drive, bringing the total number of refugees forced out of the area this year to 1,500. Sami Alawieh, director of the Litani River Authority (LRA), said on Saturday the agency sent in bulldozers to demolish the camp in southern Tyre because refugees there were polluting the already heavily contaminated river. If the refugees erect tents on our agricultural land and their waste seeps into the ground and the river, then, of course, we need to move them, Alawieh said. A video of Thursdays demolition, posted on Twitter by the LRA, showed refugees looking on helplessly as the bulldozers metallic teeth brought down their makeshift homes, made of tarpaulin and tin sheets. At least 180 refugees were evicted in February from an informal settlement in the nearby town of Zahrani in a similar fashion, with the LRA claiming the refugees tents were on the site of an irrigation project. The LRA has carried out five such operations this year, evicting at least 1,500 Syrians from makeshift camps around Litani. The agency accused refugees of throwing waste into the river or in agricultural lands, blocking irrigation canals. Amid mounting concern over the mass evictions, Alawieh said resettling refugees was not part of his mandate. I think the refugees have rented homes in cities, but I dont know, he said. In any case, this is UNHCRs responsibility, not ours. Mass evictions The LRA wrote to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) in August, asking the body to stop the Syrians, who had fled war in their country, from causing environmental damage, he said. But the UNHCR and other agencies failed to take serious action, he said, and the LRA has proceeded to eliminate the encroachments to stop sewage effluents from polluting irrigation waters. Lisa Abou Khaled, spokeswoman for the UNHCR, said the LRA did not speak to anyone from UNHCR ahead of the refugee evictions in Tyre. She added: We are in touch with the affected families and following up on their needs. Authorities in Lebanon, which hosts more than 1.5 million Syrian refugees, have been at loggerheads with the UNHCR, accusing it of discouraging refugees from returning home despite fighting waning in Syrias eight-year civil war. The agency backs voluntary returns, and has refused to push for mass returns because of concerns over safety. Activists have expressed concern over discrimination and harassment of Syrian refugees in Lebanon, and say some politicians are quick to blame the displaced people for social and economic ills in the country. Nasser Yassin, director of research at the Issam Fares Institute, suggested the LRAs actions against the Syrians amounted to discrimination. The LRAs approach feeds the narrative that the refugees must go, that they are burdening our resources, burdening our river and the eviction is an example of that, he said. Lebanese authorities have been restricting movements of Syrian refugees, closing shops run by them and much more, he said. All of this needs to be seen in the big picture of creating a hostile environment for Syrian refugees to push them out, even if conditions for their return are not yet favourable. Alawieh at the LRA dismissed the claim, saying: I will remove the Syrians or the Lebanese or anyone polluting the river. I would do it again if I find more refugees. Judges rule three govt bodies failed to adequately consult the community before putting their territory up for sale. Quito, Ecuador The indigenous Waorani community in Ecuador won a landmark lawsuit on Friday against three government bodies for conducting a faulty consultation process with the community before putting their territory up for sale in an international oil auction. The ruling immediately suspends any possibility of selling the communitys land for oil exploration. It also sets an important precedent for other communities in Ecuadors southern Amazon rainforest, trying to keep oil extraction out of their territories. Today, the courts recognise that the Waorani people, and all indigenous peoples, have rights over our territories that must be respected, said Nemonte Nenquimo, one of the Waorani plaintiffs and representative of the Coordinating Council of the Waorani Nationality Ecuador Pastaza (CONCONAWEP). The governments interests in oil is not more valuable than our rights, our forests, our lives, she added. In March, the Waorani community sued the Ministry of Energy and Non-Renewable Natural Resources, the Secretary of Hydrocarbons and the Ministry of Environment for conducting a faulty consultation process with the community in 2012 before putting their territory up for sale in an international oil auction. 180523102935421 According to both national and international law, communities must be consulted before any extraction process is planned on or near their territory in what is called the free, prior and informed consultation process. As a result of the 2012 consultation process with the Waorani, and seven other indigenous nationalities, the Amazon rainforest was divided into 16 different oil blocks and put up for sale in an international oil auction. Last year, the government reduced the size of the oil auction to two blocks, removing block 22 that overlaps Waorani territory, but it quickly added that the region would not be exempt from future drilling plans. Historic day During the three-day trial earlier this month, the three judges heard testimony from various experts and elders from the community who explained how the consultation process in 2012 was largely used as a way to promote oil extraction, rather than warn communities of its environmental effects. 190411210110279 Fridays ruling lasted almost six hours, as the judges highlighted a number of ways in which the consultation process was inadequate and violated the communitys right to self-determination. According to the tribunal, during these consultation meetings: There was no real dialogue with communities, they were called without enough prior notice, there were not enough elders present, and there were no clear translations into the local Waorani language, among others problems. This is undoubtedly a historic day for the advancement of rights and constitutional development in Ecuador, said Lina Maria Espinosa, the communitys lawyer with the local non-government organisation Amazon Frontlines. It is the demonstration that state development plans cannot be executed over the life and integrity of the people, Espinosa said, adding the ruling sets an important precedent for the seven other indigenous nations consulted in the 2012 process. Dario Cueva, the lawyer representing the Ministry of the Environment, refused to comment on the ruling. He told Al Jazeera by phone that his team was analysing the case and what our next steps will be. "Our territory is not for sale." The Indigenous Waorani community in Ecuador wants to put an end to oil drilling in their land, so they filed a lawsuit against the govt. A ruling is expected on April 26. pic.twitter.com/nnyBWe3HoP AJ+ (@ajplus) April 26, 2019 The Ministry of Energy and Non-Renewable Resources did not respond to Al Jazeeras request for comment by the time of publication. This is the second community to win a major lawsuit against the Ecuadorian government in recent years. Last year, the indigenous Kofan community in the northern Amazon sued the same three government bodies for allowing mining operations to continue near their territory, without undergoing a consultation process. Four judges ruled in the communitys favour and 52 mining concessions were cancelled. Video released by Tasnim news agency shows fighter jets parked on American carrier deck in the Gulf. Irans elite Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) successfully managed a surveillance flight over an United States aircraft carrier, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported on Saturday. The report included footage apparently from a drone that flew over the USS Dwight D Eisenhower and another US warship in the Gulf. The images show fighter aircraft parked on the carrier deck. Tasnim did not say when the footage was shot. The development comes after the US government earlier this month designated the IRGC as a terrorist organisation an unprecedented step that drew condemnation from Iran. Tehran immediately announced retaliatory measures, declaring the United States a state sponsor of terrorism and US forces in the region terrorist groups, state media reported. 190407160100794 The drone that took the footage is an Ababil-3 with an eight-hour flight capability at 3,658 metres and a 250-kilometre range. Lieutenant Chloe J Morgan, a US Naval Forces Central Command spokeswoman, told The Associated Press the Eisenhower has not been in the Gulf since 2016. She said the US and its allies are committed to freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz. The strait, which sees nearly one-third of all oil traded by sea pass through it, has been the scene of past confrontations between the US and Iran, including a one-day naval battle in 1988. Crucial waterway In recent years, the US Navy has accused Iranian patrol boats of harassing American warships in the waterway. The Trump administration said on Monday it will no longer exempt any countries from US sanctions if they continue to buy Iranian oil, stepping up pressure on Iran in a move that primarily affects the five remaining major importers: China and India and US treaty allies Japan, South Korea and Turkey. The move is part of the administrations maximum pressure campaign on Iran that aims to eliminate all of its revenue from oil exports, which the US says are used to destabilise the region. Iran reiterated its long-running threat to close the Strait of Hormuz if its prevented from using the crucial waterway in the Gulf to trade oil. In 2016, Irans navy similarly took video footage of the nuclear-powered carrier USS Harry Truman, based in Norfolk, Virginia, while it was in the Gulf launching air raids and supporting operations against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) in Iraq and Syria. Thirteen-year-old girl suffers brain trauma after war veteran targeted people he thought were Muslim, authorities say. A man in California deliberately ploughed his car into a group of eight pedestrians because he thought some of them were Muslim, local authorities have said. Isaiah Joel Peoples, 34, faces eight counts of attempted murder for injuring eight people, including a 13-year-old girl, after he deliberately veered his car into the pedestrians. According to the AP news agency, the teenage girl was the most seriously injured in the incident and is currently in a coma with severe brain trauma. Three adults also remain in hospital with injuries that include broken limbs and fractures. The charges against Peoples carry a sentence of life in prison [AP] Jay Boyarsky, the chief assistant district attorney for Santa Clara, said the charges carry a sentence of life in prison and he will file hate crime allegations if warranted. There is very appalling and disturbing evidence that at least one or two of these victims were targeted based on the defendants view of what their race or religion may have been, he said. Phan Ngo, the chief of Sunnyvales Department of Public Safety, said that Peoples showed no remorse after his car hit the victims. He targeted the victims based on their race and his belief that they were of the Muslim Faith. We will be providing support to our diverse communities, he wrote on Twitter. There is absolutely no tolerance for hate in our community. Witness Don Draper said when he marched over to Peoples car after he crashed, he found the driver muttering over and over, Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. His family told the AP that Peoples, an Iraq war veteran, experienced post-traumatic stress disorder after serving in Iraq. His lawyer, Chuck Smith, said that the crash was in no way deliberate, claiming it was clearly the product of some mental disorder or mental defect. According to the FBI, hate crimes surged by at least 17 percent in the United States in 2017, with 7,175 documented hate crimes. At least 15 of those resulting in murders. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has also documented a sharp rise in hate incidents following President Donald Trumps election in November 2016, with the number of active hate groups peaking at an all-time high of 1,020 in 2018. Welcome Guest! You Are Here: Comments by former PM Sadiq al-Mahdi come as a committee representing the military and protesters hold first meeting. A top opposition leader called on Saturday for Sudan to join the International Criminal Court (ICC) that has indicted former president Omar al-Bashir, as a panel of protesters and the military met to discuss civilian rule. Sadiq al-Mahdi, a former prime minister and head of the opposition National Umma Party that has backed the protests, also told reporters the armys removal of Bashir was not a military coup. His comments came as a joint committee representing the ruling military leadership and protesters held their first meeting to discuss a demand by demonstrators for a handover to civilian rule. Rashid al-Sayed, a spokesman for the protest movement, said the meeting was a confidence-building step between both sides who are partners in the revolution and a second round was due later on Saturday. He said the military council vowed at the talks that a protest camp outside army headquarters will not be dispersed by force. A negotiator for Sudans opposition alliance said after the talks that he expected agreement over the formation of a new body to lead the countrys transition. Today, we have taken positive steps and we expect to reach an agreement satisfactory to all parties, said Ayman Nimir, a negotiator for the Declaration of Freedom and Change Forces. We expect to receive a response from the military council regarding the formation of a sovereign council within hours. Shams al-Deen al-Kabashi, the spokesman for the military council, said the talks were transparent. We are very optimistic that we will reach a final conclusion that will be announced to the Sudanese people as soon as possible, he told a brief press conference. War in Darfur Al-Bashir was deposed by the army on April 11 after months of protests against his three-decade rule. Thousands of demonstrators reached the sprawling military headquarters in central Khartoum on April 6, demanding the army support those opposing against al-Bashir. Five days later, the army toppled al-Bashir but then took power into its own hands through a 10-member transitional military council. The protesters, who have kept up the pressure around-the-clock outside army headquarters for weeks, are now demanding the council step down and make way for a civilian government. Demonstrators fear Islamists and other factions close to the deposed leader, who is now jailed in the capital Khartoum, will be granted a role in the transition. Mahdi said Sudan should immediately join the Hague-based ICC where al-Bashir is wanted for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for his alleged role in the conflict in Darfur. This should be done in coordination with the transitional military council, he added. Al-Bashir, 75, has consistently denied the charges against him. The war in Darfur erupted in 2003 when ethnic minority rebels took up arms against Khartoums Arab-dominated government, accusing it of social and political marginalisation. The United Nations says about 300,000 people have died in the conflict with another 2.5 million displaced, many still living in miserable camps across the western region of the country. Al-Bashir swept to power in an Islamist-backed coup in 1989 that toppled Mahdis elected government. Regime still present Mahdi said on Saturday the presidents supporters remained in place despite the upheaval. The head of the regime has been ousted but the regime is still present, Mahdi said. The toppled regime might still try to do a coup, he said without elaborating. Protest leaders have held several rounds of inconclusive talks with the military council since al-Bashir was deposed. Earlier this week, the two sides agreed to set up the joint committee to chart the way forward. The military council has so far refused to step down, insisting it has assumed power for a two-year transitional period. Western governments have expressed support, but Sudans key Gulf Arab lenders have backed the military council, while African states have called for more time for the army to hand over to civilians. As protesters were pushing the military on civilian rule Saturday, assailants hurled rocks at a meeting of members of the Islamist Popular Congress Party, an ally of al-Bashirs, injuring 32 of them. When the participants in the meeting took a break, they came under attack from a group of people who threw rocks, said Suheir Salah, the partys deputy undersecretary. Vladimir Putin calls US treatment of Russian gun lobbyist Maria Butina arbitrary and an outrage. President Vladimir Putin has slammed a prison sentence handed down by a US court to admitted Russian agent Maria Butina, calling her treatment a travesty of justice. The Russian leaders comments on Saturday came a day after a Washington court sentenced Butina to 18 months in prison followed by deportation. The Siberia native had pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government without registering. Speaking in Beijing, Putin said the sentence looked like an attempt by US law enforcement and judicial officials to save face. Its an outrage, Putin told reporters. It is, in fact, arbitrary. Its not clear what she was convicted of or what crime she committed. They arrested her and put the girl in jail. But there was nothing on her, so, in order not to look totally stupid, they gave her, fixed her up, with an 18-month sentence to show that she was guilty of something. On Friday, Butina begged a US judge for mercy and expressed remorse for conspiring with a Russian official to infiltrate a gun rights group and influence US conservative activists and Republicans. It made her the only Russian arrested and convicted in three years of investigations of Moscows alleged interference in the 2016 US presidential election. The leader of a small Russian gun rights group, the 30-year-old used her ties to the National Rifle Association to build a network of powerful Republican contacts. Prosecutors said while Butina did not engage in traditional spycraft, she worked behind the scenes to make inroads in conservative political circles and promote warmer US-Russian relations. She arranged dinners in Washington, DC, and New York City and attended events to meet prominent politicians. Butinas case was separate from Special Counsel Robert Muellers investigation of Moscows alleged interference in the US election. Court documents obtained by CNN reveal many of the 37 men executed maintained their innocence until their last breath. Dozens of Saudi Arabian nationals executed by Riyadh on Tuesday claimed to have been tortured into making false confessions, trial documents obtained by CNN revealed. Saudi authorities said the 37 individuals were found guilty of attacking security installations with explosives, killing a number of security officers and cooperating with enemy organisations against the countrys interests. But the revelations on Friday by CNN suggest many of the executed men who for the most part were members of the countrys marginalised Shia minority maintained their innocence until their dying breath. One of the prisoners, Mohammed al-Musallam, told the court he had suffered multiple injuries while being interrogated by security forces. 190427054817729 Nothing in these confessions is correct and I cannot prove that I was forced to do it, al-Musallam said, according to documents. But there are medical reports from the prison hospital of Dammam and I ask your honour to summon them. They show the effect of torture on my body. Munir al-Adam, a 27-year-old who was partially blind and deaf, denied confessing to any of the charges levied against him. Those arent my words, said al-Adam. I didnt write a letter. This is a defamation written by the interrogator with his own hand. Mujtaba al-Sweikat, who was 17 at the time of his arrest in 2012, had only twice participated in the protests and only for five minutes each time, argued his father, Nader al-Sweikat, in court. He was subjected to psychological and physical abuse which drained his strength, Nader al-Sweikat said, according to court documents. The interrogator dictated the confession to Sweikat and forced him to sign it so that the torture would stop. He signed it. Sweikat was preparing to travel to the United States where he had been admitted to the Western Michigan University when he was stopped at the airport and put in solitary confinement for 90 days. Court documents said al-Sweikat had confessed to throwing petrol bombs at security personnel and organising demonstrations through a chat group on his Blackberry smartphone. The state executions came a day after the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) said it was behind an attack on Sunday on a Saudi security building in the town of Zulfi. In that attack, all four gunmen were killed and three security officers were wounded. 190424141849560 At least one of the mens bodies was publicly hung from a pole for several hours in a process that is not frequently used by the kingdom and has sparked controversy for its grisly display. On Friday, the US government commission on religious freedom urged action against Saudi Arabia after it emerged that Abdulkarim al-Hawaj, one of the 37 men executed, was only 16 when he was charged. The UN human rights chief had a few days earlier condemned the mass executions as particularly abhorrent in that at least three of those killed were minors at the time of their sentencing. New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said at least 33 of the 37 men put to death were Shia, describing the event as the largest mass executions of Shia in the history of Saudi Arabia since the 1900s. According to a count based on official data released by the official SPA news agency, at least 100 people have been executed in Saudi Arabia since the beginning of the year. Last year, the oil-rich Gulf state carried out the death sentences of 149 people, according to Amnesty International, which said only Iran was known to have executed more people. Bodies of 15 people, including six children, discovered at the site of a fierce overnight gun battle in an eastern town. The bodies of 15 people, including six children, were discovered at the site of a fierce firefight at a home on the east coast of Sri Lanka after suicide bombers targeted approaching security forces. A police spokesman on Saturday said three suspected suicide attackers were among the 15 dead in the shootout, which came six days after the killing of 253 people on Easter Sunday. The three men set off explosives, also killing three women, inside what was believed to be a safe-house near the eastern town of Kalmunai on Friday night. 190421092621543 The town is to the south of Batticaloa, a site of one of last Sundays blasts that targeted three churches and four luxury hotels. Military spokesman Sumith Atapattu said as troops headed towards the home, three explosions were triggered and gunfire began. Troops retaliated and raided the safe-house where a large cache of explosives had been stored, he said in a statement. He said the fighters were suspected members of the domestic group, National Thowheed Jamath (NTJ), which has been blamed for last Sundays attacks. This wont stop Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara said bomb-making materials, suicide kits, 150 sticks of blasting gelatin, and tens of thousands of small metal balls were found. Suicide bomb vests often are packed with such balls to increase the shrapnel in the explosion, making them even deadlier. The wife and a daughter of the suspected mastermind of Easter Sundays suicide attacks were among the wounded in the gun battle. Yes, the wife and daughter were injured in the attack, said Mohamed Hashim Mathaniya, sister of the alleged ringleader Mohamed Zahran. I was asked to come to identify them but I am not sure I can go, she told Reuters news agency. Police officials also said the injured were believed to be Zahrans relatives. Police on Friday confirmed Zahran died in the suicide bombing at the Shangri-La Hotel. Major-General Aruna Jayasekera, eastern commander of the Sri Lanka Army, vowed to hunt down anyone linked to the attacks. This wont stop so we wont stop either, he said. Reporting from the capital Colombo, Al Jazeeras Florence Looi said the operation by security forces was one of many conducted across the island over the past week. It turned into a gun battle and went on for more than an hour. Search operations are still under way for more gunmen, she said. The government said nine homegrown, well-educated suicide bombers carried out the Easter Sunday attacks, eight of whom had been identified. One was a woman. Police said on Friday they were trying to track down about 70 people they believe have links with Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS), which claimed responsibility for the suicide bombings. Sri Lankas security personnel hold up an ISIL flag discovered in a safe-house in the eastern town of Kalmunai [AFP] Muslim fears ISIL provided no evidence to back its claim that it was behind the attacks. If true, it would be one of the worst acts of violence carried out by the armed group outside Iraq and Syria. 190426174813055 The group released a video on Tuesday showing eight men, all but one with their faces covered, standing under a black ISIL flag and declaring their loyalty to its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Fears of retaliatory sectarian violence have caused Muslim communities to flee their homes amid bomb scares, lockdowns and security sweeps. Despite warnings against it, several mosques held services anyway on Friday. At a mosque in Colombo, police armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles stood guard outside for hundreds of worshippers. The Easter attackers are not Muslims. This is not Islam. This is an animal, said Akurana Muhandramlage Jamaldeen Mohamed Jayfer, the chairman of the mosque. We dont have a word [strong enough] to curse them, he said. There were also reports by some Muslims of harassment because of their religion. A local television channel showed people on a bus asking a Muslim woman wearing a headscarf to either remove it or leave the bus. She later left the bus. Abdul Azeez Abdul Sattar, 63, an auto-rickshaw driver, said a man in his neighbourhood refused to hire him, telling him, You are a terrorist; you have a bomb. I wont take your auto. Foreign warnings The United States embassy in Sri Lanka urged its citizens to avoid places of worship over the weekend after authorities reported there could be more attacks targeting religious centres. Archbishop of Colombo Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith told reporters he had seen a leaked internal security document warning of further attacks on churches, and there would be no Catholic masses on Sunday anywhere on the island. Nearly 10,000 soldiers were deployed across the Indian Ocean island state to carry out searches and provide security for religious centres, the military said. Authorities have so far focused their investigations on international links to two domestic groups they believe carried out the attacks, NTJ and Jammiyathul Millathu Ibrahim. Both organisations were banned by the government on Saturday. Yashwant Kumar Singh, 23, a worker from India, said he wants to go back to his homeland because he fears another attack. If it only happened on one day, then that wouldnt have been so difficult, but bombs are going off here every day. That is why there is an atmosphere of fear. We are feeling very scared, he said. Intelligence failure Officials have acknowledged a major lapse in not widely sharing intelligence warnings from India of possible attacks. 190426145942734 President Maithripala Sirisena said on Friday that top defence and police chiefs had not shared information with him about the impending attacks. He blamed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghes government for weakening the intelligence system by focusing on the prosecution of military officers over alleged war crimes during a decades-long civil war with Tamil separatists that ended in 2009. Sirisena fired Wickremesinghe in October over political differences, only to reinstate him weeks later under pressure from the Supreme Court. Opposing factions aligned to Wickremesinghe and Sirisena have often refused to communicate with each other and blame any setbacks on their opponents, government sources say. The Easter Sunday bombings shattered the relative calm that had existed in Buddhist-majority Sri Lanka since the civil war against mostly Hindu ethnic Tamil separatists ended. Sri Lankas 22 million people include minority Christians, Muslims and Hindus. Until now, Christians had largely managed to avoid the worst of the islands conflict and communal tensions. Most of the victims were Sri Lankans, although authorities said at least 40 foreigners were also killed, many of them tourists sitting down to breakfast at top-end hotels when the bombers struck. They included British, US, Australian, Turkish, Indian, Chinese, Danish, Dutch and Portuguese nationals. Britain warned its nationals this week to avoid Sri Lanka unless it was absolutely necessary. More than a thousand members of Venezuelas security forces are in Colombia, waiting to join the fight against Nicolas Maduro. Its not going according to plan for around a thousand military and security force personnel who defected from Venezuela. They crossed the border into neighbouring Colombia two months ago, answering the oppositions call to defect. Venezuelas opposition said that it was unprepared for the numbers of military personnel that defected back in February and a struggling to come up with a plan to support them in the long term. Meanwhile, the families of defectors have received death threats and have been forced to flee, as well, while the defectors wait for a call or an end to the political stalemate. Al Jazeeras Alessandro Rampietti reports. Dr Marc Lamont Hill is an award-winning journalist and author and is the Steve Charles Professor of Media, Cities, and Solutions at Temple University. Hill is known for his work addressing the intersections of race, justice, politics and culture. His latest best-selling book is We Still Here: Pandemics, Policing, Protest and Possibility which follows on the success of Nobody: Casualties of Americas War on the Vulnerable from Flint to Ferguson. Hill has received numerous prestigious awards from the US National Association of Black Journalists, GLAAD, and the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. The Democratic Party's savior has arrived. White-haired, wizened-faced, cleft-chinned, liver-spotted Joe Biden, the shriveled and pale second banana to Barack Obama, has entered the presidential race to all the dry acclaim Morning Joe viewers can muster. If you close your eyes and focus your imagination, you can almost picture Biden walking out on stage at a ritzy fundraiser to muted applause while an invisible announcer bellows, "Here's Joe!" Cue cheap crockery scratching against bone-china plates freighted with rubber chicken. Even at this late stage, with every Democrat from the senior senator of Minnesota to the mayor of Miramar, Florida vying for the Resolute throne, Biden's entry is far from desperate. He's polling better than other liberal hopefuls. By virtue of his previous purple post, he has the one benefit that matters in a crowded field: name recognition. Will it all be enough, though? Early frontrunner status doesn't guarantee success in primaries. Heck, being an experienced politician with considerable cachet no longer affords the kind of presumptive protection it once did against eager upstarts. And, as always with stroppy progressives, there's the woke factor. In the year 2019, it's been argued elsewhere that Biden is overestimating his odds with a political party that's left his generation behind. Bernie Sanders notwithstanding, an old, white, straight guy doesn't check off the diversity boxes Democrats love to tout. It's quite the opposite: Biden is symbolic of everything the Democrats claim to detest. He's a privileged manikin the far-left flank of the party would love to fetter, drop on a trebuchet, and toss back to the atavistic Republican barbarians. Then there's his voting record, at which a cursory glance reveals plenty of trouble spots for the more colorful both vocal and dermal parts of the Democratic coalition. The Bolshie advocacy group Justice Democrats has announced that Biden is persona non grata among its ranks. His previous support for the Iraq War and tough-on-crime laws, joined with his insufficient support for single-payer health care, makes him too much of a political back number for the Ocasio-Cortez wing of the party. All that said, Biden needn't worry too much about what Daily Kos readers think of his insufficient support for outlawing the internal combustion engine. He's got a secret weapon to parry any portside attack on his less than progressive record: his running-mate status under Obama. The left's embrace of critical theory leaves liberals unable to consider criticism on its face; instead, they question not only the socio-economic status of the critic, but also that of the target and his acquaintances. Biden is inextricably linked with Obama. Any rhetorical sally against the former can easily be spun as an assault on the latter. And Obama remains immensely popular among Democrats. Yes, Team Biden clumsily tried to set itself apart from the 44th president, claiming to ask Obama not to endorse the campaign (as if Mr. Messianic would have deigned to do so before the nominee is chosen). It was a consultant-orchestrated stunt, meant to reassure gullible observers that Biden is his own man and not a former senator from a state that has more incorporated LLCs than it does people who was lucky enough to be picked as vice president. None of it, I'd wager, will matter. On optics alone, Biden is about as centrist as Democrats get. Like Hillary, he'll have both the tacit and direct support of major donors, including Wall Street magnates. He's already scooped up seasoned campaign staff, including Bernie Sanders's press secretary and a dozen Obama administration advisers. Not for nothing, he's also out-fundraised his two closest competitors even as campaign panhandling loses its relevance to social media buzz. Biden's kickoff announcement was such stuff as geriatric Democrats' dreams are made of. Harkening back to the wonder years of 20092016, Biden sets his sights squarely on President Trump, making him the cynosure of his overall message: that he's a terrible aberration in an otherwise hunky-dory system. He even invokes the late Heather Heyer, who was killed by a white supremacist failson in Charlottesville, to imply that Trump chortled over her death, all without the blessing of her mother. It was a cheap move, but a welcome one among the Democrat faithful, who place winning above any distinct policy. And "ability to win" is exactly the lane Biden wants to travel in. His hands-first friendliness, his grilling of Anita Hill, his support for school segregation, his dismissing Russia as a threat in 2012 none of it matters a whit compared to the desire to reoccupy the White House. For more policy-minded candidates like Senator Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, Biden is the worst-case scenario. He's already locked up the bien pensant vote of the establishment. It's just a matter of time before he wins suburban Democrats just by being the default choice of those embarrassed by having Trump as president. The Democratic primary is Biden's to lose. If he can keep his famously gaffe-prone mouth shut for long enough, he'll be the Democrats' septuagenarian white-guy alternative to another septuagenarian white guy. Democrats may want to be more dubitative about such a matchup. The last time they played it safe with a familiar figure, things didn't turn out so well. Image: Kelly Kline via Flickr. What do a Minnesota congresswoman, a Dallas imam, and the New York Times all have in common? In the past week all three have promoted the meme that Jesus was a Palestinian. On April 19, an op-ed in the New York Times stated that Jesus, born in Bethlehem, was most likely a Palestinian man with dark skin. On April 20 Congresswoman Ilhan Omar retweeted Dallas imam Omar Suleimans argument that Jesus was Palestinian, not Jewish. I was once asked by a relative who is a Palestinian Christian why the Christian right in America largely supports their oppression. "Don't they know we're Christian too? Do they even consider us human? Don't they know Jesus was a Palestinian?" https://t.co/YJDwdlIIgM Omar Suleiman (@omarsuleiman504) April 20, 2019 Such claims are part of a narrative that more and more seems to be insinuating itself into American political discourse. This narrative tends to paint both Jews and whites as inhuman oppressors and non-whites and P alestinians as their innocent victims. According to this narrative, the Jews cannot have a history in the Middle East that goes back to the time of Jesus. If Jesus was a Jew living among Jews during the Roman Empire, then, Jewish ties to the land of Israel do go back to Roman times, and the claims of Israel to the land are legitimized. Therefore, Jesus must be deracinated, disconnected from his Jewish roots, and the Gospels must be cut off from their Jewish core. Such tactics are also being used in the United States to make white Americans lose confidence in themselves, their history, and their rights as citizens. For example, in November 2018, at the annual Muslim American Society (MAS) Los Angeles conference, Imam Omar Suleiman had these words to say about the situation at the Mexico-U.S. border: And we had a hard time driving back home recognizing that its our government that has traumatized these children. Our government that has terrorized these people. Make no mistake about it, these people were suffocated long before they were hit with tear gas. We stand in a place where war crimes were committed by our government. And they were committed because they said that four border agents were hit by rocks. Those are the same pathetic excuses that have been made to maim 10,060 Palestinians at the border of Gaza! (15:10-15:57) Most will have little frame of reference to the event Suleiman is referring to, but the U.S. government did make the following statement about the incident being discussed in Suleimans speech: Yesterdays incident involved large groups of migrants ignoring and overwhelming Mexican law enforcement, then attempting to the United States through vehicle lanes at San Ysidro and El Chaparral, and then through breaches in the international border fence between ports of entry. Elements of the group also engaged in dozens of assaults on agents and officers. Four agents were hit with rocks, but were wearing protective gear and did not suffer serious injuries. This section of the border was apparently eventually closed, shutting off entry for up to a thousand migrants, according to the government statement. These migrants are not necessarily from Mexico but perhaps from farther south in Central America. Such breaches of our border security are a matter of national security precisely because those willing to cross at an international border fence opening enter the U.S. illegally despite the repeated warnings that they are breaking the law. They do not care. But the rhetoric of charlatans like Omar Suleiman paints them as helpless children who are being gassed and abused. However, their story of abuse originates not from the United States government but from their parents who are endangering their lives by making them cross the border illegally. Why do Islamists like Suleiman and Omar emphasize the humanity of the illegal migrants breaking our laws of entry at the border and putting their own children at risk? Why do they so often obscure the nearly 400-year Ottoman Empire occupation of Jerusalem while pounding the meme of the by comparison much shorter 30-year European occupation of Jerusalem into our heads? To my mind, the accusations of Suleiman, Omar and the other Islamists are about much more than anti-Semitism. They are about creating a new narrative. The claim that Jesus was a Palestinian is about consolidating group identity. Islamists like Omar and Suleiman are all about promoting a narrative based on group identities with a simple mantra four legs good, two legs bad. As a Palestinian, Jesus now holds a place with the good four-legged ones. The whites and the Jews, on the other hand, well, theyre just robbers and gangsters anyway. Oregon's liberal Democratic senator Ron Wyden most likely knew from the get-go that his idea for new taxes on assets and investments wouldn't get a lot of traction so much so that a news release, tweet, or bulletin taking credit for his own proposal can't be found on the senator's official website. Yet Senator Wyden, who is the ranking member of the Senate's Finance Committee, in early April told the financial press he is developing a "mark-to-market" approach to tax unrealized capital gains. In simple terms, he proposes a levy a tax on investments (like real estate or stocks) based on valuations of their holdings each year, with all annual gains treated like income even gains that have not been realized. This "mark-to-market" accounting practice of updating the value of an asset would tax all capital gains like income at a maximum rate of 37 percent. The present capital gains tax functions this way: when capital assets like stocks or real estate are bought, the purchase price becomes the "cost basis," and when they are sold, the difference between the cost basis and the sale price becomes a "capital gain." With a couple stipulations involving the length of time an asset is held (i.e., long- or short-term) and breakpoints based on a taxpayer's overall income, the current capital gains tax in the U.S. ranges between 15 percent and 23.8 percent. When an asset is sold for a profit after a year or more, it is taxed at long term rates, while rates if assets are sold after less than a year i.e., short term generally equate to ordinary income tax rates. So what could possibly go wrong with systematic annual taxation that would be extraordinarily difficult and complex to implement, while loaded with potential to disrupt and devastate the nation's financial markets? First and foremost: compliance and its associated costs. Would it even be humanly possible to annually value the wide array of capital assets that constitute our nation's economy? How do you go about fairly valuing without transactions to price them everything from venture capital to private debt to stock options to cyclical businesses to illiquid real estate and beyond? Then, what kind of drain on the U.S. economy would such annual fiscal gymnastics impose, as everyone's asset and money managers maneuver to value assets, particularly illiquid ones, with the objective of tax efficiency? (Of course, Senator Wyden promises, but has not yet provided, a detailed explanation of exactly how all this will work.) Some, if not many, investors would just not bother and take their capital elsewhere. Another problem: How would smaller investors even otherwise moderately wealthy investors pay taxes on investments that have not yet returned cash to them? Senator Wyden must know that Americans saving and investing for the future do not possess surpluses of cash in addition to those assets to pay additional taxes. The obvious is that only when a stock, real estate, or another asset is sold does an investor obtain the cash to monetize the gains of his investment. There is good reason why we presently tax only realized gains in America and not notional ones because one is a tangible gain, while the other is only an abstract number on paper until it is sold. Senator Wyden, with a worldview common among liberal Democrats, further sees the issue in terms of binary economic and class distinctions. In announcing his proposal, he asserted: There are two tax codes in America. The first is for nurses, police officers, and factory workers those who earn wages and pay taxes with every paycheck. The second is for millionaires and billionaires those who use their wealth to build more wealth, paying what they want, when they want ... Everyone needs to pay their fair share. That statement by itself ignores the facts that the top one percent already pay a greater share of individual income taxes (37.3 percent) than the bottom 90 percent combined (30.5 percent), or that more Americans than ever own stocks and almost two thirds of Americans own their homes. Additionally, many Americans are not rich and wealthy like Wyden's pejorative "millionaires and billionaires" and do not fit neatly into either group. They are America's so-called "middle class." Yes, they earn wages and pay taxes with every paycheck, but over time, they are fortunate enough to save some of the money the government has allowed them to keep. They go on to invest their dollars, sometimes well and other times not so well. Over the years, the growth and appreciation of those assets enable them to raise families, pay their bills, even enjoy life and increase their likelihood of making it through retirement without running out of money. Just where would an always benevolent federal government draw the line on who and what is taxed and for how much? Critics mostly agree that Wyden's proposal has little chance of passing any time soon, but it is a siren call to those lured by its potential to raise vast sums to feed the seemingly insatiable demands of government spending funds that could otherwise remain available to taxpayers to circulate in the economy as they see fit. Is it too much to expect the senior Democrat on the Senate's Finance Committee to understand that such a tax proposal disregards the lifeblood of our economy: investment? Senator Wyden's proposal, if implemented, would discourage capital formation, increased productivity, investment risk-taking, and wealth creation. Such an idea embodies an entire party's diametrically different political philosophy of wealth as a divisive political wedge and "millionaires and billionaires" as a populist foil instead of concentrating on growing the economy and creating jobs for the benefit of all Americans. Maybe Vice President Mike Pence said it best with his remarks at CPAC, the annual conservative convention, in March: "The truth is, we [conservatives] want to make poor people richer; they [the Democrats] want to make rich people poorer." Senator Wyden's proposal is just a very bad idea that all Americans regardless of their politics could agree should never see the light of day. Chris J. Krisinger (colonel, USAF ret.) served in policy advisory positions in both the Pentagon and the State Department. He was a National Defense Fellow at Harvard University. Editor's Note: In announcing the new commenting system, we warned that there would be "jagged edges" and asked for readers' forbearance. Our tech consultants are working with Vuukle to overcome the glitches that have annoyed readers. Now that the Vuukle comment system that AT sprang on readers and comment-writers earlier this week is a few days old, I think it is time for the AT staff to receive some reader feedback. Vuukle is intended to be a replacement for the Disqus system of commenting. Because I had never heard of Vuukle before this action, I think I can credibly say I am unbiased. So as I see it, here are the Good Features and the Bad Features. GOOD FEATURES 1. The transition from Disqus to Vuukle was easy and painless. All I had to do was sign up on the AT site, and the rest was automatic. It even transferred my avatar automatically. (Of course, had AT not switched to Vuukle in the first place, this "advantage" would be moot and irrelevant.) 2. Vuukle blocks readers from providing upvotes to their own comments. That's good. Disqus lacks this feature. Self-upvoting is an abuse of the Disqus system. BAD FEATURES 1. I cannot figure out how a new user could introduce a new avatar, unless he already had one with Disqus. And I cannot figure out how to change an avatar, should I desire to do so. 2. Vuukle lacks any feature that permits the user to edit his own comments after the initial posting. This means that misspellings cannot be corrected, and the comment-writer cannot rewrite his comments later on with improved prose. Disqus does allow subsequent editing of comments. So a word to the wise Vuukle user: be sure to do a good proofreading job before hitting the POST button! You won't get a chance for a do-over. 3. Vuukle doesn't allow the reader to select a permanent setting for the sorting of comments, while Disqus does. In other words, Vuukle and Disqus both allow the option of allowing the reader to sort the comments by the categories of Latest, Best, Editor's Most Replied, Oldest. But with Disqus, once the setting is selected, it is permanent for all threads until the reader decides to change it. With Vuukle, it is permanent only within the given thread. Every time the reader goes to the comments section of another article, Vuukle defaults to the Latest setting, and the reader has to select his own setting with every article, unless the reader actually prefers the Latest setting. This is very, very annoying. 4. Disqus and not Vuukle enables any reader to discover the running total both of the comments that anyone has made and of the upvotes received. For instance, by dragging my cursor over Schmutzli's avatar, I am able to make the interesting discovery that he has posted over 18,500 comments and has received over 235,000 upvotes. He is a very prolific writer. Vuukle utterly lacks this feature. Under Vuukle, I have no idea how many comments I have made or how many upvotes I have received. 5. Furthermore, Vuukle provides no information as to who has awarded upvotes. I am always curious to see who has upvoted me or others, and under Disqus, I had this capability. With Vuukle, I don't. 6. Vuukle, like Disqus, does provide a visual indication that I have awarded an upvote. However, in Vuukle, that indicator is visible only as long as the reader is logged in to that article. If the reader logs off the article and then returns, that visual indicator is gone when the reader returns; in Disqus, it is permanent. This enables an annoying situation in Vuukle, whereby I might try to award an upvote after having forgotten that I already did so. Then I get a message blocking me from doing it. This is annoying and is avoided in Disqus. 7. Vuukle, unlike Disqus, does not allow for downvotes. (Although, in fairness, I don't know what practical significance this had in Disqus, since neither the number of downvotes nor the identities of their originators are depicted.) 8. Vuukle, like Disqus, does allow the reader to refer offensive comments to the site moderator. However, Disqus allows the reader to designate categories of the offensive comments (e.g., anti-Semitism, threats, insulting language), and Vuukle does not. 9. Vuukle does allow offensive comments to be blocked to the reader. However, any blocking in Vuukle is good only for that thread, while Disqus will block all comments from an offending writer in all subsequent threads, unless rescinded by the reader. SUMMARY: As I see it, the only advantage that Vuukle has over Disqus is the blocking of self-upvoting. Otherwise, there is no respect in which Vuukle is a better comments system than Disqus. In some ways, it is worse. Since this article goes to the heart of the AT staff's recent decisions, one can take it as reasonably likely that the AT staff will read the Comments section, in order to assess readers' opinions if it publishes this post. Speaking for myself, I will say the following: overall, I don't like Vuukle. Vuukle is not as good as Disqus. It is no improvement. Thomas Lifson, give us back our Disqus! Image credit: Public domain logo via YouTube screen shot. In California, the water wars are continuing to boil. Leftie greenies recently hailed the return of ... five ... salmon, swimming upstream to the San Joaquin river to spawn. Paradise restored! In water-starved California, that was quite an achievement, given that each salmon required 50,000 gallons of water to get the job done, coming at a price tag of $890 million at the low end and $2 billion at the high. And that water came out of the hides of California's farmers, who got very little of the water they were promised, and paid for, as a result. That's some use of resources to get those five salmon to swim upstream. Wayne Western, Jr., at The Sun, writes how this clown show spend-fest came to be: In 1988, then-Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez) developed the first version of the Central Valley Improvement Act (CVPIA). That same year, the Natural Resources Defense Council filed a lawsuit claiming that Friant Dam violated environmental laws. In 1992, Congress pushes through the CVPIA. This action single-handedly shifted water and money from Valley farmers by driving money to environmental organizations and sending water to the ocean. In 2006, a Settlement is reached and by 2009, the Democrat-led Congress and President Obama enact the Settlement. Cost estimates of this effort range from $890 million to $2 billion to restore 153 miles of the river from Friant Dam to the confluence of the Merced River. Between 250,000 and 360,000 acre-feet of water are specifically dedicated to fish habitat on the San Joaquin. Based on this weeks news, it appears to be working. Taking the conservative cost estimate, each of the five fish caught cost taxpayers and water users $178,000,000. And each of those fish needed 50,000 acre-feet of water per year. I wont even stress the cost of pumping, aquifer consequences, fallowed land, and lest we forget lost jobs. Many politicians arent either. Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif), who represents some of the agricultural districts that got stiffed on the water, tweeted this: Green Leftists take over California. Congratulations America you just spent $178 Million per fish and flushed millions of gallons of precious water out to the Pacific Ocean. https://t.co/WUWKltEIU8 Devin Nunes (@DevinNunes) April 27, 2019 $178 million per fish and that's on the low end, not the $2 billion end. It certainly is in line with California's bullet train boondoggle, which saw Californians shelling out $82 million per rail mile before the entire money-eating nightmare was scrapped por ahora. But the amount spent per salmon more than double the amount spent per rail mile figure. Salmon fishing is a rich man's sport, well beloved of the Northern California Pacific Heights set. If they wanted salmon streams, by golly, they would get salmon streams, and cost was no object, so they did. Balancing interests was never a part of this equation. Never mind the farmers stiffed on their water or the agricultural ruin that has followed, they wanted that riffraff gone anyway, the better to make the Central Valley their rich-people recreational ground. The history of the ill-begotten project had its roots in the machinations of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, as Western notes in his piece here: Yet a stonewall from the United States Senate blocked the flow of water to our communities. The Senates only offering, courtesy of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, produced zero acre-feet of water for the San Joaquin Valley. Environmental groups have been ruthlessly effective in working to diminish Valley agriculture and, by extension, the people of the region. Those efforts extend to the State of California, with groundwater legislation that will deliver a double dose of consequences in January 2020. In light of that, the Public Policy Institute of California has publicly said that at least 500,000 acres must be retired from growing food and fiber. By a creepy coincidence, Feinstein's water-policy man, T.J. Cox, managed to ballot-harvest his way into a congressional seat in Central Valley's worst-hit water district, the lower western San Joaquin valley, taking the slot from the GOP's David Valadao by less than 1,000 votes after the Republican showed a commanding 5,000-vote lead on election night. Cox, who was born in the wealthy San Francisco suburb of Walnut Creek, hasn't condemned the boondoggle of course, and his congressional website doesn't offer anything in the way of water to farmers (he says he's hired a staffer connected to Feinstein who will work on it, which doesn't sound promising, given Feinstein's record). As for the water-starved farmers. he's introduced for them a bill to offer easier bankruptcy proceedings, the better to get them out of there. As for the salmon, whose interests he does represent, $178 million per fish doesn't seem to bother him a bit. The indoctrination of young Americans is the goal of those who control curricula in public schools and colleges. Faculty, administrators, and textbook writers all do their part to create a narrative of an America that should be ashamed of its racist exploitative past, and ready to overhaul a capitalist system that benefits the few and cheats the many by robbing them of their fair share. The new Advanced Placement history textbook is a case in point. Paul Mirengoff writes at Powerline: [B]eginning in 2020, many Advanced Placement students will be using an American History textbook that suggests President Trump is mentally ill and that depicts him and many of his supporters as racists. The book asserts that "[Trump's] not very-hidden racism connected with a significant number of primary voters." ... The textbook goes further. It says that Hillary Clinton supporters "worried about the mental stability of the president-elect." ... The textbook clearly is using "Clinton supporters" as a device to plant the idea that President Trump is mentally unstable, a proposition for which there is no basis other than raw hatred of the man. The book's publisher defends its handiwork, saying that it underwent "rigorous peer review to ensure academic integrity." No doubt. Here is an alternative from Steven Hayward of Powerline: Next month our friends at Encounter Books will publish Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story by Wilfred M. McClay, who is the G. T. and Libby Blankenship Chair in the History of Liberty at the University of Oklahoma, and the Director of the Center for the History of Liberty. ... Suggestion: urge your high school history teachers and your school district to adopt this book, and if you have a child in history and especially AP history get a copy of this book and have your kid read this alongside whatever leftist slop is being thrown at them by their public school. And everyone else should support this enterprise by buying a copy. Rich schools, like Yale, always have more money to throw at diversity, equity and inclusion, which is why they are so easy to shake down. Heather Mac Donald writes at the Wall Street Journal: Yale President Peter Salovey announced a major expansion of the school's diversity bureaucracy this month, providing a case study in how not to lead a respected institution of higher education. The pretext for this latest accretion of bureaucratic bloat was a May 2018 incident in a graduate student dorm. Sarah Braasch, a 43-year-old doctoral candidate in philosophy, called campus police at 1:40 a.m. to report someone sleeping in a common room, which she believed was against dorm rules. Yale administrators knew Ms. Braasch had psychological problems and that she had a history of bad blood with the sleeping student, Lolade Siyonbola, a 35-year-old doctoral candidate in African studies. But because Ms. Braasch is white and Ms. Siyonbola is black, the administration chose to turn the incident into a symbol of what Mr. Salovey called the university's "discrimination and racism." Yale leaders immediately announced a slew of new initiatives: "implicit bias" training for graduate students, grad-school staff and campus police; instruction in how to run "inclusive classrooms"; "community building" sessions; a student retreat to develop the next phase of equity and inclusion programming. Despite this flurry of corrective measures, Kimberly M. Goff-Crews, Yale's secretary and vice president for student life, ominously declared there was still "much more to do." That "more" was soon in coming. Yale commissioned an outside diversity bureaucratBenjamin Reese, vice president of institutional equity at Duketo evaluate its diversity infrastructure, which, predictably, he found sorely lacking. A small retreat by Amherst College's P.C. Police: Richard Bernstein writes at Real Clear Investigations: Sometimes in the culture wars, the identity-politics camp leans so far to a politically correct extreme that liberals and conservatives alike reject it. Or so it would seem. A recent episode at Amherst College is worth examining less as a defeat for political correctness than a tactical retreat illustrating that the cult of identity politics on campus shows little sign of weakening. Withdrawn from circulation, but why? What happened is this: Last month Amherst's Office of Diversity and Inclusion sent all 1,850 or so students at the elite western Massachusetts school an attractively produced 36-page brochure called the Amherst Common Language Guide, with definitions of "key diversity and inclusion terms." Its clear emphasis: "Marginalized groups" were being oppressed by what the document called the "cisheteropatriarchy" -- a system of domination by straight white men through racism, sexism, oppression, hegemony, and exploitation. Within hours of the guide's release, a member of the Amherst College Republicans leaked the brochure to the conservative Daily Wire website, which pronounced it "something out of '1984.' " A crescendo of ridicule from conservative websites and blogs followed. But it wasn't just the right piling on. Members of the predominantly liberal Amherst faculty, who were not consulted about the guide as it was being drafted, criticized it too. At a post-release meeting of some 70 faculty members, "the people who departed most strenuously from the guide were on the left, including transgender faculty members," said one of those present, Francis G. Couvares, the chairman of the Amherst History Department, speaking by phone. Soon after, the language guide was withdrawn from circulation, erased from the college website, with college President Carolyn Martin proclaiming it "counter to the core academic values of freedom of thought and expression." Heather Macdonald, writing in City Journal, on a couple of campuses where Administrators appear to have the semblance of a spine: On April 9, at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Professor Camille Paglia, famed nemesis of victimology feminists everywhere, gave a university-wide lecture entitled "Sexual Duality and Sexual Multiplicity in Western Art." A self-described "non-binary" student, Joseph McAndrew, had organized a protest against the speech after failing to get it moved off campus. McAndrew was upset by recent interviews Paglia had given. (snip) McAndrew masterfully blended victimology and the consumerist model of education in his complaint against Paglia. "We're giving a space for her following to come, into our safe space that we pay to be in," he told the Philadelphia Inquirer. A photo of the protest shows a group of well-fed, healthy, eminently protected, privileged teenagers sitting in a lobby under a large banner reading "Camille Paglia, Stop Victim Blaming." They hold signs such as "Sexual Assault Is NEVER the victims [sic] fault." A male lays his head on the shoulder of a female, who gives him a supportive hug; presumably both procured affirmative consent for this Platonic embrace. About 30 minutes into Paglia's lecture, someone pulled a fire alarm, following the Middlebury precedent. All 17 floors of the building where Paglia was speaking had to be evacuated ... On many other campuses, such tactics would have been greeted by either dead air from the administration or an expression of concern for the University of the Arts' wounded "survivors." President David Yager, however, denounced the repressive mindset spreading from American campuses to the culture at large. The suppression of speech "simply cannot be allowed to happen," he wrote in a campus-wide email the day after the shutdown. "I firmly believe that limiting the range of voices in society erodes our democracy. Universities, moreover, are at the heart of the revolutionary notion of free expression: promoting the free exchange of ideas is part of the core reason for their existence. . . . Artists over the centuries have suffered censorship, and even persecution, for the expression of their beliefs through their work. My answer is simple: Not now, not at UArts." While his email did not mention the protest or the fire alarm activation, which would have been ideal, the protesters understood that Yager was referring to them. ... The University of Arizona has gone one better than Yager. On March 19, two agents from the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol were giving a presentation at a job-recruiting fair, having been invited by the undergraduate Criminal Justice Association. Protesters invaded the room and continuously screamed "murder patrol" and "murderers," preventing students from listening. "We won't stop until you get off our campus," the protesters shouted, as they hounded the agents into their cars. In a sharp departure from the norm, the campus police have filed criminal-misdemeanor charges against the disruptors, for "threats and intimidation" and "interference with the peaceful conduct of an educational institution." And the university president, Robert Robbins, after issuing a bland statement about "ensuring safety" for students and respecting others' right to speech, followed up with a far more explicit denunciation. The "incident with the Border Patrol officers" was a "dramatic departure from our expectations of respectful behavior and support for free speech on this campus," Robbins wrote. "Student protest is protected by our support for free speech, but disruption is not." Another horror story at Sarah Lawrence none dare accuse administrators of bias. David French writes at National Review Online: Democratic presidential frontrunner Joe Biden's out and about, repeating the old, tired saws of the Obama administration. According to Fox News: Former vice president and newly-minted 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Bidenappeared on "The View" on Friday morning and told hosts that his proudest moment of serving with President Barack Obama was that there was "not one whisper" of scandal during the time they served together in the White House. Biden said that, coincidentally, he and Obama both told press on the same day while in different parts of the country that the thing they were most proud of while in the White House was that there was "not one whisper of a scandal." "Not one," Biden said. "And that's because of Barack." His comments came the day after Biden made his long-awaited announcement that he would be campaigning for the 2020 presidency. So let's get this straight here: The Benghazi coverup never happened. The IRS targeting of dissidents never happened, either. The Gold River pollution on traditional Native American lands by the EPA never happened. Solyndra never happened. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton never had an illegal private server in some guy's bathroom. She never sold 20% of the U.S. uranium supply to Russia, and her bleachbitting of her subpoenaed emails was perfectly scandal-free, as well as her smashing of Blackberries with hammers. The fact that top-secret emails turned up in Anthony Weiner's perverted computer, for the New York cops to read, was a nothingburger. And if you like your doctor... Actually, the Obama administration was probably the most scandal-plagued of all administrations, and for one important reason: There was never any housecleaning. Do a bad act and let your Democratic Party affiliation be your protection. I have always suspected that former FBI director James Comey's exoneration of Hillary Clinton for her private email legal violations was the big thing that made voters break for Donald Trump in 2016. The one set of laws for one elite, and the second set for everyone else, was what got Obama's team thrown out. Now we are coming off more Obama scandals from the Mueller report - with President Obama in possession of Clinton's deleted emails, and questions raised about unmaskings and bad uses of FISA warrants, and Joe Biden brings up the years-old baloney about Obama being scandal free? Something tells me this is about trying to reset a 'narrative' now that the walls are closing in on Obama. Sound like old Joe may be singing for his supper, still trying to get that coveted Obama endorsement. It took some pollsters only a few minutes to tell us that V.P. Biden, or #21, has a nine-point lead on President Trump. It reminded some of us of other polls from days gone by, such as this one from the spring of 1983, when President Ronald Reagan was coming out of the 198182 recession: The headline links to a Morning Consult story that found Biden with a 42 percent to 34 percent lead over President Trump in a hypothetical matchup. "Along with his advantage over Trump, Biden has held a consistent lead in Morning Consult's weekly tracking among likely Democratic primary voters," the report says. But the only thing shocking about this poll is that anyone would put any stock in such polls so early in the race. Just ask President John Glenn. In May 1983, a Gallup poll came out showing that then-Sen. John Glenn would do better in a matchup against President Reagan, with a far wider margin than the Biden/Trump split. As the New York Times reported on May 19 of that year, the survey "found that Senator Glenn led Mr. Reagan 54 percent to 37 percent." At that point, the eventual Democratic nominee, Walter Mondale, had a 49 percent to 43 percent edge over Reagan. A Harris survey in July 1983 concluded that "it seems certain that the 1984 presidential election will be close, with neither the President nor his most probable Democratic opponents assured of any solid lead." Actual result: Reagan won a massive landslide over Mondale, getting almost 59% of the popular vote and 525 electoral votes winning every state except Mondale's home state of Minnesota. The story points out that President George W. Bush was also trailing Senator Lieberman in the spring of 2003 by nine. My point is that voters vote on Election Day, not 19 months in advance. Time will tell whether President Trump is re-elected or not. He does have a stronger U.S. economy that President Reagan had a this time: "US economy grows by 3.2% in the first quarter, topping expectations." The moral of the story is to read polls with a little dose of healthy skepticism. PS: You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter. Ex-Moscow university student convicted of attempt to join ISIS released RIA Novosti, Kirill Kallinikov 09:50 27/04/2019 MOSCOW, April 27 (RAPSI) Varvara Karaulova, ex-student of the Moscow State University sentenced to 4.5 years for attempting to join the Islamic State (ISIS) militants in Syria, left prison on Saturday morning, her attorney Sergey Badamshin wrote on his Twitter account. Varvara Karaulova is at large, the lawyer stated. Karaulova filed her parole petition in late March. Russia's High Commissioner for Human Rights Tatiana Moskalkova also applied to court asking to grant Karaulova's petition. However, penitentiary officials objected to the convict's early release, according to Badamshin. On April 16, a court in Russias Vologda granted parole to Karaulova. The second-year student of the Moscow State Universitys Faculty of Philosophy decided to join ISIS, a terrorist organization prohibited in Russia, and secretly started off for Istanbul on May 27, 2015. Karaulova, who later changed her name to Alexandra Ivanova, was arrested on June 4, 2015, near Turkey's border with Syria along with 13 other Russian citizens when attempting to cross into the territory occupied by Islamic State terrorists. In October 2015, she was put in jail. She pleaded not guilty. In October 2016, Karaulova was expelled from the university. In December 2016, the Moscow District Military Court found that Karaulova decided to participate in the Islamic State terrorist groups activities. The court noted that she shared organization's ideology. Karaulova was given a 4.5-year prison term. The Russian Supreme Court has upheld the sentence. Marysville, CA (95901) Today Rain showers early will evolve into a more steady rain overnight. Low 48F. Winds SSE at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall around a half an inch. Locally heavy rainfall possible.. Tonight Rain showers early will evolve into a more steady rain overnight. Low 48F. Winds SSE at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall around a half an inch. Locally heavy rainfall possible. MINSK/MOSCOW, April 27: Russia plans to restore oil supplies via its key Druzhba pipeline to Europe in two weeks, after joint talks with Belarus, Ukraine and Poland on Friday in Minsk. Poland, Germany, Ukraine and other countries suspended imports of Russian oil via the pipeline this week due to contamination. Halting those supplies has knock-on effects further along the network. After joint talks in the Belarus capital on Friday, Russias Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak said in a statement that the four countries had agreed on joint measures to eliminate the effects of the contamination. This would allow us, as earlier planned, to supply... (clean) oil to the border with Belarus by April 29 and to restore the pipeline (to stability) in two weeks, Kozak said in the statement on Friday. Pavel Sorokin, Russias deputy energy minister, told reporters in Minsk after the talks that one of the options for supplying clean oil was to mix the contaminated product with regular supply. Russias pipeline monopoly Transneft said on Friday that the contamination which led to the suspension of the oil flows to Europe could be deliberate, Interfax news agency reported. The problem arose last week when an unidentified Russian producer contaminated oil with high levels of organic chloride, which is typically used to boost oil output but which must be separated before shipment as it can destroy refining equipment. A criminal case was opened over an intended contamination of Russian oil, Transneft spokesman, Igor Dyomin, was quoted as saying by Interfax. The pollution was detected at the private Samara Transneft-terminal, where oil is being supplied to the system, according to Transnefts Dyomin. He said the terminal receives crude oil from a number of small producers. Dyomin did not name the producers but said investigators were making searches at a number of private companies in the Volga town of Samara. Reuters could not reach the Samara Transneft-terminal via telephone due to the late hour. TRANSIT SUSPENDED Ukrtransnafta suspended the transit of oil through the pipeline on Thursday, closing supplies via Druzhbas southern route to Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary. The suspension cut off a major supply route for Polish refineries owned by Polands PKN Orlen and Grupa Lotos, as well as plants in Germany owned by Total, Shell, Eni and Rosneft. The pipeline issue, which has supported global oil prices, lifted Russian Urals crude differentials to an all-time high on Thursday. [O/R] With pipeline supplies to Europe shut, Russia faces a challenge of how to divert about 1 million barrels per day (bpd) that was meant to be shipped through the network to other destinations at a time when export capacity is at its limits. State-run Russian Railways held talks with domestic companies on using up to 5,000 rail tankers to transport crude, the RIA news agency reported on Friday. Concerns about the quality of Urals crude also caused delays in loadings at the Baltic port of Ust-Luga, resulting in a brief shutdown on Wednesday and Thursday. A port official and traders said on Friday loadings had resumed. Russian loading plans indicate it aims to boost Urals exports in May before the expiry of a deal on output cuts agreed with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies, Reuters calculations and Energy Ministry data show. The new tariff structure was to come into force from May 2, the spokeswoman said without citing reasons for the delay. Trade friction between India and the US has escalated after US President Donald Trump announced plans earlier this year to end preferential trade treatment for India. India has once again delayed the implementation of higher tariffs on some goods imported from the United States to May 15, a government official said on Friday. The new tariff structure was to come into force from May 2, the spokeswoman said without citing reasons for the delay. Angered by Washingtons refusal to exempt it from new steel and aluminum tariffs, New Delhi decided in June last year to raise the import tax from Aug. 4 on some US products including almonds, walnuts and apples. But since then, New Delhi has repeatedly delayed the implementation of the new tariff. Trade friction between India and the US has escalated after US President Donald Trump announced plans earlier this year to end preferential trade treatment for India that allows duty-free entry for up to USD 5.6 billion worth of its exports to the United States. In a further blow, US on Monday demanded buyers of Iranian oil stop purchases by May or face sanctions, ending six months of waivers which allowed Irans eight biggest buyers including India to continue importing limited volumes. The hike in duty is likely to make imports of wheat unviable for flour mills even after recent declines in global prices India has raised the price at which it buys new-season wheat from local farmers by 6 per cent to 1,840 rupees per 100 kg for 2019. (Photo: PTI) Mumbai: India has raised its import duty on wheat to 40 per cent from 30 percent, the government said late on Friday, as the worlds no 2 producer of the grain tries to support local farmers. The step comes as Prime Minister Narendra Modis party looks to contain rural discontent due to lower crop prices amid voting in a general election that began on April 11 and ends on May 19. Local wheat prices have fallen over 11 per cent in 2019 due to ample supply from last years crop and forecasts of record output. The hike in duty is likely to make imports of wheat unviable for flour mills even after recent declines in global prices, potentially dragging further on global grain markets. Local wheat production is higher. The government is now trying to ensure prices remain above support levels, said Harish Galipelli, head of commodities and currencies at Inditrade Derivatives & Commodities in Mumbai. India has raised the price at which it buys new-season wheat from local farmers by 6 per cent to 1,840 rupees per 100 kg for 2019. The government usually purchases about a quarter of such wheat from farmers at state-set prices to build stocks to run a major food welfare programme. Indias wheat production will rise 2 per cent in 2019 from the year before to a record 99.12 million tonnes, according to estimates from the countrys agriculture department. Only one wheat crop is grown in India each year, with planting starting in late October and harvesting in March. Government wheat stocks stood at 17 million tonnes as of April 1, up nearly 30 percent from the same time a year ago. At 40 percent import duty, imports are not viable for flour mills. They have to buy local crop, said a Mumbai-based grain dealer with a global trading firm. He declined to be identified as he was not authorised to speak with media. Indian flour millers imported 1.65 million tonnes of wheat in the 2017/18 fiscal year, down from 5.7 million tonnes the year before. Those shipments were mainly from Australia, Russia and Ukraine. Yadavs attack came days after he lashed out at the Congress for its too big ego. Lucknow: In a reflection of growing distrust among non-BJP parties, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Friday openly doubted the Congress seriousness in stopping the saffron party led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi from returning to power, claiming that the Grand Old Party is more focused on preparing a ground for winning the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections in 2022. Reiterating that Uttar Pradesh will give the country a new Prime Minister, Mr Yadav said that the SP and the BSP formed an alliance to stop the communal party and in the process sacrificed seats in national interest, but the Congress agenda in the ongoing parliamentary polls is not to stop the BJP from forming the next government at the Centre. They are working for making the next UP chief minister in 2022 (when the next Assembly polls are due). Mr Yadavs attack came days after he lashed out at the Congress for its too big ego. The SP presidents remarks assume significance against the backdrop of Congress chief Rahul Gandhi himself asserting that his party will form the government at the Centre and after the Lok Sabha polls, the next target is (UP) Assembly elections (in 2022) to ensure that the state is at the top in education, health and employment as before. At his recent rally in Kanpur rally, the SP chief had sharpened his attack against the Congress, which has been kept out by the SP-BSP-RLD alliance in Uttar Pradesh for Lok Sabha elections. Like the BJP, the Congress too believes in threatening political opponents, he had said. On Friday, the SP chief dismissed Prime Minister Narendra Modis prediction that the SP-BSP alliance will crack the moment election results are out on May 23. What has the BJP got to do with it? Why are they bothered? In UP we are strong and the BJP is nowhere. And this is the ground reality. They are trailing far behind the alliance, he said. When asked as to who will be the Prime Minister, if his alliance gets adequate seats, Mr Yadav said, Unlike the BJP, which has only one face, we have a number of leaders. No one should worry about this. About Samajwadi Partys role at the Centre after the declaration of Lok Sabha results on May 23, Mr Yadav said, I am not in the race for becoming Prime Minister. But the alliance is going to give new government and new Prime Minister. Appropriate decision is taken at an opportune time. Presently, we are focusing on the campaign and are sure of winning maximum number of seats in the state. Attacking Mr Modi, he said, He is fooling everyone. He should tell has corruption stopped, has black-money stashed abroad returned, how much investment came, why jobs are vanishing. They (BJP) will never talk on this. They are masters in diverting attention of people from core issues. Uttar Pradesh has the highest number of 80 Lok Sabha seats. The BJP and its ally, the Apna Dal, bagged 73 seats in 2014 polls. Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses etc all. Happy reading. Describing the events of the day, Mohsin said he had visited the helipad where the chopper of the Prime Minister was parked. Mohsin said he was not at the spot when the incident happened and was not aware of what happened at the helipad. (Photo: AFP | File) Mumbai: Mohammed Mohsin, the IAS officer who was suspended by the Election Commission on April 16 for checking the chopper of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said he had not violated any rules and was unaware of the charges against him. I acted strictly as per the letter and spirit of the ECI guidelines. I have not violated any rules and I have not done anything wrong in this matter. This is why I asked for a copy of the report against me, but they have so far not shared this. I am fighting this case in the dark, he said. Mohsin said he was not at the spot when the incident happened and was not aware of what happened at the helipad. He had only read media reports, which he can neither confirm nor deny. Describing the events of the day, Mohsin said he had visited the helipad where the chopper of the Prime Minister was parked. The observers duty is to see that video teams are utilised in a proper manner. So, I advised them and left the place. I went to the venue of the function and sat there for five minutes in the police control room. By then the collector had joined me Later, while sitting in the DCs office, I got a call from the Deputy Chief Election Commissioner asking if I had ordered for frisking to be carried out, which I denied. He wanted a report and I replied. All of a sudden around 11.30 pm they suspended me, he added. Mohsin said he would fight in the court of law. "I am a career bureaucrat with 22 years of service. I don't belong to any party. I go by rules," he said. On Thursday, the poll body revoked his suspension but recommended the state government to carry out disciplinary action against him. Mohsin, an officer of the 1996 Karnataka cadre, was serving as general observer for the Sambalpur Lok Sabha constituency in Odisha, where PM Modi addressed a rally on April 17. New Delhi has already submitted all evidence to Beijing of the terrorist activities of Azhar, who heads the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM). New Delhi: British high commissioner to India Sir Dominic Asquith on Friday said he hopes that the one country (a reference to China without naming it) that has so far objected to the listing by the UN of Pakistan-based terrorist Masood Azhar as a global terrorist will lift its objection. He also said that after the Pulwama terror attack on February 14 this year, Britain had conveyed to Pakistan the need to take irreversible action against terror groups operating near the Line of Control (LoC). On the Masood Azhar issue, Sir Dominic said, Its in the UN at the moment. Were waiting to see whether the country that has so far been resisting agreeing to his listing will lift its objection. I remain optimistic that we will get to that conclusion. Weve been strong supporters of the listing of Masood Azhar for a decade. So I hope we will get to that conclusion shortly. ... I remain optimistic that it will be resolved. On Britains role in defusing the post-Pulwama tensions between India and Pakistan, the British high commissioner said, On Pakistan, we were practically involved in both sides, certainly talking to a variety of key actors over in Pakistan to make it clear what we expected in terms of Pakistani action against those terror groups who were operating around the LoC in terms of verifiable and publicly declared irreversible action against those groups. On a lighter note, he added in jest, So dont mistake natural British modesty in what we say in public with a lack of activity. It may be recalled that on the Masood Azhar issue, India too is extremely hopeful that China will soon agree to the listing of Azhar as a global terrorist by the UN. New Delhi has already submitted all evidence to Beijing of the terrorist activities of Azhar, who heads the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM). It may be recalled that the MEA had on Monday said, We have shared with China all evidences of terrorist activities of Jaish-e-Mohammad and its leader Masood Azhar. It is now for the 1267 Sanctions Committee and other authorised bodies of the UN to take a decision on the listing of Masood Azhar. India will continue to pursue all available avenues to ensure that terrorist leaders who are involved in heinous attacks on our citizens are brought to justice. Two chargesheets were filed by the CBI in August and September 1990 against Malik before the designated TADA court in Jammu. Jammu: Decks were cleared Thursday for the trial of JKLF chief Yasin Malik in Jammu in two nearly 30-year-old cases relating to gunning down of IAF personnel and the Rubiya Syed kidnapping, with the Jammu and Kashmir high court striking down a 2008 order that had transferred their hearing to Srinagar. In a 27-page judgement, Justice Sanjay Kumar Gupta also vacated an order by a single bench of the high court which had stayed trial against Malik in 1995, besides observing that the October 25, 2008 order of special TADA court of Jammu allowing Maliks petition for shifting trial to Srinagar was not correct. ...From bare perusal of contents of petitions and relief sought therein, one can definitely come to conclusion that petitioners (Malik) have sought transfer of their cases from designated court Jammu to additional court at Srinagar, which is not permissible under law, Justice Gupta said in his order. Malik is presently lodged in Tihar jail in New Delhi after being arrested by the NIA in a case related to financing of terror and separatists organisations. The two cases relate to the killing of Indian Air Force officers on January 25, 1990 in the outskirts of Srinagar city and the kidnapping of then union home minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeeds daughter in 1989. Two chargesheets were filed by the CBI in August and September 1990 against Malik before the designated TADA court in Jammu. In 1995, he was granted a stay on trial by a single bench of the Jammu and Kashmir high court as there was no TADA court in Srinagar. In 2008, Malik approached the special court saying that the trial could be shifted to Srinagar as he was facing lot of problems of security in view of the Amarnath row - an agitation which had divided people of Kashmir and Jammu on religious lines over the issue of leasing out land to outsiders during the annual Amarnath pilgrimage. CBI counsel Monika Kohli argued before the high court that the agency had opposed transfer of cases to Srinagar which was rejected. She also informed the court that petitions challenging the order of TADA court were filed with the high court but the same could not be heard so far. During the pendency of trial in this case as well, an application was filed by the accused persons seeking transfer of the case to the designated TADA Court at Srinagar. The CBI filed objections and opposed the application, which was rejected by the order dated April 20, 2009. Kathmandu, Nepal, April 27, 2019: Minister for Land Reform and Management Padma Kumari Aryal has claimed that the land at Lalita Niwas of Baluwatar, Kathmandu was transferred in the name of Nepal Communist Party (NCP) General Secretary Bishnu Poudels son Nabin Poudel from the land owner legally. The government will not seize the land purchased by Paudel, minister Aryal, who is also a leader of the NCP, said while speaking at an interaction program in Kathmandu on Saturday. As Poudel purchased the land through a businessman legally, how can we accuse that Poudel family was involved in the land grab, minister Aryal questioned. Minister Aryal has made the claim in the mean time when there are widespread allegations that NCP leader Paudel was among those owning controversial land at Lalita Niwas. It is reported that the duly acquired by the government was illegally transferred to the names of private individuals including NCP leader Paudel. Investigation report has also stated that Paudel had purchased 8 aana of land at Lalita Niwas through a controversial businessman. A huge crowd gathered to catch a glimpse of the actor-politician. The battle went on to be immortalised by Deol's film Border in which he played the character of Major Kuldip Singh Chandpuri. (Photo: ANI twitter) Barmer: Bollywood actor Sunny Deol, who recently joined the Bharatiya Janata Party, held his first roadshow here on Saturday. A huge crowd gathered to catch a glimpse of the actor-politician. Some of them were seen gifting him his portrait while others gave him a headgear. Dressed in a white shirt and sporting a cap, the actor happily accepted the gifts even as his famous dialogue from the movie 'Gadar' - "Hindustan zindabad tha, zindabad hai, zindabad rahega" played in the background as he waved at the crowd. #WATCH Barmer: Sunny Deol holds his first roadshow after joining BJP, campaigns for BJP LS candidate from Barmer, Kailash Choudhary. Dialogue from the movie 'Gadar', "Hindustan Zindabad tha, zindabad hai, zindabad rahega" heard in the background #Rajasthan #LokSabhaElections2019 pic.twitter.com/OjVXPJRJkU ANI (@ANI) April 27, 2019 The place has a distinct connection with the actor. During the battle of Longewala in 1971, a Company (120 soldiers from 23rd Battalion, Punjab Regiment) of the Indian Army, commanded by Major Kuldip Singh Chandpuri, registered a brilliant victory over a Brigade (2000-3000 soldiers) of the Pakistani Army. The Pakistani attacking force consisted of 40-45 tanks as well. The battle went on to be immortalised by Deol's film Border in which he played the character of Major Kuldip Singh Chandpuri. It was Uttarlai Air Base in Barmer from where Indian Air Force jets took off in support of the ground forces. Uttarlai Air Base was also one of the bases that Pakistan Air Force struck on December 3, 1971, which started the war between India and Pakistan. Sunny Deol has been fielded from Gurudaspur from where late actor Vinod Khanna had contested successfully on a BJP ticket. Deol, who joined BJP just four days ago on April 23, has already come under electoral crosshairs of the party's rivals with Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh terming him a filmi fauji. Sunny Deol is a filmi fauji, while I am a real fauji. Captain Amarinder Singh had said in Gurdaspur, Punjab on Friday. Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses etc all. Happy reading. Shah said during the Congress-led UPA government, terror groups from Pakistan used to target India continuously. Medininagar: BJP president Amit Shah on Saturday said that Article 370 will be withdrawn from Jammu and Kashmir, if the saffron party is voted to power again. "We will remove Article 370 if you make Narendra Modi the prime minister again," Shah said at a public rally here in Palamau district in Jharkhand. Shah said during the Congress-led UPA government, terror groups from Pakistan used to target India continuously. Jawans were beheaded by terrorists also, he said. "We cannot compromise with the security of the nation. Pakistan wants to separate Kashmir from India. We will not allow it. Pakistan se goli aayegi to yahan se gola jayega (if a bullet comes here, a shell lands there)," the BJP president said. Launching a scathing attack on National Conference leader Omar Abdullah for his remarks on having a separate prime minister for Kashmir, the BJP president said Kashmir is an inseparable part of India. "Should there be two prime ministers for one country?" Shah asked the people. The BJP has given the nation Modi as Prime Minister and the security of the country has been strengthened ever since, he said. "When the nation rejoiced with sweets following the February 26 Balakot air strike, a pall of gloom descended on the Congress and Pakistan," Shah said. He ridiculed Congress leader Sam Pitroda for saying that "some boys" had committed mistake and dropped bombs, and there should be talks. Drawing a parallel between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, BJP president Amit Shah on Saturday said while the Prime Minister works for 18 hours a day, Gandhi goes on vacations every two-three months. I have been working with Modiji since Gujarat, for the twenty years that I have known him he has not taken even a days leave from work. On the other hand, you have Rahul baba, who goes for international vacations every two-three months leaving his party leaders, workers, and even his own mother worried, he said while addressing a poll rally here. Upping the ante ahead of polls in the state, Shah claimed that Congress never gave a fitting reply to Pakistan during its tenure. My heart still pains when I remember the cowardly attack when Pakistani soldiers mutilated the body of Hemraj (an Indian soldier) and disrespected him by kicking his decapitated head when Congress was in power. Yet, the UPA did nothing, Manmohan Singhji stayed silent as usual, he claimed. Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses etc all. Happy reading. The West Bengal chief minister claimed that if Mr Modi would end up breaking his teeth if he would try to have a bite of it. Kolkata: Stung by Prime Minister Narendra Modis revealation of her sweet rapport with him at the personal level Trinamul Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee on Friday declared that West Bengal would gift him clay-made rasgullas filled with gravel instead of votes this time in the Lok Sabha Election. The West Bengal chief minister claimed that if Mr Modi would end up breaking his teeth if he would try to have a bite of it. Her attack on the PM came a day after she acknowledged of sending Kurta and sweets as a courtsey to him. Mr Modi is not coming to power this time. He now fears of visiting any place. He frequents Bengal which he did not do earlier. He did not come here during any season. But when the poll season has come, he says he wants votes from Bengal. Bengal will give you Rosogolla now, Ms Banerjee alleged at an election campaign rally in Raniganj in support of Trinamul candidate of Asansol Moon Moon Sen. She angrily told Mr Modi, What will be the rasgulla type? It will not be an regular one. We will make the sweet with clay and fill it with gravel exactly the way cashew nuts and raisins are put in Laddoos so that when he will try to have a bite, his teeth will break. This type of sweet will be served to him. Before concluding her speech Ms Banerjee asked the women in the crowd, Have you cooked food at home before coming here? Cook some food and sweets to beat the BJP. She added, Those will be the sweets made of clay and will be filled with gravel which will be given to them. On Thursday the Trinamul chief however said, Modi Babu said in an interview as if I send him Kurta. What is the fault if it is sent? We send something or the other to all on the occasion of Durga Puja. I send gifts not only to Mr Modi but also to many others who hold important positions. The difference is they reveal it but I do not because this is not our culture. He only revealed his name but I can take 100 names. Slamming Mr Modi she claimed, But we never disclose it. It is courtsey. Courtsey and politics are different. Image can not be built by such type of politics and marketing even of courtsey. Just imagine how much we treat you gently. Still you threat me daily. Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses etc all. Happy reading. His remarks come a day after Mr Modi claimed that the Congress wouldnt get even 50 seats in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections. Mumbai: Senior Congress leader and former Union minister P. Chidambaram on Saturday accused the Election Commission (EC) of failing the people of the country, alleging that it was partisan and reluctant to take action against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for poll code violations. Addressing a press conference in Mumbai Congress office, Mr Chidambaram, who was accompanied by the state Congress president Ashok Chavan, also said that as much as Rs 10 crore is spent on every rally of the Prime Minister. He alleged, Unpreceden-ted expenses for the PMs rallies. About Rs 10 crore is spent on each rally. The EC is failing the people of the country. The Congress leader claimed that his party and the allies have a significant lead over the BJP-led NDA at the end of the first three phases of Lok Sabha polls, wherein voting has taken place in 303 constituencies. His remarks come a day after Mr Modi claimed that the Congress wouldnt get even 50 seats in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections. On questioning him about the same, he said, One cant stop anybody from dreaming. Modi dreams not only when he is asleep, but also when he is awake. Mr Chavan, who was also present at the press conference, demanded that the EC probe Fridays incident in Dhule where a box was brought out of an aircraft ferrying Civil Aviation Minister Suresh Prabhu. The box surely didnt contain mangoes. It was something more. The EC should take cognisance of the matter and should investigate it. On Friday, speaking with reporters in Shirdi, Mr Prabhu had dismissed a video clip which claimed that a mysterious box was taken out of a plane carrying him when it landed in Dhule. Responding to a question about the clip and the accompanying message which alleged that the box contained Rs 15 crore. Raj Kishore, an elderly farmer, complained bitterly about villagers having to stay awake night after night guarding their crops from wandering cows. With the third round of voting in Indias seven-part general elections over, speculation about who will win from where is in full swing. But beyond guesstimates and poll arithmetic, are there any clear indications on the ground? An 1,800-km road journey last week through Uttar Pradesh, the countrys electoral barometer state, threw up two clear insights what people are talking about depends on not only who they are, but where you interact with them. There is a huge difference between highways and byways, between the main street and the back alley, between areas that are easy to reach and those that have poor approach roads. Conversations in highway dhabas, run mostly by Thakurs, Yadavs, Rajputs and Brahmins, were formulaic. Be it National Highway 19, NH31 or NH30, almost everyone had more or less the same things to say. They were enthused by the Modi Sarkar and the narrative of the strongman who can save India from enemies. Young men were particularly taken in by the visual imagery of that line by Prime Minister Narendra Modi about going into Pakistani territory and taking revenge. Durga Hotel, a highway dhaba near Jaswantnagar city in UPs Etawah, caters to pure vegetarians. Tapash Yadav, the young man managing the place, jokes that if its election time, therell be fewer power cuts and customers should enjoy their cold drinks. Yadav, a graduate, is convinced that while theres no wave in favour of anyone, the BJP will outsmart its rivals in Etawah and elsewhere in UP because it has been smart in its calculations and the victory will be in the name of Hindustan and in the name of national security. He didnt think the political alliance of the Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and Rashtriya Lok Dal, contesting unitedly as the Mahagathbandhan could really challenge the BJP. At another highway dhaba in Fatehpur, its the same talk about strongman Modi and the national security argument relentlessly pushed by the BJP. The same arguments popped up in a tony hairdressing salon in Varanasi. A young man working there admitted there had been no improvement in his own life, but he was impressed by the new roads, bridges and flyovers that were coming up. He too believed only Narendra Modi could subjugate Pakistan and anti-nationals. That is the highway and the main street. But walk down village roads and potholed alleys to urban neighbourhoods where the poor and marginalised lived cheek by jowl, and a totally different narrative emerges. In villages, where nearly 80 per cent of UPs 200 million people live, the bleak state of the rural economy is the big issue. That, and jobs for the youth. I didnt once hear the words Pulwama or Balakot. In Prime Minister Modis constituency Varanasi, Phoolwaria is a neighbourhood that houses dalits and poor Muslims. Its not easy to access the place; a car can easily get stuck in the narrow, potholed back lanes. But Phoolwarias residents, especially young women, are keen to have their voices heard. The talk is only about jobs and despair. One 18-year-old dalit girl said though she was of voting age, her name was not on the voters list. Young dalit men talked about not finding jobs despite trying repeatedly. Shabnam, 24, is from the first generation in her family to be educated. Her father, an auto rickshaw driver, had made sure that all his four daughters had access to education. Shabnam graduated from Varanasis Mahatma Gandhi Kashi Vidyapith. But like millions of graduates, Shabnams dream of landing a government job any government job had not materialised though she had sat for many competitive exams. Who did she support in the elections? The Mahagathbandhan has representation from different communities and understands our needs best. For Phoolwarias youngsters like Shabnam, jobs were the main concern. Young Muslim women I met said they had to tackle many social barriers to pursue higher education and it would be a lot easier to convince their families about the desirability of a woman going out to work if she landed a secure government job. Last year, a national newspaper noted 3,700 PhD holders, 50,000 graduates and 28,000 postgraduates had applied for 62 posts of UP police messengers. The post requires a minimum eligibility of Class 5. But Muslim sentiment was not homogenous. In Varanasis Lallapura area, Muslim shopowners selling Benarasi saris were fans of Mr Modi. If his flashy style and events like the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas can get more NRIs to the city and to my shop, why should I complain, said a young man who owned a popular sari store. Taking a detour off the Lucknow-Agra expressway and walking down to Behrin village in UPs Kannauj district, I encountered the same disenchantment with the BJP. As elsewhere in UP, Behrins farmers were livid about the stray cattle menace and its impact on their crops. Raj Kishore, an elderly farmer, complained bitterly about villagers having to stay awake night after night guarding their crops from wandering cows. No one wants to keep cows. What will we do with them when they get old? Who will feed them? Earlier we used to sell off aged cows, now we cant. So we have switched to buffaloes. The farmers were angry that the BJP governments at the Centre and the state had not created enough shelters for cows before implementing the ban on cow slaughter. This, they made clear, had knocked the rural economy where farmers would keep cattle to sell their milk. The accepted practice was to sell the cattle to slaughterhouses when they were past the age of producing milk. The ban and the open threat by cow vigilante groups supporting the BJP left farmers no choice but to let their cattle stray as they could no longer afford to feed them. Raj Kishore talked about stray cows meeting with accidents and dying uncared for in the few shelters that had come up. College-going women in Behrin said even they were affected by the stray cattle menace because they also had to help their families protect the crops. Once again, their big issue was jobs, specifically government jobs. On the ongoing polls, what you hear in UP depends on how far you walk from the main roads.What is the big picture from Uttar Pradeshs 80 Lok Sabha seats? We shall know within a month. Demand for nanosatellites as small as a shoebox is expected to explode in the next few years. LinkSpace, one of Chinas 15-plus private rocket manufacturers, sees these short hops as the first steps towards a new business model: sending tiny, inexpensive satellites into orbit at affordable prices. During initial tests of their 8.1-metre (27-foot) tall reusable rocket, Chinese engineers from LinkSpace, a start-up led by Chinas youngest space entrepreneur, used a Kevlar tether to ensure its safe return. Just in case. But when the Beijing-based companys prototype, called NewLine Baby, successfully took off and landed last week for the second time in two months, no tether was needed. The 1.5-tonne rocket hovered 40 meters above the ground before descending back to its concrete launch pad after 30 seconds, to the relief of 26-year-old chief executive Hu Zhenyu and his engineers - one of whom cartwheeled his way to the launch pad in delight. LinkSpace, one of Chinas 15-plus private rocket manufacturers, sees these short hops as the first steps towards a new business model: sending tiny, inexpensive satellites into orbit at affordable prices. Demand for these so-called nanosatellites - which weigh less than 10 kilograms (22 pounds) and are in some cases as small as a shoebox - is expected to explode in the next few years. And Chinas rocket entrepreneurs reckon there is no better place to develop inexpensive launch vehicles than their home country. For suborbital clients, their focus will be on scientific research and some commercial uses. After entering orbit, the near-term focus (of clients) will certainly be on satellites, Hu said. In the near term, China envisions massive constellations of commercial satellites that can offer services ranging from high-speed internet for aircraft to tracking coal shipments. Universities conducting experiments and companies looking to offer remote-sensing and communication services are among the potential domestic customers for nanosatellites. A handful of US small-rocket companies are also developing launchers ahead of the expected boom. One of the biggest, Rocket Lab, has already put 25 satellites in orbit. No private company in China has done that yet. Since October, two - LandSpace and OneSpace - have tried but failed, illustrating the difficulties facing space start-ups everywhere. The Chinese companies are approaching inexpensive launches in different ways. Some, like OneSpace, are designing cheap, disposable boosters. LinkSpaces Hu aspires to build reusable rockets that return to Earth after delivering their payload, much like the Falcon 9 rockets of Elon Musks SpaceX. If youre a small company and you can only build a very, very small rocket because thats all you have money for, then your profit margins are going to be narrower, said Macro Caceres, analyst at US aerospace consultancy Teal Group. But if you can take that small rocket and make it reusable, and you can launch it once a week, four times a month, 50 times a year, then with more volume, your profit increases, Caceres added. Eventually LinkSpace hopes to charge no more than 30 million yuan ($4.48 million) per launch, Hu told Reuters. That is a fraction of the $25 million to $30 million needed for a launch on a Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems Pegasus, a commonly used small rocket. The Pegasus is launched from a high-flying aircraft and is not reusable. NEED FOR CASH LinkSpace plans to conduct suborbital launch tests using a bigger recoverable rocket in the first half of 2020, reaching altitudes of at least 100 kilometers, then an orbital launch in 2021, Hu told Reuters. The company is in its third round of fundraising and wants to raise up to 100 million yuan, Hu said. It had secured tens of millions of yuan in previous rounds. After a surge in fresh funding in 2018, firms like LinkSpace are pushing out prototypes, planning more tests and even proposing operational launches this year. Last year, equity investment in Chinas space start-ups reached 3.57 billion yuan ($533 million), a report by Beijing-based investor FutureAerospace shows, with a burst of financing in late 2018. That accounted for about 18 per cent of global space start-up investments in 2018, a historic high, according to Reuters calculations based on a global estimate by Space Angels. The New York-based venture capital firm said global space start-up investments totaled $2.97 billion last year. Costs for rocket companies are relatively high, but as to how much funding they need, be it in the hundreds of millions, or tens of millions, or even just a few million yuan, depends on the companys stage of development, said Niu Min, founder of FutureAerospace. FutureAerospace has invested tens of millions of yuan in LandSpace, based in Beijing. Like space-launch startups elsewhere in the world, the immediate challenge for Chinese entrepreneurs is developing a safe and reliable rocket. Proven talent to develop such hardware can be found in Chinas state research institutes or the military; the government directly supports private firms by allowing them to launch from military-controlled facilities. But its still a high-risk business, and one unsuccessful launch might kill a company. The biggest problem facing all commercial space companies, especially early-stage entrepreneurs, is failure of an attempted flight, Liang Jianjun, chief executive of rocket company Space Trek, told Reuters. That can affect financing, research, manufacturing and the teams morale, he added. Space Trek is planning its first suborbital launch by the end of June and an orbital launch next year, said Liang, who founded the company in late 2017 with three other former military technical officers. Despite LandSpaces failed Zhuque-1 orbital launch in October, the Beijing-based firm secured 300 million yuan in additional funding for the development of its Zhuque-2 rocket a month later. In December, the company started operating Chinas first private rocket production facility in Zhejiang province, in anticipation of large-scale manufacturing of its Zhuque-2, which it expects to unveil next year. STATE COMPETITION Chinas state defense contractors are also trying to get into the low-cost market. In December, the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp (CASIC) successfully launched a low-orbit communication satellite, the first of 156 that CASIC aims to deploy by 2022 to provide more stable broadband connectivity to rural China and eventually developing countries. The satellite, Hongyun-1, was launched on a rocket supplied by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp (CASC), the nations main space contractor. In early April, the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALVT), a subsidiary of CASC, completed engine tests for its Dragon, Chinas first rocket meant solely for commercial use, clearing the path for a maiden flight before July. The Dragon, much bigger than the rockets being developed by private firms, is designed to carry multiple commercial satellites. At least 35 private Chinese companies are working to produce more satellites. Spacety, a satellite maker based in southern Hunan province, plans to put 20 satellites in orbit this year, including its first for a foreign client, chief executive Yang Feng told Reuters. The company has only launched 12 on state-produced rockets since the company started operating in early 2016. When it comes to rocket launches, what we care about would be cost, reliability and time, Yang said. British culture minister Jeremy Wright said he could not rule out a criminal investigation. The leak of secret discussions has sparked anger in parliament and amongst Britains intelligence community. Britain must get to the bottom of the leak of confidential discussions during a top-level security meeting about the role of Chinas Huawei Technologies in 5G network supply chains, British finance minister Philip Hammond said on Friday. News that Britains National Security Council, attended by senior ministers and spy chiefs, had agreed on Tuesday to bar Huawei from all core parts of the countrys 5G network and restrict its access to non-core elements was leaked to a national newspaper. The leak of secret discussions has sparked anger in parliament and amongst Britains intelligence community. Britains most senior civil servant Mark Sedwill has launched an inquiry and written to ministers who were at the meeting. My understanding from London (is) that an investigation has been announced into apparent leaks from the NSC meeting earlier this week, said Hammond, speaking on the sidelines of a summit on Chinas Belt and Road initiative in Beijing. To my knowledge there has never been a leak from a National Security Council meeting before and therefore I think it is very important that we get to the bottom of what happened here, he told Reuters in a pooled interview. British culture minister Jeremy Wright said on Thursday he could not rule out a criminal investigation. The majority of the ministers at the NSC meeting have said they were not involved, according to media reports. Hammond said he was unaware of any previous leak from a meeting of the NSC. Its not about the substance of what was apparently leaked. Its not earth-shattering information. But it is important that we protect the principle that nothing that goes on in national security council meetings must ever be repeated outside the room. Allowing Huawei a reduced role in building its 5G network puts Britain at odds with the United States which has told allies not to use its technology at all because of fears it could be a vehicle for Chinese spying. Huawei has categorically denied this. There have been concerns that the NSCs conclusion, which sources confirmed to Reuters, could upset other allies in the worlds leading intelligence-sharing network - the Five Eyes alliance of the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. However, British ministers and intelligence officials have said any final decision on 5G would not put critical national infrastructure at risk. Ciaran Martin, head of the cyber center of Britains main eavesdropping agency, GCHQ, played down any threat of a rift in the Five Eyes alliance. Google Duo now allows group calls for its users in Indonesia. Users can also leave a video message by directly recording through the Google Duo app and also add text or doodle on it before sending it to the desired contact. Google Duo has been updated with a handful of new features such as data saving mode and group video calling ability in select regions, including Indonesia. As Gerbang.co reports, Google Duo now allows group calls for its users in Indonesia. Users can make group calls with up to four people. The company is expected to upgrade the group calling feature to include up to eight people in one call. Users can also leave a video message by directly recording through the Google Duo app and also add text or doodle on it before sending it to the desired contact. Toyotas announcement is a major blow to advocates of DSRC. Automakers were allocated a section of spectrum for DSRC in the 5.9 GHz band in 1999 but it has essentially gone unused. Some FCC and cable company officials want to reallocate the spectrum for WiFi and other uses. Testing has gone on for years to see if the band can be shared. Toyota Motor Corp said on Friday it was halting plans to install Dedicated Short-Range Communications technology on US vehicles aimed at letting cars and trucks communicate with one another to avoid collisions. Automakers have been divided over whether to proceed with the DSRC system or use a 4G- or 5G-based system in the United States. Toyotas announcement is a major blow to advocates of DSRC. The Japanese automaker announced plans in April 2018 to begin the installation of DSRC technology in 2021 with the goal of adoption across most of its lineup by the mid-2020s. On Friday, it said in a letter to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that unfortunately we have not seen significant production commitments from other automakers. Automakers were allocated a section of spectrum for DSRC in the 5.9 GHz band in 1999 but it has essentially gone unused. Some FCC and cable company officials want to reallocate the spectrum for WiFi and other uses. Testing has gone on for years to see if the band can be shared. DSRC supporters note the US Transportation Department has invested over $700 million in the systems development. The cellular option has issues, including problems with interoperability, and is not mature enough to be deployed in the 5.9 GHz band, they say. Toyota said Fridays decision was based on a range of factors, including the need for greater automotive industry commitment as well as federal government support to preserve the 5.9 GHz spectrum band for DSRC. The chance that the band could be subjected to harmful interference from unlicensed operations... creates a substantial and arguably insurmountable risk, the company said. It said that it would continue to re-evaluate the deployment environment and said it is still a strong backer of DSRC because we believe it is the only proven and available technology for collision avoidance communication. Toyotas announcement means it is imperative that the FCC provide clear guidance and certainty to the private sector companies and road operators that are trying to create a safer environment, said the Intelligent Transportation Society of American, a group representing public, private and academic organizations. DSRC transmissions enable vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications and broadcast precise vehicle information up to 10 times per second, including location, speed and acceleration. NHTSA has estimated that connected vehicles technologies could eliminate or reduce the severity of up to 80 per cent of crashes not involving impaired drivers. General Motors Co backs DSRC and has installed the technology on a small number of Cadillac CTS sedans it has sold since 2017. In December 2016, the Department of Transportation proposed to mandate DSRC in all new vehicles. The Trump administration has not acted on the proposal. Last year, the acting head of the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Heidi King, said the agencys past research has centered around DSRC because that was the only technology available. The NHTSA was exploring other technologies including cellular-based services being pursued by Ford Motor Co, she said. Ford said in January it planned to deploy cellular vehicle-to-everything technology, or C-V2X , in all new US vehicle models beginning in 2022. The Transportation Department plans a meeting on Monday with automakers and state transportation officials about connected vehicle efforts, officials said on Friday. A diamond weighing as much as 1,758 carats was unearthed by a Canadian mining company in Botswana. The colossal diamond that was retrived on Thursday weighed nearly 352 grams and measured 83mm x 62 mm x 46mm. (Photo:Twitter @LucaraDiamond) Gaborone: A diamond weighing as much as 1,758 carats was unearthed by a Canadian mining company in Botswana. The company running the Karowe diamond mine in central east Botswana believes the stone was one of the largest diamonds ever to have been unearthed, reports Xinhua news agency. The colossal diamond that was retrived on Thursday weighed nearly 352 grams and measured 83mm x 62 mm x 46mm. Eira Thomas, CEO of Lucara said that the technologically advanced, XRT diamond recovery circuit once again delivered exceptional and historic results. Since the new XRT plant was established, some 12 diamonds exceeding 300 carats have been sourced and produced. This also includes two stones that weighed over 1000 carats. Lucara owns 100 percent of the Botswana mine in Karowe and is a leading independent producer of big exceptional quality Type IIa diamonds, the company said in a statement. Botswana is the world's leading producer of high quality diamonds. The United States has imposed sanctions on Pakistan after it refused to take back its citizen deportees and visa over-stayers from America. Pakistan is the latest to join the list of 10 nations that have been imposed with sanctions under a US law. (Representational Image) Washington: The United States has imposed sanctions on Pakistan after it refused to take back its citizen deportees and visa over-stayers from America, warning that it might withhold visas of Pakistanis beginning from its senior officials. The State Department on Friday said consular operations in Pakistan remain "unchanged" as of now but as a result of such a sanction mentioned in a Federal Register notification dated April 22, the US might withhold visas of Pakistani nationals. Pakistan is the latest to join the list of 10 nations that have been imposed with sanctions under a US law according to which countries refusing to take back deportees and visa over-stayers will be denied American visas. The other countries include Ghana, Guyana in 2001, the Gambia in 2016, Cambodia, Eritrea, Guinea, and Sierra Leone in 2017, Burma and Laos in 2018. Under Section 243 (d) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the Secretary of State is required to discontinue granting immigration or non-immigrant visas to a nation upon receiving notice from the Homeland Security Secretary that the country has denied or is unreasonably delaying accepting a citizen, subject, national or resident of that country. The State Department tried to downplay the impact of the sanctions on Pakistan. "Consular operations in Pakistan remain unchanged," a State Department Spokesperson said. "This is a bilateral issue of ongoing discussion between the US and Pakistani governments and we are not going to get into the specifics at this time," the spokesperson added. "For some countries, sanctions begin by targeting officials who work in the ministries responsible for accepting the return of that country's nationals with escalation scenarios that target family members of those officials and potentially officials of other ministries and then other categories of applicants if initial sanctions do not prove effective at encouraging greater cooperation on removals by the targeted government," the US State Department federal register notification said. Former Pakistan Ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani, said this will make things difficult for Pakistanis. "This measure will create hardship for Pakistanis who want or need to travel to the US and could have been avoided if Pakistani authorities had not ignored American requests to respect their legal requirements for deportation," Mr Haqqani said, days after the federal register notification. He said Pakistan's refusal to accept it's citizen deported from the US is not new. "Pakistan's refusal to accept every Pakistani citizen deported from the US is not new. It seems that the US is no longer willing to overlook a wide range of official Pakistani behaviour. Bonhomie has been replaced by sanctions and restrictions based on Islamabad's policy decisions," Mr Haqqani said. While the law in this regard has been under existence since 1996, it is only in last several years that there had been increasing demand from lawmakers towards its enforcement against countries that had refused to accept deportees and visa over-stayers. In the last few years, India has been taking such deportees on special planes at regular intervals. The Trump administration after coming to power had said it will strictly enforce such provisions under the law. While section 243 (d) of the Immigration and Nationality Act was used only twice before 2017, the Trump Administration has been effective in using this provision on many countries, including Pakistan. However, the State Department federal register notification indicates that the number of visa denials under this sanction is far less. Since the law was modified to cover non-immigrant visas in 1996, 318 visa applicants have been affected, the notification said. "During this same time period, tens of millions of aliens have received non-immigrant visas including, collectively, millions of applicants from the 10 countries affected," the notification said. The Federal Register notification said that there is no set formula, though, notably the US has never issued a blanket refusal for visas from the countries in question. Consular operations in Pakistan remain unchanged. Pakistan's former Ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani, speculated that the new sanctions may create obstacles for Pakistani citizens wanting to travel to the United States. (Photo: File | Representational) Washington: The United States on Friday (local time) imposed visa sanctions on Pakistan after it refused to take back its citizen deportees and visa over-stayers, as per the US State Department. "Consular operations in Pakistan remain unchanged. This is a bilateral issue of ongoing discussion between the US and Pakistani governments and we are not going to get into the specifics at the time," Sputnik quoted a US State Department spokesperson as saying on Friday (local time). For some countries, the sanctions begin by targeting officials who work in the ministries responsible for accepting the return of that country's nationals, according to the State Department's federal register notification, dated April 22. "(The) escalation scenarios that target family members of those officials and potentially officials of other ministries and then other categories of applicants if initial sanctions do not prove effective at encouraging greater cooperation on removals by the targeted government," the notification adds. Pakistan's former Ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani, speculated that the new sanctions may create obstacles for Pakistani citizens wanting to travel to the United States. "This measure will create hardship for Pakistanis who want or need to travel to the US and could have been avoided if Pakistani authorities had not ignored American requests to respect their legal requirements for deportation," Sputnik quoted him as saying. Other countries against whom the US has introduced visa restrictions are Ghana, Guyana, the Gambia, Cambodia, Eritrea, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Myanmar and Laos. The very brief hearing ended with judge further remanding Modi till May 24. She scheduled a full hearing on May 30. London: A UK court on Friday further remanded till May 24 fugitive diamond merchant Nirav Modi who is undergoing extradition proceedings in Britain in the $1-billion Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud and money laundering case. The 48-year-old, who has been behind bars at Wandsworth prison in south-west London since his arrest last month, appeared before Westminster Magistrates Court Chief Magistrate Emma Arbuthnot via videolink from the jail. The very brief hearing ended with judge further remanding Modi till May 24. She scheduled a full hearing on May 30. Modis bail was rejected by Chief Magistrate Arbuthnot on March 29 on the grounds that there was a substantial risk he would fail to surrender. He is believed to have been living in the UK on an Investor Visa, applied for in 2015 at a time when the so-called golden visa route was relatively easier for super-rich individuals to acquire residency rights in the UK based on a minimum of 2-million pound investment. He was arrested by uniformed Scotland Yard officers on March 19. During his first court appearance a day later, it emerged that the diamantaire had been in possession of multiple passports, since revoked by the Indian authorities. There were nine suicide bombers who blew apart men, women and children as they sat to pray or ate breakfast. The blasts killed more than 250 people in churches and luxury hotels, one of the deadliest-ever such attacks in South Asia. (Photo:AP) Kattankudy: Mohamed Hashim Mohamed Zahran was 12 years old when he began his studies at the Jamiathul Falah Arabic College. He was a nobody, with no claim to scholarship other than ambition. Zahran and his four brothers and sisters squeezed into a two-room house with their parents in a small seaside town in eastern Sri Lanka; their father was a poor man who sold packets of food on the street and had a reputation for being a petty thief. "His father didn't do much," recalled the school's vice principal, S.M. Aliyar, laughing out loud. The boy surprised the school with his sharp mind. For three years, Zahran practiced memorizing the Koran. Next came his studies in Islamic law. But the more he learned, the more Zahran argued that his teachers were too liberal in their reading of the holy book. "He was against our teaching and the way we interpreted the Koran - he wanted his radical Islam," said Aliyar. "So we kicked him out." Aliyar, now 73 with a long white beard, remembers the day Zahran left in 2005. "His father came and asked, 'Where can he go?'." The school would hear again of Mohamed Zahran. And the world now knows his name. Sri Lankan officials have identified him as the suspected ringleader of a group that carried out a series of Easter Sunday suicide bombings in the country on April 21. The blasts killed more than 250 people in churches and luxury hotels, one of the deadliest-ever such attacks in South Asia. There were nine suicide bombers who blew apart men, women and children as they sat to pray or ate breakfast. Most of the attackers were well-educated and from wealthy families, with some having been abroad to study, according to Sri Lankan officials. That description does not, however, fit their alleged leader, a man said to be in his early 30s, who authorities say died in the slaughter. Zahran was different. Sri Lanka's national leadership has come under heavy criticism for failing to heed warnings from Indian intelligence services - at least three in April alone - that an attack was pending. But Zahran's path from provincial troublemaker to alleged jihadist mastermind was marked by years of missed or ignored signals that the man with a thick beard and paunch was dangerous. His increasingly militant brand of Islam was allowed to grow inside a marginalized minority community - barely 10 percent of the country's roughly 20 million people are Muslim - against a backdrop of a dysfunctional developing nation. The top official at the nation's defence ministry resigned on Thursday, saying that some institutions under his charge had failed. For much of his adult life, Zahran courted controversy inside the Muslim community itself. In the internet age, that problem did not stay local. Zahran released online videos calling for jihad and threatening bloodshed. After the blasts, ISIS claimed credit and posted a video of Zahran, clutching an assault rifle, standing before the group's black flag and pledging allegiance to its leader. The precise relationship between Zahran and ISIS is not yet known. An official with India's security services, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that during a raid on a suspected Islamic State cell by the National Investigation Agency earlier this year officers found copies of Zahran's videos. The operation was in the state of Tamil Nadu, just across a thin strait of ocean from Sri Lanka. Back in 2005, Zahran was looking to make his way in the world. His hometown of Kattankudy is some seven hours' drive from Colombo on the other side of the island nation, past the countless palm trees, roadside Buddha statues, cashew hawkers and an occasional lumbering elephant in the bush. It is a town of about 40,000 people, a dot on the eastern coast with no clear future for an impoverished young man who'd just been expelled. Zahran joined a mosque in 2006, the Dharul Athar, and gained a place on its management committee. But within three years they'd had a falling out. "He wanted to speak more independently, without taking advice from elders," said the mosque's imam, or spiritual leader, M.T.M. Fawaz. Also, the young man was more conservative, Fawaz said, objecting, for instance, to women wearing bangles or earrings. "The rest of us come together as community leaders but Zahran wanted to speak for himself," said Fawaz, a man with broad shoulders lounging with a group of friends in a back office of the mosque after evening prayers. "He was a black sheep who broke free." Mohamed Yusuf Mohamed Thaufeek, a friend who met Zahran at school and later became an adherent of his, said the problems revolved around Zahran's habit of misquoting Islamic scriptures. The mosque's committee banned him from preaching for three months in 2009. Zahran stormed off. "We treated him like a spoiled child, a very narrow-minded person who was always causing some trouble," said the head of the committee, Mohamed Ismail Mohamed Naushad, a timber supplier who shook his head at the memory. Now on his own, Zahran began to collect a group of followers who met in what Fawaz described as "a hut". At about that time, Zahran, then 23, married a young girl from a small town outside the capital of Colombo and brought his bride back to Kattankudy, according to his sister, Mathaniya. "I didn't have much of a connection with her - she was 14," she said. Despite being "a bit rough-edged", Zahran was a skilled speaker and others his age were drawn to his speeches and Koranic lessons, said Thaufeek. He travelled the countryside at times, giving his version of religious instruction as he went. Also, Zahran had found a popular target: the town's Sufi population, who practice a form of Islam often described a mystical, but which to conservatives is heresy. Tensions in the area went back some years. In 2004, there was a grenade attack on a Sufi mosque and in 2006 several homes of Sufis were set afire. Announcements boomed from surrounding mosques at the time calling for a Sufi spiritual leader to be killed, said Sahlan Khalil Rahman, secretary of a trust that oversees a group of Sufi mosques. He blamed followers of the fundamentalist Wahhabi strain of Islam that some locals say became more popular after funding from Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Wahhabism, flowed to mosques in Kattankudy. It was, Rahman said, an effort "to convert Sufis into Wahhabis through this terrorism". Rahman handed over a photograph album showing charred homes, bullet holes sprayed across an office wall and a shrine's casket upended. It was an ideal backdrop for Zahran's bellicose delivery and apparent sense of religious destiny. He began holding rallies, bellowing insults through loudspeakers that reverberated inside the Sufis' house of worship as they tried to pray. In 2012, Zahran started a mosque of his own. The Sufis were alarmed and, Rahman said, passed on complaints to both local law enforcement and eventually national government offices. No action was taken. The then-officer in charge of Kattankudy police, Ariyabandhu Wedagedara, said in a telephone interview that he couldn't arrest people simply because of theological differences. "The problem at the time was between followers of different Islamic sects - Zahran was not a major troublemaker, but he and followers of other sects, including the Sufis, were at loggerheads," Wedagedara said. Zahran found another megaphone: the internet. His Facebook page was taken down after the bombings, but Muslims in the area said his video clips had previously achieved notoriety. His speeches went from denouncing Sufis to "kafirs", or non-believers, in general. Zahran's sister, Mathaniya, said in an interview that she thought "his ideas became more radical from listening to Islamic State views on the Internet". In one undated video, Zahran, in a white tunic and standing in front of an image of flames, boomed in a loud voice: "You will not have time to pick up the remains of blown-up bodies. We'll keep sending those insulting Allah to hell." Zahran spoke in Tamil, making his words available to young Muslims clicking on their cellphones in Kattankudy and other towns like it during a period when, in both 2014 and 2018, reports and images spread of Sinhalese Buddhists rioting against Muslims in Sri Lanka. In 2017, Zahran's confrontations boiled over. At a rally near a Sufi community, his followers came wielding swords. At least one man was hacked and hospitalized. The police arrested several people connected to Zahran, including his father and one of his brothers. Zahran slipped away from public view. That December, the mosque Zahran founded released a public notice disowning him. Thaufeek, his friend from school, is now the head. He counted the places that Zahran had been driven away from - his school, the Dharul Athar mosque and then, "we ourselves kicked him out, which would have been hard for him to take". The next year, a group of Buddha statues was vandalised in the town of Mawanella, about five hours drive from Kattankudy. There, in the lush mountains of Sri Lanka's interior, Zahran had taken up temporary residence. "He was preaching to kill people," said A.G.M. Anees, who has served as an imam at a small mosque in the area for a decade. "This is not Islam, this is violence." On the Thursday morning before the Easter Sunday bombings, Zahran's sister-in-law knocked on the door of a neighbour who did seamstress work near Kattankudy. She handed over a parcel of fabric and asked for it to be sewn into a tunic by the end of the day. "She said she was going on a family trip," said the neighbour, M.H. Sithi Nazlya. Zahran's sister says that her parents turned off their cellphones on the Friday. On Sunday, when she visited their home, they were gone. She does not know if Zahran arranged for them to be taken somewhere safe. Or why he would have carried out the bombing. But now in Kattankudy, and in many other places, people are talking about Mohamed Hashim Mohamed Zahran. Bumble to Use AI to Eliminate Dick Pics With Private Detector Bumbles New Feature Will Keep Unwarranted Nudes at Bay Bumble is effectively putting an end to your dick pic sending days. At least, thats their hope. Anyone sending a nude probably thinks the person receiving the photos will find them arousing. Unfortunately, as people dont exactly find unsolicited crotch shots very appealing, the popular dating app is adding a layer of protection to help their users out. RELATED: Your Foolproof Guide to Mastering Bumble In June, Bumble plans to launch its Private Detector feature, which automatically scans sent images and blurs those that it deems lewd or inappropriate. They also embed a watermark of the user sending any photos into the images they distribute. Bumble has already taken the step in banning nudity, pornography, and even pictures of unaccompanied minors or guns from the app, too. Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd wants to go even further, having personally pushed for legislation in Texas that would see nonconsensual sharing of lewd images be deemed as an actual crime, albeit a misdemeanor. Wolfe Herd told CNN Business that her efforts with the app are engineered to show that Bumble is desperately trying to build safety products to engineer a more accountable internet, not just talk about it. Bumble already has an established reputation as a service that doesnt allow abuse and crude behavior to slide. In a high-profile case of public shaming from 2016, the dating service revealed a private conversation between two of their users named Connor and Ashley. After having exchanged pleasantries, Ashley asked Connor what he did for a living. "I've gotten tired of girls like you who shamelessly attempt to pry into my career (and really the kind of money/earning potential I have)... he replied. I don't have time for entitled, gold-digging whores." Following their conversation, Bumble put Connor on blast for his behavior. To show they meant business, the app banned him and shared his remarks with the world in an open letter posted on their blog. Clearly, Bumble has no patience for this type of behavior, and are hoping that the experience you have on their app is the best one possible. With their new technology being put in place, its best to just remember one thing: Keep it in your pants or else. You Might Also Dig: Never Have I Ever: Tried Fisting What Its Like to Experiment With This (((Sex Act))) for the First Time Did you ever play Never Have I Ever in college? Here are the rules: Everyone puts up ten fingers, and you go around in a circle and one by one share something that youve never done (and as human nature goes, the experiences shared are usually sexual). If youve done it, you have to put one finger down, and of course, drink. The first person to put all 10 fingers down loses or wins, depending on how you look at it. One day we all have to become grown-ups, but that doesnt mean we have to stop playing Never Have I Ever, or better yet checking things off your bucket list. AskMen is still playing, and the rules are simple: In each edition of this column, we speak to someone about something theyve always wanted to try in bed. They tell us about the fantasy, and why it turns them on. Then, they actually do it, and we get the lowdown on how the experience matched the fantasy. Forget penis size how big is your fist? Fisting is the act of inserting ones entire fist into an orifice, such as the vagina, anus or mouth. While all three are excellent options, we spoke to a woman with a powerful desire to be vaginally fisted. Nicole is a 35-year-old communications consultant in the Southwest. Shes non-monogamous, bisexual and calls herself somewhat kinky. RELATED: Top 10 Sex Fetishes, Revealed While shes currently dating a guy, shes actively courting two women and has wanted to try vaginal fisting for the past 15 years. Why the wait? She needed the right person and the right timing. The perfect weather patterns for this fisting adventure came together at an ethical non-monogamous conference with her current male partner after they both eagerly attended a class on fisting. Read on to learn about Nicoles first fisting experience and how long she screamed for. Oh, and remember: Always use lube. AskMen: Before you tried fisting, what were your thoughts about it? What about it turned you on? Nicole: I've wanted to try vaginal fisting for a good 15 years. I've always enjoyed hand sex (hands are a bit of an obsession of mine) in fact, I like it more than receiving oral sex, though both in combination are pretty great. Physically, I've never had a problem with progressing pretty quickly from a couple of fingers to four inside of me, much to my partners' wonder. I get a lot of "Are you sure you want more? Isn't this hurting you? and I still felt like I could be more "full," so fisting seemed like a logical next step. I like the challenge of seeing how far I can take the feeling of "Is this enough or can I do more?" All of the angles and places that get more pressure and pinpoint attention than any cock can deliver. Mentally, there's a lot at play. I like being the center of attention and having lots of time spent on my pleasure. I love watching my partner watch me and react to what I'm feeling. The idea that vaginas are magical, mysterious places with (seemingly) infinite expansion and contraction especially if my partner is cis male and there's a sense of wonder and amazement that people with vaginas can do this incredible thing. Obviously, anyone can attempt with anal fisting, but that's not my jam so I can only speak from the psy perspective. Were you nervous to try it, or scared of any misconceptions about orifices stretching out? I wasn't scared at all. The challenge was finding a willing partner! I was monogamously married for over a decade to someone who wasn't into anything outside the vanilla realm, so full fisting was out. When we divorced, I wanted to make sure I found someone I trusted, [and] that took some time. The current man I'm seeing had experience fisting his former girlfriend which I didn't know until we'd been dating for three months. Once he mentioned it, it was just a matter of finding the right time and place. Regarding orifices not at all. I had a baby in less than six hours, so I know how elastic my parts can be. I still feel pretty snug when I have regular sex. Kegels, kegels, kegels! RELATED: Heres What You Need to Know About Kegels for Men What lead you to finally do it? Would you do it again? My partner and I went to Southwest Love Fest a few weeks ago. Heading into the weekend, the only presentation we definitely knew we were going to was about fisting with Andre Shakti, who is incredible and the best ball of positive energy I've ever met. I learned a lot about technical precautions, ideas of what to do once the fist is in, and things for consideration (e.g. I have an IUD, and that needs to be communicated for safety reasons obvious now that I think about it, but it didn't occur to me until someone mentioned it). My partner felt confident coming out of the workshop because he knew and practiced "at least 90 percent of what she talked about," which also reassured me that things would most likely go well. Bottom line, Andre got us pretty worked up. The next day we took the afternoon off from the conference and spent one-on-one time with each other. We were both relaxed and happy, and I asked him to play with me. The big advice with fisting is to use more lube than you ever thought possible and go super slow. I "open up" fast and my partner had his whole fist in me within 10 minutes. He was a bit apprehensive because of my IUD strings (which is fair) but worked around them. I'm very into aural stimulation, so hearing my partner tell me what was happening, how hot it was, what his hand felt like, etc. was super key for me. He also made sure to have my Hitachi wand at the ready, which he told me to use as I got closer to cumming. When I did, it was possibly the hardest, most intense orgasm I've ever had (definitely in the top three). My vaginal muscles clamp down pretty hard when I cum, so he knew to ride with that and not get pushed completely out until I was done. I'm a shouter anyway, and all I can say is I'm glad we were in a hotel because the volume was (according to my partner) "at five-alarm level" and went on for a solid minute-plus. I was pretty incoherent for about 20 minutes after, as well. I knew I was going to enjoy it. I didn't know how much and now I want to do it all the time because I'm a greedy b-h. What communication went on between you and your partner before and after the act? We talked a lot about his experience with his former partner (which we talk about a lot anyway because we're very open about our sexual experiences, past and present). I felt safe with him because I knew he is careful and pays attention, adores women and is honest and loyal no small thing inside and outside the bedroom, but definitely critical if you're going to trust someone with any sort of edge play. He was also very careful to check in with me as we progressed to the point that, when I was asking for more pretty fast, he waited until my vagina relaxed before he went to the next level. He reassured me we had plenty of time and to not rush (I'm notoriously impatient). And even once he was all the way in and it was clear I was enjoying myself, he still asked if it felt good or if he should stop. RELATED: What You Should Know About Sexual Consent What advice would you give for first-timers? Communication is so, so, so, important. Talk before, during and after. There is no reason to rush even if you're Elastigirl like me. Buy and use all the lube, then use some more. Things will get messy, so use a mattress protector and put down towels or an absorbent sex blanket. Do a full debrief after you've come back to your senses. Be honest about what worked and what didn't. Don't fist with someone you don't trust implicitly. This is not a Junior Varsity skill. As the receiver, you need to know that your partner has your mental and physical safety in mind. This is not something to do with the dude down the street. You Might Also Dig: Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. (AP) An Oklahoma judge told a man to pray for salvation before sentencing him to life in prison for killing a transgender woman in 2017 at an Oklahoma City motel. Brandon Michael Tyson, 32, was sentenced Wednesday after pleading guilty in February to fatally shooting Brooklyn BreYanna Stevenson, 31, The Oklahoman reported. Tyson is not eligible for parole. Authorities did not say Tyson killed Stevenson because of her gender identity, but the slaying alarmed Oklahoma City's LGBTQ community. The Human Rights Campaign listed her as one of 29 transgender people killed in the U.S. in 2017. Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater did not immediately return a phone call for comment Thursday. Tyson, whose prior record includes convictions for burglary and illegal possession of guns, told police he shot Stevenson because she attacked him. Prosecutors said there was no evidence of a fight and that the two had sex before the shooting. Defense attorney Gary Higginbotham blamed the shooting on drug addiction. "Mr. Tyson has nothing but remorse for what he's done to the victim, the victim's family and his family," Higginbotham told the newspaper. "He has no justification. It's just the effects of drug addiction." The victim's mother, Vivian Stevenson, testified that she had no words for the helplessness and loss felt by her and her family. "Burying a child is nothing that a parent should have to do, so with that being said, I never wanted the death penalty for you because I did not want your parents to have to go through what I am having to endure," Vivian Stevenson said to Tyson. "I do pray that you get life without parole, though, because you have proven by your actions that you do not deserve to be free ever again." NEDC WLTP The Ford Motor Company has come under scrutiny according to a SEC filing , detailed on Page 70 under the Other Information chapter. Dearborn explains that this matter currently focuses on issues relating to road load estimations, including analytical modeling and coastdown testing.Its necessary to mention the potential concern does not involve the use of defeat devices. Shots fired at Volkswagen? Not quite, but then again, corporate greed has a tendency to backfire. Ford has voluntarily disclosed the matter to the Environmental Protection Agency and the California Air Resources Board on February 18th and 21st, respectively.In the filing, Ford cannot predict the outcome and cannot provide assurance that it will not have a material adverse effect on us. Otherwise said, financial penalties are likely because the regulators have zero tolerance for such practices following the Dieselgate scandal.Its curious how Ford adopted a flawed approach to using road-load specifications, thus simulating aerodynamic drag and tire friction. If not implemented correctly, these lab tests fool the customers (and authorities) into thinking the 2019 Ranger is more frugal than it actually is.Equipped with the 2.3-liter EcoBoost and 10-speed automatic transmission, the 2019 Ranger has been found to use more fuel than the EPA ratings. Over a 1,100-mile test on the highway in real-world conditions, the mid-size pickup averaged 19.5 miles to the gallon instead of 24 mpg.TFL Truck averaged 17.5 mpg on a tank of fuel, far less than the EPA-rated 22 mpg. The Environmental Protection Agency isnt perfect, but as opposed toratings from not that long ago, theyre closer to real-world gas mileage. Europe switched to thein September 2018, forcing a lot of automakers to equip gasoline-fueled automobiles with particulate filters.Ford announced that its evaluating changes to the road load estimations process. These changes include the engineering, technical, and governance components, which goes to show that Ford is thorough about the matter as opposed to Volkswagen.On an ending note, remember 2014? Thats the year Ford lowered the MPG estimates on six models after an internal audit. Affected customers were compensated between $125 to $1,050 for the mess-up, and Ford wasnt fined by the EPA. Also known as the Ram 1200 in the Middle East and Fullback when badge-engineered by Fiat, the Mitsubishi hasnt reached full potential. The automaker from Shiba, Tokyo wants to re-enter the mid-size market in the United States with the next generation of the Triton, but on the downside, itll be a slow burn for Mitsubishi.Similar to Subaru, the Japanese automaker doesnt have too many yen to invest in research & development. But following the acquisition by Nissan, theres no denying the synergies of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance will help the once-struggling automaker.Speaking to Wards Auto , Mark Chaffin would like to have (a pickup) in North America. According to the chief operating officer, the most requested model at Mitsubishi dealer meetings in the United States is no surprises here a pickup. The last time Mitsubishi had one in the United States was in 2009, called Raider and based on the Chrysler ND platform of the Dodge Dakota.For the next-generation Triton, the platform will be shared with the Frontier . Nissan is expected to introduce the newcomer no sooner than 2020, and as expected, the underpinnings are a little different from the Navara thats commercialized in Europe. The Frontier hasnt been redesigned since 2004, hence the affordability of the mid-size pickup truck ($19,090 excluding destination charge).Even though sales of mid-size pickups are gaining traction in the United States, the 2019 Ranger hasnt flown off the dealer lots in the first quarter of 2019. The Frontier, Colorado, and Tacoma outsold the EcoBoost-engined workhorse, which uses more fuel than the EPA ratings.Fiat Chrysler Automobiles has a different approach to the mid-size pickup segment. Even though the Dakota has been confirmed to come back, other products are higher on the priorities list. For instance, Ram prepares to roll out the Rebel TR and Rebel TRX to take on the likes of the Silverado 1500 Trail Boss and F-150 Raptor. 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. Palmdale, CA (93550) Today Cloudy with showers. Low 49F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%.. Tonight Cloudy with showers. Low 49F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%. At a time bigness is being broadly equated with badness, no one is perhaps more so equated than Facebook, the dominant global force in online friendship and the source of a relentless drumbeat of new probes into how it governs itself. Driving the news: There may be good news of sorts for the company that, amid a flood of reports of data breaches, Facebook critics seem no more hostile than last summer and fall. Some continue to call for it to be broken up, while others say that they are still not certain what should be done. What's happening: As Axios has reported, Facebook on Thursday was hit with a trio of new probes from regulators in Ireland, Canada and New York, all looking into how it handles data, its main source of revenue. In addition, Facebook said this week that it expects to be fined $3 billion-$5 billion by the Federal Trade Commission, and the NYT reports that the agency is considering restraints on the platform's business practices. None of this has appeared to faze investors: Facebook shares were down by about 1% yesterday but up 7% for the week. They have surged a whopping 41% for the year. Against the backdrop of these conflicting signals, I queried a few experts last August on the pluses and minuses of simply making the platform disappear. Back then, Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group, found much both geopolitically and financially to dislike about the idea. Among the downsides of Facebook abruptly vanishing would be "value destruction for shareholders, job losses, negative impact on economy. Ceding social media battle globally to China-driven monopolies," such as Tencent. Queried again this week, Bremmer said his mind had not changed "the social media problems inside western democracies have become even more toxic, while the competition with Chinese state-led and funded companies is becoming a bigger challenge." Yet, in fact Bremmer had moved a bit: "Its getting much harder to argue that Facebook is providing a social good," he told me. Still, he reckoned that, all in all, there was no way at the moment to say whether Facebook should break up. "Question is how much do you value money as opposed to personal sanity." Then and now, some are less squeamish about Facebook's disappearance. Nicholas Wright, a British neurologist who studies artificial intelligence and politics, back then talked up a world without Facebook as long as it was done without a government hand. Any forced disappearance "would be a terrible blow to the U.S. capitalist system," he said. Chatting again this week, Wright said nothing about terrible blows. "Facebook is an overweening communication utility that abuses its market power, whose replacement with a more competitive ecosystem of separate social media providers would benefit the U.S. economy and society," he said. Wright said nothing about terrible blows. "Facebook is an overweening communication utility that abuses its market power, whose replacement with a more competitive ecosystem of separate social media providers would benefit the U.S. economy and society," he said. Yet, there is a way to redeem the platform, he thinks. "Facebook's problems are eminently reformable with political will. But without reform, it's bad for U.S. society and U.S. power abroad." So far, Facebook was faring neither better nor worse. Among the next I queried was Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia and author of The Curse of Bigness. I had spoken with Wu in October, when he forcefully called for a legal review of some 70 company acquisitions by Facebook, especially of Instagram and WhatsApp, and urged the company's breakup. The cascade of new disclosures just make Wu say the same thing: "It is crazy to have one firm owning these three major social media empires, and thereby eliminating any hope of real competition between them." The bottom line: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself, seeing that some critics smell blood, is himself working to stave off talk of breakup, and to set the terms of what a regulated Facebook would look like. Unpredictable politics on both sides of the Atlantic complicate that job. But, to the degree these critics reflect the whole, Facebook's problems do not appear to be getting worse. In a statement, Facebook said: "We operate in a fiercely competitive market where for every service offered on Facebook and our family of apps, you can find at least three or four competing services with hundreds of millions, if not billions, of users. Importantly, the core of antitrust law is centered on doing what is best for consumers - lower prices, higher quality, better products and services, and more innovation. That is exactly where we are focused - building the best products and services for consumers and advertisers across our family of apps." The Archdiocese of New York released the names of 120 Catholic clergy who have been credibly accused of sexual assaults of minors or believed to have possession of child pornography. "The inclusion of a clerics name on the list does not state or imply that he is guilty of a crime or liable for any civil claim. The criminal justice system presumes that a person who has been indicted by a grand jury, or otherwise accused of or charged with a crime, is innocent until proven guilty. Similarly, a defendant in a civil action is not liable unless a plaintiff proves otherwise." Archdiocese of New York announcement Details: New York's is the second-largest Roman Catholic archdiocese in the country. The organization created a review board to help verify the claims against the clergy. Most of the accused clergy were predominantly ordained sometime from 1950 to 1969. Some of the priests on the list are deceased, and the others have been removed from the ministry. The church notes that nobody who has been ordained since 2002 has been accused of sexual abuse against a minor, however since the charter's adoption that same year, 2 cases of sexual abuse involving minors and active clergy were determined to be credible. Go deeper: The stunning scale of the global Catholic sex abuse crisis California's state Senate unanimously passed the CROWN Act (Create a Respectful and Open Workplace for Natural Hair) to end workplace discrimination against people based on their hairstyles. "A Google image search for 'unprofessional hairstyles' yielded only pictures of black women with their natural hair or wearing natural braids or twists." California state Sen. Holly J. Mitchell on the Senate floor Flashback: This February, New York City also banned hair discrimination. The NYC Commission on Human Rights said its hair bans "associated with Black people are often rooted in white standards of appearance and perpetuate racist stereotypes that Black hairstyles are unprofessional." In July 2018, the U.S. Navy announced an overhaul of its policies about women's hair that allows women to have wider buns, ponytails and lock hairstyles. The backdrop: African Americans with natural hairstyles, such as braids or afros, have argued in court that workplace restrictions against their hair are racially discriminatory. Last August, an 11-year-old black girl in Louisiana was sent home from school for having braided hair extensions. U.S. economic and national security is threatened by China's strategic plan for dominance in multiple areas, FBI Director Christopher Wray said in an interview Friday with Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. Why it matters: These so-called "generational threats" will shape the future of the U.S., Wray warns. "Theyre going to determine where we stand and what we look like ten years from now, twenty years from now, fifty years from now." Christopher Wray tells Richard Haass The "multilayered threat" from China, Wray says, entails a merging of cybercrime and espionage. China is "stealing innovation" via businesses, universities and organizations, he says. The FBI's economic espionage investigations "almost invariably lead back to China" in most of the 56 field offices and span most industries or sectors. "Put plainly, China seems determined to steal its way up the economic ladder at our expense." Plus, the increasing dependence of the U.S. on technology makes the country more vulnerable, he adds. "[O]ur ever-expanding use of technology: next-generation telecommunications networks like 5G, the rise of artificial intelligence and machine learning, cryptocurrencies, unmanned aerial system[s], deep fakes ... I see blinking red right in front of me and right in front of all of us. And we grow more vulnerable in many ways every day." The bottom line: There needs to be a public-private partnership to share information and resources to prevent these threats, Wray says. White male candidates continue to lead the 2020 presidential polls, despite this being the most diverse Democratic primary field in history. Why it matters: The party and the country are having real conversations about race and gender in politics. Yet those factors aren't necessarily decisive for Democratic voters so after all this, they could still end up with a white guy as their nominee. Even when they have their choice of 6 people of color, 6 women and one gay man running for president, their ultimate goal is to defeat President Trump. By the numbers: Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders have consistently held the top two spots in every national 2020 poll so far. Beto O'Rourke and Pete Buttigieg have occupied the third and fourth spots at different times. FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver does rank Kamala Harris as a top-tier candidate, but only along with Biden, Sanders and Buttigieg. He considers O'Rourke a second-tier candidate. does rank Kamala Harris as a top-tier candidate, but only along with Biden, Sanders and Buttigieg. He considers O'Rourke a second-tier candidate. The reality is that most Democratic voters aren't concerned about a person's gender or race when it comes to deciding on a nominee. A Monmouth University poll found that 87% of Democratic voters say the candidate's race doesn't matter, and 77% said the same of a candidate's gender. Driving the news: This week in Houston, I attended the She the People presidential forum, which was hosted by women of color and specifically for candidates to address issues facing communities of color. What they're saying: "The excitement for the white men is frustrating," said Diana Hwang, founder of the Asian-American Women's Political Initiative. "I do think that in some ways the nation is slow to catch up with us, but we're seeing that excitement for women of color locally," she said, noting the success of candidates like newly elected Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts. "Honestly it's kind of sad because [white men] know our struggles and what we're going through, but they're still empowered and they still have the privilege to have a vote over our bodies and lives," said Maia Young, a member of the Texas reproductive rights group Deeds not Words. And with Biden officially in the race, that just adds to some of the frustration for women of color. I know that we have been cultured to feel that only the white man can save us, I just dont feel like Biden is our answer, one attendee told the AP. Democratic presidential candidate Julian Castro told Axios that what's important is how broad a candidate's appeal is, regardless of their background and that voters should consider candidates based on, in part, "how inclusive they are and have been throughout their career." "I don't think it's going to take a white man to beat Donald Trump. It's going to take somebody who can appeal to a cross-section of this country," Castro said. "I also disagree with people who would write off somebody just because they're a white man." It's not that Democratic voters consider white men to be unqualified to be president, or that people of color only vote for candidates of color. But the conversation has shifted to place an emphasis on inclusivity from economic policies to the candidates' campaign teams. Between the lines: The overwhelming response from attendees at the She the People conference was that it's just too early and they're hopeful the tide will turn. As Castro who's been polling around 1% reminded me, there are still 42 weeks until the Iowa caucuses. "It's just a waiting game," said Samuella Bassey, another Deeds not Words member. "We weren't really prepared for the 2016 election. Now it's just hoping, a lot of praying, and waiting" for a candidate of color to break through. The bottom line: There's plenty of time for things to change but don't be shocked if the most diverse primary in history ends in the most ironic way possible. After a campaign event on Friday, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) said she is neutral about her state's Gov. Andrew Cuomo throwing his support behind former Vice President Joe Biden for the 2020 presidential election, reports AP. "Our governor can endorse whoever he likes, but I am the best candidate to defeat President Trump, and I will." Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) to reporters in New Hampshire Flashback: Cuomo said he feels Biden is the Democrats' best bet at beating Trump in 2020 because of his credibility, reports Politico. Cuomo is also opening up his fundraising network to Biden, reports CNBC. Go deeper: Kirsten Gillibrand: Everything you need to know about the 2020 candidate The news that the U.S. economy grew 3.2% the first quarter of this year gives the U.S. some "leverage" in upcoming trade talks with China, National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow said Friday on CNBC's "Squawk on the Street." "I'm cautiously optimistic about the deal ... China's economy is slumping and has been for some time." Larry Kudlow Yes, but: Axios' Courtenay Brown reported earlier this month that China's economy grew 6.4% in Q1 on an annual basis, exceeding analysts' 6.3% growth estimate. But, analysts did warn that it's "too early to call a sustainable turnaround," per Reuters. Driving the news: President Trump on Thursday sparked a flurry of anticipation, the New York Times reported, when he suggested there will be a visit from Xi soon. While Trump kept his comments vague, people familiar with the situation told NYT that the hope is for Trump and Xi to sign an agreement in May or June. And, earlier this month, Trump suggested an "epic" trade deal could be getting closer, per NYT. What's happening now: Trade negotiations are continuing on April 30 in Beijing, when U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will travel to Beijing, the White House said on Tuesday. Chinese Vice Premier Liu He will continue the trade talks with a delegation in D.C. on May 8. Go deeper: Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) responded on Friday to the Mueller report's stance that Russia successfully accessed the computer systems of at least 1 Florida county government and planted malware in an election equipment manufacturer's systems, the New York Times reports. What's new: Rubio told the NYT that Russian hackers "were 'in a position' to change voter roll data," in addition to being able to access the Florida voting system, but he doesn't believe they acted on that access. The big question: Mueller's report, which only included a single sentence on the issue and left further investigations to Homeland Security and the FBI, did not find evidence that these breaches compromised election results in Florida. The bottom line: Rubio told the NYT that the target or targets of Russia's hacking in Florida were never notified. The FBI warned "all Florida elections supervisors of a cyber threat 2 months before the 2016 election" via conference call, according to the Times, but officials did not say if the FBI told "elections supervisors from the county that had been hacked about the breach." Go deeper: Rod Rosenstein: Russian hacking was "only the tip of the iceberg" Pope Francis has donated $500,000 to help migrant communities in Mexico, providing food, shelter and other basic necessities, reports ABC News. The big picture: The donation will be distributed among 27 Mexico-based projects associated with 16 Mexican diocese and congregations, aiming to help 75,000 migrants, according to a release from the organization that gives people the opportunity donate to the Catholic Church, and where the donations are managed. Go deeper: Judge gives Trump administration 6 months to identify separated migrant children In the face of U.S. hostility, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping today "vowed to work together for greater economic integration in Eurasia," the South China Morning Post reports. What's new: Xi called for greater cooperation between the two countries in areas ranging from trade to aerospace, while meeting with Putin on the sidelines of a forum of world leaders on China's Belt and Road infrastructure (BRI) initiative. Putin reportedly responded, saying Russia is willing to "work with China in energy, connectivity and other major projects." The backdrop: Leaders from 37 countries and delegates from more than 150 countries started gathering in Beijing for the second forum on China's BRI, which is designed to link China, Asia and Europe. The U.S. didn't send any high-level representatives. But, but, but: Axios' Dave Lawler writes that while getting that many world leaders to turn up might seem like a triumph for Xi, he's also doing some damage control. Jonathan Hillman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies writes for Axios Expert Voices that in the 2 years since the last forum, concerns have grown over corruption, debt sustainability, environmental impacts and local benefits in addition to worries about Beijing's true motives. Dan Kliman, of the Center for New American Security, tells Dave that while Xi will attempt to "rebrand and reboot" Belt and Road this week, "this is a strategic geopolitical exercise, so they don't want to take steps that would reduce their control." The bottom line: Chris Johnson, a former top CIA China analyst now at CSIS, says the message will be: "We have heard your feedback, taken it into account, and we're making changes. But guess what, the region still has a huge need for infrastructure and we're ready to provide it." Go deeper: The stars were certainly out on Saturday morning at The Meadowlands for the days qualifying races contested on a very windy morning over a track that was dry but dulled a bit by overnight rains. A steady, strong wind was blowing hard across the track, helping most around the final turn and somewhat against them in the stretch with the temperature around 12C when they began at 10:00 a.m. The great Hambletonian winning filly Atlanta her first appearance today for her new trainer Ron Burke with Yannick Gingras at the controls and she was fabulous. Sent out to the front from post eight, Atlanta set all the fractions in a 1:52.3 mile, final half in :55.2 and into the wind last quarter of :27.3 with no urging. The Veteran (Scott Zeron) was impressive in his first go around to hold second over an clearly in hand Cruzado Dela Noche (Brian Sears). Crawford Farms, Brad Grant and Howard Taylor own the trotting queen, who was racing without trotting hopples for the first time in her career. Marcus Melander brought a large portion of his imposing team of sophomore colt trotters up for the day and clearly the most impressive performance of the morning from his string was turned in by the enigmatic Greenshoe (Brian Sears) who looked composed and imposing at the same time. Greenshoe trotted an impressive 1:54.1 mile with a back half in :56 and a :28.1 final quarter well under wraps, leaving his competition in some disarray 20 or more lengths in arrears. The Father Patrick colt is insanely talented and can certainly trot with anyone if his connections can keep his focus on business for owner Anders Stroms nom de course, Courant Inc. Melanders Dan Patch Award and Breeders Crown winning Gimpanzee (Sears) who sat last of the field of six and closed some late as Hudson River (Marcus Johansson) set even fractions in an easy 1:57.2 win over Captain Krupnik (Svanstedt) and a closing Southwind Avenger (Dexter Dunn). Gerry (Melander) put in a solid front-stepping 1:56.3 effort, closing it out in :28.1 under no urging. Soul Strong (Ake Svanstedt) closed a bit up the inside to take the place over pocket-sitter No Drama Please (Tetrick). Gerry is owned by SRF Stable. The Millers opened the day with the good Father Patrick filly French Cafe cutting the mile for Andy to a 1:58 win off a 1:01.3 and 1:30 three-quarters. Sisters Promise (Tim Tetrick) was second and Susy (Scott Zeron) third. For perspective she trotted in 1:55.4 in her first try two weeks ago. Julie Miller trains the homebred winner for Marvin Katz & Al Libfeld. Evident Beauty (David Miller) looked sharp in her first effort for trainer Nifty Norman passing fillies from well back in the stretch for a 1:57.4, with a wind-compromised 30 second final quarter on the board. Winndevie (T. Smedshammer) was second and Whispering Oaks (S. Zeron) third. The White Birch Farm-bred Trixton filly was a multiple Grand Circuit winner at The Red Mile last fall for owners Mel Hartman, Little E and R A W Stable. The pacers began with the seventh qualifying race and Captaintreacherous sired the winner of the first two sophomore colt races. Major Deception (Tetrick) was a winner in 1:55.3, leading through the :56.2 closing half comfortably holding on over No Mas Amor (Gingras). Tony Alagna is the trainer while In The Gym Partners (John Fodera & Steve Wienick), Martha Frank, Robert LeBlanc, Steve Head and Joe Sbrocco own the colt, listed at 50-1 in the TROT Magazine's 2019 Pepsi North America Cup Spring Book. Captain Victorious (Gingras) was giant in his first start from the Ron Burke barn. He set a solid pace then closed out a remarkable 1:51.1 mile in :27.2 with mild encouragement from the driver. Best In Show (Tetrick) was a good second with Dancin Lou (Matt Kakaley) third. Captain Victorious was assessed odds of 35-1 in the Spring Book. Major March (D. Miller) raced right back to his good mile behind Captain Crunch last week with an effortless 1:52.1 daylight win over a closing Buddy Hill (Sears) and Escapetothebeach (Tetrick). Linda Toscano trains the Art Major colt for Bay Pond Racing. Last years top freshman filly Warrawee Ubeaut (Gingras) has come back beautifully for Burke and the Sweet Lou lass was an easy 1:53.2 winner, settling nicely off the pace early and rolling by good fillies late under her own power. Odds On Clearwater (Dunn) and St Somewhere (D. Miller) followed the winner, owned by Burke, Collura, Silva, Purnell & Libby and Weaver Bruscemi. Youaremycandygirl (Gingras) closed in tandem with three-year-old Treacherous Reign (Dunn) to nip Percy Blue Chip (Kakaley) in 1:53.1. Bill Donovan owns the mare and Ron Burke trains. Done Well was scary good in the last today dragging Dexter Dunn around in 1:50.4 to win by seven over a really good bunch of older pacing horses. Dorsoduro Hanover (Kakaley) left into play from post 10 and was real good for second with Filibuster Hanover (Gingras) completing the Burke sweep. To view the results from the Saturday morning qualifying session at The Meadowlands, click the following link: Saturday Qualifying Results - Meadowlands. (with files from The Meadowlands) A Sri Lankan official said Tuesday an initial investigation shows the Easter Sunday bombings were in retaliation for a terrorist attack on in New Zealand, Reuters and AFP first reported. The latest: Police have arrested 40 suspects but no group has claimed responsibility for the church and hotel bombings, which killed 321 people. Sri Lanka's Junior Defense Minister Ruwan Wijewardene told parliament they were carried out by 2 extremist groups, National Thawheed Jamaut (NTJ) and Jammiyathul Millathu Ibrahim, in response to the March shootings inside 2 Christchurch mosques. Details: Sri Lanka enacted an emergency law Tuesday, giving police and the military special powers to counter militant strikes. It emerged Priyalal Disanayaka, Sri Lanka's deputy inspector general of police, sent a letter on April 11 warning the directors of four Sri Lankan security agencies the NTJ was plotting suicide attacks against churches in Sri Lanka, per AP. Among those arrested for the attacks is the driver of a van allegedly used by suicide bombers involved in one of the attacks, AP reports. The FBI will assist in the investigation. Sri Lanka began a national day of mourning, as relatives began to bury loved ones killed in the attacks. A tweet previously embedded here has been deleted or was tweeted from an account that has been suspended or deleted. Go deeper: Sri Lanka's deadliest terror attack ever shakes a delicate balance A U.S. citizen detained in Venezuela since 2014 on attempted murder and weapons trafficking charges was released and flown back to the U.S. this week, NBC reports. Details: A U.S. State Department official speaking on the condition of anonymity told NBC that a Venezuelan judge granted Todd Leininger parole in May 2018 and his release was court-ordered in November. In a 2014 Reuters interview, Barbara Leininger said her son previously admitted to shooting a man in self-defense during what he described as an "altercation" and that he has "some psychological issues," as reported by NBC. The big picture: The U.S.- Venezuela relationship is currently strained by escalating U.S. sanctions and suffering of the Venezuelan people as a political stalemate unfolds between Nicolas Maduro's regime and National Assembly President Juan Guaido. The U.S. withdrew all diplomatic staff from Venezuela after recognizing Guaido as the country's interim president 3 months ago. President Trump has suggested the U.S. might be ready to back Guaido with force. Go deeper: A closer look at Venezuela's crisis Global oil prices plunged on Friday, erasing a week of gains after the U.S. said on Monday it would no longer issue waivers for Iranian oil imports. The administration's decision is likely to keep jostling oil markets as the waiver deadline approaches. The big picture: The U.S. allowed 8 countries to buy Iranian crude and condensate over the past 6 months. The State Department has declined to address whether it will allow a wind down period for purchases beyond the May 2 deadline, after which importers would be immediately exposed to sanctions. What to watch: South Korea and Japan will likely end imports, while China and India will buy only low volumes of Iranian crude. Iranian exports may dip to around 500,000 barrels per day, a staggering collapse from the 2.3 million barrels per day it exported one year ago. But, but, but: While Trumps plan may look good on paper, it leaves little margin for error in the case of additional oil supply disruptions, especially considering deteriorating conditions in Venezuela and the potential for disruptions in Libya. Thats a recipe for further upward price pressure. Between the lines: Iran also gets a say in all this, and the market may not have priced in the country's response. The lower its exports fall, the greater incentive it has to lash out not just to drive oil prices higher, but to deter Washington from taking even more aggressive moves. Iran is unlikely to close the Strait of Hormuz, but it could cause a lot of damage with cyber operations, perhaps against Saudi Arabia. Robert Johnston is managing director for global energy and natural resources at Eurasia Group and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center. Henry Rome is an Iran analyst at Eurasia Group. By Trend The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Mission in Azerbaijan and the United States-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce (USACC) signed a memorandum of understanding today on collaboration towards common goals. These two partners will work together to help stimulate economic growth, and to promote trade and commerce, as well as academic and cultural ties, between the United States and the Republic of Azerbaijan. USAID and USACC will partner to promote economic activities between American and Azerbaijani businesses in a number of areas and market sectors. They plan to support agribusinesses and individual entrepreneurs with technical assistance and business training programs, and encourage public and private partnerships that will bring innovative science- and market-based solutions to advance the growth of promising Azerbaijani industries. The agreement includes areas of cooperation related to making Azerbaijan an easier place to start and operate businesses, improving food safety and security standards, increasing agricultural and agronomic capacity, and advancing opportunities for youth and women. USACC and USAID have already collaborated on the Illinois-Azerbaijan Agricultural Forum, held April 3-5 in Chicago and hosted by USACC and the Illinois Chamber of Commerce. The forum was the first of its kind between the two countries, and brought together field experts, private sector executives, ag-manufacturers, and agriculture and government authorities from Illinois and Azerbaijan. USAID/Azerbaijans goal is to continue to build a lasting friendship, and an enduring business, investment, and trade partnership with Azerbaijan. USAID/Azerbaijan supports the Azerbaijani governments efforts to diversify the economy, create a transparent and open environment to attract investment, and advance the prosperity of the Azerbaijani people. Since its inception in 1995, USACC has been a vital resource for individuals and businesses of the United States of America and Azerbaijan seeking to establish long-term business ties. USACC serves as a platform for trade missions and conferences, and arranges business meetings where key government and business leaders from both countries can meet, share ideas, and forge business partnerships. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By 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, Trend reports with reference to the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry. 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 Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has congratulated President of the Republic of South Africa Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa. On my own behalf and on behalf of the people of Azerbaijan, I heartily congratulate you and your people on the occasion of Freedom Day of the Republic of South Africa, President Aliyev said. On this remarkable day, I extend my best wishes to you, and wish the friendly people of your country peace and prosperity, he said. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend First Vice-President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva has met with IDPs settled in dormitory No4 of the Medical University in Nasimi district, and in Gobu Park residential complex in Garadagh district. First Vice-President Mehriban Aliyeva first arrived at the dormitory No4 of the Medical University to familiarize herself with the living conditions of the IDP families. Over 150 IDP families live in the dormitory. The IDP families hailed the care and attention shown to them. First Vice-President Mehriban Aliyeva noted that the work in this regard will go on. First Vice-President Mehriban Aliyeva visited the internally displaced person from Gubadli district Murtuzali Yusifovs apartment. The First Vice-President then visited other IDP families settled in the dormitory, viewed their living conditions, listened to their requests, and emphasized that they will be provided with new apartments in a short period of time. The First Vice-President also visited a secondary school No20 of Zangilan district in the territory of the dormitory. Mehriban Aliyeva met with teachers of the school which enrolls 131 students. After viewing the IDPs lives in the dormitory No4, and listening to their requests, First Vice-President Mehriban Aliyeva said that necessary measures will be taken to improve their living conditions. First Vice-President of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva then arrived at the Gobu Park residential complex settled for the internally displaced persons in Garadagh district. Mehrban Aliyeva met with the residents of the settlement here, listened to their requests and gave her instructions to address the problems. The First Vice-President then visited IDP Shamsiyya Mehdiyevas apartament. Keepsakes on behalf of the First Vice-President were presented to Shamsiyya Mehdiyevas familiy. Mehriban Aliyeva also viewed conditions created in other apartments here. A total of 1,026 IDP families were provided with the apartments in the residential complex. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend First Vice-President of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva has viewed the work done at Icherisheher State Historical and Architectural Reserve. Chairman of Icherisheher State Historical and Architectural Reserve Asgar Alakbarov informed First Vice-President Mehriban Aliyeva of the work done here. First Vice-President Mehriban Aliyeva described Icherisheher as a native and dearest place for the people of Azerbaijan. First lady Mehriban Aliyeva then responded to the questions of the correspondent of BBC News Azerbaijan on the work carried out at Icherisheher State Historical and Architectural Reserve. First Vice-President Mehriban Aliyeva was informed that the restoration work of cafes and restaurants along the fortress walls in Kichik Gala street is to be completed in summer. Mehriban Aliyeva gave instructions and recommendations on the implementation of work here at the highest level. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has sent a congratulatory letter to Orthodox Christian Community of Azerbaijan on the occasion of the Holy Easter. I sincerely congratulate you, the entire Christian community of Azerbaijan, on the Holy Easter and convey to you the wishes of good health, happiness and prosperity, Ilham Aliyev said in his letter. For hundreds of years, representatives of various religions and peoples have lived in Azerbaijan in peace, mutual respect and trust, which is why our country has gained fame in the modern world as an exemplary space of tolerance and one of the centers of multiculturalism, reads the letter. The preservation and promotion of the ethnic and religious diversity and multicultural traditions is one of the priorities of our state policy. Azerbaijans extensive experience in this field clearly demonstrates that multiculturalism is the only way to strengthen solidarity, harmony and mutual understanding in society. I want to note with a sense of satisfaction that the Christian community, which is an integral part of our society along with representatives of other religions, is actively involved in great creative work carried out for the benefit of the progress of our republic in all spheres of public, political and socio-cultural life today, the letter noted. I am convinced that our Christian countrymen will continue to make every effort in the name of further strengthening of Azerbaijan, which is our common home. Easter, which epitomizes rebirth, renewal and a feeling of mercy, awakens of faith and hope for the future peoples hearts and urges them to be kind, Ilham Aliyev said. On this joyful day, I once again wish you a pleasant festive mood, and joy and well-being to your families. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz Bakersfield, CA (93308) Today A steady rain this evening. Showers continuing overnight. Low around 50F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall around a quarter of an inch. Locally heavy rainfall possible.. Tonight A steady rain this evening. Showers continuing overnight. Low around 50F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall around a quarter of an inch. Locally heavy rainfall possible. A Port Neches-Groves ISD School Board member resigned his seat on Friday, citing family-first values. He was quitting, Mark Holmes said, so his daughter-in-law can be considered for a teaching job in the district. Her, her family, my family, we are all graduates of the PN-G school district and she really wants to come and work here, said Holmes, whose term would have expired in November. Because of current state law, she cant get hired on here with me still being on the school board. His son, who was at the meeting, said his father loved being on the board and that he did not ask his dad to step aside. I really didnt want to put that on him, Josh Holmes said. I was never going to ask him. Hes the one who came to us. Board president Scott Bartlett called the resignation noble. Ive enjoyed serving with you and I hate to see you go, but I completely understand, Bartlett said. It just shows your values, that youre willing to do this for your family. Holmes, 56, said he thinks his daughter-in-law, Zara Holmes, had a good shot at being hired and could spend her career there. Holmes said he is in contact with the Texas Attorney Generals Office and hopes to return to the board as soon as it might be legally possible. I cant wait to jump back in as soon as the earliest opportunity comes up, he said. Working with all of the employees, the kids of this school district has been the highlight of my life. Holmes, his wife and their four children all grew up in the Port Neches-Groves area and have been active in the community. Were PN-G through and through, he said. It was a tough decision because I love being on the board so much but it was an easy decision because its for my daughter-in-law. Its for family. The board voted Friday to offer former board member Lana Parker the interim seat. haley.bruyn@beaumontenterprise.com twitter.com/HaleyWrites_BE Country United States of America US Virgin Islands United States Minor Outlying Islands Canada Mexico, United Mexican States Bahamas, Commonwealth of the Cuba, Republic of Dominican Republic Haiti, Republic of Jamaica Afghanistan Albania, People's Socialist Republic of Algeria, People's Democratic Republic of American Samoa Andorra, Principality of Angola, Republic of Anguilla Antarctica (the territory South of 60 deg S) Antigua and Barbuda Argentina, Argentine Republic Armenia Aruba Australia, Commonwealth of Austria, Republic of Azerbaijan, Republic of Bahrain, Kingdom of Bangladesh, People's Republic of Barbados Belarus Belgium, Kingdom of Belize Benin, People's Republic of Bermuda Bhutan, Kingdom of Bolivia, Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana, Republic of Bouvet Island (Bouvetoya) Brazil, Federative Republic of British Indian Ocean 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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 Data storage specialist Seagate, one of the north-west's biggest employers, has announced an investment of 57.5m and the creation of 25 jobs in its Londonderry plant. The US company's investment of 47.4m is being supported by economic development agency Invest NI, which has offered support of 9.95m. Seagate has operated in the north-west for 25 years, with an estimated 1bn capital investment over that period. The company said the latest funding will be focused on enabling further research and development at the Springtown site in nanophotonics, a technique of electrical engineering. Nanophotonics is the generation and manipulation of tiny points of light. Seagate is expected to use nanophotonics to increase the capacity of its disc drives - though the company said it could not disclose any further detail. According to Seagate, the investment will seal the position of the plant in Derry "as a leader in world class technology innovation". It will also create 25 highly skilled new jobs, bringing the workforce to 1,400. Dave Mosley, chief executive of Seagate Technology, Noel Lavery, the top official at the Department for the Economy, and Jeremy Fitch, executive director at Invest NI, made the announcement at the Seagate Springtown site yesterday. Mr Mosley said: "Technology innovation is the cornerstone of our success and the industry-leading innovation delivered by our facility in Springtown has been at the heart of our business strategy for the last 25 years. "Today's investment extends a successful, collaborative partnership with Invest NI. "It will further strengthen our ability to deliver customer-centric technology leadership for the data-driven future of the global economy." Jeremy Fitch, executive director at Invest NI, said: "Seagate first came to Northern Ireland in 1994, investing 50m and creating 500 new jobs. "Fast forward 25 years and the facility now employs 1,400 people and it is estimated that the company has invested in excess of 1bn in capital here. "Supporting the company along the way has been Invest NI, with every 1 of our support contributing to 4 investment in the local economy. "We are delighted to be able to offer support towards this latest project which will see 120 highly skilled researchers here at Springtown, including 25 new recruits, play a major role in the development of ground-breaking new technology." Mr Lavery, Permanent Secretary at the Department for the Economy, said there had been "effective collaboration between Invest NI and Seagate" which had boosted the north-west and wider economy by bringing investment and well-paid jobs. With its unusual handshakes and secret rituals, there has always been an air of mystery about Freemasonry, but not any more if local man John McLernon has his way. John (75), from Ballymoney, has just been appointed Provincial Grand Master of Antrim with ambitious plans to expand the organisation "for a new generation" and shatter some of the long-held myths which surround it. Well-known as former operations director at Bushmills Distillery where he retired in 2015 after 25 years with the company, the family man has been a Freemason for more than 50 years. John lives in Ballymoney with his wife Jennifer (74), a retired cook, and has two sons, Ian (45) and Paul (42), and three grandchildren. He insists the organisation, which dates back to the 18th century and which has long fascinated outsiders, is as relevant today as it ever was. He says: "Being a Freemason is something I am immensely proud of, and I want more men to feel the joy, friendship and support that I have been so fortunate to receive from my fellow Freemasons over the years. "It is my intent to encourage more people to come and talk to us, to find out what it really means to be a Freemason and to see that this is an organisation to be embraced, not one to fear. "I see big changes in our future, and we must embrace them wholeheartedly to ensure the future of Freemasonry is safe in the hands of the next generation. "Our future lies in opening the doors and dispelling the myth that we are a secret organisation." Indeed, rather than refer to it as a secret organisation, John prefers to describe it as "an organisation with secrets". Freemasonry is one of the world's oldest and largest non-religious, non-political, fraternal and charitable organisations. There are over 5,000 members in Antrim alone, 30,000 across Ireland, and six million worldwide. John insists the organisation is very much alive and well and eager to grow into the future, encouraging younger members to continue on with the age-old tradition of "making good men better". He has devoted most of his time to voluntary work through the Masons since he retired 14 years ago. John started his career as a factory manager in Ballymoney Foods and then moved to the globally-renowned Bushmills Distillery where he worked for 25 years, the last 12 as its operations manager. He says: "Bushmills was a great company to work for and I spent 25 very happy years there. It has a worldwide reputation and I met people from all over the world during my time there." He is also a familiar face on the local motor sport circuit, where he competed in the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties. He is a former chairman of the Association of Northern Ireland Car Clubs and was also involved in helping to establish the Ulster Rally in 1976. He still works as a steward for Motorsport UK, attending around four events every year both here and in Scotland. "I've always tinkered with cars and still have a couple of old MGs," he explains. "I raced mainly with my cousin and I also took part as co-driver in the Circuit of Ireland twice. The first year we came second in our class which we were very pleased about. "It was a bit of an endurance test as it lasted five days from Good Friday until Easter Tuesday." John was a young man when he joined his local Masonic Lodge at Catham Hall, close to Antrim's famous Dark Hedges in 1966, and he is proud to have recently taken over the reins as Provincial Grand Master of Antrim from John Dickson, who held the post for 10 years. Over 300 Freemasons and their partners from across Ireland attended his installation dinner in the Tullyglass Hotel. John admits the organisation has long struggled with its image, not least the perception that it is an elitist boys-only club. He also confirms that the secret codes remain as part of a tradition which allows members worldwide to recognise each other. He has witnessed many changes over the years, however, and in his new role as Provincial Grand Master he hopes to help lift dispel some of the mysteries that surround the organisation while encouraging new members to join during his term of office. "We are fighting all the time against misconceptions about our image," he says. "Barriers are breaking down and I think society is realising it is not the elitist organisation people think it is. "In my life it has simply been a great friendship club. We are not a secret society but a society with secrets. "It goes right back to the Bible and it is part of the old tradition that each mason is given signs and secrets which are just known to each other as Masons. "Yes, we don't have any women members but a few female lodges have opened in England although there are none in Ireland. "My wife is in the Women's Institute and they don't have any men so it's horses for courses in my opinion. "We do encourage women to attend functions and at my installation there were 70 ladies there. We encourage them to get involved in social activities and we hold various functions throughout the year." He says that membership has fallen in recent years but insists it has started to grow again. "My aim is to encourage younger people to join," says John. "I think it might appeal to men aged between 30 and 50 who are married and have their families set up and are looking for an interest. That said though, young men from as young as 22 would also enjoy the great friendships that are to be had. "I see young men joining us and actively seeking out the social interaction and friendship that being a Freemason provides. In a world where technology is taking control of our lives, meeting with people face to face is unarguably on the decline. We can offer the hand of friendship and provide an alternative to the social media culture which thrives in our society today." As well as friendship, John says the Freemasons have a proud history of charity work. Some years ago lodges raised money to fund two Masonic schools, one for boys and one for girls. The money was used to pay for the education of children of deceased members. The two schools were sold and the money invested into a new fund which is also used to support children whose fathers were members by paying for uniforms and other educational equipment. Today the Masons choose a charity to support on an annual basis and in 2018 the Antrim area was able to hand over 40,000 to Action Cancer. This year the lodges are raising funds to support four charities which are to benefit from the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Ireland's Vision 2020 event, which is a charity festival staged every five years. While largely regarded as a Protestant organisation in Northern Ireland, John says he has Catholic friends who are Masons and he is determined in his new role to open the doors to everyone to join. He says: "All you need to be a Mason is a belief in the Supreme Being, our God. We are completely non-political and non-sectarian. Sectarian or political talk is not allowed. "We do have Catholic members and I do have some Catholic friends who are very good Masons. To me, opening the organisation up to a new generation lies in our social interaction with our families and friends, both Masonic and non-Masonic. "It's also consistent with us encouraging a greater understanding that Freemasonry is all-inclusive, it leaves no one out no matter what race, colour or creed, and it's consistent with us sharing what we do and showcasing the wonderful work we do for both Masonic and non-Masonic charities. "Goodwill to all, kindness and a desire to help those less fortunate are fundamental principles of the Masonic fraternity and therefore, charitable giving is a major part of our membership. "I do believe we are in a time where change is necessary to ensure relevance of all organisations, and as the Freemasons of the Province of Antrim we are now ready for the next exciting chapter." His own sons have both left Northern Ireland. Ian travels the world with his job with a drinks company and is currently in New York. Paul lives in London, where he runs a hedge fund. He recently came home for his father's installation. John adds: "My younger son is keen to take up membership of the Freemasons and I think my older boy will do the same some day when he puts down roots. "I believe Freemasonry has a great future and I am immensely proud to represent this organisation in the great province of Antrim." To find out more visit www.pglantrim.org There is never a perfect time to do the right thing in Northern Ireland. If you open a calendar on any given week you will find a reason for politicians to hold off engaging with each other. Marching season, conference season, elections, pressure in Westminster, negotiations in Brussels and issues within individual parties are just a few examples. Little more than a week ago the usual script had been written, and was widely accepted, for the weeks ahead. Politicians in Westminster, Brussels, Dublin and Belfast were taking an Easter break in the assumption that there could be no engagement while local and European election campaigns were being fought in Northern Ireland in May. The script said the parties were on the doorsteps and would inevitably maintain partisan politics until the elections had past. Just after 11pm on Thursday April 18 that script was torn up by the senseless and heartbreaking murder of a woman whose name we have all come to know, Lyra McKee, whom, by the outstanding tributes of her partner, family and friends, we all wish we had known in life. As a politician and Tanaiste there are many things you experience that are unique but there are only a handful of experiences that you know will stay with you until the end of your days. Being in the front pews of St Anne's Cathedral as an unstoppable wave of applause, hope and demand hit the most senior politicians from the UK and Ireland in the base of our spines is one such moment I will never forget. The words of Father Martin Magill summed up the desire and frustration of all communities in Northern Ireland in a sentence, "Why in God's name does it take the death of the 29-year old woman, with her whole life in front of her, to get to this point?" Last summer violence in Derry saw live bullets being fired and police officers narrowly escaping injury or death. In January seven young people were minutes from being killed after they passed the car bomb that sat in the centre of Derry. However, on April 18 the cowards claimed a victim. The fact that it was a journalist and writer who was a shining example of everything Northern Ireland can achieve is the reason so many people have come together to mourn. The night before Lyra McKee's funeral I sat in Strand Road police station in Derry with the officers who had tried to save her life. These men and women are hardened by the fact that petrol bombs can be thrown at them in the course of their everyday work but on Tuesday night they were numbed and vulnerable at the fact that a young woman had died beside them. Despite their Land Rovers being alight with petrol and live ammunition being fired at them, the PSNI left its secure position to get to Lyra McKee after she had been hit. They made the decision to drive to Altnagelvin Hospital, officers performed CPR on Lyra for the entire journey and they stayed and supported her partner and friends as the horrible news of her death was confirmed. The leadership shown by the PSNI in Derry has rightly been applauded by the community it serves. While I heard Father Magill's rallying call for political leadership loud and clear, I also heard what he said about the events in Derry as the news of Lyra's murder sunk in: "I commend our political leaders for standing together in Creggan on Good Friday." Arlene Foster, Michelle O'Neill, Colum Eastwood, Robin Swann and Naomi Long were not ordered to release a joint statement by anyone or told to go into the Creggan. When a dark moment threatened to drag Northern Ireland back to a dark past their natural inclination was to do the right thing. We now have a window where the Irish and British Governments are calling the parties together. We have all spoken in person and on the phone many times in the last week and without exception I believe all the party leaders are genuine in their desire to return to Stormont. As we meet in the weeks ahead, a conversation I had with Mrs Joan McKee will be foremost in my mind. Standing in the side chapel of St Anne's was the President of Ireland, the Taoiseach, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom as well as myself as Tanaiste, the Secretary of State and ministers of both governments. Despite all the power of those elected offices we were standing there as a group that was utterly powerless to comfort a woman who had, as Joan put it, "lost her baby". We owe it to Joan and Lyra McKee to make sure no other ceasefire babies are murdered in the prime of their lives and to make sure that Northern Ireland has a functioning government. There is never a perfect time to do the right thing in Northern Ireland. However, there is a right time and that time is now. Simon Coveney is Tanaiste of the Republic of Ireland The number of people using food banks has risen by over 13% as more families struggle with the cost of living The number of people using food banks has risen by over 13% as more families struggle with the cost of living. Over the past year more than 36,000 three-day emergency food packages were handed out to people in crisis in Northern Ireland. More than 15,000 of these went to children. New statistics showed April 2018 to March 2019 to be the busiest year for food banks in the Trussell Trust's network since the charity opened. The overall figure is a 13.4% increase on the previous year, when 32,433 emergency supplies went to people in crisis, including 13,289 children. During the same period, the Trussell Trust's UK food bank network distributed 1,583,668 three-day emergency food supplies to people in crisis across the UK, an 18.8% increase on the previous year, with 577,618 going to children. Nearly 25,000 of the three-day emergency food packages were handed out in Belfast alone over the past year, with more than 10,000 of them going to children. The biggest rise was in Co Fermanagh, which saw the number of people turning to food banks rise by 159% year-on-year, while almost 20,000 of the packages went to homes in Co Antrim, an increase of 25%. The main reasons for people needing emergency food are benefits consistently not covering the cost of living (42.64%), and delays (12.08%) or changes (16.92%) to benefits being paid. According to the Trussell Trust, Universal Credit is not the only benefit payment people referred to food banks have had problems with, but issues with moving onto the new system are a key driver of increasing need. More than a third (38%) of food bank referrals made due to a delay in benefits being paid in Northern Ireland were linked to Universal Credit. From this data, and other insights from food banks in the Trussell Trust's network, the charity believes ending the five-week wait for a first Universal Credit payment should be the Government's first priority to help create a future without food banks. "Year-on-year we are seeing more and more people in Northern Ireland struggling to eat because they simply cannot afford food," said Dave Magill, Trussell Trust operations manager for Northern Ireland. "This isn't right. We know Northern Ireland is on a cliff-edge with less than a year to go before we see the extra flexibility currently available to people under our benefits system come to an end. "We have real concerns about the impact this will have on our communities. "Our benefits system should anchor us all from being swept into poverty. Universal Credit should be part of the solution but currently the five-week wait is leaving many without enough money to cover the basics. "As a priority, we're urging the Government to end the wait for Universal Credit to ease the pressure on thousands of households. "No charity can replace the dignity of having financial security. That's why in the long-term, we're calling for benefit payments to reflect the true cost of living and work is secure, paying the real Living Wage, to help ensure we are all anchored from poverty." The Trussell Trust opened its first food bank in Northern Ireland in Newtownards in December 2011, and is now operating at more than 20 locations across the region. A 40-year-old man has been remanded in custody charged with carrying out a rape in Belfast A 40-year-old man has been remanded in custody charged with carrying out a rape in Belfast. George William Garland is accused of attacking a male in Ravenhill Avenue on Monday. Garland, of Global Crescent in the city, appeared before Belfast Magistrates Court yesterday on charges of rape, sexual assault and assault occasioning actual bodily harm. The defendant, whose occupation was listed as a barber, did not seek bail. No further details of the alleged assault were disclosed during the brief hearing. Deputy District Judge Peter Prenter remanded Garland in custody to appear again by video-link in four weeks' time. The priest whose comments sparked a standing ovation during Lyra McKees funeral has followed up his powerful words by urging Northern Irelands politicians to listen to the people. After yesterdays announcement of a new attempt at restoring devolution, Father Martin Magill said there now exists an opportunity for political opponents to bury their differences for the common good. Fr Magills rousing reflection at St Annes Cathedral during the service of thanksgiving for the life of the murdered journalist brought mourners to their feet, drew applause from both inside and outside Belfasts St Annes Cathedral and is widely believed to have hastened the latest talks, due to begin early next month. Moreover, despite being on the receiving end of the priests rhetoric, both DUP leader Arlene Foster and Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald, who sat together in the front pews, personally thanked him afterwards for his challenging ovation. The 57-year-old parish priests heartfelt plea Why in Gods name does it take the death of a 29-year-old woman with her whole life in front of her to get to this point? made headlines around the world. In an interview with the Belfast Telegraph at his home yesterday in West Belfast, Fr Magill said now was the time for local politicians to heed public opinion and grasp the initiative. Listen to the frustration and build on the relationships that are there, said Fr Magill, who was a good friend of the journalist and LGBT rights campaigner shot dead by the New IRA during riots in Londonderry 10 days ago. Look for the bigger picture. Look beyond party politics to the common good and think about those areas of Northern Ireland that havent benefited from the peace process and those people who havent felt the values and the benefits of where weve got to 21 years after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. Fr Magill, who is parish priest of St Johns on the Falls Road, added: Think about the poverty, the deprivation, the issues of mental health as well as the other issues theyre dealing with. Listen to the people. Fr Magill said he never expected such a reaction to his powerful reflection which high-profile Methodist Minister the Rev Harold Good helped advise on at the interdenominational service on Wednesday afternoon. It was the response to the question that gave it the power, the legs and the energy, he said. It struck me that the people in the cathedral brought the politicians to their feet rather than my question. At the end of the day the politicians are the servants of the people and its clear the people want movement and they got movement and thats the way it should be. The popular cleric and community leader also said he had received a phone call from Mrs Foster on Wednesday evening after the funeral, revealing that they had a very gracious conversation. She talked about reaching out, he said. Shes a woman of faith. When I asked her what I could do to help she asked me to pray and she talked to me about the importance of prayer - and I obviously agreed with her on that. Fr Magill also described a friendly exchange with Ms McDonald earlier in the day. Referring to being unable to finish the central question until the applause stopped and people sat down again, Fr Magill said he sensed he had unwittingly tapped into something and people responded. People starting to clap and then stand up... I didnt see it coming and I didnt expect that, he said. More than anything else people have thanked me for saying what so many people have been thinking. Whats very clear to me now is that people are looking for leadership. They desperately need leadership. That question gave people an opportunity to say enough is enough and that question somehow set people off. The priest, who is originally from Aldergrove, Co Antrim revealed that he took advice from friends while composing the reflection, including Mr Good, the famous peacemaker. I talked to a number of people to prepare this sermon including Harold Good, and it was really in the conversation with him that this question emerged. Fr Magill also sought counsel from Fr Joe Gormley, who anointed Miss McKee in hospital after she was fatally shot and spoke out very publicly ahead of her funeral asking anti-agreement republicans not to march in Derry as part of their Easter Rising commemorations on Easter Monday. When asked why he didnt use the words terrorist or republican terrorist in relation to Lyras killers, Fr Magill said he had been guided by a very long and very helpful conversation hed had with the Derry-based priest. Fr Joe has given a very clear stance on this, which is that were completely opposed to the violence, he said. He called on the political organisation Saoradh to call off their Easter parade out of respect and they did. So they listened. While we disagree entirely with violence, Fr Joe said its important that we dont demonise those involved in this, even those involved in any way in Lyras murder, we dont demonise them; we dont dehumanise them. I hope Im very clear Im completely opposed to violence, but we dont want to close a door; we want to try and keep it open. I also support Fr Joes call that people still involved in this, or the organisations that support this, to enter into dialogue. It absolutely breaks my heart that young people whove grown up post Good Friday Agreement signing have got caught up in this violence because I lived as a child of the Troubles. Fr Magill, who went to school in north Belfast, also collaborated with St Annes Dean Stephen Forde ahead of the funeral, and the two attended the wake at Ms McKees mothers home together on Easter Sunday afternoon. Whenever it was decided that it was going to be in St Annes, the Dean came up with the idea of him and I visiting the family together and thats what we did, he said. 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 The coffin of journalist Lyra McKee is taken out of the church after her funeral at St Anne's Cathedral on April 24, 2019 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Getty Images Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Prime Minister Theresa May pictured at the funeral and service of thanksgiving for the life of journalist Lyra McKee Irish Prime minister Leo Varadkar (R) and Prime Minister Theresa May (C) leave St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast on April 24, 2019, after attending the funeral service of journalist Lyra McKee (Photo by Paul Faith / AFP/Getty Images) AFP/Getty Images Irish President Michael D Higgins consoles Sara Canning, partner of the murdered journalist Lyra McKee as her funeral takes place at St. Anne's Cathedral (Photo by Charles McQuillan/Getty Images) Getty Images Funeral and service of thanksgiving for journalist Lyra McKee at St Anne's Cathedral, Donegall Street, Belfast. Lyra McKee was murdered in Creggan in Derry on Thursday 18th April. Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn(centre) and Irish President Michael D Higgins(right) pictured at and at the funeral. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye Mourners and friends pictured at the funeral and service of thanksgiving for the life of journalist Lyra McKee at St Anne's Cathedral, Donegall Street, Belfast. Mourners react as the coffin of journalist Lyra McKee, who was killed by a dissident republican paramilitary in Northern Ireland on April 18, is placed into a hearse following her funeral at St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast on April 24, 2019. - Lyra McKee, 29, who chronicled the troubled history of Northern Ireland, was shot in the head on April 18, 2019, as rioters clashed with police in Londonderry, the second city of the British province. (Photo by Paul Faith / AFP)PAUL FAITH/AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images Funeral and service of thanksgiving for journalist Lyra McKee at St Anne's Cathedral, Donegall Street, Belfast. Lyra McKee was murdered in Creggan in Derry on Thursday 18th April. Mourners and friends pictured at the funeral. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye DUP leader Arlene Foster at the funeral and service of thanksgiving for the life of journalist Lyra McKee Mourners listen to the funeral service of murdered journalist Lyra McKee outside St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Wednesday April 24, 2019. Miss McKee, 29, died as a result of injuries sustained when she was shot on the Creggan estate on April 18. See PA story FUNERAL McKee. Photo credit should read: Liam McBurney/PA Wire PA Mourners gesture as pallbearers carry the coffin of journalist Lyra McKee (29), who was killed by a dissident republican paramilitary in Northern Ireland on April 18, during the funeral service at St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast on April 24, 2019. AFP/Getty Images The funeral of Journalist Lyra McKee takes place at St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast on April 24th 2019 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph The funeral of Journalist Lyra McKee takes place at St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast on April 24th 2019 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph Mourners gather outside of St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast on April 24, 2019, during the funeral service of journalist Lyra McKee who was killed by a dissident republican paramilitary in Northern Ireland on April 18. - Lyra McKee, 29, who chronicled the troubled history of Northern Ireland, was shot in the head on April 18, 2019, as rioters clashed with police in Londonderry, the second city of the British province. (Photo by Paul Faith / AFP)PAUL FAITH/AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images Mourners gesture as pallbearers carry the coffin of journalist Lyra McKee (29), who was killed by a dissident republican paramilitary in Northern Ireland on April 18, during the funeral service at St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast on April 24, 2019. - Lyra McKee, 29, who chronicled the troubled history of Northern Ireland, was shot in the head on April 18, 2019, as rioters clashed with police in Londonderry, the second city of the British province. (Photo by Paul Faith / AFP)PAUL FAITH/AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images The coffin is carried into the funeral service of murdered journalist Lyra McKee at St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast. PA The coffin is carried into the funeral service of murdered journalist Lyra McKee at St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Wednesday April 24, 2019. Miss McKee, 29, died as a result of injuries sustained when she was shot on the Creggan estate on April 18. See PA story FUNERAL McKee. Photo credit should read: Liam McBurney/PA Wire PA General view of the funeral and service of thanksgiving for the life of journalist Lyra McKee at St AnneOs Cathedral, Donegall Street, Belfast. Lyra McKee was murdered in Creggan in Derry on Thursday 18th April. Picture Matt Mackey / Press Eye. Matt Mackey / Presseye.com Prime Minister Theresa May paying her condolences to the family of Lyra McKee Mourners listen to the funeral service of murdered journalist Lyra McKee outside St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast. PA Taoiseach Leo Varadkar , Prime Mnister Theresa May and President Michael D Higgins before the funeral service for murdered journalist Lyra McKee at St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast. PA Mourners arrive for the funeral service of murdered journalist Lyra McKee at St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast. PA Mourners embrace ahead of the funeral of murdered journalist Lyra McKee at St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast. PA Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Prime Minister Theresa May and Irish President Michael D Higgins pictured at he funeral and service of thanksgiving for the life of journalist Lyra McKee at St AnneAos Cathedral, Donegall Street, Belfast. Lyra McKee was murdered in Creggan in Derry on Thursday 18th April. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Prime Minister Theresa May pictured at the funeral and service of thanksgiving for the life of journalist Lyra McKee at St Annes Cathedral, Donegall Street, Belfast. Lyra McKee was murdered in Creggan in Derry on Thursday 18th April. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. DUP leader Arlene Foster and Sinn Fein leader Mary-Lou McDonald at the funeral and service of thanksgiving for the life of journalist Lyra McKee at St AnneAos Cathedral, Donegall Street, Belfast. President Michael D Higgins before the funeral service for murdered journalist Lyra McKee at St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast. PA A mourner arrives carrying a wreath for the funeral service of murdered journalist Lyra McKee at St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast. PA DUP leader Arlene Foster with Sin Fein's Mary Lou McDonald and Michelle O'Neill before the funeral service for murdered journalist Lyra McKee at St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast. PA PSNI Chief Constable George Hamilton. The funeral of Journalist Lyra McKee takes place at St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast on April 24th 2019 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald arrives for the funeral service of murdered journalist Lyra McKee at St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast. PA Leo Varadkar arrives for the funeral service of journalist Lyra McKee at St Annes Cathedral on April 24, 2019 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Getty Images BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND - APRIL 24: The congregation arrive for the funeral service of journalist Lyra McKee at St Annes Cathedral on April 24, 2019 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Journalist and campaigner for LGBT rights, Lyra McKee, 29, was shot dead last Thursday while observing the rioting in Londonderry. Her family gave a statement in which they said her "openness and her desire to bring people together made her totally apolitical". The New IRA have admitted responsibility for her killing. (Photo by Charles McQuillan/Getty Images) Getty Images Press Eye Northern Ireland Wednesday 24th April 2019 Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn and Sinn Fein leader Mary-Lou McDonald pictured at he funeral and service of thanksgiving for the life of journalist Lyra McKee at St AnneAos Cathedral, Donegall Street, Belfast. Lyra McKee was murdered in Creggan in Derry on Thursday 18th April. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. The hearse carrying the body of murdered journalist Lyra McKee arrives at St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast. PA Sinn Fein leader Michelle and Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn pictured at the funeral and service of thanksgiving for the life of journalist Lyra McKee at St AnneAos Cathedral, Donegall Street, Belfast. Lyra McKee was murdered in Creggan in Derry on Thursday 18th April. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Press Eye Northern Ireland Wednesday 24th April 2019 Sinn Fein leader Michelle and Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn pictured at the funeral and service of thanksgiving for the life of journalist Lyra McKee at St AnneAos Cathedral, Donegall Street, Belfast. Lyra McKee was murdered in Creggan in Derry on Thursday 18th April. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald before the funeral service for murdered journalist Lyra McKee at St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Wednesday April 24, 2019. Miss McKee, 29, died as a result of injuries sustained when she was shot on the Creggan estate on April 18. See PA story FUNERAL McKee. Photo credit should read: Brian Lawless/PA Wire PA President Michael D Higgins before the funeral service for murdered journalist Lyra McKee at St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Wednesday April 24, 2019. Miss McKee, 29, died as a result of injuries sustained when she was shot on the Creggan estate on April 18. See PA story FUNERAL McKee. Photo credit should read: Brian Lawless/PA Wire PA Press Eye Northern Ireland Wednesday 24th April 2019 Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar pictured at the funeral and service of thanksgiving for the life of journalist Lyra McKee at St Annes Cathedral, Donegall Street, Belfast. Lyra McKee was murdered in Creggan in Derry on Thursday 18th April. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Press Eye Northern Ireland Wednesday 24th April 2019 Simon Coveney TD at the funeral and service of thanksgiving for the life of journalist Lyra McKee at St AnneAos Cathedral, Donegall Street, Belfast. Lyra McKee was murdered in Creggan in Derry on Thursday 18th April. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Press Eye Northern Ireland Wednesday 24th April 2019 SDLP leader Colum Eastwood at the funeral and service of thanksgiving for the life of journalist Lyra McKee at St AnneAos Cathedral, Donegall Street, Belfast. Lyra McKee was murdered in Creggan in Derry on Thursday 18th April. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Press Eye Northern Ireland Wednesday 24th April 2019 Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn pictured at the funeral and service of thanksgiving for the life of journalist Lyra McKee at St AnneAos Cathedral, Donegall Street, Belfast. Lyra McKee was murdered in Creggan in Derry on Thursday 18th April. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Mike Nesbitt pictured at the funeral and service of thanksgiving for the life of journalist Lyra McKee. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Michelle O'Neill, Vice President of Sinn Fein arrives for the funeral service of journalist Lyra McKee at St Annes Cathedral on April 24, 2019 in Belfast Getty Images Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald arrives for the funeral service of murdered journalist Lyra McKee at St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast. Liam McBurney/PA Wire PA Naomi Long Alliance Party Leader at the funeral and service of thanksgiving for the life of journalist Lyra McKee. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. General view of the funeral and service of thanksgiving for the life of journalist Lyra McKee at St AnneAos Cathedral, Donegall Street, Belfast. Lyra McKee was murdered in Creggan in Derry on Thursday 18th April. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. The funeral of Journalist Lyra McKee takes place at St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast on April 24th 2019 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph Mourners begin to gather for the funeral of Lyra McKee at St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast on April 24th 2019 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The coffin of journalist Lyra McKee is taken out of the church after her funeral at St Anne's Cathedral on April 24, 2019 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The Lyra Fr Magill knew had real enthusiasm and a love for life and he remembers the lively young woman who visited him at home 18 months ago to talk about the book she was writing. There was a real liveliness about her; she had a bright, bubbly personality, he said. When he was asked by a family member to officiate at the service of thanksgiving because of their connection, he said the idea of a joint service at St Annes Cathedral felt right from the very start. I knew from the beginning that it was going to be a Service of Thanksgiving, not a Requiem Mass. The Dean took the lead in bringing the service together and there was a very definite sense from the family of wanting to be inclusive; that was very important for them and St Annes lent itself very well to that. The death of someone young is always hard to understand, but the circumstances in which Miss McKee was so cruelly taken from her beloved family made her death all the more distressing. When a younger member of the family dies the baby of the family in this case, and in these particular circumstances its hugely painful, the priest said. I would never, ever want to lose sight of the pain that they are suffering. Lyras family is truly heartbroken. In his funeral address, Fr Magill said Lyras fervent wish was to find the bodies of the boys about whom she was writing in her not-yet-published book. And yesterday he said: I would love to see that work completed. Fr Magill called on people within republicanism, the GAA, the church and influential Catholics to engage with those who are still involved in violence. He also appealed for people to give the PSNI or Crimestoppers information about Lyras murder because of the widescale public revulsion it provoked. There can be a huge amount of fear that prevents people from coming forward, he said. In some societies its a rule that we dont tout or tell police but we need to change that to see that this is our civic responsibility. He added: This is not about informing, this is about developing a different type of society built on justice and fairness, or hope and not fear. When asked whether there needs to be a conversation within nationalism about the IRA and the New IRA and republican ideology, Fr Magill said: There definitely needs to be a debate. There is no love lost between republicanism and the Catholic Church, he added. Weve condemned violence over the years; it was wrong and it is never justified. Fr Magill, who is involved in the Stop Attacks coalition, a group that opposes paramilitary-style beatings and shootings, said young people falling into this violence need to be told that things have changed. I believe we have to acknowledge the role of ex-combatants in this, he said. They have a role and so many of them are playing a very valuable role and making a difference. Theyve been through it and theyve seen the worst of it and they can influence the younger generation. Fr Magill, a founder and joint chair of The 4 Corners Festival, which seeks to inspire people from across Belfast to transform it for the peace and prosperity of all, acknowledged the ongoing tensions surrounding Michelle ONeills attendance at commemorations for dead IRA men. Thats such a divisive issue, he said. The whole question of commemorating the dead is a very sensitive one. We need to have conversations about how this is done because its causing an enormous amount of difficulty. Its yet another legacy issue we havent worked through. He said that he understood that by continuing to do that Sinn Feins Northern Ireland leader is absolutely going to perpetuate the problem, adding: We must find ways that dont cause pain and yet allow people to be able to remember their dead. Fr Magill also said he agreed with comments recently made by the Alliance partys Philip McGarry, who said every community leader, political or religious, has a responsibility. Theres a clear sense that politicians have a particular responsibility... but its important to widen it out because, to some extent, its almost like politicians are in a fish bowl and all the attention is on them, he said. Of course theyve got leadership responsibility we elect them for this but its also important for others to be influencers as well. Asked whether Lyras murder will make a difference in terms of Northern Ireland moving forward, Fr Magill said theres an opportunity at the moment; a bit more hope. The fact that were going to have the Irish and British governments involved in bringing the parties together is a sign of hope, he said. Its important were not cynical. We must focus on the opportunities we have to influence. All of us have a responsibility. A man who died in a road crash was "kind natured" and "an innocent soul", his funeral heard yesterday. Mourners gathered at Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Steelstown, in Londonderry to pay their final respects to Patrick Healy. Mr Healy (46), from Shantallow in Derry, died in a crash on the Glenshane Road on Tuesday. Fr John McDevitt said nothing can prepare anyone for a sudden death like Mr Healy's. He said: "Sudden accidental death, which does not give us the slightest warning, or the slightest chance to prepare, plunges us into shock, darkness and confusion. "In an instant our whole world can be turned upside down. Nothing can prepare us for something like this, or save us from its effects. The priest recalled Mr Healy's interest in cars and motorbikes. He added: "He has been described as having an innocent soul, kind-natured, never able to say no to anyone." The detective leading the hunt for the killer of Lyra McKee has called on the public to help identify the suspected gunman. The plea came as new footage was released yesterday showing the man believed to be responsible moments before the shooting last Thursday night. He is believed to be in his late teens and has a short, stocky build. Another image from the police is believed to show him shortly after the attack. So far 140 individuals have contacted the PSNI with information. Yesterday Detective Superintendent Jason Murphy said he now needs help to identify the gunman and turn the community intelligence into evidence. He added that he believed the gun used was of a similar calibre to others used in paramilitary-style shootings in Creggan and elsewhere. Mr Murphy said: "I want to find the people who murdered Lyra and I believe the information that can help us bring those responsible to justice lies within the local community. "Approximately 100 people were on the ground on the night Lyra was murdered - people saw the gunman and his associates. I think people within the community know who they are. I'm asking them to come forward and help us. "I'm releasing footage today from the night of Lyra's murder and I want to appeal to anyone who recognises or knows these people to talk to us." The footage shows three men with their faces covered walking across Central Drive in Creggan from the direction of the shops last Thursday night, April 18. At the front is the tallest man carrying a crate of petrol bombs towards the crowd, which included children. Two other men walk behind him. The taller of the two is wearing a camouflage mask, dark skinny jeans, blue Nike trainers with a white tick and white soles. A later image showed him holding a petrol bomb. Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close CCTV of individuals police are seeking as part of their enquiry into the murder of Lyra Photopress CCTV of individuals police are seeking as part of their enquiry into the murder of Lyra Photopress Lyra McKee Photopress Belfast / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp CCTV of individuals police are seeking as part of their enquiry into the murder of Lyra The suspected gunman is the third individual in the footage, who is shorter than the other two and of stocky build. Mr Murphy added: "It's my belief he is the gunman that fired indiscriminately into the crowd, placed the community and police officers at risk and took the life of Lyra. "You can see he is wearing dark clothing and in other footage you can see this clothing in a different light. People know who he is." Appealing directly to those in Creggan who are scared to speak out, Mr Murphy gave a personal assurance that they would be dealt with sensitively. He said: "At Lyra's funeral on Wednesday we heard many messages about the potential for a better future but, as I have said previously, such sentiment will all be in vain if collectively we cannot tackle the malign influence that some individuals continue to exert over our communities." He also thanked the Crimestoppers charity after it offered a 10,000 reward for information. Addressing the killer directly, Mr Murphy said: "I believe the gunman will carry a very heavy conscience as a result of Lyra McKee's murder, particularly when you see the very public outpouring of support there has been and the very public condemnation of his actions. "I want him to come forward and tell us what he did. I want him to provide an explanation for why he fired the shots on that night. "I said last week that the gunman and those who surround him have still provided no direct explanation to Lyra McKee's family as to why she died, why she was killed and why that gun was on the streets." Anyone with information can contact detectives on 101. Information can also be provided anonymously to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111. The Police Service Of Northern Ireland is appealing for witnesses after a man was attacked in Belfast on Thursday (Liam McBurney/PA) Detectives are appealing for information after a vicious assault on a man in Belfast. The PSNI said the man was attacked by a number of men in the Winecellar Entry area of the city on Thursday night. Police said: It was reported that on Thursday night between 10pm and 10.30pm a man, aged in his twenties, was attacked by a number of males. He was assaulted and a knife was produced. It was reported the assailants took a sum of money and a mobile phone from the victim. This was a vicious attack on this man who was treated at hospital for facial injuries. Our inquiries are ongoing and we are appealing to anyone with information to get in touch. Police have appealed for information after the incident in south Belfast (PA) Three men kicked in the door of a home in south Belfast during an attempted burglary. The incident happened on the Breda Road area in the south of the city on Friday evening. Detective Sergeant Simpson said: It was reported that at around 7.50pm three men gained entry into the property by kicking the door. They went inside for a brief time before heading off in a silver Audi. No-one was home at the time. Enquiries are continuing and we are appealing to anyone who witnessed anything suspicious in the area to contact detectives at Lisburn on 101, quoting reference number 1188 of 26/04/19. Information can be passed anonymously to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111. A local writer has spoken about his struggle growing up as a "Catholic Muslim" during the Troubles as a radio documentary telling the story of his childhood is broadcast this weekend. Belfast man Joe Nawaz (44) discusses his early years in Sticking Out, which is broadcast on BBC Radio Ulster tomorrow at 12.30pm. Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph yesterday, he outlined how the question of identity shaped his childhood. "I grew up with a Pakistani father and Irish Catholic mother," he explained. "It's just a tale of growing up and struggling with identity in a land where identity is everything. "But it does have a few jokes in it as well. "My dad came here to study at Queen's University in the 1970s and stayed for the love of a woman, which is the eternal mistake of history - giving everything up for love and then 10 years later thinking 'what the hell am I doing here?'" The documentary reveals his experiences of struggling to fit in from an early age. "Growing up with a singularly dusky father in a society which, with no disrespect, is homogeneously pink, and it's unavoidable to feel different," he added. "It was also clear in people's reactions to us. "There was out and out hostility as well as the polite: 'Oh my goodness, what's that woman doing with that chap? Are those her kids?' "We would go into restaurants and people would stop eating mid-forkful." With two religions under one roof, Mr Nawaz's parents tried in vain to find a balance. He said: "My parents agreed to have an armistice but as soon as we were born they just couldn't help themselves. "My mother was sneaking me out to Mass and on Friday I was taken out of class to do my first confession. "Then on the Saturday afternoon when my mum was in the shops my dad would be teaching me Islamic prayers and showing me the direction of Mecca - not the bingo hall obviously. "Bizarrely, being indoctrinated in two faiths meant I was the first atheist in my class, so that was a result." He recalled how, in his teenage years, he forged an ID with the surname Donnelly so he could appear "carefree, Catholic and dashing". "It's a pivotal moment in the programme as my parents found it. They were suddenly aware of what I was prepared to do to escape the shame of who I am," he explained. "The only reason I can talk about it now is that I've left it all behind. "I am as proud of my identity as I was mortified by it growing up. "This show has been a catharsis and slightly cheaper than therapy." Mr Nawaz said many children of immigrants growing up in Northern Ireland today face similar issues. "It's very hard coming here, especially if you're coming from a community that's full of war and terror and you're trying to make a life," he said. "It sounds a bit cliched but here's the thing - I spent most of my time here trying to fit in and be Irish, but most saw me as Pakistani Joe or worse. "I went to Leicester to university, as it had a large Asian and Pakistani community. When I tried to reach out to those guys they said: 'No way, you're Irish Joe, bugger off. "So I had to go to England to be called Irish Joe! "I would say to people even if you are having troubles, they pass and whatever you think is a weakness is a strength. "We are the stuff we experience. At the time these things seem horrible, but they always get better." Trend: Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has congratulated President of the Republic of South Africa Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa. On my own behalf and on behalf of the people of Azerbaijan, I heartily congratulate you and your people on the occasion of Freedom Day of the Republic of South Africa, President Aliyev said. On this remarkable day, I extend my best wishes to you, and wish the friendly people of your country peace and prosperity, he said. A teenage girl who is accused of stabbing her friend in the neck will apply for bail again in two weeks' time, her lawyer has said A teenage girl who is accused of stabbing her friend in the neck will apply for bail again in two weeks' time, her lawyer has said. The 14-year-old appeared at Craigavon Magistrates Court yesterday from custody. Her solicitor said there was no suitable bail address at present, but that one may be forthcoming. He asked District Judge Bernie Kelly to adjourn the case for two weeks for a potential application to free the teenager on bail. The accused, who cannot be identified due to her age, is in custody charged with inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent and possessing a knife at Dean's Walk in Lurgan on Good Friday, April 19. She first appeared in court on Easter Monday. At that stage the court heard how the 15-year-old victim had to undergo lifesaving surgery after her carotid artery was severed by a knife, leaving her with what medics fear will be life-changing injuries. Giving evidence earlier this week, a detective constable told the court how police received a 999 call at around 9pm on Good Friday "that a girl had been stabbed in the neck with blood everywhere... and the reporting person named the defendant as the person responsible". While the victim was rushed to hospital by ambulance, initially to Craigavon Area Hospital before being transferred to the Royal Victoria in Belfast due to her deteriorating condition, the defendant was "collected by her mother following a phone call". The officer claimed that during the call the girl said "she had stabbed the victim". She appeared at Lurgan PSNI station a short time later but the detective told the court she had changed her clothes since the incident, adding that "blood-stained clothing was seized from her mother's car" along with her mobile phone. The victim, the officer added, had to undergo lifesaving surgery but has since been moved from the intensive care unit to a ward. The detective said the defendant, when interviewed by police, "admitted that she had a knife while this fight took place" but claimed she had it "concealed up her sleeve and she accidentally caused the injury to her neck". Yesterday Judge Kelly remanded the teenager back into custody to appear again in court on May 10. Northern Ireland's only dedicated fact-checking service is to assist Facebook's efforts to minimise the spread of misinformation on its platform. FactCheckNI is one of five groups that are to rate and review the accuracy of stories posted on the social networking site. Facebook has expanded its use of independent fact-checking groups in Europe, as it looks to cut down on misinformation ahead of the European Parliament elections. The company has admitted greater regulation is needed for the tech industry and has said it will work with governments to introduce it. The updated fact-checking programme will see the five new partners join a larger group of checkers focused on the upcoming European Parliament elections called FactCheckEU. The other new groups are Ellinika Hoaxes in Greece, Faktograf in Croatia, Observador in Portugal and Patikrinta 15min in Lithuania. The scheme now includes 21 groups, fact-checking content in 14 European languages, Facebook said. Any content that is flagged as false will be shown lower in the Facebook News Feed, which the firm claims reduces its distribution and the number of people who see it. Facebook product manager Antonia Woodford said: "In our experience, once a story is rated as false, we've been able to reduce its distribution by 80%. Pages and domains that repeatedly share false news will also see their distribution reduced and their ability to monetise and advertise removed. "This helps curb the spread of financially motivated false news." Ms Woodford said the fact-checking programme was part of wider Facebook efforts to improve the "quality and authenticity" of stories that appear in the site's News Feed. "We remove accounts and content that violate our Community Standards or ad policies, reduce the distribution of false news and inauthentic content like clickbait, and inform people by giving them more context on the posts they see," she said. "Misinformation is a complex and evolving problem, and we have more work to do." FactCheckNI said: "Working with Facebook provides the opportunity to directly inject our fact-checking remedy into this social network. "Our aim is to improve the quality of information being read on Facebook and to increase the impact of our work." Police have been challenged over how thieves who raided two ATMs in Co Antrim avoided arrest. The machines were stolen from a Tesco supermarket in Ballymena in the early hours of yesterday morning. Both were later recovered. However, the PSNI is facing questions after it emerged a patrol spotted the machines being driven away from the scene around 3am, and followed the route taken by the getaway vehicle, but failed to catch up with the gang. A digger and tractor trailer were found burnt out at the scene of the robbery on the Larne Road Link. TUV leader Jim Allister, an MLA for the area, said questions must be asked over how those responsible escaped. "While it is welcome that another audacious ATM theft in the Ballymena area has been thwarted to the extent that the police recovered the machines, the obvious question to which I will be expecting an answer to is how were the robbers able to get away?" he said. "If the police caught up with them, were there not enough personnel available to fully deal with the situation?" A total of 14 cash machines have now been stolen in 11 incidents across Northern Ireland in 2019. There have also been two attempted thefts. It is understood the digger used in the Ballymena theft was stolen from local construction company NIRBC Ltd, which was carrying out work at Green Pastures Church in Ballymena. Company owner Andy Magee told the BBC he "feels sorry" for the person who carried out the theft. "He feels the need that he has to go to all that bother and steal something, rather than getting up and going to his work," he said. "Life ruined, you know, wasted. Maybe that's a silly view to take, but that would be my view on it." Police confirmed a patrol had seen the ATMs being taken away on the back of a pick-up type vehicle. A spokesman said: "A nearby police patrol responded and from a distance spotted the ATMs being driven away from the area. They followed along the route taken by the thieves and subsequently located the vehicle abandoned on the Woodside Road with the ATMs on board. "Unfortunately the thieves had already fled across fields in the darkness and out of sight." Detective Chief Inspector David Henderson said the quick response of police allowed them to recover the ATMs, which will now be forensically examined. He added: "I want to reassure the public that we continue to do everything that we can to try stop these attacks and catch those responsible. "We have dedicated and increased the amount of resources to tackling this issue including actively patrolling ATM sites day and night. "However, the reality is that these attacks are carried out across a wide geographical area and we cannot be present at every ATM location all of the time." He added: "We really need the public to help us and report anything suspicious, as a number of people did in Ballymena this morning. "I would ask for anyone with any information to contact us on 101 quoting reference 121 26/04/19." DUP Policing Board member and North Antrim MLA Mervyn Storey said that police efforts must be stepped up. "Whilst everyone understands that it is not possible for the PSNI to stand guard at every ATM machine, the number of incidents demand more significant action," he said. "This latest incident took place on the outskirts of Ballymena and the machinery was also stolen from a very prominent location. "It is vital that anyone with information helps the police bring those responsible to justice," he added. "We have met with the PSNI's taskforce on this issue and we will continue to press for sufficient action to be taken. The public want to see results." UUP councillor Stephen Nicholl called for a more realistic response from banks. "It would seem a rational move to have alarms fitted to ATMs activated by excessive movement or tracking software installed as most phones have," he said. "Banks certainly have a responsibility to protect not only their property but the businesses undermined by both the physical and economic damage." Sinn Fein councillor Patrice Hardy condemned the raid. "I would call on the public to remain vigilant particularly in regard to the movement of heavy machinery at night and to report anything suspicious," Ms Hardy said. Tesco Ballymena remained closed yesterday. The company said it is assisting police with their inquiries. Retail NI chief executive Glyn Roberts urged the business community to remain on alert. "We would urge all businesses who have external ATMs to be vigilant, particularly if they are sited near building sites with diggers," he said. Police have seized more than 350 cannabis plants worth 180,000 in a Co Armagh village. Police attended a property on Kinelowen Street in Keady at around 4.10am after reports of four men breaking a window and entering a vacant premises before leaving in a white Ford Transit-type van. Officers responded and discovered 360 cannabis plants inside the premises. Detective Chief Inspector Brian Foster said: "This was a substantial seizure in Keady this morning and I want to thank the member of the public who contacted us. "I also want to make a number of appeals. Were you in the Kinelowen Street area of Keady between 4am and 4:10am? Did you see any suspicious activity? Did you see four males acting suspiciously, or did you see a white Ford Transit-type van being driven in a suspicious manner? "If you have information you believe may assist our investigation, please call us on the non emergency number 101, quoting reference 201 of 27/04/19." Information can also be passed anonymously to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111. DCI Foster added: We know that drugs can ruin lives and line the pockets of organised criminals, and we are determined to disrupt these criminal gangs. "We are committed to making Northern Ireland a hostile environment for those in our community who are involved in the drugs trade and anyone involved in the drugs trade, or anyone tempted to become involved should be under no illusion - we will seek to identify them, arrest them and place them before the courts. I would appeal to anyone who has any information or concerns around the supply of drugs in their community to call us on 101." Colum Eastwood has said it is down to local representatives to "take the poison out of politics". The SDLP leader and Foyle MLA was speaking yesterday at the launch of his party's manifesto for next week's local government elections. Some 85 party candidates are standing for election to the 11 councils on May 2. Mr Eastwood said people faced a very clear choice when they go to the polls to choose their council members. "People can continue supporting failed politics, or they can vote for people who will go to work," he said. "They can vote for people who want a government; they can vote for people who want to tackle the crisis in our health service, in our education system; they can vote for people who are prepared to stand up and do something to protect their communities against Brexit. "That's what the SDLP offer. That's what we've always offered, and that's the clear choice for this election. "It is a manifesto full of ideas, a manifesto that is intent on getting people back to work. It is a manifesto that recognises the real challenges we have across our communities and across our economy." He was joined by deputy leader Nichola Mallon, who brought along her two-month-old son Emmett, and by many of the candidates. It is understood that Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin will travel to Belfast next week to campaign for SDLP local election candidates, following the recent cross-border partnership between the two parties Cara Hunter, a candidate for the Derg area, told the launch: "Over the last couple of months we have knocked doors, posted endless leaflets, had difficult conversations with households who are fed up with politics being in perpetual turmoil. "We do it because we believe our message of partnership and true delivery must be heard. "This message is woven throughout policy ideas that offer an ambitious platform for change." Mr Eastwood said the party's manifesto was "littered with ideas" to tackle the crises facing us, from healthcare, through education, to housing, economic development planning and social services, as well as the challenges of Brexit. But, most of all, he said: "We need to take the poison out of politics. "As elected politicians, we have a responsibility to bring people back together again." Turning to broader political developments, and initiatives for talks to try to restore power-sharing at Stormont, Mr Eastwood insisted: "If talks fail to produce an agreement then both governments must impose a deal." The key manifesto priorities for SDLP Expand enterprise zones, reduce VAT on tourism Establish a Brexit committee on every council Tackle Hate Crime Support the Childcare for All Charter Dedicated housing planning officers in each council area A moratorium on strip mining and precious metal mining A supporter of Soldier F, wraps herself with the Parachute Regiment flag, outside Belfast City Hall (Liam McBurney/PA) Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 27th April 2019 A rally in support of British soldiers facing prosecution for Troubles-related killings has been held at Belfast City Hall. A couple of hundred people gathered, calling on the UK government to "enact protective legislation" to "safeguard" soldiers and police. A former paratrooper, known as Soldier F, is to be prosecuted for the murder of two men on Bloody Sunday in 1972. Relatives of those killed in Ballymurphy held a counter protest. Picture Matt Mackey / Press Eye. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 27th April 2019 A rally in support of British soldiers facing prosecution for Troubles-related killings has been held at Belfast City Hall. A couple of hundred people gathered, calling on the UK government to "enact protective legislation" to "safeguard" soldiers and police. A former paratrooper, known as Soldier F, is to be prosecuted for the murder of two men on Bloody Sunday in 1972. Relatives of those killed in Ballymurphy held a counter protest. Picture Matt Mackey / Press Eye. A rally in support of British soldiers facing prosecution for Troubles-related killings has been held at Belfast City Hall. Picture Matt Mackey / Press Eye. A former soldier facing prosecution in Northern Ireland has warned that veterans could bring Britain to a standstill over Troubles-related legal action. Dennis Hutchings is a former member of the Life Guards Regiment and is due to be tried for attempted murder in connection with a fatal shooting in 1974. Mr Hutchings addressed a rally in support of another former serviceman known only as Soldier F outside Belfast City Hall on Saturday. Soldier F is to be charged with murdering two people after Parachute Regiment troops opened fire on civil rights demonstrators in Londonderry in January 1972, on what became known as Bloody Sunday, killing 13. Mr Hutchings told the crowd of supporters: "We need this to continue and it will continue." He said: "Eventually our politicians are going to have to listen because if they won't we will bring this country to a standstill." The prosecution of Soldier F has polarised opinion as part of a wider campaign mounted by some MPs and veterans groups for former servicemen to be "protected" from prosecution for actions committed while on duty. Expand Close The rally was held in support of soldier F (Liam McBurney/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The rally was held in support of soldier F (Liam McBurney/PA) Mr Hutchings addressed the crowd via a phone call relayed on loudspeakers. Several hundred supporters of Soldier F listened while holding Union flags and banners with the crest of the Parachute Regiment. Some aged veterans wore berets and sported medals on their chests in the pouring rain. Among those present were senior Democratic Unionists Sir Jeffrey Donaldson and Gavin Robinson, MPs who support official action to provide legal protection for members of the Armed Forces in all conflicts. Sir Jeffrey said: "It is evident that they are very angry about the witch hunt against the veterans of the Armed Forces in Northern Ireland and feel very strongly that veterans are being singled out." He said those who engaged in terrorism were responsible for more than 90% of Troubles deaths. Expand Close Veteran Wilfie Brown addressing protesters outside Belfast City Hall (Liam McBurney/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Veteran Wilfie Brown addressing protesters outside Belfast City Hall (Liam McBurney/PA) Some relatives of those killed on Bloody Sunday have campaigned for justice for decades. Many unionists in Northern Ireland oppose a statute of limitations because they argue everybody should face the rule of law and a cut-off date could allow former paramilitaries "off the hook". It is not part of the Government's proposals on addressing the toxic legacy of the past. Parachute Regiment veteran John Ross, from the loyalist Shankill Road in Belfast, did his first tour of duty in the country aged 18 in 1971. He said: "Right from the outset my regiment has been branded murderers, killers, all sorts." He added: "We served with pride, we served with dignity, we were disciplined, we did our duty. "Yes, we we were a robust regiment, and if you wanted the job done we would have done it. But we were just like any other regiment that served in Northern Ireland in Op Banner. "Whilst at the minute the Parachute Regiment is taking the brunt of the prosecutions, believe me there are many more coming down the line." Expand Close Jeffrey Donaldson MP, DUP Spokesman on Defence attends the protest. Picture Matt Mackey / Press Eye. Matt Mackey / Presseye.com / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Jeffrey Donaldson MP, DUP Spokesman on Defence attends the protest. Picture Matt Mackey / Press Eye. According to the Pat Finucane Centre, a human rights group, only a handful of soldiers have been convicted of shooting civilians while on duty in circumstances where the courts ruled they were guilty of murder. Tens of thousands of republicans and loyalists spent time in prison and were responsible for the majority of deaths. The Stormont House Agreement proposes a new police unit to investigate all outstanding homicide cases. Demonstration organiser Mel Brown claimed no soldier or police officer would receive a fair trial in Northern Ireland and such cases should be tried elsewhere. Expand Close Relatives of those killed in Ballymurphy held a counter protest. Picture Matt Mackey / Press Eye. Matt Mackey / Presseye.com / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Relatives of those killed in Ballymurphy held a counter protest. Picture Matt Mackey / Press Eye. Families of those who died in disputed circumstances involving soldiers in west Belfast, known as the Ballymurphy Massacre group, support prosecutions. Spokesman John Teggart held a banner near the City Hall and said: "No one is above the law and justice must be served. "The fact that these crimes happened nearly 50 years ago is irrelevant. It might have been a long time ago, but the illegal acts of these soldiers is affecting the families to this day. "They committed murder and what compounded that was the apparatus of the British state then tarnished the names of many of the victims by labelling them as gun men and gun women." DUP leader Arlene Foster with Sin Feins Mary Lou McDonald and Michelle ONeill before the funeral service for Lyra McKee (Brian Lawless/PA) Hunger for politicians to achieve positive change in Northern Ireland was symbolised by mourners pressuring leaders to stand at the funeral of murdered journalist Lyra McKee, the priest has said. The heads of Stormonts main parties, including Sinn Feins Mary Lou McDonald and Arlene Foster of the DUP, gathered at St Annes Cathedral for the 29-year-olds funeral on Wednesday. The leaders were sat beside each other and a short distance from British Prime Minister Theresa May and Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, along with a host of other political figures. Fr Martin Magill asked the politicians why, two years after powersharing broke down in the Northern Ireland Assembly, it had taken the slaying of a young woman to bring them together. Expand Close The service sheet for the funeral of Lyra McKee at St Annes Cathedral in Belfast (PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The service sheet for the funeral of Lyra McKee at St Annes Cathedral in Belfast (PA) The question, delivered with a tone of exasperation, received a standing ovation although the politicians, sat at the front of the congregation, were the last to get to their feet. Speaking to the BBCs Andrew Marr show, the Catholic peacemaking priest suggested the striking images illustrated the wider public will for unity and change in Northern Ireland. The people, in a sense, really put the pressure on in the cathedral to stand, he said. Obviously the politicians realised; Oh goodness, everybody behind us is standing, we need to move, and they literally moved because people had moved. To some extent, its almost a metaphor that I get the sense that people want our politicians to move, and they want them to move now. By that, I mean in terms of entering into those talks and in a way that will bring a positive result at the end of them. While welcoming the meeting of the British Irish Intergovernmental Conference and the announcement of renewed talks, Sinn Fein deputy leader @moneillsf said that renewed political talks must urgently address and resolve the issues of equality, rights and integrity in government pic.twitter.com/yZdFA0IMA6 Sinn Fein (@sinnfeinireland) April 26, 2019 The British and Irish governments have since confirmed a new round of political talks aimed at re-establishing devolved powersharing. It was announced that talks on the restoration of powersharing institutions will resume on May 7 and all the main parties will be invited. Endless rounds of negotiations failed to break the deadlock, with Sinn Fein rejecting DUP leader Arlene Fosters latest offer to break the political impasse. Mrs Foster wants a twin-track approach where the devolved institutions are restored quickly to deal with issues such as running the health service, while a separate process addresses disagreements like that over same-sex marriage. She told BBC Radio 4s Today: What we are doing at the moment is not having a government and that is hurting ordinary people, its hurting them in terms of hospitals and education and infrastructure and job creation. So why cant we just set up the assembly and have the parallel talks process if necessary, have it in a time-limited way so that we can get government back and working in Northern Ireland. .@conormurphysf tells @BBCRadio4s #Today programme that any talks process needs to address the outstanding issues of rights and that the British and Irish governments need to live up to their responsibilities to the Good Friday Agreement pic.twitter.com/fHlqhPpPYI Sinn Fein (@sinnfeinireland) April 27, 2019 Sinn Feins Conor Murphy told Today that progress on same-sex marriage would be a fitting tribute to Ms McKee. But Mrs Foster said people should also acknowledge thestrength of feeling in relation to traditional marriage and that has been our policy for some time and continues to be our policy. She added: The place to have this discussion is on the floor of the assembly, the place to have a vote is in the assembly so people can register their approval or disagreement. Its not in the talks process, its on the floor of the assembly and if people want to put forward their views thats the place to to do it. Sinn Fein deputy leader Michelle ONeill has rejected that and said issues such as marriage equality and protection for the Irish language need to be delivered to pave the way for restoration of the devolved institutions. Expand Close Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney and Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley during a press conference at Stormont (Brian Lawless/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney and Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley during a press conference at Stormont (Brian Lawless/PA) On Friday, Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley called on political leaders to take inspiration from Ms McKees life. The journalist, who dedicated much of her time to investigating issues linked to the Troubles and giving a voice to marginalised groups, was remembered by her family as a gentle, innocent soul whose desire to bring people together made her totally apolitical. Ms McKee was shot by dissident republicans during clashes with police on the Creggan estate in Londonderry on April 18. Storm Hannah has swept into the UK, bringing 82mph winds and heavy rain after battering Ireland and leaving at least 10,000 properties without power. A yellow wind warning covering Wales and central and southern England is in force until 3pm amid the threat of disruption to transport networks and power cuts. Northern Ireland meanwhile is covered by a yellow rain warning, with the flooding of some homes and businesses likely. Western Power Distribution said more than 1,700 properties had been left without power on its network on Saturday morning, with the majority of those affected in Wales. Here's an update on some of the highest #Wind gusts observed overnight #StormHannah pic.twitter.com/xCNPL4qexK Met Office (@metoffice) April 27, 2019 Transport for Wales said storm damage on the Conwy Valley line meant buses were replacing trains between Llandudno Junction and Blaenau Ffestiniog. The Llyn Peninsula saw the highest gust overnight when a gust of 82mph was clocked at Aberdaron. Meanwhile a gust of 78mph was recorded at Pembrey Sands in Carmarthenshire and a 64mph gust was observed at the Needles off the Isle of Wight. Forecasters said the highest winds were expected in exposed coastal areas, although gusts could reach up to 50mph as the storm moves inland. Many areas will see wet and windy conditions on Saturday, although Scotland and South East England are expected to see better weather. However temperatures are only expected to reach between 9C (48F) and 12C (53F) much lower than the 26C (79F) heat seen over the Easter weekend. Western parts could also see a touch of frost on Saturday night under clearer skies in Storm Hannahs wake. Heading out this Saturday morning? It will be a wet and very windy start for many of us as #StormHannah crosses the UK. Stay #WeatherAware pic.twitter.com/j0J91uPK39 Met Office (@metoffice) April 26, 2019 Met Office forecaster Marco Petagna said: We are seeing quite hefty bursts of rain moving across Northern Ireland and into Wales, with elsewhere a bit more showery in nature. There are also quite lively gusts of wind, certainly for the UK, between 70 to 80mph and the highest at Aberdaron of 82mph at around midnight. The winds will pick up through the morning across the rest of southern England as the low tracks its way eastwards. The most persistent rain will be across Northern Ireland and Wales, with some showery outbreaks across parts of northern England as well. Named by the Irish weather service Met Eireann, Storm Hannah barrelled into Irelands south-west on Friday. Highest mean wind speeds recorded for #StormHannah Mace Head (Galway)-93km/h Sherkin Island-91 km/h Valentia-78km/h Shannon Airport-76 km/h Highest gusts recorded for #StormHannah Mace Head 122km/h Shannon Airport 119km/h Sherkin Island 114 km/h Valentia (Kerry) 114 km/h Met Eireann (@MetEireann) April 27, 2019 Forecasters issued several weather warnings, including a red warning of violent gusts. The highest recorded were at Mace Head in Galway, where 76mph was observed, while gusts reached 74mph at Shannon Airport. ESB Networks said on Friday night that strong winds had caused damage to the electricity network affecting approximately 10,000 homes, farms and businesses, predominantly in counties Kerry and Cork. Met Eireann said that very windy conditions would continue on Saturday morning before easing. Whilst the winds will abate, it will still be windy into the afternoon, with brisk northwest wind steering down a mix of sunny spells & scattered heavy showers, the weather service tweeted. Three men have been arrested in connection with an alleged stabbing incident in Crumlin. Police were called to Cairn Walk during the early hours of Saturday morning. Detective Inspector Michelle Griffin said: "At 2:50am we received a report of a stabbing incident at an address in the Cairn Walk area. "Police responded along with the NIAS. Three men aged in their twenties and a woman were taken to hospital for treatment. "Two of the men remain in hospital, one of them is in a critical condition. "We have arrested three men in connection with the incident and I want to appeal to anyone who was in the Cairn Walk area at around 2:50am and has information which may assist our investigation to contact detectives by calling the non-emergency number 101, quoting reference number 141 of 27/04/19." It is understood two of the men who have been arrested were also treated in hospital. Expand Close Police and forensic experts at the scene. Photo By Justin Kernoghan Photopress / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Police and forensic experts at the scene. Photo By Justin Kernoghan A Northern Ireland Ambulance Service spokesman said: "We got the call at 2.54am following reports of a stabbing incident in Cairn Walk. "We sent a rapid response paramedic, three ambulance crews and ambulance officers to the scene. All three crews took patients to the Antrim Area Hospital." The scene has been sealed off to allow a forensic examination to take place. In a joint statement, DUP South Antrim representatives Paul Girvan MP, Pam Cameron MLA and Trevor Clarke MLA said: "This is a very serious incident and our thoughts and prayers are with those involved and their respective family circles. "Our hope is that those who have been victims of this alleged attack pull through. Our thanks go to the emergency services who attended the scene. "This is hugely shocking for the local community too. We appeal for anyone with information to bring it to the attention of the PSNI as a matter of urgency. Jordan-based Arab Bank Group has registered a net profit of $231.8 million for the first three months, up 5.2 per cent compared to $220.3 million for the same period last year. Announcing the results for the first quarter, Arab Bank said its net income before tax increased by 9.1 per cent to hit $312.8 million. The group equity stood at $ 8.5 billion, while loans increased to $25.8 billion and deposits rose to hit $33.7 billion, it added. Chairman Sabih Masri said the performance of Arab Bank Group confirmed the success of the group in generating strong results despite the backdrop of the challenging operating environment. Masri expressed his confidence in the groups ability on delivering strong and sustainable results. CEO Nemeh Sabbagh said the underlying performance of the group continues on its growth path with first quarter results recording a healthy increase in net operating income. The strong performance was driven by growth in core banking income with net interest income increasing by 7% as well as by lower provisions. Sabbagh remarked that Arab Bank Group enjoys high liquidity and strong and robust capitalization. Groups capital adequacy ratio stood at 15.5% as of March 31, 2019. He added that the asset quality of the group remains high and that credit provisions held against non-performing loans continue to exceed 100%. On its key achievements, Sabbagh said Arab Bank was named Best Bank in the Middle East for the 4th consecutive year by Global Finance, New York.-TradeArabia News Service The death has taken place of distinguished barrister Michael Lavery, who represented several families of Bloody Sunday victims at the Saville Inquiry. Sarah Ramsey, chair of the Bar of Northern Ireland, led tributes last night. She said: "It is with great sadness that the Bar of Northern Ireland has learned of the passing of our much loved and highly respected colleague, Charles Michael Lavery QC." Mr Lavery was called to the Bar in 1956 and became a QC in 1971. "He remained in active practice until 2017 and was the Father of the Bar up until his retirement," Ms Ramsey said. "His immeasurable contribution to the Bar throughout his long career will endure and be fondly remembered by us all. "On behalf of the Bar, I would like to express our deepest condolences to his friends and family, assuring them of our thoughts and the provision of any support we can offer during this difficult time". Mr Lavery's funeral will take place on Tuesday with Requiem Mass at noon in St Brigid's Church, Derryvolgie Avenue, Belfast, followed by burial at Roselawn Cemetery. Two men arrested by detectives investigating the murder of Jim Donegan outside a west Belfast school have been released unconditionally. The men, aged 53 and 39, had been arrested on Friday under the Terrorism Act in connection to the murder. Jim Donegan, 43, was shot dead as he waited to collect his 13-year-old son from St Mary's Christian Brothers Grammar School in west Belfast in December. Detectives said the same killer had been waiting for his victim at the scene five days earlier, but Mr Donegan did not pick up his son that day. People arrested under terrorism legislation must be charged, released pending report to the Public Prosecution Service or released unconditionally bail is not permitted under this legislation. The political vacuum at Stormont will be exploited by the terrorists, UUP leader Robin Swann has warned. He backed the renewed talks to restore power-sharing, which are due to begin soon following the murder of Lyra McKee (29) last week. Mr Swann was speaking as he launched the party's council elections manifesto yesterday. He said: "We cannot ignore the fact that a political vacuum will be exploited and filled by the men and women of the shadows. "As political leaders we must recognise that and get back around the table. No more red lines and pre-conditions. "We need to have a frank and honest conversation about what the lack of devolution is doing to our people and the steps that need to be taken." Stormont has been suspended for more than two years following a row between the DUP and Sinn Fein over the botched RHI scheme. Mr Swann added: "A week on from one of the darkest days this country has seen for some time, it is important to reflect on the journey we are still on to provide our people with a society fully at peace. "There are still those dark elements out there who seek to destroy lives. "Those who still whip up young people into a frenzy, sending a new generation into the justice system while they retreat into the shadows. "Whether in the Creggan, east Belfast or any other part of Northern Ireland, the message is clear. "Get off the backs of our people." Mr Swann launched his party's manifesto for next week's local government election at an east Belfast hotel. He said: "The reality is that in the absence of Stormont, over the last two years, local government has been the last remaining vestige of democracy that still functions and it survived through the toughest of times that Northern Ireland faced. "That is why I believe that this election is about local councils, local democracy, local accountability and local responsibility. "We cannot ignore that this campaign has seen the DUP and Sinn Fein trying to turn it into a border poll and create an atmosphere around it that is as toxic as the one they created at Stormont. "We cannot allow them to turn our local councils into 11 mini-Stormonts ruled by dysfunctionality, blighted with disrespect and wrecked by scandals." The key manifesto priorities for UUP Abolishing the existing property rating system and replacing it with a more transparent version. Regenerating town centres. Retaining essential local health services. Supporting rural economies and boosting wider economic development. Maximising the potential of tourism. A man has received treatment in hospital for facial injuries after being assaulted and robbed in Belfast city centre. Police received a report on Thursday night between 10pm and 10.30pm that a man aged in his twenties had been attacked by a number of males in the Winecellar Entry area of the city centre. He was assaulted and a knife was produced. The assailants took a sum of money and a mobile phone from the victim. Detective Constable Arnott said: This was a vicious attack on this man who was treated at hospital for facial injuries. "Our enquiries are ongoing and we are appealing to anyone with information to get in touch. "Were you in the area of Winecellar Entry, High Street or Rosemary Street around that time on Thursday night? Did you witness what happened or see any males in the area acting suspiciously? "If you have any information that could assist our investigation please call detectives at Musgrave on the non-emergency number 101, quoting reference number 526 of 26/04/19. Tom Maxwell flew many sorties during the Second World War and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross Tom Maxwell was an RAF hero who was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Legion d'honneur for his bravery in the Second World War. His remarkable life has been recalled following his death at the age of 94. Born in Belfast on June 19, 1924, Thomas John Maxwell was the only child of John and Mary Maxwell. He was just 13 when his father died from the after-effects of gassing at the Battle of the Somme some two decades earlier. Maxwell was educated at Mountpottinger School, and left at 16 to become a railway clerk. In 1941 he and a number of friends joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve. They lied about their ages and smoked pipes to make them seem older. Maxwell's ambition was to be a pilot, but the RAF trained him as an air navigator, and he was eventually given the role of air gunner. While posted to No 622 Squadron based at RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk he was promoted to acting flight sergeant. Still in his late teens, he was a rear-gunner in Lancaster bombers and had completed several sorties to Germany, including targeting Berlin and the Frisian Islands, before flying on his sixth operation to bomb Stuttgart on March 15, 1944. On the way back from a successful mission his Lancaster was badly damaged by enemy flak over Rouen in France and the crew was forced to abandon the aircraft. Five who baled out were soon captured but Maxwell, despite great difficulty in handling his parachute, landed safely in a field with piles of manure. Around 1.30am he found himself navigating the country terrain and, aided by the stars, he arrived at the small settlement of Bazancourt, about 100 miles north-east of Paris. He had a near escape when he encountered a German soldier, but turned his flying jacket inside-out as a disguise, and walked past the enemy with a brief nod. He found shelter with a courageous French family in a remote farm and was well looked after. He was later supplied with a false identity card and taken to Paris, where he went to the home of a priest who had other false identity cards hidden in a piano. He then followed a well-known but hazardous French Resistance escape route, travelling south by train. Two other American escapees were caught by police in Toulouse but Maxwell arrived in Pau and stayed in a safe house. Later he and 11 other RAF men were led on foot through the Pyrenees. They arrived unscathed in Spain where they were held by police and taken to Pamplona, where Maxwell was reunited with two of his crew. They completed their escape via Gibraltar and flew back to Bristol on May 22, just over two months after they had baled out. On his return to active service Maxwell searched out the Women's Auxiliary Air Force girl who had packed his parachute and thanked her for saving his life. He flew another 26 missions, because of his strong sense of duty to lost comrades. He was awarded the DFC in 1945 for his "skill, courage and fortitude" and commissioned Flight-Lieutenant. In May 1945 he took part in an air drop of food to the starving population in the Netherlands, and later served in India before leaving the RAF. Back home he met his future wife Katherine Tennant at a bus-stop in Belfast in 1946 and they married two years later. She was from a Catholic family in Dublin, and Tom's relatives were staunch Presbyterians. No one from either family attended the wedding, which was witnessed by strangers from a nearby pub. After the war Maxwell became a teacher, but in 1952 he returned to the RAF, where he worked in air traffic control serving in Northern Ireland, Germany and Libya. He retired from the RAF in 1978 and then worked for 10 years with the Sultan of Oman's Air Force. He was a strong supporter of the Bomber Command Association and attended the commemoration of the Bomber Command Memorial in Green Park, London. In 2016 he received the Legion d'honneur from the French Government in recognition of his war service in the liberation of that country. Tom Maxwell, who died on March 22, was predeceased by his wife in 2007. He is survived by his sons Adrian, a barrister, and Tim, a psychologist. Doctor burnout is putting enormous strain on the health service, the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) annual conference has heard. Professor Gaye Cunnane, health and wellbeing director at the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, said that the issue of physician health and wellbeing needs to be urgently addressed to ensure patient safety and workforce retention. Burnout is a state of physical, emotional and mental exhaustion caused by long-term exposure to chronically stressful conditions without adequate reprieve, she said. It is not the same as depression, but there are parallels. Burnout is a specifically work-related condition. Expand Close Health Minister Simon Harris is scheduled to speak (Michelle Devane/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Health Minister Simon Harris is scheduled to speak (Michelle Devane/PA) Prof Cunnane made the comments at the IMOs annual general meeting in Killarney, Co Kerry on Saturday. Health Minister Simon Harris was scheduled to address the event on Saturday afternoon. She said a recent study by Dr Blanaid Hayes of Beaumont Hospital showed that up to a third of Irish hospital doctors met the criteria for burnout, and up to 10% met the criteria for serious depression or anxiety. Prof Cunnane described the figures as extremely concerning, yet she said they were poorly recognised in the health service. They have implications for patient care doctors in suboptimal health will find it more difficult to look after patients, putting enormous strain on the health service, she said. Prof Cunnane said the issue needs to be actively addressed to ensure that the nations doctors are healthy and not being injured by the system in which they work. Humans need to feel valued, to know that their voices are being heard and to be part of a community or team. This is true for doctors, she said. When health metrics emphasise quantity not quality, when pressure is added to existing workers because of severe staff shortages, when multiple job vacancies exist because the working conditions are not attractive to prospective candidates, burnout increases. A healthy workforce can only stay healthy in the context of a healthy work environment. Dr Padraig McGarry, incoming president of the IMO, said doctor and patient welfare are very important issues for the organisation. It is crucial that health service employers particularly recognise this as a problem and put in place programmes to support doctors at all career stages, he said. As doctors we can sometimes prioritise the health of our patients ahead of our own, so we need to be more aware of how we are feeling so that we can perform at our best. That way, patients will get the optimal level of care. The car police are looking for (PA) Detectives probing the abduction and rape of two women in north London have released a picture of the car they believe was used by the attacker. A full description of the suspect has also been shared by police with help from the victims, both in their 20s. The women were snatched separately on Thursday, the first shortly after midnight from a street in Chingford and the second around 12 hours later at 12.15pm from a street in Edgware. Expand Close The car driven by the suspect in the abduction and rape of two women on Thursday (Metropolitan Police/PA) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The car driven by the suspect in the abduction and rape of two women on Thursday (Metropolitan Police/PA) They escaped after a struggle in Osborne Road, Watford, at about 2.30pm the same day, the Metropolitan Police said. Police say they are hunting a muscular white man in his late 20s or early 30s, with a bald head or shaved blond hair and a light-coloured short beard. He also has tattoos. A CCTV still of a car believed to be a silver or grey Ford S-Max people carrier, with false registration plates, has also been released. No arrests have been made. Detective Chief Inspector Katherine Goodwin, who is leading the investigation, said: My team has been working extremely hard to identify the suspect behind these appalling crimes and our reviews of CCTV and forensic evidence are ongoing. We are continuing to speak to both women to obtain a complete picture of what happened after they were abducted. At this stage we believe that the suspect travelled around north London and Hertfordshire in his car from the early hours of Thursday April 25 and he may have come into contact with other members of the public. If you were in these areas on Thursday and were approached by a stranger in similar circumstances, or saw anything that roused your suspicion or made you feel uncomfortable, get in touch now. The two victims have been left traumatised by the attacksDetective Chief Inspector Katherine Goodwin She added: We have now released details of the car the suspect was driving. It may be that he is still driving around in this car or he has parked somewhere. If an unfamiliar car like the one pictured is now parked on your street, call police straight away. The two victims have been left traumatised by the attacks. This person is clearly a danger to women but I want to assure people that we are following up on every piece of information received and will not let up in our efforts to identify the man behind these attacks. Stranger attacks like this are extremely rare. That being said, I would urge everyone in these areas to remain vigilant and report anything suspicious to police immediately via 999. A project manager who took an upskirt picture of a woman as she queued for food on a night out held his head in his hands after being told by a judge he could face prison. A project manager who took an upskirt picture of a woman as she queued for food on a night out held his head in his hands after being told by a judge he could face prison. Entrepreneur Neil Abbott (32) was told "all sentencing options are available" by magistrate Colin Bateman-Jones when he pleaded guilty to one charge of outraging public decency at Westminster Magistrates Court yesterday. The court heard Abbott, of Maxwell Road in Romford, East London, was on a drunken night out with friends last summer when he pushed through a queue and brazenly took a picture up a woman's skirt at Liverpool Street Station in London. An eyewitness informed the victim, who alerted station staff, and they apprehended the intoxicated defendant. Prosecutor Jennifer Fadaka told the court the victim was "repulsed" by Abbott's actions and was left "extremely distressed, with a shaky voice". She said: "It was clear he (Abbott) was drinking, he was unsteady on his feet. "He said: 'Can I not just delete the picture? I've learnt my lesson'." Ms Fadaka said police seized Abbott's phone after which several other upskirting images were discovered. Defence counsel Claire McGrath said her client - who spent eight years working as a project manager in banking and finance before setting up his own business - found upskirting photos "attractive", but said there was no evidence he had taken them himself. She said Abbott, who graduated from Loughborough University with a degree in industrial design and technology, had shown genuine remorse for his actions. She said: "Although we of course accept that it is a serious and unpleasant matter, it is a one-off, and there is no evidence that can be put forward that Mr Abbott has acted in this way before. "I can honestly say that he has - in his own words to police - learned his lesson. This has had an extreme impact on him. "It clearly was not targeted in any way. It was done when he was intoxicated, he was not acting like he usually would. "It was done in the most obvious fashion. There was no sense of sophistication or trying to hide what he did. He pushed into the queue (to take the picture) and was seen straight away." Ms McGrath said her client understood the impact the incident had on his victim, and said he was "very remorseful". She said: "I can't tell you how many times he has telephoned me. "He has expressed genuine remorse. "I'm sure he will never be anywhere near the police station or the courts ever again." Abbott, who was accompanied to court by his girlfriend, was released on bail ahead of sentencing. He was not charged with a specific upskirting offence because the offence occurred eight months before the new law came into being. Achieving independence is now within Scotlands grasp, Constitutional Relations Secretary Mike Russell has insisted. Mr Russell said the campaign was moving on from hope to reality, as he opened the SNP spring conference in Edinburgh. His address came as a new YouGov poll in The Times put support for Scotland leaving the UK at 49% Mr Russell told SNP activists: Our campaign is far from won, but today we see independence support is at 49%. Todays @YouGov poll in @thetimes is amazing. 23 point lead for @theSNP in Westminster election, 24 point lead for @ScotParl and 25 point lead for Euro elections. And #Indy at 49%. Happy #SNP19 Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) April 27, 2019 The UK Government is running scared, with its refusal to grant Holyrood the powers for a second referendum, he added. Mr Russell hit out at Theresa Mays Tory administration branding it the most intransigent, the most arrogant UK Government ever. Meanwhile, he said the poisoned policy of Brexit would deliver a devastating blow to Scotland. It will destroy thousands of jobs. It will, by driving away talented and welcome EU citizens, undermine whole industries and increase depopulation in our rural areas, Mr Russell said. Brexit is not the only reason for change in our constitutional status, but it is a massive object lesson in the continuing failure of an archaic, deeply divided and out-of-touch Westminster system which looks, sounds and is well past its sell by date. @Feorlean: "I have no doubt that, by dint of campaigning and argument, by persistence and progressive politics, Scotland is moving inexorably to independence." #SNP19 The SNP (@theSNP) April 27, 2019 With First Minister Nicola Sturgeon having outlined plans for a second vote on independence before the next Holyrood elections in May 2021, Mr Russell cautioned: The journey for any nation to independence is never easy or straightforward But he insisted Scotland was moving inexorably towards that. Mr Russell, who described the independence referendum of 2014 as having been a unifying experience, stressed the need for the SNP to listen voters to build support. We need to encourage everyone who lives here to play a part in building our new national story, he told the conference. We wont do so by ignoring them, or by insulting them, or by challenging them in ways to which they simply cannot respond. We will only do so by working with them and listening to them because in so doing we will all become stronger. The plan for a citizens assembly for Scotland, announced by the First Minister on Wednesday to consider issues surrounding the countrys future, is a radical new initiative, Mr Russell said. It will allow Scotland to engage with its future in a constructive and thoughtful way, he added. Expand Close Activists at the SNP spring conference in Edinburgh. (Andrew Milligan/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Activists at the SNP spring conference in Edinburgh. (Andrew Milligan/PA) Mr Russell continued: Our common cause here is independence. Our common aim is to achieve it. There is a democratic pathway towards it which ensures that when we get there our effort will be internationally accepted. And there are ways in which we can unify Scotland around that vision. The pathway is broad. We need to walk it with all our fellow citizens. He added: There is a distance for us still to go, but we have come a vast distance already. Further, if not faster, than was expected in that bleak time. But we have to finish the journey. IKEA, a leading home furnishing retailer, launched the IKEA Forward accelerator programme during the recent Global Entrepreneurship Congress 2019 hosted by the Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN) in Bahrain. The programme aims to support entrepreneurs to grow and scale their businesses with the potential of receiving an investment or partner with one of the biggest retailers in the world, said a statement. Throughout the programmem, participating entrepreneurs will have access to a wealth of experience offered by the IKEA Forward programme to help them develop their skills and scale their business to reach new levels of growth. Saud Alsulaiman, chief executive officer of IKEA Saudi and Bahrain, said: At our company we believe that we have a responsibility towards sharing knowledge and adding value to all the communities we operate in, which has led us to launch IKEA Forward as a new platform to grow our community through entrepreneurship. This will support and strengthen the local economy and drive innovation that improves our daily lives. IKEA Forward Accelerator will be serving as a vehicle through which entrepreneurship can reach new goals and encourage more entrepreneurs to unleash their potential, he said. Startups will be shortlisted based on their business model that addresses one of four challenges; disruptive technology, improving customer experience, food innovation and sustainability, he added. The accelerator is designed to facilitate collaboration between the startups and IKEA where it will provide all the support, access to facilities and experts knowledge in the retail industry and potential access to its 400+ stores across 50 markets. Through a rigorous evaluation process, four startups will be selected to join IKEA Forward, a three-month scale-up programme to help them develop their services, products or solutions to scale. For the duration of the IKEA Forward Program, the startups will work further on developing pilots while also gaining additional business knowledge and technology information during on-site pilot events at IKEA Forward in Saudi Arabia. Entrepreneurship is the core of the IKEA business model and through partnerships with the local startups we aim to further strengthen our culture of innovation while contributing positively to the local economy, it stated. TradeArabia News Service There has been anger in Whitehall about the leak (Lauren Hurley/PA) Senior ministers are set to be hauled in front of a leak inquiry as the hunt continues for the source who gave away details of a highly sensitive National Security Council (NSC) meeting. Members of the Cabinet are expected to be summoned for interviews over the course of the weekend, the Daily Telegraph reported, amid continuing fury in Whitehall that the deliberations of the countrys most senior security body were leaked. The formal inquiry headed by Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill was said to have begun on Friday as ministers and their aides were issued with questionnaires. Recipients were required to explain where they were in the hours following Tuesdays NSC meeting when Theresa May was said to have given the green light for the Chinese tech giant Huawei to help build the UKs 5G communications network, the Telegraph said. Expand Close The Cabinet Secretary, Sir Mark Sedwill, is heading the leak inquiry (PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The Cabinet Secretary, Sir Mark Sedwill, is heading the leak inquiry (PA) They were also said to have been asked to provide details of all mobile phones in their possession and whether they spoke to the Telegraph which carried the original report about the Huawei decision. Sir Mark, who is also the National Security Adviser, was reported to have given ministers until Friday afternoon to comply with his inquiry. All those attending the NSC meeting have agreed to do so, according to the Telegraph. In doing so they were said to have effectively given Sir Marks inquiry team permission to examine the record of their calls, as well as any messages sent by text, WhatsApp or other means. Much of the attention has focused on five ministers who were said to have voiced objections to the Huawei decision Home Secretary Sajid Javid, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson, International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt and International Trade Secretary Liam Fox. MPs were quick to link the leak to the manoeuvrings around the Tory leadership, with whoever was responsible hoping to burnish their credentials for being tough on China. Expand Close Chancellor Philip Hammond said it was essential to find out what happened over the NSC leak (Stefan Rousseau/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Chancellor Philip Hammond said it was essential to find out what happened over the NSC leak (Stefan Rousseau/PA) All five however have either publicly denied being the guilty party or let it be known through aides that they were not responsible. Also present at the meeting were David Lidington, the Cabinet Office Minister and Mrs Mays de facto deputy, Chancellor Philip Hammond, Business Secretary Greg Clark and Culture Secretary Jeremy Wright. Much of the anger around the leak from the NSC where ministers are briefed by the heads of the intelligence agencies, MI5, MI6 and GCHQ reflects concern among MPs and officials that it could damage intelligence-sharing with key partners such as the US. Some MPs have called for the matter to be referred to the police or for MI5 investigators to be brought in, amid concerns that conventional Whitehall leak inquiries have a poor track record of finding the culprit. Speaking on a visit to China, Mr Hammond said on Friday that it was important to get to the bottom of what happened. To my knowledge there has never been a leak from a National Security Council meeting before and therefore I think it is very important that we get to the bottom of what happened here, he told the BBC. Its not about the substance of what was apparently leaked its not earth-shattering information but it is important that we protect the principle that nothing that goes on in National Security Council meetings must ever be repeated outside the room. There has been a reported 63% drop in orchards since 1950 (National Trust Images/Steven Haywood/PA) Dozens of new orchards are to be created across England and Wales in a bid to reverse their dramatic decline in recent decades. The National Trust said it will plant 68 new ones by 2025, after a reported 63% drop in orchards since 1950. The boost in orchards is part of what the trust has called an ambitious plan to encourage wildlife. The organisation said the loss of orchards, which it described as one of Britains most symbolic habitats, is mainly down to changes in agricultural practices, market forces, neglect and pressures from development. The amazing number of apple and other traditional fruit varieties that we can plant reflects the wonderful diversity of lifeDr David Bullock Dr David Bullock, head of species and habitat conservation at the charity, said traditional orchards are important for conserving heritage fruit varieties and vital for people too, providing local seasonal food and drink, as well as places to gather. He said: We launched a new wildlife and nature strategy in 2015 which included an ambition to create 25,000 hectares of priority habitat by 2025. We identified traditional orchards as being of particular importance because they provide the perfect home for a variety of birds, pollinators and insects, as well as being great for people. Every tree is precious because it can become a home for birds such as the lesser spotted woodpecker, bats and mistletoe moth. Expand Close Traditional orchards are also important for conserving heritage fruit varieties (National Trust Images/Steven Haywood/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Traditional orchards are also important for conserving heritage fruit varieties (National Trust Images/Steven Haywood/PA) The amazing number of apple and other traditional fruit varieties that we can plant reflects the wonderful diversity of life. Older trees spaced widely provide sunlight, shade, grasslands, wild flowers, blossom and their resulting fruit. The characterful trees also often have dead wood, are very attractive to a range of insects and their prey; birds and bats. Donald Trump is a threat to our world order and does not deserve a state visit, shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry has said after the president moved to pull the US out of the international Arms Trade Treaty. Branding him nothing but a disgrace to his office, Ms Thornberry tore into Mr Trump over his announcement that the US would be withdrawing its support for the accord regulating the multibillion-dollar global arms trade. In striking comments for a politician who could go on to play a leading role in British relations with Mr Trumps administration if he is re-elected, the senior Labour figure said the move is the final confirmation that he is not the Leader of the Free World. Under my Administration, we will never surrender American sovereignty to anyone. We will never allow foreign bureaucrats to trample on your Second Amendment freedoms. And that is why my Administration will never ratify the UN Arms Trade Treaty. pic.twitter.com/j1xnuUdX1x The White House 45 Archived (@WhiteHouse45) April 26, 2019 Ms Thornberrys intervention comes after Jeremy Corbyn said he will not attend a state banquet held for the US president when he visits in June. The Labour leader said Theresa May was wrong to kowtow to a president who rips up vital international treaties. Within hours, Mr Trump said the US would be rejecting the Arms Trade Treaty and taking our signature back. In theatrical scenes, the president signed a document asking the Senate to halt the ratification process while part-way through a speech to the National Rifle Association, the pro-gun lobby group viewed as important to his re-election hopes. Under my administration, we will never surrender American sovereignty to anyone.Donald Trump Under my administration, we will never surrender American sovereignty to anyone, Mr Trump said. More than 100 countries, including Britain, have signed up to the treaty that regulates international trade in conventional weapons, including small arms, battle tanks, combat aircraft and warships. Former president Barack Obama signed the accord, arranged under the auspices of the United Nations, in 2013, although it has not been ratified by US legislators. Mr Trumps decision to halt ratification follows similar withdrawals from the Paris Agreement on climate change, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia and the Iran nuclear deal. Donald Trump's statement on the Arms Trade Treaty is the final confirmation that he is not the Leader of the Free World, he never has been, and he does not deserve the honour of a State Visit to Britain. He is nothing but a disgrace to his office and a threat to our world order. Emily Thornberry (@EmilyThornberry) April 26, 2019 Ms Thornberry denounced the presidents latest move, tweeting: Donald Trumps statement on the Arms Trade Treaty is the final confirmation that he is not the Leader of the Free World, he never has been, and he does not deserve the honour of a State Visit to Britain. He is nothing but a disgrace to his office and a threat to our world order. Mr Trumps visit from June 3-5 is highly controversial and is expected to attract mass demonstrations. He will hold bilateral talks with Mrs May at Downing Street, while there is expected to be the pomp and ceremony of state honours elsewhere. A white-tie dinner banquet at Buckingham Palace, hosted by the Queen, is always one of the key events of any state visit. Expand Close Donald Trump is expected to be honoured with a state banquet (PA/Ben Stansall) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Donald Trump is expected to be honoured with a state banquet (PA/Ben Stansall) Mr Corbyn said he would not be attending the dinner, however he would be prepared to meet Mr Trump during his stay to discuss all matters of interest. Theresa May should not be rolling out the red carpet for a state visit to honour a president who rips up vital international treaties, backs climate change denial and uses racist and misogynist rhetoric, Mr Corbyn said. Maintaining an important relationship with the United States does not require the pomp and ceremony of a state visit. It is disappointing that the Prime Minister has again opted to kowtow to this US administration. Theresa May should not be rolling out the red carpet for a state visit to honour a President who rips up vital international treaties, backs climate change denial and uses racist and misogynist rhetoric. Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) April 26, 2019 The Prime Minister was widely criticised for inviting the US leader to make a state visit just days into his presidency in 2017. His upcoming visit is expected to attract mass demonstrations. A group of friends from Lincoln, Alabama, has gone viral for inviting an elderly woman sitting alone to their table to share a meal. JaMario Howard took to Facebook to explain that he had seen the woman, named Eleanor, eating alone. After inviting her to sit with them, he learnt that she had lost her husband of almost 60 years. He said: I walked over to her and asked if I could sit with her. She said yes and we talked for a minute and after a while of talking she told me she lost her husband and that tomorrow would have been their 60th anniversary. Mr Howard explained: I instantly gave my condolences and asked her to come eat with us, which she was excited to do. The point in this is always be kind and be nice to people. The good deed reached over 64,000 shares on Facebook. Mr Howard told Press Association: She was just sitting alone. I felt that she needed company It doesnt cost a cent to be kind. I love the comments because they are mostly positive. The German centre-right candidate hoping to become the next head of the European Unions executive branch is urging the UK not to take part in the European Parliament elections in May. Manfred Weber told Germanys Funke Media Group: It would be good if British politicians quickly ensured clarity about Brexit and didnt take part in the European election. (I am) bothered by the fact that the Europe-hater Nigel Farage with his Brexit Party is leading the British polls. That's absurdManfred Weber Mr Weber was quoted as saying that a country which is leaving the European Union shouldnt have a significant role in shaping the EUs future. He reportedly added he was bothered by the fact that the Europe-hater Nigel Farage with his Brexit Party is leading the British polls. Thats absurd. Mr Farages former UK Independence Party and wealthy allies were a driving force behind Britains 2016 Brexit referendum that saw nearly 52% back the UKs departure from the EU. Heavy rains are lashing northern Mozambique in the wake of Cyclone Kenneth as aid groups warn of possible flooding and mudslides in the days ahead. At least four deaths have been reported. Mozambiques disaster authorities say one person was killed in Pemba city and another in hard-hit Macomia district, while residents on Ibo island say two people died there. Cyclone Kenneth arrived late on Thursday, just six weeks after Cyclone Idai ripped into central Mozambique and killed more than 600 people. Our colleague Hannah Matthews is in #Pemba, where #CycloneKenneth was not as bad as we feared. Our concern and priority now is on more vulnerable rural communities who could be affected by the heavy rains expected in the coming days. pic.twitter.com/qp5xUlxJk7 ICRC Africa (@ICRC_Africa) April 26, 2019 Aid groups have warned that flooding remains a danger after Kenneth, just as flooding caused most of the deaths after Idai. The Red Cross federation reports heavy damage to Mozambiques northernmost Cabo Delgado province, with the communities of Macomia, Quissanga and Mocimboa da Praia of highest concern. At the end of an emotional week people remain shocked. The tragedy of Lyra McKee's death and the challenge to politicians was summarised powerfully by Father Martin Magill at her funeral. He asked most pointedly: "Why in God's name does it take the death of a 29-year-old woman with her whole life in front of her to get us to this point?" Why indeed? There is a tangible sense that people do not want Lyra's death to be in vain, but to be imbued with meaning and significance. That is understandable. She was an outstanding young woman whose life embodied a rare spirit of generosity, outreach and empathy, and with an almost insatiable journalistic curiosity. We have been here before in wanting to extrapolate some sense from senseless killings. We were traumatised by the deaths of the Maguire children that led to the Peace People, by Enniskillen, the deaths of the Quinn children, and atrocities elsewhere. We thought such carnage was too awful to be repeated, but the atrocities continued. Against this background politicians have been challenged to achieve something. They face big challenges, but a political vacuum is more easily filled by dissident murderers of the kind who killed an innocent young woman in Derry. Had a police officer been murdered that night would our collective response have been the same? Is it still a matter of "them" and "us'? We need to be honest, and if the talks are to go anywhere, then both main parties need to have urgent conversations with themselves. Neither can expect the other to trust its bona fides if it has not carried out this internal dialogue. If these talks are to succeed there must be give on all sides. The tone of public discourse needs to change too. It was depressing to find that within only hours of Lyra's funeral we were back to the old political points-scoring and rancour. A popular hashtag this week, picking up Lyra's natural instinct for positivity, was #BeLikeLyra. As politicians set out for the talks, they could do worse than adopt this as a motto. As least they'd make a start by agreeing on something. Every so often, however, an event would occur so beyond the pale that everyone - 'this side of the road', 'that side of the road', 'over the water' and 'over the border' - couldn't help but be stopped in their tracks." It was a strange coincidence that I was reading the novel Milkman when news of Lyra McKee's murder in Derry came through. Just hours before the grim news I had been taken by the words cited above, never thinking that another such "so beyond the pale" moment was actually happening even as I read on that Thursday night. Anna Burns's book is wrongly described as a "hard read". Yes, it does take a bit of reader effort to get stuck in - but that effort is rewarded in spades, not least by the magical quality of the language flows, but also for the human accounts which bear in on you, and above all for its humour. The 2018 Booker Prize winner evokes the 1970s horror of the Troubles. Then every so often came the stand-out horror, the atrocity that grabbed global headlines. Suffice to say that 21 years after the Good Friday Agreement we are - yet again - back to the "politics of the last atrocity". And back to hoping it could become a potential driver of fundamental change. It is a question of two parts hope, to one part divided between dread and cynicism, for in the past the backwash of the standout atrocity did not endure - much less deliver. And, again, more than two decades after long-planned structures were put in place to avoid another atrocity, we find the key players in Northern Ireland cannot do grown-up politics without outside supervision. So, 27 months after Stormont was shut down, Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney and Secretary of State Karen Bradley have finally taken a hand. The two ministers have acknowledged the huge influence of Lyra McKee's murder on this new move. On May 7, yet another round of multi-party talks will open and on the following day the Dublin and London governments will meet in a forum provided for under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. This is the so-called British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference which last met in November 2018, and has previously met 26 times in efforts to break big logjams. Both ministers will work over the coming days with the parties on how the talks will be structured. All the parties will participate. But for now at least there will not be an independent outside chairperson. Success will depend on the feedback given to the politicians, especially in the two big parties, by the public across Northern Ireland. There is much anecdotal evidence that the overwhelming mood is that there can be no going back to the bad old days. There are grounds to hope that 20 years of peace, albeit uneasy peace sitting amid ongoing tensions, will steel the majority will in both communities. Everyone knows that peace amounts to more than an absence of war. Simon Coveney alluded to this by saying: "There are moments in politics when things change." Therein lies the bulk of all our hopes - one more time. Mr Coveney was right about the need to carry on regardless of what else is on the political agenda. These talks will start amid two elections, the local council vote next Thursday, and the expected European Parliament elections on May 23. In Northern Ireland there's often an election posing an excuse to hold everything up. After the election will come yet another marching season. Here's a different suggestion - issue all the participants with a copy of Anna Burns's 'Milkman' and make them all sit a simple quiz on the work before being admitted to the talks. John Downing is a commentator with the Irish Independent The Sharjah Commerce and Tourism Development Authority (SCTDA) said hotels and hotel apartments across the northern emirate registered solid growth last year netting Dh633 million ($172 million) in revenue. The total number of hotel guests in 2018 surged to 1.74 million, stated SCTDA in its report. In 2018, guests from Russia, the Commonwealth and the Baltics region posted a 41 per cent growth compared to the previous year, while tourists from Africa increased by 4 per cent. According to senior officials, Russians continue to boost their market share in Sharjah which surged to 23 per cent last year from 15 per cent in 2017. Meanwhile, China has kept its market share to 7 per cent, they added. The SCTDA continues to remain on track to drive the emirates tourism sector after its major 2018 accomplishments revealed a steady rise in the number of visitors and improved hotel revenues, said the officials ahead of its participation at the upcoming Arabian Travel Market 2019 in Dubai. During the event, the SCTDA will promote its tourism projects and initiatives to raise global awareness of the emirates distinctive, all-year-round tourist attractions. The top five nationalities who travelled to the emirate in 2018 were Russians and they include the Russia, the Commonwealth and the Baltics region at 392,691; Omanis, 145,413; Chinese, 122,328; Saudis, 117,074; and Indians, 113,300 visitors. Sharjah also broached the Indonesian, Malaysian, German, and Singaporean markets for the first time in 2018 through road shows to promote the emirates exceptional tourism offerings and popular tourist attractions, and we have also recently launched promotional campaigns to attract more visitors from Scandinavia, Northern Europe and the Far East, with the aim of activating cooperation with potential and new tourism markets. SCTDA, which won the Best Tourism Authority award at the Arabian Travel Awards 2018, also received three ISO certificates last year, namely ISO 9001, ISO 14001, and ISO 18001. On the achievements, Chairman Khalid Jasim Al Midfa said: "Sharjah governments vision is to attract 10 million visitors by 2021, in time for the UAEs 50th founding anniversary. Thanks to the unlimited efforts and the cooperation of all partners with us, we have already achieved at least 70 per cent of this vision, which is the equivalent of 7 million visitors who have come to Sharjah." "This number is divided into leading exhibitions, events, museums visitors and tourists through the Sharjah International Airport - a quality focused achievement that we are proud of and has also inspired us to continue moving forward," he noted. "The continuing efforts to improve and enhance the tourism sector play a large and important role in helping achieve the objectives of this vision. Moreover, the positive performance of the local tourism sector is an important addition to successful achievements of Sharjah, which has also been named World Book Capital 2019 by the Director-General of Unesco," he added.-TradeArabia News Service The question itself seems to be inextricably entangled in thorny brambles and scratchy briars. An overgrowth of shifting social standards, exegetical neglect, homiletical abuse, misunderstanding, prejudice, cultural intrusion, plain-old ignorance, and even the personal pain of many godly women have all converged with their prickly suckers and shoots to strangle the now untouchable center, wherein lies the fruit of truth. I am talking about the question of the ordination of women to the pastoral ministry. In order to get at the fruit of truth, we're going to have to use our best biblical, interpretive shears to snip away the unkept vines. But as with any valuable treasure we must approach our task with humility, patience, understanding of each other, and the willingness to speak honestly about the revelation of God in Scripture. We will also need to recognize that men and women of good will disagree over this. We must not break our faith in bonds of unity even if we are convinced and convicted that our position is the right one. God has condescended to us by allowing branches of his church to exist where polarized positions may be expressed with love. I do believe that a delimitation is in order. I am an ordained minister in a Bible believing, evangelical denomination that does not ordain females to the offices of the church. It is important to also state that we do not ordain every male candidate to these offices. But with that being said let us go forward and follow the Lord's will as best we can. The necessary limitations of this article will require us to focus on only a few of the questions. The first of these questions is always the right place to start: 1. Does the Bible actually speak to the issue of the ordination of women? There is a possible side path that we are tempted to take and that is the matter of "ordination." Is there a discernible "theology of ordination" in the Bible? Many believers, in fact most of the global church, answers that question by saying "yes." Yes, there is a discernible doctrine of ordination: the recognition of gifts and graces and calling to God ordained offices of the church. Depending upon the branch of the church there may be two offices or three offices. The Bible speaks of presbyters who served as pastors, evangelists, apostles those who were directly commissioned by Jesus Christ face-to-face as well as deacons, and local church elders. Some, like Anglican brothers and sisters recognize an office of the episcopacy: the presbyter whose primary function is to "shepherd the shepherds who shepherd the flock." These are all very important matters but constitute a completely different set of questions and responses. For now let us just focus on the question of whether the Bible prohibits the ordination of a female in the office of pastor (or presbyter, priest, or minister of Word, Sacrament, and Prayer, that is, Christian clergy serving as pastor, rector, or vicar). Those who fill these offices must be called, trained, approved, for the Bible says "no man takes this honor unto himself." There are many places in the Bible that speak to the question before us but do so by inference; that is, one must gather the data of the texts and discern the truth. Rather than focus on these all go to the usual texts that is cited and, indeed, the biblical passage that is often debated. 1 Timothy 2:8-15 remains the crucial scriptural text in the debate over the ordination of women, or, if you prefer, the issue of women serving as pastors of local churches. In this passage, the Apostle Paul is teaching young Pastor Timothy about the pitfalls of ministry in the Ephesian church. This Christian community, founded by Paul, was a hotbed of controversy. One of those problems, in chapter two, involves prayer for kings and all in authority ( 1 Timothy 2:1-2 ). Reading a text with Newtons Third Law, we recognize that for every admonition there is an equal and opposite problem that created the exhortation. Therefore, undoubtedly, there were some who refused to pray for pagan or anti-Christian rulers. This violated the order of human government ordained by God. There was also trouble with men in public prayer. It is quite likely that some were weaponizing public prayers in the house of the Lord, using the privilege of pastoral prayers to call out the peccadilloes of others. Quarrels were morphing into violence. And then there is the matter of the sensual and ostentatious display of Greco-Roman female fashion that is prohibitive. I also want the women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God ( 1 Timothy 2:9-10 ). Now, both of these critical matters in the Ephesian congregation involve parochial and universal concerns. In other words, local customs were in play in the controversy. But so, too, were more global concerns of virtue; In this case, modesty. This is a vital distinction that must be considered as we move to the tenderloin passage informing our pursuit of an answer to the question of whether females may be set apart for pastoral oversight of a Christian community. So, St. Paul admonishes Timothy concerning the apparent assumption of the mantle of teaching authority by women in the Ephesian church. A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet ( 1 Timothy 2:11-12 ). There is absolutely no debate whatsoever that the Apostle Paul is forbidding women from holding the principal position of authoritative doctrinal teaching in the Ephesian church. The question is whether the Apostle Paul is continuing his line of thinking about social norms or is he moving from the issue of provocative attire by women in the assembly to speak about another matter altogether: namely, women exercising authoritative doctrinal headship over the men in the church. To put it another way: Is 1 Timothy 2:11-12 a parochial, i.e., particular, guide, or is this pivotal passage a universal, i.e., a general rule? Men and women of good will differ on the response. Those who believe in the ordination of women into the pastoral ministry might preface their study of 1 Timothy 2 with another important passage. The Apostle Paul taught, there are no male or female, no slave nor free, no Jew or Greek, but we are all one in Christ. All understand this to be true. However, some interpret this to be not only speaking ontologically that is about personhood but also about role relationships. Others draw the distinction between the equality of personhood and the distinction of role relationships. For instance, the apostle Paul clearly is not overthrowing the role relationship of husbands and wives, parents and children, of employers and employees, of civil authority and citizens who must abide by the law. In speaking to the essential personhood: we are all equal before God. Paul's statement in 1 Timothy 2:12 appears to be a teaching related to role relationships. Paul is saying that females should not "wear" the mantle of doctrinal authority in the local church. It is very important to see that he buttresses this, as if to anticipate a discussion about changing social norms, with the passage that deals with the fundamental creation ordinance of men and women. This is the familiar place with the apostle Paul says, "for Adam" Did you see that? This sentence is an explanation, a defense of his previous statement, namely, that, "I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet." Paul goes on to say that in the beginning God created Adam and Eve. There is an order in creation. The truth is that the highest form of the order is woman for she was the last creature that God made. This is also demonstrated when Adam awakes from his divinely induced sleep to behold the woman. She is fair and lovely, the gift, the highest order of creation and one to be cherished, honored, and protected in every way. So the Apostle Paul says that in fact she has a greater role in the history of the world: for it is by woman, without the aid of the man, through childbirth, that she brings forth salvation, that is, the Lord Jesus Christ. Each of these passages deserve their own interpretive analysis, discussion, and prayerful reflection. But for our purposes it is enough to say that the force of this teaching by the apostle Paul appears to be admonishing Timothy that (1) women should not hold authoritative office in the local church that involves apostolic and doctrinal teaching; and (2) it has absolutely nothing to do with social norms whether it might be considered appropriate or inappropriate for female to hold such an authoritative position over a congregation nor does it have to do with ability (as a seminary professor and as a pastor I have known many gifted women whose skills and natural abilities far exceeded some of my own assistant ministers and pastoral staff). Rather, the matter is settled because of the creation ordinance. 2. So, does the Bible condone women in other offices of the church? That is a very good question and, once again, the answer to that question is not unanimous. There are some who believe that 1 Timothy 2:12 forbids a woman to be a senior pastor, it does not forbid the ordination of women to the office. Others, feel that a woman can serve as an associate pastor or in another expression of pastoral ministry. There are others still, who believe that the office of deacon is open to women. Usually, those who hold this position point to the great female figure in the New Testament, Phoebe. She most certainly is identified as carrying out diaconal ministry. Others, point to 1 Timothy 3:8-13 in the Apostle Paul's statement of qualification for deacons. It is to be noted that there is a qualification required of deacons that is not required of elders or overseers ( 1 Tim. 3:1-7 ). Paul says that "their wives likewise must be dignified, not slanderous, but sober minded, faithful in all things." Why are deacons given this requirement and not elders? A survey of the New Testament provides further insight to this question. The deacon was required to be involved with the women of the church, for example, the distribution of support to widows, and, obviously, other ministries that are necessary but not mentioned. The elders principal duty is the teaching of the Word of God and the spiritual and doctrinal oversight of the flock. Therefore, the apostle Paul focused his comments on the work of the deacon and the necessity, if he were to be married, of a wife who is trustworthy in dealing with such sensitive, confidential matters within the body of Christ. So, there are some within the body of Christ who feel such distinctions are imposed upon the text rather than extracted from the text. They feel that women may be ordained into the diaconal ministry. 3. If the church persists in the distinction of the role relationships of men and women, especially pertaining to the pastoral ministry, won't this have a negative effect before the watching world? The truth is that much of what the church stands for, teaches, and proposes runs contra mundum that is, "against the world." Is it not true that the Church's teaching on human sexuality, the family, and, of course, the Person of Christ, is increasingly at odds with the postmodern and post-Christian society? Then again, if the Church advances this position or any other position based on anything other than Scripture, she will be completely defenseless against rhetorical attack. Indeed, the Church without biblical doctrine is in danger of collapsing. Therefore, those men who boorishly employ this Scripture as a weapon to keep female parishioners from exercising their gifts are wrong (and should be called out by other men). They will be seen for what they are by the world and, ultimately, by the Church. On the other hand, whether it is the ordination of women and we must remember that, again, there are those within the body of Christ who love the Lord, love his Word, and have arrived at a different position or whether it is human sexuality or any of the other issues we face it, if we alter, add to or take away from the Word of God we will not only fail in our attempt to impress the world with our magnanimity, but more importantly, we will incur the wrath of God. 4. Well, is there anything positive to say? The biblical revelation of the role relationships of men and women, those who are called to the office of pastor, to those who were called to the office of deacon, or elder, or those who serve in a variety of other honorable professions and trades, recognizes the value and worth of every individual. The same Apostle Paul who wrote 1 Timothy 2 is the apostle who did indeed write, There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus ( Galatians 3:28 , KJV). We serve the Lord according to God's calling, according to God's own revealed order, and we do so in humility, and total dependence upon his strengths. And we never serve apart from others. We are, indeed, members (eyes, ears, hands, feet) of the same body. Our calling is always conducted in the presence of others following their vocation. So, let respect and honor be the marks of our ministry, evenno, especiallywith those brothers and sisters from whom we might part because of this or another matter. Men and women of good will might certainly disagree about this teaching. In fact, we do. But if one reads 1 Timothy 2 and concludes a position differently than my own, and does so out of an earnest desire to understand and follow God's Word, then I have only to say, let us cooperate without compromise." And if your heart is with my heart give me your hand. Michael A. Milton, PhD (University of Wales; MPA, UNC Chapel Hill; MDiv, Knox Seminary), Dr. Milton is a retired seminary chancellor and currently serves as the James Ragsdale Chair of Missions at Erskine Theological Seminary. He is the President of Faith for Living and the D. James Kennedy Institute a long-time Presbyterian minister, and Chaplain (Colonel) USA-R. Dr. Milton is the author of more than thirty books and a musician with five albums released. Mike and his wife, Mae, reside in North Carolina. Photo credit: GettyImage/ViktorCap China and Russia don't "compete" in Central Asia, and the two countries complement each other to bring the region prosperity, Rashid Alimov, former Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) secretary general. As the Global Times writes in the article BRI won't cause conflicts between China and Russia in Central Asia, both countries cooperate to maintain the security and stability in the region and make efforts to fight against terrorism and extremism as well as drug trafficking, said Alimov, Doctor of Political Science and a senior fellow with Chinese think tank Taihe Institute. Alimov dismissed the concern that China's presence in Central Asia with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) may lead to conflicts with Russia, stressing that the two countries cooperate both on a bilateral and a multilateral basis. "China and Russia are equally important and strategic partners for Central Asian countries," he said. Despite widespread support for the BRI, some Western countries, including the US still harbor different sentiments and skepticism about the initiative. Alimov told the Global Times that these countries don't make assessments objectively toward the BRI and the cooperation under the BRI is actually in the interests of all parties. "Another thing is obvious: China will not force anyone to join the BRI. This is the sovereign right of every country," he said. He added that for any initiative, it won't only have supporters, but also critics. India is the only SCO country that hasn't been directly involved in the BRI, as it claimed the BRI could harm its sovereignty. Alimov didn't respond directly to the question on what China can do to disperse excessive concerns over the BRI from India, who joined the SCO in 2017. But he noted to the Global Times that the BRI is open in nature and is not accompanied by any pressure or coercion. "Practical results are already visible. They are felt by participating countries along the Belt and Road," he said. Mr. Alimov also dismissed the "debt trap" accusations from some countries. He mentioned that banks including the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), EXIM Bank and China Development Bank select BRI projects for financing very carefully and conduct a thorough examination beforehand. "For this reason, it will be difficult for the loan recipients to get into the 'debt trap,'" he said. As the Belt and Road passes through some countries and regions that are haunted by terrorism, joint efforts to counter terrorism are deemed important. Alimov said that China has made a great contribution to countering terrorism and extremism, and is actively cooperating with international and regional organizations, including the UN and SCO. Founded in 2001, the SCO was initially established to fight terrorism, separatism and extremism. "China provides a variety of support to those countries that have become targets of terrorist attacks. It shares its own experience, provides equipment and grants for the training of professional personnel," he said, adding that only by combining international efforts can terrorism be fully eradicated. Amid Washington's increasing pressure on countries previously exempt from Washington's sanctions on Iran, Ankara persistently states that growing tension may spark destabilization in the region while pondering options to minimize the negative effects of the expiring exemption. As Daily Sabah writes, U.S. President Donald Trump administration's uncompromising attitude on Iran, including the designation of Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization and the decision to end sanctions waivers on Iranian oil imports for eight countries, will likely prompt intense Turkish diplomacy on the issue. Being one of the previously exempted countries, Turkey immediately reacted to the U.S. decision and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu issued stern messages to Washington Monday. One of the reasons whipping up Ankara's reaction was addressing the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia as possible alternatives to Iran for oil purchases. Cavusoglu stressed that forcing Turkey to resort to alternatives is an "encroaching" attitude, and also politically and ethically wrong. "Now, the U.S. has taken unilateral action and is asking other countries to pay for this decision," he said. The Trump administration said Monday that it will no longer exempt any countries from U.S. sanctions if they continue to buy Iranian oil, stepping up pressure on Iran in a move that primarily affects the five remaining major importers: China and India, and U.S. treaty allies Japan, South Korea and Turkey. The decision means sanctions waivers for these five nations won't be renewed when they expire on May 2. Cavusoglu indicated that the U.S. is trying to kill two birds with one stone with its recent policy. "The U.S. has escalated tension against Iran with Israeli support and increases the oil exports of its cohorts," he said. These developments should also be evaluated in the light of two intelligence operatives' arrests in Istanbul on Monday, who confessed to spying on Arab nationals on behalf of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), one of whom is suspected of having connections to the murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Moreover, addressing the UAE as an alternative for oil purchases, a country that has been harboring a hostile attitude toward Turkey in recent years, sparked indignation on the Turkish side. Possibility of new clashes in region increases Speaking to Daily Sabah on the possible effects of the U.S. decision, Hakk Uygur, the deputy chair of the Center for Iranian Studies (IRAM) in Ankara, said the move significantly increased the possibility of new clashes in the region as it may lead to the bankruptcy of Iran's economy and trigger a situation similar to Iraq in the '90s or today's Venezuela. Stressing that Iran has no equivalent instruments against the Trump administration, Uygur said those who previously bought the lie of "weapons of mass destruction" before the Iraqi intervention could be persuaded with similar narration. "On the other hand, Iran can sustain its economy through Turkey and Russia, but eventually it has to give concessions to Washington. The Trump administration won't give up until it gets compromises on stopping the development of ballistic missiles and the enrichment of uranium," Uygur said. Trump made the decision as part of the his administration's "maximum pressure" campaign on Iran that aims to eliminate all of its revenue from oil exports that the U.S. says funds destabilizing activity throughout the Middle East and beyond. With this decision, no more sanctions waivers will be granted, choking off Iranian income that had been more than $50 billion a year. "Turkey's oil imports will be significantly reduced and the two countries' relations will hit a serious low on various fields, including tourism and trade," Uygur said, emphasizing that the sanctions on Iran will remain a secondary issue in bilateral relations. "If the U.S. will take steps against the Gulenist Terror Group (FETO), S-400 missile systems, F-35 jet fighters and PKK-affiliated People's Protection Units (YPG) in Syria, Turkey may soften its tone against the sanctions," he said. Crude oil imports of Turkey from Iran have been on the decline since May 2018, when U.S. sanctions against Iran were announced, followed by a complete reset in November. According to information compiled from Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EMRA) data, Turkey stopped oil purchases from Iran in November last year and met its crude oil needs from Iraq, Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation, Kuwait, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan, respectively. Imports, which had a monthly average of over 1 million tons, decreased to 285,000 tons in June 2018. Even though this amount increased again to 800,000 tons in July, it gradually decreased, followed by a complete reset in November. On the other hand, evaluating Turkey's attitude against U.S. sanctions, Iran's ambassador to Ankara, Mohammed Farazmand, said Turkey is not only protecting the interests of Iranian people but also serves the national interests of its own country. "Because the two countries have mutual national interests," he said in a reception of Iranian Armed Forces Day in Ankara on Monday. Ankara intensely monitorng developments around sanctions Overall, the developments around the sanctions and their possible repercussions will be intensively monitored by Ankara, while relations with Washington will likely accelerate in terms of ongoing bilateral issues. Meanwhile, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's latest statement during the National Sovereignty and Children's Day reception on Tuesday, which was pointing out an upcoming talk with Trump, could be taken into the consideration in this sense. Baku is a good venue for the Formula 1 GP, the former executive director of Formula 1, Bernie Ecclestone said to the journalists. "The is is one of the few street tracks. It is obvious that the race takes place on the city streets, because in Baku you see more buildings than in Monaco! So, to me, this place turned out to be very suitable, " the correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza quotes Bernie Ecclestone as saying. The history, traditions and canons of Orthodoxy serve as a unifying factor for a significant part of such post-Soviet countries as Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, and Moldova, the analyst of Vestnik Kavkaza Ekaterina Vinnik said in the National Question program on Vesti.FM. The National Question is a weekly program on Vesti.FM, during which various aspects of the national relations, primarily in Russia, are discussed. Todays program was dedicated to Orthodoxy in Russia and in the post-Soviet space and the attitude towards Orthodoxy as a part of ethnic identity. Ekaterina Vinnik recalled that Orthodoxy, like any other religion, above all represents a certain way of life of people practicing it. The expert noted that Orthodoxy is a traditional and culture-forming religion on the Russian soil since 988, which shaped the morality and idea of Russian, Soviet and post-Soviet society, represented by a number of peoples. "Despite the fact that after the collapse of the USSR a number of independent states were formed, it is safe to say that Orthodoxy is linking most of them. In Belarus, for example, the Orthodox Church is the largest confession, and the total number of Orthodox in the country is 4.5 million people. In Moldova, today there is the highest percentage of Orthodox in the post-Soviet space: 93% of the population consider themselves Orthodox Christians. The majority of the population in Georgia and Ukraine are also Orthodox Christians, " she said. "Why is this important? The fact is that the Orthodox Church, not only in Russia but also in the post-Soviet countries, is a spiritually stabilizing factor in society. And this, in turn, means that despite the possible existing differences, common spiritual values identify any relations. It is the Orthodox religion that influences the way of life and political views of the population of many post-Soviet states, " Ekaterina Vinnik said. The analyst of Vestnik Kavkaza drew attention to the fact that Orthodoxy determines the cultural component of the development of society and set of its values. "Therefore, in Russia, Orthodoxy, along with other confessions, is a traditional religion. Any Orthodox, whether from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus or Moldova, celebrates Christmas, Easter and other important holidays, tries to live in the tradition of the Orthodox faith, which, above all, preaching patience, respect for neighbors and hospitality," she said. "In other words, Orthodoxy determines the cultural collectivity of the post-Soviet countries populations, contributing to the harmonious development of relations, the quality of which is determined by the people themselves, and not imposed from the outside," Ekaterina Vinnik concluded. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 27/4/2019 (970 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Advertisement Advertise With Us Fur your information Friends Fur Life Daycare has a new owner. Tami-Rae Rourke Tami-Rae Rourke took over the dog-grooming and doggie daycare business from Lynn White April 1. "Ive been in love with animals since I was young," Rourke explained. "Ive always wanted something to do with animals." Rourke said the business at 941 26th St. is in the process of being completely renovated, with patio doors to a huge deck, new spa/salon, hydraulic tub and tables and an upgrade to the second run, adding 20 yards of pea stone. There will also be a new room to keep the dogs separated and a new puppy room. The work is expected to be completed May 15. Rourke is past president of the Brandon Chamber of Commerce, a member of Brandon Universitys board of governors and co-founder of I-NetLink Wireless and Net-Set Communications, which was sold to Xplornet in 2017. She is still a co-owner of TowerCo Canada Ltd., which operates just under 200 telecommunications towers in Manitoba that were part of Net-Set. Friends Fur Life will keep the five staff who were there before, Rourke said, and is adding two more, including Rourkes mother, Marion Rourke, to try to keep two staff on at all times. Federal building still listed In the market for a heritage federal building? The Service Canada Centre at 1093 Princess Ave. was listed last September and is still looking for a buyer, said Tom Corrigan, regional communications adviser / Western Region with Public Services and Procurement Canada. The building was declared surplus about four years ago. Listed by Colliers International, the 46,603-square-foot building is on the market for $4.1 million. Current tenants include Employment and Social Development Canada, Correctional Service Canada, Canada Revenue Agency, Veteran Affairs Canada and Industry Canada. The listing indicates about 14,284 square feet is vacant. Built in 1930, the building is protected under a federal heritage designation. Once it changes hands, it will be protected by a municipal heritage designation. Fusion holds AGM Fusion Credit Union is returning $500,000 in patronage allocation to its members, nine months after the official amalgamation of Vanguard and Catalyst Credit Unions. The credit union held its annual general meeting in Hamiota on Thursday. "Fusions amalgamation has been successful, which translates directly into member benefits," CEO Ron Hedley said in a news release Friday. "From the beginning, we had strong support and buy-in from the staff, who created new teams that came together well and quickly, which in turn has delivered results that have exceeded our expectations." Fusion reported asset growth at 4.66 per cent, with a net income in nine months of more than $4 million and preferred dividend rate of 4.25 per cent. As well, it has contributed almost $180,000 to projects and community organizations through donations, sponsorships and scholarships. brobertson@brandonsun.com Twitter: @BudRobertson4 Bust out your best plaid, grab a Tim Hortons double-double and settle in on the chesterfield to enjoy the latest episode of The Simpsons, set in the Great White North this Sunday. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 27/4/2019 (970 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Advertisement Advertise With Us Bust out your best plaid, grab a Tim Hortons double-double and settle in on the chesterfield to enjoy the latest episode of "The Simpsons," set in the Great White North this Sunday. The episode, titled "Doh Canada," is as sweet as maple syrup and was penned by Simpsons producer, writer and Canadian Tim Long. Tim Long The son of a John Deere tractor dealer, Longs parents hail from Saskatchewan. Long was born in Brandon and spend the first two months of his life in the city before his family moved to Exeter, Ont. "Ive always felt that Brandon was this beautiful mystery to me," Long said in a telephone interview. "I would love to come back sometime." He now calls Los Angeles home but joked that he would happily fly up to the city for a tour if the mayor offered. Long left for the United States soon after graduating from the University of Toronto, a move driven by a desire to pursue a career as a comedy writer. CP Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will be portrayed in Sunday's Canadian-themed episode of "The Simpsons," which is titled "D'Oh Canada." (The Canadian Press) "I miss Canada on a daily basis. That I didnt expect," Long said. He got his big break as head writer of the "Late Show with David Letterman" and joined "The Simpsons" in 1998. Long always welcomes Canadian jokes in the writers room. While 90 per cent of the time Americans dont know a lot "aboot" Canada, he said, those who do know aboot the country want to learn every weird difference between Canada and America. "They want to know that we drink milk out of milk bags, that our dollar is called a loonie and that our two-dollar coin is called a toonie," Long said. "They find it hilarious." The episode will be a rich blizzard of Canadian references, Long said, and based on his experience with "The Simpsons" as a viewer, he does not mind if some of the jokes go over Americas heads. For him, jokes of this nature inspired him to do some research and learn what made the gag funny. "It meant that they were aiming high. If I had to go look something up, then I would and then I would enjoy the joke and I would be that much smarter," Long said. Long does not want a show that is nothing but references anyone can get. The Canadian-set episode "Doh Canada" will be relatable for Americans, but will feature a sprinkle of humour just for Canucks. During the episode, the Simpsons visit Niagara Falls and, through a series of wacky mishaps, Lisa goes over the powerful flow of water that separates Ontario and New York. She lands on the Canadian side and is admitted to hospital, where she realizes Canada is the place for her. Justin Trudeau, "the biggest Canadian obsession of Americans since Wayne Gretzky," makes a "lovingly satirical" appearance in a cute scene he shares with Lisa, Long said. "The Simpsons" producers originally asked the prime minister to provide the characters voice, but he politely declined. Instead, the prime ministers voice will be provided by Canadian journalist Lucas Meyer. Tight-lipped about potential spoilers, Long said, there will be a number of funny, obscure jokes just for Canadians. "Theres a solid 30 seconds that will be 100 per cent unintelligible to an American audience, and I think that is my favourite," Long said. "The Simpsons" airs Sunday on Citytv at 8 p.m. ckemp@brandonsun.com, with files from the Canadian Press Twitter: @The_ChelseaKemp TORONTO - An Ontario judge has rejected the provincial government's request to lift a stay on legal proceedings against three major Canadian tobacco companies. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 27/4/2019 (970 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. A smoker holds a cigarette outside a building in Vancouver, Monday, Jan. 20, 2014. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward TORONTO - An Ontario judge has rejected the provincial government's request to lift a stay on legal proceedings against three major Canadian tobacco companies. The Ontario government's request, if granted, would have allowed its lawsuit to recover smoking-related health costs to push forward. Ontario Superior Court Justice Thomas McEwen dismissed the government's request in a one-page ruling released on Friday, with a promise that "reasons will soon follow." The province launched its lawsuit roughly a decade ago against a dozen Canadian firms and their parent companies to recoup past and present health-care costs related to smoking. The case was expected to go to trial late next year or in early 2021. But pre-trial preparations stalled last month after three of the tobacco companies involved in the suit Imperial Tobacco Canada, JTI-Macdonald Corp. and Benson & Hedges sought creditor protection in response to a separate legal battle in Quebec. Earlier this year, Quebec's highest court upheld an earlier judgment which ordered those firms to pay more than $15 billion to smokers in that province who took part in two class-action lawsuits. The companies then sought relief in the Ontario court and obtained orders suspending all legal proceedings against them while they attempt to negotiate a settlement with all their creditors, including Ontario and other provincial governments. In a hearing on Thursday, lawyers for Ontario said the trial cannot move forward without the three companies that are seeking creditor protection, because the case includes joint allegations that involve them. The three companies opposed Ontario's motion and argued that resuming trial preparations would distract from and undermine the negotiations. The companies also argued that the Ontario government cannot claim to be committed to mediation while it devotes resources to a parallel legal process. McEwen had previously extended the stay of legal proceedings, saying it was necessary to ensure a level playing field between the parties. Mary McAleese has criticised groups in the North for sticking to their "red lines" while asking others to give up theirs. The former Irish president was talking on Newstalk Breakfast with Susan Keogh in the wake of the killing of Lyra McKee. The journalist's death has led to renewed calls for politicians in the North to focus on restoring power-sharing - and talks are now set to resume in the coming weeks. One of the most high-profile calls for action came from Father Martin Magill during Lyra's funeral. In remarks that drew a standing ovation, Fr Magill asked Northern Irish leaders why in Gods name it took the death of a 29-year-old woman with her whole life in front of her for them to stand together. Mary McAleese, who was in office when the Good Friday Agreement was signed, said she "wasn't as overwhelmed" as many others were with the speech. The former president said Lyra's killing was "ridiculously stupid" and "grotesque". Mrs McAleese suggested that if politicians could be 'embarrassed' into acting, that would have happened already. She observed: "We've been here before many, many times before - after Omagh, after so many other events. "The overwhelming majority of people in Northern Ireland are not wedded to the use of violence... they want to solve [problems] by consensus and debate. "When I saw that event in St Anne's Cathedral, did I think it was going to change anything? Did I think it was going to radically overhaul or fill in the horrendous vacuum in politics? I'm afraid I didn't. "Do I think Lyra's death will change anything? Probably not, unfortunately" "Will it change, for example, Fr Martin Magill's church?... Will they get into a conversation about what [Lyra's] life was like when she had breath in her body thanks to the teachings that helped to conduce the homophobia she encountered in Catholic school and Catholic neighbourhood? I think there are profound questions there to be asked." Mrs McAleese said the politicians showed up to show solidarity on the day of Lyra's funeral, but haven't gotten together for substantial talks on restoring power-sharing over the past year. She observed: "The reasons for that are very, very well-known - because of the red lines that have been set, the failure to really enter into the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement." She suggested many politicians' red lines are drawn from the community, and that others have similar red lines. DUP leader Arlene Foster with Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald and deputy leader Michelle O'Neill before Lyra McKees funeral service in Belfast this week. She argued: "Everybody has their red lines they are not prepared to sacrifice. Mrs McAleese said the historic agreement and its impacted highlighted the "joy and wonder and possibility that comes from moving beyond your red lines" However, she added: "I have to say that in recent days, from all sides - Church and State, to be honest - I have heard people who want to hold to their red lines while asking others to give up theirs. And that's depressing, because it's not going to be enough." Speaking more generally about the political situation in Northern Ireland, Mrs McAleese said the situation is growing more complex due to factors such as changing demographics and Brexit. However, she also highlighted what she suggested is the "lack of political leadership" in the North. She observed: "Ian Paisley, Martin McGuinness, Peter Robinson, David Trimble for example... these were all what I'm going to call weathered politicians. "Leaders should be able to push out into the deep - out into places where they know their constituency is nervous about going, maybe even has been taught never to got to. "We had that with those men. Unfortunately, when they left the political arena, the baton handed on to - it seems to me - to people who do not have that same level of experienced leadership, or that same confidence in pushing out into the deep." Mrs McAleese added: "I think we are looking at an issue to do with political inexperience, and we really don't have the time for them to grow to the same level of political experience. As we can see, the wheels are beginning to come off because of the lack of that." Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus Kirill congratulated Orthodox Christians on the upcoming Easter. The text of the traditional Easter message is published on the ROC website. The head of the Russian Orthodox Church recalled that faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ is "the unshakable foundation, the unshakable pillar on which Christianity rests." "With his redemptive deed, the Savior united Heavenly and earthly, Eternal and temporary, the Creator and the creature, God and man. He overcame the abyss that separated the first people from their Creator at the dawn of history. By violating the commandment given to them, due to disobeying the Creator, Sin and death began to reign in the world. When, according to the word of the Apostle Paul, "But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law,to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship (Galatians 4: 4-5)," the patriarch noted. A shooting at a synagogue has left people injured but the extent is unclear, according to authorities in southern California. San Diego County sheriff's office also said on Twitter that a man has been detained in connection with the shooting at the Chabad of Poway synagogue today. Melanie Sandford was sitting in bed on a rainy Sunday morning listening to a podcast about enlightenment when she heard a huge bang. A nanosecond later, there was an orange flash that ripped down past the bedroom door, Ms Sandford said. She jumped out of bed and looked down the short hallway to the kitchen, where her electronic bicycle battery had been charging on the floor overnight. Shed walked past it just 10 minutes earlier when she went to the toilet. The battery was ablaze and the two wooden bench stools were ablaze and the curtain was ablaze. It was a hot fire - some fires you might run towards with a blanket but this was not that kind of fire. Many Americans regard paying taxes as a necessary evil. If they want to worship Satan, now the IRS has officially given them a tax-exempt place to do so. The Internal Revenue Service has granted the same non-profit status given to churches, synagogues and mosques to The Satanic Temple, an organisation in Salem, Massachusetts, that calls itself America's first devil-worshiping church. It is now protected by federal laws governing churches that operate as charities. The devil worshippers' Satanic Temple is tax exempt, the US tax office has ruled. Credit:Alamy In a statement this week announcing the status, the group called itself "a non-theistic religious organisation dedicated to Satanic practice and the promotion of Satanic rights." Based in the town that hosted the Salem Witch Trials in the 17th century, the statement added that the group "understands the Satanic figure as a symbol of man's inherent nature, representative of the eternal rebel, enlightened inquiry and personal freedom rather than a supernatural deity or being." Parents are increasingly involving themselves in their adult children's university education. Credit:Paul Jones She suspects the commercialisation of university, and the high price of degrees, has fuelled the behaviour. Parents are spending more money on their childrens education and children are clocking up big HECS debt, she said. That puts a lot of pressure on kids to do well. If kids aren't passing then that can lead to parents getting involved. Universities have responded by publishing special guides for parents and inviting them to connect with counselling services on campus. At the University of Melbourne, an online resource guides parents through the process of letting go. Schools provide many opportunities for parents to be involved and work in partnership in educating their children, it reads. Many of you will miss this close connection now that they are uni students. So much is unknown to you about their daily environment. You dont know the staff, you dont know if anyone is monitoring their progress and watching out for them. At Monash University, student ambassadors are trained to tackle questions from parents in the lead-up to open day. Staff have noticed an increase in parents attending open days and asking questions. Parents are coming in mobs and the numbers have increased, Monash University education lecturer Sarika Kewalramani said. La Trobe University's pro vice-chancellor Professor Jessica Vanderlelie said parents were showing an increased interest in where and what students chose to study. "This is multi-faceted and closely linked to the changing nature of work and labour market trends, she said. Families, carers and friends play a vital role in ensuring students transition well to university, are able to manage their studies and to navigate any bumps along the way. Parental involvement at universities is even more pronounced overseas. Every year at Tianjin University in China, more than 1000 parents camp in tents on campus and look out for their children as they settle into college. And in the US, a popular app provides the parents of college students with access to their child's academic and financial data. The recent college admissions scandal in the US, which involved wealthy parents bribing officials at top universities to secure admission for their children, has been described as one of the most "egregious" examples of "parental helicoptering in recent memory". Loading Queensland University of Technology parenting expert Professor Marilyn Campbell said parents were having a greater influence on their adult children than ever before. She said this was because children were living at home for longer due to the steep cost of university. Parents are still advocating for their child while they are at university, Dr Campbell said. The influence of the parent is probably more now than it has ever been. But she warned that this sort of involvement could come at a cost. She said over-protective parents were not preparing children for adulthood and lifes ups and downs. One Victorian university employee, who works in student support, said she was shocked by the lack of resilience she was seeing in young people. The reader is thus able to witness Megs and Andys respective trepidation at the prospect of sharing a space and to see how they navigate their differences in sex, age and culture. Both crave and yet areafraid of attention. With a laugh, Cheng admits neither of her crippling introverts are "sexy progatonists". Cheng acknowledges she is preoccupied with certain themes such as chance encounters, family and ageing. "These are the things that really interest me so the premise of this homeshare arrangement I knew would be fertile ground for exploring these themes in detail but other things like housing unaffordability and disability arose organically. Thats part of the magic of the process that I really enjoy. I write in a linear fashion, chapter by chapter, so I dont know whats going to happen." Aside from writing so perceptively about the trials of infirmity and vulnerability (Meg was loosely based on Chengs aunt, who was a carer), the book also explores with much insight the pressures on young students whose first language is not English trying to succeed in their studies to please parents back home. "There's this misconception that overseas students come from wealthy backgrounds; the reality is usually quite different. Their parents may be working on a couple of jobs and funnelling all their money into their childrens overseas education. That is a huge burden to bear. Trying to study in another language and being socially isolated are perfect conditions for a nervous breakdown." Turkey, Russia, and Iran on Friday condemned the US decision to recognise Israeli sovereignty over Syrias occupied Golan Heights, TRT World reported. In a joint statement, the three guarantor countries of the Astana peace process in Syria reaffirmed their strong commitment "to the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic and to the purposes and principles of the UN Charter." The editors of Australia's biggest women's magazines are expecting an extremely difficult delivery, and that's well before the Duchess of Sussex breaks into a sweat for the arrival of her first royal baby. Keeping mum: Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex, doing things her way. Credit:PA Yes, after enjoying a bumper couple of years courtesy of the "Markle Sparkle", the teams at Woman's Day, New Idea, Who, OK!, The Australian Women's Weekly and NW have been thrown a curve ball after Prince Harry and his wife announced to the world they were keeping their baby's arrival a mostly private matter. Well, for a little bit. There will be no photo opportunity outside the birthing suite, a la Kate and Wills, which has been the tradition of the Royal Family since Prince William was presented to the world by his mother Princess Diana in 1982. It's one of the most lucrative gigs on Australian television, but TV personality David Campbell said he didn't throw his hat in the ring when Karl Stefanovic was ousted in the Today shake up. "I never knew about any of that," he says of the morning shakeup. "I just knew I'd get offered the Weekend shift, and I was happy with that." David Campbell has released his new album, Back in the Swing. Credit:Sony Music Campbell, the eldest son of rock legend Jimmy Barnes, came from a music and variety background before finding himself in the chair beside Sonia Kruger on Today Extra when it premiered as Mornings in 2012. For many, Nine's recent Today show turmoil, which saw Karl Stefanovic sent packing, it seemed a no-brainer to bump Campbell, a showman in the old Don Lane ilk, into the more prominent TV spot. Campbell said he felt Nine's flagship breakfast TV program might be geared more towards news and than the lighter weekend iteration would be a better fit. To make it happen, Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss needed the very specific talents of director Miguel Sapochnik, who'd previously directed the show's most action-oriented episodes, season five's Hardhome and season six's Battle of the Bastards. Sneak peek: Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and Brienne of Tarth (Gwendoline Christie) in battle. Credit:Helen Sloan/HBO The battle sequence in Hardhome, in which an army of undead wights defeated the city of Hardhome, forcing Jon Snow (Kit Harington) and others to flee, took a month to film at the Magheramorne quarry in Northern Ireland. Like Hardhome, Battle of the Bastards is also considered one of the series' best episodes, in which Jon Snow and Ramsay Bolton (Iwan Rheon) face off in a battle for control of Winterfell, a clash which nearly goes to Bolton until the arrival of Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner), Petyr Baelish (Aidan Gillen) and the knights of the Vale. The Battle of Winterfell, by all accounts, will best both episodes. In film production it would be usual to split such a long sequence into "units" with first, second and sometimes third units filming material concurrently. But in a break with that custom, Sapochnik put a case to Benioff and Weiss to film the entire battle in a single, three-month shoot. Loading "We built this massive new part of Winterfell and originally thought, 'We'll film this part here and this part there,' and basically broke it down into so many pieces it would be shot like a Marvel movie, with never any flow or improvisation," Sapochnik says. Instead, he wanted to commit the production to 11 weeks of brutal night filming. "I said, 'If we don't, we're going to lose what makes Game of Thrones cool and that is that it feels real,'" Sapochnik says. The resulting shoot was nicknamed "The Long Night" by the show's cast and production crew. "When you have rapid cutting you can tell it was all assembled in post-production," Benioff says. "That's not the show's style and it's not Miguel's style." Harington, who featured centrally in both Hardhome and Battle of the Bastards, will by all accounts play a central part of the coming Battle of Winterfell. Kit Harington as Jon Snow, front, in a scene from Game of Thrones. Credit:HBO "Dan Weiss has admitted to me that writing the battle sequences, to [he and Benioff], is the hardest thing," Harington says. "They love writing scenes between characters, but the battle sequences, they have to hand it over with a lot of trust to the director and the actors and the crew. "I think that's where Miguel's been brilliant [because] on paper those battle sequences can be quite difficult to read," Harington says. "It is in the doing of them that you figure things out, and David and Dan were great to give us license. I think thats what made them great in the end." THE WEAPONS OF WAR Longclaw, wielded by Jon Snow on Game of Thrones. Credit:Helen Sloan/HBO Almost every aspect of the making of Game of Thrones will survive in the form of a permanent exhibition of costumes and props, but few props on the show are as revered by fans as the iconic weapons wielded by the show's key characters. They include Longclaw, the sword wielded by Jon Snow which was a gift from Lord Commander Mormont, Heartsbane, the family heirloom sword gifted by Samwell Tarly to Jorah Mormont and Widow's Wail and Oathkeeper, the two swords forged from ice and made with Valyrian steel, the first wielded by Jaime Lannister and the second by Brienne of Tarth. While many shows source props from external agencies, Game of Thrones has the singular distinction of an on-set foundry which is part of the vast behind-the-scenes operation run by the show's Australian armourer Natalia Lee. For each weapon, a full version is made, in addition to a rubber version and a safety version, depending on the type of scene. The safety versions are typically worn, unless close combat requires the rubber version (for the actor's safety) or, for close-up detail, the real version. "We have some that would be blunted but we still have to be very safety-conscious about them for close-ups," Lee says. "And for action sequences we'll have all different situations ... for instance, we might have an axe that hits a stuntman's head 20 times in a day so we'll have a different grade of softness to help." However, the softer weapons do lack the heft required to look believable in some scenes, Lee says. "Sometimes the director will say, that actually looks like it's very light, and we might have to go and get a heavy version." Every key weapon on the show is handmade and then Lee and the show's stunt coordinators train the actors in their use. The foundry tackles every scale of order, whether it is a weapon for a single wielder, as many of the iconic weapons of Westeros are, or indeed when weapons and armour need to be mass-produced for large-scale battle sequences. The same rhetoric was used to belittle the children and teenagers in the school student strike for climate - even the 17-year-olds who were nearly of voting age were dismissed as pawns. Last week, Swedish climate change activist Greta Thunberg, the girl who started the worldwide school strike movement, addressed the British Parliament. Predictably, people who don't want to hear her message choose to attack her instead - they mock her appearance and stern manner, her Asperger's, claim she is paid to protest, and dismiss her on the basis that she has only just turned 16. If you would prefer to listen to an adult who has studied the issue then by all means do so - they will tell you the same as Thunberg. The difference is that Thunberg's youth gives her message about the future a certain moral clout. Climate change is a tough issue for teachers and not just because they are hamstrung by policy. A relative who teaches primary school recently confided in me about the emotional cost of teaching Gen Z, when he is increasingly pessimistic about their future given the devastation of our natural world. Loading Lets not pretend that children and teenagers cant understand whats going on. Young people are young people and they are smarter than we give them credit for. Dont take my word for it. Heres Professor Tonia Gray, a specialist in pedagogy and learning at the University of Western Sydney: We underestimate the capabilities and the skills of the modern child. Dont sell them short and dont dumb it down. Associate Professor Penny Van Bergen, an education expert at Macquarie University, says a child aged nine is old enough to learn complex concepts such as climate change and even the principles of the Paris agreement. UNICEF recently released its 2019 Young Ambassador Report based on consultations with 1517 Australian children and teenagers and an additional survey of 1007 young people aged 14 to 17. The report found young Australians are extremely worried about what they see as the ongoing failures of governments, businesses and communities to act as effective stewards for a clean and livable environment. Students as young as Year 5 start to clearly express these opinions. Even preschoolers brought up the fact that litter could harm wildlife. Among the surveyed teenagers, the vast majority (86 per cent) view climate change as a threat to their safety, with 73 per cent saying it affects the world a lot now and 84 per cent saying it will affect the world a lot in the future. Loading Three out of four want Australia to be taking action on climate change, to lead by example and play our part in stopping its worsening effects. Only 8 per cent believe we shouldnt take action because of negative effects on the economy and only 5 per cent that we are too small a nation to make a difference. Only 4 per cent do not believe climate change is both real and caused by human activity. Other environmental concerns such as plastic pollution, extinction of animals, deforestation and coral bleaching also rate highly. (If any readers want to argue about climate change, dont bother - instead please focus your attention on any of the myriad of environmental problems you do acknowledge). It suits adults to underestimate children because it means we dont have to take them or their concerns seriously. Its a form of ad hominem argument, where you seek to discredit the person rather than engage with their substantive argument. No one wins hearts and minds by demonising a child, so theyll portray them as brainwashed innocents instead. Young people and all future generations are the ones who will inherit a vastly depleted natural world. The only way to counter that moral authority is to call them pawns in a debate they couldnt possibly understand. Or we could hear the message and act. As Thunberg says, we need to act like the house is on fire - because it is. Labor will seize on a Coalition preference deal with Clive Palmer to target multicultural communities and moderate Liberals across key seats in Victoria and NSW, with claims Scott Morrison will deliver the nation's most-extreme right-wing government in history. Labor's foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong will on Sunday use the launch of the campaign of Labor's candidate in the ethnically-diverse Melbourne seat of Chisholm to attack Mr Morrison and the preference deal amid suggestions it could be electoral poison to the Coalition. Labor's own research suggests the Coalition's deal with Mr Palmer, while possibly advantageous in parts of Queensland where a string of LNP seats are at risk, will cost votes in key electorates in southern Australia. The Coalition has defended its preference deal with Clive Palmer's United Australia Party. Credit:AAP The Coalition is facing a major battle in Victoria where it could lose up to six seats, many of which cover electorates that swung to Labor at last year's state election after moderate Liberals rejected attempts to link the Andrews government to ethnic crime. It is also fighting to hold similarly diverse seats such as Reid and Banks in Sydney. Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size Another days heartless sun is sinking to the horizon, not a cloud in the sky, and Mick Clarks nuggety body is throwing a long shadow over his parched land north of Deniliquin. The feedlot that not so long ago held 1000 fat lambs is empty. There is no crop planted on the property that has been in his familys hands for three generations. Ive parked all the farm equipment up in the sheds and Ive gone and got myself a job driving a tractor for a bloke, he says. Mick Clark has made a vow. So far as Im concerned, the supermarket shelves in the city can go empty, he says. Im not going to spend $600 a megalitre of water to keep farming just to go broke. Clark is among an army of farmers across what has long been called Australias food bowl who say they can no longer afford to grow food. It is not as simple as a lack of rain, though this country is in its second dry year. Advertisement Farmers in the Riverina know about dry periods. They will almost forgive the sky when it withholds its mercy. But when regulators tell them they cant gain access to water that is flowing past their land, and when the authorities charge them for the right to that water they cant use, and then charge them more for delivery of the water that isnt delivered, they get very angry indeed. "Ive gone and got myself a job driving a tractor for a bloke": Mick Clark. Credit:Jason South And then, when their last desperate option is to buy water on the open market and the equation is 11 megalitres to grow a singe hectare of corn, or 13 to 15 megs per hectare for rice, and water is $600 a meg ... why, they get mad. Dairy farmers in the region who havent folded are spending huge money they dont have to maintain their herds, Im told, knowing that if there is no spring rain this year, theyll be lucky to drive away in an old ute. Up and down the dry irrigation country people are declaring themselves angry enough to turn their backs on the National and Liberal parties that have always held political sway in this slice of the country. Ive been a Liberal and Nationals voter for 18 years, says Clark. I wont vote for either of them again. The only way Id go back is if they said theyd stop sending fresh water out to sea. Advertisement His conviction is proving infectious. The electorate of Farrer, which runs the length of the Murray to the South Australian border, has been held easily by the Liberals Sussan Ley since 2001. Before that it was Tim Fischers kingdom. The online bookies just six weeks ago had Ley at short odds of $1.25 to hold the seat against the outsider, Albury mayor and independent candidate Kevin Mack, at $8. This week, Mack became the favourite: $1.55 to Ley on $2.10. Farmers Andrew Crossley and Mick Clark. Credit:Jason South One of Clarks neighbouring farmers, Andrew Crossley, whose family normally farms 2000 irrigated acres, says the entire Murray-Darling Basin Plan should be paused, reviewed and re-set. Were just sick of whats been happening, he says. It cant go on. Advertisement Water politics and regulations in Australias irrigation districts, which are supposed to balance the competing needs of farmers, towns and the environment, have become so dizzying they might have been a creation of Franz Kafka, the master of socio-bureaucratic absurdity. Loading Clark, Crossley and all their fellow farmers on the northern, NSW side, of the Murray River are on what is called zero allocation of irrigation water. Yet they can look 100 metres across the strong-flowing river to Victoria, where farmers are on 60 per cent of their entitled allocation. And they know, with furious envy, that if they were downstream in South Australia, they would be enjoying 100 per cent of their allocations. My motorcycle has taken me more than 1000 kilometres through the flatlands of Victorias north-west and the featureless plains of southern NSW over the last few days, grain silos cutting horizons like church spires. At every stop, the sound that replaces the thump of the motor is that of country people expressing disbelief at what they see is a political system that has delivered many of them a weariness that is approaching despair. The closer I ride towards the Murray, the lifeblood of Australias most important food-growing region, the despair - and in some cases, utter disconnection - becomes more apparent. Advertisement Bill McDonald, the publican of the Grand Hotel at the tiny town of Nyah West, in the far north of Victorias Mallee, is perfectly blunt. Dont ask me about politics, he says when I tell him Im seeking views about the coming federal election. If politics comes on the TV on the wall there, everyone calls for it to be turned off straight away. Theyve just had a gut full. And yet the electorate of Mallee shapes as one of the more interesting of the contests in rural Australia. Held by the Nationals (formerly the Country Party) since its creation in 1949, its future was thrown into confusion when the sitting member, Andrew Broad, sensationally blew away his political career last year by an indiscretion with a so-called sugar babe in Hong Kong. No less than 13 candidates - more than ever before - have nominated for election. Every one of those candidates lists water as high on their lists of concerns. Advertisement Australians who cancel plans to visit Sri Lanka because of the bombings on Easter Sunday that killed about 250 people will generally be out of pocket because travel insurance won't cover it. The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) changed its travel warning on the day after the bombings to "reconsider your need to travel" the third highest of the four threat levels. However, most travel insurance most policies contain exclusions, so that if travellers decide not to go they are not covered to receive a refund. The DFAT advice is that: "Terrorists are likely to carry out further attacks in Sri Lanka. Attacks could be indiscriminate, including in places visited by foreigners." A handful of policies include cover for financial loss due to cancellation, but only if the official travel advice is changed to the highest threat level of "do not travel". An underwater drone has uncovered watery trash and treasure in Sydney Harbour including sea horses, a barista school of coffee cups, a new iPhone, a Razor scooter and a sign saying 'Slippery When Wet'. Directing a Trident drone at Sydney's Australian National Maritime Museum, Jack Lesnie, 12, an aspiring scientist from Greenwich, and his twin Erin spotted fish near the pylons on Pyrmont Bay. Jack Lesnie, 12, took an underwater drone for a spin at the Maritime Museum in Sydney. It was a taste of underwater exploration with dry feet. Credit:James Brickwood The program is thought to be the first in the world to give museum visitors the chance to use newly developed underwater drones. The twins are part of a generation who will likely conquer the next big frontier for exploration: our oceans. Jack said he liked being able to "see something you can't normally see". "That's not how I see Australians behaving." Mr Brown said despite the hostile welcome from the pro-Adani base, his priority in delivering the convoy from Tasmania to Clermont was simple. Pro-Adani protesters have rallied in the Queensland town of Clermont as the Stop Adani convoy led by former Greens leader Bob Brown heads into town on Saturday, April 27, 2019. Photo: Lucy Stone. Credit:Lucy Stone. "It has always been to keep in voters' minds that they should vote for their children, and you can't be voting for the Adani mine and your children," he said. "The two things are opposite." Initial exchanges between the two roughly evenly sized camps on Saturday afternoon were peaceful, even as Adani supporters broke with an earlier plan to avoid the showground where the convey would camp. Loading Queensland Police Inspector Steven OConnell said while that move was unexpected, there were enough police rostered on to cover the situation. Protesters had agreed to stay out of the Showgrounds where the convoy began setting up camp late on Saturday afternoon. Inspector OConnell said police would maintain a strong presence around the showground and the town over the coming days. "We haven't had any assaults and we haven't had any damage as yet ... it was part of the initial discussions that (locals) would stay up in the town area and these people would stay down (at the showgrounds)," he said. "But that's alright. We had enough police up in the town and we were able to get them down here quickly." Carol Elly has lived in Clermont for 48 years and sat outside the pub with her pro-Adani sign, waiting for the anti-Adani protesters to arrive. She said it took her daughter three years to get a job in the town, where coal is the lifeblood. If the Carmichael mine didn't go ahead, she warned, Clermont and the small towns around it would collapse. Carol Elly has lived in Clermont for 48 years. Credit:Lucy Stone. "It's not just Clermont, it's all the little mining towns around that get the benefit of it, the jobs and the money in the town," she said. "Once the mining stops, the town will be dead." Shane and Joanne Foley came from the nearby mining town of Moranbah to support their neighbours and emphasise the need for jobs in the region. "It benefits the whole of the Central Highlands," Mr Foley said. "It might be not only 20 people move into Clermont, but 20 other people move into towns nearby." Mrs Foley's children were born in Clermont and her daughter works in the mines, one of many who share the regions proud history of mining. The political intensity of the fight was clear as senators, MPs, councillors and candidates spoke with residents or sent messages of support from afar. Pauline Hanson had a lineup of locals waiting for a chat and a selfie, supported by former One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts. Pauline Hanson had a line of locals asking for selfies outside the Clermont Grand Hotel on Saturday afternoon. Credit:Lucy Stone. As the convoy finally rolled into town just after 3.30pm, protesters lined the street waving signs and shouting, making clear their displeasure at the incoming protesters. Mr Brown said while driving through the Galilee Basin on Saturday morning he had been struck by the natural beauty of the plains, with great mountains jutting out across flat lands and rolling downs. A motorcycle rider who was fighting for life has died after a car crash south of Brisbane. Paramedics worked on the Jimboomba man who was in a critical condition but could not save 27-year-old. A rider has died and a woman has been cut from her vehicle after a three-vehicle car crash at Park Ridge. Credit:Seven News, Twitter The crash initially reported as involving a car and two motorcycles happened on Chambers Flat Road at Park Ridge just before 10am on Saturday. Police said the rider was turning into Isla Street when he and a vehicle crashed. Johannesburg: The second powerful cyclone to rip into Mozambique in just six weeks has stunned residents in a region where such storms had not been recorded in the modern era. Three deaths were reported from Cyclone Kenneth and the United Nations warned of "massive flooding" ahead. Kenneth had maximum sustained winds of 220km/h, equal to a Category 4 hurricane, before it made landfall on Thursday evening in far northern Mozambique, the Joint Typhoon Warning Centre said. It was the first time in recorded history that the southern African nation has been hit by two cyclones in one season, the UN said. Beijing: The wife of the Australian blogger detained in a secret prison in Beijing has appealed to Chinese president Xi Jinping, urging him to order the state security apparatus to release her husband. An open letter from Yuan Ruijuan to Xi, in which she argues her husband Yang Hengjun is innocent of any espionage crimes against China, was published on a New York-based independent Chinese news website. Yang Hengjun and his wife Xiaoliang Yuan. Yuan, who built a high-profile in China as a patriotic blogger, writes in her letter to Xi that her husband "deeply loves China and the Chinese people". "He has never established contact with any overseas 'reactionary organisations' or intelligence agencies, organisations or individuals, and has never carried out espionage activities that endangered China's national security in any way," she writes in the letter published on Boxun News. Ruwan Gunasekara said police commandos backed by the army had surrounded a house in Sainthamaruthu, 364 kilometres east of the capital, late Friday, over suspicions of a link with last weekend's deadly Easter bombings. A soldier attends to a toddler after she was found at the site of the explosion. Credit:AP They encountered firing from inside and soon after at least three explosions were heard from inside the house, he said. "We have searched the place and found 15 bodies of which 12 of them were inside the house and three outside," Gunasekara said. Three of the dead were women and six were children. He said police believed one or more suicide bombers had carried out the blasts. Ten-day-old Amdad Ahamed sleeps at a community centre, where his family has taken refuge in for fear of retaliation towards their community after the Easter Sunday bombings, in Pasyala, north east of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Credit:AP Another woman and a child injured in the incident have been admitted to hospital. A major search operation is under way in the area which is a predominant Muslim area under an extended indefinite curfew. A few hours before the encounter, police arrested seven people and detected a large quantity of explosives from a residential house located six kilometres (3.8 miles) away. During the operation in Sammanthurai, a town southwest of Kalmunai, police confiscated suicide vests, explosives, a drone and a flag featuring the insignia of the Islamic State terrorist group, which claims its militants were behind the attacks on Easter Sunday. A Sri Lankan catholic priest stands near broken glass in front St. Anthony's Church in Colombo. Credit:AP Police said they found 100,000 ball bearings, usually used to intensify the impact of an explosion. A large number of security forces have been moved into the area for house-to-house search operations. In the capital Colombo, police arrested three men whom they found in possession of a kilogram of explosives near a railway station. Police have warned of the risk of further attacks, specifically on religious targets. Sri Lankan Muslims talk and pray before the start of Friday prayers inside a mosque, in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Authorities had told Muslims to pray at home rather than attend communal Friday prayers. Credit:AP Churches in the capital remained closed, with Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the archbishop of Colombo, telling a news conference that Sunday Masses in the city would be canceled until further notice. The government has decided to delay re-opening schools until May 6 after the were initially scheduled to open after a vacation on April 23. Most businesses closed earlier than usual on Friday while attendance at public offices has dropped by 50%. The suicide attacks on three churches and three luxury tourist hotels on Easter Sunday left 253 dead, according to the health ministry, a number revised downward from an earlier police figure of 359 dead. A Sri Lankan police commando enters a house suspected to be a hideout of militants following a shoot out in Colombo, Sri Lanka on Sunday. Credit:AP In Washington, the State Department said Friday it has ordered the departure of all school-age family members of US government employees from Sri Lanka, and it advised US citizens to reconsider travel to the country, Reuters reported. On Thursday, the Australian government warned its citizens to "reconsider" their need to travel to Sri Lanka. Britain has done the same. Sri Lanka's president said on Friday that intelligence failings allowed the devastating Easter attacks to take place and that a major reorganisation of the security services would occur in the coming days. Speaking at his residence to local media executives, President Maithripala Sirisena said the national police chief and defence secretary had both been warned about the attacks but did not inform him. Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando and police chief Pujith Jayasundara resigned this week at Sirisena's request. "They did not say a word about this warning letter. It was a serious lapse on their part and shirk of responsibility," he said. The president spoke as Sri Lankans remained on edge and security forces fanned across the country. Muslim and Christian religious services were cancelled or held under tight security amid police warnings of possible further attacks after multiple suicide bombings on Easter Sunday that killed at least 250 people at churches and hotels. Sirisena criticised the police for failing to act on intelligence provided by a foreign ally, widely reported to be India, several weeks before the blasts, warning that an Islamist extremist group in Sri Lanka, National Thowheeth Jamaath, was planning an attack. He also confirmed that Zahran Hashim, a rabble-rousing Sunni extremist and Sri Lankan native identified as the mastermind of the attacks, was killed in one blast at the waterfront Shangri-La Hotel here. The Islamic State has asserted responsibility for the attacks, but its actual involvement remains unclear. A bird flies over St. Sebastian's Church, where a suicide bomber blew himself up on Easter Sunday in Negombo, north of Colombo. Credit:AP Sirisena said that 70 of 140 people with suspected ties to the Middle East-based, Sunni terrorist group have been arrested so far and that those still at large are feared to be in possession of explosives. Sri Lankan police officials circulated a letter among security forces Thursday saying there were threats of new attacks, especially against some Muslim religious sites. The president said strict new measures would be taken to identify and track people, similar to those used during the lengthy civil war between separatist ethnic Tamils and the government that ended in 2009. "Every household in the country will be checked," he said, and lists of all residents made to "ensure that no unknown person can live anywhere." "We had to declare an emergency situation to suppress terrorists and ensure a peaceful environment in the country," the president said. Police are looking in particular for former soldier Bathrudeen Mohammed Mohideen, known as Army Mohideen, who they say helped train the nine suicide bombers. Investigations show the bombers were mostly well-educated and from affluent backgrounds. Under tight security, mosques across Colombo held Friday prayer services, and thousands attended, despite an appeal by Muslim government officials for them to stay home as a security precaution. The Catholic archbishop of Colombo also announced Friday that there would be no Sunday Masses until further notice. About 10,000 soldiers were deployed across the country to carry out searches and protect places of worship this weekend. Since the Easter attacks, bomb disposal units have blown up several packages and motorbikes deemed suspicious. The US Embassy in Colombo also urged American citizens to avoid places of worship over the coming weekend. At Colombo's 100-year-old Jami ul-Alfar Mosque, a towering structure of red and white turrets, worshippers and their belongings were searched at the entrance. Security forces cordoned off the surrounding blocks and mosque volunteers politely asked outsiders to stay at a distance. "I wanted to come to say my prayers for all the victims of this terrible killing, that God should welcome them in heaven," said Nizam Wellampitia, 81, a white-bearded cloth seller. "Both Jesus and our prophet said we should never harm others. We do not even like to kill a bird - the people who did this are brainwashed, and they will go to hell." "This is a nightmare for all of us," said Mohammad Neqab, 25, who sells sewing supplies nearby. "Our history as Sri Lankans is one of harmony, and we need unity more than ever now." Instead, much of the legislation the group championed has stalled due, in part, to a series of mass shootings, including the massacre at a Parkland, Florida, high school that left 17 dead and launched a youth movement against gun violence that has had a powerful impact. A youth movement around gun control followed: the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Credit:AP At the same time, the group is grappling with infighting, bleeding money and facing a series of investigations into its operating practices, including allegations that covert Russian agents seeking to influence the 2016 election courted its officials and funnelled money through the group. The NRA's new president, Oliver North, had asked the group's longtime CEO, Wayne LaPierre, to resign, amid allegations of financial improprieties, according to The New York Times. As Trump landed in Indianapolis, a judge imposed an 18-month prison term on gun rights activist Maria Butina, an admitted Russian agent who tried to infiltrate American conservative groups. Clad in a green prison jumpsuit, Butina begged the judge for leniency and said she was "deeply sorry". Lawyers for Butina, a former graduate student at American University in Washington who publicly advocated gun rights, had asked the judge to impose a sentence of time served. At the rally, Trump said he was pulling the United States out of an international Arms Trade Treaty signed in 2013 by then-President Barack Obama but opposed by the NRA and other conservative groups. It was never ratified by the US Senate. "We're taking our signature back," Trump said to thousands of cheering attendees, many wearing red hats emblazoned with the Republican president's "Make America Great Again" slogan. But there are signs the momentum of the NRA has slowed. With Trump in office, gun owners no longer fear the Second Amendment is under attack. The NRA, said Adam Winkler, a UCLA law professor and expert on gun policy, has also dramatically changed its messaging over the past two years, with its NRATV service advocating a panoply of far-right political views that have turned off some members. At the same time, public sentiment has shifted. A March AP-NORC poll found that 67 per cent of Americans overall think gun laws should be made stricter - up from 61 per cent in October 2017. And a June 2018 Gallup poll found overall favourable opinions of the NRA down slightly from October 2015, from 58 per cent to 53 per cent. Unfavourable views have grown, from 35 per cent to 42 per cent. Against that backdrop, Democratic politicians have become more comfortable assailing - and even actively running against - the NRA and pledging action to curb gun violence. And gun control groups like Everytown, which is largely financed by former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, and a political action committee formed by Gabby Giffords, the former Arizona congresswoman wounded in a shooting, have become better organised and more visible, especially at the state level. That reversal was made clear during the 2018 midterm elections, when those groups vastly outspent the NRA. During the midterms, the NRA "committed almost a disappearing act", said Everytown's Feinblatt. Winkler, the UCLA law professor, allowed that the group had scored some victories under Trump, including the appointment of two Supreme Court justices who may be open to striking down gun laws. But overall, he said, "On the legislative front, the NRA has been frustrated," with top priorities like national reciprocity for conceal carry laws and a repeal of the ban on silencers stalled. Instead, Trump introduced a new federal regulation: a ban on bump stocks after a man using the device opened fire on a crowd of concertgoers on the Las Vegas strip in Nevada, killing 58 people and wounding hundreds. That didn't seem to bother the NRA members at the convention who insisted the group remains as influential as ever. "Why do you think Trump and Pence are coming here?" asked Roger Frasz, a lifetime NRA member and gun shop owner in Prescott, Michigan, who was wearing a red "Trump 2020" hat. Exactly how much influence the group will wield in 2020 remains unclear. The NRA, its policy arm and its political committee did not respond to requests for comment this week. But Andrew Arulanandam, the NRA's managing director of public affairs, has said recent reports of turmoil and financial troubles have been exaggerated and are fuelled by anti-gun forces. Trump, too, was dismissive of suggestions the group's power was waning, tweeting that the "(at)NRA is getting stronger & stronger" before he left Washington. "Having their powerful support has been vital to (hash)MAGA!" he said. Still, the NRA is having financial issues, according to an analysis of tax filings by The Associated Press. The tax-exempt organisation's 2016 and 2017 filings, the most recent years available, show combined losses of nearly $US64 million. Robert De Niro, a vocal Trump critic, made a surprise appearance onstage at "Not the White House Correspondents' Dinner" in Washington on Friday. The actor said he looked forward to the "the exquisite release" of voting the president out of office in 2020, according to People. The Hollywood Reporter says he also described the president as an "unrepentant, lying scum bag." Robert De Niro has been a vocal critic of the US president. Credit:Evan Agostini Samantha Bee, comedian and late night host of Full Frontal, wasn't shy about roasting President Trump during the event, either, according to NBC and The Huffington Post. "I really believe that the current president should have to face someone once a year who calls him on his (expletive)," Bee said at the event. "So Donald, I am going to roast you as if you were here tonight." More than two centuries later, impeachment is again dominating the national conversation following the release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report into Russian election interference. Loading Mueller offered substantial evidence that Donald Trump had used his presidential authority to obstruct justice, triggering the biggest debate over impeachment since the Clinton era. "This is the most serious conversation we have had about impeachment in over 20 years," says Gene Healy, a vice-president at the Cato Institute think tank. Democrats hold a majority in the House of Representatives, meaning it is within their power to begin impeachment proceedings against Trump at any time they choose. Democratic presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris have called for impeachment, as has high-profile congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. "To ignore a president's repeated efforts to obstruct an investigation into his own disloyal behaviour would inflict great and lasting damage on this country, and it would suggest that both the current and future presidents would be free to abuse their power in similar ways," Warren said. 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Senator Elizabeth Warren has called for Donald Trump to be impeached. Credit:AP But this view is far from universal among leading Democrats. Other presidential candidates such as Bernie Sanders and Beto ORourke have declined to demand impeachment. So has the most powerful person in the impeachment debate: Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. It will ultimately be up to Pelosi whether to proceed with impeachment or not, and for now she is urging caution. It is "important to know that the facts regarding holding the President accountable can be gained outside of impeachment hearings", she told Democratic colleagues this week. Hillary Clinton backed this approach in an opinion article this week. "Congress should hold substantive hearings that build on the Mueller report and fill in its gaps, not jump straight to an up-or-down vote on impeachment," Clinton argued. 'Impeachment Anxiety Syndrome' Such reluctance reflects a phenomenon former White House counsel Bob Bauer has called "Impeachment Anxiety Syndrome". Americans have largely come to view impeachment as something fearsome and extreme. Famed constitutional scholar Ronald Dworkin described Congress' impeachment power as a "constitutional nuclear weapon". Historian James Bryce called it "a hundred-tonne gun which needs complex machinery to bring it into position, an enormous charge of powder to fire it, and a large mark to aim at". Gene Healy, author of The Cult of the Presidency: Americas Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power, says impeachment has taken on the status of a "cultural superstition" in the US. The danger of Congress under-using its impeachment power is far more real than the prospect of it being over-used, he says. Loading "People talk about the 'i-word' as if impeachment is blasphemous, as if it amounts to an extra-legal coup," Healy says. "Impeachment is essentially a constitutional safety valve, but people have come to see it as a doomsday button." Part of the reason is that Mason's "high crimes and misdemeanours" formulation has not aged well. Over time, a widespread belief has developed that a president must have committed a criminal offence to be impeached, even though that wasn't the founders' intention. Founding father Alexander Hamilton, bursting into capitalisation, stressed that impeachable offences "are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL". "An impeachable offence is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history," Gerald Ford said in 1970, when he was the House minority leader. Andrew Johnson, the 17th US president, was impeached in 1868. Credit:AP Yet Congress has only seriously pursued impeachment against three US presidents: Andrew Johnson in 1868, Richard Nixon in 1974 and Bill Clinton in 1998. In each case, obstruction of justice - the crime Trump now stands accused of - featured prominently in the articles of impeachment. Johnson and Clinton were both impeached, but were acquitted by the Senate. Nixon resigned before he was able to be impeached. Johnson, the avowed white supremacist who succeeded Abraham Lincoln, is now regarded as one of the worst presidents in US history. But his impeachment came to be viewed as a dangerously partisan exercise. In his book Profiles in Courage, John F. Kennedy praised Edmund Ross, the Republican senator who voted to acquit Johnson, for his "heroic" vote and said he "may well have preserved constitutional government in the United States". Richard Nixon, who resigned from the US presidency before he was able to be impeached. Credit:AP Nixon's behaviour is now viewed as the epitome of impeachable conduct, but it took a long time for the American people to reach that conclusion. Six months after his re-election in 1972, just 24 per cent of Americans said they wanted Nixon to be impeached and removed from office. That would later jump to 48 per cent as more evidence of his abuse of power came to light. It is Clinton's impeachment, however, that is freshest in American minds, and that scenario played out very differently. Polls at the time showed Americans believed Clinton had lied under oath about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky and had committed obstruction of justice. But they thought this behaviour was related to his private life and did not justify his removal from office. Republicans pushed ahead with impeachment regardless, and it backfired spectacularly. The party lost seats at the 1998 midterm elections and Clinton's approval ratings soared to their highest level ever. Then president Bill Clinton, making a short statement after being impeached in 1998. He was later were acquitted by the Senate. Credit:AP Impeachment advocates argue the process would play out differently for Trump. He allegedly obstructed investigations into foreign election interference, not an extra-marital affair. But public support for impeachment actually dropped following the release of the Mueller report. A Morning Consult poll released this week found only 34 per cent of voters believe Congress should begin impeachment proceedings, down from 39 per cent in January. 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 United States immigration agency officials are more likely to issue a Request for Evidence (RFE) to Indian H1B visa applicants than to people from other countries, a recent analysis by VisaGuide. World has found. An RFE is an additional inquiry that the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services can ask for when it requires additional evidence to make a decision on an H1B case. An RFE can be for information about either the beneficiary or the petitioner, or both. According to the data collected by the web portal, 72.4 per cent of Indian applicants and 61.2 per cent of ... Last year, Abhijit Banerjee, professor of economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, delivered a lecture at the London School of Economics. He expanded on an experiment carried out by him in an assembly constituency in India, wherein he established that if a political party genuinely explained and urged an electorate to vote for development rather than on a caste basis, they are likely to do so. Then, in answer to a question, he effectively said, it is imperative to have Congress back in office in India. Banerjee was among over a dozen internationally renowned economists ... While the campaign for the fourth phase of polls in West Bengal is in full swing, Paras Gambhir, a whole seller of political merchandise at Burrabazar, one of the biggest trading hubs of the east, is disappointed with his muted business. The inventory of unsold stocks of flags, caps, t-shirts, saris, and umbrellas, bearing the colors and symbols of different political parties, is particularly high this year. Compared to 2014 Lok Sabha elections, this year the sale of political flags alone is down by 40 per cent, while the prices are up by around 10 per cent, he says. For ... BJP president Amit Shah on Saturday claimed that the "biggest work" Prime Minister Narendra Modi has done is to secure the country. "The biggest work that PM Modi has done is to secure this country. Prime Minister ordered our Air Force and they bombed terrorists in Balakot," Shah said while addressing an election rally here. Taking a dig at Congress president Rahul Gandhi, Shah alleged, after the Balakot strikes, "Rahul and his company is so sad as if they have lost their cousins." Referring to Conference leader Omar Abdullah's comments on a separate Prime Minister and President for Kashmir, Shah said, "Right now Narendra Modi is the Prime Minister. He is returning again. I assure that someday even when BJP is not in power, as long as BJP workers are alive, no one can separate Kashmir from India." Earlier, while addressing a rally in Mayurbhanj, Shah slammed Congress leader PC Chacko for his comments on separatist leader Yasin Malik. "PC Chacko said Narendra Modi government should not act tough on Yasin Malik. Stringent action is necessary because Yasin Malik wants to separate Kashmir from the rest of the country. Whatever PC Chacko says, I am saying that no one can separate Kashmir from India," he said. He also took a jibe at Congress leader Shatrughan Sinha for his remarks over Mohammad Ali Jinnah. "Shatrughan Sinha has just gone to Congress. When he was in BJP, he used to talk about nationalism. Now he says that Jinnah was a great leader like Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel. Congress leaders are praising Jinnah who has divided the country," the BJP president said. The last phase of both Lok Sabha and Assembly polls is scheduled to be held on April 29 in Odisha. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Mumbai Congress chief and South Mumbai candidate Milind Deora on Saturday claimed that the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance will break before Assembly elections in Maharashtra, scheduled to be held later this year. "Their alliance can break anytime. The Prime Minister did not mention the name of Shiv Sena even a single time at his rally here yesterday. I can give a guarantee that the alliance will dismantle before the Assembly elections in the state," he told ANI. He hit back at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for allegaing that Congress wanted to put the burden on middle-class taxpayers. "PM must answer first how much tax burden had the BJP put on Mumbaikars. The middle class pays tax for Swachh Bharat but after paying tax for five years, can we say Mumbai is cleaner now? Where is the money from the tax going?" Deora asked. He further questioned the Prime Minister on job loss after demonetisation. "The Prime Minister must answer how many jobs were lost due to demonetisation. It was done by him, not Jawaharlal Lal Nehru." On Friday, Modi had accused Congress and its leaders of insulting the middle class by allegedly calling them "selfish" and "greedy". "Congress calls you (middle class) greedy and selfish. Is not this an insult to you? Look at their "Dhakosla Patra". They have not mentioned anything about the middle class. Congress wants to burden the middle class with taxes to protect the political capital of a family," Modi had said here. Deora also questioned the Prime Minister on security and said that he would not have politicised the services of armed forces had he been serious about security. "If he is honest about security, why is he politicising the armed forces? Pragya Thakur spoke against martyr Hemant Karkare ji. Why her ticket was not revoked?" the Congress leader asked. "Why did Shiv Sena not oppose the despicable statement by Pragya?" he asked. Polling in Mumbai will be held on April 29, and 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.) Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath attacked the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) 'gathbandhan' by referring to the incident where a bull had entered the grounds while their rally was in progress in Kannauj. "Even the bovine breed is now unwilling to forgive the criminals," he said. "I was recently there in Kannauj where the people told me that a bull had entered the venue of 'gathbandhan' rally, probably to find out which of the slaughterhouse operators were there and to treat them accordingly," he said. "I prayed to the bull to keep doing his job while we take care of the ones who mistreat the poor, put roadblocks in the state's development and have forced the youth to leave the state," he said at an election rally here. A bull had entered the 'gathbandhan' rally held in Kannauj on April 25 before the commencement of the rally. Chief Minister Yogi also said that the people of India are now pitching hard for Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2019 in numbers far exceeding that of 2014 thanks to his works during his rule as the PM. "In 2014 it was just the name Modi which drew the people towards BJP, today in 2019 his work as the Prime Minister for five years has added to the magic, and that is why wherever I have gone I have heard people chanting Modi, Modi," he said. Uttar Pradesh, where 80 Lok Sabha seats are at stake, is undergoing polls during all seven phases. So far, the election has been held for 26 Lok Sabah seats. 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.) Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama, who was admitted to a private hospital in New Delhi for treatment after being diagnosed with the chest infection, returned to Dharamshala on Friday."Fully recovered. No problem. The illness was a little serious, but now I have fully recovered," Dalai Lama said while speaking to media persons here. On April 7, Dalai Lama was brought to Delhi after he complained of discomfort. "His Holiness was admitted to the hospital today due to a chest infection. He will remain in the hospital for the next two to three days," Tenzin Taklha, private secretary of Dalai Lama had told ANI. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. After a rebellion against the Chinese rule in 1959, the spiritual leader had exiled himself in India and has since been living mostly in Himachal Pradesh's Dharamsala. The Nobel laureate's supporters operate a government-in-exile and promote Tibet's autonomy by peaceful means. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday appealed the leaders of Congress, Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) not to drag his name into caste "Kripa karke, mein haath jodke vinti karta hu, ye jati ki rajneeti me mujhe mat ghasetiye. 130 crore log mera parivar hai. (I request you with folded hands, don't drag me into caste The 130 crore people of this country are my family)," Prime Minister Modi said while addressing a rally here. "I had never spoken about my caste. Till the time the Opposition leaders hurled abuses on me, the country didn't know my caste. But I am thankful to 'Behenji' (Mayawati), Akhilesh, Congress and the 'Mahamilawati', that they are openly talking about my backwardness," he said. "Meri jaati to itni choti hai, gaon mein ek-adh ghar bhi nahi hota hai. Mai to pichda nahi, ati-pichde mein paida hua hu, aap mere munh se bulwa rahi ho isliye bol raha hu... Jab mera desh pichda (backward) hai to agda(forward) kya hota hai. Mujhe to pure desh ko agda banana hai," he added. During the poll rally, the Prime Minister emphasised that terrorism is the biggest issue in today's world. "It is the biggest threat for India. It has been the biggest target of terrorism. Various terror outfits are still there in Pakistan (Aatank ki factoryian Pakistan me chal rahi hain)," he said. "Does SP-BSP have a formula to tackle terrorism? Have they once said anything about terrorism in Lok Sabha elections? They hurled 100 abuses against Modi, but did they even give 10 cuss words against terrorism? Why so? People of SP and BSP should clarify whether they are afraid of terrorists or they stay quiet to rescue them. Did those, who are dreaming of becoming the Prime Minister, put forth any scheme to make the country strong or for the security of our Jawans?" he asked. Talking about the Balta House encounter, Modi said, "Should we expect something from those who consider Pakistan's lie as truth, make it a hero and ask for proofs from our Jawans, just to defeat Modi? These are the people who cried when terrorists were killed in Batla House encounter." Batla House encounter took place on September 19, 2008, against Indian Mujahideen (IM) terrorists in Batla House locality in Delhi's Jamia Nagar. Two suspected terrorists, Atif Ameen and Mohammad Sajid, were killed while two other suspects, Mohammad Saif and Zeeshan, were arrested. In Kannauj, polling will be held on April 29 and counting of votes will take place on May 23. BJP's Subrat Pathak is pitted against Akhilesh Yadav's wife Dimple in this seat. . (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Everyone knows that 'Gathbandhan' will get the majority of seats in Uttar Pradesh, said SP veteran Mulayam Singh Yadav here on Saturday. "Gathbandhan will get the majority (in Uttar Pradesh). Everyone knows it," said Yadav, also former Chief Minister, while talking to ANI at the party headquarters here. SP, BSP and Ajit Singh-led Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) are contesting the Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh as an alliance. As per the seat-sharing arrangement, BSP, SP, and RLD are contesting 38, 37 and three Lok Sabha seats respectively in the state. Earlier in the day, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh visited the SP veteran at his residence and inquired about his health. "Today, I met and inquired about the health of former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav at his residence in Lucknow. I wish for his good health and long life," Singh tweeted after the meeting. After going through regular health check up on Friday, Yadav met party workers at the state party office and discussed the party's preparedness in the elections. The former UP Chief Minister is contesting the Lok Sabha election from Mainpuri constituency. He had won Azamgarh and Mainpuri Lok Sabha seats in the 2014 elections but retained the former. Uttar Pradesh is going to polls during all seven phases, and voting has taken place in 26 Lok Sabha seats so far. The state will go to the fourth phase of polling on April 29 for 13 Lok Sabha constituencies. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Meteorological Centre (MC) Ahmedabad has released warning on Saturday for heat wave in multiple regions of Gujarat for the next 48 hours. "Heatwave conditions very likely to prevail at a few places in the districts of Gujarat region namely Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Banaskantha, Sabarkantha, Surat; in the Districts of Saurashtra-Kutch namely Bhavnagar, Veraval, Porbandar, Rajkot, Amreli, Surendranagar, Kutch and Diu during next 48 hours commencing from 0830 hours IST of today," the notice reads. The notice goes on to add that moderate temperature with tolerable heat will exist for the next two days but vulnerable people like children and elderly, people with chronic diseases should take special precaution. A heat wave warning for Central Maharashtra has also been issued by the India Meteorological Department (IMD), Mumbai, for Nashik and Pune regions amongst others. "Heatwave conditions likely in isolated pockets of Nashik, Ahmednagar, Pune, Jalgaon, Solapur and Sangli districts. Forecast and warning for any day is valid from 0830 hours IST of the day till 0830 hours IST of next day," the press release by IMD Mumbai reads. The MC has released a suggested list of actions which include: avoiding heat exposure, wearing lightweight, light-coloured, loose, cotton clothes and covering the head with a cloth, hat or umbrella to avoid the harmful effects of the heat wave. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Riyaz Deshmukh, former Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) and deputy to Mumbai's Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) chief Hemant Karkare, has jumped into the poll fray against Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur. "BJP has fielded Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, an accused in Malegaon blast case, against Digvijaya Singh in Bhopal. She has spoken against Hemant Karkare. She called him a traitor. It hurt me. Thereafter, I decided to contest the election as an independent against her from Bhopal," Deshmukh told ANI. Hemant Karkare, a senior IPS officer, was killed in action during the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. In 2009, he was posthumously given the Ashoka Chakra, India's highest peacetime gallantry decoration. Karkare had probed multiple terror blasts in Maharashtra's Malegaon in September 2006 in which six people were killed and over 100 others were injured. Pragya Thakur, the key accused in the blast and currently out on the bail, recently said that Karkare died because she had cursed him. Later, she withdrew her statement, when she faced criticism from all quarters. Deshmukh, who retired from the Police Department in 2016, said that no one should be allowed to humiliate the country's martyrs, as they have sacrificed their lives while serving the nation. Sharing his experience of working with Karkare, Deshmukh said: "I was like my mentor. I worked under him for many years and learnt many things from him. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Kerala Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Teeka Ram Meena on Saturday sought a report from the returning officers in connection with the allegations of bogus voting in Kasaragod Lok Sabha constituency. The Kerala CEO has sought reports from the collectors of Kannur and Kasaragod districts. This comes after the Congress alleged bogus voting by the CPI (M) cadres across the district of Kasaragod in the third phase of the Lok Sabha election, which were held on April 23. Meena had earlier received reports of Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) glitches and bogus voting from several parts of Kerala which went to poll in the third phase of general elections. However, he has denied such reports in a booth in Kovalam which falls under the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha constituency. Kerala CEO had clarified that news about every vote cast against the hand symbol of Congress was showing lotus symbol on EVM at booth number 151 in Kovalam was false. "There is a piece of false news spreading that 151 polling booth in Kovalam that every vote is being cast for lotus. Every media is carrying the news similar to the one that happened in Andhra Pradesh (AP). We double checked and no such thing is happening," Meena had said. On April 23, besides Kasaragod Lok Sabha constituency, elections were held in Wayanad, Kannur, Kollam, Attingal, Thiruvananthapuram, Vadakara, Kozhikode, Malappuram, Ponnani, Palakkad, Alanthur, Thrissur, Chalakudy, Ernakulam, Idukki, Kottayam, Alappuzha, Mavelikkara and Pathanamthitta. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress on Saturday accused the Election Commission (EC) of ignoring the party's complaints against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah on model code violations and said it may consider moving court if no action is initiated by the poll body. "We are astonished and sadly compelled to say that the Model Code of Conduct has become Modi code of conduct," Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi told a press conference here. He said, "We are also saddened to say that it is as if in the second word of the Election Commission, the letter 'C' has been dropped and it has become the 'Election omission' as far as the Modi and Shah duo is concerned." Congress charged the poll watchdog with not taking action against Modi as well as the BJP president for their "hateful, virulent and divisive" speeches and "politicisation of the valour" of the armed forces at election rallies for "cheap electoral gains". Singhvi said, "In the last 20 days, the Modi-Shah duo has made statements with divisive tone so many times. They have politicised the valour of our armed forces. Modi held rallies before and after casting vote (in Ahmedabad on Tuesday). This scale of violation has never happened in the last 72 years." A Congress delegation had on Tuesday met with Election Commission officials and demanded a 48 to 72-hour ban on speeches by the Prime Minister and Shah. Singhvi said, "We are not surprised by the violations of the MCC by BJP leaders. They are resorting to all tactics because they know they are losing the polls. But we cannot understand why the election policeman is silent on this matter. Its silence somehow means it is endorsing the acts of the BJP leaders." At the same time, he acknowledged the EC actions on Congress' complaints against UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Himachal Pradesh BJP chief Satpal Singh Satti who were banned from making public speeches for 72 and 48 hours respectively. He said: "The EC acted on some of our complaints and we praise them for that but it not acting against the Modi-Shah duo. Do the two leaders not come within the ambit of the EC rule book?" Singhvi said if action is not taken on the Congress complaints, the party may approach court on Monday. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Ashish Shelar on Saturday said Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) is working as a "third party" for Congress to criticise the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Thackeray, whose party is not contesting in the Lok Sabha elections, has reportedly been addressing rallies across Maharashtra against the BJP and its ally Shiv Sena. He has even criticised Prime Minister Modi by showcasing video clips of his speeches and interviews. "BJP won't step back from criticism. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi had earlier said that we welcome criticism, but since last 20 days, the kind of publicity MNS and Raj Thackeray are doing, it is not based on complete truth," Shelar told ANI here. "Secondly, the place from which they are picking up these videos, it's not like they are taken from any verified account of BJP or through an RTI. Lifting such things from uncertified accounts and putting allegations on the Prime Minister on the basis of that is half truth. It was important to reveal this half truth," he added. Shelar went on to add, "Congress has lost all the elections in which they directly criticised BJP and Prime Minister Modi without any facts. For example, Sonia Gandhi did a 'Maut ka saudagar' campaign and they got defeated very badly. Later, Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar used a derogatory word against Prime Minister Modi and lost. So, Congress is scared that if they criticise Prime Minister Modi people won't forgive them and will vote against them. So, they want a third party to do this for them. Mallikarjun Kharge has clearly said that we want to get Raj Thackeray into an alliance. So, Congress' hidden attack is now revealed in front of all." In Maharashtra, polling for 17 out of 48 Lok Sabha seats at stake will be held on April 29. 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.) Marking the first anniversary of the Panmunjom summit, North Korea on Saturday appealed to South Korea to strengthen inter-Korean ties while ignoring pressure from the United States. The statement was part of a special message by the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Country (CPRC), which is a North Korean organisation aimed at promoting Korean reunification, according to Yonhap News Agency. The organisation added that Washington is "plainly putting pressure on South Korea while demanding that inter-Korean ties do not outpace the US' relations with North Korea." It further claimed that Washington is attempting to force inter-Korean relations "to be subordinate to its policy of sanctions." "A grave security condition is being created that may return to the past when a catastrophe was looming amid the thickening danger of war," the committee said. In order to realize the sustainable development of inter-Korean ties and peaceful reunification, the CPRC appealed to Seoul to explore "more active measures." North Korean organs also called on Seoul to implement the agreements from the summits held between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in. The statements come amidst a stalemate in US-North Korea relations, which has brought the denuclearisation process to a standstill. Even though Kim had promised complete denuclearisation in the first US-North Korea summit held in Singapore last year, the joint statement from the second summit at Hanoi was supposed to outline further steps in the denuclearisation process. However, no joint statement was released as talks broke down in Hanoi in February this year as both the sides failed to resolve their differences on sanction waivers. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Protesters demanding the arrest of the killers of RSS leader Chandrakant Sharma on Saturday damaged the office of Deputy Commissioner Angrez Singh Rana. They also burnt the effigy of Governor Satya Pal Malik, expressing their angst against alleged police apathy in arresting those behind the killing of Sharma. They also demanded the immediate arrest of the killers of Anil Parihar, BJP leader, and his brother Ajit Parihar. Hundreds of people marched from the Police Chowk to the Mini Secretariat to register their protest against the alleged failure of the administration in nabbing the killers, said the eyewitnesses. RSS leader Chandrakant Sharma succumbed to his injuries at a hospital in the district on Tuesday. Chandrakant Sharma's personal security officer was shot dead in the incident. Security forces have carried out a flag march in the area and are monitoring the situation. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday paused his speech briefly on hearing the 'azaan', the Islamic call for prayer from a nearby mosque in Amethi. The Congress president was addressing a rally here when the sound of the 'azaan' was heard and he halted his speech and waited till the prayer call stopped to resume his speech in a few minutes. Traditionally, Azaan is called out five times in a day by a muezzin, who summons the faithful for mandatory worship. While addressing an election rally here, Rahul demanded an apology from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the people of the country for "doing nothing" in the last five years. "Prime Minister Narendra Modi is giving a lot of speeches but he is not talking about the promises he made to people, be it giving Rs 15 lakh or giving employment to the youth. The country wants to know why Narendra Modi did not fulfil his promises in the last five years," Gandhi said while talking to reporters here. "PM Narendra Modi should apologise to the country for doing nothing in the last five years," he added. He accused Prime Minister of taking away several developmental projects from Amethi and Raibareli. "Chowkidar ji has snatched a lot of things from Amethi and Raibareli. He took away IIIT, food park. We had planned to make Amethi an agricultural centre, Narendra Modiji broke that dream," the Congress president said. Reiterating his challenge for a debate with PM Modi, Gandhi said, "Prime Minister should say: I (PM Modi) gave Rs 30,000 crore to Anil Ambani, did a scam in Rafale deal, action is going to be initiated against me (PM Modi). The truth is as soon as Congress will come to power, the truth of Rafale will come out." "Prime Minister has the opportunity to accept before the country that he has made a mistake but he cannot escape from the truth," he added. Asked why he is only targeting the Prime Minister and not the Union Ministers, Rahul said, "Ministers in the government are irrelevant. Whether it is Arun Jaitley or Sushma Swaraj, they have been humiliated. Only one man is running the country for the last five years, so we are seeking answers from him," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday claimed that the 'mantra' of the SP-BSP-RLD alliance in Uttar Pradesh is "Jaat, paat japna; janta ka maal apna". Modi, while addressing a poll rally here, categorised the alliance as one of "opportunists" who want a helpless government. He went on to say that BSP chief Mayawati is seeking votes in the name of someone who opposes BR Ambedkar, in an apparent reference to SP chief Akhilesh Yadav. "Those who ask for votes in the name of Babasaheb Ambedkar have never learnt anything from his life. Behenji (reference to Mayawati) is seeking votes for those who oppose Babasaheb Ambedkar. This happens when your only goal is to get the chair. This happens when your is based on caste, and when you do not care about the country. The tie-up of opportunists wants a helpless government because its mantra is - Jaat, paat japna; janta ka maal apna." Attacking the previous UPA government, Modi said that the country has nowadays become digitalised as internet is accessible to everyone and everywhere, a facility that he claimed was lacking in the tenure of the "remote controlled" government. Modi said India had only two factories to manufacture mobile phones before he became prime minister, adding that there are now more than 125 companies making phones in India. "Before I became Prime Minister when there used to be a remote control government, there were only two mobile phone manufacturing companies in the country. Now within five years, there are more than 125 factories manufacturing mobiles in India," Modi said. He added that earlier while talking on the phone, people would keep an eye out for call duration, but today, they only look at how much battery is left. "Nowadays, phones have become our strength. It has made the life of farmers, servants and labourers much easier. But five years back, to use a smartphone was not easy, it was expensive for common people. There was poor connectivity of internet and talking on the phone was expensive. Nowadays, the internet is accessible to anyone and everyone," he said. SP, BSP and RLD have forged an alliance to take on the BJP in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections in the state. As per the seat-sharing agreement, the SP is contesting 37 seats and BSP 38. Three seats have been given to the RLD -- Mathura, Muzaffarpur, and Baghpat. Hardoi Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh will go to polls in the fourth phase of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections on April 29. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Researchers suggest that just technological fixes are not enough to stop rival countries from spreading fake information on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Use of human psychology is also required to battle these disinformation campaigns, claim researchers. The details were published in The Hague Journal of Diplomacy. "There is so much attention to how social media companies can adjust their algorithms and ban bots to stop the flood of false information," said Nisbet, an associate professor. "But the human dimension is being left out. Why do people believe these inaccurate stories?" Russia targeted American citizens during the 2016 election with posts on every major social media platform. This is just one example of how some countries have distributed "fake news" to influence the citizens of rival nations, according to the researchers. The researchers discussed how to use psychology to battle these disinformation campaigns. "Technology is only the tool to spread the disinformation," Kamenchuk said. "It is important to understand how Facebook and Twitter can improve what they do, but it may be even more important to understand how consumers react to disinformation and what we can do to protect them." But there are ways to use psychology to battle disinformation campaigns, researchers Kamemchuk and Nisbet said. One way is to turn the tables and use technology for good. Online or social-media games such as Post-Facto, Bad News and The News Hero teach online fact-checking skills or the basic design principles of disinformation campaigns. Because campaigns to spread false information often depend on stoking negative emotions, one tactic is to deploy "emotional dampening" tools. Such tools could include apps and online platforms that push for constructive and civil conversations about controversial topics. More generally, diplomats and policymakers must work to address the political and social conditions that allow disinformation to succeed, such as the loss of confidence in democratic institutions. "We can't let the public believe that things are so bad that nothing can be done," Kamenchuk said. "We have to give citizens faith that what they think matters and that they can help change the system for the better. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A federal court on Friday sentenced Russian national Maria Butina to 18 months jail after she pleaded guilty of allegedly trying to infiltrate conservative political circles and promoting Russian interests before and after the 2016 presidential election. The leader of a small Russian gun rights group, the 30-year-old Siberian native, is so far the only Russian citizen arrested and convicted in the three-year investigation of Moscow's interference in 2016 US presidential elections, CNN reported. However, Butina's efforts appeared to be separate from the Kremlin's sweeping election-meddling campaign detailed in special counsel Robert Mueller's report. Butina was incarcerated since her arrest in July last year and will receive credit for the nine months previously served. She will be deported to Russia after serving her sentence. "This was no simple misunderstanding by an overeager foreign student," Judge Tanya Chutkan from Columbia district court was quoted as saying. Chutkan noted that Butina, who studied at American University in Washington, was engaged in a "sophisticated" and "dangerous" work. She said, "The conduct was sophisticated and penetrated deep into political organisations," noting that Butina's actions took place as Russia was actively trying to interfere in the US democratic process. Meanwhile, Butina expressed regret for her crime and asked for forgiveness in the court. She said, "I deeply regret this crime," adding, "Ironically it has harmed my attempts to improve relationships between the two countries." "I came to the US not under orders but with hope. I sought to build bridges between my motherland and the country that I grew to love," she added. "Never did I wish to hurt anyone," Butina said. While prosecutors have admitted that Butina is not a spy in the traditional sense, they argued that her crime still could have jeopardized the US national security. Butina had pleaded guilty in December last year to one count of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign official. She admitted to using her contacts in political circles of the Republican Party, the National Rifle Association and the National Prayer Breakfast to influence the US relations with Russia. Sources familiar with the matter told CNN that Butina had cooperated extensively with the government. In her plea to the court, Butina also provided information regarding her boyfriend, a Republican Paul Erickson, who was allegedly involved in her scheme. However, Erickson has not faced charges in Washington so far. He was indicted in February on wire fraud and money laundering charges in a separate case in South Dakota. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The United States on Friday (local time) imposed visa sanctions on Pakistan after it refused to take back its citizen deportees and visa over-stayers, as per the US State Department. "Consular operations in Pakistan remain unchanged. This is a bilateral issue of ongoing discussion between the US and Pakistani governments and we are not going to get into the specifics at the time," Sputnik quoted a US State Department spokesperson as saying on Friday (local time). For some countries, the sanctions begin by targeting officials who work in the ministries responsible for accepting the return of that country's nationals, according to the State Department's federal register notification, dated April 22. "(The) escalation scenarios that target family members of those officials and potentially officials of other ministries and then other categories of applicants if initial sanctions do not prove effective at encouraging greater cooperation on removals by the targeted government," the notification adds. Pakistan's former Ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani, speculated that the new sanctions may create obstacles for Pakistani citizens wanting to travel to the United States. "This measure will create hardship for Pakistanis who want or need to travel to the US and could have been avoided if Pakistani authorities had not ignored American requests to respect their legal requirements for deportation," Sputnik quoted him as saying. Other countries against whom the US has introduced visa restrictions are Ghana, Guyana, the Gambia, Cambodia, Eritrea, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Myanmar and Laos. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bolpur (West Bengal) [India], Apr 27 (ANI): The Santhal communities in West Bengal's Bonerpukur Fangs village in Bolpur have complained of not receiving any legal documents of the land where they are residing. "Our main problem is land. We have been staying here since ages however legally this land does not belong to us. We are yet to receive 'patta' (land lease). Although the state government had promised us several times, nothing happened in reality," said 32-year-old Ram Soren, currently pursuing B.Ed. The Santals are the largest tribal community of India living in Jharkhand, West Bengal, Bihar, Orissa and Assam. Lodo Tisco, an old man from the Santhal tribe, said, "I went to the administration several times but nothing fruitful happened. Where will I go if they (administration) ask me to leave from here?" The village Bonerpukur Danga consists of more than 110 families who live in the forest land. Other than the land, they have a series of difficulties, of which the major issues are water, roadways and unemployment. They earn their livelihood from farming - especially the paddy culture other than crafts and 100 days work which state government provides them. "We are illiterate. We do not know much about voting but we have never missed our right to vote, however, it feels bad when the vote does not make any difference to us," said Parvati Murmu, a mother of three children. Asansol, Baharampur, Burdhman (East), Bolpur, Ranaghat and Krishnagar from West Bengal will go for polling on April 29. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath on Saturday hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi by questioning him that from where did he get the money for the construction of the BJP office in New Delhi. Nath made the comments after Modi levelled various allegations against him and had raked up the issue of Income Tax Department raids of Praveen Kakkar, who is the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister's private secretary. "The Prime Minister should tell the nation who bears the expenses of his plane rides. He should reply from where did he get the money to construct a Rs 700 crore office of BJP in Delhi. He should first give answers to all these and then only he should ask me questions," Nath told ANI. Modi on Friday had alleged that the money, which was seized by the IT Department earlier, was being used by Congress president Rahul Gandhi in his poll campaign. "For the poor children, your chowkidar is sending money from Delhi. But the money being sent for pregnant women and child nutrition is being stolen and sent to Tughlaq Road. People have seen how sacks full of notes were recovered," the Prime Minister had said in a public rally in Sidhi. "This money is being used to send to a big Congress leader who resides at Tughlaq road in Delhi. The money was also spent in naamdar's campaign," he had said. Modi further said that the law should be the same for everyone, adding that the I-T department can raid his house as well if he has done something wrong. The Prime Minister further alleged that Nath had cut down the electricity bill of the people by giving half supply in comparison to what it was during the previous Shivraj Singh Chouhan's government. Polling in Madhya Pradesh will be held in four phases - on April 29, May 6, 12 and 19. 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.) Dead body of a 52-year-old-woman was recovered from her residence in Delhi's Dwarka on Friday, said Dwarka Police. The woman identified as Neenu Jain was the wife of a former Wing Commander, who is presently working as a commercial pilot in a private airline company. Neenu's son who works at a multi- company lives in Noida, while her daughter stays in Goa. According to police, the woman was alone at the time of the incident. The family members of the deceased have claimed some cash and mobile phone is missing from the house. As per the preliminary investigation, the police have suspected this a case of murder. Police registered a murder case under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and initiated the probe. More details are awaited. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Television channels in Kerala on Saturday aired the visuals of two women casting their votes twice at two polling booths in Kasaragod Lok Sabha constituency, which went to the polls along with 19 other parliamentary seats in the state in the third phase of Lok Sabha elections on April 23. Rajmohan Unnithan, the Congress candidate from Kasaragod, said that casting bogus votes was nothing new and has been the order of the day, especially in CPI-M dominated areas. "We have been saying this for a while now, but nothing has happened. Appropriate action should be taken against such undemocratic acts," said Unnithan, who's contesting against former legislator and senior CPI-M leader K.P. Satishchandran from Kasaragod. K. Sudhakaran, former MP and Congress candidate from Kannur, said he was the least surprised by the visuals of bogus polling because he has been a victim of this in the past. "Bogus voting is a common practice in Kannur and Kasaragod, which is practiced freely by the CPI-M. On Tuesday, we had informed the District Collector about widespread bogus polling to which he said he was looking into the matter. But like always, no action has been taken against such activities. We are now collecting more information and would take the legal course," said Sudhakaran. The Chief Electoral Officer of the state, Tikka Ram Meena, told the media that follow-up actions have been initiated and there was nothing to worry about. "The whole purpose of having webcasting on polling day is meant to tackle this (bogus voting). As soon as we receive an official complaint, we will do what needs to be done," said Meena. The leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala said: "We will take appropriate legal steps. The officials who were party to such rigging should also be taken to task. We had cautioned the election officials of such unlawful practices much before the polling day, but the authorities didn't take any action." --IANS sg/arm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) National carrier Air India expects operations to normalise by Saturday night after its flights were delayed due to a software glitch which hindered essential services like check-in, baggage handling and boarding. Briefing the media in New Delhi, Air India Chairman Ashwani Lohani said that 85 flights were delayed till 10 a.m. on Saturday. According to Lohani, the ripple effect of the initial cancellations will continue throughout the day on the domestic network, while the international flights will mostly operate on time. The airline operates 470 flights per day while the Air India Group provides 674 flight services. Lohani said the system has been restored and passengers are being informed well in advance about the status of their flights. He added that some flights have also been rescheduled. Early Saturday morning, flight operations were hit for over five hours after the glitch was reported in the SITA server. SITA is the IT provider for the air transport industry. At Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, ranked among the busiest airports in the world, thousands of passengers were stranded and many flights were affected since 3.30 a.m. "Due to a breakdown in our server system some of our flights are getting affected all over the world. Work is on in full swing to restore the system," the airline said in a statement earlier. In response, SITA said that it experienced a complex system issue during server maintenance, which resulted in the operational disruptions. "We have now fully restored services at all airports where Air India was affected. Our priority remains, as always, to ensure a stable system where customers can conduct business efficiently and effectively, and we are undertaking a full investigation to understand the root cause and prevent a recurrence. "We deeply regret the inconvenience this has caused to the airline and their esteemed customers owing to this disruption," it added. --IANS qn-rv/sn/ksk/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bengali film actress and Trinamool Congress' candidate for Jadavpur Lok Sabha constituency, Mimi Chakraborty has declared assets worth over Rs 2.43 crore. According to her affidavit submitted as a part of her nomination filing process for her maiden fight in elections, her movable assets stand at over Rs 1.24 crore. They include Rs 25,000 cash in hand, bank deposits of Rs 71.89 lakh, investments in mutual funds with a total current market value of about Rs 50,000. Chakraborty possesses 271.4 grams of jewellery, bullion or valuables, of which 100 grams valued at Rs 3.26 lakh was inherited and 171.4 grams worth Rs 5.59 lakh was self purchased, besides two cars. As part of her immovable property, the 30-year-old actress has declared that she owns a flat in Kolkata, which she bought in February this year at a cost of over Rs 1.19 crore. She has liabilities of more than Rs 19 lakh as an outstanding car loan. The actress-turned-politician has shown annual income of over Rs 15.39 lakh for the financial year 2017-18 in her income tax return filing. Chakraborty, who did her graduation in arts from University of Calcutta, has declared that there is no pending criminal cases against her and has not been convicted for any criminal offence. --IANS bdc/vd (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress leader Ahmed Patel on Saturday called upon the BJP government in Gujarat to intervene in the interest of farmers in court case filed by Pepsico, saying that "corporate interest cannot dictate what our farmers must or mustnt cultivate." In a tweet, Patel said that Pepsi's decision to take Gujarat's potato grower farmers to court is "ill-advised and brazenly wrong." "It is in violation of the farmers' right. The state shouldn't keep its eyes shut. Corporate interest cannot dictate what our farmers must or mustn't cultivate," Patel said. Global beverages and food products giant PepsiCo India on Friday expressed its willingness for an out-of-court settlement with the potato growers of Gujarat whom it had dragged to the court for growing FL2027 or FC5 variety of potatoes, for which the company claims exclusive rights. The variety is used by PepsiCo in its popular chips brand Lay's. The company made the offer during a hearing at the Commercial Court of Ahmedabad. PepsiCo India proposed to amicably settle with people who were unlawfully using seeds of its registered variety (FC5). It also proposed that they may become part of its collaborative potato farming programme and if they did not wish to join, they can simply sign an agreement and grow other available varieties of potatoes, but not this particular variety. The firm had filed a law suit against four farmers from Vadali, the potato-growing belt in Sabarkantha district of North Gujarat, for violation of intellectual property rights of a plant variety registered by the company under the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers' Rights (PPV&FR) Act, 2001. The company had sought Rs 1 crore in 'estimated damages' from these farmers. The company said it was compelled to take the judicial recourse as a last resort to safeguard the larger interest of thousands of farmers engaged with its collaborative potato farming programme. --IANS ps/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Expressing concern over the Canadian government's "covert and overt" support to the hardliners operating from its soil to create disturbances in India, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Saturday urged the Central government to ask the global community to join India in cracking down on this grave threat to its peace and security. "The appointment of a wanted Khalistani terrorist to spearhead the 'Khalistan Referendum 2020' campaign has further exposed the true motive and intent behind the separatist movement," Amarinder said in a statement here. Reacting strongly to media reports of the roping in of wanted Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was on the list of wanted persons he had shared with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during their meeting in Amritsar in February 2018, Amarinder said that Canada's continued support to Sikh hardliners was not a good thing. Even as he urged Trudeau "not to play with fire by allowing such elements to use Canadian territory to disrupt India's peace and stability", the Chief Minister called upon the Indian government to take a more proactive stand in dealing with these forces trying to unleash trouble in the country, particularly Punjab, from other parts of the world. The Chief Minister also expressed concern over Canada's failure to rein in such hardline elements seeking to disturb India's peace and security, and posing a grave threat in particular to Punjab. "It is in the interest of any administration in Canada to check the spread of such forces on its soil," Amarinder said, warning that allowing the perpetuation of such elements would be detrimental to Canada's own safety and security in the long run. Amarinder pointed out that Nijjar was accused by India of running a terror camp in British Columbia, target killings in India and conducting weapons training for anti-India terrorists in the west. "The 'Referendum 2020' had never been the peaceful movement it claimed to be, but by roping in Nijjar, it was clear that SFJ had given up all pretensions of steering a non-violent campaign," Amarinder pointed out. "Given that the movement was openly supported and backed by Pakistan's ISI, which had been pushing terror into India directly and indirectly for decades now, it was blatantly clear that the so-called Referendum campaign was nothing but a front for the agency to boost its anti-India agenda," he added. He said that Referendum 2020 was nothing but a front for the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) and it's agents to promote and execute terrorist acts in Punjab and India. --IANS js/pg/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Amit Shah on Saturday slammed actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha for praising Pakistan founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah, days after quitting the saffron party and joining the Congress. "Shatrughan Sinha has just gone to the Congress. Now he says that Jinnah was also a great man like Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel. The Congress leaders are praising Jinnah, who has divided the country. It is their character," Shah said while addressing a rally in Odisha's Mayurbhanj Lok Sabha constituency. Addressing a rally in Madhya Pradesh on Friday, Sinha said Jinnah was part of the Congress family and praised him for his role in Independence and development of the country. The BJP president also criticised Congress leader P.C. Chacko for lauding separatist leader Yasin Malik, who is in judicial custody till May 24 in connection with a terror funding case. Shah said Kashmir will remain an integral part of India till the last BJP worker is alive. "Chacko said the Modi government should not take tough action against Yasin Malik. Malik wants to separate Kashmir from India. So, strict action is necessary. Chacko may say anything, I want to say that Kashmir cannot be separated from India," the BJP President said. He also criticised the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) for violence against BJP workers in the state. In Odisha, more than 20 BJP workers have been attacked, and many killed. There is no place for violence, he added. He appealed to the party workers to oust the Naveen Patnaik-led government in the state and bring the BJP, which will usher in development. Alleging that the BJD leaders are involved in the multi-thousand crore chit fund scam, Shah said the party will send them to jail within 90 days of coming to power in the state. Shah also said that while the Prime Minister launched the Ayushman Bharat Yojana for 50 crore poor in the country, Patnaik is not accepting the scheme. He assured that they will implement the scheme if the BJP is voted to power in Odisha. Lok Sabha and Assembly elections are being held together in the state. The fourth phase is scheduled to be held on April 29. --IANS cd/pgh/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Bihar court, here on Saturday, issued a summon to Congress President Rahul Gandhi in connection with a defamation case filed by Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi. Chief Judicial Magistrate Sashikant Rai summoned Gandhi on May 20 for his statement that "all thieves have Modi in their surnames". The Deputy Chief Minister had filed a defamation case against Gandhi last week and on Friday he appeared before the court in pursuance of his case. The senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader said his image had been tarnished by the Congress chief's remark. The court took cognisance of the statement under Section 500 of the Indian Penal Code, which relates to defamation. --IANS ik/mag/pcj (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Amit Shah on Saturday accused the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) leaders of looting the Central funds in Odisha. Addressing an election rally in the Jajpur Lok Sabha constituency, Shah said while Rs 5.56 lakh crore was given by the Union government in the last five years for the development of Odisha, it did not reach the people because of the corruption of the state government. 'The 'babus' and leaders of the BJD have embezzled the money,' he said. Alleging that Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik was shielding the mining mafia, Shah said the BJP will send all those involved in illegal mining and chit fund scams to jail within 90 days of coming to power in Odisha. Criticising Naveen Patnaik for his poor understanding of the Odia language even after ruling the state for 19 years, the BJP President said only an Odia speaking Chief Minister can understand the problems of the people in the state. He appealed the people to vote for the BJP to form governments both at Centre and the state. 'It is clear that the whole country has resolved to make Narendra Modi the Prime Minister once again,' Shah added. Elections are being held in Odisha in four phases, the last of which will be conducted on April 29. The state has 21 Lok Sabha and 147 Assembly constituencies. --IANS cd/arm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) BJP leader from Delhi Vijay Jolly on Saturday slammed Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in the national capital for its "anti-education" policies and for failing to regularise the jobs of 22,000 guest teachers. The former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA from Saket alleged that despite being in power for four years, the Kejriwal-led government played hide and seek with the livelihood of 22,000 guest teachers working in different government schools in Delhi. "The AAP government in Delhi failed to regularise the jobs of the guest teachers despite being in power after winning 67 out of the 70 Assembly seats. During the past four years, Arvind Kejriwal and Minister Manish Sisodia have failed to address the issue of regularising guest teachers, forcing the teaching community to agitate on the streets of Delhi," Jolly said. "Now the Delhi government's reported decision to stop funds to 28 Delhi University colleges is akin to dropping a bomb on the sector in the capital," said Jolly, a former President of the Dehi University Students' Union. The decision would affect both teaching and non-teaching staff as well as the student community, Jolly said. --IANS sp/arm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) After personalised letters from Rahul Gandhi, the Congress plans to use Priyanka Gandhi's audio messages to explain to the voters the Nyay (Nyoontam Aay Yojana) scheme under which 20 per cent poorest Indians will receive Rs 72,000 per year. The Nyay aims to remove poverty through minimum income guarantee to the poor and was conceptualised by Priyanka who is the Congress star campaigner for the 2019 polls. Sources said Priyanka's audio messages in Hindi are being sent to over 40 lakh beneficiaries in Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan which will go to the polls on April 29. Earlier Rahul's letters were dispatched to the beneficiaries. Sources said the party strategists had to take help of Priyanka's messages to add more appeal to the reach-out. Sources said feedback over the Nyay scheme showed voters were largely unaware about the welfare plan. Even in areas like Amethi, booth-level party workers had no clarity about the scheme. This made the managers worried. Recently during her campaign in Uttar Pradesh, Priyanka has been highlighting the scheme saying women were at the centre of it and would get the funds directly in their bank accounts. Sources said Priyanka's messages lacked in appeal and sounded bland. Party leaders refused to respond over the issue. --IANS amit/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) For the ruling BJP, the general election of 2019 jump-starts now. This is where the BJP takes the knife to the prison yard fight, for in 2014, it won 161 of the 240 seats on view. As middle and north India goes to the polls over the next four phases, the BJP's resolve gets emboldened further for it knows that to retain power, it has to convert these seats into victories. In 2014, even as the BJP won 161 seats, Trinamool Congress won 30 and the Congress won nine while the rest were shared by the splinter parties. Imagine the BJP's total tally of 282, the final four phases contributed the steroid bulked 161 seats. However, in a straight fight in many constituencies, the Congress came second in 96 while the BSP came number 2 in 20, SP in 18, RJD in 17 and CPI(M) in 22. But, there is every possibility that 2019 will witness a change for while the BJP will try and carve a larger share of seats for itself, the Congress, RJD, BSP and SP too will try and make inroads into BJP territories. Modi, in many ways a human metronome, has been assiduously assuming the role of a hegemon in Indian polity, his cult is the only one that matters, larger than life as he strides forward like a Colossus. Since 2014, barring the reverses in Bihar and Delhi till the recent losses in the three states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, he has taken the BJP to the absolute zenith of unparalleled power. Modi's personal equity has not suffered despite Notebandi and Gabbar Singh Tax or widespread rural distress as his opponent Rahul Gandhi assails him publicly from pit stop to pit stop. In many ways, the BJP has assumed the role of a dominant political force under his stewardship, one that is reminiscent of Mrs Gandhi's Congress in the early 1970s. Closer scrutiny of the 2014 election data will reveal that the BJP's seats came from eight states in north-central India which accounted for 75 per cent of its parliamentary tally. With the Hindu vote consolidating behind Modi after years of minorityism and appeasement, the BJP and its allies won 104 out of 120 seats in the populous Hindi heartland states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Normally, the states are seen as fragmented, multi-party states unlike Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, or Rajasthan, which feature bipolar competition between the Congress and the BJP. In both Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, powerful regional chieftains always go toe-to-toe with the Big Two. Modi's landslide broke that political calculus and rewrote a new power algo. Further, the BJP ramped up its presence in India's northeastern states - consisting of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, and Tripura - where it has traditionally had a modest presence. In 2014, the BJP earned an average vote share of 28 per cent in these states, notching eight seats (out of 25 on offer). Compared to the previous election in 2009, the BJP doubled both its vote and seat shares. Two decades ago, the Congress earned 40 per cent of the vote and held 13 seats in this region; in 2014, its share had dwindled to 30 per cent and eight seats (virtually identical to the BJP's position). In the coming days, Modi's Hindu 'asmita' of chauvinism factor will be a vote catcher, for this newly acquired machismo with a strong undertone of Hindu nationalism and poplulist development can be the differentiator. Under Modi's power play a distinct systemic partisan tilt has been seen with the Hindu vote aggregating behind him breaking the caste faultlines that normally exist in Indian So, while the BJP is expected to fall short of a simple majority on its own, it will have to engage with regional bosses to construct a new right wing coalition, one that will have to be more accommodating of their aspirations and ambitions. The break down on the next four phases is as follows: Phase 4 - 71 seats - BJP 45, Trinamool 6, Congress 2, LJP 2 Phase 5 - 51 seats - BJP 39, Trinamool 7, Cong 2 Phase 6 - 59 seats - BJP 44, Trinamool 8, Cong 2 Phase 7 - 59 seats - BJP 33, Cong 3, SAD 4, Trinamool 9 If one revisits the jousts of 2014 when the Modi tidal wave crushed all adversaries, there were several close contests too. Let us start with Bihar and Nalanda where Kaushlendra Kumar of JD(U) vanquished LJP's Satyanand Sharma by a small margin of 9,627 votes, in Hoshiarpur SC seat BJP's Vijay Sampla defeated Congress's Mohinder Singh Kaypee by 13,582 votes. Incidentally, Sampla has not been given a ticket again. Similarly, from Anandpur Sahib SAD's Prem Singh Chandumajra defeated Congress heavy hitter Ambika Soni by only 23,697 votes. Again, staying with Punjab in Bathinda Harsimarat Kaur Badal beat Manpreet Singh Badal of the Congress by 19,395 votes. And AAP's Dharamvira Gandhi defeated sitting Union Minister Preneet Kaur by 20,942 votes in Patiala. Punjab saw another tight contest in Ferozpur where SAD's Sher Singh Ghubaya beat Sunil Jakhar of the Congress by 31,420. This time, the Congress is expected to do much better in Punjab and reverse the trendline of 2014 under CM Capt Amrinder Singh. From Ghazipur, UP Manoj Sinha of the BJP defeated SP's Shivkanya Kushwaha by 32,452 votes. IN UP, as the needle moves towards the eastern part of UP - Purvanchal, the BJP is expected to do much better. From Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana in the north to Rajasthan in the west and Delhi in the centre and UP, Bihar, MP and Jharkhand in the middle of India, the BJP was galvanised under the inspired leadership of Narendra Modi to wreak havoc on the opposition. In a multi-phased election of this magnitude, the ruling party always has an advantage, more so if it has a charismatic leader like Modi who can sustain his campaign by breathing life into every single phase. This is true of 2014, and though 2019 may see an erosion in the big number of 161 out of 240, the BJP is expected to seize the majority out of the 240. In Bihar through an alliance and in UP it swept the states, ditto in Himachal, Delhi and Rajasthan where it blanked the opposition, Madhya Pradesh where it lost only two seats, Maharashtra where its coalition with Shiv Sena was incomparable. Even in traditional bastions of the Congress like Haryana and Assam, it managed to breach the defences. The final four phases are the BJP's to lose and while the Congress is expected to chip away at BJP in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, MP and Jharkhand, the BJP may well use its polarising campaign in Bengal and even Odisha to make startling gains. --IANS am/prs/ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The wife of former Indian Air Force Wing Commander was found murdered in her flat at the Air Force Society complex in Dwarka area here, police said on Saturday. The incident came to light on Friday when Neenu Jain's father who stays in same area continuously tried to call his daughter, who was ill since two days, to know about her condition but could not get through to her. As Neenu, 52, did not respond to phone calls, he informed her husband Vinod Jain, who works with a private airline company and was on night shift, and rushed to her home in panic. Jain, who also reached home, found that the wooden door was locked and went to the adjoining flat to see from its window where his wife was and found her lying dead. He immediately informed A.K. Singh, President of the housing complex, and the local police. "During investigation, it prima facie appears that Neenu was murdered by some unknown persons. Her flat (635) was found locked and valuable articles and jewellery were found missing from cupboards," DCP Anto Alphonse said. "She was probably smothered by attackers during her resistance. We have sent the body for post-mortem to know the exact cause of her death," he said, adding that police was also scanning CCTV footage of the area to identify the accused. --IANS sp/vd (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Here are some explained symbolic Easter foods that traditionally make it into the Pascha basket: Kulich freshly baked and topped with white icing and colorful sprinkles and the letters XB which stands for Christ is Risen ( B!) Pascha a pyramid-shaped cheese dessert made with farmers cheese, eggs, butter, raisins and almonds Colored eggs hard boiled and dyed either blood red to represent the Resurrection and new life Ham or lamb meat symbolize the great joy and abundance of Easter Butter is typically shaped into a figure of a lamb or a three-barred (Russian) cross and reminds us of the goodness of Christ Horseradish grated with red beets is symbolic of the Passion of Christ; he bittersweet flavors also remind us of his resurrection Special Blessed candles symbolizes the light of the world and light of Jesus Christ Verba (Pussy Willow) branch as a symbol of new life and new beginnings Below is not my recipe. It is from people I know here in Russia and I have never made Paskha Paskha also known as , paskha, pasca and pascha is a pyramid-shaped confection that is served for Easter in the Eastern Orthodox homes of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine and also in Poland and Lithuania. Similar in taste to a cheesecake without the crust, paskha is traditionally spread on slices of kulich, a sweet Easter bread. Ingredients: Farmers cheese 2 pounds Unsalted butter, room temperature 1/2 pound Sugar 1 1/2 cups Egg yolks, hard-cooked 6 Heavy cream 1 cup Blanched almonds, finely ground 1/2 cup Vanilla 1 1/2 teaspoons Raisins 1/4 cup Lets make: Drain farmers cheese overnight in a fined-meshed sieve or through several layers of cheesecloth. After the cheese has drained, press it through a medium-meshed sieve once or twice to break up the curds and make it light and fluffy. Set aside Add the butter and sugar to the bowl of a standing mixer and beat together on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, 4 to 5 minutes Beat in the egg yolks one at a time Reduce speed to medium low and beat in the farmers cheese, heavy cream, almonds and vanilla Line a pashka mold or a clean terracotta flowerpot with cheesecloth that has been rinsed with water and squeezed dry Fill the mold or pot with the cheese mixture Place a lid or a small plate on top of the mold and set a weight on top. Place the mold in a bowl to catch any liquid and refrigerate for at least 12 hours Remove the paskha from the mold onto a serving plate and use the raisins to decorate the sides Again: Now you know a bit more about Russia WtR Not far back in time, Osama bin Laden, the 9/11 hijackers, Wahabis, Salafis, Jabhat al Nusra and their numerous variants were all traced to Saudi Arabia. Today all of that has been placed in the margin of amnesia. Instead, the US, Israel and some Europeans are inviting all and sundry to go hammer and tongs at Iran. In a world order so topsy-turvy, where does one turn for help to gauge sources of global terror like the one which struck Colombo? Which intelligence agency does one put ones money on? The ground for current terrorism was laid in the 80s when Mujahideen were manufactured in the Salafi mould with Saudi money, American training and equipment and hundreds of Pakistan built madrasas along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border primarily to expel the Soviets from Afghanistan. Once this mission was accomplished in 1989, Americans returned home leaving high voltage Islam to find work. And work, it did find with a vengeance, in Kashmir, Egypt and Algeria. Ingredients for extremism were thus available when the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 inspired the US to put its imprimatur on the great victory. Operation Desert Storm was launched in February 1992 to teach Saddam Hussain a lesson for his transgression into Kuwait. Desert Storm is a landmark: it was to cover this event that the global media was born. For the first time in history, a war was brought live into people's homes. For the West it was a celebration of triumph over another system. For Iraq and the Muslim world it was yet another defeat, humiliation, helplessness. Coverage of one event on global television had divided the world into two hostile camps - a triumphant West and a defeated, demoralized Muslim world. This chasm widened a hundred fold with the two Intefadas, the four-year-long Bosnian war, 9/11, air strikes and occupation of Afghanistan, the bogus search for weapons of mass destruction leading to the occupation of Iraq, destruction of Mesopotamia and so on. As a reaction, Jehadi terror began to evolve as a target against which nations could forge coalitions. Then, as an afterthought, terror groups also began to be seen as assets to be let loose on enemies. This latter game became transparent during the Syrian conflict. Countries like Saudi Arabia began to play a lead role in inducting, breeding, arming Jehadis of the most ferocious variety against President Bashar al Assad, casting him as a 'brutal Shia' (therefore heathen) who had to be replaced. The US, Israel, Qatar, Turkey, all joined the expedition. The US, began to train and equip militant groups. President Obama's Defence Secretary Ashton Carter was virtually in tears at being grilled by the Congress as well as the media. In one instance at least (there were others) he had to wind up a $500 million project on live TV because the Jehadists trained by the Americans had walked away, with the heavy equipment and presumably joined some other group. The sudden establishment of the Islamic State in Mosul remains an uninvestigated mystery. When the IS charged towards Baghdad wielding the latest arms mounted on Humvees straight from the showroom, my sources in Najaf were convinced of their American sponsorship. Every Arab Ambassador in New Delhi at least (except the GCC) was quite candid: this is an American project. They seemed to make sense because candidate Trump himself told Jake Tapper of the CNN that the Obama-Hillary Clinton team had 'spent millions in creating terror groups in Syria'. In an interview with the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman in August 2015, Obama admitted to the uses of the ISIS. Asked why he did not bomb the IS when it first reared its head, Obama said: 'We did not just start taking a bunch of air strikes all across Iraq because that would have taken the pressure off Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al Maliki.' In other words, ISIS was an American asset at that juncture. Maliki, an aggressive Shia, had refused to sign the Status of Forces agreement with the US preparatory to their departure from Iraq. The pressure worked. Maliki was replaced. Later, Friedman advises President Trump in one of his columns not to waste his time fighting the IS. He wants 'Trump to be Trump - utterly cynical and unpredictable.' Friedman adds: 'Trump should let ISIS be Assad's, Iran's, Hezbullah's and Russia's headache.' At the opposite ideological end of the spectrum is that great chronicler of West Asia, Robert Fisk. In a different context, he writes, Trump does not realize that 'Israel bombs only the Syrian army, the Shia Hezbullah in Syria but has never ever the IS. In fact the Israelis have given medical aid to fighters from Jabhat al Nusra which is part of Al Qaeda which attacked the US on 9/11.' By Fisk's testimony, IS is an Israeli asset too. At a conference on regional issues in New Delhi, Morgulov Igor Vladimirovich, Russia's Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, startled the gathering. Since the war in Syria has wound down, the Islamic State is as spare today as the Afghan Mujahideen were in 1989. Vladimirovich's allegation caused raised eyebrows. 'ISIS fighters are being flown to Northern Afghanistan.' 'Since the Afghan air space is under the control of the US and the Afghan government, who is responsible for this transfer of the IS?' he asked. An allegation of much greater global resonance was by Iran's Supreme leader, Ayatullah Ali Khamenei. In the course of his Friday address on January 30, 2018, he said: 'The US transfer of terrorists to Afghanistan is aimed at creating a justification for its continuing stay in the region.' Xinxiang, the Caucasus are all vulnerable to IS blackmail, as are other, smaller countries. But remember, IS is also seen by some powers as an asset. A ghastly tragedy can shake a nation. That is precisely when powerful intelligence agencies move in with help, advice which, over a period of time, becomes the kind of deep penetration which begins to navigate policy. (Saeed Naqvi is a commentator on political and diplomatic affairs. He can be reached on saeednaqvi@hotmail.com. Disclaimer: The views expressed in this column are strictly those of the author and not of the IANS) --IANS naqvi/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The high decibel cacophony of loudspeakers blaring out poll slogans fell silent as the hectic campaign for the fourth and final phase of elections to Odisha's Lok Sabha and assembly seats ended on Saturday. Mayurbhanj, Balasore, Bhadrak, Jajpur, Kendrapara and Jagatsinghpur Lok Sabha constituencies and 41 Assembly segments under them will go to polls on Monday. Different political parties and Independent candidates made their last-ditch efforts to woo the voters ahead of their decision day. Fifty-two candidates are in the fray for the six Lok Sabha seats while 336 candidates are contesting for the Assembly seats in the last phase. On the last day of electioneering, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is giving a tough fight to the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in the coastal state, handed the poll baton to President Amit Shah, who addressed two rallies in Mayurbhanj and Jajpur. Launching a scathing attack on ruling BJD and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Shah urged the electorate to dethrone the "corrupt and inefficient government" and bless the saffron party to usher in a new Odisha. Earlier, several Union Ministers had held public meetings in the state. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also addressed two rallies in Kendrapara and Balasore. On the other hand, Patnaik, who is leading the campaign trail single-handedly for the BJD across the state, on Saturday held a massive roadshow in Kendrapara. He is facing the toughest battle in his 19-year-long reign in the state. "Touched and humbled by the love of people of Kendrapara who came out in large numbers to shower their blessings during my campaign trail. They are part of my 4.5 crore family of Odisha. Kendrapara's development is my responsibility and I will personally monitor it," he tweeted. As for Congress, its President Rahul Gandhi held a public meeting in Balasore on Friday, while senior party leaders Gulam Nabi Azad and Raj Babbar campaigned for party candidates in several constituencies. The fourth phase campaigning also added the glamour quotient with several Odia cinema actors seen canvassing in favour of political parties and candidates. Almost all popular actors were seen campaigning in Kendrapara constituency, which is witnessing the most prestigious poll battle in Odisha. BJP Vice President Baijayant Panda, who won the seat on a BJD ticket in 2014, and Odia film star Anubhav Mohanty are fighting for the seat. It also gave a chance to the people to get a glimpse of their favourite artistes, who managed to pull them out of their houses in the sweltering summer. --IANS cd/mag/vd (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Claiming that sitting Chandni Chowk MP and Union Minister Harsh Vardhan was not "approachable" for the last five years, Pankaj Gupta, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate from the seat, is telling the electorate that he would be "always reachable." Gupta is contesting from the Chandni Chowk Lok Sabha constituency against senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Harsh Vardhan and Congress veteran Jai Prakash Agarwal. Besides being a sitting MP, Harsh Vardhan (64) is also a five-time MLA from Krishna Nagar. Agarwal (74) too is a three-time Lok Sabha MP, having won twice from Chandni Chowk. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Harsh Vardhan had got 4,37,938 votes (44.81 per cent) while AAP's Ashutosh managed 3,01,618 votes (30.86 per cent) and Kapil Sibal of the Congress got 1,76,206 votes (18.03 per cent). Despite being pitted against two big names from the Congress and the BJP, Gupta, an information technology (IT) professional and entrepreneur, is 100 per cent confident of winning from Chandni Chowk, which goes to the polls in the sixth phase on May 12. Gupta -- whose nomination was announced by the AAP much before the BJP and the Congress named their respective candidates -- said he was working on the ground even before his name was declared. "I have been interacting with the people of the constituency for the past seven-eight months. People here know that there is someone from the AAP who is working on the ground," Gupta told IANS. Claiming that there is a culture in every political party, Gupta said: "Our culture is that people know that we are reachable. Look at our MLAs. All the AAP MLAs can be found in their offices. They meet and talk to the people. "If the MLAs can be reached at all times, why can't the Mps be approachable? Unlike the sitting MP (Harsh Vardhan), I will be reachable to the people after getting elected," said the nominee of the AAP, the ruling party in Delhi. Gupta, who holds an electronics engineering degree from the Motilal Nehru Regional Engineering College in Allahabad, jumped into in 2012 when the AAP was formed. He left his IT career behind to join the party. Gupta had worked for various software companies for 25 years before quitting his job to work for the education of the underprivileged children. He was one of the key members who worked from behind the scenes during the Jan Lokpal movement. On being asked where Harsh Vardhan had failed, Gupta said: "You can only fail if you do something. There is no scope of failure if you don't work. He (Harsh Vardhan) has not done any work, so there is no scope of failure." Gupta also claimed that the sitting MP was never present in the area. "He (Harsh Vardhan) never tried to go to the constituency and find out what the people needed or what were their issues. People were suffering due to the sealing (drive). They were losing jobs. There was no source of income left for them. But he never tried to be with the people or think for/about them," he said. Attacking the BJP in general and Harsh Vardhan in particular, Gupta said they didn't have any idea how many people lost their employment due to the sealing drive. "There could have been some other solution instead of sealing. Had they thought about the public, they could have brought in an ordinance to stop the sealing drive. But they were never interested in dealing with the issues faced by the public. They were full of arrogance and so could not see the sufferings of the people," he said, adding: "What is the point of having an MP who never gave priority to the issues faced by the people?" Gupta also said the BJP was using the model code of conduct (MCC) as an excuse now. "The MCC was not in place during the last few years. They could have done something then," said the AAP candidate. Speaking about the local issues, Gupta said sealing, security and lack of basic facilities have been troubling the people in the Chandni Chowk area. "Security has been a major issue in the area apart from sealing. People, particularly women, do not feel secure while going out. The parents are scared to send their daughters out," he said. Gupta also said the police were of no use to the people. "The police are not accountable to the people. Instead of filing a complaint, the police tell the people that they will end up going to the court, after which a common man gets scared and comes back without filing a complaint. Harsh Vardhan never asked the police to be sensitive to the people," he added. Gupta also said the area needed land for hospitals, more schools and other facilities for the people. "People across the world praised the AAP government's 'mohalla' clinics. But none of the opposition MPs came forward to say that they will help the city government with land so that more such clinics can be built. They could have taken the initiative thinking about the people, but they did not do anything." Chandni Chowk is one of the seven Parliamentary constituencies in Delhi, which will go to polls on May 12 in the sixth phase of Lok Sabha elections. The BJP had won all the seven seats in 2014. (Nivedita Singh can be contacted at nivedita.singh@ians.in) --IANS nks/arm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Actor Idris Elba, 46, exchanged wedding vows with longtime girlfriend Sabrina Dhowre, 29, in a three-day ceremony in Morocco. In images captured by British Vogue, the couple, who got engaged last year, looked smitten as they wed at the Ksar Char Bagh hotel in Marrakesh on Friday, reports dailymail.co.uk. Dhowre opted for two exquisite dresses by Vera Wang for her big day -- a bardot style gown for the ceremony and a pearl embroidered number for the reception -- while Elba, 46, looked dapper in a bespoke suit by Ozwald Boateng. An image from the fashion magazine shows Dhowre looking ravishing in her form-fitting A-line white gown, while her make-up is executed by Charlotte Tilbury and her hair by Luana Babbi. In another, Elba cuts an incredibly dapper figure in his slick suit as he is seen gazing adoringly at Dhowre. Another photograph shows the pair just after they exchanged their vows, as they passionately embrace while the former beauty queen flashes her dazzling ring. "Congratulations to newlyweds Idris Elba and Sabrina Dhowre who exchanged vows in Morocco on April 26 2019. Celebrations were spread over three days in Marrakesh," the caption read. With a 'colours of the Souk' themed dinner on Thursday night, and their extravagant nuptials on Friday, the three-day celebrations will culminate with an all-white party at a hotel. In March, Dhowre took to her Instagram with fun-filled snaps from her wild Utah bachelorette bash. In February last year, Elba, known for projects like "Legacy", "Thor", "Prometheus", "Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom" and "Luther", was seen getting down on a knee to pop the question to Dhowre. Elba met Dhowre in her home country of Canada in 2017, and became acquainted on the set of the drama film "The Mountain Between Us". --IANS sug/rb/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Indian-American Hirsh Singh has announced that will seek the Republican nomination for US Senate in 2020 against Democratic New Jersey Senator Cory Booker. Singh, a director for Hi-Tech Systems in New Jersey, on Thursday said in a Facebook post: "Help me fix Jersey. Spread the news, we're here to win. Today, I launch my campaign for US Senate. For the People of New Jersey. Let's remove Cory Booker." The Republican has already filed documents forming his campaign committee with the Federal Election Commission, The American Bazaar reported. This is not Singh's first innings in politics; in fact, this is his third bid for the public office. Last year, he lost in the Republican primaries to Seth Grossman when, he ran for the 2nd Congressional District seat. Before that, in 2017, Singh ran in the Republican primary for the governor. Singh is an engineer by profession and is from Atlantic City. According to The Shore News Network, Singh has picked up the endorsement of Bill Palatucci, a member of the Republican National Committee, from New Jersey. Singh is the first Republican to announce challenge to Booker, who is also running for President. On his newly launched website, Singh announced: "We the people of New Jersey are suffering from political extremism and out-of-control egos. Our representatives have forgotten who they serve. Our economic engine is choking and our infrastructure is crumbling. Together, we will rebuild the state." Singh has been extremely critical of Booker's policies. Singh holds an engineering degree from the New Jersey Institute of Technology. He has worked with several top government organizations, including NASA, the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Pentagon, and the US military. --IANS ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The US-Indian joint venture Carr Lane India will start shipping out aerospace tooling components to the US once it starts its operations in July, company officials said on Saturday. Carr Lane India is a 70:30 joint venture between US-based $50 million Carr Lane Manufacturing and Rialto Enterprises, part of the Rs 600 crore Rayala Group. "With the aerospace sector expanding in India, we decided to have a production base here and cater to the demands than sending the products from the US," Carr Lane's Chief Operating Officer Colin Frost told reporters here. "During the first three years of operations of the Indian company, exports will be more than the domestic sales," he added. Carr Lane has customers like Boeing, Lockheed Martin and other majors in the global aerospace sector. "Initial investment will not be high as we will be using our existing facilities to for making the aerospace tooling components. The investments will be gradually increased based on the needs," Rialto Enterprises' Managing Director Ranjit Pratap said. The joint venture company plans to make tooling components and special alignment devices for the start. Plans are afoot to produce very niche products which are in great demand by the aero industry. Pratap said Rialto's engineering division already makes press components for auto component major Wabco. In its oral care Division, Rialto manufactures Oral B tooth brushes under license from Procter & Gamble. Currently, the company manufactures around 30 million tooth brushes per month. --IANS vj/vd (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Global software major Infosys has transformed a barren land into a rain forest in its 360-acre sprawling campus in Karnataka's port city on the west coast. "As part of our commitment to conservation for creating a better world for present and future, we have decided to make our campus to be intrinsically green," said a company spokesman in a video that depicts the metamorphosis of a dry land into a green forest. As safeguarding nature is a fundamental responsibility of everyone, the company decided to make its campus intrinsically green. "We believe whatever we strive to do has to be done with due respect to what surrounds us. When we built the campus over a decade ago, we promised to transform the vast land into a living rain forest". Through rainwater harvesting, the IT behemoth made water walk through the campus and not run out of it. The port city, about 350 km west of Bengaluru, receives about 80-100 inch rainfall every year during the south-west monsoon from June to September. "We planted native trees in high densities from an open exposed landscape and let nature take its own course. As a result, the campus has become a home amidst a forest, with trees that are so rare and wildlife that flourishes as in a pristine rain forest. The water the company has strived hard to preserve has returned to flow through the campus and goes even into the neighbourhood. The campus is located about 20km from the city centre at Kamblapadavu in Bantwal local body near Pajeeru hamlet. --IANS fb/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The leader of North Korea returned to Pyongyang following his "successful and historic" summit with the President of Russia, state media reported on Saturday. Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin met in the Russian city of Vladivostok on Thursday in what was the first ever summit between the two leaders. Kim arrived back in the North Korean capital in his special armored train and was received with a welcome ceremony attended by senior officials of the regime, the Workers' Party and the army, the KCNA news agency reported. The North Korean news agency did not specify the exact time of Kim's return, after leaving Vladivostok on Friday following his meeting the previous day with Putin to discuss the process the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula as well as bilateral ties, reported Efe news. It also marked Kim's first visit abroad since the Hanoi summit in February with the President of the US, Donald Trump, which ended abruptly without an agreement on the denuclearization process that was underway. On Friday, KCNA published comments made by Kim during the meeting with Putin in which he blamed the US for the failure of the summit at Hanoi for maintaining a unilateral position and warned that his country was prepared for any possible situation. Putin expressed his support for the need to offer security guarantees in exchange for disarmament by Pyongyang, consistent with the position of another important partner of the North Korean regime. Putin said that Pyongyang only needed security guarantees, and that it would require the US to show its desire for a constructive dialog. Putin is an advocate of reviving six-party talks - consisting of China, North Korea, South Korea, the US, Japan and Russia - to ensure Pyongyang gets security guarantees in return for disarmament. --IANS pg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) This is for the first time that Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) President Lalu Prasad is not taking active part in the general elections. But his party is leaving no stone unturned to keep the RJD patriarch connected to the Lok Sabha polls in some form or another. Ironically, the man who used to spearhead his party's election campaign till sometime back is now languishing in jail 300 km from here. Lalu Prasad has been sentenced in four fodder scam cases by different special CBI courts in Ranchi and is in prison there from December 2017. However, the convicted RJD leader is now admitted to the paying ward of the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) there for various ailments. While filing her nomination on Friday, Misa Bharti, the RJD chief's daughter and the grand alliance candidate from the Patliputra Lok Sabha constituency, clutched on to a photograph of Lalu Prasad right through the nomination process. She said she was feeling the absence of his father, whose ideals were still conveyed to the party workers and voters alike. A few days back, Lalu Prasad even conveyed his thoughts through an open letter to lift the morale of the party workers. He is also keeping a close connect with them via social media being operated by his team. The RJD supremo is also not missing any opportunity to target the opposition leaders via Twitter. Just before the Lok Sabha elections, Lalu Prasad's autobiography, "Gopalganj to Raisina: My Political Journey," was released, helping him stay in the thick of discussions. The co-author of the book and journalist Nalin Verma said: "Lalu Prasad knows the value of time. Since he has been put behind the bars, RJD is lacking a strong leader. While the party workers are trying hard to convey his message to the people, it remains to be seen how effective there efforts would be." Lalu Prasad's son Tejashwi Yadav and wife Rabri Devi have been busy on Twitter, trying to garner sympathy for the jailed RJD chief. "The BJP government wants to poison Laluji at the hospital. They are not allowing any family member to meet him for months now. The government of India has gone mad. If the people in Bihar take to the streets, the consequences will be very bad," Rabri Devi had tweeted. While Tejashwi Yadav is driving the RJD ship this time in the absence of his father, he had to face difficulty in distributing tickets as well as arriving at a seat-sharing arrangement with the party's allies. It is said that while the top leaders of the party assembled at former Chief Minister Rabri Devi's residence at 10 Circular Road here to finalise the candidates, the final approval came from Lalu Prasad. According to RJD spokesperson Mrityunjay Tiwari: "It's not just the party, but the whole of Bihar is feeling the absence of Lalu Prasad. His being in jail is a big political loss for the scores of party workers functioning at different levels." The opposition, however, denied the existence of the old "Lalu magic." Janata Dal (U) spokesman Neeraj Kumar said: "Bihar's has changed no matter how hard the RJD tries to keep Lalu Prasad connected to the elections. The voters here know why Lalu Prasad is lodged in jail." --IANS arm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Madras High Court's suggestion to exclude consensual sex with girls above 16 from rigours of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act has been welcomed by legal experts. The Madras High Court on Friday suggested that consensual sex, physical contact or allied acts after the age of 16 be excluded from the ambit of POCSO Act and the definition of "child" under Section 2(d) of the Act be amended and reduced to 16 instead of 18 years. "On a profound consideration of the ground realities, the definition of 'Child' under Section 2(d) of the POCSO Act can be redefined as 16 instead of 18. Any consensual sex after the age of 16 or bodily contact or allied acts can be excluded from the rigorous provisions of the POCSO Act," Justice V. Parthiban said. As per Section 2(d) of the POCSO Act, "child" means any person below the age of 18 years. Senior Advocate Vikas Pahwa expressed his agreement with the observation of the Madras High Court on the need to amend the definition of "child" and reducing the age of consent from 18 to 16 years. But, he said: "However, this will also require a corresponding change in the Indian Penal Code, where the definition of 'kidnapping' would also require the change from 18 to 16 years." "Considering the innovation in digital technology, the children are exposed to so much of information that they get matured much earlier and thus are in a position to give consent for any relationship even at the age of 16," Advocate Pahwa said. He also opined that this will also reduce significant number of criminal cases pending in various courts, where the provisions of the Act are grossly misused as even when a girl in the intermediate age of 16-18 gives consent, it is treated as invalid in view of the provisions of the POCSO Act. Alok P. Kumar, a senior resident fellow at Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, said that "the court's suggestion to amend POCSO is well intentioned idea and deserves serious consideration". "The court has raised a very valid issue as the present legal framework of POCSO and sexual assault is being used to prevent inter-caste marriages and consensual relationships between young people," Kumar said. "The court has rightly expressed anguish about the judicial system being misused to cover up elopement and consensual relationships rather than deal with crimes against children. The court's suggestion to amend POCSO is an idea with a good intent and deserves serious consideration." Welcoming the suggestion, Senior Advocate Geeta Luthra said that these days adolescents above the age of 16 years are capable of taking a call as far as physical contact is concerned. "Study should be conducted to redefine the age limit as people these days are maturing much earlier. Sometimes, some innocents are not treated as innocent due to certain legal provisions," Luthra said. In its Friday's ruling, the Madras High Court said: "...such sexual assault [i.e. sex with a person between 16-18 years], if it is so defined can be tried under more liberal provisions, which can be introduced in the Act itself and in order to distinguish the cases of teenage relationship after 16 years from the cases of sexual assault on children below 16 years." The court also suggested some measures including "the Act can be amended to the effect that the age of the offender ought not to be more than five years or so than the consensual victim girl of 16 years or more, so that the impressionable age of the victim girl cannot be taken advantage of by a person who is much older and crossed the age of presumable infatuation or innocence". The court recommendation came while allowing a criminal appeal filed by Sabari alias Sabarinathan challenging his conviction in a minor's kidnapping and rape case. The court acquitted him on the victim's statement, saying that she had consented to go with Sabari. It was alleged that Sabari was in relationship with a minor girl and had kidnapped her on June 28, 2014 from the lawful custody of her grandparents and thereafter committed sexual assault on her on several occasions. Sabari was convicted by a Fast Track Mahila Court in Namakkal, Tamil Nadu, in June 2018 and was sentenced to 10 years' rigorous imprisonment under the POCSO Act. The high court observed that the prosecution had failed to prove its case against Sabari as several witnesses turned hostile including the victim. The court said: "It was only a case of presumption on the part of the relatives of the victim girl that the accused could have kidnapped her and committed sexual assault on her." The court in its ruling also observed that when the girl below 18 years is involved in a relationship with a teenage boy or a little over the teenage, it is always a question mark as to how such relationship could be defined since "such relationship would be the result of mutual innocence and biological attraction". The court noted that such relationship cannot be construed as an unnatural one or alien to relationship between opposite sexes. "But in such cases where the age of the girl is below 18 years, even though she is capable of giving consent for relationship, being mentally matured, unfortunately, the provisions of the POCSO Act get attracted if such relationship transcends beyond platonic limits, attracting strong arm of law sanctioned by the provisions of POCSO Act, catching up with the so-called offender of sexual assault, warranting a severe imprisonment of 7/10 years," the court said. The court also emphasised on the need to create awareness regarding the POCSO law. (Amiya Kumar Kushwaha can be reached at amiya.k@ians.in) --IANS ak/nir (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Most parents love to teach their kids how to share. Guess those parents would be extremely proud today to see that young people are beginning to prefer to own fewer properties, choosing instead to share everything. These youngsters are sharing houses, cars, furniture, workstations, even music claiming it makes their lives a little easier. They are part of a new group of youth who are often educated, self-employed, well-to-do but homeless by choice. According to an article on npr.org, in some places, such as Los Angeles, this rental life has gone to an extreme. Steven T. Johnson, 27, one of the young people featured in the report says he works in social media advertising and lives in Hollywood. According to Johnson, he does not own an apartment but shares a large bedroom with a couple of other people, through a service called PodShare. There he shares a kitchen and bathroom with other roommates. He also does not own a car because he takes a ride-share service to the gym. He does his laundry using the gyms laundry service and also rents a locker at the gym. Even more surprising, is the fact thatJohnson also does not go to work in a typical office; rather he rents a desk at WeWork, a coworking space. Even though he buys his own clothes, he admits they are always just two versions of the same outfit. And asked about whether he at least owned a backpack, Johnson says, "I gave that up two months ago." He says that, taking the decision not to own anything, has made his life a lot less complicated. "That's what's great," he says. "When you don't own things, you don't have to keep track of them. You just show up." This new trend has been blamed on three things: the rising price of housing, student loan debts and a likely fundamental shift in American capitalism. Skyler Wang, a Ph.D. student at the University of California, Berkeley who studies the sharing economy, quoted on npr.org says that the young people inquestion may not be as property-free as they claim to be. They just love owning different belongings from what their parents generation loved to own. "I talked to a lot of minimalists," she says. "They're the type of people who love to couch-surf. They own like 30 things, but ... they hoard digitally. They have tons of photographs. They have thousands and thousands of Instagram posts." Businesses are beginning to adjust to this renting trend, by diversifying into rentals.Ikea, for instance, is finally starting to lease its furniture. REI also,has started to expand its rental program for things like camping gear. Eric Artz, the acting CEO of the company, says "We're selling joy," "We're selling inspiration when you get out on a trail or go for a bike ride. We're selling the adrenaline buzz at the end of a run, and we're just trying to enable that in any way we possibly can." Soon after the Election Commission (EC) officials on Saturday caught Delhi Minister and AAP leader Gopal Rai for campaigning near Rajiv Chowk metro station here, the Delhi BJP accused him of violating the model code of conduct and demanded action against him. Speaking to reporters, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s Delhi unit chief and party's candidate from North East Lok Sabha seat, Manoj Tiwari, said: "Rai was caught by the Election Commission officials while distributing election material to the people without prior permission." "The way the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader was held for violating model code of conduct, the Election Commission should take strict action against him." Tiwari also demanded that registration of the AAP be cancelled because party's Convener Arvinf Kejriwal has neither any trust in the Election Commission, nor in the Constitution of the country. "People like Kejriwal are a threat to the society as he treats himself above the Constitution and law of the land," he said. Tiwari alleged that Kejriwal was using the taxpayers' money for his personal gains and misleading the people of the city. --IANS aks/nir (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former Chief Minister and President of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Mehbooba Mufti on Saturday accused the Congress and the National Conference (NC) of weakening article 370 that gives special status to Jammu and Kashmir. Speaking to the media, Mehbooba said that while Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad had weakened article 370 by allotting thousands of kanals of land to the Amarnath Shrine Board in 2008, it was the NC that had surrendered the titles of 'Wazir-e-Azam' and 'Sadr-e-Riyasat' in 1975. The PDP President said it was her party that saved article 370 and 35A during the two years she ruled the state in coalition with the Bharatiya Janata Party. She is contesting the Lok Sabha elections from Anantnag constituency where the first phase of the three-phased voting was held on April 23. The second phase of voting in Anantnag is scheduled for April 29 and the last phase on May 6. Mehbooba Mufti is challenged by Ghulam Ahmed Mir of the Congress and Justice (Retired) Hasnain Masoodi of the NC among other candidates. --IANS sq/pg/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday took a pot-shot at the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) over its alliance with the Samajwadi Party, saying it has forgotten the insult to Dalit icon Babasaheb Ambedkar by the Akhilesh Yadav-led party. "Let's not forget how the SP showed disrespect to Ambedkar. The BSP has forgotten that. In pursuit of power and position, Mayawati (BSP chief) is embracing those who humiliated Babasaheb," he said. Modi accused both parties of lacking issues and making caste-based combinations as foundation of their with the aim of grabbing power. Addressing meetings at Kannauj, Hardoi and Sitapur, on the last day of campaigning in parts of UP where 13 seats would go to polls in the fourth phase on April 29, the Prime Minister accused the SP, the BSP and the Congress of not being worried about national interest and just looking for power. "The opposition is in the state of helter-skelter. The Congress, the SP-BSP are unable to fathom the issues on which they should seek vote. They are trying to save their existence by forging caste-based alliance and it is proving counter-productive," he said. Modi said the people were aware of the opportunistic attitude of the BSP and the SP. Mocking them, Modi said after their electoral rout in the last Lok Sabha and the Assembly elections they had opened a new "mahamilavat counter" and expressed confidence that this time too people would lock this political counter. In Kannauj, Modi said: "We want to bring a saffron revolution in the country. Hearing this, anti-Hindu people feel disturbed, and target me. Saffron is the symbol of energy. We will bring an energy revolution in India." He also assured that the last penny that was looted from the people would be recovered. Modi also castigated the Congress for saying it would reduce deployment of security forces in Kashmir and would withdraw the Armed Forces Special Power Act (AFSPA) and scrap the sedition law. He wondered if the party with this kind of approach could eliminate terrorism and Naxalism. He also derided the SP and the BSP for their post-Pulwama attack comments and asked the people to remember the questions then raised by them. Would the country remain safe in hands of those who tend to accept the Pakistani version and don't hear to our brave soldiers, Modi said. He stressed every terror attack on the security forces in the past five years was responded to by strikes within Pakistan and recalled the surgical and Balakot strikes. "When our security forces were attacked by terrorists, we chased them to their homes. First it was surgical strikes and then air strikes," Modi said. Referring to the UPA government, Modi said there were terror strikes one after the other and no place was considered safe but in past five years it has been confined to a small part of Kashmir. He also referred to "pro-farmer" measures of his government and said steps had been taken to double their income by 2022. --IANS pk-ps/pgh/pcj (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Given the size of the Indian economy and expectations of future growth, infrastructure remains a crucial area of focus for both financial and strategic investors alike. As capital flow gradually picks up in the sector over the last five years and operational assets are bought out, the obvious question is: What next in terms of infrastructure projects? The last few years have seen a significant focus from a plethora of global infrastructure investors in India, especially in the transportation and energy sectors. The primary strategy has been buying out companies or a portfolio of operational brownfield projects. Sellers of such projects have been motivated by the need to reduce their debt and in some cases carve out non-core assets. Buyers of brownfield assets have been motivated by getting access to assets that are operational, thereby giving them a foothold in the Indian market. However, as brownfield assets see more capital pursuing them, we see two trends emerging. Firstly, high-quality brownfield assets for sale are fewer now, given the capital inflow over the last few years. Secondly, given the increased competition, from an investor's perspective, due to the yield compression in brownfield assets, the returns available may not be commensurate to the underlying risk. Therefore, the need for investors to move beyond brownfield assets is one that needs attention. For India, focused investors such as pension funds and private equity funds, the requirement to look beyond brownfield infrastructure assets was in the works for a while. Mainly, extending further out on the risk curve is required to deploy more capital to work. Beyond brownfield assets, investors must now consider assets that aren't necessarily purely greenfield but are under-construction and close to completion. The move towards under-construction projects will allow investors access to a larger pool of assets to choose from. Given the still strained balance sheets in the infrastructure sector, opportunities exist that need to be tapped into. The move towards assets that aren't operational or a portfolio of such assets is a natural progression in the market. The vital question is the valuation of such assets. Fundamentally, for distressed projects and under-construction projects, there is a potential for unlocking value by investors accessing such projects. Acquiring projects suffering from either time and cost overruns, or both for that matter, at attractive valuations is the key. The seller of such assets can unlock much-needed capital, and the users of such assets can hope to access the much-needed infrastructure sooner. In effect, investors will have to be more "hands-on" with which to approach under-construction projects. The need for a more operationally intensive plan will require financial investors to team up with operator companies. Such partnerships will take a variety of forms ranging from joint ventures to the utilisation of financial vehicles that allow for partnerships between operators and capital providers. For operational industry players such as integrated energy businesses, an opportunity exists wherein they can potentially utilise their operational expertise to get an edge in the infrastructure market. The recent deal in which Hindustan Construction Company (HCC) monetised a pool of arbitration awards is a variant of this strategy, and a deal that displays how investors can unlock value through moving higher on the risk curve. In this particular case, HCC gets access to much-needed liquidity and the investors, the Blackrock-led consortium, get an opportunity to utilise their long-term capital to generate investment returns. Over the past few years, the investor interest in accessing high-quality brownfield assets to deploy capital has been a natural first step taken by both large and small players entering the Indian markets. Given the constrained balance sheets of many Indian businesses, especially infrastructure companies, has meant that carving out and monetisation of assets to reduce debt was a natural progression in the market. However, in a multi-decade time horizon, given India's vast infrastructure needs, a move higher on the risk curve towards under-construction projects to be able to deploy more significant amounts of capital is only natural. From an investor perspective, accessing non-brownfield projects implies dealing with three primary issues around land acquisition, construction risk and an effective infrastructure-linked ecosystem. The immediate investment focus must shift towards projects or portfolios of projects where risk linked to the latter two must be undertaken, while land acquisition issues have primarily been resolved. The capacity of investors and the strategies adopted to deal with non-brownfield projects will lead to increased infrastructure investments and will expedite infrastructure creation. Investors and the government will have to keep a keen eye on any policy changes that might be needed as the market evolves with increasing amounts of capital looking towards incomplete and yet attractive infrastructure assets. (Taponeel Mukherjee heads Development Tracks, an infrastructure advisory firm. He is reachable at taponeel.mukherjee@development-tracks.com or @Taponeel on Twitter. Disclaimer: The views expressed in this column are strictly those of the author and not of the IANS) --IANS taponeel/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) After weeks of negotiation with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over his controversial Twitter activities, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has agreed to more specific oversight on his tweets about the company. According to the settlement reached between the two parties, all tweets from Musk about Tesla's financial health, sales or delivery numbers would have to be pre-approved by a company lawyer. The two sides filed late Friday to amend the settlement agreement reached last year over the 'funding secured' debacle, which originally prompted the SEC to attempt to install oversight over Musk's tweets, The Verge reported. Earlier in February, the SEC asked to hold Musk in contempt of court for allegedly violating a previous public disclosure settlement. Musk and the SEC spent the next few weeks filing scathing responses, with Musk saying the SEC was attempting an "unconstitutional power grab," and the agency saying the Tesla CEO was in "blatant violation" of the settlement, the report added. However, as per the new agreement, any written communication from Musk containing Tesla information regarding mergers, accusations, business expansion, credit facilities, future ventures and on several other confidential subjects have to be first discussed with the company lawyer before being disclosed to anybody. In addition, Friday's filing ensures that even though Musk would now be subject to oversight on a rash of specific topics related to Tesla, he would not need to have every off-handed tweet about the company approved -- an idea that the SEC had been advocating for a long time. Judge Nathan, who has presided over the case so far, still needs to approve the amendment. --IANS rp/pg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The 25th film of the James Bond franchise is reportedly yet to have a completed script or title, even if the official cast and crew line-up has been confirmed. The 25th James Bond film was launched in Jamaica. But there is already trouble over the title and plot, reports pagesix.com. While Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Ben Whishaw and Lea Seydoux were formally announced as cast members on Thursday, along with the return of Daniel Craig as the famous spy, and Oscar winner Rami Malek as a villain, the movie has no title and no finalised script. "They don't have a script, there's no title, it is nearly five years since the last Bond. It starts with a retired Bond living in wedded bliss, but the rest of the script is still being worked over," said a source. "They rolled out the cast this week at Ian Fleming's villa in Jamaica because if they wait much longer Daniel Craig, who is 51, will be too old, and then he really won't do the film," the source added. Brief details of the plot find Bond called back into action when his CIA cohort Felix Leiter, played by Jeffrey Wright, turns up asking for help to rescue a kidnapped scientist. It has been rumoured that the plot would also touch heavily on the dangers of powerful tech or social media platforms falling into nefarious hands. On Craig's return, the source said: "Everyone on the production side detests working with Daniel. He is so difficult and makes things impossible. But producer Barbara Broccoli thinks he walks on water, and only her opinion matters." According to pagesix.com, there are some surprises in the works to inject life into Bond 25, including a cameo role for "View To A Kill" star Grace Jones. Plus, there is a currently scheduled brief return of Christoph Waltz as Blofeld, the villain captured alive at the end of "Spectre". However Malek's character will reign as the key villain in Bond 25. "Bond 25" is scheduled to be out on April 8, 2020. --IANS sug/rb/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Amid questions raised by Trinamool Congress on appointment of retired officers as special polling observers in West Bengal, some youths on Saturday submitted applications to the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), seeking appointment as election observers or some other posts. The youths, who claimed they were "unemployed", said when retired officers are being appointed as poll observers by the Election Commission, why can't job seekers get the opportunity to serve the country? The Election Commission had appointed Vivek Dube, a retired Indian Police Service (IPS) officer of 1981 batch, as special police observer in the state after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee objected to K.K. Sharma's appointment for the same post, calling him "an RSS man". Subsequently, the Commission had also appointed Ajay V Nayak, a former CEO of Bihar, as the special observer for Bengal. "Special and police observers are not serving government employees. If they can get opportunity to serve the country as officers of the Election Commission, we can also work for the Commission to serve the country," said a job seeker. Another youth, who claimed to have submitted his application, said: "If Dube and Nayak get jobs here, why can't the Commission give us opportunities to be observers or any other posts to serve the country?" However, officers at the office of the CEO, West Bengal, declined to make any comment if they have received any such applications from job aspirants. But sources said 17 such applications were submitted at the CEO office on Saturday. Incidentally, an independent candidate Ramu Mandi who is contesting from Barrackpore seat in the Lok Sabha elections had filed a writ petition at the Calcutta High Court seeking cancellation of appointment of the two retired officers by the Commission. Terming their appointments as unconstitutional, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had alleged the Centre was trying to administer Bengal by proxy. "They have sent two persons from Delhi to help BJP in Bengal," Banerjee had said recently while campaigning in Nadia district. --IANS bdc-bnd/ssp/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Jammu and Kashmir Police on Saturday ordered a probe into the use of a security vehicle for distributing food packets among Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) supporters in the state's Anantnag district. "Today a video surfaced on social media wherein one police vehicle is being seen being utilised for distribution of food items in a political party rally in Anantnag," a police statement said. "The vehicle in question was deployed for ferrying escort personnel of a protected person. The vehicle has been withdrawn from said protected person and driver of the vehicle has been attached. "Enquiry into the matter has been ordered under rules," it added. The three-phased Lok Sabha poll in Anantnag constituency began on April 23 and will end on May 6. Among others, BJP's Sofi Yusuf is contesting the poll from this constituency against former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti of the Peoples Democratic Party, Ghulam Hassan Mir of the Congress and Justice (retd) Hasnain Masoodi of the National Conference. --IANS sq/vd (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bharatiya Janata Party national general secretary Ram Madhav said on Saturday that regional parties of Jammu and Kashmir are an impediment to state's progress and development. Madhav was speaking to media on the sidelines of a BJP poll campaign in Anantnag Lok Sabha constituency. "These two parties (PDP, National Conference) are an impediment to state's progress and development. Our policy towards Kashmir is based on Atalji's principle of 'Insaniyat' (humanity), 'jamhuriyat' (democracy) and 'Kashmiriyat' (eclectic culture)", Madhav said. Asked about PDP president, Mehbooba Mufti's statement in which she said if Prime Minister Narendra Modi believes that Kashmir is a loss to the nation then India should leave Kashmir, Madhav said, "Kashmir does not belong to anybody's father or grandfather. It is an integral part of the country and will always remain as such. Kashmir is the pride of crores of Indian people and it will always remain like that". About BJP's election manifesto that asserts that the party would abrogate Article 370 and 35A, Madhav said, "This issue will be decided by Parliament. All parties will decide this issue. We are fighting the election in the state on the agenda of development; so let us right now focus on this". BJP's Sofi Yusuf is among the 18 candidates in the fray in Anantnag Lok Sabha seat, including Mehbooba Mufti of the PDP, Ghulam Hassan Mir of the Congress and Justice (Retired) Hasnain Masoodi of the NC. The three-phase election in this constituency started on April 23 and will end on May 6. --IANS sq/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The second season of F1 in Schools India, Worlds largest STEM challenge for students in the 9-19 years age group, came to end with finale at Amity University campus, Noida, on Saturday. Orion Racing from Scottish High International School, Gurgaon, won the first place, followed by the Matadors, Amity International School, Saket, and the Stallion, The British School, New Delhi, at the third place. The winning teams would be representing India at the World Finals at Abu Dhabi in November where teams from 49 countries will compete for the title. To felicitate the winning teams, Country Chief for F1 in Schools India Yashraj Sing and its chairperson, Dr. Amita Chauhan of Amity International & Global Schools, were present at the occassion. Speaking after conclusion of the event, Yashraj said: "When the India chapter of F1 in Schools was formed, we had not perceived such an overwhelming response and participation from all over India. We are thrilled to see so much latent talent in these teenagers. It was an adrenalin rush to see participants learning from this unique competition and innovating themselves to be ready for future challenges." Before the final, F1 in Schools had regional round, which included schools from Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi NCR. 80 teams qualified for the finale. The initiative throws a challenge at students to come up with a car out (miniature of an actual Formula One racing car) and make it race on a 24 metres race track. --IANS kk/pcj (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A whopping $1.95M was spent by SNC-Lavalin, on escorts, alcohol, sex, and pornography says a news report on The Star. Receipts have emerged, to show that SNC-Lavalin and security firm Garda World spent this enormous sum, to entertain the son of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi during his visit to Canada in 2008. We needed to see to his security, and it degenerated, said Garda spokesperson Isabelle Panelli in an interview with La Presse, when asked about thecorruption surrounding Saadi Gadhafi when he visited Canada at SNC-Lavalins invitation.Panelli told La Presse that Garda World tried to intervene and stop the debauchery, but had instead lost the contract with SNC-Lavalin. Another report on the National Post, says receipts gathered during an investigation of Stephane Roy, former vice-president of SNC-Lavalin show $30,000 in payments to Saadi Gadhafi for sexual services in Canada in 2008. Citing a news report on La Presse, the article states that the Quebec engineering giant had gone as far as hiring prostitutes for the dictators son. It can be recalled that SNC-Lavalin has been in the news since 2018, following a testimony by former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybouldwho indicated that she was unduly pressured last fall to help SNC-Lavalin avoid federal corruption charges associated with their business dealings in Libya. SNC-Lavalin is Canada's biggest engineering firm and most of the allegations that have been recently leveled against the company are simply shocking, this one is no exception. Gadafi, who had helped the Quebec Company secure billions in public contracts in Libya, had been invited to Canada in the year 2008 by SNC-Lavalin. He came to conduct business and improve his English. During his stay, SNC-Lavalin hired a Montreal based company, Garda World to provide security for him. And this company ended up providing a lot more than just security. Four bodyguards were hired from Garda world, these guards handled Gadhafis expenses and provided receipts to SNC-Lavalin, says a court testimony by an RCMP investigator. They reported some transactions as companion services in their expense reports and these would cost between $600 and $7,500 each. Close to $10,000 in services went to a single escort service in Vancouver. They also had other expenses, such as money spent on a Montreal strip club and covered events at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, such as box seats for a Spice Girls concert. What is more interesting is thataccording to La Presse, SNC-Lavalin was writing off the expenses as linked with construction projects in Libya, and ended up with the total bill for Gadhafi's trip totaling nearly $2 million. Roy and another SNC-Lavalin employee, former executive, Riadh Ben Aissahad testified in court that expenses associated with the trip were justified and that he had the receipts to prove it. Garda World told the National Post it had no comment to offer beyond the La Presse report, and a spokesman for SNC-Lavalin equally insisted that the company had no comments in the matter. A US Senator from Florida has claimed there was an intrusion into Florida's elections systems by hackers in 2016. According to a report in The New York Times late Friday, Senator Marco Rubio claimed that "Russian hackers not only accessed a Florida voting system, but were 'in a position' to change voter roll data". Rubio said he was constrained by his position on the Senate Intelligence Committee, but the redacted version of the Mueller Report released on April 18 stated that the FBI believes "at least one Florida county" was infiltrated with malicious software by Russian intelligence agents. Rubio's statement contradicts the Florida Secretary of State's office which maintained last week that its elections systems weren't hacked. The Florida Secretary of State's office in Tallahassee said it had been unable to learn which county it was. "The department reached out to the FBI and they declined to share that information with us," Sarah Revell, a department spokeswoman, was quoted as saying. "No county has come forward." --IANS na/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Singhi Ram, a six-time Congress legislator from Himachal Pradesh, on Saturday joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the presence of Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur here. Ram was once considered close to Congress veteran and former Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and belonged to his stronghold Rampur assembly constituency. "A political party always gets benefit with the joining of a leader of the other party. We will definitely get some advantage with the joining of Singhi Ram in the BJP," Education Minister Suresh Bhardwaj told the media here. In the 2007 Assembly polls, Nand Lal, an officer who was part of then Congress President Sonia Gandhi's security cover, got a Congress ticket from Rampur, replacing Ram. Lal won and also got elected in two consecutive Assembly polls in 2012 and 2017. Ram, a Dalit leader, was arrested in 2008 for procuring a fake school leaving certificate for his daughter from the state education board. --IANS vg/ksk/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday termed the SP-BSP-RLD alliance as an "alliance of opportunists". Speaking at an election rally here, Modi said the opposition alliance in Uttar Pradesh wanted a "helpless" government at the Centre, not a strong one. "The mantra of this alliance is "Jaat paat japna, janta ka maal apna" and it keeps attacking the 'chowkidar' because he has checked corruption. This alliance is 'mahamilavati'," he said. He further said: "Whatever efforts the opposition makes, the result will be 'Phir ek baar ," and the crowd responded with "Modi sarkar". The Prime Minister also ridiculed the opposition leaders for dreaming of becoming the next Prime Minister and attacked Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati for seeking the support of the Samajwadi Party (SP) "just for the sake of power". Modi said: "These parties are the ones which seek evidence of the Balakot air strike and shed tears for the Batla House encounter in which terrorists were killed." --IANS amita/am/arm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has banned the National Thawheed Jammath (NTJ) and another radical group suspected to be behind the Easter Sunday explosions, which killed over 250 people and injured 500, the President's Office said in a statement. Under the emergency regulations, President Sirisena has taken steps to declare the NTJ and Jamathei Millathu Ibraheem (JMI) in Sri Lanka as banned organisations, the statement said on Saturday. "As such, all activities of those organizations as well as their property will be seized by the government. Steps are being taken to ban other extremist organizations operating in Sri Lanka, under Emergency Regulations," the statement added. President Sirisena declared a conditional state of emergency last Tuesday to arrest all the suspected terrorists who were behind Sunday's attacks which targeted churches and luxury hotels. The police said over 100 suspects had been arrested so far and a massive search operation was underway to detain more suspects, linked to the NTJ and other radical groups operating in the country. President Sirisena said on Friday that there were about 140 people in Sri Lanka suspected to have links to the Islamic State group and assured all would be arrested in the coming days. --IANS vin/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Although the latest poll surveys suggest that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) may not be able to get a majority of its own in the ongoing polls, the leaders of the mahagathbandhan (grand alliance), which has not been formed except in bits and pieces, are bound to regret their lost opportunity. If they had only been able to overcome their self-centred political instincts and learnt to compromise, the BJP would have been in greater trouble. Now, the various regional satraps and the standard-bearer of the country's oldest party will have to brace themselves to spend another five years in the political wilderness as the BJP gains ground by virtue of being the largest party (though possibly still short of a majority) and the leader of the largest group. There is little doubt that Rahul Gandhi will have to share much of the blame for this turn of events. As the Congress president, it was incumbent upon him to reach out with greater zeal towards the seemingly stiff-necked state-level leaders who have retained their ill-will against the 134-year-old one-time behemoth. Rahul Gandhi's first outreach should have been towards Mayawati, especially after the signs of her bonhomie with Sonia Gandhi at H.D. Kumaraswamy's swearing-in ceremony last summer. Even after Mayawati walked away from an alliance with the Congress in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh after Digvijay Singh's customary faux pas about the BSP czarina being under pressure from the BJP, she had said that she had complaints only against Digvijaya Singh, who, she thought, was a BJP agent, and that she had nothing against Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. Yet, from that time onwards, her attitude towards the Congress started hardening. This was the period when Rahul Gandhi should have taken the initiative to keep the Congress's ties with her alive by allaying her suspicions about the (somewhat tattered) Grand Old Party trying to wean away the Dalits from her party. But the Congress not only allowed the relations with the BSP to deteriorate but even made it worse by reaching out to the rival Dalit leader, Chandrashekhar Azad "Ravan", who was visited in hospital by Priyanka Gandhi. Considering that Akhilesh Yadav did not want the ties of the Samajwadi Party (SP)-BSP combine with the Congress to fray beyond a point, Rahul Gandhi might have enlisted his support to mollify Mayawati. Instead, it appeared that the Congress's main adversary in UP was the SP and the BSP and not the BJP. The latter could not but have been pleased by this development. Even Priyanka Gandhi's appointment as the Congress General Secretary in eastern UP gave the signal that the party was fighting the opposition gathbandhan in the state rather than the BJP. The focus on UP appears all the more strange since the Congress has ceased to be a major player in the state. If the party wanted to build itself up for a future contest, it could have waited till after the current round of elections instead of playing the spoiler where the political fortunes of Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati are concerned. Rahul Gandhi made the same mistake in West Bengal where he accused Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of making "false promises". Again, since the Congress is not much of a player in West Bengal where the BJP has edged ahead of both the Left and the Congress, there was little to gain by criticizing someone who was trying to form a gathbandhan of sorts though without much success. Considering that Rahul Gandhi was hailed as a possible prime ministerial candidate by, among others, H.D. Kumaraswamy, the DMK's M.K. Stalin and the Rashtriya Janata Dal's Tejashvi Yadav, the Congress president can be said to have had a head start over other as yet unannounced contenders like Mamata Banerjee and Mayawati. Rahul Gandhi was also entrusted with drafting a common minimum programme at a meeting hosted by Sharad Pawar where Mamata Banerjee, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal were present along with others like Farooq Abdullah. It showed the Congress president's rising stature. Not long afterwards, there was talk about a Congress-Aam Admi Party (AAP) alliance being formed to contest the parliamentary polls in Delhi. Moreover, Rahul Gandhi was said to be in favour of such a pact. But nothing came of it and, once again, the BJP is likely to be the gainer from a three-cornered fight, as in UP. Rahul Gandhi has succeeded in shedding his "Pappu" image of being a part-timer in who cannot be taken seriously. But he is yet to learn that is the art of the possible. The essence of this aphorism is that a leader or a party will have to tailor their policies in accordance with the existing circumstances and opportunities, and not out of pique or hubris, as the Congress appears to have done in UP. (Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst. He can be reached at amulyaganguli@gmail.com. Disclaimer: The views expressed in this column are strictly those of the author and not of the IANS) --IANS amulya/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Global oil benchmark Brent fell nearly 3 per cent to $71 a barrel on Saturday after US President Donald Trump asked oil cartel OPEC to boost production and cool off the surging oil prices. Brent crossed the $75 a barrel mark earlier in the week, the highest this so far this year, after the US decided to end Iran sanction waivers that allowed oil importing countries, including India and China, to keep buying Iranian crude. "Spoke to Saudi Arabia and others about increasing oil flow. All are in agreement," Trump said in a tweet on Friday. The prices have also been easing since Thursday as surging inventories of crude oil in the US outweighed the effect of sanctions on Iran that could reduce global supplies. Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, was trading 2.96 per cent lower at $72.15 a barrel at the time of writing the story. The US statement last week that it would end Iran sanction waivers given to eight oil importing countries in last November this week, put the oil on the boil with crude prices jumping after a period of relative stability. For India, the news meant that almost 10 per cent of imports would need to be replaced by May 2 or the domestic market would face shortages. India imported 22.7 million tonnes of crude from Iran in FY19. The crude from the Gulf nations came on easier terms with importing companies getting 60 day credit with discounts on insurance and freight. Higher crude prices would have adversely affected India's current account deficit and put strain on the rupee. Trump's statement is thus being seen as a short-term relief for the oil market. More such statements in the run-up to end of the Iran sanction waiver would help in keeping oil prices stable. Analysts suggest that the US President's statement has also come at the right time as OPEC was exploring option to further extend its production cuts, a move that would have further fuelled oil prices. A stable international oil market is also good for Indian oil marketing companies that have been tasked to keep the prices of transport fuels - petrol and diesel - low during the time of elections. This would help these companies to cut their under recovery and losses on sale of the two products and ensure economic pricing post elections. --IANS ravi-sn/vd (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Two youths have been arrested for burning down on Thursday a private secondary school, located in Manipur's Chandel district, run by Catholic Missionaries, the police said on Saturday. "The police have arrested two youths. Senior police officials are interrogating them and conducting an inquiry into the incident," L. Kailun, Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) in-charge of armed police and law & order, told IANS. The role of the two, so-called office-bearers of Kuki Students' Organisation (KSO), were yet to be confirmed as the probe was in the preliminary stages, he added. "Hunt is on for more suspects in the arson and attack on the school. Security has been provided to school and students," the ADGP said. A classroom block and the principal's office were razed, causing Rs 35 lakh loss. No one was injured in the incident. The arson followed the KSO diktat to shut St. Joseph School in the Sugnu area. Earlier, the school had rejected its plea to revoke suspension of six of students. The students had been suspended for posting offensive remarks against some school teachers on the social media, the police said. The Catholic Educational Society Manipur (CESM) has condemned the arson terming it "against the act of humanity". "It's deeply shocking and unfortunate that the temple of learning, the harbinger of hope, could be so reduced to ashes by some immoral people in the society," the CESM said in a statement. --IANS sc/mag/pcj (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The US Treasury Department said it has imposed sanctions on Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza and a Venezuelan judge. Jorge Arreaza and the female judge, Carol Padilla, were put on the blacklist of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), Xinhua reported on Friday, citing a statement issued by the US Treasury department. As a result of the sanctions, all property and interests in property of those sanctioned targets that are subject to US jurisdiction will be blocked, and US persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with them, the statement noted. The US has been pursuing a policy of economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation against the Venezuelan government in support of the opposition leader Juan Guaido. The OFAC last week targeted Central Bank of Venezuela and its director Iliana Josefa Ruzza Teran. In response, Arreaza called US economic and financial sanctions that impact the whole nation represent human rights violations on a grand scale. The US administration recognised Guaido as the nation's "interim president" on Jan 23, days after Nicolas Maduro was inaugurated for a second term. In response to Washington's support for Guaido, Maduro announced that he was severing "diplomatic and political" ties with the US. --IANS vin/ (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US President Donald Trump has announced that the US is withdrawing from an international arms trade treaty signed by the Obama administration, marking Washington's latest exit from an international pact. Trump made the announcement while attending an annual meeting of the National Rifle Association in the US city of Indianapolis on Friday, Xinhua reported. "We're taking our signature back," Trump told the audience. The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), which regulates international trade in conventional weapons, was signed in 2013 by then US President Barack Obama but has not been ratified by the US Senate. The White House said later in a statement that Trump will ask the Senate to return it. The White House also claimed the pact is "misguided" and constrains US ability to sell arms to its allies and partners. The Trump administration's new move has drawn criticism from some international human rights groups. --IANS vin/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Thousands of Air India passengers had a harrowing time at airports across the world on Saturday as its 155 flights were delayed due to the shutdown of its check-in software for more than five hours due to a technical snag. The national carrier's chairman and managing director (CMD) Ashwani Lohani said that the passenger service system (PSS) software, which looks after check-in, baggage and reservation, did not work from 3.30 am to 8.45 am on Saturday. During this time period, thousands of Air India passengers were stranded at airports globally as the airline staff was unable to issue a boarding pass to them. Air India's PSS is owned and managed by Atlanta-based SITA company. Lohani said that "till 10 am total 85 flights were delayed" because of PSS shutdown. "Because of the 85 flights that have been delayed, a ripple effect will take place throughout the day," he said, adding that a "few flights will also be cancelled because of this delay". Later in the day, the airline's spokesperson clarified that a total of 155 flights would be delayed for an average duration of two hours till 8.30 pm. The average number of flights that Air India group, which also includes subsidiaries Alliance Air and Air India Express, flies daily is around 674. It is mostly the domestic flights that have been affected the most due to the software shutdown, Lohani clarified. "International departures will not be facing much problems...There will be delay in one or two international flights. One Delhi-Shanghai flight is getting delayed by about 1.5 hours. The flights that are departing for Europe are largely running on time," he said. About affected passengers, the CMD said that the airline is trying its best to inform them through social media and its call centre. "But as the magnitude is so big, it is possible that our call centre is not able to handle the volume," he said. The passengers who will miss their flights will be given hotel accommodations or they will be rescheduled in a different flight of Air India or of an another airline, he said. Lohani said that SITA is currently looking into what caused the shutdown. "They are checking if it was because of virus or for any other reason. They are still searching for the root cause," he said. No other Indian airline apart from Air India uses SITA's PSS software. When asked if SITA would be compensating the airline for disruption in its operations, the CMD replied that "we will have to take a look into it". SITA regretted the inconvenience caused and said it had experienced a complex system issue during server maintenance early morning which resulted in operational disruption to flights. "We have now fully restored services at all airports where Air India were affected. Our priority remains, as always, to ensure a stable system where customers can conduct business efficiently and effectively, and we are undertaking a full investigation to understand the root cause and prevent a recurrence," SITA said in a statement to PTI. Many passengers vented their ire on social media on Saturday morning. A Dr Sonal Saxena tweeted at 7.20 am, "Utter chaos. Air India systems not working at Delhi since 3 am. All flights grounded and delayed. No checkins and boarding." When asked why passengers were not informed about flight delays through SMS or social media during the shutdown, the Air India CMD said, "Whenever any other system does not function properly, we use PSS to get contact information of passengers and then contact them. But when our PSS itself has stopped working, there is no way we can inform them." A similar incident took place on June 23 last year when a technical glitch in the airline's check-in software delayed 25 of its flights across India. The airline had tweeted on June 23, "Due to unexpexted network connectivity issues at SITA #Atlanta #Datacenter , which had a #worldwide impact, 25 flights were delayed from 1210 hrs to 1510 hrs on #Airindia network. Operations are normal now (sic). (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Sex workers in Victoria, Australia are protesting a law which says they cannot work from home. An escort, who works from her own home, could be charged with running a brothel. Any person, who needs the services of an escort, would have to invite the sex worker to his own space. "When you go to a job there's a feeling like you don't know what to expect," sex worker Mary told ABC. No other state in Australia has this law, except South Australia where sex work is criminalized. It is common for one to feel more comfortable when they are in familiar territory, and sex workers are not any different. "A big problem for us is [that] this law gives men the chance to set up hidden cameras," Mary said. "It's more than just practical though it's psychological too. "It's saying, 'This is the man's space and he's in control' it's another way to remove any power women have over their own bodies." Mary alleged that the authorities set up these laws as if society needs to be protected from sex workers and not vice versa. "The laws are not there to protect sex workers," she said. Another sex worker, Coco who comes from China but works in Australia says there is a lot of stigma attached to being a sex worker in the country and wishes this would change. "I don't feel respect and sometimes in a town, I just stay in my hotel room and don't come out because I feel shame. "I'm just another person with a big heart it's just a job." 'Sex is a part of life and we should feel safe' A third sex worker Linda, complained to ABC News, that due to this law, sex workers would often get fake calls from time-wasters who call them to a wrong address for a joke. She says this makes her feel disrespected. "Sex's a part of life and sometimes men with disabilities book me, or sometimes it's a man whose wife has died." She said She says she prefers working outside Victoria because there she gets a chance to assess potential clients before she gets to meet with them. "I can watch who's coming from my hotel and I don't give out room numbers until I see them," she said. However, a spokesman for the Victorian Minister for Consumer Affairs, Marlene Kairouz, quoted on ABC News, said the strict licensing scheme was in place to protect the health and safety of sex workers. "If a premise is made available for sex work by a business or person providing sex work services, the premise meets the legal definition of a brothel and therefore requires a brothel planning permit in order for the business or person to operate lawfully," the spokesman said. The sex workers all agree that when they get in trouble, going to police not an option "One thing you know as a sex worker is you can't go to the police," Mary said. "You would only ever go as a very last resort. "They see us as a problem that needs to be managed, not as workers with rights." Senior Sergeant Sam Ryan from Victoria Police's Sexual Offences Team, however, insisted that the police was there to help sex workers. "Victoria Police are aware people who work in the sex industry sometimes face poor community attitudes around their profession," he said. "This may cause them to feel disbelieved or that they are not being taken seriously." Six children and three women were among 15 people killed when militants linked to the Easter Sunday bombings opened fire and blew themselves up during a fierce gun battle with security forces in Sri Lanka's Eastern province, police said Saturday. The shootout occurred as the security forces continued their hunt for members of the National Thowheeth Jamaath (NTJ), the local terror outfit behind the April 21 coordinated blasts in which 253 people were killed and over 500 injured. The Special Task Force and Army troops, following a tip-off, raided a house in Kalmunai city, about 360 kms from Colombo, on Friday night, leading to the heavy exchange of fire with the armed group. As the heavily-armed men opened fire on troops, a civilian caught in the middle got killed. As the clashes intensified, three men are believed to have set off explosives. "A total of 15 bodies recovered, six men, three women and six children. At least four suspected suicide bombers are dead and three others who were injured are in hospital," a police spokesperson said. A police spokesman said that three suspected suicide bombers were among the 15 dead. "When the police was doing a joint search operation in Sainthamuruthu, gunfire was directed at them," police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekera said. A suicide blast took place and the body of a terrorist with a T56 assault rifle was also found at the site. A huge cache of explosives was also recovered from the spot. "Officials have recovered detonators, suicide kits, army uniforms and ISIS flags," an army officer said. Meanwhile, the police said that curfew imposed in the Muslim-majority areas of Kalmunai, Chavalakade and Sammanthurai would continue until further notice. At least 76 people have been arrested by the police in connection with the attack so far. Twenty were arrested in the last 24 hours. Officials also seized one kg of explosives near a railway station at Wellawatta, a popular south Colombo suburb. The curfew was lifted for other areas at 4 AM on Saturday. At the security council meeting held last night, it was decided that search operations to crackdown on extremist terrorism must continue until the threat is completely eliminated. Security has been improved at hotels, schools and public places. Nine suicide bombers carried out a series of devastating blasts that tore through three churches and three luxury hotels on the Easter Sunday, killing 253 people. The Islamic State claimed the attacks, but the government has blamed local Islamist extremist group NTJ for the attacks. President Maithripala Sirisena said Friday that over 130 suspects linked to the Islamic State terror group have been operating in the country. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said Sri Lanka needs new laws to deal with threats posed by local terror outfits linked to ISIS. Sri Lanka has a population of 21 million which is a patchwork of ethnicities and religions, dominated by the Sinhalese Buddhist majority. Muslims account for 10 per cent of the population and are the second-largest minority after Hindus. Around seven per cent of Sri Lankans are Christians. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Six children and three women were among 15 people killed when suicide bombers blew themselves up during a shootout with security forces in Sri Lanka's Eastern province, police said Saturday. The security forces continued their hunt for members of the local terror group National Thowheeth Jamath (NTJ) which was behind the deadly Easter Sunday bombings in which 253 people were killed and over 500 injured. Police Special Task Force (STF) personnel and Army troops were engaged in the gun battle with an armed group at a house in the Saindamarudu area in Kalmunai city, about 360 kms from Colombo. The heavily-armed men opened fire on troops, leading to the shootout on Friday night. A civilian, who was caught in the gun battle, died. Three men are believed to have set off explosives during the violent clashes. "A total of 15 bodies recovered, six men, three women and six children. At least four suspected suicide bombers are dead and three others who were injured are in hospital," a police spokesperson said. The curfew imposed in the Muslim-majority areas of Kalmunai, Chavalakade and Sammanthurai would continue until further notice, the police said. "When the police was doing a joint search operation in Sainthamuruthu, gunfire was directed at them," police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekera said. A suicide blast took place and the body of a terrorist with a T56 assault rifle was found at the site. The police said that 20 more people were arrested in connection with the April 21 bombings. Officials also seized one kg of explosives near a railway station at Wellawatta, a popular south Colombo suburb. The curfew was lifted for other areas at 4 AM on Saturday. At the security council meeting held last night, it was decided that search operations to crackdown on extremist terrorism must continue until the threat is completely eliminated. Security has been improved at hotels, schools and public places. Nine suicide bombers carried out a series of devastating blasts that tore through three churches and three luxury hotels on the Easter Sunday, killing 253 people. The Islamic State claimed the attacks, but the government has blamed local Islamist extremist group NTJ for the attacks. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The BJP on Saturday alleged the Delhi Waqf Board's decision to hike the salary of imams of the mosques in the national capital was in violation of the Model Code of Conduct and the move was aimed at "appeasing" the minority community. BJP's Lok Sabha election co-incharge Jai Bhan Singh Pawaiya said while the Arvind Kejriwal government hiked the salaries of imams, same was not done to Hindu priests, which he termed as "discrimination". Vijender Gupta, the Leader of the Opposition in Delhi Assembly, termed it "not only an open violation of Model Code of Conduct but also the illicit misuse of tax payers' money." "Kejriwal, in connivance with Revenue minister Kailash Gehlot and MLA from Okhla, Amanatullah Khan, has hatched a criminal conspiracy to distribute crores of rupees to the imams and moazzins in the name of raising their honorarium, salary to influence polling ahead of the polls," he added. However, AAP spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj said the Delhi Waqf Board, like its counterparts in other states, have been paying honorarium to imams appointed by them. "The Waqf Board generates revenue from leasing its properties that are spread across the national capital," he said. "Like any pension, salaries or honorarium, this amount is revised from time to time. This decision of revisiting the honorarium was taken long back before the Code of Conduct, Bharadwaj claimed. Khan, the Chairman of the Delhi Waqf Board, said the imams on Friday received cheques of Rs 18,000 while the moazzins have received enhanced honorarium of Rs 16,000. Earlier, the Chief Electoral Officer of Delhi had sought a factual report from the revenue secretary over allegations that the Delhi Waqf Board increased honorarium for imams after the Model Code of Conduct for the Lok Sabha election came into effect. "We have asked for a factual report from the Revenue Secretary. There has been a complaint and we have asked whether there has been such a measure undertaken by the Waqf Board during the Model Code of Conduct. A reply is awaited from them," an official had said. Gupta claimed when the concerned officials of the Delhi government did not give their approval and raised objections in the matter, they were bypassed. Gupta said he has also written a letter to the Lieutenant Governor, demanding action against the government. "The Hindu voters had also given a massive mandate but he did not hike the salaries of the priests of Hindu temples who are also in poor condition, Gupta said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The AAP government's Mohalla Clinics initiative in Delhi is no substitute for the Ayushman Bharat scheme, BJP candidate from Chandni Chowk constituency Harsh Vardhan said during campaign on Saturday. He alleged lack of quality health services in Delhi government-run hospitals. The Union minister asserted that the BJP was going to repeat its 2014 success of winning all the seven seats in Delhi and the Congress and the AAP were no match to it in the Lok Sabha polls. Vardhan, who is seeking re-election from Chandni Chowk, is engaged in a triangular contest with Congress candidate J P Agarwal and AAP's Pankaj Gupta. He met people in various parts of the constituency, including Pitampura, Trinagar and Sadar, during a padayatra and door-to-door canvassing. "Mohalla clinics are no substitute for Ayushman Bharat scheme, which is the largest healthcare scheme for the poor in the world," he said. The condition of Delhi government hospitals is "pathetic" as a large number of patients are not getting quality health services, he charged. The AAP government takes pride in its Mohalla Clinics and spends a major portion of budget on health services. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and other AAP leaders have been accusing the BJP of creating hurdles through the Governor in the functioning of Mohalla Clinics. Vardhan, while highlighting achievements of the Modi government, said the AAP and Congress are "no match to the Bharatiya Janata Party and cannot stop its victory March in Delhi". Delhi votes on May 12. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Thousands of passengers had a harrowing time at airports across the world on Saturday as its 155 flights were delayed due to the shutdown of its check-in software for more than five hours due to a technical snag. The national carrier's chairman and managing director (CMD) said that the passenger service system (PSS) software, which looks after check-in, baggage and reservation, did not work from 3.30 am to 8.45 am on Saturday. During this time period, thousands of passengers were stranded at airports globally as the staff was unable to issue a boarding pass to them. Air India's PSS is owned and managed by Atlanta-based SITA company. Lohani said that "till 10 am total 85 flights were delayed" because of PSS shutdown. "Because of the 85 flights that have been delayed, a ripple effect will take place throughout the day," he said, adding that a "few flights will also be cancelled because of this delay". Later in the day, the airline's spokesperson clarified that a total of 155 flights would be delayed for an average duration of two hours till 8.30 pm. The average number of flights that group, which also includes subsidiaries Alliance Air and Air India Express, flies daily is around 674. It is mostly the domestic flights that have been affected the most due to the software shutdown, Lohani clarified. "International departures will not be facing much problems...There will be delay in one or two international flights. One Delhi-Shanghai flight is getting delayed by about 1.5 hours. The flights that are departing for Europe are largely running on time," he said. About affected passengers, the CMD said that the is trying its best to inform them through social media and its call centre. "But as the magnitude is so big, it is possible that our call centre is not able to handle the volume," he said. The passengers who will miss their flights will be given hotel accommodations or they will be rescheduled in a different flight of Air India or of an another airline, he said. Lohani said that SITA is currently looking into what caused the shutdown. "They are checking if it was because of virus or for any other reason. They are still searching for the root cause," he said. No other Indian apart from Air India uses SITA's PSS software. When asked if SITA would be compensating the airline for disruption in its operations, the CMD replied that "we will have to take a look into it". SITA regretted the inconvenience caused and said it had experienced a complex system issue during server maintenance early morning which resulted in operational disruption to flights. "We have now fully restored services at all airports where Air India were affected. Our priority remains, as always, to ensure a stable system where customers can conduct business efficiently and effectively, and we are undertaking a full investigation to understand the root cause and prevent a recurrence," SITA said in a statement to PTI. Many passengers vented their ire on social media on Saturday morning. A Dr Sonal Saxena tweeted at 7.20 am, "Utter chaos. Air India systems not working at Delhi since 3 am. All flights grounded and delayed. No checkins and boarding." When asked why passengers were not informed about flight delays through SMS or social media during the shutdown, the Air India CMD said, "Whenever any other system does not function properly, we use PSS to get contact information of passengers and then contact them. But when our PSS itself has stopped working, there is no way we can inform them." A similar incident took place on June 23 last year when a technical glitch in the airline's check-in software delayed 25 of its flights across India. The airline had tweeted on June 23, "Due to unexpexted network connectivity issues at SITA #Atlanta #Datacenter , which had a #worldwide impact, 25 flights were delayed from 1210 hrs to 1510 hrs on #Airindia network. Operations are normal now. BJP president Amit Shah Saturday accused Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik of sheltering culprits in chit fund and mining scams and asserted all those involved in these scandals will be jailed in 90 days if the party comes to power in the state. Addressing a rally in this mineral-rich belt under Jajpur Lok Sabha constituency, Shah alleged that BJD MAs, MPs and officers were involved in both chit fund and mining scams, but the culprits went scot-free. "Chit fund looteras and mining mafia were not put behind the bars as Naveen Patnaik protected them," the BJP chief alleged and asserted the culprits would land in jail within 90 days if his party forms government in Odisha after elections. Both Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in Odisha are being held simultaneously in four phases. The fourth phase will be held on Monday. Shah said no action was taken by the BJD government to recover money from the mining mafias as per the recommendation of the M B Shah Commission. Hitting out at Patnaik government, Shah said the centre provided Rs 6,000 crore to the state under the District Mineral Foundation (DMF) for the development of tribals, but the state government failed to utilise the funds. Basic necessities of the people like roads, drinking water, electricity and healthcare facilities could not be provided as the chief minister is unable to understand Odia. Lamenting that Patnaik failed to learn Odia in last 20 years, Shah said people must choose an Odia-speaking chief minister who can understand their problems and redress them. Patnaik is serving as CM continously since 2000. Making a comparison between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi's working style, Shah said Modi works 18 hours a day and has not taken a single leave in the last 20 years. On the other hand, Congress President Rahul Gandhi goes on leave every two months, he said mockingly. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) BJP president Amit Shah on Saturday slammed meek response to terror from across the border during Congress-led UPA time, and remorsefully recalled beheading of soldier Hemraj over which the then prime minister Manmohan Singh did not say even "ohh!" But, now every bullet (fired from across the border) is responded with a bomb, he said. "Under former prime minister Manmohan Singh, Pakistans alia, malia and balia (referring to terrorists) used to come and take away heads of jawans after killing them. Even today I cant forget that incident of Hemrajs beheading and his disrespect. But mouni baba Manmohan Singh did not say even "ohh!", Shah said addressing a rally at Daltanganj in Jharkhand. On January 8, 2013 Lance Naik Hemraj was beheaded by Pakistans Border Action Team (BAT) along the Indo-Pak border trigerring outrage in the country. But now, he said, "goli ka jawab gola se (bullet is responded with bomb) and 'ett ke jawab pathar se' (bricks for stones) is being given." The BJP president made a blistering attack on National Conference leader Omar Abdullah for his remarks on separate prime minister for Kashmir and asserted Kashmir is an inseparable part of India. He further said that the BJP, if voted to power, would abolish Article 370. Omar Abdulla says for a separate prime minister for Kashmir. Should there be two prime ministers for one country? Shah asked the people in his poll meeting with the gathering responding with a resounding no! Kashmir is inseparable part of India. We will remove Article 370 if you make Modi prime minister again, Shah said. Saying with determination that so long there is life in the last BJP worker, nobody can separate Kashmir from India, Shah said, Kashmir is Maa Bharatis Mukut (crown of India) and nobody can snatch it." He took a swipe at Congress for questioning Balakot air strikes and said when the nation rejoiced with sweets and garlanding photo-frames of Pulwama martyrs following the February 26 Balakot air strike, two sides were mourning---the Congress and Pakistan." He ridiculed Gandhi family's close aide Sam Pitroda for saying that some boys committed mistake and you (rpt) dropped bombs, but there should be talks". Shah added there would be no compromise with Indias security. When terrorists from Pakistan struck the CPRF convoy in Pulwama on February 14, killing 40 personnel, the country was angry and despair, shah said, adding Pakistan knew about the 2016 surgical strike (to avenge Uri terror attack) and amassed their personnel and tanks on the borders. But Modi ji, the 56 inch chest man, instructed our Air Force on the 13th day of the CPRF personnel becoming martyrs and our brave Air Force personnel entered Pakistan territory striking at terrorists and sending them into smithereens, Shah said. Turning guns on the opposition alliance, Shah alleged that whenever they came to power they had indulged in "massive corruption" and even made an independent MLA (Madhu Koda) chief minister of Jharkhand (in 2006). Seeking to know from Congress president Rahul Gandhi, RJD president Lalu Prasad and JMMs working president Hemant Soren about PM candidate, Shah ridiculed them saying each day they will have a different prime minister with Sunday being a holiday. Jharkhand is endowed with rich mineral resources, but its people were poor. But in the last five years Narendra Modi and Raghubar Dass governments ushered in development in rural areas, urban areas, uplifted the poor, farmers, dalits, tribals, Shah said and listed out 133 welfare programmes initiated during the last five years. Roads were improved, electricity has been provided and Mandal dam work began in Palamau/Latehar. Cooking gas and ovens, housing and toilet facilities were also given to the poor, he said. Shah also said that the Modi government has taken steps to give pension to 60-plus age-group farmers. Campaigning for BJPs sitting MP Vishun Dayal Ram, the former state police chief, Shah said that Palamau was his 260th Lok Sabha seat where he has campaigned so far and there is only one voiceModi---across east to west and north to south. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Slamming National Conference leader Omar Abdullah for his statement seeking a separate prime minister for Jammu and Kashmir, BJP president Amit Shah Saturday said J&K is an inseparable part of the country. As long as the BJP exists, Jammu and Kashmir will continue to be an integral part of India, the BJP president said while addressing an election rally here. "Kashmir is Maa Bharats 'Mukut' (crown of India) and nobody can snatch it," he said. The BJP president also said, "We will remove Article 370 from J&K, if you make Narendra Modi the prime minister again." Article 370 of the Constitution grants special status to Jammu and Kashmir. Shah's question, "Should there be two prime ministers for one country?", evoked a deafening 'no' from the crowd. The BJP has given the nation Modi as prime minister and the security of the country has been strengthened ever since, he said. During the UPA government's 10-year rule, terror groups from Pakistan used to target India continuously, the BJP chief said. Under former prime minister Manmohan Singh, Pakistans alia, malia and balia (referring to terrorists) used to come and take away the heads of jawans after killing them, Shah claimed. "Even today I cant forget Hemrajs beheading and the disrespect shown to him. But 'Mouni Baba' Manmohan Singh had not even uttered 'ohh'!" he said. Lance Naik Hemraj of 13 Rajputana Rifles was killed and beheaded by Pakistani soldiers on January 8, 2013 in Poonch sector of Jammu & Kashmir. "We cannot compromise with the security of the nation. Pakistan wants to separate Kashmir from India. We will not allow it. "Pakistan se goli aayegi to yahan se gola jayaga (if a bullet comes here, a shell lands there)," the BJP president said. "When the nation rejoiced with sweets following the February 26 Balakot air strike, a pall of gloom descended on the Congress and Pakistan," Shah said. He ridiculed Congress leader Sam Pitroda for saying that "some boys" had committed a mistake and dropped bombs, and there should be talks between the two neighbouring countries. When terrorists from Pakistan struck the CPRF convoy in Pulwama killing 40 personnel, the country was seething with anger, Shah said. Aware of the 2016 surgical strike conducted by India, Pakistan had deployed personnel and tanks on the borders with India, "But Modi ji... instructed our Air Force on the 13th day (of the Pulwama attack) and our brave Air Force personnel entered Pakistan territory targeting terrorists," Shah said. Criticising the opposition alliance, Shah alleged that whenever they were in power, they had indulged in "massive corruption" and even made an independent MLA (Madhu Koda) chief minister of Jharkhand in 2006. Seeking to know from Congress president Rahul Gandhi, RJD president Lalu Prasad and JMMs working president Hemant Soren about their PM candidate, Shah said each day they will have a different prime minister, with Sunday being a holiday. "Jharkhand is endowed with rich mineral resources, but the people were poor. In the last five years, the BJP governments at the Centre and the state have ushered in development in rural and urban areas, uplifted the poor, farmers, dalits and tribals," Shah said. In Jharkhand, the condition of roads has improved, electricity has been provided to people and work on Mandal dam is on, he said. The Mandal dam, work on which began in 1972 but was stalled since 1993, is now being built on North Koel river under Barwadih block in Latehar district. Outlining the other welfare measures, the BJP leader said cooking gas and ovens, housing and toilet facilities have also been given to the poor, he said. The BJP leader was here to campaign for the party's sitting MP Vishun Dayal Ram, the former state police chief. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) BSP chief Mayawati Saturday alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi included his caste in the backward category during his tenure as Gujarat chief minister to derive electoral profit. Addressing a press conference, Mayawati said, "Like Mulayam Singh Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav, Narendra Modi was not born in a backward caste. When he was Gujarat chief minister, he got his upper caste included in the backward category to derive political benefit during elections." She said the BJP's Dalit-backward card was not working in Uttar Pradesh. The BSP supremo's comments came hours after Modi slammed the SP-BSP-RLD alliance in Uttar Pradesh, saying the tie-up of "opportunists" wants a helpless government because its mantra is "jaat, paat japna; janata ka maal apna". Modi addressed election rallies in Kannauj, a SP stronghold, Hardoi and Sitapur. Dubbing the alliance as 'mahamilavati (highly adulterated) opportunists', Modi said in Kannauj that he doesn't believe in politics of caste. "Mayawatiji (BSP chief), I am most backward... I request with folded hands not to drag me into caste politics, 130 crore people are my family," he said. "This country didn't know my caste till my detractors abused me... I am thankful to Mayawatiji, Akhileshji (SP chief), Congress people and the 'mahamilavatis' that they are discussing my caste...I believe that taking birth in a backward caste is an opportunity to serve the country," the PM said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A watchman of a nationalised bank was arrested near here in Goa Saturday for allegedly filming women employees by placing a mobile phone in the toilet, police said. The accused Subhash Dalbir Singh was working at Calapur, police inspector Jivba Dalvi said, adding that he had joined only a 17 days back. Dalvi said a woman employee of the bank spotted the mobile phone hidden behind a mop near the wash basin in the bank washroom. "She found that a video recording was going on. In a video clip, she saw Singh planting the mobile phone in the toilet," Dalvi said. Police booked the accused under section 354-C (Voyeurism) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the police officer said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Persecution and Genocide Testify to Unique Experience of Assyrians Abdulmesih BarAbraham lectured on the genocide of Assyrians in Augsburg, Germany. Augsburg, Germany (AINA) -- In a lecture at the Assyrian Mesopotamian Association of Augsburg on April 22nd to mark the commemorative event of the 104th anniversary of Assyrian Genocide, Mr. Abdulmesih BarAbraham examined a sociological aspect of genocide, how victims of genocide view themselves given their unique experience of mass murder. From their grandparents who survived the genocide, the Assyrians know well the repeated saying: what happened to us did not happen to any people." Mr. BarAbraham made clear at the beginning of his speech that he would not participate in the debate of the comparison of the planning, organization or implementation of the two genocides - or even the comparison of the casualties. In fact, in the context of comparative genocide studies many research papers and publications have been produced comparing the genocide of 1915 with the Holocaust. During the latter six millions Jews were killed. The genocide of 1915 is seen as the first genocide in the 20th century; about 2.5 million Assyrians, Armenians and Pontic Greeks fell victim. At a commemorative event on April 2015, the German Bundestag for the first time described the events of 1915 as "genocide" (vAlkermord) (AINA 2016-06-06). An all-party resolution was passed in June 2016 by the German Parliament which explicitly mentions Assyrians (known also as Chaldeans and Syriacs) as co-victims of Armenians. In Germany, the public TV stations every other week show a documentary about the Nazi rule. Again and again the 'uniqueness' of the Holocaust is highlighted. 'Singularity' or 'uniqueness' refers to particular historical characteristics that distinguish the Holocaust from all other genocides and mass murders in history. In context of the planning of the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington in the United States in 1978, a dispute emerged over the definition of the Holocaust concept. Representatives of non-Jewish victim groups also wanted to see their persecution in the Nazi era as part of the Holocaust incorporated into the concept of the Museum. In the following debate and research, most Holocaust researchers emphasized the singularity of the Holocaust in terms of real and targeted casualties, state planning, and its systematic and industrial implementation. Some of their special investigations into the genesis, planning and conduct of other genocides have confirmed the basic assumption of most of the researchers with regards of 'uniqueness' of the Holocaust. Some historians argue that even Adolf Hitler took the genocide of the Armenians as an example to realize his final solution of the Jews. Because he believed that the EndlAsung (Final Solution) he planned would eventually fall into oblivion. From him is the saying handed down, where on August 22, 1939 shortly before the invasion of Poland, at Obersalzberg he asked,: "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"1 "From the point of view of the Assyrians and their genocide, the differences between the two genocides could not be greater," stressed Mr. BarAbraham. At the time of the genocides, the victims lived in different social, political and cultural situations as well as in different geographic regions. In contrast to the Jews, who lived in the European Diaspora for centuries, the Assyrians lived for thousands of years in their native home region of Mesopotamia as an indigenous population, until 1915. Not only that, "they lived in cities and towns, some of which they had founded centuries before. But as Christians, they lived in the Ottoman Empire as second class citizens, isolated, suppressed, as so-called Dhimmi, which in Arabic means 'ordered for protection.'" Therefore, and as non-Muslims, they had to pay Jizya, a poll tax, which was imposed under Islamic rule. In the years 1894-96 Assyrians became victims of systematic massacres in the Ottoman Empire. Mr. BarAbraham elaborated on the Assyrian genocide as a traumatic and unique experience for the survivors. Such a trauma inevitably becomes part of the collective psyche of an affected nation, spanning generations. This is called transgenerational transmission, inherited suffering or trauma between generations. Even the grandchildren of those affected by mass murder can suffer from mental disorders. The trauma for the victims is not only extraordinary, but also defies comparison. It is no coincidence that Assyrian churches today call themselves "churches of the martyrs". The historical traces of the persecution as Christians extend from the times of Roman rule, over the reign of King Shapur II in the Persian Empire to the Ottoman Empire and Islamic State in recent times. A Vatican meeting in June 2015 between Pope Francis and Mor Ignatius Aphrem II, the Syrian Orthodox Patriarch, focused on "The Blood of the Martyrs" as the "Seed of the Unity of the Church." Pope Francis said: "Yours, Beatitude, has been a Church of martyrs since the very beginning, and continues to be so to this day in the Middle East, where, along with other Christian communities and other minorities, it suffers greatly as a result of war, violence and persecution. How much pain! How many innocent victims!" Commenting on the repetition of genocide in the wake of the emergence of Islamic State in Syria and Iraq one hundred years after the Turkish genocide, Mr. BarAbraham concluded "the history of the Assyrians testifies to extraordinary experiences" and "one can observe that in the case of the Assyrians and over the history the experience of the persecution is not entirely coincidental." Due to these experiences, it is only natural that Assyrians developed a self-image of uniqueness. 1 Travis, Hannibal. Did the Armenian Genocide Inspire Hitler? Turkey, Past and Future. Middle East Quarterly. Winter 2013, pp. 27-35. Abdulmesih BarAbraham is an independent researcher on Assyrian related topics; he has published various articles. He is author of "Turkey's Key Arguments in Denying the Assyrian Genocide," in David Gaunt et. al. (Eds.), Let Them Not Return (New York: Berghahn Books, 2017); and "Sayfo 1915 - What did Germany know?" in Shabo Talay and Soner Barthoma (Eds.), Sayfo 1915: Anthology of Essays on the Genocide of Assyrians / Arameans During the First World War. (Piscayaway: Gorgias Press, 2018). Abdulmesih is the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of both, the Yoken bar-Yoken Foundation and Mor Afrem Foundation, Germany. A special court here Saturday granted conditional bail to BJD candidate and sitting MLA Pradeep Maharathy who was arrested on the charge of attacking a magistrate of the Election Commission's flying squad. The court granted bail to the MLA on a surety of Rs 50,000 with a condition not to influence the witnesses, government pleader Pradipta Kumar Mishra said. The court also directed him to cooperate with police in the investigation. Earlier, police had submitted the case diary and injury report in the court. The Pipili candidate's plea was slated to be heard on Wednesday but it was deferred due to delay in submission of case diary and injury report. Maharathy, who is presently admitted to the Capital Hospital under judicial custody, was arrested on April 22 for attacking the EC's flying squad, including its magistrate, on the night of April 21. The EC flying squad had reached Maharathy's farm house at Pipili after getting information about distribution of money and liquor before the polls to influence voters. The former minister has been charged under various sections of the IPC and the Representation of the People Act. Maharathy had to resign from the ministry in 2012 after being accused of shielding those involved in the Pipili gang rape and murder case. He again became a minister in 2014 but quit in January this year following his comment that the rape victim got justice after acquittal of two of the accused. A 19-year-old Dalit girl was raped in Pipili in November 2011 and died in June 2012 after remaining in a semi-comatose state, sparking outrage in the state. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee Saturday came down heavily on BJP saying the party was the greatest danger for the country akin to 440 volt. People should reject BJP and should refrain from casting any vote in favour of the party. "I assure that if Trinamool Congress is voted to power, then there will be no damage to the country," she told a poll rally at Pandua in Hoogly district held in support of Hooghly Lok Sabha Trinamool Congress candidate Ratna De Nag. "Both BJP and Narendra Modi will destroy the country if voted to power for the second time .... BJP is the greatest danger for the country, like 440 volt," she said adding that the ongoing election is to remove the BJP government. Many farmers have committed suicide and thousands are left unemployed. Prices of gas, diesel and petrol are rising and people are not getting money from the banks during the BJP regime , she said and blamed the CPI(M) for helping it. "Now CPIM's 'harmad' (goons) have become ustads (strongmen) of the BJP", Banerjee said and questioned how a party (BJP) which is inclined towards dividing the country in the name of religion can aspire to return to power. "How can BJP claim that the party belongs to the Hindus? BJP does not have any respect for Hindu religion. The party under Modi is for creating disturbances like riots in the country", she said. Banerjee claimed that her TMC has done a lot of developmental work in places of religious worship like Tarakeswar, Gangasagar, Dakshineswar, Tarapith and Kankalitala. Continuing her attack, the TMC supremo said "BJP will destroy the country. The prime minister has a penchant for lying all the time. Now he is saying people in West Bengal are not sure of returning home and seek assurance from their mothers before leaving. "Is it true?" she asked the gathering who replied with a resounding "No". It is a common practice among Bengalis to seek their elders' permission before leaving home. Alleging that the saffron party is distributing money among the people for garnering votes, she said "BJP is a party of illiterates. What can you expect from it ?" Banerjee claimed that the saffron party will not be able to garner even 80 seats in the Lok Sabha polls and in states like Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Kerala, West Bengal and Odisha it will not get even a single one. "In some states like Gujarat, Rajashthan votes will be split", she said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Repeating his allegation made earlier this month, Congress leader Kapil Sibal said Saturday government officials and some BJP leaders were involved in a racket which swapped demonetised currency with valid notes. Presenting a video clip of a "sting operation", Sibal claimed that a huge amount of currency was swapped for a commission of up to 40 per cent from January 2017 -- after the deadline for depositing scrapped notes with banks expired -- to mid-2018. The senior lawyer, however, said he could not vouch for authenticity of the video clips. Addressing the media at the Mumbai Press Club, Sibal screened a 10-minute-long video containing several clips which purportedly showed some people discussing currency exchange for a commission. The same allegation, accompanied by a video clip, was made by Sibal at a press conference in Delhi on April 9. Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had then rejected the allegations. "Demonetisation is the biggest-ever scam in Indian history. High denomination notes were printed abroad and transported to India and distributed in lieu of big commission in different government godowns in Maharashtra," Sibal alleged on Saturday. "This is the reason why no cash-rich person was found in queues (in front of banks) during demonetisation," he said. "It is your (journalists') or investigating agencies' job to verify and authenticate the videos. All I can say is the entire sting video was available on the website of Tricolour Network (TNN)," he said. Asked why he did not approach courts being a lawyer himself, Sibal said, "I go to court daily and see what goes on there. I am not filing any case... But when our government comes into power, we will investigate it. If my party doesn't agree and does not set up a high-level inquiry, then I will leave the party. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The BJPSaturday lodged complaints with the Election Commission against AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal for "misguiding" voters through FM radio advertisement, and distorting party chief Amit Shah's statement on illegal infiltrators. Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kaoor in a complaint letter to the Election Commission objected the content of the AAP's FM radio advertisement. "In the radio advertisement, the Delhi Chief Minister can be heard provoking people of Delhi that the central government collects thousands of crores rupees in revenue from Delhi but gives back around partly Rs 325 crore to Delhi, he said in his complaint. He requested the EC to review the contents of the AAP advertisement and block it as it was "misleading" for the voters. The central government which maintains Delhi Police spends Rs 7,881 crore annually on it for maintaining law and order in the city and spends around Rs 40,000 crore annually on Delhi Metro, road infrastructure, Yamuna cleaning, hospitals, Delhi University among others which directly benefits the people of Delhi, Kapoor said. In another complaint filed by BJP's national secretary R P Singh and Delhi BJP legal cell in-charge Neeraj, the party accusedKejriwal of "distorting" party chief Amit Shah's statement on illegal infiltrators in the country. The complaint accused Kejriwal oftrying to gain Muslims votes by "misleading" them and "instigating" their religious sentiments. "Citing BJP's election manifesto, Shah had on April 10 said that with the help of National Register of Citizens (NRC), the party would drive out infiltrators from India and protect the Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhs. But the Delhi CM is not only trying to defame Shah by distorting his statement but instigating religious sentiments in violation of the Model Code of Conduct, Singh said. Kejriwal, a bitter critic of Modi-Shah duo, has been talking about defeating the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls to "save the country." The Delhi chief minister has also been seeking Muslim votes for the AAP saying only it could stop the BJP in Delhi. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A five-year-old boy was among four people killed in a car crash on the Eastern Peripheral Highway in UP's Gautam Buddh Nagar Saturday. The accident took place around 2 am when the victims were returning home in Bulandshahr from Jaipur, Rajasthan. The speeding car in which they were travelling was apparently hit from the rear side by an unidentified vehicle after which it crashed into a side cut on the highway, police said. The car driver is undergoing treatment at a hospital. "While Pankaj Verma, a jeweller, his workers Iqbal and Khalil died on the spot, Iqbal's five-year-old son succumbed to his injuries at the hospital. Car driver Ankit is critical," Dankaur Station House Officer (SHO) Samresh Kumar Singh said. The car was badly damaged in the accident. It appears that the car driver survived as the air bag on his side of the dashboard had opened while the other air bags did not work properly, he added. The SHO said details of the accident were being worked out and they were trying to find out the other vehicle involved in the accident. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Senior Congress leader and Chhattisgarh Agriculture Minister Ravindra Choubey suffered a mild heart attack in Lucknow Saturday morning, officials said here. He was admitted to a hospital in the Uttar Pradesh capital and kept under observation, they said. "The 60-year old minister, who was staying at a hotel in Lucknow, complained of dehydration and uneasiness at around 9 am. He was rushed to Sahara Hospital there," Choubey's Officer on Special Duty (OSD) Praveen Shukla told PTI. Choubey has been in UP to campaign for his party in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, he added. "Doctors attending to him said that Choubey suffered a minor heart attack and has been kept under observation," Shukla said, adding that his condition is said to be stable and improving. He would be shifted to Medanta hospital in Gurugram later in the day for further treatment, the OSD added. Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, who was also in Lucknow, visited the hospital and enquired about Choubey's health before leaving for Ranchi, a Congress leader here said. Choubey's family has also left for Lucknow by a special plane, he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Campaigning ended on Saturday for the five Bihar Lok Sabha seats of Begusarai, Munger, Ujiyarpur, Samastipur and Darbhanga which go to the polls in the fourth phase on April 29. Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a rally at Darbhanga where he defended his use of national security as a poll plank and came down heavily on the reluctance of local RJD candidate Abdul Bari Siddiqui, whom he did not mention by name, to recite the national song Vande Mataram. Currently held by Kirti Azad, who has now joined Congress and is contesting from Dhanbad in neighboring Jharkhand, Darbhanga is being contested by former BJP MLA Gopalji Thakur. Congress president Rahul Gandhi shared the stage with RJD heir apparent Tejashwi Yadav at a rally in Samastipur ending speculations of discord between the two alliance partners. At Samastipur Congress candidate Ashok Kumar is pitted against sitting MP Ram Chandra Paswan, who is the younger brother of Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan. The rally was also attended by RLSP chief Upendra Kushwaha, who is in the fray from adjoining Ujiyarpur currently held by state BJP chief Nityanand Rai. BJP president Amit Shah also held rallies at Ujiyarpur, Begusarai and Munger the last being the only seat in the fourth phase which is being contested by Chief Minister Nitish Kumars JD(U). The cynosure of all eyes in this phase, however, is the Begusarai seat which will witness an electrifying contest between the political Left and the Right with CPI debutant Kanhaiya Kumar taking on firebrand BJP leader Giriraj Singh. Lying vacant since the death of sitting MP Bhola Singh a few months ago, Begusarai also has RJDs Tanveer Hassan, who had finished runner up five years ago in the fray. While the campaign of Singh, a union minister, who has moved from Nawada, was marked by his own hyper-nationalistic speeches which have drawn the ire of opposition parties, it is the Left underdog whose canvassing brought national spotlight on the mofussil town. Seeking to erase the stigma of a sedition case through a political mandate, the former JNU students union president has tirelessly carried out a door-to-door campaign besides holding countless small to medium-sized meetings in which he sought to underscore his humble roots by speaking in the local dialect and position himself as one conversant with at all levels from local to international. On the day of filing nominations, supporters from far-off places including Bollywood actress Swara Bhaskar, civil rights activist Teesta Setalwad, dalit MLA from Gujarat Jignesh Mevani and Jammu and Kashmir-based fellow JNU alumnus Shehla Rashid were in Begusarai to canvass in his support. Others who have toured the riparian district in support of the 32-year-old include Bollywood celebrities Javed Akhtar, Shabana Azmi and Prakash Raj, Swaraj India founder Yogendra Yadav besides top Left leaders like Sitaram Yechury and Sudhakar Reddy. Yechury also campaigned in Ujiyarpur where his CPI(M) has fielded a candidate. Renowned motivational speaker and author Shiv Khera campaigned in Beguserai for Giriraj Singh and is expected to do the same for some more NDA candidates in the state. About 100 writers and poets around Bihar, including Sahitya Akademi winner Arun Kamal and Hindi poets Alok Dhanwa and Khagendra Thakur have issued a joint statement appealing to the people of Beguserai to give the young CPI candidate a chance. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The election campaign in Kulgam district, which is part of Anantnag Lok Sabha constituency going to polls in three phases, ended Saturday as nearly 3.45 lakh voters will register their choice of the representative on Monday. "The election campaigning in Kulgam district came to an end this (Saturday) evening, but will continue in Pulwama and Shopian districts which are also part of the Anantnag Lok Sabha constituency," an election official said. He said the electioneering in the district remained by and large peaceful. Anantnag Lok Sabha constituency is spread over four districts of Anantnag, Kulgam, Shopian and Pulwama with 16 assembly segments. The Lok Sabha polls to this constituency are being held in three phases due to security reasons. Anantnag district went to polls on 23rd April, while voting in Kulgam district will be on 29th April and Pulwama and Shopian districts will go to polls on 6 May. The Election Commission has curtailed the polling duration for Anantnag Lok Sabha constituency by two hours following a request from the state police to this effect. The revised polling timing is from 7 AM to 4 PM. The EC has established 433 polling stations to facilitate smooth polling in the district, the official said. The Anantnag constituency in total has 13,97,272 registered voters including 7,20,337 males, 6,72,879 females and 35 transgender voters. The Kulgam district has 3,45,489 electors including 1,79,607 males, 1,64,604 females, 1,265 service electors and 13 transgender voters. The district is spread over four assembly segments comprising Noorabad, Kulgam, Hom Shalibugh and Devsar. Out of these, Kulgam Assembly segment has the highest number of 98,298 voters (51,051 males, 46,818 females, 455 service voters and 4 transgender voters) while Noorabad has the lowest 77,171 electors, including 40,093 males, 36,886 females, 188 service voters and 4 transgender voters. The Assembly segment of Devsar has 91,288 voters (47,467 males, 43,324 females, 492 service voters and five transgender voters), and Hom Shalibugh segment has 78,669 voters (40,996 males, 37,576 females and 127 service voters). There are 18 candidates in the fray for Anantnag constituency including PDP president and former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Mehbooba Mufti. Congress has fielded its state president Ghulam Ahmad Mir, while former High Court judge Hasnain Masoodi is contesting on the National Conference ticket. The other candidates in the fray include former MLC Sofi Yousuf (BJP), Nisar Ahmad Wani (National Panthers Party), Zaffar Ali (People's Conference), Sanjay Kumar Dhar (Manav Adhikar Party) and Surinder Singh (Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party). (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Odisha Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Surendra Kumar on Saturday said he has recommended fresh polling in 12 booths spread over eight assembly segments and asked political parties not to be worried about the safety of EVMs. The fresh polling is recommended after irregularities were noticed in those booths during the third phase polling held on April 23, he said. "We have recommended the Election Commission of India to hold re-poll in 12 booths in Odisha," Kumar told reporters. Asked whether the re-polls will be held during the fourth-phase on April 29, he said it will be done after that to ensure proper management and monitoring. These 12 booths are located in Brahmagiri, Baramba, Deogarh, Satyabadi, Talcher, Athagarh, Bhubaneswar Central and Ghasipura assembly constituencies. Earlier, re-polling was held in nine booths on April 25 following reports of irregularities during the second-phase polls in the state on April 18. Referring to an incident in Keonjhar district where the police detained a youth for his suspicious movements near the EVM strong room, Kumar said, "EVMs are in the safe hands of the Border Security Force. No local police is deployed in the inner circle of the strong room. No one should suspect on the safety of the EVMs." Asked if EVMs can be tampered with remotely by use of Internet, blue-tooth or infrared, the CEO said EVMs and VVPAT are "stand alone" machines and they cannot be "communicated with from outside". Kumar said he has asked the district collector and SP of Keonjhar to ensure that nobody is seen close to the strong room where the EVMs are stored. He said all district collectors were also asked to take control of private and government guest houses located close to the strong rooms by invoking provisions of the Representation of the People Act, 1951. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) / -- The 27th China (Shenzhen) International Gifts, Handicrafts, Watches & Houseware Fair opened April 25 at the Shenzhen Convention and Exhibition Center ("Gifts & Home" for short). Organized by the Reed Huabo Exhibition Co., Ltd, this four-day fair brings together over 2,500 reliable suppliers from China and beyond presenting their most competitive and creative products at 5,300 booths across 9 halls. Around 90,000 global buyers from more than 60 countries and regions are expected to join this annual event, including Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, India, Russia and the United States. Well-known enterprises gather in Gifts & Home Chinese gift market has reached CNY one trillion. In the past five years, the total revenue of China's gift industry has grown by 9.2% annually. China's consumer market will continue to expand by around half and China will account for 20% of the world' s consumption by 2020, worth USD 2 trillion. Because of this enormous potential in China's gifts and home industry, the fair has attracted lots of domestic and foreign first-class brands, such as Armani, ELLE, Ferrero, Tiger, Swarovski, Midea, Huawei, and Xiaomi. Beijing Gift Association, Chaozhou Ceramics, the Industrial Design Society of Shunde and 7 other regional delegations have brought their most famous products with local characteristics to the fair, aiming to introduce their excellent manufacturing techniques to the world. China Mobile Electronic Fair becomes one of the hottest halls With the rapid development of technology in China, China has become one of the best manufacturing bases of consumer electronics in the world. China Mobile Electronic Fair is co-located at Hall 3 with 200 exhibitors, showing plenty of stylish, intelligent and practical mobile electronic products. Tens of thousands of visitors attend this fair to check out the latest technology, making Hall 3 become one of the hottest halls in Gifts & Home. Opening hours April 25-27, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. April 28, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. About the organizer Reed Huabo Exhibitions, the most influential exhibition company in China, is a member company of Reed Exhibitions, the world's leading event organizer, based in the UK. It is committed to leading the industry development and continuously creating values for customers from all over the world. For more information, please visit: www.chinagiftsfair. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Hollywood star Chris Evans says he wants to get married and have kids. The 37-year-old Captain America star, who is enjoying the fan frenzy around his latest Marvel release "Avengers: Endgame", says he likes the idea of having a family. ''I really want kids. Yeah, I do. I like pretty pedestrian, domestic things. I want a wife, I want kids. I like ceremony. "I want to carve pumpkins and decorate Christmas trees and s**t like that," Evans told Men's Journal magazine. "Avengers: Endgame", directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, released on Friday worldwide. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram Saturday claimed that his party and the allies have a significant lead over the BJP-led NDA at the end of the first three phases of Lok Sabha polls, wherein voting has taken place in 303 constituencies. The former Union minister's remarks come a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi claimed in Mumbai that the Congress won't get even 50 seats in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections. Addressing a press conference here, Chidambaram said, "I am prepared to stick my neck out and make a prediction on the results of the first three phases." He also claimed that the Congress is "level" with the BJP. "That means the Congress has gained significantly and, correspondingly the BJP has suffered losses. As an alliance, the Congress and its allies have a significant lead over the BJP and its allies. Mark the word 'significant'. The infinished task is to retain the initiative, press forward and ensure the lead over BJP is extended," he said. When asked about Modi's remarks about Congress not getting even 50 seats, Chidambaram said, "One cant stop anybody from dreaming. Modi dreams not only when he is asleep, but also when he is awake." The Rajya Sabha member from Maharashtra said, "The narrative of security and pseudo-nationalism is a false narrative. Who secured the nation in three wars that were fought against Pakistan in 1947, 1965 and 1971. India is safe because it has a professional Army, Navy and Air Force, and not because one person boasts of a 56-inch chest."Chidambaram said people have voted against the "twin disasters of demonetisation and flawed GST". Responding to questions, he said demonetisation was a "big scandal", which will be probed after the change in the government. "The decision was taken to help convert black money into white. Unaccounted money has become accounted due to note-ban," he said. To a question about the remarks by BJP's Bhopal Lok Sabha seat candidate Pragya Singh Thakur on late IPS officer Hemant Karkare, he said the comments were "condemnable". "Karkare was a celebrated police officer of Maharashtra who was martyred in the 26/11 attacks," the former minister said. He said the NYAY Scheme envisaged by the Congress will be implemented if the party is voted to power. "There is enough money in the country. The question is how to allocate it correctly," he added. Replying to a question on MNS chief Raj Thackeray's campaign against the BJP government, the Congress leader said, "He is expressing his views against BJP and Shiv Sena and telling voters not to support them. Why should I not welcome it?" "We should read the 'Saamana' (Shiv Sena mouthpiece) editorials on last one or two years," he said referring to Shiv Sena-BJP alliance ahead of the elections. Chidambaram said in 2014, the Congress-led UPA had campaigned on its ten years of performance, while Modi on his tall promises. "People voted for those promises. Now he should have sought votes on his five years of performance. We have been questioning him on what happened to the promises of putting Rs 15 lakh into the bank accounts of people, giving two crore jobs a year and doubling of farmers income," he said. On a question whether the Congress-led opposition's prime ministerial candidate, Chidambaram said the party has already made it clear that the PM will be chosen after the results and the meeting of all non-BJP parties. When asked about BJP's promise of abolishing Article 370, Chidambaram said, "The instrument of accession signed between Maharaja Hari Singh and (then) Home Minister Sardar Patel should be read carefully. Apart from Article 370, there are various special provisions for different states. Why single out only Article 370? There is a history of how India was united." Responding to a query on Congress manifesto regarding Armed Forces Special Protection Act (AFSPA), Chidambaram said the manifesto speaks about reviewing the Act to ensure there is no immunity in complaints of sexual offence, torture, enforced disappearance or encounter. "If there are complaints, those will be investigated. What is wrong in that. Human rights are as important as security," he said. Chidambaram claimed that if the Congress is voted to power, it will re-start the growth engine, waive agriculture loans, create jobs, transfer Rs 72,000 per year into accounts of 5 crore households that are below poverty line. "The BJP-led NDA government has derailed the Indian economy. The unemployment rate has reached 8.4 per cent this month, the highest in over 50 years. In last five years, farmers sunk deeper in distress and debt. Every section of the society lives in fear, every institution has been denigrated, debilitated or captured,"He charged. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Rejecting BJP's claim that the Congress has put its entire effort to ensure victory on the Jodhpur seat, from where Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's son Vaibhav is contesting, the party said all 25 constituencies are equally important for it and its leaders are campaigning across the state to win maximum number of seats. AICC general-secretary and Rajasthan affairs in-charge Avinash Pande said the party has been putting equal focus on all seats, but Jodhpur has become the most-talked about because a CM's son is contesting against a "close confidant" of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah. Union Minister of State and BJP leader Gajendra Singh Shekhawat is contesting as a BJP candidate from the Jodhpur seat, among 13 going to poll on April 29. "All the 25 seats are equally important for us. Due to the presence of leaders, it is assessed that Jodhpur is a difficult seat. But for me and for the party, all other seats are equally important. Our senior leaders, MLAs, ex-MLAs, office-bearers and functionaries are campaigning in all other constituencies," Pande told PTI here. "It does not mean that the party is not focusing on other seats if those seats are not getting so much public attention," he claimed. The Jodhpur seat has become a talking point in the state as CM Gehlot has been relentlessly canvassing in the constituency asking people to vote for his son. This invited PM Modi's attention too. During an election rally in Jodhpur on Monday, Modi had said that Gehlot was "roaming around streets" for the victory of his son. The BJP has also been alleging that government machinery is being misused in Jodhpur. Gehlot has been holding meetings across the Jodhpur constituency right from the ward level, making it a prestige battle here for him. Gehlot, who became chief minister for a third time after his party won the 2018 state elections, has represented the Jodhpur parliamentary constituency for five terms between 1980-1999. He got elected to the 7th, 8th, 10th, 11th and the 12th Lok Sabhas from the seat, and now his son is making debut from there. Pande also expressed confidence of gaining success on majority of the 25 seats in Rajasthan. "Of the 13 seats going to poll on April 29, we have a clear edge on seven seats and our candidates are in winning position today. And there is a close contest on the remaining seats. Our candidates on 8-9 seats, out of the remaining 12 seats going to polls on May 6, are also on pole position and remaining seats are having a close contest," he claimed. Pande also claimed that all the four Union ministers contesting in Rajasthan are in a "weak" position and there is "resentment" among public against them. Union MoSes Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore (Jaipur rural), Gajendra Singh (Jodhpur), PP Chaudhary (Pali) and Arjun Ram Meghwal (Bikaner) are in the fray in Rajasthan. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Congress on Saturday condemned BJP president Amit Shah's "Rahul Baba, you do Ili-Ilu with terrorists" comment, saying it was the BJP government which had freed and taken terrorists to Kandahar in a plane in 1999. During an election rally in Jalore on Friday, Shah said his party's policy is to reply with a bombshell if Pakistan fires a bullet, while the Congress just plays "Ilu-Ilu" with terrorists. Ilu is an abbreviation for 'I love you' in a popular Bollywood song. "Who had released terrorists and taken them to Kandahar in a plane?" Congress general secretary in-charge of Rajasthan Avinash Pande asked in response to Shah's comment. "There is no single instance where Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah or any top leader or their family members even got their finger cut in the fight against terrorism but in Congress there are examples of former PMs Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and others," he told PTI. Three most-wanted terrorists were released in return for the safety of passengers in an Indian Airlines plane which was hijacked to Afghanistan's Kandahar in 1999. Pande said when the prime minister mentions martyrs in his speeches, he should take the names of Congress leaders who had lost their lives for the country. He also accused the prime minister and the BJP of misusing social media platforms to "spread lies" in a strategic manner to influence voters, especially the youngsters. The Congress leader said there is an unsaid emergency in the country and under Modi rule the Constitution and democracy are in danger. "There is an unsaid emergency in the country and the environment for positive planning is completely lacking. The BJP is spreading lies to divert attention from real issues," Pande said. "The PM and the BJP are misusing social media platforms and misleading people particularly young voters through lies and distorted historic facts. The young generation has not seen much and is stuck on social media. Young people should think what PM Modi will give to them but it will be very late before they awaken," he said. Accusing the government of weakening constitutional institutions, Pande said it will take a lot of time for the institutions to recover. "Now they are saying that they will rule for 50 years if they win this election. It is apparent that the constitution is under threat," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The opposition Congress in Tripura on Saturday threatened to move the Supreme Court if re-poll is not ordered in at least 850 polling stations of the total 1679 in West Tripura Lok Sabha constituency where polling was held on April 11. Opposition parties like the Congress and the CPI(M) have alleged large scale rigging by the ruling BJP in West Tripura seat and demanded repoll in many booths. "We have information from reliable sources that the EC is under pressure from the ruling BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to order re-poll in only a few polling stations," state Congress vice-president Pijush Biswas told a press conference here. "If the EC succumbs to the pressure and declare re-poll in less than 850 polling stations, we will file a case in the Supreme court," he said. To a question, Biswas said the party has observed that EC has not taken any action so far on any complaint filed against the prime minister. The Congress leader said, the party had earlier made specific complaints that more than 850 polling booths were rigged and demanded fresh poll in the constituency. When contacted, BJP spokesperson Nabendu Bhattacharya said, "The complaints are fictitious and baseless. I am surprised to hear that even the PM could put pressure on the EC. They have gone mad sensing their sure defeat." After the election in West Tripura, the EC had postponed polling in East Tripura, the other Lok Sabha seat in the state, from April 18 to April 23 saying "The law and order situation prevailing... is not conducive to the holding of free and fair poll". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Union minister VK Singh cautioned on Saturday against considering Pakistan as a friendly nation, saying it will be India's "biggest weakness". "I was told in Barmer that a candidate has said that there is no danger from Pakistan," the minister of state for external affairs told reporters at the BJP office here. "This will be our biggest weakness if we consider a country, which is seen as a centre of terrorism and is engaged in proxy war against India, as a friendly nation," Singh, the former Indian Army chief, said. Responding to a question on allegations that the BJP was politicising the armed forces, he said the bravery of the forces has been praised in the past as well and there is no in it. "Being a former chief of the Army, I can say that forces in the country are not involved in They are apolitical. Whenever our forces showed their valour, be it in 1971, 1962 and 1965 or in 1999, their bravery has been praised," he said. "If such praises now are taken as politicisation of the forces, then I would humbly say that those who are saying this do not understand politics," he added. He said a country cannot progress if it doesn't respect its soldiers. "No one is politicising the forces and there is no in the forces. Let the honour of the forces remain honour. There is no politics in it." "Army takes action on its level to dominate LoC and it is their responsibility to keep the borders safe. It involves risk and a mistake can cost (a soldier his) career. Forces do not talk about their operations. On the other hand one government comes and says that we as a government are with you. Our forces are getting this kind of support from the government in the last four and a half year," he said. On BJP chief Amit Shah's claim about casualties in the Balakot air strike, the minister said that it was an estimate that came after National Technical Research Organisation reported there were 300 mobile phones active there before the strike. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Union minister Prakash Javadekar Saturday alleged that cooperative banks in Rajasthan have been directed not to grant loans to farmers. He said the cooperative banks have not been compensated for farm loan waiver so they have no money to grant further loans to the farmers. Replying to allegations levelled by Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot that the central government has not provided money to the state, he said no letter has so far been written to the Centre by the Congress government seeking funds to compensate the nationalised banks for farm loan waivers. He said many BJP-ruled states have arranged funds on their own for loan waiver. The BJP's Rajasthan election in-charge alleged that all the development projects initiated by former chief minister Vasundhara Raje in the state have been stalled by the Congress government. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb has described as "deep rooted conspiracy" to tarnish his image a social media post claiming that his wife had filed a divorce suit in a Delhi court. Tripura Police on Friday registered a case against one person for allegedly writing the post which has gone viral. "This is a deep rooted conspiracy to tarnish my image. It is a baseless and motivated post which is in bad taste," a press statement issued late Friday night quoted Deb as saying. The chief minister's wife Niti Deb on Friday denied that she had filed any divorce suit and said "Rumours have no mouth, only dirty, filthy and sick minds...." Claiming that the post was aimed at "tarnishing" her image, she had urged people to "boycott" rumour mongers if they loved her and had faith on her. BJP spokesperson Dr Ashok Sinha demanded that the administration take strictest action against those involved in it. An Agartala resident has filed a case against the writer of the post charging him with forgery, defamation and criminal conspiracy, Deputy Inspector General of Tripura Police Arindam Nath had said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Feverish campaigning came to an end Saturday evening for the 13 fourth-phase Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh with top leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, making a last-minute pitch for votes. Modi addressed rallies in Kannauj and Hardoi, two of the UP seats which go to the polls in the fourth phase of voting on Monday. Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav too spent much of the day in Kannauj, the seat from where his wife Dimple Yadav is seeking re-election. Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi was in Unnao on the last day of electioneering. In 2014, the BJP won 12 of these 13 seats in the state. Only Kannauj, won by the Samajwadi Party, defied the Modi wave that year among them. The other constituencies where elections will be held on April 29 are Shahjahanpur (SC), Kheri, Hardoi (SC), Mishrikh (SC), Unnao, Farrukhabad, Etawah (SC), Kanpur, Akbarpur, Jalaun (SC), Jhansi and Hamirpur. Apart from the back-to-back rallies in Kannauj and Hardoi on Saturday, Modi addressed another in Sitapur where polling will take place in the fifth phase. BJP chief Amit Shah, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh have also crisscrossed the region over the recent days. The Congress has a good presence in at least three of the constituencies -- Unnao (Annu Tandon), Farrukhabad (Salman Khurshid) and Kanpur (Sriprakash Jaiswal). Congress president Rahul Gandhi held meetings in Kheri, Unnao and Kanpur during the run-up to the polling for these seats. His sister and party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi led roadshows in Kanpur, Jhansi and Hamirpur. Most of these seats are seeing a direct fight between the BJP and SP-BSP alliance with Kannauj being a matter of prestige for the SP. An impressive road show was held there when Dimple Yadav filed her papers. Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati came to Kannauj to attend a joint rally with the SP and when Dimple Yadav touched her feet on the dais, it became a talking point. The BJP is not giving up the fight in the SP bastion. Party president Amit Shah has told workers to spare no effort to wrest the seat. Altogether, 2,38,88,367 people are eligible to cast their vote at 27,513 booths in the 13 constituencies. A total of 152 candidates are in the fray with a maximum of 15 in Shahjahanpur. Jalaun has the minimum number of nominees at five. Uttar Pradesh sends 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha and polling in the state is spread over all seven phases. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A 52-year-old wife of a former IAF wing commander was found dead at her house in Dwarka, police said Saturday. The deceased has been identified as Neenu Jain, they said. According to a senior police officer, the father of the deceased called her Thursday night and asked about her health as she was not well. He wanted to visit her but she refused, he said. On Friday morning, he again called her but she did not pick up the phone. Thereafter, her father and brother came to see her but noticed that the gate of the house was locked from outside, police said. They entered the house from her neighbour's side and saw Jain lying on floor unconscious, they said. They called police and rushed the woman to a nearby hospital where she was declared brought dead, police said, adding the call was received at around 9 am. A mobile phone, some cash and jewellery was found missing from the house, following which a case under sections 302 (murder) and 392 (robbery) of the Indian Penal Code has been registered and investigation initiated, police said, adding the cause of the death is yet to be ascertained. Neenu's husband is a retired Indian Air Force wing commander and currently working as a commercial pilot with IndiGo. The couple has a son and a daughter. While the son, who works in an MNC in Noida, visits his parents on weekends, the daughter is a doctor in Goa, police said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A former IAF wing commander's wife was found dead at her house in Dwarka's Sector-7 area, police said on Saturday. The deceased was identified as Meenu Jain (52), a resident of Air Force Naval Officers' Enclave in Dwarka Sector-7, they added. According to a senior police officer, Meenu's father HP Garg (76), a retired IIT Delhi professor and currently working on a research project at the institute, said his son Darpan called him on Thursday evening to inform that Meenu was not keeping well. He left his office for Meenu's residence at around 7.45 pm. On the way, as he called his daughter, she said she was fine, the officer said. The deceased also told her father that she had eaten cashew nuts, which had led to some reaction. Garg still went to her daughter's house on Thursday. He called her again at around 7 am on Friday but her phone was not reachable following which, he, along with Darpan, went to her house. The main door to the house was open while another wooden door was closed. They knocked on the door. When there was no response, Darpan entered the house from the neighbour's balcony, the police said. He broke the glass and entered the house to see Jain lying unconscious in her room. Jain's maid, who had a pair of keys to the house, came there at around 8.30 am. She tried to open the door but it was jammed. Subsequently, the door was broken open, the police said. Jain was rushed to the Ayushman Hospital in Dwarka Sector-10, where she was declared "brought dead", they added. The police were informed about the incident at around 9 am and a case under sections 302 (murder) and 392 (robbery) of the Indian Penal Code was registered. The police suspect that the accused entered the house with the intention of robbing Jain. The family members of the deceased said two mobile phones, the jewellery the deceased was wearing, Rs 5 lakh in Indian currency and Rs 2 lakh in foreign currency were missing from the house. The police seized three pillows and a towel with blood stains from the room. Three vessels and five cups, used for making and drinking tea, were also seized from the kitchen. The post-mortem of the body had been conducted and the exact cause of death would be known once the report came, the police said. The husband of the deceased, VK Jain, a retired Indian Air Force (IAF) wing commander and currently working as a commercial pilot with IndiGo, was informed about the incident. Jain, who was on duty at the time of the incident, reached the house on Friday night, the police said. The couple has a son and a daughter. While son Ajay Jain, who works in an MNC in Noida, visits his parents on weekends, daughter Shiwani Jain is a doctor and lives in Goa with her husband, the police said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) One person died as a major fire broke out in a mobile harbour crane in Haldia dock of the Kolkata port on Saturday, an official said. The fire was noticed in the mobile harbour crane on berth no 13 where coal unloading was taking place. A mobile harbour crane driver could not come down due to the blaze and he was rescued when he jumped on a safety net below. However, he succumbed to injuries after he was taken to hospital, Kolkata Port Trust Chairman Vinit Kumar told PTI. The berth is managed by a private operator and these high value cranes are huge structures used to load and unload cargo at much faster rate than normal cranes, sources said. Seven fire tenders of the port, fire services and other companies of Haldia brought the blaze under control by noon. The cause of fire is not yet known but it has caused major damage, the official said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Five members of a family from Bengaluru drowned in a temple tank at Siddarabetta, about 50 km from here, polissce said Saturday. Police identified the deceased as Munirkhan (49), Reshma (22), Usman Khan (14), Yaarab Khan (21) and Mubbin Taj (21), hailing from Hegdenagar in the city. They had gone to Siddarabetta, a hillock, near Dobbespet on thecity outskirts to visit a mosque, police said. After the prayers they went to the hillock near the temple tank known as Kalyani in local parlance, where they were having food. Usman who was playing near the tank, slipped into it and began drowning. In a bid to save him, the others too jumped into the Kalyani and drowned. The bodies were later fished out and sent to hospital, police said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Hitting back at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for accusing the Congress of doing "nothing" while in power, party president Rahul Gandhi said Saturday nobody had committed the "foolishness" of demonetisation and the "Gabbar Singh Tax" in the last 70 years. Addressing rallies in Raebareli and Amethi constituencies of Uttar Pradesh, Gandhi also assured the people that implementing the minimum income guarantee scheme, Nyay, was possible. "In the past 70 years, the foolishness of demonetisation and Gabbar Singh Tax (Gandhi's coinage for the goods and services tax or the GST) was not done by anyone," he said at a rally in Unchahar town of Raebareli district, where United Progressive Alliance chairperson and his mother, Sonia Gandhi, is seeking re-election. The Congress chief's remarks come against the backdrop Modi repeatedly holding the grand old party responsible for all the "ills" since the country got Independence. "The 'chowkidar' (watchman) has done 'chori' (theft) of factories and employment of people of Raebareli and Amethi," Rahul Gandhi said. "Where are Anil Ambani, Nirav Modi, Vijay Mallya, Lalit Modi - in jail or outside?" he asked. Rahul Gandhi also accused Modi of not wanting to fill 22 lakh vacant government posts. "Some 22 lakh jobs are vacant in the government. Modi did not want to fill these vacant posts and only wants to help his friends. We will give these 22 lakh jobs in one year and 10 lakh jobs in panchayats," he said. Referring to demonetisation, Rahul Gandhi said the Congress would put back money in the people's pocket. "Modi has taken away money from your house, lied, fooled you and made you stand in queues, telling you that it is a fight against corruption and black money. He fooled the country and took money from your pocket for a 'chor' (thief) like Anil Ambani," the Congress chief said. "Have you seen 'Hindustan ke chor' Anil Ambani, Nirav Modi, Vijay Mallya standing in a line?" he asked the gathering. Rahul Gandhi said when people get money, they would start making purchases. "After demonetisation, you stopped purchasing and factories stopped manufacturing, giving rise to unemployment. Our 'Nyay' will give jobs," he said. The Nyuntam Aay Yojana (Nyay) is the Congress' ambitious scheme that assures up to Rs 72,000 a year or Rs 6,000 a month to 20 per cent of India's poorest families. "Whatever we do is well thought-out. It's impossible to give Rs 15 lakh in every bank account as the economy will collapse. But giving Rs 3.60 lakh individually is possible in five years with Rs 72,000 per year," the Congress leader said. He also spoke about the Congress' manifesto promises. "If a farmer of Raebareli takes loan of Rs 20,000 and is unable to repay, he is sent to jail. From 2019, when our government will come to power, no farmer will be sent to jail in such cases," Rahul Gandhi said. "We will bring a separate farmers' budget in which they will get to know MSP (minimum support price), compensation for crop damage in storms, insurance details and what they will get when they suffer losses," he added. Rahul Gandhi alleged that in the present BJP regime, the money from crop insurance was not given to farmers. "Entire work of insurance has been given to people like Anil Ambani. You give money for insurance, but when you face loss, you are not compensated. Rs 10,000 crore have been taken from farmers and given to people like Anil Ambani...," he said. The Congress chief alleged that work on a railway line, railway factory and a food park was stopped in Amethi. "I have the list of all the works which were stopped by this government. I will do double work for Raebareli and Amethi, and ensure employment for the people," he said. Referring to the Rafale deal, Rahul Gandhi asked: "Why Rs 30,000 crore was given to Anil Ambani? The contract was taken away from HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Limited), Amethi." Later, speaking at his parliamentary constituency of Amethi, Rahul Gandhi accused Modi of speaking lies to the country for the past five years. Addressing a public meeting in Gauriganj town of Amethi district, the Congress chief said: "Narendra Modi had put entire India on queues following the implementation of demonetisation. And by implementing the 'Gabbar Singh Tax', the trade and business got destroyed." Pointing out to Modi's 2014 election promise of providing 2 crore jobs, Rahul Gandhi asked the audience if they had got any employment. Hitting back at the prime minister for claiming that no work had been done in Amethi, Rahul Gandhi said: "As many as six national highways, petroleum institute, flyover in Gauriganj, IIIT were built. Narendra Modi has stolen a central school. Fifty factories were stolen by Narendra Modi from your hand. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Hitting out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his strident criticism of the Congress, party president Rahul Gandhi Saturday said in the last 70 years, the "foolishness of demonetisation and Gabbar Singh Tax" was not done by anybody. He was addressing an election meeting in Unchahar in Rabeareli from where UPA chairperson and his mother Sonia Gandhi is seeking re-election to the Lok Sabha. "In the past 70 years, the foolishness of demonetisation and Gabbar Singh Tax (Gandhi's coinage for the Goods and Services Tax or GST) was not done by anyone," Gandhi said. His remarks come against the backdrop of repeated attacks by the prime minister on the Congress, holding it responsible for all ills since the country got Independence. "Chowkidar (watchman) has done 'chori' (theft) of factories and employment of people of Raebareli and Amethi (the Lok Sabha seat represented by the Congress chief)," he said. Rahul Gandhi also accused Modi of not wanting to fill 22 lakh vacant posts in the government. "Some 22 lakh jobs are vacant in the government. Modi did not want to fill these vacant posts and only wants to help his friends. We will give these 22 lakh jobs in one year and 10 lakh jobs in panchyats," he said. The Congress president asked the gathering, "Where are Anil Ambani, Nirav Modi, Vijay Mallya, Lalit Modi - in jail or outside? "If a farmer of Raebareli takes loan of Rs 20,000 and is unable to repay, he is sent to jail. From 2019, when our government will come to power no farmer will got to jail in such cases. We will bring a separate farmers' budget in which they will get to know MSP, storm losses compensation, insurance details and what they will get when they suffer losses," he said. Charging the prime minister of taking away money from "our pocket, your pocket", he promised that the Congress will ensure that the people get back their money. "Modi has taken away money from your house, lied and fooled you and made you stand in queues telling you that it is fight against corruption and blackmoney. He fooled the country and took money from your pocket for a 'chor' (thief) like Anil Ambani," Gandhi said. "Have you seen 'Hindustan ke chor' Anil Ambani, Nirav Modi, Vijay Mallya standing in a line," he asked the gathering. Promising that Congress will "put back money in your pocket", Gandhi said when people get money, they will start making purchases. "After demonetisation you stopped purchasing and factories stopped manufacturing giving rise to unemployment. Our 'Nyay' will give jobs." Nyuntam Aay Yojana (Nyay) is the party's ambitious minimum income guarantee scheme, which assures up to Rs 72,000 a year or Rs 6,000 a month income to 20 per cent of India's poorest families. "Whatever we do is well thought. It's impossible to give Rs 15 lakh in every bank account as economy will collapse. But giving Rs 3.60 lakh individually is possible in five years with Rs 72,000 per year," he said. Stating that in the present regime, crop insurance money was not given to farmers, Gandhi said, "Entire work of insurance has been given to people like Anil Ambani. You give money for insurance but when you face loss you are not compensated. Rs 10,000 crore have been taken from farmers and given to people like Anil Ambani..." He alleged that work on railway line, railway factory and food park was stopped in Amethi. "I have the list of all the works which were stopped by this government. I will do double work for Raebareli and Amethi and ensure employement for people," he said. Referring to Rafale deal, Gandhi said, "Why Rs 30,000 crore was given to Anil Ambani. The contract was taken away from HAL, Amethi. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) BJP president Amit Shah Saturday slammed the UPA government, alleging that former prime minister Manmohan Singh kept "silent" when terrorists from Pakistan beheaded Indian soldiers. But, now for every bullet fired from across the border, the response is given with double the force, he told a rally in Jharkhand's Daltonganj town. "Under former prime minister Manmohan Singh, Pakistan's alia, malia and balia (referring to terrorists) used to come and take away heads of our jawans after killing them. "Even today, I can't forget the incident of Hemraj's beheading and his disrespect. But 'mouni (silent) baba' Manmohan Singh did not even utter a word," Shah said. On January 8, 2013, Lance Naik Hemraj was beheaded by Pakistan's Border Action Team along the Indo-Pak border, triggering a nationwide outrage. The BJP chief said, "ab goli ka jawab gola se, int ka jawab pathar se". Shah was campaigning for BJP's sitting MP from Palamu and former DGP Vishun Dayal Ram. He hit out at National Conference leader Omar Abdullah for advocating a separate prime minister for Jammu and Kashmir and asserted that the state is an inseparable part of India. "We will remove Article 370 (of the Constitution) if you make Narendra Modi prime minister again," he said. The article grants special status to Jammu and Kashmir. "Omar Abdullah wants a separate prime minister for Kashmir. Should there be two prime ministers for one country?" Shah asked the gathering, which responded resoundingly in the negative. He said as long as there is life in the last BJP worker, nobody can separate Kashmir from India."Kashmir is the crown of India and nobody can snatch it," Shah asserted. Taking a swipe at the Congress for seeking proof of the Balakot airstrike, he said "When the nation was rejoicing...the Congress and Pakistan were mourning" He also slammed Gandhi family's close aide Sam Pitroda for asking for more facts on the strike, which was conducted by the Indian Air Force on a terrorist camp in Pakistan's Balakot following the Pulwama terror attack in February. "When terrorists from Pakistan struck the CPRF convoy in Pulwama on February 14, killing 40 personnel, the country was angry and in despair," Shah said. The BJP chief claimed that Pakistan knew about the surgical strike following the 2016 Uri terror attack and had sent personnel and tanks on the border. Training his guns on the opposition alliance, Shah alleged that whenever they came to power, they indulged in "massive corruption" and even made an independent legislator chief minister of Jharkhand. He was referring to Madhu Koda, who is an accused in a coal scam case. Shah took a swipe at the opposition Congress-led alliance for not naming their prime ministerial candidate, saying if the grouping is elected they will have a new prime minister everyday, except Sunday. Jharkhand is endowed with mineral resources, but its people are poor. But, in the last five years of the Narendra Modi government at the Centre and Raghubar Das dispensation in the state ushered development, he said. The BJP chief highlighted 133 welfare programmes initiated during the last five years. Roads were improved, electricity has been provided and work on the Mandal dam began in Palamau and Latehar districts, he said. Cooking gas and ovens, housing and toilet facilities were also given to the poor, Shah said, adding that the Modi government has taken steps to give pension to farmers above the age of 60 years. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Manuel Lujn Jr, who spent 20 years as a Republican congressman and later as a US Interior Secretary who drew fire from environmentalists for challenging the Endangered Species Act, has died. He was 90. New Mexico Gov Michelle Lujn Grisham, who was a distant cousin, said Lujan died Thursday at his home in Albuquerque. He had a long history of heart trouble and underwent triple-bypass surgery after a 1986 heart attack. "Manuel Lujn was the picture of a statesman," the Democratic governor said in a statement Friday. "Over the course of ten Congressional terms and four years as secretary of the Interior, he fought for his constituents, striving for balance between competing interests." Lujn represented New Mexico's 1st District from 1969 to 1989. He gained a reputation as an advocate for Native Americans, business and constituents in a majority-Democratic district. As Lujn's final term wound down, President George HW Bush tapped him for his Cabinet. As interior secretary, Lujn sought to strike a balance between business interests and the Endangered Species Act, which he said was too tough on regional economies. He said proposed federal protection of the northern spotted owl in the Pacific Northwest would cost 31,000 timber jobs. Calling those consequences unacceptable, Lujn launched an exemption process by convening a little-used committee with the power to allow logging to continue despite the threat to the owl. "No solution to this problem could be found short of this action," Lujn said, pointing to major economic disruptions to Northwest timber towns. The Cabinet-level panel, known as the "God Squad" because of its authority to allow species to become extinct, was disbanded later amid legal challenges. Environmentalists also recoiled when Lujn shrugged off efforts to protect the Mount Graham red squirrel in Arizona. "Do we have to save every subspecies?" he said. "Nobody's told me the difference between a red squirrel, a black one or a brown one." Lujn remained in the Cabinet until the end of Bush's term in January 1993. Five minutes before the Republican president left office, Lujn tried to transfer federally owned desert land in Southern California that he and then-California Gov. Pete Wilson wanted for a nuclear waste dump. Lujn's successor, Bruce Babbitt, rescinded the order, and courts determined Lujn acted improperly. At the same time, Lujn was a prime mover in creating Petroglyphs National Monument on the rugged volcanic mesa located west of Albuquerque, to protect thousands of prehistoric and historic petroglyphs. After leaving government, Lujn became a lobbyist for a development company that owned petroglyph-studded land. The Lujn name still resonates in New Mexico politics, though Democrats last year consolidated control over the state's delegation to Washington. In a statement Friday, Democratic US Rep. and Senate candidate Ben Ray Lujn, who was not related, praised Manuel Lujn for opening opportunities for Hispanics in federal government. Lujn is survived by his wife, Jean, and three children. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Four men were killed and a woman was injured Saturday when the car they were travelling in was hit by a speeding truck in Rajasthan's Jhalawar district, police said. The deceased -- Pankaj, Ritesh, Sumit Shukla, Parvez khan -- and the injured woman, Monika Pandaya, are natives of Indore in Madhya Pradesh. They had come to the state to visit Ajmer and Khatushyamji temple in Sikar district. They met with the accident on Jhalawar- Indore highway while returning back to Indore, SHO Raipur police station Babulal said. Two of the men died on the spot while the other two succumbed to injuries enroute to the hospital, the SHO said, adding the woman has received multiple fractures and is undergoing treatment at a government hospital in Jhalawar, he added. The bodies have been sent to the mortuary and post-mortem will be carried out after the family member of the deceased reach here, he said. The truck driver managed to escape from the spot after the incident but efforts are on to nab him, the SHO said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Eastern Command, Lt Gen M M Naravane, reviewed the security situation and operational preparedness in the border areas of Arunachal Pradesh during a three-day visit to the north-eastern state, a Defence official said here Saturday. During the visit from April 24 to April 26, Lt Gen Naravane was briefed in detail on the prevailing security situation and operational preparedness along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China. During his interaction with the troops, the Army Commander appreciated their hard work and dedication in their endeavour to safeguard the nation's border while operating in hostile terrain and adverse weather conditions, the official said. The Army commander was accompanied by GOC, Gajraj Corps, Lt Gen Manoj Pande, during the visit that concluded Friday. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The sexual assault trial of disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein will take place on September 9, three months later than expected, a New York judge said Friday. Weinstein -- a catalyst for the #MeToo anti-harassment movement-- has been charged over the alleged assaults of two women and faces life in prison if he is convicted at the trial, which could last for five weeks. One of the 67-year-old's lawyers, Jose Baez, welcomed the postponement, saying: "This is going to give us ample opportunity to dig into the case, talk to those people who are coming forward and telling us about other matters that are very helpful to Mr Weinstein's case." The delay was announced after a four-hour closed-door hearing to decide whether women other than the two accusers could give evidence at the trial. Judge James Burke suggested that his decision on this key point may not be made public until the start of the trial. Since October 2017, Weinstein -- one of the most powerful men in Hollywood before a cascade of sexual misconduct allegations precipitated his downfall -- has been accused of sexual harassment and assault by more than 80 women, including prominent actresses such as Ashley Judd, Angelina Jolie and Salma Hayek. Because the session was closed, it is unclear how many of those women -- many of whose allegations are too old to be brought to trial -- prosecutor Joan Orbon-Illuzzi would like to call on. Their testimony could be key, as it was at the trial of former television star Bill Cosby, who was sentenced to at least three years in prison in the first courtroom victory of the #MeToo era. But Baez said after the hearing that when prosecutors want testimony from women other than the alleged victims in the charges, it is generally "good for the defence." That is because it means the prosecution can't prove their case based on the complainants' testimony alone, he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Madras High Court Saturday dismissed a petition seeking a direction to the Election Commission to reject the nomination of DMK candidate Senthil Balaji for the Aravakurichi Assembly bypoll. A Division Bench comprising Justices S Manikumar and Subramonium Prasad also imposed a cost of Rs 10,000 on the petitioner. The petitioner A P Geetha, women's wing secretary of Desiya Makkal Sakthi Katchi (DMSK), contended that the former Minister should not be allowed to contest in elections because he had allegedly indulged in electoral malpractices in 2016. Balaji who won as an AIADMK candidate was suspended by the Speaker along with 18 other MLAs. Senior counsel P Wilson, who appeared on behalf of Balaji argued that the PIL lacked bonafide and the same petitioner had filed a plea in 2016 which was dismissed by the court. The petitioner had also filed a plea previously challenging Balaji's election before his disqualification by the Speaker, the counsel said. Balaji also submitted that disqualification of a candidate under Schedule X by the Speaker did not mean that he can not contest subsequent elections. The Election Commission's counsel, Nirajan Rajagopalan submitted that the petition was not maintainable and only an election petition can be filed post the elections. The bench after hearing the arguments initially imposed a cost of Rs 30,000 on the petitioner and after a request made by the counsel reduced it to Rs 10,000 and dismissed the plea. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Observing that relationship between a girl under 18 years of age and a teenage boy or little over the teenage years cannot be construed as "alien" or "unnatural", the Madras High Court suggested exclusion of consensual sex after 16 years of age from the purview of POCSO Act. Justice V Pathiban gave the suggestion on Friday during the hearing of a petition by Sabari who challenged his conviction and 10-year sentence by a Mahila court in Namakkal under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. The petitioner was accused of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a 17-year old girl. Suggesting amendments to the Act, the judge said, "Any consensual sex after the age of 16 or bodily contact or allied acts can be excluded from the rigorous provisions of the POCSO Act and such sexual assault, if it is so defined can be tried under more liberal provision, which can be introduced in the Act itself..." "The Act can be amended to the effect that the age of the offender ought not to be more than five years or so than the consensual victim girl of 16 years or more. So that the impressionable age of the victim girl cannot be taken advantage of by a person who is much older and crossed the age of presumable infatuation or innocence," he said. Justice Pathiban also directed the State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (SCPCRs), Commissioner of Social Defense, Department of Social Welfare and Noon Meal Programme to place the matter before competent authority and take steps to explore whether the suggestions are acceptable to all stakeholders. Perusing various reports of the DGP, SCPCRs among others, he said though under Section 2(d) of the Act, 'child' is defined as a person below 18 years of age and in case of any love affair between a girl and a boy, where the girl happens to be 16 or 17 years old, the relationship invariably assumes penal character by subjecting the boy to the rigours of the law. Once the age of the girl is established in such relationship as below 18 years, the boy involved in the relationship is sure to be sentenced 7 or 10 years as minimum imprisonment, as the case may be, he noted. "... Such a relationship cannot be construed as an unnatural one or alien to between relationship of opposite sexes," the judge added. Earlier, the judge acquitted the accused of all charges and set aside the conviction of the trial court. He found fault with the lower court for completely misdirecting itself by raising unwarranted presumption without any basis in favour of the prosecution. The court also expressed concern over growing incidence of offences under the POCSO Act on one side and the rigorous imprisonment envisaged in it. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Heavy rains lashed northern Mozambique on Saturday in the wake of Cyclone Kenneth as aid groups warned of possible flooding and mudslides in the days ahead. At least four deaths had been reported. Mozambique's disaster authorities said one person was killed in Pemba city and another in hard-hit Macomia district, while residents on Ibo island said two people died there. A large number of homes in parts of northernmost Cabo Delgado province were destroyed, with electricity cut and at least one key bridge collapsed. Cyclone Kenneth arrived late Thursday, just six weeks after Cyclone Idai ripped into central Mozambique and killed more than 600 people. This was the first time in recorded history that the southern African nation has been hit by two cyclones in one season, again raising concerns about climate change. Kenneth, packing the power of a Category 4 hurricane, tore into a region that had never seen such a fierce storm during the age of satellite observation. Its remnants could dump twice as much rain as Idai did last month, the U.N. World Program has said. Aid groups warned that flooding remained a danger after Kenneth, just as flooding caused most of the deaths after Idai. Some forecasts warned of as much as 250 millimetres of torrential rain, or about a quarter of the average annual rainfall for the region. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies on Saturday reported heavy damage to Cabo Delgado province, with the communities of Macomia, Quissanga and Mocimboa da Praia of highest concern. Communications remained challenging in some areas as authorities and aid groups scrambled to assess the damage, especially in more far-flung communities in the largely rural region. Mozambique's disaster management agency has said nearly 700,000 people could be at risk, many left exposed and hungry as flood waters rise. "The situation wasn't worse thanks to awareness-raising work by local authorities," the agency said on Saturday while posting photos of buildings where metal roofs had been crumpled or ripped away. Other photos from Macomia showed a mud-walled home that had disintegrated, a bus that appeared to have slid off the road and a toppled electrical pole, its wires straining. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The death toll in the IED blast at a check post in northwest Pakistan on Saturday rose to three after one of the two injured security personnel succumbed to his injuries in a hospital, sources said. The explosives, which were planted close to the check post in Sheva tehsil of North Aaziristan District bordering Afghanistan, went off when the levies personnel reported for duty, eye witnesses said. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister K P K Mehmud Khan strongly condemned the blast, saying that the resolve of the government against terrorism can not be suppressed through such acts of cowardice. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Two security personnel were killed and two others were injured following an IED blast at a check post in northwest Pakistan on Saturday, sources said. The explosives, which were planted close to the check post in Sheva tehsil of North Aaziristan District bordering Afghanistan, went off when the levies personnel reported for duty, eye witnesses said. The deceased, identified as Ameer Zaman and Abdul Wali, were local residents, they said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A 33-year-old Indian-American engineer has announced to challenge the Democratic senator from New Jersey in 2020. Hirsh Singh, known as a supporter of President Donald Trump, will seek the Republican nomination for the US Senate in 2020 against Cory Booker, according to the New Jersey Globe website. Booker has not yet announced if he will run for re-election, although a new law allows him to simultaneously run for president and re-election to the Senate. Singh, an engineer from Atlantic County who works in the aerospace and defence industries, filed his campaign committee with the Federal Election Commission on Wednesday. This will be his third bid for public office. He lost the Republican Party primaries for governor in 2017 and Congress in 2018. "Booker has brought nothing to New Jersey. Having a US Senator who's not just resisting the president is critical," Singh said. Singh is the first Republican to announce his intention to challenge Booker, who was re-elected by a 56 per cent to 42 per cent margin in 2014. He was endorsed by Bill Palatucci, the Republican National Committeeman from New Jersey. Atlantic County Executive Dennis Levinson said Hirsh is bright, ambitious and extremely focused, Shore Network reported. "For as long as I have known him, he has been very interested in serving the community and being involved. He's capable of meeting the uphill challenge that lies ahead of him. Cory Booker is a national name with a lot of money, but Hirsh has a good understanding of what he has to do to win," Levinson said. Somerset Chairman Al Gaburo said: "Hirsh is a good man who will bring real energy and passion to a United States Senate run. I'm glad he's putting himself forward at this critical time". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A 55-year-old convict died at a hospital here due multiple organ failure, police said Saturday. Family members of the deceased, Mohammad Ramzan, carried out a protest as they accused the police of beating and thrashing him. According to the police, Ramzan, an inmate of the Kota central jail who was serving a sentence for murder, died at the New Medical College Hospital (NMCH) on Friday night after prolonged illness. Ramzan, a resident of Mangrol town of Rajasthan's Baran district, suffered from a severe kidney problem and was admitted to the NMCH on March 23 and again on April 25. He was admitted to SMS hospital in Jaipur from April 21-25, said Kota central jail superintendent Suman Maliwal. The doctors at the SMS hospital said both of Ramzan's kidneys had failed and he was under medical observation at the NMCH, Maliwal said. "Not even once during this period when his health deteriorated did he stay in the jail," the jail superintendent said. A medical board carried out a post-mortem on Saturday afternoon under the supervision of a judicial magistrate. A judicial investigation is underway to probe into the inmate's death, Maliwal said. Ramzan's family refused to take his body initially, but relented in evening, she added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The three-member committee, constituted by the Telangana government to look into the discrepancies in the Intermediate examination results, submitted its report on Saturday. "The three-member committee to look into the developments that took place after the announcement of Intermediate results gave its report. It is under the consideration of the government," Secretary B Janardhan Reddy told reporters here. "Very soon, we will definitely share their recommendations and the Action Taken Report," he added. The 10-page report emphasised on the measures to be taken in future (to ensure smooth conduct of exams), according to a committee official. The alleged bungling in examination results led to protests by students, parents, students' organisations and political parties. Some students claimed that they either failed or got poor marks though they had done well in exams and obtained high marks in Intermediate first year. Opposition Congress, TDP, BJP and other parties complained to Governor ESL Narasimhan and sought a judicial probe into the alleged goof-up. The Congress-led delegation claimed that as many as 20 students committed suicide in the aftermath of the announcement of results. The exams were conducted during February and March this year and the results were announced on April 18. There have been allegations of bungling in the announcement of the results. Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, who held a meeting with officials on the issue a few days ago, had directed them not to charge any fee for re-verfication and re-counting from failed students. The government has also announced that failed students need not apply for re-counting and re-verification. Thousands of students, who passed the examination, have also applied for re-verification. Protests against the alleged irregularities continued, with agitated students complaining they were not being provided proper information. The Board of Intermediate office here has been witnessing protests by students' organisations and political parties. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) issued a notice on Friday to the state government, seeking a report on the issue. Meanwhile, media reports said a female student allegedly committed suicide in Narayanpet district Saturday reportedly upset over failure in the Intermediate exam. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) James Bond producer Barbara Broccoli has ruled out gender swap to the character of the suave British spy, saying the part will always be played a male. British star Daniel Craig is preparing to leave the iconic role after the upcoming 25th movie in the series. "I always feel that Bond is a male character, that is just a fact. We have to make movies about women and women's stories but we have to create female characters and not just for a gimmick turn a male character into a woman," Broccoli told "Good Morning Britain" during Bond 25's launch event in Jamaica. She also confirmed that it was Craig's decision to rope in Phoebe Waller-Bridge as a co-writer on the film. "It was Daniel's idea, we all leapt to it, we loved her. She has made a great contribution to it," she said. Bond 25 also features Oscar winner Rami Malek in the role of the villain. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Over 200 employees of Jet Airways took out a candlelight march near Jantar Mantar here appealing to the lenders of the airline and the Centre to "Save Jet Airways". The employees were carrying placards with slogans such as "Save Jet Airways, Save Our Future" and "We have dependents to feed, please don't let 9W bleed". 9W is the code for Jet Airways like 6E is for IndiGo. Majority of the employees, including engineers, flight crew and cockpit crew, took part in the march wearing the airline's uniform. The wives and children of some of the employees were also present. "The senior management of Jet Airways met Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and other senior officials of the government and apprised them of the grave situation being faced by the airline. We were assured that the government would do the best to ensure betterment of the employees and the company but it is sad that nothing has been done," a statement issued by the employees said. Flight engineer D Mahapatra alleged that all the slots of Jet Airways were allotted to other airlines in a non-transparent and biased manner. "When the government could rescue other airlines, then why not Jet Airways?," he asked. The employees had not been paid for four months now, senior engineer Mohan Sharma said, adding that the salaries of October, November and December last year were also paid in instalments. This is the second time in as many weeks Jet Airways employees gathered at Jantar Mantar after the temporary suspension of the airline's operations on April 17. The lenders of Jet Airways, which are currently managing the airline, have till date refused to provide funds for restarting the operations. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A journalist was arrested here Saturday for allegedly circulating a "fake letter,"purportedly written by home minister M B Patil to Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi in 2017 on religion tag to the Lingayat sect. Patil had termed the letter fake and alleged that it was a conspiracy against him by his rivals. Inspector General of Police CID, economic offence wing and cyber crime Hemant Nimbalkar told PTI that Hemant Kumar was arrested here Saturday. Kumar is special correspondent of a Delhi based English and Hindi magazine. Police in a release said Hemanth Kumar was arrested, "based on credible evidence corroborated by oral statement." He was produced before a court, which granted police custody of Kumar till April 30, it said. The 'letter' had first emerged during the Karnataka assembly elections in 2018. It resurfaced during the current Lok Sabha electionwith BJP first publishing it on its Twitter handle on April 15. Condemning the arrest, a delegation of BJP leaders, led by MLAs Arvind Limbavali and Suresh Kumar submitted a memorandum to the Director General of Police Neelamani M Raju. Later, speaking to reporters, Limbavali alleged that all those supporting the BJP and working for the party during the election are being targeted at the instance of home minister. Police barged into the office and arrested Hemanth Kumar, who is a BJPsympathiser, he said. Patil has repeatedly termed it a fake letter, but it kept resurfacing time and again. When it came up again,Patil, as home minister, took serious note of it. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Chief electoral officer (CEO) of Kerala Teeka Ram Meena Saturday sought reports from Kasargod and Kannur district collectors over alleged bogus voting at various polling booths in the Kasargod Lok Sabha constituency. "We have got complaints from certain places. The Election Commission will take further action in this regard. We are waiting for the report. We'll examine all such complaints," Meena told reporters here. Local TV channels aired visuals of a few people, including women, casting their votes twice at two polling booths in Kasaragod constituency, which went to polls in the third phase of the Lok Sabha elections on April 23. Opposition Congress Leader Ramesh Chennithala lashed out at the ruling LDF alleging that the CPI(M) has resorted to bogus voting fearing defeat in the polls. He said the Left was trying to manipulate the public mandate and the Congress would initiate legal proceedings against the bogus voting. "From video evidence, it could be seen that the Left has cast around 5,000 bogus votes in Kasargod constituency. We will take appropriate legal steps. We have warned the poll officials of such unlawful practices much before the polling day, but the authorities failed to take any action," Chennithala said. The CCTV visuals of the polling booth shows six people, including two women, voting more than twice at polling booth number 17 and 19 in the AUP School Pilathara in Kannur district which is part of Kasaragod constituency. The video also shows some political leaders standing inside the polling booth while the voting took place. The politically volatile north Kerala witnessed a fierce battle between the ruling CPI(M)-led LDF and the opposition Congress-headed UDF in the three Lok Sabha constituencies of Vadakara, Kannur and Kasaragod. Kasaragod, located towards northern edge of the state and surrounded by the Western Ghats and the Arabian Sea,is considered the strongholdof CPI(M). The last time Left was defeated here was in 1984. To keep its bastion intact, the Left party has fielded former member of legislative assembly KP Satheesh Chandran from Kasaragod that was thrice represented by veteran A K Gopalan. Congress had fielded senior leader Rajmohan Unnithan to wrest the seat from the Left. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Sri Lanka on Saturday banned local Islamist extremist outfit NTJ and a splinter group, which are linked to the ISIS that has claimed the responsibility for the Easter bombings that left 253 people dead and several hundreds injured. National Thawheed Jammath (NTJ) leader Zahran Hashim, the mastermind behind the attacks, was killed inside the Shangri La hotel were he detonated himself. President Maithripala Sirisena used emergency powers to ban the NTJ and a splinter group identified as Jamathei Millathu Ibraheem (JMI), a statement said. "All movable and immovable property of these two organisations will be confiscated," the statement said. The move to ban the outfits came after the Lankan Parliament adopted a newly-enforced emergency regulation on Wednesday following a series of eight coordinated blasts, which ripped through three churches and three high-end hotels frequented by tourists on April 19 in the country's deadliest violence since the devastating civil war ended in 2009. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on Friday said the country needs new laws to deal with threats posed by local terror outfits linked to ISIS. "The definition on aiding terrorism is very narrow. Therefore, the laws are not strong to deal with a situation like this. We have to widen the scope of these laws to counter global terrorism. Not only they (the terrorists) should be arrested, their assets also need to be confiscated," he said in a televised address. The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the Easter terror attacks on three Catholic churches and three luxury hotels but the government has blamed a local Islamist extremist group, National Tawheed Jamath (NTJ), for the bombings. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadanvis Saturday launched a stinging attack on the NCP as well as MNS chief Raj Thackeray on the last day of campaigning for the fourth and final phase of Lok Sabha elections in the state. Addressing a rally for Sena candidate and sitting MP Hemant Godse, the chief minister fired barbs at his poll opponent Sameer Bhujbal and latter's uncle Chhagan Bhujbal, both of the NCP. The Sena and the BJP are contesting the elections in alliance. "Bhujbal and his nephew didn't go to jail for their role in a freedom struggle or due to any agitation for the people of Nashik. The fact is that they were jailed in money laundering cases," the CM said while referring to charges against the uncle-nephew duo, who are out on bail. Stating that the Bhujbal senior is making "mimicry" on stage during canvassing, Fadnavis said he has not seen a "natsamrat" like the NCP leader. "Natsamrat" is a legendary Marathi play. Playing the role of its protagonist is considered prestigious as well challenging by actors in Maharashtra. Voting will be held in Nashik along with 16 other constituencies on Monday. Taking a swipe at MNS chief Raj Thackeray who held a string of rallies in Maharashtra to highlight "contradictions" in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's statements, Fadnavis said it seems NCP chief Sharad Pawar has hired a railway engine of the MNS. Railway engine is the election symbol of the Raj Thackeray-led party. The MNS is not contesting Lok Sabha elections this time. The CM has been accusing Thackeray of doing a bidding of Pawar. In his rallies, Fadnavis had called the MNS chief a "parrot of Baramati", the home turf of Pawar. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A consumer disputes redressal forum in Chhattisgarh has ordered Raigarh district authorities to pay a compensation of Rs 19.73 lakh to a 37-year-old man whose wife and unborn child died due to alleged medical negligence on part of two government doctors in 2015. The Raigarh District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum has ordered the district collector, Raigarh chief medical and health officer (CMHO), chief medical officer (CMO) of Raigarh district hospital, gynaecologist Dr Lalita Rajnala and Medical Officer Dr Rajesh Kumar Singh to pay the amount to Bhagwat Prasad Rathore, husband of late Sashikala Rathore (32), his lawyer JS Thakur said Saturday. The forum also said that the amount should be paid within a month, failing which nine per cent annual interest would be levied from the date of July 22, 2016, the day on which the petition was filed, he said. Rathore had moved the forum demanding compensation of Rs 19.73 lakh alleging negligence on part of Dr Rajnala and Dr Singh. The forum Chairman M D Jagdalla issued the compensation order on Friday, Thakur said. In his petition, Rathore named Raigarh collector, CMHO and CMO of Raigarh district hospital as respondents, besides the two doctors, he said. As per the petition, Sashikala, who was ten-month pregnant, was admitted with labour pain in Kharsiya civil hospital of the district on the night of July 26, 2015. "Dr Rajesh Kumar Singh and gynecologist Dr Rajnala, both posted at the hospital, did not turn up for duty despite being informed by a nurse," Thakur said. He said Dr Rajnala reached the hospital at around 2:30 am, and asked Rathore to shift his wife to Raigarh district hospital, a distance of around 40 kms. At around 4 pm on July 27, Rathore admitted his wife in the district hospital where a nurse told him that surgery need to be done, and asked him to bring some medicines. After a short while, the nurse informed Rathore that his wife and her unborn child have died, Thakur said. In his petition, Rathore contended that deficiency of service and medical negligence by the two doctors in Khasriya hospital led to the death of his wife and the unborn child, Thakur said, adding that evidences were submitted and witnesses were produced before the forum. The postmortem report had also pointed that the woman died because of the delay in delivery, he said. "On Friday, the forum directed the respondents to pay compensation of Rs 19.73 lakh jointly or individually in addition to Rs 1,001 towards legal expenses to Rathore," Thakur said. Rathore had also filed a petition in a local court, which is pending, he said. In August 2015, the then Raigarh collector had written a letter to secretary of state Health department recommending action against the two doctors after finding them guilty in the matter, Thakur said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Facing flak from the BJP for having recounted Mohd Ali Jinnah among the stalwarts of the Congress party at an election rally, Patna Sahib candidate Shatrughan Sinha on Saturday asserted that he saw nothing to be apologetic about the slip of tongue. Sinha said he wished to speak about Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad, but due to slip of tongue ended up saying Mohd Ali Jinnah. The actor-politician had made the faux pas at a rally at Chhindwara in Madhya Pradesh the previous night while he was rattling off the names of towering personalities associated with the Grand Old Party. As channels beamed the relevant excerpt, BJP with which the actor-turned-politician had severed his three decades long ties recently mocked the former Union minister for speaking of the founder of Pakistan in the same breath as Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel. Shatrughan Sinha has just gone to the Congress. When he was in BJP he used to talk about nationalism. Now, he says that Jinnah was also a great leader like Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel. Congress leaders are praising Jinnah, who has divided the country, BJP president Amit Shah tweeted. Talking to PTI, Sinha said it was an ex tempore speech, highly appreciated and applauded. I was talking about Congress being the Grand Old Party, a nationalist party in the true sense and its glorious past....people of stature, stalwarts associated with the party and their contribution towards the progress, prosperity and development of the nation. I was speaking about great people like Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru but had a slip of tongue when I had wished to speak about Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad. Though I am not apologetic about that, Sinha said. Instead of Maulana Azad, I ended up saying Mohd Ali Jinnah and, in the flow, went on to speak about other leaders like Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and post-Independence figures like Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, he said. I was speaking with conviction and hence people clapped animatedly after my speech. Slips of tongue do happen. Our Prime Minister Narendra Modi has spoken of Alexander having come to Bihar and confused the ancient seat of learning in Taxila with Nalanda. "He once even said that China spent 20 per cent of its GDP on education. He has been able to speak as he pleases and nobody dares to question him, Sinha who had been critical of both Modi and Shah calling them one man show and two man army said. Now that something came out of my mouth unintentionally, the cheerleaders who have been living in fear got an opportunity to pounce on a shareef (sober) and gareeb (poor) man who enjoys a good man, he alleged. Sinha added, having said that I must say there is nothing to be apologetic if anybody praises Jinnah. Let us not forget that he too was a stalwart of the pre-Independence era and though he ended up playing a lead role in the Partition of India we cannot deny that he too had made his contributions in the national movement, his ideological differences notwithstanding. A second-term MP from Patna Sahib, Sinha is now contesting on a Congress ticket and locked in a straight contest with Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad who has been fielded by the BJP. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Alleging that the Model Code of Conduct has become "Modi code of conduct", the Congress 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. "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. 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. Singhvi wondered whether Modi and Shah are outside the ambit of the Model Code of Conduct, which he dubbed as "Modi code of conduct". He claimed that the two leaders have violated the poll code broadly under three categories: polarisation of votes, invoking armed forces in campaigns and taking out rallies on election days. "The EC has taken action against several leaders for violating the poll code based on our complaints. We appreciate that. Since the precedent has been set, why not take action against Modi and Shah," he said. "We are sad to say that the Modi-Shah duo has become a kind of an arch of immunity as far as the Election Commission's jurisdiction goes, as far as the Model Code of Conduct goes," Singhvi said. Never has there been a more "audacious set of individuals" who for petty electoral gains have turned a blind eye to the existence of the EC, poll code and the Constitution, he alleged. "I can understand the selfish petty motives of the party in power, but, what we cannot understand is how the mega policemen, the Election Commission, for this 50-day window of elections turned a blind eye to such egregious, wanton, unashamed conduct day in and day out," Singhvi said. "I salute them (EC) for acting on our complaint, where I have personally appeared and argued for the same issues I gave three categories hate speech, armed forces and doing campaigning while voting," the Congress leader said. On two of these issues, the EC had passed orders prohibiting or curtailing campaigning activities, he said, citing the case of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. The chief minister was barred by the EC from campaigning for 72 hours. Singhvi said in the past 25 days, he has personally led at least 15 delegations to the commission. He urged the poll panel to follow its own orders and precedents while looking into the complaints against Modi and Shah. The Congress leader said are there "two laws in this country for the prime minister and for Amit Shah on the one hand and for others on the other". "Is there a discriminatory application by their tomb like silence on these two persons? Is the EC not directly, not tacitly, directly accepting endorsing and supporting such conduct?" he asked. "Therefore, we are now complaining through you (EC) only when the water has risen above our head. The people of India demand an explanation for this inaction, for this silence and although we are doing everything in our power, including, if necessary, moving court. The point is why is the Election Commission not doing anything," Singhvi said. By not doing anything, the poll panel is in fact deciding by default, he alleged. Responding to questions on reported remarks by Congress leaders P C Chacko and Shatrughan Sinha on Yasin Malik and Mohammed Ali Jinnah respectively, he said while Sinha has clarified his comments, it would be better if Chacko was approached directly on the issue. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) National Conference (NC) president Farooq Abdullah Saturday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi "failed" to carry forward the legacy of A B Vajpayee during his stint in power. "Modi has failed to carry forward the legacy of Vajpayee. The people of J-K did not see him (Modi) put into practice the catch words of 'Jamhooriyat, Insaniyat and Kashmiriyat', Abdullah said addressing a public meet at Damhal Hanjipura in Kulgam district of south Kashmir. The NC president said the people of the state have not seen Modi deliver on his promises. "His (Modi's) words have been confined to rhetoric only. Had he the sincerity of thought to implement it, he would have done so since 2014, however, no concrete step was taken by the incumbent BJP government led by PM Modi to realize it on ground. "Today we see him tout 'Vajpayee formula', why didn't he implement it on ground for past five years. We didn't see him do justice either with the people of our state. On the contrary the people of our state have never in history suffered so immensely as they did during PM Modi-led BJP government," Abdullah said. Underscoring the need of dialogue between India and Pakistan, Abdullah said the NC has always maintained that dialogue was the only way to resolve the Kashmir issue. "Our party deems Indo- Pak camaraderie essential for peace and prosperity to return to our state, which always comes in the line of fire between the two. There is no substitute to dialogue, he said. The former Union minister said there has been "an exponential increase in miseries" faced by the people of the state since BJP-PDP embraced each other in 2015. He said the parliamentary polls were significant as the people of the state were voting for the identity and the integrity of the state. "Our state is facing a grim situation. The need of the hour demands us to forge unity. The situation is no different from the British era. The British prolonged their rule in India with their divide and rule policy. "We aren't still independent in true sense, today our people continue to fall prey to the shenanigans of those forces who for their petty electoral gains are dividing the people on caste, creed and sectarian considerations, he said. He asked people to remain vigilant of such forces as their sole agenda was to "destroy" the pluralistic visage, unique identity and special constitutional status of the state. "We have to speak in one voice, if we want to protect our identity. Today, our sole agenda is to secure the state's unique identity, however, we cannot think of taking on our enemies if we fall prey to their divisive agenda, he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) BJP president Amit Shah Saturday took a potshots at his Congress counterpart Rahul Gandhi saying he is no match to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who works 18 hours a day without taking a leave in the last 20 years,whereas Gandhi takes a break from work every two months leaving even mother clueless about his whereabout. Addressing back-to-back rallies in tribal-dominated Mayurbhanj and mineral-rich Jajpur Lok Sabha constituencies of Odisha, the BJP chief accused Congress leaders of advocating soft approach towards separatists. With Odisha witnessing assembly election along with that of Parliament, Shah launched a blistering attack at Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik accusing him of sheltering culprits of chit fund and mining scams in the state. "Modi ji is hard working, dedicated and honest. The Prime Minister, who works 18 hours a day, has not taken a single day's leave in last 20 years as he has dedicated himself to the nation," Shah said. In sharp contrast, Shah said "Rahul Baba (Gandhi) goes on leave every two months. His people keep looking for him. Even his mother gets worried as she has no clue... 'bitwa kahan chalagaya, malum nehin padta maako' (mother has no clue as to where her son has gone)." Shah slammed Shatrughan Sinha, who has joined Congress after quitting BJP, for praising Mohammad Ali Jinnah and clubbing him in the same league as great men like Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Ballavbhai Patel. "Congress leaders are praising Jinnah who was instrumental in the division of India. This shows their character," he said. Mounting a scathing attack on Congress for its approach towards terrorism and national security, the BJP chief said a leader of the grand old party P C Chako advocates that separatist Yaseen Malik should not be dealt with harshly. "How can the government avoid strong approach towards Yaseen Malik who wants separation of Kashmir from India? Modi Government will ensure that Kashmir remains an integral part of India and no one can separate it from us as long as a single BJP worker is alive," Shah asserted. The BJP chief also lashed out at National Conference leader Omar Abdullah for advocating a separate prime minister for Kashmir and said it is not possible. Hitting out at the previous Congress-led UPA government, Shah accused it of having failed to deal with Pakistan-sponsored terrorism and said India gave a fitting reply after Pulwama terror attack by undertaking air strike right inside Pakitan. While the entire country rejoiced the success of Balakot air strike, there was mourning in two places - one in Pakistan and another in Congress camp, he said. "While Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi remained silent spectators to such incidents in the past, Modi with 56 inch chest took a quick and strong action against Pakistan sponsored terrorists," he said. Asserting that only a BJP government under the leadership of Modi can ensure speedy and balanced development and keep the country safe and secure, Shah claimed people across the country have resolved that Modi will become the prime minister again. "I have already addressed election meetings in 261 Lok Sabha constituencies across the country. From east to west and north to south, everywhere I could hear people chant Modi, Modi," he said adding it is clear that the whole country has resolved to make Modi the prime minister once again. With Assembly election in Odisha also being held along with Lok Sabha polls, the BJP president came down heavily on the Naveen Patnaik-led BJD government accusing it of keeping the state backward due to corruption and inefficiency and sheltering culprits in chit fund and mining scams. Emphasising that it is not enough for Odisha if Modi becomes prime minister again, Shah said the state cannot develop unless the inefficient and corrupt Biju Janata Dal (BJD) government is thrown out. Claiming that the rising popularity of BJP is giving sleepless nights to BJD, Shah said that the people of Odisha must vote the BJP to power, both at the Centre and in the state, for speedy development. Hitting out at chief minister Naveen Patnaik, Shah asked people whether they want "tired and corrupt chief minister who is unable to speak Odia language to continue or replace him with a strong leader". Accusing Patnaik of sheltering culprits in chit fund and mining scams, Shah asserted all those involved in these scandals will be jailed in 90 days if the party comes to power in the state. Shah alleged that BJD MLAs, MPs and officers were involved in both chit fund and mining scams and they swindled crores of rupees, but the culprits went scot-free. "Chit fund looteras and mining mafia were not put behind the bars as Naveen Patnaik protected them," the BJP chief alleged. Shah said no action was taken by the BJD government to recover money from the mining mafias as per the recommendation of the M B Shah Commission. Hitting out at Patnaik government,Shah said the centre provided Rs 6,000 crore to the state under the District Mineral Foundation (DMF) for the development of tribals, but the state government failed to utilise the funds. Basic necessities of the people like roads, drinking water, electricity and healthcare facilities could not be provided as the chief minister is unable to understand Odia. Lamenting that Patnaik failed to learn Odia in last 20 years, Shah said people must choose an Odia-speaking chief minister who can understand their problems and redress them. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The campaign for Mumbai's six Lok Sabha seats ended Saturday evening with senior leaders like chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, NCP supremo Sharad Pawar and Maharashtra Congress president Ashok Chavan addressing poll gatherings. While Fadnavis participated in a roadshow for BJP's Mumbai North Central candidate and sitting MP Poonam Mahajan, Pawar and Chavan addressed a public meeting for the Congress' Urmila Matondkar in Mumbai North. Actor-turned-politician Matondkar is pitted against BJP's Gopal Shetty who won the seat in 2014 with a margin of over 4.40 lakh votes. Fadnavis said the BJP-Sena alliance would win all six seats in the metropolis since citizens cutting across regional, caste and religious lines want Narendra Modi to be prime minister again. "If there was a Modi wave in 2014, in 2019 it will be a Modi tsunami," he claimed. Pawar, meanwhile, took a swipe at Modi for his speech at Bandra Kurla Complex on Friday. The NCP chief said Modi tried to please all sections of society but failed to offer anything concrete on how he intended to solve their problems. Mumbai is a city that gives direction and leadership to the country and Mumbaikars will not fall for the PM's "false praises", Pawar asserted. He said Modi was criticising the Nehru-Gandhi family despite them having sacrificed a lot to uphold the integrity and sovereignty of the country. "Modi is not well versed in history," Pawar said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Over 40,000 security personnel, including 14 companies of Central paramilitary forces, will be on duty on Monday for Lok Sabha polls in Mumbai's six seats, an official said Saturday. Polling will be held in 10,073 booths at 1,492 locations in the city, with election authorities declaring 325 of these booths as "critical", the official added. A police communique said security has also been beefed up against the backdrop of the multiple bomb attacks in Sri Lanka on Easter that killed over 250 and injured 500 people. The police release said a slew of anti-terror measures have been put in place with personnel from Force One, Quick Response Team, Assault Teams, Anti Terrorism Cell being deployed in the metropolis. It said 40,000 personnel on duty in Mumbai included 14 and 12 companies of Central paramilitary forces and State Reserve Police Force respectively. Police said a total of 391 illegal weapons had been seized along with Rs 10.51 crore cash since the model code of conduct was imposed on March 10. Apart from this, 18 offences have been registered for poll code violations in this period. The statement also added that over 17,000 constabulary and officers of Mumbai police have registered for voting through postal ballot. Mumbai goes to polls on April 29. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan's former military dictator Pervez Musharraf, who is facing high treason case, is likely to return to the country on May 1, his lawyer said on Saturday. A special court indicted General (retd) Musharraf, 75, for high treason in March 2014. He left for Dubai in 2016 to "seek medical treatment" and has not returned since. Last month, he was admitted to a hospital in Dubai after suffering a reaction from a rare disease for which he is already under treatment. "Despite his deteriorating medical condition, the former military ruler is determined to appear before the court that had summoned him for the hearing scheduled for May 2," Musharraf's lawyer Salman Safdar told reporters. "The approval of former president's personal physician had become of upmost importance in the current circumstances, considering his fragile medical condition," Safdar was quoted as saying by the Express However, family sources have confirmed his arrival date, he added. The Pakistan's Supreme Court, while hearing a plea filed by a lawyer who pointed out that proceedings of the treason case had come to a halt as former president Musharraf had not returned since 2016, on April 1 directed the former military ruler to appear before the special court on May 2. The three-member bench of the apex court headed by Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khosa also warned him that if he fails to turn up then he will lose his right to record a statement under Section 342 of the Code of Criminal Procedures. The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government had filed the treason case against Musharraf over the president's imposition of extra-constitutional emergency in November 2007. The special court declared Musharraf a proclaimed offender and ordered the confiscation of his property owing to his no-show. Later, on orders of the Supreme Court, Musharraf's passport and national identity card were also cancelled. Musharraf ruled Pakistan from 1999 to 2008. A conviction for high treason carries the death penalty or life imprisonment. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Mysuru chapter of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind has appealed to Muslims to stand outside a church here while Sunday service is underway to offer solidarity to Christians following the terror attacks in Sri Lanka that killed over 250 people. President of JeIM, Mysore,Munawwar Pasha, said the appeal has been made to convey the message that the Muslims and other communities stand by the Christians at this hour of grief. "I am sending this message to ask the Muslims to stand outside the main church of Mysuru,St Philomena, this Sunday to extend solidarity and show that we stand united and hate cannot divide us," he told PTI. In the audio message, circulated through social media, Pasha said when New Zealand had faced the terror attack at a mosque last month, the Muslims were overwhelmed with the amount of support received from various communities. "We saw thousands stand together in solidarity with us against the far right attack," he said. Pasha said mosques in various parts of the world saw Christians, Jews, Sikhs, etc offering protection and in solidarity with the Muslims. "Sri Lanka suffered an appalling attack on Easter Sunday. Churches were attacked while their congregation was in worship, just as those in New Zealand were," he said. Serial bomb explosions at churches and hotels on Easter Sunday killed 253 people in Sri Lanka. Fifty people were killed when a gunman fired at two mosques at Christchurch in New Zealand during Friday prayers on March 15. Following the attacks in New Zealand, people from all sections of the society came forward to extend their support to the Muslims in that country. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) National Conference (NC) vice-president Omar Abdullah Saturday said Jammu and Kashmir does not face as much threat from Pakistan or the muzzle of the gun as from the forces who were "hell-bent on destroying the special status of the state". Addressing a public meet in Kund valley area of Devsar in Kulgam district of Anantnag parliamentary constituency, in south Kashmir, Abdullah said keeping in view the challenges the state is facing, the people have to make a right choice in the ensuing elections while choosing their representative for the Lok Sabha. "J-K does not face as much threat from neighbouring country or the muzzle of gun as it faces from the forces who are hell-bent on destroying the special status of the state, the NC vice-president said. He said any one holding a public post whether a governor or a chief minister in the state has to take oath on the state constitution, but "anti-state forces" were not able to digest this realism. "This has become a scorn in the eyes of those forces who have revived their vows to destroy the special constitutional position of our state in their manifesto. However, they fail to understand that the erstwhile Dogra ruler Hari Singh didn't merge with the Union, he had only acceded with the dominion of India on three subjects, Abdullah said. He said these forces are hell-bent on destroying the constitutional provisions of Article 370 and Article 35-A that confer special status to the state. The fact remains that Maharaja would not have signed Instrument of Accession had New Delhi not taken an undertaking to protect the individual character of the state. Those who are questioning the vitality of Article 370 and Article 35-A, are unwaveringly questioning the rudiments of accession of the state with the Union of India. Any assault on the special status of our sate will without doubt cast a shadow on the fundamentals of accession," he claimed. Underscoring the need of sending a credible and strong voice to the Lok Sabha, the NC leader said the ensuing elections provide the people an opportunity to send a person to the Parliament who could debate on the issues pertaining to the state. "The one who could fight for our unique identity and special status within the Union. Keeping in view the challenges our state is facing we chose to field retired Justice Hassnain Masoodi from the Anantnag Parliamentary seat. He has the necessary political acumen, to fight for our state. A legal luminary, Masoodi is the most suitable person to represent us in the Parliament, he said. Abdullah said the others who were in the fray in Anantnag parliamentary constituency lack on all fronts to take on the challenges the state was facing. "On one side we have a Congress candidate (G A Mir), who if elected to parliament cannot take on the forces as aggressively as Masoodi can. The Congress candidate would obviously be bound by the party's dictate. Moreover, much of the state's special status was obliterated by the Congress party, and what was left was subsequently surrendered by PDP before BJP for the lust of power," he said. We have (PDP president) Mehbooba (Mufti) in the fray as well, whose political slyness and bankruptcy is known to all. How can she raise voice for state in parliament when she couldn't do that in 2008, when the sate was in flames because of Amarnath Land agitation? he asked. The former chief minister while hitting at the PDP for "unleashing unremitting torments on the people, said he had never seen the people of the state as helpless in my entire stint in as I get to see them. People are privy to the five years of plunder, destruction, exploitation nepotism and repression. PDP and Mufti's used the people who had voted for them as sacrificial goat for securing power. Muftis and PDP berated and betrayed the mandate of people in order to ascend the altar of power, he alleged. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Senior Congress leader Ajay Maken Saturday alleged the BJP has not mentioned anything for central government employees in its manifesto, clearly indicating its "apathy" towards them. According to a statement stated, Maken, who is contesting the parliamentary election from New Delhi, said government employees would teach the BJP a lesson and vote its out. Rejecting the charge, Delhi BJP spokesperson Harish Khurana said several steps have been taken by the BJP government for every section of society, including government employees, and Maken should rather tell the people what the UPA dispensation had done for them. According to the Congress statement, Maken, during his tenure as MP, had met then prime minister Manmohan Singh to demand the appointment of the 7th Pay Commission and it was acceded to. "The central government employees did not even have to protest for their demand of instituting the 7th Pay commission... "Delhi chapter ofAll India Professional Congress (AIPC) would campaign among the government employees and remind them how Congress has continuously worked hard for the welfare of government employees," the statement quoted Maken as saying. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) Saturday launched its premium quality food grade wax which can be used in food packaging, pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. Owing to huge demands of food grade wax which is currently met through imports, the NRL aims to bridge the demandsupply gap with this product and become a market leader in this segment. The company will now cater to cosmetic, pharmaceutical food packaging and FMCG industries in domestic as well as foreign markets, a company release said. The product was launched during the 4th NRL Customers' Meet here by Assamese actor Barsha Rani Bishaya, who will also be its brand ambassador, in presence of the company's Managing Director S K Barua and other top officials. The NRL, a Mini Ratna PSU, will use the brand name 'Pristene' for this food grade wax. NRL started its wax production in 2015 and it is the largest producer of paraffin wax in the country producing around 50,000 tonnes of fully refined paraffin wax. NRL also exports wax to 35 countries in North America, South America, Europe, Africa and Asia. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) One person was killed and three others injured after a man opened fire at a synagogue in Poway, California, the mayor said Saturday. "We had four folks with gunshot wounds. We do have one fatality. The rabbi was shot in the hand. My understanding is none of the other injuries are life threatening," Mayor Steve Vaus told cable network MSNBC. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Patralekhaa is playing a surrogate mother in a web series titled "Badnaam Gali", and the actor says it is a challenging yet interesting role. The 29-year-old actor is currently in Delhi shooting for the series. "It's an interesting character. It is quite a fascinating journey to live on screen. It is something very different and new that I am experiencing. I loved the concept immediately when it came to me so without any second thoughts it was a yes," Patralekhaa said in a statement. She is also working on a Kannada movie titled "Where is my Kannadaka", directed by Raj and Damini Shetty. She will be seen sharing the screen space with Kannada superstar Ganesh for the first time. The actor has already started learning Kannada for the film. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A voluntary organisation has filed a plea in the asking it to restrain the media from publishing the allegations of against of by a former employee. The petition, which is likely to come up for hearing on April 29, sought immediate restriction on the media from further telecasting or publishing the allegations till conclusion of the three-judge panel's enquiry. The plea, filed by NGO Anti Corruption Council of India, said publication of allegations against the CJI directly hits the Indian judicial system. Besides electronic and print media, the plea sought directions for social media platforms. The petition has arrayed as parties the Ministries of and and and Broadcasting, the Delhi government, the Press Council of and the Commissioner. Directions have been sought for WhatsApp, Google, YouTube and LinkedIn Corporation and news website Scroll.in. The allegations levelled by the former staff are being enquired into by a three-judge panel of the apex court which held its first proceeding on Friday. The plea alleged it suspects involvement of "anti- elements" in this act and if publication of these allegations is not restricted, "people will lose faith in the Indian judicial system", and the "vast damage" caused to the nation and its people would be "irreparable". Why should a party that performs well in the Hindi-speaking parts of India inevitably end up leading the nation? author Saba Naqvi questions in her new book in which she examines the possibility of a coalition government after the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. In " of Jugaad: The Coalition Handbook", the political analyst runs through the history of political alliances in the country taking into account their performance on economic and social policies, among others, while juxtaposing them with that of single-party rule. Some of India's most significant political leaders have repeatedly got elected from Uttar Pradesh (UP)Jawaharlal Nehru (Phulpur), Lal Bahadur Shastri (also from seats around Allahabad), Indira Gandhi (Rae Bareli, though she contested once from Chikmagalur in Karnataka), Rajiv Gandhi (Amethi), Vishwanath Pratap Singh (Allahabad), Chandra Shekhar (Ballia), Sonia Gandhi (Rae Bareli), Atal Bihari Vajpayee (Lucknow) and Prime Minister Narendra Modi (Varanasi). With the exception of Sonia Gandhi, all the others have been the prime ministers. HD Deve Gowda from Karnataka, Narasimha Rao from Andhra Pradesh and Morarji Desai from Maharashtra also became prime ministers. Manmohan Singh was a Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament (MP) and Inder Kumar Gujral had once contested a Lok Sabha poll from Jalandhar in Punjab. "Yet, it is a valid question for us to ask: In principle, why can we not have a prime minister from Vadodara in Gujarat, the other seat Modi stood from in 2014 and subsequently gave up? Why is it outside the realm of probability that a PM could come from Tamil Nadu or Kerala or the Northeast? Do we believe that a leader who represents the Hindi-speaking regions is more representative of India than those from other regions?," Naqvi says. "It is, however, states in southern and western India that have far better economic growth. One must wonder if, at some point, other parts of India will resent the sheer political clout of the complex but backward state of UP," she writes in the Rupa Publications book. Naqvi also cites the example of resentment brewing within some nations in Europe, such as Spain, where the more prosperous parts are beginning to resent taking responsibility of the rest of the country. However, Naqvi, who has penned three other political books prior to this, is certain the UP, which sent the maximum BJP MPs to Parliament in 2014, would remain crucial and have a major impact in the 2019 elections. The recently-released book also makes a study of the Congress' "tryst with dynasty" with Priyanka Gandhi Vadra taking a plunge into active for the party helmed by her brother Rahul Gandhi. Naqvi says that in the 2014 general elections, the BJP won a simple majority with a vote share of 31 per cent, while the Congress had a dismal showing with just 19 per cent of the votes and its lowest tally of 44 seats in Parliament. "But combine the vote shares of the two pre-eminent national parties, and it was 50 per cent. That shows that even in a national election, where people voted for a government at the centre and not in the states, other parties got the remaining 50 per cent, or half the votes." "There is, therefore, a great legitimacy to our search for a coalition that is truly representative and stable. But there are pitfalls to this exercise due to the competing interests and egos of those who lead political parties," she adds. The book has been written at the cusp of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, which are underway. Three of the seven phases of the elections have been completed. The results of the voting will be out on May 23. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) More than 1,000 people gathered in Bangladesh's capital on Saturday to remember an 8-year-old Bangladeshi boy who was killed in one of the Easter bombings in Sri Lanka. They raised their hands seeking blessings for Zayan Chowdhury while many of his relatives cried at a prayer session in Dhaka. Zayan was with his father having breakfast at a hotel restaurant when it came under attack. His father was critically injured in the explosion and is being treated abroad. His mother and younger brother were safe as they were in the hotel room during the attack. The boy, who was vacationing with his family, was the grandson of a top ruling Awami League party leader and former Cabinet minister who is a cousin of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Zayan was buried Wednesday in Dhaka after his body was flown back home. Zayan's grandfather Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim was joined Saturday by Hasina's advisers and several Cabinet members as an imam led the prayer at a playground in Dhaka's Banani area. Selim shared fond memories with Zayan, his voice choking several times. He condemned extremism and said his grandson was a victim of the mindless campaign of violence that rocked Sri Lanka. "Please pray for my Zayan," he said. As the imam recited holy verses from the Quran, the gatherers said "amen" loudly, seeking blessings. "Allah, Zayan is the victim of cruelty, he has died as a martyr. Please save Bangladesh and the rest of the world from the extremists who campaign for violence," the imam announced through loudspeakers. "Please help our honorable Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina so that she can crush the extremists," he said. More than 250 people died in six separate attacks by suicide bombers on Easter Sunday. Bangladesh has been hit by militants in recent years. Following the Sri Lanka attacks, Hasina urged Bangladeshis to stay alert. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A swing in Marathi and Muslim votes could prove decisive in the Mumbai North Central Lok Sabha constituency, where sitting MP Poonam Mahajan of BJP is squaring off against Congress's Priya Dutt, who had lost in the 2014 election. While Mahajan, the daughter of BJP leader late Pramod Mahajan, is banking on the work carried out by her in the past five years, Dutt, the daughter of the late Sunil Dutt, says her fight is for "saving" democracy. As per voter demographics, the constituency is dominated by Marathi-speaking residents, followed by Muslims, north Indians, Gujaratis and Marwaris, Christians and south Indians. In the 2014 general election, Mahajan had defeated Dutt, the then sitting MP, by a margin of 1.86 lakh votes. Mahajan had polled 4,78,535 votes while Dutt was restricted to 2,91,764 votes. "It remains to be seen if votes of Dalits, Muslims and the middle class, which got divided during the Modi wave in 2014, will be transferred back to the Congress," a Congress leader said. The constituency with around 18 lakh voters comprises assembly segments of Vile Parle, Chandivali, Kurla, Kalina, Bandra East and Bandra West. According to political observers, a common complaint against Dutt is that she withdrew from the constituency after her 2014 defeat, as a result of which she is missing the connect with voters and Congress workers. But observers also feel that Dutt can upset Mahajan if she gets the voter arithmetic right in the constituency, which used to be a Congress stronghold. "The Congress is weak in Vile Parle and Bandra (East) segments. In 2014, Mahajan had got a massive lead of over 70,000 votes in the Vile Parle segment. In Bandra (East), Congress lacks a strong local level leader," an observer said. Of the total six assembly segments in this constituency, the BJP has five MLAs while the Congress only one in former minister Naseem Khan, who represents Chandivali constituency. The number of BJP corporators from the area in the civic body stands at 25. Rehabilitation of slum-dwellers and redevelopment of dilapidated buildings are major issues being discussed during the campaigning. If a Mumbai Congress leader is to be believed, Dutt seems a reluctant contestant who has not yet opened a central election office for campaigning even though the voting day, April 29, is drawing close. He was referring to the announcement made by Dutt in January that she would not contest election due to her growing responsibilities towards her family members. She later made a U-turn and decided to enter the poll fray. Mahajan told PTI that the BJP has made deep inroads into the constituency, which was once considered a Congress citadel. Referring to the Mumbai civic body polls held in 2017, Mahajan claimed the BJP's vote share from 2014 has increased, leaving the Congress far behind. Mahajan said she had spent her MPLAD fund on resolving housing issues of local residents and for construction of toilets. "A total of 1,428 toilets have been constructed in areas like Bandra, Kurla and Chandivali," the MP said, adding that she had worked for redevelopment of 20,000 MHADA (Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority) colonies having houses measuring 580 square feet. "Similarly, 80,000 families will be rehabilitated from the Mumbai airport land," she said. Mahajan said slum-dwellers occupying the airport land in Kurla and Kalina areas will be relocated elsewhere while those living in Vakola and Vile Parle will be rehabilitated on 65 acres of redeveloped land. Mahajan also said redevelopment of dilapidated buildings located on suburban district collector's land can be done. Dutt, who had won the 2005 Lok Sabha bypoll from Mumbai North West after her father's death and 2009 elections from Mumbai North Central, said her fight is for those who believe in secularism and democracy. "Everyone who is secular and believes in democracy has a responsibility to step forward and play an active role in saving it. I stand for the future of all children, including mine," she said. Asked to respond to the allegation that she snapped contact with voters and party workers after her 2014 defeat, Dutt said that's not true. "I have been working for people through Nargis Dutt Foundation," she said. Asked about her poll strategy, Dutt said she fights an election as a challenge and goes with the flow. "I will soon share my manifesto with the people," Dutt said, adding that she communicates her stand to the people and leaves the electoral outcome to their discretion. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A mob ransacked a government building, damaged several official vehicles and set ablaze an effigy of Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik in Kishtwar district Saturday after hundreds of people took to streets to protest against the recent killings of four people, officials said. Sanatan Dharam Sabha (SDS), a local religious group, had called for a peaceful march from its headquarters at Char Chinar to the deputy commissioner's office in the communally sensitive town to lodge their protest against the killings and alleged failure of police to nab the culprits. RSS leader Chandarkant Sharma and his security guard were killed by a militant inside the district hospital on April 9, while state secretary of BJP Anil Parihar and his brother Ajeet Parihar were killed in the town on November 1 last year. Raising slogans against the killings, hundreds of people, including women, marched in a procession in the town under police protection, the officials said. On reaching the DC office complex, however, some of the protesters turned violent and set ablaze the effigy of the governor and damaged several official vehicles, they said. They said the mob also broke open the main gate of the multi-storied building and ransacked several rooms, damaging some records. The protesters also tried to force their way into the office of Deputy Commissioner Angrez Singh Rana but were chased out of the building by policemen without using any force, the officials said. Later, they said the protesters dispersed on their own before the arrival of the reinforcements. Rana said police were directed to exercise restraint to avoid any civilian casualty. "We have taken a serious note of the hooliganism and appropriate action is being taken against the persons involved in it," he told PTI. The deputy commissioner said an FIR was being registered in connection with the incident. "Police are making all efforts to nab the killers," he said, appealing to people to cooperate with the administration to maintain law and order in the district. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Russian President Vladimir Putin said Saturday Moscow was "thinking" of making it easier for all Ukrainians to obtain Russian citizenship after the Kremlin moved to grant passports in the country's separatist east, causing uproar in Kiev. "We are actually thinking about providing citizenship in a simplified order to all citizens of Ukraine, not only residents of the Lugansk and Donetsk republics," Putin told the press during his visit to Beijing, referring to the unrecognised separatist republics governed by Moscow-backed rebels. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday slammed the jailing of agent Maria Butina in the United States as "arbitrary", adding that he did not understand why she had been incarcerated. "There is nothing we could accuse her of, but to make this case not look completely ridiculous, she was sentenced to 18 months in prison," he told journalists on the sidelines of a summit in Beijing. Butina pleaded guilty in a Washington court on Friday to one count of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government without registering. "It is in fact arbitrary," Putin said. "We don't understand why she was sentenced." It made her the only Russian arrested and convicted in the three-year investigation of Moscow's interference in US The leader of a small Russian gun rights group, the 30-year-old used her ties to the National Rifle Association to build a network of powerful Republican contacts. US prosecutors said she was sending back reports to a high-level Russian government official. Moscow lashed out after the sentencing, calling the US accusations "totally invested" and the conviction a "shameful stain" on the US judicial system. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) AAP's South Delhi Lok Sabha candidate Raghav Chadha Saturday approached the Delhi High Court challenging the decision of returning officer to accept BJP candidate Ramesh Bidhuri's nomination papers. Chadha claimed in his plea that the returning officer (RO) overlooked "glaring discrepancies in Bidhuri's nomination" and it was accepted without application of mind on the ground that they do not have any power to reject a nomination once an affidavit is filed, regardless of any concealment therein. Bidhuri is also contesting from the South Delhi constituency. "The respondent no 2 (Bidhuri) had willfully and intentionally concealed the factum of registration of an FIR against him in Police Station... Muzaffarpur, Bihar, under sections 504, 506, 153 and 153(a) of the IPC," Chadha said in the petition filed through advocate R Arunadhri Iyer. The plea sought direction to call for the records and quash the returning officer's April 24 order. It also sought direction to the RO to scrutinise the nomination of Bidhuri in accordance with various directions of the Supreme Court. The RO's decision is "arbitrary, illegal, unsustainable and ought to be quashed", the AAP candidate said. "The impugned order failed to appreciate that every citizen in India has an unimpeachable and indefeasible fundamental right to information about the candidate they are called upon to vote for, which ought to not be rendered nugatory by an abdication of duty at the time of scrutiny," the plea added. Backing Chadha's claims, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said the charges against Bidhuri are very serious. "He is sure to be disqualified. South Delhi voters should not waste their vote on him," Kejriwal said. Reacting to the development, Bidhuri accused the ruling party in Delhi of "engineering a conspiracy against him". "All the facts and papers submitted in my nomination are true. AAP leaders are conspiring against me because they are losing the Lok Sabha elections," the BJP leader said. "I have earlier fought and won assembly and Lok Sabha elections and nothing wrong was ever found in my nominations. The AAP is running a propaganda against me to distract me from campaigning, but people will give them a befitting reply," he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Amidst a raging controversy over the contest for Ahmednagar Lok Sabha seat in Maharashtra, senior Congress leader Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil Saturday disclosed that party chief Rahul Gandhi had suggested that his son Sujay could fight on NCP ticket. He also said that accepting Gandhi's suggestion would have been like committing a "political suicide" for him. After the Sharad Pawar-led NCP refused to leave the seat for Sujay Vikhe Patil, the latter joined the BJP and contested as the saffron nominee. The development prompted the Vikhe Patil senior to quit his position as the Leader of Opposition in the state Legislative Assembly. Vikhe Patil also said that he had requested Pawar for exchanging the Ahmednagar seat with either Shirdi or any other constituency, but the NCP chief remained adamant. Ahmednagar voted during the third phase on April 23. "I worked hard as Leader of Opposition in Legislative Assembly and did every bit to expose the BJP-led government. But when I sought ticket for Sujay for Ahmednagar, Rahul Gandhi suggested that let Sujay contest as NCP candidate. I was shocked. (Accepting the suggestion would have been) somewhat like a political suicide for me," he told reporters at his hometown Loni in Ahmadnagar district. The Ahmednagar contest turned out to be a battle of prestige between the Vikhe Patils and Pawar who have a long-standing political feud in the region. "I met NCP supremo Sharad Pawar quite a few times and requested him to exchange Ahmednagar seat with either Shirdi or any other constituency. But Pawar remained adamant on his stand," he alleged. Vikhe Patil said he had resigned as the leader of opposition on March 15. "The party finally accepted my resignation (on April 25) which is alright. Because, I myself had put papers in," he said. Responding to a query on his future political course, a day after he campaigned for a Shiv Sena nominee in Shirdi constituency which is going to polls on April 29, Vikhe Patil said he would take a call after speaking with his supporters. Vikhe Patil also accused Pawar of using his brother Dr Ashok Vikhe Patil against him in the poll campaign and making indecent comments about his father late Balasaheb Vikhe Patil. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The second season of Netflix's hit German series "Dark" is set to premiere on June 21. The show, created by Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese, follows four families in the fictional German town Winden, as they investigate the disappearance of several children and a mystery that tied back to the same town in 1986, as well as a local nuclear power plant. The official Twitter handle of the streaming giant, See What's Next, shared the news, while also posting the first look from the show's sophomore run. "Season 2 of the mind-bending and totally addictive 'Dark' premieres June 21," read the tweet. The first season of the show, consisting ten episodes, debuted on Netflix in December 2017 and was instantly praised by the critics. However, some people found plot similarities between "Dark" and the streaming service's another popular show, "Stranger Things". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Madras High Court on Saturday admitted a plea by 10 women lawyers seeking a direction to the Tamil Nadu government to set up a fact-finding team to probe the Pollachi sexual harassment case. The first bench, headed by Chief Justice V K Tahilramani, issued notice to the government and Director General of Police, asking them to respond by June 7, and also directed the registry to tag the same with a similar case pending before it. The incident pertains to a a gang allegedly trying to strip a 19-year-old woman inside a car near Pollachi, a town near Coimbatore, recording the act and blackmailing her using the visuals. The victim, who managed to free herself, had lodged a complaint with the police. As reports emerged that the gang had sexually harassed many more young women and blackmailed them, the state government ordered a CB-CID probe and later transferred it to CBI. The women lawyers also sought a direction to the state government to constitute a complaint committee, led by a senior woman advocate and comprising office bearers of the women lawyer association and other interested women lawyers. They suggested that the committee could be directed to make arrangements to assist women in filing complaints in sexual crimes and to extend counselling and aid to women victims. The petitioners also sought an order to the Inspector General of Police to register a criminal case against police officials concerned and mediapersons under Sections 228 (a) and 509 of the Indian Penal Code for unlawfully naming the survivor. They requested the court to transfer the probe to a Special Investigation Team, led by a gender-sensitive officer, not below the rank of DIG, for effective investigation of the case under the supervision of the high court The women lawyers also sought a direction to the Chairperson of the State Commission for Women to constitute a permanent complaint committee in every district headquarters, presided by a retired district judge and comprising experienced and sensitive women lawyers, psychiatrist and social activists, to give counselling and assistance to victims as per the Vishaka guidelines. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Shiv Sena has appointed former Congress spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi, who recently joined the Uddhav Thackeray-led party, as its "Upneta" or deputy leader. Speaking to a Marathi channel, Chaturvedi said it was time to "change the Sena's history of Hindi-speaking leaders not staying in the party for long". "I had changed history in the Congress 10 years back when I went on to become the national spokesperson of that party from a district general secretary of Youth Congress. This was unheard of in the party before," she claimed. Chaturvedi had joined the Sena on April 19 over the Congress reinstating some workers who had allegedly misbehaved with her. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Just as the majestic Sone river flows unchallenged in the Vidhya region, Congress' stalwart late Arjun Singh's writ ran in this once Congress stronghold. But it has been a 10-year political drought for the party and Singh's son Ajay is now battling it out against the BJP from Sidhi Lok Sabha seat to redeem the lost prestige. 63-year-old Ajay Singh, affectionately called 'Rahul bhaiya' by his supporters, has been fielded by the Congress against the BJP's sitting Member of Parliament (MP) Riti Pathak. Singh, who has been a six-time MLA, a minister in the Digvijaya Singh government and twice the leader of opposition in Madhya Pradesh Assembly, suffered shock defeats- in the 2014 general elections from Satna and in last year's assembly polls from pocket borough Churhat in Sidhi District. "I am contesting this time for prestige...my respect and the respect of this region which has produced Congress stalwarts like dau saheb (Arjun Singh), Indrajeet Patel (late senior Congress leader of the state and MP) and late Srinivas Tiwari (late speaker of MP assembly). "Because of all of them, this area is known as a strong turf of the Congress party. Congress has been virtually wiped out in the last assembly polls from the Vindhya region and hence the prestige of everyone of us has gone down," Singh said while addressing an election meeting in Mundriya village of Beohari town. Sidhi has been the home turf of the Arjun Singh family with the former chief minister and his son Ajay Singh winning from the Churhat assembly seat eight times since 1977. The Vindhya region of MP comprises the districts of Sidhi, Rewa, Satna, Singrauli, Umaria and Shahdol. The Sidhi-Singrauli region is known for the rich sand-laden waters of of river Son and coal mining. Ajay Singh was defeated by BJP's Sharadendu Tiwari by a margin of just over 6, 000 votes in the last assembly polls while he lost by 8,000 votes in the last Lok Sabha polls in 2014 from Satna. The Satna seat is identified as the electoral waterloo of Arjun Singh, a former MP CM, as he lost to BSP's Sukhlal Kushwaha in 1996. He was then nominated by his party to the Rajya Sabha till he died in 2011. "I don't know what went wrong in 2018. Who did what? While I understand that the entire might of the BJP was against me as I was the most critical of their 15-year government in Madhya Pradesh, it is difficult to swallow how was the party wiped out in this region during the last assembly polls. "That is why, it is not my personal prestige but it is of the entire region, that has given some great and tall leaders for the Congress party, to ensure victory," he told PTI. A gold medallist in MA (Economics), Ajay invokes the legacy of his father as he holds 9-10 election meetings everyday in the constituency and talks about the 'maan, samman' of the grand old party at stake in these polls. "If you think that my father Dau saheb (Arjun Singh) served you and the area well in the past, then I seek your cooperation and blessings to serve you as your MP, " he says at an election meeting. The former leader of opposition in the state assembly asks people to not get swayed away by the "theatrics" of Prime Minister Narendra Modi like "his promise Rs 15 lakh in every person's bank account". The Congress leader raised the issue of demonetisation, alleging that people were robbed of their hard earned savings. He accuses Pathak of not giving proper attention to the area saying she was hardly seen among the people in the last five years. Pathak, an LLB by education, dismisses these claims and is seeking votes on the development plank of Modi. A former district panchayat chief, Pathak had defeated her Congress rival Indrajeet Patel, who died last year, by over 1.60 lakh votes in 2014. "But who is contesting the Sidhi seat? Riti Pathak or Narendra Modi? Make your decision wisely," Singh tells the voters in chaste 'Bagheli' language adding that the Congress government in the state and an MP from the same region will provide a double-engine growth to the area. Brajmohan Tiwari, a retired teacher, says while he would want Modi at the centre, Singh could gain "sympathy vote" of the locals this time. "I have lived all my life in this region and neither I or my friends could believe that Ajay Singh lost from his home turf of Churhat. I think someone played mischief. I think he will get sympathy votes and will got to Delhi with redemption," the 62-year-old said. Adarsh Patel, a cooperative bank employee, says people do talk about Singh's "surprise defeat" and the contest is now "between Modi and the Congress candidate". Over 18 lakh people in Sidhi are eligible to vote on April 29 in the first phase of the four-tier polls in Madhya Pradesh. In the last assembly polls, the BJP had won seven out of the eight seats in Sidhi. (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 Saturday accused the Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and the Congress of working on the "agenda to save terrorists". "On one hand, we (BJP) are working on development schemes, while the SP, BSP, Congress and others are working on the agenda of saving terrorists," Adityanath said at rallies in Shahjahanpur and Bahraich districts. "When Modi ji speaks on terrorism, it is the Pakistani prime minister who sweats," the Bharatiya Janata Party leader claimed. Adityanath alleged that "misgovernance" during the previous UPA rule led to increase in naxalism and terrorism, adding that they are at their "lowest" under the BJP government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The chief minister asked the crowd if they would vote for those who "hampered" the growth of the state and "forced" the youth to migrate. "Firstly, our government waived off loans of farmers. The other thing that we did was to close down illegal slaughter houses. And the third big work we have done is constituting anti-Romeo squads for the safety of our daughters and sisters," Adityanath said. "We have said that there will be only two places for criminals in the state -- one in jails and the other 'Ram naam satya yatra' (funeral procession), he added. Adityanath said efforts had been made to implement welfare schemes for women, farmers and the youth. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Sri Lankan security forces raided a safe house of affiliated militants in the east of the country and killed at least two men in an exchange of fire, the military said Saturday. Gunmen opened fire on troops when they attempted to storm the house in the town of Kalmunai, spokesman Sumith Atapattu said. "In our retaliatory fire, two gunmen were killed," he said adding that a civilian caught in the crossfire was also killed. A Telugu Desam Party leader bound for Hyderabad by a private airlines flight was detained at the Renigunta airport, near here, Saturday for carrying 20 bullets, an airport official said. The party leader from Kadapa district of Andhra Pradesh was handed over to police by the airport authorities as the bullets were detected during scanning, the official said. After preliminary inquiry, the passenger was found to have a valid gun licence, police said. However, further interrogation of the party man was on as he did not initially disclose the fact that he was carrying the ammunition, they added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A teenage girl was allegedly sexually assaulted and murdered in Bhongir district of Telangana, police said Saturday. The girl (14), who had completed ninth standard, did not return from special class on Thursday and her father lodged a police complaint. During a search on Friday, her body was found in a dry well. A postmortem report said she was murdered after being sexually assaulted. Alleging that the police did not act swiftly in the incident, the villagers held a dharna, the police said. The agitation was called off only after police commissioner Mahesh Bhagwat assured them of catching the culprits soon. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Targeted by the BJP for alleged Muslim appeasement, the Trinamool Congress is on a temple building spree in Asansol and its surrounding areas in what is seen as its soft Hindutva push to counter the saffron party in this communally sensitive belt in south Bengal in Lok Sabha polls. In the sleepy town of Pandaveswar, which was hit by communal riots last year, a Ram temple is being jointly built and maintained by Hindus and Muslims with assistance of local TMC leaders to help "heal the scars" of the communal violence. Not just Ram temple, seven other Sun temples are being jointly built by people of different communities including Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs in various parts of Asansol. The temple has been built by joint efforts of Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs living in the area. This temple reflects the brotherhood in our locality. "We have been living peacefully for the last several decades except for last year when there was a lot of tension following religious processions, said Abhijit Saha, a resident of the area and community leader. Senior Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader and Mayor of Asansol Municipal Corporation Jitendra Kumar Tiwari is at the forefront of construction of the temples in his area and has aided in building the Ram temple, which was inaugurated by him on April 23. Muslims contributed 10,000 bricks, whereas Sikhs and Hindus helped in collecting funds for building the temple. "Our local MLA Jitendra Tiwari has also been active in helping us collecting funds," Saha said. In addition to increasing outreach among the majority community members, the TMC's efforts also appear to be guided by its endeavour to endear itself to the migrant Hindi speaking population from Bihar and Jharkhand in the region which has four Lok Sabha constituencies. Asansol-Durgapur belt has been one of the most politically and communally volatile regions in the state since 2014 Lok Sabha polls, which witnessed a surprise victory of BJP's Babul Supriyo. In March-April last year, Asansol in West Burdwan district witnessed communal riots over Ram Navami celebrations. This Ram temple is a message for the BJP and RSS, which are trying to divide our society in the name of religion. Hindus and Muslims have been living in harmony for decades the BJP has been trying to create a wedge between the two for last few years to serve its own political purpose, Tiwari told PTI. He, however, dismissed suggestions by rival parties that it was part of the party's soft Hindutva agenda to assuage the perceived anger among the Hindus over the last year's riots. Hindus account for nearly 70 per cent of the population whereas Muslims are 28 per cent. But local party leaders, on condition of anonymity, concede the temple building spree is an attempt to reach out to the Hindus. It is true that a section of Hindus are not very happy with the role of the administration. So we thought of reaching out to them. The BJP has been trying to make an issue out of it to create polarisation in the area, a TMC leader who did not wish to be named said. The TMC's temple building exercise is being seen as its bid to check the growth of the BJP, which has made steady inroads in South Bengal region since Supriyo's victory and has consistently accused the Mamata Banerjee Government of trying to appease the Muslims for vote bank politics at the cost of rights of Hindus. Union minister and BJP candidate from the Asansol Lok Sabha seat Babul Supriyo said the TMC is trying to compensate for the "sins" it committed during the 2018 riots. During the riots, TMC was mute spectators and now they are trying to become the messiah of Hindus by building temples. If they are so keen on making temples why don't they clear their stand on Ram Mandir issue at Ayodhya, he said. Maulana ImdadullahRashidi, the imam of Noorani mosque in Asansol who lost his 16-year-old son during the riots, appealed for peace and said temples and mosques should not be mixed with politics. Religion has a separate place in society and politics has a separate place. Both should not be mixed and it can cause a lot of problems. I appeal to everybody to maintain peace in the area, said Rasheedi, who had declared last year that he would move out if anyone retaliated against his son's death. The Asansol-Durgapur belt and parts of Birbhum and Purulia, which share its border with Jharkhand, is known as the Hindi heartland of Bengal as majority of the population in the area are migrant labourers from Bihar and Jharkhand who work in factories there. The opposition Congress and CPI(M) have alleged that the TMC is "peddling soft Hindutva" to nullify Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) "pro-Hindu" agenda. Polling in Asansol is scheduled on April 29 in the fourth phase. The election to 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal is being held in seven phases. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) and US stock market regulators told a US court on Friday that they have reached a deal to settle their differences over the Tesla chief executive's use. The settlement between Musk and the Securities and Exchange Commission sets out clearer guidelines on topics Musk should avoid on or other social media, including statements about acquisitions, mergers, new products and production numbers. Musk would have to adhere to Tesla rules regarding potentially significant comments by executives, and have tweets or other posts pre-approved by "an experienced securities lawyer employed by the company," according to the proposed settlement. "The parties have reached an agreement to resolve the commission's pending contempt motion," a joint court filing said. A Friday deadline set by US District Judge Alison Nathan was extended until April 30 after Musk and the SEC asked for time to have a final version of the settlement ready to submit for court approval. The SEC said in the filing that the proposed settlement "is fair, reasonable, and in the interest of the parties and investors because the proposed revisions will provide additional clarity regarding the written communications for which the defendant is required to obtain pre-approval." SEC officials had originally argued Musk should be held in contempt of court for allegedly violating an earlier settlement on tweeting potentially market-sensitive information without having it reviewed by counsel. At a hearing earlier this month, Nathan ordered both sides to try to work out their differences, suggesting she could rule on the case if the talks failed. The judge appeared sympathetic at times with some of the government's arguments, but she also expressed significant reservations about finding Musk in contempt, which she said was "serious business" and a ruling that placed a "significant burden" of proof on the government. If approved, the settlement would mark a truce in Musk's dispute with the SEC after an October agreement required him to step down as chairman and pay USD 20 million to settle charges he defrauded investors with false claims on in August about a possible bid to take the company private, which was quickly aborted. The settlement, which allowed Musk to remain as CEO, required him to obtain pre-approval from Tesla counsel before making written communications "that contain, or reasonably could contain, information material to Tesla or its stockholders." The SEC cracked down after Musk tweeted on February 19 that Tesla would make 500,000 cars in 2019 -- up from the 400,000 that the company had estimated until then, an apparent increase on a benchmark tied to profitability. Musk corrected himself four hours later, saying that Tesla would indeed produce about 400,000 cars this year. SEC attorney Cheryl Crumpton argued that the February 19 tweet and the fact that Musk had not submitted any tweets for pre-publishing review showed he had made no serious effort to follow the requirement. John Hueston, an attorney representing Musk, had countered that Musk's February 19 tweet was not consequential to investors, and that the language in the settlement was ambiguous on what types of information needed to be reviewed prior to publication. He also argued that the SEC had been hasty in seeking a contempt ruling without first trying to confer with Musk. Tesla shares that finished the official trading day down five per cent regained a little ground to $237.30 in after-market trading. Critically-acclaimed actor Richa Chadda says there is always a room for good artistes. The actor, who started her Bollywood career in 2008 with "Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!", impressed both the audiences as well as the critics with her performance in "Gangs of Wasseypur" series. She says one can never be out of work in the film industry if they have talent. "There is always enough room for good actors. I have never been short of work. There has been not a single year where I have not had a release. I have always been working every year right from my debut film. "Good work has a snowball effect, it keeps leading to more good work," Richa told PTI. The actor appreciates the fact that audience these days out-rightly rejects a bad film, even if it is star-driven, but the actor believes star system is not going to fade away anytime soon. "Here it could become like Hollywood, like everybody is good and have competence but only few will manage to stay up there like Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep, etc. Also, people who are famous on the digital space or are youtubers will have their own audience and all these people will be stars." Richa was speaking on the sidelines of the launch of India's first MX4D EFX theatre here on Friday. The actor is currently awaiting the release of her film "Shakeela". She will also be seen in "Section 375" and "Panga". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A 'tippler' sent police of at least four southern states, including Karnataka, into tizzy by making a hoax call threatening bomb blast, officials said. The man, Sundar Murthy in his 60s, was arrested Saturday for allegedly raising the false alarm, police said. He called the police control room in Bengaluru on Friday night and said 19 terrorists were holed up in a town in Tamil Nadu and were set to bomb cities, trains and buses in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Following the call, police swung into action. The city police managed to trace the person, who made the call, to Avalahalli near here. Interrogation revealed that he made the call allegedly in an inebriated state. "During interrogation, he told us that he gets possessed by some divine souls who make prophecies in his vision and his call was based on one such vision," said Additional Commissioner of Police Alok Kumar. The fact is he is a drunkard, said the police official. Murthy told police that he was an ex-serviceman, who is now driving a tipper-lorry. His two sons are serving in the army while he was staying with his third son at Avalahalli. A threat call to bomb the Pamban sea bridge in Tamil Nadu's Rameswaram was also received on Friday, prompting police to carry out extensive searches. Recently, Bengaluru Police commissioner T Suneel Kumarhad convened a meeting with heads of various temples and religious places and managers of commercial establishments to take extra precautions and alert police on finding something suspicious. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Two police personnel were killed and a villager was injured Saturday evening when Naxals opened fire on them in Chhattisgarh's Bijapur district, police said. The incident took place when the two policemen and the villager were going to Tippapuram village, under Pamed police station area, on a motorbike. A 'small action team' (typically comprising four-five rebels) of Naxals opened fire on them, leaving constable Arvind Minj and assistant constable Sukku Habka dead on the spot and the villager injured, said Deputy Inspector General (anti-Naxal operations) Sundarraj P. Locals took the injured villager to Cherla in neighbouring Telangana for treatment, he said, adding that security forces have been rushed to the spot. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A UK government backed fund set up to combat modern day slavery across the world has announced a grant of up to 800,000 pounds each for a new set of projects, including one in India. The Modern Slavery Innovation Fund (MSIF) supports international projects to find innovative ways of stopping modern slavery. The MSIF on Friday announced up to GBP 800,000 each for projects across the world, including to the Freedom Fund working in India, a senior official said. "Together with our frontline partners, we are providing essential support to victims of child labour, early marriage, forced labour, debt bondage and sex trafficking in high-prevalence areas of India and elsewhere," said Nick Grono, CEO of the Freedom Fund. He said that this grant will enable us to develop and roll out a highly innovative, victim-centred joint service delivery model that combines the most effective anti-slavery approaches with international social care best practice. "It will allow groups of grassroots organisations, as well as government agencies, to coordinate more effectively and provide greatly improved personalised care to victims and their families," he added. The latest funding marks the second phase of the MSIF and will run until 2021. The first phase of the fund totalled 6 million pounds and supported 10 projects between March 2017 and 2019. "Modern slavery is one of the most heinous crimes imaginable. It impacts on some of the most vulnerable people in the world, but also funds organised crime at home in the UK," said UK international development minister Penny Mordaunt. "The UK aid will support the Modern Slavery Innovation Fund to trial new ways to stop this crime. By working across government and with businesses to end trafficking, we will create a safer and more prosperous world for us all," she said. "Human trafficking, forced labour and exploitation are sadly not evils of the past, but are with us today. The government is leading the way through its work to end the horrors of modern slavery across the globe," UK minister for crime, safeguarding and vulnerability Victoria Atkins added. India is among the countries, including Ethiopia, Mauritius, South Africa, Nepal and Malaysia, which are covered by the latest UK initiative to combat modern slavery around the world. Through the 33.5 million pound Modern Slavery Fund, managed by the UK Home Office, the government is focusing on high risk countries from where victims are regularly trafficked to the UK, they said. This global funding complements work being done within the UK and will help to catch offenders, support victims and stop people falling into slavery, they added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The UK's National Audit Office (NAO) has launched an investigation into the government's handling of a visa row involving thousands of overseas students, many of them from India. The NAO confirmed the investigation on Friday, days after a migrant group lobbying the UK Home Office in favour of the students, wrongly accused of cheating in a compulsory visa-related English language exam, had renewed its call for justice. The NAO, which functions as the UK government's spending watchdog, has linked the crisis involving an estimated 36,000 student visa cancellations with the Windrush scandal, in which thousands of Commonwealth migrants were wrongly denied their British citizenship rights. In 2014, a BBC Panorama documentary drew attention to the fraud in the UK student visa system, including widespread cheating in English Language tests. The Home Office revoked student visas where there was evidence of cheating, but its decisions have come under renewed public and parliamentary scrutiny in the wake of the Windrush scandal, the NAO said in a statement. The NAO is looking at the information held by the Home Office on the number of people alleged to have cheated and the action the Home Office has taken to date, it said. Migrant Voice, which has been lobbying parliamentarians over the issue, believes while many students were wrongly deported on false cheating charges following the BBC television investigation nearly five years ago, thousands remain in the country in an attempt to clear their name. The core demand is for the UK Home Office/government to allow the students to re-sit the test and those who pass should be given their visa back, allowed to return to study or work and to drop the criminal allegation against them, said Migrant Voice Director Nazek Ramadan. The group had found the backing of many British MPs last year, who set up an All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) to mount pressure on UK home secretary Sajid Javid to rethink the government's handling of the issue, which dates back to when British Prime Minister Theresa May was the home secretary. "The Home Office's handling of this issue has been spectacularly unfair and opaque, and it's high time the truth was brought to light, Migrant Voice said in a statement welcoming the NAO's probe. The issue dates back to when the BBC aired an investigation into colleges offering the government-mandated Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) exams and revealed some cases of cheating. The UK Home Office responded by launching an investigation and concluded that 33,725 of the test results were invalid and 22,694 questionable. Those with questionable results were given the chance of review but the others were made to abandon their courses and, in many cases, deported to their countries of origin. Migrant Voice released the I want my future back' report last year to highlight the plight of many who claim to be wrongly clubbed in the invalid category. The group believes UK home secretary Sajid Javid, who had sought a fresh look at the issue, has reviewed the various representations and is expected to announce his decision on the plight of the students soon. The UK Home Office has confirmed the minister is looking into the issue but has not laid out any time frame for a resolution to the dispute. In reference to the NAO investigation, a Home Office statement said, "We have been supporting the National Audit Office in its work on this investigation since the start of the year. We will consider the findings of the report once it is published." The scandal involves the requirement for some UK visa applicants to pass a test of proficiency in written and spoken English. One of the approved tests, TOEIC, was provided by US-based firm ETS at a large number of test centres across Britain. Campaigners have questioned the software used to ascertain the cases of cheating in the spoken module of the test in the wake of the BBC TV expose in 2014. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Thousands of trade unionists and activists from left-wing parties marched with "yellow vest" protesters through Paris Saturday to present a united front against French President Emmanuel Macron's latest reforms package. The Paris march, organised by the militant CGT union, came ahead of the main yellow vest march in the eastern city of Strasbourg, where protesters clashed with police trying to enforce a ban in parts of the city centre. Veterans of the protests, which have been running for six months now, led off the Paris march. But in a new development, many senior figures from the radical left marched with them, including Jean-Luc Melenchon, the leader of France Unbowed and one of Macron's most vocal critics. Welcoming this show of political unity, Melenchon told BFM TV: "It's the first time that there has been a call of this kind, that's to say union organisations, associations and political movements." That in itself made it a political event, he added. It was a government plan to increase diesel prices and raise taxes on pensions last November that sparked the protests in rural France, which quickly ballooned into a full-scale anti-government rebellion. But in the early months of the movement, its leading figures resisted attempts by parties on the far left and the far right to hijack their cause for their own ends, as they saw it. Macron rolled back some of his more controversial measures within weeks of the protests starting and on Thursday announced more measures to help people on low pensions. For his critics however, this was too little too late -- and he is still under fire for refusing to go back on his controversial decision to cut a "fortune solidarity tax" on high earners. In Paris, Green Party senator Esther Benbassa said she had attended every yellow jacket demonstration since they began in November. "It's good that today that we are with the CGT, because the people of the left have to be united," she said. In Strasbourg, police sealed off access to the major European institutions in the city in line with a ban by local officials on demonstrations in parts of the city centre. The march started peacefully but clashes broke out after police blocked the route of the protesters to the European Parliament building, AFP journalists said. Some protesters threw stones and bottles at riot police, who fired rounds of tear gas. Earlier, police pushed back a group of activists, some of them masked and dressed in black, who tried to force their way through to the Council of Europe building. Local officials said around 2,000 people took part in the Strasbourg protest. The Paris march passed off peacefully, and organisers see it as a dry run for Wednesday's May Day rally that will bring together several unions from different sectors. A separate Paris march of a few hundred 'yellow vests' protested media coverage of the movement and smaller marches also took place in several other French cities. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The United States has advised its citizens to reconsider their travel to Sri Lanka in view of the massive Easter Sunday bombings that killed over 250 people including Americans. The State Department raised the travel risk to Level 3 in a travel advisory issued Friday. The State Department has also ordered the departure of all school-age family members of US government employees in kindergarten through 12th grade. It also authorised the voluntary departure of non-emergency US government employees and family members. "Terrorist groups continue plotting possible attacks in Sri Lanka. Terrorists may attack with little or no warning, targeting tourist locations, transportation hubs, markets, shopping malls, government facilities, hotels, clubs, restaurants, places of worship, parks, major sporting and cultural events, educational institutions, airports, hospitals, and other public areas," the State Department said. The US government has limited ability to provide emergency services to US citizens in Sri Lanka due to the security environment, it said. The US has four levels of travel advisories. Level 1 means exercise normal precaution, Level 2 is exercise increased caution, Level 3 is reconsider travel and Level Four advises Americans not to travel at all. Meanwhile, FBI Director Christopher Wray said that he has sent a team of officials to Sri Lankan to assist in the investigation. "The FBI has sent personnel over to assist in the investigation, to work with our partners over there. I do think it's a reminder that the terrorist threat isn't yesterday's news, isn't yesterday's problem, isn't gone," Wray said in response to a question as the Council on Foreign Relations think-tank. "I sometimes think people in this country and in other parts of the world have started to get maybe a little blas or a little complacent about it. And it's a pretty chilling reminder that the threat is real," he said. This, Wray said, also shows that folks can radicalise in a virtual way, which is a bigger and bigger problem. "People talk about ISIS and the fall of the caliphate, absolutely true. On the other hand we, worry very much about what is in effect a virtual caliphate where terrorist organisations can organise in a way that don't require the same kind of physical infrastructure. "The other thing we see... a problem that people need to be very aware of, is you always hear this phrase about connecting the dots in the terrorist arena, but a lot of the terrorist plots of today are more compact, involving fewer people, less complicated attacks, shorter period of time, which means fewer dots to connect in the first place," the FBI Director said. "If you add on top of that the different ways in which communication is encrypted and hidden, that makes the dots even fewer. The time in which law enforcement and intelligence community folks can act has compressed. So the professionals sometimes refer to the time from flash to bang. Well, the time from flash to bang has shortened. And that's putting a whole new strain on our collective security," Wray added. Nine suicide bombers carried out a series of devastating blasts that tore through three churches and three luxury hotels on the Easter Sunday, killing 253 people. The Islamic State claimed the attacks, but the government has blamed local Islamist extremist group NTJ for the attacks. According to a statement by Sri Lanka's Foreign Ministry, the number of foreign nationals who have been identified as killed remained at 40. One person the US and two holding the US and the UK nationalities have been killed in the coordinated blasts, the statement added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The US has imposed sanctions on Pakistan after Islamabad refused to take back its citizen deportees and visa over-stayers from America, warning that it may withhold visas of Pakistanis beginning from its senior officials. The State Department on Friday said that consular operations in Pakistan remain unchanged as of now but as a result of such a sanction mentioned in a Federal Register notification dated April 22, the US may withhold visas of Pakistanis beginning with its senior officials. Pakistan is the latest to join the list of 10 nations that have been imposed with sanctions under a US law according to which countries refusing to take back deportees and visa over-stayers will be denied American visas. Notably eight of these countries have been slapped with such visa sanctions under the Trump administration. Two of them Ghana and Pakistan have been included in the list this year. The other countries include Guyana in 2001, the Gambia in 2016, Cambodia, Eritrea, Guinea, and Sierra Leone in 2017, Burma and Laos in 2018. Under Section 243 (d) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the Secretary of State is required to discontinue granting immigration or non-immigrant visas to a nation upon receiving notice from the Homeland Security Secretary that the country has denied or is unreasonably delaying accepting a citizen, subject, national or resident of that country. The State Department tried to downplay the impact of the sanctions on Pakistan. "Consular operations in Pakistan remain unchanged, a State Department Spokesperson told PTI when asked about the federal register notification. This is a bilateral issue of ongoing discussion between the US and Pakistani governments and we are not going to get into the specifics at this time, the spokesperson added. Former Pakistan's Ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani, feels that this will make things difficult for Pakistanis. This measure will create hardship for Pakistanis who want or need to travel to the US and could have been avoided if Pakistani authorities had not ignored American requests to respect their legal requirements for deportation, Haqqani told PTI, days after the federal register notification. He said that Pakistan's refusal to accept it's citizen deported from the US is not new. Pakistan's refusal to accept every Pakistani citizen deported from the US is not new. It seems that the US is no longer willing to overlook a wide range of official Pakistani behaviour. Bonhomie has been replaced by sanctions and restrictions based on Islamabad's policy decisions, Haqqani said. While the law in this regard has been under existence since 1996, it is only in last several years that there had been increasing demand from lawmakers towards its enforcement against countries that had refused to accept deportees and visa over-stayers. In the last few years, India has been taking such deportees on special planes at regular intervals. The Trump administration after coming to power had said that it will strictly enforce such provisions by denying visas to people from those countries that refuse it accepting deportees and visa over-stayers. While section 243 (d) of the Immigration and Nationality Act was used only twice before 2017, the Trump Administration has been effective in using this provision on many countries, including Pakistan. However, the State Department federal register notification indicates that the number of visa denial under this sanction is far less. Since the law was modified to cover non-immigrant visas in 1996, 318 visa applicants have been affected, the notification said. During this same time period, tens of millions of aliens have received non-immigrant visas including, collectively, millions of applicants from the 10 countries affected, the notification said. The Federal Register notification said that there is no set formula, though, notably State has never issued a blanket refusal for visas from the country in question. For some countries, sanctions begin by targeting officials who work in the ministries responsible for accepting the return of that country's nationals with escalation scenarios that target family members of those officials and potentially officials of other ministries and then other categories of applicants if initial sanctions do not prove effective at encouraging greater cooperation on removals by the targeted government, the notification said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The US oil embargo on Venezuela that comes into effect on Sunday will deepen the South American country's economic crisis without necessarily forcing President Nicolas Maduro from power and force Caracas to turn to China and Russia for salvation. Until now, US sanctions directly targeted the upper echelons of Maduro's regime in the hope of weakening his grip on power in favour of a transition to opposition leader Juan Guaido, who in January declared himself acting president. Then, Washington led more than 50 countries in endorsing his claim. But these new sanctions will bite hard in a country that has suffered five years of recession marked by shortages of basic necessities such as food and medicines. Venezuela is almost entirely reliant on oil revenue, with 96 percent of its income from crude and the US its single largest customer. Michael Shifter from Inter-American Dialogue says "there is certainly no guarantee that the petroleum embargo will result in the end of Maduro's rule." But he added: "It may contribute to the desperation that fuels street protests and that ultimately leads to the regime's collapse." Caracas is exporting 500,000 barrels a day to US companies, which accounted for three-quarters of its liquidity by the end of 2018. The new sanctions not only ban US companies from buying Venezuelan crude but also all foreign entities from using the American banking system to purchase the black gold from Caracas. It means China and Russia may have to be Venezuela's "lifesavers," specialist Luis Oliveros told AFP. US-based consultancy Rapidan Energy Group says Venezuela's state oil company PDVSA's production could temporarily fall by 200,000 barrels a day. That would be a grave loss in production that has already crashed from a high of 3.2 million in 2008 to just 840,000 in March. "It will get even harder" for the government to keep supplying heavily discounted fuel to its people, says Gorka Lalaguna, from consultants Ecoanalitica, which could lead to rising discontent. In a bid to circumvent the sanctions, Caracas has turned to Chinese and Russian companies to act as intermediaries. "It's using (Russians) Rosneft and other companies to place its crude," said Oliveros. Rosneft denies the claims. Venezuela had its eyes on India to try to make up its shortfall. After the US measure was announced in January, PDVSA president Manuel Quevedo travelled to India with the goal of doubling the 300,000 barrels a day Venezuela sells to companies such as Reliance Industries and Nayara Energy, which is part owned by Rosneft. India has emerged as the "largest cash flow generating market" for Venezuela, according to the Washington-based Wilson Center. Indian companies bought 22 per cent of Venezuela's crude in 2017, behind only US (41 per cent) and Chinese (25 per cent) firms, according to the US Energy Information Administration. However, Reliance told AFP last week it was reducing its imports of Venezuelan crude and suspending the export of diluents -- which Caracas needs to refine its oil -- due to the new sanctions. India backing off leaves China and Russia as Venezuela's main customers. But crude supplies to those two countries are mostly to pay off loans amounting to a fifth of Venezuela's $150 billion in foreign debt. It won't bring in desperately needed liquidity. Maduro has hung onto power thanks to the armed forces, one of the main beneficiaries from PDVSA's revenue. If the purse strings tighten, Maduro's government "will use what resources it has coming in to prioritize the military," says David Smilde, the Venezuela expert at the Washington Office on Latin America. While the latest sanctions will crank up the pressure on Maduro, Shifter says Guaido will not be immune to criticism. "Guaido runs a big risk if the embargo fails to bring down the government and only exacerbates a profound humanitarian crisis. As interim president, he could well get a share of the blame." But Hakim says the added pressure could turn the military against Maduro -- something Guaido has failed to achieve -- although that won't necessarily benefit the opposition leader. He says the economic collapse itself may not force out the socialist president but rather lead "to a military action to replace Maduro -- perhaps with a military leader." In any case, Hakim says, history shows that US sanctions rarely work. "Maduro may just end up with the staying power of the Kims of North Korea, (Bashar al-) Assad in Syria or the Iranian supreme power. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Mumbai Congress president has said if Prime Minister truly respects the Maharashtra Police, he should withdraw the candidature of Malegaon blast accused Pragya Singh Thakur, who is contesting as a BJP nominee from Bhopal Lok Sabha constituency. Deora also said that Modi's focus on emotive issues, rather than the real ones, during his speech in Mumbai on Friday is a clear indicator of the "failure" of his government in delivering on key issues, like employment. Modi addressed a rally at BKC ground here on Friday, ahead of April 29 polling for six seats in Mumbai and 11 seats in Maharashtra. During his speech, he alleged that the Congress governments neglected the police force and turned it into a "punching bag". He added that had it not been for the alertness of Mumbai Police, who paid a heavy price including martyrdom, the city would have paid a greater price due to terror activities. Modi's praise for police came over a week after Pragya Singh Thakur's controversial statement about slain IPS officer Hemant Karkare. In a statement, Deora said Mumbaikars should ask why the prime minister is encouraging those who insult the armed forces and brave police. "If the prime minister truly respects the Maharashtra Police, he should withdraw Pragya Thakur's ticket immediately. That's the least he can do to honour martyr Hemant Karkare," Deora said. Surprisingly,the Shiv Sena has remained silent on the insult of a Maharashtra police martyr, the Congress leader added. "Mumbaikars will not forgive the BJP and the Shiv Sena for playing politics over some of our city's darkest memories," he said. "The prime minister did not mention the Shiv Sena in his speech. Don't the BJP's allegations of 'milavati' (adulterated) alliances fall flat when compared to the BJP-Sena's 'banavati' (fake) alliance? The Shiv Sena, which praises the prime minister before elections, goes on to abuse him after the polls," he said. "This only proves that their 'mahayuti' (grand alliance) will break in six months, with the upcoming Assembly elections (in Maharashtra)," Deora charged. Two women Naxals, one of them carrying a reward of Rs 16 lakh on her head, were killed in an encounter with police in Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra Saturday afternoon, an official said. The skirmish took place in Gunderwahi forest in the district when commandos of C-60 squad, police's anti-Naxal unit, was combing the area, a police official said. Naxals carried out an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) blast and opened fire on the commandos, leading to a gun battle, he said. After the rebels fled, bodies of two women Naxals were found. One of them was identified as Ramco alias Kamla Manku Narote (46), a divisional committee member in the Naxals' Gatta Dalam who was involved in several attacks on police, he said. She was carrying a reward of Rs 16 lakh on her head, he added. The other woman was Shilpa alias Manu Durva (29), a member of Bhamragad Dalam who was carrying a reward of Rs 4 lakh on her head, he said. Ramco was married to Bhaskar, a Naxal 'commander', the official said, adding that police have intensified anti-Naxal operations in the district after the encounter. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) They all tell a similar story: They ran apps that helped people limit the time they and their children spent on iPhones. Then Apple created its own screen-time tracker. And then Apple made staying in business very, very difficult. Over the past year, Apple has removed or restricted at least 11 of the 17 most downloaded screen-time and parental-control apps, according to an analysis by The New York Times and Sensor Tower, an app-data firm. Apple has also clamped down on a number of lesser-known apps. In some cases, Apple forced companies to remove features that allowed parents to ... Lenders of debt-ridden Jaypee Infratech are believed to have rejected the bid of state-owned NBCC Ltd and will put to vote the offer of Mumbai-based Suraksha Realty for acquiring the realty firm, sources said. A meeting of Committee of Creditors (CoC) was held on Friday to consider the revised offers of both NBCC Ltd and Suraksha group to acquire Jaypee Infratech and complete over 20,000 housing units in various projects in Noida. According to a source, the CoC decided not to consider the NBCC's bid as it found the offer to be conditional and subject to approvals from various government departments. The offer of NBCC, a public sector unit under the aegis of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, put some other conditions as well. In the meeting, NBCC representatives sought some time to take approvals from different government departments, sources added. Under the insolvency law, conditional bids are not allowed. NBCC had submitted its revised bid on April 24 and offered to give lenders Rs 5,000 crore worth land parcels as against the earlier offer of land worth Rs 3,000 crore. But it was offering only 950 acres of land as against 1,450 acres earlier. Suraksha group has also made an offer of land worth Rs 5,000 crore. NBCC offered lenders the Yamuna Expressway that connects Noida to Agra in Uttar Pradesh in both earlier and revised bids. Meanwhile, business conglomerate Adani Group had also expressed interest to bid for Jaypee Infratech. However, lenders are unlikely to seek Adani's offer until this round of insolvency proceedings gets completed. Last week, crisis-hit Jaypee Group's promoters made a fresh attempt to retain control over its arm Jaypee Infratech by seeking the support of homebuyers for its debt resolution plan under the IBC. Jaypee Group Chairman Manoj Gaur had apologised to thousands of distressed homebuyers and promised to infuse Rs 2,000 crore to complete apartments over the next four years. The group had submitted a Rs 10,000-crore plan before lenders in April 2018 as well, but the same was not accepted. In 2017, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) admitted the application by an IDBI Bank-led consortium seeking resolution of Jaypee Infratech. Anuj Jain was appointed the Interim Resolution Professional (IRP) to oversee the company's operations and undertake insolvency proceedings. In the first round of insolvency proceedings, the Rs 7,350 crore bid of Lakshdeep, part of Suraksha group, was rejected by lenders as it was found to be substantially lower than the company's net worth and assets. In October 2018, the IRP started a fresh initiative to revive Jaypee Infratech on the NCLT's direction. The realty firm has an outstanding debt of nearly Rs 9,800 crore. Jaypee Group's flagship firm Jaiprakash Associates Ltd (JAL) had submitted Rs 750 crore in the registry of the Supreme Court for the refund to buyers and the amount is lying with the NCLT. Jaypee Infratech is a subsidiary of JAL. Also read: Jaypee Infratech lenders ask NBCC, Suraksha Group to sweeten takeover bids Also read: NBCC, Suraksha bid to acquire Jaypee Infratech, finish stalled projects in Noida The Uttar Pradesh Madhyamik Shiksha Parishad (UPMSP) has announced the UP Board Result for Class 10th and 12th today at their official website upmsp.edu.in. Gautam Raghuvanshi has topped the UP Board high school exams securing an overall percentage of 97.17%. Tanu Tomar has topped the UP Board Class 12th exam 2019. Earlier, the results were expected to be released at 12.30 pm, however due to delay, UPMSC announced the UP Board results at around 1 PM today. Candidates who had appeared for the Board exam can also check their results on upresults.nic.in, apart from the official website. Students expecting their result today must keep their admit cards handy in order to check the result as soon as it is declared. Candidates can also check their UP Board results through SMS. As per reports, nearly 58 lakh students had given the UP board Class 10th and Class 12th exams, this year. UPMSC had conducted Class 10th board exams from February 7, 2019 to February 28, 2019. The UP Board Class 12th results were, however, conducted from February 7, 2019 to March 2, 2019. In 2018, as many as 26.54 lakh students, including 1.79 lakh private examinees had registered for the exams out of which 11 lakh did not turn up. Follow the UP Board Results 2019 LIVE updates on BusinessToday.In blog: 3:21pm: UP Board Class 10th, 12th Result 2019, here's how to check: Visit the official website of UPMSP. Click on the link for 'Results'. Once the link is opened, enter your details like name and roll number. The UP Board Result 2019 will be displayed on screen once you enter the credentials. Take a print out and keep it for future references. 3:06pm: Class 12th students celebrate as UPMSP declares UP Board result today. Visuals of celebrations from the school of Tanu Tomar who has topped the Class 12 UP Board Exam. pic.twitter.com/D9RqvZGwA3 ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) 27 April 2019 1:55pm: Priyanka Gandhi congratulates UP Board toppers UP 2019 - Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (@priyankagandhi) 27 April 2019 1:36pm: UP Board Class 12th result pass percentage This year, the UP Board has recorded a pass percentage of 70.06%. 1:31pm: Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath congratulates UP Board toppers # - - - , Chowkidar Yogi Adityanath (@myogiadityanath) 27 April 2019 1:29pm: UP Board Class 12th result declared, check the percentage of first three toppers Tanu Tomar (97.83%) Bhagyashree Upadhyaya (97.2%) Akanksha Shukla (94.80%) 1:25pm: UP Board Class 12th result 2019: Tanu Tomar tops with 97.83% Tanu Tomar has emerged as the topper for the UP Board Class 12th examination 2019 securing an overall percentage of 97.83%. 1:10pm: UP Board result 2019: Check the schools of first three toppers Gautam Raghuvanshi (Omkareshwar S.V.N school, Jawahar Nagar) Shivam (Sri Sai Inter College Lakhperabagh Barabanki) Tanuja Vishwakarma (Maharani Lakshmibai Memorial Inter College Barabanki) 1:07pm: Topper is from Omkareshwar S.V.N school in Jawahar Nagar Topper Gautam Raghuvanshi is a student of Omkareshwar S.V.N school in Jawahar Nagar, Kanpur. He has secured an overall percentage of 97.17% in the UP Class 10th exam. 12:56pm: UP Board 10th result 2019: List of first three toppers Gautam Raghuvanshi (97.17%) Shivam (97%) Tanuja Vishwakarma (96.83%) Gautam Raghuvanshi tops the Uttar Pradesh Board High School exam with 97.17% marks. Shivam secures second spot with 97% marks and Tanuja Vishwakarma secures the third position with 96.83% marks. pic.twitter.com/RRVSXeYYAs ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) 27 April 2019 12:52pm: UP Board result declared, Gautam Raghuvanshi tops Class 10th board exams with 97.17% UPMSP has declared the UP Board 10th, 12th result and Gautam Raghuvanshi has emerged as the topper securing an aggregate percentage of 97.17%. 12:44pm: Press Conference to begin shortly UP Board result update: Reportedly, The press conference will begin shortly where the UP Board officials will announce the UP Board Class 10th and 12th result. The conference will be held at UPMSC's office in Lucknow. 12:24pm: UP Board 10th, 12th result delayed The UP Board has just confirmed that the Class 10th, 12th board results have been delayed and the students can expect their UP Board result to be out in an hour from now. UPMSC will announce the results at upresults.nic.in. 12:20pm: How to check UP Board result using phone: Open a web browser. Visit the official website of UPMSC on your phone. Once the homepage is opened, click on the link for 'results'. Enter your credentials once the link opens. Once your details the entered, the UP Board result 2019 will be displayed on screen. 12:05pm: UP Board Result: Last year, Anjali Verma topped the UP Board 10th exam with 96.33%, followed by Yashashvi who scored 94.5%. 11:32am: UP Board Result 2019: Seventeen people booked for mass cheating in UP Board 10th, 12th exam As per reports, as many as 17 people have been booked under the Gangster Act for allegedly facilitating mass cheating during the UP Board examination 2019. The accused include a superintendent of the examination centre Yogender Pal amongst others. The incident came to light after a Special Task Force Raid took place during the Class 12th Physics exam. 11:24am: How to check UP Board Result using Mobile app: Candidates can also check their UP Board results 2019 using a free mobile application. Students can download the app 'U.P. Board Results 2019' to check their UP Board 10th, 12th result. 11:22am: Other websites to check UP Board result are- upresults.nic.in and upmspresults.up.nic.in. 11:20am: The Uttar Pradesh Board will declare the UP Board Result 2019 at upmsp.edu.in. 11:10am: UP Board Class 10th, 12th results 2019: UPMSC will upload the UP Board Topper's answer sheet on its official website at least 10 days after the declaration of UP Board results. 11:00am: Last year, the UP Board Class 12th result was declared on April 29. The pass percentage was recorded at 72.27% for boys and 78.81% for girls. 10:55am: UPMSC has revised the re-evaluation fees. As per reports, the UP Board has increased the re-evaluation fees by as much as 5%. Now the candidates will have to pay Rs 500 instead of Rs 100 to get one paper re-evaluated, as per latest rules. 10:48am: Students who had appeared for the UP Board exams can also check their results through SMS. Here's how the candidates can check their results through SMS: For Class 12th results- Type UP10ROLLNUMBER and send it to 56263 For Class 10th results- Type UP12ROLLNUMBER and send it to 56263 10:40am: The candiates can check their UP Board Results 2019 at the following websites: results.nic.in upmsp.edu.in upresults.nic.in upmspresults.up.nic.in 10:30am: Here's how to check the UP Board result 2019 Visit the official website of the Uttar Pradesh Board. Click on the link of 'results' for Class 10th and 12th exams. Once the link opens, enter your details like name and registration number. After entering the credentials, the result will be displayed on screen. Take a print out and keep it for future references. (Edited by: Nehal Solanki) Also read: UP Board Result 2019: Uttar Pradesh board likely to declare Class 10, Class 12 results at upmsp.edu.in on April 27 Also read: UP Board Result 2019: Tanu Tomar tops UPMSP Class 12 exams with 97.83% India has raised its import duty on wheat to 40 percent from 30 percent, the government said late on Friday, as the world's No. 2 producer of the grain tries to support local farmers. The step comes as Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party looks to contain rural discontent due to lower crop prices amid voting in a general election that began on April 11 and ends on May 19. Local wheat prices have fallen over 11 percent in 2019 due to ample supply from last year's crop and forecasts of record output. The hike in duty is likely to make imports of wheat unviable for flour mills even after recent declines in global prices, potentially dragging further on global grain markets. "Local wheat production is higher. The government is now trying to ensure prices remain above support levels," said Harish Galipelli, head of commodities and currencies at Inditrade Derivatives & Commodities in Mumbai. India has raised the price at which it buys new-season wheat from local farmers by 6 percent to 1,840 rupees per 100 kg for 2019. The government usually purchases about a quarter of such wheat from farmers at state-set prices to build stocks to run a major food welfare programme. India's wheat production will rise 2 percent in 2019 from the year before to a record 99.12 million tonnes, according to estimates from the country's agriculture department. Only one wheat crop is grown in India each year, with planting starting in late October and harvesting in March. Government wheat stocks stood at 17 million tonnes as of April 1, up nearly 30 percent from the same time a year ago. "At 40 percent import duty, imports are not viable for flour mills. They have to buy local crop," said a Mumbai-based grain dealer with a global trading firm. He declined to be identified as he was not authorised to speak with media. Indian flour millers imported 1.65 million tonnes of wheat in the 2017/18 fiscal year, down from 5.7 million tonnes the year before. Those shipments were mainly from Australia, Russia and Ukraine. Also read: Government procures 55.17 lakh tonne of wheat in 2019 President Donald Trump told the National Rifle Association on Friday he was pulling the United States out of an international arms treaty signed in 2013 by then-President Barack Obama but opposed by the NRA and other conservative groups. Trump told members of the gun lobby at an annual meeting he intends to revoke the status of the United States as a signatory to the Arms Trade Treaty, which was never ratified by the U.S. Senate. "We're taking our signature back," Trump said to thousands of cheering attendees, many wearing red hats emblazoned with the Republican president's "Make America Great Again" slogan. On Twitter, Trump called the decision a defence of "American sovereignty." In reversing the U.S. position on the pact, he wrote, "We will never allow foreign bureaucrats to trample on your Second Amendment freedoms." The NRA has long opposed the treaty, which regulates the $70 billion business in conventional arms and seeks to keep weapons out of the hands of human rights abusers. The lobbying group argues it would undermine domestic gun rights, a view the Obama administration rejected. The agreement covers weapons exports, ranging from small firearms to tanks, but not domestic sales. Trump said the United Nations would soon receive formal notice of the withdrawal. U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric called the treaty "a landmark achievement in the efforts to ensure responsibility in international arms transfers." U.N. officials said they were unaware Trump had been planning to revoke the U.S. signature. The NRA spent $30.3 million in support of Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, according to the Centre for Responsive Politics, a group that tracks campaign spending. The 193-nation U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly approved the pact in April 2013 and the United States, the world's No. 1 arms exporter, voted in favour of it despite fierce opposition from the NRA. Dropping out of the treaty is part of a broader Trump administration overhaul of arms export policies to bolster a domestic industry that already dominates global weapons trade. Trump's action drew an immediate rebuke from international human rights groups. "The United States will now lock arms with Iran, North Korea and Syria as non-signatories to this historic treaty whose sole purpose is to protect innocent people from deadly weapons," said Oxfam America President Abby Maxman. So far 101 countries have formally joined onto the treaty. Another 29, including the United States, signed it, but have not yet formally joined. Ted Bromund, senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said the treaty "can only have the perverse effects of driving potential importers to buy from China or Russia" and other nations that are not party to the agreement. Rachel Stohl, director of the conventional defence programme at the Stimson Centre think-tank in Washington, said U.S. firearms makers could benefit, including Smith & Wesson owner American Outdoor Brands Corp, Sturm Ruger and Vista Outdoor, as well as Remington Outdoor Co, which owns Bushmaster, a brand of AR-15 assault rifle. Trump was joined on his trip to the NRA's meeting in Indianapolis by White House national security adviser John Bolton, an advocate of withdrawing the United States from international treaties out of concern they might undermine U.S. authority. With Friday's announcement, Trump continued his drive to roll back Obama-era initiatives. Nearly two years ago, Trump announced that the United States would withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, which aims to reduce global carbon emissions that scientists link to harmful climate change. Republicans argue the U.S. economy would suffer if it met the deal's carbon-reduction goals. In May, 2018, Trump pulled the United States out of a 2015 international deal that eased sanctions on Iran in exchange for strict limits being placed on Iran's nuclear activities. The United States has since reimposed some sanctions that had been suspended under the deal. Friday's speech marked the third consecutive year Trump has spoken to the annual meeting of the NRA. Since his election, he has been a vocal proponent of gun rights, a position that plays well with his political base. Trump banned "bump stocks" - rapid-fire gun attachments used in the October 2017 mass shooting that killed 58 people at a country music festival in Las Vegas. But he has sidestepped tough restrictions he considered after the February 2018 shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, in which 17 people were killed and embraced an NRA proposal for arming teachers to defend schools. Also read: US imposes sanction on Pakistan; may deny visas to Pak citizens Two days before the Phase 4 of Lok Sabha Elections 2019, Congress President Rahul Gandhi said at a rally in Amethi that the Prime Minister wants two Indias but that he and the Congress party won't let that happen. He also said that PM Modi gave away the money meant for farmers' insurance to people like Anil Ambani. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi lashed out at the Opposition parties at a rally in Kannauj, UP. He said that SP-BSP abuse him but can't abuse terrorists. He also said that his campaigning is done by the people - by women beneficiaries of the Ujjwala scheme, by daughters who now have a toilet in their homes and by farmers who have benefited from the PM Kisan scheme. Also, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley dedicated a fresh blog post to the Congress. Criticising the Opposition party, Jaitley said that the 'New India' rejects negativism of Rahul Gandhi, Mamata Banerjee, Arvind Kejriwal. He added that when the entire nation was celebrating Balakot strikes, Rahul Gandhi positioned himself against it. Follow Lok Sabha Election 2019 updates on the BusinessToday.In LIVE blog here: 8:30pm: A comparison of vote shares of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress party in the 2009 and 2014 Lok Sabha elections 7:51pm: Kerala Chief Electoral Officer Teeka Ram Meena has sought a report from the returning officers in connection with the allegations of bogus voting in Kasaragod constituency, ANI reported. Teeka Ram Meena has sought reports from the collectors of Kannur and Kasaragod districts. Kerala Chief Electoral Officer Teeka Ram Meena has sought a report from the returning officers in connection with the allegations of bogus voting in Kasaragod constituency. Teeka Ram Meena has sought reports from the collectors of Kannur and Kasaragod districts. ANI (@ANI) April 27, 2019 7:32pm: Congress leader Abhishek Manu Sighvi met Election Commission officers, with the demand to either remove all EVMs which mention BJP clearly or include names of other parties as well. Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Congress: We have demanded either remove all machines which mention BJP clearly or all other parties' names should be added in all machines. Till then the use of these machines should be totally stopped in the elections. https://t.co/xnUkQzxpmi ANI (@ANI) April 27, 2019 6:40pm: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh calls upon Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh. Home Minister Rajnath Singh today met former UP CM and SP leader Mulayam Singh Yadav at the latter's residence in Lucknow. pic.twitter.com/nSV28QhZlu ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) April 27, 2019 6:06pm: "Shatrughan Sinha has just gone to Congress. When he was in BJP he used to talk about nationalism. Now,he says that Jinnah was a great leader like Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel. Congress leaders are praising Jinnah, who has divided the country," BJP president Amit Shah said during a rally in Mayurbhanj, Odisha. BJP's Amit Shah in Mayurbhanj, Odisha: Shatrughan Sinha has just gone to Congress. When he was in BJP he used to talk about nationalism. Now,he says that Jinnah was a great leader like Mahatma Gandhi & Sardar Patel.Congress leaders are praising Jinnah,who has divided the country. pic.twitter.com/PmwKn1ycQv ANI (@ANI) April 27, 2019 5:25pm: Actor Govinda campaigned for Congress candidate Rijju Jhunjhunuwala from Ajmer Lok Sabha seat. Ajmer: Actor Govinda campaigned for Congress MP candidate from Ajmer parliamentary constituency, Rijju Jhunjhunuwala, today. #Rajasthan pic.twitter.com/udAmu2VySr ANI (@ANI) April 27, 2019 5:05pm: Visuals from election rally of Samajwadi Party's Akhilesh Yadav and Dimple Yadav in Kannauj. #LokSabhaElections2019 : Samajwadi Party's Akhilesh Yadav and Dimple Yadav held a roadshow in Kannauj, today; Polling in Kannauj will be held in the fourth phase of general elections on 29th April pic.twitter.com/hz446xJAPv ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) April 27, 2019 4:57pm: Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis campaigns for BJP's Mumbai North Central candidate Poonam Mahajan. She will be facing Congress MP Priya Dutt in the 2019 Lok Sabha election Mumbai: Maharashtra CM & BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis campaigns for party's Mumbai North Central candidate Poonam Mahajan; Priya Dutt is the Congress MP candidate from North Central Mumbai #LokSabhaElections2019 pic.twitter.com/CnCaZ3mfWP ANI (@ANI) April 27, 2019 4:50pm: "We are confident of winning more than 3 parliamentary seats in Jammu & Kashmir in Lok Sabha elections. BJP has become the main stream party of the Kashmir Valley, today. We will work for peace and development in the region," said BJP General Secretary Ram Madhav. BJP General Secretary Ram Madhav in J&K: We are confident of winning more than 3 parliamentary seats in Jammu & Kashmir in Lok Sabha elections. BJP has become the main stream party of the Kashmir Valley, today. We will work for peace and development in the region. pic.twitter.com/4f44XxWfG3 ANI (@ANI) April 27, 2019 4:35pm: In more trouble for Congress President Rahul Gandhi, A Patna court has summoned himto appear before it on May 20 in relation to a with defamation case filed against him by Bihar Deputy Chief Minister and BJP leader Sushil Modi. Bihar: Case registered against Congress President Rahul Gandhi for repeatedly asking the crowd to chant 'chowkidar chor hai' in a rally in Samastipur where RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav was also present . Case registered in Ara Civil Court by an advocate against both the leaders. ANI (@ANI) April 27, 2019 4:22pm: Case filed against Rahul Gandhi and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav in Ara Civil Court after the Congress president repeatedly asked the crowd to chant 'chowkidar chor hai' in a rally in Samastipur. Delhi's Rouse Avenue Court issues summon against Congress's Shashi Tharoor as an accused over his 'scorpion' remark on the PM Narendra Modi. Court asks Shashi Tharoor to appear before it on 7th June. pic.twitter.com/SE2jBfUmjr ANI (@ANI) April 27, 2019 4:20pm: Delhi's Rouse Avenue Court has summoned Congress leader Shashi Tharoor over his 'scorpion' remark on the PM Narendra Modi. Tharoor has been asked to appear before the court on June 7. @RahulGandhi @priyankagandhi pic.twitter.com/b1Bzt1ahDo Congress (@INCIndia) April 27, 2019 4:17pm: The Bharatiya Janata Party has moved Election Commission of India againat Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, alleging that he has presented wrong information during his election campaign about Centre's aid to the national capital. 4:09pm: Re-polling to be held on 29th April at polling stations number 19 at Dhologachh SSK, 37-Patagora Balika Vidhyalay in Islampur assembly segment and polling station no. 191-Loha Gachhi Aadi Basipada in Goalpokhar assembly segment in Raiganj parliamentary constituency in West Bengal. 4:00pm: Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi click photos amid campaigns in Uttar Pradesh. Barmer: Sunny Deol holds his first roadshow after joining BJP, campaigns for BJP LS candidate from Barmer, Kailash Choudhary. Manvendra Singh is the Congress candidate for the Barmer LS constituency. #Rajasthan #LokSabhaElections2019 pic.twitter.com/mqIooCybgI ANI (@ANI) April 27, 2019 3:45pm: BJP writes to CEO, Bhubaneswar demanding deployment of adequate central forces for the guarding of strong rooms across Odisha and immediate ouster of political functionaries, party workers and non voters of BJD from Kendrapara during 48 hrs of silence period ahead of polls: ANI. 3:37pm: Visuals from Sunny Deol's roadshow in Barmer. Congress General Secretary for UP East Priyanka Gandhi holds a roadshow in Unnao. pic.twitter.com/uPUXWWJDXr ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) April 27, 2019 3:35pm: Visuals from Priyanka Gandhi's roadshow in Unnao. Biju Janata Dal (BJD) writes to Chief Electoral Officer Odisha, alleging "distribution of cash among voters" by four associates of Baijayant Panda, BJP's Lok Sabha candidate from Kendrapara. pic.twitter.com/Uw1g5GD8Vs ANI (@ANI) April 27, 2019 3:33pm: PM Modi said at a rally in Sitapur, "Try and remember the kind of country Congress handed over when they gave up their government after ten years. Scams that ran into thousands of crore, bad name in the world due to corruption, everyone in a state of distress and there were continuous threats of bomb explosions and security lapses." 3:29pm: PM Modi said at a rally in Uttar Pradesh's Sitapur, "Congress, BSP and SP can't figure out on what issue they should be asking for votes. The entire game they have constructed around caste and class is proving to be harmful for them." 3:24pm: Makers of biopic 'PM Narendra Modi' write to EC seeking clarification on its decision staying its release. Letter states "We seek clarification in this regard from your office as we intend to promote film in areas which are no more affected by MCC after end of polling on 29.4.19.": ANI. 3:20pm: At a rally in Amethi, Rahul Gandhi said, "Farmers are put in jail for not being able to repay their loans but Modi ji's friends roam free.We won't let this happen anymore. Now if any farmer is unable to repay his loan, he won't be jailed. We will also make a different budget for farmers." 3:11pm: Rahul Gandhi said at a rally in Amethi, "I do whatever I say I will. I don't lie. Chowkidaar wants to make two Hindustans but we will not let that happen. There is only one Hindustan." 3:05pm: Rahul Gandhi said at a rally in Amethi, "Modi ji gave away Rs 10,000 crore of farmers' insurance to people like Anil Ambani." 3:00pm: Rahul Gandhi said at a rally in Amethi, "Narendra Modi has lied to the nation for the last 5 years. In his speech, he doesn't speak about employment, farmers or 15 lakh. He speaks by looking at the teleprompter and his speech is controlled by a controller from behind. Time is about to change." 2:45pm: UP CM Yogi Adityanath said at a rally in Shahjahanpur, "When our govt came, Suresh Khanna ji became a minister, he asked what should be the issues for cabinet meeting. I asked him what issues were brought up by Samajwadi Party in their meeting, he said 'They used to drop cases against terrorists.'" 2:34pm: "I had never spoken about my caste. Till the time the Opposition leaders hurled abuses on me, the country didn't know my caste. But I am thankful to 'Behenji' (Mayawati), Akhilesh, Congress and the 'Mahamilawati', that they are openly talking about my backwardness," said PM Modi at a rally in Hardoi. 2:20pm: Congress President Rahul Gandhi said at a rally in Amethi, "Not a single youth in the country can say 'Yes, chowkidar gave me employment' because unemployment rate in country is highest it has been in 45 years. In 70 years nobody did something as foolish as demonetization & Gabbar Singh Tax." 2:18pm: Amit Shah at a rally in Mayurbhanj, Odisha said, "In Odisha, more than 20 of our karyakartas have been attacked and many killed. There is be no place for violence." 2:15pm: At a rally in Hardoi, PM Modi said, "BSP formed governments in the name of Babasaheb. But how much respect Behenji has for Babasaheb is getting clear now." 2:10pm: "Our government has worked to the best of its abilities to take Babasaheb's legacy forward," said PM Modi at a rally in UP's Hardoi. 2:00pm: A scrutiny of voter turn out at the end of Phase I brought some glaring discrepancies to the fore. The number of people eligible in 'other' category according to official documents stood at 9. But interestingly the number of people who voted in the same category were 1,912. Additionally, Andaman & Nicobar saw maximum VVPATS replacement almost 25%. 1:55pm: "Whatever I said yesterday was slip of tongue. I wanted to say Maulana Azad but uttered Muhammad Ali Jinnah," said Shatrughan Sinha. He had said yesterday that from Mahatma Gandhi to Muhammad Ali Jinnah, all belonged to Congress. 1:45pm: BJD writes to EC alleging BJP candidate Baijayant Panda of distributing money. Over the last five years, the BJP has destroyed every pillar of democracy. But the #Endgame has begun. #MahaGathbandhan Sarkar Coming soon pic.twitter.com/dOIYobwRge Akhilesh Yadav (@yadavakhilesh) April 26, 2019 1:30pm: Election Commission directs East Delhi Returning Officer to file an FIR against Gautam Gambhir, BJP's candidate from East Delhi parliamentary constituency for "holding a rally in East Delhi without permission." 1:20pm: At a rally in Uttar Pradesh's Hardoi, PM Modi said, "Before I became Prime Minister, when there used to be a remote control government, there were only 2 mobile phone manufacturing companies in the country, now within 5 years there are more than 125 factories manufacturing mobiles in India." 1:09pm: Referring to Avengers: Endgame, Akhilesh Yadav said that the endgame for BJP is near. Delhi: 7 veteran officers join Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in presence of Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. Lt Gen JBS Yadav, Lt Gen R N Singh, Lt Gen SK Patyal, Lt Gen Sunit Kumar, Lt Gen Nitin Kohli, Colonel RK Tripathi, WG Cdr Navneet Magon joined the party at the BJP HQ. pic.twitter.com/bA00JrWCKs ANI (@ANI) April 27, 2019 1:07pm: Seven veteran officers join Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in presence of Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. #WATCH Shatrughan Sinha, Congress in Chhindwara, MP: Congress family from Mahatma Gandhi to Sardar Patel to Mohd Ali Jinnah to Jawaharlal Nehru...it's their party, they had the most important role in development & freedom of the country. This is the reason I've come here. (26.4) pic.twitter.com/HJg3EV8rNE ANI (@ANI) April 27, 2019 1:00pm: P Chidambaram said, "Shatrughan Sinha, whatever his views are, he must explain. But a few days ago, he was part of BJP. So let BJP explain why he was a part of BJP for so many years. I don't have to explain statement of every member.I can only speak for party's official position." 12:55pm: Mumbai Congress president Milind Deora has said if PM Modi truly respects the Maharashtra Police, he should withdraw the candidature of Malegaon blast accused Pragya Singh Thakur, who is contesting as a BJP nominee from Bhopal Lok Sabha constituency. In a statement, Deora said Mumbaikars should ask why the Prime Minister is encouraging those who insult the armed forces and brave police. "If the prime minister truly respects the Maharashtra Police, he should withdraw Pragya Thakur's ticket immediately. That's the least he can do to honour martyr Hemant Karkare," Deora said. 12:45pm: PM Modi said at a rally in Kannauj, "Congress, SP, BSP have only one mantra - jaat paat japna, janta ka maal apna (talk about caste, class and take away all of the public's money)" 12:35pm: PM Modi said at a rally in Kannauj, "Some people are spreading rumours that Modi will take back the PM Kisan money after elections. This means that they have accepted that on May 23, Modi will only for the government. I promise you that this money is yours and no one will take it back." 12:25pm: PM Modi said at a rally in Kannauj, "There are such intelligent people in our country who can make gold out of potatoes. Neither I nor my party can do such stuff. Whoever wants to make gold out of potatoes can approach those leaders, it is beyond us." 12:15pm: PM Modi said at a rally in Kannauj, "New India will not be afraid anymore. New India will go to the homes of terrorists and destroy them. When the country is protected, only then will the lives of its citizen go on peacefully." 12:10pm: PM Modi said at a rally in Kannauj, "Those who believe the lies spread by Pakistan in order to defeat PM Modi, those who want to become Pakistan's hero, what can we hope from them?" 12:00pm: PM Modi said at a rally in Kannauj, "Today that sister is campaigning for Modi who has benefited from the Ujjwala scheme. Modi's campaigning is done by that daughter who now has a toilet in her home. Modi's campaigning is done by that farmer who received support from the PM Kisan scheme. Modi's campaigning is done by that family whose son has received bullet-proof jackets to defend the country's borders." 11:55am: PM Modi said at a rally in Uttar Pradesh's Kannauj, "Should India be protected from terrorists or not? Did SP-BSP leaders mentioned terrorism even once? They abused Modi so much but did they abuse terrorism? Are they scared of terrorists or do they want to protect them?" 11:50am: Kavita Khanna, wife of late actor Vinod Khanna on being denied a ticket by BJP from Gurdaspur: It is my decision that I'm not going to make this a personal issue and make a personal sacrifice and put my entire might and support behind Prime Minister Narendra Modi. I felt hurt because I understand party the has right to decide candidate but there is a way of doing it, and the way it was done I felt abandoned and rejected, I was made to feel insignificant. 11:40am: Shiv Sena has appointed Priyanka Chaturvedi as the 'upneta' of the party. 11:20am: Case registered against SP leader Azam Khan for violating Model Code of Conduct at a rally in Shahabad, Rampur. 11:15am: RJD leader Tejaswi Yadav said, "We are fighting against BJP on all 40 seats. Tanveer Sahab is going to win Begusarai seat and that too by a huge margin. Whatever environment one creates, we aren't bothered, because public has made its mind." 11:10am: RJD leader Tejaswi Yadav said, "Raids are being held against Mayawati, against our family. BJP people are trying to frame opposition leaders. Because they know that in these polls, they're going to get defeated by 'mahagathbandhan' in respective states. CBI, ED, IT are working like IT cell of BJP." 11:00am: Congress President Rahul Gandhi will address rallies in Amethi and Raebareli today. 10:45am: "Will it be a repeat of 2014 in terms of votes or will it be more? The euphoric reaction at the ground suggests a mandate larger than 2014. A 65% to 70% approval rating for an incumbent Prime Minister is unprecedented in India. It is reflecting in the groundswell," wrote FM Jaitley in a blog post. 10:30am: In the blog post, FM Jaitley said, "The Congress Party and Rahul Gandhi are 48 years behind the times. 2019 and 1971 are 48 years apart. India's social combination and economic profile has completely changed. The Congress is contesting the 2019 election on the 1971 agenda." 10:14am: In a blog post, FM Jaitley said, "Rahul Gandhi, in the last one year, built up a fake narrative on Rafale and loan waiver to business houses, which was contrary to the truth. The fake issues evaporated and now strike no chord in the electorate." 10:09am: "The Congress Party's Manifesto on national security was completely against the nationalistic mood in the country," said Arun Jaitley in the blog post. 10:02am: In a blog post, Arun Jaitley said, "Instead of sharing the nationalist mood in the country post Balakot, Rahul positioned his party against both the national interest and the national mood. He considered Balakot not a blow to Pakistan sponsored terrorism but to the Congress Party." 10:00am: In a blog post, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said: The 'New India' is a positive India. It does not accept the negativism of Rahul, Arvind Kejriwal, Mamata Banerjee and TDP. The 'New India' wants to look up rather than be cynical and critical about their own country. 9:55am: BJP MLA from Uttar Pradesh Surendra Singh on Friday said, "Chanting Vande Mataram may be an emotion. But if you are living in India then Vande Mataram is a must. It is in Sanskrit and it can be translated into Urdu too. Those who do not want to chant it by heart have no right to live in India. If it is in my hand, I would send such people to Pakistan within one week after making their passports." 9:45am: NCP chief Sharad Pawar said on Friday night that Opposition parties and people have the right to ask Prime Minister Narendra Modi what happened to the development model promised by him and the BJP. He was addressing an election rally here for NCP candidate from Thane Anand Paranjpe. "You and I have the right to ask PM what happened to his development model," the NCP chief said. Modi won the last Lok Sabha elections by promising Gujarat-like development model for the country, but in the last five years he did not say anything about unemployment and the plight of small traders, labourers, Dalits and tribals, Pawar said. 9:40am: Congress leader Shatrughan Sinha says that from Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel to Mohd Ali Jinnah and Jawaharlal Nehru, all belonged to the party, which is why he has joined them. {blurb} 9:35am: Union ministers Ravi Shankar Prasad, R K Singh, Ashwini Kumar Choubey and former Speaker Meira Kumar were among 59 candidates who filed their nominations for eight Lok Sabha constituencies in the seventh and last phase of general elections in Bihar. The constituencies of Nalanda, Patna Sahib, Pataliputra, Ara, Buxar, Jehanabad, Karakat and Sasaram will go to polls in the seventh phase on May 19. A total of 59 candidates submitted their nomination papers for the final phase of Lok Sabha elections, Additional Chief Electoral Officer Sanjay Kumar Singh told reporters here. 9:30am: Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav is scheduled to hold a press conference in Kannauj at 4 pm today. Congress chief Rahul Gandhi Friday said the minimum income guarantee scheme the party has envisaged will put the country's economy back on track after it was allegedly hurt by the Centre's noteban and GST moves. Addressing a poll rally here in Ahmednagar district, Gandhi hit out at the Narendra Modi government over what he called the "highest" unemployment rate in the country in 45 years, particularly in the backdrop of the ruling BJP's 2014 pre-poll promise of providing two crore jobs a year. He assured that the 22 lakh vacant posts in government services will be filled within a year if his party is voted to power in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections. Gandhi said under the minimum income guarantee scheme, which the Congress has named as 'NYAY', Rs 72,000 per annum (or Rs 3.60 lakh in five years) would be disbursed to each of the country's poor, 25 crore in total (or 5 crore families). The Nyuntam Aay Yojana (NYAY), an anti-poverty programme, is part of the Congress's manifesto for the 2019 polls. The Congress president said the on-going Lok Sabha poll is "different" from other elections held in the past. He dubbed the 2019 election as being a battle of ideologies of "hatred of the BJP and love of the Congress". The Congress leader attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the November 2016 demonetisation exercise and the July 2017 rollout of the Goods and Services Tax (GST). "Modi ji implemented demonetisation and inflicted the Gabbar Singh Tax. Modi ji snatched away the money the people had and gave it to the rich like Anil Ambani," Gandhi said. The Congress has been criticising GST as introduced by the NDA government as the "Gabbar Singh Tax". Also read: PM Modi argues against job crisis, says nearly 1.25 crore jobs created every year The Congress chief alleged that due to the twin decisions of demonetisation and GST, the purchasing power of people was blighted, which in turn, led to a drop in production of goods, resulting in unemployment as the factory owners slashed workforce owing to poor sales. "The moment the poor will have money (through the NYAY scheme), they will start purchasing, factories would start operating again and the youth will get employment again," he said, hard selling the minimum income scheme to voters. Gandhi said the Congress, when it comes to power, will bring a law to ensure farmers are not jailed for non-payment of loans. "The rich like Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi, Vijay Mallya fled away, (and) are roaming out. But if a farmer from Maharashtra takes even a Rs 20,000 loan, (and) fails to repay, he is arrested. What kind of India is this?" Gandhi asked. "After the 2019 polls, no farmer of India would be jailed if he fails to repay loan. The Indian government will frame a law," he said. The Congress president said despite the BJP's 2014 poll promise of generating two crore jobs a year, 27,000 jobs are being lost a day under the NDA's watch. He assured that, after the Congress comes to power, the youth need not seek permission to start business for the first three years after it's started. "Once a youth is establishes his business in three years, then he can apply for permissions. In case the business fails to take off in the three years, leave it, you need not seek permission," Gandhi said. Gandhi accused Modi of giving false assurances like "putting Rs 15 lakh in everybody's bank account" and added he was not for making such promises. He said the Congress had promised loan waiver in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh during the Assembly elections held there last year and kept its word after forming governments in these states. Gandhi attacked the Modi government over the Rafale deal and reiterated his charge that Anil Ambani got a Rs 30,000-crore contract despite lack of his company's experience in manufacturing such aircraft. In the past, Ambani has rejected Gandhi's allegations and emphasised that the government had no role in Rafale manufacturer Dassault, a French firm, picking his company, Reliance Defence, as a local partner. Sangamner is part of the Shirdi Lok Sabha constituency which will vote on April 29 along with 16 other parliamentary seats in the state. Also read: PM Modi exclusive interview: Demonetisation changed people's mindset on black money Modified On Apr 29, 2019 03:52 PM By Dhruv Attri for Honda BR-V Gets visual enhancements inside out but misses out on any significant feature or mechanical updates Showcased at the ongoing 2019 Indonesia International Motor Show. The mid-life refreshed model gets minor changes inside out. India launch not confirmed yet. Honda has added some mild refreshments to the BR-V in the guise of a mid-life facelift four years after its global debut. Showcased at the 2019 Indonesia International Motor Show, the updates on the 2019 Honda BR-V are numerous but quite subtle. The Honda BR-V facelift does away with the chrome and brings in blacked out finishing for the slightly updated grille and the newly designed bumper with sharper fog lamp enclosures. The projector headlamps now get LED daytime running lamps. The updated side skirts, new 16-inch machine-finished alloy wheels and sharply redesigned rear bumper complete the aesthetic updates to its exterior. On the inside, the features count remains largely the same on the Indonesia-spec model compared to the BR-V sold in India. The leather seats, door pads and gear knob get red accents and contrast stitching with a new red and black leatherette upholstery. The second row now gets an adjustable headrest for the middle passenger as well. The capacitive touchscreen infotainment unit is now a shade bigger from 7-inches to 8-inches. However, the India-spec model should offer the 7-inch Digipad 2 system with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto support as seen on the Jazz and Amaze. As youd expect, the engines on offer remain unchanged and the Honda BR-V facelift in Indonesia continues to be powered by a 1.5-litre petrol with a choice of a 6-speed manual and CVT transmission, same as India. Moreover, Honda also offers a similar capacity diesel engine as well on the BR-V in India. Honda is yet to officially announce whether it will launch the BR-V facelift in India or not. Sources in the know have informed CarDekho that the BR-V will, in fact, be replaced with the HR-V in 2019. Based on the now discontinued Mobilio, the Honda BR-V competes primarily with the Mahindra Marazzo. Launched last year, the better equipped Mahindra has easily outsold the Honda so far. While the Marazzo retails around 3000 units monthly, the BR-V retails in sub-500 units. Read More on : Honda BR-V diesel 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. Photo: CTV News UPDATE: 4 p.m. Police say a boy who had been the subject of an Amber Alert has been found safe near Windsor, Ont. Peel Regional Police say the five-year-old was found with his mother in Tilbury. They say they are in the process of cancelling the Amber Alert that had been issued for him on Thursday evening. Investigators previously said the boy was last seen with his mother in Mississauga on Wednesday afternoon. His father reported him missing on Thursday morning. ORIGINAL: 2:30 p.m. An Amber Alert has been issued for a five-year-old boy last seen with his mother in Mississauga, Ont. Peel Regional Police said they are trying to locate Ethan Montes, who is believed to be with 47-year-old Juliet Mohammed. Police said Mohammed is believed to be driving a 2003 grey Toyota Matrix with the licence plate 379 WTM. Ethan was last seen with his mother in Mississauga on Wednesday afternoon between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m., police said. The boy was reported missing at 9:20 a.m. Thursday morning by his father and police said they issued an Amber Alert just after 5 p.m. Police said Mohammed has a pre-existing medical condition that makes her act out of character if not treated. They did not know if she had her medication with her. "We have information to believe this is out of character for them to go missing for this amount of time," said Const. Iryna Yashnyk. Police said they have information that the pair may have travelled to the London, Ont., area but authorities didn't know the pair's current whereabouts. They said Ethan was last seen wearing Batman pyjamas, while Mohammed was wearing a blue shirt, black leggings, a brown coat and black boots. Anyone who sees the pair is being asked to call 911. Alanna Kelly Ellison residents are concerned about safety after a proposed cell tower could be going up just a few feet from peoples backyards. Not all residents were directly notified by Rogers, and as news started travelling around the neighbourhood about the new tower, so did frustration. Theyre putting in a 60-foot cellphone tower, apparently it could be any time, said Kristin Matthews. I am hoping they just cancel the whole situation. Resident William Kowalski says only about 15 residents were notified about the proposal. They said only two neighbours had any complaints, but that is not true because they only let 15 people know, he said. The only people that were informed were people who lived directly within 100 metres of the site. If approved, the tower would be right behind Kowalskis backyard. It would be 60 metres away from us and 60 metres high, he said. The whole neighbourhood affected we are one block from an elementary school. Matthews, who is pregnant, says the location is a concern to her because of the children who live in the area and attend Ellison Elementary School. I dont think children are guinea pigs, I dont think that anywhere less than two blocks from a school is an ideal position for a technology we are unsure what the effects are, she said. Director for Electoral East, Ellison Mark Bartyik says hes heard residents' concerns and is in communications with Rogers. It is not a Regional District issue, this is a federally regulated issue, he said. Ellison residents are a little upset with how this happened and the lack of communication. Bartyik added he will be following up with Rogers. They say it is all within Canadian standards but who knows what that means ... we all thought smoking was healthy 50 years ago and look at it now, said Kowalski. A petition has been started by residents and it's been signed by over 300 people. Photo: The Canadian Press Dr. Theresa Tam Canada's chief public health officer says the fight against vaccine-related misinformation on social media is being further complicated by the emergence of online bots designed to sow mistrust. Dr. Theresa Tam says very divisive bots have been spreading false claims about vaccinations and she adds misinformation on social media is considered at least partly to blame for the 300-per-cent global increase this year in measles. Tam says bad actors online can be very effective in sowing mistrust among parents, planting doubts and persuading people that a vaccination debate is underway among credible health experts, when in fact, she notes, there is no debate. Speaking to reporters after an event Friday in Ottawa, Tam says there are concerns Canada's vaccine coverage could slide from its current level which she described as not high enough, though not terrible. She says anyone is potentially susceptible to misinformation online because even a short exposure to it can change someone's mind, and she adds it's of particular concern considering 20 to 30 per cent of parents have questions about vaccines. Tam says the key is to make sure parents with questions get science-based, credible answers from health providers. Stephen was the protagonist who forged a warlike and unstable ethnic group into a Christian kingdom in central Europe. Several new nations emerged during the 10th and 11th centuries in Europe. At the beginning of this period, a variety of tribes and migrants dwelt at the boundaries of the Byzantine Empire and the remnants of Charlemagne's realms (that were undergoing a process of Germanic revitalization). Among these were the Magyars (called "Hungarians" by the Byzantines), a nomadic confederation originating around the Ural Mountains. In the 9th century, they crossed over the Carpathians, and conquered and settled the plains around the eastern portion of the Danube River. From there they began to raid and pillage the Western and Byzantine Empires. At the same time, as they adopted a more settled lifestyle, they were influenced by the older European societies and gradually welcomed Christian missionaries and converts among themselves. Missionaries approached primitive, dangerous, violent new peoples by seeking to gain converts among the leading families and, if possible, the chieftains. Both Latin and Byzantine missionaries began to have success among the Hungarians by the middle of the 10th century. But it was the intrepid Saint Adalbert of Prague who finally baptized Geza, the Grand Prince of the confederacy, in the year 985. Baptism was mostly a political arrangement for Geza, but it was clearly something more for his adolescent son who was also baptized on that day. Young Prince Vajk took the name "Stephen" at his baptism. He also found a mentor in the learned, wise, and energetic Adalbert. Illuminated by faith in Christ and the guidance of this great missionary bishop, Stephen sought to become more than just another Magyar warrior chieftain. He aimed for something that, in retrospect, we might call an achievement of Christian humanism: to transform the barbarous, thieving, raping, murdering pagan Hungarians into a civilized nation at the crossroads of Europe, a nation whose people were suffused with the hope of salvation in eternal life, and who lived in peace and freedom in the present world. We often forget that the ideal of the Roman Empire was very much alive in the Middle Ages. It was an ideal that developed not only in the direction of a universal earthly emperor, but also in the direction of identity and freedom for a wide variety of peoples under their own local rulers. The ideal aimed at both solidarity and subsidiarity, although these two aspects nearly always conflicted in practical life. The Hungarians, moreover, were positioned between two empires, the Byzantine and the newly invigorated Holy Roman Empire. When Stephen became Hungary's first king, however, he received the crown directly from Pope Sylvester II, insuring both the political independence and Catholic identity of his people. Uniting and Christianizing these people, unfortunately, was not accomplished without the use of force and even brutal tactics. However we must understand the many actions and flaws of King Saint Stephen in the context of their time and place, where "imposing Christianity" was often inseparable from establishing the rule of law and basic human civility on a collection of warlords and bandits. The Hungarian people to this day remember his legacy with gratitude and devotion. WHAT: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will hold its 68th Annual Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) Conference April 29May 2, 2019 in Atlanta. This annual gathering of past and present disease detectives features presentations on groundbreaking investigations and often life-saving outbreak responses by current EIS officers and their laboratory counterparts, the Laboratory Leadership Service (LLS) fellows. During this years conference, CDC will host a daily media briefing at noon to highlight the work being presented. WHO: MondayProtecting the next generation: EIS officers tackle health threats that affect children Upsurge of Acute Flaccid Myelitis in the United States CDC Surveillance Results, 2018 (Susannah McKay, PhD, MPH, EIS Class of 2017) Enterovirus D68 Circulation: Results from the New Vaccine Surveillance Network United States, JulyOctober 20172018 (Stephanie Kujawski, PhD, MPH, EIS Class of 2018) Excess Infant Mortality in Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan Areas by Race and Ethnicity United States, 20142016 (Lindsay Womack, PhD, MPH, EIS Class of 2017) The New Cool in School: A Media Content Analysis of JUUL Use among US Schools (Mays Shamout, MD, MPH, EIS Class of 2018) TuesdayAn ounce of prevention: EIS officers study the impact and safety of vaccines Trends in the Laboratory Detection of Rotavirus Before and After Implementation of Routine Vaccination United States, 2000-2018 (Benjamin Hallowell, PhD, MPH, EIS Class of 2018) Human Papillomavirus Prevalence Among Females in the United States, Overall and By Race/Ethnicity, National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 20032006 and 20132016 (Nancy McClung, PhD, EIS Class of 2017) Deltoid Bursitis as an Adverse Event Following Injectable Influenza Vaccine in the Vaccine Safety Datalink United States, 20162017 (Elisabeth Hesse, MD, MTM&H, EIS Class of 2017) WednesdayAmericas opioid crisis: EIS officers ally with communities to combat the epidemic Identifying Occupational Patterns in Opioid-Involved Overdose Mortality to Inform Local Opioid Response Utah, 20122016 (Laurel Harduar Morano, PhD, MPH, EIS Class of 2017) Initiation of Nonmedical Use of Prescription Opioids Among High School Students Virginia, 2017 (Nicholas Deputy, PhD, MPH, EIS Class of 2018) Patrol Cars as Vehicles for Public Health: Partnering with police in a wound botulism outbreak response (Howard Chiou, MD, PhD, EIS Class of 2018) Reporting Timeliness and Estimated Incidence of Nonfatal Opioid Overdoses After Implementation of Mandated Reporting Arizona, June 15, 2017June 14, 2018 (Sarah Scott, MD, EIS Class of 2018) ThursdayThe cutting edge of public health: EIS officers respond to breaking issues Verona Integron-Encoded Metallo-Beta-Lactamase-Producing Carbapenem-Resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa Infections Associated with Elective Invasive Medical Procedures in Mexico Multiple U.S. States, 2018-2019 (Ian Kracalick, PhD, MPH, EIS Class of 2017) Norovirus GII.P16-GII.4 Sydney outbreak among wildfire evacuation shelter populations Butte County, California, November 2018 (Ellora Karmarkar, MD, MSc, EIS Class of 2018) A Dark Horse Candidate: Legionellosis Cluster Associated with Working at a Racetrack Facility West Virginia, 2018 (Jared Rispens, MD, EIS Class of 2018) Characterization of Dockless Electric Scooter Related Injury Incidents Austin, Texas, September-November, 2018 (Laurel Harduar Morano, PhD, MPH, EIS Class of 2017) WHEN: April 29 May 2 at Noon, ET WHERE: Savannah 1 Room Sheraton Atlanta Hotel 165 Courtland St NE Atlanta, GA 30303 DIAL-IN: Media: 888-795-0855 Non-Media: 800-369-1605 INTERNATIONAL: 1-630-395-0331 PASSCODE: CDC MEDIA *Please dial in 10 to 15 minutes before the start of the telebriefing. IMPORTANT INSTRUCTIONS If you would like to ask a question during the call, press *1 on your touchtone phone. Press *2 to withdraw your question. You may queue up at any time. You will hear a tone to indicate your question is pending. TRANSCRIPT A transcript will be available following the briefing at CDCs web site: www.cdc.gov/media. Lee Universitys Dr. Chad Schrock, associate professor of English, presented his paper, Real Presence: The Word of God and The Pardoners Tale, at the international meeting of the Conference on Christianity and Literature. In his paper, Dr. Schrock addresses the character of the Pardoner in Chaucers Canterbury Tales, specifically focusing on the Pardoners interactions with religious signs. The overall theme of the conference was The Problem with God: Christianity and Literature in Tension. It is always good to find a community of like-minded people coming together from all over the United States (a few from Canada and the UK) to converse on the important interaction between Christian faith and literature through the ages, said Dr. Schrock. I saw old friends and made new acquaintances. I heard great papers and missed great papers. I learned from old veterans of the discipline and met graduate students who will keep these questions alive longer than I will. In his paper, Dr. Schrock engages with a tradition of scholarship that attempts to explain how the Pardoner, who is a con man, is able to tell a moral tale. Dr. Schrock analyzes the origins of the Pardoners tale and its meaning. He argues that if the Pardoner, as an immoral man, does not draw his moral tale from himself, its meaning derives from the Bible. Dr. Schrock joined Lees faculty in 2010, specializing in early British literature. He is a published author and teaches the capstone course, English in Christian Perspective, as well as literature and rhetoric courses at Lee. He received his doctorate from Pennsylvania State University, his masters from James Madison University, another masters from Eastern Mennonite University, and his bachelors from Pensacola Christian College. The 2019 international meeting of the CCL is the conferences second international meeting. Harvard Divinity School in Boston, Massachusetts, hosted the conference. For more information on the CCL, visit https://www.christianityandliterature.com. For more information on the 2019 international meeting of the CCL, visit: https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/problemconference. A presentation on 2019-20 hunting regulations within the chronic wasting disease (CWD) affected counties, an Asian carp update, and waterfowl research were among the items discussed at the April meeting of the Tennessee Fish and Wildlife Commission. The two-day meeting concluded Friday at the Holly Fork Shooting Complex. A proposal for changes to deer hunting regulations for 2019-20 season in positive and high-risk chronic wasting disease (CWD) counties was presented that included viable options for minimizing the prevalence of CWD, maximizing containment of the disease, maximizing stakeholder buy-in and participation, as well as minimizing conflicts with small game hunters, trappers, and landowners. The current positive and high-risk counties would remain in Unit L, but would have some additional harvest opportunities. During the August deer hunt, gun, muzzleloader, and archery would be allowed with a two antlered deer limit that would be in addition to a hunters annual antlered deer limit of two. WMAs would be open to the public for the August hunt. During the other seasons, for a buck found to be CWD positive, a replacement buck will be allowed. Harvests made on select weekends will require mandatory check-in at stations. An Asian carp update was given citing that commercial harvest is the most effective method in the removal of invasive species. The Asian carp incentive program which began last fall, is continuing to grow and has resulted in 718,000 pounds removed to date. Also discussed were the containment measures including the accidental transport and reduction of immigration at navigation locks. The commission approved a federally-funded study on mallards behavior and use of wetlands. Mallards provide 74 percent of the migrating birds in Tennessee. The project will help the agency be more efficient and effective with habitat management. The TFWC also approved a federally-funded cooperative project with Ducks Unlimited to enhance some wetland area within the Three Rivers Wildlife Management Area. The expectation of the project is that it will contribute to the management of the area and increase hunting and viewing opportunities. The TWRA is constantly striving to provide more opportunities for people to try hunting and fishing. These efforts are keys in increasing hunting and angler numbers in the state. In an effort to expand current programs offered a proposal to enhance existing programs of the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Federation was presented. The goal was to make the programs statewide and with a special target emphasis on non-hunting/fishing youth and families. The commission passed a rule to permanently establish carcass exportation and feeding restrictions for positive and high risk CWD zone counties. Information about the restrictions and which counties they apply to will continue to be updated and publicly available. The meeting was the first for appointed commissioners Jimmy Granbery (Nashville), Steve Jones (Clinton), Jim Ripley (Kodak), Thomas Woods (Piney Flatts), and Hank Wright (Collierville). The TFWCs next scheduled meeting is May 23-24 in Nashville at the TWRA Region II headquarters in Nashville. Gossip Girl and The Shallows actress Blake Lively is known for her perfect head-to-toe styling at red carpet events. Shes among a small group of actresses who eschew from styling services (Meghan Markle is said to also style her own looks). Shes been walking red carpets since her teen years and has become someone who is known for creating stunning looks often featuring clothes fresh off the runways of New York or Paris. But she didnt always have high-end designer clothing to wear. Recently, Lively revealed that she used to lie about the clothes she wore on red carpets in her early days in Hollywood. Keep reading to learn why Lively lied. Lively used to wear Forever 21 and call it vintage Lively recently revealed that she used to wear Forever 21 during an interview with fellow actress Sydney Sweeney of The Handmaids Tale for InStyle. I wore Forever 21 much longer than I admitted. I just started saying it was vintage because I was so shamed for it, Lively told Sweeney. For me, fashion is a form of self-expression. It also really takes me out of my comfort zone. One of the reasons Im an actor is that Im naturally very shy, so its liberating to dress up and pretend to be someone else. The outfit Lively wore to the 2005 Teen Choice Awards came up in their conversation about wearing clothes from Forever 21. Blake Lively at the 2005 Teen Choice Awards wearing a Forever 21 dress. | Jeffrey Mayer/WireImage This was my second ever premiere. Im wearing a $13 dress from Forever 21, Lively said of her outfit. On the red carpet people were like who are you wearing? But when I told them, they said I shouldnt admit to it, like it was more impressive to have a designer gown thats thousands of dollars. After that, I just told people it was vintage. Why Lively is her own stylist When asked by WWD why she chose to be her own stylist in March 2018, Lively gave a very honest answer. Probably because I have control issues and a big ego thats probably the honest answer, said. I just like it. I love design and I love fashion and its a way to be creative. In my job, I get to be creative, but its over a period of time and so many other people are involved, whereas this is a beginning, middle, and end, and I get to be creative and theres an end date in the near future, Lively said. Blake Lively attends the 69th annual Cannes Film Festival at the Palais des Festivals on May 14, 2016, in Cannes, France. |Neilson Barnard/Getty Images Its the same reason why I like doing my friends hair and makeup or cooking you get to be creative and finish it. Whereas with my job you do it and then two years later its finished. It probably goes back to the control issues; its like, Ok I did it, I completed it, its done! Lively on styling: Its a lot of work While the process can be fun and serve as a creative outlet for the actress, being her own stylist is not without its challenges. Blake Lively attends the Heavenly Bodies: Fashion & The Catholic Imagination Costume Institute Gala at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 7, 2018, in New York City. | Dia Dipasupil/WireImage Its a lot of work I mean, its not hard in that we all dress ourselves every morning. So once you have the clothes, you just pick out what to wear like any other human being does. But its easier because you have access to clothes and so its not that hard, Lively told the publication. The hard part is going through all the fashion shows and screenshotting all the looks you like and calling them in. I have an assistant who helps in calling in the looks. But a lot of it is I have relationships with the designers. Most fans of the documentary Making a Murderer at least believe in the possibility that Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey are innocent. Even if filmmakers left out incriminating details and even if Avery has a shady past, theres still a good chance hes serving time for a crime he didnt commitagain. Even people who believe Steven Avery is guilty have a hard time believing that his accomplice, Brendan Dassey, should have gone to prison. The vulnerable teen was found guilty after investigators obtained a highly controversial confession. And thats not the only reason why many fans believe Dassey deserves a new trial. For now, Brendan Dassey is still in prison awaiting the outcome of his multiple appeals. Read on to find out why he never should have gone there in the first place. Brendan Dassey in Making a Murderer | Netflix Who is Brendan Dassey? Before he became a national obsession, Brendan Dassey was just a regular teenage kid living in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin. But that all changed in October 2005 with the murder of photographer Teresa Halbach. Dassey was 16 at the time and living with his parents and brothers on the Avery Salvage Yard property. Prior to his conviction, Brendan Dassey was described as an introverta shy and quiet kid who liked to play video games. Dassey was also diagnosed with an abnormally low IQ. What is the Reid technique? Brendan Dassey on Making a Murderer | Netflix The entire interrogation of Brendan Dassey was taped and parts of it were highlighted during the documentary. Investigators use the controversial Reid technique of interrogation, which was developed by polygraph expert John Reid. This type of questioning has received a lot of criticism in the past. Even though its been the standard in police questioning for years, at least one of the nations largest police consulting firms opted to stop using it because of the association with false confessions. Wicklander-Zulawski & Associates made headlines when they announced their intention to stop using the practice. Confrontation is not an effective way of getting truthful information, Shane Sturman, the companys president and CEO told Business Insider. This was a big move for us, but its a decision thats been coming for quite some time. More and more of our law enforcement clients have asked us to remove it from their training based on all the academic research showing other interrogation styles to be much less risky. What happened during Brendan Dasseys interrogation? Even though their requests for appeals keep getting denied, Brendan Dasseys legal team continues to fight for the chance to get him a new trial. The video of Brendans interrogation shows a confused boy who was manipulated by experienced police officers into accepting their story of how the murder of Teresa Halbach happened, Brandons lawyer Laura Nirider said in a statement. By the end of the interrogation, Brendan was so confused that he actually thought he was going to return to school after confessing to murder. A federal judge in Wisconsin who overturned the conviction of Brendan Dassey agreed with this assessment. Part of the issues he found was that Dassey also didnt have a parent present. But thats not all. The judge said Dassey was generally responding to the investigators questions with answers of just a few hushed words, a story evolved whereby in its final iteration Dassey implicated himself in the rape, murder and mutilation of Teresa Halbach. Will Brendan Dassey get out of jail in 2019? As of right now, Brendan Dassey is still in jail. But his appeals process is ongoing and some sources speculate hell be granted a new trial soon. Thanks to the attention brought on by the documentary Making a Murderer, its not beyond reason to expect that Dassey will be released eventually, maybe even this year. If not, Dassey will be eligible for parole in 2048 at the age of 59. NCIS fans are still heartbroken over the departure of Cote de Pablo, the actress who played Ziva David. Not only were her fans and co-stars bothered by the sudden exit, but also the networks top executives. The actress was reportedly given a significant financial incentive to stay on board and continue with the show, but she turned it down and chose to leave. Heres what we know about how CBS tried to keep Cote de Pablo on NCIS. How long Cote de Pablo played Ziva David Cote de Pablo|Photo by Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic Cote de Pablo began playing Ziva David back in 2005. Her first appearance was in an episode titled Kill Ari (Part I). Her last episode was in a 2013 episode titled Past, Present, and Future. CBS reportedly offered Cote de Pablo more moneyand then even more money Cote de Pablo| Steven Lawton/FilmMagic Apparently, Cote de Pablo was a major asset. The higher-ups thought she was so vital to NCIS that they offered her a deal she couldnt refuseor so they thought. Once that deal didnt lure her back to the set, executives came back a second time with even more money. According to TV Line, former CBS CEO Les Moonves worked hard to convince the actress to keep playing Ziva. During the Television Critics Association press tour, Moonves revealed what he and the network executives did to persuade de Pablo to stay. We offered Cote de Pablo a lot of money [to stay] and then we offered her even more money, said Moonves. We really didnt want to lose herwe love her [and] we think shes terrific, he continued. Why Cote de Pablo left NCIS Cote de Pablo and the NCIS cast| Jennifer Graylock/Getty Images In an interview with TV Guide, de Pablo initially said she left for personal reasons, but she wouldnt go into further detail. As far as my decision to leave, thats a personal thing, and Id rather leave it at that, she said. In another interview, de Pablo said she left because of politics on the show and because she wasnt happy with the writers plans for Ziva: They were going to send [Ziva] back to Israel and make her a sad, miserable woman. I said, What do I leave all the women that are watching and following the show? And I didnt think it was fair. So, I said, Unless someone can really write something fantastic, I wont go back Unfortunately, because of political things and the scripts not being good enough, I chose not to [stay]. I love this character. I worked eight years in crafting this character and loving her, so when I felt or I perceived the character was not being treated with the respect that she deserved, all the money in the world couldnt buy [me]. Will Cote de Pablo and Michael Weatherly return to NCIS? Cote de Pablo and the NCIS cast| Jennifer Graylock/Getty Images There has been buzz about the possibility of de Pablo and former NCIS co-star Michael Weatherly (who played Tony DiNozzo), reuniting. In a 2017 interview with The Wrap, Weatherly said there was discussion of bringing Ziva and DiNozzo back together. However, it wasnt clear when or if this will actually happen. Read more: NCIS: David McCallum Said Cote de Pablo Made a Bad Career Move Check out The Cheat Sheet on Facebook! Everyone wants to know when Prince Harry and Meghan Markles baby arrives, but royal baby watchers feel totally in the dark. It sounds like Harrys brother, Prince William, doesnt know any more than any of the royal fans, based on his answer to the question: Any sign of the royal baby? Prince William | Kai Schwoerer/Getty Images Prince William visited New Zealand During Prince Williams visit to New Zealand, he spoke at a mosque, addressing the recent terrorism attacks. Kensington Palace explained the nature of his visit, sharing he was there to pay tribute to those affected by the Christchurch mosques terrorist attack, and recognize the incredible empathy and unity displayed by the people of New Zealand. Prince William called the attack at the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch, where more than 40 worshippers were murdered on March 15, an unspeakable hate and noted: I stand with you in firm belief that the forces of love will always prevail over the forces of hate. Prince William shared that the terrorists wanted to promote fear and distrust, but New Zealanders had other plans. The people of Al Noor and Linwood mosques had other plans. In a moment of acute pain, you stood up and you stood together. And in reaction to tragedy, you achieved something remarkable. Prince William was asked about the baby When Prince William met up with fans during his New Zealand visit, of course, there were those hoping to get a Baby Sussex update from someone who would likely be the most in the know. William, it turned out, either didnt have any information or was doing his best to stay mum on the topic and not given anything away. A video shows the moment William was asked, Any sign of the royal baby? and he shared: I havent got my phone on me, I have no idea. You guys will find out before I do at this rate! So far, no one has found out anything because Prince Harry and Markle asked for privacy during this time, but there has been wild speculation about when the baby will arrive or if Markle gave birth already and the couple isnt yet sharing the news. Prince William and Kate Middleton visited Meghan Markle Its interesting to note as well that Prince William and Kate Middleton paid a visit to Markle at Frogmore Cottage following the Easter Sunday church service in Windsor. Markle didnt attend the service, as fans believed she was at home resting for the babys arrival but, according to Harpers Bazaar, William and Middleton popped in to check on Markle. The report noted that the Cambridges brought a housewarming gift along, with a source telling BAZAAR: William and Catherine visited because Meghan was unable to attend the service. They wanted to be supportive and see how she is doing. It was a lovely afternoon. Four days later, Prince Harry and Middleton attended a service of commemoration and thanksgiving for Anzac Day at Westminster Abbey. Many royal baby watchers assumed that Prince Harrys attendance at the service meant Markle hadnt yet given birth. It looks like those rumors of a feud between Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle can be put to rest because Prince William and Middleton secretly visited Markle at Frogmore Cottage recently. Thats a pretty sweet gesture in the face of oh-so-many rumors about royal drama. Prince William and Kate Middleton | Mark Cuthbert/UK Press via Getty Images Meghan Markle missed the Easter Sunday service On Easter Sunday (and the Queens birthday this year), members of the royal family gathered at church for an Easter service. Markle was noticeably absent, especially since Prince Harry attended the service by himself. Had Markle already given birth or was she gearing up to have the baby soon? Was she just very pregnant and needed to rest? There was plenty of speculation but, of course, not too many answers given that Prince Harry and Markle are hoping to keep the details of their first childs arrival under wraps. Prince William and Middleton visited Markle after the service According to a report from Harpers Bazaar, Prince William and Middleton popped over to Frogmore Cottage following the Easter service to see how Markle was doing. This was the Cambridges first visit to Prince Harry and Markles new home, as they recently moved in following a renovation project. Prince William and Middleton reportedly brought along a housewarming gift, showing they are definitely thoughtful guests. A source told BAZAAR more specifically that William and Catherine visited because Meghan was unable to attend the service. They wanted to be supportive and see how she is doing. It was a lovely afternoon. Prince Harry and Middleton teamed up Later in the week, royal baby watchers were certain that Markle hadnt yet given birth when Prince Harry showed up for the Anzac Day Service of Commemoration and Thanksgiving at Westminster Abbey, which he attended with Middleton. Prince Harry and Markles Instagram account shared photos, explaining the details of the service: Today, The Duke of Sussex attends the #ANZACdayservice at Westminster Abbey with The Duchess of Cambridge and The Duke of Gloucester #ANZACDay commemorates the anniversary of the Anzac landings at Gallipoli in 1915. ANZAC Day is a moment to recognise the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps who lost their lives during the landings, and to honour the sacrifices of men and women in all wars. Its believed that Harry certainly wouldnt leave Markle at home if she was in labor or had just had the baby. Markles mother, Doria Ragland reportedly flew from the U.S. to be by her daughters side, leading many to believe that the baby will arrive soon. Prince William gave a Baby Sussex update Even Prince William doesnt know the latest about Baby Sussex. He gave a bit of a surprising update when asked during his visit to New Zealand: Any sign of the royal baby? His response? I havent got my phone on me, I have no idea. You guys will find out before I do at this rate! Prince Harry and Markle are trying to maintain privacy surrounding the birth of their first child, with Buckingham Palace releasing a statement earlier this month that noted: Its been nearly a year since the Brown family picked up and moved to Flagstaff, Arizona. Kody Brown, the most vocal proponent of the move, seems to be settling in just fine, but there is one member of the plural family who is still struggling to find her footing. Kodys first wife, Meri, took to Instagram to share an intense feeling of sadness with her fans. She noted that she seriously missed Las Vegas, and now fans are concerned about the 48-year-old business woman. What prompted Meris Instagram post? Yesterday I had this overwhelming emotion of missing Las Vegas, the place I called home for nearly 8 years. I mean, I was really really sad for not living there anymore. So much life https://t.co/M9xaOMrEc5 Meri Brown (@MeriBrown1) April 26, 2019 No one is sure what prompted Meris Instagram post, or precisely what in Flagstaff has her feeling down, but obviously something is going on with the mother of one. In her post, she told fans that not only was she feeling particularly sad about being in Flagstaff, but that she wasnt entirely sure why. Meri noted the beauty of the city, but apparently, she just cant force herself to be upbeat about it. She went on to explain that she truly felt at home in Las Vegas and missed the friends she made in the diverse city. Thankfully, the reality TV star ended the post on a positive note. She said she was looking forward to making new friends, exploring her new surroundings and enjoying the natural beauty of the city, but that didnt leave fans feeling any better. Its been nearly a full year, and it just doesnt seem to be clicking for Meri. Is Flagstaff the cause of Meris melancholy? While Meri seems to think Flagstaff is to blame for her currently downtrodden mood, theres plenty the polygamist has to be upset over. Between the move, fighting with her sister wives, the breakdown of her marriage and an empty nest a lot has changed for Meri over the last several years, and it seems like its finally getting to her. Back in October 2018, In Touch questioned whether or not Meri was planning to leave her family behind after it was discovered she wasnt following her sister wives on Instagram. Fans had been wondering the same thing for years. After the catfishing scheme and the desire to open a business entirely on her own, it looked like Meri had reached a breaking point, but if she really does have one foot out the door, shes putting on a rather impressive show for the cameras. Is Meri lying about her commitment to the Brown family? There is no doubt that Meri was once head over heels in love with Kody Brown. Kodys first wife chronicled their early love affair in the familys tell-all book Becoming Sister Wives, but it seems that more than 20 years and three wives have helped to tarnish their once shiny marriage. Now, fans truly believe the owner of Lizzie Heritage Inn is merely biding her time until she can completely distance herself from the Browns. So, what is the evidence? There is no evidence that is entirely overwhelming, but there are some clues that Meri isnt entirely into the entire plural family thing anymore. First and foremost, Meri was interested in living in an apartment downtown, something that would allow her to mingle with the people of Flagstaff. Kody nixed the idea, but fans think Meri was hoping to forge friendships, so she didnt have to rely on her family. Fans also have questioned whether Lizzie Heritage Inn is Meris escape plan. The Bed and Breakfast located in Utah is in only Meris name, and she was adamant about the business being solely hers. She was so adamant that she happily raised the capital to buy the property herself to ensure Kody, Robyn, Christine, and Janelle had absolutely nothing to do with it. A former family insider has also been spilling the tea on the family, suggesting several times that Meri is only with the Browns when the family is filming. Otherwise, things are cool and distant. Now that shes living several miles from the rest of the wives in a rental home, the relationship might be cooling even more. Hallmark Channels period drama When Calls the Heart has captivated viewers for the past five years. The show takes the audience back in time to the Canadian frontier in the early 20th century. Characters like Elizabeth Thornton, Dr. Carson Shepherd, and Faith Carter live in the town of Hope Valley (formerly Coal Valley), a picture-perfect Old West town. But is Hope Valley a real place? When Calls the Heart is filmed in Canada The When Calls the Heart set | Andrew Chin/Getty Images When Calls the Heart is filmed in the Canadian province of British Columbia, in the town of Langley, which is not far from Vancouver. Production happens on the Jamestown Movie Set, part of the family-owned MacInnes Farms. The set might look like an authentic old town, but its origins are pretty recent. The filming location got its start when Scary Movie 4 producers decided the farm would be the perfect spot to shoot a part of the movie that mocked the film The Village, Melanie MacInnes told the Langley Advance Times, after. After than, the movies kept coming, she said. When When Calls the Heart began filming at the farm in 2013, a crew created Hope Valley in less than a month, according to an article in the Huffington Post. Rather than just putting up facades and shooting interiors elsewhere, entire buildings including a saloon, a store, and a cafe were constructed, all with period-appropriate details like hand-cranked Victrolas and oil lamps. Some of the items came from the set of a very different Western-set show, FXs gritty drama Hell on Wheels, about the construction of the transcontinental railroad. Hearties make special visits to the set Hearties love their show, and the most devoted fans have taken to making pilgrimages to British Columbia to meet the stars and see the set in person. Hearties Family Reunion organizes the tours, the most recent of which happened in October 2018. Last year, attendees met cast members like Erin Krakow and Paul Greene, producers Michael Landon, Jr. and Brian Bird, and Janette Oke, the author of the books that inspired the series. They also visited the set for a special Hope Valley Tour. So far, there are no reunion dates scheduled for 2019, with organizers saying that they were waiting to hear about the fate of the show before planning future events. But now that When Calls the Heart has been renewed for Season 7, fans who want to see Hope Valley for themselves should keep an eye out for information on any upcoming events and how to register. The cast sometimes posts updates from the set Even if you cant make it to Canada to see Hope Valley in person, you can still get a behind-the-scenes look at the set on social media. The When Calls the Heart cast often posts updates on Instagram when they are filming, which offer a glimpse at what it takes to create the drama that plays out on TV screens on Sunday nights. Even Daniel Lissing, who left the show at the end of Season 5 when his character was killed off, still shares throwback posts from his time on the set. The Hope Valley set will even make an appearance in another Hallmark production. Recently, Kristoffer Polaha shared that he was filming a new installment of Mystery 101 for Hallmark Movies & Mysteries at the Jamestown Movie Set. Some fans even think that the new movie might be a crossover with When Calls the Heart. Thats certainly something for Hearties to look forward to! Check out The Cheat Sheet on Facebook! Robert Downey Jr. (RDJ) has been the face of Marvel since first donning the Iron Man suit back in 2008. Responsible for kickstarting the MCUs biggest franchise, Robert Downey Jr.s pedestal deserves to be a bit higher than those of his co-stars. Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, and all the others who portray the heroes you have come to know and love would have never seen the silver screen in their iconic suits had it not been for Downey. RDJ even helped convince Chris Evans to join the MCU, calling the actor to share a little wisdom and explain why it was a shrewd career move. Robert Downey Jr | Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images Iron Man is often credited as the movie that saved Robert Downey Jr.s career, as he had previously lost his reputation in Hollywood due to stints in rehab and brief stays in prison. However, the star overcame his drug addiction and past struggles, and once again rose to international acclaim as the wise-cracking billionaire Tony Stark. While the MCU may be responsible for help bringing RDJ back into the light, it will be less responsible for his continued success. There are several reasons why RDJ will likely be the most successful of his Avengers: Endgame co-stars outside of the MCU following the sagas conclusion. Robert Downey Jr. had the most successful career pre-MCU Before Starring as Tony Stark, Robert Downey Jr. arguably had the most successful acting career, when compared to the other original six Avengers. Robert Downey Jr. was a major Hollywood influence throughout the 1980s and 1990s. He snagged his first Oscar nomination in 1993 for starring as Charlie Chaplin in Chaplin, a role that earned him the BAFTA that same year. Robert Downey Jr. also won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series for his work on Ally McBeal in 2001. Furthermore, after starring in the first Iron Man, he went on to play a modernized Sherlock Holmes in 2010, which earned him a Golden Globe. Robert Downey Jr. also received an Oscar nomination in 2010 for his work in Tropic Thunder. When it comes to proving himself in roles outside of the heroic Iron Man, RDJ did so way before the MCU even brought him on, and continued to do so during his stay with the franchise. In terms of awards, Mark Ruffalo beats out RDJ when it comes to Oscar nominations, as the actor has been nominated three times. Jeremy Renner has also been nominated twice for the Oscar. However, neither Jeremy Renner nor Mark Ruffalo has ever won a Golden Globe. So, while nominations are great, RDJ has got them both beat in terms of major wins. Robert Downey Jr. has a few iconic roles on the horizon According to IMDb, Robert Downey Jr. is set to star in a reimagining of Dr. Dolittle alongside Tom Holland, Octavia Spencer, Emma Thompson, and more. He will play Dr. Dolittle himself. Robert Downey Jr. is also set to take on the role of a lifetime as the infamous Dr. John Brinkley. While the film is not yet titled, he will portray the man notorious for pretending to be a doctor and proceeding to perform testicle transplants with goat testes as a cure for male impotence. Faking the world into believing he was a real doctor, John Brinkley is one of the most well-known scam artists of all time. If RDJ brings his A-game to this biopic, he may just earn the Oscar, as the Academy tends to favor biopics (and movies of the sort). Let us not forget Gandhi, The Kings Speech, and Bohemian Rhapsody. Stepping away from the heros journey, RDJs future looks bright and varied. And, given his past successes, Hollywood producers and casting directors already know that he is capable of much more than Iron Man. However, the other actors, who were less famous beforehand, may face some struggles as they try to break away from the Marvel mold. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are getting ready to welcome their first child together. And as the couple learns the ropes of parenthood, one important part about raising a child is developing strong family ties. When Harry and Prince William were growing up, they always remained close with their cousins, and they probably want the same for their own children. But with the supposed distance between Meghan and Kate Middleton, its hard to tell what the future holds for the youngest generation of royals. Will Baby Sussex bring Meghan and Kate closer? Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle | Samir Hussein/WireImage Harry always kept a close relationship with his cousins growing up Although Harry and his brother spent more time in the spotlight than any of their cousins, their parents still did their best to make sure the boys spent time with their family members. Through the years, royals such as Princess Eugenie, Princess Beatrice, and Zara Tindall all developed strong connections to Harry and Will. Eugenie and Beatrice are Prince Andrews daughters, while Zara is Princess Annes daughter. And Harry and Eugenie supposedly had a very close relationship growing up. Will and Kate do their best to let Prince George and Princess Charlotte spend time with their cousins Despite raising the future king, Will and Kate make sure to let George and Charlotte have as normal of a childhood as possible. They recently took their two oldest children for a day out with Zara and Mike Tindalls kids, who are technically second cousins to George and Charlotte. Zara is an equestrian, so the family supported her in a recent event, and George and Charlotte played with Zaras daughters, Mia and Lena. While George and Charlotte will inevitably have busier lives than their second cousins, Will and Kate still understand the value of developing relationships with those in the family. Prince George and Princess Charlotte will soon have a new cousin to play with. | Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images A new baby for the Cambridge kids to play with may bring Meghan and Kate closer Will and Kate understand that the cousins all need time to grow and develop relationships. And Meghan and Harrys new baby will be one more royal for George, Charlotte, and Louis to get to know. If Will and Kate want the kids to be close, Kate and Meghan will probably start spending a lot more time together once Baby Sussex is old enough to play with his or her cousins. This could help Meghan and Kate develop a stronger bond, and it may end up bringing the two mothers much closer than they are now. As most people know, there have been plenty of rumors about a poor relationship between the two duchesses. The feud rumors between Meghan and Kate appear to have cooled off a bit The bulk of the rumors about Meghan and Kate started last year, when Harry and Meghan were first married. But ever since the royals appeared happy as clams at their Christmas mass in 2018, the rumors have died down a bit. People dont pay such close attention to Meghan and Kates relationship anymore, and now that theyre living in two separate places, the rumors will likely die even more. Everyone seems excited for Baby Sussexs arrival, and that appears to be Harry and Meghans main focus. Check out The Cheat Sheet on Facebook! Products from Hirschmann have been used in laboratories for 50 years in over 100 countries around the world. Our laboratory instruments, volumetric analysis glass instruments and precision capillaries are more than just sophisticated high-quality tools for laboratory specialists. They can be individually adapted to suit user requirements. We develop advanced problem solutions for our customers for daily work in medical laboratories, research and applications in industry. Examples of our innovations include the market launch of the world's first solar-powered digital burette in 2001 and individual coding of volumetric measuring devices in 2009. "Innovative thinking is the engine of progress" is a leitmotif of the Hirschmann corporate philosophy. The application of this fundamental idea is extremely versatile. Innovations originate in our thoughts. This makes Hirschmann employees our most important asset. Their qualification, modern working conditions and social benefits represent an investment that pays off. 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'Massive generational' shift changing evangelical institutions on justice issues, Gary Haugen says Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment MIAMI BEACH A "massive generational" shift is changing how evangelical institutions address justice issues, according to International Justice Mission CEO Gary Haugen. "I do believe there is a massive generational thing that is taking place here," Haugen said during his April 1 talk at Faith Angle Forum. His presentation was on global poverty and called "Global Poverty and Injustice: Taking the Long View." But during the Q&A session, Haugen was asked some questions about the current state of evangelicalism in the U.S. When he first helped found IJM in the 1990s, Haugen said, most evangelicals looked with suspicion upon concerns about justice for the poor. "Traditional evangelicals viewed any presentation ... [that suggested] we want justice, care about struggles for the poor, fighting abuse and oppression, that would have been viewed, when I started 25 years ago, as a distraction for the 'real Gospel,'" he said. "It would have been viewed as lefty political agenda ... liberation theology." But that is no longer the case, Haugen believes. "There were important theological objections to even to the calling of Christians to engage the struggle for justice in the world. In mainstream evangelicalism, I believe those theological objections have gone away. And especially for a younger generation, 40 and younger, they don't even remember those old days, and if you aren't actually talking about justice, you're probably not credible." And while those younger evangelicals who are more concerned about justice for the poor don't currently hold leadership positions in evangelical institutions, soon they will. "Those folks don't have the money and the power in the church community right now, but in 15 years, they will. I think you will see a different phenomenon," he said. IJM was founded in 1997 and works to protect the poor from violence in the developing world. Haugen was introduced by Washington Post conservative columnist Michael Gerson, who said that Haugen is the type of evangelical that makes the word "evangelical" worth fighting for. When asked about that during the Q&A, Haugen responded, "I don't want to argue with my dear friend Michael, but I may not be willing to fight for the word 'evangelical.'" He explained that while evangelical churches were formative growing up, he didn't hear much preaching about justice, even though he found the topic throughout the Bible. Quoting from memory, Haugen mentioned the examples of Micah 6:8, "He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God," and Jesus' words to religious leaders in Matthew 23:23, "But you have neglected the more important matters of the law justice, mercy and faithfulness." "But I grew up in a church that managed to weave its way through the text without ever encountering those scriptures," he said. "I heard a thousand sermons by the time I left for college and never heard a sermon address those, primarily because the people in my church were not suffering injustice. I think that's one reason." Working with Bishop Desmond Tutu in South Africa in the 1980s, however, helped Haugen think about scriptural applications to the injustice problems. "I was re-acquainted with my own faith tradition of commitment to the struggle of justice. The biblical text which I have been raised in is chock full of this priority," he said. And when he helped found IJM, Haugen said, he had two goals: 1) "to move my faith tradition from almost complete disengagement in the struggle for human rights and justice ... into engagement, and on the strength of biblical tradition;" 2) And to do that "as a community of intentional spiritual formation" as he found in South Africa. Faith Angle Forum brings journalists to Miami Beach twice a year to help them better understand the interaction between religious faith and public life. You can watch Haugen's full presentation here. Over half of Protestant churchgoers failed to share the Gospel in the last 6 months: LifeWay Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment More than fifty percent of Protestant church attendees have admitted to not engaging in evangelism in the past half a year, according to a recently released report by LifeWay Research. When asked how many times they shared with somehow how to become a Christian, 55 percent of respondents answered zero. 24 percent of respondents said that they had shared how to become a Christian to someone 1-2 times, 12 percent responded 3-5 times, 5 percent said 6-10 times, 1 percent said 11-15 times, and 3 percent reported 16 times or more. Scott McConnell, executive director of LifeWay Research, said in comments released Tuesday that evangelism does not appear to be the priority of churchgoers. The task of making disciples of all nations has not been fully embraced in the American church especially by the majority culture, stated McConnell. This is in spite of the convenience of having other ethnicities and immigrants from other countries often living in the same neighborhood. Data for the LifeWay report came from an online survey of 2,500 Protestant churchgoers performed Jan. 14-29 with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Although the report found less than half had engaged in evangelism in the past six months, it also found that most respondents had invited an unchurched person to worship in the past six months. Among ethnic groups surveyed for the report, Hispanic respondents were the most likely to have talked to someone about how to become a Christian within the past six months, with only 32 percent reporting that they had not done so. Hispanic churchgoers were also the ethnic group most likely to have invited someone to church, with 71 percent of Hispanic respondents saying they had done so. LifeWay also found that respondents aged 65 and over were the least likely to have had no evangelistic conversations within the last half year. Recently, there has been much discussion about young adults participating less in evangelism. Thats not the case, however, noted McConnell. In fact, young adult and middle-aged churchgoers are more likely to have shared with someone how to become a Christian in the past six months than older churchgoing adults. In February, the Barna Group released a report commissioned by Alpha USA indicating that nearly half of Millennial-aged Christians believed evangelizing was wrong. "Almost half of Millennials (47%) agree at least somewhat that it is wrong to share ones personal beliefs with someone of a different faith in hopes that they will one day share the same faith. This is compared to a little over one-quarter of Gen X (27%), and one in five Boomers (19%) and Elders (20%)," read the Barna report. "Younger Christians tend to be more personally aware of the cultural temperature around spiritual conversations. Among practicing Christians, Millennials report an average (median) of four close friends or family members who practice a faith other than Christianity; most of their Boomer parents and grandparents, by comparison, have just one." Craig Springer, executive director of Alpha USA, told The Christian Post in a podcast interview that the issue might be more a methodology issue than an actual opposition to evangelism. Springer pointed out that the same research also found that 94 percent of Millennial Christians believe that the best thing that can happen to a person is for them to know Jesus. The passion for Millennial Christians to see their friends and family come to know Christ is just as strong as any other preceding generation, said Springer, I do believe theres something to look at the methodology. Christian women flooding book industry with 'raw, real' content Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment More women are entering Christian publishing and are forgoing fluff to tackle tough issues, including abuse, anxiety and relationships. And theyre making themselves vulnerable to do it. I have been encouraged to see how younger women are willing to be raw, real, and more vulnerable in sharing their stories within their trusted communities, Judy Dunagan, acquisition editor for womens discipleship resources at Moody Publishers, told The Christian Post. Fluff and pat answers are no longer tolerated as they openly share their broken stories. And they are clamoring for answers to their brokenness whether it be for their marriages, parenting, healing from past trauma, loneliness, etc. Rebekah Guzman, editorial director for Baker Books, said books by women writers that address such topics as sex and purity, depression and anxiety, relationships, spiritual warfare, spiritual transformation, and authority of Scripture have done very well at Baker in the last few years. She noted the importance of literature centered on hard issues, saying, The more Christian nonfiction continues to be vulnerable and honest about real life and struggles, the more people will relate and look to authors for practical help and hope. Best-selling books by women in the last year include It's Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered where Lysa TerKeurst talks about her cancer diagnosis and husbands infidelity and Its Okay Not to Be Okay where Sheila Walsh opens up about her battle with depression. The growth in female authors and the desire for rawer content could partly be attributed to the #MeToo movement and social media, especially as female bloggers gain millions of followers. #MeToo went viral in late 2017 after dozens of women accused movie mogul Harvey Weinstein of rape and sexual abuse. Many women took to social media to reveal that they too were harassed or abused sexually. Since then, many Hollywood celebrities, federal politicians and clergy were exposed for having engaged in sexual harassment. Maryland Pastor Ruth Everhart is tackling the issue in her upcoming book, #MeToo Reckoning: Facing the Church's Complicity in Sexual Abuse and Misconduct, due out in December. "I would say just as a woman who is an aware person and a person of faith that there's definitely a connection between the fact that our culture is shifting in what people read, Everhart commented, adding that its important for Christian nonfiction literature to address hard issues. Jon M. Sweeney, publisher at Paraclete Press, said he believes the #MeToo movement has had an influence on womens ministry literature. #MeToo has reached into every corner of our religious and secular lives. I think it has led to many women looking more purposefully for books by fellow women, said Sweeney. The rise of female bloggers, social media influencers The opportunities for women to lead in churches and Christian organizations have historically been limited. With that, many Christian women have successfully used social media to offer guidance and wisdom and to simply say what they want to say. Cindy Bunch, associate publisher and director of Editorial at InterVarsity Press which has been publishing more women than ever told CP that she believes womens Christian nonfiction has changed radically with the rise of blogging and podcasting among women writers, giving a platform to those who might not be able to have an official leadership role in their church. Blogging and podcasting have created opportunities for women who don't have professional careers that naturally give them a reach into an audience, noted Bunch. Most of our major Christian organizations are not led by women. In the world of blogging, we've seen stay-at-home moms and others create platforms for themselves and develop an audience. And that audience has been enormous. Guzman of Baker Books said that in the last eight or so years, women have been approaching publishers with thousands to millions of followers already asking for content and products. [W]omen are coming to publishers with tremendous built-in, devoted tribes, she noted. And Baker Books wants to reach that already-hungry audience. While Baker releases books in various genres, it has seen tremendous growth in sales and demand over the last few years in womens nonfiction titles. Finding and acquiring new and seasoned women authors to speak on womens ministry issues has become a major focus at Baker. It is also quickly becoming one of the most competitive genres in publishing, which was not the case a few years ago, Guzman said. Weve noticed that books with strong felt needs and practical takeaways, such as Sheila Walshs Its Okay Not to Be Okay and Mo Isoms Sex, Jesus, and the Conversations the Church Forgot, really strike a chord with readers and have the potential to spread like wildfire. Dunagan believes social media has also grown the desire for more practical and bite-size content, such as self-help material, as well as more in-depth and non-fluff Bible studies. Notably, Girl, Wash Your Face: Stop Believing the Lies About Who You Are so You Can Become Who You Were Meant to Be by blogger Rachel Hollis was hugely popular in 2018 and has remained on the New York Times best-seller list for the last 54 weeks. In the self-help book, Hollis describes her failures and encourages women to take control of their own lives. Parallels in womens ministry When Kelly King, manager of Women's Ministry Training at LifeWay, was listening to a popular leadership podcast, she was amused to hear the host of the show express shock at the number of women who follow women Bible teachers and influencers on social media and engage with their digital resources." I'm not surprised at all and this will continue to impact the way we reach others with the gospel message. These digital resources included giving women in the Southern Baptist Convention more opportunities to gain formal theological training due to the increase of online opportunities at seminaries. King said that womens ministry staff at local churches havent seen much growth, attributing that to factors including most churches viewing womens ministry as a lay leadership issue. Though women arent allowed to serve in certain leadership positions, such as the pastorship, in Southern Baptist churches, King said there have been expanded opportunities for women to serve in roles that have long been held by males, such as discipleship-small group ministry, missions, or recovery ministries. I do think there have been significant changes regarding the roles of women in the local church, she added. Women leaders must be more prepared to handle crisis situations and addiction issues. Our churches should be safe places for women to find emotional and spiritual encouragement. We need to be hope-givers in light of a culture that seems hopeless. After CP interviewed King for this story, an unofficial SBC group known as the SBC Womens Leadership Network was launched. We are singularly focused on connecting and encouraging female leaders in our SBC family in order that we all flourish for the sake of the gospel, states the Network. The team behind this network is a group of women who have demonstrated leadership and service in the local church level plus many lead and work at the denominational level. We are loyal Southern Baptists and convictionally complementarian. Kay Burnett, director National Womens Ministries Department with The General Council of the Assemblies of God, reported a thriving womens ministry, likely strengthened by the fact that from 2013-2017, the number of women attending congregations has increased from approximately 1.386 million to 1.480 million. More and more women are stepping into positions of volunteer leadership and many have taken the pathway to be credentialed with the Assemblies of God, said Burnett. The Assemblies of God has a unique and affirming perspective on women in ministry and leadership. The AG promotes and supports women serving in every level of ministry from teaching to serving as the lead pastor for her church. A major example occurred in April 2018 when Pastor Donna Barrett was elected the first female general secretary of the Assemblies of God. Burnett also told CP that in the Assemblies of God, womens ministry was focusing on more authenticity and honesty about the issues women grapple with. This includes their current practice of publishing articles and blogs through our website and social media platforms on topics such as healing and recovery from abortion, domestic violence, pregnancy loss, living a full life as a single woman, and leadership for women. I expect to see more and more focus on the power of God to heal in the face of daunting brokenness and obstacles. Narrative has always been a powerful tool for communicating big truths. Jesus was a master of the craft of using story to bring a principle truth alive, Burnett said. As more and more women share their stories of healing from abuse, addictions of all kinds, gender confusion and same-sex attraction, I believe we will see revival and breakthrough in the lives of women across our nation. As Sweeney of Paraclete Press looks toward the future, he feels that women will keep looking to fellow women, whenever possible, for every kind of spiritual inspiration and guidance; and women will continue to comprise the largest purchasing segment of spiritual and religious books. And while the primary audience for female authors has been women, some publishers are hoping that will change. Bunch of InterVarsity Press said it is often the case that readers perceive that books authored by women are only for women. I hope that in the next decade we will see more and more men desiring to read women's voices and more women writing for the whole church. She has already seen some movement, with #MeToo prompting some men to want to read women and discover womens voices. Crossroads names Phil Heller new lead pastor months after Patrick Garcia firing Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Crossroads Christian Church in Indiana has named a new lead pastor months after the ousting of the megachurchs former Pastor Patrick Garcia and the departure of other pastors who established a new church. Phil Heller has been named the new lead pastor of the nondenominational church near Evansville, the church announced Thursday via Facebook. Heller was recommended by a lead pastor search team and was affirmed by church elders. A vote of affirmation among church members is upcoming. Heller will begin preaching at the church this weekend and will continue with the congregations Jesus People series. Heller served for over a decade as the executive pastor at White River Christian Church in Noblesville, about three hours north of Evansville. He previously served on staff at Crossroads as the student ministries pastor and high school pastor between 19962002. He has a bachelor's degree in specialized ministries from Kentucky Christian University and is near completing a masters degree in organizational leadership from Indiana Wesleyan University. We became convinced that his previous experience with us gives him a completely unique passion and love for our church family, the church expressed in its Facebook post. At the same time, we recognized that Phils leadership qualities and preaching capacity grew to an exceptional level as the executive pastor, for 13 years, at White River Christian Church, a large church in Noblesville, Indiana. He has been uniquely prepared to be the lead pastor at Crossroads. The church said the decision was made after thousands of hours were spent reviewing resumes and sermons as well as conducting several rounds of interviews The churchs statement outlines what is required in the lead pastors role. This person serves with genuine humility, is committed to seeing the Gospel reach people and transform our community and the world, and leads from a Kingdom mindset, the statement explains. In addition to preaching capability, our goal was to find someone who is accessible, relational, hard-working and has a shepherds heart. According to Hellers biography page, he grew up in a pastors family and also married a pastors daughter. Gods call to ministry came early in his life and he loves being part of what God is doing in the world, the website explains. In August, Garcia was let go by Crossroads elders and accused of being an inexperienced leader who wanted complete control. In the days after, hundreds called for his reinstatement. In the wake of Garcias departure, other Crossroads ministry leaders resigned. Former leaders who were either ousted or resigned from Crossroads launched a new church called The Hills in Evansville last September. "We are not doing this out of hate, we are not doing this out of hurt or emotion but out of a strong conviction that we were called to Evansville and that calling has not changed," churchs Executive Pastor Darryl Marin explained at the time. In October, Garcia was named lead pastor at The Hills. Garcia told The Christian Post at the time that philosophical differences were really at the heart of his ousting from Crossroads. When you see Paul and Barnabas parting ways in Scripture, the Gospel continued to advance because Paul could be who he was and Barnabas could be who he was, Garcia explained. Barnabas was very much an encourager. He was someone who was maybe more emotionally driven and was more sensitive to the people's needs. Whereas Paul, he had some of that but his focus and purpose was different and that was an aggressive mission to turn the world upside down for Jesus Christ. 'I've lost two kids to the trans cult, I want them back': An anguished mom shares her journey Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment In December, a therapist told a tormented Lynn Meagher that she should practice self-care, have a support network, and go to the emergency room if she wanted to kill herself. The counselor then proceeded to make her feel guilty for supposedly being a judgmental person and essentially blamed her for her woes. This harsh therapy session cost Meagher $160. The Christian Post connected with the Seattle-area mom in January when she was in Washington, D.C., and followed up with a subsequent Skype interview. She is sharing her personal journey and experiences with CP because the public does not know what parents endure. The prevailing narrative coming out of purportedly mainstream media outlets uncritically promotes gender transition and everything that comes with it, including parents who are celebrating their child's new identity as the opposite sex. This is her story. Crushed beyond belief, Meagher went home and spent several days bedridden, nearly paralyzed with heartache. At the recommendation of a friend, she had gone in to see this particular counselor for help in processing her confusion and sadness after her 23-year-old daughter, Emily (not her real name) informed her that she no longer wanted to be in a relationship and asked that she not try to contact her. Emily believed she was transgender and had changed her name to Evan, began taking testosterone, and was going through life as though she was a man. Emily is the second of Meagher's children to identify as transgender. In 2003, Meagher's son, Daniel (not his real name), who is now 36 and has legally changed his name to Daniella, came home on leave from the Navy at Christmas and announced he had always wanted to be a woman. Approximately two years later he traveled to Thailand and had his genitals amputated, got breast implants, and had his Adam's apple shaved down, which is called a chondrolaryngoplasty. Daniel was ultimately kicked out of the military because it was said that he had a personality disorder. Meagher also has a third child, a daughter, Anna (not her real name), who is 22. Meagher is using her real name in this article and not a pseudonym as others with similar stories have done because she feels she must be courageous given the current state of affairs. Because her children are not minors, she faces no potential legal repercussions as has been the case in several jurisdictions around the country when parents refuse to go along with their children's self-determined "gender identity" and the accompanying therapies, medical practices and surgical interventions. "The reason I am choosing to speak publicly is because I want people to be aware of the grief and loss that many parents experience. I have talked with many parents who describe their lives as a horror film. Watching your child struggle is one thing. Watching them reject their body, insist they are now a different person, a different sex, demand hormone treatments and a new identity, it's unbelievably difficult," Meagher said in a February interview. "Add to that the fact that it's nearly impossible to get help either for yourself or your child that's not transgender-affirming, and help your child to actually sort out their issues, and parents are isolated in this grief." Daniel becomes Daniella Meagher lost contact with her son for nearly a decade after he came out as transgender. She reconnected with him in 2013, which was a struggle because she didn't feel she could call him "she" or a woman, and use his preferred female name while remaining true to her beliefs particularly that sex cannot be changed and no amount of cosmetic surgery can alter biology. "I did the best I could to have a relationship with him where I just loved him for himself, and was hoping that we could just disagree on what we disagreed with and love each other anyway," Meagher said. They managed a workable relationship until the spring of 2016 when he asked her a "litmus test" type of question about a pending bill in the state related to whether bathrooms and other single-sex intimate spaces should be opened on the basis of "gender identity." When she didn't answer the way he wanted, he wrote her out of his life, she explained. Meagher only saw her son one time after the 2016 presidential election. It was at a coffee shop where he called her a "fascist" several times. He had met her to ask if he could obtain a copy of her birth certificate. Meagher was born in Canada and he was exploring the possibility of moving there in light of Donald Trump winning. "I didn't even want to discuss these issues with him. I felt like he was allowed to believe what he wanted to believe and be who he was but I wasn't allowed the same thing, to be who I had always been. I wasn't allowed to be me. I had to change what I believed in order to be acceptable to him," Meagher said. The mother of three describes herself as a Bible-believing Christian with conservative-leaning political views. Daniel started telling other family members and siblings what a horrible person Meagher was. Whenever he was around he would manage to control the family dynamics in order to forbid her from being present. She missed out on family events like her daughter's graduation, holidays and birthdays. To Meagher's bewilderment, somehow he was able to manipulate everyone, ensuring that she was always excluded. The only times Meagher could see her daughters was when he wasn't around. Meagher and her husband got divorced in 2015. Emily presently lives with her dad, Meagher's ex-husband. Becoming trans has not helped her son, she maintained. Although he is "extremely brilliant" he remains unemployed and has never been able to hold a steady job, she told CP. "And he's pretty unhappy, he has a lot of anxiety. He's basically one break-up with his partner who is also a trans-identified male away from being homeless. If that relationship were to break up I really don't know what he would do because he doesn't have gainful employment. "He doesn't have a vagina. He has a wound," a physical and a psychological one, she said. How Emily became Evan Emily, who is now 24, is also a brilliant, "really, really bright" person, Meagher said of her daughter. "She's extremely gifted, artistic. She can write, she can draw. Musically, she can pick up any instrument and play it. She's got all these gifts." But middle and high school was a struggle for her and she struggled to fit in with her peers, "like a lot of bright kids do." When she was 15 and 16, it was particularly bad as she dealt with depression and was self-harming by cutting herself. Meagher never saw any sign of gender confusion in her daughter. For a season she came out of her room dressed in men's clothes. But when she inquired why she was dressing like a man, Emily told her the clothes were simply more comfortable. During that same season, she would often emerge from her room looking different, wearing makeup and a variety of hairstyles. Meagher attributed this to her daughter's extensive creativity. Emily at one point wanted to be a special effects make-up artist. "I used to joke that every day was Halloween because she'd come out looking different every day," she said, chuckling. "I didn't say anything about it except 'Hey, how are ya?'" Soon enough she was wearing girls' clothes again. June 10, 2018, was the last time Meagher saw Emily, and when they were together her daughter had on a skirt and "looked pretty." "We went out for a really nice dinner, had a good time, she told me she loved me, and then I dropped her off at her dad's house," Meagher recounted. Meagher then left the country and spent several weeks in Liberia. When she returned she texted Emily and received either brush-off replies or got no response at all. Meagher started becoming concerned, wondering why Emily was avoiding her and started intuiting that something was wrong but didn't know what it was. As time went by and the pattern of Emily saying, "I'm sorry, I'm busy" continued, her worries mounted. In October, Meagher found out Emily had legally changed her name to Evan. She then managed to get her on the phone and heard her voice for the first time in over three months. "It was deep. It was not her voice," Meagher lamented. Emily did not know her mother had found out about the name change and when Meagher heard her voice she knew she was on testosterone. When she asked her what was going on with her voice, Emily told her she had a cold. A few days later, Meagher called her workplace and asked to speak with Evan, and was informed that "he" was not there at the moment and was asked if she wanted to leave "him" a message. "And then I knew for absolute sure that she was living as a male person ... and that was pretty devastating," Meagher said. "I felt I was living in a dream, a nightmare," she added, thinking to herself, "Is this really happening? What is going on?" She could talk to no one about this, as her siblings and father were going along with it to varying degrees and were supportive of Emily's transition. "I can't even describe what it's like to see your own child's face with the opposite gender superimposed on it. It's just ... I can't even describe it. It's really hard. They still look like your child but kind of not. It's like they are still there but are behind this gender thing," Meagher said. She tried not to think about it, but couldn't help but wonder as she lied awake at night thinking about what Emily would look like with a bearded face and a masculine haircut. On one such night soon after that phone call, Meagher realized she would likely never hear her daughter's voice again. "Testosterone has permanent effects," she explained, "and one of the effects is that it deepens the voice and often that is permanent even if you go off of it. Your voice is never going to be the same again." Growth of body and facial hair is another such permanent effect. "It hit me then and it still hits me a lot that I'm never going to hear her voice again. And a lot of times I'll close my eyes and try to remember what her pre-testosterone voice sounds like. Because I'm really afraid that I'm going to forget what her voice sounds like and I'm pretty sure I'm never going to hear it again," she said. "And that makes me unbelievably sad." Another loss she has felt acutely is her daughter's rejection of her own name. If she was to call her by her given name, "Emily," that is now considered "dead-naming," which transgender activists say is a form of psychological abuse. "So now, her name that we gave her is now something she considers hateful," she said. Emily soon also changed her phone number, so Meagher sent her an email telling her that she wanted to be in her life and that she loved her. A devastating letter in the mail A week later when Meagher went to retrieve the mail, she found a letter from Emily waiting for her in the mailbox, printed on computer paper. The note was five brief sentences. To Mom: This is difficult to write but I feel the time is right to do it. I don't believe it is good or healthy for me to maintain our relationship. I will not be initiating further contact with you and ask that you respect my wish for no further contact. Please avoid attempting to get in touch with me through phone, social media, in-person contact, or through third parties like Anna, Dad, or family friends. I wish you well and hope you find peace and happiness in your future. Emily/Evan Upon reading it Meagher froze, and it was as though someone had stomped on her heart. "It was like the bottom fell out of the world," she elaborated. A friend came over and Meagher fell apart. "So she has a new name and a new voice. But the other thing we have is this new relationship now which is that we don't have a relationship anymore," Meagher said. Emily knows her mom disagrees with transgender ideology, disagreement Meagher senses Emily considers as disapproval of her. But that's such a misunderstanding of how she feels, Meagher stressed. "It's not that I don't approve, it's that I just don't think transing herself is going to solve her problems. And I know this is not going to bring happiness into her life. This is going to bring hardship, a lifetime of medical treatments. I know transitioning is an empty promise." Meagher knows where her daughter works and lives but that could soon change and then she won't have any knowledge of her whereabouts or how she's doing. She is fairly sure her daughter is saving money to have her breasts removed. "I especially don't want to see her get a mastectomy and stay on testosterone. This is going to be a heavy, heavy chain to put around her neck for the rest of her life. For her to have to wear that ... it just grieves me more than I have words for. It's a grief that I just can't tell you how hard it is," she said. "It's almost worse than a death because she's alive but not with me at all." Five days of torture, 'a unique kind of hell' Days after receiving the letter she was "overwhelmingly, excruciatingly upset," she said, "in a kind of indescribable grief-shock." It was then when she visited the counselor who shamed her for being such a supposedly awful, uncaring person. After that appointment, she went home, climbed into bed, and didn't get up for five days. "You know how when you have the flu, and you don't take a bath, you don't eat, and night turns into day and it doesn't matter, you just lay in bed and feel sick all day? I literally was in bed sobbing nonstop for five days. And the only thing I could think about was that I wish I didn't have to stay alive anymore because I could not imagine how I could ever be happy again or how the world could go on with this being the reality, with my daughter not wanting to be my daughter anymore," Meagher said. During those five days, memories of Emily's childhood returned. She thought about all the fun they had on road trips, riding horses, and swimming at the pool during the summers. "All those cherished moments of her life, they kept going through my head. And I just couldn't believe that all of that was over. That she really didn't want to be my daughter," she said. She knew of no childhood trauma that could have led Emily to think she needed to escape her pain and attempt to become the opposite sex. And she considers her daughter's upbringing to be relatively normal with the usual ups and downs. Afraid she would find a way to commit suicide, Meagher made another appointment with another counselor. When she walked into the second counselor's office she noticed the therapist appeared to be very worried. Indeed she was as she told Meagher to phone a friend and arrange to have someone stay with her or she was going to have to go to the psychiatric hospital immediately. Those were her only choices and she insisted Meagher must not be alone. Meagher subsequently made an appointment with a medical doctor and soon began taking antidepressants. Her friends were worried about her too. Many would come over to her house and sit on the bed with her as she cried. "They would text me, they would call me. I had one friend who came over every single day, took me out for walks, took me out to eat, took me out for motorcycle rides. Anything to get me out of the house," she said. She would often try to cheer herself up when friends would come over but when they left she would collapse and cry some more. "I can't imagine feeling worse than that. Any worse than that it would be dead. It was torture," she said. "I couldn't go to church, I couldn't worship, couldn't pray or read the Bible. I couldn't believe that God was letting this happen to me. And I've never felt that way about Him. I'd never felt so angry at Him. I was like, 'How and why? I don't understand this,' and 'What have I ever done to deserve this kind of pain?'" The experience of losing her children has been a "unique kind of hell," she told CP, adding that she still can't understand any of it. After weeks of not being able to leave the house, she finally mustered up the courage to go to church again. But she ended up sitting in the back row weeping throughout the service. "I couldn't sing. I couldn't make my voice say those words. I couldn't do it," she said. As she cried, fellow parishioners would come and sit next to her and hold her. Then she would go home and cry some more. How long does processing grief take when there appears to be no end to it, she has often wondered. Meagher has some hope her daughter will desist to her biological sex and realize there is nothing wrong with her body. But she admitted she has no idea if or when that will happen. And she has no idea what she might yet have to watch or hear about in relation to her daughter's suffering in the meantime. The guilt she feels that her parenting was so inadequate such that two of her children came to believe they were the opposite sex has been "crippling" at times, she noted. "I have over and over replayed angry words, failings, things I could have done better or differently. I could have been a better listener, I could have been different or better. But I did the best I could. I'm certainly not any kind of a superhero person. I'm just a mom," Meagher said. "I did torture myself for quite a while thinking that I had done something that had made my child go drastically wrong. That God had given me this beautiful baby and there was nothing wrong with her and by the time she was with me through her childhood she was all messed up and that it was probably my fault." Meagher no longer believes that is true but does think Emily blames her for many things. "I'm grieving because I've lost her. And every hope I've had for having a relationship that I wanted to have with her and watching her grow into a young lady. ... I'm just devastated because she's hurting herself and I can't help her. There's nothing I can do," she mourned. "She's under the influence of people that she has met online. She's under the influence of a cult that is teaching her that her body is not OK, that the only way she can solve her pain is to take hormones and get surgery, and that her family is the problem. That I'm her problem." While some are reluctant to refer to transgenderism as a "cult," per se, Meagher has no qualms labeling it as such. "There's not a lot you can do when someone is under the influence of cult thinking or to reason with them or change their thoughts, because I know she really believes this now," she said. Her son does too. "I think one of the things that has harmed my son the most is that he no longer has to take responsibility for anything in his life," she said. She told him on one occasion that he was really smart, had a lot of marketable skills, and urged him to find a job. Before he broke off all contact she called him one day and he told her he was bored so he had written a web browser which was fully functional. "This is a smart kid. But he's never held a job," Meagher said. He told her: "Nobody will hire trans people." "Well, especially trans people who don't apply for jobs," Meagher observed. "He doesn't have to try to get a job, he doesn't have to live as an adult, to get along with people because anybody who doesn't get along with him, it is because they're mean to him because he's trans. It's not because of anything he did. So he has morphed himself into a white middle-class male to a victimized minority. And so now nothing is his fault." Her other daughter, Anna, has never shown signs of identifying as transgender, but fully supports her sister's transition, believes in the ideology, and has referred to Emily as "my brother" in her mother's presence. "I think if she had to choose between her siblings and me I would not win. I'm on probation. So far, I still have a relationship with her but I don't know how long it's going to last. I could lose that too," Meagher said. "My relationship with my kids is about as bad as it can get." A glimmer of hope, newfound allies, and friends Even as her familial relationships have been wrecked, Meagher is encouraged that the tide seems to be starting to turn as more people awaken to the documented horrors inherent in transgender medicine, such as healthy 13-year-old girls undergoing mastectomies and cross-sex hormones being given to young children through an NIH-funded research grant. And she now has a cadre of new allies accompanying her on the journey, friends she did not expect to make given profound differences in their political views. Earlier this year she traveled to Washington, D.C., to take part in several days of action with a few British women's rights campaigners who flew across the Atlantic to speak to legislators and collaborate with American women from the Women's Liberation Front, a radical feminist organization that is actively fighting gender identity ideology and resisting trans activism. Among those present were Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull who goes by the name Posie Parker of Standing for Women, Venice Allan of We Need to Talk, and Julia Long, a lesbian feminist academic who is now writing a book on transgenderism. Parker, Allan, and Long have been at the forefront of resisting transactivism in England amid intensifying debate in their country as the government considers revising the Gender Recognition Act to allow persons to merely self-identify their gender without any medical documentation showing that they've undergone a surgical procedure of some kind. "I got lots of Posie hugs and lots of Venice hugs. I got lots of hugs," Meagher said, chuckling and smiling big. While in the nation's capital she was able to share her story with the British activists and other moms who are in similar predicaments. Meagher credits Parker, Allan, Long, the women of WoLF, and many others she met for making her even braver. The feminists have understood her and cared for her in a way that has surprised her. "When I would meet with these women and share my story with them they would just hold me and say, 'I'm so sorry,'" Meagher recounted. As part of their activities on Capitol Hill, she attended a Jan. 28 panel discussion at the Heritage Foundation hosted by scholar Ryan Anderson, who has written extensively on transgenderism and the harms transgender ideology causes. Although Heritage is a politically conservative think tank, the panelists were entirely left-wing and feminist voices, including Julia Beck, a lesbian feminist who was kicked off the Baltimore city mayor's LGBTQ commission for "misgendering" and using male pronouns in reference to a male rapist. Beck's remarks that day on the panel outlining how lesbians have been abused by trans-identified males and also explained how many young women are now being sterilized and surgically maimed for not complying with sex stereotypes moved many in the audience to tears, including Meagher. The two had met and gotten acquainted before the event and after it concluded they found each other and hugged. "We were just holding each other crying and saying, 'I love you, I love you so much,'" Meagher said, remembering the moment. "Julia looked at me and she said: 'I did that for you. The whole time I was sitting there I was thinking of you,'" she recalled, grateful. The feminists possess a deep understanding of how grievous this is, Meagher continued. "My friends from home, they care about me. They think this is all really bad, really sad. But they don't get how bad it is. They're not grieved about it enough to do anything about it. They don't get that this is a national emergency. They're not stirred to that even though they're watching this happen to me. I think they just don't know what to do. If they knew what to do they'd do it. But it's not causing them pain." By contrast, most of the lesbians and feminists she met have known that pain in concrete ways, she said, and because of that, they can easily relate. "They understand my grief, abandonment, and betrayal in a way that my Christian friends, who, though they support me and are wonderful in so many ways and I'm definitely not slamming them as uncaring because they do care, don't. So I was finding myself in solidarity with these rad fems and lesbians and it was actually pretty powerful." A mother she met and conversed with in Washington, D.C., gave her a jar of homemade orange marmalade, something she said she started making years ago to turn her own bitterness into something sweet. She encouraged Meagher to find a way to do something like that. Buoyed by that advice, Meagher now has dreams of creating a retreat center of some kind where parents who have suffered from this can come together to talk and recover from the trauma of losing their children to transgender medicalization and identities, something she believes is an assignment from God. "The bottom line is that I've lost two kids to the trans 'cult.' I want them back. This ideology ruins and corrupts everything it touches. We can't compromise or give an inch to it. And I'm willing to do whatever I can, and talk to and work with whoever will listen to me and help me," Meagher said. "And I don't hate my children, as complete strangers and transgender activists will say. Because I don't affirm them in this and that, I'm supposedly contributing to their potential suicides. No, I love them with all my heart. I just can't affirm this lie." "This absolutely is a national emergency. Somehow, we've got to stop this," she reiterated. Pastor of Sri Lankan church bombed on Easter forgives attacker: 'You are His child' Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment The pastor of one of the churches bombed in the Easter Sunday suicide attacks claimed by the Islamic State in Sri Lanka has offered forgiveness to the perpetrators and those who sent them. In a Facebook video Friday from London, Roshan Mahesan, senior pastor of Zion Church in Batticaloa, said 28 people from his congregation were killed by the suicide bombing at his church and another 70-some are still hospitalized. Still, we are hurt. We are angry, Mahesan explained. As the senior pastor of Zion Church Batticaloa, the whole congregation and every family affected, we say to the suicide bomber and also to the group that sent the suicide bomber that we love you and we forgive you. Zion Church describes itself as a charismatic church affiliated with the Fellowship of Free Churches of Sri Lanka and a Branch of The Lighthouse Church in Kandy, Sri Lanka. When the bombing occurred, Mahesan was not in Batticaloa. He was visiting a church in Norway. Mahesan said in his video that no matter what the extremists did to the church, he and the Zion Church congregants will love those responsible for the killings because they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ on the cross, He said, Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing, Mahesan said. We also, who follow the footsteps of Jesus Christ, we say for the Lord to forgive these people. Mahesan explained that as a group of believers, they see all people as people. When Jesus looks at you as a person, He doesnt look at your religion. He doesnt look at your culture. He doesnt look at anything, Mahesan said. For Him, you are His child. We are all lost. Jesus came in this world to seek and find the Lord. Mahesan vowed that the ministry will continue the call and mission the Lord has given us. People in this world are lost. We take the Gospel and we show Christ, he said. We show people who are sitting in the darkness the light of Jesus Christ. Only in Jesus, we have our hope. Only in Jesus, you have all the answers for your life problems. Mahesan also thanked every church and believer around the world for their support during this time of pain. He said that he has received countless messages from people he knows and doesnt know to express condolences and support. Zion Church is one of the three churches that was attacked by suicide bombers on Easter Sunday. Suicide bombers also attacked hotels where Christians were having Easter breakfast. At least 253 people were killed in the blast. At Zion Church, many more people arguably could have been killed if it were not for the heroics of Ramesh Raju, who was said to have prevented the suicide bomber from entering the church. Rajus wife, Chrishanthini Ramesh, told BBC about her husbands heroics. My husband sensed something was wrong and informed him he'd need to get permission first, she explained. "He then forced him to leave. Raju was killed when the bomber blew himself up outside the church. Over 100 families were impacted by the bombing at Zion Church, according to the British Pakistani Christian Association, a London-based charity that is active throughout South Asia and is aiding victims at Zion Church. The organization spoke with a survivor named Thirukkumaran, whose 11-year-old son was killed in the blast. "I saw many children die as I was working in the Sunday School and now these images will stay for me forever, Thirukkumaran was quoted as saying. "I thank God that I will see my son again one day because of the promise of Heaven and pray that no one else ever has to suffer the deep loss I have had to endure." A BPCA officer also spoke with Chandrika, who lost her husband and 13-year-old son in the bombing. "When I heard the blast I was in shock, she said. "I knew my husband had been helping Pastor Ramesh remove a suspicious man from the church and feared the worst. My young son, Sasikumar, always stayed close to his father and when I realized they both were dead my whole world collapsed. Since the attack is believed to have been carried out by a little-known Islamic terrorist group called National Tawheed Jamaath and has been claimed by the Islamic State, a group of about 500 peaceful Muslim refugees who fled from Pakistan to Sri Lanka are now hiding in fear of retaliation from angry Sri Lankan mobs. But Muslims are not the only ones hiding in fear. BPCA reported on Friday that several asylum-seeking migrant groups originating from Pakistan and Afghanistan are seeking police shelter in Negombo after being terrorized out of their homes by mobs. The groups, which include persecuted Pakistani Christians, have complained about threats to their lives from angry Sri Lankans. "Large groups of local Sri Lankans have been threatening to kill us if we stay in our homes, A Pakistani Christian man named Bobby told BPCA. Our community children and some adults have been attacked and several large gangs with sticks and poles have threatened to beat us to death for the terrorist attacks that happened on Easter. The man explained that he and the other Pakistani Christians are too fearful to leave the police station. One man told Sky News that his son was beaten for being Pakistani. Sri Lanka is one of few nations that many Pakistani minorities flee to out of fear of persecution in their homeland, along with Malaysia and Thailand. BPCA Chairman Wilson Chowdhry warned that the type of social retaliation now playing out in Sri Lanka is exactly what the perpetrators of the bombings desired because it polarizes communities and builds their hate agenda. "I appeal to the Christians and other communities of Negombo to stand strong in the face of such provocation and to extend love instead of hate, Chowdhry explained. by Hocine Drouiche Christians continue to suffer persecution and pay the price for wars they never asked for. Intolerance against them increases in contemporary Islamist discourse. The Nimes imam comments on the attacks in Sri Lanka and challenges "the silent majority": "You will be accused of complicity, if you do not declare a holy war against extremism and hatred". Paris (AsiaNews) - The Colombo Easter massacre "is not the first and unfortunately it will not be the last, because the Muslim authorities do not want to face extremist terrorist thinking in a courageous and firm manner," affirms Prof. Hocine Drouiche, imam of Nimes and vice-president of the Conference of imams of France. The religious sent AsiaNews a reflection on the terrorist attacks that sowed death among the Christian community of Sri Lanka at Easter. We publish his considerations in full. Christians in the world, especially Catholics, continue to suffer persecution, terrorist attacks and massacres. In Syria, Iraq, Egypt and elsewhere they pay the price for wars they never asked for. The terrorist massacre in Sri Lanka is very significant. In the world, hatred against Christians continues to increase despite them defending peace, supporting the poor, caring for the sick. Every year Catholics spend billions to save lives and build schools for needy children. This has not prevented some from making Christians pay the consequences of the policies of Western countries, which are generally secular. Neither the Vatican nor the Church has power over these secular countries. If the place of Christians is important in the texts of Islam (including the Koran), it is time for the Muslim world to ask questions about the rise of Christianophobia within the contemporary Islamist discourse. The Colombo massacre is not the first and unfortunately it will not be the last, because the Muslim authorities do not want to face extremist terrorist thinking in a courageous and firm manner. Today the fearful are accomplices. The reform of Islam will come from the brave. It is not enough to repeat that Islam is a religion of peace. Muslims must act if they want to protect Islam from this extremist Islamist minority that kills in the name of hatred. The silent majority will have no excuse because it will be accused of complicity if it does not declare a holy war against extremism and the hatred that almost dominates the discourse of the imams and Muslim preachers. Contemporary Islam is closer to hatred and violence than to the notions of human love and brotherhood. This hateful interpretation produces human bombs that kill everything that is different, including Muslims who don't think like them. All my condolences to the families of the victims and all my support to the Christians persecuted in all over the world. Bethany Christian Services will place children in LGBT families as part of Michigan settlement Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Bethany Christian Services, a global nonprofit adoption agency based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which was sued for refusing to work with same-sex couples, announced that it will start placing children with LGBT families as part of a settlement with the state. The agency insists, however, that its beliefs have not changed. Bethany will continue operations in Michigan, in compliance with our legal contract requirements. The mission and beliefs of Bethany Christian Services have not changed, the agency said in a statement last Thursday cited by WGVU. We are focused on demonstrating the love of Jesus Christ by serving children in need, and we intend to continue doing so in Michigan. The announcement comes weeks after the state of Michigan settled a lawsuit with the American Civil Liberties Union and two gay couples who sued in 2017 because they were rejected for adoptions. We filed a lawsuit challenging the state of Michigans practice of permitting state contracted tax payer funded foster and adoption agencies to refuse to work with same sex couples citing the agencies religious beliefs, Jay Kaplan of the ACLU said. Whereby the state of Michigan agreed to hold these contracting agencies to the contract language of non-discrimination, because children in foster care need every family that is willing and able to provide them with a loving home, Kaplan added. Bethany expressed disappointment, however, with how the settlement agreement had been implemented by the state. In a statement on Twitter Saturday, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel praised the Christian adoption agency for welcoming LGBT families. Having more adoption agencies which dont discriminate =s more children adopted into loving, nurturing forever homes. Thank you to Bethany Christian Services! Nessel wrote. An employee of Bethany Christian Services who spoke with WGVU anonymously also claimed that just before the agencys announcement on their new policy, employees had threatened to walk out of their jobs if the policy was not amended. As of February, according to The Detroit News, Bethany Christian Services was responsible for approximately 8 percent of the states foster care and adoption agencies. Prior to the settlement with the ACLU, which sued on behalf of the same-sex couples, the organizations contract with the state was in jeopardy. St. Vincent Catholic Charities, a former foster child, and an adoptive mother recently filed suit against the Michigan Department of Human Services alleging the new rules violated the groups First Amendment rights to free exercise of religion and free speech and its 14th Amendment rights to equal protection. St. Vincents and other faith-based foster care and adoption agencies will have to shutter if forced to comply with the new state rules, lawyer Nick Reaves said. Lori Windham, senior counsel for Becket, the religious liberty group representing St. Vincent's told The Detroit News that while the First Amendment certainly allows groups varying stances on the issue, it does not allow the state to "shut down people you disagree with. "Religious freedom means different people can make different choices," Windham said in a statement. "That's what freedom looks like in America." Bills protecting babies born alive during botched abortions vetoed in Wisconsin, North Carolina Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment The fight over proposed legislation to protect infants born alive during botched abortions continued this week as Democratic governors wielded their veto powers. Republican-sponsored legislation in Wisconsin stipulating that medical doctors who do not provide medical care to babies who survive an abortion attempt could face life in prison is set to be vetoed by Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel Tuesday. "We wanted to reaffirm the fact that babies that survive abortions have the right to anything any other living, breathing individual in the state does," Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke, R-Kaukauna, said. "And doctors have the responsibility to care for that child as they would for any other person who was living and breathing." Supporters of abortion rights insist such instances are rare and that the legislation makes it seem as though it is common. The bill requires health care providers present during a botched abortion "to exercise the same degree of professional skill, care, and diligence to preserve the life and health of the child as a reasonably diligent and conscientious health care provider would render to any other child born alive." Evers indicated he will veto the bill as he views it as redundant. "I think those protections already exist," he told the newspaper in a Monday interview. "We have all sorts of issues to deal with in the state of Wisconsin and to pass a bill that is redundant seems to be not a productive use of time. And clearly I ran on the belief and I still believe that women should be able to make choices about their health care. But this deals with a specific issue that's already been resolved." In North Carolina, Senate Bill 359, which was called the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, stated that should an abortion procedure fail and result in a live birth, the baby is a considered a legal person for all purposes under state laws and is entitled to medical care from a hospital or medical clinic in addition to including new criminal and civil penalties for infanticide. For doctors and nurses who failed to provide care for an infant who survived an abortion, that might mean a fine of up to $250,000 and felony charges. Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed the bill Thursday, releasing a statement saying that the bill was unnecessary. This needless legislation would criminalize doctors and other healthcare providers for a practice that simply does not exist, Cooper said. Among those criticizing the move, evangelist Franklin Graham weighed in Wednesday, tweeting: "Why would @NC_Governor Roy Cooper not pass a law that NC will never kill children who have survived botched abortions? Governor Coopers veto of Senate Bill 359 is really a veto of innocent life." Graham urged North Carolina residents to call their representatives to override his veto. Five Democrats joined Republicans in voting for the state Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, and already one of them, Rep. Garland Pierce, has indicated he will vote to override. I just cant vote against my conscience. Even if someone thinks there are already laws in place for protection, how could this bill hurt? Pierce said. I do not want to trample on womens rights, he said. What got my attention is that once the baby has gone through the trauma of abortion and lives, I believe it should get medical care like any living being at that point, and not be denied medical assistance on its journey to live. Pierce was reportedly moved by the testimony of Jill Stanek, a former nurse now with the Susan B. Anthony List who blew the whistle on her former employer, Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, when she saw her co-workers take an infant boy who had survived an abortion to a utility room and left him there to die. Although President George W. Bush signed into law the Born Alive Infant Protection Act in 2002, the issue of legal protections for babies born alive during failed abortions has returned to the fore of national discourse in recent months, particularly in light of Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam's comments in a January radio interview. Responding to a question about what would happen should a baby survive an abortion attempt, the governor replied that a "discussion" would be had about what to do, and didn't definitively say they would provide medical care. Northam was blasted in the days and weeks that followed, including by President Donald Trump in the State of the Union address, for seemingly supporting infanticide. In February, President Trump met with Melissa Ohden, who survived an abortion, in the Oval Office. 'Slave Bible' on display at Museum of the Bible; edition removes chapters to uphold slavery Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Although the Bible is filled with scriptures of freedom and Jesus preached in Luke 4:8 that He came to set the captives free, the holy book was once altered to convey the exact opposite message as a way to enforce slavery. The controversial Slave Bible, published in 1807 in London, is currently on display at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., and while it looks like any other Bible on the outside, its pages are meant to push an inhumane agenda by selectively removing almost 90 percent of the Old Testament and 50 percent of the New Testament, as described by Museum of the Bible curator Anthony Schmidt. A normal King James Version has 1189 chapters in it, the slave bible has only 282, Schmidt told NBC news. The distorted translation is missing the Old Testament chapter of Exodus which features the famous Moses account when he demands Pharaoh to set the Israelites free from captivity in Egypt and God makes a way for them to leave. The book of Jeremiah was also removed because of verses such as, Woe to him who builds his palace by unrighteousness, his upper rooms by injustice, making his own people work for nothing, not paying them for their labor (Jeremiah 22:13). The slave version likewise discarded the New Testament book of Galatians where the apostle Paul specifically destroys the idea that some people are greater than others. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatian 3:28). What can be found in the book are passages such as Ephesians 6:5, which reads, Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. The Gospel Coalition says practices like slavery, polygamy, and divorce were common in antiquity but clarifies that biblical instruction which allows for them in certain contexts isnt necessarily biblical approval. As most Christians would agree, the Bible is to be interpreted in the full counsel of Scripture and not just at some moments of history. Museum President and CEO Ken McKenzie said hes hoping the Slave Bible exhibit will discourage something like this from ever happening again. The Bible itself is a whole book; its not one that you get to carve up and you get to use this piece or that piece, McKenzie told NBC. The Slave Bible was formally named Parts of the Holy Bible Selected for the Use of the Negro Slaves in the British West-India Islands. Schmidt revealed that they believe it was likely produced by a missionary organization known as The Society for the Conversion of the Negro Slaves. The missionaries, though many were abolitionists, were reportedly under the impression that the revised Scriptures would improve the lives of enslaved Africans both materially and spiritually. This book, Schmidt explained, is aimed at justifying and reinforcing the slave system. But at the same time, it was used to help teach Africans how to read, for example, and to somehow educate them in the classroom. The exhibition was open November 2018 and will be on display until September 2019 at the Museum of the Bible. Vistors are encouraged to join the ongoing conversation about the "Slave Bible" in the exhibitions response area. Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Theres a passage in N. T. Wrights masterpiece, The Resurrection of the Son of God, in which he describes two kinds of people who refuse to even consider that Jesus actually rose from the dead: hard-headed historians and soft-headed theologians. The hard-headed historians proclaim that, when it comes to any supernatural event, We can go no further. People dont rise from the dead, they say, and so Jesus didnt either. Full stop. As methodological naturalists they refuse to consider anything supernatural. Those Wright called soft-headed theologians come in two types. The first type is captive to a kind of faux spiritual superiority, and believes that to even consider evidence outside of Scripture amounts to a lack of faith. The second type of soft-headed theologians are basically hard-headed historians with a twist. Also convinced that miracles arent reasonable, they proclaim it doesnt actually matter whether Jesus rose from the dead. The real message of Easter is that love conquers death, or that Jesus lived on in the hearts of His disciples, or some other sort of rhetorical abstraction. Wrights description came to mind the day before Easter when I came across the latest installment of Nick Kristofs occasional conversations with a Christian series. Published in the New York Times, Kristof asked the president of Union Theological Seminary, Serene Jones, as he has several other religious leaders, to explain Christianity. Jones missed the mark throughout the interview, mocking the idea of substitutionary atonement, scoffing at the idea of an all-powerful, all controlling omnipotent, omniscient being, and calling the virgin birth a bizarre claim. But it was her answer to Kristofs very first question that called to mind Wrights book. Kristof asked Jones if she believed Jesus actually rose from the dead. She replied, Those who claim to know whether or not it happened are kidding themselves. But that empty tomb symbolizes that the ultimate love in our lives cannot be crucified and killed For me, she went on to say, the message of Easter is that love is stronger than life or death. Thats a much more awesome claim than that they put Jesus in the tomb and three days later he wasnt there What if tomorrow someone found the body of Jesus still in the tomb? Would that then mean that Christianity was a lie? Well, Reverend Jones, the answer is yes. The earliest witness of the church, the thing that altered their Jewish faith, the thing that they lived and died for, was that Jesus not only rose from the dead, but that if He did not, as Paul wrote in I Corinthians 15, our faith is futile; you are still in your sins (and) we are of all people most to be pitied. The message Reverend Jones thinks the resurrection proclaimsthat love is more powerful than deathis neither earth-shattering nor unique to Christianity. Good heavensits the message of The Lion King. But the Apostles didnt preach some sort of ghostly Mufasa-like Savior. And they certainly didnt suffer or die for a Disney-worthy truism. But even beyond what the Apostles thought happened, there are, as N. T. Wright aptly argues, at least two broadly accepted historical facts that have to be dealt with: first, the empty tomb, and second, the numerous encounters with the risen Lord, including by skeptics. Its amazing that the grounding truth of all of Christianity rests not on a private vision from a prophet or the ruminations of a guru, but on a public event that happened in history, one fully open to scrutiny and investigation. And people have investigated the resurrection. Lee Strobel was so convinced by the evidence, he went from atheist news reporter to follower of Jesus. And one of the most important atheist philosophers of the 20th century, Antony Flew, concluded: The evidence for the resurrection is better than for claimed miracles in any other religion. Its outstandingly different in quality and quantity. You can investigate it too. If it happened, its the most important event in history. If it didnt, Christianity is false. But the one thing the bodily resurrection of Jesus cant be is simply unimportant. Resources The Resurrection of the Son of God, N.T. Wright | Fortress Press | 2003 He Has Risen: The Worldview of Easter DVD, John Stonestreet, T.M. Moore | Colson Center | 2013 Originally posted at Breakpoint. Weekly briefing: Sri Lanka bombings, foster agencies, Methodist ruling Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment We've compiled the top stories of the week. Here's what you need to know: Sri Lanka church, hotel bombings The news came early Easter morning as Christians around the world were marking the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Three churches and several hotels in Sri Lanka were bombed in Sri Lanka on Sunday. The death toll stands at 250 as of Friday (though initially, it was as high as 359). The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the Easter attacks. Police are currently looking to arrest 140 people who are suspected to be involved in IS activities. With threats of further attacks, those in Sri Lanka are being advised to avoid places of worship. Court says faith-based foster agencies cant discriminate against same-sex couples A federal appeals court ruled this week in favor of the city of Philadelphia, saying faith-based foster and adoption care agencies must abide by the citys nondiscrimination policies. The city had ended its contract with Catholic Social Services when it declined to place children in same-sex households. Bethany Christian Services, meanwhile, chose to change its policy to comply with the law and continue its foster work with the city. This ruling is devastating to the hundreds of foster children who have been waiting for a family and to the dozens of parents working with Catholic Social Services who have been waiting to foster a child. Were disappointed that the court decided to let the city place politics above the needs of kids and the rights of parents, but we will continue this fight. Lori Windham, an attorney with Becket More than 12,000 Boy Scouts were abused Private files long held by the Boy Scouts of America revealed that there were more than 12,000 victims of childhood sexual abuse and over 7,000 perpetrators. Trial lawyer Jeff Anderson announced the abuse numbers this week. Chief Scout Executive Michael Surbaugh said they have taken proactive steps to help victims heal and prevent future abuse. He also noted that they have never knowingly allowed a sexual predator to work with youth. UMC court upholds some parts of Traditional Plan The United Methodist Churchs highest court partially upheld the Traditional Plan, which was approved by delegates earlier this year and maintains the denominations stance against same-sex marriage and openly gay clergy. Some provisions in the plan were ruled unconstitutional but those provisions could be severed from the rest, thus allowing the Traditional Plan to stand. Among the petitions ruled constitutional are the ban on consecrating noncelibate homosexuals and a years suspension for a pastor who officiates a same-sex wedding. Most churchgoers arent sharing Jesus A survey by LifeWay Research shows that 55 percent of Protestants who attend church at least once a month have never shared with someone how to become a Christian in the past six months. Only about a quarter said they shared their faith once or twice. The task of making disciples of all nations has not been fully embraced in the American church especially by the majority culture. Scott McConnell of LifeWay Read how this Oregon church is building tiny homes for the homeless Read how this couple's marriage remains strong after 22 years Pray for Four Christians who were arrested in Nepal Victims of the Sri Lanka attacks New releases Albums: People by Hillsong United (April 26) Deeper Oceans by Joseph Habedank (April 26) Bloom by Sarah Kroger (April 26) Book: A Love Letter Life: Pursue Creatively. Date Intentionally. Love Faithfully. by Jeremy and Audrey Roloff Gospel for Asia social worker lost 5 family members in Sri Lanka Easter bombings Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment A social worker affiliated with Gospel for Asia lost five family members in the Easter Sunday bombings that took the lives of over 250 people, the humanitarian mission agency announced Thursday. The female social worker in question serves at a GFA-supported childrens center. The GFA-supported Bridge of Hope centers provide education, meals and medical care to children impacted by Sri Lankas civil war. In a statement, GFA founder K.P. Yohannan explained that the social worker was in utter shock and great grief to learn that her five relatives were killed in blasts at two churches on Sunday. The bombings killed four members of the same family: parents and their two children. Please pray for Gods comfort and peace upon the bereaved families, Yohannan said in his statement shared with The Christian Post. Pray that God will give them strength during this difficult time and for protection upon all families and communities in Sri Lanka as insecurity and uncertainty continues. According to GFA, the funeral services were already held for the social workers family members. The Sunday bombings targeted churches as Christians celebrated Easter and three hotels in Negombo, Batticaloa and Colombo. Officials on Thursday released an updated death toll, one that lowers the number of lives lost by over 100 to 253. A Colombo police spokesman had previously said that 359 lives were lost in the bombings, which would have made the bombings the deadliest attack claimed by the Islamic State. Authorities have also discovered dozens of detonators. GFA reports that a bomb was defused on a street near one of its supported offices. GFA is one of the worlds largest international ministries that seeks to serve the least of these in Asia. Its national workers in Sri Lanka will be part of the effort to bring healing and restoration as the country moves forward. Through its Bridge of Hope centers, GFA aids children who have lost their parents in the civil war, which officially ended in 2009. One center in Sri Lanka is home to over 120 children who lost parents in the war. I ask for your prayers and support, that the people of Sri Lanka may find strength in God's grace as they move forward, Yohannan said. Please join us in praying that during these pain-filled days ahead, our brothers and sisters on the field would be the healing hands of Jesus to broken and hurting people. Yohannan said on Wednesday that it was clear that the bombings were carried out to incite fear in the hearts of everyone around on the holiest day on the Christian calendar. Earlier this week, IS released a video through its Amaq News Agency where the suicide bombers who carried out the attack pledged their allegiance to IS caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. In the video, Easter is referred to as a blasphemous holiday. The social workers five family members are just a few of the many killed on Sunday. Other victims include children in a Sunday school class at Zion Church in Batticaloa. One teacher at the school said that the blast came minutes after the students expressed their willingness to die for Christ. A report naming other victims of the bombings can be found here. GFA recently settled a class-action lawsuit that accused the nonprofit of mishandling hundreds of millions in donations designated to be used in the mission field worldwide. While the organization did not admit any wrongdoing, it will pay $37 million as part of a settlement fund. A spokesperson for the group said the settlement fund amounted to basically refunding donations. Nepal arrests 4 Christians over 'false' conversion allegation; US citizen deported Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Four Christians have been arrested in Nepal, including a United States citizen, months after a controversial law criminalizing religious conversion went into effect in the Asian nation. On Tuesday morning, police in the city of Ghorahi arrested a Christian society leader, an Indian national, a citizen of Colorado and a Nepali interpreter at their hotel for their alleged involvement in religious conversion by "allurement," according to the NGO Christian Solidarity Worldwide. The four of them had attended a one-day pastors conference that took place Monday in a local church. The human rights advocacy group reports that authorities searched hotel rooms and took bibles, cash, laptops and also cash belonging to the Christians. According to contacts who spoke with the Christian aid agency Barnabus Fund, police also confiscated a USB device, a vehicle and a nebulizer that aids breathing. The arrested include Nepal Christian Society General Secretary Dilli Ram Paudel, Indian national Gaurav Sreevastab and Nepali interpreter Kusang Tamang. Although CSW did not name the U.S. citizen, Morning Star News identified the American as Oleana Cinquanta, a resident of Colorado. Cinquanta told the persecution news outlet that she was held for more than 10 hours without medication and that she was deported to the U.S. The allegations are completely false, Cinquanta was quoted as writing in a text message. We were not distributing any Bibles or dollars. I was visiting a church program in Dang [district] with my travel agent and some friends, Cinquanta added. No one was engaging in conversion. A source told the Barnabus Fund that the conference was a training course for pastors. In Nepal, a predominantly Hindu country to the north of India where Christians are a tiny minority, a law was implemented last August banning religious conversions and the hurting of religious feelings. At the time, Christian leaders feared the law would be used to persecute Christians for practicing their religion as similar laws have been abused in countries like neighboring India. According to CSW, those arrested on Tuesday had not yet been charged with a crime but were still being detained. Christian leader Pratik Bista told Morning Star News that he and a delegation of other Christian leaders visited the Dang district police headquarters on Tuesday. He said they were told by the superintendent that the detained would be released on Wednesday. The superintendent reportedly reasoned that the Christians were arrested for general inquiry. SWs Chief Executive Mervyn Thomas called on the Nepali authorities to drop all charges against the Christians and release them immediately. We urge Nepal to respect the right of all religious minorities to practice their faith or belief through worship, observation, teaching and practice, Thomas said in a statement. Section 158 of the penal code emboldens both state and non-state actors to harass and prosecute innocent people who are simply exercising their right to freedom of religion or belief. According to Bista, police officers took Bibles as evidence to claim they were carrying out conversions. He added that authorities also took U.S. dollars from Cinquantas to suggest she was using allurement to convert. How is it a crime for a Christian to carry his Bible, and how is it a crime for an American to carry dollars when visiting a foreign country? Bista asked. If a Hindu carrying his holy scriptures is not a crime, then how does it apply on Christians? How could they come to the hotel and detain the Christians without a First Information Report? Nepal ranks as the 32nd worst country in the world when it comes to Christian persecution, according to Open Doors USAs 2019 World Watch List. While Christian persecution in Nepal comes largely from Hindu radicals, Open Doors notes that a new secular constitution adopted in 2015 has limited religious freedom. Nepal has been a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council since 2018 and is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. But CSW argues that Nepal has caused many Christians to live in fear of practicing their faith by issuing laws that limit freedom of religion. Throughout the years, U.S. officials have voiced concern to senior government and political leaders in Nepal over the countrys ban on religious conversion, provisions in the new constitution and restrictions to religious freedom. They continued to highlight the ways in which anticonversion laws could be used to arbitrarily restrict the right to the freedoms of religion and expression, the State Departments annual report on international religious freedom explains. Embassy officers and visiting senior U.S. government officials also raised concerns with government officials about the governments restrictions on Tibetan Buddhists conducting peaceful religious activities. In 2016, seven Christians were arrested in the Dolakha district for handing out Bibles. Sri Lanka bombing no longer single deadliest ISIS attack after death toll lowered Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment [UPDATE:Thursday, April 25, 2019, 8:56 p.m.]Officials on Thursday released an updated death toll, lowering the number of deaths to 253. A Colombo police spokesman had previously said that 359 lives were lost, which would have made the bombings the single deadliest attack claimed by the Islamic State. Deputy Defence Minister Ruwan Wijewardene told Reuters that morgues provided inaccurate figures and Anil Jasinghe, the director general of health services, said it was hard to provide accurate numbers due to there being so many body parts. Autopsies were completed on Thursday. Original story below Sundays Easter bombings in Sri Lanka was the single deadliest overseas attack claimed by the Islamic State (also known as IS, ISIL or ISIS), which has released a video showing the bombers pledging their allegiance. Police spokesperson Ruwan Gunasekera said on Wednesday that at least 359 people were killed in the bombings that struck churches and hotels in Negombo, Batticaloa and Colombo. At 359 deaths and over 500 injured, the Easter bombings represent the deadliest overseas operation claimed by ISIS since the group proclaimed its caliphate in 2014, AFP notes. "Oh heavens. Now the single deadliest attack by ISIS, anywhere," tweeted journalist Mindy Belz, who has extensively covered Christian persecution and is the senior editor of World Magazine and author of the book They Say We Are Infidels: On the Run from ISIS with Persecuted Christians in the Middle East. A similar thought was issued by New York Times correspondent Rukmini Callimachi. Still researching this, but as far as I can tell with this new death toll, the Easter attack in Sri Lanka is now the single deadliest ISIS-linked attack both inside Iraq and Syria and beyond, Callimachi tweeted. Karrada [Baghdad] attack in 2016 was 340 dead; Sufi mosque in Sinai was 311. Paris attack was 130. IS, a radical Sunni Islamic extremist outfit that once controlled large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria and has affiliates in various countries, claimed responsibility for the attack on Tuesday. Through its Amaq News Agency, IS released a video showing eight militants pledging allegiance to the jihadi death cult and its leader, the so-called caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. We pledge allegiance ... and to obey him on everything either in easy or difficult conditions, the militants are alleged to have said, according to Reuters. AFP reports that IS provided the aliases of the jihadis they claimed carried out the attack on Christians celebrating what the terrorists deemed a "blasphemous holiday." All but one of the militants shown in the video had their faces covered. It is believed that the man who did not cover his face is National Tawheed Jamaath leader Moulvi Zahran Hashim (also known as Mohamed Zaharan). Officials have suspected the little-known Sri Lankan Muslim militant group National Tawheed Jamaath (NTJ) for being behind the bombings but are investigating IS involvement in the bombings. Three fighters reportedly called by the names Abu Obeidah, Abu Baraa and Abu Moukhtar were said to have carried out the bombings at the Shangri-La, Cinnamon Grand and Kingsbury hotels. Three others Abu Hamza, Abu Khalil and Abu Mohammad carried out attacks on churches in Colombo, Negombo, and Batticaloa. Sri Lankan and U.S. governments had both stated that the sophistication and scale of the bombings suggest the involvement of an external terror group like IS or Al-Qaeda, according to Reuters. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday that the Sri Lanka attacks were likely inspired by IS. "Every indication is that this was, at the very least, inspired by ISIS," Pompeo told CBS News analyst and former CIA Acting Director Michael Morell in a podcast interview. "And I think we'll have more information developed about whether there were any actual connections. The scale, the complexity of the attack certainly would be something a good analyst like yourself would stare at and say, 'We need to dig really hard. The capacity for a local group to pull off a relatively complex, simultaneous attack, it could happen.' But it's probably the case that there were others assisting them." Ten days before the attacks occurred, a police official sent out an advisory that the terror group was planning suicide attacks against churches. According to CNN, the information was gleaned from an IS suspect. However, that warning never made it to key officials. And now, President Maithripala Sirisena is demanding the resignation of the defense secretary and police chief. According to a translation of the police memo, Zaharan has since 2016 preached to his followers that the murder of nonbelievers is a most noble religious endeavor and that Islam should be spread through such acts. IS has long called on like-minded extremists worldwide to kill infidels and has even offered advice on how to build bombs and carry out attacks against soft-target locations. As The New York Times notes, Indian officials have been keeping an eye on Zaharan for over a year as a suspected online recruiter for IS. Hilmy Ahamed, vice-president of the Muslim Council of Sri Lanka, told AFP that he had previously gone to local authorities to voice concerns about Zaharan over three years ago. Ahmed stated that Zaharan is around the age of 40 and from the east coast region of Batticaloa. "This person was a loner and he had radicalized young people in the guise of conducting Koran classes," Ahmed said. "Zahran belonged to an average Muslim middle-class family, Ahmed added. He was a drop-out. At a press conference Wednesday, state minister of defense Ruwan Wijewardene explained that nine suicide bombers were a part of the attack and eight of them have been identified. The bombers were said to be well educated individuals. One of the bombers studied in the United Kingdom and Australia. However, Wijewardene stated that they are trying to determine whether the attack was carried out by NTJ or a splinter organization. "There has been a group that has split from the main body [of the NTJ], Wijewardene said. "We believe that the leader of this group has also committed suicide in one of the attacks. Wijewardene did not clarify if he was referring to Zaharan as the leader of the group. Presidential advisor Shiral Lakthilaka was reported to have said Wednesday that he believes the mastermind of the attack was Inshan Seelavan, who he identified as having blown himself up at the Shangri-La Hotel in Colombo. Two other suicide bombers in the attack have been identified as brothers belonging to one of the wealthiest Muslim families in Colombo, Imsath Ahmed Ibrahim and Ilham Ahmed Ibrahim. Their father is the founder of a company that bills itself as the "largest exporter of spices from Sri Lanka since 2006." According to a source who spoke with AFP, Ibrahims oldest sons have been identified as the bombers who blew themselves up at the Cinnamon Grand and Shangri-La hotels as guests lined up for Easter breakfast. Another bomber has been identified as Abdul Lathief Jameel Mohamed, who a British security source identified as having studied in England from 2006 to 2007. The Telegraph reports that Mohammed studied at Kingston University in Southwest London. In 2015, Prime Minister David Cameron called out Kingston among four universities accused of hosting the most events featuring extremist speakers. At the time, the school claimed that it was unlikely that students were being radicalized. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for a number of high-profile attacks and bombings throughout the world in the last several years. On July 3, 2016, IS militants carried out coordinated bombings in the Karrada district of Baghdad, Iraq that took the lives of over 325 people. In 2015, IS claimed responsibility for bombing a flight from Egypt to Russia that killed 224 people. Other attacks claimed by IS that gained international headlines include the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida in 2016; the 2015 shooting in San Bernardino, California; the cargo truck killings on Bastille Day 2016 in Nice, France; the 2016 bombing in Brussels, Belgium; the 2015 attacks in Paris, France; and the 2016 suicide bombings in Kabul, Afghanistan. Thousands have been killed and enslaved by IS as it conquered territory in Iraq and Syria in 2014. Some were killed in lone attacks, while others were killed during IS reign of terror in areas under its control. In areas under the group's control, IS enforced a hardline Islamic way of life and often executed or harshly punished residents who the group claims broke its law. Additionally, IS aligned militants in places like Egypt and Libya are also responsible for many killings. IS affiliates in the Philippines tried to take over the city of Malawi in May 2017, which led to a battle with Philippine government forces that saw the death of over 1,000 militants and soldiers. Anglican churches in Sri Lanka told to 'prayerfully discern' whether to go ahead with Sunday services After the horrific suicide bombing of three churches last weekend, Anglican bishops in Sri Lanka have written to clergy, wardens and lay leadership telling them to "prayerfully discern" whether they should go ahead with their usual Sunday services. The bombings on Easter Sunday, which also targeted luxury hotels, killed 253 people and injured hundreds more. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attacks. The Bishop of Colombo, Dhiloraj Canagasabey, and the Bishop of Kurunegala, Keerthisiri Fernando, has advised church leaders to cancel services if they feel it is "not prudent" to hold them in light of the attacks, the Anglican Communion News Service reports. They told local church officials to assess the situation in their area before reaching their own decision on the matter. "That is because the dynamics and ground situations differ from one community to another or one area to another area," they said. Churches were told they could consider "creative means" to observe Sunday worship if services were cancelled. They also reminded church leaders that the goal of the terrorists was to spread fear and stop Christians from worshipping God. "If you feel it is not prudent to hold worship in your churches in the prevailing circumstances then please refrain from having any gathering that may not be advisable until there is an improvement in the current situation in the country," they continued. "On the other hand you must not lose sight of the fact that the intention of the forces of darkness and these perpetrators is to stop us worshipping our God and to cripple everyday life by driving fear into people. "During the 30 years civil War our worshipping communities were only prevented from meeting for worship only due to curfews." Bishop backs 'urgent' call for Government to better support rural economies Rural communities are "vulnerable" and need better support from the Government if they are to flourish post-Brexit, the Bishop of St Albans has said. Dr Alan Smith welcomed a new report from the House of Lords Rural Economy Committee published on Saturday that sets out a number of recommendations to boost the economy across the British countryside. It calls for a comprehensive strategy to address a number of challenges facing rural communities, including Brexit, cuts to local authority budgets, digital connectivity, a lack of affordable housing, and an ageing rural population. It also identifies areas of opportunity, including the development of new high-growth businesses that support community flourishing. The report highlights the work of the Church of England in improving rural broadband and mobile connectivity through its partnership with Defra and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Under the accord, over 300 churches have installed digital infrastructure to beam internet signals off their spires. Dr Alan Smith, Bishop of St Albans, said the recommendations were "rurally literate" and that the report was a "serious and urgent call" to the Government to implement an integrated and long-term rural strategy. He said that with "strong backing" from the Government, rural areas could make an "enhanced national contribution". "Those like me, who live and work in the countryside will recognise the significant opportunities and challenges it identifies," he said. He continued: "It is my hope that the Government will recognise the value of this report and embrace the many difficulties identified within the findings. "The challenge of housing for working age people and equal access to services is clearly something that must be addressed. "As we approach a post-Brexit landscape we must be conscious how vulnerable our rural communities are and make sure their interests are protected in any future Government action." by Vladimir Rozanskij Moscow (AsiaNews) - During Eastertide, the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, takes on particular significance for the Orthodox world, not only as the place of memory of the death and resurrection of Christ, but also a terrain of affirmation of the "true Orthodoxy" and the denunciation of every heresy and schism. It is no coincidence that in the Lenten weeks the "triumph of Orthodoxy" is proclaimed and the faithful are urged to extend mutual forgiveness, above all else for the weaknesses of faith. This year in particular the great "weakness" concerns the division between Russians, Ukrainians and Greeks, which causes conflicts not only in churches but also in homes and families, and has led to the exclusion of Ukrainians from Easter celebrations in the Holy Land. In fact, there are quite a few households, especially in Russia and Ukraine, where members belong to mutually hostile jurisdictions (patriarchate of Moscow or Constantinople, Autocephalic Church of Kiev or Russian Exarchate of Europe and others). To avoid any ambiguity, the Patriarch Theophilus of Jerusalem forbade all members of the new Ukrainian Church autocephalous, ecclesiastical and lay, who are in the territory of the patriarchate, to take part in religious services. "No form of participation, not even simple prayer around the holy places, for the representatives of these schismatic structures," the official statement reads. Teophilous has always been very close to the Russians, who strongly urged these drastic measures. These were emphasized by statements by the head of the press service of the Moscow patriarchate, Father Aleksandr Volkov: "The schismatics have tried in various ways to interfere in the Orthodox functions of Jerusalem". He therefore expressed gratitude to Patriarch Theophilus "for his firm position regarding the impossibility of schismatic participation in the rites celebrated by the priests of the canonical Orthodox Churches at the shrines of the Holy Land". In particular, the "Ukrainian schismatics" will be kept away from the "Fire of Grace" of the Holy Sepulchre, considered a "exclusively Orthodox" miracle. Also this year, as has been the case since 2003, the Russians have organized a delegation from the foundation of St. Andrew Protoclyte , blessed by the patriarch and financed by first-level representatives of Russian economic and political power, some of whom are at the head of the group. This time the delegation was strengthened to over a hundred people, including pilgrims and law enforcement. They left Friday from Vnukovo airport in Moscow, to participate in the functions of Holy Saturday and Easter vigil in order to bring home the "holy fire" for the Russian faithful. The "holy fire" miraculously lights up on the Holy Sepulchre on the eve of the resurrection of Christ at Orthodox Easter, in a huge lamp filled with oil with 33 candles, which symbolize the years of Jesus' life. During Holy Saturday all the lights and candles of the basilica are extinguished, and the patriarchs place themselves in front of the skylight, waiting for the miracle of the fire that "descends" above them. No one in history has been able to explain the origin of the miracle, despite many attempts. Immediately the candles are divided out to be taken to the Orthodox lands, and the majority of them are requisitioned by the Russians, the most devoted to this tradition. The same night of April 27, the delegation will return to Moscow, greeted by a large crowd at Vnukovo airport, each with its own lamp to carry everywhere. The biggest flame is brought to the cathedral of Christ the Savior, where the patriarch Kirill begins the celebration with the cry "Christ is Risen!", to which all respond "Truly He is risen!", thus lighting the candle with the miraculous flame to compose the initial procession of the Easter Vigil. Metropolitan Epiphany of Kiev, this year, will have to prepare for an "autocephalous bonfire", hoping for the miracle of a future reconciliation among all the Orthodox Churches. Christian arrested during Extinction Rebellion defends breaking the law A Christian pensioner who was arrested during the Extinction Rebellion climate protests says he had no other choice but to break the law to make those in power take action on climate change. Phil Kingston, 83, said that as a former parole officer, he did not take breaking the law "lightly". He was arrested alongside other Christian Climate Action members after climbing onto the roof of a DLR train in London's financial district, Canary Wharf. The protesters sang hymns and held a prayer vigil on top of the train as they tried to disrupt access to the financial district which they say is playing a "catastrophic role" in climate change. They also held up banners saying "Don't jail the canaries" and "business as usual = death". Mr Kingston was protesting as part of the Extinction Rebellion that has disrupted parts of London for the past few weeks. He and four other activists were taken to Brewery Road Police Station before being released on Friday. He said his activism was peaceful and motivated by his Christian faith. "I don't like having to break the law, I used to be a parole officer so I don't do this lightly. But what other option do we have?" he said. "We've tried marching and signing petitions and we're still off track. Emissions continue to rise. How can I look my grandchildren in the eye and not do everything I can to ensure we don't leave them a messed up world? "It's an issue of intergenerational justice. The next generation are going to have to pay our climate debts and that just isn't fair." He said that he was the "perfect age" to have run-ins with the law because he didn't have a career to think about. "I don't need to worry about an arrest making my CV look bad. I'm long past the need for one of those," he said. He continued: "Being a Christian is about sharing the love of God with others. Although the people at Canary Wharf may not appreciate it, this was an act of love for my children and grandchildren, and for the children and grandchildren of the people working at Canary Wharf too." Richard Barnard, 45, who also took part in the Canary Wharf protest, told commuters on the platform that the protest was an act of solidarity with millions of people who have been affected by climate change. "We would really rather not be here but the ravaging of God's creation calls us to do something, anything to stop this headlong rush into extinction on the back of the myth of financial progress and growth and business as usual," he said. He added: "In solidarity with Rebels who have been put on remand for pointing out our house is ablaze, in solidarity with the millions of lives, human and otherwise already being directly and adversely affected by climate breakdown we act again and will continue to do so, according to our consciences and the overwhelming evidence, both scientific and experiential in order to highlight the truth of these times that God's beautiful creation is being destroyed." Pastor of church bombed in Sri Lanka forgives attackers The pastor of an evangelical church bombed in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday has offered forgiveness to the attackers. Pastor Roshan Mahesen, of Zion Church in Batticaloa, said the congregation was "hurt" and "angry" about the devastating suicide bombings which struck two other churches and several luxury hotels, killing hundreds. However, he said it was important to forgive the attackers "no matter what". "We are hurt. We are angry also, but still, as the senior pastor of Zion Church Batticaloa, the whole congregation and every family affected, we say to the suicide bomber, and also to the group that sent the suicide bomber, that we love you and we forgive you, no matter what you have done to us, we love you, because we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ," he said in a video message posted to Facebook. "Jesus Christ on the Cross, he said father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing. We also, who follow the footsteps of Jesus Christ, we say, for the Lord forgive these people." In the video, shared by Sri Lankan Christian ministry 'The Life', Pastor Roshan went on thank people around the world who had sent messages of condolences to the church. "I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart, every word you speak brings such comfort and strength. We will stand and continue what the lord has purposed in our life and we are ready and we will continue to fulfil the mission the Lord has given us," he said. Pastor Chrishanthy Sathiyaraj, Life founder and Evangelical Alliance council member, urged people to respond with forgiveness and not hate to the attacks. "These atrocious attacks have shocked the world, the violence has impacted my friends and family and many in the Sri Lankan community in the UK know people who have died," he said. "If only we can hear Pastor Roshan's words and respond with forgiveness instead of hate. Jesus Christ calls us to love even those who persecute us, and what is more powerful than to choose to love in circumstances such as these. Let's forgive, stand together and build the kingdom of God. Don't give up." Steve Clifford, general director of the Evangelical Alliance, stood side by side with Sri Lankans at a prayer gathering earlier this week following the attacks. He said he was praying for the Christian community in Sri Lanka. "I am mourning with my Sri Lankan brothers and sisters in Christ as they bury loved ones, as church communities are shaken by the violence inflicted on them and as others live in fear that the same might strike them," he said. "Pastor Roshan offers love and forgiveness that can only come from knowing that we are forgiven by Jesus. I will continue to pray for him and all the believers in Sri Lanka, that they will know hope in Jesus that overcomes all fear." It appears the Museum of Ice Cream won't be getting boozy anytime soon. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously denied the business's application for a liquor license during a meeting Tuesday. Earlier this month, the museum's founders described their vision for a 60-person, adults-only bar called "Dive-In," which would be located at their 1 Grant Ave. location in full view of the sprinkle pool, no less. They planned to open up before the summer ice cream rush. But their spiked milkshake dreams were swiftly crushed without discussion in an 11-0 vote. "While the denial of our proposed liquor license by San Francisco's Board of Supervisors was not the outcome we and the San Francisco community anticipated, this delay will not deter us from our steadfast mission to offer a city so deeply imbued in technology and dominated by multi-billion dollar tech companies, with a safe, family-friendly, offline space that fosters happiness and joy," co-founders Manish Vora and Maryellis Bunn said in a statement. ALSO: Museum of Ice Cream plastic sprinkles are littering SF streets The statement elaborates effusively on the business's mission to "get people, young and old, off their phones, and back interacting, connecting and eating ice cream" a peculiar angle to take for a business that relies heavily on people taking pictures to post on social media. The founders go on to plea for the well-being of "the many non-technology businesses that aim to revive the challenging retail ecosystem in this city." The Museum of Ice Cream first applied for a Type 42 license, which allows for the sale of beer and wine, in November 2018. That application was denied in February, according to the Examiner. The business owners came back with some modifications, but that apparently wasn't going to cut it either. Supervisor Aaron Peskin told the Examiner, "It's an area of the city that has the highest concentration of beer and wine and liquor in the city, and they didn't really make a good case for it." Read Alix Martichoux's latest stories and send her news tips at alix.martichoux@sfgate.com. DARIEN A spokeswoman for Gavin Scott Hapgood said Thursday he acted in self-defense during an incident that led to the death of a hotel employee in Anguilla while he and his family were on vacation. Hapgood, 44, of Darien, was charged with manslaughter by the Royal Anguilla Police Force last week in connection with the death of Kenny Mitchel in Anguilla on April 13. Kelcey Kintner, spokeswoman for Hapgood, said he was attacked without warning in his familys hotel room by a maintenance worker who was armed and demanding money. She said Hapgood acted in self-defense to protect the lives of his young daughters and himself. The RAPF spokesman Randy Dick said Hapgoods daughters were in the room when Mitchel was killed at the Malliouhana resort. Despite reports indicating the Hapgoods called maintenance before Mitchel was killed, Kintner said that wasnt the case. Neither invited nor expected, the worker showed up unannounced in uniform at the hotel room, claiming he was there to fix a broken sink before carrying out his sudden, violent attack on the family, she said. She said Hapgood and his family were traumatized by the assault and thankful to be alive. The killing has Facebook comments on the Royal Police Facebook page erupting with speculation some commenters supporting Hapgood, others Mitchel. But the details of what led to the fatal interaction has not been shared by Anguilla police. More for you Police: Darien man killed hotel worker with kids in room Anguilla, a British Overseas Territory, is located in the eastern Caribbean. There is a small main island and several offshore islets. Hapgood and his family were vacationing at a hotel on the West end of Anguilla. The RAPF said around 4 p.m. April 13, officers responded to the hotel for an incident that resulted in the death of one resident of Anguilla. After being arrested and formally charged, Hapgood appeared in court where bail was denied. But a statement from Police Commissioner Paul Morrison said the court ended up granting bail. Thomas Astaphan, Hapgoods local attorney, told the court that his client would return to Anguilla to clear his name, according to the Anguillian, a local newspaper. The Anguillian reported 27-year-old Mitchels death certificate said he died from prone restraint, positional asphyxia and blunt force trauma to the head, neck and torso. A relative of Mitchels sent a Facebook message to Hearst Connecticut Media with a link to a news story and added Our family wants justice. The relative did not respond to a follow up request for an interview or comment. Tensions were high following Mitchels death, which was initially referred to by RAPF police as a homicide investigation. We are not shrouding the case in mystery, we are bound by rules and so are others on what can be said, a statement from Morrison said. We have charged a man in connection with the death of Mr. Mitchel. The court granted bail and we now prepare for the court process and eventual trial. The RAPF public media relations officer provided a statement on Facebook about the scores of comments on its page about what happened. The Royal Anguilla Police Force acknowledges the fact that people want information in respect of the recent arrest and charging of a U.S. tourist, however, like all investigations these are not conducted on social media, the statement said. The comments being made on the RAPF Facebook have no foundation in fact and are likely to incite racial hatred and can prejudice a jury, especially since they will be chosen from among the community of Anguilla. Hapgood is a UBS financial adviser. A representative for UBS told the New York Post they were aware of the events and were following the situation closely, adding that it would not be appropriate to provide any comment in relation to an active criminal proceeding. Includes reporting from the Associated Press. Texas laws regarding alcohol sales on Sundays and at breweries may be changing. Thursday, the Texas House gave its stamp of approval of HB 1545 for the efficiency and operations of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, according to the Texas Tribune. The bill, which has to pass before next month to avoid an agency shutdown, includes two amendments for the expansion of alcohol sales, the Texas Tribune reported. ON HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM: Teacher pay raises, longer school year up for debate as Texas House takes up school funding One amendment, proposed by state representative Drew Springer, R-Muenster, would allow beer and wine sales to begin at 10 a.m. instead of noon on Sundays, the Texas Tribune reported. This would affect licensed retailers such as convenience and grocery stores but not liquor stores, which aren't allowed to operate on Sundays. Springer said his motion would put wine and beer sales in line with what's currently allowed at restaurants, bars and other on-premise consumption locations, the Texas Tribune reported. ON HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM: Religious liberty bill opposed by LGBTQ advocates clears Texas Senate State representative Eddie Rodriguez, D-Austin, proposed an amendment that would allow craft breweries to sell beer-to-go. Rodriguez noted that this is already legal in every other state, the Texas Tribune reported. "We have to make these changes for these small breweries to grow," Rodriguez said, according to the Texas Tribune. "Let's vote for small businesses here in Texas. Let's vote for beer-to-go." The bill, including the two amendments, has been sent it to the Texas Senate. Marcy de Luna is a digital reporter. You can follow her on Twitter @MarcydeLuna and Facebook @MarcydeLuna. Read her stories on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and on our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com. | Marcy.deLuna@chron.com | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message For the 23rd Humble Police Association Crawfish Festival, the Cajun Country Cookers crew brought 7,500 pounds of the crustacean mostly uniform in size and ready for a boil. It took just one hour after the event started for 6,600 pounds to disappear. But that was indicative of an excellent turnout, said Jerry Davis, the eaterys vice-president. Again Cajun Country Cookers got to provide the food for the annual fundraiser from the Humble Police Association, which held its latest iteration from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Friday at the Humble Civic Center. STAY IN THE KNOW: Get all the news you need to know to start your day, delivered to your inbox There was an assembly-line structure at each crawfish station. The first person began to scoop the crawfish, the second set a plate down, the third placed corn on top and the fourth finished up with potatoes. Serving was fast and furious. We didnt like people standing in line, he said. Nobodys going to leave here hungry. Texans linebacker Brian Peters agreed. The athlete, who came after Tom Huberty of Texan Dodge invited him, estimated that he had consumed 15 pounds of crawfish. Also full were Tiffany Bussell and Shayane Caballero, students of Lone Star College-Kingwood. Both were one of 34 recipients, of scholarships from HPA. I was actually struggling because I didnt know if Id be able to pay for school, and then I got the email that I had qualified and I won I was so happy because it paid off all my classes, Bussell said. She plans to transfer to the University of Houston to study graphic design. Caballero was initially confused when she got a similar email, but afterward let her excitement known. She will pursue a degree in animation. HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM: Houstonians line up for the Karbach's Crawfish Fest I didnt expect them to give me the scholarship because its not criminal justice, she said, but its really, really nice to get that support. Speaking of support, HPA Treasurer Twyla Kimberlin said it meant a lot to her group giving future generations the push for them to accomplish goals. Theyre gonna be the ones that are gonna run our city, gonna work in our city, she said. Such an understanding provided her enough drive to not be bogged down by a couple of the nights hurdles, including the band not showing up due to scheduling conflicts and meeting ticket holders who had missed the crawfish boil which ended at 8:30 p.m. As the festival came to a close after the live auction, she gathered up HPA board members to hand out a $10,000 check to Lone Star College-Kingwood. College scholarships was on the memo line. Were so lucky to have their support, said Nicole Robinson-Gauthier, the executive director of Lone Star College Foundation. Its amazing. She also loved the fact that there was no waiting line for the crawfish. nguyen.le@chron.com NEWS WHEN YOU NEED IT: Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message | Sign up for breaking news alerts delivered to your email here. Houston Chronicle A man shot and killed his terminally ill wife and then took his own life Friday night at their Kingwood home, according to police. The couple, both believed to be in their 30s, was found dead in their home around 7:40 p.m. in the 6400 block of Longflower Lane, Houston police spokeswoman Jodi Silva said Saturday morning. Ahead of Election Day on Saturday, May 4, three candidates running for the Spring Branch Independent School District board of trustees gathered to discuss issues facing the district. The candidate forum held on Thursday, April 25, at St. Thomas Presbyterian Church was sponsored by the Spring Branch ISD Council of PTAs. It brought out around 30 community members anxious to hear what the candidates had to say. While trustee positions 5, 6 and 7 are all up for grabs, only position 5 is contested. That race puts incumbent J. Carter Breed against challenger David E. Lopez. Unopposed are Pam Goodson in position 6 and Karen Peck in position 7. Both Goodson and Peck are both already serving in those roles. Goodson had a previous engagement and did not attend the forum. Each of the three candidates had their own ideas, but they all agreed on a few issues. For one, they all wanted the district to continue to focus on it T-2-4 goal of all graduates getting a technical certificate, military training or a two- or four-year degree. They emphasized the need for students to be reading on grade level in their early elementary years to set them up for success as they progress in their education. Finally, all three candidates said that money sent by the district to Austin for recapture policies set for poorer districts needs to stay in education and not fund the Texas general budget. Georgia Polley, the legislative committee chair for the Council of PTAs, moderated the event and asked the candidates what parts of student performance the district should focus on and how those priorities would impact the T-2-4 goal. Lopez said the district needs to be talking about ways to improve reading, writing and math skills, particularly for certain populations and schools like Northbrook and Spring Woods High Schools whose college-ready numbers currently sit at less than 50 percent of students. Thats not leading us to strong T-2-4 success, and we need to start seeing those numbers improve, Lopez said. The way we do that is ensuring that students are learning how to read and write in English starting in pre-K and having those structures in schools to support teachers to do that best. Breed said the districts starting full-day pre-K was critical and that students needs to have proficient reading skills in the third grade. The EL (English Learning) programs need improvement as well, he said. Were seeing progress, but we want to see more progress. Another area that Ive been highly involved in is CTE [Career and Technical Education], and its something Ive gotten very passionate about, Breed said. The two things are put those together and were going to make great headway toward our T-2-4 goal. Peck said she supports more professional development so that that teachers can be better equipped to serve their students. Teaching English earlier to bilingual students is important, but Peck added that the district also needs to do a better job of supporting older students as well. We also need to do more at the secondary level, really on advising students about their options, whether its CTE and college options, preparing students not only with the academic skills but with the soft skills, the grit, the determination, the resilience to succeed, whether its in the workforce, the military or college. Early voting is being held through Tuesday, April 30, at four locations across the district. Election Day is Saturday, May 4, and voters must go to the middle school to which their home is zoned. For hours and more information, click here. tracy.maness@hcnonline.com Kentuckys Democratic attorney general just launched an investigation to determine if middlemen in the prescription drug supply chain are ripping off the states Medicaid program. Hes onto something. These middlemen, known as pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), administer drug plans for Medicaid, Medicare Part D, and private insurers. In theory, PBMs keep drug spending under control by negotiating with pharmaceutical companies for rebates and bulk discounts. In practice, PBMs cause patients and insurers to overpay for drugs. Medicaid was created to provide health insurance for low-income elderly, pregnant, and disabled Americans. Today, Medicaid is a nearly $600 billion operation that covers more than 70 million Americans. Medicaid is jointly funded and regulated by state and federal governments. The federal government covers a percentage of program expenditures that varies by state. State governments pick up the remainder. Medicaids costs are spinning out of control. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services predicts that Medicaid expenditures will rise almost 6 percent every year through 2026. A number of factors, including drug costs, drive Medicaid spending. To rein in these costs, states often contract with managed care organizations, which provide coverage to Medicaid enrollees in return for a lump sum payment from the state. These managed care organizations then hire pharmacy benefit managers to administer their drug benefits. PBMs extract significant discounts from pharmaceutical companies. In 2017, rebates from drug manufacturers totaled more than $150 billion. These savings are rarely shared with patients at the pharmacy. Most of the rebates are passed back to insurers, who use the savings to lower premiums. PBMs keep the rest. PBMs also engage in a practice called spread pricing. Spread pricing agreements allow PBMs to acquire cheap generic drugs and sell them at a much higher price. Consider what happened in Ohio last year. PBMs secured a popular depression medication from manufacturers for roughly $0.18 per pill, then charged Ohios Medicaid program $1.54 per dose. This example isnt isolated. State Medicaid programs pay PBMs between $109 and $300 for every pill of imatinib mesylate, the generic form of the cancer medication Gleevec. But the drug only costs pharmacies $84 per pill. An analysis conducted by Bloomberg found that Medicaid programs in 31 states paid drastically different prices for 90 of the most popular generic drugs. Some states got good deals; others faced markups that were triple what the pharmacy paid. President Trump recently released a proposal that would force PBMs to share rebates with patients at the pharmacy. This would make it difficult for PBMs to continue overcharging state Medicaid programs. The presidents proposal is a good idea. It would help keep a lid on drug costs and trim Medicaids bloated budget. Sally C. Pipes is president, CEO, and Thomas W. Smith Fellow in Health Care Policy at the Pacific Research Institute. Her latest book is The False Promise of Single-Payer Health Care (Encounter). Follow her on Twitter @sallypipes. The 7.9 magnitude quake killed nearly 9 thousand people, wiped out 90% of homes, hundreds of temples and protected sites. After four years, 50% of displaced people have a home. There remains a widespread corruption that slows down the reconstruction work. Kathmandu (AsiaNews / Agencies) - With a minute's silence at 11:56 am, the time of the first tremor of the terrible earthquake four years ago, the estimated 9,000 people killed in the catastrophe will be rembered throughout Nepal. On 25 April 2015, the Himalayan country was hit by a powerful 7.9 magnitude earthquake that destroyed more than 90% of homes and hundreds of temples and protected sites throughout the Kathmandu valley. To date the reconstruction work continues, but about 50% of the displaced people still do not have a home. Two days ago, Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli paid tribute to the dead at the memorial built in their memory in Kathmandu, at Durbar Square, a UNESCO protected site rebuilt after the earthquake. "I want to offer my condolences - he said - to all those who lost their lives. We are here to remember the pain of that day ... but it is also important to note how much work has been done in the last four years to restore and rebuild what we had lost ". According to the National Authority for Reconstruction, about half of the families left homeless due to the earthquake are now living in a new home. However, after a slow start of the rebuilding work, today there are still heavy delays due to the widespread corruption of the state apparatus, the constant changesin leadership and a generalized confusion in management. After the earthquake, a generous solidarity drive took hold throughout the international community. In all, 9 billion dollars were donated. For the government, however, the money will not be enough to rebuild all the buildings and the authorities in Kathmandu estimate the missing funds at four billion. The state has lent around 3,000 dollars to each family in three reconstruction installments. Sushil Gyawali, head of the state agency until 2020, says: "We have a lot to do. We will finish in the next 20 months ". Harris County prosecutors said Friday they will seek to dismiss 27 active criminal cases due to concerns about the credibility of two former Houston police officers under investigation for their roles in a deadly January drug raid in Pecan Park. Questions have been raised about whether the two officers, Gerald Goines and Steven Bryant, may have lied about some of the circumstances surrounding the botched raid on Jan. 28. Goines and Bryant retired from the Houston Police Department under investigation weeks after the bust. Truthfulness is essential in a case that must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said Friday in a statement. We cant vouch for these officers credibility. HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM EXCLUSIVE: Aftermath of deadly Harding Street drug raid captured on dramatic cellphone video The botched bust remains under investigation by the DAs Office, the FBI, and the Houston Police Department. Police burst into the home of at 7815 Harding Street looking for heroin, kicking off a gun battle that killed Dennis Tuttle and his wife, Rhogena Nicholas. Goines and three other officers were shot in the ill-fated raid, which netted only a small amount of marijuana and cocaine. Goines came under scrutiny after investigators accused him of lying on the search warrant affidavit used to justify the raid. Family and friends have said the couple were not drug dealers. The two officers were relieved of duty following the raid and later retired. The DAs office said it would file motions Friday seeking to dismiss all open cases in which Goines or Bryant were material witnesses who could be required to testify. Prosecutors had already dismissed several other pending cases. Police corruption erodes public trust and through methodical, deliberate and independent investigation, we will get to the truth, Ogg said. st.john.smith@chron.com keri.blakinger@chron.com Get reaction and details about the dismissals in our HoustonChronicle.com update. NEWS WHEN YOU NEED IT: Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message | Sign up for breaking news alerts delivered to your email here. A man fleeing a gunman at a west Houston apartment complex was shot dead Friday night, according to police. The suspect pulled out a gun while talking to the victim and another man after they drove to the building in the 6000 block of Gulfton Street around 9 p.m., according to Metro Video, citing Houston police. MORNING UPDATES: Get all the news you need to know to start your day, delivered to your The shooter then opened fire on the two, striking one of the men fatally after he got back into the vehicle, an investigator said. The shot man was rushed to Southwest Memorial Hospital, where he died. HPD INVESTIGATIONS: Suspect leads Sugar Land police on chase after "butt-dialing" 911 The suspect was known to witnesses of the shooting, Metro Video reported. He fled the parking lot and has not been apprehended. 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. Spring ISD awarded $1,000 career and technical education scholarships to 13 high school seniors who will pursue their studies in fields such as law, education and engineering after graduating. The annual CTE Advisory Board Scholarship Fundraiser Luncheon held at the Hilton Houston North on Friday, April 26, honored the scholarship recipients. Steve Lam, a 2013 graduate of Westfield High School and keynote speaker at Fridays luncheon, said the districts CTE program helped him figure out his career path when he realized he didnt want to be a doctor. I learned really fast that it wasnt for me. Here, I discovered I cant look at blood without literally fainting, not even in the textbook form, he said. The CTE program provides students with opportunities to gain experience about potential careers before graduating from high school through courses and earning certifications. Students can also earn experience through internships and job shadowing with the districts business partners. The 13 graduating seniors from Spring, Westfield, Wunsche and Dekaney High Schools plan to pursue careers spanning from culinary arts to computer science. Spring High School seniors Grant Bennett plans to study agriculture engineering, Cindy Keeya will pursue neuroscience and mathematics, while Evelyn Wendt will study engineering. At Westfield High School, Esu Ekeruche will study electrical engineering, Lanae Jenkins will study computer science, Simone Marshall will study psychology while Mark Francis Jr. and Leslie Hernandez will both pursue education. Dekaney High school seniors Kiera Gardner will study human services, Annanda Martins will pursue culinary arts while Citclari Perez plans to pursue pre-law. At Wunsche High School, seniors Alexis Jones plans to study kinesiology while Kristopher Orellana will pursue a career as a radiologic technician. Lam said that while he was a student, the program helped him figure out the kind of career he wanted to pursue. He ended up trying out education, finance and engineering. Math was too hard, he said. After trial and error, Lam eventually learned that he wanted to work in marketing. He is currently working in marketing for Target and the Minnesota Timberwolves. What Im doing now is what I always dreamed of doing, he said. Superintendent Rodney Watson said the program has become more popular among students, as it helps them prepare to enter college or the workforce after graduating. We have more opportunities and choices for our students within our CTE pathway, he said. mayra.cruz@chron.com Woodlands Christian Academy raises over $2 million Earlier this month, The Woodlands Christian Academy hosted their annual fundraising event, this year marking a special milestone of the schools 25th anniversary. The more than 360 guests in attendance raised more than $2 million from both a silent and live auction. The funds are to be used to furnish and equip the campus new high school building, which is set to open this fall. Students inducted into John Cooper Cum Laude Society At a ceremony April 17, 23 seniors from The John Cooper School were inducted into their chapter of The Cum Laude Society. The following students were inducted: Lisa Alexander, Rhyma Asim, Evan Burchfiel, Erin Frankland, Abby Frazier, Jacob Gunter, Oliver Kneen, Matthew Krehbiel, Christopher McDonald, Ava Minarovic, Megan Perkins, Riley Perugini, Beatrice Portela, Brian Ross, Lauren Sands, Zhi-Syuen See, Colleen Skinner, Madeleine Smith, Jonathan Spangler-Sakata,Vandana Venkatesh, Divya Wagh, Campbell Wilkerson and Jessica Young. The exploration of possible incorporation into a new City of The Woodlands will continue for another 18 months up until the November 2020 general election after the townships board Wednesday approved a wide-ranging contract extension with an Ohio-based consulting firm. Under the contract, officials with the Novak Consulting Group will complete several analyses of law enforcement issues and other topics that as to date had not been fully completed. In a 6-0 vote, the board approved the 18-month extension with the Novak Consulting Group of Cincinnati, Ohio, for a total cost of $354,896. This amount is in addition to previously budgeted expenditures for the incorporation studies that has now topped more than $1 million since the studies began in January of 2018. Township board Chairman Gordy Bunch said that as Novak officials continue the studies, there will be less meetings than in the 2018 study phase, when there were an average of two incorporation planning sessions a month. Now, the Novak Consulting team will only come back for certain meetings when new, actionable information is ready to be present. It is estimated that the next incorporation planning meeting will not occur until June or July, he added. Were trying to be as cautious and though (as possible), Bunch said. Hopefully we are being as transparent as possible. Under the new agreement with Novak, the firm will continue to conduct incorporation studies through November of 2020, including completing and supplementing the law enforcement studies done by another firm the Matrix Consulting Group in 2018 but which were not completed as desired by township officials. Because the Matrix firm had their contract terminated in early December 2018, the report their staff had created has sat untouched since then and, according some township board members, was incomplete. The new contract also allows for officials from the Novak team to subcontract with a third consulting firm HR Green that has been used in a limited fashion during the incorporation studies process. The HR Green team will focus on finishing analysis and gathering more data on the public works and roadway pavement maintenance element of possible incorporation. The firm will also continue ongoing communication and support for the online informational website and the FAQs section; will refine the public works and infrastructure maintenance initiatives and plan a facilitate a March 2020 public forum to update residents on the process. A date of December 2019 was preliminarily set by the firm to determine the maximum tax rate if the township does incorporate. Novak presented three options for the finishing of the law enforcement study, including one that was more wide-ranging update and built off data gathered in a 2011 law enforcement report done for incorporation studies at that time; a second option that was to merely finish off the Matrix report from 2018; or a third option to explore what township directors have called a hybrid law enforcement model which would include mainly continuing service from the Montgomery County Sheriffs Department while also developing a smaller, preliminary in-house police force that would patrol parts of the township in Harris County. After very brief discussions amongst the six board members which was much less vigorous and shorter than prior meetings where directors debated each other for up to an hour at times the board unanimously approved Novak to take option one, which would be a revisiting of the 2011 law enforcement study as well as examining options two and three as part of an entire law enforcement assessment. The reports are hoped to be completed by October 2019. In addition to the intensive law enforcement report and analysis, Novak consultants will also examine dispatching issues related to the townships policing services and plan for a tentative public forum preliminarily scheduled for September 2020, but which will only happen if township directors vote to approve holding an incorporation vote in November 2020. Township Director Ann Snyder said she believes much more information, analysis and probing work needs to be done on the law enforcement study. It seems to me that there are a lot of unanswered questions, Snyder said. jeff.forward@chron.com Ever wonder what could keep a home from selling? Just ask a listing agent. They've seen some doozies. Listing agents, as the professionals who help prep a home for sale, are often tasked with telling home sellers why their house might not sell in its current condition. It's a tough job, but it sure beats saying nothing and then watching a home sit indefinitely. Only 257,622 couples were married last year. Economic uncertainties, frustration and lack of prospects are the main reasons. The economy is slowing down and many young people cannot find a decent job. There is little hope of earning enough to buy a house, get married and have a child. The demographic transition, due to the low birth rate, is looming over the country. Seoul (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Economic uncertainties, frustration and lack of prospects: these are the main reasons that push hundreds of thousands of South Korean youths to postpone marriage. This is what emerges from studies conducted throughout the country, which highlight the factors behind the few unions celebrated in South Korea. According to Statistics Korea, an institution within the Ministry of Planning and Finance, only 257,622 couples married in 2018: it is the most negative record since 1972. South Korea's economy is slowing and many young people are unable to find a decent job. According to government figures, the unemployment rate among young adults - those aged 15 to 29 - was 10.8% last March, much higher than the overall 4.3%. The lack of stable employment affects other areas of life. A survey published last month by the Korean Institute for Health and Social Affairs shows that 9.7% of 846 men and 1.5% of 904 women declare that they do not have romantic relationships due to financial reasons. As evidence of the country's economic problems, two days ago the Bank of Korea declared that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) recorded -0.3% in the first three months of the year, recording the worst performance in almost a decade. Last week, the central bank also reduced growth prospects for Asia's fourth largest economy from 2.6% to 2.5%, citing difficulties and slowing exports. South Korean youth have little hope of earning enough to buy a house, get married and have a child. This is also due to the high costs to be incurred for the private education of children and the dizzying increase in the real estate market. According to KB Kookmin Bank - one of the largest South Korean commercial banks - the average price of apartments in Seoul reached a record 829 million won (619,000 euros) in September last year, compared to 480 million (371,000 euros) in December 2008. It was the first time that the average price exceeded 800 million won, in a country where the average available income per family was 41.28 million (32 thousand euros) in 2017. Many young men and women say that even if they succeeded in getting married, they would avoid conceiving children. The South Korean government has recently launched a task force to address the ramifications of an impending demographic transition that, triggered by the low birth rate, has plagued the country for over a decade. Statistics Korea reports that in 2018 the number of babies in South Korea dropped to 326,900 - a sharp drop from the maximum of 1 million in 1970. Last year, South Korea's total fertility rate - the average number of children per woman - reached an all-time low of 0.98, much lower than the replacement level of 2.1 which would keep the population stable at 51 million. In March, the statistics agency predicted that the country's population will reach 51.94 million in 2028, before declining to 39.29 million in 2067. In recent years, the tendency of citizens to remain single has also increased in South Korea, adding to the list of problems related to demographic changes. A report published by the Korean Institute for Health and Social Affairs shows that 12.2% of men and 20.6% of women declare that they do not want to go out with someone, in order not to lose the freedom and convenience that comes from living alone. In 2017 there were 5.62 million single-parent families in the country, representing 28.6% of all South Korean families. INDIANAPOLIS Turmoil wracking the National Rifle Association is threatening to turn the groups annual convention into outright civil war, as insurgents maneuver to oust Wayne LaPierre, the foremost voice of the U.S. gun rights movement. The confrontation pits LaPierre, the organizations longtime CEO, against its recently installed president, Oliver North, the central figure in the Reagan-era Iran-Contra affair, who remains a hero to many on the right. Behind it is a widening crisis involving a legal battle between the NRA and its most influential contractor, Ackerman McQueen, amid renewed threats from regulators in New York, where the NRA is chartered, to investigate the groups tax-exempt status. With contributions lagging, the NRA is also facing an increasingly well-financed gun rights movement, motivated by a string of mass shootings. North asked LaPierre to resign Wednesday, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times. He said he had also created a committee to review allegations of financial improprieties that threaten the NRAs status as a nonprofit organization. But LaPierre, in a stinging letter sent Thursday night to the NRAs board, accused North of threatening to leak damaging information about him and other NRA executives unless he stepped down. Yesterday evening, I was forced to confront one of those defining choices styled, in the parlance of extortionists as an offer I couldnt refuse, LaPierre wrote. I refused it. Even as the NRAs leadership tussled behind the scenes, President Donald Trump addressed the convention Friday and proclaimed himself a champion of gun rights. In a speech that was part political rally and part pep talk, he said his administration would not ratify an arms treaty designed to regulate the international sale of conventional weapons. The power struggle within the NRA is an abrupt escalation of a legal battle between the organization and Ackerman McQueen. The Times reported earlier this year that prominent members of the NRA board had grown dismayed at the performance of Ackerman because of its NRATV online media service, which has drifted into right-wing politics far beyond gun rights. Ackerman employs North, who hosts an NRATV series called American Heroes. It is not clear whether North has the board support to oust LaPierre, who has led the NRA for decades. Previously, the presidency has been a ceremonial position, although North, in documents reviewed by The Times, has asked for it to be a paid post. A key factor will be Chris Cox, who runs the NRAs Institute for Legislative Action and is effectively the groups second-ranking official. The dispute represents the NRAs deepest internal crisis since a struggle for control of the board in the late 1990s, when LaPierre and Ackerman were on the same side. The crisis has led to the splintering of a more than three-decade relationship between the NRA and Ackerman, which crafted such memorable lines as Charlton Hestons proclaiming that his gun would have to be pried from my cold, dead hands. Ackermans NRATV has taken on an apocalyptic tone, warning of race wars, calling for a march on the FBI and portraying the talking trains in the childrens show Thomas & Friends in Ku Klux Klan hoods. A lawsuit recently filed by the NRA against Ackerman raised concerns that the company might have overbilled the NRA and that North was conflicted in his duties as NRA president because Ackerman paid him. North, it said, had refused to provide his contract with Ackerman to the NRA. In the lawsuit, the NRA claimed that Ackerman had resisted providing financial records as part of a review of contractors it was conducting amid the threats of aggressive regulatory action. As you know, the NRA has over this past year taken steps to strengthen its efforts to document and verify compliance by our vendors with our purchasing practices and their contracts, LaPierre wrote in his letter Thursday to the board. Weve met extraordinary resistance from one vendor Ackerman McQueen. He noted that Ackerman paid North millions of dollars annually and that Ackerman, via North, was threatening to release a letter that would be a devastating account of our financial status, sexual harassment charges against a staff member, accusations of wardrobe expenses and excessive staff travel expenses. He also wrote that North explained that the letter would not be sent if I were to abruptly resign, adding, He stated that he could negotiate an excellent retirement for me. Later Thursday, close to midnight, in his own letter to the board, North said he was creating a special committee to investigate allegations of financial impropriety reported by The Times, The Wall Street Journal and The New Yorker. I did this because I am deeply concerned that these allegations of financial improprieties could threaten our nonprofit status. He also said he tasked the special committee with investigating allegations of financial misconduct related to Mr. LaPierre that have been made by Ackerman in the wake of the lawsuit. In a statement, a lawyer for the NRA, William Brewer, said the organization had been reviewing many of the issues raised by North since 2018, and added, In our view, the items involving Mr. LaPierre may reflect a misinformed view of his and the NRAs commitment to good governance. Ackerman McQueen declined to comment. With the NRAs board due to meet Monday, the crisis could come to a head soon. All of this is painful for me, LaPierre wrote. I will not judge Col. North, but must report what many of you already know: He has contractual and financial loyalties to AM. North, for his part, wrote, We are facing a serious crisis, adding, To date, my repeated efforts to inquire about the propriety of managements financial decisions have consistently been rebuffed. This article originally appeared in The New York Times WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump said Friday that the United States did not pay any money to North Korea, which had issued a $2 million bill for the hospice care of American Otto Warmbier, the comatose University of Virginia student sent home from Pyongyang in 2017. "No money was paid to North Korea for Otto Warmbier, not two Million Dollars, not anything else," Trump said in a tweet in which he suggested he has taken a different approach to hostage negotiations than his predecessor. Trump reiterated the point two hours later as he spoke to reporters outside the White House. More for you Opinion: One more North Korea humiliation for Trump "We did not pay money for our great Otto," Trump said. "I haven't paid money for any hostage. . . . We don't pay money for hostages." The Washington Post reported Thursday that North Korea presented an invoice for Warmbier's care in an extraordinarily brazen act even for a regime known for its aggressive tactics. The main U.S. envoy sent to retrieve Warmbier signed an agreement to pay the medical bill on instructions passed down from Trump, according to two people familiar with the situation. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. The bill went to the Treasury Department, where it remained - unpaid - throughout 2017, the people said. Before Trump's tweet, the White House had declined to comment on whether the bill was paid or whether the issue came up during preparations for Trump's two summits with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. In his Friday tweet, Trump cited two episodes during the Obama administration that he suggested stood in contrast to his stance on hostage negotiations. Trump claimed that the previous administration "paid 1.8 Billion Dollars for four hostages." That referred to a 2016 settlement of a long-standing claim by Iran regarding undelivered aircraft on the same day four American detainees were released. State Department officials have insisted that the negotiations over the claims and detainees were not connected but came together at the same time, with the cash payment used as "leverage" to ensure the release of detainees. Trump also cited the case of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who in 2009 walked off a U.S. military outpost in eastern Afghanistan and spent the next five years in enemy captivity. He was released in 2014 as part of a prisoner exchange for five Taliban members who were being held at the detention center at Guantanamo Bay. Bergdahl pleaded guilty in October 2017 to charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. Trump has accused Bergdahl of being a traitor and called for his execution. Bergdahl was later sentenced to a dishonorable discharge from the Army but avoided prison time. In a second tweet Friday, Trump quoted an unnamed U.S. negotiator saying: "President Donald J. Trump is the greatest hostage negotiator that I know of in the history of the United States. 20 hostages, many in impossible circumstances, have been released in last two years. No money was paid." A White House spokesman said Trump was referring to previous remarks by Robert O'Brien, the administration's special presidential envoy for hostage affairs. O'Brien made similar remarks to those quoted by Trump at a March event in the Oval Office marking the return to the United States of Danny Burch, an American hostage who was freed in Yemen in February after nearly 18 months in captivity. Speaking to reporters Friday, Trump claimed he was making "a lot of progress" in his efforts to denuclearize North Korea. "I have a great relationship with Kim Jung Un," said Trump, who also praised Russia and China for working with the United States toward its goal of a denuclearized Korean Peninsula. Warmbier, who was 21, fell into a coma for unknown reasons the night he was sentenced to 15 years in prison in North Korea with hard labor in March 2016. He was convicted on charges stemming from pulling down a propaganda sign in a Pyongyang hotel in the early hours of Jan. 1, 2016. Such an infraction would be minor in almost any other country, but in North Korea, it was considered a "hostile act against the state." Fred Warmbier, Otto Warmbier's father, said he was never told about the hospital bill. He said it sounded like a "ransom" for his son. After his sentencing, the North Koreans held on to the comatose student for 15 more months, not even telling American officials until June 2017 that he had been unconscious all that time. - - - Fifield reported from Beijing. A Houston resident pleaded guilty Friday to kidnapping and killing the mother of two of his children in 2017, according to U.S. Attorney Ryan Patrick. An investigation found that Don Gaines, 31, allegedly abducted 28-year-old Gayla Roy while she was leaving a U.S. Postal Service distribution center on Aldine Bender Road in September 2017. Both were USPS employees. A man arrested Friday in connection with dorm room break-ins at Texas State University is also a suspect in several burglaries in San Marcos over the past week. Jose Ernesto Chavez, 29, is charged with burglary of a habitation with intent to commit a sexual offense, one count of first degree felony burglary of a habitation, and three counts of second degree felony burglary of a habitation. He is being held in the Hays County Jail with bail set at $150,000. The best neighborhood in Texas is located in San Antonio, according to Niche, an online research organization. Terrell Hills, a small neighborhood adjacent to Alamo Heights, was ranked the highest of all Texas neighborhoods in Niche's 2019 list of best places to live in the U.S. TravelSkills by SFGate is brought to you by Visa How long does it take to build a high-rise hotel in the middle of Manhattan? Two to three years, maybe? Marriott plans to shrink that schedule to just three months with a new modular construction technique. The company said it will use the modular method to erect a 26-story AC Hotel at Sixth Avenue and 30th Street in New York City. The public areas of the hotel such as the lobby and restaurant will be constructed on-site, but the 168 guest rooms will come to the site fully completed and will be stacked on top of the hotel's base one at a time- just like an erector set you may have used as a kid. According to Marriott, each prefabricated guest room module will arrive fully outfitted "with beds, sheets, pillows, flooring and even toiletries." The building will be topped off with a rooftop bar (NYC's latest hotel trend), also made with modular construction. The modular units "will be assembled in a factory in Poland, shipped overseas and trucked into New York in the middle of the night, when the city streets can accommodate the oversized loads," according to travel industry website Skift. It estimated that stacking all the components into a 360-foot tower late this fall will take just 90 days. The property is due to open next year as the AC Hotel New York NoMad. Marriott said it became interested in modular construction a few years ago after it noted that since 2011, typical construction time for new North American hotels increased by up to 50 percent. For the past three years, the company has been working with developers, architects, franchisees and other parties to encourage the use of modular building techniques. Don't miss a shred of important travel news! Sign up for our FREE bi-weekly email alerts Since then, developers working on Marriott-branded properties have opened 31 hotels that included pre-built guest rooms or bathrooms, but all of those have been low-rise buildings; the New York City project is the first high-rise. So far, the largest Marriott-branded hotel using modular construction is a 354-room Courtyard/TownPlace Suites property in Hawthorne, California. (see slideshow at the top of this post for a look) Construction has begun on a modular Moxy hotel on Telegraph Avenue near Lake Merritt in downtown Oakland. In 2018, a modular Home2Suites by Hilton hotel was constructed near San Francisco International Airport using units manufactured in Idaho. Would you stay at a pre-fab hotel? Why or why not? Tell us what you think 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. NORTH OLMSTED, Ohio Disorderly conduct, Lorain Road: Police responded at 12:25 p.m. April 17 to the Fifth Third Bank regarding an intoxicated man who left after tying up the ATM for 20 minutes, disrupting service for bank patrons, using obscenities toward a bank manager and pulling down his pants to urinate outside the building. The bank manager said he recovered an empty Four Loko alcoholic beverage can from the ground and witnessed the man drive away from the bank. The alert manager took a photo of the rear of the suspects vehicle. Officers located the suspect a short time later sitting at a patio table outside a nearby restaurant. The suspect could not locate his wallet when asked to produce identification by police and then became verbally combative, according to a police report. Officers ended taking the suspect to the ground when he resisted being handcuffed. When officers told the suspect to stop resisting and put his hands behind his back, he cursed at officers and physically pulled his hands away, and tried to roll over, according to a police report. The suspect continued verbally and physically resisting as he was placed into a booking cage at the jail, according to a police report. Officers cited the man for disorderly conduct while intoxicated and are requesting a warrant for resisting arrest. Theft, Great Northern Mall: A loss prevention officer from Macys department store called police about 4 p.m. April 18 regarding a female shoplifting suspect. The officer said he witnessed her concealing multiple handbags in an empty bag and attempting to leave the store. The security guard attempted to stop the woman and bring her back to the office. During the confrontation, both the guard and the suspect fell to the ground. The guard said the woman urinated on herself, but the suspect claimed she was pregnant, and her water broke. The suspect said she was 16, and an ambulance took her to the hospital. However, after she was taken away, authorities located a drivers license for the suspect that showed she was 19. Macys said it wanted to press charges, and police said they would seek a warrant for theft. The value of the retrieved merchandise totaled more than $821. Impaired driving, Lorain Road: An officer at 2:22 a.m. April 21 traveling eastbound on Lorain Road near Columbia Road reported a westbound car went left of center and nearly struck his cruiser. The officer made a U-turn to pursue the suspects car and radioed for assistance. Officers stopped the vehicle about one minute later, but the driver said he had no idea why police were stopping him. Officers asked the man to perform field sobriety tests and state he stumbled out of the vehicle, according to a police report. Based on his performance on the field sobriety tests, officers arrested the man for operating a vehicle while impaired. He refused an alcohol breath test. Officers noticed damage to the front of the suspects car and recovered a small plastic bag from the car containing a white powdery substance and a small bag containing five blue circular pills. The materials were sent to the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiners Office to be tested. Shoplifting, Lorain Road: Police responded April 18 to Walmart regarding a suspected male shoplifter. A loss prevention officer said she had seen the suspect not scanning all the items he was bagging at a self-checkout register. The man took a peel off UPC barcode sticker from an 88-cent ice cream scoop and stuck it to his hand. He repeatedly scanned the 88-cent sticker while bagging more expensive food items, according to a police report. The value of the stolen items totaled more than $107, according to police. Officers charged the suspect with petty theft. If youd like to comment on this story, visit Saturdays crime and courts comments section MAPLE HEIGHTS, Ohio -- Four teens robbed a man in his driveway at gunpoint and fired shots at him Friday afternoon, police say. The incident happened just after 3:30 p.m. in the area of Hillgrove Avenue near Warrensville Center Road, Maple Heights police said in a news release. The man told police he was in his driveway when two teens came up to him and distracted him while two other teens came from the backyard, police said. The teens that came from the backyard held him at gunpoint and took his car keys and cell phone, police said. The man stated one of the teens fired a shot at him while they ran away towards Prayner Avenue. They fired an additional four more shots as they ran away, police said. Anyone with information on the teens identities is asked to call Maple Heights police at 216-662-1234 or the detective bureau at 216-587-9624. If youd like to comment on this story, visit Saturdays crime and courts comments section. With the banning of abortions after six weeks gestation, Ohio has put itself in the running for the Most Ludicrous Law prize (DeWine signs heartbeat abortion restriction bill, April 12). What makes this law ludicrous? Two things. First, hypocrisy. It seems to say abortion is OK, just dont wait too long. But in reality, many women dont yet know theyre pregnant by the six-week point. So as soon as they find out, its too late. Second, abortion bans are ineffective. If a woman cannot obtain a safe, legal abortion, shell go for an illegal one that too often results in death or maiming. There is a better way. Pilot programs have shown that promotion and provision of contraception markedly reduce the number of abortions. Contraception promotion needs to be prominent and in your face; and contraceptives must be free and really easy to obtain. Get with it, Ohio! Lets put our effort into something that works. David P. Fleming, North Olmsted EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio If the East Cleveland schools are going to improve, change has to happen with the adults first, before the students, says the districts new CEO. Henry Pettiegrew, former Maple Heights assistant superintendent, was named CEO Feb. 1, taking charge of the long-struggling district as part of Ohios academic distress interventions that many consider a state takeover. Three months into the job, he gave residents a taste Thursday of how he wants to change attitudes and teaching approaches in the district, often drawing applause and even a standing ovation from some residents. State school board member Meryl Johnson, city councilman Nathaniel Martin also offered support for the plan. We are going to do the rebirth of an American urban school system, Pettigrew told residents, saying he hopes others will copy East Cleveland when he brings results. Some people have written us off. Some people said it couldnt be doneopen your eyes and watch. Whether Pettigrew retains support as more details of his plan unfold will be key to its success. The CEOs in recent state interventions in Lorain and Youngstown have struggled with opposition from teachers, residents and the school boards, who lose almost all control to the CEO. Pettiegrew has tried to ease that opposition by reaching out to the school board and asking to be made a member. He asked to be a part of it, not dismantle [it], said board member Vernon Robinson. He said he opposes state takeover but appreciates Pettiegrew. When you pray, you ask for change, Robinson told the crowd. God never promised us how we would get change, but he delivered. He delivered a fine young man from Maple Heights. In his first few months on the job, Pettiegrew said, he met with teachers and heard a lot of concerns about struggles to make students show up to school and do their classwork. Too many times, he said, the school has focused on incentives like classroom parties to students to do work. I dont want to do it that way, Pettiegrew said. I want to focus on the adults. He now asks teachers and district leaders, What are YOU going to dohow are we intentionally changing our behavior? His full plan is not yet available. But he said he wants to make decisions and faster changes in classrooms to help kids. An early goal: Increase the districts Performance Index, the states composite of all state test scores across all grades, from 56.4 to 66 out of 120 points, next school year. That would improve the districts grade on that measure from an F to a D and likely jump over about 20 districts after having the second-worst score in the state last school year. Here are some highlights from his presentation: More interesting lessons in class: Pettiegrew said students can be easily bored and seem unmotivated. If our kids dont want to do it, why are we dragging them and trying to force them to do things they dont want to do? he asked. Then they get low grades because its a push and a pull. How about creating lessons that are exciting and engaging? He said hes working with the Kentucky-based Schlechty Center, an education consultant, to develop more engaging lessons. More encouragement of students: Our children are not affirmed enough, Pettiegrew said. We have to tell them theyre good enough. We have to tell them theyre smart enough. "They are enough to get the life and the career of their dreams. Computerized monitoring of student progress: Pettiegrew is converting the district from paper records of student progress and school effectiveness to a digital and online portal from Illuminate Education. It will give us the ability to solve student weaknesses faster, he said. Right now, when I ask about where is the data, I get folders, I get pieces of paper, I get binders and I get some electronic. We need it all in one place so we can look at it together: attendance, behavior, grades. And if you slip in any of those, we are coming to you with supports, he said. Reducing absenteeism: About two thirds of students at Shaw High School miss one 1 of every 10 school days, he said. Pettigrew said he wants to cut that rate to under 20% next school year. We have to, he said. How in the world can we teach our students if theyre not here? He plans more messages to parents, robocalls and visiting parents if students miss three or more classes. Including parents more: Pettigrew would have more hours open for teacher conferences so that more parents can attend. He also wants to give parents more assistance in helping their own children with lessons and homework. We need you to be a partner in the work, so we need to give you things to do feel like a partner, he said. Its not about parent involvement. Its telling parents exactly what we need them to do, where is the help and how we can support them. COLUMBUS, Ohio--The chair of the Ohio House committee that may soon be considering legislation to offer hundreds of millions in subsidies to clean-energy nuclear power plant owners is arguing in favor of the bill because it would remove subsidies that help poorer Ohioans become more energy-efficient. Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chair Nino Vitale, in a Wednesday email to fellow Republican state Rep. John Becker, wrote that low-income Ohioans should have to cover their own costs of insulating their homes and using LED light bulbs, rather than accept money from ratepayer-funded energy-efficiency programs. I ask, how many subsidy programs do we need to give away? We are already paying for food, heating assistance, cell phones, child support, and the list goes on and on, Vitale wrote. While this may sound mean to some, a little hunger in the belly or being a little cold on some really cold days is a good incentive for me to get up, go to work and provide for my 5 boys and wife, the Urbana lawmaker continued. If everything is provided for me through government programs that I will never have to reimburse, what incentive is there for me to ever change and cover my own expenses? But while House Bill 6 would eliminate Ohios energy-efficiency and renewable-energy surcharges, it would also create a new mandatory surcharge for customers that would raise about $300 million per year to subsidize zero-carbon power generators. At least half of that money is expected to go toward two northern Ohio nuclear power plants, Davis-Besse and Perry, that owner FirstEnergy Solutions plans to soon close unless it can get subsidies. Vitale didnt explicitly state in his email that he supports HB 6. But he spoke favorably about several aspects of the bill and disputed inaccurate form emails he said he received urging him to oppose the legislation. Vitale responded to the form emails that he does not see the concerns that you referenced and that the intent of the bill seems to encourage and reward clean air production. Vitale was named chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee earlier this year by Speaker Larry Householder, who has made HB 6 a priority. Vitale did not immediately return a phone call Friday morning seeking comment on his email, which he also sent to Beckers alternative House email address and to Beckers legislative aide. Becker, a Clermont County lawmaker, confirmed Friday that he received the email from Vitale and suggested the chair was alluding to 2 Thessalonians 3:10, "For even when we were with you, this we commanded you: that if any would not work, neither should he eat. That passage refers to people unwilling, rather than unable to work, Becker said in a text message Friday. My guess is that Chairman Vitale is blaming government incentives for encouraging the unwilling rather than aiding the unable. Asked his position on HB6, Becker replied that he is keeping an open mind while lawmakers hear testimony on the bill. I appreciate the chairmans explanation of what the bill does and doesnt do, Becker said. Micah Derry, head of the anti-HB 6 Ohio chapter of Americans for Prosperity, was quick to criticize Vitale for opposing subsidies for energy efficiency, but not for power-plant companies. The irony of this sentiment would be laughable if it werent so hypocritical, Derry said in a statement. The chairmans cavalier statement is a good indicator of the attitude HB 6 proponents are sporting, boost the bottom line of the politically-heavy hitting FirstEnergy and forget everyone else. HB 6 is currently being considered by a subcommittee of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. The subcommittee -- which Vitale does not serve on -- is expected to make changes to the bill as soon as next week, said state Rep. Jamie Callender, the Lake County Republican sponsoring the bill. After that, Householder could send the legislation to the full Energy and Natural Resources Committee or another committee, such as the House Finance Committee. Chinese leader Xi Jinping's ambition by now is clear: to reclaim his country's global greatness and establish itself over time as the preeminent economic and political power, not only in Asia but across the world stage. His most significant platform to achieve that has been the Belt and Road Initiative, which, since it was launched in 2013, has resulted in cooperation agreements with 125 countries and 29 international organizations, and estimated planned investments at more than $1 trillion. This past week provided insight into something any American president of the past few decades could have told him. World leadership is complicated. It comes with increased costs, responsibilities and scrutiny from partners who, in Beijing's case, question whether China's historic rise will contribute to a better world or just a more powerful and autocratic China. In apparent response to both international and domestic criticism, Xi on Friday converted his previous hubris into a greater humility, speaking before 37 global leaders and more than 5,000 delegates at the second Belt and Road Forum in Beijing. "Everything should be done in a transparent way, and we should have a zero tolerance for corruption," Xi told the crowd. The speech at several points seemed to be responding to growing international denunciation of BRI's lack of transparency, its inattention to corruption, its overwhelming favoritism toward Chinese entities, and its reputation as a "debt trap" for developing countries. His shift in tone was also positive proof that Chinese leaders, and perhaps Xi himself, have belatedly recognized the need to respond to growing grumbling, both at home and abroad, about Beijing's increasing authoritarianism, its growing international assertiveness, and its perceived arrogance when confronted with criticism. Among China's actions stirring the most concern have been Xi's decision to lift constitutional term-limits on himself, his reclamation and militarization in the South China Sea, and a high-tech, high-profile offensive behind the motto "Made in China 2025" that has helped make China a global leader in next generation technologies but raises worries about the potential purpose of that primacy. Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, always one of the keenest observers of China, perceives what he calls a "policy refresh in the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative so that it becomes less of an international political target in the future." He sees a greater "internationalization of the BRI by welcoming investments from all countries" both to dull criticism of China and lessen Beijing's financial exposure. Still, don't mistake Xi's recalibration for retreat. Instead, China's friends see in Xi's Friday speech an ability to alter tactics in the face of new obstacles. Privately, Chinese elites still see the arc of history bending in their direction though they worry that Xi's new assertiveness has stirred up unneeded opposition. With the second Belt and Road Forum ending, it's worth reflecting on what's now driving Chinese momentum and what remain the greatest obstacles to Xi's ambitions. China's most important gains toward global leadership in the past couple of years haven't been on the trade, economic or military fronts, but in his country's all-out effort to win the commanding heights of next generation technologies. Where China has focused its greatest attention has been in fifth generation telecommunications (connectivity), artificial intelligence and quantum computing. Rudd argues that China finds "additional strength" in the "continued absence of an American grand strategy of its own in the post-Soviet era. While China has been surprised by the U.S.-China trade war initiated by Trump, they are confident it will soon find its resolution." China has found unanticipated help for its own rise. This includes Brexit and growing strains within the European Union, transatlantic trade tensions with President Donald Trump's Washington, the U.S. abandonment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the lack of a grand U.S. global strategy after the Soviet Union's collapse, and the absence of any true Western global development answer to BRI. The challenges China faces, however, are also considerable. Economically, Rudd argues, Xi faced a dangerous slowdown last year as a result not only of the U.S.-Chinese trade war. It was even more a result of how he reasserted the Communist Party's control over the workings of the private sector. By imposing strict foreign exchange controls, tightening monetary policy, limiting the ability of private firms to operate internationally and favoring state-owned firms in the rationing of credit, he triggered a troubling slowdown of private investment and growth. "With the private economy now representing 60% of Chinese GDP," says Rudd, "Xi Jinping faces a continuing structural challenge to balance his natural instincts favoring Party control, with an increasingly restive private sector which increasingly resents its economic future being muzzled by a re-imposition of Party orthodoxies from the past." Perhaps the greatest uncertainty for Beijing's leadership is how and with what impact -- the United States will respond to China's rise, once it has closed its trade deal, now expected by mid-June. Will it go into a more active model of containment or even pushback, as some in the Trump administration and national security hawks in the Pentagon and intelligence community would prefer? Or will Trump follow his more transactional instincts. Publicly, Trump has rarely criticized Xi personally or China's strategic policies and human rights record more generally. At the very least, the United States needs to compete harder, and do more to galvanize friends and allies in common cause. That's particularly true, write the authors of a newly released study, in the infrastructure realm where the world will need $94 trillion in investments by 2040. Through the BRI, argues a report of the CSIS' Global Infrastructure Task Force, China has made itself "the most significant and ambitious strategic initiative of the twenty-first century so far." "Over the next 15 years, more hard infrastructure is projected to be built around the world than currently exists," argues the task force paper, co-chaired by Charlene Barshefsky and Stephen Hadley. "Make no mistake. The United States is way behind the power curve. Incremental improvements will not do." That seems to be the most important message. With China operating in ways that are anything but incremental, the United States' response is inadequately focused, creative or resourced. China has significant problems to overcome, but thus far it lacks significant competition. Frederick Kempe is a best-selling author, prize-winning journalist and president & CEO of the Atlantic Council, one of the United States' most influential think tanks on global affairs. He worked at The Wall Street Journal for more than 25 years as a foreign correspondent, assistant managing editor and as the longest-serving editor of the paper's European edition. His latest book "Berlin 1961: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth" was a New York Times best-seller and has been published in more than a dozen languages. Follow him on Twitter @FredKempe and subscribe here to Inflection Points, his look each Saturday at the past week's top stories and trends. The people who deliver our packages to us may soon have some competition. In January, the e-commerce giant Amazon announced that it had begun field-testing Amazon Scout, a robot that's been delivering packages to customers in Snohomish County, Washington. The United States Postal Service is also exploring ways to use delivery robots. According to a post on the Amazon blog Day One, there are just six Scout robots in existence, and they only deliver during daylight hours on weekdays. An Amazon spokesperson who spoke with CNBC could not comment on the program beyond what's on the blog, so for now the future of the rollout remains murky. Whatever plans Amazon has for Scout, it's only natural to wonder what effect widespread adoption would have on the delivery jobs that are currently being performed by human beings. Do these workers need to brace themselves for the possibility that they may soon be obsolete? According to a 2018 report issued by the United States Postal Service's Office of the Inspector General, more Americans embrace the idea of robotic delivery than oppose it. Those who support it said robot delivery could offer greater flexibility to package recipients and reduce the risk of injury to delivery personnel. As far as the drawbacks, respondents cited job losses as a primary concern. However, postal delivery workers won't have to worry about being put out of jobs just yet. According to "Autonomous Mobile Robots and the Postal Service," a 2018 report issued by the United States Postal Service's Office of the Inspector General, the use of autonomous mobile robots for last-mile delivery of mail "is too economically and technologically immature to be scalable in the short term, especially for independent robot delivery applications." A letter carrier holds Amazon.com packages while preparing a vehicle for deliveries at a United States Postal Service processing and distribution center in Washington, D.C. Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images And Diana Dawson, vice president of consulting for the research firm Envirosell, said that job losses aren't the only problem to consider. "[The Scout] probably cannot negotiate the many variables that are involved in home delivery, such as steps, rain and customers who are not there when the robot opens its lid," she said. "This would likely lead to a delay in delivery, which is a pain point for Amazon shoppers in particular." Monica Eaton-Cardone is the owner and chief operating officer of the financial technology company Chargebacks911, which manages 200 million online transactions per month and has spent a lot of time studying delivery systems since the category can be rife for fraud. She said robot delivery faces several major hurdles. "A few years ago, a robot named HitchBOT was hitchhiking throughout different cities in an experiment to test human psychology," she said. "HitchBOT was beheaded in Philadelphia. ... Will we treat an Amazon robot any better?" Robotic delivery systems would also make it easier for consumers to say they never got a package and commit charge-back fraud than if the UPS guy made them sign for something. As far as benefits, Eaton-Cardone cited cost reductions on Amazon's part as well as a possible increase in delivery speed. She also said it might unexpectedly benefit infrastructure. "Companies like Amazon wield immense power, both economically and politically," she said. "Our politicians might not prioritize the rebuilding of our sidewalks and streets when only humans were using them, but I have a feeling it'll become much more of a priority when Amazon's robots need to use them too." Industry-wide upheaval is inevitable, and a lot of good, hardworking men and women will lose their jobs. Monica Eaton-Cardone owner and chief operating officer of the financial technology company Chargebacks911 We've been told again and again that it's much easier to learn a new language as a child than it is as an adult. That idea is also true when it comes to financial literacy. Yet a good chunk of parents fail to set their kids up for financial success. A 2018 study from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign found that 36% of young adults are "financially at risk." Researchers sampled a pool of 3,050 adults (ages 18 and up) to access their financial aptitude, including their understanding of basic economic concepts (i.e., interest rates, inflation, etc.) and financial practices. Participants who were deemed "financially at risk" had no savings "with which to pay their living expenses for three months, if needed," as well as "resources to come up with $2,000 in the event of an emergency," according to the study. A ripple effect Only 22% of the 18- to 24-year-old individuals surveyed were reported to be financially stable, meaning they were better at planning finances, had checking or savings accounts, and were less likely to use expensive alternative services such as payday lenders. Even those who were financially stable, however, said they were only "moderately comfortable" about their financial literacy. Gaurav Sinha, the lead author of the study, believes it's an issue that may negatively affect the financial literacy of future generations. "It's concerning that many young people are entering adulthood without adequate financial capabilities to ensure their future well-being and that of their children," she said in an interview with Science Daily. Preparing your children for financial stability More than one in 10 Americans say they plan to take a quarter or less of their vacation days this year, but experts say that's not enough time away. Even Americans who get paid time off from their jobs generally don't take all of it. But experts say that if you aren't taking advantage of your time off, you may be leaving money on the table and even putting your health at risk. Among Americans who are currently employed, 13% say they plan to take a quarter of their vacation days or fewer this year. That's according to recent poll of nearly 2,600 U.S. adults conducted by Bankrate, which also finds that 4% of Americans aren't planning to take any vacation time at all, even though their employers offer it. "That's too much time to be leaving on the table," Ted Rossman, a credit card analyst for Bankrate, tells CNBC Make It. The average American only took about 54% of their available time off in the previous 12 months, Glassdoor found in 2018. Time off is a valuable perk For many American workers, vacation time is paid time off, so if you don't use it, you may be losing out on more than just a day away from the office. For example, If you're earning $40,000 or more a year, those vacation days are usually worth thousands of dollars, Scott Dobroski, community expert at Glassdoor, tells CNBC Make It. In total, Americans gave up 212 million days off in 2017, according to Project: Time Off. That amounts to $62.2 billion in "lost benefits," according to the organization. And even if they get out of the office, many Americans don't fully leave work behind. Glassdoor found that 29% of employees who took time off say a co-worker contacted them about a job-related matter while they were on vacation. "Technology has enabled us to be on and available to work 24/7," Dobroski says. "You're one finger swipe away from your email inbox while you're sitting on the beach in Hawaii." Vacations can be good for you Taking a real break is an important habit. Research shows time off may be good for your health and even boost your productivity at work in the long run. "There's creative, innovative, collaborative benefits when you can actually unplug and rest your mind and get away from work for a week or two," Dobroski says. Not to mention real health benefits. Medical research has found that working long hours could increase the risk of heart disease and an increase risk of stroke. Other studies show that overwork can lead to sleep deprivation, with has been linked to several medical conditions, including diabetes. Whereas taking time to recharge, even if it's just a short vacation, can lead to measurable improvements. Taking a vacation can be good for your career, too. A German professor of organizational psychology found that vacations can help alleviate burnout, while also making workers more resilient and able to cope with stress. "We know that when people can rest, relax and recharge, there's a ripple effect of benefits in terms of productivity, creativity and collaboration when they return to work," Dobroski says. "Employees are not really realizing that they could perform better and refreshed if they take time off." Making sure that employees are taking adequate time to recharge is also on the shoulders of employers. "It's a two way street," Dobroski says. About a quarter of respondents say they don't get any paid vacation, Bankrate found. A vacation doesn't have to be a major added expense BEIJING Chinese President Xi Jinping concluded the second forum for his flagship Belt and Road Initiative on Saturday by highlighting its benefits to the global community. "All interested countries are welcome to join us," Xi said in an official English translation of his Mandarin Chinese remarks. "While the Belt and Road Initiative was launched by China, its opportunities and outcomes are shared by the world," he said, addressing reporters at the end of the forum. Launched in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative is widely seen as China's effort to increase its global influence, primarily through the financing and construction of rail, sea and other transportation routes running from Asia to Europe and Africa. Critics say that through the massive infrastructure project, China forces developing nations to take on high debt burdens while benefiting Chinese companies which are often state-owned. Xi said Saturday that participants in the Belt and Road agreed to pursue high quality development. In addition to more traditional areas of economic connection, he said the program would encourage the development of digital infrastructure. Two people hug as another talks to a San Diego County Sheriff's deputy outside of the Chabad of Poway Synagogue Saturday, April 27, 2019, in Poway, Calif. One person died and three others were injured Saturday when a gunman entered a synagogue outside of San Diego and opened fire as the Jewish community marked the last day of Passover. The shooting occurred at the Chabad of Poway synagogue in Poway, California about 20 miles north of San Diego. Police said they responded to reports of a gunman around 11:30 a.m. 4 people hit in the shooting were admitted to the trauma unit at Palomar Medical Center at around 12:30 p.m. An older woman died on arrival. The other three patients are in stable condition. Authorities said the gunman was a white male who was wielding an AR-style rifle. As the gunman fled the scene, an off-duty Border Patrol agent opened fire but did not hit him. A 19-year-old man was detained for questioning in connection with the shooting. Law enforcement have identified the suspect in custody as John Earnest. Poway Mayor Steve Vaus said members of the congregation engaged the gunman, preventing greater tragedy. "It was a hate crime," Vaus told MSNBC. An open letter posted on the internet under Earnest's name contained an anti-Semitic diatribe. Four law enforcement sources told NBC News that they believe the letter is authentic. The letter praises Robert Bowers, who opened fire at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh six months ago, killing 11 people. Police said they were also trying to determine whether the suspect was linked to an arson at a mosque in Escondido. Tweet 1: Update #1: A man has been detained for questioning in connection with a shooting incident at the Chabad of Poway synagogue. @SDSOPoway Deputies were called to Chabad Way just before 11:30 a.m. There are injuries. This is a developing situation. Update 2: Those wounded in the Chabad of Poway #synagogueshooting were taken to Palomar Medical Center @PalomarHealth. Please respect the medical privacy of victims & their families during this difficult time. Remain clear of the area as this investigation will take several hours The FBI is also on the scene working with local law enforcement on the investigation. California Gov. Gavin Newsom expressed condolences to the victims and their families. "While we continue to learn more about what transpired, we can't ignore the circumstances around this horrific incident," Newsom said. "No one should have to fear going to their place of worship, and no one should be targeted for practicing the tenets of their faith." Rep. Scott Peters said he was praying for those affected by the shooting. Tragic news that a gunman has attacked Chabad of Poway synagogue, on this, the last day of Passover, a day that is supposed to be a celebration of faith and freedom. I am thinking of, and praying for, those hurt and affected. And President Donald Trump said his thoughts and prayers were with the victims and their families and thanked law enforcement. "We forcefully condemn the evil of anti-Semitism and hate," Trump said during a political rally in Wisconsin on Saturday. The shooting comes exactly six months after a shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue left 11 people dead. Dara Khosrowshahi, now CEO of Uber, on July 7, 2016 in Sun Valley, Idaho Drew Angerer | Getty When Uber starts trading publicly in the coming weeks, it will join a very exclusive but less-than-desirable club companies worth at least $50 billion that are losing money. Of the 110 U.S. companies with a market capitalization of at least $50 billion, only three were unprofitable last year: CVS, General Electric and Qualcomm. And Qualcomm doesn't really count because its loss was the result of a one-time charge for a change in the tax code. Uber reported an operating loss of $3 billion in 2018 after losing more than $4 billion the prior year. (The company recorded a net profit last year because of $5 billion worth of one-time gains, mostly from selling its Russian and Southeast Asian businesses.) This is Uber's central challenge as it moves from the cozy confines of the Bay Area, where venture capital and private equity firms fund futuristic projects, to the rigors of Wall Street, populated by more risk averse mutual funds and wealth managers focused on financial performance. The latter group has never seen anything like Uber a company that's already valued as a screaming success even though the business model remains very much a work in progress. On Friday, Uber set the pricing range of its upcoming IPO of $44 to $50, giving it a market cap of $83.8 billion at the high end. That would make it the 65th most valuable company in the U.S., just behind DowDuPont and in front of U.S. Bancorp, which generated net income last year of $3.8 billion and $7.1 billion, respectively. "If you're wrong on this and you're paying a sky-high valuation, truly look out below," said Brian Yacktman, chief investment officer of YCG Investments, which manages about $700 million and counts Alphabet and Facebook among the top holdings in its mutual fund. "When you can buy a business at a similar market cap that's currently producing cash flow with much more certainty of outcome, why not take that instead?" To buy or not to buy Yacktman sees the value in Uber as a service. He knows it saves time, makes payments easy and provides a much more comfortable ride than your typical cab. Food delivery also makes perfect sense, given there's a huge fleet of cars on the streets. But Yacktman just doesn't get the investment pitch. Riders are cost-sensitive and have choices, whether it's Lyft (whose stock is well below its IPO price from last month), a taxi or public transportation. On the flip side, drivers have to make enough money to stay on the platform while also paying for gas and maintenance. After doing what it can to make both riders and drivers happy, and spending the money necessary to run the platform, Uber doesn't have much money left for itself. Uber has a metric called core platform contribution margin, which is the percentage of revenue left after "direct expenses." That number came in at 9% of revenue for 2018, and that's before accounting for all the investments in emerging products. In the first quarter of 2019, the number is turning south, with Uber expecting a negative margin of between 4% and 7% because of competition and spending on Uber Eats, the food delivery business. "I'd rather buy one of the host of profitable companies showing me the money now and take a wait-and-see approach with Uber to determine if this is a sustainable profitable business model," said Yacktman. Large-cap companies that are losing money today are being punished by the market. CVS shares have plunged 22% in the past year, while GE has lost 31%. Source: CNBC Uber has a very different story to tell than those two companies, which are stuck in legacy markets and struggling to find opportunities for growth. Only a decade old, Uber is pioneering a new industry and working towards a future of self-driving cars, all while growing 42% last year to over $11 billion in revenue. Uber's vision is to build global platform that includes ride-sharing in its current form, a continued expansion of Uber Eats and with a whole lot more. There's Uber Freight, which connects trucking companies with businesses that ship large amounts of goods, autonomous vehicles, drone delivery and Uber Elevate aiming to address "air transportation within cities." Uber also acquired Jump Bikes, which currently has a network of e-bikes in 20 cities, and the company offers electric scooters in eight cities. For Uber, it all adds up to an addressable market that the company says is in the many trillions of dollars. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi says at the beginning of the video for the online roadshow that the company's "mission is to ignite opportunity by setting the world in motion" and that it's "changing the way people and things move from point A to point B." Nelson Chai, Uber's finance chief, follows by telling investors that the company is "setting the foundation for attractive long-term margins." But it's an ambitious plan that requires decades not years of investment and far more capital than the $9 billion or so the company is seeking to raise in its IPO. The bet for a public investor is that eventually Uber's experimental projects turn into real businesses and the company will be far enough ahead of any potential competition to have pricing power. "With Uber, you have the potential to create an ecosystem premium," said Eric Barden, president of Barden Capital in Austin, Texas. "If that's the case, you can be more constructive about future profitability." Barden has no plans to invest in Uber, because he sees too many variables and risks to that kind of valuation. But he also recognizes that the public market investing landscape has changed in recent years to wildly favor growth investors and that a cash-burning machine like Uber can't be dismissed. Source: CNBC Organizers with a Colorado group backing the movement for a national popular vote for president are hopeful that a change in how states Electoral College votes are awarded will be passed by enough states to determine the winner in next years presidential election. The lynching of James T. Scott in 1923 was reported on in radically different ways by Columbia's two newspapers, by an angry editor at the Tribune and two threatened student reporters at the Missourian. Iain Duncan Smith is a former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, founded the Centre for Social Justice, and is MP for Chingford and Woodford Green. New and exciting technological innovations are constantly disrupting existing markets and changing the way we live our lives for the better. However, in some cases, new players have emerged and refused to play by the rules to the detriment of customers and drivers. The UKs taxi and private hire vehicle market is a prime example of this. The Department for Transport asked Professor Mohammad Abdel-Haq to lead an independent investigation into the UKs taxi and private hire services. His final report made a number of sensible recommendations for reform of how taxis and private hire vehicles are licensed. Some of the laws governing taxis date back to before the invention of the motor car, and while there were some reforms made in the 2015 Deregulation Act, its high time for a comprehensive update to bring legislation into the 21st century. This is why I and my colleagues on the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Taxis are very disappointed that the Government did not accept all of the recommendations made in Professor Abdel-Haqs report. There is nothing radical here. They are simply good, common-sense suggestions for long-overdue reform. I was pleased to see my colleague Nusrat Ghani as the Minister responsible for taxis commit to bringing forward primary legislation. As it stands, this is intended to set national minimum licensing standards for taxi and private hire and to introduce a national database of licensing details. However, I believe that this new legislation can and should be more ambitious. The taxi and private hire market has become unfairly skewed particularly in London to the detriment of the world-famous black taxi trade and the livelihood of cab drivers, including many of my constituents. The rise of app-based private hire services has fundamentally altered the environment in which taxis and minicabs operate, of which Uber has undoubtedly played the most significant role. It has flooded towns and cities across the country, undercutting existing taxi and private hire vehicle operators while flouting regulation and failing to provide a quality service. Private hire vehicle numbers have spiralled since Uber entered the UK market in 2012, causing increased congestion and pollution in our towns and cities. While Londons black taxi trade complies with strict regulations they pass the rigorous Knowledge test, use special vehicles, meet enhanced disability requirements and have set fares by TfL Ubers business model allows it to operate on a completely different playing field. It arrives in our towns offering unrealistically low prices that local taxi and private hire drivers simply cant match, and once established, uses its algorithms to hike up prices. Uber journeys legally must be pre-booked and drivers cannot ply for hire on the streets looking for business. Yet this is essentially what the company does via its app. Uber drivers circle around passenger hotspots, taking up road space and polluting towns and cities, while pushing out local taxi drivers and small minicab firms. The current licensing system also poses significant risks to the safety of passengers which must be urgently addressed. Anyone who reads a newspaper will be well aware of the shocking cases of child sexual exploitation in places like Rotherham, which were exacerbated by the weak licensing system. Just last month, news reports revealed a number of allegations of sexual assault made against drivers who were licensed by Wolverhampton Council but used these licences to cross border hire and work in other areas where they have not been granted a licence. At present, local authorities who want to control which drivers operate in their area cannot do so, because a driver licensed in one authority can work anywhere. This means that areas such as Rotherham who try to set higher standards for taxi and private hire vehicles in their areas to ensure public safety cannot enforce these in practice. Setting a legal definition of where drivers are allowed to work, under what licence, must form part of new legislation. So what should this new legislation look like? I support calls from local government that they be given the power to cap private hire numbers as they see fit. New legislation also needs to finally set out in law who is allowed to ply for hire, and who is not. It must define where drivers are allowed to work to improve accountability and safety. I believe in strong competitive markets, but competition must be fair. Taxi drivers and private hire operators must be able to compete on a level playing field with companies like Uber. Londons black cab trade is arguably the most admired in the world; part of the fabric of our heritage and culture. I hope that the Government realises the extent of the consensus across all parties in the House for those recommendations made by Professor Abdel-Haq and rethinks its approach to reform. We need to completely rewrite outdated taxi and private hire laws and make them fit for the future. Nick Hargrave is a former Downing Street special adviser, where he worked under both David Cameron and Theresa May. He now works at Portland, the communications consultancy. As much as politicians like to pretend that they are visionary masters of a countrys destiny, the truth is that most politics is really a response to events. In my adult life, politics has arced around three unexpected moments that shaped national discussion for the years that followed; transforming the attendant issues from second order concerns for the back end of manifestos to questions that defined Prime Ministerial priorities and shaped elections. First, the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001, where the dreadful results fuelled a reappraisal of our vulnerability to extremism and moved the subject from thoughtful Chatham House debates to front page news. Second, the largely unpredicted global financial crisis of 2008-09, which took the politics of deficits from dry economic thinking to an argument that sustained the Conservative Party for the best part of a decade. Third, the Brexit referendum (which cannot be compared with the first two), which brought to the boil a discussion about identity and pride in the nation state that continues today. It is foolish to predict the next big thing precisely; there are several that you could choose. From tax transparency and the obligations on multinational companies to the demographic timebomb of an ageing society coupled with low levels of household saving. It is pretty likely, though, that the politics of the environment and more precisely climate change is going to come to the centre of debate during many of our lifetimes. If we accept this premise, then Conservatives should make sure we are at least forearmed and on the right side of the argument. Let us not pretend that the country at large shares the intensity of the Extinction Rebellion. And let us also remember that the United Kingdom has a solid record on reducing its own greenhouse gas emissions. But there are some structural factors bubbling away which should trouble Conservatives: Taken as a demographic group, under 35s are more intense in their concern about climate change than previous generations; although there are plenty of individual older voters who also care. Recent research by Onward puts the importance placed on the environment amongst under 35s in roughly the same category as housing and education. This is striking, given that the latter two will currently be felt much more as tangible issues in their daily lives. I do not think this attitude is going to change as we get older, because it is a product of values and world-view shaped by 30 years of pitch-rolling by our cultural icons, fuelled by the way in it has been discussed on social media in the past 10 years and given oomph by recent documentaries such as those by David Attenborough that have worked their way into the generational zeitgeist. More research needs to be done, but I suspect that these concerns are currently more keenly felt by the economically mobile and those who have had the privilege of getting on in life with higher education. But we are missing a trick if we do not believe these voters are important parts of a future Conservative coalition. There is plenty of potential in the century ahead for an extreme global warming event that brings this underlying concern to a more dramatic head. The growing body of scientific evidence points to the consequence of global warming in the years to come. The effects in other countries only as far away as the low-lying Netherlands could be crushing. But the United Kingdom is not built to withstand the greater regularity of heatwaves, floods, droughts and rising sea-levels that are projected either. These things do not sound particularly threatening written down as abstract concepts. They are significantly more problematic when the practical consequences are spelled out: imagine Skegness being lost to the sea and much of the rest of the farming county of Lincolnshire turning to marsh as Sir James Bevan, chief executive of the Environment Agency, suggested recently in a hypothetical scenario. This direction on climate change is only going to continue unless the modern superpowers of the United States and China take the issue seriously. There has been incremental progress on the part of the Chinese in recent years although arguably not enough while the US has gone the other way. This is concerning because while the UK is somewhere in the order of 40 per cent down on greenhouse gas emissions compared to 1990, global emissions are continuing to rise. Despite our creditable record on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the UK since 2010, we are being a little disingenuous as Conservatives if we suggest that we have made it part of our recent identity. We should also have the courage to recognise that the policy impetus for some of the progress predates the 2010 election and was often pushed more aggressively by the Liberal Democrats between 2010 and 2015 than us. A lot of this is rooted in an inherent Conservative scepticism at being preached to by the spotty student left. But of course it is coupled with the competing economic priority of keeping the cost of energy down for hard-pressed families. We should not beat ourselves up about this but be keenly aware of its potential to put us on the wrong side of debate in the future. It is important to be realistic. I am not suggesting that the next Tory leadership race can or should be conducted entirely through the prism of the environment. We are still working our way as a country through the last big thing; the politics of Brexit will continue to spin until the nation makes a strategic choice. But future Conservative leaders must keep this issue on their list of first order concerns in terms of both policy and communication. It is critical that tonally we are seen to appreciate the scale of the challenge ahead and talk like we get it; it is after all inherently Tory to preserve the things we value for future generations. It is fundamental that policy momentum is not lost in the 2020s and 2030s as we go through the UKs fourth and fifth carbon budget rounds; we are not on track to meet them. What is more, tackling climate change and rebalancing the economy through new green jobs can be two sides of the same coin. We must not cede this ground to the left. And it is essential that we use our diplomatic power as far as we can although the business of striking independent free trade deals would make this more difficult to make the case on emissions to Washington and Beijing. The next contest for the Conservative crown will be upon us at some point. It is the responsibility of everyone in the Tory family to demand that the candidates have a credible position on these questions. Events will drive the moment this all comes to a head. But a leader of first rank should at least have the ability to see round the corner. 63% Website gsauca.in uses latest and advanced technologies like: JQuery. It is very popular on the web, it's within the 1 million most visited websites of the world at position 319327 by Alexa. It supports HTTPS and GZIP compression. The main html page has a size of 23014 bytes (22.47 kb uncompressed) and 5295 bytes (5.17 kb compressed). This CoolSocial report was updated on 2019-09-22, you can refresh this analysis whenever you want. The site you specified has a disallow rule. At the origin of the Internet links were basically a signal of "likes". In a way, so likes, tweets and shares have now the natural explicit meaning of links. CoolSocial is an analyzer you can use to improve your site social media impact. You can also check for your competitors. History is littered with events so outlandish and bizarre that you wouldn't believe a single word of it, if not for all the stuffy historians vouching for one another's accounts. Trust us, we've written about hundreds of them . But the beauty of history is that we discover new things about it every day, and sometimes those revelations totally ruin all of our favorite stories . Because academics are, above all else, total buzzkills. For example ... 5 Rasputin's Reputation For Being Hard To Kill Was A PR Stunt Even we couldn't resist this great story: Rasputin, lover of the Russian queen, was such a die-hard that his murderers had to poison, shoot, bludgeon, drown, and freeze him before he finally took the hint and shuffled off this mortal coil. Or at least, that's what his murderers want you to think, because that's a much better story to turn into a bestseller. While the myth ended with him freezing to death in the Volga River, the truth is that Grigori Rasputin was long dead before he got bundled up in a fur coat and tossed away like a bunch of unwanted kittens. According to his autopsy in 1917, the mad monk had no water in his lungs, proving he was dead before he went in, which may have something to do with the fact that he had been shot in the head hours before. But besides Rasputin (who wasn't really in a state to do much), who would want history to remember him as a badass? His killer, of course. Felix Yusupov, Russian aristocrat and one of the conspirators, later wrote a series of highly sensationalist books about the murder. But he realized that publishing the story of him, a prince, shooting a common holy man in the back of the head because he didn't like the guy would make him come off as a bigger wang than the one Rasputin was packing. Xem them (Construction) - On December 3, in Hanoi, the Ministry of Construction held a conference to appraise the General Plan for Construction Project of Cao Bang Border Gate Economic Zone to 2040. ... Tin bai cuoi cung Khong con du lieu e load Saturday, April 27, 2019 No Victory without Vigilance But when Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official heard of my arrival, they were very displeased that someone had come to help the people of Israel. (Nehemiah 2:10 NLT) The people of Jerusalem were discouraged. They were downhearted. They had settled for the status quo. The walls of Jerusalem lay in ruin. But along came Nehemiah, a man on a mission. Leaders take initiative and risks for the glory of God. They can see where they need to go, and they rally people. That is exactly what Nehemiah did. He went to the Jewish leaders and said, You know very well what trouble we are in. Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire. Let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem and end this disgrace! (Nehemiah 2:17 NLT). He had a vision and a plan, and their hearts were energized. Yet whenever Gods people say, Lets rise and build, the devil and his people will say, Lets rise and oppose. Leaders face opposition. The Bible tells us that when Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem the Arab heard of our plan, they scoffed contemptuously. 'What are you doing? Are you rebelling against the king? they asked (Nehemiah 2:19 NLT). Whenever you do something in the will of God, you will face opposition. Sometimes its opposition by outright nonbelievers. And sometimes its criticism from fellow Christians, even. But there will be pushback in some form when you are doing Gods will. The great British preacher Alan Redpath said, There is no winning without warfare; there is no opportunity without opposition; there is no victory without vigilance. If you never face opposition as a Christian, if you never get tempted or get tested, that tells me the devil isnt wasting his time on you. But if you get pushback, harassment, and even persecution at times, that would indicate to me that you might be on the right path. You will face opposition when youre doing the will of God. Copyright 2018 by Harvest Ministries. All rights reserved. For more relevant and biblical teaching from Pastor Greg Laurie, go to www.harvest.org and Listen to Greg Laurie's daily broadcast on OnePlace.com. Watch Greg Laurie's weekly television broadcast on LightSource.com. SPECIAL OFFER In thanks for your gift, you can receive The Case for Miracles, BOOK Is God still doing miracles today? Is He intervening? Is He still active in the miracle business? Why is God doing miracles? While doing research for his book, The Case for Miracles, Lee Strobel comes across this definition of a miracle: A miracle is an event brought about by the power of God that is a temporary exception to the ordinary course of nature for the purpose of showing that God is active in history. This book is our thank-you gift to you when you donate to Harvest Ministries this month. WALLINGFORD The first time JoAnne Novack showed up to hear Hillary Clinton speak, it was in the late summer of 2016 at a rally in Hartford. She didnt make it into the YWCA that day to hear the then-Democratic presidential candidate speak, but she waited in the hot sun just to see Clinton walk into the rally. Novack, who lives in Bloomfield, was positive she was seeing the first woman president of the United States. The 2016 election didnt turn out that way. But that didnt dampen Novaks excitement to see the former secretary of state and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, Friday night at the Oakdale Theatre in Wallingford. Im absolutely thrilled to be here, Novack said. I finally get to see her speak ... I personally feel that well never have a better president for a long time. Shes the most intelligent, the most qualified, the most experienced and the most balanced, and I really think she had the best grasp on what our country needed. The talk part of a nationwide tour titled An Evening with the Clintons was moderated by lawyer, author and former talk show host Star Jones. The event may have featured both members of the political power couple, but it was clear from the initial standing ovation that erupted into chants of Hillary! Hillary! as they took the stage, the crowd was there for one person. Make no mistake, Bills OK with playing second fiddle to his wife. Ive always been all right with that, he said, before Jones turned to a serious question about the state of American democracy. Though President Donald Trump was reportedly hardly mentioned in the couples previous tour stops, the since-released report by special counsel Robert Mueller provided ample fodder for Jones, who started by asking Hillary Clinton to address the report and the op-ed she penned earlier this week in The Washington Post. I wrote that piece because the report is such an incredible statement, said Clinton, who was a staff attorney on the House Judiciary Committees Watergate impeachment inquiry in 1974. Theres just so much at stake and we cant let this go unchecked. There needs to be accountability for what the Russians did. I sat across the table from Vladimir Putin when i was secretary of state. He has an absolute goal to weaken the United States. This man is not to be trifled with. He needs to be stopped now before he interferes with another election. The stop in Wallingford was a homecoming of sorts for the Clintons, who met while they were both students at Yale Law School in the 1970s. They told the story of how they met and their early days at Yale, eliciting ample laughter from the crowd. The Clintons addressed everything from the Mueller report to their days as a young couple in Arkansas, to their life as grandparents, and the current political environment and impact of social media. Jill and Ken Zane, who live in Cheshire, attended the event as a date night. Shes a Democrat, who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and hes a registered Republican who couldnt bring himself to vote for either candidate. Were both moderates so were not that far apart, I think like the rest of the country, Ken Zane said. But we do have some heated conversations, Jill Zane laughed. The couple said they were excited to hear directly from Bill and Hillary Clinton without the media blitz. I think they have a lot of knowledge that is extremely relevant right now, Jill Zane said. Anyone who can pick up another leader is still relevant, he added. Joyce Cook, of Bethel, said she has long respected and admired Hillary Clinton. She attended Fridays event with her friend and colleague at the University of Bridgeport, Pat Phillips, who lives in Branford. I admire her a lot as an individual and for staying with him when she suffered the worst humiliation any wife could have, Cook said. She showed incredible character and fortitude. Phillips called the Clintons the consummate American power couple. Theyre bright, well-educated and civil, she said. In an age of incivility, Im here to listen to intelligent reasoning ... I want their perspective on the state of the country. The event proved to be far livelier and better attended than their tour stops earlier this month in New York City and Detroit, which were reportedly lackluster and noticeably empty. The Clintons started their tour last November, but went on hiatus after the Nov. 30 death of former President George H.W. Bush. The early events were similarly empty, a stark contrast to the sold-out book tour of former first lady Michelle Obama, which was on a similar schedule. An hour before the show Friday, ticket prices had dropped as nearly one-third of seats remained unsold. They continue their tour Saturday night in Washington, D.C., where they are expected to draw a larger crowd even though theyll be competing with a de-glamorized White House Correspondents Dinner. kkrasselt@hearstmediact.com; 203-842-2563; @kaitlynkrasselt NEW HAVEN The law firm representing Stephanie Washington, the 22-year-old woman shot by police on Argyle Street last Tuesday, has started a GoFundMe with hopes of raising funds to help her in a difficult time. The campaign can be found at https://www.gofundme.com/help-for-stephanie-washington. On April 16, 2019, Stephanie Washington was shot multiple times by police in New Haven, Connecticut. This horrific incident involved police from the Town of Hamden and Yale University. The police discharged their pistols at Stephanie without justification or cause, and the actions of the officers are now being investigated for possible criminal wrongdoing, said representatives of Dey, Smith, Steele LLC. as part of the fundraising campaign. Stephanie Washington required surgery to help repair significant injuries caused by the police officers' bullets. Due to the shooting, Stephanie Washington also lost her independence and her car, which was shot up and is now impounded as evidence. She has also been unable to work at the two jobs that she used to support her independence. Meanwhile, medical bills continue to pile up. Before the shooting, Stephanie was a self-sufficient, hard-working young woman full of energy and vitality. She continues to recover from this trauma with determination and grace. We hope you will consider sharing this GoFundMe and maybe even donating to help Stephanie get back on her feet. All donations will go directly to Stephanie Washington. Attorney Win Smith again reiterated Friday that Washingtons family was seeking privacy after the shooting last week, and would not be offering a statement at this time. He confirmed that the Milford-based firm had indeed started the fundraising campaign. As of approximately 3:30 p.m., 29 people had donated $785 through the effort to Washington. william.lambert@hearstmediact.com Santa pays an early visit to Bakersville atop fire truck Santa said kids asked him for LEGOs, dolls, a puppy and a fire truck like the one he rode. When I was 16, I knew everything, as so many teenagers do. Luckily for me, and for the planet, quite a few adults did not immediately fall into a swoon and ask me to take over the world. The last thing I needed (and, luckily, the last thing I got) was indulgence and praise. The Pope obdurately refused to invite me for tea. The World Economic Forum somehow failed to take an interest in my schemes for world reform. And after a few decades of similar brush-offs, it began to dawn on me that, perhaps, in a few small ways, I didnt know everything. I have a sneaking admiration for Miss Thunbergs brass neck, even if I think her plans for self-imposed poverty, cold and darkness are unattractive Which, as you may have guessed, brings me to Miss Greta Thunberg, the Swedish schoolgirl before whom our political and media classes were prostrating themselves last week. Gosh, this has been embarrassing to watch. I have a sneaking admiration for Miss Thunbergs brass neck, even if I think her plans for self-imposed poverty, cold and darkness are unattractive. But for her worshippers I have nothing but scorn. Michael Gove, a normally intelligent Cabinet Minister, was reduced to helpless gibbering self-abasement before Miss Thunberg. Nick Robinson, the increasingly grandiose presenter of BBC Radio 4s Today programme, conducted an interview with her which sounded as if he was kneeling down. And yet amid the Please tell us why are you so wonderful, exactly? questions, Mr Robinson slipped in a query which might have been quite productive if he had pursued it. He didnt. Hadnt she perhaps come to the wrong country, he wondered. Well, quite. Britain already has one of the maddest energy policies on earth, taxing the poor to subsidise windmills and solar farms that dont work most of the time, blowing up viable coal-fired power stations so they can never again be used even if we run short of volts and watts, relying on French nuclear power, gas and even diesel to fill the gap, and hoping somehow to avoid electricity cuts. And while we do this, the Chinese despotism is frantically building far more coal-fired power stations than we ever had, and pouring carbon into the atmosphere at such a rate that it cancels out our small but expensive and painful sacrifice many times over. It makes no sense, whatever you believe. And what was the response of Miss Thunberg to this rather telling point? It was worthy of the slipperiest spin doctor ever to graduate from the school of Alastair Campbell. If I got an invitation to speak with Chinese leaders of course I would go there, if I had a lot of time to go there by train, but actually no country is doing nearly enough. Twaddle. With her current status, she could demand such a meeting and get it. Why worry about the distance? She can catch up on her studies in the peace of a railway carriage. From here to Peking by train isnt that far, and the idea that long-distance train travel is an ordeal is rubbish. Its far pleasanter than air travel. Then she changed the subject to a frankly irrelevant dispute about how much Britain had cut emissions, and added, lamely: If we want to change countries like China the thing to do is to stop buying unnecessary things manufactured there. More piffle. She is quite bright enough to know that Chinas tyrants would listen politely to her, have their pictures taken with her, and then ignore her completely, as they have ignored everyone else on this subject. Well, unlike all these crawlers, I think we owe Miss Thunberg some respect. She has embraced and taken full advantage of her fame, and why not? I dont doubt the sincerity of her view. I just dont think sincerity is a virtue, or that it excuses her from challenge. We should treat her as what she says she is, a major figure on the world stage. But she has little that is of any use to say, whether you believe that human action is causing climate change or can moderate it, or not. Abject worship of such people is always wrong. Intelligent disagreement would be far better. Leftie gets a taste of his own medicine The case of Sir Roger Scruton, a guileless academic driven from public life by the twisting of his words and the howling of the electronic mob, is a warning to us all of a fast-approaching future. The Left will win in the end because it recognises no limit on how wicked it can be to get its way. It will also win because the Conservative Party is a rabble of cowards, which is so afraid of the Left it runs away from a fight before it has even been attacked. Interestingly, two of the worst poltroons in the Scruton case were Tory MPs who certainly dont keep quiet about their military careers Tom Tugendhat and Johnny Mercer. Ive seen much braver pacifists. But the proper Right, you see, still has morals. It cannot do what the Leftist journalist George Eaton and the New Statesman magazine did to Sir Roger Scruton. Take Mr Eatons glee after Sir Roger had been disowned by the Tory Government. He posted a portrait of himself swigging champagne, accompanied by the words: The feeling when you get Right-wing racist and homophobe Roger Scruton sacked. He has since grovelled a bit about this, but I dont doubt that it is a better picture of his true feelings and nature than the pretend-civilised withdrawal and apology he later made. Now, if I were him, heres what I could write about George Eaton: Left-wing journalist George Eaton believes homosexuality is not normal, it emerged last night. Eaton claimed in a friendly conversation with a notorious Right-winger that it is a statement of fact to say that gays are abnormal. The homophobic remarks of the New Statesmans political editor will call into question his continued employment at the respected progressive weekly. What is my basis for this bag of slime, for words which I would never actually write for real? During his apparent entrapment of Sir Roger (in which he pretended to be friendly towards a man over whose sacking he would later exult), Mr Eaton said as follows: On homosexuality youve been criticised by some for saying, for instance, homosexualitys not normal. But that seems to be a statement of fact I have here used the same methods as those used by Mr Eaton, but against him. Except that, before writing this, I made great efforts to contact him and to put the charge to him. (I will publish my full email exchange with him on my blog.) And except that I actually dont believe he meant what he appears to mean. Nor do I believe he should be sacked, or chased by a mob, or have people celebrate his humiliation by swilling champagne. And that, disgustingly, is why his side will win and mine will lose. Because I and my allies are not like him. To ALL those who loved the Northern Irish journalist Lyra McKee, my sincere condolences. I am truly sorry for your loss. To all those who have piled into trying to make some sort of political capital out of her untimely death, please give it a rest. There is no peace in the Province. The New IRA are the same people as the old IRA, which never disarmed and uses such groups for deniable operations and criminal money-raising. If these Real, Continuity and New versions of the IRA truly challenged the Republican high command, they would have been murdered long ago. Its a tradition in the movement, going back a century. You have to ask why they havent been, and why the police are having so little luck finding the culprit. A tyrant's day at the seaside Here is our ally, Chinas President Xi Jinping, on a day at the seaside. The Peoples Republic is so aggressive that it makes the Kremlin look mild-mannered Taking a break from oppressing Tibet, threatening Taiwan, stirring up maritime disputes with Japan and Vietnam, shoving Uighur Muslims into concentration camps, strangling freedom in Hong Kong and ripping crosses from churches, here is our ally, Chinas President Xi Jinping, on a day at the seaside. Note that he has abandoned the westernized dress of his early period for a Mao Tse-Tung type suit. All the things we claim to object to about Russia are even more true of China. In fact the Peoples Republic is so aggressive that it makes the Kremlin look mild-mannered. If you want to comment on Peter Hitchens click here. With the rise in decluttering, many of us are throwing out our old clothes - but are we sending too many of our unwanted items, which could go to a new home, to landfill? Statistics from The British Heart Foundation (BHF) show that half of the UK population say they don't have time to donate their unwanted clothes and household goods to charity, simply because they don't realise how easy it is to donate. But councils in Britain have to pay 86.20 in Landfill Tax for every tonne of waste they put into the ground. By reducing this amount of waste, charity shops saved local authorities around 28 million in 2018 money they can retain to spend on services for local residents instead. Last year, the BHF saved over 70,000 tonnes of items from landfill - including 17,000 tonnes of second-hand clothes. But are any of these pre-loved garments worth buying? Following World Earth Day this week, an event which aims to celebrate and protect the environment, we challenged Femail writer Sarah Finley, from south west London, to find her next wardrobe pieces in a charity shop. As World Earth Day approaches, a day which aims to celebrate and protect the environment, we challenged one Femail writer to find her next wardrobe pieces in a charity shop Sarah finds a Cos dress for 12.99 which has been given to the charity - they normally retail for around 80 Sarah picked up second hand clothes from TopShop, Miss Selfridge and Zara when she visited the charity shop Like most of us these days, I shop online or on the high street - mainly for convenience. When I get bored of something, I don't feel anyone would want my old clothes so I throw them out. But when I heard the stats about how many of our clothes end up in landfill, it really shocked me. But can you actually find a new wardrobe in charity shops? Or are they full of tat? I popped down to my local Wimbledon British Heart Foundation charity shop to find out. Walking into the shop I was surprised to see how busy it was - young mothers, students and groups of women were all looking for clothes and bargains. Femail writer Sarah found this Mango jacket which she loved so much she left the store with it Sarah picked up second hand clothes from the rails and couldn't believe what she found at the shop When I've shopped in charity shops before it's always been for joke presents or fancy dress clothes - but the range of clothes there really surprised me. I quickly found a blue Mango jacket that would have been around 60 in the shop - but it was priced under a tenner second-hand. It went perfect with my skinny jeans and a simple black top. I love dresses, so when I stumbled on a frock from Cos I was ecstatic - they start from around 80 on the brand's website, and when I tried it on I loved the fit of it. Better still, it was only 12.99. This L.K Bennett skirt suit was originally 225 and barely worn - it was priced at just 20 in the charity shop Sarah spent about an hour in the shop, also admiring their array of bags, head pieces and new books The biggest bargain I found was an L.K Bennett skirt suit, which was was originally 225 and was barely worn - it was priced at just 20 in the charity shop. I also found second-hand TopShop, Miss Selfridge and Zara dresses and skirts - which I loved. I spent over an hour in the shop, also admiring their array of bags, head pieces and scarves - I couldn't believe how much was there. Sarah found a shirt dress from an American brand called Passport (left) which was only a fiver and this green L.K Bennett suit was also in the shop Of course I couldn't go home empty-handed and left with the Cos dress and the Mango jacket - one woman's rubbish is another woman's treasure. This is the motto I'll be using in the future too. I feel bad that I've thrown so many of my clothes away - especially when it's having such a bad impact on the environment. When you throw one bag of clothes away it doesn't seem like much, but if everyone is doing the same then of course it could have a devastating effect. To donate your clothes, visit the British Heart Foundation website for more details on your local store. Do you ever imagine topping the bestseller charts with an edge-of-your-seat thriller? Or a heartwarming romance, an atmospheric historical adventure or perhaps a multi-layered literary masterpiece? Well, now is your chance to fulfil that dream, because today the Daily Mail and one of the worlds biggest, most respected book publishers launch our search for the UKs brightest new literary talent and the prize is every writers fantasy. The winner of our competition will receive a 20,000 advance fee, the services of top literary agent Luigi Bonomi and guaranteed publication by Penguin Random House UK. Want to write your first novel? The Daily Mail and one of the worlds biggest, most respected book publishers are launching our annual search for the UKs brightest new literary talent This is our fourth year of running the competition, and our previous winners prove that this could be the launchpad for a successful career. The winner of our 2016 competition, Amy Lloyd, whose book The Innocent Wife became a bestseller published in 18 countries and was snapped up by a major film studio, has just had her second novel, One More Lie, published. Lizzy Barbers My Name Is Anna, winner of the 2017 competition, was published to rave reviews in January. Last years winner Georgia Fancett, interviewed here (see box far right), is just adding the finishing touches to her novel The Fifth Girl before publication. And it all started with this competition. By entering the Daily Mail competition your novel leapfrogs the notorious slush pile of unsolicited manuscripts at a publishers office and comes straight to the experienced, commercial experts who can judge your potential. They will then team you up with an editor who can lead you through the process of shaping your plot, refining your characters and sharpening your dialogue. And, even if you dont win the competition, you might be signed up to write your novel anyway, as several previous runners-up have been. So theres absolutely no excuse not to have a go. To be in with a chance send us the first 3,000 words plus a 600-word synopsis of the complete work: beginning, middle and end (see box below for details of how to enter) Your entry can be a contemporary story about families or relationships, a thriller or an historical adventure, as long as it is aimed at adults (not children) and has not been previously published in any format (including eBooks or self-publishing). The only categories not allowed are sagas, science-fiction and fantasy. Entrants must be 16 or over but dont worry, theres no upper age limit! And we dont need the finished novel, just the first 3,000 words plus a 600-word synopsis of the complete work: beginning, middle and end. The synopsis should concisely describe the plot and characters so that the judges can see where the story goes and whether the lead players will engage their interest. See the box below the full terms and conditions you must sign up to are available online. HOW TO ENTER Please read carefully because any entries that do not meet the rules will be discounted. Full terms and conditions, which you must agree to and be bound by, are available online at dailymail.co.uk/novelcomp 1. Submit your entry consisting of the first 3,000 words of your novel in the English language, and a synopsis of the rest of the plot in no more than 600 words. All entries to be printed on A4 paper with double spacing in font size 12 point Times New Roman. 2. Entries are to be posted to Daily Mail First Novel Competition, c/o Penguin Random House Group, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 2SA by 17.30 GMT on Friday, June 14, 2019. Entries received after this date will not be judged. (PLEASE DO NOT SEND YOUR ENTRY DIRECT TO THE DAILY MAIL.) 3. All entries must include a cover sheet with your full name and contact details (including home and email address). You must also confirm that you have read the full list of terms and conditions available online. 4. Entrants may submit only one entry to the competition. No manuscripts will be returned, so keep a copy of your work. 5. All entries must be original, previously unpublished works of fiction on any subject or genre apart from Sagas, Science Fiction or Fantasy. Entrants must not have previously published a novel this includes novels that have been self-published or are available only as eBooks. 6. Entrants must not be currently represented by a literary agent. 7. All entrants must be in a position to deliver their complete manuscript no later than end of January 30, 2020 should they win. 8. The competition, which is free to enter, is open to anyone aged 16 or over who is a resident of the UK or Republic of Ireland, except for employees (and their families) of the Penguin Random House UK group, Associated Newspapers Ltd and any other company that is associated with the competition. Advertisement But before you start typing, read our advice from the writing experts: literary agent Luigi Bonomi, who receives thousands of unsolicited manuscripts every year; Selina Walker, one of publishings most respected editors; best-selling popular novelist and TV presenter Fern Britton; and crime writer Peter James. They will tell you how to make your novel stand out, and what vital elements it needs to be successful. They shall also be judging the competition, along with the Daily Mails literary editor, Sandra Parsons. Literary agent Luigi Bonomi, who represents bestselling writers Fern Britton, Susan Lewis, Amy Lloyd and Simon Scarrow GRIP ME FROM THE FIRST PAGE Luigi Bonomi represents bestselling writers Fern Britton, Susan Lewis, Amy Lloyd and Simon Scarrow. I would love to find a novel that grabs me from the very first page and keeps me hooked. It should draw me into a world of its own where I cannot wait to see how the characters I love will deal with the situation they find themselves in. Whether this is crime or general womens fiction, what matters most is that the story has to hold up to scrutiny the plot needs to make sense throughout, and the characters need to be believable. Think carefully about what it is you are writing and ask yourself if the story delivers on this front, exactly as you had intended when you first thought of it. So much of what we read in the news these days seems unbelievable how people behave towards each other and the webs they sometimes create to keep the edifices they have built standing. All of this makes for great crime fiction. But equally captivating are the positive stories we read of love lost and found, of the journeys we take in our lives and within ourselves, and how this can play out within couples and friends and between parents and their children. This competition is a great vehicle for your novel to be discovered. Be brave, take that leap and start writing now. Selina Walker is publisher at Century and Arrow Books, part of Penguin Random House and one of the industry's most respected editors I LOVE TWISTS AND TURNS Selina Walker is publisher at Century and Arrow Books, part of Penguin Random House. As an editor and publisher I love nothing better than a good mystery with twists and turns. Harlan Coben is the master of the double twist, and his new thriller, Run Away, has an ending so audacious that you gasp with shock. The ability to create characters so real you can reach out and touch them is vital, too. Later this year I am publishing an extraordinary historical novel about the true story behind the writing and publication of Doctor Zhivago, called The Secrets We Kept, by Lara Prescott. It is about spies and secrets and illicit passion, and why books are so important to our lives. I read it in a sort of trance, and put it down with a real sense of loss as I said goodbye to people in the novel I cared about so deeply. Finally, you have to consider the location of the novel. Imagine how important setting is in Peter Jamess Brighton detective novels, which create a world that is so vivid and tangible you feel you can step right into it. It can be somewhere you know intimately in this country or abroad but let us hear, see, taste and smell it so it comes alive in our minds. Crime writer Peter James has written 35 novels, including bestsellers starring Brighton-based DS Roy Grace THE CHARACTERS MUST ENGAGE US Peter James has written 35 crime novels, including his bestsellers starring Brighton-based DS Roy Grace. What makes a great crime thriller, above all else, are great characters. Scrupulous research is crucial, because the more real a story feels, the more impact it has. Plotting with shocks and unseen twists is what crime readers expect, and that is what writers must deliver but without engaging characters, the best research in the world, and the cleverest plots, will never captivate a reader. Think back to all the great novels weve ever loved what is it we remember most about them? Was it the plots of the Sherlock Holmes stories, or was it the characters of Holmes, Watson and Moriarty? We recall the forensic dignity of Miss Marple, and the quirky charm of Poirot, far more than Agatha Christies plots. Its not the plot of Daphne du Mauriers Rebecca that we remember most vividly, its Mrs Danvers. We love the monstrous charisma of Hannibal Lecter, the quiet intellect of Morse, the invincibility of Jack Reacher, the chaotic life, yet brilliant mind, of John Rebus. Great crime writing, like all literature, is about great characters. Nail them those we will love and those we will love to hate and the story will take care of itself. Best-selling popular novelist and TV presenter Fern Britton CREATE A WORLD THAT YOU KNOW Fern Britton, a TV presenter and author, has written nine bestsellers. Her first novel, New Beginnings, was published in 2011. I started writing my novels around eight or nine years ago. My first novel New Beginnings was about a woman in television as that was something I knew a lot about. Fortunately it did well enough for me to be offered a two-book deal from publishers HarperCollins. I was free to choose my own subject, location and characters it was most liberating. The greatest character I knew was Cornwall itself. My heart is firmly planted there. I have known it since I was tiny and it has been my work place, home and friend all my life. I write stories about normal people dealing with the mess in their ordinary lives. I passionately believe that no one is all good or all bad, and that bad things happen to good people and vice versa. We cannot help but create mess in our lives, but the secret to success is how we deal with them. ONE More Lie, the new book by Amy Lloyd, our first competition winner, is out now, published by Century at 12.99. Winning helped me to trust my instincts Georgia Fancett, 52, won the Daily Mail First Novel competition with her upcoming debut The Fifth Girl Last year Georgia Fancett, 52, won the Daily Mail First Novel competition with her upcoming debut The Fifth Girl. The great thing about winning the competition is that I get to work with an editor and its completely changed the way I approach the book. One of the best pieces of advice Selina Walker gave me was not to overwork anything if its not working, do something else for a while. Ive also realised that you have to enjoy your main characters. When I started the book I had a minor character a detective who was quite a grumpy old man but I enjoyed writing him so much that I realised I need to make him a central character. The previous lead character became much more peripheral. It felt like a weight lifting off my shoulders to realise that I could change things. As I grew fonder of him I changed his name slightly to Peter Rawls, because I felt softening the character gave him a new identity. I have learned to trust my instincts and let characters go if you dont feel them and they dont really talk to you it shows in the writing. Winning the competition has changed my life in some ways, although I work with my husband in our business making vehicle alarms, so I was always able to take a lot of liberties. But the good thing is that now I can be truthful when I disappear because I am working on the book. I still get up at 6am to have quiet time to write, which is one of the best things about running your own business. I havent really done anything with the money. I sort of feel like I cant spend it until my book is actually published although I did take all the family away for a break, which was lovely, especially as my eldest daughter, Calico, is expecting a baby in July. The books publication date has been slightly delayed because my original editor moved abroad, but at least the gap gave me some time to start thinking about my next novel! I havent shown anyone the revised manuscript yet; I feel that just working with Selina is enough support for me and I dont want too much input from too many places. My husband, Ben, has read some of it and loves all the changes Ive made. Hes been so proud of me for winning. As a surprise Christmas present, he had the Daily Mail feature about me winning the competition framed and it hangs on our wall. Its a good reminder for me to diet MY TOP TIPS for writing success 1. If you dont feel the character then maybe you shouldnt be writing them. The reader will see through anyone you dont care about. 2. Take a writing course of some sort. You will learn so much from the tutors and from other people in the class. It made a massive difference to me you take so much for granted but learning about the narrative voice and structure is invaluable. 3. Learn to let go of any characters, names and storylines that you are struggling with. Advertisement Superdrug has announced it will begin to offer its controversial Botox and lip fillers at another one of its stores. The high street retailer triggered a storm of criticism when it started offering the services to customers at its flagship London unit last August. Now it has revealed its Manchester Piccadilly store will offer the treatments as of next week, with Botox costing 99 and fillers between 125 and 349. It comes as clinics providing the cosmetic procedures have been told they must check the mental health of patients before offering them. The Joint Council for Cosmetic Practitioners (JCCP) agreed to introduce new rules for its members following a meeting with NHS England. Staff at some clinics will also be trained to spot conditions such as body dysmorphic disorder and refer customers to NHS services when necessary. However, the JCCP is an advisory board, meaning nurses working for clinics, including Superdrug, do not have to follow the guidelines imposed. But Superdrug has insisted all four of its nurses, who are members of the 100-strong organisation, will follow the protocols. The high street retailer triggered a storm of criticism when it started offering the services to customers at its flagship London unit last August NHS England's medical director Professor Stephen Powis demanded the retailer check for mental health conditions when it started offering the services. Professor Powis welcomed the extra checks, but warned that providers who are not members of the council will not have to comply with the code of practice. He said: 'Cosmetic firms bringing in tighter controls to protect young people's mental health is a major step forward. 'But voluntary steps on their own mean mental health too often will still be left in the hands of providers operating as a law unto themselves. 'We know that appearance is the one of the things that matters most to young people. 'And the bombardment of idealised images and availability of quick fix procedures is helping fuel a mental health and anxiety epidemic.' Professor Powis added: 'We need all parts of society to show a duty of care and take action to prevent avoidable harm.' Superdrug said the average age of its customers seeking aesthetic treatments is 54 despite original fears it would be bombarded by young women seeking fillers and Botox. Following the initial intervention by Professor Powis last August, Superdrug agreed to put in place extra safeguards to protect those suffering from mental health conditions. It said the checks, developed by psychologists, would be conducted by the same nurses who carry out the cosmetic procedures. Superdrug said 'strong customer demand' prompted the decision to extend its Skin Renew Service to Manchester Questions include how often somebody feels anxious about certain parts of their body and how often they look at the part of their body they hate. Other questions focus on how often anxiety about their body interferes with day-to-day activities. The same checks will apply to the Manchester store. Superdrug said 'strong customer demand' prompted the decision to extend its Skin Renew Service to Manchester. It is only available for over-25s and customers are only treated if they bring ID to prove their age with them after booking an appointment in advance. Michael Henry, Superdrugs healthcare director, told MailOnline: 'We want people who choose to have Botox and fillers to be treated by qualified practitioners in a clinical environment. 'It can lead to dangerous outcomes when offered in the wrong hands and in unlicensed premises.' Kitty Wallace, from the Body Dysmorphic Disorder foundation, said it was 'great to see' the NHS tackling the emergence of cosmetic treatments. She said: 'Cosmetic procedures like Botox, now widely available on the high street, are putting people at risk and can have a damaging effect on the mental health of young people. 'We know that people with body image problems are more likely to turn to 'quick fix' procedures with body dysmorphic disorder.' 'It's great to see the NHS and professionals leading the sea change, but we need all parts of society to change their attitudes and take action to protect vulnerable individuals.' Body dysmorphia causes distress and significantly impacts on quality of life, the charity said. Figures suggest it affects one in 50 people. Dr Pixie McKenna, a Superdrug ambassador, said: 'The popularity of anti-wrinkle treatments has increased dramatically in recent years. 'Whether your goal is to turn back the clock, boost confidence or simply explore non-surgical aesthetic options, many patients undergo aesthetic treatments. 'Unfortunately, in tandem with their increase in popularity we have seen an increase in the number of people claiming to be 'expert' practitioners in the field. 'It is surprising how many people engage in these services, without having a full understanding of the qualifications or competence of the person carrying it out.' A Department of Health spokesperson said: 'Superdrug takes a responsible approach to cosmetic procedures. 'And their emphasis on making sure no-one undergoes a treatment that isn't suitable for them is to be commended.' They urged anyone considering Botox, fillers or other cosmetic procedure to ensure they find a reputable, safe and qualified practitioner. Superdrug said it already turns away about a fifth of people if nurses feel 'facial aesthetics are currently not appropriate for them'. It would be fair to say I talk about breasts a lot. Im not shy. Our boobs are part of us and it should be as easy to have conversations about how to keep them healthy as it is any other body part. How do I feel about mine? Well, I think theyre pretty perky for a woman of my age (its no secret that Ive got a big birthday coming up). But last April, the grave importance of having these discussions which we do on my show regularly really hit home when my friend and producer Helen Addis was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer. Helen Addis was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer last April. The 39-year-old had never smoked and barely touched alcohol during her life. Now Lorraine Kelly has revealed the shock of hearing the news, and Helen's remarkable bravery Helen with Dr Hilary Jones, the Lorraine show's resident GP, during her course of gruelling chemotherapy We are a close-knit team on and off air, and her news completely floored us. Helen was 39, slim and fit. A mother of three children, aged five, seven and nine, she never smoked, barely touched alcohol, and there was no history of cancer in her family. I hate to say it, but I thought: why her? Helen simply says: Why not me? And, of course, she is right. Her story is a stark reminder we all need to be vigilant about this disease, which affects one in eight women. In fact, Helens diagnosis was a direct result of a series of breast health stories we were running at the time. Our resident GP, Dr Hilary Jones, had been talking about the importance of knowing how our own breasts feel. It reminded Helen that she had not given her breasts a check for a while, and so, in the shower the next morning, she did. That was when she found a lump in her right breast. I wasnt actually worried, she admits. I didnt tick any of the boxes for cancer risk so I just assumed it was hormonal. When I got into work, we had another cancer story on the show we were speaking to Deborah James, host of the podcast You Me And The Big C and writer of the Bowel Babe blog, about life with bowel cancer. She was saying the most important thing with cancer is to get checked out as soon as you notice symptoms. Helen's campaign, Change And Check, will see stickers put on mirrors in womens changing rooms, in shops and gyms across the country And so, despite thinking my lump couldnt possibly be cancer, I made an appointment to see my GP. One year on, and Helen has undergone a mastectomy, surgery to remove lymph nodes under her arms where the cancer had spread chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and shes now having further drug treatment that, we hope, will make sure the tumours dont come back. Helen really is a steel magnolia she may look delicate, but shes as tough as nails. Im so proud of her. We hope weve seen the back of her cancer. And she caught it early, which means she has the best possible chance of being well again. On Tuesday we are launching a nationwide drive to get all women thinking about their boobs. Its all Helens idea and we all hope it will make a huge difference. Her campaign, Change And Check, will see stickers put on mirrors in womens changing rooms, in shops and gyms across the UK. John Lewis, Asda, David Lloyd and Monsoon have already signed up, and we hope more firms will follow. The stickers show a range of images that highlight the red flags for breast cancer. It could be lumps in the breast or under the armpit, or other signs such as a discharge or bleeding from the nipple, swelling or a change in breast or nipple shape, puckering or dimpling of the skin, unusual pain, or a rash on the breast. Of course, our boobs are all different. What is normal for you might not be normal for me. And thats partly why the medical advice on how to look out for the signs of breast cancer have now changed, which is something we hope to highlight. Doctors used to say: Put aside a time once a month to examine your breasts. But they dont any more. Feeling the breasts (stock image), at any time that you naturally would, is part of checking for signs of breast cancer. But its not the be all and end all For a start, examinations are something doctors do. Were not expected to. Breasts also feel different throughout the month, or during menopause, due to fluctuating hormones. They can be lumpy anyway. And many women are put off by self-examination because they are worried about an exact method. The good news is this: there is no right or wrong way. Its a subtle difference, but the message now is: be breast-aware. Feeling the breasts, at any time that you naturally would, is part of that. But its not the be all and end all. We check our emails, Twitter and Facebook. We check how our hair looks before we leave the house, and check in with our other half to see what they want for tea. We should check in with our breasts too. The reason weve chosen changing rooms for our campaign is because its a place where you take off your clothes, and maybe youre thinking about or at least looking at your breasts. Maybe thatd be a good time to have quick feel, too? But it could be at another time. HEALTH COMMENT: There's no special way to examine - just your way I have had patients who admitted to me that they would rather not feel their own breasts because they find it embarrassing. Others say they are unsure about what theyre supposed to be doing, so dont. But my advice is quite simple: dont be afraid because there is no right or wrong way. In fact, thats why a few years ago doctors stopped telling women to examine their breasts for lumps thats a doctors job. Your job is just to know your breasts so it is easy to see if something has changed. Feeling your breasts to get to know them just involves an awareness rather than examining yourself. This is vital as it gives women the confidence to notice something wrong or different that may be a sign of breast cancer. You dont need to feel for a lump specifically or know what you are supposed to be feeling for. You just need to know whats normal for you, and then if anything is untoward you will detect it. There is no special way to examine, just your way. You can get into the habit of doing this as youre changing, showering or applying cream. Choose your own routine doing it every evening when you take your bra off may be a bit too often. But fixing a regular, set time is a good idea. Thickening, lumps, changes in size or shape will all become apparent if you get to know your breasts in this way without you really needing to know what you are looking for. And dont forget to look you can see changes too. So if you are reluctant to feel your own breasts, perhaps start with just looking you will notice changes in the skin, your breast symmetry, size, and shape. And dont forget the nipples. By Dr Ellie Cannon for The Mail on Sunday Advertisement The other day, TV presenter Coleen Nolan told me the first thing she does when she gets home after work is take off her bra so, if youre like her, why not have a feel then? Personally, I keep my bra on, even in bed which Coleen thinks is odd but I quite naturally feel my boobs when Im in the shower. The point is, wherever, whenever, if you notice anything unusual, see your GP or nurse as soon as possible. An early diagnosis could mean a better chance of successful treatment. It might just save your life. From the age of 50, all women are invited for a mammogram an X-ray which can show early-stage lumps inside the breast every three years. Its not particularly pleasant. Like a smear test, you wouldnt do it for fun. But it takes no time at all, and I always feel like Ive ticked the box that Ive done as much as I can do to help myself. So, yes, screening is hugely empowering. But Helens young age meant she wouldnt have been eligible for a mammogram anyway. Likewise, once you turn 71, routine breast screening stops. And there are less common breast cancers that are faster growing which might occur between scans. In Helens case, it was such a curveball, even her doctor reassured her it was probably nothing but referred her to see a specialist just to be sure. And by the time Helen was next examined, another four lumps had appeared. She had a biopsy, where they take a bit of tissue out of the breast using a needle. And a week later she went in to get the results. My husband and I went along thinking itd be fine, saying we deserved a big glass of wine afterwards, she recalls. But I knew as soon as I sat down and saw the consultants face that it wasnt OK. She said, Im really sorry its not the news you were hoping to hear today. And I just knew what was coming next. Being told you have cancer, its life-changing. And I knew I had the most aggressive type, which was likely to travel round the body. I have three kids, and I was supposed to be back on the show the next morning. I just thought, Is this going to take me? Of course, when Helen broke the news to us, we were just as worried. At present, though, her treatment has been tough but successful. She has been away from the show but checks in all the time with ideas for us to follow up. And we all took it in turns to come with her to hospital. Helen also started a blog, The Titty Gritty. She says: For me, finding the funny side of what was happening was a way of getting through it. Telling the kids was hard I discovered my nine-year-old son had been Googling Will my mum die of cancer, which was heartbreaking. But I had to laugh when he also asked if Id become ill because wed been on holiday to Egypt, which is in the Tropic of Cancer. Im also always going on about breast awareness to anyone who will listen and thats what is behind the Change And Check campaign. Helen found the lump early and acted straight away, so that means she really does have the best possible chance. It could have been far worse. It wasnt all that long ago that we didnt talk about cancer. Not to friends, not in front of the children and certainly not on television. It was considered too frightening. If a cancer diagnosis happened to someone in the family, it was spoken about in hushed tones. It was the C word. Im so glad that things have changed for the better, and these days we talk openly about cancer. In particular, breast cancer which is the most common of all cancers is no longer taboo. Its so important to make sure we keep on talking because, despite advances in treatment, it is still a horribly cruel disease, and the numbers affected are growing. My own granny died of breast cancer in 1991 when she was in her 80s. After that, my mum, aunts, cousins and I all began discussing breast health and as soon as my daughter Rosie, whos 24 now, was old enough, we talked about the importance of being breast-aware. LORRAINE KELLY (pictured): Thats why more needs to be done, in raising awareness and keeping people talking, and hopefully preventing harder-to-treat tumours from taking so many of us I know from talking to viewers that women have different attitudes toward their boobs. Some are happy to have conversations about them. Others are more private. Far too many women find they put themselves, and their own health, at the bottom of a very long list of priorities, behind kids, husbands, friends and work, but its so important that you know your own boobs, and whats normal for you. Today, 78 per cent of women who are diagnosed are alive ten years later. Many of them are cured. Women can have surgery that lets them keep their breasts, and drugs have improved hugely. So its a bit less terrifying. But so many women are still often left in pieces after treatment. And 11,500 people lose their lives to breast cancer each year. Thats why more needs to be done, in raising awareness and keeping people talking, and hopefully preventing harder-to-treat tumours from taking so many of us. Because part of the way were going to deal with all kinds of cancer is by dragging this disease out of the shadows and into the spotlight where it can be seen, discussed, survived if possible, and even, we hope, avoided. We talk about battling cancer but that terminology isnt really all that helpful. Doctors can offer the best treatment, and you can try to stay healthy and positive, but being breast-aware and catching the disease early is vital. Its something we can do to protect ourselves. As Helen says: In the time it takes to try on a top or bra, you could have a feel of your breasts, and take a little look. Just doing that could save your life. For more details, watch Lorraine weekdays on ITV between 8.30am and 9.25am or go to itv.com/lorraine. Follow @lorraine on Instagram or Twitter and search #changeandcheck Ever wonder why music gives you goosebumps? Does rousing music give you the chills? Discovering exactly why it happens to some people but not others has intrigued scientists for decades. Numerous studies have shown that music a listener associates with an emotional moment triggers the release of brain chemicals and hormones linked to pleasure, arousal and alertness. And research last year showed that a number of factors combined to give volunteers goosebumps. Numerous studies have shown that music a listener associates with an emotional moment triggers the release of brain chemicals and hormones linked to pleasure, arousal and alertness A Harvard University team monitored the heart rates and skin conductance a mild electrical signal indicating nerve activity of subjects who listened to three of their favourite pieces of music. The way in which volunteers related to the lyrics, rising pitch and volume, harmonic intervals and collective crowd singing emerged as the strongest influences. Sugar count: How much lurks inside your favourite foods? Heinz No Added Sugar Cream of Tomato Soup (left) contains 1.5tsp (5.3g) of sugar per half tin, while Crosse & Blackwell Cream of Tomato Soup (right) contains 3tsp (11.8g) of sugar per half tin Book me in... Heart: A History by Sandeep Jauhar A leading cardiologist weaves his own experiences with the defining discoveries of the past to tell the story of this vital organ. Oneworld, 14.99 The tragic death of young estate agent Abigail Harris serves as a stark reminder about the vital role vaccination plays in protecting us from some of the most brutal illnesses. It was revealed last week that the 23-year-old, from Cheltenham, went to bed on March 27 suffering from cold symptoms and never regained consciousness. She had contracted deadly bacterial meningitis and hadnt been vaccinated, as she didnt know she was eligible. It was revealed last week that Abigail Harris, 23, from Cheltenham, went to bed on March 27 suffering from cold symptoms and never regained consciousness Abigail had contracted deadly bacterial meningitis and hadnt been vaccinated, as she didnt know she was eligible Experts say it is never too late to have a jab: even if you arent sure whether youve had a specific vaccination, there is no evidence that having another dose is harmful. In fact, the immunity provided by many vaccines actually wanes over time, so an extra dose may offer you an important boost. THE SIX-IN-ONE JAB PROTECTS AGAINST Diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, polio, Haemophilus influenza type B (Hib) and hepatitis B all infectious diseases that can cause severe illness, disability and death. WHEN IS IT GIVEN? To children at eight, 12 and 16 weeks. HOW LONG DOES IT LAST? Protection against diphtheria, a highly contagious and potentially fatal infection of the nose, throat and skin, lasts ten years. Boosters in adults are only recommended if travelling to affected areas, and for those working in healthcare settings. The jab also offers immunity from tetanus, a serious wound infection, for around 25 years in three-quarters of cases, and from polio for at least 18 years. Boosters would only be needed if travelling abroad to affected areas there were only four cases of tetanus in the UK in 2016, and no polio cases since the 1980s. The whooping cough component, also given separately to pregnant women, protects for four to six years, and Hib for up to three and a half years but neither is necessary in adults as the condition rarely causes serious problems. The six-in-one jab can protect against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, polio, Haemophilus influenza type B (Hib) and hepatitis B (stock image) THE STOMACH BUG JAB PROTECTS AGAINST Rotavirus gastroenteritis, a serious vital stomach infection which can cause dehydration and fever in young children. WHEN IS IT GIVEN? Two doses, given at eight and 12 weeks, offer several years of protection while children are at their most vulnerable. HOW LONG DOES IT LAST? Older children and adults develop natural immunity and are not as badly affected. Two doses of the stomach bug jab (stock image) are given at eight and 12 weeks. They offer several years of protection while children are at their most vulnerable THE JABS OFFERED TO HIGH RISK GROUPS TUBERCULOSIS The BCG vaccine, which protects against tuberculosis, used to be part of the childhood vaccination schedule. But since 2005, it has only been given to at-risk groups because TB rates are now so low. The jab protects 80 per cent of people for around 18 years. CHICKENPOX Protects against the varicella-zoster virus which causes chickenpox. It is not routinely offered on the NHS because the infection is usually mild and almost all children develop immunity after being infected. It is offered to healthcare workers and people who are in close contact with someone particularly vulnerable to the virus. It is said to provide lifetime immunity to 90 per cent of children. HOLIDAY VACCINES Most jabs involve protection against bacterial infections which are no longer common in the UK. None are available on the NHS but can be paid for privately if travelling to a region where the disease is active. Only yellow fever is thought to offer lifelong protection others, such as water-borne cholera, require regular booster doses. Tick-borne encephalitis and typhoid should be topped up every three years if travelling to affected areas. The vaccines against liver infections hepatitis A and B will generally offer longer-term protection of up to 20 years. Advertisement THE PNEUMONIA VACCINE PROTECTS AGAINST Pneumococcal infection, caused by the streptococcus pneumoniae bacteria, which can lead to diseases including fatal pneumonia. WHEN IS IT GIVEN? At eight and 16 weeks, and again at 12 months. A different form of the vaccine, PPV, is offered as a one-off dose to adults over 65 and those with long-term health conditions. HOW LONG DOES IT LAST? Some people, such as those with sickle cell anaemia or kidney disease, may need a jab every five years for added protection. MMR TRIPLE SHOT PROTECTS AGAINST MMR protects against measles, mumps and rubella, infectious diseases that can cause serious illness, disability and death. WHEN IS IT GIVEN? Two doses at 12 months and after children turn three years and four months old. HOW LONG DOES IT LAST? The mumps component is known to wane over time but gives protection for more than ten years in most cases. Measles protection is considered lifelong in over 96 per cent of cases, and rubella protects 90 per cent of people for up to 20 years. There is currently only data from the early 1980s, when the MMR was first introduced in Scandinavia, but experts say there is no firm evidence that immunity has waned significantly. However, a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine revealed that revaccinating students who had already had the MMR during a mumps outbreak reduced infections by half. THE FLU JAB PROTECTS AGAINST Various strains of the flu virus. WHEN IS IT GIVEN? Offered every winter to the most vulnerable, including adults over 65, pregnant women, those with underlying medical conditions and children aged two to ten. HOW LONG DOES IT LAST? Its effectiveness is known to wane quickly, although it may offer protection for a couple of years. The flu jab is offered every winter to the most vulnerable, including adults over 65 and pregnant women MENINGITIS JABS PROTECTS AGAINST The meningococcal group of viruses which can cause potentially fatal meningitis and septicaemia blood poisoning. WHEN IS IT GIVEN? Men B and Men C are given to infants. However, a separate vaccination against strains A, C, W and Y is offered to young adults aged 14 to 25 because of a tenfold rise in the highly virulent Men W since 2009. HOW LONG DOES IT LAST? Type B and C mainly affect young children, so revaccination later is not necessary. ACWY is a recent vaccine, so the length of immunity offered is not yet known. THE CANCER JAB PROTECTS AGAINST Several strains of the human papilloma virus (HPV), which causes more than 70 per cent of cervical cancer cases. HPV is also linked to anal, genital and neck cancers. WHEN IS IT GIVEN? Two doses, six to 24 months apart, are given to all girls aged 12 to 13. Boys will be vaccinated from September. Men under the age of 45 who sleep with other men can have free jabs at any time at sexual health clinics. Anyone can have the jabs privately at some high-street pharmacists. HOW LONG DOES IT LAST? It is effective for at least ten years, although experts believe protection could last even longer. SHINGLES JAB PROTECTS AGAINST Shingles, an infection of the nerves and skin that causes painful lesions, kills one in every 1,000 elderly sufferers. It is caused by the varicella-zoster virus, which also causes chickenpox. WHEN IS IT GIVEN? Offered to everyone at 70 and 78 who doesnt have a weakened immune system or is taking steroid tablets. It is not safe for anyone who has had an allergic reaction to a previous chickenpox vaccination. Those who miss out remain eligible until their 80th birthday. HOW LONG DOES IT LAST? Protection lasts at least five years, but one study found that it was ineffective after eight years. Maybe its pollen. Or perhaps its peanuts, pets or a certain washing detergent. Whatever the trigger, allergies affect 21 million people in the UK thats five times more than cancer. And according to the latest figures, they are rising at an alarming rate. In the past ten years, the number of sufferers has rocketed by at least two million. Research suggests a staggering 44 per cent of British adults now suffer from at least one allergy. By far the most common allergies are those triggered by particles in the air that we breathe, such as hay fever (stock image) Last year, the tragic deaths of two women brought the dangers of severe reactions into sharp focus. Mother-of-five Celia Marsh and 15-year-old Natasha Ednan-Laperouse were both struck down after eating sandwiches. It wasnt the sandwiches per se that were to blame, but their bodies extreme reaction to specific ingredients in them. And the battle to avoid such sudden catastrophes is a part of daily life for millions of allergic Britons. Tiny teapot that can clear your sinuses A plastic neti pot, used to clear out debris and mucus from the nostrils, is available from some High Street pharmacies and online. The plastic neti pot can be purchased from some High Street pharmacies and online. 1. Fill the pot with boiled water, cooled to lukewarm temperature, mixed with a teaspoon of salt. 2. Standing over the sink, tilt your head sideways and place the spout in the nostril facing the ceiling. 3. Breathe through your mouth and gently pour the saltwater solution into your upper nostril so that the liquid trickles through the lower nostril. Repeat on the other side. 4. Rinse the device thoroughly after each use with previously boiled, cooled water. Advertisement So why are allergies on the rise? The truth is, we dont know for sure. We live cleaner lifestyles than ever before, and our bodies are less familiar with the germs and bugs they need to destroy which perhaps could lead to the immune system over-reacting to substances that are normally harmless. Perhaps increased pollution in Western countries is partly to blame. As a consultant and allergy specialist, Ive spent the past two decades dealing with the debilitating effect of these unpredictable conditions. Many of my patients felt isolated, lonely and helpless. But it doesnt have to be like that. Small, simple changes can keep symptoms at bay, giving sufferers their life back. Ive seen this transformation with my own eyes, and now I want to pass this knowledge on to you, too. Over the following pages Ill firstly unpick the science behind common allergies and help you get the right diagnosis. Then, Ill reveal the simple but practical solutions, based on cutting-edge science, to help you take control of your symptoms. Ill show you how hay fever sufferers can enjoy summer picnics, and how you could even ease eczema by changing what you eat. For those with potentially life-threatening allergies, Ill outline a step-by-step guide to handling outbreaks, should the worse happen. So take my easy-to-follow regimes and nuggets of essential information, and finally stop allergies ruining your life... AIRBORNE ALLERGIES: EIGHT STEPS TO BEATING HAYFEVER By far the most common allergies are those triggered by particles in the air that we breathe. From dog hair to dust mites and pollen, these inhaled allergies affect up to a third of adults globally. Unlike ingested (eaten) or skin allergies, sufferers symptoms can be triggered simply by a deep breath. But, before we look into this further, just what is an allergy? While many bask in the glorious spring sunshine, the one-in-five Britons who suffer hay fever avoid it like the plague, dreading the start of months of misery (stock image) In a nutshell, its when the bodys immune system overreacts to a normally harmless substance. Mast cells, which are a type of immune system cell, mistakenly release a cascade of chemicals that are actually supposed to fend off infections. The most potent of these chemicals is histamine, which is responsible for the uncomfortable symptoms of an allergic reaction such as sneezing, runny nose and itchy, irritated and watery eyes. Is asthma an illness or another allergy? Asthma is a common lung condition characterised by chronic breathlessness, coughing and a tightness in the chest. In asthma, the tiny tubes, or airways, that supply air to the lungs are tight and sensitive, often producing an excess of sticky mucus. Doctors still arent sure exactly what causes asthma although it is thought to largely be due to genetics or mothers smoking during pregnancy. However, many of the substances that trigger asthma symptoms are similar to those that cause allergic reactions. Animal hair, pollen and dust, for example, can further irritate the airways, restricting airflow to and from the lungs. Sufferers are considered to have allergic asthma if their symptoms are exclusively triggered by these allergens. As is the case with allergies, levels of the hormone histamine also increase when some asthmatics are exposed to these triggers. Interestingly, children with allergies are at higher risk of developing asthma in later life. It is thought this may be related to the malfunctioning immune system in the allergic individuals. The over-reaction to harmless substances may cause the body to also attack healthy lung tissue, causing damage. Advertisement It also causes a build-up of mucus in the tubes that supply air to the lungs. These reactions are designed to purge the body of harmful invaders such as bacteria or poisons. But, in an allergy sufferer, non-threatening substances, such as grass pollen, evoke the same severe reaction a poison would. In the case of inhaled allergies, it occurs when the substance we call them, collectively, allergens comes into contact with the tissues inside the mouth, nose, and throat, and eyes. The soaring temperatures during the recent Easter Bank Holiday saw millions struck down, thanks to the most common culprit: pollen. This is commonly known as hay fever, or allergic rhinitis, among doctors. While many bask in the glorious spring sunshine, the one-in-five Britons who suffer hay fever avoid it like the plague, dreading the start of months of misery. Symptoms are usually worse during the summer months between late March and September when the pollen count is at its highest. While widespread, its no trivial matter: hay fever is linked to poor sleep: 57 per cent of adults and 88 per cent of children with the condition have sleep problems, leading to daytime fatigue and decreased cognitive functioning. In fact, research shows that two million drivers have accidents, near misses or experience loss of vehicle control as a direct result of their symptoms. The good news? There is something you can do about it. IS IT HAY FEVER OR A COLD? Many of the symptoms of hay fever are similar to those of a cold or flu, such as blocked, runny nose, cough and exhaustion. But there are a few tell-tale signs that are unique to the allergy. Itchy eyes, for instance, do not occur with colds, like they do in hay fever. And if sniffles come with aching limbs, its most likely a cold, not hay fever. Cold symptoms also dissipate after a week or two whereas hay fever persists for at least six weeks. The vast majority of hay fever sufferers will guess correctly that their symptoms are linked to pollen count, and self-diagnose. The general advice is to note what symptoms you have, when they occur, how often and in what situations. This information can then be presented to a pharmacist who will be able to confirm that hay fever is the culprit and recommend over-the-counter treatments. Otherwise, common sense rules apply: check online weather reports for pollen counts and stay inside when the count is high. For most people, this is enough to keep symptoms at bay. But for an unlucky few, the sniffles are relentless, making any outdoor activity an arduous task. So, if you are really suffering, your first port of call should be your GP, who may be able to offer stronger medication or recommend other approaches. HOW TO STOP HAY FEVER FROM STRIKING Key to preventing a flare-up of symptoms is knowing what you have to steer clear of. While avoiding cats, if pet fur is a trigger, might be easy, its almost impossible to avoid all pollen without moving somewhere mountainous, dry and arid. Thankfully, there are effective methods to minimise exposure, keeping symptoms at bay. Its essential you are proactive adhering to these vital steps will significantly minimise the impact of your symptoms. 1. Allergy-proof your home Pollen counts are highest in early morning and early evening, so keep windows closed at these times. Sealed stone or tiled floors are preferable to carpets, and avoid rugs. Vacuum regularly and consider having a dust filter fitted to your vacuum cleaner. Always dust with a damp cloth so the dust is absorbed. 2. Always shower before bed Pollen and other triggers get trapped in our hair during the day, eventually making their way into our airway. If you dont shower at night, you essentially incubate yourself in the thing you are trying to avoid for eight hours. Launder your pyjamas and bedding regularly, too, to get rid of the dust and pollen that may accumulate. Pollen and other triggers get trapped in our hair during the day, eventually making their way into our airway. If you dont shower (stock image) at night, you essentially incubate yourself in the thing you are trying to avoid for eight hours 3. Honey wont help hay fever Dont believe the old wives tale that a spoonful of honey prevents allergic reactions to pollen. Many tout that honey contains pollens, which means a teaspoon grants the body early exposure, dampening the immune response. This is false: honey does not contain grass and tree pollen. Honey is in fact made by honeybees from the nectar of flowers and plants, not pollen. 4. Dont remove your nose hair... or pluck eyebrows These hairs serve a very important function in preventing allergens in the air from entering the body. Hypersensitive nasal hairs act as a defensive wall against inhaled allergens, and can trigger sneezing to expel any particles before they are inhaled. Likewise, particles get trapped in the eyebrows, preventing them from entering via thin membranes in the eye. But dont panic, light trimming of unruly brows and protruding nasal hairs is fine, just as long as you dont wax or remove the hairs completely. Hypersensitive nasal hairs (stock image) act as a defensive wall against inhaled allergens, and can trigger sneezing to expel any particles before they are inhaled THE LADDER OF ALLERGY TREATMENT In theory, treating hay fever should be pretty straightforward: block the immune response and stop the effects of histamine in its tracks. But this line of attack often isnt necessary, given the surprising impact of non-drug treatments. This is why it is best to use what I call the ladder of intervention, trying one measure at a time. If one method of treatment doesnt work, move on to the next. Different people will respond differently to each stage of the ladder. Work your way from number one to eight, stopping when you find an intervention that works for you. 1. Sniffing salt water Using salted water to remove dust, pollen and debris that collects in the nose is an effective way of alleviating cold-like symptoms. This is easily achieved with a plastic device called a neti pot, which flushes out the nasal cavity. You can get them from many High Street chemists. For a detailed explanation on how this works, see the box below. Try doing it first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Research shows that thinning the mucus in your nose with water removes the allergens that cause irritation. Are you allergic to dust, pets... or even mould? In hay fever, the substance that causes an adverse reaction is pollen. But a handful of other substances, when breathed in, can trigger allergic reactions, too. Pet hair is a common one sufferers tend to be allergic not to the hair itself, but to microscopic, dead animal skin cells attached to it. Less common is an allergy to airborne dust mites and gases emitted by mould. Pet hair (stock image) is a common one sufferers tend to be allergic not to the hair itself, but to microscopic, dead animal skin cells attached to it Tackling animal hair allergy is easy: dont keep pets in the home and wash clothes that have come into contact with animals immediately. Those with dust mite and mould allergies should open windows during the day to ventilate the home. If your allergies seem severe you may be referred for testing at a specialist allergy clinic. A specific blood test can measure compounds produced by the immune system in reaction to allergens. These compounds, called immunoglobulin E (IgE) antibodies, are released when an allergic person is exposed to certain allergens. Specific IgE antibodies correlate to specific allergens. Your GP will take a blood sample and test for antibodies related to these common allergens. If this detects an allergy, they may perform a skin prick or scratch test, which measures the severity of a reaction. A drop of liquid containing the allergen is placed on your forearm, and your skin is gently pricked. The skin will then be monitored for a signs of an allergic reaction, such as a red bump or weal. Advertisement 2. Simply use Vaseline A thin layer of petroleum jelly rubbed around nostrils helps prevent particles entering the nasal passage. Essential at night, it also works fantastically in conjunction with the salt water washout or nasal sprays. 3. Antihistamine and sprays Antihistamines reduce or block the histamine chemical, reducing bothersome symptoms. They are available as a nose spray and eye drops over the counter. Steroid nose sprays, available on prescription, are similarly useful as they dampen the immune system, reducing the over-reaction. 4. Mast cell stabilising sprays and eye drops A substance called sodium cromoglycate can stop mast cells from releasing histamine, preventing symptoms. It is only effective for allergies that affect the nose, eyes or lungs and can be particularly impactful when used in combination with antihistamine and steroid sprays. The medication is available as a spray, drops and in inhaler form over-the-counter. 5. Antihistamine tablets Stronger antihistamines are available in tablet form both drowsy and non-drowsy types. Some are available over the counter, but the strongest require a GP prescription. When reading a label, check for the following active ingredients if looking for the drowsy type: chlorphenamine, hydroxyzine and promethazine. For non-drowsy: cetirizine, loratadine and fexofenadine. 6. Anti-asthma drugs ANTI-INFLAMMATORY medication for asthma, called anti-leukotriene, can be helpful for hay fever and other inhaled allergies, but is only available on prescription. The tablets block the chemical leukotriene. This is released by the body when allergens strike, which causes inflammation in the nose and airways. 7. Steroid tablets Steroids work by reducing the inflammation in the lungs, nose or throat, caused by the overactive immune system. Tablet-form steroids are usually intended for short-term use due to common side-effects such as vision problems, joint pain, anxiety or loss of appetite. If you experience any of these, contact your doctor straight away. Dont worry, these symptoms are only temporary, but a GP may decide to make small changes to dosage and drug type. 8. Immunotherapy: A dose of what youre allergic to Administering a tiny dose of the substance youre allergic to is said to desensitise the immune system to it, reducing the adverse reaction. This type of treatment is high risk and usually only considered by a GP in severe hay fever or other inhaled allergies once all other options have failed. It is an arduous course, taking several years. Once you stop, symptoms that were reduced significantly can start to reappear. Few qualify for it on the NHS and those who go privately will pay 9,000 for a three-year course. Londoners pay nearly 50 per cent more than the national average for annual car insurance, new research has revealed. The typical premium for those living in Greater London is 1,102 - this is 366 more than the national average of 736, according to comparison website, Compare the Market. Meanwhile, drivers in the South West paid the least for cover at an average of 557 nearly half the cost compared to those in the capital. This also worked out as 24 per cent cheaper than the national average. Londoners are paying almost double what people in the South West pay for their car insurance Compare the Market studied premiums over both 2018 and the start of 2019 to find the average premiums and discovered that prices in one region of the country can be almost double of that in another area. The two cheapest regions behind the South West were Scotland at 581 - 21 per cent cheaper than the national average and Wales at 637 - 13 per cent cheaper than the national average. In comparison, the top two most expensive regions behind Greater London were the North West at an average of 839 - 14 per cent more expensive than the national average and the West Midlands at 823 - 11 per cent more expensive than the national average. The large disparity between prices around the country is due to the varying risk profiles which insurers judge for pricing. Insurance prices are likely to be significantly lower for cars based in rural areas as the majority of accidents happen in towns and cities. Crime rates are also statistically higher in urban areas meaning they can expect to see lower premiums. AVERAGE CAR INSURANCE COSTS BY REGION Region Average Premium Percentage difference Cost difference Greater London 1,102.86 49.85% 366.86 North West 839.79 14.10% 103.79 West Midlands 823.60 11.90% 87.60 Yorkshire and The Humber 768.28 4.39% 32.28 Northern Ireland 750.03 1.91% 14.03 East Midlands 683.47 -7.14% -52.53 East Anglia 678.82 -7.77% -57.18 North East 673.32 -8.52% -62.68 South East 653.86 -11.16% -82.14 Wales 637.34 -13.40% -98.66 Scotland 581.24 -21.03% -154.76 South West 557.39 -24.27% -178.61 United Kingdom 736 0% 0 Source: Compare the Market Dan Hutson, head of motor insurance at Compare the Market said: 'While the cost of car insurance is obviously not a key consideration in choosing where to live, these figures are further evidence of the huge disparity in the cost of living for people in urban areas versus rural. 'People have flocked to high employment areas in recent history but doing so clearly comes at a cost. 'The reasons behind the additional costs for city drivers are fairly clear, with people living in London likely to have a higher risk profile as a result of the higher crime and accident rates. 'But, for Londoners struggling with their car insurance bills, it is essential to shop around to ensure you are on the most competitively priced policy.' Average premiums have fallen by 100 between December and February since the Civil Liabilities Act was passed in December 2018, according to Compare the Market's latest Premium Drivers report. In December 2018 the average car insurance premium was 790, which was the highest since records began. However, after the Civil Liability Act was passed, premiums fell to 727 in January 2019 and then down to 690 in February. The Act changes the way in which whiplash claims are calculated and has had an immediate impact with insurers passing the reduction in costs straight on to consumers despite the fact the changes are not expected to be implemented until April 2020. Although premiums are known to fluctuate throughout the year, the reduction in premiums is more pronounced this year, which indicates a more structural fall in premiums. Analysis of the premium reductions between December and February has shown the average fall in that time has been 65 over the past six years - 35 lower than the reduction this year. Motorists are being exploited by oil companies to the tune of 2billion a year as a result of not receiving in full the benefit of lower wholesale petrol prices. But they can fight back by being eagle-eyed about where they buy their fuel. Suppliers have failed to pass on almost 8billion in cheaper petrol and diesel wholesale prices to customers in the past four years, according to action group Fair- FuelUK. It calculates this has enabled the oil giants to pocket 208 extra in profit from every car driver since January 2015. The average cost of filling up a 55-litre family car with unleaded petrol now stands at 69.74 Yet shrewd detective work by motorists finding the best value petrol station when filling up with fuel will save them an average of 226 on petrol or 158 on diesel every year. Supermarkets tend to offer the biggest savings often hoping to lure motorists into their shops when they see competitive prices on their forecourts. The biggest rip-offs, meanwhile, are committed at motorway service stations where there is no competition if you need to fill up. Fortunately, it is not necessary to drive around and waste fuel searching for the cheapest deal. Websites and smartphone apps, provided by fuel comparison services such as PetrolPrices and SimpleMotoring, can do the legwork on your behalf. The average cost of filling up a 55-litre family car with unleaded petrol now stands at 69.74 while for diesel vehicles it is 73.10, according to the latest data from the RAC motoring organisation. This is based on petrol priced at 1.267 a litre and diesel at 1.329. Despite the greed of oil producers and petrol stations it is the taxman who takes the biggest share of the petrol fuel bill RAC fuel spokesman Simon Williams says: There is no reason why you cannot slice at least 3p a litre off this figure by hunting down a better deal. But in remote areas it may be necessary to accept paying extra for convenience. The cost of driving to a cheaper deal could easily be wiped out if you have to drive miles for any savings. For example, Kinlochewe filling station in the Highlands is one of the most remote petrol pumps in Britain, being 50 miles west of Inverness. Last week it was charging 1.339 a litre for petrol and 1.369 for diesel a price that motorists may be willing to pay. Kitty Bates, of PetrolPrices, says: Petrol pump prices vary massively. Motorists can easily save themselves 200 a year by finding a better value station near where they live or work. You may be surprised and discover petrol stations you never even knew existed that are close to where you are. Despite the greed of oil producers and petrol stations it is the taxman who takes the biggest share of the petrol fuel bill. Of a litre of petrol priced at 1.267, nearly 46 per cent (57.95p) is accounted for by tax duty while 21.11p (17 per cent) goes on VAT. The cost of the fuel is 47.62p, making up 37 per cent of the total. But the RAC points out that within this cost petrol stations might cream off perhaps 2p to 5p in profits. Another way motorists can save money on their fuel bill is by being more cautious when they put their foot down on the accelerator. According to vehicle reviewer WhatCar?, motorists driving at 80mph use up to 25 per cent more fuel than those who are cruising along at 70mph. Dramatic acceleration and sudden braking also make the car far more thirsty, as does not bothering to change gear until you have revved up the engine. Air conditioning also adds to fuel costs, putting as much as 10 per cent on to the final bill. Also check that the tyres are fully inflated this should make the car more fuel-efficient and safer to drive. A roof rack on the vehicle adds resistance to the car while unnecessary weight in the boot will slow down the car. Tackle these problems and, again, you could find it shaves up to 10 per cent off your car fuel bill. Investors have placed bets worth more than 1billion against the three unicorn companies that have floated in the past month prompting fears of another tech bubble. Hedge funds and other investors are betting on share price falls for taxi app Lyft, social media company Pinterest and video conferencing firm Zoom all start-ups which have just listed on Wall Street. The huge bets are being seen as a warning sign that companies touted as the next Apple, Google or Facebook are being overhyped. Unicorn companies: Lyft, Pinterest and Zoom have recently listed on Wall Street Private tech start-ups, backed by deep-pocketed venture capital firms, are in a stampede to sell shares to the public as they bid to become the next $1trillion company. Microsoft last week passed the magic milestone as it overtook Apple and Amazon as the largest company in the world. Uber, the popular taxi app, Airbnb, the home-letting site, and WeWork, the office space firm, are among the major American unicorns lining up blockbuster floats this year or next. On Friday, workplace chat app Slack, thought to be worth about $17billion (13.1billion), filed plans to float within weeks. The term unicorn describes a rare breed of company that is privately owned and has earned a valuation of more than $1billion. But fears are mounting that many unicorns may struggle to emulate the success of listed tech giants such as Facebook, Google and Microsoft in generating billions of dollars in profits from their vast user bases. Most have never made a profit and instead still rack up significant annual losses. Industry experts told The Mail on Sunday that many unicorns were being priced for perfection and given a valuation that assumed the firm would eventually dominate all its rivals and reap enormous profits. Yet unlike Facebook or Google most face major hurdles in conquering their respective markets. Some of these may prove insurmountable, the experts said. Markets will lose patience with loss making firms Queen of venture capital Eileen Burbidge If such fears are realised, shareholders could lose money in another tech bubble almost 20 years after the dotcom crash that left investors deep in the red. The biggest name preparing to float is Uber, which will list on the New York Stock Exchange this year in a move which could value it at $91.5billion (70.8billion). But the company, which made a $1.8billion loss last year, has warned that it may never make a profit. Lyft, a major rival to Uber, is valued at $16.2billion (12.5billion), but its shares have dropped more than 20 per cent since it floated at the end of March. Shares in Pinterest and Zoom jumped last week when they listed in New York, valuing them both at more than $15billion. But while Zoom turns a profit, Lyft and Pinterest do not. Research by The Mail on Sunday found some sceptics had already started to short these stocks a tactic where traders borrow shares from another investor, sell the shares and hope to buy them back at a lower price. They then return the shares to the original investor and pocket the difference. Lyft shares have dropped more than 20 per cent since it floated at the end of March As many as 16.9 million Lyft shares worth $994million (767million) are out on loan to short-sellers, according to financial data firm IHS Markit. That is over half the shares available to trade on the stock market. Meanwhile, in just a week, bets worth $236million (182million) and $94million (73million) have been placed against Pinterest and Zoom respectively, giving total short positions of 1.02billion for the three firms. The identities of short-sellers have not been revealed. However, Lyft has threatened to sue Morgan Stanley for allegedly helping its previous investors to bet against the shares allegations the banking giant denies. Analyst Richard Holway, chairman of TechMarketView, said he now feared a bubble was forming. Up until this current rash of initial public offerings (IPOs), I certainly did not believe we were in any kind of bubble, Holway added. I believed most of the companies that were quoted on the stock market were fairly valued. Whatever you think of them, Google, Facebook and Apple are very profitable. Of the ones that are coming at the moment, Im sure there will be one or two that will succeed and well all say, If only wed invested in Pinterest or Zoom. But I believe there will be a similar rash of failures. Every one of them is being priced as if theyre going to succeed spectacularly. And that isnt possible. And therefore, there are bound to be Ill guarantee it quite a big number of current IPOs that will be under water in a relatively short period of time. In just a week, bets worth $236million (182million) and $94million (73million) have been placed against Pinterest and Zoom respectively Eileen Burbidge, a partner at London-based technology start-up investor Passion Capital, said investors would eventually run out of patience if loss-making firms kept trying to float. Its certainly an opportune time to list, said Burbidge, who has been dubbed the Queen of British venture capital. She added: Winners are going to be those rare tech companies that are genuinely profitable, such as Zoom. This may lead to less patience for companies that dont have plans to be profitable anytime soon. This week, Apple and Googles parent company Alphabet will reveal quarterly profits totalling several billions of dollars. Meanwhile, music streaming company Spotify, which was a unicorn company that floated last year, is set to reveal it has trimmed losses as it searches for profits. David Richards, chief executive of WANdisco, a British software company based in Silicon Valley, pointed out that the value of these companies is in the software. He said Airbnb is the largest hotel chain but has no hotels and Uber is the largest taxi company, but with no cars. Maybe it is a bubble, but underestimate these companies at your peril because they can scale ridiculously well, he added. Uber will list on the New York Stock Exchange this year in move which could value it at $91.5bn Alec Dafferner, who runs the San Francisco office of tech investment bank GP Bullhound, also played down fears of a bubble similar to the dotcom boom. He said: We can all argue about specific valuations, but these are real businesses and significant products that people use. But a joint report this month by PwC and CB Insights revealed that the number of US unicorn companies has hit a record 147, with a combined valuation of $582.4 billion (451 billion), and highlighted a slight drop-off in funding for these start-ups suggesting that their investors could be eyeing an exit. Some companies have even handed shareholder privileges to venture capital funds that put in money just before a float, limiting the chance of the investor losing money. This means the common shares bought on the stock market are less valuable than they may seem, says Ilya Strebulaev, a professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Based on analysis of more than 100 unicorns, Strebulaev calculated they were on average overvalued by around 50 per cent. That means if a private company valued itself at 45 billion, its real value would be closer to 30 billion. Another concern is the lack of voting rights for investors who buy shares after a float. Lyft has followed Snapchat and Google by introducing a dual-class share structure which limits voting power for small shareholders, allowing the founders to keep control of the companys strategy. A British IT worker has been kicked out of Australia in what he claims is a 'grotesque' visa bungle by immigration bureaucrats. Edmund Reed moved to Sydney in April 2017 to work as a senior software engineer contracted to pay-TV company Foxtel earning $103,000 a year, and quickly became indispensable. But his application for a visa to stay in the country was rejected in November on a technicality and he was given just 35 days to leave. Now back living with his parents in Bolton, in the north-west of England, without a job, the 28-year-old is not even allowed back into Australia to clean out his flat. Edmund Reed, 28, kicked out of Australia in what he claims is a 'grotesque' visa bungle by immigration bureaucrats 'I worked so hard to get here, I felt like I'd made it, and suddenly it all came crashing down,' he told Daily Mail Australia. 'I followed all the processes and did everything that was asked of me, but I've been thrown under the bus because of a grotesque level of incompetence.' Mr Reed jumped at the opportunity to start a new life in Sydney and enjoy a challenging new job and soak up the warm weather. Intending to stay long term, he quickly adapted to the Australian lifestyle and excelled at his work. After his first four months, his employer applied for a 457 visa on August 9, 2017, so he could continue working in Sydney. The British IT worker moved to Sydney in April 2017 to work as a senior software engineer contracted to Foxtel Mr Reed (pictured far left with work colleagues next to the Sydney Opera House) They heard nothing for more than a year until the Home Affairs Department contacted Mr Reed on October 22 last year. Officials informed him that his employer nomination was no longer valid as they expire after 12 months. 'Your employer does not have an approved nomination for you at this time. As a result, your visa application cannot be approved,' the email read, giving him 28 days to respond. Mr Reed the same day sent a reply with the requested information, drafted by his employer, through Home Affairs' IMMI system, which marked it as received. 'At this point, I had every right to believe the ball was in their court, having complied with all instructions,' he said. Instead, he received a notice on November 21 informing him that his visa application was refused with no right of appeal and he had 35 days to leave Australia. 'The applicant was advised that their prospective sponsoring employer did not have an approved nomination in place for them,' it read. Mr Reed jumped at the opportunity to start a new life in Sydney and enjoy a challenging new job and soak up the warm weather After receiving Home Affairs' October 22 email, Mr Reed sent a reply on the same day with the requested information through department's IMMI system, which marked it as received 'The applicant was invited to comment or withdraw their application in writing, and was afforded the prescribed period of to do so. 'The specified timeframe has now passed, and to date, no response has been received from the applicant. 'At the time of this decision, the applicant is not the subject of an approved nomination and has not withdrawn this application in writing.' Mr Reed contests the assertion that no response was received, as the letter he sent on October 22 was marked as received by the IMMI system. 'I was only in that situation to start with because they took over a year to assess the visa application,' he said. 'The portal verified that the letter was successfully received. Hence, their reason for denying my visa is totally bogus. 'I'd built a life for myself in Australia and I was hoping to stay long term. My closest friends are in Australia along with a girl I was dating.' Mr Reed was subsequently denied a temporary 400 visa because immigration officials 'weren't satisfied he was coming to Australia for non-ongoing work'. 'I was a respected lead developer at Foxtel for over 18 months and was working on crucial projects for their flagship website,' he said. 'As a result of the visa being refused I have lost my job and am now stuck in England living with my parents, all because of an administration error by the department of immigration on my original 457 application that had a domino effect.' Mr Reed (pictured second from right with Sydney colleagues) had his application for a visa to stay in the country suddenly rejected in November on a technicality and he was given just 35 days to leave Mr Reed (pictured right in Sydney) is now back living with his parents in Bolton without a joband is not even allowed back into Australia to clean out his flat. Matters became worse in February when Mr Reed was denied entry to Australia even as a visitor so he could collect his belongings and sell the rest. 'Due to you previous immigration I consider that you may have a strong incentive to work in Australia in breach of the visa conditions,' Home Affairs told him. Mr Reed said he had grudgingly accepted he wouldn't be able to work in Australia and just wanted to minimise the financial impact on himself. 'I have thousands of dollars worth of furniture and other stuff in my flat that I can't just leave there, but I can't even go back and sell it. It's a shambles,' he said. That was in addition to spending more than $3,000 to organise the visa application, plus hundreds more in rent on his Sydney flat until the lease expires. Home Affairs said it did not comment on individual cases. 'There were no provisions within the Migration Regulations which enable a 457 visa to be granted to a nominee who does not have an approved nomination in place,' it said. A serial paedophile repeatedly raped two young sisters under their family's nose after conning their mother into believing he was a modelling agent. Andrew John Sivell has been jailed for 21 years and six months on 19 counts of rape, aggravated sexual assault, and producing child pornography over two years. The 54-year-old wormed his way in to the girls' lives after meeting them at a Sydney train station in 2005, and soon began dating their older sister. Sivell became a trusted authority figured and used this power to isolate the girls and abuse them, either promising to buy them gifts or simply coercing them. The abuse continued until he was caught red-handed by police with one of the girls and her cousin when they searched her mother's home in June 2007. A serial paedophile repeatedly raped two young sisters under their family's nose after conning their mother into believing he was a modelling agent (stock image) He was repeatedly jailed for abusing other girls but was not charged with raping the sisters until they came forward in 2013 and 2014. Sivell told the sisters at the train station he could 'get them into modelling' and later told their mother he arranged photoshoots for 'beautiful African children'. Two weeks later the older sister, who was 12 at the time, said she was 'very excited and happy to go with him' when asked by her mother if she was comfortable seeing Sivell alone. Soon after, Sivell came to their house in Cabramatta where, while her mother was home, he lured the girl into the bathroom and revealed himself to her. 'I wanted to call mum and talk to mum about it but then I couldn't so I ended up going with him,' the girl told the court at Sivell's trial. I wanted to call mum and talk to mum about it but then I couldn't so I ended up going with him The rapist then took her in a van and said the place where the supposed photoshoot was to take place was full and they would spent the night at his flat. Once at the one-bedroom apartment in Redfern he made her put on a g-string before kissing and molesting her. Sivell then forced her to touch his genitals and orally raped her. The next morning he took a series of photographs of her wearing just the g-string, demanding she adopt suggestive poses. In the weeks that followed, Sivell visited the girls' house frequently and began dating their older sister, who then moved into his flat. Sivell would often take the girl to his home on weekend, where he would abuse her and take more pornographic photos. He and the adult sister moved into a two-bedroom unit in Eastlakes and would have the girl stay in the spare room. Sivell would then sneak into the room and abuse the girl, on at least two occasions also trying to rape her but failing when she pushed him off. Sivell began abusing the younger sister in 2006 when she was eight years old, first molesting her at his house when the adult sister was out (stock image) In her victim impact statement, the girl told the court Sivel remained in her mind 'day to day' and she still 'experiences feelings of shame and worthlessness and feels frightened'. Sivell began abusing the younger sister in 2006 when she was eight years old, first molesting her at his house when the adult sister was out. He 'touched her leg, her chest and put his hands between her legs' even though she was crying and begging him to stop. The perverted predator promised to buy her things if she performed oral sex on him, and took off his trousers. His vile acts were disturbed when the sister returned home. 'I felt really, really scared like I was just shaking,' the girl told the court when giving evidence at Sivell's trial. On another occasion, Sivell cornered the girl in her mother's shed, where toys were stored, and promised to buy her a barbie doll if she gave him oral sex. He took off his pants and coerced her into doing it anyway. The adult sister, who in 2007 had a child with Sivell, gave evidence at trial that she found suggestive photos of the older girl on a memory card in Sivell's flat. Sivell told her the girl 'must have taken the photos herself'. The last time Sivell abused the girl was on June 3, 2007, when he was staying at her home and her mother told her and her cousin to sleep in his room. About 6pm he made her perform multiple sex acts on him while he degraded her. Sivell was interrupted when police searched the home and found him in the room with the two girls, but didn't see the abuse. Unknown to the family, Sivell was in March that year slapped with an interim prohibition order that prohibited him from having contact with children. Him being in the room with the girl and her cousin breached this order and he was arrested and jailed for 10 months. I felt really, really scared like I was just shaking Police also found child pornography in his car, which a judge said was 'most disturbing' in nature, for which he was jailed for 2 years and 9 months. Sivell continued his sexual crimes almost immediately after his release, as in 2011 he was jailed for 10 months for inciting a child to commit an act of indecency. Earlier crimes also caught up with him, as he was in 2013 jailed for 11 months for performing oral sex on his cousin in 1981 when she was 10 or 11 and he was 17. His criminal history stretched back to 1999 when he was convicted of abusing two girls who he also promised modelling opportunities. Then he was jailed for four years in 2002 for using the same ruse to abuse two other girls. One girl, aged 12, was convinced to put on lacy underwear and pose for revealing photographs taken by him in return for a promise of money. Sivell also lured a girl under 10 to a stairwell to take photos of her, but instead molested her. Sivell became a trusted authority figured and used this power to isolate the girls and abuse them, either promising to buy them gifts or simply coercing them (stock image) Judge Peter Zahra referred to Sivell's 'appalling criminal record and his poor prospects of rehabilitation' in sentencing him on February 26, 2016. He said Sivell 'manipulated' the chance train station meeting and 'committed a sexual act towards her as soon as he gained access to her in her own home'. Judge Zahra said the rapist 'from the outset' was intent on isolating the girls from their family 'for his own sexual gratification'. Sviell 'took advantage of opportunities as they arose and his conduct was calculated, designed and deliberate', he said. If ever there was a case where a very heavy sentence was called for it was [Sivell's] case He 'sacrificed [their] innocence for his own perverse sexual gratification' and demonstrated a 'disturbing pattern' of 'degrading sexual conduct'. 'The nature of the sexual acts and circumstances in which the acts occurred, including the breach of trust, which placed the offending here objectively within a most serious category of sexual offending against children,' Judge Zahra said. The judge also noted Sivell's lack of remorse and that he 'poses an extreme risk of sexual offending against young children'. Sivell appealed his conviction claiming the girls were unreliable witnesses and were never properly questioned about a scar on his scrotum. He also said his 21-year sentence was too harsh, but this was dismissed by appeal justices who noted he could have got up to 122 years. 'If ever there was a case where a very heavy sentence was called for it was the applicant's case,' they concluded. Sivell's appeals were all dismissed earlier this month. Around 600 predominantly Cuban migrants who all escaped from a southern Mexico immigration detention center on Thursday remain at large, officials at the facility say. The center, in Tapachula, Chiapas state, was revealed to be holding 1,745 people at the time of the break-out, nearly double its maximum capacity. Cuban migrants escaping their holding area into an area reserved for women, who were mostly Honduran, marked the beginning of the break-out. A swell of commotion ensued and, among the chaos, migrants managed to gain access to other parts of the detention center before eventually bursting through a gate in the main entrance. Immigration agents at the facility were unarmed and unable to intervene, according to officials. Around 600 predominantly Cuban migrants who all escaped from a southern Mexico immigration detention center on Thursday remain at large Hours after the mass escape, throngs of detained migrants raised their fists in the air Friday and chanted 'We want food! We want out!' Only 35 of those who escaped have now returned to the facility. Those who remain at large will be black-listed from applying for Mexican residency, and will likely face immediate deportation when captured Mexico's National Immigration Institute said in a statement that though they originally reported that 1,300 escapees fled on April 25, only 645 migrants actually had. They added that 35 of those who escaped had now returned, but didn't offer any explanation as to why they suddenly lowered their forecasted figures. Hours after the mass escape, throngs of detained migrants raised their fists in the air Friday and chanted 'We want food! We want out!' It was the largest mass escape from a Mexican immigration center in memory and the latest example of how the government has become overloaded by a flood of Central American, Cuban and Haitian immigrants. Residents of Tapachula, a city on Mexico's southern border with Guatemala, reported seeing hundreds of migrants running through the streets late Thursday, some only half dressed, some cramming themselves into passing minivans to escape. Migrants are seen inside a van after being recaptured near the Siglo XXI immigrant detention center after a large group of Cubans, Haitians and Central Americans broke out A Federal Police officer stands guard outside the immigration center, as armed forces scramble to round up the escaped migrants. Officials from the center admit that workers were unable to intervene during the breakout because they weren't armed and were overrun (pictured: a security guard holds the door that was forced open by migrants at an immigration detention center) Migrants await transfer from the center in a bid to ease overcrowding Those with family members inside the Siglo XXI detention center said the escape arose from a dispute over food and sleeping space, both of which were in short supply in the overcrowded center. Laisel Gomez Cabrera, a Cuban who now lives in Texas, was worried about his wife, Anisleidys Sosa Almeida, who has been held at the center for weeks. On Friday, Gomez Cabrera stood outside the station - as he has most days since his wife was detained - trying to get information about her. He said there had been a fight at the facility prior to the escape, and it was provoked by overcrowding. 'They made it so they had to fight among themselves for a place to lie down, to get a little bit of food,' Gomez Cabrera said. A distraught Raisa Torres Espinosa was waiting for news of her daughter, Cynthia Barbara, 21, who was being held at the center along with her husband. Both left Cuba recently, traveling through Panama and then overland to Mexico, where they were detained. The break-out was the latest example of how the Mexican government has become overloaded by a flood of Central American, Cuban and Haitian immigrants (pictured: 396 men, women and children from various countries boarded a train as it pulled out of the town of Arriaga on Friday) Residents of Tapachula, a city on Mexico's southern border with Guatemala, reported seeing hundreds of migrants running through the streets late Thursday. Another caravan of Central American migrants were in Juchitan, Oaxaca were pictured moving atop a train on Friday Migrants who remain behind the centers walls say food and sleep are both in short supply, because of serious overcrowding Torres Espinosa said her daughter had told her conditions at Siglo XXI, which means '21st century' in Spanish, were 'very bad' and had worsened in the last week. 'This week they have put 20 busloads of migrants, all of them, in there,' she said, motioning toward the metal gates. Gomez Cabrera said she suspected authorities may have opened the gates Thursday night to let migrants flee as a way of reducing pressure on the system, knowing that those who left would no longer be allowed to apply for any kind of humanitarian visa, asylum or residence permit in Mexico. 'All the ones who left are going to get put on a red list,' Gomez Cabrera said. 'If they catch them again, they are going to be subject to automatic deportation.' Buses arrived Thursday and Friday apparently to take women and children out of the overcrowded facility. Federal police stand guard by a bus that will transfer migrants to another location on Thursday Federal police were on hand to assist with the efforts, to deter further chaos But while conditions may improve somewhat, the prospect of deportation drives the Cuban families to despair. Carlos Labada, another Cuban who lives in the United States, said his father, mother and younger sister are all being held at the center. 'The girl is subjected to psychological torture. Every day (authorities) tell her, "We're going to deport you, we're going to deport you,"' Labada said. 'It would be like a living death' to be sent back to the island, he said. Other Cubans said the government would deny work and education opportunities to those sent back. In January 2017, the outgoing administration of U.S. President Barack Obama scrapped longstanding rules under which Cubans who reached American soil were automatically allowed to apply to remain. The end of the so-called wet-foot, dry-foot policy means U.S. immigration authorities now treat Cubans more like immigrants from other countries, although Cubans still are more likely to be granted asylum. Cubans also still retain the right to apply for residency after a year in the U.S., a privilege other nationalities do not receive. In a new South Africa, those from ethnic minority backgrounds continue to feel marginalised. Despite living in a post-apartheid nation, the 'coloured' community, the term which is still widely used in the nation, continue to face discrimination and complaints of exclusion are common. While the remnants of the system were swept away a quarter-century ago, a sense of injustice has persisted to this very day. South African mother from the 'coloured' community Dalene Raiters, who lives with her family in the township of Eldorado Park, an outlying suburb of Johannesburg, said: 'It is all about the blacks. The 'Rainbow Nation' is a big lie! Children belonging to the 'coloured' community of Eldorado Park, South Africa, play in an outside yard. Twenty-five years after the fall of apartheid, members of the community continue to feel marginalised in their own country A person in the 'coloured' community of Eldorado Park raises a hatchet during a land grabbing action on the outskirts of Johannesburg. The community continues to feel a sense of injustice in a new South Africa Chesney Van Wyk and his partner share a small mattress in a shack made with plastic-covered cardboard in Eldorado Park 'We are not part of this country. We were marginalised during the apartheid and even now.' Sister Elizabeth Raiters added: 'Our people live like mushrooms. Four generations under the same roof.' In total, nine people- soon to be 10 with a baby due- live in the property, which has a small bedroom and a hut in the yard. Elizabeth applied for social housing to ease the squeeze 17 years ago and failed. She is convinced it is because of the colour of her skin. Apartheid legally divided South Africans into groups of whites, blacks, Indians and 'coloured,' a term meaning people deemed to be of mixed race. The 'coloured' community itself also comprises of several ethnic groups, notably including the San (bushmen) and Nama -both indigenous to southern Africa. They are often referred to as the country's 'first nation,' according to Keith Duarte, a representative of the community living in Eldorado Park. A young child belonging to the community of Eldorado Park stands in the courtyard of Oakdale Secondary School, where several classrooms were destroyed during a student strike on April 15 A woman raised her arm into the air during a land grabbing action on the outskirts of Johannesburg Community members gather in a plot of land to prepare a clearing on April 18. While aparthied divided South Africans into groups of whites, blacks, Indians and 'coloured', many ethnic minorities continue to feel this division In 1994, when the ruling African National Congress (ANC), spearhead of the anti-apartheid fight, was propelled to power, 'we all felt that the ANC would represent us, would be inclusive,' he said. 'It was the biggest mistake ever... We need to be treated equally,' he insisted. In the down-at-heel Eldorado Park township, where the traffic lights sometimes show amber and red at the same time, the small brick homes offer an illusion of comfort. es. Chesney Van Wyk and his partner live in a hut with just three square metres (30 square feet) of floor space. The couple share a small mattress and use a small peach tree behind the door as a bag rack. A woman walks along the street of Eldorado Park during a land grabbing action on the outskirts of Johannesburg on April 18 Student at Oakdale Secondary school Shanice Petersen, 18, stands outside the school's wall on April 18 Chesney Van Wyk (left) and Lorenco Jacob (right walk through Eldorado Park after a land grabbing action earlier this month Mr Van Wyk makes ends meet thanks to the small jobs the neighbours give him. But today he was focused on another task. Along with dozens of other nearby residents toting picks and shovels, Mr Van Wyk cleared a vacant plot of land before marking out locations for their future homes with branches. He said: 'We are claiming this land. We know it is illegal but every time we apply for a (social) house, we need to fill up some documents and they never get back to us. 'For us it's like we are the forgotten sheep.' Violet Bouwers, a woman in her fifties who was also helping to clear land, said: 'They say we are nothing. We are b******s. We are not white, nor black.' Local youths have limited job opportunities and many have turned to drugs. In the township, a hit of highly-addictive crystal meth sells for 50 rands ($3.20) and has ravaged many lives. A man belonging to the 'coloured' community of Eldorado Park prepares a clearing in a plot of land during a land grabbing action on the outskirts of Johannesburg Member of the community Marlin du Preez, 35, clears a plot of land during a land grabbing action Dereleen James of the Yellow Ribbon Foundation which fights drug abuse said that in April three mothers made criminal complaints against their addicted children for attempted murder and domestic violence. One mother recently killed her addicted son. Ms James said: 'She could not handle it anymore.' Patients young and old insist they are in their dire situation because of their skin colour. There are several drug rehabilitation centres in the township where many people see themselves as victims of an unfair system. Household income among the 'coloured' community is twice as high as the black majority who make up 81 per cent of the population. Unemployment stands at 30.5 per cent among the black labour force while it is 23 per cent for the 'coloured' community. Eldorado Park members make a clearing in a plot of land, as people in the community continue to face discrimination Community member Nicole Ricketts, 19, gestures to catch the attention of others in Eldorado Park as they prepare a clearing in a plot of land during a land grabbing action Researcher at the University of the Witwatersrand's Centre for Diversity Studies in Johannesburg Jamil Khan said: 'Coloured people have always been marginalised under colonial and apartheid rule. 'Post-apartheid South Africa has not addressed that legacy substantially and aggressively enough.' The sense of injustice has persisted to the point that several community members lament the fall of apartheid under which 'coloured' people had neither the freedom to move around nor vote. 'The blacks have all the opportunities,' complained pastor's wife Janice Jacobs, 49. 'We were much more comfortable during the apartheid. They would provide us a school pack with all the stationery. We had nurses in the schools. There was order and discipline. If you set a place alight, you would end up in jail. 'The apartheid government used to look after education, health, housing. (This) government does not look after us. I prefer apartheid.' Pope Francis, (pictured), has donated half a million dollars in aid for migrants apprehended along the U.S. - Mexico border Pope Francis has donated half a million dollars in aid for migrants apprehended along the U.S. - Mexico border. The funds will be distributed among 27 projects promoted by sixteen Mexican dioceses and religious congregations, which requested assistance in continuing to provide food, lodging, and basic necessities to the migrants. Vatican News claimed the aid would specifically help more than 75,000 people who arrived in Mexico in 2018 as part of six migrant caravans. The funding comes as more than a thousand migrants broke out of a detention center in southern Mexico on Thursday evening, authorities said, in a fresh sign of how a surge in arrivals has stretched the country's resources to the limit. Peter's Pences provided the funding, which allows the Pontiff with the financial means to help those who are suffering as a result of war, oppression, natural disaster, and disease. In a statement Peter's Pence said: 'In recent months, thousands of migrants have arrived in Mexico, having traveled more than 4,000 kilometers on foot and with makeshift vehicles from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. 'Men and women, often with young children, flee poverty and violence, hoping for a better future in the United States. However, the US border remains closed to them.' The Catholic Church currently hosts thousands of migrants in hotels within the dioceses or religious congregations, providing basic necessities, from housing to clothing. The Pontiff's donation comes as more than a thousand migrants broke out of a detention center in southern Mexico on Thursday evening. The are pictured demanding better conditions or that they be transferred to another center in Tapachula, Chiapas State 'All these people were stranded, unable to enter the United States, without a home or livelihood', the statement added. Meanwhile authorities are currently looking for 600 mostly Cuban migrants who broke out of a detention center in Tapachula, Chiapas state. Migrants from Cuba, who make up the majority of the people being held at the center, were largely behind the breakout, the institute added. Immigration agents at the facility were unarmed and unable to intervene, according to officials. Mexican newspaper Reforma reported that Haitians and Central Americans were also among those who fled the facility, which has been crammed with people. Mexico has returned 15,000 migrants in the past 30 days, officials have said, amid pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to stem the flow of people north. On Wednesday Trump reiterated threats to close part of the U.S.-Mexico border if Mexico doesn't block what described as a new caravan of migrants headed north. The majority of migrants moving through Mexico are from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, but Cubans are also joining in large numbers. More than 1,000 people from Cuba are now in Chiapas, according to Mexican officials. A migrant child calls out to a street vendor selling water as he waits with other children inside an area of the Mexican Commission for Refugee Aid office on Friday A Haitian migrant waits to get a humanitarian visa granted by the National Migration Institute (INM) outside a detention center in Tapachula, Chiapas on Friday Mexico's National Immigration Institute said in a statement that though they originally reported that 1,300 escapees fled on April 25, only 645 migrants actually had. They added that 35 of those who escaped had now returned, but didn't offer any explanation as to why they suddenly lowered their forecasted figures. Hours after the mass escape, throngs of detained migrants raised their fists in the air Friday and chanted 'We want food! We want out!' It was the largest mass escape from a Mexican immigration center in memory and the latest example of how the government has become overloaded by a flood of Central American, Cuban and Haitian immigrants. Residents of Tapachula, a city on Mexico's southern border with Guatemala, reported seeing hundreds of migrants running through the streets late Thursday, some only half dressed, some cramming themselves into passing minivans to escape. Pope Francis, (left), uses a fund to help those living in suffering due to war, oppression, natural disaster, and disease. News of the donation comes as Donald Trump, (right), threatened to close part of the U.S.- Mexico border if Mexico In January 2017, the outgoing administration of U.S. President Barack Obama scrapped longstanding rules under which Cubans who reached American soil were automatically allowed to apply to remain. The end of the so-called wet-foot, dry-foot policy means U.S. immigration authorities now treat Cubans more like immigrants from other countries, although Cubans still are more likely to be granted asylum. Cubans also still retain the right to apply for residency after a year in the U.S., a privilege other nationalities do not receive. Meanwhile, Mexico expressed fresh concern to the United States Friday about delays in the movement of goods and people across their border, after becoming Washington's biggest trade partner for the first time earlier this year. A Federal Police officer stands guard outside an immigration detention center in Tapachula, Chiapas state A group of Haitian migrants wait to get humanitarian visas granted by the Mexican National Migration Institute (INM) outside a detention center in Tapachula The diplomatic note from the foreign ministry is the latest sign of tension between the north American neighbors since President Donald Trump last month threatened to close the border if Mexico didn't stop illegal immigrants from reaching the US. 'During the month of April there has been an economic impact to Mexican and American companies caused by the delays in customs,' the foreign ministry said in a statement. The situation on the border 'negatively impacts trade as well as the sources of employment and consumers in both countries,' it said. According to the Foreign Ministry, in the first two months of the year Mexico was "for the first time in history" the main trading partner of the United States, with goods worth $97 billion changing hands. Data from the Ministry of Finance shows that from January to November 2018, bilateral trade was worth $527 billion. Some 80 percent of Mexico's exports are to the United States. Advertisement Hundreds of migrants hoping to reach the United States boarded a freight train in southern Mexico late on Thursday, frustrated by efforts to slow their progress by the Mexican government, which is under pressure from President Donald Trump. The risky move to board the train, known as 'La Bestia' (The Beast), followed a mass breakout of migrants from a holding center in the southern border city of Tapachula on Thursday night. The government estimated some 1,300 people escaped but said a majority later returned to the center. Men, women and children from various countries boarded the slow train as it pulled out of the town of Arriaga in the southern state of Chiapas, Mexican media reported. Migration authorities said at least 395 people had boarded the train. Hundreds of migrants hoping to reach the United States boarded a freight train in southern Mexico late on Thursday, frustrated by efforts to slow their progress by the Mexican government, which is under pressure from President Trump The risky move to board the train, known as 'La Bestia' (The Beast), followed a mass breakout of migrants from a holding center in the southern border city of Tapachula on Thursday night The large group descended from the train on Friday after it reached the town of Ixtepec to the northwest of Arriaga. 'We hope our God above will keep helping us. We had to keep moving forwards,' said Michael Hernandez, a Honduran, after disembarking. 'They won't let us walk, so we climbed on the train. It's our only option.' Erick Morazan, 28, a Honduran migrant in Zapata, a few towns north of Ixtepec, said he knew several people on the train, adding that he had wanted to jump aboard himself. 'I know it's very dangerous, but this is the life of a migrant,' he told Reuters by telephone. Trump has threatened to close the U.S.-Mexico border if the administration of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador does not put a stop to illegal immigrants reaching the U.S. frontier. Migrants are paying little heed so far. The breakout from the Tapachula holding center was one of the biggest in recent years, and came after Mexico stepped up efforts to round up and send home migrants. Men, women and children from various countries boarded the slow train as it pulled out of the town of Arriaga in the southern state of Chiapas, Mexican media reported. Migration authorities said at least 395 people had boarded the train Mexico's migration institute said on Friday that of the roughly 645 people who had fled, 35 people had since returned. It added in a statement that the group consisted largely of Cubans, who have been coming to Mexico in growing numbers. The Tapachula facility is holding 980 Cubans out of a total of 1,745 people. Migrant advocacy groups have said the space is designed for about half of that number. Cubans, and migrants from other regions outside Central America, have added to the pressure on Mexico's already overwhelmed shelters and detention centers. Costa Rica's migration office said on Friday that, for the past week, more than 100 Cubans and Africans have crossed into Costa Rica on average every day from Panama, headed north. Video footage of the escape from the Siglo XXI facility posted on social media showed people sprinting from the gates of the holding center, the biggest of its kind in Mexico. Families of migrants held at the center say conditions inside are difficult. Detainees, they say, sleep on the hard floor, eat poorly and lack medical attention. Mexico's National Migration Institute did not reply to requests for comment on conditions at the facility. The large group descended from the train on Friday after it reached the town of Ixtepec to the northwest of Arriaga 'We hope our God above will keep helping us. We had to keep moving forwards,' said Michael Hernandez, a Honduran, after disembarking. 'They won't let us walk, so we climbed on the train. It's our only option.' Cubans, and migrants from other regions outside Central America, have added to the pressure on Mexico's already overwhelmed shelters and detention centers Johnny Jones, 61, was sentenced Friday to more than 100 years in prison for the rape and murder of a woman in 1998 A man has been sentenced to 115 years in prison for the 1998 rape and murder of an Indianapolis woman whose body was found partially burned. A Marion County judge sentenced 61-year-old Johnny Jones on Friday in the slaying of 26-year-old Kenya Edwards. Her killing was a cold case until 2015 when DNA from evidence collected from her body was matched to Jones. A jury had convicted Jones this month of sexual assault and murder. Police found Edwards' partially burned body inside a home on Indianapolis' east side in November 1998. Her wrists and legs were bound with electrical cords, and officers found signs of a struggle inside the home along with a rear broken window. Edwards' wrists and legs were bound with electrical cords, prosecutors said. An autopsy determined that Edwards had died from thermal burns and smoke inhalation. Detectives found Edwards partially burned body in a home in the 3800 block of North Tacoma Avenue in November 1998 In 2009, evidence collected during Edwards' autopsy was submitted for DNA testing according to Fox 59. About six years later, there was a match. Prosecutors say detectives were notified after the DNA evidence had been submitted to a national database. The match identified Jones as a suspect. Detectives then analyzed previous crimes committed by Jones and revealed similarities between those incidents and the 1998 murder. The resiliency and dedication displayed by the investigators involved in this case lets our community know we will leave no stone unturned in any homicide investigation and it will only be considered closed when the person, or persons, involved have been identified, arrested and found guilty in a court of law, IMPD Chief Rick Hite said in a statement. Jones was already serving prison time for an unrelated conviction when he was charged. Jaime Osuna (pictured in 2017) has been charged with the brutal slaying of Luis Romero inside Corcoran State Prison A tattoo-faced killer has been charged with murdering his prison cellmate in what authorities are calling an exceptionally sadistic slaying. Jaime Osuna, 31, allegedly tortured and beheaded Luis Romero, 44, inside California's Corcoran State Prison, northeast of Santa Barbara, on March 9. Romero is reported to have bled to death from the attack, which was conducted with 'a sharp metal object wrapped in string and attached to a handle'. Osuna is said to have decapitated Romero, in addition to severing his fingers, removing his eye and cutting out part of his lung. An autopsy report released Friday described Romero's body as 'mutilated'. It's unclear how much of the mutilation occurred while Romero was still alive, but Kings County District Attorney Phil Esbenshade says he believes the victim was 'conscious for at least a portion of the time'. Luis Romero (pictured in 2018) was brutally tortured and decapitated inside his prison cell on March 9 The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is conducting an internal investigation, and would not provide details on how prisoners are overseen during the night. Romero was found dead in his cell about 7:30 a.m. Osuna pleaded not guilty, and could face the death penalty over the gruesome slaying. The murder charge filed against Osuna describes the killing of Romero as 'especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel, manifesting exceptional depravity'. Osuna has been additionally charged with torture, mayhem and weapons possession. The torture charge alleges that he acted 'with the intent to cause cruel and extreme pain and suffering for the purpose of revenge, extortion, persuasion and for a sadistic purpose.' Officials have not stated how long Osuna and Romero had been cellmates for. The gruesome slaying of Romero occurred at Corcoran State Prison (pictured) Osuna was serving a life sentence without parole for the brutal killing of Yvette Pena, 37, at a California motel in 2011. During his 2017 trial for that crime, he frequently laughed during court appearances and 'mocked the victim's family', according to Bakersfield.com. Pena, a mother-of-six, had only met Osuna the night before her death, and was found with knives and a pair of scissors in her back. Osuna was serving a life sentence without parole for the brutal killing of Yvette Pena. He is pictured during that trial in 2017 Meanwhile, Romero also was serving a life term for a Los Angeles County slaying, but with the possibility of parole. He has been incarcerated since 1992. Osuna has been transferred to a Stockton prison for inmates needing medical or mental health care, though officials wouldn't say why, citing privacy laws. A nine-year-old girl from Colorado suffered third-degree burns after an Instant Pot pressure cooker exploded and sprayed scalding soup all over her face and body. Caroline Cooper, who is now 11, was also hit by a blast of hot steam after 'venting' the pot when it buzzed to indicate it had finished cooking the broth. Caroline, her mother Mary and father Matt, live in the town of Highlands Ranch. They say the pot 'exploded' despite the youngster 'venting' the steam to release the pressure inside. Caroline Cooper, pictured here when she was nine, was left with third-degree burns after an electric pressure cooker exploded, sending scaling hot soup all over her face and arms Caroline's face was burned by the steam 'I went into the kitchen to help my mom cook her soup because I love cooking with my mom. And when we vented it, I was opening it, and it just exploded,' Caroline told Fox31. 'I closed my eyes. I remember my mom was on the floor. My dad had come running down the stairs,' Caroline recalled. 'I was yelling at my mom to get my shirt off because it was still burning me, so my dad picked me up and took me to the hospital right away because my mom was in shock. The distressing incident left Caroline with third-degree burns across 16 percent of her body. She ended up suffering 16 percent burns across her body and had to undergo weeks of treatment at Children's Hospital Colorado's Burn Center She sustained permanent scalding burn injuries to her shoulder, arm, chest and torso Caroline didn't want to look at her burns while getting treatment because it was so upsetting 'I thought Instant Pot was the greatest invention. I thought it was going to help my soup cook faster. I thought that was fantastic. Anything that makes dinner faster and easier is great for a young mom,' said mom, Mary to Fox31. 'I had made the exact same soup before, cooking with the kids. Everybody is by the island around and Caroline wanted to come help me. The soup is done. It beeps it's done. We manually vent it and steam comes out telling you that it is un-pressurizing,' Mary said. 'The valve float drops, and we go to open it and put the kale in. We were just going to add kale. And it exploded. Completely exploded.' 'The sound was horrible. A true explosion. The lid flew somewhere I don't even know where and every bit, every bit of the soup came out of the pot and was in our kitchen. On the ceiling, on the floor. All the walls were covered,' she said. According to the lawsuit, 'Caroline Cooper sustained serious, painful, disfiguring, and permanent scalding burn injuries to her shoulder, arm, chest and torso.' Mary Cooper said she was a big fan of the Instant Pot when she ordered it online but the family are now suing the makers The incident has also left Caroline, now 11, fearful of being around hot items Weeks of treatment at Children's Hospital Colorado's Burn Center were both a physical and mental strain on Caroline The youngster had to endure weeks of treatment at the Children's Hospital Colorado Burn Center. 'Caroline did not want to see her burns, so they would hold up a sheet to her face didn't have to look at her body, so they had to dress her and clean her wounds and redress them and put casts on her so she couldn't move,' Mary explained to the television station. As a result of the accident, she often becomes anxious around hot liquids or hot food that is cooking. There has been a huge increase in the popularity of Instant Pot thanks to the product's ability to rapidly cook dishes, such as soups and stews. The device is supposed to be a safer version of the old-fashioned pressure cookers. Instant Pot say the cooker should be impossible to open when pressurized At least one experiment has shown that it is possible to remove the lid when pressurized Caroline was enthusiastic about cooking and helping her mother cook at the time she was burned The manufacturers claim that when pressurized it cannot be opened thanks to a metal safety valve which prevents the lid from being removed. However, the suit alleges that Instant Pot's primary 'safety' claim - that a pressurized pot cannot be opened by the consumer - is 'not true.' Independent investigations including one by a television station found that that one-out-of-three pots tested could be opened while pressurized. It resulted in scalding liquid spewing all over a firefighter who was performing the test and who would have been burnt had he not been wearing special safety gear. 'At Instant Brands, we are committed to providing high-quality products to our valued customers, and their satisfaction and safety is our top priority. While it is Instant Brands' policy not to comment on ongoing litigation, the product complies with all applicable industry standards,' a spokesman said in a statement. A stray cat who had both ears cut off 'right to the base of the head' has been named Vincent Van Gogh by the vets who saved him. Lottie Sparkes is the head nurse at Taverham Vets in Norwich, where two cats were sent for treatment after they were found with both ears cut off. And Norfolk Police said there have been five incidents of cats being attacked by humans over the last two weeks. Stray cat Vincent van Gogh was found with both ears cut off right down to their base and brought in to Taverham Vets in Norwich One case involved a man seen putting a cat in to a holdall before dropping the bag and running away when challenged by a member of the public on Tuesday in the city's Berner's Street. And the next day a woman called police to report seeing a man swinging a cat by its tail against a garage in the Philadelphia Lane area, before running away with the animal towards Pengrove Road. Norfolk Police said there have been five incidents of cats being attacked by humans over the last two weeks A cat's body parts were found on allotments in the Woodcock Road area on two occasions in the last five weeks, police added. Ms Sparkes said the team at the Norwich vets named the stray after the Sunflowers artist who famously mutilated his own ear. She said: 'Both cats were brought in for mutilation of their ears. Their ears had been chopped right down to the base of the head, and the first cat had a really nasty laceration across its back, which was obviously quite a really big open wound. 'But that was luckily able to be stitched back together. The second cat that we had on Wednesday had just had his ears lacerated, but they were actually a lot closer to the head and on to his face, but he didn't have any other injuries. Lottie Sparkes, head nurse at Taverham Vets in Norwich, said: 'He's doing really well. He's been stitched up. He's really bright and happy. He's a really, really friendly cat. He's lovely' 'It's horrific enough, but he just had that one. He didn't have the slash or anything on him. 'He's doing really well. He's been stitched up. He's really bright and happy. He's a really, really friendly cat. He's lovely.' Vet Jordan Smith, who dealt with Vincent at the surgery, said the team have been 'deeply saddened and mortified by these attacks', and said they are thankful that Vincent still trusts humans. Ms Sparkes said she had never seen such injuries in her ten years in the job. She said: 'We often see quite bad injuries and wounds from various dogs impaling themselves, cats impaling themselves on fences and things, but nothing like this with human mutilation to animals.' Before and after: Bubba also had his ears cut off but is recovering well. His owner, Georgina Barnes, said: 'I can't understand why or how someone could possibly do this to any animal' Bubba, the other cat treated at the practice, is doing 'amazing' in his recovery, owner Georgina Barnes said. 'Since Bubba came home and we found him in the state he was it's been an emotional rollercoaster, mixed emotions worry, anger, terrified, completely heartbroken,' she said. 'I've had a few sleepless nights and constantly have this running through my mind.' She said she 'can't understand why or how someone could possibly do this to any animal'. She added: 'It's been overwhelming all of the support from complete strangers and the donations to help him get through this and the amazing work the vets have done.' Police remain tight-lipped over what prompted armed officers to zero in on two people near a church in a counter-terrorism operation in Melbourne. A handcuffed man in a white forensic jumpsuit was seen in video footage on Friday afternoon being led from nearby St Mary's Church in North Melbourne to a waiting vehicle. A woman was also cuffed and arrested, according to reports. The man (pictured) was handcuffed and put in a plastic suit to preserve evidence before being taken into custody Police confirmed in a statement on Friday night that two people had been arrested. 'Detectives from the Melbourne Joint Counter Terrorism Team conducted a routine operation in North Melbourne this afternoon,' the statement read. 'This operation is not linked to a specific incident and is part of the JCTT's ongoing intelligence gathering. It is also not linked to any imminent threat.' Officers also raided a nearby block of apartments in Bedford Street in North Melbourne. A resident of the building who had come downstairs to pick up a food order told The Age police were in the stairwell. It's believed the man arrested outside the church was living in the building. 'It's so scary,' the resident said. Witnesses described an 'incredible' and 'really strange' moment when heavily armed police swooped on St Marys Anglican Church on Queensberry St about 2.30pm FRiday Counter terror police swoop on a man and arrest him outside a church in North Melbourne. The man was placed in a white forensic suit by police and taken away in hand cuffs Armed police were later seen guarding the apartment block. Witnesses described an 'incredible' and 'really strange' moment when heavily armed police swooped the area. Photos of the incident show two officers armed with machine guns - one dressed in a helmet and camouflage military fatigues - standing guard over a man, who had been wearing a black hoodie and pants and seated on the ground. Nearby resident Sara told the Herald Sun that she heard the police arresting the man. 'I heard them yell 'get down on the ground',' she said. 'I looked out the window and saw the man on the ground with police in camouflage gear sort of on top of him. 'The police had these huge assault rifles and it looked really serious.' Backpacker Axel Morel said it looked like police had made the man put on the white forensic suit. Two German tourists staying in the area told 9News they saw two men dressed in army fatigues carrying guns and 'walking around the corner' of a house. 'We've been a bit worried about what was happening with all the police,' Anka Konpf said. Counter terrorism and Victoria Police officers swarmed to St Mary's Anglican Church in Morth Melbourne where a man wearing a white suit was taken into custody St Mary's Anglican church in North Melbourne was the scene of a suspected terror incident. Police swarmed on the location Friday afternoon where a man was taken into custody Her friend, Pauline Przygode, said she believed the man 'came out of the church'. The joint counter-terrorism team comprises members of Victoria Police and the Australian Federal Police, and there is no ongoing risk due to the operation. The drama comes just days after Christians were targeted in co-ordinated attacks in Sri Lanka. Scores of people were killed and hundreds injured on Sunday in a series of coordinated suicide bombings in Sri Lankan churches and hotels, carried out, authorities said, by a little-known terror group. A massive international criminal investigation into the attacks is ongoing, with six foreign police agencies and Interpol assisting local police, including Scotland Yard from the UK and the FBI from the US. ISIS and a junior defence minister in the Sri Lankan government claimed the terrorist attacks were a response to the attack on mosques in Christchurch in March. Dozens of Muslims were murdered in the Christchurch attack by a lone gunman. A fire academy instructor is accused of beating and raping a volunteer firefighter who only took up training after her own New Jersey home burned down. In a lawsuit the woman said John Syers, who is listed as an instructor at the academy where the woman was training, lured her to his home in New Jersey's Lacey Township under the guise of showing off his new house. An attorney for the woman, who is named only by her initials in court documents filed Thursday, said Syers attacked his client in September 2018 while showing her his bedroom. 'He proceeded to restrain, beat, burn, sexually assault and strangle (her) over the course of 46 minutes, despite her continuous pleas for him to stop,' Robert R. Fuggi Jr. said in a prepared statement. The woman said John Syers beat, burnt, sexually assaulted and strangled her after luring her to his home in New Jersey's Lacey Township under the guise of showing off his new house NJ.com spoke to Syers briefly, and he referred questions to his attorney, Stephen McGuckin. A message was left with McGuckin seeking comment. On the day of the assault, Syers and the woman shared a consensual kiss, according to the lawsuit. They had dated briefly but broke up when he found another girlfriend, the court papers show. The suit says the woman pulled away and withdrew her 'consent for sexual contact.' That, she said, is when Syers pinned her to his bed, strangled her, poured some kind of substance on her and repeatedly sexually assaulted her, the suit states. He is also accused of taking cellphone photos as the woman lay restrained on his bed. The woman said she went to a medical center the text morning and was administered a rape test. The woman started training with the Ocean County Fire Academy after her home burned down The lawsuit also alleges that Ocean County officials failed to properly train, supervise and protect employees against Syers Her lawyer said she has a restraining order against Syers, who has been employed as an Elizabeth firefighter since March 2017 and remains on the job. The lawsuit also alleges that Ocean County officials failed to properly train, supervise and protect employees against Syers. The alleged victim became a volunteer firefighter in Seaside Heights after her own home burned down. She started training with the Ocean County Fire Academy in Waretown after escaping the blaze through a window. The Ocean County Prosecutor's Office has acknowledged an ongoing investigation. Officials in Ocean County did not return a call seeking comment from NJ.com. The Archdiocese of New York on Friday released a list of at least 120 priests and other clergy members accused of sexually abusing a child or having child pornography that have worked under its jurisdiction. The list includes names of bishops, high school teachers, a scouting chaplain and a notorious cardinal. The release, from the nation's second-largest Roman Catholic archdiocese, follows more than 120 such disclosures from other dioceses around the country as the church reckons with demands for transparency about sex abuse by clergy. In a letter to church members, Cardinal Timothy Dolan said he realizes 'the shame that has come upon our church due to the sexual abuse of minors.' Cardinal Timothy Dolan (pictured) said he realizes 'the shame that has come upon our church due to the sexual abuse of minors' He asked forgiveness 'for the failings of those clergy' who betrayed the trust invested in them to protect young people. 'It is my heartfelt prayer that together we as a family of faith may be healed,' Dolan added. Church abuse watchdogs and lawyers for abuse accusers said the release of the list was a positive step, but some of them saw it as incomplete. It doesn't include accused members of religious orders who worked in the archdiocese's churches and schools, though some orders have released their own lists. Nor does it list priests who were ordained elsewhere and later served in New York. St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan is the base of operations for the Archdiocese of New York. The Catholic organization says at least 120 priests accused of sexually abusing a child or having child pornography have worked there over decades And there are no details on accused priests' past assignments or the allegations against them, although some have emerged in news accounts, lawsuits and criminal cases. 'It's certainly a good thing that they've come out with the list,' said Terry McKiernan of Bishop Accountability, a watchdog group. But 'do they still not see that this very, very reluctant way of offering information about the crisis is the wrong way for them?' Archdiocese spokesman Joseph Zwilling said that 'the important thing is that we have released all of the names of priests that have a credible and substantiated charge brought against them,' plus those awaiting a church determination on allegations, and those newly accused through an archdiocese-run compensation process. The program has paid out $65 million to over 350 people in the past three years. The list includes priests ordained between 1908 and 1988. Many have died, and the archdiocese said none is currently working in the ministry. Most of the alleged abuse happened in the 1970s, '80s and early '90s, but there have been two credible allegations of sex abuse by active clergy since 2002, according to the archdiocese. It said authorities were alerted about both those cases. Some priests on the list were convicted of sex crimes, including the late Rev. Edward Pipala, who served seven years in federal prison after admitting in 1993 to taking at least 11 boys across state lines for illicit sex. The list also includes once-high-ranking church officials. Former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick (pictured) in February became the first cardinal defrocked in the Catholic Church's sex abuse scandal Former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who was ordained in New York, became archbishop of Washington and one of the most visible church officials in the U.S. Then, in February, he became the first cardinal defrocked in the sex abuse scandal of recent years. An internal church investigation had found him guilty. McCarrick's lawyer declined to comment Friday. Bishop John Jenik was removed from his public duties in November after being accused of inappropriate behavior with a teenage boy in the 1980s - an accusation he denies. The Vatican is reviewing the matter. Bishop James McCarthy resigned in 2002 after the archdiocese was alerted about his affairs with women, which he acknowledged. He mentioned starting a relationship with a woman when she was around 21 years old, but some questions were later raised about whether she'd been underage. Bishop John Jenik was removed from his public duties in November after being accused of inappropriate behavior with a teenage boy in the 1980s, which he denies No charges were filed, and the church hasn't made a determination. A message was left Friday evening at a possible phone number for McCarthy. Others were school leaders and teachers, deacons, parish priests, and clerics who worked with charities and youth groups. One served as a Catholic Youth Organization director in New York and as national chaplain of the National Catholic Committee on Scouting in the 1970s, when he allegedly abused a boy at a summer camp, according to news accounts. The priest died in 1984, over two decades before the allegations became publicly known. Based at St. Patrick's Cathedral, the New York Archdiocese includes parts of New York City and several counties north of the city. The only U.S. archdiocese with more Catholics is that of Los Angeles. The number of cannabis users arrested in major cities has plunged in a decade, analysis released yesterday revealed. Recorded cannabis offences per 1,000 people fell by 77 per cent in Greater Manchester, 66 per cent in the West Midlands, and 59 per cent in London between 2008 and 2018. News of the steep fall comes as police chiefs have been given the green light to stop arresting users. One senior officer in the West Midlands has ended arrests because they criminalise lots of young people. Other cities also arrested fewer cannabis users. Since 2008, police recorded a 70 per cent drop in cannabis offences in Leicestershire and a 67 per cent drop in Cambridgeshire. News of the steep fall comes as police chiefs have been given the green light to stop arresting users Only three of the 43 forces in England and Wales increased the number of cannabis arrests over the decade. Overall, national crime figures showed that drug offences logged by police forces fell by 37 per cent, while crime of all kinds went up by 11.4 per cent over the period. The startling drop in cannabis incidents prompted MPs to accuse police of effectively decriminalising cannabis without reference to the Government or to Parliament. Lib-Dem MP Norman Lamb, a health minister under David Camerons Coalition, told The Times: What we are witnessing is a de facto shift towards decriminalisation, but without any debate, without any role of government, without national oversight. This is police and Crime Commissioners exercising judgment when faced with almost impossible restrictions on resources. Critics claim police chiefs are undermining the law, which states that possession of cannabis is a serious offence leading to a maximum punishment of five years in jail, and of ignoring the links between cannabis, violence and knife crime. Crime statistics released this week showed that knife crime has reached record levels, with an average of 112 offences every day. One police force logged a rise in knife attacks of a third in a single year. The Mail reported on April 6 how West Midlands Chief Constable Dave Thompson acknowledged that officers had been told to ignore cannabis users. He told MPs: We took some policy decisions about what we do about cannabis. Overall, national crime figures showed that drug offences logged by police forces fell by 37 per cent, while crime of all kinds went up by 11.4 per cent over the period My answer is, lets not give everyone a cannabis warning its disastrous for their life chances. Mr Thompsons force covers a region that has been called Britains cannabis capital. More cannabis plants are found there than anywhere else in the country, according to figures from the Home Office. The National Police Chiefs Council, the police forces umbrella body, has said its chief constables can decide for themselves on whether to arrest cannabis users. Its spokesman on drugs, Cleveland Assistant Chief Constable Jason Harwin, said: There is strong evidence to suggest that recommending minor offenders for early intervention treatment instead of pursuing convictions can prevent re-offending and result in the best outcome for the user and the criminal justice system. Six pit bulls have viciously attacked a woman and killed the small dog she was walking, which appears to be a toy poodle mix. Rochelle Silva, 51, was walking her daughter's dog Ace at 8.45pm on Wednesday in Taunton, Massachusetts when the six pit bulls escaped from a home on the 100 block of Broadway. Police say that the pit bulls' owner opened his door and one of the dogs escaped. When he turned to retrieve the dog, the other dogs pushed through the door and immediately began attacking Silva. Rochelle Silva, 51, (left) was walking her daughter's dog Ace (right) on Wednesday in Taunton, Massachusetts when the six pit bulls attacked 'All six were on me. If there were six of them then all six were on me,' Silva told WFXT-TV from her hospital room Friday. 'All six of them were biting at me.' A Taunton Police officer was on routine patrol in the area when he observed a woman running in the middle of the road being chased by the dogs. The department says he immediately pulled his cruiser over and got out to assist the woman. As he approached them the officer says, some of the dogs turned toward his direction as if they were going to attack him. Fearing hitting the woman, the officer was unable to fire his gun as the dogs attacked her. Instead, the officer went back to his cruiser and activated the sirens and air horn to try and get the attention of the dogs. Police said the sirens distracted the dogs for enough time for the woman to get to her feet, allowing the officer and a good Samaritan to escort her into the officer's cruiser. Some of the injuries sustained by Silva in the attack, which ended when a police officer distracted the dogs with his siren The victim said all six dogs attacked her, biting at her limbs Meanwhile, Silva was separated from Ace during the attack, and the dog was brutally mauled. During that time the owner of the dogs, a 36-year-old Taunton man, came out of his house to try and get the dogs under control. Some of the dogs attempted to jump through the open front driver's side window of the cruiser to attack the officer. He was able to roll up the window to avoid being bitten. The good Samaritan, a 53-year-old Raynham man, suffered a dog bite to his leg and drove himself to an area hospital. The owner of the dogs was eventually able to get them inside of his home. A Taunton Fire Department ambulance quickly arrived on-scene and EMS personnel provided medical aid to Silva. She was then transported by ambulance to Rhode Island Hospital. She suffered serious but non-life-threatening injuries. Ace was rushed to an animal hospital, but did not survive his injuries. All six dogs were seized by Taunton Animal Control and will be quarantined prior to a hearing with the owner to determine the outcome of the incident. Silva, who has had a career working for non-profits, said that she believes police should have done more to help her. 'Bites all over my body. I got a bite on my face, bites on my arms,' Silva told the local TV station. 'I have a big chunk out of my right leg...behind my knee cap that went right to the bone.' The Taunton Police Department said that as of Friday afternoon, the incident remains under active investigation. Drone pilots have been warned to keep away from railways or risk prosecution following an incident involving the Flying Scotsman. Network Rail and British Transport Police issued the alert after footage was posted online appearing to show a drone flying dangerously close to the famous steam locomotive as it passed through Surrey. Helen Yorke, route crime manager for Network Rails Wessex route, said: This was a very concerning incident which put the safety of passengers, railway staff and members of the public at risk. The 30120 passes through Corfe Castle as part of The Flying Scotsman event in Dorset The Flying Scotsman, Dorset, UK Railway enthusiasts have been repeatedly warned about the dangers of drones near the Flying Scotsman since it returned to the tracks in 2016 after a 10-year restoration. An investigation has begun into the latest between Farnborough and Woking on April 12. Inspector Andy Jackson of British Transport Police said: First and foremost, flying a drone near to the railway can be extremely dangerous. It is a criminal offence to fly a drone on, over or within 50 metres of the railway and it is important that pilots are aware of this. A flight could result in offenders being taken to court and fined up to 2,500. She has captivated the nation with her chilling portrayal of a ruthless gangster in Line of Duty. But in real life Rochenda Sandall, 30, is a policemans daughter and her first acting role was as a nun. An old school photo shows her gleefully singing in a habit, aged 15, in a stage production of the Whoopi Goldberg film Sister Act 2. It is a marked contrast from the air of menace she exudes as brutal villain Lisa McQueen in the popular BBC1 crime drama. Rochenda Sandall, 30, captivated the nation with her chilling portrayal of a ruthless gangster in Line of Duty. But in real life she is a policemans daughter and her first acting role was as a nun Ms Sandall's father, former music teacher Simon Percy (pictured), retrained as a police constable and her mother Karen is a primary school teacher The eldest of three children, Miss Sandall grew up in the village of Goxhill, near Grimsby, Lincolnshire. Her father, former music teacher Simon Percy, retrained as a police constable and her mother Karen is a primary school teacher. The actresss grandfather Victor Blake, who served in the RAF, was part of the Windrush generation who came to Britain from the Caribbean after the war and married her grandmother Janice. Mrs Blake, 77, said her granddaughter caught the acting bug after starring in Sister Act 2 at Baysgarth secondary school, Barton-upon-Humber. She went on to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. Mrs Blake said: I always knew she was going to make it. She was good at it all, singing and dancing. She added the entire family had been glued to Line of Duty but had not been told how it ends or even whether Miss Sandalls character is an undercover police officer, as many fans of the show have speculated. Shes not allowed to talk about it, said Mrs Blake. The penultimate episode is on BBC1 tomorrow night. Security will be heightened at mosques across New Zealand with armed police standing guard throughout Ramadan following the Christchurch massacre. Ramadan, is expected to begin on Monday, May 6 and continue through to June 4, is considered the holiest month by Muslims. Fears have been raised since 50 worshippers were killed when a gunman stormed two mosques in Christchurch on March 15. Mosques across New Zealand will be guarded by armed police throughout Ramadan as fears remain high following the Christchurch massacre last month (Police stand guard following the attack) Police stand guard outside the Al Noor Mosque on Deans Ave in Christchurch, ahead of a visit from Britain's Prince William on Friday Baitul Muqeet Mosque imam Shafiq ur Rehman told NZME security at mosques will be at 'unprecedented levels' this year to ensure worshippers can focus on prayer. Armed police have been guarding mosques throughout the country since the terror attack. However, after the terror level was downgraded last week to 'medium' officers had left some of the sites. Imam Shafiq ur Rehman said police would return next month and remain onsite throughout the Islamic holy month. 'Where there was a feeling of insecurity after the events of Christchurch, I hope the believers ... will feel more secure with the presence of the armed police at the mosque gates and they can be more focused in prayer.' Ramadan is considered the holiest month by Muslims and is expected to begin on Monday, May 6 and continue through to June 4 What is Ramadan? Ramadan is considered to be the holiest month by Muslims, when the Koran, the Islamic holy book, was revealed to prophet Muhammad. Depending on moon sighting, or hilal, the month will start this year on Monday, May 6 and will continue for 30 days until June 4. Fasting is one of the five pillars of Islam, and fasting in Ramadan is obligatory for Muslims. No food or drink is consumed during daylight hours. Advertisement A spike in numbers of people visiting mosques has been predicted as people want to show solidarity with Muslims since the attacks. A New Zealand police spokeswoman said for operational reasons they not be go into specific deployment and security information. However, she said they would continue to have staff at potential risk sites where appropriate, carrying out a range of security and visibility measures. 'These sites may include churches, synagogues, mosques and major events. 'While we have no information to suggest any specific risk to public safety at this time, our advice to the public continues to be that they should remain vigilant and to report any suspicious or concerning behaviour to Police by calling 111.' The Texas high school principal criticized for creating a controversial dress code for parents is refusing to back down from her decision to institute the adult wardrobe rules. James Madison High School principal Carlotta Outley Brown made headlines in early April after a parent publicly complained that she had been refused access to the Houston, Texas, school's campus while attempting to enroll her daughter simply because she was wearing a t-shirt dress and a head scarf. The complaint prompted Brown to formalize a dress code for parents, which banned adornments including hair bonnets, shower caps and hair rollers, as well as prohibiting clothing such as low-cut tops, leggings, excessively torn jeans, sagging pants and Daisy Dukes. Critics claimed the dress code was classist and insulting. James Madison High School principal Carlotta Outley Brown defended her controversial decision to create a dress code for parents attempting to gain access to the school Brown (second from right) said that the dress code was necessary to set a good example for impressionable students and help them learn 'what is right' 'I felt the need to enact the dress code because it was an educational environment, a place of learning,' Brown told Inside Edition in an interview that aired Friday. 'When anyone walks in, we have impressionable children and we have to model what we want them to know and learn.' Brown said that the woman who complained was turned away from the school because she was wearing a 'nightshirt' and that it evident 'that she did not have anything on under her garment.' Prior to this woman, however, Brown said that she had been seeing an increasing number of parents arriving at the school wearing eyebrow-raising attire. One mom, Brown said, 'came in with a see-through shirt and you could clearly see her breasts and her nipples.' Meanwhile, another mom had her thong underwear visible above her pants. Brown said the parental dress code rules, which were sent out to school parents in a letter, were necessary because 'Parents are their children's first teacher' and that formalizing the rules would 'ensure that they know how to conduct themselves.' Madison High's dress code was established shortly after KPRC-TV in Houston reported that a parent attempting to enroll her child was asked to leave because of her attire, which included a headscarf and a T-shirt dress She said that these rules were not meant to 'prohibit them from their expression' and that they only applied to parents looking to get inside the school. Parents were free to wear whatever they wanted in the carpool lane when dropping off or collecting their kids. Among the more vocal critics of Brown's dress code rules was Zeph Capo, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers. 'Who are you to judge others who may not have the same opportunities that you do? Having a wrap on your head is not offensive. It should not be controversial,' Capo told the Houston Chronicle, while also noting that Brown's bans regarding school moms' hair was 'classist,' 'belittling' and 'dismissive.' Brown was criticized for sending out a memo detailing what items of clothing and headgear parents would be banned from wearing while attempting to get onto school property Brown's (left) dress code was deemed classist by some parents and fellow educators. Zeph Capo (right), president of the Houston Federation of Teachers, was a vocal critic of the ban Brown told Inside Edition that the complaining mom's head scarf wasn't the problem and said that while there was nothing 'wrong' with a hair bonnet, they have a time and a place. She noted that parents wouldn't wear hair bonnets to places like church or a night on the town, so they shouldn't wear them at school, either. 'This is a professional place, where learning is taking place,' Brown said. 'A hair bonnet is permissible in the home, with your family. It's not permissible in the school setting.' Brown added that its up to adults to show children 'what is right, what is correct, and what they need to do when they go different places. For example, you don't wear a swimsuit to school, you wear it to the beach.' Brown became principal at James Madison High School earlier in this current school year, becoming the school's fourth principal in five years, according to the Associated Press. Prior to this posting, she was the principal at a Houston elementary school that previously received one of the country's highest academic honors. At the time, Brown told a U.S. Department of Education publication that she had been concerned that parents were showing up in 'inappropriately informal dress.' The publication noted that she then told those parents that 'they may not appear at school so dressed and firmly turned them away, as she did any parents using inappropriate language on school grounds.' A park ranger who took a hilarious selfie with two gorillas has revealed how he captured the magical moment. Mathieu Shamavu said he had been checking his phone at the Virunga Park in eastern Congo when he noticed the two female orphaned gorillas Ndakazi and Ndeze mimicking his movements. He then took a picture with the animals who looked as if they were posing for the camera. Shamavu then posted the photo on social media, where it quickly went viral. According to rangers at the sanctuary, the two gorillas had been orphaned 12 years ago when their families had been killed by poachers. Two gorillas at the Virunga National Park in Congo looked human-like as they posed for a selfie The centre, according the its management, is the only place in the world which is dedicated to the care of orphaned mountain goriallas. As the gorillas arrive in the sanctuary at a young age, they learn from their caretakers, said Shamavu. He said: 'In terms of behavior, they like to mimic everything that is happening (around them), everything we do'. He added that the caretakers at Senkwekwe Mountain Gorilla Orphanage Center try to give the animals as much access as possible to their natural environment, but they inevitably exhibit 'almost the same behavior as humans.' The rangers are guardians of the park that was primarily gazetted to protect the endangered Mountain Gorillas. Pictured is Mr Sadiki in one of many selfies with his gorilla friends Senkwekwe is named after one of the wild silverback gorillas that was killed in Virunga in 2007. The orphans need constant care, so the rangers live nearby and spend their days with them - feeding them, playing with them, keeping them company. Head caretaker Andre Bauma said the caretakers and the Gorillas are family. He said without their own relatives nearby, the gorillas treat the rangers as their own. 'They know we are their mum. They are a member of the family. We are their friends,' said Bauma. Virunga is billed as Africa's most biodiverse national park, spanning tropical forests, snow-peaked mountains and active volcanoes. It's also one of the last bastions of wild mountain gorilla populations. Parks in the mountains of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda have the last remaining mountain gorillas in their natural habitat. But it's in eastern Congo, an area that has suffered from years of armed conflict. Virunga's management has had to take extraordinary measures to keep its visitors safe from the on-and-off fighting in the region - protecting them with a highly trained guard of elite rangers and sniffer dogs, and working closely with communities surrounding the park. After a park ranger was killed by gunmen and three foreign tourists were briefly held captive, the park closed until it could secure the safety of visitors. It reopened in mid-February this year. But all this costs money, and the state park says it wouldn't be able to survive without private donations from visitors. Virunga's management hopes the viral gorilla selfie will help boost the park's profile, and encourage more people to contribute to the vital work of conserving the mountain gorillas and their unique natural habitat. A terrifying highway crash that saw a ute slam into a police car as a senior constable tried to perform a U-turn has been caught on camera. The crash occurred on the Mitchell Highway near Orange in the Central West region of New South Wales at about 4pm on Monday. The Traffic and Highway Patrol vehicle was conducting mobile patrols and detected a vehicle driving above the posted speed limit, police said. The police vehicle was seen attempting to turn around as it entered the highway - but the chase was short-lived. The other car continue onto the highway as the police car slowed down and attempted to do a U-turn Dashcam footage from a Mitsubishi Triton captured the moment the ute slammed into the police vehicle as the constable slowed down and attempted a U-turn. Poll Who do you think was in the wrong? Police 4WD Unsure Who do you think was in the wrong? Police 1256 votes 4WD 30 votes Unsure 10 votes Now share your opinion The ute, which had three passengers at the time, swerved and slide on to the other lane after the devastating impact. The 46-year-old driver parked the car on the side and other vehicles could be seen approaching the scene. Emergency services were called and transported the passengers to Orange Health Service for treatment. The 47-year-old female passenger of the ute suffered a fractured sternum, the two children aged 12 and eight were released with no serious injuries. The police officer was also released with no serious injuries. Central West Police District has launched an investigation into the crash and are questioning how the footage was uploaded to social media. The ute, which had three passengers at the time, then slammed into the police car causing the car to swerve and slide onto the other lane Social media users were split between who was at fault, with many siding with the ute driver. 'The cop entered the road. Car passing other direction was speeding. Cop slowed down to chase speeding car. Didn't see 4WD that hit the cop car. Cop is at fault,' one wrote. 'Cops clearly didn't look before turning,' another commented. 'Investigation? The cop is definitely in the wrong,' another wrote. 'An accident I presume! Humans are not infallible,' one commented, siding with the police officer. A teenager has been charged with murder, rape and arson after a woman's body was found in a burning flat. Curtis Moyse, 18, was charged by Leicestershire Police detectives investigating the death of Leah Fray earlier this month. The 27-year-old's body was found in a torched flat over the Easter weekend after emergency services were called to a fire in a flat in Mere Road, Leicester, just after 7am on April 21. Leah Fray's body was found in the burnt-out property in the Highfields area of Leicester Moyse, of Avonside Drive, Leicester, was charged with rape, murder and arson with intent to endanger life. He will appear at Leicester Magistrates' Court on Saturday. Police launched a murder probe after finding the body, suspecting that the fire had been deliberately started. Officers appealed for anyone in the Mere Road area on the morning of April 21 to come forward and aid their investigation. Detectives launched a murder probe after the body of the 27-year-old was found in a burned-out flat in the Highfields area of Leicester. Pictured are detectives on Mere Road where she was found dead Police launched a murder probe after finding the body, suspecting that the fire had been deliberately started Tony Juniper, 58, the new boss of Natural England, was last night facing questions over his alleged links to a group that pushed for the new ban on shooting birds Natural Englands new boss was last night facing questions over his alleged links to a group that pushed for the new ban on shooting birds. Tony Juniper, 58, took over as head of Natural England on Wednesday and swiftly announced a ban on shooting pest birds without a license in a move that angered farmers. Formerly head of Friends of the Earth, it emerged yesterday that Mr Juniper worked on a book with Mark Avery, the leader of the group Wild Justice whose legal challenge lead to the ban, The Daily Telegraph reported. MPs, conservationists and farmers have expressed concern about the timing of the controversial shooting ban that left landowners scrambling to get licenses in time. When Mr Juniper was appointed to be chairman of Natural England he promised that his eco-activism was in the past but he is already facing questions over whether he went back on his word during his first day in office. He insisted that the decision was certainly not his initiative. Mr Juniper, 58, took over as head of Natural England on Wednesday and swiftly announced a ban on shooting pest birds without a license in a move that angered farmers. Above: Wood pigeons are one species of 'pest' which can spread disease, destroy crops, and cause pollution Last night the former Green Party candidate told the Daily Telegraph it was categorically incorrect to claim that the shooting ban was his decision and that the move began before his appointment. Mr Junipers relationship with Wild Justice raised questions after the campaign groups High Court legal challenge promoted the shooting ban. He has close ties with the co-founder of the group, RSPB conservation director Mark Avery. Two years ago the pair collaborated on a book about bird called Behind More Binoculars with the Natural England boss telling Mr Avery that he took pleasure in putting the heat on people who should know better and expressing his frustration with self-centred and ideological politicians. The two men have appeared on panels about conservation together and have a history of social media interactions including Mr Avery wishing Mr Juniper Happy Birthday old boy! In February Mr Avery expressed his delight that one of us was given a senior post. TV naturalist and presenter Chris Packham, who famously loathes shooting, lobbied Natural England to revoke the general license. This makes any farmer who shoots wood pigeons to protect his crops without an individual licence a law-breaker Weeks later he co-founded Wild Justice with TV presenter Chris Packham who then launched a legal challenge that claimed it was inhumane to shoot birds such as crows as pests. The ban on shooting birds without an individual license wa announced on Mr Junipers first day, Wednesday. It made what used to be lawful shooting of pest birds, including crows, Canada geese and woodpigeons, illegal. Formerly head of Friends of the Earth, it emerged yesterday that Mr Juniper worked on a book with Mark Avery (above), the leader of the group Wild Justice whose legal challenge lead to the ban, The Daily Telegraph reported 'The 16 'pest' birds farmers can no longer kill after the licences were revoked Feral pigeon Crow Collared dove Lesser black-backed gull Jackdaw Jay Magpie Rook Woodpigeon Canada goose Monk parakeet Ring-necked parakeet Indian House Crow Herring gull Egyptian geese Sacred Ibises Advertisement Philip Dunne MP, who sat on the panel that approved Mr Juniper as chairman of Natural England told the Daily Telegraph: I was content with his appointment but I do agree that in the era of transparency it might have been appropriate if he was aware that Wild Justice was suing Natural England. He should perhaps have drawn it to the attention of the appointments committee that he collaborated on a book with one of the people who was involved in suing the body he was about to join. When he was grilled by MPs before his appointment Mr Juniper promised that his campaigning was in the past but he has since expressed support for rewilding on Twitter. The controversial process bans landowners from managing parts of the countryside to allow it to grown wild. In 2010 Mr Juniper ran to be the Green Partys prospective parliamentary candidate in Cambridge on a manifesto that promised to maintain the ban on hunting with dogs and extend to other blood sports, including the use of snares, and oppose badger culling. A Natural England spokesperson told the Telegraph: It is categorically incorrect to suggest that the new Chair was responsible for this decision. The decisions to review the licences, subsequent legal challenge and the corresponding decision to revoke the three general licences predate the start of Tony Junipers tenure as Chair. Chaos erupted on a flight from New Zealand with pilots being forced to land due a 'disruptive passenger'. The flight from Auckland to Santiago in Chile on Friday night turned back after 75 minutes into the 11-hour journey. Police were called to Auckland International Airport and the passenger was escorted from the plane. The flight from Auckland to Santiago in Chile on Friday night turned back after 75 minutes into the journey A police spokeswoman said the passenger remained in police custody on Saturday under the Immigration Act. It is not clear what the passenger was doing on the plane which forced the plane to turn back. However, an LATAM Airlines spokesman told Stuff no passengers or crew were harmed in the incident. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner was scheduled to depart Auckland International Airport at 6.27pm on Friday, it was about 750km when it turned back, landing at 9:30pm. One child has reportedly been shot in the head and another two wounded after Oklahoma police opened fire on a man suspected of robbing a restaurant. Authorities in Oklahoma say the three youngsters were wounded in the police shooting on Friday as law enforcement tried to approach the suspect, 21-year-old William Devaughn Smith. The children's mom said her daughter, four, was shot in the head and has 'a bullet in her brain'. Olivia Hill says three of her four children were hurt in the pickup shot at by police. Hugo police are reported to have confirmed one child was shot in the head. Olivia told KXII-TV: 'I mean, my children for crying out loud. Four innocent little children. My four-year-old daughter was shot in the head, and she has a bullet in her brain and my five-year-old has a skull fracture. 'My one-year-old baby has gunshot wounds on her face and my two-year-old wasn't touched with any bullets.' Authorities in Oklahoma say three children were wounded in a police shooting when an officer fired at a man in this pick up truck, who was suspected of robbing a restaurant A post on the Hugo police Facebook page at the time said a suspect 'approached an employee, pressed an object to their back and demanded money' at the Pizza Hut. Olivia Hill said three of her four children were in the pickup which police shot at Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Brook Arbeitman says gunfire broke out when detectives with the Hugo Police Department in southeastern Oklahoma were trying to apprehend Smith. Arbeitman says Smith was in a truck with the four children. The agency initially said two children were shot but later learned a third child was shot. Officials did not immediately release the names, ages and conditions of the children. Arbeitman says it's not clear if Smith fired at police or what prompted the shooting. He was treated and released from a hospital in Paris, Texas, and booked into jail there. Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Brook Arbeitman says gunfire broke out Friday when detectives with the Hugo Police Department in southeastern Oklahoma were trying to approach the suspect, 21-year-old William Devaughn Smith Police shared images of the man they were hunting in connection to the Pizza Hut robbery Arbeitman says it's not clear if Smith fired at police or what prompted the shooting. He was treated and released from a hospital in Paris, Texas, and booked into jail there The police chief in Paris, Texas, says his department arrested Smith on Friday. He is the suspect in the April 11 armed robbery of a Pizza Hut in Hugo, Oklahoma, about 30 miles north of Paris. A post on the Hugo police Facebook page at the time said a suspect 'approached an employee, pressed an object to their back and demanded money' at the Pizza Hut. Sharing images of the man they were hunting police wrote: 'Today, April 11th 2019 at approximately 8:05am a black male wearing black clothing entered the rear entrance to Pizza Hut located at 1109 E. Jackson St., approached an employee, pressed an object to their back and demanded money. 'After receiving the money, the suspect fled back the way he entered.' The distressing moment a dog was devoured by a crocodile while playing with another canine has been caught on film. Cindy-lou Togo from Cardwell in far north Queensland posted the horrific footage of the incident which occurred at Cardwell Beach on Thursday. She told the Cairns Post she didn't realise crocodiles numbers had increased in the area, despite knowing they frequently visited the beaches. Cindy-lou Togo from Cardwell in far north Queensland posted the horrific footage of the incident which occurred at Cardwell Beach on Thursday 'It's well known crocodile habitat,' she said. 'We fish the beach all the time with the family. We do see (crocodiles) up and down the beach.' The footage shows two dogs playing along the shoreline running after each other. The person recording could be heard saying, 'Oh how close is this'. As the dogs continue to play the man said, 'Sorry, it won't come near me', and seconds after the dog was snatched by the crocodile. A loud splash was heard as the man looked on in shock. 'F*** me man,' he said. He sighed heavily before angrily saying, 'f*** me, f*** me'. A Department of Environment and Science spokesman told the publication a 3.5metre crocodile was observed in the area and said any reptiles displaying dangerous behaviour will be removed. Beachgoers were also advised to keep their dogs on a leash. As the dogs continue to play the man said, 'Sorry, it won't come near me', and seconds after the dog was snatched by the crocodile Social media users expressed their shock at how easily the dog was snatched, saying it could have easily been a child. 'Oh darnt (sic) that could of easily been a kid bugger that sis,' one wrote. 'This is past a bloody joke..its got stop,' another wrote. 'Won't be long, a child will be taken then the finger pointing will start,' a third said. The Coalition government has pledged nearly $60 million towards drought stricken farmers and communities. Prime Minister Scott Morrison made the announcement alongside Nationals leader Michael McCormack and Agriculture Minister David Littleproud at a Dubbo farm, about 400kms north-west of Sydney. Of the promised $57.4 million, $36.4 million will permanently raise the asset threshold for farm household assistance payments to $5 million. Included in the substantial package is $7 million, to help rural financial counsellors - the 'angels' of the drought, according to Mr Morrison. Prime Minister Scott Morrison (centre) made the announcement alongside Nationals leader Michael McCormack (right) and Agriculture Minister David Littleproud (left, behind Mr Morrison) at a Dubbo farm, about 400kms north-west of Sydney Of the promised $57.4 million, $36.4 million will permanently raise the asset threshold for farm household assistance payments to $5 million (stock image of drought affected NSW) Included in the substantial package is $7 million, to help rural financial counsellors - the 'angels' of the drought, according to Mr Morrison (stock image of drought affected NSW) 'They have sat down around kitchen tables with station owners and others all around the country to help them prepare and get through this difficult period,' he said. Another 14 local councils in drought-affected regions will get $1 million grants, taking the total number to 110. Mr Morrison noted the money would go a long way to relieve stress for many families. The prime minister visited Kevin and Robyns West's farm, a 1,300 acre property at Dubbo to draw attention to the everyday struggle of farmers. The Wests are grappling with sustained dry conditions on their 1,300 acre property. The family has since been forced them to de-stock from 900 to 400 sheep to make loan and machinery payments. 'I'm not alone. I've got a few mates,' Kevin said at Globelands, his farm north of Dubbo. He's hoping last year's fertiliser will have hung around in the ground long enough to help this year's crop. 'He hasn't even looked at fertiliser this year - that's really worrying,' Mr McCormack told reporters after touring their farm. The Wests' grandson Darcy Joesephs, 2, helped his grandfather and the politicians throw some hay into a paddock for some appreciative cattle. Mr Morrison also used the opportunity to attack Labor for not supporting the $3.9 billion Future Drought Fund. Labor leader Bill Shorten said the opposition would look at the new package. 'We're up for helping,' he told reporters in Hobart. He pointed to Labor's commitment to put a floor price on milk and $100 million for irrigation projects in Tasmania. Pressure is mounting for authorities to appeal the sentence handed down to wife killer Borce Ristevski as frustration from police and the public swells. Outrage was sparked when Ristevski, 55, was handed a nine-year sentence this month for killing his wife Karen. With time served, he could be out on parole by his 60th birthday. Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton told 3AW radio on Friday the idea of appealing the sentence has been raised within his team. Scroll down for video Borce Ristevski (left) has already spent almost 500 days behind bars and could walk free before his 60th birthday due to his non-parole period of six years Convicted killers could be banned from parole if they refuse to explain how their victims died, following uproar wife-killer Borce Ristevski's (pictured with victim Karen, left, and daughter Sarah, right) jail term was too short Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton said many members of his team want the sentence to be appealed 'We've had a lot of police members that have spoken to me about that sentence and their view that it was something that we should appeal,' he said. 'We have had a number of police that have indicated their frustration with that amount (of jail time).' A decision on whether to lodge an appeal would be made by the public prosecutor. The Director of Public Prosecutions has 28 days from the time of sentencing to lodge an appeal. A petition calling for authorities to appeal the decision has more than 75,000 signatures. The petition claims the sentence is 'manifestly too short' and 'does not reflect community opinion'. The 55-year-old was sentenced in the Supreme Court of Victoria on Thursday to nine years jail for killing his wife Karen Supreme Court Justice Christopher Beale ruled that Ristevski's actions after the killing, when he played the role of grieving husband, could not be used to prove 'murderous intent' Ristevski killed his dress-shop owner wife on June 29 2016 before disposing her body in between two logs and covering it with foliage Ristevski pleaded guilty to manslaughter after the court deemed there was insufficient evidence to secure a murder conviction. The unexpected guilty plea in mid-March came after he vehemently denied involvement in Karen's death for almost three years. Ristevski has shed no light on what happened on June 29, 2016, when he killed his dress-shop owner wife before disposing her body in between two logs and covering it with foliage. Ms Ristevski was killed on June 29, 2016 at the family home and her decomposed body was found by chance eight months later between two logs in a national park on the outskirts of Melbourne. Since his sentencing, there have been calls for convicted killers to be banned from early release from jail if they refuse to explain how their victims died. A police source told the Herald Sun new laws could be considered by the Victorian government to ban killers from parole if they don't explain the circumstances of their victim's death. The source compared the potential changes to reforms passed in 2016 where killers were not eligible for early release if they did not share the location of the victim's body. 'Why is it any different to someone who won't help find a body? Why should he get parole if he doesn't provide answers? This tortures everyone,' the source said. 'It would not undermine the right to silence. It would have no impact on conviction.' An Alabama man and his ex-wife have been charged with capital murder and kidnapping in the death of the accused man's second wife. Authorities revealed on Friday that Samuel Sullivan, 42, and his first wife, Jennifer Sullivan, 44, of Wilmer, Alabama, were charged in connection with the death of Terri Sullivan, Sammy's estranged wife who he was said to be in the process of divorcing, according to WSFA. Terri, a nurse, is believed to have been killed after she was kidnapped at about 4.30am on January 20. Her badly burned body was found on March 28, inside her car, which had been set on fire and left in the woods in Mobile County, Alabama. Samuel Sullivan, 42 (left), and his first wife, Jennifer Sullivan, 44 (right), were charged with capital murder and kidnapping in connection with the death of Terri Sullivan Terri Sullivan, Samuel's estranged wife, is believed to have been murdered on January 20. Her badly burned body was found in her car in the woods on March 28 Court records indicated that Terri died from blunt force trauma, NBC 15 reported. According to the deposition, Samuel and Jennifer bought cell phones and activated them at the Wilmer home that they appeared to be sharing, AL.com reported. They turned the phones on at 2.38am on January 20 at Terri's address in Tibbie, Alabama, where 'evidence indicated that Terri was kidnapped/murdered.' One of the cell phones was then tracked going back to the Wilmer home, while the other phone veered off to the location where Terri's burned car was eventually found. Terri's body was found inside her burned rental car. It was determined that she died from blunt force trauma on the day that was kidnapped Samuel and Jennifer were arrested in Wilmer and transported to Washington County jail on Thursday, where they were charged with kidnapping and given a $60,000 bond. Several hours later, their capital murder charges were added on. Authorities said that the divorce dispute between Samuel and Terri over two properties appeared to lead to Terri's murder. A gag order has been put in place to prevent any information from being given out about the case. Samuel and Jennifer are expected to appear in court on Monday morning, according to FOX10. A Massachusetts judge, who is accused of helping a twice-deported illegal alien evade Immigration and Customs Enforcement, used a back door to help the man slip away, court documents have revealed. Judge Shelley M Richmond Joseph and trial court officer Wesley MacGregor are accused of conspiring to help Jose Medina-Perez evade the ICE agent at Newton District Court on April 2, 2018. Joseph ordered the courtroom recording device to be turned off for 52 seconds while she and Medina-Perez's lawyer had a conversation about getting him out of the courthouse instead of handing him over to an ICE officer, according to the indictment. MacGregor allegedly used his access badge to release Medina-Perez through a rear door. District Court Judge Shelley M. Richmond Joseph was seen crying when she left federal court in Boston Thursday Joseph is facing obstruction of justice charges for allegedly helping a man in the country illegally evade immigration officials as he left her Newton, Mass., courthouse after a hearing in 2018 Joseph also faces obstruction of a federal proceeding charge, according to the indictment. Joseph was seen crying when she left federal court in Boston on Thursday. According to CBS, Joseph's attorney Tom Hoopes said outside court: 'This prosecution is absolutely political, Shelley Joseph is absolutely innocent.' The American Civil Liberties Union also released a statement alleging the charges were the result of President Donald Trump's 'anti-immigrant agenda'. Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey deemed that the prosecution was a 'radical and politically-motivated attack on our state and the independence of our courts'. Medina-Perez, who had been deported on two prior occasions, was arrested four days earlier for drug possession and being a fugitive from justice in Pennsylvania. Medina-Perez remains at large. ICE became aware of his arrest after his fingerprints were processed and an order was issued for a federal immigration detainer. Medina-Perez (seen above), who had been deported on two prior occasions, was arrested four days earlier for drug possession and being a fugitive from justice in Pennsylvania Prosecutors say Joseph participated by creating a pretext for the defendant to be brought downstairs for 'further interview' so he could be released through that door, the indictment said. She is seen leaving court yesterday To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Hearst Privacy Policy Prosecutors say Joseph participated by creating a pretext for the defendant to be brought downstairs for 'further interview' so he could be released through the door, the indictment said. Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling announced the charges against Joseph and MacGregor on Thursday. 'The allegations in today's indictment involve obstruction by a sitting judge, that is intentional interference with the enforcement of federal law, and that is a crime,' Lelling said. 'We cannot pick and choose the federal laws we follow, or use our personal views to justify violating the law.' Joseph and MacGregor face charges of obstruction of justice, conspiracy to obstruct justice and obstruction of a federal proceeding, according to the indictment. MacGregor is also charged with perjury on suspicion of giving false testimony to a federal grand jury that was reviewing the case. Joseph and trial court officer Wesley McGregor allegedly conspired to sneak undocumented immigrant Jose Medina-Perez out of the Newton County courthouse (above) on April 2, 2018 ICE issued a statement following Joseph's indictment. Todd M. Lyons, acting field office director of ICE's enforcement and removal operations in Boston, said: 'The actions of the judge in this incident are a detriment to the rule of law and highly offensive to the law enforcement officers of ICE who swear an oath to uphold our nation's immigration laws. 'In order for our criminal justice system to work fairly for all people, it must be protected against judicial officials who would seek to replace the implementation of our laws with their own ideological views or politically-driven agenda. I would also like to thank U.S. Attorney Lelling for his local leadership and his continuous and faithful support of the ERO law enforcement mission.' Bill Shorten was enjoying a more relaxed day on the campaign trail as he strolled around picturesque markets and took in an art exhibition. But the Opposition leader's smile faded as he was confronted by angry Hobart local Sandi Fitzgerald who called him a 'p***k'. The white-haired woman was seen gesturing aggressively at Mr Shorten as he met with voters in the Tasmanian capital's famous Salamanca Markets on Saturday. Opposition leader Bill Shorten was confronted by angry Hobart local Sandi Fitzgerald who called him a 'p***k' as he visited Salamanca Markets However, the awkward moment turned to laughter as Ms Fitzgerald realised she'd mistaken him for his polar opposite. 'I apologise for that, but I thought he was Scott Morrison,' she told the media pack, insisting she was actually a fan and would definitely be voting for him. Mr Shorten laughed off the encounter and continued sampling the market's wares including chowing down on homemade butter curry and sipping local gin. He also tried some Bruny Island oysters, but declined an offer of an extra large mollusc from the stall keeper. The Labor leader earlier pledged $120 million to fund Tasmanian tourism projects during a visit to the nearby Museum of Old and New Art. Mr Shorten laughed off the encounter and continued sampling the market's wares including chowing down on homemade butter curry and sipping local gin He also tried some Bruny Island oysters, but declined an offer of an extra large mollusc from the stall keeper Along the way Mr Shorten placed some change into a busker's box as he played guitar Mr Shorten's promised spend included offering professional gambler David Walsh $50 million to upgrade the museum. Labor holds four of the five lower house seats in Tasmania, with independent MP Andrew Wilkie comfortably controlling the last, which takes in the MONA museum. The opposition snatched three of its seats - Bass, Lyons and Braddon - from the Liberals in 2016 and is now fighting to retain them. It holds the north-west seat of Braddon by a slim 1.7 per cent margin, and knows the unpredictable electorates of Bass and Lyons also turn on a dime. The Labor leader earlier pledged $120 million to fund Tasmanian tourism projects during a visit to the nearby Museum of Old and New Art (pictured) At least 700 Muslims have fled their homes in Sri Lanka fearing for their lives as tensions flare, as police raided a 'suicide vest factory' last night. Police said three men blew themselves up as a blaze of gunfire erupted when they approached a jihadist hide-out near the eastern town of Kalmunai on Friday. The battle took place in the area of Sainthamaruthu, 200 miles from Colombo where 253 people were killed in luxury hotels and churches on Easter Sunday. It comes as hundreds of Muslims were displaced as hateful slogans were reportedly plastered across the city of Negombo. Soldiers evacuate an injured child after they raid what believed to be an Islamist safe house in the eastern town of Kalmunai on Friday A Sri Lankan girl is rushed to hospital after she was found at the site of an explosion and a gunbattle in Kalmunai Security personnel display an ISIS banner after their raid on the safe-house in the eastern town of Kalmunai on Friday Sri Lankan police and army soldiers secure the site on Saturday morning after the ferocious gun battle and explosions last night A group of 500 Muslim citizens fled from the port city to an unnamed area for sanctuary, the Guardian reported. There were signs up saying, 'We don't need Pakistan refugees,' and the Muslims claimed they were attacked. One activist told the Guardian: 'Weve seen a few attacks on houses, some refugees were beaten and some stones were thrown as well so people were scared to stay in their houses.' The group are Ahmadi Muslims who were forced to flee their native country due to sectarianism, but now say they face similar hatred in Sri Lanka. Violence erupted ferociously again on Friday as three women and six children were killed amid explosions and gun fire in Sainthamaruthu. As well as the three suspected jihadists who blew themselves up within the safe-house, another three suspects were discovered dead outside the property. Police backed by troops exchanged fire with those inside the house for over an hour, a military official said, adding that the bodies were recovered early Saturday following a search operation. 'Troops retaliated and raided the safe house where a large cache of explosives had been stored,' a military spokesman said in a statement. The location was a suicide vest manufacturing hide-out, News First reported. Earlier on Friday evening, a large bomb-making operation was uncovered at a raid in the Samanthurai area - around five miles away from the scene of the shootout. Sri Lanka's security forces said the location was believed to have been used by Islamist radicals to record a video pledging allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi before carrying out the deadly Easter attacks. 'We have found the backdrop the group used to record their video,' the police said in a statement. There were 150 sticks of explosive gelignite, 100,000 ball bearings, ISIS uniforms and an ISIS flag, as well as a drone camera. Army officers pose with an Islamist flag after their ferocious raid on the safe-house on Friday evening Cables were recovered along with other bomb making in the Samanthurai before the shootout took place Local media reported the police took hold of a massive haul of bomb-making equipment in the Samanthurai area, around five miles away from the shootout A drone camera was uncovered as part of the raid on the bomb making operation at Samanthurai Police believed the Islamic State uniforms were similar to those worn by the eight fighters for the film they made ahead of Sunday's attacks. The video was released by ISIS two days after the bombings. Photos showed what appeared to be large canisters of fuel as well as detonating devices and tubing believed to have been part of a bomb manufacturing operation, News First said. The news comes as the country remains on high alert since the suicide bombings on churches and hotels in which more than 250 people were killed on Easter Sunday. Police and the army have been conducting raids as they gather intelligence about the perpetrators and their supporters. Islamic State has claimed responsibility. An ISIS banner is held up by Sri Lankan security personnel following their raid on suspected terrorists in the Samanthurai area on Friday evening Local media reported 100,000 ball bearings were uncovered during the raid at Samanthurai as well as 100,000 sticks of explosive gelignite The Special Task Force uncovered a suicide manufacturing hide-out as they engaged with suspected terrorists on Friday (pictured: bomb-making equipment recovered earlier on Friday evening in the Samanthurai area around five miles away) The government has admitted major intelligence lapses, although Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said he was unaware of any warnings ahead of the attacks, in a sign of the rift between him and President Maithripala Sirisena. 'If we had any inkling, and we had not taken action, I would have handed in my resignation immediately,' he told the BBC. 'But what do you do when you are out of the loop?' Sirisena tried to sack Wickremesinghe last year, and experts believe the feud could have played a part in Sri Lanka's failure to act on intelligence warnings given weeks before the attacks. Police are hunting for a killer on the run after a man was shot dead at a park in South Melbourne on Friday night. A Carnegie man, 41, was gunned down in Fawkner Park, South Yarra, about 7.40pm on Friday. Emergency services attempted to revive the man, but he died at the scene. A large police presence, aided by SES volunteers, is still combing the park for clues, but hadn't confirmed as of Saturday afternoon whether they had identified any suspects. SES volunteers (pictured) aid in the search for clues following a fatal shooting in Melboune's popular Fawkner Park on Friday night A large police presence, aided by SES volunteers (pictured) is still searching the park in South Yarra, Melbourne Police have scaled back the crime scene which had originally extended across much of the park and playing fields. Detectives say they are satisfied with the search and a number of items of interest have been collected for further inspection. It is not known what led to the attack, and the victim has not yet been formally identified. A local, Freedy Coory, was taking her dog for a walk when she heard what sounded like gunfire. 'It sounded like four shots - bang, bang, bang, bang,' Ms Coory told the Herald Sun. Soon after she heard ambulances go past. Other residents also heard loud noises coming from the park at the time of the incident. SES volunteers (pictured) comb the grounds of Fawkner Park, Melbourne, for clues following the shooting death there of a man on Friday night. Homicide detectives say a number items of interest have been recovered Fawkner Park in South Yarra, Melbourne remains a crime scene after a man was fatally shot in the park on Friday night One male resident, who didn't want to be named, told the Herald Sun: 'I thought it was someone banging on the downstairs door. 'I now know they were gunshots. This sort of thing doesn't usually happen around here,' he said. The shooting came as another unrelated incident in Melbourne suburb, Reservoir, in which a man in his 20s was stabbed. The man was taken to hospital with life threatening injuries after he was stabbed by an unknown assailant about 7pm. He remains in hospital in a serious but stable condition, and police are searching for the alleged attacker who fled the scene in dark clothing and was not known to the victim. Fawkner Park, Melbourne, was the scene of a shooting death after a man, 41, was gunned down there on Friday night at around 7.40pm The shooting and stabbing are the latest in a series of violent incidents which have plagued Melbourne over the last several months. In March, a man was shot dead, and two others injured, at the Melbourne Pavilion in the inner city suburb of Kensington. In November last year, a man stumbled into a service station after being shot in the face in Melbournes west. The man, in his 40s, survived the shooting. Two men were killed in another shooting in Melbourne earlier this month. Richard Arow, 28, died almost a week after the incident, which police believe was connected to outlaw motorcycle gangs and Middle Eastern organised crime groups. His death followed that of security guard, Arron Khalid Osmani, 37, who was shot during the same attack at Melbourne night club, Prahrans Love Machine. Disgusting footage of a man tormenting a defenceless echidna by prodding it with a stick has emerged online. The 'gutless attack' sparked outrage when the footage was shared on Facebook by a Sydney man. In the video, a man can be heard saying in Arabic 'someone tell me how you eat it' as he whacks the native animal with the large stick. The gutless attack sparked outrage when the footage was shared on Facebook by a Sydney man 'Do they slaughter it? Do they shoot it?' he asks. 'I'm going to try and flip it.' The echidna then curls up in a bid to protect itself. 'Now where are you trying to go? How are we going to take it home?' the man asks. After flipping the protected animal onto its back he then pokes it between its claw. Animal activists have slammed the man, calling him cruel as the echidna had no way of protesting itself. Sydney Wildlife co-ordinator Carolyn Martin told the Daily Telegraph it was a 'particularly gutless attack on a defenceless animal'. After flipping the protected animal onto its back he then pokes it between its claw 'You can see this from the way he tried to flatten himself into the ground to protect his soft underbody. 'When the perpetrator eventually turns him over, his only means of protection was to try and fold his legs in.' All native birds, reptiles, amphibians and mammals, but not including dingoes, are protected in NSW by the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016. If caught, the man could face a $22,000 fine. A mother has been charged with assault after an argument over a sandcastle turned violent in the playground of an affluent primary school. The scrap erupted at Dalkeith Primary School in Perth's upmarket western suburbs as parents were picking up their children about 4pm on March 14. A young boy smashed another child's sandcastle, leading to the aspiring builder's mother giving the destroyer a stern telling off. The scrap erupted near the playground of Dalkeith Primary School (pictured) in Perth's upmarket western suburbs as parents were picking up their children This invoked the wrath of the second boy's mother who swore at her and prompted a third mother to intervene before the situation got out of hand. 'It will be alleged the victim, a woman in her 30s, saw this and positioned herself in between the two,' WA Police said. 'The victim looked away and the woman allegedly struck her on the neck.' Police were called and a 41-year-old woman, allegedly the mother of the boy who destroyed the sandcastle, was charged with common assault. The school operates as an independent public primary and was founded in 1938 Dalkeith is among the 20 richest suburbs in Australia with a median annual household income of almost $200,000 - three times the national figure. The school operates as an independent public primary and was founded in 1938. The mother was given a summons to face Perth Magistrate's Court on May 24. Sir David Attenborough showed his support for striking students and called their outrage 'certainly justified' Sir David Attenborough has showed his support for students striking over climate change and called their outrage 'certainly justified'. The broadcaster and natural historian branded critics of the school strikes cynics in a podcast interview with former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres. During the podcast, called Outrage and Optimism, he told Ms Figueres: 'Young people understand the simple discoveries of science about our dependence upon the natural world. 'My generation is no great example for understanding we have done terrible things.' In the interview, reported by the Guardian, he said he couldn't bear to think of the world he was leaving to his grandchildren because 'the signs aren't good'. He added: 'I'm just coming up to 93, and so I don't have many more years around here. I find it difficult to think beyond that as the signs aren't good. 'Young people may lack experience but they also have clear sight. They can see perhaps more clearly than the rest of us who have been around for some time.' Greta Thunberg, 16, initiated the school strikes and is currently on her 36th week of protesting in her home country, Sweden. Last Tuesday she told UK politicians: 'You lied to us' She recevied criticism for accusing the British government of 'very creative carbon accounting' His support comes after the 16-year-old who started the movement, Greta Thunberg, received disapproval on her recent trip to the UK during which she accused the Government of 'very creative carbon accounting'. The Swedish teenager, who was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize last month, pointed out that the government claims greenhouse gas emissions have fallen by 42 per cent since 1990. But this figure leaves out emissions from flights, shipping and imports. She claimed the actual amount of reduction was more likely to be 10 per cent. Extinction Rebellion activists staged 10 days of peaceful protests in London which ended on Thursday The protests saw over 1,100 people get arrested and traffic was blocked in Oxford Circus, Waterloo Bridge and Parliament Square During an address to politicians in parliament last Tuesday she said: 'You lied to us. You gave us false hope'. The school strikes are predicted to continue on Friday with protests expected in 485 towns and cities in 72 countries, according to Fridays for Future - which logs all strikes that happen on a Friday. Extinction Rebellion protests came to an end on Thursday, after 10 days of peaceful protests saw more than 1,100 arrests and traffic blocked in Oxford Circus, Waterloo Bridge and Parliament Square. Ms Figueres said: 'Greta and the other young people are justifiably furious with us. They say we have been at this for 30 years and we still haven't solved this.' A remote Northern Territory work-for-the-dole services provider has published details of Centrelink clients on its Facebook page in what is being called 'a horrendous breach of privacy'. Dozens of names of those required to attend client meetings were uploaded by the job service provider, the Arnhem Land Progress Aboriginal Corporation (ALPA), to a public Facebook page. The ALPA which is part of the Government's remote employment scheme, the Community Development Program (CDP), set up the page apparently with the intention of uploading such lists. The names of nearly 50 people from the remote NT community of Galiwinku (pictured) were shared on a Facebook page by a work-for-the-dole service provider Labor's social services spokesperson, Linda Burney (pictured) has called the incident 'an horrendous breach of privacy' The posts, which were also uploaded to another local Facebook page, have since been deleted. Nearly 50 people from the remote community of Galiwinku, located 500 kilometres east of Darwin, in the Northern Territory, were affected. The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, responsible for the Community Development Program, said it was 'satisfied' privacy responsibilities had been met by the ALPA. An ALPA spokeswoman told ABC.net that they did not believe 'this is a breach of confidentiality' and that all the CDP participants 'give media consent when they commence as a participant.' But Labor's social services spokesperson Linda Burney called it 'a horrendous breach of privacy' that 'has serious implications for participants.' 'The reality is that the government's cruel and chaotic mismanagement of this broken and discriminatory program has made incidences such as this inevitable.' A remote NT work-for-the-dole service provider published details of Centrelink clients on a Facebook page 'The government needs to urgently verify whether anyone had been placed at risk,' she said in a statement. The ABC reported that a CDP 'insider' had also denounced the uploads, and like Ms Burney, has said the lists could place job seekers at risk. 'If a person has a family violence order in place to protect them, then perhaps the perpetrator would know where she was,' the source, who requested anonymity, told the ABC. 'It advertised a person is accessing welfare services, and unfortunately in Australia there's discrimination against people accessing welfare services.' 'People can be bullied for being unemployed,' they said. Chair of the Electronic frontiers Australia, Lyndsey Jackson said the situation was 'extraordinary.' The Community Development Program is under fire again after one of its service providers posted the names of Centrelink clients from the remote community of Galiwinku,(pictured) in the Northern Territory to a Facebook page 'Extraordinary on two levels - that the organisation thought this was acceptable and that the department doubled down in their response,' she told AAP. She said there was a disregard about how putting information in the public domain could have a lasting effect and asked why it was not a breach of the privacy act. Members of the the union movement, which strongly opposes the current remote, work for the dole model, have also criticised the breach of privacy incident. Union official, Lara Watson, from the Australian Council of Trade Unions, said: 'We are at a loss as to why anyone would post about workers' appointments online.' 'We were shocked at the publication of names on a social media platform.' she said. The CDP operates across most of Australia's land mass at a cost of about $300 million annually and has already come under fire for its operations. The ABC reported earlier this month on claims of safety breaches by a West Australian provider, while the scheme has also been slammed because participants are forced to work more hours than non-remote job-seekers. Cypriot police are searching for the body of a six-year-old girl after the island's 'first serial killer' allegedly confessed to murdering her mother and five other females. The 35-year-old Greek army officer - named locally as Nicos Metaxas - showed investigators where he had dumped a body in a well near an army firing range outside Nicosia, on Thursday. Earlier police sources said he confessed to killing five women and two girls. All but one of the women was of Asian descent and he met at least two on dating websites. A vigil was held last night where people questioned the authorities over misogyny and racism, claiming they failed to properly investigate the missing women. The Greek army captain named locally as Nicos Metaxas, 35, posing for a selfie in this undated photo Mary Rose Tiburcio, 38 (left) was discovered on April 14 at a mine-shaft, while her six-year-old daughter Sierra is feared to also be dead Maricar Valtez Arquiola, 31 (left) and Arian Palanos Lozano, 28, (right) - have been named by Cypriot media as victims Cypriot media say the soldier is also suspected of killing Romanian mother Livia Florentina Bunea, 36, (left) and her eight-year-old daughter Elena Natalia (right) who went missing in 2016 Protesters hold banners and candles as they demonstrate in support of the victims of a suspected serial killer in front of the presidential palace in Nicosia on Friday The discovery of Filipino woman Mary Rose Tiburcio, 38, in an abandoned mine-shaft on April 14 triggered the investigation which led to the captain's arrest. Tiburcio and her six-year-old daughter had been missing since May of last year. Investigators zeroed in on the captain as a suspect and arrested him after scouring Tiburcio's online messages. While investigating her death and searching for Tiburcio's daughter, police found another body in the flooded mine-shaft 20 miles west of the capital, Nicosia. Cypriot media have identified the victim as 28-year-old Arian Palanas Lozano, also from the Philippines. One victim's naked body was bound and wrapped in white sheet in the mine-shaft, Neos Kosmos reported. The army officer suspect named locally as Nicos Metaxas, 35 On Thursday, the suspect told them while under questioning about four more victims and gave directions to a military firing range. The body of a woman, who according to the suspect was of Nepalese or Indian descent, was found buried there. From the suspect's statements and information from the investigation, Cypriot police think the other three victims they know about so far are a 31-year-old Filipino woman who has been missing since December 2017, Maricar Valtez Arquiola, and a Romanian mother and daughter. Cypriot media identified the mother as Livia Florentina Bunea, 36, and her eight-year-old daughter as Elena Natalia Bunea. The two are believed to have been missing since September 2016. The suspect reportedly met at least two of the women on dating website Badoo. Cyprus police later told a court that the soldier had admitted to strangling one of the victim's after having sex with her. On Friday it was revealed five British law enforcement officials - including a coroner, a psychiatrist and investigators who specialise in multiple homicides - were coming to Cyprus to help with the investigation. A police truck, rear left, carries a body found after Cypriot investigators and police officers searched at a field outside of Orounta village, near the capital Nicosia on Thursday A diver is pictured entering a manmade lake to search for bodies in the village of Xiliatos, outside of the capital Nicosia Firefighters and investigators are pictured searching the lake. A sole diver connected to an air hose was also sent in, descending into the deep emerald-green waters filling the crater Firefighters and investigators search the manmade lake near the village of Xiliato for the remains of more victims outside Nicosia on Friday Hundreds of people turned up for a protest vigil outside Cyprus' presidential palace on Friday to mourn and to question if authorities failed to adequately investigate when foreign workers were reported missing. The protest's organiser used a bullhorn to read out the victims' names as well as those of other missing women, and others at the memorial shouted 'Where are they?' in response. Some participants held placards decrying 'sexist, misogynist and racist' attitudes about women who work as housekeepers or in low-paying service jobs. In a poignant moment, a group of tearful Filipino women held lighted candles and bowed their heads in prayer for the three women and one child of Filipino descent who are believed to be among the victims. President Nicos Anastasiades said Friday that he shared the public's revulsion at 'murders that appear to have selectively targeted foreign women who are in our country to work.' A solemn protest was held outside the gates of the presidential palace in Nicosia on Friday Protesters hold banners as they demonstrate in support of the victims of a suspected serial killer in front of the presidential palace in Nicosia on Friday Investigators were seen diving down into the manmade lake on Friday in the search for suspected victims Cyprus police intensified their searches today for more victims at locations where an army officer, who authorities say killed five women and two girls, had dumped their bodies Cypriot police are pictured guarding the search site with a cordon. The case came to light after a German tourist taking photographs of the mine spotted the first body 'Such instincts are contrary to our culture's traditions and values,' Anastasiades said in a statement from China, where he was on an official visit. Cyprus police have faced criticism from immigrant rights activists who said they didn't act quickly enough to locate the victims. The country has 80 unsolved missing person cases, going back to 1990. Police chief Zacharias Chrysostomou said a three-member panel has been assigned to review whether officers followed correct protocols in their handling of recent cases. Police in Cyprus are pictured searching a mine in Mitsero village, near the capital Nicosia. The mines-turned-lakes are swollen after record rainfall in Cyprus this winter Since April 14, the police have recovered three bodies, all Filipina domestic workers. The stepped-up search at the lakes - water-filled craters of former mines now normally used as picnic sites. A mine in Mitsero village that authorities are searching is pictured above As the president spoke, investigators intensified the search for bodies of victims at the firing range, a reservoir and a man-made lake near the abandoned copper pyrite mine. On Friday, police spokesman Andreas Angelides again defended how the force dealt with missing person reports. He said investigations would have been more effective if lawmakers had taken the department's recommendation to give law enforcement agencies legal authority to access a missing person's personal data, telephone records and emails. Advertisement Sri Lankan police are hunting a man in a distinctive red T-shirt who is suspected of being the Easter Sunday bombers handler, police sources have revealed. CCTV footage obtained by MailOnline shows the man apparently acting as a lookout for the terrorist who attacked St Sebastians Church, killing more than 100. Investigators are analysing the footage, hoping that it will help them root out the extensive Islamist cell that remains a threat on the island. This CCTV footage shows a man in a red t-shirt acting suspiciously moments before the suicide bomber detonates his bomb during an Easter church service in Colombo, Sri Lanka Police in Colombo believe this man may have been acting as a lookout for the gang The CCTV footage shows the man leaving the area in advance of the bomb's detonation The recording shows the bomber scouting out the church while the alleged handler watches from behind a pillar, sending and receiving messages on his phone. The bomber is seen wearing the backpack containing the explosives and nervously checking his phone for new instructions. As he passes his suspected handler, he glances surreptitiously at him. He disappears down the street before coming back into view and making his final journey to the church to blow it up. Just before the bomb goes off, the man in the red T-shirt vanishes down the road. Then there is an explosion and panic fills the street. This suspect looks very subtle and professional, the police inspector in charge of the investigation told MailOnline, on condition of anonymity. It is certain that the bomber did not act alone and we want to trace this man urgently. The suicide bomber, pictured left, detonated his device moments after this image was taken Sri Lankan officials are certain that the bombers received logistical support from other people The attacker can be seen wearing a large backpack as he reaches out to touch the little girl, who is believed to be Dilip Fernando's granddaughter. He said yesterday: 'At the end of the mass [my family] saw one young man go into the church in with a heavy bag. He touched my granddaughter's head on the way past. It was the bomber' This clip, taken from inside St Sebastian's Church in Negombo, shows the suspected suicide bombing walking inside, moments before he detonated a device killing dozens of worshippers He may have been directing just this one single attack, or he may have been coordinating and orchestrating all of the simultaneous attacks from that vantage point. A local clergyman, Father Neville, who gave evidence to the police, said that the suspect was a local man who vanished after the atrocity. But he insisted that the alleged handler was a local man who had no connection to the crime, claiming that he had gone out of town on business. The revelations will add to the sense of unease in Sri Lanka, where arrests continue to be made as the authorities struggle to contain the fallout from the crimes. The mastermind of the attacks, Moulvi Zahran Hashim, is understood to be dead but 10 members of the family have not been seen since four days before the Easter Sunday attacks. The new CCTV comes after chilling footage captured the same suicide bomber patting a little girl on the head moments before he launched his attack at the church in Negombo. The terrorist can be seen sauntering towards the place of worship while wearing a large backpack containing a 'crude device made locally' that was used to massacre Christian worshippers. It is believed the clip shows the attacker touching the granddaughter of Dilip Fernando, who said: 'At the end of the mass [my family] saw one young man go into the church in with a heavy bag. He touched my granddaughter's head on the way past. It was the bomber.' The Archbishop of Colombo said at least 110 people died in the St Sebastian's blast, the deadliest in the series of attacks against churches and luxury hotels. 15 people including six children were killed after Sri Lankan forces raided a suspected ISIS safe house on Friday night Officials said at least three bombs were detonated during the raid which killed six children One girl and a woman survived a deadly gun battle between ISIS-linked terrorists and government forces who were raiding a suspected militant safe house. A total of 15 people including six children died during the raid where the terrorists detonated explosive devices as commandos stormed the building. Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara said Saturday that the woman and girl are critically injured and are being treated at a nearby hospital in Ampara District. Sri Lankan security forces have been clearing the safe house following a Friday night gunbattle between soldiers and suspected militants. Authorities say the militants set off three explosions and opened fire. At least three bombs were detonated during the raid. Soldiers recovered a cache of explosives, detonators and 'suicide kits' after clearing the house of terrorists. Thousands of lions are being bred to be killed by callous hunters or slaughtered so their bones can be turned into medicines and trinkets sold for huge sums in the Far East. Some of the animals are shot in fenced enclosures by wealthy trophy hunters including Britons who pay thousands of pounds to kill them for kicks. Many more are trucked to squalid slaughterhouses and held in appalling conditions until they are shot in the head and butchered. The repulsive industry, which is rife in South Africa, has been exposed in a year-long investigation by former Tory peer Lord Ashcroft, who last night accused the British Government of being complicit in the trade because of its failure to ban the import of trophy skins. Thousands of lions are being bred to be killed by callous hunters or slaughtered so their bones can be turned into medicines and trinkets sold for huge sums in the Far East, a year-long investigation by former Tory peer Lord Ashcroft has revealed. Simba, a majestic 11-year-old, was at the centre of Lord Ashcrofts probe (above: he is shown off by British hunter Miles Wakefield) His expose ended in victory as one lion was rescued from death at the hunters hands, and released into the wild in joyous scenes last night. Lord Ashcrofts probe compiled by a team of undercover investigators is published in The Mail on Sunday today and also reveals that: 54 lions were killed at one squalid slaughterhouse in just two days; Lion skins are being smuggled into the US via Britain, hidden inside deer skins so they are not detected by customs officials; Lions and tigers are being crossbred in captivity in a sickening bid to squeeze greater profits from the barbaric bone trade, conservationists claim; A British City worker paid thousands of pounds to shoot a magnificent lion with tranquiliser darts in an apparent breach of South African law. That lion, a majestic 11-year-old called Simba, was at the centre of Lord Ashcrofts probe. The tragic creature was bred in captivity and touted to foreign hunters looking for prime specimens to slaughter. But thanks to the actions of the undercover investigators, Simbas life has been saved and yesterday the noble beast was released into a large enclosure at a secret location. Video footage showed him bounding out of a trailer and into a thick area of bush as one of his rescuers cried out: Yay Simba! The rescue came with just hours to spare, as a source reported that a professional hunter was on his way to kill Simba at the very moment he was being rescued. The lion was initially offered to one of the investigators last year, when he posed as a hunter wanting to bag a wildlife trophy. When the hunter backed out having had no intention of killing such a magnificent beast Simba was instead offered to Miles Wakefield, a British hunter, who paid around 3,000 to pursue him through an enclosed hunting area before shooting the animal with two powerful tranquiliser darts. Heartbreaking images of the harrowing incident are published in todays Mail on Sunday, showing a terrified and confused Simba staggering through the bush before finally collapsing in the dust. Thanks to the actions of the undercover investigators, Simbas life has been saved and yesterday the noble beast was released into a large enclosure at a secret location Mr Wakefield, 48, this weekend said he believed he was participating in a legal conservation operation, adding that he was misled by the safari bosses who organised the hunt. Lord Ashcrofts operators spent the last two months trying to extricate the lion from a ranch owned by professional hunter Freddie Scheepers. Mr Scheepers, however, kept dragging his feet. It took an offer of $2,000 (1,500) to speed up the process, and on Thursday a transport company and vet arrived at the ranch on the edge of the Kalahari Desert to humanely drug and move the animal. They were finally given the all-clear to move him at 7am on Friday. Unconscious, he was lifted into a trailer and taken to safety, via an 11-hour journey. Lord Ashcrofts investigation heaps pressure on the Government to close a loophole that allows the import of hunting trophies of captive lions. A source close to Environment Secretary Michael Gove said he would be chairing a meeting on the issue in the next fortnight. Operation Simba: Farms where lions are bred to be slaughtered and the Britons revelling in sickening trade By Lord Ashcroft THE sickening cruelty and horror of lion farming in which thousands of Africas most noble beasts are bred to be mercilessly slaughtered for their bones or as hunting trophies can be revealed today after a groundbreaking undercover investigation. My year-long probe lifts the lid on barbaric and illegal practices at the heart of South Africas deeply shameful lion trade. The investigation, exclusively revealed in The Mail on Sunday today, shows how up to 12,000 lions bred in captivity are destined either to be shot by wealthy hunters in what is often a pathetic charade of a hunt or killed in squalid abattoirs so their bones can be exported to the Far East. The investigation, exclusively revealed in The Mail on Sunday today, shows how up to 12,000 lions bred in captivity are destined either to be shot by wealthy hunters. Wealthy clients are emailed brochures with photographs of captive male lions, so they can choose which one to kill. Prices range from 10,000 (like the above lion) to 42,300 and depend on the size and quality of the mane The booming trade in lion skeletons is worth tens of millions of pounds a year and meets an insatiable desire in South East Asia and China for traditional medicines, including aphrodisiacs. Britains complicity in lion farming is also laid bare by my undercover investigators, which includes ex-Special Forces soldiers, who have exposed how hunters and middlemen from this country are involved in the despicable trade. It also shines a light on how the UK Governments failure to close a glaring loophole that allows the import of captive-bred lion trophies into Britain encourages the international smuggling of lion skins. Following this expose, I will vigorously lobby Ministers to follow the example of the US and France and ban such imports. The investigations shocking revelations include how: Wealthy clients are emailed brochures with photographs of captive male lions, so they can choose which one to kill. Prices range from 10,000 to 42,300 and depend on the size and quality of the mane; One British hunter was filmed shooting an exhausted lion with tranquiliser darts. It is illegal to dart a lion without a vet present. The lion had been chased by a vehicle around a fenced hunting enclosure before the grinning City worker from Essex shot the terrified beast from ten yards away; The UK representative of a South African safari company advised an undercover investigator how he could bypass a US ban on importing captive-bred lion trophies by legally importing it to the UK, before hiding the lions skin inside that of a dead red deer and moving it on to America; More than 50 lions were slaughtered for their bones at a so-called eco-farm in South Africas Free State province in just two days; Lions were kept in tiny cages and suffered appalling conditions in the farms blood-stained slaughterhouse before their deaths. Horrific pictures showed lion skeletons and innards littering the floor, while discarded body parts were piled high in overflowing black plastic bags on a trailer outside; In what is believed to be an obscene bid to maximise profits, breeders in South Africa are thought to be cross-breeding lions with tigers and creating hybrid offspring. The abusive process, which can lead to birth defects and the early death of cubs, boosts bone weight, earning the breeders more money; British tourists are unwittingly helping encourage the horrific trade by paying to play with cubs or to go walking with adolescent lions. The booming trade in lion skeletons is worth tens of millions of pounds a year and meets an insatiable desire in South East Asia and China for traditional medicines, including aphrodisiacs. Above: Hunters would pay 12,300 to shoot this lion South Africa is the only country in the world that permits large-scale lion breeding, with the majestic animals kept in fenced enclosures or cages at more than 200 farms and compounds. Codenamed Operation Simba, the undercover probe discovered that there are now believed to be 4,000 more captive-bred lions in South Africa than previously thought. Astonishingly, the 12,000 animals that have been bred and raised in captivity outnumber wild lions in the country almost four to one. Young cubs, often only a few days old, are taken away from their mothers and hand-reared, sometimes to pet and cuddle as tourist attractions. Tourists, unaware of the appalling fate that awaits many of the creatures, also pay to walk with adolescent lions at so-called conservation centres. As the lions become too dangerous to be allowed near tourists and enter their majestic physical prime, some particularly the most impressive-looking males are supplied for South Africas trophy hunting industry. Hunting clients pay as much as 42,300 to shoot a large male, often then triumphantly mounting its head on a wall. Such hunts, however, are often feeble pretences. Far from being a wild beast to be tracked and hunted, the lions in so-called canned, or captive, hunts are pursued in heavily-fenced private game ranches and have little or no chance of escape. Many are partially tame, having been handled by humans for much of their lives, and are unable to hunt for themselves. Instead they rely on bait left out for them by those organising the hunt. SOME 80 per cent of so-called canned lion hunting takes place in South Africas North West Province. There lions are allowed to be shot just four days after they have been released into a private hunting area. Other provinces require lions to be released for up to 90 days before they can be killed. As part of the investigation, one undercover operator posed as the intermediary for two different trophy hunters who wanted to hunt and shoot a lion. On both occasions he was quickly offered several photographs of potential targets and price tags to hunt and kill them. Britains complicity in lion farming is also laid bare by my undercover investigators, which includes ex-Special Forces soldiers, who have exposed how hunters and middlemen from this country are involved in the despicable trade. Above: Poachers would pay 13,500 to shoot this lion, which was part of the 'catalogue' offered via Whatsapp In the first case, the investigator approached Mugaba Safaris, owned and run by professional hunter Patrick de Beer. Mugabas website states that De Beer, who is pictured holding up a dead leopard, specialises in dangerous game-hunting safaris and prides himself on having successfully bagged a large number of lions and buffalo. The investigator was offered an online brochure with photographs of 16 male lions ranging in price from 10,000 to 20,000. He finally settled on an older lion called Simba, which De Beer described in a WhatsApp message as being a very good cat with a dense mane. Simbas heartbreaking but ultimately uplifting story is told in detail on the next two pages. The hunt was due to take place last October at Kalahari Lion Hunting Safaris near the Botswana border and Simba was supplied by a breeder in the Bloemfontein area. The undercover hunter, who had no intention of killing the animal, postponed the hunt indefinitely but the lion was then offered to a British hunter called Miles Wakefield who was to be charged 3,076 ($4,000) to shoot the creature with tranquiliser darts in what investigators were told was a 1,100-acre hunting area. De Beer last night told The Mail on Sunday that their hunts comply with rules governing the conduct of a chase. Heartbreaking footage obtained by one of the investigators shows Wakefield, who lives in Essex and works for an insurance company in London, first shooting the animal in the right hind leg from the safety of a vehicle from about 20 yards. Wakefield and Freddie Scheepers, who owns and runs the safari company, then slowly follow the terrified and dazed beast as it stumbles through bush. Taking his time, Wakefield finally shoots the cowering animal for a second time from just ten yards away before posing next to it as it lies semi-conscious in the dirt. The sickening spectacle can be seen on pages 18 and 19. Under South African law, lions can only be shot with tranquiliser darts for veterinary, scientific, conservation or management purposes and a vet should be present. Hunters are also banned from hunting lions from vehicles unless they are tracking them over long distances or unless hunters are disabled or elderly. In the second case, the undercover investigator contacted Adrian Sailor, the UK representative for Settlers Safaris in South Africa, to arrange a hunt for his boss who he claimed wanted to shoot a lion. It also shines a light on how the UK Governments failure to close a glaring loophole that allows the import of captive-bred lion trophies into Britain encourages the international smuggling of lion skins. Above: 16,100 to shoot this lion, as offered in the Whatsapp 'catalogue' Sailor, the general manager of a car-parts firm in the West Midlands, offered a choice of three male lions and sent photographs of all of them, along with suggestions of where to hunt them. The lions cost between 8,500 and 16,000 to hunt and kill, plus 200 a day for the duration of the hunt. In a tape-recorded phone call, the investigator then explained to Sailor that another client, an American, wanted to kill a lion and have his trophy returned the US. However, since 2016, American law has banned the import of captive-bred lion trophies. Sailor, an amateur taxidermist, volunteered a method of bypassing the restrictions, suggesting that the client might want to initially export the lion to the UK, which is legal, and then send it on to the US by putting the lions skin inside the skin of a dead red deer. The lions offered for sale by Patrick de Beer to Lord Ashcroft's undercover operative featuring pictures of different lions and the amount they would cost If salted and rolled, the stag skin sets hard, making it almost impossible for customs officials to detect the lion skin inside. You stick the lion, stick the lion skin, inside the bloody stag Its all salted and rock hard, Sailor said. Its a bit dodgy, but you know. In messages to The Mail on Sunday, Mr Sailor did not deny suggesting a deer skin could be lined with a lion skin but stressed he was not involved in the lion hunt which the conversation referred to. He stressed that no crime has been committed and added: How will a lion fit inside a deer skin? Major size difference. I have no idea about any recordings. Colin Bell, a South African conservationist who has spent more than 40 years in the tourism industry, this weekend branded captive lion hunting as a cancer in our society If we dont get on top of this type of lion hunting, we are going to be in a situation where there is going to be a boycott of South African tourism. This is too ghastly to contemplate. BUT the trophy-hunting industry is only part of the appalling lion farming story. South Africa is the only country that allows the export of lion bones and the majority of the lions bred there are believed to be slaughtered for the grisly bone trade. The exports began a decade ago, after strict laws protecting tigers led to the increased use of lion bones in medicines, including aphrodisiacs, in the Far East. South Africas government allows 800 captive-bred lion skeletons to be exported each year as part of a hugely lucrative industry. They fetch about 125 a kilo, or 4,600 for a whole skeleton, including the skull. About 98 per cent of the legal sales go to Vietnam, Thailand and Laos, where the bones are boiled down and made into a cake that is meant to give those who eat it the strength of a cat. A 100-gram bar can be sold for an astonishing 769. Campaigners, however, believe that many more than the permitted 800 skeletons are leaving the country each year via illegal lion-bone smuggling. Once smuggled out of the country, organised crime networks in Vietnam and Laos traffic lion bones through South East Asia to China. There they are often sold as fake tiger products, including jewellery and even wine. Last November six Vietnamese nationals and two South Africans were arrested in North West Province, around 155 miles from the capital Pretoria, after more than 40 lions were slaughtered at a nearby lion farm. Cowering in a tiny cage, this lion was due to be slaughtered but was mercifully rescued by campaigners - but thousands of others are not so lucky The men were caught with lion bones along with gas burners, knives and a saw, which it was believed were going to be used to process the bones into a paste. Campaigners have exposed the horrific conditions endured by lions at one licensed slaughterhouse. Officials from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in South Africa raided the facility at the Wag-n-Bietjie eco-farm on the bank of the River Vaal in May last year and found that some lions were being kept in small temporary containers for three days amid a disgusting scene of squalor and blood-stained filth. It was totally disgusting that they were kept like this, inspector Renet Meyer of the SPCA said. For me, a lion is a stately animal, a kingly animal. Here he is butchered for people to make money. In another sickening twist, campaigners fear that lions are being crossbred with tigers to produce ligers (whereby the father is a lion and the mother is a tiger) or tigons (where the father is a tiger and the mother is a lion). A three-year-old liger or tigon can be the same size of a nine-year-old lion, so producing more bone to sell once slaughtered. Although the investigators were unable to prove cross-breeding, they identified one centre where a group of five lions and two tigers were being kept in the same enclosure and another game lodge which had around 50 tigers, which are not native to Africa. Meanwhile, unwitting tourists are helping to fuel the lion farming industry by paying to play with cubs or walk with adolescent lions. Officials from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in South Africa raided the facility at the Wag-n-Bietjie eco-farm on the bank of the River Vaal in May last year In February, two of the investigators paid 13 for a tour of a lion and tiger park, which culminated in petting three cubs, which were 14 weeks old and the offspring of a lioness at the centre. You have got to stop yourself feeling, This is really cool, Ive just been licked by a real life lion cub, one of the investigators told this newspaper. Youve got to think, No, these poor things are destined for a lifetime in captivity and then the possibility of an appalling death. It has absolutely no conservation value to lions in the world. We were told the cubs we were interacting with would go into a three-year rehabilitation programme where they would be taught to hunt and fend for themselves and then they would go back into the wild. There is no reputable study that we have been able to find that indicates that captive-bred lions can be successfully released into the wild. Adrian Sailor, a British game hunter and taxidermy collector. Lord Ashcroft's undercover investigator contacted Sailor to arrange a hunt for his boss who he claimed wanted to shoot a lion There are now only an estimated 20,000 wild lions in the world compared with 200,000 just over a century ago. Respected conservationists fear that wild lions could become extinct in just 30 years. The South African Predator Association, a trade organisation for the captive breeding industry, insists the breeding of lions in captivity has a crucial role safeguarding the big cats future. But Dr Mark Jones, a vet and head of policy at the Born Free Foundation, a wildlife protection charity, said: Far from contributing to wild lion protection, captive lion breeding facilities cynically exploit these animals at every stage for profit. Ultimately many of these animals will end up in canned hunts or as part of the bone trade. Its factory farming by another name. Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC is a businessman, philanthropist, author and pollster. For more information on his wildlife work, visit www.LordAshcroftWildlife.com. Follow him on Twitter @LordAshcroft. A grim discovery of human bones believed to belong to an elderly man has shut down a former scrapyard in Essex that is being developed into a seaside holiday village. Detectives are treating the death as unexplained and are searching the Essex missing persons records, whilst a forensic examination of the bones takes place. A man found the bones at the former East Coast Salvage site in St Osyth which is being transformed into a resort with 24 caravans or lodges. A grim discovery of human bones believed to belong to an elderly man has shut down a former scrapyard in Essex that is being developed into a seaside holiday village Detectives are treating the death as unexplained and are searching the Essex missing persons records, whilst a forensic examination of the bones takes place A spokesman for Essex Police said: 'We were called at around 11.50am on Thursday, April 25, after a man found what he believed to be bones at a scrapyard off Cockett Wick Lane, St Osyth. 'We believe the bones may be human and a further examination will be carried out by an anthropologist. 'A cordon remains in place and our enquiries are ongoing.' A spokesman for Essex Police said: 'We believe the bones may be human and a further examination will be carried out by an anthropologist. A cordon remains in place and our enquiries are ongoing' The site was granted approval to be developed by a planning inspector following an appeal hearing. Tendring District Council previously refused plans for the holiday village due to concerns over safety with part of the site being on a high risk flood plain. A former school teacher who was caught with 300 child porn images and three videos has admitted to having a sexual interest in young girls. Frank Viola, 60, was on Friday jailed by the District Court of Western Australia for possessing the exploitative material. The teacher of 28 years, up until 2010, admitted to police he had been accessing child pornography since 2005, the court heard. Judge Amanda Burrows SC said Viola also told officers of his sexual interest in young girls, WA Today reported. Frank Viola, who was caught with 300 child porn images and three videos, admitted to having a sexual interest in young girls 'You had a sexual interest in children but had not sought help due to embarrassment and repercussions,' she said. 'You did express shame and guilt about your offending behaviour and I accept you are remorseful.' Personal references heard in court described Viola as a trustworthy, honest and active member of the community. Viola, who is currently unemployed, had no previous relevant convictions. Judge Burrows acknowledged Viola's good character and said it was not uncommon for offenders accessing child exploitation material to have prior good character. However, she said the court's duty was to protect children and a hard penalty was necessary to deter offending. Judge Burrows found Viola had accessed images the night before police executed a search warrant. The material was typically nude girls aged between nine and 12 but some images involved children and an adult in a sexual penetration act. The teacher of 28 years on Friday jailed by the District Court of Western Australia for possessing the exploitative material 'The nature and the number of images is an aggravating factor,' Judge Burrows said. Viola's lawyer tried to push for a suspended sentence but Judge Burrows believed offences were too serious. Judge Burrows took Viola's remorse, cooperation with police and early guilty plea into consideration. Viola also tried to rehabilitate himself by removing the WiFi connection from his house. Viola was sentenced to 15 months jail, and will be eligible for parole in December. He briefly looked at his wife as he was led away. Russian president Vladimir Putin joined his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on the final day of the Belt and Road summit. The summit, held in Beijing on Saturday, has called for more countries to join its sprawling infrastructure-building initiative - despite U.S. concerns Beijing is building strategic influence. President Xi Jinping proudly spoke about his signature project to leaders from other governments about the building ports, railways and other facilities that connect Asia, Africa and Europe. He tried to dispel complaints the Belt and Road Initiative does too little for developing African and Asian countries. Russian president Vladimir Putin (right) joined his Chinese counterpart, President Xi Jinping (left) on the final day of the Belt and Road summit in Beijing on Saturday Xi said his government wants to 'deliver benefits to all', which Putin praised at the event. This comes after the Chinese President promised to improve financial and environmental standards in response to complaints about debt and potential corruption and environmental problems on Friday. Speaking about his ambitious programme, which is estimated to involve over US$1trillion worth of investments, at the forum he said its aim is: 'to enhance connectivity and practical cooperation', the BBC reported. 'Everything should be done in a transparent way and we should have zero tolerance for corruption,' he said. 'We also need to ensure the commercial and fiscal sustainability of all projects so that they will achieve the intended goals as planned.' He pledged to work more closely with multinational institutions and to open projects dominated by Chinese state-owned companies wider to private and foreign contractors. President Xi Jinping (right with Putin) proudly spoke about his signature project to leaders from other governments about the building ports, railways and other facilities that connect Asia, Africa and Europe Xi said his government wants to 'deliver benefits to all', which Putin praised at the event 'We need to encourage the full participation of more countries and companies,' Xi said at the event at a conference center outside Beijing. Developing countries welcome the initiative launched in 2013, but some governments are struggling to repay Chinese loans, fueling complaints about a possible 'debt trap.' Critics also complain too little work goes to local companies, too little financing and other information is disclosed and Belt and Road might lead to corruption or environmental damage. The United States, Russia, Japan and India worry Beijing is eroding their strategic influence by building a political and trade network centered on China, the second-largest global economy. Speaking about his ambitious programme, which is estimated to involve over US$1trillion worth of investments, at the forum the Chinese President said its aim is: 'to enhance connectivity and practical cooperation' Putin said that Belt and Road meshes perfectly with Moscow's goals of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union Despite that, Putin said that Belt and Road meshes perfectly with Moscow's goals of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union. Beijing says the number of governments that have signed agreements to support Belt and Road has risen to 115 from 65. Beijing scored a diplomatic coup in March when Italy, a member of the Group of Seven major economies, signed on. The Chinese president repeated his promise to adopt global standards for project development, purchasing and operations. 'We welcome the participation of multilateral and international financial institutions in Belt and Road investment and financing, and we encourage third market cooperation,' said Xi. The Chinese president repeated his promise to adopt global standards for project development, purchasing and operations. 'We welcome the participation of multilateral and international financial institutions in Belt and Road investment and financing' 'With involvement of multiple stake holders we can surely deliver benefits to all.' Missing from the three day forum was the U.S., who is China's largest trading partner. The US' attitude towards the ambitious Belt and Road Initiative has undergone a shift in recent years that largely reflects the tense state of relations between the two nations. Washington sent a senior White House official to the first BRI summit in 2017 but has dismissed the initiative as a 'vanity project' and rebuked Italy for signing up to the scheme. The body of a woman who was killed by her boyfriend and left on a Melbourne street will be flown back to her devastated family in South Sudan. Natalina Angok's family have reached out for help to repatriate the 32-year-old's remains back to her relatives after her body was found in Melbourne's Chinatown. A fundraising page was set up on Saturday on the crowd-funding site gofundme to help cover costs of transportation and fund a memorial for Ms Angok. The body of Natalina Angok (pictured) will be flown back to her family in South Sudan Ms Angok's family (pictured) set up on the crowd-funding listing on Saturday to help cover costs of transportation and fund a memorial Ms Angok was allegedly murdered by her 32-year-old boyfriend, Christopher Allen Bell. Her body was discovered at the intersection of Little Bourke Street and Celestial Avenue by a passer-by on Wednesday morning, with Bell arrested later the same day. Bell faced the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Friday, when his lawyer said the alleged murderer suffered schizophrenia and had been unmedicated for a long time. He was released from a mental inpatient facility a week before Ms Angok's death. As of Saturday evening, just over $10,000 towards a $40,000 goal had been raised. 'Natalina was a generous and kind girl, her selfless, friendly, loving and humble character has always drawn people to her. She would always seek the happiness of others,' the gofundme page states. 'Help us to pay for a memorial for Natalina, and so we can fly her remains back to South Sudan for final tribute by her father and relatives who have not seen her in years. 'We still can't believe we won't see her again.' Natalina Angok's (pictured) family have reached out for help to repatriate the 32-year-old's remains back to her family after her body was found in Melbourne's Chinatown Ms Angok came to Australia from Sudan via a refugee camp and lived in Geelong. Prominent Sudanese-Australian lawyer Maker Mayek encouraged people to contribute to the fundraiser. 'Dear friends, we've been asking too much from you of late, but the family of Natalina Angok wish to transport the body to South Sudan, to rest with her ancestors. 'Please chip in your own way. It'll help,' Mr Mayek said via Twitter. A vigil was held for the 'entertaining, loving girl' on the steps of Victoria's Parliament House on Friday night, with about 100 attendees. Police are yet to reveal how Ms Angok died. Ms Angok was allegedly murdered by her boyfriend Christopher Allen Bell, 32 (pictured) Five victims of a Saudi mass execution were gay lovers, according to a confession which appeared at their Sharia court trial. One of the 37 men beheaded on Tuesday allegedly admitted to having sex with four of his co-accused 'terrorists,' but many complained at trial their confessions were obtained through torture. The Shia man's homosexual relationships appeared in lines alleging he confessed to hating the state and the Sunni sect, the court documents obtained by CNN showed. Homosexuality is punishable by death in the Gulf state which adheres to Sharia law. Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammad bin Salman (pictured) is the subject of scrutiny over alleged human rights abuses - court documents revealed the condemned pledged their allegiance to the royal family in desperation Saudi Arabia's interior ministry announced on Tuesday that 37 Saudi nationals had been executed [file photo] The court document obtained by CNN stated: 'He said that he did all this because he belonged to the Shia sect and because he was against the Sunni sect, and because of his hate for the state and its men and its security forces.' But the man denied the charges against him and his lawyer claimed the confession was totally fabricated. He was among fourteen convicted of forming a 'terror cell' in the city of Awamiya after anti-government demonstrations in 2011 and 2012. One of the condemned - Munir al-Adam - is recorded as saying: 'Those aren't my words. I didn't write a letter. This is defamation written by the interrogator with his own hand.' Al-Adam was just 23 when he was arrested at a government checkpoint in April 2012. Mujtaba al-Sweikat was 17 when he was detained at King Fahd International Airport in 2012 - he had been planning on studying in Michigan He was beaten on the soles of his feet and had to crawl on his hands and knees for days. As a five-year-old boy he had lost his hearing in one ear following an accident, but after torture he lost hearing in the other and was left totally deaf. The 27-year-old was executed on Tuesday. Two of those beheaded were just 16 and 17 when they were arrested - including one who was set to start a new life in the US at Western Michigan University. Mujtaba al-Sweikat, then 17, was severely beaten all over his body, including on the soles of his feet, before 'confessing' to crimes including attending protests in 2012. In 2017, staff at the university said the English language and pre-finance studies student showed 'great promise' and called for him to be released. Abdulkarim al-Hawaj, 21, was the youngest executed, four years after being arrested in the country's Shia-majority Eastern province for spreading information about protests on WhatsApp. At the time of his arrest, staff at Western Michigan University said the English language and pre-finance studies student, Mujtaba al-Sweikat, showed 'great promise' and called for him to be released Under international law, putting to death anyone who was under 18 at the time of the crime is strictly prohibited. Human rights charity Reprieve said al-Hawaj was beaten, tortured with electricity and chained with his hands above his head until he 'confessed' to his crimes. Reprieve said both men were sentenced to death at the end of 'sham trials' when they were denied access to lawyers. It claimed they were held for months in solitary confinement and their convictions were solely based on their 'confessions' which were extracted under torture. At his trial, al-Hawaj was convicted on cyber crime charges including spreading information on WhatsApp 'as proscribed by the cyber crime bill' and sentenced to death. Abdulkarim al-Hawaj was beheaded in Saudi Arabia after being arrested as a teenager for spreading details about peaceful protests on WhatsApp Another victim, Hussein Mohammed al-Musallam, said in court: 'Nothing in these confessions is correct and I cannot prove that I was forced to do it. But medical reports ... show the effects of torture on my body.' State-run media said on Tuesday those executed had 'adopted extremist ideologies and formed terrorist cells with the aim of spreading chaos and provoking sectarian strife'. The U.N. human rights chief condemned the beheadings, saying most were minority Shi'ite Muslims who may not have had fair trials and at least three were minors when sentenced. The sentences were carried out in Riyadh, the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina, central Qassim province and Eastern Province, home to the country's Shiite minority. Three other prisoners who were under 18 at the time of their alleged crimes, Ali al-Nimr, Dawood al-Marhoon and Abdullah al-Zaher, remain on death row. Al-Marhoon told Reprieve he was tortured and made to sign a blank document, to which Saudi officials then added his 'confession'. Executions in the ultra-conservative kingdom are usually carried out by beheading. At least 100 people have been executed in Saudi Arabia since the beginning of the year, according to a count based on official data released by SPA. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (pictured) slammed Mohammed Bin Salman on Tuesday over the execution of al-Sweikat Abdullah al-Zaher (left) and Dawood al-Marhoon (right) were also sentenced to death for crimes they allegedly committed under the age of 18. Under international law, this is strictly prohibited and they remain on death row Last year, the oil-rich Gulf state carried out the death sentences of 149 people, according to Amnesty International, which said only Iran was known to have executed more people. Rights experts have repeatedly raised concerns about the fairness of trials in Saudi Arabia, governed under a strict form of Islamic law. People convicted of terrorism, homicide, rape, armed robbery and drug trafficking face the death penalty, which the government says is a deterrent for further crime. The owner of an Italian restaurant has written a scathing response on TripAdvisor to a customer who requested Parmesan cheese on his seafood pasta. Massimo Donato, the owner of Maximo Italian Bistrot in London, criticised the customer's 'silly request' and told him: 'Try Parmesan on cow dung, it should taste fine for you.' The one-star review was posted by TripAdvisor user Zwelithini M and it is the only post he has made on the site. TripAdvisor user Zwelithini M posted a one-star review of Maximo Italian Bistrot after they refused to put Parmesan on his seafood pasta Massimo Donato (pictured) has run Maximo Italian Bistrot for five years and he took issue with this customer's 'obscene request' to have Parmesan on his fish pasta In the review, which was titled, 'The service in this place is second to cow dung', Zwelithini said he went into the restaurant and ordered a crab ravioli with a cream salmon sauce. The dish Ravioli al Granchio is listed under the 'specialities' on the restaurant's menu and costs 12.50. Zwelithini said: 'Half way through the meal I felt like the dish needed a little something. So I asked the waiter for some Parmesan cheese and he sort of gave me a bewildered look. 'I waited for his response which I couldn't believe. He literally refused to give me the Parmesan, stating you do not put Parmesan on any seafood because it would take away the flavor. Ravioli al Granchio (pictured) is one of the house specialities at Maximo and consists of fresh crab ravioli with salmon and cream Massimo Donato (pictured) gave the customer a list of rules about Italian cooking such as never asking for pineapple on a pizza or cream in a carbonara 'When I explained that I wanted it because I liked my cream dishes cheesy, he repeated himself and walked away.' 'Honestly I was too dumbfounded to be p***ed off so I ate the rest of it and decided I would not make a scene but could not get it off my chest so I called him once I got back to the hotel. 'I basically explained to him about customer service and his job was to cater to the paying customers and he said even if I insisted on getting the cheese he would not give it and seemed offended that I could even ask. 'I realized that the conversation was going no where and the real reason I wanted the cheese was to make it taste better! Unreal...' The irate customer gave the restaurant one star for service but three stars for its food and price after his meal in October. But the owner hit back months later saying: 'No words about your rudeness and your silly request'. The owner of Maximo Italian Bistrot hit back at the review, saying you should never ask for cheese on a fish dish and he was right to refuse to give the customer Parmesan Mr Donato, who has run the restaurant for five years, said: 'I am trying to understand your incredible frustration and disappointment about your obscene request you have made here at Maximo. 'It was very hard to say no to you, and the harder part was to explain as better as I could the obvious reasons of my refuse. 'Well, there are few rules on the authentic Cucina Italiana you probably aren't aware: NEVER ask for pineapple on pizza; NEVER put cream on your Carbonara; NEVER ask for any Alfredo pasta (who is Alfredo anyway?); NEVER put chicken on arrabbiata: And, last but not least, NEVER NEVER EVER ASK FOR CHEESE ON A FISH DISH. 'Simple rules as A,B,C. Luckily I hadn't ruined your dish with it, you should thank us for it. 'Anyway, I understand that your weirdness doesn't know any limit, so there are a lot of fake Italian restaurants run by fool greedy and consciousless people that allow any kind of abominy. Maximo Italian Bistrot in Kennington, London, has a four-and-a-half-star overall rating on TripAdvisor but the owner frequently hits back at poor reviews on the site A tweet of the exchange between the reviewer and the restaurant owner has received over 1,000 retweets and has prompted a debate about who was right 'Try Parmesan on cow dung, it should taste fine for you.' A tweet of the furious exchange between the pair has gone viral with more than 5,500 likes. But commenters on the post are split on whether the restaurant was right to refuse to serve Parmesan on the seafood pasta. Some have called the restaurant owner a 'legend' while others have labelled him 'pretentious as hell'. It is not the first time Mr Donato has responded to a harsh review on TripAdvisor and he has written a long response to most of the 11 one-star reviews the restaurant has received. Overall, the Italian restaurant has a four-and-a-half-star rating with 103 reviews describing it as 'excellent'. MailOnline has contacted both Zwelithini M and Maximo Italian Bistrot for comment. Around 225 people officials and police died from exhaustion A further 1,450 people became sick from the stress of the single-day election Rudi Mulya went without sleep for as long as 30 hours before he suffered pains After complaining about migraines he vomited and died shortly afterwards Indonesians voted for the President, Vice President and Consultative Assembly It is the first time all elections have been held at the same time More than 200 election staff and police have died from exhaustion during Indonesia's massive single-day election. About 225 election workers and police died following the historic April 17 vote, which marked the first time in the country's history the President, Vice President, People's Consultative Assembly and members of local legislative bodies were elected at the same time. ADVERTISEMENT With 193 million eligible voters and seven million officials tasked to operate 810,000 polling stations, resources were strained. The Indonesian General Elections Commission noted that of the people who didn't die, a further 1,450 became ill as a result of the pressure. Rudi Mulya was one such person who met his tragic end following the vote. More than 200 people have died from exhaustion during Indonesia's massive single-day election (pictured,a voter casts her ballot during a pre-election drill on April 6) Around 225 election workers and police died following the April 17 vote for the country's next president (pictured, a woman takes her child with her to a pre-election drill on April 6) With 193 million eligible voters and seven million officials tasked to operate 810,000 polling stations, resources were strained (pictured, people take to the polling booths in an election simulation on April 14) The 57-year-old was a retired security guard, who worked as chief organiser of a polling station in East Jakarta. Not only did he have to show up to countless meetings in the lead-up to the big day, but also keep a close eye on voters and ballot papers. The committed worker barely slept during the period and even went 30 hours without sleep during the peak busy period. To make matters worse, fears of election fraud hung over the polling stations, an echo of the 2014 election. Opposition leader Prabowo Subianto has cited flaws in the electoral procedure that has impacted his vote against the incumbent Joko Widodo - a revote was drawn in parts of the country due to logistical issues. Rudi's wife and now-widow Sukaesih told The Australian the added stress of election fraud only worsened her husband's condition. Click here to resize this module 'He lost sleep over it. 'He wouldnt let the ballot papers out of his sight. He even told his men to point their cameras at the ballot boxes so he could monitor them over WhatsApp video call when he went to the bathroom.' The day following the election, that's when things started to go downhill for Rudi. ADVERTISEMENT He started to feel light-headed and complained of a migraine and four days later he violently vomited before dying moments later. In another case, a police captain was driving back following an intense few days on post-poll duty. He fell asleep behind the wheel and crashed the car into three university students in Borneo. The Indonesian General Elections Commission noted that of the people who didn't die, a further 1,450 became ill as a result of the pressure (pictured, a person votes in the April 17 election) Rudi Mulya was one such person who met his tragic end following the vote (pictured, a person casts their ballot during a revote on April 25. The revote was called due to logistical issues) Rudi was a retired security guard, who worked as chief organiser of a polling station in East Jakarta (pictured, an electoral official tallies the ballots) To compensate the families who lost relatives following the vote, the elections commission has promised $3,600 in condolence money. But as Sukaesih notes, money is no substitute for a lost loved one. The alarming figure of deaths has sparked a review of the polling system. That day, voters took part in not only the presidential poll, but also the legislative, provincial and municipal elections. The combined polls was much larger than the 2014 election, which split the presidential and legislative elections by three months. The Constitutional Court had decided to combine them all together, to trim down on cost. Though the recent election cost $1 billion more than the projected $2.5 billion. Election monitor group Perludem executive director Titi Angraini noted the simultaneous polling had only added pressure onto election officials. The workload and stress is beyond the capacity and capability of an average worker,' she said. ADVERTISEMENT Vice president Muhammad Jusuf Kalla also called this year's poll 'the most complicated' in the country's democratic history. To make matters worse, fears of election fraud hung over the polling stations, an echo of the 2014 election (pictured, ballot papers distributed on the day) More than 200 election staff and police have died from exhaustion during Indonesia's massive single-day election. About 225 election workers and police died following the historic April 17 vote, which marked the first time in the country's history the President, Vice President, People's Consultative Assembly and members of local legislative bodies were elected at the same time. With 193 million eligible voters and seven million officials tasked to operate 810,000 polling stations, resources were strained. The Indonesian General Elections Commission noted that of the people who didn't die, a further 1,450 became ill as a result of the pressure. Rudi Mulya was one such person who met his tragic end following the vote. More than 200 people have died from exhaustion during Indonesia's massive single-day election (pictured,a voter casts her ballot during a pre-election drill on April 6) Around 225 election workers and police died following the April 17 vote for the country's next president (pictured, a woman takes her child with her to a pre-election drill on April 6) With 193 million eligible voters and seven million officials tasked to operate 810,000 polling stations, resources were strained (pictured, people take to the polling booths in an election simulation on April 14) The 57-year-old was a retired security guard, who worked as chief organiser of a polling station in East Jakarta. Not only did he have to show up to countless meetings in the lead-up to the big day, but also keep a close eye on voters and ballot papers. The committed worker barely slept during the period and even went 30 hours without sleep during the peak busy period. To make matters worse, fears of election fraud hung over the polling stations, an echo of the 2014 election. Opposition leader Prabowo Subianto has cited flaws in the electoral procedure that has impacted his vote against the incumbent Joko Widodo - a revote was drawn in parts of the country due to logistical issues. Rudi's wife and now-widow Sukaesih told The Australian the added stress of election fraud only worsened her husband's condition. 'He lost sleep over it. 'He wouldnt let the ballot papers out of his sight. He even told his men to point their cameras at the ballot boxes so he could monitor them over WhatsApp video call when he went to the bathroom.' The day following the election, that's when things started to go downhill for Rudi. He started to feel light-headed and complained of a migraine and four days later he violently vomited before dying moments later. In another case, a police captain was driving back following an intense few days on post-poll duty. He fell asleep behind the wheel and crashed the car into three university students in Borneo. The Indonesian General Elections Commission noted that of the people who didn't die, a further 1,450 became ill as a result of the pressure (pictured, a person votes in the April 17 election) Rudi Mulya was one such person who met his tragic end following the vote (pictured, a person casts their ballot during a revote on April 25. The revote was called due to logistical issues) Rudi was a retired security guard, who worked as chief organiser of a polling station in East Jakarta (pictured, an electoral official tallies the ballots) To compensate the families who lost relatives following the vote, the elections commission has promised $3,600 in condolence money. But as Sukaesih notes, money is no substitute for a lost loved one. The alarming figure of deaths has sparked a review of the polling system. That day, voters took part in not only the presidential poll, but also the legislative, provincial and municipal elections. The combined polls was much larger than the 2014 election, which split the presidential and legislative elections by three months. The Constitutional Court had decided to combine them all together, to trim down on cost. Though the recent election cost $1 billion more than the projected $2.5 billion. Election monitor group Perludem executive director Titi Angraini noted the simultaneous polling had only added pressure onto election officials. The workload and stress is beyond the capacity and capability of an average worker,' she said. Vice president Muhammad Jusuf Kalla also called this year's poll 'the most complicated' in the country's democratic history. To make matters worse, fears of election fraud hung over the polling stations, an echo of the 2014 election (pictured, ballot papers distributed on the day) A Canberra music festival is preparing for its second controversial pill testing trial following a horror summer where five young people died from overdoses. Australia's second legal trial, conducted by Pill Testing Australia, will once again be held at the Canberra leg of Groovin the Moo at Exhibition Park on Sunday. The controversial trial was finally given the green light, amid much controversy, by the ACT Government after the same festival hosted the pill testing facility last year. A Canberra music festival is preparing for its second controversial pill testing trial following a horror summer where five young people died from overdoses Inside the pill testing facilities at EPIC Showground ahead of the Groovin the Moo 2019 festival At the first trial, 80 per cent of revellers who tested believed they were taking MDMA or ecstacy, but it was revealed less than half tests contained the drugs in pure form. Activists have championed for testing to be allowed at all festivals, as five people aged 19 to 23 died at festivals in NSW over the summer festival season. Doctors, chemists and consellors will be on site carrying out the second pill testing trial, which could lead to a change in drug policy, The Canberra Times reported. While police have issued a warning that anyone caught with drugs at the festival will be arrested, they have agreed not to target the pill testing area. The facility will consist of a shared entrance with a health tent, so people outside won't know whether someone is accessing the pill testing or health services. The process reportedly takes about 15 minutes to complete, which includes answering a questionnaire and signing a consent form. Doctors, chemists and counsellors will be on site carrying out the second pill testing trial, which could lead to a change in drug policy The process reportedly takes about 15 minutes to complete, which includes answering a questionnaire and signing a consent form (pictured) If someone is eligible, a chemist will test their sample before a medical advisor tells them their results - and at no stage will anyone be told their drugs are safe. But if someone is deemed to be too intoxicated, they will be referred next door to the medic tent, where they will receive first aid treatment from paramedics. Harm reduction counsellors will also be on hand to talk to revellers about their drug use, and amnesty bins will be provided for people to dispose of unwanted drugs. Anyone deemed to be too intoxicated will be referred to the medic tent, where they will receive first aid treatment from paramedics As part of the testing process, revellers will also be able to access free lollipops and condoms There are no restrictions on what kind of substance can be tested - only a small scraping is required to complete the analysis. During the 2018 Groovin the Moo festival 129 people visited the makeshift testing facility and a total of 85 samples were provided. The state government has encouraged other state and territory health ministers to visit the testing facility to see how it operates firsthand. Harm reduction counsellors will also be on hand to talk to revellers about their drug use, and amnesty bins will be provided for people to dispose of unwanted drugs There are no restrictions on what kind of substance can be tested - only a small scraping is required to complete the analysis 'Our agenda here is to ensure that people are as safe as they can possibly be,' ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr previously wrote on Twitter. The second pill testing trial comes after a 24-year-old man and 22-year-old woman were found dead at Queensland's Rabbits Eat Lettuce Festival on Monday. Deputy State Coroner Harriet Grahame told news.com.au the tragic events in Queensland over the weekend highlight how serious the issue is. 'This is a really, really tragic public health issue,' she said. During the 2018 Groovin the Moo festival 129 people visited the makeshift testing facility and a total of 85 samples were provided Princess Eugenie was spotted in a cheerful mood while out and about in Mayfair today. The Princess, 29, was all smiles as she was seen walking in London's affluent West End with two male companions on Saturday morning. It comes almost two weeks after the Princess joined The Queen, 92, for the annual Maundy Thursday service at St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle. Princess Eugenie was spotted out and about in Mayfair in London's affluent West End today The Princess, 29, was seen walking with two male companions on Saturday morning The Queen and Princess Eugenie looked overjoyed to be attending the service at St George's Chapel together earlier this month (pictured: April 18) Her Majesty was joined by granddaughter Eugenie for the annual service on April 18, which sees her offering commemorative coins to senior citizens. The recipients are retired pensioners, recommended by clergy and ministers of all denominations in recognition of service to the Church and to the local community. St George's chapel has a significance for Eugenie, as she married her husband Jack Brooksbank at the church on October 12, 2018. Princess Eugenie, 29, wore a stylish floral Erdem dress and a small navy blue hat by Juliette Botterill for the service Pictured: Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank kiss outside St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle following their wedding in October last year Eugenie and her husband first met in Verbier in 2010 and tied the knot in front of a star-studded congregation at St George's Chapel on October 12. Robbie Wililams' daughter Teddy was a bridesmaid while models Kate Moss, Poppy and Cara Delevingne and Naomi Campbell were among the congregation, along with Demi Moore, Stephen Fry and Jamie Redknapp. Eugenie was previously criticised for the ostentation of the wedding, with the celebrations even outdoing those for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle earlier in the year. Radiant: The couple released a handful of photos from their wedding in October last year Speculation has emerged that Eugenie, the Queen's granddaughter, could be pregnant with her first child after marrying her boyfriend of seven years Jack Brooksbank in October last year In the evening, Eugenie and Mr Brooksbank entertained 300 guests at Royal Lodge, the home of the Princesss parents, Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson. Inside a 100,000 marquee, liveried waiters served cocktails and gourmet pizza, and at dinner the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra played and Robbie Williams sang before Eugenie performed a catwalk-style routine on the dance floor. The following day, 500 guests were treated to fairground rides in the grounds of Windsor Lodge. A former soldier facing prosecution in Northern Ireland told a rally of hundreds that veterans could bring Britain to a standstill over Troubles-related legal action. Dennis Hutchings, 78, is a former member of the Life Guards Regiment and is due to be tried for attempted murder in connection with a fatal shooting in 1974. Mr Hutchings addressed a demonstration in support of another former serviceman - known only as Soldier F - outside Belfast City Hall on Saturday, telling the crowd of protesters: 'We need this to continue and it will continue. 'Eventually our politicians are going to have to listen because if they won't we will bring this country to a standstill.' A British Army veteran stands holding the flag of Royal Engineers outside Belfast City Hall Soldier F is to be charged with murdering two people after Parachute Regiment troops opened fire on demonstrators in Londonderry in January 1972 (pictured: Protesters in Belfast) Soldier F is to face murder charges over the deaths of two people after Parachute Regiment troops opened fire on demonstrators in Londonderry in January 1972, killing 13 on what became known as Bloody Sunday. The prosecution of Soldier F has polarised opinion as part of a wider campaign mounted by some MPs and veterans groups for former servicemen to be protected from prosecution for actions committed while on duty. Pictured: Dennis Hutchings outside the Supreme Court in London in March 2019 The CPS announced the man, whose identity is being protected, is to face prosecution for the murders of James Wray and William McKinney. Critics of the prosecution say that roughly 200 IRA fugitives, thought to be behind a series of terror attacks during the Troubles, were sent so-called 'comfort letters', assuring them they were no longer suspects. Mr Hutchings addressed the crowd via a phone call relayed on loudspeakers today. Several hundred supporters of Soldier F listened while holding Union flags and banners with the crest of the Parachute Regiment. Some aged veterans wore berets and sported medals on their chests in the pouring rain. Among those present were senior Democratic Unionists Sir Jeffrey Donaldson and Gavin Robinson - MPs who support official action to provide legal protection for members of the Armed Forces in all conflicts. Sir Jeffrey said: 'It is evident that they are very angry about the witch hunt against the veterans of the Armed Forces in Northern Ireland and feel very strongly that veterans are being singled out.' He said those who engaged in terrorism were responsible for more than 90% of Troubles deaths. Some relatives of those killed on Bloody Sunday have campaigned for justice for decades. Many unionists in Northern Ireland oppose a statute of limitations because they argue everybody should face the rule of law and a cut-off date could allow former paramilitaries 'off the hook'. Critics of the prosecution say that roughly 200 IRA fugitives, thought to be behind a series of terror attacks during the Troubles, were sent so-called 'comfort letters' (pictured: Belfast) The rally outside Belfast City Hall was held in support of soldier F, who faces prosecution It is not part of the Government's proposals on addressing the toxic legacy of the past. Parachute Regiment veteran John Ross, from the loyalist Shankill Road in Belfast, did his first tour of duty in the country aged 18 in 1971. He said: 'Right from the outset my regiment has been branded murderers, killers, all sorts.' He added: 'We served with pride, we served with dignity, we were disciplined, we did our duty. 'Yes, we we were a robust regiment, and if you wanted the job done we would have done it. But we were just like any other regiment that served in Northern Ireland in Op Banner. 'Whilst at the minute the Parachute Regiment is taking the brunt of the prosecutions, believe me there are many more coming down the line.' According to the Pat Finucane Centre, a human rights group, only a handful of soldiers have been convicted of shooting civilians while on duty in circumstances where the courts ruled they were guilty of murder. Pictured: Veteran Wilfie Brown addressing protesters outside Belfast City Hall on Saturday Pictured: Members and supporters of the Ballymurphy families stage a counter protest Tens of thousands of republicans and loyalists spent time in prison and were responsible for the majority of deaths. The Stormont House Agreement proposes a new police unit to investigate all outstanding homicide cases. Demonstration organiser Mel Brown claimed no soldier or police officer would receive a fair trial in Northern Ireland and such cases should be tried elsewhere. Families of those who died in disputed circumstances involving soldiers in west Belfast, known as the Ballymurphy Massacre group, support prosecutions. Spokesman John Teggart held a banner near the City Hall and said: 'No one is above the law and justice must be served. 'The fact that these crimes happened nearly 50 years ago is irrelevant. It might have been a long time ago, but the illegal acts of these soldiers is affecting the families to this day. 'They committed murder and what compounded that was the apparatus of the British state then tarnished the names of many of the victims by labelling them as gun men and gun women.' Omid Nooshin, 43, took his own life at his home in Surrey after a six-year battle with depression, a coroners court has heard A successful film director, praised for his movie work on very limited budgets, hanged himself after work pressures added to his inherited crippling depression, a coroner heard. New father Omid Nooshin was found hanged at home by his mother after falling into a severe spiral of despair despite being tended by two GPs, the inquest was told. He had battled for six years to beat depression and was acclaimed for his work which included receiving a British Independent Film Awards' nomination for best debut director for his 2013 film Last Passenger. The 43-year-old had recently welcomed a baby daughter into the world with his wife Lucy (corr), but her concerns grew after he failed to return her calls while she was at work. On a visit to their home in Guildford, Surrey, Omid's mother arrived to discover her son in the hallway, coroner Anna Crawford (corr) was told. Police and paramedics rushed to the address, but he was pronounced dead shortly after the emergency service's arrival on January 15 2018. Ms Crawford told the hearing that a post-mortem examination concluded the cause of death was hanging and toxicology tests found therapeutic levels of medication in his system. He was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of his death. He was acclaimed for his work including the tightly budgeted 2013 film Last Passenger for which he received a British Independent Film Awards' nomination for best debut director Addressing the inquest, his widow gave a powerful and emotionally-charged insight into her experiences supporting her husband's mental health with the arrival of their baby daughter. 'As a new mother with a young baby, I felt incredibly alone having to care for Omid - I was completely out of ideas for how I could help him and while I hoped he would never act on those thoughts, I never had the confidence he wouldn't.' Mr Nooshin's family told his GPs, Dr Tim Stewart and Dr Justine Hall, who appeared at the hearing in Woking, Surrey as witnesses, that his family had a history of depression - and other members of the family had committed suicide. His widow initially wanted to question the GPs on the possibility that his death could have been prevented but while giving detailed evidence to the hearing, they explained how they offered all the help and support they could. The inquest at Surrey Coroners Court heard how work stresses and pressures were a factor in Omid's spiralling mental health Dr Hall recalled how Mr Nooshin attended her surgery on one occasion, with his wife and young baby by his side, and tearfully explained his struggles with depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts. However, he insisted his love for his family would prevent him acting on his dark thoughts. Mr Nooshin was a highly-regarded film director, and earned a British Independent Film Awards nomination for best debut director for his 2013 film Last Passenger. The inquest heard work stresses and pressures were a factor in his spiralling mental health. Two-time Oscar-nominee Joe Walker, editor of Blade Runner 2049 and Arrival, worked with Mr Nooshin on Last Passenger. Speaking shortly after this death, he said: 'I joined Omid as film editor of Last Passenger in the final stages of a mountain already climbed. 'The emaciated finances scrambled for this ambitious thriller would barely dent the craft services budget on a routine movie, but in Omid's phenomenally inventive hands, that's something the audience would never spot. 'I was lucky to share those euphoric upper slopes with Omid and look out to a landscape of peaks, all his to conquer. 'Omid was a kind, ridiculously talented man. I was so happy he'd found tremendous love with Lucy and then to see the unadulterated joy that shone with the arrival of their daughter. 'I felt certain one day Omid would look back on a long body of work - he'd worked so bloody hard to get it started. It's tough to process such a loss, to his family, his friends but also to the audiences who deserved to celebrate his name.' Concluding the inquest at Surrey Coroner's Court, Ms Crawford recorded a conclusion of suicide by hanging, with a background of depression, following Mr Nooshin's death. 'I record my conclusion on the balance of probabilities that it is more likely than not. In relation to the GP's care, I have today concluded that the GPs had a good understanding of Mr Nooshin's mental health, his needs were met and they were engaged in his care. 'They tailored medication to his needs and made referrals where required. 'I have heard evidence Mr Nooshin was seen by family following his death and identified the person who died was Omid Nooshin. The cause of death was hanging with a background of depression, and that he did so with the intention of taking his own life. 'I have also received evidence from the police and they found no evidence of third party involvement or suspicious circumstances. I have also heard evidence he did not leave a note. 'I am going to record that he had a history of depression and on January 15 2018 he died at his home address after hanging himself... at his home address in Guildford.' If you have been affected by this story, and are in the UK, call The Samaritans at any time, from any phone for FREE, on 116 123, or call Mind's Infoline from Monday to Friday on 03001233393 or text 86463. A radical Muslim group held a conference on Saturday afternoon discouraging members and their children from singing the Australian national anthem while refusing to condemn ISIS. Global Islamist political party Hizb ut-Tahrir, which is campaigning for Sharia law, hired a community hall at Campsie, in Sydney's south-west, for the event. Yellow taped lines were placed on the carpet segregating men at the front from women at the back, with Daily Mail Australia witnessing ushers directing men to sit at the front of the auditorium. This was despite a 2016 New South Wales Civil and Administrative Tribunal ruling which found Hizb ut-Tahrir's gender segregation policies at public events were a form of unlawful sex discrimination. Scroll down for video The media was kicked out of a radical Muslim conference that discussed discouraging children from singing the national anthem and why ISIS shouldn't be condemned Yellow taped lines had been placed on the carpet segregating men at the front from women at the back After taking a seat Daily Mail Australia was asked to leave the Orion Function Centre as about 300 Muslim men, women - all wearing either hijabs or niqabs - and children were arriving. Asked why the media wasn't allowed at the four-hour 'Unapologetically Muslim' forum, this reporter was informed it was an 'Islamic conference' and complied with directions to leave. Hizb ut-Tahrir Australia, an unregistered political party, live streamed the event on Facebook, featuring high school English teacher Sufyan Badar on stage interviewing Wassim Doureihi. Global Islamist political group Hizb ut-Tahrir, which campaigns for Sharia law, hired a community hall at Campsie, in Sydney's south-west, on Saturday afternoon After taking a seat Daily Mail Australia was asked to leave the Orion Function Centre as about 300 Muslim men, women - all wearing either hijabs or niqabs - and children were arriving Mr Doureihi told the audience he discouraged his children from singing Advance Australia Fair at school. 'My kids go to a public school and every so often, I think it's once or twice a year, whatever it is, they play the national anthem,' he said. 'Personally, out of respect, my kids will stand up but they won't sing.' Mr Doureihi, a leader of Hizb ut-Tahrir Australia, declared the national anthem was oppressive to Muslims. 'Should we stand up and sing along? Or should we take a position that expresses our resistance against what the national anthem represents? It's colonialism,' he said. 'As Muslims we are under the spotlight and as Muslims we have to take positions on things that are not going to be comfortable.' Hizb ut-Tahrir Australia live streamed the event on Facebook, featuring high school English teacher Sufyan Badar (left) on stage interviewing Wassim Doureihi (right) Asked why the media wasn't allowed at the four-hour 'Unapologetically Muslim' forum, this reporter was informed it was an 'Islamic conference' and complied with directions to leave In another part of the conversation, Mr Doureihi laughed when Mr Badar asked him if ISIS should be condemned. In 2014, Mr Doureihi repeatedly refused to condemn ISIS in an ABC Lateline interview. On Saturday night, he likened denouncing the Islamic State terror group to being asked to disown paedophilia. 'Imagine someone comes into the room and looks at us both. Looks at us both and says these two are a bunch of paedophiles,' he said. 'And they come up on stage and they say, "Do you condemn paedophilia?" 'Would I actually respect that question and give a yes or a no? Why would I do that? 'Why would I humiliate myself and accept to be framed in this way?' Wassim Doureihi (right) told the audience his children refused to sing the national anthem and laughed on stage when asked if ISIS should be condemned In another part of the discussion, Mr Doureihi condemned an elderly white, pro-refugee male customer at his shop who had described Sharia law Hudud punishments as 'barbaric', which can involve the amputation of a hand for stealing. 'We've probably bought into the lie that is tolerance, diversity and multiculturalism,' he said. 'We're sold the rhetoric of acceptance of diversity, and different people's and different opinions and different religions but not realising the reality of what that entails. 'I said, "What's your position on the Hudud in Islam?" He goes, "barbaric". 'I said you're not tolerant.' Outside the function centre on Beamish Street, an evangelical Christian was handing out pamphlets as he wore a T-shirt with the words, 'If you genuinely want to know more about Jesus (in your heart) ask Him and He will answer you' The married theologian with children in his fifties told Daily Mail Australia after the event he regarded Islam as a threat to Western civilisation Outside the function centre on Beamish Street, an evangelical Christian man was handing out pamphlets, as he wore a T-shirt with the words, 'If you genuinely want to know more about Jesus (in your heart) ask Him and He will answer you.' Who is Hizb ut-Tahrir * A global Islamist political party that wants Islam imposed as a political system * HT seeks to replace world governments with a caliphate and impose the rule of sharia law * It is active in more than 50 countries * Each country's chapter is headed by an emir who answers to Hizb ut-Tahrir's overall emir Ata Abu Rashta * HT is estimated to have more than a million members worldwide * The group is banned in at least 13 countries including Germany, Russia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey and Jordan * HT has not been banned in Australia where its Facebook page has about 32,000 likes * The Counter Extremism Project reports Hizb ut-Tahrir does not advocate violence directly but acts as a conveyor belt for terrorists, indoctrinating young members who go on to join jihadist groups Famous terrorists who were once members of Hizb ut-Tahrir include: * Khalid Sheikh Mohammad - al-Qaeda's surviving 9/11 mastermind * Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, head of al-Qaeda in Iraq, killed in 2006 * ISIS fighter Mohammed Emwazi, a.k.a. Jihadi John, reportedly attended Hizb ut-Tahrir events while in university in England * Bangladeshi Islamist Farabi Shafiur Rahman, of Ansarullah Bangla Team, arrested for killing secular blogger Avijit Roy with a machete in 2015 Advertisement 'I know what you guys are teaching,' he said to a Muslim man wearing an 'Unapologetically Muslim' T-shirt, before raising Sri Lanka's Islamist terrorist attacks that last week killed 253 Christians. The married theologian with children in his late fifties told Daily Mail Australia afterwards he regarded Islam as a threat to Western civilisation. 'Once they gain a foothold they will force their ways on society,' he said, declining to give his name. 'Sharia law is nothing short of barbaric and is a big danger to society because it essentially means enslavement. 'Islam is incompatible to Christian principles. Interestingly, society is heading for a collision with Islam as society is pushing PC and gender fluidity which is also incompatible with Islam.' In early 2017, Hizb ut-Tahrir spokesman Uthman Badar, who was present on Saturday, told a forum at Bankstown, in Sydney's south-west, that ex-Muslims, called 'apostates', should be killed. 'The ruling for apostates as such in Islam is clear, that apostates attract capital punishment and we don't shy away from that,' he said. The extraordinary admission was caught on camera by Daily Mail Australia and the matter was referred to the Australian Federal Police by Justice Minister Michael Keenan. The Islamist group's 'Draft Constitution of the Khilafa State', a blueprint for how its caliphate will govern if it wins power, says it will impose sharia on all its citizens, kill ex-Muslims, known as 'apostates', and introduce gender segregation. The Saturday conference was held two days after Hizb ut-Tahrir announced its Australian spiritual leader Ismail al-Wahwah had been released from a Jordanian prison. The former taxi driver from Condell Park in Sydney's south west, was detained at Amman Airport in July 2018 while travelling in the country with his wife. The Saturday conference was held two days after Hizb ut-Tahrir announced its Australian spiritual leader Ismail al-Wahwah had been released from a Jordanian prison He had remained in Jordanian custody ever since. It is not known if he is now seeking to return to Australia. Daily Mail Australia understands he is a citizen so he should be able to return. He is a controversial figure who had previously been deported from Indonesia and travelled to Syria in 2013 in support of an Islamic caliphate. A video from March 2016, translated and shared by the Middle East Research Institute, showed him urging Muslims to restore the Islamic caliphate at a conference held in Turkey. He called on the attendees in Ankara to pledge 'before Allah to restore the caliphate, to raise the banner, to restore the Sharia, to unite the Islamic nation and to lead the armies of jihad that will conquer Europe and America so that the word of Allah will reign supreme'. Hizb ut-Tahrir, which is active in 50 countries, seeks to replace world governments with a global caliphate ruled by Sharia law. The group is banned in Jordan where Mr al-Wahwah was arrested, along with at least 12 other countries including the Muslim-majority nations of Indonesia, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Hizb ut-Tahrir spokesman Uthman Badar (centre) appeared at Saturday's conference two years after he told a forum at Bankstown, in Sydney's south-west, that ex-Muslims, called 'apostates', should be killed Crucial Company, which pays Mercer, is ultimately funded by Surge Financial Ltd A Conservative MP faced the wrath of Ian Hislop in an awkward row over his connection to a company that has gone bust. Johnny Mercer attempted to defend his high-paying second job that is linked to a firm that failed, owing 236 million to 11,500 savers, on BBC quiz show Have I Got News For You. The MP's tense appearance on the comedy panel comes as it is claimed the company linked to Mercer is suing the BBC for libel. Show host David Tennant introduced Mercer, saying he had a 'second job, partly funded by a marketing company for a bond scheme that lost savers millions and has caused him to sue the BBC... and that's before we've even started the show.' Mercer is being paid 85,000 from Crucial Company, which is funded Surge Group, a company owned by Mr Paul Careless, who also runs Surge Financial Limited in a director role. Surge Financial Limited in turn received a 25 per cent commission from London Capital and Finance (LCF) to promote its 'toxic' bonds. While they are separate companies, SFL loaned 9m to Surge Group, who then loaned 325,095 to Crucial Group, which owns Crucial Academy for which Mercer works. MP Johnny Mercer agreed to appear on the comedy panel despite the company linked to him suing the BBC at the same time. Crucial Company, who which Mercer works, is funded in part by Surge Financial Limited who in turn marketed 'toxic bonds' London Capital and Finance Mr Mercer previously told the BBC he had 'received rigorous assurances that no money whatsoever had gone from LCF into Crucial Academy'. He accepted that Surge Group Plc funded Crucial, but said it was separate from Surge Financial Limited, which took the commissions. LCF went bust in January owing 236 million to 11,500 savers who were sold toxic bonds in a scandal, which is now being probed by the Serious Fraud Office. Veteran panellist Ian Hislop took the MP to task, questioning Mercer 'what bit did the BBC get wrong?' by linking Mercer to the string of companies. 'So I run a company that trains veterans to go into cyber employment, and four companies away from that is a company that has gone bust,' said Mercer. Hislop replies, saying, 'Yeah, it's not many companies, it's quite a big company and four people have been arrested, a big story.' Private Eye editor Ian Hislop, the most sued man in Britain, grilled the MP for Plymouth Moor View over his 85,000 four-hour-a-week job and connection to a failed savings firm Mercer then said: 'The salary is provided through business in that company, in money that that company generated.' Uncontent, Hislop replied, 'How does training veterans make enough money to earn you 85,000?' Mercer explains: 'Because if you train them in cyber security and they have specialist skills, then they go into FTSE100 companies and they earn quite a lot of money... 'I must sound like a right bastard don't I doing this whole veterans employment thing.' Hislop laughs, saying: 'No it's not the veterans bit, it's the 85,000 for a four-hour (a week) job. Mercer them claims to know what Hislop is thinking, before the panellist asks 'Why don't you do it for free?' Comedian Zoe Lyons (sat next to Hislop) joked that the awkward confrontation felt like 'all my Christmas dinners with my family' Mercer retorts: 'I know, because you get 20,000 for two hours tonight don't you? 'But people who have lost money out of this company are very cross with you,' said Hislop. 'It's about your behaviour and the fact that you didn't know, and didn't ask as a non-executive director "where does this money come from?".' When Mercer claims no money went from that company into Crucial Academy, Hislop fires back 'but it did though', continuing to cast doubt on Mercer. Hislop (left) and Merton (right) have been panellists on the show since its inception in 1990. It is currently in its 57th series After sitting quietly through the argument, team captain Paul Merton jokes 'This is one for Judge Rinder isn't it' to audience applause. Trying to settle the argument, Mercer once again says that LCF did not put any money into crucial academy 'It hasn't come in directly or indirectly, if it has I would leave.' 'Well we'll see what happens,' said Hislop. Comedian Zoe Lyons, on Hislop's team, then jokes: 'This is like all my Christmas dinners with my family...'. Mercer, who did three tours of Afghanistan as an officer in the British Army, is a non-executive director of Crucial Academy. His register of interests filed with Parliament says he started at Crucial last September and works four hours a week at more than 350 an hour. The MP for Plymouth Moor View took to Twitter to comment on a BBC report about his connection to the company. He tweeted: 'I have somehow been paid money from a collapsed bond scheme run by a company Ive never heard of, never met, or never had anything to do with at all.' In a longer statement he claimed there was a 'co-ordinated attempt to get at me' and said he 'totally rejected the assertion' he had done anything wrong. He strongly denies the BBCs allegations. Fifteen people including six children died as explosions went off when Sri Lankan police raided a 'suicide vest factory' last night. Police said three men blew themselves up as a blaze of gunfire erupted when they approached a jihadist hide-out near the eastern town of Kalmunai on Friday. The bombs and gunfire killed three women and six children within the property, as well as another three suspected jihadists outside. The battle took place in the area of Sainthamaruthu, 200 miles from Colombo where 253 people were killed in luxury hotels and churches on Easter Sunday. Soldiers evacuate an injured child after they raid what believed to be an Islamist safe house in the eastern town of Kalmunai on Friday A Sri Lankan girl is rushed to hospital after she was found at the site of an explosion and a gunbattle in Kalmunai Security personnel display an ISIS banner after their raid on the safe-house in the eastern town of Kalmunai on Friday Sri Lankan police and army soldiers secure the site on Saturday morning after the ferocious gun battle and explosions last night Police backed by troops exchanged fire with those inside the house for over an hour, a military official said, adding that the bodies were recovered early Saturday following a search operation. 'Troops retaliated and raided the safe house where a large cache of explosives had been stored,' a military spokesman said in a statement. The location was a suicide vest manufacturing hide-out, News First reported. Earlier on Friday evening, a large bomb-making operation was uncovered at a raid in the Samanthurai area - around five miles away from the scene of the shootout. Sri Lanka's security forces said the location was believed to have been used by Islamist radicals to record a video pledging allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi before carrying out the deadly Easter attacks. 'We have found the backdrop the group used to record their video,' the police said in a statement. There were 150 sticks of explosive gelignite, 100,000 ball bearings, ISIS uniforms and an ISIS flag, as well as a drone camera. Army officers pose with an Islamist flag after their ferocious raid on the safe-house on Friday evening Cables were recovered along with other bomb making in the Samanthurai before the shootout took place Local media reported the police took hold of a massive haul of bomb-making equipment in the Samanthurai area, around five miles away from the shootout A drone camera was uncovered as part of the raid on the bomb making operation at Samanthurai Police believed the Islamic State uniforms were similar to those worn by the eight fighters for the film they made ahead of Sunday's attacks. The video was released by ISIS two days after the bombings. Photos showed what appeared to be large canisters of fuel as well as detonating devices and tubing believed to have been part of a bomb manufacturing operation, News First said. The news comes as the country remains on high alert since the suicide bombings on churches and hotels in which more than 250 people were killed on Easter Sunday. Police and the army have been conducting raids as they gather intelligence about the perpetrators and their supporters. Islamic State has claimed responsibility. An ISIS banner is held up by Sri Lankan security personnel following their raid on suspected terrorists in the Samanthurai area on Friday evening Local media reported 100,000 ball bearings were uncovered during the raid at Samanthurai as well as 100,000 sticks of explosive gelignite The Special Task Force uncovered a suicide manufacturing hide-out as they engaged with suspected terrorists on Friday (pictured: bomb-making equipment recovered earlier on Friday evening in the Samanthurai area around five miles away) The government has admitted major intelligence lapses, although Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said he was unaware of any warnings ahead of the attacks, in a sign of the rift between him and President Maithripala Sirisena. 'If we had any inkling, and we had not taken action, I would have handed in my resignation immediately,' he told the BBC. 'But what do you do when you are out of the loop?' Sirisena tried to sack Wickremesinghe last year, and experts believe the feud could have played a part in Sri Lanka's failure to act on intelligence warnings given weeks before the attacks. The disgraced Columbia University gynecologist at the center of a 25-woman sex abuse lawsuit has been pictured outside his grand New Jersey home enjoying his 'paid, early retirement' as it's revealed yet more women have come forward to accuse him of abuse. Robert Hadden, 60, was this week hit with a new lawsuit by eight more women who have accused him of sexual assault and is now facing allegations from a total of 25 women, including two who were minors when he examined them. Now, the lawyer representing those woman, says he has been contacted by 'several' more who say they, too, were victims of Hadden as a result of the DailyMail.com's story reporting of the new lawsuit by 25 women. Attorney Anthony DiPietro told DailyMail.com: 'I have actually been contacted by several more women in recent days and I think there are many more out there still.' Pictures show Hadden in casual clothes outside his half a million dollar, four bedroom home as he collected post. Seventeen women first filed a lawsuit against Columbia University and its affiliated hospitals in December. Attorney DiPietro said there is a 'toxic culture' at the uni which allowed Hadden to abuse his alleged victims. He said: 'Sexual predators like Hadden need an institution in order to do what they do. By associating themselves with such places, the predators are able to obtain access to a very large population of people upon whom they prey. 'But the predators are also given something else, which is a level of authority, or status, that they then use to exploit their victims. 'The imbalance of power that exists between a predator and their victims is an important element that is always present in these kind of cases.' Robert Hadden has been pictured outside his grand New Jersey home enjoying his 'paid, early retirement' as it's revealed yet more women have come forward to accuse him of abuse The disgraced Columbia University gynecologist is already at the center of 25-woman sex abuse lawsuit. Now, the lawyer representing those woman says he has been contacted by 'several' more who say they, too, were victims of Hadden Images show Hadden in casual clothes outside his half a million dollar, four bedroom home, pictured, in New Jersey as he collected post The new lawsuit claims that Columbia allowed Hadden to apply for disability benefits, meaning he is now enjoying a 'paid, early retirement'. It also alleges that Columbia not only concealed Hadden's sexual abuse, but conspired and enabled it to happen for decades. 'Medical chaperones, nurses, supervisors, administrators, doctors and other hospital personnel were aware of the sexual exploitation and abuse - dating back to at least the 1990s - but they still actively and deliberately - and inexplicably - concealed Hadden's sexual abuse for decades,' the lawsuit reads. DailyMail.com has contacted Columbia University for comment. A spokesman there said: 'The complaint against Robert Hadden in 2012 was the first received by the university. Upon learning of the allegations, we urgently began investigating and cooperated fully with law enforcement officials. 'Throughout our investigation we ensured that a nurse or other staff member was present with Dr. Hadden at all times when he was with patients, as required by our chaperone policy. Within six weeks of the complaint against him, and before our investigation was complete, we removed him from the clinical schedule and assigned his patients to other physicians. He has not seen any patients or worked in any other capacity at Columbia since. 'Robert Haddens behavior was abhorrent, and we deeply apologize to those whom he has harmed.' The lawsuit alleges that Columbia allowed Hadden's behavior to go unchecked in an attempt to protect the university's reputation, trustees, financial interests, and standing among other Ivy League institutions. The new lawsuit claims that Columbia allowed Hadden to apply for disability benefits, meaning he is now enjoying a 'paid, early retirement' at his home, pictured One of the alleged victims was just 16 years old when Hadden began abusing her in 2009, the lawsuit states. It reveals that Hadden had delivered the girl as a baby and 'used this relationship with both the patient and her mother as leverage' in order to abuse her The lawsuit also states that Hadden's actions constitute gender-violence, meaning they were motivated by gender. This means that the statue of limitations does not start to run until the conclusion of a criminal action that results in a conviction, which in Hadden's case would be 2016. This week's lawsuit brings a new slew of disturbing allegations from women who claim that Hadden did everything from fondling and groping their naked bodies to licking and digitally penetrating their vaginas. Disgraced Columbia University gynecologist Robert Hadden has now been accused of sexual assault by 25 women, including two who were minors at the time of the exams One of the alleged victims was just 16 years old when Hadden began abusing her in 2009, the lawsuit states. It reveals that Hadden had delivered the girl as a baby and 'used this relationship with both the patient and her mother as leverage' in order to abuse her. During the high school student's first visit, Hadden allegedly began subjecting her to a course of 'predatory grooming, boundary violating, mental, emotional, and physical sexual abuse'. The gynecologist asked the teen inappropriate questions about her sexual history, ogled and groped her unclothed body, breasts, and vagina, the lawsuit states. He also allegedly had her get naked and 'on all fours' on the exam table before he did a prolonged 'medically-inappropriate breast and vaginal exam'. The lawsuit claims Hadden rubbed his ungloved hands up and down the girl's body, spread her buttocks and vagina open and 'leered into her private parts', before he penetrated her by inserting his fingers into her vagina. A chaperone was present in the room and witnessed the 'physical sexual abuse firsthand' but did nothing to stop the doctor, the lawsuit claims. The teen visited Hadden a second time and revealed she had lost her virginity to her boyfriend. Hadden then allegedly insisted that she she have a prolonged vaginal exam and pap smear. Another minor victim was 15 years old when she began seeing Hadden in 2005. Seventeen women first filed a lawsuit against Columbia University and its affiliated hospitals in December. Eight women have since been added to the lawsuit Hadden likewise subjected the teen to 'predatory grooming', asked inappropriate questions about her sexual history, ogled and groped her unclothed body, breasts, and vagina, and penetrated her vagina with his fingers, the lawsuit states. He allegedly once had the teen remove all her clothes and then asked if she masturbated, before giving her unsolicited tips about how she could masturbate herself. Hadden also once made the teen take off her pants and expose her bare buttocks to receive her first HPV shot, the lawsuit states. When the teen went to the clinic to receive her second shot, she revealed to a nurse how Hadden had administered the shot. Marissa Hoechstetter, the only plaintiff named in the suit, said Hadden frequently groped her breasts and licked and touched her vagina without gloves But the nurse allegedly 'offered no support' to the teen, and made her 'feel like she had done or said something wrong'. Disturbing details from the court case abound. One victim claims that Hadden massaged her naked breasts for prolonged periods of time and would 'inexplicably twist, pinch, and tug on her nipples for his own prurient, deviant, sexual gratification'. During one office visit, he allegedly took off his gloves - which signaled to the chaperon that the exam was over. But then, while the patient was still in stirrups, he said he needed to 'check something else' and touched his tongue to her vagina. Hadden left the room before his patient could 'process or even react to the abuse that had just occurred,' the lawsuit states. Marissa Hoechstetter, the only plaintiff named in the suit, said Hadden frequently groped her breasts and licked and touched her vagina without gloves. Hoechstetter claims that, after she gave birth to twins, he came to her bedside, exposed her breasts, and told her she looked like a porn star. Another mother who visited Hadden for a postpartum visit said he made her remove her clothes and then pinched and squeezed her nipples so hard that it made breast milk run down her breasts. Yet another alleged victim, who was pregnant at the time, said Hadden told her he was going to perform a pap smear and then licked her vagina. 'Everything tongues good, I mean looks good,' he told her, according to the lawsuit. During her first postpartum exam, with her newborn in tow, the victim claims that Hadden once again made her undergo a vaginal exam and put his tongue on her vagina yet again in the presence of her child. Hadden was previously charged with sexually abusing six pregnant patients, including one who was HIV positive, in 2016. He pleaded guilty to a charge of a criminal sex act in a third degree and forcible touching and agreed to give up his medical license. He was given no jail time. Rachel Wellner, 43, was awarded $1.2 million after suing the NYPD for using excessive force in her famed 'I'm the hero' traffic stop with cops (pictured in court in 2016) A once-prominent New York City surgeon who told police Im the hero, the cops are not during a parking ticket dispute in 2016 won a $1.2 million lawsuit on Friday, after successfully arguing the officers used excessive force. Rachel Wellner, 43, initially filed a $30 million suit against the city, claiming her civil rights were violated when an officer allegedly pushed her and grabbed her arm during a traffic stop in Midtown, three years ago. Wellner had illegally parked her Volvo over a crosswalk to dash into a store in February 2016. When she returned, she saw police issuing her a parking ticket and reportedly became confrontational. According to a police report, she told the officers: I'm a doctor. I have patients that are dying. Im the hero, the cops are not. I dont accept the summons. I have to go. The Ivy-League educated doctor then attempted to flee the scene but struck one of the officers legs with her car. She was placed in handcuffs and later escorted to the police station where she pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct. Wellner had illegally parked her Volvo (above) over a crosswalk to dash into a store in February 2016, when she returned to find officer giving her a ticket and allegedly became confrontational According to a police report, she told the officers: I'm a doctor. I have patients that are dying. Im the hero, the cops are not. I dont accept the summons. I have to go However, shortly afterwards she filed the lawsuit against the NYPD, claiming the officers had been both verbally and physically abusive to her. In the suit, Wellner said she fled the scene because she feared for her life. At Fridays trial, Officer Niguel Vega admitted that he had come into physical contact with Wellner, but denied using excessive force. Wellners attorney repeatedly questioned the officer but didnt you touch her breast? He denied the allegation. The jury of six women and four men voted unanimously in favor of Wellner, but awarded her far less money than she initially requested. Its not immediately clear how the jury determined Vega had used excessive force. Were just happy they were able to see through the lies and deception of the police and were able to get to the truth of the matter, Wellners lawyer, Jon Norinsberg, told The New York Post. The jury of six women and four men voted unanimously in favor of Wellner, but awarded her far less money than she initially requested. Wellner was fired from her job at the Montefiore Einstein Center, in the Bronx, after her 2016 arrest. She is also suing her former employers for unfair dismissal Wellner was fired from her job as a cancer surgeon at the Montefiore Einstein Center shortly after her arrest. Following her dismissal she also filed a lawsuit against the Bronx-based hospital, claiming they manufactured a false pretextual reason to terminate her employment. The real reason, she claims in the suit, is that she suffered a Lyme disease flare-up that required her to take time off work irking her employers. The lawsuit is seeking an undisclosed amount and the case is still pending. Democratic Representative Rashida Tlaib, (picture), claimed she was 'afraid' of Americans after 9/11 and that her fear encouraged her to enter politics Democrat Representative Rashida Tlaib claimed she was 'afraid' of Americans after 9/11 and that her fear encouraged her to enter politics. Tlaib, a Palestinian-American lawmaker from Michigan, also said she feared for her husband as he only had a green card at the time of the terrorist attack which killed almost 3,000 people. Tlaib, 42, made the comments in a clip filmed for Makers, a media company that tries to 'accelerate the womens movement through stories of real-life experiences that ignite passion and action.' The controversial remarks come after she was videoed calling Donald Trump a motherf****r who she wanted to see impeached in January. In a segment which is currently featured prominently on the outlet's website, Tlaib said: 'I was probably my second year in law school when 9/11 happened. 'And I was, I was really terrified of what was going to happen to my husband, who's only a green card holder at the time. 'I immediately called my brothers and told them to be very careful who you hang out with, telling my sisters, you know, just be real careful out there, and being really afraid of my fellow Americans.' Tlaib said she told her family to be careful about 'who they hang out with' following the attack. She is pictured here with family members at her ceremonial swearing-in from Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi on January 3 Rashida Tlaib said she feared for her husband as he only had a green card at the time of the September 11 terrorist attack which killed almost 3,000 people She added that the attack and the fear pushed her toward public service and becoming more involved in her community. 'It really pushed me to be more involved, and I got really curious and really angry. And I think that combination got me, you know, in front of a number of issues in the city of Detroit,' she said. Tlaib's mother was born in the Palestinian village of Beit Our al-Foqa and defeated five other candidates to win the Democratic nomination in her Michigan district in November. She is the eldest of 14 children born to Palestinian immigrants in Detroit. While noting her Palestinian heritage, her website makes no mention of her views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In a 2016 op-ed explaining why she disrupted then-presidential candidate Trump, she described herself as an "American, parent, Muslim, Arab-American, and woman." In an interview on Wednesday, Tlaib said her grandfather emigrated from Palestine to Brazil during the U.S. depression and eventually moved to Detroit to find better opportunities. Her father grew up in east Jerusalem, she said. "When he was 19, he joined his father here. At 27, my grandmother grabbed him by the ear and took him to Palestine and said, 'You are going to marry a good Arab woman.'" Tlaib has come under scrutiny recently for making troubling comments concerning Israel, with some comments perceived as anti-Semitic. She has also been accused of associating with far-left figures that have endorsed Lebanon-based Hezbollah and Palestinian terrorist groups. Tlaib filmed a segment for Makers, a media company that tries to 'accelerate the womens movement through stories of real-life experiences that ignite passion and action' One of Americas oldest Jewish organizations, the Zionist Organization of America, called for Tlaib's removal from congressional committees and from the Democratic Party for her "anti-Israel record" and ties to "terrorists, anti-Semites and conspiracy theorists." 'Rashida Tlaibs anti-Israel record was already well-known before she was elected in last years midterm elections,' the ZOA editorial article claimed. 'She calls Israel a "racist country" on the basis of the lie that Israel discriminates against those "darker skinned" supports the destruction of Israel in favor of an Arab-dominated state, "absolutely" backs withholding U.S. aid from Israel. The publication accused her of openly supporting the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which is it claimed 'committed to international ostracism and weakening of Israel with a view to its eventual elimination.' The article also includes a list of people who Tlaib has been photographed with,that she has referenced in her social media posts, which also includes information about their alleged links to bombings or other crimes. The September 11 attacks were a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda against the United States The 9/11 attack sparked widespread feelings of horror, shock and sadness across the world The editorial added: 'Someone who knowingly and enthusiastically consorts with the most virulent anti-Semites, blood-soaked terrorists and conspiracy theorists is clearly beyond the pale, or no-one is beyond the pale. 'The Democratic Party must do the only honorable thing, which is to expel her from the party and remove her from Congressional committees. 'The ZOA calls upon all pro-Israel organizations, Jewish and non-Jewish, and all decent Americans to urge Rep. Tlaibs removal from the Democratic Party and Congressional committees.' In January, Tlaib apologized for calling President Donald Trump a 'motherf***er' but not for calling for his impeachment, saying she only regretted the distraction her words caused. Tlaib dropped her F-bomb at the president during a party hosted by the liberal group MoveOn. She had taken the oath of office earlier that day. Rashida Tlaib, (left), was videoed calling Donald Trump, (right), a motherf****r who she wanted to see impeached in January The fallout from her comment consumed the Democratic Party and its leadership in the days that followed. President Trump brought it up with congressional leaders when he met with them about the government shutdown and it was a topic on the Sunday talk shows. Speaking in a dimly lit room, Tlaib told a cheering crowd that she had told one of her young sons: 'We're going to impeach the motherf****r!' 'And when your son looks at you and says, 'Mama look, you won. Bullies don't win,' and I said, 'Baby, they don't,' because we're gonna go in there and we're going to impeach the motherf****r,' Tlaib said. She later apologized for causing a 'distraction' saying: 'The use of that language was a teachable moment for me. 'And I understand that I am a member of Congress and I dont want anything that I do say or distract us. And that is the only thing I apologize for, is that it was a distraction,' she said on Tuesday. 'I will never apologize for being me and for being passionate and being upset,' she added. Two New Yorkers embarked on the trip of a lifetime for 15 days in April, making it to each of the New Seven Wonders of the World. Louis Frangella, 28, and Courtney Kaiser, 26, left their Long Island home on April 7 and before they set foot back on American soil just over two weeks later, the engaged couple had visited the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal, Petra in Jordan, the Roman Colosseum, the site of Christ the Redeemer in Brazil, Machu Picchu and Chichen Itza. The duo blogged the entire experience, sharing snapshots on their Instagram page under an account aptly named '@wonderchasers.' Frangella won the opportunity through a competition where he works at Howard Hughes Corporation and Kaiser joined him on the fully-funded adventure. Scroll down for video New Yorkers Louis Frangella, 28 (left), and Courtney Kaiser, 26 (right), left their Long Island home on April 7 and before they set foot back on American soil just over two weeks later, the engaged couple had visited the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal, Petra in Jordan, the Roman Colosseum, the site of Christ the Redeemer in Brazil, Machu Picchu and Chichen Itza Frangella and Kaiser had been planning the trip for 10 months, since the moment Frangella found out he had won the in-company contest. Their first stop was Beijing, after hopping on a flight from Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey. After two days of travel, they made it to the their first New Wonder of the World in China. Day 3: The Great Wall of China The Great Wall of China, located in the city of Huairou, opened in 1644. It was built to protect northern China from nomadic groups. Frangella and Kaiser journeyed along the expansive wall once they arrived, and were confronted with a 'surreal' view. 'When we first looked around, we noticed the grey stones beneath our feet that lead to nearby watchtowers to our right and left,' he said. 'As our eyes moved past the watchtowers, the true beauty of the Great Wall took shape in the form of a winding, serpent-like stone paths laid as far into mountainous terrain as far as we could see.' Next up, the pair headed to India. After two days of travel, they made it on day 3 to the Great Wall of China, located in the city of Huairou, opened in 1644. It was built to protect northern China from nomadic groups Day 5: Taj Mahal Located in the Indian city of Agra, the Taj Mahal is an ivory-white marble mausoleum on the south bank of the Yamuna River. It took 20 years to build beginning in 1632, and houses the remains of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan and his beloved wife, for whom the complex was commissioned, according to the History Channel. Frangella described the moment he and Kaiser laid eyes on the Taj Mahal as completely overwhelming and all-encompassing. 'We caught our first glimpse of the distant but distinct white marble of the structure through the Main Gateway, a building that we were about to pass through,' he said. 'We took a few more steps, and Im not even sure if I remember "walking" towards it you feel like youre floating when you pass through the gateway and that white marble begins to reveal its true self.' After leaving the Taj Mahal, Frangella and Kaiser ventured on to the Jordanian desert. On day 5, they saw the Taj Mahal, an ivory-white marble mausoleum on the south bank of the Yamuna River in the Indian city of Agra Day 7: Petra, Jordan Petra is located in Jordan's southwestern desert, and is often referred to as the 'Rose City' for its hand-carved caves, temples and tombs made out of blush pink sandstone, according to National Geographic. Frangella and Kaiser said this was a very close second in the race for their top destination along their route to visit all New Seven Wonders of the World. 'Were running out of descriptive words for these places...incredible, jaw-dropping, awe-inspiring...please help. DM us with some new vocabulary. We have 4 more of these Wonders to go,' the pair wrote on Instagram while sharing among the 2,000-year-old structures. 'Petra completely lived up to the hype and amazed us at how intricately detailed this city was for being carved from stone,' Frangella wrote on their blog. 'Its an amazing site and being in Jordan in general was very special. Were definitely going to be returning one day to visit more of Jordans vast history.' The next stretch of their journey would take them to Italy. On day 7 Frangella and Kaiser made it to Petra, Jordan, which is often referred to as the 'Rose City' for its hand-carved caves, temples and tombs made out of blush pink sandstone Day 9: The Roman Colosseum Frangella and Kaiser just so happened to be in Rome on Palm Sunday when the Pope would be leading mass inside of St. Peters Square in Vatican City, Italy. With a little bit of luck and a lot of kindness from a stranger, the two were able to get tickets and attend the once-in-a-lifetime religious service. 'I wont go into too much detail about the 2.5 hour mass itself (if youd like, feel free to reach out to me and Id love to share the full experience with you) but I will say that for Courtney and I, it meant more than words can describe, Frangella wrote. 'It was emotional, spiritual and truly the ultimate blessing.' After that they made their way to the Roman Colosseum, walking themselves in the steps of ancient gladiators who walked through the same entrance centuries ago. From there, it was off to Brazil for Frangella and Kaiser. Frangella and Kaiser just so happened to be in Rome on Palm Sunday for day 9 of the trip, when the Pope would be leading mass inside of St. Peters Square. After that they made their way to the Roman Colosseum, walking themselves in the steps of ancient gladiators who walked through the same entrance centuries ago Day 11: The site of the Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil Christ the Redeemer is an Art Deco statue of Jesus Christ in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, located at the summit of Mount Corcovado. The pair spent only 10 hours in the city, and despite a tour guide snafu, were still able to make it to the top of mountain to take in this site in person. 'We didnt have a tour guide but were still able to appreciate the incredible architecture of the statue,' Frangella wrote on their blog about the experience. 'Through our previous research, we knew its an Art Deco style sculpture which has French origin and is popular in home, interior and decor design. Originally, the design didnt call for the arms of Christ to be spread out as the iconic symbol it is today. It also took a whopping 9 years to build and cost around $250,000 in 1931 (which today would be $3.2 million). It also has a chapel at its base which we had the chance to check out.' After taking in that sight and spending less than a half a day on the group, the jet-setters made their way to Peru. On day 11 they stood at the bottom of the Christ the Redeemer statue of Jesus Christ in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, located at the summit of Mount Corcovado Day 13: Machu Picchu Though it was a touch call to make, Frangella said that Machu Picchu, the site of iconic, sprawling Inca city ruins, was his and Kaiser's favorite on the journey. 'The pictures of Machu Picchu just dont do it justice its a vast city that was built atop a mountain by the Incas. When we first entered the site, our tour guide took us to a jaw-dropping vantage point overlooking the main part of the ancient city. It was truly breathtaking to experience, and what made it even better was the mystery of how it was created,' he said. 'Each of the rocks that make up the buildings within the site fit almost perfectly against each other. No one knows how the rocks were shaped and formatted by the Incas this way without some sort of modern technology. 'Cusco in general is stunning its surrounded by the Andes mountains, and our ride from Cusco to Aguas Calientes (the city outside of Machu Picchu) was the most scenic train and car ride weve ever taken. And of course, the Peruvian people were extremely hospitable everywhere we went.' From one set of ancient ruins to another, the couple jetted off to Mexico for the final leg of their whirlwind expedition. Though it was a touch call to make, Frangella said that Machu Picchu, the site of iconic, sprawling Inca city ruins, was his and Kaiser's favorite on the journey. They saw it on day 13 Day 15: Chichen Itza. Chichen Itza is a ruined ancient Mayan city located just outside of Playa del Carmen in Yucatan, Mexico. 'Say hello to El Castillo part of our 7th and final Wonder, Chichen Itza. We decided to explore this last one on our own and it was the most relaxed weve been this whole trip. The Mayans really outdid themselves with this strategically designed development,' the pair wrote on Instagram. 'We made it to all 7 Wonders of the Modern World in just 2 weeks time. From first Wonder to last Wonder in just 13 days, and when we fly home tomorrow, it will be home to home in 16 days.' When all was said and done, Frangella and Kaiser celebrated the journey in nearby Cancun. Day 15 saw the end of their journey at Chichen Itza, which is a ruined ancient Mayan city located just outside of Playa del Carmen in Yucatan, Mexico Prior to completing this journey of a lifetime, Frangella and Kaiser took a two-week vacation to Greece, spending the first half of the trip with family and the second half exploring Athens, Sparta and Varvitsa with some of their closest friends. 'We dont travel as often as wed like , Frangella said, joking that he's not sure anyone really does, before adding, 'but recently we have been traveling more frequently.' As for what's next for Frangella and Kaiser, this coming year will be focused more on smaller trips for family events but they do have their sights set on the next big thing. 'We would love to visit Africa. We both have a passion for helping animals and have always talked about traveling throughout the continent of Africa, starting in Egypt and then working our way down to South Africa,' Frangella said. 'Our wedding is next year so we havent booked our next big trip just yet were open to ideas!' It's safe to say Frangella and Kaiser have already been to more places in less than three decades than many people will have the opportunity to visit in a lifetime. For those who might not be able to get there themselves, people can experience the explorations of Frangella and Kaiser vicariously by visiting their website or following their Instagram page, under the username '@wonderchasers.' Residents at one of Birmingham's most luxurious developments have spoken of their 'living hell' with overflowing rubbish, broken lifts and no WiFi for nine months. The Bank Tower 1 in the city centre is advertised as a 'pinnacle of design and quality' and 'Birminghams most desirable place to live'. But the 21-storey building has left many residents less than impressed, with a current rating of 1.4 stars on Google with reviews warning prospective tenants to 'stay away'. Now the building's tenants and homeowners are worried they are losing money on their properties. Residents at Bank Tower 1, advertised as one of Birmingham's most luxurious developments, have been complaining about ongoing issues in the block of flats Resident Bernard Caroll, a 67-year-old retiree, told BirminghamLive about his difficulties since moving into The Bank seven months ago. He said: 'It's been hell since I've lived here. Most people who came in September weren't told about the existing issues with the WiFi. 'The issues and responses from the developers are so unfair and it's made me ill actually. 'They're selling it as five-star accommodation so I can't believe these issues are going on. 'I honestly don't believe anybody would have moved in here if they'd known about the internet. 'We're being treated like idiots. I stay awake all night thinking about it. I'd move out tomorrow if I could. I feel robbed. Resident Bernard Caroll, a 67-year-old retiree, said he has been enduring a 'living hell' since moving in seven months ago 'Being on my own, the internet is a bit of a life line. It's very comforting to be connected and I've lost that for the last seven months. I'm going crazy.' Though residents were provided with a public WiFi after they voiced their concerns, they say this connection does not work the majority of the time due to the volume of people trying to access it. Another resident, 36-year-old design engineer Samuele Sois, said the ongoing issues left him unable to work from his apartment. He said: 'We've been stranded for months and months. We now have a public WiFi connection, but it's extremely slow and doesn't work at all during peak times.' 'I moved in September and I can remember seeing a letter promising that the issue will be fixed within a week, but it still hasn't. 'That's the worst bit, the level of communication and the basic need for honesty and transparency from the management. They keep promising and not delivering.' Mr Sois added that there are ongoing issues with the building's lifts, meaning he has to carry his young child and pram up to the 20th floor. He said: 'They left a broken elevator for months and months. I have a young child so it was very difficult to carry him and the shopping upstairs.' The design engineer said the building's cleanliness is another issue, with overflowing rubbish and dirty windows a common sight. The growing list of concerns is causing some residents to question their investment. Residents have complained about broken lifts, dirty windows, uncollected rubbish and no WiFi Ricky McDowall paid 220,000 for a one-bedroom apartment in the building but now fears the poor reviews could impact him if he decides to sell in the future. He said: 'I love the apartment, but having the internet would be nice. It's abysmal that you pay for a luxury apartment with a state of the art building and then you don't have internet. 'It said state of the art on the advertisements, yet they fitted copper cables instead of Fibre Optic. Copper is currently being fazed out. 'People are reviewing the building online and in five years time that could come back to hurt me if I decide to sell the place. 'I'm worried about losing value on my apartment because of this.' Mark Holbeche, of Regal Property Group, the building's developer, said the company had been working with contractors to resolve the issues. He said: 'We were concerned to discover that a small minority of residents have experienced initial set up issues at The Bank. 'Whilst we worked closely with our contractor Wates to produce a snag-free building on completion, as with any new-build property, there are likely to be minor snagging issues on first occupation. 'We have worked diligently to address them in a timely and effective manner, while keeping residents fully updated. 'We would ask for the assistance of residents in ensuring that, for instance, apartments are correctly ventilated as explained in the home guide which all residents receive on completion, and that the advised weight limits in the elevators are noted, as this has caused minor issues. 'Likewise, we will ensure that our managing agents are available and approachable to assist wherever possible. 'While there has been an unfortunate and unavoidable delay in installation, I am pleased to say that fibre broadband is now fully connected throughout the building via Virgin Media and residents can now register to set up their connections. 'A high-quality temporary internet connection was made available to residents throughout the interim to ensure disruption was kept to a minimum. 'As with much of the city, waste disposal has been affected by the Birmingham City Council bin strikes and our managing agents have organised private refuse collections at no extra cost to residents. 'Windows are also cleaned quarterly, and our contractor has organised specialist services to dispose of debris. 'Work on the completion of the second tower is well underway and the entire development is due for completion later this year, at which point communal spaces such as the gym, residents' coffee lounge and landscaped area, as well as the retail space, as per the timetable provided to all purchasers. 'The Bank has been designed to a high specification, using high quality materials and finishes, and has recently won an industry award for sustainability. 'The vast majority of feedback we have received from residents has been positive and we endeavour to provide the best service we can, and it is vital that we, our managing agents and residents maintain an open dialogue to ensure that all issues are addressed as quickly and effectively as possible to ensure that The Bank remains a leading choice for city centre living in Birmingham.' New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy on Friday ordered that the Mississippi flag, which carries a Confederate emblem, be replaced by the American flag at a state park that overlooks the Statue of Liberty. Murphy ordered the removal of Mississippi's flag from a display of each state's flag at Liberty State Park, a preserve of more than 1,200 acres in Jersey City that overlooks Ellis Island and Lady Liberty. Murphy is a first-term Democrat and a self-styled progressive who regularly cited the Emma Lazarus poem at the statue's base that invites immigrants to America. New Jersey, he said, is rooted in diversity, and the flag doesn't fit. 'The Confederate symbol displayed on the Mississippi state flag is reprehensible and does not reflect our values of inclusivity and equality,' he said in a statement. The Mississippi flag includes the Confederate battle emblem in the upper left corner. The emblem has a red field topped by a blue X, dotted with 13 white stars. On Friday New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy ordered that the Mississippi flag out of Liberty State Park, which overlooks the Statue of Liberty because it displays the Confederate symbol Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant, a Republican, said in a statement Friday: 'I'm disappointed in Gov. Murphy's actions. As I have repeatedly said, the voters of Mississippi should decide what the state flag is or is not.' The flag was adopted in April of 1894, but was repealed in 1906 without a replacement, and so continued to be in de facto use. Mississippians who voted in a 2001 statewide election chose to keep the flag. 'The Confederate symbol does not reflect New Jersey's values of inclusivity and equality,' Murphy tweeted on Friday The flags of all of the states are displayed in the park, but Mississippi will no longer be represented and the American flag will fly in that spot instead Confederate symbols have been widely debated across the South, particularly since June 2015, when a white supremacist killed nine black worshippers at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, as well as in 2017, when violence erupted as white nationalists held a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Murphy said he made the decision after Democratic state Sen. Sandra Cunningham raised the issue with him. Cunningham said in a statement that the flag symbolized 'an era of hate, violence, and division.' But several Mississippi cities and counties and all eight of the state's public universities have stopped flying it in recent years amid criticism that the battle emblem is a racist reminder of slavery and segregation. Supporters of the flag say it represents history. Russian President Vladimir Putin today slammed the US justice department over its handling of the case of NRA spy Maria Butina. Ms Butina, who is a Siberian native, was jailed for 18 months having been convicted of trying to infiltrate the National Rifle Association in order to influence conservatives and republicans. Putin, who is in Beijing, described the sentence as 'an outrage'. Russian President Vladimir Putin, pictured today in Beijing, attacked US justice officials over the prosecution of Siberian native Maria Butina who has been jailed for 18 months for spying Butina, pictured, admitted one count of conspiracy to act as the agent of a foreign government without first registering Butina, pictured at a US gun show, was accused of trying to infiltrate the National Rifle Association in order to influence conservatives and members of the republican party The Russian leader told reporters: 'It's not clear what she was convicted of or what crime she committed. I think it's a prime example of 'saving face'. They arrested her and put the girl in jail. But there was nothing on her, so in order not to look totally stupid they gave her, fixed her up, with an 18-month sentence to show that she was guilty of something.' Butina, 30, begged for mercy as the sentence was handed down. She was arrested as part of a three-year federal probe into alleged interference into the US presidential election. She had admitted one count of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government without registering - a so-called 'espionage-lite' charge the US has used before against alleged Russian spies. Prosecutors said that although she worked openly and was not tied to any Russian intelligence agency, she was sending back reports to a high-level Russian government official and posed a threat to the United States. 'I humbly request forgiveness. I'm not this evil person depicted in the media,' she told the court in Washington before her sentence was announced. Dressed in a dark blue pajama-like prison uniform, her long red hair pulled behind her shoulders, Butina's voice broke as she addressed the court in fluent, Russian-accented English. She told the court she had only wanted to work towards better US-Russian relations and would have registered as a foreign agent if she had known it was required by law. Butina, pictured got to within a few feet of Trump at a rally in 2015 where she asked him a question about US-Russian relations Moscow expressed outrage over the treatment of Butina, who was given credit for nine months already served and will be deported when she is released. 'The accusations brought against her, intended to influence the internal political process in the United States, are totally invented and fabricated,' Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement. 'Our compatriot was condemned just because she is a Russian citizen,' it added. On the sidelines of a summit in Beijing, Russian President Vladimir Putin called the conviction 'arbitrary'. 'There is nothing we could accuse her of, but to make this case not look completely ridiculous, she was sentenced to 18 months in prison,' he said. Butina's case played out against a backdrop of tension between Moscow and Washington over what US intelligence says was a concerted effort by Russian spies to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, using hacking and social media manipulation to help President Donald Trump to victory. Special Counsel Robert Mueller charged 25 Russians with conspiracy for those activities, but, with all of them believed to be in Russia, none have been arrested. US prosecutors acknowledged that Butina had nothing to do with those cases but alleged that she was part of a 'spot-and-assess' operation to identify potential recruits. A gun rights campaigner who attended NRA events and invited top gun lobby officials to Russia, she lived as a graduate student in Washington with her boyfriend, a Republican and NRA activist. Her activities brought her in contact with top Republicans, including Trump at a rally in 2015, where she was chosen to ask the then-candidate about US-Russian relations. Butina sent regular updates to her handler Alexander Torshin, at the time a senior Kremlin politician and central bank deputy governor who had accompanied her to NRA conventions. 'There is no doubt that she was not simply a graduate student,' Assistant US Attorney Erik Kenerson told the court. 'She was simultaneously trying to make contacts... for the benefit of the Russian Federation.' Steven Hall, the CIA's former chief of Russian operations, said her operating in the open was simply an innovative tactic in Putin's 'broader hybrid-warfare influence operation.' 'She's part of the Kremlin's plan to try to weaken the United States and the West,' he said. Butina's lawyer Robert Driscoll, a prominent Republican attorney, said she had broken no law besides the registration statute, and would not have been pursued had she been of a different nationality. It remained to be seen whether Butina's sentencing would impact the case of Paul Whelan, an American corporate security expert arrested while in Moscow for a wedding late last year and accused of espionage. Some Russian experts said his arrest was retaliation for that of Butina, although Whelan's brother, David, has said he doesn't believe the cases are related. But before Butina's sentencing Hall, who is no longer with the CIA, said Washington 'has to take into account that they do have an American over there, and we have a Russian here.' 'So is there not a deal to be had?' he said. 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. Advertisement Fighting broke out between riot police and Yellow Vest protesters around the European Parliament in Strasbourg today as thousands of rounds of tear gas were unleashed. The anti-government movement had pledged to lay siege to the assembly in eastern France on their 24th 'Day of Rage' Saturday in a row. This was despite a series of 5million measures laid out by French President Emmanuel Macron to pacify the Yellow Vests, who are named after their distinctive high-visibility motoring jackets. Fights between Yellow Vest protesters and police broke out in Strasbourg today as the protesters surrounded the European Parliament. Pictured is a protester throwing a smoke canister A protester kicks a smoke canister back toward riot police during demonstrations outside the EU's headquarters in Strasbourg today Strasbourg protesters hold a sign warning not to 'forget 2005' - a year which saw three weeks of intense riots that included violent attacks, and the burning of cars and public buildings The protest continues for it's 24th 'Day of Rage' in a row despite a series of 5million measures laid out by French President Emmanuel Macron. Pictured are Yellow Vest protesters in Paris on their 'Act XXIV' (Act 24) today President Macron gave a crisis TV address from the Elysee Palace in Paris on Thursday where he made it clear that the protest movement reflected legitimate anger. Pictured is a barricade on fire during a Yellow Vest protest last December A Yellow vest protester holds a sign with a derogatory depiction of President Macron with the caption 'Macron's real face' (left) in Paris today. Another protester holds up a board which says: 'I have understood you! The National Debate! What a joke! Hi hi' (right) Referring to the Left Wing anti-fascist movement, independent journalist Sotiri Dimpinoudis wrote on Twitter: 'Yellow Vest (Gilets Jaunes) Antifa protestors are literally fighting with police on the passage bridge in Strasbourg, as police block major roads and bridges leading towards the European parliament.' Videos showed tear gas being unleashed around the Strasbourg parliament, as arrests were made by heavily armed riot police. The Yellow Vests coalition includes numerous anti-Europe protesters, many of whom are calling for a 'Frexit', which would see France leave the EU. In a crisis TV address from the Elysee Palace in Paris on Thursday, Mr Macron made it clear that the protest movement calling for his resignation reflected legitimate anger. 'Deep reform is needed to address the deep sense of fiscal, social and provincial injustice,' said Mr Macron, who said 5billion would be spent on measures aimed at helping them. He said 'income tax will be significantly reduced,' especially for the working classes who formed the Yellow Vests on line last November. Mr Macron was severely criticised for responding to their demands within a few weeks, slashing green taxes on petrol and diesel just before Christmas. 'Fight or starve': The protests stemmed from rising fuel prices as those who were affected fight against rising living costs A protester holds up the French flag during the rally in Paris today on the 24th consecutive Saturday of Yellow Vest demonstrations Smoke billows as the demonstration in Strasbourg continues. Yellow Vest protesters can be seen wearing facemasks to protect themselves from the gas A Gilets Jaunes or Yellow Vest protestor holds a yellow flag during Act 24 of protests on April 27, 2019 in Paris, France A French Tricolor flag is held aloft during Act 24 of protests, despite concessions announced by President Macron on Thursday Riot police run in a street past a burning rubbish bin during the demonstration by European Parliament in Strasbourg Videos from the fights today in Strasbourg showed police unleash tear gas on protesters in an attempt to dissipate the crowds. Independent journalist Sotiri Dimpinoudis wrote on Twitter: 'Yellow Vest (Gilets Jaunes) Antifa protestors are literally fighting with police on the passage bridge in Strasbourg, as police block major roads and bridges leading towards the European parliament.' Pictured are riot police gathered on a bridge in Strasbourg 'Yellow Vest' protesters chant for the resignation of President Macron during Act 24 of protests despite Macrons reforms President Macron said 'income tax will be significantly reduced,' especially for the working classes who formed the Yellow Vests on line last November. Pictured are protesters holding a banner that reads 'Social regression is non-negotiable' during the 24th 'Day of Rage' demonstration Despite other concessions costing some 10billion, the Yellow Vests continued to campaign, and soon turned into a nationwide anti-government movement. They have been responsible for some of the worst violence seen in cities such as Paris for 50 years. Thousands of police and soldiers are drafted into the French capital every Saturday, when there is regular fighting and acts of vandalism, including fires being lit. The situation is now so extreme that vast areas of Paris - including the district around the Elysee Palace - are shut off every weekend. Two demonstrations were held in Paris today, and there were similar gatherings in cities such as Dijon and Toulouse. Thousands of police and soldiers are drafted into the French capital every Saturday, when there is regular fighting and acts of vandalism, including fires being lit Protesters hold a pancart that reads 'Act 24 electroshock it's missed' during an anti-government demonstration Protesters hold up signs in support of an RIC, Citizen's Initiated Referendum, whileblocking a bridge during the demonstration in Strasbourg The situation is now so extreme that vast areas of Paris - including the district around the Elysee Palace - are shut off every weekend. Pictured are riot police standing in a smoke-filled park amid protests in Strasbourg A protester wearing a signature yellow vest holds up a sign with a drawing of Emmanuel Macron that reads 'I have not understood you' (left). Another demonstrator holds a card with a picture of Macron that says: 'I am for a society without statutes' (right) Protesters in Paris hold up a huge sign which reads: 'Faced with a global attack, general response'. According to the General Confederation of Labour union, 80,000 people have participated in the protests in Paris Thousands of police and soldiers are drafted into the French capital every Saturday, when there is regular fighting and acts of vandalism, including fires being lit Yellow Vests take to the streets for the 24th consecutive Saturday of protests. Some 250,000 people across the country are believed to have joined in the anti-Macron protests, according to CGT One protester holds a poster which calls for 'a free press to inform' during a Yellow Vest demonstration outside the headquarters of France's Audiovisual Council today in Paris (left). Another protester wears her yellow vest which states 'I am ashamed for my government but I still love my country' during the demonstration outside the EU headquarters in Strasbourg today (right) Mr Macron was severely criticised for responding to their demands within a few weeks, slashing green taxes on petrol and diesel just before Christmas. Pictured are protesters at the demonstration in Strasbourg which has seen police unleash tear gas on Yellow Vests Yellow Vest demonstrators in Paris today for their 24th 'Day of Rage' in a row. Mass demonstrations began on November 17 last year One of the protesters uses a megaphone to chant for the resignation of President Macron. His placard calls for a free and non biased media Two young boys watch the protests. The banner held aloft by one of the protesters reads: 'We lose nothing' Despite other concessions costing some 10billion, the Yellow Vests continued to campaign, and soon turned into a nationwide anti-government movement. They have been responsible for some of the worst violence seen in cities such as Paris for 50 years. Pictured is a Yellow Vest protester giving a riot policeman a flower in Paris today The situation is now so extreme that vast areas of Paris - including the district around the Elysee Palace - are shut off every weekend Protesters in Paris carry a placard depicting Eugene Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People, which commemorates the July Revolution of 1830, which toppled King Charles X of France This woman holds her vest open to reveal a message on her jumper reading 'The Revolution is underway' during Act 24 of protests A protester in Paris holds a toy cow as he stands outside the headquarters of France's Audiovisual Council in Paris Protesters in Paris hold up a banner that reads: 'Strikes, blockages, Macron cleared' A protester wearing a yellow vest that says 'free Julian Assange' holds up a sign that simply reads 'anger' (left). Another protester shows his support by wearing a yellow vest with a french flag and a skull in the middle (right) The trouble has extended to other major cities, including Bordeaux and Toulouse, where hundreds have been arrested, or injured by police weapons ranging from 'flash ball' rubber bullets to batons. Roundabouts, fuel depots and motorway service stations have also been targeted by the Yellow Vests in the countryside, prompting Mr Macron to pledge more money for rural areas. Despite such moves, Mr Macron is still regularly described as a 'President of the Rich' who is primarily interested in supporting big business. He has already scrapped wealth taxes, and made it far easier for companies to hire-and-fire employees. Mr Macron had originally planned to deliver a reform speech to the nation a week ago, but it was postponed because of the fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Some 1billion has now been pledged to rebuild the medieval place of worship - promoting the Yellow Vests to ask why other funds cannot be found to deal with their own grievances. Roundabouts, fuel depots and motorway service stations have also been targeted by the Yellow Vests in the countryside, prompting Mr Macron to pledge more money for rural areas Tommy Robinson's campaign Twitter account was suspended within two days of him announcing his bid to become an MEP. The former English Defence League leader faced a setback on Saturday as his campaigning account was shutdown, but if he manages to succeed to the European Parliament he could stand to rake in 2 million in tax payer funds. As an MEP the far-right campaigner would take a 86,700 annual salary at a 'community tax rate' which can be just 12 percent. His assault conviction is no matter for the EU and they would provide a 258,600 for his staff, as well as 47,244 to cover their office and travel costs. British far-right activist and pundit, Tommy Robinson speaks to supporters as he launches his election campaign in the Manchester suburbs on Thursday Robinson's campaign Twitter account was suspended on Saturday According to The Telegraph, Robinson could bank 392,544 a year and if Britain fails to leave the EU, a total of 1.96 million in his five year term in office. Robinson - who is running as an independent in the north west - could earn even more cash if he gets himself into a political group. The EU encourage common political minds to group together and Robinson's band could stand to earn yet more cash if they do so. Though not involved with the Ukip fray, Robinson could be well-placed to stand alongside the right-wing Europe of Nations and Freedoms group. Their 37 members include the ranks of Italy's League and Geert Wilders' Dutch Party of Freedom. Robinson spoke to around 300 people gathered in the Manchester suburbs on Thursday to announce a 'David versus Goliath' battle to represent the 'betrayed' working class of England as an MEP. The rally had offered free burgers and hot dogs from a catering van, until Robinson announced he had to stop giving away food after a call from police to tell him this broke electoral law on inducements to vote. After further technical hitches with his PA system, he told supporters that people on council estates such as Wythenshawe, where the rally was held, had been 'betrayed and forgotten' because enough did not vote. 'Everyone is so disillusioned with the liars in Parliament, but that is also our weakness,' he said. Robinson (pictured above) said he had chosen Wythenshawe as it was a working class area which had been forgotten Tommy Robinson, pictured on stage in Westminster last month, will stand as an independent and took a swipe at Nigel Farage , whose new Brexit Party is leading in the polls, calling him: 'Just another millionaire who looks down at the working classes'. People attended the event from all over the country and supporters from areas such as Manchester, the Wirral and Nottingham showed up 'It's the reason we are being betrayed and will continue being betrayed, until they fear us. 'The only way they will fear us is if we take their seats.' Robinson's visit to the Wythenshawe estate, a huge post-war housing development on the edge of south Manchester, had been condemned by the local MP, Labour's Mike Kane, and a group of local church and faith leaders. But Robinson said for the next month he will campaign in working class communities across the North West to target those who 'religiously' vote Labour. Robinson said 'diversity rules' but claimed 96% of MPs were middle class with privately educated children who 'know nothing about the estates or communities we come from'. He added: 'Send them a message they will never forget. If we can do this over the next four weeks it will be historical. If we can turn this into votes, we will win.' Shouts of 'scum' broke out from supporters as he criticised purported sharia law advocates and the mainstream media. Tommy Robinson had hosted the event in Wythenshawe on Thursday evening to launch his election campaign Protestors objecting to far-right activist Tommy Robinson's announcement to stand for MEP gathered outside Manchester Town Hall on Thursday Robinson will continue as an adviser to Ukip leader Gerard Batten, despite running against eight of the party's candidates, a spokesman for Ukip said. He is unable to join Ukip's membership under party rules because anyone who has previously been an English Defence League member is banned. Anti-extremism campaigners Hope Not Hate called for voters to sign up to oppose the 'far-right thug'. Chief executive Nick Lowles said: 'Stephen Lennon is a far-right thug who uses his platform to bully, abuse and stir up division, monetising his hatred to rake in donations from his fans. 'The North West needs a voice of hope, not hatred.' The Brexit Party has surged into the lead in the race for the European Elections after a top pollster predicted Nigel Farage's new party could win its first election Ahead of the visit by Robinson, Mr Kane, speaking in the Commons, said the activist is 'not welcome to spread his xenophobic, Islamophobic, homophobic, racist vitriol in my community or in any other community'. Mr Kane added: 'He seeks to divide rather than to unite people. We do things differently in Manchester, we stand together against hate.' Voters go to the polls on May 23, if the Euro elections go ahead which depends on whether agreement is reached over EU withdrawal. A little boy who was taking part in an Easter egg hunt has allegedly found handguns in a Melbourne park, near where a man was fatally shot. The youngster, who was taking part in an egg hunt at South Yarra's Fawkner Park on Saturday afternoon, allegedly found two guns about 5pm in the centre of the park. A woman who was with the child and asked to remain anonymous, told the Sunday Herald Sun she couldn't believe the boy made the alleged discovery in the park. 'One of the parents called out and someone realised there had been a shooting here last night,' the woman said. A little boy who was taking part in an Easter egg hunt has allegedly found a handgun in a Melbourne park, near where a man was fatally shot A boy has allegedly found two handguns in a park while taking part in an Easter egg hunt 'One of the young boys made the find. We called the police and they came right away and set up a crime scene.' The discovery of the handgun came after a Carnegie man, 41, was gunned down in Fawkner Park about 7.40pm on Friday night. Victoria Police have not at this stage commented on whether the guns are linked to Fridays murder. Emergency services attempted to revive the man on Friday evening, but he died at the scene. A large police presence, aided by SES volunteers, combed the park for clues, but as of Saturday afternoon hadn't confirmed they had identified any suspects. Police scaled back the crime scene which had originally extended across much of the park and playing fields. Detectives said they were satisfied with the search and a number of items of interest had been collected for further inspection. It is not known what led to the attack, and the victim has not yet been formally identified. The discovery of the handgun came after a Carnegie man, 41, was gunned down in Fawkner Park (pictured) about 7.40pm on Friday night SES volunteers (pictured) aid in the search for clues following a fatal shooting in Melboune's popular Fawkner Park on Friday night Local woman, Freedy Coory, was taking her dog for a walk when she claims she heard what sounded like gunfire. 'It sounded like four shots - bang, bang, bang, bang,' Ms Coory previously told the Herald Sun. Soon after she heard ambulances go past. Other residents also claimed to have heard loud noises coming from the park at the time of the incident. One male resident, who didn't want to be named, previously told the Herald Sun: 'I thought it was someone banging on the downstairs door. A large police presence, aided by SES volunteers (pictured), searched Fawkner Park in South Yarra, Melbourne 'I now know they were gunshots. This sort of thing doesn't usually happen around here,' he said. The shooting came as another unrelated incident in Melbourne suburb, Reservoir, in which a man in his 20s was stabbed. The man was taken to hospital with life threatening injuries after he was stabbed by an unknown assailant about 7pm. He remains in hospital in a serious but stable condition, and police are searching for the alleged attacker who fled the scene in dark clothing and was not known to the victim. SES volunteers (pictured) combed the grounds of Fawkner Park, Melbourne, for clues following the shooting death of a man on Friday night The shooting and stabbing are the latest in a series of violent incidents which have plagued Melbourne over the last several months. In March, a man was shot dead, and two others injured, at the Melbourne Pavilion in the inner city suburb of Kensington. In November last year, a man stumbled into a service station after being shot in the face in Melbournes west. The man, in his 40s, survived the shooting. Two men were killed in another shooting in Melbourne earlier this month. Richard Arow, 28, died almost a week after the incident, which police believe was connected to outlaw motorcycle gangs and Middle Eastern organised crime groups. His death followed that of security guard, Arron Khalid Osmani, 37, who was shot during the same attack at Melbourne night club, Prahrans Love Machine. Police have urged anyone with any information about Fridays shooting to come forward or contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000. Theresa May could be forced to leave Downing Street by late June if she does not deliver a Brexit deal, it is claimed. Conservative Party sources said the Prime Minister will be forced out by 'men in grey suits' unless it becomes clear by the end of May that her plan stands a chance of being approved. After the influential Tory 1922 Committee voted against changing party rules to allow another vote of no confidence in Mrs May this summer, one member told The Sun: 'You won't keep this at bay forever. 'But she has a few more weeks to pull a rabbit out of the hat.' Theresa May could be forced to leave Downing Street by late June if she does not deliver a Brexit deal, it is claimed Mrs May survived a vote last December - and party rules state another cannot be initiated for another year, but Conservative insiders are reported to believe 1922 Committee chair Sir Graham Brady will warn that a change in rules will become increasingly likely without Brexit progress. Downing Street has set June 30 as its new deadline for a Brexit deal in the Commons. Last week ministers piled pressure on Mrs May to bring her Brexit deal back within days as it was claimed she could tear out the Irish backstop to swing the vote. Pictured: 1922 Committee Chair Sir Graham Brady The PM could remove the divisive border clause in the hope MPs vote for it and send a new message to Brussels that it must be axed or changed if Britain is to leave the EU. Downing Street had hoped to bring forward the Withdrawal Agreement Bill next week with the hope of getting a version of the Prime Minister's deal through Parliament in time to cancel European Parliament elections on May 23. Tory whips privately told ministers that the idea has been put on hold for at least a week while the PM tries to secure enough backing for her deal to pass. The Prime Minister is being pressured to renegotiate with the European Union by Conservative Brexiteers such as former leader Iain Duncan-Smith, the Tory European Research Group 'Spartans', and the DUP. EU negotiators have insisted that the UK's Withdrawal Agreement cannot be reopened. Earlier this month Mrs May faced calls to resign from furious Brexiteers after a six-month extension deal was agreed at an emergency EU council meeting in Brussels. The delay until Halloween, with a 'review' in June, was a compromise solution thrashed out in five hours of talks in Mrs May's absence, after Emmanuel Macron held out against a longer extension lasting into 2020. Mrs May has already revealed she plans to stand down as leader before the next scheduled election of 2022. A 31-year-old married gun-toting ensign has won the a beauty contest in Vladimir Putin's national guards. Mother-of-one Anna Khramtsova topped a list of 1,000-plus entrants for a Russian military force which reports directly to the Kremlin strongman. But she explained she had to cope with sexism in the 340,000-strong Russian National Guard, set up by Putin. Mother-of-one Anna Khramtsova has topped a list of 1,000-plus entrants for a Russian national guards beauty contest The mother-of-one from Yekaterinburg says has previously served in the police and has a law degree The 31-year-old married gun-toting ensign says she has often faced sexism in her job but she ignores it 'I do get to hear those old jokes about blonds in service, but I ignore them - and just serve stylishly,' she said. She is from a military and law enforcement family, with her father in the army and police for 30 years and her mother also in uniform. 'I am proud to continue the dynasty,' said Anna, from Yekaterinburg, revealing she had previously served in the police and has a law degree. Showing her shooting skills, she said: 'Most important is to pull the gun out calmly, to aim and breathe out.' Khramtsova is from a military and law enforcement family, with her father in the army and police for 30 years and her mother also in uniform A male colleague said of the junior officer: 'First of all she is a member of the National Guard team, and only then a woman' She is taking part in a bikini contest after winning the contest in which 57,000 Russians voted She chose her black manicure colour to match her gun, she said. An unnamed male colleague said of the junior officer: 'First of all she is a member of the National Guard team, and only then a woman. 'Of course she looks after herself, uses makeup and checks how she looks in the mirror.' In the gym she was filmed saying: 'Right now I am training to take part in a bikini contest. 'I didn't want to at first, but then colleagues and friends insisted and pushed me into it.' More than 1,000 Russians entered the beauty contest in the national guards including junior lieutenant Anastasia Budilo (left) and junior sergeant Anna Piksun (right) Junior sergeant Natalia Shkolnaya from Seversk was pipped to the top prize by Anna Khramtsova Senior sergeant Viktoria Bredikhina from St Petersburg (left) and junior sergeant Olga Sizova from Moscow (right) competed in the contest Police major Yuia Gladysheva from Ivanovo (left) and lieutenant Karina Shmakova from Grozny (right) are members of the internal military force in Russia Yefreytor Kristina Tsyganova from Rostov-on-Don, pictured here with a dog, uploaded her best picture for the beauty contest Police major Olga Astaturova from Tula works for the national guard whose mission is to secure borders and combat terrorism Servicewoman in the national guard were urged to upload their 'best pictures' and biographies for the 'photo beauty contest', with 57,000 Russians taking part in the voting. Pictures of another dozen finalists will be used in a 2020 calendar for the national guard. The national guard is the internal military force of the Russian government. It has a mission to to secure borders, take charge of gun control, combat terrorism, defeat organised crime, protect public order and guard important state facilities. Climate protesters were 'happy and warm in blankets' while camping in trees due to be cut down to make way for the HS2 rail link, according to an Extinction Rebellion spokeswoman. During further demonstrations this weekend 12 members of the campaign group climbed trees in the London Borough of Hillingdon to save them from chainsaws. Other protests across the capital included a 'die-in' in the Kings Cross Waitrose's vegetable aisle and outside the Tate Modern. During further demonstrations this weekend 12 members of the campaign group climbed trees in the London Borough of Hillingdon to save them from chainsaws The Colne Valley trees, on Harvil Road in the regional park, were set to be felled between 8am and 6pm today and tomorrow to make way for the high-speed rail line. But tree surgeons were unable to remove the trees due to strong winds and the presence of the protesters. The climbers are due to descend after 6pm today and return tomorrow morning. Jo Rogers, spokeswoman for Extinction Rebellion, said earlier today: 'Given strength of wind, (we're) beginning to be concerned for climbers. So far they're all happy and warm in blankets.' Other demonstrators held a die in beside Dippy the Diplodocus who is currently on a tour of Britain and is in the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow The trees, on Harvil Road in Colne Valley Regional Park, were set to be felled between 8am and 6pm today and tomorrow to make way for the high-speed rail line Jo Rogers, spokeswoman for Extinction Rebellion, said earlier today: 'Given strength of wind, (we're) beginning to be concerned for climbers. So far they're all happy and warm in blankets' Save Colne Valley also fears that the process of pile driving deep holes into the aquifer risks contaminating the water supply for 3.2 million Londoners She told the Press Association the group are concerned about the scale of tree-felling in the Colne Valley while the future of the HS2 rail project is still in doubt. '(HS2) hasn't even got planning permission for the whole line. We're concerned that they are doing these things far sooner than they should be.' Sarah Green, of local campaign group Save Colne Valley, said it would take at least 20 days for further road closures to be approved to allow the felling to take place. 'There's no talking to HS2. They're carrying on with no planning permission and no real plan.' The protesters camped in the trees from between 8am until 6pm today. They are expected to return again tomorrow Sarah Green, of a local campaign group, estimates 2,000 trees have already been cleared from nearby sites by subcontractors to HS2 in the last month The twelve protesters wanted to deter tree surgeons from selling the trees to ensure more thought it put in to HS2 plans Ropes kept the protesters secure while blankets shielded them from the biting chill and winds She estimates at least 2,000 trees have already been cleared from nearby sites by subcontractors to HS2 in the last month. Save Colne Valley also fears that the process of pile driving deep holes into the aquifer risks contaminating the water supply for 3.2 million Londoners. Ms Green said: 'We the customers must become the custodians in the absence of responsibility by our elected representatives. Colne Valley Regional Park itself encompasses 43 square miles stretching from Rickmansworth in Hertfordshire to Staines, Surrey, and the banks of the Thames in the south, Uxbridge and Heathrow, in Hillingdon, in the east and Slough, Berkshire, in the west Jo Rogers, spokeswoman for Extinction Rebellion, says the group are concerned about the scale of tree-felling in the Colne Valley while the future of the HS2 rail project is still in doubt Colne Valley has 200 miles of rivers, canals and more than 60 lakes, according to its website 'Pure water supplies for life and a sustainable future are essential. We have to act now.' Colne Valley Regional Park itself encompasses 43 square miles stretching from Rickmansworth in Hertfordshire to Staines, Surrey, and the banks of the Thames in the south, Uxbridge and Heathrow, in Hillingdon, in the east and Slough, Berkshire, in the west. It has 200 miles of rivers, canals and more than 60 lakes, according to its website. Different groups of protesters have been targeting various locations across Britain Sian Cox, 54, from Brecon, said: 'Extinction Rebellion was the first time I was arrested and this is my first time at a protest site. 'The fight we have on our hands is to change the system that puts short-term economic growth ahead of the health of the biosphere we all rely on for life. We are killing our host, and this tree is a symbol of that for me. 'The only thing that works in a system that does not want to change is non-violent action like this.' A dozen protesters held a 'die in' at a Waitrose supermarket in Kings Cross as part of the Extinction Rebellion demonstration Earlier today demonstrators held a 'die in' outside London's Tate Modern museum Dozens of cyclists held aloft flags with a bee motif as they pretended to be dead The demonstrators held their impromptu protest at the Waitrose supermarket in Kings Cross Manu Frosh, 41, said: 'It is important that we protect our world. If I'm up a tree they can't cut it down, and if enough people take this action they may realise people's lives are more important than fast trains.' In other protests members of the action group, as well as several young children, lay down on the floor inside the Waitrose branch in Kings Cross. A video, which was shot on Friday afternoon, was supposed to mark the end of the 10-day Extinction Rebellion. The Climate Extinction protests were due to finish yesterday, but several new demonstrations have broken out More than 1,100 people have been arrested over the past fortnight due to the protests The demonstrators said they were going to strike their camp yesterday evening. Officials in London are trying to determine if a stenciled mural that appeared at a base camp for climate protests was created by the street artist Banksy. The mural is on a wall at Marble Arch, where the group Extinction Rebellion had an encampment for 10 days until Thursday and disrupted transportation in the British capital with daily, targeted non-violent protests. The artwork shows a child holding an Extinction Rebellion sign beside the words 'From this moment despair ends and tactics begin.' The protests in London have sparked similar demonstrations across the country The demonstrators suddenly began lying down in a coordinated fashion at 3pm Nickie Aiken, the leader of Westminster Council, a local authority that oversees the area, said 'we believe it's genuine and are working to confirm that it is the case'. 'This street art has clearly captured the public mood and imagination, and so we're looking to keep it in a public place for people to enjoy,' she said. There was no mention of the work Friday on Banksy's website or Instagram account, where he typically confirms authorship. Banksy's spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. More than 1,100 people were arrested for blocking roads and bridges during more than a week of Extinction Rebellion protests aimed at alerting the public and politicians to the 'climate emergency.' However, new protests caused chaos outside the Tate Modern in London today. HS2 has been approached for comment. Marks and Spencer's has become the latest company to fall victim to shrinkflation, with it's popular lunch time treat bars shrinking by 25 per cent but remaining the same price - causing outrage among customers. When shoppers visited M&S this week they were surprised to find the 1 Belgian chocolate flapjack now a quarter smaller in size, shrinking from 80g to 60g. Other M&S casualties to the sudden shrinkflation this week include the millionaire shortbread, rocky road and salted caramel hazelnut millionaire bars. John Conners called the reduction in size 'very sneaky' but said they were so delicious he would pay more for the same 80g bar The bars are now 25 per cent smaller but have remained 1 each, leading shoppers to question the retailer online and branding the change 'daylight robbery', reports The Sun. One Twitter user by the name of @DavidT_design said: 'Thats M&S style. Less flapjack - Id say ~20% less for the same price. Ive noticed this before with popcorn that used to have 6 bags for 2,50 then changed to 5 bags.' He added: 'And here's the proof. That's a sneaky 25% price hike - and a great example of paying the same money for less product. I still think it's the tastiest flapjack in the high street but will be having less of it now.' M&S replied: 'Weve reduced the weight of the bar, but you should also have noticed weve reduced the price too. We want to offer customers a healthy, great value snack, which is why weve made the changes.' From 80g to 60g the M&S Belgian chocolate flapjack has seen a 25% shrink in size Others questioned the reason behind the shrink and expressed their disappointment Miles called the decision to reduce the size of the flapjack 'the worst thing' 'Not Impressed' said Shirley W as she discussed the 25% reduction tagging #marksandspencerfood for a response Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed that 206 products shrank in size between September 2015 and June 2017. They included bread and cereals, meat, sugar, jam, syrups, chocolate and other confectionery. Prices tend to stay the same when products change size, the ONS said, consistent with the idea that some products are undergoing 'shrinkflation'. While the statistics agency said manufacturers had blamed the drop in size on the rising cost of raw materials, it dismissed the idea of Brexit being a factor behind the shrinkage. Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed that 206 products shrank in size (blue bars) between September 2015 and June 2017 while far fewer came in bigger packets (red bars) Products within the food and drink category accounted for 70 per cent of the size reductions recorded by the ONS. Non-food categories that saw the most changes in size - both reductions and increases - were appliances and products for personal care (such as toilet rolls, nappies and tissues) and non-durable household goods, including kitchen roll and washing-up liquid. While a total of 206 products shrank in size between September 2015 and June 2017, 79 products increased in size. Bread and cereal products saw the greatest frequency of changes in size in both directions. Marks and Spencer later responded to the backlash on April 30th, a spokesman said: 'We did reduce the price of our Belgian chocolate flapjack when we changed the portion size (and other bars in the range) but its clear we didnt go far enough. 'So, Im really pleased to say, weve listened to your feedback and from today, every bar in the range will be available for 85p! I hope youre able to grab your favourite one from your local Food Hall later this week.' Billionaire investor Warren Buffett has handed a big endorsement to Britain ahead of Brexit by dismissing fears about its impact on the economy Billionaire investor Warren Buffett has handed a big endorsement to Britain ahead of Brexit by dismissing fears about its impact on the economy. The 88-year-old American, who is worth an estimated $88billion (68 billion) and is the world's third richest man, said he is ready to 'buy something in the UK tomorrow', and welcomed the chance to put his money in a 'trusted' system. Mr Buffett, whose interests in Britain have included investments in supermarket giant Tesco through his 550 billion conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway, added that Britain's departure from the EU had no bearing on his willingness to put more money in the UK. His firm, which owns more than 60 companies, would never understand 'any other culture or the tax laws' as well as the US, but they could 'come awfully close in Britain', Mr Buffett said, speaking in an interview with the Financial Times. We welcome the chance to put money any place where we think we understand and sort of trust the system, he said. Despite his age, Mr Buffett, who was speaking in his office in Omaha, Nebrasaka, did not announce any plans to step down. 'I'm having a vacation every day,' he said. The 88-year-old American, who is worth an estimated $88billion said he is ready to 'buy something in the UK tomorrow', and welcomed the chance to put his money in a 'trusted' system 'This is the pleasure palace here - you're sitting in it now. I have more fun here than I think any 88-year-old is having, virtually anywhere in the world.' Mr Buffett has invested before in the UK but with mixed success. He previously branded his investment in Tesco a 'huge mistake', with shares in the chain losing 60 per cent of their value between 2008 and 2015. And he failed last year in an 115 billion bid to buy Unilever. But Berkshire Hathaway's ownership of Newcastle-based electricity distributor Northern Powergrid, which supplies businesses and homes in the North-East of England, has been more successful. The business delivers $1billion in revenues and $300million in profits every year. And his returns on shares in companies, ranging from Coke to Apple, has beaten the US stock market index, the S&P 500, by almost 2.5 million percentage points, the FT says. Berkshire's footprint in the UK is likely to get bigger after Mr Buffett told his firm's shareholders earlier this year that he was seeking an elephant-sized acquisition and hopes to invest significant sums across borders. Around 40,000 people are expected to attend the annual Berkshire Hathaway meeting in Nebraska next Saturday to hear Buffett speak. The Home Office is being investigated for revoking 36,000 overseas student visas and expelling more than 1,000 from the country after accusing them of cheating in exams. Top government watchdog, the National Audit Office, has launched the probe in light of the Windrush scandal that rocked the department last year when it emerged that British citizens of Caribbean origin had been wrongly deported. And fresh claims of hostile immigration policy has hit the Whitehall department as hundreds of students claim they have been wrongly punished by the Home Office over supposed English language test cheating. The Home Office is being investigated for revoking 36,000 overseas student visas and expelling more than 1,000 from the country by accusing them of cheating in exams (Westminster headquarters pictured) The decision to terminate 36,000 international student visas was taken by the Home Office in the wake of a 2014 BBC Panorama programme which exposed epidemic cheating in these exams The decision to terminate 36,000 international student visas was taken by the Home Office in the wake of a 2014 BBC Panorama programme which exposed epidemic cheating in these exams. It also saw more than 1,000 pupils stripped of their staying rights and removed from the UK. But many of the accused have hit back at the government and claim to have been falsely implicated, with some even bringing cases before the Court of Appeal, according to the Guardian. Now, in the aftermath of Windrush fury, the Home Office is the subject of another immigration related inquiry. The BBC undercover investigation saw students cheat their way through English language tests The probe was launched in light of the Windrush scandal that rocked the department last year when it emerged that British citizens of Caribbean origin (seen arriving to the UK) had been wrongly deported The NAO said: 'In 2014, a BBC Panorama documentary drew attention to fraud in the UK student visa system, including widespread cheating in English Language tests. 'The Home Office revoked student visas where there was evidence of cheating, but its decisions have come under renewed public and parliamentary scrutiny in the wake of the Windrush scandal.' 'The NAO is looking at the information held by the Home Office on the number of people alleged to have cheated and the action the Home Office has taken to date.' A Home Office spokesperson said: 'We have been supporting the National Audit Office in its work on this investigation since the start of the year. 'We will consider the findings of the report once it is published.' A former UK Special Forces officer was forced to step in to rescue a stranded mountaineer after he was stranded at the summit of one of the world's deadliest mountains. Chin Wui Kin, 48, was left stranded for two days and had been part of a 13-member expedition led by a French climber and was separated from the others during the descent on Mount Annapurna. Nirmal Purja, who served in the UK military for 16 years was in the area completing 'Project Possible', a mission to climb all 14 peaks of the Himalayas in seven months, when his team was alerted than Mr Kin was missing. Mr Purja, who was a Royal Gurkha and in the Special Boat Service, took to social media to slam the insurance company, which he claims had denied emergency help. Chin Wui Kin (pictured above) was on an expedition organised by Seven Summit Treks Hero: Nirmal Purja had been completing his own expedition when he learnt Mr Chin was stranded Annapurna Range (pictured above) where Mr Chin became separated from his group A spokesman for the company, Global Rescue, said: `All of our contracted helicopter providers, which include some of the most experienced high altitude/rescue pilots in Nepal, said they were unable to perform the mission for safety reasons because the altitude was above the limits of their aircraft. `While we are not a search company, we are able to provide rescue operations for our members when their location coordinates are known. `As soon as we were informed of the coordinates of Dr. Chins location, we initiated a rescue operation. The company is said to have failed to drop off six oxygen canisters to the site, which would have aided the rescue. Posting to Instagram, Mr Purja who was awarded an MBE by the Queen in 2016 for his outstanding achievement on high altitude mountaineering said: 'The level of damage and risk to Dr Chins life may have been avoided, if the emergency insurance company had acted quicker. 'If you aren't willing to act at the point of emergency, why sell the service in the first place ? 'I'm very upset and angry with the rescue company that Mr Chin was a customer of. Mr Purja had previously appeared on Good Morning Britain with Sean Fletcher, Kate Garraway and Susanna Reid to promote Project Possible Images of the rescue mission were filmed and showed the team getting Mr Kin to safety Mr Kin is currently still in hospital receiving treatment following the incident earlier this week 'Bear in mind Annapurna 1 is not Everest or any other 8000ers. It's one of most dangerous and hardest 8000m peak to climb.' Global Rescue responded that it had no personnel on the mountain or ability to provide supplies in an immediate timeframe, due to the inability to fly or land helicopters near the site. A spokemand said: `We are not involved in supplying any of the expeditions with oxygen, mountaineering supplies or logistical support. These responsibilities are borne by the expedition companies who had helicopters and did not use them.' As an experienced mountaineer, Mr Purja said as soon as he found out Mr Chin was missing, he set out to rescue him on Thursday with the 'strongest members' of his team. He added: 'We were waiting for Oxygen to get dropped off at us by helicopter so we could go start searching for him on the mountains. (This is all what his insurance company had to do , just drop 6 bottles of Oxygen at Camp 4 where I was on standby with my rescue team). 'I was told that the rescue company denied the emergency help and I couldn't hold my team any longer at the extreme altitude risking their life. I was the last man to leave camp 4 and I had thought he was possibly dead by then on those dangerous slopes. Mr Purja (pictured above) will complete the expedition with a rotating support team of Nepalese climbers 'I arrived at the base camp with my team very late that night. Next morning, I could hear a helicopter which went on Recce and I was told Dr Chin is alive. His wife paid for the helicopter to go and confirm.' It was estimated that it took 16 hours for the team to get to Mr Chin where they were finally able to take him to safety. The Malaysian national is now being treated in hospital, but Mr Purja said his 'life may still be in danger' and that he may 'lose his limbs'. According to the organisers of the expeditions, Seven Summit Treks, Mr Chin had been without an oxygen bottle, food and water for more than 40 hours. Mr Chin was flown to the capital Kathmandu on Friday and taken to a hospital, where his wife joined him. Global Rescue said that it monitored and supported Mr Chins care with an on-the-ground team deployed from the United States and Asia after his arrival at hospital in Kathmandu. It also `coordinated and paid for the medical evacuation of Mr Chin to a hospital in Singapore, his home of record, via private medically equipped air ambulance. Mr Chin remains in critical condition. Mr Chin is an anaesthesiologist and accomplished climber, and the head of Seven Summit Treks Mingma Sherpa credited Mr Chin's medical knowledge and familiarity with mountains for keeping him alive. 'It's a big thing to stay alive in that altitude without food, water, and oxygen,' Mr Sherpa said. He described Mr Chin on Thursday as fine but not in condition to walk. Following the incident climbing experts said it was a 'miracle' that 48-year-old survived the freezing conditions on Mount Annapurna for so long The 8,091-metre Mount Annapurna is the ninth tallest mountain in Nepal and the 10th tallest in the world. It is considered an especially treacherous mountain due to its difficult terrain and weather conditions. Project Possible began four days ago with the team successfully making the ascent of Mount Annapurna. MailOnline has contacted Mr Purja and Seven Summit Treks. A man from Florida who was left fighting a life-threatening, flesh-eating bacterial disease after contracting it on a fishing trip in Mexico is making a recovery. Mike Walton has now left hospital in Tampa Bay where he was being treated for necrotizing fasciitis, which is considered to be incredibly rare in the United States. The 51-year-old was trying to reel in prize-winning catches off the Gulf of Mexico last weekend, along with the Ozana Fish Camp group, when his hand was nicked by a hook. Thinking nothing more of the small scratch, Walton said he only started to become concerned several hours later when his hand started swelling up. Mike Walton is seen above having left hospital in Tampa Bay where he was being treated for necrotizing fasciitis The 51-year-old was trying to reel in prize-winning catches off the Gulf of Mexico last weekend, along with the Ozana Fish Camp group, when his hand was nicked by a hook After accidentally cutting his hand with a fishing hook, within hours black blisters began appearing on his hand He later sought treatment from the hospital, where he was prescribed antibiotics. But by Sunday, a series of purple and black blisters had starting forming over his now extremely swollen hand. I had like little blisters starting to form on my hand and you could watch like sweat beads coming up on side of the hand, and then they just turned black, Walton said to ABC Action News. Rushing himself to Tampa General Hospital, it was there that doctors diagnosed him with necrotizing fasciitis, in which toxins released by the bacterial infection start to eat away at the surrounding tissue. Other symptoms also overlap with the disease which can often cause misdiagnoses of flu or gastroenteritis. Early side-effects can see an infected person hit with soaring temperatures, as well as severe pain not proximate to the scale of the original injury. Doctors informed the fishing fanatic he was just hours away from losing his arm. Thankfully though, he avoided amputation The 51-year-old was trying to reel in prize-winning catches off the Gulf of Mexico last weekend, when he contracted the infection If untreated for several hours or days, the infection can go on to cause sepsis or organ failure. In some instances, infected tissue has to be cut away which can lead to amputations. When you look down and you can see your own tendons, the back of your hand and your bone going up your arm, that makes it real, he said. Doctors informed the fishing fanatic he was just hours away from losing his arm. Walton, however, thankfully managed to avoid amputation though doctors say hes lucky to be alive. When you look down and you can see your own tendons, the back of your hand and your bone going up your arm, that makes it real, Walton said to ABC They sliced all the way down my arm, to relieve the pressure, and then I got a skin graft going from my elbow to the palm of my hand, he said. The Ozona native was issued a skin graft from the top of his left hand, all the way down his arm to carve away infected and fast-deteriorating areas. Now expected to be out of work for several months, a GoFundMe page has been set up for Walton, who is the sole provider for his daughter, sister and elderly parents. So far, the total has reached more than $19,000, as of Saturday afternoon. Clayton Whatley, 21, was charged with unlawful carrying of weapons inside an institute of higher education on Thursday An aspiring Texas police officer was arrested Thursday for shooting three of his fellow cadets after the gun he packed in a backpack to their police academy class accidentally went off. Clayton Whatley, 21, remained in Galveston County jail on Saturday on a charge of unlawful carrying of a weapon inside an institution of higher education. Authorites say Whatley brought the firearm to his Thursday night class at the college of Mainland Law Enforcement Training Academy in Texas City, Texas. The local police department told the Houston Chronicle the gun discharged when Whatley reached into the backpack. The bullet struck two other cadets - one male, one female - in their calves and grazed another aspiring cop, police said. Texas City Police did not immediately respond to requests for comment Saturday afternoon. Authorities say Whatley brought a gun in his back pack when he attended class at the Mainland Law Enforcement Training Academy Whatley's Facebook page says he's enlisted in the U.S. Army The unnamed cadets who were shot were transported to University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston Thursday night. ABC 13 reports that the victim's injuries were non-life threatening. The hospital did not immediately release details on the conditions of the injured cadets Saturday afternoon. Whatley's Facebook page says he's enlisted in the U.S. Army. His bond was set at $5,000 bond, county records show. Autopsy results have revealed that the Kentucky teen who suddenly fell ill and died in February was killed by a strep infection. The family of Lilliana Schalck, 13, revealed the devastating cause of death on Friday, in the hopes that going public 'might help prevent a similar outcome for someone else'. Schalck was ten minutes away from performing at a cheerleading competition in Ohio on February 23, when she began complaining of weakness and tingling in her feet. Just two hours later, the eighth-grader from Fort Thomas, Kentucky, was pronounced dead after being rushed to hospital. In a statement shared with ABC, her family wrote: 'An underlying Strep infection overwhelmed her immune system with little or no warning, and catastrophic results. 'We wouldn't wish this nightmare on anyone.' Two months after her death, an autopsy has revealed Lilliana Schalk was killed by a serious strep infection An autopsy report showed Lilliana had a widespread infection due to group A Streptococcus (GAS). GAS is the same bacteria that, in minor cases, can causes strep throat. However, Schalck's case was was much more severe. Despite now knowing what killed the beloved teen, Schalk's family say the answers have not lessened their pain. 'We are forever heartbroken and appreciate the respect we have been given so far, and ask that to continue as we focus on her life and legacy, as well as our life without her however unwelcome it is'. Sschalk was a happy and healthy eighth-grader in Fort Thomas before the strep infection suddenly took her life Schalk's devastated father spoke st ABC and wondered whether there was anything he could have done to prevent her passing Shortly after Schalk's death, her confused father Dan told ABC that he was 'just kept going over the sequence of events of the whole day... trying to see if there was something that I missed,'. He sad his first thought was that his daughter was dehydrated, so he took her aside and gave her some fluids, but she was getting weaker and not acting like her normal self. Medics at the cheerleading venue rushed the girl to the emergency room at the children's hospital, where she died shortly after. Lilliana, who dreamed of cheerleading on the college level and eventually becoming an elementary school teacher, was laid to rest in her blue school uniform last month. Schalk was set to compete in a cheerleading competition when the strep infection took hold Grinning with delight at her baby son, motherhood certainly seems to suit Ruth Davidson. The leader of the Scottish Conservatives hailed by many as the great hope of the party and touted as a future Prime Minister is cherishing the last days of her maternity leave with little Finn before she returns this week to full-time politics. For the past six months, Ruth has been living worlds away from Holyrood and Westminster in what she dubs Finnland, fully absorbed in meeting the demands not of petulant politicians but of her blue-eyed, round-cheeked little boy. Davidson, 40, the first leader of a British political party to give birth in office and with a same-sex partner will now become one of the countrys 4.9 million working mothers. She is pictured with baby Finn above Finn has arguably been putting her through her paces with far more rigour than her demanding political career ever did. In short, she is exhausted. Or as she describes it, bone-crushingly sleep deprived something of a novelty for a woman who has transformed the fortunes of the party north of the border, and even saved Theresa Mays Government in the snap 2017 Election by securing a crucial 13 Tory seats, the highest number since 1983. I naively thought that, because in the final few weeks of election campaigning you dont sleep and are working 17-hour days easily, it would be like that and I would just have to get through it, she admits in an Edinburgh cafe, her son gurgling on her knee. The leader of the Scottish Conservatives hailed by many as the great hope of the party and touted as a future Prime Minister is cherishing the last days of her maternity leave with little Finn before she returns this week to full-time politics [File photo] But its a completely different kind of sleep deprivation. Its worse than people tell you. Davidson, 40, the first leader of a British political party to give birth in office and with a same-sex partner will now become one of the countrys 4.9 million working mothers, handing over the childcare reins to her Irish-born fiancee, Jen Wilson. But she insists: Im not doing anything that thousands of woman dont do every year and its the same stresses and strains. Im still coming home to dirty nappies and baby vomit. I couldve done with another few weeks, but there was never any suggestion that I would not be returning to do something I really enjoy. I will still give the job 100 per cent. Touchingly, she adds: Its just No 2 on my priority list now. The path to parenthood was not easy, and Ruth describes going to extreme lengths to hide her IVF. She had to inject fertility drugs in the toilets at Geneva airport on her way to the World Economic Forum in Davos, she reveals, and boarded a flight to Helmand two hours after having an embryo implanted. It worked first time but she was forced to have a caesarean section in October, two weeks before her due date, amid concerns about Finns size. The consultant was fairly insistent that it would be a better idea if he came out soon. Two days later, he was delivered early at over 10lb. For the past six months, Ruth has been living worlds away from Holyrood and Westminster in what she dubs Finnland, fully absorbed in meeting the demands not of petulant politicians but of her blue-eyed, round-cheeked little boy. She is pictured with her partner Jen holding Finn in hospital Finn a real chubster, Ruth jokes was exclusively breast-fed but now takes bottles of formula which she deftly prepares single-handed. Having always known that I wanted kids, I had no idea that Id ever be any good at being a mother, she confides. I manage to kill a houseplant once a month, so the fact hes healthy and thriving is a big win. How motherhood will change Ruths political ambitions remains to be seen. Although she denies she has her sights set on No 10, there is an assault planned on First Minister Nicola Sturgeons office in the Scottish elections in 2021. Jayne Wrightsman was launched into high-society through the marriage to her husband, Charles Wrightsman, over time she became known as 'the grand dame' of New York socialites Jayne Wrightsman's passing at the age of 99 last Saturday, April 20, marked the end of an era defined by the likes of Lee Radziwill and Jacqueline Kennedy- Onassis. But the fundamental difference that separated Jayne from her elite circle of aristocratic friends was her own rags to riches story. Jayne Wrightsman was her own magnificent invention. Born to a fractured family from humble beginnings in Flint, Michigan, Jayne reimagined herself in 1944 when she married Charles Wrightsman, the social climbing heir of a massive oil fortune. Overtime, Jayne became known as the 'grand dame' of New York socialites, transforming herself from a gosling into a swan with a conga line of celebrated designers lining up to dress her. With no formal education, she became a renowned connoisseur and collector of French 17th and 18th century French decor, a major patron of the arts, a mentor to Jacqueline Kennedy, and hostess to a long roster of social and political elites. Her story is one marked by powerful friends, glamour, unimaginable wealth and a penetrating sense of sadness and loneliness. Portrait of Mrs. Charles Wrightsman (Jayne Wrightsman) for Vogue Magazine, shot by legendary photographer, Horst P. Horst. Charles put Jayne through rigorous training to turn her into a socialite, hiring tutors to teach her French, proper English and etiquette. He bankrolled a wardrobe chock full of designer clothing that eventually caught the attention of Vogue Magazine Jayne became First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy's mentor and as an unofficial expert in French decor, she became instrumental in helping Jackie refurbish The White House. They first met in 1959 as neighbors in Palm Beach, Florida, John preferred to swim in the Wrightsmans' heated, saline pool for his back injury that afflicted him throughout his entire life. A friendship with the Kennedy's cemented the Wrightsmans' place in society: 'Jackie was a bridge to real society, and Jayne was thrilled to walk over it' Jayne, wearing a Givenchy gown sits on an ornate Louis XV sofa under Renoir's 'Girl with Cat' painting in her living room, the coffee table in the foreground was a piece made for Madame de Pompadour. Charles Wrightsman determined that collecting art was the only way to secure a place in society, overtime they amassed the largest collection of French decor in the world Born Jane Larkin to a modest family in 1922, Jayne's simple beginnings start in Hollywood, California; where she moved as a young girl with her three siblings and mother after her parents divorced. (Jayne added the 'y' to her first name later in life for extra flair). Life at home with her husky-voiced alcoholic mother, 'Chuggy,' was turbulent. Chuggy was a late night, card playing habitue of Cafe Gala, the raucous haunt of Hollywood's arty scene and reputedly a terrible mother who didn't pay much attention to her children. Chuggy's freewheeling liberal lifestyle only pushed Jayne in the opposite direction and she became known for her preternatural poise and immaculate sense of dressing. Jayne worked a series of odd jobs upon graduating from Los Angeles High School. Brazilian socialite, Nelson Seabra recalled to Vanity Fair in 2003: 'She was a very pretty girl who worked at Saks in the glove department.' She also worked as an extra in movies when 'acting' was considered of a tawdry pursuit at the time. Society doyenne and fashion icon, Slim Keith, said that Jayne was the only respectable 'extra girl' in Hollywood. Working as an extra landed Jayne at William Randolph Hearst's castle in San Simeon where she drank liquor with his mistress, Marion Davies, who hid a bottle of booze in the toilet tank. It was while working as a swimsuit model at a department store that Jayne caught the attention of the Oklahoma oil baron, Charles Wrightsman, who reportedly said: 'I want that - the girl, not the suit.' At the time, Charlie was already dating the divorced wife of actor Victor Mature when he was hospitalized with lip cancer. Jayne held vigil by his hospital bedside, securing her position as top contender for wife and was given a full-length mink coat by Wrightsman for her kind efforts. They got married in 1944 and settled in Palm Beach, Florida. 'Charlie needed someone to look after him,' a Palm Beach socialite remembered 50 years later. 'He thought he was dying, so he married Jayne. Well, he didn't die then. The poor girl.' Jayne closed the door on her past she was so ashamed of and never looked back 'People who are self-invented-such as (historian) Bernard Berenson don't like to think of themselves that way. To a woman of Wrightsman's generation especially, self-invention is not necessarily a phenomenon to be celebrated-even Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy felt the need to give her simple French roots an aristocratic gloss,' said Francesca Stanfill in a 2003 profile of Jayne for in Vanity Fair. Jayne (center) and her husband, Charles Wrightsman (background, right) attend a ball in Paris. Art became a pleasurable obsession for Jayne, it was both an escape from her husband who at times could be suffocating but also a shared hobby they could enjoy together Jayne and Jackie maintained a friendship that lasted long after their work in The White House, but it always remained formal. 'It was a cultural friendship' said Marella Agnelli. Jayne 'crafted herself into a Jackie clone' said The New York Post, copying the First Lady's hair and whispery voice Jayne sits in the ornate library of her Blythedunes, her Palm Beach estate that was eventually purchased by Donald Trump in 2005. Before meeting her husband, Jayne worked as an extra in movies when she spent a weekend at William Randolph Hearst's castle in San Simeon where she drank liquor with his mistress, Marion Davies, who hid a bottle of booze in the toilet tank Wrightsman was a divorced father of two and known to be cruel with racist leanings. He was born into privilege, educated at Phillips Exeter Academy, Stanford and Columbia before inheriting $100million ($1.8billion in today's money) from his father who struck rich discovering oil in Oklahoma. Later, Wrightsman continued his father's legacy when he became the president of Standard Oil of Kansas. Money doesn't always guarantee entree into America's most exclusive genteel circles. But Charles Wrightsman was socially ambitious and determined to make a name for himself in New York. He began working on Jayne first by molding her into the perfect, subservient wife that he had always wished for and Jayne was more than happy to diligently take note. Together, they would storm the gates of society. Wrightsman enrolled Jayne in his own version of 'socialite bootcamp,' hiring tutors to teach her etiquette, interior design, history and art. She learned to speak proper English and French fluently. He refined her inborn sense of sophistication and elegance, bankrolling a wardrobe that would soon catch the attention of Vogue society photographers, Cecil Beaton and Horst P. Horst. But Wrightsman could also be ruthless and often times punishing, he didn't hesitate to chastise Jayne in public if he felt that she had embarrassed him. Theodore Rousseau, a curator at the Metropolitian Museum in New York and peripheral friend of the Wrightsmans said Jayne, 'sold out to wealth, power and what she realized was going to be the highest rank of society she would ever achieve. He gave her everything she wanted but paid her back constantly by forcing her to attend to his every demand.' Shortly after their wedding, the couple acquired Blythedunes a massive ocean-front, Palm Beach estate that included a regal 28-room mansion designed by Maurice Fatio. Jayne told Vogue Magazine: 'The living room was as big as the Musee d'Orsay... And then I started sort of Marie Antoinetteing it up.' (Curiously enough, this very same home would years later become embroiled in controversy when Donald Trump purchased the property in 2005 and resold it to Russian oligarch, Dmitry Rybolovlev for a record breaking $95million. The sale of the estate drew congressional scrutiny when Senator Ron Wyden, member of the Senate Intelligence Committee wrote a letter to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin: 'It is imperative that Congress follow the money and conduct a thorough investigation into any potential money laundering or other illicit financial dealings between the president, his associates, and Russia.') Hoping to gain credibility in the aristocratic ranks, the Wrightsmans began heavily investing in art and 17th and 18th century French decor was their weakness. They hired historians to turn their palatial home into a Rococo palace fit for pre-Napoleonic kings. It became a de-facto museum for their personal trove of antique furnishings (Louis XV's personal red lacquered desk), object d'arts and personal items once owned by Louis XV, Louise XVI, Madame de Pompadour and Marie Antoinette. One such treasure took a place of pride on Jayne's bedroom mantel it was the original invitation to a masked ball 'in honor of the marriage at Versailles of the Monseigneur Le Dauphin in 1745.' Charles and Jayne Wrightsman are photographed at the auction where they purchased Goya's portrait of 'The First Duke Of Wellington' for $392,000. But due to much public outcry, the Wrightsman's were never able to take it home and the portrait ended up in London's National Gallery so it could stay in the United Kingdom Jayne poses in front of her Vermeer painting: 'Study of a Young Woman' which is only one of twenty-four Vermeer paintings in the world. Wrightsman would loan the painting to the Met every winter while she was in Palm Beach and retrieved it in Spring for the summer season. before eventually, donating it to the museum permanently Irene (left) and Charlene (right) Wrightsman were Charles' daughters from his first marriage marriage. Irene poses with her long-time suitor, Hollywood actor, Kirk Douglas. In his memoir, Douglas would write about Charles: 'He was one of the richest men in the country, and one of the meanest. Charlene eventually married married society gossip columnist Igor Cassini whose daughter from a previous marriage spoke about her step-grandparents: 'Very affected and always very subservient to Charlie, but also very poised and very controlled, very distant, very smooth. She never showed emotion, but then neither did he. They were cold, calculating, creepy people' Art became a pleasurable obsession for Jayne. It was both an escape from her husband who at times could be suffocating but also a shared hobby they could enjoy together. Eventually they amassed a collection of priceless paintings as well: Renoir, Monet, El Greco, Goya, Meissen and Fragonard. They joined an exclusive club after purchasing only one of 24 existing works by the Dutch master, Vermeer. Philippe de Montebello, Director of the Met, once found himself drawn to an interesting notebook that was casually lying on an entryway table of Jayne's New York apartment during one of her elegant soirees. When he asked her what it was, she replied nonchalantly: 'Marie Antoinette's last diary.' In 1959, it was through their Palm Beach neighbors, Joseph and Rose Kennedy that the Wrightsmans met then-Senator John F. Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline, who was looking to revamp her Georgetown town home in Washington, DC. Jayne introduced Jacqueline to the famed French decorator, Stephane Boudin who eventually sold the Kennedy's two antique rugs that they paid off at $100 a month. It was this working relationship and shared passion for history and the arts that Jayne later became First Lady Jacqueline's secret weapon in her effort to restore the shambled White House to its former glory. 'It was a cultural friendship,' said Marella Agnelli, wife of international Italian playboy, Giani Agnelli, Fiat car tycoon. While Charles Wrightsman was a dyed-in-the-wool Republican, both parties realized they could help each other. Wrightsman could help finance Jack's presidential campaign in return for cementing their place among America's elite. Tish Baldridge, President Kennedy's White House social secretary wrote, 'Jackie was a bridge to real society, and Jayne was thrilled to walk over it.' Charles B. Wrightsman, oilman and polo player fell in love with Jayne while she was working as a swimsuit model at a department store in Los Angeles The Wrightsmans entertained on a very grand scale. They famously started every party with a pound of caviar and endless bottles of Krug champagne until the wee hours of the morning. They lavishly hosted friends abroad every year for a week of adult debauchery on massive yachts they rented from Greek shipping heirs. No detail was spared, from the heated towel racks to the mattresses that were shipped from Claridge's in London. Itineraries with unforgiving time schedules that allotted a precise time slot for swimming were delivered in red- leather dossiers, months in advance. Thomas Hoving, director of the Metropolitian Museum of Art, was a guest one summer along with Washington Post owner Katherine Graham, Cecil Beaton, a famed photographer, Lee Radziwill, and her sister, the recently widowed Jacqueline Kennedy. He described the yacht in his memoir as a 'floating Versailles' where the pace was antiquated, sedate and dreamy. He said: 'There were so many maids that I'd leave a sport shirt on my bed for a 15-minute swim and by the time I returned, it would be laundered and ironed.' Recalling her cruise through the Adriatic to Hamish Bowles of Vogue Magazine, Radziwill said that Wrightsman refused to let his guests swim in the waters off 'Tito's Yugoslavia that he deemed 'Communist.' Cecil Beaton photographed Jayne on many occasions and they became lifelong friends. She told Vogue Magazine once, 'Thank God we had Cecil, or we'd have no Mrs. Wrightsman.' In time, Beaton would contemplate Jayne's happiness in her marriage: 'one wonders whether it is worthwhile suffering for so much of her life. Yet if she left him, she could be penniless' Jayne poses in front of a Georges de la Tour wearing a pink Balenciaga overcoat in the gilded interior of her palatial New York apartment Lord Rothschild (background, left) and Jayne Wrightsman arrive at a society wedding together. British publisher George Weidenfeld said, 'In a sense, Jayne's life began when her husband died' The polished veneer on the Wrightsmans' lives hid the turmoil and tragedy of their life behind closed doors. Both of Charlie's daughters from a previous marriage, Irene and Charlene, along with his former wife had effectively committed suicide. Charlene overdosed on sleeping pills while watching television with her 14-year-old stepdaughter and Irene drank herself to death. His eldest granddaughter Stephanie said to Vanity Fair: 'I do remember that granddaddy didn't want any more children because, in his mind, mummy and Aunt Charlene had been devastations to him.' The pair would not go on to have children. Irene's onetime suitor, actor Kirk Douglas wrote in his 1988 memoir: 'He was one of the richest men in the country, and one of the meanest.' Likewise, Jayne often seemed distant and removed. According to Sally Bedell Smith's book Grace and Power, Cecil Beaton remarked on Jayne's nervous demeanor around her husband: 'Her face twitches with anxiety when Charles is on a bait.' He continued: 'It is tragic to see how aged she has become one wonders whether it is worthwhile suffering for so much of her life. Yet if she left him, she could be penniless.' When it came to history and art, Jayne was a quick and diligent learner, overtime she became encyclopedic in her knowledge of French history. Heavy investments and donations in the art world earned them a seat on the Metropolitan Museum of New York's Board of Trustees. The couple established a second home across the street from the museum at 820 Fifth Avenue, one of New York City's most exclusive buildings. Just as she had done in Palm Beach, Jayne transformed her flat into splendid 'Louis - Louis' paradise, with gilded boiseries, parquet floors shipped from castles in France and a resplendent $2million Savonnerie carpet that lavished the floor. The priceless Vermeer painting trekked back and forth across Fifth Avenue to the Met during the winter months while the Wrightsmans were in Palm Beach and back to the apartment during summer season. Both the Vermeer painting and Savonnerie rug eventually found a permanent place in the grandiose halls across the way. The Wrightsman's vast art collection amassed over 50 years became the largest trove of French decor in the world which they eventually donated to their second home away from home the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Contributions included 94 paintings and prints among a colossal collection of rare books and artifacts. Jayne's passion for French furniture and decorative arts are displayed across eight galleries that have essentially recreated period rooms in their entirety. No detail spared. To many, the passing of Jayne Wrightsman marked the end of an era, one that was defined by curiosity, style, sophistication and manners. She was the last of a certain breed and code of behavior that her friend, the late British publisher George Weidenfeld, once explained as: 'that code being American patrician with a blend of the French aristocratic, with an emphasis on aesthetics and a fastidiousness in terms of interests and people.' The new Brexit Party leader has vowed to give Labour a nasty surprise in the European elections as he turns it against them for abandoning their voters. Nigel Farage told The Mail on Sunday he absolutely, absolutely blames Jeremy Corbyns party as much as the Tories for the delay to Britains departure from the EU, in fact more so in some ways. Mr Farage has vowed to campaign throughout the Brexit northern heartlands, calling out Labour MPs who support remaining in defiance of their constituents. Nigel Farage, the leader of the new Brexit Party, told The Mail on Sunday he absolutely, absolutely blames Jeremy Corbyns party as much as the Tories for the delay to Britains departure from the EU, in fact more so in some ways He will target Yvette Cooper in particular for leading efforts to frustrate the process, despite her own seat in Yorkshire backing Leave by 69.3 per cent. He said the backbencher has been dishonest in the extreme with her electorate, they need to know about her. 'She told people in Pontefract that she would honour the result of the referendum, yet she has now spent the last two years doing everything she can to undermine that result and reverse that result. 'This is literally a kick in the teeth for Labour voters. Mr Farage said: The truth is Labour are now a nailed-on Remainer party. I just dont think that millions of Labour voters realise the extent that this has been done to them. But last night Labour insiders hit back: Of course Nigel Farage has a simple message for voters who are fed up that Brexit hasnt yet been implemented and that frustration has exposed the Tories who only had one job, and theyve made a right mess of it. Mr Farage has vowed to campaign throughout the Brexit northern heartlands, calling out Labour MPs who support remaining in defiance of their constituents. He will target Yvette Cooper in particular for leading efforts to frustrate the process, despite her own seat in Yorkshire backing Leave by 69.3 per cent 'But we mustnt be complacent either. We know that the one thing many Leave and Remain voters actually want is for this to be just sorted out, in a way that is least chaotic and protects living standards. Leaked internal Labour polling seen by this newspaper says: The Brexit situation is extremely fluid and is hitting the Tories harder on competence and ability to deliver on Brexit than it is specifically hitting Labour, but there is also strong evidence of a wide plague on your houses Brexit-related negativity about both main parties at present. This looks to be having more of an effect in depressing turnout than any significant switching of votes at this stage. A teenage boy has been stabbed on a bus in London and becomes the latest victim of a bloody blade crisis which continues to haunt the capital. Police and ambulance crews swooped in on the vehicle in Cricklewood, north-west London, this evening to find a supposed 17-year-old boy with stab wounds. A witness claimed that the victim was chased on to the bus by two males in helmets, one of whom was 'wielding a long knife'. He was rushed to a hospital in central London where his condition remains unknown. Images from the supposed scene have been shared on social media after police and ambulance crews swooped in on the vehicle on Cricklewood Lane, north London And unconfirmed reports from Cricklewood Lane suggest that the teenager was stabbed six times. Officers have not arrested anyone but the area remains cordoned off in a crime scene. A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said: 'Police were called at approximately 17.30 on Saturday, 27 April to reports of a stabbing on a bus in Cricklewood Lane, near the junction with Cricklewood Broadway, NW2. 'Officers and London Ambulance Service attended and found a male, believed aged 17, suffering stab injuries. Officers have not arrested anyone but the area remains cordoned off in a crime scene (pictured) 'He has been taken to a central London hospital for treatment condition awaits. 'Enquiries into the circumstances are ongoing. No arrests have been made and a crime scene remains in place at the scene. 'Anyone with information is asked to contact officers from the North West Command Unit on 101 and quote CAD 5859/27Apr or call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.' Transport for London has said that several bus routes have also been diverted because of the ongoing police cordon. TFL tweeted: 'Routes 189 226 245 260 and 460 are diverted due to an emergency services incident at Cricklewood Lane.' Taking a break from campaigning with his new Brexit Party, Nigel Farage jetted to the US to give a speech but risked sparking a row back home. He claimed that entire streets of Oldham in Greater Manchester are split along racial lines, in a speech at Lock Haven University in rural Pennsylvania. The Brexit Party leader said Oldham was a divided society. The talk in Lock Haven, a town with a population of 9,200 people, seemed an unlikely venue, but the county is full of Trump supporters and heads were nodding as Mr Farage spoke. Nigel Farage claimed in a speech at Lock Haven University in rural Pennsylvania that entire streets of Oldham in Greater Manchester are split along racial lines He told the crowd of 150: Let me take you to a town called Oldham in the North of England where literally on one side of the street everybody is white and on the other side of the street everybody is black. The twain never actually meet, there is no assimilation. These, folks, are divided societies in which resentments build and grow. Michael Cammarata, 42, appeared at Richmond County Supreme Court on Friday, charged with the second degree murder of Staten Island teacher Jeanine Cammarata A memorial has been held for a teacher found dumped in a Staten Island storage unit after her ex-husband and his girlfriend were charged with killing her. Disturbing details have emerged in the death of Jeanine Cammarata, 37, who was allegedly killed by her estranged partner, Michael Cammarata, 42, and pregnant Ayisha Egea. She was last seen alive on the evening of Saturday, March 30, less than 48 hours after she served her husband divorce papers. And on Saturday her loved ones held a memorial for the tragic mother-of-three just a day after court papers revealed how Michael Cammarata changed his story when probed by cops over her death. He first told police he last saw his Jeanine on March 30 in a supermarket near his apartment, court papers said. The following day he claimed to have driven to Staten Island for a dance recital before returning home to Queens that night, the Voluntary Disclosure Form shows. But license-plate readers are said to have contradicted that and the form alleges Michael Cammarata then said he had not told the truth as he did not want Egea to fond out he was still having sex with Jeanine. When license-plate readers are said to have again disputed this version of events Michael Cammarata is said to have again changed his story. He then said a row broke out at and he pushed Jeanine and hit her several times, the document alleges. Egea is said to have told a different version of events to police in which she said the three of them drove round the block in Jeanine Cammarata's car before she left to go home with Michael. Prosecutors say Jeanine was killed after going to visit her children, who were living with Michael in Queens. 'The defendants entered her vehicle and she was attacked', court documents say. Jeanine Cammarata's loved ones held a memorial for the tragic mother-of-three just a day after court papers revealed how Michael Cammarata changed his story when probed by cops The body of missing teacher was found in a storage unit on Staten Island. She had been was reported missing after failing to show up for her job as an elementary school teacher Around 100 people attended a service held in Saint Athanasius R.C. Church in Brooklyn Jeanine's mom said Saturday: 'I love you and I miss you' as she remembered her daughter Pictures showed some happy memories loved ones had shared with Cammarata and some mourners wore purple, the color associated with the fight against domestic violence Michael Cammarata and Egea are accused of taking her body into their apartment before removing it the next day. They first went to New Jersey and then to Staten Island to a storage unit before dumping her corpse there, according to prosecutors. Both Michael Cammarata and his live in girlfriend Ayisha Egea have pleaded not guilty. Tragic Jeanine's mom said Saturday: 'I love you and I miss you.' Pictures showed some happy memories loved ones had shared with Cammarata and some mourners wore purple, the color associated with the fight against domestic violence. 'She was fighting for her kids. I am proud to call you my sister,' Luis Melendez, Cammarata's brother-in-law said, silive.com reports. Around 100 people attended a service held in Saint Athanasius R.C. Church in Brooklyn on Saturday. Ayisha Egea, 41, is also charged with charged with second-degree murder, first-degree manslaughter and concealment of a human corpse Police say surveillance footage shows Michael Cammerata, Egea, and five children - two of whom belonged to Jeanine and her husband, and three others who belong to Michaels girlfriend - at the Staten Island storage facility. The couple was carrying a plastic bin that police say contained the burnt remains of two of the childrens mother. Investigators say they doubt the children had any inkling as to what was inside the bin. Michael Cammarata and Egea have been charged with murder, concealment of a human corpse and tampering with physical evidence. They also face charges of two counts of evidence tampering with respect to the victims body and her car, two counts of stolen-property possession and five counts of child endangerment. The stolen-property charges come from allegations that the defendants took Jeanine's debit card and drivers license. Advertisement John T. Earnest, 19, was taken into custody without incident on Saturday following the shooting near San Diego Police are investigating a manifesto apparently posted online by the suspect in a San Diego synagogue shooting that left one dead and several others injured. John T. Earnest, 19, was taken into custody without incident following the shooting at the Chabad of Poway Jewish congregation around 11.30am PT on Saturday, according to the San Diego County Sheriff's Department. Killed in the attack was Lori Gilbert-Kaye, 60, according to a family friend. The three injured victims were identified as: Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, who was shot in the fingers; an eight-year-old girl visiting from Israel; and the girl's 34-year-old uncle Almog Peretz, also visiting from Israel. A manifesto posted online shortly before the attack and purporting to be by Earnest cites hatred of Jewish people as the motive for the attack, and takes credit for a separate arson attack on an Escondido mosque last month. The manifesto also cites as inspiration attacks on mosques in New Zealand last month, and a deadly shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue exactly six months ago. Earnest is believed to be a nursing student at California State University and has no known criminal record. Police say the suspect is a resident of San Diego who was armed with an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle. There is initial suspicion that the weapon may have jammed during the shooting, limiting the loss of life. An armed off-duty Border Patrol agent who was inside the synagogue returned fire at the shooter, who then retreated in a vehicle before calling 911 and surrendering to police without incident, according to police. Scroll down for video Synagogue members console one another outside of the Chabad of Poway Synagogue Saturday on Saturday in Poway, Calif. Several people were injured and one was killed in a shooting at the synagogue Killed: Lori Gilbert-Kaye, 60, (left and right) was killed in the attack, according to a family friend Injured: Almog Peretz, 34, was visiting family in the area for the Passover holiday from Israel. He is listed in stable condition Injured: Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein was shot in the hand, but witnesses say he continued to deliver a sermon during the shooting Shooting suspect Earnest is believed to be a nursing student at California State University and has no known criminal record Earnest was a dean's list student at California State University, San Marcos, university President Karen S. Haynes confirmed in a statement. In the 4,000-word manifesto posted online before the shooting, which is filled with sarcastic jokes and references to internet and video game culture, the author described himself as a 19-year-old nursing student and native of California. The author of the manifesto said that he had been playing piano since the age of four. Video from social media shows that Earnest is a talented piano player. 'If you told me even 6 months ago that I would do this I would have been surprised,' the author wrote. 'Im just a normal dude who wanted to have a family, help and heal people, and play piano.' Video from social media shows that Earnest is a talented piano player. The author of the manifesto said that he had been playing piano since the age of four An unconfirmed manifesto purporting to be by Earnest cites hatred of Jewish people as the motive for the attack He wrote that he was inspired by the attack on mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand where 50 died last month and the suspect in that case, Brenton Tarrant. 'Tarrant was a catalyst for me personally,' the manifesto reads. The author also references the shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue exactly six months to the day before the Poway attack, as well as the suspect in that case, Robert Bowers. Both Bowers and Tarrant are in custody. Like Tarrant in his own writings, the manifesto author states that his end goal is to prompt the U.S. government to begin confiscating guns, predicting that a civil war will ensue. The author said he had been planning the attack for four weeks. The manifesto author also states that he committed an unsolved arson attack against the Dar-ul-Arqam mosque in Escondido on March 24, adding that he spray-painted the message 'For Brenton Tarrant' in the parking lot of the mosque. The author of the manifesto says that he does not support President Donald Trump, calling the president 'Jew-loving' and 'anti-White'. Much of the manifesto consists of a long list of detailed grievances against Jewish people, accusing them of planning a genocide against the 'European race'. The author of a manifesto about the shooting states that he committed an unsolved arson attack against the Dar-ul-Arqam mosque in Escondido on March 24, adding that he spray-painted the message 'For Brenton Tarrant' in the parking lot A car, allegedly used by the gunman who killed one at the Congregation Chabad synagogue in Poway, is pictured, few hundred feet from the Interstate 15 off-ramp north of San Diego, California Heavily armed San Diego police officers approach a house thought to be the home of 19 year-old John T. Earnest, who is a suspect in the shooting of several people in a Poway synagogue, on Saturday Earnest's father is seen being interviewed by police. Public records show that the father is a high school teacher and the president of an orthodox Presbyterian church in Escondido There are indications in online postings that the shooter planned to live-stream the synagogue attack on Facebook, but did not succeed. An anonymous post on the imageboard 8chan, posted roughly 30 minutes before the attack, linked to the manifesto and Earnest's Facebook page, promising a live stream, which never occurred. The 8chan post also included a 'playlist' of songs for the attack and a goodbye note. The post does not specify an intended target, but makes clear that an imminent attack of some kind is planned. At least one person says they saw the post and alerted the FBI, according to a post on Twitter. The person said that they got off the phone only eight minutes prior to the shooting, making a tactical response all but impossible. 'We are collecting digital evidence and are aware of the manifesto,' San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore said at a press conference. Gore said that Earnest had no prior criminal record, and no known ties to white supremacist groups. He said Earnest lived with his parents. Public records show that Earnest's father is a high school teacher and the president of an orthodox Presbyterian church in Escondido. The manifesto stated that the shooter did not get his beliefs from his family. Synagogue members walk outside of the Chabad of Poway Synagogue Saturday in Poway, California An FBI agent gives out information to members of the media outside of the Chabad of Poway Synagogue on Saturday Saturday's shooting unfolded during services on the last day of Passover, and there are believed to have been about 100 people inside the synagogue at the time of the attack. Witnesses say the gunman was wearing a tactical vest and a helmet, according to CBS 8. The reports have not yet been confirmed by police. Rabbi Goldstein, who founded the Chabad center in 1986, was reportedly shot and lost two fingers. Witnesses say the rabbi tried to calm the gunman and members of the congregation even after he was wounded. President Donald Trump responded to the shooting in remarks to reporters on the South Lawn of the White House as he departed for a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin. 'Based on my last conversations, it looks like a hate crime. Hard to believe,' Trump said. 'My deepest sympathies go to the families who were affected.' 'It looks like the person has been apprehended, no more danger, and law enforcement has done a fantastic job,' he continued. Once at the rally, Trump made additional remarks, calling the shooting 'horrific' and saying, 'we forcefully condemn the evil of anti-Semitism and hate, which must be defeated.' 'Incredible response today by law enforcement. And I especially want to recognize a certain off-duty border patrol agent who bravely returned fire and helped disrupt the attack and saved so many lives. Border patrol!' added Trump. President Donald Trump responded to the shooting in remarks to reporters on the South Lawn of the White House as he departed for a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore, center, speaks at a news conference held outside of the Chabad of Poway Synagogue Saturday in Poway, California. Several people were injured and one died in a shooting at the synagogue Poway Mayor Steve Vaus, speaking from a police command center, characterized Saturday's shooting as a 'hate crime,' saying his assessment was based on statements uttered by the gunman when he entered the synagogue. Police disclosed nothing else about a possible motive. But San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore said investigators were reviewing the suspect's social media posts and 'his open letter.' Gore told reporters that four people were struck by gunfire and taken to Palomar Medical Center, where one of the victims, an 'older woman,' died. The attack occurred shortly before 11.30am in Poway, a suburb of about 50,000 residents, when the suspect walked into the synagogue and started shooting, Gore said. As he was making his getaway, an off-duty U.S. Border Patrol agent who was inside the synagogue opened fire on the suspect, striking the vehicle but apparently missing the suspect, according to Gore. The gunman was arrested a short time later when he peacefully surrendered to police. A San Diego officer was en route to the shooting scene when he overheard a California Highway Patrol (CHP) radio dispatch 'of a suspect who had called into CHP to report that he was just involved in this shooting and his location,' San Diego Police Chief David Nisleit recounted. 'The officer was actually on the freeway and he clearly saw the suspect in his vehicle. The suspect pulled over and jumped out of his car with his hands up and was immediately taken into custody,' Nisleit said. He said the rifle believed to be the murder weapon was found on the front passenger seat of the car. People hug next to police tape across the street from the Chabad of Poway Synagogue after a shooting on Saturday in Poway Two people hug as another talks to a San Diego County Sheriff's deputy outside of the Chabad of Poway Synagogue. There have been four confirmed victims of the shooting, with one left dead Police are seen responding to the shooting after a gunman opened fire at the Chabad of Poway congregation on Saturday The shooting comes on the last day of Passover. According to the synagogue's website, the congregation were hosting a Passover Holiday Celebration that began at 11am and was scheduled to last all day The synagogue was hosting a holiday celebration beginning at 11 a.m. and due to culminate in a final Passover meal at 7 p.m. Authorities said about 100 people were inside the temple, where Saturday services marking the Jewish Sabbath would have been under way or have just concluded. Minoo Anvari, an Iranian refugee who said her husband was attending services inside when gunshots rang out, told KUSI-TV the wounded included a female friend and the rabbi, who was shot in the hand. 'We are united. You can't break us. We are in the U.S.,' Anvari said. A man who lives nearby, Christopher Folts, said on CNN he heard six to seven gunshots, then a man yelling, followed by six to seven more shots. Cantor Caitlin Bromberg of Ner Tamid Synagogue, down the street from the shooting scene, said her congregation learned of the shooting at the end of their Passover services and that they were heading to Chabad of Poway to show support and help. 'We are horrified and upset, and we want them to know we are thinking of them,' Bromberg told The Los Angeles Times, adding that she has not heard from Chabad of Poway leadership because they would not normally use the phone during the Sabbath. 'They would only do that on emergency basis, if they do it at all,' Bromberg told the newspaper. Residents place flowers and messages of support at an intersection next to the Chabad of Poway synagogue where a gunman opened fire earlier in the day killing one person and injuring three, in Poway, California A group gathers outside the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh for a vigil to honor the victims of the Saturday attack on a synagogue in Poway. It is six months to the day that a gunman shot and killed 11 people while they worshipped at the Tree of Life Synagogue on October 27, 2018 Major Vaus told CNN that members of the congregation attempted to overpower the gunman. 'This shooter was engaged by people in the congregation and those brave people certainly prevented this from being a much worse tragedy,' Major Vaus stated, adding that the shooter had 'hate' in his heart. It's believed the man fired between 12 and 14 shots inside the center. Witnesses say that even after being shot, Rabbi Goldstein called for unity and prayer among the congregation. 'Rabbi said, 'We are united,'' said Anvari, a refugee from Iran. 'This is something bad (that) is happening all over. And we have to believe that this bad thing is real and we don't have to ignore it. We have to open our eyes. He prayed for peace. I respect him -- even in spite of being injured he refused to go to hospital and he spoke. And he finished his speech and he then left the synagogue.' The reported feud was said to have erupted after William was said to have questioned Harry's haste in marrying Meghan (pictured together) in May 2018 The long-running feud between Prince William and Prince Harry was ended weeks ago, according to Royal sources. Since last year, there have been repeated stories of a supposed froideur between the brothers. It has been claimed that the tensions were sparked by William questioning whether Harry was being hasty in marrying Meghan Markle last May, less than two years after they met. But whatever the cause, sources say the rift was healed up to ten weeks ago. The reconciliation came at about the same time that the Royal households were reorganised. Harry is moving to a new office at Buckingham Palace, while William remains at Kensington Palace. A source said: Finalising plans on their future paths and roles did make things easier. There was no formal process or meetings required. It was never that bad. They worked things out between themselves. While aides have admitted that the dynamic between the brothers has been strained over the last year, those close to the two princes claimed that their relationship had been back on track for a while now. Britain's Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, Britain's Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, Britain's Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and Britain's Meghan, Duchess of Sussex attend the Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey in London on March 11, 2019 Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex attend the ANZAC Day Service of Commemoration and Thanksgiving at Westminster Abbey on April 25, 2019 They are in regular contact, which is the main thing, the source added. The princes were seen together at a small gathering of mutual friends recently, and on Easter Sunday Harry and Meghan who is due to give birth any day now gave William and Kate a tour of their new home, Frogmore Cottage in Windsor. The get-together took place just before William flew to New Zealand for a tour. Oxford University is simulating exams to help snowflake students overcome anxiety about sitting the real thing. Undergraduates will next month get the chance to sit a mock three-hour test while wearing a traditional academic gown. Anxiety workshops and panic attack training are among other events at Oxford, which is just one of a number of universities offering help to beat stress. At Cambridge, pictures of exam venues have been posted online to help those uncomfortable with the examination room environment. Oxford University is simulating exams to help snowflake students overcome anxiety about sitting the real thing (file photo) Sheffield University warns students that exam stress may cause unpleasant scenes or flashbacks from previous exams and feelings of terror. Other universities are providing counselling, free massages and even animal-petting sessions. But Frank Furedi, of Kent University, said: The more resources universities devote to help students deal with normal exam stress, the more they make the problem worse. An Oxford spokesman said: We take the wellbeing of students very seriously and will do all we can to support them during this period. The Duchess of Sussex is said to have 'felt sorry' for sister-in-law Kate Middleton after she posed for photos looking fresh-faced outside the Lindo Wing. Meghan Markle is expected to give birth to her first child in the coming days and will snub the traditional photo call outside the royal's favourite maternity ward. Friends have said this may be because the 37-year-old does not want the fuss of having to put on a show and dress up just hours after giving birth. Meghan Markle (left) is said to have felt sorry for Kate Middleton (right on the birth of Prince Louis) for having to pose outside the Lindo Wing Harry and Meghan (pictured above) have strayed from royal tradition and will not use the Lindo Wing Speaking to The Post the source said the perfectly polished look had put Meghan off the much sought after photo shoot following the birth, especially after Kate Middleton had emerged looking immaculate following the birth of Prince Louis. Meghan and Harry have previously released a statement informing members of the public that they would be doing things their way, when it comes to raising their first child. It read: '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.' Kate Middleton looked fresh-faced and glowing when she appeared on the steps of the Lindo Wing after the births of Prince George (left) and Princess Charlotte (right) It is thought that the couple could introduce the new arrival on their very own 'SussexRoyal' Instagram page. The account currently has over four million followers. According to royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams, the birth of Baby Sussex will be a global event. Speaking to The Sun he said: 'There will be a huge demand for photos and it may well be no coincidence that they have just opened an Instagram account. 'If there is no pose outside the hospital the couple, on this most personal of occasions, will be sure to send photos to the millions awaiting them. Princess Diana also used the Lindo Wing and did the traditional photo shoot outside the ward after the birth of Prince William (left) and Prince Harry (right) 'It's worth remembering they are a celebrity power couple and we know how significant they are in the royal family.' After four decades of royals using the Lindo Wing as the favoured maternity ward of choice, Meghan and Harry are set to opt out and could use a maternity unit close to their Windsor home. Most recently, Kate used the famed maternity ward in 2018 with Prince Louis and prior to that had also given birth to Charlotte in 2015 and George in 2013. But royal tradition goes back much further than the Duchess of Cambridge. The Lindo Wing was also used for the birth of William in 1982 and Harry in 1984. This is while in 1977 the Princess Royal had Peter Phillips there, followed by daughter Zara in 1981. The Governments fracking tsar today reveals her immediate resignation in The Mail on Sunday. Natascha Engels decision to walk away from such a high-profile role is driven, she says, by her dismay that Ministers are jeopardising Britains energy security because they would rather appease noisy green campaigners than listen to scientists advice. The result, she says in an exclusive interview, is that government policy is strangling the UK shale gas industry at birth despite overwhelming scientific evidence that fracking, if properly regulated, is totally safe. Killing off this industry, says Ms Engel, a former Labour MP, will cause higher, not lower, greenhouse-gas emissions, as we are forced to rely on increased imports of gas. Ms Engel, 52, tells The Mail on Sunday: We are facing a huge challenge from climate change, which can only be dealt with by getting serious about the energy we use. But using our own gas instead of imports will get our emissions down. Extinction Rebellion (XR), which is demanding zero emissions by 2025 bringing Central London to almost a standstill for much of the past two weeks with its direct action protests also campaigns against fracking. This week the group will meet Environment Secretary Michael Gove. Natascha Engel, UK commissioner for fracking, at her home in South London Ms Engels job which has the official title Commissioner for Shale Gas was to liaise between the Government, scientists, the industry and residents near potential fracking sites, and to give people factual information about the issue. But last night, she revealed, she submitted an explosive resignation letter to Energy Secretary Greg Clark. It says she is stepping down because a perfectly viable industry is being wasted because of a Government policy driven by environmental lobbying rather than science, evidence and a desire to see UK industry flourish. The Government, it adds, is listening to a small but loud environmental movement that opposes in principle all extraction of fossil fuels. The campaign against fracking has been highly successful in raising the profile and filling the coffers of some campaign groups, but they do not represent local residents nor the wider population. The key reason for Ms Engels resignation is Mr Clarks refusal to review the limit for earth tremors caused by fracking 0.5 on the Richter scale. Tremors of this size, Ms Engel says, are so faint that detecting them requires highly sensitive equipment. The same rules do not apply to quarry blasting or construction piling, which can cause much bigger earth movements. They are also thousands of times weaker than the level 4 or 5 quakes geologists say are the smallest likely to damage buildings. Extinction Rebellion, which is demanding zero emissions by 2025 also campaigns against fracking Ms Engel says: A 0.5 tremor is much weaker than the rumble you might feel when walking above a Tube train. Yet if a frack unleashes a tremor rated 0.5 [caused when water is pumped underground into the shale to crack it and release the gas it holds] operators have to stop what theyre doing for 18 hours... this is making fracking impossible. The success of fracking in the US and Canada has led to an economic boom in these countries but also, crucially, lower emissions because burning gas produces far less CO2 than burning coal, which it has partly replaced. In America and Canada, the limits imposed on the tremors that can legally be caused by fracking are much greater, according to Ms Engel: between 2 and 4.5 on the Richter scale. Mr Clark has claimed that when Britains 0.5 limit was set in 2012, it was done in consultation with the industry, implying that fracking firms supported it. This, Ms Engel says, is untrue. At the time, geologists and the industry fiercely objected, she said. Today, UK drillers say they could operate with a limit of 1.5, ten times less than the lowest American ceiling (a level 2 tremor is ten times stronger than a level 1). When Mr Clarks predecessor, Liberal Democrat Ed Davey, introduced the restriction, he issued a statement saying it would be reviewed when there was evidence that increasing the 0.5 limit would be safe. Ms Engel says: We have the evidence, but the only thing thats stopping a review is the Government. Yet Mr Clark is refusing to budge and time is running out. If the Government continues to listen to campaign groups rather than science, then he is effectively putting an end to fracking in the UK. She adds: Firms have invested hundreds of millions of pounds. They did all this on the basis that Government policy would be rational, that it would be scientific. But its not. Ms Engels job which has the official title Commissioner for Shale Gas was to liaise between the Government, scientists, the industry and residents near potential fracking sites, and to give people factual information about the issue A small minority of residents are opposed to fracking, she says. But they are heavily outnumbered by people who want the benefits fracking could bring. In the areas where experimental wells have been drilled Yorkshire, Lancashire and the East Midlands historic industry has been destroyed, causing high levels of deprivation, and people tell me they desperately want industry jobs. They are now very, very angry that a bunch of campaigners in London, backed it seems by the Government, say they cant have them, because of almost undetectable earthquakes. Yet the Government is not listening to them. The irony, she says, is that by wrecking the shale gas industry, which the British Geological Survey says has the potential to supply Britain with gas for many decades, the Government is certain to increase emissions. If you look at energy use as a whole, including heating and transport, gas accounts for 40 per cent of the total. There is simply no way renewables can fill that gap at the moment. We get less than five per cent of our total energy from wind and only 0.5 per cent from solar. Hence, she says, the inevitable consequence of killing the shale gas industry is that the quantity of gas burnt in UK homes, businesses and power stations imported from abroad will soar and with it, the far bigger carbon footprint caused by the process of making liquified natural gas and transporting it here. Ms Engel says imported gas already costs 7 billion a year. Moreover, by denying ourselves shale gas, we are also depriving the Treasury of huge tax revenues, which could be spent on schools or the NHS. Extinction Rebellion demonstrators 'die' in outside the Tate Modern to bring attention to the decline in the bee population Ms Engel says she is also dismayed that groups such as XR, along with Swedish teenage environmental activist Greta Thunberg, had no concrete solutions other than to say we need political upheaval. I cannot understand why politicians would rather listen to a teenager who tells children not go to school because they will soon be dead rather than looking at ways of reducing our emissions by taking gas out of the ground here. We should be giving our children a positive and hopeful message: telling them to go to school, go to university, to become scientists and innovators who can find the answers to climate change. As fracking tsar, she says: I was really excited to be part of a vision for the future, that would help restore Britains reputation as a creative, forward-looking country which took both emissions targets and prosperity seriously. But for reasons I cannot fathom, the Governments approach is not leadership, but paralysis. Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell is directly involved in a civil disobedience campaign against Britain's high street banks, with Barclays a main target of the action, a Mail on Sunday investigation has discovered. The hard-Left ally of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has helped to whip up a wave of climate change protests against Barclays, including demonstrations and sit-ins at dozens of branches. During one meeting last week, Mr McDonnell told activists that he had met representatives of the banks to tell them he was going to continue to lead the war on them for lending money to corporations which profit from fracking and the fossil fuel industry. Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell is revealed to be directly involved in a civil disobedience campaign against Britain's high street banks Mr McDonnell also pledged that a Labour government which he claimed would be in place by the autumn would make climate change the defining criterion of its investment decisions. He said he was even planning to rewrite the mandate of the Bank of England to enshrine the policy. Activists from the hard-Left campaign group Momentum have teamed up with the environmental group People & Planet to stage direct action protests at dozens of branches of Barclays, which organisers say is one of the leading European backers of fossil fuel projects. It comes after a separate climate change group, Extinction Rebellion, tried to paralyse London recently with lengthy protests which led to more than 1,100 arrests. This newspaper's investigation has uncovered how Momentum's ruthlessly efficient plan for its followers includes advice on 'mobilising via WhatsApp' and how to manage the protests at Barclays. Activists who take part in protests at Barclays branches, backed by John McDonnell are told how to mislead police It suggests offering boxes of chocolates to bank staff to persuade them to stop working, and activists are even told to hide from police the fact that their actions are being directed by Momentum Corbynistas. A recording of one online Momentum campaign meeting last week included a contribution from Mr McDonnell during which he congratulated the activists on action they had taken recently and the more widespread protests planned for next month. He told them: 'You'll be pleased to know I had a meeting with all the banks, all of them together. Barclays were there and I told them that we're going to keep on their case and the others as well.' Mr McDonnell went on to praise the Extinction Rebellion campaigners and pledged that a future Labour government would look at taking 'more radical action' on climate change. He said: 'It will be our top priority for our investment decisions. We have been discussing how we review the mandate of the Bank of England to ensure they are using every power they have to prioritise climate change.' The hard-Left ally of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn (right, with McDonnell) has helped to whip up a wave of climate change protests He added that senior Labour figures had been talking 'for some while' to Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, and that Mr Carney had been 'doing climate change stress tests at the Bank'. Mr McDonnell added that Labour was preparing for an expected General Election this autumn. He said: 'We're working on the basis that it could be as soon as October if the Tories get a new leader in July. 'We have to have a new manifesto ready for then. Jeremy has made it clear that at the heart of it will be a green new deal but also what we're calling a green industrial revolution with hundreds of thousands of new jobs specifically aimed at the environmental sector.' The plans for the direct action against the banks, seen by this newspaper, include: Staging 'mass die-ins' inside branches, during which dozens of activists lie on the floor and play dead during opening hours; Bombarding branches with emails and letters in a 'communications blockade' designed to disrupt the running of banks; Mr McDonnell said that senior Labour figures had been talking 'for some while' to Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England Vandalising Barclays billboards and adverts in a so-called 'brandalism' campaign. Momentum has issued a step-by-step guide to local organisers about planning and staging their protests. It says: 'As soon as you arrive at your local Barclays, go inside and tell the staff politely that there will be a protest outside and explain what it's about. 'Explain the protest is not aimed at customers or staff, but at their employers, Barclays.' Bizarrely, the guide adds: 'Consider giving the staff a box of chocolates and a card with a nice note inside extending your solidarity to them (feel free to keep a receipt so we can reimburse you the cost of the gift). 'Once several people have arrived, raise banners and placards and start chanting. Example of chants: "Barclays, Barclays, shame on you. You're just dirty frackers too!"' The guide also includes advice on how to set up a Facebook event to promote a protest locally, and encourages organisers to invite all their Facebook friends. It includes a red Soviet-style graphic to use on any Facebook event page which carries the wording: 'Bankrupt climate change. The banks crashed the economy. Don't let them crash the planet.' Another file called 'Facebook event copy' features text written by Momentum for organisers to use for their local Facebook groups. Mr McDonnell added that Labour was preparing for an expected General Election this autumn It says: 'Join us in taking on the banks that fund climate breakdown, and let's break the chain of fossil fuel finance!' The documents tell organisers to create a WhatsApp group to 'gather data' on who is attending a protest. It adds: 'You'll have the phone numbers of everyone attending your event, and you can direct message them. This is really powerful for mobilising the day before an event.' Turning to the day of the protest, the guide says: 'One of the organisers should be in charge of social media. Take lots of pictures and videos and post on social media during the protest with the hashtag #bankruptclimatechange. We'll also share them on our national Momentum social media. The booklet, called Ideas For Action, also suggests occupying branches with 'mass die' demonstrations. It says: 'The mass die is a statement that cannot be ignored. The die-in highlights Barclays' destruction of the environment which brings us life. Plus the activists occupying this space put a halt to everyday trading.' Supporters are also urged to bombard Barclays branches with calls and emails, saying: 'A communications blockade bombardes (sic) decision makers with calls and emails politely making your demand crystal clear so they have no choice but to listen to you and take your demands seriously. Mr McDonnell went on to praise the Extinction Rebellion campaigners (pictured outside the Treasury) and pledged that a future Labour government would look at taking 'more radical action' on climate change 'Or get your team to deliver letters to your local branch in person, tying up operations. 'By blockading, you demand attention as people can't go about their regular activities. Be bold, hold the position until your demands are met.' The step-by-step guide issued by Momentum to activists also includes a video tutorial about how to take 'direct action' against a bank. The video is introduced by Momentum press officer Clare Hymer, who then hands over to Labour Party activist Chris Saltmarsh, the well-spoken co-founder of the Labour for a Green New Deal movement, and youth officer for Labour's Oxford branch. He advises activists how to 'buy time' with the police if they stage an occupation of a branch, and warns: 'It is not a criminal offence to trespass, it's a civil offence, but you can be arrested for it.' The organisers dispense extraordinary advice about time-wasting tactics while activists are negotiating with police officers who are trying to remove them from a branch, urging protesters to lie to police officers about the true organisers of the protest. Top tips for anarchists The Momentum advice offers handy hints for a successful bank invasion: Start by staging a 'mass die-in' inside branches during which you should lie on the floor and play dead. If the police ask, deny the protest is organised by Momentum and sanctioned by the Labour leadership. Demand to know from officers: 'What are you going to arrest us for?' Take lots of pictures and videos and post on social media during the protest. Bombard branches with emails and letters to disrupt the running of the banks. Don't forget to vandalise Barclays billboards! Advertisement They should falsely state that they are 'organised horizontally' which means there is no leadership despite the fact that the action is being run by Momentum, with the blessing of Labour top brass. They are advised: 'You may not be [organised horizontally] but it is a good thing to tell them (the police) because they generally don't understand what that means and are quite confused.' Mr Saltmarsh adds: 'If you say, 'oh, well I've got to take it back to the group we need to decide collectively if we are staying or leaving' then that's a good way to buy some time and you can kind of huddle round and pretend you're having a conversation.' He adds that a group representative could then tell police 'we are going to be half an hour' and says 'that kind of back and forth' could be used 'just to buy some time'. 'Really, it's a judgment call, you will want to have a decision before you go in to the branch at what point you want to leave.' Mr Saltmarsh explains that any action only 'becomes aggravated trespass' once activists are asked to leave a branch by Barclays staff, adding: 'The police will likely turn up a little bit later. They generally are not very fussed about these things, they do take their time.' The protesters should appoint as a leader 'someone calm who is probably quite articulate' to negotiate with the police when they arrive. He says: 'The reason why that's important is by having one identified person, you can have them negotiate. If they (police) are talking to lots and lots of people, it is easier to split the group or plant seeds of doubt in people. 'They very often will be like, 'if you don't leave now, you will be arrested,' but if you have one person, they are able to say, 'okay, what will we be arrested for?' He comments: 'They have to tell you before they arrest you. Outside the branch, you're generally fine. Cops don't want to be arresting people at things like this.' Switching to how to deal with frustrated bank customers, Mr Saltmarsh says: 'We've got Momentum-made leaflets incoming and that's great. 'Yeah, I guess share them out. That's a really great way for anybody who has turned up at the action to take part in it and again those are really a window to having conversations with the public.' Donald Trump Jr on Saturday blasted The New York Times after the newspaper acknowledged it printed an anti-Semitic cartoon portraying President Trump and Israels Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The presidents eldest son tweeted: Disgusting. I have no words for flagrant anti-Semitism on display here. Imagine this was in something other than a leftist newspaper? The cartoon in question portrays President Trump as a blind man wearing a yarmulke while being led by a dog with Netanyahus face imposed on the poochs body. The New York Times on Saturday said it deleted an anti-Semitic cartoon which depicts a blind President Trump with a Jewish skullcap being led by a 'guide dog,' Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Donald Trump Jr, the presidents eldest son, tweeted: Disgusting. I have no words for flagrant anti-Semitism on display here. Imagine this was in something other than a leftist newspaper? The image was offensive, and it was an error of judgment to publish it,' the Times said on Saturday A blue Star of David is seen dangling from Netanyahus collar while Trump holds the leash. The Times said that the cartoon was printed by the newspapers international edition. A political cartoon in the international print edition of The New York Times on Thursday included anti-Semitic tropes, depicting the prime minister of Israel as a guide dog with a Star of David collar leading the president of the United States, shown wearing a skullcap, the Times wrote in an editors note that it says will appear in Mondays international edition. The cartoon was drawn by political cartoonist Antonio Moreira Antunes of the Lisbon-based newspaper Expresso The image was offensive, and it was an error of judgment to publish it. It was provided by The New York Times News Service and Syndicate, which has since deleted it. The New York Times Syndicate is a service that curates content from the U.S.-based newspaper and offers it to other publications worldwide. The cartoon itself was drawn by political cartoonist Antonio Moreira Antunes of the Lisbon, Portugal-based newspaper Expresso. Though the newspaper deleted the cartoon, it did not explicitly apologize. The cartoon and the newspapers explanation ignited outrage on social media. Israeli journalist Anshel Pfeffer tweeted: The NY Times cartoon of Netanyahu as guide-dog for blind Trump would also have been a harsh but fair depiction of their relationship. But the moment Trump has a kippah and Netanyahu a Star of David, it veered sharply in to antisemitic territory. Truly incredible it was published. Seth Frantzman tweeted: The NYT #antisemitic cartoon numerous clear antisemitic elements: Dan Shapiro, the former American ambassador to Israel, tweeted: There is really no excuse for the New York Times to publish such a blatantly anti-Semitic image as the one in this cartoon' Anshel Pfeffer tweeted: The NY Times cartoon of Netanyahu as guide-dog for blind Trump would also have been a harsh but fair depiction of their relationship. But the moment Trump has a kippah and Netanyahu a Star of David, it veered sharply in to antisemitic territory' Melissa Weiss tweeted: This cartoon, which appeared in The New York Times international edition yesterday, is vile and inexcusable, especially at a time when attacks against Jews around the world are reaching levels not seen in decades Seth Frantzman tweeted: The NYT #antisemitic cartoon numerous clear antisemitic elements [including] 'putting a yarmulke on the US president in a negative way' and 'putting the face of the prime minister of the Jewish state on a dog' 1. Putting a yarmulke on the US President in negative way...2. Putting the face of the PM of the Jewish state on a dog...3. Using a Star of David on the collar...4. Implying the US is blindly led by Jews and/or Israel. Dan Shapiro, the former American ambassador to Israel, tweeted: There is really no excuse for the New York Times to publish such a blatantly anti-Semitic image as the one in this cartoon. Not acceptable in any way. Melissa Weiss tweeted: This cartoon, which appeared in The New York Times international edition yesterday, is vile and inexcusable, especially at a time when attacks against Jews around the world are reaching levels not seen in decades. The cartoon was intended as a criticism of the Trump administration's perceived pro-Israel bias. Palestinian leaders have said Trump cannot be an honest broker for peace after he broke with long-standing U.S. policy and recognized Jerusalem as Israels capital in 2017 and moved the American embassy to the city last May. A prized 17th Century Bible has been returned to a Pittsburgh library more than two decades after it was stolen as part of a multi-million dollar theft operation. The Geneva Bible, published in 1615 and similar to one that was brought to the U.S. on the Mayflower, was allegedly fleeced from the Carnegie Library in the 1990s by its archivist, Gregory Priore. Prosecutors say Piore stole more than $8 million worth of rare works from the library over the course of several years. He is accused of conspiring with prominent Pittsburgh book dealer, John Schulman, to sell off the expensive items. Last year, the pair were charged with numerous counts of theft and conspiracy and they are currently awaiting trial. The Bible was located in a museum in the Netherlands, before the FBI worked to bring the precious book back to American shores. A prized antique Bible, published in 1615, was finally returned to the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh on Thursday, years after it went missing The 1615 Geneva Bible is similar to one that was brought to the U.S. on the Mayflower in 1620 Prosecutors say archivist Gregory Piore (left) stole $8 million worth of works the library and conspired with prominent book dealer, John Schulman (right), to sell them off The American Pilgrim Museum in Leiden, about 45 miles from Amsterdam paid $1,200 for the Bible, not knowing that it has been robbed from Pittsburgh. After charges against Piore and Schulman were filed last year, the director of the Dutch museum contacted authorities in The Hague and the Carnegie Library to tell them he believed he was in possession of the stolen good. They worked with the museum who then shipped the Bible to FBI offices in Pittsburgh. From there it went to Allegheny County prosecutors, before finally making its way back into the library. Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, FBI agent Robert Jones stated: 'This Bible is more than a piece of evidence.. From a history perspective, it is priceless.' The Bible is one of 300 rare books, maps, plate books and atlases that were discovered missing from the Carnegie Library. Prosecutors in Pittsburgh have so far recovered 18 of the books stolen from the library. They have been found in the U.S. and abroad. The Bible is one of 300 rare books, maps, plate books and atlases that were discovered missing from the Carnegie Library (pictured) FBI agents and prosecutors held a press conference on Thursday, where they showed off the prized Bible One copy of Isaac Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, a watershed of science valued at $900,000, and John Adams' A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, valued at $20,000, are among the items that have been recovered. One of the books not yet recovered is 'An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations' the magnum opus by philosopher Adam Smith, valued at $180,000. With his majestic mane and a scar running beneath one of his piercing yellow eyes, Simba looks the epitome of the King of the African savannah. But despite his magnificence, this 11-year-old is no wild beast. Instead he is one of South Africas 12,000 captive-bred lions: hand-reared as a cub by humans on a so-called lion farm before entering a breeding programme to produce more cubs. After reaching his physical prime, Simbas imposing size and glorious mane sealed his fate: he was to be offered up to be slaughtered by wealthy hunters bent on killing him as a trophy to adorn their lavish homes. City worker Miles Wakefield (right), pictured with Patrick De Beer (far left) and Freddie Scheepers (second from right), was offered the cut price opportunity to shoot Simba the lion with tranquiliser darts for $4,000 (3,076) I first learnt of Simba after one of my undercover investigators posed as the representative of a wealthy American client, hoping to pay thousands of pounds to hunt and kill a lion. The investigator approached Mugaba Safaris, a firm owned and managed by professional hunter Patrick de Beer. De Beer is described on his companys website as having grown up in a safari fraternity and boasts unmatchable African bow and rifle hunting experience. Photographs show him holding up a huge dead leopard and straddling a dead male lion. As experienced hunter Freddie Scheepers looked on, Wakefield (right) shot Simba with a tranquilliser dart My investigator was emailed a brochure with photographs of 16 male lions each with its own price tag ranging from $13,000 (10,000) to $26,000 (20,000), depending on the quality of its mane. He settled on Simba, an older male which De Beer, who is known as The Lion Man, described in a WhatsApp message as a very good cat with a dense mane. He added: I am sure the client will be very pleased with his cat. The pair agreed a price tag of $23,000 (17,700) for the hunter to shoot Simba, with half to be paid in advance as a deposit and the balance in cash on arrival in South Africa. Patrick De Beer attached this photo of Simba in an email he sent offering the lion. He wrote: 'There are many distinctive features of which the spots on the nose is the lions fingerprints... it works the same as a humans fingerprints. Each lion is unique. Other features are the scars on the face (note 2x black spots next to left eye) and the tufts of belly hair' The undercover investigator repeatedly requested to see Simba before the hunt, in a bid to witness the conditions that the lion was being kept in. But he was rebuffed by De Beer, who wrote of his reluctance to show visitors captive lions in their enclosures. You have to understand that due to the sensitive nature of lion hunting all over the world we are hesitant to take people around showing then [sic] lions behind fences, he said in another WhatsApp message. It just takes the authenticity out of the hunt. Instead he offered to send my investigator as many pictures and videos as he wants of the lion. He added: We will photograph specific scars identifiable on the cat from various parts of the body to eliminate doubt. We guarantee the cat that hell shoot is the cat as per the pictures sent to you. He sent a series of pictures of Simba, including close-ups of his face, to illustrate the creatures identifiable scars and markings. There are many distinctive features of which the spots on the nose is [sic] the lions fingerprints... it works the same as a humans fingerprints, he wrote. Exhausted and clearly terrified, Simba cowers by a tree after being stalked by British City worker Miles Wakefield and safari owner Freddie Scheepers in a 4x4 pick-up truck, on the second day of the so-called green hunt in a fenced 1,100-acre area. In the heartbreaking video footage of the so-called hunt obtained by undercover investigators, Wakefield aims a tranquiliser gun at the lion from about 20 yards away. Scheepers tells him to aim for the muscle in Simbas right leg After the dart hits its target, a delighted Wakefield, who works for an insurance company, is congratulated with a pat on his shoulder, while a startled Simba bounds into the scrub The hunters mercilessly pursue Simba in the vehicle. His rear legs collapse beneath him as the now weakened beast attempts to escape. Wakefield and Scheepers get out of their vehicle to stalk the disorientated lion on foot. Each lion is unique. Other features are the scars on the face (note 2x black spots next to the left eye) and the tufts of belly hair. Also a scar next to [the] nose under right eye which goes horizontal. With the haggling over, the hunt was booked for October last year at Kalahari Lion Hunting Safaris, an exclusive hunting ranch on the edge of the vast Kalahari desert and near South Africas border with Botswana. The ranch is run by experienced hunter Freddie Scheepers and his wife Zerna. Wakefield raises the tranquiliser gun to his shoulder again but opts not to fire. Instead he and Scheepers continue to chase the increasingly confused and desperate Simba Once fearsome and majestic, now pitiful, terrified and stumbling, Simba staggers into a tree, not knowing which way to turn Scheepers appears to try to position Wakefield as close to the drugged lion as possible. Simba turns to confront his attackers but his strength is fading and he instead desperately moves away As he continues to shadow the increasingly distressed lion, Wakefield turns back and smirks at the rest of the hunting party as they watch the appalling spectacle from the safety of the 4x4 vehicle. This was to be what campaigners call a canned hunt, in which a captive-bred lion is killed within an enclosed hunting area surrounded by electric fences. My team learnt that Simba was to be supplied by a lion breeder in the Bloemfontein area, although they were unable to identify the exact farm. Plans were put in place for Simba to be shot between October 22 and 25 but my investigators had no intention on killing the magnificent animal, so found an excuse to pull out, hoping to find a way to rescue Simba. A day before the hunt, a member of my team posing as the American hunter met De Beer and claimed that his wife and family had been in a serious car crash in the US and that he needed to fly home immediately. In fact, this was a made-up excuse to withdraw from the hunt. But De Beer and Scheepers now had a problem: they had released a captive lion into a hunting area and had no one to kill it, so they hatched another plan to make even more money out of the lion before it died. Cornered and close to the electric fence marking the edge of the hunting enclosure, Simba can be heard growling as he tries to flee his tormentors As a defeated Simba collapses again near a large bush, Wakefield callously fires a second dart which can be seen leaving his gun from around ten yards away (left). The powerful dart strikes the lion hard in the right leg again (right). Shocked, he leaps to his feet and stumbles away Members of the hunting party appear to mockingly laugh as Simba makes one last valiant attempt to escape, despite being barely able to walk, before he collapses in the dust They decided to allow a wealthy client to pay thousands of pounds to shoot the big cat with a tranquiliser dart. Luckily for the safari bosses, a British hunting enthusiast called Miles Wakefield, 48, was also enjoying a six-night stay at the ranch, where he was hunting impala and other game. Wakefield, who works as an insurance loss adjuster in London, was offered the cut price opportunity to shoot the lion with tranquiliser darts for $4,000 (3,076). That morning, Wakefield went antelope hunting before joining Scheepers and De Beer in the afternoon to search for Simba in what my investigator was told was an 1,100-acre hunting area. They found the lion close to a perimeter fence where a bait of offal had been left out and began their cruel pursuit of him in an open 4x4 vehicle. Wakefield took a shot from the vehicle from a distance of about 12 yards but missed. A terrified Simba bounded off and, with darkness approaching, the men returned to the comfort of the lodge, which has its own swimming pool and bar. The pursuit resumed the next day, with the party again finding Simba near a perimeter fence. He was again chased in the pick-up truck until he was so exhausted that he slumped to the ground. After the previous days failure, Wakefield took careful aim under the direction of Mr Scheepers, who advised him to hit Simba in the muscle of his right hind leg. My investigators have obtained footage of the appalling spectacle, which can be seen on Mail Online, with some still pictures from the hunt on the following two pages. The heartbreaking film shows the distressed animal leaping up in shock after being shot and attempting to flee. But, increasingly weakened by the drug, his rear legs begin to fail as Wakefield and Scheepers stalk him on foot. A pitiful and disorientated Simba is shown staggering into a tree and wheeling away from his pursuers, apparently confused about which way to turn. He finally collapses in the shade of a tree at which point Wakefield after turning back to grin at the rest of the party fires a second dart into his right leg. Minutes later, once the drugs have finally brought down the proud beast, Wakefield is filmed posing for his trophy shot next to the semi-conscious Simba, whose tongue was lolling from his mouth. The Briton appeared barely able to contain his delight as the dazed lion attempted to move his huge head. Wakefield exclaimed: He is turning his head and theres no fighting it! A group picture showed Wakefield lined up behind Simba with Scheepers, De Beer and another professional hunter. Under South African law, it is illegal to fire a tranquiliser dart at a lion for purposes other than veterinary, scientific, conservation or management purposes. The dart has to be fired by a vet or a vet has to be present. Hunters are also banned from hunting a lion in a vehicle, unless they are tracking it over long distance or the hunter is physically disabled or elderly. Wakefield this weekend said he was misled by Scheepers and De Beer and that he believed he was taking part in a legal operation to relocate a lion in the interests of the health of the animal. As Simba lies helpless, a blue cloth is placed over his eyes. Throughout the hunt, one of the party has been monitoring the time. It is understood they fear the tranquiliser will wear off and that Simba will turn on them Wakefield poses for his trophy shot beside the semi-conscious lion. Simba looks into the camera with dazed eyes and his tongue lolls from his mouth. As the lion moves, Wakefield laughs and exclaims: He is turning his head and theres no fighting it! Wakefield helps the hunting party lift the now unconscious 400lb lion on to a tarpaulin and move him towards the waiting vehicle Once the king of the jungle, Simba is unceremoniously shoved into the back of a trailer. This, however, is no conservation rescue mission. The lion is simply being moved to an unknown location to wait for another hunt to take place, during which he would certainly have been killed if it had not been for a daring rescue mission He said he was only told that there should have been a vet present after the event, and that if he had known beforehand, I would have immediately withdrawn from the operation. He added: I was led to believe, by the two South Africans, Freddie Scheepers and Patrick de Beer, who are both professional hunters, that it was for conservation. 'By relocating the lion to another more controlled location the animals life would be preserved. De Beer insisted last night it was not a hunt, claiming Wakefield paid for the upkeep of the lion in return for the chance to shoot it with a dart. Speaking to this newspaper, Scheepers confirmed there was no vet present but denied it was a hunt, insisting they were simply darting the lion to move it to another enclosed area after the original hunter had pulled out. That wasnt a hunt. We just darted it, he said. What happened was the guy that was supposed to hunt the lion, when he landed in South Africa his wife and his daughters were in a terrible accident so he had to go back. We decided to take the lion back to the enclosed area. He said Simba would not have survived where he was. Scheepers claimed this was the first and only time a client had paid to dart a lion and he insisted it was too dangerous to fire a tranquiliser dart at a lion while on foot. After posing for pictures, the men helped load Simba into the back of a trailer, carefully monitoring the time that had elapsed to ensure that the drug would not wear off and that the huge beast was not about to come around and turn on them. This was not, however, the kind of relocation operation that conservationists undertake across Africa. Simba was simply being moved to a holding area where he would await the American hunter who had claimed the right to kill him. My undercover investigator, posing again as the American hunter, arrived at Scheepers hunting site on February 20. But, after locating Simba, he then shocked his hosts by saying he was unhappy to continue with the hunt. To Scheepers bafflement, my mole told him he now wanted to rescue the magnificent beast and relocate it to a sanctuary. After two months of nerve-racking uncertainty, I can reveal that my team finally managed to rescue Simba last week and he was taken to a sanctuary at a secret location. We were later told how perilously Simbas life had hung in the balance: sources told us that another hunter was on his way to the ranch on Thursday to kill him. The lion is now out, said Reinet Meyer, a senior inspector at the Society For The Prevention Of Cruelty To Animals. One lion has been saved from a terrible death. We are very happy and relieved. Sadly, the uplifting ending to this story is highly unusual. Thousands more lions are languishing in breeding centres and farms across South Africa waiting to be picked out for slaughter by foreign hunters. Andrew Muir, widely considered to be South Africas leading conservationist and wildlife expert, this weekend branded canned lion hunting deplorable. I believe canned hunting should be outlawed throughout the world because it is inhumane and there is no conservation value or justification to it, he said. China's ambassador in London has moved to reassure the Government over Huawei spying concerns as he defended the tech giant's 'good track record on security'. Liu Xioming urged the UK to ignore supposed scaremongering from its allies and act independently by pressing ahead with the 5G communications network which will be partly built by Huawei. In what will be viewed as a slap down to the United States, which has shut out the Shenzhen-based company from its telecoms grid, the Beijing diplomat impelled Theresa May to resist 'protectionism'. Scroll down for video Liu Xioming urged the UK to ignore scaremongering from its allies and act independently by pressing ahead with the 5G communications network which will be partly built by Huawei 'Countries of global influence, like the UK, make decisions independently and in accordance with their national interests,' Mr Liu wrote in the Sunday Telegraph. 'When it comes to the establishment of the new 5G network, the UK is in the position to do the same again by resisting pressure, working to avoid interruptions and making the right decision independently based on its national interests and in line with its need for long-term development.' His intervention comes at the end of a week which has seen a string of cabinet ministers furiously scrambled to deny that they leaked concerns about Huawei from a confidential National Security Council meeting. But Mr Liu, although admitting that the technology was not 'perfect', suggested that fears surrounding the tech titan are unfounded. The decision to let Huawei help with the 5G network has infuriated many in government, in the security services and in US intelligence circles He said: 'Huawei has had a good track record on security over the years, having taken the initiative to invest in a Cyber Security Evaluation Centre which employs an all-British monitoring team. 'The company has been working hard to improve its technology and to enhance the security and reliability of its equipment.' Who is on the National Security Council? A government document published earlier this month states that the National Security Council consists of: The Prime Minister Theresa May Minister for the Cabinet Office David Lidington The Chancellor Philip Hammond Home Secretary Sajid Javid Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson Business Secretary Greg Clark International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt Attorney General Geoffrey Cox The council is chaired by the National Security Adviser, Mark Sedwill. Other Cabinet ministers attend as required, as to the Chief of the Defence Staff, General Sir Nicholas Carter, and heads of Intelligence Agencies MI5 and MI6 also attend when required. Advertisement Some of the UK's closest allies have blocked Huawei from work on their own networks because of security concerns, some of which were reportedly raised by Cabinet ministers present at the NSC meeting about the firm's involvement. The leaks to the Daily Telegraph has triggered a Whitehall inquiry spearheaded by Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill to root out the culprit. Ministers and aides were reportedly issued questionnaires requiring them to explain where they were in the hours following Tuesday's NSC meeting. The spotlight was on the five ministers who were said to have voiced objections to the Huawei decision - Home Secretary Sajid Javid, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson, International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt and International Trade Secretary Liam Fox. MPs were quick to link the leak to the manoeuvrings around the Tory leadership, with whoever was responsible hoping to burnish their credentials for being tough on China. All five, however, have either publicly denied being the guilty party or let it be known through aides that they were not responsible. Also present at the meeting were David Lidington, the Cabinet Office Minister and Mrs May's de facto deputy, Chancellor Philip Hammond, Business Secretary Greg Clark and Culture Secretary Jeremy Wright. Much of the anger around the leak from the NSC - where ministers are briefed by the heads of the intelligence agencies, MI5, MI6 and GCHQ - reflects concern among MPs and officials that it could damage intelligence-sharing with key partners such as the US. Some MPs have called for the matter to be referred to the police or for MI5 investigators to be brought in, amid concerns that conventional Whitehall leak inquiries have a poor track record of finding the culprit. Volodymyr Zelenskiy is a popular actor who won the Ukrainian presidential election in a landslide in April 2019 defeating the incumbent Petro Poroshenko Volodymyr Zelenskiy, pictured, won the Ukrainian presidential election in April 2019 despite not having any prior political experience Volodymyr Zelenskiy is a popular actor who won the Ukrainian presidential election in a landslide in April 2019 defeating the incumbent Petro Poroshenko. During the election, Zelenskiy vowed to unify the country, whose east and west areas are divided. The country has faced major problems with a violent separatist movement in the east which has been supported by Russian troops. Zelenskiy, 41, became famous nationwide for his comic portrayal in a Ukrainian TV series of a high school teacher who becomes president after a video rant against corruption goes viral. In a case of life imitating television, Zelenskiy denounced corruption as a real candidate. Although Zelenskiy was criticised for a vague campaign platform and never holding public office, voters appeared to cast aside those concerns in favour of a thorough sweep of Ukraines political leadership. Poroshenko was a billionaire sweet magnate and former foreign minister before he took office in 2014 after huge street protests drove his Russia-friendly predecessor to flee the country. He defeated the incumbent Petro Poroshenko, pictured, who tried to prepare Ukraine for entry into the European Union and then into Nato Although he instituted some reforms, critics said he had not done nearly enough to curb corruption. Poroshenko positioned himself as a president who could stand up to Russia and said Zelenskiy would be easy prey for Moscow. Although the Kremlin despises Poroshenko, Zelenskiys apparent victory was greeted noncommittally in Russia. Russia seized Crimea in 2014, and fighting in the east erupted that same year. Poroshenko campaigned on the same promise he made when he was elected in 2014: to lead the nation of 42 million into the European Union and Nato. Zelenskiy pledged likewise to keep Ukraine on a Westward course but said the country should only join Nato if voters give their approval in a referendum. Poroshenkos five years in office saw the creation of a new Ukrainian Orthodox Church independent of Moscows church, a schism he championed. Also, Ukraine reached a visa-free deal with the EU that led to the exodus of millions of skilled workers for better living conditions elsewhere in Europe. Advertisement There's only one downside to visiting St Petersburg. You quickly realise you'll have to return again and again if you want to see everything. I've visited the Russian city six times over the past 30 years and still feel I've only scraped the surface. The Winter Palace is second only to Versailles in architecture and the Amber Room should be on everyone's list of 'places to see before I die'. However, since my latest book, Heads You Win, which was inspired in part by St Petersburg, has been banned in Russia, I fear I may never be able to visit this great city again. Magnificent: The Grand Palace at Peterhof is 'second only to Versailles in architecture' according to Jeffrey I first visited St Petersburg three decades ago on a research trip. Once I discovered the Hermitage Museum I was hooked, and I've never really recovered, as it's possibly the greatest gallery on Earth. It's a port city, though you're more aware of the beautiful Neva River that sweeps through the centre and its amazing bridges than any docks. I always say to people, don't go to your grave without visiting St Petersburg. It is quite simply a feast for the eyes and the mind, the sort of place where every minute can be taken up seeing or doing something. It's very different from other parts of Russia; a beautiful ancient city with a friendly, cosmopolitan outlook and a middle-class feel. 'The Hermitage (above) is arguably the greatest museum in the world. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York might disagree, but, once you've visited the Hermitage, you'll see why I think so,' says Jeffrey In the years I've been visiting, Russia's become more westernised and certainly more hospitable to tourists. You won't be followed by the KGB these days well, not all of you. Hotel Astoria in the centre of the city is a wonderful home from home and a delightful place to stay. It has a deeply Russian feel to it but, like all the best international hotels, feels familiar and welcoming. Previous guests have included Lenin, H. G. Wells and Rasputin, so you're in good company. Opposite is St Isaac's Cathedral, another museum with the most incredible interior that really has to be seen to be believed. It's a short walk from Palace Square and the Hermitage, so very central for exploring. The Hermitage is arguably the greatest museum in the world. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York might disagree, but, once you've visited the Hermitage, you'll see why I think so. I don't know how long other people can last, but I can only do about two-and-a-half hours in a gallery before I lose my focus and need to be fed. I've done that around a dozen times at the Hermitage and I'm still only half-way through. Groups are allowed in an hour before it opens, so it's worth checking to see if there's a tour you can join to give yourself a head start. Otherwise, go early and make sure you're first in the queue when the doors open. Wear comfy shoes and take a bottle of water: you'll need it. My wife Mary and I have been to the Hermitage together several times. During our last visit, we employed a teacher from St Petersburg as a tour guide while we travelled around for a week. She was worth every penny and was not expensive. She answered all our questions and quite literally didn't stop talking. We thought she was brilliant because she gave us fact after fact after fact some of which I even remember. Beloved city: The views of St Isaac's Cathedral from the Neva River If you haven't got a guide, do ask locals if you're lost or looking for something they're friendly and many speak English. If not, Google Translate will probably help interpret for you. What struck me even after all these years of travelling in the country is what a very middle-class people the Russians are they know their history, they know their country, and they're extremely proud of both. On one of our visits, I had the honour of being shown around the museum by the director a rare privilege. Make sure you don't miss the Michelangelo statue Crouching Boy. He's bending down and pulling a thorn out of his foot. It's not as well-known as David, but it's so real that you can feel his pain. Mary's favourites are the Dutch rooms, featuring huge collections by the likes of Rembrandt and van Dyck. What we couldn't work out, and the director was silent on the issue, was how much of the contents are stolen. The Russians looted museums and galleries across Europe at the end of World War II. I sometimes look at a picture and wonder whether it should be in Germany or Poland or the former Czechoslovakia. But, unsurprisingly, when you raise the subject, people don't (or won't) say anything. Outside the Hermitage in Palace Square where key events of the October Revolution of 1917 took place the first thing that hits you is the colour. The buildings are resplendent in a mix of gold, red and green. At night, it's wonderfully lit. The locals complained about the cost until they saw the effect it had on tourism. Crossing the Neva River is the Palace Bridge. Many married couples go there to have their photograph taken. It's quite charming watching them queuing up to be snapped: it's almost compulsory. We're usually in St Petersburg in July (I still take a couple of sweaters, though it's generally warm), however I'm told by aficionados that you should go in January, because you really will have the palaces and museums to yourself. In case you didn't know... St Petersburg was founded in 1703, during Russia's Northern War with Sweden, when Tsar Peter the Great decided to build a trading port on the Gulf of Finland as a 'window to Europe'. The city has been renamed three times - from St Petersburg to Petrograd in 1914; then to Leningrad in 1924; and finally back to St Petersburg in 1991. Locals often refer to it by its nickname, Piter. Because of its location at a river delta on the Neva, St Petersburg has hundreds of bridges, some of which can be raised at night - so do check if you're heading out for the evening that you'll easily be able to get back to your hotel. As Leningrad, the city was blockaded by German forces for 872 days from September 1941, leading to the deaths of more than a million civilians. The Alexander Column - the focal point of Palace Square - is a single piece of free-standing red granite and is not fixed to the ground. Its weight holds it in place. If you spent a minute looking at each exhibit in the Hermitage, it would take more than a decade to see the entire museum, according to estimates. More than 50 'Hermitage cats' keep the museum free of mice. The felines have three caretakers, a small hospital and even their own Press secretary. St Petersburg's most famous living son is Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was born there in 1952 and grew up in a communal apartment building. The city's culinary specialities include Pyshki (Russian doughnuts). Locals queue up on Bolshaya Konyushennaya Street to get them freshly baked. Due to its northerly latitude, from mid-May to mid-July twilight in St Petersburg lasts all night - known as White Nights. Locals throw coins at two cat statues, called Elisei and Alisa, on Malaya Sadovaya Street, to honour their role in the Siege of Leningrad, when thousands of cats helped protect scarce food supplies from rats. Advertisement If that's the case, you'll need layers of extra clothing, though, even then, it's not really cold by Russian standards only minus 10c or thereabouts. A bit like Cambridge. I did buy a Russian hat, known as an ushanka, which also feels at home in Cambridgeshire. It's beautifully warm, covers your ears and goes under your chin. Peter the Great wanted the Peterhof Palace actually a series of palaces, including the Grand Palace, and now a Unesco World Heritage Site to be a mini Versailles, and he certainly succeeded. They've spent millions of roubles repainting the main buildings in green and red with gold leaf it looks magnificent. Jeffrey and his wife Mary, pictured above. Jeffrey has visited the Russian city six times over the past 30 years And that's before you even get inside. You can walk around the grounds for several hours just admiring the fountains. Another absolute must-see is the Amber Room. You'd be very foolish to go to St Petersburg and not visit it. Quite simply, it's unique. It's located in the Catherine Palace once the summer residence of the Tsars about 20 miles (a short car or bus journey) south of St Petersburg in the town of Pushkin. Of course, the original room was dismantled in World War II and disappeared, so you're looking at a reconstruction. But what a reconstruction! Even for aficionados, who would know? It's a huge, square room decorated in amber panels backed with gold leaf and mirrors: simply breathtaking. You can see why the original was considered the 'eighth wonder of the world'. Like everywhere else, it's incredibly crowded, but visit the palace, be patient and you'll reach the room eventually. Outside the Catherine Palace are some of the finest gift shops I've ever been to. They do sell touristy things, but you'll also find genuinely good craftsmanship at reasonable prices. Over the years, we have purchased several amber mementoes. Ironically, given my love for St Petersburg, my book Heads You Win which opens with a KGB assassination is not being published in Russia. Its hero, Alexander Karpenko, born on the fifth floor of one of the brutal Communist-era tenements that still circle the city, is forced to flee after his father is killed for defying the state. Even though it has already being published in 11 languages in 15 countries, Russia has passed on this one, despite publishing many of my other books. Must-see: The Amber Room in Catherine Palace is decorated in amber panels backed with gold leaf and mirrors We tried 11 publishers, but none would consider it, which is a source of great sadness. That said, I'm in good company. The highly respected British historian Antony Beevor has seen his books barred in parts of the country after writing brilliantly about World War II atrocities committed by Russian soldiers. I suspect the reason for my de facto ban is my portrayal of the repressive Moscow regime and its efforts to hinder Karpenko, plus my final sentence, which would not go down well in the Kremlin. Russians do seem to like strong leadership. The truth is, they've got a modern Tsar in charge at the moment and, although he is ruthless, that clearly suits many of them. Despite this, I hope I will one day return to St Petersburg. I often think if I could only visit one city again in my life, it would have to be there. Heads You Win by Jeffrey Archer is out in paperback on May 2, published by Pan at 7.99. Victoria Beckham broke the hearts of Spice Girl fans when she said she won't be joining the band's highly-anticipated reunion tour this year. But now, early Spice Girls songwriter Eliot Kennedy has revealed why he thinks Posh Spice, 45, chose not to join the other four girls on stage. Speaking exclusively to Daily Mail Australia on Friday, Eliot said the busy mother-of-four turned fashion icon always had laser focus when it came to her ambition. Having his say! Spice Girls songwriter Eliot Kennedy has weighed in on why he thinks Victoria Beckham (pictured) won't be joining the girl group's reunion tour this year 'She always knew what she wanted,' Eliot said of a young Victoria, who has said her career as a designer will keep her from performing with the band. He went on to explain to he always found her to be 'delightful' with her having an extremely good sense of humour while working together. 'She's not at all ruthless,' he said. 'She's not at all ruthless': Songwriter Eliot (R), who collaborated with the Spice Girls in the early 90s, gushed over Victoria. He's pictured with Gary Barlow (L) in New York, 2015 'She's an absolute joy and extremely funny.' The band announced at the end of 2018 that they were planning a comeback tour. Victoria said publicly she would not be partaking in the tour, thanks to her commitments to her eponymous fashion label. 'Extremely funny': Eliot went on to say fashion star Victoria had a fantastic sense of humour, even in the early days of her career with the Spice Girls. She's pictured in 1996 The Spice Girls reunion tour was almost derailed following claims after claims by Mel B that she and Geri had a sexual fling during a taping of Piers Morgan's Life Stories. The tour was put in jeopardy at one point after Geri denied Mel B's claims in a statement, saying she felt 'hurt' by the speculation. However, she went on to say she loved all four of her band-mates and was looking forward to the tour. Girl power: 'No one could have predicted the volume of their success,' Eliot said of the Spice Girls, 'they opened the door to young female artists [that we see today].' Here in 1996 Eliot worked on hit songs Say You'll be There, Right Back At Ya and Love Thing. He explained that a big part of their success was that the world was ready for their feminist-inspired, girl power message. 'No one could have predicted the volume of their success,' he said, adding: 'They opened the door to young female artists [that we see today].' Glam: Victoria explained explained she won't be joining the tour, but wished her former band mates well and said she would be watching them Ahead of the Spice Girls tour, Australian-born Eliot will be working Down Under as part of the XVenture Family Challenge TV Series, a project on Channel Ten. The show will see families have to work together and co-operate in order to win challenges about against competitors. 'It's an opportunity to put the technology away,' he said. 'We get to challenge them about what their family values are.' She has been counting down the hours to her luxurious getaway on social media. And Vicky Pattison showed off her tiny bikini top as she joked around with her pals at the Zaya Nurai Island Resort in Abu Dhabi on Friday in a series of clips posted to Instagram. The Geordie Shore star, 31, wore a very daring two-piece as she enjoyed the Secret Island Party with friends Nick Marshall and Beth Johnson. Pals: Vicky Pattison showed off her tiny bikini top as she joked around with her pals at the Zaya Nurai Island Resort in Abu Dhabi on Friday in a series of clips posted to Instagram In a video posted to Instagram, the pals wrapped their arms around each other as they posed in a luxurious cabana near the beach. But as they pouted at the camera, Nick cheekily decided to push his hand into the reality starlet's mouth - and she quickly ran away in horror. Vicky was then spotted gasping in shock at the camera after the friendly banter. Jokers: The Geordie Shore star, 31, wore a very daring two-piece as she enjoyed the Secret Island Party with friends Nick Marshall and Beth Johnson She captioned the cheeky clip: 'Oldest friends always have the most inappropriate crack @_nick.marshall_ @bethjohnson725'. (sic) Earlier in the day, the I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! alum posted a series of social media clips of her arriving at the luxury resort. Vicky was seen lounging in a cabana by the pool and enjoying shots with her friends as the exclusive party got underway near a white sand beach. Banter: As they pouted at the camera, Nick cheekily decided to push his hand into the reality starlet's mouth - and she quickly ran away in horror Shock: Vicky was then spotted gasping in shock at the camera after the friendly banter It comes after the television personality took to social media on Wednesday to share a throwback bikini snap on Wednesday as she counted down the hours to the trip. In a sizzling snap on her Instagram account, she wrote: 'Holiday in T-minus 48 hours...' She was seen lying in the sunshine on her last holiday, showing off her figure in an animal print bikini. Holiday drinks: Earlier in the day, the I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here alum posted a series of social media clips of her arriving at the luxury resort Relax: Vicky was seen lounging in a cabana by the pool and enjoying shots with her friends as the exclusive party got underway near a white sand beach And Vicky is only just back from her last getaway and was sharing snaps from her recent trip just last week. The reality star flashed her ample assets in a plunging black and white striped swimsuit in one snap. The garment clung to her taut midriff and slender waist, while drawing the eye to her lithe legs. Her tresses were pulled into a tousled bun while she showcased her radiant complexion by going make-up free. Throwback: It comes after the television personality took to social media on Wednesday to share a throwback bikini snap on Wednesday as she counted down the hours to the trip She also shared a busy snap of herself in a zebra-printed swimsuit, which boasted a thick black waistband that accentuated her narrow midriff. Pouting for the camera, she completed her poolside ensemble with a pair of oversized sunnies and her brunette locks swept into a sleek top knot. While looking sultry in the first snap, she highlighted the reality of her sunbathing session with the second photo, which displayed her back and the tan lines from her one-piece. Wow: Vicky is only just back from her last getaway and was sharing snaps from her recent trip just last week Instagram vs reality: The former Geordie Shore star, 31, shared a busy snap of herself in a zebra-printed swimsuit, which boasted a thick black waistband that accentuated her narrow midriff Captioning the opposing shots, she penned: 'Instagram v Reality of a Brit abroad... 'Thought I was all smug with my sunnies and sexy swimsuit didn't I?!! Then I go for 1 walk and underestimate the sun and LOOK WHAT HAPPENS??! 'I look a t**t... I look like Im still wearing my vest.. Im the butt of every joke.. Kids, don't be a fool, in the words of Baz Luhrmann: WEAR SUNSCREEN you t*t. (I've paraphrased slightly.' Her social media post had her 4.2 million followers applauding her for keeping it real and also shared their solutions to her ailment. Jessica Origliasso got back together with Ruby Rose after they filmed the steamy music video for On Your Side in New Zealand in 2016. And The Veronicas returned to the Queenstown location to shoot their new video for Think Of Me, which details the 34-year-old's split from the actress in April 2018. Speaking candidly to News Corp on Saturday, Jessica said that their latest track looks at a relationship which 'was incredibly painful and tough'. 'A relationship which was incredibly painful and tough': The Veronicas' Jessica Origliasso [pictured], 34, references her breakup with Ruby Rose in new music video Think Of Me 'This song is a sarcastic, comedic way of looking at a relationship which under all of it, was incredibly painful and tough. So we find ways to laugh,' Jessica revealed. 'I like to use humour as a way to deflect how serious things are often,' she added. Jessica explained how she and her sister Lisa, returned to the same location as music video On Your Side, in order to 'create some new memories there'. The stunning Queenstown location saw Ruby, 33, write, produce and star in the clip, which was released in November 2016. In happier times: Jessica [pictured with Ruby, 33] told News Corp on Saturday that she returned to shoot the video in Queenstown, New Zealand, to create new memories Steamy track: Ruby wrote, produced and starred in the music video for On Your Side, released in November 2016 It was also where they rekindled their romance, having previously dated in 2008. The music video for Think Of Me, set to be released on Saturday, sees Jessica at a 'memory-erasing facility' in order to be freed of painful memories. Jessica, clad in a black bra and white T-shirt, emerges from the surf with wet tresses and cuts a solemn figure while gazing up at the sky. Rekindled romance: The track marked the couple's reunion, having previously dated in 2008 The record, which marks the first for the sisters in five years, sees Jessica directing her thoughts at Ruby. 'I'm shining brighter. Now just wait and see,' she says, before going on to detail a graphic sex act. 'Do you miss me in your sheets, do you miss me in your bed? The way we talk all night, the way I give you head.' New romance: Jessica is now dating musician Kai Carlton [pictured], 22. They have been together for about six months Jessica is in a new relationship with musician Kai Carlton, 22, and the couple have been dating for about six months. In an Instagram Q&A with fans on Tuesday, Jessica said she was shown a clip of Kai's music, and wanted to meet straight away, describing Kai as 'amazing'. Kai said the secret to their successful relationship was simply 'respect'. 'We both fell in love with the people who each one of us are. I love and respect Jess for who she is, she loves and respects me for who I am. We're just lucky,' explained Kai. She's never afraid to flaunt her incredible figure. And Georgia Harrison ensured all eyes were on her on Friday as she headed out to Faces nightclub in Essex in a tiny bodycon dress. The Love Island star, 24, made a statement in the spaghetti strap dress embellished with cherubs and clouds as she made her way to the venue. Glam: Georgia Harrison ensured all eyes were on her on Friday as she headed out to Faces nightclub in Essex in a tiny bodycon dress She paired her open-back dress with black heeled boots and accessorised the bold look with oversized hoop earrings. Georgia completed her look with a hamsa pendant necklace and a powder blue cross body bag. And the reality starlet wore her golden locks in loose curls with the front pulled back in braids. Statement: The Love Island star, 24, made a statement in the spaghetti strap dress embellished with cherubs and clouds as she made her way to the club Bold: She paired her open-back dress with black heeled boots and accessorised the bold look with huge hoop earrings It comes after the beauty has revealed she would be braving the surgeon's needle and 'copping herself a new chin' in a new Instagram video. She took to social media this month to tell her legions of followers that she would be undergoing the facial transformation at Beyond Medical Centre in Kensington, London. After attending the clinic's opening, she explained: 'I fell in love with the surgery (at Beyond Medical Centre). The doctors are all amazing and they really do know what they're talking about. Transformation: Georgia previously revealed she would be braving the surgeon's needle and 'copping herself a new chin' in a new Instagram video 'Therefore, after having a consultation I decided to cop myself a new chin! 'I'm going there today and they're going to put a little bit of filler in my chin, and maybe something else, I'll get the doctor to explain when we're there, but, big day for me! 'How exciting! New chin! Woohoo,' she celebrated. Melissa McCarthy is busy being the incredible mother of two while also juggling her career as an award winning actress. So, catching the star out in casual wear while running errands only makes sense. Bridesmaids' hit lady, 48, was spotted out in Los Angeles on Friday sporting blue sweats as she made her rounds. Gotta dash: Melissa McCarthy, 48, was spotted out in Los Angeles on Friday sporting blue sweats as she made her rounds As Melissa strolled through a grassy area off the main path, she dressed down in navy blue sweats and a matching sweater. Under her blue top, The Can You Ever Forgive Me talent wore a purple t-shirt to finish up her casual look. The comedian carried a large black tote as she headed out to get a thing or two done. To do list: The comedian carried a large black tote as she headed out to get a thing or two done Me time: McCarthy strolled through the park area with her hands in her pockets, looking easy going as can be McCarthy strolled through the park area with her hands in her pockets, looking easy going as can be. Her hair was back in a loose ponytail and her face was covered in brown sunglasses. The Oscar nominee is the mom of Vivian, 11, and Georgette, nine, who she shares with her husband, Ben Falcone. Ben and his funny lady wife met while learning improv at The Groundlings school in LA. Ever after: Ben Falcone and his funny lady wife met while learning improv at The Groundlings school in LA. Pictured at the 2019 Oscars They wed on October 8, 2005 and have since acted alongside each other for a handful of projects - including her break through role on Bridesmaids with Kristen Wiig. Their next protect together will be for upcoming movie, Superintelligence. In it, McCarthy plays a former executive whose life is turned upside down when she is selected for observation by the worlds first super-intelligence a form of artificial intelligence that may or may not take over the world, according to Variety. The couple have already collaborated on three comedies together: Tammy (2014), The Boss (2016) and the upcoming film Life Of The Party, which is based on Rodney Dangerfield's 1986 hit Back To School. Superintelligence is slated to premiere December 20, 2019. The Married At First Sight groom impressed his TV wife Susie Bradley when he proudly showed off his NUDE calendar shoot in March. And now Billy Vincent is spruiking his naked form for charity. 'Selling some nudes for men's mental health and suicide prevention,' the 28-year-old said as he promoted the calendar shots. Scroll down for video 'Selling some nudes for men's mental health!' Married at First Sight's Billy Vincent encourages fans to buy autographed copies of his NAKED calendar shoot photos Carefully placing his fingers over his exposed genitals, he wrote: 'get ya dk out for charity!!!' In the comments, he even offered to provide autographed copies. The male model previously showed his 'wife' his naked calendar shoot on the show in March. 'You need to appreciate it in its normal habitat,' Billy said at the time, referring to his manhood on display in the photographs. He's not shy! MAFS' Billy Vincent showed 'wife' Susie Bradley a whole new side to him during Monday's 'home stay' week by revealing he had appeared in a naked calendar Susie replied: 'It's definitely not the worst looking thing I've seen in my life.' After gathering her thoughts, the blonde added: 'When I saw Billy's penis I certainly wasn't not impressed, let's just put it that way.' The pictures were all taken by photographer John Bortolin, who also featured in the episode and is Billy's close friend. Although the images may surprise some, Billy revealed during the segment that the calendars was released to raise money for male suicide prevention. 'You need to appreciate a flaccid penis': Male model Billy, 28, bared all in the photographs which were taken around his home in Lennox Head by photographer John Bortolin 'It's definitely not the worst looking thing I've seen': Susie was left speechless after viewing the calendar, with Billy revealing they were released to raise money for male suicide prevention 'When I saw Billy's penis I certainly wasn't not impressed, let's just put it that way': Susie later gushed over Billy's manhood after gathering her thoughts Gushing about his friend on Instagram, photographer John wrote: 'Very proud of my friend and Manscapes model Billy in Married At First Sight.' 'Great to see you on the screen and can't wait to see more.' Fans of Billy can order the raunchy calendars from John's website directly. Rebel Wilson and Anne Hathaway's remake of the 1988 classic Dirty Rotten Scoundrels will premiere next month. And the Australian actress, 39, spent time promoting the upcoming film, The Hustle, on SiriusXM on Friday in New York City. Wilson looked sweet in a black and white polka dot dress while appearing on the show. Dotted: Rebel Wilson, 39, spent time promoting the upcoming film, The Hustle on SiriusXM on Friday in New York City The Pitch Perfect star paused by the station to chat it up while wearing a knee length flowing dress. With white polka dots all over the black fabric, the look came up to Wilson's chin with a turtleneck. She stayed comfortable wearing shining black flats. Happy to be here: Looking thrilled for her appearance, the writer/producer put a hand on her popped hip as she smiled sweetly and joked around Looking thrilled for her appearance, the writer/producer put a hand on her popped hip as she smiled sweetly and joked around. Rebel's yellow blonde hair was curled to frame her face. Likely discussing the anticipated movie, Rebel talked into a microphone. Get your tickets: Likely discussing the anticipated movie, Rebel talked into a microphone In the film, Rebel plays con woman Lonnie alongside Oscar-winner Anne. The movie is a gender-swapped remake of the iconic classic, which originally starred Steve Martin and Michael Caine as con men. Rebel, who rose to fame on SBS show Fat Pizza in 2003, told InStyle earlier this year that she's not as funny as she is on-screen. 'People are shocked that in real life I'm quite sensible and kind of conservative. They find that strange because when they see me in the movies, I'm like a joke a minute. I actually don't think I'm very funny in real life, but, of course, it's a part of me.' Rebel first moved to New York in 2003, after winning the Australian Theatre for Young People (ATYP) scholarship, which was funded by Nicole Kidman. She appeared in the 2011 film Bridesmaids and has since starred in various other blockbusters including What to Expect When You're Expecting and Pitch Perfect. She was recently forced to deny claims she was back with Prince Andrew. And Sarah Ferguson put on a regal display once again when she held hands with Heather Kerzner after they enjoyed dinner at Scott's, in Mayfair on Friday. The Duchess of York, 59, looked elegant in an emerald green dress while she left the restaurant hand-in-hand with the super stylish socialite. Elegant: Sarah Ferguson, 59, oozed sophistication in an emerald dress as she held hands with Heather Kerzner on Friday after enjoying lavish dinner at Scott's Sarah dressed down her dinner attire with a pair of shiny mules which she matched with a smart black handbag, packed with her essentials. She enjoyed a ladies' night after she was forced to deny rumours she had got back with Prince Andrew following claims they were 'virtually inseparable' on a holiday. The pair had appeared to be close when they took a recent break with their daughter Beatrice and her new boyfriend. Good pals: The Duchess of York, 59, looked sophisticated in an emerald green dress while she left the restaurant hand-in-hand with the super stylish socialite The gathering saw the Duke and Duchess of York holidaying with Princess Beatrice, 30, and her boyfriend property developer Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi in Bahrain. They stayed at the Ritz Carlton and had a VIP day at the Grand Prix, fuelling rumours that the royal couple have rekindled their romance. But a spokesman for Fergie denied the claims saying 'The Duke and Duchess of York continue to be good friends and nothing has changed in their relationship', the Sun Online reported. The Duchess joined her former husband, also 59, at the end of a series of official engagements in Bahrain, and the pair were put up by the Crown Prince at the 900-a-night Ritz Carlton Hotel. Good together: Sarah dressed down her dinner attire with a pair of shiny mules which she matched with a smart black handbag, packed with her essentials Sources said the trip is a sign of the Duke and Duchess's ever-growing closeness, which saw her included in her first official Royal family photo in decades when their other daughter Eugenie got married late last year. The former flames go way back and have a whole wealth of history together as they were married for a decade until they got a divorce in 1996. A royal source told the Daily Mail's Rebecca English that Beatrice and her new beau were not the only couple on the trip, saying: 'Andrew and Sarah are virtually inseparable nowadays. 'They have always been the most happily divorced couple anyone has ever known, but there seems something more to the relationship nowadays.' Home time! She enjoyed a ladies' night after she was forced to deny rumours she had got back with Prince Andrew following claims they were 'virtually inseparable' on a holiday 'The smart money is on them getting married again after the Duke of Edinburgh passes away. Philip has never forgiven Sarah for her past indiscretions, but the Queen has always just wanted her son to be happy.' The couple 'amicably' divorced in 1996 after the duchess was photographed having her feet kissed by her financial adviser, John Bryan, in the South of France. But the pair have remained extremely close, sharing Andrew's official residence, Royal Lodge at Windsor, and buying a luxury ski chalet in Verbier. In an interview with the Daily Mail earlier this year, Sarah said of her former husband: 'We're the happiest divorced couple in the world. We're divorced to each other, not from each other.' They are the spitting images of each other. Cindy Crawford, 53, was joined by her doppelganger daughter Kaia Gerber, 17, on Friday for had a motherdaughter day out in Malibu. The two brunette beauties visited photographer Brian Bowen Smith at his art show, before a round of shopping at Planet Blue. Family resemblance: Cindy Crawford, 53, was joined by her doppelganger daughter Kaia Gerber, 17, on Friday for had a motherdaughter day out in Malibu The 5ft9in elder supermodel and actress was dressed comfortably in a white blouse with a denim jacket draped over her shoulders. She mixed it with a pair of floor-length black slacks with frayed hems and a pair of brown flip flops. Her chestnut hair flitted in the wind, and she accessorized with a black leather handbag, silver and gold watch, and a black Gucci belt. Art trip: The two brunette beauties visited celebrity photographer Brian Bowen Smith at his gallery, before shopping at Planet Blue Kaia was dressed more casually, with a vintage-looking black T-shirt for English heavy metal band Motorhead. The 5ft9in runway model paired it with a dark green velvet jacket and a pair of high-waisted jeans. She stayed on theme with some black combat boots and carried a black handbag over her shoulder. Fashion forward: Kaia was seen the day before at an event for Talita von Furstenberg, granddaughter of Diane von Furstenberg The two visited photographer Brian Bowen Smith while in Malibu. He works in the commercial and fine arts realms, but he's best known for his striking celebrity portraits. His new Malibu show, One, is focused around his work shot on traditional film, rather than digital photography. After meeting with the artist and viewing his show, Kaia and Cindy stopped at Planet Blue for some shopping. The supermodel with the famous mole had just returned earlier this week from a short trip to Miami, which followed a long flight LA to Hong Kong. Kaia was seen the day before at an event for Talita von Furstenberg, granddaughter of Diane von Furstenberg. She landed modelling contracts, TV roles, and radio gigs following her stint on Miss Universe in 2006. And in Saturday's The Daily Telegraph, Erin McNaught revealed that she was 'constantly second-guessing' herself at the start of her career. The 36-year-old said that meeting her now-husband Example, real name Elliot Gleave, acted as a catalyst for change. 'I was constantly second-guessing myself': Model Erin McNaught [pictured in April 2007], told The Daily Telegraph on Saturday how she was self-conscious at the start of her career 'Falling in love with him [Elliot] made me realise: "This is what I need to be doing right now, so I'm going to focus on that." And I realised I needed a break,' Erin said. The Canberra-born star met the British rapper in 2011 when she interviewed him as a radio host for MTV and Today FM. Erin had a thriving career at the time, balancing modelling, with TV and radio commitments. However she admitted that she was plagued by self-doubt, and wasn't the 'self-assured, confident person' that you need to be when modelling in Sydney. Self-doubt: Erin told the paper that she wasn't the 'self-assured, confident person' that you need to be when modelling in Sydney. Pictured in November 2006 Catalyst for change: However that changed when she met British rapper Example, real name Elliot Gleave, 36, in 2011 when working for MTV and Today FM. Pictured in November 2018 'I was constantly second-guessing myself. That was just my nature, I think,' Erin said, adding that she became 'hyper-aware' of her image. Once she met Elliot, now 36, Erin found confidence in herself, and relocated to his hometown in London, where no one knew who she was. 'I got to focus on my own happiness,' she told the paper. 'It felt like no one was watching me.' The couple who wed in 2013 in Ballina, just outside of Byron Bay on the New South Wales coast of Australia, share sons Evander, four, and Ennio, 19 months. Confident: Erin realised she was where she needed to be in her career, and found confidence in herself They were based in London for six years, prior to relocating to Brisbane in February this year. Erin and Elliot's new $2.8 million home features five bedrooms, four bathrooms, six-metre high ceilings, a rooftop terrace, swimming pool and sauna. In June last year, Brisbane-raised Erin told Daily Mail Australia about her plans to leave London. 'London is an amazing city and I do love it, but once you've had kids you realise just how amazing Australia is,' she said. 'The whole reason to move back would be to be closer to family.' North West is clearly mommy's little girl. The 5-year-old daughter of Kim Kardashian, 38, made her mom feel extra special on Friday in a rather unexpected way. Posting on Instagram, the reality star revealed North had written her a sweet message for her to find... on a roll of toilet paper. Sweetie: Kim Kardashian, 38, shared a photo of a sweet surprise North West, 5, left for her to find on a toilet paper roll Friday to Instagram Bonded: North West is clearly mommy's little girl. Here they are pictured in 2018 Kim showed off her eldest child's unique way of showing love via Stories, revealing a marked up toilet paper roll. On the white tissue, North had written, 'Mom I love you,' in black marker. The mother of three showed off the cute gesture, captioning the picture: 'How cute is North.' What a surprise: The mother of three showed off the cute gesture, captioning the picture: 'How cute is North' The sweet move by North follows a scary moment Kim had with her other child, 3-year-old, Saint West. Kris Jenner revealed this week that Kim and Kanye West's son was rushed to a hospital 'a week ago or so' while they were all in Palm Springs, California. The momager, 63, explained that after taking her grandson to the emergency room, it transpired that he may in fact have a grass allergy. She told Refinery29: 'A week ago or so when we went to Palm Springs and Saint, my little grandson, we discovered he might be allergic to grass. We ended up in the E.R.' Allergy season: Kris Jenner revealed this week that Kim and Kanye West 's son was rushed to a hospital 'a week ago or so' while they were all in Palm Springs, California. Pictured in 2017 While Kris didnt confirm whether or not Saint was found to be allergic to grass, she added: 'All is well we figured it out.' Saint, who has sisters North, and one-year-old Chicago - isnt the first Kardashian grandchild to be rushed to hospital due to an allergic reaction. Kris recently revealed that Kourtney Kardashian and Scott Disicks son Mason, 9, once had an allergic reaction to peanut butter. She told Refinery29. 'Mason ate peanut butter and his face started blowing up and his throat started closing. 'They had to rush him to the hospital,' Kris continued. 'He had a peanut butter allergy for the longest time. He's fine now. The scariest is always the first time.' Mama June discovered evidence of her beau Geno sexting with other women on Friday's episode of Mama June: From Not to Hot. And the reality star, 39, blamed herself for not keeping the relationship healthy and attempted to spice things up with tantric yoga. But June's daughter Pumpkin had suspicions of Geno's infidelity as she consulted with her psychic online who stated: 'Geno should get out. He's disruptive. He's going to ruin everything. Broken: Mama June discovered evidence of her beau Geno sexting with other women on Friday's episode of Mama June: From Not to Hot The episode opened with June calling her daughter Pumpkin to reveal she found Geno sexting with other women. 'Im trying to make it through day by day, but it's tearing me down,' June said. June was upset that Geno was allegedly sharing penis pictures to other women, but has a change of heart the next day. June and Geno grabbed lunch together to discuss their relationships issues. Suspect: June's daughter Pumpkin had suspicions of Geno's infidelity as she consulted with her psychic online who stated: 'Geno should get out. He's disruptive. He's going to ruin everything Allegedly: June was upset that Geno was allegedly sharing penis pictures to other women, but has a change of heart the next day 'Give me a kiss, babe,' she said as Geno quickly answered 'nope.' 'Are you embarrassed to love on me in public?' June then asked, as he tells her they 'didn't come here for loving.' 'I never want to look at Geno like he would actually talk to other females. Is it to the point that like we've been together so long that you're tired of being with me?' 'Give me a kiss, babe,' she said as Geno quickly answered 'nope.' 'Are you embarrassed to love on me in public?' June then asked, as he tells her they 'didn't come here for loving.' June took her sister Doe Doe with her to find lingerie to spice up her love life with Geno and Doe Doe offers the idea of tantric yoga. June takes her sister's advice and gets Geno to try tantric yoga which goes over like a lead balloon. 'Man... I ain't f**king in public,' said Geno. He walked out of the yoga studio. June took her sister Doe Doe with her to find lingerie to spice up her love life with Geno and Doe Doe offers the idea of tantric yoga June takes her sister's advice and gets Geno to try tantric yoga which goes over like a lead balloon 'Im trying to reconnect and get the cobwebs out of my p**sy,' June explained to the tantric yoga instructor. Meanwhile, Jennifer prepared for her magazine photo shoot with Star magazine. Jennifer and June will both take photos and the fans will decide who gets the honor of being on the cover. 'Man... I ain't f**king in public,' said Geno. He walked out of the yoga studio 'Maybe when I win this magazine cover, we can all go to Hollywood,' Jennifer said to Sugar Bear's dismay. Jennifer went into the doctor's office to get some more plastic surgery including a procedure to get a 'butt that looks like a butt.' 'Jennifer might not be interested in me after this makeover,' Sugar Bear lamented. Meanwhile, Jennifer prepared for her magazine photo shoot with Star magazine Jennifer went into the doctor's office to get some more plastic surgery including a procedure to get a 'butt that looks like a butt.' In the meantime, Honey Boo Boo took Sugar Bear shopping for a much needed makeover as she names each of his looks after a celebrity. 'Jennifer is gonna love this. Cause I love it,' said Honey Boo Boo. Sugar Bear went so far to get botox as well. In the meantime, Honey Boo Boo took Sugar Bear shopping for a much needed makeover as she names each of his looks after a celebrity 'Jennifer is gonna love this. Cause I love it,' said Honey Boo Boo Josh needed to convince Honey Boo Boo to do a commercial for the auto company he works for in hopes for a personal promotion. Josh got his buddy Cody to pretend to be a Hollywood producer to trick Honey Boo Boo to be a part of the commercial. When Honey Boo Boo fins out the deception, she pretends to be very upset but eventually agrees to shoot the commercial. Josh needed to convince Honey Boo Boo to do a commercial for the auto company he works for in hopes for a personal promotion When Honey Boo Boo fins out the deception, she pretends to be very upset but eventually agrees to shoot the commercial Honey Boo Boo struggled with the lines at first, but pulled it out in the end as Josh's boss reminds him there might be something in his future at the company. Honey Boo Boo struggled with the lines at first, but pulled it out in the end as Josh's boss reminds him there might be something in his future at the company. Pumpkin decided to talk to her psychic to figure out what is going on between her mother June and Geno. The psychic conducted her reading online as she said: 'I see a man controlling somebody. He's literally taking things. She had tunnel vision for Geno. There has been other people. Geno should get out. He's disruptive. He's going to ruin everything. The episode ends with Geno and June fighting behind closed doors before he eventually storms out of the house. It's the second year for Washington, D.C.'s alternative political event. Minnie Driver and Cobie Smulders were among the stars at Not The White House Correspondents' Dinner in the nation's capital on Friday Night. The comedy-centric evening was created by Full Frontal host Samantha Bee as an alternative to the better known correspondents dinner and its unwillingness to criticize the current presidential administration. A vision in white: Minnie Driver and Cobie Smulders were among the stars at Samantha Bee's second Not The White House Correspondents' Dinner Friday night in Washington, D.C. Minnie arrived at the elite black tie event in a sheer white dress with rows of ornate lace. The elegant gown featured black stitching in the top section, which was framed by a shawl-like bit of fabric. The Speechless actress had gold and pearl rings on her hands, and her brunette locks were held back in a bun with a few strands left free to frame her elegantly made-up face. Elegant: Minnie arrived at the elite black tie event in a sheer white dress with rows of ornate lace Classic style: The elegant gown featured black stitching in the top section, which was framed by a shawl-like bit of fabric Cobie also opted for a white jumpsuit with ruching and a long, folding train. The gorgeous outfit was completed with a pair of white strapped heels and a boxy white clutch. Cobie was accompanied by her husband, former SNL star Taran Killam, who wore a smart blue suit and a pair of brown brogue shoes. The comic actor was briefly known toward the end of his sketch comedy tenure for playing future president Donald Trump, prior to SNL using Alec Baldwin as its main presidential surrogate. Full Frontal host Samantha Bee was on point for the political/media event with a blazer covered in newsprint, which she paired with black slacks with silvery stripes and a pair of black boots. Stunning look: Cobie also opted for a white jumpsuit with ruching and a long, folding train Avant-garde fashion: The gorgeous outfit was completed with a pair of white strapped heels and a boxy white clutch Cute couple: Cobie was accompanied by her husband, former SNL star Taran Killam, who wore a smart blue suit and a pair of brown brogue shoes Themed: Full Frontal host Samantha Bee was on point for the political/media event with a blazer covered in newsprint Not The White House Correspondents dinner was originally meant to be a one-off event in 2018. The former Daily Show correspondent started it as an alternative to the White House Correspondents' Dinner, which many journalists criticized as being too deferential to Donald Trump and his administration. Media outlets were also criticized for inviting political guests that they normally covered in a hostile manner. The White House Correspondents Association also came under fire this year for replacing the traditional comedian headliner with a historian, a reaction to Michelle Wolf's politically charged set last year. The abandonment of a headlining comedian spurred Bee to return again with her alternative event. The event was attended by a number of politically engaged celebrities and journalists. Bradley Whitford, who rose to fame on The West Wing, wore a stately tuxedo as he posed with MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle, who stood out in a classic red dress. Arts and news: Bradley Whitford, who rose to fame on The West Wing, wore a stately tuxedo as he posed with MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle, who stood out in a classic red dress Pretty in pink: Phoebe Robinson, who co-hosts the 2 Dope Queens podcast and its accompanying HBO series with Jessica Williams, wore a cute pink dress with a black bow and straps that highlighted her cleavage Principled: Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, wore a silky golden dress, replete with a matching gold purse reading 'PRO CHOICE' on the side Phoebe Robinson, who co-hosts the 2 Dope Queens podcast and its accompanying HBO series with Jessica Williams, wore a cute pink dress with a black bow and straps that highlighted her cleavage. Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, wore a silky golden dress, replete with a matching gold purse reading 'PRO CHOICE' on the side. Voting rights activist and former Florida political candidate Sheena Meade went with a short silvery dress, with shawl-like sleeves wrapping around its back. Geena Nocero, a transgender Filipina American model and activist, was dressed in a chic brown velvet dress with a single strap running diagonally across her chest. Shiny look: Voting rights activist and former Florida political candidate Sheena Meade went with a short silvery dress, with shawl-like sleeves wrapping around its back Trim figure: Geena Nocero, a transgender Filipina American model and activist, was dressed in a chic brown velvet dress with a single strap running diagonally across her chest Iconic actor Robert De Niro skipped the red carpet, but made an appearance during the actual ceremony. He's recently been spotted on SNL's cold opens playing Special Counsel Robert Mueller, though his tenure on the sketch comedy series is likely over following the release of Mueller's report on Russian meddling in the 2016 election and potential obstruction of justice by the Trump administration. De Niro was joined during the ceremony by Samantha Bee and actor Brandon Victor Dixon, and he and actress and comedian Allana Harkin stopped to take a selfie during the show. Heavy hitter: Iconic actor Robert De Niro skipped the red carpet, but made an appearance during the actual ceremony; pictured (L-R) with Brandon Victor Dixon and Samantha Bee The end: He recently played Special Counsel Robert Mueller on SNL, but his appearances are likely over following the release of the Mueller Report; pictured with Allana Harkin Tammy Hembrow has opened up about being bullied. The model, who is an ambassador for the anti-bullying charity I Can I Will, made the confession after attending an event for the organisation in Brisbane on Friday. Sharing a busty photo of herself to Instagram from the event, the 25-year-old wrote: 'Ive dealt with bullies my entire life, so I love being able to work with an organisation that is doing such great work.' Speaking out: Tammy Hembrow spoke out about being bullied after attending an event for the anti-bullying charity I Can I Will in Brisbane on Friday She continued: 'They work towards preventing bullying & youth suicide which is such an important topic especially in todays world of online trolls etc.' I Can I Will is an anti-bullying charity focusing on children with special needs. 'Way too much fun with I Can I Will yesterday,' she shared. 'Ive dealt with bullies my entire life so I love being able to work with an organisation that is doing such great work,' revealed the 25-year-old The organisation aims to promote inclusion and to prevent youth suicide and self-harm caused by bullying. Tammy, along with pop star Timomatic and boxer Jeff Horn, appear to be ambassadors for the Brisbane-based charity. The Instagram model certainly turned heads at the event for the charity on Friday. Busting out! The Instagram model certainly turned heads at an event for the charity on Friday Wearing a revealing double denim ensemble, the blonde beauty flaunted her cleavage in a plunging bustier. Leaving several buttons undone, she also showed off her flat, washboard abs. She accessorised with a vintage Christian Dior handbag and pair of clear sunglasses. They became the proud parents to their first child together - daughter Mila Elle - five months ago in December 2018. And on Saturday, Model Kris Smith announced he and personal trainer girlfriend Sarah Boulazeris had decided to move their family to Melbourne 'We did it, we uprooted the whole family our whole lifes and we moved back to Melbourne,' the 40-year-old told his fans. Scroll down for video 'It was hard to leave beautiful Sydney!' Model Kris Smith (R) and girlfriend Sarah Boulazeris (L) relocate to Melbourne to raise newborn daughter Mila Elle (M) Kris and Sarah have been dating since 2017, and have been living in Sydney for that duration. 'It was hard to leave the beautiful Sydney beaches and weather, but Melbourne is now to be our home... Looking forward to this new chapter,' he added. The couple shared a photo of Sarah at the airport with a stack of suitcases as she carried their little girl in a baby carrier on her chest. Kris later shared a sneak peek of the family's Melbourne residence, as he said: 'those new house feels.' On the move! The couple shared a photo of Sarah at the airport with a stack of suitcases as she carried their little girl in a baby carrier on her chest 'It was hard to leave the beautiful Sydney beaches and weather': Kris and Sarah said they would miss Sydney, but were excited for their 'next chapter' in Melbourne with baby Mila The model has been doting over the five-month-old girl since Sarah, 28, gave birth to her late last year. Kris captioned a recent image 'my world, how I love you', followed by the hashtags '#milaellesmith #mybaby #daughter'. In March, after three weeks travelling the world for work, Kris took to Instagram to share his delight at being reunited with little Mila. Proud dad! In addition to baby Mila, Kris shares an eight-year-old son, Ethan, with former girlfriend, performer Dannii Minogue. The proud dad beamed with happiness while posing alongside his grinning daughter. He captioned the picture: 'After a long three weeks working overseas, it feels amazing to be back with my babies.' The Myer model was separated from and mum Sarah while travelling to Japan, America and Germany for a work trip. 'It feels amazing to be back with my babies': Kris was overjoyed to be reunited with his girlfriend and newborn in March after a short trip abroad Kris even managed to fit in some family time at home with his parents in the UK. In addition to baby Mila, Kris shares an eight-year-old son, Ethan, with former girlfriend, performer Dannii Minogue. Kris and personal trainer Sarah have been dating since 2017, not long after Kris split with model Maddy King. Before that, the English hunk was in a long-term relationship with Dannii Minogue from 2008 to 2012. Wendy Williams joked about 'poisonous' cupcakes given to her by an audience member from her talk show on Wednesday. 'I saw on the box it said cupcakes from The Cupcake Man, or something like that in Jersey, like a legit place so I know theyre not poisonous, so Im going to share them with the crew,' the 54-year-old said during her After Show YouTube series. And the posting comes after it was revealed an anonymous tipster told police Wendy's estranged husband Kevin Hunter was 'poisoning the talk show host,' according to documents obtained by TMZ. Funny girl: Wendy William, 54, joked about 'poisonous' cupcakes given to her by an audience member from her talk show on Wednesday; (pictured 2018) The natural stunner revealed her dressing room on the Youtube series as she opened the box of desserts. A plethora of cupcakes were placed side by side to make a alrager cake with a cartoon version of Wendy and the phrase 'How You Doin?'. Wendy has also allegedly divided the couple's savings into separate accounts. The severing of ties comes amid TMZ's Tuesday report that police in New Jersey visited the home of Williams and Hunter in January to perform a welfare check on the TV personality. Cupcake explanation: 'I saw on the box it said cupcakes from The Cupcake Man, or something like that in Jersey, like a legit place so I know theyre not poisonous, so Im going to share them with the crew,' she said during her After Show YouTube series Tipped: And the posting comes after it was revealed an anonymous tipster told police Wendy's estranged husband Kevin Hunter was 'poisoning the talk show host'; (pictured in 2013) The outlet reports that the caller claimed to be an employee of Williams' production company and stated that they believed that the talk show host was being poisoned. A police report states that the call came in early in 2018 from a 'random caller' who alleged that Wendy's husband Kevin hunter was 'poisoning the talk show host.' 'The caller believed Kevin was slipping Wendy something harmful, and he or she wanted cops to check on her,' TMZ reported. Gift reveal" The natural stunner revealed her dressing room on the Youtube series as she opened the box of desserts Surprise: A plethora of cupcakes were placed side by side to make a alrager cake with a cartoon version of Wendy and the phrase 'How You Doin?' Two officers responded to the call and went to Wendy's New Jersey mansion to perform a 'welfare check.' When the officers asked the star if there was 'any truth to the anonymous tip she was being poisoned' she didn't outright deny it, saying something to effect of 'well, I'm very popular.' When pressed by police, TMZ reports that Wendy ' became tearful, but denied there was any truth to it.' Behind you! Police responded to the home of Wendy Williams and estranged husband Kevin in January after a tipster called authorities to report that the talk show host was allegedly being poisoned by Hunter, according to TMZ on Tuesday. The couple seen here in 2015 The outlet also stated that when cops arrived to their home it was Hunter who answered the door and was initially 'hesitant' to let them in, claiming that Wendy was under the weather. At the time, Wendy had been on hiatus from her show and was claiming it was for medical reasons. DailyMail.com later revealed, which Wendy confirmed, that she had suffered a relapse into drug and alcohol addition. Blac Chyna was seen for the first time since Harvard Business School denied claims of offering her a place on one of their online courses. Despite the controversy, the former stripper, 30, looked in high spirits as she stepped out in Burbank in a typically sexy skintight ensemble on Friday. The reality star showed off her cleavage in a perilously plunging neon yellow dress which she teamed with a striped blazer and matching trousers. There she is! Blac Chyna, 30, was seen for the first time since Harvard Business School denied claims of offering her a place on one of their online courses Blac's sensational curves were on full display as she strutted along in a pair of neon perspex shoes. This comes after Harvard Business School reportedly denied offering Blac a place on one of it's online courses, hours after the former model boasted of her enrolment. The mother-of-two announced she had been offered a place on the Business Analytics course, which requires 40 hours study over eight weeks, telling her 15 million Instagram followers that now was the time to 'take things up a couple of notches.' However, a Harvard representative said afterwards that the school 'has not admitted nor provided an acceptance letter to a person named Angela White [Blac Chyna],' making her acceptance letter fake, according to TMZ. What controversy? he former stripper looked in high spirits as she stepped out in Burbank in a typically sexy skintight ensemble on Friday Chyna's announcement was controversial from the outset, after it emerged a company offering academic services propositioned her, telling the mother-of-two that they would complete all of her at-home study sessions for a fee of $3,250. But the subsequent revelation that Chyna may never have been admitted to the school in the first place appears to have made the offer moot. Self-proclaimed Social Media Renaissance Man, Emiliano is understood to be behind the offer of academic aid, telling Chyna in an email that his company would complete the work, and would provide her with a comprehensive study guide for the one on-campus exam included in the syllabus. Emiliano's pitch claimed that for $3,250: 'Our team will complete all the course work for you, all you have to do is take one test (we will provide you the study guide) and then take credit for the program.' The way the fees are dispersed according to the document are that it is $2,250 for the actual course while $1,000 goes to the firm for them to complete it. Drama: This comes after Harvard Business School reportedly denied offering Blac a place on one of it's online courses, hours after the former model boasted of her enrolment 'Fake': A Harvard representative said afterwards that the school 'has not admitted nor provided an acceptance letter to a person named Angela White [Blac Chyna]' Elsewhere in the email, Emiliano brazenly suggested: 'You can go on the Harvard campus and take a picture with a Harvard hoodie on / you can post updates on your Snapchat and Instagram Story.' The apparent acceptance letter, seen by the DailyMail.com, stated: 'Dear Angela, 'Congratulations! On behalf of Harvard Business School Online, I am pleased to inform you that your application has been approved for the Business Analytics cohort beginning May 29, 2019. 'We are excited to welcome you to the HBS Online community and are eager to engage with you in the coming months. 'The HBS Online team is confident that your participation throughout the course will be invaluable to your fellow cohort members. We look for to having you join us!' Education: This comes days after news that the television personality revealed she got accepted to the program Up in the air: The mother-of-two announced she had been offered a place on the Business Analytics course, which requires 40 hours study over eight weeks A day ago, Chyna wrote an impassioned Instagram post about how she was looking forward to 'new beginnings' after feeling 'bullied, humiliated and manipulated as mother'. Chyna, real name Angela Renee White, told TMZ: 'Where I'm at now is a stage of realization and growth, I want to be great for myself and my kids. 'School is going to help me take things up a couple of notches. 'People are always talking about me, might as well talk about the good, I'm excited for the next chapter.' Gemma Collins emerged on Friday looking happy and content despite her shock split from beau James Argent coming to light just hours before. During her work trip to Manchester, the 38-year-old former TOWIE star was showing off her newly-slimmed down figure in a flowing black dress while James, 29, was spotted in London looking equally content. Her appearance comes after she is believed to have blocked her former beau from contacting her after she broke up with him following an argument, which is believed to have stemmed from his recent weight gain, reports The Sun. Strutting her stuff... Gemma Collins emerged on Friday looking happy and content despite her shock split from beau James Argent coming to light just hours before Gemma looked stunning during the outing as she wowed in the chic black dress yet pared things down slightly with a pair of pink trainers. The couple have now unfollowed each other on social media amid reports that Gemma is keen to move on with her life without James after she ended things. A spokesman for Gemma Collins confirmed: 'Gemma had no choice but to end the relationship. There will be no further comment.' A source told The Sun: 'They had a big bust up and Gemma said James was an embarrassment to be around after he began putting on a lot of weight again. Happy days? During her work trip to Manchester, the 38-year-old former TOWIE star was showing off her newly-slimmed down figure in a flowing black dress while James, 29, was spotted in London looking equally content 'Embarrassing': A source told the website: 'They had a big bust up and Gemma said James was an embarrassment to be around after he began putting on a lot of weight again.' The source added: 'She's pretty cut up about it but friends are saying that they wouldn't be surprised if they got back together, considering their history.' Gemma and James have had a rocky relationship ever since finally getting together in 2017, when James declared his love for the blonde bombshell during the Christmas special of TOWIE. In February earlier this year, Gemma kicked James out of her home after being infuriated when he shared a video of her snoring on social media. Amid the split claims, James was accused of sending abusive texts to Gemma where he called her a string of offensive names where he fat-shamed her and told her she had 'more rolls than Greggs'. Shock: In February earlier this year, Gemma kicked James out of her home after being infuriated when he shared a video of her snoring on social media Moving on? Gemma and James have had a rocky relationship ever since finally getting together in 2017, when James declared his love for the blonde bombshell during the Christmas special of TOWIE He was also accused of calling his ex 'an embarrassment' and 'a fat horrible lump' in the series of abusive messages seen by The Sun. According to the publication, the messages said: 'You are a fat joke of a woman. An absolute car crash! You're nearly 40 f***ing years old, you embarrassment.' In another, he said: 'You fat horrible lump. Nasty mean woman. Who the f*** do you think you are? You've got more rolls than Greggs.' The source went on to suggest that James had turned 'nasty' after Gemma's profile soared on ITV's Dancing On Ice because he 'couldn't handle her fame'. Cruel: He was also accused of calling his ex 'an embarrassment' and 'a fat horrible lump' in the series of abusive messages seen by The Sun They been married for almost a decade and have three children together. And Megan Fox and her husband Brian Austin Green looked ever the doting parents as they enjoyed a family outing with their brood in Los Angeles on Friday. The couple, who have been married since 2010, rocked a casual looked as they strolled with Noah, six, and Bodhi, five, and two-year-old Journey. Happy family: Megan Fox her husband Brian Austin Green looked ever the doting parents as they enjoyed a family outing with their brood in Los Angeles on Friday Megan was nailing mommy chic in a graphic T-shirt with an over-sized denim shirt and black leggings which put her incredible pins on display. The Transformers star opted for a comfortable pair of black Vans and Aviator sunglasses to shield her from the sun. She wore her long chestnut locks in effortless natural waves as she strolled with her beloved family. Brian was spotted wearing a off-white T-shirt and blue jeans, grey trainers and sunglasses. Stunning: Megan and Brian met on the set of Hope and Faith in 2004, when Megan was just 18 Doting parents: The couple, who have been married since 2010, rocked a casual looked as they strolled with Noah, six, and Bodhi, five, and two-year-old Journey Lots of love: The couple were engaged in 2006, but broke up and ended their engagement in 2009, only to get back together in 2010, when they were married (pictured in 2014) The couple met on the set of Hope and Faith in 2004, when Megan was just 18 and Brian was 12 years her senior. They were engaged in 2006, but broke up and ended their engagement in 2009, only to get back together in 2010, when they were married. The couple now share three children together Noah, six, Bodhi, five, and Journey, two. Family matters: Megan and Brian married in 2010 and share three children together: Noah, six, Bodhi, five, and Journey, two (pictured 2014 in Berlin, Germany) It comes as Megan and the 90210 star will share the screen for their first motion picture in Dakota, a family film with elements of action and adventure, according to the AMBI Media Group. In the film, Fox, 32, will play a small-town widow named Kate whose husband had died in combat in Afghanistan, according to the studio synopsis. 'Having Megan and Brian star together is really cool for us,' producer Andrea Iervolino said in a statement, 'as we certainly wont have to manufacture the kind of chemistry and magic that makes a family film like this so special!' 'I love him. I have never been really quiet about that': Megan confirmed they did have a real-life romance on Watch What Happens Live last year (pictured in 2009) Megan also recently confirmed a romantic relationship with co-star Shia LaBeouf on the set, confirming comments he made previously. Appearing on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, she admitted: 'I mean I would confirm that it was romantic. I love him, I have never been really quiet about that, I love him.' Andy then brought up a 2009 Rolling Stone article in which Megan revealed that she 'destroyed the house' with Brian during arguments and asked what was the most damage she ever caused. Megan admitted to a 'little hyperbole' in describing their tiffs. 'I did one time, I got really angry with him, and I wrote in Sharpie marker a bunch of Nietzsche poems all over his walls,' Megan said. Tammy Hembrow's four-year-old son Wolf has complained about her constant selfies in the past. But it seems the sandy-haired youngster is starting to show a new level of enthusiasm for his mother's selfie obsession. Tammy took to Instagram on Saturday to share a snap of Wolf with a wide smile while posing by a fountain, captioning it: 'He asked me to take a photo of him.' Like mother, like son! Instagram model Tammy shared a snap of Wolf (pictured) on Saturday, with the four-year-old asking his camera-loving mother for a snap while next to a fountain The mother-of-two went on to add a graphic of the word 'bless', indicating she seems pleased with her son's love of the lens. Tammy shares Wolf and daughter Saskia, two, with her handsome ex-fiance Reece Hawkins, 24. Back in February, Tammy let fans know that Wolf wasn't a big fan of the endless snaps she uploads to Instagram. Glamorous: Tammy (pictured) has carved a career out for herself with her racy snaps, with the becoming one of Australia's most successful social media stars In a quick snap that was taken in the car, Wolf displayed a hilarious facial expression looking frustrated while sitting in a car seat. 'Lol Wolf is like mum plz (sic) no more selfies,' Tammy captioned the photo. It is unlikely the fitness entrepreneur will slow down with the constant selfies anytime soon, with the snaps helping her generate a reported $3 million fortune. 'Mum, please no more selfies': Tammy Hembrow (left) shared this hilarious photo to Instagram in February, with Wolf less than impressed with being in front of the camera Tammy regularly documents her glamorous lifestyle on Instagram by sharing envy-inducing snaps of her luxury home, lavish holidays and designer wardrobe. In March, Tammy shared a snap of her two children Wolf and Saskia in their business class seats while on a Virgin Airlines flight. Wolf appeared to be sound asleep in the luxurious flat bed, while his a la carte meal sat on the sizeable tray table decked out with a pristine white cloth. Lap of luxury! Sandy-haired Wolf does get to lap up the perks of his mother's success, with him sitting in business class on-board what appeared to be Virgin Airlines flight in March Living the life! Tammy (pictured) regularly documents her glamorous lifestyle by sharing envy-inducing snaps of her luxury home, lavish holidays and designer wardrobe Saskia looked every inch the high-flyer as she was dressed in a pint-sized hot pink tracksuit from Italian luxury fashion house, Moschino. Tammy rose to fame in 2014 after sharing incredible photos of her post-baby body, just two months after giving birth to her son Wolf. She went on to build a lucrative fitness empire, which includes her fitness app Tammy Fit and clothing label Saski Collection. She revealed earlier this year that her New Year's resolution was to get back on the dating scene. But Ferne McCann, 28, couldn't peel her attention away from her adorable daughter Sunday, 17 months, as they stepped out in Essex on Saturday. The reality star looked sensational in a striking teal co-ord which showed off her gym-honed figure as she spent time with the matching youngster. Doting: Ferne McCann, 28, couldn't peel her attention away from her adorable daughter Sunday, 17 months, as they stepped out in Essex on Saturday Ferne cut a stylish figure in the two-piece, which consisted of the tie-up front which teased a glimpse of her black bra. A pair of wide-leg trousers added to the look as she strolled along in comfortable white trainers. Ferne looked undeniably glamorous with a heavy coat of bronzed make-up which complemented her flowing chestnut coloured locks. Fashionista: The reality star looked sensational in a striking teal co-ord which showed off her gym-honed figure as she spent time with the matching youngster Chic: Ferne cut a stylish figure in the two-piece, which consisted of the tie-up front which teased a glimpse of her black bra Looking good: A pair of wide-leg trousers added to the look as she strolled along in comfortable white trainers The star proved to be every inch the doting mother as she enjoyed some quality time with Sunday. The blonde beauty shares her adorable daughter with ex-boyfriend Arthur Collins, who she split from when he carried out an atrocious acid attack at an east London nightclub in April 2017. Arthur was found guilty of five counts of grievous bodily harm and nine of actual bodily harm, and was jailed for 20 years. Since splitting from the convicted criminal, Ferne's love life has been relatively quiet, but she recently admitted she is now ready to 'find love and move on' from the horrific incident two years ago. Speaking on her ITVBe reality show, First Time Mum, she said: 'I would love to find true love it's one of the best feelings when you're in love with someone and the feeling's mutual. Babe: Ferne looked undeniably glamorous with a heavy coat of bronzed make-up which complemented her flowing chestnut coloured locks Mummy duties: The star proved to be every inch the doting mother as she enjoyed some quality time with Sunday The blonde beauty shares her daughter with ex Arthur Collins, who she split from when he carried out an atrocious acid attack at an east London nightclub in April 2017 Sentenced: Arthur was found guilty of five counts of grievous bodily harm and nine of actual bodily harm, and was jailed for 20 years 'I feel like it's just such a nice feeling. I feel like I'm, ready to move on and find true love and I feel like I deserve it.' The devoted mother also revealed it had been almost two years since she had been intimate with a man, adding: 'It's coming up to two years, I'm basically a born-again virgin. I need to clean away the old cobwebs!' Speaking in an interview with MailOnline earlier this year, Ferne revealed she was back on the 'dating scene' after making it her new year's resolution to make more effort to meet men. Ferne said: 'I'm on the dating scene. That was my new years resolution and I've stuck to it. I'm enjoying myself. I don't want to make myself exclusive to anyone. My dating life has completely changed [since becoming a mum]. 'I can't just go on a date. Everything has to be planned, even nights out with the girls. I have to really fancy them. I want someone who I have chemistry with. Someone kind who is kind and funny.' Moving on: Since splitting from the convicted criminal, Ferne's love life has been relatively quiet, but she recently admitted she is now ready to 'find love and move on' 'Enjoying myself': Speaking to MailOnline earlier this year, Ferne revealed she was back on the 'dating scene' after making it her new year's resolution to make more effort to meet men Phoebe Burgess and her husband Sam split late last year, just after the birth of their second child. And in the first interview since her split with the NRL star, the 30-year-old reveals the pair have reconciled, but continue to have their ups and downs. Speaking to Stellar magazine in an interview published on Saturday, she says: 'We are together, we are married.' 'We are together, we are married': On Saturday, Phoebe Burgess spoke out for the first time since her split with Sam confirming they've reconciled and 'have good days and trying days' in an interview with Stellar. Pictured with daughter Poppy and son Billy in Stellar 'Sam and I will have good days and we'll have trying days,' she said, adding: 'Every single person on this planet who is married knows it isn't perfect. It's never going to be perfect.' Phoebe goes on to say that what caused the split, and the details of their reconciliation, 'will always and forever just be between Sam and I'. She added that while rumours about her marriage swirled, the journalist felt resilient. Working on it: 'Sam and I will have good days and we'll have trying days,' she said, adding: 'Every single person on this planet who is married knows it isn't perfect. It's never going to be perfect.' Pictured in Stellar magazine Phoebe tells Stellar her instincts told her: 'I'll protect my family, I'll protect my husband.' In the end, she says, she believes 'love conquers all'. In the stunning shoot accompanying the interview, Phoebe poses with the couples two children, Poppy, two and baby Billy, four months. Phoebe tells Stellar her instincts told her: 'I'll protect my family, I'll protect my husband.' She believes 'love conquers all'. Pictured with daughter Poppy and son Billy in Stellar In one photo, she laughs as she sits with the children in a loose, sheer dress, looking up at daughter Poppy. Another photo, shot in black and white, the new mum wears a cotton jumpsuit and goes barefoot, holding Billy as Poppy, in a floral dress, plays in front of her. In a solo shot, the blonde reclines in a satin pyjamas, beaming as she looks up at the camera from a plush chair. Back on! Phoebe first appeared to confirm she was back together with NRL star Sam Burgess (left) following their brief split last December. The couple looked cosy as they celebrated Phoebe's 30th birthday together at a restaurant in Sydney earlier this month Phoebe first appeared to confirm she was back together with NRL star Sam following their brief split last December. The couple looked cozy as they celebrated Phoebe's 30th birthday together at a restaurant in Sydney earlier this month. For months, it was rumoured they'd reconciled but it was the first time Phoebe had shared a photo of the couple together. Over then: The couple split last year after Sam was embroiled in a highly publicised 'sexting' scandal. Sam moved out just before Christmas, leaving Phoebe at the home with their toddler Poppy and newborn son Billy (pictured) The couple split last year after Sam was embroiled in a highly publicised 'sexting' scandal. Sam moved out just before Christmas, leaving Phoebe at the home with their toddler Poppy and newborn son Billy. The split came just weeks after Phoebe gave birth of their second child, Billy, now 14 weeks. Working their way back: Last month, Phoebe sparked rumours they had reconciled, when she attended Sam's South Sydney Rabbitohs game against the Gold Coast Titans at ANZ Stadium. Pictured in a recent social media snap Last month, Phoebe sparked rumours they had reconciled, when she attended Sam's South Sydney Rabbitohs game against the Gold Coast Titans at ANZ Stadium. In February, the pair looked 'looked loved-up and very much back together' during a visit to the beach at Gordon's Bay, Sydney, according to a source. Sam had also been seen frequently at the pair's $3.8 million Maroubra home, visiting their children. Close: Sam had also been seen frequently at the pair's $3.8 million Maroubra home, visiting their children. Pictured with their daughter Poppy, two, in a recent social media snap In early February, Sam and Phoebe looked cheerful in one another's company as they took their two children to Centennial Park However, Saturday's interview marks the first time Phoebe has openly spoken about the couple's split. The pair met at a music concert in January 2014 and married in December 2015 in Bowral, at her family's Southern Highland's property. Britain's Got Talent returns this Saturday as another set of hopefuls try to impress judges Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden, Alesha Dixon and David Walliams. And one act certainly impressed the panel as the judges were blown away by roller-skating couple Rosie and Adam's jaw-dropping performance. In an exclusive spoiler clip, the audience were left on the edge of their seats as Adam lifted and spun Rosie in the air in a series of show-stopping moves. Britain's Got Talent spoiler: The judges were left astounded by roller-skating couple Rosie and Adam's jaw-dropping performance The act started off quite subdued with the Blackpool born couple starting out in a close embrace, with the pair even kissing each other in a sweet moment. But as a melancholic version of Cutting Crew's 1986 hit (I Just) Died In Your Arms began to play, the routine significantly stepped up a gear, with a crop top clad Rosie showing off her skills with a dazzling series of spins. At one point in the routine, Adam flipped his his real-life girlfriend over his head, allowing her to fall behind his back before catching her. The thrilling move, which looked as through Adam came close to dropping Rosie on her head, drew collective gasps from the judges and the audience, with Alesha, 40, even exclaiming: 'Ooh, risky business!' Amazing: In an exclusive spoiler clip, the audience were left on the edge of their seats as Adam lifted and spun Rosie in the air in a series of show-stopping moves Daring: At one point in the routine, Adam flipped his his real-life girlfriend over his head, allowing her to fall behind his back before catching her The couple's sexy and exhilarating routine continued as they showcased their strength and excellent timing in a number of synchronized steps. Putting his bulging biceps to the test, Adam even lifted his partner up with one arm as Rosie expertly extended her leg during the stunning drape lift. But viewers will have to wait and see if the acrobatic pair make it through to the next round. Meanwhile, judge Amanda, 48, let her hair down as she boogied along to an audition in epic scenes. Shock: The thrilling move, which looked as through Adam came close to dropping Rosie on her head, drew a collective gasp, with Alesha, 40, even exclaiming: 'Ooh, risky business!' Death-defying: The couple's sexy and exhilarating routine continued as they showcased their strength and excellent timing in a number of synchronized steps The star got out of her seat and threw her arms up in the air while Derek Sandy performed an eccentric rendition of his own song Welcome to the Isle of Wight. The mother-of-two also gave the performer a round of applause as she cheered him on while Alesha showed her enthusiasm for the performance as she commented she is a massive fan of Derek's fun snaps which appeared on the backdrop behind him. The ITV talent show will also see a number of other acts including singing reindeer, a bow-tie-wearing dancer, a former Junior Eurovision contest entrant and a heroic police dog who can read minds. Britain's Got Talent airs Saturday at 8pm on ITV. Former Home and Away actor Luke Mitchell, 34, has shared his family plans wife Rebecca Breeds, 30. On Saturday, the actor spoke to BW Magazine about the possibility of having children - only to reveal the couple were interested in their red hot careers for now. 'We're riding this wave of our career at the moment,' he said, with the couple putting the pitter patter of little footsteps on the backburner for Hollywood. 'We're riding this wave': Former Home and Away actor Luke Mitchell, 34, (L) has revealed family plans with wife Rebecca Breeds (R) during an interview with BW magazine on Saturday New York-based Luke will now appearing in the CBS military drama The Code, which premiered this month on the American network. The handsome Gold Coast-born actor plays Captain John 'Abe' Abraham, who is a former US marine who winds up in the courtroom as a lawyer. Despite being based in America for the last six years, Luke explained that he still missed Australia, with him reminded of how lucky he is on holidays Down Under. Heading home: Luke said of his native Australia: I miss the beach, fresh air, green grass and the laid-back lifestyle.' Pictured here with Rebecca (L) in Sydney 'I miss the beach, fresh air, green grass and the laid-back lifestyle,' Luke said of the land Down Under. He continued: 'You get used to living over there [in the US] but when you come back home you realise how lucky we are to be Australian.' He went on to say that Australia and Sydney will always be home, with the pair wanting to move back at some point in time. Career goals: Luke (pictured) has landed a number of roles on US television networks including The Tomorrow People, series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the drama, Blindspot After landing the role of Todd 'Romeo' Smith on Home And Away, Luke's career has gone from strength to strength since the US move. The handsome actor has starred in TV series The Tomorrow People, series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the drama, Blindspot. Luke and Rebecca have become fan favourites of Home and Away alum, with the couple regularly sharing snaps of themselves on loved-up holidays. Lovebirds: Loved-up Luke and Rebecca regularly share snaps of their romantic trips while globetrotting, including here on the Mediterranean Sea, which was shared last year Last year, Luke shared romantic snaps of the couple sharing time together in snowy Switzerland and on the idyllic Mediterranean Sea. Luke proposed in 2012 before the lovebirds tied the knot a year later at a ceremony in New South Wales' Kangaroo Valley. They share a spaniel-cross-poodle, Alfred Hitchcockatoo Mitchell. Lara Stone has revealed that she met her property developer, David Grievson, on dating app, Tinder. Speaking about her new romance for the first time, the supermodel, 35, proved to be in a completely happy place in her life five years after her marriage to comedian David Walliams came to an end. The Dutch beauty also revealed to Telegraph magazine that despite the 'awful' divorce, she has worked well with Walliams to co-parent her six-year-old son Alfred. Yay! Lara Stone, 35, has revealed that she met her property developer, David Grievson, on dating app, Tinder Lara, who has been dating Grievson for nearly a year now, revealed: 'Sometimes really different people work together - but maybe not for ever. It's awful getting divorced. 'The first time I left Alfred with David, he was really clingy. It's now five years and luckily our son was really young. He didn't really notice anything. It's only now that he knows that we used to be married. 'He's the happiest kid really happy to be home with me and really happy to be home with his dad, so what more could you ask for?,' she revealed. Lara and her dapper beau first starting dating in January 2018, and have been seemingly solid ever since. Speaking about her new romance for the first time, the supermodel proved to be in a happy place in her life five years after her marriage to comedian David Walliams came to an end She met London based Grievson through friends and was then seen with him at Chanels Paris Fashion Week presentation in March of last year. A source told The Sun at the time: Lara and David are really in love, their relationship has moved faster than expected but they seem completely besotted.' Her relationship with the businessman is thought be her first serious relationship since she divorced her comedian husband. Romance: Lara and her dapper beau first starting dating in January 2018, and have been seemingly solid ever since Lara started dating Britain's Got Talent judge David in 2009, with the couple tying the knot in January 2010. The former flames, who share their son Alfred, five, were married in a lavish ceremony at Claridge's Hotel in London in May 2010. They went their separate ways for good in September 2015. She knows how to work both a runway and a red carpet. And on Saturday, Australian beauty Shanina Shaik absolutely stunned as she attended the annual Save Venice masquerade ball in New York. The 28-year-old Victoria's Secret model wore a flowing white tulle gown by Carolina Herrera and wore a black sheer lace mask. Simply stunning: Victoria's Secret model Shanina Shaik looked incredible as she attended the Save Venice masquerade gala in New York (pictured with Carolina Herrera creative director, Wes Gordon) Her frock was strapless in design and featured a belted bodice. The train of the skirt featured layers of tulle. Shanina - who is based in the US but hails from Melbourne - wore her hair back and off her face and accessorised with a diamond Lorraine Schwartz choker and rings. A princess frock! Her dress was strapless in design and featured a belted bodice. The train of the skirt featured layers of tulle Like Cinderella: The brunette beauty also shred a snap of herself holding a wine at the event, writing: 'Home by midnight' Sitting pretty: She wore natural-looking makeup and soft winged eyeliner, with a deep nude matte lip She wore natural-looking makeup and soft winged eyeliner, with a deep nude matte lip. At the event, which she attended with husband DJ Ruckus, Shanina posed for pictures with the creative director of Carolina Herrera, Wes Gordon. 'Thank you for dressing me tonight, adore you Wes!' Shanina captioned an Instagram post. Date night! She attended the event with husband DJ Ruckus (L) The brunette beauty also shred a snap of herself holding a wine at the event, writing: 'Home by midnight.' At one point, Shanina shared a video of herself sitting at a table with her husband and Australian model, Jordan Barrett, 23, who looked dapper in a suit. The event aims to raise funds to help preserve the idyllic Venice, in Italy. She's in the director's chair for the new comedy Booksmart. And Olivia Wilde was looking every kind of smart as she dazzled at an event to promote her latest project in Los Angeles on Friday. The 35-year-old actress, model and now-director showcased her impeccable sense of style at the Film Independent Forum at Harmony Gold Theatre. Look smart: Olivia Wilde dazzled at an event to promote her latest project in Los Angeles on Friday The beauty - who is engaged to Jason Sudeikis - chose a striking floor-length pleated skirt in browns and creams with a cobalt blue flash. She gave a glimpse of her legs via a high split in the garment, which cinched at her slender waist. The House star teamed it with a dark green button down from Kate Spade, as she elegantly posed on the red carpet. Flash! She gave a glimpse of her legs via a high split in the garment, which cinched at her slender waist Looking good: The 35-year-old actress, model and now-director showcased her impeccable sense of style at the Film Independent Forum at Harmony Gold Theatre The Love the Coopers actress kept it edgy with chunky black ankle boots and added some long gold necklaces. She teased her caramel-coloured locks into soft waves and a centre parting, which framed her striking features. The exceptional beauty kept her make-up fresh and natural, accentuating her naturally strong cheekbones and defining her brows. Feature film directorial debut: The beauty - who is engaged to Jason Sudeikis - chose a striking floor-length pleated skirt in browns and creams with a cobalt blue flash Movie project: The House star teamed it with a dark green button down from Kate Spade, as she elegantly posed on the red carpet with producer Katie Silberman Comedy: The star met with fans for a Q&A session about the movie, which also boast Will Ferrell as one of the executive producers Chat: She discussed the movie alongside Silberman The star met with fans for a Q&A session about the movie, which boast Will Ferrell as one of the executive producers. The premise of the movie is that two academic superstars and best friends realize they should have worked less and played more during school and on the eve of their high school graduation they try to cram four years of partying into one night. It stars Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein, as well as Olivia's fiance Jason Sudeikis - with whom she shares two children. Olivia has directed a short film before but this is her feature film debut as director. Booksmart is scheduled for release on May 24. Axed Emmerdale star Shila Iqbal has revealed that her former colleagues on the ITV soap are supporting following her dismissal over historic racist tweets. The actress, 24, took to Instagram stories on Friday to share messages of support from fans who've reached out to her amid the backlash over the scandal. Shila also wrote a message in which she thanked her friends and agents as well as stating that her co-stars have 'reached out' and have been 'constantly checking up' on her. Friends: Emmerdale star Shila Iqbal has revealed that her former colleagues on the ITV soap are supporting following her dismissal over historic racist tweets In a lengthy open message to her 2.5k followers, she wrote: 'Thank you so much for all your kind messages. 'And thank you to everyone who has privately messaged me, Im so sorry I cant reply to you I have read each and every one and I just want to say to everyone, honestly your kindness has given me strength.' She then went on to thank her amazing friends for defending her and making sure she was OK. She continued: Thank you to my wonderful agents at InterTalent for supporting me. And thank you to my friends at Emmerdale who have reached out and are still constantly checking up on me. Support: The actress, 24, took to Instagram stories on Friday to share messages of support from fans who've reached out to her amid the backlash over the scandal Grateful: Shila also wrote a message in which she thanked her friends and agents as well as stating that her co-stars have 'reached out' and have been 'constantly checking up' on her I cant tell you how much I appreciate it. And Thank you mum, I love you.' She also re-posted pictures and messages of support from fans as well as an inspirational quite. Shila Iqbal recently broke her silence two weeks after being sacked from the soap. Humbled: 'Thank you to everyone who has privately messaged me, Im so sorry I cant reply to you I have read each and every one' Appreciative: 'Thank you to my friends at Emmerdale who have reached out and are still constantly checking up on me' Taking to Instagram to post her interview from This Morning, the actress insisted there was 'no malice' in her racist and homophobic tweets and said she's 'more mature and wiser' since the scandal. It came after Shila claimed she 'didn't know the true meaning' of her offensive posts during her TV appearance earlier this week, and admitted it was 'unfair' that she had been judged on the posts which she shared as a teenager. Shila wrote: 'I want to say I am truly sorry to anyone who I have hurt or offended with the tweets I sent as a silly, uneducated teenager. Speaking out: Shila recently broke her silence two weeks after being sacked from the soap 'Please know I do not condone the language I used 6/7 years ago. Even if I was having a conversation with friends and had no malice behind the tweets, the now mature and wiser me knows that it was utterly wrong of me to do so. 'Also, thank you so much to everyone who has supported me through this difficult time. 'Thank you to all you wonderful strangers who have reached out and sent messages of support, it means so much Thank you This Morning and thank you Phil & Holly.' Horrific: Taking to Instagram to post her interview on Tuesday's This Morning, the actress insisted there was 'no malice' in her racist and homophobic tweets It comes after Shila made a remorseful appearance on This Morning earlier this week, when she relayed the sequence of events which led her to being fired: 'It was the first day I'd come back as I'd been off for a few weeks. 'I went into work and I got called in by the producers and shown some tweets I'd shared 6/7 years ago, I was shocked to see I sent those words. Half an hour later I got called back and told I wouldn't be renewing my contract.' 'I felt like I was dreaming. I do not condone the use of those words. I wouldnt dream of using them anymore, so for them to be in front of me, I couldn't believe it.' Shocking: Shila was sacked from Emmerdale earlier this month, after tweets resurfaced from her teenage years with featured racist and homophobic language Breaking her silence: In her post, Shila also thanked fans for their support, describing herself as a 'silly, uneducated teenager' when she made the posts Speaking of the tweets in question, she then explained: 'There was no malicious intent behind the tweets. It was conversation banter between me and my friends. It was influenced by the hip hop music we were listening to. 'It did determine the language we used. I didnt understand the true meanings behind them, the implications and the hurt those words could cause.' Shila was keen to express that she was a completely different person she was now to when she shared those tweets. 'To be honest, if the person has changed and shown remorse and your attitudes have changed, then no you should judge the person you are today. 'I know I have made a terrible mistake, but I want to use my negative situation to bring about positives from it. I want to show people how the words we use have a huge impact on other people and I think we have to take a moral responsibility and use language appropriately and think about our actions.' 'It's all been so surreal. I obviously at that time didn't realise what I was doing. I wasnt aware of the implications behind the words, but now I have matured and become educated.' Hard time: It comes after Shila made a remorseful appearance on This Morning earlier this week, when she relayed the sequence of events which led her to being fired Controversial: During the interview, the star implied that it was 'unfair' that she was being judged in such a way for her behaviour as a teenager Speaking of her dream job being left in tatters, Shila stated: 'I'm a professional and I didnt have the responsibility I do. I do own up to the fact that I used inappropriate language and I don't speak like that anymore. 'This is a blow, I was at such a high point in my life when it all came crashing down, but I will move on from this. I'm hoping to remain positive.' Phillip Schofield then asked her if she thought she had been treated fairly, to which she responded: 'It's a tricky one. I think ITV have a moral obligation to do what's right by the public and the fact that we take a stand and we don't tolerate this language in society. 'But I do question "is it fair that I'm being judged on something I did as a teenager?" There was no negative intention. I wasn't hurling abuse at anyone. I made a mistake definitely, but that's not who I am.' Shocker: Shila also previously told The Sun that producers took the easy option by firing her and believes she should have been given another chance This comes a few days after Shila claimed ITV should not have fired her over historic racist and homophobic tweets because she showed 'remorse' for her actions. But Shila said producers took the easy option by firing her and believes she should have been given another chance. In an emotional interview with The Sun, Shila said: 'It was easy for them to let go of me and I suppose make an example of me. 'I was remorseful, and I think that should have been taken into account with my young age and the fact that I wasn't a professional actor at that age.' Not the cast: But a spokesperson for Emmerdale hit back at the claims, and insisted that support was offered to Shila when her contract was terminated A spokesperson for Emmerdale hit back at the claims, saying in a statement to MailOnline: 'We offered Shila Iqbal support when this situation happened. 'We asked her if there was anyone we could contact who could come in and support her, a relative or friend. We also said she could call any of us at any time. She repeatedly said she was fine and didn't want any help. 'We also immediately contacted her agent who offered her advice and support.' The tweets revealed by Mail Online are part of a series of messages posted by the actress and passed to ITV. Revealed: The shocking racist and homophobic content of tweets sent by Emmerdale actress Shila Iqbal which led to her sacking, were revealed by Mail Online earlier this month Controversial: The actress, who sent the messages when she was 19 and attending college in Rochdale, apologised for her remarks and deleted her entire Twitter account In one Twitter posting, she wrote: Do not tweet me you gay,' while another stated: 'I know too many noisy n****s' and followed it with a sad face emoji. The actress, who sent the messages when she was 19 and attending college in Rochdale, apologised for her remarks and deleted her entire Twitter account. But Shila says she should have been suspended over the Tweets and not fired on the spot. The actress also hit back at ITV producers for poor aftercare after she was axed, claiming she was only offered a session with a counsellor two or three days after the show. The star says she has been inundated with trolls branding her a racist and homophobe and has suffered from panic attacks since being sacked. She said: 'I can't tell you how many panic attacks I've had and the constant feeling of anxiety and fear within you. I'm being branded as a homophobe and a racist and that's very, very far from who I am as a person. That's difficult to cope with.' She recently revealed there's a new man in her life. And Jennifer 'JWoww' Farley, 33, shared more details of her life with pro-wrestler beau Zack Clayton Carpinello, 24, on Saturday, when she gave fans a glimpse into their trip to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando, Florida. The loved-up couple posed happily in one pic taken at the amusement park, that the Jersey Shore star captioned 'Best day ever @universalorlando'. A new start: Jennifer 'JWoww' Farley, 33, shared more details of her life with pro-wrestler beau Zack Clayton Carpinello, 24, on Saturday, when she gave fans a glimpse into their trip to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando, Florida The reality TV star continued the post, 'Ive been waiting 11 years to come back here and Ive been dying to go to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.' 'I cant wait to come back with my kids when theyre big enough #readyforuniversal' Jwoww -whose real name is Jennifer Lynn Farley- has two children with her ex Roger Mathews: daughter Meilani Alexandra Mathews, four, and Greyson Valor Mathews, two. Jammed: In a video shared to her Instagram Story, Jennifer showed her journey to the fun park - which seemed to be taking longer than anticipated Slow going: 'Stuck in traffic trying to get to Harry Potter World,' the New York native captioned the video of her and her hunky new fella in the car In a video shared to her Instagram Story, Jennifer showed her journey to the fun park - which seemed to be taking longer than anticipated. 'Stuck in traffic trying to get to Harry Potter World,' the New York native captioned the video of her and her hunky new fella in the car. The hunky grappler trains at Gleason's Gym on the Brooklyn waterfront as he works on the independent wrestler circuit as he worked for organizations including TIW, Dynasty, SAW and IYFW. Cradle snatcher: She recently revealed on the Snooki & Joey podcast that her new man is nine years her junior as he is 24-years-old This comes after the reality star took to her Instagram Story late Wednesday night to share a sweet selfie while cuddled up with a man. The man's face could not be seen in the image but JWoww definitely had a look of adoration on her face. She recently revealed on the Snooki & Joey podcast that her new man is nine years her junior as he is 24-years-old. JWoww said: 'Were filming Jersey Shore right now and we nicknamed him "24."" Her co-star Nicole 'Snooki' Polizzi seems to be a fan of her new man as she said: 'Hes very handsome, by the way. Jenni has been going through some s***, but Ive never seen this girl more happier and more herself than this moment right now.' Moving on: This comes after the reality star took to her Instagram Story late Wednesday night to share a sweet selfie while cuddled up with a man Battler: The hunky grappler trains at Gleason's Gym on the Brooklyn waterfront as he works on the independent wrestler circuit The new romance comes after an acrimonious split between Jwoww and Mathews. Though the pair split last September after three years of marriage, they initially seemed to be on good terms, seen spending time as a family and even reuniting to celebrate what would have been their third anniversary together. But things soured in December when Jennifer filed for a restraining order against her ex. About a month after, she took to her personal website to accuse Mathews of physical and emotional abuse. The reality star explained her intent in a later statement to People, sharing: 'In light of the recent accusations, I would like to clarify one point: I did not post the message to Roger to cause him any upset. 'My intention was to protect our children and to liberate myself from all of the pain I had endured for so many years, to finally be free from the abuse and now look into the future more positively for the sake of the kids.' Their recent reunions seem to signal things are getting better between the pair. She has just undergone gruelling cosmetic surgery in Turkey. And Katie Price tried to hide her face as she shared a cosy snap with her family after returning home on Saturday, sharing several updates to her Instagram stories. The former glamour model, 40, took to her social media platform to post a picture of herself with her toyboy beau Kris Boyson, 30, and children - Junior, 13, Princess, 11, Jett, five, and Bunny, four. Hiding: Katie Price tried to hide her face as she shared a cosy snap with her family after returning home on Saturday, sharing several updates to her Instagram stories However, Katie tried to keep a low profile after she was pictured earlier in the day bloodied after a face lift in Turkey. Revealing her fifth child, Harvey, 16, was in bed, she captioned the snap with: '#ad Harvey in bed but the rest of us watch BGT,' she went on to promote her sofa and the company she bought it from. However, Katie's followers were quick to ask and comment why she was hiding her face in the pictures, as well as how she was able to return home so quickly from Turkey. Low profile: The former glamour model, 40, tried to keep a low profile after she was pictured earlier in the day bloodied after a face lift in Turkey (pictured earlier this month) One person said: 'Why you hiding???' A different fan put: 'I thought Katie was in turkey having surgery ??!' (sic) While another follower commented: 'Is that even @officialkatieprice hiding her face? I thought she was recovering in turkey.' MailOnline has contacted Katie's representative for comment. In pictured obtained by The Sun, it showed Katie bloodied and bruised in Turkey earlier on Saturday after a face lift procedure. Confused: However, Katie's followers were quick to ask why she was hiding her face in the pictures, as well as how she was able to return home so quickly from Turkey (pictured in 2018) It has been reported that she had undergone a face lift, eyebrow, eyelid surgery, as well as a tummy tuck and bum implants. The snap comes after Katie jetted to Instabul, Turkey, on Wednesday to undergo cosmetic surgery, after she was left feeling 'insecure' about her two stone weight gain. A source told MailOnline: 'Katies gone to Turkey for a procedure because she wants to sort her recent weight gain. 'Shes been insecure since putting on weight so is planning some work to help regain her confidence. ' 'Insecure': The snap comes after Katie jetted to Instabul, Turkey, on Wednesday to undergo cosmetic surgery, after she was left feeling 'insecure' about her two stone weight gain Katie's representatives declined to comment when contacted by MailOnline. Back in November, Katie discussed her cosmetic surgery hell on Loose Women which she claimed left her 'ill for days'. She said: 'I realised it was because I hadn't read the box, I'm allergic to penicillin and that's what I was taking. 'I was ill for days. I was crying and saying I couldn't go on air. Anyone who has any surgery - you don't just have the surgery and look great, it's always the in-between.' The businesswoman has undergone rhinoplasty, teeth veneers, bottom lifts, boob jobs and liposuction. The glamorous reality television star also has regular Botox and dermal filler regime. Candid: Katie is no stranger to sharing pictures from her plastic surgery, and has even shared videos of herself under the knife (pictured during a procedure in the past) The Nationals leader and his wooden wombat are heading north to pump $10 million into a north Queensland dam. Michael McCormack's "wombat trail" will travel to Cairns on Sunday to announce money to make the Lakeland Irrigation Area Project shovel ready. "The Liberals and Nationals government want to build dams. We know that unlocking the potential of our regional communities goes hand-in-hand with water security," he said on Sunday. The Nationals are facing a tough fight across regional Australia to retain seats. In Queensland the party's six MPs will put One Nation ahead of Labor and the Greens on how-to-vote cards. "You probably look at the average voter for One Nation, there's probably a lot more they've got in common with my party's voters than the Greens ever will have," Mr McCormack told AAP. George Christensen holds Dawson with a margin of 3.4 per cent, but has been dogged by questions about frequent trips to the Philippines. Michele Landry is facing a fight to defend Capricornia, which is an LNP seat with a 0.6 per cent margin, while Ken O'Dowd could be in trouble in Flynn, which has a margin of one per cent. Mr McCormack said Labor's plan to scrap franking credits had been raised with him in northern NSW where the Nationals are fighting to retain Cowper and Page. "The number of people who actually walked from one side of the street to the other to come up to me and I'd put out my hand and say 'g'day I'm Michael'," he told AAP. "They'd say 'we know who you are, we want to tell you we're really worried about our retiree savings'." On Saturday, Mr McCormack campaigned in central western NSW with Prime Minister Scott Morrison, promising a drought relief package. The deputy prime minister faced questions from angry locals at the Gilgandra show about consultation for the route of the $10 billion inland rail project. Mr McCormack believes the national benefits far outweigh concerns with the process, while Labor has pledged to have an inquiry if it wins government on May 18. Sudanese student Alaa Salah shot to prominence after an image of her leading demonstrators in chants in Khartoum went viral Sudanese student Alaa Salah emerged as a singing symbol of the protest movement that toppled leader Omar al-Bashir, and now insists she will keep demonstrating until civilian rule is secured. The 22-year-old engineering and architecture undergraduate shot to prominence when a picture of her in a white robe leading chanting crowds from atop a car in Khartoum went viral on social media. Shortly after on April 11 the army ousted long-time leader Bashir, but since then a 10-member military council has resisted calls to handover power. Every evening Salah heads down to join the crowds still camped out around the army headquarters in the capital -- leading thousands of demonstrators in singing out their calls for change. "We are staying at the protest site until all our demands are met," Salah said in an interview with AFP. "We want a democratic civilian government and that all corrupt figures of the previous regime be prosecuted." Like many gathered outside the military complex she insists "we don't want just words, we want actions". "Bashir was just the face of the regime, we want the entire regime to be uprooted." - 'No political aspirations' - Portraits of Salah -- dubbed "Kandaka" or Nubian queen online -- have appeared on murals across Khartoum in the wake of Bashir's fall. The iconic image captured her wearing the traditional flowing white headscarf and skirt, her golden full-moon earrings reflecting in the fading sunset. The outfit is a nod to the lead role played by women in the protests that ended three decades of iron-fisted rule by the veteran leader. "I wore this attire as part of an initiative to support the revolution," she says. Symbolic too is the chant that she recites to raise the spirits of the demonstrators. Protesters in Sudan have seen long-time ruler Omar al-Bashir ousted from power and are now pushing the new ruling military council to hand over power to a civilian administration The words are those of a well-known Sudanese poem that says "a bullet does not kill, what kills is the people's silence" -- a sentiment she says aptly captures Sudan's new spirit of defiance. The protest movement in the country initially erupted in December in response to tripling of bread prices by the authorities. It swiftly mushroomed into nationwide demonstrations against Bashir led by an umbrella group of unions and opposition political groups called the Alliance for Freedom and Change. Protest leaders from the alliance successfully mobilised supporters -- young, old, women, men, professionals and students -- by posting their calls for demonstrations online. "I'm one of those who took to the streets based on the schedules announced by the Alliance for Freedom and Change," Salah said. She also participated in protests on her campus as the demonstrations on the street drew a brutal crackdown from the authorities. Officials say at least 65 people have been killed in protest-related violence since December. Despite her new-found fame as the face of the uprising, Salah insists that she intends to limit her involvement in politics to these protests. "I have no political affiliation. I am a normal citizen who took to the streets for the sake of our country," she said. "I don't have any aspirations in politics ...but I like to do social work." The EU has warned that US President Donald Trump's rejection of a UN treaty designed to regulate the global arms trade would hamper the global fight against illicit weapons trafficking The European Union warned Saturday that US President Donald Trump's rejection of a UN treaty designed to regulate the global arms trade would hamper the global fight against illicit weapons trafficking. "A decision by the US to revoke its signature would not contribute to the ongoing efforts to encourage transparency in the international arms trade, to prevent illicit trafficking and to combat the diversion of conventional arms," said the EU's chief diplomat, Federica Mogherini. "The EU will continue to call on all states, and in particular the major arms exporters and importers, to join the Arms Trade Treaty without delay," she said. Trump said Friday the United States would not abide by the 2013 treaty aimed at regulating the global arms trade, calling it "misguided" and an encroachment on US sovereignty. The US Senate never ratified the treaty after former president Barack Obama endorsed it. Trump said he was revoking his predecessor's signature. Mogherini said the EU viewed the pact -- which seeks to regulate the flow of weapons to conflict zones -- as key to "contributing to international efforts to ensure peace, security and stability. "All 28 Member States have joined the ATT and are determined in pursuing its objectives and its universal ratification and implementation," Mogherini said. The treaty, which entered into effect in December 2014, requires member countries to keep records of international transfers of weapons and to prohibit cross-border shipments that could be used in human rights violations or attacks on civilians. While 130 countries originally signed the treaty, only 101 have ratified it. Those include major powers like France, Germany and the United Kingdom. The world's largest arms traders, the United States, China and Russia, have not joined. "The unregulated arms trade continues to cause major suffering in many parts of the world, fuelling conflicts, terrorism and organised crime," Mogherini said. "Small arms and light weapons kill around 500,000 people every year, in addition to the victims of other conventional weapons." Trump has already withdrawn the United States from the Paris Agreement on curbing Earth-warming carbon emissions, signed by most of the world's nations. He has also taken the country out of a multilateral nuclear deal on Iran, as well as a Cold War-era arms treaty with Russia. The EU has hit out at each of these moves, which have soured transatlantic ties and relations between Washington and its European allies in NATO. Donald Trump is a threat to our world order and does not deserve a state visit, shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry has said after the president moved to pull the US out of the international Arms Trade Treaty. Branding him nothing but a disgrace to his office, Ms Thornberry tore into Mr Trump over his announcement that the US would be withdrawing its support for the accord regulating the multibillion-dollar global arms trade. In striking comments for a politician who could go on to play a leading role in British relations with Mr Trumps administration if he is re-elected, the senior Labour figure said the move is the final confirmation that he is not the Leader of the Free World. Under my Administration, we will never surrender American sovereignty to anyone. We will never allow foreign bureaucrats to trample on your Second Amendment freedoms. And that is why my Administration will never ratify the UN Arms Trade Treaty. pic.twitter.com/j1xnuUdX1x The White House 45 Archived (@WhiteHouse45) April 26, 2019 Ms Thornberrys intervention comes after Jeremy Corbyn said he will not attend a state banquet held for the US president when he visits in June. The Labour leader said Theresa May was wrong to kowtow to a president who rips up vital international treaties. Within hours, Mr Trump said the US would be rejecting the Arms Trade Treaty and taking our signature back. In theatrical scenes, the president signed a document asking the Senate to halt the ratification process while part-way through a speech to the National Rifle Association, the pro-gun lobby group viewed as important to his re-election hopes. Under my administration, we will never surrender American sovereignty to anyone, Mr Trump said. More than 100 countries, including Britain, have signed up to the treaty that regulates international trade in conventional weapons, including small arms, battle tanks, combat aircraft and warships. Former president Barack Obama signed the accord, arranged under the auspices of the United Nations, in 2013, although it has not been ratified by US legislators. Mr Trumps decision to halt ratification follows similar withdrawals from the Paris Agreement on climate change, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia and the Iran nuclear deal. Donald Trump's statement on the Arms Trade Treaty is the final confirmation that he is not the Leader of the Free World, he never has been, and he does not deserve the honour of a State Visit to Britain. He is nothing but a disgrace to his office and a threat to our world order. Emily Thornberry (@EmilyThornberry) April 26, 2019 Ms Thornberry denounced the presidents latest move, tweeting: Donald Trumps statement on the Arms Trade Treaty is the final confirmation that he is not the Leader of the Free World, he never has been, and he does not deserve the honour of a State Visit to Britain. He is nothing but a disgrace to his office and a threat to our world order. Mr Trumps visit from June 3-5 is highly controversial and is expected to attract mass demonstrations. He will hold bilateral talks with Mrs May at Downing Street, while there is expected to be the pomp and ceremony of state honours elsewhere. A white-tie dinner banquet at Buckingham Palace, hosted by the Queen, is always one of the key events of any state visit. Donald Trump is expected to be honoured with a state banquet (PA/Ben Stansall) Mr Corbyn said he would not be attending the dinner, however he would be prepared to meet Mr Trump during his stay to discuss all matters of interest. Theresa May should not be rolling out the red carpet for a state visit to honour a president who rips up vital international treaties, backs climate change denial and uses racist and misogynist rhetoric, Mr Corbyn said. Maintaining an important relationship with the United States does not require the pomp and ceremony of a state visit. It is disappointing that the Prime Minister has again opted to kowtow to this US administration. Theresa May should not be rolling out the red carpet for a state visit to honour a President who rips up vital international treaties, backs climate change denial and uses racist and misogynist rhetoric. Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) April 26, 2019 The Prime Minister was widely criticised for inviting the US leader to make a state visit just days into his presidency in 2017. His upcoming visit is expected to attract mass demonstrations. Every time someone comments on how I must have gotten tanned because of summer, swimming or something similar, I cant help but see the start of a pall of gloom over me because thats what I've seen in several fairness advertisements while growing up. In the next instant, I collect myself and tell myself that it actually doesnt matter because its 2019 and no one is talking about fairness. It was almost at the same time that I came across the news of Malayalam actress Sai Pallavi who has turned down a deal of Rs 2 crore for promoting a fairness brand. Pakistani actress Sajal Aly is being torn apart on social media for she has done exactly the opposite thing she has chosen to promote a fairness cream. So yes, we are talking about fairness still. But not like we used to in, say, 2010 or 2011, when all leading women of Bollywood made us feel bad about our complexion. But we are still talking about fairness. A-listers are not promoting get-fair-quick creams but If you remember, Abhay Deol stirred up the hornets nest when he called out the celebs who endorsed fairness brands which includes almost all of them. So, a debate started and like we bury our past mistakes in the hope of starting afresh, the A-listers of Bollywood, too, gradually stopped associating with fairness products. But does that mean that these products became faceless? No way. Not in India and Pakistan. Theres never a dearth of faces to show the gradual lightening of skin on a 'beauty scale'. Market matters You dont get a job because you are dark. You lose your boyfriend because you are dark. No, fairness companies havent promoted such biases after 2014 when the Advertising Standards Council of India laid down rules to end this random peddling of discrimination. So, what do they say now? They say how pinkish white is better than pale white, how this anti-wrinkle cream will lighten your skin too, making you look younger and fairer, how every room you enter will just be dazzled by your inner beauty (enhanced by a skin lightening cream). Its not fairness anymore its 'skin lightening' now. And the market is huge. Today's products don't claim to make you fair they, with their white serums, claim to remove dark spots and enliven your skin. (Photo: YouTube) Shall we address mens fairness issues too, please? We dont even know where to start as we address the multiple levels of problematic issues the Shah Rukh Khan advertisement posed when the star disparages some men for using womens fairness creams. Since men cant be lovely, their way to handsomeness lies in five-inch tubes too. Alpha males dont use 'womens fairness cream'. The point I want to hammer home is that its not fair to ask men to be fair either while womens fairness creams received a lot of flak, we dont see the same furore about mens fairness creams. Yes, SRK stopped endorsing the brand, but that didnt exactly spell death for it. Dust and pollution, out: Fine but why promise fairness? (Photo: YouTube) 'Home remedies' This is something absolutely no one is talking about. So, in an age of social media, there are YouTubers and Instagram influencers who are spamming us with their gharelu nuskhas to turn fair overnight. So, we slammed fairness brands only to turn to our kitchens and gather gram flour, turmeric, rose water, curd, etc., to become fair. In this process, did we understand where we were wrong? Its not the chemicals of a beauty product which are harmful; its the chemicals in our mind which are harming us. So, how do we go about this? We cant impose a blanket ban on individual YouTubers or social media influencers. The moment you say 'oh, dark is beautiful'... Admit it. This is a euphemism because you cant call spade a spade in this post-awakening age. So, you say 'black is beautiful' or 'dusky beauty' to veil the fact that you are trying hard to overcome what everyone taught you. You will even advertise a bulb that can lighten up the face of a dark woman when the grooms side visits her. How empowering! A woman doesnt need a fairness product because a light bulb can do it. But a woman needs to look fair when the grooms family visits her, right? Yes. Thats how we are still talking about fairness in a veiled but still shameful way. For once and for all, no one needs to be light-skinned in our beyond-skin-deep love for real fairness, dignity and justice and the war against 'fairness' products. Also Read: The pressure to look good is killing women. Some, slowly. Some, by suicide The following companies are subsidiares of Amphenol: ARCAS Automotive Group (Luxco 1) S.a.r.l., AUXEL FTG, AUXEL FTG India Pvt Ltd., AUXEL FTG Shanghai Co., AUXEL S.A.S., Air LB International Development S.A., All Systems Broadband, Amphenol (Changzhou) Advanced Connector Co., Amphenol (Changzhou) Connector Systems Co., Amphenol (Changzhou) Electronics Co., Amphenol (Maryland), Amphenol (Ningde) Electronics Co., Amphenol (Qujing) Technology Co., Amphenol (Tianjin) Electronics Co., Amphenol (Xiamen) High Speed Cable Co., Amphenol Adronics, Amphenol Advanced Sensors Germany GmbH, Amphenol Advanced Sensors Puerto Rico, Amphenol Air LB GmbH, Amphenol Air LB North America Inc., Amphenol Air LB SAS, Amphenol Alden Products Company, Amphenol Alden Products Mexico, Amphenol Antenna Solutions, Amphenol Assemble Tech (Xiamen) Co., Amphenol Australia Pty Ltd, Amphenol Automotive Connection Systems (Changzhou) Co., Amphenol Bar-Tec, Amphenol Benelux B.V., Amphenol Borisch Technologies, Amphenol CNT (Xian) Technology Co. Ltd., Amphenol Cables On Demand Corp., Amphenol Canada Acquisition Corporation, Amphenol Canada Corp., Amphenol Comercial, Amphenol Commercial Interconnect Korea Co., Amphenol Commercial Products (Chengdu) Co. Ltd., Amphenol Commercial and Industrial UK, Amphenol ConneXus AB, Amphenol ConneXus Ou, Amphenol Custom Cable, Amphenol DC Electronics, Amphenol Daeshin Electronics and Precision Co., Amphenol EEC, Amphenol East Asia Electronic Technology (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Amphenol East Asia Limited, Amphenol FCI, Amphenol FCI Asia Pte. Ltd., Amphenol FCI Connectors Singapore Pte. Ltd., Amphenol Fiber Optic Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Amphenol Finland Oy, Amphenol France Acquisition SAS, Amphenol France SAS, Amphenol Germany GmbH, Amphenol Gesellschaft m.b.H., Amphenol Goldstar Electronic Systems (Baicheng) Co. Ltd., Amphenol Goldstar Electronic Systems (Yulin) Co. Ltd., Amphenol Holding UK, Amphenol Intercon Systems, Amphenol Interconnect India Private Limited, Amphenol Interconnect Products Corporation, Amphenol Interconnect South Africa (Proprietary) Limited, Amphenol International Ltd., Amphenol Invotec Limited, Amphenol Italia S.r.l., Amphenol JET (Haiyan) Interconnect Technology Co., Amphenol Japan Ltd., Amphenol Kai-Jack (Shenzhen) Inc., Amphenol LTW Technology Co., Amphenol Limited, Amphenol MCP Korea Limited, Amphenol Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Amphenol Middle East Enterprises FZE, Amphenol Nelson Dunn Technologies, Amphenol Netherlands Holdings 1 B.V., Amphenol Netherlands Holdings 2 B.V., Amphenol Omniconnect India Private Limited, Amphenol Optimize Manufacturing Co., Amphenol Optimize Mexico S.A. de C.V., Amphenol PCD, Amphenol PCD (Shenzhen) Co., Amphenol Phitek Limited, Amphenol Printed Circuits, Amphenol Provens SAS, Amphenol RF Asia Limited, Amphenol Sensing Korea Company Limited, Amphenol Shouh Min Industry (Shenzhen) Co., Amphenol Singapore Pte. Ltd., Amphenol Socapex SAS, Amphenol Sunpool (Liaoning) Automotive Electronics Co., Amphenol T&M Antennas, Amphenol TCS (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Amphenol TCS Ireland Limited, Amphenol TCS de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Amphenol TFC Fios E Cabos do Brasil Ltda., Amphenol TFC MDE Participacoes Ltda., Amphenol TFC do Brasil Ltda., Amphenol Taiwan Corporation, Amphenol Technical Products International Co., Amphenol Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Amphenol Technology (Zhuhai) Co., Amphenol Technology Macedonia Dooel Kocani, Amphenol Tecvox LLC, Amphenol Tel-Ad Ltd., Amphenol Thermometrics, Amphenol Thermometrics (UK) Limited, Amphenol Times Microwave Electronics (Shanghai) Limited, Amphenol Tuchel Electronics GmbH, Amphenol Tuchel Industrial GmbH, Amphenol Tunisia LLC, Amphenol USHoldco Inc., Amphenol-Borg Limited, Amphenol-Borg Pension Trustees Limited, Amphenol-TFC (Changzhou) Communication Equipment Co., Anytek Electronic Technology (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd, Anytek International (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Anytek International Co. Ltd., Anytek Technology Corporation Ltd, Asia Connector Services, Berg UK Ltd., Blueline Product Limited, C&S Antennas, C&S Antennas Limited, CSA Limited, Casco Automotive (Suzhou) Co., Casco Automotive Group, Casco Automotive Singapore Pte., Casco Automotive Tunisia S.a.r.l., Casco Holdings Co. Limited, Casco Holdings GmbH, Casco Imos Italia S.r.l., Casco Logistics GmbH, Casco Products Corporation, Casco Schoeller GmbH, Casco do Brasil Ltda., Cemm Thome Corporation, Cemm Thome SK, Cemm-Mex, Changzhou Amphenol Fuyang Communication Equipment Co., ContactServe (Proprietary) Limited, East Asia Connector Services, Edwin Deutgen Kunstofftechnik GmbH, Ehrlich Werkzeug & Geratebau GmbH, FCI Besancon SA, FCI Connectors (Shanghai) Ltd., FCI Connectors Canada, FCI Connectors Dongguan Ltd, FCI Connectors Hong Kong Limited, FCI Connectors Italia S.r.l., FCI Connectors Korea Ltd., FCI Connectors Malaysia Sdn Bhd, FCI Connectors Sweden A.B., FCI Connectors UK Ltd., FCI Deutschland GmbH, FCI Electronics Hungary Kft, FCI GBS India Private Limited, FCI Japan K.K., FCI Nantong Ltd, FCI OEN Connectors Limited, FCI PRC Limited, FCI Taiwan Limited, FCI USA LLC, FCIs-Hertogenbosch B.V., FEP Fahrzeugelektrik Pirna, FEP Fahrzeugelektrik Pirna GmbH & Co. KG, FEP Fahrzeugelektrik Pirna Verwaltungs GmbH, Fiber Systems International, Filec Production SAS, Filec SAS, Friedrich Gohringer Elektrotechnik GmbH, GE - Advanced Sensors Business, Guangzhou Amphenol Electronics Co., Guangzhou Amphenol Sincere Flex Circuits Co., Guangzhou FEP Automotive Electric Co., Hangzhou Amphenol JET Interconnect Technology Co., Hangzhou Amphenol Phoenix Telecom Parts Co., Holland Electronics, Intelligente Sensorsysteme Dresden GmbH, Invotec Circuits Holdings Limited, Invotec Circuits Limited, Invotec Group Limited, Invotec Holdings Limited, Ionix Aerospace Limited, Ionix Holdings Limited, Ionix Systems Limited, Ionix Systems Ou, Jaybeam Limited, Jaybeam Wireless SAS, KE Elektronik GmbH, KE Ostrov Elektrik, KE Presov Elektrik, Konnektech, Kunshan Amphenol Zhengri Electronics Co., LPL Technologies Holding GmbH, LTW Technology (Samoa) Co., LTW Top Tech (Samoa) Co., Lectric SARL, Martec Limited, Mocorp Holding A/S, Nantong Docharm Amphenol Electronics Co., PROCOM, PT Casco SEA, PerLoga Personal und Logistik GmbH, Piezotech, Piher Sensors & Controls S.A., Piher Sensors And Controls, Precision Cable Manufacturing Corp. de Mexico, Procom A/S, Procom Antennas AB, Procom France SARL, Pyle-National Ltd., RSI International Limited, S.C.I. Palin, SEFEE SA, SGX Europe SP. z.o.o., SGX Sensortech (IS) Limited, SGX Sensortech China Holdco Limited, SGX Sensortech China Limited, SGX Sensortech GmbH, SGX Sensortech SA, SSI Control Technologies, STEMFI SA, SV Microwave, Shanghai Amphenol Airwave Communication Electronics Co., Shanghai Amphenol Electronics Technology Co., Shanghai Tecvox Trading Co., Shenyang Amphenol Sunpool Automotive Electronics Co., Sine Systems Corporation, Skymasts Antennas Ltd., Societe dEtudes et de Fabrications Electroniques et Electriques, Spectra Strip Limited, TCS Japan K.K., TFC South America S.A., Tecvox Europe S.r.l., Telect, Telect Mfg., Telect de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Teradyne Connection Systems, Thermometrics Mexico, Tianjin Amphenol KAE Co., Times Fiber Canada Limited, Times Fiber Communications, Times Microwave Systems, Times Wire and Cable Company, U-Jin Cable Industrial Co., Zhongshan Feisaide Electromechanical Co., and i2s-sensors. Valley National Bancorp is a bank holding company, which engages in the provision of retail and commercial banking services. It operates through the following segments: Consumer Lending; Commercial Lending; Investment Management; and Corporate and Other Adjustments. The Consumer Lending segment consists of residential mortgage loans, automobile loans and home equity loans, as well as wealth management and insurance services. The Commercial Lending segment includes the floating rate and adjustable rate commercial and industrial loans as well as fixed rate owner occupied and commercial real estate loans. The Investment Management segment refers to investments in various types of securities and interest-bearing deposits with other banks. The Corporate and Other Adjustments segment represents the income and expense items not directly attributable to a specific segment. The company was founded on November 12, 1982 and is headquartered in New York, NY. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of BorgWarner: B80 Italia S.r.l., BERU AG, BW El Salto S.A. De C.V., BWA Receivables Corporation, BWA Turbo Systems Holding LLC, Borg Warner Europe Holdings (PDS) B. V., BorgWarner (China) Investment Co. Ltd., BorgWarner (Reman) Holdings L.L.C., BorgWarner (Thailand) Limited, BorgWarner Aftermarket Europe GmbH, BorgWarner Alternators Inc., BorgWarner Arden LLC, BorgWarner Arnstadt RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Asia Inc., BorgWarner Automotive Asia Limited, BorgWarner Automotive Components (Beijing) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Automotive Components (Jiangsu) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Automotive Components (Ningbo) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Automotive Components (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Automotive Components (Wuhan) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Brasil Ltda., BorgWarner Chungju Co. LLC, BorgWarner Comercial e Distribuidora de Pecas para Veiculos Automotores Ltda., BorgWarner Comercializadora PDS S. de R.L. de C.V., BorgWarner Componentes PDS S. de R.L. de C.V., BorgWarner Cooling Systems (India) Private Limited, BorgWarner Cooling Systems GmbH, BorgWarner Diversified Transmission Products Services Inc., BorgWarner Drivetrain Engineering GmbH, BorgWarner Drivetrain Management Services de Mexico S.A. de C.V., BorgWarner Drivetrain de Mexico S.A. de C.V., BorgWarner Electric Motors L.L.C., BorgWarner Emissions Systems (Ningbo) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Emissions Systems (Ningbo) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Emissions Systems Holding LLC, BorgWarner Emissions Systems India Private Limited, BorgWarner Emissions Systems LLC, BorgWarner Emissions Systems Portugal Unipessoal LDA, BorgWarner Emissions Systems Spain S.L.U., BorgWarner Emissions Systems of Michigan Inc., BorgWarner Emissions Talegaon Private Limited, BorgWarner Engineering Ketsch RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Engineering Kibo RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Esslingen GmbH, BorgWarner Europe GmbH, BorgWarner Europe Holding S.a. r. l., BorgWarner Gateshead Limited, BorgWarner Germany Holding GmbH, BorgWarner Germany Holding Services GmbH, BorgWarner Germany REH GmbH, BorgWarner Germany REM GmbH, BorgWarner Germany Verwaltungs GmbH, BorgWarner Global Holding S.a. r. l., BorgWarner Heidelberg I RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Heidelberg II RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Heidelberg REH GmbH, BorgWarner Heidelberg REM GmbH, BorgWarner Holding Inc., BorgWarner Holdings Limited, BorgWarner Hungary Kft., BorgWarner IT Services Europe GmbH, BorgWarner India Holdings Inc., BorgWarner Investment Holding Inc., BorgWarner Ithaca LLC, BorgWarner Ketsch Plant RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Ketsch REH GmbH, BorgWarner Ketsch REM GmbH, BorgWarner Kft., BorgWarner Kibo RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Korea Holdings (PDS) B.V., BorgWarner Korea Holdings LLC, BorgWarner Korea LLC, BorgWarner Limited, BorgWarner Ludwigsburg GmbH, BorgWarner Ludwigsburg RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Markdorf Plant RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Markdorf REH GmbH, BorgWarner Markdorf REM GmbH, BorgWarner Massachusetts Inc., BorgWarner Mauritius Holdings Ltd., BorgWarner Mexico Holding BV, BorgWarner Mexico Holdings II LLC, BorgWarner Mexico Holdings LLC, BorgWarner Morse Systems India Private Limited, BorgWarner Morse Systems Italy S.r.l., BorgWarner Morse Systems Japan K.K., BorgWarner Morse Systems Mexico S.A. de C.V., BorgWarner Muggendorf RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner NW Inc., BorgWarner Netherlands Holdings (PDS) B.V., BorgWarner Oroszlany Kft., BorgWarner PDS (Anderson) L.L.C., BorgWarner PDS (Changnyeong) LLC, BorgWarner PDS (Indiana) Inc., BorgWarner PDS (Livonia) Inc., BorgWarner PDS (Ochang) LLC, BorgWarner PDS (Thailand) Limited, BorgWarner PDS (USA) Inc., BorgWarner PDS Brasil Produtos Automotivos Ltda., BorgWarner PDS Irapuato S. de R.L. de C.V., BorgWarner PDS Mexico Holdings S. de R.L. de C.V., BorgWarner PDS Technologies L.L.C., BorgWarner Poland Sp. z o.o., BorgWarner Pyongtaek LLC, BorgWarner Romeo Power LLC, BorgWarner Rzeszow Sp. z o.o., BorgWarner Shenglong (Ningbo) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner South Asia LLC, BorgWarner Southborough Inc., BorgWarner Spain Holding S.L.U, BorgWarner Sweden AB, BorgWarner Systems Lugo S.r.l., BorgWarner Thermal Systems Inc., BorgWarner Thermal Systems of Michigan Inc., BorgWarner TorqTransfer Systems Beijing Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Tralee Ltd., BorgWarner Transmission Products LLC, BorgWarner Transmission Systems Arnstadt GmbH, BorgWarner Transmission Systems GmbH, BorgWarner Transmission Systems Korea LLC, BorgWarner Transmission Systems Tulle S.A.S., BorgWarner Trustees Limited, BorgWarner Turbo & Emissions Systems France S.A.S., BorgWarner Turbo Systems Engineering GmbH, BorgWarner Turbo Systems GmbH, BorgWarner Turbo Systems LLC, BorgWarner Turbo Systems Worldwide Headquarters GmbH, BorgWarner Turbo Systems of Michigan Inc., BorgWarner Turbo and Emissions Systems de Mexico S.A. de C.V., BorgWarner UK Financing Ltd., BorgWarner UK Holding and Services Ltd., BorgWarner US Holding LLC, BorgWarner USA Industries L.L.C., BorgWarner United Transmission Systems Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Waterloo Inc., BorgWarner Wrexham Limited, Cascadia Motion LLC, Creon Insurance Agency Limited, Delphi Technologies, Dytech ENSA, Gustav Wahler GmbH u. Co. KG, Haldex, Kuhlman LLC, Kysor Europe Limited, M. & M. Knopf Auto Parts L.L.C., NSK-Warner (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., NSK-Warner K.K., NSK-Warner Mexico S.A. de C.V, NSK-Warner U.S.A. Inc., New PDS Corp., Old Remco Holdings L.L.C., Old Remco International Holdings L.L.C., Remy International, SeohanWarner Turbo Systems LLC, Sevcon, Sevcon New Energy Technology (Hubei) Company Limited, and Transmission Systems AutoForm LLC. The following companies are subsidiares of Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft: 87 Leonard Development LLC, ABFS I Incorporated, ABS MB Ltd., Acacia (Luxembourg) S.a r.l., Accounting Solutions Holding Company Inc, Alex. Brown Financial Services Incorporated, Alex. Brown Investments Incorporated, Alfred Herrhausen Gesellschaft mbH, Amber Investments S.a r.l., Ambidexter GmbH, Ambidexter GmbH i.L., Argent Incorporated, BHW - Gesellschaft fur Wohnungswirtschaft mbH, BHW Bausparkasse Aktiengesellschaft, BHW Holding GmbH, BHW Kreditservice GmbH, BNA Nominees Pty Limited, BT Globenet Nominees Limited, BTAS Cayman GP, BTD Nominees Pty Limited, Baincor Nominees Pty Limited, Bainpro Nominees Pty Ltd, Baldur Mortgages Limited, Bankers Trust Investments Limited, Barkly Investments Ltd., Bayan Delinquent Loan Recovery 1 (SPV-AMC) Inc, Bayan Delinquent Loan Recovery 1 (SPV-AMC) Inc., Berkshire Mortgage Finance, Betriebs-Center fur Banken AG, Biomass Holdings S.a r.l., Birch (Luxembourg) S.a r.l., Blue Cork Inc, Blue Cork Inc., Borfield Sociedad Anonima, Breaking Wave DB Limited, Cape Acquisition Corp., CapeSuccess Inc., CapeSuccess LLC, Cardales UK Limited, Cardea Real Estate S.r.l., Career Blazers LLC, Career Blazers Management Company Inc, Career Blazers Management Company Inc., Career Blazers Personnel Services Inc, Career Blazers Personnel Services Inc., Career Blazers Personnel Services of Washington D.C. Inc. Washington D.C., Caribbean Resort Holdings Inc, Caribbean Resort Holdings Inc., Carpathian Investments Designated Activity Company, Cathay Advisory (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Cathay Advisory (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Cathay Asset Management Company Limited, Cathay Capital Company (No 2) Limited, Cedar (Luxembourg) S.a r.l., Centennial River 2 Inc., Centennial River Corporation, Chapel Funding, Charlton (Delaware) Inc, China Recovery Fund LLC, China Recovery Fund LLC, Cinda - DB NPL Securitization Trust 2003-1, City Leasing (Thameside) Limited, City Leasing Limited, Consumo S.p.A., Consumo Srl in Liquidazione, Cyrus J. Lawrence Capital Holdings Inc., Cyrus J. Lawrence Capital Holdings Inc., D B Investments (GB) Limited, D&M Turnaround Partners Godo Kaisha, D.B. International Delaware Inc., D.B. International Delaware Inc., DAHOC (UK) Limited (in members' voluntary liquidation), DAHOC Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, DB (Barbados) SRL, DB (Malaysia) Nominee (Asing) Sdn. Bhd., DB (Malaysia) Nominee (Tempatan) Sendirian Berhad, DB (Pacific) Limited, DB (Pacific) Limited New York, DB (Pacific) Limited New York, DB Abalone LLC, DB Alex. Brown Holdings Incorporated, DB Alps Corporation, DB Aotearoa Investments Limited, DB Asia Pacific Holdings Limited (in voluntary liquidation), DB Asset Finance I S.a r.l., DB Asset Finance II S.a r.l., DB Aster II LLC, DB Aster III LLC, DB Aster Inc., DB Aster LLC, DB Beteiligungs-Holding GmbH, DB Boracay LLC, DB Capital Investments Sarl, DB Capital Markets (Deutschland) GmbH, DB Capital Partners Inc., DB Capital Partners Inc., DB Cartera de Inmuebles 1 S.A.U., DB Cartera de Inmuebles 1 S.A.U., DB Chestnut Holdings Limited, DB Commodity Services LLC, DB Consorzio S. Cons. a r. l., DB Corporate Advisory (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., DB Covered Bond S.r.l., DB Credit Investments S.a r.l., DB Delaware Holdings (Europe) Limited, DB Direkt GmbH, DB Elara LLC, DB Energy Commodities Limited (in members' voluntary liquidation), DB Energy Trading LLC, DB Enfield Infrastructure Holdings Limited, DB Equipment Leasing Inc., DB Equipment Leasing Inc., DB Equity Limited, DB Finance (Delaware) LLC, DB Finance (Delaware) LLC, DB Finance International GmbH, DB Ganymede 2006 L.P., DB Global Markets Multi-Strategy Fund I Ltd., DB Global Technology Inc., DB Global Technology Inc., DB Global Technology SRL, DB Group Services (UK) Limited, DB HR Solutions GmbH, DB Holding Fundo de Investimento Multimercado Investimento no Exterior Credito Privado, DB Holdings (New York) Inc., DB Holdings (New York) Inc., DB Holdings (South America) Limited, DB IROC Leasing Corp., DB Immobilienfonds 1 Wieland KG, DB Immobilienfonds 2 KG i.L., DB Immobilienfonds 4 KG i.L., DB Immobilienfonds 5 Wieland KG, DB Impact Investment (GP) Limited, DB Impact Investment Fund I L.P., DB Impact Investment Fund I L.P., DB Industrial Holdings Beteiligungs GmbH & Co. KG, DB Industrial Holdings GmbH, DB Intermezzo LLC, DB International (Asia) Limited, DB International Investments Limited, DB International Trust (Singapore) Limited, DB Investment Managers Inc., DB Investment Managers Inc., DB Investment Partners Inc., DB Investment Partners Inc., DB Investment Resources (US) Corporation, DB Investment Resources Holdings Corp., DB Investment Services GmbH, DB Io LP, DB Litigation Fee LLC, DB London (Investor Services) Nominees Limited, DB Management Support GmbH, DB Managers LLC, DB Municipal Holdings LLC, DB Nexus American Investments (UK) Limited (in members'voluntary liquidation), DB Nexus Investments (UK) Limited (in members' voluntary liquidation), DB Nominees (Hong Kong) Limited, DB Nominees (Singapore) Pte Ltd, DB Omega BTV S.C.S., DB Omega Holdings LLC, DB Omega Ltd., DB Omega S.C.S., DB Operaciones y Servicios Interactivos Agrupacion de Interes Economico, DB Overseas Finance Delaware Inc., DB Overseas Finance Delaware Inc., DB Overseas Holdings Limited, DB PWM, DB Portfolio Southwest Inc., DB Print GmbH, DB Privat- und Firmenkundenbank AG, DB Private Clients Corp., DB Private Wealth Mortgage Ltd., DB RC Holdings LLC, DB Re S.A., DB Service Centre Limited, DB Service Uruguay S.A., DB Services Americas Inc., DB Services Americas Inc., DB Servizi Amministrativi S.r.l., DB Strategic Advisors Inc., DB Strategic Advisors Inc., DB Structured Derivative Products LLC, DB Structured Derivative Products LLC, DB Structured Finance 1 Designated Activity Company, DB Structured Finance 2 Designated Activity Company, DB Structured Holdings Luxembourg S.a r.l., DB Structured Products Inc., DB Structured Products Inc., DB Trustee Services Limited, DB Trustees (Hong Kong) Limited, DB U.S. Financial Markets Holding Corporation, DB UK Bank Limited, DB UK Holdings Limited, DB UK PCAM Holdings Limited, DB USA Core Corporation, DB USA Corporation, DB Valoren S.a r.l., DB Value S.a r.l., DB VersicherungsManager GmbH, DB Vita S.A., DBAB Wall Street LLC, DBAH Capital LLC, DBAH Capital LLC, DBCIBZ1, DBCIBZ2, DBFIC Inc., DBFIC Inc., DBNZ Overseas Investments (No.1) Limited, DBOI Global Services (UK) Limited, DBOI Global Services Private Limited, DBR Investments Co. Limited, DBRE Global Real Estate Management IA Ltd., DBRE Global Real Estate Management IB Ltd., DBRE Global Real Estate Management IB Ltd., DBRE Global Real Estate Management US IB L.L.C., DBRMS4, DBRMSGP1, DBUK PCAM Limited, DBUKH No. 2 Limited, DBUSBZ1 LLC, DBUSBZ1 LLC, DBUSBZ2 S.a r.l., DBUSBZ2 S.a r.l., DBX Advisors LLC, DBX ETF Trust, DBX Strategic Advisors LLC, DBO Vermogensverwertung GmbH, DEBEKO Immobilien GmbH & Co Grundbesitz OHG, DEE Deutsche Erneuerbare Energien GmbH, DEUFRAN Beteiligungs GmbH, DEUKONA Versicherungs-Vermittlungs-GmbH, DEUTSCHE BANK A.S., DG China Clean Tech Partners, DI Deutsche Immobilien Treuhandgesellschaft mbH, DIB-Consult Deutsche Immobilien- und BeteiligungsBeratungsgesellschaft mbH i.L., DISCA Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, DNU Nominees Pty Limited, DSL Portfolio GmbH & Co. KG, DSL Portfolio Verwaltungs GmbH, DTS Nominees Pty Limited, DWS Alternatives France, DWS Alternatives Global Limited, DWS Alternatives GmbH, DWS Asset Management (Korea) Company Limited, DWS Beteiligungs GmbH, DWS CH AG, DWS Distributors Inc., DWS Distributors Inc., DWS Far Eastern Investments Limited, DWS Group GmbH & Co. KGaA, DWS Group Services UK Limited, DWS Grundbesitz GmbH, DWS International GmbH, DWS Investment GmbH, DWS Investment Management Americas Inc., DWS Investment Management Americas Inc., DWS Investment S.A., DWS Investments Australia Limited, DWS Investments Hong Kong Limited, DWS Investments Japan Limited, DWS Investments Shanghai Limited, DWS Investments Singapore Limited, DWS Investments UK Limited, DWS Management GmbH, DWS Real Estate GmbH, DWS Service Company, DWS Trust Company, DWS USA Corporation, De Heng Asset Management Company Limited, De Meng Innovative (Beijing) Consulting Company Limited, DeAM Infrastructure Limited, Deloraine Spain S.L., Delowrezham de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Deposit Solutions, Deutsche (Aotearoa) Capital Holdings New Zealand, Deutsche (Aotearoa) Foreign Investments New Zealand, Deutsche (Mauritius) Limited Port, Deutsche (New Munster) Holdings New Zealand Limited, Deutsche Access Investments Limited, Deutsche Aeolia Power Production Societe Anonyme, Deutsche Alt-A Securities Inc., Deutsche Alt-A Securities Inc., Deutsche Alternative Asset Management (France) SAS, Deutsche Alternative Asset Management (UK) Limited, Deutsche Asia Pacific Holdings Pte Ltd, Deutsche Asset Management (India) Private Limited, Deutsche Asset Management (Japan) Limited, Deutsche Asset Management (Korea) Company Limited, Deutsche Asset Management S.A., Deutsche Asset Management S.G.I.I.C. S.A., Deutsche Australia Limited, Deutsche Bank (Cayman) Limited, Deutsche Bank (Chile), Deutsche Bank (China) Co. Ltd., Deutsche Bank (China) Co. Ltd., Deutsche Bank (Malaysia) Berhad, Deutsche Bank (Suisse) SA, Deutsche Bank (Uruguay) Sociedad Anonima Institucion Financiera Externa, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft, Deutsche Bank Americas Holding Corp., Deutsche Bank Bauspar-Aktiengesellschaft, Deutsche Bank Capital Finance LLC I, Deutsche Bank Capital Finance Trust I, Deutsche Bank Europe GmbH, Deutsche Bank Financial Company, Deutsche Bank Holdings Inc., Deutsche Bank Holdings Inc., Deutsche Bank Insurance Agency Incorporated, Deutsche Bank Insurance Agency of Delaware, Deutsche Bank International Limited, Deutsche Bank Investments (Guernsey) Limited, Deutsche Bank Luxembourg S.A., Deutsche Bank Luxembourg S.A. - Fiduciary Deposits, Deutsche Bank Luxembourg S.A. - Fiduciary Note Programme, Deutsche Bank Mutui S.p.A., Deutsche Bank Mexico S.A. Institucion de Banca Multiple, Deutsche Bank Mexico S.A. Institucion de Banca Multiple, Deutsche Bank National Trust Company, Deutsche Bank National Trust Company Los, Deutsche Bank Nominees (Guernsey) Limited, Deutsche Bank Nominees (Jersey) Limited, Deutsche Bank Polska Spolka Akcyjna, Deutsche Bank Representative Office Nigeria Limited, Deutsche Bank S.A. - Banco Alemao, Deutsche Bank S.A. - Banco Alemao Sao, Deutsche Bank SPEARs/LIFERs Series DBE-8011 Trust, Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., Deutsche Bank Securities Limited, Deutsche Bank Services (Jersey) Limited, Deutsche Bank Sociedad Anonima Espanola, Deutsche Bank Sociedad Anonima Espanola, Deutsche Bank Societa per Azioni, Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas, Deutsche Bank Trust Company Delaware, Deutsche Bank Trust Company National Association, Deutsche Bank Trust Company National Association, Deutsche Bank Trust Corporation, Deutsche CIB Centre Private Limited, Deutsche Capital Finance (2000) Limited, Deutsche Capital Hong Kong Limited, Deutsche Capital Management Limited, Deutsche Capital Markets Australia Limited, Deutsche Capital Partners China Limited, Deutsche Cayman Ltd., Deutsche Colombia S.A.S., Deutsche Custody N.V., Deutsche Domus New Zealand Limited, Deutsche Equities India Private Limited, Deutsche Finance Co 1 Pty Limited, Deutsche Finance Co 2 Pty Limited, Deutsche Finance Co 3 Pty Limited, Deutsche Finance Co 4 Pty Limited, Deutsche Finance No. 2 Limited, Deutsche Foras New Zealand Limited, Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Immobilien-Leasing mit beschrankter Haftung, Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Immobilien-Leasing mit beschrankterHaftung, Deutsche Global Markets Limited, Deutsche Group Holdings (SA) Proprietary Limited, Deutsche Group Services Pty Limited, Deutsche Grundbesitz Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, Deutsche Grundbesitz Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH i.L., Deutsche Grundbesitz-Anlagegesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung, Deutsche Holdings (BTI) Limited, Deutsche Holdings (Grand Duchy), Deutsche Holdings (Luxembourg) S.a r.l., Deutsche Holdings (Malta) Ltd., Deutsche Holdings Limited, Deutsche Holdings No. 2 Limited, Deutsche Holdings No. 3 Limited, Deutsche Holdings No. 4 Limited, Deutsche Immobilien Leasing GmbH, Deutsche India Holdings Private Limited, Deutsche International Corporate Services (Ireland) Limited, Deutsche International Corporate Services Limited, Deutsche International Custodial Services Limited, Deutsche Inversiones Dos S.A., Deutsche Inversiones Limitada, Deutsche Investments (Netherlands) N.V., Deutsche Investments India Private Limited, Deutsche Investor Services Private Limited, Deutsche Knowledge Services Pte. Ltd., Deutsche Leasing New York Corp., Deutsche Mandatos S.A., Deutsche Master Funding Corporation, Deutsche Mexico Holdings S.a r.l., Deutsche Morgan Grenfell Group Limited, Deutsche Morgan Grenfell Group Public Limited Company, Deutsche Mortgage & Asset Receiving Corporation, Deutsche Mortgage Securities Inc., Deutsche Mortgage Securities Inc., Deutsche Nederland N.V., Deutsche New Zealand Limited, Deutsche Nominees Limited, Deutsche Oppenheim Family Office AG, Deutsche Overseas Issuance New Zealand Limited, Deutsche Postbank, Deutsche Postbank Finance Center Objekt GmbH, Deutsche Postbank Funding LLC I, Deutsche Postbank Funding LLC II, Deutsche Postbank Funding LLC III, Deutsche Private Asset Management Limited, Deutsche Securities (India) Private Limited, Deutsche Securities (Proprietary) Limited, Deutsche Securities (SA) (Proprietary) Limited, Deutsche Securities Asia Limited, Deutsche Securities Australia Limited, Deutsche Securities Inc., Deutsche Securities Israel Ltd., Deutsche Securities Korea Co., Deutsche Securities Mauritius Limited, Deutsche Securities Menkul Degerler A.S., Deutsche Securities S.A., Deutsche Securities S.A. de C.V. Casa de Bolsa, Deutsche Securities S.A. de C.V. Casa de Bolsa, Deutsche Securities Saudi Arabia, Deutsche Securities SpA, Deutsche Securities Venezuela S.A., Deutsche Securitisation Australia Pty Limited, Deutsche Services Polska Sp. z o.o., Deutsche StiftungsTrust GmbH, Deutsche Strategic Investment Holdings Yugen Kaisha, Deutsche Trust Company Limited Japan, Deutsche Trustee Company Limited, Deutsche Trustee Services (India) Private Limited, Deutsche Trustees Malaysia Berhad, Deutsche Wealth Management S.G.I.I.C. S.A., Deutsches Institut fur Altersvorsorge GmbH, Durian (Luxembourg) S.a r.l., EC EUROPA IMMOBILIEN FONDS NR. 3 GmbH & CO. KG i.I., Elba Finance GmbH, Elizabethan Holdings Limited, Elizabethan Management Limited, Emerald Asset Repackaging Designated Activity Company, Erste Frankfurter Hoist GmbH, European Value Added I (Alternate G.P.) LLP, Exinor SA, FARAMIR Beteiligungs- und Verwaltungs GmbH, FRANKFURT CONSULT GmbH, Fiduciaria Sant' Andrea S.r.L., Finanzberatungsgesellschaft mbH der Deutschen Bank, Franz Urbig- und Oscar Schlitter-Stiftung Gesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung, Freddie Mac Class A Taxable Multifamily M Certificates Series M-037, Freddie Mac Class A Taxable Multifamily M Certificates Series M-039, Freddie Mac Class A Taxable Multifamily M Certificates Series M-040, Freddie Mac Class A Taxable Multifamily M Certificates Series M-041, Freddie Mac Class A Taxable Multifamily M Certificates Series M-043, Freddie Mac Class A Taxable Multifamily M Certificates Series M-044, Freddie Mac Class A Taxable Multifamily M Certificates Series M-047, Funfte SAB Treuhand und Verwaltung GmbH & Co. Suhl "Rimbachzentrum" KG, G Finance Holding Corp., G.O. IB-US Management L.L.C., G918 Corp., GAC-HEL Inc., GWC-GAC Corp., Galene S.a r.l., Gemini Technology Services Inc., German American Capital, German American Capital Corporation, Gladyr Spain S.L., Global Markets Fundo de Investimento Multimercado, Global Markets III Fundo de Investimento Multimercado - Credito, Greenwood Properties Corp., Grundstucksgesellschaft Frankfurt Bockenheimer Landstrae GbR, Grundstucksgesellschaft Kerpen-Sindorf Vogelrutherfeld GbR, Grundstucksgesellschaft Leipzig Petersstrae GbR, Grundstucksgesellschaft Wiesbaden Luisenstrae/Kirchgasse GbR, HTB Spezial GmbH & Co. KG, Hollandsche Bank-Unie, IOS Finance EFC S.A., ISTRON Beteiligungs- und Verwaltungs-GmbH, IVAF I Manager S.a r.l., IVAF I Manager S.a r.l., Immobilienfonds Buro-Center Erfurt am Flughafen Bindersleben I GbR, Immobilienfonds Buro-Center Erfurt am Flughafen Bindersleben II GbR, Immobilienfonds Mietwohnhauser Quadrath-Ichendorf GbR, Immobilienfonds Wohn- und Geschaftshaus Koln-Blumenberg V GbR, J R Nominees (Pty) Ltd, Joint Stock Company Deutsche Bank DBU, Jyogashima Godo Kaisha, KEBA Gesellschaft fur interne Services mbH, Kidson Pte Ltd, Konsul Inkasso GmbH, Kradavimd UK Lease Holdings Limited, LA Water Holdings Limited, LAWL Pte. Ltd., Latitude Australia Secured Personal Loans Trust, Leasing Verwaltungsgesellschaft Waltersdorf mbH, Leonardo III Initial GP Limited, Lindsell Finance Limited, London Industrial Leasing Limited, MEF I Manager S. a r.l., MEF I Manager S. a r.l., MHL Reinsurance Ltd., MIT Holdings Inc., MIT Holdings Inc., MPP Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, Maher Terminals Holdings (Toronto) Limited, Morgan Grenfell & Company, MortgageIT, MortgageIT Inc., MortgageIT Inc., MortgageIT Securities Corp., Motion Picture Productions One GmbH & Co. KG, NCW Holding Inc., Navegator - SGFTC S.A., Navegator - SGFTC S.A., New 87 Leonard LLC, Nordwestdeutscher Wohnungsbautrager Gesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung, OOO "Deutsche Bank TechCentre", OOO "Deutsche Bank", OPB Verwaltungs- und Beteiligungs-GmbH, OPB Verwaltungs- und Treuhand GmbH, OPB-Holding GmbH, OPB-Nona GmbH, OPB-Oktava GmbH, OPB-Quarta GmbH, OPB-Quinta GmbH, OPB-Septima GmbH, OPPENHEIM Capital Advisory GmbH, OPPENHEIM Flottenfonds V GmbH & Co. KG, OPPENHEIM PRIVATE EQUITY Manager GmbH, OPPENHEIM PRIVATE EQUITY Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, OPS Nominees Pty Limited, OVT Trust 1 GmbH, OVV Beteiligungs GmbH, Opal Funds (Ireland) Public Limited Company, PADUS Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH, PARTS Funding LLC., PB Factoring GmbH, PB Firmenkunden AG, PB International S.A., PB Spezial-Investmentaktiengesellschaft mit Teilgesellschaftsvermogen, PBC Banking Services GmbH, PCC Services GmbH der Deutschen Bank, PT Deutsche Sekuritas Indonesia, PT. Deutsche Verdhana Sekuritas Indonesia, Pan Australian Nominees Pty Ltd, Peruda Leasing Limited, Plantation Bay Inc., Plantation Bay Inc., Postbank Akademie und Service GmbH, Postbank Beteiligungen GmbH, Postbank Direkt GmbH, Postbank Filialvertrieb AG, Postbank Finanzberatung AG, Postbank Immobilien GmbH, Postbank Immobilien und Baumanagement GmbH, Postbank Immobilien und Baumanagement GmbH & Co. Objekt Leipzig KG, Postbank Leasing GmbH, Postbank Service GmbH, Postbank Systems AG, QR Tower 2 LLC, Quantiguous, R.B.M. Nominees Pty Ltd, REO Properties Corporation, RREEF, RREEF America L.L.C., RREEF China REIT Management Limited, RREEF European Value Added I (G.P.) Limited, RREEF Fund Holding Co., RREEF India Advisors Private Limited, RREEF Management L.L.C., RTS Nominees Pty Limited, Reference Capital Investments Limited, RoPro U.S. Holding Inc., RoPro U.S. Holding Inc., Route 28 Receivables LLC, Route 28 Receivables LLC, SAB Real Estate Verwaltungs GmbH, SAGITA Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH, SAPIO Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH, SCUDO Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH i.L., SEDO Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH i.L., SENA Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH & Co. Objekt Kamenz KG, SIFA Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH, SOLIDO Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH, SP Mortgage Trust, SPINO Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH i.L., SPV I Sociedad Anonima Cerrada, SPV II Sociedad Anonima Cerrada, STATOR Heizkraftwerk Frankfurt (Oder) Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, Sal. Oppenheim, Sal. Oppenheim Alternative Investments GmbH, Sal. Oppenheim jr. & Cie. AG & Co. Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien, Sal. Oppenheim jr. & Cie. Beteiligungs GmbH, Sal. Oppenheim jr. & Cie. Komplementar AG, Sechste Salomon Beteiligungs- und Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, Sechste Salomon Beteiligungs- und Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH i.L., Service Company Four Limited, Sharps SP I LLC, Singer Island Tower Suite LLC, Somkid Immobiliare S.r.l., Stelvio Immobiliare S.r.l., Structured Finance Americas LLC, Structured Finance Americas LLC, Swabia 1. Vermogensbesitz-GmbH, Suddeutsche Vermogensverwaltung Gesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung, TAKIR Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH, TELO Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, TEMATIS Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH i.L., TERRUS Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH i.L., TESATUR Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH & Co. Objekt Halle I KG i.L., TESATUR Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH & Co. Objekt Nordhausen I KG i.L., TOSSA Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH, TRIPLA Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH, TRS Aria LLC, TRS Leda LLC, TRS Maple II LTD, TRS Oak II LTD, TRS SVCO LLC, TRS Scorpio LLC, TRS Tupelo II LTD, TRS Venor LLC, TRS Walnut II LTD, Tagus - Sociedade de Titularizacao de Creditos S.A., Tasfiye Halinde Deutsche Securities Menkul Degerler A.S., Tempurrite Leasing Limited, Thai Asset Enforcement and Recovery Asset Management Company Limited, Tianjin Deutsche AM Fund Management Co. Ltd., Treuinvest Service GmbH, Triplereason Limited, UKE Beteiligungs-GmbH, UKE Grundstucksgesellschaft mbH, UKE s.r.o., Ullmann - Esch Grundstucksgesellschaft Kirchnerstrae GbR, Ullmann - Esch Grundstucksverwaltungsgesellschaft Disternich GbR, Ullmann Ullmann Krockow Krockow Esch GbR, VCJ Lease S.a r.l., Vesta Real Estate S.r.l., VOB-ZVD Processing GmbH, WEPLA Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, WEPLABeteiligungsgesellschaftmbH, Wealthspur Investment Ltd., Whale Holdings S.a r.l., World Trading (Delaware) Inc., World Trading(Delaware)Inc., Zumirez Drive LLC, db PBC, and norisbank GmbH. 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. AltaGas Ltd. operates as a diversified energy infrastructure company in North America. The company operates through two segments, Utilities and Midstream. The Utilities segment owns and operates regulated natural gas distribution utilities in Michigan, Alaska, the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia; and two regulated natural gas storage utilities in the United States serving approximately 1.7 million customers. This segment also provides interstate natural gas transportation and storage services. It serves homes and businesses. The Midstream segment engages in the natural gas gathering and processing; natural gas liquids (NGL) extraction and fractionation, transmission, and storage; and natural gas and NGL marketing activities. This segment owns approximately 1.5 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas capacity. The company also holds interest in a regulated pipeline in the Marcellus/Utica gas formation in the northeastern United States; and engages in LPG exports and distribution, domestic terminals, wellsite fluids and fuels, and trucking and liquids handling businesses. It serves residential, commercial, and industrial customers primarily in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin. Additionally, the company operates two natural gas-fired plants with 577 MW of generating capacity in California and Colorado; and energy storage assets in Alberta, Canada, as well as nine states and the district of Columbia in the United States. AltaGas Ltd. was founded in 1994 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada. Read More Oasis Petroleum Inc., an independent exploration and production company, focuses on the acquisition and development of onshore unconventional oil and natural gas resources in the United States. It operates through Exploration and Production(E&P), and Midstream segments. The E&P segment engages in the acquisition and development of oil and gas properties. The Midstream segment offers midstream services, such as natural gas gathering, compression, processing and, gas lift supply; crude oil gathering, terminaling, and transportation; produced and flowback water gathering, and disposal; and water distribution. As of December 31, 2020, the company had 401,766 net leasehold acres in the Williston Basin; and 24,396 net leasehold acres in the Permian Basin, as well as approximately 152.2 million barrels of oil equivalent of estimated net proved reserves. The company sells its crude oil and natural gas to refiners, marketers, and other purchasers that have access to pipeline and rail facilities. Oasis Petroleum Inc. was founded in 2007 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas. Read More 10 hours ago Tesla Dips Into Year End - Whats Next? It wouldnt be like Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) to keep their investors guessing would it? After rallying more than 100% from July through the start of November, the brakes were firmly applied when CEO Elon Musk announced his intention to start unloading huge portions of his stock holdings to meet his tax obligations. Read Article Royal Dutch Shell Plc engages in the oil and natural gas production. It operates through the following segments: Integrated Gas, Upstream, Oil Products, Chemicals and Corporate. The Integrated Gas segment manages liquefied natural gas activities and the conversion of natural gas into gas to liquids fuels and other products. The Upstream segment manages the exploration for and extraction of crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids. The Oil Products segment manages the Refining and Trading, and Marketing classes of business. The Chemicals segment operates manufacturing plants and its own marketing network. The Corporate segment comprises holdings and treasury, self-insurance activities, and headquarters and central functions of the company. The company was founded in February 1907 and is headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands. Read More iShares iBoxx $ Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF's stock was trading at $123.88 on March 11th, 2020 when COVID-19 (Coronavirus) reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since then, LQD stock has increased by 7.3% and is now trading at $132.90. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. Xcel Energy, Inc. operates as a holding company, which engages in the generation, purchase, transmission, distribution and sale of electricity. It operates through the following three segments: Regulated Electric Utility, Regulated Natural Gas Utility and All Others. The Regulated Electric Utility segment generates, transmits and distributes electricity primarily in portions of generates, transmits and distributes electricity in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Dakota, South Dakota, Colorado, Texas and New Mexico. In addition, this segment includes sales for resale and provides wholesale transmission service to various entities in the United States. It also includes commodity trading operations. The Regulated Natural Gas Utility segment transports, stores, and distributes natural gas primarily in portions of Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Michigan and Colorado. The All Others segment engages in steam, appliance repair services, nonutility real estate activities, processing solid waste into refuse-derived fuel and investments in rental housing projects that qualify for low-income housing tax credits. The company was founded in 1909 and is headquartered in Minneapolis, MN. Read More 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. Ascential plc provides business-to-business information services in the United Kingdom, rest of Europe, the United States, Canada, the Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. The company operates through four segments: Product Design, Marketing, Sales, and Built Environment and Policy. It offers industry-specific business intelligence, insights, and forecasting through data and digital subscription tools. The company was formerly known as Trident Floatco PLC and changed its name to Ascential plc in January 2016. Ascential plc was incorporated in 2016 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom. Read More 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 Ingersoll Rand: 211 E. Russell Road LLC, Air-Relief, Belliss & Morcom Brasil, Belliss and Morcom, Boardwalk Enterprises, Charm Merger Sub Inc., CompAir, CompAir (Hankook) Korea Co. Ltd., CompAir Acquisition (No. 2) Ltd., CompAir Acquisition Ltd., CompAir BroomWade Ltd., CompAir Canada, CompAir Finance Ltd., CompAir GmbH, CompAir Holdings Limited, CompAir Holman Ltd, CompAir International Trading (Shanghai) Co Ltd, CompAir Korea Ltd, CompAir South Africa (SA) (Pty) Ltd., CompAir UK Ltd, CompAir USA, Consolidated Distribution Holdings Ltd., DV Systems Inc., Emco Wheaton, Emco Wheaton GmbH Branch, Emco Wheaton Gmbh, Emco Wheaton UK, Emco Wheaton USA Inc, Enza Air Propriety Limited (South Africa), GD Aria Holdings #2 Limited, GD Aria Holdings Limited, GD Aria Investments Limited, GD First UK Ltd, GD German Holdings GmbH, GD German Holdings I Gmbh, GD German Holdings II GmbH, GD German Investments GmbH, GD Global Holdings, GD Global Holdings II, GD Global Holdings UK II Ltd., GD Global Ventures I B.V., GD Global Ventures II B.V., GD Global Ventures III B.V., GD Industrial Products Malaysia SDN. BHD., GD Investment KY, GD UK Finance Ltd., Gardner Denver (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Gardner Denver Austria GmbH, Gardner Denver Bad Neustadt Real Estate GmbH & Co KG, Gardner Denver Belgium NV, Gardner Denver Brasil Industria E Comercio de Maquinas Ltda., Gardner Denver CZ + SK sro, Gardner Denver Canada Corp, Gardner Denver Cyprus Investments II Ltd., Gardner Denver Cyprus Investments II Ltd. - US Branch, Gardner Denver Cyprus Investments Ltd., Gardner Denver Cyprus Investments Ltd. - US Branch, Gardner Denver Deutschland GmbH, Gardner Denver Engineered Products India Private Limited, Gardner Denver FZE, Gardner Denver Finance II LLC, Gardner Denver Finance Inc & Co KG, Gardner Denver France SA, Gardner Denver France SAS, Gardner Denver Group Services Ltd, Gardner Denver Group Svcs Ltd, Gardner Denver Hoffman, Gardner Denver Holdings, Gardner Denver Holdings Limited, Gardner Denver Hong Kong Investments Limited, Gardner Denver Hong Kong Ltd, Gardner Denver Iberica, Gardner Denver Industries Ltd., Gardner Denver Industries Pty Ltd., Gardner Denver Industries Pty Ltd. Branch, Gardner Denver International, Gardner Denver International Ltd., Gardner Denver Intl Ltd Middle East Regional Rep Office, Gardner Denver Investments, Gardner Denver Italy Holdings S.r.L., Gardner Denver Japan, Gardner Denver Kirchhain Real Estate GmbH & Co KG, Gardner Denver Korea, Gardner Denver Korea Ltd, Gardner Denver Ltd, Gardner Denver Ltd South Africa, Gardner Denver Ltd., Gardner Denver Ltd. Branch (Ireland), Gardner Denver Machinery (Shanghai) Co, Gardner Denver Machinery (Shanghai) Co., Gardner Denver Nash Brasil Industria E Comercio De Bombas Ltda, Gardner Denver Nash Deutschland GmbH, Gardner Denver Nash LLC, Gardner Denver Nash Machinery Ltd, Gardner Denver Nash Machinery Ltd., Gardner Denver Nederland BV, Gardner Denver Nederland Investments B.V., Gardner Denver Oberdorfer Pumps, Gardner Denver Oy, Gardner Denver Petroleum Pumps, Gardner Denver Polska Sp z.o.o., Gardner Denver Pte Ltd., Gardner Denver S.r.l., Gardner Denver Schopfheim GmbH, Gardner Denver Schopfheim Real Estate GmbH & Co KG, Gardner Denver Schweiz AG, Gardner Denver Slovakia, Gardner Denver SudAmerica S.r.l., Gardner Denver Sweden AB, Gardner Denver Taiwan Ltd., Gardner Denver Thomas, Gardner Denver Thomas GmbH, Gardner Denver Thomas Pneumatic Systems (Wuxi) Co., Gardner Denver Thomas Real Estate GmbH & Co KG, Gardner Denver UK, Gardner Denver Water Jetting Systems, Garo Dott. Ing. Roberto Gabbioneta S.r.l., Hamworthy Belliss & Morcom, ILMVAC (UK) Ltd., ILS Innovative Labor Systeme, ILS Inovative Laborsysteme GmbH, Indonesia Foreign Trade Representative Office, LeROI, LeRoi International Inc, MP Pumps Inc., Mako Compressors, Nash, Nash Elmo, Oina VV, Oina VV Aktiebolag, Robuschi, Rotary Compression Technologies, Runtech Systems, Runtech Systems (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Runtech Systems Inc., Runtech Systems OY, Shanghai CompAir Compressors Co Ltd, Shanghai Compressors & Blowers Ltd., Syltone, TCM Investments, TIWR Real Estate GmbH & Co. KG, TODO AB, Tamrotor Marine Compressors AS, Thomas Industries, Thomas Industries Inc., Tri-Continent Scientific, Welch Vacuum Equipment (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Zinsser Analytic, Zinsser Analytik GmbH, and Zinsser NA. CAE Inc., together with its subsidiaries, designs, manufactures, and supplies simulation equipment and training solutions to defense and security markets, commercial airlines, business aircraft operators, helicopter operators, aircraft manufacturers, and healthcare education and service providers worldwide. The company's Civil Aviation Training Solutions segment provides training solutions for flight, cabin, maintenance, and ground personnel in commercial, business, and helicopter aviation; flight simulation training devices; and ab initio pilot training and crew sourcing services, as well as end to end digitally-enabled crew management, training operations solutions, and optimization software. Its Defence and Security segment offers training and mission support solutions for defense forces across multi-domain operations, and for government organizations responsible for public safety. The company's Healthcare segment provides integrated education and training solutions, including surgical and imaging simulations, curriculum, audiovisual and centre management platforms, and patient simulators to healthcare students and clinical professionals. The company was formerly known as CAE Industries Ltd. and changed its name to CAE Inc. in June 1993. CAE Inc. was founded in 1947 and is headquartered in Saint-Laurent, Canada. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Mohawk Industries: A&S Energie NV, A&U Energie NV, Aladdin Manufacturing Corporation, Aladdin Manufacturing Of New York LLC, Aladdin Manufacturing of Alabama LLC, Alsace Logistique S.A., Avelgem Green Power CVBA, Avon Pacific Holdings Ltd, B&M NV, BGE Mexico S. de R. L. de C.V., Berghoef GmbH, Berghoef-Hout B.V., Bienes Raices y Materiales del Centro S. de R.L. de C.V., C.F. Marazzi S.A., Canterbury Spinners Ltd, Carpet Foundation Ltd, Cevotrans BV, Ceramus Bahia S/A Produtos Ceramicos, DT Mex Holdings LLC, DTM/CM Holdings LLC, Dal Italia LLC, Dal-Elit LLC, Dal-Tile Chile Comercial Limitada, Dal-Tile Colombia S.A.S., Dal-Tile Distribution Inc., Dal-Tile Group Inc., Dal-Tile I LLC, Dal-Tile Industrias S. de R.L. de C.V., Dal-Tile International Inc., Dal-Tile Mexico Comercial S. de R.L. de C.V., Dal-Tile Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Dal-Tile Operaciones Mexico S. De R.L. De C.V., Dal-Tile Peru SRL, Dal-Tile Puerto Rico Inc., Dal-Tile Services Inc., Dal-Tile Shared Services Inc., Dal-Tile Tennessee LLC, Dal-Tile of Canada ULC, Daltile, Daltile, Dekaply NV, Durkan, Dynea NV, Eliane Argentina Sociedad Anonima, Eliane S/A - Revestimentos Ceramicos, Emilceramica India Pvt Ltd., Emilceramica S.r.l, Emilgermany GmbH, Emilgroup Asia Ltd, Explorer S.r.l., F.I.L.S. Investments Unlimited Company, Feltex Carpets Ltd, Feltex Carpets Pty Ltd, Feltex New Zealand Ltd, Fibremakers Australia Pty Ltd, Flooring Foundation Ltd, Flooring Industries Limited S.a r.l., Flooring XL B.V., Floorscape Limited, Godfrey Hirst & Co Pty Ltd, Godfrey Hirst (Singapore) Pte Ltd, Godfrey Hirst Australia Pty Ltd, Godfrey Hirst Group, Godfrey Hirst NZ Ltd, Hytherm (Ireland) Limited, IVC BVBA, IVC Far-East Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., IVC France S.a r.l., IVC GROUP LIMITED, IVC Green Power NV, IVC Group, IVC Group GmbH, IVC Luxembourg S.a r.l., IVC Rus OOO, IVC US Inc., International Flooring Systems S.a r.l., International Vinyl Company - Vostok OOO, KAI Group, KAI Keramica Ltd, KAI Mining EOOD, KERAMA CENTER OOO, Kerama Baltics OOO, Kerama Export OOO, Kerama Marazzi OOO, Kerampromservis (LLC), Khan Asparuh - Transport EOOD, Khan Asparuh AD, Khan Omurtag AD, Koninklijke Peitsman B.V., Kraj Kerama OOO, MG China Trading Ltd., MI Finance SRL, MUD (Holding) Brazil Ltda., Management Co EAD, Marazzi Acquisition S.r.l., Marazzi Deutschland G.m.b.H., Marazzi France Trading S.A.S., Marazzi Group, Marazzi Group F.Z.E., Marazzi Group S.r.l., Marazzi Group Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Marazzi Iberia S.L.U., Marazzi Japan Co. Ltd., Marazzi Middle East FZ LLC, Marazzi Schweiz S.A.G.L., Marazzi UK Ltd., Mohawk Assurance Services Inc., Mohawk Australia Pty Ltd, Mohawk Canada Corporation, Mohawk Capital Finance S.A., Mohawk Capital Luxembourg SA, Mohawk Carpet Distribution Inc., Mohawk Carpet Foundation Inc., Mohawk Carpet LLC, Mohawk Carpet Transportation Of Georgia LLC, Mohawk Commercial Inc., Mohawk ESV Inc., Mohawk Europe BVBA, Mohawk Factoring II Inc., Mohawk Factoring LLC, Mohawk Finance S.a r.l., Mohawk Foreign Acquisitions S.a r.l., Mohawk Foreign Funding S.a.r.l, Mohawk Foreign Holdings S.a r.l., Mohawk Foreign Investments Inc., Mohawk Global Investments S.a r.l., Mohawk Holdings International B.V., Mohawk Industries Inc., Mohawk International (Europe) S.a r.l., Mohawk International (Hong Kong) Limited, Mohawk International Capital N.V., Mohawk International Financing S.a.r.l, Mohawk International Holdings (DE) LLC, Mohawk International Holdings S.a r.l., Mohawk International Luxembourg S.a r.l., Mohawk International Netherlands B.V., Mohawk International Services BVBA, Mohawk KAI Luxembourg Holding S.a r.l., Mohawk KAI Luxembourg S.a r.l., Mohawk Luxembourg Capital S.A., Mohawk Luxembourg Financing S.a r.l., Mohawk Luxembourg Holdings S.a r.l., Mohawk Luxembourg Investments S.a r.l., Mohawk Luxembourg Pacific S.a r.l., Mohawk Marazzi International BV, Mohawk Marazzi Russia BV, Mohawk New Zealand Limited, Mohawk Operaciones Mexicali S. de R.L. de C.V., Mohawk Operations Luxembourg S.a r.l., Mohawk Pacific Investments S.a r.l., Mohawk Resources LLC, Mohawk Servicing LLC, Mohawk Singapore Private Limited, Mohawk Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, Mohawk Unilin Luxembourg S.a r.l., Mohawk United Finance B.V., Mohawk United International B.V., Mohawk Vinyl Financing S.a r.l., Molber Beheer B.V., Monarch Ceramic Tile Inc., P.F. Onroerend Goed B.V., PF Beheer B.V., Pergo, Pergo (Europe) AB, Pergo Holding BV, Pergo India Pvt Ltd, Polcolorit S.A., Premium Floors Australia Pty Limited, RR Apex LLC, Rata International Pty Ltd, Recubrimientos Interceramica S. de R.L. de C.V., Riverside Textiles Pty Ltd, S.C. KAI Ceramics SRL, Sibir Kerama OOO, SimpleSolutions USA LLC, Soft Step (Australia) Pty Ltd, Spano Group, Spano Invest BVBA, Spano NV, Stroyagromekhzapchast ChaO, Stroytrans OAO Orelstroy, Summit Wool Spinners Ltd, The Flooring Federation Ltd, Tiles Co OOD, Unilin (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Unilin ApS, Unilin Arauco Pisos Ltda., Unilin BVBA, Unilin Beheer BV, Unilin Distribution Ltd., Unilin Distribution Ukraine LLC, Unilin Finland OY, Unilin Flooring India Private Limited, Unilin Flooring SAS, Unilin GmbH, Unilin Holding BVBA, Unilin Insulation BV, Unilin Insulation SAS, Unilin Insulation Sury SAS, Unilin Italia S.R.L., Unilin North America LLC, Unilin Norway AS, Unilin OOO, Unilin Panels SAS, Unilin Poland Sp.Z.o.o., Unilin SAS, Unilin Spain SL, Unilin Swiss GmbH, Unilin s.r.o., World International Inc., Xtratherm, Xtratherm Limited, Xtratherm S.A., and Xtratherm UK Limited. Exelon Corp. operates as a utility services holding company, which engages in the energy generation, power marketing, and energy delivery business. It operates through the following segments: Mid Atlantic, Midwest, New York, Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and other Power Regions. The Mid-Atlantic segment represents operations in the eastern half of PJM, which includes New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Delaware, the District of Columbia and parts of Pennsylvania and North Carolina. The Midwest segment operates in the western half of PJM, which includes portions of Illinois, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky and Tennessee, and the United States footprint of MISO, excluding MISO's Southern Region, which covers all or most of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, the remaining parts of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio not covered by PJM, and parts of Montana, Missouri and Kentucky. The New York (NY) segment provides operations within ISONY, which covers the state of New York in its entirety. The ERCOT segment includes operations within Electric Reliability Council of Texas, covering most of the state of Texas. Read More iShares MSCI EAFE Value ETF's stock was trading at $38.50 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, EFV shares have increased by 29.8% and is now trading at $49.97. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. iShares Russell 1000 Value ETF's stock was trading at $108.64 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, IWD shares have increased by 51.6% and is now trading at $164.71. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. 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 contact[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 Stanley Black & Decker: 3-V Fastener Co. Inc., 3xLOGIC Dalian Technology Company Limited, 3xLogic Florida LLC, 3xLogic Holdings Inc., 3xLogic Inc., 3xLogic Indiana LLC, 8 Commerce Drive LLC, ADT France, ASIA FASTENING (US) INC., AeroFit LLC, AeroScout (US) LLC, AeroScout Industrial, AeroScout LLC, AeroScout Ltd., Aeroscout (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Alkhaja Pimex LLC, Allan Brothers, Automatic Doors Systems, Automatic Entrances of Colorado, Avdel Holding Limited, Avdel Holdings (Hong Kong) Limited, Avdel UK Limited, Aven Tools Limited, B&D Holdings Inc., B.B.W. BAYRISCHE BOHRERWERKE GmbH, BD Precision (Hong Kong) Limited, BD Suzhou (Hong Kong) Limited, BD Suzhou Power Tools (Hong Kong) Limited, BD Xiamen (Hong Kong) Limited, BDB Ferramentas do Brasil Ltda, BDC International Limited, BDK FAUCET HOLDINGS INC., BGI Distribution SAS, BLACK & DECKER (SUZHOU) CO. LTD., BLACK & DECKER (SUZHOU) POWER TOOLS CO. LTD., BLACK & DECKER (SUZHOU) PRECISION MANUFACTURING CO. LTD., BLACK & DECKER ASIA MANUFACTURING HOLDINGS 1 S.a.r.l., BLACK & DECKER ASIA MANUFACTURING HOLDINGS 2 S.a.r.l., BLACK & DECKER DE REYNOSA S. DE R.L. DE C.V., BLACK & DECKER GLOBAL HOLDINGS S.a.r.l., BLACK & DECKER GROUP LLC, BLACK & DECKER HOLDINGS LLC, BLACK & DECKER INDIA INC., BLACK & DECKER INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS S.A.R.L., BLACK & DECKER INVESTMENT COMPANY LLC, BLACK & DECKER SHELBYVILLE LLC, BLACK & DECKER SSC CO. LTD., BLACK & DECKER TRANSASIA S.a.r.l., BLACK AND DECKER S.A. de C.V., Bagley Road LLC, Baltimore Financial Services Company Unlimited Company, Bandhart, Bandhart Overseas, Bed-Check, Belco Investments Company Unlimited Company, Besco Investment Group Co. Ltd., Besco Investment Holdings Ltd., Besco Pneumatic Corporation, Best Lock Corporation, Black & Decker, Black & Decker (Czech) s.r.o., Black & Decker (Ireland) Inc., Black & Decker (OVERSEAS) GmbH, Black & Decker (Thailand) Limited, Black & Decker (U.S.) Inc., Black & Decker Argentina S.A., Black & Decker Asia Pacific (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Black & Decker Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Black & Decker Distribution Pty. Ltd, Black & Decker Europe, Black & Decker Far East Holdings B.V., Black & Decker Finance, Black & Decker Finance (Australia) Ltd., Black & Decker Finance SAS, Black & Decker Funding Corporation, Black & Decker Hardware Holdings B.V., Black & Decker Healthcare Management Inc., Black & Decker Holdings (Australia) Pty. Ltd., Black & Decker Holdings B.V., Black & Decker Hong Kong Limited, Black & Decker Inc., Black & Decker International, Black & Decker International Finance (UK) Limited, Black & Decker International Finance 1 Unlimited Company, Black & Decker International Finance 3 Designated Activity Company, Black & Decker International Finance Holdings (UK) Limited, Black & Decker International Holdings B.V. & CO. KG, Black & Decker Investments (Australia) Limited, Black & Decker Investments LLC, Black & Decker Limited BV, Black & Decker Luxembourg S.A.R.L., Black & Decker Macao Commercial Offshore Limited, Black & Decker Mexfin LLC, Black & Decker No. 4 Pty. Ltd., Black & Decker Puerto Rico Inc., Black & Decker de Colombia S.A.S., Black & Decker de Panama LLC, Black & Decker del Ecuador S.A., Black & Decker del Peru S.A., Black & Decker do Brasil Ltda., Black and Decker de Costa Rica Limitada, Blick Plc, Bostitch-Holding L.L.C., Bristol Industries LLC, Bulldog Barrels LLC, CAM International Holdings Inc., CAMACC Systems Inc., CONNEXCENTER SA, CPE Acquisition Co., CRC-EVANS INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS INC., CRC-EVANS INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS LLC, CRC-EVANS WELDING SERVICES INC., CRC-Evans B.V., CRC-Evans Canada LTD., CRC-Evans International LLC, CRC-Evans Offshore Limited, CRC-Evans PIH Servios De Tubulao do Brasil Ltda, CRC-Evans Pipeline International Inc., CRC-Evans Pipeline International Sdn.Bhd., CWS Industries (Mfg.) Corp., Chesapeake Falls Holdings Company Unlimited Company, Chesapeake Investments Company S.A.R.L., Chicago Steel Tape, Chiro Tools Holdings B.V., Christie Intruder Alarms Limited, Clarke Security Services Incorporated, Consolidated Aerospace Manufacturing, Consolidated Areospace Manufacturing LLC, Contact East, Contract Fire Systems Ltd, Craftman, DADO Inc. F/K/A SBDLINQ, DEWALT INDUSTRIAL TOOLS S.A. DE C.V., DIYZ LLC, DeWalt Industrial Tools S.p.A., Devilbiss Air Power Company, Dewalt Industrial Power Tool Company LTD., Doncasters US Holdings Inc., Dubuis et Cie SAS, E.A. Patten Co. LLC, ELU Power Tools LTD, EMHART TEKNOLOGIES LLC, Eastern Vault & Security, Emhart Guangzhou (Hong Kong) Limited, Emhart Harttung A/S, Emhart Harttung Inc., Emhart International Holdings Limited, Emhart International Limited, Emhart Teknologies (Thailand) LTD., Excel Industries, Facom, Facom Belgie BVBA, Facom Holding SAS, Fastener Jamher Taiwan Inc., First National AlarmCap LP/Premiere Societe en Commandite Nationale Alarmcap, First National AlarmCap. Trust, Frisco Bay Industries, GDX Technologies, GMT China, GRUPO BLACK & DECKER MEXICO S. DE R.L. DE C.V., GUANGZHOU EMHART FASTENING SYSTEM CO. LTD., Gamrie Designated Activity Company, Generale de Protection, HSM Electronic Protection Systems, Hangtech Limited, Hardware City Associates Limited Partnership, Hefei INTACA Science & Technology Development Co. Ltd., Herramientas Stanley S.A. de c.v., Horst Sprenger GmbH Recycling-tools, I.D.L. Techni-Edge LLC, INFASTECH CAMCAR MALAYSIA SDN BHD, INFASTECH DECORAH LLC, ISR Solutions, IguanaFix, Infastech (China) Limited, Infastech (Korea) Limited, Infastech (Laubuan) Limited, Infastech (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Infastech (Mauritius) Limited, Infastech (Shenzhen) Limited, Infastech Company Limited, Infastech Fastening Systems (Wuxi) Limited, Infastech Holdings (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Infastech Intellectual Properties Pte. Ltd., Infastech Receivables Company Pte. Ltd., Infastech/Tri-Star Limited, Infastehc (Singapore) Pte. Ltd, InfoLogix, InfoLogix Systems Corporation, Infologix - DDMS Inc., Infologix Inc., Innerspace Products, Interfast B.V., Irwin Industrial Tool Ferramentas do Brasil Ltda., JAFFORD LLC, JRB Attachments LLC, JennCo1 Inc., Jewel Attachments LLC, Jiangsu Guoqiang Tools Co., Jiangsu Guoqiang Tools Co. Ltd., Jointech Corporation LTD., Kodiak Mfg. Inc., Lista International Corporation, M. HART DO BRASIL LTDA., MTD Holdings, Mac Tools Canada Inc., Maquinas y Herramientas Black & Decker de Chile S.A., Microalloying International LLC, Microtec Enterprises, Moeller Manufacturing & Supply LLC, Monarch Mirror Door Co., NEWFREY LLC, NSW Fabristeel Netherlands B.V., National Manufacturing, Nelson Bolzenschwei-Technik GmbH & Co. KG, Nelson Bolzenschwei-Technik GmbH Verwaltungs GmbH, Nelson Fastener Systems, Nelson Fastener Systems de Mexico SA de CV, Nelson Soudage de Goujons SAS, Nelson Stud Welding (Tianjin) Company Ltd., Nelson Stud Welding Canada Inc., Nelson Stud Welding Holdings Inc., Nelson Stud Welding Inc., Nelson Stud Welding India Private Limited, Nelson Stud Welding International LLC, New FEP Co. LLC, Newell Brands - Tools Business, Newell Rubbermaid Products (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Nippon Pop Rivets & Fasteners LTD., Niscayah Asia Limited, Niscayah Group AB, Niscayah Holdings Limited, Niscayah Investments Limited, Niscayah Teknik AB, Novia SWK SAS, OSI Security Devices, Onglin International Limited, P&B Re Holdings LLC, PIH Holdings Limited, PIH Services Limited, PIH Services ME LLC, PIH Services ME Ltd., PIH U.S. LLC, PIPELINE EQUIPMENT AND SERVICES SARL, PORTER-CABLE ARGENTINA LLC, POWERS FASTENERS INC.(Panama), PT Stanley Black & Decker, Pacom Group AB, Pacom Systems (North America) Inc., Pacom Systems Espana S.L., Pacom Systems Pty Limited, Paladin Brands Group Inc., Paladin Brands Holdings Inc., Paladin Brands International Holdings Inc., Panalok Limited, Pengo Corporation, Pillo Health, Pinnacle Electronic Systems, Pipeline Induction Heat Limited, Powers Fasteners Australasia Pty Limited, Powers Fasteners Inc., Powers Rawl Pty. Ltd., Powers Shanghai Trading Ltd., Precision Hardware, Prikos & Becker LLC, Pro One Finance SAS, QRP Inc., RIGHTCO II LLC, Rawl Australasia Pty. Ltd., Rawlplug Unit Trust, Refal Industria e Comercio de Rebites e Rebitadeiras Ltda., SBD Cayman Finance LLC, SBD Cayman LLC, SBD European Investment Unlimited Company, SBD European Security Holdings S.a r.l., SBD European Security Investment Unlimited Company, SBD Holding AB, SBD Insurance Inc., SBD MDGP Partnership Holdings LLC, SBD MDGP Partnership Holdings S.a r.l., SBD Manufacturing Distribution & Global Purchasing Holdings L.P., SBD Niscayah S.a r.l., SBD Property Holdings LLC, SBD Scala Inc., SBD UK Canada Holdings Inc., SPIRALOCK GLOBAL VENTURES LIMITED, STANLEY BLACK & DECKER HUNGARY KORALTOLT FELELOSSEGU TARSASAG, STANLEY BLACK & DECKER IBERICA S.L., STANLEY BLACK & DECKER MOROCCO SARL, STANLEY BLACK AND DECKER CYPRUS INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS LTD, STANLEY BLACK AND DECKER CYPRUS ONE HOLDINGS LTD, STANLEY ENGINEERED FASTENING EASTERN EUROPE SP.Z O.O., SWK (U.K.) Holding Limited, SWK (UK) Limited, SWK Utensilerie S.r.l., Scan Modul, Security Group, SecurityCo Solutions Inc., Shanghai Emhart Fastening System Co. Ltd., Sidchrome Tool, Sielox Security Systems, Societe Miniere et Commerciale SAS, Sonitrol, Sonitrol Distribution Canada Inc., Sonitrol Security Systems of Buffalo Inc., Southern Monitoring Services Limited, Speciality Bar Products Company, Spiegelberg Manaufacturing Inc., Spiralock Corporation, Stanley Access Technologies LLC, Stanley Atlantic Inc., Stanley Black & Decker (Barbados) SRL, Stanley Black & Decker (Hellas) EPE, Stanley Black & Decker Asia Holdings LLC, Stanley Black & Decker Asian Holdings B.V., Stanley Black & Decker Australia Pty Ltd., Stanley Black & Decker Austria GmbH, Stanley Black & Decker Belgium BV, Stanley Black & Decker CCA S. de R.L., Stanley Black & Decker Canada Corporation, Stanley Black & Decker Cayman Holdings Inc., Stanley Black & Decker Chile L.L.C., Stanley Black & Decker Colombia Services S.A.S., Stanley Black & Decker Czech Republic s.r.o., Stanley Black & Decker Deutschland GmbH, Stanley Black & Decker Finance 1 LLC, Stanley Black & Decker Finance 2 LLC, Stanley Black & Decker Finance Limited, Stanley Black & Decker Finance Unlimited Company, Stanley Black & Decker Finland Oy, Stanley Black & Decker France SAS, Stanley Black & Decker France Services SAS, Stanley Black & Decker Holdings Australia Pty Ltd, Stanley Black & Decker Holdings S.a r.l., Stanley Black & Decker India Private Limited, Stanley Black & Decker International Finance 1 Limited, Stanley Black & Decker International Finance 2 Limited, Stanley Black & Decker International Finance 2 Unlimited Company, Stanley Black & Decker International Finance 3 Limited, Stanley Black & Decker International Finance 3 Unlimited Company, Stanley Black & Decker International Finance 4 Limited, Stanley Black & Decker International Finance 4 Unlimited Company, Stanley Black & Decker International Finance 5 Unlimited Company, Stanley Black & Decker International Finance L.P., Stanley Black & Decker Ireland Unlimited Company, Stanley Black & Decker Italia S.r.l., Stanley Black & Decker Italy Production S.r.l., Stanley Black & Decker Latin American Holding BV, Stanley Black & Decker Latin American Investment Unlimited Company, Stanley Black & Decker Limited, Stanley Black & Decker Limited Liability Company, Stanley Black & Decker Logistics BV, Stanley Black & Decker MEA FZE, Stanley Black & Decker Manufacturing SAS, Stanley Black & Decker Middle East Trading FZE, Stanley Black & Decker NZ Limited, Stanley Black & Decker Netherlands B.V., Stanley Black & Decker Norway AS, Stanley Black & Decker Partnership Japan, Stanley Black & Decker Partnership Japan Holdings S.a r.l., Stanley Black & Decker Polska Sp. z o.o., Stanley Black & Decker Precision Manufacturing (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Stanley Black & Decker Romania SRL, Stanley Black & Decker Slovakia s.r.o., Stanley Black & Decker Sweden AB, Stanley Black & Decker Turkey Alet Uretim Sanayi ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Stanley Black & Decker UK Group Limited, Stanley Black & Decker UK Limited, Stanley Black & Decker de Monterrey S. de R.L. de C.V., Stanley CLP3, Stanley Canada Holdings L.L.C., Stanley Chiro International Ltd, Stanley Convergent Security Solutions Inc., Stanley Engineered Fastening Benelux B.V., Stanley Engineered Fastening France SAS, Stanley Engineered Fastening India Private Limited, Stanley Engineered Fastening Industrial Deutschland GmbH, Stanley Engineered Fastening Italy S.r.l., Stanley Engineered Fastening Spain S.L.U., Stanley Europe BV, Stanley European Holdings B.V., Stanley European Holdings II B.V., Stanley Fastening Systems Investment (Taiwan) Co., Stanley Fastening Systems L.P., Stanley Fastening Systems Poland Sp. z o.o., Stanley Feinwerktechnik GmbH, Stanley Grundstuecksverwaltungs GmbH, Stanley Healthcare Solutions France Sarl, Stanley Housing Fund Inc., Stanley Industrial & Automotive LLC, Stanley Infrastructure LLC f/k/a International Equipment Solutions ("IES"), Stanley Inspection L.L.C., Stanley Inspection US L.L.C., Stanley International Holdings Inc., Stanley Israel Investments B.V., Stanley Logistics L.L.C., Stanley Pipeline Inspection L.L.C., Stanley Safety Corporation LLC, Stanley Security AS, Stanley Security Alarmcentrale B.V., Stanley Security B.V., Stanley Security Belgium BV, Stanley Security Denmark ApS, Stanley Security Europe BV, Stanley Security Federal Systems LLC, Stanley Security France SAS, Stanley Security Holding AS, Stanley Security Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Stanley Security Nederland B.V., Stanley Security Oy, Stanley Security Solutions (NI) Limited, Stanley Security Solutions - Europe Limited, Stanley Security Solutions Australia Pty Ltd, Stanley Security Solutions Inc., Stanley Security Sverige AB, Stanley Technical Services Ltd., Stanley Tools SAS, Stanley U.K. Holding Ltd., Stanley UK Acquisition Company Limited, Stanley UK Services Limited, Stanley Works (Europe) GmbH, Stanley Works (India) Private Limited, Stanley Works (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Stanley Works (Wendeng) Tools Co. Ltd., Stanley Works Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Stanley Works China Investments Limited, Stanley Works Holdings B.V., Stanley Works Limited, Stanley-Bostitch S.A. de c.v., Stanley-Bostitch Servicios S. de R.L. de C.V., SureHand Inc. f.k.a. SBD Aura Inc., Sweepster Attachments LLC, TOG Holdings Inc., TOG Manufacturing Company Inc., TSI Monitoring LLC, TSI Sales & Installation LLC, The Black & Decker Corporation, The EAP Acquisition Co. LLC, The Farmington River Power Company, The Ferry Cap & Set Screw Company, The Stanley Works (Langfang) Fastening Systems Co. Ltd., The Stanley Works (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., The Stanley Works (Shanghai) Management Co. Ltd., The Stanley Works (Zhongshan) Tool Co. Ltd., The Stanley Works Israel Ltd., The Stanley Works Limited, The Stanley Works Pty. Ltd., Tong Lung Metal Industry, Tucker Fasteners Limited, Tucker GmbH, Tucker S.R.O., Universal Inspection Systems Limited, Visiocom International Pte Ltd, Voss Industries Inc., Wintech Corporation Limited, XMARK Corporation, Yong Ru Plastics Industry (Suzhou) Co. Ltd, and Zag USA Inc.. United Technologies Corporation provides technology products and services to building systems and aerospace industries worldwide. Its Otis segment designs, manufactures, sells, and installs passenger and freight elevators, escalators, and moving walkways; and offers modernization products to upgrade elevators and escalators, as well as maintenance and repair services. The company's Carrier segment provides heating, ventilating, air conditioning, refrigeration, fire, security, and building automation products, solutions, and services for commercial, government, infrastructure, residential, and refrigeration and transportation applications. This segment also offers building services, including audit, design, installation, system integration, repair, maintenance, and monitoring. Its Pratt & Whitney segment supplies aircraft engines for commercial, military, business jet, and general aviation markets; and provides aftermarket maintenance, repair, and overhaul, as well as fleet management services. The company's Collins Aerospace Systems segment provides electric power generation, power management, and distribution systems; air data and aircraft sensing systems; engine control, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems; engine components; environmental control systems; fire and ice detection, and protection systems; propeller systems; engine nacelle systems; aircraft lighting, seating, and cargo systems; actuation and landing systems; space products and subsystems; avionics systems; flight controls, communications, navigation, oxygen, and training systems; food and beverage preparation, and storage and galley systems; and lavatory and wastewater management systems. The company offers its services through manufacturers' representatives, distributors, wholesalers, dealers, retail outlets, and sales representatives, as well as directly to customers. United Technologies Corporation was founded in 1934 and is headquartered in Farmington, Connecticut. Read More Vermilion Energy Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the acquisition, exploration, development, and production of petroleum and natural gas in North America, Europe, and Australia. It owns 81% working interest in 642,300 net acres of developed land and 87% working interest in 376,700 net acres of undeveloped land, and 613 net producing natural gas wells and 3,034 net producing oil wells in Canada; and 96% working interest in 248,900 net acres of developed land and 91% working interest in 222,100 net acres of undeveloped land in the Aquitaine and Paris Basins, and 325 net producing oil wells and 3.0 net producing gas wells in France. The company also owns 49% working interest in 930,000 net acres of land and 51 net producing natural gas wells in the Netherlands; and 36,900 net developed acres and 965,900 net undeveloped acres of land, and 61 net producing oil wells and 8 net producing natural gas wells in Germany. In addition, it owns offshore Corrib natural gas field located to the northwest coast of Ireland; and 100% working interest in the Wandoo offshore oil field and related production assets that covers 59,600 acres located on Western Australia's northwest shelf. Further, the company holds 138,000 net acres of land in the Powder River basin, and 136.6 net producing oil wells in the United States; and 951,200 net acres of land in Hungary, 244,900 net acres of land in Slovakia, and 2.4 million net acres of land in Croatia. Vermilion Energy Inc. was founded in 1994 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada. Read More Saga plc provides general insurance, package and cruise holidays, and personal finance products and services in the United Kingdom. The company operates in three segments: Insurance, Travel, and Other Businesses and Central Costs. It offers car, home, health, travel, landlord, boat, motorhome, caravan, pet, and personal accident, breakdown cover, building, content, renter, holiday, and holiday home insurance. The company also operates and delivers package tours and cruise holiday products; and provides equity release and care funding advice, savings accounts, credit cards, and wealth management services, as well as shares ISA and share dealing services. In addition, it offers mailing house services; retirement benefit schemes; and publishes Saga Magazine, as well as repairs automotive vehicles. The company was formerly known as Saga Limited and changed its name to Saga plc in May 2014. Saga plc was founded in 1950 and is headquartered in Folkestone, the United Kingdom. Read More Ameriprise Financial, Inc. operates as a holding company. The firm provides financial planning, asset management and insurance services to individuals, businesses and institutions. It operates through the following business segments: Advice & Wealth Management, Asset Management, Retirement & Protection Solutions, and Corporate & Other. The Advice & Wealth Management segment provides financial planning and advice, as well as full service brokerage and banking services, primarily to retail clients through the company's financial advisors. The Asset Management segment provides investment advice and investment products to retail and institutional clients. It also provides products and services on a global scale through two complementary asset management businesses: Columbia Management and Threadneedle. The Columbia Management business primarily provides U.S. domestic products and services and Threadneedle primarily provides international investment products and services. Its international retail products are primarily provided through third-party financial institutions. The segments retail products include mutual funds and variable product funds underlying insurance and annuity separat Read More Cenovus Energy Inc., together with its subsidiaries, develops, produces, and markets crude oil, natural gas liquids, and natural gas in Canada, the United States and the Asia Pacific region. The company operates through Oil Sands, Conventional, and Refining and Marketing segments. The Oil Sands segment develops and produces bitumen in northeast Alberta. Its bitumen assets include Foster Creek, Christina Lake, and Narrows Lake, as well as other projects in the early stages of development. The Conventional segment holds assets primarily located in Elmworth-Wapiti, Kaybob-Edson, and Clearwater operating areas of British Columbia and Alberta, as well as various interests in natural gas processing facilities. The Refining and Marketing segment transports and sells crude oil, natural gas, and NGLs. This segment owns a 50% ownership in Wood River and Borger refineries located in the United States; and owns and operates a crude-by-rail terminal in Alberta. Cenovus Energy Inc. was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada. Read More There is not enough analysis data for Chaparral Energy. 4.0 Community Rank Outperform Votes Chaparral Energy has received 128 outperform votes. (Add your outperform vote.) Underperform Votes Chaparral Energy has received 88 underperform votes. (Add your underperform vote.) Community Sentiment Chaparral Energy has received 59.26% outperform votes from our community. MarketBeat's community ratings are surveys of what our community members think about Chaparral Energy and other stocks. Vote Outperform if you believe CHAP will outperform the S&P 500 over the long term. Vote Underperform if you believe CHAP will underperform the S&P 500 over the long term. You may vote once every thirty days. Previous Next "To not do what we've been doing for 20-something years, to have that taken away from us last year, you love something this much, once you have it back in your hands, you love it, you cherish it, protect it that much more. So I just want to put a guitar around my shoulders and stand out in stage center and say, 'Let's go.'" However, as UVa officials met with Shenandoah Valley officials, they ran into concerns about the potential for duplication of services, according to Swensen. Sen. Emmett W. Hanger, R-Mount Solon, was concerned that UVas plan would threaten community hospital and health care provider Augusta Health. On Friday, Hanger said that Pamela Sutton-Wallace, CEO of the UVa Health System, informed him on April 19 that UVa had decided not to move forward with the proposed project. It was their decision to make, but obviously in part the decision was influenced by concerns about potential duplication of services that are already being provided by Augusta Health, he said. Virginia state appropriations typically ask health care providers not to double up publicly subsidized services within a certain area. Certain types of new health care facilities also are required to file a certificate of public need, which also stipulates no unnecessary duplication of services, but Swensen said offerings proposed in Augusta would not have required such a certificate. She described being sexually assaulted 14 years ago, saying she did not report it to the police or tell anyone. Many people we know around us are also suffering in silence," she said. She said she stood by Fairfax after the first allegation was made, by Tyson. "I first began to have my doubts about the side I was standing on when I first heard from Dr. Vanessa Tyson. Her story began to sound too familiar to me and I became ill at the attempts to discredit her, to attack her, to threaten her with defamation suits and criminal prosecution." After Watson made her allegations public, McClure said, she knew the allegations could not be written off. "I wondered if my abuser were ever elected to public office and I decided to speak out, how would I be treated? Would people attempt to label me as crazy, as a partisan pawn? Perhaps as an opportunist? Would I be threatened with lawsuits and legal action and would my abuser use the power of their office sitting on top of the dais to condemn me as a modern-day lynch mob thats tantamount to those who murdered Emmett Till?" CoC decided not to consider the NBCC's bid as it found the offer to be conditional and subject to approvals from various government departments. (Photo: PTI) New Delhi: Lenders of debt-ridden Jaypee Infratech are believed to have rejected the bid of state-owned NBCC Ltd and will put to vote the offer of Mumbai-based Suraksha Realty for acquiring the realty firm, sources said. A meeting of Committee of Creditors (CoC) was held on Friday to consider the revised offers of both NBCC Ltd and Suraksha group to acquire Jaypee Infratech and complete over 20,000 housing units in various projects in Noida. According to a source, the CoC decided not to consider the NBCC's bid as it found the offer to be conditional and subject to approvals from various government departments. The offer of NBCC, a public sector unit under the aegis of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, put some other conditions as well. In the meeting, NBCC representatives sought some time to take approvals from different government departments, sources added. Under the insolvency law, conditional bids are not allowed. NBCC had submitted its revised bid on April 24 and offered to give lenders Rs 5,000 crore worth land parcels as against the earlier offer of land worth Rs 3,000 crore. But it was offering only 950 acres of land as against 1,450 acres earlier. Suraksha group has also made an offer of land worth Rs 5,000 crore. NBCC offered lenders the Yamuna Expressway that connects Noida to Agra in Uttar Pradesh in both earlier and revised bids. Meanwhile, business conglomerate Adani Group had also expressed interest to bid for Jaypee Infratech. However, lenders are unlikely to seek Adani's offer until this round of insolvency proceedings gets completed. Last week, crisis-hit Jaypee Group's promoters made a fresh attempt to retain control over its arm Jaypee Infratech by seeking the support of homebuyers for its debt resolution plan under the IBC. Jaypee Group Chairman Manoj Gaur had apologised to thousands of distressed homebuyers and promised to infuse Rs 2,000 crore to complete apartments over the next four years. The group had submitted a Rs 10,000-crore plan before lenders in April 2018 as well, but the same was not accepted. In 2017, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) admitted the application by an IDBI Bank-led consortium seeking resolution of Jaypee Infratech. Anuj Jain was appointed the Interim Resolution Professional (IRP) to oversee the company's operations and undertake insolvency proceedings. In the first round of insolvency proceedings, the Rs 7,350 crore bid of Lakshdeep, part of Suraksha group, was rejected by lenders as it was found to be substantially lower than the company's net worth and assets. In October 2018, the IRP started a fresh initiative to revive Jaypee Infratech on the NCLT's direction. The realty firm has an outstanding debt of nearly Rs 9,800 crore. Jaypee Group's flagship firm Jaiprakash Associates Ltd (JAL) had submitted Rs 750 crore in the registry of the Supreme Court for the refund to buyers and the amount is lying with the NCLT. Jaypee Infratech is a subsidiary of JAL. The FC5 variety has a lower moisture content required to make snacks such as potato chips. ( Photo from Twitter/Lay's India) New Delhi: PepsiCo Inc has sued four Indian farmers for cultivating a potato variety that the snack food and drinks maker claims infringes its patent, the company and the growers said on Friday. Pepsi has sued the farmers for cultivating the FC5 potato variety, grown exclusively for its popular Lays potato chips. The FC5 variety has a lower moisture content required to make snacks such as potato chips. The company is seeking more than 10 million rupees (USD 142,840) each for alleged patent infringement. The farmers grow potatoes in the western state of Gujarat, a leading producer of Indias most consumed vegetable. We have been growing potatoes for a long time and we didnt face this problem ever, as weve mostly been using the seeds saved from one harvest to plant the next years crop, said Bipin Patel, one of the four farmers sued by Pepsi. Patel did not say how he came by the PepsiCo variety. A court in Ahmedabad, the business hub of Gujarat, on Friday agreed to hear the case on June 12, said Anand Yagnik, the farmers lawyer. In this instance, we took judicial recourse against people who were illegally dealing in our registered variety, a PepsiCo India spokesman said. This was done to protect our rights and safeguard the larger interest of farmers that are engaged with us and who are using and benefiting from seeds of our registered variety. PepsiCo, which set up its first potato chips plant in India in 1989, supplies the FC5 potato variety to a group of farmers who in turn sell their produce to the company at a fixed price. The company said the four farmers could join the group of growers who exclusively grow the FC5 variety for its Lays potato chips. PepsiCo India has proposed to amicably settle with the people who were unlawfully using the seeds of its registered variety. PepsiCo has also proposed that they may become part of its collaborative potato farming programme, the company spokesman said in a statement. If the farmers do not wish to grow the FC5 potato variety for PepsiCo, they can simply sign an agreement with the company to cultivate other available varieties, he added. The All India Kisan Sabha, or All India Farmers Forum, has asked the Indian government to protect the farmers. The forum has also called for a boycott of Lays chips and PepsiCos other products. The Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. PepsiCo is the second large US company to face patent infringement issues in India. Stung by a long-standing intellectual property dispute, seed maker Monsanto, now owned by German drugmaker Bayer AG, withdrew from some businesses in India over a cotton-seed dispute with farmers, Reuters reported in 2017. Trade friction between India and the US has escalated after US President Donald Trump announced plans earlier this year to end preferential trade treatment for India. India has once again delayed the implementation of higher tariffs on some goods imported from the United States to May 15, a government official said on Friday. The new tariff structure was to come into force from May 2, the spokeswoman said without citing reasons for the delay. Angered by Washingtons refusal to exempt it from new steel and aluminum tariffs, New Delhi decided in June last year to raise the import tax from Aug. 4 on some US products including almonds, walnuts and apples. But since then, New Delhi has repeatedly delayed the implementation of the new tariff. Trade friction between India and the US has escalated after US President Donald Trump announced plans earlier this year to end preferential trade treatment for India that allows duty-free entry for up to USD 5.6 billion worth of its exports to the United States. In a further blow, US on Monday demanded buyers of Iranian oil stop purchases by May or face sanctions, ending six months of waivers which allowed Irans eight biggest buyers including India to continue importing limited volumes. Mumbai: Ever since Karan Johar made the announcement of Student Of The Year 2, Alia has expressed her desire to make an appearance in the film. Starring Tiger Shroff, Ananya Pandey and Tara Sutaria, SOTY 2 is going to have quite a few peppy tracks and the team also shot a dance number with American actor Will Smith. It seems like Karan, who has been mentoring Alia, couldnt help but give in to Alias request. The ex-student of the year was invited to shoot a dance number with the cast. The special song, which was shot recently, will be out soon. However, we wonder whether Alias classmates, Varun Dhawan and Sidharth Malhotra, also be part of this song? Choreographed by Bollywoods beloved Farah Khan, the song is reported to be a foot-tapping track. Disha Patanis career is in a great phase right now as the actress will not only share screen space with Salman Khan in his next, Bharat, but also has a substantial role in the film. Plus, her latest song Slow Motion from the film has got a thumbs up from fans. The young actress seems to be in Salman Khans good books (an actor known for encouraging and giving movie breaks to his friends), because after the big-ticket film Bharat with Salman, Disha will be seen in another Salman starrer, Kick 2 according to industry sources. However, apart from Kick 2, the actress is in talks with Salman for one more project. Disha kick-started her career in the industry with the MS Dhoni biopic and then, was seen opposite Tiger Shroff in the blockbuster film Baaghi 2. Sunny Deol recently made news for his foray into politics the actor has joined the BJP and will be contesting from Gurdaspur. And it looks like this new responsibility is keeping the actor on his toes. A source close to the actor says, The last leg of shooting for the film Pal Pal Dil Ke Paas, which was to happen earlier in Mumbai, was postponed. So the shooting of the film will now happen only after the elections get over as Sunny is busy giving all his time to the political arena. The source adds that the shooting could resume at the end of April. Maybe the shooting of Pal Pal Dil Ke Paas, which will also star Karan Deol, will now begin from April 30 and will continue for a week. The location will be the same, Hotel Horizon in Juhu, Mumbai. According to the source, the film revolves around a contemporary love story, which has Manali as its backdrop. And apparently, Sunny Deol has fallen in love with the picturesque hill station. Most of the film was shot there last year. Sunny Deol has loved the locations so much that he has leased a farm in Manali for about 10 years. This farm has two beautiful bungalows and a few cottages with attractive parks too. Some pieces of furniture have been shifted from his Mumbai office to Manali as well. So having a farmhouse there will be a good vacation place for the Deols, concludes our source. It certainly seems from the stills from the sets of Rahul Ravindrans forthcoming directorial Manmadhudu 2 that Rakul Preet Singh and Nagarjuna are having a blast shooting for the film. This is the first time that the Dev actress is working with Nagarjuna, and she says that it has been an amazing experience so far. I totally admire the person that he is. He is an excellent co-star, a chilled out human being, not egotistic, and forever concerned about everybody on the sets. He prefers to bask in the joy of every moment and live life king size. And now that I think of it, I kind of get why people call him King Nagarjuna. Ive always been quite a fan of him, and now Im an even bigger fan, Rakul said. Although the actress is tightlipped about her role, she seems quite upbeat about it. Our roles are fantastic, and both our roles are completely different from anything weve ever done before. The script is hilarious, which is probably why were pretty much always laughing on the sets. This is easily one of the most fun experiences Ive ever had on a films sets, she said. Rakul and Nagarjuna happen to share common interests as well! Weve bonded a great deal while working out together, and were both foodies. Since we were in Portugal, we try a new cuisine almost every day. Oh, and we love eating fish, Rakul shared. Having worked with Nagarjuna and Naga Chaitanya, Rakul believes that both the father and the son are very passionate about whatever they pursue. Theyre extremely chilled out, well-behaved, and non-judgmental. The actress is indeed making the most of her stay in Portugal. We have been shooting on the streets of Portugal. Cork is very popular here, and Ive bought a bunch of cork jewelry and artifacts, shares the Jaya Janaki Nayaka actress. South Africa: Minister welcomes findings in Data Services Market Inquiry The Competition Commissions provisional findings and recommendations in the Data Services Market Inquiry, have been welcomed by Communications Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams. The market inquiry follows engagements between the Ministries of Communications, then Telecommunications and Postal Services, and Economic Development regarding South Africas communications costs, in particular, the persistently high data prices. To ensure an effective and meaningful role of South Africans in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, digital inclusion must be at the centre. However, this cannot be achieved if the cost to communicate remains unaffordable. We are therefore left with no choice but to use the legislation at our disposal to address this socio-economic imperative, said Ndabeni-Abrahams in a statement on Friday. In response to the findings, the Ministry of Communications will embark on a requisite process as defined by the Electronic Communications Act No. 36 of 2005 (as amended). According to the inquirys findings, the existing international comparisons on mobile prepaid data prices collectively indicates that South Africa currently performs poorly relative to other countries, with prices generally on the more expensive end. The ITU [International Telecommunication Union] data shows that South Africa ranks poorly when compared across a worldwide selection of countries and is considerably more expensive than the cheapest offers. The ITU also finds that South Africa also ranks poorly relative to other African countries as a group, reads the report. SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2019-04-27. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Ayuk Tabe au tribunal Facebook The Defense team of Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and other Separatist leaders, detained at the Yaounde Central Prison, Kondengui, have declared their clients would not take part in court hearings again, until proceedings at the Appeal court are heard. In a press release issued this Friday, April 26 by the office of the chairman for media and communication for the Defense team, appearances of lawyers and their clients before the Military Tribunal Yaounde, would be boycotted as from April 29th, 2019. According to these lawyers, their appeal case before the Yaounde Court of Appeal, should be attended to, following the law on criminal proceedings which states that once an interlocutory appeal is filed, the lower court obligatorily, suspends all other business and hold on proceedings until the matter is heard by the Appeal Court. The defense team is appealing a decision by the military court, to judge the 10 separatist leaders(who are refugees and asylum seekers) in Yaounde, rather than sending them back to Nigeria, where they were arrested. Last court session that held on the 8th of April, the Anglophone separatist leaders, boycotted the session, although the presiding judge later adjourned the case to the 29th of April. The accused refused to leave their cells. Julius Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, along with nine others had declared during a hearing in Cameroons military court, that they are not Cameroonians but belonged to the so-called Ambazonia State. They are standing trial on charges of terrorism, secession, civil war and more. They could face a death sentence, if found guilty. They were all arrested by a Nigerian special force at a hotel, and repatriated to Cameroon. An Abuja court had passed judgement on the case, calling on Cameroonian authorities, to send back the accused and also pay them some compensation for damages. Cameroonian authorities have declared them terrorists, stating they would face the law. The alert comes when security and intelligence agencies are concerned about the existence of sleeper cells on Indian soil. (Photo: AP) Mumbai: On late Friday night, Karnataka Police picked up a retired Army personnel after he reportedly called the police control room claiming to have information about possible terror attacks. Sundara Murthy, 65, was traced to his house in Avalahalli around 10 pm, reported Hindustan Times. A senior police officer said in light of the facts, it was almost certain that the call was a hoax. On Friday, the Bengaluru police received a tip-off about a possible terror attack on multiple cities and the gathering of a group of terrorists in Tamil Nadus Ramnathapuram. According to Hindustan Times report, a caller claiming to be a lorry driver said major cities in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Goa, Maharashtra and Puducherry would be hit by terror attacks. A letter was issued by Karnataka director general of police to the states mentioned in the tip. He also claimed that there are 19 terrorists present at Ramanathapuram, Tamil Nadu, the letter added. A Karnataka police official said the letter had been sent out after analysing the tip-off, which was received around 5:30 pm. Inputs with the police suggest that over a dozen terrorists could have sneaked through Ramanathapuram, the officer added. Ramanathapuram is few kilometres west of Rameswaran on the east coast, which is a short nautical distance from Sri Lanka. The alert came when security and intelligence agencies are concerned about the existence of sleeper cells on Indian soil. Bengaluru: After the city police commissioner issued a security alert to all religious prayers hall, the heads of three major religions - Hindu, Muslim and Christian, plan to hold meetings to implement various safety measures. In the wake of Easter Sunday attack in Sri Lanka, Police Commissioner T. Suneel Kumar had issued security alert and asked religious heads to increase security and alert police if they come across any suspicious activity. Agamatraya Mahamandala President Somasundara Deekshith who heads temples run by Muzrai Department will meet the Muzrai Commissioner to enhance security cover at all temples and post guards. He also suggested that trust and privately run temples must also follow certain rules like that of temples under muzrai department and a circular must be issued in this regard. Temples like Gavi Gangadhara temple attracts large number of devotees, especially during Shivaratri and Kartika Somavara and security should be tightened, he said. No doubt the muzrai department has installed two CCTV cameras but given the number of footfalls of the devotees it is not sufficient, he felt. In addition he added that he would hold a meeting with all the priests and heads of the temples to ascertain the situation. Maqsood Imran Rashadi, Imam and Khateeb of City Jamia Masjid said there are 1,200 mosques across the city and 6,000 across the state. Heads, presidents and secretaries of all these mosques have been asked to install CCTV at all the entry and exit points. However, CCTVs per se cannot prevent any disasters, he has also suggested to appoint volunteers to zero in on movement of suspicious people and inform the same to the police as well to the Jamia Masjid head. The Imam said that during the Friday prayer meetings terror attacks in the name of Islam must be condemned and youth should be guided on the right path. He said the police commissioner had visited city Jamia Masjid and was impressed by the security measures. Public relation officer of Archdiocese of Bangalore J.A. Kantaraj said that once the Archbishop of Bengaluru is in town an emergency meeting would be convened to follow the security diktats issued by the police department. Most churches have installed high resolution security cameras even before the security alert were issued. He lamented that office of Archbishop of Bengaluru did not receive an invitation and said the office would be happy to meet and update on the security measures. Infant Jesus Church is poorly guarded A visit to Infant Jesus Church in Viveknagar shows how vulnerable the shrine is as it is frequented by thousands of people and has multiple entry and exit points. Security guards posted at the Church told Deccan Chronicle that most devotees are reluctant to undergo any security checks. This can be taken advantage of by radical groups. The churchs main hall has a capacity to accommodate 2,500 people and it witnesses heavy rush on Thursdays. Although the Church has 175 CCTV cameras fixed at different locations, most gates are unmanned and lack metal detectors. The condition of some other churches, mosques and temples in the city are no different. Chennai: A city-bound private plane carrying 179 passengers on board to Ahmedabad made an emergency landing in Chennai international airport due to a technical problem. A major air mishap was averted as the pilot detected the snag earlier. According to airport sources, a private aircraft carrying 179 passengers and 5 cabin crewmembers which boarded from Chennai airport on Friday morning at around 6: 55 am to Ahmedabad, which when the flight underwent a technical snag. The aircraft's engine failed. The pilot became suspicious and alerted the air traffic control team at the Chennai airport. A full emergency was declared at the airport and safety precautions were taken. After 30 minutes, the aircraft was slowly descended onto the runway. All the 184 members in the aircraft were safe and no injuries were reported. After six years the aircraft took off from the Chennai airport, sources said. Further investigations are on. The judge said this court is of the view that as per the State Commission for Protection of Child Rights report, majority of cases are due to relationship between adolescent boys and girls. (Representional Image) Chennai: Pointing out the report of the State Commission for Protection of Child Rights that majority of cases registered under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act, are due to relationship between adolescent boys and girls, the Madras high court has suggested that the definition of Child under the Pocso Act be redefined as 16 years instead of 18. Justice V. Parthiban made the suggestion while setting aside an order of a trial court convicting and sentencing an accused to 10 years RI in a case relating to alleged sexual assault on a minor girl. The judge said this court is of the view that as per the State Commission for Protection of Child Rights report, majority of cases are due to relationship between adolescent boys and girls. Though under section 2 (d) of the Act, Child is defined as a person below the age of 18 years and in case of any love affair between a girl and a boy, where the girl happened to be 16 or 17 years old, either in the school final or entering the college, the relationship invariably assumes the penal character by subjecting the boy to the rigorous of Pocso Act. Once the age of the girl is established in such relationship as below 18 years, the boy involved in the relationship is sure to be sentenced to 7 years or 10 years as minimum imprisonment, as the case may be, the judge pointed out. The judge said when the girl below 18 years is involved in a relationship with the teen age boy or little over the teen age, it is always a question mark as to how such relationship could be defined, though such relationship would be the result of mutual innocence and biological attraction. Such relationship cannot be construed as an unnatural one or alien to between relationship of opposite sexes. But, in such cases where the age of the girl is below 18 years, even though she was capable of giving consent for relationship, being mentally matured, unfortunately, the provisions of the Pocso Act get attracted if such relationship transcends beyond platonic limits, attracting strong arm of law sanctioned by the provisions of Pocso Act, catching up with the so called offender of sexual assault, warranting a severe imprisonment of 7/10 years. Therefore, on a profound consideration of the ground realities, the definition of 'Child' under section 2 (d) of the Pocso Act can be redefined as 16 instead of 18, the judge added. The judge said any consensual sex after the age of 16 or bodily contact or allied acts can be excluded from the rigorous provisions of the Pocso Act and such sexual assault, if it is so defined can be tried under more liberal provision, which can be introduced in the Act itself and in order to distinguish the cases of teen age relationship after 16 years, from the cases of sexual assault on children below 16 years. The Act can be amended to the effect that the age of the offender ought not to be more than five years or so than the consensual victim girl of 16 years or more. So that the impressionable age of the victim girl cannot be taken advantage of by a person who is much older and crossed the age of presumable infatuation or innocence, the judge added. The judge said in this regard, the authorities were directed to place the decision before the competent authority and initiate appropriate steps to explore whether the suggestions made by this court were acceptable to all stakeholders. The authorities were directed therefore to take the issue forward as they deem fit, as expeditiously as possible, the judge added. A mobile phone, some cash and jewellery was found missing from the house, following which a case under sections 302 (murder) and 392 (robbery) of the Indian Penal Code has been registered and investigation initiated, police said, adding the cause of the death is yet to be ascertained. (Photo: File I Representational) A former Indian Air Force wing commander's wife was found dead at her home in Delhi's Dwarka, police said on Saturday. The woman was identified as 52-year-old Meenu Jain, a resident of Air Force Naval Officers' Enclave in Dwarka's Sector-7, they added. According to a senior police officer, Meenu's 76-year-old father HP Garg, a retired IIT Delhi professor who is currently working on a research project at the institute, said his son Darpan called him on Thursday evening to inform that Meenu was not keeping well. He left his office for Meenu's home at around 7.45 pm. On the way, as he called his daughter, she said she was fine, the officer said. The woman also told her father that she had eaten cashew nuts, which had led to some reaction. HP Garg still went to her daughter's house on Thursday. He called her again at around 7 am on Friday but her phone was not reachable following which, he, along with Darpan, went to her house. The main door to the house was open while another wooden door was closed. They knocked on the door. When there was no response, Darpan entered the house from the neighbour's balcony, the police said. He broke the glass and entered the house to see Meenu Jain lying unconscious in her room. Meenu Jain's maid, who had a pair of keys to the house, came there at around 8.30 am. She tried to open the door but it was jammed. Subsequently, the door was broken open, the police said. Ms Jain was taken to the Ayushman Hospital in Dwarka Sector-10, where she was declared "brought dead", they added. The police were informed about the incident at around 9 am and a case of murder and robberyof the was registered. The police suspect that the accused entered the house with the intention of robbing Meenu Jain. The family members of the deceased said two mobile phones, the jewellery the deceased was wearing, Rs. 5 lakh in Indian currency and Rs. 2 lakh in foreign currency were missing from the house. The police seized three pillows and a towel with blood stains from the room. Three vessels and five cups, used for making and drinking tea, were also seized from the kitchen. The post-mortem of the body had been conducted and the exact cause of death would be known once the report came, the police said. The woman's husband, VK Jain, a retired Indian Air Force (IAF) wing commander and currently working as a commercial pilot with IndiGo, was informed about the incident. VK Jain, who was on duty at the time of the incident, reached the house on Friday night, the police said. The couple has a son and a daughter. While son Ajay Jain, who works at an MNC in Noida, visits his parents on weekends, daughter Shiwani Jain is a doctor and lives in Goa with her husband, the police said. Hyderabad: In another death caused due to sheer civic negligence, a 6-year-old boy, Divit Sharma, died after a heavy cement bench fell on him on Thursday evening. The chilling incident was captured on video. Divit, after an exhausting round of games, sat on a wobbling cement bench in the community park of Janapriya Apartments, Hyder-guda. A few minutes into his break, while Divit was swinging on the detached cement bench, he lost balance and slipped, following which the bench fell on him, causing a severe injury on his head. A case of suspicious death has been registered at Rajendranagar police station. The residents association, which is in charge of the maintenance of the community park, is blamed for the mishap. Divit was the son of Bishan Sharma, a software employee, and Pragathi Sharma, a housewife. Shattered by the incident, Bishan Sharma said, We have lost our son due to the negligence of the civic authorities in charge of the maintenance of the parks facilities. No one can bring him back now, but we are hoping that the authorities become conscious of their duties towards the community. The residents who witnessed the incident also alleged improper maintenance to have caused the death. One eyewitness said, We lost Divit to the negligent attitude of the authorities concerned towards the maintenance of the apartments facilities. Divit succumbed to his injuries while we waited for the ambulance, which took about 30 minutes to arrive. The Rajendra Nagar Inspector of police G. Suresh said, The bench was not in a good condition. The boy was found swinging on it and then lost his balance, as a result of which he slipped and the bench collapsed on him, causing a severe injury to his head. The duty doctors at the hospital declared that the boy was brought dead. A case of suspicious death has been registered and further investigation is underway. The city has not yet recovered from the death of the 6-year-old boy Monish, who died of electrocution in PBEL citys gated community, again due to civic negligence. In Monishs case, the Narsingi Police arrested the Managing Director of Goldenstar Facilities and Services Private Limited along with 5 other staff for criminal negligence under section 304 (A) of the IPC. A doctor administers a free pneumococcal vaccine to a child at ICH on Friday. Director and Superintendent of ICH Dr A. T. Arasar Seeralar also seen. (Image DC) Chennai: The Institute of Child Health and Hospital for Children (ICH) celebrates 'World Immunization Week' in a noble way. The ICH initiated a free Pneumococcal vaccine for children with complicated congenital heart diseases who have undergone surgery and children with other chronic diseases. It may be noted that these vaccines are expensive. We will vaccinate the children less than two years of age with PCV 13, where as those above two years will be administered with PPSV 23. PCV 13 and PPSV 23 vaccine, which cost approximately Rs.4,500 and Rs.1,500 respectively. Both vaccines are to be administered free of cost for eligible children of Institute of Child Health and Hospital for Children, said Dr A.T. Arasar Seeralar, director & superintendent, Government Children Hospital ICH The same vaccines cost more in private hospital and I cannot afford it. It is a commendable effort of the hospital authorities, said a parent from Virudhachalam district, whose two-and-a-half-year-old daughter was vaccinated. Pneumonia is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in children. Invasive pneumococcal diseases caused by Streptococcus. This service is an extension of the various complicated cardiac surgeries performed by ICH for the children with congenital heart diseases. Patients have welcome this service. High Dependency Unit The ICH also opened an eight-bedded supportive unit for Pediatric Intensive Care Department and Emergency Department, making the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit of ICH becomes one of the biggest Intensive Care Units in India. This facility will augment the services of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit and facilitates good recovery of critically ill children. Each intensive care bed is supported by a dedicated ventilator, multipart monitor and infusion pumps, he said. According to a source, NIA staffers suspect a few Muslims youths to be connected with the terrorist gang involved in the Easter Sunday Sri Lankan serial blasts. (Representional Image) Coimbatore: The NIA (National Investigating Agency) personnel have started investigating a few Muslim youths in Coimbatore in connection with the Sri Lanka serial blasts. According to a source, NIA staffers suspect a few Muslims youths to be connected with the terrorist gang involved in the Easter Sunday Sri Lankan serial blasts. Three days before the blasts, a person from Sri Lanka landed in Coimbatore and met a few ISIS sympathizers, it is alleged. Last September, Variety Hall road police picked up a 7seven-member gang who allegedly planned to murder Hindu leaders here including Arjun Sampath. Later on the case was transferred to the NIA who took the youth into custody, raided their houses and seized electronic devices including hard disks, pen drives, mobile phone sim-cards and laptops containing vital information. Following further investigations NIA confirmed the youths to be ISIS sympathizers. After tracking their social media accounts, NIA personnel came to know that the gang has Facebook links with a few persons in Sri Lanka who were allegedly planning a huge blast. Though the NIA alerted Sri Lanka through the CBI, the Sri Lankan government was apathetic and did not take the necessary safety measures, added the source. Meanwhile, the Poonamallee court in Chennai granted bail two months ago to the seven persons arrested in connection with the "plans to murder Hindu leaders". The NIA officials recently investigated six others from Coimbatore in connection with Facebook posts with another group in Sri Lanka. One among the seven, Ashik, who was released on bail a couple of months ago, told the press, ''I am no way connected with the Sri Lankan blasts. The NIA always suspects and targets Muslim youth in all terrorist activities happening across the country. I was tortured by them when they arrested me in connection with the attempt to murder Hindu leaders." After the questioning, he was handed over to Balasar police station in Rapar taluka in the district, the BSF said. (Representational Image) Bhuj: A Pakistani national was apprehended from Kutch district of Gujarat for illegally entering India, the Border Security Force (BSF) has said. A BSF team held the man at 3.30 am on Friday, as soon as he sneaked into India, it said. "The man, identified as Tajgi Meghwal (28), a Pakistani Hindu, was apprehended from the Indo-Pak border near the border out post (BOP) called 'Jairaj' in Kutch district," the BSF said in a statement issued on Friday night. During his initial questioning, it came to light that Meghwal was from Kasba village in Nagarparkar taluka of Tharparkar district in Sindh province of Pakistan. He was found carrying a comb, a forceps clip and clothes, it said. After the questioning, he was handed over to Balasar police station in Rapar taluka in the district, the BSF said. Sources said Das was earlier arrested in his native place for allegedly sending fake news on WhatsApp. Recently, he jumped bail, came to the city and took up a job. Chennai: Chennai police arrested a man suspected of being part of a terror group based in West Bengal in the early hours of Friday. Tamil Nadu 'Q' Branch sleuths and the city police are questioning the man, identified as Kandarpa Das (26) of Siliguri in Assam. Police said Das worked as an assistant housekeeper at a private hospital on Nelson Manickham Road, Arumbakkam. Sources said that he had threatened some fellow staff members after a quarrel by claiming to be a terrorist. Giving details, sources said Das was involved in a brawl with some employees from North India and shouted at them saying he was a Naxalite and that they should not trouble him. His co-workers were shocked on hearing this and reported the matter to the security supervisor who happens to be a retired police officer. When he was inquiring about the matter with Das, he threatened the security officer claiming that he is a militant. The security officer alerted the city police. A team from the Anna Nagar police nabbed Das from his residence in Aminjikarai early on Friday. They checked Das's phone and found a picture of him carrying a gun. Inquiries revealed that Das was a member of the outfit called Greater Coochbehar Liberation Organisation (GCLO), an extremist organisation active in West Bengal. Sources said Das was earlier arrested in his native place for allegedly sending fake news on WhatsApp. Recently, he jumped bail, came to the city and took up a job. Officials of the Special Investigation Division and Q Branch are questioning him. John Fru Ndi Archives Suspected separatists have kidnapped the National Chairman of the Social Democratic Front(SDF) party, around Her in Kumbo, as he and others were accompanying the corpse of late Honourable Joseph Banadzem. The convey is said to be stranded on that road, as attempts at reaching a possible agreement is expected. Armed separatists had earlier warned that the corpse of the late parliamentarian, shouldnt be buried to his homeland in Kumbo, Bui Division, after opposition parliamentarians boycotted an earlier call for them to resign. 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. The family of late MP had programmed his burial for this Saturday in Kumbo, with a wake service that took place yesterday. The SDF National Chair had earlier declared he would accompany the remains of one of his most committed militants to his native land, for burial. 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, considering the magnitude of the damage caused from accident, the 42-year old devotee did not respond to treatment and was declared brain-dead after the mandatory tests. (Representional Image) Coimbatore: When Sivaprakasam based out of Chennai embarked on a pilgrimage to the Palani temple not far from here, little did he realise that he will go straight to God instead. While on foot to the Palani temple, he met with a road accident which left him suffer from a traumatic brain injury. He was admitted to Sri Ramakrishna Hospital here. The specialists of critical care team along with the team of neurosurgeons tried their best to save him. However, considering the magnitude of the damage caused from accident, the 42-year old devotee did not respond to treatment and was declared brain-dead after the mandatory tests. The deceased person's family came ahead and expressed their willingness to donate his vital organs. "While a kidney and liver were transplanted to two individual patients at Sri Ramakrishna Hospital, the other kidney and eyes were allocated to hospitals in Coimbatore." a source said. New Delhi: The Congress on Saturday indicated that it may take legal recourse to seek action against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah over alleged repeated election model code of conduct violations. Senior Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi alleged that 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. 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, Mr Singhvi told media persons, adding that silence can be construed as approval. Taking a jibe at the Election Commission, he called it Election Omission and wondered whether Modi and Shah are outside the ambit of the model code of conduct, which he dubbed as Modi code of conduct. The Congress spokesperson claimed that the two leaders have violated the poll code broadly under three categories: polarisation of votes, invoking armed forces in campaigns and taking out rallies on election day. The EC has taken taken action against several leaders for violating the poll code based on our complaints. We appreciate that. Since the precedent has been set, why not take action against Modi and Shah, he said. Responding to questions on reported remarks by Congress leaders P.C. Chacko and Shatrughan Sinha on Yasin Malik and Mohammed Ali Jinnah respectively, Mr Singhvi said while Sinha has clarified his comments, it would be better if Chacko was approached directly on the issue. Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses et all. Happy reading. Kurnool: As World Veterinary Day was celebrated on Saturday, severe drought conditions prevailing in various parts of Adoni division saw several goats, sheeps and buffalos being sent to slaughter houses. Animals were denied even drinking water and green fodder due to drought. A cattle hostel built at Tadakanakallu, near Kurnool, houses 200 cattle. A plan to replicate such hostels did not take off in the district. Strangely, the district animal husbandry department chose to celebrate World Veterinary Day on Saturday at a posh three-star hotel, unmindful of the travails of the livestock. Migrant labourers, who left their houses in search of livelihood, disposed the animals at throw away prices and they later, were taken to slaughterhouses in Hyderabad, said Eeranna, a marginal farmer at Tuggali. Alur and Maddikera have been facing severe drought conditions. Fakkeerappa, a villager, said that a tank in Alur had totally dried up and unless there is a good bout of rains, there is no hope of replenishing the tank, he said. Deputy director of animal husbandry Rama Chandraiah said that there was 8 per cent decrease in the livestock population when compared to the last census taken in 2012. He said that the district has 8.27 lakhs cows, buffaloes and ox, 20 lakh sheep and goats. He said that drought impact in Adoni division is being tackled by providing fodder and feed. A village revamped input delivery system is in place to provide silage. But a minimum of 18 tonnes order has to be placed. So instead of individual farmers, we are encouraging groups of farmers, with a minimum of 20 people, to place orders for silage, Mr Chandraiah said. To a question on trends in decrease of animal population, he said that while indigenous cows are registering a year on year decrease, the high value animals are registering a rise in population. The government had distributed 2,300 jersey cows to the beneficiaries while self sustaining farmers bought them on their own. He denied that cows and buffaloes were sold away to slaughterhouses. Daltonganj, Jkhand: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah on Saturday slammed the UPA government, alleging that former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh kept silent when terrorists from Pakistan beheaded Indian soldiers. But, now for every bullet fired from across the border, the response is given with double the force, he told a rally in Jharkhands Daltonganj town. Under former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Pakistans alia, malia and balia (referring to terrorists) used to come and take away heads of our jawans after killing them. Even today, I cant forget the incident of Hemrajs beheading and his disrespect. But mouni (silent) baba Manmohan Singh did not even utter a word, Mr Shah said. On January 8, 2013, Lance Naik Hemraj was beheaded by Pakistans Border Action Team along the Indo-Pak border, triggering a nationwide outrage. The BJP chief said, ab goli ka jawab gola se, int ka jawab pathar se. Mr Shah was campaigning for BJPs sitting MP from Palamu and former DGP Vishun Dayal Ram. He hit out at National Conference leader Omar Abdullah for advocating a separate Prime Minister for Jammu and Kashmir and asserted that the state is an inseparable part of India. We will remove Article 370 (of the Constitution) if you make Narendra Modi Prime Minister again, he said. The article grants special status to Jammu and Kashmir. Omar Abdullah wants a separate Prime Minister for Kashmir. Should there be two PMs for one country? Mr Shah asked the gathering, which responded resoun-dingly in the negative. He said as long as there is life in the last BJP worker, nobody can separate Kashmir from India. Kashmir is the crown of India and nobody can snatch it, Mr Shah asserted. Taking a swipe at the Congress for seeking proof of the Balakot airstrike, he said When the nation was rejoicing... The Congress and Pakistan were mourning He also slammed aide Sam Pitroda for asking for more facts on the strike, which was conducted by the Indian Air Force on a terrorist camp in Pakistans Balakot following the Pulwama terror attack. Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses et all. Happy reading. Hyderabad: A petition has been filed before the Telangana High Court urging it to direct the Hyderabad police to register an FIR against Mr P. Harish, an IFS officer who is working in Vietnam as the Indian ambassador, for allegedly consistently violating the Flag Code by displaying the Tricolour in an inverted position. Mr P. Vijender Murthy, practicing advocate from the city, approached the court with a grievance against the Nallakunta police that his complaint had not been registered even though it was two weeks since he filed it against the ambassador. The petitioner submitted that the state police was negligent in taking action in complaint against Mr Harish for violating the Flag Code 2002. In the petition, he contended that he was surprised to see the Indian Flag placed upside down in some of the photographs that featured Mr Harish with high dignitaries of Vietnam. According to him, this is not a single instance of oversight. It has been found in several photos connected to the embassy, he said. A day after the plea was filed in the High Court, a first information report was registered by Nallakunta police in this matter. The IMD has forecast light to moderate rainfall at many places with heavy falls at isolated places over the state on Monday and Tuesday. Thiruvananthapuram: The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has advised fishermen not to venture out into deep sea off Sri Lanka, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu, and south Andhra Pradesh coasts till May 1. Those who are out in deep sea areas were advised to return to the coast by Sunday. The IMD has forecast light to moderate rainfall at many places with heavy falls at isolated places over the state on Monday and Tuesday. Thunderstorm accompanied with gusty winds and lightning at isolated places is likely from Sunday to Tuesday. Light to moderate rainfall was likely at a few places over north coastal Tamil Nadu and coastal Andhra Pradesh on April 30 and May 1. Besides squally winds that were likely to become gale gusting up to a maximum of 145 kmph in the next two days in the equatorial Indian Ocean and adjoining southwest Bay of Bengal, the sea condition was also rough to very rough in these areas, it said. Deep depression over the southeast Bay of Bengal intensified into a cyclonic storm Fani over the southeast Bay of Bengal and lay centred about 1,190 km southeast of Chennai at 11.30 a.m. on Saturday and is likely to intensify into a severe cyclonic storm in the next 24 hours. It will move northwestwards and reach near north Tamil Nadu and south Andhra Pradesh coasts on April 30. However, there was "little chance" of the storm crossing the Tamil Nadu coast as of now but the system was being monitored, the IMD said. Hyderabad: TRS working president K.T. Rama Rao on Saturday advised party workers not to give Opposition parties any opportunity to pounce upon the government. He was addressing the party cadre after hoisting the party flag at Telangana Bhavan on TRS Foundation Day. People kept their faith in the TRS and gave us another opportunity to serve them. We cannot afford to commit mistakes and must rededicate ourselves to live up to peoples expectations, he said. He appealed to the party cadre to work as a bridge between people and the government to realise the dream of Bangaru Telangana. He warned party workers against getting into street fights and asked them to resolve differences on the party platforms. The TRS has become stronger than ever in the state, and the party cadre must work harder to live up to peoples aspirations and expectations, he said. He recalled the 14-year struggle of TRS president K. Chandrasekhar Rao and others for a separate Telangana state. Mr Chandrashekhar Rao had staked his life cor the cause, he said. What began as one mans courageous journey on April 27, 2001 is now legendary. Thousands of people walked along with him during the agitation and today, the numbers have increased to lakhs of people who are walking along with him in realising the dream of Bangaru Telangana, Mr Rama Rao said. When ZPTC and MPTC election results are announced next month, the party cadre must set aside their differences and rededicate themselves to strengthen the party, he urged. Around 50 farmers of Nizamabad rural, Armoor and Balkonda Assembly constituencies reached Varanasi on Saturday to file mass nominations from there to highlight their demands for a Turmeric Board and minimum support price for this commercial crop. NIZAMABAD: Turmeric farmers of Nizamabad district in Telangana state have alleged that Intelligence officials in Uttar Pradesh have warned them not to file nomination papers in Varanasi, the Lok Sabha constituency from where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is contesting. Around 50 farmers of Nizamabad rural, Armoor and Balkonda Assembly constituencies reached Varanasi on Saturday to file mass nominations from there to highlight their demands for a Turmeric Board and minimum support price for this commercial crop. Speaking to newspersons in Varanasi on Saturday, the Telangana State Turmeric Farmers Association president Kotapati Narasimha Naidu said that they are consulting local farmers to get their support. We need proposers to file nomination papers for Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency, he said. Intelligence officials are following the Telangana farmers and warning them not to file their papers, he added. Mr. Naidu said that Tamil Nadu turmeric farmers have joined the Telangana farmers but the TN police had taken the Turmeric Farmers Association leaders into custody and released them only after 24 hours. We took the nomination papers from the Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency returning officer and while trying to find proposers, we were threatened by Intelligence officials, he said. Meanwhile, Veligonda Project Sadhana Samiti leaders, Vadde Srinivasulu and Kollur Ravikiran Sarma of Botlagudur village in Pamuru mandal of Prakasam district, are all set to file nominations for the Varanasi Lok Sabha seat against the Prime Minister on Monday, the last day for nominations in Uttar Pradesh. Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court has set aside Government Order No. 78 which was issued to enhance the fees payable for superspecialty courses in private unaided post-graduate medical colleges under the management quota from Rs 5,85,000 to Rs 25,00,000. The court said that the GO was issued without following the procedure prescribed by law. A division bench comprising Justice V. Ramasubramanian and Justice P. Keshava Rao declared that the GO was issued without following the procedure prescribed by law according to which it needs to be approved by the Fees Regulatory Committee. The bench was dealing with a petition filed by Dr Y. Anil Reddy, who secured a seat in M.Ch (Urology) in a private unaided minority college. Dr Reddy challenged the revision in fees which was made after the completion of the first phase of counselling for post-graduate super specialty course students. The petitioner submitted that the GO was issued without consulting with the fee regulatory committee. Counsel for the petitioner submitted that the government had to constitute a committee headed by a retired judge of the High Court for the revision of fees and the authorities should act in accordance with its recommendations. "The government never consulted the fee regulatory committee before enhancing the fee to Rs 25,00,000," counsel submitted. In defence of the GO, the state government argued that the fees had not been enhanced since 2011. Government counsel attempted to make a comparison of the fee charged by institutions in the state with the those by institutions in the neighboring states. As the enhancement of fee was not conducted on the basis of the recommendations from the fee regulatory committee, the court has set aside the order. The fee payable per annum was Rs 5,85,000 for private unaided minority medical colleges, the fee payable by students admitted under the quota for competent authority in non-minority institutions was Rs 3,70,000, and the fee payable by those admitted under the management quota was Rs.7,50,000. The Principal said that school authorities had initiated disciplinary action on six students a week ago but were allowed to attend classes. (Photo:ANI) Kakching: A Christian missionary school in Sugnu of Manipur's Kakching district was burnt down on April 25 night, a few days after school authorities suspended six of its students for indiscipline. The incident took place at St. Josephs Higher Secondary School in Sugnu, the second oldest Catholic school in Manipur. "A total of 10 rooms have been destroyed, two of them had important documents, files and equipment," school Principal Rev Fr Dominic said while speaking to ANI. The Principal said that school authorities had initiated disciplinary action on six students a week ago but were allowed to attend classes. "We have been discussing that the cause of the burning down could be a negotiation with a local student organisation as they did not like the correctional measure we had taken against some students. They wanted the punishment quashed," he said. The Principal said one of the reprimanded students took to social media to allegedly post abusive content about the school and the class teacher. Meanwhile, Manipur Minister Letpao Haokip said: "This is an act of extremists. A students organisation is burning down a school. I condemn the act. Whoever is involved in this act will be booked and punished. I will help in the reconstruction of school so that students do not lose an academic year." Police have been informed about the incident and a case has been registered. Further investigation is underway. John Fru Ndi Archives Cameroon's fiery opposition leader Ni John Fru Ndi, kidnapped by separatist fighters in Kumbo earlier today Saturday, April 27, 2019 has been freed. The National Chairman of the Social Democratic Front (SDF) party was heading a delegation to Kumbo to bury Hon. Banadzem Joseph Lukong, the party's group leader at the National Assembly when he was taken into "custody" by gunmen. "Information reaching us indicates Fru Ndi was not kidnapped. He was taken for brief discussions as he passed through territories controlled by Ambazonia fighters. He has been released and allowed to continue his journey," Mark Bareta, a pro-separatist blogger wrote on Facebook a few hours after news of Fru Ndi's abduction at Wainama went viral. But Bareta's post was apparently done when the chairman was still in captivity. It however confirms that armed men fighting for the independence of a country they call Ambazonia were behind the act. Fru Ndi is said to have been released three hours after the Bareta announcement. Jean Robert Wafo, SDF Shadow Minister of Information and Media in a statement said the SDF chieftain was freed at 6:34pm by his captors. Fru Ndi upon his release went to the graveside of the fallen SDF MP at Njavnyuy, Kumbo. Banadzem had been buried in the absence of his political godfather. Fru Ndi had however organised mass for the deceased party stalwart at his Ntarinkon residence this morning. Banadzem Joseph Lukong was born on April 28, 1952 at Shisong. He holds a PhD in History from the University of Paris and died as a career member of the National Assembly. The kidnapping of Fru Ndi comes to cast doubts on a recent declaration by Chris Anu that Amba boys do not kidnap. Anu, Secretary of State for Communication of the Ambazonia Separatist Movement of Cameroon said Ambazonia forces were not trained to abduct, kidnap or take ransom from civilians in Ambazonia. Ambazonian Restoration Forces have not been trained to abduct or kidnap or take ransom from any civilian on the ground in Ambazonia. What I will say to you is that there are forces on the ground in Ambazonia. In fact, the invading French Cameroon terrorist army in Ambazonia go around in civilian attire. They shoot to kill, they arrest individuals and I wouldnt be surprised these abductions that Fru Ndi is referring to were conducted by French Cameroon Forces, Anu told the BBC days back. Fru Ndi had claimed that there were government sponsored groups terrorising the population in the name of separatists following the kidnapping of his brother, Azeh Ndi and two employees. The woman in the video is Ranjeeta Koli, whom the BJP is fielding from Bharatpur parliamentary constituency. (Photo: twitter screengrab) New Delhi: Actor-turned-politician Prakash Raj, who is contesting from Bengaluru Central constituency as an independent candidate, on Friday hit out at the ruling BJP government by posting a video of its candidate Ranjeeta Koli who is contesting from Bharatpur Lok Sabha seat. In the video, Koli was apparently unable to reply to a question by a news reporter who asked her on the development she would like to bring in her constituency after winning the elections. The South actor took a dig at the BJP for fielding candidates like her who have no knowledge of issues. Raj wrote in his Twitter handle: "With her extraordinary understanding of the issues and her visionary solutions will not only uplift the country but with her wisdom will also elect the chowkidar of India." #ChowkidarSena TROLL s to corrects me ..thank you..SORRY..This @BjpIndia candidate is from Bharatpur constituency Rajasthan..not from Badaun U P....NOW ..SO WHAT..???? Will this ENHANCE her contribution to the COUNTRY...#justasking ... https://t.co/dQhcjxa2W8 Prakash Raj (@prakashraaj) April 27, 2019 Raj however incorrectly attributed the woman in the video to be the BJP candidate from Badaun, Uttar Pradesh. However, according to the party it has fielded Sanghamitra Maurya from Badaun Parliamentary constituency. The woman in the video is Ranjeeta Koli, whom the BJP is fielding from Bharatpur parliamentary constituency. Rajasthan goes to polls in two phases on April 29 and May 6. The 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 et all. Happy reading. Kavita went on to say that she was approached by many national parties after BJP sidelined her. (Photo: Ani twitter) New Delhi: Kavita Khanna, who was denied a BJP ticket to contest the ongoing polls from Gurdaspur constituency on Saturday said that the BJP has her support. Kavita, the wife of late actor-turned-politician Vinod Khanna, said despite the "unacceptable" treatment meted out to her by BJP, she would make a "personal sacrifice" and support the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "It is my decision that I'm not going to make this a personal issue. I am making a personal sacrifice and will put my entire might and support behind Prime Minister Narendra Modi," Kavita said while addressing a press conference here. "The BJP and my Prime Minister have my support, but at the same time I have to insist that what has happened with me can absolutely not happen again." Talking about the BJP's decision to field new entrant Sunny Deol from Gurdaspur, Kavita said it was very upsetting that despite being asked to make all preparations for fighting elections, the party gave a ticket to Deol. "Everyone agreed that what the party did to me was wrong, they all felt it was my right to contest (from Gurdaspur). I felt very hurt. I understand it is the party's right to decide who the candidate will be, but there is a way of doing it. They didnt even inform me that they had chosen another candidate. I felt abandoned, rejected and was made to feel insignificant," said a visibly-distraught Kavita. "It was very upsetting that I was asked to make all preparations but in the end, the ticket was given to someone else. For 1.5 months I was with the cadre, I got my papers ready. I had faith in the Prime Minister and party chief that whatever decision they take would be in line with the nation's interest," she said. Kavita went on to say that she was approached by many national parties after BJP sidelined her. "But I am not one of those people who will take advantage of a particular situation. I would have definitely won from Gurdaspur had I contested as an Independent candidate. But this is not about me. I want the BJP's candidate to win, I want Gurdaspur to go to the Prime Minister's kitty," she added. Vinod Khanna had won four Lok Sabha polls - in 1998, 1999, 2004 and 2014 - from Gurdaspur constituency on a BJP ticket. He passed away in April 2017, and in the by-elections held in the same year, Congress' Sunil Jakhar emerged triumphant from Gurdaspur. The 13 Lok Sabha seats at stake in Punjab will go to polls on May 19 in the last phase of general elections. Counting of votes will take place on May 23. In Gurdaspur, Sunil Jakhar will face Sunny Deol, who is contesting on a BJP ticket from the seat. Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses et all. Happy reading. RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav on Saturday defended BSP supremo Mayawati and said that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Income Tax (I-T) department are working like 'IT cell' of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). (Photo: File) Patna: RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav on Saturday defended BSP supremo Mayawati and said that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Income Tax (I-T) department are working like IT cell of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). His statement comes a day after the CBI on Friday registered an FIR in a case of alleged irregularities in the disinvestment of seven state-owned sugar mills, in the year 2010-11, leading to a loss of Rs 1179 crore to Uttar Pradesh state exchequer. Mayawati was the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh when the alleged irregularities took place. When asked about Prime Minister Narendra Modis statement that his house should also be raided by IT department if he makes a mistake, Tejashwi told ANI here, There was evidence related to Jay Shah (BJP president Amit Shahs son) too. No investigation was done on that. If BJP gave a clean chit, no investigation will be done on that? Raids are being held against Mayawati. This same strategy was used against our family. BJP people are trying to frame opposition leaders. They are doing this because they know that in these polls, they are going to get defeated by 'mahagathbandhan' in respective states. We are fighting to save the Constitutional and the various institutions. The CBI, ED and I-T are working like IT cell of BJP. The way they are trying to frame Mayawati, it is a political conspiracy while the Lok Sabha elections are going on across the country. They are afraid of their loss. Tejashwi further claimed that the Oppositions grand alliance will win in the Lok Sabha elections. If we talk about Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Jharkhand, it will be a very big thing if BJP gets to open its account, he said. We are fighting against BJP on all 40 seats. Tanveer Sahab (RJD Begusarai Lok Sabha candidate Tanveer Hasan) is going to win Begusarai seat and that too by a huge margin. Whatever environment one creates, we aren't bothered, because the public has made up its mind, he added. Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses et all. Happy reading. t is not known if the Congress will project former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as its candidate for the Elders House from Assam or not. (Photo: File) Guwahati: Amidst the ongoing Lok Sabha polls, hectic lobbying has started in the ruling coalition for two Rajya Sabha seats going to fall vacant on June 14. The six-year term of two Rajya Sabha members from Assam former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Santiuse Kujur is going to expire in mid-June this year. The election to the two Rajya Sabha seats needs to be completed before the expiry of their terms. Indicating that one seat may go to a coalition partner, sources said that central BJP leadership would be applying its mind on selection candidate only after the notification of the poll dates. The permutation and combination for these two Rajya Sabha seats has already started among political parties in the state. If the present strength of legislators of the BJP-led coalition in the state has to be taken into account, the ruling coalition has the number to wrest both the seats from the Congress. A party needs 43 votes to win a Rajya Sabha seat and 86 votes for two seats. The ruling coalition has 88 seats 61 of the BJP, 14 of the AGP and 12 of the BPF, besides independent MLA Bhuban Pegu. On the other hand, Congress has 25 and the AIUDF has 13 legislators. The principal secretary of the Assam assembly secretariat Mr M K Deka told reporters that the terms of two Rajya Sabha seats in Assam are going to expire on June 14 this year, and hence the Election Commission of India may issue the poll notification soon. Before the Lok Sabha poll when the AGP reverted to the BJP-led coalition, the BJP assured the AGP of leaving one of the two Rajya Sabha seats going to be vacated in June for the latter to field candidate. Since the arithmetic is tilted towards the BJP-led coalition in the state, it is not known if the Congress will project former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as its candidate for the Elders House from Assam or not. The insiders in the Congress party told correspondent that party has decided not to field the name of Mr Singh for a seat on which his defeat is almost certain. Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses et all. Happy reading. Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir Police Saturday ordered an inquiry after a video of a police vehicle being used for distribution of food packets at a BJP rally in Anantnag parliamentary constituency went viral. The 28-second video shows the police gypsy being used for distribution of food packets and water bottles among the people gathered for the BJP rally in south Kashmir's Anantnag. The rally was addressed by BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav. Taking cognizance of the incident, the police ordered an inquiry into it. The driver of the vehicle, which the police said was deployed for ferrying escort personnel of a protected person, has been attached and the gypsy has been withdrawn. "Today a video surfaced on social media wherein one police vehicle is seen being utilised for distribution of food items in a political party rally in Anantnag. The vehicle in question was deployed for ferrying escort personnel of a protected person," a police spokesman said. "The vehicle has been withdrawn from the said protected person and driver of the vehicle has been attached. An inquiry into the matter has been ordered under the rules," he said. Bengaluru: In a sign that he is all too aware that an adverse outcome in Lok Sabha polls would send his government into a tailspin, Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy on Friday convened a meeting of JD(S) legislature party on Sunday even as he attempted to stem a likely exodus of Congress legislators by offering a cabinet berth to rebels like former minister Ramesh Jarkiholi. Sources in JD (S) said the meeting would discuss the political situation and the fact that the threat to longevity of his government could be real as his beta noire and state BJP president B.S. Yeddyurappa warned of imminent collapse of the coalition government soon after announcement of results of general elections on May 23. The issue of acute discontent and distrust among grassroot workers of Congress and JD (S) during the polls though a pre-poll seat-sharing pact that neither party could control would also figure during his meeting with party legislators, sources added. The Chief Minister, who cut short his naturopathy treatment and rushed to the city to pay homage to JD (S) workers who died in bomb blasts in Sri Lanka, lost no time in reaching out to Mr Ramesh Jarkiholi a day after his statement to the media that he would soon take a call about quitting the Congress. His move has caught many Congress leaders by surprise as they had given up on the former minister (Jarkiholi) after they discovered that he escalated his dissident activities by campaigning for the BJP candidate in Belagavi Lok Sabha constituency. He had earlier attended a couple of meetings of BJP leaders and skipped the budget session of legislature along with three other MLAs for some time, provoking CLP leader Siddaramaiah to write to Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar, seeking their disqualification. Much to the surprise of his party colleagues, Mr Kumaraswamy offered to induct Mr Ramesh Jarkiholi into his ministry as his party has not met its quota of berths in the ministry. The Chief Minister reportedly told the former minister that if the BJP was attempting to lure him with offers of a position in the cabinet, he should return to the coalition government rather than jump ship and destabilize the government with the help of the BJP, according to sources in the party, who also pointed out that an adverse outcome in two Assembly by-polls on May 19. Sources, however, said a belligerent Mr Jarkiholi merely told the Chief Minister that he would consult his supporters and party workers of Belagavi district. Sources pointed out that his meeting with Mr Ramesh Jarkioli was preceded with a closed door meeting with deputy chief minister Dr G Parameshwara and water resources minister D K Shivakumar on steps to handle the looming crisis for the coalition partners. Mr Ramesh Jarkiholi, meanwhile has discovered that the number of disgruntled party legislators who were with him before the polls, have now decided to work for the party instead of quitting the Assembly en masse. The former minister, however, has not given up his efforts to woo MLAs who were unsuccessful in securing a position in the ministry. The BJP government doesnt have money to waive off the loan of farmers, but has waived off the loan of big industrialists in the country,' Priyanka Gandhi said. (Photo: ANI twitter) Barabanki: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has forgotten the people after coming to power, said Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Congress general secretary and in-charge for east Uttar Pradesh, here on Saturday. The BJP governments at the Centre and in the state have forgotten the fact that who has given them power. When someone gets power, he forgets who has given him power. BJP has also forgotten those who have given them power, she said, while addressing an election rally. Slamming the Central government for doing nothing for farmers, youth and common people in the country, Priyanka said: Wherever I go, whomsoever I meet, I see no farmer in a good condition. They all are suffering. They have got no help from the government. The youth of the country dont have jobs. I see this situation everywhere. This is the reality. But we see the pictures of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in every corner and newspapers. People are told the development has happened, but where is the development, she asked. The BJP government doesnt have money to waive off the loan of farmers, but has waived off the loan of big industrialists in the country. They dont have money for poor, farmers, youth but they have money for industrialists, she said. Priyanka also hit out at Prime Minister Modi. She said: The Prime Minister can be seen with actors, Presidents of other countries, and big industrialists. But have you seen him with the poor people? You might have seen the PMs interview coming out these days. He sits with an actor at his lawn, but have you ever seen him at a poor mans house. Talking about Prime Minister Modis constituency, she said: When I went to Varanasi, I thought the city would have developed the same way the development took place in Amethi. But I couldn't see anything. I asked people where is development. When you supported this government, you had hope. You thought the country would develop. But what happened in these five years? He forgot about the poor. This government is weak. They said they will give two crore employment, but they have cut 50 lakh jobs, she said. When you vote on May 6, understand the intention and policies of the party. The BJPs intentions are not good. The people of the country are wise. They know the issues. They will make the right decision, she said. Uttar Pradesh is going to polls during all seven phases, and voting has taken place in 26 Lok Sabha seats so far. The state will go to the fourth phase of polling on April 29 for 13 Lok Sabha constituencies. Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses et all. Happy reading. Mumbai: Fielding Malegaon blast accused Pragya Thakur in the Lok Sabha elections is a "tactical mistake" of the BJP, NCP general secretary Jitendra Awhad said on Saturday. Mr Thakur was fielded from Bhopal Lok Sabha constituency against the Congress's Digvijaya Singh to cover up failures of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi government, he said. "Fielding her is a tactical mistake for which they will have to pay a heavy price. This country's structure is secular and people don't like absolute right-wingers and hate-mongers," he said. The BJP party won't get more than 220 seats, he added. The Nationalist Congress Party leader called actor Akshay Kumar's interview with PM Modi a "publicity stunt". "Akshay Kumar is an excellent artist, but what outstanding academic credentials he has? This interview showed Modi's insecurity," Mr Awhad said. To a question about PM Modi and Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis' jibes at NCP chief Sharad Pawar over fielding Mr Pawar's grandnephew Parth Pawar from Maval seat, Mr Awhad said a sanctity should be maintained by leaders when talking about others' private lives. "Pawar doesn't differentiate between Jitendra Awhad and Ajit Pawar (Parth's father and NCP leader). Do we ask Modi why did he shunt out LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi so unceremoniously?" he said. On Raj Thackeray's campaign against the Modi government, Mr Awhad said the MNS chief has "won the hearts of people". "We might have differences on several issues but our enemy is fascism, not Modi. The advent of fascism will kill democracy. Whoever fights fascism is a friend," the NCP leader said. Thackeray, whose party is not contesting in the Lok Sabha elections, has reportedly been addressing rallies across Maharashtra against the BJP and its ally Shiv Sena. (Photo: File) Mumbai: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Ashish Shelar on Saturday said Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) is working as a third party for Congress to criticise the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Thackeray, whose party is not contesting in the Lok Sabha elections, has reportedly been addressing rallies across Maharashtra against the BJP and its ally Shiv Sena. He has even criticised Prime Minister Modi by showcasing video clips of his speeches and interviews. BJP wont step back from criticism. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi had earlier said that we welcome criticism, but since last 20 days, the kind of publicity MNS and Raj Thackeray are doing, it is not based on complete truth, Shelar told ANI here. Secondly, the place from which they are picking up these videos, its not like they are taken from any verified account of BJP or through an RTI. Lifting such things from uncertified accounts and putting allegations on the Prime Minister on the basis of that is half truth. It was important to reveal this half truth, he added. Shelar went on to add, Congress has lost all the elections in which they directly criticised BJP and Prime Minister Modi without any facts. For example, Sonia Gandhi did a Maut ka saudagar campaign and they got defeated very badly. Later, Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar used a derogatory word against Prime Minister Modi and lost. So, Congress is scared that if they criticise Prime Minister Modi people wont forgive them and will vote against them. So, they want a third party to do this for them. Mallikarjun Kharge has clearly said that we want to get Raj Thackeray into an alliance. So, Congress hidden attack is now revealed in front of all. In Maharashtra, polling for 17 out of 48 Lok Sabha seats at stake will be held on April 29. 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 et all. Happy reading. Ahmednagar: Rahul Gandhi on Friday hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi alleging that the "56-inch watchman" failed to use the historic opportunity bestowed on him after the 2014 Lok Sabha elections to uphold the promise of providing employment. "Prime Minister had a historic opportunity. He was supposed to work for the youth as without them the progress of the country is not possible. It is very important to give employment to the youth. But the 56-inch chest watchman failed to keep his promise of providing 20 million jobs," Rahul Gandhi said in an election rally here. "The youth of the country is ready to face the challenges. They all are capable of competing against China they believe in Made in India concept. But, the Modi government is not cooperating with them. Therefore, we have decided that youth would not be required to take any permission for at least three years to start their business," he said. Claiming that people are fed up of fake promises of PM Modi and now calling their chowkidar (watchman) a chor, Rahul said: "Every election has its own importance, but the 2019 Lok Sabha elections have a special significance. In 2014, Modi ji was blessed with the absolute majority so that he could fulfil all the promises. As he failed, the slogan of "chowkidar chor hai" (watchman is a thief) is now being spread across the country." He also claimed that Prime Minister helped Anil Ambani, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi with crore of Rupees. "If a poor person takes a loan from a bank and fails to pay it back with interest then he is put behind bars but Mehul Choksi, Anil Ambani, Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi are roaming around freely. PM Modi waived off loans of wealthy people but what about poor farmers?" Gandhi scion asked. Rahul also took the opportunity to talk about the Nyunatam Aay Yojana (NYAY) scheme promised by his party in its manifesto for the ensuing Lok Sabha polls. "We are not making fake promises, we will provide Rs 72,000 per year to poor families," he said. Continuing his tirade against PM Modi for implementing GST and demonetisation, Rahul said: "Gabbar Singh Tax and demonetisation have deteriorated the economy of this country and middle-class families and poor have been affected the most. Several factories have been shut down due to less demand for the products in the market." "I cannot give you Rs 15 lakh to your account. But we will send Rs 3 lakh 60 thousand will be sent to the accounts of 25 crore people. This is to give PM Modi a message if you will help five rich people, we will help common people," he said. Promising farmers better Minimum Support Price (MSP) and facilities, Rahul said: "Soon after coming into power, Congress will make a separate budget for farmers and we will tell the farmers beforehand what we can do for them." Polling for 17 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra will be held on April 29. Kidnapped Traditional Ruler Released in Kumbo Whatsapp Subjects of a traditional head and second class chief, Shufai Yuyun Joseph of Big Ndzendzev, are in shock, after separatists kidnapped their ruler for a third time in four months. Although negotiations had led to his release after he was kidnapped, two days ago, reports say his kidnappers are yet to hand over his car to him. He was kidnapped for the third time on Wednesday, as he returned from a medical checkup, at the Shisong Catholic Hospital. Sources say these armed separatists or Amba boys like they are often called, accused the traditional ruler of cooking up plans against them. Shufai Ndzendzev, second in command in Nso Fondom, was kidnapped for the first time, along with the Fon of Nso,HRH Sehm Mbinglo III, in December 2018. This action was considered by many denizens as a taboo in the land, that young men kidnap traditional authorities of the Nso dynasty, something which has never happened before, due to the respect the people of Nso have for the throne. The Fon was later evacuated through an helicopter from Kumbo to Yaounde, but Shufai Ndzendzev and others were left behind. In an attempt to go down to Bamenda for a visit, Shufai Ndzendzev was again picked up by Amba boys in Wainamah, Jakiri subdivision, where he was asked to return to Kumbo or face the consequences. The news of his third kidnapping has left many wondering, why Amba boys continue to target him. Sources revealed the of the kidnapping of these traditional authorities in Nso, was linked to rumours that they were planning to cleanse the land, against atrocities perpetrated by both military and armed separatists. Some people opine that the fear of a cleaning process of the land by these leaders, frightens said Amba boys, who are doing everything to prevent the act. The customs and traditions of Nso, was one amongst the few being respected by its subjects, but recent happenings have pushed many to doubt some cultural beliefs and the powers of traditional institutions, in the land. THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: CPM state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan on Saturday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi's insulting remarks against Kerala had exposed the Sangh Parivar's heinous agenda. In a statement here, the CPM state secretary said the main aim of Modi and Sangh Parivar leaders was to destroy the LDF-ruled secular and democratic Kerala. ''In order to achieve this ulterior objective they are resorting to vilification campaign and hate speeches against the state," he said. "The prime minister's statement that BJP workers in Kerala were not able to come out of their houses for the fear of being attacked is a dangerous lie bomb," he said.He said the polls in Kerala were most peaceful compared to all other states. The Election Commission had praised the people of Kerala for peaceful poll and heavy turnout. On the day of polling there was not even a single instance of BJP leader being attacked in the state. The CPM leader said the people of Kerala would reject Modi's statement with the contempt it deserved. On an earlier occasion, the prime minister had drawn a parallel between Kerala and Somalia on health issues, especially child health. His statement had come in for widespread criticism from various quarters since Kerala's infant mortality and maternal mortality are the lowest in the country. Kodiyeri appealed to the people to give a befitting reply to the forces which are conspiring to defame Kerala. On April 22 it was announced that the Significant Reduction Exception President Trump had granted to eight countries would not be extended and that purchases of Iranian oil by these countries would be subject to sanctions after May 2. This was another step to isolate Iran, deprive it of revenue and make it more amenable to fulfilling the 12 conditions Secretary Pompeo had laid out for resumption of US-Iran dialogue. A lot of material was made available regarding Americas increased production and export capacity and of the Gulf countries commitment to increase production and ensure there was no shortage on account of the withdrawal of Iranian oil from the international market. (Essentially, the fact sheet the State Department put out said that the US crude oil production was 12 million barrels a day and would increase by 1.4m within the next year; Iran oil production had been reduced by 1.5m barrels; other countries including Saudi Arabia and the UAE had promised to increase their production; the inventory of crude oil globally was seasonally strong.) This followed the unprecedented and perhaps legally dubious step of designating Irans elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps a foreign terrorist organisation. Iran retaliated by naming all US armed forces as terrorist organisations. If one looks at other actions the Trump administration has or is taking or is likely to take around the world, it appears that apart from the America first mantra, securing a victory against Iran is the driving force. Support for Israel has been part of Trumps creed. This could explain the abandonment of the long-settled US policy on Palestine and Syria, formal recognition of Israels annexation of the Golan Heights and formal endorsement of Israels intent of annexing illegal Israeli settlements on the West Bank. However, there is in my mind the vision that partnering with Israel in confronting Iran would help create conditions in which the Arabs would join Israel formally in the Middle East Security Alliance that seems to be part of the plan that Trumps point man for the Middle East, Jared Kushner, would present for a regional settlement. In Libya, Gen Haftar, a commander from Qadhafis days, has a base in the east and is receiving weapons from Russia, political support from France and political and material support from Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The latter two are reportedly supporting Haftar because they think that Libya has become a centre for the Muslim Brotherhood that these countries and Egypt want eliminated. In Libya, it had been long-standing US policy to recognise the Government of National Accord and support the efforts of the UN special representative to help negotiate a power-sharing agreement between various Libyan factions to maintain essential Libyan unity. When Haftar started his assault on the GNA, the State Department asked him to stop. Trump, however, after a conversation with the Abu Dhabi crown prince, spoke to Haftar, in which he recognised Field Marshal Haftars significant role in fighting terrorism and securing Libyas oil resources, and the two discussed a shared vision for Libyas transition to a stable, democratic political system. The GNA saw this as a betrayal. One could assume that Trumps reversal of State Department policy owed to his willingness to defer to the views of his allies and thus strengthen their support for his Iran policy. The Sudan uprising, the overthrow of president Omar Al-Bashirs regime or more accurately his ouster after 30 years or rule owed to demonstrations mounted by the Sudanese Professional Association. The uprising was successful because the armed forces, that have participated in the Yemen war as part of the Saudi/UAE effort and thus have strong connections there, saw their own soldiers joining the rebels. The air force chiefs son joined the protesters. The Military Council said it would hold elections in two years because it would take that long to ensure security and make other arrangements. This is being resisted but this is what Sisis Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE would want because Omar al-Bashir had provided shelter to Muslim Brotherhood followers. To cement ties with the Military Council, Saudi Arabia and UAE said they would provide $3 billion in assistance to Sudan with $500m being deposited for balance-of-payment support and the rest for humanitarian aid for Sudans people. Sudan is under US sanctions which can be lifted only if a civilian government comes to power. The Military Council has announced it will send a delegation to Washington to discuss the situation. It is my conjecture that helping them find their way in Washington will be a task undertaken not just by the Sudanese embassy but by the other friends I have identified. It is again my conjecture that they will receive a sympathetic hearing. Their promise to hold elections within two years may not be accepted and a shorter time frame proposed, but sanctions will be lifted as a favour by Trump for his supporters in the anti-Iran campaign. Irans economy is suffering as a result of the sanctions; the ill effects have been compounded by floods and earthquakes. There is no sign the regime is collapsing. For Pakistan, it is important that what Prime Minister Imran Khan and President Hassan Rouhani agreed upon is implemented. Trade that was agreed upon is all food and humanitarian relief related and will not be affected. Border security is important to both, not only because of Irans need but also because those who trouble this border are likely working with those across the border who want a Balochistan independent of both Iran and Pakistan. Oil prices will rise perhaps to $80 a barrel and we may need to get further concessional oil supplies from our friends. By arrangement with Dawn For a variety of reasons, perhaps to do with local factors rather than an overarching national narrative in the main, the voting behaviour in the Lok Sabha election is yet to reveal a clear-cut pattern or profile. This is in spite of the kinetic energy being sought to be driven by the ruling party into its campaign by hammering on the themes of terrorism, communalism and nationalism. And this seems especially true of Uttar Pradesh on account of the presence of a multiple of variables. Therefore, to think that the decision of the Congress not to field Priyanka Gandhi Vadra from Varanasi in a face-off with Prime Minister Narendra Modi will give that party a decided setback as has been suggested in some quarters is to overlook the larger forces at play. There was indeed a tantalising aspect to the speculation fuelled by over-read statements of Ms Vadra herself as well as by her brother Rahul Gandhi, the Congress president. But any realistic reading of politics would have made it plain that this was not even a remote prospect. The reason is that it had been made clear in public by the Congress president right at the beginning that the charge of eastern UP being given to Ms Vadra to manage as general secretary in the period of the Lok Sabha polls was meant to be a stepping stone to get the party organisation ready for the next Assembly election in the state due in January 2022. This is why, while the Congress is fighting on nearly all the 80 Lok Sabha seats, it is thought to be focusing on around 25. In the event, the prospect of Ms Vadra coming off second best in Varanasi ran the risk of undercutting the leader around whom the Congress plans for the next Assembly polls in UP revolve, for there can be little question that Mr Modi is unbeatable in Varanasi unless miracles happen. In light of this, the Congress psychological games in letting slip, and then letting the speculation build, that Ms Vadra might just be the Congress candidate from the famous temple town, was a pointless tactical manoeuvre that appears to have not been thought through at all. It is another matter that neither the BJP nor any other party is in a position to benefit from the Congress failed tactic as the factors that are likely to count in UP are entirely different, where there seems to be a constituency by constituency battle on the cards, dependent mainly on caste and partly class configurations, besides calculations based on the likely voting behaviour of religious communities. Nevertheless, it is evident that the move was both unnecessary and unwarranted. The countrys central banking institution seems headed for a head-on collision with the Supreme Court in the matter of falling in line with transparency norms. Things have come to such a pass that the Reserve Bank of India has been hauled up unequivocally for wilful disobedience of top court orders with regard to disclosing information about its annual inspection of banks report under the Right to Information Act. The Information Commissioner too had passed several strictures on this reluctance on the part of the bankers to adhere to transparency norms in the matter of loans. The primacy of the RTI Act was upheld by the Supreme Court even in the Rafale review case. This makes the reluctance of RBI to accept the court ruling that Section 22 of the RTI Act overrides the RBI Act even harder to understand. RBIs failure to disclose to citizens who the defaulters are and what action is being taken to recover huge loans advanced is tantamount to negating RTI, disrespecting the will of Parliament and the Supreme Court. It is the money of the people of India that goes down the drain in the NPAs of banks and in the failure of big businesses to live up to being steadfast in servicing loans. Is there not a moral duty to be fulfilled in this? After not being able to turn the Rafale fighter jet deal into an effective campaign issue, after having struggled to counter the narrative of nationalism created by the BJP and the Narendra Modi government after the terrorist attack at Pulwama and the retaliatory Balakot airstrikes, the Congress Party desperately needed another weapon to counter the rising popularity of the ruling BJP. The Congress Party then made yet another desperate effort to reach out to the masses and attract voters through its manifesto. The party went ahead, claiming its manifesto was a democratic exercise carrying the collective voice of lakhs of people, unlike the mann ki baat of one individual. On the front page of its manifesto, it promises that the Congress will deliver. A few days after, the BJP releases its Sankalp Patra, highlighting its commitment to the pledges it had taken. While the Congress, trying to popularise what it promises the people in its manifesto, is hoping to shift the narrative of the 2019 election in its favour, the BJP is hoping it would make the party even more popular and might help it achieve a bigger victory. Sadly, none of the two may happen as voters hardly vote keeping in mind promises made by parties in manifestos. The outcome of the 2019 election will be decided on things other than promises in the manifestos. Voters hardly read manifestos. I doubt even party workers take them seriously. Many of us come to know what political parties are promising in their manifesto only from the discussion in the print and electronic media and on social media. But sadly, the discussion in the media about these manifestos is largely restricted to highlighting how manifestos of political parties differ from one another. How many times does the word promise appear in the manifesto of the Congress and how many times the word development appears in the BJPs manifesto? Given the number of copies of manifestos that are printed, it is reasonable to believe that the reach of manifestos remains limited, and is hardly circulated to the wider public. Given the relatively limited access to the Internet and overall low and moderate levels of literacy in India, not many people take the pain of flipping or scrolling through them. Large numbers of voters rely on the information about what is mentioned in the manifestos through hoardings or speeches or other sources of communication between parties and voters. For a majority of voters, the news of manifestos being released by parties seems to have more weight than what the manifestos actually contain. What seems to matter more in present-day elections is not the content of what political parties are promising through their manifestos, but how effectively these parties are able to convey this to the voters. The art of communication has taken precedence over the promises made by parties. The only change which has happened in this election regarding manifestos is the timing of their release. While the Election Commission, on the directions of the Supreme Court in its 2013 order, has issued guidelines to parties on the release of their manifestos, the media makes sure that it takes it seriously. However, the relevant questions at this stage are: Do manifestos really win elections? Amidst the rallies, speeches, roadshows, hoardings, banners, announcements, and a lot more happening all around, do manifestos dominate the minds of voters? At the time of elections, as it seems, what matters the most is how quickly, easily and simply you are able to communicate your ideas, agendas and work plan to the people. A lot depends on how quickly you are able to create a narrative, or change the narrative and replace it with a counter-narrative. With the country in the middle of a seven-phase Lok Sabha election, its more of a word game. Sadly, this war of words has only intensified in the past few weeks, and parties and candidates are engaged in this in order to mobilise voters in their favour. Unfortunately, some populist ideas being communicated in a simple but attractive language seem to do the trick: quirky one-liners and fancy abbreviations while addressing rallies; catchy slogans on billboards; party anthems on TV and radio channels; and much more on similar lines seems to be far more attractive to voters than the promises which parties are making in their manifestos. In the middle of the election cycle, when parties need to work hard to mobilise undecided floating voters who constitute nearly one-fourth of total voters, the party which finds a better language to communicate with the voters always has a huge advantage over others, despite having a not-so-convincing manifesto. This is not to undermine the importance of manifestos, but considering Indian elections, they do not have much role to play as of now. Even post-elections, the ruling party, or its voters, seldom goes back to what has been promised in the manifesto. This certainly raises another important question: Have the elections in the biggest democracy in the world simply been reduced to how well you are able to communicate with voters just weeks or days before elections? Large numbers amongst the undecided voters end up becoming prey to the catchy language used by political parties and their leaders for communicating their promises, failing to read or decode their manifestos. This may be summed up with two lines from Bashir Badras poem, replacing not-so-relevant mohabbaton with somewhat-relevant manifesto in the present context: Mujhe ishtihaar si lagti hain ye manifesto ki kahaniyan, jo kaha nahin wo suna karo, jo suna nahin wo kaha karo. (The stories of manifestos seem to be more like advertisements to me. Try listening to what hasnt been told; try to say what hasnt been heard.) Sanjay Kumar is a professor and currently the director of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. Manjesh Rana is a researcher at Lokniti, a research programme at CSDS. The views expressed here are personal. He took on Narendra Modi in 2014 and is again mounting a challenge on behalf of his party this time. In an election that is quite obviously one-sided, with Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi refusing to take the bait of a contest against the Prime Minister, it is AJAI RAI who is leading the battlefront on his partys behalf. In an interview with SREEPARNA CHAKRABARTY, Mr Rai talks about how things were in favour of the Congress this time and that he is confident of mounting a tough challenge to Mr Modi. How well do you think your party will fare in these polls? Things are in our favour. In the recent Varanasi municipal elections, we were in second position. Despite Narendra Modi being the local member of Parliament, we have increased our seat tally from 5-6 to 20-22. As of now, there is no polarisation here. The BJP, for that matter, is even losing Gujarat. They had 26 seats earlier, this time Congress will get at least 8-10 seats. The BJP will have to pay for the temples which were broken for the Kashi Vishwanath corridor project. People here are very religious. All sections and castes of Hindus are extremely religious here. Even Muslims oppose this. What are the issues on which you will challenge Mr Modi? Mr Modi had come to Varanasi in 2014 and had promised to make Varanasi another Kyoto. He had said that jobs would be created and factories would be set up. Nothing has happened. Some Chinese lights have been put up on roads and government hospitals have been remodelled, but nothing big has happened. On the other hand, under the garb of making the Kashi Vishwanath corridor, he has destroyed temples and houses. The citys heritage has been destroyed by demolishing houses along the Kashi Vishwanath corridor. The people of Varanasi have been overlooked in its own development story. But people seem largely satisfied. People are scared. They are scared of false cases being filed against them... about the safety of their families and children and that is why they are not speaking. I, myself, have been a victim. On May 19, they will give their decision. Speculation was rife about Priyanka Gandhi contesting from Varanasi. If she had come to Varanasi it would have been good and Mr Modi would have lost. How do you think the SP-BSP-RLD gathbandhan would fare? The gathbandhan is supporting the BJP. Why did they not wait for the Congress to announce its candidate before fielding their own candidate? They have fielded Shalini Yadav, who was earlier with the Congress. It is hard to believe that they did not have their own candidate. Shalini Yadav has only fought a mayoral election. They have totally joined forces with the BJP. Which communities will come out in favour of the Congress? We will get the votes of Brahmins (100 per cent), Bhumihars (50-60 per cent), Banias (20-25 per cent), Muslims (100 per cent) and poor people across the board. All those whose shops and houses have been broken for the Kashi Vishwanath corridor will vote for the Congress. Varanasi is known for its temples. People are quiet as they are scared. We have lodged an FIR. I have been targeted for speaking out and was in jail for seven months. Mr Modi said that people occupied the temples and built their homes to hide them. But the lore goes that during Aurangzebs time people had built their homes around the temples to hide them. The BJP has destroyed Banarasi culture. Havent these people been relocated? People who had houses have been relocated to faraway places. But those who had shops, their livelihoods have been destroyed. Nobody had asked for such a corridor. All the work for development of the corridor has been given to Gujaratis. No local has got any job. Even in the Sangam at Allahabad, all contracts have been given to Gujarati companies. People spoke out against this, but the administration buried the matter. Local BJP leaders did not speak. They just sat at home. Brighton is a vibrant sea side city along the southern coast of the United Kingdom. Recently crowned the most hipster city in the world, this land of the quirkiest humans is famous for its eccentric culture and a gender neutral society. This beautiful town is a haven to people with liberal minds and is considered the Gay Capital hosting the biggest pride festival in the whole of UK. Nestled with quirky shopping lanes, bustling pubs, the sea, heritage and art museum, this city has everything one seeks in a perfect vacation. With a host of free spirited people, scrumptious food lanes and the good-old sea side charm, Brighton has managed to capture the attention of several tourists. If youre someone whos bored and tired of your fast-paced metropolitan lifestyle then Brighton will be like a breath of fresh air for you. A view of the Seven Sisters Getting the appropriate accommodation can be tricky if you have a decent budget then you can pre-book a flat on online portals and if you have a shoe-string budget then top-rated, luxury hostels could be the best option. To understand its beautiful heritage and culture a visit to the iconic Brighton Pavilion is a must. This museum looks pretty much like the Taj Mahal and hosts several tourists everyday all round the year. This magnificent structure stands in the city centre and is famous for its eclectic collection. From a sneak peek into the Egyptian civilization to the marvelous display of puppetry and of course the recently added Transology section, this museum is one of its kind. Colourful houses in Brighton The staple food being fish and chips, you can find a stall anywhere your eye casts a sight on. Now, the biggest set-back about a perfect lunch on the beach is, you might have to wear your armour and protect your food from those witty seagulls waiting to freak you out. Brighton and its people are extremely accommodating and hence you can name the cuisine and youll find the restaurant. Brighton sure has something for everyone, if you are a vegan then this is one place that can tame those inner cake-loving dragons in you. From an array of delectable cakes, muffins, pancakes, scones, breads and even ice cream to pizza, burgers, wraps and subs all have the vegan option. If you are a fan of sea food then get to the beach side and youll have a treat of a lifetime. From fresh water mollusks to shrimps, crabs and sea fish you can satisfy your palate to the fullest. While you enjoy the sea you can also hit the artistic pier. With a posh restaurant jutting into the sea and a mini amusement park the Brighton Pier is petite and suitable for a stroll. Youngsters participating in the Brighton Pride parade With colourful houses, on every street that still retains the old-fashioned chimneys gives you a mesmerising spectacle and seems like a rainbow splashed everywhere around. Apart from these vibrant painted walls, you will find a striking graffiti art on every alternate wall you see. Graffiti artists often express their opinions in the form of art on random walls, be it political or the increasing risks of modernisation and even the revolting culture, graffiti artists do not hold back from manifesting their highly celebrated bohemian attitude. If you think you are a connoisseur in getting outside a maze then try the North Laine and the Lanes. Of course, you wouldnt just get lost in these lanes because they seem similar but it is inevitable that you will stop at every shop you pass. From sizzling pubs and compact restaurants with seats pretty much encroaching the streets to accessories, clothes, footwear and even a shop to take home some souvenirs, you might just need the whole day to convince the shopaholic in you. The Royal Pavilion Located on the costal region spotting lush green grass carpeted hills and chalked cliffs is a common sight. But, if you are in for some adventure then give your adrenaline a rush that it deserves. Take the 12x bus from the citys famous shopping mall - Churchill Square - and alight the key at the Seven Sisters - a series of chalk cliffs along the sea. This is a thirteen kilometer hike of the most breathtaking, astounding, extraordinary display of the quintessential natures grace. Wrapping up this awesome vacation is best with enjoying the aerial view on the i360 - a 162 meters observation tower on the shores - you can glide up the tower on this ride and let the beauty of Brighton sink into your system as you reminisce this paradigm of the perfect holiday. According to Digital Citizens investigation, piracy apps on jailbroken devices, which resemble legit Fire TV Sticks or Apple TV, are in fact, laden with malware that steals usernames and passwords on the pretext of offering pirated movies and live programmes. In the race to be among the first to watch the new episode of a popular online series, or simply to cut down on the cost of purchasing a legit streaming app or device, users are exposing themselves to malicious software, a new study has revealed. According to Digital Citizens investigation, piracy apps on jailbroken devices, which resemble legit Fire TV Sticks or Apple TV, are in fact, laden with malware that steals usernames and passwords on the pretext of offering pirated movies and live programmes. These rogue devices link to pirated apps instead of linking to legitimate services such as Netflix or Hulu. The investigation also revealed an illegal scheme to monetize stolen Netflix accounts and ads for premium brands on pirate apps. Surprisingly, there are 12 million active users of these illicit devices in North America alone. Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter. Sri Lankan policemen cover the body of an alleged terrorist after he was shot during a gunbattle in Kalmunai, in eastern Sri Lanka on Saturday. AP Sainthamaruthu (Sri Lanka): Sri Lankan authorities on Saturday said ten civilians, including six children, were killed along with six suspected terrorists after a shootout between police and alleged militants. A CNN report quoted witnesses saying they had seen two suspected terrorists on the run following an explosion turned their house into the fire. At daybreak, a gruesome scene was revealed at the raided house in the town of Sainthamaruthu on the countrys eastern coast charred bodies and the roof was entirely blown off during three explosions, it said. Among those killed is one woman who was passing on a rickshaw at the time of the raid. Police are investigating the possible relationship of civilians to the suspected terrorists. Earlier on Friday, authorities seized a large cache of explosives, 100,000 ball bearings and ISIS uniforms and flags from a separate garage a few miles from the shootout. The raids come on the back of a major hunt for the perpetrators of the coordinated attacks on Easter Sunday, which killed 253 people including many worshippers attending Easter Mass services. National Thowheed Jamath (NTJ), a local extremist group, has been blamed for the bombings but has not claimed the attacks. ISIS claimed responsibility, but a link between the attackers and the terror group has not been proven. One wounded suspect fled on a motorbike, and another suspected terrorist could be on the run as well, the American broadcaster quoted Maj Gen Aruna Jayasekara as saying. One of the six suspected terrorists found dead has been identified as Mohamed Niyas, known to the authorities as a prominent member of the NTJ, it said. The army had identified Niyas as the brother-in-law of the alleged ringleader of the Easter Sunday attacks, Zahran Hashim. Meanwhile, the United States has advised its citizens to reconsider their travel to Sri Lanka in view of the bombings. The State Department raised the travel risk to Level 3 in a travel advisory issued on Friday. The State Department has also ordered the departure of all school-age family members of US government employees in kindergarten through 12th grade. Two associates of a fake godman who allegedly cheated families by taking advantage of their belief in palmistry and astrology have been caught. The VV Puram police arrested Chetan Chandrakant Dhage, 37, a realtor from Hubballi, and Rajesh Ganpat Rao Tambe, 55, from Andhra Pradesh, and confiscated 925 grams of gold jewellery from them. The kingpin of the gang, Avinash Suresh Kalvankar alias Maharaj, who hails from Maharashtra, is on the run. The self-styled godman had decamped with gold valuables and cash from families on the pretext of solving their health and financial problems. Dhage had invited Kalvankar to conduct puja at his new office in Hubballi. The latter did not charge him for the puja but sought his help in disposing of the gold jewellery that he had amassed from his victims. He even offered him a 20% commission. Dhage took the offer and roped in his friend Tambe. Students preparing for GCE Exam W. Musa Some 104,502 candidates have registered to sit this year's session of exams organised by the Cameroon General Certificate of Education (GCE) Board, officials have said. Dominic Dang Akuh, Registrar of the Board told reporters in Yaounde that the figures for the 2019 session of the GCE exams witnessed a 17-percent drop in registration. He was speaking April 23, 2019 a few weeks to the official start of the exams. Akuh used the opportunity to present a report on the state of preparedness of the Board. He said they are ready for the take off of the 2019 session. In 2018 67.4% of candidates who sat the exams passed at the Advanced Level as against 35% in 2017. At the Ordinary Level, 50% passed compared to 25.29% in 2017. The Minister of Secondary Education, Nalova Lyonga congratulated all the stakeholders for heeding to the instructions in organising a hitch-free examination and thanked the government for its sustained support. The exams this year, like last year are taking place within a very peculiar context in the North West and South West regions. Most schools have remained shutdown and even those that are operational have a nose-diving enrolment. Cameroon's security and defence forces have been battling armed men fighting for the independence of a country they call Ambazonia. This has kept many students at home. Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council says close to a million learners are out of school due to the crisis. Hundreds of villages have been burnt, close to a million children are out of school, and tens of thousands are hiding in the bushes without any support. The international silence surrounding atrocities is as shocking as the untold stories are heartbreaking, said Egeland. He adds that: We need to scale up the humanitarian response, and there is a need for independent reporting from the international media. But most of all, we urgently need stronger international diplomatic engagement to help solve the conflict. This could start with the parties sitting down to agree on how schools can reopen, so that a generation of children will no longer be deprived of education." The statistics of registered candidates for this year's GCE exams as compared to last year are as follows: Registered candidates for 2019 = 104,502 Registered students for 2018 = 130,000 Drop in Candidates = 26,000 GCE O/L 2019 = 65,638 GCE O/L 2018 = 78,579 GCE A/L 2019 = 30,498 GCE A/L 2018 = 40,192 GCE O/L Technical 2019= 4,700 GCE O/L Technical 2018 = 5,300 GCE A/L Technical 2019 = 3,621 GCE A/L Technical 2018 = 5,000 For the BAC, Brevet and Probatoire Technique, a general drop was also recorded. A 65-year-old drunk ex-serviceman sent the police in at least four southern states into a tizzy, making a hoax call to the Bengaluru city police control room hinting at possible terror attacks in major south Indian cities. The caller, Swamy Sundar Murthy, spoke in Tamil and broken Hindi. He told the control room staff that he was calling from Hosur and claimed to have information on possible terror attacks on trains and buses in major cities of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Goa and Maharashtra. Soon after, the control room staff brought it to the notice of police top brass. State police chief Neelmani N Raju, meanwhile, faxed the information to her counterparts in other states to avert untoward incidents, before even probing the callers authenticity and credentials. A special team who probed the callers antecedents found it to be a hoax. Central Crime Branch (CCB) sleuths formed a team and arrested Murthy, a resident of Munivenkatappa Layout in Avalahalli on Saturday morning. Upon questioning, he told the police that he had an intuition that terror attacks are going to happen. Interrogation also revealed that he was an alcoholic and made the call allegedly in an inebriated state. During interrogation, he told us that he gets possessed by some divine souls who make prophecies and his call was based on one such vision, said additional commissioner of police Alok Kumar. Murthy also told the police that he was an ex-serviceman, but is now a tipper lorry driver. Murthys two sons are serving in the army, while he was staying with his third son in Avalahalli, the officer added. The All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS), the Centre for Indian Trade Union (CITU) and the All India Ambedkar Maha Sabha (AIAMS) on Friday called for a boycott of PepsiCos potato products, including the popular brand Lays, till the multinational company withdraws cases filed against farmers for allegedly growing a variety of potato registered by the company. Demanding the urgent intervention of Narendra Modi government to protect potato farmers in Gujarat, the AIKS said the company was seeking Rs 1.05 from nine small farmers from the state for cultivating FC-5, a variety of potato for which PepsiCo India Holdings claims to have obtained exclusive rights in the country in 2016. The company has unethically implicated farmers in cases, AIKS General Secretary Hannan Mollah told reporters in Delhi. In solidarity, CITU backed the AIKS boycott call and demanded the withdrawal of vindictive cases immediately. Terming the companys action as one more jolt to distressed farmers, Ashok Bharti of the AIAMS said the organisation was fully with the farmers. On Friday, PepsiCo told a commercial court in Ahmedabad that it was ready to settle lawsuits if the farmers gave an undertaking to purchase the specific variety of seeds from the company and thereafter sell the potato produced to it. Nine farmers from Sabarkantha and Aravalli districts are being sued by PepsiCo for allegedly growing a variety of potato for which it has claimed Plant Variety Protection (PVP) rights. Mollah said the case was a violation of Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers Rights Act 2001, which clearly mention the right of the farmers to save, use, saw, resaw, exchange, share or sell his farm produce including seed of a variety so long as he does not sell branded seed. AIKS demands the PepsiCo to immediately withdraw the cases and apologise to the peasants of India, he said. Stating that this was a test case of the corporate exploitation of farmers under the WTO regime, Mollah said the previous Central governments, led by both Congress and BJP, were responsible for completely surrendering the rights of their peasantry and the nation in favour of corporates. Reacting to the news, PepsiCo India said it wanted to amicably settle with people who were unlawfully using seeds of its registered variety. PepsiCo has also proposed that they may become part of its collaborative potato farming programme. If they do not wish to join this programme, they can simply sign an agreement and grow other available varieties of potatoes, it said. The company claimed it was compelled to take judicial recourse as a last resort. India is a democracy, where the people vote for their leaders with the expectation that the leader will make their lives easier and foster development. Oftentimes, that expectation is betrayed, and for some, that can be a catalyst to take things into their own hands. This guide helps those who are curious about the process of getting into politics and how they can contest polls - because every Indian has the right to take part in development, as a voter and as a politician. So, here we go: What is the minimum age for becoming a candidate for Lok Sabha or Assembly election? Twenty-Five Years. Article 84 (b) of Constitution says that the minimum age for becoming a candidate for Lok Sabha election shall be 25 years. A similar provision exists for a candidate to the Legislative Assemblies. Read: Election FAQ: What is the VVPAT? Election FAQ: The Model Code of Conduct Election FAQ: How to check your name on voter list Election FAQ: How to cast vote without voter ID Can a non-citizen be a candidate? No. A non-citizen cannot be a contesting candidate in the elections. Article 84 (a) of the Constitution says that a person shall not be chosen to fill a seat in the Parliament unless they are a citizen of India. A similar provision exists for State Legislative Assemblies. Can someone who is not registered as a voter contest? No. For contesting an election as a candidate a person must be registered as a voter. Sec 4 (d) of Representation People Act, 1951 forbids a person from contesting unless they are an elector in any parliamentary constituency. Section 5 (c) of R. P. Act, 1951 has a similar provision for Assembly Constituencies. If somebody is convicted and sentenced to imprisonment, can they contest elections? No. The R. P. Act, 1951, states that if a person is convicted of any offence and sentenced to an imprisonment of 2 years or more, they will stand disqualified from contesting elections. The provision stands even if a person is on bail after the conviction and an appeal is pending for disposal. How much is the security deposit for Lok Sabha election? As per Section 34 1 (a) of R. P. Act, 1951, every candidate is required to make a security deposit of Rs 25,000 for Lok Sabha elections. Candidates belonging to Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe are required to make a security deposit of Rs 12,500. How much is the security deposit for an Assembly election? As per Sec. 34 (1) (b) of the R. P. Act 1951, a general candidate for contesting an Assembly election will have to make a security deposit of Rs 10,000. Candidates belonging to Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe will have to make a security deposit of Rs 5,000. How many proposers does a candidate require for nomination? If the candidate is a member of a recognised national or state party, they require only one elector of the constituency as proposer. Independent candidates or candidates of an unrecognised political party require ten electors from the constituency as proposers. Which candidates lose the deposit? A defeated candidate who fails to secure more than one-sixth of the valid votes polled in the constituency will lose their security deposit. Source: ECI website Prime Minister Narendra Modi contested from Varanasi in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and won comprehensively defeating Aam Aadmi Party convenor Arvind Kejriwal and Ajay Rai from the Congress by garnering a vote share of 56.37 per cent and obtained three lakh votes more than his AAP counterpart. Since his victory in Varanasi, the Prime Minister has visited the city 18 times. The Bharatiya Janata Party claimed that over 300 projects have been launched over the last four years in Varanasi with a combined investment of over Rs 30,000 crore. A significant amount of this investment has been dedicated for either expanding existing highways or construction of new ones. The Prime Minister also inaugurated his showpiece project, Kashi Vishwanath Temple to Ganga Ghat corridor worth Rs 600 crore, The Economic Times reported. Prime Minister inaugurated several development projects in the city. Some of these include the dedication of 765/400 KV GIS Varanasi Power Sub-station, the Varanasi city gas distribution project, inauguration of Varanasi Postal Region, setting up of the Mahamana Pt Madan Mohan Malviya Cancer Centre and the Centenary Super Speciality Hospital at BHU. The former Gujarat Chief Minister also inaugurated the expansion Project of Diesel Locomotive Works (Phase 1). Aside from this, significant investment has also gone into Ganga cleaning projects, medical facilities and cow shelters. The constituency has also seen the inauguration of projects for the benefit of local and cottage industries. The Trade Facilitation Centre and Crafts Museum, and the Powerloom Service Centre were introduced in Varanasi. The Deendayal Hastkala Sankul a trade facilitation centre for handicraft was also inaugurated at Varanasi, Moneycontrol reported. Back in 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had visited Japan, wherein he had struck a deal with the Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe regarding the Kyoto-Varanasi partner city agreement. While Varanasi might be the pilgrim hub for millions of Hindus around the world, Kyoto itself is home to thousands of Buddhist monasteries and temples and holds a significant place in Japanese history. The impact of the agreement over the last four years, however, remains unclear. While the impact of the Modi government over the last five years in the national level rages, it remains pretty certain that the Prime Minister has given importance to his parliamentary constituency of Varanasi. Prime Minister filed his nomination on Friday (April 27) after a mega roadshow, and he will be looking to hold on to the constituency for another term. The Congress has fielded the second runner up from 2014, Ajay Rai as Modi's competitor this time. The fear of possible re-run of famine-like situation witnessed 60-years ago has gripped Mizoram, following first ever fall armyworm attack on the states crucial maize cultivation. The state agriculture department has issued an alert across the state as 1,409 hectares of maize cultivation has been severely damaged in all eight districts in the past one month. Our farmers have been caught unaware as we have never witnessed fall armyworm attack unlike in other states. This could be due to long dry spell and sudden increase in temperature. Some villages have seen 100% damage of their crops and this has made them scared, joint director of department James Lalsianliana told DH from Aizawl, the state capital, on Saturday. Normally, we witness rainfall in March but the state has seen long dry spell and sudden rise in temperature. This could be due to climate change. We have formed rapid response teams to carry out the survey and use insecticides to check the problem, he said. On April 15, Aizawl experienced temperature of 34.2 degree Celsius, its hottest day in 20-years. Mizoram had witnessed massive rodent attack on its crops following mautam or large scale bamboo flowering in 1958-59 that culminated into a separatist movement led by late rebel leader, Laldenga six years later. More than 100 people had died due to famine-like situation caused by destruction of crops in rodent attacks. Mizoram was part of Assam then but the state governments alleged failure to tackle the situation resulted the formation Mizo National Famine Front and later Mizo National Front (MNF). The front, led by Laldeng staged an uprising in 1966 and declared secession from India. The situation turned so serious that the Centre had to use air-force to tackle the Mizo rebels and force them sign an accord in 1986. Present Chief Minister Zoramthanga was a close aide of Landenga and had taken the helm of MNF following his death in 1990. Maize and paddy are the two major crops in the hilly state and has nearly 5,900 hectares with maize cultivation at present. Although, the situation now is different, but our farmers are worried when their crops are damaged. The elders living in the remote areas fear the re-run of the famine and the troubled days that followed. So our government must act swift to control the situation, said TBC Lalvengchunga, a leader of Peoples Right to Information and Development Implementation Society of Mizoram (PRISM), an anti-corruption watchdog-turned political party. Lalvengchunga is contesting this election for the lone Lok Sabha seat. In May 2013, I visited Sadhvi Pragya Thakur in the Bhopal jail. I did so because she was, I was given to understand, suffering from a life-threatening illness and proper medical attention was not extended to her. I was also given to understand that her followers and patrons had deserted her. This landed me in a huge embarrassment. Pragya accused me of being in collusion with the UPA government, in particular with the then home minister, P Chidambaram. I was alleged to have mounted pressure on her on behalf of the ruling dispensation. This surprised and saddened me. I met her in the office of the jail superintendent who, as also a few others, were present throughout our conversation. Mine was a humanitarian initiative. I dont regret extending a hand of support and solidarity to Pragya at that time, irrespective of how she embarrassed me for it. The nature of a humanitarian act does not change because it evoked ingratitude and callousness. I would visit her again, if she finds herself in similar circumstances. But that does not mean that I would be too sentimental to disapprove of her pretensions and falsehoods. I am free to be silent about my personal embarrassment, but not so when a true martyr Hemant Karkare is vilified and demonised. The issue here is not of personal animosity: Pragya versus the late Karkare. There are larger issues in this episode that compel me to speak up, upholding my commitment to the constitutional democracy that India is, which all of us have a duty to defend and strengthen. I am a swami. The core discipline of being a swami is religious transcendence. A swami, if he is genuinely one, cannot be religiously partisan. He is a citizen of the world, as the vision of vasudhaiva kutumbakam mandates. The same applies to the spiritual discipline of being a sadhvi. A lady who is virulently partisan, who believes in or practises violence, who advocates hate towards a section of our people, who readily becomes the mascot of communal politics, and has no consistent commitment to truth, cannot be a sadhvi by any stretch of imagination. It is not Pragya that worries me. It is the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah agenda. The installation of Yogi Adityanath as chief minister of the politically-decisive Uttar Pradesh was the first significant trial balloon floated by them in turning state after state into laboratories akin to the state of Gujarat of Hindutva politics. Never before in our history has India had a religious functionary heading the administration of a state. Of course, Adityanath has had an established parliamentary track record and he is, in that sense, not a political novelty. But being the chief minister of a state is a different proposition from being a law-maker. The scope of communal bias and animosity is so much less in case of a law-maker, whereas it is virtually unlimited in the case of a CM. Once a religious functionary like Adityanath becomes the CEO of a state, the prescription in the Representation of People Act that votes shall not be sought in the name of religion becomes meaningless. This is a serious blow to the very idea of secular democracy. Pragya has been chosen by Modi-Shah to spread the same phenomenon into Madhya Pradesh. Already, Shivraj Singh Chauhan had prepared the ground for it during his tenure by appointing five Hindu swamis in the state administration. That step had evoked mild expressions of anxiety at that time. No one in India will believe that the projection of an undertrial like Pragya Thakur as a potential law-maker is an investment in good governance. It is a determined push towards the establishment of Hindu rashtra. It is in this light that Pragyas statement on Karkare needs to be understood. What is the pattern that a common sense analysis of the BJPs Bhopal candidates statement about Karkares untimely death reveals? Well, it is simple, though it is not being talked about as it needs to be. Pragya is counterpointing forces of two kinds: State and religion. Karkare acted against her under the authority of the State, which is secular and democratic. It worked to her detriment. So, she hurled her power drawn from religion, the power to curse somebody to death and damnation at him. Which prevailed? The religious power had the last laugh! It is naive to discount statements of this kind as casual and immature. No, they are intentional and purposive. The assertion of the death-dealing power of religion vis-a-vis State power is made, let us not forget, in the context of elections. The statement is clearly meant to impact the mindset of the people. Sociological studies have proved repeatedly that the popular mind works in terms not of ideas or ideologies, but of raw power. A believer, for example, will choose the mightier of the two gods available to him. Pragyas electoral adversary like her anti-terror adversary is a secular man. He is vastly superior to her in political and administrative experience, just as Karkare was superior to her in terms of the authority of the State under which he dealt with her. On merits, Pragya stands no chance against Digvijaya Singh. The only aspect in which she can claim superiority over him is that of supernatural powers which, she knows, has immense mass appeal. Ironically, for the BJP, it is its contrived monopoly over patriotic, nationalist and anti-Pakistani sentiments that makes Pragyas statement a greater liability than it needs to be. So, a way out has been improvised. Pragya withdraws her obnoxious statement, not because it is unfair and unpatriotic, but because it afforded some laughter in Pakistan! She doesnt want Pakistanis to laugh. So, Karkare will be spared, even as she refuses to renege from what she said. The shocking thing is that the BJP believes that this will wash away the poison from Pragyas calumny. (The writer is a scholar, social activist and founder-convener of the Parliament of All Religions-India) If one looks at the BJPs poll narrative as it is shaping up after three phases of Lok Sabha polls and the election moves to the North, one may find the party returning to one part of its 2014 playbook attacking Congress on Hindu terror. In fact, it is beating up the Congress for the same mistakes from over a decade ago that it used to beat it with in 2014. Malegaon blast (2008), Batla House encounter (2008) and Samjhauta Express bombing (2007), which the BJP had used to the hilt to paint the Congress as anti-Hindu and pro-Muslim (even pro-terrorists) in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls are back, and this time with a vengeance as it has picked Sadhvi Pragya Thakur, who actually stands charged and is facing trial in the Malegaon blast case, from Bhopal. The new additions are repeated mentions of the Pulwama terror strike and how Modi (that is India) avenged it by attacking a terror camp in Balakot in Pakistan. The latest entry is the Pragya factor. The Hindi word Pragya means enlightened consciousness. But the saffron clad Sadhvi, the BJPs new Hindutva poster-girl, is more in the news for her vituperative comments. Within a week of being fielded with much fanfare to take on the BJPs favourite punching bag in Congress, Digvijaya Singh, whom the BJP loves to paint as pro-Muslim, Thakur has got two notices from the Election Commission, prompting a restrain yourself message from the saffron party. ALSO READ: Battle for the heartland An application filed to restrain Pragya from contesting the election was, however, rejected by a Mumbai court, which she immediately hailed as dharm ki jeet. But Thakur is still facing charges under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). While the National Investigating Agency (NIA), probing the Malegaon blast, dropped charges under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) and even said there was not enough evidence to prosecute her, the special court rejected NIAs submission, said there was enough prima facie evidence and framed the charges against her. Pragyas nomination has led to some counter-effects. The BJPs lone Muslim candidate in the Madhya Pradesh assembly polls in December, Fatima Rasoom Siddiqui, demanded that Pragya apologise to Muslims for her comments. In Mumbai, there was a huge impromptu gathering of people last Tuesday to protest against the Pragyas remarks that Hemant Karkare, the Mumbai anti-terror police chief, died in the 26/11 attacks because she had cursed him. Controversies apart, BJP is hopeful of gaining from projecting the cursing Sadhvi and flagging the injustice meted out to her by the UPA regime. The BJP rank and file feel that Sadhvi was wronged and so her victory against Digvijaya Singh would be the right message to those inimical to Hindus. So, no less than the prime minister himself defends the decision to field Pragya. While her candidature took many by surprise, the saffron party fielding her against Digvijaya Singh left no one in doubt as to what narrative the BJPs election campaign is moving towards. Its Hindutva on steroids, in which the party doesnt mind projecting even a terror undertrial if that helps polarise voters and pitch the election as a battle against those who paint Hindus as terrorists. The AK Antony Committee, which had gone into the shock defeat of Congress in 2014, had held that the perception of Congress as tilting towards Muslims had consolidated Hindus towards the BJP and needed to be corrected. It is in this backdrop that the BJP, by fielding Pragya Thakur, is hopeful of once again fanning the alleged pro-Muslim tilt of Congress to consolidate Hindu votes. Ever since NIAs clean chit to her and the recent acquittal of Swami Aseemanand in the Samjhauta Express case, the BJP has gone to town accusing Congress of defaming Hindus and hatching conspiracies against them. That is why the echo of Digvijaya versus Pragya Thakur will travel beyond the frontiers of Bhopal and Madhya Pradesh. This is the second seat for which the BJP has fielded a saffron-clad monk against a senior Congress leader, the first being Solapur in Maharashtra, where it has fielded Lingayat seer Jai Siddheshwar Swami against former union home minister Sushilkumar Shinde. The BJP has been attacking Shinde, too, over his Hindu terror remark during the UPA-2 government. Shinde had expressed regret over the remark as far back as 2013, a year before the 2014 LS polls, but that has not stopped the BJP from milking the remark for all it is worth even in 2019. If the BJP manages to win both Bhopal and Solapur seats, not only will it have defeated two big leaders of Congress, but it will also go to town that those speaking against Hindus have no future in the countrys politics. Ever since the 1990s, the BJPs sadhvis have helped it amplify its hardline Hindutva message far and wide -- be it Uma Bharti, Sadhvi Ritambara or Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, all three female disciples of Swami Parmanand Giri, who had started working for the BJP after he became the vice president of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) Margdarshak Mandal. While Ritambhara quit politics and confined herself to religious and social activities, the other two stayed on. Bharti became Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh in 2003 and after a chequered run in the BJPs politics, was again a cabinet minister in the Modi government. Jyoti, who became an MP from Fatehpur Lok Sabha seat in UP and later a union minister, is a rabble rouser. Addressing a rally in Delhi in 2014, she had made the Ramzade ki sarkar ya haramzade ki sarkar remark to project what the electoral battle was all about in 2014. The party has re-nominated her in 2019, at a time when a number of its sitting MPs have not got tickets to fight the polls. She has also been named a star campaigner. Its not just Pragya Thakur, but she does take the hardline Hindutva campaign to an altogether new level or, perhaps, to a new abnormal in national politics. Karnataka has put Bengaluru and other cities on high alert following the recent terror attack in Sri Lanka, Home Minister M B Patil said on Saturday. Patil, in a tweet, said he had instructed the state police to deploy additional forces in sensitive areas. I urge citizens not to pay heed to fake news and inform police if you find any suspicious things/persons, Patil said. Meanwhile, Central Crime Branch (CCB) sleuths on Saturday arrested an ex-serviceman-turned-lorry driver who made a hoax call to the Bengaluru city police control room on Friday evening, about possible terror strikes in major cities in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Puducherry, Goa and Maharashtra. The call had sent police in four states into a tizzy. The caller identified as Swamy Sundar Murthy from Hosur was allegedly in an inebriated state when he called the police control room. Taking the threat perception seriously, Karnataka police chief Neelamani N Raju had sent out fax messages to her counterparts in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Puducherry, Goa and Maharashtra. She also alerted the Intelligence Bureau and ADGP Railways on the terror threats. Fax message leak Headquarters of the state police, DG-IGPs office, on Nrupathunga road was abuzz on Saturday morning after top brass Neelmani N Rajus fax message to her counterparts in other states was leaked and went viral on social media. Sources from the DG-IGPs office told this newspaper the chief minister was very unhappy with Neelmani over the leak of her message that created fear-mongering not only in Karnataka, but also in other states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Sources also said the director of Intelligence Bureau had spoken to the chief minister and the state police top brass. ADGP Intelligence B Dayananda and ADGP Law and order Kamal Pant initiated an inquiry into how the fax message leaked from police circles to the media. Rural Development and Panchayat Raj (RDPR) Minister Krishna Byre Gowda has accused the Election Commission of not allowing him to discharge his duty even as the state is reeling under drought and faces a drinking water problem. Gowda said he was not allowed to chair a meeting on Saturday with chief executive officers of zilla panchayats to review the drought situation. Instead, the Election Commission permitted RDPR principal secretary L K Atheeq to chair the meeting. Several taluks are reeling under severe drought. The EC, though, will not allow me to discharge my duty as the RDPR minister and conduct meetings with the ZP CEOs to review critical drinking water and employment programmes. Why? Gowda asked in a tweet. Karnataka went to polls on April 18 and April 23 in two phases of the Lok Sabha election. Elections are over in Karnataka. Arent laws and rules meant to aid better governance and not stymie legitimate efforts to safeguard citizens? he wrote. Speaking to DH, Gowda said Saturdays meeting was scheduled two weeks ago. This is part of his monthly reviews. Just before the Lok Sabha elections, we sanctioned a large amount of funds - Rs 50 lakh for Rabi/Kharif drought taluks, Rs 25 lakh for Rabi drought taluks and Rs 10 lakh for non-drought taluks. This is in addition to Rs 50 lakh for drought-hit and Rs 25 lakh for non-drought taluks we gave earlier. Now, I need to check and take stock of how this money has been spent. How will this (meeting) affect the outcome of elections? he asked. Consecutive drought years and rapid depletion of groundwater levels have resulted in a severe shortage of drinking water in many parts of the state. Data shows that a total of 1,112 villages are being supplied tanker water as nearby water sources have dried up. Gowda resumed office on April 20, after hectic campaigning for the Lok Sabha election which he contested as the Congress candidate from the Bangalore North constituency against BJPs Union Minister D V Sadananda Gowda. This isnt the first time Google has banned an app developer from its marketplace, but its probably one of its biggest yet The tech giant banned Android developer DO Global after it discovered that it was committing ad fraud A Buzzfeed report found at least six of the companys apps have a code that made it seem like a user was clicking on an advertisement even if they werent using the apps These even had generic names like Selfie Camera and Total Cleaner, which obscured the fact that they were owned by DO Global SALT LAKE CITY In just seven years, if Congress does not intervene, Medicares Part A hospital insurance will no longer be able to pay full benefits for inpatient hospital services, hospice care, and the home health and skilled nursing care it covers when theyre needed following hospitalization. The program isn't going bankrupt, as some headlines have blared, but the cost is projected to outpace available funds, creating a shortfall that if not addressed by Congress would force the program to pay less for covered services. The new 2019 Medicare Trustees Report estimates that in 2026, the Hospital Insurance Trust Fund, which reimburses providers for Part A services, will be able to cover about 89 percent of the amount that will be owed. And the gap between funding and expenditure will keep growing, it said. "It should not surprise anyone here today to know that Medicare's fiscal circumstances remain a serious matter for the country and for taxpayers," said Joseph Antos, an American Enterprise Institute scholar, during a discussion AEI hosted in Washington, D.C. Tuesday. "Such a large increase in spending represents a serious and growing fiscal challenge. Trustees have repeatedly warned that Medicare finances are fundamentally unsound," he said. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency within the Department of Health and Human Services that administers Medicare, said the numbers are driven in part by "faster Medicare population growth and increases in the volume and intensity of healthcare services." The Medicare Board of Trustees is required to provide a 75-year projection on the fiscal health of that Part A Hospital Insurance Trust Fund and the Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Fund, from which Medicares Part B and Part D expenses are paid. While Medicare Part A covers hospital expenses, Part B covers physician, outpatient hospital, home health and other services and Part D helps cover the cost of medication. People enroll in B and D and pay premiums. A separate Medicare program, Part C, or "Medicare Advantage," is an alternative to parts A and B managed by private insurance companies under contract with Medicare. In order to avoid underestimating the shortfall, the report's Part A estimate does not account for payment reductions that would be needed if the trust fund was depleted. A "critical function" of the annual report is to alert lawmakers to "the size of any trust fund deficits that would need to be resolved to avert program insolvency." "Insolvency in this context means that the hospital trust fund would not be able to pay all its bills," said AEI panelist Robert Moffit of The Heritage Foundation. The program will "not go under, it will not collapse. It simply will not pay all of the promised benefits," he added. Lawmakers can make adjustments to avert a shortfall, either by making changes to the program, increasing funding in the federal budget or raising the payroll tax directed to Medicare. Congress has never allowed the program to be insolvent, so it's not clear what would happen if it did whether service providers would have to eat the difference between full and partial reimbursement or whether beneficiaries could be required to pay a larger share of the program's costs through higher deductibles, copayments and coinsurance. As baby boomers age, total Medicare costs for both trust funds are expected to grow from 3.7 percent of GDP in 2018 to 5.9 percent by 2038. After that, it will grow more gradually to about 6.5 percent of GDP by 2093. That increase will be due to more people aging into Medicare and "increases in the volume and intensity of healthcare services," according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The two trust funds that together finance for Medicare's parts operate differently. Funding for Part B is determined each year to be sure costs are covered and a reserve maintained. The report predicts those costs will grow, too, from 3.2 percent of GDP to 3.7 percent in 2038. But the report's projection of cost for Part D is lower than last year. Antos said parts B and D will "remain solvent indefinitely." Joe Spitalnic, a Medicare program actuary, said one way to address the deficit would be to increase the fund's income rate by .91 percent by raising the payroll tax from 2.9 percent to 3.8 percent. But several AEI panelists noted that tax increases are hard to get passed. In a news release about the trustees report, the agency hailed President Trump's 2020 budget proposal, noting that under his leadership, the agency has created initiatives "to strengthen and protect Medicare." Among its priorities, the release said, is using competition to give patients more choice. "In particular, CMS is strengthening Medicare through increasing choice in Medicare Advantage and adding supplemental benefits to the program offering more care options for people with diabetes; providing new telehealth services; and lowering prescription costs for seniors. CMS is also continuing work to advance policies to increase price transparency and help beneficiaries compare costs across different providers." The Medicare trustees' report comes at a time when Democrats seem to be lining up behind various versions of what has been called "Medicare for all," including several Democrat presidential hopefuls. Vox News this week reported that "Last year, dozens of Democratic candidates ran and won on a promise to fight to give all Americans access to government-run health care. A new Medicare-for-all bill in the House already has more than 100 co-sponsors. Many of the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates have endorsed the idea." The article noted "more than half a dozen proposals in Congress, which all envision very different health care systems." A companion federal report by Social Security's trustees said that starting in 2035, recipients of that program would receive just three-fourths of their monthly benefits unless Congress intervenes. SALT LAKE CITY Mike Styler, executive director of the Utah Department of Natural Resources, is retiring after more than 14 years of service with the department. Styler, the agencys longest serving executive director, will step down June 1. Deputy Director Darin Bird will serve as interim executive director. Mikes leadership has been invaluable both to the Department of Natural Resources and to our state, Gov. Gary Herbert said in a statement Friday. I will greatly miss having him as part of my cabinet, and I wish him the very best. Under Stylers leadership, the department launched the Watershed Restoration Initiative, a statewide effort to improve ecosystem health and biological diversity, water quality and yield, as well as sustainable uses of Utah watersheds. To date, nearly 2,000 projects and 1.6 million acres of land have been restored. Among other accomplishments, Styler was instrumental in forming the Utah Water Task Force, the creation of the states water rights adjudication process, and in the signing of two hunter access agreements with the states School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration. My opportunities to serve took unanticipated paths, but it has been incredibly rewarding to work with Gov. Herbert, the good people of Utah and over 1,300 DNR employees that work so hard to meet the natural resource needs of our state, Styler said in the statement. Utah faces a number of difficult opportunities moving forward with water, wildlife, recreation and fire particularly. DNR has amazing and dedicated people. They are up to the task of meeting those challenges. Styler served in the Utah House of Representatives before joining the department. In the Legislature he served as chairman of both the Legislative Water Task Force and Natural Resources Appropriations Committee. He also served as a member of the Executive Appropriations Committee and the Legislative Management Committee. A farmer from Oasis, Millard County, he also served as a Millard County commissioner and an eighth-grade U.S. history teacher at Delta Middle School before being elected to the Legislature. He still farms 400 acres of irrigated land on his family farm. Cookie banner We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from. To learn more or opt-out, read our Cookie Policy. Please also read our Privacy Notice and Terms of Use, which became effective December 20, 2019. By choosing I Accept, you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. BINGHAM CANYON Six years after 165 million tons of earthen material slipped in a massive landslide at Kennecott's Bingham Canyon copper mine, the company is celebrating the reopening of one of its most popular attractions. The newly renamed Visitor Experience at the Bingham Canyon Mine is now open. Closed six years ago as the visitor center, the reconceived center now offers exhibits including a full-size haul truck bed and shovel scoop that visitors can walk inside, a replica of a historic mine tunnel, panoramic views overlooking the mine and its operation where visitors can also observe working geotechnical monitoring equipment, said Rio Tinto Kennecott community relations and communications manager Piper Rhodes. "It took us some time to really think through what kind of new experience that we wanted visitors to have when they came up here," she said. After several years of planning, the new Visitor Experience technically opened last September, she noted, but primarily to stakeholders, employees and their families, along with contractors and their family members as a "sneak peek." This year, however, is the company's grand opening season and there are many new exhibits for visitors to experience. Displays include a full-size haul truck tire that stands 12 feet tall, the trucks themselves are two stories tall, she said. "(Visitors) get to feel the size and scale of our operation. They'll get to touch and feel some of our equipment," Rhodes said. "Depending on the mine plan, we produce up to 300,000 tons of copper each year." The new Visitor Experience brings with it a few changes from the previous iteration. Gone is the old building that used to house the visitor center and the ability to drive cars to the main exhibit area. Now, visitors park in designated lots where they board shuttle buses that transport them to and from the main area. The experience is open daily from April 1 through Oct. 31, with shuttles running every 30 minutes beginning from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. and the last one returns by 4:30 p.m. Tickets are $5 each and children under 5 are free. All proceeds are donated to the Kennecott Charitable Foundation, which helps positively impact the local comnmunity, Rhodes said. Visitors must make a reservation for the day of their visit, either online or onsite at the Bingham Canyon Lions Gift Shop, according to the website. Tickets must be printed or be available via mobile device for scanning upon shuttle entry. Opened in 1906, Bingham Canyon Mine is the largest man-made excavation on Earth, the company website states. The mine has been in continuous operation since and produced millions of tons of metals and minerals, said Rio Tinto spokesman Kyle Bennett. The mine measures 2.75 miles across and three-quarters of a mile deep. "It's one of the largest mines in the world," he said. Today, the company employs almost 2,000 workers, including hundreds tasked with mine operations. Rio Tinto Kennecott is the second largest copper producer in the United States, supplying about a quarter of the country's copper, she said. Besides copper, Rio Tinto Kennecott produces copper, gold, silver molybdenum and sulphuric acid, she added. The slide that caused the visitor center closure occurred in April 2013 in the northeast section of the mine. No employees were injured, but roads, buildings and vehicles inside the pit were damaged. At the time, Kennecott engineers had been detecting ground movement for about two months and warned nearby residents about an impending slide. Though the movement amounted to just fractions of an inch, it was enough for the company to close the mine's visitor center. With the new Visitor Experience now available, people are starting to take advantage of the opportunity to revisit an old landmark. Salt Lake resident Dan Scott, 37, first came to the mine when he was a child years ago. Today, he relishes the opportunity to bring his 5-year old son and 2-year old daughter to the place he found so fascinating as a kid. "It's fun for me to bring the kids because it's something I remember from my childhood," he explained. "I appreciate the fact that this is in our backyard. The scale and size of the whole thing are pretty impressive. It's fun to see them get excited about it and experience it for the first time." SALT LAKE CITY "I love the Bill of Rights, I love the Constitution, I love the liberties that made us free in this country," Ed Ayers, of Salt Lake City, told a panel discussing racism Friday. "Is it not racist and discriminatory calling me a white nationalist when I believe in this country?" Members of the "Stand Against Racism" panel told Ayers he had a good question, and an audience member then chimed in "racism goes both ways," which elicited collective groans and "whoa's" from both the crowd and the five panelists. "No it does not," another audience member disagreed. It was at this point Emma Houston, director of diversity and inclusion for Salt Lake County, stepped in to remind everyone the meeting was a "safe space" for discussion where people should listen respectfully to things they agree and disagree with. "We may not agree on everything that is said, we are here to listen to what everything that is being said, whether we agree or disagree," Houston told the crowd. "So I heard that deep moan, 'Mmmmm' we all have our opinions, we all have our perceptions, that's where the conversations begin in the safe space." The panel discussion, hosted by Salt Lake Countys Council on Diversity Affairs Human Rights Subcommittee and the Mayors Office of Diversity and Inclusion as part of YWCA's national "Stand Against Racism" campaign, was held to open a dialogue about structural and institutional racism in the community. About 40 people attended. Panelist Emerald Greene, graduate student at the University of Utah and an intern with the county's diversity office, addressed Ayers' question tackling white nationalism by first defining racism. "Racism is a system, right? And essentially people can only be racist if they benefit from being racist," she explained. "It's built on oppressing, discriminating against people of a certain color, specifically people who have less power than certain other people." "Anyone calling you a white nationalist is wrong," Greene then assured Ayers. "I condemn anyone who calls you a white nationalist." However, Greene also said Ayers needs to understand the context and history of documents like the Bill of Rights and U.S. Constitution. "But you should also understand that those governmental systems were meant for you as a white male," she said. "And there's also people that look like me, that look like him, that look like her that did not benefit from those same Bill of Rights, that same Constitution." Her response was greeted with applause from the audience. Greene was joined by four other panelists who discussed a wide array of topics, from racism in religion to how internalized racism can impact mental health. When Maria Drummond, recreational therapist with Salt Lake County Youth Services, asked the panel how Youth Services can create better inclusion opportunities, panelist Kwamane O. Harris, education manager with Planned Parenthood Association of Utah, said giving minorities a voice is most important. "It's just giving us a seat at the table, giving people of different diversities a seat at the table," he answered. "Because if they have a seat at the table then they're allowed, they can actually talk about some of those things that they need." Panelist Faeiza Javed, a Pakistani-American Muslim who was born and raised in the Salt Lake area and now works as a licensed clinical social worker, said she's internalized the racism and oppression she's experienced. "Someone can give me one look and my mind's like 'Oh shoot, I'm in danger,'" she told the audience. After President Donald Trump was elected to office, Javed said she had several family members and friends express concern about her wearing a hijab. While she said she was already considering not wearing one, that solidified her choice. "I miss it sometimes," she said. "I protect myself by not covering (with a) hijab and that sucks because it's part of my faith and I love it." "I can't think of a more important conversation for Salt Lake County right now," said Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson. "What I love about our community is the various voices and the diversity and the heart and soul that comes when somebody brings a tradition other than my own to the table." She said the "cultural fabric" of Salt Lake is important and enriches the community. "Having said that, I do know that racism is a reality," Wilson continued. Wilson recalled the one Utah Jazz game she attended this year, when Jazz owner Gail Miller condemnedthe racist remarks of a "quote fan," as Miller called them in the statement she read to guests in the arena last month. Wilson said the community needs to "address the tough stuff" and engage in a conversation about racism in order to advance the goal of eradicating racism. Moderator of the discussion Lance Paul Keen Brady-Sayer asked panelist Michael F. Iwasaki, a licensed attorney who works for the state of Utah and is co-president of Salt Lake's chapter of Japanese American Citizens League, if he thought racism was getting worse or disappearing. "I think it really depends on your perspective," Iwasaki answered. "I don't think it's disappearing but I think it's being called to the forefront more, you're seeing it in the media more, you're seeing it being called out and I think that's a positive thing." He praised the passage of Utah's hate crimes bill, which he said is a step in the right direction, but he also said he doesn't think it will ever disappear. "I really feel like as long as you have different people, you're going to have people that have opinions based on those differences," he said. "And I think that's just how it is." Brady-Sayer told the panelists he felt anxiety checking the box on forms asking for his race. "There's only one race, there really is, the human race," he said. "And we just have different backgrounds, different ethnicities really." He then asked panelists a two-part question: If people start to see themselves as a human race, rather than focused on differences, how can that change in mindset help the issue of racism and how can people bring different races together to work on this issue? All five panelists said they were proud of their ethnicities that made them unique and played a role in their identity. "I'm a first-generation college student, so when the time comes to apply to university and the box says hispanic, I'm going to check that proudly," said panelist Susana Lemus, a sophomore at Kearns High School and an active member in student government and Latinos in Action. "You know, it's part of my identity and I think that's really important to each of us." Javed added that she felt this idea of the human race was similar to when people say they should be "color blind" to race something she felt was erasing people's unique differences. After all panelists had answered, Brady-Sayer then apologized and said he had asked the question in a "provocative way on purpose so you would give a really good honest answer." "Hate does not belong in a civilized society," Houston said to end the discussion. "It just does not." A video of the more than hourlong event can be found on the Salt Lake County Library system's Facebook page. FARMINGTON Police early this week arrested a man who they say had chemicals to make explosives and what appeared to be scrawled notes about his "target," an apartment building in Salt Lake City. Jose Benito Guanajuato, 34, of North Salt Lake, was arrested Sunday for investigation of possession of a dangerous weapon by a restricted person and possession of a controlled substance, according to an affidavit filed in 2nd District Court in support of his arrest. On Sunday, Guanajuato's aunt called police and reported a smell of ammonia coming from her home. When the aunt showed police the spare bedroom, an officer noticed "several items and chemicals that would be consistent with a possible drug lab," according to police. Another family member arrived at the house and told police she had seen Guanajuato walking on Redwood Road. Police found and arrested him. When they searched the home later, officers found in the room "two pieces of notepad paper that had several numbers and notations on them. Some of these notations said VX, sarin, nerve agents, blister agents, mustard and lewisite," among other chemicals and measurements, police wrote. Lewisite is a chemical weapon used as a lung irritant, police said. Police also found receipts in the room that showed purchases of some of the listed chemicals, according to the affidavit. In Guantajuato's room they found more receipts, as well as meth and cocaine, the affidavit states. "In Joses bedroom there was a black bag that contained a laptop, tablet, cellphones and some notebooks. In one of the notebooks there were some notes that had the word 'Target' and underneath that word American Towers and some lat long coordinates," police wrote. American Towers is a housing building at 44 Broadway in Salt Lake City. "There was a notation about American Towers that said, 'American towers is not only the foundation of homeland security but is also coustums, ice (sic) my last visit at this building it was around 400 am and I noticed the car lots were empty theer (sic) were about 6 cars or less, to my understanding this is also a condows (sic),'" according to the affidavit. The Davis County Health Department conducted tests on the chemicals and police said "it appeared that there was everything present to make what is called TATP which is an explosive substance. It appeared that the parts just had not been mixed." When interviewed, Guantajuato wouldn't tell police what he was doing with the chemicals, the affidavit states. Believing he may pose a danger to the public, police asked that he be held without bail. Guantajuato has a criminal history in Utah, according to court documents, including mostly drug charges. SALT LAKE CITY Just hours after Joe Biden posted a video announcing his 2020 bid for the White House Thursday, President Donald Trump took to Twitter. Welcome to the race Sleepy Joe, Trump tweeted Thursday. I only hope you have the intelligence, long in doubt, to wage a successful primary campaign. It will be nasty - you will be dealing with people who truly have some very sick & demented ideas. But if you make it, I will see you at the Starting Gate!" Welcome to the race Sleepy Joe. I only hope you have the intelligence, long in doubt, to wage a successful primary campaign. It will be nasty - you will be dealing with people who truly have some very sick & demented ideas. But if you make it, I will see you at the Starting Gate! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 25, 2019 Trumps taunts might seem like business as usual coming from a president known for his pugnacious persona on and off of Twitter, and especially given the two-year feud between Trump and Biden which has involved mudslinging, name-calling and even verbal fisticuffs. But Thursday's tweets were different, Trump advisers told Politico. The insults he chose revealed genuine respect and concern about Bidens potential to win, they said. Trump talked privately to aides about the threat Biden posed as early as last fall, a Republican strategist with direct knowledge of the interactions told Politico, asking, How are we gonna beat Biden? Even when reassured Biden would never prevail over his more liberal opponents, Trump insisted, But what if he does? The candidates he doesnt talk about, its a signal that he doesnt take them seriously, a Republican strategist told CNN. We have had a number of conversations about potential challengers, and Biden has been at the top of the list because of his polling numbers, a Republican lawmaker who talks frequently with the president told CNN. He is seen as one of the most difficult potential challengers because of his appeal to independents and his likable style. Citing such concerns, a Republican strategist told Politico Trump sees Biden as the biggest threat in 2020. Trump denied the characterization. "I don't see Joe Biden as a threat. No, I don't see him as a threat. I think he is only a threat to himself," Trump told reporters earlier this month. "He's been there a long time. His record's not good. He'd have to run on the Obama failed record." Despite Trumps denial, of the 20 Democrats running for president, none has quite as much in common with Trump as Biden, Politico reported. And, counterintuitively, it may be the two candidates similarities rather than their differences that make Biden such a threat to Trump in 2020. Biden and Trump have similar strengths. Biden and Trump are similar in age Trump is 72, Biden in 76. Both have appealed to voters with a raw, unscripted approach to politics, according to Politico. Both have proven their ability to appeal to blue-collar voters without a college education. These Americans were once staunch Democrats, but have increasingly migrated to the Republican Party. In comparison with other candidates in the Democratic field, Biden is also uniquely capable of competing with Trump in the Rust Belt states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania that helped Trump win in 2016. At the same time, Biden represents "a vestige of the Obama administration," according to Politico, which Trump has focused on as he compares his own presidency to that of his predecessor. But Trump and Biden have similar weaknesses too. Both candidates are famous for their loquaciousness talking far more and far longer than their aides would like. Both are prone to remarks that induce cringes even among their supporters, Politico reported. Both can be hot-tempered and easily drawn into petty fights. For example, in March 2018, Biden told a crowd at the University of Miami that he would have beat the hell out of Trump if they were in high school, given the presidents crude remarks about women. Trump responded that the former vice president would go down fast and hard, crying all the way. Dont threaten people Joe! The candidates also have struggled to maintain a strong track record with the same key constituency: women. Trump has often used vulgar language to describe women, most famously epitomized by the Access Hollywood tape. But Biden, too, has come under fire for his treatment of women, including several women who have come forward recently to accuse the former vice-president of inappropriate touching. And, as Biden prepared for his presidential announcement, he called Anita Hill to express his regret for what she endured 28 years ago, when, as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he presided over the confirmation hearings in which she accused Clarence Thomas, then President George Bushs nominee to the Supremre Court, of sexual harassment. The call seemed to backfire, The New York Times reported. I cannot be satisfied by simply saying, Im sorry for what happened to you, Hill, now a professor of social policy, law and womens studies at Brandeis University, told The Times. I will be satisfied when I know that there is real change and real accountability and real purpose. However, despite recent media attention on the allegations against Biden, recent polling shows that Biden sits atop the Democratic primary contest because of support from women. WASHINGTON The universe is expanding faster than it used to, meaning it's about a billion years younger than we thought, a new study by a Nobel Prize winner says. And that's sending a shudder through the world of physics, making astronomers re-think some of its most basic concepts. At issue is a number called the Hubble constant, a calculation for how fast the universe is expanding. Some scientists call it the most important number in cosmology, the study of the origin and development of the universe. Using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, Johns Hopkins University astronomer Adam Riess concluded in this week's Astrophysical Journal that the figure is 9% higher than the previous calculation, which was based on studying leftovers from the Big Bang. The trouble is, Riess and others think both calculations are correct. Confused? That's OK, so are the experts. They find the conflict so confounding that they are talking about coming up with "new physics," incorporating perhaps some yet-to-be-discovered particle or other cosmic "fudge factors" like dark energy or dark matter. "It's looking more and more like we're going to need something new to explain this," said Riess, who won the 2011 Nobel in physics. NASA astrophysicist John Mather, another Nobel winner, said this leaves two obvious options: "1. We're making mistakes we can't find yet. 2. Nature has something we can't find yet." Even with the discovery, life continues on Earth the way it always has. But to astrophysicists trying to get a handle on our place in this expanding universe, this is a cosmic concern. NEW MEASUREMENTS To come up with his measurement of the Hubble constant, Riess looked to some not-so-distant stars. Riess observed 70 Cepheid stars stars that pulse at a well-observed rate calculated their distance and rate, and then compared them with a certain type of supernovae that are used as measuring sticks. It took about two years for the Hubble telescope to make these measurements, but eventually Riess calculated an expansion rate of 74. Using that 74 figure means the universe is somewhere between 12.5 billion and 13 billion years old. That's much younger than the established estimates of 13.6 billion to 13.8 billion. "Hey, it's good news. Everybody likes to look younger," Riess said. THE OLD MEASUREMENT In 2013, the European Planck satellite helped scientists come up with a much slower expansion rate of about 67, but that was done in an entirely different, more complicated and less direct way and by looking at a much earlier time, when the universe was just a toddler. The Planck team studied background radiation from a time just 370,000 years after the Big Bang. By examining cold and hot spots in that radiation, scientists figured out how big the spots were, which helped them determine how far away they were looking. That team then fed those calculations into the standard model that astronomers use for the universe based on Einstein's general relativity, among other things factored in the known acceleration of the universe and came up with the smaller expansion rate. The end result: a 13.8-billion-year-old universe. Riess calculated the odds that the disparity between the two calculations was an accident at 1 in 100,000. FUDGE FACTORS While there is a chance either the Riess team or the Planck team is off, astronomers are talking about both being right. Both calculations make sense and "nobody can find anything wrong at this point," said distinguished University of Chicago astrophysicist Wendy Freedman. Other outside experts praised both teams' research. If that's the case, astrophysicists need to make adjustments in Einstein's general relativity theory. "You need to add something into the universe that we don't know about," said Chris Burns, an astrophysicist at the Carnegie Institution for Science. "That always makes you kind of uneasy.' In the past, astronomers added hard-to-fathom dark energy and dark matter to explain why calculations didn't add up, borrowing from a once-discarded Einstein theory. Now they're saying they need to do something similar again. It could be there's an extra "turbocharge" from a past odd pulse of dark energy an unseen expansion force that fits well in Einstein's theories that caused the speeded-up expansion, Riess said. Or there could be a new particle of matter that hasn't been discovered, Burns said. "We have this dark sector that already has two ingredients, and maybe we're discovering a third," said Planck team member Lloyd Knox of the University of California, Davis. "That's a scary prospect. Are we just going to always be introducing fudge factors?" A THIRD APPROACH Astronomers at the University of Chicago, led by Freedman, spent five years looking at different stars than Riess to come up with a third calculation of the expansion rate. They just submitted their work to the same journal. Freedman wouldn't reveal her number but said it is between the two other figures. Twenty years ago, Freedman was part of similar debate about the Hubble constant, when there were few measurements to work with. "It's an exciting journey to try to understand what the origin of the universe is," she said. ___ The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content. LONDON A park ranger in Congo has described how he captured a selfie with two gorillas that went viral. Mathieu Shamavu, a ranger at Virunga National Park in eastern Congo, said he was checking his phone when he noticed two female orphaned gorillas, Ndakazi and Ndeze, mimicking his movements, so he took a picture with them. The gorillas look as if they're posing for the camera and when Shamavu posted the picture on social media on Saturday it quickly clocked up thousands of likes and comments. According to rangers at the sanctuary, Ndakazi and Ndeze were orphaned 12 years ago when their families were killed by poachers. They were the first orphans to be cared for at the center, which according to Virunga park's management, is the only place in the world dedicated to the care of orphaned mountain gorillas. As the gorillas arrive in the sanctuary at a young age, they learn from their caretakers, said Shamavu. "In terms of behavior, they like to mimic everything that is happening (around them), everything we do," Shamavu told The Associated Press. He said the caretakers at Senkwekwe Mountain Gorilla Orphanage Center try to give the animals as much access as possible to their natural environment, but they inevitably exhibit "almost the same behavior as humans." Senkwekwe is named after one of the wild silverback gorillas that was killed in Virunga in 2007. The orphans need constant care, so the rangers live nearby and spend their days with them - feeding them, playing with them, keeping them company. "Gorilla caretakers with those gorilla orphans, we are the same family," said head caretaker Andre Bauma. He said without their own relatives nearby, the gorillas treat the rangers as their family. "They know we are their mum. They are a member of the family. We are their friends," said Bauma. Virunga is billed as Africa's most biodiverse national park, spanning tropical forests, snow-peaked mountains and active volcanoes. It's also one of the last bastions of wild mountain gorilla populations. Parks in the mountains of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda have the last remaining mountain gorillas in their natural habitat. But it's in eastern Congo, an area that has suffered from years of armed conflict. Virunga's management has had to take extraordinary measures to keep its visitors safe from the on-and-off fighting in the region - protecting them with a highly trained guard of elite rangers and sniffer dogs, and working closely with communities surrounding the park. After a park ranger was killed by gunmen and three foreign tourists were briefly held captive, the park closed until it could secure the safety of visitors. It reopened in mid-February this year. But all this costs money, and the state park says it wouldn't be able to survive without private donations from visitors. Virunga's management hopes the viral gorilla selfie will help boost the park's profile, and encourage more people to contribute to the vital work of conserving the mountain gorillas and their unique natural habitat. ___ AP journalist Khaled Kazziha in Nairobi, Kenya, contributed. An exceptionally talented artist, John Cooney has won many awards over the years. His work recently featured in The Artist and Artists and Illustrators magazine. He has exhibited at The Royal Society of Portrait Painters at the Mall galleries, London. He won the watercolour prize at the Royal Ulster Academy, Belfast in 2017 and last year won the Whyte's auctioneers prize in the Watercolour Society of Ireland exhibition in Dublin. He was recently awarded second prize at this years, Artist of the Year exhibition at the Mall Galleries, London, sponsored by Artists and Illustrators magazine. You learn more about his work, please go to www.johncooneyartist.com What's your idea of a perfect day, or perfect weekend out in Donegal? My perfect day or weekend would be walking along any part of the Wild Atlantic Way, where it's at its rugged best, I'm thinking of Mailn Head, Slieve League or Rosguill. Who has made the greatest contribution to Donegal in your lifetime - and why? I think the ordinary people of Donegal have been the true heroes in Donegal, they are always welcoming and friendly. They have kept Donegal alive despite declining employment and migration. What's your first Donegal memory? I have lived in greater Belfast most of my life and my first memory was of being on a wide open beach, I think it was Ballymastoker, I couldn't believe there could be so much sand outside a desert. I always remember the sense of freedom. What's your favourite part of the county - and why? I couldnt possibly have a favourite part, there are so many areas that I love and they look different each time I go there due to the changing weather. My favourites are Malin Head, all around Downings, the secluded beaches north of Burtonport, Ardara, Glencolmcille and Sliabh Liag. What do you think gives Donegal its unique identity? The people of the county and the scenery are totally unique. The people have partly formed the land but the land and its beauty has also formed the people. It is what I try to show in my paintings. Do you have a favourite local writer or author? My favourite artist with a long association of Donegal is Derek Hill. Although I greatly admire his work, I love his generosity to the people even more. He taught quite a few of the fishermen on Tory Island to paint and bequeathed his home and large art collection to the Irish people. Pictures by Picasso and Degas were just part of his collection. What's the biggest challenge facing the county today? I think the biggest challenge facing Donegal today, as always, is one of economics. There arent enough jobs and I dont think Donegal is given enough financial investment. Tourism is so important but its a short season. I fear that if Brexit actually happens, it wont bode well for any part of the north of Ireland. If you had the power to change one thing in, or about Donegal, what would it be? Id change the climate, just a bit, perhaps. Donegal needs a longer tourist season. Wild and rugged is one thing but to paint, I need light and Donegal has a lot of dull, wet days. A Guatemalan man recently arrested in Geneva County and charged with public intoxication had previously been removed from the United States five times over the last 13 years. Removal proceedings have begun again for Artemio Perez-Ramos, who was turned over to ICE custody by Geneva County authorities April 18 after his fingerprints were queried in a database revealing he had been previously removed to Guatemala multiple times. According to court documents filed in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, Perez-Ramos is being detained pending proceedings. Court documents further indicate Perez-Ramos has a lengthy history with law enforcement, although most of the offenses are nonviolent misdemeanors. The following removal history and encounters with law enforcement were provided in court documents filed in federal court. May 26, 2008: Perez-Ramos was arrested by the Russell County Sheriffs Office for public intoxication and later found guilty. He was given a suspended jail sentence. May 24, 2009: Arrested by the Blountstown Police Department in Florida for a traffic violation. A federal district judge has blocked a Texas law that prohibits boycotts of Israel as a condition of public contracting, including in the states school districts. U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman of Austin, Texas, granted a preliminary injunction against the 2017 state law at the request of plaintiffs including several who contracted with K-12 school districts in the state. Bahia Amawi, a speech pathologist who contracted with the Pflugerville Independent School District for nine years, was given an addendum to her contract renewal for the 2018-19 school year that required her to certify that she does not boycott Israel and will not boycott Israel during the term of her employment. That requirement comes from the Texas statute, known as House Bill 89, which bars state entities from contracting with companies, including sole proprietorships, that refuse to deal with Israel or with a person or entity doing business with Israel or in Israel-controlled territory. Amawi, a U.S. citizen of Palestinian origin, participates in the BDS movement, for boycotts, divestment, and sanctions, in response to Israels occupation of Palestinian territory and its treatment of Palestinian citizens and refugees. The movement seeks to pressure the Israeli government to end its occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights, among other goals. Congress has passed a resolution opposing the movement, and 25 states have passed laws or issued executive orders that restrict boycotts of Israel. Amawi says in court papers that she support[s] peaceful efforts to impose economic pressure on Israel, with the goal of making Israel recognize Palestinians dignity and human rights. She declined to sign the anti-boycott addendum to her contract for this year, and thus was forced to end her services to the Pflugerville district. The school district has said in court papers that it will offer her a new contract if the courts invalidate the Texas statute. Amawi challenged the state law on First Amendment free speech grounds in lawsuits organized by the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a separate suit on behalf of two contractors at the college level and two people who have contracted with school districts to judge high school debate tournaments and who believe the new contract requirement interferes with the First Amendment rights to engage in a boycott against Israel. In his April 25 opinion in Amawi v. Pflugerville Independent School District , Pitman held that the BDS movements boycotts are speech on a matter of public concern. The relationship between Israel and Palestine is an internationally significant political conflict and is the subject of intense international debate, the judge said. Now, with H.B. 89, plaintiffs allege that Texas has licensed one side of the contentious Israel-Palestine debate by singling out those who participate in boycotts against Israel for disfavored treatment. Pitman said the state statute is viewpoint-based discrimination meant to silence speech with which Texas disagrees. The judge concluded that the plaintiffs are likely to establish that H.B. 89 imposes an unconstitutional condition on public employment by requiring contractors to cease and refrain from engaging in constitutionally protected speech. Pitman declined motions to dismiss filed by trustees of the Klein Independent School District and the Lewisville Independent School District, the two districts where the plaintiffs who were debate judges had been contractors. The judge said they face potential municipal liability for violating the contractors First Amendment rights even though there were merely enforcing the state-law requirement The court finds that plaintiffs have plausibly alleged a policymaker (the [KISD and LISD] trustees), whose policy (including the no-boycott certification in their school districts contracts) is the moving force behind plaintiffs injuries (chilled speech), the judge said. Last week I wrote about the formation of the Dundalk Labourers' Society in 1871 and the part the organisation played in the conditions of ordinary workers and their families in the area in the latter part of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. This piece was inspired by an article I read in the Tempest's Annual of 1910 and this week I would like to write about the building of the Labourers' Hall behind 54, Clanbrassil Street. The Annual article states In 1886 the Society bought a piece of ground at a cost of 700 and the house fronting Clanbrassil Street was built, costing another 700. This house was used as a meeting place till shortly afterwards, in '87 or '88 the present fine Hall at the rere was erected. This cost the Society a further sum of 800. It was erected by Edward Morgan, the President for the time being. The tenant of the house that was demolished to make way for the new building was Thomas Rafferty. The accompanying photo gives the appearance of his house as it was some time ago.' The picture published in the Annual shows a two -storied house, with a thatched, roof which seems to have been one or two small shop fronts. I think I recognise the building on its left, which I believe is still standing, but there is no building on the left and believe this was where the present entry leading down to the Hall is today. This same photo was included in Padraic ua Dubhthaigh's 'Book of Dundalk' published in 1946 and he acknowledges that he had been given the use of two 'blocks' by 'Mr. H.G. Tempest, Dundealgan Press, illustrative of old Dundalk', this photo is one of them. I have seen it on at least one face-book site recently but do not known where was found. The term 'blocks' refers to the old metal ink plates, mounted on wood, which was used in the old flat-bed printing process. What interests me most about the old photograph is that, 150 years ago, a large house on the town's main street was roofed by straw thatch and must conclude that there were several straw-roofed houses along Clanbrassil Street during this period. When I was going to school in the 1940s there were no straw roofs on houses in the main streets but there still many small houses along the approach roads and streets to the Town Centre. Seatown and the Castletown Road still had many straw roofs and I recall that some older folk still referred to Seatown, between chapel Street and Castle Road as 'Straw Street'. I have not noticed straw covered houses in Dundalk town in 2019 but, perhaps, some of my readers might have known otherwise! The cost of the Labourers' Hall Another interesting point about the article is that it reveals that Society spent at least 2,200 on the project to build their Hall in the late 1880s which must have been an enormous expenditure for a Society that was only collecting three pence per week from members after an initial entrance fee of only six-pence. Readers will realise that in the old money there were 240 pence in the pound and, thus, members were each only paying less than one pound each year. To illustrate this point, the U.K. Office of Statistics at present states that the purchasing of 100 pounds in 1871 was equivalent to 11,474.93 a the end of 2018, which, on a very rough calculation, they must have spent about 450,000 in today's money over a very short period. Allowing for the difference between Euro and sterling, this would mean that the Labourers' Society must get together well over half a million Euro in a period of about two decades. As mentioned last week, according to Tempest, the Society had about 100 members when they started in 1871; this must have increased by 1909 when the article written but still would have numbered only in the hundreds. This all goes to show the great sacrifices the members must have made in the early years of their existence. To show further what they had achieved, the article, as stated last week, says that three strikes in the late 1800s had cost they about 2,000 in paying assistance to strikers and their families. To illustrate further the financial difficulties the organising committee faced, the article states --- 'No member is entitled to benefit for 12 months after he joins but the first member who died during in the first year of the Society's existence, had his funeral paid expenses out of the funds. The Society supports members in sickness at the rate of 5/- (a quarter of a pound sterling) a week for a certain time, the weekly levy being waived. It pays 6 for his burial expenses, if he dies, and 4 towards those of his wife and, in some cases, of his mother, should they die before him. It also looks after and protects him in his employment and gives him reading and sitting-rooms in which to spend his spare evenings.' This all goes to show the difficult times which brought about the founding of the local Labourers' Society. This also applied to other socially supportive societies which were formed in Dundalk around this period. These included the many dock, railway, brewery and tobacco manufacturing workers. The Irish National Teachers' Organisation, which was also founded in 1868; held one of their first local meeting in Sibthorpe's Hotel in Earl Street and had the support of the Founder of the Dundalk Democrat Joseph Cartan. The Democrat was purchased by Thomas Roe, the Second Editor, in the same year that the Labourers' Society was founded and he moved the business to 3, Earl Street in 1872. I would like to think that he also supported the organisations that helped the ordinary working people of Dundalk, as did other Democrat Editors who followed! Local photographer Brittany McEnteggart sat down with the Dundalk Democrat this week to discuss her upcoming exhibition The Beautifully Broken which she hopes will shine a light on mental health issues and suicide. Brittany who is originally from New Jersey moved to Dundalk nine years ago and it was while studying photography at OFiaich Institute of Further Education that the idea for the project came. I knew straight away before I even got accepted to the course that I was going to do something on mental health and suicide because I lost my dad and two friends to suicide, so thats where the thought process started. I decided I was going to take portrait style pictures of people who had been affected by mental health issues; people who have lost loved ones and that sort of thing. I also decided I would take the photos that step further by taking the photos at a location that meant something to them. Work on the project began in late 2014 before being launched in May 2015 and Brittany says she knew it was a project that she was going to continue with long after she had finished her course. People who want to get involved in the project contact Brittany usually via social media and she believes it is vital that the stories of these people get told. The goal of the project is to spread the message [that its ok to talk about mental health], one story can effect so many people... its important for people to realise that theres so much more depth to it than what they might think or they might know already. Ive learned that there are so many various things that people can go through [that can cause mental health problems], its not just being bullied, its not just a sexual assault it can come from a range of things, the mind can be a very dangerous place. She says that doing the project has opened her eyes to severe deficiencies when it comes to how mental health is dealt with in Ireland. I just spoke to a woman yesterday who [had a relative] who took his life recently and he was let down by the health service here in Ireland, its a tough thing to be put on a waiting list for 12 months and wait to be seen to, theres a lot of lives that could have been changed had they been seen to sooner. Feedback from those who have participated in the project has been positive. One girl who took part in the project just after she got out of hospital has said the project has helped her a lot, and through doing the project and speaking out she realised she had support from people around her that she hadnt realised. Brittany believes that focusing on the exhibition has also helped her cope with things that have happened in her life as well as helping other people. The Beautifully Broken exhibition will be launched in the Longwalk Shopping Centre on Thursday 2nd of May at 5pm and will run until Saturday evening, admission is free and further details about the project can be found on The Beautifully Broken Facebook page. Photo: Facebook Leslie McCulloch and Rebekka Rae White. It's been more than three years since an auto restoration company in West Kelowna was raided by police and the counterfeit-prescription-drug lab operating inside was shut down. While one of the people charged in the case disappeared days before sentencing, the Crown dropped charges against the other person this week. Police raided the business on Auburn Road on March 2, 2016. At the time, RCMP officer Dan Minkley said the raid on the counterfeit-prescription-drug lab was the conclusion of several months of investigation. They found eight kilograms of a powder they suspected to be fentanyl and 1,300 pills on site. Several months later, the owner of the business, Leslie McCulloch, and his companion at the time, Rebekka White, were charged with four counts relating to the lab, including possession for the purpose of trafficking. Almost a year after the bust, McCulloch pleaded guilty to trafficking and production charges, relating to acetylfentanyl that was found in the seized powder. He was released on bail to get his affairs in order before sentencing. The Crown had indicated they'd be seeking a sentence north of 10 years." As part of the plea deal, the Crown told McCulloch they would drop charges against White, following his sentencing. The following fall, the Crown sent the seized drugs back to Health Canada, to analyze exactly how much acetylfentanyl was in the powder. Of the eight kilograms, about four grams turned out to be acetylfentanyl, while the rest was filler. They're junk pills, McCulloch's lawyer said at the time. In light of this, McCulloch attempted to take back his guilty plea, but in February 2018, Justice Cathaline Heinrichs ruled the guilty plea would remain in place. McCulloch was eventually scheduled for sentencing in late January 2019, but he skipped out on his bail just one week prior to that date. His whereabouts remain unknown. Since his disappearance, the Crown again moved to prosecute White, but after she secured a new lawyer this month, the charges were dropped. A 2016 Supreme Court of Canada decision ruled that provincial court cases must get to sentencing 18 months after charges are laid, or the case is at risk of being thrown out. White's case has dragged on for 34 months. I was going to have to go to the Supreme Court of Canada, she said Friday. As soon as the mention of that was made Wednesday, the charges were dropped. White says she had no idea about the pill manufacturing operation going on at McCulloch's shop in 2016, but she concedes she had made bad judgment calls by surrounding herself with "people who weren't good for my life." Despite that, White says she's been used as a bargaining tool by police and Crown. I was a chip, she said. They knew what they were doing when they charged me. They knew (McCulloch) would plead guilty to get my charges stayed. They wanted his guilty plea so bad ... There were so many issues in it, that they needed his guilty plea so bad, that they were willing to do whatever it took. Last month, McCulloch was featured on Kelowna's Most Wanted, and a cash reward has been offered for information about his whereabouts. White, meanwhile, is trying to put that part of her life behind her. She says she hasn't spoken with McCulloch in years. 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No doubt youve been hearing a lot of talk lately about North Carolina schools closing on May 1. An unexpected day off is always big news. But one in which school districts all over the state are closing so teachers can go to our states capital and march is even bigger. State Senator Phil Berger, one of the most powerful politicians in North Carolina, said in a recent Facebook post that teachers who are going to Raleigh are abandoning you and that their actions have nothing to do with education. In comments on the post, his supporters called us greedy and Communist and said we should be fired. Screengrabs courtesy of the author. As one of the thousands of North Carolina educators who will be in Raleigh on May 1, I wanted to set the record straight and be sure you understand the reasons were doing this. The legislators who are leading this state have done a lot of things to make people not want to be teachers in North Carolina. Since 2011, they have taken away due-process protections for new teachers , eliminated pay increases for educators with graduate degrees , and revoked retirement health benefits for all state employees hired after Jan. 1, 2021. They have added more standardized tests , removed the cap on how many students can be in a class in grades 4-12, and gotten rid of more than 7,000 teaching assistants over the past decade . These and more terrible policies have caused many great teachers to have left the state, and a lot of people who would have made excellent educators have decided not to become teachers at all. Last school year, we had more than 1,500 teaching positions in North Carolina with no teacher. We are not, as Berger has said, abandoning you. I hope youve noticed this year how consistently I show up. The 178 unused sick days in my Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools employee account are a testament to how important I think it is for me to be at school. I would much rather be in class with you all on May 1, too, but our legislators spend weekends at home with their families, so we have to go to Raleigh on a work day to be able to speak with them. In addition to teaching you English, I do my best to help you learn about character, about how people should act in this world. One of the lessons Ive tried to emphasize for you is the importance of standing up for what you believe in and having the courage to do the right thingeven in the face of adversity. We want our students to have committed, high-quality teachers in your classes so that you can have the brightest future possible. Part of the reason were marching in Raleigh is to fix some of the damage that has been done, by restoring pay for teachers graduate degrees that was taken away and returning health insurance for state employees after they retire so they dont have to spend a good chunk of their limited retirement pay to buy it for themselves. Both those moves and the 5 percent pay raise were asking for will help us to be sure we can put an excellent teacher in every classroom. One of our goals is also $15 per-hour minimum for all hourly employees such as our custodians, secretaries, cafeteria staff, and bus drivers. People like Ms. Hardy, Mr. Jose, and Ms. Tammie at my school are some of the most valuable members of our school families. They work so hard to get you to school, welcome parents and visitors in the front office, feed you so youre ready to learn, and keep our buildings clean every day. Unfortunately, many of our employees have to go to another job as soon as they leave school, sometimes working a total of 70 to 80 hours a week just so they can pay their rent and afford groceries. They deserve to have more time to spend with their families and taking care of themselves, and we hope this increase in their pay can help to make that happen. Another important issue were marching for is to get our states lawmakers to hire more nurses, librarians, social workers, psychologists, and school counselors. Have you noticed that many times when youre sick theres nobody in the nurses office to help you? How too often when you need to talk to someone theyre already in a meeting? How hard it is to find a time to go get that book youve been wanting in the media center? We believe it shouldnt be like that in our schools, that you should have access to all the services you need to be healthy and well rounded. The thing is, its expensive to hire all of those people. For this school year, the state is paying $647 million for all of those jobs I mentioned. To provide the numbers of people that are recommended by national standards for those positions, the North Carolina Justice Center estimates that the state would need to more than double that amount by adding another $655 million . But heres the crazy thing: Those same leaders who dont want to spend the money to make sure we have nurses and librarians have cut taxes for rich people and wealthy companies so they can put more money in their already-full pockets. The last round of tax cuts for our states 2017-19 budget took away $900 million a year in revenue way more than enough for us to provide the necessary support staff in every school in North Carolina. I dont think it makes us greedy or Communists to ask for those priorities to change. Last of all, were going to Raleigh on May 1 to ask legislators to expand Medicaid. Right now, there are hundreds of thousands of people in North Carolina who earn too much money to qualify for Medicaid but dont earn enough to buy private health insurance. We are one of only 14 states that have not taken advantage of federal funding to offer Medicaid to more of those families. If that changes, more of your parents will have access to good medical care and more eligible children will be enrolled as well. Having regular check-ups and preventative care will reduce time off of work and school days missed, and lead to better results for everyone. We have tried writing, calling, emailing our state legislators to let them know what we need, and little has changed. Its time for us to increase the pressure. Hopefully you can see that the reason were taking a day to go to Raleigh is to fight for you and your families. We care deeply about your future (and your present) and want to be sure we are providing you with the education that you deserve. Sincerely, Mr. Parmenter Photo: Wayne Moore UPDATE: 4:45 p.m. An elderly lady was taken to hospital for precautionary reasons, after she was involved in a two vehicle crash on Ethel Street Friday afternoon. Emergency officials at the scene say the lady was heading southbound in a silver Honda, when she was hit by a white SUV coming out from an alley. The force of the crash sent the Honda off the road and into a lamp standard, shearing the pole. The pole was sent across the sidewalk, ripping through a portion of a residential fence. Ethel, a block south of Highway 97 was closed while emergency crews cleared the scene. ORIGINAL: 4:27 p.m. A car has collided with a pole on Ethel Street, close to Highway 97, at the peak of the afternoon rush. Drivers are advised to avoid the area for now. A sedan appears to have knocked a traffic sign post down across the sidewalk. It's not yet known if anyone was injured in the crash. Police and firefighters are on the scene. British opposition leader refuses to attend Trump's state dinner Jeremy Corbyn criticized the government for rolling out the red carpet for US President Donald Trumps June visit and said he declined an invitation to attend the state dinner. The leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, said on Friday he had turned down an invitation to a state dinner which will be one of the highlights of US President Donald Trumps visit to Britain in June. "MAY SHOULDN'T BE ROLLING OUT THE RED CARPET" Theresa May should not be rolling out the red carpet for a state visit to honour a president who rips up vital international treaties, backs climate change denial and uses racist and misogynist rhetoric, Corbyn said in a statement. Corbyn said he would welcome a meeting with Trump to discuss all matters of interest but said maintaining ties with Washington did not require the pomp and ceremony of a state visit. Trump is due to visit Britain between June 3 and 5 when he will become only the third US president to have been accorded a state visit by Queen Elizabeth. However, Trump will not stay in Buckingham Palace, as foreign leaders typically do during state visits, because of renovation work. Almost 1.9 million Britons signed a petition in 2017 saying Trump should not be offered a state visit. Trump pulls out of UN arms trade treaty The treaty has been in effect since late 2014. The US signed on to the agreement in 2013 but has not ratified the treaty. President Donald Trump withdrew the US on Friday out of another treaty aimed at curtailing the global proliferation of weapons. THE WITHDRAWAL HAD BEEN EXPECTED Trump told a gathering of the pro-gun rights National Rifle Association his administration "will never surrender American sovereignty to anyone," pointing to the Arms Trade Treaty. "We will never allow foreign bureaucrats to trample on your Second Amendment freedoms. And that is why my Administration will never ratify the UN Arms Trade Treaty," Trump said, referring to the article of the Constitution that guarantees Americans' right to bear arms. Trump signed on stage a message to the Senate asking it to stop the ratification process and return the treaty to him so he can "dispose" of it. "By taking these actions we are reaffirming that American liberty is sacred, that American citizens live by American laws, not the laws of foreign countries," Trump said. The Arms Trade Treaty regulates the international trade of conventional firearms. While the US has signed on to the pact, it has not been ratified by Congress. The treaty seeks to thwart illicit arms sales to individuals and groups accused of carrying out gross rights abuses. But key international players like Russia and China never signed on to the pact. Critics of the agreement have argued it could threaten US sovereignty. Loss of innocent lives is the cost of the utter ineptness of a crisis-ridden Government of Sri Lanka. The terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka on 21 April 2019 have not only shaken the island nation but also the entire world. Coordinated bombings carried out on Easter day in Catholic churches and tourist hotels have led to more than 350 deaths. (As we go to press, this figure has reportedly been revised to about 253). It has been reported that the explosions at St Anthonys Shrine, Kochchikade, St Sebastians church, Katuwapitiya, Zion Church, Batticaloa, and Shangri-La, the Kingsbury and Cinnamon Grand hotels were carried out by suicide bombers and the terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has apparently claimed responsibility for the attacks. The scale and intensity of the attacks, choice of targets, and the fact that places of worship were targeted during prayer congregation were horrific. However, these were consistent with the recent pattern of terrorist attacks as witnessed in the attack on mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. These attacks on the one hand have brought to the fore the infirmities of the crisis-ridden Sri Lankan polity and on the other, also highlight the insecurities faced by religious minority communities, particularly in the context of the history of ethnic tensions in the South Asian region. What is most astounding is that there was prior specific intelligence available of the possible terror attacks targeting the Catholic churches and, according to Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, the information was not officially conveyed. Since the President of Sri Lanka as ex-officio commander-in-chief remains the minister of defence as well as the minister of law and order, the failure to act on intelligence inputs amounts to a grave dereliction on his part. This seems to be the result of the breakdown of administration since the time when it was termed as a constitutional coup attempted by the President in October 2018. However, the Prime Minister cannot be absolved from the responsibility either, as the ministry of law and order was brought under the Presidents purview and the Prime Minister seems to have acquiesced to it. The cost of the ongoing crisis involving the conflict between the Maithripala Sirisena-led Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and Wickremesinghe-led United National Party (UNP) has been enormous, leading to the loss of hundreds of innocent lives. It is a tragic irony that the incompetence of the very government that came to power in 2015 with a mandate for ethnic reconciliation now threatens to jeopardise the uneasy and unstable social compact in a country that was in the throes of civil war barely a decade ago. Championing the line of ethnic supremacism and authoritarianism, former President Mahinda Rajapaksa has already blamed the initiatives of reconciliation for undermining the security forces and national security. It is feared that with the election due later this year, there could be a consolidation of opinion around such positions and it would receive impetus from the invocation of emergency provisions that vest sweeping powers in the President. Such consolidation could intensify the constant sense of insecurity among the religious minority communities in Sri Lanka. It is such a predicament that the terror groups like ISIS (along with other extremist terror outfits across religions and regions) seek to perpetuate through their modus operandi of propaganda by terror. Andrew Dauber, M.D., MMSc., and his research team receive an award for the best novel insight published in Hormone Research in Paediatrics in 2018 After 20 years, a patient's family received an answer to a decades-long genetic mystery. Their daughter had two rare disorders, Angelman syndrome and P450scc deficiency, which was detected after researchers found out she had uniparental disomy, two copies of chromosome 15 from one parent and none from another. The research paper, entitled "Adrenal Insufficiency, Sex Reversal and Angelman Syndrome due to Uniparental Disomy Unmasking a Mutation in CYP11A1," was published on March 22, 2018, and recognized as the best novel insight paper published by Hormone Research in Paediatrics in 2018, announced at the Pediatric Endocrine Society's Annual Meeting in Baltimore on Saturday, April 27, 2019. By using a variety of genetic tools, including whole-exome sequencing, microarray analyses and in-vitro modeling for gene splicing, the researchers were able to confirm this patient had uniparental disomy, a recessive genetic condition. They learned that after she received two impaired copies of chromosome 15 from her father, this woman developed a hormonal problem that led to adrenal insufficiency and sex reversal. This explained why she physically presented as a female, despite having testes and a Y-chromosome. It also explained other symptoms, including developmental delays and seizures. "It's a unique conglomeration of symptoms, manifested by the combination of these two very rare disorders," says Andrew Dauber, M.D., MMSc., the division chief of endocrinology at Children's National Health System and a guiding research author of this study. "The advent of different technologies and techniques over the years allowed pieces of her diagnosis to be made - and then brought together, commencing a 20-year diagnostic odyssey." For example, each of the conditions this patient has is known and rare: Angelman syndrome affects about one in 10 to 20,000 people in the U.S. Typical symptoms include those observed in this patient: delayed development, intellectual disability, speech impairment and seizures. Side-chain cleavage disorder, which leads to adrenal disorders and sex reversal, is also very rare. In 2005 the chances of survival with a P450scc defect were slim, but since then more than 28 infants have been diagnosed with this gene deficiency, which is required to convert cholesterol to pregnenolone, a hormone in the adrenal gland. Dr. Dauber notes the chances of this occurring again are highly unlikely. The odds here are one in a gazillion. In this case, one disorder unmasked another, leaving researchers with new insights into the methodology for unraveling ultra-rare genetic disorders or for more common rare conditions. "Knowing about the gene that caused the adrenal insufficiency and understanding this etiology won't change medical care for this patient, but it will change the way researchers think about genetic detective work and about combining different technologies," says Dr. Dauber. "We know that genetic disorders can be complex presentations of different disorders combined. This patient didn't have one disorder, but three." When asked about the significance of the award, Dr. Dauber notes that, "It's not that other people haven't recognized this concept before, but this case is a striking example of it. Different technologies will unveil different types of genetic changes, which is why you have to use the right technology or the right technologies in the right combination to piece together the whole picture." Ahlee Kim, M.D., the lead study author and a clinical research fellow at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, will receive the award and the honorarium. Additional study authors include Masanobu Fujimoto, Ph.D., Vivian Hwa, Ph.D., and Philippe Backeljauw, M.D., from Cincinnati Children's Hospital. The research was supported by grant K23HD07335, awarded to Dr. Dauber, from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Additional funding included grant 1UL1TR001425 from the NIH's National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. ### BALTIMORE - Despite the increasing trends in uptake, the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine coverage is far behind other infant vaccines in many states, according to a new study, which describes the trends in HPV vaccine uptake in children in the U.S. Findings from the study will be presented during the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) 2019 Meeting, taking place on April 24 - May 1 in Baltimore. "In this cohort study containing more than 7.5 million children in the U.S., the HPV vaccine coverage among girls and boys by age 15 increased from 38% and 5% in 2011 to 54% and 45% in 2016," said Szu-Ta Chen, MD, one of the authors of the study. "Despite the increase in uptake, the HPV vaccine coverage varied substantially between states and remained behind the Healthy People 2020 goal of 80%." Researchers identified a cohort of children within the Truven MarketScan healthcare database between January 2003 and December 2016. Children were followed from the year they turned 9 until the first dose of HPV vaccination, death, end of insurance coverage, or the end of the year when they turned 17, whichever came first. The first dose of HPV vaccination was ascertained by current procedure terminology (CPT) codes. The monthly vaccination rate was calculated as the number of children that received the HPV vaccination in that month divided by the sum of person-months contributed by the eligible children that month. The cumulative incidence of HPV vaccination was estimated based on the monthly rate of vaccination using survival analysis. The study population was stratified by birth year and gender. The cumulative incidence of HPV vaccination at age 15 was mapped across 50 States. The study included 7,500,397 children (49% females) and 18.8 million person-years. In 2011, the proportion of 15-year-old children that had been vaccinated with at least one dose of HPV was 37.8% for girls and 4.8% for boys (1996-birth cohort); by 2016 this proportion had increased to 53.6% for girls and 45.1% for boys (2001- birth cohort). The HPV vaccine uptake varied substantially across states and, by 2016, it was above 60% for 15-year-old girls and boys only in 13 and three states, respectively. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommends HPV vaccination at age 11 and 12 to prevent HPV infection and subsequent occurrence of various cancers. There is a lack of large-scale longitudinal data on the trends of vaccine uptake in the U.S. Dr. Chen will present findings from "Trends in human papillomavirus vaccination uptake in girls and boys in the United States: real-world evidence from 2003 to 2016" on Monday, April 29 at 11:15 a.m. EDT. Reporters interested in an interview with Dr. Chen should contact PAS2019@piercom.com. Please note that only the abstracts are being presented at the meeting. In some cases, the researchers may have additional data to share with media. The PAS 2019 Meeting brings together thousands of pediatricians and other health care providers to improve the health and well-being of children worldwide. For more information about the PAS 2019 Meeting, please visit http://www.pas-meeting.org. ### About the Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting The Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) Meeting brings together thousands of pediatricians and other health care providers united by a common mission: to improve the health and well-being of children worldwide. This international gathering includes pediatric researchers, leaders in pediatric academics, clinical care providers and community practitioners. Presentations cover issues of interest to generalists as well as topics critical to a wide array of specialty and sub-specialty areas. The PAS Meeting will be the premier North American scholarly child health meeting. The PAS Meeting is produced through a partnership of four pediatric organizations that are leaders in the advancement of pediatric research and child advocacy: American Pediatric Society, Society for Pediatric Research, Academic Pediatric Association and American Academy of Pediatrics. For more information, please visit http://www.pas-meeting.org. Follow us on Twitter @PASMeeting and #PAS2019, and like us on Facebook. Abstract: Trends in human papillomavirus vaccination uptake in girls and boys in the United States: real-world evidence from 2003 to 2016 Background: The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommends human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination at age 11 and 12 to prevent HPV infection and subsequent occurrence of various cancers. There is a lack of large-scale longitudinal data on the trends of vaccine uptake in the United States. Objective: To describe the trends in HPV vaccine uptake in children in the US. Design/Methods: We identified a cohort of children within the Truven MarketScan healthcare database between January 2003 and December 2016. Children were followed from the year they turned 9 until the first dose of HPV vaccination, death, end of insurance coverage, or the end of the year when they turned 17, whichever came first. The first dose of HPV vaccination was ascertained by current procedure terminology (CPT) codes. The monthly vaccination rate was calculated as the number of children that received the HPV vaccination in that month divided by the sum of person-months contributed by the eligible children that month. The cumulative incidence of HPV vaccination was estimated based on the monthly rate of vaccination using survival analysis. The study population was stratified by birth year and gender. The cumulative incidence of HPV vaccination at age 15 was mapped across 50 States. Results: The study included 7,500,397 children (49% females) and 18.8 million person-years. In 2011, the proportion of 15 years old children that had been vaccinated with at least one dose of HPV was 37.8% for girls and 4.8% for boys (1996-birth cohort); by 2016 this proportion had increased to 53.6% for girls and 45.1% for boys (2001- birth cohort). The HPV vaccine uptake varied substantially across states and, by 2016, it was above 60% for 15-year- old girls and boys only in 13 and 3 states, respectively. Conclusion: Despite the increasing trends in uptake, the HPV vaccine coverage is far behind other infant vaccines in many states. Authors: Szu-Ta Chen ; Krista F. Huybrechts, Brian T. Bateman, Brian, Sonia Hernandez-Diaz, Authors/Institutions: S. Chen, S. Hernandez-Diaz, Epidemiology, Harvard Chan School of Public Health, Brookline, Massachusetts, UNITED STATES|K.F. Huybrechts, B.T. Bateman, Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics, Department of Medicine Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, UNITED STATES Results from the study underscore the importance for the clinical team to broadly address inaccurate perceptions and promote vaccination even after caregivers agree to the first dose BALTIMORE - Even caregivers whose children receive the first dose of influenza vaccine may be vaccine hesitant and have inaccurate beliefs regarding influenza vaccine and disease, according to a new American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Pediatric Research in Office Settings (PROS) study that was a collaboration between investigators at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), Columbia University Irving Medical Center, and the AAP. Findings from the study will be presented during the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) 2019 Meeting, taking place on April 24 - May 1 in Baltimore. The study assessed vaccine hesitancy and influenza disease and vaccine beliefs among caregivers of children who received the first of the two required influenza vaccine doses. To receive adequate protection against influenza, many children six months to eight years old need two doses of influenza vaccine in a season. Only half of those receiving a first dose receive a second. "In our study, over 90% of caregivers, whose children required two doses of influenza vaccine that season, believed that their child would be 'protected with only one flu shot', and 12% had moderate/high vaccine hesitancy," said Ekaterina Nekrasova, MPH, a research assistant at PolicyLab and the Center for Pediatric Clinical Effectiveness at CHOP, and one of the authors of the study. "Caregivers held other inaccurate beliefs about influenza and vaccination even after their child received the first of the two required influenza vaccine doses. Our findings emphasize the importance of promoting the second dose influenza vaccination and educating caregivers about influenza disease and vaccination before and after they agree to the first dose." As part of the NIH-funded Flu2Text national study conducted during the 2017-2018 season, a telephone survey collected demographic information of caregivers (age, English proficiency, education, relationship to a child) and the participating child (age, gender, race, ethnicity, insurance type, health status). Each child received the first dose of influenza vaccine, needed a second dose that season, and was enrolled in a study of text message influenza vaccine reminders. Caregivers completed a validated measure of vaccine hesitancy (PACV-5) and a series of questions to evaluate their knowledge about influenza infection and vaccine. Researchers assessed the association of caregiver and child demographic characteristics with vaccine hesitancy and influenza beliefs. The standardized (adjusted) proportion of caregivers endorsing each outcome was calculated using logistic regression. Analyses included responses from 256 participants from 36 AAP PROS primary care network practices across 24 states. The study found that 11.7% of caregivers had moderate or high vaccine hesitancy. A high proportion of caregivers held the following inaccurate beliefs: "flu is just a bad cold" (40.2%); child will be protected with "only one flu shot" (93.8%); "flu shot causes the flu" (57%); children cannot "die from the flu" (68%). The results from the study underscore the importance for the clinical team to broadly address inaccurate perceptions and promote vaccination even after caregivers agree to the first dose. Nekrasova will present findings from "Vaccine Hesitancy and Influenza Beliefs Among Parents of Children Requiring a Second Dose of Influenza Vaccine in a Season: An AAP PROS Study" on Monday, April 29 at 10:30 a.m. EDT. Reporters interested in an interview with Nekrasova should contact PAS2019@piercom.com. Please note that only the abstracts are being presented at the meeting. In some cases, the researchers may have additional data to share with media. The PAS 2019 Meeting brings together thousands of pediatricians and other health care providers to improve the health and well-being of children worldwide. For more information about the PAS 2019 Meeting, please visit http://www.pas-meeting.org. ### About the Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting The Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) Meeting brings together thousands of pediatricians and other health care providers united by a common mission: to improve the health and well-being of children worldwide. This international gathering includes pediatric researchers, leaders in pediatric academics, clinical care providers and community practitioners. Presentations cover issues of interest to generalists as well as topics critical to a wide array of specialty and sub-specialty areas. The PAS Meeting will be the premier North American scholarly child health meeting. The PAS Meeting is produced through a partnership of four pediatric organizations that are leaders in the advancement of pediatric research and child advocacy: American Pediatric Society, Society for Pediatric Research, Academic Pediatric Association and American Academy of Pediatrics. For more information, please visit http://www.pas-meeting.org. Follow us on Twitter @PASMeeting and #PAS2019, and like us on Facebook. Abstract: Vaccine Hesitancy and Influenza Beliefs Among Parents of Children Requiring a 2nd Dose of Influenza Vaccine in a Season: An AAP Pediatric Research in Office Settings (PROS) Study Background: To receive adequate protection against influenza, many children six months - eight years old need two doses of influenza vaccine in a season. Only half of those receiving a first dose receive a second. Objective: To assess vaccine hesitancy and influenza disease and vaccine beliefs among caregivers of children who received the first of the two required influenza vaccine doses. Design/Methods: As part of the NIH-funded Flu2Text national study conducted during the 2017-2018 season, a telephone survey collected demographic information of caregivers (age, English proficiency, education, relationship to a child) and the participating child (age, gender, race, ethnicity, insurance type, health status) [Table 1]. Each child received the first dose of influenza vaccine, needed a second dose that season, and was enrolled in a study of text message influenza vaccine reminders. Caregivers completed a validated measure of vaccine hesitancy (PACV-5) [Table 2] and a series of questions to evaluate their knowledge about influenza infection and vaccine. We assessed the association of caregiver and child demographic characteristics with vaccine hesitancy and influenza beliefs. The standardized (adjusted) proportion of caregivers endorsing each outcome was calculated using logistic regression. Results: Analyses included responses from 256 participants from 36 AAP PROS primary care network practices across 24 states [Table 1]. 11.7% of caregivers had moderate or high vaccine hesitancy. A high proportion of caregivers held the following inaccurate beliefs: "flu is just a bad cold" (40.2%); child will be protected with "only one flu shot" (93.8%); "flu shot causes the flu" (57%); children cannot "die from the flu" (68%) [Table 2]. In a multivariable model including the demographic characteristics above, only lower English ability was a significant predictor of vaccine hesitancy (p=.01) [Table 3]. No one variable consistently predicted inaccurate influenza disease and vaccine beliefs across all outcomes. Conclusions: Even caregivers whose children receive the first dose of influenza vaccine may be vaccine hesitant and have inaccurate beliefs regarding influenza vaccine and disease. These results underscore the importance for the clinical team to broadly address inaccurate perceptions and promote vaccination even after caregivers agree to the first dose. Authors/Institutions: Ekaterina Nekrasova; L. Berrigan; Andrew Johnson; Alexander Fiks, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Melissa Stockwell, Departments of Pediatrics and Population Family Health, Columbia University; Russell Localio, Justine Shults, Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Informatics, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine; Chelsea Wynn, Chelsea Kolff, Department of Pediatrics, Columbia University; Laura Shone, Miranda Griffith, Alessandra Torres, Primary Care Research, American Academy of Pediatrics; Douglas Opel, Pediatrics, University of Washington School of Medicine Mysuru chapter of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind has appealed to Muslims to stand outside a church here while Sunday service is underway to offer solidarity to Christians following the terror attacks in Sri Lanka that killed over 250 people. President of JeIM, Mysore, Munawwar Pasha, said the appeal has been made to convey the message that the Muslims and other communities stand by the Christians at this hour of grief. "I am sending this message to ask the Muslims to stand outside the main church of Mysuru, St Philomena, this Sunday to extend solidarity and show that we stand united and hate cannot divide us," he told PTI. In the audio message, circulated through social media, Pasha said when New Zealand had faced the terror attack at a mosque last month, the Muslims were overwhelmed with the amount of support received from various communities. "We saw thousands stand together in solidarity with us against the far right attack," he said. Pasha said mosques in various parts of the world saw Christians, Jews, Sikhs, etc offering protection and in solidarity with the Muslims. "Sri Lanka suffered an appalling attack on Easter Sunday. Churches were attacked while their congregation was in worship, just as those in New Zealand were," he said. Serial bomb explosions at churches and hotels on Easter Sunday killed 253 people in Sri Lanka. Fifty people were killed when a gunman fired at two mosques at Christchurch in New Zealand during Friday prayers on March 15. Following the attacks in New Zealand, people from all sections of the society came forward to extend their support to the Muslims in that country. -PTI BALTIMORE - A new American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) study examines U.S. pediatric residents' experience during training in caring for children injured by guns, and their attitudes toward counseling families and public policies to address gun injury. Findings from the study will be presented during the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) 2019 Meeting, taking place on April 24 - May 1 in Baltimore. "Recent, tragic increases in deaths of children, teens and young adults from suicide, urban violence and mass shootings have generated renewed concern among pediatricians regarding firearm violence," said Lynn Olson, PhD, one of the authors of the study. "What we found in this study, is that clinicians' experience treating gun injuries begins very early in their training." The study found that by completion of residency, seven of 10 pediatricians have direct experience with gun injuries. While personal background and geographic region shape attitudes on best approaches to reduce gun violence, large majorities believe pediatricians have a role in counseling families and support policies aimed at reducing gun injury for children. The results indicated 69% of residents report caring for gun injuries during training (median injuries=3). In their own background, 30% grew up in a home with a gun. In attitudes toward counseling, 90% agree (strongly agree or somewhat agree combined) pediatricians should ask about the presence of guns in the home, 96% agree pediatricians should ask parents to unload/lock guns; and 44% agree pediatricians should ask parents to remove guns from the home. In attitudes toward public policy, high portions agree with policies such as universal background checks (95%) or banning assault weapons (90%), while few, (14%), support allowing teachers to carry guns in K-12. Data was drawn from the 2018 AAP Annual Survey of Graduating Residents, a random sample across all U.S. programs (response=49%; analytic sample=480). Respondents were asked if they cared for children injured by guns during training. Using a 5-point scale (strongly agree to strongly disagree), respondents also expressed their attitudes toward counseling by pediatricians (three items) and public policies that may reduce firearm injuries (six items). Chi-Square examined variations in attitudes by: experience treating gun injury, gender, region of residency training, and whether guns in their home growing up. A related study evaluating child access prevention firearm laws and pediatric firearm fatalities found the passage of negligence laws across all states has the potential to reduce firearm fatalities in children up to age 17 BALTIMORE - High rates of firearm fatalities in the U.S. are principally due to elevated rates of homicide among black, non-Hispanic and Hispanic males age 20-40 years and suicide among white, non-Hispanic males age 70-85+, according to a new study. Findings from the study will be presented during the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) 2019 Meeting, taking place on April 24 - May 1 in Baltimore. Each day, over 100 firearm deaths occur in the U.S. In 2016, there were over 3,000 pediatric deaths (0-19 years). Over the past decade, total fatalities from firearms increased by 25% and are now the leading cause of death in young adults (15-24 years). Few studies have explored the interaction of urbanicity, sex and race/ethnicity in firearm fatalities across the spectrum of age. Researchers analyzed firearm fatalities over a 26-year period as reported in the Centers for Disease Control's Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System. There were 897,026 firearm fatalities in the U.S., including 97,366 pediatric deaths, that occurred during the study period. Though all-intent total firearm fatality rates peaked in the early 1990s, over the past decade, maximum and average rates have trended upward especially via suicide among females and in non-metropolitan areas. Marked disparities in rates of firearm fatalities exist by sex and race. Suicide rates were highest among white, non-Hispanic males age 70-85+, and rates of homicide were highest among black, non-Hispanic males and Hispanic males age 20-40. Unintentional deaths peaked among black and Hispanic males age 20-40 and 70-85+ in the 1990s, but then decreased over time. Males have higher rates of suicide, homicide and unintentional deaths compared to females. Black males had maximum and average homicide rates an order of magnitude higher compared to all females. Non-metropolitan areas had high rates of suicide and unintentional deaths, while metropolitan areas had high rates of homicide. The study concluded that public health approaches to firearm violence need to consider underlying demographic trends and differences by intent. A related study found that child access prevention (CAP) laws could save lives and the passage of negligence laws across all states has the potential to reduce firearm fatalities in children up to age 17. Over 50,000 pediatric firearm fatalities have occurred since 1990. Researchers examined the association between state CAP firearm laws and total and intent-specific firearm death rates in children 0-17 years old from 1991 to 2007. Since 1989, nine states have passed recklessness laws and 16 states have passed negligence laws. The study found that recklessness laws were not associated with significantly lower firearm death rates for any intent in any age group and were associated with an increase in unintentional fatalities among 14 to 17-year-olds. Negligence laws were associated with significantly lower firearm death rates overall, by homicide, and by unintentional intent, but not by suicide across age groups. The broadest negligence laws reduced unintentional deaths by up to 69% in children 10 to 13 years of age and firearm homicide deaths up to 36%. Eric Fleegler, MD, MPH, one of the authors of the studies, will present findings from "Evolution of the firearm epidemic in the United States, 1990 - 2016" on Monday, April 29 at 3:30 p.m. Dr. Fleegler will present "Firearm Child Access Prevention Laws and Firearm Death Rates among Children, 1991-2016" on Sunday, April 28 at 1 p.m. EDT. Reporters interested in an interview with Dr. Fleegler should contact PAS2019@piercom.com. Please note that only the abstracts are being presented at the meeting. In some cases, the researchers may have additional data to share with media. The PAS 2019 Meeting brings together thousands of pediatricians and other health care providers to improve the health and well-being of children worldwide. For more information about the PAS 2019 Meeting, please visit http://www.pas-meeting.org. ### About the Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting The Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) Meeting brings together thousands of pediatricians and other health care providers united by a common mission: to improve the health and well-being of children worldwide. This international gathering includes pediatric researchers, leaders in pediatric academics, clinical care providers and community practitioners. Presentations cover issues of interest to generalists as well as topics critical to a wide array of specialty and sub-specialty areas. The PAS Meeting will be the premier North American scholarly child health meeting. The PAS Meeting is produced through a partnership of four pediatric organizations that are leaders in the advancement of pediatric research and child advocacy: American Pediatric Society, Society for Pediatric Research, Academic Pediatric Association and American Academy of Pediatrics. For more information, please visit http://www.pas-meeting.org. Follow us on Twitter @PASMeeting and #PAS2019, and like us on Facebook. Abstract: Evolution of the firearm epidemic in the United States, 1990 - 2016 Background: Each day over 100 firearm deaths occur in the United States (U.S.). In 2016, there were over 3,000 pediatric deaths (0-19 years). Over the past decade, total fatalities from firearms increased by 25% and are now the leading cause of death in young adults (15-24 years). Few studies have explored the interaction of urbanicity, sex and race/ethnicity in firearm fatalities across the spectrum of age. Objective: To describe rates of firearm fatalities stratified by intent and demographics in the U.S. from 1990 to 2016. Design/Methods: We analyzed firearm fatalities over a 26-year period as reported in the Centers for Disease Control's Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System. We created heat maps and maximum fatality rate line graphs (the highest rate for any of the age-groups for a given year) and average age-adjusted fatality rate line graphs to examine trends over time by the demographic factors of age, urbanicity, sex, and race/ethnicity. We evaluated intent of injury (i.e. suicide, homicide, or unintentional) to understand variations in firearm fatalities across different demographic groups. Results: 897,026 firearm fatalities in the U.S., including 97,366 pediatric deaths, occurred during the study period. Though all-intent total firearm fatality rates peaked in the early 90s (figures 1a & 1b), over the past decade maximum and average rates have trended upward especially via suicide among females and in non-metropolitan areas (figures 2a & 2b). Marked disparities in rates of firearm fatalities exist by sex and race. Suicide rates were highest among white, non-Hispanic males age 70-85+, and rates of homicide were highest among black, non-Hispanic males and Hispanic males age 20-40. Unintentional deaths peaked among black and Hispanic males age 20-40 and 70-85+ in the 1990s, but then decreased over time. Males have higher rates of suicide, homicide and unintentional deaths compared to females. Black males had maximum and average homicide rates an order of magnitude higher compared to all females. Non-metropolitan areas had high rates of suicide and unintentional deaths, while metropolitan areas had high rates of homicide. Conclusion(s): High rates of firearm fatalities in the U.S. are principally due to elevated rates of homicide among black, non-Hispanic and Hispanic males age 20-40 years and suicide among white, non-Hispanic males age 70-85+. Public health approaches to firearm violence need to consider underlying demographic trends and differences by intent. Authors (Last Name, First Name): Fleegler, Eric; Rees, Chris A.; Mannix, Rebekah; Barrett, Jefferson T.; Lee, Lois; Monuteaux, Michael Authors/Institutions: E. Fleegler, R. Mannix, J.T. Barrett, L. Lee, Emergency Medicine, Boston Children's Hospital, Needham, Massachusetts, UNITED STATES|C.A. Rees, Medicine, Boston Children's Hospital, Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, UNITED STATES|M. Monuteaux, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, UNITED STATES Abstract: Firearm Child Access Prevention Laws and Firearm Death Rates among Children, 1991-2016 Background: Since 1990, over 50,000 pediatric firearm fatalities have occurred. To reduce fatalities, some states have passed child access prevention (CAP) laws. Objective: To evaluate the association between state CAP firearm laws and pediatric firearm fatalities. Design/Methods: We examined the association between state CAP firearm laws and total and intent-specific firearm death rates in children 0-17 years old from 1991 to 2007. Predictor laws were categorized into 4 groups: recklessness laws (Group A), negligence laws requiring firearm use by the child (Group B), negligence laws requiring possible firearm access by the child (Group C), and negligence laws imposing liability regardless of child firearm use (Group D). Firearm deaths were tabulated using the Center for Disease Control's Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting Systems (WISQARS). We estimated a negative binomial model within the generalized estimating equation framework, with robust standard errors and a first-order, autoregressive, within-state correlation structure. We modeled fatalities by intent and age group as the dependent variable, and laws (binary indicator, lagged by one year) as the primary independent variable. We used a backward selection procedure with a p-value criterion of 0.10 to select potential state-level confounders, retaining percent Black, percent Hispanic, and violent crime rate. We a priori retained year- and region-fixed effects, a firearm ownership proxy, and binary indicators for laws requiring firearm permits, minimum waiting periods, and background checks universally or with handgun purchase. Results: Since 1989, 9 states have passed recklessness laws (Group A) and 16 states have passed negligence laws (Groups B-D) (Figure). Recklessness laws (Group A) were not associated with significantly lower firearm death rates for any intent in any age group, and were associated with an increase in unintentional fatalities among 14-17-year olds. Negligence laws (Groups B-D) were associated with significantly lower firearm death rates overall, by homicide, and by unintentional intent, but not by suicide across age groups (Table). The broadest negligence laws (Group D) reduced unintentional deaths by up to 69% in children 10-13 years of age and firearm homicide deaths up to 36%. Conclusion(s): CAP laws could save lives. The passage of negligence laws across all states has the potential to reduce firearm fatalities in children up to age 17. Authors (Last Name, First Name): Azad, Hooman A.; Monuteaux, Michael; Rees, Chris A.; Siegel, Michael; Mannix, Rebekah; Lee, Lois; Sheehan, Karen; Fleegler, Eric Authors/Institutions: R. Mannix, L. Lee, E. Fleegler, Emergency Medicine, Boston Children's Hospital, Needham, Massachusetts, UNITED STATES|M. Monuteaux, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, UNITED STATES|C.A. Rees, Medicine, Boston Children's Hospital, Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, UNITED STATES|M. Siegel, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, UNITED STATES|H.A. Azad, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, UNITED STATES|K. Sheehan, Lurie Children's, Chicago, Illinois, UNITED STATES BALTIMORE - A new study found that personal gun access was associated with depression, suicidal ideation and perceiving school as unsafe, while attending a school where gun access was common was associated with lower odds of perceiving school as unsafe. Findings from the study will be presented during the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) 2019 Meeting, taking place on April 24 - May 1 in Baltimore. Recent high-profile shootings have raised awareness of the health effects of both access and exposure to firearms and firearm violence among youth and adolescents. Access to guns and perceived unsafe school environments have been associated with gun-related injury, depression and suicidality among adolescents. Whether widespread acceptance of guns among peers alters these associations, however, is unknown. When interaction terms were included in the models, the association between individual gun access and suicidal ideation was weaker when attending a school where gun access was more common. Additionally, as access to guns within a school was more common, the odds of poor general health decreased for students with personal gun access but increased for students with no personal gun access. "For better or for worse, guns are an important part of American culture," said Samantha Chung, one of the authors of the study. "Some studies have shown that having a gun in the home is associated with poor mental health among adolescents. We wanted to study how overall gun access in adolescents' communities might also impact their mental health. We found that it probably does, but the effects are complex and may go in both directions." The study concluded that gun access is a complex social phenomenon. In an otherwise low-access environment, personal gun access may signify a high-risk physical and mental state. In schools where access to guns is common, however, personal gun access may signify social belonging that might reduce potential negative health effects of guns. Although overall evidence that widespread gun access is harmful remains clear, our findings suggest that nuance based on local cultural norms may be significant. Chung will present findings from "Gun Access and Adolescent Health: Safety in Numbers?" on Monday, April 29 at 2:15 p.m. EDT. Reporters interested in an interview with Chung should contact PAS2019@piercom.com. Please note that only the abstracts are being presented at the meeting. In some cases, the researchers may have additional data to share with media. The PAS 2019 Meeting brings together thousands of pediatricians and other health care providers to improve the health and well-being of children worldwide. For more information about the PAS 2019 Meeting, please visit http://www.pas-meeting.org. ### About the Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting The Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) Meeting brings together thousands of pediatricians and other health care providers united by a common mission: to improve the health and well-being of children worldwide. This international gathering includes pediatric researchers, leaders in pediatric academics, clinical care providers and community practitioners. Presentations cover issues of interest to generalists as well as topics critical to a wide array of specialty and sub-specialty areas. The PAS Meeting will be the premier North American scholarly child health meeting. The PAS Meeting is produced through a partnership of four pediatric organizations that are leaders in the advancement of pediatric research and child advocacy: American Pediatric Society, Society for Pediatric Research, Academic Pediatric Association and American Academy of Pediatrics. For more information, please visit http://www.pas-meeting.org. Follow us on Twitter @PASMeeting and #PAS2019, and like us on Facebook. Abstract: Gun Access and Adolescent Health: Safety in Numbers? Background: Recent high-profile shootings have raised awareness of the health effects of both access and exposure to firearms and firearm violence among youth and adolescents. Access to guns and perceived unsafe school environments have been associated with gun-related injury, depression, and suicidality among adolescents. Whether widespread acceptance of guns among peers alters these associations, however, is unknown. Objective: To examine in a nationally representative sample of adolescents whether peer acceptance of guns (measured by the percent of students in one's school with personal gun access) moderates associations between one's own gun access and general health, depression, suicidality, and perceived school safety. Design/Methods: We used the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) Wave I youth surveys to assess both individual-level (e.g., personal gun access) and school-level (e.g., proportion of students at school with access to a gun) variables. We used weighted multilevel analyses with interactions to determine the associations among personal gun access, school-level proportion of gun access, and adolescent depression, suicidal ideation, self-rated health, and perceived school safety, controlling for demographics and school characteristics. Results: We found that personal gun access was associated with depression (OR 1.21 p=0.03, suicidal ideation (OR 1.74, p<0.001) and perceiving school as unsafe (OR 1.60, p<0.001) while, contrary to our hypothesis, attending a school where gun access was common was associated with a lower odds of perceiving school as unsafe (OR 0.83, p=0.003). When interaction terms were included in the models, the association between individual gun access and suicidal ideation was weaker when attending a school where gun access was more common. Additionally, as access to guns within a school was more common, the odds of poor general health decreased for students with personal gun access but increased for students with no personal gun access. Conclusion(s): Gun access is a complex social phenomenon. In an otherwise low-access environment, personal gun access may signify a high-risk physical and mental state. In schools where access to guns is common, however, personal gun access may signify social belonging that might reduce potential negative health effects of guns. Although overall evidence that widespread gun access is harmful remains clear, our findings suggest that nuance based on local cultural norms may be significant. Authors (Last Name, First Name): Chung, Samantha H.; Biely, Christopher; Dudovitz, Rebecca Authors/Institutions: C. Biely, R. Dudovitz, Pediatrics, UCLA, Los Angeles, California, UNITED STATES|S.H. Chung, Marlborough High School, Los Angeles, California, UNITED STATES BALTIMORE - A new study examines the barriers to vaccination of immunocompromised children (ICC). Findings from the study will be presented during the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) 2019 Meeting, taking place on April 24 - May 1 in Baltimore. "Immunosuppressive medications have dramatically improved the outcomes of autoimmune diseases such as lupus and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)," said Vidya Sivaraman, MD, one of the authors of the study. "While the long-term outcomes of these patients have improved, their care has become more complex and fragmented between the specialist and primary care physician (PCP). We realized that vaccination in these patients has been suboptimal, leaving these patients susceptible to many vaccine-preventable diseases. In this study, our primary aim was to assess vaccine knowledge, comfort, and vaccination practices among parents and PCPs of children with childhood onset systemic lupus and IBD and determine measures to reduce these gaps in preventive care." Researchers surveyed 31 systemic lupus erythematosus (c-SLE) and 26 IBD patients. The survey found that most patients received their vaccines from their PCP or health department and 16% received vaccines from their subspecialist. The survey indicated that 96% felt that their PCP was well informed about vaccines and 91% reported that their subspecialist discussed vaccines in the past year, most commonly influenza, human papilloma virus, pneumococcal and Hepatitis B. Only two parents expressed concerns for vaccine adverse effects and triggering a disease flare. Of the 30 PCP responses, 70% had over 20 years' experience and 50% preferred to provide all vaccines to ICC. Yet, there were major barriers to completing vaccines: 14 of 16 (85%) stated they did not stock the 23-valent pneumococcal vaccine. PCPs felt "very confident" about providing vaccines in their ICC only 40% of the time. Practitioners felt poorly informed about their patients' immunosuppressive medications and concern for exacerbating the underlying illness as the main reason for their lack of confidence. The study concluded that there was discordance between patients feeling confident in their PCP being aware of vaccine recommendations and PCP comfort in vaccinating their ICC patients due to lack of knowledge and concern for triggering a disease flare. Despite that most ICC received vaccines at their PCP's office, most offices did not carry the 23-valent pneumococcal vaccine and did not routinely recommend vaccination of household members. Providing recommended vaccines and lack of education about appropriate vaccination in ICC remain significant barriers and areas for improvement. Audrey Lloyd, MD, one of the authors of the study, will present findings from "Barriers to vaccination in immunocompromised children" on Sunday, April 28 at 10:30 a.m. EDT. Reporters interested in an interview with Dr. Sivaraman and/or Dr. Lloyd should contact PAS2019@piercom.com. Please note that only the abstracts are being presented at the meeting. In some cases, the researchers may have additional data to share with media. The PAS 2019 Meeting brings together thousands of pediatricians and other health care providers to improve the health and well-being of children worldwide. For more information about the PAS 2019 Meeting, please visit http://www.pas-meeting.org. ### About the Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting The Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) Meeting brings together thousands of pediatricians and other health care providers united by a common mission: to improve the health and well-being of children worldwide. This international gathering includes pediatric researchers, leaders in pediatric academics, clinical care providers and community practitioners. Presentations cover issues of interest to generalists as well as topics critical to a wide array of specialty and sub-specialty areas. The PAS Meeting will be the premier North American scholarly child health meeting. The PAS Meeting is produced through a partnership of four pediatric organizations that are leaders in the advancement of pediatric research and child advocacy: American Pediatric Society, Society for Pediatric Research, Academic Pediatric Association and American Academy of Pediatrics. For more information, please visit http://www.pas-meeting.org. Follow us on Twitter @PASMeeting and #PAS2019, and like us on Facebook. Abstract: Barriers to vaccination in immunocompromised children Background: The vaccination of immunocompromised children (ICC) remains suboptimal. Objective: Our primary aim was to assess vaccine knowledge, comfort, and practices among parents of and primary care physicians (PCP) caring for children with systemic lupus erythematosus (c-SLE) and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Design/Methods: Surveys were obtained from patients ?18y and parents of younger children during routine clinic visits to the Rheumatology and Gastroenterology clinics at Nationwide Children's Hospital (NCH) between Jan - Aug 2018 as a random convenience sample. PCPs affiliated with NCH were surveyed at their monthly meeting followed by an online survey. Responses were recorded in a Redcap database for statistical analysis. Chart review was performed for demographic information, medication exposure, and confirmation of diagnosis. This study was exempt from IRB approval. Results: We surveyed 31c-SLE and 26 IBD patients. Patient characteristics are detailed in Table 1. Patient data: Most patients received their vaccines from their PCP or Health Department, 16% received vaccines from their subspecialist. 96% felt that their PCP was well informed about vaccines. 91% reported that their subspecialist discussed vaccines in the past year, most commonly Influenza, Human Papilloma Virus, pneumococcal and Hepatitis B. Only 2 parents expressed concerns for vaccine adverse effects and triggering a disease flare. PCP data: 30 responses. 70% had over 20 years' experience and 50% preferred to provide all vaccines to ICC. Yet, there were major barriers to completing vaccines: 14 of 16 (85%) stated they did not stock the 23-valent pneumococcal vaccine. PCP felt "very confident" about providing vaccines in their ICC only 40% of the time. Practitioners felt poorly informed about their patient's immunosuppressive medications and concern for exacerbating the underlying illness as the main reason for their lack of confidence. Conclusion(s): In our survey of patients and PCPs, there was discordance between patients' feeling confident in their PCP being aware of vaccine recommendations and PCP comfort in vaccinating their ICC patients due to lack of knowledge and concern for triggering a disease flare. Despite that most ICC received vaccines at their PCP's office, most offices did not carry the 23-valent pneumococcal vaccine and did not routinely recommend vaccination of household members. Providing recommended vaccines and lack of education about appropriate vaccination in ICC remain significant barriers and areas for improvement. Authors (Last Name, First Name): Lloyd, Audrey R.; Ardura, Monica I.; Wise, Kelly; Chavarin, Daniel; Crandall, Wallace; Boyle, Brendan; Sivaraman, Vidya Authors/Institutions: A.R. Lloyd, Internal Medicine and Pediatrics , Nationwide Children's Hospital, Columbus , Ohio, UNITED STATES|M.I. Ardura, Pediatrics, Infectious Diseases, Nationwide Children's & The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, UNITED STATES|K. Wise, Rheumatology, Nationwide Children's, Columbus, Ohio, UNITED STATES|D. Chavarin, Ohio State University College of Medicine, Columbus, California, UNITED STATES|W. Crandall, Pediatric Gastroenterology, Nationwide Children's Hospital, Columbus, Ohio, UNITED STATES|B. Boyle, Gastroenterology, Nationwide Children's Hospital, Columbus, Ohio, UNITED STATES|V. Sivaraman, Nationwide Children's Hospital, Columbus, Ohio, UNITED STATES BALTIMORE - A new systematic review provides a succinct summary of the scientific evidence for and/or against causal associations for 47 adverse events following immunization (AEFI). Findings from the study will be presented during the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) 2019 Meeting, taking place on April 24 - May 1 in Baltimore. "Health care providers desire objective and clear information on a broad range of vaccine safety issues to assist them in answering patient questions," said Matthew Dudley, PhD, MSPH, one of the authors of the study. "There have been no recent comprehensive reviews on AEFI, and previous reviews were not written for providers or the public. This systematic review provides an update to the scientific evidence assessing possible causal associations of AEFI compiled in the 2012 report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and the 2014 report from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), along with clear causality conclusions intended for health care providers." The review found that for 12 of the 47 AEFI studied, a causal relationship has been established with at least one vaccine currently routinely recommended to the general population in the U.S. These 12 confirmed adverse reactions are: anaphylaxis, arthralgia/arthritis (mild, acute and transient, not chronic), deltoid bursitis (when vaccine is administered improperly), disseminated varicella infection (in immune deficient individuals for whom the varicella vaccine is contraindicated), encephalitis, febrile seizures, Guillain-Barre Syndrome, hepatitis (in immune deficient individuals for whom the varicella vaccine is contraindicated), herpes zoster, immune thrombocytopenic purpura, meningitis and syncope. Most of these adverse reactions are rare. For the other 35 AEFIs, the evidence does not support a causal relationship with vaccines recommended for routine use in the U.S. In particular, the evidence shows a clear lack of association between certain vaccines and AEFIs: influenza vaccines do not cause asthma, childhood vaccines do not cause autism, vaccines do not cause diabetes, vaccines given to immunocompetent persons do not cause hepatitis, influenza vaccines do not cause MS in adults, and DTP and hepatitis B vaccines do not cause Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Dr. Dudley added, "Although vaccines currently recommended for the general population in the U.S. do cause some adverse reactions, vaccines have an excellent safety profile overall and provide protection against infectious diseases to individuals and the general population." Dr. Dudley will present findings from "The State of Vaccine Safety Science: Systematic Reviews of the Evidence" on Monday, April 29 at 10:30 a.m. EDT. Reporters interested in an interview with Dr. Dudley should contact PAS2019@piercom.com. Please note that only the abstracts are being presented at the meeting. In some cases, the researchers may have additional data to share with media. The PAS 2019 Meeting brings together thousands of pediatricians and other health care providers to improve the health and well-being of children worldwide. For more information about the PAS 2019 Meeting, please visit http://www.pas-meeting.org. ### About the Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting The Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) Meeting brings together thousands of pediatricians and other health care providers united by a common mission: to improve the health and well-being of children worldwide. This international gathering includes pediatric researchers, leaders in pediatric academics, clinical care providers and community practitioners. Presentations cover issues of interest to generalists as well as topics critical to a wide array of specialty and sub-specialty areas. The PAS Meeting will be the premier North American scholarly child health meeting. The PAS Meeting is produced through a partnership of four pediatric organizations that are leaders in the advancement of pediatric research and child advocacy: American Pediatric Society, Society for Pediatric Research, Academic Pediatric Association and American Academy of Pediatrics. For more information, please visit http://www.pas-meeting.org. Follow us on Twitter @PASMeeting and #PAS2019, and like us on Facebook. Abstract: The State of Vaccine Safety Science: Systematic Reviews of the Evidence Objective: This systematic review provides a succinct summary of the scientific evidence for and/or against causal associations for 47 AEFI. Design/Methods: We reviewed 44 AEFI studied in the 2012 report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and the 2014 report from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). We also reviewed 3 other AEFI and 2 special topics which have been raised as concerns among the media. We updated the evidence base from the IOM and AHRQ reports using systematic English-language PubMed literature reviews. We provide causality conclusions for each of these AEFIs, and the attributable risk (when possible) for AEFIs caused by vaccines. Results: For 12 of the 47 AEFI studied, a causal relationship has been established with at least one vaccine currently routinely recommended to the general population in the United States. These 12 confirmed adverse reactions are: anaphylaxis, arthralgia/arthritis (mild, acute and transient, not chronic), deltoid bursitis (when vaccine is administered improperly), disseminated varicella infection (in immune deficient individuals for whom the varicella vaccine is contraindicated), encephalitis, febrile seizures, Guillain-Barre Syndrome, hepatitis (in immune deficient individuals for whom the varicella vaccine is contraindicated), herpes zoster, immune thrombocytopenic purpura, meningitis, and syncope. Most of these adverse reactions are rare. For the other 35 AEFIs, the evidence does not support a causal relationship with vaccines recommended for routine use in the U.S. In particular, the evidence shows a clear lack of association between certain vaccines and AEFIs: influenza vaccines do not cause asthma, childhood vaccines do not cause autism, vaccines do not cause diabetes, vaccines given to immunocompetent persons do not cause hepatitis, influenza vaccines do not cause MS in adults, and DTP and hepatitis B vaccines do not cause Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Conclusion(s): Although vaccines currently recommended for the general population in the U.S. do cause some adverse reactions, vaccines have an excellent safety profile overall and provide protection against infectious diseases to individuals and the general population. Authors (Last Name, First Name): Dudley, Matthew; Halsey, Neal; Omer, Saad; Orenstein, Walter A.; O'Leary, Sean T.; Limaye, Rupali; Salmon, Daniel Authors/Institutions: M. Dudley, N. Halsey, R. Limaye, D. Salmon, International Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, UNITED STATES|S. Omer, W.A. Orenstein, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, UNITED STATES|S.T. O'Leary, Pediatrics, University of Colorado Anshutz Medical Campus, Aurora, Colorado, UNITED STATES Prescription opioid misuse results in numerous poor health consequences among children in the US; however, knowledge of recent opioid prescribing trends in Medicaid-enrolled children are conflicting and limited to certain subpopulations BALTIMORE - A new study describes trends in filled opioid prescriptions by patient and clinical characteristics for Medicaid-enrolled children. Findings from the study will be presented during the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) 2019 Meeting, taking place on April 24 - May 1 in Baltimore. "In this retrospective cohort study of Medicaid-enrolled children and young adults (1 to 21 years old) we found that filled opioid prescriptions are relatively rare (1% of all visits) and adjusted rates decreased from 2012 to 2016," said Abbey Masonbrink, MD, MPH, a pediatric hospitalist at Children's Mercy Kansas City and one of the authors of the study. "Providers frequently prescribed opioids combined with non-opioid analgesics and opioids with a black box or safety warning. Future efforts should support development of pediatric pain management guidelines based in a multimodal approach to minimize use of opioids and target reduction of opioids with pediatric safety warnings." This study involved a retrospective cohort study of children 1 to 21 years old enrolled in Medicaid from 2012-2016 using the IBM Watson Medicaid Marketscan claims database. It defined clinical visits as an "opioid visit" if there was a new opioid prescription filled in a retail pharmacy within seven days of the visit. The opioid visit was then assigned to the clinical provider most likely to have prescribed an opioid. Only visits to providers submitting claims in every year from 2012-2016 were included. Changes in patient and clinical characteristics over time were assessed using descriptive statistics and chi-square tests and logistic regression was used to estimate the change in adjusted probability of an opioid visit over time. Due to the large volume of visits analyzed, p<0.001 was considered statistically significant. From 2012 to 2016, there were 113,068,027 visits among Medicaid-enrolled children and 1% (n=1,130,006) of these were considered an opioid visit. After adjusting for patient demographics, the researchers found that the adjusted probability for an opioid prescription decreased from 1.2% to 0.8% from 2012 to 2016. The clinical settings with the highest adjusted rates of opioid prescriptions were dental surgery (29%), surgery (21%), and inpatient (upon-discharge) (10%). Furthermore, the adjusted rates of an opioid visit significantly decreased (p<0.001) from 2012-2016 in all settings, except dental surgery and surgery. The most frequently prescribed opioids were hydrocodone (48%), codeine (22%), and oxycodone (14%); most of these prescriptions were in combination with acetaminophen or ibuprofen. Opioid prescriptions filled in Medicaid-enrolled children are relatively rare (1% of all visits), however adjusted rates of opioid visits decreased from 2012 to 2016. Understanding changes in prescriptions over time can inform opioid stewardship efforts to develop clinical guidelines for appropriate pain management in children. Dr. Masonbrink will present findings from "Changes in Opioid Prescriptions for Medicaid-enrolled Children, 2012-2016" on Sunday, April 28 at 8 a.m. EDT. Reporters interested in an interview with Dr. Masonbrink should contact PAS2019@piercom.com. Please note that only the abstracts are being presented at the meeting. In some cases, the researchers may have additional data to share with media. The PAS 2019 Meeting brings together thousands of pediatricians and other health care providers to improve the health and well-being of children worldwide. For more information about the PAS 2019 Meeting, please visit http://www.pas-meeting.org. ### About the Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting The Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) Meeting brings together thousands of pediatricians and other health care providers united by a common mission: to improve the health and well-being of children worldwide. This international gathering includes pediatric researchers, leaders in pediatric academics, clinical care providers and community practitioners. Presentations cover issues of interest to generalists as well as topics critical to a wide array of specialty and sub-specialty areas. The PAS Meeting will be the premier North American scholarly child health meeting. The PAS Meeting is produced through a partnership of four pediatric organizations that are leaders in the advancement of pediatric research and child advocacy: American Pediatric Society, Society for Pediatric Research, Academic Pediatric Association and American Academy of Pediatrics. For more information, please visit http://www.pas-meeting.org. Follow us on Twitter @PASMeeting and #PAS2019, and like us on Facebook. Abstract: Changes in Opioid Prescriptions for Medicaid-enrolled Children, 2012-2016 Background: Prescription opioid misuse results in numerous poor health consequences among children in the United States; however, literature describing opioid prescriptions in Medicaid-enrolled children is lacking or demonstrates conflicting findings. Understanding the epidemiology of opioid fill patterns is essential to address the current opioid crisis. Objective: To describe trends in filled opioid prescriptions by patient and clinical characteristics for Medicaid-enrolled children. Design/Methods: We performed a retrospective cohort study of children aged 0-21 years old enrolled in Medicaid from 2012-2016 using the IBM Watson Medicaid Marketscan claims database. We defined clinical visits as an "opioid visit" if there was a new opioid prescription filled in a retail pharmacy within 7 days of the visit. The opioid visit was then assigned to the clinical provider most likely to have prescribed an opioid. Only visits to providers submitting claims in every year from 2012-2016 were included. We assessed changes in patient and clinical characteristics over time using descriptive statistics and chi-square tests. We used logistic regression to estimate the change in adjusted probability of an opioid visit over time. Due to the large volume of visits analyzed, p<0.001 was considered statistically significant. Results: From 2012 to 2016, there were 113,068,051 visits among Medicaid-enrolled children and 0.9% (n=1,049,851) of these were considered an opioid visit. Patient characteristics are described in Table 1. Clinical settings most likely to result in an opioid prescription were dental surgery (36%), followed by outpatient surgery (26%), and ED (4%). After adjusting for patient demographics, we found that the adjusted probability for an opioid prescription decreased from 2012-2016 (aOR 0.88 95% CI [0.88, 0.89], p<0.001). Furthermore, the adjusted odds of an opioid visit significantly decreased (p<0.001) from 2012-2016 in all settings, except dental surgery (aOR [95% CI]: 1.02 [1.01,1.03], p<0.001)The most frequently prescribed opioids were hydrocodone (52%), codeine (25%), and oxycodone (15%) (Figure 1); most of these prescriptions were in combination with acetaminophen or ibuprofen. Conclusion(s): Opioid prescriptions filled in Medicaid-enrolled children are relatively rare (0.9% of all visits), however adjusted rates of opioid visits still decreased from 2012 to 2016. Understanding changes in prescriptions over time can help opioid stewardship programs develop clinical guidelines for appropriate pain management in children. Authors (Last Name, First Name): Masonbrink, Abbey R.; Delzeit, Jennifer; Richardson, Troy; Catley, Delwyn; Miller, Melissa K.; Hall, Matt Authors/Institutions: A.R. Masonbrink, D. Catley, Hospital Medicine, Children's Mercy Hospital, Kansas City, Missouri, UNITED STATES|T. Richardson, Children's Hospital Association, Lenexa, Kansas, UNITED STATES|M.K. Miller, Emergency Medicine, Children's Mercy Hospital, Kansas City, Missouri, UNITED STATES|J. Delzeit, M. Hall, Informatics, Children's Hospital Association, Lenexa, Kansas, UNITED STATES Kawasaki disease is a childhood vasculitis, marked by prolonged fevers and coronary artery inflammation/aneurysms in near one-quarter of those untreated BALTIMORE - A new study looks to define the antibody characteristics, including clonality, of plasmablasts during Kawasaki Disease (KD). Findings from the study will be presented during the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) 2019 Meeting, taking place on April 24 - May 1 in Baltimore. "We still don't know the cause of KD, the leading cause of childhood acquired heart disease in developed nations," said Mark Hicar, MD, PhD, one of the authors of the study. "During a normal infectious immune response, special B cells called plasmablasts that are specific to the infection are found in the peripheral blood. We are characterizing these responses in a number of children with KD, have created antibodies from these plasmablasts, and are using these to identify the cause of KD." Researchers used antibody repertoire next-generation sequencing to characterize memory and PB populations. Additionally, pairing of heavy and light chains was performed with Chromium Single Cell Gene Expression (10x Genomics, Pleasanton, CA) using the Human B cell Single Cell V(D)J Enrichment Kit. From plasmablasts from subject 24, antibody sequences using VH4-34 and a 19 amino acid length complementarity determining region 3 showed a massive expansion between day four and six of fever. Chromium single cell sequencing produced over 946 heavy and light chain paired sequences. Sequence comparison showed 40% of sequences demonstrated markers of clonal expansion, which represented 100 clonal groups. One clonal group (24-01) reflected the massive clonal expansion (VH4-34, CDR3 19) previously shown within the next-generation sequencing data. This clonal expansion within plasmablast populations supports that KD is caused by an infection. Antigen targeting of monoclonal antibodies from these clones is currently being explored. Dr. Hicar will present findings from "Clonal expansion within circulating plasmblast populations lends support for an infectious disease etiology of Kawasaki disease" on Monday, April 29 at 10:30 a.m. EDT. Reporters interested in an interview with Dr. Hicar should contact PAS2019@piercom.com. Please note that only the abstracts are being presented at the meeting. In some cases, the researchers may have additional data to share with media. The PAS 2019 Meeting brings together thousands of pediatricians and other health care providers to improve the health and well-being of children worldwide. For more information about the PAS 2019 Meeting, please visit http://www.pas-meeting.org. ### About the Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting The Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) Meeting brings together thousands of pediatricians and other health care providers united by a common mission: to improve the health and well-being of children worldwide. This international gathering includes pediatric researchers, leaders in pediatric academics, clinical care providers and community practitioners. Presentations cover issues of interest to generalists as well as topics critical to a wide array of specialty and sub-specialty areas. The PAS Meeting will be the premier North American scholarly child health meeting. The PAS Meeting is produced through a partnership of four pediatric organizations that are leaders in the advancement of pediatric research and child advocacy: American Pediatric Society, Society for Pediatric Research, Academic Pediatric Association and American Academy of Pediatrics. For more information, please visit http://www.pas-meeting.org. Follow us on Twitter @PASMeeting and #PAS2019, and like us on Facebook. Abstract: Clonal expansion within circulating plasmblast populations lends support for an infectious disease etiology of Kawasaki disease Background: Kawasaki Disease (KD) is a childhood vasculitis, marked by prolonged fevers and coronary artery inflammation/aneurysms in near one quarter of those untreated. The cause remains unknown; however, epidemiologic and demographic data support a single preceding infectious agent may lead to KD. Plasmablasts (PBs) are a stage of transitional B-cells that lead to plasma cells, the long-lived antibody producing cells of the bone marrow. After initial infection, peripherally circulating PB populations are enriched for cells with antibodies against the preceding infection. Objective: We have recently published data showing children with KD have similar PB responses to children with infections. We sought to define the antibody characteristics, including clonality, of these PBs during KD. Design/Methods: We used antibody repertoire next-generation sequencing to characterize memory and PB populations. Additionally, pairing of heavy and light chains was performed with Chromium Single Cell Gene Expression (10x Genomics, Pleasanton, CA) using the Human B cell Single Cell V(D)J Enrichment Kit. Results: From subject 24, antibody sequences using VH4-34 and a 19 amino acid length complementarity determining region 3 showed a massive expansion between day 4 and 6 of fever. Chromium single cell sequencing produced over 946 heavy and light chain paired sequences. Sequence comparison showed 40% of sequences demonstrated markers of clonal expansion, which represented 100 clonal groups. One clonal group (24-01) reflected the massive clonal expansion (VH4-34, CDR3 19) previously shown. Conclusion(s): This clonal expansion within plasmablast populations supports that Kawasaki disease is caused by an infection. Antigen targeting of these monoclonal antibodies is currently being explored. Authors: Sarah Baron, Hakimuddin Sojar, Mark Hicar Authors/Institutions: S. Baron, H. Sojar, M. Hicar, Pediatrics, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York, UNITED STATES Since 2012, birthing hospitals in Massachusetts started to identify and share best practices for pregnancies impacted by Opioid Use Disorder under the umbrella of Neonatal Quality Improvement Collaborative, to improve maternal-infant outcomes BALTIMORE - A new study aims to actively involve birthing hospitals to improve health and social outcomes for the maternal infant dyads impacted by Opioid Use Disorder (OUD). Findings from the study will be presented during the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) 2019 Meeting, taking place on April 24 - May 1 in Baltimore. "Since 2016, the Perinatal-Neonatal Quality Improvement Network of Massachusetts along with other state level stakeholders, launched an initiative to actively involve birthing hospitals in the state to improve overall health and social outcomes for the maternal infant dyads impacted by OUD," said Dr. Rachana Singh, MD, one of the authors of the study. "This process included sharing best practices; a shared database to collect de-identified data; educational materials; serial webinars; biannual quality summits; sharing of statewide and comparative individual hospital reports; and hospital site visits." All voluntarily participating hospitals were invited to identify, share and adopt best care practices as was feasible within the resources available. Commonly shared materials included: a shared database storing de-identified data; educational materials (antenatal screening tools; NAS toolkit; Eat, Sleep, Console scoring); webinars to share hospital-based successes; biannual quality summits; sharing of statewide and individual hospital reports; and hospital site visits. With these efforts, of the 47 birthing hospitals caring for mothers or newborns, over 30 are participating in this initiative, including 26 sharing data to the database since 2017. Between January 2017 to November 2018, data for 1,434 maternal-infant dyads was reported in the central database. Of these, approximately 80% mothers with OUD were receiving medication assisted treatment (MAT) with <40% using illicit drugs during pregnancy, 69% opioid exposed newborns (OENs) received skin-to-skin care in the first 24 hours of life, 70% roomed-in for at least one night prior to maternal discharge and 80% of eligible OENs received any mother's milk during hospitalization. Less than or equal to 50% of OENs needed pharmacotherapy. The average hospital length of stay (LOS) for all OENs born greater than or equal to 37 weeks was approximately 14 days and while for those not requiring pharmacotherapy was approximately 6 days. Eighty percent of OENs were referred to early intervention prior to discharge and 72% of OENs were discharged home to a biologic parent. Significant increases in skin-to-skin contact (median 64.7% to 72.3%) and significant decreases in pharmacologic therapy (median 52.5 % to 45.8%) were seen by run chart rules. This statewide multidisciplinary collaborative effort was able to engage a majority of birthing hospitals in improving care provision for OUD impacted pregnancies resulting in a trend toward less need for pharmacologic treatment through greater focus on non-pharmacologic methods. Dr. Singh concluded, "Through these efforts we have been able to engage a majority of birthing hospitals in improving care provision for OUD impacted pregnancies resulting in a trend toward less need for pharmacologic treatment through greater focus on non-pharmacologic methods." Dr. Singh will present findings from "Improving Outcomes for Pregnancies Impacted by Opioid Use Disorder: The Massachusetts Experience" on Monday, April 29 at 1 p.m. EDT. Reporters interested in an interview with Dr. Singh should contact PAS2019@piercom.com. Please note that only the abstracts are being presented at the meeting. In some cases, the researchers may have additional data to share with media. The PAS 2019 Meeting brings together thousands of pediatricians and other health care providers to improve the health and well-being of children worldwide. For more information about the PAS 2019 Meeting, please visit http://www.pas-meeting.org. ### About the Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting The Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) Meeting brings together thousands of pediatricians and other health care providers united by a common mission: to improve the health and well-being of children worldwide. This international gathering includes pediatric researchers, leaders in pediatric academics, clinical care providers and community practitioners. Presentations cover issues of interest to generalists as well as topics critical to a wide array of specialty and sub-specialty areas. The PAS Meeting will be the premier North American scholarly child health meeting. The PAS Meeting is produced through a partnership of four pediatric organizations that are leaders in the advancement of pediatric research and child advocacy: American Pediatric Society, Society for Pediatric Research, Academic Pediatric Association and American Academy of Pediatrics. For more information, please visit http://www.pas-meeting.org. Follow us on Twitter @PASMeeting and #PAS2019, and like us on Facebook. Abstract: Improving Outcomes for Pregnancies Impacted by Opioid Use Disorder: The Massachusetts Experience Background: Since 2012, birthing hospitals in Massachusetts started to identify and share best practices for pregnancies impacted by Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) under the umbrella of Neonatal Quality Improvement Collaborative (neoQIC), to improve maternal-infant outcomes. In 2016, the Maternal Perinatal Quality Collaborative (MPQC), with state level stakeholders, joined the initiative to create the Perinatal-Neonatal Quality Improvement Network of Massachusetts (PNQIN). Objective: The overarching aim was to actively involve birthing hospitals to improve health and social outcomes for the maternal infant dyads impacted by OUD. Design/Methods: All voluntarily participating hospitals were invited to identify, share and adopt best care practices as was feasible within the resources available. Commonly shared materials included - a shared database storing de-identified data; educational materials (antenatal screening tools; NAS toolkit; Eat, Sleep, Console scoring); webinars to share hospital based successes; biannual quality summits; sharing of statewide and individual hospital reports; and hospital site visits. With these efforts, of the 47 birthing hospitals caring for mothers or newborns, over 30 are participating in this initiative, including 26 sharing data to the database since 2017. Results: Between 1/17 to 11/18 data for 1434 maternal-infant dyads was reported in the central database. Of these, approximately 80% mothers with OUD were receiving medication assisted treatment (MAT) with <40% using illicit drugs during pregnancy, 69% Opioid Exposed Newborns (OENs) received skin-to-skin care in the first 24 hours of life, 70% roomed-in for at least 1 night prior to maternal discharge and 80% of eligible OENs received any mother's milk during hospitalization [Fig 1]. Less than or equal to 50% of OENs needed pharmacotherapy [Fig 2]. The average hospital length of stay (LOS) for all OENs born greater than or equal to 37 weeks was approximately 14 days and while for those not requiring pharmacotherapy was approximately 6 days. 80% of OENs were referred to Early Intervention prior to discharge and 72% of OENs were discharged home to a biologic parent. Significant increases in skin-to-skin contact (median 64.7% to 72.3%) and significant decreases in pharmacologic therapy (median 52.5 % to 45.8%) were seen by run chart rules. Conclusion(s): Our statewide multidisciplinary collaborative effort was able to engage a majority of birthing hospitals in improving care provision for OUD impacted pregnancies resulting in a trend toward less need for pharmacologic treatment through greater focus on non-pharmacologic methods. Authors: Mary Houghton, Elisha Wachman, Munish Gupta, David Schiff, Lawrence Rhein, Alan Picarillo, Hafsatou Diop, Debra Bercuvitz, Ronald Iverson, Rachana Singh Authors/Institutions: R. Singh, Newborn Medicine, Pediatrics, Baystate Children's Hospital, Springfield, Massachusetts, UNITED STATES|M. Houghton, M. Gupta, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts, UNITED STATES|E. Wachman, R. Iverson, Boston Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts, UNITED STATES|D. Schiff, General Academic Pediatrics, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, UNITED STATES|L. Rhein, Neonatology/Pulmonology, University of Massachusetts, Worcester, Massachusetts, UNITED STATES|A. Picarillo, Maine Medical Center, Portland, Maine, UNITED STATES|H. Diop, D. Bercuvitz, Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, UNITED STATES By preparing antibodies from clonally expanded peripheral blood plasmablasts from Kawasaki disease children, antigens of a previously unidentified virus targeted by the antibody response to the disease have been identified BALTIMORE - A new study identifies antigens targeted by the antibody response of children with Kawasaki Disease (KD). Findings will be presented during the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) 2019 Meeting, taking place on April 24 - May 1 in Baltimore. "To identify antigens targeted by the antibody response of children with KD, we identified plasmablasts that were clonally expanded in the peripheral blood of 11 children with KD and made monoclonal antibodies from these plasmablasts," said Anne Rowley, MD, one of the authors of the study. "Monoclonal antibodies from nine of the 11 patients identified intracytoplasmic inclusion bodies in ciliated bronchial epithelium of fatal KD cases. A subset of these antibodies recognizes peptides from a hepacivirus non-structural protein, and an optimized peptide blocked binding of these antibodies to the inclusion bodies, demonstrating the presence of a hepacivirus-like protein in the inclusion bodies. These results strongly suggest that a new human virus, closely related to the hepaciviruses and with a respiratory portal of entry, is etiologically related to KD." The study isolated peripheral blood (PB) from KD children 1-3 weeks after fever onset, and characterized the response using single cell RT-PCR. It identified oligoclonal PB sets and highly mutated IgA PB, and generated monoclonal antibodies from these PB. It used the monoclonal antibodies to evaluate reactivity to KD tissues and to a peptide array comprising 29,939 peptides derived from 13,123 B cell epitopes of animal viruses reported in the Immune Epitope Database and Analysis Resource. The study sequenced 1,156 PB from 11 KD patients, and identified 44 sets of oligoclonal PB in these patients. It prepared 61 monoclonal antibodies (Mab) from oligoclonal PB and from IgA PB that showed high levels of somatic mutation. Ten of these antibodies strongly bind to KD ICI, and 23 weakly bind. Animal virus peptide array revealed that Mab KD4-2H4 (from patient KD4), which strongly binds ICI, recognized multiple similar peptides from a nonstructural protein of hepacivirus C with an identified motif that was highly significant at e-118. Patient KD4 had negative hepatitis C serology. Peptide substitution analysis was performed to identify optimal amino acids for binding of KD4-2H4 at each position. ELISA using an optimized peptide revealed that four other KD Mab from two additional KD patients also recognized this peptide; all three patients had coronary aneurysms. The strong ICI binding of KD Mabs KD4- 2H4 and KD6-2B2 was completely blocked by pre-incubation with the optimized peptide. Children with KD make antibodies to hepacivirus peptides, and KD ICI contain protein with a hepacivirus-like epitope. These results strongly suggest that a new human virus, closely related to the hepaciviruses and with a respiratory portal of entry, is etiologically related to KD. Identification of the specific etiology of KD could revolutionize KD diagnosis and treatment in the future. Dr. Rowley will present findings from "Monoclonal Antibodies from Children with Kawasaki Disease (KD) Recognize Hepacivirus Peptides" on Monday, April 29 at 2 p.m. EDT. Reporters interested in an interview with Dr. Rowley should contact PAS2019@piercom.com. Please note that only the abstracts are being presented at the meeting. In some cases, the researchers may have additional data to share with media. The PAS 2019 Meeting brings together thousands of pediatricians and other health care providers to improve the health and well-being of children worldwide. For more information about the PAS 2019 Meeting, please visit http://www.pas-meeting.org. ### About the Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting The Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) Meeting brings together thousands of pediatricians and other health care providers united by a common mission: to improve the health and well-being of children worldwide. This international gathering includes pediatric researchers, leaders in pediatric academics, clinical care providers and community practitioners. Presentations cover issues of interest to generalists as well as topics critical to a wide array of specialty and sub-specialty areas. The PAS Meeting will be the premier North American scholarly child health meeting. The PAS Meeting is produced through a partnership of four pediatric organizations that are leaders in the advancement of pediatric research and child advocacy: American Pediatric Society, Society for Pediatric Research, Academic Pediatric Association and American Academy of Pediatrics. For more information, please visit http://www.pas-meeting.org. Follow us on Twitter @PASMeeting and #PAS2019, and like us on Facebook. Abstract: Monoclonal Antibodies from Children with Kawasaki Disease (KD) Recognize Hepacivirus Peptides Background: We previously reported an oligoclonal IgA plasma cell response in KD arteries, and made antibodies using oligoclonal immunoglobulin alpha heavy chains with random light chains. These antibodies identified intracytoplasmic inclusion bodies (ICI) in KD ciliated bronchial epithelium by immunohistochemistry, but could not identify specific antigen, likely because they did not have correct in vivo cognate heavy and light chain partners. Analysis of peripheral blood plasmablasts (PB) has emerged as a powerful tool for the study of antibody responses to infectious diseases, and single cell approaches allow for identification of cognate heavy and light chains in each PB. Objective: To identify antigens targeted by the antibody response of children with KD. Design/Methods: We isolated PB from KD children 1-3 weeks after fever onset, and characterized the response using single cell RT-PCR. We identified oligoclonal PB sets and highly mutated IgA PB, and generated monoclonal antibodies from these PB. We used the monoclonal antibodies to evaluate reactivity to KD tissues and to a peptide array comprising 29,939 peptides derived from 13,123 B cell epitopes of animal viruses reported in the Immune Epitope Database and Analysis Resource (http://www.iedb.org). Results: We sequenced 1156 PB from 11 KD patients, and identified 44 sets of oligoclonal PB in these patients. We prepared 61 monoclonal antibodies (Mab) from oligoclonal PB and from IgA PB that showed high levels of somatic mutation. Ten of these antibodies strongly bind to KD ICI, and 23 weakly bind. Animal virus peptide array revealed that Mab KD4-2H4 (from patient KD4), which strongly binds ICI, recognized multiple similar peptides from a nonstructural protein of hepacivirus C with an identified motif that was highly significant at e-118. Patient KD4 had negative hepatitis C serology. Peptide substitution analysis was performed to identify optimal amino acids for binding of KD4-2H4 at each position. ELISA using an optimized peptide revealed that 4 other KD Mab from two additional KD patients also recognized this peptide; all 3 patients had coronary aneurysms. The strong ICI binding of KD Mabs KD4- 2H4 and KD6-2B2 was completely blocked by pre-incubation with the optimized peptide. Conclusion(s): Children with KD make antibodies to hepacivirus peptides, and KD ICI contain protein with a hepacivirus-like epitope. These results strongly suggest that a new human virus, closely related to the hepaciviruses and with a respiratory portal of entry, is etiologically related to KD. Authors: Anne Rowley, Susan Baker, David Arrollo, Leah Gruen, Tetyana Bodnar, Nancy Innocentini, Stanford Shulman Authors/Institutions: A.H. Rowley, D. Arrollo, L.J. Gruen, T. Bodnar, N. Innocentini, S.T. Shulman, Pediatrics, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, UNITED STATES|S.C. Baker, Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, UNITED STATES In the US, prescription and illicit opioids are implicated in the deaths of approximately 500 children and adolescents per year BALTIMORE - A new study shines light on pediatric opioid deaths by U.S. region, the first time a study of this nature has been conducted. Findings from the study will be presented during the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) 2019 Meeting, taking place on April 24 - May 1 in Baltimore. "Although we know that nearly 10,000 children and adolescents died from opioid poisonings over the past two decades in the United States, we have little understanding of how kids in particular regions of the country have been affected by the opioid crisis," said Julie Gaither, PhD, MPH, RN, the lead author of the study. "In this study, we found that while there was a four-fold increase in pediatric deaths from opioids in the Midwest, while there was only a two-fold increase in the West. Moreover, unlike with every other region of the country, there has not been a recent upsurge in deaths from heroin and illicit fentanyl in the western states." The study analyzed CDC mortality data--stratified by the four U.S. census regions--for children and adolescents less than 20 years of age who died from opioid poisonings between 1999 and 2016. Generalized smoothing spline Poisson regression was used to estimate mortality rates per 100,000. Nationally, 8,986 children and adolescents died from opioid poisonings between 1999 and 2016; the pediatric mortality rate increased 268.2%, from 0.22 to 0.81 per 100,000. Mortality rates were highest in the Northeast in both 1999 and 2016 at 0.33 and 1.05, respectively, but the largest increase over time occurred in the Midwest, where rates rose by 429.4%, from 0.17 to 0.90. The smallest increase was in the West, where rates increased by 200.0%, from 0.19 to 0.57. In all regions but the West, there was a marked upswing in mortality rates between 2013 and 2016. This increase can be attributed to a recent surge in deaths from heroin and synthetic opioids (primarily illicit fentanyl) among 15 to 19-year-olds. In this group, heroin was implicated in 32.1% of all opioid deaths in the Northeast (highest proportion), compared to 18.3% in the South (lowest proportion). Similarly, synthetic opioids were implicated in 17.5% of opioid deaths in the Northeast, compared to 8.9% in the South. In the U.S., pediatric mortality rates for opioid poisonings increased nearly 3-fold over 18 years; however, substantial variation exists in the degree to which children and adolescents in particular regions of the country were affected. Mortality rates in the Midwest increased more than 4-fold, compared to a 2-fold increase in the West. A better understanding of how fatal pediatric opioid poisonings vary geographically has the potential to aid in the development of targeted interventions to mitigate what is a growing public health problem for the young in the U.S. Dr. Gaither added, "We are interested in finding out what is at the root of this variation, and whether there are public health policies in place in the West that are serving as safeguards for kids; and if so, how do we begin to implement them across the rest of the country?" Dr. Gaither will present findings from "Geographic Variation in Pediatric Deaths from Prescription and Illicit Opioid Poisonings, 1999-2016" on Saturday, April 27 at 5:30 p.m. EDT. Reporters interested in an interview with Dr. Gaither should contact PAS2019@piercom.com. Please note that only the abstracts are being presented at the meeting. In some cases, the researchers may have additional data to share with media. The PAS 2019 Meeting brings together thousands of pediatricians and other health care providers to improve the health and well-being of children worldwide. For more information about the PAS 2019 Meeting, please visit http://www.pas-meeting.org. ### About the Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting The Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) Meeting brings together thousands of pediatricians and other health care providers united by a common mission: to improve the health and well-being of children worldwide. This international gathering includes pediatric researchers, leaders in pediatric academics, clinical care providers and community practitioners. Presentations cover issues of interest to generalists as well as topics critical to a wide array of specialty and sub-specialty areas. The PAS Meeting will be the premier North American scholarly child health meeting. The PAS Meeting is produced through a partnership of four pediatric organizations that are leaders in the advancement of pediatric research and child advocacy: American Pediatric Society, Society for Pediatric Research, Academic Pediatric Association and American Academy of Pediatrics. For more information, please visit http://www.pas-meeting.org. Follow us on Twitter @PASMeeting and #PAS2019, and like us on Facebook. Abstract: Geographic Variation in Pediatric Deaths from Prescription and Illicit Opioid Poisonings, 1999-2016 Background: In the U.S., prescription and illicit opioids are implicated in the deaths of approximately 500 children and adolescents per year. No study has yet examined geographic differences in fatal pediatric opioid poisonings. Objective: To examine pediatric opioid deaths by U.S. region. Design/Methods: We analyzed CDC mortality data--stratified by the 4 U.S. census regions--for children and adolescents < 20 years of age who died from opioid poisonings between 1999 and 2016. Generalized smoothing spline Poisson regression was used to estimate mortality rates per 100,000. Results: Nationally, 8,986 children and adolescents died from opioid poisonings between 1999 and 2016; the pediatric mortality rate increased 268.2% (P trend < .001), from 0.22 (95% CI, 0.19-0.25) to 0.81 (95% CI, 0.76-0.88) per 100,000. The Table shows demographic and clinical characteristics by U.S. region. Mortality rates were highest in the Northeast in both 1999 and 2016 at 0.33 (95% CI, 0.27-0.40) and 1.05 (95% CI, 0.92-1.20), respectively, but the largest increase over time occurred in the Midwest, where rates rose by 429.4% (P trend < .001), from 0.17 (95% CI, 0.14-0.21) to 0.90 (95% CI, 0.79-1.02). The smallest increase was in the West, where rates increased by 200.0% (P trend < .001), from 0.19 (95% CI, 0.15-0.24) to 0.57 (95% CI, 0.49-0.67). As Figure 1 shows, in all regions but the West, there was a marked upswing in mortality rates between 2013 and 2016. This increase can be attributed to a recent surge in deaths from heroin and synthetic opioids (primarily illicit fentanyl) among 15- to 19-year-olds (Figure 2). In this group, heroin was implicated in 32.1% of all opioid deaths in the Northeast (highest proportion), compared to 18.3% in the South (lowest proportion) (P < .001). Similarly, synthetic opioids were implicated in 17.5% of opioid deaths in the Northeast, compared to 8.9% in the South (P < .001). Conclusion(s): In the U.S., pediatric mortality rates for opioid poisonings increased nearly 3-fold over 18 years; however, substantial variation exists in the degree to which children and adolescents in particular regions of the country were affected. Mortality rates in the Midwest increased more than 4-fold, compared to a 2-fold increase in the West. A better understanding of how fatal pediatric opioid poisonings vary geographically has the potential to aid in the development of targeted interventions to mitigate what is a growing public health problem for the young in the U.S. Authors (Last Name, First Name): Gaither, Julie R.; Shabanova, Veronika; Bechtel, Kirsten; Leventhal, John M. Authors/Institutions: J.R. Gaither, V. Shabanova, K. Bechtel, J.M. Leventhal, Department of Pediatrics, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, UNITED STATES BALTIMORE - A new study examines the history and resurgence of milk sharing. Findings from the study will be presented during the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) 2019 Meeting, taking place on April 24 - May 1 in Baltimore. Wet nursing was considered the safest and most popular alternative form of nutrition until further options were invented, leading to the eventual decline in the profession. Now, society is seeing a resurgence in milk sharing practices through women with an oversupply who are storing extra breast milk and selling it. Unlike wet nursing, however, these interactions often take place away from the regulations and medical examinations that once kept this practice relatively safe. "While the practice of milk sharing has been around for centuries (as highlighted in this abstract), unregulated milk sharing via the internet presents safety concerns and is therefore discouraged," said Ruth Milanaik, DO, one of the authors of the study. "Physicians should be aware of the resurgence of this practice and encourage participation in regulated milk sharing via milk banks." Practices of milk sharing can be traced to 2000 B.C., when wet nurses would breastfeed a child that was not biologically their own. At this time, wet nurses played a vital, lifesaving role in feeding infants who had no alternative form of nutrition if their mother could not provide enough breastmilk herself. Wet nursing evolved into a well-regulated profession, with laws and contracts that governed its practice, including a requirement for completion of a medical examination before being registered. Though commonplace, wet nursing did also face widespread criticism from those concerned about its effect on the mother-infant bond as well as the risk of disease transmission (exacerbated by the low socioeconomic status of many wet nurses). Despite these objections, the lack of hygienic bottles, suitable infant formula, and proper food sterilization techniques (to allow for storage of breastmilk) left feeding via wet nurse as the only safe alternative to a mother's own breastmilk for centuries. It was not until these inventions in the 18th and 19th century--combined with society's historical distrust of wet nurses--that wet nursing fell out of popularity. Physicians must understand the history of milk sharing--the important role it once played and its previous status as a well-regulated profession--in order to best advocate to patients and to policymakers for safer sharing practices and regulations. "This project was actually borne out of another study we were conducting looking into the milk sharing practices of parents of newborns," said Nikita Sood, one of the authors of the study. "We thought it was important to examine the history of this practice so that we could better understand the culture around milk sharing and advocate for safe sharing of human milk." Sood will present findings from "The Resurgence of the Wet Nurse" on Saturday, April 27 at 8 a.m. EDT. Reporters interested in an interview with Sood should contact PAS2019@piercom.com. Please note that only the abstracts are being presented at the meeting. In some cases, the researchers may have additional data to share with media. The PAS 2019 Meeting brings together thousands of pediatricians and other health care providers to improve the health and well-being of children worldwide. For more information about the PAS 2019 Meeting, please visit http://www.pas-meeting.org. ### About the Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting The Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) Meeting brings together thousands of pediatricians and other health care providers united by a common mission: to improve the health and well-being of children worldwide. This international gathering includes pediatric researchers, leaders in pediatric academics, clinical care providers and community practitioners. Presentations cover issues of interest to generalists as well as topics critical to a wide array of specialty and sub-specialty areas. The PAS Meeting will be the premier North American scholarly child health meeting. The PAS Meeting is produced through a partnership of four pediatric organizations that are leaders in the advancement of pediatric research and child advocacy: American Pediatric Society, Society for Pediatric Research, Academic Pediatric Association and American Academy of Pediatrics. For more information, please visit http://www.pas-meeting.org. Follow us on Twitter @PASMeeting and #PAS2019, and like us on Facebook. Abstract: The Resurgence of the Wet Nurse Background: The last few years have seen a rise in informal milk sharing among breastfeeding mothers who are able to connect online to buy and sell their breast milk. Though this practice is discouraged by the medical community due to safety concerns, milk sharing is not a new phenomenon. In order to understand the motivations for milk sharing and encourage safe practices, we must first examine the origins and historical significance of milk sharing. Objective: To understand the history of milk sharing. Design/Methods: Scholarly literature regarding the history of infant feeding, wet nursing, and milk sharing were reviewed. Results: Practices of milk sharing can be traced to 2000 B.C., when wet nurses would breastfeed a child that was not biologically their own. At this time, wet nurses played a vital, lifesaving role in feeding infants who had no alternative form of nutrition if their mother could not provide enough breastmilk herself. Wet nursing evolved into a well-regulated profession, with laws and contracts that governed its practice, including a requirement for completion of a medical examination before being registered. Though commonplace, wet nursing did also face widespread criticism from those concerned about its effect on the mother-infant bond as well as the risk of disease transmission (exacerbated by the low socioeconomic status of many wet nurses). Despite these objections, the lack of hygienic bottles, suitable infant formula, and proper food sterilization techniques (to allow for storage of breastmilk) left feeding via wet nurse as the only safe alternative to a mother's own breastmilk for centuries. It was not until these inventions in the 18th and 19th century--combined with society's historical distrust of wet nurses--that wet nursing fell out of popularity. Conclusion(s): Milk sharing is a practice that has been around for centuries. Wet nursing was considered the safest and most popular alternative form of nutrition until further options were invented, leading to the eventual decline in the profession. Now, society is seeing a resurgence in milk sharing practices through women with an oversupply who are storing extra breast milk and selling it. Unlike wet nursing, however, these interactions often take place away from the regulations and medical examinations that once kept this practice relatively safe. Physicians must understand the history of milk sharing--the important role it once played and its previous status as a well-regulated profession--in order to best advocate to patients and to policymakers for safer sharing practices and regulations. Authors/Institutions: Nikita Sood, Ruth Milanaik, Cohen's Children Medical Center, New Hyde Park, New York BALTIMORE - Text message reminders led to timely HPV vaccine series completion across a low-income, urban, minority population, according to a new study. Findings from the study will be presented during the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) 2019 Meeting, taking place on April 24 - May 1 in Baltimore. "HPV vaccine is a critical cancer-protecting vaccine; yet, only half of adolescents have received their needed doses," said Melissa Stockwell, MD, MPH, FAAP, Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Population and Family Health at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, the lead author of the study. "Even among those who start the series, only three-quarters get all the doses needed for protection. In this study, we found that text message vaccine reminders are a powerful, rapid and scalable way to help encourage families to have adolescents complete their vaccine series." In this AHRQ-funded study, eligible 9 to 17-year-olds receiving their first HPV vaccine at four affiliated community clinics in Northern Manhattan from December 2014 through December 2016 were randomized 1:1 to receive one of two types of text message vaccine reminders. Conventional messages included next dose due date and site-specific walk-in hours. Enhanced educational reminders included educational information targeted to the parent's stage of vaccine decision-making based on the transtheoretical model. The primary outcome was timely HPV vaccine series completion within 12 months (receipt of two or three doses, based on age and enrollment date, accounting for the 2016 change in CDC guidelines). Chi-square analyses compared the intervention arms to concurrent non-enrollees who received their first vaccine dose during the study period, but who were not enrolled because they were ineligible, not able to be contacted or refused. Participants were also compared to historical controls (first dose administered 2011-2013); for this analysis adolescents from the intervention arms who only needed two doses to complete the series were removed in order to be more directly comparable. In addition, population coverage for those who received their first dose within the three years prior (2011-2013) and three years (2014-2016) during the intervention were calculated. Overall, 956 parents of 1,264 eligible families enrolled. Adolescents were half female, and primarily Latino (89%), less than or equal to 14 years (92%), and publicly insured (94%). Two-thirds of parents were primarily Spanish speaking; 60.0% had not finished high school. Both text message arms had similarly high timely series completion rates within 12 months: educational (72.4%) versus conventional (75.7%). Those who were in any text message arm had significantly higher completion rates than non-enrollees (n= 1503)(74.1% vs 45.2%; P<0.0001). In addition, even after removing those who only needed two doses to complete the series, they had higher rates than the historical controls (n= 2823)(71.1% vs. 34.8%; p<0.0001). Finally, a population-wide effect was seen during the years of the study 2014-16, above historical trends. Dr. Stockwell will present findings from "Impact of Text Message Reminders on HPV Vaccine Series Completion" on Monday, April 29 at 10:30 a.m. EDT. Reporters interested in an interview with Dr. Stockwell should contact PAS2019@piercom.com. Please note that only the abstracts are being presented at the meeting. In some cases, the researchers may have additional data to share with media. The PAS 2019 Meeting brings together thousands of pediatricians and other health care providers to improve the health and well-being of children worldwide. For more information about the PAS 2019 Meeting, please visit http://www.pas-meeting.org. ### About the Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting The Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) Meeting brings together thousands of pediatricians and other health care providers united by a common mission: to improve the health and well-being of children worldwide. This international gathering includes pediatric researchers, leaders in pediatric academics, clinical care providers and community practitioners. Presentations cover issues of interest to generalists as well as topics critical to a wide array of specialty and sub-specialty areas. The PAS Meeting will be the premier North American scholarly child health meeting. The PAS Meeting is produced through a partnership of four pediatric organizations that are leaders in the advancement of pediatric research and child advocacy: American Pediatric Society, Society for Pediatric Research, Academic Pediatric Association and American Academy of Pediatrics. For more information, please visit http://www.pas-meeting.org. Follow us on Twitter @PASMeeting and #PAS2019, and like us on Facebook. Abstract: Impact of Text Message Reminders on HPV Vaccine Series Completion Background: Text message vaccine reminders are effective, but less is known about effects across a population. Objective: To assess the effect on timely HPV vaccine series completion of text message vaccine reminders vs. historical and concurrent comparison groups. Design/Methods: In this AHRQ-funded study, eligible 9-17-year-olds receiving their 1st HPV vaccine at 4 affiliated community clinics in Northern Manhattan from December 2014- December 2016 were randomized 1:1 to receive one of two types of text message vaccine reminders. Conventional messages included next dose due date and site- specific walk-in hours. Enhanced educational reminders included educational information targeted to the parent's stage of vaccine decision-making based on the transtheoretical model. The primary outcome was timely HPV vaccine series completion within 12 months (receipt of 2 or 3 doses, based on age and enrollment date, accounting for the 2016 change in CDC guidelines). Chi-square analyses compared the intervention arms to concurrent non-enrollees who received their first vaccine dose during the study period, but who were not enrolled because they were ineligible, not able to be contacted or refused. Participants were also compared to historical controls (1st dose administered 2011-2013); for this analysis adolescents from the intervention arms who only needed 2 doses to complete the series were removed in order to be more directly comparable. In addition, population coverage for those who received their first dose within the three years prior (2011-2013) and three years (2014-2016) during the intervention were calculated. Results: Overall, 956 parents of 1,264 eligible families enrolled. The adolescents were half female, and primarily Latino (89%), less than or equal to 14 years (92%), and publicly insured (94%). Two-thirds of parents were primarily Spanish speaking; 60.0% had not finished high school. Both text message arms had similarly high timely series completion rates within 12 months: educational (72.4%) vs. conventional (75.7%). Those who were in any text message arm had significantly higher completion rates than non-enrollees (n= 1503)(74.1% vs 45.2%; P<0.0001). In addition, even after removing those who only needed 2 doses to complete the series, they had higher rates than the historical controls (n= 2823)(71.1% vs. 34.8%; p<0.0001). Finally, a population-wide effect was seen during the years of the study 2014-16, above historical trends. Conclusion: Text message reminders led to timely series completion across a low-income, urban, minority population. Authors: Melissa Stockwell; Chelsea Kolff; Marina Catallozzi; Luis Alba; Stephen Holleran; Dodi Meyer; Rajasekhar Ramakrishnan Authors/Institutions: M.S. Stockwell, M. Catallozzi, Departments of Pediatrics and Population and Family Health, Columbia University; C.A. Kolff, L.R. Alba, S. Holleran, D. Meyer, R. Ramakrishnan, Department of Pediatrics, Columbia University BALTIMORE - Pediatricians and nurse practitioners report using several strategies to improve human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination, yet also perceive barriers, according to a national American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Pediatric Research in Office Settings (PROS) network study. Findings from the study will be presented during the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) 2019 Meeting, taking place on April 24 - May 1 in Baltimore. A safe and effective vaccine that prevents HPV-attributable cancers has been available since 2006. Despite demonstrated safety and effectiveness, coverage rates for the HPV vaccine remain suboptimal, and considerably lower than coverage for other adolescent vaccinations. The study examined barriers to HPV vaccination and strategies used to improve HPV vaccination rates in a sample of pediatricians and nurse practitioners from 19 states who participate in the AAP's primary care practice-based research network. As part of the NIH-funded STOP HPV trial, the lead respondent from 47 practices recruited from the PROS research network completed an online, confidential survey in 2018. The survey measured office characteristics, standard office procedures for and communication about HPV vaccination, and use of evidence-based strategies such as performance feedback, prompts, reminder-recall, and standing orders. Proportions and medians were calculated for categorical and continuous variables, respectively. All respondents reported more than one barrier to HPV vaccination. The most commonly reported major barrier was parent refusal or delay (over 80%). Respondents reported approximately 30% (range 5%-75%) of parents of their 11 to 12-yr-old patients due for an HPV vaccine refused and 15% (range 5%-60%) hesitated without refusing. Other major barriers reported by respondents included the time required to discuss HPV vaccination with families (17% of practitioners), low proportion of adolescents coming in for well visits (13%), lack of training in providing a strong recommendation (11%), respondents sense that others may view that HPV vaccination can wait (9%), and challenges associated with administering HPV vaccine at acute or chronic care visits (7%). The most commonly reported strategy to improve HPV vaccination rates was use of prompts when HPV vaccination is needed (89%). Respondents also reported that their practices commonly use tools to improve communication about HPV vaccination with parents and adolescents (87%) and receive performance feedback about HPV vaccination rates (83%). Only 17% of respondents cited that their practice uses reminder-recall messages specific to the HPV vaccine. The study concluded that respondent-perceived barriers to HPV vaccination remain. Practices are already using a wide variety of strategies to improve delivery of this vaccine, yet room for improvement remains. Alexander Fiks, MD, FAAP, MSCE, the senior author on the abstract, primary care pediatrician at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, PROS Director and associate director of the Center for Pediatric Clinical Effectiveness and researcher at PolicyLab, added: "The ongoing STOP HPV trial will test the effectiveness of distinct strategies, alone or in combination, to overcome barriers to vaccination and, if effective, may ultimately minimize the burden of HPV-related disease." Margaret Wright, PhD, one of the authors of the study, will present findings from "Pediatric Practitioners Report Using Strategies to Improve HPV Vaccination, yet Barriers Persist: Results from the National AAP Pediatric Research in Office Settings (PROS) Network" on Monday, April 29 at 10:30 a.m. EDT. Reporters interested in an interview with Dr. Fiks should contact PAS2019@piercom.com. The PAS 2019 Meeting brings together thousands of pediatricians and other health care providers to improve the health and well-being of children worldwide. For more information about the PAS 2019 Meeting, please visit http://www.pas-meeting.org. ### About the Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting The Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) Meeting brings together thousands of pediatricians and other health care providers united by a common mission: to improve the health and well-being of children worldwide. This international gathering includes pediatric researchers, leaders in pediatric academics, clinical care providers and community practitioners. Presentations cover issues of interest to generalists as well as topics critical to a wide array of specialty and sub-specialty areas. The PAS Meeting will be the premier North American scholarly child health meeting. The PAS Meeting is produced through a partnership of four pediatric organizations that are leaders in the advancement of pediatric research and child advocacy: American Pediatric Society, Society for Pediatric Research, Academic Pediatric Association and American Academy of Pediatrics. For more information, please visit http://www.pas-meeting.org. Follow us on Twitter @PASMeeting and #PAS2019, and like us on Facebook. --- Abstract: Pediatric Practitioners Report Using Strategies to Improve HPV Vaccination, yet Barriers Persist: Results from the National AAP Pediatric Research in Office Settings (PROS) Network Background: A safe and effective vaccine that prevents HPV-attributable cancers has been available since 2006. Despite demonstrated safety and effectiveness, coverage rates for the HPV vaccine remain suboptimal, and considerably lower than coverage for other adolescent vaccinations. Objective: Examine a) barriers to HPV vaccination and b) strategies used to improve HPV vaccination rates in a sample of pediatric primary care practitioners from 19 states. Design/Methods: As part of the NIH-funded STOP HPV trial, the lead practitioner from 47 practices recruited from the PROS research network completed an online, confidential survey in 2018. The survey measured office characteristics, standard office practices for and communication about HPV vaccination, and use of evidence-based strategies such as performance feedback, practitioner prompts, reminder-recall, and standing orders. Proportions and medians were calculated for categorical and continuous variables, respectively. Results: Barriers: All practitioners reported >1 barrier to HPV vaccination. The most commonly reported major barrier was parent refusal or delay (>80%, Table 1). Practitioners reported approximately 30% (range 5%-75%) of parents of their 11-12-yr-old patients due for a HPV vaccine refused and 15% (range 5%-60%) hesitated without refusing. Other major barriers reported by practitioners included the time required to discuss HPV vaccination with families (17% of practitioners), low proportion of adolescents coming in for well visits (13%), lack of training in providing a strong practitioner recommendation (11%), practitioners' view that HPV vaccination can wait (9%), and challenges associated with administering HPV vaccine at acute or chronic care visits (7%). Strategies: The most commonly reported strategy to improve HPV vaccination rates was use of prompts when HPV vaccination is needed (89%, Table 2). Practitioners also reported that their practices commonly use tools to improve communication about HPV vaccination with parents and adolescents (87%) and receive performance feedback about HPV vaccination rates (83%). Only 17% of practitioners cited that their practice uses reminder-recall messages specific to the HPV vaccine. Table 2 provides details about each specific strategy. Conclusion(s): Practitioner-perceived barriers to HPV vaccination persist. Practices are already using a wide variety of strategies to improve delivery of this vaccine, yet room for improvement remains. Authors (Last Name, First Name): Wright, Margaret; Shone, Laura P.; Humiston, Sharon G.; Steffes, Jennifer; Rand, Cynthia; Kelly, Mary Kate; Breck, Abigail; Localio, Russell; Stephens-Shields, Alisa J.; Grundmeier, Robert W.; Albertin, Christina; Abney, Dianna E.; McFarland, Greta; Szilagyi, Peter G.; Fiks, Alexander Authors/Institutions: M. Wright, L.P. Shone, J. Steffes, D.E. Abney, G. McFarland, Research, American Academy of Pediatrics, Itasca, Illinois, UNITED STATES|S.G. Humiston, Pediatrics, Children's Mercy Hospital, Kansas City, Missouri, UNITED STATES|C. Rand, C. Albertin, Pediatrics, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York, UNITED STATES|M. Kelly, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, UNITED STATES|A. Breck, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, UNITED STATES|R. Localio, Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Informatics, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, UNITED STATES|A.J. Stephens-Shields, Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Informatics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, UNITED STATES|R.W. Grundmeier, Pediatrics, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, UNITED STATES|P.G. Szilagyi, Pediatrics, UCLA School of Medicine, Los Angeles, California, UNITED STATES|A. Fiks, Pediatrics, Children's Hospital Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, UNITED STATES Despite a recommendation for routine HPV vaccination of adolescents over 10 years, vaccination series completion rates remain less than 50% in the US BALTIMORE - A new national survey of pediatricians and family physicians examines and compares how providers are recommending and communicating about human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, their current delivery practices, reported refusal/deferral rates and associated factors, and perceived barriers to vaccination. Findings from the survey will be presented during the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) 2019 Meeting, taking place on April 24 - May 1 in Baltimore. "This was a national survey of pediatricians and family physicians assessing their practices regarding HPV vaccine delivery and their perceptions of the effect of changes from a three to a two-dose recommendation for adolescents younger than 15 years of age," said Allison Kempe, MD, one of the authors of the study. "Our data are very encouraging in showing substantial progress over the past five years in the percent who report strongly recommending to 11 to 12-year-olds. Our findings also point out important areas for improvement in vaccine delivery, especially in how physicians introduce discussions about the vaccine and in the use of standing orders or alerts in the medical record." Despite a recommendation for routine HPV vaccination of adolescents for over 10 years, vaccination series completion rates remain less than 50% in the U.S. A variety of approaches to increase coverage have been proposed, focused at the practice or provider level, but approaches currently being used in primary care are not well described. Although the majority of physicians strongly recommend HPV vaccine at 11 to 12 years old, data suggest areas for improvement in strength and style of recommendation and in practice-based delivery methods. The findings suggest that physicians reporting high refusal rates may be anticipating and accommodating refusals by altering recommendation strength and style. Dr. Kempe added, "The findings also suggest that, from the physicians' perspective, the two-dose schedule could result in meaningful increases in HPV vaccination initiation and completion among adolescents, leading to greater protection against HPV-associated cancers in the U.S." Dr. Kempe will present findings from "Current Primary Care Practices and Experiences with the Delivery of HPV Vaccine" on Monday, April 29 at 10:30 a.m. EDT. Reporters interested in an interview with Dr. Kempe should contact PAS2019@piercom.com. Please note that only the abstracts are being presented at the meeting. In some cases, the researchers may have additional data to share with media. The PAS 2019 Meeting brings together thousands of pediatricians and other health care providers to improve the health and well-being of children worldwide. For more information about the PAS 2019 Meeting, please visit http://www.pas-meeting.org. ### About the Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting The Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) Meeting brings together thousands of pediatricians and other health care providers united by a common mission: to improve the health and well-being of children worldwide. This international gathering includes pediatric researchers, leaders in pediatric academics, clinical care providers and community practitioners. Presentations cover issues of interest to generalists as well as topics critical to a wide array of specialty and sub-specialty areas. The PAS Meeting will be the premier North American scholarly child health meeting. The PAS Meeting is produced through a partnership of four pediatric organizations that are leaders in the advancement of pediatric research and child advocacy: American Pediatric Society, Society for Pediatric Research, Academic Pediatric Association and American Academy of Pediatrics. For more information, please visit http://www.pas-meeting.org. Follow us on Twitter @PASMeeting and #PAS2019, and like us on Facebook. Abstract: Current Primary Care Practices and Experiences with the Delivery of HPV Vaccine Background: Despite a recommendation for routine HPV vaccination of adolescents for >10 years, vaccination series completion rates remain <50% in the United States. A variety of approaches to increase coverage have been proposed, focused at the practice or provider level, but approaches currently being used in primary care are not well described. Objective: To examine and compare among nationally representative panels of pediatricians (Peds) and family physicians (FPs): 1) how providers are recommending and communicating about HPV vaccine; 2) current delivery practices; 3) reported refusal/deferral rates and associated factors; and 4) perceived barriers to vaccination. Design/Methods: We surveyed nationally representative networks of Peds and FPs by internet or mail from 7/2018-9/2018. Multivariable regression (MV) analyses were conducted assessing factors associated with reported refusal/deferral of greater than or equal to 50% for 11-12 y.o. New analysis by academics from the Oxford Internet Institute (OII), part of the University of Oxford, predicts the dead may outnumber the living on Facebook within fifty years, a trend that will have grave implications for how we treat our digital heritage in the future. The analysis predicts that, based on 2018 user levels, at least 1.4 billion members will die before 2100. In this scenario, the dead could outnumber the living by 2070. If the world's largest social network continues to expand at current rates, however, the number of deceased users could reach as high as 4.9 billion before the end of the century. "These statistics give rise to new and difficult questions around who has the right to all this data, how should it be managed in the best interests of the families and friends of the deceased and its use by future historians to understand the past," said lead author Carl Ohman, a doctoral candidate at the OII. "On a societal level, we have just begun asking these questions and we have a long way to go. The management of our digital remains will eventually affect everyone who uses social media, since all of us will one day pass away and leave our data behind. But the totality of the deceased user profiles also amounts to something larger than the sum of its parts. It is, or will at least become, part of our global digital heritage." Co-author David Watson, also a DPhil student at the OII, explained: "Never before in history has such a vast archive of human behaviour and culture been assembled in one place. Controlling this archive will, in a sense, be to control our history. It is therefore important that we ensure that access to these historical data is not limited to a single for-profit firm. It is also important to make sure that future generations can use our digital heritage to understand their history." The analysis sets up two potential extreme scenarios, arguing that the future trend will fall somewhere in between: The first scenario assumes that no new users join as of 2018. Under these conditions, Asia's share of dead users increases rapidly to account for nearly 44% of the total by the end of the century. Nearly half of those profiles come from India and Indonesia, which together account for just under 279 million Facebook mortalities by 2100. The second scenario assumes that Facebook continues to grow by its current rate of 13% globally, every year, until each market reaches saturation. Under these conditions, Africa will make up a growing share of dead users. Nigeria, in particular, becomes a major hub in this scenario, accounting for over 6% of the total. By contrast, Western users will account for only a minority of users, with only the US making the top 10. "The results should be interpreted not as a prediction of the future, but as a commentary on the current development, and an opportunity to shape what future we are headed towards," explains Ohman. "But this has no bearing on our larger point that critical discussion of online death and its macroscopic implications is urgently needed. Facebook is merely an example of what awaits any platform with similar connectivity and global reach." Watson added: "Facebook should invite historians, archivists, archaeologists and ethicists to participate in the process of curating the vast volume of accumulated data that we leave behind as we pass away. This is not just about finding solutions that will be sustainable for the next couple of years, but possibly for many decades ahead." The predictions are based on data from the United Nations, which provide the expected number of mortalities and total populations for every country in the world distributed by age, and Facebook data scraped from the company's Audience Insights feature. While the study notes that this self-reported dataset has several limitations, this provides the most comprehensive publicly available estimate of the network's size and distribution ### CPS Energy is testing battery technology as part of a $16.3 million pilot project to essentially make solar power a more reliable, and viable, power source. Solar energy for all of its potential to replace carbon emissions from power plants with clean energy has one serious drawback: at best, solar panels generate electricity for four or five hours a day in South Texas. And without an effective way to store the power, the electricity may not be available when demand is highest. Cris Eugster, CPSs chief operating officer, said battery storage could change all that. The battery system charges when solar production is highest during the afternoon and then discharges during the late afternoon as the sun is setting and as customers get home from work, and our load reaches a peak, he said. The pilot project is located off West Commerce Street on a 50-acre site on property CPS is leasing from Southwest Research Institute thats home to more than 17,000 solar panels and four house-sized trailers positioned side-by-side. Despite appearances, however, its scope is modest. The 1,612 Samsung batteries, each about the size of a laptop computer, generate only a 10-megawatt charge. Its enough to power at most 2,000 homes for one hour before the batteries are spent. The city-owned utility has more than 800,000 electrical customers. To implement the technology across its service area, which includes most of Bexar County and parts of neighboring counties, could cost hundreds of millions of dollars, CPS CEO Paula Gold-Williams said. Its going to cost a ton, Gold-Williams said. CPS has enough generation capacity to meet the needs of its San Antonio-area customers, so the utility head said investing now in systemwide battery technology doesnt make sense until its costs drop. Were looking for it to be ultimately affordable, she said. So we ventured into (the pilot program) in economical bites, and then if we think its the right time to do it, then we get bigger and bigger and bigger. Gold-Williams said the abundance of natural gas supply in Texas means cheaper fuel to generate energy, beating the current price of storing solar power in batteries. Gas has really low prices, she said, and even though energy storage has come down in pricing, it's not competing. As part of the pilot, CPS employees will test the reliability of the batteries as well as how smoothly the batteries shift from discharging to recharging, said David Jungman, the utilitys senior director of business and economic development. CPS received a $3.3 million grant from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for the pilot. About 20% of the agencys power generation comes from renewable sources, including solar and wind power. CPS Energy has been a leader among utilities nationwide in using solar for its electricity generation, but not when it comes to battery storage. Other utilities are past their test phase and launching large-scale projects. Last month, Florida Power & Light Co., which serves Miami and other communities in South Florida, announced plans to build a large solar-powered battery project with a capacity of 409 megawatts. In February, Phoenix-based Arizona Public Service said it would add 850 megawatts of battery storage. APS Chairman Don Brandt said at the time that with battery storage, the full power of solar can be realized. The challenge is, no one has figured out how to stop the sun from setting at night, he said. As storage technology improves and declines in cost, we will increasingly be able to store the power of the sun cost-effectively to deliver when our customers need it. In Texas, El Paso Electric announced in January a 100-megawatt battery storage project coupled with a 200-megawatt solar farm. The CPS program is relatively small compared to what some other utilities are doing, said Yayoi Sekine, an energy storage analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, which researches and analyzes renewable energy projects. Sekine said reduced battery costs are driving utilities to implement more battery storage projects combined with solar power. She said a 100-megawatt solar farm that goes into service in Arizona in 2021, coupled with a 25-megawatt storage system with four hours of capacity, can provide power for $36 a megawatt-hour. That compares with a new state-of-the-art gas-fired plant that would generate electricity at $47 a megawatt hour. CPS officials, however, said the comparison is irrelevant since they are not expanding generation facilities. They were unable to provide exact cost estimates for a large-scale battery system compared to other types of power. Unlike in several other states, utilities in Texas are under no pressure from regulators to initiate alternative energy projects such as battery storage. Last year, the Arizona Corporation Commission, the states utility regulator, temporarily banned power companies from building new gas-fired power plants. Two months ago, the commission extended the ban to August. The action by Arizona regulators may have forced the Arizona Public Service to move faster on battery storage and solar farm combinations, said Wayne Callender, zero emissions resources manager for CPS. The lack of a mandate from the Public Utility Commission of Texas has given CPS the time to carefully test battery storage, he said. Callender said it could take several years to fully analyze pilot-project results such as the reliability of the batteries and to train employees. CPS officials said they will also review what more solar and storage projects would mean for utility employees. While a gas-fired plant can employ as many as 100 workers, storage battery facilities can be operated by one employee who can monitor the site remotely, said Bloombergs Sekine. The utility is looking at staffing issues as part of the overall review of battery storage, but officials said they have no plans to reduce their 3,000-plus workforce. More utilities are jumping to use battery storage for solar because the cost of the lithium-ion batteries continues to drop, said Joseph DeCarolis, an associate professor in the department of civil, construction and environmental engineering at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. DeCarolis was on a North Carolina study commission last year that examined battery storage in combination with solar for utilities in the state. He said the price of the batteries dropped 20% in the year the commission studied the issue. However, while more utilities are adopting the technology, he said, some power companies have been hesitant. There is still some trepidation its a relatively new technology, he said. Environmentalists here say CPS is moving too slowly to implement battery storage. CPS Energy has developed a reputation as a forward-thinking company, but I think they are floating on their reputation, said Greg Harman, a San Antonio-based organizer for the Lone Star chapter of the Sierra Club. Harman said sustainable energy generation goals for the utility need to be more specific to fight climate change. The utilitys future energy plan envisions only one of its two coal-fired power plants remaining in operation by 2043. But Harman believes the timetable for closure could be greatly accelerated with a push for more battery storage and solar projects. Randy.diamond@express-news.net A 19-year-old man with an assault rifle opened fire at the Chabad of Poway synagogue in Poway, California, Saturday morning, leaving one dead and three injured, according to authorities. Four people were transported to Palomar Medical Center with gunshot injuries at around 12 p.m., Pacific time, officials said in a news conference Saturday afternoon. One of the victims, a woman, "succumbed to their wounds," according to Poway Mayor Steve Vaus. The three others - a girl and two men - remain in the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. "I can only tell you that we have a fatality," Vaus said in an interview with MSNBC, "and I can also tell you that it was a hate crime, and that will not stand." Saturday's shooting in Poway, approximately 20 miles north of San Diego, comes six months after the massacre at Pittsburgh's oldest synagogue, Tree of Life, where an armed shooter killed 11 people and injured six others in the deadliest attack on Jews in the history of the United States. In an apparent manifesto posted online, the alleged shooter drew inspiration for his attack from that tragedy as well as the mosque shootings in New Zealand in March. The San Diego County Sheriff's office identified the suspect as John Earnest. According to Sheriff William Gore, the assault weapon might have malfunctioned after the gunman fired inside the Chabad of Poway, preventing a more extensive tragedy. An off-duty border patrol agent fired at the shooter when he was fleeing, but missed. The agent struck the suspect's car as he fled, Gore said in a news conference. San Diego police Chief David Nisleit said the suspect called in to police to say he was involved in the shooting and gave his location. A K-9 officer who was on his way to the synagogue saw the suspect's car. "The suspect jumped out of the car with his hands up," said Nisleit, and was taken into custody. While making the arrest, the officer saw an assault rifle in the suspect's car, Nisleit said. The suspect is in custody for questioning, according to Nisleit, and Gore confirmed the alleged shooter had no earlier contact with law enforcement. Earnest is a California State University San Marcos student, the university's President Karen Hayness said, according to the Associated Press. In a manifesto published online Saturday under the name John Earnest, the writer described plans to kill Jews, referring to himself as an "anti-Semite" and "white supremacist." It referenced the alleged shooters at the Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue and the New Zealand mosques, Jesus Christ and Adolf Hitler as role models. The writer expressed no remorse for his impending actions. In the document, the writer confessed to setting fire to a mosque in Escondido, California, located fewer than nine miles from the Poway Chabad, a month earlier, and dedicated the arson to the alleged New Zealand shooter. The writing mirrors the alleged New Zealand shooter's manifesto. In a post on 8chan, an Internet message board, a user who appears to be Earnest shared the manifesto and announced his plan to live-stream his actions on Facebook and shared a link, but the social media platform blocked the profile before it gained widespread attention. In his 8chan message, the user references the "red pill" movement, which developed on Internet message boards and revolves around the idea of men's rights, anti-feminism and the alt-right, and generally promotes a misogynistic worldview. The three injured in Saturday's shooting are in stable condition, authorities said. Among the injured was Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein. Sheriff Gore said the rabbi was wounded in the hand and is undergoing surgery. Minoo Anvari, a member of the congregation, told CNN that "[Goldstein] did not leave his congregation until he was finished speaking to them - calming their fears and pledging resilience." The Poway shooting occurred one week after Easter Sunday on the last day of Passover, a holiday celebrating Jewish freedom from persecution. Chabad is an orthodox Jewish Hasidic movement. Chabad Houses, like Jewish community centers, foster a philosophy of inclusion, opening their doors to individuals of all faiths and levels of observance. The Chabad of Poway hosts a weekly Kiddush luncheon after Shabbat morning services conclude. On Saturday, it also held a Passover celebration, according to 10News, which was scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. and end at 7 p.m. with a final holiday meal. The San Diego County Sheriff's Department responded to reports of an active shooter at the synagogue just before 11:30 a.m. Two prayer services were in session at the synagogue at the time of the shooting. The Poway Sheriff's Station confirmed the shooting via Twitter, after deputies were called to the scene by "reports of a man with a gun." President Donald Trump expressed his "deepest sympathies" for the victims of the shooting, which he said "looks like a hate crime," before departing for a rally in Wisconsin. "My deep condolences to all of those affected," the president added. Other political and religious leaders condemned Saturday's attack and voiced their support of the Jewish community. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., said on Twitter: "Yet again a place of worship is the target of senseless gun violence and hate. Anti-Semitism is real in this country and we must not be silent - enough is enough." Rep. Scott Peters, D-Calif., also posted on Twitter, condemning the act of violence: "Tragic news that a gunman has attacked Chabad of Poway synagogue, on this, the last day of Passover, a day that is supposed to be a celebration of faith and freedom. I am thinking of, and praying for, those hurt and affected." Former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper, a Democratic presidential candidate, said the latest synagogue shooting underscores the need for tougher gun laws. "This is one more demonstration that we have a new normal, and that we have become so divided that . . . we are allowing the divisions to lead to hate and allowing the hate to lead to violence," Hickenlooper, who was governor during the Aurora movie theater shooting in 2012 that killed 12 people, told reporters after speaking at a labor forum in Las Vegas Saturday afternoon. "It is a combination of President Trump's leadership at the top but tied into some of the real challenges we have around issues of mental health. People seem so vulnerable to the hatred." The Anti-Defamation League, which has recorded mass murders of Jews in the United States for decades, also vowed to monitor the situation. "The Jewish community again is devastated," Jonathan Greenblatt, the organization's chief executive, said on Twitter Saturday. "It's heartbreaking to see yet another tragedy on Shabbat, on Passover, exactly 6 months after the Tree of Life." - - - The Washington Post's Tony Perry in Poway, California, Anu Narayanswamy in Washington, and James Hohmann in Las Vegas contributed to this report. Reading (Josh) Brodeskys (April 20) commentary on the Confederate monument started me thinking about the Kallison cowboy (statue) that has recently vanished. He was my sentinel as I would make my way down Flores Street. I knew it was just a matter of time, but still he kept his post atop the old Kallison store. What has become of him? If only he could join the host of wonderful sculptures at the Briscoe Western Art Museum. My hope is that he is out of sight being readied to go on permanent display at the Briscoe Museum at 210 W. Market St. or if not, that his current custodian consider gifting him to the Briscoe. The Briscoe says, The West is here, and the Kallison cowboy has publicly stood as a San Antonio symbol of the West for many years. May he return to public view soon. Betsy Kiker, vice president, Professional Tour Guide Association of San Antonio The Kallison Cowboy in downtown San Antonio has been removed for conservation by the buildings current owners. The statue was the emblem of a family (discussed here in connection with the Kallison Ranch, June 14, 2009) who took part in nearly every aspect of South Texas farm and ranch life during the first half of the 20th century. From the arrival of Russian immigrant Nathan Kallison, a skilled maker of harnesses and saddles who set up shop in 1899 in San Antonio, the family business grew and integrated with astonishing rapidity into a place and a way of life that could hardly have been imagined by teenage Nathan before he left his home village under threat of anti-Semitic violence. Within a few decades of opening his business on South Flores Street a short walk from City Hall or the Bexar County Courthouse the family was an important part of the regional economy, as suppliers to farmers and ranchers, job creators and owners of an experimental ranch that tested new techniques of cattle raising. The experimental methods, crops and breeds tested on the family ranch won the family further attention in agricultural press and at the San Antonio Livestock Exposition, where some members of the family showed cattle, and others served as members of its volunteer organizing committee. Perry Kallison, one of Nathans sons, was on the air for nearly half a century with his Trading Post radio show (1936-1982), mixing farm and ranch reports with swap-meet items and plugs for products sold at family stores. The Kallisons also branched out into home loans and construction after World War II, and Perrys brother Morris started a downtown property empire, putting the family name on several of more than 20 buildings he developed. The lanky, attenuated figure of a cowboy artist unknown stood for the life the Kallison family had chosen: total immersion in cattle culture. Family members rode horses and gathered on weekends at the ranch, according to Morris son Jack, as quoted in the 2009 column. Wearing a cowboy hat, Western shirt, vest and jeans, the statue might have been dressed off the racks in one of the Kallison stores. His saddle could have been one of those handcrafted by Nathan and prized for decades by their owners. When the flagship downtown store closed in 1967, a casualty of population shifts and shopping trends, the statue stayed at 124 S. Flores St., marking the most prominent of Kallisons Western Wear stores operated by Perrys son, Perry M. Pete Kallison. Until the Flores store closed in 2000, said his Aug. 9, 2000, obituary, It was where people who wanted to look like they belonged on the range shopped, as did tourists, because the store was a must-stop for tour buses. Its not known exactly when the iconic figure, made of painted concrete, was created. The statue was probably placed on the (flagship) building during the 1940s, either before Nathan Kallison died in 1944 or after his sons, Morris and Perry, took over the business, said Jonathan L. Friedmann, Ph.D., director of the Jewish Museum of the American West. The Kallison Cowboy appears to be an original, not mass-produced, said Ryan Badger, assistant curator at the Briscoe Western Art Museum. It dates back to the 1940s - probably post-World War II at a time when the country was in a deep nationalistic fervor that celebrated all things American, and the cowboy was foremost among those symbols. The popular conceptions of the West was reflected through the mediums of film, radio and comic books at the time, and the cowboy on the Kallison store looks very much like one of the (genres) good guys, reflected by his clean-shaven jaw and his prominent white hat. Whether the concrete cowboy was installed for its symbolism or an easy means of advertising the stores stock and trade, Badger said, It is clear that the Kallison Cowboy was a hallmark of San Antonio and resonated with the traditional cowboy culture and later cosmic cowboy counter-culture of the 1970s. As significant as this figure is, hes not headed for the museum. The statue has been removed for conservation by the building's current owners, and its Badgers understanding that The cowboy will be returned to his traditional place after restoration is complete. historycolumn@yahoo.com | Twitter: @sahistorycolumn | Facebook: SanAntoniohistorycolumn Even before he won a seat on the City Council, Greg Brockhouse was a polarizing figure at City Hall. As a fiery, fast-talking consultant for the police union, he guided its public messaging during a tumultuous contract dispute with the city. He ran campaigns for the firefighters union in opposition to a proposed downtown streetcar system and a rate increase by the San Antonio Water System. Brockhouse didnt soften his approach after reaching the council dais. As a candidate two years ago, he said the council was missing hard dialogue and good conflict. He has provided both, needling Mayor Ron Nirenberg at nearly every turn. So it surprised no one when the first-term councilman representing the West Sides District 6 announced in February that he would run for mayor. Nirenbergs chief rival became his only prominent challenger. On ExpressNews.com: Nirenberg predicts cathartic victory in San Antonio mayors race after campaign embroiled by Chick-fil-A debate Brockhouse, 46, has campaigned on a populist appeal, promising a back-to-basics municipal government that would return power to the people. He has pledged to give priority to jobs, public safety and transparency in government, along with tax relief. More Information Second of two profiles of the major candidates in the San Antonio mayor's race. See More Collapse I want to make sure were doing everything we can to close the gap between City Hall and the neighborhoods in our community, Brockhouse said. But some wonder whether Brockhouse can transform himself from a rabble-rouser to an effective leader. Others have questioned how a Mayor Brockhouse would deal with his former clients: the public safety unions that have been at odds with the city for years. Brockhouses campaign has been clouded by allegations of domestic violence. In separate incidents in 2006 and 2009, a former spouse and his current wife called police to report that he had assaulted them. The councilman was not arrested or charged in either incident and has denied wrongdoing. In the first incident, Brockhouses second wife, Christine Rivera, told police on the night of April 29, 2006, that Brockhouse pushed her and that she was afraid of (Brockhouse) and what he might do, a police report states. Brockhouse had gone to their Northwest Side home to retrieve some belongings after the two had separated. Rivera told police that after Brockhouse shoved her, her then-boyfriend came to her defense and the two men fought. Brockhouse called police separately to complain that the boyfriend had sucker-punched him. Brockhouse is listed in the police report as the complainant, and he maintains that he was the victim. The second incident involved Brockhouses third and current wife, Annalisa. She told police on the night of Dec. 23, 2009, that he grabbed her, threw her to the ground and tried to hit her, relenting only when their children entered the room, according to a police report. She has since repudiated that account and has said she stands proudly with Greg. The San Antonio Express-News reported on the two incidents in March. Since then, Brockhouse has largely avoided the issue on the campaign trail. At the most recent mayoral debate, an April 17 forum sponsored by the nonprofit Rivard Report, Brockhouse managed to stifle questions about the incidents by telling one of the moderators that he would walk out if asked about the police reports. The forum went on as scheduled, and neither of the moderators asked Brockhouse about the incidents. Its the sort of issue that could prove really, really damaging, but I just dont know if its reaching the audience the voting public, said Christian Anderson, a political strategist who ran then-Mayor Ivy Taylors 2017 re-election campaign but isnt involved in this years contest. Back story Brockhouse grew up near Lackland AFB, the son of military parents. His father, David, was stationed at the base, and his mother Patricia, was in the Army at Fort Sam Houston. As children, Brockhouse said, he and his brother Craig, two years his junior, split their time between the Valley Hi neighborhood and the South Sides Mission Road, where his mother had family roots. His fathers family is from Illinois, where the councilman was born. He graduated from Jay High School in 1990 before enlisting in the Air Force. Brockhouse spent nearly a decade in the military, he said. For a few years, he did maintenance on the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile system while at Malmstrom AFB in Montana. Around 1995, he returned to Lackland and worked on electronics, he said. He graduated from Southwest Texas State University (now Texas State) with a bachelors degree in applied arts and sciences before leaving the Air Force around 1999. Brockhouse worked in mortgage banking for most of the next decade, for World Savings Bank and Wachovia. When the financial collapse hit, he was laid off in 2008, he said, with a severance package that allowed him to leave work and get more involved with his new church. He said he found God and converted to Catholicism his father is a Lutheran pastor. He has framed the confrontation with his ex-wife and her boyfriend in 2006 as a life-changing event that spurred that transformation. The councilman has four children with four women, along with a stepson. Hes been married three times. Brockhouse has faced questions over liens placed on his property by the Texas attorney generals office to collect child support. One of the liens involved support for a girl born in 2000. Brockhouse was ordered to pay support for the child in 2003, after a genetic test determined that he was the father. In 2007, a court found that Brockhouse owed $3,714 in support. A year later, a lien was placed on his property to secure payment, court records show. The lien was lifted in 2012. Another lien, from 2014, sought payment of $2,566 for a son Brockhouse had with Christine Rivera, his second wife. The lien was released in 2015 after Rivera submitted a sworn affidavit saying Brockhouse made support payments directly to her rather than through the state, records show. City Hall Brockhouse made his first foray into local politics as a staff member in then-City Councilwoman Mary Alice Cisneros office, directing constituent services. He remained in the position for about a year before returning to banking. He kept his hand in politics, however. He worked on Rey Saldanas first council campaign in 2011 and became the councilmans chief of staff. I think the reason hes effective now in terms of his ability to be one of the contenders for mayor is the guy can speak fast, and he speaks with a sense of authority even though he might not have it, Saldana said. (Thats) good when hes on your team. Brockhouse ran against then-Councilman Ray Lopez in 2013 and lost. But he made a name in politics as an adviser to unions. The San Antonio Police Officers Association kept Brockhouse on a retainer he said it was $5,000 a month to handle its political messaging. He created websites, served as a media spokesman and assisted union-endorsed candidates. We saw a unique ability that he had to basically understand the dynamics of what was happening and to help us translate that into media speak, if you will, union president Mike Helle said. Greg kind of fit the bill for us. Helle said he tried to talk Brockhouse out of running for the council in 2017 so he could continue working for the union. Nobody ever wants to let their jewel go, right? he said. But Brockhouse was chasing a dream, Helle said, and the two parted ways. In public campaign finance filings, the police and firefighter union PACs reported paying Brockhouse or his consulting firm, Everest Marketing, more than $460,000 in 2015 and 2016. Nirenberg has pointed to the payments as evidence that Brockhouse is in the unions pocket. Now, the mayor says, theyre doubling down on their investment. Brockhouse rejects that characterization. He said most of the $460,000 was eaten up by expenses he incurred hiring workers and running advertisements for union-endorsed candidates and causes. Most of his income from his union work came from his $5,000-a-month retainer with the police union, he said. For those reasons, Brockhouse said, he wrote off as much as 95 percent of his union payments on his tax returns. The unions are now throwing their political weight behind Brockhouse. Between Feb. 9 when Brockhouse announced his candidacy and March 25, the police unions political arm spent $186,697, though its unclear how much of that money is benefiting Brockhouse. The union also has endorsed five council candidates. The vast majority of that money has gone to Public Alliance, an advertising firm that Brockhouse worked with before joining the council. The fire union has spent less money but has been more direct in its intentions. In its April newsletter, president Chris Steele told members the organization is essentially putting all its eggs in one basket Brockhouse and is forgoing involvement in council races to concentrate on supporting him. We will be running a similar campaign to help elect Greg Brockhouse that we ran for the VoteYES campaign, Steele wrote, referring to the unions campaign last November in support of a series of city charter amendments. We will need ALL the firefighters to man polls and talk to voters on behalf of Greg. Brockhouse says hes grateful for the unions support but will not defer to them if elected. Voters would never stand for it, he said. If he gave them the house, Brockhouse said, hed be out of office after two years. Helle said the police union isnt seeking favors or a budget-breaking contract. He said the union wants a mayor who will listen to its concerns. Competing visions The latest target of Brockhouses full-throated opposition is the councils decision to bar Chick-fil-A from San Antonio International Airport. Councilman Roberto Trevino led the push to exclude the fast-food chain, citing a legacy of anti-LGBTQ behavior. Chick-fil-As founder was a devout Southern Baptist, and its charitable arm has donated money to organizations that oppose same-sex marriage and homosexuality. Brockhouse seized on the issue, casting the vote as an infringement on religious liberty. He made a public apology to Chick-fil-A and tried to force a new council vote on the matter. The effort failed, but it drew national media attention, energized conservative and religious leaders, and shifted the conversation away from Brockhouses personal baggage. The brouhaha also gave Brockhouse an opportunity to attack Nirenberg directly. The mayor voted with the council majority that barred Chick-fil-A; he said he did so because Chick-fil-A isnt a local company and isnt open on Sundays. Brockhouse said the vote amounted to discrimination. The two also battled last year over the fire unions campaign on behalf of the three city charter amendments. One proposed to give the union unilateral power to declare an impasse in contract negotiations and take the matter to binding arbitration. A second called for a cap on the salary and tenure of San Antonio city managers. A third would make it much easier to challenge council actions, including budgetary decisions, by popular referendum. A coalition of political and business leaders led by Nirenberg opposed the amendments, saying they jeopardized the citys financial stability and would hamstring municipal government. Brockhouse was the only council member to support all three. In the November election, voters approved two of the amendments: the ones involving binding arbitration and limits on the city manager. Brockhouses record of opposition leaves little room for actual accomplishments, detractors say. How would Brockhouse operate in City Halls center seat after years of targeting it? Even if he became mayor, I dont know what he would do with it, Saldana said. If someone is so used to tearing down, can they pivot to start really building the city and doing the things that we need to lift up the most vulnerable voices, the folks who truly need the support of a functioning government? Brockhouse points to work hes done in the neighborhoods of District 6. He also counts the departure of City Manager Sheryl Sculley, who retired soon after the charter election, as an accomplishment. The councilman has said he would concentrate on fundamentals. In his first 100 days, he said, he would outline plans to reduce the citys property tax rate and to institute a citywide homestead exemption that would cut taxes on a persons primary residence. Brockhouse said he would also look to trim fees, examine staffing in public safety agencies and eliminate closed-door executive sessions of the council, except when absolutely necessary. The mayor has campaigned on current successes touting a humming economy and declining crime rate while pitching his broader plan for guiding San Antonio into the future. That includes plans to improve mass transit and address climate change. He says San Antonio is at a turning point, citing estimates that 1.1 million people are expected to move here by 2040. Brockhouse says hes concerned with the San Antonians who are already here. Hes pledged to undo most of Nirenbergs big-ticket items. If theres one thing the two agree on, its that they offer diametrically opposed visions, giving voters a clear choice. Dylan McGuinness covers City Hall and local politics in San Antonio. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | dylan.mcguinness@express-news.net | Twitter: @DylMcGuinness A new intersection connecting two major roadways on the Northwest Side is set to open by Sunday, although motorists may want to avoid the area while work is being completed this weekend. The intersection at Bandera Road, or Texas 16, includes a two-lane displaced left turn connector from northbound Bandera to westbound 1604 that is the first configuration of its kind in San Antonio, the Texas Department of Transportation said. The City Council will vote Thursday to approve a $47.6-million budget for the Pre-K 4 SA program in the next fiscal year. That vote is just a formality. Theres another Pre-K 4 SA vote lurking in the distance, however, that is less certain. Thats the November 2020 proposition election that will ask San Antonio voters to renew funding for the city-run early-education program. If voters say yes, Pre-K 4 SA will get another eight years. If not, the program will expire in 2021. That puts the legacy achievement of former Mayor and current Democratic presidential hopeful Julian Castro in a uniquely precarious position. Dr. Sarah Baray, the CEO of Pre-K 4 SA, discussed that uncertainty during an April 17 presentation before the council. Mayor Ron Nirenberg asked Baray if the program is structurally balanced in a way that will enable it to function effectively after the 2020 election, if the Pre-K proposition passes. Its a little bit of a strange position to be in, Baray said, because were both planning for the possibility that we wont exist after 2021 and our very real hope and possibility that we will. So weve got both of those things going. Theres an old school of thought that once you introduce a government program and give people time to get used to it, they dont want to see it taken away. Weve seen that play out on a federal level even with the most controversial domestic program of our generation: the Affordable Care Act. Republicans rhetorically hammered the health law for seven years before they gained control of the White House. Once they had a real chance to repeal and replace it, they found themselves on the receiving end of serious public resistance. That syndrome should come into play with the 2020 Pre-K vote. In 2012, Castro had to convince San Antonians to approve a one-eighth-of-a-cent sales tax increase on themselves for a program that was merely an unproven concept. In 2020, voters will merely be asked to maintain an already existing tax to fund a program that is providing full-day, state-of-the-art early education to 2,000 4-year-olds at four Education Centers around the city, in addition to offering teacher training and grants to partnering school districts. Thats an easier sell. Christian Archer, the campaign manager for the 2012 Pre-K 4 SA proposition effort, put it this way: The unknown seven years ago is now known. And thats a big advantage for the campaign. Archer recalled how daunting the political challenge was back in 2012, when Pre-K passed with 53.6 percent of the vote. I know we polled twice. I think we polled three times, Archer said. And it never once polled where it was actually winning. The 2012 campaign not only faced the inevitable voter resistance to a tax hike (even though that hike was pretty modest), but also philosophical qualms about the city taking such an active role in education. One of those detractors, conservative crusader Jeff Judson, argued that Castro was trying to create the 17th school district in San Antonio. It wasnt popular at the time, Archer recalled. Hell, I remember recommending to Julian not to move forward with it, literally saying, I think its going to cost you too many political points to move forward with it. Archer credits Castro with putting his shoulder behind the wheel of Pre-K 4 SA and working to educate voters on the programs benefits, saying, Thats truly what moved the needle in the election. In the introduction to her recent council presentation, Baray defined Pre-K 4 SA as a workforce development initiative rather than an education program. That ties into an argument Castro made in a 2012 campaign ad, when he defined his proposal as a smart investment for a smart future. On ExpressNews.com: Pre-K 4 SA students did better on state tests A recent study conducted by the University of Texas at San Antonios Urban Education Institute should bolster the case for an extension of the program. The study found that third graders who had participated in Pre-K 4 SA performed better than their peers in math and reading standardized tests. They also had higher attendance rates, which generated an estimated $9.7 million in additional state funding for local schools. While the next Pre-K 4 SA campaign wont have Castro providing 24/7 salesmanship for the program, it also wont have the political divisiveness that his salesmanship stirred. The 2012 proposition vote came on the heels of Castros national star-making moment, when he delivered the keynote address at that years Democratic National Convention. Local Republicans, eager to embarrass Castro at a time when his political profile was rising, saw Pre-K 4 SA as their best chance. Those particular passions wont be as high in 2020. As in 2012, however, the Pre-K proposition will be competing with a full ballot that includes a presidential contest. The hardest campaign was already won, Archer said. But that doesnt mean that the next campaign is going to be easy. Gilbert Garcia is a columnist covering the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | ggarcia@express-news.net | Twitter: @gilgamesh470 Greg Brockhouse is happy to talk about Chick-fil-A. Just dont ask him about past allegations of domestic violence. The District 6 city councilman and would-be mayor has been all about chicken these days. He was quick to apologize to Chick-fil-A over the citys recent decision to exclude the fast-food chain from the San Antonio airport, speaking about values of inclusivity, diversity and tolerance. He even unsuccessfully tried to bring the issue back to a vote. Tellingly, hes offered no such apology or reflection about police reports detailing alleged domestic violence. Brockhouse wants to be mayor of the seventh-largest city in the nation, but he threatened to leave a recent debate if questions were raised about these allegations, so the moderators didnt ask. Seriously. There was so much to ask him about. He has disputed a 2006 police report in which his second wife alleged he pushed her into a wall. He and his wife have also disputed a 2009 incident, even though a police report describes how Brockhouses wife said he was drinking a lot after losing his job. He screamed at her, threw her to the ground, got on top of her and was trying to hit her and she kept trying to push him off. Brockhouses response? I dont remember that at all, he told Express-News reporter Brian Chasnoff, who broke that story. I dont recall any of that. Its as if the night of Dec. 23, 2009, never happened. And in some ways it really is as if the night never happened because the police report obtained by the Express-News appears to have been scrubbed from the record. Brockhouse, the preferred candidate for the citys fire and police unions, whose members respond to domestic violence calls every day, could illuminate the public. But he has offered little insight into this part of his past. He was never charged in either incident and offered a differing account of what happened in 2006, saying he was the victim of an assault and that the incident changed his life. But he has yet to acknowledge the 2009 report, and hes offered no thoughts about why the report has been removed from the record even though he frequently champions transparency. We have yet to see an apology to survivors of domestic violence, or since he refutes these allegations, at least a recognition of the hell they have endured. Instead, he has talked about chicken. City Council did make a mistake in not including Chick-fil-A at the San Antonio International Airport. A decision that is fair game for Brockhouse to rip. But its been striking how this decision about a fast-food contract has come to dominate the race between Brockhouse and Mayor Ron Nirenberg while the issue of domestic violence has languished on the sidelines. Weve had protests and rallies about Chick-fil-A including a Save Chick-fil-A Day from faith groups in Austin. Weve seen no shortage of virtue signaling and genuflecting to the politics of fast food. Patrick Von Dohlen, a City Council candidate in District 9, made clear in mailers he supports Chick-fil-A values. Presumably, this is a statement about marriage, not waffle fries. But if the Chick-fil-A vote is symbolic of the politics of faith and values, then what does the communitys relative silence about Brockhouses limited response to these allegations symbolize? After all, Jesus wasnt for shoving women, which is what those police reports allege. So, why no rallies about ending family violence? Why no demands at City Hall that Brockhouse explain his past? Why so few questions about how that 2009 police report has gone missing? Maybe thats more a reflection of us the questions reporters dont ask, an acceptance of family violence as routine, the uncomfortable impossibility of ferreting out the truth of what happened in these moments than anything about Brockhouse. But at a time when the city is on the cusp of making election history, with minority women potentially forming a majority on council, its disconcerting to see a credible candidate for mayor skate on his alleged mistreatment of women. It was easy for Brockhouse to apologize about Chick-fil-A because he was in effect shaming others. Who knew it would be so easy for him to avoid answering questions about his past. jbrodesky@express-news.net Legislation that addresses how quickly evidence in sexual assault cases must be submitted to a lab could help resolve the states decades-old rape kit backlog problem. Establishing limits on how long law enforcement agencies can take to transport the kits to a lab and pausing the statute of limitations for sexual assault cases until the evidence is tested as proposed by HB 8 are positive steps. The legislation is authored by state Rep. Victoria Neave, D-Dallas. We urge members of the Texas Senate to give the legislation the same overwhelming support it received in the House earlier this month. Rape survivors should not be revictimized by an inefficient system that has in the past allowed evidence to gather dust and remain untested. A statewide audit conducted following the 2011 legislative session revealed 19,000 untested rape kits. Included in that number were some that had been collected decades earlier. It is difficult to determine the exact number of untested rape kits in the state at this time, but the Texas Observer reports there are at least 3,000 rape kits awaiting testing at the Department of Public Safety. Lawmakers have tried to address issues with the rape kit backlog with increased funding, but the allocations have never been quite enough. In 2017 the state resorted to crowdfunding to fill the gaps. For years Texas drivers renewing their licenses have been allowed to donate money to various funds, such as the organ registry and veterans assistance. The list now includes a fund to tackle the rape kit backlog. Thus far the fund has received just over $500,000 from Texas motorists. This legislative session the proposed House budget includes $38 million for personnel and technology to ensure rape kits can be processed in a more timely manner. Neaves legislation is named after Lavina Masters, who was raped in 1985 when she was 13. The evidence in that case sat untested in the Dallas Police Department for 20 years, well beyond the 10-year statute of limitations on sexual assault cases. When the evidence was finally tested, it was discovered it matched a serial rapist serving time for other assaults. Timely processing of evidence would bring swifter resolution to new cases and keep cases from piling up. Etihad Airways will lease seven weekly slot pairs at London Heathrow Airport to Air Serbia. They were previously utilised by the now grounded Indian carrier Jet Airways. The Indian airline, which was until recently the country's second-largest, suspended flights last week under the weight of high debt and a severe cash crunch. Etihad has since taken over some of its slots at one of the world's most congested airports, in London, which it will lease as of tomorrow to Air Serbia for an undisclosed sum. The two partners have submitted a slot swap request form. As a result, Air Serbia is expected to soon add an extra seven weekly services between Belgrade and London Heathrow. The swap request was submitted yesterday to Airport Coordination Limited, a slot coordination company, and will be in effect until the end of the 2019 summer season on October 26. They include a daily 17.20 arrival into Heathrow and a 19.45 departure. The airline already owns a daily 10.25 arrival and 13.30 departure slot, as well as a two weekly (weekend) 18.10 arrival slot and 18.55 departure. The newly leased slots will be operated under new flight numbers JU388/JU389. A 136-seat Etihad Airways Airbus A320 is expected to be deployed on the service on behalf of Air Serbia. GREENWICH As law enforcement, activists and politicians gathered Friday in Greenwich for a panel discussion, they heard the staggering statistics of the deadly toll of the nationwide opioid addiction crisis. The big picture is about as grim as it can be, said U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, D-4th District. And it demands a whole of society response. Tens of thousands of Americans are dying every year due to opioid abuse, Himes said at the panel discussion, which held at the Second Congregational Church and organized by Shatterproof, a nonprofit organization that focuses on the dangers of addiction. Himes was joined on the panel by U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Lt. Gov. Susan Bysciewicz, state Reps. Livvy Foren, R-149, Stephen Meskers, D-150, and Fred Camillo R-151 as well as Greenwich Police Capt. Robert Berry. Also on the panel were Shatterproof CEO and founder Gary Mendell and Greenwich resident Dita Bhargava, a Shatterproof ambassador, both of whom discussed losing children to drug addiction. Three people died in Greenwich from drug overdoses in 2017 and 2018, Berry said. But that number could have been higher without the police departments use of Narcan, which can reverse the deadly effects of an overdose. But even as the panel members made commitments to help, some in the audience of more than 30 people called for more to be done, especially against Purdue Pharma. The Stamford-based pharmaceutical giant is facing lawsuits from more than 30 states, including Connecticut, for using deceptive tactics to market its painkilling drugs, specifically the powerful painkiller OxyContin, which fueled deadly opioid addictions. An expanded complaint from Connecticut describes Purdues strategies in detail how it pushed false narratives to doctors that susceptible individuals not powerful pain drugs were to blame for the addictions and some patients just needed more opioids to recover. The lawsuits target Purdue, the Sackler family that founded the company and current and former members of its management team. Brian Merlin and others in attendance pushed for prosecutors to consider criminal charges against the Sacklers and Purdues managers. I dont understand why these people arent prosecuted when ... my friends are dying and my friends are going to jail, said Merlin, who said he struggles with drug addiction. It doesnt make any sense to me. I know a lot of these problems take financial (commitment), but its not difficult to prosecute Purdue Pharma or the Sacklers or the bad actors. Corporations are going to go out and do this again and kill hundreds of thousands of Americans again unless you stop the precedent. Bysciewicz pledged to reach out to the U.S. attorneys office in Connecticut and Chief States Attorney Kevin Kane to see what more we can be doing, We hear you, Bysciewicz said. We are fighting on all fronts. She compared the opioid crisis to the 2008 banking crisis when financial executives were not prosecuted. She said that was a frustration for all of us in this room. Merlin compared the arrest of a friend for possession of heroin and fentanyl to the Purdue Pharma policy of sending 20 million pills to an Ohio town with a population of just 400 residents. My friend is going to serve significant time for a lousy less than 2 grams of drugs and (Purdue) sent hundreds of millions of pills, Merlin said. Its not fair that drug users like myself are being prosecuted and preyed on. ... Its not fair that were told all the time that its our fault if we die or our parents are told that the families are bad families that deserve this. This doesnt happen to gunshot victims. This doesnt happen to plane crash victims. In 2007, the company and three members of senior management pleaded guilty to criminal charges of misleading the public about the risks of addiction for OxyContin. But they served no prison time. Michelle Mechanic, another attendee, pursuing criminal charges is difficult because of the standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt for guilt. But a civil suit, she said, must prove only more likely than not. You have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the Sacklers knew people were going to die, Mechanic said. That is a very, very, very high standard of proof. Many speakers stressed the importance of education on the topic in schools. Many also said it was vital to remove the stigma around addiction so it could be discussed openly and more effective solutions found. If my daughter has leukemia, people bring casseroles. And if my husband is sick with a heart attack, people say What can I do for you? audience member Gail Karlitz said while advocating for more mental health care. But if my husband or my daughter has addiction, they say, Not really. Not in this neighborhood. Mendell and Bhargava both advocated for the passage of legislation currently before the state legislature. House Bill 7125 would require insurance companies to cover addiction treatment. House Bill 1057 would require higher education institutions to carry Narcan and other opioid treatments for students and employees and establish community-based treatment centers for everyone. And House Bill 7395 would provide treatment to inmates with opioid addiction disease, both before and after their release. It will take all of us to get these bills passed, Bhargava said. Shatterproof has just entered into a partnership with the global consulting firm of McKinsey and Company to roll out a strategic plan with action items, Mendell said. We can do for this disease what we have done for HIV/AIDS, what weve done for marriage equality, what weve done for breast cancer and what weve done for domestic equality, he said. kborsuk@greenwichtime.com The number of sheep illegally butchered in fields is on the rise across the UK, according to police figures. Since the start of 2019, 80 sheep have been reported butchered in fields and 29 sheep have been reported stolen from farms in Warwickshire alone. In March, the remains of 19 ewes were discovered after they had been butchered in a field near A5 Gibbett Hill, Rugby. Meanwhile, in April, the remains of 24 ewes were discovered butchered in a field near a broken fence in an unused service apron on the M6 J1 northbound. Elsewhere in the UK, police officers were called to an incident near Daventry, Nottinghamshire in February, where five sheep were found to have been killed and professionally butchered in their field. In Lincolnshire, three lambs bought for a local primary school were discovered 'skinned and slaughtered' in a field opposite a farm in March. And in the early hours of Wednesday, March 6, a farmer in Harpole, Northampton, discovered five pregnant ewes had been killed and partially butchered before the suspects were disturbed and fled. It's reported that similar incidents have also recently taken place in Leicestershire and Northamptonshire, and officers are linking in with border forces as part of the investigation. Meat sold by criminals who slaughter sheep illegally often ends up on the black market, with no knowing of the processes gone behind making the product safe to consume. Remain vigilant Farmers and wider rural communities have been told to remain vigilant and report any suspicious activity. Police believe incidents are more likely to happen on clear nights when there is better visibility from the moonlight - in particular when there is a fuller moon. Offenders may be visiting the area beforehand in daylight to plan the crime, and they may also park their vehicle where they cannot be seen. Carol Cotterill, Rural Crime Officer at Warwickshire Police said: Theft and illegal butchery of sheep is a serious offence, which causes suffering to the animals some of which were in lamb or with lambs at foot and financial repurcussions to farmers. Enquiries are currently ongoing into the incidents and we would urge anyone who has witnessed any suspicious activity or has any information that could help with our enquiries to please come forward. George Bostock, NFU Warwickshire assistant country adviser, said the illegal slaughter of animals is 'abhorrent' and undermines farmers 'exceptionally high welfare standards' Rural crime has a serious emotional impact on farming families as well as the disruption and financial burden it brings. Our members care about their stock; to witness this at home, during lambing season, is absolutely appalling. Shoppers should always look out for the Red Tractor logo and other assurance marks on the food they buy as it guarantees food quality, safety and standards, he said. Crime prevention advice If you own livestock or live near fields with livestock in please be extra vigilant and report any concerns to police Report suspicious vehicles to police Where possible graze livestock in fields away from roads Review any weak points in fields in remote locations in particular where sheep are grazed near a main road If your field is down a quiet track consider parking a vehicle to block access Padlock field gates and ensure gates and boundaries are in good order Consider checking your sheep on clear nights, in the early hours of the morning Join the Rural Watch scheme Set up a Whatsapp group to share information Consider grazing other animals with sheep to deter offenders Contact your rural crime adviser to discuss crime prevention notices, cameras etc Put your safety first and dial 999 if you believe an incident is in progress 2020 was a year marked by hardships and challenges, but the Fauquier community has proven resilient. The Fauquier Times is honored to serve as your community companion. To say thank you for your continued support, wed like to offer all our subscribers -- new or returning -- 4 WEEKS FREE DIGITAL AND PRINT ACCESS. We understand the importance of working to keep our community strong and connected. As we move forward together into 2021, it will take commitment, communication, creativity, and a strong connection with those who are most affected by the stories we cover. We are dedicated to providing the reliable, local journalism you have come to expect. We are committed to serving you with renewed energy and growing resources. Let the Fauquier Times be your community companion throughout 2021, and for many years to come. There is not enough analysis data for Public Joint Stock Company Rostelecom. 4.0 Community Rank Outperform Votes Public Joint Stock Company Rostelecom has received 92 outperform votes. (Add your outperform vote.) Underperform Votes Public Joint Stock Company Rostelecom has received 60 underperform votes. (Add your underperform vote.) Community Sentiment Public Joint Stock Company Rostelecom has received 60.53% outperform votes from our community. MarketBeat's community ratings are surveys of what our community members think about Public Joint Stock Company Rostelecom and other stocks. Vote Outperform if you believe ROSYY will outperform the S&P 500 over the long term. Vote Underperform if you believe ROSYY will underperform the S&P 500 over the long term. You may vote once every thirty days. Previous Next Calgary, Alberta--(Newsfile Corp. - April 26, 2019) - Reef Resources Ltd. ("Reef") is pleased to announce that it has signed a letter agreement (the "Letter Agreement") with Levant Exploration and Production Corp. ("Levant") and Solo Oil PLC ("Solo"). The Letter Agreement is non-binding and outlines the general terms and conditions pursuant to which Reef and Solo would sell and Levant would acquire (the "Proposed Transaction") Reef's and Solo's respective interests in non-producing oil and gas assets located in Huron County, Ontario (the "Assets"). The Letter Agreement contemplates that Reef, Solo and Levant will enter into a definitive agreement with respect to the Proposed Transaction (the "Formal Agreement"). The Proposed Transaction is an arm's length transaction. The Letter Agreement provides that pursuant to the Proposed Transaction, Levant will establish a special purpose vehicle (the "SPV") (or otherwise use a pre-existing company), which will purchase Reef's interest in the Assets in exchange for equity shares of the SPV equivalent to 2% of the issued and outstanding shares of the SPV, and a royalty equal to 2% of the production revenues from the Assets. The SPV will assume all responsibility for and will indemnity and hold Reef and Solo and their affiliates harmless against all decommissioning liabilities in respect of the license interests. The execution by the SPV of a Formal Agreement is subject to a number of conditions including its completion of due diligence and the confirmation of the willingness by applicable regulatory bodies to waive the fines levied against the Assets to date. The Letter Agreement will terminate upon the execution of the Formal Agreement, by notification by Levant or the SPV that it does not intend to proceed with the Proposed Transaction or by agreement in writing by the parties. As Reef's interest in the Assets comprises all or substantially all of the assets of Reef, the Proposed Transaction will require approval by not less than 66 2/3% of the votes cast by shareholders at a meeting of shareholders of Reef. In connection with the Letter Agreement, Reef and Levant have also executed a binding exclusivity agreement (the "Exclusivity Agreement") pursuant to which Reef has agreed not to enter into, directly or indirectly, any negotiations with respect to a commercial arrangement which is similar to or could reasonably expected to conflict with the Proposed Transaction, August 14, 2019. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT: Larry Olson Chief Financial Officer and Director (250) 460-2640 Forward Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements which reflect management's expectations regarding future growth, results of operations, performance and business prospects of Reef and Levant. These forward-looking statements may relate to, among other things, forecasts or expectations regarding business outlook for Reef and Levant, and may also include other statements that are predictive in nature, or that depend upon or refer to future events or conditions, and can generally be identified by words such as "may", "will", "expects", "anticipates", "intends", "plans", "believes", "estimates", "guidance" or similar expressions. In addition, any statements that refer to expectations, projections or other characterizations of future events or circumstances are forward-looking statements. Events or circumstances may cause actual results to differ materially from those predicted as a result of numerous known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of Reef and Levant. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking information. Although such information is considered reasonable by management at the time of preparation, it may prove to be incorrect and actual results may differ materially from those anticipated. Forward-looking statements contained in this press release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date of this press release, and Reef and Levant does not undertake any obligation to update publicly or to revise any of the included forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by securities law. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/44365 TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / April 26, 2019 / RTDNA Canada is proud to announce that the Regional Chairs will receive the prestigious President's Award. The award will be presented to Dan Appleby, Rhonda Brown, Ron Kronstein, Liam Nixon, Manny Paiva, Jill Smith, Les Staff and Kathryn Stewart at the President's Reception on May 10 during the 2019 RTDNA National Conference & Awards Gala. The President's Award, which is the highest honour bestowed by the association, acknowledges individuals who has brought recognition and distinction to the field of electronic and digital journalism. The Regional Chairs' commitment and dedication to RTDNA Canada has played a major role in the continuing success of the association and the regional events cannot run without them. RTDNA Canada President Fiona Conway said, "The RTDNA depends on our volunteers in newsrooms across the country. This year I am proud to recognize all of the Regional Chairs whose support and hard work contributed to a successful year for awards and regional events. While managing the demands of their jobs, this group of Chairs has worked tirelessly to keep the RTDNA current and relevant from coast to coast. Bravo to all!" The President's Award will be presented to the Regional Chairs at the President's Reception on May 10 during the 2019 RTDNA National Conference & Awards Gala. ABOUT RTDNA CANADA RTDNA Canada is the voice of electronic and digital journalists and news managers in Canada. The members of RTDNA Canada recognize the responsibility of broadcast and digital journalists to promote and to protect the freedom to report independently about matters of public interest and to present a wide range of expressions, opinions and ideas. The RTDNA Canada Journalistic Code of Ethics, adopted by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council, is used to measure fairness and accuracy in our profession. Become a Member: https://rtdna.wildapricot.org/join-us CONTACT INFORMATION Fiona Conway President, RTDNA Canada president@rtdnacanada.com Jennifer Nguyen RTDNA Canada Awards info@rtdnacanada.com http://www.rtdnacanada.com SOURCE: RTDNA Canada View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/543201/RTDNA-Canada-Regional-Chairs-to-be-presented-with-the-2019-RTDNA-Presidents-Award Not for Distribution to U.S. News Wire Services or Dissemination in the United States. VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / April 26, 2019 / EVITRADE Health Systems Corp. (CSE: EVA, OTCQB: EVAHF) is pleased to announce that the Company has conditionally finalized terms for a binding agreement to acquire the software and portal for a medical marketplace app and have entered into a binding letter of intent for the same. The company sees this asset as an opportunity to fulfill a key link as medical marketplace connector. It is a marketplace connection app which connects buyers with sellers. The app serves two functions: one, is a marketplace tool for finding local medical cannabis dispensaries and product overview. The second function is to provide a marketplace for new and used medical products. A planned future feature for both functions in the app will be capability the scheduling of secure pick-up and delivery of products to ensure user confidentiality and privacy. The purchase price of the transaction is $1,450,000 CAD and is to be completed based on milestones with the issuance of 7,037,037 common shares at a deemed price of $0.135 per share and milestone cash payments. The acquisition is subject to the parties entering into a binding agreement. The mentioned letter of intent is subject to customary conditions in favour of the company. EViTrade continues to fulfill its commitment to elevate the human condition through advanced medical solutions, research and effective health and wellness products. Contact: EVITRADE Health Systems Corp. (formerly Auxellence Health Corporation) Email info@evahealthsystems.com or ceo@auxellence.com Website http://www.evahealthsystems.com CSE Micro-site: http://thecse.com/en/listings/technology/evitrade-health-systems-corp US OTC Markets (OTCQB): http://www.otcmarkets.com/stock/EVAHF/news About EVITRADE Health (CSE: EVA, OTCQB: EVAHF) EVITRADE Health Systems Corp. (formerly, Auxellence Health Corporation), is a technology company specializing in the Health and Life Sciences sector looking to deliver effective personalized health solutions with a higher degree of predictability and consistency. The Company is focused on the following areas to help improve health: personalized medical care (including CBD usage monitoring and effects on the cardiovascular system), molecular biology, nutraceutical solutions and genetic tailoring. Through its subsidiaries' focus on technologies involved in extracting and purifying CBD extracts for its personalized healthcare system, the Company may be the first to offer a complete quality assured vertically integrated "CBD Health System" for monitoring and recording the effects of CBD on your cardiovascular system. Disclaimers This news release contains forward-looking statements based on assumptions and judgments of management regarding future events or results. Such statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties which could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those reflected in the forward-looking statements, including the risk that the contemplated binding agreement for the acquisition might not be entered into, might not be entered into on the terms mentioned in this news release, or that after entry into such agreement the acquisition might not close as anticipated. The company disclaims any intention or obligation to revise or update such statements. For a description of the risks and uncertainties facing the Company and its business and affairs, readers should refer to the Company's Management's Discussion and Analysis and other disclosure filings with Canadian securities regulators and on the OTC Markets website which is posted on www.sedar.com , http://thecse.com/en/listings/technology/evitrade-health-systems-corp , and http://www.otcmarkets.com/stock/EVAHF/filings .This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities described herein and accordingly undue reliance should not be put on such. Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE or CNSX Markets), nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the CSE), or any other regulatory authority accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. The Company does not undertake to update this news release unless required by applicable law. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities described herein in the United States. The securities described herein have not been registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), or any state securities law and may not be offered or sold in the "United States", as such term is defined in Regulation S promulgated under the U.S. Securities Act, unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration requirements is available. SOURCE: EVITRADE Health Systems Corp. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/543222/EVITRADE-Closes-Terms-for-Acquiring-a-Medical-Marketplace-App TOGETHER, GROVE AND HOFER POWERTRAIN WILL DEVELOP AN ELECTRIFIED POWERTRAIN SOLUTION FOR HYDROGEN-POWERED AUTOMOBILES THAT CAN COMPETE AT A GLOBAL SCALE Grove Hydrogen Automotive and hofer powertrain have agreed to work together in the form of a Joint Venture to manufacture electrified powertrains solutions for the use in Grove Cars. hofer powertrain will ensure the production of a high-quality product by bringing in its decades of system engineering experience for German automotive OEMs. Grove sees the expertise of hofer powertrain in the field of future mobility as a key success factor so that Groves advanced Hydrogen Fuel Cell Powertrain can enable a new cutting edge direction towards clean mobility. Wuhan Grove Hydrogen Automobile Co., Ltd. signed a cooperation framework agreement with hofer powertrain the independent system supplier of efficient powertrain solutions. The two parties will work together to jointly seize the opportunities of Chinas zero-emission hydrogen fuel cell market with Grove cars. The before mentioned common goal will involve the two sides to jointly develop, produce and assemble electrified powertrain solutions for the hydrogen fuel cell passenger cars of Grove. The targeted Joint Venture will be in cooperation with the local governments in either Wuhan, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen or Chongqing. "In signing this agreement today we establish the framework to work together towards our Joint Venture operations to realise Grove vehicles", said Hao Yiguo, Chairman of Grove Hydrogen Automotive Co., Ltd. Grove is a hydrogen energy passenger car company based on the integration of innovative and strategic resources in the international automotive industry. Grove is committed to creating hydrogen energy passenger cars with a high level of sustainability in running and production and bringing customers a new driving experience. hofer powertrain is the system supplier of efficient powertrain solutions in the fields of electrification, hybridization, and internal combustion power. As an established and independent partner of the mobility industry, hofer powertrain has been providing pioneering technologies and products to companies worldwide for over 35 years. Accomplished by our experienced teams of experts specialized in the development, industrialization, and production of powertrain systems. Hand-in-Hand with hofer powertrain, Grove gains can significantly accelerate its development of hydrogen-powered vehicles. This advantage is made possible by hofer powertrains more than 35 years of experience in the development of complete powertrain systems including new energy solutions. Highly integrated electrification solutions including transmission, electronics, software, e-motor, and system integration are part of the hofer powertrain expertise that will make Grove vehicles even more efficient by optimizing the weight and performance. This optimization is due to hofer powertrains complete engineering capabilities. "We will ensure that the powertrain-technology of Grove vehicles will be at the forefront of today and tomorrow," said Johann Hofer, CEO of hofer powertrain. Planting sycamore trees attract Phoenix. With its strong development, Grove has become a hot spot in the field of new energy automobiles and has stirred strong interest at home and abroad. The Addition of hofer powertrain to the Grove story significantly adds to Grove's future success. Grove is a brand of the Grove Hydrogen Automotive Company Limited, registered in Wuhan, China. Born in 2016 and Registered in 2018 under parent company Institute of Geosciences and Environment (IGE). Operating Design and Development in Wuhan and Barcelona Spain, with Production Facilities in Wuhan and several other locations to be announced during 2019 Grove is a Global car company aiming to offer a truly clean Automotive experience from Manufacturing to enjoyment of the car. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190423006033/en/ Contacts: Tracy Chen Manager Corporate Communications min.chen@grove-auto.com www.grove-auto.com By Collin Eaton, David French and Jessica Resnick-Ault HOUSTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Pioneer Natural Resources is in advanced talks to sell its Eagle Ford acreage in South Texas to privately owned energy producer Ensign Natural Resources, five sources familiar with the matter said on Friday. If successful, the sale would achieve Pioneer's long-stated aim of becoming an energy producer focussed solely on the Permian basin of West Texas and Eastern New Mexico, the heart of the U.S By Collin Eaton, David French and Jessica Resnick-Ault HOUSTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Pioneer Natural Resources is in advanced talks to sell its Eagle Ford acreage in South Texas to privately owned energy producer Ensign Natural Resources, five sources familiar with the matter said on Friday. If successful, the sale would achieve Pioneer's long-stated aim of becoming an energy producer focussed solely on the Permian basin of West Texas and Eastern New Mexico, the heart of the U.S. shale revolution. Pioneer has faced investor criticism in recent years due to weak returns, and it has sold a number of assets outside of the Permian while cutting spending. In late February, company founder Scott Sheffield returned as chief executive in a management shakeup that saw then-CEO Tim Dove abruptly leave the company. Investors have favoured pure-play Permian names in the last few years due to lower production costs, but it could also make Pioneer more attractive as an acquisition target given an erupting war between Chevron Corp and Occidental Petroleum Corp to buy Anadarko Petroleum Corp. Ensign, which is backed by private equity firm Warburg Pincus, is expected to initially pay less than $1 billion for the position, which is operated as a joint venture with Reliance Industries, which also is selling its stake. This price is below the $2 billion valuation analysts had estimated for the position back in February 2018, when Pioneer first announced it wanted to divest. However, the purchase price will be supplemented by a number of earnout clauses based on future production, three of the sources said, meaning Ensign could make subsequent payments. Negotiations are described as advanced, although there is no certainty a transaction will be consummated, and talks could still fall apart. Ensign was close to striking an agreement with Pioneer last summer for the Eagle Ford position, but no deal was finalised, according to two of the sources. Pioneer and Warburg did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Reliance's Houston office declined to comment, referring questions to its corporate headquarters in Mumbai, which could not immediately be reached. Pioneer shares have posted a total return of negative 7.2 percent in the last two years, according to Refinitiv Eikon data. In recent years, the company has sold all its overseas and offshore positions and U.S. acreage in the Raton, West Panhandle and Barnett basins. However, it has struggled to offload the Eagle Ford position due to a contractual obligation it has with its midstream partner, according to the sources. The contract committed Pioneer to supply a certain amount of hydrocarbons into the pipelines or to pay cash to make up any shortfall - a common agreement with pipeline companies. While this type of contract was popular several years ago as shale production surged, they have fallen out of favour as companies have found themselves hamstrung by expensive commitments if prices fall. Supply from Pioneer's joint venture was well short of expectations, according to a separate source. The deal being negotiated with Ensign aims to take this into account by having a smaller payment at the beginning supplemented by future payments as the midstream contract wanes, two of the sources said. (Reporting by Collin Eaton in Houston and David French and Jessica Resnick-Ault in New York; Additional reporting by Jennifer Hiller in Houston; Editing by James Dalgleish) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. NEW YORK (Reuters) - Tesla Inc Chief Executive Elon Musk has reached a deal with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to settle a dispute over Musk's use of Twitter, according to a court filing on Friday. NEW YORK (Reuters) - Tesla Inc Chief Executive Elon Musk has reached a deal with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to settle a dispute over Musk's use of Twitter, according to a court filing on Friday. Musk has agreed to submit public statements about the company's finances to vetting by its legal counsel, the filing said. If it is approved by a judge, the deal means the Tesla founder no longer faces the prospect of being held in contempt for violating an earlier settlement with the agency that required him to submit any of his public statements that would be material to investors for prior review. The new agreement, disclosed in a filing in Manhattan federal court, lays out in more detail exactly what kinds of statements must be reviewed. Shares of Tesla rose 1.4 percent to $238.50 in after hours trading following disclosure of the agreement, which lifts a cloud that has hung over Musk as Tesla tries to ramp up production of its most important vehicle, the Model 3 sedan, and make a profit at the same time. The SEC sued Musk last year after he tweeted on Aug. 7 that he had "funding secured" to take Tesla private at $420 per share. The agency said the tweet, which sent the electric automaker's share price up as much as 13.3 percent, violated securities laws. Musk's privatisation plan was at best in an early stage and financing was not in place. Musk settled the lawsuit, agreeing to step down as chairman and have the company's lawyers pre-approve written communications, including tweets with material information about the company. In February, the SEC accused Musk of violating that settlement by sending a tweet about Tesla's production that had not been vetted by the company's attorneys, and asked U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan in Manhattan to hold him in contempt. Musk's lawyers have argued that the tweet did not contain new information that was material to investors, and that Musk did not need pre-approval for all tweets about Tesla under the settlement. At an April 4 court hearing, a lawyer for the SEC said that if Musk were found in contempt, the agency would ask the judge to require him to submit regular reports about his Twitter use, and to pay a series of progressively higher fines for any future violations. Nathan declined to rule on the contempt motion at the hearing, instead ordering Musk and Tesla to meet and try to resolve the dispute on their own. (Reporting by Brendan Pierson in New York; Editing by Chris Reese and Rosalba O'Brien) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. Air India flights across the world were delayed on Saturday morning as the airline suffered a failure on its main server. Angry travellers stranded in Delhi and Mumbai airports tweeted photographs of chaos from the early hours of the day. Air India its services had been restored, nearly six hours after flights across the world were delayed on Saturday morning as the airline suffered a failure of its main server. The effect of the server failure is likely to result in further delays through the day. Angry travellers stranded in Delhi and Mumbai airports tweeted photographs of chaos from the early hours of the day. Air India flights affected as airline's SITA server is down all over India & overseas since 3:30 am. More details awaited. #Visuals from Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi pic.twitter.com/Wl2hElACUU ANI (@ANI) April 27, 2019 Air India - you gotta take responsibility of the passengers who booked your flight tickets. Thousands stranded at the airport for over 3 hours. No updates. No one to talk to. Terrible service. #airindia #outage #mumbait2 #sitasoftwareoutage pic.twitter.com/tuusueI4dG Manish (@mani_8612) April 27, 2019 Air India server crashed since 3.30AM. All flights cancelled. Thousands of passengers stranded at the airport. Nobody knows what is happening. Dont go to the airport without confirming. I am also going back after spending couple of hours. Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri (@vivekagnihotri) April 27, 2019 The airline said its SITA server has been hit since 3.30 am on Saturday, and that it was working to resolve the issue. SITA is a multinational information technology company providing IT and telecommunication services to the air transport industry. "Our technical teams are on work and soon the system may be recovered. The inconvenience is deeply regretted," ANI had reported an Air India spokesperson as having said. The effects of the technical snag were felt particularly at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport where the number of stranded passengers reportedly crossed a hundred, reported News18. This the second time in a year that the airline has been hit after its server shut down globally. The server failure came a day after Air India announced that from 1 May, if a customer wants to cancel or make changes to an air ticket within 24 hours of booking, he or she will not be charged any fee. However, this facility will be available only if the flight is scheduled at least seven days after the booking date. Bhopal's citizens, even though they are benefiting from the Narmada, express concern for the health of the river. Editor's Note: A network of 60 reporters set off across India to test the idea of development as it is experienced on the ground. Their brief: Use your mobile phone to record the impact of 120 key policy decisions on everyday life; what works, what doesn't and why; what can be done better and what should be done differently. Their findings straight and raw from the ground will be combined in this series, Elections on the Go, over a course of 100 days. Read more articles from the series here *** Bhopal: Come election time, every leader in Bhopal promises to bring Narmada river water to their constituency. The 2019 Lok Sabha polls are no exception. Bhopal Congress candidate and former chief minister Digvijaya Singhs vision document promises Narmada water to every home in the Madhya Pradesh capital. That the river is suffering from a major water deficit does not bother any of these leaders. With barely two percent water flow in summer, further diversion of the rivers water will have a huge ecological impact, say green activists. Which is of no concern to the poll contestants. And the irony of bringing Narmada water to Bhopal, known as the city of lakes, seems completely lost on the politicos. Bhopal derives its name from Bhoj Tal (Bhojs Lake), constructed by Raja Bhoj in the 11th Century. Today, that lake is the Upper Bhopal Lake (Bada Talab), which is connected to the Lower Bhopal Lake (Chhota Talab) by an aqueduct. The two lakes not only supply water to the city, but are also popular recreation spots. Bhopal also has four major reservoirs: Halali, Kaliyasot, Kerwa and Hathaikheda. But despite the availability of these water sources, and experts assertions that the city was designed to be able to survive on their local water sources, 30 percent of the citys water needs are met via an 80-kilometre pipeline from the Narmada. The once fabled river is virtually the lifeline of Madhya Pradesh. Around 29 cities get their drinking water from the Narmada water, like the states commercial capital Indore, which is served by a 70-kilometre pipeline to bring Narmada water. Besides, the irrigation needs of almost every part of the state are met by the Narmada. With every passing election, more and more political leaders promise to bring the river water to their area, and do so. Thus, the number of cities and people dependent on the river keeps increasing exponentially. Experts and activists working to conserve the Narmada say pipelines, irrigation and power projects are exploiting the river and damaging its natural flow. Excessive and unscientific sand mining and deforestation have ruined the Narmada," said Medha Patkar. The veteran activist of the Narmada Bachao Andolan has dedicated her life to defending the river. Former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan too had promised Narmada water to many regions with river linking projects. The Narmada-Kshipra river linking project, for instance, provides water to Ujjain. Other cities like Satna are also hoping to get Narmada water as local leaders have promised a canal there. In Bhopal, virtually every corner is being dug up for the Narmada pipeline. Officials of the Bhopal Municipal Corporation said only 70 percent of the citys needs are fulfilled from local sources. "Earlier we used to take 30 Millions of Gallons per Day (MGD) from the Upper Lake, said MP Singh, Additional Commissioner, Bhopal Municipal Corporation. "But due to lack of availability, we cut this down by 19 MGD. Now, we are using 36 MGD of Narmada water and are working to use its full capacity of 40 MGD. "The Rs 415 crore allocated for the Narmada connection has been utilised successfully, said Bhopal mayor Alok Sharma, who is with the BJP. About 80,000 to 90,000 households are getting Narmada water and another 60,000 households will be added in the next six months. Narmada water has reached most parts of the city and we will increase connections as needed. Reacting to Digvijaya poll promise, Sharma said water levels were decreasing and the river cannot be overexploited. When Digvijaya was chief minister, we requested him to bring Narmada water to Bhopal, recalled Alok Sharma. At that time, he made fun of us and asked us to relocate to Hoshangabad to get Narmada water. He said it was not possible to bring the Narmada to Bhopal. The BJP government brought the water and we know how to utilise it in the best interests of the public." Despite repeated efforts, Digvijaya remained unavailable for comment. Bhopal's citizens, even though they are benefiting from the Narmada, are concerned for the health of the river. "Bhopal has a rich history of water conservation, said Rakesh Malviya, a resident of Awadhpuri Bhopal. We have many water sources. Not just Bhopal, but most cities were established near a water source. But we have ruined our local sources. Narmada is probably the only river in Madhya Pradesh which has some water, but instead of protecting it, the government is exploiting it. Emphasising the need for water conservation, Rakesh said, "We need to restore catchment areas of rivers and lakes so that it can store rainwater." Decreasing groundwater levels is another cause of worry that is being ignored in the heat of the campaign. According to a recent report of the Central Ground Water Board, groundwater is dropping four metres every year in some regions, including Bhopal. "We want to rely only on surface water, said Kartik Sapre, a PhD scholar at IIT Delhi and associated with Narmada Samagra, an organisation founded by former environment minister Anil Madhav Dave. If we recharge groundwater every rainy season it would fulfil our needs for the whole year. We should also focus on rainwater harvesting". A report by the World Resources Institute (WRI) identified the Narmada as one of six major river basins in the world facing an existential crisis. The report said that the 2017 water crisis in the river basin forced the Gujarat government to stop using water from the Sardar Sarovar dam for irrigation. Also, the April 25, 2019, storage bulletin of the Central Water Commission pointed out that the Bargi and Indirasagar dams on the Narmada have just 42 and 35 percent of its respective capacity. We need a water audit of the Narmada that would show the reality of water availability, said Vinaytak Parihar, an activist working on Narmada conservation. "Narmada cannot fulfil the demands of all the pipelines and other government projects. That water levels in the river have been declining in recent years is commonly known. "A river is only known as a river when it flows, said water expert Vinod Sharma. But only two to four percent of water remains in the Narmada this summer season. Governments and politicians should think about restoring locally available water resources and sustainable use of water to ensure the sustainability of Narmadas flow. If we exploit a river like this, it will be dead in a few years." The author is a Bhopal-based freelance writer and a member of 101Reporters The plea, filed by NGO Anti Corruption Council of India, said publication of allegations against the CJI directly hits the Indian judicial system. New Delhi: A voluntary organisation has filed a plea in the Delhi High Court asking it to restrain the media from publishing the allegations of sexual harassment against Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi by a former Supreme Court employee. The petition, which is likely to come up for hearing on 29 April, sought immediate restriction on the media from further telecasting or publishing the allegations till conclusion of the three-judge panel's inquiry. The plea, filed by NGO Anti Corruption Council of India, said publication of allegations against the CJI directly hits the Indian judicial system. Besides electronic and print media, the plea sought directions for social media platforms. The petition has arrayed as parties the Ministries of Law and Justice and Information and Broadcasting, the Delhi government, the Press Council of India and the Delhi Police Commissioner. Directions have been sought for WhatsApp, Google, YouTube and LinkedIn Corporation and news website Scroll.in. The allegations levelled by the former woman employee of the Supreme Court are being inquired into by a three-judge panel of the apex court which held its first proceeding on Friday. The plea alleged it suspects involvement of "anti-national elements" in this act and if publication of these allegations is not restricted, "people will lose faith in the Indian judicial system", and the "vast damage" caused to the nation and its people would be "irreparable". Today's top stories: Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi will converge at Uttar Pradesh for the final day of campaigning before phase four of the election; Sri Lanka troops have reportedly killed 2 Islamic state gunmen; Mamata Banerjee has promised to send Modi sweets made of clay; and more. Last day of campaigning before phase four Saturday marks the last day of campaigning in 71 Lok Sabha constituencies which are headed to polls in the fourth phase on Monday. Both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress president Rahul Gandhi will focus on Uttar Pradesh. A day after filing nomination papers from Varanasi with the top leaders of the National Democratic Alliance in attendance, the prime minister will address rallies at Kannauj, Hardoi and Sitapur. Speaking at an election rally in Mumbai along with Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, Modi on Friday cited a survey to support his claim that the Congress will not get more than 50 seats in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections. "Don't waste your vote. Better to vote for a party that is coming to power and you can strengthen it with your vote," Modi said. "The only question now is if the BJP will better its own 2014 tally," he added. Rahul will be in the Congress' home mainstays of Amethi and Rae Bareli while sister Priyanka Gandhi will be in a roadshow in Unnao. Mamata says she will send Modi sweets of clay Miffed over Prime Minister Narendra Modi's disclosure that she sends him kurtas and sweets, Mamata Banerjee Friday said that the people of Bengal will offer him 'rosogollas' made of clay with fillings of gravel instead of votes, reported PTI. The Trinamool Congress supremo had earlier said that the BJP will score a 'big rosogolla', also invoked in the state to mean a score zero in examination due to the shape of the famed sweet. West Bengal sends 42 MPs to the Lok Sabha. "Narendra Modi is coming to Bengal regularly to seek votes. But the people will give him rosogollas made of clay with fillings of gravel; his teeth will break if he tries to take a bite," Banerjee said at a rally at Raniganj. Banerjee had earlier said that Modi has made a "political issue" of the "courtesy" shown by her by making public that she sends sweets to him. Sri Lanka troops kill two suspected IS gunmen Sri Lanka troops have killed two gunmen suspected to have belonged to the Islamic State, an official has told AFP. Shooting erupted between security forces and a group of men in eastern Sri Lanka during a search and cordon operation related to the Easter Sunday attacks, a military spokesman said. The raid took place in the town of Ampara Sainthamaruthu near Batticaloa. The spokesman said there was an explosion in the area and when soldiers went to investigate they were fired upon. No details of casualties were immediately available. A police spokesman said that at least one suicide bomber blew himself up during the shootout in the coastal town, 325 kilometers from Colombo. Police said they have seized a large haul of explosives, a drone and a banner with the Islamic State logo. iFixit says it has removed its Samsung Galaxy Fold teardown The iFixit teardown video of the controversial Galaxy Fold smartphone, which found out that the main reason why the device's display stopped functioning, has been taken down. iFixit says that it has done this on request by Samsung via a trusted partner who had provided the phone for a teardown. iFixit also said that it was under no obligation to take down the video but chose to do so "out of respect for this partner". IPL: After exodus of foreign stars Rajasthan Royals take on Sunrisers Hyderabad Both Rajasthan Royals (RR) and Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) will begin life without their crucial overseas stars when they lock horns in the Indian Premier League (IPL) at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur. Sunrisers, having won five out of their 10 games, will look to break into top four while Royals have only won four from their 11 matches but they too remain in the hunt for a play-off spot. Kriti Sanon likely to star in film on surrogacy Kriti Sanon is likely to team up with her Luka Chuppi director Laxman Utekar and producer Dinesh Vijan for a film on surrogacy. Sources close to the development said the film, titled Mamma Mia, is currently in the writing stage. Kriti, who is basking in the glory of two back-to-back hit films Bareilly Ki Barfi and Luka Chuppi, has liked the idea and is on board the project.The film is expected to go on floors in November this year after the script is complete. Meanwhile, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) forecast light to moderate rainfall at many places with heavy falls at isolated places as very likely over Kerala on 29 and 30 April. Chennai: The deep depression over southeast Bay of Bengal has intensified into a cyclonic storm, named 'Fani,' the Regional Meteorological Centre said Saturday. "Deep depression over southeast Bay of Bengal intensified into a cyclonic storm Fani over southeast Bay of Bengal and lay centred at 1130 hrs IST of 27 April about 1,190 km southeast of Chennai," a brief message from RMC said. S Balachandran, Director, Area Cyclone Warning Centre, said 'Fani' was likely to intensify into a severe cyclonic storm in the next 24 hours. The storm has been named 'Fani,' as suggested by Bangladesh, he said. It will move northwestwards and reach near north Tamil Nadu and south Andhra Pradesh coasts on 30 April. However, there was "little chance" of the storm crossing the Tamil Nadu coast as of now but the system was being monitored, he said. Meanwhile, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) forecast light to moderate rainfall at many places with heavy falls at isolated places as very likely over Kerala on 29 and 30 April. It forecast light to moderate rainfall at few places over north coastal Tamil Nadu and coastal Andhra Pradesh on 30 April and 1 May. Besides squally winds that were very likely to become gale gusting up to a maximum of 145 kmph in the next two days in the Equatorial Indian Ocean and adjoining southwest Bay of Bengal, the sea condition was also rough to very rough in these areas, it said. IMD advised fishermen not to venture into deep sea areas of Sri Lanka, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and south Andhra Pradesh coasts between 27 April 27 and 1 May. Those who are out in deep sea areas were advised to return to the coast by 28 April, it added. All the students who committed suicide in Telangana were from state-run colleges with poor background. LS polls: UP's Awadh to see several high-pitched battles; fortunes of Rahul Gandhi, Rajnath Singh to be decided The Awadh region, which has given India three prime ministers Indira Gandhi, whose parliamentary constituency was Raebareli, VP Singh, who fought from Fatehpur and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who represented Lucknow will be the most keenly-watched part of Uttar Pradesh. Telangana student suicides: Activists allege private college lobby controls state board; raise doubt over IT firm that handled results Academics and experts frown upon the manner in which the intermediate board executes evaluation of answer scripts. They suspect the "invisible" hand of corporate colleges behind this year's fiasco. All the students who committed suicide were from State-run colleges with poor background. Bhima Koregaon Dalits united against BJP, divided over choice in polls; elders back Congress, youth prefer Prakash Ambedkar A major part of Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi founder Prakash Ambedkars stature comes from his pro-active stand after the Bhima Koregaon violence on 1 January, 2018. He called for a state-wide bandh the next day; and three months later, led a 50,000-strong rally in Mumbai. Avengers: Endgame A look at where the Marvel Cinematic Universe could go after The Infinity Saga With this final instalment in what Marvel has christened The Infinity Saga, an epic spanning nearly 11 years and comprised twice as many interconnected films, Avengers: Endgame brings one of the most technically impressive undertakings in cinematic history to a grand and (by almost all accounts) satisfying conclusion. Azerbaijan Grand Prix 2019: After failing to live up to the early-season hype, it's now or never for Ferrari in Baku It would take less than a rocket scientist to note that if Mercedes are not offered strong competition right away, this is going to be another predictable and boring season of Formula One racing, with fans forced to pretend to be amused by a fierce midfield battle. The announcement has disappointed the regional political parties, including NC and PDP in Jammu and Kashmir. With three phases of Lok Sabha polls in Jammu and Kashmir held peacefully, the state administration led by Governor Satya Pal Maliks move to delay the Assembly polls scheduled in June has sparked a political storm. In a meeting on Friday, top officers of the state including the chief secretary BVR Subrahmanyam, handpicked by the PMO and J&K Police chief Dilbagh Singh, told the Election Commission of India (EC) that the polls should be held in November. The administration has cited reasons ranging from the upcoming holy month of Ramzan, Amarnath Yatra and Bakerwal migration while urging the EC to instead hold the much delayed polls in November. The announcement has disappointed the regional political parties, including the National Conference and Peoples Democratic Party, who see it as a ploy by the BJP-led Centre to maintain its grip on the state amid the political turmoil and deteriorating security situation. Jammu and Kashmir is presently reeling under President's Rule, which came into force in December 2018 after the expiry of six months of Governor's Rule when a coalition government between BJP and PDP came to an end in June 2018, after months of internal political bickering over sensitive issues like Article 370 and 35A. Earlier, EC delayed the state Assembly polls due to security reasons. EC had called a high-level meeting in New Delhi on Friday to discuss possibilities of holding Assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir. While the meeting was underway, the states chief electoral officer issued an order, asking the district administrations to identity nodal officers for conducting the polls. However, the J&K CEO Shailender Kumar later withdrew the order, deepening the mystery over the fate of the Assembly polls. The regions political parties have been demanding that the polls be held immediately as the security situation is not as bad as it was in 1996, when polls were conducted after years of Delhis direct rule. Former chief minister Omar Abdullah hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying he is the only prime minister since 1996 who has been unable to conduct Assembly elections on time in Jammu and Kashmir. Taking to Twitter, Omar wrote: Modi ji cements his status as the only Prime Minister since 1996 unable to conduct elections on time in J&K. Remember this the next time you fete him as the strongest PM in living memory! Instead of Delhis man, let the real public representatives take all important decisions on issues of Kashmir," he said. Either you are telling me the situation in Jammu and Kashmir is worse than it was in early nineties and I refuse to believe you or you are incompetent to carry out polls. The truth is the more you delay the election, the more problems you will create. Let the real representatives of people take over and take a decision on behalf of the people, Nasir Aslam Wani, provincial head of the National Conference, said. The EC meeting took place after special observers, appointed by the EC to asses the ground situation, had submitted a report to the poll body in which they have, according to sources, said that the elections can be held between 8 and 24 June, or from 15 May to 15 June. The third option was to hold Assembly polls after 15 September. The governor administration had asked for 400 companies 40,000 troops of CRPF, ITBP, SSB and BSF to be deployed for the ongoing parliamentary elections. The same forces would be deployed for the conduct of Amarnath Yatra. For the state Assembly polls, the number of forces required would triple, a senior government officer told Firstpost. In recent months, as New Delhi failed to conduct elections, the political parties have flagged several decisions taken by the governor, saying he was acting like a chief minister of the state. Malik has also faced much opposition by political parties, unlike the previous governor NN Vohra. Earlier, the governors administration had asked the EC to delay the polls for security reasons, saying they cant hold the polls simultaneously with the Lok Sabha elections since the security forces were busy preparing for the Lok Sabha polls across the country. One of the reasons cited by the state officials was that the deteriorating security situation in the region in the aftermath of the Pulwama attack will make the polling process risky. After the suicide bombing, forces killed dozens of militants across south Kashmir and a crackdown is in motion against separatists. Hundreds of alleged protesters, many of them students, have also been detained by the police ahead of the Lok Shaba elections. The peaceful conduct of elections in the Valley in the first three phases of Lok Sabha, security analysts say, is also an indication that the forces have tightened the grip on separatists' leadership in the Valley. As the parliamentary polls are being carried out peacefully, the regional parties were hopeful that the state elections would be carried out after June. But that doesnt seem to be the case. The Centre seems to be in favour of pushing the election till November as the violence could be brought down to much lesser levels. They want to rule though proxy and defeat the people of state by taking decisions in haste and ruling with an iron fist, said PDP spokesperson Rafi Ahmad Mir. On Friday night, six children and three women were among 15 people killed when militants linked to the bombings opened fire and blew themselves up during a fierce gun battle with security forces in Sri Lanka's Eastern province. New Delhi: India on Saturday issued an advisory asking citizens not to undertake non-essential travel to Sri Lanka in view of the recent wave of bombings in which over 250 people were killed. In the advisory, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said those requiring to undertake emergency travels can contact the High Commission of India in Colombo, the Assistant High Commission in Kandy as well as Consulates in Hambantota and Jaffna for any assistance. "In view of the prevailing security situation in Sri Lanka in the aftermath of terror attacks on 21 April, Indian nationals intending to travel to Sri Lanka are advised not to undertake non-essential travel," it said. "In case of those undertaking essential/emergency travels, they can contact the High Commission of India in Colombo or the Assistant High Commission in Kandy / Consulates in Hambantota and Jaffna in case of requirement of any assistance," the MEA added. The MEA said Sri Lanka has beefed up security in the country but a nation-wide emergency including night time curfew has been in place which may affect travel within Sri Lanka. Nine suicide bombers carried out a series of devastating blasts that tore through three churches and three luxury hotels on the Easter Sunday, killing 253 people. The Islamic State claimed the attacks, but the government has blamed local Islamist extremist group National Thowheeth Jamath (NTJ). Sri Lankan security forces are continuing their hunt for members of the NTJ. On Friday night, six children and three women were among 15 people killed when militants linked to the bombings opened fire and blew themselves up during a fierce gun battle with security forces in Sri Lanka's Eastern province. Addressing a press conference here, P Chidambaram also said that as much as Rs 10 crore is spent on every rally of the prime minister. Mumbai: Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram Saturday accused the Election Commission (EC) of "failing" the people of the country, alleging that it was partisan and reluctant to take action against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for poll code violations. Addressing a press conference here, he also said that as much as Rs 10 crore is spent on every rally of the prime minister. "Unprecedented expenses for the prime minister's rallies. About Rs 10 crore is spent on each rally. The EC is failing the people of the country," Chidambaram alleged. Maharashtra Congress president Ashok Chavan, who was also present at the press conference, demanded that the EC probe Friday's incident in Dhule where a box was brought out of an aircraft ferrying Civil Aviation Minister Suresh Prabhu. "The box surely didn't contain mangoes. It was something more. The EC should take cognisance of the matter and should investigate it," Chavan said. Earlier on Friday, while speaking to reporters in Shirdi, Prabhu had dismissed a video clip which claimed that a mysterious box was taken out of a plane carrying him when it landed at Dhule in Maharashtra. Priyanka Chaturvedi had joined the Sena on 19 April over the Congress reinstating some workers who had allegedly misbehaved with her. Mumbai: The Shiv Sena has appointed former Congress spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi, who recently joined the Uddhav Thackeray-led party, as its "Upneta" or deputy leader. Speaking to a Marathi news channel, Chaturvedi said it was time to "change the Sena's history of Hindi-speaking leaders not staying in the party for long". "I had changed history in the Congress 10 years back when I went on to become the national spokesperson of that party from a district general secretary of Youth Congress. This was unheard of in the party before," she claimed. Chaturvedi had joined the Sena on 19 April over the Congress reinstating some workers who had allegedly misbehaved with her. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) issued a notice on Friday to the Telangana government, seeking a report on the issue Hyderabad: The three-member committee, constituted by the Telangana government to look into the discrepancies in the Intermediate examination results, submitted its report on Saturday. "The three-member committee to look into the developments that took place after the announcement of Intermediate results gave its report. It is under the consideration of the government," Education Secretary B Janardhan Reddy told reporters. "Very soon, we will definitely share their recommendations and the Action Taken Report," he added. The 10-page report emphasised on the measures to be taken in future (to ensure smooth conduct of exams), according to a committee official. The alleged bungling in examination results led to protests by students, parents, students' organisations and political parties. Some students claimed that they either failed or got poor marks though they had done well in exams and obtained high marks in Intermediate first year. Opposition Congress, TDP, BJP and other parties complained to Governor ESL Narasimhan and sought a judicial probe into the alleged goof-up. The Congress-led delegation claimed that as many as 20 students committed suicide in the aftermath of the announcement of results. The exams were conducted during February and March this year and the results were announced on 18 April. There have been allegations of bungling in the announcement of the results. Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, who held a meeting with officials on the issue a few days ago, had directed them not to charge any fee for re-verfication and re-counting from failed students. The government has also announced that failed students need not apply for re-counting and re-verification. Thousands of students, who passed the examination, have also applied for re-verification. Protests against the alleged irregularities continued, with agitated students complaining they were not being provided proper information. The Board of Intermediate Education office here has been witnessing protests by students' organisations and political parties. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) issued a notice on Friday to the state government, seeking a report on the issue. Meanwhile, media reports said a female student allegedly committed suicide in Narayanpet district Saturday reportedly upset over failure in the Intermediate exam. The intermediate boards in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in under a massive credibility crisis due to their failure to ensure a fool-proof mechanism in conducting examinations without leakage of question papers, and an error-free evaluation and grading process. Hyderabad: The crisis in intermediate-level education marked by an unending trail of student suicides points an accusing finger at the Telangana State Board of Intermediate Education (TSBoIE). Erroneous calculations in evaluating academic performance of students, which reportedly caused at least 20 senior intermediate students to commit suicide, has lead to a wave of protests by students, parents, and civil society organisations. The intermediate boards in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in under a massive credibility crisis due to their failure to ensure a fool-proof mechanism in conducting examinations without leakage of question papers, and an error-free evaluation and grading process. It became evident following this years' fiasco when the Telangana boards' intermediate results, declared on 18 April, were fraught with blunders. This has inadvertently cast a pall of suspicion over the software firm, Globarena Technology Private Limited, which the board picked to handle admissions, pre-examination and post-examination processes. The exercise affects the future of nearly 10 lakh students. Furthermore, the board's role, and the procedure adopted in selecting the IT partner firm also comes under question in the backdrop of student suicides. M Madhusudan Reddy, secretary of the Telangana Junior Colleges Lecturers Association referred to a performance certificate (Dated 08-09-2014), which was issued by the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University-Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh as Globarena Technology's client, to raise pertinent questions over the rating of the software firm and its capability to handle an assignment of such magnitude. In the performance certificate, Reddy asserted, the JNTU-Kakinada said the software agency was never involved in pre- and post-examination web-based application activities, but only took up online evaluation of answer scripts for the academic year 2013-'14. This is when the operations at JNTU-K involved only a few thousand students compared to the lakhs of students who appear for intermediate exams. Then why did the board not only entrusted the firm with the future of a lot more students than it had the proven track record to handle, while also increasing the scope of work it was supposed to undertake. Reddy demanded that the board make public the details of the contract awarded to Globarena Technology Private Limited. Neerada Reddy Committee on suicides The undivided state of Andhra Pradesh had constituted an expert committee headed by Neerada Reddy in 2007 to study the factors leading to students' suicides in campuses and to recommend remedial measures. Depicting the corporate colleges as concentration camps with students as captives, the committee observed that 17-18 study hours in a day and 10 exams in a month were some of the causes behind the stress, which caused campus suicides. The panel made 17 key recommendations to loosen the hold of corporate colleges over regulatory bodies but 13 years later and post bifurcation, neither of the state boards of intermediate education in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, managed to implement those suggestions. "P Narayana, who runs a chain of collages by the name of Narayana colleges in both the states, is an influential minister holding municipal administration and urban development portfolio in Andhra Pradesh government. Narayana became a close relative of Human Resource minister Ganta Srinivasa Rao after he married his daughter to Raos son. Can the intermediate boards dare to proceed against erring corporate college managements under such conditions?" asks Noor Ahmad, a former leader of Student Federation of India (SFI). Academics and experts frown upon the manner in which the intermediate board executes evaluation of answer scripts. Each evaluator gets 80 scripts a day which they have to finish within a span of eight working hours, leaving only four to five minutes for evaluating each answer script, including an hour of breaks in between the work. "It is humanly impossible to be accurate in assessing the performance of students under such conditions," says educationist Chukka Ramaiah, doubting the standards of evaluators. A toothless regulator The very objective behind the establishment of intermediate board is to regulate the colleges coming up in private and government sectors. The board is obligated to accord permissions to colleges after ensuring their compliance relating to infrastructure norms, safety measures and engagement of qualified faculty, among others things. "It's an open secret that all the corporate colleges are running in multi-storied apartments with no basic amenities like playground and proper ventilation. None of them has a lab facility enabling science students to perform practicals," points out Maddhileti, president of the Telangana Vidyarthi Vedika. Information obtained by Vedika under the Right to Information (RTI) Act in March, 2019 from the intermediate board revealed startling realities out of 130 corporate colleges with 36,000 students, 76 are running without any permission in Telangana. Maddhileti suspects the "invisible" hand of corporate colleges in the bungling in this years intermediate resulsts. All the students who committed suicide were from state-run colleges with poor background and those protesting at the board office for several days are also from the same colleges. Maddhileti alleges that it is a pre-planned "operation" to kill the government colleges while helping corporate colleges flourish. Poor standards take heavy toll on students The corporate education culture in Telugu states that focuses on helping students crack entrance tests of premier engineering institutes largely ignores conceptual learning and stresses on rote learning. Vaditya Nehru, a boy from Miriyalaguda in Telanganas Nalgonda district, had secured a top rank in intermediate and the screening tests that helped him get into Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur. He committed suicide after failing to clear the first year exams in 2012. Nitin Kumar Reddy of Chittoor district in Andhra Pradesh ended his life in a similar fashion for the same reasons the next year. Nitin had secured admission in the prestigious IIT-Madras with a respectable score. The tragic loss of lives points at the huge vacuum students experience at premier institutes, after being conditioned through modules based on rote learning developed by the intermediate boards with poor conceptual learning skills only to suit the commercial requirements of corporate colleges. A study conducted by some professors from the states, working in IITs, revealed that around 35 percent of students from the two Telugu states are failing to clear exams at the undergraduate level after having shone in the all-India level screening tests for admissions in the premier IITs. After medical education went into the control of national eligibility-cum-entrance test (NEET), intermediate education is forced to completely focus on engineering education. The students with poor fundamentals in their intermediate education are taking admissions in engineering courses, but a huge number of them are ending up jobless, leading to another crisis. Author is Vijayawada - based freelance writer and a member of 101Reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters. The Uttar Pradesh Madhyamik Shiksha Parishad (UPMSP) declared the results of the Class 12 exams today (Saturday, 27 April). The results are available on the official website upmsp.edu.in. UP 12th result 2019 | The Uttar Pradesh Madhyamik Shiksha Parishad (UPMSP) declared the results of the Class 12 exams today (Saturday, 27 April). The results are available on the official website upmsp.edu.in. Candidates can also check their results on alternative websites and use SMS services. Students are advised to keep their admit card ready to quickly check their scores before the websites slow down with the large volume of traffic. Follow LIVE updates on the UP board results here. Students can enter their roll number in the box below, select their class and hit submit to check their scores. Class 12 students have secured a pass percentage of 70.02 percent this year, a drop from the overall pass percentage of 72.43 percent in 2018. While boys secured a pass percentage of 72.27, girls outperformed them with 78.81 percent. Tanu Tomar has emerged the topper of the UP Board Class 12 exams with 97.83 percent. Bhagyashree Upadhyay got the second rank with 97.2 percent while Akanksha Shukla came in third with 94.80 percent. The UP Board Class 12 exams were held from 7 February to 2 March. More than 30 lakh students had registered for the UPMSP Class 12 or HSC or Intermediate exams this year. The UP higher secondary education board had also made Aadhaar cards mandatory for students and invigilators to curb cheating. Steps to check UP Board Class 12 results: Step 1: Visit the official website upmsp.edu.in Step 2: Click on the result link displayed on the homepage Step 3: Enter your name, roll number and other required details Step 4: Click on 'Submit' button. Your results will be displayed on the screen Step 5: Download the results and take a printout for future reference To prevent cases of cheating and other malpractices, the UP board, from this year made Aadhar card mandatory for students. A team of a Special Task Force was reportedly deployed to ensure that there were no instances of cheating and to curb the activities of the "copying mafia". Students should collect their original UP Board Class 12 mark sheet issued by the UPMSP from their respective schools in a few days. The Uttar Pradesh Madhyamik Shiksha Parishad is the primary body entrusted with the job to manage, monitor and develop school-level education in the state. It conducts annual high school exam for Class 10 students and the intermediate exam for Class 12 students of Uttar Pradesh. UP Board Result 2019 LIVE Updates: The links to check the Class 10 and Class 12 results of the UP board exams are now live on upresults.nic.in. You can also check your results directly on Firstpost. Auto refresh feeds The Uttar Pradesh Madhyamik Shiksha Parishad (UPMSP) will declare the results of the Class 10 and Class 12 board exams today (Saturday, 27 April) at 12.30 pm. Step 5: Download your results and keep a printout for future reference Step 2: Click on the link given for details on Class 12 and 10 results Students can check the results for both on the official website upmsp.edu.in. As the official website faces the risk of crashing, students can opt to visit alternative websites and use SMS services to check their UP board results. Students can also receive their results via SMS Just bookmark this link , or click on it once results are out to check Uttar Pradesh board result 2019 for Class 10 or Class 12 online. This year, around 58 lakh students appeared for the Class 12 and Class 10 board exams. Reports said the performance of students in the Uttar Pradesh board exams is expected to improve this year, as several measures were taken to ensure good results. A Special Task Force team was also reportedly deployed to ensure that there were no instances of cheating and to curb the activities of the "copying mafia". As many as 58.6 lakh students registered for the Uttar Pradesh (UPMSP) board exams, but around 6.52 lakh students failed to appear for the examinations. As many as 403 students were caught cheating, according to The Indian Express. The Uttar Pradesh Madhyamik Shiksha Parishad (UPMSP) is the primary body entrusted with the job to manage, monitor and develop school-level education in the state. It conducts annual high school exam for Class 10 students and the intermediate exam for Class 12 students of Uttar Pradesh. For the first time during UP board exams, this year was the first time that CCTV cameras were installed at all the 8,549 exam centres. Of the total, 2,087 centres were categorised as sensitive, of which 566 centres were identified as very sensitive and 1,521 sensitive with regard to the activities of the "copying mafia" there. In 1992, the Kalyan Singh government in Uttar Pradesh had implemented similar security measures to curb cheating during the UP board exams. The state government had issued an ordinance on anti-copying called Nakal Adhyadesh. This reduced the pass percentage in the state to 14.7 percent for Class 10 and 30.4 percent in Class 12, the lowest pass percentage ever in the state. The Uttar Pradesh board has announced that the results have been delayed by an hour. UPMSP has confirmed that the Class 12 result will be announced at 1 pm and Class 10 result at 1:30 pm. On upresults.nic.in, the Uttar Pradesh board has confirmed a delay in the announcement of the results. The Uttar Pradesh Board of High School and Intermediate Education has raised the fee for re-evaluation of exams by five times. To get one paper of a subject reevaluated, candidates will now have to pay Rs 500 instead of the earlier Rs 100 fee, making this the most expensive reevaluation procedure in India, according to The Indian Express. Step 5 Download your results and keep a printout for future reference Step 2 Click on the link given for details on Class 12 and 10 results The UP board has declared the 10th and 12th board exam results. Gautam Raghuvanshi has topped the Class 10 exams and Tanu Tomar has topped Class 12. UP Class 10 students secured a pass percentage of 80.07 percent in the board exams, while 70.02 percent cleared the intermediate Class 12 examination. Gautam Raghuvanshi has emerged the topper of the Uttar Pradesh Board High School exam with 97.17 percent. Shivam came in second with 97 percent and Tanuja Vishwakarma secures the third spot with 96.83 percent marks. Tanu Tomar has emerged the topper of the UP Board Class 12 exams with 97.83 percent. Bhagyashree got the second rank with 97.2 percent and Akanksha came in third with 94.80 percent. Girls performed better than boys, according to reports. In 2018, the pass percentage was 75.16 percent and in 2017, it was 81.60 percent. In the Class 12 UP board exams, girls secured the top three ranks. Their pass percentage is also higher than that of boys. This year, 70.06 percent of the students who appeared for the Class 12 board exams in Uttar Pradesh passed. Class 12 students have secured a pass percentage of 70.02 percent this year, a drop from the overall pass percentage of 72.43 percent in 2018. While boys secured a pass percentage of 72.27, girls outperformed them with 78.81 percent. Step 5 Download your results and keep a printout for future reference Step 2 Click on the link given for details on Class 12 and Class 10 results How to check the UP board exam result 2019: Gautam Raghuvanshi topped the Uttar Pradesh Board High School exam, securing 97.17 percent. The second spot was bagged by Shivam who got a score of 97 percent. Tanu Tomar has topped the Class 12 exam. Here are the toppers for Class 10, Class 12 examinations Class 10 and Class 12 students can check their UP board scores right here on Firstpost: https://www.firstpost.com/up-board-result-2019-live In the Class 12 UP board exams, girls secured the top three ranks. Their pass percentage is also higher than that of boys. This year, 70.06 percent of the students who appeared for the Class 12 board exams in Uttar Pradesh passed. Class 12 students have secured a pass percentage of 70.02 percent this year, a drop from the overall pass percentage of 72.43 percent in 2018. While boys secured a pass percentage of 72.27, girls outperformed them with 78.81 percent. Step 5 Download your results and keep a printout for future reference Step 2 Click on the link given for details on Class 12 and Class 10 results How to check the UP board exam result 2019: Visuals of celebrations from the school of Tanu Tomar who has topped the Class 12 UP Board Exam. pic.twitter.com/D9RqvZGwA3 Gautam Raghuvanshi topped the Uttar Pradesh Board High School exam, securing 97.17 percent. The second spot was bagged by Shivam who got a score of 97 percent. Tanu Tomar has topped the Class 12 exam. Here are the toppers for Class 10, Class 12 examinations If students are not satisfied with their results, they can approach grivance cells at Prayagraj, Varanasi, Gorakhpur, Meerut and Bareilly, as per an article in News18 Hindi . Class 10 and Class 12 students can check their UP board scores right here on Firstpost: https://www.firstpost.com/up-board-result-2019-live UP Board result 2019 date and time LATEST updates, Class 10 and Class 12: The Uttar Pradesh Board of High School and Intermediate Education has declared the results of the Class 10 (high school) and Class 12 (inter) board exams. Once again, girls outperformed boys in both grades. The links to check the Class 10 and Class 12 results of the UP board exams are now live on upresults.nic.in. You can also check your results directly on Firstpost. Gautam Raghuvanshi has topped the Class 10 Uttar Pradesh board exams and Tanu Tomar came first in the Class 12 exams. Class 10 students secured an 80.07 percent pass percentage, while Class 12 students got 70.02 percent. As the official website faces the risk of crashing, students can opt to visit alternative websites and use SMS services to check their UP board results. You can also check your result with Firstpost. Just bookmark this link, or click on it once results are out to check UP board result 2019 for Class 10 or Class 12 online. This year, around 58 lakh students appeared for the two board exams. The Uttar Pradesh board held the Class 10 exams from 7 to 28 February and the Class 12 exams from 7 February to 2 March. Reports said the performance of students in the Uttar Pradesh board exams is expected to improve this year, in comparison to last year. Several measures have been taken to ensure good results, The Times of India reported. A team of the Special Task Force was reportedly deployed to ensure that there were no instances of cheating and to curb the activities of the "copying mafia". How to check the UP board exam result 2019: Step 1 Visit the official website Step 2 Click on the link given for details on Class 12 and 10 results Step 3 Enter the required details Step 4 Click on the 'Submit' button Step 5 Download your results and keep a printout for future reference Alternative websites to check results and details: Students can check results also on upmspresults.up.nic.in, upresults.nic.in, results.nic.in, upmsp.edu.in. Candidates can also receive their results via SMS. Send 'UP12Roll Number' to 56263. For Class 10 results, Send 'UP10Roll Number' to 56263. Read more on alternative ways to check Class 10 results here Read more on alternative ways to check Class 12 results here Check UP Board Result 2019 Class 10, Class 12 Dalit activist Milind Bhawar, who helped many victims file affidavits before the commission, agrees. 'Prakash Ambedkar's contribution to the Commission has been zero A major part of Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi founder Prakash Ambedkars stature comes from his pro-active stand after the Bhima Koregaon violence on 1 January, 2018. He called for a state-wide bandh the next day; and three months later, led a 50,000-strong rally in Mumbai to ask for the arrest of Hindutva leaders Sambhaji Bhide and Milind Ekbote. Both of them had been named in the first FIR filed after the violence. While Ekbote was arrested after the Supreme Court rejected his anticipatory bail application (he got bail later), Bhide was never arrested. Ambedkar had threatened a gherao of the Assembly if Bhide, who was given a clean chit by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis in the Assembly, was not arrested. The gherao never took place. For Ravindra Chandane, a victim of the Bhima Koregaon violence, and a witness before the Bhima Koregaon Inquiry Commission, that wasnt the only betrayal by Ambedkar. 45-year-old Chandane suffered a hairline fracture on his arm and injuries on his back and head after he tried to save a lone Dalit from a crowd of saffron-flag waving youth at Bhima Koregaon. "We had gone there with our womenfolk and children, totally unprepared for the violence that had been planned. No leader was present there," he recalls. "Hence it was our responsibility as victims and eye-witnesses, to appear before the Bhima Koregaon Commission to present our version of events," says Chandane. "And It was Balasaheb's (as Prakash Ambedkar is called) responsibility to support us. But he did nothing." "The very first day I was summoned by the Commission," recounts Chandane, "I went there alone. The first sight that greeted me was of Milind Ekbote seated there with his lawyer. I saw other Dalit victims going into the Commission's room to depose on their own. No one had arranged a lawyer for them." By the time Chandane deposed, a few months later, there were two lawyers representing the victims: senior lawyer BG Bansode, who had also appeared before the Gundewar Commission probing the July 1997 Ramabai Nagar police firing, and Kiran Channe. "These lawyers are appearing for us without charging us, as part of their social duty. Wasn't it Ambedkar's duty to find lawyers for us? Other Dalits who are facing criminal cases too havent been helped by him," says Chandane angrily. "We thought he would get us justice." Dalit activist Milind Bhawar, who helped many victims file affidavits before the commission, agrees. "Prakash Ambedkar's contribution to the Commission has been zero," he points out. "He has used the Bhima Koregaon cause for his personal gain. Worse, he has given tickets to those with a BJP/RSS background. One of them, Sangli candidate Gopichand Padalkar, is Sambhaji Bhides aide. His Pune candidate Anil Jadhav was in the BJP till last year." According to Sunil Khopragade, editor, Mahanayak daily, the Bhima Koregaon cause isn't the only thing being used by Ambedkar for personal gain. Khopragade and Shyam Gaekwad, head of the Republican Party (Secular), say that the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi chief is also using his family name to get votes this election. "Most Buddhists of the older generation feel a great debt to Babasaheb Ambedkar. The very mention of his name makes them emotional," says Khobragade, who has travelled through Vidarbha during these elections. "They feel voting for Prakash Ambedkar is like repaying this debt." On the other side, says Khobragade, are first-time voters, who know little about politics and are easily swayed by social media. They are taken in by the aggressive rhetoric of the VBA. But, says Khobragade, the middle class and more qualified Buddhists, who are anti-Modi, "share our view that a vote for the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi is a vote against the Congress and for Modi." None of these Ambedkarites are fond of the Congress, which Gaekwad describes as "feudal and opportunist, but not revivalist like the RSS." They agree with Ambedkar's criticism that the Congress is a casteist party. "But it is not casteist enough to change the Constitution," argues advocate Kiran Channe. "We cant equate Rahul Gandhi, sacred thread et al, with Mohan Bhagwat!" adds Gaekwad. One argument made by the Bahujan Vanchit Aghadi is that for the first time, tickets are being given to candidates from castes hitherto neglected by the Congress and the BJP. "There's a surge of self-respect and pride among Dalits," observes Yogesh, a young activist, who feels this will result in a split in Dalit votes for the Congress in his constituency, South Central Mumbai. "Political representation and self-respect are very important," argues advocate Channe, "but this time, we have to weigh these against saving the Constitution." Gaekwad recalls that it was Prakash Ambedkar himself who had once said that one should not emphasise caste identity. He had even said that caste should not be entered on school leaving certificates. "But now, he's identifying every one of his candidates by their caste!" All these Ambedkarite intellectuals have known Ambedkar closely. Gaekwad recalls that Ambedkar's initial idea was to create a non-BJP, non-Congress Third Front with the help of the Communist parties and Socialists. "Everyone was enthusiastic about that. But finally he ended up aligning with the most reactionary, communal force, the AIMIM. And this was done without any discussion with his fellow travellers." Gaekwad fears that the kind of identity politics being played by Ambedkar will result in polarization and the ultimate isolation of Ambedkarite forces. To thwart that, 40 Ambedkarite groups hailing from all across Maharashtra have got together and formed a front to convince voters not to fall for the VBAs rhetoric, and not to end up helping the BJP win. However, Khobragade admits that this time, Ambedkar's vote tally is likely to go up from the close to 5 lakh votes that the Bharip Bahujan Mahasangh had got in the 2014 Assembly polls. This will help him strike a bargain in the Assembly elections. The Congress slammed Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday for the AAP chiefs remarks that the grand old party was not getting a single Hindu vote while Muslims were confused, saying he was doing what the BJP did and mixing politics with religion. The Congress slammed Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday for the AAP chiefs remarks that the grand old party was not getting a single Hindu vote while Muslims were confused, saying he was doing what the BJP did and mixing politics with religion. A Congress delegation led by party leader Sandip Dikshit, son of Delhi Congress president and North East Delhi candidate Sheila Dikshit lodged a complaint with the Delhi chief electoral officer (CEO) and demanded that Kejriwal be barred from campaigning for the polls. Dikshit told reporters after meeting the CEO that the Congress had demanded that the AAP chief be barred from poll campaigning as he was "trying to stoke a communal divide" through his "irresponsible and inciting" utterances. Speaking at the launch of the Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) manifesto for the ongoing Lok Sabha polls, the Delhi chief minister said the Congress was not getting a single Hindu vote while Muslims were a little confused. Hitting back at the AAP chief, Congress spokesperson Ragini Nayak said, "I feel Kejriwalji himself is confused." She said the top leadership of the Congress had extended a hand of friendship towards Kejriwal for an alliance, but he brushed it aside. "Then he says the Congress is responsible if (Prime Minister Narendra) Modiji wins. In Delhi, now he is mixing politics and religion," Nayak said, while asking whether Kejriwal had joined electoral politics for this alternative politics. "I remember the big dreams he had shown morality in politics, transparency in politics, inclusive politics and today, he is doing what the BJP does, that if you are a Hindu vote for them, if you are a Muslim vote for them. I feel this is not good for the strength of democracy," the Congress spokesperson said. Kejriwal also alleged that the Congress was trying to weaken the opposition in different states "whether it is Kerala, Haryana, Goa, West Bengal or UP, but I hope people from all religions, who want to save the country, would unite and vote for the AAP". With inputs from PTI The Awadh region, which has given India three prime ministers in the past, will be the most keenly-watched part of Uttar Pradesh. If Uttar Pradesh is the heartland of Indian politics, then the historically important Awadh region can be regarded as the heartland of Uttar Pradesh politics. Comprising 17 Lok Sabha constituencies, including a few high-profile seats, Awadh is undoubtedly a high-stakes political arena. This region, which has given India three prime ministers Indira Gandhi, whose parliamentary constituency was Raebareli, VP Singh, who fought from Fatehpur and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who represented Lucknow will be the most keenly-watched part of Uttar Pradesh. During the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had managed to win 15 out of 17 seats here. At Bahraich, Savitri Bai Phule had won on a BJP ticket, but has now crossed over the Congress. This time, the fight in the Awadh region is a multi-cornered one, and it will not be easy for the saffron party to retain all the seats. Awadh has a population of about 3.22 crore. The constituencies in this region are Kheri, Sitapur, Lucknow, Faizabad (now Ayodhya), Raebareli, Amethi, Barabanki, Dhaurahra, Misrikh, Sultanpur, Hardoi, Bahriach, Kaiserganj, Shravasti, Gonda, Ambedkarnagar, and Mohanlalganj. Out of the 17 seats, five are reserved for Scheduled Castes. Amethi, Lucknow to be in the limelight The "VIP" constituencies in the Awadh region are Lucknow, which is currently held by Union home minister Rajnath Singh, Raebareli, which is held by Congress matriarch Sonia Gandhi, Amethi, represented by her son Rahul Gandhi, and Sultanpur represented by Varun Gandhi. With the BJP announcing the candidature of Union minister Smriti Irani against Rahul Gandhi in Amethi, this Lok Sabha constituency is set to witness an interesting fight as the BJP is leaving no stone unturned to defeat the Congress president. In Lucknow, the buzz is that senior Congress leader Jitin Prasada may contest against Rajnath Singh, instead of his home turf Dhaurahra. Lucknow is the bastion of BJP and earlier former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee used to contest from this seat. The SP-BSP alliance, Congress and BJP have all been giving a lot of emphasis to this region. The Congress eastern Uttar Pradesh in-charge Priyanka Gandhi Vadra recently paid a visit to the temple town of Ayodhya, her brother's parliamentary constituency Amethi and even her mother's turf Raebareli. Will the gathbandhan make a difference? Samajwadi Party (SP) spokesperson Abdul Hafiz Gandhi also stresses on the importance of the Awadh region in the party's political strategy. The Dalits, backwards, other marginalised communities, minorities, poor people, farmers, labourers and women are waiting eagerly to vote out the BJP in 2019. The BJP-led governments at the Centre and the state have not been able to fulfil their promises, he said. On the SP-BSP-RLD gathbandhan (alliance), he said the historic move has changed every political arithmetic throughout Uttar Pradesh. He is confident that the alliance is unbeatable in 60 seats, while in the remaining ones, they will "give nightmares" to the BJP. This time, we are going to win even those seats which we never won earlier, predicts the SP leader. The gathbandhan's main focus areas are doubling of farmers' income, providing employment to youth, women's security, quality education and healthcare facilities for the masses. Congress leader Mukesh Singh admits that the Awadh region has become important to the party once again, because it is a war of survival, and an attempt to prove what the party stands for. He said that in the past, political parties would respect each other, and not field candidates on prestigious seats like Amethi or Lucknow. He said that the Congress has left a few seats for the gathbandhan parties and in return, they have also opted to not field their candidates from Amethi and Raebareli seats. On the other hand, the BJP is using all its force in Amethi, and it is going to lose again, Singh said. The Congress leader added that the Awadh region is home to farmers who have become 'chowkidar' in their own fields, protecting their crops from stray cattle. Political commentator JP Shukla points out that as the capital city of Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow is the power centre for not just the state government, but also political parties. "Awadh region is the heart of Uttar Pradesh and this region has brought a change in national politics. The controversy over the Ram temple dispute comes from this region, and it is a very important political issue. The issue has affected the politics of India for many decades. The Ram temple issue was above all other issues in the last election, and it helped the BJP to make its government at the Centre," Shukla opines. Shukla argues that the politics of Awadh is emulated everywhere in the country because the region has a rare mix of urban and rural constituencies. He also says that the region assumes importance as many politically significant constituencies like Amethi and Dhaurahra are located here. Lucknow-based political analyst Dr Rudra Dubey says that the Awadh region is a high-stakes area mainly for the Congress and the BJP, because Amethi and Raebareli constituencies are family strongholds of the Congress, while Lucknow has been the parliamentary constituency of late prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. "In Awadh, it is a challenge for the two major parties to preserve their decades-old heritage, and for this, they are going full throttle, says Dubey. Dubey further says that the BJP finds itself on shaky waters in constituencies like Bahraich, where sitting MP Savitri Bai Phule has joined the Congress. On the other hand, Congress has also felt a silent tremor with the BJP fielding Smriti Irani against Rahul Gandhi in Amethi, he notes. There is still uncertainty over which constituency Jitin Prasada will contest from. Dubey says, "The contest in Lucknow will be against Rajnath Singh, who has been a regular visitor to his constituency. People will also vote for him motivated by sympathy after the death of former prime minister Vajpayee, as Rajnath has worked to save his legacy in Lucknow." He further points out that in Ayodhya, the BJP has been doing a lot of ground work after forming the government in the state. The success of the 'Deepotsav' and changing the name of Faizabad to Ayodhya will help the BJP in the seat, according to Dubey. On seats like Unnao, the BJP has decided against taking risks, and has fielded Sakshi Maharaj as it believes he is a winnable candidate," he says. However, Dubey believes that this time, people in Awadh may now vote on the basis of issues like jobs, stray cattle, farm crisis, etc. The other major challenge for political parties will be wooing different castes, as this region has numerous communities, including Jatavs, Yadavs, Muslim and Nishads," he remarks. (The author is a Lucknow-based freelance writer and a member of 101Reporters.com) Earlier this week, Priyanka had said she would abide by her party's decision on contesting against Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Varanasi. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, the Congress' general secretary for eastern Uttar Pradesh, said in an exclusive interview to News18 India that the party's "collective leadership" took the decision not to field her from Varanasi against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Priyanka further said in the interview, "I have a major responsibility here. Many candidates want me to campaign for them in their constituencies, and I cannot disappoint them." Reacting to the recent interview of Prime Minister Narendra Modi conducted by actor Akshay Kumar, she said, "I found the prime minster's interview rather strange. At a time when the youth lack employment opportunities, the farmers are distressed and women are facing several problems, ways of eating a mango are being discussed." Modi, in the "non-political" interview, spoke about a range of topics, including his aspirations during childhood, relations with Opposition leaders and his working style. Priyanka, on being asked about her prediction for the Lok Sabha polls based on the turnout till now, said, "My estimation is that the BJP has fallen behind, and it has had to suffer a lot of damage. The Congress party will be ahead." On the possibility of Rahul Gandhi becoming the prime minister, the Congress leader said, "I wish happiness and success for my brother, and I hope that whatever task he takes up, he fulfills it. I have no desire for a post, and neither does my brother." Earlier this week, Priyanka said she would abide by her party's decision on contesting against Modi from Varanasi. "I have said this repeatedly that I will do what the party asks me to do," she said, adding that people were feeling harassed and wanted a change. However, on Thursday, the Congress fielded five-time MLA Ajai Rai to take on Modi in Varanasi in the ongoing Lok Sabha election. With inputs from PTI Congress resembles a dithering and confused unit bumbling its way into the polls against a formidable, well-oiled, election-winning machine. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra backing out of a contest against Narendra Modi in Varanasi has been spun in some circles as a wise move. The argument is hilarious. If the decision to opt out of a contest against the prime minister is wise, why on earth was the possibility hyped up in the first place? Has Congress considered the possibility that Priyankas last-minute withdrawal after the creation of huge media heat over a blockbuster contest causes irreparable damage to her own image and that of the party? When questions of such import are treated with elitist frivolity, the impression that goes to the electorate is that Congress remains a party of whimsical politics. Far from showcasing prudence, the Priyanka charade symbolises all the ills that plague the Grand Old Party. Congress resembles a dithering and confused unit bumbling its way into the polls against a formidable, well-oiled, election-winning machine. And its leaders the famed high command appear as amateurs against professionals. After all, it was Priyankas decision to create the media hype through loaded answers and teasing replies. The bogey was created last month when the newest Gandhi scion on the block shot back at an innocuous question on whether she would contest from Rae Bareli by saying why not Varanasi? The suggestion created wild media speculation because it dovetailed with the medias need to dress up an Opposition leader as a challenger to Modi on charisma. We were told that Congress Brahmastra possesses so many smarts that Modi may quake in his boots at the prospect of facing her. And so it caught on. Priyanka made it a habit of keeping alive the tantalising possibility that she may take the field against the prime minister in Varanasi and kept repeating the line that she is ready to contest if the party wants her to. In between, senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel chipped in and said that if Priyanka takes on Modi, he will be personally very happy. Even as this media-driven tamasha became a daily feature, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on whom apparently rests the final decision, added his bit to the speculation by saying: I will leave you in suspense. Suspense is not always a bad thing. It is legitimate to infer that Congress was creating a hype around Priyanka taking on Modi for a specific reason. Maybe that was a party strategy. If so, what could be the reason behind such a strategy? Let us look at the ground realities. Modi demolished Arvind Kejriwal who was then a rising star in Indian politics by around 3.37 lakh votes in 2014. Congress Ajai Rai, who has been asked to face Modi again this year, lost his deposit. Data suggests that even if the entire Opposition fields one common candidate, that candidate may still lose by over 2 lakh votes. To top it all, Congress is not even a significant player in Varanasi. Its ramshackle infrastructure in Uttar Pradesh is further banished to the fringes in Varanasi constituency. Given these ground realities, what may have prompted Congress to think about such a strategy? One possible answer could be that Priyanka, even in defeat, may have gained national attention and earned bravado as a serious player who knows that time is on her side. She could have taken a lesson from the way Sushma Swaraj took on Sonia Gandhi in Bellary, Karnataka, which has remained a Gandhi bastion since 1952. When Sonia decided to contest from Bellary in addition to Amethi, the BJP fielded Sushma Swaraj, then a newbie in Karnataka politics with little ground support. The day Sonias decision was announced, the very next day BJP fielded Sushma who launched heroically into campaign on unknown terrain. As this News18 article pointed out, An unfazed Sushma learnt some Kannada in just 30 days and even gave public speeches in the language. Wherever she went, Sushma questioned Sonias foreign origin issue. In that fiercely contested election, Sonia won by a very narrow margin of 56,000 votes. Seeing her performance, Sushma was rewarded by the then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee with a Cabinet rank at the Centre. Or take the case of BJP leader Smriti Irani, who took the defeat against Rahul in Amethi in 2014 on her chin and refused to budge from the constituency that rejected her. Irani remained dedicated to Amethi for the past five years, slowly built her profile, reputation and now she is poised to pose a formidable challenge to the Congress president who is fighting from Wayanad in addition to Amethi. Had Priyanka thrown such a spirited challenge at Modi, even a defeat would have helped her and her party. But the chickening out at the last minute helps neither her nor her party. Instead, it damages the credibility of Priyanka as a leader and exposes Congresss unprofessional, non-serious attitude. Whats more, the way Priyankas name was disassociated with Varanasi at the last minute and hapless Ajai's name was announced instead further deepens Congress crisis of credibility. AICC spokesperson Rajeev Shukla said the decision not to field Priyanka in Varanasi was taken by Rahul. I think that every decision is made with the approval of the Congress president. He decided that Priyanka should work for the organisation and strengthen the party in her jurisdiction. But then Congress leader Sam Pitroda, who heads the partys overseas unit, said the exact opposite. According to him, it was Priyankas decision the party general secretary for eastern Uttar Pradesh not to fight from Varanasi. The party president left the final decision to her, Pitroda told reporters on Friday, and added she (Priyanka) decided that she has several responsibilities. She decided that rather than concentrating on one seat, she should focus on the job she has at hand. What does this charade tell us about Congress? At one level, the party appears so disjointed that they cannot even speak in one voice over an important development. At another level, the sorry spectacle is reflective of the perception problem that Congress First Family suffers from. Rahul and Priyanka perhaps do not quite understand that this is no longer an India of the 1970s and 1980s when Gandhi brand was enough to draw votes. In the new millennium, the nation has changed but the Congress has failed to keep up with the change. It still suffers from delusions of grandeur. Shatrughan Sinha, who recently left BJP and joined Congress, on Friday lauded Muhammad Ali Jinnah along with Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru, saying they all had a role to play for India's independence. Shatrughan Sinha, who recently left BJP and joined Congress, on Saturday clarified his comment on Muhammad Ali Jinnah and said that it had been a "slip of tongue" when he intended to speak about Maulana Azad. On Friday, Sinha, in a rally in Madhya Pradesh, had lauded Muhammad Ali Jinnah along with Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru, saying they all had a role to play for India's Independence. "The Congress family from Mahatma Gandhi to Sardar Patel to Muhammad Ali Jinnah to Jawaharlal Nehru... It is their party. They had the most important role in the development and freedom of the country. This is the reason why I have come here (in Congress), Sinha said while addressing a rally. On Saturday, Sinha said, "Whatever I said yesterday was slip of tongue. I wanted to say Maulana Azad but uttered Muhammad Ali Jinnah. #WATCH Shatrughan Sinha, Congress candidate from Bihar's Patna Sahib on his statement,"from Mahatma Gandhi to Muhammad Ali Jinnah, all part of Congress Parivar": Whatever I said yesterday was slip of tongue. I wanted to say Maulana Azad but uttered Muhammad Ali Jinnah. pic.twitter.com/N2s63aOufj ANI (@ANI) April 27, 2019 Sinha was in Madhya Pradesh to campaign for the state Chief Minister Kamal Naths son Nakul Nath, who is contesting from the Chhindwara parliamentary constituency against BJPs Nathan Shah. Both Kamal Nath and his son were present at the event. "Now that I have joined the Congress party for the first and the last time, now I wont leave it, he added. At the same rally, Sinha also said that the people of the country are curious about Nyuntam Aay Yojana (NYAY) while expressing hope that the scheme will be implemented if his party is voted to power in the ongoing general elections. The Congress government has waived the loan of farmers in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh. People are curious about NYAY scheme now, he said. Sinha, who left the BJP after being denied a ticket to contest the Lok Sabha election from Patna Sahib constituency in Bihar, said, "It is fine when they (BJP) do something. If our leaders come up with some ideas, they are not able to digest these. Under the NYAY scheme, the Congress party has promised to give Rs 72,000 annually to the poorest among the poor. Agence France-Presse Facebook on Thursday filed a lawsuit in US federal court to bar a New Zealand company from selling fake "likes," views and followers to Instagram users. The company and three people targeted in the lawsuit operated a service to raise the profile of Instagram accounts by bolstering them with bogus followers, views and "likes," Facebook director of platform enforcement and litigation Jessica Romero said in a blog post. "By filing the lawsuit, we are sending a message that this kind of fraudulent activity is not tolerated on our services, and we will act to protect the integrity of our platform," Romero said. Romero did not identify the company or the individuals' names in the legal complaint, which accused them of using fake businesses and websites to sell "engagement services" to Instagram users looking to buy status. Such activity violates terms of service at Facebook-owned Instagram. "We previously suspended accounts associated with the defendants and formally warned them in writing that they were in violation of our Terms of Use, however, their activity persisted," Romero said. She described the lawsuit as part of an ongoing effort to prevent fraudulent activity at its family of services, which includes a photo and video sharing social network Instagram. Facebook and other online social platforms have been under pressure to prevent deception and misinformation. tech2 News Staff As part of Mark Zuckerberg's 2019 personal challenge, he released a 93-minute video of his discussion with Sapiens author Yuval Noah Harari, where the two talk about why it is so important that we dont store sensitive data in countries with weak rule of law or where governments can forcibly get access to that data. Zuckerberg said that Facebook will not comply with laws and set up local data centers in authoritarian countries where that data could be forcibly accessed. He also said in the recent earnings call that he is ready to risk Facebook shutting down in authoritarian countries if the company is forced to locally store data. While laws can help protect user privacy and data in countries that are justly ruled, however, the local storage of data can be problematic in nations where governments might use military might to see the data. That could help them enhance their surveillance capabilities, disrupt activism or hunt down mutineers. Zuckerberg said, "I actually think the bigger question is what is it going to be? And the most likely alternative to each country adopting something that encodes the freedoms and rights of something like GDPR, in my mind, is the authoritarian model, which is currently being spread, which says every company needs to store everyone's data locally in data centers and then, if I'm a government, I can send my military there and get access to whatever data I want and take that for surveillance or military. I just think that that's a really bad future. And that's not the direction, as someone who's building one of these internet services, or just as a citizen of the world, I want to see the world going." Russia and China already have data localization laws. Germany requires telecommunications metadata to be stored locally, and India has a similar rule for payments data. Another very crucial questions Yuval Noah Harari asked Zuckerberg was: "Is it still true in a world where we have the technology to hack human beings and manipulate them like never before that the customer is always right, that the voter knows best? Or have we gone past this point?" To this Zuckerberg said that I think people really dont like and are very distrustful when they feel like theyre being told what to do. (Who is going to decode that now!) Reuters By Bharath ManjeshR and Aparajita Saxena (Reuters) - The owner of popular workplace instant messaging app Slack made public strong year-on-year growth numbers on Friday, and an annual loss of $140.7 million, as it filed formally for its long-awaited market debut. The San Francisco-based company, Slack Technologies, seeking to go public via a direct listing similar to that of music streaming app Spotify last year, published numbers showing it had more than 10 million daily active users as of the end of January. Paying customers or organizations numbered 88,000, up almost 50 percent from a year earlier and more than double the 37,000 it had in 2017, the company's regulatory filing showed. Big customers that pay Slack at least $100,000 a year numbered 575 as of year ended January, up from 298 in the previous year. These customers accounted for about 40 percent of its total revenue in fiscal 2019 and no one paid customer accounted for more than three percent. The company said it had more than 500,000 organizations on its free subscription plan and that revenue jumped 82 percent from last year to $400.6 million and up from $105 million in 2017. Reuters had previously reported that the company was hoping for a valuation of more than $10 billion in the listing, which should now happen within weeks. Some early investors and employees have been selling the stock at around $28, valuing the company close to $17 billion, Kelly Rodriques, Chief Executive Officer of Forge, a brokerage company, told CNBC on Thursday. The company's big issue, like many startups, is costs. Total operating expenses rose 49 percent to $503.5 million in fiscal 2019, the company said, largely due to higher sales and marketing costs. "The company is a classic tech company with scalability," said Jay Ritter, an IPO expert and professor at the University of Florida. "There is the potential for profitability in the next few years, with rapidly growing profits after that." "Many tech companies, such as Dropbox and Spotify, offer free use to people or organizations, with the idea that a certain fraction of them will become heavy users and paying customers. As long as the churn rate is not too high, this can be a successful business strategy." The company, which expects to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "SK", reported a loss of $181 million a year earlier. Slack's biggest shareholders include Accel Partners, an investor in Facebook and Dropbox, which holds 24 percent, followed by Andreessen Horowitz, with 13.3 percent. Japanese conglomerate SoftBank owns 7.3 percent. The company, whose competitors include Microsoft Teams, a free chat add-on for Microsoft's Office365 users, said it expects to incur losses for the foreseeable future and may not achieve or maintain profitability in the future. The company, which was launched in 2013, counts Trivago, BBC, Lyft, 21st Century Fox, Shopify, and Survey Monkey as its customers. This year has already seen a run of technology sector IPOs, with Lyft Inc, Pinterest and Zoom Video Communications launching to various degrees of success. Uber Technologies Inc unveiled the terms of its IPO on Friday, seeking a $91.5 billion valuation in what could prove the year's biggest launch. (Reporting by Aparajita Saxena and Bharath Manjesh in Bengaluru and Joshua Franklin in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler, Anil D'Silva and Arun Koyyur) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. BRASILIA (Reuters) - Thousands of people representing the more than 300 tribes native to Brazil marched to government offices in Brasilia on Friday to protest the policies of right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro that threaten their reservation lands. BRASILIA (Reuters) - Thousands of people representing the more than 300 tribes native to Brazil marched to government offices in Brasilia on Friday to protest the policies of right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro that threaten their reservation lands. Wearing body paint and headdresses made with the colourful feathers of Amazon birds, they brandished bows and arrows and beat drums while chanting resistance songs. The march comes at the end of a three-day rally in the Brazilian capital called the Free Land Encampment. "Our families are in danger, our children are under threat, our people are being attacked. In the name of what they call economic progress they want to kill our people," said David Karai Popygua, an ethnic Guarani Mbya from the state of Sao Paulo. Bolsonaro, a former army captain turned politician, was elected in October with the support of Brazil's farm sector that has pushed for access to more land and fewer environmental controls. They also want him to ease gun possession laws. One of his first measures on taking office on Jan. 1 was to dismantle the indigenous affairs agency FUNAI, handing reservation demarcation decisions to the Agriculture Ministry that is controlled by farming interests. "It is an embarrassment for our country to have a government that does not understand the struggle of indigenous peoples and has no knowledge at all of the indigenous population," said Daran, a Tupi Guarani chieftain. Brazil has more than 850,000 indigenous people that make up less than 1 percent of its population. They live on reservations that make up about 13 percent of the country's territory. Bolsonaro has said that is too much land for so few people and has vowed to review some reservation borders. He says they live poorly and wants to assimilate them by allowing large-scale farming and commercial mining on reservations. The government did not immediately comment on the protests. The country's Supreme Court on Thursday denied an injunction sought by the Brazilian Socialist Party to stop the transfer of indigenous land decisions to the agriculture ministry. Hundreds of tribal people protested outside the building. Sonia Guajajara, national coordinator of Brazil's Association of Indigenous Peoples, told Reuters that land invasions and other attacks on tribes by illegal miners and loggers had increased since Bolsonaro took office. "They say that they have been authorized to occupy indigenous land," she said. "We are here to oppose mining, hydroelectric and agribusiness companies that destroy tribal communities and Mother Nature." "We have resisted for five centuries and we are not going to surrender in four years. We will continue fighting," she said. (Reporting by Leonardo Benassatto and Anthony Boadle, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. By Dave Sherwood SANTIAGO (Reuters) - (Chilean forest service CONAF corrected currency in 5th paragraph to 350 million pesos ($518,000) from $350 million dollars) The foundation created by the late creator of U.S. clothing brands Esprit and The North Face turned over 407,000 hectares (1 million acres) of forest, mountain, lakes and glaciers in Patagonia to the government of Chile on Friday, the Tompkins Conservation Foundation said. The gift makes final a plan that began with Douglas Tompkins, a U.S By Dave Sherwood SANTIAGO (Reuters) - (Chilean forest service CONAF corrected currency in 5th paragraph to 350 million pesos ($518,000) from $350 million dollars) The foundation created by the late creator of U.S. clothing brands Esprit and The North Face turned over 407,000 hectares (1 million acres) of forest, mountain, lakes and glaciers in Patagonia to the government of Chile on Friday, the Tompkins Conservation Foundation said. The gift makes final a plan that began with Douglas Tompkins, a U.S. businessman turned conservationist who purchased the land piecemeal from ranchers and others over several years. It was the largest ever private donation of conservation land to the public, the foundation said. Chilean forest service CONAF will manage the two newly created national parks, known as Pumalin and Patagonia, as well as related tourist infrastructure, including lodges, cabins and campsites, through a concession system. Both parks are in a remote region of southern Chile known for its grandiose mountain scenery, untracked Andean peaks and rare species of wildlife, including mountain lions and Andean condors. Chile has committed to investing 350 million pesos ($518,000) to the establishment of staffing and maintenance for the newly public land, including hiring 25 park guards, CONAF said in a statement. "After years of working together with Doug, our dream that Pumalin and Patagonia Parks become national parks ... has come true," Kristine Tompkins, president of the foundation and widow of the late Douglas Tompkins, said in a statement. Douglas Tompkins, who gave up a business career to focus on philanthropy and conservation, died of hypothermia in 2015 after his kayak flipped over in the ice cold waters of the General Carrera lake in southern Chile. Tompkin's foundation struck a deal with the Chilean government shortly after his death to turn the lands over to the state. (Reporting by Dave Sherwood; Editing by Sandra Maler) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. A joint operation to hunt down the terrorists behind the Easter Sunday blasts in Sri Lanka turned into a fierce gunfight between the raid party and the suspects when a terrorist safe house was raided in the eastern Sri Lankan town of Kalmunai. Colombo: A joint operation to hunt down the terrorists behind the Easter Sunday blasts in Sri Lanka turned into a fierce gunfight between the raid party and the suspects when a terrorist safe house was raided in the eastern Sri Lankan town of Kalmunai. The joint operation, which was carried out by the Sri Lanka Army, Special Task Force and the local police, resulted in the death of 16 people, including six children and a civilian. According to army spokesman Brigadier Sumith Athapaththu, the shoot-out which lasted over two hours began on Friday evening when the joint operation team rushed to Nintavur area after hearing an explosion behind a mosque. When the security team reached the spot, suspected terrorists hiding inside the house opened fire. Two suspected terrorists were directly killed in the ensuing gun battle. Six suspected terrorists were killed in the entire operation. The army spokesperson confirmed that six children and three women had died inside the house where the main explosion took place. We believe that two of the terrorists were killed in the gun fight. The remaining four terrorists were killed when one of them blew themselves up in a house along with their families," the army spokesperson said. Following the shootout, the area was cordoned off by the security forces. But, unfortunately, six civilians were caught in the crossfire out of which one died and five others were injured. During the mission, the team recovered items believed to be used in producing videos by the group which carried out the bombings. A large cache of explosives, one assault rifle, material believed to be used for making bombs and electronic items including pen drives were recovered from the house. No troop casualties have been reported, the army Spokesman said. Soon after the blast the area was cordoned off and a curfew was imposed. More clues coming out At the same time, troops at Nintavur detected a brand new unregistered van, suspected to be belonging to one Niyas, who is reportedly the brother of National Towheed Jamats leader, Zaharan. Following detection of two ID cards, initial reports confirmed the said van had been bought in Akkaraipattu through a cash payment on 19 April 2019. A splinter group of the National Towheed Jamat is responsible for carrying out the Easter Mass bombings and Zaharan was the suicide bomber who blew himself up at the Shangri la Hotel. More raids in neighbouring town In a separate operation, the security forces recovered a huge stock of explosives and detonators when they raided another terrorist hide-out in Sammanthurai town about 15 kilometres from Kalmunai in Ampara district. According to the Military, "A joint operation by the Army, STF and Police recovered explosives, detonators, gelignite sticks, acid bottles, detonator cords, ISIS flags and banner, suicide kits, military uniforms, etc from a safe house in Samanthurai area in Ampara, earlier in the evening (Friday)." According the army spokesperson, "Seven people were arrested during the raid in Sammanthurai." Sammanthurai is about 40 kilometers away from Batticaloa- where one of the bombs on Easter Sunday went off at Zion Church. The Colombo catch! Over on the West coast in the capital of Colombo, navy personnel took into custody three suspects along with 1 kilogramme of C4 explosive when they were hiding in a three-wheeler near the Wellawatte train station. The arrest by the navy was made around 11.00 pm on Friday and the suspects were handed over to the army, navy spokesman Lt. Commander Isuru Suriyabandara said. A police curfew was imposed in Colombo and its suburbs at 10pm last night which was lifted at early Saturday morning at 4 am. Author is a freelance journalist and a member of 101Reporters. Ranil Wickremesinghe added that the two countries have been exchanging information for 'some time' and that further discussions are on. Sri Lankan prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in an interview to Doordarshan News said his country was thankful for the information provided by India regarding the terror strikes and it was "unfortunate" that they could not act on it. Wickremesinghe added that the two countries have been exchanging information for "some time" and that further discussions are on. Replying to a query on the immediate challenges his country is facing, Wickremesinghe told Doordarshan News, "Terrorism. We've had domestic terrorism in the form of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), one of the worst groups. Secondly, what we face now is part of the jihadi international terrorist campaign, so we have to face up to it. Here we see a small group of people, unlike the LTTE which was a large group mainly involved in guerrilla and conventional fighting. Explosives and suicide bombers were support groups. On the other hand, this group replies completely on this type of suicide missions. So, we've got to adjust to the fact that they may have had some international connections." "But on the bright side, our reconciliation worked and there was no communal backlash. People have held together, Christians and Muslims have worked together, we have to build on this and eliminate terror. As far as our economy is concerned, we are worried, of course. For tourism, May was the beginning of the lean season, but we have to resolve so that people come in by August, when our tourist season begins. But, of course, our earnings would not be as high as we had anticipated," he added. Wickremesinghe earlier said the government knew that Sri Lankan nationals who joined the Islamic State had returned, but they could not be arrested as joining a foreign terrorist organisation is not against the law in the island nation. The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the Easter terror attacks on three Catholic churches and three luxury hotels that claimed 253 lives but the government has blamed a local Islamist extremist group National Tawheed Jamath (NTJ) for the bombings. We knew they went to Syria...But in our country, to go abroad and return or to take part in a foreign armed uprising is not an offence, Wickremesinghe earlier told Sky News. We have no laws which enable us to take into custody people who join foreign terrorist groups. We can take those who are, who belong to terrorist groups operating in Sri Lanka," he was quoted as saying. Facing public criticism for not acting against Islamist extremist groups in the island nation, Wickremesinghe said some of the suspected attackers responsible for the Easter bombings were being monitored by the country's intelligence services. But authorities did not have "sufficient" evidence to place the suspected attackers in custody prior to the attacks, he said. Top officials have acknowledged that Sri Lanka received intelligence about possible terror strikes ahead of the attacks, but both President Maithripala Sirisena and Wickremesinghe said that they did not receive the information. Wickremesinghe told CNN that he did not rule out the possibility of more attacks in the country. He said authorities were now focussing on "sleepers": terrorists who could activate another round of attacks. "Police and security forces are rounding up those involved, but they're also rounding up the sleepers, those used on second and third rounds (of attacks)," he said. "The danger has come down drastically, (but) we do have to pick up some more sleepers, which we will do in the next few days." Sri Lankan police have released photos of six suspects, including three women, wanted for their involvement in the attacks and sought information regarding them from the public. Authorities earlier said nine bombers, believed to be members of local Islamist extremist group NTJ, carried out the blasts. With inputs from PTI At least 15 people, including six children, were killed when suicide bombers blew themselves up when cornered by security forces in eastern Sri Lanka, police said on Saturday. At least 15 people, including six children, were killed when suicide bombers blew themselves up when cornered by security forces in a suspected Islamic State hideout in eastern Sri Lanka, police said on Saturday. Three men set off explosives killing three women and six children inside what was believed to a safe house near the town of Kalmunai on Friday night, police said. "Three other men, also believed to be suicide bombers, were found dead outside the house," police said in a statement. Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara gave the figures early on Saturday after a gunfight between soldiers and the suspected militants near Sammanthurai. The gunbattle began on Friday night after police tipped off soldiers to a suspected safe house, where authorities say the militants set off three explosions and opened fire. At least three others were wounded in the attack. Earlier, the military said at least one civilian had been killed in the attack. Sri Lankan soldiers raided the neighborhood early on Saturday after a gunfight on Friday night between troops and suspects linked to the Islamic State-claimed Easter suicide attacks. Sri Lankan security forces exchanged fire with suspected Islamic State-affiliated militants in an overnight confrontation and killed at least four of them in the east of the country, police and the military said. Gunmen opened fire on troops when they attempted to storm a house in the town of Kalmunai, military spokesman Sumith Atapattu said. "In our retaliatory fire, two gunmen were killed," he said adding that a civilian caught in the crossfire was also killed. Police later said clearing operations on Saturday showed a total of four suspected suicide bombers had died during the overnight confrontation. "We found four bodies of suspected suicide bombers," the police statement said, also confirming one civilian was killed in the crossfire, while three others escaped with injuries. The joint operation between the police and the army was carried out following a tip-off that those responsible for the Easter suicide bombings were holed up in a built-up area of Kalmunai, 370 kilometres (230 miles) east of the capital. There were no casualties among the security forces, the police said. The clashes came hours after the security forces raided the location where they believe Islamist radicals recorded a video pledge to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi before carrying out the deadly Easter bombings. Police said they found an Islamic Sstate flag and uniforms similar to those worn by the eight fighters for the video before they launched Sunday's attacks against three luxury hotels and three churches, killing 253. "We have found the backdrop the group used to record their video," the police said in an earlier statement on Friday night. The Islamic State group had released the video two days after the attack. Police showed the clothing and the flag on national television, as well as some 150 sticks of dynamite and about 1,00,000 ball bearings seized from the house. Raids and police curfews shut down areas of eastern Sri Lanka as Catholic leaders cancelled Sunday Masses indefinitely. Officials also urged Muslims to stay home for prayers in an extraordinary call by the clergy to curtail worship as fear of more attacks plagued the island nation. Major General Aruna Jayasekara, the local military commander, said soldiers and police waited until daylight Saturday to carry out further raids given houses being built so close together. Officials from the police to the prime minister say militants remain on the loose and have access to explosives. That has led to increased security at shrines, churches, temples and mosques across the multiethnic country of 21 million off the southern coast of India. Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith told journalists Friday that church officials had seen a leaked security document describing Roman Catholic churches and other denominations as a major target. Ranjith, who is the archbishop of Colombo, asked the faithful across Sri Lanka to stay home for their own safety. We dont want repetitions, Ranjith said. It was an extraordinary request for a Catholic clergyman to make, as churches often remain a refuge. Giovanni Maria Vian, a church historian and emeritus editor of the Vatican newspaper, said he believed it was the first time the church had canceled Masses across a country for security reasons. With inputs from AFP, AP Government dysfunction and an intelligence failure that preceded the Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka are traced to simmering divisions between the president and prime minister after a weeks-long political crisis that crippled the country last year. Colombo: Government dysfunction and an intelligence failure that preceded the Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka are traced to simmering divisions between the president and prime minister after a weeks-long political crisis that crippled the country last year. The government has admitted to a "lapse of intelligence" after officials failed to act upon near-specific information received from foreign agencies. Suicide bombers exploded themselves last Sunday in three churches and three luxury hotels, killing 253 people and wounding 400 more. Authorities said eight Muslim militants blew themselves up at their targets while the wife of one of the attackers blasted herself on being rounded up by police. The carnage has brought forth arguments that worshippers and holidaymakers fell victim to the rivalry and a lack of communication between the country's two leaders President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. The Cabinet led by Wickremesinghe says neither he nor his ministers were informed of the intelligence received by the defense authorities. Sirisena is the head of state, defense minister, minister in charge of the police and head of the armed forces. He also chairs the National Security Council, which includes the heads of security agencies and departments. Traditionally the prime minister also plays an important role on the council. According to Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne, Sirisena has not included Wickremesinghe in national security affairs since a dispute between them came into the open in October last year. This is an unusual departure from the protocol, he said. Senaratne said that Sirisena was overseas when the attacks took place and even after that, the National Security Council refused to meet with Wickremesinghe as he tried to give them instructions. Sirisena has also said that he was not informed of the intelligence received and vowed to overhaul the leadership of the defense forces. The top bureaucrat at the Defense Ministry, Hemasiri Fernando, has resigned at Sirisena's insistence. "It is a major factor," said Jehan Perera, the head of local activist group National Peace Council, referring to the alleged lack of coordination between the leaders contributing to the failure to prevent the attacks. "The primary responsibility has to be taken by the president, he did not give the information and he did not act," Perera said. "He had the Ministry of Defense, took the police from the prime minister, chaired the National Security Council meetings and did nothing," Perera said. Kusal Perera, a journalist and political commentator, says security and intelligence officials should have acted on the information whether or not they received orders from politicians. "If they (Wickremesinghe and his party) were not invited to the National Security Council, why did not they say in Parliament that they were not responsible for the security of the country any longer," said Perera, who is not related to Jehan Perera. "Saying that now is taking political advantage, not taking responsibility," he said. Sirisena and Wickremesinghe belong to different political parties but came together for Sirisena's presidential campaign in 2015. Their relationships broke down and their differences exploded last year when Sirisena suddenly sacked Wickremesinghe as prime minister and appointed in his place former strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa, whom he defeated in the presidential election. The crisis crippled the country for more than seven weeks to the point of not being able to pass this year's national budget on time. A court decision compelled Sirisena to reappoint Wickremesinghe, but the two leaders have been rivals within the same government. Rajapaksa, who is the minority leader in Parliament, blames the government for weakening intelligence and dropping its guard, which he had maintained to defeat the separatist Tamil Tiger rebels 10 years ago to end the 26-year-old civil war. He also criticised the government for the detention of intelligence officers accused of extrajudicial killings and abductions during the closing days of the war, which he said crippled the security apparatus before the bombings. According to conservative UN estimates, some 1,00,000 people were killed in Sri Lanka's conflict. Sirisena summoned an all-party conference Thursday to which Wickremesinghe was also invited. At the conference, Sirisena stressed "setting aside all the political beliefs and difference (so that) everybody should collectively commit towards building a peaceful environment within the country," a statement from his office said. "It is not a secret that the disagreements between me and the government aggravated over the past two years," Sirisena told the country's media executives Friday. "One of the reasons for that is weakening of military intelligence and arresting military officials unnecessarily and my speaking up against it within and outside the government." Jehan Perera said that the security threat could prove politically advantageous to Rajapaksa and his family, with a presidential election scheduled at the end of this year. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, a younger brother of Mahinda, was the powerful defense secretary during his brother's reign and has expressed his interest to join the contest. "People are saying we want a stronger leader and they are talking about Gotabhaya. It (the blasts) has worked to their benefit," Perera said. GENEVA (Reuters) - At least 21 Venezuelans were missing after their boat sank on the way to the Caribbean island nation of Trinidad and Tobago, the United Nations refugee agency said on Friday. GENEVA (Reuters) - At least 21 Venezuelans were missing after their boat sank on the way to the Caribbean island nation of Trinidad and Tobago, the United Nations refugee agency said on Friday. The boat, the "Jhonnaly Jose", was carrying at least 25 people from the Venezuelan coastal town of Guiria when it capsized in the early hours of Wednesday, UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch told a regular U.N. briefing in Geneva. "This tragic incident highlights the extreme risks of sea journeys and other irregular cross-border movements undertaken by refugees and migrants. It also underscores the desperation of those forced to flee their homes and the extraordinary difficulties faced on their journey," he said. Over 3 million Venezuelans have fled the South American country since 2014 due to widespread shortages of food and medicine and deteriorating law and order. Four of the 25 aboard the boat were rescued by the Trinidad and Tobago coast guard after a search and rescue effort carried out jointly with Venezuelan counterparts, and then taken back to Venezuela, Baloch said. Trinidad and Tobago is situated about 70 km (45 miles) from Venezuela's northern coastal state of Sucre. The maritime defence unit of Venezuela's armed forces said on Twitter later on Friday that Sucre's coast guard had rescued 10 passengers and that the search was continuing. It said 34 people had been travelling on the boat, and did not mention any deaths. Venezuela has been in deep political crisis since January when Juan Guaido, head of the opposition-controlled congress, invoked the constitution to assume an interim presidency, arguing President Nicolas Maduro's 2018 re-election was not legitimate. (Reporting by Tom Miles; Additional reporting by Caracas newsroom; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Rosalba O'Brien) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. The US has imposed sanctions on Pakistan after Islamabad refused to take back its citizen deportees and visa over-stayers from America, warning that it may withhold visas of Pakistanis beginning from its senior officials. Washington: The US has imposed sanctions on Pakistan after Islamabad refused to take back its citizen deportees and visa over-stayers from America, warning that it may withhold visas of Pakistanis beginning from its senior officials. The State Department on Friday said that consular operations in Pakistan remain unchanged as of now but as a result of such a sanction mentioned in a Federal Register notification dated 22 April, the US may withhold visas of Pakistanis beginning with its senior officials. Pakistan is the latest to join the list of 10 nations that have been imposed with sanctions under a US law according to which countries refusing to take back deportees and visa over-stayers will be denied American visas. Notably eight of these countries have been slapped with such visa sanctions under the Donald Trump administration. Two of them Ghana and Pakistan have been included in the list this year. The other countries include Guyana in 2001, the Gambia in 2016, Cambodia, Eritrea, Guinea, and Sierra Leone in 2017, Burma and Laos in 2018. Under Section 243 (d) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the Secretary of State is required to discontinue granting immigration or non-immigrant visas to a nation upon receiving notice from the Homeland Security Secretary that the country has denied or is unreasonably delaying accepting a citizen, subject, national or resident of that country. The State Department tried to downplay the impact of the sanctions on Pakistan. "Consular operations in Pakistan remain unchanged, a State Department Spokesperson told PTI when asked about the federal register notification. This is a bilateral issue of ongoing discussion between the US and Pakistani governments and we are not going to get into the specifics at this time, the spokesperson added. Former Pakistan's Ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani, feels that this will make things difficult for Pakistanis. This measure will create hardship for Pakistanis who want or need to travel to the US and could have been avoided if Pakistani authorities had not ignored American requests to respect their legal requirements for deportation, Haqqani told PTI, days after the federal register notification. He said that Pakistan's refusal to accept its citizen deported from the US is not new. Pakistan's refusal to accept every Pakistani citizen deported from the US is not new. It seems that the US is no longer willing to overlook a wide range of official Pakistani behaviour. Bonhomie has been replaced by sanctions and restrictions based on Islamabad's policy decisions, Haqqani said. While the law in this regard has been under existence since 1996, it is only in last several years that there had been increasing demand from lawmakers towards its enforcement against countries that had refused to accept deportees and visa over-stayers. In the last few years, India has been taking such deportees on special planes at regular intervals. The Trump administration after coming to power had said that it will strictly enforce such provisions by denying visas to people from those countries that refuse it accepting deportees and visa over-stayers. While section 243 (d) of the Immigration and Nationality Act was used only twice before 2017, the Trump Administration has been effective in using this provision on many countries, including Pakistan. However, the State Department federal register notification indicates that the number of visa denial under this sanction is far less. Since the law was modified to cover non-immigrant visas in 1996, 318 visa applicants have been affected, the notification said. During this same time period, tens of millions of aliens have received non-immigrant visas including, collectively, millions of applicants from the 10 countries affected, the notification said. The Federal Register notification said that there is no set formula, though, notably State has never issued a blanket refusal for visas from the country in question. For some countries, sanctions begin by targeting officials who work in the ministries responsible for accepting the return of that country's nationals with escalation scenarios that target family members of those officials and potentially officials of other ministries and then other categories of applicants if initial sanctions do not prove effective at encouraging greater cooperation on removals by the targeted government, the notification said. In a hot market like today, it's easy to ignore Dividend Aristocrats, the elite group of S&P 500 stocks that have raised their dividend every year for at least 25 years. Tech stocks like the FANG group, none of which even offer a dividend, have stolen headlines and delivered monster returns in recent years. But there have been plenty of dividend-paying winners as well. Even for growth investors, it's a good idea to consider diversifying with some dividend stocks, and there's no better place to look than the list of Dividend Aristocrats, proven and reliable winners for more than a generation. Keep reading to see why these three Motley Fool contributors love Abbott Labs (NYSE:ABT), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ), and McDonald's (NYSE:MCD). Innovation could fuel future dividend increases Todd Campbell (Abbott Labs): Abbott Labs has increased its dividend for 46 consecutive years, and there's good reason to think that the medical device giant's track record won't change anytime soon. The company's latest continuous glucose monitor (CGM) will soon be available in the U.S., and when that happens, it should provide profit tailwinds that support future dividend increases. The diabetes market is massive. There are over 400 million people with diabetes worldwide, and industry watchers think that figure will increase to over 500 million by 2045. Currently, CGMs are used mostly by type 1 diabetics to monitor their blood sugar levels to determine appropriate insulin dosing. Type 1 diabetes accounts for less than 5% of the diabetic population in the U.S., but cheaper CGMs could spread their use to tens of millions of people. Abbott's CGM -- the FreeStyle Libre -- is the lowest-cost CGM on the market. A second-generation version of it is already available in Europe, and it's currently under Food and Drug Administration review for approval in the U.S. Although Libre 2.0 isn't sold in the U.S. yet, rising sales of the Libre 1.0 in the U.S. and strong sales of Libre 2 in Europe are boosting Abbott's financials. In Q1, an 80% year-over-year increase in Libre sales to $380 million caused sales for Abbott's diabetes care segment to increase 40%. As a massive company, Abbott Labs isn't going to have one product alone make it or break it, but Libre's performance is still noteworthy. It's a big reason Abbott's guiding for sales to increase by at least 6.5% in 2019. And it's a great indication of how innovation may fuel dividend increases beyond today's 1.6% yield in the coming decades. Operational excellence in the healthcare sector has only one name Sean Williams (Johnson & Johnson): Although there are nearly five dozen Dividend Aristocrats to choose from in 2019, I spy with my eye only one company among the group with the most pristine credit rating of them all (AAA), even higher than that of the U.S. government. I'm talking about none other than Johnson & Johnson, and its 2.6% dividend yield. Even though J&J has received some bad press of late concerning legal judgments tied to its talcum baby powder, this represents but a momentary speed bump for a healthcare conglomerate that's mapped a long road of success. What makes Johnson & Johnson so successful is the company's operational diversity. Each of its three segments brings something to the table that the other segments lack, making J&J the trusted investment it is today. The consumer health division tends to deliver the weakest long-term growth prospects, but by far the most predictable cash flow. Not to mention, pricing power for consumer health products is relatively strong, leading to slow, but steady, growth. The medical device segment is a play on the future. While medical devices have been somewhat commoditized in the near term, an aging population of boomers is liable to need an increasing number of spinal, hip, and knee procedures as time goes on. As one of the largest producers of medical devices in the world, J&J is uniquely positioned to take advantage of an aging population and improved global access to medical and preventative care. Lastly, there's Johnson & Johnson's pharmaceutical segment, which now represents about half its total sales. Brand-name drugs only have a finite runway due to patent expirations. But J&J has built up an impressive-enough portfolio, both organically and through acquisitions and partnerships, that operational growth in its pharma segment has the ability to hit double digits. In fact, pharmaceutical sales are predominantly responsible for helping J&J to its 35th consecutive year of adjusted earnings growth in 2018. Johnson & Johnson may not offer the flash of a fast-growing biotech stock, but among Dividend Aristocrats, it's truly elite. Everything you need for an investor happy meal Jeremy Bowman (McDonald's): There's no question that the way Americans eat has changed a lot over the last generation, but that's done little to deter McDonald's consistent growth. The fast-food giant remains the world's biggest restaurant chain by systemwide sales, and under CEO Steve Easterbrook, the company has a number of initiatives to continue delivering growth. McDonald's strengths like its well-known brand and prime real estate aren't going anywhere. But Easterbrook has revamped the company by remodeling stores through the company's Experience of the Future program, updating the menu with fresh beef for the Quarter Pounder, expanding value-menu options, and adding all-day breakfast. He's also embraced delivery through a partnership with Uber Eats, and refranchised stores at home and abroad to unlock cash flow. Last year, comparable-store sales rose 4.5%, including positive growth in all its segments, and EPS jumped 18% to $7.54, with the help of a lower tax rate. McDonald's also raised its dividend by 15% to $1.16 each quarter, good for a yield of 2.4% today with shares at an all-time high. Its payout ratio is also reasonable at 62% based on last year's EPS, giving the company plenty of room to continue lifting its dividend. McDonald's business, operating fast-food restaurants, is timeless. And the company's global brand gives it an advantage over challengers around the world. As it continues to modernize its stores and its menu, the company's performance should improve, and investors will reap the benefits both in share price appreciation and dividend growth. Back in early February, Spirit Airlines (NYSE:SAVE) reported that adjusted earnings per share had nearly doubled in the final quarter of 2018. That represented a sharp reversal from the first half of the year, when EPS was still declining -- despite a significant tailwind from tax reform. Spirit Airlines' earnings momentum continued in the first quarter of 2019. Moreover, while the carrier's second-quarter guidance was somewhat disappointing, Spirit expects to deliver strong EPS growth this quarter in the face of some short-term headwinds. Nevertheless, Spirit Airlines stock plummeted 9% on Thursday because of the weaker-than-expected outlook. That has created a great buying opportunity for long-term investors. Another excellent quarter Spirit's initial guidance for the first quarter called for revenue per available seat mile (RASM) to increase 5% year over year. Meanwhile, management expected lower fuel costs to offset most of a projected 2% to 3% increase in nonfuel unit costs. That would have likely enabled the carrier to double its EPS compared to the first quarter of 2018. Earlier this month, Spirit Airlines modestly reduced its RASM forecast for the first quarter. It also said that its average fuel price had come in somewhat above its initial estimate -- because of a sharp surge in oil prices in recent months -- but that it had used less fuel than expected. On Wednesday afternoon, the airline reported that RASM rose 4.1% last quarter on a 16.9% increase in capacity. Total revenue surged 21.5% to $856 million. Meanwhile, adjusted total unit costs crept up just 0.4%, as slightly lower fuel prices and better fuel efficiency nearly offset a 2.4% increase in adjusted nonfuel unit costs. This caused Spirit Airlines' adjusted pre-tax margin to rise to 8.6% from 5.6% a year earlier. Adjusted EPS surged 91% to $0.84, right in line with the average analyst estimate. Guidance misses the mark Looking ahead to the second quarter, Spirit Airlines expects RASM to rise about 5% year over year. While that would be slightly better than the 4.1% increase it achieved last quarter, Spirit faced a roughly 2.5 percentage point unit revenue headwind in the first quarter related to the timing of Easter. Theoretically, the Easter calendar shift should have put Spirit on track to post a huge unit revenue gain this quarter. However, that doesn't seem to be the case. Spirit Airlines was forced to cancel more than 300 flights over Easter weekend because of severe storms in Florida (the carrier's largest market), hurting unit revenue. Fare weakness in the first half of April will weigh on RASM this quarter, as well. The flight cancellations last weekend also led to incremental costs for the airline. On top of that, Spirit plans to keep more spare planes and crew members in Fort Lauderdale (its largest base) this summer, to minimize the customer impacts of a major runway construction project there. The net result is that Spirit expects adjusted nonfuel unit costs to rise about 4.6% in Q2. Fuel prices remain on track to decline year over year in the second quarter, but Spirit Airlines will still face a bigger increase in total unit costs than it did last quarter. The airline's forecast points to adjusted EPS of roughly $1.56 this quarter, up more than 40% year over year but well shy of the average analyst estimate of $1.97. Spirit Airlines stock is still extremely cheap The analyst consensus for Spirit Airlines' full-year EPS has fallen from $6.62 to $6.08 over the past two months. In light of the company's disappointing outlook for the second quarter, it will almost certainly continue to head lower. Indeed, the Fort Lauderdale runway construction project could have an even bigger impact on Spirit's Q3 earnings than on the current quarter. Still, even using conservative earnings estimates, Spirit Airlines stock trades for perhaps 10 times its likely 2019 EPS. That's an incredibly low valuation for a company that is growing revenue at a double-digit pace and boosting EPS even faster. Of course, fluctuations in fuel prices, industry capacity, and one-time events can spoil any single quarter. But over the next few years, Spirit Airlines should be able to keep growing revenue at a double-digit rate while expanding its pre-tax margin by continuing its ongoing route network evolution, refreshing its loyalty program, and upgrading its co-branded credit card program. If the carrier comes anywhere close to fulfilling its long-term potential, Spirit Airlines stock could fly much higher in the coming years. The second meeting occurred at Thumma's apartment on West Marshall Street. She was allegedly shown Thumma's Apple computer and was allowed to search a website for the nude photos. The search turned up none of the photos and she immediately left the apartment, according to the affidavit. However, the FBI agent said the woman noted that the website she viewed had ended in ".onion," rather than ".com" or ".org," indicating it was on the "Tor" network. The Tor network makes it more difficult to trace Internet activity to a user. Someone used other services to hide their telephone number in order to send the woman messages. On Dec. 26, she was sent an email from "GhostFlex@protonmail.com" that contained two nude photos of her. From December to February, she received more messages from "GhostFlex@protonmail.com" and some from "hesh@ctemplar.com." "Hesh@ctemplar" demanded $25,000 and that payment should be made via Bitcoins. CTemplar is another secure email service similar to ProtonMail, the FBI said. On Feb. 16, the woman discovered that her Twitter account had been compromised. A former doctor who worked with a nurse practitioner from Fredericksburg to illegally distribute more than 600,000 opiate pills was ordered Friday to serve seven years in prison. Shriharsh Laxman Pole, 65, had previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute controlled substances. He was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Alexandria. Janelle Hibson, 63, of Fredericksburg, a nurse practitioner who worked with Pole at his office in Woodbridge, has pleaded guilty to the same charge. According to court records, Pole surrendered his medical license in 2009 and in 2013 after admitting that he wrongfully prescribed opiates, including oxycodone, oxymorphone, hydrocodone and hydromorphone. After giving up his license the second time, Pole founded Excel Medical Clinic. He operated at the same Woodbridge location as before and had the same employees and patients, court records state. He hired Hibson, who was certified to practice medicine in the state. Stafford County detectives have arrested a man accused of operating a prostitution ring along the U.S. 17 corridor in the county, authorities said. Brian Lamont Turner, 38, of Waynesboro is charged with multiple counts of receiving money from the earnings of a prostitute. He is being held in the Rappahannock Regional Jail. Sheriffs spokeswoman Amanda Vicinanzo said two women have also been charged in an ongoing investigation into prostitution and human trafficking in the U.S. 17 area of Stafford. Vicinanzo said the investigation began as the result of an April 11 disturbance at the Days Inn at 14 Simpson Road. Preliminary investigations revealed that several women were being employed as prostitutes at motels in that area, she said. The Sheriffs Offices Special Investigations Unit was eventually told about a suspect known initially only as B. Investigators later identified B as Turner, Vicinanzo said. Authorities allege that Turner supplied two prostitutes to an undercover detective who was part of the sting operation. Turner was later taken into custody in the parking lot of the Sleep Inn on U.S. 17. AMERICANS ages 65 and older are the fastest growing segment of the U.S. populationincreasing from 35 million in 2000 to more than 49 million in 2016. These aging Americans also are the target of one of the fastest growing crimes in the countyelder fraud. According to the FBI, senior citizens make attractive targets for con artists because they are likely to have significant savings and excellent credit. Senior citizens also tend to be polite and trusting. Lonely adults often can be drawn in by a friendly scammer simply because theyre desperate to have someone to talk to. And frail adults can be easily intimidated by bullying, overbearing hustlers. If they do become victims of a scam, older Americans are less likely to report a fraud because they either dont know whom to report it to or are too ashamed. Often, theyre concerned that family members will regard the incident as proof the senior no longer has the mental capacity to live alone or handle his own affairs. And, says the FBI, when seniors do report a scam, they can be poor witnesses. Fading eyesight, poor hearing and memory loss can affect the information and descriptions they provide to authorities. The moments where the younger Tommys are visited by older Tommy, and vice versa, give the show greater emotional depth. The staging of the final scene is particularly heartwarming. Captain Walker and Mrs. Walker are exceptionally played by Broadway veterans Borle and Gonzalez. Their voices come together so beautifully on the moving duet I Believe My Own Eyes, when their characters express their frustration and sadness about Tommy and their marriage. Gonzalez follows this up with Mrs. Walkers angry solo Smash the Mirror, lashing out at an unresponsive Tommy; her singing of that repetitive, escalating rise line is chill-inducing. With two musical powerhouses onstage, you cant help but want to hear much more from them. Gonzalez, an original from Lin-Manuel Mirandas In the Heights, is currently starring as Angelica Schuyler in Broadways Hamilton; and Borle is a two-time Tony winner for Something Rotten! and Peter and the Starcatcher. It would be fantastic to see these two return to the Kennedy Center and really put their talents on display. Days Gone is filled with groups of bandits who have set up Ambush Camps. In a harsh world, these bandits are the worst of humanity, groups of murderers who have banded together to lure people in and then kill them. It is your job to clear out these camps. Bear Creek Bunker Location The first thing you want to do is take out all the bandits in the camp. There are 15 in total, and it is a good idea to sneak up the hill and crawl through the gap at the back, as this allows you to come at them with the element of surprise. Use your binoculars to mark every enemy you see, then sneak through the camp, taking out as many of them as you can using stealth attacks. There also will generally be a pretty tanky enemy wearing some protective gear in the house at the center of the camp, so you want to be careful as you approach that building. Once the camp has been fully cleared, you can then head for the bunker entrance. It is a small circular hatch close to the cliff face that surrounds the Ambush Camp. We have it marked on the map above for you. Head down into the bunker and find the map on the table in the back, and this part of the Ambush Camp challenge mission will be completed. Now that you have the Ambush Camp clear, and have discovered the Bear Creek Bunker, this camp become somewhere you can rest if you need to, and the surrounding area will become a little bit safer. Intel looking for buyers for its smartphone-modem business News oi-Vishal Kawadkar The business is losing 1 billion every year. Intel might be looking for firms to acquire its smartphone-modem business, since it's now officially out of the 5G chipset race, reports The Wall Street Journal. In fact, Apple was also seen as the potential buyer, but that deal didn't come to fruition as Apple and Qualcomm reached a settlement in a patent infringement dispute. After the legal dispute got over, Apple and Qualcomm signed a multi-year deal for the chipsets, which ruled out Intel from the scenario. Now, it seems Intel wants to shut its chip-making operations, according to WSJ. Apple is still seen as a possible buyer, though a few other companies have shown interest and Intel is working with Goldman Sachs to facilitate negotiations. The report also suggests that the deal will likely rack in billions of dollars for Intel. Qualcomm was Apple's only supplier before the companies got involved in legal battles in 2017, accusing each other of patent infringement and contract violations. During this time, Intel can in to rescue Apple. Intel also denied rumors that Apple didn't show confidence in them to produce 5G modems for upcoming iPhones. "We are very excited about the opportunity in 5G and the 'cloudification' of the network, but in the smartphone modem business it has become apparent that there is no clear path to profitability and positive returns," Intel CEO Bob Swan said on April 16th. According to the report, Intel is losing around 1 billion because of its modem business and will sell off the business including staff, patents, and designs of the modems. 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 Nubia Red Magic 3 shows up on Geekbench with 8GB RAM and Snapdragon 855 SoC News oi-Sandeep Sarkar The Nubia NX629J has logged 3,513 points in the single-core test and total of 11,309 points in the multi-core tests. Nubia, ZTE's sub-brand is gearing up to launch its latest game oriented smartphone called Red Magic 3. The Chinese smartphone manufacturer has scheduled a launch event of the Red Magic 3 gaming smartphone tomorrow in its hometown China. Just ahead of its official launch, the upcoming Nubia flagship has made its way to popular benchmarking platform Geekbench. The Geekbench listing of the Nubia Red Magic 3 gaming smartphone reveals the multi-core and single-core test scores along with some of the specifications. The smartphone has been listed with a model number NX629J on the benchmarking platform. The listing confirms the previous leaks which suggested an octa-core Snapdragon processor powering the smartphone. To handle multitasking with ease, the smartphone will ship with 8GB of RAM. Coming to the benchmarking scores, the Nubia NX629J has logged 3,513 points in the single-core tests. On the other hand, the device scored a total of 11,309 points in the multi-core tests. It is worth noting that the smartphone was listed with the same NX629J model number of mobile certification website 3C. The 3C certification of the device suggested support for 30W fast charging. As for the expected specifications, the Red Magic 3 gaming smartphone is said to ship with a high-resolution display panel which will offer a higher display refresh rate of 90 Hz or 120 Hz. Powering the smartphone could be a mammoth 5000mAh battery. In addition to the 8GB RAM variant, Nubia could also introduce a 12GB variant of the gaming device. The complete renders of the device will be revealed tomorrow following its official launch. We will keep you posted with all the latest updates related to the upcoming Nubia Red Magic 3 smartphone. Stay tuned on Gizbot for all latest technology related updates. 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 U.S. Judge Sentences Russian National Maria Butina To 18 Months In Prison By RFE/RL April 26, 2019 WASHINGTON -- Maria Butina, who pleaded guilty to not registering as an agent for the Russian government, was sentenced to 18 months in U.S. prison, in a case that prosecutors said highlighted Russian efforts to infiltrate American political circles. U.S. Judge Tanya Chutkan announced the sentence April 26 in Washington D.C. federal court, accepting what prosecutors had requested in their pre-sentencing filings. Chutkan also ordered Butina to be deported to Russia immediately after she finishes her prison sentence, which is expected in January 2020 after receiving credit for the time she has already spent in U.S. custody. Prior to the sentencing, Butina, 30, reportedly told the court she was "deeply" sorry and asked the court for mercy. "My reputation is ruined, both here in the United States and abroad," she said. She also asked for "a chance to go home and restart my life." Defense lawyers had argued that Butina was merely eager to build connections with U.S. political activists, particularly conservatives, and that her failure to register with the Justice Department was an oversight on her part. Chutkan rejected those arguments. "This was not a simple misunderstanding by an overeager foreign student," she was quoted as saying. The case against Butina was separate from the now-concluded investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, but it touched on many of the same issues related to how and why Russia sought to interfere in U.S. politics in and before the 2016 presidential election. Prosecutors say that before and during her studies at American University in Washington, she sought to build relationships with U.S. conservative political groups, including the influential National Rifle Association, on behalf of at least one powerful Kremlin-connected lawmaker. Butina pleaded guilty in December and agreed to cooperate with investigators. She has been held in custody since her arrest. In her presentencing filing, Butina's lawyers asked the court to sentence her to time already served. "Although Maria has committed a serious offense, just punishment does not require additional incarceration," the lawyers wrote. But in their presentencing filings, prosecutors sought to bolster their argument that Butina's actions were far from innocent. "Butina was not a spy in the traditional sense of trying to gain access to classified information to send back to her home country. She was not a trained intelligence officer," prosecutors wrote in a memo filed April 19. "But the actions she took were nonetheless taken on behalf of the Russian Official for the benefit of the Russian Federation, and those actions had the potential to damage the national security of the United States." The Kremlin has called the charges against Butina "groundless," and Russian President Vladimir Putin has insisted that Butina pleaded guilty "under pressure." "Maria Butina is a political prisoner, a victim of provocations by intelligence agencies and the arbitrary application of repressive U.S. laws. Under the current conditions of paranoid Russophobia, common sense has not prevailed," the Russian Embassy in Washington said in a post to Twitter after the sentence was handed down. "We demand her immediate release." The Foreign Ministry in Moscow added to that statement, asserting that Butina had changed her plea to guilty given the potential for an even lengthier prison sentence. "Our compatriot was convicted only for being a citizen of Russia," it said in a statement. "This sentence is a shameful stain on the American judicial system, which was made as the result of a blatant political order." With reporting by RIA Novosti, AP, and Reuters Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/butina-sentenced-to-18- months-in-u-s-court/29906110.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 US Court Sentences Russian National Butina to 18 Months in Prison Sputnik News 18:08 26.04.2019(updated 20:26 26.04.2019) Maria Butina, a 30-year-old Russian national and gun rights activist, was arrested by the FBI last July and charged with conspiring to act as a "foreign agent". Judge Tanya Chutkan read out Butina's sentence after a hearing at the US District Court for the District of Columbia on Friday. Chutkan said Butina's actions threatened US national security, with the Russian national to be deported to Russia immediately after serving out her 18-month sentence. Butina reportedly told the court that she was "deeply sorry" for failing to register as a foreign agent, and that she regretted that her actions had harmed Russian-US bilateral relations. Butina maintained that she acted alone. Prior to sentencing, the prosecutor urged the court to show leniency in sentencing due to Butina's guilty plea and her cooperation with authorities during the proceedings. Commenting on the sentence, the Russian Embassy in Washington, DC said in a statement that Butina is a political prisoner in the United States and demands that the US authorities immediately release her from prison. "Butina is a political prisoner, a victim of provocations of the Secret Service and arbitrary use of repressive laws in the United States," the Russian Embassy said. "We insist on her innocence [and] demand her immediate release." Butina, who has been in US custody since last July, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to act as an unregistered foreign agent as part of a plea deal in December. Last month, prosecutors agreed with the defence to deport Butina immediately after sentencing, before changing their strategy just days before Friday's hearing and recommending prison time, citing an FBI declaration about the "significant damage to the United States" that Butina's alleged work for the Russian government may have caused. Russian President Vladimir Putin has called Butina's arrest and indictment unjustified, because she was not charged with any actual mission on behalf of the Russian government. The Russian foreign ministry has accused US authorities of pressuring Butina into giving a false confession to the charges against her, citing intolerable detention conditions, including long periods in solitary confinement, and threats of a long prison term. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US Court Sentences Russian Operative Butina to 18 Months By Masood Farivar April 26, 2019 Maria Butina, the Russian gun rights enthusiast accused of seeking to infiltrate conservative political circles in the United States, was sentenced Friday to 18 months in prison. Butina, a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association and a former graduate student at American University in Washington, was arrested last July in the U.S. capital on charges of acting as an agent of a foreign official without notifying the attorney general. The former Kremlin official, Alexander Torshin, allegedly directed Butina to use her gun rights activism to establish relationships with politically influential Americans and to open unofficial lines of communication between the Americans and Moscow in the run-up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election, according to prosecutors. Guilty plea Butina pleaded guilty in December to the conspiracy charge, admitting that she collected information about the NRA, the nation's largest gun lobby, and other organizations at Torshin's direction from 2015 to 2017. Two Americans allegedly helped Butina with the conspiracy. One of them, Paul Erickson, a Republican political operative who dated Butina at the time of her arrest, was indicted in February on unrelated charges of wire fraud and money laundering. The case against Butina is not related to the special counsel investigation of Russian interference in the election. In Washington, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who imposed the sentence, said Butina would receive credit for time served and ordered her deported as soon as she completes her prison term. An emotional Butina, dressed in plain prison clothing and flanked by her two attorneys, told the judge that her aim was to mend relations between Russia and the United States. "Instead of building peace, I created discord," she said. "Now, I beg for mercy, for the chance to go home and rebuild my life." Butina faced a maximum of five years in prison. Chutkan said she was imposing the 18-month sentence requested by prosecutors because of the seriousness of Butina's offense. "She was doing this under the direction of a Russian official ... at a time that Russia was looking to interfere with the U.S. political process," Chutkan said. "This was no simple misunderstanding by an overeager foreign student." Butina's attorneys had called for her release, arguing that she had accepted responsibility, cooperated extensively with investigators and had already served nine months in jail. "Maria is not a spy," attorney Alfred Carry said. "She's not intelligence. She's never been employed by the Russian government. She knows of no secret codes, safe houses. ... She has never engaged in covert activity and she has never lied to our government." Butina said she would have registered as a foreign agent "without delay," had she known about the requirement. But prosecutors said her crime was not merely a registration offense. "This is a case where the defendant acted in the United States as the agent of a foreign government," said prosecutor Erik Kenerson. "She did so for the benefit of Russia." In a recent sentencing memo, prosecutors said that while Butina was not a traditional spy, her actions on behalf of the Russian government had the potential to undermine U.S. national security. In addition, they wrote that Butina was "keenly aware that portions of her work" were reported to "the wider Russian government." The judge agreed. "It is because she did not register that her conduct was so dangerous," Chutkan said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Trump heeds NRA, decides to pull US out of UN's Arms Trade Treaty Iran Press TV Fri Apr 26, 2019 08:20PM President Donald Trump has said he would pull the United States out of the United Nations' Arms Trade Treaty which sets global standards for regulating transfers of conventional arms. The agreement, known as the ATT, was signed by former President Barack Obama in 2013 but opposed by the National Rifle Association (NRA) and other conservative groups. Announcing his decision on Friday, Trump said, "We will never surrender American sovereignty to anyone." He said he planned to revoke the status of the US as a signatory of the agreement, which the Senate never ratified. "We are taking our signature back," the president told members of the NRA. Trump then signed a document from the podium, requesting that the Senate immediately halt the ratification process and send the treaty back to him so he could annul US participation. The treaty, which regulates the $70 billion business in conventional arms and aims to keep weapons out of the hands of human rights abusers, has long been opposed by the NRA. In 2016, the lobbying group spent $30.3 million supporting Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a group which tracks campaign spending. Following Trump's decision, international human rights groups immediately reacted, denouncing the move. Abby Maxman, the president of Oxfam America, an international anti-poverty group, said, "President Trump is sending a clear message to civilians caught in the crossfire: we don't care." Adotei Akwei of Amnesty International USA also said in a statement: "With this announcement, the Trump administration will re-open the floodgates for arms sales with weakened human rights criteria." Around 100 countries have officially signed the treaty so far, and another 29, including the US, have signed it, but not yet formally joined. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Yemen's Houthis begin radical reforms plan Iran Press TV Fri Apr 26, 2019 04:51PM The Houthi Ansarullah movement's new "National Vision" lays out Sana'a's road map towards building a "modern, stable and democratic state," which seeks peace and equal cooperation with the international community. The Ansarullah's incumbent President of the Supreme Political Council in the Yemeni capital, Sana'a, Mahdi al-Mashat, announced the implementation of the movement's manifesto this week. Press TV was among the first to receive the English translation of the document, which contains 175 strategic aims on how to rebuild the badly damaged nation. The reforms plan, known as the National Vision, aims to protect the Yemeni people and rebuild the war-torn country, while at the same time, "strengthen state institutions," which have been rendered inadequate due to the war. President al-Mashat, who is also a senior member of the Ansarullah political party, acknowledged that Yemen is at a difficult stage in its history. Speaking at the inauguration event attended by members of the Council, Mashat called for the nation to sharpen its resolve and move towards rebuilding the country. However, Mashat admitted that "while we are confronting the (Saudi-led) aggression, we are at the same time facing the challenge of the state-building." The Ansarullah-led government, known as the National Salvation Government of the Republic of Yemen, has officially adopted this new vision. Yemen has been dealing with ongoing conflict, which includes a nationwide blockade, enforced by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition of regional allies that launched a devastating campaign against Yemen in March 2015. The Saudi coalition's offensive was aimed at bringing the government of former President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power by crushing Ansarullah and their National Salvation Government in Sana'a. Speaking to Press TV, the chairman of the International Solidarity Committee with Yemen, Rune Agerhus, explained why this new vision is so important. "This document is truly historic. First of all, it completely shreds the narrative of supposed 'violent rebels' holding the capital, but rather shows a competent government institution showing a willingness to alleviate the suffering of the Yemeni people, it re-establishes the Yemeni democracy and seeks to make Yemen a prosperous nation." "It's also a sign of Yemen opening its arms to the international community. They want to re-establish good and equal relations with the countries of the world, as well as open up for foreign investments." The idea of a new National Vision was initially proclaimed by the former Yemeni President Saleh al-Sammad. Samad was killed during a coalition airstrike last year. A famous quote by the former president, "one hand protects, the other hand builds," has been used as the slogan for the Sana'a government's new vision. Some of the many critical areas of focus for the government include raising the average life expectancy and improving electricity and water supplies, while also reducing the illiteracy rate and tackling corruption. Ismail al-Shami, the media announcer for Yemen's state news broadcaster al-Masirah, told Press TV that the Vision was a "good and practical" step. "The vision was made from the reality of the need of Yemeni citizen's and has many steps that will help in building Yemen and raise living standards." Shami added, "It will help provide services and strengthen the economy to reach self-sufficiency in all areas, if they apply it well." The deadline for successful implementation of the Ansarullah vision is the year 2030. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address President Ghani urges new MPs to participate in peace process with Taliban Iran Press TV Fri Apr 26, 2019 02:23PM Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani has called on newly-elected lawmakers to take part in the peace process with the Taliban militant group aimed at finding a way to solve the country's 17-year conflict. Ghani inaugurated the new parliament on Friday, almost six months following the controversial elections last year in the war-ravaged country as well as long delays, unresolved disputes and political bickering. "We have presented the peace plan on a regular basis and we are committed to it," the Afghan president said in an address to the first session of the parliament. "Based on this plan, there will be no peace deal and negotiation that does not have the green card of the parliament," he added. Ghani has invited thousands of politicians, religious scholars and rights activists to the grand assembly of Loya Jirga next week on the peace process in the country. The Loya Jirga is a centuries-old institution used to build consensus among competing tribes, factions and ethnic groups in Afghanistan. However, many opposition leaders have said they would boycott the four-day large gathering in Kabul because it was pulled together without their input and is being used by the Afghan president who seeks a second term in an election in September. Opposition politicians have called for Ghani's withdrawal at the end of his mandate next month, saying he should give way to an interim government to oversee peace talks with the Taliban. However, the Afghan president has ruled that out. Back in February, representatives from the Taliban militant group attended a meeting with high-ranking Afghan politicians in the Russian capital city of Moscow, where the participants called for an interim government as they negotiated without delegates from the incumbent administration in attendance. The rare intra-Afghan gathering saw the Taliban elaborating on their vision for Afghanistan, among them rules around women and replacement of the country's Constitution with one drawn up by Islamic scholars. The United States and the Taliban militant group said in March that they have made "meaningful progress" in their latest talks held in the Qatari capital of Doha. US special envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad said the two sides had reached "agreement in draft" on the issues of troops withdrawal and counter-terrorism assurances. A highly-placed member of the Taliban militant group said last week the next round of negotiations between the outfit and the United States will focus on the timetable for the pullout of all foreign troops from Afghanistan. In an interview with AFP in Doha, the Taliban's political spokesman Suhail Shaheen said previous negotiations with Washington had seen the two sides agree to a total withdrawal. Opposition politicians have called for Ghani's withdrawal at the end of his mandate next month, saying he should give way to an interim government to oversee peace talks with the Taliban. However, the Afghan president has ruled that out. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Trump Says U.S. Withdrawing From Treaty Regulating Conventional Weapons April 26, 2019 U.S. President Donald Trump said he would withdraw U.S. backing for a treaty that sought to regulate the global trade in small arms and other conventional weaponry. Trump made the announcement on April 26 at a convention of the most influential U.S. gun rights organization, the National Rifle Association, which had asserted the 2014 treaty posed a threat to gun rights. The Arms Trade Treaty regulates international trade in conventional weapons, such as small weaponry and hand-held guns. It also regulates the purchase and sale of things like tanks, combat aircraft, and warships. The treaty has been formally joined by 101 nations, and signed but not yet ratified by 29, including the United States. Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama, signed it in 2013 but it was never ratified by the U.S. Senate. Trump told the National Rifle Association convention that America was "rejecting this treaty." "We're taking our signature back," he said. The United States is the world's largest arms exporter. Since taking office in 2017, Trump has undone or rolled back other major international agreements, such as the Paris Climate Agreement, which aims to reduce global carbon emissions that scientists link to harmful climate change. Last year, Trump pulled the United States out of deal with Iran that eased sanctions in exchange for Tehran agreeing to limits being placed on its nuclear activities. Based on reporting by AP, Reuters, and dpa Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/trump-says-u-s-withdrawing -from-treaty-regulating-conventional -weapons/29906318.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 Navy: US Deploys Warships to Japanese Base to Support Marine Version of F-35 Jet Sputnik News 21:32 26.04.2019(updated 21:48 26.04.2019) WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The United States is sending two warships to the 7th Fleet, both capable of transporting Marines throughout the Indo-Pacific while providing takeoff and landing platforms for the F-35B fighter jet, the US Navy announced in a press release on Friday. "The amphibious assault ship USS America (LHA 6) and landing platform dock USS New Orleans (LPD 18) will become part of the US 7th Fleet forward-deployed naval forces (FDNF) in Sasebo, Japan", the release stated. The F-35B was modified for the Marine Corps with the ability to take off and land vertically while also providing fifth-generation electronic surveillance and weapons capability. The Marine Corps has recently practiced landing the aircraft on assault ships and landing platform docks, according to published reports. The Navy said in the release that the security environment in the Indo-Pacific region requires it to station the most capable ships forward. This posture allows the most rapid response times possible for maritime and joint forces, and requires the most capable ships with the greatest amount of striking power, the release said. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Ex-Afghan President Hamid Karzai: US Must Fight Terrorism Honestly (EXCLUSIVE) Sputnik News 20:50 26.04.2019(updated 20:53 26.04.2019) On the sidelines of the 8th Moscow Conference on International Security, Sputnik spoke to Hamid Karzai, the ex-president of Afghanistan, to find out how to fight terrorism at the international level, why the Doha peace talks with the Taliban have been cancelled, as well as to learn about Moscow's role in the inter-Afghan dialogue. Sputnik: Today, terrorism has become a global problem. In your view, what is the most effective way of dealing with it at the international level? Hamid Karzai: The most effective way to fight terrorism, given the experience of our country, is the cooperation of major powers. The United States, some of its European and Eastern allies must be honest in the fight against terrorism. Terrorism is a tool that some use. Therefore, it's necessary to make them stop doing this; and this is impossible without extensive and honest cooperation. Sputnik: What do you mean by "honest cooperation", especially, as you have noted, the US's "honest cooperation"? Hamid Karzai: This means that no one should use terrorism as a tool. We're seeing this in Afghanistan. Extremism and terrorism have become tools in Afghanistan. At the beginning of our jihad against the former USSR, the Americans and their associates purposefully engaged in cultivating extremism, directing it against the former Soviet Union. The Afghan people are now reaping the fruits of it. Pakistan was doing the same thing. I don't want to point the finger and blame anyone; I just want to say that this problem isn't going to be solved as long as terrorism and extremism are used as a tool. I have high hopes that today, when the whole world is confronted by the issue of terrorism, the United States and its allies will cooperate with major powers, such as Russia, India, and Pakistan, in their anti-terrorism activities. Sputnik: In April, the Second intra-Afghan dialogue was to be held in Doha. It's been reported that the meeting didn't take place because the Taliban rejected the list of delegates from the Afghan government. At the same time, the meeting that was organized this February in Moscow was large in scale and successful. In your opinion, why? Hamid Karzai: Why was the intra-Afghan dialogue in Moscow nice and easy, and why was the Doha meeting cancelled? This is an important question. The Moscow meeting was organised in 15 days. Many Afghans from Afghanistan and other parts of the world took part in it; the Taliban also arrived there. The intra-Afghan dialogue [in Moscow] was very successful, while there had been two months to organise the meeting in Doha, the meeting that the Afghan people wanted so much, the meeting that took so much effort [to organise], didn't take place. Whatever the reason, we look forward to an early meeting in Doha. Sputnik: Can foreign states somehow contribute to the next intra-Afghan dialogue? Maybe, since Doha didn't work, you should choose another site? Hamid Karzai: Of course, the countries concerned (about establishing peace in Afghanistan) must take every measure and use all means necessary. Apart from the intra-Afghan dialogue, there is no other means for progress. Establishing peace and security in our country is impossible without the participation of major world powers and the intra-Afghan dialogue. These two processes must run in parallel a dialogue between Afghans on the one hand and an agreement between foreign states on the future of Afghanistan on the other, this is especially true of our neighbours, Pakistan and Iran. A month ago, negotiations were held in Washington between the special representatives of the United States, China, Russia, and the European powers. Consultations between the special representatives of Russia, the USA, and China should take place in Moscow in the coming days. We hope this will create a good basis for our neighbours that we have deep and broad relations with, for example Pakistan and Iran, to join in this process. Sputnik: Loya Jirga [the all-Afghan Council of Elders (representatives), infrequently elected from among ethnic and tribal groups to deal with crisis situations] should be held in Kabul in a few days. A number of statesmen, as well as political parties, have criticised the meeting, calling it politically biased. The Taliban, which are an integral part of the peace process, also ignore the council. In this context, how legitimate is such a Loya Jirga? Hamid Karzai: Loya Jirga is one of the fundamental and most important national instruments. When I was president, we convened it on critical issues. Two years ago, I suggested to President Ashraf Ghani that we should hold a Loya Jirga in order to mitigate the developing crisis in the country, and that we should search for the causes of that crisis together. The Loya Jirga wasn't convened then, and today our government is convening a council. Loya Jirga must be represented by the people of Afghanistan. If the purpose of the council is to establish peace and stability in the country, I will support it. However, if Loya Jirga is nominal and is used for any other purposes, it should be perceived as evil, since you cannot exploit the name of our national assembly. In Kabul, I will hold a series of meetings regarding Loya Jirga; and we hope that it's convened for the good. However, to date, it seems different the closest associates of the current government, Abdullah Abdullah, the head of the executive branch, as well as some other prominent political figures have refused to participate in it. And the council should be held with full consent and unanimity. Sputnik: What implications will this Loya Jirga have for the peace process? Hamid Karzai: This Loya Jirga should have been held six months ago, when the Americans started making efforts in the peace process. We are now in the middle of the road. Many, and myself included, doubt whether this council will lead to any progress or to a delay in realizing peace. It would be better if the Loya Jirga is convened after the Doha intra-Afghan dialogue, when decisions that can be discussed at the Loya Jirga have been made. There is a danger that this Loya Jirga may interfere with the peace process. Sputnik: What measures need to be taken to ensure that funds allocated by donor countries to Afghanistan are spent rationally and in accordance with special-purpose items? Is there a need to create some kind of supervisory body over the distribution and expenditure of funds, or is there a need to modify the work of already existing bodies? Hamid Karzai: Of course, a mechanism is needed, but it will be possible to create [such a mechanism] only when peace and security prevail in Afghanistan. It is impossible now. But the countries that allocate funds to Afghanistan should do it honestly. There shouldn't be such situations where a state allocates funds to Afghanistan, but the latter doesn't get them. Sputnik: Should the authorities overseeing the distribution and expenditure of cash receipts be local or foreign? Hamid Karzai: The bodies that distribute and control the expenditure of incoming funds should certainly be local. Undoubtedly, donor countries have the right to know how their funds are spent, and what they are spent on. Sputnik: What measures should be taken to ensure that Afghanistan's rich natural resources are mined properly and not plundered? Hamid Karzai: [There should be] sound management, proper planning, and honest cooperation with foreign private companies. Again, we come back to the situation in the country. All this will be possible when there is peace and tranquility, when the government controls the entire territory of the country, when the authorities are able to control, investigate and properly exploit natural resources, when contracts with private firms are concluded. In times of war, it is impossible to exploit natural resources properly. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US Will Be Withdrawing Signature From International Arms Trade Treaty - Trump Sputnik News 19:51 26.04.2019(updated 20:56 26.04.2019) The multilateral treaty charged with regulating the trade of conventional arms entered into force in late 2014, but has not been ratified by several influential states, including the US, Russia, India, China, and Iran. The United States will be withdrawing its signature from the Arms Trade Treaty, US President Donald Trump has announced. "My administration will never ratify the UN Arms Trade Treaty. I'm officially announcing today that the United States will be revoking the effect of America's signature from this badly misguided treaty. We're taking our signature back. I will signa message asking the Senate to discontinue the treaty ratification process", Trump said, speaking in Indianapolis on Friday to members of the National Rifle Association, a powerful pro-gun lobby. The UN would soon be receiving a formal notice of withdrawal, Trump noted. The US signed on to the international treaty in 2013, but never ratified it amid opposition from gun rights activists and lawmakers in Congress. Amnesty International blasted Trump's decision, saying that quitting the treaty would make it easier for terrorists to obtain weapons. "The treaty requires governments to assess the risk of violations of international human rights and humanitarian law before they authorise an arms deal in order to prevent weapons from being irresponsibly used in brutal conflicts, by organised crime or funneled to terrorists," the right group stated in a press release. An administration official said that Washington would consult with allies in the coming days regarding the US withdrawal from the treaty, with the US hoping that other countries may adapt US standards. The Arms Trade Treaty formally seeks to regulate the global conventional arms trade, including the monitoring of exports to ensure that they don't cross arms embargo lines or make their way into the hands of human rights abusers or terrorists. About 100 states have signed and ratified the treaty, with 34 others signing but not ratifying, with dozens more not signing. Critics of the treaty have said that it does not have any real means of regulating the arms trade or punishing treaty violators. In September 2015, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Russia did not sign the document and saw "no reason to move in this direction", citing the treaty's lack of balance, as well as "vague humanitarian criteria" that could "give rise to various interpretations, including unscrupulous ones". Along with Russia and the US, the treaty has not been signed or ratified by countries including Algeria, Bolivia, Belarus, Canada, China, Cuba, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Nicaragua, Pakistan, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Vietnam, and over a dozen other states. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Joint Statement on Trilateral Meeting on Afghan Peace Process Media Note Office of the Spokesperson Washington, DC April 26, 2019 The text of the following statement was released by the Governments of the United States of America, Russia, and China on the occasion of the Trilateral Meeting on the Afghan Peace Process. Begin Text: Representatives of the United States, China, and Russia met in Moscow on April 25, 2019, and exchanged views on the current status of the Afghan peace process. The three sides reached consensus on the following: The three sides respect the sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity of Afghanistan as well as its right to choose its development path. The three sides prioritize the interests of the Afghan people in promoting a peace process. The three sides support an inclusive Afghan-led, Afghan-owned peace process and are ready to provide necessary assistance. The three sides encourage the Afghan Taliban to participate in peace talks with a broad, representative Afghan delegation that includes the government as soon as possible. Toward this end, and as agreed in Moscow in February 2019, we support a second round of intra-Afghan dialogue in Doha (Qatar). The three sides support the Afghan government efforts to combat international terrorism and extremist organizations in Afghanistan. They take note of the Afghan Taliban's commitment to: fight ISIS and cut ties with Al-Qaeda, ETIM, and other international terrorist groups; ensure the areas they control will not be used to threaten any other country; and call on them to prevent terrorist recruiting, training, and fundraising, and expel any known terrorists. The three sides recognize the Afghan people's strong desire for a comprehensive ceasefire. As a first step, we call on all parties to agree on immediate and concrete steps to reduce violence. The three sides stress the importance of fighting illegal drug production and trafficking, and call on the Afghan government and the Taliban to take all the necessary steps to eliminate the drug threat in Afghanistan. The three sides call for an orderly and responsible withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan as part of the overall peace process. The three sides call for regional countries to support this trilateral consensus and are ready to build a more extensive regional and international consensus on Afghanistan. The three sides agreed on a phased expansion of their consultations before the next trilateral meeting in Beijing. The date and composition of the meeting will be agreed upon through diplomatic channels. End Text NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address The United States Sanctions Maduro-Aligned Individuals Media Note Office of the Spokesperson Washington, DC April 26, 2019 Today, the United States sanctioned two officials aligned with the former Maduro regime pursuant to Executive Order 13962, which allows for the designation of any person determined to be a current or former official of the Government of Venezuela. Jorge Alberto Arreaza Montserrat was the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Carol Bealexis Padilla de Arretureta is a judge associated with the March 21 detainment of Interim President Juan Guaido's Chief of Staff Roberto Marrero. Arreaza is at the forefront of the former Maduro regime's attempts within the international community to thwart the democratic aspirations of the Venezuelan people. Padilla's designation is a reminder that the ongoing detention of Roberto Marrero and the acts of intimidation against President Guaido and his supporters by the former Maduro regime will have consequences. We demand his immediate release. If Nicolas Maduro and those aligned with him continue to use imprisonment and intimidation against the legitimate government and people of Venezuela, the United States will respond. With our democratic partners in the region and around the world, the United States will continue to support interim President Guaido, the National Assembly, and the people of Venezuela. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Treasury Sanctions Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Affairs U.S. Department of the Treasury April 26, 2019 Washington Today, the Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated, pursuant to E.O. 13692, as amended, Jorge Alberto Arreaza Montserrat, the Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Carol Bealexis Padilla de Arretureta, both of whom were determined to be current or former officials of the Government of Venezuela. "The United States will not stand by and watch as the illegitimate Maduro regime starves the Venezuelan people of their wealth, humanity, and right to democracy," said Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin. "Treasury will continue to target corrupt Maduro insiders, including those tasked with conducting diplomacy and carrying out justice on behalf of this illegitimate regime. This Administration stands with the Venezuelan people, and alongside an international coalition committed to holding accountable those who are responsible for Venezuela's tragic decline." Today, OFAC designated the following persons: Jorge Alberto Arreaza Montserrat was appointed the Venezuelan Minister of Popular Power for Foreign Affairs in August 2017. Arreaza also held the following official positions prior to his appointment as Venezuela's Foreign Minister: from 2010 to 2011, Arreaza was the Vice Minister of Scientific and Technological Development of the Ministry of Popular Power for Science, Technology, and Intermediate Industries; from 2011 until 2013, Arreaza was the Minister of Popular Power for Science, Technology, and Innovation; between 2013 and 2016, Arreaza was the Executive Vice President of Venezuela; in 2017, Arreaza was appointed the Minister of the People's Power of Ecological Mining Development. was appointed the Venezuelan Minister of Popular Power for Foreign Affairs in August 2017. Arreaza also held the following official positions prior to his appointment as Venezuela's Foreign Minister: from 2010 to 2011, Arreaza was the Vice Minister of Scientific and Technological Development of the Ministry of Popular Power for Science, Technology, and Intermediate Industries; from 2011 until 2013, Arreaza was the Minister of Popular Power for Science, Technology, and Innovation; between 2013 and 2016, Arreaza was the Executive Vice President of Venezuela; in 2017, Arreaza was appointed the Minister of the People's Power of Ecological Mining Development. Carol Bealexis Padilla de Arretureta is the judge in charge of the First Special Court of First Instance in Control Functions. In December 2017, she was appointed as a substitute judge of the Court of Appeals of the criminal judicial circuit of the metropolitan area of Caracas. For information about the methods that Venezuelan senior political figures, their associates, and front persons use to move and hide corrupt proceeds, including how they try to exploit the U.S. financial system and real estate market, please refer to Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) advisories FIN-2017-A006, "Advisory on Widespread Public Corruption in Venezuela;" FIN-2017-A003, "Advisory to Financial Institutions and Real Estate Firms and Professionals;" and FIN-2018-A003, "Advisory on Human Rights Abuses Enabled by Corrupt Senior Foreign Political Figures and their Financial Facilitators." As a result of today's action, all property and interests in property of these individuals, and any entity that is owned, directly or indirectly, 50 percent or more by the designated individuals, that are in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons are blocked and must be reported to OFAC. OFAC's regulations generally prohibit all dealings by U.S. persons or within (or transiting) the United States that involve any property or interests in property of blocked or designated persons. U.S. sanctions need not be permanent; sanctions are intended to bring about a positive change of behavior. The United States has made clear that the removal of sanctions is available for persons designated under E.O. 13692 or E.O. 13850, both as amended, who take concrete and meaningful actions to restore democratic order, refuse to take part in human rights abuses, speak out against abuses committed by the illegitimate Maduro regime, and combat corruption in Venezuela. View identifying information. #### NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Yemen Detains More Than 2,000 African Migrants By VOA News April 26, 2019 Authorities in Yemen have rounded up and detained more than 2,000 migrants, predominantly Ethiopians, according to the U.N. migration agency. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is "deeply concerned about the conditions in which these migrants, including 400 children, are being held," said U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric. He said the United Nations was talking with Yemeni authorities to ensure the migrants receive "basic health care, food, water and sanitation" and was urging local authorities to find "safer alternatives to detention." The IOM said the detentions began Sunday in the south of the country, which is under the control of the internationally recognized government backed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Thousands of migrants arrive in Yemen each year, mostly from the Horn of Africa. Most of them use the country as a route to richer Gulf nations. Earlier this week, a U.N.-commissioned report said the war in Yemen had set back development in the country by more than 20 years. A Saudi-led coalition has been battling Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi rebels since 2015. The conflict has caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russia says al-Qaeda, Daesh, similar groups emerging in Latin America Iran Press TV Fri Apr 26, 2019 03:09PM Russia's military intelligence chief says such terrorist groups as al-Qaeda and Daesh are establishing a foothold in Latin America to recruit members for their activities in the Middle East and North Africa, where they have been mainly based. Igor Kostyukov, the head of the Russian military intelligence agency GRU, said on Thursday that terrorist "training camps and harbors" were "new risk factors" emerging in Latin America, Russia's TASS news agency reported. Kostyukov was speaking at the 8th Moscow Conference on International Security, an international defense forum gathering defense ministers and experts from various countries. He said the terrorist groups were seeking to infiltrate the six million Muslims living in Latin America. The terrorist groups "are recruiting militants to fill their ranks in the Middle East and North Africa," and "gathering the funds needed for that," he said. Extremist activity has been rare in Latin America so far. In a singular case last year, Brazilian prosecutors announced charges against 11 people for promoting Daesh through social media and recruiting militants to send to Syria. Daesh overran large swaths of Syria and Iraq in offensives beginning in 2014. The group was, however, militarily defeated by the governments of the two Middle Eastern countries in the course of some four years. Many of its members, including recruits from all across the world, were killed in the anti-terror operations, which were assisted by regional countries. The group has largely shrunk as a result of that defeat, but it has sought to regroup in other regions, including Afghanistan, Southeast Asia, and Africa. Al-Qaeda has been relatively less active since the death of its leader, Osama bin Laden, in 2011. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Sri Lankans on Edge as Security Forces Track Down Suspects in Easter Attacks By VOA News April 26, 2019 With thousands of guards deployed across the country to provide security for places of worship, Muslims in Sri Lanka answered the call to prayer Friday, less than a week after the deadly Easter Sunday suicide bombings in churches and hotels in the island nation's capital blamed on Muslim extremists. "Everyone is nervous," 48-year-old Abdullah Mohammed told the Associated Press, before prayers."Not just the Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, Hindus everybody's nervous." Security forces combed the country, tracking down what they say are dozens of local militants with links to the Islamic State terror group, which claimed responsibility for the Easter attacks. A military spokesman said a gunbattle erupted Friday in Sri Lanka's Eastern Province during a search operation. The archbishop of Colombo told reporters Friday there will be no Sunday Masses anywhere on the island. The U.S. Embassy in Colombo has advised people to avoid places of worship in Sri Lanka, citing Sri Lankan reports that additional attacks may occur. "Continue to remain vigilant and avoid large crowds," the embassy said Thursday on its official Twitter account. The warning comes days after a devastating attack on churches and hotels on Sunday when suicide bombers killed more than250 people. Officials had earlier set the death toll at more than 350 but revised the number Thursday, saying some of the bodies may have been counted twice. Sri Lankan officials say the suspected mastermind of the attacks, Zahran Hashim, was killed in the attack on the Shangri-La Hotel. The Daily Mirror, a Sri Lankan newspaper, reports that Hashim's sister says that her parents, brothers and a sister have been missing since April 18. Advance intel on attacks President Maithripala Sirisena said Sri Lanka's police chief Pujith Jayasundara resigned Friday because of the security failures around the attacks. On Thursday, Defense Secretary Hemasriri Fernando quit in the wake of the bombings, heeding calls from Sri Lanka's president for his resignation. Sirisena had called on Fernando and Jayasundara to step down after he promised in a televised address to take stern action against officials who did not share with him the intelligence alerts that came from India days prior to the bombing of churches and luxury hotels. As the government faces an outpouring of public anger over the failure to heed the warnings, senior officials admit it has been a "major lapse." Fernando said that there had been no failure on his own part, but he resigned to take responsibility for the failures of some institutions he headed, Reuters reported. Reports say Indian intelligence agencies sent out several warnings to Sri Lanka, and that Indian security agencies had gathered details about Islamic militant group National Thowfeek Jamaath (NTJ), which is suspected of carrying out the attacks. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Key Islamic Leader Suspected in Sri Lanka Blasts Died in Bombings By Anjana Pasricha April 26, 2019 A radical Islamic leader suspected of playing a key role in the suicide bombings of churches and hotels in Sri Lanka died in the attacks, according to President Maithripala Sirisena. As the tiny country remains on high alert for more attacks, police have stepped up a hunt for dozens who are suspected of links to Islamic State. Meanwhile, authorities have revised the toll in the deadly blasts downward, saying 253 people were killed, not more than 350 as earlier believed. They blamed the error on the difficulty in counting bodies torn apart by the bomb blasts. Sirisena told reporters Friday that Zahran Hashim, a firebrand Islamic cleric from eastern Sri Lanka, is believed to have led the attack at the upscale Shangri-La hotel in the capital, Colombo, along with another suicide bomber. Few in the country had heard of the cleric and his local Islamist group, the National Thowheeth Jamaath, until it was named as the prime suspect in the coordinated blasts at three churches and three luxury hotels. The small, sleepy town of Kattankudy was the platform for his extremist views, incendiary speeches and hate videos calling for violence against non-Muslims, which Muslim leaders say they brought to the attention of authorities several times. Police say they have arrested the group's second-in-command. Along with seven other men, Hashim appears on a video posted by Islamic State pledging allegiance to the group. Indian security experts say he could have been enlisted by the group, which has tried to gather recruits from South Asia. Although IS has claimed responsibility for the blasts, the group's involvement remains unclear. A key focus for both local and foreign investigators assisting the probe into South Asia's deadliest attacks is to unravel the links of the perpetrators to foreign terror groups such as IS. Although the nine suicide bombers identified so far are all Sri Lankans, it is widely believed that they had some training or support from overseas. Country on alert There are growing worries about the IS shadow. Sirisena said about 140 people in the country have been identified as having links to the group. About half have been apprehended. The country continues to be nervous as authorities warn that those on the run could be in possession of explosives and said that more attacks targeting religious places could not be ruled out. Thousands of troops have been deployed in recent days to bolster police as they carry out searches and guard mosques and churches. Authorities have urged people to pray at home instead of going to religious places for security reasons, but on Friday many Muslims headed to mosques for prayers. Police are on alert for retaliatory violence against the country's Muslim community which makes up 10 percent of the population. In the town of Negombo, north of Colombo, where the deadliest attack took place on a prominent church, Muslims have fled after saying they faced intimidation and threats. Many have been sheltered in a mosque and a police station. Admitting that an intelligence failure allowed the devastating Easter Sunday attacks to take place, Sirisena has reiterated his pledge to reorganize the security services. Warnings ignored Defense Secretary Hemasiri Fernando and police chief Pujith Jayasundara have stepped down. The government has come under fierce criticism since it came to light that warnings from India about the attacks were ignored. Many have blamed a divided administration due to dissension between the president and the prime minister for the security lapse. The president tried to send out a message that the government is pulling together now. "We will completely control this and create a free and peaceful environment for people to live." About 70 people have been arrested so far in connection with the attacks. That includes a wealthy and influential spice trader whose two sons and a daughter-in-law were among the nine suicide bombers arrested. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Pentagon to Expand Role of Military at US-Mexico Border - Report Sputnik News 00:50 27.04.2019 The soldiers will be tasked with conducting immigration application hearings, picking up migrants at the border and bringing food to migrants in detention. The Pentagon is preparing to expand the role of the military along the US-Mexico border, loosening the long-standing "no contact with migrants" policy, the Washington Post reported Friday, citing internal Pentagon documents. Several senior Pentagon officials have reportedly recommended that acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan approve a request from the Department of Homeland Security to provide military lawyers, cooks and drivers to assist US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents amid the surge of immigration along the Mexican border. According to the proposal, military attorneys will assist with deportation hearings in order to speed up the process. Thousands of migrants apprehended by CBP have to be released into the community while their asylum applications are being reviewed, due to detention facilities already being overcrowded. The military lawyers would be detailed to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and would be supervised by ICE personnel, the document says. The overwhelmed CBP is experiencing an "especially acute" shortage of drivers and people who can escort migrants to hospitals, the Washington Post reports. According to the report, migrants who cross the US border illegally en masse have taken to simply sitting down and waiting until CBP comes in with trucks and buses to pick them up as they surrender to the agents. Interestingly, the document specifically states that the military drivers would remain in a "segregated driver's compartment," in an apparent attempt to quell fears that the soldiers will be given a law enforcement role. According to the document, CBP will provide security measures during transportation. The soldiers will also be tasked with humanitarian tasks such as handing over snacks and refreshments or checking on the welfare of migrants in detention, freeing up CBP agents for migrant processing and border protection. However, soldiers will have to be accompanied by law enforcement personnel as they carry out their duties, the Washington Post reports. Shanahan is expected to sign the DHS request Friday, according to the Post. The measure is estimated to cost $21.9 million through the end of fiscal year 2019. Thousand of migrants, originating predominantly from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, have traveled across Mexico, aiming to enter US territory illegally, sometimes in groups of hundreds of people in broad daylight. The CBP has long said its staff is overwhelmed by the surge of migration and has called on Congress to approve construction of a physical barrier along the entirety of the US-Mexican border. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Xi vows open, inclusive and transparent BRI Global Times By Li Ruohan and Li Xuanmin Source:Global Times Published: 2019/4/26 Keynote speech clears false statements in the West, boosts confidence: expert Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday pledged transparency and zero-tolerance of corruption for the implementation of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a commitment hailed by the international society as further boosting confidence in cooperation. In his speech at the opening of the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF) on Friday, Xi called for building an open, green and clean initiative. He stressed that "everything should be done in a transparent way," and called for a zero tolerance attitude against corruption. Every country has a corruption problem, and the promise in Xi's speech shows that the BRI is following the correct direction, Jose Picasso Salinas, chairman of the Peru-based Volcan Compania Minera S.A.A, a mining company, told the Global Times. Jorge Chediek, director of the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation, said that he was impressed by the commitment to green development and financial sustainability. BRI is a fantastic initiative and a great contribution to world development. More importantly, the open partnerships under the initiative are in the process of being perfected and improved through new dimensions such as green development, said Chediek. He noted that the next focus of the initiative is to deepen and expand the quality and scope of the collaborations. Xi also said China upholds multilateralism, prohibits forced technology transfer, will increase imports and allow foreign businesses in more sectors with controlling or full stake. "China's pledge to further open up its market means opportunities for countries involved in the BRI, including Finland. Finnish companies, which have a competitive advantage in advanced manufacturing and the modern services industries such as network security and automation, look to expand in China under the measures," said Zhu Bin, director of Invest in Finland Greater China. Around 570 Chinese and foreign companies attended an event for business cooperation on Thursday, with 217 agreements signed so far, according to data provided by BRF organizers on Friday. George Tzogopoulos, director of EU-China Programmes at the Centre international de formation europeenne (CIFE), a European university and think tank, said at the forum that Xi's speech was "significant." "It outlines China's continuity in developing BRI," he said. At a time when some Western countries criticize China for its alleged geopolitical motivations, President Xi talked about the need for cooperation, green development, common prosperity, win-win results and multilateralism, Tzogopoulos said. "China says no to protectionism and supports free trade at a time of economic uncertainty. It also wants to import more, and Western countries should explore how they can better access the Chinese market," Tzogopoulos added. "The world needs to better understand China and opportunities raised for closer collaboration," he said. After the initiative was proposed in 2013, 126 countries and 29 international organizations have signed BRI cooperation documents with China. The three-day BRF, which includes 12 thematic forums, an opening ceremony and a leaders' roundtable, has drawn 5,000 participants from more than 150 countries and 90 international organizations. Li Haidong, a professor at the China Foreign Affairs University's Institute of International Relations in Beijing, said that Xi's speech, which addressed criticism and challenges the initiative faces, clears the obvious false statements about the initiative and helps boost confidence in BRI's future development. Those measures are necessary to ensure that the BRI is not flawed during implementation or derailed, said Li. While expounding on the fruits and mission of the initiative, Xi also reiterated China's diplomatic philosophy on the initiative: An inclusive and mutually beneficial platform, contrary to the Western narrative of China's geopolitical tool for global hegemony, Li explained. Former Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz told the Global Times after the opening that it's not about taking over whose role, but about China fulfilling its responsibility as a global power to help those less endowed or with a weaker financial situation. The initiative shows China cares about the world and its commitment to connectivity, Aziz said. China will support 5,000 people from the innovation sector in Belt and Road countries in exchanges, training programs and joint research in the next five years. It will also invite 10,000 representatives of political parties, think tanks and non-governmental organizations from countries participating in the BRI to China, Xi said. In introducing China's efforts to further open up to the world, the Chinese president also called for fair and friendly treatment of Chinese enterprises, students and scholars abroad as equals. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Initiative key to China's diplomatic strategy Global Times By Cao Siqi Source:Global Times Published: 2019/4/26 23:23:40 China, Russia to work together on Korean Peninsula issue: expert The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is injecting great impetus to China's transition of the overall diplomatic strategy and helping expand its friendship network as the initiative has not only brought common prosperity but also enhanced policy coordination and closer people-to-people ties. Leaders from 37 countries, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, whose country became the first G7 member to sign up to the initiative, are in Beijing for the Second Belt and Road Forum and have held talks with President Xi Jinping from Wednesday to Friday. During the talks, the heads of state have not only agreed to advance pragmatic cooperation in economic areas such as trade, energy, infrastructure and the high-tech sector, but also pledged to promote bilateral ties and safeguard regional security and stability. Chinese analysts noted that the BRI is not only an economic initiative to promote road interconnectivity, unimpeded trade and currency convertibility, but also exerting more influence in promoting China's diplomatic strategy transition. "The BRI has helped China expand its global friendship network, which shows that China is playing an increasingly pivotal role in promoting regional development and safeguarding multilateralism," Li Xiangyang, director of the National Institute of International Strategy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Friday. The initiative, which focuses on utilizing market and economic resources to explore new diplomatic relations with other countries, also drives the country's transition to economic diplomacy, Li said. He noted that this strategy could help enhance the acknowledgement of people in BRI-participating countries of China's intention of peaceful development and not an expansive strategy or a new "Marshall Plan," as promoting BRI fits the world's common interests. The cooperation scheme of "six corridors and six channels serving multiple countries and ports" under the BRI has been formed, and a large number of cooperation projects have been materialized. Russian support President Xi held talks with Putin on Friday in Beijing. Stressing that Russia is an important partner in the development of the BRI, Xi said aligning the BRI with the Eurasian Economic Union is a model of regional economic cooperation, the Xinhua News Agency reported. The BRI has provided an important platform and sets a successful example for expanded international cooperation, and won increasing support from the international community, Putin said, adding that the presence of so many state leaders and representatives at this forum is proof. Previously, Russia showed some concerns over the BRI, as the country feared the initiative would threaten the Commonwealth of Independent States. However, along with a greater understanding of the initiative, combined with pressure from the West, Russia decided to stand together with China, Liu Qing, director of the department for Asia-Pacific security and cooperation at the China Institute of International Studies, told the Global Times on Friday. Russia's support for the BRI will have an effect on Central Asian and Eastern European countries, and Russia will bridge China with them, Liu said. Analysts noted the forum has become a platform for China and other countries to communicate and coordinate in international and regional affairs. Xi and Putin also exchanged views on the situation on the Korean Peninsula and Venezuela, after Putin held talks on Thursday with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Russia's Far East port city of Vladivostok. "Because China and Russia have almost the same interests in the Korean Peninsula, the two countries are working together for the denuclearization of the peninsula," Liu said. In less than two years, great progress has been made on the Korean Peninsula issue with the goal of denuclearization confirmed by Pyongyang and other parties involved. However, the mutual distrust between the US and North Korea has been an obstacle to an agreement. China and Russia can and should act as a credit guarantor to help improve mutual trust between the US and North Korea and push the resumption of the Six-Party Talks, analysts said. On Wednesday, Xi met with Toshihiro Nikai, the Japanese prime minister's special envoy and secretary general of the Liberal Democratic Party, and said the two countries should implement their political consensus that "they never pose a threat to each other" and that "they are cooperative partners who support each other's peaceful development," Xinhua reported. Nikai said the BRI is a grand vision with great potential, adding that the Japanese side appreciates China's important contributions to the world and the region through this initiative. In talks with Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi on Wednesday, Xi said China is willing to work with Myanmar to safeguard the security and stability of China-Myanmar border areas and ensure the safety and order of border residents. Suu Kyi said Myanmar believes joint construction of the initiative will lead to greater well-being in the world and the region, enhance Myanmar-China friendship and cooperation, and bring concrete benefits to the two peoples. On Thursday, Xi met with Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and said the two sides should strengthen planning, enlarge the cooperation platform and promote high-quality cooperation. He added the two joint industrial parks in Qinzhou, China and Kuantan, Malaysia should be well built into an important connecting point for the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor, promoting connectivity and development of the two countries and the region. Mahathir said the BRI is a great initiative with huge potential, which will not only help deal with the infrastructure and transport bottlenecks that are impeding the development of different countries, but also address the problem of unbalanced development among countries and promote cultural dialogue and exchanges. In other bilateral talks, Xi also met with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, according to Xinhua. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Chinese, Russian presidents hold talks Global Times Source:Xinhua Published: 2019/4/26 15:20:30 Chinese President Xi Jinping Friday held talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing. Xi said the relationship between China and Russia has become a major-country relationship featuring the highest degree of mutual trust, the highest level of coordination and the highest strategic value since the two countries established diplomatic ties 70 years ago. "We should always regard each other as important development opportunities, support each other and draw on each other's strength to achieve revitalization together," he said. Stressing that Russia is an important partner in the joint development of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Xi said the alignment of the BRI with the Eurasian Economic Union is a model of regional economic cooperation. The two sides should continue to promote cooperation in economy and trade, energy, science and technology, aerospace, connectivity, as well as cooperation at sub-national level and people-to-people and cultural exchanges, Xi said, adding that China will send a pair of giant pandas to Russia for joint research. Xi also noted that China and Russia should enhance coordination in international affairs, jointly defend the authority of the United Nations and the UN Security Council, uphold the international law and universally recognized norms governing international relations, firmly promote multi-polarity and democracy of international relations, and uphold multilateralism. The BRI, proposed by President Xi, has provided an important platform and set a successful example for expanding international cooperation, and won increasing support from the international community, Putin said, adding that the presence of so many state leaders and representatives at this forum is a proof. On the occasion of celebrating the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations, Russia is willing to enhance high-level contacts with China, and deepen bilateral exchanges and cooperation in various fields, such as doing well in exemplary major projects in energy and connectivity sectors, he said. The two leaders also exchanged views on issues including the situation on the Korean Peninsula and Venezuela, and agreed to communicate and coordinate closely in international and regional affairs and multilateral institutions. Also on Friday, President Xi attended a ceremony at which Tsinghua University awarded Putin an honorary doctorate. Tsinghua University is a world-renowned university and the alma mater of President Xi, Putin said. "In the presence of my good friend President Xi Jinping, Tsinghua University conferred an honorary doctorate on me and held a grand ceremony. I feel honored and deeply touched." "President Putin is a good friend and old friend of the Chinese people, and has made historic contributions to deepening political mutual trust between China and Russia and promoting bilateral cooperation in various fields," Xi said, extending congratulations to Putin. Xi said he hopes young Chinese and Russian students will contribute to China-Russia friendship for generations to come. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address World leaders welcome second Belt and Road forum in Beijing People's Daily Online (Xinhua) 08:31, April 26, 2019 BEIJING, April 25 (Xinhua) -- With the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF) taking place here, leaders around the globe are speaking highly of the initiative and voicing their expectations for the gathering. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a reference to the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, was initiated by China in 2013 with the aim of enhancing all-around connectivity through infrastructure construction, exploring new driving forces for world economic growth, and building a new platform for world economic cooperation. The BRI has created a new dimension for the development of the world economy, and its long-term strategic plan is unusual, said President Ueli Maurer of the Swiss Confederation. The Swiss president believed that globalization is the key to successful global development, and to achieve globalization, infrastructure construction at various levels would be indispensable. In this sense, he said, the BRI is a future-oriented project that will contribute to globalization, in which everyone can benefit from improving and upgrading infrastructure. For his part, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said he had advocated the revival of the ancient Silk Road for a long time and believed the BRI will boost connectivity between China and Southeast Asia. "In the promotion of relations between countries, the distance as well as the speed of travel is very important. With this scheme, I am quite sure more ships will be passing near Malaysia and Southeast Asian countries and therefore it will increase trade between Southeast Asia and China." The 93-year-old prime minister will be joining other heads of state or government at the forum to discuss cooperation under the BRI, for which he has repeatedly expressed support. Tajik President Emomali Rahmon called the Belt and Road a multi-faceted "bridge" which can help unlock the transit potential of the landlocked Central Asian country and enable it to access worldwide markets. "The BRI implies creating a new model of international cooperation by strengthening the existing mechanisms, as well as seeking and implementing new mechanisms, with the aim of stimulating the economic development of countries involved," Rahmon said. Calling the BRI a "fantastic infrastructure project," Czech President Milos Zeman said, "I encourage Czech companies to participate in the construction of the new Silk Road, especially the railway construction. We have a good tradition in this area." "My intention is to propose the Czech Republic as one of the possible countries for the communication with European countries. And the Czech Republic will not be omitted in the process," Zeman said. Italy has become the first Group of Seven member to join the BRI, said Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. Conte said Italy is glad to seize the historic opportunity to join the BRI, adding that he strongly believes that it will help fully explore the potential of Italy-China cooperation. United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who will host a seminar about green growth at the Belt and Road forum, said the BRI is a "very important opportunity" for the world. With such a huge volume of investment for international cooperation brought about by the BRI, it is a "very important opportunity for enhancing the capacity to implement the sustainable development goals and an important opportunity to launch green perspectives in the years to come," Guterres said before leaving for Beijing. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address China releases report on BRI progress People's Daily Online (People's Daily Online) 09:39, April 26, 2019 China published a report elaborating on the progress, contributions and prospects of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) on April 22. Over the past five years, the country has made remarkable progress in the construction of the Belt and Road. The initiative and its core concepts have been written into documents from the United Nations, G20, APEC as well as other international and regional organizations. By the end of March 2019, the Chinese government had signed 173 cooperation agreements with 125 countries and 29 international organizations. The Belt and Road has expanded from Asia and Europe to include more new participants in Africa, Latin America and the South Pacific. By the end of 2018, the China Railway Express to Europe had connected 108 cities in 16 countries in Asia and Europe. A total of 13,000 trains had carried more than 1.1 million TEUs. China has enabled more convenient and efficient customs clearance so that the average inspection rate and customs clearance turnover time have both decreased by 50 percent. Over the past five years or so, 1,239 new international routes have opened between China and other B&R countries, accounting for 69.1 percent of China's new international routes over that period. From 2013 to 2018, the value of trade between China and other Belt and Road countries surpassed $6 trillion, accounting for 27.4 percent of China's total trade in goods, growing faster than the country's overall foreign trade. From 2013 to 2018 China's direct investment in Belt and Road countries surpassed $90 billion, achieving a turnover of $400 billion in foreign contracted projects in these countries. According to a World Bank study, the transportation network proposed by the BRI could lead to a nearly 5 percent increase in total foreign direct investment flows to Belt and Road countries. The People's Bank of China has rolled out joint financing programs with the International Finance Corporation under the World Bank Group, Inter-American Development Bank, African Development Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and other multilateral development institutions. By the end of 2018, these institutions had invested in more than 100 programs in over 70 countries and regions. In recent years, financial connectivity under the BRI has deepened. The Cross-Border Interbank Payment System now covers some 40 countries and regions involved in the Belt and Road Initiative. Currently, China has signed agreements on industrial capacity cooperation with more than 40 countries including Kazakhstan and Brazil. The country has signed third-party market cooperation agreements with France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and Portugal. China has signed agreements with 24 Belt and Road countries on the mutual recognition of higher education degrees. In 2017, 38,700 students from other Belt and Road countries studied in China on scholarships provided by the Chinese government, accounting for around 66 percent of all students receiving such scholarships. China has signed mutual visa exemption agreements for different passports with 57 Belt and Road countries, and concluded 19 agreements or arrangements to streamline visa application procedures with 15 countries. In 2018, outbound Chinese tourists totaled 150 million, and inbound foreign tourists exceeded 30 million. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US isolated as world leaders open Silk Road summit in China Iran Press TV Fri Apr 26, 2019 07:10AM Nearly 40 world leaders and scores of finance officials are gathered in Beijing to build a new platform for international trade and counter US unilateralism and protectionist policies. Dubbed as the Belt and Road (BRI) initiative, they aim to reinvent the ancient Silk Road to connect Asia to Europe and Africa through massive investments in maritime, road and rail projects. Some 5,000 delegates are attending the three-day forum, with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, whose country became the first G7 member to sign up to BRI, among the headliners. The United States has not dispatched any officials, dismissing BRI as a "vanity project" and rebuking Rome for participating in the scheme. However, traditional US allies such as the UK, France, Germany and Spain have sent ministers to the summit amid reports of European frustration with Washington's trade practices. British Finance Minister Philip Hammond told the summit on Friday his country is committed to help realize the BRI potential, offering Britain's expertise in project financing. "The Belt and Road Initiative has tremendous potential to spread prosperity and sustainable development, touching as it does, potentially 70 percent of the world's population, a project of truly epic ambition," he said. German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said major European Union countries want to sign a memorandum of understanding on the BRI initiative as a group. President Putin called for a global response against protectionism, unilateral sanctions and "trade wars" in veiled criticisms of the United States. "The rise of protectionism in its most dangerous form, which at the present time is often used illegitimately as unilateral restrictions to bypass the UN Security Council, or worst of all, trade wars," he said. "We think that only when we are united can we counter such acute challenges amidst a global economic slowdown and gaps between countries in terms of well-being and technology," Putin added. The Russian leader whom Chinese President Xi Jinping referred to as "my closest friend" in a speech at the ceremony, was conferred an honorary doctorate degree from the Chinese premier's alma mater. BRI offers to bring much-needed modern infrastructure to developing countries and China's spending has increased its footprint around the world. Beijing has not said exactly how much money will be needed in total, but some independent estimates suggest it will run into several trillion dollars. The United States fears that China aspires to replace it at the center of the world order and the decision by Italy and Luxembourg to join BRI has raised alarm bells in Washington which sees Beijing's influence now extending to the EU's core. To US leaders, BRI is on par with the Marshall Plan that established the American supremacy through an economic blueprint to rebuild post-World War II Europe. They are alarmed -- all the more so because BRI is more than 10 times the size of the Marshall Plan. The West is worried that the expansion of BRI will lead to the emergence of alternative models of governance that will challenge Western liberalism around the world. In his keynote speech at the opening of the forum, President Xi stressed that his global infrastructure project "is not an exclusive club", in a dig at the United States. He called on countries participating in the initiative to promote a global partnership for connectivity to achieve common development and prosperity. "We need to promote the liberalization and facilitation of trade and investment, say 'no' to protectionism, and make economic globalization more open, inclusive, balanced and beneficial to all," he said. Altmaier said he was encouraged by President Xi's pledge to pursue free trade, multilateralism and sustainability. "We will take this promise seriously" and make suggestions on how to achieve these goals in both Asia and Europe, he said. China is a partner and a competitor at the same time and the EU must define its interests, Altmaier said. "And for that we need an industry strategy. For that we need our own connectivity strategy," he added. The Trump administration initiated a trade war with China last year, when he first imposed unusually heavy tariffs on imports from the Asian country. Washington has long criticized China's huge trade surplus with the United States and has demanded Beijing reduce it. The US is also demanding extensive changes to Chinese practices that the White House has branded as unfair, including the alleged theft of US technology and intellectual property. Washington also accuses Beijing of setting up myriad barriers for foreign companies to work in the Chinese market. China rejects the allegations. Beijing has offered to increase its purchases of US products but is widely expected to resist calls for far-reaching changes to its industrial policies. But disagreement between the two leading economic powers deepened, with both sides imposing tariffs on each other's goods and led to a trade war that has rattled world's economy. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Xi Seeks To Reassure Critics Over $1 Trillion Belt And Road Project By RFE/RL April 26, 2019 Chinese President Xi Jinping says his plan to recreate the old Silk Road is designed to increase and enhance international trade cooperation, as he bid to reassure critics of the $1 trillion infrastructure project. Xi also told attendees at his Belt and Road Forum on April 26 that Beijing would eliminate anticompetitive subsidies to Chinese firms, a practice that has angered many foreign trading partners, including the United States and the European Union. "We will overhaul and abolish unjustified regulations, subsidies, and practices that impede fair competition and distort the market," Xi said. "We will treat all companies, enterprises, and business entities equally and foster an enabling business environment based on market operation and governed by law," he said. The massive Belt and Road initiative seeks to create new rail, road, port, and energy infrastructure that links China with Europe, Africa, and other parts of Asia. The high-profile meeting brings together dozens of heads of states, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, whose country became the first G7 member to sign up to the initiative. Also among the 37 leaders attending are Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon, and Kyrgyz President Sooronbai Jeenbekov. Kazakhstan's delegation is led by former President Nursultan Nazarbaev, who resigned from office on March 19 but continues to hold the title "leader of the nation." EU members Germany and France are sending ministers while the United States has not dispatched any officials from Washington. The United States and many EU countries have criticized China's project and its lending for regional infrastructure efforts, warning that it has saddled some developing countries with debts they cannot afford to repay. In his opening remarks at the summit on April 26, China's President Xi sought to ease those concerns, pledging to prevent debt risks and saying the massive infrastructure project "is not an exclusive club." Xi said that "we also need to ensure the commercial and fiscal sustainability of all projects so that they will achieve the intended goals as planned." He also sought to reassure critics who have complained about what has been called a lack of transparency involved in deals between Chinese companies and some local governments, raising corruption concerns. "Everything should be done in a transparent way and we should have zero tolerance for corruption," Xi said. "Green" development will also be promoted, he said, amid concerns that infrastructure projects are causing long-lasting environmental harm in the region. "We must adhere to the concept of openness, greenness, and cleanliness," he said. Putin, the second speaker at the forum, said that China's infrastructure initiative meshes perfectly with the goals of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union -- which also includes Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. In remarks seen as an attempt to alleviate concerns about potential tension as China's economic ties expand particularly in former Soviet republics of Central Asia Putin said relations between China and Russia are developing in all spheres at a "very considerable" speed. Putin also called China's infrastructure initiative "immensely timely and successful." "It is taking on a global nature and is starting to lay down the principles of building international relations and the norms of economic ties that are relevant today," Putin said. Nazarbaev spoke third at the event on April 26, a position reflecting his significance to China's infrastructure initiative despite stepping down from Kazakhstan's presidency last month. "The historic cycle again brings the center of the world's gravitation to the East," Nazarbaev said. "We see today that Asia has become a region of the 21st century, as 28 percent of the world's GDP is concentrated here. That figure will be growing steadily. Already, this trend of civilization is offering new horizons for cooperation." Pakistan's prime minister on April 26 praised what he called "substantial progress" in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor -- a key element of China's initiative. Imran Khan told the forum that Pakistan's electricity supplies had increased "massively" under the project and that his country was looking forward to its next phase -- which is meant to focus on "social uplift," poverty alleviation, and the development of agriculture and industry. Khan said Pakistan wants to sign an expanded free trade agreement with China, describing relations between Islamabad and Beijing as "strong, resilient, unbreakable." China has pledged more than $60 billion in loans and investments to help build roads, ports, electricity plants, and industrial parks in financially troubled Pakistan. Critics have cited several negative developments that have occurred as a result of initiative projects, such as the Sri Lankan government being forced to hand over a deep-sea port to China for 99 years after it was unable to repay loans. Xi reiterated that China would not engage in the competitive devaluation of its yuan currency -- another issue Washington and others in the West have warned against. Since Xi launched the initiative in 2013, China has invested $90 billion in projects while Chinese banks have provided at least $200 billion in loans to foreign governments. With reporting by AFP and Reuters Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/china-xi- seeks-to-reassure-belt-and-road- critics/29904553.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 People's Liberation Army-Navy Declares Chinese Carrier Liaoning a 'Combat Ship' Sputnik News 21:56 26.04.2019 Following a six-month retrofit, China's sole active aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, has been declared a "combat ship" by the People's Liberation Army-Navy. "The Liaoning is shifting from a training and test ship to a combat ship," Lu Qiangqiang, an executive officer of the Liaoning, said on China Central Television (CCTV) earlier this week. "I believe this process is going faster and faster, and we will achieve our goal very soon." Beijing acquired the 58,000-ton Liaoning from Ukraine in 1998 as the carrier Varyag, where it had been rusting since the dissolution of the Soviet Union left its construction incomplete. The ship cost a mere $8 million. By 2012, Chinese construction of the ship was complete, and it was rechristened Liaoning, after the northeastern province where the shipyard was located. The Chinese Defense Ministry said in 2011 that the ship was for "scientific research, experiment and training," and thus it has never been assigned to combat duty with the fleet. However, that's all changed now, since the ship's role has shifted in recent years. The Global Times, a paper owned by China's ruling Communist Party, wrote Wednesday that "the Liaoning is starting to play a combat role following recent modifications and intensive training exercises, the vessel's executive officer revealed amid the celebrations of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy's 70th anniversary." Sputnik noted in in August 2018 some of the superficial changes in Liaoning's command island when the ship emerged from the Dalian shipyard, but Global Times expounded upon the extent of the upgrades. Liaoning got stronger arresting cables and a new arresting net stand, which dramatically improves the safety of aircraft landings, as well as improved anti-jamming capabilities and an enlarged flight control tower with better visibility. The propulsion and power systems were also upgraded and are now more efficient and stable, and the flight deck and pipeline system were improved as well. "These changes will definitely help us make the best of the ship, improve our training protocols and boost our combat capability even further," Lu told CCTV. "Through the development of the Liaoning carrier, we learned some technical patterns in building large and super-large vessels," said Yin Zhuo, a senior researcher at the PLA Naval Equipment Research Center, according to CCTV. Sputnik reported in February that Beijing was mulling the addition of electromagnetic catapults (EMALS) to Liaoning. The only ship in the world with such a device at present is the US Navy's newest carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, which was commissioned in 2017. While US President Donald Trump has lamented that "you have to be Albert Einstein to really work it properly," the addition of any kind of catapult system, but especially EMALS, would be a huge improvement of Liaoning's performance as well as a huge leap forward for the PLAN. At present, both Liaoning and its sister ship, the as-yet-unnamed Type 001a, have a ski jump on their bows that help fixed-wing aircraft get airborne. That's how the vast majority of the world's aircraft carriers get their planes in the air, but there's a tradeoff: it may be safer and more efficient in terms of runway length, but the planes can't lift nearly the amount of weapons or cargo they could if they were going faster. For example, a MiG-29 Fulcrum, like those used by the Russian Navy on its Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier (lead ship of the class to which Liaoning also belongs) will leave the ski ramp going only 81 mph, as opposed to the 160 mph it would reach on a ground airstrip or propelled by a catapult, according to Lithuanian aircraft expert Yefim Gordon. The PLAN's workhorse carrier-borne jet is the Shenyang J-15, a licensed copy of the Russian-made Su-27 Flanker, and the plane's operation is constrained by similar problems. PLAN also lacks enough J-15s to fill both its carriers at present; together, this seriously limits the effectiveness of either Liaoning or Type 001a to project air power like a US carrier does. An electromagnetic catapult and flat flight deck could change all that. The Type 001a is expected to pass its final round of tests soon and be commissioned with the navy, and a third carrier, dubbed Type 002, is expected in the water as early as 2023, Sputnik reported. The third carrier has long been speculated to feature EMALS and if it does, using Liaoning as a testbed for the system would only be prudent. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Xi Signals Change in Belt and Road Initiative Amid Criticism By Saibal Dasgupta April 26, 2019 China has signaled it is modifying its ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to deal with criticism about a lack of transparency, environmental risks, and debt in financing infrastructure projects. Chinese President Xi Jinping, who spoke Friday at the second Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, made it clear that his government was conscious of the widespread criticism leveled by developed countries, and complaints from Asian partners of the China-controlled BRI. The forum runs through Saturday. "Everything should be done in a transparent way, and we should have a zero tolerance for corruption," Xi said. His government will now offer a "debt-sustainability framework" to encourage compliance with international standards in infrastructure contracting. Unlike his past speeches at the forum in 2017 and in several international gatherings, Xi did not lay out a global vision of what the Belt and Road plan can do to connect countries and continents. Instead, he concentrated on answering criticism about corruption and the dominance of Chinese companies in BRI projects. Xi invited foreign and private sector partners to contribute funding to China-backed infrastructure projects. That is different from his earlier offers to provide financing for projects from Chinese banks and agencies. "Xi Jinping is trying to deliver a readjusted BRI, providing more opportunities for non-Chinese companies to participate, delivering greener and better quality projects, being more attentive to their local economy with a humane impact as well as to the recipient country's debt sustainability," said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, professor at the Department of Government and International Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University. Shedding control It does not serve China's geopolitical ambitions if the BRI is not accepted by the Western world. In a statement Friday, the U.S. embassy in Beijing said, "We continue to have serious concerns that China's infrastructure diplomacy activities ignore or weaken international standards and best practices related to development, labor protections, and environmental protection." At the forum Friday, British Finance Minister Philip Hammond said the BRI must work for everyone for it to turn into a sustainable reality. He offered British expertise in project financing. Officials from Germany, France, Australia and Japan have also said they would like to see more opportunities for foreign companies in BRI projects. The Chinese president has now given a clear indication that he is ready to recalibrate the project parameters even if it means losing control over many aspects of the program. There are signs China had "backroom" talks with several institutions before Xi spelled out the changes he wanted to make in the Belt and Road program. International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde said at the forum that the BRI could "benefit from increased transparency, open procurement with competitive bidding and better risk assessment in project selection." Said Cabestan, "Xi will make sure that his signature project remains both welcomed and sustainable." Supporters of the Belt and Road program often point to China's huge foreign exchange reserves exceeding $3 trillion as proof that it can support massive infrastructure projects in 60 countries, which have been included in Beijing's BRI map; but analysts point out that China did not originally plan to use the reserve currency for that purpose. "It had intended not to use foreign exchange reserves, but to make investments with renminbi, which would allow for the outward transfer of China's excess capacity, labor and construction facilities, and so on," said John Olin Palmetto, chair professor in business at the University of South Carolina Aiken, in an interview with VOA's Mandarin service. New yardstick for debt Ahead of the forum, Chinese Finance Minister Liu Kun and the country's central bank governor, Yi Gang, announced a financial tool to measure the tolerance levels of recipient countries receiving loans for BRI projects. That was in response to criticism that Chinese financing for Chinese-built projects in poor countries was pushing them into a debt trap. "The debt issue in developing countries should be treated objectively. If debt growth is accompanied by infrastructure improvement, enhancement of people's livelihoods and productivity and poverty reduction, it will be beneficial for the sustainability of long-term debt," Yi said. Some analysts said China has not given up defending long-term loans by its banks, saying that it triggers economic development and reduces poverty. The measurement tool would not be effective if Chinese lenders are determined to extend loans to support the China-built projects, they said. "A tool to evaluate financial sustainability looks like a public relations gimmick," said Gordon Chang, author of The Coming Collapse of China. "BRI has generally been predatory," he said, pointing to Sri Lanka's decision to hand over a Chinese-built port on a long lease to rid itself of high-cost loans. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un Meets President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin Korean Central News Agency of DPRK Date: 26/04/2019 Pyongyang, April 26 (KCNA) -- Kim Jong Un, chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, met with Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, president of the Russian Federation, on April 25. The national flags of the two countries were standing and the guards of honor of the three services of the armed forces of the Russian Federation lined up outside the building of Far Eastern Federal University on Russky Island in the city of Vladivostok, the place for the historic meeting between the two supreme leaders. Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un was warmly greeted by President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. The Supreme Leader had the emotion-charged first meeting with the Russian president, exchanging greetings. President Putin welcomed the first Russia visit paid by Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un to boost the long-standing friendship between the two countries. They had a meaningful photo session against the background of the national flags of the two countries and exchanged greetings with leading officials of the two countries respectively. They headed towards the venue of talks, having a pleasant chat. They posed for another meaningful photo against the backdrop of the two national flags standing at the venue of the talks. There were one-on-one talks between them. They had a constructive talk in a friendly and candid atmosphere. After informing each other of the situations in their countries, they agreed on the concrete directions and steps for further promoting mutual understanding, trust, friendship and cooperation and propelling the development of the friendly relations between the two countries oriented toward the new century. They had an exhaustive discussion of immediate issues of cooperation and reached a satisfactory consensus. They also had an exchange of their successes and experience gained in state building and exchanged honest and candid opinions on sharing each other's view over some issues with respect to the situation of the Korean peninsula and the field of international relations and on jointly managing the situation. The two top leaders were unanimous in appreciating that their meeting and talks served as a beneficial occasion of important significance in further consolidating and soundly developing the bilateral friendly relations with long history and tradition of friendship and in strategically controlling the unstable situation of the Korean peninsula in the wake of the second DPRK-U.S. summit talks. The talks lasted for hours in an unreserved and friendly atmosphere. -0- NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un Hold Talks with President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin Korean Central News Agency of DPRK Date: 26/04/2019 Pyongyang, April 26 (KCNA) -- Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un had talks with Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, president of the Russian Federation, on April 25. Present at the talks from the DPRK side were Ri Yong Ho, foreign minister, and Choe Son Hui, first vice foreign minister, and from the Russian side were Sergei Lavrov, foreign minister, Yuri Trutnev, deputy prime minister and presidential envoy to the Far East Federal Region, Dmitri Peskov, deputy head of the Presidential Administration and president's press secretary, Yuri Ushakov, assistant to the president's foreign policy, Yevgeni Ditrih, minister of Railways, Alexandr Kozlov, minister of Development of the Far East and Arctic, Anatoli Yanovski, vice-minister of Energy, Oleg Belozerov, president of the Russian Railways Company, and Alexandr Matsegora, Russian ambassador to the DPRK. At the talks, President Putin expressed deep thanks to Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un once again for accepting his invitation and visiting Russia, and stated the firm stand and will of the Russian government to carry forward and develop the history and tradition of the Russia-DPRK friendship. Kim Jong Un said he was very pleased to visit Russia, the friendly neighboring country, at the invitation of President Putin and that the meeting came to be a special important occasion in reaffirming the invariable trend of the history of the DPRK-Russia relations and further developing the friendly relations between the two countries in a more solid and progressive way. Saying it is a due responsibility before the times and history to put the DPRK-Russia relations on a new high stage as required by the new century, he expressed his determination to usher in a new heyday of the DPRK-Russia relations true to the intention of the preceding leaders. Made at the talks was a discussion on further expanding and developing the bilateral cooperation in various fields. The top leaders of the two countries had a discussion on boosting high-level visits including top-level meeting and contact and developing cooperation, exchange and collaboration between the governments, parliaments, regions and organizations of the two countries in various forms. Both sides agreed to take positive measures in several fields in order to further energize the work of the DPRK-Russia Intergovernmental Committee for Cooperation in Trade, Economy, Science and Technology and put the equally beneficial economic and trade relations between the two countries on a higher stage. They analyzed and assessed the trend of the situation on the Korean peninsula that has faced a crucial moment and had an in-depth discussion on the ways for the two countries to promote the strategic communication and tactical collaboration in the course of ensuring peace and security on the Korean peninsula and in the region. Kim Jong Un said that the situation on the Korean peninsula and the region is now at a standstill and has reached a critical point where it may return to its original state as the U.S. took an unilateral attitude in bad faith at the recent second DPRK-U.S. summit talks, and added that peace and security on the Korean peninsula will entirely depend on the U.S. future attitude, and the DPRK will gird itself for every possible situation. At the talks both sides agreed to more closely promote mutual understanding and bonds and boost strategic collaboration for ensuring regional peace and security in the future. Kim Jong Un invited Putin to visit the DPRK at a convenient time and the invitation was readily accepted. -0- NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Putin, Kim hold "fruitful" talks on Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, bilateral cooperation People's Daily Online (Xinhua) 07:16, April 26, 2019 VLADIVOSTOK, Russia, April 25 (Xinhua) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin and top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Kim Jong Un on Thursday said that they had substantial discussions on bilateral ties and the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue during their first-ever meeting. The four-hour talks started with a one-on-one conversation between the two leaders and they were later joined by members of national delegations. The two sides had an in-depth discussion on various topics including the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, bilateral relations, the United Nations and relations with the United States. Putin reaffirmed that "there is no alternative to the peaceful solution of nuclear and other issues on the Korean Peninsula," adding that Russia is ready to continue cooperation to reduce tensions on the peninsula, and to strengthen security in Northeast Asia as a whole. "Denuclearization means to a certain extent the disarmament of the DPRK. Definitely, the DPRK needs guarantees of its security and the preservation of sovereignty," Putin said at a press conference after talks with Kim. For his part, Kim said that he and Putin had a fruitful discussion on "ways of peaceful settlement" of the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, which has become one of the most pressing issues on the international agenda. "I hope that our negotiations will continue along the same lines in a useful and constructive way," Kim said. On bilateral cooperation, Putin said that they had discussed a number of potential joint projects, such as a railway linking Russia with the Korean Peninsula, a pipeline for transportation of oil and gas, as well as electricity networks. He underlined all of the projects are possible and are "in the interests of South Korea." "In my opinion, if these projects and others like them were implemented, this would create the necessary conditions for increasing the trust necessary to solve the essential problems," Putin said. Kim arrived here on Wednesday for his first meeting with Putin, which came at a time when tensions are growing between the DPRK and the United States. The DPRK top leader has met U.S. President Donald Trump twice. Their second summit ended in Vietnam's Hanoi on Feb. 28 without an agreement. After the failure of the Trump-Kim meeting in Hanoi, "now it is necessary to give the entire settlement process some kind of impulse and push it forward," former Russian Ambassador to South Korea Gleb Ivashentsov said. He said that the Putin-Kim meeting provides such an impetus for the political settlement on the Korean Peninsula issue, noting that Russia is beginning to act as a more active participant in the process. "Pyongyang needs conciliatory gestures," Ivashentsov said. In addition, Ivashentsov noted the importance of Russia-China cooperation on this matter, saying that "perhaps further we will discuss some broader negotiations." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address North Korea's Kim slams US for 'bad faith' in Hanoi talks Iran Press TV Fri Apr 26, 2019 02:01AM North Korean leader Kim Jong-un says the US acted in "bad faith" in Vietnam when President Donald Trump and his team held talks with him in Hanoi. Kim told Russian President Vladimir Putin during their first-ever meeting on Thursday in Vladivostok that the situation on the Korean peninsula has reached a "critical point", warning that peace and security on the Korean peninsula will entirely depend on the future US attitude, state media reported "The situation on the Korean peninsula and the region is now at a standstill and has reached a critical point," the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) quoted Kim as saying. The situation "may return to its original state as the US took a unilateral attitude in bad faith at the recent second DPRK-US summit talks," he warned. "Peace and security on the Korean peninsula will entirely depend on the US future attitude, and the DPRK will gird itself for every possible situation," KCNA quoted Kim as saying. Just a week ago, Pyongyang demanded the removal of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo from the stalled nuclear talks, accusing him of derailing the process. Trump and Kim met for the first time at a historic summit in Singapore in June last year, when they agreed to "work toward" denuclearization. The two also held a second summit in Vietnam's capital, Hanoi, in February, which failed after Trump walked away from the summit, claiming that Kim had insisted on the removal of all sanctions on North Korea in return. Pyongyang rejected that account, stressing that it had only asked for a partial lifting of the bans. Pyongyang has taken several steps toward the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula by suspending missile and nuclear testing, demolishing at least one nuclear test site, and agreeing to allow international inspectors into a missile engine test facility. The US, however, has insisted that all sanctions on the North must remain in place until it completely and irreversibly dismantles its nuclear program. Putin to visit Pyongyang During the Kim-Putin summit held in the far eastern Russian port of Vladivostok, the two leaders held "unreserved and friendly" talks on the ways for the two countries to promote the strategic communication and tactical collaboration in the course of ensuring peace and security on the Korean peninsula and in the region, according to the KCNA. Kim has invited Putin to North Korea at a convenient time and Putin accepted, the report said. Putin said afterward he thought a deal on Pyongyang's nuclear program was possible and that the way to get there was to move forward step-by-step in order to build trust. But any US guarantees might need to be supported by the other nations involved in previous six-way talks on the nuclear issue, Putin said, which was seen as an attempt to use the summit to strengthen Russia's diplomatic clout as a global player. Both Russia and North Korea agreed to take positive measures in several fields in order to further cooperate in trade, economy, science and technology, the KCNA said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Putin To Brief China On Kim Talks, Says Willing To Share Details With U.S. As Well By RFE/RL April 26, 2019 Russian President Vladimir Putin is in Beijing to brief Chinese leaders on his just-concluded summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and said he is also willing to share details of the talks with the United States. North Korean state media on April 26, meanwhile, reported that Kim had invited Putin to Pyongyang "at a convenient time" -- an offer that was "readily accepted," according to the Korean Central News Agency. No dates were specified. The moves could raise Moscow's profile and influence in negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang over North Korea's nuclear program, talks that have failed to bring fruitful results despite two summits between U.S. President Donald Trump and Kim. The U.S. president in the past has expressed admiration for both Putin and Kim and said he is looking for closer ties with both leaders. Putin said he and Kim had a "substantial discussion" and exchanged views on how to defuse the standoff over Pyongyang's nuclear program. After his talks with Kim in the Far East Russian port of Vladivostok, Putin left for his two-day trip to Beijing, where he said he will inform Chinese leaders about the summit. "And we will just as openly discuss this issue with the U.S. leadership," Putin said. "There are no secrets. Russia's position has always been transparent. There are no plots of any kind." 'Meaningful Exchange' Putin was in Beijing to attend, along with leaders from dozens of other countries, the opening of a forum on the Belt and Road initiative, China's $1 trillion project that seeks to create new rail, road, port, and energy infrastructure that links China with Europe, Africa, and other parts of Asia. At the conclusion of the Vladivostok summit, Kim used harsh language to describe talks with the United States, accusing Washington of acting in "bad faith" during the Hanoi summit in February between Kim and Trump. "The situation on the Korean Peninsula and the region is now at a standstill and has reached a critical point where it may return to its original state as the U.S. took a unilateral attitude in bad faith at the recent second [North Korea-U.S.] summit talks," KCNA reported Kim saying. Washington is seeking a deal to have Pyongyang give up its nuclear weapons, while the North Koreans have demanded relief from sanctions before further commitments can be made. In March, the United States imposed fresh sanctions on North Korea over its nuclear weapons program. Putin on April 25 said that Pyongyang needs international "security guarantees" offered within a multinational framework before it ends its nuclear program. "They [North Koreans] only need guarantees about their security," Putin told reporters after the summit ended. Kim said he had a "very meaningful exchange of views on issues of mutual interest" with Putin, adding that they had "discussed ways of peaceful settlement." In Brussels, European Union Council president Donald Tusk said, "We call on [North Korea] to concretely engage on denuclearization and the complete, verifiable dismantlement of all its nuclear weapons." With reporting by Reuters, AP, BBC, KCNA, TASS, and AFP. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/putin-arrives -beijing-to-inform-china-on-kim-talks -will-brief-us/29904491.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 India's Modi faces increasing pressure over compliance with US sanctions against Iran amid elections run Iran Press TV Fri Apr 26, 2019 10:30AM India's opposition parties have slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for complying with US sanctions against Iranian oil exports, denouncing it as an "attack" on the country's sovereignty as India's weeks-long general elections continue. Modi is also under fire from the opposition for his government's inability to negotiate the country's interests in the face of Washington's ban, Bloomberg reported on Thursday. Decrying Modi's silence towards the potentially damaging US embargo on Iranian oil, Indian Congress Party lawmaker and national spokesman Randeep Singh Surjewala blamed the prime minister of "falsely boasting of his bravery" in a tweet earlier this week. "The US ban on exporting crude oil from Iran to India, is it not an attack on India's sovereignty?" he said. The Communist Party of India also condemned Modi's compliance with Washington's policies. "Any step to stop importing oil from Iran will harm India's energy security and national interests," the communist party said in a statement. The party also called on Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj to reject Trump's "illegal" move. "Since the US has unilaterally imposed these illegal sanctions, the BJP-led government must reject these sanctions and continue to buy oil from Iran which is in the country's interests," the party said. India, an emerging Asian economic powerhouse, is one of the world's biggest importers of Iranian crude oil. Indian observers believe complying with the US ban will greatly jeopardize India's interests. Heightening criticism of Modi's government comes as the White House ended, earlier this week, six months of waivers which previously allowed Tehran's eight largest customers to continue importing limited volumes of Iranian oil. The measure threatens buyers of Iranian oil with sanctions and other penalties if they fail to stop their purchases by May 1. The move quickly sent global crude prices to their highest levels since last November. Modi needs all the votes he can grab to win the elections, which began April 11. Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj had previously said that Delhi will only comply with sanctions imposed by the United Nations and not those imposed by any other country, such as the US. Iranian officials have cast doubt on claims that other oil producers can effectively replace Iranian oil to avoid spiking oil prices. Other countries affected by US sanctions have so-far also opposed the expected move, citing tight market conditions and high fuel prices that are harming oil-dependent industries. China warned on Tuesday that the US decision to impose sanctions on buyers of Iranian oil will "intensify turmoil" in the Middle East and in the international energy market. South Korea and Japan have sought negotiations with the US calling on Washington to backtrack on its decision. Speaking on Friday, Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy also said that Ankara is negotiating with Washington to allow Turkey's biggest oil importer Turpas to continue buying oil from Iran. The US president withdrew Washington in May 2018 from a multilateral nuclear accord that was signed between Iran and six world powers -- the US, the UK, France, China, Russia and Germany-- in 2015. Officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) the deal put limitations on parts of Iran's peaceful nuclear program in exchange for removing all nuclear-related sanctions. Washington, however, has re-imposed the unilateral sanctions and introduced new ones since abandoning the accord. Last November, the US enforced sanctions targeting the Islamic Republic's banking and energy sector. However, it granted waivers to eight major importers of Iran's oil, including China, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, Italy and Greece, fearing market instability. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address IAF Report Calls for Boosting Jets' 'Tech Assymetry' After Dogfight With Pak Sputnik News 18:11 26.04.2019 This comes amid ongoing bilateral tensions over alleged terrorist camps on Pakistani territory, which New Delhi claims house militants responsible for February's deadly terror attack against a military convoy in Pulwama, India. If the Indian Air Force (IAF) had high levels of "technological asymmetry", its warplanes would have been able to inflict heavy damage on Pakistan's aircraft during a 27 February dogfight, the IAF claimed in a report. The Times of India cited unnamed government sources as saying that there was a need for India to strengthen its "technological asymmetry" for aerial combat because the Pakistan Air Force has been consistently enhancing its air defence and offensive capabilities. "We felt we could not punish the adversaries appropriately. So we need to bolster technological asymmetry so that the enemy does not even dare to come close to the border", the sources pointed out. This followed Pakistan Army spokesperson Major General Asif Ghafoor's statement earlier this month that India had failed to provide any evidence that one of its PAF F-16 fighter jets had been shot down during the February air battle over Jammu and Kashmir. "Repetitions don't make truth of a lie. Despite claiming possession of evidence it shot down the F-16, the IAF are still short of presenting it", Ghafoor tweeted. The Indian Air Force earlier showed radar images of the air battle between the IAF and a Pakistani F-16 jet, calling it "irrefutable proof" that an F-16 was downed. All this comes against the background of ongoing tensions between India and Pakistan that escalated in late February when each side allegedly lost a warplane during a Kashmir dogfight. The 27 February air battle came a day after the IAF launched a strike in Pulwama against what New Delhi said was a Jaish-e-Mohammad camp; members of the group are considered terrorists by India and located on Pakistani soil across the so-called Line of Control, separating India- and Pakistan- controlled areas of Kashmir. The Indian airstrike was preceded by an attack by Jaish-e-Mohammad on an Indian paramilitary police force in Kashmir in mid-February that killed over 40 servicemen. While India accused Pakistan of supporting the militants and having a "direct hand" in the incident, Islamabad rejected the allegations. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iranian, Russian DMs discuss further cooperation in anti-terror fight Iran Press TV Fri Apr 26, 2019 10:40AM Iranian and Russian defense ministers have held talks on enhancement of mutual cooperation between the two countries' armed forces in a bid to strengthen regional and global stability and security and in the fight against terrorism. Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Amir Hatami and his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu held the meeting on Friday in Moscow on the sidelines of the Moscow Conference of International Security (MCIS). Hatami highlighted the growing trend of defense and security interactions between the two countries in light of the determination of Iranian and Russian political leaders. However, he added, the two states have numerous capacities for promotion of their interaction, and need to develop their military and defense cooperation in both quantity and quality. The Iranian defense chief also underlined that enhanced military ties between the two sides can further reinforce stability and security in the region and the world. Shoigu, in turn, said Tehran and Moscow have already managed to promote their military and defense cooperation to a great level, but the two sides need to maintain their military interactions in training, technical, and security fields. He also pointed to the two countries' cooperation within the framework of Astana Process, stressing the key role of joint efforts by Iran and Russia in the fight against terrorism and establishment of ceasefire in Syria. "Cooperation in the Astana format plays a significant role in establishing ceasefire regime and stabilizing situation in the Syrian Arab Republic," the Russian defense minister noted. The Astana Process refers to an initiative by Iran, Russia, and Turkey which mediate peace negotiations between representatives from the Damascus government and opposition groups in a series of rounds held in the Kazakh capital Astana - recently renamed as Nur-Sultan - and other places since January 2017. The talks, which are collectively referred to as the Astana peace process, have so far helped significantly reduce violence gripping the Arab country by establishing four de-escalation zones there. They have also paved the way for the formation of a Constitutional Committee. This is while the parallel UN-backed peace process in Geneva has failed to deliver much. Delegations from Iran, Russia and Turkey arrived in Nur-Sultan on Thursday, seeking an end to the eight-year conflict in Syria. The UN envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, is also participating in the talks. The top Russian negotiator said after the first day of the talks that the three guarantor states of the ceasefire regime in Syria are "clearly determined" to continue their fight against terrorism in the Arab country. Over the past few years, the Syrian military, with advisory military help from Iran and Russia and a Russian aerial bombardment campaign has retaken control of much of the country, and the conflict is generally believed to be winding down. Idlib remains the last major piece of Syrian land still not in control of the Syrian government. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Saudi Arabia, UAE overstating oil production capacity amid Washington's anti-Iran sanctions: Zangeneh Iran Press TV Fri Apr 26, 2019 09:31AM Iranian Minister of Petroleum Bijan Zangeneh has accused Saudi Arabia and the UAE of exaggerating their ability to replace the country's oil in the wake of a renewed push by Washington to zero Tehran's exports by implementing "brutal" economic sanctions. "I believe they are overstating their oil capacities," Zangeneh said on Friday, after Saudi and Emirati officials pledged to make up for any potential oil supply shortages that may result in the absence of Iranian oil in the global market. "Saudi Arabia will coordinate with fellow oil producers to ensure adequate supplies are available to consumers while ensuring the global oil market does not go out of balance," said Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih earlier this week. The ambitious pledges by Washington's staunch Arab allies came shortly after the White House announced that it would no longer renew waivers that allowed Tehran's eight largest customers purchase Iranian oil. The exemptions will expire on May 1. The measure threatens buyers of Iranian oil with sanctions and other punishments if they fail to stop their purchases beyond May 1. The move quickly sent global crude prices to their highest levels since last November. Zangeneh on Friday addressed concerns about the seriousness of United States President Donald Trump's recent drive "to bring Iran's oil exports to zero", stressing that US sanctions-related measures were "no bluff". "[These measures] are very brutal provocations against the Iranian nation," he added. Iranian officials have, however, said that the US will fail in curbing Iran's oil experts. Speaking on Thursday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said: "The Islamic Republic of Iran will not allow any country to replace Iran in the oil market." "The United States and those countries will be responsible for any consequences," he added. Mounting Opposition to US Sanctions Countries affected by US sanctions have so-far opposed the declared plan, citing tight market conditions and high fuel prices that are harming oil-dependent industries. China warned on Tuesday that the US decision to impose sanctions on buyers of Iranian oil will "intensify turmoil" in the Middle East and in the international energy market. South Korea and Japan have also sought negotiations with the US, calling on Washington to backtrack on its decision. Opposition parties in India have urged the government to push the Trump administration to reconsider the Iranian oil ban due to its negative impact on the Indian economy. Speaking on Friday, Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy said that Ankara was negotiating with Washington to allow Turkey's biggest oil importer Turpas to continue buying oil from Iran. The US president withdrew Washington in May 2018 from a multilateral nuclear accord that was signed between Iran and six world powers -- the US, the UK, France, China, Russia and Germany-- in 2015. Officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) the deal put limitations on parts of Iran's peaceful nuclear program in exchange for removing all nuclear-related sanctions. Washington, however, has re-imposed the unilateral sanctions and introduced new ones since abandoning the accord. Last years, the US enforced several rounds of sanctions targeting the Islamic Republic's banking and energy sector. However, it granted waivers to eight major importers of Iran's oil, including China, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, Italy and Greece, fearing market instability. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran Will Not Let Other Nations Take Its Place in Oil Market Foreign Ministry Sputnik News 02:56 26.04.2019 An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman blasted the United States for not extending waivers it had given to some countries to get around its sanctions regime against Iran and Arabic oil exporters who welcomed the decision. The Foreign Ministry said the US and these countries will be "held responsible for any consequences." The Iranian Foreign Ministry said Thursday that Tehran will not allow any other state take its place in the international oil market, according to a report by Fars news agency. On Monday, an unnamed US government official said President Donald Trump is confident Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates will be able to compensate for the loss of Iranian oil, as Washington decided not to extend exemptions from its sanctions to countries that buy oil from Tehran. "The Islamic Republic of Iran will not allow any country to replace Iran in the oil market," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said. "The United States and those countries will be responsible for any consequences." The spokesman blasted Riyadh and Abu Dhabi for welcoming US sanctions against Iran. Mousavi called US sanctions "illegal, cruel and driven by bullying" and said that Tehran is "hopeful that those buyers of Iranian oil who stood against this unilateral move in their comments, also take action," Reuters reports. China, Iran's largest oil buyer, has issued a formal complaint to the US over its decision not to extend the waivers for the sanctions regime. However, Beijing has not yet asked for more oil, according to Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih. After the US re-imposed sanctions against Iran last November, it initially allowed the eight biggest purchasers of Iranian oil to keep buying limited amounts of it from Tehran. These waivers are set to expire on 2 May, and Washington has made the decision not to extend them. The move comes as another step of Trump's policy of strangling of Iran, despite Tehran's strict adherence to the so-called Iran Nuclear Deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which Washington abandoned arbitrarily in May 2018. Earlier this month, Trump named Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a foreign terror organization, marking the first time a foreign government's armed forces received such a designation. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russia Insists on Total Ban of Nuclear Drills in Non-Nuclear States Sputnik News 12:16 26.04.2019(updated 15:30 26.04.2019) MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russia insists on introducing a complete ban on military exercises related to the use of nuclear weapons in non-nuclear states, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Friday. "A complete ban should be introduced on any drills related to honing skills of using nuclear weapons by troops of non-nuclear states", Ryabkov said. The diplomat added that Washington had not responded to Russia's proposal to issue a joint statement on the avoidance of a nuclear war. Ryabkov stressed that the US handing over its nuclear weapons to non-nuclear states goes against the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. "This creates additional obstacles for nuclear disarmament. This problem can have only one solution the return of all US nuclear weapons to the US, a ban on their use abroad and demolition of the infrastructure that allows using these weapons fast", Ryabkov said. NATO's policy of nuclear deterrence relies partly on US nuclear arms deployed in Europe. At the moment, there are five nuclear states in the world recognised in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as such China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. India, North Korea, and Pakistan have carried out nuclear tests, but are not parties to the treaty. Speaking further, Ryabkov said that the United States had submitted its justification for deploying Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system to Romania, while Moscow was studying the reasons. "Yes, we have received a certain amount of information and justifications for the temporary deployment of THAAD systems during relevant works at the missile defence facility We have taken this into account, we are studying these reasons", Ryabkov told a briefing. The United States' European Command has said that THAAD would be moved to Romania in the summer during maintenance work on the Aegis Ashore located there. On Possible Nuclear Agrement According to the senior official, Russia will analyse all US ideas on a new nuclear agreement if and when it receives specific proposals from Washington. "If we receive specific proposals, of course, we will analyse what the US side might offer us and contact them over the matter", the diplomat said. CNN reported earlier in the day that the White House was holding intense internal discussions to enable US President Donald Trump to pursue his intention to negotiate a major nuclear deal with Russia and China. On North Korea According to the deputy foreign minister, Moscow will brief Washington on the results of the recent summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un after the Russian top-level delegation returns from China. "I think, it will happen after the president and the entire delegation return from China", Ryabkov said, answering a corresponding question. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Turkey arrests 115 military personnel over ties to Gulen Iran Press TV Fri Apr 26, 2019 05:15PM Turkish police have arrested 115 soldiers over their suspected links to the movement of US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara blames for an attempted coup in 2016. Police arrested 55 of the suspects in Istanbul, the state-run Anadolu news agency said, without saying where the remaining suspects were arrested. The arrests came after the Istanbul public prosecutor ordered the detention of 210 military personnel suspected of being supporters of Gulen. The Istanbul chief prosecutor's office said on Friday that five colonels, seven lieutenant colonels, 14 majors, and 33 captains were among the 210 suspects from the air, naval, and ground forces, as well as the gendarmerie and coast guard. During the botched coup in 2016, a faction of the Turkish military declared that it had seized control of the country and that the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was no more in charge. The attempt was, however, suppressed a few hours later. Ankara has since accused Gulen of having orchestrated the coup. The opposition figure is also accused of being behind a long-running campaign to topple the government via infiltrating the country's institutions, particularly the army, police, and the judiciary. Gulen has denounced the "despicable putsch" and said he had no role in it. Turkish officials have frequently called on their US counterparts to extradite Gulen, but their demands have not been taken heed of. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address S-400 Purchase Done Deal, But Turkey Still Talking to US About Patriots - Ankara Sputnik News 19:03 26.04.2019(updated 19:14 26.04.2019) Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu earlier warned that Turkey would buy more S-400s if the US refused to sell its Patriot PAC-3 air defence systems to Ankara. Turkey has not rejected the Patriot missile system, with talks continuing despite the purchase of Russia's S-400s, Turkish foreign ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy has indicated. "We never said that we will not buy the Patriot systems. Technical negotiations [with the US] are continuing, even though the US has made us an offer rather late. At the same time, our position on the S-400s is clear", Aksoy said, speaking at a press briefing in Ankara on Friday. The spokesman reiterated Ankara's position that the S-400s is in no way connected to the F-35 fighter programme, with Turkey offering to create a technical commission with the US to confirm that the Russian system poses no threat to the United States. Washington has yet to respond to the proposal, Aksoy said. Turkish officials have repeatedly indicated that Turkey has no plans to abandon the purchase of its Russian-made S-400s, with deliveries to start in July, despite serious pressure to do so from Washington. The US has alleged that the S-400's systems are incompatible with NATO air defence standards, and a possible danger to the F-35's stealth systems, and has threatened to withhold the sale of the fighters to Turkey, or to slap Ankara with anti-Russian arms sanctions if it goes through with the S-400 deal. Moscow and Ankara penned a $2.5 billion agreement on the sale of four battalion sets of S-400s in October 2017. The US proposed a $3.5 billion counteroffer for a complement of Patriot PAC-3s in December 2018. Turkey has poured over $1.25 billion into the F-35 programme, and is a manufacturer of some of its components. Earlier this week, Foreign Minister Cavusoglu warned that if the US refuses to supply Turkey with its F-35s, Ankara would satisfy its needs in "another place". Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Putin says sees no problem in granting passport to east Ukraine citizens Iran Press TV Fri Apr 26, 2019 10:44AM Russian President Vladimir Putin says he sees no problem in easing rules to grant citizenship to residents of Ukraine's volatile eastern region, amid criticism form the West. Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Putin said citizens of Donestk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine were free to apply for Russian passport. A deadly war has battered Ukraine's industrial east over the past four years, although there has been a relative calm in the area in the recent months. The war broke out in Ukraine in early 2014 after pro-Russian protests erupted in eastern cities and the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea re-joined Russia following a referendum. The West brands the unification as an act of annexation by Russia. Kiev and its Western allies also accuse Moscow of supporting pro-Russian militia in eastern Ukraine, an allegation the Kremlin vehemently denies. Putin said Poland, Romania and Hungary grant citizenship to their ethnic kin outside their borders, asking, "How are Russians in Ukraine worse than Romanians, Poles or Hungarians? I don't see anything unusual here." The president signed an order earlier on Wednesday allowing the residents of the restive regions to receive a Russian passport within three months of applying. Ukraine irked, West rallies behind Keiv In an immediate reaction to the remarks, Ukraine appealed to the UN Security Council to take action against the decision, accusing Russia of trying to annex the Donbass region. "I urge international partners to prevent the worst scenario, to harshly condemn destructive and criminal actions of the Russian authorities and also to strengthen international sanctions," said outgoing President Petro Poroshenko. The 15-member body met to discuss the issue on Thursday, though it is unable to take any action as Russia is one of five permanent veto powers. Several Western governments rallied behind Ukraine on Thursday, calling for more sanctions against Russia. The United States reacted to the move saying it was "unacceptable" for Moscow to extend citizenship rights to Ukrainians. "Russia, through this highly provocative action, is intensifying its assault on Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity," said the US State Department. The EU also accused Moscow of trying to destabilize Ukraine and "to refrain from actions that are against the Minsk agreements and impede the full reintegration of the non-government controlled areas into Ukraine." The decree signed by Putin "is another attack on Ukraine's sovereignty by Russia," said a spokeswoman for EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini. "The timing of such a decision immediately after Ukraine's presidential election... shows Russia's intention to further destabilize Ukraine and to exacerbate the conflict," he added. Ukraine elected a comedian as a new president on Sunday. President-elect Volodymyr Zelensky has called for more international sanctions against Russia in response to the move. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius said his government "strongly condemns the decree" Putin. The Baltic country also called on the West to impose more sanctions on Moscow. In September 2014, Kiev and the pro-Russia forces signed an EU-brokered ceasefire agreement in the Belarusian capital city of Minsk in a bid to halt the fighting in Ukraine's eastern regions. The warring sides also inked another truce agreement, dubbed Minsk II, in February 2015, under the supervision of Russia, Germany, and France. The fragile ceasefire has frequently been violated, with Kiev and the militants blaming each other. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Lawyer For Ukrainian Oligarch Claims He Planted Seed Of Zelenskiy Presidency By Christopher Miller April 26, 2019 KYIV -- Ukrainian President-elect Volodymyr Zelenskiy has worked hard to publicly distance himself from one of the country's wealthiest and most controversial oligarchs, Ihor Kolomoyskiy, and show a public eager for change that he is the antiestablishment insurgent chosen by 73 percent of voters in last weekend's election. But comments made to Ukrainian media by a lawyer working for both Kolomoyskiy and Zelenskiy who appeared by the candidate's side throughout his campaign could undermine that effort. Andriy Bohdan, a typically secretive lawyer and former deputy minister, has claimed that he was among the first people to plant the seed in the comic Zelenskiy's mind to run for the presidency. "I am one of those who persuaded him [to enter politics]It was more than five years ago," Bohdan said in a joint interview with reporters from independent Ukrainian news outlets Novoye Vremya and Ukrayinska Pravda published on April 26. The comments, coming from someone with presumably intimate knowledge of Kolomoyskiy's thinking and operations, are likely to fuel criticism suggesting Zelenskiy, a political neophyte, is the oligarch's project. The 41-year-old Zelenskiy is linked to Kolomoyskiy through the oligarch's ownership of TV station 1+1, which hosts Zelenskiy's comedy programs and hit sitcom, Servant Of The People. In Servant, Zelenskiy plays Vasiliy Holoborodko, a fictional history teacher who is thrust into the presidency after his video rant about the country's problems goes viral. But reporters have found other links between the two, including shared security details and vehicles and possible meetings abroad in the run-up to Zelenskiy's candidacy. While the links do not prove that Kolomoyskiy financed Zelenskiy's campaign or is influencing him, critics have raised concerns about the connections. Both men have said their relationship is strictly business, although Kolomoyskiy did tell the BBC in an interview in Israel, where he remains in self-exile amid open investigations into his business practices in Ukraine, that "Ukraine needs not just one Zelenksiy. It needs millions of Zelenskiys." Kolomoyskiy took on a prominent role as governor, helping his Dnipropetrovsk region ward off possible unrest after armed, Russia-backed separatism broke out in eastern Ukraine in 2014. But he fell out of favor with President Petro Poroshenko's administration amid murky corporate disputes and the 2016 nationalization of PrivatBank, one of independent Ukraine's first privately owned banks, in a case that is still the object of court cases. Poroshenko won a special presidential election in May 2014 as a compromise candidate after Russia-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych fled the country amid a deadly crackdown on pro-EU protests and other street unrest. Bohdan told the reporters that he and Zelenskiy met often, in Kyiv and elsewhere, in 2015. He called their early contacts "ideological, philosophical meetings, about the war, about the future, about Russia, about what is happening [in Ukraine]." It was late 2015 when Bohdan floated the idea to Zelenskiy to run for parliament, he said. Lawmaker Boris Filatov had recently vacated his seat after being elected mayor of the city of Dnipro, leading to an early election. That's when Bohdan said he called Zelenskiy to ask for a meeting. "I even flew to Odesa to meet him," he said. Bohdan said his plan was to convince Zelenskiy to win a seat in parliament and then use it as a launchpad to the presidency. But according to Bohdan, Zelenskiy turned down the offer, saying it would be "wrong" and fearing that by the time the next presidential election came around he would be seen as merely another of the political elite. "He was right, looking back today," Bohdan said. The idea arose again in March 2018, when Bohdan said he ordered a presidential poll that included Zelenskiy. When the poll results came back with the comedian in sixth place, Bohdan knew he might have a real chance. Bohdan declined to say whether his decision to push Zelenskiy to run was coordinated with Kolomoyskiy. "He never took it seriously," Bohdan claimed of his oligarch boss. But he said Kolomoyskiy began to believe in October or November that Zelenskiy had a shot at knocking out incumbent Poroshenko or, if not, of at least laying the groundwork for a political party ahead of parliamentary elections slated for October 2019. In December, "We saw the [polling results of various runoff scenarios] in the second round" of the election, Bohdan said, adding, "I had no doubt that [Zelenskiy] would win the presidential race." The press office of Zelenskiy, who announced on April 26 his departure for a two-day vacation in Turkey, did not respond to RFE/RL's request for comment on Bohdan's remarks. Zelenskiy defeated Poroshenko in a landslide in a two-man runoff on April 21, winning 73 percent of the votes, compared to Poroshenko's 24 percent. He is expected to be inaugurated in early June. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/kolomoyskiy-lawyer -claims-he-planted-seed-of-zelenskiy -presidency/29906028.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 OSCE, Western Powers At UN Assail Moscow's Plan To Ease Russian Citizenship For Ukrainians By RFE/RL April 26, 2019 The OSCE and Western powers at the United Nations have criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin's decision to ease the process of granting Russian citizenship to Ukrainians in territory of eastern Ukraine held by Russia-backed separatists. The Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe said in a statement on April 25 that its chairmanship "believes that this unilateral measure could undermine the efforts for a peaceful resolution of the crisis in and around Ukraine." It said it was reiterating its "call for a sustainable, full and permanent cease-fire and its firm support for the work of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine, which plays an essential role in reducing tensions on the ground, and in fostering peace, stability and security." The comments came a day after Putin had signed a decree simplifying the procedure for people living in parts of eastern Ukraine held by Russia-backed separatists to obtain Russian citizenship, raising the immediate ire of Ukraine and its allies who said it endangered Ukraine's sovereignty and would disrupt ongoing peace efforts. Since 2014, Kyiv's government forces have been engaged in a bloody battle in Ukraine's Donbas and Luhansk regions, where Russia has backed separatist forces in a war that has killed some 13,000 people and continues despite a cease-fire and peace deal known as the Minsk Accords. Ukraine appealed to the UN Security Council on April 25 to take "real action" against the citizenship decision, with Ambassador Volodymyr Yelchenko saying it was "simply illegal." He added that granting Russian citizenship to Ukrainians amounted to a "creeping annexation" of east Ukraine and "consolidation of the total Russian control over the occupied territories." The United States said it was "unacceptable" for Russia to decide to extend citizenship rights to Ukrainians and accused Moscow of fueling the conflict in the region. French Ambassador Francois Delattre asserted that "the solution to this crisis is not to hand out Russian passports to Ukrainian citizens" but to respect commitments made to end the conflict. German Ambassador Christoph Heusgen told reporters after the meeting that "we think right now the emphasis should be on a renewed effort to implement the Minsk agreement and to bring peace to the people that are suffering under this crisis." Russia, as a permanent member of the council, can block any measures opposing the decree with its veto power France and Germany, the European guarantors of the Minsk Accords, said earlier on April 25 that the decree "goes against the spirit and aims" of the Minsk process. The OSCE monitors the cease-fires. Following the publication of the Russian decree, Ukraine's foreign minister called it "aggression and interference" in Kyiv's affairs and a Western diplomat told RFE/RL that it was a "highly provocative step" which would undermine the situation in the war-ravaged region. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said that with the decree "Russia is torpedoing the peace process in the Donbas." Putin has rejected international criticism about his decision, telling reporters that objections to the decree were "strange." He claimed that his decree was similar to policies in European Union member states like Romania and Hungary that grant citizenship to "their own ethnic kin living outside their borders." However, Putin's decree makes no reference to ethnicity, background, or self-identification. Its wording suggests that anyone living in the separatist-held parts of Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions can apply. With reporting by RFE/RL's Ukrainian, Reuters, AFP, and A Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/osce-west -assail-russia-citizenship-decree-for- ukrainians-in-east/29904493.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 US, Russia Wait to See Which Direction Ukrainian President Will Go By Taras Burnos April 26, 2019 Following Ukrainian President-elect Volodymyr Zelenskiy's landslide victory this week, top U.S. and European Union officials were quick to offer kudos and vows of continued diplomatic support. But some Eastern European-based experts say Kyiv's ties with the West aren't likely to improve under the new administration. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Council President Donald Tusk issued a joint statement congratulating Zelenskiy on Kyiv's "significant progress" since the 2014 Maidan revolution that ousted pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich, but warned that substantial work remains before realizing "the peaceful, democratic and prosperous Ukraine that its citizens have called for." Little foreign policy change Maksym Khylko, chairman of the East European Security Research Initiative Foundation, said he expects no dramatic changes to Kyiv's foreign policy under the new presidency. Given the campaign season rhetoric of advisers surrounding Zelenskiy a few of whom, it has been reported, are likely to fill out his cabinet cooperation with the U.S. in particular is unlikely to improve. "There will be attempts to find a new balance of relations between the West and Russia, because in the inner circle that stands behind the new president, we see people with preferences for improving relations with Russia," Khylko told VOA's Russian Service. "And Russia will also try to play on these preferences, along with Zelenskiy's personal closeness to Russian culture, (and) his inexperience in politics," he added. "It's possible that the Kremlin will want to play on his ignorance by imposing on him an illusory position about the possibility of achieving a quick peace in Donbas, (offering) him his quick victory'" that Zelenskiy touted on the campaign trail. Split on Russia, West An ideological split dividing a portion of Zelenskiy's support base may leave him politically hamstrung when attempting to drum up broad domestic support for explicitly Russian- or Western-leaning economic or trade policies. "This is not to say that the majority of Ukrainians, given the results of the second round, wanted to be closer to Russia," Khylko said. "Half of Zelenskiy's electorate wants to improve relations with Russia this being the electorate who supported the openly pro-Russian candidates Yuri Boyko and Oleksandr Vilkul in the first round. The other half of his electorate, according to research, sympathizes with the Western course, but they were simply disappointed with the policies of (outgoing President Petro) Poroshenko and largely riled up by rampant criticism and negative materials in the press. "I think that most of Zelenskiy's electorate voted for him in the hope of preserving a pro-Western course." Khylko also said the coterie of political advisers surrounding Zelenskiy the majority of whom are experienced policy and political professionals will be careful to limit Washington's influence in Kyiv's foreign policy agenda, a fact of which the Trump administration, he said, is aware. "On the part of Washington, relations will remain at a high level. The United States' position is that it understands that not Zelenskiy himself, but those who are close to him, will be less inclined to see official Washington play in the minds of Ukrainian officials a leading role in the development of foreign policy." Russian Federation, United States watching closely Nikolai Beleskov of the Kyiv-based Institute of World Policy, however, says neither Moscow nor Washington has yet to develop a firm understanding of what foreign policy under Zelenskiy will look like. "Russians are waiting for Zelenskiy's official rhetoric in order to understand his attitude," he told VOA. "There will be commemorative (V-Day) events on May 8 and 9, and Russia would like to hear Zelenskiy whether he will be categorical in assessments of the Soviet past, as was the case with Petro Poroshenko or not," he said. Zelenskiy's receptivity to economic engagement with Moscow may be tested at the outset with offers of cheap energy. "The Kremlin can offer cheap natural gas, while Zelenskiy, under difficult economic conditions, will have to choose between raising prices in the housing and utilities sector, (thereby) fulfilling the conditions for cooperation with the IMF, or negotiating with Russia," he said. Signal to pro-Russian lawmakers But Russian President Vladimir Putin's decision Wednesday to simplify the procedure for obtaining a Russian passport for residents of separatist-controlled eastern Ukraine a move that immediately prompted calls from Kyiv for more international sanctions was likely a signal to pro-Russian elements in Ukraine's legislative body, the Verkhovna Rada, whose members are slated for nationwide regional elections this fall. "Objectively, (Ukraine's) presidential elections choose one person who does not affect the economy, while the parliamentary elections are the election of 415-420 people, not counting deputies from the occupied territories of Donbas and Crimea," he said. A network of individuals close to Vladislav Surkov, a personal aide to the Russian president, are waiting to see whether Viktor Medvedchuk, a Ukrainian politician and oligarch regarded as one of Putin's closest associates, will be able to unite all of Ukraine's pro-Russian factions, Beleskov said. "The results that Yuri Boyko generated in this year's election weren't bad, and sociologists say that the Opposition Platform-For Life'" a national Ukrainian political alliance of like-minded pro-Russian groups "may be the second (most powerful) parliamentary force," Beleskov said. "Russia has the possibility of bringing to the fullest extent more pro-Russian politicians to the legislative body of Ukraine," he told VOA. Relations with Washington The quality of relations with the United States, he said, will depend on whether Zelenskiy's new administration can satisfy existing benchmarks set for improved ties with the West. "It is obvious that the Americans will wait for the first steps of the new administration of the president of Ukraine cooperation with the IMF, rebooting anti-corruption bodies. Everything depends on us," he said. The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv on Wednesday called the Kremlin's decree to grant Russian citizenship to people in the occupied territories of eastern Ukraine "absurd." "Crimea is Ukraine. Donetsk is Ukraine. Luhansk is Ukraine. We condemn the recent absurd and destabilizing decree of Russia regarding Russian passports for residents of Donetsk and Luhansk, and reaffirm our strong support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine," the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine said in a Twitter message. Zelenskiy's camp issued its own statement, calling the decree "another clear confirmation for the world community of the true role of Russia, as the aggressor state, which is waging war against Ukraine. Unfortunately, this decree does not bring us closer to the solution of the main goal: the cease-fire." This story originated in VOA's Russian Service. Pete Cobus contributed reporting. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Atlanta, April 24, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The challenge was daunting, the goal audacious: Raise $1.5 million for Morehouse School of Medicines 11th Annual Hugh Gloster Society Dinner and Celebration to support student scholarships and the institutions mission of improving diversity and equity in healthcare. By the end of the night, with the help of partners including the Chick-fil-A Foundation, Georgia Power and The Home Depot, the school raised $2.13 million. Im pleased and honored to announce that the Chick-fil-A Foundation is giving $750,000 to MSM, to support scholarships for students who are committed to living in this new property on the Westside, said Rodney Bullard, executive director of the Chick-fil-A Foundation, referring to MSMs $60-million, three-acre mixed-use campus expansion underway on Lee Street. Bullard, who also serves as Chick-fil-As vice president of corporate social responsibility, co-chaired the sold-out event held April 18, which drew more than 340 prominent business and community leaders. WSB-TV Channel 2 news anchor Fred Blankenship served as master of ceremonies. With Chief Executive Officer Dan Cathys unwavering commitment to the Westside, and to making a better future for all of us, we are excited to support this project and to continue our partnership with MSM in the days to come, Bullard said. The Westside areas deep historical significance as an incubator for the civil rights movement and home to the nations most prestigious historically black colleges and universities is invaluable for the city of Atlanta, Bullard added later. The Foundation is proud to work with local community members, civic and non-profit organizations and corporations to restore this historic community. That gift, the largest among many announced during the evening, allowed MSM to surpass the previous years record of $1.3 million raised. Earlier in the evening, guests enjoyed a unique, behind-the-scenes showcase of MSMs education, research and patient-care initiatives called the MSM Experience. Activities included student research presentations, interactive medical simulation demonstrations, clinical insights and a look at the schools Pipeline Programs, which expose students from elementary through post-undergraduate levels to the world of science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics. Georgia Power received this years Louis C. Brown Vanguard Award, honoring individuals and organizations with a pioneering spirit and demonstrated leadership that is reducing health disparities. Chairman, President and CEO Paul Bowers accepted on behalf of Georgia Power. Over the years, the company has contributed close to $1.5 million to Morehouse School of Medicine for scholarships and to support MSMs Pipeline Programs. MSM President and Dean Valerie Montgomery Rice, M.D., reflected on the schools many changes. Five years ago, we declared that if we were going to be true to our mission and work toward the elimination of health disparities, then we must begin to focus our efforts on the advancement of health equity, Dr. Montgomery Rice said. As youve seen here and hopefully witnessed in your various experiences, we are doing what we said we would do. Ted Decker, executive vice president of merchandising for The Home Depot, served as event co-chair for the third consecutive year. Under his leadership, MSM has raised $4.3 million in support of student scholarship at this signature event. This is an event that elevates Morehouse School of Medicines impact in the community and provides scholarships for our students as well as support for research and community engagement programs, said MSM Senior Vice President for Institutional Advancement Bennie Harris, Ph.D. Named in honor of one of MSM's esteemed founders and late president of Morehouse College Dr. Hugh Gloster, the societys donations have been used to improve overall health and well-being, diversify the health and scientific workforce, and improve primary health care, with an emphasis on people of color and the underserved urban and rural populations of Georgia, the nation and the world. About Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM) Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM), located in Atlanta, Georgia, was founded in 1975 as a two-year Medical Education Program at Morehouse College with clinical training affiliations with several established medical schools for awarding the M.D. degree. In 1981, MSM became an independently chartered institution and the first medical school established at a Historically Black College and University in the 20th century. MSM is among the nation's leading educators of primary care physicians and was recently recognized as the top institution among U.S. medical schools for our social mission. Our faculty and alumni are noted in their fields for excellence in teaching, research, and public policy, and are known in the community for exceptional, culturally appropriate patient care. Morehouse School of Medicine is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award doctorate and masters degrees. ### Attachment WAYNE, Pa., April 25, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Judge Group, a leading global professional services firm, has been awarded a 2019 Top Workplaces honor by Philadelphia Media Network. The award is based solely on employee feedback gathered through a third-party survey administered by research partner Energage , LLC (formerly WorkplaceDynamics), a leading provider of technology-based employee engagement tools. The anonymous survey measures several aspects of workplace culture, including alignment, execution, and connection, just to name a few. The Judge Group utilizes a network of over 35 officesseveral located in the Delaware Valley throughout the United States, Canada, and India to provide technology, talent, and learning solutions to clients across a wide range of industries. The company was founded in Philadelphia in 1970 and continues to be headquartered in the Greater Philadelphia Area. As such, The Judge Group is proud to be entering its 50th year of service to clients and job seekers in the Delaware Valley and across the globe. Top Workplaces is more than just recognition, said Doug Claffey , CEO of Energage. Our research shows organizations that earn the award attract better talent, experience lower turnover, and are better equipped to deliver bottom-line results. Their leaders prioritize and carefully craft a healthy workplace culture that supports employee engagement. We are excited to once again be named as a Top Workplace by the Philadelphia Media Network, said Brian Anderson, President of The Judge Group. To have received this distinction for the past ten years is an honor. We strive to create a company culture rooted in our core values and to receive this recognition based on the direct feedback of our employees is a testament to those efforts. As we enter our 50th year of service, it continues to be the hard work and dedication of our employees that helps separate Judge from our competitors. Becoming a Top Workplace isnt something organizations can buy, Claffey said. Its an achievement organizations have worked for and a distinction that gives them a competitive advantage. Its a big deal. The Judge Group, headquartered in suburban Philadelphia, is located at 151 South Warner Road, Wayne, PA 19087. The office can be reached at 1-800-650-0035 and for more information about The Judge Group visit https://www.judge.com . About The Judge Group The Judge Group is a leading professional services firm specializing in talent, technology, and learning solutions. Our services are successfully delivered through a network of more than 35 offices in the United States, Canada, and India. The Judge Group serves more than 47 of the Fortune 100 and is responsible for over 7,000 professionals on assignment annually across a wide range of industries. Working at the crossroads of people and transformative technologies, The Judge Group delivers innovative business solutions powered by top talent to help organizations reach their strategic goals and realize opportunities now and in the future. About Energage, LLC Headquartered in Exton, PA, Energage (formerly known as WorkplaceDynamics) is a leading provider of technology-based employee engagement tools that help leaders to unlock potential, inspire performance, and achieve amazing results within their organizations. The research partner behind the Top Workplaces program, Energage has surveyed more than 47,000 organizations representing well over 16 million employees in the United States. Glass Lewis becomes second leading proxy advisory firm to recommend that Knight shareholders reject Meir Jakobsohns scheme to take control of Knight; notes lingering concerns with respect to Mr. Jakobsohns motivations and behavior Glass Lewis joins ISS in recommending that shareholders withhold votes from Mr. Jakobsohn Shareholders are reminded to vote the BLUE Proxy in advance of the voting deadline of Friday, May 3, 2019 at 5:00 p.m. (EST) Questions? Need help? Contact Kingsdale Advisors at 1-888-518-1552 or at contactus@kingsdaleadvisors.com MONTREAL, April 26, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Knight Therapeutics Inc. (TSX: GUD) ("Knight"), a Canadian specialty pharmaceutical company, today announced that leading independent proxy advisory firm Glass, Lewis & Co., LLC (Glass Lewis) has recommended that shareholders reject Meir Jakobsohns attempt to take control of Knight and remove him from Knights board of directors at the upcoming 2019 Annual Meeting of Shareholders on May 7, 2019 by withholding their vote from Meir Jakobsohn. The Glass Lewis report comes on the heels of a report issued by Institutional Shareholders Services Inc., on Thursday, which also stated that Mr. Jakobsohn failed to make a case for change at Knight. In making its recommendation, Glass Lewis noted the following: given Mr. Jakobsohn's poor attendance record, affiliated status and lingering concerns with respect to his motivations and behavior during this campaign, we recommend that shareholders withhold votes from Mr. Jakobsohn. Knight is pleased that Glass Lewis correctly questions Mr. Jakobsohns motivations. However, in their analysis, Glass Lewis fails to consider the valuable and irreplaceable roles that Ms. Sakhia and Mr. Gale provide with regard to their experience in building pharma companies, particularly at this early stage in Knights history. Our directors have proven track records of success and collectively have the right mix of experience and skill-sets necessary to continue Knights growth. Both Ms. Sakhia and Mr. Gale have extensive operational experience in the biotechnology sector and both were part of the team that built Paladin into an international specialty pharmaceutical company with over $300 million in revenues. Their success in building Paladin with Jonathan Goodman shouldnt be viewed as conflicts: they are a reflection of successful, rich careers that facilitate new and growing opportunities for Knight. Knight is also troubled by Glass Lewis commentary about Mr. Jakobsohns shareholder proposal. Shareholders are reminded that a vote for the proposal is tantamount to a vote against Jonathan. In responding to the Glass Lewis report, CEO Jonathan Goodman said the following: Wed like to thank all shareholders for their overwhelming support to date. This support coupled with Glass Lewis, ISS and seven equity analysts who cover Knightincluding Raymond James, GMP Securities, Cormark Securities, Paradigm Capital, National Bank, Bloom Burton Securities, and Mackie Research is a clear validation of the experience, qualifications, and track record of managements director nominees and a reinforcement of our strategy to build the leading Canadian and rest-of-the-world speciality pharmaceutical company. We remind all shareholders to vote their BLUE Proxy for all of managements director nominees. Public Statements of Support Continue to Accumulate Every major analyst that covers Knight has indicated their support for Jonathan and his director nominees and warned against a Knight controlled by Mr. Jakobsohn. On Friday, Cormark Securities released another supportive statement for managements nominees. In our opinion, a vote for the BLUE proxy is a vote for Jonathan Goodman, a now multi-trick pony whose track record of success, not luck, has earned him the devout shareholder base he has today. PROTECT YOUR INVESTMENT - VOTE YOUR BLUE PROXY TODAY Dont risk your Knight investment to Meir Jakobsohn, his risky scheme and inexperienced director nominees. We encourage shareholders vote the BLUE Proxy or Voting Instruction Form (VIF) FOR the Knight board nominees who are aligned with their interests and the original vision of Knight. The deadline to vote is Friday, May 3, 2019 at 5:00 p.m. (EST). Shareholders with questions regarding voting the BLUE Proxy or VIF should visit Knights website or contact Knight's strategic shareholder advisor and proxy solicitation agent, Kingsdale Advisors, who can be reached by toll-free telephone in North America at 1-888-518-1552, by collect call outside North America at 416-867-2272, or by email at contactus@kingsdaleadvisors.com . Advisors Knight has retained Kingsdale Advisors as its strategic shareholder and communications advisor, Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP as its legal advisor, and RBC Capital Markets as its financial advisor. About Knight Therapeutics Inc. Knight Therapeutics Inc., headquartered in Montreal, Canada, is a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on acquiring or in-licensing and commercializing innovative pharmaceutical products for the Canadian and select international markets. Knight Therapeutics Inc.s shares trade on TSX under the symbol GUD. For more information about Knight Therapeutics Inc., please visit the companys web site at www.gud-knight.com or www.sedar.com. Forward-Looking Statement This document contains forward-looking statements for Knight Therapeutics Inc. and its subsidiaries. These forward-looking statements, by their nature, necessarily involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated by the forward-looking statements. Knight Therapeutics Inc. considers the assumptions on which these forward-looking statements are based to be reasonable at the time they were prepared, but cautions the reader that these assumptions regarding future events, many of which are beyond the control of Knight Therapeutics Inc. and its subsidiaries, may ultimately prove to be incorrect. Factors and risks, which could cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations are discussed in Knight Therapeutics Inc.'s Annual Report and in Knight Therapeutics Inc.'s Annual Information Form for the year ended December 31, 2018. Knight Therapeutics Inc. disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information or future events, except as required by law. CONTACT INFORMATION: Investor Contact: Knight Therapeutics Inc. Samira Sakhia President & Chief Financial Officer T: 514-678-8930 F: 514-481-4116 info@gudknight.com www.gud-knight.com Media Contact: Kingsdale Advisors Ian Robertson Executive Vice President, Communication Strategy Direct: 416-867-2333 Cell: 647-621-2646 irobertson@kingsdaleadvisors.com India Again Defers Retaliatory Tariffs On US Products To May 15 Business oi-Roshni Agarwal On Friday a government official said that India has again deferred levy of higher tariffs on some of the products imported from the US to May 15. The new retaliatory tariffs were to apply from May 2, a spokeswoman said without providing any grounds for the delay. Last year in June, the government took a decision to increase import tax on some of the US products such as apples, walnuts and almonds from August 4 after the US denied exemption from the new levies on aluminium and steel. Nonetheless, since then there has been a repeated delay in the implementation of the new tariff. As another setback for the country, on Monday the US administration has asked buyers of oil from Iran to stop their purchases or face sanctions. With this six-month of waivers ends on May 2 that allowed eight major importers of Iranian oil including India to continue their oil purchases in limited volumes. GoodReturns.in For investment related articles, business news and mutual fund advise Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, April 27, 2019, 11:38 [IST] Assistant Director Manfra viewing information with policy analyst Maryam Ali at the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center in Arlington, Va., on April 25, 2019. Brent Logan, CISA photographer Assistant Director Manfra meeting members of the Executive Womens Forum at the EWF Cybersecurity Women on Capitol Hill Public Private Symposium at the U.S. Capitol on May 9, 2018. Credit: Antonio Soliz, CISA public affairs specialist Back in early March of this year, I was honored to speak with Jeanette Manfra after the National Cyber Security Alliances annual luncheon at the RSA Conference in San Francisco Manfra is the assistant director for Cybersecurity for the Department of Homeland Securitys Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). During the luncheon, which highlighted DHS activities, she described CISAs current actions and future vision in a fireside chat with NCSA Executive Director Kelvin Coleman This was the second time Ive heard Manfra speak, and on both occasions she was clear, articulate, and spoke with passion, expertise and personal stories that reminded me of similar conversations with former DHS cyber leaders like Phyllis Schneck and Mark Weatherford When we talked after that event, Manfra (and her team) agreed to be interviewed on the record for my blog on a wide-ranging list of cybertopics. I am pleased to offer you that interview here.Before we start the interview, you can get a sense of Jeanette Manfras speaking style by watching thisvideo excerpt from an interview in 2017.At DHS, Manfra has held multiple positions in the Cybersecurity Division, including advisor to the assistant secretary for Cybersecurity and Communications and deputy director of the Office of Emergency Communications, during which time she led the departments efforts in establishing the Nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network. You can see her professional biography here Cyberthreats to federal networks and critical infrastructure are one of our most pressing national security challenges. We have seen advanced persistent threat actors, including cybercriminals, nation states and their proxies, increase the frequency and sophistication of malicious cyberactivity. They are developing and using advanced cybercapabilities in attempts to undermine critical infrastructure, target our livelihoods and innovation, steal our national security secrets and threaten our democracy.Over the last few years, we have issued several alerts to help network defenders and system administrators protect their systems from various threats and adversaries, to include state sponsored actors from China Russia and North Korea . In addition to the interagency, we routinely collaborate with our international partners.The United Kingdoms National Cyber Security Centre joined us in an alert about Russian global exploitation of network infrastructure devices. With Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, we published a joint product that highlighted publicly available tools that have been used for malicious purposes in recent cyberincidents.Under the leadership of former-DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and CISA Director Chris Krebs, we hit the ground running. We are working closely with Congress to ensure they are aware of our plans as we position ourselves as the nations risk adviser.Restructuring and alignment is well underway to streamline our organization over the course of the next two years. For example, we are integrating some of the Cybersecurity Division capabilities with the National Risk Management Center and the Infrastructure Security Division.We are working to successfully align communication and coordination across our agency. We have several hundred employees out in the field, from coast to coast, working to safeguard our critical infrastructure. We are one CISA and we are working to change and break down the culture of internal silos.For cybersecurity, our priorities are industrial control systems, federal civilian networks, election security and China/supply chain, to include 5G.We are taking a renewed focus on industrial control systems (ICS), the processes that provide vital services in critical infrastructure, such as electricity, transportation, water/wastewater, manufacturing, communications, etc. The convergence of information technology (IT) systems with operational technology (OT) puts devices increasingly at risk in a hyper-connected world. We want to assess how we collectively with owners and operators, law enforcement, intelligence and international partners can reduce risk in a converging cyberphysical landscape.In protecting the federal civilian executive branch networks, or .gov, I want us to lean forward in using our authorities as well as assessing and improving our tools, resources and capabilities, such as Continuous Diagnostic Mitigation (CDM) and the National Cybersecurity Protection System (NCPS), which includes EINSTEIN. Since 2015, we have issued several binding operational directives (BOD) for departments and agencies (D/A) to take specific actions to improve network protection and resilience. In response to the global threat to the domain name system (DNS), we issued our first emergency directive that mandated D/As assess and strengthen the protection of their DNSs. We make these directives publicly available at https://cyber.dhs.gov so our private-sector, state/local government and international partners can see what were doing to better protect the federal domain part of our collective defense effort. Another important effort in this area is working with the Commerce Department and Census Bureau to protect Census 2020, which includes the integrity and security of their data and mission.For election security , we are building on the positive outcomes and relationships from the 2018 mid-term elections. These critical relationships with state and local election officials, voting machine vendors and interagency partners will be leveraged to the fullest extent to protect the 2020 elections.We are actively leading supply chain risk managements in both government and industry. There are many benefits to the upcoming deployment of 5G technologies, however it also increases access points that could be used by our adversaries to get into our networks. We know that China is a persistent cyberespionage threat to the U.S. government, corporations and allies. Our top priority is stopping China from tampering with the U.S. supply chain, including 5G networks.We view our priorities as the priorities of the American people, federal civilian government and critical infrastructure owners and operators.One project is the Information and Communication Technologies Supply Chain Risk Management Task Force, with members from government and the IT and Communications Sectors. It is examining and developing consensus recommendations to identify and manage risk to the global technology supply chain. The Task Force participants include 40 of the largest companies in the IT and communications sectors as well as 20 federal partners.Another project is the Tri-Sector Executive Working Group with senior representatives from the financial services sector, communications sector, and electricity sub-sector, and Treasury and Energy. The objectives of this group is to help direct intelligence collection requirements, build cross-sector risk management playbooks, and better understand system risk.The Pipeline Cybersecurity Initiative is a partnership with the Transportation Security Administration. With TSA expertise, we are working with asset owners and operators on in-depth review and evaluation of the control systems network design, configuration and interdependencies.First, we recognize that Americas election processes are governed and administered by state and local election officials in thousands of jurisdictions across the country. When DHS designated elections as critical infrastructure, we had to reach out to a community that didnt know us and a community that is somewhat political. I think now were pretty good at understanding elections, reaching out, listening, and engaging vendors and election officials in all 50 states and more than 1,400 local jurisdictions.For 2020, we are doubling down on our information sharing, assistance and increasing our outreach to local officials to #Protect2020. Working with the self-organized and self-governed councils for election infrastructure, a few of our goals are to achieve 100 percent auditability by 2020, improve audits and incentivize patching of election systems.We will continue to build and strengthen the partnership between federal, state and local government and private-sector entities, such as voting machine vendors. There is no silver bullet for securing election infrastructure.We partner with state, local, tribal and territorial (SLTT) and major organizations on strategic initiatives focused on reducing cyber-risk across the SLTT enterprise. These partnerships that act as force multipliers and promote DHS services include: National Association of Counties (NACo), National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO); National League of Cities (NLC); National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL); and National Governors Association (NGA). One example is our partnership with NASCIO that led to the development of a State Cybersecurity Governance Report and series of State Cybersecurity Governance Case Studies exploring how states govern cybersecurity.Primarily supported by us (CISA), the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC) provides access to analysis services and intrusion detection for SLTT governments. We work closely with MS-ISAC and consider it to be a principal conduit for sharing cybersecurity information.Our work with SLTT was in place before the designation of elections as a critical infrastructure, but it was more toward the chief information officers. We understand that local governments have some unique challenges when facing cyber-risks like ransomware. So we offer free access to training, assessments, information sharing and incident response. CDM tools are available to state and local governments on GSA IT Schedule 70 through the cooperative purchasing agreement. And we have cybersecurity and physical security advisers regionally based and, upon request, available to provide onsite consultation.In nearly all our alerts about malicious activity, we recommend the application of cyberhygiene and best practices. These are not new ideas, but they are critical because we know that malicious cyberactors routinely seize on government and industry that have weak security practices.For security professionals, our website, www.us-cert.gov//ccubedvp , offers preparedness support, assessments, training of employees, best practices advice and cyberhygiene resources.Automated Indicator Sharing (AIS) is a great tool for bi-directional sharing of cyberthreat indicators in real time through a confidential and secure format. Threat indicators are pieces of information like malicious IP addresses or the senders address of a phishing email. AIS is designed for volume and velocity; it does not provide much context, but we are working to improve this. To sign up for this service, go to www.us-cert.gov/ais We offer vulnerability scanning of Internet-accessible systems for known vulnerabilities on a continual basis as a no-cost service. We have more than 1,100 customers participating in this service from the private sector, SLTT and federal government. When we detect a concern, we notify the customer so they may proactively mitigate risks to their systems prior to exploitation.For those working in industrial control systems, we offer online and classroom training from the beginner level to the advanced network defender.For several years, we have using every tool available to recruit and retain talent with laser focus on building a talent bench of cyberprofessionals, and incentivizing talent to start and grow a career with CISA. Our challenges arent unique, but are felt throughout the industry.In the presidents budget proposal, we are asking for funding to launch the Cyber Talent Management System that we think will be a more agile and innovative personnel system. A few positive things we think will occur are a speedier hiring process, larger talent pool to draw from and, depending on aptitude, allowance for rapid acceleration in careers.The hiring process for cybertalent is the same as for traditional government skills and we want to change it. We are in the final stages of developing this program and plan to make our first hires later this year.It is an exciting time as we enter in our next chapter at DHS in the newly created CISA. The CISA director and I know that ahead of us lie great challenges, but even greater opportunities.If we continue to strengthen our collective defense, I think we can create an environment where the advantage is with the defender.I want to thank Assistant Director Manfra for her time and for answering important questions regarding CISAs vital mission and future plans.I encourage state and local governments as well as private-sector partners to engage with CISA on these projects to strengthen our cyberdefenses. Also, visit the hyperlinks in this interview for more details on these cutting-edge DHS projects. As another year marked by the global pandemic comes to an end, our photojournalists remain challenged and, frequently, awed - by the constant state of change. We documented our ever-evolving world in ways few photo staffs could as we all worked to regain normalcy amid COVID-19s seemingly unbreakable hold on our communities. We showed the relieved faces of people receiving a coveted vaccine, telling the story of a scientific breakthrough with images of those benefitting from it. We covered new workplace policies, school protocols and policing practices. We traveled half-way across the world to an Olympics where the athletes couldnt hug each other, masked medalists step atop the podium and no one came to watch. The Chicago Tribune faced its own series of changes, too. We have new owners. New bosses. Endured another move. Gained new talented journalists and lost many others from the newsroom ranks. The one constant has been our dedication to providing photography on a daily basis that is relevant to the communities we cover: The joy of picnicking at the lakefront on a summer afternoon, the pain of children, police officers and neighbors all falling victims to violent crime. Documenting whos in and whos out in the political landscape, escaping to your favorite cultural event or sports competition. We hope this installment of the annual Photos of the Year project reminds us of the moments that shaped our lives and the thoughtful way we portray them. Its also a platform for acknowledging the talent and dedication of Tribune photographers, and all photojournalists, who make change a way of life. The Chicago Tribune staff photographers for 2021: Brian Cassella, Erin Hooley, Terrence Antonio James, Vashon Jordan Jr., John J. Kim, Youngrae Kim, Jose M. Osorio, Antonio Perez, Armando L. Sanchez, Chris Sweda, Abel Uribe, E. Jason Wambsgans, Stacey Wescott and Raquel Zaldivar. Tribune visual editors: Mark Hume, Andrew Johnston, Marianne Mather, Steve Rosenberg and Peter Tsai. - Todd Panagopoulos, Director of Content/Visuals Biden is sometimes described as an Everyman, a politician who can hobnob with the powerful but who also understands the regular people. He displays a genuine, if cagey, folksiness and, at the age of 76, wears a patina of experience that can pass for wisdom. He has endured great personal loss, most recently of his son, with dignity. He seems like a decent man. Bennett College gate (copy) The Gorrell Street gate of Bennett College, with Annie Merner Pfeiffer Chapel in the background. GREENSBORO Pilar Hughes watched students crisscross the wide quad at the center of campus, remembering her first year at Bennett College. The tiny classes. The soul food lunches served on Wednesdays. The sisterhood and the overwhelming sense of self-worth the all-womens black college offered. There is so much love and community here, the freshman said on a warm spring morning. Im sure the experiences here will help me in life. And yet, she plans to transfer. Bennett, one of two all-womens historically black colleges in the country, could be on the verge of closure. Years of financial woes have led recently to a federal court battle over its accreditation, without which the future of any college is dim. Meanwhile, students like Hughes flee. Ten years ago, nearly 800 students roamed Bennetts campus. Now, there are fewer than 500. Fighting the future Bennetts story reflects that of many of the nations 102 historically black colleges and universities, or HBCUs, most of which formed after the Civil War. In recent years, the institutions overall have seen enrollments plummet, endowments decrease and student bodies once entirely black become more mixed as HBCUs attempt to compete with schools that no longer shut out African Americans. Desegregation, along with a more recent push for diverse recruits among non-HBCUs and growing incomes among black families, has made historically black colleges and universities a less common option for African Americans. Fifty years ago, 90% of black postsecondary students attended historically black schools. In 1990, it was close to 17%. Today, around 9% do. +3 Re-inventing Bennett: Committee to plan college's future The Bennett Re-Engineering Committee will meet for the first time Thursday and work throughout the summer. National enrollment reached a peak in 2010 at about 326,000. Today, its about 298,000. The nations oldest historically black college, Cheyney University of Pennsylvania founded in 1837 has fought to keep its accreditation. Its trying to raise at least $4 million to stay afloat. Three HBCUs have closed since 2000. Other schools, including Alabama State University, Paine College in Georgia and Elizabeth City State in North Carolina, have battled steep enrollment declines and major financial struggles. The same issues have led more than a quarter of the nations historically black schools to be put under warning or on probation by accrediting groups in the last decade. The situation of HBCUs is precarious, said Crystal deGregory, a professor who studies their history at Kentucky State University, a historically black college in the state capital, Frankfort. We dont know if were going to make it. The Syllabus: The road ahead for Bennett College (cont.) Two higher ed publications take a look at the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools, the accrediting agency that Bennett College is looking to join. 'I have to move on' Not all HBCUs have suffered. The most prestigious have thrived in recent years, with enrollment and endowments growing along with donations from well-known alumni. Everybody has heard of Howard, Spelman, Hampton, Morehouse, said Dianne Suber, former president of tiny St. Augustines University in Raleigh. But so many others are out there just existing day-to-day, check-to-check or sometimes worse. After their establishment, historically black colleges grew in size and influence for more than a century. Many of the oldest are private schools created by churches. Public campuses blossomed in the late 19th century. Thats when a federal law that granted land for universities also required states that barred blacks from institutions of higher education to create separate campuses to serve African Americans. The schools have educated legions of black artists, business leaders and politicians. Spike Lee attended Morehouse. Oprah Winfrey went to Tennessee State. Jesse Jackson graduated from N.C. A&T. Thurgood Marshall had degrees from Lincoln and Howard. The Rev. Jesse Jackson at Bennett In this May 2018 photo, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, former N.C. A&T student body president and U.S. presidential candidate, delivers the bacca Bennett College was founded in 1873 as a coeducational institution in central North Carolina. In the 1920s, it became an all-womens college, albeit one run by men. That changed in 1955 when Willa Beatrice Player became its president the first black woman in the nation to lead a four-year accredited liberal arts college. The campus is a five-minute drive from downtown Greensboro, where in 1960, four students from nearby A&T staged a sit-in at the whites-only Woolworths lunch counter. Dozens of women from Bennett joined the sit-ins, which stretched on for months and became among the best-known protests of the civil rights movement. Bennett women2-1.jpg (copy) Demonstration in Greensboro on Oct. 14, 1962. Second woman is Ollie Johnson Bennett, class of 1962. Nationwide, black students tend to do better overall at historically black colleges, studies have shown. There is a correlation between atmosphere, retention and success at HBCUs compared with how black students fare at other schools, said Janelle Williams, a visiting scholar at the Penn Center for Minority Serving Institutions at the University of Pennsylvania. A study released last year by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Massachusetts at Boston also found that black students at HBCUs were more likely to graduate within six years than black students at predominantly white institutions. Black students at HBCUs are more likely to go on to graduate school than those who attend other schools, Williams said. One advantage that historically black college students have is that their schools tend to be small; more than half have 2,500 or fewer students. But the size has also made financial and enrollment dips harder to manage. In the last decade, HBCUs have increasingly recruited students who are not black, offering scholarships and touting their small class sizes and role in the fight for racial equality. At a quarter of the schools, nonblack students make up at least 20% of enrollment today. At Bennett, which graduated its first white student in 1960 a civil rights activist who was part of the lunch-counter sit-in white students make up a tiny minority. Hughes, 19, grew up in New Jersey and had never lived outside the Northeast. After attending a mostly white high school, she wanted an all-black education. +4 'Our fight continues': Bennett College loses its accreditation but files suit and gets it back The college remains accredited as legal action against the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges winds through federal court. Bennett also has started the process to seek accreditation from another agency. When else in life will you be able to be in an all-black setting working toward a common goal getting a degree? That was a question I thought about a lot before deciding on Bennett, she said. The country is run by white people. I wanted the experience at least for my education to be one that is exclusively black. Hughes arrived in August. Four months later, as the struggles of the college became clear, she made a painful decision: She needed to transfer. Having a degree from an unaccredited or potentially unaccredited university makes no sense, Hughes said. On a recent morning, the biology major dropped by the enrollment management center to get her transcripts. She plans to apply to A&T. I love this campus and these people. But the issues this school faces could hurt my future. I have to move on. Abigail Mosley grew up in the suburbs of Cleveland and knew from an early age that she wanted to enroll at a historically black college or university. Shed felt stunted at her predominantly white high school, especially when learning about black history. Everything is narrated through a white lens, the 21-year-old said. She earned an associates degree near home, and last spring started looking at four-year colleges. Mosley was admitted to Spelman the only other womens HBCU but the Atlanta college didnt offer her enough scholarship money. While visiting colleges in North Carolina, she spent an afternoon at Bennett with her parents. They walked between the two- and three-story red brick buildings with bright white trim, where every class and dorm is within a 10-minute stroll. Knotty magnolias created patches of shade, and the calm of the small campus put her at ease. Immediately, I knew I wanted to attend, Mosley said. I can text my professors there is investment in students from faculty. But Mosley recently applied and was accepted to Cleveland State University, a non-HBCU thats closer to home. I have to have a backup plan, she said. Once she gets her degree in political science, she wants start a nonprofit in Cleveland that focuses on community organizing. Its all up in the air right now, Mosley said. It would be upsetting to see my potential alma mater no longer in existence. Fragile but fertile Bennett College accreditation (copy) Bennett College President Phyllis Worthy Dawkins waves a towel with Bennett College alumni after announcing Feb. 4 the college had raised more In recent months, after going public with its accreditation struggle, Bennett netted more than $9.5 million in donations. Its accreditor, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, nonetheless said Bennett was in financial trouble and took away its status. Accreditation allows colleges to offer Pell Grants, federally guaranteed loans and work-study programs, and make a degree more valuable. The school had borrowed tens of millions from the federal government since 2001 for new construction, upkeep and refinancing, and it was in the red by more than $1 million in 2017. Last year, it was one of eight historically black colleges that were given six-year interest-free deferments on federal loans. But school administrators, pointing to a budget surplus of $461,000 last year and the fundraising success, say the campus is on the mend. Bennett sued over its accreditation status, and in February, it won a temporary reprieve while the case proceeds. There are bits of good news in Greensboro and for historically black schools, though. Nationwide enrollment, after hitting a 15-year low in 2016, increased by 2% in 2017. The jump came as overall enrollment in the U.S. fell. At Bennett College, enrollment grew more than 15% this year, to 471. Some see the bump as reflecting young people applying to colleges in an era of increasing hate crimes and resurgent white supremacy. Parents are rethinking what kind of environments students should be in for their education, Suber said. Bennett and other HBCUs were briefly in the spotlight after President Donald Trump invited dozens of the schools presidents to the Oval Office the month after his inauguration. He vowed to make the institutions an absolute priority and later signed an executive order promising increased support. Last year, the federal government forgave $322 million in loans to four historically black colleges in Louisiana and Mississippi that had borrowed money after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. In 2017, Congress approved the return of year-round Pell Grants, which can be used for summer classes; more than 70% of HBCU students receive the grants. But some students and leaders now view the Oval Office visit as little more than a photo op. As Bennett Colleges future remains uncertain, some students have gone to the campus chapel to seek reassurance. They sit among white pews as light from narrow windows falls on a glass panel of a black Madonna. Bennett College Annie Merner Pfeiffer Chapel The Little Theater (white doors) and the Annie Merner Pfeiffer Chapel at Bennett College. Students are concerned and are looking for answers, the Rev. Natalie McLean said on a recent afternoon at the chapel. McLean, 60, has spent 17 years as the schools chaplain. She graduated from Bennett in 1980. Her mother earned a degree from the school in 1954. To McLean, the struggle of historically black colleges isnt just about the future, but about remembering the past at schools that provide unvarnished looks into history. Beating the odds is what HBCUs are about, she said. McLean prays and is confident her school will survive the battle. Were fragile, she said, yet fertile. She said she was at home and did not know if her husband had a weapon. She said he was driving her black Nissan Murano. I just want to see if theres someone who can be there before he gets there because hes very upset, and Im trying to stop him from doing something he would regret and that we would regret, she said. Guilford Metro 911 received 10 other calls shortly before 2 p.m. from various people at the U.S. Postal Service office. In an almost eight-minute 911 call, one woman served as officers key witness. She heard shots and tried to get her colleagues back into the building. There was an individual here in our parking lot, she said. Oh Jesus Christ, she screamed before finishing her sentence. Loud commotion could be heard around her. The woman told operators the shooter said his wife had an affair with one of the post office employees. He used to work here, and hes a nice guy, the woman said of the shooter. The witness told operators she heard five or six shots and didnt know if anyone had been hurt. For example, Reuters reported in 2009 that traffickers have tucked drugs into hidden compartments in crates containing venomous snakes marked "Don't open!" so that customs workers would be too afraid to look inside. In 2011, Al Jazeera reported that Mexican authorities were seizing so many exotic animals from "narco zoos" belonging to Mexican drug cartel leaders that they did not know what to do with all of them. In some cases, the news outlet reported, the animals served as both symbols of power and as a warning to rival gangs: Members of the Zetas gang were rumored to have fed their enemies to the backyard tigers. The Will County coroner ruled the toddlers death a homicide by asphyxiation. Based on autopsy findings, authorities believe Semaj was dead by the time investigators arrived at the house and that her body was placed under the couch shortly after her death. The couch weighed about 100 pounds and there was only a 2-inch gap between the floor and the bottom of the furnishing, leading investigators to believe the toddler could not have gotten underneath it by herself. On May 1, some Guilford County Schools employees will join colleagues from across the state to lend their voices to the call for better funding and resources for public schools. Others will choose to spend the day in the classroom, preparing for the onslaught of year-end responsibilities and activities. Still others, including maintenance workers, technology installers, payroll providers and other central office staff, will continue doing the essential work behind the scenes that makes classroom learning possible. Regardless of what might be on their agendas for May 1, these employees share one thing in common: They devote countless hours to making Guilford County Schools a better place for students and staff. And for that, they deserve a word of thanks and praise. We are asking you to join us this May to say thank you to the educators who use their planning periods, their nights and their weekends trying to be better at what they do so that our children will benefit. They give up their hard-earned paychecks to buy supplies for their students and show up at extracurricular activities to share encouragement. Duplicate players with fewer than 200 master points can take part in the special one-day sectional tournament set for next Saturday, May 4, at the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Stamford. The two single-session pair games will start at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Those who place in their section or overall will earn silver master points. Participants can play in either one or both sessions, but advance registration is required. To register, send an email to: CT199er.info@gamil.com. Two other upcoming tournaments on the horizon are: the Eastern States regional to be held from May 21 to May 27 at the Hilton Midtown in New York, and the Connecticut sectional tournament from June 14 to June 16 in Orange. Todays quiz: Here is another in the current series of quizzes on interpreting your partners bids. In the following problem, you are given an auction accompanied by three hands, only one of which could actually fit the bids your partner has made. Applying the principles of standard bidding, which of the three hands do you think partner has? The bidding: You-2C; Partner-2D; You-2NT; Partner-3C. Partner could hold: a) S-9864 H-J762 D-94 C-K87 b) S-73 H-Q82 D-54 C-K76542 c) S-84 H-J93 D-106 C-1097542 Answer: Your two club opening followed by a two notrump rebid indicates a balanced hand of 22-24 points. Partners initial two diamonds was a waiting bid, giving you maximum space to further describe your hand. When he hears you rebid two notrump, he treats that bid just as if you had opened two notrump, in which case the standard conventions to an opening one or two notrump bid apply. Accordingly, partners three club bid should be treated as Stayman, asking you if you have a four-card major. Since you have at least 22 points, partner needs only four (or more) points to employ Stayman. Therefore, the only hand of the three given that fits the bidding is hand a), where partner would prefer to play in four hearts or four spades, but will bid three notrump if you deny having a four-card major by bidding three diamonds. As for the two remaining choices, partner could not bid three clubs at his second turn with either one, which would be Stayman and imply interest in playing in a major suit. With hand b), partner would simply raise two notrump to three, and with hand c), partner would pass. The weeks duplicate results: Greenwich YWCA weekly open duplicate: North-South, 1. Carol Cram-Penny Foote, 2. Renate Fremuth-Carole Hue; East-West, 1. Ruth Newberg-Jean Raben, 2-3. Mary Albertell-Ruth Chizzini, Doris Greenwald-Terry Lubman. Central Greenwich Bridge Club, 4/19: 1. Joyce Beach-Holly Pastula, 2. Bob Driessen-Dean Goss, 3. Doris Erdman-James Chung. STAMFORD A Greenwich woman, who slipped into a bakery early in the morning and allegedly stabbed a sleeping bagel maker in the neck, will put forth a not guilty by reason of insanity defense at her upcoming trial before a Stamford judge this summer. At an appearance before Judge Gary White at the Stamford courthouse on Friday morning, criminal defense attorney Rashmi Patel said her client, Amani Monique Brown, 26, wished to proceed with an insanity defense. Assistant States Attorney Michelle Manning, who did not seem to object to the notion that Brown would go to trial on the basis, said a bench trial on the case would probably take place in July. Manning said that presenting the state witnesses at trial would take about two days. Such cases are relatively rare around the courthouse and rarer still when state prosecutors do not contest the insanity defense. The last defendant who prevailed in a similar situation was Timothy Anderson, who in 2017 was found not guilty in the brutal beating of his 76-year-old mother Maryann Anderson, because a three-judge panel found he was unable to control his actions when he punched and killed his mother in the Sleepy Hollow Lane home the two were sharing in 2015. Anderson remains at the Whiting Forensic Division at Connecticut Valley Hospital in Middletown. He has been committed to the hospital until he is no longer a danger to himself or others. Patel said she was grateful to have the chance to take the case to trial. Im glad the court and family can both acknowledge that someone with mental health issues can get the proper care and help through the mental health services, rather than criminal incarceration, Patel said. Patel added that Brown, who is facing charges of first-degree assault, first-degree burglary, carrying a dangerous weapon, larceny and criminal trespass, was very apologetic for what occurred. It was never her intent to hurt anyone, Patel said. White canvassed Brown, who is free on bond, on her decision and asked her if she realized that if she was found guilty by reason of insanity, she could be made to stay longer in a mental hospital than if she went to trial and was found guilty at trial of the charges. Brown said she understood. White said she could be sentenced to more than 43 years in prison if she was found guilty on the charges lodged against her. The judge also told her that there was no guarantee that if she went to trial she would be found not guilty of the assault and burglary by reason of insanity. Manning declined comment on the pending case. Brown was arrested on April 14 after a panicked call to police reporting that two men were holding a woman inside the Liz Sue Bagels shop on High Ridge Road after the woman stabbed their sleeping friend in the neck twice. Police said three employees were sleeping in the store when Brown allegedly entered through an unlocked front door. Brown is believed to have gone around the counter and unplugged the cash register in an attempt to remove it from the property, police said. Police also found that wires to cameras in the store were disconnected. The man who was stabbed told police that after preparing bagels at about 1:30 that morning, he and his co-workers took a nap. He woke up to a sharp pain in his neck and a woman standing over him with a knife in her hand. He told police the woman began waiving the knife around, cutting him on the neck and ear several times, the police report said. The two then got into a fight. He was quickly able to pin her against a wall and the ensuing commotion woke up the other two men who came to his aid. The man said he had never seen Brown before. jnickerson@stamfordadvocate.com Haiti - Politic : The Ministry of Planning in crisis Friday, Stevenson Jacques Thimoleon, the Director General of the Ministry of Planning and External Cooperation, accompanied by the Head of Cabinet of the Minister of Planning, Jeancois Joseph, chaired a meeting with technical directors, departmental and technical unit coordinators around the current crisis in the Ministry. The purpose of this meeting was to make an evaluation of the crisis within the Ministry, for this purpose these senior executives were invited to give their point of view on this situation. Thimoleon said a circular was going to be published around which will announce that the appointments during the month of April are pending and the readjustment and the upward adjustment of the debit card to the benefit of employees. In addition, he announced a meeting of the heads of the technical units with their staff and those of support to draw up specifications from the different demands collected from the employees. Thimoleon also took the opportunity to confirm that there would also be a meeting in the coming days around the crisis, between Minister Jean Claudy Pierre, the members of the two cabinets and the various units of the Ministry in order to find an exit from crisis with the Syndicate. In order to promote a peaceful atmosphere during these various meetings, the Director General of the Ministry launched a call for truce between the protagonists. HL/ HaitiLibre We maintain that as one of the cornerstones in the way that we deliver our service to children and families, he said. But we should not be in the situation where we are solely focused on one thing or the other. So, when appropriate, children should be placed with relatives who can care for them and love them; when appropriate, they should go to foster home care. Haiti - News : Zapping... Senator Lambert's remarks on insecurity Friday, reacting to the bloody events of Carrefour-Feuilles https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-27559-haiti-flash-massacre-of-carrefour-feuilles-death-toll-climbed-cspn-emergency-meeting.html Senator Joseph Lambert said, "Bandits and armed gangs are firing on a defenseless population. Too much. Too much. I am indignant. The word is no longer worth. It takes action for a true answer." The PNH authorized to identify the occupants of a State vehicle The Primature intends to clarify for public opinion that the State authorities are working permanently on the record of insecurity that hampers the normal operation of the country. Several measures have been taken to counter the organized crime of armed gangs hhttps://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-27569-haiti-flash-big-police-operation-in-carrefour-feuilles-small-balance-sheet.html . It is asked the 3 powers of the State, to facilitate the task of the National Police of Haiti, in the areas of police operations, can now identify the occupants of vehicles registered OE or SE. 13 police officers killed in the first quarter of 2019 13 police officers have already been murdered for the first 3 months of the year (1 per week) according to the report reported by Pierre Esperance of the National Network for Human Rights. PM : Jovenel Moses deadlocked Jovenel Moise in his talks with the political parties still can not find a consensual Prime Minister and a cabinet minister enjoying the legitimacy of Parliament. 2 lawyers assigned to each Police Station Friday, Me Stanley Gaston president of the Bar Association of Port-au-Prince announced that in order to facilitate the realization of the process of immediate appearance of arrested individuals, the bar of Port-au-Prince would affect at least two lawyers at every police station in the country. Blood collection A blood collection will take place this Sunday, April 28, 2019 between 8:00 am and 5:00 pm at Delmas 33 local institution Saint Louis de Gonzague. This activity will be carried out by the Alumni Foundation of Saint Louis de Gonzague, the Ministry of Public Health and the Haitian Red Cross with the support of other partners. Help a family member, friend, stranger, or even the entire community by becoming regular donors. HL/ HaitiLibre Make a Wish Foundation flying Megan to L.A. to meet teen heart-throbs Megan Edney and her friend Kadie Daves listen to a presentation about Megan's Make a Wish trip. Megan Edney's eighth grade classmates congregated outside school on Friday afternoon to celebrate her Make a Wish Foundation trip to Los Angeles this weekend, many of them envious that she would get to personally meet the Dolan twins, teenage heart-throbs and stars of YouTube. As a heart transplant recipient, Megan can expect a lifetime of medical challenges. She's thankful to have received a life-saving gift, of course, though it comes with frequent checkups. One of the perks of being a transplant recipient is that she's eligible for a Make a Wish trip. Megan is getting her wish this weekend. John Underwood, a regional Make a Wish coordinator from Asheville, explained that once a wish maker is identified, he works to make the wish come true. Megan didn't hesitate to ask for face time with the Dolans, who have a regular half-hour YouTube show and shorter videos of bloopers and other funny antics. Although her mom and dad, Lisa and Michael Edney, aren't familiar with the Dolans, they said OK. "To honor Lisa and Michael, they said, 'It's Megan's choice.' We're going to L.A.," Underwood said. Megan, 14, and her parents fly to Los Angeles on Saturday. She meets the twins on Sunday, spends the day at Universal Studios on Monday and flies home on Wednesday. Originally from Morris County, New Jersey, Ethan and Grayson Dolan, 19, rose to fame through their half-hour YouTube shows on topics including "The search for our new pet," "Twins buy each other outfits" (5,018,992 views) and "Twins impersonate each other for a day." Even though she was the honoree, Megan served cake to her classmates on Friday afternoon under blue skies and blustery conditions. Unless you're a teenager you might not even be familiar with the object of Megan's wish. Millions of teen-age girls and boys might say, Well, yeah! The twins have 6.4 million followers on YouTube. The twins' faces were on the cake and also on a poster that the eighth graders could sign. Many wrote messages, too. Megan was hanging out on Friday with her best friend, Kadie Daves, who is also 14. "When she sent me a snapchat that she was in the hospital, I started freaking out," Kadie recalled of the news 11 months ago about Megan's ambulance trip to Charlotte and diagnosis that she needed a new heart. When she found out more, she became even more upset. "I started crying." Once she got used to the fact that they'd be visiting the social media stars, Lisa watched a YouTube video of the boys meeting a previous Make a Wish fan. "They do make it special for them," she said. "Oh my God, she is crazy about them, all these kids are. She is nervous. She is thrilled." Dr Richard Valery Mouzoko Kiboung Twitter Cameroonian-born epistemologist fighting the Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was shot dead on Friday, April 19,2019 in an attack on a hospital in the eastern city of Butembo, the World Health Organisation has said. The WHO said that Dr. Richard Valery Mouzoko Kiboung, an epidemiologist it had deployed to help rein in the Ebola outbreak, was killed in the attack on Butembo University Hospital. Two other people were also injured but believed to be in a stable condition, it said. The attack is the latest in a string of assaults on teams grappling with a near nine-month-old Ebola outbreak that has claimed almost 850 lives. I and all of WHO are deeply saddened by the loss of our colleague and brother Dr Mouzoko, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement. He put himself on the frontline to save lives in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, he said, adding that We grieve with his family and friends at this very difficult time. Police and local officials said the victim was a Cameroonian national. The attack took place at the University Clinics Hospital of Butembo, said the citys mayor, Sylvain Kanyamanda. The (Ebola) response team was in a meeting. Armed Mai-Mai (militiamen) arrived and fired on people. A doctor, an epidemiologist, was shot and taken to the emergency room. His colleagues were injured. The doctor, a Cameroonian, later died, Kanyamanda said. Tedros said Mouzokos killing was a tragic reminder of the risks health workers take every day to protect the lives and health of others. We are outraged by this attack: health workers and health facilities must never be targets, he insisted. The WHO Director-General said his agency was currently assessing the security situation to ensure the safety of all patients, health workers and Ebola responders. At the same time, we remain committed to continue supporting the Ministry of Health of DRC to end this outbreak as quickly as possible, he said. The DR Congo declared a tenth outbreak of Ebola in 40 years last August in northeastern North Kivu province before the virus spread into the neighbouring Ituri region. The epicentre of the outbreak was first located in the rural area of Mangina, but then switched to the town of Beni. Local organisations say the number of Ebola deaths is rising. An updated toll by the health ministry, issued on Wednesday, said there had been 843 deaths. WHO data from April 9 put the number of confirmed or probable cases at 1,186, of which 751 had been fatal. The outbreak is the second deadliest on record, after the epidemic that struck West Africa in 2014-16, which killed more than 11,300 people. Efforts to roll back the highly contagious haemorrhagic fever in DRC have been hampered by fighting but also by resistance within communities to preventative measures, care facilities and safe burials. On March 9, an attack on a treatment centre at Butembo left a policeman dead and a health worker wounded. It was the third attack on that centre. On February 24, a treatment centre in Katwa was set ablaze. On April 12, the WHOs Emergency Committee, in a new review of the outbreak, determined that the situation in DR Congo did not constitute a public health emergency of international concern, a status that initiates a major global response. Neighbouring Uganda and Rwanda, worried by the outbreak, have started vaccinating health workers. More than 102,000 people have received a new Ebola vaccine in the DRC. Cameroons Public Health Minister, Dr. Manaouda Malachie has expressed his condolences to the bereaved family in a tweet yesterday. That victim was dropped off at the emergency room of St. Bernard Hospital with a gunshot wound to the chest. When he became unresponsive while being treated, he was transferred to Stroger Hospital where he was listed in serious condition, said police. Ireland had one of the biggest audiences in the world for the new Game of Thrones series. The Irish audience was No 6 in the world out of more than 100 countries when it came to tuning in to the highly anticipated final series of the blockbuster. US viewers topped the list of the series, which has transformed Northern Ireland into a tourist Mecca. The interest in the TV phenomenon which was made out of George RR Martin's A Song of Ice And Fire book series has reached fever pitch with the eighth and final season. Parrot Analytics revealed that Ireland is in sixth place behind the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, and France, with 57 demand expressions per capita compared to 147 demand expressions per capita in the US. This is defined as audience demand across all platforms including social media, video streaming, photo sharing, blogging and micro-blogging, fan and critic rating platforms, peer-to-peer protocols and file sharing sites. The US has nearly three times as many viewers as Ireland per capita for the biggest show in the world over the past week. But Ireland is ahead of Germany, Spain, Russia and Hungary in the top 100 nations. Samuel Stadler, Parrot Analytics' marketing spokesperson, said the new season hit new highs. He said: "Season eight has shattered all records, and once again we are seeing clear differences in global audience demand patterns." He said they found that launch day demand for season 8 was nearly three times higher than launch day demand for season seven. On the launch day, they found Games of Thrones amassed more than eight times more demand than next most in-demand drama in the United States, The Walking Dead. Fortunes The HBO show is credited with almost single-handedly driving a remarkable turnaround in the tourism fortunes of the North. In 2017, more than 2.6 million out-of-state visitors took an overnight trip to Northern Ireland spending nearly three quarters of a billion euro. In 1972 there were fewer than half-a-million visitors to Northern Ireland. Keith Gilroy dug a hole for himself that kept getting bigger A father-of-two caught twice dealing cannabis to clear his own drug debts had "peddled the misery" of addiction on to others, a court heard. Keith Gilroy (26) had been a "good sportsman" before he got involved in drugs and the "hole he dug for himself got bigger and bigger". Judge John Hughes jailed him for nine months, but the sentence is to run concurrently with a five-year prison term he is already serving for transporting a loaded revolver and possession of more than 40,000 worth of crack cocaine and cannabis. Gilroy, from Bunratty Road, Coolock, pleaded guilty to possession of drugs for sale or supply. Dublin District Court heard gardai saw Gilroy engaged in a suspicious transaction in the Store Street area on January 28, 2016. He was stopped and searched and found in possession of 200 worth of cannabis. Gilroy had been involved in the drug trade to feed his own habit and discharge this debt, his solicitor Conor Ruane said. He had been used by others for nefarious purposes, he said. Passenger Gilroy was a passenger in a car that was stopped at another location in the north inner city on January 3, 2017. He was found in possession of bags of cannabis worth a total of 1,550 and also had 235 in cash on him. Gilroy had been given a five-year prison sentence at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court last February, the court heard. That sentence - for transporting a gun and possession of more than 40,000 worth of drugs - was for offences in February 2017 and July 2018. Gilroy became addicted to cannabis and "the hole he dug for himself got bigger and bigger," Mr Ruane said. Things escalated and he ended up being incarcerated. He was an "extremely vulnerable young man" and had a "very rough time of it". "It would appear that Mr Gilroy, like so many others, got involved in the drugs trade and he became an active part of the machine of selling and supplying drugs," the judge said. Whatever the reason for this, he "sought to peddle this misery on to others," the judge said. They got people out of their apartments, Buslik said. As first responders, you never know what youre going to walk into and these officers did what they needed to do. They got people out of there as best as they could, understanding there was a risk to their well-being. Thats what we do. They were heroes today. This gun and ammunition was found near the scene of a shooting in Riversdale College Gardai investigating the bitter Corduff feud have seized a pistol and ammunition in a major search operation, backed up by a specialist army search team. Our photos show gardai and army engineers at the site, the back of Riversdale Community College in west Dublin, the scene of a feud-related attempted murder earlier this month. Sources told the Herald that gardai were yesterday searching for the weapon used in that attack, as well as other firearms and bullets linked to the out-of-control drugs feud in west Dublin. Shovels Metal detectors, shovels and slash hooks were among items that were used in the search operation which began at 7.45am yesterday, and continued for most of the day in bushes and a pond area at the park. This is the latest operation conducted by Blanchardstown gardai as they attempt to target the feuding Corduff gangs and the second time that the defence forces have been utilised. Expand Close Gardai and Army specialists trawl through vegetation / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Gardai and Army specialists trawl through vegetation In response to the escalating situation in February, gardai launched a special operation. Local gardai, backed up by armed officers and the army, searched a number of properties in the Corduff area during a 36-hour period. In total, five sawn-off shotguns, ammunition, a crossbow and a quantity of cannabis herb were seized in that probe. The operation followed four firearms incidents in Corduff that week, which saw two homes shot up after a shotgun was fired and a group chased by an armed thug. While armed garda patrols have increased in the locality, it has not stopped the feuding, which centres around the lucrative local drugs trade. The attempted murder outside Riversdale Community College on April 2 was one of the highest-profile incidents in the Corduff feud so far. Teachers blocked classroom doors and the school was put into lockdown after a gunman opened fire outside, as hundreds of pupils prepared to leave. The chief suspect, a 24-year-old local criminal, was arrested the day after the attempted murder and is currently locked up in jail in relation to a separate feud-related violent offence. The Herald previously revealed that a 22-year-old criminal who claims he was the intended target of a shooting was lured there so rival mobsters could shoot him. Curfew The target told a District Court hearing that he was the target of the gun attack when he failed to vary his bail conditions, claiming that a curfew made him a sitting target. The suspect told the court hearing that he had previously been run over and fired at. He also expressed concern for the safety of a sibling. Since he was shot at outside the school, the gangster's family home in Corduff have been targeted by rival criminals with shots fired at it at 1.10am on April 17. Joseph Maher threatened workers with dog like one above A dog owner threatened to set his Staffordshire Bull Terrier on frightened staff at a pizzeria when they refused to serve him food because he was drunk. Joseph Maher (42) "bullied" the restaurant workers while demanding pizza and using his dog as a "potential weapon" against them. Suspending a one-month sentence, Judge John Hughes said while the terrier was a "much-loved family pet", many people would be fearful of the breed and Maher "didn't threaten them with his cat or his hamster". As well as the suspended sentence, the judge imposed fines totalling 1,050. Abusive Maher, from Landen Road, Ballyfermot, pleaded guilty to threatening, abusive and insulting behaviour and being in charge of a dog without a muzzle. Expand Close Joseph Maher's dog / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Joseph Maher's dog Gda Lee Gorman of Kilmainham Garda Station told Dublin District Court the incident happened at Four Star Pizza, South Circular Road, on November 14, 2018. The accused went to the premises in an intoxicated state, with his dog, and ordered a pizza. When staff refused to serve him and asked him to leave, he threatened to set the dog on them. The workers were behind the counter and called gardai. When Gda Gorman arrived, the accused repeated the threat to him. Judge Hughes said it was a serious case. "Whilst Mr Maher's pet dog may well be a much-loved pet in his house, the reality is that there are many people in society who are fearful of a Staffordshire Bull Terrier and don't share the same love of the breed that Mr Maher does," he said. "In his intoxicated state he saw fit to threaten both gardai and members of staff that he would set on them what he perceived as something that would frighten them. "He didn't threaten them with his cat or hamster. He sought to bully them and effectively force them to serve him ... "In this case his pet was a potential weapon against them. Such was his behaviour and the level of threat they telephoned gardai to seek assistance." The pizzeria staff did not wish to be heard in court as victims, and Judge Hughes said as a result he was not in a position to "gauge the reality of the threats". He asked Gda Gorman if the accused had been convincing in his threat. "Yes, he was aggressive, he wanted his pizza and he first stated that he was going to set the dog on staff if he didn't get the pizza and then he said he would set the dog on me," Gda Gorman replied. The court heard the accused was on disability allowance and the dog was licensed. Pet Judge Hughes said it appeared the dog was a family pet, co-owned by the accused's wife. The judge said he would not make any order in relation to the dog or prohibit the accused from owning one. Maher was to be given credit for seeing fit to apologise to the garda, but he had never apologised to staff, the judge noted. His barrister said Maher conveyed that apology now. The offence happened in November last year so it was "not a compliment to him" that he did not see fit to apologise to them earlier, the judge said. He suspended the one-month sentence for a year. Granting legal aid to cover a barrister, the judge said but for the mitigation heard, he would have had no hesitation in imprisoning Maher. A man was last night being questioned by gardai over the feud-related murder of Derek Coakley-Hutch, who was shot dead in January last year. The suspect, who is in his mid-20s, was arrested by officers yesterday morning and held at Ronanstown Garda Station. As the large-scale investigation into the brutal gangland murder continues, detectives believe that the hit was ordered by the Kinahan cartel. The arrest was the third by officers investigating the gun murder of veteran Dublin criminal Gerry 'The Monk' Hutch's nephew. Hitman Last April, a close associate of an on-the-run cartel hitman was one of two men arrested by armed officers in dawn raids in the Cabra area. The man, who is now aged 20, and a 31-year-old man, were both arrested in the northside area of the capital. They were later released without charge after being questioned by officers for a number of hours. Neither was suspected of pulling the trigger when Coakley-Hutch (27) was blasted to death at Bridgeview Halting site in Cloverhill Road, Clondalkin, on the afternoon of January 20 last year. However, detectives believe they provided "logistical support" to the hit-team. "It is suspected these two fellas were involved in providing support in relation to the cars used and other matters linked to the murder," said a senior source. The 20-year-old arrested last year has close links to a dangerous 31-year-old Cabra criminal who is on the run in the United Kingdom and is linked to a number of Kinahan cartel murders. The Hutch/Kinahan feud has claimed up to 18 lives. Derek Coakley-Hutch was shot dead while on a 'drugs drop' at Wheatfield Prison where many of the murdered man's associates, including his younger brother, Natahan, are locked up. Investigators later released photos of the getaway car used in the murder. It had been caught on CCTV in the Clondalkin area just minutes after the fatal shooting. Gardai previously appealed for information about a black Toyota Avensis. The car, with registration 04-D-72956, is believed to have been used by those involved in the murder. It was later found on fire in Snowdrop Walk, Darndale, at around 6.30pm on January 20 last year, three hours after the murder took place. An adjourned inquest into his death heard that Coakley-Hutch died from a gunshot wound to the head. His mother, Noeleen Coakley, gave evidence at the opening of the inquest at Dublin Coroner's Court. In her deposition, she said she identified her son's body at Dublin City Mortuary in Whitehall to Garda Sergeant Damian Gannon hours after the shooting. Sgt Gannon in turn formally identified the remains to pathology staff for a post-mortem examination. The post-mortem was conducted by Deputy State Pathologist Dr Linda Mulligan the day after the shooting. Cousins An uncle of Coakley-Hutch, Eddie Hutch, and two cousins, Gary and Gareth, have all been shot dead in the feud. Eddie Hutch Snr, a brother of 'The Monk', was shot dead in February 2016. He was gunned down in Poplar Row, North Strand, Dublin 3. He was shot up to nine times, and collapsed and died in the hallway of his home. The murder of Gary Hutch sparked the feud. He was shot dead at Complejo Angel De Miraflores, Mijas, Malaga, on September 24, 2015, by a black-clad assassin wearing a balaclava. Gda Reidy said Mazarache and her family surrounded him as he arrested the teenage boy. (Stock picture) A pregnant mum of 14 took the keys from the ignition of a Garda patrol car as officers arrested a teenage member of her family. Alina Mazarache (32) tried to stop gardai from placing the boy in the car before opening the driver's door, kneeling on the saddle - the frame of the car door - and removing the keys from the ignition. She then threw the keys into the footwell, Blanchardstown District Court was told. Mazarache, of Redberry, Finnstown, Priory, Lucan, was "distressed" at seeing the teenager arrested, said the defence. Mazarache admitted wilfully obstructing Garda Jim Reidy on April 11 last year. Gda Reidy said Mazarache and her family surrounded him as he arrested the teenage boy. Refused He eventually managed to place the boy on the back seat of the car. After the garda got into the driver's seat, Mazarache opened the door, knelt on the saddle and refused to let go. She then took the keys from the ignition and threw them in the footwell. Ms Breen told the court that her client was "distressed" and upset at seeing the teenager arrested. She realised that her behaviour was completely unacceptable. Ms Breen said Mazarache, who moved to Ireland 15 years ago, was married with 14 children. Her 15th was due in two months. Judge David McHugh imposed a 28-day prison sentence, which he suspended for six months. Shortly after 1:30 a.m., a 21-year-old man was shot in the 4400 block of South Morgan Street in the South Sides Back of the Yards neighborhood. Police said the man was standing outside near his vehicle when a group of people started arguing, and someone fired shots. The man got himself to Rush University Medical Center. He suffered a wound to the inner thigh and was in good condition. If You Go What: Dr. Billy Kim and the Korean Childrens Choir When: Sunday, April 28, at 6:30 p.m. Where: First Presbyterian Church, 701 Florida Ave., Bristol, Tenn. Admission: Free, but donations are accepted Info: 423-764-7176 Web: https://fpcbristol.org/ BRISTOL, Va. A book about Korean evangelist Billy Kim rests inside the Island Road office of Bobby Griffin. Around the corner and down the hall, theres a black-and-white photo of Griffin in uniform from his days in The Korean War. About three steps away, a photo with the Korean Childrens Choir hangs on a wall. Terrific! said Griffin of the Korean Childrens Choir. Theyre fantastic! Gather on Sunday, April 28, in the pews at First Presbyterian Church in Bristol, Tennessee, to experience evangelist Dr. Billy Kim and the world-renowned Korean Childrens Choir. Aged 8 to 13, the kids flew to America from their homes in South Korea. Theyll arrive in Bristol by bus. God has got his hand on them, Griffin, a longtime businessman and philanthropist, said. You can feel it when they sing. Its great, a great movement of the spirit. A ministry of the Far East Broadcasting Company, of which Kim serves as chairman, the Korean Childrens Choir first visited Bristol nearly 20 years ago. Griffin welcomed them then, and he heralds them now. Billy Kim used to bring seven or eight kids. Now he brings about 45, Griffin said. Youll see on Sunday night just how talented they are. They are so excited about it. Sunday marks the first time for Samuel Weddington to hear the Korean Childrens Choir. On Wednesday, the pastor of Bristols First Presbyterian Church expressed palpable anticipation upon the prospect of the choirs visit to his church. I have an affinity for Korean ministry and musicality. My wife is Korean, said Weddington. I spent about three years in Seoul, South Korea, with a mega-church. I was director of English Ministry in Seoul at the Presbyterian Church of the Lord. Weddington met Griffin at a Christmas party in December. Amid carols and Christmas cheer, the topic of the Korean Childrens Choir arose in conversation. I said, Id love to host the choir, Weddington, 41, said. Four months later, Billy Kim and the Korean Childrens Choir prepare their return to Bristol. Regarding Kim, his connections to Christianity in America trace to the late Billy Graham. Billy is known as the Billy Graham of Korea, Griffin said. Billy Graham went to Korea for a crusade in 1973, and Billy Kim interpreted for him. More than a million people were there. He spoke at Billy Grahams funeral. Hes terrific. Though precise details as to his message are slim, Kim will speak at First Presbyterian on Sunday. Rev. Billy Kim will be speaking, introducing his group, speaking about his ministry, his call in Korea, Weddington said. We will be taking up an offering for them. That helps with their travel in the United States. Well help them defer that cost. At the conclusion, Im sure there will be time to meet the group. Musically, count on a wide range of hymns from the choir. Theyll sing most in English, perhaps a few in Korean. Theyll sing How Great Thou Art, God Bless America, Griffin said. They dont speak English, but theyll sing in English. Ive seen them in Korea and watched them practice. Its a prestigious thing for them to be in the choir. Griffins affinity for the Korean people began when he served in the military during The Korean War. I went over there in 1953 and came back in 1954, he said. I was wounded in Korea. A little Korean boy saved my life. Through the years, he and his wife hosted Koreans in America. They helped provide an education in America for several Korean kids and traveled to the small Asian country multiple times. Sometimes wed go back, my wife and I, three or four times a year, doing mission work, Griffin said. Time passed. Nearly 20 years ago, Griffin attended a performance by the Korean Childrens Choir. An always in-flux choir, past tours of America witnessed appearances at such hallowed venues as New Yorks Carnegie Hall and The White House in addition to numerous churches. Lyrical content of the songs they perform embrace Christianity. Within South Korea, Christianity shares space with Buddhism, Islam and Confucianism as dominant forms of worship. Theres a deep love for the Christian faith in South Korea, Weddington said. For Americans, it will be fairly shocking, the levels they go to express that. The typical Korean will arrive at church at 5:30 in the morning for prayer. Wednesday and Friday nights, theyll be back in church. Its not unusual for a Korean to be in church all day on Sundays. For the kids in the choir, such faith often manifests in the music they sing. Choreographed routines in swirling colors embrace unadulterated spins of long-beloved Christian songs. There will be a technical proficiency, Weddington said. There will be a heart proficiency. There will be a faith proficiency. Theres no telling which songs they will sing on Sunday. They could include an adorable This Little Light of Mine or perhaps the ever-endearing Jesus Loves Me. They make an impact wherever they go, Griffin said. Theyll bring tears to your eyes. Tom Netherland is a freelance writer. He may be reached at features@bristolnews.com. The president of East Tennessee State University is remaining in Johnson City after withdrawing his name from consideration as the next chancellor of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. Brian Noland, who has been ETSUs president since January 2012, told the ETSU Board of Trustees at its meeting Friday. Noland also issued a statement to the ETSU community that he dropped out of the running for the job at Knoxville. We are choosing to remain dedicated to an institution, that, over the past seven years has embraced us in meaningful ways, thereby resulting in lasting memories and lifelong friends, said Noland, who received his doctorate degree in political science from UT. Noland was recently named one of four finalists for the job at UT to succeed Beverly Davenport, who was fired last May. On Friday afternoon, UT Interim President Randy Boyd said he had chosen Donde Plowman as the next chancellor. Plowman had served as the executive vice chancellor and chief academic officer at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. The UT Board of Trustees will meet on May 3 to vote on his selection. My heart and soul are at home in Johnson City, Noland said. There are 7.3 million vacant U.S. jobs, which is due, in part, to a shortage of qualified workers, according to the release. If we do the Higher Ed Act right, we should be able to meet some of those workforce needs, Kaine said. Its my top priority, and Im happy that Americas community colleges have also said its their top priority. Increasingly, students on community college campuses are not just signing up for the 14-week-long college semester courses. Theyre signing up for intense, short-term career and technical training. You can get a job right away, but Pell grants cant be used if the course is not as long as a college semester, even if its more intense and theres more hours in the classroom than a college semester. At the VHCC career fair, Kaine asked employers if the students interested in their job openings are qualified. Those he spoke to said they were impressed by students skill sets, he said. BRISTOL, Va. Sheila Duty Keen, age 70, most recently of Washington County, Va., passed to her Heavenly home on Wednesday, April 24, 2019, with the family that she loved at her side. Born April 9, 1949 in Murphy, Va., she was the daughter of the late Earnest Duty and Frances Colley Duty. She spent her entire life in various areas of Southwest Virginia. She graduated from Haysi High School in 1967, attended Pikeville College and graduated in three years. She began her thirty year teaching career at Sandlick Elementary School where she spent seven years, then Council Elementary for a year. Then she put her teaching career on hold and began her family. After home schooling her three children, she reentered teaching in 1994 at Lebanon Elementary School, then moved to Cleveland Elementary where she taught computer science until the school closed. She finished her teaching career at Lebanon Primary School in 2016. Sheila is survived by her loving husband of forty nine years, Jack Keen; her children, Stephanie Jackson and husband, Mike, Ernest Keen and wife, Amy, and Jordan Keen and wife, Laura; sisters, Rosa Owens and husband, Ronald and Donna Duty; mother, Frances Duty; five grandchildren, Dylan, Brock, Ella, Finley and Ophelia. A celebration of the life of Sheila Duty Keen will be conducted 7 p.m., Saturday, April 27, 2019, in the Lebanon Community Fellowship Church with her Pastor Michael Booker of Covenant Fellowship Church, Bristol, Va. officiating. Family will receive friends from 5 until 7 p.m. prior to service. Entombment will be private. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to your local church. Expressions of sympathy may be made to the family online at www.combsfuneralservice.com. Combs Funeral Service, 291 Highway 71 Fincastle Road, Lebanon, VA 24266 (276) 889-4444 is serving the Keen family. In September 2015, an employee of Rochester Drug Cooperative, one of the largest pharmaceutical distributors in the country, was preparing to review a report on the opioid drugs her company had sold to one of its pharmacy customers. Given the buzz in the office, she was steeling herself, as she put it in an email, to see what evil lies within, referring to evidence that her companys highly addictive products were falling into the wrong hands. Despite the report, the company allegedly did nothing to stop that illicit flow of drugs. That email text can be found within a criminal complaint against RDC filed in federal court this week and you get a similar sense of dread as you read through the complaint. Given earlier revelations about the opioid epidemic, we knew there would be ugly allegations. Yet, the evil alleged in the document is still staggering, adding to the argument that the opioid epidemic was no mistake. Instead, it is the result of shocking complicity and greed. Waynesboro and Washington Township part ways in first due fire service The borough said that Washington Township has accounted for 45% of the total service area. Under Illinois law, Acevedo will be required to serve 100 percent of his sentence before being required to serve a three-year term of parole, according to a press release from the Kendall County States Attorneys Office. Joey Barker didnt say a word during his court appearance Friday morning. Barker is charged with murder in connection to the shooting death of his wife Crystal Barker. She was found dead inside their Vale home Tuesday night. He led police on a nearly two-day manhunt in Transylvania County and was found in the woods Thursday afternoon about a mile from where he crashed his car Wednesday morning. The Vale man was brought back to Catawba County Thursday night for his first appearance in court Friday morning. Catawba County District Court Judge David Aycock told Barker he could be sentenced to death or life in prison without parole. During court, Barker mumbled twice to Aycock and was not clearly heard by anyone in the courtroom. Barker appeared to be disoriented, kept his eyes shut and stumbled as he was escorted from the courtroom. Aycock appointed Victoria Jayne as Barkers defense attorney. Barkers next court date is May 17. Crystal Dawn Johnson Barker: a mother, sister and daughter Were usually the ones that try to take their own foot off the accelerator because they want to study and perseverate on specific topics, McDermott said of his triplets. Its like, Dont take yourself that seriously. No one is going to ask you when youre in your mid-40s, Hey what did you get on the ACT? No one is going to do that. The other day, I was watching David Attenboroughs authoritative eight-part documentary series, Our Planet, which brilliantly captures the diversity and interconnectedness of the worlds natural heritage, and the severe environmental and climate challenges it is facing. Greta Thunbergs name, for good reason, kept popping into my head. Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swedish schoolgirl, has made a mark with her no-holds-barred speeches at important political institutions and public spaces, arguing passionately that political leaders are not doing enough to combat climate challenge. Their inaction, the diminutive girl with pigtails, said, was putting the future of children like her at risk. Explaining her motivation for the protests, Thunberg said in an interview: I am doing this because nobody else is doing anything. It is my moral responsibility to do what I can... I want the politicians to prioritise the climate question, focus on the climate and treat it like a crisis. Thunbergs protest began in August 2018 when she refused to attend school to draw attention to the climate crisis. Inspired by her, students organised strikes in every continent. In March, hundreds of students in India joined the worldwide protest, demanding that the government take responsibility for the increase in carbon emissions. But unlike in the West, where at least leaders gave Thunberg a hearing, there was no political reaction to the Indian school strike. Thunbergs protests have been a hit. This is not surprising because her messaging is simple and to the point. She is articulate but not preachy, and has a wry sense of humour. At a recent event in London, Thunberg was asked about her manifesto to tackle climate change. She said she doesnt have one because she is not educated enough but then there is enough scientific evidence for world leaders to understand how climate change is affecting all of us. All she wants, the Swedish girl added, is for adults to behave like adults, and to act on the terrifying information that is all around us. At another event in Europe, Thunberg was asked how she dealt with climate deniers. I dont, she replied. She has now extended her support for a worldwide Earth Strike on September 27, which is also the 57th anniversary of the publication of Rachel Carsons Silent Spring, the seminal book that documented the adverse environmental effects caused by the indiscriminate use of pesticides. The organisers of the strike hope that it will force governments and industry giants to act on the climate warnings. India too needs a young and powerful Gen Z voice like Thunbergs to make climate change a mainstream issue. Despite its impact on every facet of our lives, from social to economic, the issue is still languishing on the margins of our lives. We are still not talking enough (I am not talking about the seminar circuit) about what we can do at a personal level to tackle the climates challenges. Politically, too, the issue is yet to receive the required traction even though 2019 is the first time that climate change has featured in the manifestos of Indias two major political parties, the Indian National Congress (INC) and Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP). This is not enough, but at least it is a marked shift from 2014. A study of the 2014 manifestos of eight major political parties in India done by Asi Guha and Elphin Tom Joe of the Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal, found that climate concerns were non-issues for the parties as well as their voter base. Despite the positive change in the 2019 manifestos, I have not heard any national leader talking about climate change and its impact at election rallies when manifestations of the phenomenon are all around us in the form of droughts, heat waves, flash floods, increasing number of heat and cold waves and sea level rise to name a few. A fresh, young voice like Thunbergs will have the moral force to push for much more attention to the issue, put pressure on the new government that comes to power after the general elections to meet its climate promises and do much more, and also push Indias citizens (especially the urban elite) to be partners in that all-important effort. India is a young country. Who best to take charge of its future than the young themselves? In fact, I would say, India needs hundreds of Gretas. After all, climate change, as Thunberg says emphatically, is an existential crisis. We now have a rough idea of what the food of ancient India was NOT like. We know that there were no potatoes. There were no tomatoes. There was no corn. And most intriguing of all, there were no chillis. All these vegetables and staples were discovered in the Americas and brought to India by European colonists and traders. As hard as it is to think of Indian food without them, the truth is that our cuisine used none of these ingredients. We know also that many of what we regard as essential dishes of Indian cuisine came to us from Central Asia or the Middle East. There were no samosas in India till the Arabs got here. There were no jalebis. There was no maida. It was the Arabs who taught us how to bake. And judging by what we read in food history books, there were no pulaos. Even biryani was created in the Mughal court during the medieval era. So what exactly did they eat in ancient India? Was it tasty? Was it sickly because of the paucity of ingredients? Was it bland because there were no chillis? Was it very different from the food we eat now? Researchers who try and unearth menus are more historians so very little of their work gives you a sense of what the food must have actually tasted like Few people seem to have answers. There are a limited number of sources and many of them use names that are no longer current for vegetables and dishes. Even those researchers who try and unearth menus from that period are more historians than chefs so very little of their work gives you a sense of what the food must have actually tasted like. My friend Shri Bala is the exception. Her speciality is the food mentioned in the ancient Sangam Literature of South India and because she is a restaurant-quality cook she can actually recreate the dishes and give us some idea of what the food of that period must have actually tasted like. Shri Bala recreates food mentioned in the ancient Sangam Literature of South India I last wrote about her a few months ago when I was trying to trace the origins of idli and sambhar and it was thanks to her research that I came to accept that neither is an ancient Tamil dish. The idli does not appear in early Tamil Literature and Shri Bala (like the great food historian KT Achaya) ascribes an Indonesian origin to the technique. There were trade links between South India and Indonesia and perhaps cooks on Indian ships picked up the fermentation technique from the Indonesians because there is no history of such techniques in Tamil cuisine. Similarly, though Shri Bala, like all proud Tamilians, scoffs at the Maratha claim that sambhar was invented in honour of King Sambhaji by cooks in the Maratha Kingdom of Thanjavur, she concedes that sambhar-like dishes in early Tamil cuisine do not use tuvar dal. So the sambhar that we know today may be a variation on an early Tamil dish but the tuvar dal came from the Marathas. (Tuvar is the predominant dal in Maharashtra and Gujarat). A simple vegetarian snack, sarva pindi is made using rice flour, channa dal, sesame seeds and peanuts I guess Shri Bala would have to concede that the Masala Dosa is also not an ancient or even medieval South Indian dish. Potatoes were planted in South India by Europeans during the colonial period and as you cant have a masala dosa without potatoes, the dish is of recent origin. While I have enjoyed my food history discussions with Shri Bala, I had never before had a chance to taste her recreations of what she thought ancient (and medieval) South India food really tasted like. Then, last week, she came to Delhi to cook at Dakshin at the Sheraton, New Delhi, the ITC hotel in Saket. Her menu took in the food of the Cholas, the Vijaynagar empire and the Kakatiyas. Perun soru is a dish of meat and rice similar to biryani It was the food of Kings which, frankly, is rather better documented in the ancient period than the food of the masses but she did cover four South Indian states: Andhra, Telangana, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Kerala was poorly represented and she dismissed my naughty suggestion that Tamilians have a slight complex about Malayali food because it is much more complex (and better) than theirs. The first thing that struck me about her recreations was how teekha the food could be. I had always been slightly skeptical of the claim that ancient Indians used black pepper to infuse heat in the food and that pepper hotness could rival chilli-hotness. But that meal changed my mind. Shri Bala said she had tempered the teekhaness levels to suit a Delhi clientele (i.e. people like myself) but the food left me in no doubt that long before chillis arrived here from the New World, the people of todays Andhra and Telangana were already making the super hot dishes that they are famous for. Never again will I doubt that pepper can add a teekhaness that rivals anything a chilli can do. Another revelation was the extent to which fruit flavours dominated savoury dishes all over the South. Many of the recipes had been sourced from the Soopa Shastra, a book written by Mangarasa III during the Vijaynagar dynasty (Karnataka) in the 15th Century. This was after Islamic traditions had established themselves in the region so some of the recipes included wheat. But many of the others depended on fruit a tradition that continues in South India to this day. There were jackfruit dumplings wrapped in paan leaves and turned into bhajiya-type things; a plantain and plantain flower curry and much more. This fish starter is an example of Shri Balas restaurant-quality cooking Also intriguing was the presence of ingredients that North Indians are more likely to associate with East Asia than India. One drink, dating back to the time of Rajendra Chola (around 1020 AD), was an extract of what the Thais call makroot (kaffir lime) with palm jaggery. Apparently the makroot was brought to India from the Malaysian province of Kedah when the Cholas ruled it. These influences continued through to Vijaynagar from whose cuisine we ate steamed bamboo shoot cakes. Kootan Soru, a one-pot meal from Sangam Literature (from before Christ to around the third century AD) had sambal fried peanuts and spicy shallots in a style that is now commonly associated with Sri Lanka (where the word sambol is used to describe a chilli paste) or Malaysia (where it is called sambal) and yet tasted totally Indian. All of it was delicious but and heres the thing even with the sambal, the bamboo shoots and the makroot, it all tasted distinctively Indian. Which is to say, none of it tasted that different from the food they eat in South India these days. Yes, there were no potatoes, (they had arbi not my favourite vegetable), no chilli etc. but the flavours were not vastly different from todays. You only realise how extraordinary this is when you compare our food to the food of other ancient civilisations. Italian food today does not have much in common with the food of the ancient Romans who flavoured everything with Garum, a stinky, strongly-flavoured condiment made from fermented fish. What this suggested to me was that while it is true that Indian food today uses many ingredients that were unavailable in that era, it is not that different from what we have always eaten. Like any great cuisine, we took new flavours and vegetables and incorporated them into our existing cuisine. There is a clear continuity of style over two thousand years. Be prepared to be bowled over by desserts prepared in the ancient style While most of the food had been prepared by close adherence to original recipes, there was a dish where Shri Bala used her imagination. The Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta visited India around 1330 and left behind a detailed, if slightly fanciful, travelogue. He wrote about a meal he had in Calicut which, he said, was contained in a large leaf. When Battuta unwrapped the leaf he found it had coconut rice on a bed of chicken curry. The accompaniment was something he called a sambuska (a Middle Eastern Samosa). We have no way of knowing what exactly he ate, but Shri Bala tried to recreate the dish using the small-grained rice they still use in Kerala. But she made a sort of biryani (which I guess is what Battuta actually ate) and because samosas were unknown in that region at that time, she made a bhaji (bhajya) reckoning that this was what Battuta had called a sambuska. It was quite delicious. But was it what he actually ate? Who knows? But his description does suggest does that a) he was served in early Kerala (Mopla) biryani and b) that this was a local dish unrelated to the biryanis of North India. (In later years, the Moplas adopted the name biryani for their local meat-rice dishes). Would the food of ancient North India also have tasted recognisably Indian if somebody had cooked me a meal based on historical recipes? Or did it change much more dramatically over the years ? I dont know. But I am hoping to persuade my friend and guru, the great chef Manjit Gill, who has a collection of ancient Indian recipes to cook me an ancient North Indian meal. If he does agree, you will read about it here. From HT Brunch, April 28, 2019 Follow us on twitter.com/HTBrunch Connect with us on facebook.com/hindustantimesbrunch The Uttar Pradesh Board Class 10 or high school exam results were declared on Saturday, April 27. Gautam Raghuvanshi of Onkareshwar SVN 1C Jawahar Nagar, Kanpur has topped the class 10 or high school examination by scoring 583 out of 600, which is 97.17%. Students can check their UP Board 10th results both on the online portal of Hindustan Times and the official website of UP board this year. We have made this arrangement keeping in view the heavy rush of students to check their UP Board results on the day of the declaration. Heres the step-by-step process of checking the UP Board 10th results both on the Hindustan Times portal as well as the official website of UP Board. UP Board 10th Results 2019: How to check the results on hindustantimes.com 1) Visit the official website of Hindustan Times at hindustantimes.com 2) Click on the link for UP Board 10th result 2019 under the trending topic section on the right hand side of the homepage near the bottom 3) Key in your roll number in the rectangular box provided for the purpose and submit 4) The result will be displayed on the screen Here is how to check the UP board 10th results on the official website Visit the official website of UP board at upresults.nic.in . Click on the link for UP Board high school (Class X) Examination - 2019 Results. Key in your roll number and school code (as given in the admit card). Submit. Your result will be displayed on screen. Download and take its print out. This year, 58,06,922 students had registered to appear in Boards High School and Intermediate examinations including 31,95,603 in High School and 26,11,319 in Intermediate exams. As part of its strict anti copying measures, of the total 8354 examination centers made in all 75 districts of UP, a significant 1314 centers were marked as sensitive while 448 centers had been marked as highly sensitive. A total of 3.20 crore answer sheets were evaluated at 230 evaluation centers by around 1.25 lakh teachers including 1.90 crore answer sheet of High School examination by 79,064 teachers and 1.30 crore answer sheets of Intermediate by 45,732 teachers. In 2019, for the first time UP Board examinations were held in 16 working days without any untoward incident reported from any examination center in state. The high school examination started on February 7 and concluded on February 28, while the Intermediate examination commenced on February 7 ended on March 2, 2019. UP Board Results 2019: The Uttar Pradesh Board Class 10 or matric exam results will be declared today, April 27. The UP board class 10th results will be released today at 12.30pm at the Madhyamik Shiksha Parishad head office in Prayagraj. Over 31 lakh candidates are anxiously waiting for their UP Board class 10th results. Candidates can check their UP Board 10th results both on the online portal of Hindustan Times at hindustantimes.com and the official website of UP board this year. We have made this arrangement keeping in view the heavy rush of students to check their UP Board results on the day of the declaration. UP BOARD CLASS 10TH RESULT 2019 : LIVE UPDATES Follow these steps to check UP Board results 2019 online. UP Board 12th Results 2019: How to check the results on hindustantimes.com 1) Visit the official website of Hindustan Times at hindustantimes.com 2) Click on the link for UP Board 12th result 2019 under the trending topic section on the right hand side of the homepage near the bottom 3) Key in your roll number in the rectangular box provided for the purpose and submit 4) The result will be displayed on the screen Here is how to check the UP board 12th results on the official website Visit the official website of UP board at upresults.nic.in . Click on the link for UP Board Intermediate (Class XII) Examination - 2018 Results. Key in your roll number and school code (as given in the admit card). Submit. Your result will be displayed on screen. Download and take its print out. UP BOARD RESULTS 2019: Keep your admit card ready before results Students should keep their admit card or hall ticket of the examination ready before the results are declared. The hall ticket or admit card that was issued by the UP Board to the class 10th examinees before the commencement of board examination is very important. The UP Board hall ticket has name of the candidate, roll number, registration, date of birth etc which will be required to login after the result is declared. UP BOARDS HIGHLIGHTS: This year, 58,06,922 students had registered to appear in Boards High School and Intermediate examinations including 31,95,603 in High School and 26,11,319 in Intermediate exams. As part of its strict anti copying measures, of the total 8354 examination centers made in all 75 districts of UP, a significant 1314 centers were marked as sensitive while 448 centers had been marked as highly sensitive. Owing to strict anti copying measures a significant 6,52,881 examinees had quit examinations midway while 403 examinees were caught using unfair means. A total of 68 FIRs were also lodged during the examinations against center superintendents and invigilators found promoting use of unfair means. A total of 3.20 crore answer sheets were evaluated at 230 evaluation centers by around 1.25 lakh teachers including 1.90 crore answer sheet of High School examination by 79,064 teachers and 1.30 crore answer sheets of Intermediate by 45,732 teachers. In 2019, for the first time UP Board examinations were held in 16 working days without any untoward incident reported from any examination center in state. The high school examination started on February 7 and concluded on February 28, while the Intermediate examination commenced on February 7 ended on March 2, 2019. Politicians on Saturday extended congratulations and well wishes to the successful candidates of UP Board high and intermediate examination, the result for which were declared on Saturday. Chief minister Yogi Adityanath sent out out series of tweets congratulating all the successful students of UP Board exams. He said that students must understand that this is just the first stage and they will come across many such stages in life. He congratulated top three rank holder of UP board high school exams : Gautam Raghuvanshi of Kanpur, Shivam and Tanuja of Barabanki while and wished luck to intermediate toppers Tanu Tomar of Bagapat, Bhagya Shree Upadhyay of Gonda and Akanksha Shukla of Prayagraj. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, general secretary, Indian National Congress congratulated successful students of UP board examinations. She tweeted: Heartiest congratulation to successful candidates of UP Board examination. Her tweet reads; Best wishes for your brightfuture. She further said keep trying, those who try hard always scale new heights. In high school exams this year, 31,92,587 candidates registered, 28,39,284 appeared and 22,73,304 students passed the examination. The total pass percentage in high school examination was 80.07%. Of the total 28,39,284 students who appeared in the high school examination 15,17,984 were boys and 13,21,300 girls. Of these 11,63,735 boys and 11,09,569 girls passed the examination. The pass percentage of boys is 76.66% while that of girls is 83.98%, which is 7.32% more than boys. In the intermediate examination this year, 26,03,169 students registered, 23,52,049 appeared and 16,47,919 candidates passed the examination. The pass percentage of regular students is 70.03% and for private students, the pass percentage was 71.31%. The overall pass percentage is 70.06%. Of the total 23,52,049 students who appeared in the intermediate examination 12,47,375 were boys and 11,04,674 girls. Out of them, 8,03,330 boys and 8,44,589 girls passed the examination. The pass percentage of boys is 64.40% while that of girls is 76.46%, which is 12.06% more than boys. The high school and intermediate examination started from February 7, 2019 while the high school exam concluded on February 28 and intermediate exam ended on March 2. The high school exams were held in 8354 examination centres while intermediate were held in 8291 exam centres. The evaluation of the answersheets was carried out between March 8 to 25 at 230 centres. Would Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige have known in 2007, when he first spoke publicly about the possibility of a shared universe of superheroes, that in 2019 it would be nearly impossible to score opening day tickets for the fourth Avengers film in India? Would he ever have imagined humongous billboards with Iron Man and Captain Americas faces on them, erected outside housing complexes in small town Uttar Pradesh? Would he - or anyone else for that matter - have ever believed that a day would come when children with no regular access to electricity or plumbing would know who Black Panther is? Also read: Avengers Endgame movie review: Marvels epic Infinity Saga finale is a triumphant tear-jerker No one could have anticipated the level of success that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has achieved. Once considered a bold, some would say even reckless risk, the 22 movies in the MCU are now a part of the highest grossing film franchise in history - poised to add at least a couple of billion more after Avengers: Endgame This is no small feat. I still remember the first time Samuel L Jackson took to the hallowed stage of Hall H at the San Diego Comic Con, and introduced the characters wed spend the next decade of our lives with. Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Black Widow, The Incredible Hulk and others. The roster has expanded since that momentous day, and it will continue to expand for decades to come. But it all began with Nick Furys words, spoken for the first time in The Avengers. There was an idea.The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people, to see if they could become something more, to see if they could work together when we needed them, to fight the battles we never could. With these words in mind, lets undertake the most difficult endeavour any fan could, and lets rank the 20 films of the MCU - from worst to best. Thor: The Dark World Perhaps the only Marvel movie that doesnt warrant a second viewing. The Dark World came at a moment of flux for Marvel, when they couldnt really decide in which direction to take their characters - thankfully, this tonal inconsistency has since been addressed. It was also one of the few times that Marvel openly aped another property - on this occasion it was Game of Thrones. They even brought veteran GoT director Alan Taylor onto the project after Patty Jenkins (who later went on to direct Wonder Woman) departed due to creative differences. Taylor later became the first filmmaker to publicly denounce Marvel. More would follow suit. Ant-Man and the Wasp Just like Iron Man 2, which all those years ago felt like a hasty excuse to introduce the concept of a potential Avengers film, Ant-Man and the Wasp feels like a feature-length introduction to the quantum realm, which is supposed to feature heavily in the upcoming Avengers 4. The only reason its ranked below the first Ant-Man is because even the Luis scenes arent memorable in this one. Also read: Ant-Man and the Wasp movie review: A gigantic let-down after Avengers Infinity War Ant-Man . The story behind Ant-Man is easily more intriguing than the film itself, which is a jarring clash of two opposing styles and tones. When original director - and firm fan favourite - Edgar Wright dropped out of the project just weeks before filming was scheduled to begin - once again, creative differences were blamed - Marvel quickly hired their least auteuristic filmmaker, Peyton Reed. The final film retained much of Wrights inputs, particularly the cast he had assembled and the action sequenced he had pre-visualised, but couldnt help but feel incredibly slight. The Incredible Hulk In hindsight, The Incredible Hulk isnt as inconsequential as you might have initially thought. But in what seems to be a common thread between my least favourite Marvel movies (with one major exception), it too was bogged down by creative troubles. The Incredible Hulk was Marvels second film, back when they werent under the umbrella of Disney and made movies for different studios. In the end, The Incredible Hulk felt like a compromised vision, between opposing corporate voices, and a lead actor who began taking over director Louis Leterriers film. Edward Norton was not invited back. Captain Marvel Theres a lot to enjoy in Captain Marvel, though - especially since the pre-established goodwill of the Marvel Cinematic Universe will likely be forgiving to its many flaws - but it cant help but feel stunningly insignificant in the larger scheme of things. Its like a feature length trailer for the character all set-up with little payoff and reignites repressed memories of Iron Man 2. Also read: Captain Marvel movie review: Brie Larson stars in a feature length trailer for Avengers Endgame Iron Man 2 Others would probably rank Iron Man 2 lower on their lists, but there are several things to enjoy in the movie. For example, how can we not collectively celebrate the presence of Mickey Rourke, hamming it up as a wronged Russian who only seemed to be interested in one thing - his burrrd. Also somewhat forgotten is Sam Rockwells cocky supporting performance as Justin Hammer, who was, in many ways, a stupider version of Tony Stark. Doctor Strange Doctor Strange is one of the most disappointing entries in the MCU, simply because unlike so many of the other films theyve made, it actually looked like it was aiming higher. Director Scott Derrickson was a unique choice for the material, Benedict Cumberbatch inspires confidence in whatever he touches, and those trailers really did look amazing, if a little derivative. But it ended up being exactly what Marvel movies at the time were being accused of - bland, unoriginal and as generic as Cumberbatchs American accent. Also read: Doctor Strange review: What kind of sorcery has Cumberbatch brought to Marvel? Spider-Man: Homecoming Spider-Man: Homecoming is what Ant-Man should have been, an offshoot of the larger MCU about characters that felt real and stakes that didnt feel overblown. Without pushing the envelope in any way, Homecoming achieved exactly the vibe it set out to achieve - it doesnt hide the fact that its a tribute to the coming-of-age films of John Hughes - and for that, it must be appreciated. Also read: Spider-Man: Homecoming movie review - Marvels best Spidey movie in 13 years Guardians of the Galaxy The first Guardians movie was one of the biggest gambles Marvel ever undertook, but it paid off. Director James Gunn was untested in blockbuster territory, and even though they mostly managed to keep it from being reported, Guardians of the Galaxy was massively over-budget. It was, however, the most offbeat MCU film to that point - Gunn brought a much needed visual flair to the increasingly uniform MCU, and even Marvel knows that if you give people a whiff of Star Wars, they have an almost Pavlovian response to it. Captain America: The Winter Soldier When Marvel hired Joe & Anthony Russo to take the helm of Captain America 2 - their previous credits included episodes of Arrested Development and Community, both sitcoms, and both great misdirections from the film they were about to deliver - no one expected them to be the ones who would help Marvel grow up. The Russos made a movie that seemed to respond to real-world problems, and they more than made up for their lack of finesse in directing action with a dense, character-driven plot. Captain America: Civil War The immense success that the Russos had with Winter Soldier earned them a promotion. Civil War was very much an audition for the Avengers movies they would go on to direct, and they nailed it. It was, if its even possible, a more layered movie than the Winter Soldier, and is a great example of the long-form storytelling that Marvel has perfected. The Captain America movies feel like they belong in the same world, which doesnt sound like too much to ask for from a series about the same character, but look at the Thor and Iron Man trilogies. Avengers: Age of Ultron There was no way that Avengers: Age of Ultron was going to come close to the majesty of the first Avengers (more on that later), but director Joss Whedon, despite his vocal complaints about his experience working on the film, came so very close. Age of Ultron wasnt like the first Avengers film at all, and perhaps that is what took fans aback - instead of being a colourful romp, it was a more toned-down exploration of these superheroes psyches, their fears and insecurities. Not that it didnt come through with the action, but it felt like an evolution, it felt risky - and thats not something that can be said of too many Marvel. Also read: In defence of Avengers Age of Ultron: Without it, the Marvel Cinematic Universe would crumble Thor Alright, so heres the first controversial choice. Its safe to say that Kenneth Branaghs Thor is no longer a part of any conversation - inside and outside the MCU - especially since the Thor series has been routinely reinventing itself with every new film, and Thor: Ragnaroks cartoonishness has little in common with the Shakespearean tone that Branagh brought to the original film. But before Joss Whedons Avengers made fun of the character for being a stoic, stuck-up prude, thats exactly who he was, and who he should have been. On a side note, Patrick Doyles score is uncommonly good for an MCU film, a fact that director Taika Waititi recognised and revisited in Ragnarok. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 Like Age of Ultron, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 isnt what fans of the original would have expected - its more sombre, less light-footed and more emotional. Watching it reminded me of some of the best Pixar movies - like those classics, Vol 2 was a movie that wasnt afraid of tackling serious themes. When all is said and done, we will look beyond Marvels razzle dazzle and appreciate the MCU for boldly telling stories that no one really acknowledges, stories about parents and children - be it Howard and Tony Stark, Thanos and Gamora, Odin and Thor or Ego and Peter Quill. Also read: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 movie review: Even Marvel superheroes have daddy issues Avengers: Endgame Theres a sense of finality to Avengers: Endgame that feels wholly unprecedented in the MCU. The Russos are probably operating at their most mature here, examining themes of parenthood and patriarchy, loss and legacy - and of power; how it switches forms as it moves from one hand to another (literally). The only way to confront radical terrorism, the film asserts - and Thanos is a radical terrorist, make no mistake about that - is through unity and bravery. Captain America: The First Avenger The First Avenger could have easily been ranked higher on another day, the fun throwback to the good old days of Lucasfilm that it was. And under the direction of Lucasfilm alum Joe Johnston, who previously made the underrated The Rocketeer, it was a surprisingly moving period picture, traditional in its sensibility and style - and it featured one of the best post credit scenes of any Marvel movie. Unfortunately, it has been overwhelmed by the rest of the MCU cannon, and deserves an immediate reappraisal. Also read: In defence of Captain America The First Avenger: Marvel could teach Bollywood how to do nationalism right Avengers: Infinity War Despite being more bloated than any other Marvel movie, Infinity Wars strengths lie in the relationships that weve developed, over 10 years, with these characters - and the relationships theyve formed with each other. New friendships will be made, as will new enemies. And as weve made more than clear with the $18 billion weve paid to watch these movies, we dont really have anything better going on for the next 10 years either. Also read: Avengers Infinity War movie review: Marvel has made an epic tragedy of Godlike proportions Iron Man The one that started it all, all the good and bad - everything from Marvels ongoing problem with making their villains evil versions of their heroes, to the unique tone that has now become synonymous with their movies. And to think that they were hesitant to cast Robert Downey Jr in the role. We cant really imagine a Marvel Universe without him, let alone the character of Tony Stark. Thor: Ragnarok Its no secret that after the lukewarm response to The Dark World, the Thor series was in need of a strong reboot, and Marvel, harkening back to the early days of Phase I, when they used to appoint filmmakers with a unique voice to lead the charge, went and brought Kiwi Taika Waititi into the mix. And like their appointments of Branagh, Whedon and Favreau; and later, Ryan Coogler, it was an inspired choice. Raganarok went on to become the highest-grossing (and highest-rated) film of the Thor trilogy, which means that it has set the tone for the characters future. Also read: Thor Ragnarok movie review: The Gods have been kind to us, its one of the best Marvel movies ever made Iron Man 3 And speaking of strong directorial voices, for precisely one glorious moment in their decade-long history, Marvel gave the impression that theyd cut someone a blank cheque to do whatever they wanted. There is no other film in the MCU that feels like it is the product of one vision than Iron Man 3, directed by Shane Black. Its unthinkable that Marvel would have the courage to pull a Mandarin ever again, but that reveal remains, to this day, the single most surprising moment in any Marvel film. It counts, of course, if the Mandarin isnt sacred in your eyes. Black Panther To quote my review of the film, There is not enough that can be said about what director Ryan Coogler has achieved with this film. Better minds will continue writing about it for years. They will make videos about this movie, it will be discussed among friends of all ages, all races, all shapes and sizes; it will be taught in school, debated among intellectuals, it will be seen as the moment everything changed. Also read: Black Panther movie review: Unlike any Marvel movie youve ever seen, groundbreaking in so many ways The Avengers The great critic Roger Ebert would often recall the impact the first Star Wars movie had on him. He would bring it up, almost reverentially, when referring to modern blockbusters that aspired to its greatness. I believe that for our generation, that difficult-to-describe feeling can be likened to watching the Avengers team up for the first time, to the Hulk telling Cap that hes always angry and punching the giant alien in the face as the camera swirls around the team and that wonderful theme plays in the background. Youre humming it now. Follow @htshowbiz for more The author tweets @RohanNaahar Some of the students enrolled have endured extreme circumstances, some have serious health concerns, some are raising a family of their own, some need to work to support their families and themselves, she said. Others simply got caught up in the social drama of high school. Once they lose their footing, its hard to regain it without some help, she said. James Bond producer Barbara Broccoli has ruled out a gender swap to the character of the suave British spy, saying the part will always be played a male actor. British star Daniel Craig is preparing to leave the iconic role after the upcoming 25th movie in the series. Many, including Priyanka Chopra, have called for a woman to play the character. "I always feel that Bond is a male character, that is just a fact. We have to make movies about women and women's stories but we have to create female characters and not just for a gimmick turn a male character into a woman," Broccoli told Good Morning Britain during Bond 25's launch event in Jamaica. Producers Michael G Wilson, left, and Barbara Broccoli, right, pose for photographers with actor Daniel Craig during the photo call of the latest instalment of the James Bond film franchise, currently known as Bond 25, in Oracabessa, Jamaica. (AP) She also confirmed that it was Craig's decision to rope in Phoebe Waller-Bridge as a co-writer on the film. "It was Daniel's idea, we all leapt to it, we loved her. She has made a great contribution to it," she said. The producers unveiled the films cast at a recent event, although they didnt reveal a title. Craig will be joined by series regulars Naomie Harris, Ben Whishaw, Lea Seydoux and Ralph Fiennes. New faces joining him on the movie include Blade Runner 2049s Ana De Armas, David Dencik, Lashana Lynch and Billy Magnussen. Oscar-winner Rami Malek will play the villain. The film is expected to go into production soon, for an April 2020 release. The film will be directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga. Follow @htshowbiz for more Consensual relationships between teenagers aged between 16 and 18 years should not come within the purview of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, and that a child should be redefined as someone below 16 years of age, instead of the current 18, the Madras High Court observed on Friday. Any consensual sex after the age of 16 or bodily contact or allied acts could be excluded from the rigorous provisions of POCSO Act, and sexual assault could be tried under more liberal provisions which can be introduced in the Act, differentiating sexual assault and teenage relationships, Justice V Parthiban of the high court, observed. The court was hearing the matter of a petitioner named Sabari (an alias, since the petitioner is a minor), who was convicted by a Fast Track Mahila Court in Namakkal, Tamil Nadu, in June 2018,sentencing him to 10 years rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Rs 3000, under POCSO. Setting aside the verdict of the trial court, the judge observed, In cases where the age of the girl is below 18 years, even though she is capable of giving consent, being mentally matured, unfortunately, the provisions of POCSO Act get attracted if such a relationship transcends beyond platonic limits, catching up with the so called offender of sexual assault warranting a severe imprisonment of 7/10 years. Therefore, on a profound consideration of the ground realities, the definition of Child can be redefined as 16 instead of 18, the judge opined. This has been a long-standing demand of child rights activists who are opposed to the applicability of the act, which is meant to protect children from crimes committed by adults. A sizeable number of those arrested, experts say, are often teenage boys who are in consensual relationships with the girls. Expressing concern about the growing incidences of offences and the punishment laid out in the POCSO Act, the judge said the reports of the police, the State Commission for Protection of Child Rights, Commissioner of Social Defence and Department of Social Welfare, clearly show that a majority of the cases were adolescent relationships. He directed these bodies to take this matter up with competent authorities. Indian investigators have found that Mohammad Mubarak Azaan, one of nine suicide attackers involved in the Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka, visited India twice in 2017, according to a top intelligence official who didnt wish to be named. Azaan is the second Sri Lankan attacker identified by security agencies who travelled to India. The other was Zahran Hashim, leader of the National Thowheeth Jamaath (NTJ) and the alleged head of the attackers. It is suspected Azaan blew himself up at one of three churches targeted on April 21. Sri Lankan authorities are yet to disclose the names of all the nine bombers. Indian authorities declined to share details about the purpose of Azaans visits to India, the people he was in touch with and the places he travelled to during the two trips. Security officials of both countries have said Hashim visited India in 2017 and remained in the country for a few months, during which his activities attracted the attention of security agencies. The April 21 attacks on three churches and three luxury hotels killed more than 250 people, including 11 Indian nationals, and injured 500. Fifteen people, including three suicide bombers, died during a raid by Sri Lankan security forces on Friday night and nearly 100 people have been detained in the island nation. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the bombings and released a video that showed Hashim and seven other men pledging allegiance to IS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. An Indian official, who didnt want to be named, said Hashim was also associated with the Tamil Nadu Towheed Jamaat (TNTJ). The TNTJ has not been found to be involved in any terror activities. Hashim, a second official said, broke away from TNTJ to form the NTJ and started preaching a violent form of Islam in Sri Lanka. Investigators suspect this is when he might have come in contact with IS leaders. The second official said Sri Lanka has traced the movement of at least three senior IS members who entered the island from West Asian countries in 2018. Indian investigators have found Hashim visited Malappuram in Kerala and Coimbatore, Tiruchirappalli, Tirunelveli, Vellore and Nagapattinam in Tamil Nadu. He is also suspected to have been involved in a smuggling racket between Ramanathapuram on Indias eastern coast and Kalpitiya on the north-western coast of Sri Lanka. The probe is at an initial stage but we have found the travel records of Azaan and Hashim which confirm they travelled from Sri Lanka to India, said an officer. Agencies are in touch with Sri Lanka to get more details on Azaan. As first reported by HT, Hashim was instrumental in radicalising seven alleged IS activists in a Coimbatore module, according to the findings of a probe by the NIA. The agency found several videos featuring Hashim in the electronic devices of the suspects in Coimbatore, who were arrested last September. An analysis of these video led investigators to believe Hashim was planning something big in Sri Lanka. On the basis of this information from NIA, Indian authorities alerted their Sri Lankan counterparts about possible attacks on April 4. Officials said several Sri Lanka IS operatives were also in touch with Indian suspects in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Almost a week after the Easter Sunday suicide attacks in Sri Lanka that killed more than 250 people, India on Saturday asked its citizens to avoid all but essential travel to the island nation because of the security situation there. In view of the prevailing security situation in Sri Lanka in the aftermath of terror attacks on 21 April 2019, Indian nationals intending to travel to Sri Lanka are advised not to undertake non-essential travel, said an advisory issued by the external affairs ministry. The government of Sri Lanka has beefed up security in the country. A nation-wide emergency, including night time curfew, is in place at present which may also affect travel within Sri Lanka, the advisory said. Indians undertaking essential or emergency travel to Sri Lanka can contact the high commission in Colombo or the assistant high commission in Kandy and consulates in Hambantota and Jaffna in case they need any assistance. The helpline numbers of the high commission are available on its website. Also read| Black sheep: The mastermind of Sri Lankas Easter Sunday bombings Experts had questioned the delay in India issuing such an advisory, especially after it emerged that 11 Indians were among those killed by the suicide bombings. WATCH: Moment of explosion at Sri Lankas Kingsbury Hotel caught on CCTV Other countries, including the US, Israel, Australia and Britain, have warned their citizens against visiting Sri Lanka. The US state department, warning that terrorist groups are continuing to plot attacks, urged citizens to reconsider travel and ordered the departure of all school-age family members of government employees. Also read| US orders diplomats families to leave Sri Lanka, warns of possible terror attacks The US embassy in Sri Lanka has also warned the public to stay away from places of worship over the weekend, an alert underlining that authorities believe attackers remain at large. Also read| Sri Lanka troops kill four suspected IS men in gunfight during police raid The father of eightmonth-old Karishma, the first beneficiary of the much-hyped Ayushman Bharat scheme, is alleging that they are running from pillar to post for her treatment under the scheme. Born on Independence day last year, Karishma was the first beneficiary of the Modi governments flagship healthcare programme, under which the government promised insurance cover and medical facilities to poor and vulnerable families in secondary and tertiary care hospitals of the country. Karishmas father alleges that she has been ill for the past 15 days and has lost 2 kgs. Initially, we took her to private hospitals but as she showed no sign of recovery, we took her to Kalpana Chawla Government Hospital, Karnal. But the doctors there conducted a blood test and asked us to bring her two days later. But on Thursday, her condition deteriorated following which we got her admitted to a government hospital at Indri, he said. Kalpana Chawla Government Hospital director Surender Kashyap refuted the allegations that she was not given treatment. A team of doctors examined her but there was no need to admit her at the hospital. The doctors recommended tests and asked her to bring her to the hospital a day after with the reports. The team also gave her medicines, said Kashyap. Karnal chief medical officer Ramesh Kumar said, The first beneficiary of the Ayushman scheme was brought here for treatment and she was suffering with fever and now she is being given treatment at the government hospital in Indri. Deepak Kumar, senior medical officer of community health centre, Indri, said they started her treatment soon after she visited the hospital. He said that she was suffering with fever and chest infection but is now recovering. A 52-year-old woman, the wife of a former Indian Air Force wing commander, was found dead at their house in the Air Force and Naval Officers Enclave in Dwarka Sector 7 on Friday morning, the police said on Saturday. An initial probe suggests the woman, identified as Meenu Jain, was killed during a robbery because her valuables, including jewellery and cash, were found missing and the house ad been ransacked. No arrest had yet been made until Friday night.. According to the police, the murder took place between late Thursday night and the early hours of Friday, when the woman was alone in her house. Her husband, Vinod Kumar Jain, who is a pilot with a domestic airline, was at work and on a flight at the time, the police said. The police received a call from the victims father and brother, who visited her on Friday morning after failing to reach her on the phone since the previous night. On reaching her house, the womans father and brother found it locked from outside. Sensing that something was wrong, they peeped in from the balcony of an adjacent house and spotted Jain lying on the floor beside her bed, said a police officer who is investigating the murder. He requested anonymity because he is not authorised to speak to the media. The family members then broke open the main door with the help of neighbours and called the police. When we entered the house the house was found ransacked. There were traces of blood on the womans pillow. She had no external injury. We did not spot any bruises on her body as a sign of struggle with the killers. The woman was taken to a hospital where the doctors pronounced her dead and then her body was preserved for a post-mortem examination, said the officer. Jains husband was informed about the murder. Her husband told the police that most of her jewellery, some cash kept in the house and two mobile phones were missing. We are yet to evaluate the cost of the missing valuables. Initially it looks like a robbery attempt led to the murder. Prima facie, it seems the woman was smothered to death. However, post mortem reports that will confirm the cause of death are awaited, said a police officer. Police also said the probe so far suggests the involvement of an insider because no signs of a forced entry were found. A case of robbery and murder was registered on Friday night on the basis of a statement by family members, deputy commissioner of police (Dwarka) Anto Alphonse said. CCTV footages from the society are being checked and a list of people who had visited the woman hours before she was killed has been prepared. We have detained a few suspects and they are being questioned. A crime and forensics team also arrived at the house to collect finger prints and other possible evidences, the officer said. Police are also checking the womans call records to find out who all she had spoken to. Jain is survived by her husband and a son who works at a multinational company in Noida. The son lives in Noida and visits his parents on the weekends, the police said. The Jains also have a daughter who is a doctor and is married. She is settled with her husband in Goa. The victims husband refused to meet an HT reporter who visited the familys house. Breaking his silence, Mohammed Mohsin, the IAS officer who was suspended by the Election Commission of India (ECI) on April 16 for checking the helicopter in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi was travelling, said he had not violated any rules and was unaware of the charges against him. I acted strictly as per the letter and spirit of the ECI guidelines. I have not violated any rules and I have not done anything wrong in this matter. This is why I asked for a copy of the report against me, but they have so far not shared this. I am fighting this case in the dark, he said. An officer of the 1996 Karnataka cadre, Mohsin was serving as general observer for the Sambalpur Lok Sabha constituency in Odisha, where the Prime Minister addressed a rally on April 17. The ECI order had stated that Mohsin did not act in conformity with its instructions concerning those guarded by the Special Protection Group. It also barred him from election duty until further notice. On Thursday, it revoked his suspension, but recommended that the Karnataka state government, to whom Mohsin now reports, carry out disciplinary action against him. Mohsin claimed he was not at the spot when the alleged incident occurred. I was not at the spot when the incident happened. I am not aware of what happened at the helipad. I have only read media reports, which I can neither confirm nor deny, he said. Describing the events of the day, Mohsin said he had visited the helipad where the chopper of the Prime Minister was parked. The observers duty is to see that video teams are utilised in a proper manner. So, I advised them and left the place. I went to the venue of the function and sat there for five minutes in the police control room. By then the collector had joined me Later, while sitting in the DCs office, I got a call from the Deputy Chief Election Commissioner asking if I had ordered for frisking to be carried out, which I denied. He wanted a report and I replied. All of a sudden around 11.30 pm they suspended me, he said. ECs order to revoke Mohsins suspension came hours after the Central Administrative Tribunal put the move on hold and asked both the EC and Mohsin to furnish responses within three weeks. The CAT decides service complaints by government officers. It observed that during an election process, while reasonable assurances must be made to SPG protectees, it cannot be said that they are eligible for anything and everything. I got a stay through the CAT and the EC also revoked the suspension, but since the matter is subjudice I will have to consult my legal advisors. I will fight it out in the court because my conscience is clear, he said. Karnataka Police picked up a retired armyman late Friday night after he reportedly called the police control room claiming to have information about possible terror attacks in major cities in the southern and western parts of the country, forcing authorities to issue an alert across seven states and a Union Territory. Swamy Sundar Murthy, 65, was traced to his house in Avalahalli on the outskirts of the city around 10 pm, hours after he pretended to be a lorry driver heading to Hosur. We traced the person to his house after the call was made and handed him over to the Bengaluru city police, said Ram Nivas Sepat, Superintendent of Police (Bengaluru Rural). Police have not yet disclosed whether Murthy was an officer or of other rank. A senior police officer said in light of the facts, it was almost certain that the call was a hoax. However, we could not take any chances and, hence, had to share the information with other states as a precaution, the officer said. On Friday Karnataka Director General and Inspector General of Police Neelamani Raju had sent a letter to the DGPs of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Goa and Maharashtra warning them about the information. In the letter, Raju said: One person...claiming to be a lorry driver by name Swamy Sundar Murthy who is claiming to be on his way to Hosur (Tamil Nadu) called up control room, Bengaluru city police at 17.35 hours today... He claims to have information to the effect that major cities in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Pondicherry, Goa and Maharashtra will be hit by terror attacks. Raju said in the letter that according to Murthy the attacks would be carried out on trains. He also claimed that there are 19 terrorists present at Ramanathapuram, Tamil Nadu. Security and intelligence agencies are already concerned about the existence of sleeper cells in India with possible links to the group that carried out bombings in Sri Lanka, where 253 people were killed on Sunday during Easter celebrations. A large quantity of water, allegedly used to wash roads to welcome Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Banda in the parched Bundelkhand region, has brought into focus the prevailing water crisis that is otherwise not a major political issue in the Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh. Water crisis is a perennial problem in Bundelkhand. A video, purportedly showing gallons of water being used to clean roads, provided Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra arsenal to target the PM. She said the prime minister was indifferent to the water crisis in Bundelkhand. I have seen a video of roads being washed to welcome the prime minister in Banda. Is he a chowkidar or a shahenshah from Delhi? asked Priyanka at a public meeting in Bundelkhand on April 24. A day later, the PM also spoke in the region about the issue and the efforts he would make in the next five years to deal with the crisis. Its the turn of water now. The BJP government will be formed again once the election results are declared on May 23. We will begin working for water on mission mode. We spent past five years on ensuring power supply to all the villages. We will devote the next five years to water. A Jal Shakti ministry will be formed. We will make efforts to add streams to the rivers of Bundelkhand, said Modi in Banda. This is not the first time that a political leader has brought up the water crisis. A water train that the BJP government at the Centre proposed to send to Bundelkhand had led to a war of words between the Samajwadi Party government in the state and the BJP government at Centre in 2016. The SP leaders had accused the Centre of indulging in petty politics over the water train that finally reached Bundelkhand region without carrying any water. Major political parties have paid lip service to the issue over the years. The BJPs election manifesto incorporates commitments to increase irrigation facilities for farmers and promises formation of a new Jal Shakti ministry and launching of a Jal Jivan Mission to provide piped water supply to every household. The Congresss manifesto promises universal access to potable drinking water, review the national drinking water mission and create a ministry of water to bring all water related activities and departments under one authority. Although major political parties have dealt with the issue of water one way or the other, their efforts have failed to satisfy the environmentalists. Successive governments have formulated policies for water markets and benefited the contractors. Public health engineering water supply systems have failed. About 60% of the population does not get clean water and 17 states are facing a water crisis in 2019, said Rajendra Singh, a noted environmentalist and water conservationist, who is also known as the Waterman of India. The peoples manifesto brought out by him too has noted, All political parties are only interested in getting hold of power. No political party has given any attention to the issues of water, environment and climate change. They have only superficially touched the issues. The willpower to find permanent solutions to the problem seems to be lacking. As ground water levels continued to deplete over the years, the Akhilesh Yadav government had banned digging of new tube wells in blocks facing overexploitation of water. After installation of Yogi Adityanath government, the issue was considered afresh and new tube wells were allowed. Yes, the Samajwadi Party government decided not to allow tube wells in blocks identified due to overexploitation of water. This (BJP) government, however, allowed it and the decision may further worsen the crisis, said Singh. A new assessment report about the ground water levels is being prepared on the basis of data collected in 2017. For now, the state government is relying only on the assessment report of 2013 that had classified 820 development blocks of state as as overexploited, critical, semi critical and safe. A close scrutiny of the assessment report indicates increasing dependence on groundwater resources. The report reveals that the state water exploitation rate was 54.31% in 2000. In 2009, it was estimated at 72.16% and increased to 73.65% in 2011 and 73.78% in 2013. Major political parties, however, have defended efforts being made by them to deal with the water crisis. We are concerned about water and environment. Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav is an environment engineer. All these issues will remain on top of his priority list even after Lok Sabha elections, said SP spokesman Rajendra Chaudhary. A group of tribal women of Kutachawali village under model gram panchayat Parasi in Tamar block, around 60 kms from the state capital, have decided not to exercise their franchise for the Lok Sabha elections after allegedly being denied rations under the public distribution scheme for more than three years. The group comprises eight women, Chandmani Kumari, Bari Devi, Sundar Mani Kumari, Gayatri Devi, Phulmani Devi, Kunti Devi, Atwari Kumari and Chudamani Kumari. There are over 40 people, including children of their families. These women are daily wage workers in and around the state capital. They have written several letters to authorities, copies of which are with HT, bringing to their notice the poor public distribution system as a result of which families were forced to starve. The authorities include block district level officials, the district legal services authority, lokayukta and the chief minister. Mathura Sahu of Kisan Jan Adhikar Manch, a social organisation for tribals, said these women had not only decided to boycott the polls on May 6 in the Khunti constituency, but also fast unto death unless their genuine demands were met. On April 18, the women wrote a letter to chief minister Raghubar Das, saying they had decided not to vote and go on an indefinite hunger strike to fight the injustice. Ram Singh Munda, a relative of Phulmani Devi, said that if the families were not provided ration for the pending 40 months, they would commence fast unto death from May 5, a day before the elections. Earlier on March 15, 2016, a letter signed by 16 village residents had been sent to the deputy commissioner of Ranchi complaining that the residents were provided lesser quantities of food items than the stipulated limit, but to no avail. The letter stated that the public distribution system in the village was managed by members of the local sarna samiti (a tribal local committee) since 2010. Then in June that year, the women complained that 213 villagers were issued BJP cards, but they did not receive ration. However, it is learnt that the secretary of district legal services authority on December 1, 2017 forwarded a 41-page letter to the DC of Ranchi for grant of ration to them. As no action was taken, the women had sent a representation to the office of the Lokayukta on October 30, 2018. It said that the women had gone to the office of the block supply officer on several occasions for enrolling in the online system for PDS distribution. But they were asked to come back later. As we work on daily wages, it was not possible for us to leave our source of livelihood, and repeatedly go to the supply office, the letter said, requesting the Lokayukta for grant of rations. Block Development Officer, Tamar, Rahul Kumar said, The block authorities would conduct an inquiry to redress the grievances of the aggrieved people. In 2016, Ranchi deputy commissioner was informed of irregularities in the PDS. On April 18 this year, they wrote a letter to CM announcing their decision to boycott polls The women announced that they would start fast unto death from May 5, a day ahead of the polling. If that were to happen, the association would push the developer and city to keep in mind the historical aspects of the surrounding area, he said. Neighborhood residents need city approval to do work on their homes so the character of the historic area is preserved, and he would like to see the same restriction be placed on new homes, Larson said. With UP Board High School and Intermediate results set to be declared on Saturday, anxious examinees could be seen visiting temples, dargahs, etc on Friday. SKD Academy students seek blessings of the Almighty on Friday ahead of the Board results . In Prayagraj, Anuj Srivastava, a class 12 student of St DB Inter College, Naini is expecting good marks but is nervous and has visited three ancient temples including the Naag Vasuki temple in Daraganj locality, the Kalyani Devi temple in Meerapur locality besides the Bade Hanuman temple at Sangam after the date of result declaration was announced on Thursday. I have done well but am anxious about the outcome of my hard work. Tonight, I will not be able to sleep and have my laptop switched on before the clock strikes 12.30pm on Saturday, he said. Similarly, Ritika Upadhyay, a Class 10 student of the same institution started the day with a visit to Hanuman Temple in Civil Lines with her mother and will again be visiting the temple in the evening. I have done well but am anxious to know the result. I will not be at ease till I see the marks I got in mathematics and science, she said. In Lucknow, Class 10 student of Karamat Hussain Inter College, Nida Noor said, As I got to know that the results will be declared on Saturday, my hands turned cold. My parents have vowed to feed a few poor people if I score above 85%. Class 12 student of SKD Academy, Amritesh Kumar said, I am not tensed at all I am expecting 93% marks. SKD Academy (Lucknow) called their students to calm down their anxiety level. Director Manish Singh advised them not to be tense. As Intermediate students had already appeared for the board exam earlier (Class 10), they were comparatively more confident. High School students said family pressure and great expectations from their families were making them nervous. Fishermen from Worli Koliwada claimed two of them were detained by the Dadar police on Thursday evening for forwarding text messages on a popular mobile messaging application about sporting black flags at a Sena rally. The Dadar police have refuted the claims. Yuva Sena chief Aaditya Thackeray held a rally near Worli Koliwada on Thursday evening, for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. One of the fishermen from the locality said, When we found out that Sena was holding a rally in our area, we circulated a private message on a closed group about sporting black flags to protest against the party. Two fishermen responsible who forwarded these messages were detained. The police let them go only by 9.30pm. However, when HT contacted, the Dadar police denied any such incident. Divakar Shelke, senior inspector of Dadar police station, said, We did not detain anybody during the rally. Lawyer Gayatri Singh, who helped the detained fishermen, said, I cant reveal the details because the fishermen do not want that. According to another fisherman said, Until evening, they did not know where these two fishermen were. If we had protested against the rally, it was to be a peaceful protest. Aaditya Thackeray did not respond to messages from Hindustan Times. The Worli Koliwada has traditionally been a Sena stronghold. The fishermen from Worli, however, have been opposing the coastal road project and have been at loggerheads with the Shiv Sena-led BMC for over a year. In December last year, several other fishermen were detained by police for stalling project work. If you were a political tourist looking for the best place to follow the 2019 election, where would you go? Here are my top five places to watch 2019s remaining campaign battles: BHOPAL Madhya Pradesh is a critical state because Modi and the BJP swept it in the 2014 general election, taking 27 of the 29 Lok Sabha seats. Then Congress bounced back last December, eking out a narrow victory in the state assembly election. Historically, parties that win an assembly contest typically win the next national battle in that state if it follows within a year, as this one does. If the pattern holds, Congress has the edge but in MP it could be thwarted by Modis nationalist magnetism. MP voters talk about tough battles as katte ki takkar neck and neck and this is one of them. The ideal MP base camp is Bhopal. Our first visit in 2008 revealed this city so closely associated with the gas tragedy of 1984 as an unexpected gem one of the greenest, best organised metropolises in India, the shores of its lakes uncluttered by the usual flotsam and illegal shacks. Aspiring Bollywood stuntmen rode motorcycle wheelies down the graceful boulevards. Bhopal has gotten livelier since, with a new airport and wider roads, and many of its landmarks rechristened with Hindu names. It remains a BJP stronghold and the party has nominated the controversial Pragya Thakur to contest from here. Meanwhile, the Congress has dispatched Digvijaya Singhknown in jest as the Smiling Assassinto help take back one of the BJPs safest seats. JAIPUR Rajasthan is another state where Congress could pick up a large chunk of seats if it can sustain the momentum of its comeback assembly victory in late 2018. Only here the Modi factor looms larger, since Rajasthan has a western border with Pakistan, and patriotic fervour over the recent border clashes is still pretty hot. Given the deep community loyalty of many Indians, we always look for the voters who might change their minds, and the ones to look for here in Rajasthan are those who swung to Congress in November. Will they now switch back to Modi? Jaipur and its colourful neighbouring constituencies is the place to find out. The capital of this former princely state, it is home to one of Indias most spectacular palace hotels and a place where royals still matter in politics. No state explodes to life more vibrantly at election time than Rajasthan, where cities have signature colours (Jaipurs is pink) and voters swarm the streets adorned in saffron, light blue and other party hues, and love to talk about the battles of the day. Democracy on the Road, by Ruchir Sharma, chronicles the authors two decades of chasing elections from the nations southernmost tip at Kanyakumari to the northern reaches of Punjab. ALLAHABAD My companions and I have chased campaigns in all 10 of the largest states but have visited none more often than the largest and electorally most important, Uttar Pradesh. Only months ago I thought there was no point going back this year because hardening community loyalties appeared to assure victory for the new alliance between the leading UP caste champions, Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav. Now the patriotic surge behind Modi, and the religious fervour behind his UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath, have made it a contest again. By late April, voting will be over in western UP so campaign watchers need to go east, ideally toward the holy city of Allahabad. It is a good place from which to foray into the surrounding countryside, where elections are always decided in this heavily rural country. It is also close to Modis constituency in Varanasi, Adityanaths base in Gorakhpur, and thus a good barometer of the religious and nationalist pressure systems building around these figures. One must-do in Allahabad: chat up the Ganga river boatmen. They have become famous for distilling their conversation with pilgrims from all over India into strikingly accurate election forecasts. BETTIAH When we first visited Bihar in 2005 the deeply backward state was about to reject the playful Lalu Prasad Yadav for the development promises of Nitish Kumar. Since then Bihar has transformed under Kumar, and his alliance with the BJP gives Modi the upper hand in this state. But with Lalu now in jail, and his son Tejashwi serving as the youthful face of his RJD party, the RJD-Congress alliance could put up a fight. Our early Bihar trips took us into the Wild East around Bettiah, known then for Maoist rebels and kidnappers. Our hotel was a few plywood and plumbing-free rooms above a sweetshop buzzing with flies. Lizards falling from the ceilings would trigger screams in the night, yet for all the stories of carjackers and deadly snake bites, we didnt felt unsafe. In fact, rural India has never lived up to the tales we hear about its dangers. To hardy travellers I would recommend Bettiah, a great place to see how far Kumars development programs reach, and how much of a boost his alliance support will give the BJP in Bihar. MEDINIPUR The BJP is looking to Bengal, the fourth most populous state and rich with Lok Sabha seats, as the battleground where it could make up for possible losses to the alliances rising against it in UP and Bihar. The opportunity is unique, because the Marxist party has been in disarray ever since Mamata Banerjee ended its three decade reign, and now the BJP hopes to set itself up as her main rival. Nature abhors a vacuum, and the BJP is trying to fill the opposition role by playing the majority card, casting Mamata as pro minority. On our 2011 trip we saw evidence of voter disgust with the Marxists, even in provincial towns and cities where land reform once made them popular. Packs of stray dogs, water tanks reserved for Marxist party members, rudimentary health clinics. Our shabby hotel in the town of Medinipur, inaptly named the Ritz Bengal, was close to ground zero of violent battles between disgruntled local Maoists and the Marxist state government. It too is not a place for the comfort loving traveller, but it would be a good place to see whether Mamata has kept her base intact and insulated herself from the BJP challenge. Ruchir Sharma is the author of Democracy on the Road, which chronicles his two decades of chasing elections from the nations southernmost tip at Kanyakumari to the northern reaches of Punjab Puducherry is expected to get heavy rain during the next few days due to a low pressure area over Bay of Bengal which could transform into a cyclone Fani. Territorial Chief Minister V Narayanasamy held discussions with officials of various departments, including Revenue and Disaster Management, along with his ministerial colleagues, after the sounding of the alert. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) issued the alert for Tamil Nadu and Puducherry that a cyclone would hit the coastal areas on April 30 triggering heavy rainfall during the subsequent days. Puducherry is bracing itself up after the IMD issued the alert, the Chief Minister told reporters after the meeting. Narayanasamy said that control rooms would be in place at the Collectorate and a few other departments, including that of agriculture, to respond to calls for help. He said fishermen have been asked not to venture out into the sea. He said the departments of agriculture, public works, local administration, fisheries and revenue and disaster management have been geared up in the wake of the forecast of the cyclone. Myself and ministers would fan out to different areas of Puducherry and Karaikal regions to monitor the rehabilitation and relief works. All the staff which have gone on leave should report back immediately, he said. Chief Secretary and other officials have already held a series of meetings to face the situation, the Chief Minister said. Those living in low-lying areas would be evacuated from Saturday to safer places as a precautionary measures, the Chief Minister said. Local Administration Minister A Namassivayam and Revenue Minister M O H F Shah Jahan held joint meeting of officials of their departments to work out a road map to rise up to any exigency. With the Supreme Court continuing its focus on the issue of illegal foreigners from Bangladesh in Assam and questioning the failure to send them back, state government officials have admitted that repatriation is easier said than done. It is done under the international law. The host country has to accept them, the address has to be verified, said Ashutosh Agnihotri, Commissioner and Secretary, Home and Political department, Assam, two days after the Supreme Court bench led by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi asked the Assam government to file an additional affidavit, trashing its stand on the release of those in detention and questioning why they have not been deported. More than 90% of the people in detention who have been declared as foreigners have not divulged their addresses in Bangladesh. How does one send them back without the address, said a top state government official familiar with the details. An official document from 2018 reviewed by Hindustan Times shows that a majority of those in detention after they were ruled to be from Bangladesh in the opinion of the foreigners tribunal (FT) have their addresses in Assam in the records. According to an affidavit submitted by the state government in the Supreme Court, only 147 Bangladeshis have been repatriated since 2013, when the push back option was stopped. This included just four declared as foreigners in the opinion of the 100 foreigners tribunals in the state. Repatriation is done through the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of External Affairs. As of last week, there were 818 persons in detention in the six detention centres in the state which run out of jails. This included around 124 people who have been convicted by the district courts under the Foreigners Act of 1946 while the rest included the ones declared foreigners by the FTs. In contrast, the number of those declared as foreigners by the FTs has been increasing every year. From 3531 declared as foreigners in 2009, the number has gone up to 5096 in 2016, 15441 in 2017 and 13558 in the first eight months of 2018 taking the total to 58627 in the last decade, including a sizeable number of those who were declared as a foreigner ex parte. The number could go up once the final list of the National Register of Citizens comes out in July. Those out of the list could approach one of the 100 foreigners tribunals to prove their Indian citizenship. The draft NRC left 40,07,707 names out of the list. On Thursday, a Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi took the state government to task again hearing a petition by activist Harsh Mander. The stand of the Government of India and the state of Assam should be that foreigners detenues should be deported as soon as possible. But we do not see that stand Mr Chief Secretary, Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said as quoted by a newspaper. He was reacting to the state governments affidavit which proposed conditional release of those who have been in detention for more than five years. The affidavit proposed monitoring of these foreigners and that they will have to submit a bond of Rs 5 lakh. CJI Gogoi termed the proposal as both unconstitutional and illegal. A senior state government official, however, said the proposal was submitted only after the Courts order on April 9. The order said, The specific response of the state government with regard to measures which could be adopted for release of detenues who are now lodged in detention centres, particularly those who have so detained for a long period will be laid before the Court by the Chief Secretary This official said that a new response will be prepared before the court hears the case again on May 2. As the conditions of detention centres spark outrage, another senior official explained that there have been proposals to release those in detention on parole or keep the elderly in detention in old age homes instead of jails. This official explained how the idea of a virtual detention where the biometric and other details are available with the state government could be more practical considering the states jails are overcrowded and insufficient to hold more people. This would also assuage the concerns of the human rights activists, the official said. Meanwhile, as both detention and repatriation appear to be difficult options, a senior state government official said the committee comprising of officials from the state and the Centre tasked to decide on the fate of those who will be out of NRC list is yet to submit its report. A six-year-old girl was allegedly murdered and then raped by a 28-year-old man on Friday afternoon in a village in Uttarakhands Haridwar. The childs body was recovered and the accused arrested on Saturday, senior police officials said. According to preliminary investigations by a forensic team and a special operations group, the childs murder preceded the rape, a press note released by the police said. The body has been sent for post-mortem. According to senior superintendent of police (SSP) Janmejaya Khanduri, the girl and the accused were known to each other as they lived in the same village. Married, has kids The accused, who is married with two children, is a labourer. The murdered childs father is also a labourer. The girl was playing with other village children, including the seven-year-old son of the accused who gave important clues to police. At around 3pm, the accused came there and lured the girl to go with him to a nearby field to sit under a tree, he said. So far, it seems she was first killed and then raped. After the incident, he went home at around 4.30 pm and responded evasively when his wife asked him where he was in the afternoon, Khanduri added. The accuseds son gave important leads to police, which ultimately enabled the police to arrest him. As the boy was also among the children playing with her, the police spoke to him. He said his father approached the girl and asked her to go with him to a banyan tree, which she did as she knew him, the senior superintendent of police said. Police then arrested him and during interrogation, he confessed to the crime. It is a heinous crime. The accused has been booked for murder and rape under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences Act. Investigations are on, Khanduri added. A teenage girl was allegedly sexually assaulted and murdered in Bhongir district of Telangana, police said Saturday. The 14-year-old, who had completed Class 9, did not return from special class on Thursday and her father lodged a police complaint. During a search on Friday, her body was found in a dry well. An autopsy report said she was murdered after being sexually assaulted. Alleging that the police did not act swiftly in the incident, the villagers held a dharna, police said. Beginning Monday, Telangana Rashtra Samithi president and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao will start his tour to different states to meet leaders of various regional parties as part of reviving his idea of floating a federal front as an alternative to the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party at the national level. According to a party functionary familiar with the development, KCR, as the TRS supremo is popularly called, will leave for Kerala on Monday (April 29) to hold talks with the Left Front leaders, including Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, to discuss the possibility of the formation of a non-Congress and non-BJP coalition government at the Centre. KCR has chosen the Left parties for negotiations first apparently to counter the allegations of the Congress party leaders that the federal front was a B-team of the BJP and he had floated the idea only to split the allies of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance. After Kerala, he would go to other states, including Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi one after the other to meet various regional party leaders to give a concrete shape to the federal front, the party leader said. Before winning the Telangana assembly elections in December, the TRS chief had a preliminary round of discussions with Janata Dal (S) chief Deve Gowda and his son H D Kumaraswamy, besides Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader Hemant Soren. Soon after the elections, he went to Odisha and West Bengal to hold discussions with Biju Janata Dal leader Naveen Patnaik and Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee. The Telangana chief minister, who has been constantly monitoring the trends of the ongoing general elections across the country and getting intelligence reports from various states, is understood to have come to the conclusion that neither the BJP-led NDA nor the Congress-led UPA will get enough numbers to form the government at the Centre. According to the inputs obtained by KCR, neither NDA nor UPA would be able to cross the 200 mark in the 543-member Lok Sabha. On the other hand, the non-BJP and non-Congress parties would be able to get around 140-150 seats. If they can form a federal front, there is a possibility of other regional parties from either side joining the front so that it can stake claim to form the government. There is a possibility of even the Left parties joining us, the TRS leader said. On Saturday, TRS working committee president and KCRs son K T Rama Rao asserted that his party would win 16 out 17 MP seats in Telangana, the remaining seat going to its friendly party Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM). We are going to be the crucial force at the Centre, he told party functionaries at Telangana Bhavan on the 18th formation day of the party. The TRS leadership expects that the YSR Congress party in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh will be able to win 18-19 seats. With 34-35 MP seats, the Telugu states can emerge as a major regional force, the TRS leader said. The party hopes that leaders like Mamata Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav, Mayawati and Arvind Kejriwal, who are not ready to accept the leadership of Rahul Gandhi, would be willing to be part of the federal front. If we can convince pro-Congress parties like JD (S), DMK and JMM to join us, it will be a formidable force, he said. However, KCR is said to be of the view that under any circumstances, the federal front should not approach the BJP for support from outside. If such a situation arises, it would be better to ask the support of the Congress, the TRS leader said. Osmania University professor and political analyst K Nageshwar said the formation of a federal front government at the Centre cannot be ruled out, but the chances are bleak. There is a chance for the federal front, only if the Congress or BJP coalitions prefer to opt out of the race due to inadequate numbers. Even in such a case, it has to take the support of the Congress or BJP from outside, he said. Unidentified criminals shot dead two mahadalits as they were sleeping on a plot outside their home at Nadiyona village under Deepnagar police station area in Nalanda district late last night. Police said that three outlaws gunned down Vishundeo Manjhi (60) and his son Anandi Manjhi (23) that triggered tension in the area. The incident offered the opposition parties a ready made issue to corner the ruling dispensation in the midst of elections, as it happened in the home district of Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar. The National Commission for Scheduled Castes had sought a detailed report from the Nalanda district administration on the issue. The situation became critical after members of the Dalit community raised slogans against the administration and demanded arrest of the culprit besides ex-gratia immediately for the kin of the victims. Police are still clueless about the assailant but suspect the murder to be an act of revenge. However, the family has not made any such claim yet. Former chief minister and Mahadalit leader Jitan Ram Manji condemn the barbaric incident and alleged that the law and order situation has failed in the state. Villagers claimed that the local henchman of sand mafia is behind the incident because the duo had refused to lift the sand for the illegal sand mafia in the region. Earlier on March 31, 2017, two brothers belong from Mahadalit community were shot dead in same village for the same reason. Police said both the deceased were relatives of Vishundeo Manjhi. Police said that the incident took place when motor bike borne five armed criminals came in the night when both of them were asleep. They started firing at them killing the two on the spot. The police reached the spot with a dog squad and a forensic team but have got no concrete leads so far. The family has not named any suspect but police are exploring the angle of an old feud or dispute over illegal mining of sand. Nalanda SP Nilesh Kumar said, an FIR has been registered against the assailant under section 302 (murder) of IPC and sections 25/54/59 of Arms Act at Deepnagar police station. We are investigating from all the angles and the picture will be clear soon, said Nilesh, adding that a posse of additional police personnel have been posted in the village and the situation is fully under control. Special teams had been formed to nab the culprits. Winning from Thane has always been a prestige issue for the Shiv Sena, as the city is known to be a Sena bastion. The fight this election, although seemingly one-sided, might cost Sena if they are over confident. With an emerging non-Marathi population, voters may not fall for the usual emotional appeals of the Sena. Also, the NCPs decision to field a highly qualified and young candidate and an anti-incumbency sentiment can spoil Senas chances. Moreover, for its candidate, bastions are never meant to be permanent. The Thane Lok Sabha seat will be an acid test for Sena to keep its hold on the city, few months ahead of the Assembly elections. The constituency has around 23 lakh voters. The constituency comprises three cities Thane, Navi Mumbai and Mira Bhayender. The main fight here is between Sena candidate and sitting MP Rajan Vichare and NCP candidate Anand Paranjpe. Vichare has worked his way up to MP, from being a four-time corporator, citys mayor and MLA. Paranjpe, who became Thane MP in 2008 on a Shiv Sena seat, contested elections from Kalyan in 2009 and won. He, however, joined the NCP mid-term and lost the 2014 elections to Shrikant Shinde. Milind Ballal, senior journalist, said, Thane residents for generations have cast their votes in favour of the saffron alliance. The prime reason for this is the Senas strong connect with people at the ground level, massive presence in the civic body and emotional connect. The party gets most votes from the Marathi-speaking community. However, Thane has now expanded into New Thane, which has a majorly cosmopolitan population. It remains to be seen if the party has managed to connect with this crowd. Ballal added that this is where the BJP can do Sena a great help, as it has managed to connect with the non-Marathi community in Thane. Meanwhile, Paranjpe is playing the educated candidate card and can also connect well with new voters. These voters might not go by the tradition of voting for the Sena. Ballal added, Moreover, there is an increase in young and first-time voters, whose loyalties do not lie with the saffron alliance. Sena has an uphill task and cannot take the seat for granted. They will have to focus on the larger chunk of voters from areas like Navi Mumbai, Owala-Majiwada and Mira Bhayander. The Maratha community comprises over 35% of the total voters. The community in Thane has not shown their open opposition to the Sena, despite a seeming unrest over the reservation issue. The Brahmin community, predominant in areas like Naupada and Panchpakhadi, is mostly known to favour the BJP. However, Paranjpe, being a Brahmin, and with the community having a soft spot for his father, the late Sena MP Prakash Paranjpe, some votes may go in his favour. Meanwhile, over 16 NGOs and activists group pledged their support to the NCP. A senior Sena functionary said even though several few NGOs, activists and MNS have decided to support the NCP candidate, there will be no huge loss to the Sena. There are many more organisations and unions that have pledged their support to us. Moreover, NCP is also losing its hold in Navi Mumbai too, as it at present has a BJP MLA and more than 25 Sena corporators. There is no unrest within the BJP. Most BJP leaders were present for filing nominations, he added. The NCP does not have a strong connect with people, as its presence in civic body is also much lesser than the Sena. In the recent civic elections, many NCP corporators also joined the BJP, affecting the hold of the party on the citys politics. The party also had to face opposition from Mira-Bhayander Congress leaders for the candidature of Paranjpe. Paranjpe said bastions are never permanent. Bastions can be demolished and we plan to prove it this time. There has being no marked development in any of the three cities of the constituency in the past five years. Even though Thane has favoured the saffron parties, people are unhappy and looking for a change. The Sena tried to campaign against us by pointing out that I am from Kalyan, however, I have worked as city president of Thane NCP for the past five years. I am confident of a win, he said. It was weird how we ended up in the same exact town in Afghanistan, said Ortiz, who was assigned to an infantry battalion. Martinez was in an engineer battalion, whose job was helping ground forces by removing obstacles like Improvised Explosive Devices (IED). The two were assigned to different camps in the same city, he said. Close on the heels of turmeric farmers from Telanganas Nizamabad and Tamil Nadus Erode, three other Telugu youths on Friday have chosen to contest the Lok Sabha elections from Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh from where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking re-election for a second term. Vadde Srinivas and Kolluri Ravikiran Sharma from Botlaguduru village of Kanigiri in Andhra Pradeshs Prakasam district, representatives of Pula Subbaiah Veligonda Project Sadhana Samithi, and their friend Jalagam Sudheer from Telanganas Nalgonda district filed the nominations in Varanasi on Friday. Srinivas and Sharma have been fighting for the early completion of Veligonda irrigation project that would mitigate bone-crippling disease of fluorosis in the district. On the other hand, Sudheer is also an activist of anti-fluorosis movement in Nalgonda district. Our intention to fight the elections in Varanasi against the Prime Minister is only to generate a nationwide discussion on fluorosis which has been ruining the lives of thousands of people in Prakasam and Nalgonda districts, Srinivas said. He said the project, foundation for which was laid by chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu during his first term on March 5, 1996, was supposed to be completed in five years, but it still remained incomplete. It is expected to irrigate nearly 4.47 lakh acres of land besides providing drinking water to Prakasam, Nellore and Kadapa districts helping the people overcome the fluoride problem, he said. He said through the association, he tried to bring the issue to the notice of all the political parties but in vain. We thought by contesting the elections in Varanasi, we can attract nationwide attention, Srinivas said. Meanwhile, around 50 farmers from Nizamabad, under the auspices of Telangana Turmeric Farmers Association landed in Varanasi on Saturday and collected their nomination forms. We are looking for proposers for the nominations. But the local intelligence police are following us and threatening our proposers, association leader K Narasimham Naidu said. In Tamil Nadu, too, the police took the farmers leaders into custody on Thursday and after questioning, released them on Friday. They are also coming to Varanasi by flight by tonight, Naidu said. BJP president Amit Shah on Saturday said five generations of the Nehru-Gandhi family have paid only lip service to removing poverty in India while Prime Minister Narendra Modis government is working for its removal. Five generations of Nehru-Gandhi family have not been able to remove poverty. The BJP government has done so much for the development of the marginalised. Modiji has resolved that by 2022 in the 75th anniversary of independence every house of the poor will have power, water and toilets, he said at an election rally in Palamu in Jharkhand. Shah reeled of statistics to underline the BJP governments commitment to the poor and accused the Congress of doing nothing for the poor. Rahul baba and company have done nothing for 50 crore of the poorest people. Modi govt has ensured gas cylinders for 7 crore families. Eight crore families have been given toilets. Two and a half crore families have been given houses. The poor can now avail medical treatment in hospitals under Ayushman Bharat scheme. He praised Modi for his dedicated and selfless work for the countrys welfare and took a swipe at Congress president Rahul Gandhi for taking frequent breaks. I have been working with Modiji for 20 years. And he has not taken any leave. But Rahul Baba goes on leave after every two months and leaves everybody including his mother worried. Modi works 18 out of 24 hours. Shah also brought up national security which has been one of the dominant themes of the BJPs poll campaign. The most important thing Modiji did was to strengthen national security. Pakistani infiltrators used to cut off heads of our soldiers. When we retaliated with an air strike after the Pulwama attack, the whole country was celebrating. But there was mourning in Pakistan and in the homes of Rahul Gandhi, Lalu Prasad and Rabri Devi. Sam Pitroda even suggested talks with Pakistan. Should we have held talks or bombed them? he asked the crowd. We are BJP and the Modi government has ensured that no one will play with Indias security. He asked the crowd to ensure that Modi retains power so that Article 370 of the Constitution which grants special rights to Jammu and Kashmir can be scrapped. Kashmir will not be separated from India as long BJP is there. Jammu and Kashmir is a part of India. Make Modi PM again we will remove Art 370. Shah dismissed the opposition as corrupt and said it doesnt even have a prime ministerial candidate. He also insisted that Modi is set to return as Prime Minister. I have visited 260 seats across the country and all I heard was chants of Modi, Modi, Modi. The country wants to make Modiji PM once again, Shah told the crowd.. He also wooed farmers saying that a new BJP government at the Centre would waive farm loan interest. I have come here to tell the people of Palamu what the BJP government has done for them. The Modi government has implemented 133 schemes for the region. If you vote us to power, we will waive interest on farm loans, Shah said. Alleging that Prime Minister Narendra Modi spent over 12.7 million in a day in his nomination procession, Aam Aadmi Party leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh on Saturday filed a complaint addressed to Satish Pal, the additional district magistrate (Finance), Varanasi, demanding a probe into the matter by the Election Commission. He also demanded that the nomination of Modi be rejected. At the instruction of the ECs expenditure observer, Pal accepted the complaint. Singh submitted video clips and pictures of the procession of nomination as proof of expenditure. Modi conducted a six-kilometre roadshow on April 25 in Varanasi. The rally ended with the PM conducting prayers at the Dashashwamedh Ghat. On Friday, Modi filed his nomination papers from Varanasi. Confirming the receipt of the complaint, Pal said, AAP leader Sanjay Singh filed a complaint addressed to expenditure observer, demanding a probe into the expenditure on nomination procession of PM Narendra Modi.... Further action would be taken by observer, he added. Singh said, Violating the model code of conduct, Prime Minister Modi spent over 1.27 crore in a day.... Kashi region BJP spokesperson Navratan Rathi said, All the allegations by the AAP leader are baseless. There has been no violation...its leaders are involved in leveling false allegations. Prime Minister Narendra Modi took on Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Mayawati on Saturday for her description of him as a fake Other Backward Class (OBC) leader and asked her party and its partner Samajwadi Party (SP) not to drag him into their caste politics, continuing a back-and-forth that has gone on for more than a week. Mayawati fired off a riposte hours later and accused the Modi government of using the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to hound her over alleged irregularities in the sale of state-run sugar mills in 2010-11, when she was chief minister. Behenji is distributing my caste certificate; now that she has started it, I must tell you that I come from the most backward caste in Gujarat, Modi said at an election rally in Kannauj on Saturday. Behenji, which means sister, is how Mayawati is known in UP. I was not aware of my caste till Behenji, Akhilesh Yadav and Congress began mentioning it. I am grateful to them, yet I am not in caste politics. I ask them to not drag me into caste politics, Modi said. I am a backward but I want to take the country forward; my caste gets a mention when these people realise they are losing the election. At an election rally in Mainpuri on April 19, Maywati called SP patron Mulayam Singh Yadav, Akhileshs father, a real backward class leader, unlike Modi, whom she described as a fake one. And on April 21, in a statement, Mayawati questioned Modis OBC credentials and said he got his community included in Gujarats list of OBCs after he became chief minister of the state. On Thursday, at rally in Uttar Pradeshs Banda, Modi accused the SP and the BSP of engaging in caste politics and said they were busy distributing my caste certificate. On Friday, Mayawati struck back, saying Modi doesnt belong to a backward class by birth. When his government was formed in Gujarat, he got his caste included in the backward class list, she said, repeating her claim. He just wants to votes of people from the backward classes; he is a fake, she added. BSP and SP are counting on the support of Dalits and OBCs in Uttar Pradesh to dent the BJPs strength in the Lok Sabha in the ongoing elections.OBCs account for 41.1% of the voters in Uttar Pradesh and Dalits, the main support base of the BSP, 20.7%. On paper, in terms of arithmetic, the alliance is at least as strong as the BJP. Also read| BJP greatest danger for India like 440 volts : Mamata Banerjee In the 2014 general election, the BJP on its own won 71 of the 80 members that Uttar Pradesh sends to the Lok Sabha, more than any other state in India. The SP won five and BSP none, but they were not in an alliance then. Playing up the traditional fault lines between the Yadavs (OBC) and Jatavs (scheduled caste, or Dalit) in the potato belt of Uttar Pradesh, Modi said, Behenji is gleefully seeking votes for those who never respected Baba Saheb (BR Ambedkar, a Dalit icon), attacked the Dalits and forcibly occupied their land and houses. It clearly shows that power and the chair matter most to Behenji. He claimed that Mayawatis BSP government, while in power, named the medical college in Tirva after Ambedkar but the SP government changed it. The BSP chief on Thursday sought votes for Dimple Yadav, SP leader Akhilesh Yadavs wife, from the same ground in Kannauj, considered an SP stronghold. Dimple Yadav is seeking a third term from the seat. The BJP has fielded Subrat Pathak, and hopes to do better than it has done in the past in the constituency, despite the SP candidate enjoying the BSPs support this time. In Sitapur, Modi termed the SP-BSP-Rashtriya Lok Dal grand alliance a mahamilawat ka counter they had opened when locks were placed on their old shops. Mahamilawat literally translates as great adulteration. Sitapur goes to the polls on May 6. Starting his speech by congratulating class X and class XII students of the UP Board examinations, results of which came out around 90 minutes before his speech, Modi said: I wish them great success in the future. Those students who are left behind by a few marks should start working right away. I say this as one of their family members. Hours later, Mayawati alleged again that Modi had his caste status converted into OBC and tore into Modi for mischievously suggesting that she and Akhilesh had described him as neech (lowly). He claims I had described him as neech. Far from it, I had actually described him as originally hailing from a forward caste and so it appears that in his own eyes, he is taking the upper caste to be neech, Mayawati said. Also read: BJPs promises only hawa hawai, says Mayawati in fresh attack on PM Modi Fact is Modi and his party have always treated the dalits, tribals and OBCs as neech, she said, accusing him of raking up the issue of his caste to reap political gains, which she said showed the BJPs desperation at losing to the SP-BSP-RLD alliance in the first three phases of the general election in UP. She said the trend would hold good in the remainder of the election. Mayawati questioned the timing of the CBI opening a probe in the sugar mills sale that had, according to the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, caused a loss of 1,179 crore to the state exchequer. I am not against the probe per se, but surely the manner in which CBI has opened the case in the middle of elections is unprecedented. Such misuse of CBI or other government agencies during polls is unprecedented, she told journalists in Lucknow on Saturday night. The BJP dismissed Mayawatis allegation. These appear to be senseless chatter of a politician who knows which way the wind is blowing in the elections. If she has done no wrong, she neednt fear, BJP leader Chandramohan said. Trouble doesnt seem to end for Congress president Rahul Gandhi in Bihar, where he is facing a fourth case, this time for making the crowd at an election rally in Samastipur chant the slogan chowkidar chor hai (the watchman is the thief). A local lawyer has approached the court of chief judicial magistrate of Ara, Shailendra Kumar Sharma, seeking the registration of cases against Gandhi under sections of 124a {sedition} and 505 (1) (b) {public mischief) of the IPC. The lawyer, identified as Satyavarat, also named Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, who shared the stage with Gandhi at the rally, as co-accused. The two parties are in an alliance in the state, which goes to polls for five out of its 40 seats on April 29. The court of the chief judicial magistrate, Patna,summoned Gandhi for a personal appearance on May 20, in relation to another complaint filed on April 18. The summons will be issued on Monday. Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi took exception to Gandhis comment that associated the surname Modi with wrongdoing, and filed a complaint. Congress lawmaker and the partys media panellist Premchandra Mishra said, BJP is taking recourse to the judicial courts out of desperation as the party does not have the faith in the peoples court. Do you want a bachelor or someone who is married more than once? asks Kantilal Raot in an election meeting under a mahua tree. The reference is for the Congress candidate from Banswara, Tarchand Bhagora, who has been the Lok Sabha MP thrice, and the BJP candidate, Kanakmal Katara, who has been an MLA twice. Raot tells the motley crowd of 50 people, including some women and children in school uniform, that he is a bachelor, meaning this is his first election. The crowd breaks into a laugh. The women behind their veils, raise their hands to announce their support for the man in sea-green denim shirt whose top two buttons are unfastened. Raot, 43, is the Bharatiya Tribal Party (BTP) candidate from this constituency in south Rajasthan reserved for the scheduled tribes (ST). The BTP, founded by Gujarats Chhotu Vasava, entered Rajasthans politics two months before the December 2018 Assembly election, and registered victory on two seats (Sangwara and Chorasi) of Dungarpur district which are part of Banswara Lok Sabha constituency. In the Lok Sabha election, the party has fielded candidates in four constituencies: Banswara, Udaipur, Chittorgarh and Jodhpur. The fruits of mahua tree in Galandar village where Raot is addressing the election meeting will ripen a few days after the election process gets over but the BTP is already high on the Assembly victories, much like the heady, sweet yet pungent fragrance of mahua flowers. For 70 years, the Congress and the BJP have played with our culture, our traditions and our Constitutional rights but did nothing for the tribals, says the man with a long red tilak on his forehead whose vermillion has spilled over to half his nose. Raot did MA in Sociology in 2004 and MA in Political Science in 2011, before getting the bachelors degree in education and a postgraduate diploma in computer applications. Hes at least 20 years younger to his rivals, Bhagora (65) and Katara (62), and is youngest among his eight siblings. Dont vote for Kantibhai; vote for your rights, Raot speaks from a mobile public announcement system that he carries in the Mahindra SUV. The man with a lean frame speaks in Bhili, a dialect spoken by more than 10 million people, according to the 2011 census. Chandulal Barada, who is conducting the Galandar meeting, says the tribals of the central India want a separate Bhil Pradesh. The Bhils are present in 72 Assembly segments across Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. This forms 12 Parliamentary constituencies. We need a state to use our resources, he adds. People of Banswara and Dungarpur dont get drinking water from Mahi dam and it is supplied to districts in Gujarat several hundred kilometers away. We need water to drink and for irrigation. If we have water, we dont need to migrate to neighbouring states for work, says Mukesh Kalasna, 38, in Ramsagda village in Dungarpur. In Rajasthan, three Lok Sabha seats are reserved for the STs -- Dausa, Udaipur and Banswara. Meenas, about 7% of the states population, are present in Dausa, and Bhils, about 4%, are present in Udaipur and Banswara. The population data is extrapolated on the 1931 caste census. Congress candidate Tarachand Bhagora also agrees water is a major issue in the area. My main poll promise is ensuring supply of Mahi dam water in the two districts, says the man who has been MP from here in 1996, 1998 and 2009 elections. Bhagora and the BJP candidate Kanakmal Katara play down the presence of BTP in political arena. They did politics of caste and managed to fool people into voting for them in Assembly -- that will not happen this time, says Bhagora. Katara blames BJPs shortcomings as the reason for BTP success. BTP ka na koi aadhar hai na bhawishya (BTP has no base, no future), says the man who has been a Rajya Sabha MP and Rajasthan MLA twice. But BTP has made the contest triangular in Banswara -- and Raot says Kanti se hi kranti aayegi (Kanti will herald revolution). Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath is donning several hats in this election season. A chief minister who has to steer his party against a strong rival, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in the general elections, a father who has to ensure victory for his son Nakul in the familys pocket borough, Chhindwara, and a politician preparing to face an assembly by-poll. In an interview, the top Congress leader spoke on a range of topics, including election issues and the income tax raids on his close aides earlier this month. Edited excerpts: Having been a member of Parliament nine times, its the first time in your political career that you are contesting an assembly election (by-poll) while your son is making his electoral debut from the Chhindwara Lok Sabha seat. Do you find different issues are at play in both the constituencies? I dont think there are different issues. Issues are same but its my first experience to face an election for state assembly. I had 75 days to work out of 102 days in government when the model code of conduct for Lok Sabha polls came into force. People of the state are witness to what the state government has done. Hence, there is support of people in both the elections. Did your son Nakul Nath want to contest Lok Sabha polls on his own or did you ask him to do so? It was the people of Chhindwara who came up with this demand and then I had to tell him to contest. What was your advice to your son and why did you say to people Tear his clothes if he doesnt perform? My advice to him was to gain the trust of the people and then turn it into their faith. Their generations have voted for me (in the past 40 years) and I wish he is going to do the same thing. As far as my remark is concerned, I said that in jest. Recently you said there was going to be a hung Parliament. Why did you say so? All the opposition parties have one objective today which is to defeat the BJP. What I said was, if there was going to be a hung Parliament all the opposition parties should sit together and discuss the way out [to form government]. In case of a hung Parliament, do you think there are chances of Congress president Rahul Gandhi becoming the Prime Minister? The opposition parties should sit together [after the results]. There seems to be discontent among farmers in Madhya Pradesh over the waiver of a low amount of loan by the government. Dont you think it will affect the Congress credibility in its campaign on Nyay [minimum income guarantee of Rs 72,000 per annum to the poorest section]? There is no discontent. Our promise was to waive loans up to Rs 2 lakh per head. If a farmer has got a loan, of say about Rs 60,000, he cannot be given Rs 2 lakh. We have started the process and out of 47 lakh farmers eligible for the loan waiver, loans of 21 lakh farmers have been waived. Is Congress not worried over its prospects after the BJP fielded Pragya Thakur as its candidate from Bhopal? BJP is so bankrupt that it couldnt find a candidate for Bhopal [from its own leaders]. They are trying to cause a division in society. After all, what kind of political or administrative experience does Pragya Thakur have? She doesnt have any political or administrative experience except her divisive stand. BJP is trying to polarise the voters but they have failed. If BJP is trying to polarise voters, what is Congress doing to thwart it? She [Pragya Thakur] stands exposed. People of Bhopal are not foolish that they dont understand such things. They have never seen her. Suddenly she arrives and starts attacking with her statements on Babri Masjid, uniformed soldiers etc. It will not work. BJP leaders, including your predecessor Shivraj Singh Chouhan often said the Congress government would fall anytime. Any comment? They have to keep their morale high. Thats why they have to say all these things. BJP leaders say [Congress leader] Digvijaya Singh is super CM in context of massive transfers in the state. I am the CM. There is no other CM. How do you see the income tax department raids on your close associates recently? Whatever they have seized, they have seized from some people [like Ashwin Sharma] who I dont know. But they [the income tax department] are saying these people are connected with Kamal Nath. This is a falsehood. This is only to create an atmosphere of fear among people but they are badly mistaken. I s the economic offences wing (EOW) filing an FIR [in which some politicians are mentioned as accused] in the e-tendering case in the aftermath of the I-T raids a quid pro quo? No, its not a quid pro quo. The inquiry on e-tendering was ordered by the previous government. Only the FIR has been lodged now. It is official, there will be no alliance between the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections as withdrawal of candidature in Delhi ended on Friday. Both parties, despite multiple rounds of talks for a tie-up over the last two months, have finally decided to field their own candidates, making the contest in Delhi a triangular one. Looking back at the months that went in negotiations, in which other prominent opposition parties including the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) also got involved, AAP senior leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh said the process was not easy. All of it feels like a waste now. Fortunately, we were actively working on our Plan B since March 1, which was to announce our candidates early and begin campaigning for full statehood in full swing, said Singh, who was in talks with the Congress and other parties to forge an alliance. During AAPs manifesto launch on Thursday, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal hit out at Congress chief Rahul Gandhi saying he would be solely responsible if the BJP comes back to power in this election as well. Congress leaders, however, said the alliance talks falling through caught them off guard. Senior leaders said the party had delayed its candidate selection process in the hope of a tie-up which also pushed its campaigning. Relying on the alliance made the Congress miss out on a lot of campaign planning. All the paid advertisement space has now been booked by the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) and the AAP for their hoardings. All our senior leaders were involved in talks and we did not want to withdraw anyones candidature after declaring their names. So, we waited, but to no avail, said a senior Delhi Congress leader, who did not wish to be named. AAPs Gopal Rai said the party took over a month to convince its workers and volunteers for joining hands with the Congress. Our workers and volunteers had reached out to party chief Arvind Kejriwal expressing their displeasure over AAPs repeated pleas to the Congress for an alliance. We had to hold meetings with them for one-on-one interaction to explain that a tie-up was aimed at defeating the BJP rule in the Centre, he said. On Friday, both the parties engaged in a war of words and claimed they had a direct fight with the BJP, which won on all Delhi seats in the 2014 general elections. All India Congress Committee Delhi in-charge PC Chacko said, The deal was to have an alliance in Delhi and we agreed on three seats for us and four for them despite being a national party, he said. AAPs Singh said that the Congress party was only playing with formulas. A Delhi-only pact on 4:3 basis was impossible for us as the Congress doesnt have a single MLA or MP here. The Congress needs to wake up, he said. While the Congress has fielded heavyweights such three-time chief minister Sheila Dikshit (North East), former two-time MP Ajay Maken (New Delhi), and professional boxer Vijender Singh (South), the AAP has reposed its faith in fresh faces on all the seven parliamentary seats in the national Capital, Atishi (East), Raghav Chadha (South) and Dilip Pandey (North East). Opposition leaders on Saturday complained to the Election Commission (EC) about the Bharatiya Janata Partys initials showing up below its symbol, the lotus, on electronic voting machines during a mock poll in West Bengals Barrackpore parliamentary constituency. The poll panel has maintained that the same insignia was used for the party in 2014 Lok Sabha polls. EVMs display party symbols, names of the candidates and their photographs. According to opposition leaders, EVMs in Barrackpore, in North 24 Parganas district, display the initials BJP below the lotus symbol, which is the sign of the ruling party at the Centre. Congresss Ahmed Patel and Abhishek Manu Singhvi and the Trinamool Congresss Derek OBrien and Dinesh Trivedi met Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora on Saturday. Either remove all machines which mention BJP clearly or all other parties name should be added in all such machines. Till then the use of these machines has to be totally stopped in the elections, Singhvi told reporters after meeting the CEC. The office of the chief electoral officer of West Bengal dismissed a similar complaint on Friday. Yesterday the commissioning of EVMs was going on in my constituency. We saw the name of BJP clearly written under its Lotus symbol... we requested the returning officer to stop the commissioning. We approached the state election body also. But the CEO could not take a decision saying elections are already going on, Trivedi said. Both TMC and Congress submitted memorandums to the EC. Meanwhile, the Election Commission, in a letter to Trinamool Congress general secretary Subrata Bakshi, said, The symbol of BJP was last modified in 2013 and subsequent to that in all elections, including the general elections in 2014, the same design has been used. The commission said there has been no deviation in the symbol since then. Just like a child who makes excuses to justify his underperformance in exams, opposition parties have started directing their anger on the EVMs and the voting process for their shortfalls, PM Narendra Modi had said at a rally, last week. Meanwhile EVM troubles marked the third phase of the polling that took place on April 23, with reports of malfunctioning machines coming from Uttar Pradesh, Goa and Assam, among other states. Odisha Chief Electoral Officer on Saturday said he has recommended fresh polling in 12 booths over eight assembly segments and asked political parties not to worry about the safety of EVMs. Re-polling has also been ordered at three booths in the Raigunj Lok Sabha seat in Bengal, where elections were held on April 18, for the same reason. Following the third phase, several opposition leaders held a press conference in Mumbai alleging that EVMs were being manipulated. The EC clarified that only a small number of machines out of the total used, were replaced on polling day. Last week, 21 opposition parties filed a review petition at the Supreme Court pleading that EVMs be backed up by paper trail device printouts in at least half the booths. The Shiv Sena appointed former Congress spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi as its upneta or deputy leader. Chaturvedi recently joined the Uddhav Thackeray-led party from the Congress. Chaturvedi would join 18 other Sena leaders who are deputy leaders in the partys hierarchy. Apart from her, there are two other women deputy leadersNeelam Gorhe and former Mumbai mayor Vishakha Rautin Sena. Party insiders said that the leadership has not decided a specific role for Chaturvedi yet, but after elections, a decision will be taken on her responsibilities. After being appointed the deputy leader, Chaturvedi thanked Thackeray for giving her an organisational role and responsibility. Chaturvedi said that she is looking forward to contribute to the party. My role has not been decided yet, but once the elections are over in Maharashtra, we will sit and chalk it out. I think it would be related to growing the organisation and related to communication, Chaturvedi said. The former Congress spokesperson quit the party as she felt let down by the partys leadership. Chaturvedi joined the Sena on 19 April over the Congress reinstating some workers who had allegedly misbehaved with her. Also read| To the best boss ever...: Priyanka Chaturvedis farewell message for colleagues When Akhilesh Yadav vacated the Kannauj Lok Sabha seat to take over as Uttar Pradesh chief minister in 2012, he decided to field his wife Dimple Yadav in the bypolls from the Samajwadi Party bastion. However, after Dimples defeat to Congresss Raj Babbar in the 2009 bypolls in Firozabad, neither SP patron Mulayam Singh Yadav nor Akhilesh wanted to leave any stone unturned to ensure her victory. Mulayam, in particular, started reaching out to people the way he had done for his son Akhilesh when he first contested from Kannauj against Akbar Ahmed Dumpy of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in 1999. In Dimples case, the events in the run-up to the 2012 by-polls saw major political parties surrendering. The BSP as well as the Congress decided not to contest from the seat. BJPs nominee Jagdev Singh Yadav did not show up to file his nomination on the last day and independent candidates withdrew from the race following which Dimple Yadav was elected unopposed. However, the family faced a brief moment of scare in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls when the BJP, fighting the SP on every booth, took the contest to a near photo finish. Dimple managed to win despite the Modi wave but the margin dropped to less than 20,000 votes against BJPs Subrat Pathak. BJP STEPS UP CAMPAIGN The close contest gave BJP the confidence that it can pull off a major upset in 2019. If SP loses this seat, it would mean Akhilesh Yadav has lost, says Vijay Mishra of Kanpatiyapur village. Last week, BJP president Amit Shah was in Kanpur to review the 10 seats in the Kanpur-Bundelkhand region. Kannauj was the only seat which the BJP could not win and Shah told his team that winning the SP bastion was a priority this time, said a BJP leader not willing to be named. The Kannauj Lok Sabha constituency has always been prestigious for the Yadav clan. While the SP is banking on its goodwill and the work done by the party in the last two decades, BJP candidate Subrat Pathak is asking voters to vote for the ghar ka ladka (local) instead of baharwale (outsiders). Cars engaged for campaigning have been withdrawn and workers have been asked to use motorcycles to go from village to village to reach out to more people, a party leader said. SOCIAL ENGINEERING The party is also using social engineering to strengthen its vote bank this time. It is time to align the non-Jatav Scheduled Castes. They comprise about 14% besides the non-Yadav OBCs like Kushwaha which comprise about 10%, the party leader cited above said. The idea is to counter SPs Muslim-Yadav-Jatav combination with BJPs own social engineering along with an appeal in the name of Narendra Modi, which worked well last time when SP contested without the Jatavs. This time too, Modi is central to the partys campaign and workers are seeking votes in his name. They avoid talking about BJPs achievements but stress on nationalism, Balakot and surgical airstrikes. SP BANKING ON PAST PERFORMANCE, GOODWILL To counter the BJP, SPs campaign revolves around the development work done by it in Kannauj in the last 20 years and targets the BJP government for not fulfilling its promises. The government announced to buy potato from farmers for a minimum support price of 480 per 50 kg but not a single kilo was bought from them, says Khalilur Rahman, a poll analyst. The failure of the state government to check stray cattle menace is another big issue in Kannauj villages, he adds. Kamal Gupta, who teaches at a degree college, feels shelving of the projects brought to Kannauj by Akhilesh Yadav could also put the BJP on a sticky wicket. The ambitious international perfume park, aimed at giving perfumers a global platform has been junked. The construction of a potato mandi along the expressway stopped after the BJP government came to power in the state in 2017. The government hasnt even started the construction work of a hostel for regional engineering college started by Akhilesh Yadav, says Surendra Sahu. The BJP put up a spectacular fight in 2014 but it did not dampen the goodwill of the Yadav clan. The BJP can thank the caste alignment and loss of Bharthana assembly segment in the reconstruction of Kannauj Lok Sabha seat, he adds. Bharthana, now a part of the Etawah seat, has Yadavs in majority. A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi filed his nomination for the Varanasi Lok Sabha Seat, Bharat Ratna Ustad Bismillah Khans grandson Nasir Abbas said he wished he were invited to be one of the proposers for PM Modi. It would have been good if I were invited to be proposer of PM Modi. Anyway, we are happy. Abbas, his brothers Shad Abbas, Haji Hasan and few other members were present outside the Collectorate during the nomination of PM Modi. I wanted to be part of PM Modis nomination team as a proposer. I wrote an open letter to him revealing my desire. But they didnt invite me. There might be some reasons for not inviting me. They (The BJP) must have thought something, Abbas said, sitting in a room at his house in Harha Sarai area. He said that he went with his son Ghazi Abbas to Kutchehary to express their support to PM Modi. WATCH: PM Modi files nomination from Varanasi; accompanied by ministers, allies The shehnai maestros grandson said that the government should set up an institute of Shehnai learning in Varanasi and promote learning of the art of playing shehnai in order that the great art of playing shehnai could be preserved and carried forward. He added that the institute should be in the name of Bharat Ratna Ustad Bismillah Khan. Also read: For the first time, theres pro-incumbency wave in country: PM Modi in Varanasi Nasir Abbas said that the shehnai players like him should be appointed as trainer in the institute so that shehnai aspirants could learn it well. He hopes that PM Modi would pay attention to his demand after the election. We are musicians. We are simple people. What our heart says, we do. I felt that I should be proposer of PM Modi and I wrote the letter, revealing my wish. Why they didnt invite me, they would know better, Nasir said. Nasir wrote an open letter to PM Modi, expressing his desire that he wanted to be part of team Modis proposers on April 10. BJP Kashi region spokesperson Navratan Rathi said, Ustads grandson expressed his desire to be proposer a bit late. Before that names of all four proposers were finalised. His name, therefore, could not be included in the list of proposers. There is no other reason behind it. Four proposers of PM Modi include Dom Rajas descendant Jagdish Chaudhary, Prof Annpurna Shukla, retired scientist Dr Ramashankar Patel, and senior BJP leader Subhash Gupta. They were present during PM Modis nomination. Congress president Rahul Gandhi and the partys general secretary and in charge of Eastern UP Priyanka Gandhi on Saturday found the oddest of places to run into each other. The brother and sister met up at the Kanpur airport while on their way to different locations across the country in their electoral campaign. Sharing a video soon after the meeting on his Facebook page, Rahul Gandhi wrote, Was nice meeting Priyanka at Kanpur Airport! Were headed to different meetings in UP. Follow live updates here The video shows the two of them standing with their arms across each others shoulders talking to a camera. He says, Let me tell you what it means to be a good brother. I am doing massive long flights and I am flying in a little helicopter, squeezed up, and my sister who is doing short flights, is going in a big helicopter. But I love her. Priyanka rebuts saying, That is not true. Also read: No one has done something so foolish as demonetisation, says Rahul Gandhi As both of them part immediately after that, they come back together to pose for a photograph with the pilots and one final hug later, Priyanka steps away to her helicopter even as Rahul Gandhi climbs into his helicopter. Watch the video here: Within hours of being shared on Facebook, the video had received more than 10,000 comments and had been shared 12,000 times with total views of more than 1 million. The Congress president Rahul Gandhi is contesting the Lok Sabha elections from Amethi in Uttar Pradesh as well as Wayanad in North Kerala. Raj Thackeray, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief, in his last election meeting questioned the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) why they had failed to take action against corrupt politicians despite their high-voltage campaign before the 2014 polls. BJP president Amit Shah is asking what action has been taken against those accused in a Rs70,000-crore scam. You are in power. You need to answer. Did the scam really take place or did you just create an atmosphere for your benefit, questioned Thackeray. The Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government also spent crores on irrigation projects, then how come 28,000 villages are drought-affected. Where did the money go, he added. How come Ajit Pawar and Sunil Tatkare are still free? Chhagan Bhujbal was arrested, but then set free. What of further action, he added. He said the BJP had talked of taking action against Robert Vadra, but then took a U-turn. Union home minister Rajnath Singh on Friday criticised the Opposition parties for having a one-point agenda of trying to remove Prime Minister Narendra Modi from power. They cannot make any big gains with their negative mindset, said Singh speaking at a public meeting in Lakhimpur. The home minister said the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party had formed an alliance in UP as they feared they would be blown away by the BJP here. He also questioned the Congress promise to abolish the legal provisions against sedition. Claiming that India has grown even stronger under PM Mod, the senior BJP leader said, Now even the most powerful countries of the world cant dare to frown at India. The home minister attacked the opposition for raising questions over the Balakot air-strike and the surgical strike after Uri attack. Singh said in Hindi, They ask how many enemies were killed. I want to say that the brave never count bodies. It is the vultures who do this, he added. Singh appealed to people to vote for BJP candidate Ajay Kumar Mishra Teni. Earlier, Rajnath Singh said the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) will get a threefourth majority in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections. Chinese President Xi Jinping said the cooperation agreements worth more than $ 64 billion were signed at a CEO conference during the 2nd Belt and Road Forum which concluded here on Saturday. A total of 283 items of practical outcomes were achieved during the preparatory process and the holding of the forum, Xi said in a statement before the media on Saturday after his roundtable meeting with 37 heads of state and governments who took part in the meeting. Earlier in the day, Xi called for joint efforts of all parties to promote high-quality development of the Belt and Road (BRI) initiative at the leaders roundtable meeting of the forum. In his address at the roundtable meet, Xi said his trillion-dollar BRI initiative should benefit all around the world and deliver common development by following established international rules and norms. He again stressed that the BRI would focus on common development of all the participating countries and their people. We must implement the principle of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits to see that all voices are heard, all reached their full potential and all stand to benefit, the Chinese President said. The BRI must be open, clean and green and follow high standards, people centred sustainable approach, he said, adding that it should be aligned to the United Nations sustainable development agenda. Also read: At Chinas BRI meet, President Xi skips fresh funds pledge amid talk of debt-trap Align our cooperation with universally accepted rules, standards and best practices and pursue social and economic progress and environmental protection in a balanced way. The BRI should be beneficial to all and deliver common development, Xi said. Those who attended the BRF meeting included Russian President Vladimir Putin, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan and heads of several Asian, African and Latin American countries besides heads of the UN and the IMF. India and the US skipped the meeting. India, which boycotted the first BRF meeting held in 2017 over its objections to the USD 60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) being laid through the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, skipped its second edition for the same reasons. The CPEC, which connects Gwadar Port in Pakistans Balochistan with Chinas Xinjiang province, is the flagship project of the BRI. India has also been airing its concerns over the BRI financing, saying that connectivity initiatives must follow principles of financial responsibility to avoid projects that would create unsustainable debt burden for communities. This time the US has emerged as a fierce critic of the BRI, asserting that its predatory financing is leaving the smaller countries in heavy debt. The concerns grew louder after China acquired Sri Lankas Hambantota port for a 99-year lease as a debt swap. The heavy Chinese financing of the CPEC also raised concerns over Pakistans ability to pay back. China has clarified that less than 20 per cent of the CPEC projects are based on loans provided by it and the rest of the 80 per cent ventures are either directly invested by Beijing or used Chinese grants. The BRI was launched by President Xi 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 doling out huge sums of money for infrastructure projects in countries from Asia to Africa and Europe, enhancing its global influence. Also read: India asks China to be sensitive to its concerns as crucial bilateral talks begin In his speech at the opening ceremony of the 2nd BRF on Friday, Xi allayed fears that China is using the BRI as a geopolitical tool to attain superpower status. He said the BRI was not an exclusive club. Everything should be done in a transparent way and we should have zero tolerance for corruption, he said. Xi said China will not engage in beggar-thy-neighbour currency devaluation. China will continue to improve the exchange rate formation mechanism of its currency and keep the exchange rate generally stable on a reasonable and balanced level, he said. Xi said the joint building of the Belt and Road has opened up new space for the worlds economic growth and it has also created a new platform to boost international trade and investment, expanded new practices to optimise global economic governance, and made new contributions to improving peoples well-being in all countries. Besides Putin and Khan, Nepal President Bidhya Devi Bhandari, Myanmar state councillor Aung San Suu Kyi are among the top leaders taking part in the event. France, Germany, the UK, Spain, Japan, South Korea and the EU sent high-level representatives to the forum. China said representatives from 150 countries and international organisations were taking part in it. Commenting on the BRF meeting, Li Xiangyang - director of Chinas National Institute of International Strategy - said the BRI has helped China expand its global friendship network which shows that China is playing an increasingly pivotal role in promoting regional development and safeguarding multilateralism. The initiative, which focuses on utilising market and economic resources to explore new diplomatic relations with other countries, also drives the countrys transition to economic diplomacy, Li told Global Times on Saturday. The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on --- thus wrote Omar Khayyam, but a new review of 5,000 years of the act of writing covering several Indian examples shows that it is anything but as simple, as his Rubaiyat suggests. From carved stone inscriptions, medieval manuscripts and early printed works to beautiful calligraphy, iconic fonts and emojis, the British Library is hosting a major show until August 27, deconstructing the act of writing and considering its future in the digital age. Several Indian examples feature in the narrative of writing that begins with Mesopotamia, Egypt, China and the Americas, exploring more than 40 writing systems, from the 5,000-year-old Jemdet Nasr clay tablet with very early cuneiform to digital typefaces and emojis. Examples in the review titled Writing: Making Your Mark include a sixteenth century Sanskrit text in the Nandinagari script of central India, with a line of Old Kannada script at the bottom, reflecting the time when copper and other metals were used. The charter, written in both angular Nandinagari and curved Old Kannada scripts, was incised to record Sadasiva Rayas grant of villages to a nearby religious community. His seal has been cast into the ring that holds the copper plates together. Also on display is the famous petition against the partition of Bengal in 1905, signed by 60,000 people in Bengali and English. The written petition led to a discussion in the British parliament at the time, though it did not stop the partition. A fine example of Indian calligraphy is the nineteenth century Rajniti-Budhibaridh. A political treatise copied for Maharaja Ranjit Singh, fine Gurmukhi script is written in alternating red and black ink. The colour distinctions mark different verses in praise of the ten Sikh gurus, with the penmanship highlighted by the simple yet delicate double border of gold leaf. A nineteenth century Devanagari Primer to teach children the script is complete with illustrated chart of the components and a guide to the combinations of consonants and vowels. The front cover is illustrated with the lithographed image of children learning from their teacher. The collection includes an early example of the East India Companys Court Book, dated 165766. The trading company set up in 1600 operated over vast distances, making it essential to maintain written records. Scribes were employed to take minutes of meetings; in this book, the scribe has playfully added a drawing of a hawk. Adrian Edwards, lead curator of the exhibition, says: From street signs to social media, writing surrounds us in the modern world and reflects the diversity of everyone who uses it around the globe. In the 5,000 years since speech was first turned into symbol, written communication has stimulated innovations as varied as the printing press and smart phones. Hundreds of people gathered outside the historic Southall Town Hall on Saturday to mark the death of teenager Gurdip Singh Chaggar and the race-fuelled riots in the late 1970s that sparked off a series of protests and equality laws in the UK. Battling far-right groups such as the National Front and the police, hundreds of people of Indian and other origin were charged with criminal offences during a series of events that began with the killing of Chaggar by a racist gang in 1976. An elderly Briton at the march and rally. (HT Photo) Suresh Grover, who participated in the anti-racism events and youth movements at the time, led the rally outside the Town Hall, where a large March for Unity Against Racism joined by several organisations and unions through Southall culminated. One of the first speakers was a teenaged descendant of Chaggar, whose other family members joined the speaker on the stage to much applause. Several individuals who participated or witnessed the tense events of the late 1970s and early 1980s were present. Kulwant Singh, who said he was part of the Asian youth that fought the police at the time, said the situation had improved considerably over the years, and today multicultural Southall had become the template for the rest of the world. John McDonnell, one of the senior-most Labour leaders and shadow chancellor, joined the march and the rally, while Pragna Patel, director of the prominent charity Southall Black Sisters, said the events of 1979 were a watershed moment in the UKs history. Blue plaques on the Southall Town Hall wall marking the killing of Gurdip Singh Chaggar and Blair Peach. (HT Photo) The legacy of Southall 1979 is not to be silent but to give the power to the marginalized, Patel said, cautioning that racist-fascist forces that Southall battled were still present inside and outside our communities, and needed to be tackled with the same resistance. The march and rally paid tributes to Chaggar and Blair Peach, an anti-racism schoolteacher, who was killed during clashes with the police. Chaggar and Peach have since become the symbols of resistance movements against fascism and racism over the years. A locally-led coordinating group called Southall Resists 40 has been established to promote the 40th anniversary of the struggles, plan events and support such initiatives by affiliated groups. It includes the Indian Workers Association, among others. Grover said: Despite these tragedies, our continued resistance achieved a remarkable and life changing victory. People in Southall finally began to live and thrive in a town free from racist and fascist violence. Today the giant twins of racism and poverty are fuelling a far right resurgenceOur aim is not only to remember the past by learning lessons from the resistance that was created, but also to prepare for the future. Sri Lanka on Saturday banned local Islamist extremist outfit NTJ and a splinter group, which are linked to the ISIS that has claimed the responsibility for the Easter bombings that left 253 people dead and several hundreds injured. National Thawheed Jammath (NTJ) leader Zahran Hashim, the mastermind behind the attacks, was killed inside the Shangri La hotel where he detonated himself. President Maithripala Sirisena used emergency powers to ban the NTJ and a splinter group identified as Jamathei Millathu Ibraheem (JMI), a statement said. All movable and immovable property of these two organisations will be confiscated, the statement said. The move to ban the outfits came after the Lankan Parliament adopted a newly-enforced emergency regulation on Wednesday following a series of eight coordinated blasts, which ripped through three churches and three high-end hotels frequented by tourists on April 19 in the countrys deadliest violence since the devastating civil war ended in 2009. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on Friday said the country needs new laws to deal with threats posed by local terror outfits linked to ISIS. The definition on aiding terrorism is very narrow. Therefore, the laws are not strong to deal with a situation like this. We have to widen the scope of these laws to counter global terrorism. Not only they (the terrorists) should be arrested, their assets also need to be confiscated, he said in a televised address. The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the Easter terror attacks on three Catholic churches and three luxury hotels but the government has blamed a local Islamist extremist group, National Tawheed Jamath (NTJ), for the bombings. (This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.) The United States on Friday ordered all school-age members of families of American diplomats posted in Sri Lanka to leave the country saying terrorists groups continue plotting possible attacks, and raised its travel warning to Level 3, advising Americans to reconsider going there. In an updated travel advisory issued following the Easter Sunday terrorist bombings, the US State Department also allowed the voluntary departure of non-emergency government employees of the American mission and their families. The US embassy in Colombo has additional charge of Maldives. The United States has joined a growing number of countries such as United Kingdom, Australia and Canada who have advised their citizens to cancel their plans to travel to Sri Lanka in the aftermath of the Easter Sunday bombings that killed 253 according to a revised official count. Four of them were Americans, according to reports. It could not be immediately ascertained if any other country has also ordered its officials and their families to leave the country. The state department said in a travel advisory it had ordered the departure of all school-age family members of US government employees in Kindergarten through 12th grade. The Department also authorized the voluntary departure of non-emergency U.S. government employees and family members. Terrorist groups continue plotting possible attacks in Sri Lanka, the travel advisory added. Meant for US citizens, the advisory also upgraded the safety and security warning for traveling to Sri Lanka to Level 3: Reconsider travel, from Level 2: Exercise increased caution. Level 4: Do not travel is the most dire alert, advising against traveling to countries in that category. Terrorists may attack with little or no warning, targeting tourist locations, transportation hubs, markets, shopping malls, government facilities, hotels, clubs, restaurants, places of worship, parks, major sporting and cultural events, educational institutions, airports, hospitals, and other public areas, the advisory added. By early June 1944 the Allies were poised for offensives on all fronts in World War II. As the British prepared to retake Burma from the Japanese, the Americans steamed toward the Marianas, Soviet forces positioned themselves for a massive offensive into Belorussia and another into Finland, and Allied armies were about to retake Rome. In Britain, of course, naval, air and ground forces stood ready to open the long-anticipated second front in France with an amphibious invasion of Normandy. Meteorologists forecast a brief window of clear weather on June 6. Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower seized the moment to order airdrops of paratroopers and gliders behind enemy lines, the 2nd Ranger Battalions risky climb to seize German gun positions on Pointe du Hoc and the landings on the code-named beaches of Sword, Juno, Gold, Omaha and Utah that, despite bloody setbacks, ultimately secured a vital beachhead in Normandy. Six weeks of tough fighting lay ahead: British and German armor clashed around Caen, while American units ground their way through the hedgerows to Saint-Lo. Once freed of the confines of the Cotentin Peninsula, the Allies set their sights first on Paris and then on Berlinbut there was still a long way to go. Were trying to rebuild our oak ecosystem, Naser explained. On the south side of town we have oaks that are well over 150 years old, some of them even 200 years old. But eventually they are going to be reaching the end of their lifespan, so were trying to replace them with species that are native to the area. In eight years of Barack Obama, I never once had to talk about him being with a porn star, Brazile said. I never once had to go out and tell a lie for him. I had no problem defending his values and vision, but I have a problem today when its all about lies and deceit. It's a day that ends with the letter "Y," so it's appropriate that 50 Cent airs out another foe on social media. The rapper's' real-life feud with filmmaker Randall Emmett is now being played out online as Fiddy trolls the producer with a video of his fiance Lala Kent. On Friday, 50 shared a clip of Kent on the Bravo reality show Vanderpump Rules where she talks about having sex with Emmett the first night they met. She also says that the next day he bought her a Range Rover and mentioned that during sex, he likes it when she plays with his...well...butthole. https://www.instagram.com/p/BwtocwKn9ID "10 seconds left in the 4 quarter hoes are Winning," 50 captioned the clip. "Do you want A range rover, yes, bitch yassss. Then just run out aiand suck a d*ck. LOL smh." The reality star slid in his comments and, in true Kent fashion, went toe-to-toe with the rapper. She swears shes a thug from south side Jamaica queens & shes up in here watching Bravo," Kent wrote. "Someone has forgotten where they come from. Coming for me on the gram!? I smell fish coming from fiftys direction. Vanderpump Rules airs Mondays at 9/8C, only by @bravotv. I got the strap." Larry French/Getty Images 50 added to his original statement by writing, "ME TOO ROLE PLAY: Are you a actress come to my hotel and act like you really want the role, then suck a d*ck No good Randall No good ai" 50 also shared a text message exchange between himself and Emmett where the filmmaker apologizes to the rapper and tells him that this situation is too much for him. Emmett even suggests that the stress is causing him health issues and that he's going to the emergency room because he feels as if he's having a heart attack. In the text, 50 responds, "Get the f*ck out of here Randell. You told your girl to say that bullsh*t because when we had dinner it was talk about Eif Directing. You f*cking loser, did you tell you you owed me a million dollar over 6 years. Keep playing with me and get ya f*cking head cracked in front of everybody." He went on to write in the captions, "F*ck you @Randallemmettfilms you think I wouldnt find out, you and your little hoe girl friend talk to us weekly. I want the rest of my money Monday." 50 is making sure everybody runs him his checks before the summertime. https://www.instagram.com/p/Bwvq5fTHyns Avengers: Endgame has finally arrived. For those who have not seen the movie, beware. This review is filled with spoilers. I repeat, this is a spoiler HEAVY review and analysis of the latest Avengers film. Continue at your own risk Joe and Anthony Russo created a masterpiece with Infinity War. Overall, Endgame was an excellent superhero film, but Infinity War had a better narrative. Endgame's action was ridiculously entertaining and the acting was some of the strongest in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to date. Major plot holes leave big questions in the film though. The film begins with the heroes attempting to right their defeat, but failing to find a viable solution. Thor kills Thanos, and life continues on crippled in half. Five years later, we find our heroes struggling to cope. The main timeline exists in 2024 now. We see Ant-Man appear from the Quantum Realm, and he deduces that time travel is the key. He convinces the protagonists that time travel using the Quantum Realm is possible, and after a little bit of pushback, Tony agrees to help Hulk build a time machine. Cap, Iron-Man, Ant-Man, and Hulk (who is a mix of Banners intelligence and Hulks strength making him Professor Hulk) head to 2012 New York to get the Time, Space, and Mind Stones. Hawkeye (who became a murderous vigilante called Ronin after losing his family in the snap) and Black Widow head to Vormir in 2014 to grab the Soul Stone before Thanos gets it. Nebula and War Machine head to Morag in 2014 as well, to grab the Power Stone before Star-Lord gets it (as seen in Guardians of the Galaxy). Lastly, Thor (with a dangerous dad bod) and Rocket Racoon head to Asgard in 2013 to get the Reality Stone. Rich Polk/Getty Images for Disney Hulk grabs the Time Stone from the Ancient One at the Sanctum Santorum, and she warns him that all the stones must be replaced where and when they were taken in order to satiate the time stream. In fact, the Ancient One, Tony Stark, and Hulk all state at separate occasions that any variations could create new timelines. In the film, it is stated that if you travel to the past and create a new future, technically your old future is now your past and you have created a new timeline that is unknown. Keep that in mind, because that along derails Captain America's ending. Death was more final in Endgame than Infinity War. Black Widow sacrifices her life on Vormir so that Ronin can get the Soul Stone, which was an emotional moment that felt used. We just saw Gamora die in the same way, and to the same exact music too, in Infinity War. It was a tear-jerker, but still, it felt like an old trick. Soon after, everyone returns to the future with their stones, but past Thanos learns of their plot and sends Nebula into the future as a spy. This is where things get tricky. If each Avenger had enough juice for one round trip (except Cap and Iron-Man who went and found more in the 70s), Thanos would not have enough Pym Particles to time travel with his whole army, assuming Nebula used them to head to the future herself as a spy. We can assume that Nebula acquired more Pym Particles somehow, after making her jump to the future. When future Hulk combines the re-acquired stones in a new gauntlet and "snaps" all those who died back into existence, you would think the heroes won. Somehow though, past Nebula is able to bring Thanos and his entire ship and army through the time machine. Past Thanos arrives in the future and destroys the Avengers base and the final battle begins. Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images for Bombay Sapphire When Cap picks up Thor's hammer, Mjolnir, and used it to fight Thanos, it sent the theater in hysterics. This is an epic battle, the best the MCU has ever displayed. The CGI was a bit much, but expected. When the fallen heroes join the fight, it truly becomes the most amazing superhero battle scene ever created. At the end of the battle, Iron-man gives his life, using the gauntlet to snap away Thanos and his army. Since he was the first to start the MCU, it makes sense that his story came full circle and he died to save the universe. After the fight concludes, Captain America is tasked with returning all the stones to their rightful place in time, along with Mjolnir. When Cap goes back in time though, he doesn't return. This is where things get funky again. Jason Merritt/Getty Images Cap goes back in time and it is implied he married Peggy Carter and lives a normal life. He appears as an old man to Falcon and Winter Soldier. As romantic as this seems, it doesn't make any sense. If Cap stayed in the past and altered the timeline by marrying Peggy, he would have created a new timeline, according to the rules stated earlier by Hulk, Tony, and the Ancient One. If Cap married Peggy it would negate her entire tv series (which was on ABC), and also makes the specifics of Captain America: Civil War blurry. How did Cap stay in the past and just allow HYRDA to torture and use his best friend Bucky as an assassin for decades while he just laid up with Peggy? The entire ending was a fail, on that regard. Cap broke the time rules Endgame tried so hard to set up for the whole film. Unless the writers wanted to purposely show that the Ancient One and Hulk had no idea what they were talking about. Cap, who is known for never giving up, sat back through the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90,s and 00s and watched the horrible events of the world unfold but ignored it to be in love. That is a massive change from his established personality. Although that is possible, it's highly unlikely. Cap's ending is emotionally fulfilling, but the dynamics of it create a plot hole. Endgame is an amazing movie and a spectacle to behold. Fan service is abundant (the scene with all the ladies battling Thanos is amazing). Seeing Black Panther reappear first and lead an army against Thanos was also dope. The battle was perfect, and the acting was the strongest of the MCU. Still, the dynamics of the time travel left too much to be interpreted. Where is Loki now? Is that timeline different now? How are Peter Parker's classmates still in high school five years into the future? How did future Nebula kill past Nebula without then erasing herself? Why is the Hulk doing the dab in 2024? It is possible phase 4 will introduce the multi-verse, a quick way to re-establish and clean up any timeline drama. That is where I believe we are heading in the next decade of Marvel films. Endgame is massive and amazing, and the pros far outweigh the cons. Just invest your heart into it, and not your mind. I loved it 3000. You know those pictograms where a series of paneled images are placed in sequential order - you know what I'm referring to. The influencers call them "Panoramas." I simply look at them in amazement as if they were a series of Rorschach tests. Well, Joe Biden tried his hand at a "Panoramas" this afternoon. While the gambit work to spell out the words B-IDE-N PR-ESIDE-NT, it came at the cost of inadvertently upsetting his former boss Barack Obama. https://twitter.com/_/status/1121423956957962241 Where Joe Biden and his handlers went about it wrong was in covering Barack Obama's torso with a giant-sized letter N. Evidently, Biden could have used his better judgment to assign the former President-elect a more ambiguous letter from the "B-IDE-N PR-ESIDE-NT" sequence, but he didn't. Instead, the Presidential hopeful was left scratching for the second time this month, the very month he announced his candidature for the Presidency I might add. https://twitter.com/_/status/1121481499671269376 Earlier in the month, Biden was subjected to an audit on his social behavior, as a series of women accused him of "inappropriate touching" at different points of time during his political career. Without sweeping the more grave accusations under the rug, many of Biden's constituents defended his actions by depicting him as a relic of time with a kind heart. While it's quite evident he meant no ill-will towards Barack Obama with the misplaced N, Biden's computational incompetence could be his downfall heading into the Democratic race - for Biden is simply falling behind the time in the advent of a #MeToo stimulus package. https://twitter.com/_/status/1121356773275971584 Dogs are known to be a man's best friend but perhaps, they aren't as loyal as parrots. According to Brazilian reports spotted by The Guardian, Brazilian authorities seized a parrot that allegedly warned crack dealers about the presence of police in the area. The publication revealed that a parrot was seized by authorities this past week during a raid at a Northern Brazilian property where two people were accused of selling crack. Police in the region said that the parrot was trained by its owners to alert them for the presence of police in the Vila Irma Dulce area. The bird does not have a name, according to authorities. He must have been trained for this, one officer involved in the operation said. As soon as the police got close he started shouting. The bird has apparently also been trained not to snitch since authorities are having trouble getting the parrot to make any sort of noise. A reporter described the parrot as being "super obedient." So far it hasnt made a sound completely silent, the reporter said. A local vet added, Lots of police officers have come by and hes said nothing. Brazilian broadcaster, Globo, said the "drug trafficking parrot" has been given to a local zoo where it would learn to fly before being released. According to the Washington Post, the bird yelled Mamae, policia! which translates to "Mama, police." It's a Florida takeover on "Hit It" as Jacksonville's Trap Beckham calls on fellow Jacksonvillian Tokyo Jetz and Miami's very own Trina and DJ Diggem for his high energy single. "Hit It" sounds as if it was created to be a summertime club hit as the sexually-charged lyrics perfectly complement the winding and grinding dance moves featured in the music video. Beckham is best known for his single "Birthday B*tch" and is an artist who likes to release songs that get the party started. The 27-year-old inked a deal with Def Jam back in 2016, dropping his debut EP, Life is Lit, with the label the following year. Tokyo Jetz's rise to fame began when she shared videos of herself rapping in her car. They quickly went viral and now she boasts over one million followers on Instagram alone. DJ Diggem likes to create upbeat music that gets people on the dancefloor, much like Trina, who's preparing to release The One, her first full-length studio album in nine years. Quotable Lyrics Hit it from the back, shawty Hit it 'til it break yo back, shawty Stretch these legs back, shawty Watch me throw this ass, shawty Miss Trina, 305 A little something for your face A little wet surprise Profits at Exxon Mobil and Chevron cratered in the first quarter as a slowdown spread across the energy industry in the first three months of the year, hitting the oil and gas producers, refiners and chemical makers that drive the economy in Houston. Exxon Mobil said Friday that its quarterly profits plummeted nearly 50 percent from a year prior after its refining and petrochemical operations lost money for the first time in a decade. Chevron said its profits fell by 25 percent. San Antonio refiner Valero Energy said earlier in the week that its profit dove 70 percent. And Houston petrochemical maker LyondellBasell reported Friday that its first quarter profit fell by one-third. I was hoping the results wouldnt be as bad as feared, but its a train wreck, said Jennifer Rowland, energy analyst at financial services company Edward Jones. SAW IT COMING: Energy sector heads into 'kind of purgatory' in January A combination of factors contributed to the slide in earnings. Oil prices were still recovering from the rout at the end of last year, when crude prices plunged 40 percent to a low of $42 a barrel. The recent boom in the construction of petrochemical and plastics plants led to a flood of products on the market, depressing prices. Sanctions imposed by the Trump administration on Venezuelan crude have tightened supplies of heavier crude used by Gulf Coast refiners, raising costs and further squeezing profit margins already feeling the pinch earlier this year from abundant supplies and low prices. Oftentimes, the big oil companies can lean on refining margins when oil and gas prices are depressed and oil and gas prices when refining margins are tight. Early 2019 was an unusual instance of depressed pricing across petroleum products, analysts said. Revenue at both Exxon and Chevron fell 7 percent. It was a tough market environment for us this quarter, Exxon Mobil Senior Vice President Jack Williams said in call with analysts. Not that anyone is going broke. Exxon Mobil earned a first quarter profit $2.4 billion. Chevron reported a $2.7 billion gain. LyondellBasell said it made more than $800 million in the quarter. Analysts said the setbacks for energy companies appear to be temporary, rather than the beginning of a trend. Oil prices have rebounded above $60 barrel (crude settled at $63.30 Friday), and gasoline demand and prices are rising ahead of the peak summer driving season. Global demand for petrochemicals and plastics is also rising. This is mostly about bad market conditions, Rowland said. This wasnt poor operations or a huge hiccup for them somewhere. Both Chevron and Exxon Mobil reported increased oil and gas production, especially in West Texas booming Permian Basin, where the companies are growing quickly and investing heavily. Exxon is operating 46 drilling rigs in the Permian the most in the basin and plans to ramp up to 55 by the end of the year. The big focus at Chevron is the bidding contest to acquire oil and gas company Anadarko Petroleum, which is based in The Woodlands. The acquisition includes Chevrons Permian Basin holdings. Chevron agreed to buy Anadarko for $33 billion two weeks ago, but Houstons Occidental Petroleum offered $38 billion in an updated cash-and-stock deal. PEARL HARBOR Modern attack submarines are the most technologically advanced and capable undersea warfighters in the world. Operating these highly complex submarines require sailors from the U.S. Navys submarine community, also known as the Silent Service. Petty Officer 1st Class Michael Ervin, a 2006 Cinco Ranch High School graduate and native of Katy, Texas, has served for 12 years and works as a Navy machinists mate serving aboard one of the worlds most advanced nuclear-powered submarines, USS Illinois, homeported at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii. As a Navy machinists mate, Ervin will operate and maintain naval nuclear propulsion plants and associated equipment; supervise and administer naval nuclear propulsion plant operations; thoroughly understand reactor, electrical, and mechanical theory involved in the operation of the nuclear reactor, steam plant, propulsion plant, and auxiliary equipment; operate and repair systems associated with reactor plants, propulsion plants, and auxiliary support systems. Ervin credits his service in the Navy to the many lessons he learned in Katy. Katy, Texas, is a very diverse town and it has helped me immensely working with and leading sailors from all 50 states in the nation. said Ervin. Our Navy reflects all parts of the country and being able to look back on my time in Katy has been a help to me. Jobs are highly varied aboard the submarine. Approximately 130 sailors make up the submarines crew, doing everything from handling weapons to maintaining nuclear reactors. Attack submarines are designed to hunt down and destroy enemy submarines and surface ships; strike targets ashore with cruise missiles; carry and deliver Navy SEALs; carry out intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions; and engage in mine warfare. Their primary tactical advantage is stealth, operating undetected under the sea for long periods of time. Because of the demanding environment aboard submarines, personnel are accepted only after rigorous testing and observation. Submariners are some of the most highly trained and skilled people in the Navy. Regardless of their specialty, everyone has to learn how everything on the ship works and how to respond in emergencies to become qualified in submarines and earn the right to wear the coveted gold or silver dolphins on their uniform. Though there are many ways individuals can serve their communities and country Ervin considers his naval service as his biggest accomplishment. I have had many family members in the military and that is why serving my country and continuing the legacy means so much to me, said Ervin. I grew up knowing I was going to serve one day. Being stationed in Pearl Harbor, often referred to as the gateway to the Pacific in defense circles, means Ervin is serving in a part of the world taking on a new importance in Americas focus on rebuilding military readiness, strengthening alliances, and reforming business practices in support of the National Defense Strategy. Our priorities center on people, capabilities and processes, and will be achieved by our focus on speed, value, results and partnerships, said Secretary of the Navy Richard V. Spencer. Readiness, lethality and modernization are the requirements driving these priorities. The Navy has been pivotal in helping maintain peace and stability in the Pacific region for decades. The Pacific is home to more than 50 percent of the worlds population, many of the worlds largest and smallest economies, several of the worlds largest militaries, and many U.S. allies. As a member of one of the U.S. Navys most relied upon assets, Ervin and other sailors know they are part of a legacy that will last beyond their lifetimes, one that will provide a critical component of the Navy the nation needs. The Navy shows me that I can do anything, added Ervin. This is a hard job and Im able to help protect our nation when called to do so. Tucked away near the back of The Woodlands sits one of the two current buildings where The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints meets in this area. Craig Sorensen, who leads the areas Latter-day Saint community, sat down with The Villager to talk about the growth the church is experiencing and his involvement with the ministry and his family along the way. QUESTION: What is your position here in The Woodlands? SORENSEN: Im the stake president for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We have seven congregations in The Woodlands that we call wards. Each of those congregations have a bishop. Theres somewhere between 350 and 450 members of each congregation. Those seven wards make up a stake. I was recently a bishop for about five years, and was recently called to be stake president. I work with each of the seven bishops, and Im responsible for the membership here in The Woodlands stake. We have just over 2,500 members that live here in The Woodlands. We have two buildings and (we) are building another building that should be finished in September thats up close to (FM)1488. Theres 22 stakes in the Houston area, and each stake has seven to 10 wards, so theres about 65,000 members of the church here in the Houston area. QUESTION: Tell me about the growth your church is experiencing. SORENSEN: This year, we exceeded 16 million members of the church worldwide. Here in the Houston area, weve seen continued growth with the opportunity to have 65,000 missionaries that serve all around the world and missionaries that serve here as well. My son went to the Air Force Academy for one year, but hes currently serving his mission in Brazil. We have 42 missionaries from The Woodlands area that are serving all over the world, and we have 16 to 20 missionaries coming from all over the world that are serving in this area. Theres just over 3,000 stakes across the globe. Were one of 22 in the Houston area, but weve seen a lot of growth here in this area over the last five to 10 years. Weve built three buildings in the Spring and Woodlands area in the last 10 years. Were blessed to be around good people here from good faiths and all walks of life. QUESTION: What do you do for work? SORENSEN: In the church, none of our callings bishops or presidents are a profession. Its a lay ministry, were not paid. We serve for a time period and are released. So Im tied to a chemical distribution company thats based out of Germany, Ive been with them for 26 years. Im responsible for the oil and gas business for the Americas from a professional standpoint. QUESTION: Are you from this area originally? SORENSEN: No, I grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah, and I graduated from high school and served a two-year mission in France and Belgium. I came home, went to Utah State University where I met my wife she finished her degree and then got her masters degree in audiology and I got my degree in finance. We have six children, and weve lived in Florida, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Utah and now here in Texas. All part of the same company moving us around. This has been our longest stay. We moved here in 2007 and we love it. Its heaven. All of our kids have gone to high school here. Theyre all Woodlands High School graduates. When we moved here, our oldest son was going into sophomore year, I have a sophomore daughter there now, and our youngest son is in eighth grade. From a family standpoint, we love being here in The Woodlands. From a community standpoint, its just outstanding. We like that theres people from everywhere. It really provides a sense of community. QUESTION: What is the Mormon community like here? SORENSEN: The neat thing is that its the same everywhere you go. In this community, when people move in, whether they move from Ohio or Pennsylvania, Canada or Europe, when they arrive in The Woodlands they are immediately part of a ward family, and that ward family is tied to a stake. It does provide an opportunity of community. The other blessing is theyre very engaged in the community. We have business leaders, members who serve on the school board, individuals who are firemenwere really engaged in being part of the community. From a church standpoint, we worship every Sunday. We have an hour sacrament meeting, like a mass, where we come together and partake of the sacrament. We sing and have some messages about the Savior. Then we have an hour of Sunday School after where we study both the Bible and the Book of Mormon. Both of those are scriptures that we follow. On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday night we have youth activity nights. Also, all of our ninth to 12th graders participate in early morning seminary. From 5:45 to 6:35 every school morning they meet and have a bible study. QUESTION: What do you enjoy most about being involved in the ministry? SORENSEN: Theres two things: that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is focused on our Savior, learning of him and striving to follow his example. Obviously, his example is understanding that we all fall short, but also reaching out and helping others. As members of the church, we feel a wonderful opportunity to provide service to those around us. The women in our stake work closely with Angel Reach, the foster care ministry. Over the last couple years, theyve quilted 150-plus quilts that theyve presented to Angel Reach, so they can present them to the foster children here in The Woodlands community. This Sunday, were doing a service project for Bridgewood Farms, which is again a local organization where our members are putting together some things, putting on a prom for the youth and young single adults part of that group. Were involved in the Montgomery County Food Bank, Interfaith, and outreach. For example, when Hurricane Harvey hit, because of our involvement with the food bank, and some of the outreach programs, it was seamless for us to work with them to meet needs. Community involvement and reaching out is really part of the members of the churchs faith. Service is critical to what we believe in. QUESTION: Are you involved with other faith groups here? SORENSEN: We have an outreach where we coordinate efforts to work together, plan youth activities between the different faith groups, for example the Muslim vigil . We were very familiar with them and their faith, and they come to some of our activities as well. All of the different faith groups in The Woodlands, we feel like its important to bridge. In the end, we believe were all Gods children and that we have a responsibility to look out for each other regardless of who we worship and how we worship. QUESTION: Whats the importance of networking in the community as a group of people sprinkled throughout The Woodlands? SORENSEN: Following the Saviors example he taught to be a light on a hill. As members of the church, we feel a responsibility first to do everything first to do everything to have our own households in order, strengthen our marriages, to be good parents of children engaged in their activities. Home and family is at the heart of the church. We spend a lot of time really focused on family, and from that we then extend the opportunity to serve to Gods family, which is all those around us. Its a natural part of what we believe. QUESTION: What do you like to do in your free time? SORENSEN: My kids have all been competitive swimmers, my oldests have all been state champions, have all gone on to swim in college. Were also involved in scouting with my boys. My youngest will be an Eagle Scout in the next couple months, and my three oldest boys are also Eagle Scouts as I was. Being tied to family and family activities. My wifes the booster club president of The Woodlands High School swim team. Just the things youd be involved in as parents and members of the community. jane.stueckemann@chron.com NEW YORK (AP) A New York jury on Thursday convicted an extravagant socialite who bankrolled an implausibly lavish lifestyle with tens of thousands of dollars she swindled from banks, hotels and friends who believed she was a wealthy German heiress. The Manhattan jury found Anna Sorokin guilty of four counts of theft of services, three counts of grand larceny and one count of attempted grand larceny following a monthlong trial that attracted international attention. She was acquitted of one count of grand larceny and one count of attempted grand larceny. Her defense attorney, Todd Spodek, said Sorokin could face between five and 15 years in prison on the most serious charge. She is scheduled to be sentenced May 9. Sorokin also faces deportation to Germany because authorities say she overstayed her visa. Using the name Anna Delvey, Sorokin deceived friends and financial institutions into believing she had a fortune of about $67 million (60 million euros) overseas that would cover her high-end clothing, luxury hotel stays and trans-Atlantic travel. She claimed her father was a diplomat or an oil baron and went to extraordinary lengths to have others pay her way. Prosecutors alleged that she promised one friend an all-expenses paid trip to Morocco but then stuck her with the $62,000 bill Sorokin was acquitted of that charge. She also was accused of forging financial records in an application for a $22 million loan to fund a private arts club she wanted to build, complete with exhibitions, installations and pop-up shops, prosecutors said. She was denied the loan but persuaded one bank to lend her $100,000 she failed to repay. Spodek insisted that Sorokin planned to settle her six-figure debts and was merely "buying time." He portrayed her as an ambitious entrepreneur who had merely gotten in over her head but had no criminal intent. Spodek said Sorokin was "upset, as anyone would be," following the verdict. But he said he was pleased Sorokin had been acquitted of one of the most serious charges in the indictment: attempting to steal more than $1 million from City National Bank. The verdict followed two days of often tedious deliberations, in which jurors asked for repeated clarification on the law and, in one note to the judge, indicated they had reached a "stalemate" due to a single uncompromising juror. In another note Thursday, jurors said they were "unable to reach a unanimous verdict because we fundamentally disagree." They reached their verdict less than two hours later. The steel structures for a new rail-road bridge over the Yangtze River in the city of Wuhu, east China's Anhui Province, joined together Friday, paving the way for the operation of the Shangqiu-Hefei-Hangzhou high-speed railway in 2020. Spanning 588 meters between the two main towers, the double-decker cable-stayed bridge has eight lanes for cars on the upper deck and four rail tracks on the lower deck. Two tracks are specifically designed for the Shangqiu-Hefei-Hangzhou high-speed railway, while the other two tracks are reserved for inter-city railways. The construction of the bridge, a key project for the Shangqiu-Hefei-Hangzhou high-speed railway, started at the end of 2014. The railway is scheduled to open to traffic in 2020. With a designed speed of 350 km per hour, this railway will link the city of Shangqiu in central China's Henan Province, with Hefei, capital of Anhui Province, and Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang Province. WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday brushed off North Korean insults and demands that he be replaced by someone "more careful and mature" as the chief negotiator in denuclearization talks. "Nothing has changed," Pompeo said when asked about the comments after a meeting with Japanese officials. "We'll continue to work to negotiate. Still in charge of the team. President Trump's obviously in charge of the overall effort, but it'll be my team." Pompeo said he and other U.S. diplomats will continue their efforts to get North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons, as he said Chairman Kim Jong Un had committed to do last June. Pompeo, who has traveled to North Korea four times in the administration's quest to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula, has been a frequent target of harsh and personal criticism from North Korean officials. North Korea's Vice Foreign Minister, Choe Son Hui, said Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton had created an "atmosphere of hostility and mistrust" after Trump's summit in Hanoi with Kim in February ended abruptly without an agreement. And last July, a few hours after Pompeo flew out of Pyongyang after two days of talks, the Foreign Ministry said U.S. demands were "gangster-like." Pompeo was again the focus of North Korean anger this week after he said during a Senate hearing that he considers Kim a tyrant. That prompted a Foreign Ministry official to say Pompeo had been "letting loose reckless remarks and sophism of all kinds against us every day." A statement quoting senior North Korean official Kwon Jong Gun, reported by the Korean Central News Agency, suggested Pompeo was responsible for the collapse of the summit talks in Hanoi. It said that whenever Pompeo "pokes his nose in, talks between the two countries go wrong without any results even from the point close to success." "I am afraid that, if Pompeo engages in the talks again, the table will be lousy once again and the talks will become entangled," Kwon said. "Therefore, even in the case of possible resumption of the dialogue with the U.S., I wish our dialogue counterpart would be not Pompeo but a person who is more careful and mature in communicating with us." North Korea has complained that the United States is insisting it completely denuclearize before any international sanctions are lifted, instead of offering sanctions relief in gradual steps as Kim's government prefers. But Pompeo and Japan's Foreign Minister Taro Kono said Friday that sanctions will stay in place until North Korea denuclearizes and settles several other issues, including the return of Japanese citizens abducted in the late 1970s and early 1980s. "Japan is ready to normalize relations with North Korea when its missile, nuclear and abduction issues are taken care of," Kono said. U.S. and Japanese officials said they had agreed that cyberattacks on either country would be considered an attack covered by Article 5 of the Japan-U. S. Security Treaty, which gets the U.N. Security Council involved in the event of any armed attack by a third country. Pompeo also said the United States would continue to raise concerns with Russia over its interference in U.S. elections, as well as in the affairs of other countries. "We will make very clear to them that this is unacceptable behavior," he said. "We will take tough actions which raise the cost for Russian malign activities. And we will continue to do that." Amara Majeed had an unpleasant surprise waiting for her when she awoke on Thursday morning. Earlier that day, police in Sri Lanka had released the names and photos of six suspects wanted in connection with the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks that killed hundreds, and asked for the public's help in locating them. But somehow, an old photo of the Brown University senior and Maryland native had made it into the news release. The black-and-white image appeared next to the name of Abdul Cader Fathima Qadiya, one of the wanted suspects. Already, people had figured out that the woman pictured was actually Majeed, and flocked to her Facebook profile to accuse her of being a terrorist. "What a thing to wake up to!" Majeed, who previously made national headlines for her activism on behalf of Muslim women who wear the hijab, wrote in a Facebook post. "This is obviously completely false and frankly, considering that Muslim communities are already greatly afflicted with issues of surveillance, I don't need more false accusations and scrutiny." Police issued a retraction later on Thursday, saying that they had included the wrong photo and that Majeed, 22, was not wanted for questioning. But the blunder had already revealed the limitations of Sri Lanka's nationwide ban on social media, which was supposed to stop the flow of misinformation. It also did little to inspire confidence in the government's handling of the tragedy, which came under further scrutiny later that day when authorities revealed that they had likely overestimated the number of people who died in the bombings. While police haven't said how Majeed's photo made it into their bulletin, Twitter users in Sri Lanka quickly pointed out that a reverse Google search showed the image had been featured in a 2015 Daily Mail article about an open letter Majeed had written to President Trump, asking him to stop making comments that demonized Muslims. The article accurately identified her as a child of Sri Lankan immigrant parents who had lived in the United States her entire life. Despite an official ban on social media, word spread throughout the day on Thursday, and Majeed woke up to a deluge of hatred. A public Facebook status that she posted on Wednesday - notifying her friends that Brown was looking to hire a new Muslim chaplain - was bombarded with hundreds of comments. While some speculated that there could have been a mistake, others called her foul names or accused her of being a terrorist. Majeed, who couldn't be reached for comment late on Thursday, told the Baltimore Sun that the experience had been "startling and jarring." It was painful to be associated with the tragedy that had devastated her family's homeland, she said. "Please stop implicating and associating me with these horrific attacks," she wrote on Facebook on Thursday, stressing that she had been misidentified by the police. "And next time, be more diligent about releasing such information that has the potential to deeply violate someone's family and community." Though police quickly issued an official correction, it evidently did little to dispel the false rumors that Majeed had been partially responsible for the bombings. Her Facebook post explaining the mix-up was flooded with thousands of comments, many of which insisted that she was hiding something or made graphic suggestions about how she should be punished. The error came as Muslims in Sri Lanka braced themselves for retaliation and potential violence amid a government investigation into Islamist militant groups' role in the bombings. Noting that not everyone who saw the original post with Majeed's photo would also spot the correction, Zainab Chaudry, the director of Maryland outreach for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, suggested Sri Lankan officials had put the college student at risk. "As religious tensions grow in Sri Lanka, this incompetence in the aftermath of the devastating Easter attack has placed Amara and her family in even graver danger," Chaudry told the Sun. The mistake also highlights the limits of Sri Lanka's social media ban, which was intended to stop the spread of false reports that could potentially lead to further violence. Hours after the attacks, the government blocked access to Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and other social media sites, a decision that was praised by some Western journalists who saw it as proof that social networks have failed to control the spread of misinformation. But the ban, which was still in place on Thursday, hasn't stopped fake news from circulating, Sri Lankan writer and data scientist Yudhanjaya Wijeratne pointed out in Slate. The order for Internet service providers to block access to social media sites, he noted, was easy to circumvent through virtual private networks. Meanwhile, he wrote, the government had taken a "chaotic approach" to releasing information. "Official information sources are increasingly starting to resemble hoaxes themselves," he wrote, noting that social media users in Sri Lanka figured out the government had erred in spreading Majeed's photo. He had been "forced to conclude the police are incapable of looking up an image on Google." Amid the confusion, officials also walked back their estimates for how many people had died in the Easter Sunday attacks. In the aftermath of the bombings, the official death toll rose over several days to reach 359, The Washington Post's Siobhan O'Grady reported. If correct, that would make the attacks one of the deadliest acts of terrorism since 9/11. But health officials said Thursday that the actual death toll was likely closer to 250 people, a significant revision of their earlier estimate. Sri Lankan leaders have also faced outrage over revelations that they had been warned about the potential for suicide attacks targeting local churches and failed to act. Top officials, including Sri Lanka's defense secretary and the national police inspector general, announced their resignations on Wednesday. Misidentifying an American activist as a suspected terrorist may have added further fuel to the fire: Early Friday morning, the official Twitter account for the Sri Lankan police, @SriLankaPolice2, was deleted without explanation. For Majeed, who grew up in suburban Baltimore, facing online abuse is nothing new. As a teenager attending Towson High School, she achieved national recognition after founding The Hijab Project, a website intended to fight prejudice against Muslim women who choose to wear headscarves. A 2015 Baltimore Sun profile, written while she was still a senior in high school, noted that she had also self-published a book aimed at combating stereotypes about Muslims and had her commentary published by CNN and HuffPost. But her outspoken advocacy on behalf of the Muslim community frequently has been met with vile personal attacks, as she acknowledged in an interview with the Brown Daily Herald in 2016. "It doesn't really bother me on a personal level anymore," she said. "What bothers me is that the fearmongering and anti-Muslim rhetoric created by many media sources and politicians has made it routine." - - - The Washington Post's Niha Masih in New Delhi and Amantha Perera in Colombocontributed to this report. Among the things I learned this past week is that the phrase women of color apparently was born in Houston, in 1977. That November, about 2,000 delegates and some 20,000 observers from across the United States gathered in the city for the first-ever National Womens Conference or, as conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly snidely dubbed it, a Foolish Festival for Frustrated Feminists. The gathering, authorized by federal law, drew heavy-hitters such as Rosalynn Carter, Lady Bird Johnson, Betty Ford, Barbara Jordan and Coretta Scott King to come up with a plan of action for advancing womens rights. Some of the feminists in attendance were frustrated with the leaders of groups such as the National Organization of Women, most of whom were white, and took the opportunity to raise their concerns about the resulting myopia in the womens movement. That myopia has persisted, and the 2016 presidential election called attention to it. In 2016, a majority of white Americans voted for the Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump. To be more specific, Trump won 62 percent of white men and 52 percent of white women, according to CNN exit polls. A majority of voters in all other demographic groups cast ballots for Democrat Hillary Clinton. Women of color, in particular, rejected Trump by overwhelming margins: Clinton won 69 percent of Latinas and 94 percent of black women. So it was that eight of the Democrats jostling for their partys 2020 presidential nomination trundled down to Houston on Wednesday for a forum at Texas Southern University that was organized by She the People, a nationwide network focused on expanding the political power of women of color. The group held its inaugural summit in 2018, in San Francisco. And in her opening remarks at the presidential forum, group founder Aimee Allison explained that her goal in starting the network had been to uphold four fundamental values: To love our own and each other; to seek justice for all; to ensure that everyone belongs; and finally, to make sure that this American democracy lives up to its greatest promise. Since this was the groups first presidential forum, attendees encountered some minor technical issues. Supplies of granola bars and bottled water ran low. The events program featured a photo of U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D- San Antonio, rather than his twin brother Julian, who is running for president and was to speak that afternoon. And Bernie Sanders, a senator from Vermont, did not take kindly to being booed when he cited his attendance at the 1963 March on Washington in response to a question about the rise in white supremacy. I have dedicated my life to the fight against racism and sexism and discrimination of all forms, said a slightly cranky-sounding Sanders. Still, the She the People forum was, by all accounts, a resounding success. Energizing! Exhilarating! Hope-giving! Inspiring! These are words I would use to describe the forum, said Dee Scott, 62, a Houston-based activist who attended along with other volunteers from the Texas Organizing Project. Julian Castro, the former secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, was well-received, as were candidates such as U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris of California and former U.S. Rep. Beto ORourke of El Paso. And U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, seemed to speak to the hearts of many attendees. I have a plan, she said at one point, and the attendees greeted that comment with a standing ovation. That the event was held in Houston was taken as a measure of Texass new relevance for Democrats across the country, who are hoping to retake the White House in 2020. The state is still red on paper, and Trump easily won Texass electoral votes in 2016. But Clinton came closer than any Democrat since her husband, Bill, in 1992 and 1996. And in last years midterm elections, Texas Democrats made further inroads. In addition to picking up two seats in Congress and 12 in the Texas House, for example, Democrats swept countywide races in Harris and Fort Bend counties. It was a recognition of all the hard work thats been done to increase Democratic turnout in Texas, said Lillie Schechter, chairwoman of the Harris County Democratic Party, among the organizations that partnered with She the People. And that the forum was held at all was a measure of the growing political power of women of colorwhose influence in the Democratic Party has not, historically, been commensurate with their support of it, or their commitment to its values. The Wednesday forum was, in fact, the first presidential forum ever focused on the policy priorities of women of color, such as health care, immigration, housing, gun violence, and criminal justice reform. Such women represent 1 in 5 voters in the Democratic primary and perhaps 25 percent of the electorate, Allison noted, in key swing states including Texas. But the voices of women of color are worth centering, nonetheless in part because of the perspective they bring to political debates. As Scott put it, after the forum: We know what we experience, and what were exposed to. erica.grieder@chron.com Officials at San Antonios largest charter school network want to have campuses within 10 minutes of every family in the city a goal they now believe reachable in five years thanks to a $116 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education. IDEA Public Schools received the largest award from a combined $304 million announced this month by the departments Office of Innovation and Improvement, followed by KIPP, which is expected to receive $86 million to expand existing schools and open new ones. Both are heavily invested in San Antonio and plan to open schools elsewhere in Texas and in other states. Thirteen other charter networks also were awarded grants. IDEA wants to use the money to grow from 22 schools locally to 37 by 2022-23, according to its application. Its part of a planned nationwide explosion from 79 schools to 199, which would add 30,000 students in the next five years, growing to more than 56,000 when the schools are at full capacity, according to the application. The expansion of charters in San Antonio has produced an increasingly vocal backlash from leaders of traditional public school districts across the city that face budget challenges from reduced state funding and, in some cases, enrollment declines. On ExpressNews.com: School leaders to city: stop helping charters expand There is a group of people in our nation and certainly in our city that want to move to a more privatized system of schooling, and theyve been successful in allowing charters to expand really rapidly into areas that are not what you would call underserved, and essentially co-locate with public schools that are performing well, Brian Woods, the superintendent of Northside Independent School District, said Thursday. The new funding follows a $67 million Department of Education grant IDEA received in 2017. IDEA-San Antonio Executive Director Rolando Posada said the money helps fuel his vision of having a school everywhere on the map so every family would have less than a 10 minute drive to an IDEA school. It costs a lot of money to launch schools, Posada said, and the latest $116 million will help. In addition to facilities, the money will go toward staffing and training leaders for the new schools, he said. The network has built mostly on the citys East and South sides but is entertaining all the possibilities for its next 15 schools here, he said. The Northwest Side is the fastest growing, Posada noted, calling it a new frontier for IDEA schools. Im experiencing people reaching out to me from small towns in surrounding areas, he added. KIPP Texas-San Antonio is listed as one of the regions that may open schools in 2021 and 2022, while KIPP Texas-Austin and KIPP Texas-Houston schools are expected to open for fall 2020, according to the application. Its expansion in all of its regions will expand enrollment by 23,000 students across 52 schools, the network said in its application. It aims to add 17,000 students during the next five years, and an additional 5,000 after that. Its too early to say how many schools or students KIPP will add in Bexar County, KIPP Texas Chief Advancement Officer Mark Larson said. We are currently in the process of doing a bottom-up growth plan for our work in the state, after the four KIPP regions consolidated to form KIPP Texas last summer, he said. Its only new school now in the pipeline is KIPP Somos Collegiate, which will open this fall on Fredericksburg Road. We do intend to continue to grow in San Antonio, Larson said, adding that the federal money increases KIPPs capacity to help meet demand that we have from families who are looking for schools that are helping kids to and through college. Charter schools in San Antonio have thousands of students on wait lists to get in, according to a 2018 report from Families Empowered, a Houston-based nonprofit that advocates for school choice. On ExpressNews.com: As demand rises, charters open new schools in San Antonio New KIPP schools, as with IDEA and many other charters, open with one grade level and add a grade each year. At full scale, they break even financially, Larson said. But up until that time, they run at a deficit, something grants can help address and make a little less demanding from a philanthropic perspective. The superintendents of the two largest school districts here, Northsides Woods and North East ISDs Brian Gottardy, last fall urged a community conversation about the financial impact of charter school growth. That hasnt gone anywhere yet, Woods said, but he hopes to raise it again after the City Council elections May 4. I think its interesting that 25 years ago, when charters came to Texas, one of the chief arguments was that they were going to serve impoverished kids in underserved communities. And for a while that was true in Bexar County, he said. But looking at the charter expansion in recent years, it seems like the goal has shifted, Woods said. Were happy to compete with anybody, as long as theres a level playing field. Four charter school operators applied to the Texas Education Agency this spring to open new schools in the Bexar County area. Applications are still under review for San Antonio Preparatory Charter School, which aims to open on the Southeast Side, and The Gathering Place, targeting the intersections of North East, San Antonio, Northside and Edgewood ISDs. Applications for Flex High School of Texas, a program for 16-to-24-year-olds who havent completed high school, and Prelude Preparatory, which aimed to open in Judson ISD, were rejected. LTeitz@express-news.net Seth Johnson is standing as still as any 11-year-old boy is capable of being. His arms are extended overhead, his hands clamping down on the metal handles hes promised to grip tight for the next two minutes. Right now, hes still upright. But in just a couple seconds, he could be upside down. Or sideways. Or suspended somewhere in between on this giant gyroscope inside of which hes belted inside. How does it feel? his 10-year-old brother Cooper asks as the Boy Scout leader manning the gyroscope gives it one giant flick and sends Cooper rotating through several planes. Oh my God, Seth calls out to his younger brother, whos next in line to give this gadget a whirl. Coopers smile grows wide and he looks back at his parents, Matt and Lauren, who are watching a few feet away. Moments like this, Matt Johnson says, are the reason hes so glad his sons are members of Boy Scout troops in the Bay Area Council, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary this weekend in a massive Scout-O-Rama at the Brazoria County Fairgrounds in Angleton, featuring events ranging from archery competitions to this gyroscope, which the council has dubbed the Orbitron. These kids arent afraid of anything, Matt says as he watches Seth spin head over feet. The nice thing is youre here to encourage them to do things they wouldnt normally do, so they gain skills and gain confidence in themselves. Seth swears he isnt dizzy when he steps off the Orbitron after his two-minute ride. But he takes three gingerly steps back down to the ground, where his legs are loopy, and each step looks more like a circular motion than a straight line. He walks over to his parents, mumbles something about how that was cool, then jaunts off to another nearby activity as his Cooper begins preparing for his go. Cooper empties his pockets, handing the contents one unopened roll of multicolored Life Savers candy to his dad for safekeeping. Hes shorter than his brother, and counselors operating the ride have to jack up the foot stand so he can still grasp the handles up top. But after just a minute or so, its time for the counselors to whip him into motion. Boy Scouts didnt used to have fancy these contraptions, says Rudy Lazides. He would know. The 68-year-old first joined the Scouts in 1962, when he was just 12, and has since been an active participant, first as a scout, then a leader and member of the council. I was the son of an immigrant, and I was really disenfranchised growing up, because back in the 1950s, he pauses, searching for the words. Well, discrimination was legal. So, when I got into the Boy Scouts, my scout leaders really showed me what it meant to be an American citizen. And Ill tell you, if I hadnt joined Boy Scouts, Id be a very different person. Its where he learned to hike and camp. Start campfires and sew. But as he grew up in the scouting system, its also where he learned to test boundaries and aim for wider horizons. There was no such thing as a merit badge for whitewater rafting or rappelling when he was a young leader. But he organized trips for his troop to try each of the activities ruffling a few feathers along the way. The rappelling didnt go over well, he says, shaking his head at the memory of parents who didnt understand the appeal of sending their children out to descend rock faces. Now, adventurous excursions such as that are at the heart of Boy Scouts. Over the years, the important things have stayed the same, like character building. But a lot of activities have evolved, he says. Theres more adventure to it now, they allow you to do a lot more. The Orbitron they wouldnt have done that 50 years ago. But man, is Cooper Johnson glad they have it now. When he hops off the gyroscope, his legs are even wigglier than his brothers had been, but his smile is wider. And though hed looked skeptical in line as he watched his older brother try the adventure first, hes now thrilled with the feeling of having conquered it for himself. These are the magical moments his father loves watching. You know, every parent tells their kids how awesome they are, Matt Johnson says. And getting them to do things where they actually realize they can achieve goals and they realize that they can succeed and its not just the parents patting them on the head and telling them good job, the challenges they face. I guess they just grow as people, they get confidence, learning new skills. Cooper doesnt have the patience to stand and wait for his father to finish waxing romantic about all the ways hes seen Boy Scouts benefit his kids. He doesnt even bother asking for his Life Savers back before heading off to the next event. Hes got new things to try. maggie.gordon@chron.com Councilman Dwight Boykins said Friday that the ethics committee he chairs will investigate this weeks vote to send 60-day layoff notices to 220 Houston firefighters, saying some council members who voted for the measure were not aware that it also allowed hundreds of firefighters to be demoted. Council voted Wednesday to approve the layoffs to help finance raises mandated under Proposition B, the voter-approved city charter amendment that requires the city to pay firefighters the same as police officers of corresponding rank and experience. Boykins called the potential demotions heartbreaking to people who sacrifice years to get to their promotional status. His committee does not have the power to force testimony; it is merely an avenue for questioning public officials. His announcement came days after a state judge ordered the city, the Houston Police Department and the Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association to enter mediation until they agree on a schedule for implementing Prop B or the mediator declares an impasse. The mayor estimates the raises would cost the city roughly $80 million a year and require hundreds of layoffs unless the union agrees to phase the measure in over five years. The union has said it will allow members to vote on a three-and-a-half year phase-in, provided that the city promise that no firefighters would be terminated, which Turner says is impossible. Turner on Friday accused Boykins a one-time ally who is considering whether to challenge the mayor in November of launching a political stunt. Boykins has said he would make a decision on whether to mount a mayoral challenge in June. The mayor saidHouston Fire Chief Sam Pena noted the possibility of demotions in a speech he gave to the citys public safety committee last month in which the chief detailed shift changes and staff reductions HFD would need to pursue to cover its roughly $25 million share of Prop Bs annual cost. Its been discussed, Turner said. Pena could not be reached for comment on Friday. He told the Chronicle earlier this month that some demotions would be necessary to avoid further reductions. HPFFA President Marty Lancton dismissed claims that the union was made aware of the demotions, citing a statement released by Turners office earlier this week that said neither Mayor Turner or (Pena) have presented information regarding demotions in the fire department. Asked about the discrepancy between that statement and the mayors comments Friday, Turner spokeswoman Mary Benton said she had misunderstood the question posed to her by Fox 26, which first reported the statement. In an email she sent to the station Friday morning, she said she was referring to the discussion at city council on Wednesday. The council voted 10-6 in favor of issuing the layoff notices following a two-hour discussion on whether to hold off the vote while the mediation continues, with some of those favoring a delay said the vote could impede the ongoing negotiations. Turner and his supporters rejected the idea, saying the council is required to pass a balanced budget by the start of the next fiscal year on July 1, and already faces a $117 million deficit that does not include the firefighter raises. Council could vote to rescind those layoff notices should the city and fire union reach an agreement on the implementation of the Prop B. The city already has issued layoff notices to 111 Houston Fire Department cadets and municipal workers. Councilman Jack Christie said Friday that he was aware his vote in favor of the layoffs also approved some demotions, but that he did not know the number would be in the hundreds. He said he voted for a few demotions, but not hundreds. And it may not be (the citys) intent, but the ability to have hundreds of demotions is not helping the firefighters. It just shocked me because (the demotions) could be used to punish or leverage the firefighters, he said before reiterating his desire for a deal to be struck in negotiation. Christie said he cast his vote with the hope that Turner and the union would reach a deal before the July 1 deadline for the city to approve a balanced budget. Weve got two good parties and none of them are budging, he said. Theres no way theyre both going to be happy, but a compromise would be good for the city, good for the taxpayers and good for public safety. robert.downen@chron.com A nationwide campaign against pirated works was launched on Friday to intensify copyright protection and improve innovation in the internet era. During the six-month crackdown, authorities pledged, companies that damage other's copyrights on images, as well as infringements in the country's film industry would be strictly punished. The campaign will be conducted by the National Copyright Administration, the Ministry of Public Security, China's Cyberspace Administration and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. "We will increase supervision in the copyright market and maintain order to better face challenges brought by new technologies such as artificial intelligence and blockchain, as well as to respond to major copyright infringements from the public and copyright owners," said Duan Yuping, deputy director of the NCA's copyright management division. She made the remarks at the National Conference on Copyright Protection and Development in Digital Environment on Friday, about two weeks after Visual China Group, a leading media provider of stock pictures and footage, came under fire over false copyright claims. On April 10, netizens discovered that the first image of the black hole had been added to Visual China Group's stock with a copyright claim, which means anyone using it without paying the company would be infringing the copyright. The company said it had been authorized to use the black hole image from its owner, but the European Southern Observatory, an intergovernmental organization for ground-based astronomy, denied the authorization. Later, the company was found to have put copyright marks on images of China's national flag and emblem that it had for sale, which heightened public outrage. The company was fined 300,000 yuan ($44,750) for publishing harmful images on April 19, and its website is still closed. Wan Jie, vice-president of the Copyright Society of China, said during the conference that the Visual China Group incident shows the significance and necessity of regulating copyrighted images. He said the protection of copyrights for images needs to be highlighted, but cannot influence industry developments. Also on Friday, a report on copyright protection said copyright administrative departments nationwide solved 544 cases involving infringement last year. The report also suggested the country revise the Chinese Copyright Law as quickly as possible and improve copyright-related information sharing to ensure the transparency of copyrights. Days before the start of early voting in municipal elections, Mayor Ron Nirenberg convinced a bare majority of his colleagues Thursday to stick with an earlier decision to bar Chick-fil-A from the San Antonio International Airport, a move that has drawn national criticism. Nirenberg also persuaded council members not to direct the citys lobbyists to fight a bill that would invalidate the paid sick leave ordinance approved by the council last year. The policy requires most of San Antonios private-sector employers to provide such leave for employees. In both cases, Nirenberg was seeking to keep the lid on controversies that seemed to have been settled. Although the mayor prevailed on both votes Thursday, he had to re-fight old battles over contentious issues during the final stretch of his re-election campaign. Councilman Greg Brockhouse, Nirenbergs most prominent challenger in the May 4 election, used a procedural move under Roberts Rules of Order to try to force the council to vote again on whether to remove Chick-fil-A from the new airport concessions contract. Later, Councilman Rey Saldana proposed defending the citys paid sick leave ordinance at the Texas Legislature. The city has been officially neutral on state efforts to prohibit cities from implementing such policies. Both measures failed, 6-5. On ExpressNews.com: Brockhouse revives San Antonios Chick-fil-A debate While Nirenberg couldnt stop Brockhouses motion and agreed to let Saldanas proceed, some felt it reflected poorly on the mayors leadership that the issues even surfaced Thursday. I find it very offensive that weve put the city in this situation and that the mayor hasnt taken control of this situation early on, Councilwoman Shirley Gonzales said before the Chick-fil-A vote. The highly charged debates brought more controversy to City Hall than normal at this time of the year, when politicians traditionally eschew such hot-button issues. For Nirenberg, the high-profile votes risk alienating the left, which favors the paid sick leave policy, and the right, which sees the Chick-fil-A rejection as a religious rights issue. No public comment With dozens of supporters standing in the council chambers, Brockhouse proposed revisiting the Chick-fil-A decision at the councils next meeting. I consider this opportunity for us today to be a defining moment for the San Antonio City Council, Brockhouse said in introducing the proposal, which he first broached last week. City Attorney Andy Segovia said there would be no public comment on the vote during the session because it was merely a procedural one to place the contract on the next meetings calendar. That meant Brockhouses supporters, including state Sen. Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels, and Cornerstone Church Senior Pastor John Hagee, couldnt express their displeasure. Hagee stood up from his seat and left when Segovia said they couldnt speak. After a few council members spoke about Brockhouses proposal, he amended it to include a briefing session for more discussion after several members, including Councilwoman Ana Sandoval, expressed a desire for one. The briefing session would have been May 1, with a re-vote on the Chick-fil-A decision on May 2. The motion still failed. One of his colleagues questioned the timing of Brockhouses efforts. If his proposal had won approval, the vote would have come two days before his election contest against Nirenberg. It smacks of politics, said Councilman Manny Pelaez, who ultimately supported Brockhouses failed effort. Anybody in this room would be naive to believe this has nothing to do with mayoral politics. Brockhouse denied that assertion. Chick-fil-A, an Atlanta-based fast food chain with franchises across the country, has faced scrutiny in the past for comments its CEO made in 2012 opposing same-sex marriage, and the company faced further criticism for donations its foundation made to groups that are seen as discriminatory against the LGBT community. The company has said it employs and serves people regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Nirenberg, who has framed the Chick-fil-A issue in business terms instead of LGBT discrimination, said no business operating within the law is barred from operating in San Antonio. He suggested having a discussion in the future about the citys contracting process to ensure it operates under the full compliance of local, state and federal laws. Weve spent far too much time letting Councilman Brockhouse try to exploit a fast food subcontract for his own political gain, Nirenberg said in a statement afterward. Ive said from the beginning that I voted in the best interests of passengers and taxpayers, and its important to have something open 7 days a week and preferably local. All Chick-fil-A restaurants are closed on Sundays. Every council member who voted against the contract last month voted in favor of Brockhouses effort, save one: Councilman Art Hall. He said the council should stick to its decisions, even when he doesnt support them. Councilwoman Rebecca Viagran, who abstained from the first vote, approved Brockhouses effort, as did Pelaez, who has said he regretted his original comments about Chick-fil-As record. Paid sick leave Unlike Chick-fil-A, the paid sick leave issue had Nirenberg and Brockhouse quietly on the same side. The city adopted the mandatory leave policy last year when faced with the specter of a ballot initiative, after a coalition of organizers collected the signatures required to do so. The policy met immediate resistance in the business community. Nirenberg, who voted in favor of the ordinance, has been clear since then that he doesnt think the city should be dictating the policy. Most seasoned observers expect the Legislature to approve the bill that would kill the citys policy and others like it, and San Antonios lobbyists have been neutral on it. Saldanas measure sought to change that. He said the city shouldnt remain neutral on an issue of local control, in which the Legislature is effectively reversing city action. On ExpressNews.com: Texas Senate OKs bill to strike down local sick leave ordinances But the motion failed, 6-5. Nirenberg, Brockhouse, Hall, and Pelaez voted no, along with Councilmen John Courage and Clayton Perry. Saldana said he thinks the vote reflects poorly on the councils decision last summer to approve the ordinance if its not willing to defend it. We took a very hollow vote in August, he said. My sense of wondering about this council is, do we just take symbolic votes? Michelle Tremillo, the executive director of the Texas Organizing Project, which organized the petition drive for the policy, released a blistering critique of the vote. We are extremely disappointed that our Mayor and City Council today chose to relinquish local control to the state because they dont want to anger large corporate interests, Tremillo said. We are extremely upset that our City Council today chose to sell out the working families that make San Antonio strong to appease their corporate backers. She said the city let San Antonio workers down. The mayor and the council members who voted against this resolution today will soon find out they were on the wrong side of history, Tremillo said. Dylan McGuinness covers City Hall and local politics in San Antonio. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | dylan.mcguinness@express-news.net | Twitter: @DylMcGuinness Failed presidential candidates make great vice-presidential nominees. Im not talking about the young up-and-comers who get antsy and decide to skip a few rungs and go for the big prize before theyve paid their dues. That kind of Buttigieg-ing rarely happened in the pre-Donald Trump era, when politicos generally understood that you either had to be a governor, a U.S. senator or a military hero to even dare admission into the circus. Im thinking of those journeyman workhorses who painstakingly moved up the ladder, ran for president and then performed a face plant on the national stage. That type of failed presidential contender usually possesses the kind of experience that lends gravitas to a presidential ticket. But they also have some inescapable political deficiency that held them back in a presidential race and makes them thankful just to occupy the rumble seat in a national campaign. Im thinking of Lyndon Johnson in 1960, Walter Mondale in 1976, George H.W. Bush in 1980, Al Gore in 1992 and Joe Biden in 2008. These VP nominees were ultra-loyal and more than willing to play the role of campaign attack dog. They bolstered perceived policy weaknesses of their running mates Bush, for example, brought foreign policy credentials to the ticket he shared with Ronald Reagan and cheerfully slogged their way through an endless succession of weenie roasts in flyover country. But they were failed presidential candidates for a reason. That brings us to Biden. When it comes to presidential races, Biden, who on Thursday officially announced his candidacy for the 2020 Democratic nomination, has been a good idea in theory, but not in practice. That could be the case again in 2020. From the beginning of a political career that goes back half a century, Biden has been a loquacious people person who revels in retail campaigning; a so-called regular Joe who prides himself on being able to speak the language of Americas anxious middle class. Its worked for him in Delaware, but it never translated for him as a presidential candidate. In 1988, Biden had a golden opportunity. The perceived early front-runner, former Colorado Sen. Gary Hart, was destroyed by a sex scandal. Another potential heavyweight, New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, stayed out. In the early stages of the race, Biden struggled to separate himself from the likes of Gore and Dick Gephardt. Before he had a chance to break through, he got mired in a plagiarism scandal, after he appropriated the words of then-British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock at an Iowa debate. In doing so, Biden stole the specifics of Kinnocks Welsh family history, with references to ancestors who worked in the coal mines and read poetry and wrote poetry and taught me how to sing verse. Anyone inclined to believe that Biden would have rocketed to the top of the Democratic field if not for the plagiarism story got a hard dose of clarity in 2007-08. The most memorable moment for me in that short, failed campaign came when Biden dismissed the Iraq War strategies of rivals Hillary Clinton and John Edwards by saying, So all this stuff is like so much Fluffernutter out there. Biden dropped out in early January 2008, immediately after a demoralizing fifth-place finish in Iowa. By the time Barack Obama picked him as his running mate in August of 2008, most Democrats had forgotten that Biden even contended for the presidency that year. On ExpressNews.com: Biden a nonfactor to S.A. Democrats Bidens problems go deeper than a history that puts him at odds with the energy of the contemporary Democratic Party: his mid-1970s resistance to school desegregation efforts, his clumsy handling of Anita Hills sexual-harassment testimony against then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas in 1991, voting for a draconian crime bill in 1994 (which deeply intensified this countrys mass-incarceration problem), supporting the Defense of Marriage Act (which set back the cause of LGBTQ rights for a decade) in 1996 and voting to authorize the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The problems also go deeper than his penchant for getting handsy with women. Biden is too erratic and gaffe-prone to be the solid elder statesman he wants to be and too entrenched in an antiquated version of the Democratic Party to be an exciting force for change. Its hard to dislike anyone who uses the term Fluffernutter in a policy pronouncement, but its just as hard to imagine that person winning the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020. Four years ago, when then-Vice President Biden flirted with a presidential run, one local Democratic operative told me, Almost every Democrat you talk to will say, I like Joe Biden, but I hope he doesnt run. A year from now, they may be saying, I like Joe Biden, but I wish he hadnt run. Gilbert Garcia is a columnist covering the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | ggarcia@express-news.net | Twitter: @gilgamesh470 Joseph Hereford would be dead if it werent for Judge Marc Carter. Either by an overdose or one of those guys on the street that puts a bullet in their head, Hereford said. When Hereford came before Harris Countys Veterans Court, he had been arrested four times in six months, was on bond in two counties and on probation in Harris County. He had hit rock bottom and Carter was his lifeline. I went in the courtroom as he was my judge and I was a defendant. I left the courtroom as he was my friend. Hereford is not alone in singing Carters praises. The judge has been nationally recognized for launching the first Veterans Court in Texas, which gives former service members facing incarceration a second chance through diversion programs, as well as his efforts to help defendants with mental health issues get the treatment they need. Yet few voters were interested in Carters qualifications, experience or judicial philosophy when they voted along party lines in November. This time it was the Republicans turn, and Carter along with 58 other GOP judges in Harris County were swept out, victims of the same shifting political winds that in 1994 removed 19 Democratic judges. The dramatic results come from the way judges are elected in Texas. Because judges must compete is partisan elections, they are susceptible to the same dramatic shifts in ideological fervor that can drive lawmakers and other candidates into and out of office. The result is a judicial system presided over by judges picked not on the basis of qualifications, but according to how voters view the various political parties in any given year. Not only are good judges removed along with the bad, but ill-equipped candidates can slip in. There has got to be a better way. In fact, there is one and Texas is overdue in adopting it. Weve examined the systems for selecting judges in all 50 states. Many reform efforts have focused on having the governor or a commission sometimes working in tandem appoint judges. Theyve concluded that voters are unlikely to ever have a strong understanding of judges qualifications and have put that decision in experts hands. Gov. Greg Abbott has proposed doing something similar in Texas. But we strongly recommend Texas not pursue this path. The governor is not implicitly more worthy of trust than the voters, no matter who is in the office. Instead, Texas should leave the power to select judges in voters hands, but should require candidates to run in nonpartisan elections. Judicial Reform: A three-part series Part one: Partisan elections are the wrong way to choose judges. Texas should keep the election, lose the partisan labels. Part two: Campaign cash undermines integrity of judicial elections. Elections, partisan or not, still cost money. Public financing, or stricter limits on who can donate, are essential to restoring integrity to judicial selection process. Part three: Texas Legislature should act now. Short-sighted political gain, by both parties, has stalled previous efforts of judicial reform. It's time lawmakers change the way we elect judges in Texas. See More Collapse Besides, polling and Texas experience with previous reforms shows voters here are not willing to have their rights abridged by an appointment system, nor should they. Electing judges is not only about accountability, it also establishes a direct connection between the community and those who would interpret its laws and pass judgment upon it. But if voters are unwilling to relinquish that power, they should also wield it responsibly. As experience in other states shows, a consequence of switching to nonpartisan elections is that it exacerbates voters lack of information about any given judicial candidate. At least with party affiliation, voters believe they have some idea of where the candidate stands. That makes it all the more important that if Texas strips judicial candidates of party labels, the voters take a more active role in preparing to cast their vote. Voters must be armed with information about who is running. That state or the state bar could do a lot to make this easier, including by establishing an independent evaluation commission that publishes detailed evaluations of a candidates legal qualifications. Texas could also distribute voter guides to every household with registered voters in the state. Politics is often about passion. Its no tragedy when a population rises up and tosses one party or another out of office. But judges arent supposed to be political. They run their courtrooms according to strict canons of judicial ethics. We should insulate them from political pressures, not expose them to partisan politics every time they ask voters to stay or get on the bench. We are all affected when competent judges are capriciously removed from the bench, but who ends up paying the direct price are the people who come before the court. Judges have peoples lives in their hands literally so in capital cases and while you may get lucky and stand before a good judge, you may also find yourself before someone who is inexperienced, incompetent or both. Joseph Hereford was lucky he met someone such as Judge Carter. On Saturday, he will be named Department of Texas chaplain for the Order of the Purple Heart, the next step on a journey that saw him addicted and on the street only three years ago. Those are the stakes, Texas. Its time to do away with partisan judicial elections. As the globalization trend creates increasing academic mobility, some of the world's leading universities are seeking further educational cooperation challenging geographical limits in order to promote equality and facilitate social development. These include Duke Kunshan and Nottingham Ningbo that have drawn wide attention in China. Dealing with DKU, in a speech at the Center for China and Globalization (CCG) on Thursday, Professor Vincent Price, president of Duke University said the ultimate goal was to "deepen our two-way relationship with the academic community in China." In his speech, "Education without Borders: Duke, Duke Kunshan and University Innovation and Globalization," Professor Price offered an analysis on the potential for collaboration in borderless higher education, while addressing the challenges and possible bumpy road development of the concept might encounter. In line with Duke's aspiration of being a truly global university, the Durham, North Caroline-based facility first looked to Kunshan because of the tremendous opportunities for research, business partnerships and cultural understanding, he explained. "DKU is a doorway into modern China for the Duke university community; also, a doorway into innovative research collaborations for Chinese who conduct the research there." Professor Price also recognized the dynamic research ecosystem in China for "enabling a student in DKU to pursue a cutting-edge curriculum informed by the latest technology and taught by the leading experts in globalization, in STEM [covering the four specific disciplines of science, technology, engineering and mathematics] and in the liberal arts". The collaboration of DKU as a borderless higher education also demonstrates the core commitment of Duke Universit to "identify and develop human talent for discovery". Addressing the challenges of the increasingly-strained China-U.S. relations during the launch of DKU, Professor Price emphasized the role borderless higher education projects like DKU can play in drawing two nations closer together. "At times of tension, the need for collaboration and cooperation among great nations in the world is also the greatest," he stressed. In view of the email incident last January involving Duke professor Megan Neely discouraging students from speaking Chinese, questions arose after Professor Price's speech over how Duke embraces diversity and ensures all the values and cultures could be equally appreciated and respected. He replied: "The incidents you refer to reflect a variety of things. Some of them are misunderstandings; others are grounded in cultural insensitivity; and many of them reflect pretty deep divisionsAll of them need to be addressed. "The best thing we can do as educators is giving people opportunities to sit back and reflect," he added, taking the Neely incident as something offering a teachable approach. Regarding San Jacinto Day (Editorial, April 21): Look at the reality of San Jacinto and the war for Texas independence instead of the myth. In recounting what it calls the myth of the battles of the Alamo and San Jacinto, the editorial does not state one piece of the commonly accepted myth that is not true. Born and raised in Texas, I never heard one claim that persons of Hispanic or African descent did not fight alongside Anglos. In fact, it is well known that they did. No one has ever asserted that it was a male only war or contended that women did not make ammunition, tend the sick and wounded, provide financial support or keep families together, as women had done and continued to do in virtually every war before and since. As to the contention that the fall of the Alamo had nothing to do with the victory at San Jacinto, except to provide a rousing battle cry, what a keen grasp of the obvious! As to the assertion that San Jacinto did not secure independence, the Mexican government may have refused to recognize the new republic, but when did Mexican forces next move north across the Rio Grande before Texas became a state? Tom Moore, Katy Penalty too light Regarding Texas couple get 7 years in prison each for enslaving Guinean girl (HoustonChronicle.com, April 22): I find it absolutely appalling that a married couple in Texas would import a young girl from the West African nation of Guinea to serve as a slave in their home for 16 years, yet get a sentence of only seven years each in prison and a fine of $288,000. This child was never allowed to attend school and was required to serve as a home slave the entire time she was in their custody. Her tasks were to cook, clean and take care of children close to her own age while the children were afforded the rights to attend school, becoming educated at this girls labor expense. The minimum sentence these parents received should have been the amount of time they enslaved this young girl, the actual cost of employment for 16 years of service, and added charges of tax evasion as well. This woman now enters society with no education and must live with the mental abuse the rest of her life. Rodney Martinez, Houston Ominous plans Regarding Fixing the nations racial wealth gap is possible (Opinion, Thursday): The fairy-tale solutions to the so-called racial wealth divide in this country as outlined by author Josh Hoxie are nothing more than a repeat of Bernie Sanders propaganda. Contrary to what both Hoxie and Sanders say, there is no free lunch, whether its the ludicrous Medicare-for-all, reparations or an endowed fund for all children born in the U.S. Who pays for all this? Answer: It will be the middle class, as always. And hitting up the wealthy with extra high tax rates doesnt solve anything. These far-left propositions that have been put forth wont work now or down the road unless the majority of voters want total national bankruptcy. Eric Johnson, Houston Safety and Trump Regarding Kim arrives in Russia for meetings with Putin seen as message to U.S. (Nation/World, Thursday): Bashing Donald Trump is a favorite pastime of many, many people in this country, while most, if not all believe, for instance, that Jimmy Carter was and is an honorable man. I am one of them. But I also believe he wasnt a good president. He was ineffective and presided over the worst economic decline since the Great Depression. Even worse, he let a Middle Eastern radical regime hold 52 Americans hostage for a year and a half and never did a single meaningful thing about it. Some people are contemptuous of Trump, but they still know that if this country or our vital interests were under attack, Trump would act. More important, the world knows it. I, for one, feel safer with Trump in power than I ever did with Carter or would with any of the honorable men and women declaring an interest in running for office in 2020, at least so far. Bill DeGeorge, League City The Green New Deal proposed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass) has been polarizing. But in the spirit of Thomas Friedman, the frequently conservative writer/journalist who originally proposed a concept under this name, there is a less-polarizing version for every red state as well as every blue state, one that is curative rather than punitive. The centerpiece of any green new deal is the recognition that our climate is changing and human action in releasing greenhouse gases is causing that change. According to a poll conducted by Yale University, most Americans believe these two facts, as do the overwhelming majority of scientists who work in this area. Interestingly, most major oil companies have come to the same conclusion and are searching for pathways forward, as are most major industries. This leads to action item No. 1: We must re-design our public and private infrastructure with climate change in mind. Along the coast, that means discussing and addressing sea level rise as well as larger hurricane surge on the Gulf and Atlantic coasts and larger Pacific winter storms. It means understanding and acting upon larger rainfall events and more severe storms throughout the United States. It means planning for more wildfires and severe droughts. The climatic statistics upon which we built the United States are changing, and our engineers and local, state and federal planning officials have to get on top of those issues. We must rebuild coastal roads higher if not further inland. We must rethink levees and flood control concepts to accommodate more water. We may have to redesign chemical process plants and many building materials for hotter temperatures. In the process, we will create many new jobs. Secondly, we should pay a higher price for carbon dioxide emissions. The Baker-Shultz tax plan is an excellent starting point. This proposal by former Republican secretaries of state James Baker and George Shultz would assess a tax on carbon emissions by major industries and then rebate this tax to the American public. This is a solid concept that recognizes that we are paying too little for gasoline and other products that emit carbon dioxide, emphasizing that our economic thinking and signals must become aligned with the recognized risk. Ideally, this tax should be passed before the 2020 elections as a bipartisan measure. Third, we should allow the carbon tax to be avoided if carbon dioxide is removed mechanically or by nature from the atmosphere or from the facility. Natural ecological systems such as coastal marshes, native prairies and forests have a tremendous ability to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis and store it in the soil or in wood. We should create a new agricultural economy - one based upon carbon farming. We should remove the barriers that currently exist to carbon farming, restore native prairies, expand marshes with sea level rise and plant more trees. Carbon farming is a central part of a red-state new green deal and is part of a larger concept of rejuvenation of the agricultural sector. Carbon farming has the potential to sequester as much as 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year a significant chunk of the roughly 5 billion tons that the United States currently emits. With Baker-Shultz in place, a tax of $40 per ton of carbon dioxide would allow carbon dioxide storage to be sold for $35 per ton, with a savings of $5 per ton. For a 150,000-barrel-per-day refinery generating 4.6 million tons of carbon dioxide per year, that would translate into a cost savings of more than $20 million as well as generating $160 million for carbon farmers and removing more than a million tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. For the U.S. refining capacity of 18.56 million barrels, carbon farmers could be paid $20.37 billion per year (assuming that much carbon storage capacity were available), and the companies could save $2.65 billion per year. A market of this size would change the current dynamics of farming and ranching. Cattle grazing is compatible with soil carbon storage and may actually be positive to the extent it replicates the action of the herds of buffalo that were part of the evolution of the tallgrass and shortgrass prairies of the United States. Grass-fed and -finished cows produce much less methane than corn and grain-fed cows. Farmers being forced away from irrigation due to groundwater depletion in areas such as the western Ogallala Aquifer in the Midwest would be able to restore native prairies and realize cash flow currently unavailable. Fourth, we should encourage carbon neutral practices. Every government, every business, every church and every home should know their carbon footprint (e.g., the amount of carbon dioxide they generate) and be encouraged to take action to reduce that footprint. That could include education about carbon dioxide emissions, information about alternative sources of energy that emit no or less carbon dioxide, actions that could be take to reduce carbon emissions (such as LED lights, managing temperature, etc.) and information about paying carbon farmers to remove the remainder of your footprint from the atmosphere. These four elements set out a starting point for a red state green new deal. This approach is grounded in finding solutions for our current economic practices while creating infrastructure and concepts for tomorrow. We created this problem together. We must solve it together. And we must start now. Blackburn is a Rice University environmental law professor who co-directs the Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disaster Center there. EL PASO Ports blockaded. Threats of international economic sanctions. Internment camps. Barbed wire. Military buildups. National emergencies. No, were not talking about North Korea, Iran or Russia. Were talking about Texas. Texas is under attack by Donald Trump. He is on his way to costing Texas more in his war on the border than the United States is costing Russia through its sanctions. And it's happening now. You might think the war analogy is a little strong. But blockades and quarantines are acts of war ; troop build-ups and embargoes are preludes. Imagine the Coast Guard blocking shipping into Miami to halt Cuban migrants. Or the Air Force clamping a no-fly zone over the airports of New York to end visa overstays. Or a Navy quarantine of the West Coast to stop fentanyl from China. Unthinkable, right? Yet something similar is happening right here in Texas. Elsewhere these would be seen as acts of aggression. But because the border gets ignored, its gone unremarked. Trump isnt just cutting off the lifeblood of cities like El Paso and Laredo. He is crippling trade, scaring off untold investment, and verging on damaging nearly 10 percent of the Texas economy. And the states Republican political leadership? They have all cut and run. The Pentagon will soon have more troops deployed in Texas than in Syria. The presidents policies have temporarily shut down bridges from here into Mexico. Failed policies and poor planning are bogging down shipping. A $40 million detention camp is going up on the flanks of the Franklin Mountains in Northeast El Paso. And its not going to stop: Trumps rage at the border, and Texas by extension, is the centerpiece of his 2020 re-election campaign. Hes repeatedly said hes considering busing migrants all over the country to punish so-called sanctuary cities and has even reportedly told top aides to push harder on immigration even if it means breaking the law, since hell pardon them if they are caught. And he threatens tariffs and an outright trade embargo on border trade with Mexico. Yet remember: The Texas border is Texas. Nearly 1 in 10 Texans live on the border. Nearly $230 billion of NAFTA trade passes through their cities, , accounting for 1 million jobs. In El Paso, auto parts and computer keyboard springs cross the border up to seven times before winding up in a finished good. As far away as Houston, steel manufacturing feeds a supply chain across North America in the continents global contest with Asia, led by China. With so much at stake, any significant slowdown will cost Texas $30 billion per quarter, according to economist Ray Perryman. Over a year, the president could evaporate $120 billion from the states $1.8 trillion economy. To put that into perspective, U.S. sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine only cost Moscow $1 billion per year. This week marks a month of bridge delays here and all along the border. At 6:00 a.m. Tuesday drivers of passenger cars waited nearly four hours to cross a bridge. But time is money, and along the entire 2,200-mile border, trade is measured at $1 million per minute, according to the Wilson Institute. A third of that flows through Texas. So when the administration closed the bridges over the border five weeks ago, truck wait times soared 500 percent. Based on the Wilson Institute figures, I estimate that nearly $1.6 billion in goods didnt make it on time. The cost of transportation went up for those products, said Thomas Fullerton, an economist at the University of Texas at El Paso, who compared it to the shipping disruptions right after 9-11. Trucking companies pass on those costs or eat them. The reliability of the NAFTA-era supply chains is being damaged. At some point customers begin to think that this is just too big of a headache. That is happening now. Mariam Kotkowski had as many as 15 trucks crossing weekly. Now that's been cut to just four or six. Her shipping company, Omega Trucking in nearby Sunland Park, New Mexico, has raised rates 33 percent as drivers idle six to 28 hours. It's clear that its orchestrated, a frustrated Kotkowski said. It's like we are in a different country. Last week, 15,000 trucks were stranded on the Mexican side of the border, according to Mexican press reports, and manufacturers there are shipping goods by air. In the short term, payrolls in El Paso have failed to keep pace with the expanding national economy, according to Fullerton. In the long term, the damage of Trumps war is lasting. By repeatedly and falsely proclaiming a security crisis, he is driving investment away, though border cities are among the safest in the country . Every single time, almost without exception, the business world asks about safety, said Jon Barela, the CEO of the Borderplex Alliance, the regions economic development organization. We have a high capacity for job growth, but its lowered because of the perception that we are a violent frontier. Its hurt our opportunities, he continued, because we dont even get a look. The largest exporter not just to Mexico but to the world, Texas has been sitting atop all other states. However, the states comparative advantage in the global marketplace has come under growing pressure, according to a new report by Jesus Canas and Stephanie Gullo of the Dallas Federal Reserve . A shift in U.S. trade and tariff regulations threatens to directly and indirectly contribute to increasing costs for many leading Texas export sectors that could benefit competitors. So this is economic war. Yet Texas Republican Greg Abbott is AWOL. He has been against so-called sanctuary cities and for Trump's military deployment. In his inaugural address in January, he mentioned the border exactly zero times. He has lip-synced the line that a border wall isnt just a physical wall. Yet he has abandoned landowners to Trumps national emergency declaration, allowing him to take their land. In sharp contrast, other governors have acted. California aided its cities taking in Central American migrants. Considering Trumps national emergency a farce, New Mexico withdrew its National Guard from the border. Only Arizonas Republican Gov. Steve Ducy has been as deft at appeasement as Abbott. Other Texas leaders have been outright collaborators. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick practically drew Trump a map of where to build a wall and even offered Texas taxpayer money to finance it. Sen. John Cornyn used to restrict the use of eminent domain. Sen. Ted Cruz used to preach the value of small, constitutionalist government. Yet both have backed Trumps war on Texas with their votes, which count far more than their pearl-clutching. The border is Texas. And Texas is, in large part, the border. Without it, Texas would have just been another hot, landlocked Southern state with a Midwestern identity crisis like God forbid Oklahoma. Cowboys were vaqueros first. Two expeditions originating in Mexico, in 1598 and then 1721, permanently and extensively settled the Southwest and Texas with Europeans. They also carved routes that would carry goods and people for centuries. Oxen pulled carts north. Americans followed them south for invasion into Mexico. Mexicans migrated up looking for work. Now people make 350 million legal border crossings a year. These old routes have become Interstates 35, 10 and 25, and are now jammed with 2.5 million truck crossings. And once more, people, have followed these routes, this time up from Central America. Many are not undocumented immigrants but legal applicants for asylum. To address them, there are rational remedies: tending to families, hiring more immigration judges, being smarter on foreign policy and yes, changing the laws to stop them, if you like something only Congress can do. But to punish more than 2 million Texans for living on the border? To ruin the Texas economy? Only a president at war with Texas would do that. Parker, author of Lone Star Nation: How Texas Will Transform America, wrote this column for the Houston Chronicle. Among other places, his work has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times and The Dallas Morning News. WASHINGTON Sen. Kamala Harris laid out a series of steps Monday night that she would take to try to reduce gun violence if Congress fails to act in her first 100 days if shes elected president without having to seek congressional approval. They include a plan to use executive authority to expand the federal requirement to conduct background checks to more gun sellers, a high priority of gun safety advocates who say loopholes in background-check laws allow too many weapons to fall into the hands of criminals or people who are unstable. Harris, D-Calif., announced the outlines of her plan in a town hall on CNN in New Hampshire. Her campaign said it would release fuller details Tuesday. In response to a question from a student in the audience, Harris said no child should have to go through shooting preparedness drills in their schools, and for too long Washington has failed to have the courage to act. There are people in Washington, D.C., supposed leaders, who have failed to have the courage to reject a false choice, which is just youre either in favor of the Second Amendment, or you want to take everyones guns away. The proposal follows policy rollouts from Harris focused on bolstering and expanding the middle class, including one to raise teachers pay and a tax credit to help working families afford housing. On guns, Harris said she would expand the legal definition of a gun dealer to apply to anyone who sells at least five firearms a year for profit. As dealers, they would be required to conduct background checks of prospective buyers. Harris said such a change could be accomplished through a regulation issued by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Mostly Democratic efforts in Congress in recent years to expand the background-check requirement have failed to pass. Harris would also revoke licenses for manufacturers and dealers who willfully violate the law, and have federal authorities pursue egregious violators in court. Fines generated from such cases would help fund mental health and violence intervention programs. Harris would reverse President Trumps narrowing of the definition of fugitive from justice to mean anyone with an outstanding arrest warrant. People classified as fugitives are not allowed to buy guns. She would also close the boyfriend loophole to prevent anyone convicted of domestic violence from buying firearms. She said she would also throw her administrations support behind several measures that must go through Congress to become law. Those include legislation re-establishing a version of the assault-weapons ban that expired in 2004, a prohibition on high-capacity magazines, a bill requiring broader background checks, a ban on those convicted of hate crimes from buying guns, and making firearms trafficking a federal crime. Harris is not the first Democratic presidential candidate to weigh in on gun control. Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Dublin, has sought to position himself as a gun-safety-focused presidential contender, and other candidates have spoken about the need for new laws. Swalwell has also proposed a national assault-weapons buyback program to get such guns off the streets. But Harris plan focuses more than others on what the president can do beyond calling for Congress to act. This is an informed, original approach that I think is really ... at least for the time being, going to set the bar for whos most focused on the issue of gun safety, said Peter Ambler, executive director of Giffords, the anti-gun-violence group founded by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., after she was gravely wounded in a shooting at a district event. The group consults with any politician interested in gun safety, and has not made an endorsement in the presidential race. Democrats have made preventing gun violence an increasingly high priority, including passing St. Helena Rep. Mike Thompsons comprehensive background check legislation in the House shortly after taking the majority. For years, the gun-rights lobby, including the National Rifle Association, had the political upper hand, but in the 2018 midterms, a raft of candidates running on promoting gun safety won swing congressional races. Bolstered by a wave of young activists pushing for action after 17 people were shot to death last year at a high school in Parkland, Fla., gun control has become a more politically salient message. Harris has long worked on the issue of gun violence, including backing a California law to microstamp guns in her time as San Francisco district attorney. She also backed a bill in 2004 that would have banned gun shows at the Cow Palace something that will happen starting in 2020. Tal Kopan is The San Francisco Chronicles Washington correspondent. Email: tal.kopan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @talkopan 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. 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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. China-Malaysia collaboration can further be enhanced with greater depth and breadth, Malaysia's former Transport Minister Ong Tee Keat said in an exclusive interview with China.org.cn on Wednesday. He said that both countries and peoples have long-existing ties and a history of mutual engagement, constituting a key building block of mutual trust. This year marks the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Malaysia. Ong said that bilateral ties over the past 45 years have been growing from the initial government-to-government diplomacy to its present stage of mature people-to-people diplomacy in all aspects. He said that China-Malaysian cooperation is complementary and has mutually beneficial comparative advantages. "Though Malaysia is much smaller in size and might compared to China, it offers a conducive conduit for access to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)." Malaysia's versatile workforce with its multilingual capability and multicultural exposure is also an asset for China to harness, especially in the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Ong said. At the same time, he noted that there is still much room for the two countries to deepen mutual understanding to facilitate effective and productive cooperation. The polity in Malaysia as well as the social norms and psyche of the pluralistic Malaysian community deserve more attention from Chinese entrepreneurs and investors, he said. Enhancing mutual in-depth understanding is crucial particularly in view that both countries may need to be accommodating to address small and minor problems in the implementation of BRI projects, Ong added. As chairman of the Centre for New Inclusive Asia (CNIA), a Malaysian think tank, Ong has been dedicated to promoting people-to-people exchanges between China and Malaysia in recent years. He attended a seminar on China-Malaysian cooperation held at the Pangoal Institution on Tuesday and witnessed the signing of a framework agreement for strategic cooperation between the CNIA and the Beijing-based think tank. "Through my personal experiences, I discovered the profound impact brought about by connecting people, prior to any effective and meaningful economic collaboration that could take place across political borders," Ong said. Ong's visit to Beijing also includes attending the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation on April 25-27. Happy birthday Barbara Corcoran! The Shark Tank investor and entrepreneur just turned 70. After several successful decades in business in which she's amassed a net worth in the millions, there's one question Corcoran gets over and over: What advice would you give your younger self? Here's how she answered on a recent episode of her podcast Business Unusual. Don't read so much into your GPA. If she could go back in time, Corcoran would tell her kid self to worry less about being such a bad student. She was labeled the dumb kid because she struggled to learn to read. Yet Cocoran went from being a straight-D student to building and running a $5 billion company. She says she learned to turn her liabilities into assets. Her fear of being labeled stupid channeled her competitiveness and motivation into over-preparing. Corcoran doesn't think school is for everyone. Putting too much weight on someone's GPA is a bad move. How you perform on the job and how hard you hustle matters more than the grades you got in school. "If you haven't done well in school, I'm convinced you're going to be somebody," she told Yahoo Finance. There's no such thing as playing too much. As a kid, Corcoran was always playing and inventing games. Adults were always telling her to hunker down and get serious about her schoolwork. Now she realizes her best strength in school was her imagination. While other kids were learning to read and write, she was daydreaming. In business and entrepreneurship, creativity is a huge asset. "Keep playing," Corcoran advises. "You learn a lot by playing. It teaches you creativity. And you can learn to lead the kids in the neighborhood if you've got the best games in town." Creativity is becoming one of the most sought-after skill sets and personality traits, according to a LinkedIn survey of job postings. Fellow Shark Tank personality Mark Cuban encourages young people to skip learning to code and to get liberal arts degrees instead. Creative and critical thinking is an asset that will serve you well in any career. Childhood hardships can be assets. Being a terrible student in school was demoralizing. Looking back, Corcoran describes it as an advantage. She got used to rejection. She was never the popular kid or the one getting all the gold stars. Instead of being a "good tester," Corcoran learned how to communicate face-to-face. Instead of wowing people with her intelligence, she learned how to use humor to win people over. Corcoran also credits her parents for raising her and her nine siblings in a pressure-free environment. "My parents thought that we were just fine, no matter what we did," she says. They never set the expectation that their kids needed to "be great" when they grew up. The Philadelphia Inquirer recently cited me and my views of open plan offices in an article titled "Everybody loves to hate the open office, but is it dead yet?" While the article is balanced, author Gene Marks opens with a statement that both mischaracterizes and confuses the issue: "Many large companies -- from Apple to co-working locations, such as WeWork -- have replaced ugly and claustrophobic little rooms with bright, open-space areas that offer wide views and a more team-oriented environment." There are several things wrong with this statement. First, the original Apple campus did not consist of traditional private offices connected with hallways, but private offices surrounding a hub of common area, a model that Steve Jobs replicated at Pixar. Second, WeWork employs only around 10,000 people, which isn't large for a real-estate company. (ReMax has 100,000 agents, for instance.) Also WeWork has always promoted the open plan so they haven't "replaced" anything. The biggest problem with the statement, though, is that sets up a false dichotomy between "bright open-space areas" and "ugly and claustrophobic little rooms." The comparison is ironic since the "private spaces" often sandwiched into open plan offices resemble phone booths. More important, there are alternatives to open plan that don't have the noise pollution and visual pollution that make open plan so toxic: 1. Private offices surrounding a hub of common area. Aka the Pixar model. Employees have their own private offices--many with exterior windows--that they can customize however they want. These offices connect to a common area that employees can use for socializing (or working out, or playing games, etc.) but which does not contain anybody's work area. 2. Movable barriers so people can create private space as needed. This concept, being pioneered at Ikea, replaces the standard cafeteria-style environment of open plan with movable desks and movable sound/sight barriers. Employees can thus configure those elements into whatever type of work area that they or their working group needs at the time. Introverted individuals can build "forts" that offer privacy while teams that work together on a group project can create their own temporary "conference room." 3. Larger offices with two or three work areas. Working in close proximity to one or two people doesn't create anywhere near the level of noise or visual pollution inherent with open plan. Conflicts are easily handled: "Can you take it elsewhere? I'm on deadline." In this case, one can usually find an empty office for an impromptu meeting. Note: this was the model at the most productive organization in which I had the privilege of working. 4. Cubicles with cathedral ceilings, skylights and tall windows. The high walls reduce noise pollution and visual pollution but there are still open vistas and light of sight. Mostly, I've seen this type of office when companies have moved into factories spaces that were built prior to the advent of cheap electric lighting, and thus were architected to take advantage of natural daylight. 5. Work-from-home and rent space for group meetings as needed. Depending upon the nature of the work involved, there may not be a need for daily or even weekly face-to-face interaction. In this case, it's rather silly to expend money on permanent office digs when you can simply rent a room when there's some reason to have a group meeting that can't be handled online. What does a real-life "store of the future" look like? Should it work without cashiers like an Amazon Go store, or should it be something else? Walmart is trying to answer that question with its new IRL offering at its Neighborhood Market in Levittown, New York, while thumbing its nose at Amazon at the same time. IRL, Walmart says, stands for Intelligent Retail Lab, but as all gamers and even some non-gamers know, that acronym is commonly used to mean "in real life," as opposed to in an online, virtual, non-real world. Walmart introduced the IRL concept to an existing and already busy store, while Amazon created its Go stores from scratch, starting out as a proof of concept and a showcase for its technology. As if to underscore the difference, IRL CEO Mike Hanrahan uses the word "real" three times in succession in his video introducing the concept, saying it's a "real store, real customers, real sales." In case you missed the point, in Walmart's written statement about the store, he says this: "You can't be overly enamored with the shiny object element of AI. There are a lot of shiny objects out there that are doing things we think are unrealistic to scale and probably, long-term, not beneficial for the consumer." So what's Walmart's vision for a store of the future? While Amazon Go is a very straightforward concept--there are no cashiers and no need to scan purchases, you just scan your mobile phone on the way in, put things in a shopping bag and go--Walmart's IRL is more nuanced. Cameras and sensors throughout the store watch the shelves, but not, as at Amazon Go, to record which items shoppers are selecting so they can be billed for them. Instead, Hanrahan says in the video, "They allow us to see if we need to bring meat out from the backroom refrigerators. They also allow us to see if meat has been sitting too long on that shelf." So the point of monitoring the store is better inventory control--you're less likely to find an empty shelf when you look for an item to purchase--and fresher perishable items. For store employees, it means they no longer need to walk the store to see which items need restocking, although robots have already been doing that job at some Walmart stores for over a year. Hanrahan says the technology will free employees to "engage more with our customers." Although, of course, one can easily see how the same technology could also be used to help stores operate with fewer employees. Learning to love AI. But the real point of the IRL store seems to be to help customers get used to the idea of shopping in an AI-laden environment. As Hanrahan points out, most of us have been interacting with artificial intelligence on a daily basis, even if we don't notice it--every time we chat with support online or browse Netflix or even search Walmart's website, we're dealing with AI that is making predictions about what we want. Still, chances are that some customers who patronize Walmart's bricks-and-mortar stores aren't particularly aware of AI and may not be that comfortable with it. To help them get comfortable, the IRL store highlights the technology instead of hiding it. Thus, the bank of servers that crank out 1.6 terabytes of data per second are not hidden away in some backroom but visible to shoppers, behind a Plexiglas wall. Interactive kiosks throughout the store teach shoppers about AI. For fun, there's also a large "interactive wall" that uses AI to mirror shoppers' body movements and positions. Which version of retail AI is likely to prevail in the future--Walmart's IRL or Amazon's Go concept? About two and a half years after launching the first cashier-less store, Amazon now has 10 Amazon Go stores operating in Seattle, Chicago, and San Francisco. 7-Eleven is experimenting with a Dallas store that offers a cashier-less checkout option. And despite Hanrahan's disparaging "shiny object" comment, Walmart, through its Sam's Club subsidiary, has also opened a cashier-less store. A bill banning the racial discrimination of natural hair in the workplace and schools has been passed in California. Senate Bill 188, otherwise known as the "Create a Respectful and Open Workplace for Natural Hair" Act (the Crown Act) was passed unanimously, by a vote of 37 to zero, in the western American state's Senate. Introduced by Senator Holly J Mitchell, the aim of the bill is to dispel misconceptions about black hair, while also challenging "common-held myths about what constitutes professionalism in the workplace". Senator Mitchell explained how black employees and students frequently faced discrimination due to the natural texture of their hair. "Until very recently, a Google image search for, quote, 'unprofessional hairstyles', yielded only pictures of black women with their natural hair, or wearing braids or twists. Although disheartening, this fact was not surprising," the senator said. Senator Mitchell said that for decades, many black men and women did not challenge the societal standards which dictated how they should style their hair, often having "no choice but to conform to harsh and expensive standards", such as straightening their hair with chemical relaxers. The politician said that on many occasions, black employees or applicants for jobs have been denied employment, promotions or have even lost their jobs due to their natural hair. The senator detailed how supposed "neutral policies" in the workplace, which ban hairstyles such as braids, cornrows and dreadlocks for people of all races, have a "desperate impact" on the black community. "These policies are far more likely to exclude black people from the workplace than people of any race," she said. Senator Mitchell also spoke about the "humiliation" numerous black children faced when they were sent home from school on the basis their natural hair was "unruly" and a "distraction" to other children. Any law that sanctions a job description that immediately excludes me from a position, not because of my capabilities or experience but because of my hair, is long overdue for reform," the senator said as she closed her speech on the Senate floor. The bill is sponsored by a coalition between the National Urban League, the Western Centre on Law and Poverty, civil rights organisation Colour of Change and cosmetics company Dove. It will next be heard by the Senate Appropriations Committee, although a date has not yet been set. Thousands of EU nationals living in the UK could inadvertently lose their right to take part in the upcoming European elections because of widespread confusion over how to register, campaigners have warned, amid reports some European citizens are yet to receive their poll cards. Existing rules stipulate that EU citizens must both register to vote and sign a special UC1 form stating that they will note vote anywhere else in the EU, by 7 May. But confusion has arisen because the UC1 form must be resubmitted before every election even if the European national intending to vote has already signed and submitted that form previously, for example before the 2014 poll. Campaigners representing EU citizens in the UK are concerned a lack of awareness about the process could disenfranchise thousands of EU voters with the deadline fast approaching. The Electoral Commission has launched a publicity campaign to make EU nationals aware of the form but admitted it was only running in select regions of the UK. There was also criticism that the crucial form is not available in electronic format, meaning applicants must download, print, sign and post the document to their local authority all before the early-May cut-off date. The Independent was approached by one woman whose family of 11 had all received their poll cards for the 23 May ballot apart from the one relative an EU citizen. Maike Bohn, a co-founder of EU citizens group the3million, said she had heard evidence of other European citizens failing to receive notification they were eligible to take part, and warned confusion around the UC1 form was likely preventing some from registering in time. Cliffs of Dover lit up in Brexit protest Show all 5 1 /5 Cliffs of Dover lit up in Brexit protest Cliffs of Dover lit up in Brexit protest Campaign group Led By Donkeys projected this statement by Nigel Farage on the Cliffs of Dover on the evening of April 4 @ByDonkeys / Twitter Cliffs of Dover lit up in Brexit protest Campaign group Led By Donkeys projected this statement by former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab on the Cliffs of Dover on the evening of April 4 @ByDonkeys / Twitter Cliffs of Dover lit up in Brexit protest Campaign group Led By Donkeys projected this message to the EU on the Cliffs of Dover on the evening of April 4 @ByDonkeys / Twitter Cliffs of Dover lit up in Brexit protest Campaign group Led By Donkeys projected this message on the Cliffs of Dover on the evening of April 4 @ByDonkeys / Twitter Cliffs of Dover lit up in Brexit protest Campaign group Led By Donkeys projected this message on the Cliffs of Dover on the evening of April 4 @ByDonkeys / Twitter She told The Independent: The government and the electoral commission have a duty of care towards EU citizens living in the UK. Not only do these 3.6 million people face the administrative burden to apply to stay in their homes, they are also facing unnecessary barriers to be able to participate in democratic processes in the UK. To prevent long-time EU residents in the UK from exercising their voting rights in European Elections is somewhat ironic given recent calls for migrants to integrate better and for the EU to become more democratic. There will be a sizeable number of EU citizens who will be disenfranchised in what could be their last national vote in the UK. There was a dramatic decline in the number of non-British EU citizens registered to vote for the European Parliament elections between 2009 and 2014 the figure fell from 1,043,629 registered to vote in the European elections in 2009 to 327,883 five years later. Fears persist that this number could drop further in the upcoming poll. Meanwhile, the government is facing the possibility of a legal challenge over the length of time EU nationals have been given to register. Confusion surrounding the date of the UKs departure from the EU means the UC1 form was only sent to two million European nationals on the electoral register a few weeks before the deadline instead of the usual four-month period. Roger Casale, secretary general of the New Europeans, which represents EU citizens in the UK, said: Because of the very tight timetable, we would urge the government to allow those EU citizens on the electoral roll, who miss the current 7 May deadline, to fill in the required UC1 declaration forms when they arrive at their local polling stations on 23 May. He said: We hope that the government will rapidly see the wisdom of taking these actions and that it will not be necessary for us to consider seeking judicial review to ensure that people are able to fully participate in the democratic process. But if the government does not take rapid remedial action, we will of course have to consider taking legal action. The Association of Electoral Administrators (AEA) an organisation representing election officials in the UK said it had attempted to discuss key potential European parliament election registration and organisational challenges with civil servants on several occasions but had failed to secure any changes because, with Brexit looming, officials believed the UK would no longer take part in European elections. They were unwilling to engage with us on the subject as, in their view, there was not going to be an election in the UK, said Laura Lock, deputy chief executive of the AEA. The Electoral Commission also gave assurances to a Commons committee in 2014 that there would be changes to the system but plans were scrapped after the Brexit vote in 2016. A spokesperson told The Independent any changes to the law regarding how European citizens register to vote are a matter for the UK government and Parliament". Electoral registration officers were sent a reminder earlier in April to identify EU nationals and send them a declaration form so they understand their options and are able to exercise their right to vote should they wish to, the spokesperson added. Neo-Nazi terrorists have continued to operate and recruit in Britain for more than two years after the government banned their organisation, it can be revealed. In December 2016 National Action became the first far-right group to be proscribed as a terrorist organisation since the Second World War, but its members formed new groups under different names to continue efforts to inspire a race war. While the ban allowed members to be arrested and jailed under terror laws, court cases heard how the group merely shed one skin for another by splitting into regional factions that would dodge the ban. While two aliases Scottish Dawn and NS131 were subsequently proscribed after media reports of their links to National Action, other factions continued to operate. The Independent understands that police and the Home Office are discussing whether to ban the terrorist groups remaining factions, amid intensified efforts to combat far-right extremism. The far right in the UK Show all 10 1 /10 The far right in the UK The far right in the UK British Union Jack flags are reflected in the sunglasses of a protester during a protest on April 1, 2017 in London Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images The far right in the UK A man holds a St George's Cross flag at a demonstration organised by the far-right group the English Defence League in central London on June 24, 2017 Tolga Akmen/AFP The far right in the UK A man is pictured with police officers at a demonstration organised by the far-right group the English Defence League (EDL) in central London on June 24, 2017 Tolga Akmen/AFP The far right in the UK A Neo-Nazi chats amicably with a police officer at a demonstration organised by the far-right group the English Defence League in central London Tolga Akmen/AFP The far right in the UK Supporters of the far-right group Britain First wave flags as they march and rally in central London on April 1, 2017 following the March 22 terrorist attack on the British parliament Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP The far right in the UK Police walk ahead of supporters of the far-right group Britain First marching in central London on April 1, 2017 Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP The far right in the UK Protesters hold placards and British Union Jack flags during a protest titled 'London march against terrorism' on April 1, 2017 in London Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images The far right in the UK A woman wearing a Donald Trump campaign hat hugs another woman during a protest titled 'London march against terrorism' on April 1, 2017 Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images The far right in the UK A protester waves a British Union Jack with an 'England' tattoo on his arm during a protest on April 1, 2017 in London Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images The far right in the UK Anti-Semitic demonstrators attend a rally on Whitehall in central London on July 4, 2015 Jack Taylor/AFP One is the System Resistance Network, which was found to be recruiting new members in Wales last year. Infighting caused a further split that created another neo-Nazi group. Matthew Collins, a researcher with Hope Not Hate, said the most active National Action faction is the Scottish Nationalist Society. Repeating its predecessors tactics, the group has targeted universities and city centres with racist stickers directing people to a website describing members as ultra-nationalists who want to protect the progression of our people. Mr Collins, who a former member of the neo-Nazi group Combat 18, said former National Action members were now operating under a lot of different names. Banning National Action would have worked if police had drilled down into the group rather than believing they would disappear, he added. They just kept going on and on ... there is a newer breed of groups, of which there are probably three or four. We dont know them all, we dont know whos in them because theyre still getting new recruits. Home Affairs Committee question Google over failure to remove National Action content All factions have continued spreading National Actions ideology, which a former member described as the aim to achieve a white Britain by any means necessary, eradicating Jews, ethnic minorities and LGBT+ people. Several National Action members have been prosecuted for membership of a banned group, which is punishable by up to 10 years in prison. But the law only covers National Action, Scottish Dawn and NS131, allowing members to continue their operations under a series of different names a technique used prolifically by Anjem Choudarys network of Islamists. The cross-government Proscription Review Group must recommend further bans, which must then be approved by parliament before coming into force. Mr Collins said that while National Action, which was founded by two students in 2013, progressively became more dangerous, its successors are picking up where it finished. They start even darker, mysterious and [more] sophisticated than National Action did, he warned. They begin life as wannabe terrorists. Police have vowed to combat National Action and other right-wing extremists, but were caught out by a terror plot mounted by a neo-Nazi in 2017. Jack Renshaws plan to behead a Labour MP was not known to police until his fellow National Action member Robbie Mullen alerted Hope Not Hate. They were part of a faction based in northwest England and headed by Christopher Lythgoe, who became the groups national leader after the 2016 ban. One of the posters used by neo-Nazi group the Scottish Nationalist Society Their trial heard that National Action were aware of impending proscription and planned to operate under new names. The substance of NA is the people, our talents, the bonds between us, our ideas, and our sustained force of will, he told regional leaders in an email four days before the ban. All of that will continue into the future. Were just shedding one skin for another. All genuinely revolutionary movements in the past have needed to exist partly underground. These are exciting times. Speaking at Renshaws trial in February, prosecutor Duncan Atkinson QC said: It is clear that whilst National Action may have used other names since proscription as the flimsiest of camouflage, or limited their activities to those which were less likely to attract the attention of the authorities, the characteristics of the group have continued by reference to its ideology, its mode of operation, for example the targeting of the young, and its strategy. Following the imprisonment of a neo-Nazi who was recruiting for National Action inside the British army, a senior police officer said painstaking work took place across the country to understand the threat it posed. DCS Matt Ward, head of the West Midlands Counter Terrorism Unit, predicted that members on the periphery will take on leadership roles and appealed for public vigilance. Where there are new cells, we will intercept and prosecute them, he vowed. Police efforts are being boosted by the involvement of MI5, which has been brought into investigations previously classed as domestic extremism following the 2017 Finsbury Park attack and murder of Jo Cox. A Home Office spokesperson said: Our counterterrorism strategy, Contest, addresses all forms of terrorism and no individual or group is free to spread hate or incite violence. We do not routinely comment on whether organisations are or are not under consideration for proscription. Almost a third of councils in England have failed a new government test of whether they are building enough new homes for local people. New analysis reveals that Conservative councils were the worst culprits, with 35 per cent having failed ministers housing delivery test including housing secretarys James Brokenshire own local authority. Many Labour councils also failed to build enough homes, with 29 per cent not meeting targets, as did 33 per cent of those under no overall control. Four of the 12 Liberal Democrat-controlled councils (33 per cent) also fell short. The figures are the first to show how many councils have failed the governments housing delivery test, which was introduced last year. The results are likely to fuel concerns that cash-strapped councils are struggling to cope with growing demand for new housing. UK Housing Crisis: in pictures Show all 8 1 /8 UK Housing Crisis: in pictures UK Housing Crisis: in pictures Members of generation rent, as the younger generation is often known, are finding it far more difficult to get on the housing market than previous generations PA UK Housing Crisis: in pictures Then chancellor George Osborne visits a Help to Buy housing development in Lewisham in 2014. Osborne had announced the Help to Buy scheme in the 2013 budget as a means of helping first-time buyers on to the housing market PA Archive/PA Images UK Housing Crisis: in pictures In February 2017, then communities and local government secretary Sajid Javid issued a government white paper on housing. Introducing it in the Commons, he stated our housing market is broken and that the idea of owning or renting a safe, secure place of your own is, for many, a distant dream PA UK Housing Crisis: in pictures Residents of Fitzroy Road in Primrose Hill have demonstrated how urban areas might be built up without using extra land. 12 homeowners along the street all agreed to extend their house upwards by 1 floor. The government recently held a consultation on the revised National Planning Policy Framework, which, if approved, will support building above homes, shops and offices Google Earth UK Housing Crisis: in pictures Social Bite, a charity in Scotland, is creating a small housing community for the homeless. Up to 20 people will be housed for 12-18 months, with the charitys focus being on transitioning the residents into permanent housing and employment AFP/Getty UK Housing Crisis: in pictures A homeless man was found dead yards from Parliament in February. His death was taken by many, including Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, to be symbolic of the governments poor record on housing. PA UK Housing Crisis: in pictures Emergency homeless shelters in London had to be opened numerous times throughout the past winter to house those unable to find a room in an ordinary shelter or hostel Getty UK Housing Crisis: in pictures Carillion, the UKs second largest construction company, entered liquidation early this year. It held numerous government construction and maintenance contracts, for many of which the future is still uncertain AFP/Getty While 219 councils met their target, 107 did not, with their combined shortfall totalling almost 64,000 homes equating to a 30 per cent shortfall across the 107 councils. Under new government rules, councils face a series of penalties if they fail to the build the number of new homes that local people need. Those that are only narrowly missing their target have to publish an action plan outlining how they will bridge the gap in future. 21 councils will now have to do this. Councils with a bigger shortfall have to make 20 per cent more land available for housing, and those with the biggest gap between demand and supply have to introduce a policy of granting planning permission for new housing by default, unless they can show that it will be highly damaging to the local area. Temporary allowances mean none will currently face the most severe penalty, but 86 will now be forced to introduce the 20 per cent of land buffer. Analysis by Labour revealed that Mr Brokenshires local council, Bexley, had a shortfall of 11 per cent, while Basingstoke and Deane council, which includes most of housing minister Kit Malthouses constituency, had a 24 per cent deficit. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events John Healey MP, Labour's shadow housing secretary, said: The governments own housing delivery test confirms that Labour in local government delivers more homes for local people. After nine years of failure on housing right across the country, Conservative-controlled councils are too often a roadblock to building the new homes communities need. With the Tories in Westminster, the best hope for people worried about housing pressures in their area is a vote for Labour in the local elections on 2 May. Northern Ireland must use the EU elections as a peoples vote on Brexit, SDLP leader Colum Eastwood has said. The MLA says May's election must be used by the region to send a strong pro-remain message to London. Northern Irelands three seats in the European Parliament are currently held by Sinn Feins Martina Anderson, the DUPs Diane Dodds and the UUPs Jim Nicholson, but Mr Nicholsons decision not to seek re-election has opened up a race for the third seat. Mr Eastwood, who has led the SDLP since 2015, is campaigning to take that seat, in what he says is a referendum on Brexit. This is no ordinary election, he told The Independent, this is a battle about remain versus leave. This is the Norths peoples vote. This is our opportunity to say that were not having Brexit, and were definitely not having a hard border. We need to send a message to London, because Brussels is already behind us." 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 A total of 56 per cent of people in Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU in 2016, with polls suggesting support has since risen as high as 69 per cent. Mr Eastwood will be in competition with Alliance party leader Naomi Long, but defends the choice not to agree a pro-Remain candidate between themselves, on account of Ms Long turning down an electoral pact in the past. Alliance would have to double their vote to take the seat and I dont think thats realistic. I need the support of people who disagree with me on some issues, even on big issues like the union, because this is more important right now," he said. Mr Eastwood is following in the tradition of SDLP founder John Hume, who sat in the European Parliament from 1979 to 2004. He said: The EU is in the SDLPs DNA and John made it so. We are the most pro European party in the north. Sinn Fein were always anti-Europe, its good that theyve changed their mind, but we are the strongest messengers for remain. Speaking about the murder of journalist Lyra McKee at the hands of dissident republicans in his home city of Derry last week, Mr Eastwood said people in the region were sad and ashamed about what happened. The tragic murder of Lyra has just made people very angry," he said. "The mood here now is for people to get back to work, and come back together again. Recommended The writing is on the wall in Derry for those who killed Lyra McKee On Friday, the British and Irish governments announced fresh talks in an attempt to restore power sharing in Northern Ireland, and Mr Eastwood has called on his fellow party leaders to seize the moment after two years of no executive. We cannot allow the instability that has been created by our lack of government to then end up in a political vacuum which can then be exploited by people with guns," he said. In a bid to see functioning government restored at Stormont, the SDLP are advocating for a suspension of the petition of concern - a mechanism which was designed to safeguard minority rights, but which has been used by the DUP as a veto against issues like same-sex marriage. Mr Eastwood also has some choice words for the Northern Ireland Secretary of State Karen Bradley, who he says has not covered herself in glory during her tenure. But it almost doesnt matter about Karen, he adds. Parties in the north need to show willingness now. Environmental activists who participated in the recent Extinction Rebellion protests have announced they are standing in next months European elections. Nine candidates are running to be MEPs under the banner of Climate and Ecological Emergency Independents including seven in London and two in the south-west England region having been inspired by the disruptive demonstration across the capital. In a statement, the collective said they wanted to see Europe reach net zero carbon emissions by 2030 and have new citizen assemblies set up to give ordinary people a voice in shaping environmental policy. The Climate and Ecological Emergency Independents are inspired by the Youth Strikes 4 Climate, Greta Thunberg and the Extinction Rebellion movement, the group said in a statement ahead of the 23 May vote. Their collective actions have created a shift in public awareness around the need to urgently act on the climate emergency. 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 list of candidates includes 19-year-old Goldsmiths University student Daze Aghaji and 21-year-old campaigner Claudia McDowell. We want to take this kind of energy to Europe, to demonstrate a different kind of politics that goes beyond party politics, the group said. A politics that is more human and ordinary and says, in the face of climate collapse, we can face this together. More than 1,100 people were arrested for blocking roads and bridges during 10 days of XR protests across London. A group of Christian activists, including a cobbler and an 83-year-old man, faced a crown court hearing on Friday after allegedly obstructing a train during the demonstrations. Activists stand on top of a train at Canary Wharf Station during Thursday's protest in London (Reuters) Grandfather Philip Kingston, Diana Warner, and Northampton University shoemaking teacher Nick Cooper appeared from custody at Highbury Corner Magistrates' Court on Friday. All three indicated not guilty pleas after being accused of gluing themselves to a DLR train in the Canary Wharf financial district in London on Thursday morning. Activists held signs stating Business as usual = death and Dont jail the canaries and held a prayer vigil on top of a carriage on Thursday, the final day of protests. Prosecutor Alex Britton told the court numerous trains were affected and delayed and estimated the cost of the disruption to the rail network to be around 80,000. They were among six activists charged with obstructing trains or carriages on the railway by an unlawful act. The other three, Ian Bray, 51, Richard Barnard, 46, and Ruth Jarman, 55, were due in court later on Friday afternoon. District Judge Susan Williams said: The widespread public disruption that took place yesterday at the height of rush hour was quite clearly planned. I take the view this matter is too serious to be tried in this court so Im allocating your case to the crown court. Three other activists from the Extinction Rebellion group, also known as XR, have previously appeared in court charged over a separate scaling of a DLR train in Canary Wharf. One has since been bailed from custody, according to media reports. It is apposite that the latest publicity surrounding Huawei is about a leak; the revealing of sensitive information from a National Security Council meeting about the Chinese telecommunications giant being allowed into the UKs 5G network. It is deep concern about national security which has led to the activities of Huawei, with its connections to the Beijing government, being severely restricted by a number of countries and some of its employees ending up in foreign prisons. But the leak of from the National Security Council (NSC), and the subsequent launch of an investigation by cabinet secretary Sir Mark Sedwill into it, has brought into focus why the issue of Huawei is not just a matter of protecting intelligence but part of the geopolitics of dealing with China. This is particularly relevant for Britain with its pressing need for post-Brexit trade. The decision on Huawei and this countrys telecommunications network in which, it is claimed, Theresa May was a driving force, is in contrast to the position of many western allies and the Five Eyes Network of English speaking states which share intelligence. Three of the members of this group the US, Australia and New Zealand have taken a tougher stance in the involvement of Huawei, effectively prohibiting the installation of the companys equipment in the next generation of their telecommunications apparatus. Canada is due to announce its position on the issue in the coming months amid strained relations with Beijing. The Canadian authorities arrested a senior Huawei executive at American request four months ago; the Chinese detained a number of Canadian citizens in retaliation. Elsewhere the Netherlands announced on Friday that it will switch from Huawei to a western company for its 5G network after the US criticised the proposed involvement of the Chinese company. Other countries like Germany and India have expressed concern about using Huawei equipment as they upgrade for 5G .Two of the Chinese nationals detained overseas were working in telecommunications in Poland, one of them a Huawei employee. Inside Huawei's new campus for workers in China Show all 20 1 /20 Inside Huawei's new campus for workers in China Inside Huawei's new campus for workers in China An employee enters a train in the Huawei's Ox Horn campus at Songshan Lake in Dongguan Reuters Inside Huawei's new campus for workers in China A worker cleans a waterway as office buildings are seen at Huawei's new Ox Horn Research and Development campus in Dongguan, near shenzen Getty Inside Huawei's new campus for workers in China An area of Huawei's Ox Horn campus modelled after Cesky Krumlov in Czech Republic Getty Inside Huawei's new campus for workers in China The real Cesky Krumlov in Czech Republic Getty Inside Huawei's new campus for workers in China Employees sleep in their cubicle in the research and development area after lunch at the Bantian campus in Shenzhen Getty Inside Huawei's new campus for workers in China An area of Huawei's Ox Horn campus modelled after Heidelberg in Germany Getty Images Inside Huawei's new campus for workers in China Employees play basketball on a court within the staff housing complex at the end of the workday at the Bantian campus in Shenzhen Getty Inside Huawei's new campus for workers in China A replica of the Karl Theodor Bridge in Huawei's Ox Horn campus Getty Inside Huawei's new campus for workers in China The real Karl Theodor Bridge in Heidelberg, Germany Getty Inside Huawei's new campus for workers in China Huawei's Ox Horn campus at Songshan Lake in Dongguan Reuters Inside Huawei's new campus for workers in China Employees ride the bus home at the end of the workday from the company's Bantian campus in Shenzhen Getty Inside Huawei's new campus for workers in China Huawei workers eat their subsidised lunch in one of many large cafeterias at the company's Bantian campus in Shenzhen Getty Inside Huawei's new campus for workers in China Reception staff walk in front of a large screen showcasing different technologies in the foyer of a building used for high profile customer visits at the campus in Shenzen Getty Inside Huawei's new campus for workers in China An employee reads in the staff library on a break at the company's Bantian campus in Shenzhen Getty Inside Huawei's new campus for workers in China An area of Huawei's new Ox Horn campus modelled after a European City Getty Inside Huawei's new campus for workers in China Servers are seen inside Huawei's factory campus in Dongguan Reuters Inside Huawei's new campus for workers in China The conductor waits for a train in the Huawei's Ox Horn campus at Songshan Lake in Dongguan Reuters Inside Huawei's new campus for workers in China A general view shows the research and development centre at Huawei's Ox Horn campus AFP/Getty Inside Huawei's new campus for workers in China Employees works on a mobile phone production line at Huawei's factory campus in Dongguan Reuters Inside Huawei's new campus for workers in China An office building on the Huawei campus in Dongguan AFP/Getty US intelligence has charged that Huawei is directly funded by Chinese state security. The UKs National Cyber Security Centre warns that the company posed a threat to national security. However, the organisations chief has also stated that this country has established the toughest and most rigorous oversight regime in the world for Huawei. Telecommunications is not the only field where Britain is, at times, out of step with allies when it comes to China. Beijings Belt and Road programme is hugely contentious with accusations that it promotes debt-trap diplomacy providing cheap finance and then extracting advantage when debtor countries have difficulties paying back. The most notorious example of this is Sri Lanka ceding a port, Hambantota, in return for the waiver of $1bn in loans. A number of states, including Malaysia, Nepal and Myanmar have recently pulled out of Chinese-financed programmes because of apprehension of being similarly sucked in. Last year, 27 out of 28 European Union ambassadors in Beijing (Hungary the exception) signed off a report saying the project runs counter to the European Unions agenda for liberalising trade and pushes the balance of power in favour of subsidised Chinese companies. The British ambassador was one of the signatories. But in December 2016 Philip Hammond, on a visit to Beijing, spoke of how privileged the UK was to take part in the programme. The chancellor subsequently announced the launch of a 750m private fund, supported by the British government, and led by David Cameron, which will work with the Belt and Road initiative. The only other western European government which has talked of working with China on the scheme is Italys hard-right populist government, some of whose leaders are also keen admirers of Vladimir Putin. Conduct towards China is also now an internal matter in the febrile and fractured political landscape of the UK. Gavin Williamson, the defence secretary, Sajid Javid, the home secretary, Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary, Liam Fox, the international trade secretary and Penny Mordaunt, the international development Secretary, are all said to have objected strongly to the participation of Huawei in such a key sector of the UKs communications network. All of them, it is claimed, view themselves as potential successors to Theresa May and it has been suggested, appearing tough on China, they feel, will augment their leadership credentials. Suspicions about the leak have focused on the Huawei objectors. All have denied they are responsible. The China factor has already played a part in the internecine struggle of the Conservative government. Williamson announced in February that he is going to send the aircraft carrier, Queen Elizabeth, into disputed waters of the China Seas in a display of hard power. The language he used resonated with echoes of Pax Britannica and East of Suez. But there was nothing intrinsically wrong with the proposal itself which reiterates the right of navigation in international waters. The growth of Chinese military power has led to alarm among neighbours in the region and beyond. Japan, India, the US and Australia have formed the Quadrilateral Security group which has held large-scale naval exercises in these areas. But within hours of the defence secretarys speech at the Royal United Services Institute, Treasury officials were briefing that it will scupper a trade visit to Beijing by Hammond. China has continued to trade with other countries which had sent warships into the disputed seas as it has done with those who have placed restrictions on Huawei, albeit while making complaints to world trade bodies. Hammond is in Beijing taking part in an investment forum and has met Vice Premier Hu Chunhua who did not, according to diplomatic sources, mention Huawei. Beyond the accusations and recriminations lie fundamental questions about just how dangerous Huawei is to the national security of the country where it operates. The company was founded in 1987 by Ren Zhengfei, who had formerly served in the technical engineering sector of the Peoples Liberation Army. He and senior Huawei executives have connections with the Chinese military and the Communist Party. Although the company sells items like telephones and laptops, its main business is supplying core infrastructure devices which touch almost every aspect of the internet and thus could facilitate espionage. Defenders of Huawei want to stress that there is no compelling evidence that the company is engaged in spying. Professor Qing Wang of Warwick University, who specialises in marketing and innovation holds: Some of the reasons put forward for this notion are weak, for example, the background of the founder of Huawei. Mr Ren Zhengfei once served in the Peoples Liberation Army. As we know, serving in the army was one way of getting out of poverty for people in the countryside ... Huawei is the textbook case of a great company in the making; unfortunately, it has fallen victim to the anti-globalisation policy and sentiment of the US and the ongoing trade war with China. The US, however, has become increasingly bullish in confronting Huawei and the threat it is supposed to represent. At the recent meeting of the annual Munich security conference Vice President Mike Pence pointed to Huawei as an example of how Beijings vast security apparatus can have access to any data that touches their networks or equipment. Marco Rubio, the senior Republican senator, maintains: Huawei is a Chinese state-directed telecom company with a singular goal: undermine foreign competition by stealing trade secrets and intellectual property, and through artificially low prices backed by the Chinese government. The communist Chinese government poses the greatest, long-term threat to Americas national and economic security and the US must be vigilant in preventing Chinese state-directed telecoms companies like Huawei from undermining and endangering Americas 5G networks. What was agreed at the NSC in London was to allow Huawei involvement at the edges of the UKs 5G network, in non-core parts such as building antennas. But the Americans are wary that this would act as a Trojan horse and is strongly pressuring its allies to keep the Chinese company at arms length. Therein lies a conundrum for this government keeping on good terms with both Washington and Beijing in the uncertain post-Brexit landscape. Theresa Mays decision to seek a delay to Brexit until October initially allowed some of steam out of the Westminster pressure cooker. But after a brief respite for Easter, May was feeling the heat this week after another abortive coup at the hands of her backbenchers. Hostile Conservative MPs are running out of patience with both her perceived failure to deliver on Brexit and her premiership. Flash Morocco attaches great importance to the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), said Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Nasser Bourita on Friday. "The initiative is of particular interest to Morocco as it aims to promote regional integration, interconnection and the construction of major infrastructure," Bourita said in an interview with the Moroccan official MAP news agency on the sidelines of the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing. The initiative will create important economic bridges between continents, he noted. The Moroccan minister also expressed his country's support for the BRI within the framework of the strategic partnership between China and Morocco. One of the architects of the Good Friday Agreement has piled pressure on Jeremy Corbyn to stop vacillating over Labours support for a second referendum. Seamus Mallon, a former deputy first minister of Northern Ireland, said a new Brexit vote was absolutely essential and expressed concern about the ongoing political chaos threatening the peace process. Mr Mallon, an MP for Labours sister party in Northern Ireland, the SDLP, for nearly 20 years, appealed to Labour bosses, saying the public was craving for straight, honest and effective leadership as the situation was too serious for division. His comments came as the Labour leader faced an angry backlash over a draft leaflet for the European elections which included no mention of a Final Say vote. Nearly 90 MPs and MEPs, including several frontbenchers, signed a letter urging the partys ruling body to commit to a public vote when it meets on Tuesday to decide the manifesto. 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 It also comes as power-sharing talks were due to begin to end the two-year stalemate in Northern Ireland, after a priest leading the funeral of the journalist Lyra McKee shamed politicians over why it had taken her murder to bring opposing sides together. Mr Mallon, in an interview for the Labour Party Irish Society, said: I would recommend that MPs now go and support another test of opinion among the population another referendum. Which hopefully would put this matter to rest in the only way it now can be put to rest. The prime minister cant solve it, the cabinet cant solve it, parliament cant solve it ... The first was a hopeful decision. The second has got to be an informed decision. Speaking from his home in South Armagh, he said: The issue of Brexit was put to the people, and the people spoke. But that, what they voted for then, bears no relation to what Brexit now is. And the whole circumstances of where Brexit now stands have changed very fundamentally since the initial question was put. And I think because of that, because of the international, political and constitutional dimensions which have emerged ... I believe it is absolutely essential that another referendum is now held. Mr Mallon also piled pressure on the Labour Party to act and urged them to stop vacillating on the Brexit issue. In a direct appeal, he said: Give leadership. And show that there is an alternative to the awfulness of the Tory party at the present time. People are craving for straight, honest and effective leadership. Thats what the Labour Party should be providing. They should not be having divided opinions on this issue. While divided opinions are essential in a political party, this is too serious. They have to have a position, stick by it and win with it. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Pro-EU Labour MPs are furious about the failure to include calls for a Final Say vote on the leaked flyer for next months European parliament elections. Labours party conference voted in favour of campaigning for a referendum if a general election cannot be secured, but the issue remains divisive among senior figures. There are deep divisions in the shadow cabinet over how to proceed as some frontbencher fear it could damage the partys election chances among Brexit voters in its former industrial heartlands. Donald Trump has been branded a threat to our world order and unworthy of a state visit, after he moved to pull the United States from the international Arms Trade Treaty. Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry said the US presidents plan to quit the agreement regulating arms sales between countries showed he was nothing but a disgrace to his office. In a furious intervention, the shadow cabinet member said Mr Trumps move was the final confirmation that he is not the leader of the free world. Her comments came as Jeremy Corbyn vowed to boycott a lavish banquet for Mr Trump when he visits the UK in June for a long-delayed state visit. The Labour leader said Theresa May was wrong to kowtow to a president who rips up vital international treaties. The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Show all 25 1 /25 The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Bernie Sanders The Vermont senator has launched a second bid for president after losing out to Hilary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic primaries. He is running on a similar platform of democratic socialist reform Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Joe Biden The former vice president recently faced scrutiny for inappropriate touching of women, but was thought to deal with the criticism well and has since maintained a front runner status in national polling EPA The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Elizabeth Warren The Massachusetts senator is a progressive Democrat, and a major supporter of regulating Wall Street Reuters The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Amy Klobuchar Klobuchar is a Minnesota senator who earned praise for her contribution to the Brett Kavanaugh hearings Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Michael Bloomberg Michael Bloomberg, a late addition to the 2020 race, announced his candidacy after months of speculation in November. He has launched a massive ad-buying campaign and issued an apology for the controversial "stop and frisk" programme that adversely impacted minority communities in New York City when he was mayor Getty Images The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Tulsi Gabbard The Hawaii congresswoman announced her candidacy in January, but has faced tough questions on her past comments on LGBT+ rights and her stance on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Pete Buttigieg The centrist Indiana mayor and war veteran would be the first openly LGBT+ president in American history Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Deval Patrick The former Massachusetts governor launched a late 2020 candidacy and received very little reception. With just a few short months until the first voters flock to the polls, the former governor is running as a centrist and believes he can unite the party's various voting blocs AFP/Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Beto O'Rourke The former Texas congressman formally launched his bid for the presidency in March. He ran on a progressive platform, stating that the US is driven by "gross differences in opportunity and outcome" AP The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Kamala Harris The former California attorney general was 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 AFP/Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Bill De Blasio The New York mayor announced his bid on 16 May 2019. He emerged in 2013 as a leading voice in the left wing of his party but struggled to build a national profile and has suffered a number of political setbacks in his time as mayor AFP/Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Steve Bullock The Montana governor announced his bid on 14 May. He stated "We need to defeat Donald Trump in 2020 and defeat the corrupt system that lets campaign money drown out the people's voice, so we can finally make good on the promise of a fair shot for everyone." He also highlighted the fact that he won the governor's seat in a red [Republican] state Reuters The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Cory Booker The New Jersey Senator has focused on restoring kindness and civility in American politics throughout his campaign, though he has failed to secure the same level of support and fundraising as several other senators running for the White House in 2020 Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Wayne Messam Mayor of the city of Miramar in the Miami metropolitan area, Wayne Messam said he intended 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 The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Kirsten Gillibrand The New York Senator formally announced her presidential bid in January, saying that healthcare should be a right, not a privilege Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: John Delaney The Maryland congressman was the first to launch his bid for presidency, making the announcement in 2017 AP The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Andrew Yang The entrepreneur announced his presidential candidacy by pledging that he would introduce a universal basic income of $1,000 a month to every American over the age of 18 Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: 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 The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Marianne Williamson The author and spiritual adviser has announced her intention to run for president. She had previously run for congress as an independent in 2014 but was unsuccessful Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Eric Swalwell One of the younger candidates, Swalwell has served on multiple committees in the House of Representatives. He intended to make gun control central to his campaign but dropped out after his team said it was clear there was no path to victory Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Seth Moulton A Massachusetts congressman, Moulton is a former US soldier who is best known for trying to stop Nancy Pelosi from becoming speaker of the house. He dropped out of the race after not polling well in key states Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Jay Inslee Inslee has been governor of Washington since 2013. His bid was centred around climate change AFP/Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: John Hickenlooper The former governor of Colorado aimed to sell himself as an effective leader who was open to compromise, but failed to make a splash on the national stage Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Tim Ryan Ohio representative Tim Ryan ran on a campaign that hinged on his working class roots, though his messaging did not appear to resonate with voters Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Tom Steyer Democratic presidential hopeful billionaire and philanthropist Tom Steyer is a longtime Democratic donor AFP/Getty Ms Thornberry, who would play a leading role in dealing with Mr Trumps administration if Labour were elected, said: Donald Trumps statement on the Arms Trade Treaty is the final confirmation that he is not the leader of the free world, he never has been, and he does not deserve the honour of a state visit to Britain. He is nothing but a disgrace to his office and a threat to our world order. Mr Trump said the US would be taking our signature back from the international Arms Trade Treaty on Friday, which was signed by Barack Obama in 2013. In a speech to the National Rifle Association, the pro-gun lobby group, Mr Trump said: Under my administration, we will never surrender American sovereignty to anyone. We will never allow foreign bureaucrats to trample on your second amendment freedoms. And that is why my administration will never ratify the UN Arms Trade Treaty. More than 100 countries, including the UK, have signed up to the treaty that regulates international trade in conventional weapons, including small arms, battle tanks, combat aircraft and warships. Recommended Corbyn to boycott Trump state banquet during UK visit Former president Barack Obama signed the accord, arranged under the auspices of the United Nations, in 2013, although it has not been ratified by US legislators. Mr Trumps decision to halt ratification follows similar withdrawals from the Paris agreement on climate change, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia and the Iran nuclear deal. Liberal Democrat leader Sir Vince Cable said the decision was another retrograde step and called on the government to cancel the state visit. He said: It is a stain on the Conservative government that they have invited this president for all the pomp and circumstance of a state visit. He is playing a negative role on the international stage the visit should be cancelled. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Mr Trumps three-day visit in June has drawn huge controversy, with mass demonstrations expected throughout. He will hold bilateral talks with Ms May at Downing Street, as well as attending a white-tie dinner banquet at Buckingham Palace, hosted by the Queen. Hundreds of thousands of people are at risk from fresh flooding and mudslides forecast in Mozambique, which is still reeling from a cyclone last month that killed at least 1,000 people. The east-African nation's government has urged people to move to higher ground as the most powerful storm to ever strike the countrys northern coast prompted fears that rivers would burst their banks. Thousands of homes have already been wrecked and at least five people killed by Cyclone Kenneth, which has pounded the region with rain. As further downpours were forecast over the coming days, aid officials said 700,000 people could be at risk, many left homeless and hungry as waters rise. Mozambiques weather authority said the storm could potentially move back out to sea and intensify again, bringing a risk of floods. It doesnt look good, quite honestly, said Nicholas Finney, of the Save the Children charity. Aftermath of Cyclone Idai Show all 19 1 /19 Aftermath of Cyclone Idai Aftermath of Cyclone Idai dec-Cyclone-Idai-3-0.JPG Josh Estey/Care Aftermath of Cyclone Idai dec-Cyclone-Idai-12-0.jpg Karel Prinsloo/Disasters Emergency Committee Aftermath of Cyclone Idai dec-Cyclone-Idai-2-0.jpg Karel Prinsloo/Disasters Emergency Committee Aftermath of Cyclone Idai dec-Cyclone-Idai-10-0.jpg Karel Prinsloo/Disasters Emergency Committee Aftermath of Cyclone Idai dec-Cyclone-Idai-15-0.jpg Josh Estey/Care Aftermath of Cyclone Idai dec-Cyclone-Idai-14-0.jpg Josh Estey/Care Aftermath of Cyclone Idai dec-Cyclone-Idai-19-0.jpg Karel Prinsloo/Disasters Emergency Committee Aftermath of Cyclone Idai dec-Cyclone-Idai-9-0.jpg Karel Prinsloo/Disasters Emergency Committee Aftermath of Cyclone Idai dec-Cyclone-Idai-11-0.jpg KB Mpofu/Christian Aid Aftermath of Cyclone Idai dec-Cyclone-Idai-16-0.jpg Josh Estey/Care Aftermath of Cyclone Idai dec-Cyclone-Idai-1-0.jpg Josh Estey/Care Aftermath of Cyclone Idai dec-Cyclone-Idai-4-0.jpg Corrie Butler/British Red Cross Aftermath of Cyclone Idai dec-Cyclone-Idai-6-0.jpg Karel Prinsloo/Disasters Emergency Committee Aftermath of Cyclone Idai dec-Cyclone-Idai-5-0.jpg Corrie Butler/British Red Cross Aftermath of Cyclone Idai dec-Cyclone-Idai-13-0.jpg Karel Prinsloo/Disasters Emergency Committee Aftermath of Cyclone Idai dec-Cyclone-Idai-7-0.jpg Richard Nyoni/Christian Aid Aftermath of Cyclone Idai dec-Cyclone-Idai-18-0.jpg Karel Prinsloo/Disasters Emergency Committee Aftermath of Cyclone Idai dec-Cyclone-Idai-8-0.jpg Karel Prinsloo/Disasters Emergency Committee Aftermath of Cyclone Idai dec-Cyclone-Idai-17-0.jpg Josh Estey/Care Government officials warned those living in the northern Cabo Delgado province that the regions two rivers could spill over. Nearly 3,500 homes were partially or fully destroyed, with electricity cut, some roads blocked and at least one key bridge collapsed. Some schools and health centres were damaged in 140mph winds. Terrified children and traumatised parents face a huge task to start to rebuild, Mr Finney said. Cyclone Kenneth slammed into Mozambique just six weeks after Cyclone Idai, which levelled the more central port city of Beira before bringing deadly floods that submerged villages and vast stretches of land. Idai killed at least 1,000 people across Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi, and left an estimated 1.85 million people in Mozambique in need. This is the first time the southern African nation one of the worlds poorest countries has been hit by two cyclones in one season, raising concerns about climate change. The World Food Programme warned that Kenneth could in the coming days dump twice as much rain on northern Mozambique as Idai did. The situation wasnt worse thanks to awareness-raising work by local authorities, Mozambiques disaster management agency said as it posted photos of buildings where metal roofs had been crumpled or ripped away. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Other photos showed a mud-walled home that had disintegrated, a bus that appeared to have slid off the road and a toppled electrical pole. People left homeless tried to patch together shelters from the rain. The death toll from Kenneth, which stood at three earlier this week, rose to five when two more people were killed, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Agencies contributed to this report. Justice never tasted so good. A Connecticut judges decision has resolved a legal quandary that baffled some and left others flat-out hungry could a police officer mistake a McDonalds hash brown for a mobile phone? In Jason Stibers case, the answer is yes. He was found not guilty after successfully contesting the $300 (230) distracted driving fine he received last year. It was the case of the century, Mr Stibers lawyer, John Thygerson, said with a laugh. He was quite pleased. Obviously, he was quite pleased. Wake up full of beans: Mexican dishes are spicing up British breakfast menus Show all 3 1 /3 Wake up full of beans: Mexican dishes are spicing up British breakfast menus Wake up full of beans: Mexican dishes are spicing up British breakfast menus Wake up full of beans: Mexican dishes are spicing up British breakfast menus Wake up full of beans: Mexican dishes are spicing up British breakfast menus Mr Stibers victory comes nearly 13 months after he was pulled over by a Westport police officer who claimed to have seen the 45-year-old using his mobile phone on the morning of 11 April 2018. Mr Stiber, representing himself in court, lost his case last year but refused to give up telling The Washington Post he doled out a significant amount of money to hire Mr Thygerson to prove he was not talking on his phone. His willingness to take on the legal fees which exceeded the cost of the ticket was a matter of principle, he added. Distracted driving violations go on your record and they never come off, Mr Stiber said. Plus, a lot of people dont realise your insurance rates go up. In February, Westport Police Corporal Shawn Wong Won testified that he clearly saw Mr Stiber speaking into a black mobile phone while driving that morning, the Hour reported at the time. Corporal Wong Won said in court that he saw Mr Stiber holding an illuminated object the size of a mobile phone up to his face while moving his lips. Recommended Parrot taken into custody after warning drug dealers about police raid Mr Thygerson rebutted that claim, explaining that Mr Stibers lip movement was consistent with chewing the hash brown hed ordered at McDonalds moments earlier. Phone records show that Mr Stiber was not having a conversation at the time he was pulled over, Mr Thygerson said. His clients car also has Bluetooth capabilities that allow him to talk without holding his phone. To bolster his defence, Mr Stiber said he made a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain records showing Corporal Wong Won was on the 15th hour of a 16-hour double shift when he pulled Mr Stiber over, offering another reason why the officer may have confused the fried potato for a mobile phone. Ultimately, the judge concluded that the state was unable to meet its burden of proof, citing a lack of evidence that showing Mr Stiber was actually on his phone at the time he was pulled over. The Washington Post reviewed a copy of the decision, in which the judge cited an appellate court case involving another Connecticut driver who was found not guilty in 2016 after being pulled over for using his phone. Moment Cagefighter puts policeman in headlock and threatens to rip his head off It just is proof that police officers theres nothing nefarious here but that police officers are human and make mistakes, thats all, Mr Thygerson said. Westport Police did not immediately return a request for comment. Mr Stiber is relieved about the verdict, but said the lengths he went to defend himself illustrate a greater problem in the justice system. He had to sit through two trials, miss four days of work and pay a lawyer to get the right outcome painstaking steps he says others shouldnt be forced to take. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Thats why I did it, because I wouldnt want anyone else to go through this, he said. Other people dont have the means to defend themselves in the same way. It remains to be seen if Mr Stibers case will establish a new precedent in future cases. He acknowledged, though, that his tribulations have made him think twice about eating hash browns. I definitely havent eaten as many as I have previously, but I still go to McDonalds for other things, he said. Its been a long ordeal, but Id rather avoid trouble in the future. Washington Post Former CIA director John Brennan has railed against Donald Trumps sociopathic ramblings after he called special counsel Robert Muellers Russia investigation an attempted coup on his presidency. Mr Trump made the comment in a phone interview on Sean Hannitys Fox News show on Thursday evening and accused senior intelligence figures, including Mr Brennan, of being involved in the supposed plot. Speaking to MSNBC, Mr Brennan said: I dont think it is surprising at all that we continue to hear these sociopathic ramblings of Mr Trump claiming there was this effort to try to prevent him from being elected or to try to unseat him. I welcome any type of, you know, continued investigation in terms of what we did during that period of time that we were in government. And Ive testified in front of congress, and Id be happy to do it again. Mr Brennan also hit back at Kentucky Republican senator Rand Pauls allegations that he had pushed to include British ex-spy Christoper Steeles dirty dossier in a briefing to Mr Trump during the transition. 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 Thats absolutely incorrect and 180 degrees from the truth, Mr Brennan said. It was CIA that was pushing not to have it included, not to be taken into account at all in that intelligence community assessment. The full, partially redacted report on Mr Muellers investigation was released earlier this month. While it found no criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, it did state that Russia interfered with the 2016 election in a sweeping and systematic fashion with the goal of electing Mr Trump. The report also revealed that Mr Trump tried to get Mr Mueller fired after he was appointed to head the investigation, in a series of efforts widely deemed to constitute attempted obstruction of justice. Mr Trump and other Republican politicians have since called for a follow-up investigation into intelligence officials who began monitoring the Trump campaign ahead of the 2016 election without warning. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events In his interview with MSNBC, Mr Brennan went on to insist that the fault for any Russian election interference lies with the Trump administration, and not with the Obama administration that was in power during the 2016 election. The last administration put out an intelligence community assessment and tried to be as comprehensive and transparent as possible about what the Russians were doing, he said. Unfortunately, this administration and Donald Trump refuses to continue to acknowledge what the Russians did and to take steps to prevent them from doing it in the future. A majority of Americans say they oppose calls for congress to launch impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump in the wake of special counsel Robert Muellers investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether the president sought to interfere with the probe. Currently 37 per cent of Americans favour starting the process that could lead to impeachment, a slight dip over the past month, while 56 per cent say they oppose the idea, about the same as a month ago, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll. House Democrats are grappling with the question of how to proceed in the light of Muellers findings and the public release of the redacted report, which detailed multiple examples of potential obstruction of justice. The new survey highlights the dilemma faced by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other leaders in her caucus: while party leaders have sought to play down impeachment talk, worried that engaging in such a process would backfire in the 2020 elections, their political base supports it. Roughly 6 in 10 Democrats say they support the initiation of such an investigation in the House, with 53 per cent saying they hold that view strongly. The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Show all 25 1 /25 The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Bernie Sanders The Vermont senator has launched a second bid for president after losing out to Hilary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic primaries. He is running on a similar platform of democratic socialist reform Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Joe Biden The former vice president recently faced scrutiny for inappropriate touching of women, but was thought to deal with the criticism well and has since maintained a front runner status in national polling EPA The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Elizabeth Warren The Massachusetts senator is a progressive Democrat, and a major supporter of regulating Wall Street Reuters The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Amy Klobuchar Klobuchar is a Minnesota senator who earned praise for her contribution to the Brett Kavanaugh hearings Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Michael Bloomberg Michael Bloomberg, a late addition to the 2020 race, announced his candidacy after months of speculation in November. He has launched a massive ad-buying campaign and issued an apology for the controversial "stop and frisk" programme that adversely impacted minority communities in New York City when he was mayor Getty Images The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 Tulsi Gabbard The Hawaii congresswoman announced her candidacy in January, but has faced tough questions on her past comments on LGBT+ rights and her stance on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Pete Buttigieg The centrist Indiana mayor and war veteran would be the first openly LGBT+ president in American history Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Deval Patrick The former Massachusetts governor launched a late 2020 candidacy and received very little reception. With just a few short months until the first voters flock to the polls, the former governor is running as a centrist and believes he can unite the party's various voting blocs AFP/Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Beto O'Rourke The former Texas congressman formally launched his bid for the presidency in March. He ran on a progressive platform, stating that the US is driven by "gross differences in opportunity and outcome" AP The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Kamala Harris The former California attorney general was 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 AFP/Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Bill De Blasio The New York mayor announced his bid on 16 May 2019. He emerged in 2013 as a leading voice in the left wing of his party but struggled to build a national profile and has suffered a number of political setbacks in his time as mayor AFP/Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Steve Bullock The Montana governor announced his bid on 14 May. He stated "We need to defeat Donald Trump in 2020 and defeat the corrupt system that lets campaign money drown out the people's voice, so we can finally make good on the promise of a fair shot for everyone." He also highlighted the fact that he won the governor's seat in a red [Republican] state Reuters The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Cory Booker The New Jersey Senator has focused on restoring kindness and civility in American politics throughout his campaign, though he has failed to secure the same level of support and fundraising as several other senators running for the White House in 2020 Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Wayne Messam Mayor of the city of Miramar in the Miami metropolitan area, Wayne Messam said he intended 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 The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Kirsten Gillibrand The New York Senator formally announced her presidential bid in January, saying that healthcare should be a right, not a privilege Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: John Delaney The Maryland congressman was the first to launch his bid for presidency, making the announcement in 2017 AP The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Andrew Yang The entrepreneur announced his presidential candidacy by pledging that he would introduce a universal basic income of $1,000 a month to every American over the age of 18 Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: 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 The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Marianne Williamson The author and spiritual adviser has announced her intention to run for president. She had previously run for congress as an independent in 2014 but was unsuccessful Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Eric Swalwell One of the younger candidates, Swalwell has served on multiple committees in the House of Representatives. He intended to make gun control central to his campaign but dropped out after his team said it was clear there was no path to victory Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Seth Moulton A Massachusetts congressman, Moulton is a former US soldier who is best known for trying to stop Nancy Pelosi from becoming speaker of the house. He dropped out of the race after not polling well in key states Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Jay Inslee Inslee has been governor of Washington since 2013. His bid was centred around climate change AFP/Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: John Hickenlooper The former governor of Colorado aimed to sell himself as an effective leader who was open to compromise, but failed to make a splash on the national stage Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Tim Ryan Ohio representative Tim Ryan ran on a campaign that hinged on his working class roots, though his messaging did not appear to resonate with voters Getty The Democrat challengers to Trump in 2020 DROPPED OUT: Tom Steyer Democratic presidential hopeful billionaire and philanthropist Tom Steyer is a longtime Democratic donor AFP/Getty Meanwhile, nearly 9 in 10 Republicans oppose impeachment, with 78 per cent strongly opposed. About 6 in 10 independents are against impeachment now and independents are more opposed today than they were when measured in a January poll a sign of the potential political danger for Democrats as they seek to win back key centrist voters in their goal of beating Trump next year. House Democratic leaders have said they will pursue various investigations, including possible obstruction of justice by the president, although they have so far stopped short of embracing the idea of impeachment itself. But some Democratic presidential candidates say the Mueller report justifies pursuing such proceedings and are urging house leaders to move ahead. Trump has repeatedly denounced the investigation, both as it was taking place and since, calling the entire matter a witch hunt and allegations of collusion a hoax. The presidents credibility is called into question by a majority of Americans, with 58 per cent saying they believed he has lied to the public about matters under investigation by the special counsel. One in three say they believe he has told the truth. Overall, however, the survey found that partisan allegiance colours the views of Americans about what the Mueller report found, what it means and what should be done as a result. But on one question there was agreement across the political spectrum. Mr Mueller receives positive marks from both Democrats and Republicans, with 53 per cent of Democrats, 56 per cent of Republicans and 51 per cent of independents saying they believed the report was fair and even-handed. Fewer than three in 10 of any partisan group says the report was not fair. That marks a significant shift in attitudes since January, when barely one-fifth of Republicans (22 per cent) thought Mr Muellers report would be fair while 62 per cent of Democrats had confidence in the special counsel to issue an evenhanded report. US attorney general William Barr says there was no collusion between Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential election Mr Muellers report said the investigation did not establish that there was a conspiracy among Trump campaign officials to work with the Russians to sabotage the 2016 election, though there were many contacts between campaign associates and Russians with ties to the government detailed in the report. On the question of obstruction, the report cited a series of examples in which Mr Trump appeared to seek to interfere with Muellers investigation, but Mueller said he believed Department of Justice policy that says the president cannot be indicted in office also meant he should draw no conclusion as to whether the president committed a crime. For that reason, investigations did not offer a conclusion as to whether the presidents actions constituted obstruction. Attorney General William Barr declared that the findings did not justify a criminal charge of obstruction. Recommended Trump campaign refuses to rule out using hacked information in 2020 The evidence of interference presented in the report has spurred Democrats to push for documents, hearings and testimony from some current or former Trump administration officials, which is seen as a prelude to possible impeachment proceedings. Mr Trump said earlier this week he opposes such testimony and will fight any subpoenas issued by house Democrats, setting up a lengthy legal clash and a standoff between the executive and legislative branches. The president has declared total exoneration by the Mueller report, despite the clear statement in the report that investigators did not reach that conclusion. Asked their view of whether the report cleared Mr Trump of all wrongdoing, 53 per cent of Americans say it did not while 31 per cent say it did. Among Republicans, 61 per cent say they believe Muellers investigation cleared Mr Trump of all wrongdoing, while 87 per cent of Democrats say it did not. On the question of whether Trump did or did not try to obstruct Mr Muellers probe, 47 per cent say he did try to interfere while 41 per cent say he did not. This finding masks lopsided opinions among partisans. Trump 'repeatedly complains about Obama having more Twitter followers than him' Roughly eight in 10 Democrats say Trump tried to interfere with the investigation in a way that amounts to obstruction of justice while almost eight in 10 Republicans say he didnt do this. In the current Post-ABC poll, Mr Trumps overall approval rating stands at 39 per cent, a statistically insignificant change from January when it was 37 per cent. Among registered voters, his approval rating is 42 per cent. His disapproval rating among all adults (and among registered voters) is at 54 per cent, down slightly from 58 per cent in January. At the time of the earlier survey, Trump and congressional Democrats were in a dispute over funding for a border wall, which had led to a partial shutdown of the government. A 58 per cent majority of Americans say the Mueller report has not changed their impression of the Trump administration. Among those whose views have changed, 23 per cent say they view the administration more negatively while 11 per cent view it more positively. Slightly more than one in three Americans say the Mueller investigation makes them less likely to support Trumps re-election in 2020, while 14 per cent say they are more likely and a plurality of 46 per cent say the findings are not a factor in their choice for the next election. Not surprisingly, the biggest block of those who say they are more likely to oppose Trump for re-election is among Democrats. The survey found a clear partisan split on the question of whether, based on the Mueller report and other available information, the Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election undermine the legitimacy of the outcome. Overall, 49 per cent say it did not rise to that level while 42 per cent said the Russian role undermined the elections legitimacy. Roughly seven in 10 Democrats say it did while about eight in 10 Republicans said it did not. Looking forward, 76 per cent of Democrats say possible Russian interference represents a threat either major or not so major to the legitimacy of the 2020 election while 61 per cent of Republicans said it does not. Support for impeachment is higher among Americans under the age of 40 than among those older. 'I'm the youngest person' claims Donald Trump It is highest among African Americans, 69 per cent of whom say they favour it. The strongest opposition comes from white evangelical Christians, white men without college degrees, white mainline Protestants and white Catholics. Support is higher in the northeast and the west than it is in the south and midwest of the US. The poll was conducted by telephone from 22-25 April among a random national sample of 1,001 adults, with 65 per cent reached on cellphones and 35 per cent on landlines. Overall results have a 3.5-percentage-point margin of sampling error for the full sample. The Washington Post At least 15 people, including six children, have been killed in Sri Lanka after a military raid on a suspected terrorist safe house descended into a gun battle. The raid turned violent after three explosions hit the building on Friday night, amid fears of further attacks in the country. Officials believe the blasts were caused by militants blowing themselves up as the search was underway. The suspected terrorists then opened fire on security forces during the raid. Major search operation has been undertaken. Every household in the country will be checked, Maithripala Sirisena, Sri Lankas president, had said shortly before the gun battle. Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath Show all 38 1 /38 Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath Sri Lankan Special Task Force officers raid a house following an explosion in capital Colombo AFP/Getty Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath A blood-spattered statue of Jesus Christ while crime scene officials inspect the site of a bomb blast, as the sun shines through the blown-out roof, inside St Sebastian's Church in Negombo Reuters Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath A police officer inspects the damage after a bombing at the Shangri-La Hotel in Sri Lankan capital Colombo AP Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath Sri Lankan soldiers look on inside the St Sebastian's Church at Katuwapitiya in Negombo following a bomb blast during the Easter service AFP/Getty Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath A woman cries next to a coffin of a bomb blast victim. A series of eight devastating bomb blasts ripped through high-end hotels and churches holding Easter services in Sri Lanka on April 21, killing more than 300 people AFP/Getty Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath People who live near the church that was attacked the day before, leave their houses as the military try to defuse a suspected van before it exploded in Colombo Reuters Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath Shoes and belongings of victims are collected as evidence at St Sebastian's Church AFP/Getty Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath Sri Lankan police were forded to clear an area while Special Task Force Bomb Squad officers inspected the site of an exploded van near a church the day after it was attacked Reuters Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath The Kingsbury Hotel in Colombo, Sri Lanka following a bombing AFP/Getty Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath Queues at the National Blood Bank in Colombo, Sri Lanka after a request for blood to aid in recovery efforts Mr Lavasquabble/Twitter Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath Medical response team work to remove dead bodies from the scene of bombings in Sri Lankan capital Colombo AFP/Getty Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath Sri Lankan security personnel inspect the debris of a car after it exploded when police tried to defuse a bomb AFP/Getty Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath Security personnel work at the scene of a bombing at a church in Batticaloa in Sri Lanka AFP/Getty Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath A woman is helped near St Anthony's Shrine after a blast in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on Sunday 21 April 2019. At least 130 people were killed and more than 500 hospitalised after near-simultaneous explosions hit three hotels and three churches on Easter Sunday. AP Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath Sri Lankan police officers clear the road as an ambulance drives through carrying injured of church blasts in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on Sunday 21 April 2019 AP Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath A Sri Lankan soldier stands guard near a car explosion AFP/Getty Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath A woman prays at St. Sebastian's Church in Negombo AFP/Getty Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath Priests stand inside St Anthony's Shrine, Kochchikade church on the outskirts of Colombo after a bombing Reuters Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath A Sri Lankan woman living near St. Anthony's shrine runs for safety with her infant after police found explosive devices in a parked vehicle in Colombo AP Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath People react during a mass for victims, two days after a string of suicide bomb attacks on churches and luxury hotels Reuters Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath Security personal react as a device was detonated in a controled explosion in a van near the St Anthony's Church EPA Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath Security forces inspect the scene of a bombing at the Shangri-La Hotel in Sri Lankan capital Colombo Getty Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath The Kingsbury hotel in Colombo, Sri Lanka after a bombing attack Getty Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath The damaged interior of a church in Negombo, Sri Lanka following a bombing attack Reuters Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath Police and security personnel stand guard outside the Shangri-La Hotel in Sri Lankan capital Colombo following a bombing attack EPA Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath Debris is seen at St Anthony's Church in this still image from video footage after explosions hit churches and hotels in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on 21 April 2019 Derana TV/via Reuters Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath Damage inside a church following a bombing attack AP Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath A Sri Lankan Special Task Force officer scales a house during a raid following an explosion in capital Colombo AFP/Getty Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath A general interior view showing damage after an explosion hit St Anthony's Church in Kochchikade, Colombo, Sri Lanka, on Sunday 21 April 2019 EPA Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath Priests walk into St Anthony's Shrine Kochchikade church after an explosion in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on 21 April 2019 Reuters Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath A Sri Lankan police officer stands outside St Anthony's Shrine in Colombo, Sri Lanka, after a blast on Sunday 21 April 2019 AP Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath A shoe of a victim is seen in front of the St Anthony's Shrine, Kochchikade Church Reuters Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath Local and security officials gather at the scene at St Anthony's Church in Kochchikade, Colombo, Sri Lanka EPA Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath An ambulance is seen outside the church premises with gathered security personnel following a blast at St Anthony's Shrine in Kochchikade, Colombo, on Sunday 21 April 2019 AFP/Getty Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath Armed policemen patrol the area after an explosion hit at St Anthony's Church in Kochchikade in Colombo, Sri Lanka, 21 April 2019 EPA Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath Sri Lankan Army soldiers secure the area around St. Anthony's Shrine after a blast in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Sunday 21 April 2019 AP Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath Sri Lankan security personnel keep watch outside the church premises following a blast at the St Anthony's Shrine in Kochchikade, Colombo, on Sunday 21 April 2019 AFP/Getty Sri Lanka: Scene of the bomb attacks and aftermath Police officers inspect the scene after an explosion hit at St Anthony's Church in Kochchikade in Colombo, Sri Lanka, 21 April 2019 EPA The lists of permanent residents of every house will be established to ensure no unknown persons could live anywhere. Officials said Fridays search operation was linked to the Easter Sunday bombings, in which hundreds of people were killed. The suspected Islamist safe house was found near the coastal town of Sammanthurai. A shootout followed the blasts, with at least three people wounded in addition to those killed. One woman and a girl were found critically injured inside the building and have been taken to hospital. Earlier, the military said at least one civilian had been killed in the attack. Photographs of the charred bodies of two young children killed at the safe house were taken by The Associated Press. Ruwan Gunasekara, a police spokesperson, said officers in Sammanthurai had found explosive materials in the area, including 150 sticks of blasting gelatin and 100,000 small metal balls, as well as a van and clothing suspected to be used by those involved in the Easter bombings. According to Sri Lankan media reports, the safe house is also believed to have been used to manufacture suicide vests. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The Easter Sunday suicide attacks, claimed by the Isis, targeted churches and hotels and killed at least 250 people. The government said nine homegrown, well-educated suicide bombers carried out the attacks, eight of whom had been identified and one of whom was a woman. Sri Lankan authorities are trying to track down 140 people believed linked to Isis. Police have detained at least 76 people, including foreigners from Syria and Egypt, in their investigations so far. A curfew has been imposed across eastern Sri Lanka, Catholic masses have been cancelled indefinitely and Muslims have been urged to pray at home, amid fears of further violence. Additional reporting by agencies There are few places mothers can turn to for help in Gaza, a war-ravaged enclave stunted by a crippling 12-year Israeli-imposed blockade. Without childcare or support, and with few parenting handbooks available, that frustration, anger and despair can be channelled towards the children. One Gazan mother, Nour al-Khodary, wants to help change that with a new app, Momy Helper. It is the first of its kind in Arabic: at the click of a button mothers can access how-to guides for parenting, be connected to trained specialists, and get support for gender-based violence and other issues faced by women. The former film producer says it is a simple solution to one of the most unspoken taboos in the Middle East: being a mother who cannot cope. Everyone is stressed here in Gaza. We dont have peace inside ourselves. Each day we are following in the news: what will happen next, who will be killed, which building will be hit? she tells The Independent from her offices at Gaza Sky Geeks, a tech hub in the 25-mile long militant-run strip. The kids pay for this: the mother, the father, the family are all under pressure, she adds. Gaza protests: Wounded patients being treated at MSF clinic Show all 9 1 /9 Gaza protests: Wounded patients being treated at MSF clinic Gaza protests: Wounded patients being treated at MSF clinic Bel Trew/The Independent Gaza protests: Wounded patients being treated at MSF clinic Bel Trew/The Independent Gaza protests: Wounded patients being treated at MSF clinic Bel Trew/The Independent Gaza protests: Wounded patients being treated at MSF clinic Bel Trew/The Independent Gaza protests: Wounded patients being treated at MSF clinic Bel Trew/The Independent Gaza protests: Wounded patients being treated at MSF clinic Bel Trew/The Independent Gaza protests: Wounded patients being treated at MSF clinic Bel Trew/The Independent Gaza protests: Wounded patients being treated at MSF clinic Bel Trew/The Independent Gaza protests: Wounded patients being treated at MSF clinic Bel Trew/The Independent She says she wants to connect mothers to professional consultants specialising in psychology and parenting. You cant simply cant go to a professional in our culture your family and your husband will not support it. People call you crazy, they blame the women for not being able to cope. Its a taboo. You end up sunk in depression, which you take out on your kids. But with the app you can have discreet and confidential support, she explains. The app, which is registered in Delaware, aims to break through blockades, barriers and borders and help women both within Gaza and across the Arabic-speaking world on how to look after and support their children. A Gazan mother shows her new app designed to help mothers in the Middle East (Bel Trew) Through the app, women can also discreetly book paid sessions from among their team of more than 100 professionals, who speak multiple Arabic dialects and have been carefully vetted. Ms Khodary acknowledges that Momy Helper can only reach those who can afford mobile phones and so cannot fix all problems women face, but hopes it can help be part of a solution. In a trial run last year, Momy Helper paired up with Oxfam to provide free support sessions for mothers who could not afford to pay or did not dare ask their husbands. In Gaza, where few have bank accounts or credit cards, women can pay for the $15 hour-long sessions in person. The app, which is available on Google Play, also provides basic questionnaires to help identify what issues the user is facing and then direct them to the correct free advice in Arabic. Ms Khodary hopes in the future to use artificial intelligence to better improve the interaction. For now, they have step-by-step guides of what to expect each month with their new child, and how best to improve the child's development at each key stage. There are also sections on violence against women and how that can impact children. The app lays out what kind of abuse women are subjected to and what support they can get to tackle it. Gazan protesters head to border protests as Israeli forces fire tear gas on anniversary of Great March of Return After hearing some of the worst stories from women who have reached out to Momy Helper, Ms Khodary also wants to pair up with charities to improve the gender-based violence section of the app and blog. Gender-based and domestic violence is increasing in Gaza, according to a rights group, which says it is driven by soaring unemployment and poverty rates among Gazas trapped 1.8 million population. According to the United Nations, more than half of women in Gaza have experienced violence at home, while nearly 80 per cent have reported being psychologically abused. Depression is also thought to be on the rise. Ms Khodary hopes her app can, in some way, support some women across the Arab world going through this. Nour al-Khodary, founder of Momy Helper, says she hopes it will grow into a business that will provide employment opportunities for war-ravaged Gaza (Bel Trew) (Bel Trew/The Independent) Sometimes mothers just need someone to hear them. We cant provide professional therapy, but our consultants try to give them support on how they can better deal with their issues, she says. With severe cases we encourage them to seek professional therapy and we try to put them in touch with facilities to help with that, she adds. Ms Khodary says she first came up with the idea in 2014 after having her son Bassem when she was briefly living in Chicago as her husband, who had secured a Fulbright scholarship, was finishing his Masters in Architectural Engineering. A long way away from home, Ms Khodary turned to the wealth of childcare literature and support available in the US. When I was in Gaza I didnt pay much attention to how people brought up their kids but after I read the books, I realised [back home] mothers were hitting their kids and shouting at them. Children just had to follow orders without thinking, she says. Users can pay for hour-long consultations with more than 100 specialists (Screen shot of Momy Helper website) (Screen shoot of Momy helper website) This shocked me and I started posting on Facebook about what I had learned, she adds. She initially received angry backlash from friends who thought she was judging them. But that changed to a stream of questions when she put up videos showing examples of positive results from her little boy Bassem. Then I start thinking about connecting mothers with professional consultants, I realised there was nothing for mothers speaking Arabic, she says. Through Gaza Sky Geeks, a Mercy Corps-supported initiative that runs a coding academy, she put together a 10-person team to build the app. In 2017 she came second in a region-wide competition in Istanbul for best start-up in the Middle East and North Africa. Gaza Sky Geeks offices in Gaza city, where Ms Khodary runs the app (Bel Trew/The Independent) But the problem now is funding. Ms Khodary secured a small injection of cash from angel investors at the start, who gave her around 10 per cent of what was needed. But two years on she has had to drop her team and is now running the business entirely on her own. She registered the app in Delaware and with a US bank, knowing foreign investors would be nervous about money going into Gaza. Right now, she is looking into crowdfunding options. Coders build websites at the headquarters of Gaza Sky Geeks in Gaza City (Bel Trew/The Independent) The working mother hopes to run the app as a business, so she can create work back in Gaza where youth unemployment has soared past 70 per cent and only 19 per cent of women of working age have jobs: the highest female jobless rate in the world My first dream is that I can reach every woman in the Arab world that needs the support that Momy Helper can offer, she says. But I have a bigger dream, to be the first female investor in Palestine, to grow my business and earn enough to be able to invest in other start-ups to help others achieve their goals. British Airways is to scrap its daytime flights from Johannesburg to Heathrow in order to cash in on the collapse of Jet Airways. At present, BA has four daylight departures a week at around 8am from South Africas main hub. The 5,638-mile trip touches down in London shortly after 6pm. All other Johannesburg-London flights are overnight: two on British Airways, two on Virgin Atlantic and a single departure on South African Airways. But the last daytime flight takes off on 1 June. From the following day, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner jets used for the route will be redeployed between Heathrow and Mumbai. Airlines that went bust Show all 12 1 /12 Airlines that went bust Airlines that went bust Air Berlin Air Berlin, which operated flights to and from Berlin Tegel, went bankrupt in 2017 Getty Airlines that went bust Small Planet Lithuanian airline Small Planet filed for insolvency at the end of 2018 Igor Dvurekov Airlines that went bust Monarch Airlines The airline ceased operations in October 2017 AFP/Getty Airlines that went bust VLM Antwerp-based VLM went bankrupt in September 2018 Flo Weiss Airlines that went bust Germania German airline Germania filed for insolvency in February 2019 Getty Airlines that went bust Kingfisher Founded in 2005 ceased flying in October 2012 AFP/Getty Airlines that went bust Cobalt Cobalt, based in Larnaca, Cyprus, stopped flying in October 2018 Steve Lynes Airlines that went bust Mexicana An airline that had been in operation since 1921, went bust in August 2010. It was Mexico's largest airline AFP/Getty Airlines that went bust WOW Air Icelandic Wow Air ceased operation in March 2019 Getty Airlines that went bust Primera Primera, known for its cheap transatlantic fares, went bust in October 2018 Getty Airlines that went bust Transaero A privately-owened airline founded in Russia, 1990 lasted until October 2015 Getty Airlines that went bust Malev After 66 years, Hungary's national airline went stopped flying in 2012 AFP/Getty BA is capitalising on the collapse of the Indian carrier, Jet Airways, which suspended operations earlier this month. Previously Jet Airways flew from Heathrow twice a day to Mumbai and daily to Delhi. A spokesperson for British Airways said: We regularly review our extensive global network and make changes to the schedules where necessary. Well be increasing our Mumbai service from 14 to 18 flights a week due to increased customer demand. Were committed to flying between London and Johannesburg and will continue to serve the city 14 times a week. Customers on flights that have been cancelled are being offered a number of options, including rebooking or refunds. Jet Airways still insists it intends to start flying again, even though its aircraft have been repossessed by lessors and many staff have moved to other airlines. The carriers chief executive, Vinay Dube, told an Indian television station that Jet Airways needs a little over a thousand crores (10bn rupees or 110m) to restart operations. He said the money would get a reasonable amount of aircraft flying again, which gives us the platform from which we can rebuild and we can do that a few weeks after this funding is made available. The airline has tweeted: Weve received hundreds of emails and tweets stating that people are willing and ready to take the next Jet Airways flight as soon as we commence operations. But social media has many complaints from stranded passengers who allege that promised refunds have not materialised. Separately, British Airways is to end its link from Gatwick to Fort Lauderdale in southern Florida in September. BA followed its rival, Norwegian, on the route. Fort Lauderdale is a busy cruise port and an alternative gateway to the Miami area. But Norwegian has now switched its flights from Gatwick to Miami International Airport. FRIENDS First Life Assurance has criticised the failure to regularise under the planning code any system for landlords for Airbnb-style lettings. During an appeal to An Bord Pleanala, the firm hit out at the lack of regularisation. It is seeking to overturn a planning refusal for the temporary use of six apartments at 43-44 Clarendon Street in Dublin for short-term letting. Last month, Dublin City Council gave an emphatic 'no' to the Friends First plan. The Council made its decision after a city council planner's report stated that planning permission would result "in an unwanted precedent for similar development in the area, which may then result in the further unacceptable loss of long-term residential rental properties in the locality". The report stated that the loss of six apartments to short-term letting is a concern due to the housing shortage. However, in its appeal against the decision, Friends First state that "it is compelled to make this appeal for reason of the apparent absence of any method to regularise, under planning statutes, a short tenure of rental for houses and apartments". Friends First state that the only category of house or apartment for short-term lettings will be owner occupied from June of this year. It argues that all other houses and apartments being short let, unless specifically permitted "will remain unauthorised". Friends First state that no planning permission for change of use to short-term lettings has been granted by the City Council since 2016. It has argued that putting the possibility of regularised short-term letting beyond the reach of landlords defeats objectives to encourage leisure visitors to Dublin. Flash The China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has brought opportunities for Africa to accelerate the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, a Zambian think tank said on Friday. Commenting on the opening of the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing, the Policy Monitoring and Research Center said Africa needs to embrace the opportunities presented to enhance trade. The think tank believes that the plans of the BRI presents a chance for Africa to link up in the global trading system. Bernadette Deka-Zulu, the think tank's executive, said opportunities under the BRI may help Africa actualize some of the objectives in the free trading arrangement. She said the BRI offers immense benefits to African countries to spur economic development, indicating that African countries should come up with homegrown plans on how they can fully benefit from the initiative. She further said the BRI will help African countries increase exports as well as attract more foreign direct investments. "Our take is that an investment injection into an African country means a direct investment into economic opportunities for those countries' people. For us in Zambia which is grappling with economic issues right now, more trade means more income," she added. She said authorities in Zambia have come up with strategy on how the country could benefit from the initiative, adding that the initiative has demonstrated that it means for the economic development of Africa. She dispelled allegations by some critics that the initiative was meant to create a "debt trap" in participating countries. According to her, African countries have the right to choose who to associate with, adding that China has demonstrated that it wanted a win-win cooperation agreement. Other Zambian experts said the BRI also presents opportunities for the country and the continent to diversify economies. The experts said that Zambia needs to do a stock of what it is producing in terms of agriculture and other products so as to benefit more from the trade opportunities presented by China. "We have to know what we have to offer and find out from China what products they would want," said Private Sector Development Association President Yusuf Dodia. He pointed out that Zambia has a capacity to produce a lot of food products and the market for food in China is huge given the population of that country. Haggai Kanenga, Lecturer and Researcher in the Department of Development Studies, University of Zambia, observed that China pledges to further open up itself. "This is a good opportunity for Zambia to take up and make sure that we meet some of these anticipations from China," Kanenga. He said that the messages sent by China at the forum presents Zambia with the opportunity to diversify its economy, including the agricultural sector. Phil Hogan made a passionate intervention at the last meeting of the Agricultural Council where ministers had an opportunity to discuss the proposed new green architecture in the Commission's legal proposal. The Commissioner insisted that there is an urgent need for farmers to do more for the environment, and that the need for aiming higher has never been more urgent. The new green architecture refers to the following elements of the Commission proposal: Both ministers and the agricultural committee of the European Parliament have pushed back against the Commission proposals, although neither the parliament nor the council have arrived at their final positions. Among the ideas floated are: To leave the greening conditions voluntary to be funded by the eco-scheme; Give responsibility for encouraging the use of the farm sustainability tool for nutrients to the advisory service rather than making it a mandatory condition to receive direct payments; Cap the amount of Pillar 1 payments that can be used for eco-schemes; Loosen the constraint that agri-environment schemes must account for at least 30pc of Pillar 2 rural development spending. The European Parliament's agricultural committee adopted its opinions on the three CAP-related legal proposals earlier this month. However, a lack of time during this parliamentary session before next month's European Parliament elections means that it will not vote on these opinions until the new parliament reconvenes in July. While the outgoing committee would like to see the new parliament use its opinions as the starting point for its plenary voting, there is no guarantee that this will be the case. Seat projections by polling groups suggest that the composition of the political groups in the new parliament will be different to the current status quo. The agricultural committee in the current parliament has been dominated by the two main parties: the centre-right European People's Party (EPP, to which Fine Gael belongs) and the centre-left Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D, to which the Labour Party belongs). Projections indicate that these two parties will probably lose their joint control of the legislature for the first time in 25 years. Projections indicate that Eurosceptic parties on the right of the political spectrum are likely to make significant gains in the elections. These parties are characterised by hostility to immigration and to the idea of the European Union, favouring stronger powers for nation states. Many of these Eurosceptic parties will likely associate with a new political grouping in the next parliament, the European Alliance for People and Nations, which has been announced by Matteo Salvini, the leader of the governing LEGA party in Italy. Projections suggest that this new grouping and its allies could win up to 25pc of seats in the new parliament. A further 15pc will be held by the left and green parties. The growing strength of Eurosceptic parties will be partially balanced by a projected growth in the liberal ALDE group, to which Fianna Fail is affiliated, who are likely to be joined by members of French President Emmanuel Macron's En Marche group. Adding ALDE MEPs to those from the EPP and S&D groups means it is likely that the pro-Europe mainstream groups will continue to have an overall majority in the parliament with around 55-60pc of the seats, with the remaining taken by non-affiliated MEPs. These are the groups that have been responsible for the agricultural committee opinions in the current parliament, so there is a good chance they will agree to continue with the positions that they have already adopted. If, however, the Eurosceptic parties succeed in forming a unified group after the election, this would give them a much stronger platform to influence the CAP legislation. In the current parliament they are fragmented into three political groups which has limited their impact. How they might use this influence is difficult to say. Although they may share general perspectives, in areas such as economic or agricultural policy, party views can be very diverse. The CAP proposals respond to a growing demand from public opinion across Europe to address the challenges of climate stabilisation and to move food production on to a more sustainable development path. These are also the goals of Irish agricultural policy. But the new parliament, with its different composition, may take a different view on some of the key issues in the current Commission proposal. Opinion may shift on the appropriate degree of targeting of direct payments, on the priority to be given to environmental ambition, and on the need for more active market management instruments. As I have written before, uncertainty about the shape of the future CAP will continue for some time. Alan Matthews is Professor Emeritus of European Agricultural Policy at Trinity College Dublin WPP is in the middle of an overhaul after several profit warnings in 2017 and 2018 The world's biggest advertising firm WPP suffered a sharp drop in first-quarter underlying sales in North America as the loss of work from clients like Ford took a toll on its most important market. WPP, led by company veteran Mark Read following last year's departure of founder Martin Sorrell, said its US performance was disappointing but in line with expectations. Its shares, which fell by more than 50pc between a peak in March 2017 and the end of 2018 before stabilising this year, rose 3pc in mid-morning trading after it reiterated its full-year forecasts. WPP, the owner of agencies including JWT and Ogilvy, is in the middle of an overhaul after several profit warnings in 2017 and 2018 and the turmoil linked to Mr Sorrell's abrupt departure over a complaint of misconduct, which he denied. With technology transforming the industry, clients want WPP to better integrate its agencies so it can produce faster offerings across multiple platforms, more cheaply. Mr Read has said it has failed to invest enough recently in the US, where it was also hit by big account losses. US sales fell by 4.2pc in 2018 and 8.5pc in the first quarter of 2019. Reuters A young couple with a toddler and a baby on the way are given notice to quit - as the landlord hikes the rent by 500 to nearly 2,000 per month. Another young family paying high rent are told by the landlord that they can't put a cot in one of the bedrooms. So, they have to move. At the other end of the age scale, a woman who has lived in the same rented accommodation for 70 years is ordered out of her home. Her own parents lived in the same flat, but she has to leave. Pensioners, forced to join a frantic hunt for affordable property with students and office workers, are consigned to live in substandard homes with mould, unfixed leaks and inadequate heating. The student struggling to find anywhere to stay commutes up to two hours from their family home because they cannot afford to stay close to the university. These are stories of renting in Ireland across the generations in 2019, where home ownership is fast becoming a quaint fantasy for all but the most wealthy. As we head towards the end of the second decade of the 21st century, it is finally dawning on us that the system of housing in Ireland is now a broken model, and it is affecting our whole way of life. Sean Moynihan, chief executive of the charity Alone, says: "Unless a solution is found, there will be pushback in the next few years because it is going to affect a lot of people who never thought they would end up in these situations." The number of renters in the private sector has trebled in Ireland since the year 2000 to 900,000. But Dr Michael Byrne, lecturer in Social Policy at UCD, says the Government has not adapted to this change. "So far, the approach has been one of reacting and firefighting, but there is no clear vision of where we want to go." Traditionally in previous decades, renting was considered a transitional option on the way to home-owning nirvana. Those on average incomes - from carpenters, office workers and plumbers to teachers, nurses and gardai - could aspire to have a place of their own. John-Mark McCafferty, chief executive of housing charity Threshold, says: "In Ireland we had an asset-based welfare system based on the idea of being a homeowner - and paying off your mortgage before you retire. Because you owned your home, you could live on your pension - and leverage your asset to access care." That model has been blown to smithereens for a growing number of people since we went from boom to bust and back again. The rise of the renting generations might be bearable if it was affordable. Even two-bedroom apartments in Dublin commonly cost up to 2,000 per month - and rents have spiralled upwards in towns and cities across the country. It is hard enough for middle-income earners to find affordable options, and compete for properties, even when they are earning reasonable salaries. But what will this growing cohort of families and single people do when they reach retirement age, and they still face enormous rents - without any capital built up in a home? In recent years there has been much focus on the pensions time bomb as the population ages, but there is also the looming threat of a rental time bomb. The rapid ageing of our population will be one of the most significant social developments of the next two decades. The number of people over the age of 65 is expected to reach 1.4 million by 2040, or close to a quarter of the total population. At the moment, up to 85pc of people over 65 own their own homes, but that number is likely to plummet in the coming years. According to a housing report by the charity Alone, 10pc of Irish people aged 50 to 54 rent their homes from private landlords. McCafferty of Threshold highlights how we have moved away from the home-ownership model and this trend was already apparent in the last census. The census of 2016 showed a 38pc increase in the number of 35-44 year old who are renting. The trend is also evident in the older age groups with a 22pc increase in those renting between the ages of 55 to 64, and a 24pc increase among over 65s. The Celtic Tiger crash contributed to these numbers. A significant number of renters previously owned their homes, but lost them in the crash as they could not afford the mortgage. Another contributory factor is the rise in the number of divorced or separated people. The emergence of the "cuckoo funds", corporate investors who are snapping up whole apartment blocks across the country, has also helped to push families into the rental sector, according to Dr Michael Byrne. Earlier in the decade, the Government rolled out the red carpet for investment trusts with generous tax terms. Since 2012, almost 10,000 housing units have been bought by corporate investors - and 3,000 homes were bought by them last year. Many new housing schemes are now built for rent only, because developers find that they are more profitable. "We are not victims of international funds here, because it is part of government policy," says Dr Byrne. "If your government makes attracting international capital into your property market one of its priorities, you can be sure it will make it difficult for ordinary homebuyers to compete against them." It could be argued that corporate investors have boosted supply in the rental sector - and are more professional in their approach to looking after properties than mom and pop landlords. But Threshold's John-Mark McCafferty says they tend to focus on the upper end of the market, and are not providing accommodation for low- to middle-income groups. They can also set a benchmark of high rents. An Irish Government survey earlier this year showed that the majority of renters still cling to the home-owning ideal. Up to 86pc said they would prefer to buy if they had the choice. But we will have to adapt to the reality that a significant section of the population will rent in the future. In order to reduce the stress for tenants, McCafferty believes we need to improve the security of tenure in rental properties. Threshold tackles numerous cases where landlords push tenants out for spurious reasons in order to push up the rent. In other countries, tenants may have indefinite tenancies so long as they are paying the rent and obeying the rules. And tenants can stay put even if a property is sold. In Germany, the average length of tenancy is 11 years. The insecurity suffered by tenants affects the cohesion of communities. They may be forced to move far away from schools, churches, friends and family - loosening community ties and creating a society of atomised individuals. Dr Michael Byrne of UCD says we cannot rely on the market to house our population. "If you are relying solely on the market for housing, there is a high likelihood that you will have periods of inadequate supply linked to a boom/bust cycle. You need 20-30pc of your housing to come from other sources." Dr Byrne advocates the cost-rental model popular in continental countries such as Austria. This means that as a tenant, you pay a rent which covers the cost of a housing body providing your home, but nobody makes a profit. While some tenants on low incomes may be subsidised, most will simply cover the cost of the rent, which normally works out at an average of 75pc of private sector rent. "In Austria, renting property in this way is extremely common among people of many different backgrounds, and it is not seen as a poverty alleviation measure." The Government is supporting a few cost rental schemes, but there is little sign that they will meet the enormous demand for affordable housing from those who earn too much for social housing and too little to own a home of their own. Radical action will be required, and the desperate yearning from tenants for an affordable roof over their heads is only likely to become greater in the coming years. 'My wife was pregnant and we were told to leave' Expand Close Edwin Mullane at his home in Raheny. Photo by Kyran O'Brien / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Edwin Mullane at his home in Raheny. Photo by Kyran O'Brien Edwin Mullane won a wrongful termination of tenancy case against his landlord after his family were unfairly forced to leave their apartment on the Northside of Dublin. The landlord claimed she was selling the apartment, but Edwin discovered soon after his family had left that a new tenant had moved in on a much higher rent. "Losing your home when you have a child and your wife is pregnant is one of the most stressful things that you can go through," says Edwin, who works in the arts. "That is why I am passionate about helping others. The more we can do to help each other be aware of tenants' rights, the more we can do to cut down stress for other families." Edwin's wife Elaine is a yoga teacher, and they now have two young boys, aged three and one. In 2017, when Elaine was expecting her second child, the landlord told them they would have to move out, because she was selling up. "I asked the landlord if there was any way we could stay until after the baby was born," says Edwin. "She told us she wanted an extra 500 per month for us to stay." The apartment was in a rent pressure zone, where landlords are not allowed to hike rent by more than 4pc. So the proposed increase of 500 broke that limit. "We said that we could not pay the extra rent of that amount. And then she said she would have to sell the place. "She told us she was selling but she made no effort to market the property. "We were only out of the apartment two weeks when a friend of mine told me someone had moved in - and I knew no sale could be turned around in that time." Edwin enlisted the support of housing charity Threshold and took a case to Residential Tenancies Board, which found in his favour. "My generation has come into this horrendous ramped up market," he says. "Unless we start complaining or take action about this, nothing will be done. "There is very little security for tenants in Ireland. I have friends in Edinburgh, Paris and Berlin - and they are not looking over their shoulder, worrying about what might happen if the landlord calls. "We are very positive people and we don't want to be portrayed as victims. "We just want to raise awareness of the rights of tenants in Ireland and the work Threshold is doing." 'My retirement plan - keep working until I drop dead' Expand Close Aengus Hennessy with his wife Latifa Krim and sons Deedee (12) and Oisin (9) at their home in Decourcey Square. Photo by Kyran O'Brien / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Aengus Hennessy with his wife Latifa Krim and sons Deedee (12) and Oisin (9) at their home in Decourcey Square. Photo by Kyran O'Brien Aengus Hennessy is one of the growing number of older tenants in their fifties who are uncertain about what happens when they reach retirement age. The 51-year-old cabinet maker rents a house in Glasnevin with his partner Latifa Krim, an artist and teacher. They have two boys, aged 12 and 9. "What is my retirement plan? I keep working until I drop dead. I will have a state pension, which is a pittance," Aengus says, only half-jokingly. Aengus and Latifa pay 1,500 per month for their house - and he estimates that up to 70pc of his income goes in rent. Although he likes his home, he believes tenants are like second-class citizens in Ireland. Aengus, a member of the Dublin Tenants Association, holds out for the hope that he could buy some land and move to the country. He says rapacious landlords from real estate investment trusts (REITs) are moving into Ireland, a country with poor tenancy laws, and outbidding regular buyers. "The traditional idea of getting a mortgage and paying it off over your lifetime has gone," he says. "We have a lot invested in the area where we live - I work nearby and we have two kids in school. "The problem is that tenants have no security of tenure. We can be evicted for any reason at any time. "There should be security of tenure for all tenants so long as they are paying their rent." He says improved security of tenure would benefit both landlords and tenants. "Without it, tenants are not invested in a house and so are unlikely to maintain a property that they may be evicted from. "However, when they feel secure in a house and feel that it is a home, then they are far more likely to maintain a property and engage in the community." 'The porch collapsed on my husband's head and the landlord just laughed' Patricia Lanney (42) has seen both sides of the rental divide as both a landlord and tenant. She rented out an apartment in Tallaght, Co Dublin and says the place was wrecked by some of the tenants. As a tenant living in a house in neighbouring Kingswood with her husband, she herself had an unhappy experience with a landlord. After the landlord refused to pay back a 1,000 deposit, she took a case to the Residential Tenancies Board and won on appeal. "We never had a good relationship with the landlord from the first couple of months. "I couldn't believe how filthy it was when we moved in. The flooring was popping up in areas. There was chewing gum stuck on things. "There were holes in the walls in the bathroom. The shower was leaking and there were holes in the ceiling. "There was an old weather porch - and my husband closed it one day when he was going out to work and it fell on his head. "When I rang the landlord, she just started laughing. If anything went wrong in the house and you called her, she could get quite abusive. "After a few years we stopped calling her because of the abuse we got. "Tenants are afraid that if they ring the landlord too much, he or she will decide to get rid of them. "There is also the privacy issue. You are always on tenterhooks in case the landlord turns up. "The neighbours told us that the landlord used to come around when we were on holidays and peep in the window. "In March of last year, she gave us notice to leave, because she said she was selling the place. "We left the place immaculate, and we thought we would have no problem getting the deposit back. "She said we were not getting the money back." After an appeal before the Residential Tenancies Board, she got her deposit back, plus 300 damages. She and her husband are now living back in her family home with her father. They are now searching for a home to buy. "I think a lot of people are moving back to their family homes because the situation is so bad. "There is no way that I am going to rent again after my experiences." 'I had to leave when an investor bought my flat' Expand Close Jumping through hoops: Mark Robson's rent was hiked from 550 to 900 a month by investors. Photo: Kyran O'Brien / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Jumping through hoops: Mark Robson's rent was hiked from 550 to 900 a month by investors. Photo: Kyran O'Brien Like a good number of mature tenants across Ireland, Mark Robson owned his own house at one time. But the 63-year-old lost everything in the crash of 2008, including his job as a lorry driver. "I could no longer afford my mortgage, so I had to give up my home," he says. After working in computer security for three years in Latvia, Robson returned to Ireland and rented a two-bed apartment in Ballivor, Co Meath with the support of a Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) "It was not fit for people to live in. There was mould and damp, which affected my health, and the roof leaked," says the widower. Then, last year, an investor bought up the block of flats, and pushed up the rent from 550 to 900. "I was not told of the rent increase and later I was told that I was 600 in arrears." Last October, he faced the threat of homelessness when he had to leave his flat. "In Dublin, a landlord would not be allowed to buy a load of flats and almost double the rent. "Landlords in Ireland are getting away with murder. There should be inspectors who check these places out." Fortunately, Mark recently received support from the Alone charity, and has since found a flat close by, which is paid for through the HAP 'The landlord wouldn't let me put in baby furniture' Expand Close Leonardo with his partner Tabata and their two-month-old daughter Stella in the apartment they rent in Rathfarnham. Picture by Frank Mc Grath / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Leonardo with his partner Tabata and their two-month-old daughter Stella in the apartment they rent in Rathfarnham. Picture by Frank Mc Grath Leonardo dos Santos and his partner Tabata had to move out of one apartment after the landlord refused to allow them to put baby furniture in one of the bedrooms for their daughter Stella. Leonardo, who works as a software engineer, moved here last year to take up a job. He was surprised how difficult it was to find an apartment, and attended dozens of viewings with queues stretching outside the building. The Brazilian IT worker says in his home country, tenants have a lot more control over the property and can make it like a home, so long as they leave it in the same state as when they arrive. "In Ireland, everything is so tightly controlled - you are like a guest overpaying to be in someone else's apartment." The couple pay 1,900 per month for their two-bed flat - half of his net income. Even paying an enormous rent, the couple were barred from organising one of the bedrooms for their baby in their first flat in Ireland. He says he feels more pressure since his daughter Stella was born. He worries about the hardships he could face if the landlord wanted to sell and he had to find another place at a higher rent. "It's a constant cloud of fear hovering over us that if the prices keep rising, soon we won't be able to afford a place." He has no doubt that the spiralling property prices are discouraging skilled people in his industry from coming to Ireland. He had friends who were considered coming here, but decided against it because of the accommodation costs. "I told them it's a great place to live, but it's rental madness. "The prices are out of control." The bohemian property owner Marie-Therese Underwood, who, along with her husband Ivor, reputedly owned 70 Georgian houses in Dublin's inner city back in the 1990s, has left 7,893,281 in her will. The elegant Ms Underwood, who wore a distinctive turban, was rumoured to have been a former dancer with The Royalettes troupe at Dublin's old Theatre Royal. She lived in Glengariffe House in Dalkey, Co Dublin, and drove a 1950s cream and maroon vintage Wolseley well into the present century. When her husband died in 2006, he left an estate in Ireland and England valued at 69m, but when duties and taxes were paid, the net value came to 33,952,852. His estate included a castle in England, 7m in shares and property in Dublin valued at 27m. Southampton-born Ivor Basil Underwood left his entire fortune to Marie-Therese, but she "disclaimed and renounced" it in favour of their only child, Lise. The couple were members of the Irish Georgian Society in the 1960s, a time when whole sections of the old red-bricked streetscape was being torn down by developers. The couple bought run-down Georgian houses all over the north city, including large and neglected properties in Henrietta Street, North Great Georges Street, Eccles Street, Mountjoy Square and in Kildare Street and Baggot Street in the south inner city. Nobody else (apart from developers) wanted them and many were bought cheaply. But the portfolio was huge and required major remedial works that the couple didn't have to resources to complete. That led to friction with the Georgian Society, the City Council and adjoining householders like Senator David Norris. They tended to rent cheaply, often to artists, writers and eccentrics in search of inexpensive accommodation where they were also expected to fulfil a caretaker's role. It was an ad hoc arrangement that proved quite dysfunctional. The couple were habitues of Dublin's jazz scene and tended to guard their privacy. However, it was recognised by some that in buying this portfolio they saved many Georgian houses from demolition and could be said to have contributed much to the architectural preservation of the city at a time when it was neither popular nor profitable. Ms Underwood died on March 12 and is survived by her daughter, two sisters and a brother. 'I feel like a real Irish cailin," tweeted the Chinese-born writer Yan Ge. A copy of Being Various: New Irish Short Stories had just arrived in the post and she'd seen that her story, 'How I Fell in Love with the Well-Documented Life of Alexander Whelan', opens the anthology - which also contains work by the likes of Lisa McInerney, Sally Rooney and Eimear McBride. When Yan Ge moved to Ireland in 2015, the first book she read was Town and Country: New Irish Short Stories, edited by Kevin Barry, a previous anthology in the Faber series. Now things had come full-circle. It was, she said, "magical". Melatu Uche Okorie, who came to Ireland from Nigeria as an asylum seeker, responded similarly to the news that her story, 'BrownLady12345', a subtle and nuanced account of a refugee exploring his sexuality, would be published in the anthology. "Would you believe," she wrote in an email to me, "I have three editions of the Faber New Irish Short Stories series? And now I get a chance to be a part of it? This is MY Irish dream come true!" Anthologies matter. Before I was a published writer, before I had started to consider myself an Irish writer, and long before I even dreamed of editing one of them, I too had the David Marcus-edited anthologies on my bookshelves. Whenever I travel to a new place, I buy an anthology of that country's literature. It might be the Dalkey Archive's Best of Contemporary Mexican Fiction or Beirut 39: New Writing from the Arab World or Modern Greek Writing: An Anthology in English Translation. Anthologies are an easy introduction to a place's literature, and an instant snapshot of how that place sees itself. I have several anthologies of ghost stories, too, and love stories, always a sharp glimpse into the psyche of a particular time, and many anthologies of "young" or "emerging" writers. The word anthology, first used in 1624, comes from the Greek word for flower, "anthos", and "logia", meaning to gather. It's a bouquet of flowers, an offering. Anthologies are a joy to read because of this delightful sense of variety: there's always a story, a writer, a mood to suit the moment. But the act of anthologising is a deeply political one, too. The mid-century anthologies of Irish writing on my shelves invariably have only a handful of women writers, and usually the same three or four names. I have anthologies of contemporary Irish literature that do not include a single Northern writer. "New" is too often a synonym for "young". And very few, even those that purport to be 21st century collections, include work by Irish-born or currently-residing writers who have mixed cultural heritage. As Linda Anderson and Dawn Miranda Sherratt-Bado, the editors of the recent Female Lines: New Writing by Women from Northern Ireland, say in their introduction: "There is a risk in the way that anthologies are seen as constructors of a canon. They can be used to cement existing hierarchies and unknown absences." The predecessor to their anthology, The Female Line, published by the Northern Ireland Women's Rights Movement in 1985, came about when its editor, Ruth Hooley, lamented the lack of female writers on further and higher education course reading lists, or on the covers of locally published fiction and poetry. She stated bluntly that her aim for the book was "to highlight what is being written and to encourage more women towards publication". Sinead Gleeson, similarly, described her landmark 2015 New Island publication The Long Gaze Back: An Anthology of Irish Women Writers as an act of "literary archaeology", seeking out writers who had all but vanished, and physically locating texts and work of a suitable length, in order to question and rebut the ways in which women writers are so frequently erased from the canon. Its publication spurred many conversations about whose stories are missing, not just from the literary pantheon, but our quotidian lives. It was at a panel discussion for The Long Gaze Back in Belfast that the four Northern women panellists remarked in incredulity how rare it was to share a stage, and agreed we needed our own anthology, and The Glass Shore: Short Stories by Women Writers from the North of Ireland was born. A good anthology becomes more than the sum of its parts. The stories talk to each other: augment and contradict each other. As the editor, you try to curate the contents in ways that will allow for such conversations to occur. David Marcus saw the energy of his Faber series as coming from the juxtaposition of brand-new writers alongside established and lauded names, so that was my first guiding principle. My second was to focus on writers who began to publish after the Good Friday Agreement. It changed everything for my generation, and for the North, allowing us, for the first time, a plurality of identity; opening the way both practically and psychologically for a new sort of Irish identity. This seemed entirely in keeping with the Marcus spirit. Video of the Day The final rule was that all work had to be brand new. That meant I commissioned writers, rather than selecting from stories already written, so I had little control over subject matter. But I knew from the start that I wanted a good representation of female writers, and writers from the North, and perhaps most importantly of all, of writers who might be Irish by dint of parentage or residence rather than birth. I wanted, also, representatives of the sort of writing that's all too often excluded from self-styled "literary" anthologies. Young Adult fiction is the place where some of the thorniest questions about feminism and bodily autonomy are being addressed, and where the frankest discussions about gender and sexuality take place. The importance of the crime-writing scene in the North, and the way it has confronted the political violence of the past, especially in the absence of a formal Truth and Reconciliation Commission, has long been under, if not unacknowledged. It seemed crucial, too, at a time of rising right-wing rhetoric, when the mainstream media seems evermore intent on normalising the ugliest types of nationalist and neo-fascist sentiment, to make a gesture of openness. Being Various: New Irish Short Stories is a snapshot of where we are, now. It's also a provocation: it asks, just as many of its individual stories do, again and again, questions about contemporary Irishness which cannot be answered, only further complicated. But most of all, it's a celebration - of the range of brilliant writers we have working today, and of the spirit of glorious multiplicity, taking its title from Louis MacNeice's poem, 'Snow', and the lines that are the closest I have to an article of faith: "World is crazier and more of it than we think / Incorrigibly plural." Long may that be the case. I pass on the torch. Being Various: New Irish Short Stories, edited by Lucy Caldwell, is published by Faber The third season of The Good Fight (RTE1) began this week with hotshot Chicago lawyer Diane suspecting that hubby Kurt was having an affair, but it turned out to be much worse and a lot more shameful than that. The blonde hairs she had discovered on his sweater after he returned from a shooting expedition belonged, not to some mysterious woman, but to one of Donald Trump's sons, who had borrowed the jumper while out slaughtering wildlife. The Trump-hating Diane was aghast. Meanwhile, the mainly black law firm for which she now works had just discovered that their late founder, a close friend of Martin Luther King, had been sexually assaulting female members of his staff for decades. "If this goes public, we're suddenly Weinstein", a senior partner warned as they wondered whether to enforce non-disclosure agreements or take it on the chin. The Good Fight is a spin-off from The Good Wife, which ran for 156 episodes from 2009 to 2016. That was a smart and involving series, but The Good Fight seems to me even better, not least because Christine Baranski's Diane has moved from being sidekick to taking centre stage, a role that Baranski commandingly inhabits, her withering looks tempered by her natural decency. The supporting cast - Delroy Lindo, Rose Leslie, Cush Jumbo - are excellent, too, while the writing has become notably sharper in its treatment of an America that's very different and more alarming than the one Diane and her colleagues lived in during the reign of Obama. In a mostly lacklustre television week, The Good Fight provided the most lively and dramatically engrossing hour, though the 90-minute documentary, The Importance of Being Oscar (BBC2), was impressive, too. This took the form of a biography, with lots of talking heads on hand to further the narrative and provide insights, but with lots of extracts from Wilde's plays, too, enacted impressively by Anna Chancellor, Claire Skinner, Nicholas Rowe and other luminaries of stage and screen. Wilde's grandson, Merlin Holland, had much to say that was both sensible and interesting and had "no doubt" that, despite Oscar's homosexual life, he was in love with Constance and that their marriage was not "a smokescreen" for other activities. Frank McGuinness chose to focus on Wilde's artistic genius, celebrating The Importance of Being Earnest because "it loves the English language" and is "perfect" in a way that not even the greatest of Shakespeare plays manage to be. Stephen Fry, Jerusha McCormack and Matthew Sturgis were other notable contributors to an absorbing film. Meanwhile, another sainted Irishman featured in Two Lukes (RTE1), which related how Dublin City Council got cold feet about the enormous head of Luke Kelly that had been created by Vera Klute and thus commissioned a more conventional statue by sculptor John Coll as well. Video of the Day Fellow member of The Dubliners, John Sheahan, wondered what Luke would think about it all. "I'd say he'd probably dismiss it and say they've little to be doing, doing a statue of me." And Klute's gigantic decapitated head caused some consternation when it was first shown to the Kelly family, brother John deeming it to be "out of proportion", Luke's friend Des Geraghty thinking it looked like a "death mask", and Dublin City Council public arts manager Ruairi O Cuiv cautioning that "a sculpture isn't just for Christmas, it's for life". Hence the second commission and hence Dublin City Council's blithe decision to allow both to be erected - the Klute in Sheriff Street and the Coll in South King Street, and the unveiling honours performed on the same day by President Michael D Higgins. For myself, and for what it's worth, if there are to be two commemorative statues of Luke Kelly in Dublin there should be 10 of Ronnie Drew, the greatest of all The Dubliners, and maybe of all Dubliners. Heresy, I know, but there you have it. In this week's At Your Service (RTE1), the Brennan brothers were camping it up in Kilfenora: dancing jigs in a bar, sleeping in a hostel's bunk beds, painting outside walls and other such codology. Are they not taking this gig, now in its 10th season, with the seriousness it supposedly deserves? Actually, this was a peculiarly dispiriting episode, with neither of the brothers happy about the degree of enthusiasm shown by siblings Orla and Mark in fulfilling their allotted tasks. Apparently there were financial problems, while the "vibe" between the siblings had seemingly become problematic, but the viewer wasn't told how or why. That, though, is not new in this series, viewers being usually left in the dark about the fate of these makeover enterprises. Are most of them even still in business? It would be interesting to know, though that might tarnish the feel-good factor that's so essential to the Brennan brand. The six-episode Quicksand (Netflix) begins arrestingly with the aftermath of a classroom shooting in which the only survivor appears to be blood-spattered 18-year-old Maja, who's promptly arrested for mass murder. So did she do it? Well, this Stockholm-set Swedish thriller unfolds in flashbacks and as I've only watched the first episode, I haven't a clue, but it's artfully constructed and has a striking lead performance from Hanna Ardehn as Maja, so it might well be worth your time and mine. And you should catch Brexit: The Clock is Ticking on RTE Player. This follows chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier and his team as they try to deal with Theresa May and her Tory headbangers. It's full of intriguing and amusing moments. The CEO of Vodafone Ireland says progress in gender equality in this country has "been painfully slow and there is so much more to do". Anne O'Leary made the remarks while addressing the opening ceremony of the Women In Media Conference last night. The annual event, sponsored by Vodafone, is now in its seventh year and is taking place in Kilcooly's Country House in Ballybunion, Co Kerry, this weekend. Ms O'Leary said things have continued to improve for Irish women, particularly with the repeal of the Eighth Amendment last May. "There's no doubt that as Irish women we have more rights and freedoms than our mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers. "However, gender equality in Ireland has yet to be achieved in many areas. Progress has been painfully slow and there is so much more to do," she said. "As a woman in Ireland, you are likely to be paid less than your male counterpart, more likely to face sexual violence and harassment and continue to have the responsibility of being the primary care-giver." Earlier, Joan O'Connor, founder of the event, dedicated this year's conference to the memory of the murdered journalist Lyra McKee. Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, broadcasters Miriam O'Callaghan and Keelin Shanley, MEP Mairead McGuinness and Vodafone CEO Anne O'Leary are just some of the names who will feature in the discussions over the weekend on topics including housing, the future of journalism, and Brexit. Joseph Maher threatened workers with dog like one above A dog owner threatened to set his Staffordshire Bull Terrier on frightened staff at a pizzeria when they refused to serve him food because he was drunk. Joseph Maher (42) "bullied" the restaurant workers while demanding pizza and using his dog as a "potential weapon" against them. Suspending a one-month sentence, Judge John Hughes said while the terrier was a "much-loved family pet", many people would be fearful of the breed and Maher "didn't threaten them with his cat or his hamster". As well as the suspended sentence, the judge imposed fines totalling 1,050. Abusive Maher, from Landen Road, Ballyfermot in Dublin, pleaded guilty to threatening, abusive and insulting behaviour and being in charge of a dog without a muzzle. Gda Lee Gorman of Kilmainham Garda Station told Dublin District Court the incident happened at Four Star Pizza, South Circular Road, on November 14, 2018. The accused went to the premises in an intoxicated state, with his dog, and ordered a pizza. When staff refused to serve him and asked him to leave, he threatened to set the dog on them. The workers were behind the counter and called gardai. When Gda Gorman arrived, the accused repeated the threat to him. Judge Hughes said it was a serious case. "Whilst Mr Maher's pet dog may well be a much-loved pet in his house, the reality is that there are many people in society who are fearful of a Staffordshire Bull Terrier and don't share the same love of the breed that Mr Maher does," he said. "In his intoxicated state he saw fit to threaten both gardai and members of staff that he would set on them what he perceived as something that would frighten them. "He didn't threaten them with his cat or hamster. He sought to bully them and effectively force them to serve him ... "In this case his pet was a potential weapon against them. Such was his behaviour and the level of threat they telephoned gardai to seek assistance." The pizzeria staff did not wish to be heard in court as victims, and Judge Hughes said as a result he was not in a position to "gauge the reality of the threats". He asked Gda Gorman if the accused had been convincing in his threat. "Yes, he was aggressive, he wanted his pizza and he first stated that he was going to set the dog on staff if he didn't get the pizza and then he said he would set the dog on me," Gda Gorman replied. The court heard the accused was on disability allowance and the dog was licensed. Pet Judge Hughes said it appeared the dog was a family pet, co-owned by the accused's wife. The judge said he would not make any order in relation to the dog or prohibit the accused from owning one. Maher was to be given credit for seeing fit to apologise to the garda, but he had never apologised to staff, the judge noted. His barrister said Maher conveyed that apology now. The offence happened in November last year so it was "not a compliment to him" that he did not see fit to apologise to them earlier, the judge said. He suspended the one-month sentence for a year. Granting legal aid to cover a barrister, the judge said but for the mitigation heard, he would have had no hesitation in imprisoning Maher. Health Minister Simon Harris has said it is "irresponsible" to send unvaccinated children to school and he is seeking the advice of the attorney general on the issue of a mandatory programme of immunisation. Mr Harris also said it is time politicians were "called out" on whether or not they support vaccination programmes. He intends to write to all TDs and senators next week seeking a public commitment that they support childhood immunisation and the HPV vaccine for girls and boys. It comes amid growing rates of diseases like measles around the world. Mr Harris previously said he "instinctively" agrees with the suggestion unvaccinated children should be excluded from schools or creches. This has happened in New York and Italy. At the opening of a new primary care centre in Dublin, Mr Harris said he has written to Attorney General Seamus Woulfe to formally seek his legal advice on the issue of vaccination: "We obviously have a written Constitution and we need to take legal advice in relation to what we can and can't do legislatively in this country. "We need to form an alliance of healthcare professionals and policy makers to push back against the absolute nonsense that is put out by some, often on social media in relation to vaccination. "Vaccinations work but we're seeing the impact of the scaremongering in terms of the rates, not just in this country but in international reports. "It's time we actually called out our politicians on this question. I want to know does every politician in Dail Eireann and Seanad Eireann support the childhood immunisation programme and support the HPV vaccine." Flash The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is growing up and gaining global traction, said Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF), here on Friday. In an interview with Xinhua on the sidelines of the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF), he said that when he attended the first BRF in 2017, the BRI "was still a child growing up and you don't know what the end of it will be." "Now the BRI has become an adult, which means that it has become an important factor in the global economy. It has grown up," he told Xinhua. Illustrating his understanding of the BRI in a speech at the ongoing second BRF, the professor said that through the BRI and institutions like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, China can demonstrate to the world that "the philosophy and concept of the Belt and Road is more than an important initiative." The WEF founder, an advocate of "Globalization 4.0," said that if people want globalization to continue as a positive force, a higher level of globalization is needed to respond to the needs and realities of a transforming world. The BRI, he added, can be "a building block and a role model of" an advanced pattern of global cooperation that should be more sustainable, more inclusive and more collaborative. Over the years, Schwab has articulated on many occasions his views of the BRI. At the 2015 Summer Davos Forum in northeast China's port city of Dalian, he said he was happy to see that China proposed the BRI. There was a huge infrastructure demand in Asia and Europe, and it was a good thing for China to play a leading role in building infrastructure in the region, he noted. Partly thanks to the fact that it met the development needs of many countries, the BRI continued with rapid progress, promoting common development in participating countries and bringing Asia and Europe ever closer. On May 13, 2017, the 1,000th China-Europe freight train that year departed from China's eastern city of Yiwu to Europe, fully loaded with commodities like smallware and clothes. The next day, Schwab reaffirmed his full support for the BRI in an address at the first BRF. Not hiding his enthusiasm about the BRI, he said the initiative "takes a long-term and holistic view, and makes a unique contribution to international cooperation and economic development." He pointed out that connectivity, a primary focus of the BRI, "is the new meta-pattern of our era and a key driver of our future economy." Citing a Chinese saying that "if you want to get rich, build a road," he said, "I would update this to say: 'If you seek prosperity, build connectivity.'" One month later, in an interview with Xinhua ahead of the 2017 Summer Davos Forum, also held in Dalian, Schwab pointed to the BRI's paradigm-shifting significance. "The Belt and Road Initiative has great significance because it is a new approach to reach a new and open cooperation ... and everybody can participate in a win-win situation as an equal partner," he said. Since Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed the initiative six years ago, 126 countries and 29 international organizations have signed BRI cooperation documents with China. The initiative has become the world's largest platform for international cooperation and the most welcomed global public good. The BRI "is now growing up into a mature initiative that can have even more impact," Schwab told Xinhua. Wilder weather and rising heat due to climate change will pose significant health risks for Ireland, including an increase in potentially fatal disease from 170,000 water wells. Dr Ina Kelly, HSE public health specialist in the midlands, said Ireland is particularly vulnerable to the damaging effects of climate change, particularly due to the risk of contamination of drinking water from private wells. Households depending on private wells can be left more at risk from a nasty form of E.coli, known as VTEC, which is already very high in Ireland. "We have very significant vulnerabilities to climate change: for example, our susceptibility to serious water-borne disease from severe rainfall events is very high, with 170,000 private wells around the country providing untreated and sometimes contaminated drinking water," she told the annual meeting of the Irish Medical Organisation in Killarney. As the picturesque Co Kerry town was battered by Storm Hannah yesterday, she told the gathering of doctors that VTEC can claim the lives of 1pc of people who get the bug. There have been 68 outbreaks in the last decade affecting 1,189 people, and around half are due to contaminated water. She warned Ireland doesn't have a heatwave action plan and this is needed. There are serious health consequences for some vulnerable people in extreme heat and there were scenes of unbearable suffering last summer, including the testimony of a patient who was in a hospital ward with no air conditioning. "It appears that climate change will have four primary effects: more extreme weather, a change in precipitation levels, warmer weather and rising sea levels. These events in isolation may be very challenging; together, they could pose a potential climate disaster for many Irish people," she said. "It is good to see more emphasis on the environment, but up to now that emphasis has been on mitigation which is essential, but not enough. "We need to move to an adaptive approach to secure our environment. If as we don't, think about how many people will lose their houses and livelihoods, and the subsequent effect on their health. The effects could be monumental." Dr Kelly, a member of the Climate Change Advisory Council's adaptation committee, said the health service also needs to adapt. "Some of our hospital buildings are probably not fit for purpose even now, in terms of room temperature control and hygiene facilities," she said. "In the context of doctors leaving the country in their thousands, the future of healthcare is very concerning and greater focus is required on getting the basics right." A hotel worker accused in the Maldives of the manslaughter of an Irish child has spoken about fleeing the island. Toddler Max Musgrave, son of Dubliners Tara and Trevor Musgrave, died on October 23, 2017 after drowning in a private pool in a luxury resort while on holiday. Jeanne Manon Moutet (24), a French national who was working as a catering coordinator at the five-star Huvafen Fushi Resort, was charged by Maldivian authorities with the offence of causing "death by negligence" in January 2018. However, the Frenchwoman fled home in November 2018, and has now spoken about the "shocking" ordeal. Manon said she was working in the restaurant when she was asked by management to babysit three Irish children before the accident occurred in October 2017. According to French media, Manon was looking after the three children, an eight-year-old girl, a four-year-old and a 23-month-old boy, when the two eldest children became "agitated". The details of what happened next are unclear. A short time later, the 23-month-old boy was found in a private pool just a few metres from his parents' room. According to the police report published by Le Parisien, the family said that their son's death was because of the management's negligence. Speaking last week, Manon said: "After one week of investigation, I was made to sign papers in Maldivian that I do not understand. "In reality, these are papers that say that I am accused of being responsible for the death of the boy but I was told that I was only suspected." Now, Manon says she will continue to live her life with "this feeling of fault". Police in the Maldives shared a public appeal for Manon's location in December 2018, but it is "unlikely" she will be extradited back there from France. Max's father Trevor Musgrave, originally from Castleknock, owns a luxury car dealership called Onyx, while his Malahide-born wife Tara previously worked in fashion. Like a good number of mature tenants across Ireland, Mark Robson owned his own house at one time. But the 63-year-old lost everything in the crash of 2008, including his job as a lorry driver. "I could no longer afford my mortgage, so I had to give up my home," he says. After working in computer security for three years in Latvia, Robson returned to Ireland and rented a two-bed apartment in Ballivor, Co Meath with the support of a Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) "It was not fit for people to live in. There was mould and damp, which affected my health, and the roof leaked," says the widower. Then, last year, an investor bought up the block of flats, and pushed up the rent from 550 to 900. "I was not told of the rent increase and later I was told that I was 600 in arrears." Last October, he faced the threat of homelessness when he had to leave his flat. "In Dublin, a landlord would not be allowed to buy a load of flats and almost double the rent. "Landlords in Ireland are getting away with murder. There should be inspectors who check these places out." Fortunately, Mark recently received support from the Alone charity, and has since found a flat close by, which is paid for through the HAP scheme. A 92-year-old man has spent more than 70 days at Sligo University Hospital despite being medically fit to be discharged for at least 60 days, it has emerged. The case has been highlighted by consultant cardiologist Dr Donal Murray, who believes that lack of home-help hours is the reason for the man's prolonged stay in hospital. The consultant, who described the case as "crazy stuff", said it was a miracle that the man had not caught a bug on the ward, or fallen and broken his hip "as will often happen with elderly people in hospital". He said the man, who lives on his own in a remote rural area, was a classic example of someone who would do very well at home with just a bit of assistance from a home help who could keep an eye on him, and do a bit of work around the house. In an interview with Ocean FM, Dr Murray said it was an "extraordinary" situation. He said that from the man's point of view, the longer he remained in hospital the more difficult it would be for him when discharged. He said the hospital had a surge in referrals from the emergency department in the past month or two while many patients were on corridors. "And this poor man, through no fault of his own, to use that very crude term, is blocking a bed on people who are needing a bed, and it is absolutely no fault of his," added the cardiologist. On April 9 last there were 50 patients on trolleys in Sligo University Hospital, the second-highest figure in the country that day, according to figures compiled by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO). Dr Murray said the 92-year-old, who yesterday was on his 71st day in Sligo hospital, had been admitted with cardiac issues which were resolved very quickly, "within a week really". He said the man was fit to be discharged for at least 60 days. The consultant said something had gone wrong with funding for the home-help system and it needed to be addressed urgently. He said he had written to "anyone in management I can think of" but had heard nothing back. He had heard on the grapevine that funding for home help was the issue. Dr Murray added that in the run-up to the election "this is one question I will be putting to anyone coming to my doorstep looking for a vote - what is happening with our home-help system in this part of the world?" The HSE has been asked for a comment. There were 445 admitted patients waiting for beds yesterday; 306 of these were waiting in the emergency department, said the INMO. Separately, Mental Health and Older People Minister Jim Daly has called on the HSE to implement recommendations of the report into 'delayed discharges'. The Independent Expert Review of Delayed Discharges recognised that delayed discharges are caused by a multitude of factors, and it made nine recommendations which include the development of a national policy to provide for a more consistent approach to recording instances, strengthening data collection, standardising definitions and ensuring consistent discharge guidelines. Homelessness campaigner Fr Peter McVerry says he believes more than half a million people are living in a "housing situation causing them serious distress". Speaking at the Women in Media conference in Ballybunion, Co Kerry, Fr McVerry said the housing crisis affects far more than the 10,000 people in emergency accommodation. Those in "distress" include people "living in crowded accommodation, poor quality rented accommodation, and people living in good quality rented accommodation but worried about their rents". Fr McVerry was taking part in a panel discussion on the housing crisis which also featured Minister of State for Housing and Urban Renewal Damien English, journalist Justine McCarthy and Labour Spokesperson on Housing Jan OSullivan. Fr McVerry said Ireland has arrived at the current crisis as successive governments stopped building social housing stock. Building more social housing units needs to be a priority, he said. "Weve got to see investment in council housing as just as important as investment in broadband, or investment in transport, or investment in motorways. Investment in council housing is the only solution for this housing crisis," he said. He warned the government is heading into "catastrophe", saying some 40,000 mortgages are in arrears, with 28,000 of them owner occupied. If further housing repossessions occurred, this country "could not cope", he continued, and we would be treated to the sight of families staying "in garda stations, in parks and streets". He claimed that the State owns enough land to build some 40,000 social housing, and urged the government to use State land for social and affordable housing. "Public land should be used for public housing," he said. Fr McVerry made special mention of people and households living in rented accommodation, who earn too much to qualify for social housing, and not enough to get a mortgage. He also called for more action to be taken to address empty houses sighted throughout the country, with greater use of Compulsory Purchase Orders. In instances where the landlord wishes to sell the property, Fr McVerry suggested local authorities should be given first refusal on properties landlords wish to sell, purchasing them at market value. If this occurs, it will allow tenants to stay in the house, and the local authority gets another social housing unit. Minister Damien English defended the Rebuilding Ireland programme at the conference, which was sponsored by Vodafone, saying the government do want to tackle the issue and they do care. Some 5,200 adults and children have been helped out of homelessness, with some 10,000 housing units out of the 22,000 being built this year designated as social housing, he told the conference. Mr English also said other houses were being acquired so they could be given to families. However, it will take some time to bring the housing crisis to an end. "We had to reactivate the system. The social housing system had stopped. Nobody was building," he said. Some 44,000 families are on a HAP supported scheme today, and will be before a permanent housing solution is constructed. "We have no choice but to use the private sector until we get stock built," he said. The system when it came to constructing social housing was "dysfunctional" and the planning system had to be addressed. "We had to change the planning system. Only a couple of years ago, social housing could take six or seven years [to build]. Now you can do it in 58 weeks," he said. The minister defending the selling of State owned large sites to developers, who will build between 30 to 40pc social and affordable units on the land. Mr English said this was for better social integration. Labours Jan OSullivan told the conference that when she was junior minister for the housing, "under the Troika, we werent allowed to build houses". The only thing they could do at the time was restore social housing units and get them back in use. "The reality is these things take time," she said. Both Ms OSullivan and Mr English told the conference a bill is currently working its way through the houses of the Oireachtas, which aims to give people living in rented accommodation greater rights. Edwin Mullane won a wrongful termination of tenancy case against his landlord after his family were unfairly forced to leave their apartment on the Northside of Dublin. The landlord claimed she was selling the apartment, but Edwin discovered soon after his family had left that a new tenant had moved in on a much higher rent. "Losing your home when you have a child and your wife is pregnant is one of the most stressful things that you can go through," says Edwin, who works in the arts. "That is why I am passionate about helping others. The more we can do to help each other be aware of tenants' rights, the more we can do to cut down stress for other families." Edwin's wife Elaine is a yoga teacher, and they now have two young boys, aged three and one. In 2017, when Elaine was expecting her second child, the landlord told them they would have to move out, because she was selling up. "I asked the landlord if there was any way we could stay until after the baby was born," says Edwin. "She told us she wanted an extra 500 per month for us to stay." The apartment was in a rent pressure zone, where landlords are not allowed to hike rent by more than 4pc. So the proposed increase of 500 broke that limit. "We said that we could not pay the extra rent of that amount. And then she said she would have to sell the place. "She told us she was selling but she made no effort to market the property. "We were only out of the apartment two weeks when a friend of mine told me someone had moved in - and I knew no sale could be turned around in that time." Edwin enlisted the support of housing charity Threshold and took a case to Residential Tenancies Board, which found in his favour. "My generation has come into this horrendous ramped up market," he says. "Unless we start complaining or take action about this, nothing will be done. "There is very little security for tenants in Ireland. I have friends in Edinburgh, Paris and Berlin - and they are not looking over their shoulder, worrying about what might happen if the landlord calls. "We are very positive people and we don't want to be portrayed as victims. "We just want to raise awareness of the rights of tenants in Ireland and the work Threshold is doing." The hospital at the centre of shocking revelations that some dead bodies were left leaking fluids in its mortuary corridor, will pay for a refrigerated unit to be installed in the next one to two weeks, it emerged today. University Hospital Waterford was at the centre of distressing revelations this week that its mortuary was so cramped and lacking in temperature control that dead bodies had to be placed in the corridor and in some cases they decomposed forcing families to have closed coffin funerals. A spokeswoman for the hospital told Independent.ie that in the immediate term, a mobile refrigerated unit will be on site, installed and available for use within one to two weeks. She said that a short to medium term plan of a minor extension to the existing mortuary build, and an additional refrigeration unit will be on site and available for use in eight to ten weeks. Earlier the spokeswoman would only provide general details of what the interim measures involved but was pressed to proved more information. The mortuary facilities in Waterford were described as so inferior that they are causing almost unspeakable distress to relatives". Prof Rob Landers, one of a number of pathologists who signed the letter to the HSE last October, said the mortuary was struggling to care for the deceased in cramped facilities which left them with a lack of storage and bodies lying on trolleys in the corridor leaking body fluids on to the floor. A lack of proper temperature control also meant some bodies decomposed and forced closed-coffin funerals. The doctors said the trauma imposed on the bereaved is almost unspeakable. The cramped facilities "expose the public to the noises and odours of a working post-mortem". Staff are working in an unsafe environment and exposed to infection and chemical risks. This also extends to gardai, State pathologists, undertakers and embalmers. They warned it is only a matter for time before a high profile case will result in widespread adverse and reputational damage The need for a new mortuary was agreed by the HSE in 2006 but it took the publication of last Octobers letter in the Waterford News and Star newspaper to secure action. We thought they'd been eradicated. But diseases like measles and mumps are on the increase both at home and abroad with the World Health Organisation (WHO) reporting that measles outbreaks have increased by 300pc in the first three months of this year. This week Unicef warned 170 million children worldwide were unprotected from measles and said every child needed vaccination, whether rich or poor. The threat is now so serious that Health Minister Simon Harris is examining controversial proposals to make vaccination a condition of entry to Irish schools and creches. In Europe, 83,000 people developed measles last year, 15 times more than two years previously. The statistics have been on rise here, too, over the last three years. In 2016, there were 43 cases rising to 76 cases last year. According to the Department of Health, between January and March there were 49 cases of measles. The figures for mumps are even more stark: so far this year there have been over 400 cases compared to 575 for the whole of last year. Why? It's partly about vaccine hesitancy, which is defined by WHO as a "delay in acceptance or refusal of vaccines despite availability of vaccination services". The WHO has named this as a top global health threat. But experts also believe that we have become a victim of our own success in nearly wiping out diseases that killed in the past. This means generations of parents today have no knowledge of the ravages of a disease like measles. In the case of measles, one in every 1,000 children who contract it will develop a serious brain infection. Measles can, in extreme cases, lead to blindness, deafness and death. Even in healthy children, measles can lead to pneumonia, inflammation of the brain with encephalitis or meningitis-type symptoms. There have been deaths across Europe recently following the increase in cases. Expand Close Dr Andrew Wakefield, the doctor who was at the centre of the MMR row / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Dr Andrew Wakefield, the doctor who was at the centre of the MMR row A particularly sad - but thankfully rare - complication of measles is subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE) which causes brain degeneration many years after you've had the measles, and is always fatal. Some European countries have taken the step of introducing compulsory vaccination against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR). The MMR vaccine in France and Italy is now mandatory. A measles outbreak in Brooklyn prompted New York City to declare a public health emergency, requiring unvaccinated people in the affected areas to get the vaccine or face fines. Nearly 400 cases of measles have been reported in New York since last October. Health Minister Simon Harris has said he believes that sending your child to school unvaccinated is an extraordinarily irresponsible and dangerous thing to do. He has said he is studying proposals to ban unvaccinated children from schools and creches. Speaking to Review, Harris said he was asked a question about mandatory vaccination and he answered it with his gut as a minister and as a father. He and his wife welcomed their first child, a baby daughter, into the world earlier this year. "The decision to vaccinate your child does not just affect you and your child - it's about the public good. When a minister says something about mandatory vaccination, it creates conversation - that's good. I will seek legal advice on that," he says. Harris also wants to form a new coalition on vaccines made up of medical experts and patient advocates. "We have to get back on the pitch here. Far too much space has been given to anti-vaxxers. It's high time we started to push back," he says. And the Minister says he wants to look at the training of health professionals as to how they communicate with parents about vaccination. But would making vaccination mandatory be likely to work? According to barrister Simon Mills SC, the Constitution recognises a sphere of autonomy in which parents can take decisions for their children. " The precise question of whether or not parents can be required to vaccinate their children has never come before the courts, although there was one case in which one parent consented and one refused, and the consent of one parent was sufficient to allow the vaccination to go ahead. "If a scheme of mandatory vaccination was introduced, then it would be a question ultimately of drafting that legislation very carefully so that its restrictions on parental rights was as limited as possible and its aim in protecting health was as clear as possible. It's possible that such legislation could be constitutional, but if it was introduced, it's probable that there would be a challenge to it," says Mills, a former medical doctor and co-author of the book Medical Law in Ireland. Vaccination campaigns One of the country's leading vaccine immunology experts, Dr Anne Moore, believes rigorous research and evidence would be needed before making vaccinations obligatory. Moore, a senior lecturer in biochemistry and cell biology at University College Cork, says her personal opinion is that mandatory vaccinations may not be the solution. Instead, she believes the focus should be on bolstering public health initiatives to encourage people to vaccinate. "We need to provide sufficient public health resources to ensure maximum vaccine access and uptake. We should focus our efforts on being even more successful in vaccination campaigns. We need to find out what people need to be less hesitant. Most people are accepting of vaccination. We need to ask what can we do to bring people into the conversation in an informed way," says Moore. "When you don't see a disease flying around too often there's a perception that you don't need vaccination any more. The only reason we don't have them is because we have defences produced through vaccination," she says. "If the protection throughout the community is high enough then the virus can't circulate in that community. Vaccines have decreased the amount of infectious diseases in the community. We've been able to eradicate diseases like smallpox because of vaccines; polio is on the cusp of eradication. In Ireland in the 1950s, the fear of children getting polio was huge and it was devastating when it hit communities, from a health perspective but also a societal aspect with respect to fear and isolation," she says. Dr Lucy Jessop, director of Public Health at the HSE's National Immunisation Office, says it's important that as many people as possible vaccinate their children to ensure protection for everyone. The latest figures compiled by the Health Protection Surveillance Centre show uptake of the MMR vaccine (that protects against measles, mumps and rubella) in Ireland is at 92pc by the age of two years old. This may not be enough. Measles is such a highly infectious disease, Jessop explains, that 95pc of the population need to be vaccinated to ensure the disease doesn't spread. The relatively high MMR uptake figures suggest only a very small percentage of people oppose vaccines or avoid them for another reason. There are several reasons - other than distrust - why the small minority of children are not vaccinated. Some children with problems with their immune systems cannot receive the MMR and some parents may find vaccine appointments difficult to keep due to work and childcare commitments or language and cultural barriers. But there is also a niggling doubt in some minds that leads back to the massive anti-MMR sentiment generated two decades ago by the since widely discredited research of British doctor Andrew Wakefield. The gastroenterologist lost his job and had his scientific paper linking the MMR vaccine and autism retracted by medical journal The Lancet. In 2010, he was struck off the medical register. But despite study after study showing no link between autism and MMR, the seeds of doubt about vaccine safety that Wakefield sowed are still being reaped today. Earlier this month, the HSE said it was dealing with a measles outbreak in Dublin with 10 recorded cases in children and young adults. And Jessop believes this most recent outbreak may be partly due to what she calls the "Wakefield cohort" - young adults whose parents did not vaccinate them as children and who have not realised that they are still vulnerable to infection as adults and so should be vaccinated. Complications "Measles can still be a very serious childhood illness but because of the high uptake of vaccine, not many parents know people who have had it. Unfortunately, cases are now occurring again and the consequences can be very serious with around three in 10 people developing complications and many being hospitalised," she says. Such messages are still finding it hard to counter the hundreds of websites and millions of Facebook posts that argue vociferously against vaccination. Those opposed to vaccination are typically deeply suspicious of the role of big pharmaceutical firms in promoting new vaccines and question the validity of mainstream scientific research. The arguments for and against vaccination have become deeply polarised. Being an "anti-vaxxer" in Ireland can be a tricky position to defend, even when that position is held very sincerely. Karen (not her real name), a Dublin mother of one, has serious reservations about vaccinating her child because he had an adverse reaction to his first dose of vaccinations. Karen doesn't want to go into the specifics of his case because she fears repercussions for her and her son if she does. She says she has been stalked online for raising her concerns in the past. But she says she does not wish to vaccinate and is really upset and nervous for her child at the current suggestion of mandatory vaccination. "People are really upset that this could mean you'd have to segregate your child in 2019. We're going backwards. Will we have to wear a star on our clothes or have some label attached to us? We're living in a time when we're supposed to be tolerant," says Karen. "All we are doing is researching to make informed decisions based on our families. We shouldn't be attacked or abused, which is what is happening. We've been called emotional terrorists, told that we're selfish and that we're putting everyone else at risk. We are never allowed to put the questions we have to the Minister," she says. "If my son wasn't here, I'd be going public with my name. The idea that all of us parents are stupid or that we don't understand - that's absurd. We are not allowed a voice. There's nothing from the Government to address our concerns. The point is, if you want to improve the safety of something you have to address the concerns that are coming up," she says. At his family practice in Killester in north Dublin, Dr John Ball says the vast majority of parents are happy to vaccinate. "We listen to parents and we go through the diseases the vaccines covers against. The vast majority don't have any concerns," he says. While Ball says other countries have adopted mandatory vaccination, it might not be that palatable to Irish people. "People need to understand that these diseases cause mortality. If we get more measles outbreaks causing children to die, we have look at all the possibilities that would prevent that," says Ball. "If you do have fears around vaccination, try to address them early on. During your pregnancy, get your doctor to answer your questions. We're the ones providing the vaccination programme. If you wait until your child gets older, you're leaving them longer at risk," he adds. Flash Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday met with Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, who is here to attend the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. Xi said China and Thailand are close neighbors, and the joint development of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) makes the already amicable bilateral relations even better. The two countries should carry forward the traditional friendship and enhance high-level contacts, so as to guide the sound development of the bilateral ties, he said. China will continue to support Thailand's efforts in maintaining domestic stability and promoting national development, and is willing to strengthen the alignment of the two countries' development strategies and advance high-quality BRI cooperation, to give a strong boost to the bilateral ties, Xi said. China supports Thailand's role as the rotating chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) this year, Xi said, adding that China is willing to deeply align the BRI with the ASEAN's connectivity plan. Prayut spoke highly of China's achievements in fields including economic growth, poverty relief and environmental protection. He said Thailand benefited greatly from the infrastructure and data connectivity since the inception of the BRI almost six years ago, adding that Thailand will continue to support and actively engage in the BRI cooperation. RTE Prime Time Political Correspondent Katie Hannon, Vodafone CEO Anne O'Leary and RTE broadcaster and journalist Miriam O'Callaghan at the launch of the Women in Media conference that will be held in Ballybunion, County Kerry from April 26th to 28th Lyra McKee: The young journalist was laid to rest on Wednesday. Picture: PA This year's Women in Media conference has been dedicated to the memory of murdered journalist Lyra McKee. The event - now in it's seventh year and sponsored by Vodafone - got underway this evening, with founder Joan O'Connor leading those attending the conference into a moment's silence for Ms McKee. Ms O'Connor said "conversation is the essence" of the event this weekend, saying Lyra McKee highlighted the "importance of conversation in driving social change". "Through conversation, we may not solve all of the problems facing us, but it's a starting point. It should encourage us to continue trying to bring about change and it most certainly should encourage us to engage in this weekend of good gritty conversation," Ms O'Connor said. Vodafone CEO Anne O'Leary told the conference that an increase in the amount of women in leadership roles is very important, stressing "we need female voices present in all debates, including media". Best-selling authors Sinead Moriarty, Felicity Hayes-McCoy and Claudia Carroll joined host Barbara Scully for the first panel discussion this evening on 'Telling Our Stories'. The event - which is taking place in Kilcooly's hotel in Ballybunion - will see other panel discussions over the weekend, including 'Women in STEM' and Ireland's future post-Brexit. Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, broadcasters Miriam O'Callaghan and Keelin Shanley, MEP Mairead McGuinness and Vodafone CEO Anne O'Leary are just some of the names who will feature in the discussions over the weekend. A gala event will take place tomorrow night, during which the recipients of the Mary Cummins Award for Women of Outstanding Achievement in the Media, the Joan Kennelly Special Award and the Social Media Award will be announced. For more information, go to www.womeninmedia.ie. We are today witnessing the beginning of the end of widespread home ownership in the cities of Ireland as we know it. I'm talking about the mortgage to ownership model we have become familiar and comfortable with over three and four generations and as originally encouraged and developed by the founders of our state. Under the new emerging model, rental will no longer be for students and singles (as it once was) nor for young families aspiring to eventual ownership (as it is now) but for almost everyone who wants to live and work in an Irish city. In place of the long-standing mortgage-to-ownership model, we are now witnessing the advancement of a Government encouraged reversion to the universal rental model of housing, as was once widespread in Irish cities in the colonial era. The difference this time is that in the years ahead, faceless international capital funds, rather than privileged individuals, will control the huge swathes of new city housing which are emerging. Like the city slums of old, the new cities will be piled high and the spaces will be small, dark and restricted. The rents will be high relative to what's on offer. But instead of being provided harum-scarum by random sub division of former luxury homes, as occurred in the 19th century, this time it will be provided in homogeneous blocks of "units", manufactured and churned out like boxes of washing powder and bottles of Coke. Instead of being sold to us, the deeds will be retained by vast global corporations and the occupants will rent en masse. The children of city dwellers who grow up in semi-detached houses today will tomorrow bring up their children in these blocks in rented spaces half the size of the average semi or smaller. This is already happening with young families commonly renting now in two-bed apartments. While most are currently attempting to save to buy, increasing rents are slowly stamping out those aspirations. Before long they will accept their lot. It is likely that the rent they will pay going forward will continue to proportionately exceed that which their parents today pay towards ownership of three and four-bedroom estate semis and terrace houses. Big funds will make wholly commercially driven decisions on occupation levels and market rents. So one might decide to leave its blocks 40pc empty in return for higher rents from the 60pc. The capital value of the units can make the financial running in a rising rental market. This is housing as pure commodity. If all of the above sounds like a fanciful conspiracy theory for the tinfoil hat brigade, consider the recent reproach of Ireland by the United Nations, which last year published an unprecedented report about the rapid commoditisation of housing worldwide. Recently the UN named Ireland among the countries in which this was most notably underway. We read extensively about 'cuckoo funds' which are currently playing a twofold role in the Irish housing market. First by becoming increasingly involved in buying up a huge chunks of all new housing wherever it emerges (they have been buying swathes of new houses as well as the much publicised whole apartment block acquisitions). Second, they are creating their own market with vast purchasing powers excluding private buyers, thus creating more customers for rental. At the moment those seeking to trade down to apartments have increasingly seen funds buy up all the new apartments in their areas. The UN report shows how unregulated global capital has been responsible, at a rapidly escalating rate through the last decade, in distorting housing markets from Sydney to Vancouver by turbo boosting both prices and rents to a level that excludes the poor and drags the middle classes from mortgaged ownership into renting. The UN report says this development has created housing precariousness on an unprecedented scale. It estimates that hundreds of trillions of dollars are currently being invested in residential property worldwide with the effect of accentuating housing need: displacing poor residents (often through forced eviction), driving up wealth inequality, and creating social dead zones in the hearts of cities. If we want to see what they're on about, just hop on a Ryanair to London where in areas like Kensington (an early prime target) housing has been commoditised to the degree that the owners don't want anyone living in it. Just like gold bars sitting in a bank vault - valuable in its own right without bothersome occupation. Vacancies in Kensington have been running at 40pc. Meanwhile, London-born middle and lower classes are either renting or leaving, thanks to the resulting high prices. Vast nearly- new blocks sit there unlit at night. Having started at the luxury end, commoditisation is now breaking into the lower and middle bands. The UN warns of big funds angling to take on social housing, offering governments the carrot of taking that costly responsibility off their hands. Does this seem familiar? While the official line on social housing provision built and held by the state is neutral, the Government's actions speak louder. The construction of such local authority housing continues to be minimal. Instead we have a national housing plan loaded with a very high privatisation requirement. We have a housing minister who changed the planning laws to permit higher blocks with smaller and single aspect units required to enable the build-to-rent model. Last week our finance minister, who enabled the favourable tax concessions that allowed funds to buy more than 3,000 homes in 2018, defended these funds in the Dail. Finally Central Bank lending rules increasingly exclude punters from owned housing and dictate that they pay more in rent than they would have done for the mortgages they no longer qualify for. It means that history will likely credit this Government, and those who keep it, for enabling the end of home ownership in Irish cities as we have known it. Children are increasingly aspiring to have careers where they think about themselves rather than about other people, according to The Secret Life of 4 Year Olds psychologist Sam Wass. "It used to be that the popular jobs were the old fashioned jobs, police officer, firefighter. Now they all want to be influencers, YouTubers," he said. "All these jobs are fundamentally inward-looking - 'how do I make my own life interesting to other people?'" Wass said people can start to worry if they are thinking about "projecting this perfect image", while the reality is quite different. "Deep down you are not confident in yourself so it becomes much more important to you what other people think of you. "If you are properly confident deep down, it doesn't matter what other people think of you," said Wass, who appeared on the Channel 4 show which looked at the behaviour and emotions of four-, five- and six-year-olds. "The jobs that are getting less popular are 'It's not about me, it's about helping other people'. The idea 'there's nothing interesting about me, it's all about other people'. "These types of hero roles where it's about making sacrifices for others are the jobs that are getting less popular. "These are the type of jobs we will always need. We will always need people who are prepared to make sacrifices for other people." Speaking at a Lego City Hero Academy event in central London, Wass - who is based at the University of East London - said younger children think of a hero as someone who's infinitely strong and infinitely powerful". "The older kids realise that nobody is infinitely strong and people work really hard to get stronger, people make sacrifices," he said. "Their heroes might be their parents who have made sacrifices or their friend who has helped them." He said heroism can be self-sacrifice: "It can be everyday mundane sacrifices that you make for other people." The Lego City Hero Academy campaign is focusing on the police and fire services, encouraging children to become heroes in their own city while inspiring them to aspire to become real-life heroes in future. Research for the campaign found becoming a YouTuber was the top future career choice for eight-to-12-year-olds (20%) while only 4% of the same age group aspired to be a police officer or firefighter. Almost half (45.8%) of children aged eight-to-12 said making lots of money was a dream job. Wass said children learn through play and Lego allows them to try things out and think about how they would feel in different situations. "Children are experimenting. 'What goes here?' They do the same type of experiments in an emotional way. They dip their toe into different stories, act out a little scene. "They try out different emotions. 'What would it feel like if I was this character?' But in a situation that's safe and in their control." He said younger children tend to see things as black or white: "Someone's either right or wrong." Asked if an act would always be right or would just be right in some situations, Wass said younger children would usually see something as always right or always wrong. "Older children are more likely to say someone is part good and part bad," he said. Wass said the world can feel very divided at the moment, especially in regard to Brexit: "It's like a young child's view of the world. They don't see other people's side of things." It was an announcement made with great fanfare by Social Protection Minister Regina Doherty on Tuesday. Up to 60,000 parents a year are to benefit from two weeks' extra parental leave from November. The State will offer parents 245 per week for the leave, the same rate as maternity and paternity benefit. This may be voluntarily topped up by employers if their staff are on a higher salary. And the Government's intention is to extend parental leave further to seven weeks by 2021. On the surface, it is a very positive development for new parents who want to spend more time with their babies. But remarks by Ms Doherty questioning fathers' motivations in not taking up existing paternity leave benefits sparked a well-deserved backlash. She seemed more intent in starting a gender war than addressing the glaring problems with the current parental leave system and the futility of extending it without solutions. Under the existing scheme, 60pc of new fathers don't take paternity leave. The dilemma for parents essentially boils down to this: yes, it's great that the option to take leave is available but can they afford to if they're supposed to get by on as little as 245 a week? This is, after all, an era of sky-high rent or mortgage payments. And while the public sector may top up salaries for parents on leave, only a minority of private companies do so. There have already been fears that small businesses won't be able to cover the cost of top-ups. Meanwhile, even in Government, Education Minister Joe McHugh expressed concern at the bill for topping up the salaries of teachers taking the leave. The Department of Public Expenditure last night confirmed if the decision is taken to top up the 245 payment for public servants, the estimated annual cost for the full seven weeks would be 132m. That includes the top-ups and "unavoidable cost" of staff substitution in front-line areas. A decision on the issue of top-ups in the public sector is to be made ahead of the Budget. But aside from issues of the cost to the State, the Government's plans were overshadowed by Ms Doherty's remarks. In comments branded as "insulting" by parents and the Opposition, Ms Doherty claimed there's a narrative that the sums on offer in the scheme aren't enough for men to take time off work. "It doesn't seem to have stopped women from taking maternity leave for time immemorial," she added. It came after she was keen to highlight the 'use it or lose it' aspect of the new parental leave benefit. Dads will not be able to transfer their two weeks of parental leave to mums. The minister said she hopes this will "incentivise fathers to take more time off work to care for their children than has been the case up to now". Ms Doherty has not directly addressed criticism that highlighted the financial reasons that are the cause of many fathers not availing of the paternity leave. Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe was careful not to throw his Fine Gael colleague under the bus when he was asked about her remarks yesterday. However, he also stopped short of agreeing with her suggestion that money worries are not the reason for low paternity leave take-up. He insisted the new policy will make a "real difference" but could only offer a vague promise that: "Of course we'll continue to look at are there any reasons for why it cannot be availed of." The Government said up to 60,000 parents will benefit from extended leave next year. If existing paternity leave trends are replicated, around 36,000 fathers won't avail of the extra time off. In many of the cases it will be because the couple has decided they simply can't afford it. It's unlikely Ms Doherty's remarks - which missed this crucial point - will encourage them to do so. Any killing is a tragedy. But that someone so young, so bright-eyed, so fully, vibrantly, abundantly alive, should be wiped out in a moment by a terrorist's bullet seems like the very definition of a crime against humanity. Lyra McKee was a joy and an inspiration to those who loved her. Yet even for those of us that didn't know her, what emerged in the aftermath of her death was a vivid picture of someone with a really extraordinary ability to connect with those around her. By all accounts, Lyra cheerfully disregarded every single one of the usual political and religious trip-wires that can cut people off from one another, instead approaching everyone with the same frank, engaging spirit of inquiry. Ahead of her funeral at St Anne's Cathedral, Lyra's family spoke movingly of her openness. They described her ability to "make friends with anybody and everybody, no matter what their background, those of all political views and those with none", which made her "totally apolitical". How much of this easy open-mindedness was down to her own unique personality, her "warm and innocent heart", and how much was formed by her painful experiences as a young gay woman growing up in a working-class Catholic area of north Belfast, I don't know. Who really knows what makes us who we are? What is obvious is that Lyra had a luminosity all her own, and that shining light has been cruelly extinguished from the world. Many people have been speaking about their memories of Lyra, but it was only after her death that I realised that I had met and interviewed her back in 2007, when she was just 17, and an active member of a youth news agency in Belfast called Headliners. This week, I went back through my computer files and found my interview notes from that time. They made poignant reading. In 2006, when she was 16, Lyra had won the Sky News 'Young Journalist of the Year' competition, and even then she spoke with the characteristic honesty, confidence and brio that she is remembered for today. Frankly admitting that she was never a "straight-A student", she told me: "I always dreamed of winning an award for journalism, it's the sort of thing that normally only happens to grammar school girls. This competition proves it doesn't matter what your background is, and it gave me the opportunity to show what I was capable of." She said that working with Headliners "offered me a clean slate, a chance to prove myself, to show I had a talent I could be proud of". "The stereotyped formula where I come from is that you leave school then work in a shop. But now I'm going on to do my A-levels." Lyra was only on the cusp of adulthood then, with all kinds of opportunities ahead of her, and it seems unbearably sad that she got to live so little of it. All that hope, all that potential, obliterated by the violence which chokes the life out of this country: massively reduced now in scale yet seemingly ineradicable, obscenely creeping like a poisonous fungus from generation to generation. Amid the horror and mourning, there is a great need for Lyra's death to be the last of its kind, even though history teaches us this will not be the case. We have been here before and no doubt we will be here again. Nonetheless, her murder exerts an enormous moral pressure on our political leaders to renounce their current self-indulgent stand-off, to overcome their differences and resurrect Stormont. As Fr Martin Magill asked at Lyra's funeral, to a standing ovation: "Why in God's name does it take the death of a 29-year-old woman with her whole life in front of her to get to this point?" With her open heart and open mind, Lyra was the future. She was part of a new generation who refuse to be bound by sick old sectarian and social divisions. She was the inheritor of that humane, decent mindset that sustained the majority of people, who wanted no truck with violence of any political colour, through the awful decades of the Troubles. Curious, talkative and kind, ever eager to tell a story, or to start a conversation with a stranger, Lyra was the best of us. She will not be forgotten. Jessie Buckley is but the latest. The 29-year-old has emerged as an actress and singer with that certain something propelling her to stardom. She made the trek to London - like countless other Irish people over the decades - to make her name. It is a never-ending trail. The heartland of British artistic and creative life provided the all- important primer she badly needed. She was helped to bring her acting and singing skills to a new level. There was a time when the bright lights of Piccadilly might have seemed a long way from her native Killarney, but not any more. London is now 'just down the road' for a new hyper-connected Irish generation. In the age of the internet and mass technology, the world is their oyster. And so Jessie is part of a long line of young hopefuls from this country who found crossing the Irish Sea opened up a world of possibility. The age-old trek over and back - with many eventually returning to Ireland having honed their talents in the UK - continues apace. Against the brooding backdrop of Brexit, and ever-present tremors in Northern Ireland, this is a very real manifestation of Irish-British relations. The intermingling of two neighbouring peoples continues. Of course, high-end politics plays its part in how things stand between these islands, but all the while real-time living has its own power, regardless of machinations in Westminster, Leinster House or indeed Stormont. And despite a generalised whine-fest suggesting relations between Dublin and London are 'strained' because of sundry Brexit battles, evidence on the ground suggests things are ticking along fine. This is especially so for those labelled the younger generation. In many cases unburdened by the past - and more in thrall to the future than those who are older - the legacy of the Northern Troubles is simply not on their radar. In the Republic, the best-educated and most-travelled youth cohort we have ever produced spread their net far and wide. North of the Border, the scenario is inevitably more complex. The opportunities afforded to those coming of age have transformed the life chances of many. But the dark side is that the residue of the ghetto smothers the aspirations of others, striving to break free from the instincts of their tribe. Generations of endemic poverty and its tentacles of dysfunction have cultivated a legacy in which hope of better times is lost in a far distant horizon. Add in the bile of blinkered nationalism or unionism and the temptation to freewheel where the bomb and bullet is an outlet for grievance, real or imagined, is all too easy. The sprawling Creggan estate in Derry is one such hothouse. There is now a sickening realisation those who should know better are trying to despoil another generation with blood and hatred. The utterly shameful murder of Lyra McKee was a signpost to a new cavern of darkness. The nihilistic ideologies of those who would once again fight old wars is grievously out of step with a tentative dawning, north and south. Meanwhile, a massive Marshall Plan-type initiative by the British government to combat deprivation in blighted urban areas in Northern Ireland is surely needed. Such an initiative - however unlikely in the current climate - might be more effective than anything else in copper-fastening the peace process. All the while, politicians of the extreme remain as fixated as ever on their core support base. It's 'not an inch' all round as the moderate middle ground in Northern Ireland is blighted on the sidelines. Arlene Foster and Mary Lou McDonald were conspicuously out of sync as the congregation clapped the cry for a new beginning at Lyra McKee's funeral. They couldn't bring themselves to respond with fervour or gusto. Neither could be seen as being in the mood for any kind of concession. Revulsion abounds at the thought of yet more blood spilt on the streets of Derry. There is an ache for leaders who can break the mould. Can Foster and McDonald unshackle themselves from the weight of all that has gone before? The way things stand we can but be hopeful - rather than confident. 'Every so often, however, an event would occur so beyond the pale that everyone - 'this side of the road', 'that side of the road', 'over the water' and 'over the border' - couldn't help but be stopped in their tracks." It was a strange coincidence that I was reading the novel 'Milkman' when news of Lyra McKee's murder in Derry came through. Just hours before the grim news I had been taken by the words cited above, never thinking that another such "so beyond the pale" moment was actually happening even as I read on that Thursday night. Anna Burns's book is wrongly described as a "hard read". Yes, it does take a bit of reader effort to get stuck in - but that effort is rewarded in spades, not least by the magical quality of the language flows, but also for the human accounts which bear in on you, and above all for its humour. The 2018 Booker Prize winner evokes the 1970s horror of the Troubles, when murder and mayhem became a banal quotidian occurrence. Then every so often came the stand-out horror, the atrocity that grabbed headlines across the globe and just whacked us all in the face. If you're of an age to have lived through it, you can take your pick: the Miami Showband massacre, Greysteel, Enniskillen, Aldershot, Omagh and so on down the list. We could be here for a while. Suffice to say that 21 years after the Good Friday Agreement we are - yet again - back to the "politics of the last atrocity". And back to hoping it could become a potential driver of fundamental change. It is a question of two parts hope, to one part divided between dread and cynicism, for in the past the backwash of the standout atrocity did not endure - much less deliver. And, again, more than two decades after long-planned structures were put in place to avoid another atrocity, we find the key players in the North cannot do grown-up politics without outside supervision. So, 27 months after the North's power-sharing parliament and government were shut down, Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney and the UK's Northern Ireland Minister, Karen Bradley, have finally taken a hand. The two ministers have acknowledged the huge influence of Lyra McKee's murder on this new move, and the often accident-prone Ms Bradley cited the powerful call to action from Fr Martin Magill at Lyra's funeral on Wednesday. On Tuesday week, May 7, yet another round of multi-party talks will open and on the following day the Dublin and London governments will meet in a forum provided for under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. This is the so-called British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference which last met in November 2018, and has previously met 26 times in efforts to break big logjams. Both ministers will work over the coming days with the parties on how the talks will be structured. All the parties - not just the kingpin Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Fein - will participate. But for now at least there will not be an independent outside chairperson. Success will depend on the feedback given to the politicians, especially in the two big parties, by the general public across the North. There is much anecdotal evidence that the overwhelming mood is that there can be no going back to the bad old days. There are grounds to hope that 20 years of peace, albeit uneasy peace sitting amid ongoing tensions, will steel the majority will in both communities. Everyone knows that peace amounts to more than an absence of war. Simon Coveney alluded to this by saying: "There are moments in politics when things change." Therein lies the bulk of all our hopes - one more time. Mr Coveney was right about the need to carry on regardless of what else is on the political agenda. These talks will start amid two elections, the North's local council vote next Thursday, and the expected European Parliament elections in the North on May 23. In the North there's often an election posing an excuse to hold everything up. After the election will come yet another marching season. Faint hopes flicker and die. Here's a different suggestion for the two governments sponsoring this necessary new initiative to end the corrosive stalemate in the North. Issue all the participants with a copy of Anna Burns's 'Milkman' and make them all sit a simple quiz on the work before being admitted to the talks. 'Unfortunately I am afraid, as always, of going on. For to go on means going from here" So says the narrator in Samuel Beckett's novel 'The Unnamable'. Getting from here to there in the political landscape of the North is the goal - but it must mean progress. It's meaningless if 'there' turns out to be a mirror image of that unsatisfactory state of affairs called 'here'. It's generally agreed, by the Irish and British governments at least, that Stormont needs to be reactivated. But Northern nationalists have disengaged from the mansion on the hill - while they aren't opposed to resumption, they won't be fooled by window-dressing. A modified Stormont is urgently needed. And unless reform is a key part of the talks process announced yesterday, its days will be numbered. Politicians must be willing to act as agents for change rather than remain in their comfort zones. Instead, on both sides of the divide they have kept one foot in the past - and that pushes the future out of reach. Their electorates are the losers by it. Why is there nationalist disenchantment? It doesn't help that the Executive and Assembly have been out of operation for two years and nearly four months - Stormont fell on January 9, 2017. The region holds the world record for the longest period without a sitting government, leaving unelected civil servants in charge of dwindling resources. But Stormont had lost credibility before it folded. It was a partnership in name only. And a return to business as usual will bring about another collapse sooner or later. On the one hand, we have Lyra McKee's death making it imperative that someone in a leadership role should take a political chance - that's how deadlocks are broken. On the other hand, plugging Stormont back in will be insufficient to deliver on a fair society - a place where everyone has a chance of education, healthcare and a job that pays a living wage. A place, too, where rights are for everyone. Brexit's threat to the Good Friday Agreement, open Border and right to identity as Irish or British has left people in the North feeling exposed and vulnerable. But it has also left them determined. They are not prepared to forego their rights. If Stormont is to have their support, it must deliver on rights. Irish language legislation remains a live issue. It is a symbol that cultural identity is recognised by the Northern state in the same way it is acknowledged in Wales and Scotland. But the DUP is resistant to Irish language legislation because the party sees it as diminishing the region's so-called British identity. Arlene Foster was a welcome sight alongside Mary Lou McDonald and Michelle O'Neill in St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast this week. But they need to work together, not just sit together. The unfortunate reality is no deaths in Northern Ireland have ever helped politicians to overcome their differences. Can the current crop be any different? That's the challenge they face. In the context of the North, it's striking how many key players are women. However, their track record to date is as disappointing as the paralysis shown by the grey men they replaced. These women are not miracle workers. But they must find ways to deliver. Optimism is hard to summon up. Yet faith and generosity of spirit must be found. The politicians need to show trust for those from other parties, which in turn will filter down to their electorates. Communities need to integrate, not be kept apart. Seamus Mallon told Miriam O'Callaghan on RTE Radio that Karen Bradley was not the Secretary of State to drive progress. He has a point. Perhaps an outside mediator could lubricate progress - it worked in the 1990s when Senator George Mitchell gave exceptional service. Father Martin Magill's cri de coeur at Lyra McKee's funeral referenced the poverty and deprivation which fuels dissidents - jobs are needed; a chance at life. Stormont should be working towards that end. He expressed the frustration many felt as stalemate dragged on without resolution. Too many excuses for inaction have been advanced over the past two years, primarily Brexit. The current volatility demands a proactive response and we must hope the new round of talks will prove productive. This is no longer about what politicians want or don't want - it's about what the public urgently needs. Unless political movement happens, further violence and more innocent deaths are likely. Realistically, we can expect little by way of progress this week, with the local elections happening on Friday. After the dust settles, that's when talks will start in earnest. By then, the parties will know how voters feel about political stasis, as well as their views on the DUP's push at Westminster for a hard Border. But whatever the polls say, politicians have been let off the hook for too long. Last year, the DUP walked away from a deal because it couldn't sell an Irish Language Act to its grassroots. This year, its power in Westminster is past the peak and the party is readier to turn back to Stormont. It may reconsider the language issue in tandem with provisions for Ulster Scots. As for Sinn Fein, it knows it will lose support to dissidents unless it delivers on rights. Clearly, the Petition of Concern needs to be reformed - a veto which allowed the DUP to block marriage equality legislation despite the Assembly as a whole favouring it. Same-sex marriage is only a question of time in the North and I suspect the DUP knows that perfectly well. Other matters of dispute include abortion rights and how legacy issues are addressed. Unionists and nationalists have to sit in government together in the Executive if Stormont is to function. And both parties need to recalibrate if that is to happen. Attached to the binaries of nationalism and unionism, they have sold their people short and allowed opportunities to be snatched away. Part of the problem is that cross-community reconciliation, envisaged under the Good Friday Agreement, has been swept into a corner for too long. It must be an interlocking element of any restoration of power-sharing. None of this is impossible though it may be daunting. Let me take you back to that monologue in Beckett's book: "You must go on. I can't go on. You must go on. I'll go on." An enormous boulder was rolled uphill at the time of the Good Friday Agreement - the current impasse is not nearly so heavy. But it does require shoulders to the wheel. Suppose there was a table quiz and you were asked to name four populist politicians. I guess you would say Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, Matteo Salvini and Viktor Orban. There are also populist leaders in power in Austria, in waiting in Finland and Sweden, and emerging in Spain and France. Another was added since last weeks election in the Ukraine. Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a comedian, was brought to power by a huge majority in the countrys presidential election. He is viewed as part of a wave of populist leaders emerging across the globe. So what is the defining feature of all of these political leaders, stamped as populist? Despite the myriad of articles in which the word populist is now used, it is seldom defined, so it is whatever the reader thinks it is. In the dictionary it is defined as a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people, who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups. Flann OBriens descriptor, The Plain People of Ireland, would fit the populists electorate. The word is frequently used since the election of Donald Trump in the US and since Brexit, both occurring in 2016. The co-occurrence of these two unexpected and momentous events had the additional effect of linking the word itself to policies that protect national borders, aka Trumps proposal for a wall to halt immigrants, and Brexit to maintain British sovereignty respectively. Such policies are identified as right-wing in orientation by the commentariat. Then when Angela Merkel opened the borders of Germany to Syrian refugees this acted as a lightning-rod to other countries worried about unregulated immigration, and this stimulated the growth of parties with immigration as the concern of their citizens. This was witnessed even in liberal havens such as Sweden and Finland. The extraordinary concatenation has created a cognitive bias that all populist parties are to the right of centre or even worse, alt-right, since protecting national borders is their goal. And, of course, the EU has open borders for its member states. Thus political groups that wish to have some control of their borders, and to maintain distinct national identities, such as the Brexit Party and its supporters like Nigel Farage, are branded as extremists, racists and even fascists/Nazis. A group such as this will inevitably feel disenfranchised and alienated from their fellow countrymen. Are all populist parties on the political right? Do Donald Trump and Nicolas Maduro have anything in common? Maduro is also described as a populist but coming from the extreme left of centre in Venezuelan politics. Yet he and other left-of-centre populists are seldom criticised by the media despite the obvious problems in their countries. Magazines such as the New Statesman or the Huffington Post pit the opinions of populist and progressive against each other. Progressives are viewed as lofty compared with populist politicians, who are seen as pandering to current, atavistic instincts and buying votes cheaply. On the other hand, progressives are presented as looking into the distance and seeing the big picture. One is reminded of the basket of deplorable image conjured up by Hillary Clinton in her view of Trump supporters during the presidential election in the US. These are the three words that likely won the election for Trump. This caricature, of populists and progressives, fails to recognise that even mainstream parties do buy votes and that they are just as capable of capitalising on voters anxieties as are populists. The water charges issue is a case in point in which left-leaning parties in Ireland brought tens of thousands out on the streets in protest. The gilets jaunes in France are in the same mould. The political party that supports them will be populist. The concatenation of populist with right-wing has led to unpleasant name-calling and shut down debate on some topics. The reaction of some recently when Peadar Toibin, the leader of Aontu, called for a debate on controlled immigration is a case in point, and he is certainly not right-wing and he is only populist to the extent that he is building a party based on the disaffection of a large swathe of the electorate with the current elite politicians. The perception of a privileged, elite class and a sense of disenfranchisement and alienation by a large group of citizens is the bedrock from which populist parties evolve, be they right or left-wing. But surely the way in which most new political movements have developed, whether it be the labour movement to represent workers, or Fianna Fail to give voice to our nationalist aspirations, or the PDs for the middle class, is from visible and sustained dissatisfaction among the public on issues that matter to them. It is only because the media is left-leaning that it has given the trope of populism and alt-right wing to those movements that are reaching out to disaffected voters on one side of the political spectrum. Attempts to shut down debate and to demoralise and undermine voters will not be successful as they have found their voice in people like Trump, Farage and a host of others. By stereotyping populism as bad and elevating progressivism as superior, while stifling debate on matters that are felt to be important, the elite in Europe and the US have been hoist by their own petard. Pride may be coming before a fall. Flash Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Friday met with Papua New Guinea (PNG) Prime Minister Peter O'Neill, who is attending the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing. Li said China is willing to align the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) with PNG's development strategies, expand pragmatic cooperation in various fields, accelerate the joint feasibility study on the bilateral free trade agreement, and better achieve mutual benefits. China hopes that PNG will play a constructive leading role among the Pacific island countries and promote the deepening of the overall relations between China and the Pacific island countries, Li said. O'Neill thanked China for its support for PNG's development and praised the BRI which has been a strong boost for PNG's development. PNG adheres to the one-China policy and is willing to enhance cooperation in economy, trade and investment with China, O'Neill said, adding that PNG will work hard to complete negotiations on the bilateral free trade agreement and jointly enhance the comprehensive strategic partnership between the two countries. After the meeting, they witnessed the signing of cooperation documents between the two sides. There is never a perfect time to do the right thing in Northern Ireland. If you open a calendar on any given week you will find a reason for politicians to hold off engaging with each other. Marching season, conference season, elections, pressure in Westminster, negotiations in Brussels and issues within individual parties are just a few examples. Little more than a week ago the usual script had been written, and was widely accepted, for the weeks ahead. Politicians in Westminster, Brussels, Dublin and Belfast were taking an Easter break in the assumption there could be no engagement while local and European election campaigns were being fought in Northern Ireland in May. The script said the parties were on the doorsteps and would inevitably maintain partisan politics until the elections had past. Just after 11pm on Thursday, April 18 that script was torn up by the senseless and heart-breaking murder of a woman whose name we have all come to know, Lyra McKee, and whom through the outstanding tributes of her partner, family and friends we all wish we had known in life. As a politician and Tanaiste there are many things you experience that are unique, but there are only a handful of experiences you know will stay with you until the end of your days. Being in the front pews of St Anne's Cathedral as an unstoppable wave of applause, hope and demand hit the most senior politicians from the UK and Ireland in the base of our spines is one such moment I will never forget. The words of Father Martin Magill summed up the desire and frustration of all communities in Northern Ireland in a sentence: "Why in God's name does it take the death of a 29-year old woman, with her whole life in front of her, to get to this point?" Last summer, violence in Derry saw live bullets being fired and police officers narrowly escaping injury or death. In January, seven young people were minutes from being killed after they passed the car bomb that sat in the centre of Derry. However, on April 18 the cowards claimed a victim. The fact it was a journalist and writer who was a shining example of everything Northern Ireland can achieve is the reason so many people have come together to mourn. The night before Lyra McKee's funeral, I sat in Strand Road police station in Derry with the officers who had tried to save her life. These men and women are hardened by the fact petrol bombs can be thrown at them in the course of their everyday work, but on Tuesday night they were numbed and vulnerable at the fact a young woman had died beside them. Despite their Land Rovers being alight with petrol and live ammunition being fired at them, the PSNI officers left their secure position to get to Lyra after she had been hit. They made the decision to drive to Altnagelvin Hospital. Officers performed CPR on Lyra for the entire journey and they stayed and supported her partner and friends as the horrible news of her death was confirmed. The leadership shown by the PSNI in Derry has rightly been applauded by the community it serves. While I heard Father Magill's rallying call for political leadership loud and clear, I also heard what he said about the events in Derry as the news of Lyra's murder sunk in: "I commend our political leaders for standing together in Creggan on Good Friday." Arlene Foster, Michelle O'Neill, Colum Eastwood, Robin Swann and Naomi Long were not ordered to release a joint statement by anyone or told to go into the Creggan. When a dark moment threatened to drag Northern Ireland back to a dark past their natural inclination was to do the right thing. We now have a window where the Irish and British governments are calling the parties together. We have all spoken in person and on the phone many times in the last week and without exception I believe all the party leaders are genuine in their desire to return to Stormont. As we meet in the weeks ahead, a conversation I had with Ms Joan McKee will be foremost in my mind. Standing in the side chapel of St Anne's was the President of Ireland, the Taoiseach, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom as well as myself as Tanaiste, the Secretary of State and ministers of both governments. Despite all the power of those elected offices, we were standing there as a group that was utterly powerless to comfort a woman who had, as Joan put it, "lost her baby". We owe it to Joan and Lyra McKee to make sure no other ceasefire babies are murdered in the prime of their lives and to make sure Northern Ireland has a functioning government. There is never a perfect time to do the right thing in Northern Ireland. However, there is a right time and that time is now. Simon Coveney is Tanaiste and Foreign Affairs Minister In my more idle moments, I sometimes spend time perusing the online editions of right-wing UK publications such as 'The Spectator'. There you will live in an alternative factual universe, where poor Britain is set upon by an evil EU, and worse still, is betrayed by its supposed allies. Chief culprit, these days, seems to be the Republic of Ireland, which has been set upon an anti-British course by its demonic leader Leo Varadkar. "Little Leo" (who stands 1.94 metres tall), stands accused of "do[ing] anything to suck up to the top gang in the EU playground..." and giving a "calculated two fingers to Brexit Britain" by applying for observer status at the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie rather than rejoining the British Commonwealth. In doing so, Ireland is joining a group of "flimsily connected" countries with "deplorable human rights records" and "French-speaking crooks", some of whom appeared "at the bottom of every global corruption index" - in contrast to the Commonwealth where Irish athletes could win "hatfuls of medals" at the Commonwealth Games. In vain one might point out that most Irish people would have no difficulty in rejoining the Commonwealth as part of a settlement to reassure unionists in a future united Ireland, but there is no pressing reason to do so now. However, 'The Spectator' does not allow reader's comments. Like a Victorian child, you might be seen, but you certainly should not be heard. Indeed, I am indebted to 'The Spectator' for informing me that Ireland has in fact sought observer status at the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie as this had not previously come to my attention. I doubt too many in Ireland will lose much sleep over it, even if some members have regrettable human rights records. Observer status doesn't give you much in the way of rights to tell others how to run their countries, something 'The Spectator' still seems to regard as its birth right. The next gem I came across was Liam Halligan's "Leo Varadkar has done his absolute best to damage Brexit", in which he enumerates the various ways in which closet Remainer politicians, traitorous civil servants, an overwhelmingly pro-Remain media and self-interested businessmen have sought to frustrate the noble ideals of Brexit. But worst of all is the subterfuge of Varadkar, who has abandoned the constructive approach of his predecessor, Enda Kenny, and, wait for it, politicised the Irish Border issue. Who knew that an international boundary between EU and non-EU members states could be political? Who knew that the creation of a Border which caused a civil war in Ireland in 1922 and led to the Troubles in the North up until 1998, would be a matter of concern to the Irish Government? Frank Schnittger Blessington, Co Wicklow Elections offer the chance of holding SF to account I MUST compliment Mary Lou McDonald, president of Sinn Fein, on her gift of eloquence in recent days in deflecting questions in relation to the re-establishment of power-sharing in the Northern Ireland Assembly after the death of Lyra McKee. According to her, the failure is always down to someone else. However, surely if you are always making excuses or passing on blame you should start looking at putting your own house in order. I think the voters of the 26 counties now have a great opportunity to help Sinn Fein focus on what needs to happen after the murder of Lyra. Sinn Fein candidates (the only party in the North we can influence) will be canvassing for your vote in the local and European elections over the next few weeks. Please challenge them, not about local issues, but about what they will do to make sure Lyra's death was not in vain. This is an opportune time for us to show Sinn Fein that we expect it to act as a proper political party, represent the people who elected it in the North and deal with the societal issues that allow the indoctrination of the people who murdered Lyra and try to justify it as a mistake. If you don't get a satisfactory answer I would ask you to remember the picture of Lyra, a young woman whose life was so casually taken, partly because of its failure to govern, as you cast your vote. Catherine English Limerick Politicians must finally put their differences aside BLESSED are those who mourn - for they shall be comforted. This is one of the beatitudes that permeated our young minds as we were indoctrinated into the Catholic ethos of the 1950s. It all came flooding back as Fr McGill, in his moving reflection at Lyra McKee's funeral, quoted another beatitude: Blessed are the peacemakers - for they shall be called the children of God. In life, Lyra embodied the spirit of the beatitudes that also suffused her young mind; in death, she united people of many different backgrounds and beliefs. When Fr McGill asked the eclectic gathering why it took the death of an innocent young woman to bring them together, the assembly burst into thunderous ovation. It's symbolic and fitting that the ovation started outside the cathedral, outside the establishment in every sense of the word - before crossing the threshold and moving like a tsunami through the congregation. As it moved up the pecking order, it carried a subtle message: what will it take for the people at the top of the political food chain to bury their differences rather than bury their sisters and brothers? To end, I will paraphrase another beatitude: the people of this island, North and south, are hungry and thirsty for righteousness. Pat Mcloughlin Newcastle West, Co Limerick Persecution of Christians needs to be highlighted FAIR play to Patricia Casey for highlighting attacks on Christian churches in Europe in her article ("Why Notre-Dame's survival is testament to courage - and the enduring power of faith", Irish Independent, April 23). Our media prefers to highlight the crimes committed by the Church years ago than investigate the crimes that are committed against the Church today - persecution of Christians and vandalism of churches all across Europe and internationally. Why not investigate this? Because it does not suit their left-wing agenda, I believe. Our world leaders cannot even bear mention of the word Christian in their tweets to Sri Lanka, and would rather refer to us as 'Easter worshippers'. Their words to Sri Lanka were weak and lacking genuine sympathy. Catholic and Christianity have become dangerous or dirty words in the media and are to be avoided. Respect and tolerance towards people of faith starts at home. The air of smugness, ridicule and disdain coming from certain television presenters and television programmes is not professional, is disrespectful and is a mockery. Katie Condon Cullen, Tipperary Referendum campaigners are worthy Time winners It is only fitting that the Together for Yes co-directors were named on Time's list of 100 most influential people. The referendum campaign to repeal the 8th amendment represented a movement we have never really seen before in Ireland. A true grassroots movement led by women - and supported by men. This campaign was run from kitchen tables, from local stalls, sandwiched in between school runs and busy work schedules. There was a place for everyone, and everyone contributed what they could. It was a movement that changed the country, or perhaps rather made it find itself again. It gives hope for the future. Blathnaid O'Loughlin Co Cork We must get to grips with root causes of terrorism IT IS unsurprising that most suicide bombers who targeted Christians in Sri Lanka are highly educated, and that one of them was British educated. Jihadi John, who masterminded beheadings in Syria, was a graduate of the University of Westminster in London. While I do not condone terrorism, it is prudent to remember that history is inundated with countless examples of human tragedies with harrowing and gruesome accounts of killings, rape and psychological traumas perpetrated by educated people, whether the Nazis, Isil or military juntas in Israel, Myanmar, South Sudan, Congo and elsewhere. Educated people also watch with a simmering sense of powerlessness and helplessness, a lost generation of children and women, raped, uneducated, traumatised and abandoned in senseless wars by an apathetic global audience. It is time to tackle the social, political, economic and religious root causes of radicalism and terrorism. Dr Munjed Farid Al Qutob London, UK 'Look at the World' is an international touring exhibition by the Italian-based photographic collective Welcome in Passione Foto (WPF), which will be on at Signal Arts Centre in Bray from Monday, April 29 until Sunday, May 12. The tour will begin in Taranto, Italy before going on to Sardinia, Brussels and Bray. The collective has members in a number of European countries and will be showcasing the best of its members' work. Now in its 9th year WPF has toured throughout Italy often as well as France, Thailand and in 2017 in Ireland. All WPF exhibitions have a socially conscious dimension and proceeds from this show will go to Falanthra, an organisation that promotes social inclusion for people with Alzheimers. Several of the photographers from Italy will attend the official reception on Friday, May 3 from 7 p.m. until 9 p.m. A lesser-known revolutionary figure from Wicklow is part of a photographic exhibition currently taking place in the National Library of Ireland in Dublin. 'From Ballots to Bullets' opened at the National Photographic Archive last autumn and as it enters its final weeks, the National Library is placing a special emphasis on the often overlooked or lesser-told stories of six individuals, which illuminate different aspects of the 1918-1919 period. Among them is Maire Comerford from Rathdrum, a campaigner who believed the 1916 Proclamation was a call to freedom, and who moved to Dublin in 1918 to answer that call. The daughter of James Comerford, the owner of the local Comerford Mill, Maire was in Dublin during the outbreak of the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin and was also present in the Round Room at the Mansion House to witness the creation of the First Dail by the 27 TDs present. 'From Ballots to Bullets: Ireland 1918-1919' is free to visit, and is open seven days weekly: Monday to Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m, and noon to 5 p.m. on Sundays. The exhibition runs in the NLI's National Photographic Archive at Meeting House Square in Temple Bar until Sunday, May 26. Within hours of launching, Powerscourt-based electric car company Electrifi received 120 enquiries on their website and they are solidly booked out for the next 18 months. The new operation in Enniskerry will convert Ferraris, Lamborghini Countach, the Aston Martin and other classic cars to run on electricity, with a 50 million investment and the creation of up to 150 jobs in the coming years. Marketing director Garrett Sheehan said that those jobs will include engineering and software, and electrical. They will also potentially be seeking people in the production side of the business and down the road a design element and a certain amount of support roles. Once manufacturing is under way, there will be something for visitors to see. The company is considering ideas at the moment, from a small boutique showroom with a viewing gallery, to something with a much larger footprint. Electrifi is an arm of Norman Crowley's 'Crowley Carbon' on Powerscourt estate, and the showroom is going to be the old carriage-house where the Powerscourt family carriages would have been kept. The workshop will also be there, with the planning stages currently under way for the retail outlet and factory. The bespoke cars will be worked on in twos and threes, completed and shipped to their owners. Norman left his native Clonakilty 25 years ago, having grown up near Henry Ford's ancestral home. He settled in north County Wicklow and his partnership with the Slazenger family at Powerscourt was a good match, due to their shared ideals of sustainability. Sarah Slazenger said at the Electrifi launch that her late father Dr Michael Slazenger would have loved the innovation of Electrifi, and that the businesses there have breathed life into the estate. Prices will initially start at 750,000, with future plans for models at a more affordable 30,000. Environmental entrepreneur Norman Crowley has joined forces with Welshman Richard Morgan of Electric Classic Cars in Wales to create Electrifi. The company will convert expensive classic cars to run on electric power, replacing their engines with electric motors and battery packs. The electrified Ferrari 308 has the capability of reaching 150mph and travel from 0-100 in 3 seconds. Electrifi will be the first company to manufacture cars in Ireland in almost 40 years. Manufacturing has already begun in the Electrifi's sister plant in Wales and the first cars will leave the Irish plant by the end of this year. Norman Crowley is the recent recipient of the 2019 Green Leader Award which recognises an individual who has made a significant contribution to sustainability in Ireland whilst recognising his combination of entrepreneurial spirit, keen focus on the climate change challenge and his green philanthropy. Mr Sheehan said that Crowley's business model was to be commercially successful while embracing sustainability. 'In the last year or two he changed that and made sustainability the number one priority. And business has been more successful than ever!' Only two homes in Wicklow were upgraded under the Deep Retrofit pilot scheme in 2017 and 2018. Nationally, a total of 214 homes have been upgraded with a spend of 5.581m rolled out by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI). Government funding of up to 50 per cent of the total capital and project management costs for homes that achieve an A3 Building Energy Rating (BER) post retrofit [is available]. 'It is clear that much more needs to be done to promote this deep retrofit scheme to homeowners in Wicklow and throughout the country,' said Shane Dempsey, communications director at the Construction Industry Federation (CIF). 'This initiative has the potential to underpin a sustainable and stable construction industry for the next 25 years,' he said. The Deep Retrofit pilot scheme is open up to the end of 2019 and is 'an innovative way to upgrading the national housing stock', according to Mark Courtney, managing director of House2Home Retrofit Limited. 'From a homeowner's perspective, Deep Retrofit is now affordable and logical if someone is planning a refurbishment project,' he added, also claiming, 'Most of our clients have extension and alteration works which they would like carried out along with the deep retrofit works. The ability to combine the 2 projects gives our clients the comfort and reassurance of one contractor, one start date and one finish date.' In complete contrast, Wicklow homeowners spent over 89.1 million in total through a different scheme, the Home Renovation Incentive (HRI). That's 5,508 home improvement projects in the county up to the end of 2018. These projects had an average spend of 16,180 per project, according to the CIF. Introduced in 2013, the Home Renovation Incentive (HRI) provided homeowners with an income tax credit of 13.5 per cent on expenditure on home improvement works carried out on a main home or rental property. While the scheme concluded last year, it was successful in encouraging significant private sector investment in the upgrading of private and rental property throughout Ireland. Nationally, it resulted in over 147,000 home improvement projects over the last five years with an average spend of 16,766 per project. The average spend per project in Wicklow was 16,180, which was below the national average. Broken down by value, the largest amount of work was carried out completing home extensions (34 per cent), followed by general repair and renovations (25 per cent) and then window replacement (11 per cent) and kitchen replacement (ten per cent). The scheme was introduced initially in late 2013, but the extension of it to rental properties in late 2014 helped increase the number of homeowners who availed of it. IRD Duhallow's Saoi Network officially launched the 2019 Bealtaine festival with a special recording of Jimmy Reidy's 'Round the Fireside' on C103FM. Bealtaine is a festival held throughout the month of May which aims to promote active ageing and encourage older people to get involved in their community. The theme of this year's Bealtaine Festival is 'Be Our Guest', celebrating hospitality, welcome and a more tolerant society. The Duhallow Bealtaine festival has 39 events with something for everyone. The festival kicks off with a Dawn Chorus walk in Castlemagner on April 27th with the Lorraine O' Riordan Gospel Choir Concert 'Shine Your Light' that night in the Edel Quinn Hall at 8pm. Monday the 29th will see IRD Duhallow playing host to Ipad / Iphone Training, with Basic Computer training on April 30 and May 1. The festival will host a 6am Dawn Mass at the source of the Blackwater to mark May Day and this spiritual ceremony is open to all who want to attend. Millstreet will have the official opening of their art exhibition at 7pm on May 1 and the magnificent art exhibition will continue daily throughout the month Millstreet Library. Tureencahill will host to an annual tea morning in aid of Alzheimer's Ireland on May 3 and also on the same day Glash Craft group will have an exhibition of 10 years of craft in the James O'Keeffe Institute from 3-5pm. Get the Stetsons ready for May 5th when Donoughmore will hold their Country & Western Themed Social Dance. There will be an afternoon of music, set dancing and storytelling at Cluid Housing with Newmarket Active Retirement on May 9, and a Scoraiocht on May 10 hosted by Clondrohid ARA. Millstreet ARA have their tea dance on May 12 and, afterwards, Tir na nOg Active Retirement are hosting a storytelling and poetry evening in Dr. Croke House. For fans of John B Keane, The Field will be shown in IRD Duhallow's Day Time Cinema on May 14 and that Friday, 17th, Castlemagner Sinsir group are hosting their Bealtaine Variety Concert. Aubane's Butter Road Walk will take place on May 26 and Kilshannig will host a folklore talk on May 28 with Professor Shane Lehane from UCC. There are two gramophone nights to choose from: Freemount on the 29th and Millstreet on the 31st of May, as well as a number of guided walks on the various loops and trails around Duhallow. Chairperson of IRD Duhallow's Saoi Network, Jack Roche, said "Duhallow is fortunate to have so many active older people's groups. With our region's ageing population the work of these groups is more important than ever before, as we can see from recent reports that lonelineness and mental health is a growing concern for older people in rural Ireland." Tune in to Jimmy Reidy's Around the Fireside on Monday, April 29 and May 13 to hear the full list of upcoming events, or alternatively visit www.irdduhallow.com. A traditional concert of classics, performed jointly by the celebrated Duhallow Choral Society and Kerry Choral Union, drew a large attendance to St Patrick's Church, Millstreet. The Duhallow group has become a vital part of the Barony's cultural community, and they were joined by an equally talented group from the Kingdom for a delightful, spring-themed performance. In a programme filled with an enchanting repertoire, there were plenty of opportunities for patrons to join in and enjoy classical music in this concert supporting Millstreet Community Hospital. Community Hospital Matron Margaret Collins thanked all involved for immersing themselves in the Easter spirit, all thanks to the Duhallow and Kerry choral groups. "Such talented groups delivered a wonderful performance in the ideal setting; the Duhallow and Kerry Choral Union made the occasion," she said. "Many thanks to the staff, friends of the hospital and the community for their support. Proceeds will assist the hospital. There's a lot done but more to do in upcoming projects." North Cork Fine Gael Councillor John Paul O'Shea has encouraged the public to get involved in the inaugural Community Weekend for County Cork, which will take place over the May Bank holiday weekend from May 4 to 6. Newtownshandrum GAA in North Cork is one of four GAA clubs across the county to be hosting a family fun day over the Bank Holiday weekend. Cllr O'Shea said the aim of the Community Weekend is to encourage people to get to know their neighbour through the hosting of fun and sociable local events over the long weekend. Launched recently by Minister for Rural and Community Development Micheal Ring TD, and funded by the Department of Rural and Community Affairs, the scheme sees local authorities around the country receiving an allocation of 10,000 through their Local Community Development Committee (LCDC). Cork County Council, in consultation with their three LCDCs, has taken the approach of linking with the Healthy Ireland Initiative and specifically the GAA Healthy Clubs Initiative. GAA Clubs across Cork County listed as Healthy Clubs under the GAA criteria were invited to submit applications with a focus on planning all-inclusive community events for the National Community Weekend in partnership with other community groups in their areas. In welcoming the new initiative, Cllr O'Shea commented, "I would encourage the public in North Cork to take in the wonderful event planned by Newtownshandrum GAA over the May Bank Holiday weekend. The event in Newtownshandrum, as well as those in Killeagh, Clonakilty and Castlehaven, will be a great opportunity for both young and old to enjoy an inclusive and fun-filled celebration of community and connection." Mayor of the County of Cork Cllr Patrick Gerard Murphy; North Cork LCDC Chairperson Cllr Gerard Murphy; Kay Keegan, Cork County Council; and members of Fermoy Sub-Aqua Club including, Elden Keegan, Catriona Mathews and her son, James; Olan Farrell and Finbarr Murphy outside County Hall. Photo by Brian Lougheed The Fermoy-based Blackwater Sub Aqua Club was among more than 140 community-focussed projects across Cork to receive funding for projects under a scheme backed by Cork Country Council. Through their Local Community Developments Committees (LCDCs), the local authority allocated a grand total of 618,516 to 144 groups and clubs across the county during the course of 2018. The welcome funding supported a wide range of initiatives ranging from the purchase of equipment for community centres to large-scale capital projects. For many of these projects, this was their only source of statutory funding, with the balance of the money needed to complete them coming from voluntary donations and fundraising activities. One such project is the Blackwater search and rescue unit, which since its establishment in 1981 has taken part in countless search and recovery operations across the country. Despite often being called on to assist the emergency services, the unit receives no government funding, with all operational and training expenses covered through donations and by the 24 divers and support personnel. Their experience is highly sought after, with the members developing their own courses and regularly training other units across the country. Under the 2018 LCDC funding, the unit was allocated 10,000 towards the purchase of a river rescue boat to replace the one that has given them such great service for the past 13 years. Cork County Mayor Cllr Gerard Patrick Murphy was on hand to see the new boats for himself when members of the unit recently paid a courtesy visit to County Hall. He used the opportunity to praise the members of the unit for their work and said he was personally delighted that the Council was in a position to give then financial assistance. "Over the years the club has regularly been called upon by the Gardai and the Coastguard service to perform underwater search and recovery operation; and provide safety cover for all river-based activities on the River Blackwater, including many community events," said Cllr Murphy. He pointed out that the club also trains with the interagencies group, which includes the Civil Defence, and are involved in training other clubs in the region in search and rescue techniques. "Given their commitment to the region, we are delighted to be able to help fund the cost of this new river rescue boat," he said. Flash Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Friday met with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, who is here attending the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. Li said China is willing to enhance high-level contacts with Vietnam, deepen pragmatic cooperation, and better align the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) with Vietnam's "Two Corridors and One Economic Circle" plan. China is willing to expand bilateral trade and achieve balanced and sustainable development in trade with Vietnam, and welcomes the entry of quality Vietnamese products into the Chinese market, Li said. China supports Vietnam in assuming its role as the rotating chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in 2020, and is willing to work with Vietnam and other parties to steadily advance the consultations on the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea, the premier said. Nguyen Xuan Phuc said Vietnam actively supports the BRI and is willing to build greater synergy of the two countries' development strategies. Vietnam is willing to work with China in implementing the high-level consensus and safeguarding the long-term stability in the South China Sea, he said. The issue was raised at the April meeting of the Council's northern committee in response to a previous communication with Assistant Garda Commissioner Anne Marie McMahon seeking clarification on unconfirmed reports that the Cork North Garda Division was to be relocated from Fermoy. In her letter, Ms McMahon had written that the recently appointed officer in charge of the division, Chief Superintendent Tom Myers, was undertaking an examination of the accommodation infrastructure available to Gardai within his division. "This examination is required to assess the feasibility of accommodating new and emerging units within the existing estate," she wrote. "One of those is the Protective Services Unit, which is due to commence in the Cork North Division in 2019," she added. However, the reply did little to assuage the concerns of local councillors, with Cllr Noel McCarthy (FG) saying the letter was "only fobbing us off". He said speculation was rife that the divisional HQ was to be moved to Cobh and that if this were to be the case, the resulting downgrading of Fermoy would have "serious implications" for the town and surrounding area. "This would lead to the loss of specialised units, whose presence in the town had been a major deterrent to crime," he said. "We have gotten no answer to the question we asked. I still think there is something afoot t remove the office (of Chief Superintendent) from Fermoy. We need a letter to confirm that the divisional headquarters will not be removed from Fermoy," he added. His concerns were echoed by Cllr Frank O'Flynn (FF), the chair of Cork County Council's joint Policing Committee (JPC). "I want the Chief kept in Fermoy," he said, pointing out that the Cork North divisional are stretches all the way from Meelin down to Cobh. Committee chair Bernard Moynihan (FF) said he too was unhappy with the rely and urged the committee to seek further clarification on the matter from Assistant Commissioner McMahon. Cllr June Murphy (SD) agreed, adding that she was keen to see the north Cork Protective Services Unit in place as soon as possible. It is expected that these units will be in place in all Garda division across the country by the end of this year. They will focus on specialise crime areas and services including sexual crimes, online child exploitation, child protection, domestic abuse, missing persons, human trafficking and support for victims of crime. The IFA Munster regional chairman John Coughlan has urged all farmers to make it their business to attend an IFA organised meeting with MEP election candidates in Springfort Hall, Mallow on Tuesday, April 30 at 8pm. Mr Coughlan said that the meeting would give farmers an opportunity in advance of the upcoming elections to hear the candidates' views on farming and to question them on the important issues that affect farmers. He said that farmers will need to vote for candidates that can clearly show their willingness and ability to fight hard at EU level on their behalf. "With the impact of Brexit still looming and the decisions that have yet to be made on funding the next CAP, it is more important than ever before that we elect the best people, to represent us in Europe," he said. Mr Coughlan appealed to farmers to come out in big numbers to this special meeting on April 30. Meanwhile, Ifac and Bank of Ireland are jointly hosting a farming seminar in the Oriel House Hotel, Ballincollig on Thursday, May 2 at 7:30pm. The theme of the seminar is 'Farming Through an Agri Evolution' and will be chaired by Alan Jagoe, chairman of Agri Aware. The future of CAP post 2020 is a topical issue amongst farmers and together with the uncertainty of the current Brexit situation it has never been more important to understand the implications of these issues for agriculture in Ireland. Bearing this in mind, Agri Minister Michael Creed will inform the meeting of current developments with CAP and Brexit. Other speakers on the night include Declan McEvoy, Head of Tax, ifac, who will discuss tax efficient ways of rewarding farm labour, and John Fitzgerald, Agri Manager at Bank of Ireland, who will look at how the bank wants to fund sustainable agriculture. There will also be a panel discussion with Paidi Kelly from Teagasc, John Kingston, dairy farmer from Ballygarvan, and Nollaig Heffernan from Heffernan Consultancy, who will discuss how farmers can effectively source and manage labour. Speaking about the event, Brian Denn, partner in Ifac's Blarney office said "The purpose of this seminar is to look at issues facing farmers over the coming months and offer solutions or help where possible particularly around farm labour. The topics discussed will be diverse and relevant and we're looking forward to the evening." Meanwhile, John Fitzgerald, Agri Manger with Bank of Ireland said "the Agri sector is evolving on a continuous basis and this event will provide farmers with the information needed to keep pace with the changes that are happening". A festival celebrating Ireland's rich and vibrant maritime heritage is set to dock Leeside for the first time, with organisers of the 2019 SeaFest promising a packed programme of events at the Port of Cork. The event, which has been held in Galway for the last three years, is expected to draw more than 100,000 to the port over three days from Friday, June 7. Organised jointly by Cork City Council and the Inter-Departmental Marine Coordination Group, the free event will be the culmination of the week-long Cork Harbour Festival, which will kick off on Saturday, June 1. SeaFest 2019, part of the 'Harnessing Our Ocean Wealth (HOOW): An Integrated Marine Plan for Ireland' initiative will incorporate more than 100 free events aimed at celebrating and acknowledging everything that the ocean has to offer. Highlights will include free cookery demonstrations from esteemed chefs Rory O'Connell and Neven Maguire; and demos from fishmongers Pat O'Connell and Hal Dawson, while Bord Iascaigh Mhara will also showcase its never-before-seen 'Clean Oceans' visitor experience, raising awareness of plastic in our oceans. Other key events will include Met Eireann Head of Forecasting Evelyn Cusack discussing weather changes and warnings at the Marine Institute marquee; talks and films inspired by the ocean at Institutes's Atlantic Theatre; and award-winning wildlife cameraman Doug Allen will discuss his remarkable experiences filming the BBC's acclaimed 'Blue Planet' and 'Ocean Giants' programmes. There will be free sailing, kayaking, currach and dragon boat trips on the water with Irish Sailing, Atlantic Sea Kayaking and Meitheal Mara. Tours of the Marine Institutes's research vessel RV Celtic Explorer and the Commissioner of Irish Lights' ILV Granuaile take place across the weekend. The Defence Forces will provide an equipment and capabilities display. There will be fun and free activities in the dedicated Kids Zone, along with, touch-tank displays as part of the Marine Institute's 'Explorers Education Programme'. Speaking at the launch of SeaFest 2019, the Lord Mayor of Cork, Cllr Mick Finn, said it was fitting that it should come to Cork given the city and county's "unique maritime history and association with the sea". "That the city's motto proclaims Cork to be 'a safe harbour for ships' speaks for itself," said Cllr Finn. "There is a great programme of free events lined up for the festival this year - and for the next three years - to ensure that people connect with the river, the harbour and the sea. SeaFest will be at the core of European Maritime Day next year, when we will also celebrate 300 years of the Royal Cork Yacht Club... the oldest of its kind in the world. We invite everyone to attend the free, fun events and help focus on keeping our oceans healthy and vibrant," he added. For more information about SeaFest 2019 and to view the full weekend programme, visit www.seafest.ie. The retiring but rarely shy Meelin-based county councillor Timmy Collins raised a few eyebrows last November when he announced to The Corkman that he would not be seeking re-election to the authority at next month's local elections. It was Cllr Collins' turn to be surprised at the April meeting of the authority's northern committee as family, friends, colleagues and council officials gathered to pay glowing tribute to him and the work he has done during his time on the Council. Although a relatively latecomer to the council, Cllr Collins had been an active member of the Fine Gael party since 1976 before being co-opted onto the authority's Kanturk Electoral Area in 2002 after Gerard Murphy was elected to Dail Eireann. After narrowly losing his seat two years later, Cllr Collins left Fine Gael and ran as an independent in the 2009 locals, topping the Kanturk poll with 3,343 first preference votes. "Deciding to run as an independent was the best political decision I ever made," said Cllr Collins, who was re-elected to the new Kanturk/Mallow Municipal District Committee in 2014. The agreement between Fianna Fail and the Independents within the chamber saw him assume the role of Deputy County Mayor the following year, something he described as the "highpoint of my political career". He has also served as chair of both the Kanturk/Mallow MDC and the council's northern area committee, has served as vice-chair of the Joint Policing Committee since 2014 and is the current chair of the HSE (South) committee. At the gathering in Mallow's Annabella House northern committee chair Cllr Bernard Moynihan presented 72-year-old Cllr Collins with a painting of beloved Meelin village and a sketch of County Hall. In turn his northern area colleagues spoke about the immense contribution Cllr Collins had made to local politics and how much his sharp wit, incisive commentary and commitment to the people he served would be sorely missed. Cllr Moynihan described him as an "excellent colleague who was always upfront and honest. I never heard anyone say a bad word about you", while Cllr John Paul O'Shea said he was a "tremendous supporter of the area over the years" and Cllr Frank O'Flynn said he was a great servant to rural Ireland adding "we were very lucky to have him". Cllr Noel McCarthy said that while Cllr Collins took his role as a councillor seriously "he also had a great sense of humour", while Cllr Ian Doyle said it had been a "great pleasure" to work alongside him. Other councillors including Melissa Mullane, June Murphy and Gearoid Murphy said he was always on hand to help new members elected to Council, regardless of their political affiliations. Speaking to The Corkman a clearly emotional Cllr Collins said he had been overwhelmed by the depth of sincerity showed by his colleagues. "I have loved every minute of my time on the Council so deciding not to run again was not a decision that I took lightly. I felt it was the right time for me to stand aside and perhaps let younger people take over the reins," he said. "It has been a great privilege to serve the people I have represented and will always have fond memories of my time on Cork County Council and of the many people I have worked with along the way," said Cllr Collins. Oscar Wilde famously said 'The problem is the English can't remember history, while the Irish can't forget it'. And while we mightn't forget it, parts of our history have been shrouded in silence - a silence born out of the painful period leading up to foundation of the State. Now, Louth historian and author Donal Hall has pushed open the curtains to reveal what happened in our county in the early years of the 20th century. Donal grew up listening to stories about Irish history. Both his parents were interested in history and spoke of events which happened when they were children. 'I was very aware of what had happened and listening to then talking, it was like it happened yesterday,' he says. His father was from St Patrick's Terrace, Dundalk, also known as Happy Valley, while his mother was from around the corner in Seatown. 'My father's family were Republicans and were involved in the War of Independence while my mother's family had been in the British army and were out fighting in France at the time of the Rebellion,' he recalls. This gave him a personal insight into the complexity of Irish history and it evident in his latest book 'Louth: The Irish Revolution 1912-23,' which has just been published by Four Court Press. A proud Louth man, Donal was conscious that the county's story hadn't been told when it came to that defining period of Irish history. Most accounts of the period concentrate on what happened in Dublin, Cork, Kerry, Limerick and other places whose names are remembered in story and song. Louth, if it gets a mention, is just a footnote. Donal's passion for local history spurred him to return to education when in 1995 his wife Tricia spotted an advertisement for a part time humanities degree which included a history specialisation. This led to him eventually attaining his doctorate in history and to writing a number of highly regarded books. 'Professor Terry Dooley was my supervisor when I was doing my Masters at NUI Maynooth. He's from Kilanney, Co Monaghan so he is familiar with this area.' He also worked with Martin Maguire of DkIT when he was doing his Ph.D. Having initially researched the period of the First World War and particularly the fate of the Louth soldiers who lost their lives in battle, he explains that it was a sense of curiosity which propelled him to carry on researching those years which shaped Irish history. He wanted to tell the story from all sides, from those who believed in Home Rule and enlisted in the British Army in the First World War to those who joined the Rising and later fought in the War of Independence, to the bitter Civil War which divided families, communities and former comrades in arms. 'I was always very interested in both sides of the story and never felt any bias one way or the other,' he says. Nothing has ever been written about that period in Louth, he says. 'In the general history books, Louth didn't get a look in.' 'All I ever heard were stories. The object of my research was to find out what happened.' For over twenty years, Donal has dedicated his life to that task, and since his retirement, he was able to devote more time to visiting archives, pouring over old newspaper reports and contacting families whose ancestors were involved in the events of that era. He has been rigorous in his research as illustrated by the long list of sources listed in the book. Thus, he was well positioned to accept a commission from series editors Mary Ann Lyons and Daithi O Corrain to write the Louth volume for the Four Courts Press series of books for the Decade of Centenaries. 'I started work on this book three years ago but I had most of the research done,' he says. 'Mostly the last three years were spent writing and editing and editing and editing. The biggest problem was I only had 80,000 words to tells the story,' The story he tells is a fascinating one which sets the headline acts of the 1916 Revolution, War of Independence and Civil War into the context of the period. He explains that when he began researching a book on the war dead of Co Louth, he was struck by the fact that local newspapers were reporting on both the Great War and the case for Home Rule, or,after 1916, the rise of militant republicanism. 'It occurred to me that I couldn't understand the motivations of those who enlisted in WW1, without an appreciation of the political background at home, neither could I understand the revolution without understanding the context of the World War.' The book examines the social and economic conditions which were influential in determining the course of history. It is also full of human stories, and Donal doesn't hesitate in detailing the sacrifices made by many during that brutal and bitter time. Arguing that we must not allow ourselves to become 'hostages of history', Donal is conscious that the commemorations for the War of Independence and subsequent Civil War are going to be difficult as they have the potential to re-open old wounds. 'Over the next four years we in this county and in this country are going to examine painful events that occurred a century ago. The commemoration must be compassionate but it must also be all-encompassing,' he commented at the launch of the book in An Tain Arts Centre last week. An adoring grandfather, he had dedicated the book to his grandchildren. 'Seeing the world through their young adult eyes over the years has at times imbued me with a feeling of sadness that a century ago, so many fine young people died needlessly because old men, mostly, could not agree, and are still dying today all around the world for the same reason,' he said. 'Louth : The Irish Revolution 1912-23' in available in Roe River Books, Park Street, Dundalk. 'Vintage' is a group of friends from the Castlebellingham area who meet up regularly to make music and sing for good causes. They will return by popular demand to Drumshallon Forge this Saturday night April 27th, where they'll sing all your favourite songs in the barbershop tradition. Joining them will be Termonfeckin Macra to perform their comedy sketch 'The Feckin' Greatest Show" with which they reached the all-Ireland finals recently in the 'Macra Capers' competition'. This show has everything, music, song, dance and comedy and a Blind Date! Come along to Drumshallon Forge on Saturday night - admission just 10. The April event for Network Ireland Louth took place in The Westcourt Hotel recently with keynote speaker, local business woman Denise Fay of the award winning Achieve Marketing. Denise's topic was 'The ACE Effect - How to Win Clients and Keep Them for Life'. With over twenty years' experience in Marketing, Denise gave clear and simple tips and advice on how to attract clients, nurture them and keep them. 'Many business owners concentrate primarily on client attraction. While this is important, client retention is as important.,' Denise told the large group of Louth business women, who had gathered to hear her speak. 'Why go on the treadmill of client attraction when you can keep some energy and focus on retaining and engaging the clients that you already have. After all, you've spent the money to acquire a client, why not keep them?"' In an entertaining and inspiring speech about marketing, which contained references to Boy George, U2 and the Presidential Debate of 1960, the TEDx speaker, Denise shared tips and mindset behind the marketing formulas that are typically bestowed. The local author reminded us about the power of words and how they have immense potential for converting ideal clients into actual clients but also have the power to repell clients. Denise left the audience with actions and tips to implement immediately. A highly interactive questions and answers session followed with members leaving energized with a renewed sense of conviction and credibility. Network Louth is a branch of Network Ireland, a Nationwide organisation supporting the professional, and personal, development of women. It provides support, learning and networking opportunities for women in business and enterprise, throughout Ireland, through the branch network. Network Ireland is a non-profit, voluntary organisation, established in 1983 and now has 15 Branches Nationwide. Membership is made up of a diverse group of women, from budding entrepreneurs to SME owners, professionals, and leaders in indigenous and multinational organisations, the Public Sector, the Arts, non-profit organisations and charities. Ten female entrepreneurs from across the North East region were invited to pitch to a panel of judges and potential investors in Coca Cola HQ this past Monday as part of their participation on the Illuminate Boyne Valley/M1 Female Entrepreneurship Programme. The Illuminate programme was developed by The Mill Enterprise Hub in Drogheda to fast track female led businesses to develop their business and enhance their leadership skills to ultimately achieve scale and create employment. Having completed the programme - which included training in business strategy, leadership styles, finance & funding, legal, sales, marketing & branding, business & financial risk assessment and how to sustain and grow your business - and honed their highly developed business management and leadership skills, the group of 10 were ready for their pitch. Allocated with the very difficult task, judges on the day included Sheelagh Daly, Entrepreneurship Manager at Enterprise Ireland; Tony Campion, HR Manager Coca-Cola; Nichola Tighe, Bank Manager, AIB; and Shona McManus, President of Drogheda Chamber/Promoter M1 Drogheda Chamber Skillnet/CEO of Osborne Recruitment. Speaking about the Illuminate programme and the pitches, Shona McManus, President of Drogheda Chamber who was also a judge said: 'One of Drogheda Chamber's goals is to enable local businesses to scale and grow. We are behind this programme as we want to inspire a new generation of female entrepreneurs to develop the skills and confidence to back themselves and their businesses.' There were a wide variety of participants and businesses, including Bronagh Conlon - Listoke Distillery & School, Elaine Connolly - Cubicle 7 Games, Evita McCloskey & Inese Rasina - Westend Salon, Evelyn Nomayo - Phase Innovate, Una McGoey - Anu Change, Jacqui Millar - Weddings by Jacqui, Aoife Keady - Whatswhere, Jane Kerr - metimetraining and Priscilla McGeehan - Blas Marketing. The programme was organised by M1 Drogheda Chamber Skillnet in conjunction with The Mill Enterprise and sponsored by AIB, Coca-Cola International Services and part funded by Skillnet Ireland from the National Training Fund through the Department of Education and Skills. Breanndan Casey, Business Development Manager at The Mill added: 'This is the third time we've run the Illuminate programme with DCU Ryan Academy and were delighted that AIB and Coca-Cola co-funded the programme again.' Significant riverbank protection measures have been approved for the Curley Hole at Townley Hall in a bid to preserve the fishery habitat in the area. They will also be vital to secure the main Drogheda to Slane road that has also come under threat due to erosion. Rock armour is to be placed on the riverbank to halt the ongoing issues, with Meath and Louth CC both involved in the planning process and Inland Fisheries Ireland making the application. Meath CC approved their side of the river for works last week. The development will involve the construction of scour protection along the northern and southern banks of the Boyne at the Curley Hole and will involve an underwater archaeological survey, just a short distance from where King William crossed the river at the Battle of the Boyne. An archaeological report with the application states that the erection of the rock armour could lead to 'ground disturbance' and that metal detectors should also be used along the river bank as part of the survey. 'The propose works will combine soft methods of bank protection and heavy rock armour that will be quarried locally,' the report states, adding that there will be 'no adverse impacts on the Bru na Boinne site.' The river bank at the Curley Hoole have undergone 'substantial erosion' which has resulted in changes to the flow regime and deposits within the channel at that location. Land on both sides has eroded into the river course. 'The erosion of the north riverbank is of particular concern as it compromises the integrity of the N51 Drogheda to Slane road,. which passes within metres of the river channel,' the application states. The erosion is having a negative impact in the salmon and sea trout in the area. The proposal is for 500mm high x 1000mm x 1000mm angular block like shaped rock /boulders to the lower two thirds of the eroded bank height. The work would take 12 weeks and be confined to July - September. There are also issues with an invasive species at the location, Himalayan Balsam, while Meath CC were keen to learn more about erosion of river banks downstream due to the works. The IWAI Boyne Navigation sent in a submission on the issue, expressing concerns that the present tow path would be the main route for the carriage of rocks by tractor and trailer to the works site. They say the path is only 1.5m in width and is a pedestrian route add they fear it will be damaged by large tractors as well as the culverts under the path that take away water under flood conditions. It was stated that a layer of rock will be placed on the path in a bid to protect it and that it will be returned to its present state afterwards. Some 11 conditions have been applied by Meath CC with the project. Flash At least 60 Palestinian demonstrators were injured on Friday afternoon during clashes with Israeli soldiers in the eastern Gaza Strip close to the border with Israel, medics said. The clashes between the Palestinian demonstrators and the Israeli soldiers were part of the weekly anti-Israel rally, better known as the Great March of Return, which started in late March of 2018. Ashraf al-Qedra, spokesman of the Health Ministry in Gaza, told reporters that 60 demonstrators were hospitalized, including 19 children, a paramedic and a photojournalist. At least 25 were shot and wounded by Israeli gunfire in eastern Gaza, he added. Dozens suffered suffocation after inhaling tear gas fired by the Israeli soldiers on the border between the eastern Gaza Strip and Israel, the Gaza spokesman noted. The Highest Commission of the Great March of Return earlier called on the Gazans to join the weekly protests in the eastern Gaza Strip for the 56th Friday rally, which also called for ending the internal Palestinian division. "Gaining Palestinian unity is the best option for the Palestinians to face the current critical political situation," said the commission. Meanwhile, the Hamas spokesman Abdulatif al-Qanou said in an e-mailed press statement that the participants in the weekly protests "reflect the eagerness of the Palestinians to end the internal division and achieve unity." The Palestinians have been divided since 2007 when Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip while the West Bank remained under the rule of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Party. The Israeli blockade and the internal Palestinian division between Hamas and Fatah have been negatively influencing all aspects of life, mainly in the Gaza Strip. During more than a year of weekly protests in the eastern Gaza Strip, the health ministry in the coastal enclave said the Israeli army has shot and killed 272 Palestinians and wounded more than 16,000 others. This story is about Tankardstown Manor and Estate, sitting on 80 acres, near the Co. Meath, Village of Slane. It's also the story of a 1935 Aston Martin Racing Car. So let's bring the Tankardstown Estate up to the period of 1935. The estate and Manor date back to the sixteen hundreds, we pick up the records where in 1710 it was occupied by the Coddington family, who after some years moved to Oldbridge House on the site of the Battle of the Boyne. They sold Tankardstown to the Brabazon Family who in 1815 sold it to Francis Blackburn and it remained in their ownership until the mid 1970's. Francis Blackburne was born in 1782 and lived to the ripe old age of 84. He married a lady called Jane Martley and they had nine children, six boys and three girls. Francis played a big part in Irish History, he was educated in Trinity College, and was called to the Irish Barr in 1805, was nominated a King's Counsel in 1822 and in 1831 he became Attorney General for Ireland. He continued to progress his career and in 1852 was appointed Lord Chancellor of Ireland. Here the story gets a little misty for also in 1852 he bought Rathfarnham Castle where he died in 1867 and was buried in Mount Jerome. He left Tankardstown to one of his sons Judge Francis William who went on to have a family of three a son and two daughters, Jack, Elena and Amabel and on his death, Jack inherited the estate and worked it, although probably half heartedly for his first love was Racing Cars. Elena married a gentleman called Maurice Townshend on March 22nd 1928. This family were also deep in Irish History, the earliest record is from June 19th 1647 Colonel Richard Townshend arrived in Ireland with a regiment of 1000 soldiers to serve here. For the next three decades, events in Ireland remained unsettled. During this time the Colonel, Richard made extensive purchases of land in three lots, which were confirmed by Royal Patents in 1666, 1668 and 1680. In total he had 8000 acres. He established himself in Castletownshend about 1665 where he sought to consolidate his estates and lead the settled life of a land owner. So for 360 years the Townshend Descendants can be found all around the world. Indeed in 2013 the year of "The Gathering" 45 descendants of Colonel Richard Townshend and their famileis came together in Castletownshend in West Cork. So it was that Elena Blackburn married Maurice Townshend on March 22nd 1928 and lived in Tankardstown. Maurice was credited with having second sight, he was able to point out on a map the whereabouts of a missing person or a lost item. He also travelled Ireland divining wells with 100% success. In later years he was diagnosed with Cancer and with a short time to live, so he started to concoct his own herbal remedies and lived for many more years, he died 13th June 1966 and is buried in St. Barrahanes's Church in Castletownshend. So back to Jack Blackburne and the family estate. It was no surprise when in 1935 he travelled to England and bought what he always wanted - A Racing Car- This car was something special indeed. It was an Aston Martin 105 litre mark 2 Ulster Series 3. It was designed and built by Augustis Cesare Bertelly and only 21 were ever produced. Even back then it became a collector's item. Jack was a bachelor so he spent as mucvh time as he had to spare with the Aston. He raced it in the Phoenix Park and other tracks around the country, indeed one of the 21 Aston Martins won Le Mans. When he landed home with the car he had to have a mechanic to look after it. He came to my Dad who had his own Garage in Drogheda and my Dad fell in love with it on first sight. His job was to ekep it in fine tune, and before a race he would check on steering, wheels, tyres, brakes and then if he felt I wasn't jus tright he would road test it. The best place he could find was the straight two miels of road between Drogheda and Temonfeckin. There are two cross roads on the stretch which he had to have manned to prevent anyone coming onto the road for at his speed it would be difficult to stop in time. As a very young boy in the early 1940's he often took me with him if he was going to Tankardstown. I used to love seeing the manor house and the maids or maybe it was the two sisters, I would not have known the difference back then. They would give me cake and milk and generally make a fuss of me. One day he needed to take the Aston Martin back to our garage, so he left his car there and I got home in the Racing Car. A memory I still have now in my 80's. I also got a sty in my eye from the wind coming around the windscreen. Jack was at his happiest when he was behind the wheel of his beloved Aston Martin. Sad to say he didn't enjoy enough years for he passed away in the mid 1940's. In his will he left the estate to Elena and the Aston Martin to Amable. Some weeks later my Dad got a letter from Elena with a cheque for 25 enclosed saying it is what her brother would have wanted. 25 was a lot of money during the war years and was a God send to a man with 10 children and a struggling Garage. He kept that letter but when we were clearing his office after his own untimely death in 1954 we must have mixed it up with waste papers. When Elena's husband Maurice Townshend passed away Amable and Elena ran the farm as best they could. They didn't seem to know the value of the Aston Martin for they used it around the farm, there was even a platform made to fit on to the back of the car to carry Milk Churns etc. There were plenty of people wanted to buy it but they wouldn't sell. Perhaps it was their reminder of the brother they loved that made then keep it. The years passed by and the time came when the manor house and estate was just too much for the two old ladies, so a decision was made to sell. It was sold in the mid 70's and the sisters build a house at the rear entrance to the estate. At the same time Amable sold the Aston Martin to a Dr. Kevin Healy who was a member of the irish Beteran and Vintage Car Club and would have known the prize he got. He spent a lot of money having a tolal refurbishment job done and raced it in Ireland and in the UK at such tracks as Oulton Park, kirkstown and Silverstone. In 1979 he sold it to a wealthy American for a large sum amount unknown and the Aston Martin left our shores for a new lfie in the USA. But that is not he end of the Aston Martin Story First we must complete the BNlackburne and Tankardsotwn story. Elena and Amabel were happy in their new home. Sometine in the 1980's I got a call from the sisters to go and see them with view to update their very old car. When I called I was warmly received and invited in for Tea and Scones. We talked of days gone by, they liked the car I took out to them and they bought it. There was only one sister present so I asked about the other one. She said that she was in her room and doesn't come out much when people call, especially men. She told me of the horrible experience they encountered when they were broken into one night by two masked men who locked both of them in a room and told them what would happen if they made noise. They took a lot of valuable items and left the house, but didn't unlock the door. Her sister couldn't get over the experience. I delivered the car next day and somehow I knew I wouldn't see them again and that the car would be seldom used. I thought It would be more like they needed it for a feeling of independence. The two sisters died in 1996 and are buried in Slane beside their brother Jack. Tankardstown estate came back on the market in 2002 and was purchased by a gentleman called Brian Conroy. Through the years parcels of land of the estate were sold off. The manor house now only standing on 20 acres. Mr Conroy must be a man of great vision for at that time the house was showing its age and generally the farm facilities, showed that the place was run down. He must have taken a good look at what he had and could see what he could have. He restored the Manor house to her youthful beauty and with skillful planning. The extension he built enhances the house. He has also bought back some of the original land that had been once part of the estate and today Tankardstown house is sitting on 80 acres and is one of the finest Country House Hotels in North Leinster and South Ulster. Back to the history of the Aston martin. The new American owner didn't race it very much and let his son drive it. It seems this young man couldn't handle the power he had under him for he crashed it and did a lot of damage. A decision was made to sell it in its crashed state. It was bought by another American who once again had it meticulously restored to the specification of the designer and builder, Cesare Bertelly. It was put up for auction again and was bought by a man called Nick Mason who was the drummer with the music group Pink Floyd. The price allegedly paid was in the region of 1.5million sterling. Nick Mason is known to be a collector of vintage racing cars. He published a book in 1998 called "Into the Red" which I was lucky enough to find a copy of. In it he talks about his Aston Martin Ulster, how much he loves it and has three of the 21 produced Numbers 17,18 and 21 and regrets he didn't buy more of them. His collection includes a Porsche 935 McLaren F1 Limited Edition, Bugatti T35B and A Ferrari 250 GTO which had a value of 10 million sterling at its peak and so many more. His wealth amount to 75 million according to the Sunday Times Rich List of 2015/16. Today both the Aston Martin and the Country house are in the millionaire bracket. The hotel is of a very high standard, fit for Kings, Queens or any high society person using it, yet it retains that warm welcoming feeling the manor house always had. The Aston Martin sits in the middle of a collection of the finest vintage cars ever made, its rubs shoulders with cars worth lots of millions of pounds indeed some are priceless. The people involved in the era 1935 to the eighties have all gone to their rest including my Dad, but I am sure if they look down, it is with pride especially Jack and Amable Blackburn and Mrs Elena Townshend at what the car and the Manor House have achieved. Thanks to Robert and Freda Salter Townshend and Hubert and Edward Townshend and Aisling Smith Coleman. TY students, Niamh Lambert and Cayleigh OBrien-Doyle (Colaiste Bride) and Lily Byrne (Enniscorthy VC) volunteering in the Market Square for Cystic Fibrosis Awareness Day There were scenes of great celebration and friendship in Ballindaggin National School recently when it celebrated Friendship Week and also raised money for Cystic Fibrosis Ireland. Speaking to this newspaper about the fundraiser school Principal, Conor McDonald said the organisation was chosen as the beneficiary due to the fact that one of the schools pupils in the junior classes, Ruth Forster, has CF. 'We have a girl in junior infants, Ruth Forster, who has CF and that is why we decided to hold the fundraiser for that organisation,' said Mr McDonald. The entire school population got behind the initiative which was used to increase awareness about the condition as well as raising much needed funds. 'We all wore purple into the school as that is the colour associated with cystic fibrosis,' said Mr McDonald. Each of the children also brought in 2 and Mr McDonald said 400 was raised on the day. There was also a lot of activity in the assembly hall as the fundraiser coincided with Friendship Week when the focus of attention was firmly placed on companionship. 'We sang songs and played music during assembly and it was very enjoyable for everyone,' said Mr McDonald. Following the assemblies the children and staff also got to participate in an Easter egg hunt around the school which proved to be a big hit with everyone. The school also presented prizes to children for a competition it held which encouraged them to write about friendship and what it means to them through the medium of poetry. Mr McDonald said Friendship Week was a great success and culminating that with the cystic fibrosis fundraiser provided the perfect ending to a very enjoyable week of activities. He praised everyone who supported the initiative and paid particular tribute to the pupils who fully embraced the week. Local people and some secondary school students also helped raise money for cystic fibrosis as part of the fundraising drive. Bail was allowed to three defendants accused of breaking into a house in Ballycanew, but only after thousands of euro in cash bail was produced. Before the court accused of burglary at 1 Riverview, Ballycanew were Thomas Phayres (39) from Gorey and Alec Lawless with an address of 18 Branogue Park in Courtown. They were further charged with assault causing harm to Mark Owens in Riverview in the early hours of April 7. Also brought before Judge Brian O'Shea in custody was Lawless's partner Sinead Martin, originally from New Zealand. The granting of bail was opposed by prosecuting Garda Tagdh Moran. He alleged that Mark Owens was attacked with a hammer and a vacuum cleaner pipe during a break-in as the house was ransacked. The injured party had been hit over the head, continued the garda, and he had been detained in hospital with a suspected collapsed lung. He knew the two defendants, the court was told, and the prosecution felt convinced that the incident was pre-meditated. His partner continued to reside in Ballycanew but she remained absolutely terrified, according to Garda Moran. Phayres was described in court as a self-employed plasterer with two children. Judge Brian O'Shea learned that Alec Lawless came originally from Boolavogue where his parents run a shop and post office. After his arrest, he told the garda that had been in Australia but he was back in Ireland to attend a family funeral. His father Alec Lawless senior was in court and prepared to go bail. Sinead Martin was freed after posting 500 cash bail with a 2,000 cash surety. Alec Lawless junior was freed after posting 5,000 bail with a 5,000 cash surety. Thomas Phayres was remanded in custody with consent to bail, the terms being 2,500 cash with a 2,500 cash surety. Phayres's brother was in court and it was indicated that the accused would live with his mother at 20 Woodbury, Gorey while on bail. The defendants were order to hand over travel documents and to stay away from River View in Ballycanew. Phayres appeared in court again before Judge O'Shea at a sitting of Gorey District Court on Wednesday, April 10, where he took up bail and walked out of court. The national president of Chartered Accountants Ireland paid a visit to Wexford last week on the invitation of colleagues at Price Waterhouse Cooper (PwC) in Cornmarket. A native of Warrenpoint, Co Down, Feargal McCormack made the long journey south to Wexford for a special event organised alongside Billy Sweetman of PwC Wexford. Mr McCormack was delighted to speak at a special members dinner at the Thomas Moore Tavern on Wednesday evening, giving local Chartered Accountants Ireland members in Wexford the opportunity to meet with their president and network with other CAI members from right across the county. There was a wonderful atmosphere on the night and it was enjoyed by all. As well as attending the members dinner, Mr McCormack also made an inspirational speech to sixth year students of the Loreto Secondary School, not only on the career opportunities that a career as a chartered accountant can offer, but also on becoming the best people they can in life. Mr McCormack was said to have enjoyed his trip to Wexford and is hoping to return again in the near future. The Northern Irish peace process faces existential threats on several fronts and in the 21 years since the Good Friday Agreement was signed peace in the north has rarely been in such jeopardy. The paralysis in Stormont and the chaos of Brexit in Westminster have left northern politics in a shambolic state and the province crying out for real leadership. Now into the power vacuum have stepped the murderous sectarian savages of the dissident republicans. In recent years the dissidents - under various banners - have been largely forgotten. As they increasingly moved into crime and the drugs trade they were too often seen as an archaic and occasionally worrying hangover from the troubles. A problem certainly, but not a particularly serious one. As the world's focus switched to Islamic terrorist organisations, groups like the Real IRA and the many other fringe dissident Republican groups slipped out of the spotlight. There was news of the occasional weapons seizure or arrest but typically when they appeared in the headlines in recent years it was due to their involvement in Dublin's gang feuds. In 2009 the Real IRA shot dead two British Soldiers outside the Messereene Barracks in Antrim and in 2011 a PSNI Officer was murdered in a car bomb attack outside his home in Omagh. These incidents - along with a series of car bomb attacks in 2010 - should have alerted people to the growing threat but they were never really treated with the seriousness they deserved. It's hard to know why. Could it be that in the face of Islamic terror the public just didn't take the republicans seriously anymore? Maybe it was the dissidents' widespread image as motivated but ineffectual fanatics that allowed them slip under the radar. Perhaps, after the long horror of The Troubles, Irish people North and South just wanted the terrorists to be gone and so ignored them. We can ignore them no longer. Emboldened by the political standstill in Stormont and by Brexit's threat to the border and the Good Friday Agreement the dissidents have returned in force. The car bomb attack at Derry Courthouse in mid January was a worrying sign of things to come. It has been followed by an upsurge in low level sectarian violence and with threats from the dissidents that they intend to significantly ramp up their campaign in the coming months. That planned escalation would seem to be the motivation behind the recent spate of ATM robberies in the border region as the dissidents work to finance their murderous activities. The recent surge in violence came to an appalling nadir last week with the murder of young Derry journalist Lyra McKee as she covered a riot that had been inflamed by the dissidents. Her tragic death has rightly shocked the world and highlighted the perilous state of the peace process. Ms McKee's murder is a tragedy. One can only hope it will force politicians in Dublin, Belfast and Westminster to pay attention to what is happening before another life is stolen. Dublin's Four Local Authorities, including Fingal County Council, Clean Coasts, National Spring Clean, Local Authority Waters Programme, Dublin City Canals, Dodder Action, residents, volunteers and community groups county-wide are coming together for Dublin's largest clean up this April. Join the efforts to make Dublin city and county litter free this Spring by registering your clean up on dublincommunitycleanupday.ie; in order to receive your free clean up kit. A spokesperson for the initiative said: 'We are inviting all Community, Residents, Business and Environmental groups to get involved and spend a little time caring for your area. 'The local authorities will provide clean up equipment and removal of all litter collected to all groups taking part. 'Building on the success of previous calls to action - Dodder Action Day, Dublin Canals Action Day, Team Dublin Cleanup and Dublin Waters Action day - this year all have come together to make this Dublin's biggest volunteer clean-up on our streets, canals, rivers, mountains and coastline. 'Why not get your family and friends to be a part of the action?' Environmental Awareness Officer for Fingal County Council Sinead Fox said: 'Fingal County Council is encouraging people to register and mobilise for the clean-up day. It's a great opportunity to involve the whole community.' Register your Dublin Community Clean-Up at https://dublincommunitycleanupday.ie/ to receive your clean-up kit. From the mountains to the sea let's make Dublin litter free. As this year's Trocaire Lenten campaign comes to an end, a young mother from Rwanda has sent a message of thanks to the people Fingal for their donations which have helped to completely change her life. Twenty-five years ago, Josiane Umumarashavu, who was aged 3, survived the genocide which saw her father, sister and two of her brothers killed along with almost 1 million other people. With her mother struggling to provide for her three children in the aftermath of this horrific atrocity, Josiane featured on more than one million Trocaire boxes that reached homes in Dublin and right across Ireland back in 2004. Thanks to donations from the Fingal public during this Lent campaign, Josiane and her family, along with thousands of others, received support and equipment to help them improve their farming. This meant they could feed their families in the long-term, earn an income and allowed the children to continue in school. Today, 15 years later, Josiane, 28, is now a successful businesswoman and is married with a beautiful six-month old baby boy, Gianni. Graduating with a qualification in business management and accounting, she now works in Trocaire's office in Rwanda. 'I am very happy,' says Josiane. 'Trocaire, and the supporters across Ireland, have made my dreams come true. Life was very difficult after the genocide. We didn't have enough to eat and we couldn't afford the fees to allow me to continue my studies after primary school. But thanks to Trocaire supporters, not only was I able to go to secondary school, but I then went to university. 'I am very proud that I now work for Trocaire and can help others, as well as taking care of my baby son. 'I want to say a big thank you to Trocaire supporters in Fingal - you have helped to change my life and that of my family, and you should be proud that you are helping so many people.' A man who tried to make a claim for a refund of his airline fare expenses after an Aer Lingus flight had to make an emergency landing causing it to be delayed, was told by a judge his claim was "ridiculous and frivolous." Terence Jennings and his wife were returning from Miami to Dublin on September 16 last year when the flight had to be redirected to Gander in Newfoundland because a passenger took a life-threatening turn for the worst mid-air. The passenger was removed from the flight and brought to hospital where they made a recovery. As a result of the medical emergency, the flight was delayed four hours and because the crew were out of hours, the flight had to land then in Shannon instead of Dublin. The 200 passengers were then bussed to Dublin Airport. However, Mr Jennings and his wife took private transport to Dublin Airport to collect their car and drove back to their home at The Clovers, Kilfinane in Co Limerick. He made a claim for 1,032 through the Small Claims Court sitting at Swords District Court for their return airfares, private transport and refreshments expenses during the delay. When asked by Judge Dermot Dempsey did he accept that a life-threatening emergency was extraordinary circumstances, he said he didn't. He claimed he didn't have receipts because he was not in the business of keeping receipts. A solicitor for Aer Lingus said the circumstances were extraordinary. Aer Lingus refused the claim due to 'extraordinary circumstances' and invoked Article 5 Paragraph 3 of the European Regulations 261/2004. 'The carrier has no control over a passenger's sickness and health,' said the solicitor. 'It could not have been avoided.' 'When the plane landed in Shannon staff were out of hours but they did everything to look after passengers,' the solicitor continued. 'Mr Jennings decided this was not good enough and didn't want to go with the other passengers to Dublin on the bus.' On hearing the evidence in the case, Judge Dempsey ruled the claim was 'frivolous'. 'There is no basis for the claim. It's a ridiculous claim. Quite clearly it was extraordinary circumstances,' the judge added before dismissing it. Information obtained by Fianna Fail's Spokesperson on Housing, Darragh O'Brien TD through Parliamentary Question this month reveals that a special investment fund to allow Credit Unions invest in social housing which due to be finalised by Government some seven months ago, is still not in place. The Fingal TD said: 'It's been four years since the Irish Credit Union movement first expressed their interest in investing in social housing. 'As far back as May 2017, the Department of Housing funded an Irish Council for Social Housing project for a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV). 'It was over a year later when the Central Bank introduced regulatory changes that allowed up to 750m to be invested in large Social Housing bodies. 'Minister English indicated last September that the vehicle would be ready by October yet here we are and not a single cent of 750m has been invested. This sum could build roughly 3,750 much needed social homes. What is the Government's issue with completing its roll out?' Deputy O'Brien said: 'We have neither seen nor heard of the details regarding the types of units that will be prioritised when building works eventually get going, let alone how it's intended the vehicle will link into the overall Rebuilding Ireland strategy. 'The hands off attitude demonstrated by Government throughout this entire process shows us if we didn't already know before now that it doesn't give a hoot about the ordinary working families desperately in need of support to find a home.' 'The fact is, Fine Gael are not remotely serious about attracting outsider finance or making the most of Credit Union money to help build badly needed social housing and we have to ask ourselves why that is,' concluded Deputy O'Brien. Flash U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday expressed his appreciation over Russian President Vladimir Putin's comments on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula after Putin's meeting with Kim Jong Un, top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). "I appreciated President Putin's statement yesterday," Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday morning. Following a meeting with Kim, Putin said at a press conference on Thursday that there is no alternative to the peaceful solution of the nuclear and other issues of the Korean Peninsula, adding that Russia is ready to contribute to reducing tensions in the region. Speaking to reporters, Trump said that the United States is doing "very well" with the DPRK. "We're getting a deal done with North Korea (the DPRK)," he said. Trump also said that he appreciated the efforts from Russia and China on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Kim had his first meeting with Putin in the Russian city of Vladivostok on Thursday. The two leaders discussed a range of topics, including the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, bilateral relations and relations with the United States. The Putin-Kim summit came at a time when tensions are growing between the DPRK and the United States. The top DPRK leader has met Trump twice. Their second summit ended in Vietnam's Hanoi on Feb. 28 without an agreement. A total of 390,000 passengers travelled through Dublin Airport this Easter Bank Holiday Weekend from Friday, April 19 until Monday, April 22, which is a 6% increase compared to last Easter. 'Over 2,600 flights arrived and departed this Easter Bank Holiday weekend,' said Dublin Airport spokesperson Siobhan O'Donnell. 'The Canary Islands and Spanish coastal resorts were the most popular sunshine destinations for passengers in search of sunshine this Easter and city breaks were also high on the agenda for those heading away,' she added. Monday was the busiest day of the Easter Bank Holiday Weekend with more than 102,000 passengers expected to arrive and depart through the airport that day. Dublin Airport is also preparing for a busy summer season, with 23 new routes/services comprising six long-haul routes and 17 short-haul destinations. More than 6.5 million passengers have travelled through Dublin Airport between January and March, representing an 8% increase, or an extra 460,000 passengers, compared to the same period last year. Dublin Airport's app provides information on a range of services through smart phone and hand-held devices. Real time flight information, security queue times and processing times through US CBP is there to help passengers travel through the airport seamlessly. and Customer Care teams were on duty across both terminals this Bank Holiday Weekend to assist passengers with their journey through the airport. A teenager who drove without insurance has been banned from driving for two years after he failed to bring a letter stating he is working in order to avoid a disqualification. David Muntean (18) has also been convicted and fined 400 for having no insurance and a fined a further 100 for exhibiting a false insurance disc on the vehicle he was driving. The teen claimed the engine of the Ford Fiesta car he was insured to drive had blown up and he did not get a chance to insure the second car - a BMW- he was driving on the day he was stopped by gardai. He took out insurance on the BMW the following morning, Balbriggan District Court heard. But, he had placed the insurance and tax discs from the Ford Fiesta onto the BMW and was charged with exhibiting false documents. The defendant, of Castleland Court in Balbriggan pleaded guilty to driving without insurance, displaying a false insurance disc and the non production of documents on November 10, 2018 at Lidl, Market Green in Balbriggan. He has no previous convictions. Sergeant Eoin McDonnell told the court the defendant was stopped at 8.30pm and the vehicle was seized. The defendant's solicitor said the 18-year-old, who has a driving licence, didn't get a chance to change the insurance to the other car after the engine blew up on the car he was insured to drive. 'He did insure it the following morning,' the solicitor said, adding it was a 'stupid thing to do' to take the insurance disc from the insured car and put it on the uninsured car. The defendant produced the insurance policy for the BMW in court. However, he said he had written to AXA Insurance to get the original policy for the Ford Fiesta but the insurance company hasn't responded to him as yet. 'He was offered work last week as a warehouse operative,' the solicitor said at a previous court sitting. However, when Judge Dempsey asked to produce a letter from his employer, he did not have one. 'He has no letter from his employer and yet he is trying to avoid getting a disqualification,' remarked Judge Dempsey and gave the defendant a week to produce the letter and his driving licence. At the previous week's court sitting, the defendant produced a letter from a recruitment agency stating he had 'started working for one of our clients on March 11'. When asked if he had any pay slips the defendant did not have any. Judge Dempsey said he was not satisfied with the letter as it did not state the defendant is still working. The judge imposed the driving ban, fines and convictions saying: 'He has exhausted the court's patience.' A 63-year-old woman who assaulted three gardai - hitting one officer on the back of the head, striking another on the wrist and shin and kicking out at a third officer - while they were arresting her son has avoided a conviction. Mary Finnegan, who claimed she saw red and her 'maternal instincts' kicked in, has been bound to the peace for 12 months and paid 250 to the Garda Benevolent Fund. The mother-of-two said she had been taking prescribed sleeping tablets and went out for the evening - but only had one drink - causing her to react the way she did. She had worked all her life but retired three years ago and was 'very embarrassed' by her behaviour, Balbriggan District Court heard. The defendant, of St Catherine's Park, Rush, North County Dublin, pleaded guilty to assaulting Garda Aaron Shanahan, Garda Aidan O'Halloran and Garda Kevin Fitzpatrick on August 26, 2017, at Upper Main Street in Rush. She had no previous convictions. Sergeant Eoin McDonnell gave evidence that at 2am, while Rush Harbour Festival was taking place, gardai attended Main Street to arrest Finnegan's son. 'Th defendant then interfered with the arrest of her son and assaulted three gardai,' said Sgt McDonnell. 'She kicked out at one garda, struck another on the wrist and shin and struck a third garda in the back of the head.' The officers were 'not seriously injured' and were able to resume duty a short time later. Defence solicitor Fiona D'Arcy said her client, who has two sons aged 35 and 32, was 'very embarrassed'. 'She prepared three letters of apology for the gardai, which have been handed over to the sergeant,' she added. Ms D'Arcy said the defendant went out on the night to socialise but had been taking prescribed sleeping tablets and 'only had one drink'. 'Because of the way her son was behaving he was arrested. She saw red and her maternal instincts kicked in, She couldn't believe she behaved in the way she did.' 'She is normally a peaceful citizen and her retirement has been destroyed by this for the past 15 months.' Judge Paula Murphy had previously warned Finnegan that the offences 'carry a headline sentence of 12 months'. However, after a positive Probation Report was handed into court and money paid to the Garda Benevolent Fund, Judge Murphy bound Finnegan to the peace for 12 months. Courtown Colour Run: Registration is now open for this year's Courtown Colour Run which takes place on Saturday, July 13. There will be 3km and 6km distances. Register now for early bird rates, which can be done online popupraces.ie/race/courtown-colour-run-2019. House of Story The House of Story, Ar mBreacha are holding a Variety Concert in The Courtyard Ferns on Thursday, April 25, at 8 p.m. This is an annual fundraiser to support the running of the house. Tickets are 10 and children go free. Gorey Active Retirement All event booking, payment and inquiries should be made on Fridays 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Loch Garman Arms. Members are reminded that the 2019 membership is now overdue. If you have forgotten please pay on Friday and ensure you are insured at any Active Retirement event nationwide.Non members are invited to check out our activities by dropping into Loch Garman Arms, as there is some activity on most days of the week. Thinking about Youghal for September break, please put name down ASAP if interested. Tea Dance in Ashdown Park Hotel on April 28 at 1 p.m. 23 including music, four course meal and raffle. Book Early as it is expected to be well supported. General meeting on May 20, Loch Garman Arms at 2.30 p.m. A chance of a lifetime to visit Emmerdale Farm and Coronation Street locations over two days, May 17 and 18, cost is 309 perpPerson sharing, in a three start hotel bed and breakfast only. Booking deposit 100 non refundable, 22 single supplement. Book early or you might miss this experience. Trade and Tourism Show, June 5, 10 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. at Punchestown Events Arena, admission is free, all members welcome. Note change of Date for Gowran Park Races to Sunday June 16, please book early with Committee. Due to health and safety required work on Christ Church Hall, we may have to re-locate temporarily. If anyone knows of a suitable hall we may be able to use please contact any member of the Committee asap. Barbecue for Hospice North Wexford Hospice Nursing Trust are holding their annual barbecue on Saturday, May 11, in the Amber Springs Hotel, Gorey. A delicious steak supper will be served from 8 p.m. until 10 p.m. followed by dancing with music from Theresa and the Stars, supporting music from Tina Carter. Tickets are 25 and are available from James Tomkins, Isuzu garage, Gorey 086 2604097. Dr Michael o Doherty, 053 9421303 or any of our hospice committee members. In the barbecues 27 years, there has been generous support coming from the people of north Wexford and beyond. The team are looking forward to seeing you all again this year. Pub quiz Join Nicola McGrath in her quest to raise funds for the trip of a lifetime to India, to work as a teaching assistant with the Irish charity, SUAS. On Thursday, April 25 in Gorey Rugby Club at 7.30 p.m., there will be a table quiz as well as a raffle held on the night. Tables will be 40 for a table of four. If you have any questions about the trip or want to find out more about SUAS, you can email Nicola at mcgrath.nicola.98@gmail.com. Gorey Musical Society The show, Calamity Jane was a great success and the Goreyt Musical Society would like to extend their thanks to the prime sponsors, sponsors, patrons and associate members, without such generous support this production would not have been possible. Thank you to the director Chris Currid, musical director Conor McCarthy, choreographer Clodagh Leacy and the fabulous cast and costume team. Thanks to the raffle organisers, make up artists, Paul, Frank and all of our back stage crew, front of house, ushers, Gorey Little Theatre and last but not least to the faithful audience, thank you all sincerely. Anne Griffin to visit library Irish author, Anne Griffin, whose critically acclaimed debut novel 'When All is Said' is topping the charts will visit Gorey Library to talk about her writing and her journey to publication. Described as a 'rare jewel' by John Banville, you can read more at annegriffinwriter.com. Phone Gorey Library on 053 9421481 to book a place. Should you require any supports to fully participate in this event, please contact the Librarian. Explorers Kids Club Come and join in the fun on Saturday, April 27 at Gorey Methodist Church hall. There will be a time of crafts, games, story and song and exploration of stories of the Bible. Open to national school children aged five to twelve years, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. All are very welcome. Save the Date Always a popular event, the annual Darkness into Light Walk 5km will take place in Courtown again this year on Saturday, May 11, beginning at 4.15 a.m. from Flanagan's Wharf. Each year the community comes together to walk or run in support of Pieta House. Last year over 1,000 people attended the Courtown walk and raised over 28,000, which goes to supporting the work of the charity such as one to one counselling services as well as the 24-hour suicide helpline. To register now for the event or find out more about the work of Pieta House, visit darknessintolight.ie/event/courtown Bridge club holiday This year's bridge club holiday is to Spain, and the club members will jet off from September 17 to September 24. This year's' package, which costs 795 per person sharing, includes return flights from Dublin to Malaga with 10kg checked bag, airport transfers, a day trip to Granada with an English speaking guide, seven nights in the four star Plas Granada Club Resort on half board basis including wine with dinner and of course five nights of bridge. Phone Podge for more details at 053 9482740 or book direct with Killester Travel at 01 833693. Choir festival The festival of choirs will take place over four days from Thursday, May 9, to Sunday, May 13, and will consist of 25 choral groups taking part. Events will take place in Gorey Library, Ashdown Park hotel, Gorey courtrooms, St Michael's Church as well as Creagh School. Primary and post primary school children will be taking part as well as adults of all ages, and listeners can enjoy a lot of variety during the festival, from jazz music to acapella and light popular music. No tickets will be required for any of the events but donations are welcome. For more details visit Gorey Festival of Choirs' Facebook page or call 087 9890470. Gorey Youth Needs AGM On Friday, May 3, at 11 a.m. Gorey Youth Needs will host its AGM in Gorey Youth Needs Centre, which is located on Mary Ward Lane, St Michael's Road beside Gorey Community School. This open meeting will provide an opportunity for the public to get a snapshot of the services provided by Gorey Youth Needs, including Little Daisies Childcare as well as Gorey and Courtown youth training initiatives, and all are welcome to attend. Druid Theatre Druid Theatre will be performing at Gorey Little Theatre between April 30 and May 1. The theatre will perform Furniture, a selection of three one-act plays by Sonya Kelly and directed by Cathal Cleary. Garrett Lombard, one of the stars of the show, hails from Gorey and began his acting life in Gorey Little Theatre. His mum and dad are still prominent members of the group. The show is touring nationally and is long listed for the Irish Times award getting rave reviews. Tickets are 25 and available to purchase from goreytheatre.ie. Coffee Time Gorey Methodist Church invite all to Coffee Time a free coffee morning that occurs every Wednesday, from 10.30 a.m. till 12.30 p.m. Everyone is welcome to come in for a tea or coffee and of course a chat on the day. Jack and Jill Jack and Jill Gorey shop is open from Monday to Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. They team are currently accepting donations of clothing, footwear, homewares, CD/DVD and furniture. To volunteer, please call into the shop for a form. RNLI gift shop The RNLI Lifeboat shop on North Pier in Courtown Harbour is open on Saturday and Sunday from 2 p.m. till 5 p.m. All welcome to call in and browse the new stock of souvenir items for every occasion and help save lives at sea. SVP shop The St Vincent de Paul furniture shop in Gorey welcome donations of good clean furniture, bric-a-brac, etc. They will collect furniture if needs be. The shop is open from 10 a.m. till 4 p.m. Monday to Saturday. For more information, call 086 3962260 or 089 4439667. Shedfest The annual Shed Fest at Buffers Alley will take place on Saturday, June 22. Details will be announced at a later date. Work Matters Work Matters Start-Up business events will take place on the first Tuesday of every month in Gorey Library, aimed at helping local entrepreneurs, start-ups and SMEs. The events will take place at 7 p.m. nightly as follows: Tuesday, May 7 and Tuesday, June 4. For more information no the event call Gorey Library at 053 9421481. 400 reasons Gorey The Gorey Polish Cultural Association are getting behind the '400 reasons to love Gorey' campaign. The group is inviting the public contribute and give a reason why they love living here in Gorey, visit the Facebook page or search gorey.pl/gorey400 to take part. On completion of the project, a mural will be created. Book club Clubs for young people at Gorey Library, include story time for preschoolers which takes place each Friday at 10.30 a.m. and rhyme time for babies and toddlers takes each Wednesday at 10.30 a.m. Chatter Books, junior book club meets on the first Tuesday of the month from 4 p.m. for eight to twelve year olds, while teen book club meet the first Friday of every month from 4 p.m. for 12 years and up. Thursday Club for retired adults to talk about books, thursdays at 10.30 a.m. to 12 p.m. Ireland's largest second level school, Gorey Community School, celebrated its 25 years of local education through celebrations of students and staff, past and present. 'There was a lovely atmosphere around the place, and it all went off really well,' said Principal of the school, Michael Finn. South East Radio was broadcasting from the school on the day, and a number of past and present students and staff took part in interviews, both live and pre-recorded during the 90 minute show, co-hosted by transition year student, Una McGuire. Some students even played music on air, and Principal Finn explained that all students varying talents were showcased and it was a 'really big success'. 'We really covered and celebrated the broad spectrum of students at the school, with different academic levels, as well as individual physical and educational challenges,' added Michael Finn. He explained that past pupils were invited back to be part of the occasion, and that parents were invited to enjoy the celebration alongside the students and staff as well as the Parents Association. 'We have some staff who are former students of the school and the community remains embedded into everything we do here,' said Michael Finn. Gorey Community School was established in 1993, following the amalgamation of the Loreto, Vocational and CBS schools. In 2000, a new extension was opened, and there are now over 80 classrooms including numerous specialist rooms and a large gymnasium, to cater for the 1,627 students attending Gorey Community School. Looking ahead to the next 25 years, Michael said: 'We have our challenges, but I feel we're catering of all comers, it's diverse as we have all types of learners. We want to build on that to ensure that we do not lose sight of that. We want to be able to say whoever you are, we can cater for your needs,' Michael explained. He said that his most memorable highlight over his ten years as principal of the school, is when paralympian gold medallist Darragh McDonald returned to Gorey and was greeted by not only the school community, but the people of Gorey. 'It was a sea of green, with the entire school population out in full uniform while Darragh was brought up in the back of a convertible,' Michael explained. 'It was really memorable and there was an even greater sense of community than normal as every single student could appreciate being part of that moment'. But Michael explained that the school has a lot to be proud of, such as the amount of Leaving Certificate subjects on offer, the high standard of sporting ability, the school musicals and much more. 'With new subjects coming out, such as PE and computer science as an exam subject for the Leaving Cert, all these steps to add to the curriculum, everyone is going to have an opportunity to shine,' said Michael. At the April meeting of members of the Gorey Municipal District, councillors heard a presentation on broadband in Wexford from Wexford County Council's head of communications, David Minogue as well as members of Siro, a fibre broadband installation facilitation network company, due to start working on the ground across Wexford, in towns like Gorey and Courtown as part of its 'lights up' project. Siro aims that approximately 2,300 homes and businesses will be live by the end of the year, and 4.200 homes and businesses in Gorey into 2020, depending on the number of premises where this is feasible. David Minogue explained that although it is not the responsibility of Wexford County Council to deliver broadband to individual homes, local authorities can help ease of access for fibre broadband networking companies like Siro. Siro, by installing fibre broadband connections straight to the home or business using the localised ESB network, sees that a person can avail of the service by connecting with one of its retail partners. The company are currently undertaking a heat map of Wexford towns, to identify the level of access that homes and businesses have to fibre or high speed broadband. The heat map of North Wexford was shown to the members, with few areas with high speed internet access highlighted in blue, while the majority of the map was amber, to signal low access to high speed broadband. The public can use their eircode through Siro and other networking companies, to check the speed of internet access or broadband in their area, through the speed test. Councillors heard about what broadband is and how it works, and a little about the governments national broadband plan, which began in 2012 and has been under fire following delays in recent months. They also passed around fibre cables and switchboards in the council chambers, so that members could get a feel for what this is all about. David Minogue described the National Broadband Plan as 'slow' but said that there is a Broadband Officer within every local authority, and they can be contacted by the public or by public representatives regarding their concerns. Broadband was described as the 'lifeblood' of the digital marketplace in Wexford, from technology companies to local shops creating and developing their brand online. In many European towns and cities, there is public wireless internet access, often used by tourists for basic access to email or GPS. Cllr Mary Farrell drew the attention of the room to certain 'blackspots' in rural North Wexford, where not only is there no broadband access, but some even struggle to find phone signal. 'It's a disaster for them, as broadband comes in to every aspect of life now,' said Cllr Farrell, asking what can be done about the lack of access, or access only going so far for people in rural areas. Going forward, councillors are going to identify key blackspots and come up with a list of areas in the district where this is particularly a problem and then highlight this to Wexford County Council, who will be collecting submissions. The councillors pointed to villages of Ballyedmond as well as Ballcanew as examples, and it was said that although this work can be disruptive and is expensive to do, it's worth it to provide broadband to rural areas. 'Every rural business needs this, I'm in favour of the cable route,' said Cllr Fionntan O Suilleabhain. Cllr Malcolm Byrne said that some people, who have no access to any broadband service have had bad customer service experiences with providers and suggested that the maps of areas be put on the Wexford County Council website or in the public domain, even if the Council does not have a direct role to play here. 'We need to attract business and these days broadband is as essential as water or electricity. As a Council, we are going to have to start to do something about this ourselves, as it has gotten to a stage now where it's a threat to business,' said Cllr Byrne. 'We can provide the infrastructure, but we've a long way to go still as in some pockets there is so little coverage, it's very very bad,' he added. 'The time has come that we step up to the mark, as we need those essential services,' he concluded. Fergus Devereux, of Siro, said that blackspots are the 'bain of everyone's life' and that often times people are fearful about new things, and that there is always difficulty when you are trying to provide a total blanket solution service. Siro plans to increase Ireland's EU ranking on broadband, as well as its reliance on copper, replacing the material with fibre instead. The team explained that there is an 'appetite for fibre broadband in the home' and they want to make sure that the plan is 'future proof'. Cllr Anthony Donohoe said that he hoped Siro would be less invasive during the project, in comparison to Virgin Media. While Cllr John Hegarty asked whether Siro would be open to working with local providers, to which Siro explained that they would be. Siro and Wexford County Council are going to keep an open dialogue throughout the process, and are also open to the public asking questions on the plan for Wexford by emailing info@siro.ie. All the recipients of amenity grants pictured with members of Gorey Municipal District Council, including cathaoirleach Cllr John Hegarty A total sum of 60,000 was given to over 100 community groups, in arts, sports and amenities, as well as residents associations in grants presented from Gorey Municipal District on Tuesday, April 16, at the Civic Square in Gorey town. Altogether 106 organisations from across the district received a council grant, and representative volunteers from the groups came along to Gorey Library for refreshments before the presentation. Groups that benefited from the amenity grants scheme included Gorey Tidy Towns, Festival of Choirs, St Aidan's Services, Craanford Drama Group, as well as Gorey.pl, Polish Cultural Association to name a few. 'We have a lot of projects on this year with a lot of running costs. We have no source of income so we're struggling to make ends meet. Donations like this are always very welcome,' said Chairperson of Gorey Tidy Towns, Billy Halford. 'The Council is very supportive of our work in many ways and the amenity grant is always put to good use,' he added. New residents associations included in the scheme were Brooklyn Court Residents Association, Newhaven Residents Association and Chestnut Grove Residents Association, to add to the 32 other residents associations that benefited from the scheme. Cllr Anthony Donohoe said that although all of the money available, 40,000 was given out towards amenities, there is still a small amount left over for residents groups yet to be drawn down. This funding scheme is aimed at providing small scale support to community and voluntary based groups and is designed to assist with a wide variety of projects that promote social inclusion and the building of strong communities. On the night, members of the Gorey Municipal District also launched the new mural that depicts the Gorey skyline, which was painted by artist Kate Kos last month. Nathan Carter's reputation as surely the most popular country-music star in this Ireland right now is undoubted, and the Liverpudlian certainly cemented his reputation still further with a hugely successful show at the Glenbeigh/Glencar Community Centre on Good Friday. The show has been in the pipeline for some months now, thanks in no small part to Anthony Griffin, a friend of Carter's, and quick-thinking Anthony saw a brilliant opportunity to raise funds for ongoing field developments at the organising Glenbeigh/Glencar GAA club: by getting Carter to play a set in the area. The locals were understandably thrilled to secure him for an Easter weekend show, but it proved a success beyond even what most would have anticipated, with over 800 people attending to see the uber-popular star. They came from all over the county and even outside the county to see the phenomenally popular star, and the occasion was well worth anyone's journey, club treasurer Timmy O'Sullivan said. "We found him a very sound man, he was A1, and put on a brilliant show," Timmy said. "He stayed in the locality the night before, and left then after the show, but not before he did a meet and greet with the fans. You couldn't have worked with a nicer fella." On the night, 'The Two Mikes' warmed the crowd up and then some, before Carter took to the mic for a memorable two-hour set. The funds raised will no doubt prove a major boost to the club and their works, but aside from Carter and his willingness to support their cause, there were plenty of others who threw their weight behind the organising process. "We were well supported by a lot of local businesses," Timmy said. "But there were a lot of people who worked very hard in the run up to the night and on the night itself, between people selling tickets, stewarding, organising the parking, and a lot more people besides. "And we'll certainly have to thank Anthony, who knows Nathan and got him to perform such a great show. We were delighted with how it all went," Timmy added. A 'thank you' also went out to sponsors Ashe's Bar for their part in supporting the event. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 27) The Philippine National Police (PNP) should be allowed to stage forced evacuations as natural disasters strike, senatorial candidate Ronald Dela Rosa said. During Saturdays CNN Philippines Senatorial Debate, the former police chief proposed to authorize cops to force Filipinos to evacuate their homes in order to prevent casualties. "Ang casualty palagi ay yung mga matitigas ang ulo Dapat ang pulis may power na arestuhin pag ayaw umalis, Dela Rosa said. Kung kinakailangan ng pulis na mang-aresto para ma-save ang buhay nila, gawin natin yan. [Translation: "Often, the casualties are residents who refuse to leave their homes. The police should have the power to arrest them. If the police needs to arrest them just to save their lives, let's do that."] But former Quezon Representative Erin Tanada opposed Dela Rosas proposal, saying the police cannot force residents out of their homes. Dela Rosa also floated the need to create a Department of Disaster Management, whose primary mandate will be prevention and disaster response to natural hazards. Dela Rosa and Magdalo Rep. Gary Alejano were asked about their plans to reduce risks drawn from natural calamities. During the Faceoff, Magdalo Representative Gary Alejano said the Philippines needs to draft a clear disaster resilience policy that will guide government response during this time of need, like what his pending proposal at the House of Representatives seeks to do. I hope the President would sign the proposed bill para may dedicated na ahensya ng gobyerno na may alokasyon [so that there will be a specific government agency with a budget for disaster response], Alejano said. Senatorial bets Samira Gutoc, Raffy Alunan, and Florin Hilbay also stressed the importance of crafting preparation and evacuation plans well ahead of any disaster. READ: 11 candidates face off at CNN Philippines Senatorial Debate The Philippines was hit by a series of earthquakes this week, starting with a magnitude 6.1 tremor that struck parts of Luzon on Monday, leaving at least 18 dead. Another magnitude 6.5 quake hit Eastern Samar Tuesday while a magnitude 5.5 shook Surigao del Norte on Friday. Mondays earthquake has been classified as strong but not major, with the Big One expected to clock in at magnitude 7 or higher. A string of aftershocks were also felt in the aftermath of these tremors. PHIVOLCS Director Renato Solidum, Jr. added that the successive shaking are unlikely to trigger the West Valley Fault, which they said is ripe for movement. Flash When Hungary signed a cooperation document with China on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2015, it was the first European country to do so. Almost four years later and ahead of the ongoing Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing, 22 European countries had inked BRI cooperation documents with China. Heads of state or government from such European countries as Austria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Serbia and Switzerland, as well as high-level representatives from France, Germany, Britain, Spain and the European Union are now in Beijing for the BRI forum. More partners In the month leading up to the forum, Italy and Luxembourg became the latest European countries to sign BRI cooperation documents. In a joint interview with Chinese media before heading to Beijing, President Ueli Maurer of the Swiss Confederation said that the BRI is a rare long-term strategic plan and has created a new dimension for the development of the world economy. As some landmark projects for sustainable development will be launched in the near future, the positive results of these projects could dispel the doubts of certain sideliners, thus laying the foundation for a better global development in the future, Maurer said. Sustainable development was highlighted by Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday at the opening ceremony of the forum. He said China will work with other parties to promote a coalition of sustainable cities and an international coalition for green development under the BRI. While Europe increasingly embraces the BRI, Hungary is proud to be the first European country to sign an intergovernmental cooperation agreement. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told Xinhua before the forum that his government is making efforts to achieve tangible benefits through dovetailing the BRI with Hungary's "Opening to the East" policy. Increased investments In Hungary, Chinese investors and companies have contributed to the success of the national economy, Szijjarto said. "They have brought technologies to the Hungarian economy which helped us to enter this new digital era of global economy," he said. "We are happy that companies in the field of the automotive industry proved to be very active in the market, since the automotive industry is the number one in Hungary, and now the automotive industry enters a new phase from the combustion era to the era of electro-mobility and autonomously driven cars," he added. The BRI is also helping to revive old towns. In the German city of Duisburg, China Railway Express has increased from three trains per week to 35 to 40 per week right now, stimulating the growth of port industry and creating over 6,000 jobs. In Serbia, Chinese investment has brought the Smederevo steel mill back to life, and now a one-billion-USD tire manufacturing plant is established. The joint building of the Belt and Road has also created a new platform to boost international trade and investment, expanded new practices to optimize global economic governance, and made new contributions to improving people's well-being of all countries, Xi said on Friday. Booming trade Improving bilateral trade and especially tapping China's huge market has been a hallmark under the BRI. For example, 16 Central and Eastern European countries have signed BRI cooperation agreements with China, and trade between them and China has increased more than 50 percent in the recent seven years. The trade volume reached 82.23 billion U.S. dollars last year, up 21 percent year-on-year, with China's imports from the 16 countries rising faster than its exports. On Friday, Xi said China will increase the import of goods and services on a larger scale, continuously open up its market and welcome quality products from around the world. This is exactly what many Europeans have in mind. Renzo Cavalieri, a professor of juridical institutions of East Asia at Ca'Foscari University in Venice, noted that Italy has a trade deficit with China. "As Chinese markets open up, that could mean more exports to China, and more jobs in Italy. Maybe over time, that trade deficit will shrink," he said. Shared benefits In a landmark BRI investment, China's COSCO SHIPPING acquired a 51-percent stake in Greece's Piraeus port in 2016. In just two years, Piraeus' container throughput increased from 880,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in 2016 to 4.9 million TEUs in 2018, ranking second among all Mediterranean ports. "I would like to stress besides the economic success the social success of this investment," Greek Foreign Minister George Katrougalos told Xinhua earlier. "COSCO with the encouragement of our government has completed collective agreements with the workers in the port of Piraeus so as to ensure not just profits for the economies of the two countries, but also very good working conditions for those working in the port of Piraeus," the minister said. Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell has said recently that "Spain is especially interested in exploring ways of collaboration in third-party markets." Referring to the forum, he said "in this international event we hope that our companies have the chance to make contact with Chinese companies and other countries that are interested in finding synergies in third-party markets." Chair of the Policy and Resources Committee of the City of London Corporation Catherine McGuinness said the BRI is a centennial project and could bring about some 1.8 billion British pounds (2.4 billion U.S. dollars) to Britain's gross domestic product (GDP) if her country fully joins it. "As an unrivalled hub for international infrastructure investment, British firms stand ready to provide much of the private financing required by the project, and can also support in green finance, consultancy, rule of law and foreign exchange" McGuinness said before going to Beijing for the forum. Jack's Coastguard Restaurant in Cromane was the venue for what was described as a most convivial evening as the Killorglin area said farewell to three teachers with more than a century's worth of experience between them. Cullina National School teacher and principal Moira Cronin; Douglas National School teacher and principal Dolores Johnston; and Scoil Mhuire teacher Neasa Flannery were the toast of teaching colleagues serving and retired, and they enjoyed a Friday night their experience and dedication over the years richly deserved. Seamus O'Shaughnessy of the local INTO wished them well and was delighted to see a good turnout on the night to pay due respect. "All three retired during the 2017/2018 school year," Mr O'Shaughnessy explained to The Kerryman. "It would be safe to say that the three retirees gave well over 100 years' service given between them. "They were surrounded by many colleagues serving and retired, who all enjoyed a very convivial evening," Mr O'Shaughnessy added. Currow woman Brenda Fitzgerald will be remembered at this year's 'Big Coffee Morning' which will raise funds for Pieta House. The 'Big Coffee Morning' in Killarney has raised in excess of 10,000 over the past four years, for charities and this year organisers have chosen Pieta House as the beneficiary. Previous beneficiaries included MS Ireland, Console and Crumlin Children's Hospital. Organisers, Ann Marie O'Leary and Tara O'Donoghue, are looking forward to this year's event. Brenda was a colleague of Ann Marie's and worked at the Friary bookshop in Killarney. Her sister, Grainne was on hand to help launch the event last week. Organisers are urging people to support this very worthy cause. "It is always a great social morning with an abundance of home made confectionery items and the finest tea and coffee," stated Tara O'Donoghue. "We are so grateful to the management and staff of the Killarney Royal Hotel and all those who bake and provide treats. "In today's busy world, we probably all know someone who has struggled with mental health and Pieta does some fantastic work" explained Ann Marie. The coffee morning takes place on Saturday, April 27 from 10am to 12pm. Desiree is still on a high this week having claimed the Miss Kerry title at a selection night at the Killarney Heights on Saturday. The Leaving Cert student from O'Regan's place in Tralee is now looking forward to the year ahead as she prepares for Miss Ireland. It is going to be a busy year for the 18-year old as she studies for her Leaving Cert and also prepares for the national competition but she is thrilled at the opportunity. "I entered Miss Kerry to help build my confidence and for the experience. I never expected to win," she said. "I was literally in shock when I won. I just stood there and I thought Oh my god did they just call my name?," she said. Desiree said she is looking forward to returning to Presentation Secondary School next week to see her school friends and teachers, all of whom are thrilled for her success. So too are her parents Melissa Fitzgerald and Tim Horan and her brothers and sisters, Rachel, Andrea and Hayden. "We are all still in shock," she said. Hundreds of cyclists will arrived into Listowel next week as part of the annual Cycle Against Sucide whose aim is to raise awareness of mental health. It's motto "It's okay not to feel okay and it's okay to ask for help" will be spread across the country as cyclists make their way on the week long venture which this year stops in Kerry on route. The cycle starts in Dublin on April 27 and will arrive in Kerry on Day 4 of the cycle on Tuesday, April 30. Cyclists will stay in Listowel overnight and will depart again on Wednesday, May 1 when they head to Killarney. The cyclists will arrive to St Michael's College in Listowel around 5.30pm on Tuesday evening where they will be collected by local families who are hosting the cyclists. Following a call from organisers the Listowel community have come on board and opened up their doors to those taking part in the week long cycle and organisers are grateful for the support they have received. A special event will take plae in St Michael's college on Wednesday, May 1 with guest speakers on the day to raise awareness of mental help and send out that important message to seek help if needed. Students and members of the public are invited. The Cycle Against Suicide was originally the brainchild of Tralee man Jim Breen. The cycle will also stop in Tralee before heading to Killarney where cyclists will also stay overnight. Members of dissident republican organisation Saoradh went ahead with four Easter Rising events in North Kerry on Saturday despite the cancellation of commemorations in Derry in the face of the public outcry over the tragic killing of journalist Lyra McKee there hours earlier. Saoradh, widely believed to be linked to the New IRA, held wreath-laying ceremonies in Ballylongford, Listowel, Ardfert and Tralee on Saturday. North Kerry members of the organisation also travelled to Dublin to take part in the organisation's parade on Saturday along O'Connell Street. Saoradh defended its decision to go ahead with the commemorations nationally, saying it was not linked to the dissident group in Derry which cancelled their event. The group says it does not speak for the New IRA, but it issued what was seen as a deeply insulting statement in the immediate wake of Ms McKee's death, offering its 'sympathy' to her family and friends and effectively blaming the PSNI for the tragedy. Onetime Provisional IRA commanding officer in Portlaoise prison and Sinn Fein TD for Kerry Martin Ferris warned dissidents this week that they are, in fact, helping to maintain the partition of the island through their campaign of violence. "These people are anti-peace process and Good Friday Agreement and many of them are, through their actions, serving the interests of those who wish to see Ireland partitioned," Deputy Ferris said "They have no strategy about a united Ireland. If they want to be seen as serious about the reunification of the country they should begin contributing to that part of the republican struggle working under the Good Friday Agreement to achieve it peacefully. "The Good Friday Agreement was an historical compromise that offers the best opportunity to create, peacefully, the united Ireland we have struggled for as republicans all our lives." Fianna Fail Councillor John Francis Flynn has welcomed the government's commitment to include student accommodation under rent-pressure zones - but he wants to see words turned into action before the start of the 2019/20 academic year. Cllr Flynn's party colleague John Brassil raised the matter in the Dail last week, saying "In September of this year the rent for University College Cork accommodation will increase by 10 per cent, bringing the average annual contribution towards accommodation in the 1,200 spaces available to 6,000, which works out at roughly 200 per week per college year. "The obvious knock-on effect for students is that if they cannot afford university accommodation, they will move out into the private market and the spiral will continue." He called on Minister Simon Coveney to ensure that university accommodation is included in rent-pressure zones to guard against large price increases, and Minister Coveney said the government was committed to making such a move. Should such accommodation come under the rules of rent-pressure zones, a landlord can only raise rent by a maximum of four per cent every two years. Cllr Flynn raised concerns about the matter earlier this year after UCC's students union informed him of plans to raise on-campus accommodation rent. He told The Kerryman this week that he welcomed Minister Coveney's statement, but wants to see fast action. "It's definitely a step in the right direction," he said. "But in some ways, it's only half of what we want. "We need to put pressure on to have this in before college starts again in September, and I'd also like to see student accommodation falling under the remit of the Residential Tenancies Board," Councillor Flynn added. Womens Inspire Network founder Samantha Kelly, based in Rosslare with Marian McKenna of La Creme Boutique in Gorey Wexford businesswomen were to the fore during a national conference by the Women's Inspire Network (WIN), where 200 delegates were hosted on Wednesday, April 10, in Donegal by the organisation's founder, Irish entrepreneur, Samantha Kelly, who is based in Rosslare Harbour. Marian McKenna, of La Creme Boutique in Gorey, gave a style masterclass on the day to help businesswomen master their work wear and occasion wear. 'It was brilliant day, I got a great response from the audience and gained an awful lot of knowledge to take home for my own business from the speakers,' said Marian, who has been involved with the WIN group for six months. 'There is a wealth of knowledge and expertise in every field within this group of women, it caters to everyone,' she added During her talk, Marian tackled common issues and style mistakes, from hemlines to heel height, and shared tips to inspire confident and comfortable clothing for doing business. She brought audience members on stage, to discuss common issues and style mistakes with top tips coming from a professional perspective. La Creme Boutique in Gorey also sponsored the event and Marian looks forward to taking part in the next event, which takes place in Dublin in October. Mags Boland Murphy of Bofin Consultancy in Enniscorthy delivered a practical talk on pricing, and how to clearly communicate the value offering in a product or service. 'Time is money', was what Mags Boland Murphy told delegates during her speech, and that investing time into a business is investing money into a business. 'When you're in business, profit is not something to add on at the end, it something you must plan for in the beginning,' she said in her message to the room. Presenter Anna Daly, who was MC for the conference, discussed the recent start up of her own lifestyle website, and the business opportunity she plans. Other talks included motivation talks on self-exploration in business, web development, marketing and the power of social media. The Women's Inspire Network is an Irish based network for women entrepreneurs which started out as a Twitter hashtag in 2014. It is now a global online community with webinars, events and e-books offering expert advice and mentoring. Businesswomen and entrepreneurs interested in joining the online Women's Inspire Network for ideas sharing, and business opportunities can get more information on www.womensinspirenetwork.com. As we draw closer to polling day on May 24, Wexford will inevitably see an influx of men with ladders, busily fixing election posters on poles across the county. In Wexford, sitting councillor David Hynes had already stated that he would be running a poster-free campaign and he and People Before Profit candidate Tony Walsh raised a motion at the last Borough District meeting to see if everyone else would do the same. However, according to Cllr Walsh, Cllr Hynes was unable to attend the meeting as he was with his wife in hospital. This meant that the PBP councillor lacked support for the motion and it fell. 'I'm very disappointed about this as we emphasised in the motion that both Wexford Tidy Towns and a poll on South East Radio unanimously supported a poster-free election,' he said. 'It seems that having faces on posters is more important than mandates from the People of Wexford or indeed the future of our environment. It takes over 400 years for these laminated posters to deteriorate. 120 plus towns around Ireland have opted to go poster-free.' 'Davy Hynes a well-known and well-respected councillor has bravely opted to go poster-free,' he continued. 'I'm now in a quandary as this option would be putting myself at a huge disadvantage as a relative newcomer to the political arena. I am therefore going to limit my use of posters and recycle old posters of my colleagues wherever possible. If I am returned as a councillor, I intend to make poster-free elections one of my campaigns in Wexford.' Aontu candidate Elaine Cole also expressed her disappointment that Cllr Walsh's motion had failed to gain traction. 'As a first time candidate who has lived and worked outside my home county for a number of years, I understand the advantage posters could make to me,' she said. 'Now that the ban has been defeated I will be forced to get some or risk a considerable disadvantage. I believe that it is a mistake and exposes many elected reps who claim to be environmentalists.' Despite any perceived disadvantage from not using posters, European election candidate Mick Wallace has agreed to ditch them in his bid for Brussels. 'To match our words with deeds on environmental issues and in support of Primary and Secondary students' climate change campaign, I've decided not to use election posters in the upcoming MEP elections in Ireland South,' he confirmed via social media. National campaign 'Posterfree.ie' currently only lists two places in Wexford that have banned posters during the election campaign - Ballgarrett and Ferns - while independent candidate David Hynes is the only candidate in the county on their list having committed to a poster-free campaign. Having lost out to Michael D Higgins in last year's presidential race, there's an element of 'out of the frying pan and into the fire' about Sinn Fein MEP Liadh Ni Riada's European election campaign. Having taken on the high profile race for the presidency and all that it entails, she now returns to the campaign trail as she looks to retain her European Parliament seat. 'I feel like the perpetual candidate,' she laughed, while being shown around the new Wexford Men's Shed in Redmond Park. While Ni Riada is most definitely and driven and confident lady, it's evident that she still carries the scars of her unsuccessful presidential campaign. 'Too soon!' she laughed when asked about it. 'No, I choose to look forward and not back. It's the things you don't do in life that you regret. I think it's something that anyone should do once, but I don't think it's something I'll be rushing back into again, I'll put it that way. I think I'm more effective in Europe. On the other hand, off the back of the presidential election campaign, covering ten counties seems doable.' A regular visitor to these parts, the Cork native was taking part in a whistle-stop tour of the county. In particular, she was delighted to see the progress at the Men's Shed - a cause that is close to her heart and one which has seen a lot of work from her party colleague Cllr Tom Forde. 'I've been an advocate of Men's Sheds since I began back in 2014,' she said, having met a couple of representatives from the Wexford group. 'I even brought a delegation to Brussels to allow for networking and to grow the network. It's an invaluable service, both from a mental health and a social point of view and I think things like this can't be supported enough.' While impressed with the facilities, Ms Ni Riada was not in town just to inspect tools and materials. With Fianna Fail's Malcolm Byrne and Independent Mick Wallace both seeking to become the first Wexford MEP since Avril Doyle, she may find it that little bit harder to pick up Wexford votes this time around. However, she believes that she's done enough work for Wexford in the past five years to give her the edge over her rivals. 'I've been to Wexford many, many times in the past five years,' she said. 'The reaction has been very good so far. I love getting back out into the constituencies. It's good to remind yourself why you're there. When you're stuck in what, let's face it, can be long and dreary committee meetings in Europe, it's good to get back and meet with the people you are representing.' One area which Ni Riada has been active in across Wexford is fisheries. Having already had numerous meetings with the county's fishing families, things are about to get much more complicated in a post-Brexit Ireland. 'I've fought tooth and nail for the fishermen and women of this country,' she said, listing off some of the schemes that have been implemented under her watch. 'These people have been failed by successive governments. People say that there's no vote there, but these are marginalised people. I see great potential in Ireland's fisheries if it gets proper investment. With Brexit we're going to have even bigger problems with all the foreign vessels that have been displaced now coming to fish in Irish waters. It's my goal to continue my work on the fisheries committee and to bring things I've been working on over the line.' Another key issue for the people of Wexford on a European scale is Rosslare Europort. Ms Ni Riada says major action is required. 'It's time to actually put our money where our mouth is,' she said. 'Even if we don't have a hard Brexit, Dublin port is too congested. It's a nightmare for hauliers. It makes absolute sense to revitalise Rosslare and with a proper rail connection, it has the potential to revitalise the whole region. Money will be provided from Europe, so it seems to be a lack of political will that has prevented action on Rosslare up to this point. Ireland exists outside of the M50.' As well as doing her own canvassing among the people of Wexford, Ni Riada was there to support Sinn Fein's local election candidates. Showing her around was Cllr Johnny Mythen who will contest the Enniscorthy District and is Sinn Fein's candidate of choice for Wexford in the next general election having narrowly missed out to Paul Kehoe on the last outing. 'Johnny has done Trojan work,' she said. 'He should've taken TD last time out and I hope to see him get over the line in the next general election. We have a very strong team in Wexford. We aim to cover all the bases from the local, to national to Europe. It wouldn't be uncommon for the likes of Johnny to ring me up and ask my advice in relation to the availability of funding for certain things. We all work together.' While the European elections may not be generating as much discussion as the locals, Ms Ni Riada will be hoping that her visits to Wexford and her profile from the presidential election will work in her favour as people take to the polls on May 24. The Sinn Fein party have played down the significance of a South Wexford cumann resigning in block from the party. Members of the Parle, Creane, Hogan, Gleeson cumann based in the Taghmon area made the announcement that they had left the party and would instead be canvassing for independent candidate and former Sinn Fein councillor John Dwyer. Sinn Fein councillor and chosen general election candidate Johnny Mythen says that while the situation is 'regrettable', the party cannot stop people from sticking by their own political convictions. 'This kind of came out of the blue,' he said. 'Everyone is entitled to their own political view and beliefs and these people obviously felt they'd be better off outside the Sinn Fein party. I think there were only around four or five people anyway. Under the rules, only the Ard Comhairle can stand down a cumann; so the cumann still exists and we will go down and rebuild the cumann and reinvigorate it. I think in Marie the people of New Ross have a really great candidate and I'm sure they'll vote for them.' Meanwhile, former Sinn Fein councillor, John Dwyer says that he will benefit with the cumann members, which he numbers at eight people, vowing to canvass for him, despite the fact that they are situated in the Rosslare District and cannot offer him their own votes. 'I think there's been some internal tensions with that cumann and the party for some time,' Mr Dwyer said. 'I've been in discussion with them for the past two and a half or three months. I told them from the start that I'd be thrilled if they could give me a hand in any election and now that they've decided to leave Sinn Fein they've agreed to canvass for me.' 'I think there's been a significant drift away from the Sinn Fein party as they look more towards centrism and getting into government,' he said. 'I take no pleasure in that incidentally. What I have now though is a very experienced group of political activists joining forces with my own group who are also extremely experienced. Over the next few weeks we'll be knocking on as many doors as possible.' Flash At least four people were killed and 10 hospitalized in Thursday afternoon's fiery crash involving 28 vehicles on Interstate 70 (I-70), the major highway across Colorado. The accident occurred in Lakewood, a western suburb of Colorado's capital and eight miles (about 13 km) from downtown Denver. It was described by local officials as one of the worst vehicle crashes in the city's history. I-70 opened in both directions late Friday afternoon, more than a day after the deadly crash. "It is true carnage there -- as far as the debris -- what's left of cars and trucks along with the cargoes that were in the semi's," Lakewood Police Department agent Ty Countryman told local media. Countryman said an 18-wheel tractor-trailer truck carrying lumber, traveling at high speed, slammed into traffic that was stopped due to rush hour traffic -- triggering an explosion that incinerated several cars. "It was crash, crash, crash and explosion, explosion, explosion," Lakewood Police spokesman John Romero said at a briefing conference, describing a chain reaction of explosions from ruptured gas tanks that filled the Denver skies with black smoke. The driver of the 80-foot-long truck that caused the pile-up, Rogel Lazaro Aguilera-Mederos, 23, from Texas, was arrested and incarcerated on two counts of vehicular homicide-reckless driving, according to the police. Aguilera-Mederos is of Cuban descent and a permanent resident of the United States, and the police said he was cooperating with the investigation. Countryman told the media that there was no indication that drugs or alcohol played a role in the crash. A day after the crash, the police still had not announced those killed because their bodies had been burned beyond recognition. The Colorado Department of Transportation spent most of Friday milling out asphalt burned by the inferno and repaving a 100-yard section of the interstate. I-70 is a major east-west Interstate highway in the United States that runs from Baltimore, Maryland through Colorado into Utah, for 2,151 miles (about 3,462 km), and was built in 1956. Management and staff of the Talbot Hotel with the three awards they won at the Irish Hotel Awards. Paddy OGorman holding his award for grounds keeper of the year, Robert Millar with the Irish Brand Hotel of the Year and Aoife Sambou with the Coastal Escape of The Year Award Wexford's Talbot Hotel enjoyed an extremely successful evening at the Irish Hotel Awards, walking away with a total of three awards including the trophy for the Irish Brand Hotel of the Year. As well as this, the quay-front hotel was delighted to scoop Leinster Coastal Escape of the Year, while team member Paddy O'Gorman was personally commended for his outstanding contribution to the hotel, winning Groundskeeper of the Year. The awards ceremony is an annual event that showcases stand-out hotel venues and teams across the country and this year the crew from The Talbot made the journey to the Galmont Hotel & Spa in Galway for the glamorous ceremony. The Wexford hotel has seen extensive refurbishments in recent years including the Oyster Lane Restaurant, Ballast Bank bar, the Leisure Centre and the majority of guest-rooms. The hotel employs over 120 staff, some of whom can boast over 30 years of service. 'There are numerous individuals that have helped us to achieve such success tonight and we are here celebrating because of this collaborative effort and dedication on the part of every Talbot Wexford team member,' said Talbot Collection Area Manager Robert Millar. 'It's always an honour to be recognised for a job well done, but to be singled out among our reputable peers gives us a real sense of pride and achievement. Tonight's wins will spur us on to continue impressing our valued customers and representing the Talbot name to the best of our abilities.' The Feehily connection to Bridge Street is about to come to an end after almost 40 years. Feehily's Florist has been an iconic business in Sligo but after 38 years of retailing from Bridge Street it will cease operations there this week. The Feehily name will not disappear however and will continue trading at its Carraroe store and showroom. "It's with great sadness and a heavy heart that I have made the decision to close our premises in Bridge Street. It's something I've been thinking about for a number of years but have been putting off due to the history of our family on the corner," said Micheal Feehily. He continued: "The Bridge Street premises holds a huge sentimental value as it's where the Feehily business began in 1981 and where I was reared as a child." Due to the changing times and the shift in consumer activity, online orders and phone sales have become a huge part of the business. Micheal has worked full time in the business for 28 years and has early childhood memories when the shop first opened, "I remember as a child driving through the night with one of my brothers to the Dublin market to collect our fresh flowers. "How times have changed when we can now order our flowers online and have them delivered by a transport company directly from Holland." When Micheal finally made the decision to move all operations to Carraroe and confirmed a final trading date for Bridge Street, he was overcome with both memories and emotion. He is confident though this is a strategic move he must take. "I would like to thank everybody that has been involved in the business in Bridge Street including our fantastic neighbours and friends. "We are sad to be leaving the street, but it is more of a strategic growth decision to have all our services under the one roof," Said Michael. Feehily's opened its Carraroe store in 2008 to facilitate this development and it has gone from strength to strength ever since. They've recently expanded the Carraroe site and introduced a new bridal showroom. The Carraroe showroom has attracted contract work from hotels and restaurants nationwide. Every November it is transformed into a Christmas wonderland and Feehily's decorate various commercial premises arouond the city including shopping centres and hotels, giving them that extra special sparkle at Christmas. Feehily's Florist also hosts regular demonstrations and floristry classes. Their upcoming Summer floristry class commences on May 1st and will run for five weeks. Feehily's were announced Irish Florist of the Year 2018. Louise Delaney, who has been managing the store for nearly 15 years said; "I have been trying to update all our customers, but it is important to know that all Bridge Street customers are welcome to our Carraroe store where I will continue working and look forward to catching up with everyone." To celebrate its 38 years operating on Bridge Street, Feehily's would like the community to join them for some light refreshments and share in the memories as they bid farewell to their flower shop on Saturday, April 27th between 5 pm and 7 pm. At least four people travelling on the Dublin to Sligo train last week had bags or items stolen while on their journey. On Saturday, April 13th, a number of bags belonging to passengers were removed or ransacked by someone on the 3pm train from Dublin Connolly. Irish Rail confirmed that the incidents happened, and said in a statement that investigations are ongoing. "I am aware of the incident that happened on the Sligo train last Saturday. It was very distressing for all those that had their luggage taken. We are providing the Gardai with the footage from the train. Incidents like these are very distressing for all those involved, but thankfully they are rare," said a spokesperson for Irish Rail. Irish Rail say that they would encourage customers to keep their luggage close by while they are on the train. "We would urge all customers to keep their luggage within their eyesight and not to leave valuables unattended. "We work closely with the Gardai right across the network to try and prevent instances like this occurring," added the spokesperson. Among the victims of the alleged theft were two Swiss tourists who arrived in Sligo only to notice that their bags were no longer on the train. Another woman whose bag was stolen contacted The Sligo Champion to warn anyone travelling on the train to keep their bags beside them rather than on the luggage racks at the end of carriages. The woman is a frequent traveller on the train. She left her bag on the luggage rack and was sitting close by. The train was packed as far as Sligo and when she went to go get her bag upon arrival at McDiarmada Station, it was gone. "I looked all around the train in case it had been moved, but there was no bag. I told the lads in the station and there was another couple there who also had their bags whipped from the train." The Gardai were alerted and while interviews were taking place, another person made contact to say that their bag had been ransacked while on the same train. It is understood that Gardai are waiting to access the CCTV from the train, while Irish Rail are doing all they can to assist in the investigation. "I'm not blaming the staff at all," the woman continued. "They told me that they are scourged with this sort of incident happening. A couple of weeks ago I got off the train to find that an iPad had been stolen from my bag. "Someone definitely went on the rampage. It had to be well organised because nobody noticed anything suspicious at the time," she added. The danger of another devastating forest fire in the Slish Wood area remains very high and the behaviour of some visitors is endangering the entire area according to local Sinn Fein Councillor Thomas Healy. "Two years ago in May 2017 the area at the back of Slish Woods was devastated by forest fires around Killery and Cullentra with extensive damage to wildlife and the boardwalk up tp 4,000 acres were affected," he said. He claimed that at the time local farmers were unfairly blamed by the government. "I had a motion adopted by the Council calling for the reinstatement of grants arbitrarily withdrawn. "During a recent canvass in the area local residents showed me photographs of visitors in the carpark by the lake isle of Innisfree lighting fires in the vicinity. "These individuals quickly quenched the fires when asked to do so but it shows the ignorance of some people of the huge dangers of lighting fires in forestry. I visited the site and on investigating it I found numerous disposable barbeques dumped in the adjoining grass area, these disposable barbeques are at their hottest when the cooking is finished and are another huge fire risk," said Cllr Healy. Some 33 farmers in the area of Killery Mountain were fined or penalised by the Department of Agriculture arising out of the devastating forest fires in 2017 which destroyed hundreds of acres and damaged the Sligo Way walk. The Wicklow Town Team are behind a new festival which celebrates the Irish language through literature, music, song and dance. The family festival will consist of events suitable for al ages and takes place at various venues in Wicklow town from May 17 to May 19. Wicklow Town Team successfully applied for funding under the Rural Development Programme (LEADER) for this event. The Town Team is working with a number of groups to help deliver the inaugural Feile Chill Mhantain including Cainteoiri Chill Mhantain, Comhaltas Ceoltoiri and Wicklow County Council. Rosemary Kavanagh, Vice-Chairperson of the Wicklow Town Team said: 'Wicklow Town Team is delighted to bring a new festival to Wicklow Town this year. Feile Chill Mhantain is a family fun event, suitable for individuals that are fluent in the Irish language and also those who only have a cupla focal. 'We look forward to the people of Wicklow town taking part in the festival and extending a warm welcome to those who will visit the town to experience Feile Chill Mhantain. We would like to extend our gratitude to the organisations and owners that are allowing us to use their venues to deliver the festival events.' The majority of events will be free. The family fun activities include: creative writing, Irish dancing, sean nos dancing and set dancing, Yoga circus skills and juggling show, treasure hunt, ceili's, popup Gaeltacht, Traditional music, music workshops, family orientated and much more. The government needs to commit resources in a more meaningful way if it is to emulate the successful 'Vienna model' in housing, a major conference organised by Bray company Home For Life was told last week. The 'Innovative Solutions to Housing Problems' conference heard that politicians have responded to housing challenges in a piecemeal way that has led to some of the current challenges facing our society. 'A key part of the success of the Vienna model has been the support for tenants, including social workers and other support workers, and a focus on solutions,' said conference organiser and CEO of Home for Life, Bray man Paul Cunningham. 'The delivery of solutions requires a level of commitment, and schemes such as the expanded Mortgage to Rent scheme, which supports distressed mortgage holders to remain in their homes as tenants, are important in driving the success of such models. 'There is no consistent approach between public and private entities in relation to housing and it does cause a difficulty. 'We have to pay for this, but who pays? We don't like direct taxes, like for water. In Vienna, the tenant pays a higher percentage that they do in Ireland for social housing. 'We also need to deliver solutions for people who are in severe mortgage arrears,' he added. Keynote speaker Michaela Bankel, Vice Director of Europe's biggest housing agency, Wiener Wohnen in Vienna, explained that the Vienna model of a strong public housing sector with social responsibility was the basis for a high quality of life and low levels of homelessness. She said that the Austrian capital focused on mixed-use development with 45% of its housing stock being let for less than free market rent under the cost rental model. 'We also have higher income limits for the allocation of city-owned and subsidised apartments, (53.090), so people on middle incomes also have access to social housing,' she said. Seventeen of Wicklow's best young entrepreneurs will compete for a share of 50,000 funding at the Wicklow County Final of Ireland's Best Young Entrepreneur (IBYE) competition, which will take place in Tinakilly County House Hotel, Rathnew, on April 30. IBYE, which has a 2 million investment fund, is run by all 31 Local Enterprise Offices (LEOs) and is supported by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation and Enterprise Ireland. Winners and runners up will be announced in three categories - Best Business Idea, Best Start-up Business and Best Established Business. Vibeke Delahunt the Head of Enterprise with Local Enterprise Office Wicklow said: 'We started the search to find Ireland's best young entrepreneur in December last year, with 1644 young entrepreneurs applying nationally, and almost 60 applications from County Wicklow. After a very successful IBYE bootcamp and County Final, the future is bright for both youth entrepreneurship and job creation in the region.' Further details on the competition and supports available to young entrepreneurs are available through www.localenterprise.ie/wicklow and from the IBYE website at www.ibye.ie Britain's Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry the Duke of Sussex arrive at the residence of Moroccan King Mohammed VI in Rabat, Morocco February 25, 2019. Yui Mok/Pool via REUTERS Camera-ready: Kate and Will leaving the Lindo Wing of St Marys Hospital in London with Prince George (left), Princess Charlotte (centre) and their as yet unnamed son (right) Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, exits The Mark Hotel following her baby shower in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., February 20, 2019. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex watch students play football during their visit to Lycee Qualifiant Grand Atlas, the local secondary school on February 24, 2019 in Asni, Morocco. (Photo by Facundo Arrizabalaga - Pool/Getty Images) Meghan, Duchess of Sussex attends an Investiture for Michael McHugo the founder of 'Education for All' with the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire on February 24, 2019 in Asni, Morocco Earlier this month, Buckingham Palace released a statement on behalf of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Their Royal Highnesses have taken a personal decision to keep the plans around the arrival of their baby private, it read. 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. The message was clear: there would be no Lindo Wing photo op, where the public gets the first glimpse of the royal baby on the steps of St Mary's Hospital in London. It signalled a departure from the births of Prince William and Kate Middletons three children, as well as Prince Charles and Diana Spencers unveiling of William and Harry. From their wedding to their Instagram account, Harry and Meghan have proven themselves to be royal rule-breakers, and the preparations for the birth of their first child have been no exception. Here, we look at how and why the couple have been doing things differently. A TALE OF TWO SHOWERS Expand Close Meghan on her way to the $75,000 baby shower venue. Photo: AP / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Meghan on her way to the $75,000 baby shower venue. Photo: AP Its an American custom, so it was no surprise that Meghan, a California native, would want to celebrate her pregnancy with a baby shower. Hosted and paid for by Serena Williams, it was held in the Mark Hotel in New York, and attended by Gayle King and Amal Clooney, who reportedly chartered a private jet for herself and Meghan. Critics baulked at the lavish spectacle, but a few weeks later, Meghan got the upper hand when she and Harry urged fans to make charitable donations in lieu of sending baby gifts. It followed the fan-led #GlobalSussexBabyShower, a campaign that raised more than 22,000 for Mayhew animal home, Camfed and WellChild. FASHION FORMULA Princess Diana favoured loose-fitting smocks, while Kate Middleton stuck to a uniform of coat dresses and demure gowns. One of the most notable differences in Meghans style is that, with the exception of a few dresses and jeans, she tends to eschew maternity wear. Video of the Day Some speculate that being able to avoid maternity pieces can be a source of pride, while others note much maternity wear is seen as frumpy. Meghan, a lover of fashion, chose outfits that flaunt her bump, yet carried a distinct Hollywood glamour, from vintage coats to sparkling gowns by Roland Mouret, Oscar de la Renta and Givenchy, who made her sexy one-shoulder number at the Fashion Awards. OVER THE BUMP Expand Close Surprise, surprise: Meghan Markle turned up at the British Fashion Awards to present Clare Waight Keller of Givenchy with a gong. Photo: Tristan Fewings/BFC / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Surprise, surprise: Meghan Markle turned up at the British Fashion Awards to present Clare Waight Keller of Givenchy with a gong. Photo: Tristan Fewings/BFC Throughout her pregnancy, Meghan has taken a hands-on approach rather than gripping a clutch, shes rarely seen without one or both hands touching her bump. Shes been happy to talk about her pregnancy too, instead of maintaining the formal distance between royals and well-wishers. Yet this hasnt brought out the best in everyone. Sarah Ferguson was dubbed the Duchess of Pork, and the attacks on Meghan have been just as spiteful: shes been slammed for cradling her belly, for being too big and accused of faking her pregnancy by online trolls. In opting to forgo a public appearance after the birth, Meghan is taking her pregnancy back into her own hands. GRAND DESIGNS Royal nurseries are typically traditional, with classic colours, handmade furniture and whimsical details, such as hand-painted bears or characters from Beatrix Potter. Such was the case for William, Harry, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, who shared the same designers. Kate and William followed a similar style with their Peter Rabbit-themed nursery. Meghan and Harry, by all accounts, are going for a more modern look, with an understated palette of whites and greys, and the use of eco-friendly products. Meghan is said to have enlisted Vicky Charles, the designer behind the chic private members clubs Soho House. Were expecting it to be soothing and stylish the ideal backdrop for a candid Instagram snap. BABY FEMINIST The palace denied reports that Meghan and Harry would raise their baby gender-fluid, but the self-described feminists are likely to want to bring up their child without gender stereotypes. On International Womens Day, Meghan quoted a documentary in which Lily Tomlin spoke about the embryonic kicking of feminism. I loved that, Meghan added, so boy or girl, whatever it is, we hope that thats the case with our little bump. DOCTORING UP Expand Close Camera-ready: Kate and Will leaving the Lindo Wing of St Marys Hospital in London with Prince George (left), Princess Charlotte (centre) and their as yet unnamed son (right) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Camera-ready: Kate and Will leaving the Lindo Wing of St Marys Hospital in London with Prince George (left), Princess Charlotte (centre) and their as yet unnamed son (right) There was uproar among royalists when it was announced Meghan would choose her own doctors instead of the queens medical experts. It recalled the tabloid outrage when Princess Diana opted for the Lindo Wing over alleged objections from the queen, who abhorred the thought of the future King of England being born in an ordinary hospital. Like Diana, Meghan is taking charge of her birth with a plan she feels comfortable with not to mention, one that could save her life: according to research in the US, the risk of pregnancy-related deaths for black women is four times higher than for white women, with even A-listers like Beyonce and Serena Williams suffering life-threatening complications. MANNY STATE Harry and Meghan are believed to have hired a London agency to help in their search for childcare. While finding a personality match is top priority, the couple are reportedly open to considering an American or a man for the role. Kate and William drew some criticism for hiring a Spanish nanny, but an American and especially a male one would really stir things up. IN NAME ONLY Expand Close Britain's Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry the Duke of Sussex arrive at the residence of Moroccan King Mohammed VI in Rabat, Morocco February 25, 2019. Yui Mok/Pool via REUTERS / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Britain's Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry the Duke of Sussex arrive at the residence of Moroccan King Mohammed VI in Rabat, Morocco February 25, 2019. Yui Mok/Pool via REUTERS According to a royal decree, only Williams eldest was entitled to be styled a Royal Highness or Prince/Princess. But in 2012, the queen revised the decree so that all of his children would receive the title. However, the ruling doesnt apply to Harrys children, so a son will be known as the Earl of Dumbarton, while a daughter will be called a Lady. Of course, the queen may decide to step in and issue a title Prince Andrew requested that the queen grant Beatrice and Eugenie the titles of Princess rather than Lady, while Princess Anne declined the queens offer for her children. Meghan and Harry could do the same. BABY ABROAD Meghan and Harrys child will be the first royal baby to hold US citizenship, and she has been open about wanting to maintain her ties to America, with a trip to the States planned later this year. Kate and William embarked on a tour of Australia when George was just a year old, but it looks like Baby Sussex will spend a considerable amount of time abroad, particularly if reports about Harry and Meghan being sent to Africa next year are to be believed. Given the couples desire to take on projects overseas and perhaps escape the glare of the British tabloids the baby could end up enjoying the life of an expat. Shock: Girls react after seeing the damage to St Anthony's Shrine, in Colombo, after the bomb attacks. Photo: REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha Sri Lankan police are trying to track down 140 people believed to be linked to Isil, which claimed responsibility for the Easter Sunday suicide bombings that killed 253, as shooting erupted in the east during a raid. Muslims in Sri Lanka were urged to pray at home after the State Intelligence Services warned of possible car bomb attacks, amid fears of retaliatory violence. The US Embassy in Sri Lanka urged its citizens to avoid places of worship over the weekend after authorities reported there could be more attacks targeting religious centres. Archbishop of Colombo Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith told reporters he had seen a leaked internal security document warning of further attacks on churches and there would be no Catholic Masses tomorrow anywhere on the island. The streets of Colombo were deserted yesterday evening, with many people leaving offices early amid tight security after the suicide bombing attacks on three churches and four hotels that also wounded about 500 people. President Maithripala Sirisena told reporters some Sri Lankan youths had been involved with Isil since 2013. He said information uncovered so far suggested there were 140 people in Sri Lanka involved in Isil activities. "Police are looking to arrest them," Mr Sirisena said. Nearly 10,000 soldiers were deployed across the Indian Ocean island state to carry out searches and provide security for religious centres, the military said yesterday. The All Ceylon Jamiyathul Ullama, Sri Lanka's main Islamic religious body, urged Muslims to conduct prayers at home in case "there is a need to protect family and properties". Illustrating the tension that has gripped the country, shooting erupted between security forces and a group of men in the east during a search and cordon operation, a military spokesman said. The raid took place in the town of Ampara Sainthamaruthu, near Batticaloa. The spokesman said that there was an explosion in the area and when soldiers went to investigate they were fired upon. No details of casualties were immediately available. Police have detained at least 76 people, including foreigners from Syria and Egypt, in their investigations so far. Isil provided no evidence to back its claim that it was behind the attacks. If true, it would be one of the worst attacks carried out by the group outside Iraq and Syria. The government said nine homegrown, well-educated suicide bombers carried out the attacks. Eight of them have been identified, and one was a woman. The Australian government is airdropping poisonous sausages across thousands of hectares of land in an effort to kill millions of feral cats, according to reports. It is just one of the tactics used by the government as part its plan to kill two million feral cats by 2020 in order to protect native species. Cats are also trapped and shot by government officials. The cats die within 15 minutes after eating the sausages made with kangaroo meat, chicken fat, herbs, spices and the poison, 1080, the New York Times reported. Planes distributing the poisoned treats, which are produced at a factory close to Perth, drop 50 sausages every kilometre in areas where the cats roam free. Dr Dave Algar, who helped develop the poison recipe, said he used his cats to test the taste of the sausages before adding the poison to check the flavour. "They've got to taste good, he told the paper. They are the cat's last meal." Since they were first introduced by European settlers, feral cats have helped drive an estimated 20 mammal species to extinction, Gregory Andrews, the national commissioner of threatened species told the Sydney Morning Herald. According to Mr Andrews, that makes feral cats the single biggest threat to Australia's native species. "We have got to make choices to save animals that we love, and who define us as a nation like the bilby, the warru (Black-footed rock-wallaby) and the night parrot," he said. It is estimated that cats kill 377 million birds and 649 million reptiles every year in Australia, according to a 2017 study published in the journal Biological Conservation. More than 160,000 people signed half a dozen online petitions calling on Australia to drop the plan. Brigette Bardot wrote a letter calling on the government to stop animal genocide, while Morissey responded by saying "idiots rule the earth". The cull has also come under fire from some conservationists who argue that the government are focusing too heavily on cats, rather than addressing other factors that reduce biodiversity such as urban expansion, logging and mining. Tim Doherty, a conservation ecologist from Deakin University in Australia, told CNN: "There's a possibility there that cats are being used as a distraction to some extent," he said. "We also need to have a more holistic approach and address all threats to biodiversity." Despite the more creative methods employed in the governments cat cull, individual shooters are responsible for the 83 per cent of the cats killed so far, according to The Royal Melbourne Institute. And Australia is not the only country to focus on reducing cat populations, with calls in New Zealand to put a stop to domestic cats altogether. The country has announced a goal of becoming completely predator free by 2050. And last year, Omaui, a small coastal town in the South Island, considered banning people from owning cats although it has since backtracked on this plan. Up in the air: A banner of Spain's outgoing Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez looks down from his party's Madrid HQ. Photo: Pablo Blazquez Dominguez/Getty Images The Spanish general election takes place tomorrow, after a fractious campaign dominated by the Catalan question. With a quarter of the electorate undecided, the outcome is unpredictable. There are two main possibilities: a right-wing triple alliance Government of the Popular Party, the Citizens' Party and Vox, led by Pablo Casado; or a left-wing coalition led by outgoing Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez of the PSOE (Socialist Party) and Podemos with, or without, the support of the regional nationalists. If Sanchez returns to power, it is expected the dialogue with the Catalan nationalists will resume, which could lead to an official referendum on the future of Catalonia. If Casado emerges as the new prime minister, a crackdown on the Catalan nationalists is expected, including the possibility of Madrid restoring direct rule on the region. By next week the focus of attention for Catalan-watchers will shift towards Catalonia's ex-president Carles Puigdemont and his bid to be elected to the EU parliament. Puigdemont defies comparison with the stereotype image of a revolutionary leader. He is neither a Mahatma Gandhi nor a Che Guevara. A modest, unassuming, almost a humble man, he would not consider himself a celebrity by any means and yet despite his best efforts he has become one. In fact, since Julian Assange was arrested, Carles Puigdemont is now the undisputed celebrity fugitive on our screens. Unlike Assange, Puigdemont is not holed up in an embassy but living in a leafy suburb of Waterloo, 30 minutes south of Brussels. He is a fugitive from Spanish justice, but relatively free to move within Belgium. However, every move abroad is a risk, both to his personal safety and his freedom. A Spanish national arrest warrant on charges of rebellion remains in force. An international warrant could be issued at any time. The purpose of Puigdemont's bid for election to the EU parliament is to achieve more freedom of movement in order to internationalise the cause of Catalan independence. MEPs who have not been convicted of a crime are immune from arrest. If elected, Puigdemont should be free to move within the EU. As head of list for his party, Junts per Catalunya, and given its current support he is certain to be elected. The original assumption was his immunity would kick in from the moment he was deemed elected. However, European Parliament President Antonio Tajani sought a legal opinion. The four-page document, leaked by the prominent Spanish newspaper 'La Vanguardia' is bad news for Puigdemont and his fellow on-the-run candidates. While it supported the view that a candidate with a national arrest warrant may participate in the elections, if elected he will have to present himself in Madrid to swear an oath to uphold the Spanish constitution, and be included in the list of successful candidates the Spanish authorities will submit to the EU parliament. If he is arrested in this process, the Spanish judicial authorities could still give him permission to take the oath. Even assuming Puigdemont is prepared to do so, the Spanish judicial authorities are unlikely to grant him this permit as they have consistently wanted him to join his former ministers in the regional government who are currently on trial in Madrid. There are two separate issues here. The first is how could Puigdemont take an oath to uphold the Spanish constitution, which, through interpretation by the constitutional court, effectively denies the status of nationhood to Catalonia? There is a precedent which suggests itself to anyone familiar with Irish history which might offer a way out. In 1932, Fianna Fail leader Eamon De Valera was required to take an oath of allegiance to the Constitution of the Irish Free State and to be faithful to King George V and his successors, etc, before he and his party could take power. He signed the oath and dismissed it as simply signing a piece of paper. Could/would Puigdemont do something similar? Unlike De Valera, Puigdemont is totally committed to non-violence. His leading role in organising the independence referendum in October 2017 is beyond dispute. However, international media in Barcelona reported that violent methods were used on that day not by the voters, but by police ordered to disrupt the voting. If Puigdemont was prepared to take the oath, the EU parliament could accept that he would do so in Brussels. However, once again, it seems, permission from Spain would be required. Perhaps there is a way around this? Of course, if elected but unable to attend, Puigdemont and the other on-the-run candidates can nominate their stand-ins or the next on the party list. At the end of the process, Catalan MEPs, both unionists and nationalists, should all take their seats in the EU parliament and make their contribution to European democracy. Ultimately, the election that will count most for Catalans will be an official referendum on the future of Catalonia. The prospects of this happening will become clearer on Monday as the count in the Spanish elections concludes. Jaime Osuna is accused of beheading his cellmate in a California state prison A California prisoner is accused of beheading his cellmate in an attack officials described as heinous. Jaime Osuna allegedly mutilated, killed and beheaded Luis Romero at Corcoran State Prison on 9 March, in an overnight murder. He is accused of removing several of Romeros body parts with a sharp metal object which was wrapped in string and attached to a handle. Officials say it is unclear how long the victim remained alive during the torture. We do believe that [Romero] was conscious during at least a portion of the time, Phil Esbenshade, a district attorney, said. This is the most gruesome case that I have seen in terms of heinousness in the slaying. Prison guards found Romeros body in his cell at around 7.30 am. An autopsy report concluded that the 44-year-old had bled to death after suffering multiple sharp force trauma injuries. Californias Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is investigating the killing but officials will not provide details about how inmates in the prison were supervised overnight. On Thursday Osuna pleaded not guilty to murder and other charges, during a court appearance. The charges include special provisions which could lead to the death penalty, including one specifying that the murder was was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel, manifesting exceptional depravity. The 31-year-old is also charged with torture, mayhem and weapons possession. The torture charge alleges that he acted with the intent to cause cruel and extreme pain and suffering for the purpose of revenge, extortion, persuasion and for a sadistic purpose. Osuna was imprisoned in 2017, without the possibility of parole, after pleading guilty to killing a 37-year-old woman in a motel in 2011. Romero was also serving a life sentence for a killing. Officials said Osuna had been transferred to a prison for inmates needing mental health care in Stockton, California. A fake heiress who swindled hotels, banks, restaurants and wealthy friends out of more than $200,000 (180,000) has been found guilty by a jury in New York. Anna Sorokin, a 28-year-old magazine intern, managed to con New York's elite into lending her money and supporting her luxurious lifestyle. Clad in designer clothes, she moved from one boutique hotel to the next, befriending the concierges and handing out $100 tips. She treated friends to expensive meals and chartered a private plane, all on credit cards she had secured through fraud. Her mission was to open a private members' club on Park Avenue, and she secured the backing of high-society architects, artists and fashion designers. "Fake it until you make it,'" her lawyer Todd Spodek said during opening statements last month. "Anna had to live by it." In reality, Sorokin had hardly any money - her father is reportedly a former truck driver from Russia who runs a heating and cooling business in Germany, and had supported her for years. She had left home for an internship in Paris at 'Purple' magazine, then relocated to New York in 2014. Kaegan Mays-Williams, prosecuting, told jurors Sorokin "put herself in the best position to take money" from wealthy people so she could "live the fantasy of an extravagant lifestyle beyond her means". Even during her month-long trial Sorokin put on a show, hiring a stylist to dress her in different luxury labels every day, with clothes being taken to her in jail on Riker's Island. Her lawyer even confirmed to 'GQ': "Today it's Yves Saint Laurent blouse and Victoria Beckham pants." Prosecutors insisted she was a conniving criminal. Ms Mays-Williams added: "She stole from banks. She stole from hotels. She stole from friends. She tried to steal from a hedge fund." Mr Spodek insisted she was intending to pay it all back. But she was found guilty on three charges but acquitted of another count regarding a $22m (19.7m) loan she tried to obtain. The jury also acquitted her of stealing $60,000 from a friend who paid for a trip to Morocco. Sorokin faces up to 15 years in jail - although she could be deported to Germany. Telegraph Media Group Limited [2021] Taking aim: Donald Trump gestures to the crowd as he prepares to sign a document rejecting the UN Arms Trade Treaty. Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images US president Donald Trump yesterday announced at the National Rifle Association's (NRA) annual meeting that the United States will drop out of an international arms treaty signed in 2013 by then-president Barack Obama but opposed by the NRA and other conservative groups. Mr Trump told members of the gun lobby that he intends to revoke the status of the United States as a signatory of the Arms Trade Treaty, which was never ratified by the US Senate. "We're taking our signature back," Mr Trump said to thousands of cheering attendees, many wearing red hats emblazoned with the Republican president's "Make America Great Again" slogan. The NRA has long opposed the treaty, which regulates the $70bn (63bn) business in conventional arms and seeks to keep weapons out of the hands of human rights abusers. The lobbying group argues it would undermine domestic gun rights, a view the Obama administration rejected. Mr Trump added that the United Nations will soon receive formal notice of the withdrawal. The 193-nation UN General Assembly overwhelmingly approved the treaty in April 2013 and the United States, the world's number one arms exporter, voted in favour of it despite fierce opposition from the NRA. Mr Trump's action drew an immediate rebuke from some international human rights groups. "The United States will now lock arms with Iran, North Korea and Syria as non-signatories to this historic treaty whose sole purpose is to protect innocent people from deadly weapons," said Oxfam America president Abby Maxman. Adotei Akwei, of Amnesty International USA, said in a statement: "With this announcement the Trump administration will reopen the floodgates for arms sales with weakened human rights criteria." So far 101 countries have formally joined onto the treaty. Another 29, including the United States, have signed it, but not yet formally joined. Mr Trump was joined on his trip to Indianapolis by White House National Security Adviser John Bolton, an advocate of withdrawing the United States from international treaties out of concern they might undermine US authority. With yesterday's announcement, Mr Trump continued his drive to roll back Obama-era initiatives. Nearly two years ago, Mr Trump announced that the United States would withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, which aims to reduce global carbon emissions that scientists link to harmful climate change. Republicans argue the US economy would suffer if it met the deal's carbon-reduction goals. In May 2018, Mr Trump pulled the United States out of a 2015 international deal that eased sanctions on Iran in exchange for strict limits being placed on Iran's nuclear activities. The United States has since reimposed some sanctions that had been suspended under the deal. Meanwhile, the leader of Britain's opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, said yesterday he had turned down an invitation to a state dinner which will be one of the highlights of Mr Trump's visit to Britain in June. Mr Trump is due to visit Britain between June 3 and 5. A US federal judge yesterday sentenced Russian agent Maria Butina to 18 months in prison after she pleaded guilty in December to conspiring with a Russian official to infiltrate a gun rights group and influence US conservative activists and Republicans. US District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan said the 18-month sentence will include the approximately nine months Butina already has served in jail since her arrest last July. She also agreed to have Butina deported back to Russia after she completes her sentence. "This was no simple misunderstanding by an over-eager foreign student," the judge said before imposing the sentence, which was the length of prison time prosecutors had recommended. Butina's lawyers had asked the judge to impose a sentence of time served, and the probation office had suggested a sentence of 12 months and one day. Butina, a former graduate student at American University in Washington DC who publicly advocated in favour of gun rights, begged the judge for mercy before her sentencing and expressed remorse. Clad in a green prison jumpsuit, her voice broke at times as she read from a prepared statement. "I have three degrees, but now I am a convicted felon with no job, no money," she said. She also said she was "deeply sorry" and asked the judge for mercy. Former CIA director John Brennan has railed against Donald Trumps sociopathic ramblings after he called special counsel Robert Muellers Russia investigation an attempted coup on his presidency. Mr Trump made the comment in a phone interview on Sean Hannitys Fox News show on Thursday evening and accused senior intelligence figures, including Mr Brennan, of being involved in the supposed plot. Speaking to MSNBC, Mr Brennan said: I dont think it is surprising at all that we continue to hear these sociopathic ramblings of Mr Trump claiming there was this effort to try to prevent him from being elected or to try to unseat him. I welcome any type of, you know, continued investigation in terms of what we did during that period of time that we were in government. And Ive testified in front of congress, and Id be happy to do it again. Mr Brennan also hit back at Kentucky Republican senator Rand Pauls allegations that he had pushed to include British ex-spy Christoper Steeles dirty dossier in a briefing to Mr Trump during the transition. Thats absolutely incorrect and 180 degrees from the truth, Mr Brennan said. It was CIA that was pushing not to have it included, not to be taken into account at all in that intelligence community assessment. The full, partially redacted report on Mr Muellers investigation was released earlier this month. While it found no criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, it did state that Russia interfered with the 2016 election in a sweeping and systematic fashion with the goal of electing Mr Trump. The report also revealed that Mr Trump tried to get Mr Mueller fired after he was appointed to head the investigation, in a series of efforts widely deemed to constitute attempted obstruction of justice. Mr Trump and other Republican politicians have since called for a follow-up investigation into intelligence officials who began monitoring the Trump campaign ahead of the 2016 election without warning. In his interview with MSNBC, Mr Brennan went on to insist that the fault for any Russian election interference lies with the Trump administration, and not with the Obama administration that was in power during the 2016 election. The last administration put out an intelligence community assessment and tried to be as comprehensive and transparent as possible about what the Russians were doing, he said. Unfortunately, this administration and Donald Trump refuses to continue to acknowledge what the Russians did and to take steps to prevent them from doing it in the future. Two people hug as another talks to a San Diego County Sheriffs deputy outside of the Chabad of Poway Synagogue (Denis Poroy/AP) A 19-year-old man armed with a rifle opened fire inside a synagogue near San Diego as worshippers celebrated the last day of Passover, killing a woman and wounding three people, authorities have said. The man, whose name was not released, fled in a car and called police shortly afterwards to say he was involved in the shooting at Chabad of Poway, San Diego Police Chief David Nisleit told reporters. When an officer reached the man, the suspect pulled over, jumped out of his car with his hands up and was immediately taken into custody, Mr Nisleit said. The officer found an AR-type rifle in the front passenger seat. Expand Close San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore, centre, outside of the Chabad of Poway Synagogue (Denis Poroy/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore, centre, outside of the Chabad of Poway Synagogue (Denis Poroy/AP) San Diego County Sheriff William Gore said at a news conference that he had no details on motive. Authorities said they were reviewing copies of his social media posts. There was no known threat after the man was detained, but authorities boosted patrols at places of worship as a precaution, Mr Nisleit said. An off-duty Border Patrol agent inside the synagogue in the city of Poway, just over 20 miles north of San Diego, opened fire as the shooter fled but did not hit him, Mr Gore said. Update #5 @SDSheriff Bill Gore confirms one person was killed and three others were injured in the #synagogueshooting at Chabad of Poway. Our hearts go out to those affected by this incident. 19-year-old man was arrested in connection with the shooting by @SanDiegoPD. San Diego Sheriff (@SDSheriff) April 27, 2019 Minoo Anvari told CNN that she was a member of Chabad of Poway and her husband was inside during the shooting. She said he called to tell her the shooter was shouting and cursing. She called the shooting unbelievable, adding: We are strong, we are united, they cant break us. Authorities said a girl and two men were wounded. US president Donald Trump offered his deepest sympathies to the families of those affected. He spoke from the South Lawn of the White House before flying to a rally in Wisconsin. Passover began on April 19 and was ending Saturday. Police are providing patrols to protect Muslims who are fearful of reprisal attacks (Eranga Jayawardena/AP) Sri Lankan security forces have found 15 bodies, including six children, after militants linked to the Easter bombings opened fire and set off explosives during a raid on their house in the countrys east, police said. The gunbattle began on Friday night after police tipped off soldiers to a suspected safe house near the town of Sammanthurai, where authorities said the militants detonated three explosions and opened fire. At least three others were wounded in the attack, said police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara. He said that some of the dead likely were militants who blew themselves up in suicide bombings. Earlier, the military said at least one civilian had been killed in the attack. Expand Close Sri Lankan police officers patrol a neighbourhood in Colombo, Sri Lanka (Manish Swarup/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Sri Lankan police officers patrol a neighbourhood in Colombo, Sri Lanka (Manish Swarup/AP) Raids and police curfews shut down areas of eastern Sri Lanka as Catholic leaders cancelled Sunday Masses indefinitely. Officials also urged Muslims to stay home for prayers in an extraordinary call by the clergy to curtail worship as fear of more attacks plagued the island nation. Major General Aruna Jayasekara, the local military commander, said soldiers and police waited until daylight on Saturday to carry out further raids in Eastern Province given houses being built so close together. Meanwhile, the military said security forces had recovered explosives, detonators, suicide kits, military uniforms and Islamic State group flags in the ongoing raids. In the same area, police spokesman Mr Gunasekara said officers acting on information from intelligence officials found 150 sticks of blasting gelatin and 100,000 small metal balls, as well as a van and clothing suspected to be used by those involved in the Easter attack. Expand Close A Sri Lankan catholic priest stands near broken glass in front St Anthonys Church in Colombo (Manish Swarup/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A Sri Lankan catholic priest stands near broken glass in front St Anthonys Church in Colombo (Manish Swarup/AP) Officials from the police to the prime minister say militants remain on the loose and have access to explosives. That has led to increased security at shrines, churches, temples and mosques across the multiethnic country of 21 million off the southern coast of India. Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, who is the archbishop of Colombo, told journalists on Friday that church officials had seen a leaked security document describing Roman Catholic churches and other denominations as a major target and asked the faithful across Sri Lanka to stay home for their own safety. We dont want repetitions, he said. Giovanni Maria Vian, a church historian and emeritus editor of the Vatican newspaper, said he believed it was the first time the church had cancelled Masses across a country for security reasons. The US Embassy in Sri Lanka has warned the public to stay away from places of worship over the weekend, a stark alert underlining that authorities believe that attackers remain at large. Earlier on Friday, police confirmed the militant groups leader, Mohamed Zahran, died in the suicide bombing at the Shangri-La Hotel, one of six hotels and churches attacked. Zahran appeared in an Islamic State video claiming responsibility for the coordinated assault, and authorities in both Sri Lanka and Australia confirmed links between IS and the attack. Investigators are searching for bodies with a special camera in a man-made lake near the village of Mitsero outside of the capital Nicosia, Cyprus (Petros Karadjias/AP) Search teams in Cyprus have located two suitcases at the bottom of a lake where a detained military officer told investigators he has dumped bodies. The suspect, a 35-year-old National Guard captain, has allegedly confessed to killing seven foreign women and girls. A robotic camera found the potential evidence and will be used to keep scouring the man-made lake for a third suitcase suspected to be under water, fire service chief Marcos Trangolas said. Expand Close Police officers at the lake (Petros Karadjias/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Police officers at the lake (Petros Karadjias/AP) Under questioning, the suspect said he put the bodies of three victims inside luggage that he ditched in the lake, a police official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to disclose details of an ongoing investigation. Located some 20 miles west of the capital of Nicosia,the lake is part of an abandoned copper pyrite mine where a womans body was found in a flooded shaft on April 14. The discovery triggered a homicide investigation that led to the captains arrest before a second womans body was found in the mineshaft on April 20. Police said the suspect admitted killing them both. But they said the scope of case sickeningly expanded when the suspect told them on Thursday about four more victims, bringing the total to five women and two of their daughters. Expand Close A diver gets out from the lake after searching for female bodies (Petros Karadjias/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A diver gets out from the lake after searching for female bodies (Petros Karadjias/AP) The suspect has not been named because he has not been charged yet. He faces charges including premeditated murder and kidnapping for alleged crimes dating back to September 30 2016. Police told a judge at a court hearing on Saturday the suspect gave details of the slayings in 10 handwritten pages. The judge ordered him held for eight more days. The Cyprus News Agency reported he is married with two children but separated from his wife. It said investigators found photos of the mineshaft were in his possession. Shocked Cypriots are grappling with the mounting evidence from police that a serial killer was in their midst preying on women who came to work on the east Mediterranean island nation. Expand Close Women from the Philippines at a vigil outside the presidential palace in Nicosia on Friday (Petros Karadjias/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Women from the Philippines at a vigil outside the presidential palace in Nicosia on Friday (Petros Karadjias/AP) Hundreds of people turned up for a protest vigil outside the presidential palace on Friday to mourn the victims and to question if authorities failed to adequately investigate when women who worked as housekeepers or in low-paying jobs were reported missing. In a poignant moment, a group of tearful Filipino women held lighted candles and bowed their heads in prayer for the three women and one girl of Filipino descent who are believed to be among the dead. The child is the six-year-old daughter of the first woman found at the mine, Mary Rose Tiburcio, 38. Both had been missing since May of last year. Investigators zeroed in on the captain as a suspect based on online chat communications between him and Ms Tiburcio during a six-month relationship. Cypriot media have identified the other victim from the mineshaft as 28-year-old Arian Palanas Lozano, also from the Philippines. Expand Close A diver in the water and an investigator conduct a search (Petros Karadjias/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A diver in the water and an investigator conduct a search (Petros Karadjias/AP) During the interrogation on Thursday that produced four more potential victims, the suspect provided directions to a military firing range where police found decomposed remains in a pit within hours. The captain thought the woman he killed and discarded in the pit was of Nepalese or Indian descent, according to police. At Saturdays court hearing, an investigator said she might have been Ashita Khadka Bista from Nepal. Cypriot police think the other three victims they know about so far are a 31-year-old Filipino woman who has been missing since December 2017, Maricar Valtez Arquiola, and a Romanian mother and daughter. Cypriot media identified the mother as Livia Florentina Bunea, 36, and her eight-year-old daughter as Elena Natalia Bunea. The two are believed to have been missing since September 2016. Just a few weeks ago, Megastar Amitabh Bachchan expressed that he was upset that not enough has been said on the "silent success" of his latest film "Badla", directed by Sujoy Ghosh and produced by Shah Rukh Khan. "About time someone started talking about this silent success! Because neither the producer, nor the distributor, nor the line producer, or any else in the industry, in general, has even spent a nano second to compliment the success of this film 'Badla'. Thank you," Big B tweeted. Shah Rukh, known for his quick wit, responded: "Sir hum toh wait kar rahein hain ki aap party kab de rahein hain hum sabko (Sir, we are waiting for you to throw a party for all of us! We are waiting outside Jalsa every night!" Well, the social media banter continued and just like that, the film has managed to complete a successful run of 50 days at the box-office. Starring Amitabh Bachchan and Taapsee Pannu in the lead roles, the film has been the surprise package of the year in terms of monetary success! While it started slow, it's pleasantly surprising how the positive word of mouth worked for the film. Today, Taapsee Pannu finally reacted to the news of her film completing a successful run of 50 days. Taapsee wrote: From Captain Marvel to Avengers..... We survived ! #50DaysOfBadla taapsee pannu (@taapsee) April 26, 2019 Badla had released on March 8, clashing with the superhero film Captain Marvel, starring Brie Larson and now even when Avengers Endgame has released, the film is standing rock-solid in several cinema halls across the country. Director Sujoy Ghosh also took to social media to praise Avengers: Endgame, calling it real cinema and he also expressed the joy of realising that his film has completed 50 days at the box-office. He wrote, "And it was so cool to see Badla still running... You have no idea how much the team is grateful to all of YOU who made this possible. SAR JHUKAKE THANK YOU." The film also stara Amrita Singh, Tony Luke, Manav Kaul and Tanveer Ghani in supporting roles. As the Lankan security forces continue their hunt for the terrorists, they engaged with a group of suspects in the town of Sainthamaruthu, Kalmunai on Friday evening. They were held up in a house, which is believed to be the bomb-making factory of the ISIS-inspired NTJ. Police commandos, backed by the army engaged with the group held up inside the house for hours with heavy firing from both sides. Three explosions were also heard during the fire exchange. Read more Server Shutdown That Affected Air India Flights Around The World Has Been Resolved But Passengers Still Stranded Air India never seems to be not in the news. Be it finding some foreign material in their food boxes to them halting their plane because a lady forgot her passport, Air India always stays in the limelight. On Saturday, a server glitch on its planes that affected several Air India flights worldwide was resolved, according to a tweet posted by the airline. "Our server system SITA, which faced a temporary glitch, this morning was restored at 0845hrs. Air India senior executives, including CMD, Directors, Station Heads rushed to airports to take control of situation & facilitate pax," Air India said in a tweet adding that the flight services will resume soon. Read more SC Tells Reserve Bank Of India To Make List Of Financial Defaulters Public Under RTI Act The Supreme Court held that the Reserve Bank of India is bound to disclose names of loan defaulters under the RTI Act and also asked it to make public inspection reports containing a critical assessment of the functioning of banks and financial institutions while warning the banking regulator against future violations. A bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao and M R Shah directed the RBI to withdraw its present disclosure policy under which this information is not disclosed to the public under the Right to Information Act. Read more Madhya Pradesh's Khargone Is Hottest City In The World At 46.6 Degree Celsius Khargone, which has consistently been the hottest town in Madhya Pradesh all summer, was on Friday the hottest in the world. The temperature here was a scorching 47 degrees, the Met department in Bhopal said. The El Dorado weather website recorded Khargones temperature as 46.6 degrees Celsius, and listed it as the hottest in the world. All of Vidarbha is boiling in unprecedented heat. Read more Mysuru's Famed Dasara Elephant And Gentle Giant 'Drona' Dies Of Heart Attack A 37-year-old tusker, an inmate of the Nagarhole Sanctuarys Mattegoda elephant camp died on Friday of a suspected heart attack. The tusker, named Drona which was showing signs of being unwell since morning collapsed in the afternoon while the mahouts were trying to revive it, splashing water. Read more Consensual Sex Above The Age Of 16 Should Be Excluded From POCSO Act, Says Madras High Court Setting aside the 10 years rigorous imprisonment awarded by a trial court under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, the Madras High Court has made an observation that has far-reaching consequences. The Madras High Court on Friday observed that anyone above the age of 16 or above should not be considered a minor and Any consensual sex after the age of 16 or bodily contact or allied acts could be excluded from the rigorous provisions of POCSO Act, and sexual assault could be tried under more liberal provisions which can be introduced in the Act, differentiating sexual assault and teenage relationships, Justice V Parthiban of the high court, observed. Read more Dr. SS Rajput a cardiovascular surgeon at Ram Manohar Lohia Institute of Medical Sciences in Lucknow has rejected the claim of BJP's Bhopal candidate Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur that she was cured of breast cancer by using cow urine. Speaking to The Hindu, Dr. Rajput said that he had operated Pragya first in 2008 at the Mumbais JJ Hospital when she had developed a tumor in the right breast. She was operated once again in 2012 after the tumor recurred. BCCL According to Dr. Rajput, Pragya had an aggressive form of stage-1 cancer and the surgery involved removing one-third of her right breast along with the tumor. He also claimed that in 2017, after she was granted bail, a bilateral mastectomy was carried out where both her breasts were surgically removed at the Ram Manohar Lohia Institute of Medical Sciences. This directly contradicts Sadhvi Pragya's claimed that she treated her cancer with cow urine. BCCL The absurd claim had caused much outrage, especially among the medical fraternity who accused her of promoting quackery. Sadhvi Pragya, who is still an accused in the Malegaon blast case is out on bail and is contesting the Lok Sabha elections on a BJP ticket. The Lok Sabha Elections 2019 which began on April 11 will conclude on May 19 followed by the results on 23rd. The election has been divided into seven phases and we have already completed three phases. And if there is one thing in common in all the three phases is the voter turn out. In the first phase, the voter turnout the 91 Lok Sabha seats spread across 18 states and two Union Territories (UTs) was 69.43 percent. In the second phase, polling where voters from 95 Lok Sabha constituency exercised their franchise the turnout was 66 percent. BCCL And on Tuesday, where 17 constituencies across 115 states voted in the third phase, the voter turnout was 65.61%. With the third phase voting, the election has been concluded in 22 states and union territories. While the turnout is not bad and is almost equal to the figures in 2014 there is increasing worry about the voters losing interest in the world's largest democratic exercises. This is especially true in metro cities, which in the past too had a poor track record. BCCL With 240 seats still to vote and four phases still remaining there are fears that the figures could look even bleak. But on Tuesday Kerala stood out as an exemption - with an average voter turnout of 77.68 percent. This is the highest voter turnout recorded in the state since 1989. Kannur had the highest voter turnout with 83.05% of the eligible voters exercising their franchise, Thiruvananthapuram which saw one of the strongest three-way fights in the state from where Congress's Shashi Tharoor is seeking re-election saw the lowest at 73.45 percent. BCCL What is even more impressive is that eight of the 8 seats including Wayanad from where Congress President Rahul Gandhi is contesting saw more than 80 percent voter turnout. Across the state, since polling began on 7 AM large crowds were seen queuing outside the booths. This continued even after 6 PM, the stipulated closure time. The queue was such massive that there are reports that voting went on till 10 PM in the night in some polling booths. There are many who have prejudices against a particular community especially the minorities. Despite the progress we are making as a whole, there are few people who consistently let us down with their acts. In a incident from US, a California man who deliberately drove into a crowd of people, injuring eight, did so because he thought they were Muslim. The driver, 34-year-old Isaiah Peoples, reportedly targeted the family solely on their appearance, according to police in Sunnyvale, near San Francisco, who are now treating the case as a "hate crime". "There is new evidence that Peoples intentionally targeted victims based on their race and belief that they were Muslim," said Sunnyvale Public Security in a statement. ap According to local media, three members of the same family are among the eight pedestrians injured Tuesday -- a father and his son and daughter. The nationality and religion of the family have not been released. A lawyer for Peoples said the incident "was clearly the result of a mental disorder", and he would seek psychiatric treatment for his client -- who he described as a military veteran possibly suffering from post traumatic stress disorder. (With AFP Inputs) Even before Jet Airways shut down, its employees were struggling financially, since they had not been paid their salaries for months. In a tragic incident that has recently come to light, a senior technician who was working with the airlines has allegedly committed suicide in Maharashtras Palghar district as he was suffering with depression. The technician, Shailesh Singh, was suffering from cancer and jumped off the terrace of his four-storeyed building in Nalasopara East on the afternoon of April 26, a police official said. As per functionaries of Jet Airways, Singh was facing financial constraints as employees had not been paid for a long time. Delhi: #JetAirways employees and their families hold candle light protest at Jantar Mantar. pic.twitter.com/T9DZ2hqyle ANI (@ANI) April 27, 2019 He was suffering from cancer and was undergoing chemotherapy. Prime facie, it seems he was suffering from depression due to the ailment, the police official added. It is the first case of suicide of an employee since the airline suspended operations, the functionaries claimed. Representational Image Apparently, Singhs son was working in the operations department of the airline itself. Singh is now survived by his wife, two sons and two daughters, and the investigation of the case is underway. We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form Sixty is the new 45, 80 is the new 60, and 100 is well, really dang old. But even centenarians know that once you stop learning, you star... We have learned of a planned law being pushed by the House of Assembly prescribing monthly post-service life pension of between N0.1 million and N0.5 million for members of the House. The party has also observed how the strange idea, which was proposed as a bill and passed by the House on Wednesday, has set the public pulse racing. APC Bayelsa completely rejects this life pension bill for members of the Bayelsa State House of Assembly, The party also said it was unsympathetic for members of the House of Assembly to seek to enhance their own lives at the expense of the vast majority of Bayelsan people living in pain and penury. It, therefore, advised the legislature to withdraw the obnoxious pension bill and avoid the appalling crime against the people of Bayelsa State. In the event of the legislatures refusal to heed this solemn advice, we appeal to Governor Seriake Dickson, if he is still in touch with his essential humanity, to refuse assent to the pension bill when it is transmitted to him, he submitted. Reno Omokri, a former aide to ex-president Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has said that the presidential seat would remain in the North in 2023 because Southerners dont have time. Speaking through his Twitter handle, he said an Igbo man would never close his business for 6 hours just to vote. He added that the Northerners would rather stand in the queue from morning till night just to exercise their franchise. These were quotes from Abdullahi Bodejo President of Miyetti Allah. His tweet: A young Nigerian whose name has been given as Ugochukwu Loveday has been nabbed for allegedly impersonating the Acting Inspector General of Police, Adamu Mohammed, in a bid to defraud unsuspecting Nigerian Police officers seeking promotions The Nation reports that the man Loveday posed as the IGP and defrauded a couple of unsuspecting members of the public. Loveday was arrested alongside a Taxi driver, Ugochukwu Ohia, who is said to be his accomplice in the fraud business. The suspects were arrested by operatives of the Inspector General of Police Intelligence Response Team, IRT, after a police oficer fell victim. The officer whose name was given as Shuiabu Semion was defrauded of the sum of N800,000 with claims that he would have his contract of supplying gas to the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), renewed. The contract was terminated in the year, 2002. The Imo State-born suspect, went on to reveal that he is married with a kid and started his illegal at by first posting photos of DIG Peace Igbokwe on Facebook to defraud people and he went on to charge between N70,000 to 60,000 for people who wanted peacekeeping missions jobs and N200,000 for policemen seeking promotions. He said he would give the name ACP Luka Abraham, with the phone number 08098306171 as the officer call for negotiation, a person he also played. After negotiations, he would then send an account with the name Sunday Aduyikodu and account number 2083471724for payment to be made. Loveday added that after the DIG retired, he opened another account with the photograph of IGP Abubakar Adamu on January 23, before he was eventually caught. In a tweet on Saturday, a former presidential aide, Reno Omokri revealed that his free Leah Sharibu campaign has yielded some form of profit. Omokri who has been travelling around the world with the #freeLeahSharibu campaign says his campaign has drawn attention to the only Dapchi girl left behind in Boko Haram captivity. Leah was kidnapped alongside over 100 schoolgirls when insurgents stormed her school in February 2018. However, when her mates were returned voluntarily by the insurgents, Sharibu was left behind in the den of the terrorists because she refused to denounce her Christian faith. According to the ex-presidential aide, even Pope Francis has called President Muhammadu Buhari courtesy his campaign and the president has thought of Sharibu because of his campaign. He wrote: Why am I travelling the world for Leah Sharibu? Because she was forgotten. However, since I started travelling, @BorisJohnson got involved. Pope @Pontifex called @MBuhari. Buhari was FORCED to remember Leah. #FreeLeahSharibu is NOT in vain. It will continue until she is FREE. A Nigerian man has shot dead another Nigerian in South Africa For not knowing where weed is sold. According to the report, a Nigerian man had walked to some Nigerians at a restaurant asking them where weed is purchased but he was told that they did not know As they dont smoke weed. To the shock of everyone, the man asking for where to buy weed, pulled out a gun and shot Elochukwu on the head twice and drove off in a car parked down the street. Prince Ben Okoli, the President of the Nigerian Citizens Association in South Africa (NICASA) in a letter revealed that Tony Elochukwu, a Nigerian from Nnobi, Anambra State, was shot dead by an unidentified gunman in South Africa. In the letter addressed to the Consular-General, Nigerian Consulate in Johanesburg, the NICASA president lamented the death and incessant killings of Nigerians in South Africa, saying: We received yet again the sad news of the death of another Nigerian in Witbank Mpumalanga province. Mr Tony Elochukwu from Nnobi Anambra State was shot twice in the head by an unidentified Nigerian gunman on April 24 at around 2:45 pm. This looks like another case of Nigerian killing one another, he said. This ugly trend of Nigerians killed by fellow Nigerians is on the increase and is disturbing to our community. NICASA is deeply worried over the death and continued killings of our citizens in South Africa. People are worried and scared since none of the perpetrators had been arrested or charged over it. The South African police must stop attempting to encourage this killing by lack of investigation and prosecution with aim of bringing to justice every criminal involved in these heinous crimes, he said. Vanguard The Lagos State Government, through the Advisory Council on Prerogative of Mercy, on Friday pardoned 14 inmates of the Maximum Security Prison in Kirikiri who have been imprisoned for over 20 years for various offences, while 20 others on death row had their punishment converted to life imprisonment. Thisday The National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Uche Secondus, yesterday in Abuja declared that President Muhammadu Buharis ongoing 10-day private visit to London, United Kingdom is an illegal and unconstitutional trip. The Sun National President, Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, Abdullahi Bodejo, has dismissed the possibility of the former governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu succeeding President Muhammadu Buhari in 2023. In this interview with WILLY EYA, he spoke on a number of issues and stated that power will still remain in the North after Buhari. Guardian President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday presented awards to 168 ex-corps members at the combined 2015/2016/2017 Presidents NYSC Honours Award held at the State House Banquet Hall, Abuja. Leadership The Defence Headquarters (DHQ) said on Friday that a new salary structure had not been approved for the members of the Armed Forces of Nigeria (AFN). The Nation A suspected internet fraudster, Ugochukwu Loveday, has been arrested for allegedly impersonating the Acting Inspector General of Police, Adamu Mohammed, on a social media site, Facebook. Tribune Osun State governor, Adegboyega Oyetola, on Friday promised more security so that the state can continue to retain its status as one of the most peaceful in the country. Police officers have arrested a parrot that warned two alleged drug dealers about their coming. Police officers had busted some drug dealers apartment in Brazil but their parrot had already warned them about the police coming. The parrot has now been taken into custody. According to reports, upon the parrot spotting the officers last Tuesday, it immediately alerted its owners squawking Mama, Police! in Portuguese, Oliberal reports. Police, however, arrested a man and a woman and the following drugs; crack and marijuana were reportedly discovered on the property and large amounts of money. Police have also revealed that the parrot has remained loyal, and refused to talk. The bird has now been kept at a zoo in Teresina, a city in Brazil. Abdullahi Bodejo, President of Miyetti Allah has given a strong reason why power may stay put in the north after President Muhammadu Buhari ends his second term in 2023. According to the leader of the sociocultural and economic group, an average Northerner has no problem staying on the queue for a whole day just to vote but an Igbo will rather be in his shop for those hours. Former presidential aide, Reno Omokri shared the statement, referencing the Miyetti Allah leader, while asking whether Nigerians think the position is true. In 2023, power will remain in the North. Southerners dont have time. Do you think an Igbo will leave the shop to queue for 6 hours just to vote? In the North here, people are ready to stand in line from morning till night-Abdullahi Bodejo President of Miyetti Allah True or false? Wheats Extended Rally through Wednesday Barchart - Wed Dec 22, 4:45PM CST At the closing bell for the Wednesday session, winter wheat prices were up double digits and spring wheat gained as much as a nickel in the front months. MPLS wheat was 0.2% to 0.5% higher on the day,... ZWH22 : 814-6 (unch) ZWPAES.CM : 7.6734 (+1.99%) KEH22 : 856-4 (+0.32%) KEPAWS.CM : 8.3305 (+1.67%) MWH22 : 1028-2 (unch) Cattle Complex Gains on Wednesday Barchart - Wed Dec 22, 4:45PM CST Front month live cattle futures closed Wednesday 22 to 77 cents higher. There was no FCE auction this morning. Cash trade for Wednesday was reported from $135 to $140 in all feeding regions with the bulk... LEZ21 : 135.750s (+0.17%) LEJ22 : 142.125s (+0.55%) GFF22 : 161.775s (+0.58%) GFH22 : 161.925s (+0.06%) Russian pipeline faces big hurdles amid Ukraine tensions AP - Wed Dec 22, 2:29PM CST FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) The pipeline is built and being filled with natural gas. But Russias Nord Stream 2 faces a rocky road before any gas flows to Germany, with its new leaders adopting a more... $SPX : 4,696.56 (+1.02%) $DOWI : 35,753.89 (+0.74%) $IUXX : 16,180.14 (+1.21%) Nat-Gas Prices Gain on Forecasts for Colder U.S. Weather Barchart - Wed Dec 22, 2:19PM CST January Nymex natural gas (NGF22 ) on Wednesday closed up +0.107 (+2.77%). Nat-gas prices on Wednesday rallied to a 1-week high and settled moderately higher on forecasts for colder U.S. temperatures,... NGH22 : 3.720 (+0.19%) Over 3m in unpaid wages was recovered last year by the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC). The health, nursing and childcare sector accounted for the largest amount in wages recovered, at 824,216, according to the WRCs 2918 report. The wholesale and retail sector accounted for some 731,351, followed by food and drink where 472,824 was recouped. Minister of state for business Pat Breen welcomed the WRCs success in recovering 3.1m in unpaid wages last year, an increase of 75% on 2017. As the economy continues to do well, we must ensure that those in work are paid what they are due and the WRC is playing a significant role in the pursuit of this objective, said Mr Breen. There were 4,050 days lost to industrial relations disputes involving 1,184 workers last year, the lowest since 2012. In 2017, there were 50,191 days lost due to disputes involving 9,456 workers. However, over the year there were 1,062 requests made to the WRC for conciliation talks a 13% increase on 2017. There were 1,145 meetings held during the year and an 87% resolution rate was achieved. Many of the issues dealt with at conciliation last year related to pay (37%) and human resources or industrial relations issues (32%). One in five of the issues dealt with were about organisational issues such as work practices, resourcing levels, staffing and shift work. Redundancies accounted for 4% of the issues as did holidays and other forms of leave while 3% were about pension matters. There were 139 cases referred to the Labour Court for a recommendation because a resolution was not possible at conciliation. There was a significant increase in the uptake of pre-adjudication mediation last year, with 1,844 interventions taking place. There were 603 face-to-face mediations, a 206% increase on 2017, and a further 1,241 were dealt with by telephone, a 70% increase on the previous year. In almost two-thirds of cases (64%) where parties engaged with mediation, the matter was resolved. The WRC received 15,451 individual complaints last year, a 10% increase on the previous year. Most of the complaints were about pay (4,311), while 2,156 were about unfair dismissal and 2,138 about discrimination and equality. There were 2,026 complaints regarding hours of work. While still relatively small in number (31) complaints received under protected disclosure legislation have increased by 140% on 2016. The WRC found an emerging trend last year was multiple similar complaints. In the case of one employer, this amounted to more than 350 identical complaints. In most cases following engagement with the parties the matters were redirected to the mediation service where a resolution common to all individuals was achieved without the need for adjudication. There were 5,312 adjudication hearings held last year, a 22% increase compared to 2017 and an increase of 34% on 2016. A total of 2,964 decisions were issued last year, a 32% increase on the 2,247 issued in 2017 and an increase of 60% on 2016. Last year, 5,753 inspections were completed of which 60% were unannounced, a 20% rise on 2017. Just under 45% of all employers inspected by the WRC were found to be in breach of employment legislation to some degree. Sectors with breach rates higher than 60% included electrical, fisheries, food and drink, hair and beauty, transport, wholesale and retail with the highest being the equine sector at 84%. Failure to keep adequate employment records continues to be the most common breach of employment legislation. The WRC issued 120 compliance notices to employers last year. Most were in relation to annual leave, public holiday entitlement and payment in respect of work carried out on a Sunday. Some were issued under the Payment of Wages Act. Nine notices were appealed ot the Labour Court. An employer who does not comply with the terms of a notice may be guilty of an offence and 42 employers were prosecuted for this last year. Irelands new intelligence oversight chief must have full access to classified material and be wholly independent of Government, the former British oversight boss has said. David Anderson QC, who served as the UKs independent reviewer of terrorism legislation from 2011 to 2017, said the reviewer can have influence if they harness the support of parliament, parliamentary committees, the courts and the media. He was addressing the Policing, Human Rights & Communities conference in NUI Galway, which was attended by a range of high-ranking justice figures, including Charlie Flanagan, the justice minister, and Garda Commissioner Drew Harris, as well as academics and community workers. The creation of an independent examiner of terrorist and serious crime legislation was recommended by the Policing Commission as part of a number of measures relating to national security. Mr Flanagan told the conference, organised by the NUIG School of Law and the Irish Centre for Human Rights, that his department was preparing draft legislation to provide for the examiner position. He said this was in addition to measures, already underway, to set up the National Security Analysis Centre, and the director of the unit. Mr Anderson said the new examiner must be wholly independent of Government and have full access to classified material. He also said the person should be active in the media and on social media. He said his job entailed the examination of police detention of terror suspects an area not currently covered in Ireland. Mr Anderson said the examiner should also be able to conduct snapshot reports of their own choosing, saying he had done ones on deportations, intelligence handling, and citizenship deprivation. Even if governments dont want to implement recommendations, he said, the reviewer has influence if they harness parliament or parliamentary committees or get their message into the courts or into the media. He said issues that Ireland would need to address in setting up the post were: The scope of the examiner, suggesting it should be expanded beyond specific counter-terrorism laws to laws that relate to terrorism, such as immigration legislation Access to information, saying Britain had an informal approach, where, in Australia, it was a criminal offence to deny information Publication of reports which he said was who has the final say over what might need to be redacted and suggested Ireland copy the Australian model where reports lodged must be published within 15 days and the necessary redaction completed by then Maura Conway, professor of international security at DCU, said the new National Security Analysis Centre should take a harms-based approach to its job, taking into account not just hard security threats, such as terrorism, but also softer ones, such as State-directed information campaigns directed at elections. She said NSAC should not just be a co-ordination centre, as has been indicated by Leo Varadkar, but one that takes a 360 degree view of threats, vulnerabilities and risks, involving intelligence analysts. Prof Conway said she hoped the centre would be more open to external organisations and experts. The Irish authorities had the lowest rate of refusal to applications from asylum seekers of any of the EUs 28 member states last year. Only 15% of first-time decisions on asylum applications in Ireland were rejected, compared to an EU average of 63%. A total of 1,275 asylum seekers in the Republic were granted protection last year, of which 815 were awarded refugee status. A further 215 were given subsidiary protection which recognises they faced a considerable risk if returned to their former country of habitual residence, while another 235 were granted permission to stay in Ireland on humanitarian grounds. In addition, 340 individuals were granted refugee status under a resettlement programme. The overwhelming majority were Syrians. The number of asylum seekers granted protection in Ireland last year represented 265 per million population less than half the EU average of 650 per million. The countries awarding the highest proportion of protection to asylum seekers relative to their own population were Austria, Sweden, and Germany. In contrast, the EU member states that accepted the least proportionate number of asylum seekers were Poland, Slovakia, Latvia, the Czech Republic, and Estonia. Across the EU last year, almost 333,400 asylum seekers were granted protection a reduction of almost 40% on 2017 figures, when 533,000 received a positive outcome to their asylum application. Germany accounted for over 40% of all individuals granted protection by EU member states in 2018. Almost three out of every ten beneficiaries of protection last year were Syrians. Other nationalities with high numbers of people granted asylum were Afghans and Iraqis. Citizens from only four countries had a majority of their applications for protection accepted Syria, Eritrea, Sudan, and Somalia. The vast majority of applicants from Georgia, Albania, Pakistan, and Ukraine had their requests to be allowed remain in the EU rejected. Syrians were the largest group granted protection status in 16 EU member states including Ireland where 420 were granted refugee status a third of all cases. The second largest number to receive positive decisions were Zimbabweans (110), followed by Afghans (900). The new EU figures also showed a total of 375 applicants failed to be granted asylum last year in the final appeal stage, while 270 were successful. They also reveal that 15 unaccompanied minors sought asylum in Ireland in 2018 half the figure of the previous year. A man has been found safe and well after gardai and fire crews were called to a derelict building in Clare that had been damaged during Storm Hannah. A section of the rear of the property, at OConnell Street in Kilkee, collapsed during the night and locals became concerned when they noticed the damage. It is known that a local man stays in the abandoned house at times. A 92-year-old man has spent more than 70 days at Sligo University Hospital despite being medically fit to be discharged for at least 60 days, it has emerged. The case has been highlighted by consultant cardiologist Donal Murray who believes that lack of home help hours is the reason for the mans prolonged stay in hospital. The consultant described the case as crazy stuff. Dr Murray said it was a miracle that the man had not caught a bug on the ward, or had not fallen and broken his hip as will often happen with elderly people in hospital. He said the man, who lives on his own in a remote rural area, is a classic example of someone who would do very well at home with just a bit of assistance from a home help who could keep an eye on him and do some work around the house. In an interview with Ocean FM, Dr Murray said it was an extraordinary situation. He said that, from the mans point of view, the longer he remained in hospital the more difficult it would be for him when discharged. He added that the hospital had a surge in referrals from the emergency department in the last couple of months while many patients were on corridors. And this poor man through no fault of his own, to use that very crude term, is blocking a bed on people who are needing a bed, and it is absolutely no fault of his, said the cardiologist. On April 9, there were 50 patients on trolleys in Sligo University Hospital, the second highest figure in the country that day, according to figures compiled by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation. Dr Murray said that the 92-year-old, who yesterday was on his 71st day in the Sligo hospital, had been admitted with cardiac issues which were resolved very quickly within a week really. He claimed the man was fit to be discharged for at least 60 days. The consultant said something has gone wrong with funding for the home help system and it needs to be addressed urgently. He said he had written to anyone in management I can think of but had heard nothing back. He had heard on the grapevine that funding for home help was the issue. Dr Murray added that, in the run-up to local elections, this is one question I will be putting to anyone coming to my doorstep looking for a vote: What is happening with our home help system in this part of the world? The HSE has been asked for a comment. In Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell popularised the theory of the 10,000-hour rule, saying that in order to master any given subject to a world-class level, you need to devote at least ten thousand hours to practicing it. Im not sure if Ive spent that amount of time writing yet, but I know I have spent tens of thousands of hours reading. I am a world-class reader. I was lucky enough to have parents who read to me and my sister at night time, and who didnt think that books were a waste of time or money. My mother would take us to Clonakilty library every Saturday, and I would sequester myself in a little nook, completely captivated by whatever world I had found myself in that day. I was a child who needed to read; it was as important to me as food or sleep. When I went to a friends house, the first thing I would do is check her bookshelves to see if she had any novels that I hadnt read. I got into trouble in school for for reading under my desk when I was supposed to be studying, and for bringing my book to the playground at lunch and ignoring all my friends. At night, I pretended that I was afraid of the dark and asked my dad to leave the door open, and would then read in the sliver of light from the landing. When my parents became wise to my game, I saved up my pocket money and bought a torch. Its a wonder Im still alive, given my predilection for walking down the road, my head stuck in a book, oblivious to the traffic. My habit was becoming expensive, and libraries saved me from going broke: Firstly, the library in Clonakilty; then, at Trinity. When I moved to New York, the first thing I did was find my local library in Brooklyn. (Fun fact apparently, Cecelia Ahern was the most popular Irish author in Cortelyou Road library; they had all of her books.) I didnt have a smart phone and I had an hour-long commute to the ELLE office in midtown, so I did what I always did to keep my brain occupied: I read books. When I came home to Ireland, broke and unsure of my future, I went back to Clonakilty library and renewed my library card. Within a few months, I was on first-name basis with the staff. The library felt like a safe space, where books and stories and words were important, sacred, worthy of love; just as the library was when I was a child and I would walk through its doors on a Saturday morning, wondering at the worlds I would visit that day, the lives I would inhabit, all without leaving west Cork. Today, Im sent countless copies of advance novels and I also try and buy as many books as I can, as a means of supporting both my local bookshops and the authors. However, I still hold such affection for libraries and I will argue with my dying breath that they play a vitally important role in our communities and must be protected at all costs. So, I ask you: if youre not a member of your local library, why not? Its a brilliant way of saving money (and the author receives a small royalty whenever you borrow their book!), and it affords you the opportunity to take risks, to read that book that youre not entirely sure of, but dont want to spent 15 on, in case you read two chapters and abandon it. Libraries have free newspapers and magazines, you can borrow DVDs, there are often author talks and book clubs, not to mention free internet access, and, speaking from experience, they are a wonderful place to bring your children, if you want to foster their imagination and creativity. If youre afraid of that 20m you owe on a book you borrowed in 1998 and never returned, fines were recently abolished for overdue items. The national library website says that we are encouraging members of the public to return undamaged, overdue library items there will be no overdue fines to pay and we would be happy to reactivate your library membership, for you to begin using your local library again. So, whats your excuse? I know there can be a snobbishness around literature, as if the act of reading a novel somehow bestows on you a moral superiority over people who prefer music or television or movies. I dont subscribe to that. I think that idea is exclusionary, especially to those who have literacy difficulties. (Maybe thats why I love libraries so much, because its a democratisation of literature; it is, by its very nature, intended to be inclusionary.) But, please, dont be put off by the mythologising its as simple as finding the books that you enjoy, rather than the ones the critics have deemed worthy. Dont class them as guilty pleasures; there is no shame in pleasure! Listen to books on Audible or CD, if you find reading difficult. Books are just stories, and stories the act of telling and the listening to them are what make us human. LOUISE SAYS Watch: Someone Great on Netflix. After being dumped by her boyfriend, Jenny decides a wild night is exactly what she needs. Funny, fresh, and a banging soundtrack? Sign me up. Listen: The Goop podcast. I know many people find Gwyneth Paltrow insufferable, but I really like this podcast. With guests as varied as Gabor Mate on addiction, Alain de Botton on relationships, to Oprah on, well, Oprah, its thought-provoking stuff. - Louise O Neill is the author of Only Ever Yours, Asking For It, Almost Love, and The Surface Breaks - @oneilllo Last weeks gorgeous weather got me thinking about rose and the ripe fruity wines of the sunny South of France. Ive been neglecting France a little recently but it is their own fault; in value terms, Spain and Italy are a much more reliable bet these days. In volume terms, France is our third most important wine import after Chile and Australia but I predict Spain will overtake France this year if they havent already. Spain is hugely reliable and a stronger brand in the crucial under-12 range which is so important in Ireland thanks to our punitive excise rates. At the top end, France is still winning and no restaurant is dumping their Chablis or Sancerre any time soon but they would need to watch out here too Ireland is now the fifth biggest purchaser of Spanish Albarino in the world. But back to rose where France currently has little competition and their light crisp floral style of Provence rose is still very much in vogue. Rose sales last year were well up but we still lag far behind the rest of Europe hopefully the early batch of warm weather will have started the ball rolling. French rose is perfect for matching the food of Provence and is about the only wine that can cope with a proper aioli or garlic and anchovy pissaladiere. Rose is the perfect barbecue wine, of course and if you melt some garlic butter on your steak, it will match that too. Wine recommendations this week are all from France and from Dunnes Stores who have some new wines in this Easter as well as reductions on old favourites. Ive featured the Laurent Miquel range before but not the two wines below Im a fan of winemaker Laurent and his Irish wife Neasa who have together built up an impressive business with a crowd-pleasing range of wines. Laurent was the first person to plant Albarino in France (much to the bemusement of his neighbours and the French wine media) but it has paid off. Bottled under the label Les Auzines Alaina it is luscious and complex and available in OBriens for 16.95 a less expensive, lighter version is available under the Solas label through Dunnes Stores. I have three rose suggestions below in the hope that the good weather will have lasted to the weekend and if Im wrong dont forget that rose is excellent with spicy food. BEST VALUE UNDER 15 Laurent Miquel Solas Syrah Rose, Langudoc, France - 12.50 Stockist: Dunnes Stores The Solas varietal range from Laurent Miquel includes a good Pinot Noir and Viogner and an excellent Albarino, all of which Ive mentioned before, but this Syrah rose is new to me. In an attractive opaque bottle and a light pale, pink colour, this has floral and strawberry aromas with ripe fruits on the palate and just enough acidity. Belrose IGP Mediterranee Rose, France - 11 Stockist: Dunnes Stores Mediterranee is the regional appellation covering the Provence coastal area and the island of Corsica and is used extensively for Rose made in the light Provencal style. This is a typical light style, pale onion-skin pink in colour with some cherry and raspberry aromas and a bright fruity freshness. At this price dont expect miracles but I did like its lively fruits. La Reine Pedaque Bourgogne Aligote - 12.50 Stockist: Dunnes Stores Legend has it that the Burgundy fire brigade used to use Aligote to put out fires as it had less value than water and they certainly wouldnt use Chardonnay. These days the other Burgundy grape has carved out its own niche and this is a pleasing example with bright bitter lemon aromas and crisp, textured, and slightly salty citrus and pear fruit flavours. BEST VALUE OVER 15 Domaine Bastide Neuve Rose, 1500ml Magnum - 21 Stockist: Dunnes Stores Given this is a double bottle I should perhaps have put it in the under 15 category. Pale salmon colour in the classic Provence-Languedoc style, light red currant and cherry fruit aromas, soft on the palate with more red fruits, a touch of sweetness and lingering cherries. Not complex or particularly memorable but tasty and drinkable and in a very elegant bottle. Chateau Bechereau Montagne-Saint-Emilion 2015 - 16.50 Stockist: Dunnes Stores From the largest of the Saint-Emilion satellites which is frequently a good source of Merlot-dominated Right Bank Bordeaux. This Chateau has won awards in the past and made a fine 2012 so this is an excellent price for the 2015, a considerably better year. Bright dark fruit aromas with touches of cedar and plum jam fruity on the palate with chocolate tones. Laurent Miquel Bardou Saint Chinian 2014, France - 20 Stockist: Dunnes Stores Made from 100% Syrah from a single plot of old vines on the Laurent Miquel Estate and aged in new (55%) and second use French oak. Rich dark red in colour with aromas of blackcurrant with floral and smoke notes, ripe and full on the palate with good concentration. This is one of Laurent Miquels top wines and capable of ageing up to a decade, so a good price. - Contact Leslie Williams at wine@examiner.ie In 2003, a bypass finally and forever diverted the bulk of traffic between Dublin and Cork from the infamous bottleneck that was Watergrass-hill. Ever since, the village, just 15 minutes drive north of Cork City, is, for most travellers, little more than an evocative signpost fleetingly glimpsed from the motorway (in Irish, Cnocan na Biolrai, meaning hill of the watercress, or, in English, the nominative haiku, water, grass, hill). Away from the limelight, Watergrasshill might well have withered entirely, another victim of rural decline, but during the subsequent years of the Celtic Tiger, young home buyers were lured out to several newly built estates. It has since become something of a dormitory town and new residents are beginning to plant proper roots. Social links to the city remain strong, though, a night on the town still invariably entails travelling into the city. OMahonys, a putative gastropub on the villages Main St, may help change this particular habit. Technically, its a reopening as proprietor Maire OMahony is the fourth generation of her family to operate the pub (and former butchers), having returned with young family and partner/co-proprietor Victor Murphy. Murphy has the hospitality pedigree to make it work, his last venture being the very excellent House Cafe at Cork Opera House and he brings a continuing commitment to using the very best of local, seasonal Irish produce in the kitchen. OMahony, an artist, has overseen the renovation, gutting 80s-style interiors to create a compelling open-plan space filled with natural light. Those walls, not stripped back to bare brick, are painted in neutral matte colours; one wall is a blackboard, sheep hides hang from steel girders retrieved from the former abattoir behind the building. (The courtyard and its outbuildings have already begun to develop their own reputation as a live venue and quirkily romantic alternative wedding venue.) A selection of OMahonys own artworks complete a welcoming space, a delightful transition from the prosaic quietude of the main street. Saturday night, the place is hopping and we fetch up alongside a couple of the aforementioned Celtic Tiger blow-ins who soon profess their delight at this new local addition. We opt for a selection of small plates (12 a pop), the better to range across the menu. Ballycotton ray wing is gorgeously caramelised fish resting in a tart, unctuous Longueville cider cream, while Current Wifes Kilbrack celeriac is a tasty puree served with whole ransoms bulb and leaf sweet-pickled Ballyhoura mushrooms, and the funky umami of cured egg yolk. CW then has Kilbrack cauliflower, roasted florets doused in a dressing of capers, raisins, pecans, and hazelnuts, while I have Fitzgeralds lamb rack and fritter of pressed lamb shoulder, served with peas, charred onion, and salsa verde. Home-cut chips are terrific; crisp exterior, hot fluffy interior with a sauce bearnaise so piquantly poised we have to order a second portion. This is all solid cooking, very tasty fare. While David Devereaux could sometimes benefit from finessing certain elements in delivery, he is a thoughtful, original chef and the recent award of RAI best gastropub in Munster is deserved. Even as my sweet tooth recedes with age, it never quite loses its innate inclinations, and, as usual, I choose the better dessert. CWs vanilla panna cotta is a pleasing, creamy affair cushioning rhubarbs sharpness and wincingly sweet Shanakiel House honeycomb, while my treacle tart with Yum Gelato vanilla ice cream features crisp biscuity pastry with a toffee-ish filling that transports me back to childhood. The drinks offering maintains the in-house ethos with a good selection of local craft beers and spirits and an especially considered list of non-alcoholic offerings. The wine list is decidedly anaemic in comparison, though our Friuli (San Simone Refosco) is a pleasant quaffer. This calibre of food deserves better companionship and more variety; news of a revitalised list in the offing is most welcome. Those hellish pre-motorway traffic jams may be long gone from Watergrasshill but if OMahonys continues in this fine fashion, it should be creating a few tailbacks of its own as a night on the town becomes a truly local affair once more. The tab The bill: 90 (excluding tip) Opening hours: Friday to Sunday, 5pm12pm (food served, 6pm9pm) The verdict: Food: 8/10 Service: 8.5/10 Value: 9/10 Atmosphere: 9/10 OMahonys, Main St, Watergrasshill, Co Cork. Tel 086 831 6879 omahonysofwatergrasshill.com/contact Corks prosperity is and will be built on its ability to generate and to attract capital and talent, writes Pat Ledwidge The morning of May 31, 2019, will be very significant for Corks citizens as the long-mooted boundary extension will come into effect. This boundary extension will increase the area of the city from 37sq km to 187sq km, and its population will grow to roughly 210,000. Also importantly, on May 24, the electors of this new city select the 31 city councillors that will guide Corks development for the next five pivotal years. These are exciting times for Cork. It is imperative that wise strategic choices are made over the coming years. Most people would agree that the city must grow in accordance with the principles of sustainable development. Sustainable development must involve concurrent progress in the economic, social and environmental spheres. Economic prosperity is necessary in order to accumulate the resources that provide for social equity whilst at the same time reversing current negative environmental trends. However, sustainable development will require significant changes in how Corks citizens live; go about their daily business; and in how the city is organised and delivers its services. Achieving sustainable development will involve difficult choices, adjustments and changed behaviours to address the real challenges posed by climate change. Furthermore, the prosperity of Cork, and its citizens, will depend its ability to compete successfully in international arenas. Here change is relentless and unavoidable. Rapid developments in areas such as big data analytics, machine learning, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and robotics will produce changes in the world of work; in how people live their lives and interact with each other; in leisure activities and personal expectations; in the design of homes and workplaces; and in how one physically, culturally and intellectually navigates between all of the above. A view of the planned hotel proposed for Dean St next to the Parnell Place bus station. Corks prosperity is and will be built on its ability to generate and to attract capital and talent, both of which are highly mobile internationally. This is the principal challenge facing the city and it must be understood in order to be met successfully. In this world, there is no place to hide; neither Cork nor Ireland will be granted an exemption from change by the rest of the world. That is not possible for a small country, and a small city, on the extreme western periphery of Europe, which is itself a peninsula of Asia. Presently, Cork is succeeding in this competition; according to the 2016 Census, Corks non-Irish population was 13% and it was the most successful area in attracting new residents. If Cork, or Ireland, chooses to resist change, or to retreat from the opportunities and threats offered by these changes and from increasing globalisation, its prospects will suffer as will the opportunities for its citizens. There are lessons from history. A short book, Preventing the Future: Why was Ireland so poor for so long? by Tom Garvin (former professor of politics in University College Dublin), charts the unwise national policy choices of the years from the adoption of the Constitution in 1937 until the late 1950s, a period of economic, intellectual and cultural stagnation. This is not to suggest that Cork cannot influence its future or futures. However, it must always take cognisance of its external operating environment when preparing the strategies that will shape its internal operating environment. The exciting challenge for Corks citizens is that they can influence their future by the choices they make and how they decide to live their lives. In the period to 2040, the population of Cork City is projected to expand by a further 115,000 to roughly 325,000. Project Ireland 2040 states that 50% of this population must be accommodated within existing built-up areas and it also promises public funding to help achieve this target. So, what kind of future will come into being for Cork? The planned Metropole hotel and new M hotel the Government has identified Cork as the city with the greatest growth potential for the period up to 2040. Cork has many positives. It offers a superb quality of life, even for people earning the average industrial wage. It has a 40-year integrated metropolitan planning process, which Government has recently adopted as the model for the countrys other metropolitan areas. This metropolitan planning process has evolved with the times and its latest manifestation, Cork 2050 (2017), provides a clear pathway to mid-century within the context of Project Ireland 2040. Furthermore, Project Ireland 2040 sets out a 10-year funding framework to 2027. In this strategic context, Cork is also clearly Irelands only second-tier city (Belfast being in another jurisdiction). Research shows that, in certain respects, second-tier cities can be more competitive that capital cities. The Government has identified Cork as the city with the greatest growth potential for the period up to 2040. To these positives can be added Corks wonderfully strong urban character and its very impressive urban setting, where the River Lee splits to form two attractive channels (the site of the original medieval city) before reuniting on entry to Cork Harbour. The combination of water, built form, hills and light provides the backdrop and environs in which the citys citizens live out their lives. The last, but most important asset, of Cork is its people. Their intelligence, industry, community spirit, tolerance and prioritisation of learning should allow the city to respond to the challenges ahead. It is not always realised that 10% of the metropolitan areas population (320,000 people) are students in UCC and CIT. Cork also has a significant post-Leaving Cert sector which is fostered by the Cork Education and Training Board. Corks Learning City Project is internationally recognised as a model of good practice and Cork is also a WHO-recognised Healthy City. Counterbalancing these positives are negatives. There are some threats that Cork can mitigate; some will require the assistance of Government or the EU; and some must just be endured. However, the more strategic Cork is in its approach, the better it can build resilience to external threats. An immediate challenge facing the city is housing and, in particular, the lack of private provision. An artists impression of the 12-storey hotel planned for Sullivans Quay Cork My understanding of effective states is that when there is market failure, the Government acts. Given the growth expected in Ireland and the importance of accommodation in attracting talent and thus capital, I would suggest that housing should be treated as a public good and that the Government undertakes a fundamental assessment of the protection granted to private property in the 1937 Constitution, to ascertain if it is inhibiting equitable housing provision. In parallel, the Government should reassess the recommendations of the 1973 Kenny Report, as many currently observe that the price of development land is an impediment to housing provision. The most important business of a republic is the welfare of its people. Its constitution, legislation and regulations should facilitate this, not the opposite. It is sobering to reflect that two demands from the Land War of the late 19th Century, fixity of tenure and fair rent, are still being sought by so many households today. Resolving the housing issue is fundamental if the additional 115,000 people targeted for 2040 are to be accommodated appropriately. Other issues that must be addressed are achieving a substantial shift to sustainable modes of transport; responsive public service delivery; and maintaining competitiveness and attractiveness. All are being progressed but will require a coalition of interests and national support to be successful. An attractive city may seem frivolous to some, but it is extremely important. The future is increasingly urban and attractive cities retain talented people. Investment and economic activity now actively seek out the locations that attract talent. In previous decades, talent followed capital and this has now largely been reversed. However, success in the economic realm must be utilised to reduce socio-economic disadvantage and social exclusion, with a constant focus on access and opportunity. This is how society is strengthened. For Cork, a prosperous future is tied into change. Policy choices matter. Sometimes, it may take decades for policy impacts to become apparent, but they will eventually be felt. As Irish Examiner columnist Gerard Howlin recently proposed: But, if in a republic you put responsibility where it lies, on the people, you would have to abandon your old tropes about failed republics and tell home truths. In a democracy, the people decide, but they also must be mature enough to take responsibility for their decisions. Corks future is tied to the strategic choices that are made in the present. Pat Ledwidge is the former director of strategic planning and economic development with Cork City Council If you cannot see the audio embed above please follow the link here to listen to the documentary. Please feel free to send us your own contribution on what you feel Cork's future holds, what direction you feel the city is heading and what you want Cork to be in the decades ahead? Find out how to send your readers blog contribution for consideration here. It wouldnt be Easter week without it. We awoke last Monday to the fresh demands for more pay from our beloved public sector unions. Unions representing hundreds of thousands of State employees are set to press for a mid-term review of the current public-service agreement which could open the way to higher or accelerated pay increases for staff, came the reports. The acting secretary of the public services committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU), Kevin Callinan, suggested a mid-term review of the existing public service agreement could now be put in place. The 900m deal is scheduled to run until the end of next year, we were told. Callinan said such a review would be one of a set of possible measures that could help maintain the confidence of union members in the current agreement in the wake of the nurses dispute. Callinan said that since the accord was negotiated two years ago, the country had seen economic growth and inflation on a level that had not been anticipated at the time. So, unions for the most privileged workers in our country whose jobs are immune from redundancy, whose pensions are among the most generous on offer to anyone want to re-open a deal on pay they agreed to less than two years ago. Before you start, this is not another piece taking a bash at the unions or public sector worker but rather seeking to raise the concern of our feckless and weak political class to resist such greedy calls. Because that is what they are, greedy. Unions, who in truth are speaking out of both sides of their mouths, continuously cry foul over the inequality for newer members hired since 2011 yet forget they themselves agreed to the creation of the two-tier system as opposed to allowing current members take greater cuts. That is not spin, that is a fact. To now demand that the contracts they willingly signed up to be changed is the height of hypocrisy. It is also worth remembering that since the public pay bill began to rise again in 2014, it has swallowed up more than half of the total increase in government expenditure, as economist Dan OBrien has recorded. The rate of growth in the public pay bill has far outstripped the rate of non-pay government spending. It has not done so by a small margin or even at twice the rate. It has risen at a rate of more than three times that of other spending (to be precise, 12.6% versus 4%), OBrien said in a recent analysis. According to CSO figures, in the public sector including semi-state, the average weekly wage went up 2.4% from 936.29 to 959.09 in the past year to June 2018. There was also an increase in average weekly earnings in the private sector of 3.6%, from 659.48 to 683.12 over the same period. Also, the Oireachtas Parliamentary Budgetary Office concluded in a recent paper that the increase in the cost of the public sector pay bill continued even after tax revenues in Ireland collapsed a decade ago as a result of pro-cyclical policies. More alarmingly, it says such risks still exist now. This illustrates the risks that have arisen in the past from a pro-cyclical pay policy and may arise again, especially in the context of reliance on potentially volatile sources of revenue. This is particularly important as reductions in the public pay bill played a significant role in the budgetary adjustment required during the economic and fiscal crisis, it concluded. Since 2016, the unwinding of the financial emergency legislation commenced with the Lansdowne Road Agreement (2016-18) and will be completed under the Public Service Stability Agreement (2018-20). Under the Lansdowne Road Agreement, which cost 844m, the principal pay measures were: From January 1, 2016, annualised salaries up to 24,000 were increased by 2.5%; and annualised salaries from 24,001 to 31,000 rose by 1% From September 1, 2017, annualised salaries up to 65,000 were increased by 1,000 The Public Service Stability Agreement (2018-20) extended the terms of the Lansdowne Road Agreement. By the end of 2020, pay will be restored to all public servants earning up to 70,000 which equates to almost 90% of public servants. Any outstanding amounts to be restored for high earners will be made by ministerial order. The bottom line is that the campaign for so-called pay restoration is the acquiescence of a weak and feeble political class to stare down the almighty lobby of the public sector unions. The drive to restore boom-time pay levels is an exercise in folly and hubris and will not address inequality but will, in fact, do the opposite. Dating back to the ill-judged and outrageous benchmarking process in 2002, pay for public sector workers has outpaced growth in the private sector as well as skyrocketing in simple cash terms. To continue this process means that those who are paid least in our society will continue to pay for those who are among the best paid and best protected in Ireland. Despite this inequity, the political class have not challenged it, preferring to bend the knee to the unions. Last week, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe gave an important shot across the bow of the unions, telling them clearly, in his diplomatic language, that they have never had it so good. The pursuit of unaffordable and unsustainable wage increases, beyond what has already been committed to, has an all-too-familiar ring to it; one which should be of grave concern. He said public servants in general benefit from two forms of pay adjustments, incremental progression up a salary scale, and also general annual pay increases negotiated through pay agreements. This contrasts to the private sector where pay has moved towards more individualised arrangements, where some do very well but many dont, Donohoe warned. The public service is a progressive employer when we consider annual leave, flexible working and the facilitation of work-life balance as is right. Also, how many employees in the private sector enjoy full salary top-up on maternity and paternity leave? Finally, public servants have security of tenure that generally doesnt exist in the private sector, said the minister. His calls clearly are being ignored by unions who can smell blood from this weakened administration which has already kicked important money issues like property tax and third-level fees to the long grass. Can Donohoes fine words be backed up with action from this Government and the Dail? I fear not. So, beware of the calls for equality as is perfectly clear when it comes to our cosseted public sector, they simply prefer to be more equal and remain more equal than the rest of us. Dateline Who Would Compensate for the Myitsone Hydropower Project? -- Kyaw Kha: Welcome to Dateline Irrawaddy! This week, well discuss who will have to compensate for the Myitsone Dam project. Im The Irrawaddy Burmese editions chief reporter Kyaw Kha and I am joined by the chairman of the Democratic Party for a New Society U Aung Moe Zaw and environmentalist Dr. Myint Zaw. There have been increased calls for the complete termination of the Myintsone hydropower project and recently, there was a panel discussion about it with you [as a panelist], Dr. Myint Zaw. The discussion titled Save Irrawaddy by Offering Compensation suggested collecting money from the public to compensate China in exchange for scrapping the controversial Myitsone Dam project. Public opinion can be divided into two groupsone group in favor of and the other against the idea of compensating. Could you explain why you panelists chose that topic? Myint Zaw: The Myitsone Dam crisis has continued for some time and now there are political changes and it appears that we have been put into a tight corner. We thought it is time to switch up from the usual awareness campaigns we conducted in the past and we wondered if we could find a solution in which the people could participate. We wondered if the government and people could work together to find an alternative. Our idea was for the public to give support to the government to get the dam project scrapped and to give compensation with our own money. KK: U Aung Moe Zaw, what do you think of this idea? And do you think China would accept it? They are very keen to build the dam. Aung Moe Zaw: I assume that the majority of Myanmar people do not accept the Myitsone [dam]. Myitsone opponents may take different approaches to stopping the dam project. Besides the idea presented by Ko Myint Zaw, there might be many other ideas. Secondly, I think we should heed all the efforts to stop Myitsone. Thirdly, the State Counselor is visiting China and there are concerns that the project will be resumed. Under such circumstances, the timing of efforts made by experts, CSOs (civil society organizations) and prominent figures is quite perfect, I think. Again, I think no matter what campaign is made, it is important that it is joined by the majority of the people. Only when the majority of the people participate, will it draw the attention of the countrys leaders. The campaign will be more effective if China realizes that Myanmar people oppose the project, I think. The move spearheaded by Ko Myint Zaw and others, I think, is an approach that allows the majority of ordinary people to get involved. It is important that the campaign is joined by many people. The more people that join the campaign, the more it will attract the attention of our leaders as well as the Chinese side. I think their move allows for public participation. KK: However, there is another view that people shouldnt need to compensate for it because it was not them who sold Myitsone and that those who signed the contract should take responsibility for it. What do you think of this view? AMZ: Yes, there are people who think so and I acknowledge their view. I think it is reasonable. Now is a critical moment as the fate of the Irrawaddy River is to be decided. There must be a public campaign at this time. There were protests against the dam in Waingmaw (Kachin State) a few days ago. A well-attended anti-dam discussion was held in the past and anti-dam protests have been held in front of Maha Bandoola Park [in Yangon]. Such activities should be carried out at this point of time, I think. The more anti-dam activities, the better [for the success of the termination of the project]. KK: You raised two concerns. State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is visiting China [as of Wednesday] to attend the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) cooperation forum and she is set to sign [some agreements on] Chinese projects in Myanmar during her visit. There are two different speculationsone is that she will sign [an agreement for] the Myitsone Dam project and another is that she will find an alternative. I assume that your panel discussion about saving the Irrawaddy [River] was timed to coincide with her visit. Did you organize the panel discussion because you heard that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi would sign for the dam project during her China trip? MZ: You mentioned that some people said they shouldnt need to compensate for the dam project and that those who signed the contract should take responsibility. I accept that view, which is reasonable. However, now is a critical moment for us and there is a need to act with utmost urgency. Now is not the time to argue about social justice and who is responsible for this crisis. We held the panel discussion to find out how to pull out the thorn stuck in the heart of our country. As you said, we view this moment as very important as Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is visiting China to attend the BRI conference. We want to give her the message that she has public support to scrap the project and that though people are poor, they are willing to give from their own pockets to get the project scrapped. We gave this message so that she can take bold steps in the negotiations. We still dont know what her decision will be. KK: What is your view, U Aung Moe Zaw? AMZ: Personally, I want the project scrapped. I assume the State Counselor will clearly understand the wishes, sentiment and heart of the people. I want her to try to get the dam project scrapped with minimal negative impact. This is my view. KK: As far as we know, the dam project contract was signed in 2009 during the time of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) by SPDCs first secretary Thiha Thura Tin Aung Myint Oo. It was also signed by the SPDCs vice-chairman Maung Aye. There are calls on social media for action to be taken against them and netizens asked whether they should be held responsible for this. What is your view on this? MZ: I accept that view. People still cant just forgive and forget. Our efforts were directed toward saving the lifeline of our country (the Irrawaddy River) with a sense of urgency. When Cyclone Nargis hit the country at the time of military government rule, all the people joined hands [to help the victims]. Our idea is to focus on how to save it, setting aside the question of who is responsible for it. To answer your question, we accept the view that those who signed the contract should take responsibility for it. But at the same time, we need to be pragmatic in finding a solution. KK: Who should be responsible for saving the Irrawaddy regarding the Myitsone project? AMZ: Basically, the ruling party and the current leaders are most responsible for saving it. Yes, it is true that the project was signed for by the previous government and justice must be served regarding their actions. But the power to make decisions, for the time being, is in her [Daw Aung San Suu Kyis] hands, so there is a need to give her a message about public opinion in all seriousness. She is the most responsible person, for the time being. There are a lot of things to point out about the Myitsone Dam project. Before the [2015] election, she said if she could form a government, that the first thing she would do would be to inform the public about the [details of the] contract. So far, it has not yet happened. Whats worse, she also said months ago that investor confidence would be undermined if a new government abolished projects approved by its predecessor. It is a cause for concern for us. She is visiting China and if she says yes to the project, it will have an indirect impact on everything, including the peace process. But I assume that the peoples leader, the State Counselor, knows the heart of Myanmar people. I want her to try on behalf of Myanmar people to get it scrapped. KK: Saya U Myint Zaw, your one-dollar campaign has also drawn criticism. People demand that the contract be publicly disclosed. Dont you think it should be revealed before soliciting donations? As U Aung Moe Zaw mentioned, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi promised that her government would reveal the contract, but it has not yet done so. What difficulties do you think disclosing the contract would bring about? MZ: Frankly speaking, we have no idea why it still hasnt disclosed the [details of the] contract. Yes, we also saw criticism online about our campaign and the public asked why they should compensate while they are not even informed about the contract. We launched the campaign as a preparation in case there are provisions about compensation in the contract. But if a particular decision is made while we are waiting for the disclosure of the contract, we will have to suffer and we therefore launched the campaign. As we conducted the campaign, a lot of questions arose, including around the disclosure of the contract and the responsibility of the previous and current governments. This indicates the public concern. We dont have any complaints about the publics criticism of us. We are happy that people are expressing their opinions and concerns. There were times people were not attentive to this issue, but now people have become alert to it. KK: It can be said that the whole country doesnt accept the Myitsone Dam project. Will it be good news or bad news that we are going to hear from Daw Aung San Suu Kyis visit to China? MZ: We have been holding our breath since she left for China. We are very worried. We hope for the best, but at the same time, we are concerned. The decision to implement the project will have many consequences among the public, in Kachin State and regarding the environment. We are very worried that a wrong decision will further weaken the already fragile country. We have both hopes and concerns. KK: Ko Aung Moe Zaw, what will the consequences be if the dam project is resumed either during Daw Aung San Suu Kyis visit or later? AMZ: Im concerned about the influence of our neighbor (China). Resumption of the project will make people unhappy and have negative impacts for the ruling party. It could impact relations with armed groups based in those areas and on the peace process. It would prolong the fighting in our country. KK: Thank you for your contributions! Saturday, April 27th, 2019 (8:27 am) - Score 3,483 A new cross-party report from the House of Lords Select Committee on the Rural Economy has warned that rural communities across the UK are still being ignored and underrated, with many still suffering from poor fixed line broadband ISP and mobile network connectivity. But they also recommend some possible solutions. At present around 96% of premises can access a fixed superfast broadband (24Mbps+) service, which is partly thanks to the 1.7bn+ state aid funded Broadband Delivery UK project. Similarly Ofcoms recent Connected Nations 2018 report found that the outdoor geographic coverage of 4G services across the UK is still painfully low at 66% (up from 43% a year earlier) from all four mobile operators or 91% from at least one operator (EE). In fairness we expect BDUK to help further extend superfast broadband to cover over 97% of premises by March 2020. The Government has similarly committed to extend geographic mobile cover to 95% of the UK by 2022 and Ofcoms future auction of the 700MHz mobile band will come attached to new obligations (here), but those will only extend outdoor 4G or 5G data coverage to at least 90% of the UKs entire land area within 4 years of the award. Naturally the bits that get missed out by these targets predominantly tend to reflect a good number of often remote and sparse rural communities, such as hill farmers and tiny villages. So far the main connectivity solution that has been developed to tackle this is the forthcoming Universal Service Obligation (USO), which upon request will aim to deploy a 10Mbps or faster broadband service within 12 months (starting end of 2019). The Government are also adopting an outside-in approach to deployment of future Gigabit full fibre (FTTP) broadband networks under the Future Telecoms Infrastructure Review (i.e. tackling rural areas at the same time as urban ones) and forthcoming rural Gigabit broadband voucher scheme. But it will still take many years and billions more in public investment in order to achieve the plan for nationwide coverage by 2033. What more could be done? The question thus becomes, what more could be done to help those rural communities that are likely to be waiting a long time for something better than the broadband USO or decent 4G / 5G mobile coverage. Its a question that is frequently asked (here, here and here) but one that is rarely answered with much concrete detail. Lord Foster of Bath, Chair of the Committee, said: Rural communities and the economies in them have been ignored and underrated for too long. We must act now to reverse this trend, but we can no longer allow the clear inequalities between the urban and rural to continue unchecked. A rural strategy would address challenges and realise potential in struggling and under-performing areas, and allow vibrant and thriving areas to develop further. Doing nothing is not an option. As part of this the committee has proposed a series of recommendations, which well list and then examine. The crux of all this appears to centre around a call for mobile roaming in UK rural areas and an increase to the 3,400 cost threshold for the USO (inc. review of the USO speed). The Recommendations * DCMS and Ofcom should also identify what further actions are necessary to address poor mobile connectivity in areas unlikely to benefit from the spectrum auction. * Ofcom must improve access to information about digital connectivity. This should include regularly updated information about when residents and businesses can expect to be connected to digital infrastructure, connectivity options for communities and details of providers operating in their local area, and regular reporting on the progress of 5G rollout in local areas. * We welcome the principle of the USO which will give people in the UK the right to request a decent broadband connection. However, we believe the upload and download speeds are too modest in the USO commitment and should be reviewed along with the 3,400 payment threshold so that rural homes and businesses are not excluded. Ofcom has a duty to review the USO if directed to do so by the Government. * While we recognise that Ofcom has updated their aggregate statistics on rural mobile coverage better to align with consumer experience, we believe it should be required to develop an accurate evidence base for consumers about phone coverage in specific locations. Without this, it is not possible to identify the full scale of the problem or to assess how best to go about fixing it. * We welcome the proposal that Ofcom should review the option of introducing roaming in rural areas to address partial not-spots and would urge Ofcom to begin this review as a matter of urgency. Government and Ofcom should also encourage mobile network operators to share transmission masts more often at locations where they offer a practical means to improve rural connectivity. Mast sites should nonetheless be chosen sensitively, especially in areas of high landscape value. * Local and national governments must do more to realise the potential of improving digital skills in rural areas, including supporting the establishment of digital enterprise hubs; promoting networking opportunities; facilitating knowledge sharing and the dissemination of good practice among rural businesses; and enabling more effective IT support for small rural businesses and start-ups. The idea of Rural Roaming is simple enough. Essentially, whenever you pass into a rural area where your mobile operator cant receive a service then the signal would be allowed to roam onto another operators network (like when you go abroad), where a service may still be present. Technically difficult but certainly possible. However rural roaming is not particularly popular among operators that have investment the most in building their networks into challenging rural areas (e.g. EE). This is because it effectively gives a free ride to rivals who havent made the same investment, thus removing a competitive advantage and stifling the attraction of future such investments (extending rural cover isnt very profitable). Instead mobile operators are currently debating a different approach of mutually beneficial mast sharing in areas of only partial coverage (i.e. sharing of mast space for radio kit, provided this is reciprocated by both sides Ofcom acting as referee). Getting the details right for mast sharing will be difficult but this does represent one partial solution (here), although we think allowing taller masts should also be considered. However doing that without local opposition has often proven to be quite difficult (here), which is despite the fact that one tall mast could mean the removal of several smaller ones (we already allow much more imposing wind turbines). As for the USOs cost threshold, its worth remembering that this is an industry funded initiative and some properties are so remote that connecting them may cost tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds. Suffice to say that youd have to raise the cost threshold quite a bit in order to truly cover everybody and as the industry pays then that also means price hikes for broadband consumers. Likewise boosting the USO speeds too soon would make the programme even more expensive (i.e. yet more consumer bill increases) and potentially also distort the market for alternative network providers (e.g. funding being used to overbuild a smaller rival network that couldnt afford to be a USO supplier itself). On the other hand some of the slower and older altnets do need to upgrade their networks in order to keep pace with demand. The report also seems to overlook that the USO allows build costs to be shared (i.e. where network infrastructure is also shared) between premises to determine whether the cost of provision to an individual premises would fall below 3,400. For example, if a cabinet served 100 premises and the cost of deploying FTTC was 100K, then an assumed take-up of 70% would mean that the cost of upgrading that cabinet could be just 1,429 for each premises (Ofcoms example). In any case Ofcoms analysis of the 3,400 threshold suggested that it could enable coverage for up to 99.8% per cent of UK premises, thus some may consider that imposing a significant threshold increase just to tackle 0.2% may not be the best value for money, particularly for end-users who would end up paying the penalty. Alternatives like Satellite do exist for such isolated homes, but those services are far from ideal (better LEO satellites are coming). Suffice to say that solving the issue of rural connectivity is rarely ever a simple matter but we can at least be thankful that the problem area is shrinking and today its already significantly smaller than only a few years ago. Check out the full cross-party report. NOTE: The USO already includes a requirement for its speed to be reviewed when the uptake of superfast broadband reaches 75%, which is still a fair few years away. Support Local Journalism Now, more than ever, the world needs trustworthy reportingbut good journalism isnt free. Please support us by subscribing or making a contribution. Subscribe or contribute Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 27) Authorities have halted the search and rescue operations in a supermarket that collapsed during the earthquake in Pampanga. Chuzon Supermarket, a four-storey supermarket in Porac, Pampanga, crumbled during the magnitude 6.1 earthquake that hit the region Monday. "Clearing of debris na lang at wala nang signs ng tao," said Marlou Salazar, Office of Civil Defense-Central Luzon director. He added that all employees in the official list of potential casualties have been accounted for, but that they are still verifying the location of five more people. "Yung problema po namin yung unofficial list ng lima pang vine-verify namin ang whereabouts," Salazar said. The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) reported 18 deaths in Pampanga during the April 22 quake. Meanwhile, 282 people were injured, and 7 were reported missing. READ: Death toll in Luzon quake hits 18 Q: I found out that my wife took zero allowances despite being married with two kids. I changed it to three instead so she would receive a larger paycheck. To counterbalance the increase, I upped our contributions to our respective 403(b) accounts. Is this a viable option? Bronnenkant: A convenient way to determine how much withholding someone needs to deduct from his or her paycheck is by using the IRS withholding calculator. This allows individuals to project their income and factor in pre-tax retirement contributions. The calculator will provide a suggestion regarding how many allowances to claim on the Form W-4, which is provided to the employer. Q: I am 70 this year and have been advised that I will have to take about $20,000 starting this year from my IRA. How can I reduce the taxes I will owe? Like give it all to my church first, or take the money and pay taxes on it and then give it to my church? Are there other ways to take the distribution and save me on my taxes? Bronnenkant: For individuals 70 and older, they may be eligible for a qualified charitable distribution (QCD). This special tax break allows the donor to take up to $100,000 from their IRA for charitable purpose and avoid income tax on the distribution without itemizing their deductions. The IRS does require that the QCD be paid directly to the charity and is allowed to be counted toward any minimum distribution requirement for the year. For individuals who need to take a required distribution and do not need the money, the QCD is typically the most tax-efficient strategy. If a retirement distribution is not required, it would be wise to compare the QCD to donating appreciated long-term assets to a charity from a non-retirement account. You may want to work with a CPA to help evaluate which option is better. Readers can write to Michelle Singletary c/o The Washington Post, 1301 K St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20071. Her email address is michelle.singletary@washpost.com. Walmart is inviting N.C. entrepreneurs to pitch new niche and innovative products at its 2019 open call event June 18 -19. The deadline to submit an application is Tuesday. The 2019 Walmart Open Call will be held at the companys home office campus in Bentonville, Ark. Apply at www.walmart-jump.com for the opportunity to secure a face-to-face pitch meeting with a Walmart buyer. This years open call attendees could secure deals ranging from a handful of stores in local markets, to supplying hundreds, even thousands of stores, Sams Clubs and Walmart.com. During the 2018 Walmart Open Call, nearly 600 meetings were held with product pitches including toys, apparel, natural health and beauty aids, and food. Prospective suppliers traveled from 46 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. The business news you need Get the latest local business news delivered FREE 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. A Lexington man has been arrested after investigators found a quantity of methamphetamines in his vehicle that crashed on Old West Highway 64, authorities said Friday. On April 5, Davidson County sheriff's deputies went to the 3100 block of West Old Highway 64 on a report of a breaking and entering and a larceny at a home, the Davidson County Sheriff's Office said. After the deputies arrived, a vehicle crashed nearby in the 3600 block of the highway. The driver, Luis Sanchez Jr., 31, of Front Street, was injured and taken to Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center for treatment, the sheriff's office said. Detectives searched Sanchez's vehicle and found stolen property from the home, meth and drug paraphernalia, the sheriff's office said. Sanchez was charged Monday with breaking and entering, larceny after breaking and entering and possession of meth and possession of drug paraphernalia, the sheriff's said. Sanchez was taken to the Davidson County Jail with his bond set at $50,000, the sheriff's office said. He is scheduled to appear in court on May 28. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. To wit: The Russians tried to steal the election. Some members of his campaign were happy to help. The president wanted to protect Michael Flynn. The president wanted to kill the special counsel investigation. The president materially and significantly tampered with witnesses to that investigation. The president lied and told others to lie. We knew this. As The Washington Posts Paul Farhi documented, the Mueller report largely validated news accounts that Trump dismissed or disparaged, often with his favorite insult that those accounts were nothing but fake news. Even the casual news consumer would know these things. Unless, as Lithwick noted, in a nod to a Fox prime-time host, you were one of those people with an intravenous hookup to Tucker Carlsons worldview. But heres the rub: Many Americans have that hookup. The ugly reality of the reports findings with facts undeniably nailed down in sworn testimony and documents wont matter if your main news source is Fox. Like the president and Conway, it is deeply invested in denial, delusion and blame-shifting. In the months ahead, the nothing-to-see-here network stands ready to help. A top opposition leader called Saturday for Sudan to join the International Criminal Court which has indicted its ousted president Omar al-Bashir, as a panel of protesters and the military met to discuss civilian rule. Sadiq al-Mahdi, a former prime minister and head of the opposition National Umma Party that has backed the protests, also told reporters that the armys ouster of Bashir was not a military coup. His comments came as a joint committee representing the ruling military leadership and protesters held their first meeting to discuss a demand by demonstrators for a handover to civilian rule. Rashid al-Sayed, a spokesman for the protest movement, said the meeting was a confidence-building step between both sides who are partners in the revolution and a second round was due later on Saturday. He said the military council vowed at the talks that a protest camp outside army headquarters will not be dispersed by force. Bashir was ousted by the army on April 11 after months of protests against his three-decade rule. Thousands of demonstrators reached the sprawling military headquarters in central Khartoum on April 6, demanding that the army support those opposing against Bashir. Five days later, the army toppled Bashir but then took power into its own hands through a 10-member transitional military council. The protesters, who have kept up the pressure round-the-clock outside army headquarters for weeks, are now demanding that the council step down and make way for a civilian government. Mahdi, who said his party would not join a civilian transitional government, told reporters it is possible to agree on a civilian authority with the military council because they did not plan a coup. He also said Sudan should immediately join the Hague-based International Criminal Court where Bashir is wanted for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for his alleged role in the conflict in Darfur. This should be done in coordination with the transitional military council, he added. Bashir, 75, has consistently denied the charges against him. The war in Darfur erupted in 2003 when ethnic minority rebels took up arms against Khartoums Arab-dominated government, accusing it of social and political marginalisation. The United Nations says about 300,000 people have died in the conflict, with another 2.5 million displaced, many of them still living in miserable camps across the western region of the country. Bashir swept to power in an Islamist-backed coup in 1989 that toppled Mahdis elected government. Regime still present Mahdi, who was ousted by Bashir in the 1989 coup, said Saturday that the presidents regime remained in place despite the upheaval. The head of the regime has been ousted but the regime is still present, Mahdi said. The toppled regime might still try to do a coup, he said without elaborating. Protest leaders have held several rounds of inconclusive talks with the military council since Bashir was ousted. Earlier this week, the two sides agreed to set up the joint committee to chart the way forward. The military council has so far refused to step down, insisting that it has assumed power for a two-year transitional period. Western governments have expressed support, but Sudans key Gulf Arab lenders have backed the military council, while African states have called for more time for the army to hand over to civilians. As protesters were pushing the military on civilian rule Saturday, assailants hurled rocks at a meeting of members of the Islamist Popular Congress Party, an ally of Bashirs, injuring 32 of them. When the participants in the meeting took a break, they came under attack from a group of people who threw rocks, said Suheir Salah, partys deputy undersecretary. The PCP, founded by late Islamist leader Hassan Turabi, had two ministers of state in Bashirs cabinet, including Salah, and seven lawmakers in parliament. They hope to create a foundation for the students to make the decision to become a Christian and to stand up for their beliefs. They plan to teach the Bible in class, and give students and teachers the opportunity to pray together and for one another. KEARNEY Schrock Medical Clinic has announced it plans to put $30,000 back into the community with the campaign, Schrocks Giving. The initiative by Dr. Samuel Schrock will focus on veterans and childrens charities, according to the press release announcing it, and was inspired by patients Schrock has served, along with his personal experiences. I love donating to childrens charities because of the struggles weve gone through as a family with my sons health, Schrock said. Ive seen how a great medical facility at Childrens Hospital in Omaha improved what couldve been a horrible experience. He said veterans charities are important because he has had multiple family members serve in the armed forces. After 21 years of practice, Ive also seen how poorly our veterans are treated. Its important to me to have an impact in that area, Schrock said. Schrock Medical Clinic recently moved into its new 12,000-square-foot space at 1616 W. 39th St., Suite A. The space had been the home of First Baptist Church, which is renovating the old Kearney High School for its new worship center. We didnt forget about her; we just didnt think we would ever see her again. We had her harness, leash and favorite blanket, and kept it because you never know. When the Blue family received the call from Midlands just before Easter, they said they were shocked and couldnt believe that she was found almost five hours away. I called my entire family, everyone was so excited. Of course we are going to go get her, Ally Blue said. The family made a one-day trip from Huron to Council Bluffs and back Wednesday to retrieve their beloved Burtie. Hopefully she gets home and fits right back in where she was and we can get some more meat on her bones. This is what she looked like when we adopted her, Ally Blue said. Although Burtie appeared calm reuniting with her loved ones, Kori Nelson, Midlands Humane Society director of development and marketing, said the honeymoon period can take a while to figure out for some animals. She has a ton to take in. She has to figure out what everyones role is and where her safe zone is since everything has been uprooted for her several times. They have to learn a new way of life again. Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh of Omaha said senators cant consider themselves pro-life and support the death penalty. But Sen. Suzanne Geist of Lincoln said that shes pro-innocent life and that heinous crimes deserve the ultimate penalty. Sen. Adam Morfeld of Lincoln said that if senators really respected the will of the people, they would join him in protest over the Ricketts administrations slow progress in implementing another voter-approved measure, the one to expand Medicaid. Debate became heated at times. One issue was whether conservatives in the body were forcing a vote on LB 44 so they could get lawmakers to record their support or opposition and use that in future elections. After the 2015 vote to repeal, three death penalty opponents lost reelection bids, in part because of their votes. One death penalty foe, Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks of Lincoln, said the vote was taken Thursday in recognition of Chambers long effort to do away with capital punishment. This year might be Chambers last chance to get a vote on the issue, she said. The bill calls for increasing the state sales tax by of a cent, hiking tobacco taxes and imposing new taxes on pop, candy and bottled water. It would also remove tax exemptions on services provided by plumbers, movers and pet veterinarians, with a goal of funneling an additional $575 million in state aid to K-12 schools. Changes in schools taxing authority would lower property tax bills for K-12 education by an average of 20%, backers maintain. But on Friday, the Revenue Committee worked through amendments designed to appease farmers and the states largest school districts, as well as cities and counties across Nebraska. None were among the small handful of supporters of the bill at Wednesdays public hearing. The changes: For farmers: The committee agreed that it would work to retain the states existing property tax credit program, which farmers on the Revenue Committee say is a must if agricultural groups are to support the plan. The credits, they say, are guaranteed property tax relief, unlike the boosts in state aid to K-12 schools called for in LB 289. Those, they argue, wouldnt necessarily help all farmers and ranchers, whose overall property taxes, according to the Nebraska Farm Bureau, increased by 152% over the past decade. For the second time this month, governors from three states voiced their desire to be more involved in managing the Missouri River. The group Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, who were joined this time by Kansas Lt. Gov. Lynn Rogers met with the Army Corps of Engineers on Friday to hear updates and talk about rebuilding efforts. They spoke to a gaggle of reporters after the meeting. Ricketts said the four states are committed to working with the corps to examine basin and levee management practices going forward. He said the group is looking at recommendations that, in the past, perhaps didnt have enough political will behind them to succeed. Youve got the commitment here from all four states to be able to work together to really bring a different ... urgency and different will to getting something done that maybe hasnt been done in the past, Ricketts said in the lobby of the Council Bluffs Police Department headquarters, where the meeting was held. Parson suggested the inclusion of an outside agency in addition to the corps to help oversee Missouri River management. Jeff Gosliga knows why it is so important to be a blood donor. This week, as it prepared to kick off Trauma Awareness Month in May, the American Red Cross asked Gosliga to tell his story. After a car accident in December 2017, he was rushed to the hospital with life-threatening injuries. He needed 11 units of blood, which is about as much of the life-preserving substance one donor can give in a year. I never had reason to think a lot about blood, where it came from or how it arrived at hospitals; my accident changed all of that, Gosliga said. It was touch-and-go for awhile, and because the blood that I needed was available, Im here today. I am so grateful to all of the volunteer blood donors who give of themselves so generously. I will never forget them or take blood donation for granted again. The Red Cross urges Americans to become donors. All blood types are needed to help trauma patients and others with serious medical conditions. Giving blood is easy, and it starts by making an appointment by downloading the free Red Cross Blood Donor App, visiting RedCrossBlood.org or calling 800-RED CROSS (800-733-2767). 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 Last December, my family and I traveled to Florida to warm up during the cold Nebraska winter. While we were there, we took a glass-bottom boat tour of the coral reefs. While on the boat ride, our guide explained to us that almost 30 percent of the oceans coral reefs have been lost due to coral bleaching caused by greenhouse gas emissions. Within the next three decades, we are predicted to lose another 30 percent. This will be a devastating loss for us. Scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimate up to 9 million species of organisms use coral reefs as their habitat. Reduction in coral reefs results in reduction in the types of drugs that are being developed and could possibly cure terminal illnesses such as cancer or arthritis. Reduction in coral reefs also results in loss of revenue through tourism. In the Florida Keys alone, the coral reefs bring in more than $7 billion per year. We also will see a huge loss in seafood resources, as about 25 percent of seafood comes from coral reefs. It is branding time in much of cow country as ranchers put a permanent ownership mark on this years calf crop. Although technology and increased demand for food product traceability has changed the identification landscape somewhat, a hot brand continues to be the widest used and most accepted way to ID the origin of cattle in most of the Great Plains and West. Yes, its also the time for planting, graduations and track meets, but branding and working the calves becomes job No. 1 before getting cow-calf pairs sent to grass. I enjoyed reading Naomi Loomis post on Branding Etiquette. Naomi is from Alliance and obviously has been to a branding or two. Here is a condensed and thoughts added version of her piece: 1. The owner brands the calves. Its the top job and, unless delegated to someone else, belongs to the owner and usually the senior member of the operation. The owner also delegates the other jobs. 2. Its an honor to be asked to rope at branding, so respect the other ropers. You wanna experience some cool magic right now, just google Thanos! Yup! As the Avengers End game starts showing in the Nigerian cinemas today, Google has unveiled a special feature to unleash Thanos powers in the Marvel Comic movie on the web and it is super cool. Google has brought to life, Thanos chilling finger snap of the infinity gauntlet at the end of Marvels Infinity war. Just as the half the worlds population turned to dust after the snap in the movie, so will your search results turn to dust at the snap of the gauntlet. Heres how to get it done: Search Thanos on Google youll get an image of his gauntlet next to his picture. Click on Thanos Infinity-stone studded gauntlet in the upper right corner of Googles search results and watch as Thanos destructive powers turn your searches to dust be it on your desktop or mobile. The villain decimated half of the universes population at one go at the end of Infinity War, which left many characters wondering if their favourite superheroes will be resurrected. However, Google might have also embedded a spoiler in this search, as once Thanos is done erasing half of your search results, if you click the gauntlet again, the supervillain will use the time stone to bring back all the search results. Carthage Colleges Merely Players a student improv comedy group that formed in 1993 and is one of the oldest collegiate improv groups in Wisconsin is hosting its first Dogneck Improv Mixer from 4 to 6 p.m. today in the colleges Campbell Student Union Theater on the campus, 2001 Alford Park Drive. (The name Dogneck originated as an inside joke for a scene suggestion several years ago and will now be the namesake of what the group hopes will be an annual event.) The Merely Players will be sharing their stage with four other groups from around the Midwest, whose members will be at Carthage all day today for workshops leading up to the performance. This is also a food drive. Admission is the donation of one non-perishable food item, to be donated to the Shalom Center. Everyone is welcome. The guest improv groups are ABSO Improv Comedy from Ball State University in Muncie, Ind.; Panther Improv from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; VUDU Comedy from Valparaiso University; and Paperback Rhino from the University of Iowa. In a twist, all of the teams will be mixed into new groups for the day, creating a truly collaborative kind of show, said Mia Morton, who is organizing the event along with Rachel Proite. In improv comedy, the sketches are made up on the spot, using different improv games and suggestions from audience members. Therefore, each performance is unique. P.J. Kurtzner, a Merely Players members, said todays two-hour event will be a fun time, and its for a good cause, too. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Longtime Gateway Technical College Horticulture instructor Kate Field has been named as one of the 12 winners in the final round of Foxconns statewide Smart Cities-Smart Futures competition. Field, who retired earlier this month, was the only winner among the states technical colleges, surviving all three rounds of the Smart Cities competition which began with 355 initial applicants in Round One from two- and four-year institutions from across Wisconsin. She was announced as a winner at aThursday celebration. This has been an exciting process, said Field. It proves that you can take a really big idea maybe even an outlandish idea that you believe in and make it a success. It shows that there will be people who share that vision with you and are willing to help you to make it a reality. Its a pinnacle to my career. Fields Food Category entry calls for using hydroponics to grow clean, fresh local food in urban areas using rooftop greenhouses and precision farming in abandoned or underused buildings. Included in the final proposal were specifics on Racine sites. Gateway had two entries competing in this final round. In addition to Field, Gateway instructor Donald Heckel, an Architectural-Structural Engineering Technician student, and Gateway Civil Engineering instructor Steve Whitmoyer collaborated on an entry in the Mobility and Transportation Category. The entry outlines a Tier Modal system for Racine County which would be unique to the Midwest. Heckel also owns and operates Third Coast Bicycles in Racine. Foxconns Smart Cities-Smart Futures competition asked students, faculty and staff from Wisconsins higher education institutions to submit their innovative solutions for developing smart, connected cities. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 On Saturday morning, Ruth Bebo combined a dog walk with the opportunity to clear her home of unwanted medications. To do so, she and Rocky, her Australian shepherd, headed over to the Kenosha County Job Center, 8600 Sheridan Road, to hand off items to a volunteer helping out at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agencys National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day. The event took place from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Job Center and also at the Kenosha County Center, 19600 75th St. in Bristol. Volunteers, including Heidi Williams, stationed outside of the building received the items and collected basic data from participants such as how they heard about the event, the municipality in which they reside and what they might have done with the medications if they hadnt brought them by on Saturday. Hearing about the event inspired Bebo, who lives near the Job Center. I went through my closet and saw these expired medications and thought I cant see throwing them down the toilet, so I came here. Bebo and others said that had they not taken advantage of Saturdays drop-off event, they might have tried to get the medications to one of the places that offer year-round drop-off boxes. Inside the Job Center, other volunteers processed the items with assistance from Debbie Rueber, public health educator with the Kenosha County Division of Health. Volunteers included private citizens, students from Carthage College and a hospital pharmacist. It was anyone who answered the call, Rueber said. We take all unused and unwanted medications, Rueber said. She explained that all items are removed from their packaging, placed in large plastic bags and taken to the Sheriffs Department, where they are logged in and placed in sealed boxes. From there, the medications are driven to an out-of-state medical waste incinerator. The DEAs national take-back program has been holding twice-a-year events since 2010. Last year, Kenosha County resumed participation in the program after a hiatus of about three years, Rueber said. Since 2009, Kenosha Countys disposal program has collected more than 10 tons of medication. In addition to narcotics and other prescription medications, Saturdays dropped off items included inhalers and over-the-counter medications from antacids to vitamins. One of the oldest medications processed Saturday was for something prescribed in 1957, Rueber said. Sharps (needles) were not accepted at the drop-off event. Residents looking to dispose of these were referred to do so at other locations. Williams said that drop-off traffic had been slow and steady throughout the morning and was surprised to see how many unwanted medications individuals were bringing in. The take-back program keeps people from getting pills they shouldnt be taking, cuts down on overdoses and overdose suicides and protects the environment by keeping (medications) out of the soil and water, Rueber said. Williams, who works in an office at the Job Center, said she volunteered because she feels the drop-off event is a good cause. Honestly, my primary concern is to prevent people from flushing (medications) and polluting the water table. Several who stopped to shed their meds echoed the sentiment. They shouldnt be in landfills it kills animals and it kills people, said Kenoshan Dave Hermans, who rolled up in a van with several bags of medications he said were four to five years past expiration. In exchange for their medications, participants were handed bags containing information on the signs of opioid/heroin overdose, the Kenosha County year-round medication disposal program and Narcan training, along with goods such as a pen, lip balm and magnetized note holder. Rueber noted that those who missed out on Saturdays medication take-back event can take advantage of one of the six year-round drop-off centers in Kenosha County. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. 82 Shares Share Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians. A 62-year-old woman is evaluated during a routine examination. She feels well and has no exercise limitations. Medical history is significant for hypertension treated with enalapril. She does not smoke. At her last examination 4 years ago, her blood pressure was 122/76 mm Hg. Laboratory studies at that time revealed a serum total cholesterol level of 184 mg/dL (4.77 mmol/L), serum HDL cholesterol level of 42 mg/dL (1.09 mmol/L), and HbA1c value of 5.4%. At that time, according to the Pooled Cohort Equations, her 10-year risk for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease was calculated to be 3.8%. She has gained 5 kg (11 lb) since then. On physical examination today, blood pressure is 140/90 mm Hg. BMI is 29. The remainder of the physical examination is unremarkable. Laboratory studies are significant for a serum total cholesterol level of 250 mg/dL (6.47 mmol/L), a serum HDL cholesterol level of 30 mg/dL (0.78 mmol/L), and an HbA1c value of 6.6%. A subsequent fasting plasma glucose level is 130 mg/dL (7.2 mmol/L). Which of the following confers the highest risk for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease in this patient? A. Diabetes mellitus B. Diastolic blood pressure of 90 mm Hg C. HDL cholesterol level of 30 mg/dL (0.78 mmol/L) D. Systolic blood pressure of 140 mm Hg E. Total cholesterol level of 250 mg/dL (6.47 mmol/L) MKSAP Answer and Critique The correct answer is A. Diabetes mellitus. The factor associated with the highest risk for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) is the diagnosis of diabetes mellitus. The presence of diabetes is associated with increased cardiovascular risk, particularly among women. Patients with diabetes have a two to four times increased risk for cardiovascular disease, with more than two thirds of patients with diabetes eventually dying of heart disease. The risk for stroke is increased 1.8- to 6-fold in patients with diabetes. Additionally, patients with diabetes are more likely to have undiagnosed coronary artery disease and have worse outcomes when hospitalized for other cardiovascular diseases, such as heart failure. In this patient, the development of diabetes alone (with all other risk factors held constant) nearly doubled her 10-year risk for ASCVD. Her current 10-year risk, including diabetes, changes in her age, and blood pressure and lipid levels, is 19.4%. Appropriate treatment of cardiovascular risk factors in patients with diabetes is associated with reduced cardiovascular risk. The most recent American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association cholesterol treatment guideline recommends that patients aged 40 to 75 years with diabetes and a 10-year ASCVD risk greater than or equal to 7.5% should receive high-intensity statin therapy. In patients in this age group with diabetes and a 10-year risk less than 7.5%, moderate-intensity statin therapy is recommended. A diastolic blood pressure of 90 mm Hg, HDL cholesterol level of 30 mg/dL (0.78 mmol/L), systolic blood pressure of 140 mm Hg, and total cholesterol level of 250 mg/dL (6.47 mmol/L) have a relatively small effect on 10-year ASCVD risk compared with the presence of diabetes. Key Point Patients with diabetes mellitus have a two to four times increased risk for cardiovascular disease, with more than two thirds of patients with diabetes eventually dying of heart disease. This content is excerpted from MKSAP 18 with permission from the American College of Physicians (ACP). Use is restricted in the same manner as that defined in the MKSAP 18 Digital license agreement. This material should never be used as a substitute for clinical judgment and does not represent an official position of ACP. All content is licensed to KevinMD.com on an AS IS basis without any warranty of any nature. The publisher, ACP, shall not be liable for any damage or loss of any kind arising out of or resulting from use of content, regardless of whether such liability is based in tort, contract or otherwise. SPRINGFIELD, Ore. -- Local bakeries, eateries and area residents were at the Bob Keefer Center in Springfield on Friday evening for the inaugural "Desserts for Dinner" benefit for local homeless families. Hundreds of people were at the event to give back to what they said is a great cause and to enjoy some sweet treats. Catholic Community Services put on this unique event, inviting local bakeries to come out and share their treats and compete for the first-ever "Mayor's Cup." "Whatever we make will go to the G Street OASIS program to help homeless families with children," said Jerry Ragan with Catholic Community Services. OASIS helps those families and their children receive priority access to services they need. Springfield City Councilor Sean VanGordon works closely with OASIS, and he and others with the city wanted to do something to help Springfield families that are in need of those services. "Everybody we talked to was just overjoyed with the idea of how do we support people because when we find people housing in the city, they're part of our community," VanGordon said. "We need to take care of them." Owners of local bakeries and eateries that we talked to said it just made sense to be involved. "Doing the right thing, serving people good food, treating people well and trying to progress your community forward," said Steve Shinn, Owner of Bartolotti's Pizza. "Kind of a trifecta right there." Officials said they won't know exactly how much money they were able to raise on Friday for OASIS until probably the beginning of next week. EUGENE, Ore. -- Garth Brooks has just set the record for the largest paid attendance at Autzen Stadium in Eugene. The June 29 concert is now sold out. The 60,000 tickets sold in less than two hours on Friday morning. Students at the University of Oregon were filled with excitement and nerves before securing their tickets. RELATED: Garth Brooks to perform in Eugene "I'm a little worried just because I know Autzen hasn't had a lot of concerts before, and if Autzen does have concerts, it's usually big ones, so they'll sell out pretty fast," student Mitchell Riberal said. Some of them set alarms for 9 a.m. so they would get first dibs in the waiting room on Ticketmaster before the tickets became available at 10 a.m. However, others waited until the last minute. Fans were also getting tickets by calling or using the Ticketmaster app. MORE: Garth Brooks concert sparks ticket scam concerns Many students told KEZI 9 News that having the concert in Autzen Stadium instead of Matthew Knight Arena makes all the difference. "Autzen holds a lot more than Matt Knight and it's outside, so I think a lot of people will want to do that instead of being crammed into an arena," Riberal said. Some students said they hope the success of this concert encourages the university to hold more concerts there in the future. The concert will be the first time ever that Brooks headlines a show in Eugene and his first time returning to Oregon in over four years. 1 of 9 Complete your perfect summer look with these 10 lipstick shades Whether we are talking, kissing or laughing, our lips do a lot, so it's important they always look great. The right lip color will not only draw the attention to your mouth in the best way possible, but can also help you complete the perfect summer beauty look. Whether you are a lipstick fanatic looking to spice up your collection this summer or you are completely new to the lip-color game. There are some lipstick colour shade for summer. Hot Pink While this shade is ideal for medium to dark skin tones, if you are on the fair side, you can still rock this look. If you are worried that this color might pop a little bit too much against your pale skin, go for a slightly darker shade. Coral A lip color shade that's been taking over the fashion world, coral is the perfect summer shade for someone who's looking for a unique look that still plays it safe. Coral is ideal for any summer occasion, whether it's in the office, on a date or simply walking around town. Wearing this shade instantly makes your look chic. If your skin is on the lighter side, go for a lighter shade of coral, such as peach with orange tones. For darker skin, try a heavier orange base. Read More... Stuff reports: A Christchurch business owner who admitted sharing the Christchurch terror attack livestream told police he thought it was awesome. Philip Neville Arps pleaded guilty on Friday to two charges of distributing the mosque murders video and was remanded in custody for sentencing on June 14. When questioned by police about the massacre in which 50 people were murdered and 39 more shot and wounded he replied: I could not give a f, mate. So he thought a video of the murder of 50 people was awesome. Arps asked for Christchurch District Court Judge Stephen ODriscoll to have him assessed for a possible home detention sentence, but the judge ruled it out, indicating Arps would be jailed. Good. He is the owner of Beneficial Insulation, a Christchurch business reported as featuring Nazi-related themes in its name and branding. Yep he is a true neo-Nazi. The next day, Arps sent the video to an unknown person and asked for it to be modified with a kill count as people were shot, and with cross-hairs as though the viewer was looking through a rifle scope. Charming. Arps has also been known to do Nazi salutes and yell out Bring on the cull. His installation company has a website name (Bllg) which was the name of a barracks at Auschwitz. So basically a giant douche. Of course being a douche is not a criminal offence. But circulating with glee a video of a murder of 50 people is. Share this: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Reddit WhatsApp More Pinterest Print Tumblr Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 27) It was a senatorial debate for the books. The CNN Philippines Senatorial Debate trended on social media worldwide for its heated arguments, strong remarks, and polarizing stand of 11 senatorial bets on pressing issues in the country. In attendance were Magdalo Party-list Rep. Gary Alejano, former Interior Secretary Rafael Alunan, former Biliran Rep. Glenn Chong, former Bayan Muna Rep. Neri Colmenares, former Bureau of Corrections chief Ronald dela Rosa, and human rights lawyer Chel Diokno,. Also in the debate were Senator JV Ejercito, and former Bangsamoro Transition Committee member Samira Gutoc, former Solicitor General Florin Hilbay, election lawyer Romulo Macalintal, and former Deputy House Speaker Erin Tanada. Here are some of the things to watch out for, should you decide to view it again: History repeats itself The audience booed and cheered former national police chief dela Rosa. This wasnt the first time he was met with criticism during a debate. In the December forum, the former Corrections bureau chief received cheers and jeers from the University of the Philippines audience as he defended the war on drugs. Ako lang ang anak ng tricycle driver dito! Dela Rosa proudly said of his background as he was heckled. The jeers went on for the rest of the debate, especially during breaks where fans repeatedly shouted the names of their bets. It got to a point that the moderators called out the audience for heckling Dela Rosa. China at centerstage During the debates, the 11 candidates kept on veering the discussion towards China-Philippine relations, particularly the country's loan deals with China, Chinese workers in the country, and disputes in the South China Sea. The face-off of Alejano and Alunan was one of the highlights, as other opposition bets called for the release of information on the loan deals. Colmenares challenged the administration to release documents on these deals. The Finance Department earlier released copies of the Kaliwa Dam deal on its website to allay concerns on provisions which would allegedly surrender to China the country's patrimonial assets. READ: Colmenares exposes 'onerous,' 'one-sided' loan agreement between PH, China But Dela Rosa stood up and asked, Ang palagi ninyong sinasabi, na confidential confidential. Nanghingi na ba kayo ng dokumento niyan sa Malacanang? [Translation: What you always say, that its confidential confidential. DId you ask documents of those in Malacanang?] Most of the bets then surrounded Dela Rosa, and said they have asked the Palace to release these documents. Alunan stepped in to mediate. "Ang mahirap sa atin, sisi kayo nang sisi sa Duterte administrasyon, kaninong panahon ba nagsimula pumasok ang mga Instik dyan? Dela Rosa said. [Translation: Whats difficult, you always blame the Duterte administration, but what time did Chinese enter that area?] Did the war on drugs fail? Dela Rosa also slammed Hilbay, who criticized the war on drugs which began under the national police chiefs watch. "Pagkatapos ng maraming patayan, ang problema ng droga mas malaki pa ngayon [After plenty of killings, the drug problem has worsened]. Your war on drugs has failed, he said. Dela Rosa did not take it well. "How dare you say that the war on drugs is a failure? Dami saming namamatay sa amin dito [Many of us have died], failure pa rin? Government data and human rights groups have gravely differed in their data. While the government believes only more than 5,000 have died in anti-illegal drug operations, human rights groups and administration critics believe the number could reach up to 20,000. Falling in line with capital punishment? In one of the debate segments, the 11 aspirants were asked to group according to their stand on the death penalty. Those who were in favor of reinstating capital punishment were Dela Rosa, Alunan, Ejercito, and Chong. While Chong is not with the administration slate, he has expressed support for the Duterte administration. Against the reinstatement of this measure were former lawmakers Alejano, Tanada and Colmenares, Gutoc, Diokno, Macalintal and Hilbay most of whom are part of the opposition slate. The groups were then alternately asked to defend their positions. Glenn Chong said he reserves his support for capital punishment for plunder charges, election sabotage, heinous crimes committed by persons of authority, and for drug trafficking. "We propose a death penalty that is only handed by the courts, not by any other person outside the judicial system, he said. But Diokno said the death penalty was only imposed on eight people during the time of former Presidents Fidel Ramos and Joseph Estrada. "Bumaba ba ang crime rate? Hindi deterrent ang death penalty sa pagsasagawa ng krimen, Diokno said. [Translation: Did crime rate go down? No, because death penalty is not a deterrent to crimes.] To see more of the CNN Philippines senatorial debate, watch it below. Kendallville, IN (46755) Today Partly cloudy skies this evening will become overcast overnight. Low 22F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Partly cloudy skies this evening will become overcast overnight. Low 22F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Editor's note: President Xi Jinping held a number of talks on Thursday with foreign guests on the sidelines of the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. The following are the highlights of their meetings. Serbia While meeting with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, Xi said that China and Serbia should deepen mutual cooperation and bring more benefits to people from both nations. During my interviews in Egypt, one of the countries participating in the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, I experienced firsthand how people's lives were changing for the better. My interviews were made possible through the assistance of Mohamed Nagy, marketing manager from the Egypt-TEDA SEZone (Suez Canal Economic Zone) Development Co. Nagy helped me arrange all the interviews within the zone, a multifunctional industrial park near the city of Suez. Nagy himself told me that he was becoming more and more like his Chinese colleagues after years in the company. Chengdu Qingbaijiang Railway Port Area of the China Pilot Free Trade Zone in Sichuan, a start point for the China Railway Express in Chengdu, is set to be a hub for a combined rail and sea transport route under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative. Local officials said that a port, designed for grain imports in Qingbaijiang Railway Port Area, will be completed soon, though they did not specify a date. Grain from Russia and Kazakhstan, among other nearby countries will be sold in Chengdu, the capital city of Southwest China's Sichuan province, and other inland cities in China, through the new port. With the new port, the area's annual processing capacity for the importation of grain will increase to 300,000 metric tons. The new port will also be capable of storing 4,330 tons of grain. The area, established in 2017, has undergone continuous upgrades to meet business demand. Officials hope to step up efforts to facilitate customs clearance and build the area into an international trade port. The area has developed one of the largest railway containers handling centers in Asia, a domestic leading container logistics service park and a bulk goods logistics park. Officials plan to build an unmanned container processing center similar to those in Shanghai and Shandong's Qingdao. The region aims to build a railway-centered unmanned port capable of handling 4 million twenty-foot equivalent units, or TEUs, of containers annually. Chengdu railway bonded logistics center (Type B) is also under construction in the area. In China, a Type B bonded logistics center is a centralized customs-supervised area operated by a domestic enterprise's legal representative in China. That representative specializes in the bonded warehousing logistics business. Logistics hub Qingbaijiang Railway Port Area has long been committed to enhancing local efficiency. The increasing operation capacity of international railway services has allowed the area to expand its service network to more cities across the world. To date, the China Railway Express (Chengdu) route, also known as the China-Europe freight train, has 25 stops in foreign countries. It connects Chengdu with 14 domestic cities. Seven international railway transport channels and five combined sea-rail channels have been developed. According to the area's authority, the China Railway Express in Chengdu has become an iconic railway service in China, covering the largest number of countries, while also being the most stable in terms of frequency of operation and most helpful to relevant industries. Since its opening, the railway service route has played an important role in connecting Sichuan province with other parts of the world. Through this line, goods produced in Sichuan and other regions in China can be exported to other countries while products from Europe can enter China more conveniently, according to local officials. The railway port management authority in the area has established a partnership with logistics parks in Belarus, Poland and Spain in recent years. It's also planning to build a cooperation promotion platform which combines trade, culture, technology and education under one roof. In 2018, a total of 2,619 international freight trains left from Chengdu to other parts of the world. The China Railway Express in Chengdu contributed to 1,591 of those journeys. Promoting reforms As part of the China Pilot Free Trade Zone in Sichuan, Qingbaijiang Railway Port Area pledged to carry out reform assignments over the past two years. A total of 54 reform results have been unveiled. Chengdu International Inland Port Operations, based in the railway port, issued its first combined bill of lading in April 2017 to offer more convenience to businesses. The new model, which allows companies to use railway service documents to raise finance, is expected to be introduced around China. Chengdu Rongmao Lanchi Parallel Import Automobile Trade is a beneficiary of the innovative model. According to Zheng Chenghuan, a board member of Rongmao Lanchi, more than 100 million yuan ($14.91 million) had to be paid in advance to import 100 high-end cars without a combined bill of lading. The pre-payment can be lowered to about 20 million yuan by using a combined bill of lading. "The combined bill of lading not only helps us reduce financial pressure, but can also protect us from the risks of foreign trade," Zheng said. The area is also the first to allow completed vehicles to be imported through the sea-rail combined model. Compared with the traditional sea-road model, which needs customs clearance at cities with seaports and uses road networks to deliver automobiles to inland cities, the costs are largely the same. However, the customs clearance time can be shortened by nearly 20 percent. Qingbaijiang Railway Port Area has been working hard to optimize its business environment and enhance its government service quality. It will speed up ports construction, develop more international railway freight services, upgrade infrastructure, modern industries and expand the talent pool to further enhance its business environment. Left: A staff member serves a resident in the government service center of Chengdu Qingbaijiang Railway Port Area. Bai Guibin / For China Daily Right: The China Railway Express (Chengdu) greatly expands Chengdus trade network. Zhang Lang / For China Daily A bird's-eye view of Chengdu International Railway Port in Qingbaijiang Railway Port Area. Bai Guibin / For China Daily (China Daily 04/26/2019 page28) Harbin New Area, a dynamic industrial center in Northeast China's Heilongjiang province, is beefing up support for Sino-Russian cooperation by expanding financial services, according to local officials. By early 2019, the number of members participating in the Sino-Russian Financial Alliance, which is headquartered in Harbin New Area, had increased to 70, including 33 members from China and 37 from Russia. The number has doubled from 35 when the new area was founded in early 2016 and is now playing an important role in implementing projects involved in Sino-Russian financial cooperation. The alliance is a major platform in Harbin that finances investment and trade projects between China and Russia. Harbin Bank, a founding member of the alliance, has facilitated four cross-border financing business projects in the past three years, with the total amount reaching 12.6 billion yuan ($1.88 billion). More than 40 cooperative agreements have been signed with the help of the bank's cross-border financing platform, covering the services of capital clearing, local currency settlement, foreign currency exchange transactions and electronic banking. Heilongjiang was one of the first provinces in China to carry out economic and trade cooperation with Russia after the launch of reform and opening-up. The Harbin New Area, approved by the State Council in 2015, is the only State-level new area in China with the theme of cooperation with Russia. By the end of 2018, members of the Sino-Russian Financial Alliance had signed syndicated loan agreements totaling 10 billion yuan with Chinese banks in the Harbin New Area, which had transferred 120 million yuan to Russian banks. The online payment platforms in the new area for Sino-Russian cross-border e-commerce had been connected to 18 main cross-border payment platforms in Russia. As a result the settlement period has been shortened to three days from 10 days before 2018. The total settlement amount exceeded 4 billion yuan last year. Harbin Bank, for instance, has provided more than 30 billion yuan of financing for Chinese enterprises in Russia by the end of 2018. Finance is regarded as the blood of the real economy. The high-quality development of the Harbin New Area cannot be achieved without the support of the modern financial industry, according to local authorities. The new area views the Sino-Russian financial cooperation as an opportunity and strives for more achievements in promoting the internationalization of renminbi in Russian markets and expanding the services of local currency settlement, foreign exchange transactions, electronic banking and mutual communications, said Wang Tieli, director of Harbin's Songbei district, a major part of the Harbin New Area. Wang said the new area will strive to create a better business environment and more convenient platforms for enterprises of the two countries to invest in each other. With that in mind, the two sides will further promote all-round cooperation in industry, economy, trade, culture and tourism. (China Daily 04/26/2019 page22) Countries benefiting from increased trade volume, worth about $9.75 billion in 2018 China and Austria will continue to diversify economic cooperation and build stronger trade ties in 2019 to develop the Belt and Road Initiative and the Central and Eastern Europe market, said experts and officials. "The enhanced trade ties between China and Austria will bring a win-win situation as China has a profound market for imports from Austria, which can raise local employment," said Sang Baichuan, director of the Institute of International Economy at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing. Sang said both countries have space to expand trade and investment, and deepen cooperation in fields including advanced manufacturing, modern service, environmental protection and urbanization this year. Trade volume between China and Austria jumped 16.2 percent year-on-year to about $9.75 billion in 2018. China remained one of Austria's top five trade partners. The others are Germany, Italy, the United States and Switzerland, data from the Ministry of Commerce show. China exports mainly construction machinery, computers, transport equipment, chemical products, raw materials, electronics, textiles, garments and household appliances to Austria. Austrian shipments to China include auto and machinery parts, power-generating equipment, general industrial machinery, measuring and control instruments and textile fibers. Austria's location in the center of Europe, its innovation-based economic model, and supportive policies to develop markets related to the Belt and Road Initiative can be used for cooperation with China, said Yin Zonghua, vice-chairman of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade. "Austria can provide expertise via infrastructure solutions to the application of the BRI, such as in transport, logistics, green technologies and energy solutions," said Gu Xuebin, vice-president of the Beijing-based Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation. He said Austrian technologies can be exported to China, ranging from automation, nanotechnology, robotics, green technology, aspects of healthcare such as nursing, to more local industries such as wood and woodbuilding, and even cable cars. Austrian technologies can also help China prepare for the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. Eager to enhance their development, China and Austria agreed to establish a Sino-Austrian strategic partnership and signed 11 intergovernmental cooperation documents in tech innovation and BRI development last April. This created more opportunities for Chinese companies to enhance economic links with Austria. There are many activities in high-tech cooperation between companies. Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies and Austrian Federal Railways announced in February that they have strengthened their partnership to advance digitalization on the railway. The Austrian railway operator will team up with Huawei to develop innovative solutions that will optimize the operational efficiency while offering passengers more security and comfort. The two sides will install a pilot system in Austria to test solutions for various elements of railway operations. They have been working together in digital transformation since 2016. Christian Sagmeister, head of the railway systems division at Austria's largest mobility service provider, said that further digitalization will benefit both its passengers and business clients. Wang Jun, a researcher at the Beijing-based China Center for International Economic Exchanges, said Austria has close connections with Central and Eastern Europe countries. Austrian businesses have also been leading investors in CEE countries and have established a market network there. Attracted by this, Chinese companies such as China Electronics Technology Group and China Railway Rolling Stock Corp's Zhuzhou branch set up their European headquarters in Austria. Bank of China has established a branch in Vienna over the past several years. Official data from the Ministry of Commerce show Austrian investment to China amounted to $2.14 billion by the end of 2018 and Chinese companies invested a total of $1.04 million in Austria by the end of last year. zhongnan@chinadaily.com.cn Left: The picturesque landscape of Austria makes it a popular destination for tourists, including those from China. Peng Nian / For China Daily Right: Students from Austria have a hands-on tour of a vinegar factory in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu province. Yang Yu / For China Daily (China Daily 04/26/2019 page30) Bilateral imports and exports of goods between China and Luxembourg increased over 30 percent in 2018, amounting to $750 million China's inland province and Luxembourg are seeing more opportunities in trade and economic cooperation thanks to further development in air transportation, executives and officials said. As a transport hub in Central China, Henan province is taking advantage of its location to further develop air transportation, according to Li Jiaxiang, former head of Civil Aviation Administration of China. Li addressed the speech at an economic cooperation forum on the Air Silk Road in Henan province early this month. In 2014, Henan Civil Aviation Development and Investment Co acquired a 35 percent stake in Cargolux Airlines International and successfully launched the Air Silk Road in Zhengzhou, capital of Henan province, linking it all the way to Luxembourg. "At the beginning, we worried that the company would not be able to operate such a business, but now the development has exceeded our expectations," said Zhang Mingchao, chairman of Henan Civil Aviation. The results of the Air Silk Road construction demonstrated the principle and vision of the Belt and Road Initiative with regard to wide consultation, joint construction and shared benefits. "Over the past few years, Luxembourg and Henan have maintained robust development in trade and have established a long-term partnership with construction of the Air Silk Road," said Wieger Ketellapper, vice-president of Cargolux Airlines. From 2014 to 2018, Cargolux's flights increased from two flights to 18 flights per week. Its flight routes extended to more than 100 cities in 23 countries across Europe, America and Asia forming a network of international hub flights across the economic zones of Europe, America and Asia and other major economies in the world. Lu Peng, deputy head of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, said Henan should deepen cooperation with Luxembourg and other European countries. That will bolster its transportation advantage in fields including expanding its network of routes, cultivating special industries and exchanging economic and cultural experience, which will be helpful to construct the Air Silk Road and participate in the BRI. In 2017, a senior Chinese official pushed for China to build a "Silk Road in the air" between Luxembourg city and Zhengzhou during a meeting with Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel in Beijing. The official noted that China and Luxembourg should deepen cooperation in finance and production capacity within the framework of the BRI. The Air Silk Road is the most successful cooperation in aviation logistics between China and Luxembourg under the BRI and fully represents a win-win cooperation. That's according to Huang Changqing, ambassador of China to Luxembourg, who shared that thought with Cankao Xiaoxi, a Chinese newspaper. Known as the crossroads of Europe, Luxembourg plays an important role as a transportation hub in the region and is prosperous in the industries of iron and steel, finance and satellite communication. Luxembourg is the eighth-largest financial and investment center in the world. The country ranks first in the world in number of banks per capita, and it's the second-largest fund management center in the world as well as the largest in Europe, according to the Ministry of Commerce. In recent years, China and Luxembourg have reached new heights in the levels of economic cooperation. Last year, prices of three of China Central Depository & Clearing's domestic green bond indices were simultaneously displayed in the Luxembourg bourse. By the end of August in 2018, 1,147 overseas investing institutes held 1.75 trillion yuan ($260.45 billion) of China's bonds, accounting for 2.4 percent of the market, according to Xinhuanet. Data from the Eurostat showed that in 2018, Luxembourg and China's bilateral imports and exports of goods amounted to $750 million, an increase of 30.6 percent year-on-year. Luxembourg's exports to China amounted to $250 million, an increase of 9.7 percent, and its imports from China amounted to $500 million, an increase of 44 percent. The exports from Luxembourg to China focus mostly on steel and iron products while the imports from China target mechanical and electrical products. In March, Luxembourg signed a memorandum of understanding on jointly promoting the Belt and Road Initiative, and financial cooperation documents with China during the annual Boao Forum for Asia. The two sides agreed to further develop a bilateral relationship and cooperation, enhance political and economic ties, and deepen pragmatic cooperation in fields including finance and culture, to achieve common development. liangkaiyan@chinadaily.com.cn The 2019 "Air Silk Road" Economic Cooperation Forum takes place in early April in Zhengzhou, Henan province. Wang Zhongju / China News Service (China Daily 04/26/2019 page32) After a 21-day rail journey from Europe, the first shipment of high-end medical aesthetic products from Ireland arrived in Chengdu. The 100-million-yuan ($14.9 million) shipment was the first pharmaceutical company Allergan had sent via the China-EU Express Railway and it cleared customs in Chengdu on April 15. "So far we have sent the first shipment and we are happy about that," said Marc Princen, executive vice-president of Allergan, adding that the clearance time only took three days, the cost was "tremendously better" and the shipment time was shortened by half compared to other means of transportation. For Princen, the Belt and Road Initiative, of which the cross-continental China-EU Express Railway is a part, is of benefit to the company. Following the arrival of the products, Allergan also launched its first Chinese innovation center in Chengdu on April 16, which will be used to educate and train medical workers. Asked why the company picked Chengdu, Princen said the local way of thinking matched the company's vision. "It is the mindset here, the openness to receive us and openness to find solutions," he said. "We received support from the government to identify the right building and infrastructure for the innovation center and training. "The government is also flexible, for example the (shortened) clearance time, which is crucial for us. Together with the warehouse, the talents with language skills to facilitate the business, they are all good factors that made us want to work here. We are also the first foreign medical aesthetic company here." "The import and export volume of drugs in and out of Chengdu puts it in the country's top 10, and it will benefit from the international logistic infrastructure under the Belt and Road Initiative," said Chen Wei, dean of the Zhangjiang Platform Institute of Economics, a think tank. "Chengdu is located in the center of a market covering a population of 380 million... it will become a key city in the medicine supply chain under the BRI." Medical aesthetic products are a fast-emerging business. According to SoYoung, China's leading medical aesthetic platform, in 2018, the market in China was worth 224.5 billion yuan, up 27.57 percent year-on-year, and Chengdu is aiming to turn itself into a center of medical aesthetic business. In 2018, Chengdu released a development plan to push its medical aesthetic industry revenue to over 100 billion yuan by 2025, and to further double the number by 2030. Such a goal reflects Allergan's ambition to explore and foster the massive potential of the Chinese market. "A few years ago, we had $50 million to $60 million revenue here in China; now the number is $300 million. We almost tripled the number of employees to 870 in the same period, showing that we really want to develop in China," Princen said. He said currently China only contributed a relatively small share of its global revenue of $15 billion, but looking forward, Allergan believed that by 2025 its business in China will be worth at least $1 billion. "China is the biggest single opportunity for Allergan," said Princen. renxiaojin@chinadaily.com.cn (China Daily 04/27/2019 page17) Utopia is the name of the room that BuzzFeed Chief Executive Jonah Peretti uses as his L.A. office, but the last few months have been anything but that. His New York-based start-up, once seen as a potential savior for journalism, cut roughly 220 staffers this year, the latest sign of turmoil in the digital media sector. BuzzFeed, which generated more than $300 million in sales last year, is unprofitable. But Peretti, a founding shareholder, plans to take the company to profitability later this year as it continues to balance hard news and lighthearted memes, mixed in with advertising and marketing. There are challenges ahead for the company, which has raised $497 million from investors including NBCUniversal. Advertisement Facebook and Google, which run platforms where BuzzFeed and other digital media companies distribute their content, could potentially face government regulation, which could affect the algorithms and content on their platforms. BuzzFeeds news division is also seeking unionization. Peretti, 45, spoke on Thursday from BuzzFeeds L.A. office. This interview was edited for length. Why were the layoffs necessary? Its something that on a personal level is the worst thing you have to do as a CEO, but it was a necessary thing to do in order to get the companys cost structure to be in line with the marketplace. In broad strokes, were seeing a lot of improvement in the revenue that is coming from the big platforms, but not enough to have been able to continue forward without making some cost reductions. How do you plan to bring the company to profitability? The big thing is focusing on the things were uniquely good at doing. The stuff that has really grown for us has been big partnerships. Probably the most well known example is (BuzzFeeds food network) Tasty which was generating no revenue on Facebook, even though it was the biggest media page on Facebook. We had to figure out our own ways to generate revenue and the partnership with Walmart was a good example of saying, OK, lets have a 100 sku [stock keeping unit] line of kitchen products that are for sale at every Walmart. Lets put those products into every Tasty video so that when people are watching the Tasty video they can see the products. We have figured out ways to do things that Google [and] Facebook cant do things that are more creative [and] more strategic that cut across different businesses and are really solving business challenges. The platforms are hungry for content. If you can create really good content at high scale, the economics are now to the point where that kind of activity can be profitable for a company like BuzzFeed. Were helping Amazon sell a lot of products through our shopping posts. Were making videos that people love that have pre-roll or mid-roll [ads] on them. Were making articles or stories that have programmatic [ads] on them. Because of our scale, operating efficiency, our brand and other factors, and because the economics have improved on the big platforms, all of that taken together makes that an interesting, profitable business. Your business still relies on these partners, like Facebook and Google. Do you feel like theyre paying you enough for the content that you provide them? I think it has improved a lot. [For example] our fill rates on YouTube have gone up. YouTube has had some high-profile examples of people who were in Google Preferred who did some offensive content so they are pulled out. [That] means that more of the premium content that were making, there is less supply of that, which has helped our fill rates go up. If you think about the glory days of cable, where the cable companies had consolidated to a point where the cable operators really needed their content, there was at least more balance [in negotiations]. The thing that is tricky about the current environment with the big tech platforms is you can count on one hand the companies that are having a huge impact on the media industry. Within digital media there is tremendous fragmentation across a lot of different companies. So you have a negotiation that is basically between a $500 billion market cap company and then some digital media companies that are worth less than 1% of that. Its hard for content to get paid fairly because of that. The irony of it though, is it ends up hurting the big platforms. The business model for fake news works, but the business model for news is a lot more challenging and unless the marketplace is managed more aggressively, they are not going to get the mix of content that supports all the things that will help them in the long run build a strong audience. They are starting to understand this and were headed toward a better place and were seeing the CPMs [cost per thousand impressions] and fill rates going up. They have started to wake up to the fact they dont want to cut off the oxygen supply of the companies that are making things that actually people go to the platform for. In the past you mentioned one solution to this is M&A, these digital media companies joining together to better negotiate. Is that still a possibility for your company? I think its possible to achieve some of the same benefits without M&A. Certainly if it was the right thing, buying another company that could add to what were doing would make sense. Some have compared BuzzFeed to Yahoo. Yahoo at its peak was involved in a lot of different things. Is BuzzFeed spread too thin? Were focused on being a good digital media company and having diversified revenue is part of that. The diversification is really a strength. You want to find ways that the things youre doing support each other and reinforce each other. Our commerce business and our advertising business are very complementary. People come to BuzzFeed and they are looking for stories to read. Especially around holidays, they are looking for things to buy. Those things support each other. When our audience gets bigger, the commerce business does better, the advertising business does better. Having disconnected things that dont help you is something we try to get out of. For example, we had this homesick candles business [which sold candles that smelled like peoples home states]. Owning that business, even though it was a good business, didnt make sense for us. You had to manufacture and warehouse candles and ship candles. So we sold that business and have moved to more licensing models that actually make more sense. Where do you see BuzzFeed News fitting into your overall business? News has a lot of special qualities to it. You cant really treat news like any other content business. The stakes are higher, the impact you can have on the world is higher. For the business side, it has also been something thats been really strong in extending into studio development and making new kinds of shows. We have AM to DM on Twitter, a new one coming to Snap. We have a great Oxygen show based on a true crime story that a reporter covered and we produced the show. News is something that drives a lot of repeat visiting, which is important. Its a time when people are intensely focused on the news for a lot of reasons. Where do you see BuzzFeed News role in pushing the boundaries? Whats amazing right now, everything is so polarized [and] even things that happened that were uncontroversial in the past for a news organization to publish all of a sudden become battlegrounds. Its hard to imagine publishing any scoop or news story or disclosing documents to the public and not have it be something that someone is going to get upset about. We have this crazy war between the president and the press, and between the different parts of the media industry and different camps on Twitter. In the past, youve mentioned how you dont see unions as being a good fit at BuzzFeed. Now, you have members of BuzzFeed News trying to organize a union. Are your views on unions still the same? Forming a union is a decision that employees make. Its not a decision that CEOs make. I really value my employees. A lot of people who found companies have a real different relationship to how they think about employees. You tend to have a mindset of were all in this together and our interests are aligned and were fighting for the same thing. That mindset is one of the reasons why to me it feels like theres better ways for direct communication to more flexibly and directly deal with some of the things unions can address in companies. If you had to go back, knowing what you know now about BuzzFeeds business, what are things that you would change and do differently? This is not a shock, but obviously our costs got too high in certain areas where the business logic didnt end up sustaining it. In some cases, I thought that the platforms would want to move content up-market to make higher quality content sooner than they did. And basically that they would reward higher quality content with more production and they really havent. They have really stayed true to the Im going to take a look at the data and see what users like and if that video costs $1 to make, thats fine and if the video costs $100,000 to make, thats fine. That was one area where we increased the production value of certain things we were doing thinking that would be the place where YouTube or Facebook was headed, and that was not really true. The Passage is a horror series, among many other things. But perhaps the scariest thing about it for star Mark-Paul Gosselaar was wading into a crowded market. There are so many genre pieces out there, and I think what separates us and what was so evident in the pilot that I read was the heart of our story is the relationship between my character and a little girl, Amy Bellafonte, played by Saniyya Sidney, says the veteran actor. WATCH: 2019 Emmy Contenders video chats Gosselaar stopped by the Los Angeles Times video studio for an Emmy Contenders chat about the first season of the show, which is based on Justin Cronins popular trilogy of novels. The former star of Saved by the Bell, NYPD Blue and Franklin & Bash plays former military operative Brad Wolgast. Wolgast is initially tasked with kidnapping a young girl for a dangerous government project to cure disease but bonds with her and helps her resist Project Noah. As one might expect with a so ominously named experiment, its test subjects turn monstrous and eventually set off the equivalent of a Great Flood a vampiric plague that overthrows society. Advertisement Wolgast is a different role than weve seen him in before, including his beefier look. I had just come off the other Fox drama, Pitch, where I played a Major League catcher; I had the beard, I had the weight, he says. I had a tone meeting, just to get me into the mind-set of who the character was. Do we keep the beard? That was a no. They absolutely said, No beard! Shave the beard! I said, Great, my wife will love that. I said, Do you want the weight? Well if you wanna lose 5 pounds its OK, but dont gain any more weight. I felt that the weight sort of symbolized this paternal figure that I was playing, and I thought it was juxtaposed against this little kid. I kept the character I was playing on Pitch and transformed him into Brad Wolgast. The Passage star Mark-Paul Gosselaar talks about the training he does for the show, including Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Another side we hadnt seen of Gosselaar is displayed in Wolgasts expert hand-to-hand combat. Even fans may not have expected the actor to be so good at fighting. I am a practitioner of Brazilian jiujitsu, he says. Ive been training for over 10 years. And the stunt coordinator is a practitioner as well, of jiujitsu. A lot of the stunt guys we were working with were all jiujitsu and Muay Thai. There was a very specific scene in which we only grappled no punches thrown. All it was was grappling and chokes, sweeps. It was fun to coordinate that and present it to the director. When a fan asks if Wolgast is Gosselaars most physically demanding role yet, he affirms it. I got beat up quite a bit this last season. It could be my age has finally caught up to me, the 45-year-old says with a bit of a smile. I was very proud of the stunts we were able to accomplish. I enjoy any time we were allowed to be physical. I think thats one of my strengths, that I can incorporate that into my roles. He explains how some elements from later books had been mixed into this first season, with some expanded and rethought thus only a quarter of the first of the three books has been depicted so far. This season ended at the point in the books where Wolgast disappears for a while. For nearly 100 years, actually. Thus, Gosselaar says he doesnt know if hell be back for Season 2, if there is one (hes clearly hoping there will be one, and that hell be in it). When you read the pilot episode, you forgot that you were surrounded by this vampire-like genre, Gosselaar says. Because that story [of Amy and Brad], again, was the heart of what we were trying to film. And it remained that way for the entire [season], and hopefully it will remain for the course of the show as long as Im on it. To see the entire conversation, watch the video below. Doris Roberts, a five-time Emmy winner best known for her work as Marie Barone on Everybody Loves Raymond, died Sunday in Los Angeles, a family spokeswoman confirmed to The Times on Monday. The actress died peacefully in her sleep of natural causes, the family said. She was 90. Doris Roberts had an energy and a spirit that amazed me, costar Ray Romano said in a statement. She never stopped. Whether working professionally or with her many charities, or just nurturing and mentoring a young, green comic trying to make it as an actor, she did it all with such a grand love for life and people, and I will miss her dearly. Roberts was a part of the Raymond family from 1996 to 2005, but also counted an Emmy-winning turn on St. Elsewhere and credits on well-known 70s and 80s shows, including Remington Steele, Soap, Fantasy Island, The Love Boat and The Streets of San Francisco. She starred as Theresa Falco, mother to Donna Pescows title character on the show Angie, which ran for two seasons. Advertisement Everybody Loves Raymond co-star Patricia Heaton tweeted: My wonderful TV mother-in-law and ELR nemesis Doris Roberts was a consummate professional from whom I learned so much. She was funny and tough and loved life, living it to the fullest. Nothing gave her greater joy than her three wonderful grandchildren, of whom she was so proud. It truly was a privilege Doris. I love you and miss you. Everyone Loves Raymond show creator Phil Rosenthal said that although Roberts had been waning in the last few months she still had her fierce spirit until the end. She was taking acting classes right up to the end, he told The Times. " And really cared about being an actress and being professional. She was very dedicated to the craft. She was the real thing. She wanted to always stay sharp. Recently, Rosenthal accompanied her to see Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett perform at the Hollywood Bowl. Lady Gaga couldnt believe she was getting to meet Doris Roberts! he said. We had dinner in the box, we drank, we watched the show and loved it. As for the footprint Roberts leaves behind, Rosenthal told The Times she will always be remembered as the rock of the show. She was fearless and fierce and strong, he said. He added: I liked that she was a strong female character. Thats what people really responded to her. It was universal: that meddling mom. Long before she became a sitcom icon as the ultimate Italian mamma, Roberts was a young actress trying to make a name for herself in New York in the 1950s. I was a member of the Actors Studio, Roberts told The Times in a 2009 interview. Marilyn Monroe used to come to class. Martin Balsam was there. Anne Bancroft was there. Geraldine Page. Roberts made her Broadway debut in a 1955 revival of William Saroyans The Time of Your Life, which closed after 15 performances. She played a hooker in a bar. Later that year, Roberts had a small role and understudied star Shirley Booth in the comedy hit The Desk Set. She was nominated for 11 Emmys throughout her career. She won best supporting actress in a drama for St. Elsewhere in 1983 and four times for best supporting actress in a comedy for Everybody Loves Raymond. Among Roberts Emmy nods was one for her work on Remington Steele, and in 2003, she was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. After Raymond went off the air in 2005, she kept her status as a working actress, appearing in various TV series, plays and movies with credits running into 2016. Desperate Housewives, The King of Queens, The Middle, Greys Anatomy and Law & Order: SVU were among her more recent TV credits. In 2000, she told The Times, Im at the age now where I dont have to do anything. But I do have to see my grandchildren -- Kelsey, Andrew and Devon. She talked about taking them to amusement parks and to see The Lion King. Sometimes what I do for fun with friends is go on a ramble, Roberts continued. Most of the time you have to plan for everything. My life is always planned. When you ramble, you choose north, south, east or west and you just go. And when you see something you like, you stop. It could be anything -- a flea market or restaurant. And if you find you dont like it, you can just leave. You come across extraordinary little villages in the middle of the mountains. Or you can go in another direction and youve got the ocean. Truly the end of an era, Heaton said on Twitter, addressing her thoughts to her beloved Marie. Roberts was born in St. Louis on Nov. 4, 1925, and grew up in New York. She was married to Michael Cannata from 1956 to 1962 and had one son, Michael Cannata Jr. William Goyen, a writer, was her husband from 1963 until his death in 1983. She is survived by her son, Michael Cannata Jr., daughter-in-law, Jane, and three grandchildren, Kelsey, Andrew and Devon Cannata. Follow Christie DZurilla on Twitter @theCDZ. Times staff writer Brenda Rodriguez and special correspondents Susan King and Robin Rauzi contributed to this report. Dan Pritzker and his rock-soul band Sonia Dada were playing a New Years Eve gig in Colorado in 1997 when a local radio program director told him he was reading a book about Buddy Bolden. Whos that? asked Pritzker. Check him out, came the response. He invented jazz. Thats when Pritzker had an epiphany. Out of jazz came the blues, rock and roll, essentially what we call American pop music, he says in a recent interview. This anonymous black guy turned on the lights for everybody. Advertisement Pritzker started reading about Bolden and discovered he was as much of a legend as he was a real person, his story based on oral history and very little else. A New Orleans trumpet player in the early 20th century, Bolden was known for an improvisational style that incorporated ragtime, blues and gospel, which evolved into what we now call jazz. But no recordings of his work exist, and in 1907, after suffering a psychotic episode at age 30, Bolden spent the last 24 years of his life confined to a Louisiana mental institution. The fact is, theres no there there, to Boldens story, says Pritzker, referring to the lack of knowledge about the man. But that didnt stop the billionaire musician, an heir to the Hyatt Hotel fortune, from taking an interest in Boldens life. That led him to write a story, then a screenplay, then decide to direct the film himself, even though he had no filmmaking experience. Twenty-two years after Pritzker first heard the story, and 12 years after he first began shooting a production defined by several years-long stops and starts, Bolden the movie, starring Downton Abbeys Gary Carr in the title role, finally opens in theaters May 3. Pritzker, who financed the film with his own money, began shooting at the filmmaking center in Wilmington, N.C., in 2007, with Anthony Mackie cast as the lead. He readily admits that I had no idea what I was getting into, but I had worked with an ensemble in a creative project for many years. That taught me what you want to do in an ensemble is figure everybodys strengths, and work towards those strengths. You can apply that to any creative effort. Director Dan Pritzker with Wynton Marsalis, who did the soundtrack for Bolden. (Jon Cornick / Abramorama) What I appreciated about Dan was that he came in as a first-time director, and him being a musician he embraced the collaborative, says Rudy Persico, the films co-producer. He was humble enough to know I dont know everything. Complicating matters was that Pritzker was not only shooting Bolden but also working on Louis, a silent feature about Louis Armstrong as a young boy receiving his first cornet. When Pritzker finished shooting Louis, which eventually was shown in 2010 on a five-city tour accompanied by a live band headed by Wynton Marsalis, he decided to shut down production on Bolden and began rewriting the script. I knew Bolden was going to be a dark movie, set partially inside the insane asylum, says Pritzker, and Louis would be lighthearted and whimsical. Thats what I was trying to do, and I knew I didnt have that with Bolden. Dan wanted to create something that was meaningful to him, and until that was right, he wasnt finished, says Brian Stultz, Boldens production designer. He had a vision, but he didnt know the filmmaking language, adds Persico. He paid for his own film school, that first time around. Bolden filmed from March to September 2007, then shut down. Two years later, Pritzker returned for more shooting that lasted into 2010. In 2014, with a new script, the film returned to North Carolina once more, this time with Gary Carr in the lead, since Mackie, whose career had flourished thanks to the Captain America and Avenger franchises, was no longer available (some scenes were also shot in Atlanta and New Orleans). Robert Richard, from left, SerDarius Blain, Gary Carr, Calvin Johnson, Donald Watkins, Justin Faulkner, Korey Webb-Turner, Keith Flippen, Erik LaRay Harvey in a scene from the movie Bolden. (Fred Norris / Abramorama) Two years after that, the cast and crew reassembled once again in Wilmington for a few days of location filming. With all this reshooting, Pritzker says little more than 10% of the 2007 footage is in the final cut, much of that involving a re-creation of a 1931 radio concert Louis Armstrong (played by Reno Wilson) performed in New Orleans, just a few months before Boldens death. Over the years, the film became something of a legend/myth/joke in the filmmaking community, considered by some a vanity project by a spoiled rich kid (Pritzker spent upwards of $30 million of his own money on the two films). But the fact is, says Persico, everybody on the set, the actors, the extras, they all have a movie they want to make. Dans the same way, he just has access to more resources than most people have. After 2007, when I went back to the drawing board, a friend told me he had read an article saying Id never finish the film, says Pritzker. My friend said, he doesnt know you, youll do it on your own time. The finished film is a sort of avant-garde, nonlinear fever dream, which begins with the presumption that Bolden hears the Armstrong concert over the radio in the asylum. Then, as he listens to the music he helped create, the film jumps back and forth into episodes about Boldens life and short career. Featuring Ian McShane and Michael Rooker as politically connected racists, it is as much about the brutality of segregated America as it is about the music. Michael Rooker, from left, as Pat McMurphy, Erik LaRay Harvey as Bartley and Ian McShane as Judge Perry in a scene from the movie Bolden. (Fred Norris / Abramorama) Its not a biography of Buddy Bolden, and I dont think it was intended to be that, says John West, who was unit production manager on the 2014 segment of the shoot. Its more about music for Dan, and I think this was a musical adventure for him, so to speak. I felt the mythology was bigger than the man himself, adds Pritzker, but more about the fabric of the country. Its not a biopic, its about the spirit of the country. On his long filmmaking journey, Pritzker learned that making a movie is much different than jamming with his band. Pritzker had a history of making records, which can be loose and collaborative and improvisatory, not exactly the best way to make a film that features hundreds of moving parts. When I got into the movie thing, its pretty much of a military approach, says Pritzker, its this very kind of top-down military organization, and that kind of rubs against me. But over the course of the shoot, I realized you have to have it. I learned a lot about how to calibrate whatever creative thing I can come up with, with the reality of can you actually get this? calendar@latimes.com Good morning. Im Paul Thornton, and it is Saturday, April 27, 2019. Lets take a look back at the week in Opinion. Over the last few days, President Trump has blasted the Russia investigation as a coup; a constitutional crisis between subpoena-wielding Democratic lawmakers and the White House has been brewing; and the candidate most likely to defeat the president in 2020 officially started his campaign. And yet, this piece on the potential death of single-family zoning in California has drawn more readers online than any other Opinion article. Given a little thought, its easy to understand why. Much of Los Angeles growth and identity in the 20th century was fueled by outward-reaching sprawl consisting of tidy bungalows and low-slung ranch homes (minus the ranch, of course). The article, by Times editorial writer Kerry Kavanaugh, notes the seismic shift it would mark for California if the latest effort by state Sen. Scott Wiener to address the states housing crisis passes: Lets just pause on the fact that a bipartisan group of lawmakers voted in favor of a bill that would allow apartments pretty much anywhere in California. Again, this would be a major change from the status quo. Wiener has said that its illegal to build more than a single-family house (plus an in-law unit) in roughly 80% of Californias residential neighborhoods. And yet, maybe the support for this proposal is not so surprising. The political winds have been shifting on single-family restrictions. Last year, the Minneapolis City Council voted to eliminate single-family zoning and instead allow duplexes and triplexes to be built on lots reserved for one house. The city enacted the policy so it would be easier to build affordable, denser communities, but also to help integrate neighborhoods that are still segregated as a result of discriminatory housing practices dating back decades. Strict single-family zoning was often adopted as a way to segregate neighborhoods without explicitly banning any racial or religious group. Planners in Charlotte, N.C., are looking to eliminate single-family zoning for the same reasons. On the West Coast, the high-cost cities of Seattle and Portland have considered rezoning single-family lots or allowing up to four-unit buildings in single-family neighborhoods. One Oregon lawmaker proposed allowing fourplexes on single-family lots in any city in the state with more than 10,000 residents. Even Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti who was down on Wieners proposal last year to open single-family neighborhoods to denser development is warming to the idea. >> Click here to read more This doesnt mean Trump didnt do something outrageous far, far from it, actually. The Democrats won control of the House in 2018 promising to conduct real oversight of the president. Trumps response is to declare himself immune to congressional oversight and refuse to respond to House subpoenas because theyve been issued by, you know, Democrats. Thats an outrageous and indefensible position, says the editorial board. L.A. Times But conservatives love Trump, and the ailing NeverTrump movement shows it. Heritage Foundation fellow David Azerrad predicts the wing of the Republican Party that refused to support Trump in 2016 is all but extinct thanks to the administrations myriad accomplishments that ought to please conservatives. The economy is growing, unemployment is falling and wages are rising, he writes. We have pulled out of the Paris accord, withdrawn from the Iran nuclear deal, and destroyed Islamic State. Trump has arguably done more to advance the conservative agenda than any other of the 16 Republican candidates he ran against would have. L.A. Times Paradise needs our help still. Nearly two seasons removed from the most destructive wildfire in Californias history, the nearby city of Chicos population is still swollen, burned-out lots in Paradise are still uninhabited, and displaced families are still praised for their resilience. In six months, when the official one year anniversary of the Camp fire comes and there are inevitably a profusion of essays and videos about Paradise and Butte published, we can only hope they wont be obligatory, or ignorant of the urgent help still needed, writes Cal State Chico professor Sarah Pape. New York Times Is a measles quarantine at UCLA enough to quash the anti-vaccine movement? Probably not, writes physician James Hamblin, because the misguided opinions on immunization held by otherwise educated parents has more to do with ideological alignment than ignorance of the facts. In other words, lab-coated doctors reciting CDC facts on the safety of vaccines in YouTube videos cant do much to fight targeted disinformation campaigns. The Atlantic They were killed by acquaintances, by enemies, by accident. Some were riding their bikes, some were running for cover, some didnt see the bullets coming. In a single year, nearly 1,200 Americans 18 and younger were victims of gun violence. The carnage has become so numbingly commonplace that most victims perish without much notice, and our collective silence is broken only by the next hail of gunfire. At Palisades Charter High School, a small group of students wanted to do something about that. So for months, as part of a national team of teen journalists, they researched media accounts, dug through police reports and scanned social media to find details about young people killed by guns in the 365 days after the Parkland, Fla., high school shooting on Valentines Day 2018 that left 17 students and staff members dead. Advertisement The Pali students contributed 70 of the 1,200 obituaries in the project. The aim was to show that the problem isnt just school shootings. Its every day. Its constant, said Pali senior Joe Meyerson, who led the schools team of a dozen journalism students. Meyerson, who is headed to Boston University in the fall to study journalism, said students set out to distill the essence of who the victims were, in mini-profiles, rather than focus only on their deaths. The resulting sketches were often powerful, posted like epitaphs in the national cemetery of lost children. Senior Joe Meyerson, left, with fellow journalism students at Palisades Charter High School, where they are working on a series about gun violence post-Parkland. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) Heres an example of one in which Meyerson shared a byline with student Samantha Woolley: As a sixth grade student at Keefe Avenue School, her essay about gun violence afflicting her neighborhood won third place in a Martin Luther King, Jr. essay contest. She was everything this world was not, her mother said. My baby was not violent. My baby did not like violence. Sandra Parks, 13, was shot and killed by a stray bullet that shattered her bedroom window on Nov. 19, 2018, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Two men were charged, one with first-degree reckless homicide. The last sentence of Sandras essay: We must fight until our truths stretch to the end of the world. When I met at the Pacific Palisades campus with Meyerson and classmates Zade Mullin, Ava Kerkorian, Sarah Bentley and Judy Zhang, they seemed as if theyd been as affected by their work as the audience they hoped to reach. It makes you realize it could happen to anyone. Sarah Bentley, Palisades High School student The amount of bloodshed was not a revelation for the students, but as they got to know more about those who died, the losses became more personal. What really hit me hard was seeing how they died and the number of people like, under a year old, or just beginning middle school or high school, Bentley said. It makes you realize it could happen to anyone. Though Pali Charter sits in a safe, affluent, low-crime neighborhood, the students reporting connected them with people in places where violence is routine, gangs are prevalent and victims are often children of color. Zhang wrote about a Los Angeles teen who wanted to get dinner at a particular fast-food restaurant one night, but was talked into going to another instead. Shes standing there and a car drives by and just peppers her in the back with bullets, said Zhang, who read the police report on the homicide. I remember thinking it was literally a case of the wrong place, wrong time. Zhangs obit noted that the victim wore golden hoop earrings and bonded with her after-school counselors at Santee Education Complex, just south of the 10 Freeway. Zhangs obit ended with this: Hannah Ronyae Bell, 15, was shot outside a burger restaurant in South Los Angeles on April 27, 2018. According to her brother, her last words were, I got shot, Mama. It burns. Surrounded: Killings near school, and the students left behind The one that haunts Mullin involved a gas station shooting in Philadelphia. In researching the death, he came upon grainy surveillance video of 15-year-old Rasul Bensons last moments. You could see the flash from the gun and see kids scramble, Mullin said. In January, 17-year-old Michael Bardlett was shot and killed in Georgia. At Pali Charter, Meyerson and classmate Ariana Abtahi were piecing together the obit but needed more information. One strength of the student reporters, Meyerson said, was knowing how to fish social media sites. On Instagram, they found a phone number for Bardletts mother. Meyerson dialed and the mother picked up. At first she was very skeptical. Her son had died just three weeks ago. I explained who I was and why I wanted to speak to her and we had a 20-minute conversation about her son, Meyerson said. It was heartwarming stuff only a mother would know. For Kerkorian, getting so close to the details sharpened her sense of outrage. Its hard not to be in favor of gun control when youre reporting about all these kids, she said. Theyre kids just like my friends and me, who do the same things we do. They could have had bright futures, and that just made me angry at our legislators and it made me want to get even more involved. Its an epidemic level of destruction. Joe Meyerson, Palisades High School senior Beatrice Motamedi oversaw the students work as director of Global Student Square, which developed the curriculum for the project and partners with students and news organizations to explore violence, global warming and the plight of refugees. The Since Parkland project was created by the Trace, a nonprofit newsroom focused on gun violence, in partnership with the Miami Herald. Cant say enough about how talented and smart these kids are, Motamedi said. They are also determined to play a role in addressing a societal problem that has raged too long. As Meyerson put it, the shouting of political differences on gun rights and gun control cant be allowed to drown out the cries of the children being slaughtered. Its an epidemic level of destruction, he said. And like any good journalist, he believes there is no more powerful form of commentary, and no truer appeal to conscience, than to tell stories that shake our souls. Get more of Steve Lopezs work and follow him on Twitter @LATstevelopez A federal judge in San Francisco decided Friday to block the Trump administration from denying federal funds to family planning clinics in California that make abortion referrals. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Edward Chen followed a similar decision by a federal judge in Washington state to bar the government from imposing the new restrictions there. A judge in Oregon also has indicated he would rule similarly in a challenge brought in that state. Chen said the new rule, which was to take effect next Friday, commands medical professionals to provide incomplete and misleading information to women seeking to terminate their pregnancies. Advertisement The funding at stake is delivered under a 1970 law, Title X of the Public Health Service Act. It was intended to make family planning services available to the poor and those in isolated rural regions. The funds have never been allowed to be used to pay for or subsidize abortions. In March, the Trump administration added more restrictions. It said clinics that make abortion referrals would no longer be entitled to the federal funds and recipients could not share office space with abortion providers. The new rule also would require clinics to refer pregnant women to a healthcare provider for prenatal health services, even if the client wanted an abortion. Critics said the restrictions were intended to steer women to faith-based family planning services. California, which serves 1 million patients annually under the Title X program, and Essential Access Health Inc., a nonprofit group that administers the states Title X program, sued to block the rule in California. In issuing a preliminary injunction, Chen said the restrictions would compromise providers ability to deliver effective care and force them to obstruct and delay patients with pressing medical needs. Abortion is a time-sensitive procedure, Chen wrote. Medical risks and costs rise with delay, he said. The new rule erects barrier after barrier between patients trying to make an informed decision about whether to continue their pregnancies and their clinicians, Chen said. If the rule were to take effect, many providers would drop out of the program, and the amount and quality of family planning services in California would decline, he said. Chen did not issue a nationwide injunction, saying the challengers were both based in California and had not cited sufficient evidence of harm in other states. Judge Chens ruling affirms that in 2019, denying women the medical information and services they want and need is a losing proposition, said Julie Rabinovitz, president and chief executive of Essential Access Health. The U.S. Department of Justice could not be reached for comment. maura.dolan@latimes.com Twitter: @mauradolan Los Angeles Fire Department officials said their response to the massive Woolsey fire was complicated by requests from local politicians, according to a document reviewed by The Times. A significant number of requests by political figures to check on specific addresses of homes to ensure their protection distracted from Department leadership to accomplish priority objectives, according to the LAFDs after-action review on the Woolsey fire, which was the most destructive blaze in Los Angeles Countys modern history. The Woolsey fire started Nov. 8 at the former Santa Susana Field Lab, burning next to the Ventura County-Los Angeles County line and near L.A. city limits. More than 1,600 structures from Westlake Village and Oak Park down to Malibu were destroyed, and at least four people died. Since then, there have been questions about how the fire was fought, particularly during its rapid spread in its first 24 hours. The Times in January reported a lack of resources and planning in the first hours of the blaze. Advertisement The LAFD report did not provide details about the specific actions of politicians. Assistant Chief Tim Ernst said Friday in an interview that he did not know which politicians were involved or exactly how those requests affected the firefighting efforts. Ernst, who did not write the after-action report, made a presentation that included details from the report during a brush fire training last week for LAFDs chief officers. There, he brought up the challenge of politicians and powerful, often wealthy, residents making requests of firefighters. One of the things I really wanted to mention, especially to the newer chiefs in the room, is that living in the city of L.A. or the county of L.A., we have to understand we probably have some of the wealthiest communities in America, and with that comes a certain amount of political power, Ernst said in the interview. Requests from politicians and other high-profile residents during fires shouldnt become the priority or primary mission, he said, but instead should be sent through the proper channels to make sure they dont become a distraction. In the report, the agency recommended deploying field observers who can provide real time information and reconnaissance to address specific requests from political figures during a large-scale incident. Ernst said many people dont understand that these high-profile requests are not abnormal and happen during most large fires. The assistant fire chief serves on an incident management team with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. As part of that team, he travels the state serving as an incident leader on large fires. We dont see probably the same type of requests if were in a poor community in Northern California, as opposed to in Southern California, where I think theres a higher expectation with people being able to call someone in city government and ask questions about their properties, and I think that was the gist of this particular challenge, he added. On the day the Woolsey fire started, the Ventura County Fire Department had focused almost all of its firefighters on the Hill fire, a rapidly growing brush fire that started just 20 minutes before the Woolsey fire and quickly threatened homes near Camarillo. This left the Woolsey fire largely up to the LAFD and the L.A. County Fire Department to fight, as the fire was burning in an area that the three agencies had agreed, through a memorandum of understanding, to protect together. Problems quickly developed. In the first few hours of the Woolsey fire, LAFD responded in the greatest numbers, while Ventura County sent a skeleton crew and the L.A. County Fire Department initially sent the majority of its responding firefighters to a county fire station in Agoura Hills, where they awaited the fire to cross into L.A. County. Firefighters on the front lines complained of a lack of water, communication and direction from the fire incident leaders. The magnitude of the Woolsey fire seemed to quickly exacerbate problems that frequently occur during any brush fire. Plus, Mother Nature had brought in particularly dangerous fire weather that week. Meteorologists warned the day the Hill and Woolsey fires started that humidity was low, grass and brush were dry, and the Santa Ana winds would increase through the evening. We knew the weather was going to be bad days in advance, LAFD Chief Ralph M. Terrazas told the city fire commission at its November meeting. We staffed up. We had the department operations center fully staffed. We were launching a lot of resources. At our peak, we had 10 strike teams, about 50 engines. About 1/3 of all our fire apparatus were in that fire, and we have to support the region, especially L.A County. The Woolsey fire became the seventh-most destructive fire in modern California history, burning almost 97,000 acres. Long Beach police have arrested a 17-year-old boy on suspicion of sexually assaulting two teenage girls. Others may also have been assaulted, officials said Friday. The suspect was taken into custody Tuesday following reports made by 16-year-old and 17-year-old girls. In separate incidents over the last few years, authorities say, he met victims on campus at Wilson High School in Long Beach and brought them to his residence, where he allegedly drugged and sexually assaulted them. Police say he used a ride-hailing service to take the victims to their homes. Police could not say whether the suspect lived with a guardian. Wilson High School is on spring break. A representative was not immediately available for comment. Advertisement The suspect was booked on suspicion of lewd and lascivious acts on a minor, and was being held at Los Angeles Juvenile Hall. His name has not been released because he is a minor. Police encouraged any other victims to come forward. colleen.shalby@latimes.com @cshalby The deadly shooting attack at a synagogue in Poway on Saturday underscores concerns about rising incidents of anti-Jewish hate across the nation. Authorities have not provided many details about the alleged shooter. But the mayor of Poway said the attack, which killed one person and left three others wounded, appears to be motivated by hate. I understand that this was someone with hate in their heart, hate for the Jewish community, he said of the attacker. President Trump added: At this moment it looks like a hate crime. But my deepest sympathies to all of those affected. And well get to the bottom of it. Advertisement The incident comes six months after a man with a history of posting anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant social media messages opened fire at a temple in Pittsburgh, killing 11 people and wounding six more. National Jewish groups, many whose leaders heard about the attack hours after it happened because they were observing the Sabbath and last day of Passover, were mourning. This shooting is a reminder of the enduring virulence of anti-Semitism, said the president and chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt, in a statement. It must serve as a call to action for us as a society to deal once and for all with this hate. People of all faiths should not have to live in fear of going to their house of worship. From Charleston to Pittsburgh to Oak Creek and from Christchurch to Sri Lanka, and now Poway, we need to say enough is enough. Our leaders need to stand united against hate and address it both on social media and in our communities. Michael Masters, CEO of the Secure Community Network, a group that offers training and resources to synagogues on security, said his group was working with local and federal officials to help the Poway community. We remind synagogues and Jewish facilities everywhere that we must take steps to prevent and protect against attacks.... Todays shooting is a sad reminder that the need has not gone away, he said in a statement. Studies have shown the number of anti-Semitic incidents and crimes has been rising rapidly after years of decline. The Anti-Defamation League has tracked anti-Semitic incidents since 1979, drawing on reports from victims, police and news publications. The worst year was 1994, with 2,066 incidents. By 2013, the total had fallen to 751. It has been rising ever since, with the biggest all-time annual jump coming in 2017, when the tally climbed 57% to 1,986. The majority of those incidents were harassment, which rose 41% to 1,015 incidents, including 163 bomb threats against Jewish community centers and synagogues. Vandalism rose 86% to 952 cases. The number of physical assaults actually fell 47% from 36 to 19. Los Angeles recorded its highest level of reports of hate crimes in a decade, with a nearly 13% increase in 2018 over the year before. Last year, L.A. tallied 289 hate crimes, compared with 256 in 2017, according to Los Angeles police statistics gathered by researchers at Cal State San Bernardino. Members of the LGBTQ community, African Americans and those of Jewish faith were the most frequently targeted, according to the newly released report by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism. An FBI report released in November 2018 detailing hate crimes across more than 3,000 police agencies showed a more than 17% uptick in 2017, fueled by increases in attacks against religious and racial minorities. The count documented 7,175 hate crimes in 2017. The tally was 1,054 higher than the year before. It included a 37% increase in anti-Jewish crimes, a 24% increase in attacks on Latinos and a nearly 16% rise in crimes against African Americans. Los Angeles was the scene of a notorious anti-Jewish hate incident. In 1999, a self-professed white supremacist walked into the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills armed with a semiautomatic weapon and began shooting. Five people were hurt. The Poway shooting has other law enforcement agencies taking measures. Were closely monitoring the synagogue shooting in Poway and communicating with our local, state & federal partners. At this time theres no nexus to Los Angeles, but in an abundance of caution, we will conduct high visibility patrols around synagogues & other houses of worship, the Los Angeles Police Department said on Twitter. Times staff writers Melissa Etehad and Jaweed Kaleem contributed to this report. South Africa: President leads Freedom Day celebrations in Makhanda President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to lead South Africas celebration of 25 years of freedom and democracy at the national Freedom Day event at Makhanda in the Eastern Cape, on Saturday. South Africans observe Freedom Day on 27 April each year to mark the date in 1994 of the first democratic election in which all South Africans were able to participate. The images of the long, snaking queues at voting stations is embedded in the minds of South Africans. This years Freedom Day celebrations will take place at the Miki Yili Stadium in Joza Township at Makhanda. The 2019 National Freedom Day marks 25 years of freedom from apartheid colonial oppression and the countrys development as a constitutional democracy. Freedom Day will be an occasion for the nation to reflect on how South Africas freedom and democracy was achieved and on the role all South Africans can play in growing the country together into the future, said the Presidency in a statement. The theme for this years event is "Celebrating 25 Years of Democracy". The 2019 celebrations comes just days before the sixth general election on 8 May 2019, where eligible voters will once again be able to exercise their democratic right to elect new leadership for the country. This national day is the culmination of Freedom Month which is an opportunity for South Africans to strengthen solidarity, express pride in our national identity and promote social cohesion. Freedom Month is a period during which the nation remembers and honours heroes who sacrificed their lives for freedom, said the Presidency. Government has invited as many South Africans as possible to actively celebrate Freedom Day in Makhanda and elsewhere around the country. SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2019-04-27. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 27) Filipinos should be taught Chinese and other foreign languages to ensure that foreigners do not take away their jobs, senatorial candidate Rafael "Raffy" Alunan said Saturday. Asked what the government should do to ensure that Filipinos are not denied jobs amid the influx of Chinese workers in the Philippines, Alunan, who is endorsed by President Rodrigo Duterte, said the country's educational system should be improved by teaching foreign languages in schools. "In our education, we should be multi-lingual, we should know Chinese, we should know Japanese, we should know English, so that we can take the place of these people who are taking out our Filipinos, and our Filipino-Chinese in our own country," he said during the CNN Philippines Senatorial Debate. "If we have enough Filipinos talking and speaking in Chinese and in other languages, we'll be able to prevent foreigners from working in our country," he added. Aside from education, Alunan said, the government should also "revive our agriculture, manufacturing, and our tourism, so we can get as many jobs as possible and livelihood opportunities." A larger number of Chinese workers have flown to the country since President Rodrigo Duterte assumed office in 2016. Duterte had cultivated close ties with China, which has provided funds and loans for several projects under the administration's massive infrastructure program. In a previous interview on CNN Philippines On The Record, Bureau of Local Employment Director Dominique Tutay said from 2015 to 2018, there were 169,893 foreign nationals working in the country--about 51 percent of them are Chinese. Tutay said a large portion of Chinese workers in the country are employed in the gaming industry while half of the about 10,000 foreign nationals with alien employment permit under the construction sector are Chinese. From high-tech companies to auto manufacturers, Beijing's industrial influence is expanding on both domestic and international levels. Among the local high-tech powerhouses is Tus-Holdings, a spinoff of Tsinghua University. Founded in 2000, the company targets startups, providing them with incubation and financing services. Compared with the 1990s, the environment for innovation in China has transformed, said Chen Hongbo, executive vice-president of Tus-Holdings. "Nowadays, companies have a better starting point, with a higher level of technology, rich social resources and more financing opportunities." Tus-Holdings has established more than 300 innovation centers worldwide and has launched over 100 technology projects in cooperation with 65 colleges around the world. "High-tech companies are part and parcel of regional economic development," Chen said. "They boost the local economy by promoting the industrialization of technological achievements and bringing new products, business patterns and job opportunities." The company is engaged across diversified industries, ranging from environmental protection, digital economy and clean energy to new materials. The Belt and Road Initiative is an opportunity for companies to better develop businesses in overseas markets with the vision of shared benefits, Chen said. "We will improve our business patterns to support more high-tech companies and thus aid in China's efforts in building itself into an innovation powerhouse," he said. Foton Motor Group is a Beijing-based commercial vehicle manufacturer founded in 1996. Its product portfolio incorporates heavy-duty and light-duty trucks, vans and buses. The company has fulfilled more than 70 major orders in 34 countries and regions involved in the BRI. It has cooperated in infrastructure construction projects in countries such as Kenya and Pakistan. With the development of industry 4.0, the manufacturer has also broadened its businesses to incorporate the internet and advanced technologies, including an industrial internet platform monitoring center and self-driving vehicles. Zhou Zhe, a staff member of the company's internet of vehicles department, said the center is aimed at fulfilling automated monitoring in areas including vehicle production, operation and maintenance. Caciuc Anatolie, a journalist from Teleradio-Moldova, said during a tour of Foton's facilities that the development of China's automobile industry has been stunning. "I have been to China several times, but this is my first time visiting a vehicle production workshop and it is also a demonstration of China's rapid development in social economy," he said. China has provided support for Moldova especially in infrastructure construction, Caciuc said. "Self-driving cars and the industrial internet platform are the best creations and I hope my country can import such high-tech products from China." You Jing, a Foton employee, said expanding overseas markets is a crucial part of the company's strategy and its diesel engine brand is highly recognized in overseas markets. liangkaiyan@chinadaily.com.cn (China Daily 04/27/2019 page11) A gunman armed with a semiautomatic rifle walked into a suburban San Diego County synagogue and opened fire on the congregation Saturday, killing one person and injuring three in an attack that authorities believe was motivated by hate. The gunman entered Chabad of Poway in the 16000 block of Chabad Way about 11:20 a.m. and started firing, authorities said. The 19-year-old suspect, identified as John T. Earnest, of Rancho Penasquitos, was arrested a short time later. (Los Angeles Times) Earnest appears to have written a letter posted on the internet filled with anti-Semitic vitriol. The letter talks about planning for the attack. Advertisement Four weeks ago, I decided I was doing this. Four weeks later, I did it. Earnest is white. The manifesto says the writer is willing to sacrifice his future for the sake of my people. The letter writer also claims responsibility for an arson fire that blackened the walls of the Islamic Center in Escondido on March 24. There were seven people inside the building at the time the fire erupted about 3:15 a.m., but no one was injured. The arsonist left a note referring to a shooting rampage at two New Zealand mosques on March 15 that left 50 people dead. I scorched a mosque in Escondido with gasoline a week after the New Zealand shootings, the letter says. But the people inside woke up and put out the fire pretty much immediately after I drove away which was unfortunate. The suspect also championed Robert Bowers who killed 11 people and wounded six others in the Tree of Life synagogue shootings in Pittsburgh six months ago and Adolf Hitler. Poway Mayor Steve Vaus called the shooting there a hate crime, based on statements the shooter was heard making as he entered the synagogue. RELATED: Rabbi gives sermon of strength after being shot at Poway synagogue A large group of congregants had gathered behind the temple after the shooting, sheriffs Sgt. Aaron Meleen said. About 100 people were inside the synagogue at the time celebrating Passover. As you can imagine, it was an extremely chaotic scene with people running everywhere when we got here, he said. A 60-year-old woman was killed in the attack and three others an 8-year-old girl and two adult males were wounded, authorities said. The injured were taken to Palomar Medical Center in Escondido, the Sheriffs Department said. As the attacker was fleeing the scene, an off-duty Border Patrol agent who was working as a security guard at the synagogue shot at the suspects vehicle, but he got away, authorities said. He was captured a short time later. Adam Pringle, 32, said he was sitting at a 76 gas station parking lot when a swarm of San Diego police, county sheriff and California Highway Patrol cars descended on the scene less than 50 feet away. RELATED: Deadly attack at San Diego-area synagogue underscores rise in anti-Jewish hate Pringle watched as police officers pulled over the man he believed to be the shooting suspect. Hands up or Ill shoot you! Pringle heard the officer yell. The driver quickly put his hands up, and the officer walked over with his gun drawn, Pringle said. The officer quickly arrested the man, Pringle said. Witnesses said Rabbi Yisroel Godstein was among the injured, reportedly shot in the hand. He apparently kept trying to calm the congregation after being wounded, telling people to stay strong. The rabbi and two other people were injured, said synagogue member Minoo Anvari, whose husband was inside when the shooting broke out. One guy was shooting at everybody and cursing. One message from all of us in our congregation is that we are standing together. We are getting stronger, Anvari said. Never again. You cant break us. We are strong. Why? The question is, why? People are praying. President Trump offered condolences from the White House lawn Saturday. At this moment it looks like a hate crime, he said. My deepest sympathies to all of those affected. And well get to the bottom of it. Authorities have cordoned off the area near Rancho Bernardo Road and West Bernardo Drive, about two miles from Chabad of Poway, he said. Several neighbors reported hearing the gunshots, and some were evacuated from nearby homes to the school temporarily as a precaution. Cantor Caitlin Bromberg of Ner Tamid Synagogue, which is down the street from Chabad of Poway, said her congregation learned of the shooting at the end of their Passover services. Saturday marked the final day of Passover, a holiday that marks the Jewish peoples exodus from Egypt and freedom from slavery. Bromberg said her congregants were en route to Chabad of Poway to show support and help in any way they can. We are horrified and upset, and we want them to know we are thinking of them, she told The Times. The message of the final day of Passover is to be looking forward to the time when all the world will be at peace. Bromberg said someone from the congregation had received a text that there was a shooting at a synagogue in Poway. The person who sent the text did not know which temple was targeted and wanted to make sure the congregant was OK. The cantor said she has not heard from Chabad of Poway leadership because they would not normally use the phone during the Sabbath. They would only do that on emergency basis, if they do it at all, she said. Across the street from the synagogue Saturday evening, people left bouquets of flowers on the sidewalk to honor the victims. Tanya Werby, a member of the Chabad of Poway congregation, said she was planning to take her four-year-old son to the Saturday morning service but ended up staying home. She has told her son, who attends preschool at the synagogue, that Rabbi Goldstein was was among those wounded in the shooting. But the boy is too young to understand much more. Its heartbreaking, said Werby, 42, who works at a nonprofit on the synagogues campus. I never expected it to happen at our house of worship. Werby said Goldstein was well-known in the area because he often works with leaders of other congregations. She said she was not surprised by reports that he did his best to defend his congregation after the shooter entered. Im sure he kept his cool. Hes very strong, Werby said. He built this community since the 1980s. Everybody knows him. Hes a big part of this community. Werby described the woman who was killed as a very generous person who was a constant presence at the synagogue. As the owner of a print shop, the woman donated shirts for a friendship walk and gave money as well, Werby said. Werbys friend, Jackie Zucker, drove from Carlsbad to join her after hearing the news. People came here in the morning just wanting a lovely Saturday to finish the holiday, said Zucker, 78. Instead, this happened. We need to stop this. Nami Rajaei, a high school senior who lives nearby, brought a large peach-colored flower for the impromptu memorial. Two of Rajaeis classmates at Rancho Bernardo High School placed candles amid the flowers at the memorial. The three teenagers said their quiet suburban neighborhood, where children are taught to value diversity at school and at their houses of worship, was the last place they expected this to happen. Its shocking to think that this type of thing would happen here, said Rajaei, 18. I would like to think that our community is very tolerant. Later Saturday, hundreds of people filled the pews at Rancho Bernardo Community Presbyterian Church for an interfaith service and candlelight vigil. Peace is what were yearning for and is at the center of all our faith traditions, said Mark McKone-Sweet, a pastor at St. Bartholomews Episcopal Church in Poway. Everyone joined hands and swayed as Lori Frank, cantor of Temple Adat Shalom in Poway, led a Hebrew prayer for peace, Oseh Shalom. Outside, as the daylight faded, the mourners stood in a circle holding candles, singing We Shall Overcome. McKone-Sweet urged them to take the hope they felt that evening and spread it to their neighbors. In an interview, McKone-Sweet said it was frustrating that all he could do was pray for peace when something more needs to be done to prevent religiously-motivated violence. What breaks my heart even more is that this is becoming normal in our country, he said. I fear it will become normal in our community. Allan Higgins, assistant to the rabbi at Congregation Bnai Tikvah in Carlsbad, said Saturday mornings attack was not a symptom of the political moment as much as an expression of hate. The best weapon against hate is education, he said, noting that the name of his congregation means Children of Hope. Jews are simply an easy target and have been for thousands of years, Higgins said. If it wasnt Jews, it would be somebody else. Nowadays, its often Muslims. Theres always an ability to find someone you hate. Tiara Miller, 19, who is Muslim and a member of the Islamic Center of San Diego, came to the vigil with her parents and two younger brothers. She said the bloodshed at the synagogue felt like a personal attack on me like attacking my sibling. We know what it feels like to be attacked because of the beliefs we have, she said. All of us are brothers and sisters of faith, even those who dont believe in God. We should all stand together. In a statement Saturday, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum said it was shocked and alarmed at the second armed attack on a synagogue in the United States in six months, this time on the on the last day of Passover. Now our thoughts are with the victims and their loved ones, Museum Director Sara J. Bloomfield said. But moving forward this must serve as yet another wake-up call that antisemitism is a growing and deadly menace. The Holocaust is a reminder of the dangers of unchecked antisemitism and the way hate can infect a society. All Americans must unequivocally condemn it and confront it in wherever it appears. San Diego police were keeping watch on other local synagogues as a precaution. No known threats, Chief David Nisleit said on Twitter, however in an abundance of caution, we will be providing extra patrol at places of worship. In Los Angeles, police said they were closely monitoring the synagogue shooting in Poway and communicating with our local, state and federal partners. At this time, theres no nexus to Los Angeles, but in an abundance of caution, we will conduct high visibility patrols around synagogues and other houses of worship, the department tweeted. Passover is one of the most sacred holidays in the Jewish faith. The eight-day festival is typically observed with a number of rituals, including Seder meals, the removal of leavened products from the home and the sharing of the exodus story. The attack comes six months after a man with a history of posting anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant social media messages opened fire at a temple in Pittsburgh, killing 11 people and wounding six more. The Anti-Defamation League called that incident the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in the history of the United States and it underscored growing hate against Jews. The leaders of many national Jewish groups heard about the attack hours after it happened because they were observing the Sabbath and the last day of Passover. This shooting is a reminder of the enduring virulence of anti-Semitism, Jonathan Greenblatt, president and CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, said in a statement. It must serve as a call to action for us as a society to deal once and for all with this hate. People of all faiths should not have to live in fear of going to their house of worship. From Charleston to Pittsburgh to Oak Creek and from Christchurch to Sri Lanka, and now Poway, we need to say enough is enough. Our leaders need to stand united against hate and address it both on social media and in our communities. Michael Masters, CEO of the Secure Community Network, an group that offers training and resources to synagogues on security, said his group was working with local and federal officials to help the Poway community. We remind synagogues and Jewish facilities everywhere that we must take steps to prevent and protect against attacks, he said in a statement. Todays shooting is a sad reminder that the need has not gone away. John Wilkens, Pauline Repard, Teri Figueroa and Wendy Fry of the San Diego Union-Tribune and Times staff writers Melissa Etehad, Jaweed Kaleem, Angel Jennings and Alene Tchekmedyian contributed to this report. Services at the Chabad of Poway synagogue were underway Saturday morning when a white man holding a semi-automatic weapon entered. One guy was shooting at everybody and cursing, said synagogue member Minoo Anvari, whose husband was inside when the shooting broke out. Witnesses said a rabbi is among the injured, reportedly shot in the hand. He apparently continued with his sermon after being wounded, telling people to stay strong. One message from all of us in our congregation is that we are standing together. We are getting stronger, Anvari said. Never again. You cant break us. We are strong. Advertisement Danny Almog, 40, had just arrived at the synagogue with his family when he heard six shots noise he thought might be a chandelier falling or chairs crashing. Screams followed: Hide yourself. Shooting! Shooting! Shooting! He saw the gunman white, about 5-foot-8 and carrying a gun that Almog said looked like an M-16. He didnt say nothing, Almog said. Just came in and started shooting. Almog said he dropped to the floor and started crawling to find to his kids. He saw that his father-in-law had thrown his body over the Almogs 2 year old son to protect him. Then saw the older man get up and he ran to grab his 4-year-old daughter Yuli, who had been in a childrens play room with perhaps a dozen other kids. He screamed, Yuli, Yuli, where are you? A friend, Almog Peretz, said he had her. The friend had scooped up several kids and ushered them to safety. And as he did so, Peretz was shot in the leg. Almogg called Peretz a hero. People from Chabad of Poway after shooting (Hayne Palmour / San Diego Union-Tribune) The violence, which Poways mayor said appeared to be hate-motivated, stunned the upscale suburb north of San Diego. Cantor Caitlin Bromberg of Ner Tamid Synagogue, which is down the street from Chabad of Poway, said her congregation learned of the shooting at the end of their Passover services. Saturday marked the eighth and final day of Passover, a holiday that marks the Jewish peoples exodus from Egypt and freedom from slavery. Bromberg said her congregants were en route to Chabad of Poway to show support and help in any way that they can. We are horrified and upset, and we want them to know we are thinking of them, she told The Times. The message of the final day of Passover is to be looking forward to the time when all the world will be at peace. Bromberg said someone from the congregation had received a text that there was a shooting at a synagogue in Poway. The person who sent the text did not know which temple was targeted and wanted to make sure the congregant was OK. Bromberg said she has not heard from the leadership of the Chabad of Poway because they would not normally use the phone during the Sabbath. They would only do that on emergency basis, if they do it at all, she said. The shooting occurred around 11:20 a.m. and brought a huge police presence. A large group of congregants had gathered behind the temple following the shooting, sheriffs Sgt. Aaron Meleen said. It was not immediately clear how many people were attending services. As the suspect was fleeing the scene, an off-duty Border Patrol agent shot at his vehicle, but he got away, authorities said. He was captured a short time later. Founded in 1986 by Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, Chabad of Poway is affiliated with Lubavitch, a branch within Orthodox Judaisms Hasidic movement. It bills itself as a place where traditional Jewish values are brought to life in a joyous, non-judgmental atmosphere. It grew quickly, attracting families to a congregation modeled on the bustling Jewish enclaves that existed in New York City and Eastern Europe. Dozens moved within walking distance so they could follow the requirement to not operate machinery on the Sabbath. The campus underwent a $1.7-million expansion project in the mid-1990s, building a 13,000-square-foot facility with a sanctuary, a meeting hall, and offices. Members of Chabad of Poway were left trying to understand. Why? The question is, why? Anvari said. People are praying. In the Atwood barrio of Placentia, theres a 260 feet mural on a wall that lines one side of the community park. On it, there are pictures of orange trees, representing the orange groves where many Atwood families used to work to make their living. There are images depicting the Mexican revolution and the 1938 flood that killed eight people in Atwood. There are conquistadors, Aztec eagles, serpents, jaguar gods, soldiers and a serene image of the sun. For the record: A previous version of the story misstated the number of deaths in Atwood from the 1938 flood. The last image is a giant butterfly next to a conspicuous 200 feet of empty white wall. The mural, painted in 1977, was never completed the city said it lacked the proper permits. This is the face of Atwood, says Joe Parra, a community leader born and raised in Atwood. His family has lived there since the 1920s. Advertisement For years, it was a mystery who painted the mural, says Parra. Nobody knew. Everyone had a different idea what the mural meant to them. Since 2012, hes wanted to restore it but kept running into hurdles. In 2014, he met Joshua Correa, an artist, minister and grandson of the citys longtime advocate Rod Jimenez who had recently returned to Placentia after growing up in the citys La Jolla neighborhood. We have a lot of problems in Placentia, says Correa, pointing to a recent $5.3 million embezzlement. I started asking people what is something that can bring the community together get them to be a part of something thats positive and not just constantly reacting to debt and scandal. What some of the community members kept on [saying] is, You know weve wanted to restore that Atwood mural forever, and it was a representation of our history and heritage and its just fading like the morale of the community. Correa, who was the vice chair of the citys Citizens Fiscal Sustainability Task Force, tried to leverage some of his government connections to no avail. He explains that there was a nearby mural in downtown Placentia that was painted over because it was deemed radical. Without knowing the artist or the intent behind the Atwood mural, it was hard to convince the county that it was worth preserving. In 2018, director Jacov Velasco began to adapt Manuel Gomezs 2016 book Dancing With The Sun: Artwork of Manuel Hernandez-Trujillo into a short documentary. It was a part of a project called Memories of Migration, led by the Santa Ana History Room and History Pin, and the goal was to preserve the legacy of Santa Ana-based artist, activist and educator who was a force in the Chicano movement of the 1960s. But by the time production of the film began, Hernandez-Trujillo was 85 and his health was failing. Hed had multiple strokes, he was wheel-chair bound, his voice was just above a whisper and Velasco was only able to film one interview with the artist before he died in August 2018. Velasco had to step back and think about how to continue the documentary without its main subject. But then he remembered the first question he asked Hernandez-Trujillo. I asked, Can you please introduce yourself to the camera? and he said no, says Velasco. He said, I dont introduce myself. I introduce my art form. So we let the art speak for itself. 1 / 5 Manuel Hernandez-Trujillos watercolors are featured in the short documentary Dancing With The Sun: The Artwork of Manuel Hernandez-Trujillo, which will be playing at the Newport Beach Film Festival on April 30. (Courtesy of Jacov Velasquez) 2 / 5 Dancing With The Sun: The Artwork of Manuel Hernandez-Trujillo, which will be playing at the Newport Beach Film Festival on April 30, showcases the vibrant art of the artist and activist from Santa Ana. (Courtesy of Jacov Velasquez) 3 / 5 A woodcut print by Manuel Hernandez-Trujillo is featured in the short documentary Dancing With The Sun: The Artwork of Manuel Hernandez-Trujillo, which will be playing at the Newport Beach Film Festival on April 30. (Courtesy of Jacov Velasquez) 4 / 5 A mural that Manuel Hernandez-Trujillo created in 1980 while he was teaching art at UC Irvine still sits at the UCI Irvine Cross-Cultural Center. (Courtesy of Jacov Velasquez) 5 / 5 By the time Jacov Velasco filmed Manuel Hernandez-Trujillo for his documentary, he was 85 and wheelchair-bound after suffering multiple strokes. But he still spent his days doing what he loved: painting. (Courtesy of Jacov Velasquez) Hernandez-Trujillo worked in multiple mediums paintings, woodcut prints, posters and yarn paintings but his most public works were his murals that not only illustrated local history but also depicted the struggles of the Chicano community and the injustices they faced. Velasco and his filmmaking team set out to find and film all his existing murals. A mural that Hernandez-Trujillo created in 1980 while he was teaching art at UC Irvine still sits at the UCI Irvine Cross-Cultural Center. Another, the Colonia Juarez mural in Fountain Valley, painted in 1976, had been whitewashed after it was tagged with graffiti. And then there was the 1977 mural in the Atwood barrio of Placentia. The mural is so huge, it spans the entirety of the park, says Velasco. Theres no picture that actually captures all of it. Velasco was there interviewing Dancing With The Sun author Gomez a community leader and friend of Hernandez-Trujillos who was a professor and Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs at UC Irvine before he retired and Hernandez-Trujillos daughter Xochitl Zuniga, when they realized their van had a flat tire. As they were waiting for roadside assistance, they were approached by a local resident, who had gotten a phone call about suspicious outsiders that seemed to be loitering around the park. Turns out the community protects the mural. Nobodys ever graffitied it, says Parra. The golden rule is to respect the mural. Zuniga told the resident that she was the daughter of the artist, that they were filming a documentary about him. Parra was disappointed to learn that Hernandez-Trujillo had recently passed away. But in February 2019, with newfound knowledge of the history of the mural and the blessing from Hernandez-Trujillos family Parra, Correa and Zuniga proposed a restoration plan to Placentia mayor Rhonda Shader, who was enthusiastic about moving forward. But less than week later, in the early morning of March 4, Atwood residents woke to find that their beloved mural had been whitewashed. Parra says that they got conflicting stories from the city and the county. First, they were told that there was an anonymous call about graffiti, then a story about how a inquiry about how to restore the mural was misinterpreted as a request to repaint it. After discussion with county staff, the city is confident that the painting over of the mural was an unfortunate mistake and is certain this was not done purposely by county staff, says city administrator Damien R. Arrula. He confirmed that the mural was accidentally painted over in early March by Orange County Public Works staff, but that they were able to remove the new paint in a couple days. However, the already faded mural was left more damaged. Parra says it was hard for the community, because they recently lost two churches in the neighborhood. Their park, which used to be full of programs, is covered by dead grass. And now, the mural. So our community was feeling like, Youre taking so much from us, says Parra. So thats why were hoping to rekindle those bridges with city hall and city officials and the county. So the mural can not only bring the community together but also repair our relations with the city. He says Frank Kim, the CEO of Orange County, personally called him to apologize to the community. Doug Chaffee and other members of the Orange County Board of Supervisors also personally apologized. In order to move forward, you gotta forgive, says Parra. The county has committed $10,000 to the restoration. But Parra, Correa and Zuniga are hoping to raise at least $5,000 more, because even though they plan to work with a team of volunteers, costs add up quickly. That would give us the flexibility to make sure it was sealed properly, and whatever money we had left over would go over to Phase 2, the [remaining] 200 feet to continue the mural, says Correa. Starting April 27, theyre bringing in local muralists to start the linework. Then, they hope to get adults and kids in the neighborhood to help paint it and eventually get everyones input on how to complete Hernandez-Trujillos mural based on their vision of Atwoods future. Correa is proud that its the community leaders leading the charge, with the support of the city, the county and arts organizations. They hope to complete it by Fall 2019. And it all happened because of Velascos film. Had [we] not been there that day and not gotten a flat tire, all these things when you think about fate and how everything happens for a reason, we never would have met, says Zuniga, who says that her mother thinks it might even have been Parras grandmother who reached out to Hernandez-Trujillo to come paint the mural in Atwood. Im a minister so thats all God, says Correa. I love how this little documentary can provide a little bit of momentum to help with a [movement], says Velasco. Dancing With The Sun: The Artwork of Manuel Hernandez-Trujillo plays at the Newport Beach Film Festival at 5:30 p.m., April 30 at the Triangle theater 6. For more information on the mural restoration and how to donate or volunteer, go to atwoodmural.com. Support our coverage by becoming a digital subscriber. For more news and features about Orange County, visit TimesOC.com or follow us on Twitter @timesocofficial. The shooting massacre of 11 worshipers at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh Saturday was the deadliest attack on Jewish people in U.S. history. It is difficult not to see the attack which was carried out by a man whose social media posts made clear he wanted to eradicate Jews as the extreme tip of a trend. Anti-Semitism has always been present in American society, but in the last two years it has been especially visible. Jewish community centers around the country received dozens of bomb threats last year. The 2016 presidential campaign included anti-Jewish imagery. White supremacists have marched through the streets of Charlottesville, Va., with torches chanting, Jews will not replace us! Data show the problem getting worse. The number of anti-Semitic incidents and crimes has been rising rapidly after years of decline, though the most recent annual tallies are still below the peaks of the last two decades. Advertisement The Anti-Defamation League has tracked anti-Semitic incidents since 1979, drawing on reports from victims, police and news publications. The worst year was 1994, with 2,066 incidents. By 2013, the total fell to 751. It has been rising ever since, with the biggest all-time annual jump coming last year, when the tally climbed 57% to 1,986. The majority of those incidents were harassment, which rose 41% to 1,015 incidents, including 163 bomb threats against Jewish community centers and synagogues. Vandalism rose 86% to 952 cases. (Los Angeles Times) The number of physical assaults actually fell 47% from 36 to 19. Were not necessarily seeing a historic rise in anti-Semitism when you zoom out, said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino. But the anti-Semites and white supremacists are more emboldened. The FBI began monitoring hate crimes, including anti-Semitism, in 1992. It defines a hate crime as a criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offenders bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity. Hate crimes targeting Jews peaked at 1,013 in 2008 and declined to a low of 609 in 2014. The total increased the next year to 664 and again in 2016 to 684. The 2017 numbers are expected to be released next month. Anti-Semitic crime has risen and fallen with hate crime in general, consistently accounting for at least half of all those involving religion. The Southern Poverty Law Centers 2017 count of hate groups, released in February, showed that the number of white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups rose to 121 a 22% increase from the 99 a year earlier. Some of those groups, such as Vanguard America, took part in that summers Charlottesville rally, which jarred the country with one of the most public demonstrations of anti-Semitism and racism in decades. Most anti-Semitic incidents in the U.S. do not happen at large events or through deadly violence. Earlier this year, the Anti-Defamation League reported that 4.2 million anti-Semitic tweets were shared or re-shared in English on Twitter over a yearlong period ending in January. A lot of anti-Semitism has now gone from public spaces to virtual spaces, Levin said. We have a fragmentation of hate groups. We now have loners, autonomous actors and small local groups filling the gap where the largest groups had previously exerted some kind of prominence. Not anymore. The Anti-Defamation League and other civil rights groups have pointed out that the steep rise in anti-Semitic incidents corresponds to President Trumps rise to power and blame him for fueling anti-Jewish sentiment. The groups said the presidents anti-immigrant and anti-refugee pronouncements have emboldened white supremacist groups, which have embraced him. The president has also tweeted anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim memes from known extremists, including a campaign tweet that featured a symbol similar to the Star of David, images of cash and the phrase most corrupt candidate ever to describe Hillary Clinton. Late last year, Trump tweeted anti-Muslim videos from the far-right group Britain First, drawing condemnation from Prime Minister Theresa May. Activists said Trumps vilification of liberal philanthropist George Soros, whom he has accused of hiring people to protest conservative causes, has played into conspiracy theories about wealthy Jews. Trumps supporters deny that he has stoked hate, pointing out that hate crimes were already rising before he took office and that he has denounced anti-Semitism, most recently after the Pittsburgh shooting, and has a Jewish daughter and son-in-law. Trump adores Jewish Americans as part of his own family, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Monday. The president is scheduled to visit Pittsburgh on Tuesday. Amid the debate, one question has been whether the violence carried out by a small number of extremists represents more widespread feelings against Jews. One study suggested that such sentiments are limited and on the decline. A Pew Research Center survey last year found that of all major U.S. religious groups, Americans gave Jewish people the highest favorability ratings. In the survey, respondents rated Jewish people compared to Catholics, mainline Protestants, evangelical Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Mormons, atheists and Muslims. In the survey, which asked a representative group of 4,248 U.S. adults to evaluate religious groups on a feelings thermometer, in which warmer ratings corresponded to more positive views, Jews received a rating of 67 out of 100. That was an improvement over the last such poll. Jews and Catholics continue to be among the groups that receive the warmest ratings even warmer than in 2014, the report noted. More national headlines Soon after taking office this year, Democratic Gov. Janet Mills announced renovation plans for the Maine governors mansion: She wanted to add solar panels. The move was seen as a rebuke to her predecessor, Republican Gov. Paul LePage, whose administration put a moratorium on new wind turbines and enacted policies that critics say stymied solar energy in the state. Mills has moved quickly to scrap the turbine moratorium and signed a bill that would eliminate a LePage-era policy that put a fee on power generated by residential solar panels. Maine is among 11 states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, that either flipped the governors seat from Republican to Democratic or saw Democrats win newfound control over the Legislature in the 2018 midterm election. All have passed or are weighing legislation that would expand renewable energy in their states. Advertisement Driven by concerns about rising global greenhouse gas emissions, President Trumps rollback of the Obama administrations Clean Power Plan and his order to remove the United States from the Paris climate agreement, some states are turning to renewable energy targets and energy efficiency programs in hopes of addressing climate change. State legislatures have introduced at least 329 climate change bills this year that address greenhouse gas emissions, up from 188 in 2018 and 255 in 2017, according to an Associated Press tally of energy legislation monitored by the New Energy Economy at Colorado State University. About 30% of the bills come from states with new Democratic governors or legislative majorities such as Illinois and Connecticut, the AP tally found. Theres definitely a lot of push following the elections of folks wanting to really pursue renewable portfolio standards as a way to expand renewable energy and reduce carbon emissions, said Michael Bueno, energy and climate coordinator at the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators, a nonpartisan network of more than 1,000 state legislators nationwide. Maines new governor, for example, has vowed to get 100% of the states energy from renewables by 2050 and has announced subsidies to put 1,000 more electric vehicles on Maine roads. In New Mexico, Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed legislation requiring the state to get all of its electricity from carbon-free sources by 2045. California and Hawaii were the first states to commit to such carbon-free goals. In Illinois, one of the nations top producers of emissions, lawmakers are considering a bill to bring the state to 100% renewable energy by 2050 a target Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker endorsed on the campaign trail. New Hampshires Democratic-controlled Legislature passed bills allowing towns and other entities to build larger solar projects and shifting more than $12million from a regional cap-and-trade program into energy efficiency programs. A separate bill requiring utilities to procure 60% of their power from renewables by 2040 passed the Senate. New York, where Democrats now wield large majorities in both legislative bodies for the first time in a decade, is considering several initiatives to reduce climate-changing carbon emissions, including Gov. Andrew Cuomos proposal to move to 100% renewables by 2040. Renewable consumption nationwide reached nearly 11.5% in 2018, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and is projected to grow slightly over the next two years. But experts warn that a push at the state level to embrace clean energy is likely to run up against challenges. These include scaling up fast enough to meet the ambitious goals, upgrading the grid to accommodate more renewable energy and building the infrastructure to move green energy from remote areas to cities. Overcoming community opposition to large solar and wind farms is also an obstacle. Its not as easy [as just saying], 100% renewables job done. There is a lot of work, a lot of investment, a lot of physical construction that is going to be needed to make that happen, said John Quigley, director ofthe Center for Environment, Energy and Economy at Harrisburg University. Too many advocates gloss over the challenges. The push for renewables and limiting greenhouse emissions has also run up against stiff opposition from the fossil fuel industry, some utilities and Americans for Prosperity, the conservative advocacy group backed by billionaire brothers David H. Koch and Charles Koch. Many critics argue that a shift to renewables will increase energy prices for consumers and cost jobs. So far this year, the American Petroleum Institute has reported spending nearly $100,000 to lobby lawmakers in New Hampshire, New York, Colorado and Maine as those states debate bills addressing carbon pricing, higher renewable energy goals and emissions from oil and gas production, according to state lobbying reports. The institute has spent hundreds of thousands more dollars on ads fighting Colorados sweeping climate change bill targeting the oil and gas industry, according to reports filed with the Federal Communications Commission. Any proposal that would fundamentally reorder American energy and the way of life in this country should first be measured by its impacts on American consumers, the economy and the countrys opportunity for future prosperity, institute spokesman Reid Porter said in a statement. Bills around the country go beyond renewables. Theres legislation in Connecticut to help communities adapt to rising sea levels. And a bill in Illinois would address the disproportionate impact of climate change on low-income communities. Vicki Arroyo, executive director of the nonpartisan Georgetown Climate Center, which works with states to address climate change, said initiatives at the state and local level can drive investment in the renewables industry and prompt consumers to buy electric cars and make their homes more energy-efficient. Theres a sense of increasing urgency to tackle this problem, and theyre not seeing the leadership out of Washington that we need, Arroyo said. But she acknowledges that state measures would fall short of what the U.S. had promised under the Paris accord, with its goal of limiting global warming to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Other energy experts said the state efforts are a poor substitute for a global effort to transition to low-carbon energy systems for billions of people. They also doubted state efforts could influence a change in federal policy, as long as the Trump administration is in charge. State and local jurisdictions just dont have the policy levers that can do much, Case Western Reserve University law professor Jonathan Adler said. Former President Lyndon B. Johnsons daughters christened a stealthy warship bearing his name on Saturday, smacking Champagne bottles against a metal star symbolizing Texas as a crowd roared in approval. The bubbly liquid sprayed into the air when Lynda Bird Johnson Robb and Luci Baines Johnsonsimultaneously smashed their bottles as they stood on the ships bow. Afterward, red, white and blue streamers shot skyward. Robb said her Texas-born father would be honored to have his name on the futuristic ship because he always looked to the future. Daddy would be proud to have a stealthy ship thats looking forward, not backward at past things that have happened, but forward for the great things to come, Robb said Saturday. Advertisement The warships no-nonsense namesake was praised for his efforts to help the poor and to fight for equality in the civil rights era. Johnson signed the landmark Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act and designed the Great Society domestic programs that included federally sponsored social welfare programs. But his presidency was dogged by the Vietnam War. He died in 1973. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who attended with her states congressional delegation and other dignitaries, noted that Johnson, a Navy veteran, was thrust into the presidency in one of our darkest hours after the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963. The Civil Rights Act, she said, changed America and helped our nation realize its ideals of justice and equality for all. Robb said her father, the nations 36th president, would be thrilled that the warships crest contains a nod to three of his greatest accomplishments: the Great Society, civil rights and NASA. Outside the shipyard, police made several arrests when activists blocked a road while calling on the federal government to spend money to fight climate change instead of building warships. The 610-foot warship is the last in a class of three ships that are the largest and most technologically sophisticated destroyers built for the Navy. The destroyers feature wave-piercing hulls, an angular shape that reduces their radar signature, and electric propulsion. Automation has halved the crew size compared with other destroyers. Unlike its sister ships, the Zumwalt and the Monsoor, the Lyndon B. Johnson will have a deckhouse thats made of steel, not composite materials, to save money. The program, once envisioned at 32 ships, was so costly that the Navy truncated the program to just the three ships. The LBJ will undergo further outfitting and sea trials before its commissioned into service. They were brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal. And a married couple Sylvan and Bernice Simon. The youngest, David Rosenthal, was 54. The oldest, Rose Mallinger, was 97. They were among the 11 victims of a mass shooting in Pittsburgh whose bodies were found across three floors in the Tree of Life Synagogue, where three separate congregations were holding services at the time of Saturdays attack, federal authorities said Sunday. The county medical examiner described finding ammunition casings everywhere. The suspect, Robert Bowers, 46, of Pittsburgh, was arrested and charged late Saturday on 29 counts, including murder with a firearm, and several hate crime charges such as obstructing the exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death. Advertisement Bob Jones, FBI special agent in charge, said Sunday that the suspect remains under guard at a hospital. (Matt Rourke / Associated Press) The murder charges are punishable by death. The other charges are related to injuring officers. Bowers, who was shot and underwent surgery, remained in stable condition and under guard at a hospital, FBI Special Agent in Charge Bob Jones told reporters at a news conference Sunday. This is an awful, awful period for our Jewish community and especially for the families that have been affected, said Jeffrey Finkelstein, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh. Its real once you hear the names. Police say that about 9:50 a.m. Saturday, Bowers opened fire on Sabbath services at the synagogue in Pittsburghs historically Jewish Squirrel Hill neighborhood, killing 11 people and wounding six. Four officers were among the injured, and three remain in the hospital. Tree of Life Rabbi Jeffrey Myers said Bowers entered three minutes after the service began, killing seven of the 12 people in attendance before moving on to other parts of the building. Myers said he lay in bed Saturday night, staring at the ceiling and wondering, God, why us? My holy place has been defiled, he said. During the attack and subsequent firefight with officers, Bowers repeatedly stated his desire to kill Jewish people and made comments about genocide, including: Theyre committing genocide to my people. I just want to kill Jews, according to the Justice Departments charging document. The Anti-Defamation League, which has monitored anti-Semitism in the U.S. for more than a century, said Sunday that the mass shooting was the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history. Jones said authorities do not yet know why Bowers targeted the Tree of Life Synagogue or where and how Bowers obtained the AR-15 and three Glock .357 handguns used in the attack. Police barricades continued to block the streets surrounding the synagogue Sunday. Law enforcement is checking with neighbors for video surveillance of Bowers and the scene before the attack, Jones said. Officers from multiple cities have traveled to Pittsburgh, Jones said, and law enforcement may need up to a week to fully examine and process the crime scene. This was a large, complex crime scene, and much work remains to be done, Jones said. Members of the FBI continue to investigate the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh on Sunday. (Brendan Smialowski / AFP/Getty Images) Authorities searched Bowers apartment Saturday and his vehicle Sunday, Jones said, but he would not comment on what was found. The apartment is in Baldwin Borough, 12 miles from the synagogue. Bowers is scheduled to appear before a federal judge Monday afternoon. We will spare no effort or resource in ensuring that the defendant is held fully accountable for his unspeakable and hateful crimes, U.S. Atty. Scott Brady said. Dr. Karl Williams, chief medical examiner for Allegheny County, said three rabbis have worked with his staff to ensure the bodies are handled properly, but he could not say if the examinations would be completed so that they could be released for the timely burial required by Jewish custom. Bowers had a history of posting anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant statements on social media, including one moments before the first 911 calls were made Saturday. His posts specifically mention a Jewish-founded nonprofit that helps resettle refugees from around the world and works with Dor Hadash, one of the three congregations that meet in the synagogue. Dor Hadash member Jerry Rabinowitz, 66, was helping set up for the mornings services when he was killed. Another member, Dan Leger, was wounded. Michael Thompson, 58, of Squirrel Hill is a member of the Dor Hadash congregation. He wasnt at services Saturday but could hear the commotion from his home down the street. We just went outside sirens and we were trying to figure out what was going on, he said. It was crazy, the sirens, and it was still going on. He paused his recount with a gasp. The one who is in the hospital is the one who reads the name of the dead, he said, before apologizing and walking a few feet away. Its been a hard couple of days. President Trump has ordered flags on federal buildings to be flown at half-staff through Wednesday in solemn respect for the victims. At a rally Saturday, he condemned the shootings as pure evil and questioned how such a thing can happen in 2018. Trump told reporters Saturday that if there was an armed guard inside the temple, they would have been able to stop him. Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto called the attack one of the worst moments that we have experienced and pushed back on the presidents comments that an armed guard would have made a difference. Were dealing with irrational behavior; there is no way that you can rationalize a person walking into a synagogue during services and taking the lives of 11 people, Peduto said. We shouldnt be trying to find ways to minimize the dangers that occur from irrational behavior. We should be working to eliminate irrational behavior and the empowerment of people who would seek to cause this type of carnage from continuing. The approach that we need to be looking at is how we take the guns, which is the common denominator of every mass shooting in America, out of the hands of those that are looking to express hatred through murder. At an interfaith vigil attended by thousands in Pittsburgh on Sunday night, Myers urged American politicians to change their rhetoric. Ladies and gentlemen, it has to start with you as our leaders, Myers said to the dozen or so politicians who attended. My words are not intended as political fodder. If it comes from you, Americans will listen. At the vigil, city and religious leaders stressed that Pittsburghers would take care of their own. Wasi Mohamed, who leads the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh, said his members had already raised $70,000 for the victims families and even promised to stand guard outside synagogues if requested. Outside, rain poured over the thousands more sharing umbrellas and straining to hear the sound system. Melissa Casey, 39, of Pittsburgh sat in the rain for two hours, periodically passing her umbrella so parents could shield their small children. Theres something about being there, being present, she said through tears. I want them to know were here. This is Pittsburgh. Authorities released the following names of the shooting victims: Joyce Fienberg, 75, of the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh Richard Gottfried, 65, of Ross Township, Pa. Rose Mallinger, 97, of the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh Jerry Rabinowitz, 66, of Edgewood Borough, Pa. Cecil Rosenthal, 59, of Squirrel Hill David Rosenthal, 54, (brother of Cecil), of Squirrel Hill Bernice Simon, 84, of Wilkinsburg, Pa. Sylvan Simon, 86, (husband of Bernice), of Wilkinsburg Daniel Stein, 71, of Squirrel Hill Melvin Wax, 88, of Squirrel Hill Irving Younger, 69, of the Mount Washington neighborhood of Pittsburgh The latest from Washington More stories from Sarah D. Wire sarah.wire@latimes.com Follow @sarahdwire on Twitter UPDATES: 7:05 p.m.: This article was updated with additional reaction and details, including comments at a vigil. 10:40 a.m.: This article has been updated with additional details of the investigation. This article was originally posted at 8:40 a.m. Retired Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North said Saturday that he will not serve a second term as the president of the National Rifle Assn. amid turmoil in the gun rights groups leadership. In a statement read to members of the group Saturday, North said he believes a committee should be set up to review the NRAs finances. North was not present at the meeting when the statement was read by Richard Childress, the NRAs first vice president. There is a clear crisis, and it needs to be dealt with if the NRA is to survive, Norths statement said. RELATED: NRA sues city of L.A. over its new contract disclosure law Advertisement His announcement came after an effort by some members to force out top executive Wayne LaPierre, who has long been the public face of the group. LaPierre sent a letter to board members Thursday saying that North was trying to push him out by threatening to release damaging information about him to the board. North, best known for his role in the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s, is nearing the end of his first one-year term. His announcement that he will not serve a second term is a clear sign that his efforts to force out LaPierre have failed. LaPierre got two standing ovations from the crowd of more than 1,000 NRA members before giving a scheduled speech after Norths announcement. He began by using standard NRA talking points, going after the mainstream media and lawmakers who seek more restrictive gun laws. He did not mention his feud with North. Our enemies have sunk to new lows, LaPierre said, criticizing Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York, where regulators have scrutinized NRA operations. The group has sued the state, claiming its 1st Amendment rights are being violated. In an unusual pairing, the American Civil Liberties Union has joined the NRA in its fight. NRA officials are concerned that regulators in New York where its charter was filed are attempting to strip the group of its nonprofit status. LaPierre told the crowd that efforts to strip away the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms will fail. We wont accept it. We will resist it. We wont give an inch, he said. The top food stories from this week at the Los Angeles Times: Mesamerica, the kickoff event for this years monthlong Food Bowl festival, will take place at the Million Dollar Theater downtown. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times) TACOS AND MEZCAL Peter Meehan on what to expect at Mesamerica L.A., chef Enrique Olveras food symposium and the kickoff to this years Food Bowl. (For a $20 discount, enter Mesamerica2019 or go here.) Advertisement A grilled steak and chorizo taco at Sonoratown, a small taqueria in downtown Los Angeles. (Silvia Razgova / For the Times) AN ODE TO FLOUR TORTILLAS Patricia Escarcega sits down at Sonoratown, the terrific downtown taqueria, and finds excellent chivichangas, caramelos and handmade tortillas. LAPD and tacos (Raul Allen / For The Times) WHERE COPS EAT Jesse Pearson rides along with LAPD cops, chasing pimps and stolen cars and eating tacos. Beers, glorious (or not), beers. (Stephen Lurvey and Lucas Peterson for the Times) BEER POWER RANKINGS Lucas Kwan Peterson is back with his official power rankings, this time tackling domestic beer. The $22 Ironfire Outcast Dead Imperial Red Ale you like so much will not be found within this article. Meet the Philippe, Ronans calzone crossed with a French dip sandwich. (Lauren Lee / Los Angeles Times) A CALZONE APOLOGIST Bill Addison reviews Ronan, where he finds excellent calzones to pair with all that pizza. Food Bowl 2019 is here. Tickets are now on sale for the hundreds of events happening across the city in May. Go to lafoodbowl.com for a calendar, plus links for tickets. Whats coming? Our 5-day Night Market at Grand Park, which includes a Fried Chicken Party and an All-Star BBQ; the premier of Roy Chois Broken Bread show; and a dumpling tour of the SGV. We hope youll join us for #31daysoffood. Our 101 Restaurants We Love list for 2018 is out. The list incorporates restaurants and trucks from around Los Angeles and Orange County, in alphabetical order (no rankings this time). Plus theres a bonus list of 10 classic restaurants. Check us out on Instagram at @latimesfood. And dont forget the thousands of recipes in our California Cookbook recipe database. Feedback? Wed love to hear from you. Email us at food@latimes.com. Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It is Saturday, April 27. Before we get to the news, your dedicated Essential California tour guide, Ben Oreskes, has some news to share: When I first started at the Los Angeles Times, I remember a day that started near a horse farm on the verdant slopes of Woodland Hills and ended among skyscrapers in downtown Los Angeles. As I searched for some unifying theme for this city, the contrast disoriented me. How could all this be Los Angeles? It led me to a famed but maybe apocryphal line from the eminently quotable Dorothy Parker: Los Angeles is 72 suburbs in search of a city. Like Parker, I came here by way of New York City, and like the famed satirist, writing has always been a manic, terrifying process for me. Still, six days a week I produced a newsletter that hopefully brought some coherence to the storylines shaping this crazy state many of you call home. Advertisement After more than two years, this will be my last newsletter. During that time your tips, complaints and compliments made this process a pleasure, and the support of editors Shelby Grad and Scott Sandell made Essential California cogent. Through the links I shared and the memories I culled, I learned tons about my adopted home. The newsletter took me everywhere from Venice to Visalia, Auburn to Anaheim. I covered convulsions ofprotest in Berkeley and wildfires in Malibu. These stories sharpened my understanding of why California attracts so much attention and lives on in the imagination of so many people who moved away or never even lived here in the first place. During the Woolsey fire I wandered through the charred wreckage of Malibu homes thinking about how this community could come back. The world knows of Malibu and its stars, but what about the lifers who dont live in the fancy homes hidden from public view? Atop Point Dume, I met one of these natives a former Marine who spent those trying days calling out spot fires on a radio. His friends would take his calls and ride their motorcycles in an effort to help firefighters. Robert Spangle monitors the Woolsey fire from Point Dume. (Benjamin Oreskes / Los Angeles Times) That story made its way into this newsletter along with so many others. This little slice of your inbox will continue to be a venue for great journalism when my friend Julia Wick takes over Essential California on Monday. Ill allow her to fill you in on some of the changes coming, but know that youre in great hands. Finally, I want to share an email I recently received. I neglected to specify that Essential California starts my online day, Marylee from Turlock wrote. The stories you choose are of great interest, and provide a segue into the L.A. Times, to which I would not have subscribed had it not been for the connection provided by your excellent publication. This flattering comment stuck with me. I always thought of the newsletter as a front door into The Times a paper that has so much to offer. Our brightest days are ahead of us. My time on the newsletter coincided with internal tumult that went beyond the well-documented demise of print journalism. Too often we were the story. Now, though, under new management and ownership, we have a reinvigorated sense of mission to tell the tales that animate this state. That doesnt happen unless readers like you pay for our work. So on my last day of writing this newsletter, I humbly ask you to subscribe, if you havent already. Your dollars will go a long way toward sustaining the mission of the Los Angeles Times and guaranteeing that great stuff like the Essential California newsletter sticks around for years to come. Through the years, this newsletter thrived because of the great work of so many other journalistic outlets big and small. Our states outlets have been hit hard by layoffs, but I saw everyday all the great journalism done by my colleagues in other newsrooms. So I hope you support their vital work as well. You can still find me at benjamin.oreskes@latimes.com or (213) 238-8436. Ill still be telling your stories. So please reach out and let me know where I should be looking. Onward, Ben Your longtime Essential California author standing on an empty 110 Freeway in 2018 after a rapper named Dephree climbed atop a sign and brought traffic to a screeching halt. (Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times) TOP STORIES Pot connections: Few local politicians have championed marijuana as loudly as Aide Castro. She says the drug was crucial to treating a thyroid condition. And as a Lynwood city councilwoman, she was the driving force behind that citys decision more than two years ago to become one of the first in Los Angeles County to embrace the newly legalized industry. But while she was helping approve Lynwoods cannabis regulations, Castro was also quietly making money from the industry, a Times investigation found. Los Angeles Times Complicating matters: Los Angeles Fire Department officials said their response to the massive Woolsey fire was complicated by requests from local politicians, according to a document reviewed by The Times. A significant number of requests by political figures to check on specific addresses of homes to ensure their protection distracted from Department leadership to accomplish priority objectives, according to the LAFDs after-action review on the most destructive blaze in Los Angeles Countys modern history. Los Angeles Times About those high gas prices: The governor of California was frustrated. Seeking answers to why the states motorists were digging ever deeper into their wallets to fill up the gas tank, he called for a special investigation. Thats what Gov. Gavin Newsom did last week. And its the same action then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger took almost exactly 13 years ago. So what did the 2006 investigation reveal about the high cost of gas in California? Not much. Los Angeles Times Get the Essential California newsletter AROUND CALIFORNIA Measles outbreak: Los Angeles County health officials told more than 1,000 college students and staff members who might have been exposed to measles to stay home this week, in one of the largest quarantine orders in state history. Los Angeles Times A shift in the trend: The Southern California median home price dipped slightly in March from a year earlier, the first annual decrease since 2012 and a sign of a remarkable downshift from the once-sizzling regional housing market. Los Angeles Times Lotta moola: An Orange County jury awarded $2 million in damages this week to a UC Irvine neurosurgeon who alleged in a lawsuit that the University of California Board of Regents and the former dean of UCIs School of Medicine violated whistleblower protection laws when he was retaliated against for filing a grievance against his supervisors. Los Angeles Times Wow! The U.S. Navy is drafting new guidelines for reporting UFOs. Politico More on the controversy: Luke Walton wrote the foreword in accuser Kelli Tennants book. Heres what he said. Sacramento Bee Bittersweet ending: The Clippers season ended Friday at Staples Center with a 129-110 loss to the two-time defending champion Golden State Warriors in Game 6, but columnist Helene Elliott says their time to shine as a team is just beginning. Los Angeles Times THIS WEEKS MOST POPULAR STORIES IN ESSENTIAL CALIFORNIA 1. The mystery of Business Casual. The Atlantic 2. Just how hard is it to fight a parking ticket in L.A.? Heres one Angelenos story. Los Angeles Times 3. L.A. Countys homeless population is growing but not as fast as theyre dying. Los Angeles Times 4. The Wing lands in Los Angeles. The Hollywood Reporter 5. Bavel is our 2019 Restaurant of the Year. Los Angeles Times ICYMI, HERE ARE THIS WEEKS GREAT READS Amazing story: A sixth-grader was sick of coloring. So she skipped six grades to attend Cal State L.A. Los Angeles Times One womans tale: Breast cancer stalked every woman in her family. She was determined it wouldnt get her. Los Angeles Times Behind the story: For a daughter of immigrants, a story stirs up memories of her own family. Los Angeles Times Wild: How a hijacked listing for one of L.A.s most expensive homes led to a $60-million lawsuit. Los Angeles Times Ruff ruff: Men are dogs, some more so than others. There are those, for example, who wear puppy hoods, harnesses, chain collars and tails while out and about. Sometimes they appear in packs. While hardly as mainstream as walking the red carpet with kink-adjacent accouterments, dressing up doggy style has become more visible in San Francisco and beyond. New York Times A fires unfathomable toll: The Shepherds followed their dreams to a ridge in Mendocino County. In a flash of flame, everything changed. San Francisco Chronicle Plus: Students live in tents, do homework under flashlights and deal without textbooks months after Californias massive Camp fire. BuzzFeed Quick plug: Before you go, check out this great new song by a local musician named Petey. Soundcloud Please let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful to you. Send comments, complaints and ideas to Benjamin Oreskes and Shelby Grad. Also follow them on Twitter @boreskes and @shelbygrad. A growth story that speaks volumes Updated: 2019-04-26 07:37 (HK Edition) More Chinese writers are being translated into English than ever before, and HK's own translators, magazine editors and literary agents have significant roles in this advancement. Melanie Ho reports. When Natascha Bruce decided to try her hand at Chinese translation, it was Hong Kong author Dorothy Tse who piqued her interest. Bruce's translation of Tse's short story "Chickens" went on to be a joint winner of the Bai Meigui translation competition in 2015. "Dorothy is playful and sinister at the same time, which are two of my favorite qualities in a writer," Bruce says. "She creates familiar, domestic worlds and then pushes them to unsettling, sometimes hideous, extremes." British-born Bruce was based in Hong Kong for a few years until recently, working closely with Chinese writers from Taiwan, Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland. An extract from her translation of the Malaysian writer Ho Sok Fong's Lake Like a Mirror won the 2017 PEN Presents East & Southeast Asia Prize. The translated book was out in November, published by Granta. Now living in Santiago, Chile, Bruce says part of what made Tse exciting to read - and translate - was Tse's ability to keep her readers guessing. "A year or so ago, Nicky Harman and I co-translated a story of hers called "Fish Tank Creatures", excerpted from A Dictionary of Two Cities, about an unnamed city where men are kidnapped on their way to work, stored in tanks in shopping mall basements, and sold to bored housewives as pets," Bruce says. "It's hard to guess how Dorothy's stories are going to end, or even how they're going to twist in the middle." Tse is one among a growing tribe of Hong Kong writers whose writing is available in English translation. Others include Hon Lai-chu, Chan Ho-kei and Xi Xi, who recently won the Newman Prize for Chinese Literature. In the reckoning "I don't have sales or publication figures at my disposal so this may not be the full picture, but it certainly feels as if there is a larger conversation happening around Chinese literature," says Jeremy Tiang, an author and Chan Ho-kei's translator. Tiang is also the managing editor of Pathlight, an English-language literary magazine focused on new writing from China. "Part of this may be China's increasing influence on the world stage. It may also be down to publishers waking up to the variety of Chinese literature available - moving beyond the big names and seeking out hidden gems such as Wu Ming-Yi (The Stolen Bicycle, translated by Darryl Sterk). There are also more agents working with Chinese writers." The reasons behind the wave of interest in Chinese literature in translation may be difficult to pinpoint just yet, but for Anya Goncharova, editor at Penguin Random House North Asia, such growth is welcomed with open arms. Goncharova describes the Chinese literature in translation titles published under the Penguin "Specials" series - slim books of 150 pages or less - as "a primer into another world" that "allows us to share the joy of reading Chinese literature". "The more translated fiction there is, the closer we get to representing the world we live in," she adds. Goncharova, who oversaw the publication of the English translation (by the Hong Kong-based translator team of Jane Weizhen Pan and Martin Merz) of Su Tong's Petulia's Rouge Tin as well as Goodnight, Rose by Chi Zijian (translated by Poppy Toland), says she thinks ultimately the aim is "to one day reach the point where translated fiction is not just a bookstore category". There seems to be a concerted effort in that direction. "The excellent translator-activists at Paper Republic (a free online platform for showcasing new Chinese writing in English translation, complete with writers' and translators' directories) make up a roll call of published Chinese-to-English literary translations each year, and every year since 2012 they've been able to declare it more of a bumper crop than the last - there were something like 15 book-length fiction titles in 2012, compared with 40 last year," Bruce says. Small packages Such momentum could lead to further opportunities for Chinese literature in translation to reach greater audiences. "I think there's more openness and understanding about translated literature than there was, in some circles, but still not enough," says Poppy Toland, who translated Goodnight, Rose. "There is only a very small proportion of translated literature available to English-speaking readers." Evidently, Chinese literature needs to cover a vast swathe of ground if it is to compete with literature in some of the European languages for a place in the Anglophone market. According to a report in Publishers Weekly, translated titles from Spanish, French and German were the most popular in the United States in 2018. A total of 101 titles translated from Spanish arrived in the US market compared to 22 translated from Chinese (excluding retranslations and UK-only titles). Still, the volume of Chinese literature in English translation is on the ascendant, as Bruce's comment indicates, and the stakeholders are keen to reduce the gap. Come summer, Penguin will publish five Specials by Chinese authors, including The Way Back Home by Ai Wei, translated by Alice Xin Liu and Running by Zhe Gui, translated by Ana Padilla Fornieles. Among the forthcoming titles Tiang is particularly looking forward to are Ho Sok Fong's Lake Like a Mirror, in Bruce's translation and White Horse by the UK-based Chinese author Yan Ge translated by Harman. Widening vistas Marysia Juszczakiewicz, founder of Hong Kong's Peony Literary Agency, feels the next wave of Chinese literature to attract widespread attention will be written by a younger generation of writers who had the opportunity to travel and get educated outside of China. "They will often be writing in English, sometimes a mix of the two languages (Chinese and English). They will be able to cross that cultural bridge and write stories that are perhaps a little more accessible to an international audience as they can see and understand both sides - China and the West," she says. Says Tiang: "There have certainly been spikes of interest that one could describe as trends - Liu Cixin and Hao Jingfang in science fiction, Jin Yong's wuxia epics - but more importantly, I would say we're seeing a broader range of books being translated from Chinese, which is great." Having a wider range of translated books to choose from is important so that, as Bruce says, readers have a greater chance of coming across a book that resonates with them. "I think there's an increased willingness among English readers to read in translation, and therefore to consider books translated from Chinese that seem like they might align with their interests - be that dragon adventure stories, fast-paced contemporary family dramas, or off-beat literary fiction," she says. "Of course reading stories told from Chinese perspectives can also be part of the draw, but I love the idea that readers get to be choosy about it." Hong Kong can continue to be a part of this growing trend. While it may be easier for English-language publishers to work with Hong Kong authors writing in English, it's equally important to consider translations of Hong Kong's Chinese language writers. As Bruce says: "Keeping a balance is extremely important, I think." (HK Edition 04/26/2019 page16) The reckless use of jailhouse informants by the Orange County district attorneys office and the Orange County Sheriffs Department ruined numerous criminal prosecutions and substantially undermined faith in the countys criminal justice system. For four years, the state attorney generals office has been investigating how that came to pass, and Californians are well within their rights to expect Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra to produce a report on his findings and a set of recommendations for repairing the damage. We ought to have a final accounting of which prosecutors and deputies set up which snitches in which jail cells to obtain incriminating evidence against which already charged defendants, in effect duping them into testifying against themselves without their attorneys present. Or perhaps the attorney general considers that too much to ask, given that his offices probe begun in 2015 under Kamala Harris before she left to take her seat in the U.S. Senate was a criminal investigation and therefore limited in scope. In that case, Becerra at least ought to come forward with an account of his findings. At this point, though, wed consider it a step forward if he just said anything about the matter at all. Instead, all weve gotten from Becerras office on the jail-snitch scandal is a deputy attorney generals surprise statement in court earlier this month that the probe has been closed. Becerra hasnt provided any details or responded to requests for comment. Advertisement All weve gotten from Becerras office is a deputy attorney generals surprise statement in court earlier this month that the probe has been closed. So in the end, its not clear just what, if anything, the California attorney general did to get to the bottom of the fiasco. Now Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer is starting his own investigation, and good for him. He ought to be able to find out how his own office (under his predecessor, Tony Rackauckas) contributed to a pattern of misconduct that led to a number of otherwise valid criminal prosecutions being thrown out. Of course, theres a built-in conflict in investigating ones own office, and it could cut in either direction: Critics might wonder whether Spitzer was being less than thorough in an effort to protect his troops, but theres an equal concern that he could be overzealous, given the fact that the scandal occurred under Rackauckas, Spitzers longtime adversary whom he defeated late last year. But with the radio silence from Becerras office on an issue of fundamental importance to the criminal justice system in Orange County, what else can he do? The breadth of the jailhouse-informant program was revealed amid the partially botched prosecution of Scott Dekraai, the confessed killer of six women and two men in a 2011 mass shooting at a Seal Beach hair salon where his former wife worked. Dekraai ultimately pleaded guilty. But in the penalty phase, defense attorney Scott Sanders charged that sheriffs deputies had housed his client with an informant in an attempt to improperly obtain statements that would support a death penalty. Subsequent testimony revealed a long-running program by prosecutors and sheriffs deputies to improperly elicit statements from jailed defendants. Use of undercover jailhouse informants is a bad practice but it is legal except when the defendant has already been charged, and the snitch actively tries to elicit the statements. Orange County sheriffs deputies gave snitches incentives to elicit incriminating statements. Prosecutors are alleged to have used the information without disclosing to defense lawyers how they got it a violation of the 6th Amendment of the Constitution. Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute Because of prosecutorial misconduct, Orange County Superior Court Judge Thomas Goethals took the death penalty off the table for Dekraai. Dozens of other cases have been affected as well. No prosecutors or deputies have been disciplined for misconduct, at least as far as we know. It appears none will be prosecuted at least not by Becerra. There remains a federal investigation. Spitzer said he had turned over evidence in the snitch scandal to the U.S. Department of Justice. Meanwhile, what has Becerra been doing? He leads an office that should be at the forefront of issues of utmost importance to Californians: justice system integrity, law enforcement accountability, prosecutorial misconduct. When local agencies fail or fall short in prosecutions or investigations, the state attorney general should stand ready to hold them to task. This time, its the attorney general who appears, so far, to have fallen short. Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook To the editor: For some reason that I cannot understand, everyone seems to have forgotten that the title of Justice Department special counsel Robert S. Mueller IIIs report is, Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election. (Impeachment isnt a criminal proceeding, its a political one, Opinion, April 23) Forget about collusion or conspiracy, and forget about obstruction of justice (President Trump almost certainly obstructed justice, based on a fair reading of the report). Muellers investigation has found, without question, that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion. What has Trump done about this? Practically nothing. For a while he wouldnt even admit that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 election for fear that it would diminish his great electoral victory. Trump has failed to protect the United States from an obvious threat. For this alone, the president needs to be impeached. Advertisement Marc Weiner, Ladera Ranch .. To the editor: I can just see Trump thanking the Democratic presidential candidates who support impeachment. Being despised by liberals and playing the victim are exactly what appeals not only to his base, but also to many of the undecided voters who will make all the difference in 2020. Trump is craftier than his opponents like to think, and he knows how to take advantage of their attacks on him. As Franklin Roosevelt famously observed, Never underestimate a man who overestimates himself. Impeachment is exactly what Trump wants. Spencer Grant, Laguna Beach .. To the editor: By reminding readers that impeachment is a political process and not a criminal one, columnist Jonah Goldberg feeds a popular misunderstanding by conflating two meanings of political: partisanship and the art of governing. When Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 65 that impeachment is political, he was referring to the abuse or violation of some public trust in governing. He also warned that the Senates judgment may be influenced by partisanship rather than address the real determinations of innocence or guilt. Partisanship may influence the Senate, just as it can influence the Supreme Court. Nonetheless, the framers hoped that in judging political threats to the republic, the Senate would be less partisan than the House, which initiates impeachment and is more connected to the people. Brook Thomas, Irvine .. To the editor: The decision the Democrats face on impeachment is a political one. For the House of Representatives, its a constitutional one. If the evidence points to Trumps guilt, the House must move forward with impeachment. The Constitution demands this. A decision not to proceed would have to be considered a political one. By all means, the House should continue with its investigations, but if their investigations point to impeachment, the decision should be a constitutional decision, not a political one. Maintaining the rule of law is important, and it appears this president doesnt have any idea what that means. Judy Ferguson, Laguna Niguel .. To the editor: There is one alternative to impeachment that could hold Trump accountable: a vote of censure in Congress. The Democrats can assemble a list of horribles from the Mueller report and conduct hearings and investigations. The Republicans will have to decide if they really want to deny the truth of Trumps misdeeds. Some Republicans may even vote for censure when they would never vote for impeachment. Thus, the Democrats can say they have not ignored their constitutional duty. Carlton Martz, Redlands Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook To the editor: The U.S. Supreme Court should set straight a devout funeral home manager who contends that an employees transgender status gives religious adherents cause to fire her. Consider how funeral homes routinely lay to rest our nations deceased military heroes. Should they be allowed to assert religious beliefs to refrain from entombing fallen transgender vets? Many of these stalwart souls have rendered honorable military service. They typically opt for standard Veterans Administration headstones that dont display the birth name, but rather the names indicative of the gender under which they served. This is yet another reason why the high court should rebuke the funeral home appellant. Whether transgender people are civilian employees or military service members, they should not suffer faith-based discrimination. Advertisement Kendra Strozyk, Cameron Park, Calif. .. To the editor: You wrongly conflate interpreting the Constitution with interpreting legislation, in this case whether the 1964 Civil Rights Acts prohibition of sex discrimination protects transgender people. Regarding the Constitution, the courts generally take into account the difficulty, if not impossibility, of amending it in their effort to keep up with changing social norms. But when it comes to applying legislative action, it is not necessary to contort or even stretch the terms to achieve a desired result. Sex can actually mean sex and not gender or whatever the lawmakers might intend if they were around today. Twenty-one states have not had difficulty in adopting laws prohibiting discrimination in the workplace against gay, lesbian and transgender people. This is not the first time federal says one thing, and various state laws say something much broader on a particular subject. George A. Vandeman, Playa del Rey Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook Joe Bidens entry into the Democratic race for president opens the way for a debate his party and the country both need: a serious argument about foreign policy. Sooner or later, Bernie Sanders will point out just as he did in 2016, when he ran against Hillary Clinton that hes the only candidate in the race who voted against the Iraq war when Congress voted in 2002. That will put the onus on Biden, the only candidate who voted in favor of authorizing the war. (None of the 18 others were in Congress at the time.) Biden likely will call his vote a mistake, as he did in 2005. But that shouldnt end the discussion. The question shouldnt be how candidates voted 17 years ago, but how they would operate now as commander in chief. How will they choose the next time a decision arises over whether to use military force? Advertisement And more: How would they restore the alliances President Trump has trashed? Would they try to pacify the unruly Middle East? Constrain a resurgent China? Reverse a worldwide erosion of democracy and the rise of authoritarianism? Trump has upended traditional U.S. foreign policy. Hes pulled out of the Paris climate accord and the Iran nuclear accord. Hes waffled on whether he would honor NATO commitments on mutual defense of allies. Hes gotten tough on China, which is good. But hes gone soft on Russias Vladimir Putin, North Koreas Kim Jong Un and almost every other authoritarian leader hes met, which is not. Voters in 2016 couldnt foresee Trumps foreign policy because he barely discussed it except for vowing to force Mexico to pay for a border wall (that never happened), stepping up the war on Islamic State (Trump did that) and negotiating better trade deals (were still waiting for most of those). In 2020, Trump will run as an incumbent, boasting that he is the most successful president of modern times. Democrats ought to make foreign policy part of their rebuttal. Most voters dont like Trumps unconventional style of diplomacy; his job approval on foreign policy stands at about 42%. Public support for the NATO military alliance remains high. Most Americans say they think trade agreements are good for the economy, no matter what Trump says. Moreover, Democratic candidates arent deeply divided on foreign policy: They all want to wind down the endless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; rebuild NATO and other traditional alliances; rejoin international efforts to deal with climate change; and defend democracy and human rights around the world. The Democratic Party isnt tearing itself apart over foreign policy the way it has in previous cycles, Derek Chollet, a former White House aide in the Obama administration, told me. There are debates, but theyre not white hot the way they were in 2008. Still, the nuances are worth exploring. Biden comes from the liberal internationalist tradition. He was an early champion of U.S. intervention in the civil war in Bosnia, a step President Clinton took in 1995 to stop the slaughter. But Biden wasnt reflexively interventionist; in the Obama White House, he argued that U.S. forces in Afghanistan should be drawn down as early as 2009 advice Obama rejected at the time. In contrast, Sanders prides himself on his record as a non-interventionist. Except for one vote to authorize the use of military force against Al Qaeda after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he has opposed every U.S. military intervention in this century. Other candidates fall somewhere in between, but all call for fewer military commitments and more diplomacy. That doesnt mean a retreat from American leadership, argues Pete Buttigieg, whos running in part on his experience as a former Navy officer in Afghanistan. We have to participate in a world order, he said recently. We can either resent the rest of the world or we can lead it. But we cannot do both. There are plenty other detailed questions the candidates should be asked. Would they continue the current light footprint war against terrorist groups, including Special Forces units and drone attacks from Africa to Yemen and Pakistan? Would they seek to reduce defense spending, now at record levels? Would they seek to rejoin the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the 12-country trade deal Obama negotiated and Trump abandoned? Biden defended the TPP as vice president, but most other Democrats dont back it. Would they reduce U.S. aid to Israel in response to its expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank, as Sanders has suggested? Would they pull all U.S. troops from Syria, as Trump announced but never did. We dont know, mostly because no one has asked. When CNN staged five hours of town hall discussions with five candidates last week, its moderators asked a grand total of three questions about the rest of the world. The campaign is an opportunity to debate what U.S. foreign policy should be in an era of growing skepticism about the international order. Americans are not isolationists, but theyre no longer willing to pay any price in pursuit of U.S. leadership. Its up to the candidates to explain their views but its also up to television moderators and debate panelists to ask the right questions. This time, voters should know what theyre getting before they choose. Texas officials announced Friday that they had settled a lawsuit over a bungled search for ineligible voters that President Trump stoked over Twitter, but that resulted in the U.S. citizenship of thousands of people being wrongly called into question. The agreement officially ends a botched scouring of Texas voter rolls that began in January and was beset by deeply flawed data. It flagged nearly 100,000 registered voters, but wrongly captured naturalized citizens, and a federal judge who halted the search in February noted in his order that only about 80 people to that point had been identified as potentially ineligible to vote. The problems with the list were discovered within days, but not before Trump seized on the reports out of Texas to renew his unsubstantiated claims of rampant voter fraud in the U.S. It made for another volatile chapter in Texas voting battles that have simmered for a decade. Those have included federal judges finding racial discrimination in voting maps and voter ID laws created by Republicans, though the state later prevailed on appeals. In February, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery of San Antonio called Texas search for non-citizen voters a solution looking for a problem and said there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud. Advertisement The settlement requires Texas to change how it investigates voter citizenship and pay $450,000 in fees to civil rights groups that brought the lawsuit. This settlement brings an end to a deplorable Texas farce, in which state leaders shamelessly lied about alleged widespread fraud by Latino and other immigrants, grabbing headlines and national attention, said Thomas A. Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which represented some U.S. citizens who were wrongly flagged by the state. Texas Secretary of State David Whitley said the agreement ensures the same mistakes wont happen again under new procedures for questioning voter citizenship. The state originally claimed that 58,000 people on the list had voted in at least one election since 1996. But significantly, Texas officials failed to exclude voters who legally cast ballots only after becoming naturalized citizens. Going forward, Texas agreed to only flag individuals who indicate they are not U.S. citizens when applying for a drivers license or a state ID, yet had previously registered to vote. Todays agreement accomplishes our offices goal of maintaining an accurate list of qualified registered voters while eliminating the impact of any list maintenance activity on naturalized U.S. citizens, Whitley said in a statement. The settlement might be too late to save Whitleys job. He was appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott in December, but Democrats in the Texas Senate have spent months blocking Whitleys confirmation over his office not properly vetting the list and referring the names to election fraud prosecutors. Whitley must be confirmed before the Texas Legislature adjourns in May or Abbott will have to appoint a new chief elections officer. Texas continues to aggressively pursue alleged cases of voter fraud. On Thursday, a Texas mayor on the U.S.-Mexico border was arrested and charged with trying to cheat his way into office through an illegal voting scheme. Edinburg Mayor Richard Molina faces three felony charges. A city spokesman says the mayor denies any wrongdoing. The Burbank Public Library is working on a compilation of short stories that will not be published in a book, but instead be available through wherever people get their podcasts. Earlier this month, the library launched rememBURBANK, a monthly podcast hosted by history librarian Janae Kambestad, who tells short stories about 10 minutes in length each about significant and interesting events that have occurred in Burbank. The inaugural episode was about President John F. Kennedy attending the John Burroughs High School prom in 1963, an event that Kambestad did not know about and found interesting. I stumbled across, through the digital public Library of America, these photos of JFK at the prom, Kambestad said. Why did he go to this prom? There was no explanation. Curious about the photos, Kambestad started doing research about the event and found out that John Burroughs school officials had booked the ballroom at the Beverly Hilton. However, the president was going to be at the hotel at the same time as the prom, but for a fundraiser for the State Democratic Central Committee, and a new location needed to be found for the prom. When the hotel told the students they needed to move their event to accommodate the president, many of the students were upset. One of the students told her uncle, who happened to work for the Los Angeles Times, and a story ran about how Burroughs students were being displaced because of the fundraiser. Word about the prom finally reached President Kennedy, who decided that the fundraiser would be held in a smaller conference room at the hotel and allowed the high school students to use the ballroom. As a gesture of kindness, the students invited Kennedy to their prom. The president accepted and spent a few minutes at the event, thus resulting in the photos. After learning about the president at the prom, Kambestad started finding out about other stories that have taken place in Burbank over the years and thought that sharing them through podcasts would be a great way to engage with the community, especially history buffs. She pitched the idea to the Friends of the Burbank Public Library, and the organizations members loved the idea. They gave her a grant to pay for recording equipment to turn the idea into a reality. As a self-proclaimed podcast junkie herself, Kambestad said she was excited to create her own podcasts after years of listening to others. To listen to a story is a lot different than to read a story, she said. Theres room to add more to a story. If I wrote [the Kennedy story] in a blog piece, I couldnt have added the recording of JFK at the prom in the story. I could have linked to it, but thats just an extra step that readers would have to do. rememBURBANK can be streamed and downloaded on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or other streaming services. Support our coverage by becoming a digital subscriber. anthonyclark.carpio@latimes.com Twitter: @acocarpio About 200 sailboats went with the wind, such as it was, on Friday morning at the start of the 72nd annual Newport to Ensenada International Yacht Race. The tradition featured boats departing in staggered starts near the Balboa Pier for about two hours, most of them bound for Ensenada, Baja California, about 125 nautical miles south. Smaller fields took short courses to Dana Point and San Diego. 88-year-old boat and its 91-year-old skipper bring dash of cheer to Newport to Ensenada yacht race Skies were blue for the start, but other conditions might not help sailors set records, with light winds forecast at 6 to 9 knots from the south or southwest. Support our coverage by becoming a digital subscriber. Michael Dane Ward, a 46-year-old La Canada man charged in 2016 with 10 felony counts related to the molestation of two young children, was sentenced Tuesday to life in state prison, according to a statement released by the district attorneys office. In August of 2017, jurors found the former Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department psychologist guilty of four counts of lewd acts on a child, two counts of forcible lewd acts on a child under 14, three counts of oral copulation of a child 10 years or younger and one count of sodomy with a child under 10, according to the statement. The victims, a boy and a girl described as family members, were both under the age of 10 at the time the assaults occurred, between October 2013 and November 2015. Both victims testified against Ward at a trial prosecuted by Deputy District Atty. Guillermo Santiso of the district attorneys Sex Crimes Division. On Monday, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Lisa Lench sentenced Ward to 98 years to life in prison. Ward, whose work with the Sheriffs Department had involved advising and training law enforcement officers, was relieved of his duty when he was arrested by the departments Special Victims Bureau, the Los Angeles Times reported. sara.cardine@latimes.com Twitter: @SaraCardine Hello, my name is John Cherwa and welcome back to our horse racing newsletter, as we get a handicapping lesson from Rob Henie. Things are starting to heat up in Louisville for next Saturdays Kentucky Derby. You can look for coverage both online and in the print editions of The Times starting daily on Monday, when I arrive. Ive covered a lot of events in my career, but no city does price gouging on hotels like Louisville for the Derby. Strangely, hotels for the Breeders Cup are reasonably priced. Anyway, until then, here are some bits and pieces to satiate your Derby appetite. A lot of them were culled from the notes team at Churchill Downs and Ed Golden at Santa Anita, plus some video help from the tireless Jennie Rees. -- Roadster and Game Winner, both for Bob Baffert, worked Friday at Santa Anita. Martin Garcia rode both colts, and Roadster did six furlongs in 1:13.80 and Game Winner went seven furlongs in 1:27. Advertisement I loved the way he went, Baffert said of Roadster to Golden. Martin said he felt great and didnt take a deep breath. Thats one thing about this horse hell go a mile and a quarter. We just dont know how fast. He handles a deep track, and the really good ones will do that. Baffert was full of praise for Game Winner too. Game Winner looked awesome, he said. Both horses travel to Louisville on Saturday, joining Improbable. -- Omaha Beach was scheduled to work Friday, but when the track came up wet, trainer Richard Mandella decided to delay the work a day. Jockey Mike Smith was scheduled to come in and work the colt. Omaha Beach did gallop 1 miles. I think I will have a better chance [to breeze] tomorrow, Mandella said. I called Mike [Smith] and told him not to come in. I have [Julien Leparoux] lined up for whenever he works. -- Bafferts Improbable galloped 1 miles Friday. Hes looking good, hes focused, going over the track well, said Bafferts chief assistant, Jimmy Barnes. Hes doing very well in the gate. Were running him fit basically because he had the whole winter off. Sometimes it takes horses three to four races to be fit. Were heading in the right direction. Jennie Rees has some videos for you to watch, too. -- Mandella on Omaha Beach. (Part 1 and Part 2, on his quarter crack) -- Florent Geroux and agent Doug Breder discuss getting the mount on Roadster. (Here it is.) Weekly handicapping lesson Its time for our weekly handicapping lesson from Rob Henie of the WCHR (West Coast Handicapping Report) and the ECHR (East Coast Handicapping Report). The thinking is if you can know and understand the strategies, it will make you a better handicapper. Todays lesson is from the fourth race at Santa Anita. Take it away, Rob. Its an optional claimer at 1 miles. My top selection is SURFING STAR (#6). Whether looking at debut runners or horses off a layoff, the most important question is, Is he or she well meant? The answer with regard to this one is, absolutely. He doesnt show up on a regular basis, often the case with runners by Bruce Headleys former stakes winner, Surf Cat, thus, they need a good effort, each and every time they show up, not knowing if theyll be able to get another effort from him any time soon. If thats the case, the fact hes being sent 1 miles tells us theyre not exactly giving him the race, but rather, getting right to the heart of what he wants, over this ultra-long distance. The drills are reminiscent of what we used to see for so many years from Bruce, longer drills, with that most recent slow work, a great sign, telling us they needed nothing more from him while awaiting this next start. SINGLE. Hot / Cold Race Trends: none Win Contenders (order of preference): 6-3 X Out Runners (eliminating on the win end): none TOP PICK: SURFING STAR (#6 5-2 Gryder) SECOND CHOICE: ROUTE SIX SIX (#3 7-2 Talamo) The West Coast Handicapping Report can be found at www.westcoasthorseracing.com It has been endorsed by leading trainers, handicappers and industry sources. Santa Anita review Fridays feature was a five-furlong allowance/optional claimer for fillies and mares on the turf. It was worth $69,000 under the new purse structure. Gliding Bay ran just off the lead and then went three-wide entering the stretch and rolled to a 1-length victory under Flavien Prat. Richard Baltas is the trainer. She won going 6 furlongs down the hill [two starts back], but Ive been running her long a lot and shes a sprinter, Baltas told Mike Willman of Santa Anita. Going into this, I thought five furlongs might be a little short for her, but I think horses tell you sometimes what they want. Gliding Bay paid $5.60, $3.40 and $2.40. Littlefirefighter was second and Moon Kitty was third. Santa Anita preview Saturdays nine-race card is not too bad, especially considering what weve been seeing lately. There are two stakes races and three allowance races, which is more than half the nine-race card. And the field sizes, especially for the stakes, are OK especially after seeing so many five-horse stakes races lately. The first up is the $100,000 Crystal Water Stakes for Cal-breds going a mile on the turf. The favorite, at 5-2, is Brandothebartender for trainer Craig Dollase and jockey Joe Talamo. He has won two of his last four and six of 24 lifetime. Hes mostly been running sprints but is two for five at this distance. Second favorite, at 7-2, is the Hunted for Baltas and Tiago Pereira. This will be the 4-year-old geldings first stakes race. He was the beaten favorite in his last two races. Post is around 3 p.m. The big race is the Grade 2 $200,000 Santa Margarita for older fillies and mares going 1 1/8 miles on the dirt. Paradise Woods, who in 2017 finished third in the Breeders Cup Distaff, is the 8-5 favorite for John Shirreffs and Smith. Shes mostly been running upper-level stakes and was third in her last race, the Beholder Mile. At 3-1 is Lemoona, for Baltas and Aaron Gryder. She won an allowance in her last start and is three for 11 lifetime. Post time is around 4:50 p.m. Here are the field sizes, in order: 7, 6, 7, 6, 7, 6, 10, 8, 11. Big races preview A look at graded stakes or races worth $100,000 or more on Saturday. All times PDT. 12:37 Parx (7): $100,000 Lyman Handicap, Penn-breds 3 and up, 7 furlongs. Favorite: Call Paul (2-1) 1:04 Parx (8): $100,000 Foxy J.G. Stakes, Penn-bred fillies and mares 3 and up, 7 furlongs. Favorite: Bronx Beauty (3-1) 1:56 Woodbine (8): $100,000 Woodstock Stakes, 3-year-olds, 6 furlongs. Favorite: Yes I Am Free (5-2) 2:51 Belmont (9): $125,000 Elusive Quality Stakes, 4 and up, 7 furlongs on turf. Favorite: Krampus (2-1) 3:02 Santa Anita (5): $100,000 Crystal Water Stakes, Cal-breds 3 and up, 1 mile on turf. Favorite: Brandothebartender (5-2) 3:28 Oaklawn (9): $150,000 Bachelor Stakes, 3-year-olds, 6 furlongs. Favorite: Gray attempt (2-1) 4:35 Golden Gate (9): $100,000 California Derby, 3-year-olds, 1 1/16 miles. Favorite: Sparky Ville (2-1) 4:50 Santa Anita (8): Grade 2 $200,000 Santa Margarita Stakes, fillies and mares 4 and up, 1 1/18 miles. Favorite: Paradise Woods (9-5) 5:10 Golden Gate (10): Grade 3 $250,000 San Francisco Mile, 3 and up, 1 mile. Favorite: Bowies Hero (5-2) 5:30 p.m. Churchill Downs (6): Allowance optional claiming, 3 and up, 1 1/16 miles. Favorites: Keep Quiet, Cowboy Rhythm (5-2) 6:39 Churchill (8): $100,000 William Walker Stakes, 3-year-olds, 5 furlongs on turf. Favorite: Bulletin (4-5) Ciaran Thorntons SA pick of the day SECOND RACE: No. 4 Ciao Luna (4-1) In the second race, Ciao Luna makes her third start this month for trainer Gary Stute and Joe Talamo rides for the first time. Trainer Ron Ellis has a first off the claim favorite in this race and that I am not using. Joe is not riding for daddy-in-law, the angle I mentioned Friday. The main reason I like this horse is its best races come in the third start in the same month like Saturday. In January, it was the third start that saw this horse win. Top speed in the race adds to the appeal. In race 3, Rocky Policy attracts Talamo riding for trainer Andrew Lerner and again even with Ellis debuting a first time Euro horse, Joe does not ride. Lerner is winning 30% at Santa Anita and is two of three in the last two weeks. The horse shows a sharp work, has blistering early speed and this is the second start off a long layoff. A Talamo daily double. Fridays result: Almost a huge win as for us as Etterbay Ucklay drifted from 8-1 to 16-1 only to run a closing second to a 13-1 longshot winner. Ciaran Thornton is the handicapper for Californiapick4.com, which offers daily full card picks, longshots of the day, best bets of the day. Ed Burgarts Los Alamitos pick of the day SECOND RACE: No. 5 Nanas Rule (3-1) This speedy filly figures to get stalking trip behind expected quarter horse pacesetter L Bar D Bonnie Lee and can open clear lead midway on the far turn. She comes off a strong runner-up try versus nine-time winner Holy Plan and faces no rival who has more than four victories in this 870-yard race. Likely favorite Wicked Sunset shortens up from 4 furlongs and may lose contact with the leaders from her rail slot. Final thought 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. And now the stars of the show, Fridays results and Saturdays entries. A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled Friday that a lawsuit contesting the arena the Clippers want to build in Inglewood can proceed. Uplift Inglewood, a community group that advocates for affordable housing, alleged in a lawsuit filed last June that Inglewoods exclusive negotiating agreement with a Clippers-controlled company, Murphys Bowl LLC, to pursue the arena violates the states Surplus Land Act. The regulation mandates that public agencies give first preference to using surplus land for affordable housing, recreation and schools. Murphys Bowl and Inglewood agreed in June 2017 to explore constructing a privately financed arena on 22 acres of empty, city-owned land along West Century Boulevard. Advertisement Judge Mary H. Strobel rejected attempts by Inglewood and Murphys Bowl to dismiss the action, including arguments that the act hasnt been triggered because the city still owns the property. Therefore, the transfer of the property cannot be the triggering event for the agencys mandatory duty of notice and negotiations, Strobel wrote. Otherwise, the SLA would be unenforceable. The trial is set for Sept. 24. Sign up for our daily sports newsletter Todays ruling is a step forward for our neighbors who are simply asking the City of Inglewood to follow Californias affordable housing laws, DArtagnan Scorza, an Inglewood resident representing Uplift Inglewood, said in a statement. A spokesman for the project, which is under environmental review, said the team is looking forward to prevailing at trial. The Clippers have a lease to play at Staples Center through the 2023-24 season. nathan.fenno@latimes.com Twitter: @nathanfenno Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Steve Clark, left, and Minister of Energy, Northern Development and Mines and Indigenous Services Greg Rickford respond to questions from Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association delegates on Friday at the Victoria Inn. My grandmother gave me a box that she told me not to open until my wedding day. She died the following year, and I came home from college for her funeral. I had been taking a womens history class at the time and learned that marriage was rooted in a custom in which a man transfers ownership of his daughter to another man. Id sworn then that I would never be a part of it, and I put the box on a shelf in my Los Angeles apartment, where it sat like a boat that would never touch water. After college, I met Benjamin while I was in Paris, where I was working for the summer, writing and working remotely. A year into our long-distance relationship and after several cross-continental flights, we began to discuss our future in earnest. Hed asked me to marry him at least five times, but always, it seemed, in jest. After two years of this back-and-forth travel, he came to the States for Christmas to meet my family. I began to wonder what it would feel like to open the box. By then, I had learned that Europeans are a little different when it comes to marriage. At least French Europeans. They wait longer. They dont get married in a church but at city hall. And many enter into a civil partnership instead of the traditional marriage. Its referred to as PACS pacte civil de solidarite. You move in together and enjoy all the tax benefits of marriage without the financial entanglement. Sign a paper and youre in, sign a paper and youre out. This sounded like the best option not least of all because the PACS would allow me to live and work in France. Advertisement But back to Benjamin, who had traveled later that year from Paris to Los Angeles for two weeks for his vacation. I drove him up and down the coast, from Zuma to Rosarito. One day we were lying on our matching beach towels in the sand. I lay my hat over both our faces. He turned to me and said, Im going to start looking for an apartment. Are you a veteran of L.A.'s current dating scene? We want to publish your story I turned so that we were eye to eye. For you? For us. But what did this mean? If I was going to live with him in France, we would have to PACS. I knew I wanted to be with him, but now I wasnt sure about the PACS. It felt like a halfway point between living together and marriage. One that didnt necessarily lead to a wedding. I felt a shift. Was marriage what I wanted after all? I knew I wasnt alone with my conflicted feelings. So many of my girlfriends were single either still unmarried or divorced. Somehow wed gotten the message that to be without a man was to be incomplete. I knew that was a lie. But I also worried that settling for the PACS would be just that settling when perhaps I wanted more. More L.A. Affairs columns Benjamin made good on his promise to find an apartment big enough for both of us. All systems seemed to be pointing toward Paris, as I had also begun a new job that allowed me to travel and work from anywhere in the world. We signed our PACS paperwork before a notary, and a month later, I went to the French Consulate in Los Angeles to apply for my visa. The man behind the counter was confused as to which visa I should apply for and what my standing would be under PACS. He told me I was still single in the eyes of immigration. I felt my eyes sting. Then his colleague corrected him. No, in the eyes of French law they are married. Thank God I hadnt started crying. I tried not to act smug. I am only almost French. Later, I told Benjamin that I still hope one day he will ask my father for approval, get down on one knee with a ring and ask me to marry him, and we will walk down the aisle in a church. I will wear a white dress, and we will smash cake in each others faces. But that first, wed try living in the same country for a while. He said something in French that took me a moment to understand. It was similar to my grandmothers saying: I give you an inch and you take a mile. I gave him a playful punch and he hugged me and we laughed. When I packed up my apartment in Los Angeles for the last time, I labeled plastic bins with red duct tape so they wouldnt get confused with anyone elses while I was overseas, and headed up to my fathers house in Napa. As I unloaded the bins, I came across the unopened box from my grandmother. It seemed to peer back at me with her eyes, like two English peas. What would she have thought about my PACS? I asked my dad for his knife. I opened the lid and pulled out a knit blanket with corrugated waves of green, gold and burgundy every stitch linked to the next by the turn of my grandmothers wrist, secured by the loop of her needles. I looked up at my Papa. His face was soft, his eyes fixed on the blanket. I realized this wedding present mattered more to my dad than it ever would have to Benjamin. It is a thing his mother made. He the man who still has not unpacked the boxes from his 1974 divorce from my mother, the man who keeps every greeting card I send him probably appreciated the blanket more than I could ever know. I thought about all those sexist ideas about a woman leaving her fathers house for her husbands house. The trading of property. And yet here we were with the blanket in hand an exchange in our own way. I folded up the blanket, put it back in the box and used my red duct tape to mark it so that everyone would know it was mine. When I arrived in Paris, I wanted to tell Benjamin about the box and what was inside it, but I felt conflicted. I didnt want him to feel like this story was pressure from me or my family. It was, after all, a wedding gift. Then again, I didnt want him to feel bad that I hadnt opened it with him. PACS is, for many French couples, the modern equivalent of a wedding. I didnt want to be that girl who talks feminism and then walks down the aisle the first chance she gets. But there was a part of me that longed for the dress and the ring and all that goes with it. Wait a minute, was I pressuring him? Was I that girl? Maybe the PACS would be enough. Maybe this was the solution I had been looking for all along. And if it wasnt, I would have to find the courage to say so. That night, as we settled down on our new couch in our new apartment, I decided to just enjoy the moment together in this new place halfway between what is and what will be. The author is a writer, actor and recovery coach. Her website is dufflyn.com and she is on Instagram @dufflyn. Straight, gay, bisexual, transgender or nonbinary: L.A. Affairs chronicles the search for love in and around Los Angeles and we want to hear your story. You must allow your name to be published, and the story you tell has to be true. We pay $300 for each essay we publish. Email us at LAAffairs@latimes.com. MORE L.A. LOVE STORIES Im black. Hes white. Heres what happened I went on a bunch of blind dates with total losers I was sleeping alone in a strangers bed and falling for him home@latimes.com The crowd at a campaign event for Indias oldest communist party shouted Lal Salaam, or red salute, while showering the candidate who arrived in their village with garlands. After waiting several hours for this moment, Fatima and Nabisa Khatun, from the district of Begusarai in Bihar state, were thrilled. For the record: An earlier version of this article said parliamentary candidate Kanhaiya Kumar was the Communist Party of Indias only candidate in Bihar state. The party has at least two candidates in the state. When we heard he was coming here, we were really excited, Fatima said. Nabisa flashed a largely toothless grin. The man they had come to see was Kanhaiya Kumar, who a few years ago was an unknown doctorate student in New Delhi. Now the 32-year-old is a household name across India as a candidate in one of the most visible campaigns in the nations parliamentary elections, a seven-phase process that began April 11 and runs through May 19, with results expected May 23. Advertisement He has emerged as a face of the diverse opposition to 68-year-old Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a staunch Hindu nationalist who is seeking a second term. Opinion polls suggest that Modis Bharatiya Janata Party will once again win the most parliamentary seats and, through alliances with smaller parties, form a government with Modi remaining at the helm. But those same polls suggest a much smaller victory for Modi compared with the absolute majority his party won when it took power in 2014. Although he remains popular, controversial economic policies, high unemployment and a rise in religious intolerance have made the prime minister vulnerable to criticism from those willing to take him on. Kumar is one of those voices, and observers say he has gained momentum through his youth, humble beginnings, campus activism and oratorical skills. He rose to prominence in 2016 when lawmakers from Modis Bharatiya Janata Party accused him of chanting anti-national slogans at the liberal university where he was student body president. Kumar spent 23 days in jail before being released on bail. A sedition case against him, which he calls politically motivated, is yet to be resolved. Within hours of his release from jail, he delivered a fiery speech telecast nationwide that criticized Modi for using the colonial-era sedition law as a tool to silence critics. His flair for oratory has carried over to the campaign trail, where in April alone he has addressed more than 100 public gatherings. In an interview while campaigning in Begusarai, his home constituency, Kumar said he never harbored political ambitions before 2016, but now feels he has no other choice. After a point in time you have to take positions, he said. Only criticizing is not sufficient to fight certain types of ideological organizations. The organizations Kumar is referring to are Modis governing Bharatiya Janata Party and the umbrella group it belongs to, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Both are Hindu nationalist entities, and Kumar has strongly criticized them for promoting religious divisions, particularly between the Hindu majority and Muslim minority. Although Kumar is running in a small, remote constituency, it seems at times that hes taking on the BJP and RSS at a national level on such issues. One of his opponents in the Begusarai race is Giriraj Singh, a BJP hard-liner, who has said that anyone opposed to Modi should move to Pakistan, Indias Muslim-majority neighbor and rival. Muslims in Bihar have traditionally voted in large numbers for regional politicians; the third candidate in the race is a Muslim from the main regional party. But Kumar, who is Hindu, has won popularity among Muslims for his outspokenness on hate speech and communal atrocities such as mob lynchings of people suspected of slaughtering cows which are revered in Hinduism or eating beef. We stand with him because of what is happening in our country right now with the divisions between Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians, said Mohammed Sunny, a 22-year-old Muslim student from Begusarai. This is all wrong and Kanhaiya is against this. I am Indian and he is Indian. Indians live together and dont think about whether theyre Hindu or Muslim. When did [thinking about religious identity first] start? It started happening after the BJP took over in the last five years. Kumar is running under the banner of the Communist Party of India, the oldest of Indias once formidable roster of communist political organizations. The party has lost some of its luster in recent times, and Kumar is one of only two candidates its fielding in the state. But his populist campaign in a district that has been dubbed the Leningrad of Bihar makes for an ideological fit. If we want to strengthen India, we have to strengthen the people of India[by providing] good education, a good health system and facilities, good transportation system, peace in society and social security, he said. With Begusarai scheduled to vote Monday the fourth of Indias seven phases of voting Kumar crisscrossed the district this week, greeting crowds from the open sunroof of a car. The so-called roadshows are a feature of Indian politics, but they can get repetitive and tiring lasting as long as 12 hours and emphasize hitting as many villages as possible rather than Kumars speaking panache. In an interview during a short lunch break, his energy looked low. But his campaigning apparently has paid off, helping him raise around $100,000 the maximum amount permitted under electoral rules in one week through online crowdfunding, a rare phenomenon in India, where the origins of campaign cash are notoriously opaque. Kumars supporters said his popularity lies in his common touch, especially among young voters and those struggling economically in a relatively poor district. Many have traveled to Begusarai from across the country to participate in what they see as the beginning of something bigger. But he has also generated suspicions in a state where voters have typically voted along the lines of caste, Indias social hierarchy that dates back centuries. Although from a poor family, Kumar belongs to Bhumihars, an upper-caste grouping whose members have committed violence against lower castes in the past. Vishnu Narayan, who runs a Hindi-language news site called the Bihar Mail, said some Hindus are wary of Kumars caste. And some Bhumihars have questioned why Kumar spends so much time engaging with Muslims rather than with them. A recent roadshow of his was blocked by protesters, leading to a brief scuffle. Still, Kumar was confident that his campaign was pushing people to break traditional voting patterns. I am not invoking caste and religion, he said. I am talking about issues, I am talking about the constitution, I am talking about democracy, I am talking about the betterment of peoples lives and how government should tackle the basic needs of common people. Malhotra is a special correspondent. Israel announced it will release two Syrian prisoners as a goodwill gesture three weeks after the repatriation of the remains of an Israeli soldier who was missing in action for almost 40 years. Speaking to the media on the condition of anonymity, an Israeli military official said the decision on the Syrians release was made in recent days and was not a condition for the return of the remains of soldier Zachary Baumel, who went missing during the 1982 Sultan Yaqub battle between Israel and Syria early in the Lebanon War. The statement was contradicted by Russia, which brokered the Baumel deal, whose representative said the release of the Syrian prisoners was part of an agreed-upon quid pro quo. In an interview with RT, the Russian national broadcast channel, Alexander Lavrentiev, Russias envoy to Syria, said the return of Baumels body had not been a unilateral step. Advertisement A decision was made by the Israeli side and implementing it might take some time, and there will be a release of some Syrian citizens held in Israeli jails, Lavrentiev said. Therefore, we should not explain this as a unilateral act. A Syrian government source confirmed to Reuters that two or more Syrian hostages would be freed from Israeli prisons after Russian mediation. The repatriation of Baumels remains, formalized in a Moscow ceremony attended by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin on April 4, was announced only five days ahead of contentious Israeli elections, and unified war-weary Israelis for whom the ideal of not leaving soldiers behind remains a living paradigm. Netanyahu faced a stiff challenge from Benny Gantz, a centrist candidate and former military chief of staff. On the day Baumels repatriation became public, Gantz said in a radio interview that he believed the event was timed to help Netanyahu win the elections. Unfortunately, yes, he replied, when asked if the repatriation of a war hero had been programmed with the imminent vote in view, but I am more than happy that Baumel has been returned to his family. In response, Netanyahu denied any diplomatic price had been paid for Baumels remains and demanded Gantz apologize to the Israeli people. Saturdays revelation comes at a delicate time for Netanyahu, who President Reuven Rivlin tasked with forming the next Israeli government. Netanyahu came in at a dead heat with Gantz in the April 9 election. He became the clear front-runner only after parties representing a majority in the next parliament, which will be sworn in on Tuesday, recommended him as their favored candidate to lead the next government. But the new government is not yet formed, and Netanyahu, who is expected to be indicted on several corruption charges pending a July hearing, confronts a series of political challenges. He is facing angry recriminations from senior members of his own party, including close Likud party allies, who fear being shut out of the future Cabinet in favor of representatives of a clutch of more extreme right-wing partners angling to join the coalition, and strident demands from those parties. The Russian revelation also disclosed an uncomfortable nugget for Netanyahu hours ahead of Sundays Cabinet meeting, the first following a two-week Passover break: His Cabinet had been left in the dark. According to Israeli law, any government decision relating to the release of security prisoners as part of a diplomatic initiative must be approved by the Cabinet. The Israeli official who spoke to media said the decision had been approved by the attorney general and was signed by Rivlin. Late Saturday, Rivlin confirmed his approval of the deal, saying he had done so after consultations with the attorney general, who in rare cases of extenuating circumstances may approve the circumvention of the Cabinet. In an unexpected twist, both prisoners slated to be released said they would refuse to be returned to Syria. Zidan Tawil, held by Israel since 2008 for drug smuggling and a member of the Druze ethnic minority, said he faces persecution by the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Ahmad Khamis, a Palestinian from the Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria, was arrested in 2005 for attempting to infiltrate into an Israeli military base with the intent to harm soldiers. He has requested release to the West Bank city of Hebron. Militants linked to Easter suicide bombings opened fire and set off explosives during a raid by Sri Lankan security forces on a house in the countrys east, leaving behind a grisly discovery Saturday: 15 bodies, including six children. The gunbattle that began Friday night and the carnage that followed come amid widespread fear of more attacks as officials hunt for militants with explosives believed to still be at large after the coordinated bombings of churches and luxury hotels that killed more than 250 people last weekend. Raids and police curfews have shut down areas of eastern Sri Lanka, and Catholic leaders have canceled Sunday Masses indefinitely. Officials also urged Muslims to stay home for prayers in an extraordinary call by the clergy to curtail worship. The government Saturday also formally banned two extremist groups purportedly linked to the attacks, allowing officials to confiscate their property, presidential spokesman Dharmasri Ekanayake said. Advertisement The U.S. Department of State, citing terror groups plotting more possible attacks, urged Americans to reconsider travel to Sri Lanka and ordered the school-age children of government workers to leave the country. The U.S. Embassy in Sri Lanka has previously warned the public to stay away from places of worship over the weekend, a stark alert underlining that authorities believe some attackers remain at large. The gunfight Friday came after police tipped off soldiers about a suspected safe house near the town of Sammanthurai in Sri Lankas Ampara District, where authorities said the militants set off three explosions and opened fire. Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara said some of the dead likely were militants who blew themselves up in suicide bombings. Earlier, the military said at least one civilian had been killed in the attack. A girl and a woman survived the explosion at the suspected safe house but were critically injured and being treated at a hospital, Gunasekara said. Photographs taken by the Associated Press show the charred remains of one child and the body of another wearing a green T-shirt with the words good boy written on the back. The bodies of an adult woman and man were found after the explosion with their clothes burned off. Meanwhile, the military said security forces had recovered explosives, detonators, suicide kits, military uniforms and Islamic State group flags in the ongoing raids. Gunasekara said officers acting on information from intelligence officials also found 150 sticks of blasting gelatin and 100,000 small metal balls, as well as a van and clothing suspected of being used by those involved in the Easter attacks. Suicide bomb vests often are packed with such balls to increase the shrapnel in the explosion, making them even deadlier. Fear of more attacks has led to increased security at churches, shrines, temples and mosques across the multiethnic island nation of 21 million off the southern coast of India. Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the archbishop of Colombo, told reporters Friday that church officials had seen a leaked security document describing Roman Catholic churches and other denominations as a major target. He asked the faithful across Sri Lanka to stay home for their own safety. We dont want repetitions, Ranjith said. It was an extraordinary request for a Catholic clergyman to make, as churches often remain a refuge. Giovanni Maria Vian, a church historian and emeritus editor of the Vatican newspaper, said he believed it was the first time the church had canceled Masses across a country for security reasons. In Galle Face, a normally crowded ocean side park in Colombo near some of the hotels that were bombed, only a few people could be seen Saturday. Kiosks were closed and traffic was lighter than usual, with security officials blocking streets and checking vehicles at barricades. Yashwant Kumar Singh, 23, a worker from India, said he wants to go back to his homeland because he fears another attack. If it only happened on one day, then that wouldnt have been so difficult, but bombs are going off here every day. That is why there is an atmosphere of fear. We are feeling very scared, he said. Meanwhile, cleaning crews worked at St. Anthonys Shrine in Colombo, the capital, where broken glass still littered a blood-stained floor, the remnants of one of the Easter attacks. They collected debris, tossing it into a truck parked outside as a heavy contingent of security forces stood guard. Authorities told Muslims to worship at home rather than attend communal Friday prayers that are the most important religious service of the week, but several mosques held services anyway. At a mosque in Colombo, police armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles stood guard outside for hundreds of worshippers. The Easter attackers are not Muslims. This is not Islam. This is an animal, said Akurana Muhandramlage Jamaldeen Mohamed Jayfer, the chairman of the mosque. We dont have a word (strong enough) to curse them. There were also reports by some Muslims of harassment because of their religion. A local television channel showed people on a bus asking a Muslim woman wearing a traditional burqa to either remove it or leave the bus. She later left the bus. Abdul Azeez Abdul Sattar, 63, an auto-rickshaw driver, said a man in his neighborhood refused to hire him, telling him, You are a terrorist; you have a bomb. I wont take your auto. There were several armed police officers guarding the Holy Cross Church in Gampaha, a predominantly Buddhist town. People are shocked, because this came years after the war ended, and after all these years, we have been living in peace, said Pradeep Kumara, 36, a clerk at a private company, referring to Sri Lankas long civil war, which ended in 2009. This has disrupted our work, and our ordinary and normal life. We dont want to go back to that troublesome period. Sri Lankas government, crippled from a long political crisis between the president and prime minister last year, promised swift action to capture militants still at large. President Maithripala Sirisena said about 140 people had been identified as having links to the Islamic State group. A major search operation has been undertaken, Sirisena said. Every household in the country will be checked. On Friday, police confirmed that the leader of the local militant group blamed for the attack, Mohamed Zahran, died in the suicide bombing at the Shangri-La Hotel, one of six hotels and churches attacked. Zahran appeared in an Islamic State video claiming responsibility for the coordinated assault, and authorities in both Sri Lanka and Australia confirmed links between Islamic State and the attack. Be that as it may, when the suit is filed for removal of encroachment from and for the possession immovable property, the plaintiff is ... - President Muhammadu Buhari and Antonio Guterres are to co-chair a special session on Lake Chad - They plan to raise $50 billion to recharge the lake - The president thanked the African Development Bank for its contribution to the country in 2016 President Buhari has welcomed the acceptance of the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, to co-chair a special session to raise 50 billion dollars to fund the inter-basin water transfer from Central Africa to revive the Lake Chad. Malam Garba Shehu, the presidents senior special assistant on media and publicity, in a statement, said the president stated this when he received the reply of the secretary-general to his earlier letter on the matter. Guterres response was presented to President Buhari through the president of the African Development Bank (ADB), Dr Akinwumi Adesina, at the State House, Abuja on Tuesday, April 23. President Buhari said such a special forum was necessary in view of the size of capital required for the project which was unavailable to the Lake Chad Basin countries. READ ALSO: Soyinka Identifies 1 area Buhari has failed in governance Addressing issues directly related to the ADB, the president expressed delight with successes recorded in the four years of Dr Adesinas tenure at the bank. President Buhari specifically cited the banks contribution to the growth of Nigerias agriculture and infrastructure. He commended what he called its critical gesture in 2016 during the difficult period of economic recession through the issuance of 600 million dollars budget support facility. The president used the occasion to highlight the successes achieved by the administration through the implementation of the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan, ERGP. He stressed that his focus would continue to be on diversifying the economy and making it more inclusive as well as the creation of jobs in critical sectors like the Information Communication Technology (ICT) and manufacturing so that young people will earn a decent living. President Buhari noted that a lot is being achieved in providing guaranteed off-takers for farmers, and in the provision of infrastructure that include airports, rail, roads and water ways. He, however, admitted that we still have significant work ahead in the provision of power, small scale cottage industries and promotion of the agro-industrial zones coming up in the country. The president then asked for ADBs continued support in this regard. In his presentation, Adesina thanked President Buhari for his support, without which, he said, he would not have been ADB president. He listed his record of achievements in the last four years among which lending to critical sectors of the Nigerian economy grew to an unprecedented 4.3 billion dollars. Adesina told President Buhari that the fortunes of the bank had significantly improved, earning global ratings in accountability and transparency, improved incomes and for making impact on the lives of millions of its target population. The ADB president sought for the support of the Nigerian leader for a general capital increase to fast track the development of the Bank. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app The statement quoted President Buhari as giving all assurances to the ADBs requests and directed the Ministry of Finance to engage and expedite action on the issues brought to the government by the ADB. Recall that Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai, the Chief of Army Staff, on Monday, April 15, said Boko Haram activities have been confined only to the Lake Chad area and the Sambisa forest in Northeastern Nigeria. He assured that Nigerian Army is still in search of the remaining abducted Chibok girls still in Boko Haram captivity. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng Same great journalism, upgraded for better service! Obasanjo bombs Buhari again, says FG is empowering Boko Haram | - on Legit TV Source: Legit.ng - Abdullahi Bodejo, the national president of Miyetti Allah, said the APC leader, Tinubu, cannot become Nigeria's president - The Miyetti Allah said Tinubu is too old and is not widely accepted as a leader in the southwest region - Bodejo said that power will remain in the north in 2023, adding that nobody in the south has national appeal to become Nigeria's president Abdullahi Bodejo, the national president of Miyetti Allah, has dismissed the possibility of the former governor of Lagos state, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, succeeding President Muhammadu Buhari in 2023. In an interview The Sun newspaper, Bodejo listed reasons why he believed Tinubu cannot become Nigeria's president and stated that power will still remain in the north after Buhari. Bodejo said Tinubu cannot be president because he is very old is not widely recognised as southwest leader. READ ALSO: 9th Senate presidency: Negotiation heightens as PDP reportedly plots Goje-Ekweremadu ticket He also downplayed Tinubu's role in the emergence of Buhari is president in 2015. His words: "I have told you that 2015 is now history. Even me talking to you now, do you know the role I played in 2015? People played all manner of politics in 2015 and Tinubu was not the only person. "What I know is that Tinubu cannot be the president of Nigeria. That is the truth. He is very old and maybe older than President Buhari. Some people see Tinubu like one big masquerade but he is not. Some think that he is the Yoruba leader but he is not. "He is also like Obasanjo; some people see the former president as a small god but he is not. In my last interview before the election, I said it that Obasanjo has only one vote like any other person. What happened? Did it not turn out like that? "Everybodys eyes are already open now. If Tinubu is recognized by the Yoruba people as their leader, why did Buhari score 50 per cent there? Why did he not ask them to give him like even 60 per cent at least? Tinubu has failed and that is the truth. Or are you telling me that Tinubu did anti-party activities by telling the southwest to share the votes 50/50 to APC and PDP?" Asked further why he was not supporting the southwest for the presidency despite the region's support for President Buhari in 2015, Bodejo said "nobody should say the southwest made Buhari to win". He said: "You are talking about 2015; it has passed and is now history. Remember that former President Olusegun Obasanjo ruled the country for eight years. In 2019, the southwest gave Buhari 50% of their votes and you say they should be supported to be president. They played real politics in 2019. "I am not a politician but they played the real game of politics in 2019. They divided their votes 50/50 for the two major parties. Nobody should say the southwest made Buhari to win. No; Buhari won the election clearly and he was voted by all Nigerians who love him. Nobody should come out to say he is the person that made Buhari to win. Even spirits voted for Buhari in the election." Bodejo added that power will remain in the north in 2023, arguing that nobody in the south is nationally accepted to become Nigeria's president. He said: "Yes, power is going to remain in the north. Tell me one person in the south that is nationally accepted that can rule Nigeria like Buhari? The people who made Nigeria what it is today are from the North. People like Awolowo and Zik tried but where are such people in the south now? That time, they were patriotic and they did not allow themselves to be deceived with the issues of religion and ethnicity. "They were patriotic and they believed in Nigeria. But most of the people now from the South who say they want to be president of Nigeria are not patriotic. They are selfish. Most politicians from the North are concerned about the unity of Nigeria and how to keep the country together, and not what they will gain from the position. God forbid that some kind of people would start ruling the country; I see some people that if you give them power, they can just concentrate everything in one area." PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that a member of the Lagos House of Assembly, Yakubu Balogun, faulted claims suggesting Tinubu is a fascist and power grabber. The lawmaker who was reacting to claims by Yakubu Dogara that Tinubu wanted to control all levers of government, told journalists on Thursday, April 25, that the APC leader is a builder of men. I will to express my sincere appreciation to my political mentor, my indefatigable, resourceful, visionary, compassionate, God anointed political leader-Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a fisher and builder of men (and women) from nothing to something, the helper and elevator of the downtrodden and above all, a non-fascist and non-power grabber, Balogun said. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng: Same great journalism, upgraded for better service! God Has a Message He Wants Me to Deliver to Nigerians in 2023 - Nigeria Street Gist | Legit TV Source: Legit Italian jewelry magnate Nicola Bulgari has a one-of-a-kind collection of American cars off Union Boulevard in Allentown, but its closed to the public except for during special events. Now, nine of his cars spanning the years 1922 to 1951 are on display at the America on Wheels Museum in Allentown. Titled A Lifetime of Devotion to the American Automobile, the exhibit opened Saturday and runs through mid-October. And for those looking for even more ways to celebrate the automobile, Sunday marks the 2019 debut of Cars & Coffee Lehigh Valley in Bethlehem. Free and open to the public, the first show of the year opens at 8 a.m. in the lots around the ArtsQuest Center at SteelStacks, 101 Founders Way. A 1969 Ferrari 365 is on display June 26, 2016, during Cars and Coffee Lehigh Valley on the ArtsQuest Center at SteelStacks campus in Bethlehem.Matt Smith | lehighvalleylive.com contributor Next months Cars & Coffee offers a shot at learning pro tips for photographing cars. PhotoPass Cars & Coffee is scheduled for 8 a.m. Sunday, May 18, at the show. It is for participants ages 14 and older, who have a reliable digital single lens reflex or mirrorless interchangeable-lens camera. Tickets are $90 or $81 for ArtsQuest members, and are available at bananfactory.org. At America on Wheels, 5 N. Front St., the new exhibit recognizing Bulgari and his collection is included with admission that costs $10, $8 for seniors 62 and older, $6 for students 6 to 16 and free for children ages 5 and younger. (Children ages 12 and younger are generally free on weekends thanks to community sponsors.) Each of the Bulgari cars has a plaque with its technical specifications and facts about its production. On display from his collection are a: 1937 Lincoln Zephyr V12 three-window coupe. 1933 Marmon Sixteen Victoria Coupe by LeBaron. 1935 Nash Ambassador Model 3580 sedan. 1942 DeSoto DeLuxe S10 sedan. 1951 Nash-Healy LeMans roadster. 1933 Graham Blue Streak Model 64 sedan. 1942 Hudson Six De Luxe coupe. 1922 Oldsmobile Model 47-F Super Sport Touring. Bulgaris NB Center for American Automotive Heritage is spread among 14 buildings on 27 acres and celebrates his love for American automobiles born as a child watching papal processions in Italy, beginning in the 1930s. A special event celebrating Bulgari during this year's exhibit is in the works, said Linda Merkel, director of America on Wheels. Staff at the NB Center restore and maintain all of Bulgaris cars that he owns around the world, curator Keith Flickinger previously told lehighvalleylive.com. Also on display in the museum lobby is a 1940 Ford Deluxe convertible coupe donated in 1997 to the Antique Automobile Club of America by the estate of Benny T. Bootle, of Greenville, South Carolina. Old Blue, as its known for its color, has earned over 60 preservation awards. Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. An Upper Mount Bethel Township official has asked the board of supervisors to step in and address the influence of several citizens who have been vocal about their concerns regarding a proposed public sewer plan. Upper Mount Bethel Township Manager Rick Fisher provided the supervisors with a report last month detailing his concerns that some residents have been pressuring members of the townships Environmental Advisory Council (EAC) to vote against a proposed public sewer plan. The township is in the process of updating its Act 537 sewage facilities plan, which hasnt had a complete update since 1992. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection advises municipalities update the plan every five years. The township currently does not have a public sewer system. The proposed plan created by township-hired engineers designates several areas of concern along Route 611 leading up the Portland border and sections of Shooktown Road and Lake Minsi Drive. Engineers caution that failing septic systems near wells and local waterways are contaminating water. The proposal calls for public sewer lines to be installed in the designated areas at some point in the future. Some residents in the township have expressed support of a public sewer system, while others have not. Fisher said he believes some EAC members have made up their minds about any proposed public sewer before all the information and studies have been compiled. Additionally, Fisher said a couple township residents who attended the February and March EAC meetings have been trying to influence the council and he recommended that supervisors address his concerns. At the March meeting there was less pressure applied but this effort by those who are organized in opposition to the Act 537 Plan Update and their influence upon certain members of the Environmental Advisory Commission may need to be addressed by the board of supervisors due to concerns I would like to share with you, Fisher wrote in the report. Charles Cole, a retired environmental engineer, is one of the residents Fisher named in his report. While Cole said he disagrees with Fishers exact characterization of the meetings, he does not disagree that he has strong concerns about the proposed plan and he is urging township officials to consider all the ramifications of adopting such a plan. They ask for public input, Cole said, but then they dont like the input they are getting from some of the people. EAC does not have any authority but can offer opinions on various township issues. Fisher recommended two EAC members recuse themselves from any vote the council may make regarding the plan. EAC Councilman Kyle Dutt has written editorials against the proposed plan that were published on lehighvalleylive.com and Councilman Larry Ott is a member of the Martins-Jacoby Watershed Association, which has taken a stance against the plan. He (Dutt) has shown a personal bias and he cannot impartially evaluate the additional information that will be provided to the EAC, Fisher wrote. Due to his personal bias, he should recuse himself from voting as a member of the EAC on the Act 537 Plan Update. After attending a recent Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors seminar on controversial township issues, Supervisor John Bermingham said an upcoming May 8 meeting on the sewer plan will be informational only. There will be a public comment period at the meeting limited to five minutes per person but there will not be opportunity for opponents of the plan to give any presentations. If you do an informational meeting, you do an informational meeting. Bermingham said. If you do a dissent meeting, you do a dissent meeting. Bermingham said he will schedule another meeting for presentations from the opposition. Some residents say they take umbrage with the idea that township officials regard them as the opposition. I dont appreciate being called the opposition, resident and former supervisor Judith Henckel, who was also named as in Fishers report, said. Were looking for alternatives. Resident and former township supervisor Loren Rabbat echoed Henckels concern. Thinking of us as the opposition is the wrong mentality, Rabbat said. Lets be partners. Lets get all hands on deck. Resident and former civil engineer Robert Gerwig said the township should have sought public input before it drafted a sewer plan. I think its an inverted process, Gerwig said. We did very little planning. It should have started with the community, Rabbat said. Instead, it started with a mandate. Resident Richard Wilford-Hunt is one of the people who wanted to give a presentation at the May 8 meeting but will have to wait until another meeting is scheduled. Wilford-Hunt said supervisors stressed at the last public sewer meeting that the sewer plan is designed to address issues regarding health, safety and welfare of the residents, but he wants to make sure residents also understand installing sewers are part of an economic development plan by township officials. Supervisor Anthony DeFranco said installing sewers wont necessarily result in a wave of development. Portland has sewer; East Bangor has sewer; Bangor has sewer; Roseto has sewer, DeFranco said at last months EAC meeting. You don't see metropolises going up there. However, DeFranco also said he would welcome some economic development. This township cannot survive if economic development doesn't come soon, DeFranco said. Bermingham said he also welcomes economic development but he wants to control what type of businesses come in to the township. However, it is unclear how he would accomplish this. If a business meets zoning requirements, any discrimination by township officials would likely be subject to legal appeal. The township is 44 square miles in area and only 2 square miles are being affected by the sewer plan, DeFranco said. Once the plan is approved, supervisors would still need to create a timeline and source funding before installing any sewers, which could take years, he said. Everybody is flying off the handle over nothing, DeFranco said. The 537 (plan) is going to get filed and approved. But the question is what we do after that, if anything at all. John Best is a freelance contributor to lehighvalleylive.com. UPDATE: Wilmer J. Ortiz Torres was held in Northampton County Prison in lieu of $100,000 bail, according to the county department of corrections. INITIAL POST: A former parishioner of Iglesia Pentecostal de Bethlehem is charged with twice trying to burn down the church this week, city police Chief Mark DiLuzio said Friday evening. Wilmer J. Ortiz Torres, 43, of the 500 block of West Chew Street in Allentown, is in custody and will be arraigned Friday night on charges of arson, burglary and criminal trespass in fires early Tuesday morning and early Thursday morning at the church at 1044 Pembroke Road in Bethlehem, DiLuzio said. Oritz had an issue with the church and was known to other church members, DiLuzio said. Investigators found video footage from near the church and from local businesses that allowed them to generate a photo which identified Ortiz Torres, DiLuzio said. Wilmer Ortiz Torres.Courtesy photo | For lehighvalle The suspect used an accelerant to light both fires, DiLuzio said. The first, inside the church, did significant damage involving smoke, soot and heat, a fire official said. The fire burned itself out, likely due to lack of oxygen, the fire official said. The second was on the roof above the sanctuary and was seen by a passerby and quickly extinguished by firefighters, DiLuzio said. Bethlehem Fire Department arson dog Silver sniffed out the accelerant both times, DiLuzio said. Fire Marshal Craig Baer declared both fires arson, DiLuzio said. The public was asked for help especially with video and the ATF offered a reward. City fire and police investigators worked with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the "joint cooperation, technology and good old fashion police work led to Ortiz, who was arrested in Allentown, DiLuzio said. I would like to personally thank all the Bethlehem detectives, officers, firefighters, fire Marshal Craig Baer, all the agents of the ATF and arson K-9 Silver that worked together as a team to make this arrest possible, DiLuzio said in a news release. Thank you all for a job well done and thank you quickly bringing this individual to justice. Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. A 26-year-old woman who became a volunteer firefighter after her home burned down filed a federal lawsuit Thursday claiming her instructor at the Ocean County Fire Academy bound, tortured and raped her in his home last year. The woman, identified in court papers by her initials, told investigators that her instructor, John Syers, lured her to his Lacey Township home on Sept. 26, 2018 under the guise of showing off his new house. Syers is listed as an instructor at the academy, according to the county government website. He is also a firefighter in Elizabeth, officials said. While Syers was showing (her) his bedroom, he proceeded to restrain, beat, burn, sexually assault and strangle (her) over the course of 46 minutes, despite her continuous pleas for him to stop, the womans attorney, Robert R. Fuggi Jr. said in a statement. Disorderly persons charges of simple assault and lewdness filed against Syers are pending in municipal court. The Ocean County Prosecutors Office has also acknowledged an ongoing investigating and the case could be transferred to Superior Court. The lawsuit names Syers, the Ocean County Fire Academy and county freeholders as defendants in a civil rights complaint. Syers said in a brief phone interview with NJ Advance Media on Friday that he was referring all questions to his attorney, Stephen McGuckin of Toms River. The attorney did not immediately return a call seeking comment. The woman is a volunteer with the Seaside Heights Volunteer Fire Department and was attending the academy for required training, according to Fuggi. The woman said she decided to become a firefighter after narrowly escaping a blaze that burned down her home in a Lavallette condominium complex in May 2017. She escaped the blaze through a window, according to court documents. After applying to the fire department, the woman attended training at the Ocean County Fire Academy in Waretown, according to the suit. In court papers, the woman said she and her instructor, Syers, dated briefly, but then broke up when he found another girlfriend. When that relationship ended, Syers then began texting and messaging the victim on social media, the suit states. On the day of the alleged assault, the woman said she and Syers shared a consensual kiss and when she pulled away and withdrew consent for sexual contact, he handcuffed her hands behind her back and pinned her to his bed. Syers said he was punishing her for making him wait and referring to occasions where she didnt show up for dates, the suit states. "Using the rope skills he honed as a fire academy instructor, (Syers tied the victims) arms, neck and legs to the bed with rope, Fuggi said. The suit states Syers tore the womans clothes off, struck her several times, blindfolded her and ripped out some of her hair before sexually assaulting her repeatedly. He strangled her until she was unconscious and then poured a substance on her leaving large burn marks, the suit states. The suit also states that Syers snapped several cellphone photos of the woman as she lay restrained on his bed. Fuggi said when the assault began, the woman noted the time according to a clock in the room was 10 a.m. When the woman regained consciousness, the time was 10:46 a.m., Fuggi said. After the alleged assault, the victim was able to free herself from the handcuffs and rope while Syers was in the bathroom, the attorney said. The woman quickly dressed, refusing Syers offers for her to shower at his house, the suit states. Syers offered the woman a few insincere apologies before letting her out of the house, her attorney said in the suit. The woman called a friend and tried to explain what happened, but couldnt because she was too distraught, the suit states. The next morning, the woman went to Community Medical Center in Toms River and was given a rape test, antibiotics and an emergency contraceptive to prevent pregnancy, according to court documents. An investigator from the Ocean County Prosecutors Office interviewed the woman at the hospital and she also contacted Lacey Township police and obtained a permanent restraining order against Syers, her lawyer said. In the days after the assault, the woman called Syers and, in a conversation recorded by investigators, Syers admitted to hearing (the victim) say no to the sexual assault yet continued anyway, the suit states. The 32-count federal lawsuit alleges torture, sexual assault, aggravated assault, false imprisonment, domestic violence and invasion of privacy. The suit alleges Ocean County officials failed to properly train, supervise and protect employees against Syers and accuses them of negligent hiring, gross negligence and failure to do their due diligence before hiring Syers. In addition to his duties as a fire academy instructor, Syers is also a firefighter with the Elizabeth Fire Department earning $55,307 a year, according to public records. Kelly Martins, a spokeswoman for the city, said Syers has been employed as an Elizabeth firefighter since March 2017 and remains on the job. Officials in Ocean County did not return a call seeking comment on Friday. 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. TROPHIES First responders in the Slate Belt will be able to administer oxygen to dogs and cats in distress, thanks to a gift of specialized masks from Resus-a-Pet, a nonprofit organization started by Bucks County 12-year-old Emily Rilling. With the help of the Slate Belt Animal Advocacy Group, the masks are being distributed to Portland Hook and Ladder Co. No. 1, East Bangor Fire Department, North Bangor Fire Co. Columbia Fire Co., Second Ward Fire Co., Blue Valley Rescue Squad and the Bangor Borough Police Department. Christine Mammi, president of the advocacy group, said few departments were equipped with masks to handle pets rescued from burning buildings or vehicle accidents. The kits are designed to fit the face of cats and large and small dogs. Vincent Caminneci, a sophomore at Easton Area High School, has overcome a lot of obstacles to get where he is the first Easton student to become a statewide officer of the Pennsylvania Future Business Leaders of America. His early life in Iowa was tragic, losing his father and mother before moving to Easton to live with an aunt. He enrolled at the high school as an introverted freshman, too shy to meet people and make friends. He got involved with FBLA to improve his communication skills, in part to honor the memory of his parents. He thrived in the the club, which stresses community service, leadership and competition. This month was elected at-large vice president of the state organization, which involved campaigning and making a speech before 600 people at a conference in Hershey. After college, he says, hed like to be a diplomat or foreign service officer and run for public office maybe mayor of Easton and then climb the ladder. Bethlehems art scene may soon be welcoming distinguished multimedia artist Emil Lukas. If he receives zoning approval from the city, he plans to move into the former drill hall in the West Bethlehem armory, which is being converted to an apartment complex by Peron Development. The developer was seeking a tenant for the large first-floor space; ArtsQuest suggested Lukas, whose honeycomb-like sculpture Optic Wall is on exhibit near the SteelStacks campus Visitor Center. Lukas now lives in Stockertown, where he has an impressive compound with a barn for painting and an industrial space for large-scale projects, according to a 2017 New York Times Style magazine profile. Lukas serves on ArtsQuests advisory visual arts board, where he has helped the nonprofit improve its artist services. TURKEYS Bethlehem police are seeking the publics help to identify a suspected arsonist in connection with fires at the the Iglesia Pentecostal de Bethlehem on Pembroke Road. A person walking home from work around 2 a.m. Thursday reported a fire on the roof of the building. Two days earlier, a fire damaged the churchs sanctuary, and was ruled an arson; the second fire is considered suspicious. The fires are being investigated by Bethlehem police, the city fire marshall and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Officials are seeking tips about anyone acting suspiciously or purchasing an accelerant such as lighter fluid or gasoline. Bethlehem police can be contacted anonymously at 610-691-6660 or 610-865-7187. The ATF is offering a reward of up to $5,000 for information that leads to a successful prosecution. The ATF tipline is 888-283-3473. The church has started a $100,000 GoFundMe campaign to repair the fire damage and rebuild. Nursing home representatives from the Midlands are urging TDs to address what it says are 'fundamental inequalities' in the funding of nursing home care. Representatives from nursing homes in Laois and Offaly briefed constituency TDs in March in Leinster House as part of a Nursing Homes Ireland (NHI) campaign to advance the care needs of residents in private and voluntary nursing homes. Nursing home representatives claim the last published figures released by the HSE, in March 2018, revealed HSE nursing homes in Co Laois are paid an average 122% more than private and voluntary counterparts in fees under the Nursing Home Support Scheme, commonly known as Fair Deal. Private and voluntary nursing home representatives want greater fairness Tadhg Daly, NHI CEO states: Residents in nursing home care deserve equality in the funding of their care. It is unacceptable private and voluntary nursing homes, which are the lead providers of nursing home care, are forced to provide care for fees that are a fraction of those payable to HSE counterparts. "It is disgraceful the HSE continues this gross inequality in funding for healthcare for our older population. What is now the disparity in the midlands? It is over a year since the HSE published the fees payable to its nursing homes under Fair Deal. Private and voluntary nursing homes have their fees published on a monthly basis but no such transparency is applied for HSE nursing homes. The NHI say the fees published in March 2018 informed: Westmeath: Two HSE nursing homes received an average fee of 2,229 per week. 11 private and voluntary nursing homes received an average fee of 846 per week. (Average disparity: 163%) Laois: Three HSE nursing homes received an average fee of 2,078 per week. Four private and voluntary nursing homes received an average fee of 935 per week. (Average disparity: 122%) Longford: One HSE nursing home received an average fee of 1,912 per week. Three private and voluntary nursing home received an average fee of 887 per week. (Average disparity: 115%) Offaly: Three HSE nursing homes received an average fee of 1,661 per week. Seven private and voluntary nursing homes received an average fee of 846 per week. (Average disparity: 96%) The representations by NHI Members in Leinster House also call for removal of the role of healthcare assistant from the ineligible categories of employment for employment permits list on a controlled basis. The campaign also wants TDs to push for for new and revised GP contract to recognise and resource GPs to meet regulatory requirements, obligations and duties to meet nursing home residents GP care needs. The community of The Swan will stage its first Darkness into Light walk in aid of suicide charity Pieta House. On Saturday, May 11 the people of the rural Laois village and surrounding area will join thousands of people around Ireland and other parts of the world in the dawn walk. The now international event aims help raise funds for the charity's work fight against suicide and self-harm. Participants are asked to meet in The Swan Hall from 3.45am and leave at 4.15am sharp! The walk includes two laps of the new walking track, a walk down through village and housing estates and onto Timahoe Road and back and to finish with two more laps of the track. "We promise to be as quiet as we can but we do ask everyone in the community to light a candle and leave it out safely on their window or leave a light on to show support for this great cause," say the organisers. There will be tea and coffee in The Swan Hall afterwards. You can register online or there will have donation bucket in hall that morning. For more details contact Sandra 0857813597 Or Roisin 0877633436. Mountmellick and Rathdowney have staged Darkness into Light walks in previous years. A young Laois woman who survived a life-threatening brain injury has rebuilt her life and is now studying her second Master's degree to fulfil her dream of becoming a school counsellor. In July 2008, Niamh Cahill from Mountrath had her first seizure on her kitchen floor when she was 18 years old. She had experienced aggressive leg jerks and spent a week in Portlaoise hospital but was later discharged. It was Christmas Eve that year before Niamh was diagnosed with auto-immune triggered encephalitis, a rare auto-immune condition where the blood attacks the brain. Her options were slipping away when she was in intensive care in Beaumont Hospital when doctors brought video footage of her involuntary jerks before a team of American doctors via video conference in the hope of finding some answers. I wasnt really myself, everything was intermittent. You would talk to me and my speech would be absolutely perfect the next minute I would just look at you and I wouldnt know how to respond or what you were saying. I just wasn't myself. My mam contacted the Hermitage again and the doctor I was seeing was on holidays so I was in a bit of a loop. I had no one to go to so my GP saw me and she gave me an injection for viral encephalitis. I didnt have viral encephalitis but she was probably the closest of anyone to figure out what it was for a long time. I ended up back in Portlaoise in coronary care, I went downhill really really quickly with constant seizures, I needed constant care and eventually then I got a bed in Beaumont. I went from bad to worse in Beaumont I ended up in ICU they knew there was something going on in my brain and they had tested me for all the common things like meningitis, tumours, encephalitis but nothing was showing up and at this stage, they really were essentially running out of options. I was on life support at this stage, they were running out of time and the doctor came to my parents one day and asked if they could record me in my bed, I was making a lot of involuntary movements and there was a video conference with some American doctors and they wanted to use my case to see if they had anything to suggest. They did that and the American doctors said there's a new thing, very new, very rare but its auto-immune triggered encephalitis. Auto-immune is anything where your body attacks itself so in my case my blood was attacking my brain. They went with that, they treated me blindly and I started to pull through, she said. Niamh considers herself lucky and she has been an ambassador for Acquired Brain Injury Ireland for six years. She is promoting family support groups for people with brain injuries and a new initiative called Step Ahead that helps people get back to work and college after a brain injury. The 29-year-old had to rebuild her whole life after coming out of intensive care, she spent eight weeks in rehabilitation in Dun Laoighre. I was 19 and I had the vocabulary of a 5-year-old. My cognitive abilities were non-existent to problem solve or make a decision or understand things on a bigger scale was not something I could do. I remember what it felt like I felt less because you know what you used to be like and you wonder why you can't do that anymore. "I went through intensive speech-language, occupational and physical therapy in Dun Laoghaire and I definitely came out after 8 weeks with an abundance more, like a different person my speech had vastly improved and I had worked on a lot of skills to help me function day to day and live properly. It took me about three or four years to feel like myself after it, I was really conscious of my speech for years, she said. Support from Acquired Brain Injury Ireland helped Niamh return to college, achieve her degrees and get back to work. Niamh is the daughter of Martina and Ken Cahill and has one brother Ronan. She has encouraged anyone in Laois affected by brain injury to go along to family support meetings in Portlaoise Parish Centre on the second Tuesday of every month from 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm to meet other families going through a similar situation. TV chef and Laois native Rory O'Connell's brand new RTE series A Long Weekend in...with Rory OConnell kicks off this May on RTE One. The Cullohill chef based in Cork will enjoy the culture as well as the cuisine of eight European cities - Palma de Mallorca, Vienna, Lisbon, Madrid, Bath, Nantes, Copenhagen and Edinburgh during the series. WATCH: Chef Rory O'Connell recalling his Laois childhood, before his Christmas Feast event in Cullohill This new eight-part series sees Rory visiting a different city in each episode, and while the primary focus is on food, Rory is a knowledgeable guide to so much more, with art and design being particular interests of his. Food becomes much more interesting when seen in context - the culture it is part of, the landscape its produced in, the history that has influenced it. "Weve chosen eight very different cities and the series has been exciting for me because its the first time that Ive visited many of them, so theres a genuine sense of discovery. We film each city in two days, but its amazing what can be packed into 48 hours if you set your mind to it," he said. In Palma de Mallorca, Rory is thrilled to find an exhibition of Picassos ceramics in a railway station, and he visits a factory where the traditional Mallorca fabric is made. In Madrid, he eschews the expected trip to the Prado Museum and looks instead at the street art and graffiti thats been painted on the walls of an old tobacco factory. From visiting the oldest restaurant in the world to learning how to bake Portugal's best custard tarts in a Lisbon cookery school, Rory takes viewers on a journey through eight European cities showcasing the best of local cuisine and art in each one. At the end of each episode, Rory makes a delicious dish with the local produce which he sources on his travels. Programme One: Palma de Mallorca In this first episode, Rory visits Palma de Mallorca, a city that is becoming increasingly popular as a destination for a long weekend. He begins by visiting a beautiful art nouveau bakery where the traditional ensaimada pastries are made by one of the islands most respected bakers. A quick bit of shopping in the warren of streets beside the Cathedral is followed by lunch at El Camino, a new restaurant set up by successful London restaurateur Eddie Hart who was keen to return to his Mallorca roots. Away from the city, Rory meets David Stein, the owner of a finca (country estate) built originally by a pirate, and now a hotel with its own vineyard. The following day, Rory takes a beautiful train with wooden carriages that date back to 1912 to the town of Soller, on the other side of the island, and the other side of the Tramuntana Mountains. The construction of the railway line was a major engineering feat, and one that would have garnered worldwide attention if the day of its official opening hadn't also been the day that news broke about the sinking of the Titanic. At Soller railway station, Rory is surprised but delighted to find a permanent exhibition of Picassos ceramics. Oranges were the source of Sollers wealth, and Rory goes to an orange orchard to learn about how oranges are grown. Always on the lookout for an authentic souvenir, Rorys last stop is to a shop where Mallorcas instantly recognisable fabric of flames is made. Back home in his Ballycotton kitchen, Rory bakes a delicious orange and almond cake, using oranges, olive oil, and almonds which he brought home from Mallorca. 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. Laois TD and Minister Charlie Flanagan has co-announced a new parental leave scheme which it is claimed will allow some 60,000 parents new paid parental leave and benefit from this November. Under the plan parents of new babies will have access to two weeks leave each expected to rise to seven weeks each over the next three years. New legislation also aims to enable male same-sex couples to receive adoptive leave and benefit. Parents in employment or self-employment will be able to avail of the new parental leave scheme. Ultimately, it is hoped that parents will be able to benefit from seven weeks leave each under the scheme as it develops incrementally over the next three years. Minister for Justice and Equality Flanagan secured the approval of Government for the priority drafting legislation to introduce the leave entitlement. He welcomed the scheme as practical support for working parents. This is an important support for working parents in Ireland. The General Scheme of the Bill, which I am publishing, provides for paid parental leave for each parent of a child under one, whether employed or self-employed. The leave will initially be set at two weeks, increasing on a phased basis over the next three years. "This is in addition to existing maternity, paternity and adoptive leave entitlements. It will provide working parents with further opportunity to spend more time with their baby in its crucial first year of development. "With the introduction of this Bill, we are delivering on our commitment to increase paid parental leave in the first year of a childs life. This is a practical measure to benefit parents and children. Helping working parents to have more flexibility and greater choice in how they balance their professional and family lives has positive benefits for families and for society as a whole, said Minister Flanagan. Under the scheme, both parents will have access to two weeks each (non-transferrable) benefit for babies born from this November, which will be paid at the same rate as Maternity Benefit and Paternity Benefit - 245 per week. It is intended to incrementally increase this to up to seven weeks parental leave over the next three years in line with Government announcement for Budget 2019. Reacting to the publication of the Parental Leave and Benefit Bill 2019 today, Sven Spollen-Behrens, Small Firms Association Director, stated: The proposed legislation correctly identifies the need to improve family leave within the first year. Nevertheless, given the current skill shortages small businesses are struggling to find replacement staff and the proposals in this Bill will place greater administration burden and more confusing laws on the countrys small firms. A Time to Sign Foroige Style, based in Kildare town, was one of six social action projects from Kildare that took part in the Aldi Foroige Youth Citizenship Awards in the National Indoor Arena, Blanchardstown, Dublin, on Saturday, April 13. The youth club runs sign language summer camps for young people The group were inspired to learn sign language so they could communicate with people who are deaf in their school and community. They researched courses, but soon realised they were either too expensive or aimed at adults. Kaitlyn McGannon and Katie OKeeffe amassed almost 2,500 likes on social media for the sign language video they created to promote their club last month. They taught themselves to sign from Youtube videos and ran free summer camps to teach other young people how to sign too. To promote their summer-camps they made a Youtube video with Lucy Kennedys Golden Buzzer act from Irelands Got Talent Sharon and Brandon Webb, who are also their neighbours. In the video, they sign the words as the Webbs sing You Are the Reason by Calum Scott which was a huge hit with the judges and presenter of the TV talent show. The club was run with the help of youth group The Hive before it was taken over by Foroige because of its popularity. Both girls were made youth leaders and were on hand to attend the youth awards and receive their certificate of achievement last week. Assaults of this nature in Carrick-on-Shannon or elsewhere are going to stop, said Judge Kevin P Kilrane when addressing Christopher Underwood at a sitting of Carrick -on-Shannon District Court last week. Insp Frank Finn gave summary evidence against Mr Underwood, Rathmadder, Gurteen, Co Sligo stating that shortly after midnight on December 17, 2018 Peter Lavin was headbutted by the defendant. Insp Finn described it as an unprovoked assault adding: Mr Lavin claimed he was abused. An impact statement given by the injured party, Peter Lavin, was read by Insp Finn, in which he said he suffered a broken nose and headaches for a few days after the event but suffered no lasting effects. Addressing the court, Mr Underwood recalled the events of the night in question saying his partner was at the bar getting a drink when she was approached by the injured party who asked her if she was still with Mr Underwood and she answered 'yes'. Mr Underwood said Mr Lavin followed his girlfriend back to their table in Dunnes Bar, Main St, Carrick-on-Shannon on December 17, 2017 adding: I saw him sniggering at me and I saw red. Mr Underwood said he apologised to the injured party the following day with Insp Finn acknowledging: It seems to be out of character. Having heard the evidence Judge Kilrane ruled he wanted the injured party to be re-interviewed to ensure his version of events matched what was said by Mr Underwood. I want Mr Lavin to be re-interviewed whether by phone or otherwise and put the allegations of provocation to him. Assaults of this nature in Carrick-on-Shannon or elsewhere are going to be stopped. Mr Underwood was initially remanded in custody to appear in Sligo last Wednesday with Judge Kilrane remarking: If Mr Lavin was to read a version in the press that is untrue he would be very unhappy and rightfully unhappy. However, contact was made with Mr Lavin on Tuesday afternoon and he verified Mr Underwoods version of events to gardai. Judge Kilrane convicted Mr Underwood of assault and fined him 300. THE former Bishop of Killaloe has publicly apologised to the niece of Bishop Eamonn Casey, who claims she was raped and sexually abused by her uncle. Patricia Donovan, the niece of the high-profile bishop, claims she was raped and abused by her uncle from the age of five, beginning in the late 1960s. The former Bishop of Killaloe Willie Walsh, 84, told the Irish Mail on Sunday that he wants to unreservedly apologise to Ms Donovan after it emerged he was used in a smear campaign to tarnish her allegations. After Ms Donovan made her complaint against Bishop Casey in 2005, he told Bishop Walsh she had also made unfounded allegations against others. Ms Donovan previously made a formal complaint to gardai that she was sexually abused as a child by her brother, Fr Michael Donovan, who was forced to step down from his ministry in 1995 after an allegation of sexual abuse was made against him by an altar boy. The Killaloe Bishop went on to repeat a series of claims Bishop Casey had told him on Clare FM in December 2005. Bishop Walsh's remarks were reported in a number of national newspapers at the time and have been repeated since. In an article from 2005, Bishop Walsh was quoted as saying: He [Bishop Casey] assured me that there wasnt any foundation for this allegation. This week, Bishop Walsh told the Irish Mail on Sunday he was deeply sorry for any hurt caused. He also told the paper he was not aware of any other allegation by Ms Donovan when he spoke on local radio, nor was he aware of her allegation against her brother, until he was told by the newspaper last week. He said: I want to apologise unreservedly to Patricia if I caused her hurt by my comments at that time. I deeply regret any hurt caused and apologise to her. I am deeply sorry. I was simply quoting Bishop Casey. I regret quoting Bishop Casey at that time. I should not have expressed confidence then that his name would be cleared. I did not say and had no intention of saying that her allegation had no credence nor did I make any judgment on her. I did not say that her allegations weren't true, or that there was no foundation to them. If she or other people interpreted my comments as such I deeply apologise. OPPORTUNITIES to develop agri-tourism in West Limerick will be the focus of a seminar to be held in Newcastle West next Monday and which is being hosted by Limerick Chamber. Announcing the event which will take place in the Longcourt House Hotel, Dee Ryan , chief executive of Limerick Chamber said it follows on from the recently launched tourism strategy for Limerick which envisages that the total number of visitors to Limerick will reach 1.1 million per annum, generating more than 360 million in revenue and creating 1,500 new jobs by 2023. Our goal in Limerick Chamber is to help businesses to thrive and so we have pulled these experts together to share their knowledge on how attendees might capitalise on the increasing popularity of nearby tourist routes the Wild Atlantic Way, Shannon Estuary way and Greenway, she said. The keynote speaker Minister Patrick ODonovan will open the event and will share his insights into Tourism development in Ireland, followed by Tadhg Buckley of AIB and and Margaret Jenkins, Wild Atlantic Way, Failte Ireland. Special guest Margaret Crowley from West Cork Farm Tours will explain how farm families there expanded into tourism. Farming has undergone substantial changes in the last decade, most notably in terms of technological advancements and the impact of the removal of quotas, Tadhg Buckley Head of Agri-Business, AIB said in advance of next Mondays event. Our sectoral team has insights into emerging revenue streams within the agri-business sector and agri-tourism is one of the most exciting prospects that we want to tell people about. Limerick Chamber and AIB are inviting West Limerick business owners, professional advisors and in particular members of the regional farming community to attend this free event which starts at 2pm in the Longcourt House Hotel. Registration can be done online at www.limerickchamber.ie/events or you can telephone Limerick Chamber on 061 217600. NEWCASTLE West and Abbeyfeale remained poster-free zones this Wednesday as the official run-in to the local elections got underway. But posters have gone up in other parts of West Limerick, despite a voluntary ban on posters agreed by councillors last March. The ban was originally spearheaded by Deputy Mayor Cllr Michael Collins and agreed unanimously by councillors in the Newcastle West Municipal before going before the full council in March. When Newcastle West councillors agreed the ban, however, they also conceded that it could not be imposed on non-sitting councillors. And it remains to be seen whether the non-councillor candidates will seek this time-honoured method of gaining publicity. The areas six sitting councillors are all seeking re-election but four other candidates, Independent Christy Kelly, Fine Gaels Tom Ruddle, Aontus Conor ODonoghue and Renuas John Dalton are also in the fight for seats. However, postering in the Adare Rathkeale electoral area has got off to an early, some have said too early, start with posters going up overnight in Rathkeale, Askeaton and Adare as well as a number of smaller towns and villages. The first posters to go up were those of Cllr Stephen Keary. Five of the six sitting councillors are seeking to retain their seats in the Adare Rathkeale area while a number of new candidates are also in the race. So far these include Fianna Fails Bridie Collins and Trina ODea and Fine Gaels Leo Walsh while the Green Party is fielding Theresa Storey. Sinn Feins Ciara McMahon is not seeking re-election but the party expects to announce a female candidate within the week. Meanwhile, Cllr Adam Teskey, who was co-opted to the council following the election of Tom Neville to the Dail in 2016, is seeking election for the first time to hold that seat. He has decided to erect roadside billboards in his Adare Rathkeale area because, he says: I am conscious this is my first time going for election and some of the electorate may or may not know me. ABBEYFEALE solicitor and mother-of-two Carmel Finnegan is campaigning to have a potentially life-saving treatment extended to all the countrys 19 maternity hospitals. And already over 700 people have signed up to support her online campaign Currently, Carmel says, brain-cooling, or therapeutic hypothermia to give it its medical term, is only available in three Dublin hospitals and one in Cork. But she believes it is vital that all parents of babies born with moderate to severe HIE (or Hypoxic Ischaemic Encephalopathy) should be able to get fast and easy access to it. Research shows this treatment reduces the rate of death, disability and cerebral palsy and is regarded as the greatest single advance in the care of newborns in the past 25 years, Carmel explains. Babies born in Limerick and in need of the treatment, Carmel goes on, can get access to the treatment but an ambulance has to come from Dublin to bring them to Cork at a time when early intervention is vital. The concern is that valuable time is lost, she says. HIE is essentially a form of brain damage, which occurs when a baby experiences reduced oxygen or blood supply, either before, during or after the birth. Subsequently the baby shows signs of abnormal brain activity. The evidence, Carmel says, suggests that brain cells start dying within five minutes when a child experiences HIE. The condition can be fatal, and many babies do not survive. Brain cooling, according to Carmel, is the only procedure known to improve the brain damage, The procedure involves placing the baby on a cooling blanket and reducing their body temperature to between 33 to 34 degrees celsius before then gradually increasing the temperature back to normal over a six to 12 hour period. In simple terms, its like a mattress with water. The water is regulated and it cools the baby, which in turn slows down the process at which the brain cells are dying. But timing is crucial. It must be carried out within six hours of birth, Carmel says. A report published last November showed that one in 900 babies or a total of 140 babies required brain cooling in 2016/2017. Crucially, it also showed that 40 percent of babies sent forward for this treatment, were brought from a regional hospital, to one of the four hospitals where the treatment is available. What is of great concern, Carmel says, is that experts fear that 20 per cent of babies who could benefit from this treatment, are being missed. Carmel first became aware of brain-cooling through her work as a solicitor with Dennison Solicitors in Abbeyfeale and is convinced it could have ameliorated or avoided damaging outcomes in a number of cases. She has written to both the Minister for Health, Simon Harris and to the HSE to express her concern about this issue. But the HSE has told her that the smaller hospitals dont have the staff, training or equipment to be able to administer brain cooling. This, says Carmel, is ironic given that Ireland is leading the way in terms of research into brain cooling through Paediatric Consultant Dr. Deirdre Murray at the Infant research centre in UCC. Carmel has set up a Facebook campaign and is asking people to support it https://www.facebook.com/birthinjuries/ A FEMALE motorist crashed into a monument of Our Lady in Ballylanders, Kilmallock Court heard. Julianne Enriques Reale, aged 46, of Carrigaroche, Galbally, was charged with dangerous driving by Garda John Curtin but the State accepted a guilty plea to careless driving. Sergeant Michelle Leahy said at 6.30pm on Wednesday, October 24, the defendant was driving into Ballylanders from the Galbally side. A Bus Eireann vehicle was stopped and dropping off passengers. A car was parked on the other side of the road. She went through the gap and broke the cars wing mirror. She drove on and collided with the monument in the centre of the town. There was considerable damage done to the railings and barriers around the monument. That is being handled by her insurance. The driver was uninjured, said Sgt Leahy. Judge Marian OLeary asked were there any injuries. Sgt Leahy said there wasnt. Marie Forde, solicitor for Ms Enriques Reale, said a lot of damage was done to her clients vehicle. Ms Forde said her client suffers from a medical condition and was in hospital the day before the accident. She is taking a lot of medication and I believe it is a contributing factor. She has one child and is in receipt of social welfare of 240 a week. She is very apologetic at what happened. She realises the seriousness of the matter. It was a wake up call for her, said Ms Forde. I should hope so, said Judge Marian OLeary, who asked if there were school children on the bus. Sgt Leahy said as it was 6.30pm it would have been commuters. If a person who got off the bus was crossing the road there could have been serious injuries or worse, said Sgt Leahy. Ms Forde said her client lives in a remote area. She has a six-year-old child who she has to get to school. She is terribly upset over this matter. She takes it very seriously. She assures me she is not going to get into difficulty again. She is separated with one child, said Ms Forde. Judge OLeary said she was loathe to disqualify Ms Enriques Reale because of the circumstances. I am going to adjourn it for six months for a garda progress report. All being in order I will possibly then exercise my discretion [not to disqualify her from driving], said Judge OLeary. According to buildingsofireland.ie, Our Ladys Monument was erected in Ballylanders in 1955. It comprises a carved marble figure statue surrounded by metal railings. Inscriptions in Irish and English bear the names of soldiers of Galtee Battalion who fought in the 1916 Rising and the Irish War of Independence. It bears the inscription, In memory of the officers and men of the Galtee Battalion Irish Volunteers 1916 1921 Our Lady of Lourdes pray for them. IRISH Water has appealed to the public to conserve water as supply has been affected in parts of Limerick due to Storm Hannah. Following a power outage in Fedamore and Croom, water supply in the area is currently impacted and Irish Water is tankering water to Croom hospital. While the ESB is working to restore power, Irish Water is asking customers to be mindful of water consumption this Saturday due to issues with supply as a result of fallout from the storm. Irish Water is continuing to track treatment plants across the country and to liaise closely with ESB Networks and our Local Authority partners, a spokesperson for the utility said. Customers can call Irish Water on 1850 278 278 to report issues, he added. We would like to thank our customers for their patience during this time. A number of areas across Limerick, Kerry, Clare, Waterford and Meath are experiencing issues with water supply but Irish Water believes these issues will be resolved in the coming hours. A clean-up of storm damage across the county is currently underway, with crews from Limerick Fire Service, the ESB and Limerick City and County Council currently assisting with a number of operations across the county. Electricity has been restored to most homes across Limerick, although there are still some outages in Bruff, Patrickswell and Askeaton. Real time information on power outages and restoration times is available on www.esbpowercheck.ie. Tony Elochukwu, a Nigerian from Nnobi, Anambra State, has been killed by an unidentified gunman in South Africa. His death was confirmed by Prince Ben Okoli, President of the Nigerian Citizens Association in South Africa in a letter to the Consular-General, Nigerian Consulate in Johanesburg. As it stands now, three Nigerians have been killed between April 6 and April 9 at different locations in the country. In his letter, Okoli lamented the death and incessant killings of Nigerians in South Africa, saying: We received yet again the sad news of the death of another Nigerian in Witbank Mpumalanga province. Mr Tony Elochukwu from Nnobi Anambra State was shot twice in the head by an unidentified Nigerian gunman on April 24 at around 2:45pm." Okoli said that a lone Nigerian man walked to some Nigerians at a restaurant and inquired from them where to get some weed to smoke, but they told him that they did not know where since they do not smoke. He said the man then pulled out his gun and shot Elochukwu on the head and sped off in a car parked down the street. He added that a case of murder had been opened at the police station by NICASA Chairman in Mpumalanga, Obeji Chukwuma. Leftist Osazee Edigin, the Public Relations Officer of Edo Civil Society Organisations, disclosed that a popular producer with ITV was allegedly assaulted by the police in Benin City on Thursday, because he was recording a fracas between the police and commercial bus drivers. Read the statement below: POLICE BRUTALITY IN EDO STATE TAKEN TO ANOTHER LEVEL: ...Don General of ITV assaulted by the police in Benin City. Don General, the producer of a popular television show 'vbosunu' was severely assaulted by men of the Edo state police command yesterday in Airport road simply because he was recording a fracas between the police and commercial bus drivers. The report also states that, the aggressive police officers bundled him and his camera into their hilux van to the state police command as they intermittently dealt blows and kicks on him. He was said to have sustained injuries on his body. It should be noted that, few days ago some police men pounced on a young man that went to one of the new generation banks on Sapele road to withdraw money, thereby demanding the sum of N100, 000 from him as ransom. Upon sighting the ITV news crew, they took to their heels. The complaints of residents in Edo state concerning the operations and activities of men of the Nigeria Police Force is worrisome and calls for urgent response from all relevant stakeholders. It has been observed that the police in Edo state have preoccupied themselves with the chase after Internet fraudsters and collection of huge amount of money for bail. The newly launched 'Operation Wabaizigan' security architecture by the state government have been turned to money making opportunity for police officers attached to vehicles procured by tax payers' money intended to fight violent crimes. Now that the police audacity has assumed this dimension, the call for a rejigged police command has become sacrosanct than ever. The commissioner of police should as a matter of public interest inaugurate a Public Complaint Desk at the state command in collaboration with the civil society and the Nigerian Bar Association to stem this ugly tide so as not to give the impression of a subtle nod from him of the unprofessional conducts by his men. The assault on Don General is highly condemnable and the police officers involved must be sanctioned to serve as deterrent to others that think possession of arms depicts the power to abuse human rights at will. Edo Civil Society Organisations is currently reviewing the incident and making plans in addressing the unprovoked assault on his person. Leftist Osazee Edigin Public Relations Officer Edo Civil Society Organisations Troops of Operation WHIRL STROKE deployed to counter banditary activities in North Central Nigeria have rescued 3 kidnapped victims in a building located at Ganas family compound at Gbise in Katsina Ala Local Government Area of Benue State. A statement from the Nigerian Army says the victims, a man and two women were rescued during a dawn raid in the early hours of Friday 26 April 2019, when gallant troops stormed a building reportedly belonging to a notorious bandits' leader, Gana. The visibly traumatized victims claimed they were abducted about 2 months ago at Gboko by a gang of kidnappers and subsequently relocated to Gbise community. Troops are are still on the trail of the criminals, who fled their enclave after they were overpowered in a shootout with the troops. Troops have also destroyed the building which served as the kidnappers hideout. The rescued persons have been handed over to authorities of Benue State Government for medical attention before reuniting them with their respective families. Similarly, troops of Operation WHIRL STROKE deployed to Giza in Nasarawa State have arrested a bandit during a raid on a suspected bandits' hideout at Alima, near Kadarko in Nasarawa state. The bandit, who was intercepted with a locally made rifle and some quantity of gun powder is currently assisting in preliminary investigations after which he will be handed over to an appropriate prosecuting security agency. Life may have arisen in our solar system before Earth even finished forming. Planetesimals, the rocky building blocks of planets, likely had all the ingredients necessary for life as we know it way back at the dawn of the solar system, said Lindy Elkins-Tanton, a planetary scientist at Arizona State University (ASU). And clement conditions may have persisted inside some planetesimals for tens of millions of years perhaps long enough for life to emerge, said Elkins-Tanton, the director of ASU's School of Earth and Space Exploration and the principal investigator of NASA's upcoming mission to the odd metallic asteroid Psyche. Related: 7 Theories on the Origin of Life Some planetesimals survived into and beyond the planet-forming period, raising the possibility that one of these primitive bodies may have seeded Earth with life, she added. "Not all planetesimals are going to be involved in the kinds of catastrophic collisions that would cause them to go into a plasma or otherwise completely denature anything that was created," Elkins-Tanton said April 11 at the Breakthrough Discuss conference at the University of California, Berkeley. "Some things are going to fall like Chelyabinsk, for example back onto the surface of a temperate planet," she added, referring to the 65-foot-wide (20 meters) object that exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk in February 2013. "So, there is that possibility in the end." Elkins-Tanton said this basic idea grew out of a course she taught at ASU in the fall of 2016. At the beginning of the semester, she asked the students to consider whether life could have arisen on small bodies. Over the next few months, the students, Elkins-Tanton and her co-author on the newly presented work, Stephen West, explored this possibility, as well as a number of other questions that stemmed from that core question. Life as we know it requires three main ingredients: liquid water, organic molecules and an energy source. Planetesimals, which formed within 1.5 million years of the solar system's birth, likely featured all three, Elkins-Tanton said. For example, more than 35 different amino acids have been identified in the Murchison meteorite, an ancient space rock that fell to Earth in southern Australia in 1969. Murchison is so full of organics that it "smells like an oil well," Elkins-Tanton said. "What could be a better place for the advent of life than a nice, warm, wet piece of Murchison? So, that's the idea that we're starting with." The energy source on early planetesimals, such as Murchison's parent body, came from the radioactive decay of aluminum-26, she explained. The heat flowing through some planetesimals' interiors was intense enough to melt the objects completely, which is certainly not conducive to the emergence of life. But other bodies would have melted only partially, from the inside out, so they would eventually sport a metallic core, a magma-ocean mantle and a rocky, primitive crust. Such planetesimals would have had extremely hot interiors but frigid surfaces, Elkins-Tanton said. Waves of heat radiating from the depths would have spurred the release of fluids such as liquid water, driving that material up toward the surface. Such processes may have created habitable environments beneath the planetesimals' rocky surfaces. And these environments likely lasted for relatively long stretches. For example, modeling work performed by Elkins-Tanton and West, who's now at the California-based company Metis Technology Solutions, suggests that small planetesimals those up to 30 miles (50 kilometers) wide could have supported liquid water underground for about 15 million years. And an earlier study Elkins-Tanton conducted with Ben Weiss and Maria Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that larger bodies could have remained wet for even longer perhaps 50 million years or so. It's unclear if this window is long enough for life to get going, Elkins-Tanton stressed. That's because we don't know how long that window has to be. "I'm going to bravely assert that we really have no idea," she said. For example, the earliest unambiguous signs of life on our 4.5-billion-year-old Earth date to about 3.8 billion years ago. But some scientists have presented evidence that microbes already had a foothold here by 4.1 billion years ago. And at this same Breakthrough Discuss meeting, biochemist Steven Benner of the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution in Florida argued that life actually emerged 4.36 billion years ago. (Only at that time was Earth's atmospheric chemistry right for the first organisms, RNA-based microbes, to evolve, Benner said in his talk.) To be clear, Elkins-Tanton and West aren't arguing that Earth life actually did originate on planetary building blocks just that this idea is worthy of consideration. And the new work is preliminary; the Breakthrough Discuss talk marked the first time Elkins-Tanton formally presented the idea to her planetary-science colleagues. She said she hopes the work spurs further discussion and research about the origin of life and its possible dispersal throughout the solar system. "This is meant to be just a kind of a thought problem for us all to consider," Elkins-Tanton said. "Could life actually have arisen on planetesimals? Could there be evidence for life in meteorites that we have not known to look for? And if this is so, how could they have been spread through the solar system and many, many unanswerable implications of that possibility." The idea that life has spread from body to body throughout the solar system is not a new one, of course. For example, Benner and others have suggested that Earth life may actually have originated on Mars and traveled here aboard a rock liberated from the Red Planet by an asteroid or comet strike. And some researchers have even posited that life may have come to Earth from another star system, perhaps aboard a wandering comet. Mike Wall's book about the search for alien life, "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), is out now. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook. One of these ocelots was prepared by an artist who knew what an ocelot looked like. The other was not. A pair of massive male moose stand locked together in deadly combat. Nearby, a group of buffalo graze on a prairie, a jaguar peers into a valley from a rocky peak, and a trio of mountain goats perch precariously on a steep mountainside. These scenes may sound dynamic, but the animals are frozen in time, taxidermy specimens in dioramas at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. These once-living animals are still remarkably lifelike, posed behind glass in scenes representing their natural habitats. Taxidermy is a type of preservation that applies an animal's tanned skin to a sculpted model, typically posed to demonstrate the creature's habits or behavior. For centuries, artists have preserved animals via taxidermy occasionally with laughable results for natural history museums and private collections. But, how do taxidermists do it? And which animals are the most difficult to preserve? [In Photos: Animal Taxidermies Are Uncannily Lifelike] Before specimens are prepared for museums, artists rigorously observe and draw the living animal so that the posed model will be anatomically correct and realistic, said Stephen Quinn, an artist and a diorama specialist at AMNH until his retirement in 2013. "The great challenge is arriving at a pose that depicts the behavior and character of the animal, and yet is sculptural and pleasing to the eye," Quinn told Live Science Prior to the skin's removal, taxidermists may create plaster casts to capture facial details, which are lost once the skin is removed. Multiple casts are made of the skinned body to record muscle groups, which will be recreated later in the sculpted model, Quinn said. Alaska brown bears stand at attention in the American Museum of Natural History's Hall of North American Mammals. (Image credit: AMNH) Measurements of the bones and sometimes the bones themselves are used to construct a framework known as an armature, "which duplicates the shape and form of the skeleton," he said. Layers of sculpted clay recreate muscles that are flexed or relaxed, depending on the pose. "And then once that final clay sculpture is finished, a mold is made of that, and a lightweight manikin is cast from that mold," Quinn said. A perfect replica For commercial taxidermy, the animal's body may instead be sculpted from urethane foam, Divya Anantharaman, a taxidermy instructor and the owner of Gotham Taxidermy in New York City, told Live Science. The skin is then cleaned and preserved through a chemical process and applied to the form. When scientific accuracy is emphasized, the taxidermic model retains details that are unique to that particular specimen, Quinn said. "The end product isn't simply representative of a typical animal say, a white-tailed deer," he said. "In a museum setting, it would be an exact replica of that individual white-tailed deer so precise and so exact that it duplicates that individual animal." Eyelashes, detailed facial muscles and a glistening nose are just a few of the details that bring a taxidermy to life. (Image credit: Amber Maykut/Brooklyn Taxidermy) But even for experienced taxidermists, some animals can be especially tricky to preserve. Rabbits, for instance, have very thin skin that tears easily, making it hard to manipulate and tan, Quinn said. Mourning dove skin is also impossibly delicate, resembling "a wet Kleenex with feathers on it," according to Anantharaman. "You breathe on them, and they start to lose feathers," she said. Snakes are more challenging than you might expect; their musculature is complex, aligning their scale patterns is time-consuming, and because their skin loses color when tanned, they need to be repainted one scale at a time, Anantharaman explained. Small animals like certain types of birds can be challenging to taxidermy. (Image credit: Gotham Taxidermy) Large mammals, such as elephants, antelopes and giraffes, offer extreme engineering challenges, due to their size. Meanwhile, very small animals test a taxidermist's ability to sculpt on a miniature scale, "like modeling an eyelid that's the size of a hair," she added. But ultimately, the animals that are the most difficult to mount are those that are the least familiar to the taxidermist, Quinn said. This particular challenge is what led to one of the most infamous taxidermies of all time, dating to the 18th century. [7 Iconic Animals Humans Are Driving to Extinction] King of the beasts? Sweden's King Frederick I received a lion as a gift in 1731, and a few years after the lion died, a taxidermist was commissioned to create a mount of the beast, Atlas Obscura reported. However, the artist only had the lion's skin and bones to work with and had never seen a living lion. The cartoonish result likely stemmed from the taxidermist having used highly stylized paintings as a reference for what a lion was supposed to look like, Anantharaman said. Believe it or not, this taxidermy in Sweden's Gripsholm Castle is supposed to represent a lion. (Image credit: Kungl. Hovstaterna/The Royal Court) A similar example resides in the collection of the Museum of Natural History in Berlin, Germany; an ocelot, preserved in 1818, was also prepared by an artist that had never seen the living animal. In the museum's recent exhibit "Masterpieces of Taxidermy," this woeful-looking creature is displayed alongside a taxidermied ocelot that was mounted in 1934, to highlight the importance of anatomical knowledge for creating models that are truly lifelike. Cutting corners on research and rushing preparation are common errors made by beginning taxidermists, artist Amber Maykut, owner of Brooklyn Taxidermy, told Live Science in an email. Typical mistakes include "not using reference photos, not properly preparing specimens, skinning holes into the skin basically experimenting on your own and not knowing the proper techniques," Maykut said. "A lot of people underestimate how much work goes into each step," Anantharaman said. "Preserving a hide, tanning a hide, sculpting a form; it sounds simple but it all takes so long. It's definitely not for someone without patience." Originally published on Live Science. TAMPA, Fla. (AP) A Florida man is being treated for flesh-eating bacteria he contracted while fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. Mike Walton tells Tampa television station WFTS that he was stuck by a fish hook while fishing about 20 miles (32 kilometers) off the coast of Palm Harbor on Saturday. He later went to a hospital, where he received antibiotics for his hand, which had started swelling. Dozens of people were arrested in an undercover, human-trafficking sting conducted in the Katy area last month, according to local law enforcement officials. Houston Police Department Sgt. John Wall said during a press conference Wednesday that 22 local, state and federal agencies partnered up for "Operation Tri Point" over the period of March 19-28 to tackle human trafficking in Katy and Fort Bend County. Wall said 47 people were arrested in total; 27 of whom were females, 20 were males. Eight were confirmed victims and eight were charged with human-trafficking related offenses. Wall said other charges such as sexual assault of a child, possession of a controlled substance and unlawful carrying of a weapon were also filed. STRUGGLE TO ESCAPE: Prostitutes try many times to leave the streets (Part 2 of our 3-part seris on the Bissonnet Track) "What we know is that human trafficking is occurring. It's not just an inner city problem," Wall said. "It's occurring out in the suburbs. It's occurring in smaller communities." The youngest victim was 16 years old and another victim was a runaway, according to Wall. He added most of the recruiting occurs online and through social media. "I would say as much as 90 percent [occurs online] and through social media," Wall said. "Young adults spend an enormous amount of time on social media and they are vulnerable...They don't understand the risk involved."Wall did not explain how the task force apprehended the traffickers and discovered the victims, but said resident tips and help from the community played a part in similar undercover stings. Fort Bend County District Attorney Brian Middleton said the sting is a step in the right direction toward eliminating trafficking in the area. "My office is committed to eradicating this problem in Fort Bend County," Middleton said. "We realize it's a serious issue and we are committed to combating it and making sure that Fort Bend County is safe and that these traffickers are run out of our county." Wall said the victims uncovered in the investigation will be given the appropriate support and services they need. "We understand they are scared to come forward but we are going to do everything we can in our power to give them the services they need to move forward with their life," Wall said. According to Wall, many of the cases were first-degree felonies that can a carry of sentence of 20 to 99 years in prison. He said some of the cases will be filed in federal court and can have mandatory sentencing of 20 to 40 years in prison. Wall said the investigation is still ongoing and other possible victims could be uncovered. "Through time hopefully we will develop more leads and identity other victims and that's our goal in these operations," Wall said. "This process could take months." Wall added similar undercover operations will be conducted throughout the Houston area. 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. Former Vice President Joe Biden also wants to make America great again - just not like that. There will be no red ball caps or lock-him-up chants, but the underlying focus on a festering nostalgia for a prior era has been unmistakable in the opening days of his presidential campaign. Whereas President Donald Trump evoked an idyllic past of greater economic prosperity and less political correctness, the bygone era that Biden pines for is a time before Trump, when American presidents sought to unify the country and build up national institutions. "This is not who we are, the way we are treating people," Biden said in his first interview as a candidate on ABC's "The View" on Friday. "There is an American creed. It's about decency, honor, including everyone, leaving no one behind." In that way, Biden has rejected the conventional wisdom ascendant in Democratic politics by framing the campaign as a referendum on Trump's character and his behavior in office. Biden and his advisers have bet his candidacy on the idea that a focus on the incumbent, more than new policy ideas, anti-establishment crusades or ideological innovation, will win back the White House for Democrats. The decision led to launching the campaign with a video about Trump's reaction to the 2017 Charlottesville protests, a circumstance the Biden team felt presented a clear contrast in values. "The president of the United States assigned a moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it," Biden said, referring to Trump's comment that "very fine people" were among the white nationalists and neo-Nazis at the violent conflict."And in that moment, I knew the threat to this nation was unlike any I had ever seen in my lifetime." People familiar with Biden's thinking say that the Charlottesville, Virginia, protests and the president's reaction caused a real shift in 2017 in the former vice president's desire to run for president. Andrew Bates, a spokesman for the campaign, said Biden found the events "profoundly disturbing." Two weeks later, Biden decided to break the tradition of former presidents and vice presidents by writing an article that compared Trump to "the charlatans and the con-men and the false prophets who have long dotted our history." "I think Charlottesville brought home to him in graphic terms what was at stake for the election in 2020," said Ted Kaufman, a longtime friend and adviser who worked on both of Biden's previous presidential campaigns. "When he is the most energized is with situations where some strong person is exerting power over someone weaker." While re-election efforts are commonly referendums on the incumbent, a credo for other Democrats this year has been a rapt focus on either policy or personality - in both cases, their own, and not Trump's. That flowed from Democratic congressional successes in the midterm elections that hammered issues like health care and education and consigned the president to an afterthought. As Biden planned a campaign launch, he and his aides decided they did not need to follow the traditional playbook of biographic details attached to a list of policy pronouncements, according to people familiar with the effort. Unlike most of his Democratic rivals, polls show he has nearly universal name recognition 46 years after he first became a federal officeholder. The pending debate over the ideological direction of the Democratic Party was not an ideal starting place for a candidate aiming to keep the sheen of an heir apparent, his advisers counseled. That was particularly true given that Biden's moderate and incremental instincts don't jibe with the ascendant and loudly liberal voices that have dominated the Democratic conversation so far. The strongest place to begin was on the question of character, where they contend Biden has an advantage over the president in a head-to-head matchup. "Even Mitch McConnell would probably tell you that," said one person familiar with the discussions, who asked for anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, in reference to the Senate majority leader's long track record of cutting deals with Biden. Biden's ability to control the story line of his campaign, however, is certain to be tested. Before his announcement, he has been hit with questions about his past opposition to school busing and his friendships with former segregationist lawmakers, with whom he said he disagreed. His campaign announcement was disrupted by news that Anita Hill, the sexual harassment accuser of Justice Clarence Thomas, was still not satisfied with Biden's contrition for how he ran the confirmation hearing at which she appeared in 1991. Biden's rival candidates also welcomed him to the race with criticism. On his first day as a candidate, Biden attended a fundraiser at the home of a Comcast executive and former lobbyist in Philadelphia, prompting Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., to send an email to supporters noting that he was not spending time "at the home of a corporate lobbyist." Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., told an audience Thursday in Iowa that during a fight over bankruptcy reform more than a decade ago, "Joe Biden was on the side of credit card companies." Biden's confidants say they have no illusions about how hard the campaign will be, and Democratic strategists not on the campaign predict that Biden will have to pivot away from Trump and emphasize voter-pleasing policy positions to get through the primary. "The central rationale for Joe Biden's candidacy is that Trump represents an existential threat to core values and that Biden is the best candidate to defeat Trump," said Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster who is not working for his campaign. "Biden still will need to lay out his progressive agenda for the next four years, presumably one that will focus on economics, especially creating jobs, rewarding work, and making it easier for people to get to and stay in the middle class." The early signs are that Biden will also approach that task by referencing the better days. Rather than simply talk about the middle class, he spoke on "The View" about the need to "restore the dignity of work." His speech and rally at a union hall in Pittsburgh on Monday has been teased as a discussion about "rebuilding America's middle class." The focus backward could exacerbate concerns about Biden's age, 76, which would make him the oldest president to ever take the oath of office. In recent months, he has been one of the only presidential contenders who has regularly appeared in public with note cards, including a paper he brought with him to his Friday morning appearance on ABC. In that interview, he initially struggled to answer a question about how his presidency would differ from Barack Obama's administration. He spoke about his close relationship with the former president and quiet disagreements, without offering specifics. But then he pivoted to the challenge ahead for his campaign. "On a philosophic basis, it's about moving to the future," he said. "It's not about re-creating what we did. It's about taking the same decency and philosophy that we had and taking it into the future. There is so much we can do. My Lord." Just what that will look like has not yet been described. Delta College hosted its 57th commencement ceremony on Friday, with about 250 graduates attending. Over the past year, more than 1,200 students earned an associate degree and/or a certificate. Each year, two graduates are selected to speak at commencement. This year's presenters were Jessica L. Fraley, of Midland, and Joseph "Joe" A. Thornton, of Saginaw. BAD AXE Due to recent construction work that began along North Port Crescent Street this week, and the detours that have resulted, traffic has been a little difficult in town. City officials are urging drivers to obey the speed limit, or else suffer the consequences. "Its been busy and hectic," said Bad Axe Police Chief David Rothe. Rothe said from Monday through Thursday this week, officers have made 102 traffic stops, issued 103 verbal warnings and 20 tickets along the detour routes of Whitelam and Butler streets. He said those numbers are very high, and the majority of the tickets were for speeding. "Regardless of a detour or regardless of construction, the speed limits have not changed," Rothe said. "The speed limits are still 25 miles per hour in a residential area. Whitelam is still 25 miles per hour the whole stretch." Officers have stopped drivers going as fast as 53 miles per hour on Whitelam Street, and over 40 mph on Butler Street. Bad Axe police have a patrol car designated strictly for traffic working only the detour areas in town. "We are there for the safety of the residents," Rothe said. "We're there to ensure their safety and to slow traffic down and make it safe for people." So far, there have been no accidents related to the detour and construction, but speeding has been a concern. One other issue that arose on Monday was the three-way stop that Michigan Department of Transportation officials put up on East Huron Avenue and Whitelam Street. Because there have never been stop signs on East Huron before, and due to some visibility issues, some motorists were running through the posted stops. Rothe said he contacted MDOT officials and the two sides came up with a few changes to alleviate the problem. "Now when you're coming in, you can't miss the three-way stop," he said. "And it's been a lot better that really changed things." With construction expected to last at least three months, Rothe offered some tips for motorists: Give yourself a little more time to get to where you are going, come to a complete stop at all stop signs, and note that lunch hour traffic is particularly busy in town. WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump announced Friday that he would end U.S. support for a global arms pact known as the Arms Trade Treaty in the latest illustration of his aversion to international agreements and world governance. "We will never allow foreign bureaucrats to trample on your Second Amendment freedom," Trump said during remarks at the National Rifle Association's annual meeting in Indianapolis. "I'm officially announcing today that the United States will be revoking the effect of America's signature from this badly misguided treaty," he said. During his speech, Trump signed a document asking the Senate to return the Obama-era pact to the White House. He then threw the pen he used into the cheering audience. The Washington Post reported earlier that an announcement appeared imminent. The origins of the treaty, which sets out international rules for sales and transfers of everything from small arms to large planes and ships, dates to the George W. Bush administration. The agreement was negotiated under the auspices of the United Nations and signed in 2013 under President Barack Obama but has never been ratified by U.S. lawmakers. The treaty seeks to prevent illicit arms transfers that fuel destructive conflicts, making it harder to conduct weapon sales in violation of arms embargoes. About 100 countries - including U.S. allies in Europe - have ratified the treaty, while more than 30 others have signed but have not ratified. Countries that have shunned the treaty entirely include Russia, North Korea and Syria. The NRA and other opponents of the treaty argue that it is ineffective and, more importantly, poses a threat to Americans' Second Amendment rights by potentially subjecting domestic gun ownership to internationally drafted rules. Chris Cox, executive director for NRA's Institute for Legislative Action, praised the decision in a statement, saying it "gave NRA members one more reason to enthusiastically support his presidency." Ted Bromund, a fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said the treaty could impinge on U.S. sovereignty in the future. "The ATT is, in effect, an escalator: Once you step onto it, you are no longer in control of your direction of travel." Its supporters dismiss those claims and say the treaty was drafted to have no effect on gun laws in the United States. They say any new amendments affect only states that ratify them. "This is yet another instance of the Trump administration turning its back on multilateral diplomacy," said Rachel Stohl, managing director of the Stimson Center, a Washington think tank, who contributed to the drafting of the treaty. "By not participating in the ATT, the United States is undermining global norms around the arms trade," she said. "It says to other countries, 'The U.S. could become less responsible, so why shouldn't I?' " After receiving a loud round of applause for unsigning the treaty, Trump said, "I'm impressed. I didn't know too many of you would know what it is." The move adds to earlier decisions underscoring Trump's suspicion of international groupings and agreements that he says could trample on U.S. autonomy. Since taking office, Trump has approved decisions to pull the United States from the Paris climate accord, the nuclear deal with Iran and the U.N. educational and cultural body UNESCO. His national security adviser, John Bolton, has championed a campaign to challenge the International Criminal Court. The decisions have tested U.S. alliances and, critics say, undermined U.S. influence abroad. Allied countries, including European nations that had worked with the Obama administration to pull the treaty together, appeared to be taken aback by the decision. The Trump administration has not yet decided whether it will continue to attend international conferences or contribute funds related to the treaty, U.S. officials said Friday. Thomas Countryman, a former State Department official who served as lead negotiator for the treaty under Obama, said a decision to "un-sign" the treaty would be "another mistaken step by the Trump administration that threatens to make the world less safe, rather than more secure." "It is sad, but to be expected, that this president opposes efforts to require other countries to meet the high standards of U.S. military export decisions," he said in a statement. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called the move a "myopic decision that jeopardizes U.S. security based on false premises and fearmongering." He linked the move to the political clout of the NRA, which has strongly supported Trump. "This is another reminder that if we're going to get anywhere to break the inaction on the kind of common-sense steps to stop gun violence and keep people safe, we must stop letting the NRA set the agenda in Washington," he said. A welfare check Friday morning led to San Antonio police shooting a woman who allegedly reached for a shotgun while officers were trying to speak with her. Police were called out to the 7800 block of Lanerose Place at 2 a.m. after a couple got into an argument, according to Police Chief William McManus. FIND OUT FIRST: Get San Antonio breaking news directly to your inbox The man told police that he asked his girlfriend to drop him off at his home after the argument started. When she dropped him off, she allegedly told him "she was going to do something to herself that he would remember for the rest of his life," McManus said. The man took that statement to be suicidal, so he called police, McManus said. The woman was not at the scene when police arrived, but she drove up to the home as the officers were leaving and would not cooperate with them, McManus said. As the officers tried coaxing her out of the car, the woman allegedly reached for a shotgun in her car. An officer fired one shot at her, striking her in the upper torso. RELATED: East Side drive-by shooting leaves 1 in critical condition, 2 wounded The woman was taken to the hospital in stable condition, McManus said. The officer who shot her, a 10-year veteran with the police department, was placed on administrative duty as police continue to investigate the shooting. Text "NEWS" to 77453 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com Fares Sabawi covers crime in San Antonio and Bexar County. Read him on our breaking news site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com | fsabawi@mysa.com|@FaresInSA Re: U.S. identity crisis behind border hysteria, Editorial, March 12: It was dismaying to read Ruben Navarrettes article. It is interesting how both political parties and American journalists are intent on stating that many fear the browning of America. The common denominator in America is to want to dwell on the racial divide, in this case, pitting whites against Latinos. After traveling for many years and speaking Spanish to many people in Mexico and other countries throughout Central and Latin America, I realized most immigrate because of the corruption at all levels of government that keeps them unemployed and uneducated. The majority prefer to remain in their countries if they were not riddled with crime and economic instability. By understanding the historical background of Guatemala, for example, it becomes evident on why it is and remains a breeding ground for corruption. Pedro Alvarado, a Spanish conquistador, conquered Guatemala in 1523. He divvied up the indigenous people of the declining Mayan culture and their land among his troops. The Spaniards instituted the encomienda (a repressive system) in the XVI-XVII centuries, which forced the natives to work in the exportation of indigo and cacao to European markets. There is also a history of Guatemalan dictatorships from the 19th and 20th centuries: Rafael Carrera, Justo Rufino Barrios and Manuel Estrada Cabrera. Under the auspices of Cabrera in the early 20th century, the U.S. United Fruit Company obtained large extensions of land for the production of tropical fruits and built a railroad system to facilitate the American business. This represents an example of American imperialism seeking to benefit from an unstable political regime under the rule of Cabrera to enrich the pockets of U.S. businessmen much like the encomienda system of the Spaniards. Recently, Jimmy Morales, the current president of Guatemala, is being investigated by the International Commission against Corruption in Guatemala instituted in 2007. This commission was successful in ousting the ex-president Otto Perez Molina on corruption charges. Morales is being investigated for receiving illicit campaign funds from a well-known drug trafficker. Morales is fervently trying to undermine the international commission by declaring it defunct and corrupt. He attempted to manipulate and gain favor from the Trump administration by supporting the controversial relocation of Israels capital this past year. Although the U.S. has supported the International Commission against Corruption in Guatemala and other Central American countries by contributing $2 billion, it has emphasized the debate over the wall on its border with Mexico as the optimum solution. The U.S. should continue its efforts to combat corruption, the root cause of illegal immigration from Guatemala to the U.S., and it should also acknowledge its role in exploiting Guatemala for profit during the inception of the United Fruit Company that acquired large portions of land for its benefit while contributing to the debt and economic instability of this country. Unfortunately, it is easy to simplify the border crisis and reduce it to blaming one political party or another on the fear of the browning of America. The real identity crisis is turning a blind eye to the historical causes of corruption in Guatemala in which the U.S. also played a part. Lane Carnes is the author of The Archs Prism (El prisma del arco) in 2014, Solitary Impressions in 2016 and City of Voices (La ciudad de las voces) in 2018. The beginning of the school year when you got to show off your new duds, new cars, new looks! Sports! Playing, cheering, watching high school athletics. The arts: Dramatic arts, musical groups and shows, graphic arts groups, debate, etc. The prom! No dancing the night away or punch bowl antics. The daily interactions. Just being with the group, hanging with friends and classmates. Access to college recruiters and advisors its harder to line up higher education. Walking onstage to get a diploma while all the family is watching with everyone elses family. Vote View Results Longford socialites, fashionistas and horse racing enthusiasts will descend in their hundreds on Punchestown racecourse next Wednesday, May 1 for the 17th annual Longford GAA race day in association with main sponsors, Nally Bros Hyundai in Ballymahon. It is Nally Bros third consecutive year to sponsor the race day which is the main county board fundraiser and since its introduction back in 2003, it has raised almost 1.6 million. Martin Nally said they were delighted to be associated with the event which takes place on the day of the coveted Coral Punchestown Gold Cup. Chairperson of the Race Day organising committee, Martin Skelly pointed out that one of the most enjoyable features of race day is the fact that so many Longfordians who may be living elsewhere are provided with the opportunity to meet up with each other and catch up. He added, It is incredible actually how many Longford people support the event, with up on 1,000 supporters gather in the Longford pavilion at Punchestown each year to support the county and that is really great to see. Race day provides all of us with an opportunity to give something back to Longford GAA and it is a fantastic day out for everyone to enjoy. The Longford pavilion at Punchestown has sold out consistently over the years and Mr Skelly paid tribute to Moydows Gerry Farrell who this year, after moving back home to the capital, stood down as the Dublin Coordinator for the race day. Gerry is a great Longford stalwart and well always be thankful to him for his commitment and professionalism in ensuring the huge success of the race day, said Mr Skelly. Co Board Chairperson Eamon Reilly thanked Martin Nally and Nally Bros for their support and he paid tribute to the organising committee of the race day. The Punchestown Irish National Hunt Festival is the highlight of the Irish sporting and social calendar. It is considered the grande finale of the jump season with top class horses, trainers and jockeys from both sides of the Irish sea converging on the Kildare venue to settle scores and confirm reputations. Tickets for this year's event are priced at 150 per person or table of ten 1,500. Contact Martin Skelly (086) 804 0296, Eamon Reilly 086 261 0556, Albert Cooney (086) 811 8580 and Dublin Administrator Padraig Brady 086 241 7560 for more information. The Longford GAA Race Day will feature a best dressed lady & best dressed man competition (kindly sponsored by Padraig & Mairead Brady), four course meal, race card, celebrity tipster, bar facilities, bookies in pavilion and top class music immediately after the last race until late. A mother of three who allegedly purchased a carpet cleaning product before later attempting to sell it on Done Deal was found guilty last week of possessing stolen property. Carmel Stokes, 6 Catron Breac, Longford pleaded guilty to being found in possession of a Rug Doctor carpet cleaner valued at 470 at McDonalds Car Park, Axis Centre, Red Cow Roundabout, Longford on July 16 2018. Sgt Mark Mahon said Ms Stokes was arrested by Garda Eric Naughton shortly after 3pm and later charged. He said the item was recovered and returned to its rightful owner, pausing to reveal Ms Stokes had nine previous convictions on her record. In defence, solicitor Fiona Baxter said her client had bought the item in good faith and had tried to sell it off at a later stage on Done Deal. She also explained how her client was a mother of three children, aged six, four and two and had cooperated at every possible juncture with Garda Naughton. Sgt Mahon said gardai learned about the loss of the reported item after being contacted by a UK based company. He said the cleaning product had been hired out by home improvement retailer Homebase. It was a statement which seemed to strike a chord with Judge Seamus Hughes, who commented: People go in and they hire them for the weekend but never return them. Ms Baxter, in reiterating her earlier point, said her client had purchased the item, causing Ms Stokes to shed further light on her alleged involvement in the incident. My husband bought it at the time, she said. I think it was about 300. Wearing a green jumper and blue jeans, Ms Stokes was fined 105 by Judge Hughes and given three months to pay. The phrase shop local holds a particular relevance when it comes to the people involved in the Granard Buttermarket. For everything provided by the team has been produced within the locality by the members themselves. The Granard Buttermarket is a community-run venture in the heart of the town. With official records dating back as far as 1892, the market began as a bustling business and thriving hub in one of Longfords busiest towns, with people coming from as far as Dublin to acquire produce. At the beginning of the 19th century, this place would have been thronged with people. They would have sold pigs, chickens, milk, meats, butter, a bit of everything here. We have records as far back as 1892, but it would have just been just a meeting place before that. Chair of the Butter Market, Helen Donnelly, told Kevin of the Leader. In those days, butter was a very good substance to have, as cows didnt milk over the winter. So the only way people had of producing the same protein was to make butter out of milk when it was plentiful. The buyers from Dublin markets would get the train down to Ballywillan and come over here to buy their stuff. They would buy the potatoes, eggs, butter and put it on the train and go back up to Dublin. Some of it would have even gone over to England. It was one of the main hubs in Granard. It was butter that played a pivotal role in the development of the market, which remained in full flow until the commencement of the first World War. This was when it unfortunately ceased trading and this remained the case until 2016, when the local community came together to revive what was once a focal point of the area. The man who pioneered the initiative was the late Sean Howard. Helen remarked, Seans vision was to create a sustainable energy centre, or to get it as sustainable as possible so it would cost nothing. He got a committee together and they started to pull together an idea. When the boom was going we had big plans and were going to spend 250,000 on the place. It was a long time idle and it was an eyesore really, committee member Nancy Carr added. Following the passing of Sean, Helen and the other committee members set out to make Seans dream a reality. Their tireless efforts to get the market back to its former glory days were finally rewarded, as the community received a grant of 50,000 under the town and village renewal scheme. This enabled the team to get to work on restoring the market back to its prime and in 2017, the market finally reopened its doors. Minister Ring officially relaunched the market in October 2017 and it began trading for the first time in 93 years the following spring. Upon restoring the market, the committee tried to keep any restorations as close to the original as possible. All of the renovation work carried out on the market was complete by local tradesmen. John Joe Reilly completed the build and all of the other bits. We tried to keep the building as original as we possibly could. Helen said. Nancy added, Seamus Ross did all of the stone work. It was all put back the same. The gates were restored by Eamon Creamer and are painted in the same green paint as they were originally. The market is now held every Friday at Market Street in Granard, running from 10am to 1pm in the afternoon. Comprised of locals, the market offers the people of Longford a chance to get their hands on some homemade, Longford produce, while also offering them the opportunity to test the waters and sell some of their own stuff. Helen explained, It is a nice social meeting point. It is a hub for a very small industry and people who want to explore their own little ideas. It costs nothing, except what they put into the products they make. They can bring it in, sell it. The more people they bring in the better, that is what business is about. It is just a lovely community space. Anyone can use it, that's what its for. It is for the people. Some of the items sold as part of the Buttermarket includes fruits, vegetables, jams, flowers, art, books, eggs, honey, boxty, cakes and, you guessed it, homemade butter. All of the eggs are provided by local man Shane Gettings, with Ita Creegan in command of the apple tarts, buns, boxty and breads. Angela Durkin and her husband Kevin produce the honey and they are also responsible for the production of the highly sought-after homemade butter. In control of the flower station is Margaret Small and music is often provided by daughters of Seamus Ross, Erin and Grace, making it a real community effort. The committee is made up of Nancy Carr, Helen Donnelly, Maura Newman, Rosalyn Donnelly, Ita Creegan and Angela Durkin, who were some of the original committee members during the reemergence of the Buttermarket. They encouraged everyone in the locality to show their support and get involved if they wish. The committee hope to inspire future businesses from within the county. As a group last year, we had eight young entrepreneurs between the ages of 12 and 14. They sold eggs, made cakes, everything. It was a lovely testing ground for them. Some of them may not come back as they may realise this is not for me, I dont have a vocation for selling eggs or whatever. But at least they know its not for them. Some came in for the whole summer and felt really bad when they went back to school, but it gave them a taste of what business is all about. One thing needed at the Buttermarket is a power supply, something they hope the community can help them with. We dont have electricity and we are hoping to get someone who can donate some solar panels to us, so we can provide our own energy. It is really just a lovely social occasion. Friday mornings, If you are feeling a bit lonely or whatever, come in, say hello and have a chat. You neednt come in and buy something if you dont want to. If any traders want to come in they are more than welcome. If customers come in, better again. Helen stated. The committee will also play host to their Show dance this coming July, so stay tuned to the Longford Leader for more information on that. In the meantime, they will look to improve in any way they can. We are never satisfied. We never stand still and we are always hoping to improve. Nancy concluded. Every year, unethical businesses are unfairly stealing from their own workers. These businesses misclassify their workers as 1099 Independent Contractors to rob their workers of overtime pay. In Michigan, minimum wage workers have 27 percent of their wages stolen by their employers. An analysis by the Economic Policy Institute estimates that Michigan workers were robbed of $429 million in stolen overtime wages between 2013 and 2015. More than 2.8 million Michigan workers were victims of this scam within that short timespan. When workers are robbed of their wages, theyre more likely to end up in poverty. EPI estimates that one-third of cheated workers depend on public assistance programs to feed their families and pay the bills. Recently, I joined my fellow legislators in introducing legislation to crack down on payroll and tax fraud to close any loopholes. To tackle this crime, we must have enforcement with tougher penalties for businesses that take advantage of their employees. An enforcement unit to investigate violations of wage and hourly laws has been proposed in Michigan by the Attorney General. This team will be made up of professionals from the AGs office as well as, Michigans Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the state Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, the Michigan State Police and other relevant departments. By bringing these departments together, we can better coordinate law enforcement activities and uphold fairness for our employees. This is a critical piece of the puzzle to protect Michigan workers. Im also joining my colleagues in co-sponsoring legislative proposals to address wage and overtime theft, by increasing punishments against lawbreakers. Additionally, we will be focusing on protecting those that speak out when they see these unfair practices in the workplace. Fortunately, one-third of all payroll fraud cases come to light because workers are courageous enough to tell someone about it. Many individuals often dont know their rights under the law so they fear retaliation from the industry or from their bosses. Individuals who speak out are also protecting Michigan taxpayers since payroll fraud is also tax fraud; businesses that dont comply with fair wage and overtime laws are avoiding paying more than $107 million in revenue to Michigan taxpayers each year. We want people to know that when they see something, they should speak up and they will receive the full protection of the law. Our legislation will encourage people to speak out against this crime by providing both protection and incentives, awarding a portion of the penalties recovered to the person who reports the fraud. I am proud to lead the effort with my colleagues in the Michigan Legislature to put workers first, and to hold the wealthy CEOs that exploit their employees accountable. State Rep. Nate Shannon is serving his first term representing the 25th House District, which comprises parts of the cities of Sterling Heights and Warren. Officials in Newton say a 63-year-old man is dead after a heavy fire broke out at a home early Saturday morning. Newton firefighters responded to a house fire at 115 Oxford Street around 6 a.m. on Saturday. Upon arrival, firefighters immediately observed heavy fire and struck a second, then third alarm, Chief Bruce Proia said at a press conference aired by Boston 25. Firefighters were unable to rescue a 63-year-old man from the basement, where they observed extreme conditions that forced them out, Proia said. The victims mother, a 92-year-old woman, was rescued and transported to a hospital. Authorities said they are concerned with her health but that her current condition is unknown. One firefighter suffered a minor should injury while battling the fire and was transported to a hospital, Proia said. Newton Mayor Ruthanne Fuller offered condolences to the victims family on behalf of the city. This is kind of the worst call you can get as a mayor, to learn that a resident has died. I know our fire department did everything they could and did everything right. Nevertheless this is a tough one for the city of Newton, Fuller said at the press conference. The Newton Fire Department is actively investigating the cause of the fire. I have some good news and some bad news. The good (actually great) news is that Dann Paquette and Martha Holley-Paquette are back in the beer business, The bad (but not really bad, just inconvenient for people like me) news is that their business is in Jolly Old England. A recent Food & Wine magazine article profiled the couples latest venture, Saint Mars of the Desert, a brewery in Sheffield in the North Midlands of England. The name is a reference to a location in France, according to the article. I heard that this was happening a few months ago, but had not kept up with the pairs latest news until I saw the recent article. The couple, of course, are best known for Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project, a small contract brewery that started in 2008 and grew beyond what Dan and Martha originally intended. The brewery made a number of exceptional beers, including my favorite, Meadowlark IPA, as well as the Belgian tripel Fluffy White Rabbits, Babyaga, a delicious stout, and the incredibly popular and highly acclaimed saison, Jack DOr. Not surprisingly, Saint Mars of the Desert has created its own version of Jack DOr, according to the Food & Wine article. Dann, as beer aficionados will know, was the brewer behind the legendary Leatherlips from the The Tap at the Haverhill Brewery, one of the early hop-forward brews back, in 2004. But despite the hop-heavy tilt of the brew business over the past decade (and Danns talent for making them, as evidenced by Leatherlips and Meadowlark), he and Martha have forged their own path with amazing success. That said, however, the Food & Wine piece noted that the brewery has started what it calls Deserts Attercliffe Industrial Hop Series Attercliffe being a neighborhood in Sheffield and the first offering is a New England IPA that is double dry-hopped DIPA with Rakau and Citra hops. Sounds good to me. And as abrupt as the end of Pretty Things was, the brewery was never meant to be a permanent business, as Martha told me in an email after the company decided to close in 2015. According to the Food & Wine story, they really wanted to own their own brewery, so contract brewing was not ideal. So the really good news is that these two superb people have finally achieved their dream, even if it is a few thousand miles and a big ocean away from me. I have never made it to England, mainly because Ireland is in the way and its hard for me to not stop there and just stay. But if anything might tempt me to take the puddle-jumping flight over the Irish Sea to Great Britain, a visit to Sheffield and Saint Mars of the Desert just might be the thing to do it. Road (air?) trip, anyone? BOSTON Federal authorities arrested a New York man after the Norwegian Cruise Line ship he was aboard docked in Boston Harbor Friday, charging him with beating a woman while the ship cruised along the Eastern Seaboard. Federal prosecutors said Adam Damian Panetta, 45, of Farmingville, New York, was charged in U.S. District Court in Boston with single counts of assault and assault resulting in substantial bodily injury. Prosecutors said Panetta is accused of beating an unnamed woman aboard the Gem cruise ship as it made its way north about 200 miles off the coast of New Jersey. Court documents indicate that surveillance video from aboard the ship showed Panetta dragging the woman by her hair along an inboard hallway to a cabin. As Panetta struggled to open the cabin door, the woman slapped him several times until he punched her twice in the side of the head. The woman fell, apparently unconscious. Panetta then went into the cabin, leaving the woman lying in the hall. Later the woman appeared to try to crawl into the room, at which point Panetta kicked her twice. Later, the two were seen leaving the cabin, the woman holding a bloody towel to her head. She was treated in the on-board infirmary for swelling to the head and a laceration. Federal authorities were notified of the incident and were waiting to take Panetta into custody when the ship docked. Two years ago, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that state and local law enforcement do not have the authority under state law to detain a person based on a request from federal immigration authorities. Gov. Charlie Baker quickly filed legislation that aimed to change that. His bill would have given officers statutory authority to honor detainer requests from ICE for criminal suspects and convicts who face deportation. That first bill didnt pass, but the topic spurred a heated debate over the role of local and state law enforcement in applying immigration laws. That debate is back under the spotlight following the indictments against Newton District Judge Shelley Joseph and recently retired Trial Court Officer Wesley MacGregor, accusing them of helping a man evade ICE. Governor Baker believes no one should obstruct federal law enforcement officials trying to do their jobs and supports the Supreme Judicial Courts decision to suspend Judge Joseph without pay," Lizzy Guyton, the governors communications director, wrote in a statement. Guyton also noted that the Baker-Polito administration have filed legislation to allow courts and law enforcement to work with federal immigration authorities to detain people who are deemed dangerous. Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker ( AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)AP Federal authorities charged Joseph and MacGregor with multiple charges of obstruction in the handling of the case of Jose Medina-Perez, who was facing deportation following multiple charges. Medina-Perez, who had previously been deported, faced recent drug charges in Newton and had an outstanding warrant for drunk driving in Pennsylvania. ICE had placed a detainer on Medina-Perez after he was arrested by Newton Police in March 2018, according to prosecutors. During Medina-Perezs arraignment, Joseph allegedly ordered the ICE agent out of the courtroom and released Medina-Perez without bail. Prosecutors said that Joseph ordered MacGregor to take Medina-Perez downstairs and that MacGregor let Medina-Perez exist through the back door. Joseph and MacGregor pleaded not guilty in Boston federal court on Thursday. Josephs attorney called the indictment a politically motivated attack. Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson, a vocal supporter of President Trumps immigration policies, applauded U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling for the indictments. The alleged conduct of this judge is a direct violation of her oath to uphold the law and protect the citizens of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, Hodgson wrote. Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healy expressed disappointment at Lelling. Todays indictment is a radical and politically-motivated attack on our state and the independence of our courts, Healey wrote. It is a bedrock principle of our constitutional system that federal prosecutors should not recklessly interfere with the operation of state courts and their administration of justice. People on both sides of the immigration debate make their cases in the interest of public safety, but their ideas of how to protect the commonwealth differ greatly. Immigrant advocates have sounded the alarm on ICE agents showing up to courts, arguing it deters victims and witnesses from cooperating in the prosecution of local criminal cases. They also argue that suspects who seek to fight the criminal charges against them fear going to court and getting detained before they have their day in court. Carol Rose, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, called the indictments a political move that only serves President Donald Trumps agenda. In this case, like so many others across Massachusetts, an ICE officer staked out a state court and made it difficult for court officials to do their job, which is to ensure that people in state court have access to justice, Rose wrote in a statement. "But instead of rethinking its own awful behavior, the federal government has now charged a judge and a court officer with crimes. Since the Supreme Judicial Courts ruling, House Republicans have tried to push their own bills or budget amendments to give local and state law enforcement statutory authority to cooperate with ICE, though none has been ratified. The latest bill, H.3337, was introduced in January by Rep. Bradley H. Jones, a North Reading Republican. Jones bill gives statutory authority to local and state law enforcement, including court officers, to detain a person for a reasonable period of time if they get an ICE detainer or an administrative warrant from ICE requesting detention. Administrative warrants, which are commonly used by ICE agents, are requests signed by a Department of Homeland Security official, whereas judicial warrants must be approved by a judge. Under the bill, local or state law enforcement would be allowed to hold people who are convicted of various crimes, as well as people suspected of terrorism, espionage, participation in a street gang. The bill also allows law enforcement to hold people who are labeled a danger to national security. The bill also notes that detention should not exceed 12 hours unless an appropriate judicial officer shall have made a probable cause determination. The person detained would have no right to appear in the probable cause hearing, whether alone or with an attorney, before the order is filed in district court. Marion Davis, communications director at the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, said the bill is concerning because immigration authorities have labeled people charged with minor violations as a danger to national security. She also expressed concerns about the probable cause hearings and whether judicial officers in criminal courts would be essentially deeming detainees suitable for deportation, despite not being trained in immigration law. Davis called the bill unnecessary because data shows that agents continue to make arrests in communities in Massachusetts at rates similar to the national average, often taking custody directly from state and local law enforcement. The use of this whole Newton situation to try to justify passing the legislation just makes no sense, she said. Its fear-mongering, and its really disturbing to see that coming from the governor because we know that the governor is a very reasonable person. Jones bill was referred to the Transportation Committee for review. Jones office said the committee has not set a hearing date. A tractor-trailer driver was trapped for three hours after his truck rolled over on the Massachusetts Turnpike Saturday morning. Massachusetts State Police said the driver, a 51-year-old man from Bronx, New York was taken to UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester after he was freed from the wreckage. The man had serious injuries. Troopers were called to the Mass. Pike around 7 a.m. for a report of a rollover crash on the eastbound side of the highway in Millbury. The preliminary investigation by Trooper Stephen Colella indicates the driver was traveling on Interstate 90 eastbound in a 2015 Freightliner tractor-trailer when, for reasons still under investigation, his truck traveled off the right side of the road just after Exit 10A and rolled over the guardrail. The man was trapped in the wreckage for about three hours before members of the Millbury and Auburn Fire Department extricated him, state police said. No charges have been filed as of Saturday afternoon. The crash remains under investigation. The right travel lane on the eastbound side was shut down all day Saturday, and will remain closed into the evening as crews clean up the scene and repair damaged guardrail. MHS senior McKale McKinney was recognized as the 2019 Outstanding Registered Pre-Apprentice at the state conference in Wilmington earlier this month. He was selected for the award after creating a new device for greasing the roller bearings that are made at ABB, saving the company about 25 percent of the time needed for manufacturing. Nominees for the ApprenticeshipNC Outstanding Award are considered an asset to their workplace and truly represent the best practices of the apprenticeship model in North Carolina. Attending the conference with him included Career and Technical Education (CTE) Director Mary Finley, Advanced Manufacturing teacher Keith Scoles, ABB Human Resources Alan Burnette, Will Culbreath of ABB, McKinneys parents and grandparents. McKinney is part of McDowell Highs apprenticeship program, where he takes classes at the high school in the morning and then attends machining classes at McDowell Tech during the evenings. And as of last fall, McKinney started working part time at ABB assembling mounted bearings in the flange department, earning $15.28 an hour. But, in his free time, McKinney designed the prototype device of which he was honored for at the state conference. After high school, McKinney will have a year of college courses completed at McDowell Tech. He plans to continue his college education at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. After graduating from college, he plans to come back to ABB in Marion and work full time. As far as membership, the Corpening Y has 2,207 units, which can mean families, households or groups. That translates to 5,506 individuals are Y members here. When we went to the income based model, it boosted the number of members, said Blenco. Membership has grown but revenue has not. He added 11 percent of the households in McDowell are Y members. In his new position, Bramblett said he wants to focus on enhancing two things: experience and community. He wants to make sure everyone who walks through its doors and takes part in its programs will come away with good memories. I want to make sure everyone has an exemplary experience, he said. If we create good stories and memories, it keeps you tied. As for community, Bramblett said he wants to build on what has already been accomplished and is still being developed in McDowell especially with the West Marion, East Marion and Old Fort areas. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 27) Tensions ran high as opposition candidates clashed views with two pro-administration bets on the country's loan agreements with China during the CNN Philippines Senatorial Debate Saturday. All six Otso Diretso candidates that participated in the debate Gary Alejano, Chel Diokno, Samira Gutoc, Florin Hilbay, Romulo Macalintal, and Erin Tanada were joined by Independent bet Neri Colmenares in raising a red flag on the loans from China, warning about falling into the so-called Chinese deb trap like what happened in other countries that failed to pay their debts to the Asian giant. Former National Police Chief Ronald dela Rosa, who is running under the administration partyPDP-Laban, and Rafael Alunan, who was endorsed by President Rodrigo Duterte, defended these loans, Alunan, who is from Bagumbayan Party, said the deals were not yet final. Dela Rosa tried to ask if critics of the confidentiality clause in the China loans had tried to ask for a copy of these deals. He never finished his whole statement as opposition candidates ganged up on him. Some were saying they did ask for a copy. A number of projects in the administration's "Build, Build, Build" program such as the Kaliwa Dam and Mindanao Railway Project will be funded by China. Some sectors had expressed concern that what happened in countries like Sri Lanka might be repeated in the Philippines. In December 2017, Sri Lanka handed over to China its Hambantota port after failing to pay the decades-long lease on the facility. Such concerns were dismissed by both Philippine and China government officials. READ: PH won't fall into China's debt trap, DFA chief say , 10 . , . , . , . . by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, April 25, 2019 It appears that internet utilities will take search into the future, whether organic or paid. Google-owned maps app Waze already allows small businesses to buy advertising through branded pins, paid-search results and pop ups. The feature was introduced more than a year ago. Now, with the help of artificial intelligence, these utility apps can begin to offer sponsored ads based on location and historical searches on google.com. Let's say you are on a long drive. Through Googles connected apps and location services, the technology could identify when a driver might need to stop and take a rest, based on data that included the time of day. Hey, its getting late, try the Choice Hotels [at 111 Main Street,] which is five minutes from your location, said Matthew Mierzejewski, senior vice president, search capability lead at Merkle. Its a way to take in new contextual data to offer opportunities in a helpful way -- not in a way thats annoying, but subtle and helpful. advertisement advertisement Perhaps the driver searched for McDonald's in the past. Now its around 6 p.m., the dinner hour for many people. Waze notices the driver hasnt stopped the car for hours, so it might suggest a place to stop, eat and rest. There are even more utility apps that Google could use to generate revenue. Earlier this month, a Bloomberg article reported that more than 1 billion people use Google Maps. The service has been mostly free from ads since it launched 14 years ago. If it were tied to Waze and google.com, that could change quickly. Last summer, voice-based directions from the Maps app started mentioning well-known brand names from companies that are already big buyers of Googles search ads, per Bloomberg. Rather than "turn right on Schindler Avenue," the driver heard "turn right at the Starbucks" or the Dunkin' Donuts. Google told Bloomberg these were not ads -- just helpful landmarks. Its another way to think about how to use search data. Mierzejewski has a many ways for marketers to think about how to use search data. Take custom intent audiences that leverage YouTube as an example. Mierzejewski said the campaign would serve YouTube video ads targeted to individuals who perform searches on google.com, for keyword searches such as composite decking. If a person wants to build a new deck or patio, after they build the deck, they likely want to buy some new outdoor furniture. So Merkle is buying YouTube pre-roll video ads for customers who have shown interest in similar products through keywords. It applies to any product vertical, and Mierzejewski said more than a dozen brands use the strategy. He calls it prospecting video or performance video. Its a strategy that marketers have found it very difficult to crack in the past. Search in 2019 doesnt look like it did years ago. Brands need to take another perspective. Mierzejewski said it is important to look for the search traffic that doesnt necessarily have consumer intent, but rather interest. Something that might have been created by a negative and unexpected occurrence. In another example, Merkle has been working with keywords related to television shows like Sharp Objects an American psychological thriller on HBO, based on Gillian Flynn's novel of the same name. As the show aired, and even prior to the show airing, marketers bought keywords that people might search while watching, based on what the agency identified on social sites: Words like incorrigible or the acid. Queries including keywords like watch spiked significantly during the premiere week. Alphabet, Googles parent company, will report first-quarter 2019 earnings April 29 after the market close. Based on 13 analyst forecasts, Zacks Investment Research estimates the EPS forecast for the quarter is $10.37. The reported EPS for the same quarter last year was $9.93. On the last workday of Earth Week, Procter & Gamble said it will partner with three groups to help small farmers in the companys palm oil chain in Malaysia discover more efficient and sustainable ways to farm. P&G said the initiative grows out of an earlier pilot program and is part of the companys Ambition 2030 environmental sustainability goals. P&G earlier this week laid out some of its plans at the Sustainable Brands Paris conference. Consumers are no longer willing to compromise performance for living sustainably and they expect brands to take meaningful action in solving some of the most complex challenges facing the world, Mark Pritchard, P&Gs chief brand officer, told the Paris group.We want our brands to be growing and creating value while having a measurable, long-term, positive impact on society and the environment. advertisement advertisement Helping small palm growers is no small part of that plan. The company says 40% of the worlds palm oil supply comes from smallholders. It is teaming with the Malaysia Institute for Supply Chain Innovation, the International Plant Nutrition Institute and Yara International, which helps develop precise digital farming tools. The pilot program involved 2,000 smallholder farmers in the state of Johor, Malaysia. Success there has led to the bigger idea of creating 250 learning farms that will serve as resource centers for as many as 10,000 other farmers, helping them to develop sustainable agricultural practices over the next five years. The goal is to improve sustainable yields by 30%-50% and thereby improve the livelihood of those farmers. Charmin toilet paper, a top P&G brand, has similar sustainability program with smallholders in the Four States Timberland Association. P&G says it uses ingredients derived from palm oil and palm derivatives in a wide swath of consumer packaged goods categories, including home, hair, beauty and oral care products. Two-thirds of it come from Malaysia and another third comes from Indonesia. The World Wildlife Fund for Nature, which issues a report card on companies' sustainable progress, in 2016 gave P&G a score of 7 for its progress in purchasing only certified sustainable palm oil, or CSPO. Rivals like Unilever and Colgate Palmolive tied with a ranking of 9, the best of the CPG firms. Those companies use 100% CSPO, while in 2016, according to WWF, only 41% of Procter & Gambles palm oil had that designation. But a spokeswoman says it has a goal of purchasing 100% of its palm oll designated CSPO by the end of next year, and has received other approving certifications from the organizing group, the Roundtable for Certified Sustainable Palm Oil. by Kaila Colbin , Featured Contributor, April 26, 2019 This week, French President Emmanuel Macron and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced that they will be co-hosting a meeting in Paris in May, at which they are expecting other world leaders and top executives from companies like Facebook, Twitter, Google and YouTube. The meeting comes in response to the horrific terror attack that killed 50 people last month in Christchurch. Its ambition is for the participants to sign onto the Christchurch Call, a pledge to prevent violent extremism and terrorism online. And while the details of the pledge arent yet determined -- that's what the meeting is for -- its explicit target is the sharing of violent content. In her announcement Ardern reaffirmed the right to freedom of expression, but said, "I don't think anyone would argue that the terrorist had the right to livestream the murder of 50 people. That is what this call is very specifically focused on." advertisement advertisement First: good luck and godspeed. As you may recall from my column immediately following the attack: [I]f you are a social media platform, and -- as happened yesterday -- a mass shooter livestreams his horrific act, get the footage off your site. Get it off. Get it off. Get it off. Use your algorithms and your human moderators and your community flags and whatever you have to use to get it off. So, yeah, Im onboard with what Ardern and Macron are trying to do. I also recognize the scale of the challenge involved, given the scale at which these platforms operate. We dont yet have technology that can automatically distinguish between breast-feeding and pedophilia. We dont yet have technology that can recognize sarcasm, or that can understand the nuance between a person of color using the N-word versus a neo-Nazi. And we dont yet have technology that can automatically identify a live shooting or a terror attack. Difficult, but not insurmountable. We could embed ID info into every video that gets uploaded, so taking down one version of it takes down all versions. We could build delays into livestreams until the users account is verified in some way. We could require Facebook to spend that $3-$5 billion it has prepared to pay in fines on improving its ability to detect this stuff in real time. Ill leave the details to the meeting, and to the hopefully many more meetings to follow. In the meantime, lets discuss what doesnt appear to be on the table: The way filter bubbles only show us content that reinforces our existing beliefs, creating a self-reinforcing cycle that lends itself to strong views in every direction. The way those filter bubbles create a warm and wet breeding ground for extremist bacteria, long before theres enough of it to culminate in a public event. The way in which social media platforms get rewarded for provoking shock and outrage, meaning their incentives are aligned against what Ardern and Macron are trying to accomplish. Ardern said the Paris meeting is about how online platforms were used during the terror attack. The issues I just listed were in play well before it, and created environmental conditions that were ideal for ideology. For the May meeting, I dont want these issues to be on the table. I want concrete outcomes, and the way we get those is by being specific and focused, by picking the thing were least likely to disagree on (people shouldnt get to live-stream murder) and working out how were doing to deal with it. But for our ability to engage in any kind of civil discourse, for our chance at continuing to have functioning democracies, for the sanity and wellbeing of our world, we will have to deal with these issues, and soon. New York Attorney General Letitia James just announced an investigation into Facebook over its collection of users email contact data without their permission. Earlier this month, Business Insider broke the news that Facebook had obtained and uploaded email contacts of 1.5 million unsuspecting users. Yet, New Yorks attorney general is suggesting that the total number of consumers whose information was improperly obtained may be in the hundreds of millions. It is time Facebook is held accountable for how it handles consumers' personal information, stated Attorney General James. Facebook has repeatedly demonstrated a lack of respect for consumers information, while at the same time profiting from mining that data. For its part, Facebook has said the contact-scraping was unintentional. These contacts were not shared with anyone, and we're deleting them, the company stated earlier this month. Weve fixed the underlying issue and are notifying people whose contacts were imported. advertisement advertisement This is not the first time the office of New Yorks Attorney General has set its sights on a West Coast tech titan, this year. In January, Attorney General James announced an investigation into Apple over its failure to warn consumers about a FaceTime bug. The bug in question was believed to have jeopardized the privacy of consumers by allowing them to receive audio and video from the device of the person they were calling, even before they accepted or rejected a call. In March 2018, the Attorney Generals Office opened an investigation into Facebook over its reported misuse of user data with Cambridge Analytica. Facebook is reeling from a serious of privacy mishaps, which now seem certain to impact its bottom line. Indeed, the social giant said this week it expects to be fined billions of dollars by the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC has been investigating Facebook since the Cambridge Analytica scandal erupted last year. Of particular interest to the FTC is whether the company violated a 2011 agreement it made regarding the sharing of user data. In response to the inquiry, Facebook has taken a $3 billion charge; it is estimating the fine could approach $5 billion. The matter remains unresolved, and there can be no assurance as to the timing or the terms of any final outcome, Facebook noted in a first-quarter earnings release. On the bright side, Facebooks quarterly earnings and user growth both beat analyst expectations. During the first quarter, the company boasted just over $15 billion in revenue, which was up about 25% year-over-year. The link between obesity and the brain is a fascinating topic that scientists have only recently begun to explore. New research adds important pieces to the puzzle. Share on Pinterest Researchers have used MRI scans to examine the brains of people living with obesity. From the size and functionality of the brain to specific neuronal circuits, recent studies have brought to light important aspects of the connection between obesity and the brain. For instance, researchers published a study earlier this year that found a link between obesity around the stomach area and smaller brain size specifically, lower gray matter volume. The findings of another recent study showed that the brains prefrontal cortex an area that is important for complex thinking, planning, and self-control is less active in people who tend to overeat, which may lead to obesity and weight gain. Finally, research that appeared only last month identified an array of neurons that can curb overeating when they become active. A new study now adds to this mounting body of evidence, shedding further light on the connection between obesity on the one hand and differences in brain structure and form on the other. Dr. Ilona A. Dekkers, from the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, led a team of researchers who used cutting-edge MRI scanning technology to understand the link between obesity and brain structure. Dr. Dekkers and team reported smaller gray matter volumes in people with obesity, thus solidifying previous research findings. They also found connections with the brains form and structure, called its morphology. The researchers published their findings in the journal Radiology. Advertisement "I believe the biggest barrier to needle exchange is paraphernalia laws and policing behaviors," said Steve Davis, an associate professor in the School of Public Health, who led the study. The team's findings, which appear in Harm Reduction Journal, bear that out. Nearly three-fourths of the study's participants (72 percent) said they "agreed" or "strongly agreed" that they could "get in trouble from the police" for carrying needles around."When I talked to people attending needle exchange programs, what I heard was, they don't want to discard needles," Davis said. "In fact, they would get upset at other attendees who perhaps would do that. They would say, 'If I had a child, I wouldn't want them to get stuck with a dirty needle.' But they also don't want to go to prison. So what do they do? Use them real quick and get rid of them--or share them."As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports, sharing needles is the number one reason people get hepatitis C today. The problem is pernicious in rural Appalachia. Davis' research project is the first to quantify the barriers to using new needles obtained from needle exchange programs in Appalachian locations. The survey respondents were selected from two programs in West Virginia: one in Cabell County and one in Monongalia County. Previous studies focused on large metropolitan populations.West Virginia is one of few states that doesn't outlaw the purchase or possession of drug paraphernalia, including syringes and hypodermic needles. "But some local laws are being passed that criminalize possession of a new syringe unless a person has a prescription," Davis said, "and some of the people who inject drugs that I interviewed mentioned being cited for possession of new needles. It is my belief that this confusion over conflicting state and local laws contributes to fear of possessing new needles."Davis suggested that unambiguously decriminalizing syringes and hypodermic needles could make needle exchange easier and curtail hepatitis C infections. He also recommended reframing needle exchange as a method to keep police officers and their families healthy, rather than as a means of enabling addiction or condoning illegal activity.If a police officer were to accidentally get stuck with a needle while searching a suspect, Davis reasoned, he or she might be less likely to contract hepatitis C if a needle exchange program were flourishing in the community. More opportunities for needle exchange could mean fewer contaminated needles out in the world."In talking to law enforcement, we saw this real struggle with, 'If something is illegal, how am I supposed to let that go?'" he said. "But if you can conceptualize needle exchange as being protective, then you can--perhaps--get law enforcement buy-in. One of the police officers I talked to mentioned this."Needle exchange programs are associated with a reduction in new hepatitis C cases across Europe, Davis explained, but in North America, this association doesn't hold. "The hypothesis," he said, "is that there's this criminal approach--paraphernalia laws and policing behaviors--that doesn't match up with needle exchange, a public health approach."Source: Eurekalert Machines have been created to aid human efforts towards betterment and the same goes for machines at the gym. Though a lot of gym bros would argue that free weights rule over machines any day, that is not necessarily true. For a person with every level of experience, machine exercises can be a very helpful aid in their toolbox. As I said, it is not the case of an extreme one over the other every time, but more along the lines of having the time and space for everything. Getty Images Let's look at three scenarios where incorporating machine-based exercises can help you in your bodybuilding journey: 1. Post-Injury After an injury, two things happen almost definitely. One is that you cannot achieve the same levels of progression or push the same amount of weight that you were doing during the pre-injury phase. Another being that you are much more prone to the same injury now as you have already damaged the particular body-part to some extent. In this case, machines would be a great way to work around the injury and strengthen the muscles before you end up going back to free weights. Machine exercises here can be a safe bridge that you can utilize to slowly move back towards the same progression and loads that you were lifting before. Getty Images 2. Beginners I literally cannot emphasize more on this part. While learning the movement patterns, form, and technique of various exercises is of utmost importance for beginners, the other side of the coin is that they cannot progressively overload themselves to a progress achieving extent during the beginning of their journey. During this time, free weights or body weight exercises would be the best to learn proper form and technique and incorporating machine work can help them achieve progressive overload in a safe environment giving them the best of both worlds. 3. End Of The Workout This is where it fits everyone. At the beginning of your workout, you are usually pumped and stronger. As you move towards the end of the workout, you are fatigued and exhausted. You still want to do a few sets but let's accept that you won't be able to lift much and if you still try to do it, you won't be very safe doing it with free weights. Machine exercises are safer as the range of motion is controlled and even if you do high volume sets, you are doing it in a limited range of motion thus preventing or avoiding injury to a much greater extent than free weights. So How Do You Use The Machines Safely? 1. Read the sticker on the machines for instructions and adjust it according to your body. 2. Adjust the weight to a point where you are challenged and yet you have total control over the reps and can complete them in a full range of motion. 3. Lift the weights in a controlled fashion. Author Bio: Pratik Thakkar is an online fitness coach who is regarded as someone who will make it easy for you to understand the process by putting things in the right context and providing science-based recommendations. In his free time, Pratik likes to read about psychology or play on his PlayStation. He can be reached at thepratikthakkar@gmail.com for your fitness-related queries and coaching inquiries. George RR Martin's acclaimed novel titled 'The Song Of Ice & Fire' when adapted into a show, almost ten years ago by HBO, left an overpowering impact on the viewers. Within the first two seasons, everyone was discussing the show, it's intriguing characters, the complicated relationships, deceit, wars, a very compelling plot and everything else the show brought to the table. The thing is, 'GoT' is not just your run of the mill epic-fantasy show but a lot more. It dissects the very fabric of society we live in, the people we interact with, the relationships we harbour and the battles we fight. If you look into it with more depth, you'll know how it seeps into a trajectory which is very familiar with today's modern world. Of course, there are no brothers having sex with their sisters (we hope not) and you may not see dragons flying about, but there are some firm life lessons you can take back from the show and apply them to your own life. HBO One of the most stringent and important lessons the show gives us on a platter is the skill to be a good leader. If you see how the show is streamlined, it isn't much without apt leadership skills at display. Be it through a demonstration of power, strength, wisdom or union, leadership is the essence of 'Game Of Thrones' and through this article, I will point out 5 fantastic leadership lessons you can learn from the show, to apply in your personal life. (1) Always Listen To Advisors Well, of course, you probably won't have advisors because you're not the Protector Of The Realm TBH but it's always wise to seek counsel from someone who is more experienced and wiser. Whether it's the work front or personal life, if you're leading something fiercely, don't act upon your ego and heed advice when you need it best. When Tywin Lannister became the hand of the king to Tommen Baratheon, he asked him what makes a good king. After certain answers that Tywin wasn't happy with, Tywin told him a good king is someone who listens to his advisors and heeds their advice until he comes of age. Of course, he was saying that to manipulate him but there is a very deep lesson in there somewhere. So, if you're in a momentary fix with work, and if that's acting up on your leadership qualities, don't shy away from seeking help when required. HBO (2) Always Know Your Weaknesses "A wise king knows what he knows and what he doesn't." These words were said by Tywin Lannister to his daughter Cersei, who'd come to him to ask him to bestow more responsibilities upon her as she had more to contribute than her brothers. Her father certainly thought otherwise, only because she was not smart enough to recognise her weakness. If you've noticed Cercei's rule, she's instilled more fear in people than respect for her and that's only because she's refused to realise her weaknesses over time. As a good leader, you must have enough faith in yourself to acknowledge what you're good at and what you're willing to improve, in order to bring clarity to your own thought process. If you do recognise something you're weak at, you're going to be more empathetic towards it, in order to understand graver problems that may lie ahead. A good leader who knows his weaknesses can turn them into strengths by acknowledging and addressing them. HBO (3) Knowledge Is True Power Yes, strength does conjure power but when you have the knowledge, it lets you use your strength wisely and in a timely manner. Have you ever heard of the saying 'strike when the iron is hot?'. Well, it's something like that. I don't mean become an opportunist but gathering knowledge and using it when you really should, is a good aspect of leadership. If you see how Tyrion Lannister, or Varys or even Littlefinger displayed their leadership skills in the show, you'll know exactly what I mean. Both Littefinger and Varys rose from modest origins and made their way into the small council by displaying a sheer thirst for understanding everything and using it at the right time. They're not perfect examples of great leaders but they used one of the skills fairly well. Tyrion, on the other hand, always was the smart witty one, who used knowledge to the greatest advantage and became the hand of the queen, eventually. Another good example from the show is Samwell Tarly, who was forced to become a part of the Night's Watch, but his interest lay in reading books and applying that knowledge in resolving conflicts, and he did so fairly well in the show. You might be street smart, which is also an essential skill to lead but if you gather enough knowledge over time, it makes you wiser, resilient and unlike Jon Snow, you know things! HBO (4) Always Plan Ahead By planning ahead I don't mean foresee an undeniable future, by planning ahead I mean always look at the many possibilities and go through them until you trust your instincts and chose the right one to follow. One always needs good leadership skills to study the situation thoroughly and take appropriate action, which can also help in the future too. That's what makes Jon Snow an excellent leader. He always led by example and examples told him about the foreseeable future, and he would apply those learnings to his present. For instance, when he witnessed the Night King's army, he immediately took action because he knew what was coming for the world. He went beyond the wall to persuade the wildlings to join him in the fight, even though he lost his life for it. He went to the south and bend the knee, just so Daenerys Targaryen could help him fight. He initiated a meeting between all the leaders to warn them against the dead and persuade them to fight together, even though a few backed out. He planned ahead because he saw some important shortcomings he obviously couldn't overcome alone. Always be wary of every situation, while you lead! HBO (5) Be Fair In Your Judgements Fairness is an important quality every leader should practice. Having just democratic leadership skills can take you where you really want to be. If you think about the welfare of everyone you're working with or for those who work under you, you're already a good leader. Daenerys inspires both loyalty and respect from those who follow her. And why shouldn't she? She is a fair leader after all. She gives everyone free-will to follow her and never demands people to accept her as a leader. When she freed slaves from the 3 cities of Slaver's Bay, now known as the Bay of Dragons, she never forced anyone to follow her lead. She gave them a just and fair choice and they all decided to make her their queen, only because she acted fair, unlike their previous 'masters'. Her use of power and her dragons was minimal when it came to earning the respect of her people. If you're leading a team, always be fair in judging their demeanour, behaviour, practices and their work and then make a fair assessment out of that. If you're a fair leader, you'll earn more respect than someone who uses power to lead. HBO There are many more leadership skills we can all learn from 'Game Of Thrones'. Hopefully, your accent to leadership isn't as cut-throat as the show, but whatever it is you're leading, if you apply the above-mentioned skills, you're sure to ace your endeavour in every way possible! Only deal done this week sends Turkish prices down US export market remains static Prices move down in Vietnam Taiwan prices begin recovery India prices inch up on tight supply. The Turkish mills remained mostly silent in the deep-sea scrap markets this week. Only one cargo was booked, on the last day of the week, which sent the daily indices downward after a week of almost no movement.A steel mill in the Izmir region booked a US cargo on Friday, comprising 22,000 tonnes of HMS 1&2 (80:20) at $308 per tonne, 5,000 tonnes of shredded at $313 per tonne and 3,000 tonnes of plate and structural (P&S) scrap at $318 per tonne cfr. This compared with the previous US cargo, which was sold on April 16 at $312.50 per tonne for HMS 1&2 (80:20) and $317.50 per tonne cfr... RUTH Joseph C. Holdwick is very familiar with the Ruth area particularly because he's live there his entire life. Holdwick is the son of the late Henry and Anna Holdwick. He still lives on the farm on which he was born. That says a lot considering he was born over 86 years ago. Holdwick was a New Years Day baby, born Jan. 1, 1933, in his family's home. The family farm is situated about one mile east of Ruth. There were no cell phones back then, and only three landline phones existed in Ruth. Holdwick's dad was able to contact Dr. William Holdship from one of the phones. Doctors made house calls in those days. Holdwick then came into the world with the help of Dr. Holdship and a local midwife. Although his dad had tractors, Holdwick remembers his dad cultivating some of the crops with horses. He vividly recalled being injured by one of the horses when it spooked. At the time, he was 9 years old. At the mere age of 8, Joe learned to drive his dads first tractor. It was a 1926 model McCormick Deering No. 1020. In 1941, his dad purchased a new McCormick Deering M. He bought it new and paid $1,200 for it, Holdwick said. Some things you just dont forget. There were seven kids in his family, and Joe was the baby. Every kid worked on the farm, he said. Pa was a real good farmer. To prove the point, Holdwick told a story of his fathers expertise. For the most part, his dad fertilized with manure. He didnt fully trust commercial fertilizers, but gave it a try on a limited basis. Soon, the phosphate fertilizer helped double their hay output. Soon, Henry began getting the soil tested, and he purchased fertilizer as needed. Neighbors came over and asked what he did to make his crops so good," he said. "Soon everybody was using fertilizers. Holdwick remembers his family had a few cows, and they milked them by hand. They separated the cream from the milk and used it for various things. The cream went to the local creamery. As odd as it may seem, some of the skim milk was used to feed the chickens, the pigs, and the young calves Mom would make cottage cheese from some of the skim milk, he said. He explained she would let the milk sour and ferment. He remembers she would rinse out the pail of fermented milk, but she wouldnt clean it completely. The residue was used to start the fermenting process for the next batch of cottage cheese. Holdwick has more than farm memories. I remember the milk man delivering milk with a metal crate in each hand," he said. "There were four to six glass bottles in each crate. Hed put them on your front porch and pick up the empty bottles. I think, if there werent empty bottles on the porch, he wouldnt leave a new one. During his elementary school years, Holdwick attended Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic School in Ruth. He remembers a horse shed across the street from the school. Jim Pawlowski drove a horse and buggy five miles to attend our school," he recalled Looking back over the past 86 years, Holdwick discussed some of the changes in Ruth. In some cases, there hasnt been a lot of change. There hasnt been a new house built in Ruth in the past 50 years," he said. "I remember there were seven new houses built east of Ruth when I was a kid. When he was a child, family members would tend to remain in town when they grew up. Today, Holdwick said, there are few local/original residents in town. Ruth now has had a large influx of new faces that were not born in the Ruth area. We dont know a lot of the people in Ruth anymore, he said. He went on to recall other changes in Ruth. The Catholic Church is still thriving, but the school has been closed for several years. We used to have three taverns in town, he said. Now there is only one. There were four gas stations at one time. There were actually two elevators at one time. There was a creamery, but it has been gone for quite a while. Holdwick soon began discussing some personal aspects of his life. Next month, he and his wife, Lorraine Kranz Holdwick, will be married 65 years. She was from Harbor Beach, and they met while going to the movies. They began dating, fell in love, and they were married May 22, 1954. Together, the couple has 11 children 10 still living and about two dozen grandkids and great-grandchildren. Two years prior to getting married, Holdwick started farming on his own. He and his three brothers shared the family farm and they divided up 350 acres. At that time, Holdwick's share was nearly 107 acres of farm land. When he retired in 1995, his farm totaled over 305 acres. The farm included barns and several new sheds. One of his clearest memories is the storm of July 13, 1995. I remember losing our barn in that storm, he said. We never rebuilt it. Raising a large family wasnt easy. In order to make ends meet, Holdwick worked several winters at various jobs. He remembers working at Michigan Peat in Minden City several winters. In addition, he worked winters at Midwest Rubber and at Active Industries. According to Joe and his wife, his children were as hard working as the parents. My kids knew how to hoe beans, and they knew how to stack bales," he said. Although his children were hardworking farm hands, none continued in the farming industry. Yet, Joe and Lorraine are very proud of their family. Nine of the children went to college. All work in a variety of fields, including construction, teaching, nursing, mechanical engineering, civil engineering, speech pathology and the dentistry. Most of the kids live around Michigan, although a couple live in other states. In Ruth, Holdwick is very attached to his church. He is a member of the Knights of Columbus, and was a church usher for 25 years. He enjoys Sts. Peter and Pauls fall festival, and he has been a volunteer at the festival. He seems quite content with his life. Twice a day, he goes up town to meet with his friends. In the morning, they play cards at the local convenience store. In the afternoon, he returns for a coffee at the local tavern. Both Joe and Loraine seen to have little desire to travel. Their lives are filled with their children, spouses, grandchildren and great-grandkids. When he was asked if they visit the kids much, he said no. Mostly, they come home to us," he said with a smile. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 27) Four Senate bets are for the reimposition of the death penalty, each with their own different condition. Senatorial candidates backed by the President Rodrigo Duterte Rafael Alunan, Ronald Dela Rosa and JV Ejercito were all for the reimposition of death penalty for drug trafficking. Dela Rosa, who was police chief during the implementation of the controversial Oplan Tokhang in 2016, said that it was a matter of choosing who lives or who dies. "We are now at the crossroads of making the right decision kung kaninong buhay ang dapat i-salba, yung Chinese druglord o yung libo-libong batang Pilipino na nasisira ang buhay dahil sa droga," Dela Rosa said in the CNN Philippines Senatorial Debate. [Translation: We are now at the crossroads of making the right decision on whose lives should be saved, the Chinese druglords or the thousands of Filipino children whose lives are destroyed by drugs.] Ejercito said that he is for death penalty, but hinted at a limited period of time. "I consider death penalty only for high level drug trafficking until mag-normalize ang situation (until the situation returns to normal)," the re-electionist senator said. On the other hand, Alunan wants the death penalty imposed not only for drug traffcking but for other crimes. "Im in favor of reimposition of death penalty for drugs and other crimes against humanity murder, corruption. Criminals operate here freely without any fear," the former Interior Secretary said. But there's a caveat, the justice system also has to be reformed. "At the same time, we have to reform our justice system," he added. Chong, who is not endorsed by Duterte, also wants the death penalty for election sabotage. "I reserve my support for death penalty only for plunder, election sabotage, heinous crimes committed by persons in authority, and for drug trafficking," he added. Chong is a critic of the automated elections system used in the 2016 elections, and of Vice President leni Robredo. Opposition candidates who took part in the debate -- Otso-Diretso bets Chel Diokno, Gary Alejano, Florin Hilbay, Samira Gutoc, Erin Taada, Romulo Macalintal and Makabayan's Neri Colmenares-- are against the reimposition of death penalty. Today we are joining a local lawmaker to encourage Upper Thumb residents to sign an online petition to construct a new state psychiatric hospital in Caro. Our residents have the opportunity to show the governor what the Caro Center means to us here in the Thumb region and the devastating impact her decision would have on our communities, stated State Rep. Phil Green earlier this week. Green, a Millington Republican who represents Tuscola and Huron counties, is urging residents to make their voices heard by signing the petition, which is online at www.ThumbValues.com. There was a groundbreaking event last fall for the new $115 million, 225,000 square-foot facility in Caro. More than $3 million was spent on the center prior to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Director Robert Gordon halting the project. Though Tuscola already successfully made a case for keeping a state psychiatric hospital in Caro, officials need to do it again and they need your help. There is a lot of financial recourse for the entire Thumb riding on this. The current state psychiatric hospital in Caro dubbed the Caro Center brings in an estimated $54 million in revenue to Tuscola County. It is the countys second largest employer, with 349 employees and another 398 jobs that indirectly benefit from it. There are other benefits to keeping the facility in Caro, including the fact that the land is available and not every community welcomes a psychiatric hospital. The need is there, as a previous study found the center had about 150 patients, and waiting list of about 200. We agree with Green that our residents voices need to be heard. For those interested in writing the governor, there will be a Save the Caro Center letter writing campaign next month. The event will run from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Saturday, May 4, at the Caro Area District Library, located at 840 W. Frank St. in Caro. You can send letters to: Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, P.O. Box 30013, Lansing, MI, 48909, or call her office at 517-335-7858 or 517-373-3400. Tell the governor to not turn her back on the Upper Thumb. We need this facility. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 27) Two senatorial candidates of the opposition are urging the government to involve other countries in negotiations on the South China Sea dispute, saying China cannot be trusted. Duda ako sa bilateral negotiations. Dapat multilateral 'yan (I doubt bilateral negotiations. That should be multilateral), Makabayan candidate Neri Colmenares said during the CNN Philippines Senatorial Debate on Saturday. Manila and Beijing officials have pushed for bilateral negotiations to resolve conflict in the South China Sea, a vast global waterway where both countries have overlapping claims. But Colmenares said, Tuso ang gobyerno ng Tsina. Hindi pwedeng pagkatiwalaan (China is deceptive. It cannot be trusted). Former Solicitor General Florin Hilbay of opposition slate Otso Diretso agreed the issue should be internationalized. Hindi tayo pwedeng makahon sa isang bilateral negotiation Hindi pwedeng hindi natin ginagamit ang ating panalo (arbitral ruling) dahil 'yung ating panalo 'yung susi para magkaroon ng malakas na koalisyon ang ibat iba bansa laban sa China, he said. [Translation: We cannot be boxed in a bilateral negotiation. We should use our arbitral win because that is key for countries to have strong coalition against China.] Hilbay was the solicitor general when the country won its case against China in the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague in July 2016. The landmark ruling, which Beijing rejects, invalidated China's claims to almost the entire South China Sea. It ruled that none of the features it claims in the area included in the Philippines' submissions generate an exclusive economic zone. The tribunal recognized Philippine sovereign rights in certain sea areas within its 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone, saying they are not overlapped by any possible entitlement of China. The candidates were asked what the governments next step should be as Chinese vessels swarmed Philippine-occupied Pag-asa Island, one of the biggest islands in the contested Spratlys and the seat of the Kalayaan municipal government under the province of Palawan. The Philippine government protested Chinas actions and even invoked the Hague ruling, something that President Rodrigo Duterte earlier said he could not do for fear of going to war against China. Duterte recently warned China to lay off Pag-asa Island, but also stressed that he prefers to seek a compromise instead because the Philippines cannot beat China in a war. Senator JV Ejercito, who is seeking reelection, on Saturday agreed that the Philippines is "no match against China" militarily, but urged the public to trust the Senate, citing a recent incident where lawmakers blocked a China-funded camera surveillance project. Dapat po yung CCTV camera surveillance system, Huawei ang gagawa, China po dapat ang kontrata. Pero hinarangan, kinontra po ng Senado because believe in your Senate, we are indeed the last bastion of democracy. We will protect the interest of the people, he said. The 20-billion loan project with China was supposed to put up 12,000 camera surveillance systems around Metro Manila and Davao City, but critics and some government officials expressed concern it could compromise national security. The Duterte administration assured that wont happen. Isaak Olson was two months from graduating in 2014 when he disclosed that his fiancee had given birth several months earlier... The Coast Guard's Cape May Training Center is getting a new monument: the service's only memorial dedicated to enlisted men and women who have died in the line of duty. Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Karl Schultz will join the center's commanding officer, Capt. Owen Gibbons, in dedicating the Coast Guard Enlisted Memorial on Saturday in New Jersey. The memorial -- three granite walls etched with the names of 1,500 service members, centered around a pyramid topped with a bronze flame -- is located on the training center's parade field. Schultz said the service members on the monument are "forever woven into the fabric of Coast Guard history." "Being a Coast Guardsman is more than a uniform or an emblem, it's a devotion to a higher calling and a willingness to protect and defend our nation and its people at any cost," Schultz said. Names on the memorial date to 1915, the year the Revenue Cutter Service and U.S. Life Saving Service merged to form the U.S. Coast Guard. They include those who selflessly gave their lives in service, such as Boy First Class James Joseph Nevins, a member of the USS Seneca crew who died Sept. 16, 1918, after rescuing personnel aboard the sinking British tanker SS Wellington, and Senior Chief Boatswain's Mate Terrell Horne, who died Dec. 2, 2012, killed by drug smugglers during a law enforcement operation off the California coast. Other notable honorees on the memorial include: Seaman Apprentice William Flores and 21 crewmates of the Seagoing Buoy Tender Blackthorn, who died Jan. 28, 1980, when the ship struck the tanker SS Capricorn. Flores, just 18, stayed on board as the vessel capsized, distributing life vests and even giving his own away. He received the Coast Guard medal posthumously for his heroism. The 107 enlisted men on board the Weather Ship USCGC Muskeget, killed Sept. 9, 1942, when the ship was struck by a German U-boat 400 nautical miles east of Newfoundland. The wreckage was never found. Aviation Electronics Technician Matthew Howard Baker, who, along with three officers, lost his life Aug. 24, 1990, when their E-2C Hawkeye, returning from a counter-narcotics patrol, crashed 500 yards short of the runway at Roosevelt Roads Naval Station, Puerto Rico. The crew had reported a fire in the aircraft and problems with the hydraulics. The memorial cost roughly $450,000, raised entirely through private donations by the Coast Guard Enlisted Memorial Foundation. It includes the names of warrant officers who died in the line of duty. Coast Guard Academy officers who died on active duty are honored at the academy in New London, Connecticut, according to the foundation. A memorial to the Coast Guard also stands in Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia, built in honor of the crew of the Seneca and the Coast Guard cutter Tampa, which also sank after being struck by a U-boat, 10 days after the Seneca. All 131 personnel on the ship died. The dedication ceremony for the Coast Guard Enlisted Memorial will take place at 11 a.m. -- Patricia Kime can be reached at Patricia.Kime@Military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @patriciakime. Social Media You can follow us on different types of social media by clicking the links below: A Michigan court case on gerrymandering made national headlines this week, as a panel of three federal judges ruled that 34 of Michigans Congressional and legislative districts are unconstitutional and need to be redrawn prior to the 2020 election. The three judges -- U.S. Circuit Judges Eric Clay and Denise Hood and U.S. District Judge Gordon Quist -- said Michigans last redistricting plan gives Republicans an unfair advantage, and that advantage is so profound that the lines need to be redrawn by Aug. 1. Evidence shows the maps partisan bias has proven severe and durable; it has strongly advantaged Republicans and disadvantaged Democrats for eight years and across four separate election cycles," the judges said. It represents a political gerrymander of historical proportions, the ruling said. The lawsuit was filed by the League of Women Voters and several Democrats, including Rashida Tlaib, a former state representative now in Congress representing the 13th District. If the ruling stands, it could have a big impact on Michigans state and federal lawmakers as well as voters. Here is what Michigan voters need to know. 1. The ruling impacts 15 state House districts, 10 state Senate districts and nine of the states 14 congressional districts. The lawsuit alleged -- and the judges agreed -- that Republican lawmakers who drew the maps in 2011 manipulated the lines to maximize the success of Republican candidates. They allegedly did that by either packing Democratic voters into a few districts, which appeared to be the strategy in metro Detroit, or dividing a Democratic stronghold such as the city of Grand Rapids between multiple districts. The districts called into question for unconstitutional packing or cracking voters into certain districts in the lawsuit were: Congressional Districts 1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12; Senate Districts 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 18, 22, 27, 32, and 36; and House Districts 24, 32, 51, 52, 55, 60, 62, 63, 75, 76, 83, 91, 92, 94, and 95. Click here for maps showing the location of those districts. 2. Thursdays court decision isnt the last word. Michigan Republicans are likely to seek a stay of the ruling, citing the fact the U.S. Supreme Court is deliberating similar cases involving gerrymandering in North Carolina and Maryland, and a decision is expected in June. In a March hearing in those cases, it appeared the Supreme Courts conservative majority is reluctant to use federal court intervention in gerrymandering cases, saying states seem to be addressing the issue on their own. Even if a stay isnt sought or granted, it seems likely the Supreme Court decision will have a big impact on what happens in Michigan. 3. Thursdays ruling calls for the Michigan Legislature and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to redraw the lines by Aug. 1. If Thursdays ruling stands, the judges want a new plan by Aug. 1. The plan needs to be developed by Michigan Legislature, which is controlled by Republicans, but the plan must be agreeable to Whitmer, a Democrat. That timeline could definitely change depending on whether Republicans successfully obtained a stay, and/or what happens in the U.S. Supreme Court. 4. Thursdays court ruling could have a profound impact on the state Senate. Although three legislative bodies are affected, the state Senate would be impacted most if the ruling stands. Thats because the ruling calls for the Senate to hold a special election in 2020 using the newly redrawn map. Since Michigan senators served four-year terms, and they all were elected or re-elected in 2018, a special election in 2020 could cut incumbents terms short. A complicating factor is term limits. Since Michigan senators are limited to two terms, would a special election in 2020 mean second-term senators cant seek re-election? Or is it possible an exception might be made in this case? Those questions are unresolved. 5. If there is a new map for 2020, it would only be for that election. Regardless of what happens with the court case, Michigan is scheduled to redraw its congressional and state legislative districts in 2021 based on the decennial Census. That new map will be used starting in 2022. 6. That means Michigan could have three maps in four years, with a different process for each. The map for the 2018 election relied on the current system, which calls for the Legislature to come up with a plan every 10 years after the decennial Census, and that plan must be approved by the governor. When that last happened in 2011, the Republicans held a majority in the Michigan House and Senate and also controlled the governors seat. Outcry over their plan spurred not only the current lawsuit but Proposal 2, a citizens initiative on the November 2018 ballot. More than 60 percent of Michigan voters approved Proposal 2, which shifts the responsibility of drawing Michigans state and federal political districts to a 13-member independent redistricting commission consisting of five independent members, four self-declared Democrats and four self-declared Republicans. The passage of Proposal 2 means whatever happens with the gerrymandering court case, Michigan will has a new process in place for drawing maps in 2021 -- one much different than the process used for the 2018 map and, if it happens, for a new 2020 map. 7. Thursdays ruling is much harsher on the GOP than the compromise proposed by Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. The original defendant in the lawsuit was then-Secretary of State Ruth Johnson, a Republican named in the lawsuit because the secretary of state oversees Michigan elections. Johnson left office at the end of 2018 because of term limits, and her successor was Benson, a Democrat. In January, Benson proposed a settlement that involved redrawing the boundaries for 11 state House seats - the 24th, the 32nd, the 51st, the 55th, the 60th, the 63rd, the 76th, the 91st, the 92nd, the 94th and the 95th. No state Senate or federal districts would have been impacted under her plan. Republicans urged the judges to reject Bensons plan and the judges did, saying Benson lacks the authority to enter into such a settlement. The case went to trial in February. 8. There was considerable evidence showing partisan motives in drawing the current map. In 2011, the national Republican State Leadership Committee engaged in a national effort to ensure that states redrew their congressional lines during the 2011 redistricting cycle to favor Republican candidates and disadvantage Democrats, using the name project REDMAP, the judges said in their findings of fact. The new map meant that Republicans won nine of Michigans 14 Congressional seats, even though they never earned more than 50.5 percent of the vote. In the 2014 state Senate election, the GOP won 50.4 percent of the vote but 71 percent of the seats, the judges noted. Evidence introduced at the trial about the Republicans motives included emails, including one by Jack Daly, a former congressional aide, who wrote: In a glorious way that makes it easier to cram ALL of the Dem garbage in Wayne, Washtenaw, Oakland and Macomb counties into only four districts. 9. Michigan is part of a nationwide rebellion against gerrymandering. The Republicans may end up victims of their own success: Their 2011 efforts across the country to create political districts favorable to the GOP resulted in both strong Republican majorities in numerous states as well as considerable backlash. Thursdays ruling in the Michigan case is part of a series of victories for legal victories for challengers of gerrymandering. Weve clearly hit a tipping point in partisan gerrymandering litigation around the country, Thomas Wolf, a lawyer at the Brennan Center and an expert on voting rights, told the Washington Post on Thursday. As late as 2015, 2016, the idea that voters could walk into court and bring partisan gerrymandering claims and win was far-fetched. GRAND RAPIDS, MI - The National Weather Service has updated its forecast for Saturday nights rain and snow headed for parts of Michigan, with one section of the Lower Peninsula slated to get 3-5 inches of dense, heavy snow. Snowfall rates could top an inch per hour in some spots. Heres what we know heading into Saturday night: * Areas close to I-94 like Kalamazoo, Battle Creek and stretching east toward Jackson will see the highest snowfall, at 3 to 5 inches, the NWS said. Heavy snow falling at an inch per hour could occur between 8 p.m. tonight and 2 a.m. Sunday. The precipitation may start out as rain before changing to snow. Heavy slush could accumulate on roads, so leave extra travel time. Travel is expected to become more difficult in this area after sunset. * Areas closer to Grand Rapids and Lansing, along the I-96 corridor, could see up to 3 inches of snow between tonight and 1 a.m. Sunday. The farther south you are, the heavier snow amount you could see. * Areas north of M-46, in a line from roughly Muskegon to Alma, might not see any snow. Any snow that falls tonight will melt off on Sunday, when the Lower Peninsula will see sunny skies and temps climbing into the mid-50s. Snow in Rockford, Illinois this afternoon is sticking to the grass and heading toward southern Michigan. The bulk of our... Posted by US National Weather Service Grand Rapids Michigan on Saturday, April 27, 2019 ANN ARBOR, MI After two decades working to protect and restore the Huron River, Laura Rubin is headed for bigger waters. The longtime Huron River Watershed Council executive director is leaving her post at the end of May to become director of the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition, a group that advocates for the Great Lakes at the state and federal levels. Its exciting and its also bittersweet, said Rubin, who has led the Ann Arbor-based nonprofit watershed council since 1998. Founded in 1965, the HRWC is a coalition of residents, businesses and local governments that monitors the Huron River, its tributaries, lakes and groundwater, and leads programs on pollution prevention and abatement, wetland and floodplain protection, public education, and natural-resource and land-use planning. Rubin is credited with transforming it from a low-profile organization to a high-impact leader in watershed management, now with an annual budget of about $2 million, including public and private funds. That pays for the organizations staff of 13, including ecologists and watershed planners, as well as on-the-ground restoration projects and other stewardship efforts. Laura has been an amazing leader of an amazing organization, said Ann Arbor Mayor Christopher Taylor. Her dedication to the sustainability of the watershed and our local environment has been effective and inspirational. As the focus of her advocacy expands to the Great Lakes, Im sure we will continue to turn to her as we continue to work to improve here at home. The watershed spans more than 900 square miles in southeast Michigan, with about 1,200 miles of creeks and steams flowing to the Huron Rivers main branch, which flows more than 125 miles from its headwaters near Pontiac to Lake Erie. The rivers drainage area includes seven Michigan counties and 63 municipalities. As PFAS pollution from manufacturing operations has emerged as a serious threat to the watershed, Rubin and her organization have been on the front lines advocating for stronger protections to deal with the so-called forever chemicals found in the watershed and Ann Arbors drinking water. Rubin is now optimistic about Gov. Gretchen Whitmers push to establish maximum contaminant levels. For more than two years, the HRWC also has been fighting in court for a better cleanup of the Gelman dioxane plume, another threat to the Huron River and Ann Arbors water supply. The threats to our rivers and clean water have changed over time, Rubin said, noting the Clean Water Act went a long way to reduce pollution, but with climate change and increased precipitation, communities are facing new challenges, and legacy pollution requires more attention. These issues are going to keep happening until we start to really regulate pollution and clean it up to the levels where were not just containing it, but were actually cleaning it up, she said. During Rubins time, the HRWC successfully advocated for phosphorus fertilizer restrictions to reduce nuisance algal blooms, and worked with communities to ban toxic coal-tar sealcoat products. It also has worked on green infrastructure and bank restoration projects, and dam removal to restore natural flows. In 2008, the HRWC was successful in getting a dam removed from the Huron River system in Dexter. In addition to ecological benefits, the HRWC argues that has allowed Dexter to reimagine itself as a waterfront community on freeflowing Mill Creek. Dexters waterfront revival serves as a successful case study in how to leverage freshwater assets for local economic development and community enhancement, the HRWC states on its website. The HRWC is now advocating for removal of the Peninsular Paper Dam on the Huron River in Ypsilanti. It was unable to convince Ann Arbor leaders to remove the Argo dam a decade ago. Under Rubins watch in 2015, the HRWC led a process to gain National Water Trail designation for the Huron River. It also has led the RiverUp! campaign to restore and revitalize the river, including improving recreational access with dam portages, canoe and kayak launches, kiosks and signs. With the help of more than 500 volunteers, the HRWC collects data to monitor the chemistry and flow of the river and overall health of the watershed. In general, its pretty healthy, Rubin said, noting it helps that a lot of natural areas have been protected. But the watershed still struggles with excessive nutrients like phosphorus, algae blooms, erratic flows from dams and impervious surfaces, erosion and aquatic invasive species, Rubin said. The need for communities to update infrastructure is another challenge, she said. Rubin said shes been fortunate to work with amazing colleagues, volunteers, donors and other stakeholders. By far the best part of my job is not only seeing the impact we have on the river right out my window, but also the people I get to work with, she said. Theyre very smart, driven and committed to clean water. The HRWCs board is launching a search for Rubins replacement and will be considering internal and external candidates. Rubin, a University of Michigan alum who lives in Ann Arbor, said shes not leaving town and plans to stay involved in local issues. My home river will still be the Huron, she said. PITTSFIELD TOWNSHIP, MI - Prosecutors hope to show five men charged in the 2018 death of ex-Eastern Michigan University wrestler Christopher Jack Marsh Jr. are part of a gang. Which gang, however, wasn't immediately clear when Assistant Washtenaw County Prosecutor John Vella levied the accusation at a preliminary examination on Friday, April 26 at 14A-1 District Court. The hearing, which ran the length of the day with 1,300 exhibits at hand, is expected to continue May 22. When it ends, Vella said hell add many more additional counts, including continuing a criminal enterprise. It ups the ante from other weapons charges he's already said he'll add against the suspects - Karon Hadden, 19, Deandre Hinton, 18, Charles Robertson, 19, Camron Williams-Evans, 19, and Garvin Crout, 19. All five are charged with felony murder and armed robbery in the death, with Hadden and Hinton facing six additional weapons-related charges. Hadden was friends with Rakk Life gang member Keandre Duff, according to a previous interview with his mother. Duff was killed in 2015, a few months after charges were dropped in connection with the 2014 death of BOH gang member Keon Washington. And on Friday, a witness put a gun in the hand of another defendant - Hinton. The Pittsfield Township teen, who faces a charge of witness intimidation in a separate case, leaned forward and worried his lip as Marshs girlfriend testified for two hours to him holding a gun and firing it over her head at Marsh shortly after 9 p.m. April 28, 2018. The girlfriend and an EMU student who testified are not being named due to concern for their safety. Both described a drug deal gone wrong in the parking lot of the Glencoe Hills Apartments, 2125 Glencoe Hills Drive in Pittsfield Township. The girlfriend drove with Marsh in the front passenger seat and the student in the backseat to the parking lot at Marsh's behest in order to sell two ounces of marijuana, the witnesses said. Marsh communicated with a buyer named "Rondo" via his social media SnapChat profile on her phone, since the battery was dying on his, she said. After about 15 minutes in the parking lot, two men approached. Though she said one man was Hinton, the girlfriend said she couldn't say with certainty that the other man was in the courtroom. The EMU student said he couldn't be sure either of the two men were in the courtroom Friday, but said he possibly recognized Hinton. The two placed Hinton in opposing positions in the scenario, but both said the men got into the vehicle in the backseat and took a look at the marijuana. That's when things started going awry. The two men said the Ziploc bags held less than the promised two ounces, and with strangers passing by, called the situation sketchy, the EMU student said. The girlfriend told Marsh she wanted the sale to stop, and she and Marsh opened the front doors in order to open the so-called "suicide-doors" in the back to let the men out, she said. Then they pulled out guns. "I remember him saying, 'If you dont give me everything you've got, I'm going to shoot your girl,'" the girlfriend said of Hinton. Hinton, who was closest to her, kept moving the gun between people, the girlfriend said. Fearful, the girlfriend turned to look at her live-in boyfriend of a year, to see what to do. Marsh stared at her. She ducked down as he moved. He was about to try to fight the armed man on the right, the EMU student said. "He tried to tackle him and kind of wrestle him," the student said. "He was a wrestler, so probably doing what he was trained to do." That's when the armed man on the left reached over the girlfriend and started shooting, the witnesses said. The man on the right started shooting, too. Then the suspects fled. Marsh's girlfriend found him face down on the ground, bleeding. He had a wound to his forehead and his lip was gone, she said. "He was just groaning, trying to breath but not saying anything," she said. The EMU student called 911, he said, and he and the girlfriend devised a plan to lie to police about the marijuana to keep Marsh out of trouble. The plan went out the window when they learned, separately, that Marsh had died. Marsh was shot at least three times - twice in the back and once in the head, though one of the bullets traveled enough to hit his abdomen, said Pittsfield Township police Detective Jami Booth. Photos projected on screens showed a few of the wounds on Marsh's body. The five suspects and the packed courtroom went through a range of emotions throughout the day, the defendants sometimes serious and at other time smiling or yawning while tears flowed in the gallery behind them. In front of them, attorneys for the five suspects frequently haggled with Vella and Judge Charles Pope, as well as witnesses, throughout the occasionally heated hearing. At one point, Vella and Raymond Burkett, Hintons attorney, sparred over the term photo lineup versus show-up. It ended with Burkett saying Vella was acting like a clown." Michael Vincent, attorney for Crout, aroused objections when he asked a Michigan State Police expert if hed bet his life that the bullets found in Marsh, believed to be from two guns, came from one recovered from police in December. The expert said the tests showed some similarities, but were inconclusive. All the defense attorneys focused on the lies Marshs girlfriend and friend initially told police, and the fact that neither witness was charged with lying to police or conspiracy to sell drugs. They also took issue with some SnapChat video and photos shown in an effort, Vella said, to display a 2004 Pontiac Grand Am with an Old English "D" decal used by Williams-Evans . One video showed Williams-Evans standing on the vehicle holding a gun as music played and people, including Crout and Hinton, danced around him. One photo of Hadden with his eyes closed, purported to have been taken in the vehicle, was posted from Williams-Evans' SnapChat account at 8:54 p.m. April 28, 2018, minutes before the homicide, Pittsfield Township police Detective Eric Roth testified. Coordinates from the photograph shows it was taken in the parking lot of Glencoe Hills Apartments, he said. After 30 minutes struggling to pick a date, the gaggle of lawyers agreed to continue the hearing on May 22. FLINT, MI -- Millions of documents related to the Flint water crisis, including a list of state employees titled Phones/Wiped, have been discovered in the basement of a state-owned building, according to a filing Friday, April 26, by the Michigan Attorney Generals Office in Genesee Circuit Court. Solicitor General Fadwa A. Hammoud made the explosive claim in a 10-page request for a six-month delay in the prosecution of former state Department of Health and Human Services Director Nick Lyon, whose attorney said the request amounted to nothing more than stalling in a case that was originally filed nearly two years ago. Although the duration of the requested stay is, admittedly, a lengthy one, it is indisputably commensurate with the volume of evidence that has been unknown to (if not withheld from) the People -- not to mention the importance of these prosecutions to the citizens of the state of Michigan, the request says. The postponement request also says the records -- collected in response to investigative subpoenas filed by former special prosecutor Todd Flood -- were never completely reviewed before criminal charges -- including involuntary manslaughter -- were filed against Lyon. The filing also claims prosecutors have learned only a slice of evidence requested was turned over to them and says evidence that was supplied did not conform to data delivery standards that would have made it digestible, searchable and analyzable. Among the newly discovered evidence is a list of names ominously titled Phones/Wiped,' along with data from at least one cell phone that the People were told did not exist," the request says. Chip Chamberlain, an attorney for Lyon, called the requested delay nothing but a stall tactic and said the former DHHS director would fight the postponement. The delay request is exactly what happened when Mr. Lyon was originally charged in the Flint water case, Chamberlain said. Even though he was under investigation for a year and a half, prosecutors tried to delay matters, and we had to wait three months for a preliminary examination" to begin, he said. Lyon was bound over to stand trial on two counts of involuntary manslaughter, willful neglect of duty and misconduct in office in August. Prosecutors claimed during his preliminary examination that Lyon is responsible for the deaths of Robert Skidmore and John Snyder, two Genesee County men whom prosecution experts say likely died of Legionnaires disease during the water crisis. Lyon, who denies the charges against him and has asked Farah to quash -- or dismiss -- his bindover from district court, was among city, county and state officials who were aware of Legionnaires outbreaks during the water crisis and suspicions that Flints water was connected to them. Farah had been expected to rule on that motion to dismiss the case against Lyon in coming days but has scheduled a hearing on the attorney generals new request for postponement on Friday, May 3. A spokeswoman for the attorney general declined to comment in detail on information in the new motion, saying it "speaks for itself. " We will provide additional information at the appropriate time, Communications Director Kelly Rossman-McKinney said in an email to MLive-The Flint Journal. The Journal could not immediately reach Flood, who remains a part of the states prosecution team, for comment on Fridays court filing. In the filing, the attorney generals office claims the new records were part of the response to subpoenas served on state officers and agencies, including Lyon, for data including voicemails, computer hard drives, audio and video recordings. The request says that since the attorney generals office took direct control of the Flint water prosecutions from Flood earlier this year, they have learned of the existence of millions of pages of documents as well as phone extractions and other materials stored on hard drives recovered in a state-owned facilitys basement, that were responsive to the original subpoenas but were not turned over. The filing says those parties served the subpoenas were aware of the materials but erroneously represented to the prosecution that the prosecution already possessed these materials in their entirety. In a brief in support of the request, the attorney generals office says 23 boxes of evidence were languishing in the basement when information about them was discovered. Attorneys within the AGs office were aware of the records but believed they were duplicates of data already turned over in relation to the case. The same assistant attorney generals were responsible for the civil defense of individuals whom this office is investigating in a criminal capacity" and took direction from attorneys outside the office who are also responsible for the individuals civil (and now criminal) defenses," according to the brief. Among the records in the boxes was data from a state employees cell phone despite claims from attorneys for Lyon that the employee had no cell phones preserved or imaged, the brief says, and the file titled Phones/Wiped, which listed the names of eight state employees. Only one of these eight individuals appeared in documentation provided by the respondents, who could not explain the significance of the list of individuals," the court record says. The brief claims that while there is circumstantial evidence of bad faith concealment by either Lyon or his attorneys, the state is not alleging that at this time. Simply put, the People issued investigative subpoenas that sought particular materials, and those materials were not provided, the brief says. GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- Leaders with the American Civil Liberties Union say more discipline is needed for a Grand Rapids police captain exonerated in a city review following an ICE-related controversy. The ACLU is appealing the decision and decried a decision announced Friday, April 26 to reinstate Capt. Curt Vanderkooi to his post. He was on paid leave since Feb. 28. ACLU attorney Miriam Aukerman and Michigan Immigrant Rights Center attorney Hillary Scholten, during a press conference with media Friday, said the reinstatement is improper and that police white washed an internal affairs report. They suggested Vanderkooi engaged in racial profiling and was in frequent contact with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, despite assertions by police leaders that contact with ICE was not routine. ACLU staff obtained about 230 pages of email correspondence between VanderKooi and ICE agents from January 2017 to February of this year through a Freedom of Information Act request. They say the emails show various requests by VanderKooi to check on immigration status of people held in custody. VanderKooi came under scrutiny earlier this year when it was determined he emailed ICE about Jilmar Ramos-Gomez, a veteran arrested in November for accessing the Spectrum Health Butterworth Hospital heilpad. VanderKooi sent the email, requesting a status check, after seeing news reports about the hospital incident. Ramos-Gomez eventually was detained by ICE for three days before an attorney provided paperwork to prove his U.S. citizenship. Police administrators initially thought Ramos-Gomez could be involved in an act of terrorism and said VanderKooi was justified for contacting ICE because of that. The investigation has concluded and, based on the evidence, Captain VanderKooi was not in violation of the impartial policing policy," according to a police statement released Friday. But Aukerman said the other correspondence between VanderKooi and ICE shows a trend. The emails have been attached to the ACLU web site in a PDF document. It is absolutely appalling he would be exonerated under the circumstances, she said. The ACLU and Michigan Immigrant Rights Center are appealing the citys ruling on VanderKooi to the citys Civilian Appeals Board. A May 15 hearing is set. In Fridays announcement, police administrators said VanderKooi would no longer be in charge of the U-visa certification process. Instead, the departments records division will handle the task. A U-visa is a U.S. non-immigration visa for victims of crimes who have suffered mental or physical abuse while in the United States and who are willing to assist law enforcement and government officials in the investigation or prosecution of criminal activity. The visa allows those victims to remain in the United States, but typically takes years for approval. VanderKoois role was to certify that victims were assisting law enforcement. Scholten, with the Immigrant Rights Center, said the change in the U-visa process is not sufficient to alleviate concerns about Grand Rapids police interactions with ICE. GRAND RAPIDS, MI A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit by an anti-abortion street preacher who alleged that Grand Rapids police violated his First Amendment rights in enforcement of a city noise ordinance. Stephen Nylen contended that police threatened him with arrest based on complaints about the content of his speech. The city said Nylens volume he used an electronic voice amplifier in sharing religious beliefs outside of an abortion clinic and other places was the problem. U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker in Grand Rapids said there were no disputes surrounding facts of the case. The encounters between Nylen and police were captured on video. Those videos and the rest of the record demonstrate that the noise ordinance is sufficiently clear to reasonable people, and that its enforcement here is a proper time, place, and manner restriction, not an unconstitutional infringement of free speech, Jonker wrote, in granting the citys motion for summary judgment. Nylen challenged the constitutionality of the citys noise ordinance on due-process and free-speech grounds. He has not been arrested for violating the ordinance but sought a declaratory ruling that the ordinance was unconstitutionally vague. He has been repeatedly warned by police that if someone dislikes his speech complains to authorities about it, then he will be cited ... if he does not stop speaking, his lawsuit said. He filed notice that he would appeal Jonkers ruling to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati. Described as a devout Christian, Nylen has been a street preacher since 2015. He found his faith serving in the U.S. Army in Iraq. He said that Grand Rapids police have, on several occasions, instructed me to stop voicing my message and told me that if I did not stop, then they may arrest me . He was concerned that his right to free speech was being eroded. He said that complaints were based on his message. The city, however, said: "This is a case about a man who has stubbornly refused to comprehend the clear prohibition of the City of Grand Rapids' noise ordinance in order to make a proverbial 'federal case' out of his protesting activities. Nylen drew attention of police "because of his insistence on using electronic voice amplification and his refusal to understand that the use of amplification is the only reason the police have counselled him with regard to his expressive activity, the city said. Nylen acknowledged he often used an amplifier. Police reports showed that officers were concerned about the volume of his speeches rather than content, the judge said. In one instance, an officer noted that Nylen had a headset microphone and speaker box. Sgt. Barry Bryant, named as a defendant in the lawsuit, told Nylen in late 2016 that he could not use a megaphone when speaking outside of a clinic. Bryant told Nylen that we have no problem with you protesting; youve just got to follow the rules when you do it, court records said. Officer Bryant attempts several times to confirm that Mr. Nylen understands that he may not use an amplifier but that he is still free to express his message, the judge wrote. Nylen conceded he was told he may not use an amplifier. The citys noise ordinance is content neutral, Jonker wrote. On its face, the Noise Ordinance addresses the manner of expression and takes no position as to the content of the expression it restricts. Nor is there any extrinsic evidence in the record suggesting that the government adopted or applied the Noise Ordinance to restrict expression based on content, Jonker said. The ordinance is intended to control noise that amounts to a public nuisance, he said. The ordinance says, with exceptions for peddlers and musical bodies, No person shall make, or cause, permit, or allow to be made, upon a public way, or in such close proximity to a public way as to be distinctly and loudly audible upon such public way, any noise of any kind by crying, calling or shouting, or by means of any whistle, rattle, bell, gong, clapper, hammer, drum, horn, hand organ, mechanically operated piano, other musical instrument, sound amplifying or other similar electronic device. ROCKFORD, MI Ginger Zee, chief meteorologist for ABC News and Rockford High School graduate, spent Friday, April 26, with Rockford middle schoolers talking about her passion for science and meteorology and her new book. Zees visit is part of her book tour for Chasing Helicity into the Wind, her second book in a planned Helicity trilogy. She signed copies of her books after engaging students at East and North Rockford middle schools. I have learned so much in my 20 years of storm chasing that I wanted to put all of those life lessons into a book and into a speech, said Zee, who reports on the nations weather on programs from Good Morning America to World News Tonight. Zee said shes had the unique experience of being in the lives of people in the moments where they lose everything in a storm. I thought she was very inspirational sharing why she likes what she does, said Giada Arcidiacono, 13. For about an hour, Zee spoke to East Rockford sixth-graders about her life, career, lifelong fondness for science and mathematics, and how at age 8 she fell in love with meteorology while spending summer vacation on Lake Michigan. You know how big and broad that lake is and how you can see forever, she told students. We saw water spouts. It was an unbelievable moment in my life. During her senior year at Rockford, Zee said she talked about being an orthodontist, but that was not her passion, rather a sensible career she thought people preferred. Zee told the roughly 350 students in the gymnasium to not listen to those who might discourage them from pursuing an interest they are passionate about, rather study hard and push forward. She said a teacher told her once that maybe writing wasnt her thing and it stopped her for years from doing something she loved as a child. Zee wrote the New York Times bestseller Natural Disaster, a book for adults. The Helicity series targets middle-school-aged kids, and she was eager to share with students what they could expect. The book has a lot to do with weather and yes, there is a lot of science in the book but for the most part its about being a human, she told students, about the adventures of Helicity Dunlap. Its about being a person, a person who doesnt know that they can do something and learns that they can. Thats what my story is about. Zee said many people grew up learning about science from Bill Nye The Science Guy or Mr. Wizard, but now she thinks its time for a woman to become synonymous with science. "Whether its through my character, Helicity or through myself, I think childrens programming and just getting science into schools is my next goal,'' she said. Aiden Humphrey, 12, said he found Zees speech inspiring and enjoyed hearing about her background and career. He said he has always found weather interesting and things like water spouts cool. Zee fielded multiple questions from students about her career, travel, hurricanes and tornadoes. "The most impactful storm to me is still Hurricane Katrina,'' she said, noting how she was green and new to telling a story of that magnitude. "It sits with me. I still have pen pals from the people who survived. It is a storm where I had extreme survivors guilt.'' She said the 2005 Category 5 storm that damaged cities along the Gulf Coast from New Orleans to Biloxi, Mississippi was an important storm in history. Zee told MLive that what she hopes students take away from her speeches and the books is that weather and our atmosphere and environment are critical because it is around us and you need to respect it and understand it. For the record, she told students she was departing before Saturdays expected snow. Zee will be at Epilogue Books in Rockford for a book signing Friday from 5 to 7 p.m. BANGOR TWP, MI Reese Public Schools and Bangor Township School District have millage renewal and bond proposals on ballots for the 2019 May election. The Tuesday, May 7, election includes an proposal to renew a non-homestead operating millage for Bangor Township School District and a bond proposal for Reese Public Schools. Bangor Township School District is asking voters to renew the current non-homestead property tax of 19.5896 mills. If approved, that millage will be in place through 2025. Non-homestead properties includes industrial, business, commercial, and rental properties, as well as second homes. The tax does not apply to property that is the primary home of a family or individual. This issue is important to our school district. The State of Michigan requires school systems to levy 18 non-homestead mills in order to receive the full state foundation allowance. If the millage is not passed, the state does not make up the value of that millage. It is just lost. As a result, the Board of Education is requesting a renewal of our current non-homestead property rate, Superintendent Matt Schmidt wrote in a letter posted to Bangor Township Schools website. Heres the official ballot language. Reese Public Schools is asking voters to approve a bonding proposal for 2.30 mills that would generate $11,850,000. A bond is a state-approved borrowing stream that specifies a set scope of projects. When voters approve a bond, the money is borrowed and the school district makes payments over 20-30 years. If the bond is approved, the money will go toward a roof replacement, new furnishings/ equipment, new activity facility, remodeled bathrooms, and remodeled cafeteria among other improvements, according to Reese Public Schools website. To see the official ballot language visit here. Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday, May 7. The White House had not one whisper of scandal under President Barack Obama thats what former VP Joe Biden would have one believe as a selling point for his presidential run. Wait, is that the sound of fact-checkers typing? The thing Im proudest of, Biden said on Friday of his time at Obamas right hand, Not one single whisper of scandal...not one, and thats because of Barack. Biden was speaking on The View, a day after announcing his campaign for the presidency in 2020. The studio audience cheered and host Joy Behar chimed in, calling Barack Obama amazing. Of course, Biden is hardly going to besmirch his former partner on live television, and the view of presidents past tends to soften once theyve left office. But one has to wonder if the busy liberal fact-checkers would want to correct the Democrats favorite candidate, as his administration racked up its fair share of scandals during Obamas eight years at the helm. Herere three of the biggest: Attack of the drones The escalation of drone warfare and the targeted killings of American citizens are some of the biggest and blackest marks on the Obama administration. Although Obama was not the first US president to deploy drones on the battlefield, he was a drone enthusiast from the outset, describing the killer robots as effective, indispensable, and the only game in town, and personally authorizing more strikes in his first year than George W. Bush did in his entire eight years in office. The whole world became a battlefield. Drone strikes targeted enemies and innocents alike in Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Of these strike zones, only Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria were active battlefields. At least four American citizens were killed, including a 16-year-old boy in Yemen, struck two weeks after his father. A grand total of 563 strikes killed between 384 and 807 civilians in non-battlefield countries, according to figures from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Technically, it was all legal, of course after the law in question was written by executive branch lawyers and hidden from Congress and the public. Fast and Furious This Fast and Furious had nothing to do with Vin Diesel and Paul Walker. Instead, it was a gunwalking scandal that Obama and then-Attorney General Eric Holder desperately tried to keep a lid on. In 2009, the Department of Justice came up with the amazingly bright idea of letting firearms including .50 caliber rifles powerful enough to rip apart an engine block fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels, supposedly as a means of tracking them. The plan backfired. Federal agents lost track of most of the 2,000 guns, which wound up being used in murders on both sides of the border, including the slaying of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry in 2010. Also on rt.com Fast & Furious cartel hitman who killed Border Patrol agent arrested in Mexico But the Obama administration was non-apologetic. Instead, when the Republican-controlled House kicked up a stink, Holder sought to withhold documents relating to the scandal under subpoena, and Obama later withheld them under executive privilege when Holder was cited for contempt of Congress. Years later, Mexican authorities are still finding Fast and Furious guns at cartel crime scenes. One of the 19 weapons found at the hideout of notorious drug kingpin Joaquin El Chapo Guzman in 2016 was a gun knowingly allowed into Mexico by the Justice Department. Spy games allied edition As a Senator, Barack Obama condemned the Bush-era Patriot Act for violating the rights of American citizens. Once in office, he renewed the act, allowing intelligence agencies to carry out roving wiretaps on American citizens and collect billions of phone call and text message records every year. Much has been written about Obamas expansion of the surveillance state, and his administrations scattergun use of the 1917 Espionage Act to prosecute whistleblowers like NSA contractor Edward Snowden, but perhaps most personally embarrassing was the revelation via WikiLeaks that the US government spied on German Chancellor Angela Merkels phone calls. In an angry exchange with Obama, Merkel compared the US National Security Agency (NSA) to the dreaded East German Stasi. Suitably chastised, did Obama move to disarm the US surveillance apparatus before leaving office? Nope. Days after Obamas January 2017 farewell speech, then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch signed an order giving the NSA additional powers to share intercepted communications with the USs 16 other intelligence agencies. These communications include internet traffic intercepted through the NSAs dragnet PRISM program, and phone, email, and satellite transmissions gathered abroad. When it comes to totting up the scandals of the Obama years, honorable mention goes to the Benghazi attack that killed ambassador Chris Stevens, Hillary Clintons email server scandal, arming jihadist rebels in Syria, and if Republicans are to be believed, authorizing an FBI spying operation on the Trump campaign in 2016. But Joe Biden would have the voters believe that it is Donald Trump who will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation. Also on rt.com Grope & change: Would America become one nation under Joe Biden? Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! Former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has launched a blistering attack on the current leadership of the South American country, saying they are a bunch of lunatics and United States lackeys. Lula, who led Brazil from 2003 until 2011, made the extraordinary comments in his first interview since being jailed on corruption charges last year. The 73-year-old was forbidden from speaking to the media until Friday, when two Brazilian journalists visited him in prison after winning a protracted legal battle. Current president Jair Bolsonaros close ties with the United States is clearly a source of much dismay for the former leader, who was leading in the polls during last years election before being barred from running due to the corruption charges, which he has repeatedly disputed. Ive never seen a [Brazilian] president salute the American flag. Ive never seen a president go around saying, I love the United States, I love it! he said. You should love your mother, you should love your country. Whats all this about loving the United States? Does anyone really think the US is going to favor Brazil? he asked. Americans think of themselves first, second, third, fourth, fifth and if theres any time left over, they think about Americans. And these Brazilian lackeys go around thinking the Americans will do anything for us. Bolsonaro has long spoken of his admiration for US President Donald Trump and the American way of life. During a trip to Washington DC last month, he praised Trump for changing the US in a way that he said he hopes to change Brazil. Trump responded to the flattery by telling Bolsonaro that he will possibly support a push to make Brazil maybe a NATO ally. The Brazilian president also managed to squeeze a visit to the CIAs headquarters into his US trip. Also on rt.com Nostalgia for coups past? Brazils Bolsonaro visits CIA before Trump on first US trip During the lengthy interview, Lula also criticized Bolsonaros hardline views which he said have diminished Brazils status as an emerging world power. I was the only president who was invited to all the G8 meetings Brazil was very important in the G20, he said. All this has fallen apart. Lula urged Brazilians to partake in a period of self-reflection in the aftermath of last years divisive election. What we cant have is this country being run governed by a bunch of lunatics. The country doesnt deserve this and above all the people do not deserve this. Like this story? Share it with a friend! A Texas judge has blocked enforcement of a law forbidding state employees and contractors from boycotting Israel, declaring that the measure threatens to "manipulate the debate through coercion rather than persuasion." Calling the law "an impermissible content- and viewpoint-based restriction on protected expression" that "imposes unconstitutional conditions on public employment [and] compels speech for an impermissible purpose," US District Judge Robert Pitman ruled that the "plaintiffs' BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions] boycotts are inherently expressive conduct" protected under the First Amendment and delivered a temporary injunction, barring Texas from enforcing the provision. Also on rt.com Boycott Israel, well boycott you: How US Senators & state lawmakers put foreign power first Reminding the state of Texas that "the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular" is "to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation and their ideas from suppression at the hands of an intolerant society," Pitman reserved special scorn for state attorneys' emphasis on the fact that 25 other states also have anti-BDS laws or executive orders on the books and the legislature's near-unanimous passage of the 2017 law, calling the deference to groupthink a "weakness." The ruling merged two separate suits from plaintiffs who have little in common aside from their support for BDS and Palestinian rights. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) sued in December on behalf of Bahia Amawi, a speech pathologist unable to renew her contract with a school district after nine years of employment because she refused to sign a no-boycott clause. That same month, the American Civil Liberties Union filed on behalf of John Pluecker, a freelance writer and translator unable to continue his contract work for a state university; Zachary Abdelhadi and Obinna Dennar, two students unable to contract with a school district to judge debate tournaments; and George Hale, a radio reporter forced to sign a no-boycott clause in order to keep his job. The Texas law required a state employee or one contracting with the state to sign a pledge avowing they "do not currently boycott Israel," they "will not boycott Israel during the term of the contract," and that they will avoid any action "that is intended to penalize, inflict economic harm on, or limit commercial relations with Israel, or with a person or entity doing business in Israeli or in an Israel-controlled territory." Texas is the third state since 2017 to stall or overturn anti-BDS legislation, following decisions in Kansas and Arizona, according to the ACLU, and a victory there is significant, given the strength of the state House's support for Israel the city of Dickinson actually required residents applying for government aid to rebuild their homes following Hurricane Harvey to pledge not to boycott Israel in 2017, before retracting that requirement. A nationwide 2017 bill that would have criminalized the BDS movement failed, but US immigration authorities barred BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti from the country earlier this month with no explanation, forcing him to cancel a speaking tour and preventing him from attending his daughter's wedding. Ending BDS is considered a top priority for AIPAC, one of the most powerful lobbying groups in Washington, and multiple anti-BDS resolutions have been proposed this year. Also on rt.com Israel outsources McCarthyite repression to US, BDS co-founder Barghouti tells RT after travel ban BDS is a nonviolent protest movement that uses economic pressure techniques to protest Israel's illegal construction of settlements and military occupation of Palestine, as well as acts of violence and racist policies against Palestinians. Founded in 2005, it is modeled on the successful campaign waged against apartheid South Africa. The Israeli government, however, accuses the movement of seeking to "delegitimize" Israel, calling participants "enemy soldiers" and calling for their "targeted civil elimination." Like this story? Share it with a friend! FBI Director Christopher Wray has confirmed that anti-Russian hype is not going anywhere, claiming that Moscow will try to interfere in the 2020 US presidential election, and has been spinning up Americans every day. What has continued pretty much unabated is the use of social media, fake news, propaganda, false personas, et cetera, to spin us up, Wray told the Council on Foreign Relations last Friday. Russian intelligence agencies seek to pit us against each other, sow divisiveness, discord, undermine Americans faith in democracy, the Bush Jr. assistant attorney general added. Also on rt.com No, Mueller didn't prove Russian hacking in Florida or anywhere else He said the 2020 election would be a repeat of both the 2016 race as well as 2018s congressional election, in which US intelligence agencies have alleged Russian interference. Cutting against Wrays dire warnings, however, are two Senate-commissioned studies published last year examining the actual impact of alleged Kremlin meddling. Both studies found that the social media activities of the Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA) an alleged troll factory that Washington is accusing of being an internet warfare outfit had negligible impact on the 2016 election, and that only 11 percent of the IRAs online content had anything to do with the race at all. The studies also found the IRA spent microscopic amounts of money on social media ads comprising around half of one percent of the combined $81 million spent on Facebook ads by candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. The alleged conspiracy between Kremlin and Donald Trump, which Clinton and her supporters have blamed at least partially for her loss in 2016, was also disproved by the nearly two-year-long investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller. Still, the hardcore Russia-blamers refuse to let go, with Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez announcing that the US is at cyberwar with Russia. Wrays hyped-up counterintelligence threat is sure to do some spinning up of its own amid ongoing demands for additional investigation into President Trump and his alleged Russian ties. Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! Its hard to foresee how US efforts to bring Iranian oil exports to zero will play out in future, Vladimir Putin admitted, saying OPEC members should live up to their obligation to keep output as low as possible if it comes true. Russia has an agreement with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to cut their output by 1.2 million barrels per day, which remains in effect until July of this year, Putin said. But the US waivers which gave a host of countries an exemption from the existing anti-Iran sanctions expire much earlier, he reminded. I dont imagine how the global energy market will react to that. In November, the US re-imposed sanctions on Iran's energy, shipbuilding and banking sectors in a bid to deprive Tehran of its main sources of revenue. But it simultaneously issued waivers to China, India, Japan, South Korea, and Turkey the main importers of Iranian crude so that they can find alternative vendors of oil. The waivers expire in May, meaning that those countries could potentially face US sanctions beyond that deadline. China and Turkey, on their part, have strongly condemned the American restrictions, arguing the US is not in a position to intervene in their trade ties with Iran. Also on rt.com United States to end sanction waivers for countries importing Iranian oil Commenting on the issue, Putin said he hopes the market will eventually avoid the deficit of Iranian oil and that Iran will still be able to sell it. The comment came on the heels of conflicting reports that Donald Trump persuaded Riyadh to ramp up oil output this lowering fuel costs; these reports were denounced by OPEC officials. Nevertheless, there is no evidence that any country is going to withdraw from the OPEC+ agreement to drop oil outputs, Putin said. We dont have any information from our Saudi partners or other OPEC members that they are ready to pull out from the deal. He assured that Moscow is fulfilling its commitments to the production cuts agreed by OPEC and several non-OPEC producers in December. Saudi Arabia is also unlikely to withdraw, being the driving force behind the wider coalition. to RT newsletter to get stories the mainstream media wont tell you. Claims that Ecuadorian embassy staff had trouble living side-by-side with Julian Assange were a mere smear campaign, the countrys former consul told RT. Both the hosts and the guest showed true respect to each other, he said. In comments to RT, Fidel Narvaez spoke out against media coverage of Julian Assange who remains in custody after his arrest in London. I was very disappointed that the fundamental thing which is the persecution of a journalist for ... the crime of publishing truthful information about war crimes, corruption, mass surveillance is not in the focus of international [media coverage], he noted. Instead, most news outlets prefer to talk about the day-to-day behavior of Assange in the Embassy and his relationship with Ecuador [authorities], echoing accusations made by President Lenin Moreno the one who withdrawn his asylum status citing discourteous and aggressive behavior. Morenos list of Assanges transgressions included blocking the Embassys CCTV cameras, accessing security files without permission, and harassing its personnel, including guards. Mainstream media have widely quoted those claims, including the most notorious one in which Moreno went as far as to allege the WikiLeaks founder was smearing his feces on our embassys walls. Also on rt.com Greatest traitor in Ecuadorian history: Ex-President Correa slams Moreno over Assanges arrest But Narvaez, who was Ecuadors consul during Assanges presence, said that stories about his alleged breach of asylum conditions and altercations with diplomatic staff were a smokescreen created by Morenos government. A couple of isolated incidents with security guards cant be described as improper conduct, he opined. I was in the Embassy for six years, and Assange spent there nearly 2,500 days. I witnessed myself how respectful was [the attitude] of all diplomats, of all administrative staff towards him and [vice versa], of him towards us. But that attitude changed when Moreno took office in 2017. Last year, the Ecuadorean government severed internet access for Assange, citing a breach of a rule on non-intervention into the politics of other countries. The embassy also limited Assanges visitors, making the only exception for his lawyers. READ MORE: Spying & threats: Assange complains of more subtle silencing than Khashoggi That, in itself, was a very, very gross violation of human rights of someone who was not serving a sentence, of somebody who was not a prisoner, the former consul commented. At this point, Ecuador became a persecutor instead of being a protector. You have to attack and defame the personality if you dont want the public opinion to support the brave one who challenged the most powerful nation on the planet, Narvaez concluded. Like this story? Share it with a friend! Sales of Conor McGregor's Proper No. Twelve have contributed to a boom in Irish whiskey sales in the United States, though some industry insiders are nervous the MMA star's controversial personality could damage the market. McGregor's entrance into the whiskey business has been a successful one so far, with more than 200,000 nine-liter cases of Proper No. Twelve being shipped since its launch late last summer. It is currently available in Ireland, the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. Sales of Irish whiskey combined to more than $1 billion in the United States last year, a surge of around 12 percent, with around 4.7 million case sold per the Distilled Spirits Council. Jameson, along with its distiller Pernod Ricard, remains the global leader in Irish whiskey and has experienced its own sales boom in keeping with the new figures, though insiders suggest that they have taken note of the potential impact that the popularity of Proper No. Twelve may have on their brand going forward. "The informal ambition is for Pernod Ricard in the US to grow ahead of the market: if Jameson is disrupted by Proper No. Twelve, this makes this ambition harder to achieve in the near term," Edward Mundy, an analyst with beverage research company Jeffries said. Proper No. Twelve has become popular with a younger age group of drinkers, many of whom would be fans of the sometimes brash former UFC world champion and on its launch McGregor issued battle cry to say that he is coming for his slice of the market. "I respect other Irish whiskeys," McGregor said last year. "But I am coming in strong, with passion and with purpose." However, some inside the industry who have been critical of the taste of the newest player on the Irish whiskey scene suggest that its overall lack of quality could ultimately cause harm to the market. "It is incredibly mild," the Irish Times described Proper No. Twelve at a taste test. "With a bitter caramel quality that I can only describe as unsweetened Werthers Original." A US army veteran rammed eight people crossing the road in Sunnyvale, California, because he believed at least some of them were Muslim, police said. He may now face hate crime charges in addition to attempted murder. "Based on our investigation, new evidence shows that the defendant intentionally targeted victims based on their race and his belief that they were of the Muslim faith," Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety Chief Phan S. Ngo said on Friday. Also on rt.com Car rams through church in the middle of Christmas service, 6 injured Isaiah Peoples, 34-year-old Iraq war veteran, ploughed his Toyota Corolla into a group of pedestrians and cyclists as they were crossing the street on Tuesday. Peoples reportedly made no attempt to stop, ramming the crowd, traveling at over 60mph. Out of the eight people injured, three are children: a nine-year-old boy, a 15-year-old boy, and a 13-year-old girl of South Asian descent. The girl was rushed to hospital with a severe brain injury and is now in a coma. Peoples has been charged with eight counts of attempted murder so far. However, the prosecution does not rule out that hate crime charges might be added to his indictment at some point. "There is no hate crime allegation charged at this point in time for one reason only; the matter is still being investigated," Jay Boyarski, Santa Clara County chief assistant district attorney said, as cited by CBS San Francisco. Peoples has battled mental health issues in the past. While it is not clear if he has ever been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), his family and lawyer believe that it was a bout of PTSD that triggered the otherwise inexplicable car rampage. "It's clearly a case where his mental state is the issue," the man's attorney Chuck Smith stated on Friday, arguing that there was "no other explanation for this than his service." The US Army confirmed that Peoples was deployed to Iraq from June 2005 to May 2006. He was honorably discharged in 2009 with the rank of sergeant. His brother, Joshua, told Mercury News that Peoples provided security for car patrols while stationed in Iraq. "He was a gunner when they were driving," he said. Since coming back home, Peoples worked as an accountant for the Defense Contract Audit Agency and was on good standing. Peoples, himself a son of a pastor, was an avid churchgoer. According to police, Peoples was in the midst of delivering food supplies to a local Bible study group when he suddenly changed his mind and crashed into the pedestrians. Witnesses say that Peoples, after crashing his car into a tree, appeared to be thanking God for what had just happened. "Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus," the suspect reportedly said, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, citing a witness. Peoples did not resist arrest, was "coherent" and displayed a generally calm demeanor when taken into custody, according to police. In 2015, Peoples had a stint in a mental hospital after allegedly skipping his medication. According to his brother, Peoples checked into the hospital after he began imagining that the government "was bugging his house." Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! The Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS, ISIL) terrorist group has claimed it was behind a standoff with police in the east coast city of Kalmunai in Sri Lanka. In a statement carried by its mouthpiece, Amaq news agency, IS claimed that 17 policemen were either killed or injured during the prolonged gun battle that took place on Friday night. The militant group said that three of its fighters blew themselves up after a shootout with police that lasted for several hours. The agency posted a photo of the two of its militants who were supposedly killed by the law enforcement. It was reported earlier that police raided a safe house after receiving a tip-off from traffic police facing off with militants who set off multiple explosions and opened fire. Police recovered explosives, detonators, uniforms and Islamic State flags. One civilian was killed in the crossfire and four bodies of suspected terrorists were found, according to the military. to RT newsletter to get stories the mainstream media wont tell you. ISIS claims responsibility for clash with police in Sri Lanka ISIS claims responsibility for clash with police in Sri Lanka Source : RT - Daily news Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 27) Senatorial bets said finding renewable sources of energy and revisiting the law that privatized the countrys energy supply is the solution to the country's rising electricity rates. Opposition slate candidate Chel Diokno said it is imperative for the country to shift from fossil fuel to renewable sources of energy. He argued that the carbon emissions from fossil fuel will continue to endanger the lives of the youth should we refuse to make the switch. We need to address the problem of relying on fossil fuel energy kailangan lumipat na tayo sa renewable energy hindi na natin maiiwasan ang problema na yan [we need to move to renewable energy, we cannot avoid this problem anymore]unless we move now to renewable energy we will be locked in for many generations to come, he said during the CNN Philippines Senatorial Debate. Fellow Otso Diretso bet Samira Gutoc also emphasized the need to utilize environmental friendly energy. She suggested hydroelectricity among natural-borne sources. You cannot save Mother Earth when you invest in carbon emission and the heat that comes from coal, Gutoc said. On the other hand, reelectionist JV Ejercito advised to also consider nuclear energy, patterned after other countries. Kailangan natin [We need] base load energy and renewable energy. It has to be a combination of both, Ejercito suggested. The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines has raised the red and yellow alert on the Luzon grid several times in April due to insufficient power supply. This led to rotational brownouts in multiple areas. Questioning the EPIRA Three other candidates have also proposed to review the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001, or the EPIRA law which aimed to lower power rates by introducing private ownership to energy supply. Opposition bet Erin Tanada surmised that the law has not fulfilled its function. He said it must be revisited to ensure that it is serving the interest of the people. The former Deputy House Speaker said he fears the continuing rise of electricity rates would mean less jobs for Filipinos. Kung hindi bababa ang presyo ng kuryente hindi rin lalawak ang negosyo dito sa bansa. Kung mataas ang presyo, hindi kukuha ng mag bagong manggagawa ang bawat kumpanya, explained Tanada. [Translation: If the price of electricity does not decrease, business will not grow in the country. If rates are high, companies will not hire new people.] Opposition candidate Romulo Macalintal also contested the law, saying it has done little to ease the burden of energy prices. He explained that this is due to the Incremental Currency Exchange Rate Adjustment (ICERA), the fee customers pay to allow prices to adjust to changes in value for foreign currencies. Dapat talaga dito magkaroon ng pagereview 'yang EPIRA law sapagkat hindi nakatutulong sa bansa natin kundi lalong nadadagdagan ang halaga ng kuryente, argued Macalintal. [Translation: What really should be done is to review the EPIRA law because this has not been helping the country. In fact, it has made electricity more expensive.] Neri Colmenares also implored consumers to be more mindful of the fees indicated in their electricity bills from the Manila Electric Company (Meralco). The opposition candidate questioned the need for a bill deposit, which Meralco requires as guarantee for payment of electric bills. Ang bill deposit totalled to almost 30 billion pesos sa Meralco. Hindi siya maudit-audit. Ang interes napupunta sa Meralco hindi sa taumbayan, Colmenares said. [Translation: The bill deposits totalled to almost 30 billion pesos in Meralco. It could not be audited. The interest is given to Meralco and not the people.] Macalintal said, if elected for a Senate seat, he would advise to inquire on these questionable taxes included in the publics electricity payments. The atrocities allegedly committed by Navy SEAL Edward Gallagher are the product of a nation fighting unjust wars and a society steeped in war culture, former governor and Vietnam veteran Jesse Ventura told RT. Gallagher, a highly decorated platoon chief, is currently sitting in pretrial detention at a naval base in San Diego. He is accused of committing multiple atrocities, including murder, in Iraq. Gallaghers story was recently thrust into the spotlight after a group of SEAL commandos who tried to report Gallaghers behavior claimed they were repeatedly told by higher-ups to stop talking about it. Also on rt.com Stop talking about it: Navy SEALs say they were warned against reporting chief for war crimes Jesse Ventura, a former member of a Navy Underwater Demolition Team during the Vietnam war, told RT that his fellow SEALs decision to try and turn Gallagher in was an honorable one. Its something that each and every soldier, sailor, marine and airman would have to judge for themself, he said. Because it falls under something called honor. Gallagher faces more than a dozen charges, including premeditated murder and attempted murder. His alleged crimes include indiscriminately raking civilian neighborhoods with machine-gun fire, opening fire on civilians without provocation and summarily executing a captured, teenage Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) fighter who was undergoing medical treatment by US medics, by stabbing him repeatedly with a custom-made knife and hatchet. Ventura was not surprised that Gallagher ended up in the military, describing the armed forces as the perfect place for a sociopath to go. Also on rt.com Pentagon ready to 'admit problem' of rampant Special Forces crimes report The former Minnesota governor blamed incidents of abuse like those allegedly committed by Gallagher on his countrys war culture. Take a look at the ads on TV. They make war look like an exciting video game. These ads on TV right now to try to get people to join the military are so pro-war its horrifying. Voting for anti-war candidates would help end the cycle of state-sponsored violence, Ventura said, but the choice is not always there for voters. The best way is voting, but you cant vote for a Democrat either because theyre on board with it too. Until we start leaving this war culture...it is a recipe for disaster. Like this story? Share it with a friend! Two knives were found near the school desk of 12-year-old Prince Hisahito, Kyodo news agency reported, citing police sources. The incident happened just days before his grandfather, Emperor Akihito, abdicates from the throne. CCTV footage from noon on Friday allegedly shows a helmeted man dressed as a construction worker entering the Ochanomizu University Junior High School in Tokyo. Prince Hisahito was said to be absent at the time when the trespass occurred. Police declined to comment further on the issue after being asked by AP. Prince Hisahito made his most recent public appearance a few weeks ago, when he posed with his parents following his graduation from elementary school in Tokyo. Shortly afterwards, he enrolled in his current institution as the Japanese school year began in April. Also on rt.com Japan clears way for emperor to step down in 1st abdication in 200 years The incident occurred as Japan makes its final preparations for the abdication ceremony of 85-year-old Emperor Akihito on April 30, marking the end of his three-decade reign. Akihito, who is voluntarily stepping down due to health problems, will be succeeded by Crown Prince Naruhito. His nephew Hisahito is third in line to the Chrysanthemum Throne. The Japanese monarchy, whose history stretches back 2,600 years, nowadays fulfils a purely symbolic role. The Emperor is constitutionally deprived of any political powers, although this did not prevent Akihito from voicing deep remorse over Japans role in World War II on the 70th anniversary of the conflicts conclusion. If you like this story, share it with a friend! A total of 15 bodies, including six children, have been found at the site of a prolonged gun battle between military police and suspected Islamic militants believed to be linked to Sundays church and hotel bombings in Sri Lanka. The dead were discovered in a house in Sainthamaruthu as authorities cleared the area on Saturday morning following the overnight shootout, which police and military had earlier said killed four gunmen and a civilian. Fighting broke out on Friday night between the troops and suspected terrorists believed to be connected with the Easter Sunday attacks, which targeted several churches and luxury hotels, killing 253 and injuring hundreds more. One of the bombings happened in nearby Batticaloa. Also on rt.com Pregnant wife of Sri Lanka bombings mastermind blew herself up with 3 kids report Three suicide bombers were among the dead, according to military spokesman Sumith Atapattu, who said they were suspected members of National Towheed Jamaat, the group believed to be behind the attacks. Also in the eastern part of the country, two militants and one civilian were killed in a firefight between troops and suspected militants near Sammanthurai as the hunt for suspects in Sundays attacks continued. The fighting began on Friday night after troops raided a safe house on a tip from police, encountering militants who set off multiple explosions and opened fire. At least three were wounded in the battle. Security forces have reportedly recovered explosives, military uniforms, detonators, materials used to make suicide vests, and Islamic State flags in the raids, according to the military. Nearly 10,000 soldiers are searching the country for suspects linked to the bombings, and over 70 individuals have been detained so far. Police said on Friday they were searching for 140 people believed to have links with the Islamic State, which has claimed responsibility for the bombings. Also on rt.com Why was warning ignored? Sri Lankan minister tweets intel letter from 10 days before bombings If you like this story, share it with a friend! Yellow Vest protesters have marched on the European Parliament building in Strasbourg, prompting police to deploy tear gas. The demonstrators have also swarmed several TV stations, demanding better coverage of their movement. The 24th consecutive weekend of demonstrations saw more than 5,000 protesters take to the streets across France, including 2,600 in Paris, according to Interior Ministry figures, which the Yellow Vests have often questioned in the past. In Strasbourg, tear gas filled the streets as police struggled to keep hundreds of demonstrators away from the EU Parliament buildings. Police have blocked roads and bridges, and clashes have broken out between heavily armored riot control officers and masked protesters. Wearing improvised gas masks, the Yellow Vests kicked tear-gas canisters back at the battalions of police blocking the roads. Paris has been the epicenter of the Yellow Vest movement since it began as a show of opposition to a planned fuel tax hike last November. On Saturday, activists surrounded the headquarters of several French television networks there, demanding better coverage of their weekly demonstrations. Saturdays marches came two days after French President Emmanuel Macron tried to assuage popular anger with promises of lower taxes. However, activists have continued to demonstrate against Macrons pro-business, pro-EU policies, calling his peace offering rubbish. Also on rt.com Yellow Vests take to the streets in rejection of Macrons rubbish olive branch (PHOTO, VIDEO) to RT newsletter to get stories the mainstream media wont tell you. A Russian Tu-214ON spy plane has reportedly made a reconnaissance tour over the southwestern US, taking a glimpse at an array of military bases as well as nuclear and chemical weapons depots as part of the Open Skies treaty. The Drive reported, citing FlightRadar 24 tracking service data, that the newest version of the Tu-214 observation aircraft graced US skies after taking off from Rosecrans Air National Guard Base in St. Joseph, Missouri on Thursday. The flight reportedly lasted six hours and saw the surveillance aircraft fly over a series of US defense and storage facilities scattered over the territory of West Texas, New Mexico and Colorado. The plane is reported to have flown over the Kirtland Air Force Base, which hosts the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center and functions as a nuclear storage site. In Colorado, the plane passed over the Pueblo Chemical Depot, one of the last two sites in the US with chemical munitions and materials. The flight itself had been authorized by the US under the Treaty on Open Skies, which allows its signatories to conduct short inspections of each others territory. The treaty was signed in 1992, but did not come into force until 2002. The US and Russia are among its 34 members. Also on rt.com Moscow's eye in US sky: Heres what we know about Russian spy plane cleared by Washington The Russian Defense Ministry has not commented on the details of the mission. Earlier, Sergey Ryzhkov, head of the Russian Center for Reduction of Nuclear Threat, announced that the Tu-214ON would be conducting surveillance from Missouri Airport between 22 April and April 27. Under the treaty, the flight has to be monitored by US specialists on board the plane. Washington eventually greenlighted the Tu-214ON flyover after initially refusing to certify the Russian spy eye, claiming that its digital surveillance equipment was more advanced than Moscow had declared and might manipulate digital data. After some back-and-forth, the US approved the plane for the flights over its territory in September last year. Also on rt.com Sign of good will: US spy plane carries out 1st observation flights over Russia in 2 years Tu-214ON is an updated version of the regular Tu-214. Its cockpit can fit two more people, which allowed the manufacturer to install more modern electronics. Its range has increased to a reported 6,500km (4,040 miles). The aircraft boasts three sensor arrays that include a digital photo camera, an infrared camera, and a TV camera complete with a sideways-looking synthetic aperture radar. If you like this story, share it with a friend! As the US-Chinese trade war continues, hundreds of US firms are looking to shift their manufacturing base from the Asian giant in order to avoid further dips in their profits with India a potential benefactor. Leading the effort to aid the relocations is the US-India Strategic and Partnership Forum (USISPF), a US-based advocacy group who has been discussing potential moves with as many as 200 US firms with manufacturing operations in China. The group has also drawn up a list of recommendations for the victors of Indias ongoing general election on how to make the most of the potential relocations. We need to understand how we can attract those companies, said the group's president, Mukesh Aghi, in a recent interview with the Press Trust of India. He called for an acceleration in economic reforms that would improve transparency, as well as making customs procedures and land issues easier. Also on rt.com Trumps trade wars will not reduce the US trade deficit IMF Theres a whole plethora of reforms that need to go further down, and I think that is also going to create a lot of jobs, he added. Aghi also stated his strong belief that whoever grabs the reigns on power in New Delhi should seriously consider a Free Trade Agreement with Washington, in part to offset the threat of cheap imports from Beijing. You can put barriers to Chinese goods and still have the US providing access to the Indian market and Indian companies having more access to the US market, he noted. A full dossier of potential actions for the Indian government is expected to be ready by the time Indias lengthy election process ends on May 19. News of a potential exodus of US manufacturing from China to India follows an October 2018 survey of US companies with bases in China, conducted by the American Chamber of Commerce in South China. Of the 219 firms surveyed, one-third of which were involved in manufacturing, 64 percent said they were considering switching production lines from China to other countries. However, only 1 percent said they would move their operations back to the US, favoring new bases in South East Asia. Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has lashed out at comments made by US special envoy Elliot Abrams, who boldly suggested regime change in Caracas would help to preserve the socialist, left-wing politics of Hugo Chavez. In a speech at the Atlantic Council in Washington, Abrams claimed that supporters of the late Venezuelan leader were watching the Maduro regime destroy [Chavezs] legacy, and called on Chavistas to embrace US-backed efforts to install opposition leader Juan Guaido as the head of government. The remarks didnt sit well with Maduro, who mocked Abrams for lecturing Venezuelans about how to best honor Chavezs political vision. Elliott Abrams now pretends to be the defender of Chavezs legacy. Is it credible? Why do you now pretend to say that Chavez was very good and Maduro is very bad? Wheres that message going? Whats the point? Its a vulgar maneuver, he said in an address. In a tweet posted on his official Twitter account, Maduro expressed amazement at how the US empire was now attempting to assume itself as defender of Chavezs legacy. Chavez, Maduro noted, was an anti-imperialist. The charismatic but polarizing Venezuelan leader died in 2013. He famously survived a coup attempt in 2002 which many claim was orchestrated at least in part by the United States although Washington has denied any involvement. Abrams has unusual credentials for someone theorizing about how to preserve Chavezs legacy. The long-time neo-conservative spearheaded the Reagan administrations covert war against the socialist Sandinistas in Nicaragua. His activities included shipping weapons to US-backed, right-wing Contra militants under the guise of humanitarian aid. Also on rt.com US imposes sanctions on Venezuela's foreign minister Washington has been openly pushing for regime change in Venezuela since Guaido declared himself interim president in January. Like this story? Share it with a friend! Unrelenting Yellow Vest activists have marched in Paris and other French cities for the 24th straight weekend, just days after Emmanuel Macron tried to placate the protest movement with promises of lower taxes. The demonstrators who assembled in Paris, Toulouse and Strasbourg on Saturday appear to signal that despite the French presidents recent concessions to the group, the Yellow Vest movement is alive and well. Oh Thursday, Macron held the first major press conference of his two-year presidency, in which he announced that he wanted to implement significant income tax cuts. The televised conference, however, was not well received among those who have turned out week after week to demonstrate against Macrons business-friendly austerity measures. Also on rt.com Macron tells French to work more while offering tax cuts to Yellow Vests AFP, after interviewing a dozen Yellow Vests in the south of France about their opinion of the press conference, reported that activists thought Macrons olive branch was rubbish. Jeremy Clement, regularly cited as a spokesperson for the movement, told the news agency that the President has understood our claims, but he hasn't provided the answers to them. The Yellow Vest (Gilets Jaunes) protests began last November as a rally against a proposed gas tax. Now an international movement, French Yellow Vest activists have assembled for 24 Saturdays in a row as of this week. Some demonstrations have led to violent clashes with police, resulting in serious injuries. Macron has already offered 10 billion ($11.1bn) in tax cuts and income subsidies for the working poor and pensioners, back in December, but the pledge did not slow down the burgeoning protest movement. Like this story? Share it with a friend! Abhishek Bansal Oil prices rose sharply as the Donald Trump administration would no longer grant exemptions to some countries to import Iran oil, with the conditional waivers set to expire on May 2. The US has advised Iranian crude oil buyers to stop purchases which were granted under the sanction waivers. Asian nations such as India, South Korea, China and Japan are likely to be the hardest hit. US sanctions have impacted Irans oil production and exports heavily since January 2019. Iranian oil production, which was 3.5 million barrels per day during 2018, has been reduced to 2.73 million barrels per day, which is a nearly 23 percent drop on an average. Iranian oil exports have reduced by 39 percent in Q12019 to 1.21 million barrels per day YoY. Figure 1: Iran crude oil (mbd) Image Source: Bloomberg, OPEC India's overall crude imports grew by nearly 2.7 percent YoY in FY19 and this growth rate is expected to continue in FY19 as well, as per the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC) data. Before US sanctions on Iranian crude exports, Iran was the third largest oil supplier to India, fulfilling almost 12 percent of Indias oil requirements. Another largest oil supplier Venezuela is also reeling from sanctions; as a result, India may face a stiff challenge fulfilling its crude oil requirements. The major advantages of buying Iranian crude is the additional credit period of 90 days that the country gives to India, compared to 30 days by other countries along with cheaper freight due to proximity. Third party ship tracking data suggests that India reduced its oil imports from Iran in the last quarter of FY19. India imported 350-400 kbd in December 2018, which currently stands below 300 kbd levels. Restrictions over relatively cheap Iranian oil could also weaken the rupee further as a higher current account deficit (CAD) is expected for the first two quarters of FY19-20 (especially if crude continues to rally further). Other oil producers such as Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates could offset the loss of Iranian oil. Brazil and Mexico have also expressed their desire to strengthen energy co-operation and India is evaluating these options. Brazil is the tenth largest oil producer globally with a production of about 150 million tons (mt) of crude and Mexico is placed at eleventh position and produces 110 mt. India has little choice to import oil from Iran under mounting pressure from the US, therefore India is exploring the crude oil market to replace its Iranian crude loss. Further, to cater to its growing crude oil demand, India is leveraging its robust Middle-East ties for oil imports. A less likely alternative for India is to continue to import some quantity of oil from Iran using the Rupee Payment mechanism, similar to a 2015 strategy, in the near term. The drawbacks of importing crude oil from US, Mexico or other western oil producers are huge transportation costs and non-lucrative payment terms. India needs to re-evaluate its relations with all oil production countries to meet its future oil demand. The author is founder and chairman at Abans Group of companies. : 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. Renault will propose a plan to create a joint holding company that would give the French carmaker and Japanese partner Nissan equal footing, a person with knowledge of the issue told Reuters. Under the proposal, both firms would nominate an equal number of directors to the new company, which would be headed by Renault Chairman Jean-Dominique Senard, according to the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity as the plan is not public. The proposal would aim for further integration between the two automakers, the source said. The proposal was first reported on Friday by the Nikkei business daily, which said that Renault expects to soon put a plan to Nissan under which ordinary shares in both automakers would be transferred to the new company on a balanced basis. That would effectively dilute the French government's Renault stake to about 7-8 percent from 15 percent. The newly-created company would be headquartered in a third country, such as Singapore, the Nikkei and other Japanese media reported, without citing sources. The proposal comes after the French automaker had approached Nissan with a merger idea ahead of an alliance operational meeting earlier this month, but Nissan CEO Hiroto Saikawa declined to discuss the issue with Senard, according to the Reuters source. He added that the proposal could be modified before it was presented to Nissan. The Financial Times newspaper reported that Nissan and the Japanese government refused to engage in merger talks with Renault and that Saikawa had refused to meet SMBC Nikko bankers appointed by the French carmaker to work on a deal. "I have nothing to say about this. We're not in a position to be discussing (merger issues)," Saikawa told reporters late on Friday. "Improving our financial performance is our top priority." The outlook for the Renault-Nissan alliance - one of the world's leading automaking partnerships - has clouded since the arrest in November of its main architect, Carlos Ghosn, for suspected financial misconduct. A weakening financial performance at Nissan has also sparked concerns that the pursuit of overly ambitious sales targets under Ghosn, particularly in the United States, may have done lasting damage to the carmaker's brand and profitability. FORECAST SLASHED This week, the Japanese company cut its profit forecast for the year just ended to its lowest in nearly a decade, citing weakness in US operations. Renault has long been vying for a closer merger with Nissan, which it rescued from the brink of bankruptcy two decades ago. Ghosn had been working to achieve deeper integration before his arrest in November. While the automakers have been consolidating many of their operations over the past decade, including procurement and production, many Nissan executives have opposed an all-out merger. Instead, Nissan has argued for a more equal footing with Renault, which holds a 43 percent stake in its bigger partner. Nissan holds a 15 percent stake in Renault. It was unclear whether Renault would hold the casting vote in major decisions at the new company, as it did in Renault-Nissan B.V. (RNBV), a strategic management company jointly held by both companies and which oversaw operations for the partnership. That company was mothballed last month after an internal investigation by Nissan following Ghosn's arrest indicated that RNBV may have been involved with financial misconduct by the former chairman. Nissan's partnership with Mitsubishi Motors, in which it holds a 34 percent stake, would remain unchanged under the new proposal, the Nikkei said. President Donald Trump said on April 26 Saudi Arabia and others in OPEC had agreed to his request to boost oil production in order to tamp down prices. "Spoke to Saudi Arabia and others about increasing oil flow. All are in agreement," Trump said on Twitter. Earlier in the day, he had said his efforts to persuade OPEC oil producers to increase output were working and gasoline prices were coming down. However, prices at the pump have been rising steadily to an average of USD 2.883 a gallon for regular grade, up from USD 2.648 a month ago, due to rising demand that is draining stocks, according to data from US motorists organization AAA. Crude oil prices have been moving higher since last month and are up 33 per cent in the year to date. Speaking to reporters early on April 26, Trump said "I called up OPEC. I said, 'You got to bring them down. You got to bring them down.' And gasoline is coming down. We're doing great." But in his latest tweet, he blamed taxes in California for high prices there. "The California tax on gasoline is causing big problems on pricing for that state. Speak to your governor about reducing." live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Rostow Ravanan, CEO, Mindtree, in a recent conversation with Moneycontrol talked about the critical role privacy will play in the technology dominated world. Given the recent instances of privacy breaches, it is hardly a wonder why it is so important. In December 2018, reports that Amazons Alexa eavesdropped on a conversation, recorded it and sent it to a friend came to light. Tech giant Google has been fined $55 million by France for the violation of that person's privacy. Google is looking at a fine of $4 billion by the European Union, if the GDPR complaints raised by the consumer protection group against its location tracking were proven to have violated privacy regulations. Facebook recently said that it expects a fine of $5 billion by the Federal Trade Commission for privacy violations. Ravanan pointed out that as much as technology has a brilliant growth, the invasion of privacy could be a roadblock to this growth unless the industry addresses those concerns quickly. Today you cant ignore that how many of these high profile cases where laptops are compromised and devices eavesdropping on conversations and sending emails, he said. He further added that the world cannot ignore privacy violations and that privacy will definitely will be important for common man and therefore governments will have to respond. When it comes to privacy concerns you will see government reacting and putting in regulations. For instance India has done data localization, European Unions GDPR and even Californias privacy law California Consumer Privacy Act, he added. However going by the fines imposed upon technology firms, enterprises seem to have trouble over them and continue to reiterate the need to separate business and personal data. At a time when personal data and business data is blurring it is increasingly become hard to differentiate them. If you deem your meal preference as personal data, consumers willingly share them to get better personalisation. Do you classify it as a personal data or business data? When lines are blurring, enterprises do understand that it is harder to draw a line. Ravanan pointed out that it is a trade-off one has to make. It also depends on the trust the person has on the enterprise that his or her data would be protected and not be misused. This is where most organisations are not getting it right. Enterprises have to develop a lot of maturity, systems and communication to make sure that consumer trusts them. The government should put in the relevant amount of regulations so that you cannot misuse consumer data, but doesnt stymie innovation. A balance has to be worked out. Slamming National Conference leader Omar Abdullah for his statement seeking a separate prime minister for Jammu and Kashmir, BJP president Amit Shah Saturday said J&K is an inseparable part of the country. As long as the BJP exists, Jammu and Kashmir will continue to be an integral part of India, the BJP president said while addressing an election rally here. "Kashmir is Maa Bharats 'Mukut' (crown of India) and nobody can snatch it," he said. The BJP president also said, "We will remove Article 370 from J&K, if you make Narendra Modi the prime minister again." Article 370 of the Constitution grants special status to Jammu and Kashmir. Shah's question, "Should there be two prime ministers for one country?", evoked a deafening 'no' from the crowd. The BJP has given the nation Modi as prime minister and the security of the country has been strengthened ever since, he said. During the UPA government's 10-year rule, terror groups from Pakistan used to target India continuously, the BJP chief said. Under former prime minister Manmohan Singh, Pakistans alia, malia and balia (referring to terrorists) used to come and take away the heads of jawans after killing them, Shah claimed. "Even today I cant forget Hemrajs beheading and the disrespect shown to him. But 'Mouni Baba' Manmohan Singh had not even uttered 'ohh'!" he said. Lance Naik Hemraj of 13 Rajputana Rifles was killed and beheaded by Pakistani soldiers on January 8, 2013 in Poonch sector of Jammu & Kashmir. "We cannot compromise with the security of the nation. Pakistan wants to separate Kashmir from India. We will not allow it. "Pakistan se goli aayegi to yahan se gola jayaga (if a bullet comes here, a shell lands there)," the BJP president said. "When the nation rejoiced with sweets following the February 26 Balakot air strike, a pall of gloom descended on the Congress and Pakistan," Shah said. He ridiculed Congress leader Sam Pitroda for saying that "some boys" had committed a mistake and dropped bombs, and there should be talks between the two neighbouring countries. When terrorists from Pakistan struck the CPRF convoy in Pulwama killing 40 personnel, the country was seething with anger, Shah said. Aware of the 2016 surgical strike conducted by India, Pakistan had deployed personnel and tanks on the borders with India, "But Modi ji... instructed our Air Force on the 13th day (of the Pulwama attack) and our brave Air Force personnel entered Pakistan territory targeting terrorists," Shah said. Criticising the opposition alliance, Shah alleged that whenever they were in power, they had indulged in "massive corruption" and even made an independent MLA (Madhu Koda) chief minister of Jharkhand in 2006. Seeking to know from Congress president Rahul Gandhi, RJD president Lalu Prasad and JMMs working president Hemant Soren about their PM candidate, Shah said each day they will have a different prime minister, with Sunday being a holiday. "Jharkhand is endowed with rich mineral resources, but the people were poor. In the last five years, the BJP governments at the Centre and the state have ushered in development in rural and urban areas, uplifted the poor, farmers, dalits and tribals," Shah said. In Jharkhand, the condition of roads has improved, electricity has been provided to people and work on Mandal dam is on, he said. The Mandal dam, work on which began in 1972 but was stalled since 1993, is now being built on North Koel river under Barwadih block in Latehar district. Outlining the other welfare measures, the BJP leader said cooking gas and ovens, housing and toilet facilities have also been given to the poor, he said. The BJP leader was here to campaign for the party's sitting MP Vishun Dayal Ram, the former state police chief. BJP president Amit on April 27 said that Article 370 will be withdrawn from Jammu and Kashmir, if the saffron party is voted to power again. "We will remove Article 370 if you make Narendra Modi the prime minister again," Shah said at a public rally here in Palamau district in Jharkhand. Shah said during the Congress-led UPA government, terror groups from Pakistan used to target India continuously. Jawans were beheaded by terrorists also, he said. "We cannot compromise with the security of the nation. Pakistan wants to separate Kashmir from India. We will not allow it. "Pakistan se goli aayegi to yahan se gola jayaga (if a bullet comes here, a shell lands there)," the BJP president said. Launching a scathing attack on National conference leader Omar Abdullah for his remarks on having a separate prime minster for Kashmir, the BJP president said Kashmir is an inseparable part of India. "Should there be two prime ministers for one country?" Shah asked the people. The BJP has given the nation Modi as prime minister and the security of the country has been strengthened ever since, he said. "When the nation rejoiced with sweets following the February 26 Balakot air strike, a pall of gloom descended on the Congress and Pakistan," Shah said. He ridiculed Congress leader Sam Pitroda for saying that "some boys" had committed mistake and dropped bombs, and there should be talks. The Congress on April 27 condemned BJP president Amit Shah's "Rahul Baba, you do Ili-Ilu with terrorists" comment, saying it was the BJP government which had freed and taken terrorists to Kandahar in a plane in 1999. During an election rally in Jalore on April 26, Shah said his party's policy is to reply with a bombshell if Pakistan fires a bullet, while the Congress just plays "Ilu-Ilu" with terrorists. Ilu is an abbreviation for 'I love you' in a popular Bollywood song. "Who had released terrorists and taken them to Kandahar in a plane?" Congress general secretary in-charge of Rajasthan Avinash Pande asked in response to Shah's comment. "There is no single instance where Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah or any top leader or their family members even got their finger cut in the fight against terrorism but in Congress there are examples of former PMs Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and others," he told PTI. Three most-wanted terrorists were released in return for the safety of passengers in an Indian Airlines plane which was hijacked to Afghanistan's Kandahar in 1999. Pande said when the prime minister mentions martyrs in his speeches, he should take the names of Congress leaders who had lost their lives for the country. He also accused the prime minister and the BJP of misusing social media platforms to "spread lies" in a strategic manner to influence voters, especially the youngsters. The Congress leader said there is an unsaid emergency in the country and under Modi rule the Constitution and democracy are in danger. "There is an unsaid emergency in the country and the environment for positive planning is completely lacking. The BJP is spreading lies to divert attention from real issues," Pande said. "The PM and the BJP are misusing social media platforms and misleading people particularly young voters through lies and distorted historic facts. The young generation has not seen much and is stuck on social media. Young people should think what PM Modi will give to them but it will be very late before they awaken," he said. Accusing the government of weakening constitutional institutions, Pande said it will take a lot of time for the institutions to recover. "Now they are saying that they will rule for 50 years if they win this election. It is apparent that the constitution is under threat," he said. NCP chief Sharad Pawar said on April 26 night that Opposition parties and people have the right to ask Prime Minister Narendra Modi what happened to the development model promised by him and the BJP. He was addressing an election rally here for NCP candidate from Thane Anand Paranjpe. "You and I have the right to ask PM what happened to his development model," the NCP chief said. Modi won the last Lok Sabha elections by promising Gujarat-like development model for the country, but in the last five years he did not say anything about unemployment and the plight of small traders, labourers, Dalits and tribals, Pawar said. Instead, the prime minister was seeking votes in the name of country's security forces, he alleged. On Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray's jibe that Pawar fled from the "field" (by deciding not to contest from Madha as announced earlier), the NCP chief said he had won 14 elections during his career, and Thackeray should contest and win at least one. Pakistan's new interior minister, appointed in a major cabinet reshuffle this month by Prime Minister Imran Khan, is a former spy chief and close ally of the country's last military ruler who has long been accused of deep ties to militant groups. The appointment of retired Brigadier Ijaz Shah has been heavily criticised by the opposition Pakistan People's Party (PPP), whose slain former leader Benazir Bhutto regarded him as a deadly enemy. Some analysts said it suggested Pakistan's powerful military continued to wield heavy influence over the civilian administration - a persistent allegation since Khan took office eight months ago that both his government and the generals deny. In an interview with the BBC after his appointment, Shah said: "What power can I give the military as interior minister? I left the army a long time ago, I am a civilian and have participated in elections." The prime minister's office and the information ministry did not respond to requests for comment. Shah was among four members of the civilian-military establishment named by Bhutto in a letter written to then President Pervez Musharraf months before her assassination as suspects who should be investigated if she was killed. Many Pakistanis have long suspected that elements of the intelligence agencies colluded with militants in Bhutto's assassination in a gun and bomb attack in the garrison city of Rawalpindi in December 2007. An investigation at the time blamed an al Qaeda-allied Pakistani Taliban leader. "Are you trying to send a message to the world that we have terrorists and the abettors of terrorists in our cabinet?" Bhutto's son and chairman of the PPP, Bilawal Bhutto, told the country's parliament this week, referring to Shah's appointment. "This cannot happen." Shah's office did not respond to a request for an interview or a list of questions sent by Reuters, but earlier this month then Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry told local newspaper Dawn that "he is a clean man" and had been cleared of all allegations against him in a government inquiry. SPY CHIEF The sweeping cabinet reshuffle comes as Pakistan is trying to attract foreign investment and present itself as a reformed country. But critics say the inclusion of an "old school" figure such as Shah in the government shows little has changed. Under Musharraf, who as army chief seized power in a 1999 coup and ruled until 2008, Shah served as head of the military's leading spy agency in the Punjab province, and was later appointed the head of the civilian Intelligence Bureau. He oversaw the surrender of wanted militant Omar Saeed Shaikh, who masterminded the kidnapping and killing of Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl in 2002. That contributed to allegations he had been close to Islamist groups based along lawless border with Afghanistan, where Pakistan's security services have long been accused of playing a double game. "The biggest controversy is his links with the Afghan jihad and figures like Omar Saeed Sheikh," author and analyst Ayesha Siddiqa told Reuters, a longstanding critic of Pakistan's military. "Looks very much like the army chief's choice." The military did not respond to a request for comment on this article, but in the past has said it does not interfere in politics. The military has also repeatedly denied allegations levelled by the United States, Afghanistan and others that is has covertly sheltered militants based along its borders. Under Khan's government, Islamabad has been trying to convince the outside world that it will not tolerate militants operating from inside Pakistan. Pakistan currently finds itself on the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) "grey list" for inadequately dealing with money laundering and terrorism financing, a designation that makes it harder for the country to access international markets at a time when its economy is stumbling. Convincing the FATF that it is making sufficient efforts to crack down on militancy will be harder with a controversial figure such as Shah in the cabinet, said PPP Senator Mustafa Khokhar. Some analysts agree. "Ijaz Shah's appointment just reinforces the perception that nothing has changed in Pakistani politics," political analyst Aamer Ahmed Khan told Reuters. Representative Image Attacks by two jihadist groups killed at least 17 Syrian government troops and militiamen in the northern province of Aleppo early on April 27, a war monitor said. Thirty others were wounded in the assaults by Al-Qaeda's former Syria branch, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), and its ally Hurras al-Deen, which remains affiliated to the global jihadist network, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The attacks in the southern and southwestern countryside of Aleppo province were launched shortly after midnight and triggered clashes that continued until dawn, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said. He said the fighting subsided after Russian aircraft struck jihadist positions in the area, prompting the fighters to pull back. Eight jihadists were killed, he added. Russia aircraft also carried out strikes in neighbouring Hama province early on April 27, killing five civilians, the Observatory said. On April 26, Russian strikes killed 10 civilians in Idlib province, the hub of territory held by the jihadists of HTS in northwestern Syria. Russia and rebel-backer Turkey in September inked a buffer zone deal to avert a massive government offensive on the Idlib region, but the deal has never been implemented. The region of some three million people has come under increasing bombardment since HTS took full control of it in January. The latest Russian air raids came after two days of talks on the Syrian conflict between Turkey, Russia and fellow government backer Iran in Kazakhstan earlier this week. The three governments expressed concern over the growing power of HTS in Idlib and parts of adjacent provinces, and determination to cooperate to eliminate the jihadist group. The civil war in Syria has killed more than 370,000 people and displaced millions since it began with the bloody repression of anti-government protests in 2011. Sri Lankan security forces raided a safe house of Islamic State affiliated militants in the east of the country and killed at least two men in an exchange of fire, the military said on April 27. Gunmen opened fire on troops when they attempted to storm the house in the town of Kalmunai, spokesman Sumith Atapattu said. "In our retaliatory fire, two gunmen were killed," he said adding that a civilian caught in the crossfire was also killed. ITNL International Pte Ltd, the international subsidiary of IL&FS Transport Networks, has invited Expression of Interests (EoI) for acquisition of its 49 per cent stake in China's Chongqing Yuhe Expressway Company Ltd. ITNL International is incorporated in Singapore and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of IL&FS Transportation Networks Ltd, which in turn is a subsidiary of the cash-strapped Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS). Chongqing Yuhe Expressway Company Ltd currently holds a concession for a toll-based expressway of approximately 58.72 km in China mainland, over which it has the right to collect toll from users, an IL&FS statement said on Friday. "Approximately 13.25 years of the term of the current concession remain as of 31 March 2019, and Chongqing Yuhe Expressway Company Ltd has rights to collect toll from users and subsidies from the Chinese Government for the balance period of the concession," it said. Consummation of transaction will be subject to requisite approvals, IL&FS said. UBS AG's Hong Kong Branch would assist in the potential transaction, according to the company. IL&FS is implementing various asset monetisation programmes to recover what it can and repay debt including the sale of its securities business, renewable energy assets, roads portfolio and EPC capabilities and stakes in foreign ventures. Currently, the issue of IL&FS is in the insolvency process and the case is going on in the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT), with next hearing scheduled for April 29. Disclaimer: Information, facts or opinions expressed in this news article are presented as sourced from IANS and do not reflect views of Moneylife and hence Moneylife is not responsible or liable for the same. As a source and news provider, IANS is responsible for accuracy, completeness, suitability and validity of any information in this article. Things seem to be up in the air on new voting machines in Burke County, as well as other places in the state, that are required by state law. A resolution the Burke County Board of Elections passed earlier this month is asking the state General Assembly to delay requiring the voting machines used here to be decertified and new equipment to be purchased. Burke County currently uses touch-screen voting machines (direct-recording electronic voting machines) that have a paper trail. Current state law requires 22 counties, including Burke, to have their DRE voting systems decertified, which would force those counties to buy new voting equipment that use paper ballots. The law sets a deadline of Dec. 1, 2019, to decertify the type of voting equipment that Burke County uses, the resolution says. The local elections board resolution, dated April 9 and signed by all five Burke County elections board members, is requesting the state legislature vote to support deferring the decertification of its election voting machines until 2022. Dialogue that has started between Ohios state superintendent of education and the Lorain City Schools board president through emails is a positive move toward addressing district concerns. The conversations, however, must focus on whats best for the students in the academically troubled district. Last week, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Paolo DeMaria wrote back to Lorain School Board President Mark Ballard. DeMarias message: Change may be coming to the state rules that govern Lorain and other districts attempting to shake off the states designation of academic distress. Of course, that was welcome news to Ballard and other stakeholders for Lorain Schools whove criticized House Bill 70, the state law that created the academic distress turnaround process. DeMaria touched on three recent developments dealing with Lorain Schools and HB 70. But on April 22, Ballard wrote to DeMaria summarizing the April 13 joint work session that the Lorain board of education held with their counterparts from Youngstown and East Cleveland among other districts. The goal was to discuss academic distress and educational improvement. DeMaria watched the panel discussion on a video and he wrote to Ballard the three superintendents from Mansfield, Warrensville Heights and Richmond Heights made it clear that for a district to improve, there needs to be a plan for the changes needed in the educational experience for students that supports improved academic outcomes. DeMaria wrote each superintendent spoke of very concrete actions that they took some of which, likely were not easy or popular. He said its so easy to be against change and simply support preserving the status quo, but identifying needed changes and how to accomplish them like the three superintendents talked about is hard, and requires having productive conversations and making tough choices. Ballard also wrote to DeMaria about the appointed Lorain Academic Distress Commission that tapped CEO David Hardy Jr. to lead the academic turnaround for Lorain Schools. Since Hardys arrival, Ballard and Lorain Schools leaders have pressed for the return of local control for Lorain City Schools, mainly because of several questionable decisions Hardy has made. Ballard said the board of education is working on a plan for education in Lorain for life after the Lorain Academic Distress Commission and Hardy are gone. And of course, DeMaria addressed that issue. DeMaria told Ballard he hopes their plan will reflect some great thinking about evidence-based practices that reflect real change in Lorain students educational experiences. He said hes really looking forward to seeing what Ballard and his colleagues come up with, and he really hope its not just going back to what the district was doing before. DeMaria also addressed his report Academic Distress Commissions: Review and Recommendations of the Superintendent of Public Instruction as Required by Ohio Revised Code Section 3302.101. He has made recommendations that Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has included in his state budget, which will be considered and passed by law. Meanwhile, Lorain Mayor Chase Ritenauer criticized DeMarias response in an April 22 email also sent to Lorain School Board members and state education staff. Ritenauer told DeMaria that Lorain Schools were making improvements during the tenures of superintendents Tom Tucker and Jeff Graham. But Graham was removed from duty after fewer than two years of working to implement plans of the prior Lorain Academic Distress Commission. By that standard, Ritenauer said Hardy should be removed from his post. Referring to Hardys Lorain Promise academic turnaround plan, Ritenauer said he does not care how impressive the Lorain Promise is to the outside observer, if the right people are not leading the organization, the plan is meaningless. The mayor also referred to recent political squabbles in the district between Hardy and the Lorain Police Department and Lorain High School teachers. Ritenauer said winning hearts and minds is key to leadership, and Hardy has lost them and will never get them back. He said thats what happens when the local community is alienated, fights are picked with a police chief with 48 years of experience, and teachers are told they need to re-apply for their jobs. On April 26, Ballard responded to DeMarias email and said he wanted to point out some facts about the disaster HB 70 created in Lorain. He said the Lorain Schools board of education had made a conscious decision to work with the state because they believed HB 70 actually could help the plans that already were in place. Ballard added it is nearly impossible to continue a turnaround when staffers are fearful for their jobs, good candidates dont want to work in the chaos and the CEO continues to exercise dictatorial leadership. The main point Ballard was trying to get across is that Lorain Schools and families are hurting under HB 70. Hopefully, this dialogue between DeMaria and Ballard will lead to better communication, and some needed changes. CMP is pleased to announce the winners from the 13th annual Canadian Mortgage Awards brought to you by the Coalition of Independent Mortgage Brokers of Canada. Industry professionals came from across the country to attend the biggest ever Canadian Mortgage Awards night at The Liberty Grand ballroom in Toronto. All eyes were fixed on the stage as the honourees took home the industrys most coveted prizes. Tuxes, cocktail dresses and a few adventurous dance moves were spotted at the event. So, too, were hundreds of the industrys top professionals, who eagerly anticipated the announcement of this years lucky winners, which included CanWise Financial, winner of Brokerage of the Year (25 or More Employees), and Centum Home Lenders Clinton Wilkins, who won Broker of the Year (Fewer than 25 Employees). During China Aids annual Empowering the Persecuted banquet Thursday night, the Rev. Eric Foley, founder of Voice of the Martyrs Korea, said Christian persecution in China is the most important issue facing the church today. China Aid, a nonprofit that provides financial and legal support for Christians facing persecution in China, was formed in 2002 in response to five Chinese church leaders being sentenced to death, according to their website. Foley said he was familiar with the situation in China because of the number of North Koreans he works with through his organization that have fled to China. He said he knew it was hard to love a billion people but that Christians, through their faith, constitute one body and the persecution of Christians anywhere affects them all. Lets make sure that no Chinese Christian is cut off, Foley said. More important than your check is the hand thats attached to your check. China Aid founder Bob Fu, a former Christian church leader in Beijing, also spoke during Thursdays event about when he and his wife were imprisoned in China in 1996. The first three days were nonstop interrogation day and night, Fu said. The hardest thing is they try to make you believe that no one knows what is happening. The interrogator tries to make you believe that no one knows what is happening in this small, dark room. Want to help? For more information about China Aid or to make a donation, go to chinaaid.org. See More Collapse He and his wife fled to the United States as religious refugees the following year, he said. Fu also updated attendees on the latest human rights violations occurring in China. He said within the last week he was notified that Chinese Christians are now required to wear a badge with an identification number to enter their church. He said 1 million to 1.5 million religious minorities are being held in 21st century concentration camps and government leaders are exploring a permanent solution. And thousands of churches have been demolished across the country, Fu said. During the event, China Aid collected donations, and Fu said they donations up to $150,000 would be matched. CARLINVILLE A Greenfield High School graduate has received recognition for excellence in his profession. Ethan Klaffer, who is in his second year as an English teacher at Carlinville High School, was honored as one of 11 outstanding beginning teachers in the state by the Illinois Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. A 2012 Greenfield High School graduate, Klaffer worked at Alfonsos Pizza in Carrollton during his years at Blackburn College, where he graduated summa cum laude in 2017. He teaches freshman and junior language arts, speech and English literature at Carlinville. Mr. Klaffer works very hard to meet the needs of the students he serves and utilizes various methods to engage students in the courses he instructs, Carlinville High School Principal Patrick Drew said. He has done an amazing job as a young teacher here. Drew said Klaffer was nominated through cooperation with Cindy Rice, the chair of the Teacher Education Department at Blackburn College. The recognition was given at a reception and dinner. I'm with the NPP to help ... Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 27) Senatorial candidate Chel Diokno voiced a scathing observation on the administration's campaign against illegal drugs: it is targeting small-time pushers. Diokno said this during Saturday's CNN Philippines Senatorial Debate as he faced-off against Ronald "Bato" dela Rosa, once the country's top cop and a prominent figure in the fight against drugs. "If we want to stop the war on drugs, then we have to be sure and certain that those who are doing this get punished. The big problem is, ang tinitira nila ay puro maliliit na pusher. Ang mga tinitira nila puro mahihirap. Nasan ang mga drug lord?" Diokno told a cheering crowd. [Translation: If we want to stop the war on drugs, then we have to be sure and certain that those who are doing this get punished. The big problem is, they keep going after small-time pushers. They keep hitting the poor. Where are the drug lords?] Diokno's statement was in response to dela Rosa's pronouncement that the country was still a long way from being drug-free and that the death penalty would be a good deterrent against traffickers. "Malayo pa tayo (sa pagiging drug-free) because meron pa ring droga na nakakapasok. Alam mo kung paano matakot magpapasok dito (ng droga)? Ibalik ang death penalty para sa mga drug traffickers," he said. [Translation: We are still a long way from being drug-free because drugs are still being brought into the country. You know how you can stop that? Bring back the death penalty for drug traffickers.] Diokno added the illegal drug trade would not prosper in the country unless it was organized. "Alam natin na pumapasok dito ang mga cartel. Ma-identify natin yan dahil hindi gagalaw ang droga kung hindi rin gagalaw ang pera," he said. [Translation: We know cartels are coming in. We can identify that because the drugs will stay put unless the money moves.] Diokno scored the Anti-Money Laundering Council and other concerned agencies for not taking a closer look at the bank accounts of alleged drug lords. "Alam nila, alam ng ating pamahalaan kung sino 'yang mga 'yan. Ang totoo, takot. Hindi nila kayang labanan ang mga drug lord na 'yan. Kaya ang tinitira, puro mahihirap lang," he said. [Translation: They know, our government knows who these people are. The truth is they're scared. They can't go against the drug lords. That's why they keep going after the poor.] Dela Rosa then took aim at Diokno, implying the law Dean had little experience in how illegal drugs should be addressed. "Dapat kasi bago kayo sumawsaw sa war on drugs, alamin muna ninyo 'yung struktura ng drug syndicate. Ang structure ng drug syndicate ay pyramidal in shape. Konti lang ang drug lord, mas marami ang nasa baba na mahirap. If you wage a war on drugs, you cannot be selective in the implementation of justice. Hindi mo pwedeng sabihin na 'hindi natin 'yan trabahuhin dahil mahirap lang 'yan, unahin natin 'yung mayaman...' Pag sinabi mong war on drugs ratsada yan dapat, tatamaan lahat," he said. [Translation: The thing is, before you get involved in the war on drugs, you should first know the structure of the drug syndicate. The drug syndicate is pyramidal in shape. There are a few drugs lords at the top, there are more poor people at the bottom. If you wage a war on drugs, you cannot be selective in the implementation of justice. You cannot say 'we can't go after them because they're poor, let's go after the rich ones first...' When you say war on drugs, it's all-in, everyone gets hit.] Bato: We're not yet drug-free, but... Dela Rosa defended the war on drugs, saying the government has made great strides compared to past administrations. "Ang diperensya, itong panahon ni Presidente Duterte, meron pa ring droga pero ang droga ay imported galing sa China," he said. [Translation: The difference, in President Duterte's time, there are still drugs but they're all imported from China.] Under past presidents, dela Rosa said drugs were locally manufactured. Now, there are no more local drug laboratories. When asked if that included blocks of cocaine which have been floating along the country's shoreline, dela Rosa acknowledged this was happening, but said only a thorough investigation would determine the points of origin. "Totoo 'yan nangyayari dito sa atin. Pero hangga't hindi magkakaroon ng napaka-exhaustive investigation, we cannot come up with a conclusion about these blocks of cocaine. 0 he said. [Translation: It's true that it's happening here. But unless an exhaustive investigation takes place, we cannot come up with oa conclusion about these blocks of cocaine. All we have are guesses.] Hilbay: Your war on drugs has failed In a rebuttal, Florin Hilbay said Filipinos had no problem with the fight against illegal drugs it was the senseless killing that people could not take. "Sa lahat ng sinabi mo, ang ibabalik ko sa iyo ay ang sinabi ng Pangulo mismo. The problem on drugs has worsened. Pagkatapos ng maraming patayan, pagkatapos ng teorya ng patayan, ang problema ng droga mas matindi pa ngayon. Your war on drugs has failed," he told dela Rosa. [Translation: With all you said, I will tell you what the President said himself. The problem on drugs has worsened. After all the killings, after the theory on killings, the drug problem is worse than ever now. Your war on drugs has failed.] Dela Rosa said hearing that observation was hurtful. "How dare you say the war on drugs is a failure? Napakasakit sa amin, ang dami sa amin namatay sa giyera na ito failure pa rin?" he said. [Translation: How dare you say the war on drugs is a failure? This is very hard for us, so many of us have died in this war and it's still a failure?] The San Antonio artist who created the buzzworthy Selena sneakers last week is wowing again with a design that has a shoe-in on the Fiesta fashion competition and celebrates the chicken on a stick and Fiesta cup-stacking obsession. Juan Garcia, of J3 Customs, created art on a pair of Vans slip-on shoes featuring the two favorites. The shoes were made for returning customer Jorge Bernal, who also commissioned Garcia to create the popular Selena design. Currently Reading Strange things found in the Gulf of Mexico WASHINGTON - In President Donald Trump's world, people may come and go, but nicknames are forever. Whether they are "Crooked," "Crazy," "Lyin' " or "Little," it appears that Trump has made it his personal mission to saddle his numerous rivals over the years with unflattering monikers, seizing any opportunity to deploy the epithets to the masses. On Thursday, however, Trump found himself in a rather unusual position in his war of words - receiving a nickname. In a series of early-morning tweets, prolific Trump critic George Conway, husband of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, once again raged against the president. But instead of using Trump's name, Conway repeatedly called him "Deranged Donald," seemingly irked by a Washington Post story about the president promoting a widely debunked accusation that the United Kingdom helped the Obama administration spy on his 2016 campaign. Conway then turned the alliterative sobriquet into a hashtag. "It seems that George Conway wants to get the hashtag #DerangedDonald trending," MSNBC producer Kyle Griffin pointed out. The internet went to work. It didn't take long for the hashtag to begin shooting up the list of Twitter trends, and it was eventually trending in the No. 2 spot worldwide. By late Thursday, the hashtag had been mentioned hundreds of thousands of times. As many celebrated the hashtag's success, others praised Conway for giving the internet a nickname for Trump that seemed like it would "stick." Trump has yet to directly address Conway's tweets and the hashtag. The White House did not respond to a request for comment late Thursday. The swiftness with which the hashtag took off marks yet another example of the president's critics adopting his tactics. In the Trump era, political discourse has become increasingly characterized by public figures, including elected officials from both sides of the aisle, trading barbs on social media and lampooning each other whenever cameras are rolling. Calls for civility have been tossed aside in favor of a modified version of Michelle Obama's famed, "When they go low, we go high" edict. "When they go low, we kick them," former Attorney General Eric Holder declared proudly in October last year. In 2017, Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., offered a similar take on the former first lady's words. "My view now is that when they go low, we fight back," Lieu told the Los Angeles Times. Conway, a prominent conservative attorney, is one person who hasn't shied away from tangling with the president. Launching the nickname on Thursday was just Conway's latest move in his ongoing public spat with his wife's boss, which has often involved both parties resorting to ugly name-calling. "Deranged Donald is ... back at it again," Conway tweeted, sharing The Post's Wednesday story. In subsequent tweets, Conway ripped Trump for not reading "books with more accurate, highly valuable, top secret information," adding that the president "doesn't like those books unless they have lots of pictures and tell him how great he is." Conway concluded his rant by suggesting Trump doesn't need the books because he has Fox News. But it wasn't Conway's scathing criticism that caught the attention of Twitter users. "I've never wanted anything to trend more than #DerangedDonald," one person wrote. "Perfect name," another person commented. Soon, the hashtag seemed to be everywhere. Even prominent figures such as former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, Star Wars actor Mark Hamill and actress Mia Farrow jumped in to promote the moniker. CNN commentator Ana Navarro-Cardenas simply fired off a tweet with the hashtag repeated 16 times, a strategy quickly adopted by many other users, including Paul Begala, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton. The nickname didn't sit well with everyone, though, as some criticized using it as "childish." This is not the first time someone has attempted to give Trump a nickname. The president himself has even tried, once abbreviating his name to "President T." In 2016, comedian John Oliver encouraged people to call Trump "Drumpf," which was believed to be the surname of the president's ancestors, The Post's Justin Wm. Moyer reported at the time. Last year, Trump adversary and high-profile attorney Michael Avenatti launched a Twitter poll asking his followers to choose between "Con Man Trump" and "Don the Con." As Newsweek reported, "Don the Con" won with thousands of votes and has since been used by Avenatti as well as many other critics. A handful of people on Thursday said they preferred the rhyming nickname, but others conceded that "Deranged Donald" reigned supreme. Metro Video Services A 24-year-old man is accused of running over his father during a fight at the YMCA parking lot in northwest Harris County and then fleeing, according to authorities. Devon Amos, 24, and his father Cedrick Amos, 42, were brawling outside the fitness center along the Tomball Parkway around 10:40 a.m. when the son got into a car and repeatedly hit his father with the vehicle, Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said. An animal-assisted therapy volunteer whose dog is this year's King Anbarkio XII, the grand marshal for Saturdays Fiesta Pooch Parade, died Friday from injuries she suffered in a car accident earlier this week. Norma Brooks, 53, was driving back to San Antonio with her son Dalton on Monday from her condo in Corpus Christi when the accident occurred, according to an official with Therapy Animals of San Antonio. No other details were available about the accident. A 12-year-old boy was rushed to an area hospital after being found unresponsive and floating in the pool of a North Side hotel late Friday evening, according to police. Officer Carlos Ortiz, spokesman for the San Antonio Police Department, said a group of children, possibly part of a retreat to San Antonio from a North Texas town, noticed one their group was underwater in the pool of the San Antonio Marriott Northwest at 3233 N.W. Loop 410 about 9:51 p.m. A man was shot multiple times overnight at a club on the Northeast Side and the shooter remains on the loose, according to a San Antonio police report. Officers responded to a shooting around 3:30 a.m., Saturday at the 8000 block of Cross Creek to find a man suffering from gunshot wounds, according to the report. No vacancy on the hotel sign. No tables available for dinner. Were full. Or so suggests Trump administration officials, proposing stricter requirements for migrants seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border. The reason: the gangs, the drugs, the crime, you know the bad hombres. Are people coming to the United States the criminal element that many make them out to be? No. The scientific evidence shows us something entirely different. At our nations borders, we have people who want to come to the United States for a variety of reasons, be they economic or political, or simply to leave communities facing challenges with crime, drugs, violence and poverty. They want to work hard. Have a better life. And seek all the promise of what America has given to those who have come here since the 1400s. Much of the narrative around immigrants concerns what they supposedly bring with them to America, mainly a criminal element. Yet research from social scientists and nonprofit groups squarely debunks the link between immigration and crime. As a criminologist, the evidence could not be clearer: Immigrants commit less crime than native-born Americans. My research with my colleague Bianca Bersani using data from a large study of adolescent offenders shows that first- and second-generation immigrants report lower crime rates than native-born Americans. In subsequent work, we found that these differences were not due to their faulty reporting. Arrest records confirm that immigrants commit less crime. And in our most recent collaboration, we found that undocumented immigrants report engaging in less criminal activity compared to documented immigrants and native-born Americans. Bottom line: These findings are not fake news. Does the United States need to provide a viable, permanent path to citizenship? Does the United States need to pay careful attention to whom comes to the country? And does the United States need effective border security? Click yes on all the above. Yet it is also true that the United States needs to treat immigrants with compassion and care. The greatest thinkers and humanitarians, ranging from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to President George W. Bush, have constantly reminded us that how we treat our poor and new immigrants says a lot about who we are as people. We do not need to vilify Mexicans or Salvadorans or Italians or Germans all of whom at one point were in the cross hairs of government officials. We can do better. We must do better. In 1984, the English pop band Depeche Mode famously sang that People are People. This sounds like a great message. Unfortunately, the Trump administration has lost the view that people are people in dealing with immigration at our southern border. Let us hope that officials put aside their harsh attitudes and policies toward immigrants, just like you and me, who come to this wonderful country for the promise of a better life. We should expect our leaders to make decisions based on the best science and to serve as a moral compass for the world. If not us, then who? Alex R. Piquero is the Ashbel Smith Professor of Criminology and associate dean for graduate programs at the University of Texas at Dallas, a previous winner of the UT System Regents Outstanding Teaching Award, member of the UT System Academy of Distinguished Teachers, and a member of the Scholars Strategy Network. The collusion fantasy has officially given way to the impeachment fantasy. The passionate investment of the left in the Mueller investigation had much to do with shock and disbelief at Donald Trumps victory in 2016 and the hope of early deliverance the special counsel probe as delectable revenge and deus ex machina. The expectation that Robert Mueller would blow Trump out of the White House with proof of collusion with Russia has, not surprisingly, come up empty. No worries. If Volume I of the Mueller report, on Russia, didnt pan out, theres always Volume II, on alleged obstruction. When you are desperate to, in the memorable words of Democratic freshman Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, impeach the mother(expletive), any rationale will do. If House Democrats impeach Trump, though, they will be sorely disappointed. They will wake up the day afterward and, after all the drama and wall-to-wall coverage, hell still be president of the United States, tweeting per usual. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has bizarrely become the backstop of reason in Democratic politics, is reluctant to go down this path. The question is whether she will get swamped by her base, just as the Republican House leadership did in 1998. Impeachment has a long history in Anglo America. The British statesman Edmund Burke called it the great guardian of the purity of the Constitution, and Cass Sunstein notes in his book on impeachment that the U.S. Constitution probably wouldnt have gotten ratified without a provision for it. Yet it is widely misunderstood. Pelosi said in 2017 that the president can only be impeached for breaking the law, a claim that Trump also tweeted on Monday. This may be an understanding convenient for both of them, but it is incorrect. High crimes and misdemeanors dont have to be technically legal in nature. Alexander Hamilton explained in Federalist 65 that grounds for impeachment are the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself. So it doesnt matter that Mueller pulled up short of accusing Trump of a crime. More notable is how Trumps machinations came to nothing. He unsuccessfully tried to crimp an investigation that found no underlying offense, while his White House officially cooperated with the probe. We only know in such detail the episodes Mueller catalogs because the White House coughed up so much material and so many witnesses, up to and including the White House counsel. What Trump is guilty of shambolic, unfocused and ultimately ineffectual scheming is closer to the term that the founders considered for the impeachment clause, maladministration, before rejecting it as too loose and vague. Impeachment would be a symbolic mark against Trump, but at what cost? Impeachment wont magnify the presidents alleged offenses, but will make them smaller as the argument devolves into a microscopic examination of his words and actions (and nonactions). It would be the most forlorn impeachment ever. Andrew Johnson came close to getting removed. Richard Nixon quit before he got removed. Even with Bill Clinton, there was a moment when it seemed possible some Senate Democrats might flip against him. With Trump, there is no chance of him being removed by the Republican-held Senate, which would probably hold a perfunctory, minimal trial, underlining the absurdity of the effort. Trumps approval ratings wouldnt rocket skyward like Bill Clintons. But Democrats would suffer the opportunity cost of distracting attention from substantive issues people actually care about and put their relatively moderate members in an awkward spot. Then theres timing. Were about 18 months before an election where voters can pronounce on Trumps presidency directly, without assistance from House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler. In the end, theres only one way to take back what Democrats believe was stolen from them in 2016. Thats to win the 2020 election, which will require some deftness, not perpetual grievance and enraged wishfulness. comments.lowry@nationalreview.com The firefighters union wants the city to pay for health insurance coverage through a trust fund for dependents so they can manage their own health insurance. The taxpayers would pick up the tab if the funds requested do not cover the costs. The firefighters union also wants millions in back pay and pay raises. Firefighters have noted they have risks of cancer from fighting fires military, police and firefighters each have elevated risks of some kind. Union President Chris Steele has said firefighters have enemies, but the firemen will be the last man standing. What is this? The gunfight at the O.K. Corral? I truly believe the city has a better understanding of what it can and cannot afford. The city had excellent bond rating classifications prior to the last election as the city was managed very efficiently. This does not speak highly of Councilman Greg Brockhouse a mayoral candidate and a backer of the union when the city has stated it could not afford what the union demands. Yet he supports the unions demands. How much do firefighters know about city financing? Clarence Bryan A better world For the most part, Americans continue to be ambivalent, moderate and pragmatic, in contrast to the cocksure extremists and ideologues who dominate our political life. Polarized partisan ideologues are a distinct minority of the American population, no matter what you read. Horrific mass shootings, global tensions over nuclear arms, bloody civil wars in Syria and Yemen. These events as awful as they are have happened in the context of a bigger, positive trend. On the whole, the world is getting better. This is not some naively optimistic view its backed by data. Look at the number of children who die before their fifth birthday. That figure has been cut in half. That means 122 million children have been saved. In 1990, more than a third of the global population lived in extreme poverty; today only about a tenth do. A century ago, it was legal to be gay in about 20 countries; today its legal in more than 100 countries. Women are gaining political power and now make up more than a fifth of the members of national governments and the world is finally starting to listen when women speak up about sexual assault. And more than 90 percent of all children in the world now attend primary school. So, why does it feel like the world is in decline? Partly because of the nature of news coverage. Bad news Fox News arrives as drama and shapes many peoples thinking. Ron Lowe, Harlingen Get Trump out There is enough information to rule out Donald Trump as an acceptable president with or without clear-cut incrimination by the Mueller report. This is information obvious to all observers. He is a consummate liar; he churlishly denigrates those who dare oppose him; he favors tough guys who are not necessarily good guys over our allies; he refuses to reveal his income tax as has become customary. His incompetence is evident in various of his important policy decisions; he surrounds himself with unsavory characters; he seems in favor of white supremacy; his tax cuts have clearly favored the rich; he takes credit for achievements not of his own making; and his attitude toward women is reprehensible. If Trump cannot be impeached or indicted, voters can and certainly should see to it (barring more Russian hacking and/or another Electoral College debacle) that he does not win a second term in office. Loretta Van Coppenolle Proud of president Re: Lack of support, Your Turn, April 18: Roland Acevedo says Donald Trump supporters apparently ignored the things he has said and done the past two plus years. Really? What would those things be? The creation of 5 million jobs and an unemployment rate below 4 percent? Lowering the unemployment rate among African Americans to the lowest it has ever been? Restoring American leadership on the world stage and advancing an America-first agenda? Attempting to secure our borders in the face of unrelenting opposition by Democrats? Persuading North Korea to halt nuclear and missile tests? Expanding options for affordable health care? Donating his salary? These things are just a small sampling of what our president has accomplished all the while under the most extreme and vile attack by a shameless Democratic Party and mainstream media. No, we who support our president are not ignoring the things he has said and done. We are very, very proud of President Trumps accomplishments. Rand Dennis Question the ideology The argument that indigenous people from Mexico, Central and South America are coming to the U.S. illegally is illogical. Imagine your home is taken by force. As you try to co-exist with the robber not even trying to get it back completely when you have the right to do so you are accused of entering unlawfully. This is the case of indigenous people who historically have been the victims of colonization, mass incarceration and dehumanizing conditions. U.S. federal legislation regarding immigration has its roots in nativism. Nativism is the belief that native-born Americans are superior to those born in other countries. Historically, policies such as the bracero program, Operation Wetback and, more recently, the Secure Fence Act of 2006 have worked to push us out and put fear into our communities. These tactics have been used strategically to keep us disorganized and divided. From Alaska to Chile, we are one people without borders. One possible solution would be to build organizations working for justice and toward scientific socialism. We must collectively determine our history, economically controlling our destiny, controlling our social development by self-determining our culture, education and language. We must question the ideology of the society. What is capitalism vs. socialism? What is reformism vs. revolution? Helping people in need to address social problems and challenging social injustice is necessary if we truly want to make change. Eduardo Rocha Jr. Former Bulawayo South legislator Mr Eddie Cross has alleged that members of the G40 cabal that was expelled from Zanu-PF in 2017 are buying arms to instigate a war in the country. Mr Cross alleged this on Thursday while speaking at the Cape Town Press Club in South Africa. He lauded President Mnangagwa for various reform initiatives which the Government has embarked on since assuming office. (President) Mnangagwa is committed to reform; he has not received sufficient recognition for what he has done. But he has to deal with recalcitrant elements in his party; intelligence sources suggest G40 buying weapons, said Mr Cross. The G40 cabal was a faction within Zanu-PF that had coalesced around former First Lady Grace Mugabe in an attempt to use her proximity to former President Mugabe to grab State power. Their attempts were however, thwarted when the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, with the support of the majority of Zimbabweans, launched Operation Restore Legacy that resulted in the resignation of former President Mugabe. Leaders of the G40 cabal that include Professor Jonathan Moyo, Mrs Grace Mugabe, and Messrs Saviour Kasukuwere and Patrick Zhuwawo were subsequently expelled from Zanu PF. President Mnangagwa survived poisoning while attending one of the infamous Meet the People rallies in Gwanda. The rallies fronted by Mrs Mugabe were used by G40 to denigrate the senior party leadership, most of who hail from the liberation war era. Following his dismissal from Government in November 2017, President Mnangagwa had to flee the country through Mozambique after receiving intelligence that his life was in danger. The President survived a bomb attack in Bulawayo last year, which was strongly believed to be the handiwork of G40 remnants. Efforts to get a comment from Mr Cross were fruitless yesterday as his mobile phone was not reachable. National Security Minister Owen Ncube and his counterpart in the Ministry of Defence and War Veterans Affairs Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri were also unavailable for comment. Herald Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News By Marshall Auerback, a market analyst and commentator. Produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute. A veteran commercial pilot and software engineer with over three decades of experience has just written the most damning account of the recent Boeing 737 fiasco. At one level, author Gregory Travis has provided us with the most detailed account of why a particular plane model once synonymous with reliability became a techno-death trap. But ultimately, his story is a parable of all that is wrong with 21st-century capitalism; Boeing has become a company that embodies all of its worst pathologies. It has a totally unsustainable business modelone that has persistently ignored the risks of excessive offshoring, the pitfalls of divorcing engineering from the basic R&D function, the perils of demodularization, and the perverse incentives of shareholder capitalism, whereby basic safety concerns have repeatedly been sacrificed at the altar of greed. Its also a devastating takedown of a company that once represented the apex of civilian aviation, whose dominance has been steadily eroded as it has increased its toxic ties to the U.S. military. In that sense it mirrors the decline of America as a manufacturing superpower. And finally, it shows a company displaying a complete loss of human perspective in the man vs. machine debate. Heres the crux of Traviss analysis: Design shortcuts led to safety hazards. The newest version of Boeings 737 plane, previously known for its reliability and ease of use, became a high-tech disaster. Machines overwhelmed man. And worst of all, the aviation industry regulatory overseer, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), subcontracted the safety/certification functions to Boeing itself, so there was no early warning system in place to avert the resultant tragedy. Travis largely restricts his analysis to the 737. But his article illustrates pathologies long evident at Boeing and the FAA. Lets look at the last problem first: The FAA suffers from reduced funding from Congress (the Daily Beast reported that the agencys 2019 budget actually cut funding for the Aviation Safety Office by 1.7 percent), and a corresponding loss of aviation expertise, as many of its top personnel have migrated to the private sector. Of course, thats nothing new for the FAA, which has a sad history of hemorrhaging personnel since the days of the air traffic controllers strike/collective dismissal under Reagan (a cost control measure), as well as embracing neoliberal, supposedly market-based performance incentives that are thoroughly inappropriate for a regulatory body first and foremost responsible for flight safety. Becoming more industry-friendly and starved of adequate personnel and fiscal resources to do its job properly, the FAA has therefore been forced to delegate much of its regulatory oversight and certification functions to the airline industry itself (self-certification) and has therefore become a case study in regulatory capture. Boeings failures resonate with the public in a way that no complicated financial fraud possibly could. It takes a certain level of technical expertise to understand how the toxicity of a financial derivative poses dangers to an economic system; but everybody instinctively understands the tragic impact of a plane crash, like the doomed Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines 737-related accidents. The seeds of Boeings destruction arguably were planted well before the 737-related mishaps. The warning signs were already evident in the 787 Dreamliner program a decade ago, which even today continues to be characterized by repeated engine design flaws and cost overruns. In a Harvard Business Review article, Professors Gary Pisano and Willy Shih first highlightedthe perils of Boeings embrace of demodularization: [T]he shift from aluminum alloys to carbon-fiber-composite materials changed things. The old modular design rules could not fully account for stress transmission and loading at the system levelsomething that Boeing did not get right initially. Boeing couldnt get it right because the company had shifted large chunks of its design and manufacturing facilities to disparate parts around the globetoo far apart geographically, in fact, to monitor everything properly: As a result it encountered problems assembling the pieces (such as the horizontal stabilizer from Alenia Aeronautica in Italy and the wing box from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Japan). Significant redesign and rework were required, and the program suffered major delays, write Pisano and Shih. With one part of the plane being manufactured in Italy, and another in Japan, management was unable to assess quickly the resultant design and engineering flaws before launch. Even after the initial launch delays were addressed, Dreamliners history has been characterized by repeated recallsand cost overruns. Offshoring, of course, is nothing new. In our brave new world of globalized capitalism, multinational corporations like Boeing are constantly on the lookout for global labor arbitrage possibilities, which have the happy effect of curbing unit labor costs, fattening profit margins, and thereby juicing the company stock price (an increasingly important part of management compensation, irrespective of the underlying performance of the company itself in the real world). These are all part and parcel of the pathologies inherent in Americas increasingly financialized shareholder capitalism (see herefor more details). But Boeings problems extend beyond that. It is a company that has historically been very successful in the highly competitive civil aviation market since the 747 jumbo jet (the Queen of the skies) first dominated some 50 years ago. The 21st century has been less kind to the company, however, as its failures have been increasingly exacerbated by its growing, and increasingly toxic, ties to the U.S. defense industry. These links began in the late 1990s when the U.S. Department of Defense helped to engineer a merger of Boeing and McDonnell Douglas, the latter an important supplier of combat aircraft to the United States. Far from being the largest, strongest, broadest, most admired aerospace corporation in the world, as promised at the time of the merger by John McDonnell, chairman of McDonnell Douglas, the corrupting practices of the Pentagon soon began to infect the newly combined entity. In particular, the 787s outsourcing strategy turned out to be a fiasco, which even then-Boeing CEO Jim Albaugh was forced to concede in a Seattle Times report. But the Seattle Times also exposed that the rot took hold well before the 787 debacle, citing an internal Boeing Report, written in 2001 by Dr. L.J. Hart-Smith, a mere five years after the merger was consummated. Hart-Smith described the disastrous economic effects of excessive outsourcing that began to afflict Boeing almost immediately, especially as its ties to the military expanded. These problems are elaborated hereby longtime defense analysts Franklin Chuck Spinney and Pierre Sprey: The so-called spin-offs offs from Defense spending can transmit the corrupting effects of the politically motivated, cost-plus economics of the Military Industrial Congressional Complex (MICC) into the larger economy[.] The MICC not only subsidizes wasteful cost growth in the Pentagon, its activities infect the overall economy by soaking up scarce investment and human capital; corrupting the practices of science and engineering; distorting research content on a huge scale; while providing incentives for inefficient production and management practices, (e.g. excessive outsourcing for political reasons aka the political engineering practices explained hereand here), not to mention the politicizing of industrial management. Contact with the Pentagon often signals death for a civilian company because of the incentives inherent in its cost-plus contracts, along with the geographic disbursement of manufacturing facilities to as many parts of the country as possible in order to maximize congressional political support for increasingly expensive military boondoggleswhat Spinney and Sprey term political engineering. These two factors bias corporate practices toward inflating costs and therefore foster waste and diminish safety. By contrast, in a traditional civilian model, profit margins are best secured by reducing costs as much as possible in order to maximize the bottom line. As Boeings ties to the military increased, so too did its shoddy corporate practices. The 787 Dreamliner is still plagued with production problems, and there is little sign that Boeing has rectified them. The company has failed to reintegrate basic manufacturing and R&D to correct the original problems highlighted by Shih and Pisano (quite the contrary, as the company is increasingly shifting production to China in order to safeguard its market share there). Just this month, the New York Times has reported that the [Charleston, South Carolina-based] factory, which makes the 787 Dreamliner, has been plagued by shoddy production and weak oversight that have threatened to compromise safety. A former quality manager, John Barnett, a whistleblower who worked at Boeing for nearly three decades, damningly suggested to the New York Times: I havent seen a plane out of Charleston yet that Id put my name on saying its safe and airworthy. Recall that Boeing originally moved some of its operations to the right to work state of South Carolina to undermine the strength of its unionized workforce in the state of Washington, which has had an adverse effect on the overall quality of its products. Thats on top of the recent 737 debacle, where Boeing evidently missed safety risks in the design of the newer model, like an anti-stall system that played a role in both crashes, as the same New York Times article noted.But the genesis of the problem of the 737, a plane Gregory Travis (a pilot of 30 years standing and a software engineer of 40 years experience) writeswas once known for its reliability and relative technological simplicity, lay in the fact that market and technological forces pushed the 737 into ever-larger versions with increasing electronic and mechanical complexity. The main problem, notes Travis, was the engine redesign. The engines size was increased to enhance the 737s overall energy efficiency, but it became too large to be accommodated in its traditional spot on the plane. The expansion ultimately necessitated extending the engine up and well in front of the wing. That changed the relationship between engines thrust anditscenter of gravity, which, in the words of Travis, caused the 737 to pitch up, or raise its nose a bit too much for comfort on power application as well as at already-high angles of attack. It violated that most ancient of aviation canons and probably violated the certification criteria of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. Angle of attack, as Travis defines, refers to the angle between the wing and the relative wind blowing over it. The more a pilot lifts the nose of the airplane, the higher the angle of attack and the more the lift of the wing increasesuntil you reach the stall limit angle of attack, when suddenly the wing stops lifting entirely (because the relative winds smooth airflow over the wing has separated catastrophically from the wing surface). Thats why an airplane that adds extra pitch up force to the nose when the pilot commands just a slight increase in angle of attack (that is, in nose up angle) is so dangerously unstablebecause it can lead to a fatal stall situation that likely was the cause of the two crashes. Egregious violations to basic aerodynamic principles should have induced the FAA to step in and force a redesign of the Boeings latest incarnation of the 737 (the so-called Max 8) in order to minimize the safety risk. But there were two problems: Making the required hardware modifications would have been hugely expensive (to the point where Boeing would have had to build an entirely new aircraft, rather than merely modifying a popular, hitherto safe and easy-to-fly airplane) As noted above, the FAA was already overwhelmed, and consequently was beginning to allow Boeing to self-certify its own planes. Rather than design a whole new plane the solution to point 1 was the installation of yet more software, in this case the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS, for short. The goal, writes Travis, was to enable the computers to push the nose of the plane down when the system thinks the plane might exceed its angle-of-attack limits; it does so to avoid an aerodynamic stall. Boeing put MCAS into the 737 Max because the larger engines and their placement make a stall more likely in a 737 Max than in previous 737 models. Unfortunately, the MCAS software solution was a totally incompetent, unsafe Band-Aid that used the computer to counter (or perhaps more correctly, to mask) the airplanes dangerous tendency to lift the nose too much and get the stall situation where the computer takes over from the pilot to resolve a problem that initially stemmed from a hardware issue. As far as point 2 goes, as Travis describes it: As airplanes became more complex and the gulf between what the FAA could pay and what an aircraft manufacturer could pay grew larger, more and more of those engineers migrated from the public to the private sector. Soon the FAA had no in-house ability to determine if a particular airplanes design and manufacture were safe. So the FAA said to the airplane manufacturers, Why dont you just have your people tell us if your designs are safe You can immediately spot the parallels between the 2008 global financial crisis and the Boeing crashes. Much like the FAA with Boeing, in 2008, our global monetary authorities, regulators and ratings agencies were starved of adequate resources and expertise to properly scrutinize the activities of Wall Streets financial engineers. They were forced to accept at face value the banks mathematically unsound value at risk models to justify the soundness and fundamental safety of their newly created derivatives on the lines that the underlying asset pricing followed a normal distribution pattern. Of course, these derivatives did no such thing, because the price history was inadequate to establish a truly normal pattern; therefore, the math on which risk management was predicated turned out to be flawed with catastrophic consequences, as former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan ultimately acknowledged. Similarly, the MCAS software solution that was supposed to fix the engineering problem of the new 737 failed, because it was based on a flawed paradigm: no computer software can fundamentally repudiate the principles of aerodynamics. And in both cases, the regulatory capture and inadequate financial resources accorded to the authority precluded it from stepping in before disaster struck. Hence, the FAA did not once highlight the risks of the new anti-stall system when it certified the new and improved 737 Max 8 as airworthy some two years ago, according to the Washington Post. This is because Boeing had already attested to the planes fundamental fly-worthiness (much as Wall Streets models minimized the possibility of a black swan discontinuity in the financial markets, which induced the relevant compliance bodies to green light them). Consequently, both Boeing and a multitude of financial institutions post-2008 suffered crashes. Note as well in each case how increasing complexity becomes the enemy of effective regulation and, ultimately, safety considerations themselves. In both cases, they ignored what Travis and others call the KISS principle: Keep it simple, stupid. Theres another interesting dimension to this Boeing calamity, which points to the perpetual man vs. machine debate that has been the story of capitalism since the days of the Luddites. Contrary to popular characterization, the Luddites were not simply technophobes, beating back the forces of progress. They were highly skilled artisans, protesting the fact that their livelihood was being displaced by automation, imposed on and displacing them like expendable commodities with virtually no consultation from the business owners themselves. Likewise, in the new Max 8 plane, the new MCAS software was introduced without letting the pilots know about its main features. The key characteristic of MCAS is thatit is activated without the pilots input. Worse still, according to the Verge, both jets that crashed lacked safety features that could have provided crucial information to the crew because they were sold as options by Boeing, according to the New York Times. A huge failing of MCAS is that it effectively eliminates the human feel dimension to flying, as Travis illustrates: In the old days, when cables connected the pilots controls to the flying surfaces, you had to pull up, hard, if the airplane was trimmed to descend. You had to push, hard, if the airplane was trimmed to ascend. With computer oversight there is a loss of natural sense in the controls. In the 737 Max, there is no real natural feel There is only an artificial feel, a feeling that the computer wants the pilots to feel. And sometimes, it doesnt feel so great. When the flight computer trims the airplane to descend, because the MCAS system thinks its about to stall, a set of motors and jacks push the pilots control columns forward. It turns out that the flight management computer can put a lot of force into that columnindeed, so much force that a human pilot can quickly become exhausted trying to pull the column back, trying to tell the computer that this really, really should not be happening.(Emphasis added.) The MCAS computer software taxes a pilot beyond his physical capacities. And while it is true that in modern long haul commercial flying, computers do most of the actual flying, redundancy is normally built into the system to enable human beings to override the software if the pilot spots a problem. What distinguishes the newly incorporated MCAS system is that it denies the pilots ultimate sovereignty or, as the author starkly puts it: It denies the pilots the ability to respond to whats before their own eyes. Travis ultimately evokes Kubricks 2001: A Space Odyssey to indicate something of the scale of the technological dysfunction created here by Boeing: Raise the nose, HAL. Im sorry, Dave, Im afraid I cant do that. The key difference between the two situations is that in Kubricks masterpiece, HAL, the computer, was finally overridden by human action when circumstances necessitated and was therefore deactivated before more disaster could strike . The issue implicit in Travis imagery in regard to the Max 8 is that we may have taken this technophilia too far in the direction of computers to the point where todays modern day HAL cannot be controlled by the pilot. Boeings pathologies therefore illustrate the perils of innovation for innovations sake. But the company is symptomatic of a much bigger problem: We lionize the progress of Silicon Valleys entrepreneurs, even as they produce self-driving cars (which cause fatal accidents), multifunctional smart phones (that threaten our privacy), high-tech drones (that bring airports to a standstill), or any kind of extreme automation in the workplace that degrades the role of human beings. The crashes of the Boeing 737 jets ultimately reflect a hubristic faith in the power of the machine, a factor that is creating its own kind of dystopian 21st-century nightmare worthy of a Philip K. Dick novel. We view technology not as a man-made invention designed to help us, but as an autonomously fixed condition that bears little relation to human behavior. This lack of integration means that complexity overwhelms us, rather than enhances our quality of life. It commodifies us. Labor is just a cost input to be replaced, if possible, by a robot; it is no longer viewed as a source of demand. The same unthinking mentality that sees regulators as a dispensable encumbrance who clutter the operations of the free market; or safety is an optional feature that mustnt be allowed to interfere with the bottom line; where the needs of employees are subsidiary to the profits of shareholders and management; and the military is prioritized over the needs of the civilian economy. Boeing sadly embodies so much of our current economic and social dysfunction with predictably deadly consequences. But it is not alone or unique by any stretch of the imagination. Dead fish wash up near $6.3 million passageway designed to protect them. Why didnt it work? Sacramento Bee. Looks like we cant build tunnels on the West Coast either. Permaculture brings prosperity to Ethiopias rural areas France24 Plight of the Platypus bioGraphic Rewilding complex ecosystems Science. We suggest that rewilding efforts should target trophic complexity, natural disturbances, and dispersal as interacting processes that can improve ecosystem resilience and maintain biodiversity. Important. Mark Carney: Resolving the climate paradox (PDF) Bank of International Settlements. From 2016, still well worth a read. Activists ensure climate change is centre stage Editorial Board, FT World Economic Outlook, April 2019 Growth Slowdown, Precarious Recovery (PDF) International Monetary Fund U.S. economy feels like the 1990s, but with more inequality, less readiness for a downturn WaPo Bankers: the only sure-fire winners from the IPO boom FT Brexit Londons Unsold Homes Under Construction Increase to Record Bloomberg Sturgeon wants Scottish independence referendum by 2021 BBC Spains populists are set to change the countrys politics for good Spectator Spain elections: WhatsApp suspends left-wing party Podemoss communication channel days before vote Independent. TOS violation which, apparently, Bolsonaro was able to avoid. A make-good? Shareholders rebuke Bayer bosses over Monsanto-linked stock rout Reuters North Korea Time to bury the hatchet Jakarta Post China Belt and Road Project Strengthens the Role of China Valdai Discussion Club Venezuela RussiaGate Assanges Imprisonment Arguably Reveals Even More Corruption Than WikiLeaks Did Caitlin Johnstone, Consortium News Trump Transition Big Brother Is Watching You Watch Imperial Collapse Watch America Isnt as Powerful as It Thinks It Is Stephen Walt, Foreign Policy (Re Silc: Its why guys in sandals and ak47s always beat us). Time for Trilateral Coordination on 5G Dennis Blair, Michael Chertoff, and Arthur Coviello, The Diplomat. When China joined the WTO in 2001, nobody imagined that less than 20 years later, it would be positioned to dominate one the most lucrative emerging technology sectors in the world. What a confession of policy bankruptcy. Nobody could have predicted. A misremembered empire Tortoise. The sun set. Guillotine Watch Class Warfare Toward an Information Operations Kill Chain Bruce Schneier, LawFare. Interesting and important, but surely with broader application than Schneier seems to realize. What to know about measles in the US as case count breaks record Ars Technica Antidote du Jour (via): Bonus antidote (MR): When you think you have seen everything pic.twitter.com/tuGHSn8eBv NativeAmericanSoul (@Nativeesoul) April 26, 2019 Try that with your robot car! See yesterdays Links and Antidote du Jour here Sebastien Caquard ,Associate Professor in Geography, Concordia University, Annita Lucchesi, PhD student, University of Lethbridge, Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert, Associate professor, Department of History, McGill University, Leah Temper, Research Associate, History and Classical Studies, McGill University and Thomas Mcgurk, Lecturer, Department of Geography, Planning and Environment, Concordia University. Originally published at The Conversation. For Indigenous peoples across the Americas, urgent threats imposed by the industrial extraction of natural resources has characterized the 21st century. The expansion of industry has threatened Indigenous territories, cultures and sovereignty. These industries include: timber and pulp extraction, mining, oil and gas and hydroelectric development. As well, the extraction of human beings from their lands has real implications for the survival of communities. The debate of territory is essential in these resource conflicts. Maps and those who make and shape them are central to the discussion of land rights, especially when it comes to industrial resource extraction and Indigenous peoples. Our project, MappingBack, envisions mapping as a weapon and tactic to resist extractive industries. We see it as an excellent way to express complex Indigenous perspectives and relationships with the land. Maps as Resistance There is a long history of the use of maps and cartographic techniques by countries and governments to claim ownership over Indigenous territories. But since the 1990s, Indigenous communities have been deploying mapping tactics as a mode of Indigenous resistance, resurgence and education. These tactics use historical memory and ancestral knowledge to assert territorial rights and community visioning. Indigenous communities have either led or collaborated with multiple players to launch a broad array of mapping projects as a way of reclaiming ownership on the multiple aspects of their territories. These projects range from low-tech community mapping approaches to the use of the latest online web mapping technologies. Some academics have criticized these cartographic practices because of the continued subordination of Indigenous spatial world-views to western technologies and histories. It is time to revisit these dominant mapping representations and conventional processes so that we can present different conceptions of the world. Representing these different conceptions calls for supporting the development of Indigenous cartographic languages. Indigenous peoples conceive the diverse range of Indigenous territories as spaces of living relations; they are homelands since the beginning of creation; they are the reserve lands of forced resettlement, or they are spaces of refuge away from the violence and pressures of settler societies. MappingBack: A Virtual Community In 2017, MappingBack organized a three-day workshop in Montreal that brought together 35 participants to collectively exchange ideas about mapping in Indigenousextractives conflicts. The discussion at the seminar helped to form the foundation of an online Indigenous mapping platform. The MappingBack platform is a tool to resist the industrial extraction of natural resources on Indigenous territories. MappingBack project The participants were members of Indigenous communities engaged with the representation of territory, cartographers interested in alternative forms of spatial expressions and researchers and practitioners with expertise on extractive industries. These different players worked together to challenge and explore forms of cartographic expressions to represent multiple issues, perceptions, meanings, histories and emotions that are at stake when industrial extraction enters Indigenous territories. Participants of the MappingBack workshop in Montreal, Oct. 15, 2017. Mappingback Indigenous Cartographies of Extractive Industries, grew into an online platform from those three days: it is a virtual collective space where Indigenous communities and allies can share their experiences and expertise related to mapping resource conflicts. Communities can also access experiences, stories and mapping tactics developed by others to fight against extractive industries on their homelands. In developing MappingBack, we were inspired by the Guerilla Cartographys collectively produced atlases. They aim to create a new paradigm for cooperative and collaborative knowledge to have a transformative effect on the awareness and dissemination of spatial information. Powerful Collective Knowledge The MappingBack platform helps to mobilize a broad range of alternative forms of spatial expression to serve the communities for public education and advocacy in defense of their territories. We divided Mappingback into two main sections. Mapping Gallery showcases a selection of mapping examples and processes designed with and by Indigenous communities. It includes maps designed during the 2017 Montreal workshop like The Violation and Restoration Map as well as other examples crafted during the 2018 Indigenous Mapping Workshop. Each example includes written or oral reflections about the mapping process. Whose Land is it Anyway? (crafted by Charlotte Adams, Kaitlin Kok, Melissa Castron, Tom McGurk, Mary Kate Craig, Sebastien Caquard Aug. 2018) Network, the second section of the platform, offers a list of resources available for communities interested in using spatial representations to fight against extractive industries. The resources have been mapped with uMap, a free open source mapping application and include the names of Indigenous communities involved in fighting against extractive industries as well as a list of individuals indicating the expertise they are willing to contribute to the mapping project (Eg. GIS, legal, social or financial support). Because some of the Indigenous communities involved in fighting against extractive industries have been exposed to high levels of threats and violence and have paid an expensive human cost, some of these resources will only be shared on a case by case scenario for privacy and security reasons. MappingBack can support Indigenous perspectives on territories and resources through spatial representations. We hope it will serve Indigenous communities fighting against extractive industries. These fights are often at the forefront of broad and urgent environmental threats. (Natural News) Mark Levin told Breitbart News that the Obama administration executed the narrative framing President Donald Trump as colluding with the Russian government across the 2016 presidential election and beyond, offering his remarks on Thursdays edition of SiriusXMs Breitbart News Daily with host Alex Marlow. (Article by Robert Kraychik republished from Breitbart.com) This narrative was always pushed by the Hillary campaign and it was executed by the Obama administration, said Levin of the collusion storyline. This is the big untold story. The White House had to know about it. It was in the newspapers. The Oval Office had to have been briefed on it. Levin continued, I cant believe the attorney general, the head of the FBI, the head of the CIA, the head of National Intelligence, all were involved in this, and somehow Barack Obama was Helen Keller. I dont believe that for two seconds. Robert Muellers ostensible investigation of Russias alleged political interference in 2016s presidential election was always grounded in an attempt to nullify Trumps election, assessed Levin. Levin said, Volume two [or the Robert Mueller-led operations report] is written for the Democrats in the House. This report over 400 pages, particularly volume two, [was an attempt] to smear the president without any legal obstacles, without any compunction whatsoever. Levin added, [Muellers team said], Lets just write our opinions and put it in volume two. We know the Democrats are going to control the House. We know that Barr said during his testimony that hes going to release as much of this as he can. If you look at volume two of the report, theres very few redactions. This is a New York Times op-ed. Its very long, but its an op-ed. Thats all it is. Levin remarked, The president, extraordinarily, let them speak to anyone they wanted to. Gave them any documents they wanted. Thats why theres not a knowing corrupt intent, and thats the requirement that the Supreme Court set out that the prosecutors could never have met. Thats why they smeared him in the report. (Natural News) Long ago, Earth got hit by a rogue planet, and the resulting planetary collision ejected what later became the moon into orbit around the now-fused planet. Researchers are now theorizing that the giant impactor also made it possible for life to set root on our planet much later on. The leading theory behind the formation of the moon posited the previous existence of a planet called Theia. Around the size of Mars, the giant impactor crashed into the recently formed Earth. The violence of the collision hurled material from both celestial bodies into space. Some of the molten mass fell back on Earth, which by then had swallowed up the much smaller and lighter Theia. Others entered orbit around Earth and came together to form the moon. Though Theia was long gone, it delivered very important materials to Earth. Rice University researchers theorized that most of the carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur found on our planet came from Theia. These chemicals are important raw ingredients in the formation of organic life as we know it. Without them, Earth would be a lifeless ball of rock. (Related: Chinese officials recently announced plans to build an artificial moon, which will be 8x brighter than our natural satellite.) Rocky planets can get the volatile elements needed by life from planetary collisions Rice researcher Rajdeep Dasgupta helped write the paper detailing the results of his teams experiment. He explained that rocky planets will have a higher chance of getting elements essential to the formation of organic life if they were produced by giant impacts with other planets. For best results, the giant impactor would have formed in another part of the protoplanetary disk surrounding a newborn star. The elements that made up the impactor would be different from the rocky planet that it collided with. Three of the most important ingredients for organic life are carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur. These are volatile elements with low boiling points. It was very easy for a newly formed planet or moon to lose most of its supply of such volatile elements due to high temperatures and other factors. From the study of primitive meteorites, scientists have long known that Earth and other rocky planets in the inner solar system are volatile-depleted, explained Dasgupta. But the timing and mechanism of volatile delivery has been hotly debated. Ours is the first scenario that can explain the timing and delivery in a way that is consistent with all of the geochemical evidence. Though long gone, Theia may have ensured human life on Earth The Rice research team simulated the high temperatures and pressures during the time when a young planet formed its core. By adjusting the amount of sulfur in the mix, they could control the amount of carbon and nitrogen that got added into the hypothetical core until it matched those of Earth. They also ran more than a billion different computer simulations of the scenario. The results of their experiment indicated that Earth got its life-supporting mix of volatile elements from a giant impactor that was around the size of Mars, contained plenty of volatile elements including lots of sulfur in its core and hit the planet hard enough to form a moon. The results match the current theories about the size and composition of Theia. The findings will make it easier for researchers to determine if a moon or planet is capable of supporting organic life. This removes some boundary conditions, Dasgupta explained. It shows that life-essential volatiles can arrive at the surface layers of a planet, even if they were produced on planetary bodies that underwent core formation under very different conditions. Sources include: Space.com News.Rice.edu What makes the red lionfish (Pterois volitans) such a successful and powerful invader in Atlantic Ocean waters compared to its rather lamblike existence in its native Pacific Ocean? A new North Carolina State University study examining two native lionfish regions in the Pacific and five invading regions in the Atlantic showed the greatest genetic similarities between lionfish in the region of Taiwan and the Bahamas, suggesting a population near Taiwan was the source of the invading species. Lionfish were introduced to the Atlantic in the mid-1980s, most likely as the result of a marine ornamental aquarium trade. In the Atlantic, P. volitans acts differently from the native Pacific species. Known to be shadowy and furtive in their native Pacific waters, lionfish - freed from Pacific predators - become voracious predators in the Atlantic, responsible for massive reef fish kills, devastating economically important grouper and snapper. Plus, they rival rabbits in procreation. "P. volitans has a lot going for it in Atlantic waters," said Martha Burford Reiskind, research assistant professor of applied ecology at NC State and corresponding author of a paper describing the research. "They are found at high densities and in some cases can spawn every four days in the Atlantic; their eggs can travel great distances on ocean currents, exacerbating their spread. "They are also difficult to handle because of their venomous spines. The population has grown so large that controlling it, not eradicating it, is the primary goal." Besides learning more about important gene regions that show evidence of rapid evolution when the species arrived in the invasive range, the researchers also examined whether Atlantic or Pacific lionfish may be hybrids, or combinations, of two lionfish species. Specifically, researchers wanted to know if P. volitans had merged with P. miles, the devil fire fish. "We didn't find any evidence of P. miles or hybrids in our Atlantic Ocean samples," Burford Reiskind said. "But we can't rule out that the fish introduced to the Atlantic from the Pacific wasn't already some type of hybrid between an Indian Ocean and a Pacific Ocean species." Burford Reiskind said that the study could help during other invasive events. "Some of these invaders rapidly adapt to new surroundings. What are the genes that allow them to successfully invade?" she asked. "Can we make better predictions so that invasive species like P. volitans are eradicated before it's too late?" The research was conducted by undergraduate and graduate students in a conservation genetics course taught by Burford Reiskind. In this experiential-leaning project, students collected samples, sequenced DNA, built genomic libraries, analyzed data and served as co-authors of a paper that appears in Biological Invasions. "We weren't sure what we were going to find when we took on this project as a class," Burford Reiskind said. "It was fun to see the students learn how to conduct genomic studies on an important conservation question." The use of proteins involved in the photosynthetic process enables the development of affordable and efficient devices for energy conversion. However, although proteins such as photosystem are robust in nature, the use of isolated protein complexes incorporated in semi-artificial electrodes are associated with considerably short long-term stability. In consequence, the technological application of these kind of biodevices is still limited. Researchers at Ruhr-Universitat Bochum (RUB) showed that a careful operation of the photosystem-based bioelectrode under the exclusion of oxygen is the key for achieving high stability. The team involving Dr. Fangyuan Zhao, Dr. Adrian Ruff, Dr. Felipe Conzuelo, and Professor Wolfgang Schuhmann from the Chair of Analytical Chemistry and Center for Electrochemical Sciences, together with Professor Matthias Rogner from the Bochum Chair of Plant Biochemistry describes the results in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Using green energy Efficiently producing energy for a more sustainable society is nowadays a continuous challenge. Therefore, it is important not only to understand but also to overcome the processes that currently limit the lifetime of technologies for green and renewable energy conversion. Among different promising techniques, the use of protein complexes involved in the photosynthetic process for the fabrication of semi-artificial devices is of particular interest due to their high efficiency and large natural availability. Oxygen is to blame The scientists have already shown in a previous study that under operation of the bioelectrode reactive molecules are formed that damage photosystem I and are responsible for a limited lifetime of the biodevice. These reactive species are associated to the use of oxygen as final electron acceptor. Therefore, the design of bioelectrodes operating in an oxygen-free environment was suggested. An important step towards the application Now, operation of the bioelectrode under the exclusion of oxygen has proven to effectively increase the lifetime of the device for a substantial period in comparison with the results obtained in the presence of ambient oxygen. As the authors explain, the obtained results are an important step towards the efficient development and possible application of photobiodevices for energy conversion. Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope say they have crossed an important threshold in revealing a discrepancy between the two key techniques for measuring the universe's expansion rate. The recent study strengthens the case that new theories may be needed to explain the forces that have shaped the cosmos. A brief recap: The universe is getting bigger every second. The space between galaxies is stretching, like dough rising in the oven. But how fast is the universe expanding? As Hubble and other telescopes seek to answer this question, they have run into an intriguing difference between what scientists predict and what they observe. Hubble measurements suggest a faster expansion rate in the modern universe than expected, based on how the universe appeared more than 13 billion years ago. These measurements of the early universe come from the European Space Agency's Planck satellite. This discrepancy has been identified in scientific papers over the last several years, but it has been unclear whether differences in measurement techniques are to blame, or whether the difference could result from unlucky measurements. The latest Hubble data lower the possibility that the discrepancy is only a fluke to 1 in 100,000. This is a significant gain from an earlier estimate, less than a year ago, of a chance of 1 in 3,000. These most precise Hubble measurements to date bolster the idea that new physics may be needed to explain the mismatch. "The Hubble tension between the early and late universe may be the most exciting development in cosmology in decades," said lead researcher and Nobel laureate Adam Riess of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) and Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, Maryland. "This mismatch has been growing and has now reached a point that is really impossible to dismiss as a fluke. This disparity could not plausibly occur just by chance." Tightening the bolts on the 'cosmic distance ladder' Scientists use a "cosmic distance ladder" to determine how far away things are in the universe. This method depends on making accurate measurements of distances to nearby galaxies and then moving to galaxies farther and farther away, using their stars as milepost markers. Astronomers use these values, along with other measurements of the galaxies' light that reddens as it passes through a stretching universe, to calculate how fast the cosmos expands with time, a value known as the Hubble constant. Riess and his SH0ES (Supernovae H0 for the Equation of State) team have been on a quest since 2005 to refine those distance measurements with Hubble and fine-tune the Hubble constant. In this new study, astronomers used Hubble to observe 70 pulsating stars called Cepheid variables in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The observations helped the astronomers "rebuild" the distance ladder by improving the comparison between those Cepheids and their more distant cousins in the galactic hosts of supernovas. Riess's team reduced the uncertainty in their Hubble constant value to 1.9% from an earlier estimate of 2.2%. As the team's measurements have become more precise, their calculation of the Hubble constant has remained at odds with the expected value derived from observations of the early universe's expansion. Those measurements were made by Planck, which maps the cosmic microwave background, a relic afterglow from 380,000 years after the big bang. The measurements have been thoroughly vetted, so astronomers cannot currently dismiss the gap between the two results as due to an error in any single measurement or method. Both values have been tested multiple ways. "This is not just two experiments disagreeing," Riess explained. "We are measuring something fundamentally different. One is a measurement of how fast the universe is expanding today, as we see it. The other is a prediction based on the physics of the early universe and on measurements of how fast it ought to be expanding. If these values don't agree, there becomes a very strong likelihood that we're missing something in the cosmological model that connects the two eras." How the new study was done Astronomers have been using Cepheid variables as cosmic yardsticks to gauge nearby intergalactic distances for more than a century. But trying to harvest a bunch of these stars was so time-consuming as to be nearly unachievable. So, the team employed a clever new method, called DASH (Drift And Shift), using Hubble as a "point-and-shoot" camera to snap quick images of the extremely bright pulsating stars, which eliminates the time-consuming need for precise pointing. "When Hubble uses precise pointing by locking onto guide stars, it can only observe one Cepheid per each 90-minute Hubble orbit around Earth. So, it would be very costly for the telescope to observe each Cepheid," explained team member Stefano Casertano, also of STScI and Johns Hopkins. "Instead, we searched for groups of Cepheids close enough to each other that we could move between them without recalibrating the telescope pointing. These Cepheids are so bright, we only need to observe them for two seconds. This technique is allowing us to observe a dozen Cepheids for the duration of one orbit. So, we stay on gyroscope control and keep 'DASHing' around very fast." The Hubble astronomers then combined their result with another set of observations, made by the Araucaria Project, a collaboration between astronomers from institutions in Chile, the U.S., and Europe. This group made distance measurements to the Large Magellanic Cloud by observing the dimming of light as one star passes in front of its partner in eclipsing binary-star systems. The combined measurements helped the SH0ES Team refine the Cepheids' true brightness. With this more accurate result, the team could then "tighten the bolts" of the rest of the distance ladder that extends deeper into space. The new estimate of the Hubble constant is 74 kilometers (46 miles) per second per megaparsec. This means that for every 3.3 million light-years farther away a galaxy is from us, it appears to be moving 74 kilometers (46 miles) per second faster, as a result of the expansion of the universe. The number indicates that the universe is expanding at a 9% faster rate than the prediction of 67 kilometers (41.6 miles) per second per megaparsec, which comes from Planck's observations of the early universe, coupled with our present understanding of the universe. So, what could explain this discrepancy? One explanation for the mismatch involves an unexpected appearance of dark energy in the young universe, which is thought to now comprise 70% of the universe's contents. Proposed by astronomers at Johns Hopkins, the theory is dubbed "early dark energy," and suggests that the universe evolved like a three-act play. Astronomers have already hypothesized that dark energy existed during the first seconds after the big bang and pushed matter throughout space, starting the initial expansion. Dark energy may also be the reason for the universe's accelerated expansion today. The new theory suggests that there was a third dark-energy episode not long after the big bang, which expanded the universe faster than astronomers had predicted. The existence of this "early dark energy" could account for the tension between the two Hubble constant values, Riess said. Another idea is that the universe contains a new subatomic particle that travels close to the speed of light. Such speedy particles are collectively called "dark radiation" and include previously known particles like neutrinos, which are created in nuclear reactions and radioactive decays. Yet another attractive possibility is that dark matter (an invisible form of matter not made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons) interacts more strongly with normal matter or radiation than previously assumed. But the true explanation is still a mystery. Riess doesn't have an answer to this vexing problem, but his team will continue to use Hubble to reduce the uncertainties in the Hubble constant. Their goal is to decrease the uncertainty to 1%, which should help astronomers identify the cause of the discrepancy. Flinders University archaeologists are using cutting edge subsurface imaging technology to help assist community groups to map unmarked graves and manage their cultural heritage. "This is a huge issue, particularly for rural communities," says Dr Ian Moffat, Senior Research Fellow in Archaeological Sciences at Flinders University. "Using geophysics provides a non-invasive and culturally appropriate way to map unmarked grave sites." Dr Moffat leads a group which recently published the results of using Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) and GPS surveys to non-invasively map the location of unmarked graves within the Lake Condah Mission Cemetery in Victoria, a state in Australia. Established in 1869, this cemetery remains an important site for the Gunditjmara community, because while it has only 26 marked graves, it is anecdotally thought to contain more than 100 graves. The GPR survey identified an additional 14 probable unmarked graves as well as 49 other areas that may contain one or more unmarked burials. "The great leap forward with this particular study was the close partnership between the Gunditj Mirring Traditional Owners Corporation and the researchers to achieve such a positive outcome," says Dr Moffat. "Many Australian Indigenous communities are anxious not to disturb graves, so this survey provides useful information to assist the Gunditj Mirring Traditional Owners Corporation in planning future burials within this cemetery by identifying large areas which are free of graves." Damein Bell, CEO of Gunditj Mirring says, "Our Elders informed the researchers of their knowledge of where the known graves were and our community now have marked the unknown gravesites of our ancestors". GPR is a geophysical technique that uses high frequency electromagnetic waves to image the subsurface, making it ideal for mapping changes in lithology or soil structure. Extensive subsurface disturbance present at the Lake Condah Mission Cemetery and the presence of many tree roots made the effective interpretation of GPR data difficult, but it was still possible to delineate areas where no unmarked graves are present. "This is an important outcome for managing the cultural heritage of the cemetery because it identifies areas where new graves can be emplaced in a culturally appropriate fashion," says Dr Moffat. "This demonstrates the utility of GPR as a means of effectively managing heritage sites containing unmarked graves, even when substantial subsurface disturbance is present." Dr Moffat believes the technique of using GPR and GPS readings will now have a much wider application across pioneer and heritage sites throughout Australia and will be undertaking surveys of other cemeteries at Lake Wangary, Berri and Kingscote over coming weeks. A woman has died and a rabbi was injured after shots were fired inside a Poway, California synagogue filled with people celebrating the last day of Passover. A suspect was taken into custody approximately two miles away from the synagogue while three patients were rushed to a nearby hospital. The victim was identified Saturday as 60-year-old Lori Gilbert-Kaye. A man with an assault-style rifle entered Chabad of Poway on Rancho Bernardo Road, west of Interstate 15 at 11:23 a.m. and opened fire on the people inside, law enforcement officials said. "We didnt hear him screaming or saying anything. He was just focused to kill. You saw the hate and the murder in his eyes," Danny Almong, a witness, told NBC 7. "He had a vest and he had clips in the vest. He was ready. He was ready. He came in to kill." The suspect was identified as John T. Earnest, 19, a graduate of Mount Carmel High School and student at Cal State San Marcos. Earnest does not have a criminal history and has no apparent connection with white supremacist groups, according to San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore. Read more about Earnest here. [[509177712,C]] As the suspect fled the scene, an off-duty U.S. Border Patrol agent who was in the synagogue at the time of the shooting opened fire on the suspect, missing the man but striking his vehicle, Gore said. Near the freeway, a San Diego police officer was en route to the scene while monitoring the sheriff's dispatch when he saw the suspect vehicle. The suspect pulled over, jumped out of his car with his hands up and was taken into custody, SDPD Chief David Nisleit said. "As the officer was placing this 19-year-old male into custody, he clearly saw a rifle sitting on the front passenger seat of the suspect vehicle," Nisleit added. The sheriff's department said there are indications that the gun may have malfunctioned after some rounds were fired, though it was still being investigated. More than half a dozen police cars were seen along Rancho Bernardo Road outside Phils BBQ -- roughly two miles away from the temple -- where the suspect was apprehended. Officials have not released a possible motive for the shooting. The Federal Bureau of Investigations was also investigating. The sheriff's department was preparing search warrants Saturday for the Earnest residence, his vehicle and for the synagogue in Poway. They were also collecting digital evidence and were aware of his manifesto, Gore said. Gilbert-Kaye, 60, died from injuries suffered in the shooting. An eight-year-old girl and two adult men, including a rabbi, were injured and rushed to nearby hospitals, officials confirmed. What we have learned about the four victims of the synagogue shooting in Poway. The woman who died in the shooting and three others- including a child who was injured. NBC 7's Bridget Naso has more. The three injured people are 57-year-old Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, 34-year-old Almog Peretz, and 8-year-old Noya Dahan. Read more about the victims here. The 57-year-old rabbi suffered injuries to index fingers, which trauma surgeon Michael Katz, M.D. said was "the largest injury" of the three surviving victims. The rabbi was taken into surgery, where he "most likely" will lose his right index finger but may keep his left index finger. "The rabbi is appropriately upset," Katz said. Peretz and the girl sustained shrapnel injuries. Katz said the three should "make good recoveries." Hate has no place in ANY community... least of all Poway. We will put our arms around each other and walk through this tragedy as the family we have always been and always will be. #PowayStrong Steve Vaus (@SteveVaus) April 27, 2019 "While mass shootings are rare, gunshot wound victims, for us, are not," Katz said. "At the time of such a tragic event, its important to be a supportive mechanism for everyone involved." Chabad of Poway is located at 16934 Chabad Way. The temple was filled as members marked the last day of Passover. "Its a very important celebration for us. Theres lots of people inside, theyre praying," Minoo Anvari, a member of the congregation, told NBC 7. "Everybody was crying and screaming." [SD] Aftermath of the Poway Synagogue Shooting Anvari said her husband was inside during the shooting and told her someone came in and started cursing and shooting. Residents Drew Foncerrada and Avery Foncerrada were walking their dog in the area when they saw cop cars racing. "People choose this neighborhood for their kids because its totally safe," Drew Foncerrada said. "Nothing happens like this over here," Avery Foncerrada added. Two other places of worship, St. John of Damascus Orthodox and Incarnation Lutheran Church, are located immediately next to the synagogue. "I want you to know, this is not Poway," said Mayor Steve Vaus. "We always walk with our arms around each other." The Mayor during interviews with cable news channels described the shooting as a hate crime, though law enforcement officials were still investigating the motive. "We are grateful to those in the congregation there that engaged the shooter and prevented this from being a much more horrific incident," Vaus told MSNBC. Those injured were transported to Palomar Medical Center Poway, according to deputies. The sheriff said the girl was then transferred to Rady Children's Hospital. Initially, two children were reported missing during the incident, but deputies confirmed they were reunited with their parents shortly after. "As you can imagine, it was an extremely chaotic scene with people running everywhere when we got here," San Diego County Sheriff's Department Sgt. Aaron Meleen said. The Family Assistance Center will be at Poway High School 15500 Espola Road to help relatives looking for loved ones from the synagogue. U.S. Rep. Scott Peters, D-52, who represents Poway, posted on social media, saying Saturdays shooting marks six months to the day of the Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Tragic news that a gunman has attacked Chabad of Poway synagogue, on this, the last day of Passover, a day that is supposed to be a celebration of faith and freedom. I am thinking of, and praying for, those hurt and affected. Rep. Scott Peters (@RepScottPeters) April 27, 2019 Other leaders sent condolences including President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "My deepest sympathies go to the people that were affected, the families, their loved ones, by the obviously looks right now based on my last conversations, looks like a hate crime, hard to believe," President Trump said from the south lawn of the White House. "We're doing some very heavy research we'll see what happens, what comes up, at this moment it looks like a hate crime, but my deepest sympathies to all of those affected and we'll get to the bottom of it." "I condemn the abhorrent attack on a synagogue in California; this is an attack on the heart of the Jewish people," Prime Minister Netanyahu said in a statement. "We send condolences to the family of Lori Gilbert-Kaye and our best wishes for a quick recovery to the wounded. The international community must step up the struggle against antisemitism." A GoFundMe page was created Saturday night to raise money to help pay for "any necessary medical operations for the victims, funeral services, synagogue reparations or anything else the synagogue would need assistance with." The San Diego County Sheriff's Department said the following roads were closed until Sunday morning: Eastbound Espola Road at Summerfield Lane Westbound Espola Road at Avenida Florencia [[509171701,C]] [[509162811,C]] Editor's Note: A previous version of this story identified the suspect as a graduate of Mount Miguel High School. This has been fixed and we regret the error. A 24-year-old Chinese national was arrested at San Francisco International Airport last week and pleaded not guilty Thursday to child pornography charges, San Mateo County prosecutors said. Minghong Xia, a San Francisco resident, was arrested on April 17 after an investigation that began when the San Francisco police Internet Crimes Against Children unit learned of possible distribution of child pornography via peer-to-peer software at an apartment in the city. Investigators executed a search warrant at the apartment but found that no one was home and no child pornography was found, according to the district attorney's office. However, police learned the resident, Xia, was in Seattle for work and was in possession of his digital devices. They later learned he was on his way back to San Francisco and obtained a search warrant for him and his belongings, prosecutors said. When he landed at SFO, officers detained him and examined his laptop, which was found to have hundreds of images of child pornography, including ones of children under 10 years old, prosecutors said. Xia is a Chinese national in the U.S. on a work permit that is set to expire in the near future. He pleaded not guilty Thursday to child pornography possession charges and remains in custody on $100,000 bail, with his potential release on the condition that he not try to obtain a replacement passport or leave California without a judge's permission, prosecutors said. Xia is set to return to court on May 9. The FBI San Francisco Field Office has opened a hate crime investigation into the Sunnyvale plowing that injured eight people Tuesday, the government office said Saturday. This comes after a Muslim civil rights organization called for a continuing probe into what police say is an anti-Muslim attack that occurred when a man drove into eight people. Isaiah Peoples, 34, was charged Thursday with eight counts of attempted murder in connection with a collision on El Camino Real that left a 13-year-old girl in critical condition and injured seven others. "We are in touch with the District Attorney's office and appreciate their commitment to continue to investigate this as a hate crime," said Zahra Billoo, executive director of the San Francisco Bay Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "If there is evidence to support the allegations that (Peoples) was motivated by anti-Muslim bias, appropriate hate crime enhancements must be filed," Billoo said. On Thursday, police discovered evidence that Peoples "intentionally targeted the victims based on their race and his belief that they were of the Muslim faith," Phan Ngo, chief of the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety, said Thursday. An investigation into the incident is ongoing, according to Ngo. The crash happened at El Camino Real and Saratoga Sunnyvale Road around 6:40 p.m. Tuesday. According to police, Peoples had picked up food and was taking it to his Bible study group when he drove a black, four-door sedan into a group of pedestrians at a crosswalk and sidewalk. Investigators are also looking at whether Peoples' actions were influenced by post-traumatic stress disorder he suffered as a result of his Army service in Iraq from 2005 to 2006. Peoples' defense attorney, Chuck Smith, said, "This act was clearly a product of some mental disorder or mental defect," and disputed that Peoples drove into the victims intentionally. A woman and her infant escaped serious injuries Friday morning in San Francisco after a vehicle involved in a collision clipped them as they were on the sidewalk, police said. Around 9:50 a.m., officers responded to a report of a collision involving two vehicles and two pedestrians near Clarendon Avenue and Johnstone Drive in the city's Clarendon Heights neighborhood. There, officers learned that two vehicles became involved in a collision. One of the vehicles then made contact with a woman who was walking while pushing a stroller that contained an infant, according to police spokesman Officer Joseph Tomlinson. The woman and the infant were taken to the hospital with injuries not considered life-threatening, he said. The two drivers involved in the collision stayed at the scene and are cooperating with the investigation. It was not immediately clear if the drivers suffered any injuries. According to Tomlinson, the collision remains under investigation. A man died after he was shot at People's Park in Berkeley Friday afternoon, University of California at Berkeley police said. City of Berkeley and university officers responded at 2:40 p.m. to the park at 2556 Haste St. to investigate a shooting. Officers found out that the victim was shot by a male suspect who left the area in a car. Police said the victim was taken to a hospital where he died. Police believe the shooting was not a random act and that neither person is affiliated with the university. Anyone with more information is asked to get in touch with police as soon as possible, police said. What to Know Kawaski Trawick, 32, got locked out of his apartment in the Bronx on the night of April 14; fire officials say he had food cooking on stove There were two 911 calls: Trawick reporting his fears of a fire -- and the building super and a guard saying he was banging on doors The FDNY broke open his door and left; cops arrived 7 minutes later and Trawick ended up shot to death This story was originally published on April 25, 2019 by THE CITY. On the night of April 14, Kawaski Trawick, 32, got locked out of his apartment in a building run by a nonprofit in The Bronx. He had food cooking on the stove, according to the Fire Department. There were dueling 911 calls: a distraught Trawick reporting his fears of a fire and the building superintendent and a security guard saying he was banging on doors, harassing neighbors. The FDNY came and left after breaking open the door of his apartment at 1616 Grand Ave. in Morris Heights. The police arrived seven minutes later an encounter that ended with Trawicks shooting death and with his family asking why he had to die. I dont think they really had to kill my son, I dont think they had to shoot him and shoot him dead like that, his father, Ricky Trawick, told THE CITY in a phone interview from Georgia. How the situation went from a lockout to deadly shooting within minutes was unclear. A Tragic Chronology Police said they arrived at Trawicks apartment door at 11:06 p.m. The two cops on the scene found him wielding a wooden stick and a serrated knife, the NYPD said. After the officers talked with Trawick for less than two minutes, they tasered him, police said. He fell and the officers moved to arrest him. Police said he got up, threatened them and charged. One cop fired his gun four times, hitting Trawick twice. The dance aerobics instructor was declared dead at Bronx Lebanon Hospital at 11:46 p.m. The NYPD said the incident was captured on an officers body camera, but declined to make the footage public Wednesday. The citys Human Resources Administration, which contracts the nonprofit running the supportive housing building, has a confidential incident report describing the nights events but refused to release it. The building where Trawick lived is called Hill House and is operated by Services for the Underserved, which helps people with disabilities, people in poverty and people facing homelessness, according to its website. Services for the UnderServed has been cooperating with the police and we are awaiting the results of their investigation into the incident, Nadia Khasawneh, a spokesperson for the nonprofit wrote in an email. She did not answer questions about Services for the UnderServeds policies for bringing police into their buildings. Answers 'Would Be Nice' A Hill House director and the superintendent guided police to Trawicks floor, the NYPD said. The security guard who twice called police said on a 911 call that Trawick had seemed mentally unstable that day and was possibly intoxicated, according to police. But the 911 calls were not flagged as a response to an emotionally disturbed person, police said, and the guard said on the call she was unaware of any mental health issues in his history. One of the officers knew the building was a supportive housing facility and the other did not, an NYPD official said. Both were trained in crisis intervention, police said. The super had a history of problems with Trawick he previously called police and accused Trawick of harassment, the NYPD said in an initial briefing on the shooting last week. On the night of the shooting, the super told 911 that Trawick had threatened to punch him in the face while banging on his door. Outside Hill House Wednesday, a resident who gave his name as Arnold started to tell THE CITY about the night of April 14, but was quickly commanded inside by an apparent staffer. You know, Im really sad about it, he said before he was cut off. Trawicks father, meanwhile, said answers really would be nice. He went back to his job as a trucker Tuesday hoping it would take his mind off his sons death. They could have handled it in a little different way, he said. This story was originally published by THE CITY, an independent, nonprofit news organization dedicated to hard-hitting reporting that serves the people of New York. Oliver North announced Saturday that he would not serve a second term as National Rifle Association president, making it clear he had been forced out by the gun lobby's leadership after his own failed attempt to remove the NRA's longtime CEO in a burgeoning divide over the group's finances and media operations. "Please know I hoped to be with you today as NRA president endorsed for reelection. I'm now informed that will not happen," North said in a statement that was read by Richard Childress, the NRA's first vice president, to members at the group's annual convention. North, whose one-year term ends Monday, did not show up for the meeting, and his spot on the stage was left empty, his nameplate still in its place. His statement was largely met with silence. Wayne LaPierre, whom North had tried to push out, later received two standing ovations. It was a stunning conclusion to a battle between two conservative and Second Amendment titans North, the retired Marine lieutenant colonel with a ramrod demeanor who was at the center of the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s, and LaPierre, who has been battle-tested in the decades since he took up the mantle of gun rights. He has fought back challenges that have arisen over the decades, seemingly emerging unscathed each time. In this latest effort, he pushed back against North, telling members of the NRA's board of directors that North had threatened to release "damaging" information about him to them and saying it amounted to an "extortion" attempt. Hundreds of the NRA's estimated 5 million members packed into the convention center in Indianapolis where the group's annual meetings were being held. Near the end of the two-hour meeting, some members challenged efforts to adjourn and pushed to question the board about controversies involving its financial management, the relationship with its longtime public relations firm and details of what North sought to raise about alleged misspending, sexual harassment and other mismanagement. But those cries were drowned out as some board members urged such conversations not to be held at such a large public forum, even if the media were eventually discharged from the room. "We don't want to give the other side any more information than they already have," said Tom King, a board member from New York for more than a decade. Offered Marion Hammer, a former NRA president and longtime lobbyist from Florida: "The life's blood of this organization is on the line. We are under fire from without. We do not need to be under attack from within." The internal dispute first spilled out in public after the NRA in recent weeks filed a lawsuit against Ackerman McQueen, the Oklahoma-based public relations firm that has earned tens of millions of dollars in the decades since it began shaping the gun lobby's fierce talking points. The NRA's lawsuit accuses Ackerman McQueen of refusing to hand over financial records to account for its billings. North has a $1 million contract with Ackerman McQueen, raising alarm bells among some in the NRA about conflicts of interest. He has a show called "American Heroes" on NRATV, the online TV station created and operated by Ackerman McQueen. NRATV and Ackerman McQueen's billings are at the center of the turmoil, with some members and board members questioning whether they were getting any value for the money devoted to that part of the operation. In 2017 alone, the NRA paid the firm $40 million. NRATV's programming is provocative, often taking on topics far afield from gun rights, leading some members to wonder if it was damaging its efforts to further gun rights and bring in new members. The NRA also has faced some financial and regulator struggles in recent years, and there remain concerns that New York authorities in particular the state where the NRA created its charter are looking to strip it of its nonprofit status. An outside lawyer for the NRA, William A. Brewer, said Saturday that New York's attorney general has opened an investigation into the organization. In his statement, North said a committee should be set up to review the NRA's finances and operations. "There is a clear crisis and it needs to be dealt with" if the NRA is to survive, he said. Childress, who read North's statement, said he only found out the night before that he would be asked to read it. A message left with the Freedom Alliance, a nonprofit group founded by North in the 1990s, seeking to contact North, was not immediately returned. In his speech later Saturday, LaPierre stuck to standard NRA talking points, going after the mainstream media and lawmakers who seek to restrict gun rights. He told the crowd that efforts to strip away gun rights will fail. "We won't accept it. We will resist it. We won't give an inch," he said. North, 75, was a military aide to the National Security Council during the Reagan administration in the 1980s when he entered the spotlight for his role in arranging the secret sale of weapons to Iran and the diversion of the proceeds to the anti-communist Contra rebels in Nicaragua. He was convicted in 1989 of obstructing Congress during its investigation, destroying government documents and accepting an illegal gratuity. Those convictions were overturned in 1991. Embraced by many on the right, he went on to run for office, write several books and serve as a commentator on Fox News. Associated Press writer Denise Lavoie contributed to this report. Sri Lanka's Catholics on Sunday awoke preparing to celebrate Mass in their homes by a televised broadcast as churches across the island nation shut over fears of militant attacks, a week after the Islamic State-claimed Easter suicide bombings killed over 250 people. Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the archbishop of Colombo, prepared for services that would be carried on TV, an extraordinary measure underlining the fear still gripping this nation of 21 million people. The U.S. Embassy in Colombo has warned against attending any service at a place of worship this weekend. The Mass was to be aired at 8 a.m. (0230 GMT; 10:30 p.m. ET.) In the eastern district of Ampara on Sunday, where a gunfight and explosions left 15 people dead the previous day, soldiers guarded St. Mary Magdalen's Church, where a sign on the gate said the church and the school would be closed until May 6. A nearby mosque also had soldiers stationed outside. At the YMCA, a group of young girls held Sunday school near a portrait of Christ. Sajith Liyanage, a 51-year-old Catholic, said he remained worried and would watch Mass on TV. "We can't understand what the situation is right now," Liyanage said. At Ampara's weekly Sunday market, police officers walked explosive-sniffing dogs past ripe-yellow bananas, pineapples and coconuts. Officers also searched women's bags. The Islamic State group, meanwhile, claimed three of the militants who blew themselves up during a bloody police raid in Ampara linked to the Easter bombings. In a statement carried by the extremists' Aamaq news agency, IS identified the bombers by their noms du guerre as Abu Hammad, Abu Sufyan and Abu al-Qa'qa. It said they opened fire with automatic weapons and "after exhausting their ammunition, detonated ... their explosive belts." Sri Lanka's military said the gunfight Friday night near the town of Sammanthurai left 15 dead, including six children, when militants opened fire and set off explosives in suicide bombings as security forces closed in on their safe house. IS falsely claimed their militants killed 17 "disbelievers" in the attack. The militants often exaggerate their claims. The IS report carried a photograph of two men before an IS flag, one carrying a Chinese variant of the Kalashnikov rifle like the one found at the scene, another smiling. A girl and a woman survived the explosion but were critically injured and being treated at a hospital, police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara said. Photographs taken by The Associated Press show the charred remains of one child and the body of another wearing a green T-shirt with the words "good boy" written on the back. The bodies of an adult woman and man were found after the explosion with their clothes burned off. The military said security forces had recovered explosives, detonators, "suicide kits," military uniforms and IS flags during the raids in the area. Gunasekara said officers acting on information from intelligence officials also found 150 sticks of blasting gelatin and 100,000 small metal balls, as well as a van and clothing suspected of being used by those involved in the Easter attacks on three churches and three luxury hotels that left more than 250 people dead and hundreds injured the bloodies assault linked to the IS in South Asia. The government on Saturday formally banned two extremist groups purportedly connected to the attacks, allowing officials to confiscate their property, presidential spokesman Dharmasri Ekanayake said. The government, crippled from a long political crisis between the president and prime minister last year, promised swift action to capture militants still at large. President Maithripala Sirisena said about 140 people had been identified as having links to the Islamic State group. A "major search operation has been undertaken," Sirisena said. "Every household in the country will be checked." Police confirmed that the leader of the local militant group blamed for the attack, Mohamed Zahran, died in the suicide bombing at the Shangri-La Hotel, one of six hotels and churches attacked. Zahran appeared in an IS video claiming responsibility for the coordinated assault, and authorities in both Sri Lanka and Australia confirmed links between IS and the attack. A U.S. judge in Washington state Thursday blocked new Trump administration rules that would provide additional hurdles for women seeking abortions, including by banning taxpayer-funded clinics from making abortion referrals. Judge Stanley Bastian in Yakima granted the preliminary injunction in cases brought by the state and abortion rights groups, Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson said. The new rules were due to take effect May 3. "Today's ruling ensures that clinics across the nation can remain open and continue to provide quality, unbiased healthcare to women," Ferguson, a Democrat, said in an emailed statement. The ruling came two days after a federal judge in Oregon, hearing a separate challenge by 20 states, said he intended to at least partially block the rules. That judge, Michael McShane, suggested he was reluctant to issue a nationwide injunction, but said the administration's new policy was motivated by "an arrogant assumption that the government is better suited to direct women's health care than their providers." Title X is a 1970 law designed to improve access to family planning services, especially for low-income women and those in rural areas, but abortion opponents and religious conservatives say it has long been used to indirectly subsidize abortion providers. Abortion is a legal medical procedure, but federal laws prohibit the use of Title X or other taxpayer funds to pay for abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the woman. Clinics that receive money under Title X provide a wide array of services, including birth control and screening for diabetes, sexually transmitted diseases and cancer. The program serves 4 million patients, about 1.6 million of whom obtain services through Planned Parenthood. In addition to banning abortion referrals by taxpayer-funded clinics, the changes would prohibit clinics that receive federal money from sharing office space with abortion providers a rule critics said would force many to find new locations, undergo expensive remodels or shut down. "All over the country, there are Title X providers looking at their patient schedules and wondering what they were going to do," said Clare Coleman, president of the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association, which sued. "Now we know that everyone can continue to do their care as they have been doing for the past 50 years." The judge made his ruling from the bench and said he would issue a written opinion early next week, Coleman said. The Department of Health and Human Services declined to comment, citing a policy of not commenting on litigation. While the new rules would permit clinic staff to discuss abortion with clients, they would no longer be required to do so. If patients ask for an abortion referral, staff would be required to give a list of primary care providers with no indication as to which provide abortions. The list would have to include providers who do not offer abortions, and it could not include clinics or organizations that aren't primary care providers, such as Planned Parenthood. Supporters of the changes say they return Title X's regulations back to their original legislative intent that "none of the funds appropriated under this title shall be used in programs where abortion is a method of family planning." "We're extremely disappointed that a district judge made a ruling a wrong ruling that affects the entire nation," said Mark Miloscia, executive director of the Family Policy Institute of Washington, which was not involved in the case. "We support family planning, but not giving it through agencies that kill the unborn." The legal challenges argue that the changes violate a requirement that patients receive pregnancy counseling that is not weighted for or against abortion, and that it violates the Affordable Care Act's prohibition on regulations that impose "unreasonable barriers to the ability of individuals to obtain appropriate medical care." Some 98,000 patients in Washington were expected to receive care through Title X this year, Ferguson said. Public health officials are investigating two cases of Legionnaires disease in patients who were possibly exposed to the bacteria while at Mercy Hospital. The Illinois and Chicago departments of public health were at the hospital Thursday to evaluate the buildings water system for possible Legionella bacteria in order to determine its source, officials said in a statement. The investigation is limited to the hospital and there is no risk to the public, the states public health department said. The conditions of the two patients were not released. A spokeswoman for Mercy Hospital said the investigation was ongoing and that the source of the infections has not been determined. Water samples to test for Legionella bacteria have been collected from the hospital, the officials said. The bacteria are transmitted through drops of water and can cause serious lung infections and possibly death. The bacteria mixes with the air in showers or fountains, and can cause illness when inhaled. Mercy Hospital is working with the health departments to strengthen its water management practices, officials said. The hospital has begun flushing its water system, and will alter or replace water fixtures and place filters on sinks. The hospital spokeswoman said the hospital and its patients are safe. Mercy Hospital has followed water management guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control, and fully supports the ongoing investigation, the spokeswoman said. WARNING: Details in this story may be disturbing for some readers. The parents of 5-year-old Andrew "AJ" Freund forced the young boy to stand in a cold shower and beat him three days before the child was reported missing to police, according to a criminal complaint filed Thursday. The complaint alleges that on April 15, AJ's parents forced him "to remain in a cold shower for an extended period of time and/or struck [AJ] on or about his body, knowing that said acts would cause the death of [AJ], thereby causing the death." Read the full complaints below According to the McHenry County Coroner's office, the body found in the makeshift grave in unincorporated Woodstock was identified as AJ and the cause of death was listed as "craniocerebral trauma as a consequence of multiple blunt force injuries." The incidents took place two days before the couple told police they last saw their child while putting him to bed on April 17. The next morning they reported him missing. The parents were each ordered held on $5 million bonds Thursday, one day after they were both charged in AJ's death and disappearance. Joann Cunningham and Andrew Freund Sr. faced a judge for the first time since authorities said they found what they believed to be AJ's body on Wednesday. Cunningham cried as the judge read the charges against her while Freund Sr. sat silent. Cunningham was charged with five counts of first-degree murder, four counts of aggravated battery, two counts of aggravated domestic battery and one count of failure to report a missing or child death. Freund Sr. was charged with five counts of first-degree murder, two counts of aggravated battery, one count of aggravated domestic battery, two counts of concealment of homicidal death and one count of failure to report a missing or child death. Crystal Lake police and the FBI announced Wednesday that they had located the body of 5-year-old Andrew AJ Freund, and that murder charges have been filed against the boys parents. Crystal Lake police said Wednesday that investigators located a body wrapped in plastic and buried in a shallow grave in a remote area of Woodstock, just miles from the Crystal Lake home where the boy was reported missing six days earlier. That same day marked one week since AJ's parents said they last saw the child, putting him to bed at around 9:30 p.m. at their Crystal Lake home. The following morning, Freund Sr. called police to report that his son was not in the house and that they had canvassed the neighborhood, went to a local park, checked an area gas station and called his school - but AJ was nowhere to be found, according to the 911 call released Tuesday. LISTEN TO THE 911 AUDIO HERE "We have a missing child," the father told dispatchers at the beginning of the 911 call Thursday morning, later saying they had checked "closets, the basement, the garage, everywhere" in the house to no avail. Police said both parents were questioned overnight Tuesday and into Wednesday morning after information was obtained during a "forensic analysis of cell phone data." "Once presented with the evidence obtained by investigators, both Joann and Andrew Sr. provided information that ultimately led to the recovery, what we believe is the recovery of deceased subject AJ," Crystal Lake Police Chief James Black. Authorities in Crystal Lake announced Wednesday that they had located the body of missing five-year-old AJ Freund, and have charged the boys parents with first-degree murder. Law enforcement and first responders descended on a large wooded area in Woodstock Wednesday morning. At the same time, police were seen searching the family's home on Dole Avenue in Crystal Lake. Moments later, evidence technicians brought items from an evidence van into the Crystal Lake police station. Those items included a mattress, a large bin, two large brown bags, and an item that appeared to be a shovel with a long wooden handle. Police scoured the area surrounding the family's home for days after the boy's disappearance, searching hundreds of acres of land and water before centering their investigation on the house, saying they found no evidence of an abduction. "To AJs family, it is our hope that you may have some solace in knowing that AJ is no longer suffering and his killers have been brought to justice," Black said Wednesday. "We would also like to thank the community for their support and assistance during this difficult time. To AJ, we know you are at peace playing in heavens playground and are happy you no longer have to suffer." Both parents appeared Tuesday in McHenry County Circuit Court for a custody hearing related to their other son, who was taken into custody by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services the day AJ was reported missing. The hearing was continued, with the next hearing set for Monday at 9 a.m. CST. Anyone who's ever tried to run a restaurant can tell you it's not an easy thing. So when you look around a place and there's not an empty table in sight, you know you're really cookin'. Such is life at the Starfish Cafe in Lewisville, Texas. "It's the happiest place to come have lunch," said Mary Beth Buck, a regular at the Starfish Cafe and the mother of one of its servers. What sets the restaurant apart -- besides its food -- is the staff that keeps the place moving. All servers, hosts, bussers and cooks are young adults with intellectual disabilities. "It's good," said Carla, a server at the cafe. "It's kind of fun." Starfish Cafe is part of Lewisville ISD's "Focus on the Future" program, which helps students with intellectual disabilities transition from high school into their adult lives. They have their hands in every part of the restaurant -- buying the groceries, planning the menu, setting up the room, interacting with customers, cleaning -- picking up skills that can help them land paying jobs in the real world. "There is a place for them," said Karrie Barnes, the lead teacher for Focus on the Future. "And they can offer a lot." Buck's son Eiler is proof of that. When he's not busy serving customers at Starfish Cafe, he's earning a living at Firehouse Subs. "He's just proud," Buck said. "He loves going to work," said Alex Buck, Eiler's father. "He loves interacting with other people. And he is extremely excited about taking those skills to where he can learn to live independently from us." Eiler is just one of many success stories to come from Starfish Cafe in the five years it's been open. And he won't be the last. "It shows that inclusion works," Barnes said. "You start seeing their skills, you see their personalities coming out and you see what they can contribute." The Starfish Cafe is open every other Friday during the school year from 11:30 a.m. CT to 1 p.m.CT. The final dates for the current school year are April 26 and May 10. The restaurant is located inside the Purnell Support Center at 136 W. Purnell St. in Lewisville. Walk-ins are welcome, though they prefer customers make reservations in advance to help them with their planning. Reservations can be made by emailing starfishcreations@lisd.net. They ask that each person who comes to eat at the restaurant make a $7.50 donation, which helps fund their program. Hamden has opened its own local investigation into a police shooting involving one of its officers. Police say that on April 16, Hamden Police Officer Devin Eaton and Yale Officer Terrance Pollock opened fire on a car at the intersection of Dixwell Avenue and Argyle Street in New Haven while investigating reports of an attempted armed robbery in Hamden. A passenger in the vehicle, 22-year-old Stephanie Washington, was injured. The driver, 21-year-old Paul Witherspoon was not hit. The case is under investigation by the Connecticut State Police and the New Haven States Attorney. Both officers are currently on leave. In the days since the shooting, protesters have been demanding the firing of both officers, transparency in the investigation, and changes in the departments. Both Hamden Mayor Curt Leng and Yale officials have said they are asking for patience and waiting for the state investigation to finish before a decision will be made about the two officers' futures with their police departments. In a press release sent Friday, Leng announced that the Hamden Police Department was launching its own investigation into the incident. Hamdens investigation will focus on compliance with their department policies and expectations. The investigation will be conducted by the department's Ethics and Integrity Unit and an outside expert. The Police Chief and I have been, and will continue to be, in regular contact with the States Attorney to ensure that we avoid any potential conflict and to receive regular updates on the criminal investigation, Leng wrote in a statement. Police have released surveillance and body camera footage of the incident. The State Police investigation is ongoing. To help make sure you stay informed on the most shared and talked about stories, each Saturday and Sunday we'll revisit 5 stories from the previous week, including the most recent updates. Easter Massacre Suicide bombers struck at churches filled with worshipers and hotels in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday, killing hundreds. Several people have been arrested in the wake of the bombings. ISIS claimed responsibility for the blasts and officials warned there may still be other militants preparing new bombings. See more on the attacks here. Body Cam Captures Police Shooting State police Tuesday released body cam video from a Hamden police officer who fired his weapon after stopping a car in New Haven last week. The shooting also involved a Yale University police officer, but that officer never turned on his body camera, state police said. A 22-year-old woman in the car was shot, but did not suffer life-threatening injuries. The shooting sparked several days of protests. See more on what investigators said about the shooting here. State police on Tuesday released body cam video that showed the officer-involved shooting that injured a woman in New Haven. Strike Over Stop & Shop employees returned to work on Monday, a day after the union and the company agreed on a new contract. The deal ended an 11-day work stoppage by Stop & Shop workers. Union members approved the agreement in a vote on Thursday. Stop & Shop's parent company said the strike cost it about $100 million. For more on the agreement, click here. After an 11-day strike, Stop & Shop workers across Connecticut returned to work on Monday after the union reached a tentative contract agreement with the company. Accused Puppy Dumper Arrested A California woman accused of dumping a bag full of puppies in a dumpster was arrested on Monday. Police said 54-year-old Deborah Sue Culwell was the woman seen on video throwing the puppies into a dumpster last Thursday. Good Samaritans heard the cries of the newborn puppies and rescued them after about an hour. See more on the arrest here. Martin Shkreli has been sentenced to seven years in prison, AP reports. Screen Time Guidelines The World Health Organization has issued its first-ever guidance for how much screen time children under 5 should get: not very much, and none at all for those under 1. The U.N. health agency said Wednesday that kids under 5 should not spend more than one hour watching screens every day and that less is better. For more on the guidelines, click here. Dozens of students gathered at the Yale Police Department Friday, calling to disarm the department after a Yale officer was involved in a police shooting that injured a young woman last week. Our tuition is paying for this department. Its paying for the guns, its paying for the bullets and I do not want to have my name attached to that kind of violence, said sophomore Makayla LaRonde-King. Members of Black Students for Disarmament at Yale led the demonstration, which is the latest protest against the shooting of Stephanie Washington by Yale and Hamden police officers in New Haven 10 days ago. Police say that on April 16, Hamden Police Officer Devin Eaton and Yale Officer Terrance Pollock opened fire on a car at the intersection of Dixwell Avenue and Argyle Street in New Haven while investigating reports of an attempted armed robbery in Hamden. No weapon was found in the car. The case is under investigation by the Connecticut State Police and the New Haven States Attorney. Protesters are specifically calling for the firing of Pollock, who fired his gun in last weeks incident. They also want the restriction of Yale patrol grounds to a more reasonable campus area, and the disarming of all officers at the university. You already have New Haven Police Department. Why is it necessary for Yale PD to have weaponry as well? asked freshman Isaac Yearwood. Students pledged that despite the end of the school year drawing near, this demonstration would not be the last. We will definitely be continuing throughout the next semesters because even though this movement started out as justice for Stephanie and Paul, the history of police violence goes on way beyond that. So even if we dont get it now, were definitely going to continue to push for disarming YPD, Seyade Tadele, a sophomore, said. Part of the student demands include that Yale University President Peter Salovey respond saying the police department will disarm by noon on Sunday. NBC Connecticut reached out to Yale but has not heard back. Yale officials have said they are asking for patience and waiting for the state investigation to finish before a decision will be made about the officer's future with the department. "Mayor Pete," as he's known to his growing fan base, is running a surprisingly strong and well-funded campaign for president. Lori Lightfoot has just won a landslide victory to become Chicago's mayor. Together, the ascendance of Lightfoot and Pete Buttigieg the two-term mayor of South Bend, Indiana highlights the remarkable progress made recently by gay and lesbian politicians, to the point where their sexual orientation is either an asset or a nonissue. Both Lightfoot and Buttigieg have talked comfortably about LGBT issues and their own same-sex marriages. "The real news is not that openly gay candidates are successful, but that being openly gay has become irrelevant," said Richard Socarides, a former Clinton White House adviser on gay issues. "Here are two people with fresh ideas and a new vision for the future," Socarides said. "Voters don't care about their sexual orientation. That's a sea change." It was only in 1998 that Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin became the first openly gay person to gain a seat in the House of Representatives. There are now eight LGBT members of the House, and two in the Senate Baldwin and Arizona's Kyrsten Sinema, whose bisexuality never became an issue in her closely contested election campaign last year. Lightfoot's victory Tuesday in the third-largest U.S. city, along with lesbian Satya Rhodes-Conway's victory in Madison, Wisconsin, brings the number of LGBT mayors to 37, according to the LGBTQ Victory Fund, which recruits and supports LGBT candidates. In Colorado, Jared Polis was inaugurated in January as the nation's first openly gay governor. Annise Parker, a lesbian who served three terms as mayor of Houston and is now CEO of the Victory Fund, said LGBT candidates such as Polis and Lightfoot "are achieving positions that cause folks to sit up and take notice." "It's not a fluke or an oddity," she said. "These are dedicated, hardworking public servants who bring a directness and integrity to their service ... They're being open about who they are." Buttigieg at 37, the youngest prominent contender in the Democratic presidential race has received rave reviews for many of his public appearances and reported raising $7 million in the first fundraising period of the campaign. His husband, Chasten, has amassed 176,000 Twitter followers with cheerful and sometimes wry commentary about their relationship and their dogs, and has been invited to headline a gala being held Saturday in Houston by the Human Rights Campaign, a national LGBT rights group. Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said Lightfoot's and Buttigieg's appeal is based on "character, leadership and ideas." Yet Minter also suggested that LGBT candidates may have certain distinctive strengths. "They may be more likely to empathize with others who have experienced discrimination or obstacles," he said. "They may also be more likely to cherish the opportunity to run for office and serve, something other politicians may take for granted." One indicator of the shifts in LGBT politics is that Lightfoot, a former prosecutor, and Buttigieg, a Harvard graduate, Rhodes scholar and Afghanistan war veteran, have not been immune to criticism from some activists. "For many members of the LGBTQ community, a candidate's mere identity as gay or lesbian is not enough," said professor Katherine Franke, who teaches gender and sexuality studies at Columbia University. "Neither Lightfoot nor Buttigieg are particularly progressive in their policy positions on a number of issues," Franke said. "Lightfoot has been criticized for being too pro-prosecution and pro-police in a city that has suffered significant police violence, and Buttigieg has been critiqued for his identification with elites." Thus far, the advancement of LGBT politicians has not been a bipartisan phenomenon. Very few of the nation's top-tier LGBT elected officials have been Republicans, and only a handful of Republicans in Congress have signaled support for the Equality Act, a sweeping LGBT-nondiscrimination measure that has near-unanimous Democratic support. "It's exceedingly frustrating," Parker said. "We'd love to support more candidates in the GOP, but the party of Donald Trump has no place for them. It has chosen to attack the rights and livelihoods of LGBT people to solidify political power." Tyler Deaton of the American Unity Fund, which seeks to boost support for LGBT rights among Republicans, acknowledged in an email that LGBT Democrats "are having an amazing year." "It's a lesson to my fellow Republicans about the electability of LGBTQ candidates," he wrote. "The party needs to look more like the voters, which includes recruiting and elevating more candidates who are women, people of color, religious minorities, and LGBTQ people." The flip side is a boon for the Democratic establishment, which courts financial and political support from LGBT activists and donors. Just last week, two Democratic presidential contenders Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey spoke at a West Coast gala held by the Human Rights Campaign. For some LGBT activists, the pace of change and the greater public acceptance of LGBT candidates is dramatic. Lawyer Roberta Kaplan reflected that only six years ago she was litigating before the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of Edie Windsor, who faced an enormous tax bill because she was married to a woman instead of a man. Two years later, in 2015, the high court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. "The traditional Jewish blessing thanks God for keeping us alive, sustaining us, and bringing us to this season," Kaplan said in an email. "That is very much how I feel today when I see news like Lori Lightfoot's victory in Chicago or Pete Buttigieg's candidacy for president." At 2:30 this afternoon I was preparing to do a severe weather cut-in for large hail in Northeastern Connecticut when a tornado warning was issued. The storm was rotating fast a little more than a mile above our heads but closer to the ground the rotation was fairly minimal. NBC Connecticut Chief Meteorologist Ryan Hanrahan explains that while there was rotation at higher altitudes in a storm on Friday, stability at lower altitudes kept the rotation from reaching the ground. The atmosphere supported rotating thunderstorms today. We were forecasting hail with a brief surge in elevated instability and strong wind shear. As a storm spins an enhanced "updraft" develops which helps hail stones grow larger and larger. So why no tornado? The storm wasn't anchored near the ground. This storm was elevated - basically it was feeding off instability around a mile up. The atmosphere near the ground was very stable which would preclude tornado development - and also preclude strong winds from mixing to the ground. Hail, on the other hand, just has to rely on gravity. Gravity exists whether the air is stable or unstable so the hail stones fell to the ground readily and pelted Tolland, Stafford, and Willington. You've probably seen a lot of glossy celebrity tabloids with bold headlines about celebrities pregnant with "Miracle Babies!" We've heard of a number of celebrities pregnant late into their 40s and even at 50, at what doctors called "advanced reproductive age." Some doctors are saying those headlines and other media, can sometimes misrepresent late-life fertility, giving the average public the perception that fertility is flexible. And that trend is driving regular women to fertility specialists, asking how they can have miracle babies, too. "I'm seeing a lot of women who, for whatever their personal reasons are, they delay," said Dr. Tiffany Jones a fertility specialist with Dallas IVF. "I think we call it now, 'living our best lives.'" Women are overestimating the likelihood that they, too, can get pregnant well into their 40s -- just because they're healthy and still look and feel young -- and because popular culture is telling them that everyone else can. A 2017 New York University School of Medicine Analysis said: "widely-consumed popular media downplays the impact of age on fertility and glamorizes pregnancy at advanced ages," often leaving out the facts about *how* these women were able to get pregnant. The study said the articles rarely mentioned advanced reproductive technology, donor eggs or embryos or the health risks to mothers of advanced reproductive age. The sad and "devastating" consequence among regular people, the study concludes, is unintended childlessness. "I will say that after the age of 45, there's less than a one percent success rate using your own eggs," Jones said. And women who are pregnant late into their 40s including those celebrities we've heard about, have likely done it one of three ways: by using donor eggs, donor embryos or by using their own eggs that were previously frozen. Freezing your own eggs is advanced technology that truly is catching on. Dallas radio personality "Lady Jade" of K104-FM talked about her egg-freezing journey on air. "And I didn't realize how many people didn't know this was a thing, she said. "I didn't realize how many people had fertility issues, I didn't realize how much this was going to help other women, how empowering this was." "As women, we are put under that microscope, so now when they ask me when am I going to have babies, I say, 'Well, I kinda have them a little bit -- they're just in a freezer right now! So I can do it later on in life." And maybe egg-freezing parties will be the next big trend, when it comes to educating more women about what it takes to freeze eggs. Fertility Specialists of Texas recently hosted one in Dallas, which was attended by women looking to learn more about how they, too, can push the pause button on their biological clocks. Experts say more women should learn their options before its too late, and young women now being encouraged to freeze their eggs if they can. "Freezing your eggs in your mid- and even early 30s could save you a lot of the heartache that some women have to endure when they wait later," Jones said. But, if you are older, Jones said that doesn't mean you can't try -- if it's important to you, you have the financial means, and if you're open to the alternative options. "But we have to always be realistic," Jones said. "And I think that in Hollywood, the depictions sometimes really aren't realistic." Community activist Dominique Alexander was arrested in Denton County Friday on a 2016 warrant for felony theft of property. Alexander was arrested while at a hearing for the same case and is currently being held in the Denton County Jail. The charge, for felony theft of property between $2,500 and $30,000, was filed in May 2016. A warrant was issued in the case on April 24 and a motion was filed a day later. The hearing was scheduled for Friday. Alexander was arrested in Dallas County last week, accused of two instances of family violence against his longtime girlfriend Keyaira Saunders, a fellow activist and candidate for the Dallas City Council. Alexander co-founded the Next Generation Action Network with Saunders. On the group's Facebook page, they're described as a multi-cultural nonprofit working for social change and equality for all. With Ark-Tex Regional Economic Development Inc. taking the lead in Texarkana-area job creation nearly a year ago, the Twin-Cities Airport Finance Committee recently showcased the town's air travel advantages. Committee members met with REDI President and Chief Executive Officer Rob Sitterley and gave him an overview of the airport's structure, operations, advantages and ongoing improvement projects, the Texarkana Gazette reported. Airport Director Mark Mellinger spoke first about the airport's governing structure since both Texarkana, Texas, and Ark., jointly own the property. Mellinger said that since both cities own the airport, the Airport Authority Board is jointly made up of eight members -- four from each side. He added that the joint municipal ownership percentage of financial responsibility is based on each city's population. The Texas-side has nearly 54.7% of the population, while the Arkansas-side has slightly more than 45.2%. Mellinger said if the airport's overall annual operations and maintenance budget -- which amounts to close to $1 million -- faces a deficit, each city provides a subsidy to cover the difference based on each city's share of population as provided by a 1956 ordinance. Mellinger noted the airport also has a relatively new and large fire station, which opened a few years ago. Regarding under developed airport acreage, Mellinger said the airport has two sections of land just south of its primary and secondary runway crossings -- both sections collectively amounting to 102 acres. There's also two land sections east of the runways collectively amounting to 84 acres and one section of land to the north -- set between Interstate 49 and U.S. Highway 67 -- amounting to 28 acres. Mellinger and committee members suggested that this property could be developed in support of aviation-related manufacturing along with possible air cargo storage. As for recent and developing capital improvement projects, Mellinger pointed to the relatively recent opening of East 19th Street as the future new airport's main entrance. This would eventually allow airport users to avoid having to cross the railroad tracks running alongside U.S. Highway 67 at the older entrance. As for current and ongoing projects, Mellinger construction could start as early as next year on a proposed new 38,000 square-foot, $35 to $37 million passenger terminal to replace the 16,000 square-foot terminal that dates back to about 1960. Once that's completed, there are plans to bring new airline destinations to the airport's flight schedules. Currently only three to four flights a day exist -- all of them to and from DFW International Airport. The new terminal is also slated to be equipped with jet bridges. "We will have jet bridges because when people fly to our airport, first impressions matter," Mellinger said. Following the committee's presentation, Sitterley said he was impressed with what he saw. "Right now, there are so many great assets in this community and we just have to start marketing them and selling them to the right people wanting to locate here," he said. "REDI sells what is positive and the things I see here are positive." The Parker County Sheriffs Office wants people and businesses to be on the lookout for counterfeit bills found circulating in Parker and Palo Pino counties. The money has advertising notes that say For Motion Picture Purposes instead of "The United States of America," but police said employees arent paying close enough attention to the markings. There are $5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 bills circulating that appear to look genuine, officials said. "Be aware, those attempting to pass counterfeit bills will frequently use the fake bills at a range of stores and businesses including department stores, convenience stores, specialty stores and gas stations," said Parker County Sheriff Larry Fowler. Fowler recommends investing in a counterfeit detection marker would be an effective tool in loss prevention. 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 she'll recite a dismaying litany of calamities: mental illness, abuse, diabetes, and something dreadful about her spine. She's here awaiting correspondence from her bank. Maybe they'll replace her debit card, get her going again -- back on the grid, back from the nowhere. "Here, you get your mail and it's 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 come in can claim the ministry's 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. It's not uncommon for individual shelters to accept mail for clients, experts say. But Broad Street is believed to be the city's 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 ministry's address of 315 S. Broad St. For some, it's nothing less than salvation. According to a recent survey of people who've 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 you're somewhere, you're 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 master's 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 who'd 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, `I'm not homeless anymore.' "You normally don't hear happy endings like that. But he's 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 she'd 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 she'd 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 who's been dealing with an alcohol problem, agreed. "I get forms I need from the welfare office here," he said, explaining that he's close to starting a job in a restaurant. "This place is perfect." One of the worlds smallest surviving babies just came home to Connecticut after spending his first nine months of life in the hospital. John Florio will never have to look any further than his own hand to remember just how little his little boy was at birth. His newborn son fit entirely within it. My wedding band fit easily over his hand and foot, Florio said. Jaimie Florio was only 19 weeks pregnant when doctors noticed her babys growth falling behind because of IUGR, or intrauterine growth restriction. At 25 weeks, she was admitted to Westchester Medical Center in New York. By 26 weeks, the babys life was in jeopardy. If doctors didnt deliver immediately, they risked stillbirth. On a Friday afternoon in July, baby Connor Florio came out fighting all 11 ounces of him. The surgeon told us he came out swinging, Jaimie said. He said he was the tiniest baby hes delivered in 40 years and the feistiest. According to Dr. Dennis Davidson, unit chief of the infant floor at Blythedale Childrens Hospital in New York, babies born at 500 grams have about a 10 percent chance of survival. Connor weighed far less, at just 310 grams. A 26-week baby born at normal weight would probably have an 80 to 90 percent chance of survival today, Davidson said. However, Connor was less than half of the appropriate weight for a 26-week baby. Babies who are that small barely have a chance for survival. Two weeks would pass before the proud parents could even hold their son. So began a nine-month hospital stay full of scares and setbacks, including a brain bleed, a hole in his heart, eye disease and a potentially deadly infection. Connor required intensive respiratory support including a ventilator, developmental care and feeding tubes as he struggled to gain weight. Jaimie and John leaned on each other and their NICU nurses for support through the terrifying ordeal. I remember telling [Jaimie] that if something bad does happen, you need to enjoy the time that we did have with him, John said. But with the expert medical care he received at Blythedale and Maria Fareri children's hospitals, this little superhero defied the odds. With tiny clothes made for teddy bears, Jaimie and John found fun in the face of fear. A NICU nurse purchased a Superman outfit for Connor in October from Build-A-Bear, inspiring the parents to dress him in colorful costumes for every holiday after that: A pilgrim for Thanksgiving, an elf for Christmas, Cupid, a leprechaun, even Abraham Lincoln for Presidents Day a wink to his dads job as a history teacher. It gave the family something to look forward to. Youve got to smile and find the joy in everything that you do, because those moments are going to disappear, John said. And if you dont find the joy in them, youre not going to want to remember them. Now its time to make new memories at home. After 270 days in the hospital, Connor finally came home to Danbury on April 9. Hes still on oxygen, a feeding tube and a monitor, and takes medications eight times a day. But overall, hes happy and healthy, weighing almost 11 pounds, and doctors expect him to thrive. He cracks us up because hes such a goofball. He likes to stick his tongue out. He smiles all the time. Hes got a smirk-y smile, talks, John said. Who knew someone so tiny could teach a life lesson so big: No matter the odds, there is always hope. Even if its one in 500, why cant you be the one? What to Know Mourners pay their final respects to Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Christopher Slutman The 43-year-old father of three young daughters died on April 8 near Bagram Airfield U.S military base A 15-year FDNY veteran, Slutman was with Ladder 27 in the Bronx; he got a medal for bravery after rescuing a woman from a burning apartment Mourners from across the country are paying their final respects to a U.S. Marine and decorated FDNY firefighter killed in a bombing in Afghanistan earlier this month. The flag-draped casket of Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Christopher Slutman left a Bronx funeral home atop a fire engine caisson Friday morning for St. Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue. Fellow firefighters and mourners lined Fifth Avenue under a gray and rainy sky to pay their final respects to Slutman during a solemn procession. The 43-year-old father of three young daughters died on April 8 near Bagram Airfield U.S military base. Two other members of Slutman's Massachusetts-based Marine Reserve unit also were killed. A 15-year FDNY veteran, Slutman was with Ladder 27 in the Bronx. He got a medal for bravery after rescuing a woman from a burning apartment. A native of Newark, Delaware, Slutman also had been a firefighter in Maryland. During the solemn service, various speakers addressed the mourners to honor Slutman, including Marine Sgt. Major Chris Armstrong who described Slutman as a "leader, who was respected and admired." "When I received the terrible news, my heart broke as I thought of Chris' family and unit," Armstrong said, while fighting back tears, urging those in attendance to keep his memory alive, calling him a "hero." After sharing anecdotes involving the humerous side of Slutman, FDNY member Chris Williamson, who previously served as Slutman's captain in Ladder 17 for four years, said members of the department were heartbroken upon hearing the tragic news. "Today our city mourns a hero," Mayor Bill de Blasio said, adding Slutman represented "the best in us." De Blasio told those in attendance, that all though he was "taken too soon," Slutman's "fearless spirit reached so far, touched so many. Made this world inmeasurably better." Slutman's best friend for over 30 years described as "embodied everything great about this great nation." Slutman, who worked with Ladders 27 and 17 in the Bronx, is survived by his wife and three young daughters. A second New Yorker, 25 year-old Robert Hendriks of Locust Valley also died in the attack. He was laid to rest in Caveltorn, Long Island, earlier this week. Benjamin Hines, 31, of York, Pennsylvania, was the third victim, the Department of Defense said. Russias efforts to influence American public opinion are not confined only to periods around elections but are a 365-days-a-year threat, FBI Director Christopher Wray said Friday. The FBI chief said Russias campaign consists of constant use of social media, with "fake news, propaganda, false personas, et cetera, to spin us up, pit us against each other, sow divisiveness and discord, and undermine Americans' faith in democracy, NBC News reported. In an appearance before the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, Wray said social media companies "have made enormous strides" in identifying and shutting down Russia's social media efforts. What to Know Measles, which can become very serious and even cause death, is at a 25-year high in the United States Los Angeles County has five residents with confirmed cases so far this year Most cases in California have been linked to overseas travelers Some students and employees possibly exposed to measles at two Los Angeles universities were still quarantined on campus or told to stay home Friday, but the numbers were dwindling as people were able to show they were vaccinated for the highly contagious disease. The measures were ordered this week at the University of California, Los Angeles, and California State University, Los Angeles, after health officials determined that two infected people visited buildings on the sprawling campuses this month. Measles, which can become very serious and even cause death, is at a 25-year high in the United States, largely attributed to misinformation that is turning parents against vaccines. President Donald Trump on Friday urged Americans to get immunizations to stop measles from spreading. Los Angeles County has five residents with confirmed cases so far this year, all linked to people who traveled overseas. "One person with a confirmed measles case can expose thousands of people to measles," Dr. Barbara Ferrer, Los Angeles County's public health department director, said Thursday. UCLA spokesman Tod Tamberg said there was one student remaining in quarantine on campus, where the school arranged for care for those who live in residence halls. And fewer than 50 students and faculty members were still isolated at their houses off campus while officials determine if they have been vaccinated or have immunity, Tamberg said. The 45,000-student university was notified Monday that a student with a confirmed case of measles had been in two campus buildings on three days early this month. Initially, more than 500 students, staff and faculty were told they may have been exposed, but most were cleared. Public health officials quarantined 127 people Wednesday, but the number has fallen rapidly since then. Across the city, Cal State LA this week sent home under quarantine orders some staffers and student employees of a library that an infected person visited on April 11. On Friday afternoon, 110 students and 21 staff had been cleared, and 106 staff and 550 students are under quarantine orders from the Department of Public Health. They have been told to stay home and avoid contact with others, as much as possible. Measles in the United States has climbed to its highest level in a quarter century, closing in on 700 cases this year. Roughly three-quarters of this year's illnesses have been in New York state. In response to outbreaks, lawmakers in states like California, Washington state and Oregon are moving to crack down on exemptions to vaccinating children, which have drawn emotional protests. California had recorded 38 measles cases as of Thursday; there were 11 around the same time last year, said Dr. Karen Smith, director of the California Department of Public Health. The state typically sees fewer than two dozen cases a year, she said. More than 76% of patients were not vaccinated or did not receive the recommended two doses of vaccine, Smith said. Fourteen of those infected had traveled overseas to countries including Philippines, Thailand, India and Ukraine. Measles in most people causes fever, runny nose, cough and a rash all over the body. However, a small fraction of those infected can have complications such as pneumonia and a dangerous swelling of the brain. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends the vaccine for everyone over a year old, except for people who had the disease as children. Those who have had measles are immune. The vaccine, which became available in the 1960s, is considered safe and effective, and because of it, measles had been declared all but eliminated in the U.S. in 2000. But it has made comebacks since then. A 23-year-old Lake Elsinore man accused of repeatedly molesting a girl at his family's day care business was sentenced Friday to 30 years in state prison. Jacob Blas pleaded guilty last month to three counts of forcible lewd acts on a minor under an amended criminal complaint that dismissed five counts of oral copulation of a child under 10 years old. Riverside County Superior Court Judge Bambi Moyer certified the plea agreement and imposed the stipulated sentence. In addition to the prison term, the judge ordered Blas to register as a convicted sex offender when he is paroled. Sheriff's investigators received a report in late April 2017 that a girl had been molested at the Rea Family Daycare on Bella Aliza, near Summerhill Drive, according to Sgt. Steve Brosche. Detectives uncovered evidence that the victim, identified in court documents only as Jane Doe, was sexually assaulted while under Blas' supervision. The defendant lived on-site at the time, according to the sergeant. The District Attorney's Office said that the abuse occurred between January 2014 and the latter half of 2015. Blas fixed his attentions on the girl beginning when she was 6 years old, taking her aside after other children had left the day care, according to prosecutors. The victim's younger brother was at the facility around the same time, but was apparently distracted or left in another room when his sibling was assaulted, according to investigators. Riverside County Child Protective Services, the California Department of Social Services and the California Department of Justice all initiated investigations of the family day care after the criminal complaint was filed against Blas, who had no prior felony or misdemeanor convictions. The outcome of the investigations could not be confirmed. What to Know John Singleton has been in a Los Angeles hospital since an April 17 stroke. Singleton's daughter Cleopatra claims that doctors are still determining her father's condition. Shonda Rhimes, the Rev. Al Sharpton and fellow director Ava DuVernay offered their prayers on Twitter. The daughter of "Boyz N the Hood" director John Singleton disputed his mothers account that hes in a coma in a court filing Friday, saying that hes recovering from an April 17 stroke. Cleopatra Singleton, 19, said in the declaration filed in Los Angeles Superior Court that doctors are still determining the condition of her 51-year-old father, who has been in a Los Angeles hospital since an April 17 stroke. "My father is not in a coma," Cleopatra Singleton writes in the document. She adds that although doctors "do not have a concrete diagnosis, my dad is progressing every day ... My father is breathing on his own. He is only medically sedated to keep his blood pressure low and allow the vessels in his brain to heal." Cleopatra Singleton said her fathers mother, Shelia Ward, is misrepresenting his condition as she seeks to become his conservator and make medical and financial decisions for him. A form from a doctor at Singletons hospital filed with the court by Wards lawyer Thursday says John Singleton is incapacitated and cant make his own decisions, but it doesnt address whether hes in a coma. Cleopatra Singleton opposes her grandmother becoming conservator, and she suggests another family member, possibly his father or eldest son, assume the role. An email to Wards attorney seeking comment Friday was not immediately answered. The filing suggests a rift between Singletons mother and children that precedes his stroke. Cleopatra Singleton, who is a college sophomore at Xavier University of Louisiana, writes that her grandmother has acted as her sons personal and business manager since the beginning of his film career, and she has mismanaged his affairs. "She has abused this position particularly pertaining to the support of his children," the court filing says. "Sadly my fathers allowed his mother to stay in that position out of fear and obligation to her." Shelia Ward had asked in the court Thursday to immediately appoint her as conservator, saying essential financial moves must be made by the end of the month or her son will suffer significant losses. The daughters opposition makes an immediate decision from a judge unlikely and could point to a longer court fight. Johm Singleton was nominated for an Oscar for 1991s "Boyz N the Hood." His other films include "Poetic Justice," starring Janet Jackson, and his recent projects include the TV series "Snowfall." His friends, colleagues and admirers were wishing him well as word of his poor health spread. Shonda Rhimes, the Rev. Al Sharpton and fellow director Ava DuVernay were among those offering prayers on Twitter. "Lifting my highest thoughts + prayers of intercession for John Singleton," DuVernay said in a tweet that included photos of the two directors together. "His films helped form me. His kindness lifted me up. I remember him coming to the premiere of my indie years ago. Showing love/support for a fellow black director from LA. He is a lovely man. Pray with me." A 17th century Geneva Bible, one of the hundreds of rare books authorities said were stolen from a Pittsburgh library as part of a 20-year-long theft scheme, is back home. The Bible, published in 1615, was traced to the American Pilgrim Museum in Leiden, about 45 miles from Amsterdam in the Netherlands, said FBI agent Robert Jones. It was among more than 300 rare books, maps, plate books, atlases and more that were discovered missing from the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh last year. A former archivist at the library and a rare book dealer are accused of stealing books valued at more than $8 million. The Bible "is more than a piece of evidence," Jones said Thursday at a news conference in Pittsburgh. "I am happy to say it has finally made its way back to its rightful owner here in Pittsburgh." There are several similar Bibles, Jones said afterward. "From a dollar-figure sense, it is not priceless," he said. "From a history perspective, it is priceless." The Dutch museum had paid $1,200 for the Bible, District Attorney Stephen Zappala Jr. said. The first edition of the Geneva Bible was published in 1560. This particular edition, published in London four years after the first King James version, is similar to a Bible known to have been brought over by the Pilgrims in 1620, Jones said. The FBI will hand over the Bible to Allegheny County prosecutors, who will return it to the library, Zappala Jr. said. After charges were filed last year, Zappala said, the director of the Dutch museum contacted police in The Hague and the Carnegie Library, which in turn contacted the FBI in Pittsburgh. The FBI in The Hague worked with the museum and then shipped the Bible to FBI offices in Pittsburgh, said FBI agent Shawn Brokos. Wearing blue latex gloves, she displayed the Bible, carefully opening its weathered pages. The FBI hopes news of the recovery of this Bible will prompt others to look at their collections for any possible items stolen from the Pittsburgh library. "Some probably are in private collections," Jones said. Prosecutors in Pittsburgh have so far recovered 18 of the books stolen from the library, Zappala said. They have been found in the U.S. and abroad. One copy of Isaac Newton's "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica," a watershed of science valued at $900,000, and John Adams' "A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America," valued at $20,000, are among the items prosecutors have recovered, Zappala's spokesman said. One of the books not yet recovered is "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" the magnum opus by philosopher Adam Smith, valued at $180,000. The room at the Carnegie Library where the stolen items were on display remains closed. Zappala said he will discuss with the Carnegie Library on displaying this Bible to the public. A woman is recovering after police say she was attacked by six pit bulls while walking her daughter's dog Wednesday night in Taunton, Massachusetts. An officer on routine patrol was in the area of 187 Broadway at 8:45 p.m. when he saw a woman running in the middle of the road. The officer then witnessed six pit bulls following and attacking 51-year-old Rochelle Silva. "At least three of them started charging at me down the driveway," Silva said. She ended up in her neighbor's yard, with her body over her daughter's dog, Ace, trying to protect him. The officer who noticed Silva pulled over his cruiser and ran to assist her. When he approached, some of the dogs turned toward him as if they were going to attack the officer. Police said because the dogs were on top of the woman, the officer was unable to discharge his firearm safely at any of the dogs, so instead, he went back to his cruiser and activated the sirens and air horn to try to distract the animals. The distraction allowed the woman enough time to get to her feet and allow the officer and a good Samaritan to get the woman into the officer's cruiser. "I thought I was going to die," Silva said. "The chunks that were coming out of my body, I could feel them." "She was in a ball, and a guy pulled over, and he was wearing a neon shirt and was helping her," neighbor Stefanie Murphy recalled. At that time, the owner of the dogs came out of his house to try and get the dogs under control. Police said that's when some of the dogs tried to jump through the open front driver's side window of the cruiser to attack the officer. The officer was able to roll up the window to avoid being bitten, but the good Samaritan was bitten in the process. The attack also killed Ace. The dog's owner was eventually able to get all the dogs back inside his house. "He had six of them, and here, you're not supposed to have more than three of them without a kennel license, and I doubt he had that, either," said the victim's daughter, Arianna Silva. The woman who was attacked was taken to Rhode Island Hospital and suffered non-life-threatening injuries. The good Samaritan took himself to an area hospital for treatment of a leg injury. The family says Silva can't walk, and she'll now be unable to work as she'll need to go to rehab. They also miss Ace and want justice. "It's how you raise them," Rochelle Silva said. "He had to be raising them as a fighter does, because they were on attack." "I hope they put them down," Arianna Silva said. "As much as I'm saddened for my mom that it happened to her, I'm so happy it didn't happen to a little girl or boy walking down the street with their mom or dad." An initial investigation showed that the owner had opened his door when one of the pit bulls escaped. When he turned to get the dog, the other dogs pushed through the door and immediately began attacking the woman. The incident remains under investigation. All six dogs have been seized by Taunton Animal Control and will be quarantined prior to a hearing with the owner. Six Democratic presidential candidates are promoting their solidarity with workers and focusing on wages and other issues of importance to labor as they hope to win support from one of the country's major unions. A forum Saturday organized by the liberal Center for American Progress Action Fund and the Service Employees International Union comes as union leaders and their backers worry that 2020 field of at least 20 Democratic contenders is not spending enough time on bread-and-butter concerns. For example, several candidates this past week debated whether criminals in prison should have the chance to win back their right to vote. It's the type of issue that some labor leaders worry has nothing to do with the economic issues that typically motivate working-class voters. That concern is helping propel former Vice President Joe Biden's newly launched campaign. Biden's first public event is Monday at a union hall in Pittsburgh where he is expected to pick up the endorsement of the International Association of Fire Fighters. Labor is a pillar of the Democratic Party, but many white working-class voters and union members in swing states backed Republican Donald Trump in 2016. Democrats are working to win back those voters in the next presidential election, but party leaders and union members are telling candidates that they need to talk about issues that matter to working families. "I don't think you can ever have enough" discussion of those issues, former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told reporters Thursday. He said that despite record-low unemployment, "we have so many people unemployed or underemployed." He hoped candidate at Saturday's event focused on ways to deal with automation and a skills gap between what employers want and what job candidates know. Much of the Democratic conversation has centered on liberal idea such as "Medicare for All" and the Green New Deal climate change plan. But some of the White House contenders speaking in Las Vegas have made concerted union appeals. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar told airline and rail workers at a union convention in Las Vegas this month that she would enforce prevailing wage laws. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren joined striking Stop & Shop workers on a picket line in New Hampshire this month. California Sen. Kamala Harris hired a top SEIU official for her campaign. Others scheduled to speak at the forum are former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke, former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper and former Obama housing chief Julian Castro. The SEIU, one of the country's largest unions, has about 2 million members. The union said it would consider endorsing a candidate who commits to making it easier for workers to join a union, supports a $15 minimum wage and goes beyond walking a picket line with workers by shadowing them at work. The union's president, Mary Kay Henry, said the union has no timeline for an endorsement but does not expect one soon. Henry said the candidates have discussed fragments of the issues faced by working people, such as affordable child care or health care, but generally have not focused on "a comprehensive set of actions that we think the next president can take that would commit to ending poverty wage work in this nation." Henry said that includes discussions about "unrigging the rules" of the economy, holding corporations accountable and strengthening unions. "You can't really make progress or have the power to improve kitchen-table issues like wages, affordable health care, affordable child care and a secure retirement unless we figure out a way for millions more people to get a seat at the table and be able to bargain," she said. In a largely symbolic gesture to a group that helped him win the White House, President Donald Trump said Friday he is pulling the U.S. back from an international agreement on the arms trade, telling the National Rifle Association the treaty is "badly misguided." Trump made the announcement at the NRA's annual convention, where he vowed to fight for gun rights and implored members of the nation's largest pro-gun group struggling to maintain its influence to rally behind his re-election bid. "It's under assault," he said of the constitutional right to bear arms. "But not while we're here." With pro-gun legislation largely stalled in Congress and few deliverables during Trump's term so far, the president told the group that he would be revoking the United States' status as a signatory of the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty, which regulates the multibillion-dollar global arms trade in conventional weapons, from small arms to battle tanks, combat aircraft and warships. President Barack Obama signed the pact, which has long been opposed by the NRA, in 2013. But it has never been ratified by U.S. lawmakers. "Under my administration, we will never surrender American sovereignty to anyone," Trump said, before signing a document on stage directing the Senate to halt the ratification process. "We will never allow foreign diplomats to trample on your Second Amendment freedom." "I hope you're happy," he told the group, then appeared surprised by the cheers. "I'm impressed," he said. "I didn't think too many of you would really know what it is." His move against the treaty came as Trump sought to excite an organization that was pivotal to his victory in 2016 but, three years later, is limping toward the next election divided and diminished. And it represents just the latest in a series of withdrawals from international pacts and organizations joined by previous administrations, like the Paris climate accord and the Iran nuclear deal. Gun activists had denounced the treaty when it was under negotiation as an infringement of civilian firearm ownership, despite the well-enshrined legal principle that says no treaty can override the Constitution or U.S. laws. The treaty is aimed at cracking down on illicit trading in small arms, thereby curbing violence in some of the most troubled corners of the world. It was the first legally binding treaty to regulate the international trade in conventional arms and was overwhelmingly approved by the 193-member U.N. General Assembly in April 2013. It has been ratified by 101 countries but key arms exporters including Russia and China and major importers such as India and Egypt have given no indication that they will sign it. Advocates of tighter gun restrictions and those who had helped negotiate the treaty denounced Trump's decision Friday. Kris Brown, president of the Brady organization, said will "only embolden terrorists and other dangerous actors around the world." And Rachel Stohl, managing director of the Stimson Center and a consultant to the treaty negotiations, said: "By turning its back on multilateral diplomacy yet again, the United States is disregarding global norms and allowing nefarious actors to trade weapons with impunity." Yet Trump's showy rejection of the agreement from the stage has limited effect because it has been unlikely all along that he would send the treaty to the Senate for ratification. At the United Nations, spokesman Stephane Dujarric called the treaty "a landmark achievement in the efforts to ensure responsibility in international arms transfers" and particularly important at a time of renewed interest in expanding weapons arsenals. Trump's speech came at a troubled time for the gun rights organization, a one-time Republican kingmaker, which has been grappling with infighting, bleeding money and facing a series of investigations into its operating practices, including allegations that covert Russian agents seeking to influence the 2016 election courted its officials and funneled money through the group. As Trump landed in Indianapolis, a judge imposed an 18-month prison term on gun rights activist Maria Butina, an admitted Russian agent who, according to her plea agreement, worked with a former Russian lawmaker to use their contacts in the NRA to pursue back channels to American conservatives during the 2016 presidential campaign. While the group had high hopes for easing gun regulations after pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into 2016 campaigns, much of the legislation the group championed has stalled, due, in part, to a series of mass shootings, including the massacre at a Parkland, Florida, high school that left 17 dead. Adam Winkler, a UCLA law professor and expert on gun policy, allowed that the group had scored some victories under Trump, including the appointment of two Supreme Court justices who may be open to striking down gun laws. But overall, he said, "On the legislative front, the NRA has been frustrated," with priorities like national reciprocity for conceal carry laws and a repeal of the ban on silencers stalled. Instead, Trump introduced a new federal regulation: a ban on bump stocks after a man using the device opened fire on a crowd of concertgoers on the Las Vegas strip, killing 58 people and wounding hundreds. That bothered some members attending the convention, even as many donned "Make America Great Again" hats and cheered Trump loudly. Mike Cook, who works at a shipyard in Alabama, said he's been disappointed that gun rights haven't seen much movement under Trump. The bump stock ban, in particular, upset him because it was done administratively by Trump officials. He's uncertain if the millions spent on Trump's campaign in 2016 were worth it. But, he said, Trump is "better than the alternatives." Associated Press writers Deb Riechmann,Laurie Kellman and Edith Lederer contributed to this report. An apparently hallucinating Florida man used a bedpost to attack a mattress where he thought a man was hiding. In a Facebook post , The Okaloosa County Sheriff's office quotes the girlfriend of 37-year-old Felipe Oquendo as saying that he began acting erratically early Friday. The girlfriend told deputies Oquendo thought she was cheating on him with a man he thought he saw in the mattress at their Fort Walton Beach home. She said Oquendo hit the mattress with a bed post, ripped it apart and locked the bedroom door. She was able to escape and call police. The sheriff's office says Oquendo later admitted to having smoked meth. Jail records don't list a lawyer for him. Kansas' highest court declared for the first time Friday that the state constitution protects abortion rights, a sweeping ruling that blocks a ban on a common second trimester method for ending pregnancies and endangers other restrictions as well. The state Supreme Court's decision immediately roiled Kansas politics. Abortion opponents called for amending the state constitution but might wait to push for a change until next year, when all state lawmakers face voters. The court's decision was a big victory for abortion rights supporters in a state with a Republican-controlled Legislature long hostile to their cause. It also comes with other, GOP-controlled states moving to ban most abortions in direct challenges to the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortions across the nation. "I'm beyond elated," said Julie Burkart, CEO and founder of the Trust Women Foundation, which operates a clinic providing abortions in Wichita. "This is what we were hoping for." The decision prevents the state from enforcing what was a first-in-the-nation 2015 law that could have greatly limited second trimester abortions. But even worse for abortion opponents, the ruling clears the way for legal challenges to a string of abortion restrictions approved by state lawmakers under Republican governors before last year's election of Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, an abortion rights supporter. "It's very extreme," said Mary Kay Culp, executive director of Kansans for Life, the state's most influential anti-abortion group. "It's as bad as we could have imagined it and has potential to overturn pro-life laws." The court's majority said vague language protecting "equal and inalienable rights" in the first section of the Kansas Constitution's Bill of Rights grants a "natural right of personal autonomy" that includes the right to "control one's own body" and to decide whether to continue a pregnancy. The 6-1 majority rejected the state's arguments that there is no protection for abortion rights because most abortions were illegal in Kansas Territory when the state constitution was written in 1859. The majority said at the time, women faced a "paternalistic attitude" and a lack of recognition that they had the same rights as men. "True equality of opportunity in the full range of human endeavor is a Kansas constitutional value, and it cannot be met if the ability to seize and maximize opportunity is tethered to prejudices from two centuries ago," the unsigned majority opinion said. The court also declared that restrictions on abortion will face strict scrutiny, so the state must show that a law is narrowly drawn to deal with a "compelling" interest. That's higher than the U.S. Supreme Court's standard that under the federal constitution, restrictions must avoid placing an undue burden on a woman's access to abortion. The Kansas court's dissenter was Justice Caleb Stegall, the only appointee of a conservative Republican governor. The court's two most senior justices were appointed by a moderate Republican, and four by a Democrat. Conservative Republicans have long complained that the court is too liberal and Kansans for Life tried in 2016 to oust four of the justices in Friday's majority when voters ultimately decided that they should stay on the bench for another six years. Stegall declared that "an important right of self-government has been stolen away" from Kansans residents and derided the majority for suggesting that "luminaries of the western legal tradition" would support "nearly unfettered abortion access." "In this imagined world, the Liberty Bell rings every time a baby in utero loses and arm," Stegall wrote. Top Republican legislators also quickly condemned the decision, saying it was out of step with the state's values. Legislators could pursue a constitutional amendment after they reconvene Wednesday following an annual spring break. However, GOP leaders had wanted to wrap up business within a week, and Culp said Kansans for Life wants to make sure it is "as organized and strategic and successful" as possible for a push to amend the constitution. The decision Friday came two years after the Kansas court heard arguments from attorneys, an unusually long delay for a ruling. Iowa's Supreme Court issued a similar decision in 2018. Kelly said she is pleased that the court has recognized a woman's right to "make her own medical decisions." Burkhart said Trust Women will be considering what other restrictions can be challenged. In previous cases, Kansas' highest court avoided the question of whether the state constitution protects abortion rights, allowing U.S. Supreme Court decisions to determine what restrictions would be allowed. But when two providers sued over the 2015 law, a state district court judge blocked its enforcement and declared that the Kansas Constitution protects abortion rights. The Supreme Court sent the case back to the lower court for a trial on the lawsuit but kept the judge's injunction in place, saying the providers are likely to succeed in invalidating the law. The law would bar physicians from using forceps or similar instruments on a live fetus to remove it from the womb in pieces, using the non-medical term "dismemberment abortion" to describe the procedure. Such instruments are commonly used in dilation and evacuation procedure, which the Center for Reproductive Rights has described as the safest and most common abortion procedure in the U.S. in the second trimester. The Kansas law was model legislation drafted by the National Right to Life Committee. The group says similar bans have been enacted in 10 other states Oklahoma, West Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, Kentucky, Ohio and North Dakota. Abortion providers reported performing 484 dilation and evacuation procedures in Kansas in 2018, according to state health department statistics. That was 6.9% of the state's total abortions; most pregnancies were terminated during the first trimester. Associated Press Writer Roxana Hegeman contributed. It was a far cry from "I love WikiLeaks!" President Donald Trump declared that "I know nothing about WikiLeaks" after its disheveled founder Julian Assange was hauled out of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to face charges, a stark contrast to how candidate Trump showered praise on Assange's hacking organization night after night during the final weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign. Asked about Thursday's arrest, Trump said at the White House, "It's not my thing. I know there is something having to do with Julian Assange. I've been seeing what's happened with Assange and that will be a determination, I would imagine, mostly by the attorney general, who's doing an excellent job. So, he'll be making a determination . I know nothing really about him." "It's not my deal in life." But WikiLeaks was Trump's deal in 2016 as he welcomed the political boost his campaign got and cheered on the release of Clinton campaign emails. 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 Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, John Podesta. Trump and his allies, facing a tough battle in the campaign's final month, seized on the illegal 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. Assange for years has been under U.S. Justice Department scrutiny for WikiLeaks' role in publishing thousands of government secrets. He was an important figure in special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe, as investigators examined how WikiLeaks obtained emails that were stolen from Democratic groups. When asked about Assange in 2017, Trump said he did not "support or unsupport" WikiLeaks' move to release hacked emails and that he would not be involved in any decision for the U.S. government to arrest Assange. "I am not involved in that decision," whether or not to arrest Assange, Trump told The Associated Press then, "but if they want to do it, it's OK with me." The Justice Department now has charged Assange with taking part in a computer hacking conspiracy, accusing him of scheming with Chelsea Manning, a former Army intelligence analyst, to break a password for a classified government computer. The single charge of computer intrusion conspiracy carries up to five years in prison, though the Justice Department can add additional charges depending on the evidence it gathers. Manning was ordered jailed last month for refusing to testify before a grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, suggesting that prosecutors are still at work. It was unclear why the Assange charge, which was brought under seal last year, was made public at this time and why he was taken into custody now weeks after Mueller's investigation had concluded. None of the allegations in the case relate to Russian election interference or WikiLeaks' role in publishing emails stolen from Democrats by Russian intelligence operatives. An indictment against 12 Russians last year described WikiLeaks' role in publishing hacked emails in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. Though the indictment said WikiLeaks had worked to coordinate the release of information, there was no allegation that the organization solicited the hacking of Democratic email accounts or worked with Russians. Assange's arrest provoked passionate responses overseas, and from some who had expressed concern about whistleblower protections, but the initial bipartisan reaction in Washington was relief. "I'm glad to see the wheels of justice are finally turning when it comes to Julian Assange," tweeted Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a Trump ally. "In my book, he has NEVER been a hero. His actions - releasing classified information - put our troops at risk and jeopardized the lives of those who helped us in Iraq and Afghanistan." And Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, ranking Democrat on the intelligence committee, said he hoped the British courts would quickly transfer Assange to U.S. custody "so he can finally get the justice he deserves." Assange's lawyer has previously said he planned to fight any U.S. charges against him. Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in 2012 after he was released on bail in Britain while facing extradition to Sweden on sexual assault allegations that have since been dropped. British police said Assange had been arrested Thursday for breaching his bail conditions and in relation to the U.S. arrest request. Associated Press writer Darlene Superville contributed. Democrats will "never" see President Donald Trump's tax returns, said White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney on Sunday, as a new front opened in the confrontation between the administration and Congress. Mulvaney accused Democrats of engaging in a "political stunt" and wanting "attention" after the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Richard Neal, asked the IRS to provide six years of Trump's personal tax returns and the returns for some of his businesses. "That is not going to happen and they know it," Mulvaney told "Fox News Sunday." Asked whether he believe Democrats would ever view the president's returns, Mulvaney replied: "Oh no, never. Nor should they." Last week, Massachusetts Democrat Neal, one of only three congressional officials authorized to request tax returns, requested Trump's personal and business returns in a letter to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig. He asked for returns covering 2013 through 2018. He also asked for the documents in seven days, setting an April 10 deadline. An obscure 1924 statute includes no exceptions to Neal's authority to ask the Treasury Department for returns and says the department "shall furnish" them when requested. It does require that the review of an individual's return be conducted by members of Congress in "closed executive session" if the returns are provided without the taxpayer's consent. Still, Mulvaney claimed the law provides for lawmakers to review individual tax returns but "political hit job is not one of those reasons." His comments echoed those made by Trump's lawyers who argued the Democratic request "would set a dangerous precedent" if granted. Trump broke with precedent when he chose not to release any tax returns as a presidential candidate. Mulvaney tried to cast the issue of the president's taxes as old news, saying it was "already litigated during the election" and the American people "elected him anyway." Trump has said he won't release the information because he is under audit, something he reiterated again Friday while visiting the U.S-Mexico border. "I'm under audit. When you're under audit you don't do it," Trump said. IRS officials have said taxpayers under audit are free to release their returns. Trump claimed at a news conference following his election in November 2018 that the filings are too complex for people to understand. William Consovoy, whose firm was retained by Trump to represent him on the matter, said in a letter Friday to the Department of Treasury's general counsel that the tax code zealously guards taxpayer privacy. He said requests for tax returns "must have a legitimate legislative purpose." Neal has said he made the request to review the IRS policy of auditing the tax returns of all sitting presidents and vice presidents, saying, "little is known about the effectiveness of this program." "On behalf of the American people, the Ways and Means Committee must determine if that policy is being followed, and if so, whether these audits are conducted fully and appropriately," Neal said when unveiling his request for Trump's returns. Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, the GOP's 2012 presidential nominee who has been an occasional critic of Trump's, called Democrats' actions "moronic." He told NBC's "Meet the Press" that he believes Trump should release his tax returns, but by demanding them, "I think the Democrats are just playing along his handbook." President Donald Trump's pick for the Justice Department's No. 3 position has withdrawn her name from consideration after encountering opposition on the Republican-led Senate Judiciary Committee because of her past membership in a lawyers' group that has supported abortion rights. Jessie Liu will instead stay on in her current position as the United States attorney for the District of Columbia, the Justice Department said Thursday. A person familiar with the process said Liu's selection was jeopardized by her involvement more than a decade ago in a legal group, the National Association of Women Lawyers, that filed legal briefs in support of abortion rights and that opposed the Supreme Court nomination of Samuel Alito, a conservative justice. Though Liu was a senior official of the lawyers' group at the time of Alito's nomination, she did not sign onto the letter opposing Alito's nomination and instead signed a separate Yale Law School alumni letter in support of him, according to the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the process. Liu said in an interview with the National Review published this month that she "was then and am now a huge admirer of Justice Alito" and that she ultimately resigned from the group as it took left-leaning positions. Still, Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican who once clerked for Alito on a federal appeals court, made clear his opposition to Liu's nomination, according to the person and the senator's office. Other Republicans on the committee likely would have raised similar concerns, denying her the necessary votes for confirmation. The associate attorney general position is the third-highest ranking Justice Department job in Washington, responsible for overseeing issues including civil litigation, civil rights, antitrust and environmental matters. Her withdrawal could delay Attorney General William Barr's efforts to assemble a new leadership team around him as he begins implementing his agenda. "Jessie Liu is one of the finest, most impressive people serving in the Department of Justice," Barr said in a statement. "She has been an outstanding United States Attorney and would have made an outstanding Associate Attorney General. I have zero doubt she would have faithfully executed my priorities and advanced my rule-of-law agenda." He appointed Liu to serve as chairwoman of a committee of U.S. attorneys that advises him. As top federal prosecutor in the nation's capital, Liu will continue overseeing some of the matters referred to her office by special counsel Robert Mueller during his recently concluded investigation into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. Those include a subpoena issued to an unidentified company owned by a foreign government. The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from the company, which for months has refused to turn over documents demanded by Mueller's team. The first associate attorney general in the Trump administration, Rachel Brand, left her position after less than a year. A man was arrested Friday for allegedly setting fire to a church in Bethlehem, Northampton County, police said. Wilmer J. Ortiz Torres, 43, of Allentown, was charged with arson, burglary and criminal trespass for allegedly causing a fire early Thursday at the Iglesia Pentecostal de Bethlehem on Pembroke Road in Bethlehem, police said. Firefighters responded to the blaze shortly before 2 a.m. and contained it to the roof of the church above the sanctuary area, police said. It was the second fire at the church in two days. Bethlehem police's arson dog "Silver" sniffed out the presence of an accelerant, police said. Through an investigation, police said Ortiz Torres was identified as a suspect and arrested. What to Know Mair was among four Camden County police officers who helped rescue two men as flames raced through their cars after a crash on I-676. The Camden officers, a Delaware River Port Authority Police officer and a group of bystanders worked through the heat of the fire April 7. Mair suffered serious leg injuries when he was run over while investigating another car wreck Thursday night. One of four Camden County police officers honored recently for pulling two people from a burning car wreck was fighting for his life Friday after being struck by a taxi. Officer Joseph Mair was checking out another car wreck late Thursday night in Camden City when the taxi, which had been involved in the crash Mair was investigating, allegedly accelerated into the cop, police said. It was not clear Friday night exactly what happened to cause the taxi driver to begin driving and run over Mair, police said. The driver has not yet been charged. "Officer Mair actually went under the vehicle," Camden County police Chief Scott Thomson said. "The wheels went over the top of Officer Mair." Camden Co. Police Dept. He is in intensive care at a nearby hospital with extensive injuries to his hip and legs, police said. Mair and three fellow officers, along with some bystanders, became instant heroes last week after body camera footage from a fiery crash April 7 showed a rescue of two men. Mair, along with Officers Vaughn Edwards, Brian McCline and Vincent Russomanno were honored last Friday. Four Camden police officers were honored Friday after they pulled four men from the burning wreckage of a car crash on Interstate 676. The video showed them shattering windows and withstanding intense as flames engulfed two vehicles and began burning the drivers trapped inside. Aided by Delaware River Port Authority police Officer Franklin Flash and various bystanders, the officials pulled the men away from the wreckage just before the flames fully engulfed the cars. "Your adrenaline's rushing, but at the end of the day you have a job to do and you don't want anyone getting hurt. Our motto here is, 'Service before self,' so we have to put that before ourselves," Edwards said. Thomson, the police chief, said he visited with Mair in the hospital and the officer is already itching to get back on the job. "He wants to get back to work as quick as possible, but our message to him and his family was just focus on getting better," Thomson said. Twenty-one people were arrested as animal protection officers and police broke up a cockfight in progress in the Port Richmond section of Philadelphia overnight Friday. Officers with the Pennsylvania SPCA seized dozens of birds, the SPCA said. Some were fighting roosters and hens; some were dead. Authorities also found paraphrenalia often used in cockfighting. Authorities say officers chased down several suspects who tried to flee the scene on foot. Four suspects suffered broken ankles when they tried to climb over a 30-foot wall. The surviving birds will be assessed by PSPCA vets and kept by the PSPCA until a court rules on their outcome or they can be adopted. Animal fighting is a felony, and possessing paraphrenalia that is used in animal fighting is a misdemeanor. Animal fighting is a brutal crime, one in which the victims, whether they be dogs or, in this case, birds, fight to the death, said Nicole Wilson, director of humane law enforcement at the Pennsylvania SPCA. These horrific practices continue to occur in Philadelphia and throughout the state. We hope that by shining a light on this case and bringing the offenders to justice, we can deter the commission of future crimes. Philadelphia Police and the SPCA are still investigating. Anyone with information should call the Pennsylvania SPCAs Cruelty Hotline at (866) 601-SPCA. Tips can be left anonymously. A spokeswoman for a U.S. financial adviser from Connecticut who was charged with killing a hotel worker while on vacation in Anguilla said he acted in self-defense and accused the victim of attacking him. Kelcey Kintner released a statement Thursday alleging the worker showed up at Scott Hapgood's room unannounced, saying he was there to fix a broken sink. The statement alleges the worker was armed and demanded money before attacking the family. A spokesman for Anguilla police did not return a message for comment. Relatives of the victim could not be reached for comment. Hapgood returned to Connecticut after he was released on $74,000 bond. He faces an Aug. 22 hearing in Anguilla. The case has sparked racial tensions on an island that caters to wealthy tourists. DC stands for "Death of Comedy," so the old beltway joke goes. Comedian Samantha Bee sought to change that on Friday night. The late-night host of TBS' "Full Frontal" visited Washington for the second year to roast President Donald Trump at the "Not the White House Correspondents Dinner," Bees alternative to the annual black-tie White House Correspondents Association gala, NBC News reported. Speaking to a room full of reporters and celebrities sipping on specialty cocktails such as "The Yellow Russian," Bee thanked reporters "for holding the president and all of us accountable" and applauded the hundreds of stories journalists have reported since Trump was elected president. The event will air on TBS at 10 p.m. Saturday night, the same time as the actual correspondents' gala. Proceeds from Bees event were to benefit the Committee to Protect Journalists. A silent auction was held Friday at a University Heights brewery to raise money for a Navy SEAL Chief accused of war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher is facing court-martial for the death of a young ISIS fighter. Chief Gallagher is accused of killing the teenage Islamic State fighter under his care and posing for photos with the corpse during a reenlistment ceremony. The Navy says it plans to present the alleged photos as evidence at his trial. Navy prosecutors also accuse Gallagher of shooting two civilians in Iraq and opening fire on crowds. Gallagher has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges. He also denies allegations that he shot at civilians in Afghanistan in 2010. Those allegations surfaced earlier this week after a 400-page document was leaked to the New York Times. Also included in the document are allegations that SEAL Team leadership discouraged SEALs from coming forward to report such incidents. Gallaghers wife Andrea accuses prosecutors of leaking the alleged misinformation to the media, and says that reports from the Navy Times hold the truth -- that prosecutors are in fact withholding evidence that would clear Gallagher of the war crime allegations. There is all types of evidence now. That there is prosecutorial misconduct they have been withholding exculpatory evidence, Andrea Gallagher said. His family has vowed to keep fighting on behalf of their hero until the truth is revealed. They organized an auction Friday at Twisted Taps to help raise money for his legal fees which they estimate could surpass $500,000. Guests placed silent bids on t-shirts and hats stitched with the American Flag that read "Free Eddie." Books, knives and other items were also put up for auction, and a portion of the ticket, food and drink revenue went to Gallagher's family. Gallagher was being held in the brig at MCAS Miramar before President Donald Trump answered calls from Gallagher's family and supporters to have him moved. Andrea Gallagher, his wife of 12 years and mother to his three children, says she has complete faith in her husband. The truth has always been our best defense. We said from day one, that these allegations are shameless, Andrea said. Chief Gallagher is facing life without parole if convicted. He has a hearing coming up on April 30, and his court-martial is scheduled to begin May 28. He is not a monster, Gallaghers brother Sean said. He is not any of these things, he is a terrific man. If you met him, he is a wonderful storyteller, he is just a good person, he is the best of us. He is a person who deserves this the least." Sean has a 6-week-old son at home, who he plans for his brother to meet. There is no way in hell liars keep a hero uncle from my boys. My brother will teach my sons to swim. He will be the role model that he is. I will never stop fighting for that, he said. To help make sure you stay informed on the most shared and talked about stories in San Diego County, each Saturday we'll revisit five stories from the previous week and capsulize them in this digest with the most recent updates. 1. Isolation Rooms Readied for Future Measles Patients Experts say its only a matter of time before the highly-contagious measles virus shows up in San Diego, and local hospitals are making sure theyre prepared for its arrival. NBC 7's Danny Freeman shows us how staffers at Rady Children's Hospital are preparing for a potential outbreak. A local hospital takes NBC 7 on a tour of an isolation room, a place measles patients could be placed in if admitted. NBC 7s Danny Freeman has more on the outbreak. 2. New Safety Regulations for Dockless Bikes and Scooters Approved The San Diego City Council unanimously approved dockless bike and scooter safety regulations Tuesday that electric scooter companies, like Bird, Lime, and Razor, would need to adhere to in order to operate within city limits. NBC 7's Dave Summers reports on what new rules are in place and the "no-ride zones" established. NBC 7's Dave Summers explains the new regulations and why some City Council members still aren't satisfied. 3. Arrest in Local Ponzi Scheme Investigation A Poway man facing allegations of grand theft, elder abuse, and securities fraud was being held on $5 million bail this week following his arrest. Prosecutors allege Christopher Dougherty convinced neighbors and friends to make investments into various businesses. Years later, 11 of them told NBC 7 they have seen very little, if any, return on the millions of dollars they had invested. Mari Payton reports on the ongoing NBC 7 Investigates report. NBC 7's Mari Payton explains who the man allegedly took money from, and what he did with the stolen cash. 4. Police, Animal Control Officers 'Moooove' Intruders from Escondido Yard An Escondido homeowner called police after hearing strange noises outside their home on Hidden Trails Road but, while there were trespassers on his property, it wasn't of the human variety. NBC 7's Mark Mullen reports on this very different kind of wake-up call. Police and animal control were called in to remove cows roaming an Escondido neighborhood after residents reported hearing weird noises. NBC 7s Mark Mullen has more. 5. California May Boost Rules for Homes at High Wildfire Risk Years of increasingly deadly California wildfires spurred lawmakers to consider regulations Tuesday that would toughen local governments' requirements for approving housing developments in high-risk areas. A state Senate committee voted 8-3 Monday to advance a measure requiring developers to increase fire protections, plan for evacuations, or prepare for residents who may need to ride out fires in safe areas. Local governments would also be required to try to make existing structures less likely to burn. Read our coverage here. [NATL] Top News Photos: Pope Visits Japan, and More One convicted killer has been accused of beheading another in what authorities call an exceptionally sadistic torture slaying at a California prison. Corcoran State Prison inmate Jaime Osuna removed several body parts from his cellmate, Luis Romero, Assistant Kings County District Attorney Phil Esbenshade said Friday. Charges accuse Osuna, 31, of repeatedly cutting Romero last month using what the prosecutor called a sharp metal object wrapped in string and attached to a handle. It's not clear how much happened while Romero, 44, was still alive or whether anyone heard the overnight assault, but "we do believe that the victim was conscious during at least a portion of the time," Esbenshade said in an email. "This is the most gruesome case that I have seen in terms of heinousness in the slaying." The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is conducting an internal investigation, spokeswoman Terry Thornton said. Officials wouldn't provide more details on how prisoners are overseen overnight. Osuna pleaded not guilty to murder and other charges at his first court appearance Thursday. They include several special circumstances that could bring the death penalty, including that the slaying "was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel, manifesting exceptional depravity." Defense attorney Melina Benninghoff was appointed to represent him but was home sick Friday and did not respond to telephone and email requests to comment on his behalf. Osuna also is charged with torture, mayhem and weapons possession. The torture charge alleges that he acted "with the intent to cause cruel and extreme pain and suffering for the purpose of revenge, extortion, persuasion and for a sadistic purpose." The state corrections department said guards found Romero dead in his cell about 7:30 a.m. March 9 at the prison, which houses more than 3,300 inmates about 220 miles (354 kilometers) south of Sacramento. Romero bled to death from "multiple sharp force trauma injuries," and his body was mutilated, according to an autopsy report released Friday. Osuna was sentenced to life without parole after pleading guilty in 2017 to killing Yvette Pena, 37, at a Bakersfield motel in 2011, according to media reports at the time. Romero also was serving a life term for a Los Angeles County slaying, but with the possibility of parole. Osuna has been transferred to a Stockton prison for inmates needing medical or mental health care, though officials wouldn't say why, citing privacy laws. Police have arrested a man who is accused of leaving decapitated chickens outside a home in Westport, Connecticut. On Friday at approximately 11:30 p.m., a homeowner reported an illegal dumping complaint on Franklin Street to police. Officers said the homeowner's property had recently been the site of several illegal dumping incidents over the past year where someone had left boxes containing decapitated chickens. The homeowner told police that a suspect, later identified as 48-year-old Ajamu Obataiye, of New York City, just dropped a bag on his property and was running south on Franklin Street towards the Saugatuck Railroad Station. According to officers, the bag contained two decapitated chickens and one white pigeon. Police located Obataiye at the train station. The homeowner's home surveillance footage confirmed Obataiye was the suspect and he was taken into custody, police said. There's no known connection between Obataiye and the homeowner. Obataiye is facing charges including cruelty to animals, illegal dumping and breach of peace. He was released after posting a $7,500 bond and is due in court on April 23. The case wasn't listed in online court records and it's unclear if he has a lawyer. Philippine customs officials were astonished when they opened nicely gift-wrapped boxes of cookies and oatmeal flown in all the way from Poland and found a hair-raising contraband: hundreds of live tarantulas. Bureau of Customs personnel seized the 757 tarantulas at a mail exchange center near Manila's international airport Monday and later arrested a Filipino man who tried to claim the long-legged and venomous spiders, which were declared as "collection items." Many of the baby tarantulas were concealed in small plastic vials punctured with holes for air while bigger spiders were shipped in see-through plastic containers. Officials estimated the value of the unusual shipment at 310,000 pesos ($5,900). Philippine wildlife laws prohibit the trading, collection and possession of such spiders, which are popular pets among arachnid enthusiasts, without permits. Despite threats of hefty fines and imprisonment, a startling array of wildlife have been seized by the hundreds by airport customs inspectors in Manila since last year, including geckos, iguanas, chameleons and a popular reptile called bearded dragons. Elon Musk and U.S. securities regulators have settled their dispute over the Tesla CEO's tweets, with Musk agreeing to having his future communications regarding the electric-car maker pre-approved by a company-employed expert. The Securities and Exchange Commission and Musk reached the agreement, which they detailed in filings Friday in federal court in Manhattan. The agreement must be approved by U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan, who has presided over the case. The deal means Musk would no longer face the threat of being held in contempt as the SEC has demanded. The agency had alleged that Musk violated a previous settlement requiring his tweets to be approved by a lawyer if they disclose important company facts. The SEC said Musk violated the deal with a Feb. 19 tweet about Tesla vehicle production that wasn't approved by the company's "disclosure counsel." The agency contended that Musk hadn't sought the lawyer's approval for a single tweet. Musk's attorneys contended his tweet that Tesla would produce about 500,000 vehicles this year didn't need approval because it wasn't new information that would be meaningful to investors. They said the SEC was violating Musk's First Amendment rights to free speech. The new agreement requires Musk to get approval in advance from "an experienced securities lawyer" employed by Tesla, which is based in Palo Alto, California, before he issues any written communication on a wide range of financial topics. It is more specific and detailed than the previous accord regarding the affected topics. Those range from Tesla's financial condition and results through potential mergers, sales numbers, new business lines and changes in control or top executive positions. Word of the agreement came one day after Musk and the SEC attorneys told Nathan they were still trying to work out an agreement and needed an extension of their deadline, to Tuesday. The original case goes back to a settlement reached last September after Musk tweeted that he had secured the funding to take Tesla private at $420 a share a substantial premium over the company's stock price at the time when he did not. That tweet, last August, sent Tesla's stock on a wild ride. The SEC maintains it hurt investors who bought the stock after the tweet but before they had accurate information. Musk later backed off the idea of taking the company private, but the regulators concluded he had not lined up the money to pull of the deal. A man accused of shooting himself to cover up the killing of his wife was ordered held without bond Friday. Officers received a call about a double shooting in a home in the 9200 block of Okla Drive in Fairfax just before 3:30 p.m. Jan. 6, 2017, and found 51-year-old Donna Pentek and her husband shot. The woman was found on her bed, dead of a gunshot wound to her head. At Friday's hearing, Laszlo Pentek's attorney said he was a victim as well. He told the judge Pentek, 55, was taking a bath that day when he felt a sharp pain in his stomach and realized he'd been shot. His then 13-year-old daughter soon arrived home and found her father bleeding in the bathtub and then, while calling 911, found her mother shot to death, the attorney said. Pentek sought bond so he could be with his children while waiting for trial. The prosecutor has a much different take, calling Pentek a cold-blooded killer, saying, "Its clear she was executed ... He went to extreme lengths, including shooting himself in the tub, to hide this fact. The prosecutor also told the judge that while a gun was found in Donna. Penteks hand, the autopsy revealed the bullet that killed her could not have been self-inflicted. And there was a second gun found in the tub with Laszlo Pentek. The judge denied bond, ruling Pentek poses a danger if released. Investigators worked on the case for two years before Pentek was indicted in February. His trial is scheduled for early June. A Northern Virginia woman accused of killing her daughters refused to appear in court Friday. Veronica Youngblood is accused of shooting the two children inside an apartment in the 1500 block of Lincoln Circle in McLean the night of Aug. 5. One of the children died at the scene, and the other suffered life-threatening injuries, police said in the wake of the shooting. She died at the hospital nearly a week later. The violence followed years of a contentious custody dispute with her ex-husband, who had just retired from the Navy and was getting ready to move with the girls to Missouri. Prosecutors planned to lay out their case against Youngblod Friday, but she refused to go to court. Her defense attorneys went to the jail to meet with her, but still she refused to show. Her attorney told the judge Youngblood is "an incredibly mentally ill young woman." The judge issued an order, and on Monday hell tell Youngblood over a video hookup she has to start showing up or shell forfeit her right to be present at the next hearing, now scheduled for May 10. Youngblood missed a previous hearing because of suicide attempts. Three renowned mountain climbers are presumed dead after an avalanche in Alberta's Banff National Park, Canadian officials said Thursday. Outdoor apparel company The North Face said that American Jess Roskelley and Austrians David Lama and Hansjorg Auer disappeared while attempting to climb the east face of Howse Peak on the Icefields Parkway. They were reported overdue on Wednesday. "They are missing, and local search and rescue has assumed the worst," North Face said in a statement. Roskelley climbed Mount Everest in 2003 at age 20. At the time he was the youngest American to climb the world's highest peak. The North Face says it is doing what it can to support the climbers' families and friends. Parks Canada said the three men were attempting to climb the east face of Howse Peak on the Icefields Parkway on Wednesday. Officials say recovery efforts are on hold because of a continued risk of avalanches. Parks Canada says safety specialists immediately responded by air and observed signs of multiple avalanches and debris containing climbing equipment. "Parks Canada extends its sincerest condolences to the families, friends and loved ones of the mountaineers," Parks Canada said in a statement. Roskelley's father, John Roskelley, was himself a world-renowned climber who had many notable ascents in Nepal and Pakistan, mostly in the 1970s. John Roskelley joined his son on the successful Everest expedition in 2003. Jess Roskelley grew up in Spokane, Washington, where his father was a county commissioner. John Roskelley told The Spokesman-Review the route his son and the other climbers were attempting was first done in 2000. "It's just one of those routes where you have to have the right conditions or it turns into a nightmare. This is one of those trips where it turned into a nightmare," John Roskelley said. John Roskelley had climbed the 10,810-foot Howse Peak, via a different route, in the 1970s and knows the area well. On Thursday he was preparing to go to Canada to gather Jess Roskelley's belongings and see if he could get into the area. "It's in an area above a basin," he said. "There must have been a lot of snow that came down and got them off the face." The elder Roskelley said: "When you're climbing mountains, danger is not too far away...It's terrible for my wife and I. But it's even worse for his wife." The mother of three children wounded when Oklahoma police fired at a man in a pickup truck who was suspected of robbing a restaurant says two of her kids suffered head wounds and the third was shot in the face. "My 4-year-old daughter was shot in the head, and she has a bullet in her brain, and my 5-year-old has a skull fracture," Olivia Hill told Sherman, Texas, news station KXII-TV. "My 1-year-old baby has gunshot wounds on her face." Investigators and a hospital didn't release the children's conditions. Hill said her 2-year-old child who was also in the truck was not hurt. Hill and the four children were in the pickup with William Devaughn Smith, 21, when officers approached him and gunfire broke out Friday in Hugo, which is near the Texas state line, Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Brooke Arbeitman said. Smith's relationship to Hill and the children isn't clear. Investigators have not determined what led to the shooting that also wounded Smith, who was treated at a hospital and then taken to a Texas jail on a robbery warrant, Arbeitman said Saturday. "What happened between the contact with him and when police fired, we're still trying to put that together," Arbeitman said. "The OSBI is still investigating whether he fired at police and whether he was armed." She said "it's going to be a few days before we know anything," including how many officers were involved in the shooting. Smith is suspected in an April 11 armed robbery at a Pizza Hut in Hugo, about 150 miles (241 kilometers) southeast of Oklahoma City. He hasn't been formally charged, and it wasn't clear if he has an attorney yet who could speak on his behalf. A post on the Hugo police Facebook page says a man entered the back entrance of the restaurant, pressed an object to an employee's back and demanded money. Police said the worker handed over money and the robber left. A bank robber got away with a bag of cash, but his luck ran out in a front yard in Wilmington, Massachusetts. Police said 25-year-old Sean Manuel of Medford had just robbed the TD Bank on Main Street in nearby Reading before he ended up on Susan Devlin's lawn. "My husband heard some commotion, heard some yelling, so he went to the front window," said Devlin. "He looked out. He saw a man running, another man chasing him. The other man chasing him drew a gun, yelled at him and told him to stop." "Covered head to toe, ski mask on, glasses, walked up to the teller and demanded the money," Deputy Reading Police Chief David Clark said of the robbery. "The teller turned over the money, put it in a bag." Manuel allegedly drove off from the bank after the robbery. Police were able to track him down and followed. "They did lights and sirens. He initially pulled over, as the officers were approaching the car. He took off from there," said Clark. A chase then led from Reading to Wilmington, with Manuel dumping the car when he ended up in a cul-de-sac, according to police. He then ran through some woods, but he was quickly caught by Reading Police. "Nuts, just nuts," said Kara Fitzpatrick, who saw the suspect on the ground in handcuffs. "I mean, totally crazy for this area, crazy for this street. Things like that dont happen here. I know that's what people say, but they really don't. I mean, it's a cul-de-sac in Wilmington." Neighbors who saw the commotion on their quiet, residential street say it's lucky nobody was outside when the suspect came running through. "We were all out here yesterday. Beautiful day, working on our lawns," said Devlin. "What would we have done, what would that man have done?" Police say the suspect had about $2,000 in cash when he escaped from the bank, but all of the money was recovered. A suspect has been arrested in the murder of a New Hampshire man. Authorities said Friday that 21-year-old Hassan Sapry of Laconia had been charged with second-degree murder in the death of 57-year-old Wilfred Guzman Sr. The arrest of Sapry, previously deemed by authorities to be a "dangerous" person of interest in the killing, was announced Friday by the office of New Hampshire Attorney General Gordon MacDonald. Guzman's body was found last Friday in his Laconia home. After an autopsy, officials determined he was killed by blunt and sharp force injury to the head. Sapry is due to be arraigned Monday in Belknap County Superior Court. It was not immediately clear if he had an attorney. Police at the University of New Hampshire are investigating reports that a male recorded people while they were showering at dormitories. UNH Police said they received multiple reports around noon on Friday that residents had seen a college-aged male using a cellphone to take pictures or videos of people in showers. The person in question was wearing a dark sweatshirt and a gold chain at the time, police said. University police said they would be increasing safety patrols. Anyone with information is asked to call 603-862-1427. A new HVAC-R program available to Lake Shore Compact/Mentor Career Tech students through Lake Erie College is accepting applications for the 2019-20 school year. The partnership will allow students in their senior year the opportunity to earn an EPA 608 certification for Refrigerant Recovery Core and Level 1, according to a news release. Another credential students can earn is through the OSHA 10-Hour General Industry training. This aligns really well to what Gov. (Mike) DeWine has been pushing, said Lake Shore Compact Director Joe Glavan. In the state of Ohio recently, he pushed his goal of 10,000 new industry credentials. And this is one of these ways were able to work towards that goal. HVAC-R stands for heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration. The program will be located at Lake Erie Colleges new HVAC-R lab between 11:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. Were in a really good time right now in Ohio where the education, the school systems, the businesses, and the local and state government are all really collaborating together to meet this need, Glavan said. He explained that the credentials earned by students through the new program can help them meet the need for in-demand jobs in the HVAC-R industry. According to the release, some of the skills that the program will help students develop include: Construction safety, principles of heating and cooling, HVAC-R installation and troubleshooting, maintenance of residential and commercial HVAC-R systems, refrigeration systems and refrigeration management. This is for someone whos going to get this certification their senior year, graduate and go right into the workforce, Glavan said. The release stated that there are 722 jobs in Northeast Ohio listed on Indeed.com and 611 jobs listed on Monster.com. In 2018, the median pay for HVAC-R mechanics and installers was $47,610, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. These jobs were predicted to increase by 15 percent from 2016 to 2026. This (program) is a great example of how schools and businesses are working together to meet the needs of the community and prepare students for the future workforce, Glavan stated. Students interested in the HVAC-R program can apply at http://www.lakeshorecompact.org/. Applications are due by May 3. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 27) Eight policemen seen roughing up a man in a viral video have been "pulled out" from the police station pending investigation. This comes after Cebu City Mayor Tommy Osmena named one of the policemen in the video Police Sergeant Reoven Carmelo Rota and identified him as the team leader of the Talamban Police Station Drug Enforcement Unit (DEU) who allegedly mauled the civilian as seen in the video. Osmena also said that based on information he received from several sources, the other policemen in the video have the names Tagalog, Magdali, Lagunsad, Tudtud, and Adalim. In a press briefing Saturday, Regional Police Director, Brig. Gen. Debold Sinas said the cops were pulled out as the inquiry into the video is starting. Sinas added they cannot relieve the policemen of their duties as election laws prevent them from doing so. He, however, clarified there was a legitimate police operation on Maundy Thursday the day the incident took place which resulted in the arrest of Eddie Basillote, an alleged drug peddler. But Sinas said they would not cover for those proven to have acted wrongly, and would conduct an internal investigation on the incident. Cebu City Police Director Royina Garma for her part said the eight would report to her directly. "We will just pull them out from the station but they will still perform police work but not related to drug enforcement while we are investigating if the allegation is true or not," she said. Police authorities not naming cops in video Both Garma and Sinas, however, would not identify the cops. Garma said those in the video could not be properly recognized due to the poor quality of the material. Osmena earlier chided Garma for saying she was unconvinced of the cops' identities. In a post on social media, the mayor called out Garma for saying, there is no conclusion that the incident is serious." Reacting to Osmena's accusations, Garma said, "You can just simply allege. Napakadali gumawa ng istorya. The next story there is can you prove it? Madali manira ng mga tao at institution kung gusto mong bumagsak. Ang tanong, ma prove mo ba?" [Translation: You can just simply allege. It's so easy to make up a story. The next story here is can you prove it? It's easy to destroy a person's reputation as well as an institution if you want them to fail. But the quation is do you have proof?] Basillote has been transferred to the Cebu City Police Office headquarters detention facility in Camp Sotero Cabahug. California regularly portrays itself as a national trendsetter on political issues, and Gov. Gavin Newsom is claiming that title on prescription drugs. Newsom has a plan to take on the drug industry, and at an April 17 news conference in Southern California, he declared that two other governors already want to join his effort. "California is leading the nation in holding drug companies accountable and fighting prescription drug prices," Newsom said via a press release that day, marking his 100th full day in office. There's no question the Democratic governor is aggressively taking on the pharmaceutical industry vowing to leverage his state's purchasing power to extract lower prices, and bluntly telling drugmakers that taxpayers are tired of being "screwed." But Newsom's claim that California leads the nation on this issue prompted us to ask: Is that really the case? What is Newsom doing about prescription drugs? Newsom marked his first day in office, Jan. 7, with a direct message to the pharmaceutical industry: The nation's most populous state is fed up with the meteoric rise in prescription drug prices. He signed an executive order directing the state to negotiate drug prices for the roughly 13 million enrollees of Medi-Cal, the country's largest Medicaid program that serves low-income residents, by 2021. And he ordered his administration to study how state agencies could band together and buy prescription drugs in bulk. With the state buying drugs for all Medi-Cal enrollees and state entities, Newsom argues that California will leverage its purchasing power as the third-largest buyer in the country to demand lower prices from drugmakers. Eventually, Newsom envisions private purchasers including small businesses, health plans and self-insured Californians taking part. Newsom has said several times he hopes this collaboration can be a model for the rest of the country. Newsom traveled to Downey, Calif., last week to announce that Los Angeles County would join California's bulk purchasing pool, a move intended to show that others are eager to join his initiative. How do California's efforts on prescription drugs compare with those of other states? We interviewed five health care experts who commended Newsom for his focus on prescription drugs, but each noted that he is not the only lawmaker tackling the issue. "Is California a leader? Yes. Is it the leader?" asked Edwin Park, a research professor at Georgetown University's Center for Children and Families. "That's not doing an assessment of what all the other states are doing." A number of states in recent years have enacted laws to regulate pharmacy benefit managers, the so-called middlemen who negotiate with drugmakers; impose drug price transparency rules; outlaw "gag clauses" that prevent pharmacists from telling consumers about cheaper drug alternatives; and authorize the importation of drugs from Canada. At least 28 states and the District of Columbia already participate in multistate purchasing pools joining forces to get bigger discounts for their Medicaid programs or state employees. The Northwest Prescription Drug Consortium, formed by Oregon and Washington in 2006, invites state and local government agencies, businesses, labor unions and uninsured consumers to voluntarily pool their purchasing power. Roughly 1.1 million people are represented by the consortium, either as individuals or through public and private entities such as the Washington State Department of Corrections, Washington's Medicaid program and SAIF Corp. "Other states are actively looking at us as a partner," said Trevor Douglass, director of the Oregon Prescription Drug Program. Earlier this month, Maryland lawmakers passed legislation that would create the nation's first prescription drug affordability board, which, if signed by Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, would let the state cap certain drug prices. "There's extraordinary activity" on prescription drug prices, said Trish Riley, executive director of the National Academy for State Health Policy, which tracks bills in state legislatures around the country. "Hundreds of bills were introduced this year." What makes California's effort novel, Newsom spokesman Nathan Click said, is the mandatory inclusion of all state agencies and the Medi-Cal program which he said would make it the largest purchaser of drugs after Medicare and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Programs in other states are more limited, and some are voluntary. Health care experts agreed that California's size by default makes it a national leader on the health care front, not the national leader. But if California is successful, they say, it could lower the price of drugs nationally. Our ruling Newsom said California is leading the nation in holding drug companies accountable and fighting prescription drug prices." States across the county are addressing the rising cost of prescription drugs in a variety of ways. California is not the only, or the first, one. The scope of what Newsom is attempting could bring down drug prices for California residents, and possibly residents in other states that join the effort. But Newsom's sweeping plan is still in its infancy with many details pending, so it's too soon to gauge success. We rate the claim HALF TRUE. MIT engineers have designed tiny robots that can help drug-delivery nanoparticles push their way out of the bloodstream and into a tumor or another disease site. Like crafts in "Fantastic Voyage" -- a 1960s science fiction film in which a submarine crew shrinks in size and roams a body to repair damaged cells -- the robots swim through the bloodstream, creating a current that drags nanoparticles along with them. The magnetic microrobots, inspired by bacterial propulsion, could help to overcome one of the biggest obstacles to delivering drugs with nanoparticles: getting the particles to exit blood vessels and accumulate in the right place. "When you put nanomaterials in the bloodstream and target them to diseased tissue, the biggest barrier to that kind of payload getting into the tissue is the lining of the blood vessel," says Sangeeta Bhatia, the John and Dorothy Wilson Professor of Health Sciences and Technology and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, a member of MIT's Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and its Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, and the senior author of the study. "Our idea was to see if you can use magnetism to create fluid forces that push nanoparticles into the tissue," adds Simone Schuerle, a former MIT postdoc and lead author of the paper, which appears in the April 26 issue of Science Advances. In the same study, the researchers also showed that they could achieve a similar effect using swarms of living bacteria that are naturally magnetic. Each of these approaches could be suited for different types of drug delivery, the researchers say. Tiny robots Schuerle, who is now an assistant professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich), first began working on tiny magnetic robots as a graduate student in Brad Nelson's Multiscale Robotics Lab at ETH Zurich. When she came to Bhatia's lab as a postdoc in 2014, she began investigating whether this kind of bot could help to make nanoparticle drug delivery more efficient. In most cases, researchers target their nanoparticles to disease sites that are surrounded by "leaky" blood vessels, such as tumors. This makes it easier for the particles to get into the tissue, but the delivery process is still not as effective as it needs to be. The MIT team decided to explore whether the forces generated by magnetic robots might offer a better way to push the particles out of the bloodstream and into the target site. The robots that Schuerle used in this study are 35 hundredths of a millimeter long, similar in size to a single cell, and can be controlled by applying an external magnetic field. This bioinspired robot, which the researchers call an "artificial bacterial flagellum," consists of a tiny helix that resembles the flagella that many bacteria use to propel themselves. These robots are 3-D-printed with a high-resolution 3-D printer and then coated with nickel, which makes them magnetic. To test a single robot's ability to control nearby nanoparticles, the researchers created a microfluidic system that mimics the blood vessels that surround tumors. The channel in their system, between 50 and 200 microns wide, is lined with a gel that has holes to simulate the broken blood vessels seen near tumors. Using external magnets, the researchers applied magnetic fields to the robot, which makes the helix rotate and swim through the channel. Because fluid flows through the channel in the opposite direction, the robot remains stationary and creates a convection current, which pushes 200-nanometer polystyrene particles into the model tissue. These particles penetrated twice as far into the tissue as nanoparticles delivered without the aid of the magnetic robot. This type of system could potentially be incorporated into stents, which are stationary and would be easy to target with an externally applied magnetic field. Such an approach could be useful for delivering drugs to help reduce inflammation at the site of the stent, Bhatia says. Bacterial swarms The researchers also developed a variant of this approach that relies on swarms of naturally magnetotactic bacteria instead of microrobots. Bhatia has previously developed bacteria that can be used to deliver cancer-fighting drugs and to diagnose cancer, exploiting bacteria's natural tendency to accumulate at disease sites. For this study, the researchers used a type of bacteria called Magnetospirillum magneticum, which naturally produces chains of iron oxide. These magnetic particles, known as magnetosomes, help bacteria orient themselves and find their preferred environments. The researchers discovered that when they put these bacteria into the microfluidic system and applied rotating magnetic fields in certain orientations, the bacteria began to rotate in synchrony and move in the same direction, pulling along any nanoparticles that were nearby. In this case, the researchers found that nanoparticles were pushed into the model tissue three times faster than when the nanoparticles were delivered without any magnetic assistance. This bacterial approach could be better suited for drug delivery in situations such as a tumor, where the swarm, controlled externally without the need for visual feedback, could generate fluidic forces in vessels throughout the tumor. The particles that the researchers used in this study are big enough to carry large payloads, including the components required for the CRISPR genome-editing system, Bhatia says. She now plans to collaborate with Schuerle to further develop both of these magnetic approaches for testing in animal models. In a first-ever advancement in human medicine and aviation technology, a University of Maryland unmanned aircraft has delivered a donor kidney to surgeons at the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) in Baltimore for successful transplantation into a patient with kidney failure. This successful demonstration illustrates the potential of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) for providing organ deliveries that, in many cases, could be faster, safer, and more widely available than traditional transport methods. The momentous flight on April 19, 2019 was a collaboration between transplant physicians and researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) in Baltimore; aviation and engineering experts at the University of Maryland (UMD); the University of Maryland Medical Center; and collaborators at the Living Legacy Foundation of Maryland (The LLF). "This major advance in human medicine and transplantation exemplifies two key components of our mission: innovation and collaboration," said E. Albert Reece, MD, PhD, MBA, Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs, UM Baltimore, and the John Z. and Akiko K. Bowers Distinguished Professor and Dean, University of Maryland School of Medicine. "Innovation is at the heart of our focus on accelerating the pace and scope of discovery, where research can rapidly transform medicine. At the same time, collaboration is the key to our success in providing discovery-based medicine - both in conducting research and in delivering the highest quality patient care." The kidney recipient, a 44-year-old woman from Baltimore, who spent eight years on dialysis before undergoing the transplant procedure, said, "This whole thing is amazing. Years ago, this was not something that you would think about," she said. She was discharged from UMMC on Tuesday. "For more than 25 years, the University of Maryland Medical Center has provided cutting-edge care in organ transplantation," said Mohan Suntha, MD, MBA, President and CEO of the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore. "Our Transplant Program cares for patients who come from our local community, the state and the nation, many of whom have been turned away at other hospitals, because we have the skill, talent and knowledge to advance even the most complex transplant cases, often times not just improving but saving lives." Maryland faculty and researchers believe this prototype organ transport blazes a trail for the use of UAS to expand access to donated organs, improving outcomes for more people in need of organ transplants. "As a result of the outstanding collaboration among surgeons, engineers, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), organ procurement specialists, pilots, nurses, and, ultimately, the patient, we were able to make a pioneering breakthrough in transplantation," said Joseph Scalea, MD, assistant professor of surgery at UMSOM, project lead, and one of the surgeons who performed the transplant at UMMC. Among the many technological firsts of this effort include: a specially designed, high-tech apparatus for maintaining and monitoring a viable human organ; a custom-built UAS with eight rotors and multiple powertrains to ensure consistently reliable performance, even in the case of a possible component failure; the use of a wireless mesh network to control the UAS, monitor aircraft status, and provide communications for the ground crew at multiple locations; and aircraft operating systems that combined best practices from both UAS and organ transport standards. "We had to create a new system that was still within the regulatory structure of the FAA, but also capable of carrying the additional weight of the organ, cameras, and organ tracking, communications, and safety systems over an urban, densely populated area--for a longer distance and with more endurance," said Matthew Scassero, MPA, director of UMD's UAS Test Site, part of A. James Clark School of Engineering. "There's a tremendous amount of pressure knowing there's a person waiting for that organ, but it's also a special privilege to be a part of this critical mission." Prior to this landmark organ delivery flight, the Maryland partners worked together to develop and test the UAS by first successfully transporting saline, blood tubes, and other materials, and then by transporting a healthy, but nonviable, human kidney. These test flights were preceded in 2016 by the state of Maryland's first civil unmanned aerial delivery of simulated medical cargo, a collaborative effort between UMD's UAS Test Site and the University of Maryland Shore Regional Health in Easton, Maryland, to illustrate how the use of UAS could radically change medical care and impact the lives of real people. Advancing Transplantation through UAS Transport Transportation logistics are often the most complicated part of the organ transplant process--and how long an organ remains viable throughout travel is a major issue. Transport methods typically involve expensive chartered flights or rely on variable commercial flights, and occasionally result in an organ left on a plane or other delays that destroy the organ's viability. These current transport methods also don't adequately cover many parts of the county, such as rural or geographically remote areas, which limits access in these areas both to organ donations and organ transplants. According to the United Network for Organ Sharing, which manages the organ transplant system in the United States, in 2018 there were nearly 114,000 people on waiting lists for an organ transplant; about 1.5 percent of deceased donor organ shipments did not make it to the intended destination; and nearly four percent of organ shipments had an unanticipated delay of two or more hours. "There remains a woeful disparity between the number of recipients on the organ transplant waiting list and the total number of transplantable organs. This new technology has the potential to help widen the donor organ pool and access to transplantation," said Scalea. "Delivering an organ from a donor to a patient is a sacred duty with many moving parts. It is critical that we find ways of doing this better." Beating the organ transplant clock is a key responsibility of U.S. organ procurement organizations, including project collaborator, The LLF. "The University of Maryland UAS project is incredibly important," said Charlie Alexander, Chief Executive Officer of The LLF, noting that the work is at the proof-of-concept stage. "If we can prove that this works, then we can look at much greater distances of unmanned organ transport. This would minimize the need for multiple pilots and flight time and address safety issues we have in our field." Designing a UAS Organ Delivery System To create a UAS designed to carry an organ and provide real-time monitoring of its condition, Scalea partnered with several medical technology companies to design and develop the Human Organ Monitoring and Quality Assurance Apparatus for Long-Distance Travel (HOMAL; patent pending). It measures and maintains temperature, barometric pressure, altitude, vibration, and location (via GPS) during transportation and transmits the information to the smartphones of transplant personnel. The needed unmanned aircraft and operating systems were designed by UMD UAS Test Site engineers to meet the rigid medical, technical, and regulatory demands of carrying a donor organ for human transplantation. "We built in a lot of redundancies, because we want to do everything possible to protect the payload," said Anthony Pucciarella, director of operations at the UMD UAS Test Site. These safeguards included backup propellers and motors, dual batteries, a backup power distribution board, and a parachute recovery system (in case the entire aircraft fails). "This history-making flight not only represents a breakthrough from a technological point of view, but provides an exemplary demonstration of how engineering expertise and ingenuity ultimately serve human needs - in this case, the need to improve the reliability and efficiency of organ delivery to hospitals conducting transplant surgery," said Darryll J. Pines, Ph.D., dean of the A. James Clark School of Engineering and Nariman Farvardin Professor of Aerospace Engineering. "As astonishing as this breakthrough is from a purely engineering point of view, there's a larger purpose at stake. It's ultimately not about the technology; it's about enhancing human life." File photo of Congress leader Digvijaya Singh. Aam Aadmi Party Sanjay Singh on Saturday lodged a complaint with Varanasi's Additional District Magistrate against PM Narendra Modi, claiming that the road show in the city on April 25 had exceeded the expenditure permitted by the Election commission. The party AAP alleged that over Rs 1.27 crore was spent on the event. A case was registered against Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Saturday for repeatedly asking the crowd to chant "chowkidar chor hai" (the security guard is a thief) during a rally in Samastipur. The case, filed in a court in Bihar, also names RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav who was present on the occasion. Congress's eastern UP incharge Priyanka Gandhi Vadra launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying she had not seen any development in his constituency Varanasi. Priyanka Gandhi was rumoured to be fighting from the seat against Modi but the Congress fielded Ajay Rai instead. Meanwhile, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi asked voters in Rae Bareli that if the government pitched demonetisation as a fight against black money, why did industrialists not join queues of people outside banks. Gandhi addressed a rally in Bihar yesterday where alliance partner and Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav endorsed him as the next prime minister of the country. "The Congress president does what he says and the country needs a prime minister like him," Tejashwi said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is addressing three rallies in Uttar Pradesh. Starting from Kannauj in the morning, the PM will head to Hardoi and later to Sitapur. On Friday, PM Modi in Mumbai slammed the opposition and said the Congress would not win more than 50 seats, while the BJP would bag 280 seats. He asked the people at the rally not to waste its votes on the grand old party. He was in Mumbai at a joint rally of the BJP-Shiv Sena and Republican Party of India (RPI). After four years of covering two circuit courts, a new judge will be sitting on the bench in Nelson Circuit Court starting July 1 and Judge Michael Garrett will permanently preside over cases in Amherst Circuit Court. Frederick Watson will begin presiding over Nelson Circuit Court this summer. Garrett has been presiding over cases in Nelson Circuit Court for four years and splitting his time between Lovingston and Amherst. That was getting to be a challenge because dockets had been growing so much, Garrett said. It was getting to be a real juggling act. Garrett said since 1989, the 24th Judicial District which includes the city of Lynchburg and Amherst, Nelson, Bedford and Campbell counties has had five circuit judges, but every year the case loads have increased. Two judges cover the city of Lynchburg, one presides in Bedford and one in Campbell, and Garrett was splitting his time between Amherst and Nelson. Garrett said it was getting to be a huge problem, especially for Amherst, Nelson and Campbell counties. The new position is funded by the state budget for fiscal year 2020. The Supreme Court of Virginia published a 2017 study of the judicial workload for each judicial district. In its assessment, which looked at how many circuit-court cases are heard in the commonwealth, how much time in court each case takes, and how much time judges spend on case-related and non-case-related work, the state supreme court found a sixth judge was needed in the 24th judicial district. We all met and agreed it made sense for the new judge to preside in Nelson and me to preside in Amherst so he can have his own home court, Garrett said. Watson, a 1996 University of Richmond School of Law graduate, has worked in the city of Lynchburg at Caskie and Frost for 21 years. According to the Caskie and Frost website, Watson has represented individuals and businesses in civil, commercial, and construction litigation, as well as general family and business law matters, for over 20 years. The people of Nelson County are fantastic. The clerk and the employees are first rate and very nice, Watson said. Watson said he was also impressed with the renovation to the Nelson Circuit Court courtroom, which was completed at the beginning of 2018. I am honored to be able to sit in that courtroom, Watson said. Lisa Bryant, Nelson Circuit Court clerk, said she thinks the transition is a win-win situation for everybody. We are excited to have a new judge coming. We are certainly going to miss Judge Garrett, although hell still be here some. I think its going to be a good thing for everybody involved, Bryant said. Amherst County Commonwealths Attorney Lyle Carver said the county gaining a full-time judge is tremendously good news for my office and all of Amherst County. We have needed a full-time judge for the past several years and we pushed really hard to get it this year, Carver said. This helps the criminal docket significantly. Numbers are up in Amherst and Nelson so sharing a judge was making scheduling quite difficult. Carver said criminal cases take priority so dockets for civil cases are affected when the criminal caseload is busy. The Amherst County Commonwealths Attorney Office has grown in recent years to four full-time prosecutors with numbers that call for more, he said. Amherst Countys chief prosecutor since 2015 who has worked more than a decade in the Amherst Commonwealth Attorneys Office, Carver said to his knowledge Amherst Circuit Court has never had a sitting judge who wasnt shared with another jurisdiction. We are grateful that our local delegation made sure this happened, Carver said of state legislators backing the move. He said he talked at length with Sen. Mark Peake, R-Lynchburg, Del. Scott Garrett, R-Lynchburg, and Del. Ronnie Campbell, R-Rockbridge, and they all recognized the need and fought for it. Amherst Sheriff E.W. Viar and Carver wrote letters and made calls pushing for the measure and are thrilled it worked out, Carver said. I have worked with Judge Garrett for my entire career and Im excited he will be our full-time judge, Carver said. The citizens of Amherst County will all benefit from more timely scheduling of cases. Watson and Garrett both said while they have their primary courts now in Nelson and Amherst respectively both will travel around the jurisdiction and help in other circuit courts as needed. I am certainly not going to give up going to Nelson. I certainly enjoy sitting up there. Its a beautiful old courthouse and some great people, Garrett said. Watson has asked for a full-time assistant from Nelson County costing $46,000 from the fiscal year 2020 county budget. At a board of supervisors meeting April 9, the board had no objections to funding the new position, but a final budget wont be approved until after the May 14 public hearing. Watson said he is looking forward to July and starting his new journey in Nelson County without an agenda. My job as judge is to try to be fair and impartial and correctly apply the law. If I can do that, I will consider myself a successful judge, Watson said. In a solemn and compelling speech this week at a Take Back the Night rally, the former policy director for Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax described being sexually assaulted 14 years ago. She said due process is not a standard created to allow someone to remain in political power, and said Fairfax has "lost the moral legitimacy to hold public office." Adele McClure was among a majority of Fairfax staffers and aides who resigned in February after a second allegation of sexual assault against him was made public. Fairfax has insisted the sexual contact with his two accusers was consensual, gave a speech from the Senate dais decrying "political lynchings without any due process" and has said he is the victim of a "vicious and coordinated smear campaign." Vanessa Tyson, a college professor, has accused Fairfax of forcing her to perform oral sex in a Boston hotel room in 2004. Meredith Watson has accused Fairfax of raping her while the two were students at Duke University in 2000. Fairfax spokeswoman Lauren Burke released a statement Friday in response to a question about McClure's speech repeating Fairfax's claims of innocence. It also repeats his call for a law enforcement investigation that he believes would exonerate him. McClure spoke at the seventh annual NoVA + Wash. DC Take Back The Night on Thursday at Gateway Park in Arlington. The blog Blue Virginia posted a video and transcript with McClure's permission. She described being sexually assaulted 14 years ago, saying she did not report it to the police or tell anyone. Many people we know around us are also suffering in silence," she said. She said she stood by Fairfax after the first allegation was made, by Tyson. "I first began to have my doubts about the side I was standing on when I first heard from Dr. Vanessa Tyson. Her story began to sound too familiar to me and I became ill at the attempts to discredit her, to attack her, to threaten her with defamation suits and criminal prosecution." After Watson made her allegations public, McClure said, she knew the allegations could not be written off. "I wondered if my abuser were ever elected to public office and I decided to speak out, how would I be treated? Would people attempt to label me as crazy, as a partisan pawn? Perhaps as an opportunist? Would I be threatened with lawsuits and legal action and would my abuser use the power of their office sitting on top of the dais to condemn me as a modern-day lynch mob thats tantamount to those who murdered Emmett Till?" She said she wondered if her colleagues would say "believe women" but not "when its politically inconvenient and not when its challenging power of someone we like." McClure is a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University, where she was student government president for the 2010-11 academic year. Last year she earned a spot on Forbes magazines eighth annual 30 Under 30 list. Through their lawyers, Watson and Tyson asked for a bipartisan hearing in the Virginia General Assembly. House Republicans proposed a process for holding such a hearing, but House Democrats have remained staunchly opposed. Fairfax, his supporters, and some Democrats in the legislature have expressed concern for his constitutional right of due process. McClure addressed that in her speech, saying black women have historically been subject to rape and violence and were marginalized and silenced without any due process. "Holding public office is not a fundamental right," she said. "Demanding someone step down from public office for serious accusations of high crimes is not a violation of their due process rights. It is a rational, just operation of our democratic society. Due process is a standard set to protect citizens from the loss of their life, their liberty and their property. "It is not a standard set to protect someones wish to remain in a position of political power. It is not a standard set to ensure that someone can purchase a table at a political gala. And is not a standard set to shield a public figure accused of heinous crimes from all forms of criticism and discomfort." She said she didn't wish to see her abuser put in jail. "But I would never want to see him win an election or enter a position of power power that he could wield over others." Burke, the Fairfax spokeswoman, said in an email Friday: "The notion that someone who is falsely accused of serious crimes should have to allow people to continue to lie about him is fundamentally unfair to that person whether or not they serve in public office or not." (Newser) Update: A truck driver who slammed into traffic on I-70 in Colorado in 2019, leaving four people dead and six others injured, has been sentenced to 110 years in prison. Rogel Aguilera-Mederos, 26, said his brakes failed, but prosecutors said his reckless behavior and bad decisionsespecially his failure to use a runaway truck rampcaused the crash, NBC reports. Judge A. Bruce Jones gave Aguilera-Mederos the minimum 10-year sentence on six crash-related charges and the minimum 5-year sentence on ten others, 9News reports. The judge said that if it was up to him, the sentences would not have to be served consecutively, but state law gave him no choice. Our story from April 27, 2019 follows: story continues below A truck driver who plowed into stalled traffic and sparked a huge crash has been charged with four counts of vehicular homicide, police tell NBC News. Rogel Lazaro Aguilera-Mederos, 23, was carrying lumber in Denver on Thursday when his semi hit Interstate 70 traffic stymied by an earlier accident. "Stemming from interviews and evidence that was gathered overnight ... the proximate cause of the crash is on the driver of the semi," says Lakewood Police Department Agent Ty Countryman. "The carnage was significantjust unbelievable." The crash triggered a massive fire and damaged a bridge that now needs two to four inches of asphalt replaced. NBC 9 Colorado video shows vehicles ablaze and wood pieces all over the highway. Comedian and vlogger Josh McCutchen was stuck in traffic when his camera caught the semi blowing past. "Oh my God!" he yelled. He soon saw "plumes of black smoke ahead," he later said, and drove up to discover fire "shooting off the sides of the overpass. It was crazy." Nearby panhandler Darin Barton is being recognized for dropping his sign and pulling people from their cars: "As soon as I [saw] flames, I headed under the bridge, grabbed three or four people out of a couple cars," he tells KDVR. "I didn't do this all myself. There were other people in traffic that helped." Aguilera-Mederos, a Cuban living legally in Texas with a green card, was injured but not seriously. His brother tells CNN the truck's brakes failed, but if that's true vehicular manslaughter charges could still apply. (Read more car crash stories.) (Newser) More than 900 students and staff members at two Los Angeles universities were quarantined on campus or sent home this week in one of the most sweeping efforts yet by public health authorities to contain the spread of measles in the US, where cases have reached a 25-year high. By Friday afternoon, the AP reports, two days after Los Angeles County ordered the precautions, about 200 of those affected had been cleared to return after proving their immunity to the disease, through either medical records or tests, school officials said. The action at UCLA and Cal State-Los Angeleswhich together have more than 65,000 studentsreflected the seriousness with which public health officials are taking the nation's outbreak. story continues below "Measles actually kills people. So we have to take that really seriously," said Dr. Armand Dorian, chief medical officer at USC Verdugo Hills Hospital. The number of cases in the US has climbed to nearly 700 this year, including five in Los Angeles County and 38 altogether in California. Cal State-LA reported 656 students and staff still under quarantine, while UCLA said it had fewer than 50.Those under the quarantine were instructed to stay at home and avoid contact with others. They were singled out based on their possible exposure to either an infected UCLA student who had attended classes in two buildings on three days earlier this month, or a person with measles who visited a Cal State-LA library on April 11, officials said. Given the amount of time a person can remain contagious, officials said the quarantine would end at UCLA on Tuesday and at Cal State-LA on Thursday. (Read more measles stories.) (Newser) Imagine a woman choosing between two earrings: contraceptive or non-contraceptive. That option may one day exist if so-called "contraceptive jewelry" becomes available, Fox News reports. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology tested the notion by designing tiny skin patcheseach containing up to a week of contraceptionand fashioning them to jewelry like watches, choker necklaces, rings, and earrings. Placed on hairless rats and pig ears, they provided up to a week of contraception even when removed for eight-hour stretches (which is like removing jewelry overnight). The original goal was to offer women in developing countries another contraception option, per a press release, but it could address other issues. story continues below For one thing, contraception jewelry can be used discretelya possible boon for women in cultures where contraception is shunned. It might also be easier to remember than popping a daily pill, though not all agree: "The idea that it might be easier to remember to put on jewelry than take a pill is slightly sexist, says Deborah Bateson, a gynecology professor in Australia. The jewelry might also transmit other pharmaceuticals if the required doses are small enough. But will women actually wear them? To answer that, "we need to understand ... the social and personal factors that come into play for women all around the world," says study co-author Mark Prausnitz. (See how one media outlet lists the best and worst birth-control methods.) (Newser) An American banker visiting the Caribbean is accused of killing an employee at a five-star hotelbut insists it was done in self-defense, CNN reports. Gavin Hapgood, 44, was arrested and charged with manslaughter on the island of Anguilla after the April 13 incident. A Hapgood rep says the hotel maintenance worker, Kenny "Mylez" Mitchel, entered the family's room "claiming he was there to fix a broken sink" but "was armed and demanding money" and inflicted a "sudden, violent attack on the family." His daughters present, the UBS banker from Connecticut apparently fought back until the 27-year-old employee was dead; an autopsy found Mitchel was beaten and choked to death. But not everyone is buying Hapgood's version of events. story continues below "Kenny was just not a person who'd give anybody problems," Mitchel's uncle, Victor, tells CBS News. A GoFundMe site for Mitchel's family says he "was a very happy friendly individual" who has "videos of him singing and entertaining the crowds." The site also claims Hapgood called him to his room by name, which the American disputes. Hapgood had "to seek medical attention to his wounds from the altercation, which included multiple cuts from the knife Mr. Mitchel came bearing," a rep tells NBC News. Released on $74,000 bail, Hapgood promises to return and face trial. But locals are expressing outrage over a wealthy tourist given apparently preferential treatment, per the New York Post. An Anguilla official is urging calm "even when we are justifiably outraged or emotionally distresed." (Read more manslaughter stories.) (Newser) The CIA kicked off its Instagram account Thursday with an image of a desk and a simple clue: "I spy with my little eye..." The challenge, it seems, is to interpret the meaning of objects in the photolike a wig, a clock set for 8:46, and a pair of cuff-links, the BBC reports. The CIA says the objects were gathered from current agency workers. How many can you figure out? With a SPOILER ALERT, a few answers: story continues below The bamboo plant looks like a reference to, what else, CIA foreign intelligence plants. looks like a reference to, what else, CIA foreign intelligence plants. Artwork is of Tony Mendez, the CIA officer who pretended to be a filmmaker to rescue six American hostages from Iran in 1980. is of Tony Mendez, the CIA officer who pretended to be a filmmaker to rescue six American hostages from Iran in 1980. Cuff-links have apparently been worn by a CIA case officer and an asset to identify each other. have apparently been worn by a CIA case officer and an asset to identify each other. The clock is set to 8:46, the moment a plane hit the World Trade Center's North Tower on 9/11. is set to 8:46, the moment a plane hit the World Trade Center's North Tower on 9/11. The golden owl represents Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom. It was apparently offered by CIA Chief Operating Officer Andy Makridis, who is Greek-American. represents Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom. It was apparently offered by CIA Chief Operating Officer Andy Makridis, who is Greek-American. Maps of Iran, China, and Russia remind us of America's top international rivals. of Iran, China, and Russia remind us of America's top international rivals. A "burn bag" labeled "TOP SECRET PULP" is for destroying evidence. labeled "TOP SECRET PULP" is for destroying evidence. A CIA badge dangling from a jacket shows CIA Director Gina Haspel's original 1985 CIA photo, per the Verge. Haspel announced the Instagram move at a Q&A in Auburn and mentioned the agency's already-existing Twitter account, per CBS News . "There are some people still around at agency who really don't know what that isand are against it in principle, I'm sure," she said. (Read more CIA stories.) (Newser) A gunman opened fire in a California synagogue Saturday and took a woman's life in what authorities are calling a hate crime, the New York Times reports. The attackerdescribed as white, 19, and using an AR-style gunalso wounded three others, including the rabbi, who was shot in the hand at the Chabad of Poway synagogue near San Diego. The gunman "was shooting at everybody and cursing," a congregant tells the San Diego-Union Tribune. An off-duty Border Patrol agent fired at the attacker's car as he fled, per the LA Times, and the suspect was apprehended soon after. A San Diego police K9 officer got him by pulling up beside his car, which was pulled over. "He jumped out of the car with his hands up," said San Diego police Chief David Nisleit. story continues below Now officials are poring over the suspect's social media accounts and an "open letter" that may explain his motives. "It was a hate crime, and that will not stand," said Poway Mayor Steve Vaus, per USA Today. "This shooter was engaged by people in the congregation and those brave people certainly prevented this from being a much worse tragedy." President Trump agreed that it "looks like a hate crime. My deepest sympathies to all of those affected. And we'll get to the bottom of it." Apparently the gunman called 911 and confessed after the attackwhile, back at the temple, the injured rabbi continued to address the congregation. It was the last day of Passover, when the Yizkor service is held to remember relatives who have died. (Read more synagogue shooting stories.) Sorry! This content is not available in your region New Delhi: Indian automaker giant Mahindra and Mahindra recently announced deployment of 50 of its electric-vehicles (EVs) to Uber. Mahindra and Uber have tied up for 50 electric vehicles which includes Mahindra eVerito and e20. In November 2017, Mahindra announced its agreement with the online taxi booking app for the supply of electric cars. Now, the deal has finally taken its final shape and the first batch of electric vehicles has been deployed in Hyderabad. The automaker company has also announced that it will be adding more electric vehicles to Uber fleet of cabs and will also be expanding it to other cities across India. Mahesh Babu, CEO of Mahindra Electric said, "Our collaboration with Uber is aimed at accelerating the large-scale adoption of electric vehicles on shared mobility platforms, thereby driving a positive change in daily commute. "Today while thanking the Telangana Government for its support, we are excited to embark on this journey to make shared EV commute eco-friendly and transform the way people in Hyderabad commute. Going forward we plan to further deploy our vehicles across multiple cities on the Uber platform, he added. Uber is one of the popular ride-hailing apps in the world and in India as well. Being in direct competition with Ola, Uber has surely displayed their awareness and future readiness by introducing electric vehicles in their fleet of cars. Auto major Mahindra & Mahindra recently reported that its pick up vehicles domestic sale crossed 1.5 lakh units in domestic marker during the fiscal ended March this year. The pickup range has sold 1,62,000 vehicles in FY-2019, compared to 1,49,121 vehicles in FY-2018, logging a 9 per cent growth, thereby posting the highest-ever annual sales growth in the segment since the launch, the company said in a release. At present, the pick-up segment in India has sales of over 14,000 vehicles per month and is growing rapidly, the company said, adding Mahindra groups market share in the segment stood at 58 per cent in FY19. New Delhi: In a big boost to Indias ambitions to become a manufacturing hub, around 200 American companies are planning to soon move their manufacturing units from China to India. The US-India Strategic and Partnership Forums (USISPF) President Mukesh Aghi claimed that these companies have approached them to enquire about setting up an alternative to China by investing in India. The top US-based advocacy group observed that this could be a fantastic opportunity for India to achieve its goal to become a manufacturing hub. Due to the ongoing trade-war between the US and China, American companies are suffering and therefore, they are looking for an alternative to the Communist giant. Aghi said that the USISPF would advise the new government to accelerate the reforms and bring transparency in the decision-making process We would advise to bring more transparency in the process and to make it more consultative because in the last 12 to 18 months, we are seeing US companies look at some of the decisions being made, either e-commerce or data localisation, as more domestic-oriented than global, PTI news agency quoted him as saying. In his reply to what the agenda of the new Indian government should be to attract investment, Aghi suggested that New Delhi needs to accelerate reforms, be more transparent in the process and engage more. "We need to understand how we can attract those companies. And that means all the way from land issues to customs issues to being part of the global supply chain. Those are critical issues. Theres a whole plethora of reforms that need to go further down, and I think that is also going to create a lot of jobs," he said. Aghi said that they have formed a high-level manufacturing council within the member companies, led by John Kern, Senior Vice President of Supply Chain Operations at Cisco who are putting a document together detailing what India needs to do to turn it into a manufacturing hub. (With PTI inputs) For all the Latest Business News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Mumbai: The National Aviators Guild (NAG), which represents pilots of the grounded carrier Jet Airways, Saturday requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to direct the airlines lender State Bank of India to release one months salary of all the employees. In a late evening e-mail to the prime minister, the guild also sought governments directive to stop de-registration of the airlines aircraft, which are now being leased by other domestic carriers. "We urge you to direct SBI to release a months salary to all employees on an urgent and humane basis. We dont want to see a repeat of the human tragedy which unfolded post the Kingfisher Airlines demise," said NAG president Karan Chopra in the e-mail. Thousands of employees of Kingfisher lost over eight months salary after the airline went bust in October 2012. The guild also sought to expedite the binding bid date for the Jet Airways stake to "preserve" enterprise value of the airline. It also urged the government to ascertain if there was a "premeditated conspiracy" to delay bid declaration or any other illegal move was afoot to allow those who have bid as individual entities to team up as a consortium now. On Friday, Jet Airways chief executive Vinay Dube had said there was no commitment on the part of stakeholders on paying salaries. The airline has not paid March salaries to its over 20,000 employees. Jet ceased operations on April 17. The airline suspended operations after the SBI-led consortium of lenders rejected its demand of a Rs 983-crore lifeline to help carry out operations and pay salaries. For all the Latest Business News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Saturday took over Pollachi sexual harassment case from the police and registered two cases. The case relates to a four-member gang woman allegedly trying to strip a woman inside a car near Pollachi, over 500 km from Chennai, recording the act and blackmailing her using the visuals. The victim, who managed to free herself, later lodged a complaint with the police. A total of eight people have been arrested in connection with the case. The government had last month transferred the investigation of the case to the CBI from the state's CB-CID, which had earlier taken up the probe from the local police. The case assumed political overtones since a local functionary of ruling AIADMK allegedly attacked the victim's brother. The four accused in sexual harassment case --Sabarirajan, Thirunavakkarasu, Sathish and Vasanthkumar -- are under judicial custody and were booked under various sections of the IPC, Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Harassment of Women Act and the Goondas Act. (With PTI inputs) For all the Latest Crime News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: BJP president Amit Shah seems little tired after holding dozens of election rallies, roadshows and meetings across the country in the Lok Sabha Elections 2019, but he looks more determined and confident than ever. This election, the BJP president is contesting from the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency, a party stronghold which had elected Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1996) and LK Advani (1991, 1998-2014). In an exclusive interview with News Nation, Shah exudes confidence that his party will win the 2019 General Elections with bigger mandate than 2014. He also targeted Congress president Rahul Gandhi over the Ram Temple issue, slammed Digvijaya Singh for coining the term 'Hindu terrorism' and explained why he gets aggressive when addresses rallies in West Bengal. Excerpts | Heres what Amit Shah told News Nation in the interview Did you expect such a massive turnout during Prime Minister Narendra Modis recent roadshow in Varanasi? Amit Shah: So far, I have been to 259 Lok Sabha constituencies across the country in the last four months. Wherever I have gone for campaigning, I witnessed such a massive response and heard chants of Modi, Modi. The people of this country have already decided to vote for the NDA this Lok Sabha polls as well, and re-elect Narendra Modi as Prime Minister. Varanasi was no exception. For Uttar Pradesh, you have claimed that the BJP will win at least 73 seats. The party could even win more than 74 seats. Why are you so confident? Amit Shah: In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and the 2017 assembly polls in the state, the BJP performed exceptionally well. Both state and central governments have performed beyond peoples expectations. Secondly, the BJP as a unit wasnt that strong in 2014, but in 2017 and 2019, the party has emerged a very strong force. PM Modis popularity has also increased in the state. Also, I saw casteism is almost finished in the state in the 2017 polls. Thats why I am confident that the BJP will get bigger mandate than the last polls. Also, there is no comparism between the Congress and the BJP, which did much better than its rivals. Do you think the Modi wave has demolished casteism in Bihar? Amit Shah: This election, the national security is an issue, change in the lifestyle of 50 crore people of the country is an issue, improving countrys economy is an issue and along with this, Modis popularity is also an issue. Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati have questioned the BJP over the malfunctioning of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) during first three phases of Lok Sabha elections. Is EVM actually an issue? Amit Shah: Every time, the Opposition loses an election, it raises the EVM issue. This time, it raised the issue even before the polls were held. It showed it has already accepted its defeat. I want to ask one thing, in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, (where the Congress defeated the BJP in the assembly elections last year) were the elections held on ballot papers or EVM? Why dont Mayawati and Akhilesh say anything on this? In West Bengal, your election rallies have been quite aggressive. Is it because BJP workers face difficulties there? Amit Shah: Its not about aggression. The reign of terror that is undertaking by Trinamool Congress government in Bengal is not good for democracy. In the Panchayat elections, 60 of our workers were killed. Thirty-seven per cent of the voters could not cast their votes. There has been a dictatorship in the state. For example, Durga puja is not allowed to organise, ban on Saraswati Puja, prohibition on Ram Navami march. The democracy is being suppressed in West Bengal... Home Minister Rajnath Singhs chopper was not allowed to land there. I am the president of the BJP, but even my helicopter was not permitted to land there. Besides, UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath had to land in Jharkhand to reach Bengal for rallies. What kind of democracy is this? The Opposition alleges that the BJP supports far-right Hinduism, after how you and PM Modi defended Sadhvi Pragya Thakurs candidature from Bhopal in the Lok Sabha polls. Does the BJP really promote far-right Hinduism? Amit Shah: The defence of Sadhvi Pragya Thakur is in no way promotion of the far-right Hinduism. The Congress is doing vote-bank politics by coining the term Hindu-terrorism. There is nothing called Hindu-terrorism. Even two courts have said that there is nothing called Hindu-terrorism or saffron-terrorism. The Congress tries to insult Hinduism. The Congress had arrested wrong people for the Samjhauta Express blast and released the actual terrorists involved in the attack. Rahul Gandhi should apologise for this. Is it the reason why the BJP fielded Sadhvi Pragya Thakur against Digvijaya Singh? Amit Shah: Yes, of course. One of the minds who had coined the term Hindu terrorism was Digvijaya Singh. He had himself said this publicly We didnt forget that. Do you think the Congress can ever protest the Ram Temple issue? Amit Shah: The Congress never supported either. Rahul Gandhi and Digvijaya Singh should clear their stand on the Ram Temple issue The Ram Temple will be constructed there only. Do you think the construction of the Ram Temple will begin post the Lok Sabha elections, if the BJP gets the mandate? Amit Shah: See, the hearing has already begun. The court has given us eight-week mediation time which is ending in June. I have full faith that the case will go on smoothly now. In Kashmir, the PDP and the National Conference have alleged that the BJP has further complicated issues such as Article 370 and Section 35-A. What do you want to say? Amit Shah: See, there was a terror attack in Kashmir. And if we retaliate, does it mean we have complicated the issue? If this is their understanding, then I dont endorse their views. In Kashmir, the Modi has taken tough steps against terrorism. Most number of terrorists were eliminated in the last five years. The NIA took actions against foreign terror-funding, we banned the Jamaat-e-Islami and the JKLF, arrested their leaders, and importantly, conducted surgical and air strikes. We believe that Article 370 and Section 35-A are hurdles for development in Kashmir and they should be abolished. New Delhi: Former MP Atique Ahmed, who has been jail since February 11, 2017, will contest from Varanasi on the Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Lok Sabha elections 2019, sources said. Ahmed, who is currently lodged in a jail at Naini in UP, on Saturday filed an application, urging the jail superintendent to release him to contest the polls. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court directed shifting Ahmed to a high security jail in Gujarat for kidnapping and assaulting a businessman in prison in Uttar Pradesh. Taking a strong note of the incident, which took place in Deoria jail, the top court ordered a CBI probe into the case. A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna ordered suspension of five jail officials against whom the Uttar Pradesh government has initiated departmental proceedings for their prima facie involvement in the case. The bench asked the state government to give the status report of 80 cases registered against Ahmed, besides the 26 pending in different courts. Businessman Mohit Jaiswal had filed an FIR on December 28, 2018, alleging that he was kidnapped from Lucknow and taken to the prison where he was assaulted by the jailed don and his aides and was forced to transfer his business to them. On April 11, the Uttar Pradesh government had told the apex court that Ahmad, who was lodged in Deoria jail, had indeed kidnapped and assaulted Jaiswal on December 26 last year. Confirming the incident, the UP government had said CCTV cameras in the jail complex were tampered with at the time of the incident. In a report submitted through Hansaria, the state government said departmental action against five jail officials has been initiated. Hansaria had in his earlier report submitted that there were 109 cases registered against Ahmad from 1979 to 2019 which include 17 murder cases, 12 cases under UP Gangster Act, eight under Arms Act and four under UP Goonda Act. He had said eight cases pending investigation were registered against Ahmed between 2015 and 2019 of which two are murder cases. Ahmed was a five-time MLA and one-time MP. In the past he was associated with political parties including Samajwadi Party and Apna Dal (Sonewal faction). New Delhi: Congress president Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka Gandhi, both headed to different directions, crossed each others path at Uttar Pradeshs Kanpur airport. And like all the brothers, the Congress chief also pulled the leg of her younger sister during the meeting, which was all about smiles, hugs and a little banter. At the Kanpur airport, when Rahul Gandhi was headed to his constituency Amethi for campaigning, he saw his sister Priyanka, who was headed to a different meeting, he could not resist his big brotherly love and hugged her. The duo had just exchanged greetings when Rahul, all of the sudden came close to the camera to tell what it was like to be a brother. "Let me tell you what it means to be a good brother. I am going on a massive, massive ride but I have got a small helicopter, and Priyanka is going on a really small ride but she has got a big helicopter," Rahul said while Priyanka kept on smiling. Congress president Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka Gandhi will be in Uttar Pradesh on Saturday as campaigning for the fourth phase of Lok Sabha elections ends today. While Rahul Gandhi will hold public gatherings in his own constituency Amethi and Rae Bareli, which is the Lok Sabha seat of his mother and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, his sister Priyanka hold roadshows in Unnao and Barabanki. Watch the video below: New Delhi: After much speculation about who will play the female lead in Irrfan Khan starrer Angrezi Medium, it was confirmed that Kareena Kapoor has been finalised for the project. The actress was supposed to start the shoot in May in London, but now as per a report in Deccan Chronicle the shoot has been postponed to June. A source close to the actress revealed that owing to being busy with shoots, first with Good News and then for a magazine in London, Kareena didnt get to spend much time with Taimur. Also, since Taimurs playgroup will shut by May and his summer vacations will begin soon, Kareena wants to be in Mumbai to enjoy quality time with him. She may also take Taimur to London for the shooting of Angrezi Medium. Talking about the film, Kareena and Irrfan are coming together for the first time in Angrezi Medium. The film, directed by Homi Adajania, went on floors recently and also stars Radhika Madan and Deepak Dobriyal, among others. While Irrfan Khans character in 'Hindi Medium' was Raj Batra, a Delhi based businessman with a sari showroom, he plays Champak from Udaipur who is in the mithai business for 'Angrezi Medium'. Deepak Dobriyal who was also seen in Hindi Medium plays his brother. Radhika Madan will play the role of Irrfan's daughter who wants to go to abroad for studying. Kareena will be seen playing the role of a cop in Angrezi Medium and is not paired opposite Irrfan. Currently, the film is being shot in Rajasthan. Soon after Angrezi Medium, Kareena will begin shooting for Karan Johars Takht. For all the Latest Entertainment News, Bollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Shah Rukh Khan may not be in news for his work for some time now but the actor manages to keep the tinsel town entertained with his witty and profound social media posts depending upon his mood or just by posting throwback photos of his kids that are too adorable. Calling AbRam his aminia version, Shah Rukh Khan shared an adorable post on Twitter, with a picture which speaks volumes of the Khan charm. SRK captioned the pic aYou never really understand your personality unless you have a Mini Me who acts the same waya and we cannot avoid but see that the muchkin is a splitting image his superstar dad. AbRam is also one of the paparazzi's favourites and the first one who started this paparazzi and social media frenzy for star kids. He however makes an occasional appearance in public in company of his parents. Gauri Khan too posts adorable clicks of the little munchkin. A Shah Rukh Khanas innate closeness with his third born in not unknown. In an interview with India Today, SRK had said he has no other interests in life other than his children. "I have no other interest in life. People find it very strange. There's only one interest high up in life... that is to play with children. I love kids, and not in the nice, pat-sy way; I just love kids. I like being around them, and I have three of them. I've really had some amazing times with them. I'd rather be with my children than be anyplace else. That's the only thing I'd rather do more than acting," he had said. Shah Rukh last seen in Aanand L Raias Zero is yet to finalize his next project. In an early interview, the actor said that he will take a few more months to announce his next project. Recently Aamir Khan and Salman Khan meet the actor at his residence creating rumours that they might unite for a project. For all the Latest Entertainment News, Bollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Los Angeles: Chris Evans says he wants to get married and have kids. The 37-year-old Captain America star, who is enjoying the fan frenzy around his latest Marvel release Avengers: Endgame, says he likes the idea of having a family. ''I really want kids. Yeah, I do. I like pretty pedestrian, domestic things. I want a wife, I want kids. I like ceremony. "I want to carve pumpkins and decorate Christmas trees and s**t like that," Evans told Men's Journal magazine. Avengers: Endgame, directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, released on Friday worldwide. For all the Latest Entertainment News, Hollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Air India flights in India and other parts of the world were affected after the airline server crashed on Saturday. Hundreds of passengers were stranded at Delhias Indira Gandhi International Airport and scores others at others parts of the world due the delay in the state-run carrieras flights. In a statement, Air India stated that the delay in its flight operations was due because its SITA server down. The airline regretted the inconvenience to the passengers and informed that the technical teams were working to resolve the issue. aSITA server is down. Due to which flight operation is affected. Our technical teams are on work and soon system may be recovered. Inconvenience is deeply regretted,a ANI news agency quoted Air India as saying. The flights of Air India were disrupted since 3.30 am on Saturday morning. People stranded at several airports took to social media to express their anguish with the national carrieras services. a@airindiain's birthday gift to me, spending the day in overcrowded delhi airport (all the crowd due to airindia's various flights) with no real updates on next steps. We understand server crashes can happen, but when it's over 4 hrs u really need to do something abt it (sic),a tweeted one of the passenger stranded at Delhias IGI airport. Bollywood filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri also caught in the chaos and he had to return home after waiting for couple of hours at the airport. "Air India server crashed since 3.30AM. All flights cancelled. Thousands of passengers stranded at the airport. Nobody knows what is happening. Donat go to the airport without confirming. I am also going back after spending couple of hours," he tweeted. People at Sydney airport in Australia also faced similar issues and they were not able to check in due to the server issues. @airindiain passengers unable to checkin at Sydney airport .reason. airindia system issues. pic.twitter.com/2METzywnBP a pa (@pratishrut) April 27, 2019 At Mumbai airport, one passenger claimed that at least 2,000 people were stranded becuase of the SITA sever crash. Chaos created by Air India this morning Mumbai Airport Terminal 2. All flights passengers left stranded. Claims server down since 3am. @jayantsinha @aajtak pic.twitter.com/JwPHRudXzo a Varun Suthra (@DrVarunsuthra) April 27, 2019 Chaos at Mumbai airport..@airindiain server down since last night pic.twitter.com/8S9ByiB6Lq a Shalini (@shalinisaxena6) April 27, 2019 For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: As many as 155 Air India flights will be delayed for an average duration of two hours till 8.30 pm due to the passenger service system (PSS) software shut down for six hours on Saturday, the state-run carrier said in a statement. Thousands of passengers across India and overseas stranded at several airports as the airlines PSS software, which looks after check-in, baggage and reservation, stopped functioning. The software malfunctioned after a routine maintainance at 3.30 am. The software, which is run by SITA, was restored at around 8:45, due to which flight operations of Air India took a hit. "155 flights, with an average duration of two hours, are expected to be delayed till 2030 hours," Air India spokesperson said. The airlines chairman and managing director (CMD) Ashwani Lohani said he expects normalisation of operations by Saturday night. Air India group, which also includes subsidiaries Alliance Air and Air India Express, flies around 674 flights every day. SITA's senior manager Julius Baumann said, "SITA experienced a complex system issue during server maintenance today which resulted in operational disruption to Air India flights. We've now fully restored services at all airports where Air India were affected." He further said that an investigation was being conducted to understand the root cause and prevent reccurence of any such incident. "We are undertaking a full investigation to understand the root cause and prevent a recurrence. We deeply regret the inconvenience this has caused to the airline and their customers owing to this disruption. Only Air India flights were affected by the glitch." Earlier, thousands of people stranded at the airports across the world took to social media to express thier anguish over the delay. "@airindiain's birthday gift to me, spending the day in overcrowded delhi airport (all the crowd due to airindia's various flights) with no real updates on next steps. We understand server crashes can happen, but when it's over 4 hrs u really need to do something abt it (sic)," tweeted one of the passenger stranded at Delhis IGI airport. Bollywood filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri also had to face the trouble due to the issue. He had to return home after waiting for couple of hours at the airport. "Air India server crashed since 3.30AM. All flights cancelled. Thousands of passengers stranded at the airport. Nobody knows what is happening. Dont go to the airport without confirming. I am also going back after spending couple of hours," he tweeted. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: India on Saturday asked its nationals to avoid non-essential travel to the Sri Lanka following series of blasts on Easter Sunday that killed more than 250 people and injured over 400 others. In the advisory, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said those requiring to undertake emergency travels can contact the High Commission of India in Colombo, the Assistant High Commission in Kandy as well as Consulates in Hambantota and Jaffna for any assistance. "In view of the prevailing security situation in Sri Lanka in the aftermath of terror attacks on April 21, Indian nationals intending to travel to Sri Lanka are advised not to undertake non-essential travel," it said. "In case of those undertaking essential/emergency travels, they can contact the High Commission of India in Colombo or the Assistant High Commission in Kandy / Consulates in Hambantota and Jaffna in case of requirement of any assistance," the MEA added. The MEA said Sri Lanka has beefed up security in the country but a nation-wide emergency including night time curfew has been in place which may affect travel within Sri Lanka. Nine suicide bombers carried out a series of devastating blasts that tore through three churches and three luxury hotels on the Easter Sunday, killing 253 people. The Islamic State claimed the attacks, but the government has blamed local Islamist extremist group National Thowheeth Jamath (NTJ). Sri Lankan security forces are continuing their hunt for members of the NTJ. On Friday night, six children and three women were among 15 people killed when militants linked to the bombings opened fire and blew themselves up during a fierce gun battle with security forces in Sri Lanka's Eastern province. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Bengaluru: The details of the Karnataka terror alert, which was later declared as hoax prove that the truth is stranger than fiction! The baffling findings point to a apremonitiona that led to the terror alert. Speaking to News Nation, KV Sharath Chandra, IG central range Karnataka said that Sundara Murthy, a retired army personnel, has confessed that he made the call after he got an ainsighta about the terror attack during meditation. Murthy, an ex-driver in Indian Army, is father of a Kargil martyr. His eldest son had attained martyrdom while fight on the border in 1999 war. He second son is presently serving in the army. Other two children stay with the accused. There were some reports that Murthy had made the call while he was drunk. However, the police have not confirmed the information. "Sundara Murthy, a retired army personnel, has confessed that he made the call after he got an ainsighta about the terror attack during meditation," says KV Sharath Chandra, IG central range, Karnataka. Read full story: https://t.co/ETVnMqAjRj pic.twitter.com/xtueNaKBsb a News Nation (@NewsNationTV) April 27, 2019 A In a dramatic turn of events, the Bengaluru (Rural) Police arrested a former army man for making the call. aIt was a hoax call. Sundara Murthy, a retired army personnel has been arrested for making the call,a Bengaluru (Rural) SP Ram Nivas Sepat said. Murthy was a driver in Indian Army and had retired from service in 1995. The development comes a day after the state police issued an alert to seven states and one Union Territory warning them about terrorists planning major attacks on trains in the coming days. The Karnataka DGP had written to top police officials in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Goa, Maharashtra and Pondicherry, alerting them about terror attacks being planned on trains. The letter also talked about the presence of 19 terrorists in Tamil Nadu's Ramanathapuram. The letter was issued to DGPs of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Pondicherry, Goa and Maharashtra, DGP RPF (New Delhi), along with Bengaluru Police Commissioner, ADGP (Railways), ADGP (Law and Order) and IGP (Intelligence, Bengaluru). Swamy had also claimed about the presence of 19 terrorists in Ramanathapuram, the letter added. Principal secretary to Tamil Nadu govt has also communicated the information to Tamil Nadu Police for necessary action. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Bengaluru: The alert about terror attack in as many as seven southern states has been declared as hoax. In a dramatic turn of events, the Bengaluru (Rural) Police arrested a former army man for making the call. It was a hoax call. Sundara Murthy, a retired army personnel has been arrested for making the call, Bengaluru (Rural) SP Ram Nivas Sepat said. Murthy was a driver in Indian Army and had retired from service in 1995. The development comes a day after the state police issued an alert to seven states and one Union Territory warning them about terrorists planning major attacks on trains in the coming days. The Karnataka DGP had written to top police officials in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Goa, Maharashtra and Pondicherry, alerting them about terror attacks being planned on trains. The letter also talked about the presence of 19 terrorists in Tamil Nadu's Ramanathapuram. The letter was issued to DGPs of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Pondicherry, Goa and Maharashtra, DGP RPF (New Delhi), along with Bengaluru Police Commissioner, ADGP (Railways), ADGP (Law and Order) and IGP (Intelligence, Bengaluru). Swamy had also claimed about the presence of 19 terrorists in Ramanathapuram, the letter added. Principal secretary to Tamil Nadu govt has also communicated the information to Tamil Nadu Police for necessary action. The warning comes close to the heels of the dastardly terror attack on hotels and churches in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday which claimed over 250 lives, including 10 Indians, and left over 500 injured. The ISSI group has claimed responsibility for the Easter terror attacks on three Catholic churches and three luxury hotels but the government has blamed a local Islamist extremist group, National Tawheed Jamath (NTJ), for the bombings. Indian intelligence agencies had warned their Sri Lankan counterparts about a possible terror attack hours before a series of explosions ripped through the island nation. The Indian government source said similar messages had been sent Sri Lankan intelligence agents on April 4 and April 20. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: St Josephs Higher Secondary School, the second oldest Catholic institution in Manipur, was allegedly burnt down by angry students. The incident took place on April 25 after the school authorities suspended six students for indiscipline. According to latest media reports, two people have been arrested in connection with the incident. Rev Fr Dominic, the Principal of the school said that, 10 rooms have been destroyed, 2 of them had documents, files and equipment. Talking about the entire suspension episode, the Principal said that, We've been discussing that the reason could be negotiation with local student organisation. They didn't like the correctional measure we had taken. They wanted the punishment quashed. Manipur minister Letpao Haokip slammed the act and said that, This is an act of extremists, A students organisation is burning down a school! I condemn the act. Whoever is involved in this act will be booked and punished. I'll help in the reconstruction of school so that students don't lose an academic year. Some 1,400 students study in the school. According to The Hindu, father of one the suspended students is a leader of a local extremist organisation. He apparently mobilised the extremists to burn down the 55-year-old school. The school refused to give in. This led to the miscreants burning down the 55-year-old school, along with all its records, Fr Chapao said. According to The Sangai Express, the All Naga Students Association, Manipur (ANSAM) and the All Tribal Students Union, Manipur (ATSUM) have also strongly condemned the burning down of the school. In a statement, the ANSAM said that it is shocked and strongly condemned such cowardly action. Such action would not only deprive the students from progressing in their academic endeavour but also also create a long term fear psychosis, the Naga student body said. In a separate statement, the All Tribal Students Union Manipur (ATSUM) said it is deeply perturbed with the inhuman act of torching down of the School by a bunch of miscreants. This act of arson perpetrated on educational institution is a desperate attack on humanity, the apex tribal student body of Manipur stated. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: The Indian Air Force on Saturday rejected a media report, which had said that the Court of Inquiry into the Mi17 chopper crash on February 27 was put on hold due to ongoing Lok Sabha elections. The report published in leading daily Business Standard had said that the CoI looking into the circumstances of the crash of the sturdy chopper on February 27 over Budgam skies was ordered to ago slowa. Six IAF personnel and a civilian were killed in the crash, which so far is believed to be a rare case of afriendly fire.a In simple words, this means that India downed its own chopper. The Business Standard report spoke about how the Mi17 crash report would not gone well with the post-Pulwama and Balakot scenario in the poll season. However, the Indian Air Force took to Twitter and rejected the media report. In a series of tweets, the air force said that the article written by Ajai Shukla is ahis imagination.a aToday in an article written by Ajai Shukla he has incorrectly speculated that the IAF Court of Inquiry constituted to investigate the Mi-17 V5 crash at Srinagar on 27 Feb has been put on hold. This is his imagination and IAF categorically denies this,a the air force said. A CoI of aircraft accidents are meticulous & time consuming. All past inquiries of aircraft accidents bear testimony to this. Proceedings of a CoI are not commented upon by IAF till completion of the inquiry in all cases.There is no connection between elections & completion of CoI. a Indian Air Force (@IAF_MCC) April 27, 2019 On the so-called delay in the probe, the air force said that, aCoI (Court of Inquiry) of aircraft accidents are meticulous & time consuming. All past inquiries of aircraft accidents bear testimony to this. Proceedings of a CoI are not commented upon by IAF till completion of the inquiry in all cases. There is no connection between elections & completion of CoI.a An earlier report by the Economic Times had revealed that the Indian Air Force may have downed its own Mi-17 V5 over Budgam on February 27 last month. The report said that the fresh evidences point to a startling lapse of aIdentity, Friend or Foea protocol that could have led to the shooting down of the sturdy chopper. Seven people including a civilian were killed in the crash that took place in Garend Kalan village of Budgam at around 10.40 am on the fateful day. It should be noted that the crash coincided with airspace violation by Pakistani fighter jets. As many as 24 Pakistani combat jets intruded into the India airspace on February 27 to take the revenge of the pre-dawn Balakot air strike. According to the Economic Times report, on that day, when the Indian Air Force intercepted the Pakistani intrusion, an air defence alert was sounded. The report says that a probe has been launched to determine the sequence of the events and how that stringent safeguards were overlooked. The report says that the top air force officials have indicated that court martial proceedings will be initiated against the person responsible for such a lapse. According to the Economic Times report, an Israeli missile was activated after the air defence alert. It is yet to be established whether this missile downed the Mi17 chopper, which is generally described as a case of afriendly firea in defence parlance. The report says that the chopper could have been mistaken for UAV sent by the enemy. Earlier, officials in Srinagar had described the downed aircraft as a jet. They said the aircraft broke into two and caught fire immediately. Interestingly, Pakistan had denied shooting down the chopper. This is the same day when Indian Air Force pilot Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman had downed the Pakistani F-16 in the aerial dogfight that lasted for about 90 seconds. The events after the airspace invasion centred around Abhinandanas captivity.A A For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Sajad Lone on Friday called former chief minister Farooq Abdullahs praise for Yasin Malik utterly disdainful hypocrisy. Farooq Abdullah on Thursday while praising Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front chairman Yasin Malik said he is ready to die but not to surrender before Delhi for the sake of self-respect of Kashmiris. Yasin Malik despite being severely ill is languishing in jail because he is advocating a dialogue with India but is not willing to sell self-respect of Kashmiris. He has preferred death over surrender. I congratulate him for that, Abdullah had said. He said this addressing an election rally in Devsar area of Jammu and Kashmirs Kulgam district. Sajad Lone commenting on Abdullahs remarks said, Do you really have the nerve to be talking about Yasin Malik? Can you jog your memory a bit and recall that did you not as Chief Minister in 1987 chase a young rebellious Yasin Malik from being a rebel within the political system to picking up arms? Was it not you as Chief Minister who imprisoned him before and after 1987 elections? Was it not you as Chief Minister who ordered his third-degree torture and tortured him so badly that his heart ailment worsened? Was it not you as Chief Minister who put a bounty of a few lakhs on his head? Have you forgotten all that? And 32 years later you are all praise for Yasin Malik and congratulating him for going on a hunger strike and his readiness to sacrifice his life. If you are so much in love with what Yasin Malik is doing, why dont you suggest the same to your son Omar Abdullah? Why doesnt he go on a hunger strike and render a sacrifice as you suggest for Yasin Malik? Or are sacrifices only meant for other peoples sons? JKLF chief Yasin Malik, arrested in connection with alleged terror funding case was sent to judicial custody till May 24 by Delhi court on Wednesday. The court had earlier sent Malik to NIA custody. He was brought to New Delhi after a court in Kashmir granted his transit remand to the National Investigation Agency. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Soon after joining Congress, actor-turned politician Shatrughan Sinha lauded the grand-old-party and Jawaharlal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel. At the same time, he also praised Jinnah. While addressing a public rally at Sausar in Madhya Pradeshs Chindwara on Friday, Shatrughan Sinha said, From Sardar Patel to Nehru, from Mahatma Gandhi to Jinnah, from Indira Gandhi to Rahul Gandhi, all have had a role to play in nations independence and development. That is why I joined Congress party. The Patna Sahib MP also took a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi dubbing his interview with actor Akshay Kumar as one conducted after "rehearsals" and with the help of "scriptwriters". He further took indirect jibe at PM Modi saying, A party is bigger than a person, country is bigger than party and nothing is bigger than a nation. He further slammed Modi government for GST and demonetisation. Interestingly, the statement from Shatrughan Sinha comes months after a ruckus was created in Aligarh Muslim University and several other places over Jinnahs photo. On the occasion, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath said, We have waved off the loans of 21 lakh farmers. He also said that Shivraj Singh was screaming that loans have not been waved off. Shivraj has lied to you for 15 years. I have promised that as soon as Lok Sabha elections are over, farmer loans will be waved off, he added. Nakul Nath, son of CM Kamal Nath, is Congress candidate from Chindwara seat. Recently, while campaigning for Sanjay Nirupam and Urmila Matondkar, Shatrughan Sinha said that demonetisation and Goods and Services Tax (GST) imposed by the "two-men army" hit the country's economy hard. Shatrughan Sinha recently switched to Congress after Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) denied him to field from Patna Sahib. However, the veteran actor is competing on Congress ticket from Patna Sahib. On the other hand, Shatrughan Sinhas wife Poonam Sinha joined Samajwadi Party. She is up against Home Minister Rajnath Singh from Lucknow parliamentary constituency. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Priyanka Chaturvedi was on Saturday appointed as Shiv Senas Upneta (deputy leaders). This comes almost a week after she joined the party. On April 19, Priyanka Chaturvedi formally joined the Shiv Sena in the presence of party chief Uddhav Thackeray in Mumbai. After welcoming Priyanka at a hurriedly convened media conference, Uddhav said, He was happy that she had decided to join the Shiv Sena. In the meantime, Aditya Thackeray presented Priyanka a bouquet and tied her a thread symbolizing Shiv Bandhan with several senior party leaders in attendance. During the media conference, Priyanka Chaturvedi launched a scathing attack against the Congress, accusing it of not supporting her in the episode of unruly behaviour by some Congress activists. The former Congress spokesperson said, I have served the party for 10 years in a selfless manner without asking for anything in return. But the party chose to ignore my complaints though the matter was taken up at the topmost level. She also expressed her pain to the Congress leadership about the reinstatement of colleagues who misbehaved with her. Moving ahead, the leader said that she had listed championing the cause of empowering women in politics and other fields besides helping strengthen and build up Shiv Sena at the national level. Born and educated in Mumbai, Chaturvedi described the city as my janmabhoomi and karmabhoomi, and the 53-year-old Shiv Sena as the roar of Mumbai, Maharashtra and rest of the country. Of the 6 Lok Sabha constituencies in Mumbai, the BJP and its ally Shiv Sena will contest on 3 seats each. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Two police personnel were killed and one civilian injured after Maoists open fired on theA Tongguda camp inA Chhattisgarh's Bijapur district on Saturday. The incident took place when the policemen, onboard a motorcycle, were goingA out of their camp for patrolling inA Tippapuram village, under Pamed police station area. The deceased cops, who were posted in the District Reserve Guard (DRG) force of the Bijapur district, have been identified asA Arvind Minz and Sukku Hapka. The civilian, who received injury, was admitted to the nearby Akhila Hospital and is undergoing medical treatment. "Bijapur: Two police personnel of Bijapur district force killed by Naxals near Tongguda camp. One civilian injured," the news agency ANI reported. Bijapur: Two police personnel of Bijapur district force killed by Naxals near Tongguda camp. One civilian injured. #Chhattisgarh a ANI (@ANI) April 27, 2019 Speaking to media,A Deputy Inspector General (anti-Maoist operations) Sundarraj P said, "A 'small action team' (typically comprising four-five rebels) of Naxals opened fire on them, leaving constable Arvind Minz and assistant constable Sukku Habka dead on the spot". Soon after the incident, the secuity forces were rushed to the spot, he added. On April 9, in a similar attack by the Maoists, BJP legislator Bheema Mandavi, who represented Dantewada seat in the Chhattisgarh Assembly, died alongwith four security personnel when their vehicle was blown up with an improvised explosive device (IED) near Shyamgiri in the district. The attack came two days ahead of polling in the Bastar Lok Sabha constituency. Bijapur is one of the most Maoist-hit areas in Chhattisgarh. Koriya, Surguja, Jahpur, Korba, Janjgir, Dhantar, Uttar Bastar Kanker, Bastar, Dakshin Bastar, Dantewada, and Narayanpur are other parts of the state that experience considerable Maoist insurgency. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Tokyo: Japanese scientists have succeeded in creating what they called the first-ever artificial crater on an asteroid, a step towards shedding light on how the solar system evolved, the countrys space agency said Thursday. The announcement comes after the Hayabusa2 probe fired an explosive device at the Ryugu asteroid early this month to blast a crater in the surface and scoop up material, aiming to reveal more about the origins of life on Earth. Yuichi Tsuda, Hayabusa2 project manager at the Japanese space agency (JAXA), told reporters they confirmed the crater from images captured by the probe located 1,700 metres (5,500 feet) from the asteroids surface. Creating an artificial crater with an impactor and observing it in detail afterwards is a world-first attempt, Tsuda said. This is a big success. NASAs Deep Impact probe succeeded in creating an artificial crater on a comet in 2005, but only for observation purposes. Masahiko Arakawa, a Kobe University professor involved in the project, said it was the best day of his life. We can see such a big hole a lot more clearly than expected, he said, adding the images showed a crater 10 metres in diameter. JAXA scientists had previously predicted that the crater could be as large as 10 metres in diameter if the surface was sandy, or three metres if rocky. The surface is filled with boulders but yet we created a crater this big. This could mean theres a scientific mechanism we dont know or something special about Ryugus materials, the professor said. The aim of blasting the crater on Ryugu is to throw up fresh material from under the asteroids surface that could shed light on the early stages of the solar system. The asteroid is thought to contain relatively large amounts of organic matter and water from some 4.6 billion years ago when the solar system was born. In February, Hayabusa2 touched down briefly on Ryugu and fired a bullet into the surface to puff up dust for collection, before blasting back to its holding position. The mission, with a price tag of around 30 billion yen ($270 million), was launched in December 2014 and is scheduled to return to Earth with its samples in 2020. Photos of Ryuguwhich means Dragon Palace in Japanese and refers to a castle at the bottom of the ocean in an ancient Japanese taleshow the asteroid has a rough surface full of boulders. For all the Latest Science News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New York: Tesla CEO Elon Musk and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday told US court that they have reached a deal to settle their differences over the Tesla chief executive's Twitter use. Notably, settlement between Musk and the US stock market regulators sets out clearer guidelines on topics Tesla CEO should avoid on Twitter or other social media, including statements about acquisitions, mergers, new products and production numbers. According to the agreement, filed in federal court in the Southern District of New York, Musk would have to adhere to Tesla rules regarding potentially significant comments by executives and have tweets or other social media posts pre-approved by an experienced securities lawyer employed by the company. "The parties have reached an agreement to resolve the commission's pending contempt motion," a joint court filing said. If the terms of the agreement are approved by a judge, Musk will not be held in contempt for skirting an earlier settlement with the SEC. That first settlement with the agency followed rogue tweets by Musk that falsely suggested Tesla would be taken private at $420 a share, an assertion that temporarily pumped up the company's lagging stock price. A Friday deadline set by US District Judge Alison Nathan was extended until April 30 after Musk and the SEC asked for time to have a final version of the settlement ready to submit for court approval. The SEC said in the filing that the proposed settlement "is fair, reasonable, and in the interest of the parties and investors because the proposed revisions will provide additional clarity regarding the written communications for which the defendant is required to obtain pre-approval." SEC officials had originally argued Musk should be held in contempt of court for allegedly violating an earlier settlement on tweeting potentially market-sensitive information without having it reviewed by counsel. At a hearing earlier this month, Nathan ordered both sides to try to work out their differences, suggesting she could rule on the case if the talks failed. The judge appeared sympathetic at times with some of the government's arguments, but she also expressed significant reservations about finding Musk in contempt, which she said was "serious business" and a ruling that placed a "significant burden" of proof on the government. The settlement, which allowed Musk to remain as CEO, required him to obtain pre-approval from Tesla counsel before making written communications "that contain, or reasonably could contain, information material to Tesla or its stockholders." The SEC cracked down after Musk tweeted on February 19 that Tesla would make 500,000 cars in 2019 - up from the 400,000 that the company had estimated until then, an apparent increase on a benchmark tied to profitability. Musk corrected himself four hours later, saying that Tesla would indeed produce about 400,000 cars this year. SEC attorney Cheryl Crumpton argued that the February 19 tweet and the fact that Musk had not submitted any tweets for pre-publishing review showed he had made no serious effort to follow the requirement. John Hueston, an attorney representing Musk, had countered that Musk's February 19 tweet was not consequential to investors, and that the language in the settlement was ambiguous on what types of information needed to be reviewed prior to publication. He also argued that the SEC had been hasty in seeking a contempt ruling without first trying to confer with Musk. Importantly, Tesla shares that finished the official trading day down five percent regained a little ground to USD 237.30 in after-market trading. New Delhi: Xiaomias Global Vice President and India Managing Director Manu Kumar Jain on Friday revealed that the company will be soon launching a new smartphone in India. In a tweet, Jain highlighted his recent meeting with Qualcomm India President Rajen Vagadia and Qualcomm Vice President of Product Management Kedar Kondap amd revealed that a new Xiaomi phone with the latest Snapdragon 7xx "is coming to India very soon." Take a look at his tweet: Great meeting Rajen @rajen_vagadia & Kedar from #Qualcomm.@Xiaomi & @Qualcomm have always worked together to bring the latest & the best! Breaking news: A new #Xiaomi phone with latest #Snapdragon 7_ _ (announced just 2 weeks ago) is coming to India very soon! Any guesses? YZ pic.twitter.com/TnrnTOr4PI a Manu Kumar Jain (@manukumarjain) April 26, 2019 A Any guesses, which smartphone Xiomi will launch? The development comes just a couple of days after Xiaomi launched the Redmi 7 and Redmi Y3 in India. It is to be noted that earlier this month, Qualcomm announced three of its new Snapdragon SoCs, namely the Snapdragon 665, Snapdragon 730 and Snapdragon 730G. Well, with the hint that is given by Manu Kumar Jain, it is easy to say that the smartphone with either have Snapdragon 730 or Snapdragon 730G. However, for the model name and its other specifications, we all have to be in wait and watch mode. The ongoing rumours suggest that the Xiaomi will launch its Mi A3. The smartphone is likely to have an in-display fingerprint sensor and stock Android Pie. Alongside the Mi A3, Xiaomi may bring Mi A3 Lite. This could be cheaper than the Mi A3 and would have inferior specifications. Importantly, both the models of Mi A3 are speculated to have a 32-megapixel selfie camera. It is worth mentioning here that Samsung recently launched its new flagship Galaxy A80 with the gaming-centred Snapdragon 730G SoC. It is yet to reach the Indian market. Earlier this week, Xiaomi launched Redmi Y3 selfie camera phone with a 32-megapixel sensor at the front and the Redmi 7 budget phone. Both phones will go on sale in India next week. New Delhi: As many as 15 people, including six children and three women, were killed on Friday late night after several suicide bombers blew themselves up during a shootout with security forces in Sri Lanka's Eastern province. In a statement, the Sri Lankan police said, "A total of 15 bodies recovered, six men, three women and six children. At least four suspected suicide bombers are dead and three others who were injured are in hospital." This comes hours after the security council meeting. In the meeting, the authorities decided that search operations to crackdown on extremist terrorism must continue until the threat is completely eliminated. In the meantime, the US State Department raised the level of its travel warning for Sri Lanka, urging citizens to reconsider visiting the island in the wake of a devastating series of suicide bombings that killed more than 250 people. On the other hand, Sri Lanka's Catholic leader has said that he felt "betrayed" by the government's failure to act on warnings that could have prevented the Easter bombings, adding that services would not resume until security could be guaranteed. However, the Sri Lankan government admitted major lapses over the foreign intelligence warning that radical Islamist group National Thowheeth Jama'ath (NTJ) was planning suicide bombings on churches. On April 11, Sri Lanka's police chief issued an alert based on the intelligence. Neither the prime minister nor other top ministers were among the recipients. At least 253 people died and over 500 injured after the attackers blew themselves up at three churches, including two Catholic ones, and three hotels in coordinated blasts. The Islamic State (IS) claimed the attacks, but the Sri Lankan government has blamed local Islamist extremist group National Thowheeth Jamath (NTJ) for the series of attacks. The security forces continue their hunt for members of NTJ. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Indianapolis: President Donald Trump announced on Friday that the United States would not abide by a UN treaty aimed at regulating the global arms trade, calling it misguided and an encroachment on US sovereignty. Trump said the US Senate had never ratified the 2013 Arms Trade Treaty despite his predecessor Barack Obama having endorsed it, and said he would never ratify it. We will never surrender American sovereignty to anyone, Trump said in a speech to the National Rifle Association in Indianapolis. We will never allow foreign bureaucrats to trample on your Second Amendment freedom, he said, referring to the constitutional right to bear arms. And that is why my administration will never ratify the UN arms trade treaty. I am officially announcing today that the United States will be revoking the effect of Americas signature from this badly misguided treatment (sic). Were taking our signature back. The treaty, which entered into effect in December 2014, seeks to regulate the flow of weapons into conflict zones. It requires member countries to keep records of international transfers of weapons and to prohibit cross-border shipments that could be used in human rights violations or attacks on civilians. While 130 countries originally signed the treaty, only 101 have ratified and joined it. Those include major powers like France, Germany and the United Kingdom. The worlds largest arms traders, the United States, China and Russia, have not joined. In a statement the White House said the treaty fails to truly address the problem of irresponsible arms transfers, while providing a platform for those who would seek to constrain our ability to sell arms to our allies and partners. It also claimed that some groups are trying to use the treaty to overturn sovereign national decisions on arms exportspointing to one effort to block the British governments sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia. The ATT is simply not needed for the United States to engage in responsible arms trade, the White House said. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Islamabad: The Pakistan government has suspended the anti-polio drive and post-campaign evaluation following the increasing number of attacks on polio workers in different parts of the country. The countrywide campaign to administer anti-polio drops to 39 million children under five years of age was launched on Monday and Friday was the last day following which the evaluation of the drive was to take place. However, the campaign, involving 260,000 polio workers, ran into trouble after reports that several children were taken to hospital as they fell sick after being administered the anti-polio vaccine in some areas of Peshawar. Following the reports, unidentified gunmen shot dead security personnel escorting a team of polio workers in different incidents in northwest Pakistan. In another incident, a female polio worker was killed and another injured in Chaman area in Balochistan. Baber bin Atta, focal person to PM Imran Khan on polio eradication, clarified that the vaccine was safe and anti-polio elements were spreading rumours on social media to scare parents. The National Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) for polio issued a letter asking all the provinces to stop the campaign and prevent further damage. The uncertain and threatening situation for the front line polio workers has emerged and we need to save the programme from a further major damage, said the letter issued by the EOC. Pakistan is one of the three countries where polio is still endemic. The campaign aimed to provide anti-polio medicine to children in all four provinces as well as Pakistan occupied Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan. For the first time in the history of Pakistan, the government has suspended the post-campaign evaluation, called Lot Quality Assurance Sampling (LQAS). The LQAS is used by the World Health Organisation as new sampling methodology to document status of anti-polio coverage and areas of weak coverage with statistical reliability. The EOC in a separate letter addressed to all the provinces conveyed apprehension about increasing attacks on polio workers, directing them to suspend LQAS activities, the Dawn reported. "It has been decided by the National EOC that no post campaign evaluation (LQAS) will be conducted anywhere in the country, the letter said. It further stated that it has been unanimously decided by the national technical team and Global Polio Eradication Initiative (SPEI) partners to call off the catch-up activities of April National Immunisation Day campaign across the country with immediate effect, the report said. Hence, no further vaccination or catch-up activity will be conducted in any area for this campaign, it said. Despite efforts, the country has not been able to completely eliminate the disease. Six cases of polio have been reported so far in 2019. 12 cases were reported in 2018 and 8 in 2017. Attempts to eradicate the crippling disease have been seriously hampered by deadly targeting of vaccination teams in recent years by militants, who oppose the drives, claiming the polio drops cause infertility. Attacks on immunisation teams have claimed 68 lives since December 2012. Earlier this month, member of a polio monitoring team was gunned down on Monday by a man after a verbal brawl during a campaign at a village near Pak-Afghan border. In January 2014, three workers were killed while in late 2012, five workers including four female workers were killed in Qayyumabad area. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Islamabad: Pakistans former military dictator Pervez Musharraf, who is facing high treason case, is likely to return to the country on May 1, his lawyer said on Saturday. A special court indicted General (retd) Musharraf, 75, for high treason in March 2014. He left for Dubai in 2016 to seek medical treatment and has not returned since. Last month, he was admitted to a hospital in Dubai after suffering a reaction from a rare disease for which he is already under treatment. Despite his deteriorating medical condition, the former military ruler is determined to appear before the court that had summoned him for the hearing scheduled for May 2, Musharrafs lawyer Salman Safdar told reporters. The approval of former presidents personal physician had become of upmost importance in the current circumstances, considering his fragile medical condition, Safdar was quoted as saying by the Express News. However, family sources have confirmed his arrival date, he added. The Pakistans Supreme Court, while hearing a plea filed by a lawyer who pointed out that proceedings of the treason case had come to a halt as former president Musharraf had not returned since 2016, on April 1 directed the former military ruler to appear before the special court on May 2. The three-member bench of the apex court headed by Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khosa also warned him that if he fails to turn up then he will lose his right to record a statement under Section 342 of the Code of Criminal Procedures. The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government had filed the treason case against Musharraf over the presidents imposition of extra-constitutional emergency in November 2007. The special court declared Musharraf a proclaimed offender and ordered the confiscation of his property owing to his no-show. Later, on orders of the Supreme Court, Musharrafs passport and national identity card were also cancelled. Musharraf ruled Pakistan from 1999 to 2008. A conviction for high treason carries the death penalty or life imprisonment. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Nearly a week after the devastating Easter Sunday blasts killed over 250 people, and injured 500 others, including dozens of foreigners, the Sri Lankan government on Saturday banned two terrorists organisations namely - National Thawheed Jammath (NTJ) and Jamathei Millathu Ibraheem (JMI). The local Islamist extremist outfits, that were linked to the ISIS, claimed responsibility for the eight simultaneous blasts on churches and luxury hotels in Sri Lanka on April 21. According to a statement issued by the President's Media Division, Prez Maithripala Sirisena, in terms of powers vested in him as the under-Emergency Regulations No 1 of 2019, has taken steps to ban the organisations National Thawheed Jammath (NTJ) and Jamathei Millathu Ibraheem (JMI) in Sri Lanka. All movable and immovable assets belonging to the groups will also be seized, the statement added. The development comes after the Lankan Parliament adopted a newly-enforced emergency regulation on Wednesday following the Easter Sunday bombing, the countrys deadliest violence since the devastating civil war ended in 2009. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, in a televised address, on Friday said the country needs new laws to deal with threats posed by local terror outfits linked to ISIS. "The definition on aiding terrorism is very narrow. Therefore, the laws are not strong to deal with a situation like this. We have to widen the scope of these laws to counter global terrorism. Not only they (the terrorists) should be arrested, their assets also need to be confiscated," Wickremesinghe was quoted as saying. The eight coordinated blasts targeted St Anthony's Church in Colombo, St Sebastian's Church in the western coastal town of Negombo and another church in the eastern town of Batticaloa around 8.45 am (local time) as the Easter Sunday mass were in progress. Three explosions were reported from the five-star hotels - the Shangri-La, the Cinnamon Grand and the Kingsbury in Colombo. Foreigners and locals who were injured in hotel blasts were rushed to the Colombo General Hospital. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Colombo: Sri Lankan security forces raided a safe house of ISIS-affiliated terrorists in the east of the country and killed at least 15 men in an exchange of fire, the military said Saturday. Gunmen opened fire on troops when they attempted to storm the house in the town of Kalmunai, spokesman Sumith Atapattu said. "In our retaliatory fire, two gunmen were killed," he said adding that a civilian caught in the crossfire was also killed. Meanwhile, the US State Department raised the level of its travel warning for Sri Lanka, urging citizens to reconsider visiting the island in the wake of a devastating series of suicide bombings that killed more than 250 people. The department has "ordered the departure of all school-age family members of US government employees in kindergarten through 12th grade," it said in a statement, adding that it had also authorised non-emergency personnel to leave. "Terrorists may attack with little or no warning, targeting tourist locations, transportation hubs, markets, shopping malls, government facilities, hotels, clubs, restaurants, places of worship, parks, major sporting and cultural events, educational institutions, airports, hospitals, and other public areas," it said. In a related development, Sri Lanka's Catholic leader has said that he felt "betrayed" by the government's failure to act on warnings that could have prevented the Easter bombings, adding that services would not resume until security could be guaranteed. The government has admitted major lapses over the foreign intelligence warning that radical Islamist group National Thowheeth Jama'ath (NTJ) was planning suicide bombings on churches. On April 11, Sri Lanka's police chief issued an alert based on the intelligence. Neither the prime minister nor other top ministers were among the recipients. At least 253 people died when attackers blew themselves up at three churches, including two Catholic ones, and three hotels in coordinated blasts. Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the archbishop of Colombo, said the island's Catholic church had also not been informed about a possible attack. "I felt betrayed a little bit. I felt sad," he told reporters, when asked about the warnings. "It's a very serious lapse on the part of the security agencies that they didn't tell us about it," the archbishop added. He said he had sought an explanation from government officials but received nothing. "They all say 'I didn't know about it. Everybody is passing the baby," Ranjith added. The government blames the NTJ for the attacks and has warned that Islamist extremists could be plotting further blasts. Sri Lanka is under a state of emergency. At least 74 people are in custody but security forces are hunting more Islamic State (IS) supporters. ISIS has claimed it was involved, without providing clear evidence. "Due to the ongoing security situation and continuing threats... we have stopped all Sunday masses until further notice," Ranjith said. He added that people should "stay indoors and do their prayers" and that only once the security situation had returned to normal would small services start to resume before gradually growing in size. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: The United States, Russia and China on Friday agreed on the objective of withdrawing foreign forces from Afghanistan, the three countries declared in a joint statement. The joint statement also called for an inclusive Afghan-led peace process and outlined many of the key points expected to feature in an eventual agreement. It is to be noted that Zalmay Khalilzad, the US envoy negotiating with the Taliban, met with Russian and Chinese representatives in Moscow as he tries to build an international consensus for his efforts to end the long-running conflict. In the meantime, the statement issued by the US State Department said, "The three sides call for an orderly and responsible withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan as part of the overall peace process." They also said that the Taliban have made a "commitment" to fight the extremist Islamic State group and sever ties to Al-Qaeda. The Taliban have promised to "ensure the areas they control will not be used to threaten any other country," the statement said, calling on them to prevent any "terrorist recruiting, training and fund-raising." President Donald Trump is eager to end America's longest-ever war, which was launched in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks, when the then Taliban regime gave shelter to Al-Qaeda. Russia and China both have strong interests in Afghanistan. Some 14,000 Soviet soldiers were killed in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989 in a conflict with US-backed Islamic guerrillas. China has been stepping up its involvement in Afghanistan both militarily and economically as it voices worries that militants could sneak into its restive Muslim-majority Xinjiang region. Khalilzad will also hold separate talks during his latest trip with Pakistan and India, which have strongly different views on Afghanistan, and earlier huddled with European envoys in London. One major sticking point is the Taliban's refusal to negotiate with the government of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, which has wide-ranging international support. The United States, Russia and China called on the Taliban to speak as soon as possible with a "broad, representative Afghan delegation that includes the government." For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: The US State Department on Friday urged its citizens to reconsider visiting Sri Lanka in the wake of a devastating series of suicide bombings that killed more than 250 people. The department has ordered the departure of all school-age family members of US government employees in kindergarten through 12th grade, it said in a statement, adding that it had also authorised non-emergency personnel to leave. Terrorists may attack with little or no warning, targeting tourist locations, transportation hubs, markets, shopping malls, government facilities, hotels, clubs, restaurants, places of worship, parks, major sporting and cultural events, educational institutions, airports, hospitals, and other public areas, it said. On Friday, Sri Lankan security forces raided a hideout in a predominantly Muslim neighbourhood in the Eastern province on Friday evening, triggering a standoff with heavily-armed men believed to be linked to the deadly Easter attacks. Police spokesman said at least one suicide bomber blew himself up during the shootout in the coastal town of Sammanthurai, 325 kilometers from Colombo. The police said they have seized a large haul of explosives, a drone and a banner with the Islamic State logo "Garbs similar to that which were worn in the video displaying ISIS members in Sri Lanka, along with an identical ISIS backdrop in the video was discovered during the raid," a police official said. Nine suicide bombers carried out a series of devastating blasts that tore through three churches and three luxury hotels on the Easter Sunday, killing 253 people. Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has asked Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando and countrys police chief Pujith Jayasundara to resign after their failure to prevent the deadly suicide blasts despite having the prior intelligence inputs about the attacks. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the devastating Easter blasts in Sri Lanka and identified the seven suicide bombers who were involved in the attacks. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. No sooner does Linda McMahon depart the Small Business Administration than the whole agency goes politically tone deaf and trips on its own shoelaces. On Monday, the SBA announced it would hold a National Small Business Week Hackathon. The purpose seems serious enough: A contest for computer whiz-types aimed at mashing up application programming interfaces (APIs) from the federal government and private-sector sources to help small businesses recover from natural disasters. (The SBA plays a major role alongside FEMA in helping devastated areas get back to business as usual.) But, seriously, Hackathon? And on the heels of the Mueller report, which love it or hate it was all about Russias undisputed (except by Vladimir Putin) hacking of the computers of the DNC and Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and distributing the golden nuggets to WikiLeaks. McMahons last day was April 12. The agency is now being run by a stand-in, Chris Pilkerton. McMahon, well known as the Queen of Stamford-based WWE, is along with husband King Vince a longtime supporter and financial backer of President Donald Trump. She kept a remarkably low profile over the course of two years at SBAs helm, no body slams, nothing. The Hackathon coincides with National Small Business Week and kicks off May 3 on the campus of Howard University in Washington. The winners are to be announced May 5. First place award is $25,000. Wonder if the guys at the Internet Research Agency, the troll ranch in Saint Petersburg, and the GRU (Russian military intelligence) can enter the contest? ================ Suddenly, Ray Dalio is everywhere you dont expect him to be. Move over Warren Buffet, theres a new income-inequality sheriff in the town occupied exclusively by the billionaire class. Dalio is the legendary founder and CEO of Bridgewater Associates, the Westport-based mega-hedge-fund. His online treatise Why and How Capitalism Needs to be Refined is cited as a defining moment for whither the free-enterprise system in the age of capitalist buccaneers (including, arguably, the President of the United States himself). And this isnt some simple back-of-the envelope calculation Dalio is concocting. It goes to the heart of the question-mark hovering over capitalism since the age of Karl Marx. Disparity in wealth, especially when accompanied by disparity in values, leads to increasing conflict and, in the government, that manifests itself in the form of populism of the left and populism of the right and often in revolutions of one sort or another, Dalio wrote. Whew! Forget about Vladimir Putin. Dalio is almost summoning the ghost of Vladimir Lenin. Quite a contrast to the post-election era three years ago when he confidently predicted Trump probably wont recklessly and stupidly drive the economy into a ditch. But that was so 2016. I think the American dream is lost, Dalio said on 60 Minutes on April 7, permitting CBS cameras to tour Bridgewaters spacious Westport quarters. It may be only a matter time before the Bernies and Elizabeths of the Democratic Partys left wing pick up the beat. Who better to cite on income inequality than the master of one of capitalisms biggest roulette wheels, with an estimated worth in the neighborhood of $17-billion? One investment blogger, Stefan Chelplick, says the research backing up Dalios contentions about income inequality are brewed right there in Bridgewaters well-appointed boiler rooms. Two thousand people are said to work at Dalios Bridgewater, Cheplick writes. I imagine some of them have the most impressive resumes on planet Earth. Ph.Ds, mathematicians, Navy Seals, and experts with 10,000+ hours of trading experience. I think about all of these people helping him write, find specific statistics, and research every corner of the world. The New Haven-Milford area has emerged as one of the the nations top spots for millennials on the move. Thats according to a new study by the National Association of Realtors. Using the U.S. Census Bureaus 2017 American Community Survey, the study found New Haven-Milford - and Madison, Wisc. - saw the largest share of arrivals among millennials. The study is an analysis of the 100 largest metro areas is based on the U.S. Census Bureaus 2017 American Community Survey, which tracked households with an age range of 19 to 37. Why New Haven and Milford? Job market and affordability are two of the main reasons that impact millennials the most. The New Haven-Milford area shared the top spot with Madison, Wisc. more than two-thirds of recent movers were born from 1980 to 1998. The study found that 75 percent of recent movers to New Haven-Milford were millennials. In all, millennials account for 22 percent of the population in the New Haven-Milford area. It also found that 28 percent of recent millenial movers could afford a home in the New Haven-Milford area. The median income of those young movers had a median income of $53,600. Another factor in millennials moving to New Haven-Milford is 1.4 percent rise in employment growth. Millennials account for 22 percent of the population in the New Haven-Milford area. The Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk area also had a high number of millennials recently moving into southwest Connecticut. Millennials accounted for 67 percent of all recent movers in that area. There was, however, a big difference on how many millennials could afford a home in the Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk. Despite an income of $73,300, just 12 percent of recent millenial movers could afford a home in the Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk. Madison, Wisc. that shares the top spot with New Haven-Milford has better wages for millennials than Connecticut. The salary for millennials in Madison is $68,500 and a place where 29 percent of recent millennial moves could afford a home. In comparison to other areas, Madison offers one of the highest wages for millennials, Lawrence Yun, NARs chief economist, said in a statement. This income level combined with the robust employment opportunities and the affordability, make Madison among one of the most appealing locations for millennials who are looking to stay longer and raise families. Other areas in the U.S. that millenials are moving to include Syracuse, N.Y.; Grand Rapids, Minn.; Seattle-Tacoma, Wash.; Richmond, Va.; Toledo, Ohio; Los Angles-Long Beach-Anaheim, Calf. and Boston-Cambridge-Newton, Mass. To see the complete list, click here. A program addressing the rise of anti-Semitism in Connecticut will be held at the United Jewish Center on Wednesday to commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day, also known as Yom HaShoah. The program will be at 7 p.m. at 141 Deer Hill Ave., Danbury. It is free and open to the public. Cathryn Prince, who was raised in Danbury, will be the speaker. She is an award-winning author and correspondent for The Times of Israel and covers the United Nations, politics, business, personality profiles, education and the arts. We are honored to have such an outstanding speaker like Cathryn Prince join us this year, UJC Rabbi Stefan Tiwy said in a news release. With the last members of the survivor generation slowly passing away, we think it is crucial to keep the memory of the Shoah alive and make sure such a tragedy will never happen again. Educating about and raising awareness of discrimination of minorities is thus a central mission of ours. Police have investigated incidents involving anti-Semitic signs and symbols throughout the years in Fairfield County. Weve seen a rise in anti-Semitic incidents in Connecticut in the last two years, just as there has been a rise in these incidents in the United States in recent years, Andy Friedland, associate director of the Connecticut Chapter of the Anti-Discrimination League said in a news release. There have been a rash of swastikas spray-painted in public places. For years, Prince was a contributing correspondent to The Christian Science Monitor. While in Switzerland she covered the Nazi Gold Crisis, the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the Swiss Parliament, and a wiretapping scandal. She is also an adjunct professor of journalism at SUNY-Purchase. She holds a B.A. from The Elliot School of International Affairs, The George Washington University; an M.S. from The Graduate School of Journalism, Columbia University; and an M.A. in American Studies from Fairfield University. When the 2019 National Teacher of the Year award is handed out on Monday, President Donald Trump will not be doing the honors. It is our understanding that the president will not be in attendance and that (Education) Secretary (Betsy) DeVos will present the award, Nancy Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for the Council of Chief State School Officers which administers the program, said. It has often but not always been a tradition that the president since Harry Truman hand out the award after it was developed in 1952. In 2016, Waterbury history teacher Jahana Hayes won the national title which was presented by President Barack Obama. Last November, Hayes was elected to Congress representing Connecticuts 5h District. In 2017, with Trump in the White House, the award went to Sydney Chaffee, a public charter school teacher from Boston. During that ceremony, Trump called it really something special that an educator from charter schools, which he and DeVos support, had won. Trump mentioned the tradition specifically when he handed out the award in 2018 to Mandy Manning in the East Room of the White House. Every president since Harry Truman has honored the National Teacher of the year, he said at the time. Manning, who teaches English to refugee and immigrant students in Spokane, Wash., used the opportunity to present the president with a stack of letters from her students. On her dress, she wore buttons that promoted Trans Equality, along with a button from the Womens March and a rainbow-colored apple. The 2019 National Teacher of the Year title goes to Rodney Robinson, who teaches social studies inside the Richmond, Va., Juvenile Justice Center. This year, I hope to be the voice for my students and all students who feel unseen, unheard, unappreciated and undervalued in America, Robinson said in a statement. The National Teacher spends a year away from his or her teaching duties to serve as a spokesman and advocate for the teaching profession. The itinerary for what is billed as Washington Week and this year starts Sunday shows the award ceremony being held at the Eisenhower Building, 1650 Pennsylvania Ave., on Monday. Paul Ferrari, the senior program director with the National Teacher of the Year Program, said CCSSO works with the White House to coordinate the recognition event. It is up to each administration to decide how to recognize the teachers, and it has varied throughout the 67-year history of the program in location and who has delivered the recognition to the National Teacher, Ferrari said. This years itinerary calls for Karen Pence, wife of Vice President Mike Pence, to host a breakfast reception for the teachers. The teachers also spend time on the Hill meeting with lawmakers. Rodriguez said the schedule of events is still being finalized but two different events are on White House grounds. One is a recognition ceremony and reception and the other involves White House tours for the teachers. One of the attendees will be Sheena Graham, a music teacher at Warren Harding High School in Bridgeport. Graham represents the state of Connecticut. I am looking forward to the opportunity to network with and learn, Graham said, adding she is excited. Graham has been to the White House at least twice, performing a song she wrote with students from Tisdale School as part of the districts Turnaround Arts program in 2016. It was a project endorsed by first lady Michele Obama. I cannot begin to describe the emotions that come over you as you pass through security and walk toward the entrance (of the White House), Graham said. She said it would be shame if teachers traveling from long distance didnt get to experience that. lclambeck@ctpost.com; twitter/lclambeck WESTPORT A Westport man who spent months arguing Westport police mistook a hashbrown for a cellphone in charging him with a distracted driving ticket was found not guilty. Not guilty! Justice prevails, Westport resident Jason Stiber said in an email to the Westport News on April 26, shortly after Judge Maureen Dennis of the state Superior Court in Norwalk released her decision. The hashbrown incident occurred April 11 around 6 a.m., when Stiber bought a hash brown at the McDonalds on the Norwalk border and was then pulled over by Westport Police Cpl. Wong Won near the Westport Whole Foods on Post Road West. I was eating a hash brown and he thought he saw a cellphone near my mouth, Stiber said in November. He was issued a $300 ticket for distracted driving. Stiber said he had no reason to put his phone up to his ear because he has bluetooth, and provided phone records showing he did not make any calls in the hour he received the ticket. He was pulled over for talking on his cellphone and given an infraction. Im sure his claim is different, Lt. Jillian Cabana said in November. A Westport resident since 2007, Stiber first went to trial to fight the ticket in August before a magistrate judge, who found him guilty despite the presentation of the phone activity records. Stiber then requested a retrial, which ocured Feb. 22. I just think this is a classic example of the truism that cops make mistakes. Theyre human beings like everyone else and sometimes they get things wrong, Stibers attorney John Thygerson said. svaughan@hearstmediact.com; 203-842-2638; @SophieCVaughan1 Its shaping up to be a bad, black fly season this year in the Adirondacks and other parts of Upstate New York. Its too cold yet for them to be out in most parts in the Adirondacks, but there were some sightings reported this past week in Central New York. Hey, they were out last weekend on the north shore of Oneida Lake, said Kim Adams, an extension entomologist for SUNY ESF. The males were out. They get in your ears, around your eyes, They can be annoying, but they dont bite. Its the females that will and theyre not that far behind, she said. Neil Woodworth, executive director for the Adirondack Mountain Club, said if conditions last weekend up around Waneka near Cranberry Lake are any indication, there are certainly indications of buggy times to come. Black flies thrive on fast moving, heavily oxygenated water. We had a good snow pack this year and prolonged runoff because of the rain, which has saturated the soil, he said. When you have conditions like that, you have conditions for a big, black fly hatch. Woodworth said for years springtime was nearly unbearable in many parts of the Adirondacks because of the massive spring-time black fly hatches at a time when you wanted tourists to come. Many resorted to wearing head nets when they went outside on some areas. Bob Spranz uses pours out the appropriate amount of Bti solution to add to Estes Brook in the town of Keene in an effort to kill black fly larvae. Bti is a naturally occurring bacterium. Protein crystals formed by the bacteria react with enzymes in the stomach of the black fly larva, creating a toxin that kills the larva. Over the years, though, a number of communities have been treating streams and other waterways where black fly larvae can be found with Bti (Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis), a larvaecide that can have a significant impact. Communities dont mind paying for the treatments. Its cheap insurance so the spring-time tourism season isnt so bad, Woodworth. Adams noted there are around a dozen different species of black flies to be found in the East, but generally a single water source will host only three or four. The majority of those are minor, sporadic nuisances; three of them are major problems and one of those will produce three or more generations on favorable conditions, she said. The flies arent at their beastly, biting stage -- yet. Its still cold, Adams said. But the more water we have, the more black flies well have -- particularly when it starts getting warm and into June. Connecticut economists frequently talk about how residents are leaving the state in droves, but apparently not every demographic feels that way, if a new National Association of Realtors study is to be believed. An analysis of the U.S. Census Bureaus 2017 American Community Survey, which tracks households in the nations 100 largest metro areas, found that the New Haven-Milford metropolitan area and Madison, Wis., topped a list of areas to which millennials moved. Millennials are defined as those individuals born between between 1980 and 1998. Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the national real state trade group said millennials look for robust employment opportunities and affordability of housing. Millennials represented 22 percent of the entire population in the New Haven-Milford area in 2017, according to the study. They represented 75 percent of the recent movers into to the area from any age group. Median income for all millennials living in the New Haven-Milford metropolitan area in 2017 was $54,800. The median income for millennials who recently moved into the area was $53,600 two years ago. The NAR study doesnt come as any surprise to David Salinas, one of Connecticuts leading technology entrepreneurs. Salinas founded Digital Surgeons, a New Haven-based technology company, and is the driving force behind The District, a sprawling co-working space for start-up companies that opened about a year ago built on the site of the former CT Transit bus garage at the intersection of James and State streets. Salinas said the general public has a vision of millennials as people who ride around on bicycles, who dont want to own a car or own a house. But growing number of that group is their 30s wants to have a family, buy a house and live in Milford, said Salinas, who lives in that city. Both Salinas and Josh Geballe, the state commissioner of Administrative Services, participated in a panel discussion at a Connecticut Business & Industry Association on innovation. They said what makes Connecticut attractive enough to millennials that they want to move here is the quality of public schools and the cost of living here compared to Boston, New York and other bigger cities. Before Geballe took a job in administration of Gov. Ned Lamont, he was vice president and general manager of digital service for Thermo Fisher Scientific, which makes analytical instruments, equipment, software and and performs for research, analysis and diagnostics. The Walthan, Mass., company acquired Geballes biotechnology start-up, Branford-based Core Infomatics, in May 2017. Geballe said Branford is a perfect example of the appeal that the New Haven area has to millennials. Its a town of less than 30,000 people and its home to 20 bio-tech companies,he said. We have great jobs and a great quality of life to offer. Salinas said the states technology sector and Connecticut officials need to do a better job of marketing the state. We need to have a little moxie, a little pride, a little swagger that says were all in with this, he said. But others are skeptical of the real estate trade associations findings. Donald Klepper-Smith, chief economist and director of research for New Haven-based DataCore Partners, said millennialls are burdened with heavy levels of college debt that must be paid back. Twelve percent of all student loans are 90 days past due right now and that isnt taking into account consumer debt like car loans and credit cards, Klepper-Smith said. Millennials have a lot of that debt and this impacts their ability to buy a home. Going forward, I think were going to see increased demand for flexible housing arrangement and transit oriented development. Lauren Sardi is an associate professor in sociology at Quinnipiac University and is part of the millennial generation. Sardi said millennials are recognizing that that its really not feasible to afford what our parents are able or were able to afford. Our parents had easier access to succeed than we do now, she said. Some millennials are worried about job security and a lot of that has to do with economic stability. Thats what makes her skeptical of the findings of the real estate trade groups report, Sardi said. Technology jobs that seek individuals with very specific skills sets may attract certain types of millennials to the New Haven area, she said. That leads to more economic inequality for those that dont have those skills, Sardi said. In some ways, she said, millennials are no different than any other age group when it comes to whether they find Connecticut and the New Haven area an attractive place. The state needs to get its budget under control, Sardi said. And they have to offer affordable places to live, not just when viewed in comparison to other cities. The NAR study found that share of homes that all millennials could afford to buy the New Haven area in 2017 was 29 percent. Millennials who had just moved to the area didnt fare any better: They could only afford 28 percent of the available housing. NAR defines affordable housing as that which taks less than 30 percent of an individuals income. Sardi said millennials are also looking for areas where employers are family friendly and offer paid maternity leave and paid family leave. In comparison to other areas, Madison offers one of the highest wages for millennials, Yun, NARs chief economist, said in a statement. This income level combined with the robust employment opportunities and the affordability, make Madison among one of the most appealing locations for millennials who are looking to stay longer and raise families. luther.turmelle@hearstmediact.com BRIDGEPORT The citys $3.5 million public facilities garage was beset by cost overruns and no bid work and vulnerable to a potential conflict of interest, city records show. The records also raise questions about the citys oversight of a multimillion project, the largest undertaken by Mayor Joe Ganims administration. Former Deputy Public Facilities Director Joe Tiago, fired in February following a city scrap metal scandal now under investigation by the FBI, played an ongoing role in the job awarded to Vaz Quality Works of Bridgeport despite having a financial relationship with the owner of Vaz. As the garage was developed and built, Tiago received price quotes directly from Vaz, including paving prices a month after the work was authorized, according to records obtained by Hearst Connecticut Media through a freedom of information request. This while Tiago held a $670,000 mortgage for Luis Vaz for property he sold in 2014, just two years before the garage project began. The additional work by Vaz added a half million dollars to the price tag for paving the lot. Although the final cost of the project has not yet been calculated by the city, records indicate it could reach as high as $3.5 million of taxpayers money a 14 percent overrun. Vaz was low bidder for the overall project with an original offer of $2.9 million to do the job. City officials defended the cost overruns and the process used to the build the garage, saying nothing was done improperly. They said unexpected issues came up that drove up costs and required change orders a construction term for revised plans. "Most change orders are of a substantive nature such that they are not anticipated, which is why there are change orders," Rowena White, a spokesperson for Mayor Joe Ganim. "This amount of change orders 24 were submitted is typical for this size project," White said. She said five of those orders were rejected and three are on hold for further discussion. "All change orders, whether approved, revised, rejected, increasing or crediting the project, are accounted for in municipal construction projects," she said. But the cost overruns and number of change orders seem unusual for the size of the project, said Chris Fryxell, president of the Connecticut chapter of Associated Builders and Contractors Inc., a national group that represents tradesmen. It does seem high to me, Fryxell said. The question is, should they have known, and what pre-planning did they do? Should these issues have been foreseen or did they cut corners? Officials previously said the garage project was reduced from a $5 million, and that cost increases were mostly caused by paving additional portions of the lot, including an area prone to flooding, and moving a vehicle washing station to an outside location. A federal Grand Jury and the FBI in February subpoenaed documents involving $4.4 million in city work awarded to Vaz since 2015, the year Ganim took office. That total includes other work performed for the city by Vaz. Tom Carson, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney John Durham, declined comment on whether the office is looking into possible illegality regarding the garage project. No-bid paving Paving the garage parking lot represented the largest cost overrun; the unexpected increase of nearly $500,000. The paving work was first outlined through a bid from Vaz in 2016 for $185,822 and swelled to $678,899 by 2018, records show. A plan to expand the paving work was included in a Sept 12, 2018, letter from Public Facilities Director John Ricci to the city purchasing department. In that letter, Ricci sought permission for a "qualified purchase" a city term for a no-bid contract. The new work was estimated to cost $269,277 more than originally budgeted for paving. Ricci said that selecting Vaz would "provide a lower cost than would result from competitive bidding since they are already on site and mobilized." Riccis request for a no-bid contract prompted questions from the purchasing department. Sharon Roberston, a purchasing department employee, noted in an email to the public facilities department that the "project overran bid amount before paving was ever started?" In response, Robertson was told her assessment was correct, and advised that the "the paving is for the existing contract for the municipal garage." White said the city followed proper procedures in seeking a no-bid contract for the paving work. "A qualified purchase was requested and approved by the citys purchasing agent per ordinance due to timing, review of bid paving line items from the original project, VAZs agreement to hold their unit pricing from the 2016 bid package and Vaz being already familiar with the existing drainage on site," White said in a written statement. "The priority paving work to create alternative employee parking areas due to site demolition was required to be performed prior to the approaching winter close of the paving season," she said. The day before Riccis request for a no-bid contract, Vaz submitted price quotes to Tiago for the $269,000 in work, city records show. That new work included paving an additional 39,450 square feet of lot. Delayed quotes The cost of paving the lot continued to rise as the scope of work expanded. On Sept. 21, 2018, the citys purchasing department issued a purchase order for paving that included a new charge of $223,800, bringing the cost of changes in the paving job to $493,077. The new work involved paving three additional yards of lot, removing existing pavement, laying new sub material and other activity. But city records show Vaz submitted the new price quote to Tiago on October 23, 2018 more than a month after the city cut the September purchase order that essentially authorized the work. When asked how a purchase order could be issued before price quotes were received, White said the new costs were added to the September purchase order after they were received in October. The date on the original order stays the same, White said. Ganim has said Tiagos financial interest in Vaz Quality Works was not disclosed to the city when the garage was being built. The mayor also said he was told Tiago recused himself from the public facilities garage project, the largest building venture undertaken by his administration. Tiago and his criminal lawyer, John Gulash, have declined repeated requests for comment about his role in the garage project. Change orders As work progressed, the process of building the garage continued to undergo changes and alterations The garage was first put out to bid in the summer of 2016. In September, the city received five offers, ranging from a high of $3.7 million from G. Pic & Sons Construction to the low bid of $2.9 million from Vaz. The second lowest bid was $3.34 million from OWI Contractors in Stratford. Fryxell, of the trade group, said change orders can be issued for a variety of reasons and acknowledged they are often used during large construction projects. Reasons for the projects change orders varied, including different HVAC systems, revisions to a main sanitary line and employee cost increases due to higher prevailing wages. But this seems high as an overall percentage of the project, Fryxell said. The concern is always over being a good steward of the taxpayers money. White, as of last week, said the final cost of the project $3,077,569 reflected change orders approved so far. That $3.1 million figure comes from a 2017 purchase order and does not reflect additional costs due to the garage. When those costs are included, the price of the overall project rises to $3,570,546, city records show. White stressed the final price is still to be determined, pending the result of further change order reviews and accounting. bcummings@ctpost.com Contributed Photo / New Haven Police Department / Contributed Photo NEW HAVEN Two men were taken into custody after a stabbing in the city Saturday afternoon, according to police. Around 1 p.m., a 46-year-old New Haven man was stabbed on Harding Place between Sherman Parkway and Dixwell Avenue in the Newhallville neighborhood, Police Capt. Anthony Duff said. NEW HAVEN Firefighters responded to a basement fire in the city Saturday afternoon. At 4:50 p.m., officials confirmed fire crews on scene for a working fire in the 100 block of Haven Street. Officials said the fire was in the basement of a 2.5-story wood frame. Within one minute of the first fire unit getting on scene, various other firefighters arrived. Officials said the departments rehab unit was en route at 4:52 p.m. The rehab unit is a vital firefighting service on the fireground. It provides firefighters and other emergency personnel with medical attention, including dehydration, while on scene. The arrival of the unit is typically precautionary. There was no further information immediately available. NEW HAVEN Under cloudy skies and intermittent drizzle, New Haven police investigated a shooting outside an apartment complex Saturday afternoon that left one resident in critical condition. Police Capt. Anthony Duff said the department received reports of a person shot at 1423 Quinnipiac Ave. around 1:15 p.m. When I met Mathew Duman at the head of the walkway between Yales two newest residential colleges last Wednesday, he was wearing a pith helmet and a safari jacket emblazoned with the words gargoyle guide. Duman really is a gargoyle guide. You can hire him to take you on a tour showing off the distinctively whimsical stone carvings on the exteriors of Yales many Gothic buildings. If youre up for the extra walk from the downtown campus, hell take you over to Prospect Street to see Benjamin Franklin College and Pauli Murray College, which opened two years ago. Duman, 48, of East Haven, is so keen on the subject that he has self-published a new 300-page book containing more than 500 of his black-and-white photographs. Its a follow-up to his first book, An Education in the Grotesque: The Gargoyles of Yale University. His latest book features photographs not just from Yale but also nine other campuses. Its title is The Grotesque 10: Amazing Architectural Sculpture from Ten American Colleges & Universities. Youre doubtless wondering: whats with the word grotesque? Duman explained this in the new book: Architectural decoration that is representative of a human, animal or fanciful creature is generally referred to as a grotesque. He added: Gargoyles are a sub-type of grotesques whose primary function is to redirect water. Who knew? Not many of us. Duman acknowledges the term grotesque as an architectural term has faded from common speech and most people use gargoyle for all of those stone decorations. Duman told me he has gargoyle guide on the back of his safari jacket because I wanted people who saw me on the street and who arent in the know to get what the tour was about. I was afraid grotesque guide would be too vague and off-putting. On his website, www.thegrotesque10.com, Duman tells why he loves grotesques: These sculptures can be focal points of humor, historic commentary, school spirit or lessons in morality as well as the hidden thoughts and desires of their creators. Grotesques occur in such variety that they are an unending source of fascination and inspiration for those persistent enough to seek them out. Duman certainly is persistent. His quest for the grotesque began quite by accident one fine spring day in 2008 when he was walking down York Street, taking a break from his job in the Graphics Department for the Knights of Columbus in downtown New Haven. He described his epiphany in his second book: I stopped at a heavy iron gate embedded in a Gothic arch a few steps below street level. But it wasnt just the gate that caught my eye. All around it were seemingly ancient carvings: people, animals and plants adorned the entry as if it were a wedding cake. In fact, this side of the street down the entire block seemed to be part of one massive Gothic facade. This was, as I would soon discover, the rear entrance to Yales Sterling Memorial Library. Duman was particularly drawn to a grotesque to the right of the gate displaying two entwined figures. He wrote: One, a Native American by his dress, was armed with a bow and shield and was locked in combat with a Puritan settler, who was wearing a buckle hat and armed with a large, comic blunderbuss (gun). Duman told me he said to himself: Oh! Theres humor there, and social commentary! Id thought Yale was just dry and historical. On that spring afternoon, Duman knelt in the wet leaves and sticks on the sunken stairs and took a photo of the two figures. He didnt then know it, but his project had begun. That sculpture inspired him to look for more, much more. But as Duman sadly wrote in his books preface: Do not look for it on York Street today. Early in 2017, a glob of cement appeared on this grotesque, blotting out the Puritans rifle and obscuring the meaning of the sculpture. This was an attempt by Yale to make the sculpture politically correct. According to a Yale statement at that time, experts who consulted with Yales Committee on Art in Public Spaces determined that leaving the depiction in place would have the unintended effect of giving it a place of honor that it does not deserve. The university consulted faculty and other scholarly experts who concluded that the image depicts a scene of warfare and colonial violence toward local Native American inhabitants. The Yale statement added that the carving would be removed entirely and made available for study. I just thought they should have left it the way it was, Duman told me. I wasnt happy when I saw it defaced. Trying to ignore the past wont help us learn anything from it. A Yale spokesman who was asked for comment did not respond. Duman is an outlier from Yale. His grotesque safari tours have no official university connection and he stays on public property. He charges $15 and the tour can last from 90 minutes to as long as three hours, depending on the energy level of the participants. (You can sign up for a tour by going to his website.) Duman supplements his tours by giving lectures. He said the talks he gave after his first book came out led to the idea for a second, bigger book. People would tell me, Oh, you should visit Bryn Mawr College and You should see the University of Chicago. And so I thought: Ive got to see it! Well, it took seven years to do all the traveling, the compilation and layout of the second book. In addition to Bryn Mawr, the University of Chicago and a second look at Yale, incorporating the two newest residential colleges, Duman chose to highlight Duke University, Northwestern University, Washington University in Saint Louis, Princeton University, Trinity College in Hartford, The City College of New York and the University of Pennsylvania. Dumans tour for me and our staff photographer, Christian Abraham, was confined to Benjamin Franklin College and Pauli Murray College. But that was a treat for me, as I had not seen more than what I had glimpsed by driving or walking along Prospect Street. The architectural firm for the two colleges was Robert A.M. Stern Architects. Stern, the former dean of the Yale School of Architecture, wanted to maintain the Gothic and Georgian styles of the architect James Gamble Rogers, who created many of Yales other residential colleges in the 1930s. The new colleges feature about 400 pieces of carved stone ornaments, the work of campus historian and artist Patrick Pinnell. He was commissioned to design commemorative panels that linked to the history of New Haven and Yale. Indeed, Duman showed us stone reliefs depicting a hamburger from Louis Lunch; the sign that once rested atop the Yankee Doodle Coffee Shop (now closed); and two pizza slices one with the letter P and the other with the letter S. I wont insult the readers by saying which pizzerias they stand for. Duman brought us out to the restored Farmington Canal Greenway which runs alongside the back of the two colleges. The rear side of Benjamin Franklin College has stone reliefs depicting previous uses of that running-hiking-biking trial: workers along the canal waterway and a railroad train with a station. This is a fascinating subject but Duman, now doing graphics work and photography as a freelancer, isnt getting rich on these books. The new one, a paperback, costs about $27 via Amazon or Dumans website. But hes not in this for the money and he intends to keep going. My tentative plan is to go to Oxford and Cambridge in England because what you see here is like a New World version of that. Id like to do a book on the originals. Contact Randall Beach at 203-680-9345 or randall.beach@hearstmediact.com. Thomas Edison. The Lumiere brothers. Charlie Chaplin. All of these men were hailed for their roles as film pioneers in the late 1800s and early 1900s. But when Pamela Green asked Hollywood directors, producers and actors about another pillar of silent film, she got a whole lot of blank stares. The name? Alice Guy-Blache. Guy-Blache, a native of France, was the first female director in film history. She wrote, produced or directed at least 1,000 films before the 1920s, outpacing Edison along with her French peers, the Lumieres and Georges Melies (A Trip to the Moon). Where others saw moving images, she created stories. The director was one of the first to implement techniques like close-ups, synchronized sound and hand-tinted color. She also became the first woman to head a studio, opening Solax Studios in Fort Lee when the town was the epicenter of American filmmaking, earning the equivalent of more than $1 million per year. So what happened? Why did Guy-Blache's name fade as other directors of the silent film era were widely recognized for their work? Green is the director of Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blache," a documentary that offers an answer to that question. Narrated by Jodie Foster (who is fluent in French), Be Natural, which just opened in New York, was crowdfunded and financed by famous backers such as Foster, Robert Redford and the late Hugh Hefner. Green works in the film industry creating title sequences and motion graphics and finding stock footage in archives. She first heard of Guy-Blache in 2010. Despite cinephiles and academics arguing to the contrary, she knew that she wasnt alone in her ignorance of the director. The project grew out of a conversation she had while working with Redford, founder of the Sundance Film Festival. Green showed him a picture of Guy-Blache and told him she was the first female director. He was completely blown away," she says. He said, 'What are you going to do about this? In 2013, Green launched a Kickstarter and the project managed to catch the eye of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media (Davis appears in the film). Mother of narrative film Be Natural" draws on the 2002 book Alice Guy-Blache: Lost Visionary of the Cinema" by Alison McMahan. In order to liven up what can seem like a dusty subject, Green uses whimsical color visuals to conjure Paris in 1895. That was the year Guy-Blache, then Alice Guy, a 22-year-old secretary for a camera company, witnessed the work of Auguste and Louis Lumieres Cinematographe, one of the first reliable ways to project motion pictures. The results simple scenes of people walking around were revelatory. Yet at the time, films had no narrative structure. They were slices of life: the crashing of waves at a beach, trains pulling into a station. Guy-Blache changed that. In 1896, she directed The Cabbage Fairy, hand-cranking the camera on a terrace. The 50-second film was a fairytale in which newborn babies are plucked out of cabbage patches a kind forerunner to the Cabbage Patch dolls origin story. There is nothing connected with the staging of a motion picture that a woman cannot do as easily as a man, and there is no reason why she cannot completely master every technicality of the art, Guy-Blache wrote in the trade journal The Moving Picture World. (Be Natural also utilizes TV interviews with Guy-Blache from 1957 and 1964.) She was still a secretary for Gaumont, a Paris company that sold and manufactured cameras, when she asked her boss, Leon Gaumont, if she could film some scenes. Guy-Blache soon emerged as a trailblazer in the development of the Chronophone, a 1902 system for creating synchronized sound in film, producing phonoscenes" for which actors lip-synced recordings. Among Guy-Blache's early work was the 1906 comedy The Sticky Woman, in which a man kisses a woman who has been licking stamps and gets stuck to her. In The Consequences of Feminism, a film from the same year, men and women swap roles. Also in 1906, Guy-Blache directed The Life of Christ, which she considered her largest film produced in France. The next year, Guy-Blache moved to Flushing, Queens, with her husband, Herbert Blache-Bolton, her colleague at Gaumont Studio, who had been tasked with opening an American outpost of Gaumont. A few years later, they would open Alices studio, Solax, where she presided over every aspect of filmmaking, directing movies for the American audience that were distributed internationally. #AliceGuyBlache #MotherofCinema was a proper woman, raised in a convent, working as a stenographer when she found herself in a position to create films. What stories did she want to tell? Discover the true origins of cinema in theaters now. Vintage Cinemas Los Feliz 3 IFC Center (New York) - buy tickets at http://www.ifccenter.com//be-natural-the-untold-story-of-/ All Saints Cinema (Tallahassee, FL) - buy tickets at https://www.tallahasseefilms.com/film/be-natural-323/ Center for Contemporary Arts (Santa Fe, NM) - buy tickets at https://www.ccasantafe.org/ Posted by Be Natural on Saturday, April 27, 2019 A natural mogul Be Natural takes its title from Guy-Blache's guidance to her actors, known as the Solax Players. The two words were always visible on a sign in her Fort Lee studio, posted right above the stage. Its all I asked of them, the director said in her 1964 interview. Guy-Blache certainly fit the mogul mold. At the height of Solax, she had 150 employees and was producing three films every week, making (according to an article Green cites from the New York Dramatic Mirror) $50,000 to $60,000 per year as head of the studio, which would be as much as $1.5 million today. A sign intended for actors in Alice Guy-Blache's Solax Studio in Fort Lee.Courtesy "Be Natural" Green traveled to Fort Lee, Arizona and beyond in search of artifacts from Guy-Blache's life. We needed the detective story to kind of be the lead to show that we could find new things, even though it was 100 years ago, even though I was discouraged by many historians and professors saying I wasnt going to find anything," Green says. Women werent documented or recorded, she says. Thats what were doing. Thats the work. Guy-Blache's example changed everything for Greens own career, dominated by meetings with a long line of male directors. I think its a dent," she says. I think this is definitely part of the Times Up movement. Can we talk about Alice Guy's deep, deep compositions? So much to take in when she directs a film! pic.twitter.com/jEJYR92YpR Movies Silently (@MoviesSilently) August 25, 2017 Fort Lee: Home of cliffhangers and the first Hollywood In Fort Lee, Solax occupied a space on Lemoine Avenue north of the George Washington Bridge, the current location of an Acme supermarket next to Fort Lee High School. A marker stands in memory of the studio. Tom Meyers, executive director of the Fort Lee Film Commission, provided archival material to Green and appears in the film. By 1915, we had 17 major film studios in Fort Lee, Meyers says, including Paramount, Fox and World Pictures. Most people in Fort Lee were employed by the film industry. Directors could film a rural-looking scene, a Western in a field or an action scene on the cliffs overlooking the Hudson River (hence the term cliffhanger). Alice Guy-Blache in front of Solax Studio, which she and her husband Herbert Blache built in Fort Lee in 1912, before the American film industry relocated to Hollywood.Courtesy "Be Natural" Later, the studios left Fort Lee, in part because of World War I and the difficulties of filming during the winter (the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce lured them with fair weather and land). But there was another problem. Thomas Edison, founder of West Oranges Black Maria, the first film studio, hobbled filmmakers when he started a trust with George Eastman that charged licensing fees for the use of Edison cameras and Eastman Kodak film. Solax faltered and the Blaches split when Herbert had an affair and moved to Los Angeles. Alice moved there, too, but ended up returning to France. Herbert did not pay alimony and she was left to raise their children alone. In the 1920s, he directed Hollywood films, but Alice could not regain her footing as a director in France, where she had once made major waves in technology and technique. A legacy lost and found It didnt take long for Guy-Blache's name to be obscured in the memory of cinema, even among those who were considered experts. They were like, Oh, you know, she was a little old lady that made films instead of no, this was a trailblazer, pioneer, entrepreneur and creator that is partially responsible for the grammar of cinema that we know today,'" Green says. Alice Guy Blache, at center, directing "Life of Christ" (1906).Courtesy "Be Natural" By the 1930s, Guy-Blache watched as others nearly erased her accomplishments. Other women who followed her were erroneously named the first female film director (Lois Weber was the first American female director). When articles and histories were written about Gaumont Studio, Guy-Blache was omitted, even as Leon Gaumont called her one of his most important collaborators. She felt like she was an impostor, Green says, because of the way she was treated. To add insult to injury, the prominent French film historian Georges Sadoul wrote a book on the history of film that mentioned Guy-Blache, but credited men including her assistant director and an actor with directing several of her films, including The Cabbage Fairy and The Life of Christ. But more than a century later, the proof was on film. Two weeks before Green had to deliver Be Natural to the Cannes Film Festival in Guy-Blache's native France, an archive called her about photos from Blaches film Life of Christ." With the support of her backers, Green paid for the images. She ended up striking gold. Plain as day, the photos showed Guy-Blache directing the film. Green splashed one of the images across the Be Natural poster. Pamela Green, director of "Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blache."Courtesy Pamela Green | "Be Natural" At Cannes, the documentary ended up getting a standing ovation. They went nuts, people were crying. I was in complete shock," Green says, overjoyed to help restore the director to glory in her home country. Of the approximately 1,000 films that Guy-Blache worked on, about 130 had been located by the time Green started work on the documentary, many in film archives. One of Guy-Blache's biggest problems in salvaging her own story was figuring out the location of her work. Decomposition and the use of old materials like nitrate film makes the search even more difficult. When she made the films, they were distributed and never came back, necessarily, to home base, Green says. Theyre found in different places around the world. At the time of Guy-Blache's death in 1968, when she was 94, she had located just four of her American films. Alice Guy Blache, at left, directs actress Bessie Love in "The Great Adventure" (1918).Courtesy "Be Natural" Its close to 150 now," Green says. "We have to keep looking. Guy-Blache returned to New Jersey at the end of her life, living in Wayne. She struggled to find a home for her memoir, but it was published posthumously. Now, Green and others are trying to ensure her story endures. On the directors birthday (July 1) each year, Meyers brings flowers and Champagne to her grave at Maryrest Cemetery in Mahwah. Next year, Fort Lee is set to open the Barrymore Film Center, a 260-seat theater that will pay homage to Solax, among other local studios of the era. Meyers says Guy-Blache will get a star on a walk of fame, and he expects to organize a film festival dedicated to the director. Green considers Be Natural to be her love letter to Guy-Blache, one that can raise new questions. Im just the messenger, she says. Its her story. Im just fulfilling the last chapter for her that she didnt get to fulfill, which was get her films and restore her legacy. I just finished the job for her. Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blache" is playing at the IFC Center (323 Sixth Ave.) in New York. Have a tip? Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @AmyKup or on Facebook. Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. A labor union has asked the state to investigate why Hackensack Meridian Health has not corrected widespread problems with its new payroll system, resulting in as many as thousands of people getting shorted, overpaid, and in some cases not getting paid at all. Health Professionals and Allied Employees spokesman Bridget Devane said an unspecified but significant number of the 2,600 Hackensack Meridian hospital and nursing home employees it represents from across the state have received incorrect paychecks twice this month, including Friday. The union filed a complaint Wednesday with the state Department of Labor and Workforce Developments Division of Wage and Hours Compliance. The mistakes are widespread, but largely affect hourly workers, people who work overtime or receive a night pay differential, Devane said. When checks did not come through, (employees) got charged fees and not being able to make payments in full," said Kendra McCann, President of HPAE Local 5058 at Jersey Shore Medical Center in Neptune. It affected how health insurance has been taken out of pay, it affected life insurance payments a couple people lost life insurance policies. It has spiraled into so many different directions and caused so many problems, McCann said. Hackensack Meridian has to take responsibility. Nancy Radwin, spokeswoman for Hackensack Meridian Health, offered assurances Friday the company will continue working around the clock to correct mistakes. Employees, or team members as they are called there, are asked to collect documentation to identify any discrepancies. Transitioning from eight payroll systems to one is an incredibly complex process, Radwins statement said. Our goal is to make sure every team member is made whole and ensuring any expenses or fees incurred as a result of incomplete funds are addressed, she said. In an April 15 email exchange HPAE included in its complaint, Hackensack Meridian acknowledged problems with implementing the new PeopleSoft system and said additional payroll runs would be scheduled the following week to correct the errors. By Wednesday, when HPAE members reported no refunds had occurred, the union filed the complaint, Devane said. The union filed a class-action grievance with the hospital networks corporate office last week, HPAE President Debbie White said. Hackensack Meridian owns 12 acute care hospitals from Bergen to Ocean counties, of which HPAE represents employees at Jersey Shore University Medical Center, Neptune; Palisades Medical Center and the Harborage nursing home in North Bergen, and Southern Ocean Medical Center, Manahawkin. Other unions represent some of the Hackensack Meridian facilities and some are not unionized, Devane said. Other union representatives could not immediately be reached for comment. Hackensack Meridian Health is $5.5 billion not-for-profit employs a staff of 33,000 and 6,500 doctors, and maintains 4,520 in-patient beds, which include childrens and specialty hospitals. It is the largest hospital and health care facility network in the state. Susan K. Livio may be reached at slivio@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @SusanKLivio. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook. POWAY, Calif. (AP) A 19-year-old gunman opened fire inside a synagogue near San Diego as worshippers celebrated the last day of a major Jewish holiday, killing a woman and wounding the rabbi and two others Saturday, authorities said. President Donald Trump and other elected officials decried what they called an anti-Semitic attack exactly six months since 11 people were killed at a Pittsburgh synagogue in the deadliest assault on Jews in U.S. history. There were indications an AR-type assault weapon might have malfunctioned after the gunman, identified as John Earnest, fired numerous rounds inside the Chabad of Poway, San Diego County Sheriff William Gore said. An off-duty Border Patrol agent working as a security guard fired at the shooter as he ran away, missing him but striking his getaway vehicle, San Diego County Sheriff William Gore said. Shortly after fleeing, Earnest called 911 to report the shooting, San Diego Police Chief David Nisleit said. When an officer reached him on a roadway, "the suspect pulled over, jumped out of his car with his hands up and was immediately taken into custody," Nisleit said. The sheriff said a girl and two men, including the rabbi, were wounded as the Jewish congregation gathered for Passover, a weeklong commemoration of the deliverance of the ancient Hebrews from slavery in Egypt. The three were in stable condition at hospitals. Earnest has no criminal record, but investigators were looking into a claim he made in an online manifesto about setting a fire at a mosque in nearby Escondido last month, Gore said. There was damage but no injuries. Gore said authorities were reviewing copies of his social media posts and were investigating the attack as a possible hate crime in the city of Poway, just over 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of San Diego. A person identifying themselves as John Earnest posted an anti-Jewish screed online about an hour before the attack. The poster described himself as a nursing school student and praised the suspects accused of carrying out deadly attacks on mosques in New Zealand last month and at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue Oct. 27. California State University, San Marcos, confirmed Earnest was a student on the dean's list and said the school was "dismayed and disheartened" that he was suspected in "this despicable act." There was no known threat after Earnest was arrested, but authorities boosted patrols at places of worship as a precaution, police said. Minoo Anvari, a member of the synagogue, told media outlets that her husband was inside during the shooting. She said he called to tell her the shooter was shouting and cursing. She called the shooting "unbelievable" in a peaceful and tight-knit community. "We are strong; you can't break us," Anvari said. Donny Phonea, who lives across the street from the synagogue, turned off his power drill and heard someone shout, "Police!" Then he heard three or four shots. The 38-year-old bank auditor looked over his backyard fence facing the synagogue and saw people hiding behind an electrical box in the parking lot of a neighboring church. At that point, he knew something was "very, very wrong," went inside and closed his doors and garage. "I'm a little taken aback," said Phonea, who moved to Poway two weeks ago. "I moved here because safety was a factor. Poway is very safe." Trump offered his sympathies Saturday, saying the shooting "looked like a hate crime." "Our entire nation mourns the loss of life, prays for the wounded and stands in solidary with the Jewish community," Trump said later at a rally in Wisconsin. "We forcefully condemn the evils of anti-Semitism and hate, which must be defeated." He praised law enforcement's "incredible response" and singled out the off-duty Border Patrol agent who "bravely returned fire and helped disrupt the attack and saved so many lives." The sheriff said the gun possibly malfunctioned. The mayor of Poway, who tweeted that he got a call from the president offering help, also denounced what he called a hate crime. "I want you know this is not Poway," Mayor Steve Vaus said. "We always walk with our arms around each other and we will walk through this tragedy with our arms around each other." Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom said he joins the community in grief. No one should have to fear going to their place of worship, and no one should be targeted for practicing the tenets of their faith, he said. (CNN) North Korean leader Kim Jong Un told Russian President Vladimir Putin that he believes the United States acted in "bad faith" at the Hanoi summit, North Korean state media reported. The report in North Korea's state-run KCNA news was released on the final day of Kim's visit to the far-eastern Russian city of Vladivostok. Kim and Putin met there for the first time Thursday, spending about three and a half hours together. The North Korean leader left Vladivostok Friday afternoon aboard his armored government train. KCNA reported that "Kim Jong Un said that the situation on the Korean Peninsula and the region is now at a standstill, and has reached a critical point where it may return to its original state, as the U.S. took a unilateral attitude in bad faith at the recent second DPRK-US summit talks," using the acronym for North Korea's formal name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. KCNA also said Kim told his Russian hosts that "peace and security on the Korean Peninsula will entirely depend on the U.S.' future attitude, and the DPRK will guard itself for every possible situation." US President Donald Trump's second meeting with Kim in Hanoi in February ended earlier than expected and without a deal. Trump and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the two sides could not agree on the amount of sanctions relief to exchange for concrete steps by North Korea to eliminate its nuclear weapons program. While Trump said both sides left things on good terms, North Korean officials have accused the U.S. of sabotaging the talks. Diplomats from Pyongyang have used similar language to Kim's in describing US demands at the Hanoi summit. North Korean First Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui told reporters in March that the country has "no intention to yield to the U.S. demands (put forward at the Hanoi summit) in any form, nor are we willing to engage in negotiations of this kind." Putin and Kim did not sign any documents or agreements after their meetings, though they weren't expected to. The summit was instead heavy on lavish symbolism and platitudinous remarks about mutual friendship. Kim called the relationship "a precious treasure of our two nation's people that is an amalgamation of the mutual goal and interest based on historical tradition." Analysts say the meeting may have been attempt by the Russian leader to reinsert Moscow into one of the most important regional conflicts after months of sitting on the sidelines while China, South Korea and the U.S. engaged in diplomatic talks with North Korea. Others say Pyongyang may have been shopping for deals, seeking to lessen its economic reliance on Beijing and hedge against the possibility that talks with Washington fail. "The trip is more about stirring other interlocutors into renewed talks/concessions," said Robert Kelly, a professor of international relations at Pusan National University in South Korea. This story was first published on CNN.com, "Kim Jong Un accuses US of acting in 'bad faith.'" Dear Annie: I am in my 70s, have been married for 42 years and have three grown children. I found out two years ago that I had a child with a woman I had dated 10 years before I met my wife. Her daughter tracked me down and contacted me. She said that he had been put up for adoption, but she tracked him down because her mother was ill and wanted to know how he was doing. She said that she had contacted him and that he was interested in finding out about his birth parents but did not want to cause a problem. She then gave me his contact information. I was shocked and did not know how to proceed. After a couple of months, however, my empathy won out and I contacted him by email. He is 50 years old, successful, with two young daughters and a wife. I sent him information about my grandparents and health, and he never pushed for anything more. Over the last two years, we have emailed back and forth and gotten to know each other. I even had the opportunity to meet him and his wife when we were on business trips in the same town. I must say that I like and respect him. The problem involves my wife. A few months after I first started communicating with him, I was bothered that I was keeping this important information from her. After all, with the internet and everything, the mothers daughter was able to track me down after 50 years. And these kinds of secrets always have a way of surfacing. When I finally told my wife, she became very upset and said that she didnt want to talk about it and asked me never to bring it up again. I have taken her at her word, but I have continued my communications with him. The advice I need concerns the fact that I would like to tell my other children about this discovery. They are in their 30s and established, and I dont think that they would be upset. I just dont want them to find out some other way and know that I kept this secret from them. I would totally leave it up to them if they want to communicate but they would have the information. The only person who knows about this, besides my wife, is my sister. I gave her his contact information in case something should happen to me, and she could let him know. I want to tell them in the next few months, but I dread how my wife will react. I am thinking about telling them and explaining that their mother knows but doesnt want to hear anything about it. Is that a good approach? Any advice will be greatly appreciated. -- Concerned Father and Husband Dear Concerned: Telling your grown children about your recent discovery of your 50-year-old son is a brave and honest thing to do. It sounds like despite a rough beginning to life, your son has done very well for himself. With DNA testing companies such as Ancestry and 23andMe, there is a high likelihood that your children will eventually find out on their own. It is much better to hear the truth from their father. Your wife seems to be in denial about this. While some partners dont like to think about their partners pasts, your past is what makes you unique. And your wife married you -- and your past. Walking on eggshells around your wife about your son will eventually lead to a crack. Try to ask your wife why she feels so uncomfortable talking about him. Reassure her how much you love her and how proud you are of what sounds like a fantastic family youve created together. Ask Me Anything: A Year of Advice From Dear Annie is out now! Annie Lanes debut book -- featuring favorite columns on love, friendship, family and etiquette -- is available as a paperback and e-book. Visit http://www.creatorspublishing.com for more information. Send your questions for Annie Lane to dearannie@creators.com. Annie Lane grew up in California and headed east to graduate with honors from New York University, where she majored in English literature and specialized in psychology. She earned her Juris Doctor from New York Law School. Since July 2016, Annie has offered common-sense solutions to everyday problems in her column, Dear Annie. Her advice is unusually perceptive. She is firm, funny and sympathetic, echoing the style of her biggest inspiration, Ann Landers. Annie lives outside Manhattan with her husband, two kids and two dogs. When not writing, she devotes her time to play dates and Play-Doh. COPYRIGHT 2019 CREATORS.COM Dear Annie: My wife and I have a perpetual disagreement with each other about cleaning. I tend to be neat and organized. My wife tends to be messy and disorganized. Im constantly extolling the virtues of organization to her, and shell agree and understand, but never implement. I try to not let her messiness bother me, but it always does. When I arrive home from work, its frustrating to walk into a house with dishes piled up in the kitchen, food left out on the countertops, clothes all around the house, etc. I spend my time at home cleaning up after my family. Please help me understand how I can deal with this domestic dispute. I would like to simply accept this is her disposition, but it continues to frustrate and anger me. -- Domestic Dispute Dear Domestic Dispute: You can teach old dogs new tricks -- if you use treats to reward them. The same is true with humans; we all like to be encouraged and rewarded. Sit down with your wife and let her know how frustrated you are by her messiness. Share how the mess impacts you, and come up with a reward system together to encourage her to be more neat and organized. You and your wife should do the same, as a team, with your children. Create a reward system, using dessert or allowance, to incentive your children to clean up after themselves. This may also help your wife by encouraging her to model positive behavior. Dear Annie: Please remind your readers of the importance of turning off a phone after ending a conversation. Recently, I gave an interview over the phone to a small local paper. Clearly, the phone was on speaker as I heard a second person, the editor, whom I have met and whose voice I recognized, interjecting and giving suggestions for questions to ask me. I was polite and helpful and told the interviewer I had forwarded additional information by email to help him with the article. We ended our conversation after a few more questions. As I went to hang up, I heard the editor snickering and making derogatory comments about me and another woman who works in the office. I hung up quickly because I was not interested in hearing negative comments about myself or the other woman, who is a friend. In retrospect, I wish I had calmly said, Your phone is still on. Please remind readers of the importance of kind words and professional behavior in the office. Careless comments can be hurtful. -- Ears Are Still Burning Dear Ears Still Burning: Thank you for your great reminder about turning off phones. But what was even better about your letter was the reminder that careless comments can be hurtful. Words might not have wings, but they can travel thousands of miles. So, lets please be mindful of how we speak about each other. Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people. -- Henry Thomas Buckle Ask Me Anything: A Year of Advice From Dear Annie is out now! Annie Lanes debut book -- featuring favorite columns on love, friendship, family and etiquette -- is available as a paperback and e-book. Visit http://www.creatorspublishing.com for more information. Send your questions for Annie Lane to dearannie@creators.com. Annie Lane grew up in California and headed east to graduate with honors from New York University, where she majored in English literature and specialized in psychology. She earned her Juris Doctor from New York Law School. Since July 2016, Annie has offered common-sense solutions to everyday problems in her column, Dear Annie. Her advice is unusually perceptive. She is firm, funny and sympathetic, echoing the style of her biggest inspiration, Ann Landers. Annie lives outside Manhattan with her husband, two kids and two dogs. When not writing, she devotes her time to play dates and Play-Doh. COPYRIGHT 2019 CREATORS.COM A Trenton man who was kicked out of a party at a VFW hall in Willingboro two years ago and responded by opening fire on two security guards - one a Vietnam veteran - will serve at least 17 years in state prison before hes eligible for parole, authorities announced Friday. A judge sentenced Brandon Washington to 20 years prison Thursday on two counts of passion provocation attempted manslaughter. A Burlington County jury convicted the 34-year-old in February, and the sentence calls for 17 years without parole, the Burlington County Prosecutors Office announced. The two victims in this case were simply doing their jobs protecting the guests at the VFW and, because of Washingtons homicidal behavior, it could have cost them their lives, Burlington County Prosecutor Scott Coffina said in a statement. One of these victims served our country in the Vietnam war, Coffina said. To think that he made it home safely and years later could have been killed by this defendants hot-headed actions should infuriate law-abiding members of the public. Washington was at a party at the Levittown Memorial VFW Post 4914 on Creekview Road on Feb. 16, 2017, when he got unruly and the guards kicked him out. When they got him outside, he pulled a gun and fired, striking one man in the temple and the other in the arm. At the time, authorities identified the victims as two men, ages 56 and 67. Assistant Prosecutor Michael Angermeier handled the case. Kevin Shea may be reached at kshea@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @kevintshea. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. Can Americans still have a sensible and friendly political discussion across the partisan divide? The answer is yes, and we intend to prove it. Julie Roginsky, a Democrat, and Mike DuHaime, a Republican, are consultants who have worked on opposite teams for their entire careers yet have remained friends throughout. Here, they discuss the weeks events, with prompts from Tom Moran, editorial page editor of The Star-Ledger. Q. Joe Biden is in the race, and Chris Christie, for one, says hes the Democrat who can claw back many of the white working-class voters who went to Trump. Agree? Roginsky: Biden is a strong candidate, but the larger issue is whether the Democratic nominee should focus on appealing to any one demographic or build a broad-based coalition the way Obama did. Enough of those same white working class voters joined African Americans, Latinos, Asians and others to put Obama over the top. A successful Democratic nominee will be able to replicate those efforts. DuHaime: Joe Biden could be a formidable general election candidate. Many of the Obama voters who defected to Trump or simply didn't turn out for Hillary would find Biden appealing. But for all his strengths, Uncle Joe has many flaws that were compensated for by President Obama. When Joe is on his own, it doesn't always end well for him. This will be a very difficult primary for him. Q. Robert Mueller's report doesn't seem to have changed many minds. Might that change after we hear testimony from Mueller and other key players, like Don McGahn, the former White House counsel who testified that President Trump ordered him to get Mueller fired? Roginsky: Trump is right that his base will stick with him even if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue. For those of us who took the time to read the entire Mueller report, the facts are very clear: Trump, his family members and his campaign aides were desperate to work with Russia, our geopolitical adversary, against their fellow Americans. We dont need Don McGahn or anyone else to tell us that this is the first president in history whom we cannot call an American patriot. DuHaime: I've known Don McGahn for more than 15 years. He is a smart attorney who served the president well during the campaign and in the White House, but none of the voters really are going to be swayed by what he or even Mueller has to say. Trump voters are with him. Anti-Trumpers hated him before and hate him now. The key group are those voters who reluctantly voted for Trump as the lesser of two evils believing he was simply a better choice by virtue of his business background and right-of-center stances on economic issues. They are not a group that is active on Twitter or yelling on cable news. They are waiting to see who the Democrats nominate, and they will decide the election. Q. Kirstjen Nielsen, the former Secretary of Homeland Security, expressed concerns that the Russians will again illegally interfere in our presidential election, but was told by Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney not to raise the topic in President Trump's presence, according to four senior sources who spoke to the New York Times. Should that scare us? Roginsky: I am concerned that the president seems to want the Russians to interfere again, if it helps him win re-election. As I said, his interests come first, the American people and our institutions be damned. Let me clarify: Russians offered help to members of the Trump campaign many times in 2016. Trump campaign shared priorietary campaign info with the Russians in return. Will that behavior continue in 2020. Not a hard question to answer. https://t.co/NVxoI8S7dt Julie Roginsky (@julieroginsky) April 23, 2019 DuHaime: Let's not forget that President Obama was actually the president when all this Russian interference happened. Somehow, he escapes scrutiny all too often. The Obama/Clinton foreign policy team openly mocked Mitt Romney for calling Russia our greatest geopolitical threat. Let's be clear, Russia has a fraction of our military and economic strength, but that doesn't mean they should be underestimated. President Obama underestimated Russia's capabilities. Putin pushed us around in Syria, and they made incredible efforts to interfere in our elections with seemingly little consequence until well after the fact. Roginsky: I was quite critical of President Obamas policy towards Russia and actually agreed publicly with Romney about Russia being our strongest geopolitical foe when he said it in 2012. But I also recall that President Obama went to congressional leadership and asked them to issue a joint bipartisan repudiation of Russian election interference in 2016 and Mitch McConnell refused because he didnt want it to hurt the Trump campaign. Yet another example of McConnell putting party before country. Q. Jared Kushner finally commented on the Russia probe, and Id like to get your reaction. Heres what he said: You look at what Russia did - you know, buying some Facebook ads to try to sow dissent and do it - and its a terrible thing, but I think the investigations, and all of the speculation thats happened for the last two years, has had a much harsher impact on our democracy than a couple of Facebook ads. Roginsky: Once again, another member of the Trump inner circle is signaling to the Russians that there will be no ramifications for interfering in our election in 2020. DuHaime: I simply don't even care what he says. It appears he gives the president bad advice and then says things like this that reflect poorly on the president. Q. One day after leaving the Schools Development Authority in disgrace after a patronage scandal, Lizette Delgado-Polanco resigned as the second-in-command for the state Democratic party. What kind of cautionary tale is this? Roginsky: Let me preface this by saying that I know and really like Lizette Delgado-Polanco. I dont think there is a cautionary tale here. The story speaks for itself. DuHaime: Give the governor and his senior staff credit on this one. This move was long overdue, but at least now it is done. While the story and investigations arent over, this is the first time we have publicly seen accountability for bad decision-making, and that shows some discipline being brought to the governors team. Thats a positive and necessary step when running a large organization. Q. Bridget Anne Kelly, sentenced Wednesday to 13 months in prison for her role in the Bridgegate scandal, lashed out at former Gov. Chris Christie, saying, Youre a bully and the days of you calling me a liar and destroying my life are over. Is she getting more than her share of the punishment over this fiasco? Roginsky: I have a very big problem with the notion that we are sending anyone to prison for a dumb stunt that doesnt merit incarceration. Surely, a large fine and extensive community service would have been more humane than depriving four children of their mother for over a year. And Ive had an equally big problem with the misogynistic way Bridget Kelly was written about in The Mastro Report that was funded by the Christie administration. She doesnt strike me as some desperate little woman who did it all to impress a man, but that is exactly how she was portrayed in a taxpayer-funded document. I know Im not the only woman on either side of the aisle who was appalled and disgusted by that. DuHaime: Im with Julie in that I certainly did not want to see anyone go to jail. As far as what Bridget says now, she testified for many hours at the trial. I would imagine anything relevant must have been said then, not now. Gov. Phil Murphy isnt pushing a higher tax on millionaires to punish the wealthy, he said Friday. Hes doing it to help the rest of the state succeed. In a speech championing his progressive agenda, Murphy expressed his zeal for collective bargaining rights, a $15 minimum wage and the tax on millionaires he says are critical to improving the lives of New Jersey residents. He also took aim at what he described as anti-labor ideologies and policies that hurt the state under former Gov. Chris Christie. On the millionaires tax he expects to raise $447 million in new tax revenue, the governor, a former Goldman Sachs executive, said the higher tax on income over $1 million is not punishment for doing well" but would give the state tools for more residents to do better. Whether that be properly funding our public schools, providing greater middle-class property tax relief, repairing our roads and bridges or investing in turning around NJ Transit, Murphy said. Murphy is calling for the millionaires tax as part of his proposed budget for the next fiscal year but has not yet found support among Democratic legislative leaders with the power to stop it. Too many working New Jerseyans are struggling to get by while the states wealthiest dont pay their fair share, he said. Make no mistake I am a capitalist and a progressive. These are not mutually exclusive, Murphy said. But the price that we pay for the unlimited upside of the American Dream cannot be an unlimited downside for those who are struggling to realize their dreams. The state government must lead by example, and if it ignores the welfare of its public workforce and of its struggling residents, it does so at its own peril, Murphy said at a public employment law conference in East Brunswick, where he also made the case for his administrations approach to labor relations. For eight years we were force-fed a series of false choices, Murphy said of former Gov. Chris Christies administration. And one of those false choices was that we could do more for our state if we simply did away with the collaborative approach to labor relations that has defined New Jersey for half a century. What we found is that just lessened our state, he said. Collecting bargaining, which he called quite akin to a sacred process, helped this administration reduce the cost of health care for the state and public workers and resolve long-running contract disputes, Murphy said. Last year, Murphy struck new deals with several state-worker unions that had been working without contracts since 2015 amid a feud with Christie over the step increases employees receive when they hit certain longevity milestones. Murphy agreed to reimburse workers for the years of lost pay. His administration reached an agreement with state workers over the past year to cut health care spending through out-of-network reforms and with school employees by shifting retired educators to lower-cost Medicare Advantage. He also boasted the administration cut health care spending by $800 million in his budget proposal through those changes and by auditing insurance rolls, auditing pharmaceutical claims and rebidding the contract for a pharmacy benefits manager. The goal isnt for one person to win and another to lose, despite what we have seen from the eight years before I took office. Thats not how I believe responsible governments are run, Murphy said. Those types of games are done in New Jersey. Period. Full Stop. We returned to the bargaining table in good faith. Samantha Marcus may be reached at smarcus@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @samanthamarcus. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook. WASHINGTON Malachy McAllister, who has fought U.S. government efforts to deport him for two decades, just won another last-minute reprieve. Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan agreed to delay McAllisters deportation, originally scheduled for April 30, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials told Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. McAllister, of Rutherford, is a former member of the paramilitary Irish National Liberation Army who fled Northern Ireland after serving time in prison for the attempted murder of British police officers during the period of civil strife known as the "Troubles. He came to New Jersey in 1996 as an asylum-seeker after he said British loyalists sprayed his family home with machine-gun fire. But U.S. immigration officials designated him a terrorist and have been trying to deport him ever since. His allies scrambled to avert the latest deportation effort, which was scheduled for Tuesday. The decision by the Homeland Security Department to allow Mr. McAllister to remain in America is terrific news," said Pascrell, D-9th Dist., who has championed McAllisters request to stay in the country. Mr. McAllister and his family have set roots in our community. America is where he belongs. Both Pascrell and U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., have introduced legislation to allow McAllister to remain. Pascrell and 27 other House members also wrote to the leaders of the House Judiciary Committee, seeking their support for the bill. The offenses for which Mr. McAllister was convicted occurred 36 years ago," they wrote. "He has never been convicted of any offenses within the United States. Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant or on Facebook. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips. Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. He spent nearly a lifetime waiting for this moment. But now a former South Jersey mayor will finally get to see the remains of his brother, who died in the attack on Pearl Harbor, returned home to New Jersey. After almost 80 years, former Clayton mayor Gene Costill, 93, said DNA testing has allowed the federal government to identify the remains of his brother, Harold, who was killed while serving in the U.S. Navy on the USS West Virginia when it sank during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. All these years, Harolds remains had been buried in Hawaii's National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, also known as Punchbowl Cemetery, under a tombstone that merely read, Unknown, USS West Virginia, Pearl Harbor. December 7, 1941. He was buried along with several of his fellow sailors. I am 93 years old. Im the last member of the immediate family living. And my only goal was to see him come home while I was still here, Costill told NJ Advance Media on Saturday. He called it an answer to many prayers. It was his sister, Joan Burke, who had hatched the idea roughly 20 years ago to figure out a way to get her brothers remains returned home. She got on a computer and mastered it and started this whole research to get him home, Costill said. Ascertaining the identity of remains can be a long, drawn-out process, often requiring lengthy investigation, interviews and research, a previous report said. Burke had donated her DNA, hoping to obtain a match, but the process had stalled. Costill had also given his DNA. Harold was 18 when he was declared missing in action. But, earlier this month, Costill learned from the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency which is responsible for recovering prisoners of war or those missing in action that DNA had been matched with Harolds remains. Burke, however, was not able to see the mission realized. She died roughly four years ago at 84. I cant help but think about her because she would be ecstatic, Costill said. This is her dream to see him come home. It wasnt only Costill and his sisters dream. It was the dream of his mother. Costill said she never fully recovered after Harolds death. That was the end of her life when she was informed that he had been killed, he said. She actually never enjoyed a day after that. My sister I think did this for her, partially. Costill is also a World War II veteran. He joined the U.S. Coast Guard when he was 17 and spent three years in combat, guarding American convoys from German U-boats. He said he expects the remains to be returned to New Jersey in late May or June. There will be a military funeral for Harold the last Saturday in June at the Clayton Performing Arts Center, which will be open to the public. Harold will then be buried in the Costill family plot in Clayton's Cedar Green Cemetery alongside his grandfather, Elwood Costill, who was wounded in the Civil War. I would like everyone to know that they are welcome to help us through this funeral to make it a worthwhile memorial for my brother. He deserves no less, Costill said. Spencer Kent may be reached at skent@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SpencerMKent. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips A Fanta orange soda can helped lead New Orleans detectives to one of three men suspected in a June 2018 armed hold-up at the Waffle House on Elysian Fields Avenue, according to arrest documents. Daniel Boykins, 25, was booked Wednesday (April 24) in the robbery, which occurred last summer. According to the NOPD, three armed men with their faces covered entered the Waffle House, 2940 Elysian Fields Ave., late June 6 and demanded money from the register. The men grabbed cash from the register, and one of the robbers reached into the pockets of an employees apron to snatch money, the arrest documents allege. The trio then escaped through the front door of the restaurant. Arrest records for Boykins detail how investigators then tied him to the crime, largely using surveillance video and DNA recovered from a soda can, found inside of a stolen truck. Video footage showed the three robbers driving a black 2004 Ford F-150 into the Waffle House parking lot, says an affidavit for Boykins arrest warrant, sworn by NOPD Detective Douglas Butler. After the robbery, the three men fled on foot leaving the pickup in the parking lot. Detectives found the truck, which had been reported stolen in May 2018, and while inspecting the vehicle, spotted a Fanta orange soda can in the drivers-side cupholder. Investigators noticed condensation on the can, which led them to believe the soda had been purchased recently, according to the arrest documents. 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 A crime-lab technician then collected DNA swabs from the trucks interior door handles, steering wheel and gearshiftand the Fanta can and sent the evidence to the Louisiana State Police Crime Lab. The NOPD learned in July that the DNA collected from the can had turned up a match to Boykins when run through a law-enforcement database. Butler then spoke with the owner of the stolen truck, who said he did not know a Daniel Boykins and had never had anyone by that name inside of his pick-up, the warrant states. The detective then obtained a warrant to collect DNA from Boykins to confirm the match. NOPD officers stopped Boykins on July 19 and, learning of his buccal swab warrant, called Butler to the scene to collect the swabs. The state police crime lab notified Butler in November that the DNA collected from Boykins matched the DNA recovered from the Fanta can. Boykins was booked Wednesday into the Orleans Justice Center jail, where he remained Friday night with his bond set at $150,000, court records show. Boykins has a prior conviction for attempted robbery, for which he was sentenced in 2012 to three and a half years in prison. Laura McKnight covers crime and breaking news for NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune. Protesters disrupted West Bank Expressway traffic Saturday (April 27) while decrying the killing of two men by Jefferson Parish Sheriff Office deputies during an undercover drug investigation a month ago, according WWL television. The demonstrators justice walk was done without official permits, Grenta police said, closing part of the expressway and a ramp to the Crescent City Connection. On March 28, deputies shot and killed Chris Joseph, 38, and Daviri Robertson, 39, upon blocking their car during an undercover drug operation. Authorities said they opened fire after the driver, Joseph, reversed the vehicle, which struck a deputy. A detective was injured by an officers gunfire. 2 suspects shot dead, JPSO detective wounded during drug bust outside Terrytown restaurant In an email to WWL, the sister of one of the dead men said Saturdays protestors hoped to gain the attention of other victims of police violence. We want the story to surface around the world for people who were victims or anyone who knows someone that were wrongfully killed by police officers, she wrote. United States Attorney Marc Krickbaum announced on Wednesday that Michael Anthony Santistevan, age 31, was sentenced by United States District Court Senior Judge James E. Gritzner for possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine. Santistevan was sentenced to 235 months in prison, to be followed by a term of supervised release of five years. On May 21, 2018, Santistevan was stopped by a Pottawattamie County Deputy for speeding on Interstate 80. Santistevan was the sole occupant of the rental vehicle. The car rental company was contacted and the return vehicle was overdue, and Santistevan was not the renter nor an authorized driver. The deputy issued Santistevan a traffic citation for speeding and requested permission to search the vehicle. During the search, a certified narcotics canine was utilized, and the canine alerted and indicated to the odor of narcotics on the rear of the vehicle. Deputies located 15 pounds of methamphetamine inside a tire in the vehicle. This matter was investigated by the Pottawattamie County Sheriffs Department and Council Bluffs Police Department. The case was prosecuted by the United States Attorneys Office for the Southern District of Iowa. United States Attorney Marc Krickbaum announced on Wednesday that Kenneth Ryan Hartwell, age 32, was sentenced by United States District Court Senior Judge James E. Gritzner for possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine. Hartwell was sentenced to serve 154 months in prison, to be followed by a term of supervised release for five years. In April 2018, Council Bluffs Police stopped a vehicle leaving an area that police were dispatched to regarding reports of vehicle burglaries. Hartwell was the driver and only occupant in the vehicle. Law enforcement determined Hartwell had a suspended license. When Hartwell was asked to exit the vehicle, police discovered marijuana and a scale in the drivers side door panel. In a search subsequent to the stop, Council Bluffs Police located five pounds of methamphetamine and over $16,000 in cash. This matter was investigated by the Council Bluffs Police Department and Southwest Iowa Narcotics Enforcement. The case was prosecuted by the United States Attorneys Office for the Southern District of Iowa. Rossi Lorathio Adams II had big plans to turn risque photos and footage of drunken bad behavior into a social media empire. In 2015, as a student at Iowa State University, Adams, who went by the nickname Polo, founded State Snaps, a series of social media accounts that showcased scantily clad women and pictures of partying college students a mash-up of Girls Gone Wild and MTVs Jackass. Adams egged on his followers with State Snapss own catchphrase: Do it for State! The formula appeared to be working. On Instagram, State Snaps had gathered more than 1.5 million followers, and the accounts created enough stir that Iowa State administrators objected publicly to the content. But according to federal authorities, Adams began to believe one roadblock was standing between State Snaps and Internet entrepreneurial success. Although the website was registered at doit4state.com, Adams could not pry the domain rights for doitforstate.com from an unnamed individual who owned the address. The aggressive push for the sought-after domain name would lead Adams and an associate down a path of threats and intimidation to a bloody June 2017 incident involving gunshots and a Taser at a home in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. According to the Justice Department, last week a jury found Adams, 26, guilty of charges related to the incident. He now could face up to 20 years in prison. It started in June 2015. According to documents filed by federal prosecutors in court, that month Adams showed up unannounced at the Cedar Rapids home of the individual who owned the doitforstate.com domain, listed in the filings only as E.D. Adams had tracked down the address through the domains listing on GoDaddy.com, a popular registrar for Internet addresses and web hosting company. Adams told E.D. he wanted to buy the domain, but E.D. indicated he was not interested in selling, court records say. Over the next two years, Adams continued to press E.D. According to court filings, E.D. eventually just stopped responding, but the requests continued. E.D. allegedly offered to hand the domain over for $20,000, but Adams balked at the number. The bubbling confrontation was soon edged with potential violence: Adams allegedly sent one of E.D.s friends a message with gun emoji, according to prosecutors. Then in May 2017, Adams again showed up without warning at E.D.s door. The mans brother answered, according to court documents. Adams was wearing a State Snaps T-shirt, and he punched his fist into his other hand. Im here for the name whatever it takes, Adams said, according to court documents. Im not leaving without it. But he did leave empty-handed. A month later, however, Adams devised a new way to get the domain this time involving a gun. On June 17, 2017, Adams tapped his cousin, Sherman Hopkins, Jr., a felon then living in a homeless shelter, to help get the website domain. According to the Cedar Rapids Gazette, Hopkinss past run-ins with law enforcement included charges of domestic abuse, assault, drunken driving and perjury. Federal authorities say Adams gave Hopkins a stolen gun a Taser, and written instructions about how to transfer an Internet domain from one GoDaddy account to another. Hopkins pulled pantyhose over his face, put on dark sunglasses and a hat, and broke into E.D.s house. E.D. was upstairs when he heard someone burst into his house, according to court filings. From the top of his stairs, he saw Hopkins below. Come here! the intruder shouted, using an expletive. E.D. slammed shut his bedroom door, leaning his weight against it, but the intruder kicked in the door and dragged E.D. at gunpoint to his computer. Using the written instructions from Adams, Hopkins forced E.D. to log into his GoDaddy account and transfer the domain name. He pistol-whipped and used the Taser on E.D. throughout the process, court documents say. This better be right, Hopkins told E.D., according to court records. You better do this right. You know who you stole from. If you go to the police or tell anyone about this Ill be back for you. With a cocked handgun at his head, E.D. quickly turned to move the firearm away from his head, according to court records. The two men began to fight for the gun. It went off, hitting E.D. in the leg. Still, he managed to twist the gun away from Hopkins, then shot the intruder multiple times in his chest before calling 911. Hopkins survived his injuries, and by the next month, Adams was also in police custody. In June 2018, Hopkins was sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to one count of interference with commerce by threats and violence, the Gazette reported. Adams, facing the same charge, went on trial last week. According to a statement from the Justice Department, after a four-day trial, the jury returned a guilty verdict after deliberating for an hour. His sentencing has yet to be scheduled, but he faces a maximum 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. State Snaps appears to still be active and posting new videos of drunken exploits. A message for comment on Adamss conviction and clarity on who is now operating the site was not immediately returned. The governors of Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri and the lieutenant governor of Kansas were in Council Bluffs Friday to meet with representatives of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Federal Emergency Management Agency about flood recovery efforts. Governors Kim Reynolds of Iowa, Pete Ricketts of Nebraska, Mike Parson of Missouri and Lt. Governor Lynn Rogers of Kansas met at the Council Bluffs Police headquarters and spoke with the media following the meeting. I appreciate them coming over and sitting down and talking about ways we can be innovative, flexible and really address the rebuilding process, Reynolds said. Ricketts explained the process they spoke of was primarily separated into three categories. The first was short term, plugging the holes and repairing levies right now. The second, was asking what intermediate steps the four states could act on together. The final step is long term, and what can be done to better manage the river. We identified four major breaches on the Iowa side, and it was encouraging to find out three of the contracts have already been let on the four major breaches, Reynolds said. We need to plug the holes before we start any of the rebuilding, because we have an inflow of water at this point. The governors explained part of the intermediate term projects after the levies, is identifying what they called choke points. Reynolds said that two of the major breaches are tentatively set to be repaired by the end of July, and she said that originally were expected to take a year. In Iowa two of the choke points were looking at addressing are Iowa Highway 2 and U.S. Highway 34, Reynolds said. Weve identified them as we look at the rebuilding process, and we look at the four major breaches as a way we can coordinate that process by addressing the choke points and the passage of the river going forward. That could have a significant impact. The governors emphasized the goal of working together as four states, Congress, FEMA and with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to keep finding solutions. We do understand property and lives are our number one priority when it comes to the Missouri river, Parson said. You have permission to edit this collection. Edit Close Being able to work in journalism and teach others was the best of both worlds. I remember walking into my first classroom as a teacher at Lincoln Southeast High School and introducing myself to my students. It was hard to hide my enthusiasm and be professional all at the same time. I was nervous, but couldnt wait to get started. My dream was coming true. Throughout my career, I had the pleasure of teaching grade 7 up to graduate students. Some of those students still stay in touch. My education in journalism provided many opportunities to use my skills. I wrote human interest articles and designed pages for national newspapers and magazines, and wrote speeches for political leaders. While working in Montreal, I designed pages for a daily newspaper. As I rode the bus to work the next morning, I saw 20 people with their papers open to the page I designed. I wanted to shout I did that! The bill calls for increasing state sales taxes by of a cent, hiking tobacco taxes and imposing new taxes on pop, candy and bottled water. It also would remove tax exemptions on services provided by plumbers, movers and pet veterinarians with a goal of funneling an additional $575 million to K-12 schools in state aid. Changes in taxing authority by schools would lower property tax bills for K-12 education by an average of 20%, backers maintain. But on Friday, the Revenue Committee worked through amendments designed to appease farmers and the states largest school districts, as well as cities and counties across Nebraska. None were among the small handful of supporters of the bill at Wednesdays public hearing. The changes: For farmers: The committee agreed that it would work to retain the states existing property tax credit program, which farmers on the Revenue Committee say is a must if agricultural groups are to support the plan. The credits, they say, are guaranteed property tax relief, unlike the boosts in state aid to K-12 schools called for in LB 289. Those, they argue, dont necessarily help all farmers and ranchers, whose overall property taxes, according to the Nebraska Farm Bureau, increased by 152% over the past decade. Denise Babjak cannot find the right words to express how she feels about the women of the Beta Rho Chapter of Tri Kappa. "Whenever we're in a pinch, they're always willing to help, whatever it is," said Babjak, CEO of Chasing Dreams Inc., Merrillville. "We cannot thank them enough." The "we" are the 850 families served by Chasing Dreams, which describes itself as an educational, physically motivating, socially encouraging learning center for children of all ages with disabilities. About three years ago, the 7-year old non-profit began its relationship with the Tri Kappa chapter. Babjak said the Beta Rho women readily volunteer, sometimes arriving not even knowing the age group with which they'll be working that day. They've provided their time and talent for the trick or treat event, the annual Chasing Dreams Gala, the Daddy/Daughter Dance and more. "They always bring delicious desserts, which we totally love," she said. A century ago, when the Beta Rho Chapter of Tri Kappa was established, it's unlikely the women who formed the chapter realized the difference they and their sisters to follow would make in the lives of those living in Lake County and beyond. Freeman-Wilson said the local IBE members knew they wanted to have a dynamic speaker for the conference, and there was one person who rose to the top. Donna Brazile is no stranger to most of you because you've seen her on CNN, you've seen her on Fox News, you've seen her on House of Cards and now you get to see her and have her in Gary, Indiana, Freeman-Wilson said. She is someone who has been a standard-bearer in our community, and not only championed our movement in the political arena, but one who has championed us being in charge and having a significant voice in the political arena. Denise Comer-Dillard brought one of Brazile's books, Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House, an insider's account of the events leading up to the 2016 presidential election. As Comer-Dillard, of Gary, reached over the stage with the book, Brazile signed the front page with a smile. Seeing her is a joy. She says what she has to say from her gut, not a written speech, Comer-Dillard said. She puts it out there to say, 'Don't get disappointed. We've been through this before and we've gone over hurtles before.' Now it's time to get our tails out there and vote. As they questioned the woman about her relative's whereabouts, Jarod Johnson placed the woman over his lap in the backseat and beat her in the face and legs and choked her, records say. Carrington allegedly pulled her hair. They allegedly drove her to an abandoned home in Gary, where Jarod Johnson pulled her out of the car and grabbed her by the neck and hood, the complaint alleges. The woman, who remained blindfolded, felt the ground was wet and began pleading for her life because she believed she was being led into a body of water to be drowned, court records say. Carrington spoke into the woman's ear just before she was shot in the face, according to the complaint. The woman fell to the ground and didn't move. She heard Carrington say, "Let's go," but Jarod Johnson said, "No Ma, no Ma. She's playing dead. She's not dead," records allege. The woman heard four or five more shots, one of which grazed her arm, the complaint says. The others drove into the ground. Left for dead The woman told police she heard the car leave and waited about 20 minutes before getting up and seeking help from neighbors. "A gun goes off, and somebody dies. It's so incredibly tragic," Murray said. Murray sentenced Hill to four years in prison, followed by one year in a program intended to transition inmates back into the community. Dagley, Hill's paternal grandmother, said Damon Hill's mother, Tameka Havard, lost custody of her son when he was young. Against Havard's mother advice, Dagley and her family members went to court to defend Havard, she said. "We believed every child had a right to be with his parent," she said. "We were wrong." Hill said he hadn't seen Brazelton, of Indianapolis, for some time and was happy to see him the night of the shooting. "We was just turnin' it up," he said. "I didn't have no envy. He was like my little brother." Deputy Prosecutor Timothy Brown said Hill initially told police his cousin was wounded in a drive-by. Only later did he admit he was responsible for Brazelton's death. "When this happened, he had been shot before," Brown said of Hill. "So he was on notice of what guns can do." Turn on your headlights and drive with caution: a wintry mix of precipitation has started falling across parts of Northwest Indiana. The snowfall wasn't expected to cause major traffic problems, but could create some slick spots. Drivers should slow down and leave plenty of room between vehicles, according to Indiana Department of Transportation's Northwest District. Parts of Lake and Porter counties could see less than an inch of snow Saturday afternoon into Sunday morning, said Amy Seeley, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Romeoville. Region residents heading into Illinois for weekend activities should expect to see heavy, wet snow as they head north. A winter storm warning was in effect for Cook, DuPage and Kane counties in Illinois through 1 a.m. Sunday, with total accumulations of up to 8 inches predicted. In LaPorte County, rain was expected to move in through the afternoon and turn to snow overnight. GARY Police searched part of the city's Miller section Friday morning with search dogs for a man who has been missing since Feb. 11; however detectives found no sign of him. Scott A. Tharp, 59, may be in need of medical attention, police said. Police began their search in a wooded area near the 6200 block of Melton Road, where Tharp had been staying, Cmdr. Jack Hamady said. Tharp also is known to frequent the area of Ridge Road and Grant Street. Tharp is described as white, about 5 foot 8 and 215 pounds with blue eyes and blond hair. No information about the clothes he was last wearing was available, police said. Police have received several reports of possible sightings of Tharp since February, but they have not been able to locate him, Hamady said. Anyone with information about Tharp's whereabouts is asked to call Detective Sgt. Mark Salazar at 219-881-1209. If someone has information but they wish to remain anonymous, they can call 866-CRIME-GP, police said. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 2 Sad 10 Angry 0 Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. The breaking of the egg which Greek custom has made into a game of sorts, when two persons touch the pointed end of the egg to another to see whose egg will crack first denotes the breaking of the bonds of death in the resurrection, Brissias said. "In the Orthodox Christian tradition, these dyed eggs are distributed on Easter Sunday to the faithful following Paschal services. In most parishes, there are two such services: the main Easter Eucharistic Liturgy that begins around midnight Sunday, and the "Vespers of Love" which is usually observed in the later morning," Bissias said. The work of dying red some 400 eggs started at around 6:30 a.m. on Thursday as Helen Condes and fellow parishioners arrived at the church kitchen. The dye is a special one from Greece. Once the eggs cooled, they were wiped with olive oil, wrapped in netting and tied with a red ribbon before distribution at services this weekend, Condes said. Other women assisting her included Nicki Sakelaris, Helen Kounelis, Matina Theodoropoulos, Antonia Alexiou, Chrissy Condes and Diane Yianakopoulos. EAST CHICAGO Police are asking the public's help in the search for a woman who was last seen on April 15. At 9:45 a.m. on April 15th, police were called to the 2300 block of E. Columbus Drive for a missing person report. A woman told police her sister, Yolanda Hosea was missing. She said Hosea was last seen around 11 a.m. Feb. 15 at her home on Magoun Avenue in East Chicago, according to the East Chicago Police Department. Hosea is a 48-year-old woman with brown eyes, short black hair and a medium dark complexion, police reports said. She is 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighs 165 pounds. She also has a tattoo of dice on her neck, police said. Her sister said when she last saw Hosea, she was wearing black pants but could not remember the rest of her outfit. Hosea's boyfriend said he had not seen her since Feb. 15 when she left the residence in the afternoon en route to an unknown location, police reports stated. Hosea's two adult children said they have also not heard from their mother. Hosea's sister said she could be anywhere in the south suburbs of Illinois or Gary, and goes by the names Candy and CiCi. LOWELL The state trooper who performed life-saving efforts on a Hammond woman trapped between her car and a toll booth was honored by Indiana State Police. On Friday afternoon, the Indiana State Police held an awards and recognition ceremony in Indianapolis to honor the accomplishments of the state's most dedicated troopers, including four who serve in Northwest Indiana. Trooper Alaa Hamed, of the Indiana State Police Lowell Post, was given a Lifesaving Award for extraordinary life-saving actions that were taken in December. At 9:19 p.m. Dec. 8, Hamed was called to the scene of a woman who was pinned between her car and a toll booth at Westpoint Toll Plaza in Hammond. When Hamed arrived, he found the woman pinned and unresponsive with no pulse. Hamed moved her car and freed her as a toll attendant and bystander supported her body. After laying the woman on her back, Hamed checked her vitals and found that she still had no pulse. Using an automated external defibrillator from his squad car, Hamed applied the pads to her chest and began resuscitation. But few spots seem to have aroused as much interest and intrigue here as the remains of a ship that struck a reef some 15 miles inside Rio de Janeiro's bay. The story goes back to 1976 when lobster divers first found potsherds studded with barnacles just off Governor's Island in the bay. Then a Brazilian diver brought up two complete jars with twin handles, tapering at the bottom, the kind that ancient Mediterranean peoples widely used for storage and are known as amphoras. Brazilian experts disagree over the age of the jars, which have been turned over to the Navy and stored them in a warehouse. Mr. Marx, who has long sought to prove that other sailors reached the Americas well before Columbus, obtained permission to explore the site in late 1982. Diving at a depth of about 90 feet, he found the parts of perhaps 200 broken amphoras and several complete ones, he said in an earlier telephone interview. According to Elizabeth Will, a professor of classics and specialist in ancient Roman amphoras at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the jars are very similar to the ones produced at Kouass, a Roman Empire colony that was a center for amphora-making on the Atlantic coast of Morocco. Reached by telephone, Professor Will said of the fragments she had studied: ''They look to be ancient and because of the profile, the thin-walled fabric and the shape of the rims I suggested they belong to the third century A.D.'' After Mr. Marx and Dr. Harold Edgerton of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology had explored the site with acoustical echoes and long metal rods, Mr. Marx said he became convinced that, below the potsherds, they had found the remains of a wooden wreck. A Roman vessel, he argued, had been blown off its course and reached Brazil. Mr. Marx's expeditions received wide press coverage in Brazil, with some reports asserting that he was perpetrating a hoax and was defaming the name of the Portuguese discoverers of Brazil. Adding to the stir, a wealthy businessman, Americo Santarelli, claimed the amphoras as his property. He said he once had taken such a liking to some ancient Sicilian amphoras that he ordered a potter in Portugal to make exact replicas. To ''age'' the jars, he said, he dropped 16 of them in Guanabara Bay in 1961, but collected only four. The drugstore chain Walgreens will stop selling tobacco products to customers under 21, the company announced on Tuesday. The decision came weeks after the Food and Drug Administration accused the company of repeatedly selling tobacco products to minors and amid similar moves by competitors and lawmakers around the country to curb teenage vaping. About a dozen states and hundreds of American cities have already raised the minimum age to buy tobacco to 21. Last week, Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican majority leader, said he would introduce a bill in May to raise the minimum age nationwide. Rite Aid announced this month that it would stop selling all e-cigarettes and vaping products, citing concern over tobacco use among minors. (It will continue to sell regular tobacco products in areas where it is legal.) CVS stopped selling tobacco products in 2014. Sensitive Hulk After several films where the adorably shambling Mark Ruffalo would transform into an inarticulate muscle monster, Avengers: Endgame springs one last surprise: Now that the Hulk and Banner have become better integrated, the big green guy can converse so naturally that youll go, Whoa whoa whoa, is that Noah Centineo? When we catch up with the Hulk after a five-year time skip, hes also ditched his frayed purple-shorts look for a more sophisticated glow-up of Warby Parkers and knit cardigans, but its his new personality that really completes the makeover. Hulk is no longer just a meathead hunk; now, hes a meathead hunk with a surprisingly nimble comic touch. In other words, they turned Hulk into a Hemsworth. Thicc Thor Perhaps thats a fitting trade, as Chris Hemsworths own Avenger has seen better days when it comes to his fitness. When Thor is reintroduced after the big time skip, the whole notion of the gratuitous Marvel shirtless scene is turned on its head: Hemsworths unkempt god has let himself go, trading his superhero physique for a transformational beer gut. (You can almost picture Christian Bale leaning over to his movie date and whispering, Only amateurs use special effects.) But this is a new Thor, one who wont let the occasional crack from Tony Stark get him down: The only tweak Thor sees fit to make to his new appearance is a nifty beard braid before the final battle. Thicc Thor is all about body positivity, drinking beer, and reminding everyone that he once dated Natalie Portman, and who can blame the big guy? Mohawkeye I asked the resident how he planned to help her while she was in the hospital. After a pause, he suggested meekly, Start her on an antidepressant? I could tell he knew how ridiculous it sounded. As doctors, we want to help people, and it can be hard for us to admit when our tools are limited. Antidepressants may seem like an obvious solution, but only about 40 percent to 60 percent of patients who take them feel better. And while nearly one in 10 Americans uses antidepressants, there is very little convincing evidence to show that they reduce suicide. This is because many of the problems that lead to suicide cant be fixed with a little extra serotonin. Antidepressants cant supply employment or affordable housing, repair relationships with family members or bring on sobriety. Suicide prevention is also difficult because family members rarely know someone they love is about to attempt suicide; often that person doesnt know herself. The flight attendants extensive planning is unusual; much more common is the grabbing of whatever is at hand in a moment of despair. According to a 2016 study, almost half of people who try to kill themselves do so impulsively. One 2001 study that interviewed survivors of near-lethal attempts (defined as any attempt that would have been fatal without emergent medical intervention, or any attempt involving a gun) found that roughly a quarter considered their actions for less than five minutes. This doesnt give anyone much time to notice something is wrong and step in. Nonetheless, mental health providers perpetuate the narrative that suicide is preventable, if patients and family members just follow the right steps. Suicide prevention campaigns encourage people to overcome stigma, tell someone or call a hotline. The implication is that the help is there, just waiting to be sought out. But it is not that easy. Good outpatient psychiatric care is hard to find, hard to get into and hard to pay for. Inpatient care is reserved for the most extreme cases, and even for them, there are not enough beds. Initiatives like crisis hotlines and anti-stigma campaigns focus on opening more portals into mental health services, but this is like cutting doorways into an empty building. As deal-making goes, Donald Trumps approach to negotiating with North Korea has resembled nothing so much as his purchase, in 1988, of New Yorks Plaza Hotel: Rely on personal chemistry, ignore the advice of experts, neglect due diligence and then overpay for an investment that delivers no returns. As with the Plaza, the result is about the same: a fiasco. Trump only avoided personal bankruptcy over the hotel thanks to the indulgence of his creditors. Who will bail out the United States and at what price for a bankrupt policy on the Korean Peninsula? Vladimir Putin, maybe? The Russian strongman certainly seemed to be angling for the role when he hosted Kim Jong-un at a summit in Vladivostok this week. Kim himself asked me that I inform the U.S. side of his position about questions he has regarding whats happening on the Korean Peninsula, Putin said after the meeting, with about as much sincerity and the same serpentine intent as Kaa the python from The Jungle Book. Russia is too cash-strapped to provide North Korea with much economic aid, which is what Kim badly needs now. But it already helps the North evade U.N. sanctions, and it can easily serve as Pyongyangs protector on the Security Council, just as it does for Bashar al-Assads Syrian regime. FRONT PAGE An article on Sunday about a web-based learning platform rolled out by public schools in Kansas mistakenly linked a recurrence of Megan Jacksons epileptic seizures to her middle schools use of the Summit Learning platform. While her school uses some of the same web-based tools that are used by Summit, the school is not on the Summit platform. The error was repeated in a picture caption. An article on Friday about Anita Hills reaction to a phone call from Joe Biden misquoted one part of Ms. Hills response. She said, There needs to be an apology to the other witnesses, and there needs to be an apology to the American public. She did not say that he needs to give an apology to the other women and to the American public. PAGES A2-A3 Because of an editing error, an article last Saturday referred incorrectly to Jesuss background. While he lived in an area that later came to be known as Palestine, Jesus was a Jew who was born in Bethlehem. INTERNATIONAL An article on Friday about a cyclone in Mozambique misidentified the city from where Deborah Nguyen spoke. It was Johannesburg, not Beira. More than 700 students and staff members at two California universities were under quarantine on Friday an increase of about 400 from the day before as officials continued steps to curb the potential spread of measles after an outbreak was declared in Los Angeles County. The two universities the University of California, Los Angeles, and California State University, Los Angeles have been working with county health officials to identify and contact students and employees who may have been exposed to measles this month. Those at risk of having contracted measles were given health officer orders legal orders issued by county officials to stay home and avoid contact with others as much as possible. What Trump Said This year, for the first time in 50 years, drug prices went down. This is misleading. Multiple analyses have shown that drug prices are still increasing, albeit at a slower pace than in previous years. An Associated Press analysis found that from January to July 2018, drug companies raised prices on more than 4,400 products, with a median increase of 5.2 percent in June and July 2018. That was lower than the median increase of 8 percent for the same period in 2017. Rx Savings Solutions, a company that advises employers on how to reduce drug costs, found that drug companies increased prices on more than 2,800 medicines in the first quarter of 2019. The average increase was 8.6 percent, compared with 11.3 percent in the same period last year. The White House pointed PolitiFact to a decrease in the consumer price index for prescription drugs as evidence for a similar claim made by Mick Mulvaney, President Trumps acting chief of staff. But the head of Rx Savings Solutions noted in an interview with PolitiFact that the index does not include high-priced drugs sold through mail order. The index also showed declines in several months in recent years before Donald J. Trump took office contradicting his claim that prices had fallen for the first time in five decades. What Trump Said We will have over 400 miles of wall built by the end of next year. This is exaggerated. Mr. Trump is once again mixing projects to replace existing barriers with construction of entirely new sectors of a wall along the southwestern border and inflating the mileage. In the end, he said the process meant perfectly legal naturalized Americans were burdened with what the Court finds to be ham-handed and threatening correspondence from the state which did not politely ask for information but rather exemplifies the power of government to strike fear and anxiety and to intimidate the least powerful among us. The judge also said that evidence presented in the case showed no widespread voter fraud, which he described as an infinitesimal problem. The lists released in January were based on data from the Department of Public Safety, which is responsible for law enforcement, vehicle registration and the issuance of drivers licenses, akin to the Department of Motor Vehicles in other states. Andre Segura, the legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, which filed one of the lawsuits that is to be settled, said the voter review had been based on a backward-looking process. If someone identified as a noncitizen when applying for a drivers license, for example, and then registered to vote at a later date, the process made no allowance for the possibility that the person had become a citizen in the intervening months or years, he said. We know that tens of thousands of people naturalize each year, Mr. Segura said. What we argued is that this proves the process was essentially designed to target naturalized citizens. The Texas Secretary of States office said the new process would flag only people who registered to vote and then later identified themselves as noncitizens to the Department of Public Safety when they applied for a drivers license or a personal identification card. One of the earliest Upshot articles attracted a lot of attention in Canada. David Leonhardt (who has since joined Opinion and become one of the The Timess columnists) and Kevin Quealy worked with a research group to analyze middle-class incomes around the world. Their finding: Sometime around 2010, Canada snatched from the United States the distinction of having the worlds most affluent middle class. Along with David, I spoke with Canadians about their economic hopes and disappointments. [Want the Canada Letter in your inbox every week? Sign up here.] Both sides of the border have experienced economic changes, for better and worse, since then. Canadas unemployment rate of 5 percent is a decades-long low. But the employment outlook is not uniformly bright across the country. In Alberta, where I went to report on the provincial election earlier this month, low oil prices continue to drag down the energy industry, the provinces leading employer. And earlier this week I was in my hometown, Windsor, Ontario, where Fiat Chrysler Automobiles will eliminate a third shift at its minivan plant in September and lay off about 1,500 people. THE SON 9 p.m. on AMC. This Western drama series, based on the novel by Philipp Meyer, oscillates between 1849, when the protagonist, Eli (Jacob Lofland) is taken captive by Comanches in Texas, and 1915, when Eli has grown into a coldhearted rancher (played by a not-so-convincing Pierce Brosnan) who will do anything to drill for oil on his land. The show returns for its second and final season with young Eli leading a raid into Mexico in 1952 and, years later, his family dealing with a threat to their operation. SAMANTHA BEE: NOT THE WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS DINNER 2 10 p.m. on TBS. The comedian Michelle Wolf performed a no-holds-barred set at the White House Correspondents Dinner last year, roasting (and enraging) the administration. In response, the White House Correspondents Association decided to do away with the laughs: For the first time in 15 years, the annual event, which brings together the president and his press corps, wont have a comedian at all. Instead the keynote speaker will be the historian and biographer Ron Chernow and the late-night host Samantha Bee isnt having it. She returns with this second annual antidote to the black-tie event to roast President Trump on behalf of the comedian who would have been tasked with the job (although the president will be skipping the tradition for the third time this year.) The actual White House Correspondents Dinner airs at the same time live on C-SPAN. Billions of dollars in venture capital money flooded in, creating opportunities for other entrepreneurs to copy. Soon there were too many bikes. Instead of consolidating, more start-ups cropped up. The start-ups, focused on growth, charged riders little or nothing. Mobike , one of the companies, still charges around 20 cents for a 30-minute ride. Even the companies that grew so big still havent figured out how to make money, said Fu Yifu, a researcher with Suning Financial Research Institute, an organization attached to a Chinese internet finance company. Bikes in every color of the rainbow were made in Wangqingtuo and shipped to cities near and far. Yellow bikes became synonymous with Ofo , orange bikes with Mobike, blue with Bluegogo . Wangqingtuo, which began putting together two-wheeled rides in the 1970s, became a bicycle hub during Chinas economic rise, the way other places became centers for making lighters or zippers. A sign at the town entrance proclaims, Chinas bicycle industrial base: Wangqingtuo welcomes you. It suffered as increasingly affluent Chinese turned to cars and scooters, and it turned to making bicycles for other countries. Then the bike-sharing boom hit. The Shanghai Phoenix Bicycle factory in town took on so many orders for Ofos bright yellow and black bikes that by 2017 it was churning out 10,000 bikes a day, according to Gao Yuntian, an employee from Shanghai. Most, he said, were for Ofo. After two years and three wedding ceremonies, Benji Damron and Paris Yuan were left standing in blinding sunlight on a dusty road in Xinxiang, China, 400 miles south of Beijing. It was May 2017, and they had just completed the most elaborate stop in a whirlwind of celebration. But, here they were all sweaty as they waited with others for a cab. The humor of the situation was not lost on them. Despite it not being traditionally romantic, its still one of my fondest memories, said Mr. Damron, a 43-year-old architect from London, Ind. He and Ms. Yuan, 30, had gone through an abbreviated version of the traditional Chinese wedding ceremony. Ms. Yuan, who was raised in Beijing, did not recognize most of the 100 guests, but that was irrelevant. The event was an honorary gesture for her parents. Besides, the couple had already gotten married their way twice. Their legal ceremony was Sept. 10, 2015 at San Francisco City Hall, surrounded by close friends. They had a more formal ceremony that June with 50 guests in the tower of the de Young Museum, also in San Francisco. This week, the Lego Foundation, which is funded by the Lego Group, the Danish toy company that makes the blocks, announced a new project that will repurpose the usual knobs atop the bricks as Braille dots. And because the blocks will also be stamped with the corresponding written letter, number or punctuation symbol, they can be played with by blind and sighted children alike. The project, called Lego Braille Bricks, is in a pilot phase and is expected to be released in partnership with schools and associations for the blind in 2020. When they get Lego in their hands, its intuitive for them, said Diana Ringe Krogh, who is overseeing the project for the Lego Foundation. They learn Braille almost without noticing that they are learning. It is really a learning-through-play approach. Advocates say the product could transform reading for blind and visually impaired children, making the experience of learning Braille more inclusive and helping to combat what has been called a Braille literacy crisis. Though the research is limited, some estimates suggest that just 10 percent of blind children in the United States learn to read Braille, even though Braille literacy is associated with better job outcomes for adults. In 2017, less than half of American adults with visual impairments were employed, according to a disability report by Cornell University. Braille, once widely taught in schools for the blind, has fallen by the wayside since the 1970s, when the law began requiring public schools to offer equal education to children with disabilities. Blind students were able to join their sighted peers in the classroom, but traditional schools, biased toward sight and facing a lack of specialized teachers, often pushed children with any sight at all to rely on magnified print. And an explosion of accessible technologies, including audiobooks, apps and screen readers, has strengthened reliance on audio, which advocates say cannot effectively teach critical skills like spelling and grammar, let alone complicated math. Audio can give you information, but it cant give you literacy, said Chris Danielsen, a spokesman for the National Federation of the Blind, which offers summer programs to teach Braille through hands-on activities. [What you need to know to start the day: Get New York Today in your inbox.] Ronald S. Lauder, the billionaire cosmetics heir, and Richard D. Parsons, the former chairman of Citigroup, have for decades had their hands in New York City affairs. Mr. Lauder ran a failed bid for mayor and successfully led a campaign for term limits for local elected officials. Mr. Parsons has been a prominent adviser to two mayors. Now, they are teaming up to try to influence one of the citys most intractable and divisive debates: how to address the lack of black and Hispanic students at Stuyvesant High School, Bronx High School of Science and the other elite public high schools that use a test to determine admission. Mr. Lauder this week announced that he was financing a multimillion-dollar lobbying, public relations and advertising effort called the Education Equity Campaign, whose immediate goal is to ensure that Mayor Bill de Blasios plan to eliminate the entrance exam does not pass the State Legislature, people involved in the effort said. More broadly, the two men are trying to make their mark on the future of the system, the nations largest, with 1.1 million students. Ali went quiet. He looked away and his lip started to tremble. The childs body was mixed with the pieces of goat, he said. We didnt know which piece was which. The way he was killed was unbelievable, he said, shaking with grief. The slaughter had convinced him that he must leave Somalia, and he asked for help getting into one of the Persian Gulf countries, where he had heard there was work. He wasnt going back to his village. There is no life there, he said. Our investigation in Somalia was the hardest reporting Ive ever done, and Ive been to Liberia during the Ebola crisis and Mosul after the defeat of the Islamic State. I dont mean emotionally hard, as all wars are, or physically hard, since we were largely confined to a hotel in Mogadishu with heavily armed guards. I mean it was just hard to uncover the truth. In most conflicts, we have access to a wealth of open-source evidence: online photos and videos, tweets and Facebook posts, on-the-ground reports from local media, huge bomb craters that appear on satellite imagery. But in Somalia, we had almost none of that. The Shabab have banned internet-enabled mobile phones, so photos and videos of most attacks simply dont exist; in our investigation over the past two years, weve found only 11 images. Virtually no one can send tweets with helpful dates from Shabab-held territory. And the United States is using lighter munitions Hellfire missiles and other precision weapons with smaller warheads that typically dont produce craters we can see from space. Fact-finding in war occurred before the age of smartphones, of course, but in Somalia, old-school methods fell flat, too. A trip to Shabab territory is an open invitation to be kidnapped, so I could not survey battlefields or dig through craters for scraps of bombs. The old flip phones that villagers are allowed to use are often monitored by American intelligence agencies and their Somali partners. Anytime we used words like Al Shabab, bomb and drone, they would have immediately been flagged by the algorithm in American surveillance devices. We couldnt take the chance that innocent witnesses would inadvertently be pulled into the targeting program. So we invited them to Mogadishu, asking them to travel along I.E.D.-infested roads and risk being accused by Shabab of being informants. Judith Levine Brooklyn To the Editor: As a pediatrician offering advice to families for 36 years, I read Babys First Data with an intrigued professional eye. Of course some of what I do is steeped in science, e.g., urging families to immunize or treating a strep throat with an antibiotic. But so much of my advice for new parents must rely more on common sense and philosophy, rather than hard data. Although I do believe that nursing is best (for cost, abundance, convenience, bonding and immunity), the most essential component is a happy mom who is comfortable and confident with the feeding process. In my experience, if I can help a mom become more relaxed, less guilty and more willing to let the small stuff roll off her back, she will be much less likely to have one of those colicky babies described in the article. I am also a huge proponent of sleep training. It broadly falls into the realm of rearing issues in which parents must take charge, drawing a line in the sand and establishing rules in the home, rather than allowing the infant or toddler to do so. In a world today where new parents are overloaded with data from websites, social media platforms, news outlets, and of course friends and family, sometimes the best parenting measures are the ones that just seem to feel right, and are much more likely than not to lead to the best developmental and emotional outcomes for everyone. David Pollack Swarthmore, Pa. To the Editor: How refreshing to read Emily Osters piece encouraging parents to make child-rearing decisions based on solid information in the context of their own personal circumstances. It can be difficult to weed out actual facts among dubious conclusions extrapolated from questionable studies (Helicopter parenting works! Actually, it doesnt), or the latest parenting trend (free-range parenting! snowplow parenting!), and even cynical naysayers who propose that how we parent doesnt matter (it does matter). Likewise, it is challenging to feel confident in the face of so much conflicting advice. What parents can use more of, as the writer points out, is evidence-informed parenting education, which, rather than telling parents how to parent or giving parents advice that may work for one child but not for another, supports and empowers parents to make fine choices for their own family in a sense, to be the experts about their own children by providing accurate information. There are many good ways to parent; we just need to give parents the tools to decide what is best for themselves. The diplomat, whose career spanned Reagan to Trump, played Alexis de Tocqueville for me, analyzing our Trump hysteria: Im using the Chinese saying, When the finger is showing the moon, the fool is looking at the finger and the wise man at the moon. In a sense, Trump is the finger. I do think Washington, D.C., is much too obsessed by the finger and should look at the crisis revealed by the 2016 election. He said that he pointed out to Democrats in the whiny wake of that election that their own statistics should have shown them that many Americans felt economically shaky. I do think the genius and Im using the word genius of Donald Trump is to have felt the crisis, he said. Araud noted that Republicans are now Trumpified. You had a Republican Party that was really free trade, interventionist in foreign policy, connected to budgetary restraint, he said. And suddenly you have a Republican Party that is shifting to protectionism, nationalism, defense of the identity. Exactly the same thing is happening to conservative parties across the Western democracies. Social democracy is in a coma in Europe, so I do think the elections in 2020 will be totally fascinating in America because the Democratic Party will be obliged to answer the question, What does it mean to be on the left in America? Like Democrats in 2016, Emmanuel Macron underestimated the resentment bubbling under the surface, he said: He has been largely elected by the included against the excluded. And he has not been able to widen his appeal beyond basically the people who feel comfortable in a global world. Marriage has become less appealing in part because of the two-income trap, as Senator Elizabeth Warren, now a 2020 presidential candidate, christened it in 2003, when she was a Harvard professor. Marriage simply no longer offers the financial security it once did. The consumer goods that singles buy have gotten cheaper, but the things that middle-aged parents spend the most money on houses, education, health care have gotten more expensive, while wages have stagnated. It has become difficult for a family with one breadwinner to afford a middle-class standard of living. Moms paycheck has been pumped directly into the basic costs of keeping the children in the middle class, Ms. Warrens book The Two-Income Trap explained. The mass entry of women into the work force is one reason for this financial insecurity. Ms. Warren said as much in her book, although she has since backed away from such a politically explosive suggestion. Those of us who dont have a Democratic primary ahead of us can say what she wont: When mothers started entering paid employment in large numbers in the 1970s , it led to a bidding war over middle-class amenities that left everyone paying more for the privilege of being no better off than before. The result is a two-tiered system that isnt working for anybody. In the bottom tier, marriage is disappearing as lower-income women have too few men with solid jobs to choose from and as the growing number of men without regular work by one analysis, 20 percent of prime-age males were not working full time at the start of 2018 are being cut out of the marriage market altogether. In the top tier, college-educated women feel they cant afford to take time off from their careers to raise their children even when they want to, as many of them do. A survey by the Institute for Family Studies found only 17 percent of mothers with children 3 or younger prefer to work full time. Many career moms manage their stressful work-life balance thanks only to low-wage immigrant labor to take care of their children, clean their houses and deliver their takeout. Even with hired help, working women still spend nearly as much time on household tasks as their stay-at-home mothers and grandmothers did. The result is stress, frustration and cries for national action. The response of the conservative establishment to this crisis has been to double down on shoveling women into the work force. In 2018, the American Enterprise Institute released a report on paid family and medical leave in collaboration with the Brookings Institution that specifically cited a recent dip in the number of American women working as a problem needing to be solved. Research shows that the proportion of working women in the U.S. has fallen behind that of other countries, the A.E.I. website lamented. Access to paid leave has been shown to promote labor force attachment, especially for women, which is vital for economic growth. In this fixation on economic growth, even when it means nudging into the work force women who would have preferred to stay home, all sides of the political spectrum are in agreement, from the conservative A.E.I. and the centrist Brookings to the liberal Center for American Progress, which crows that if child care assistance and other family-friendly policies became the norm, the United States would see an additional five million women in the labor force and $500 billion in increased G.D.P. It is precisely this cross-ideological consensus that has allowed the problem of the two-income trap to get worse for so long. What is needed are dissenting voices. The conservative Independent Womens Forum has had some success promoting the idea of Social Security earned leave, which would give new parents up to 12 weeks of paid leave in exchange for delaying their retirement benefits by weeks or months. The plan has the benefit of being budget-neutral over the long term, because parents borrow against their own retirement benefits, leaving everyone else unaffected. Senators Joni Ernst and Mike Lee, and separately Senator Marco Rubio, have turned this plan into proposed legislation, making it an excellent example of policy entrepreneurship on the part of the Independent Womens Forum. However, this laudable plan seems to respond to the last eras Republican worries about paid leave that it was anti-business or too expensive or would promote long-term government dependency and doesnt address the fundamental issues that families are facing. At another back-room establishment, the only bar in an East Texas county with 87 churches, the white bartender told of her troubled marriage to a member of the Aryan Brotherhood then giggled over puppy pictures with the bars black manager. Others regaled me with tales of the racial and religious intolerance that lurked beneath the countys genial surface. Its somewhere between Mayberry and Deliverance, the bartender said. In a less Gothic vein, bars often introduced me to the patois and subcultures of a region that was never one South. At a tavern by the railroad tracks in Donaldsonville, La., I was met by drinkers who seemed to speak a foreign tongue, except for the barkeep, who gruffly demanded to know if I was a tourist or Yankee, with an expletive for emphasis. When I answered both, he piled plates with spicy shrimp, chicken and boudin sausage on the house, along with the beer while patrons jovially tutored me on Cajun lingo and customs. Olmsted had many such encounters, in an era when ardent spirits and grog-shops were so ubiquitous that even the landscape seemed tipsy to him. The whole concern, he wrote of a Virginia shanty, lurched to one side, as if too much whiskey had been drank in it. Alcohol also lubricated political talk and campaigns for office. This remained true well into the 20th century, North and South, with ward heelers courting and sometimes buying drinkers votes. Not so long ago, presidential candidates flocked to working mens bars, to be photographed downing a beer with Joe Six Pack a name that connoted manual labor rather than gym-hardened abs. Such optics are rarer now, for reasons that include abstemiousness, dying industries and a bar culture not always welcoming to women and minorities. Elizabeth Warren struck a blue-collar note by cracking a beer upon announcing her presidential bid. But she did so in her kitchen in Cambridge, Mass., for an Instagram audience. This migration from social to virtual drinking spaces may be good for our livers, but not for our body politic. At a campaign office in Wheeling, W.Va., I met a veteran union leader who recalled the days when folks watched network news and talked politics at the beer joint. Now, he said, everyones in the car or at home, tuning in their favorite rants. Were just shouting past each other. Olmsted lamented this disconnect in his own polarized era, as Americans retreated into hostile camps that denounced and demonized each other. In going south, he sought reliable understanding of the sentiments and hopes and fears of Americans on the other side of the nations widening divide. He also hoped his factual, firsthand dispatches would promote the mutual acquaintance of the North and South, enabling reasoned dialogue rather than invective. Ravi Ragbir became an immigrant rights activist from his own experience. After coming to the United States from Trinidad and Tobago and becoming a legal resident, he was convicted of wire fraud in 200 0 and, after completing his prison sentence, was ordered deported. Since then, he had been allowed to remain in the country only at the discretion of immigration officials. Last year, it seems, their patience ran out. Mr. Ragbir, during a routine check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Lower Manhattan, was told that he was being detained and would be deported. Under the Trump administration, this experience is alarmingly common, even for those like Mr. Ragbir with strong family ties in the United States and with an American spouse. One thing stood out in this case: Mr. Ragbir was the executive director of the New Sanctuary Coalition a group dedicated to assisting immigrants and he was one of a number of immigration activists ordered detained or deported within a matter of weeks. On Thursday , a federal appeals court ruled that in seeking to deport Mr. Ragbir, ICE may have exceeded its authority and violated his constitutional rights as a critic of the governments immigration policies. The court ruled that Mr. Ragbir had made a plausible case that the public expression of his criticism, and its prominence, played a significant role in the recent attempts to remove him a type of retaliation forbidden by the First Amendment. This country is rigged in favor of making the very wealthy even wealthier. Thats what Democrats keep saying on the 2020 campaign trail. And its what some of the people who have reaped the rewards of this rigged system think too. Abigail Disney, granddaughter of Roy Disney, is one recent high-profile example. On Tuesday, she called out the naked indecency of the $65 million in compensation that goes to Disneys chief executive, Bob Iger . That figure, she noted, is 1,424 times the median pay of a Disney worker. A growing number of privileged young people, a generation younger than Ms. Disney, are also questioning the morality of their advantages and the social arrangements that produce them. Many are involved with Resource Generation, an organization for people under 35 who are in the top 10 percent through their own or their familys income and wealth. These class traitors reject the lie of meritocracy, as Yahya Alazrak, a staff member of the organization, called it, adding that they are fundamentally challenging this very core belief that our culture in the United States is built on, that people deserve all of the money that they have, whether it comes from their work or that of their family members. Instead, these beneficiaries of the system want to change it. In the past few months, I have talked in depth with 20 young people engaged in this work. They tend to come from families whose parents or ancestors accumulated wealth, and they have inherited or stand to inherit millions. Some have tech or other skills that bring them salaries they feel are disproportionately high. Most are white; some are children of South and East Asian immigrants. They have all studied at prestigious universities. Some are in college or graduate school, while those with jobs work in education, tech, the arts or organizing. The demographic changes coming over the next few decades the continuing rise of a more diverse electorate, with more liberal views than previous generations wont destroy the Republican Party or make it electorally insolvent. But it may make right-wing conservatism a rump ideology, backed primarily by a declining minority of older rural and exurban white voters. You can already see this taking shape. Among the youngest Republicans, 52 percent say the government should be doing more to solve problems, as opposed to 23 percent of Republican baby boomers. In this environment, the only way to preserve right-wing conservatism in American government is to rig the system against this new electorate. You tilt the field in favor of constituencies that still back traditional Republican conservatism in order to build a foundation for durable minority rule by those groups. In just the last week, weve gotten a glimpse of what this rigging looks like in practice. Lets start with the census dispute thats now before the Supreme Court. The Trump administration wants to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, asking Americans to declare their status in order to participate. The government asks a similar question in the American Community Survey, a more frequently performed survey that is given to a sampling of households. But it hasnt asked all households the citizenship question on a decennial census since 1950. Wilbur Ross, the secretary of commerce, whose department oversees the Census Bureau, wants to bring it back. He has the authority to do so. The problem is that he circumvented the official process. The case before the Supreme Court deals with whether the question can stand, given Mr. Rosss decision to, as a federal judge put it, upend the rules that govern adding a question to the census. The citizenship question is likely to make the census less accurate, to put it mildly. In the face of the harsh anti-immigrant policies sponsored by the Trump administration, as well as uncertainty about their own status, immigrants may not want to reveal their legal status to the government. But another part of Buttigiegs appeal rests on the fact that during and after the McKinsey stint, he did two very un-meritocratty things: First, he joined the Navy Reserve and was briefly deployed to Afghanistan, and then he moved back to the small, de-industrialized Midwestern city of his youth, not to join his parents in its academic enclave, but to run for mayor of South Bend and attempt to save a piece of the heartland from stagnation and decline. These unusual steps away from elite self-segregation inform the way he sometimes seems to want to run for president: As a bridge-builder between the heartland and the coasts, as the Ivy League guy who takes Trump voters seriously as something more than just deplorables, as the first gay president who, like Nixon going to China, might be able to call a truce in the post-Obergefell culture wars and convince cultural liberals that they dont need to bring every evangelical florist or Catholic adoption agency to heel. But this bridge-building possibility coexists with another theory of Buttigieg, in which his unusual trajectory back homeward, far from a rejection of the meritocratic mentality, is actually just a clever meritocrats hack of the system of ascent an advertisement for his own seriousness that, having served its purpose, can now be abandoned while he tries to vault insanely high, to return not only to Washington but to the Oval Office (or at least the Naval Observatory or a cabinet office). This is the reading offered by Buttigiegs pungent left-wing critics: I especially recommend a long takedown of the young mayors memoir by Nathan Robinson of Current Affairs, and a shorter critique by a scion of the Studebaker family (Studebakers being the cars whose manufacture once built South Bends blue-collar prosperity). These anti-Buttigiegians look at his mayoral record and see a politician who never really escaped the mentality of Harvard and McKinsey, whose big idea for the city involved bulldozing poor peoples houses and encouraging internet companies to move in a creative class theory of urban renewal that didnt supply the jobs that working-class South Benders need. Emilie Spiegel is 34 years old, single and has no interest in freezing her eggs. I am very open to having children one day if it works out, Ms. Spiegel said. But right now? I am not seeking fertility treatment in any way, shape or form. The ads in her Instagram feed suggest otherwise. During one recent scroll she encountered an ad from Extend Fertility showing a pink smoothie strewn with beautiful berries. If you can afford this, it said, followed by: Egg freezing is more affordable than you think. I found this to be particularly offensive, said Ms. Spiegel, who estimated that she sees ads for egg freezing at least once a week. Its possible to be a woman and not want to have a baby. Ms. Spiegel, who lives in Brooklyn, didnt have to go far to find another friend who had experienced the same thing. That aspect was daunting for Paige Utley. But the 13-year-old, who lives on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, knew it was part of the deal. It was kind of nerve wracking, Paige said . Especially with all my family and friends and random people I dont know listening to me say this language that means a lot to them. But at the same time, I worked so hard for this. So I took a deep breath and showed them what Ive accomplished. Its a performance that would be reasonably stressful at any age, and a growing number of Jews are now deferring the ceremonies until later in life, when their religious identities have had time to form. Still, the majority of bar and bat mitzvahs take place while their celebrants are in the throes of puberty. Like a quinceanera or a sweet 16, the event is meant to mark a transition from youth to adulthood, specifically within the Jewish faith. But for a middle-schooler, most adult responsibilities religious or otherwise lie far ahead. Its a big milestone in my life to become a bat mitzvah, Paige said. I feel like I have more independence and whatever, but I dont feel like I need to now get a job. I dont have to pay rent and pay taxes. FRESNO, Calif. Millennials just werent eating raisins. So Sun-Maid, the century-old company with the iconic little red raisin boxes, hired someone to convince them that they should. At 38, Harry Overly was decades younger than the tenured raisin man he replaced as the chief executive of Sun-Maid. But he had experience as the North American head of the company that makes Bertolli olive oil, and in marketing roles at Wrigley and other food companies. He seemed suited to the job. When he came west, though, he was taken aback by the level of animosity he encountered in the U.S. raisin industry, the entirety of which is crammed into a few hundred square miles in Californias Central Valley. Three months into his tenure, which began on Halloween of 2017, Mr. Overly attended a meeting of some raisin industry players in the back room of a restaurant in Fresno, Calif. This introduction left him shaken. Im not saying this lightly, because you can read about this in different spots people kind of think theres this raisin mafia out there and that kind of stuff, Mr. Overly said. SAN FRANCISCO They all tell a similar story: They ran apps that helped people limit the time they and their children spent on iPhones. Then Apple created its own screen-time tracker. And then Apple made staying in business very, very difficult. Over the past year, Apple has removed or restricted at least 11 of the 17 most downloaded screen-time and parental-control apps, according to an analysis by The New York Times and Sensor Tower, an app-data firm. Apple has also clamped down on a number of lesser-known apps. In some cases, Apple forced companies to remove features that allowed parents to control their childrens devices or that blocked childrens access to certain apps and adult content. In other cases, it simply pulled the apps from its App Store. Some app makers with thousands of paying customers have shut down. Most others say their futures are in jeopardy. A 1615 Geneva Bible stolen two decades ago from the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh in a long-running theft scheme has been recovered from a Dutch museum, the F.B.I. announced this week. The Bible was among hundreds of rare books, maps and other items, worth about $8 million in total, that the authorities have said were stolen by the archivist in charge of the collection over nearly 20 years. Prosecutors say the archivist, Gregory Priore, 62, sometimes walked out of the building with the items in plain sight. He then sold the works to a prominent book dealer, John Schulman, 55, whose shop was a block away and who had appeared as an expert appraiser on the television show Antiques Roadshow, according to an affidavit. The two men were charged last year with numerous counts of theft, conspiracy and other charges, and await trial. Robert G. Del Greco Jr., a lawyer for Mr. Schulman, said his client maintained his innocence, but declined to comment otherwise. A lawyer for Mr. Priore did not immediately return a call on Friday. COSTA MESA, Calif. In the forests of Northern California, raids by law enforcement officials continue to uncover illicit marijuana farms. In Southern California, hundreds of illegal delivery services and pot dispensaries, some of them registered as churches, serve a steady stream of customers. And in Mendocino County, north of San Francisco, the sheriffs office recently raided an illegal cannabis production facility that was processing 500 pounds of marijuana a day. Its been a little more than a year since California legalized marijuana the largest such experiment in the United States but law enforcement officials say the unlicensed, illegal market is still thriving and in some areas has even expanded. Theres a lot of money to be made in the black market, said Thomas D. Allman, the sheriff of Mendocino County, whose deputies seized cannabis oil worth more than $5 million in early April. Legalization, Sheriff Allman said, certainly didnt put cops out of work. Californias governor, Gavin Newsom, has declared that illegal grows in Northern California are getting worse, not better and two months ago redeployed a contingent of National Guard troops stationed on the border with Mexico to go after illegal cannabis farms instead. Mr. Sanders, perhaps more than any other candidate, is betting his campaigns success on his grass-roots appeal. He hopes to have an army of volunteers spreading his message on the ground knocking on doors, handing out leaflets, engaging on social media to say nothing of the money his campaign hopes to continue raising through individual donations. He is also aiming to get volunteers involved in a massive voter-registration drive, focusing in particular on working-class and young people, he said. There have been signs his strategy is working: In the first quarter, Mr. Sanderss campaign raised more than $18 million, outpacing the other campaigns by far. On the campaign trail, he often boasts that his campaign has signed up more than one million supporters. But as his campaign prepares to compete with Mr. Bidens, those aims have taken on new urgency. On Friday, Mr. Bidens campaign announced it had raised $6.3 million during its first 24 hours, besting Mr. Sanders, who raised $5.9 million in his campaigns debut. (Mr. Sanders, however, raised his first-day total from some 225,000 donors, more than double the roughly 97,000 donors who gave to Mr. Bidens campaign, which held a big fund-raiser on Thursday night.) Mr. Biden has also planned a campaign stop next week in Pittsburgh union country underscoring that he is homing in on the same blue-collar voters who were drawn to Mr. Sanders in 2016. In the interview, Mr. Sanders said he was aware he was unlikely to draw the same level of support from working-class people and others that he enjoyed in 2016, given there are so many other candidates, including Mr. Biden, in the race. It is absolutely true that not only Joe Biden, but every other candidate, is going to be going after the support that we have had in the past, he said. But, he said, he still thought his campaign was well-positioned for the battle ahead. I think we are doing well in hanging on to the support of the folks that we had last time not 100 percent, thats for sure and also reaching out and bringing new people in, he said. But you know? Thats what the fight is about. BAINBRIDGE, Ga. If Rob Cohen knew that aid was on its way from Washington, circumstances would be different on his devastated pecan farms, which once spanned five counties and 1,400 acres. He and his brother would not have purchased an excavator and a bulldozer, expensive equipment they most likely will not need again to harvest pecans. Instead of laboring for six months on their own to clear away the thousands of trees knocked over by hurricane winds, they would have hired contractors to do it in three weeks. But with billions of dollars in relief for homes, farms and businesses stalled in Congress and little movement over the past two weeks of spring recess Mr. Cohen, 45, is instead three months behind in planting and wondering if help will ever arrive. Debris from Hurricane Michael the remains of trees older than Mr. Cohen still smoldered in his fields this past week as he burned away a generation of pecan groves felled by the storm this fall. The American farmer is just being used as a pawn, said Mr. Cohen, sitting in the pickup truck he calls an office. He and his brother sold one of their farms after the storm, a painful decision he said was made with the longevity of the overall enterprise in mind. Were not being taken seriously. Its a struggle. This article was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba Nobody has a dementia diagnosis yet, but the first hip and knee replacements are on the horizon. So are wheelchair ramps, sleep apnea breathing masks, grab bars on cell walls and, perhaps, dialysis. Hospice care is on the agenda. More than 17 years after choosing the American military base in Cuba as the least worst place to incarcerate prisoners from the battlefield in Afghanistan, after years of impassioned debates over the rights of the detainees and whether the prison could close, the Pentagon is now planning for terrorism suspects still held in the facility to grow old and die at Guantanamo Bay. [For more stories about the experiences and costs of war, sign up for the weekly At War newsletter.] With the Obama administrations effort to close the prison having been blocked by Congress and the Trump administration committed to keeping it open, and with military trials inching ahead at a glacial pace, commanders were told last year to draw up plans to keep the detention center going for another 25 years, through 2043. LOS ANGELES The gunman entered the synagogue on Saturday yelling anti-Semitic slurs, and opened fire with an A.R. 15-style gun. He paused when the rabbi of the congregation tried to talk with him. But he fired again, shooting the rabbi in the hand. His attack left a 60-year-old woman dead, the rabbi wounded and a 34-year-old man and a girl with shrapnel wounds. It was the Sabbath and the last day of Passover, a holiday that celebrates Jewish freedom. The shooting, at Chabad of Poway, about 25 miles north of San Diego, is the most recent in a series of deadly attacks at houses of worship, including the mass shooting at mosques in New Zealand last month and the church bombings in Sri Lanka this past week. It came exactly six months after one of the worst acts of violence against the American Jewish community in decades left 11 dead in a Pittsburgh synagogue. [Update: Rabbi injured in synagogue shooting says terror will not win.] Local officials called the shooting in Poway, Calif., a hate crime. The gunman, whom officials identified as John Earnest, a 19-year-old resident of San Diego, screamed that Jews were ruining the world as he stormed the synagogue, according to a government official with knowledge of the investigation who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly. PADAS, Philippines While neither guided bomb nor armored vehicle, a gray oblong water pump sticking out from the brush along a remote dirt road is intended to be just as clear a sign of the United States efforts to stop the spread of the Islamic State. It has taken two months, an American Special Operations civil affairs team, three nonprofit organizations and an entire platoon from the Philippine Army to bring the pump to Padas, a village of about 3,000 people in the Mindanao chain of islands in the countrys south. If all goes to plan, water from the pump will help impoverished farmers establish trust in the government, and, in turn, seek to undermine the militants influence. Whatever the international community gives us, well accept, said Macaraya Ampuan, an influential leader in the village. But first thing to address is security. Eliminate ISIS so our livelihoods can be stable. GANGJIN COUNTY, South Korea Every morning on her way to school, Hwang Wol-geum, a first grader, rides the same yellow bus as three of her family members: One is a kindergartner, another a third grader and the other a fifth grader. Ms. Hwang is 70 and her schoolmates are her grandchildren. Illiterate all her life, she remembers hiding behind a tree and weeping as she saw her friends trot off to school six decades ago. While other village children learned to read and write, she stayed home, tending pigs, collecting firewood and looking after younger siblings. She later raised six children of her own, sending all of them to high school or college. Yet it always pained her that she couldnt do what other mothers did. Writing letters to my children, thats what I dreamed of the most, Ms. Hwang said. Help came unexpectedly this year from the local school that was running out of school-age children and was desperate to fill its classrooms with students. The Islamic State on Saturday said its fighters were among those killed in the clashes with the Sri Lankan police. In a statement issued by Amaq, the groups propaganda arm, it said that three of its fighters lured security forces to the house they were hiding in, before detonating suicide vests. The Amaq statement was accompanied by a picture of Mr. Zaharan posing with one of his younger brothers, Rilwan. Members of Mr. Zaharans immediate family have followed his radical ideology for years. In an unverified video making its rounds on social media, Mr. Rilwan, Mr. Zaharans father and Mr. Zaharans brother in law are seen discussing martyrdom and jihadism, as children cry in the background. A wall of the room where the video was taken appears to match that of the safe house that was raided. The Islamic State claim said that 17 members of the police were killed or wounded in the clashes, but that was disputed by the Sri Lankan authorities. The Islamic State has often exaggerated the numbers of dead and injured in its attacks. Both Mr. Zaharan and Mr. Rilwan were named in an internal security report on April 11 that warned of a potential suicide attack on the country. The top echelons of the Sri Lankan government have been criticized for not heeding multiple alerts about a possible attack. Also on Saturday, the Sri Lankan government banned the activities of National Thowheeth Jamaath, the small extremist group founded by Mr. Zaharan. President Maithripala Sirisena made the decision under emergency regulations that were introduced soon after the attacks. The combined impact of austerity-era cutbacks and spending choices has hit the British Army the hardest of all the services. Now smaller than at any time since Waterloo, it has failed to meet even modest recruitment goals, in part because of an embarrassing effort at outsourcing. It is still several thousands short of its goal of 82,000 fully trained regular army soldiers, despite downgrading what it means to be fully trained, as well as falling short of its goal of 30,000 in the army reserve. In other areas of modern warfare, however, Britains capacities are more highly regarded, especially in cyberdefense and cyberoffense, intelligence and space. Tom Tugendhat, a lieutenant colonel in the army reserves who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and is now chairman of Parliaments Foreign Affairs Committee, said: The fundamental problem in defense is always personnel. Our army and navy are too small, and our reserves are not even vaguely close to being fully manned, partly because of the new carriers and nuclear submarines. But the big-ticket items are a measure of British resolve, he said. The U.K. will be the only European country with two aircraft carriers, the ability to deploy force and the willingness to do it, he added. Island Britain has always used a heavy navy to project a light army, while Continental forces usually have the reverse. NATO may complain about Britains not providing territorial forces to deter Russia, but its Germany that should be providing them, he said. In Tallinn, the Estonian capital, the defense minister, Juri Luik, praised the British presence as a symbol of solidarity. Estonian troops fought in a British brigade in Afghanistan, he said, so its a close relationship. Whatever their current shortcomings, Mr. Luik said, the British have a real military culture. They understand a battle is a battle. And they can take casualties. Seeking to calm the furor, Mayor Alexandr Rogachuk of Brest told local journalists last month that the city, the scene of ferocious fighting in both world wars and earlier conflicts, had been built atop the unmarked graves of countless unknown war victims. Everyone here is a sinner in this respect, he said. We are all walking on bodies, While it was known that the building site might contain a few dozen bodies, the mayor said, nobody expected such a large number. Jews made up about half Brests population of around 60,000 in 1941, and were thought to have been killed mostly in a secluded forest 70 miles east. They had been taken there by rail in an early test of logistics for Hitlers Final Solution. Evgeny Rosenblat, a historian who has studied the murder of the citys Jews during World War II, said it had long been known that the Nazis also carried out massacres in the center of Brest. Still, he said, he was surprised by the large number of remains found on the building site. Just how and when those people died are not known, as few witnesses survived. NICOSIA, Cyprus The police in Cyprus were searching for more victims of what is believed to be a serial killer, in a case that has horrified the nation and led to accusations that the authorities have bungled the investigations and failed to adequately investigate when foreign workers were reported missing. A 35-year-old National Guard captain who has confessed to killing seven women and girls and has been in custody for a week is facing multiple homicide charges. He was to appear in court on Saturday for a hearing, but has not been identified because he has not been charged. The scale of the crime has shocked this country of just over a million people, where multiple killings are rare. The police chief, Zacharias Chrysostomou, told reporters last week, This is a form of crime unprecedented for the norms of Cyprus. Hundreds of people held a vigil on Friday outside Cyprus presidential palace to mourn the dead. The organizer used a bullhorn to read out the victims names as well as those of other missing women, as others shouted, Where are they? Some participants held placards decrying sexist, misogynist and racist attitudes about women who work as housekeepers or in low-paying service jobs. The discovery of a Filipino womans body in an abandoned mine shaft triggered the investigation that led to the captains arrest. The police identified her as Mary Rose Tiburcio, 38. Ms. Tiburcio and her 6-year-old daughter had been missing since May last year. Investigators say they believe that the missing 6-year-old was also killed. Investigators zeroed in on the captain after scouring Ms. Tiburcios online messages. In court hearings, the police said he may have approached women on an online dating site. Newly built homes in the South Park neighborhood of Raleigh are now going for $460,000. As recently as three years ago, this land held a vacant house. Logan R. Cyrus for The New York Times RALEIGH, N.C. In the African-American neighborhoods near downtown Raleigh, the playfully painted doors signal whats coming. Colored in crimson, in coral, in seafoam, the doors accent newly renovated craftsman cottages and boxy modern homes that have replaced vacant lots. To longtime residents, the doors mean higher home prices ahead, more investors knocking, more white neighbors. Here, and in the center of cities across the United States, a kind of demographic change most often associated with gentrifying parts of New York and Washington has been accelerating. White residents are increasingly moving into nonwhite neighborhoods, largely African-American ones. In America, racial diversity has much more often come to white neighborhoods. Between 1980 and 2000, more than 98 percent of census tracts that grew more diverse did so in that way, as Hispanic, Asian-American and African-American families settled in neighborhoods that were once predominantly white. But since 2000, according to an analysis of demographic and housing data, the arrival of white residents is now changing nonwhite communities in cities of all sizes, affecting about one in six predominantly African-American census tracts. The pattern, though still modest in scope, is playing out with remarkable consistency across the country in ways that jolt the mortgage market, the architecture, the value of land itself. In city after city, a map of racial change shows predominantly minority neighborhoods near downtown growing whiter, while suburban neighborhoods that were once largely white are experiencing an increased share of black, Hispanic and Asian-American residents. As White Suburbs Grow More Diverse, Nonwhite City Centers Grow More White Neighborhoods that grew more diverse between 2000 and 2017 as: White population grew White pop. grew Nonwhite population grew Nonwhite pop. grew Did not grow diverse Did not grow diverse Raleigh South Park 3 MILES Brooklyn 3 MILES Atlanta 10 MILES Indianapolis 5 MILES Philadelphia 4 MILES Nashville 5 MILES Houston 7 MILES Denver 5 MILES Chicago 4 MILES White refers to non-Hispanic white. Source: U.S. Census Bureau In a country still learning to forge neighborhoods that are racially diverse and durably so, those yellow tracts appear to be on a path that is particularly unstable. At the start of the 21st century, these neighborhoods were relatively poor, and 80 percent of them were majority African-American. But as revived downtowns attract wealthier residents closer to the center city, recent white home buyers are arriving in these neighborhoods with incomes that are on average twice as high as that of their existing neighbors, and two-thirds higher than existing homeowners. And they are getting a majority of the mortgages. Such disparities in incomes and mortgage access aren't apparent in suburban neighborhoods with a growing share of Hispanic, black and Asian-American residents. Minority borrowers in those places have incomes similar to that of their new neighbors. They receive mortgages proportionate to their share of the population. In some measurable ways besides race, they fit in. In Many Nonwhite Neighborhoods, New White Home Buyers Wield Outsize Economic Power Neighborhoods that grew more diverse between 2000 and 2017 as: Nonwhite population grew Nonwhite pop. grew White population grew White pop. grew average income of Nonwhite borrower in Tract $250k Equal Income $200k $150k $100k New nonwhite buyers incomes tend to match the neighborhood $50k $50k $100k $150k $200k $250k Average household income in tract Avg. Nonwhite borrower Income in tract $250k Equal Income $200k $150k $100k New nonwhite buyers incomes tend to match the neighborhood $50k $50k $100k $150k $200k $250k Avg. household income in tract Avg. Nonwhite borrower income in tract $250k Equal Income $200k $150k $100k New nonwhite buyers incomes tend to match the neighborhood $50k $50k $100k $150k $200k $250k Average household income in tract White refers to non-Hispanic white. Household income as of 2012; borrower income from 2012 to 2017. Sources: Census Bureau; Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data Average INCOME of WHITE BORROWER IN tract $250K Equal Income One census tract $200k $150k South Park, Raleigh whites buyers here earn $75k more than their neighbors $100k New white buyers have much higher incomes $50k $200k $250k $50k $100k $150k AVERAGE HOUSEHOLD INCOME IN tract AVG. WHITE BORROWER income IN tract $250K Equal Income One census tract $200k $150k South Park, Raleigh whites buyers here earn $75k more than their neighbors $100k New white buyers have much higher incomes $50k $50k $100k $150k $200k $250k Avg. HOUSEHOLD INCOME IN tract Avg. WHITE BORROWER INCOME IN tract $250K Equal Income One census tract $200k $150k South Park, Raleigh whites buyers here earn $75k more than their neighbors $100k New white buyers have much higher incomes $50k $50k $100k $150k $200k $250k $50k $100k $150k $200k $250k AVERAGE HOUSEHOLD INCOME IN tract Household income as of 2012; borrower income from 2012 to 2017. Sources: Census Bureau, Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data To examine these patterns, The New York Times identified every census tract in the country that has grown notably more racially diverse since 2000. We then used millions of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act records to track the differences when white and nonwhite home buyers bring change to a neighborhood. Renters can also alter the fabric of a community, but homeowners bring the economic might. In South Park, a neighborhood with picturesque views of the Raleigh skyline, the white home buyers who have recently moved in have average incomes more than three times that of the typical household already here. Whites, who were largely absent in the neighborhood in 2000, made up 17 percent of the population by 2012. Since then, theyve gotten nearly nine in 10 of the new mortgages. This map shows comparable data for every census tract in the country about one in three of them nationwide that has grown more diverse since 2000. Neighborhoods that grew more diverse between 2000 and 2017 as: White population grew White pop. grew Nonwhite population grew Nonwhite pop. grew Did not grow diverse Did not grow diverse White refers to non-Hispanic white. Sources: Census Bureau, Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data, standardized tract boundaries from socialexplorer.com In neighborhoods like South Park, white residents are changing not only the racial mix of the community; they are also altering the economics of the real estate beneath everyone. Thats what finally came to me its not just the fact that the neighborhoods look different, that people behave differently, said Kia E. Baker, who grew up in southeast Raleigh and now directs a nonprofit, Southeast Raleigh Promise, that serves the community. Some of that change can be positive, she said. This realization was not: Our black bodies literally have less economic value than the body of a white person, she said. As soon as a white body moves into the same space that I occupied, all of a sudden this place is more valuable. The value of place White flight and white return are not opposite phenomena in American cities, generations apart. Here they are part of the same story. In the places where white households are moving, reinvestment is possible mainly because of the disinvestment that came before it. Many of these neighborhoods were once segregated by law and redlined by banks. Cities neglected their infrastructure. The federal government built highways that isolated them and housing projects that were concentrated in them. Then banks came peddling predatory loans. A single-family detached house with a yard within a mile of downtown in any other part of the world is probably the most expensive place to live, said Kofi Boone, a professor at North Carolina State Universitys College of Design. Here, because of that history, its a bargain. And while that briefly remains true in South Park, the disinvestment and reinvestment are visible side by side on any given street. A drive down South Bloodworth Street in the Raleigh neighborhood of South Park reveals a community undergoing rapid change. Logan R. Cyrus for The New York Times South Park grew up around Shaw University, a historically black college founded in 1865, and in the early 20th century it was home to black professors and doctors trained there, and to dozens of black-owned businesses. With time, the disinvestment happened here, too: Two major roads severed the neighborhood; absentee landlords came in; a cherished park built in the 1930s began to deteriorate. Middle-class black families whod previously been excluded from the suburbs began to move there. Longtime residents who have remained now fear that the areas sudden reinvention will erase the last remaining signs of its history. We dont want to feel like everything is so bad youve got to tear it down, said Lonnette Williams, 72, who lives in an elegant two-story home built by her godfathers family in 1922. We want people to value our neighborhood. Her sense of value, however, is different from and often at odds with the rising value of real estate. Her own home is appreciating, but that means little to her because she has no intention of selling. She looks at the half-million-dollar modern homes, and to her they detract from the neighborhoods value. Gone With the Wind houses, beach houses, slave houses, Octavia Rainey calls them. Ms. Rainey, 63, has lived her entire life in a nearby neighborhood, and to her the second-story porches rising around her look too much like overseers perches. As the pace of home construction has increased, so too has the volume of mailers to longtime residents: We pay $CASH$. As is! No cost or fees! THIRD NOTICE, some even warn, disguised as bills going soon to collection. The Beginning and Beyond Child Development Center has long occupied whats now a prime block on the edge of downtown Raleigh. The owner, Rosalind Blair Sanders, suspects that developers and landlords wouldnt let a daycare occupy a space like that today. Now the land is too valuable. Logan R. Cyrus for The New York Times In the frenzy, a real estate agent once told Rosalind Blair Sanders that she wasnt using her land to its full potential. She runs a child development center on the edge of downtown. Everyone has a price, she was told. She is baffled over the math of what the children are worth. The rise of a new market African-Americans have remained so segregated in American cities in large part because white people have avoided living in black neighborhoods, and seldom even considered buying a home in one. What changed, then? How did the first developer to renovate a home know a new market would be waiting for it? I guess the answer is I didnt know, said Jason Queen, a 39-year-old developer in Raleigh. But I did know that I wanted to be in downtown. Mr. Queen, who had worked in historic preservation, has rehabilitated or built about 100 homes in the historic corridor just east of downtown Raleigh, starting with a house that he and his wife lived in and renovated on the edge of South Park a decade ago. Mr. Queen was his own market: He rejected long car commutes and cul-de-sacs. This part of the city was more affordable than anywhere else near downtown. And he wanted diversity. What I didnt want to do is move to a neighborhood where all the kids look exactly the same as my kids, said Mr. Queen, who is white. I didnt think that was the right thing to do. A Virginia developer recently bought the long-vacant block across the street from the Bragg Street Park in South Park for $4 million. Logan R. Cyrus for The New York Times But cities across the country have changed as much as preferences like Mr. Queens have, and it is hard to untangle the two. Crime plummeted in the years preceding all this redevelopment. Public housing projects were demolished for mixed-income housing. Cities reinvested in neglected downtowns. The run-up in home prices in the early 2000s also left middle-class households searching for affordable housing. By then, many working-class white neighborhoods in good locations had already gentrified. Predominantly African-American and Hispanic neighborhoods were what remained. The old housing stock close to the center of many cities was also approaching the end of its life. Stuart Rosenthal, an economist at Syracuse University, argues that its often possible to predict a neighborhoods income level 20 years into the future by the age of its housing stock today. Older homes are more likely to be replaced. And in the American housing market, newly built or renovated housing invariably goes to higher-income households. South Park was primed in all these ways to become much wealthier: Many houses had lost nearly all their value, as the land underneath them grew more valuable. Then in the aftermath of the housing bust, mortgage lending tightened, particularly for African-Americans and Hispanics. White buyers got a head start in places like South Park just as they were becoming newly desirable. By the time more lending returned for minorities, these neighborhoods were increasingly priced out of reach. The people who have bought Mr. Queens houses have been part of this process, even if they did so valuing the areas diversity. Andrew and Kelly Hudgins, a white couple, purchased one of those homes in 2017 in South Park. They looked at a racial dot map of Raleigh when they first moved to the area. They knew they wanted to be where the white dots didnt dominate, but they worried about furthering gentrification themselves. Andrew and Kelly Hudgins purchased their newly built home in South Park in 2017. When we came here, we were fully expecting that none of our neighbors would trust us and we understood that, Mr. Hudgins said. We have been surprised time and time again that that hasnt been the case. Logan R. Cyrus for The New York Times We struggled with that for a long time, said Mr. Hudgins, 29, who works for two faith-based nonprofits. In a late-night conversation with their pastor, the couple made peace with it this way: If we didnt, somebody else was definitely going to buy that home, Mr. Hudgins said. And perhaps that other couple would value more what South Park could become than what it is now, or what it has been historically. Their home was also built on a long-vacant lot, so they felt no one had been pushed out to make way for them. In the two years since, theyve celebrated holidays with their neighbors and played with their children. From the porch swing they hung to help meet everyone, theyve also watched four other homes on the block cleared for redevelopment. In search of stable diversity The Ship of Zion Church operates a small grocery store and a weight-lifting gym in South Park. The churchs pastor, Chris Jones, has occasionally tried to flag down white residents jogging by. He wants to show them what the church has built, and invite them to use the gym. But the joggers tend to have earphones in and to look away. So far, he has been unsuccessful attracting any of them inside. Here, integration is not going very well. Pastor Jones expects that will be the story of the neighborhood: You have a half-million-dollar home next to a home thats maybe $20,000. I wish that could stay. I wish those families could get to know each other, he said. But because of economics, that cant happen. The Ship of Zion Church built this weight-lifting gym in South Park. There will probably come a day when this neighborhood flips back around again, said Chris Jones, its pastor. The Book of Ecclesiastes says theres nothing new under the sun. Logan R. Cyrus for The New York Times A food hall recently opened nearby in a former bus repair depot. Change is constant, its coming, said Jason Queen, a developer. How do we do it in such a manner that were proud of in 50 years? Logan R. Cyrus for The New York Times Eight blocks away, Mr. Queen recently opened his largest project yet, a food hall that will eventually have a full-service grocery store next door. The project also aspires to serve everyone: shoppers with food stamps or those seeking high-end snacks; diners who want oysters on the half shell or $6 fish sticks. This, too, faces uncertain prospects. The development was designed to make viable the grocery store the community wanted, Mr. Queen said. But some residents are waiting to see the prices. The food hall is trying to signal that longtime neighbors are welcome, too one painting inside shows a pair of African-American teenagers from the neighborhood but they must walk past the new $700,000 rowhomes outside to get here. In so many ways, good intentions are insufficient to manage this change; they often wind up contributing to it. The food hall will make the area still more desirable. More fly-by-night flippers and property scouts will come. Even the citys efforts to invest in previously neglected neighborhoods have the effect of opening this door wider. The city is always the battleground; when it was failing, that was a problem, and now that its succeeding, thats also a problem, said Ken Bowers, Raleighs planning director. People used to debate whether the city was delivering equal parks or transit service in all neighborhoods. Now the debate were having is Are these parks gentrifying the neighborhood? he said. Thats a very dysfunctional place to be. South Park is unlikely to remain as it is today, with its mix of newly built houses, boarded-up properties and longtime churches. Logan R. Cyrus for The New York Times In the suburbs, a far different set of processes is driving the demographic change, as middle-class minority families seek more space or better schools, as immigrant communities take root, or as families are increasingly priced out of the city. This kind of increased diversity may bring its own challenges. But at least among the homeowners, there is something stabilizing in the fact that the new households economically resemble their neighbors whether the communities around them are working class, middle class or wealthy. Ms. Baker, the 36-year-old nonprofit director who grew up in Southeast Raleigh, recently bought a home in a suburb just east of the city, among the collection of blue tracts there. She calls her neighborhood extremely diverse, and she has no reason to suspect that the diversity there today will tip into segregation of a different kind tomorrow. Ideally, said Ingrid Gould Ellen, a professor at New York University, America could get to a place where the real estate market in any location isnt so sensitive to signals about race. We made some progress by getting to a point where the entry of one black family did not signal that, Oh my god, this is a neighborhood thats going to fall apart, Ms. Ellen said. Maybe we can get to a point where the entry of one white family is not a signal that, This is a neighborhood thats immediately going to have million-dollar condos. Near downtown Raleigh, something like that signal has already been sent. The home next to Ms. Williamss has been replaced by two far more expensive ones. The new home next to Ms. Raineys now dwarfs hers. The lot next to Pastor Joness weight-lifting gym is for sale. The rented duplex next to the Hudginses has morphed into a newly remodeled single-family home with a bright yellow door. The lot next to Ms. Sanderss child development center is for sale, too, by the city. She has wanted to acquire it for years. But now she is in a bidding war for 0.17 acres of land that previously held a gas station, and the price is up to $390,000. East Alabama residents will have the opportunity to dispose of unwanted prescription drugs in a safe and proper way this weekend. Today is the Drug Enforcement Administrations National Prescription Drug Take Back Day and there will be several area locations participating. The Auburn Police Division is one of the several law enforcement groups participating. Auburn police Capt. Scott Mingus feels the community can greatly benefit from the event. It benefits the community by allowing them to get rid of unwanted prescriptions drugs in their house, he said. It gives people the opportunity to get rid of unwanted prescriptions the right way instead of disposing of them down the drain. It helps them out. Auburn police will be at Our Home Pharmacy, along with the Auburn University National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA) student chapter from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. today. Auburn University NCPA vice president Lauren Tait feels local community members should participate in the event to help end the growing health crisis in the state. Visitors of inmates at the Lee County Detention Center now have more flexible options when planning their visits. The Lee County Detention Center is changing how video visitations will be done for the first time since 2007, making the process easier and more flexible. It will now be they can pick what day they want and itll be where they can reserve a specific time that will be more convenient to them instead of being told when theyre going to have the visit, Lee County Sheriff Jay Jones said. This allows them a little flexibility to where if something comes up and they cant make that specific visitation, they can come and reserve a different time. The new system will also allow for visitors to sign up for a visitation time at the facility or at home in hopes of making the process better. We are going to put a couple of kiosks in the lobby and people can come by at any time and select, at their choosing, a time to visit, Jones said. They can also do it online at videovisit.ncic.com. We are trying to make the visitation opportunity more flexible for the families and the persons that they want to visit with. CAMP HILL Cody Stone sat at the flight simulator in a classroom at Lyman Ward Military Academy on Friday, practicing a touch-and-go in a scene mirroring the Alexander City Airport. He is one of five cadets in the aviation program and will be one of the last to graduate under the Lyman Ward name. At 18 years old, Stone actually performed his first solo flight in a Piper Warrior from Alex City this month. When they first told me (I was going to solo), I was so nervous, he told the Opelika-Auburn News. But once I got there and saw the plane, I was just so ready to do it. Right when I first took off, it was like, Wow. Im actually doing this. It was kind of crazy, he added. I never thought Id be doing this when Im 18 years old, because there arent a lot of kids who do it. Stone is the second cadet from Lyman Wards young aviation program it started in spring 2018 to fly solo. More than 300 students, staff and faculty at two Los Angeles universities will be quarantined after being exposed to measles, according to Los Angeles County health officials; the latest development in a resurgence of the highly contagious disease that was declared eliminated in 2000. The University of California, Los Angeles, said in a statement Wednesday that a student infected with measles attended classes at two campus buildings on April 2, 4 and 9. He did not enter any other buildings while on campus, but the university determined that more than 500 students and staff may have been exposed or come into contact with the sick student. While many of those individuals were cleared, the university said it is awaiting medical records from 119 students and eight faculty members, who will be "quarantined for approximately 24-48 hours until their proof of immunity is established." The students will live on campus while quarantined, which for some could last up to seven days. Purchases of farm equipment plunged by an annualized $900 million in the first quarter of the year, the sharpest drop in three years, as U.S. producers struggle with falling commodity prices and the fallout of President Donald Trumps trade wars. The Commerce Department cited the drop in agricultural machinery purchases as a contributor to the paltry 0.2% quarterly rise in overall business spending on equipment, also the weakest performance since 2016. The softness in the category came despite promises by Trump and Republican leaders that tax breaks for equipment purchases in the partys signature tax law would boost investment by farmers and manufacturers. The reluctance of farmers and other business owners to invest in equipment flashed a cautionary signal in a report on the U.S. economy that overall surprised forecasters with stronger-than-expected results. The fresh signs of financial pressure on farmers, local tractor dealers and the other suppliers that support them underscore the rising political danger the trade war presents to Trump as a negotiating team heads to Beijing next week for another round of trade talks. A 27-year-old Illinois woman died Friday after she was ejected from a vehicle during a crash on Interstate 80 near Grand Island. Allyssa Wiebel of Bartlett, Illinois, was a back-seat passenger in a westbound Honda sedan that crashed about 7:05 a.m., according to the Nebraska State Patrol. The sedan drove into the ditch, at which point the driver over-corrected and drove over the on-ramp, which caused the vehicle to roll twice, the State Patrol said. A trooper arrived at the scene to find a witness performing CPR on Wiebel, who had been ejected from the vehicle. She was not wearing a seat belt, authorities said. The trooper helped with resuscitation efforts until paramedics arrived and took Wiebel to St. Francis Hospital in Grand Island. She was pronounced dead upon arrival. The 20-year-old driver of the Honda, Tony Trujillo of Cicero, Illinois, and the front-seat passenger, an unidentified 18-year-old man from Illinois, were taken to the hospital for minor injuries. Neither man was wearing a seat belt, troopers said. An investigation into the crash was ongoing Friday. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. For the second time this month, governors from three states voiced their desire to be more involved in managing the Missouri River. The group Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, who were joined this time by Kansas Lt. Gov. Lynn Rogers met with the Army Corps of Engineers on Friday to hear updates and talk about rebuilding efforts. They spoke to a gaggle of reporters after the meeting. Ricketts said the four states are committed to working with the corps to examine basin and levee management practices going forward. He said the group is looking at recommendations that, in the past, perhaps didnt have enough political will behind them to succeed. Youve got the commitment here from all four states to be able to work together to really bring a different ... urgency and different will to getting something done that maybe hasnt been done in the past, Ricketts said in the lobby of the Council Bluffs Police Department headquarters, where the meeting was held. Now, Huang is the point person coordinating Adams's donations and talking with people around the country and in places like Germany, England and Singapore who contacted her in recent days wanting to help. She has been getting pro bono guidance from various estate planners, tax lawyers and accountants to figure out how to keep the money safe for Adams and make it last. She said she's been in nonstop motion the past 10 days, but she's thrilled with all the support. "I feel a great sense of relief. Being part of a worthy cause its very life affirming," Huang said. "I knew there's a limit to what I can provide for Eddie. I needed a community behind him." She said her dream is he will be a successful musician one day. "I tell him, 'You owe me. When I'm in an old folks home, you better come in and play for me,' " she said. Huang said she includes one of Adams's close friends, Adam Rothenberg, and his former middle school teacher, Gerald Fowkes, in financial discussions she has with Adams for transparency sake. She keeps all his financial information in a binder the four of them can look at. And she's trying to teach Adams how to manage his newfound money at the same time she's trying to figure it out herself. Josiah Grinnell the founder of Grinnell, Iowa, and Grinnell College led a memorable, event-filled life. A Vermont-born minister and lawyer (1821-91), he preached fervent antislavery sermons at a Washington, D.C., church; received the famous advice from New York City newspaper editor Horace Greeley to Go west, young man; and in Iowa, aided John Brown in helping Missouri slaves escape to freedom. In 1860, Grinnell was a delegate to the Republican National Convention that nominated Abraham Lincoln for president. Another extraordinary event in Grinnells life, in 1866 during his time in Congress, receives attention in a new book from Yale historian Joanne Freeman. The book, The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War, recounts the remarkable series of violent assaults and verbal attacks among members of Congress in the decades leading up to the Civil War and even after. Most of the arguments were over slavery. Freemans book provides key lessons for current times: A free countrys need to promote free thought and safeguard open debate. Individuals obligation to keep their political beliefs from rationalizing out-of-bounds attacks on others. Our societys need to oppose political violence. Meeting with delegation members Since Sen. Deb Fischer was first elected, I have had one meeting with her, despite repeated requests for more. I have met with her staff, and those meetings have been cordial, and her staff have assured me they take my issues and concerns up with her, which I am sure they do though I never get a response back. I have repeatedly made requests to meet with Sen. Ben Sasse, but it never happens. I have met with one of his staff, who is always cordial and friendly and takes my issues up with him, but I still get no response to my concerns. I was able to meet with Rep. Don Bacon once early in his first term but have not been able to get a meeting with him or his staff since. Though Fischer is in the state often, I dont know what the criteria for getting a meeting with her is. The same is true for Sasse and Bacon. Offer a personal message of sympathy... By sharing a fond memory or writing a kind tribute, you will be providing a comforting keepsake to those in mourning. If you have an existing account with this site, you may log in with that below. Otherwise, you can create an account by clicking on the Log in button below, and then register to create your account. RIP Drona, you gentle, magnificent, intelligent elephant Bengaluru oi-Deepika S Hassan, Apr 27: A pall of gloom has descended on Mattigodu elephant camp after the demise of 'Drona,' the magnificent elephant who took part in Dasara processions in Mysuru on two occasions. The incident occurred when the tusker went to drink water from a nearby water tank but suddenly collapsed and died. Reportedly, the tusker had been showing sign of illness since morning. The mahout who first saw the elephant lying dead said he suspected it died of a heart attack. However, doctors will conduct a post-mortem today to know the exact cause of the death. Drona, gentle and intelligent Drona was captured as a rogue elephant in 2014, in Aluru forest range in Hassan district and was tamed later in Moorkallu camp of Nagarahole National Park. After taming, he was sent to Mattigodu camp, where he was named "Drona" by the mahouts. He is described by his caretaker as "quiet and gentle". He was said to be 2.69 metres tall and weighed nearly 3,900 kg. West Bengal: Little girl falls from scooter, wild elephant shields her from own herd The 37-year-old was used to capture and tame other rogue elephants. His services were utilised in Hassan, Chamarajnagar, Kollegala and Biligiriranganabetta forests. Drona has also helped in capturing tigers. In the Mysore State well before Independence, the operation to capture elephants was revised by an Englishman named George P Sanderson near the BR Hills. The khedda, the enclosure into which the elephant is driven (and the activity that makes this happen), was fine-tuned during his work for the irrigation department with the British government. The khedda is now only conducted by the Forest Department for the resolution of situations where human-animal conflict is, for one reason or other, unmanageable. But all elephants that participate in the Dasara celebrations in Mysuru have been captured from the wild in the last century, before or after the outlawing of the khedda as a royal pastime by The Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act of 1972, and many of them are now effective kumkis. Documented with incredible empathy by wildlife photojournalist Kalyan Verma, this activity is a disturbing one. Don't be confused, he is junior Drona! This magnificent elephant is often confused with the legend 'Drona', who had participated in the festivities for a record time. The older Drona, one of the lead Dasara elephants of the Jamboo Savarai had carried the golden howdah for a record 18 years prior to his death (electrocuted while grazing) in 1998. Elephant, 70, enjoys its first year of freedom after 50 years of slavery Junior 'Drona', touted as future Ambari elephant The 37-year-old elephant had all the attributes of becoming the Ambari elephant in the futureWhen he was captured, the now fully tamed elephant was a rouge one. The Forest Department officials, who saw the potential in him of carrying the howdah, are bringing him to be a part of the Dasara procession. The jamboo savari in Mysuru Dasara is a parade of this wealth and power and show of grandeur, now conducted by the state government. The procession ends at Banni Mantap, large grounds with a banni tree. 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 Spread the glory of rivers, PM Modi says at Mayors Conference 50 Hyderabad farmers to take on Narendra Modi at Varanasi India oi-Oneindia Staff By Anuj Cariappa Hyderabad, Apr 27: About 50 farmers from Nizamabad in Telangana have left for Varanasi to file nominations from the Lok Sabha constituency, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking re-election, in a bid to highlight their problems. The farmers are planning to contest as independents to press their demand for remunerative price to turmeric and constitution of a turmeric board. Ganga Reddy, a leader of the group of farmers who plan to file nominations, told PTI Friday they were on the way to Varanasi. Varanasi will go to the polls in the last phase on May 19. He said the group comprised 52 people and that more would reach Varanasi. "We want a turmeric board. We are going to file nominations to make the Centre and all political parties aware of that," he added. The idea is that their nominations would trigger a debate, leading to the constitution of a turmeric board, he said. Reddy said turmeric farmers from Tamil Nadu, who also want formation of turmeric board, would also reach Varanasi. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government at the Centre has failed to form a turmeric board, he alleged. Reddy said they were not associated with any political party. PepsiCO proposes settlement after suing Gujarat potato farmers The only objective is to highlight their cause and not a serious contest in Varanasi, he said. Reddy claimed some farmers in Varanasi were ready to sign on their nomination papers. It may be recalled that over 170 farmers had entered the fray in the recent election to Nizamabad Lok Sabha constituency to highlight the demands for remunerative price and formation of turmeric board. Reddy said his group comprised some who contested the Nizamabad Lok Sabha election held in the first phase on April 11. BJP candidate in Nizamabad constituency Aravind Dharmapuri had recently alleged some of the people who planned to file nominations in Varanasi were doing so at the behest of the ruling TRS. Some of them are not even farmers, he claimed. Nizamabad is represented by K Kavitha, daughter of Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, in the outgoing Lok Sabha. She is seeking re-election. ISI wants to instil terror in minds of non-Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir After losing terrorists at a rapid pace, ISI looks to tap Kashmiris outside India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Apr 27: The ISI has been snooping in Turkey to take into its fold some of the students from Jammu and Kashmir. The ISI has been undertaking similar operations in other countries as well. The action comes in the wake of the Indian Army killing over 70 terrorists. In fact in the aftermath of the Pulwama attack, the Army gunned down 41 terrorists, which also included the masterminds of the attack. Several students from the Valley are studying abroad on scholarship. The Intelligence Bureau has reported that the ISI is trying to get in touch with these students and is attempting to brainwash them. NIA charges ISI agent in terror conspiracy case Cells have been set up by the ISI in Turkey and other countries in a bid to reach out to the students from the Valley. Turkey has around 90 students and they are on the radar of the ISI, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) says. The new tactic comes in the wake of the Army gunning down scores of terrorists in the Valley. Further there has also been a decline in the clamour among the youth to join terror groups. Recently the Jaish-e-Mohammad, which has suffered huge losses in J&K had called on its terrorists to set up bigger bases. On Thursday the National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested two JeM terrorists for trying to expand its module. The NIA arrested JeM terrorists Tanveer Ahmad Ganie and Bilal Mir, both residents of Pulwama in J&K. The NIA says that investigation had disclosed the duo were in touch with one Sajjad Ahmad. Ahmad was tasked with strengthening the base of the JeM in J&K. They were told to recruit more persons into the outfit and carry out attacks. After suffering heavy losses in the wake of its commanders being killed in encounters, the JeM leadership wants to start afresh in the Valley. There is a directive by the leadership to look for more recruits. Further the terror group is also planning large scale infiltrations, a top counter terror officials informed OneIndia. The downfalls of the JeM had begun in December 2018 itself. Although it struck back with the Pulwama attack, the fact is that many part of the top leadership in the Valley have been killed. The forces had in December managed to bust two important modules of the JeM in Tral and Khrew Pamper. How ISI radicalised Sri Lanka through the Pakistan High Commission The busting of these two modules was extremely crucial. These were the primary modules of the Jaish which were launching a series of attacks in the recent past. There was a surge in terror activity in both these areas. Following this a special team was constituted to probe cases which involved attacks on both security forces and civilians. The police say that with these modules being busted, they have managed to clear the Jaish of from Khrew Pampore and Tral. CBI takes over probe into Pollachi sexual harassment case India oi-Vikas SV Chennai, Apr 26: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Saturday took over Pollachi sexual harassment case and also two registered two FIRs in connection with the probe. The matter came to light on February 24 after the four accused, all in their 20s, were arrested in February for allegedly blackmailing and sexually harassing a 19-year-old girl. The case snowballed into a major scandal after local media reported that not just one but a few hundred women were victims of an organised racket. The police filed an FIR on February 24 against Sabarirajan, Thirunavukkarasu, Sathish and Vasanthkumar under sections 354A (sexual harassment), 354B (assault or use of criminal force against woman with intent to disrobe), and 394 (robbery) of the IPC; section 66E of the IT Act (violation of privacy); and section 4 of the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Sexual Harassment of Women Act (sexual harassment). [Pollachi sex scandal: 4 arrested, case transferred to CB-CID] The incident took political turn as one of the accused was member of ruling AIADMK. According to Indian Express, the AIADMK removed A Nagaraj, one of the accused in the case, from the party's primary membership after his photo with an AIADMK minister was circulated on social media. MK Stalin, chief of the Opposition DMK party, asked on Twitter whether the ruling AIADMK was colluding with the perpetrators of the crime. Tamil Nadu DGP T K Rajendran told news agency in March that Pollachi women harassment case has been transferred to CB-CID (Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department). For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, April 27, 2019, 22:10 [IST] Congress fumes at Amit Shah's for "Ilu-Ilu" comment India pti-PTI Jaipur, Apr 27: The Congress on Saturday condemned BJP president Amit Shah's "Rahul Baba, you do Ili-Ilu with terrorists" comment, saying it was the BJP government which had freed and taken terrorists to Kandahar in a plane in 1999. During an election rally in Jalore on Friday, Shah said his party's policy is to reply with a bombshell if Pakistan fires a bullet, while the Congress just plays "Ilu-Ilu" with terrorists. Ilu is an abbreviation for 'I love you' in a popular Bollywood song. "Who had released terrorists and taken them to Kandahar in a plane?" Congress general secretary in-charge of Rajasthan Avinash Pande asked in response to Shah's comment. "There is no single instance where Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah or any top leader or their family members even got their finger cut in the fight against terrorism but in Congress there are examples of former PMs Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and others," he told PTI. Three most-wanted terrorists were released in return for the safety of passengers in an Indian Airlines plane which was hijacked to Afghanistan's Kandahar in 1999. Pande said when the prime minister mentions martyrs in his speeches, he should take the names of Congress leaders who had lost their lives for the country. He also accused the prime minister and the BJP of misusing social media platforms to "spread lies" in a strategic manner to influence voters, especially the youngsters. The Congress leader said there is an unsaid emergency in the country and under Modi rule the Constitution and democracy are in danger. "There is an unsaid emergency in the country and the environment for positive planning is completely lacking. The BJP is spreading lies to divert attention from real issues," Pande said. "The PM and the BJP are misusing social media platforms and misleading people particularly young voters through lies and distorted historic facts.The young generation has not seen much and is stuck on social media. Young people should think what PM Modi will give to them but it will be very late before they awaken," he said. [Shatrughan Sinha calls Jinnah part of Congress family, later clarifies] Accusing the government of weakening constitutional institutions, Pande said it will take a lot of time for the institutions to recover. "Now they are saying that they will rule for 50 years if they win this election. It is apparent that the constitution is under threat," he said. PTI Congress may approach courts over alleged MCC violations by PM Modi, Amit Shah India pti-PTI New Delhi, Apr 27: The Congress on Saturday said it may approach courts seeking action against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah over alleged repeated model code violations. Senior Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi alleged that 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. "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 told a press conference, adding silence can be construed as approval. Taking a jibe at Election Commission, he called it "Election Omission" and wondered whether Modi and Shah are outside the ambit of the model code of conduct, which he dubbed as "Modi code of conduct". He claimed that the two leaders have violated the poll code broadly under three categories: polarisation of votes, invoking armed forces in campaigns and taking out rallies on election day. [Congress knocks EC's door over PM Modi allegedly violating MCC, seeks campaign ban] "The EC has taken taken action against several leaders for violating the poll code based on our complaints. We appreciate that. Since the precedent has been set, why not take action against Modi and Shah," he said. Responding to questions on reported remarks by Congress leaders P C Chacko and Shatrughan Sinha on Yasin Malik and Mohammed Ali Jinnah respectively, he said while Sinha has clarified his comments, it would be better if Chacko was approached directly on the issue. PTI Taking over the world of social media as one of the top young singers is Armaan Thakur Here is all you need to know about Paid News menace India oi-Hardeep Singh Bedi New Delhi, April 27: As Indians are in the process of electing a new government, the Election Commission of India (ECI) is keeping a close watch on the menace of paid news not only in print and electronic media but also on social media. Paid News has been defined by the Press Council of India (PCI) as "Any news or analysis appearing in any media (Print & Electronic) for a price in cash or kind as consideration". PCI guidelines about election news and advertising say that news should be clearly demarcated from advertisements by printing disclaimers, should be strictly enforced by all publications. As far as news is concerned, it must always carry a credit line and should be set in a typeface that would distinguish it from advertisements. No 'Modi biopic' release before May 19: SC refuses to interfere with EC order It is notable that lawyer Sagar Suryavanshi has filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the Bombay High Court that demands the ECI should not allow any person, whether politician or not, to post political or election related advertisements or paid political content on social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, 48 hours before the polling day. While hearing the PIL, the division bench of Chief Justice Naresh Patil, on January 31 had cautioned the ECI against taking the issue of paid political content on social media "lightly". The court had also pulled up the ECI after its officer did not appear during the hearing and said if the ECI officer fails to remain present at the next hearing too, the court would issue a warrant against the officer. On February 25, the ECI issued guidelines to reconstitute Media Certification and Monitoring Committees (MCMCs) at district and state level with the inclusion of an Intermediary expert (intermediary as defined in section 2(w) of IT Act, 2000)/social media expert. These district and state level MCMCs includes senior government officials as well as independent citizen or a journalist recommended by the PCI. These MCMCs monitor media for paid news and other violations besides certification of advertisements. A paid news case is confirmed when it goes through a lengthy process as the candidates or the media houses are given a chance to appeal. Any appeal against the decision of District level MCMC in matter of Paid News will be made to State level MCMC and any appeal against the decision of State level MCMC will be made to the Election Commission of India. The State level MCMC can also make a reference to the Commission for advice, if it deems it necessary. Wherever complaints on Paid News cases are made to the Commission directly, the Commission shall forward cases to the State level MCMC for initial consideration. Weekly report on Paid News is to be submitted by CEO to ECI and copies of notices on Paid News are displayed on Notice Board of RO and DEO's website. Paid News cases related to Print Media are sent by ECI to PCI and those related to Electronic Media are referred to NBSA. The names of concerned candidates are put on the website of Chief Electoral Officers of respective states. EC cancels suspension of IAS officer who checked PM Modi's chopper in Odisha Wherever complaints on paid news cases are made to the ECI directly, it shall forward cases to the State level MCMC for initial consideration. MCMCs have been given the responsibility to track Paid News and deal with it. According to this, in cases finally decided by District MCMC as paid news, it will inform the Expenditure Observer and accounting team for calculating the expenditure on Paid News at DIPR rate, (in absence of DIPR rate, DAVP rate shall be used) and further necessary action will be taken. The ECI has proposed an amendment in the RP Act, 1951, to provide therein that publishing and a betting the publishing of 'paid news' for furthering the prospect of election of any candidate or for prejudicially affecting the prospect of election of any candidate be made an electoral offence under chapter-ill of Part-VII of RP Act, 1951, with punishment of a minimum of two years imprisonment. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, April 27, 2019, 11:52 [IST] India is likely to extend the deadline for imposing retaliatory customs duties on 29 US products, including almond, walnut and pulses, by another 14 days, a source said. The commerce ministry is expected to recommend to the revenue department, under the finance ministry, to extend the deadline for imposing higher tariffs. The current deadline will end on May 2. The ministry will recommend extension of the deadline on retaliatory tariffs on imports from the US by another 14 days, the source said. If accepted by the finance ministry, the revenue department would issue a notification to that effect. The government has already extended this deadline over half a dozen times since June 2018, when it decided to impose these duties in retaliation to a move by the US to impose high customs duties on certain steel and aluminium products. The issue assumes significance with the US deciding to withdraw export incentives being provided by them to Indian exporters for certain goods under the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) programme. The withdrawal is expected to come into force from May 2. Domestic exporters are jittery over the US decision to withdraw these incentives as they export goods worth $5.6 billion under the GSP programme. About 1,900 items including from chemicals and engineering sectors avail these sops. Both the sides were holding two-track discussions to increase trade in the short and medium term and identify long-term trade potentials. Hours after Karnataka issued advisory, terror threat turns out to be a hoax India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Apr 27: The terror threat to several places in South India has turned out to be a hoax. The caller who warned about the attack, Sundara Murthy a retired army personnel was arrested and questioned. Following the questioning it was learnt that he had made a hoax call. The police said that Murthy, 65 is a retired army personnel and was working as a truck driver. He was arrested in Avlahalli in the outskirts of Bengaluru on Saturday morning. His son was martyred in the Kargil war, the police said. They also said that he is a habitual hoax caller. A high alert had been sounded in Tamil Nadu after a caller warned that there would be major terror attacks. Indian Coast Guard on high alert after Sri Lanka blasts that killed 290 The caller called the control room at Bangalore and spoke in Tamil and broken Hindi. The call was received at around 17.35 hours, a communication noted. He said that he had information that major cities in Tamil Nadu and other states will be hit by terror attacks. The truck driver who was on his way to Hosur also sad that there are 19 terrorists present at Ramanathapuram, Tamil Nadu and were looking to carry out strikes in major cities. The advisory issued also said that all precautionary measures should be taken to avert any untoward incident. Treat the matter as most urgent, the advisory also noted. The development comes in the wake of the horrific blasts that took place in Sri Lanka last Sunday. The investigations have shown that the terrorists in Sri Lanka were in touch with several members in Southern India including Tamil Nadu and Kerala. India too had issued an advisory to Sri Lanka on April 4 warning of major strikes. Sri Lanka on the other hand had on April 11 circulated an advisory stating that members of the National Towheed Jamath would carry out strikes at 11 Churches in the country. Is Modi nervous of losing LS polls? Congress thinks so India oi-Oneindia Staff By Anuj Cariappa New Delhi, Apr 27: The Congress claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's appeal to people to vote in large numbers shows that he is nervous and is sensing defeat after the first three phases of the Lok Sabha polls. The opposition party also seized on Modi's remarks that the next five years will be about results, to claim that what he meant was that he could not deliver in his five years as prime minister. Prime Minister Modi on Friday exhorted voters not to fall into the trap of those who say that he has already won the election and so it is fine not to vote. Has the hyper-nationalist campaign by the BJP doused the NYAY fire "Some people are creating an atmosphere that Modiji has already won (the election) and it is fine not to vote. Please don't fall into their trap. Voting is your right and everyone must exercise it," Modi told reporters after filing his nomination from Varanasi. Congress spokesperson Rajiv Shukla, citing Modi's remarks, claimed that the prime minister had to make the appeal as the BJP was "losing big" in the first three phases of the polls. "Our assessment is also the same that in the three phases, the BJP's position is really bad. They are definitely not getting the mandate they were expecting. "They are losing big in the three phases and that is why Prime Minister Modi had to appeal to people after his nomination that vote in large numbers," Shukla said at a press conference. "The Prime Minister, I think, is also sensing the feedback we have, that is why he is nervous and is making this kind of appeal," he said. Shukla also said the BJP's assembling of coalition partners in Varanasi shows that the party has realised that it cannot get a mandate on its own. Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal-United (JD-U) chief Nitish Kumar, Union minister and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) chief Ram Vilas Paswan, Shiv Sena supremo Uddhav Thackeray and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) patron Parkash Singh Badal were with Modi at the Collectorate as he filed his papers, seeking a second term in the Lok Sabha from the temple town of Varanasi. "He (Modi) is sure that he will not get a mandate on his own so he gathered all the coalition partners. His self confidence is weakening that he can form a government on his own and that is why he is showing more confidence on alliance partners than on himself," the Congress leader said. Has Congress surrendered before Jharkhand battle starts? Talking about the prime minister's remarks in Varanasi on Thursday that while the last five years were about his government making sincere efforts, the next five will be about results, Shukla said this means that in the last five years he was unable to produce any results. "The promises that he made in 2014, he could not fulfil those promises. What he meant was that his five year-government was not a result-oriented government, he could not deliver any results and prestige to the country," he claimed. "Today PM Modi put a stamp of approval on our assessment. In an address to his workers, he said if BJP workers see that he has spoken something wrong in his interviews, they must make loud noises in order to hide the truth," Shukla claimed. He said the people of Varanasi shall never forgive and forget how Modi has betrayed them. Shukla also recounted his party's claims from Thursday when it listed Prime Minister Modi's failures in Varanasi. The Congress accused Modi of "failure" to clean Ganga, "demolishing" the cultural heritage of Varanasi, giving the "jumla" of turning Kashi to Kyoto, and "betraying" weavers, artisans and handicraft workers. The prime minister's Aadarsh Gram' scheme was also a "flop", the party alleged. "Hype, hoopla and rhetoric does not change the reality on ground. People of Varanasi will see through this propaganda. Today Modiji has accepted the fact that he works on - fakery and lies. Truth will surely catch up with him on May 23rd," Shukla said. Results for the seven-phase Lok Sabha election that began on April 11 will be declared on May 23. Jay Panda faces uphill task to retain stronghold Kendrapara India oi-Deepika S Bhubaneswar, Apr 27: It will be a high-voltage clash in Kendrapara, Odisha where Bharatiya Janata Party's Baijayant 'Jay' Panda is taking on Ollywood superstar Anubhav Mohanty. Prominent High Court lawyer, and Congress leader Dharanidhar Nayak, who had managed to capture the second spot in 2014 polls too in the fray. However, this time it is expected to be a BJD-BJP face off. The constituency, in the heart of the Odisha coast, known as Biju Patnaik's forte has seen some epic battles but no candidate opposing the Patnaik family had won the seat for almost the last fifty years. For Panda, who is seeking re-election from Kendrapara Lok Sabha seat as MP for the third consecutive term, stakes are not easy. Pitted against the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) candidate is a man who represented the constituency in the last two Lok Sabha polls as a BJD man. Panda, who was a Rajya Sabha member from 2000 to 2009 and became a Lok Sabha MP thereafter has been the party's most visible face in Delhi. From 2000 to 2014, Panda became the introverted Patnaik's link to Delhi and the party's voice in the national media. Baijayant Panda, who was first suspended and then quit the BJD last year after being allegedly marginalised in the ruling party in Odisha, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) earlier in March. EC cancels suspension of IAS officer who checked PM Modi's chopper in Odisha Polling in six parliamentary constituencies, including Kendrapara and 42 Assembly seats will be held on April 29. Counting of votes will take place on May 23. Will always be with you to fight injustice: Rahul Gandhi to media Lok Sabha Elections 2019 updates: Anti-BJP front gains momentum, Naidu meets Sonia Gandhi India oi-Oneindia Staff By Anuj Cariappa New Delhi, May 19: Andhra Pradesh Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Saturday met BSP chief Mayawati and Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav in Lucknow, continuing his efforts to put together a coalition to form the next government at the Centre. He reached Lucknow after meetings in New Delhi with Congress president Rahul Gandhi, CPI leaders G Sudhakar Reddy and D Raja, NCP chief Sharad Pawar and LJD leader Sharad Yadav. The Telugu Desam Party chief has already held several rounds of discussions with various opposition leaders, including TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee, AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal and CPI (M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury. Prime Minister Narendra Modi began his two-day visit to Uttarakhand today with a visit to Kedarnath shrine. The prime minister is also expected to offer prayers at Badrinath tomorrow before returning to Delhi in the afternoon. The prime minister's visit to the holy shrine came a day before the last phase of the marathon Lok Sabha elections. Fifty nine parliamentary constituencies, including Varanasi, will go to polls in the seventh and final phase of the Lok Sabha elections and the results will be announced four days later, on May 23. Stay tuned for the Lok Sabha elections 2019 UPDATES: Madras HC suggests amendments in POCSO Act India pti-PTI Chennai, Apr 27: Observing that relationship between a girl under 18 years of age and a teenage boy or little over the teenage years cannot be construed as "alien" or "unnatural", the Madras High Court suggested exclusion of consensual sex after 16 years of age from the purview of POCSO Act. Justice V Pathiban gave the suggestion on Friday during the hearing of a petition by Sabari who challenged his conviction and 10-year sentence by a Mahila court in Namakkal under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. The petitioner was accused of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a 17-year old girl. Suggesting amendments to the Act, the judge said, "Any consensual sex after the age of 16 or bodily contact or allied acts can be excluded from the rigorous provisions of the POCSO Act and such sexual assault, if it is so defined can be tried under more liberal provision, which can be introduced in the Act itself..." "The Act can be amended to the effect that the age of the offender ought not to be more than five years or so than the consensual victim girl of 16 years or more. So that the impressionable age of the victim girl cannot be taken advantage of by a person who is much older and crossed the age of presumable infatuation or innocence," he said. Justice Pathiban also directed the State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (SCPCRs), Commissioner of Social Defense, Department of Social Welfare and Noon Meal Programme to place the matter before competent authority and take steps to explore whether the suggestions are acceptable to all stakeholders. [Cabinet approves amendment in POCSO Act, death penalty for aggravated sexual assault on minors] Perusing various reports of the DGP, SCPCRs among others, he said though under Section 2(d) of the Act, 'child' is defined as a person below 18 years of age and in case of any love affair between a girl and a boy, where the girl happens to be 16 or 17 years old, the relationship invariably assumes penal character by subjecting the boy to the rigours of the law. Once the age of the girl is established in such relationship as below 18 years, the boy involved in the relationship is sure to be sentenced 7 or 10 years as minimum imprisonment, as the case may be, he noted. "... Such a relationship cannot be construed as an unnatural one or alien to between relationship of opposite sexes," the judge added. Earlier, the judge acquitted the accused of all charges and set aside the conviction of the trial court. He found fault with the lower court for completely misdirecting itself by raising unwarranted presumption without any basis in favour of the prosecution. The court also expressed concern over growing incidence of offences under the POCSO Act on one side and the rigorous imprisonment envisaged in it. PTI Makers of 'PM Narendra Modi' write to EC over stay on biopic India oi-Deepika S New Delhi, Apr 27: Makers of biopic 'PM Narendra Modi' have written to Election Commission (EC) seeking clarification on its decision staying its release. The letter states, "We seek clarification in this regard from your office as we intend to promote film in areas which are no more affected by MCC after end of polling on 29.4.19." The Supreme Court has refused to interfere with the EC's decision not to allow its release during the ongoing Lok Sabha polls. Earlier, the Commission had watched the film fully on the basis of the April 15 court order and filed a report. It termed the work more of a 'hagiography' than a biography. PM Narendra Modi movie, a hagiography more than biography, EC panel tells SC The EC had told the court that the biopic "produces a political environment where an individual acquired cult status" and its public screening during the period when the model code of conduct is in operation would favour a particular political party. Several Opposition parties had complained to judicial authorities and the poll body about the film, alleging that it was a propaganda vehicle for the ruling BJP. The film traces Modi's life from childhood till the 2014 General Elections, which his party had won by a large majority. 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 Why is Congress high command silent over killing of Dalit man in Rajasthan, asks Mayawati Mayawati alleges that PM Modi included his caste in backward category when he was CM India pti-PTI Lucknow, Apr 27: BSP chief Mayawati on Saturday alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi included his caste in the backward category during his tenure as Gujarat chief minister to derive electoral profit. Addressing a press conference, Mayawati said, "Like Mulayam Singh Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav, Narendra Modi was not born in a backward caste. When he was Gujarat chief minister, he got his upper caste included in the backward category to derive political benefit during elections." She said the BJP's Dalit-backward card was not working in Uttar Pradesh. The BSP supremo's comments came hours after Modi slammed the SP-BSP-RLD alliance in Uttar Pradesh, saying the tie-up of "opportunists" wants a helpless government because its mantra is "jaat, paat japna; janata ka maal apna". Modi addressed election rallies in Kannauj, a SP stronghold, Hardoi and Sitapur. Dubbing the alliance as 'mahamilavati (highly adulterated) opportunists', Modi said in Kannauj that he doesn't believe in politics of caste. [Don't fall prey to 'allurements' of BJP, Congress: Mayawati] "Mayawatiji (BSP chief), I am most backward... I request with folded hands not to drag me into caste politics, 130 crore people are my family," he said. "This country didn't know my caste till my detractors abused me... I am thankful to Mayawatiji, Akhileshji (SP chief), Congress people and the 'mahamilavatis' that they are discussing my caste...I believe that taking birth in a backward caste is an opportunity to serve the country," the PM said. PTI Pakistan drug money, a port at Koddikarai and the link to the Sri Lanka bombings India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Apr 27: Koddikarai, a fishing port in Tamil Nadu was once a hub for Sri Lankan smugglers, who traded beedis for opium. Over the years, the nature of the smuggling from here changed drastically and it became a landing spot for drugs, arms and ammunition. It may be recalled that in the month of October 2013, India had detained the MV Seaman Guard Ohio after allegations of the ship entering India with a huge cache of weapons had surfaced. Intelligence and Security Agencies have over the years tracked the operations here and learnt that a major part of the operation was traced near Nagapattinam at the end of the Salt Pan area of the Kodikkarai fishing port. 15 dead in fierce gun battle between troops and Islamists in Sri Lanka This route gains significance in the wake of reports emerging that the money earned by drug cartels in Pakistan could have funded the Sri Lanka suicide bombings. Pakistan has for several years now moving drugs to Sri Lanka. Instances of the drugs being moved through Indian ports have also surfaced several times. The drugs make their way from Pakistan right down to the southern part of India, following which it is smuggled into Sri Lanka as well. It is a well known fact that Pakistan indulges in narco terrorism. An Intelligence Bureau dossier says that the drug industry being aided by the ISI churns out over Rs 380 billion a year through the sale of drugs. A large part of this syndicate is controlled by Dawood Ibrahim. As per the deal, he had struck with the ISI in exchange for protection, he would need to cough up 30 per cent of his earnings. The ISI in turn uses this money to fund its terrorists. The same money could have been used to carry out the blasts in Sri Lanka, Indian agencies feel. Coming back to the Koddikarai port, it has not only been used by smugglers and terrorists. A few years back it was found that a major arms racket was being carried out with the help of Chinese agents, who in turn would help the mafia and smugglers settled in Sri Lanka. Investigations had found that arms and ammunition had also landed in northern Kerala, especially at the Karur and Udumalapet forest areas. The agencies do not rule out the possibility that this was being carried out facilitate the naxalites. The Pakistan angle to the rise of terror in Sri Lanka has been glaring. Immediately after the fall of the LTTE, the Lashkar-e-Tayiba tried to set up shop in Sri Lanka. However the plans did not materialise immediately. Following this the ISI roped in Amir Zubair Siddiqui, an officer tasked with setting up a terror module in Sri Lanka. He was instrumental in fanning the sentiments of the Muslims, who complained of a threat from the Buddhists. Siddiqui did manage to fan the sentiments by orchestrating attacks on the Muslims. He also went ahead and tried creating modules in South India, which would be controlled by a cell in Sri Lanka, which incidentally was set up in the Pakistan High Commission. Sri Lankans who returned after joining ISIS were not arrested: Here is why It was found that the BBS was funded heavily by the ISI. The BBS was asked to target Muslims, which in turn made them insecure. The ISI under Siddiqui was able to capitalise on this sentiment and began roping the Muslims into their fold. The NIA which probed this case says that the strength of the module rose from 15 to 50 in quick time. The ISI was successful in radicalising several Muslims in Sri Lanka, which eventually led to the birth of the National Towheed Jamath, which along with the Islamic State is behind the Sri Lanka blasts. During its probe in 2014, the NIA had sought to question Siddiqui. As the heat built up on him, he was mysteriously air lifted from Sri Lanka and packed off to Pakistan. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, April 27, 2019, 16:56 [IST] This is what happens if you elect an actor to become politician: Congress slam BJP's Sunny Deol 'Pawn' or 'Tsunami'? BJP-Congress indulge in war of words over Sunny Deol India pti-PTI Chandigarh, Apr 27: Bollywood actor Sunny Deol's candidature from Gurdaspur has triggered in a war of words in Punjab, with the Congress dubbing him a "pawn" and the BJP describing him as a "tsunami" that would sweep away the grand old party. It is the second time that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has fielded a celebrity in Gurdaspur in the general election. The seat, which was a Congress stronghold, was won by the BJP in 1998 when it fielded late actor Vinod Khanna. Khanna managed to defeat veteran Congress leader and five-time MP Sukhbans Kaur Bhinder, and went on to retain the border seat four times. After the demise of Khanna, it was won by state Congress president Sunil Jakhar in a 2017 bypoll by over 1.9 lakh votes. Not finding any local leader suitable, the BJP sprang a surprise with the nomination of Deol, who joined the party on Tuesday. "Whatever I can do for this family (BJP), I will do it. I won't talk, I will show you through my work," Deol, whose real name is Ajay Singh Deol, had said after joining the party. Deol, who has played the lead role in blockbusters like 'Ghayal', 'Gadar' and 'Border', will file his nomination papers on Monday. The move to field 62-year-old actor in Gurdaspur drew sharp reactions from the Congress. [Sunny Deol a filmy 'fauji', I am a real fauji: Amarinder Singh] "Bringing Sunny here (Gurdaspur) means that he will be used as a pawn by (prime minister Narendra) Modi sahib. The PM cannot face tough questions of voters and that is why the party resorted to bringing a film star here in order to captivate them," Jakhar said. "Questions are still there. Where are the jobs and what have you done for Punjab?" the state Congress president asked. "The BJP leadership has accepted defeat. (Therefore), they are taking the help of Sunny Deol to seek votes." The BJP, however, claimed that the Congress was shocked. "The entire Congress leadership is jittery with the nomination of Sunny Deol. He is like a tsunami and will sweep the entire Congress away on all 13 Lok Sabha seats," BJP secretary Tarun Chugh said on Saturday. "Sunny Deol is a Jat face and he is popular among every section of society," Chugh added. Political observers, however, said it might not be an easy win for the BJP. Out of the nine assembly seats in the parliamentary constituency, Congress legislators represent seven -- Dera Baba Nanak, Fatehgarh Churian, Pathankot, Dinanagar, Qadian, Gurdaspur and Bhoa. Only two seats -- Batala and Sujanpur -- is with the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and the BJP. Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh had claimed on Friday that Deol had no ground support in the constituency and Jakhar would win the seat. "He (Deol) is a filmy 'fauji' (soldier), while I am a real 'fauji'," Singh said, in an apparent reference to the actor's popular war movie, 'Border'. SAD president Sukhbir Badal, meanwhile, asserted that the security deposit of Jakhar would be forfeited. The chief minister had already warned his ministers and MLAs if they filed to ensure victory in their constituencies, they might bear the brunt. Therefore, the Congress will be making an all-out effort to ensure Jakhar's victory. Gurdaspur goes to polls in the last phase on May 19. PTI Landmark changes to the Constitution from 1967 have shaped Indias political discourse. Our courts have not only upheld public interest but have also stood for protecting rights of the citizens The year 1967 was a landmark in the political history of India. Reflecting after almost 60 years, a chain of events, which had a strong impact on the politics of the years following, unfolds. Elections to the fourth Lok Sabha were held in the aftermath of the 1966 devaluation of the Rupee and perhaps when the food crisis was at its worst. The benefits of the green revolution were nowhere in sight as they would accrue only after 1969. The level of general dissatisfaction was manifest in the fact that the ruling Congress had lost 70 seats in the Lok Sabha and at 283, came perilously close to the halfway mark. The gainer was the Swatantra Party, dominated by erstwhile rulers and under the influence of extreme Right-wing. With almost 50 seats, it ended up as the second largest party in Parliament. Simultaneously, the Congress, too, lost power in seven States where it faced Governments formed by the Opposition and fragile coalitions. This led to a power struggle within the party, with the organisational wing trying to assert itself. In 1966, while promoting Indira Gandhi to the leadership, they had thought it to be just a stop-gap arrangement but things had changed. For the first time, an election took place for the post of the CPP leader and though Indira Gandhi had won, Morarji Desai, the candidate of the organisational wing, managed to get the support of 169 MPs. As such, he had to be accommodated and was made the Deputy Prime Minister. While the challenge for the leadership had been managed, the Government faced yet another crisis. In a hitherto little known and in virtually a non-descript matter, the Supreme Court had given its most hard-hitting judgement. In the Golaknath case, the then Chief Justice of India Koka Subba Rao led the majority view by six to five in stating that Parliament was not competent to amend the fundamental rights in the Constitution and that Article 368 provided only the procedure for amendment. This was a severe blow to Parliament as well as the Government. But CJI Rao was getting ready for another one. In an extremely controversial move, about three months before his retirement and soon after the Golaknath judgement, he resigned, only to announce his candidature for the post of President of India and to contest as the joint candidate of the Opposition against Dr Zakir Hussain. These moves had sown the seeds of a confrontation, setting off a chain of events that had far-reaching consequences. This judgement had placed the Government in a tight corner as it suddenly found itself ill-equipped to fulfill its political programmes which required Constitutional amendments. Faced with challenges from within the party and in Parliament, besides those from the Opposition-led Governments in several States, the Union Government did not appear to inspire confidence. This was to manifest in serious law and order problems. This was also the period when Naxalism reared its head in West Bengal, where the then Chief Minister Ajoy Mukherjee had to go on a fast against his own Deputy, Jyoti Basu. The result was the decline of Calcutta (now Kolkata) and its hinterland as an industrial hub. Indira Gandhi knew that in the prevailing situation, in order to consolidate, it was essential to have left of the Centre and pro-people orientation to the policies. Accordingly came the bank nationalisation in 1969. Again there was stiff opposition but Morarji Desai, who was left with no option, had to resign. The then Finance Secretary also had to be shifted to the Ministry of Agriculture. The Parliament was to meet from July 21, 1969, for the Monsoon Session but two days before that, the Ordinance on Bank Nationalisation was promulgated on July 19, 1969. With the nationalisation of commercial banks having a deposit of over 50 crore, Indira Gandhi had once again assumed the initiative and occupied the centrestage. This major step also helped her to widely appeal and ultimately defeat the organisational candidate N Sanjiva Reddy for Presidency. But coming back to the main issue, immediately after this Ordinance, a writ was filed in the apex court, which was heard by a Constitutional bench of 11 judges. This was the second major case and a test for the Government before the top court. Hackles were raised once again on either side as the Governments Ordinance was pronounced invalid. Indira Gandhi took it as an affront and gave a political twist to show that the big business was on one side and she was with the common man and was not being allowed to introduce reforms for the downtrodden. It was only much later that Golaknath could be set right. The opportunity came after Indira Gandhi had won in 1971, when the 24th Constitutional amendment was passed with the intention of nullifying the impact of the Golaknath judgement. However, the validity of this 24th amendment was again challenged through Kesavananda Bharti before a historic 13-judge Bench, which heard the case for about six months and gave a historic judgement in April 1973, validating the amendment. The short point here is that with Golaknath, the seeds of confrontation of the Government with the judiciary was sown. Later pronouncements only hardened attitudes. In order to overcome this impediment to the bank nationalisation policy, a Constitutional amendment (25th) was passed on April 20, 1972. This (clause 2B and 2C) was later validated during the Keshavananda Bharti case. According to this, the jurisdiction of courts, to determine the adequacy of compensation on acquisition of property, was taken away. A new clause was added that no law, which declared that it was giving effect to these principles in Clause (B) and (C) of Article 39, would be called in question on the ground of inconsistency with the fundamental rights. By now, Golaknath as well as bank nationalisation judgements had been corrected through Constitutional amendments. The next step in the pro-people and left of the centre agenda of Indira Gandhi was to do away with the privileges of rulers and ICS officers. Prior to August 15, 1947, the rulers of States were sovereign, though their sovereignty was subject to the paramountcy of the British crown, but that authority lapsed on August 15, 1947 as a result of the Indian Independence Act. Consequently, these rulers became absolute sovereigns. After their merger with India, rulers of those States were left with no powers. They had only such rights and privileges as were recognised or created under the Covenants and those embodied in the Constitution. Consequently, the Government moved in the Lok Sabha on September 2, 1970, the Constitution (24th) Amendment Bill 1970, to delete certain provisions of the Constitution relating to the guarantees given to the rulers about their privy purses as well as privileges. This Bill was passed in the Lok Sabha but failed to get the requisite majority in the Rajya Sabha. The motion for consideration of the Bill was rejected at about 4:30 pm on September 5, 1970. The same evening, the Union Cabinet met and decided to advise the President to withdraw the recognition of the rulers so that the privy purses and privileges guaranteed to them may be abolished. On the same night, the President, purporting to act under clause (22) of Article 366 of the Constitution, signed in his camp at Hyderabad, instruments withdrawing recognition of all the rulers. After obtaining his signatures, the concerned documents were flown back to Delhi the same night and the impugned orders were issued on September 6, 1970. On the strength of these orders, the Government of India asserted that all rulers of India had been de-recognised and consequently, none of them was entitled to the rights and privileges to which they were entitled as rulers. The apex court took up this matter, where a special Bench of 11 judges was constituted for its hearing. Madhav Rao Scindia of Gwalior was the principal mover of the writ on December 15, 1970, to challenge the vires of the Ordinance. The judgement pronounced by 10 judges read as: In accordance with the opinion of the majority, the petitions are allowed and writs will issue declaration that the orders made by the President on September 6, 1970, challenged here were illegal and on that account, inoperative, and the petitioners will be entitled to all their pre-existing rights and privileges, including the right to privy purses. The only dissenting judge was AN Ray, whose order was in favour of the abolition of privy purses. According to him: Recognition of rulership is not a legal right. It is not a right to property. Privy purse is not a legal right to property. There is no fundamental right to privy purse. There is no fundamental right to rulership. In fact, the judgement in the privy purses case provided the signal to Indira Gandhi to dissolve the fourth Lok Sabha and go in for a mid-term poll, which she won on a hugely popular platform. Taking forward the reforms programme, which had been earlier hit by the Supreme Court, she could get the Constitutions 26th Amendment enacted on December 28, 1971, which nullified this judgement and omitted Articles 291, 362 and inserted Article 363A and amended 366 (22), withdrawing the recognition of rulers of princely States and abolishing their privy purses. Later through the 28th Constitutional amendment of August 29, 1972, privileges of ICS officers were also abolished. Thus, it may be observed that in this confrontation, the Parliament repeatedly trumped the judgements of the Supreme Court, delivered by no less than 11-judges Bench in each case. Finally, in April 1973, in the Kesavananda Bharti case, the 13 judges of the Supreme Court said that Golaknath was overruled and Parliament had the power of amendment but it could not alter the basic structure of the Constitution. Soon after this judgement, at the retirement of CJI Sikri, the supersession of judges took place with AN Ray becoming the CJI, superseding three senior-most judges of the Supreme Court (JJ Shelat, Hegde and Grover). Incidentally, Ray was the only judge to support the Government in the privy purses case. It is also of historical significance that between 1967 and 1975, the Constitution was amended on a record 14 occasions. Even today, guiding the destiny of the nation by fulfilling the political programme of the party, lies at the core of politics of Constitutional amendments. On the other hand, besides upholding the public interest, courts have always stood for protecting the rights of the individual as enshrined in the Constitution. (The writer is a former Governor of Meghalaya and Uttarakhand and a former Commissioner of Police, Delhi) After 12 years as Pepsi CEO, Indra K. Nooyi to step down on Oct 3 Ivanka Trump thanks 'the great' Indra Nooyi for being a mentor and inspiration PepsiCO proposes settlement after suing Gujarat potato farmers India oi-Oneindia Staff By Anuj Cariappa New Delhi, Apr 27: Food and beverages giant PepsiCo Friday offered to settle lawsuits against four farmers who it has dragged to court for allegedly illegally growing a variety of potatoes "registered" by the company. Nine farmers from Sabarkantha and Aravalli districts are being sued by PepsiCo for allegedly growing a variety of potatoes for which it has claimed Plant Variety Protection (PVP) rights. During a hearing in the commercial court here Friday, the firm offered to settle the dispute if the farmers gave an undertaking to purchase this specific variety of seeds from the company and thereafter sell the potato produced to it. Senior counsel Anand Yagnik, who appeared for the four farmers of Sabarkantha district, told the court he will discuss this settlement proposal with the farmers and inform the court about the outcome during the next hearing. Commercial Court Judge M C Tyagi on Friday extended its previous order restricting these farmers from using the patented seeds till the next hearing, which was kept for June 12. Exclusive: MP farmers to Rahul Gandhi: Correct mistakes of Chhindwara SEZ The multinational giant has sought damages of Rs 1 crore from each of the four farmers in its suit filed at the commercial court in Ahmedabad, and Rs 20 lakh from each of the farmers sued at a district court in Modasa town of Arvalli district. Two days ago, over 190 activists came out in support of these farmers and also requested the Union government to ask PepsiCo India to withdraw its "false" cases against Gujarat farmers. In a letter to the Ministry of Agriculture, 194 signatories have sought financial aid and protection of rights of farmers who have been sued for growing and selling a potato variety called FC-5 potato, for which PepsiCo India Holdings claimed to have obtained "exclusive rights in the country in 2016". Omicron 1st case in Maharashtra: What we know about it so, far? 12 facts BMC decides to reopen schools in Mumbai from this date Mumbai schools to reopen for Classes 1 to 7 from December 15 Rare verdict: 6 get life imprisonment for duping Mumbai bank of Rs 2.5 crore India oi-Oneindia Staff By Anuj Cariappa Mumbai, Apr 27: In a rare judgement, a CBI court awarded life imprisonment to six people, including a bank official, for fraudulently obtaining credit facility of over Rs 2.5 crore from Bank of India between 2000 and 2003. Special judge S R Tamboli awarded the life sentence to Bhagwanji Joshi, the then AGM of Bank of India's Mandvi branch, borrowers Manohar Lal Ahuja and his son Amit, and three others, Mahesh Bohra, Sandesh Nage and Shanti Lal Chauhan, who had played a role in forging documents. The judge held the accused guilty under IPC sections 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery of valuable security), and 120 B (criminal conspiracy), as well as under the Prevention of Corruption Act. While passing the order, judge Tamboli observed that three of the accused were habitual offenders and had cheated various nationalised banks. SC confirms life term for Saravana Bhavan owner in 2001 murder case All have committed an economic offence detrimental to the financial health of the country, he added. According to the prosecution, Manohar and his son Amit had availed various credit facilities from Bank of India by forging documents between 2000 and 2003 for running a partnership firm. These, amounting to Rs 2.5 crore, were in form of cash and letter of credits. The accused had submitted existing stock of the company in a warehouse as well as a plot in Versova as security. As per the prosecution, the accused did not use the money for business purposes but siphoned it off and used it for personal gain. The matter came to light in 2004 when the accused stopped paying the loan installments and it turned into an NPA, following which the bank lodged a case with the CBI. An investigation revealed that the stock in the warehouse which was presented to the bank as security was non-existent, while the borrowers came up with an excuse that the stock was destroyed. The probe also found that the property they had mortgaged was non-existent as well. Two of the accused, Mahesh Bohra and Sandesh Nage, had prepared a forged document to show that the property was purchased from one Mohanlal. However, during the probe it was revealed that there was no one called Mohanlal, and that another accused Shanti Lal Chauhan had misrepresented himself as "Mohanlal" and also forged his signature. 2002 Godhra train case: Court sentences Yakub Pataliya to life term The relevant property actually belonged to Anushia Shah, who had given it to the government to create a joggers' park. The court found the that bank official Bhagwanji Joshi was not vigilant enough and sanctioned the loan without verifying the credentials of the borrowers. Advocate Yunus Memon, who had created a title search report of the Versova property, calling it good and marketable, and had said that the bank could mortgage it, was also sentenced to three years in jail. As many as 39 witnesses, including bank officials, were examined during the trial, public prosecutor Jitendra Sharma said. 30 years on, martyred IAF officials to get justice as trial against Yasin Malik is set to begin Name of IAF officer who was killed by Yasin Malik to be added to War Memorial IAF hero gets justice: Why it is time up for Yasin Malik First Yasin Malik, now Javed Mir: Our martyred IAF heroes are getting justice at last Yasin Malik set to face trial for killing IAF personnel, abduction of Rubiya Sayeed India oi-Oneindia Staff By Anuj Cariappa New Delhi, Apr 27: Justice Sanjay Gupta of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court dismissed an appeal by the banned Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chairman Muhammad Yasin Malik to transfer the trial of 30-year-old cases against him from Jammu to Srinagar. The judgment cleared the decks for Malik's trial in Jammu in two old cases relating to gunning down of Indian Air Force personnel and the Rubiya Sayeed kidnapping. The Justice Gupta also vacated an order by a single bench of the High Court which had stayed trial against Malik in 1995, besides observing that the October 25, 2008 order of special TADA court of Jammu allowing Malik's petition for shifting trial to Srinagar was not correct. Why Yasin Malik deserves no sympathy: His crimes since decades listed here "...From bare perusal of contents of petitions and relief sought therein, one can definitely come to conclusion that petitioners (Malik) have sought transfer of their cases from designated court Jammu to additional court at Srinagar, which is not permissible under law," Justice Gupta said in his order. Malik is presently lodged at Tihar jail in New Delhi after being arrested by the NIA in connection with a case related to militant and separatist funding. The two cases relate to the killing of IAF officers on 25 January, 1990 in the outskirts of Srinagar city and the kidnapping of the daughter of then Union Home Minister late Mufti Muhammad Sayeed in 1989. Two chargesheets were filed by the CBI in August and September 1990 against Malik before the designated TADA court in Jammu. In 1995, he was granted a stay on trial by a single bench of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court as there was no TADA court in Srinagar. In 2008, Malik approached the special court saying that the trial could be shifted to Srinagar as he was facing lot of problems of security in view of the Amarnath land row. The CBI counsel Monika Kohli argued before the High Court that the agency had opposed transfer of cases to Srinagar which was rejected. She also informed the court that petitions challenging the order of TADA court were filed with the High Court but the same could not be heard so far. Mehbooba Mufti seeks release of Yasin Malik, revocation of Jamaat-e-Islami ban During the pendency of trial in this case as well, an application was filed by the accused persons seeking transfer of the case to the designated TADA court at Srinagar. The CBI filed objections and opposed the application, which was rejected by the order dated April 20, 2009. Highlighting the CBI objections, Kohli also informed Justice Gupta that the TADA court in Srinagar had been abolished and the designated court in Jammu was given jurisdiction throughout the state with headquarters at Jammu in May 1990. Rejecting the argument of Malik's counsel Zaffar Shah as "not tenable", the court vacated the stay granted by the single bench as also the order of TADA court of 2008. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, April 27, 2019, 12:06 [IST] Sri Lanka won't be allowed to be used for 'any activity' against India: President Rajapaksa 15 dead in fierce gun battle between troops and Islamists in Sri Lanka International oi-Oneindia Staff By Anuj Cariappa Colombo, Apr 27: At least 15 people have been killed after a fierce gun battle on the east coast of Sri Lanka. The shoot out took place between the security personnel and Islamist terrorists on Friday evening in the Santhamaruthu area at Ampara. A police spokesperson said that three suspected bombers were among the 15 who were dead. In a statement, Sumith Attapattu said that the troops headed towards the safe houses. Three explosions were triggered, following which the gun battle began. During the raids the troops recovered a huge cache of arms and ammunition. Sri Lankans who returned after joining ISIS were not arrested: Here is why The terrorists are said to be members of the National Towheed Jamath, which has been blamed for the suicide bombings. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, April 27, 2019, 9:59 [IST] Sri Lankans who returned after joining ISIS were not arrested: Here is why International oi-Oneindia Staff By Anuj Cariappa Colombombo, Apr 27: Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said the government knew that Sri Lankan nationals who joined the Islamic State had returned, but they could not be arrested as joining a foreign terrorist organisation is not against the law in the island nation. But the Easter Sunday serial blasts that killed over 250 people have forced a rethink among the country's political top brass. Wickremesinghe on Friday said the country needs new laws to deal with threats posed by local terror outfits linked to ISIS, the group which has claimed responsibility for the Easter bombings that left 253 people dead and several hundreds injured. Colombo bombings: Why ditto ideologies of NJT, ISIS, Kerala Salafis should worry us "The definition on aiding terrorism is very narrow. Therefore, the laws are not strong to deal with a situation like this," Wickremesinghe said in a televised address. "We have to widen the scope of these laws to counter global terrorism. Not only they (the terrorists) should be arrested, their assets also need to be confiscated," he added. The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the Easter terror attacks on three Catholic churches and three luxury hotels but the government has blamed a local Islamist extremist group, National Tawheed Jamath (NTJ), for the bombings. Earlier in an interview to Sky News, the prime minister said the government knew that Sri Lankan nationals who joined the Islamic State had returned, but they could not be arrested as joining a foreign terrorist organisation is not against the law in the island nation. "We knew they went to Syria...But in our country, to go abroad and return or to take part in a foreign armed uprising is not an offence here," Wickremesinghe said. "We have no laws which enable us to take into custody people who join foreign terrorist groups. We can take those who are, who belong to terrorist groups operating in Sri Lanka," he told the news channel. Admitting failure of the Lankan intelligence on the attacks, Wickremesinghe said although he had not been fed with prior information, he as the prime minister takes full responsibility for the failure. Wickremesinghe said some of the suspected attackers responsible for the Easter bombings were being monitored by the country's intelligence services. But authorities did not have "sufficient" evidence to place the suspected attackers in custody prior to the attacks, he said. Top officials have acknowledged that Sri Lanka received intelligence about possible terror strikes ahead of the attacks, but both President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Mnister Wickremesinghe have said that they did not receive the information. Wickremesinghe told CNN that he did not rule out the possibility of more attacks in the country. He said authorities were now focussing on "sleepers" - terrorists who could activate another round of attacks. Colombo bombings: Photographs of suspects released "Police and security forces are rounding up those involved, but they're also rounding up the sleepers, those used on second and third rounds (of attacks)," he said. "The danger has come down drastically, (but) we do have to pick up some more sleepers, which we will do in the next few days." He said although the attacks were carried out in the island nation, they might have been remotely controlled at another country. The planning of the attack and training might have been in another country, he said, adding, "Without destroying this network we will fail in our task to eliminate global terrorism." For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, April 27, 2019, 6:53 [IST] Rajasthan: Labourer dies of heat wave in Kota Jaipur pti-PTI Kota (Rajasthan), Apr 27: A labourer allegedly died of scorching heat wave in a village of the district Sunday, police said. Shatilal Meena (45) fainted while working in the MNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) muster roll in Kheyawada village, SHO Budhadeet police station Amarnath Kalbailia said. He was rushed to a hospital where doctors declared him brought dead, the SHO added. The exact reason of the death will be ascertained after post-mortem, he said. Though, prime facie, the labourer most likely died because of the heat wave conditions in the region, he added. The body has been handed over to the family, the SHO said. A case has been registered under section 174 (investigation of unnatural deaths) of CrPc and investigation is underway, he said. [31 dead as rain, strong winds, storm hit Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat] The Kota region of the state is experiencing extreme heat conditions with the maximum temperature settling at 43.5 degrees Celsius and minimum 29.4 degree Celsius on Friday, the hottest this season so far. The district administration has amended the timings of MNREGA muster roll from 6 am to 1 pm in view of rising temperature, an official said. PTI List of which have and which have not started NEET UG Counselling 2021 SSC Hindi translator exams 2019: Additional names of successful candidates released on ssc.nic.in New Delhi oi-Oneindia Staff By Anuj Cariappa New Delhi, Apr 27: The Staff Selection Commission has released an additional list of successful candidates who have cleared Paper 1 of the SSC Hindi translator exams 2019. The same is available on the official website. The commission had conducted the exam for the recruitment of Hindi reachers and translators on January 13 2019. The successful candidates can now appear for Paper 11. SSC GD Constable result 2019 date: How to check answer key and raise objection The second list was released after several names of successful candidates were erroneously omitted from the first list that was declared on March 22. It was found that 68 ex-servicemen candidates belonging to the UR category were declared not qualified even after scoring the required marks. More details are available on ssc.nic.in. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, April 27, 2019, 7:51 [IST] Work in full swing to repair 25-km LoC fence felled by snow as Pak BAT/infiltrators prowl With at least 20-25 km of anti-infiltration fence on the Line of Control (LoC) still down due to heavy snowfall in the North Kashmir region which is most vulnerable to infiltrations by terrorists the Indian Army is on a heightened vigil on the border, especially amid reports that the elite Special Services Group (SSG) commandos of the Pakistan Army are deployed besides the regulars. These units coupled with terrorists ambush the Indian Army. The Indian Army has a window of just a fortnight to assess and repair the anti-infiltration fence before snow starts melting and terrorists try sneaking through the gaps left by the damaged fence. Post-Balakot, Pakistan has enhanced its troop deployment along the LoC posing an increased challenge to the Indian Army that is apprehending a spike in infiltration bids from across the border in summer. Expressing these concerns, officials in the security establishment said on Saturday that Jammu & Kashmir this year witnessed heavy snowfall for a long spell. As a result, over 20-25 km of fence in Kupwara, Gulmarg, Gurez and Karnah was badly damaged due to the sheer weight of snow. Fearing that the ultras backed by the Pakistan Army will try to exploit this situation by infiltrating through the ingress routes now without the fence, officials said the first few days in the summer months may witness several infiltration attempts. Also, Pakistans Border Action Teams (BAT) comprising SSG commandos and terrorists will attempt to carry out cross-border raids and ambush the Indian Army patrols to gain moral ascendancy back home, they said. With a timeline of 15 days or so available to repair the fence, the Army has thus strengthened its anti-infiltration grid along the LoC. Patrolling along the infiltration routes, especially around damaged fence, has been increased, they said adding the Army this winter did not thin out the troop strength unlike the past. Elaborating upon the fence aspect, officials said a variety of sensors and other sophisticated surveillance equipment, fitted along the barbed wire fence to keep a watch on the cross LoC movement also suffered damages during snowfall. Recent reports have already indicated that snow has started melting in the higher reaches. Moreover, some of the mountain passes along the traditional infiltration routes in North Kashmir too are expected to be clear of snow in the coming days and trained terrorists will try to infiltrate into the region, they said. Incidentally, the first four months of this year have seen virtually nil infiltration due to closure of ingress routes due to snow. With terrorist related incidents showing a downward trend, Pakistan is desperate to up the ante and will go all out to push in ultras, officials said. They have also not ruled out a spike in ceasefire violations as the Pakistan Army will provide covering fire to the terrorists to infiltrate into India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday filed his nomination papers here for the Varanasi Lok Sabha seats in the presence of key NDA leaders a day after holding massive roadshow in the holy city. Mindful of a decline in vote percentage across the States in the first three phases of the Lok Sabha polls, the PM asked party workers to ensure record voting in Varanasi. Before filing his papers in city Kachhari (collectorate), Modi addressed booth level BJP workers and visited the famous Kal Bhairav temple, traditionally known as Nagar Kotwal, whose permission is needed before entering into any venture. Modi, who could not visit the temple in 2014, is seen this time round to be keen to observe all local traditions. Four persons Pt Madan Mohan Malviyas adopted daughter, Annapurna Shukla, CSIR scientist Ram Shanker Patel, social worker Subhash Gupta and Dom Raja Jagdish Choudhury proposed the nomination of Modi, who is seeking re-election from the ancient city. Caste equations in the State were apparently kept in view for choosing the proposers. Varanasi is due for election on May 19 and Modi is challenged by SPs Shalini Yadav (SP-BSP-RLD alliance candidate) and Congress Ajay Rai. NDA leaders made strong presence here in an attempt to show unity within BJP-led alliance vis-a-vis Oppositions grand alliance, which has put up a stiff challenge to the BJP in Uttar Pradesh. Those who showed up at Modis nomination included Prakash Singh Badal (SAD), Nitish Kumar (JD-U), Udhav Thackeray (Shiv Sena), Ram Vilas Paswan (LJP) Thambhi Durai (AIADMK) and Annupriya Patel (Apana Dal). Chief Ministers from North-Eastern States, including BJPs trouble-shooter in N-E Himanta Biswa Sarma too joined the NDA gathering. The BJP was represented by all top leaders led by party president Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Sushma Swaraj, JP Nadda, Yogi Adityanath, Piyush Goyal, Mahendrath Pandey, Bhupendra Yadav, Manoj Tiwari and several State Ministers. In away, Modi sought to convert each of his activity in the city to mobilise voters and connect with them in the rest of Eastern UP by his roadshows and address to booth-level workers. In his address to BJPs booth-level workers, Modi asked them to follow mantra of mera booth sabse majboot and encourage first-time voters to exercise their right to vote. The PM said a pro-incumbency wave is being witnessed for the first time in the country and noted that the mood is festive from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, adding he has worked honestly for good governance and the people have made up their minds that they want Modi Sarkar again. Magnetic Buzzers Market 2019 | Global Industry Overview 2025 | Top Companies Murata, TDK, Kingstate Electronics, DB Products Limited, Changzhou Chinasound, CUI Inc Magnetic Buzzers Market https://www.upmarketresearch.com/home/requested_sample/111228 https://www.upmarketresearch.com/home/enquiry_before_buying/111228 https://www.upmarketresearch.com/home/requested_sample/111228 https://www.upmarketresearch.com/home/request_for_discount/111228 www.upmarketresearch.com As per the latest research study published by Up Market Research, Global Magnetic Buzzers Market is estimated to grow at a healthy CAGR % in the coming years. The research report showcases qualitative and quantitative estimations by the industry analysts. The report documents first-hand data, post verification from the industry experts along with each industry manufacturers by the market valuation. Magnetic Buzzers Market report also gives an extensive analysis of market share, latest industry trends and forecast data analysis with respect to sales revenue, market growth, and demand and supply scenario.Request Free Sample Copy Of this Report @Furthermore, the report also evaluates the key opportunities available in the market and outlines the factors that are and will be driving the expansion of the industry. Growth of the Global Magnetic Buzzers Market has been forecasted for the time period 2019-2025, taking into consideration the previous sales patterns, the market growth drivers, current and future trends specific to particular regions and globally.This research study also presents the market competition landscape and a corresponding detailed analysis of the major vendor/manufacturers in the market.The key manufacturers covered in this report:MurataTDKKingstate ElectronicsDB Products LimitedChangzhou ChinasoundCUI IncHuayu ElectronicsHunston ElectronicsDongguan Park's IndustrialArioseHitpointMallory SonalertDongguan RuiboBolin GroupSobertonOmronKEPO ElectronicsKaconOBO SeahornThis report provides the details about the global as well as regional volume, market share, size and gross margin of the competitor companies. It also analyzes noteworthy trends, emerging value of CAGR and present as well as future developments in the industry.Magnetic Buzzers Market report also provides a realistic valuation of the region specific market and offers a place for key contributors to find potential regional growth opportunities.Region wise analyses of the top producers and consumers, focus on product capacity, production, value, consumption, market share and growth opportunity in below mentioned key regions; North America - U.S., Canada, Mexico Europe - U.K., France, Italy, Germany, Russia, Spain etc. Asia-Pacific - China, Japan, India, Southeast Asia etc. South America - Brazil, Argentina etc. Middle East & Africa - Saudi Arabia, African countries etc.For More Information On This Report, Please Visit @By product type Segmentation: data from 2014 to 2019; and forecast to 2025Active Magnetic BuzzerPassive Magnetic BuzzerBy application Segmentation: data from 2014 to 2019; and forecast to 2025AutomotiveAlarmToyTimerRequest Free Sample Copy Of this Report @Research objectives and Reason to procure this report: To study and analyze the global consumption (value & volume) by key regions/countries, product type and application, history data from 2014 to 2018, and forecast to 2025. To understand the structure of Magnetic Buzzers Market by identifying its various subsegments. To better understand the industry leaders/manufacturers, by outlining and analyzing their sales volume, value, market share, market competition landscape, SWOT analysis and development plans in the near future. To receive comprehensive information about the key factors influencing the market growth (opportunities, drivers, industry-specific challenges and risks). To analyze competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions, mergers in the market. To strategically outline the key players in the market and extensively analyze their growth strategies.Avail Discount On this Report @All possible factors that can influence the market are already included in this research study and have been accounted for, evaluated in detail, verified through extensive primary/secondary research, and investigated to get the concluding quantitative and qualitative data. The market size for key players and sub-segments is normalized, and the effect of inflation, economic downturns, along with regulatory & policy changes or other factors are accounted for in the market forecast. This data is collated and added with detailed inputs and analysis from Up Market Research and presented in this exclusive report.About UpMarketResearch:The UpMarketResearch () is a leading distributor of market research report with more than 800+ global clients. As a market research company, we take pride in equipping our clients with insights and data that holds the power to truly make a difference to their business. Our mission is singular and well- defined we want to help our clients envisage their business environment so that they are able to make informed, strategic and therefore successful decisions for themselves.Contact Info:Name: Alex MathewsEmail: Alex@upmarketresearch.comOrganization: UpMarketResearchAddress: 500 East E Street, Ontario, CA 91764, United States. Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 (Glp-1) Analogs Market Increasing the Growth Worldwide By 2026, Explore By Global Key Players Novo Nordisk, Eli-Lilly and Company, Sanofi, AstraZeneca plc, GlaxoSmithKline plc. Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 (Glp-1) Analogs https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/insight/request-sample/1252 https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/insight/request-customization/1252 Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) analogs also known as incretin mimetics are class of drugs indicated for type-2 diabetes mellitus to lower the blood sugar level. GLP-1 analogs prevents the breakdown of GLP-1, thereby enhancing the glucose depended insulin release, suppresses the glucagon release (which reduces hepatic glucose output), and reduces gastric emptying rate (resulting in weight loss from reduced appetite). GLP-1 analogs do not cause hypoglycemia like other class of anti-diabetic medications. Also, GLP-1 analogs provide weight reduction benefit.Get In-Depth Sample Copy of Research @High prevalence of diabetes in the U.S. and Asia-Pacific is expected to drive the growth of Glucagon-like peptide-1 analogs marketAccording to the International Diabetes Federations (IDF) Diabetes Atlas 2017, around 425 million patients are suffering from diabetes worldwide. According to World Health Organization (WHO) report 2017, diabetes is one of top three cause of death among the non-communicable diseases. China (114.4 million), India (72.9 million) and U.S. (30.2 million) are top three economies having high prevalence of diabetes. Such high number of prevalence would offers an immense growth opportunity to the GLP-1 analogs market. This is also from the fact that approximately 212.4 million people worldwide are with undiagnosed diabetes.Increasing awareness amongst physicians regarding benefits of GLP-1 analogs over conventional anti-diabetic medication is propelling the growth of the market.GLP-1 analogs are administered through subcutaneous injection with the help of injectable pen, which are relatively expensive (US$ 492 for 30-day therapy) as compared to conventional type-2 diabetes medication such as insulin sensitizers and secretagogues (US$ 5-9 for 30-day therapy) which is the major factor restraining growth of the market. Also, there is an issue of patient compliance. For instance, GLP-1 analogs need to be administered through injection as compared to other anti-diabetic medications, which are taken orally in tablet form.Exenatide is the first GLP-1 analog approved in 2005, marketed by AstraZeneca under brand names Byetta and Byedureon Bcise. Its patent expired in October 2017. Teva got approval to commercialize the generic version of Byetta and its abbreviated new drug application is under FDA review. Novo Nordisk in October 2017 received FDA approval for once-a-week GLP-1 analog semaglutide. GSK announced to discontinue the global sale of albiglutide brand Tanzeum, Eperzan from July 2018 due to low profits. Taspoglutide is a molecule being developed by Roche targeting once a week dosing as against daily dosing regimen of other GLP-1 analogs. However, in 2016 it decided to halt clinical development due to high gastrointestinal side effects and hypersensitivity reactions.Major Key Players:Key players operating in the global Glucagon-like peptide-1 analogs market include Novo Nordisk, Eli-Lilly and Company, Sanofi, AstraZeneca plc, GlaxoSmithKline plc F., Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd.Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Analogs Market Taxonomy:On the basis of drug:ExenatideLiraglutideLixisenatideDulaglutideSemaglutideAlbiglutideRequest For Customization of Research Report @About Coherent Market Insights:Coherent Market Insights is a prominent market research and consulting firm offering action-ready syndicated research reports, custom market analysis, consulting services, and competitive analysis through various recommendations related to emerging market trends, technologies, and potential absolute dollar opportunity.Contact Us:Mr. ShahCoherent Market Insights1001 4th Ave,#3200Seattle, WA 98154Tel: +1-206-701-6702Email: sales@coherentmarketinsights.com Men Leather Shoes Market Is Recurring & Impressive Growth Generating Sector Through 2026: C. & J. Clark International Ltd (UK), Dolce & Gabbana (Italy), Guccio Gucci S.p.A (Italy), Cole Haan LLC (U.S.) Men Leather Shoes Market https://www.worldwidemarketreports.com/sample/247848 https://www.worldwidemarketreports.com/quiry/247848 This Global Men Leather Shoes Market report 2019-2026 focus on global and regional market, providing information on major players like manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, traders, customers, investors and etc., major types, major applications from global and major regions such as Europe, North America, China, Japan, Southeast Asia and etc. Data type include capacity, production, market share, price, revenue, cost, gross, gross margin, growth rate, consumption, import, export and etc. Industry chain, manufacturing process, cost structure, marketing channel are also analyzed in this report.In this study, the years considered to estimate Men Leather Shoes Market size to grow from XX Million in 2018 to XX Million by 2026, at an estimated CAGR of XX%:Initial Year: 2018Historic Year: 2014 - 2018Projected Year: 2019Forecast Year: 2019 2026Get Free Sample Report Here @:Men Leather Shoes market report covers the Key Players' data, including: shipment, revenue, gross profit, interview record, business distribution etc., these data help the consumer know about the competitors better. This report also covers all the regions and countries of the world, which shows a regional development status, including market size.Major Players operating in market: C. & J. Clark International Ltd (UK), Dolce & Gabbana (Italy), Guccio Gucci S.p.A (Italy), Cole Haan LLC (U.S.), Calvin Klein Inc. (U.S.), Burberry Group Inc. (UK), Louis Vuitton (U.S.), Prada S.p.A.(Italy), Hugo Boss AG (Germany), Alden Shoe Company (U.S.), Belle International, Aldo Group, ECCO Sko A/S, Salvatore Ferragamo S.p.A. among othersThis Men Leather Shoes market report also covers segment data, including: type segment, industry segment etc. cover different segment market size. Also cover different industries clients' information, which is very important for the Key Players.Men Leather Shoes Market Segment by Regions, regional analysis coversNorth America (United States, Canada and Mexico)Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)South America (Brazil, Argentina, Colombia etc.)Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)Table of Contents1. Research Objective and Assumptions2. Market Preview3. Market Dynamics, Regulations, and Trends Analysis4. Global Men Leather Shoes Market, By Product Type, 2019- 2026 (US$ Million & KT & KT)5. Global Men Leather Shoes Market, By Region, 2019- 2026 (US$ Million & KT)6. Competitive Landscape7. Section* If you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.Place an Inquire before Purchase:About WMRWorldwide Market Reports is your one-stop repository of detailed and in-depth market research reports compiled by an extensive list of publishers from across the globe. We offer reports across virtually all domains and an exhaustive list of sub-domains under the sun. The in-depth market analysis by some of the most vastly experienced analysts provide our diverse range of clients from across all industries with vital decision making insights to plan and align their market strategies in line with current market trends.Contact Us:Mr. ShahWorldwide Market Reports1001 4th Ave,#3200Seattle, WA 98154,U.STel: +1 415 871 0703Email:sales@worldwidemarketreports.com What led a judge to overturn the notorious case against the man convicted of killing Oregons prisons chief in 1989 when other judges upheld his verdict and life sentence over decades of appeals? Last weeks stunning ruling boiled down to one critical and difficult legal hurdle cleared by Frank Gables federal public defenders, plus two new federal constitutional claims that hadnt been raised before. First, Gables lawyers successfully convinced U.S. Magistrate Judge John V. Acosta there was a showing of actual innocence supported by new and old information. The judge cited eight material witnesses in the case who have now recanted their testimony and a record of improper interrogation and flawed polygraphs used to question the witnesses and shape many of their statements to police. The actual innocence showing opened the door for the judge to then consider the merits of Gables petition, despite procedural hurdles that typically would have barred further review of his case. The judge then pored over the two main claims made by Gables lawyers: that the U.S. Constitution required the jury at Gables murder trial to hear evidence that another man had confessed to the crime and that Gables lawyers provided ineffective counsel by not arguing that the trial courts exclusion of the confession violated Gables federal rights. Acosta found that the confession would have raised reasonable doubt in Gables case and its exclusion violated Gables Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses and his 14th Amendment due process right to present a complete defense and show that another person may have committed the crime. Citing the constitutional violations, Acosta ordered the state to either release Gable from custody or retry him in 90 days. The latter option, legal observers say, isnt viable, based on the case record and the judges findings. Although the evidence presented at trial in 1991 resulted in a guilty verdict, the court concludes that it is more likely than not that no reasonable juror would find Gable guilty in light of the totality of all of the evidence uncovered since that time, particularly the newly presented evidence of witness recantations, Acosta wrote in his 94-page decision. The ruling has given Gable hope of leaving prison soon as an exonerated man in a 30-year-old murder case that spurred conspiracy theories and accusations of a bungled investigation almost from the moment it began. Gable, now 59, is serving life without the possibility of parole in the Jan. 17, 1989, killing of Michael Francke, who was brought in to lead the state Department of Corrections two years earlier. Francke, 42, bled to death from stab wounds, and was found dead on the north porch of the Dome Building in Salem where he worked. The door of his nearby state-issued Pontiac stood open, its dome light found on. Gable, a local methamphetamine dealer at the time, was arrested 15 months later after a series of his cohorts said they saw him stab Francke. The state argued at trial that Francke interrupted Gable as Gable burgled Franckes car to get snitch papers. Before Acostas order, both sides agreed to allow his ruling to stand without review by a federal district judge. That means Gable and his attorneys now anxiously wait to see if Oregons attorney general will appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The state Attorney Generals Office hasnt yet indicated what it will do. It has 30 days to file a notice of appeal with the 9th Circuit. If the state appeals, it also likely will seek to halt Gables release in the interim, which Gables lawyers are expected to fight. One complication is that Gable has a nearly nine-year federal sentence for a September 1991 gun conviction hovering over him. It was supposed to run consecutively to his state murder case. If the state case is completely vacated, the 30 years hes already served should suffice for the federal sentence, but Gable could face three years of federal post-prison supervision from that case. Gables new wife, Rainy Storm, was the first to tell him of the judges ruling. Gables lawyers sent him a copy of the decision by mail to the prison in Lansing, Kansas, where hes now being held and have talked to him since. Assistant Federal Public Defender Nell Brown, who was first appointed to the case in May 2007, said she was relieved to receive the favorable decision because she believes, based on years of investigation by her team, that her client is innocent. Without federal relief, Mr. Gable will spend the rest of his life in prison for a crime he did not commit, she said. Gable was getting anxious, wondering when the judges ruling would be issued, said his older sister, Francine Sinnett, based on her phone conversations and visits with him in prison. The last oral argument in the case occurred nearly two and a half years ago, in November 2016. The longer it took the more worried we got, but it sounds like the judge must have read every scrap of paper he got his hands on, and for that, were very thankful, Sinnett said. WITNESSES RECANT, POLYGRAPHS FLAWED, OTHER CONFESSION EXCLUDED The Oregon Court of Appeals had upheld the verdict against Gable in the Marion County trial. The Oregon Supreme Court denied review at one point and then later considered the case but rejected a prior argument about the sentencing options presented to the jury. In 2007, Gable first filed a petition in federal court for habeas corpus relief, asking a judge to consider whether his imprisonment is lawful. He wrote the document himself. Brown, along with Assistant Federal Public Defender Mark Ahlemeyer, amended it, and in 2014, added the actual innocence claim. What appeared to stand out to Acosta was new evidence that Gables lawyers presented in detailed briefs, a Power Point presentation and a videotaped recording played in court of the other mans confession. The magistrate judge identified numerous problems with the case against Gable: -- Eight witnesses have recanted their statements to police. They had either reported seeing Gable at the scene or said they heard him confess to killing the prisons director, but now all say they lied in implicating Gable. Although lawyers for the state argued that the recantations werent credible, Acosta found they were. He noted that none of the witnesses who withdrew their statements are related to Gable; they were acquaintances of his over two decades ago in the seedy drug and criminal world of Salem. They have no personal relationship with him now and their recantations occurred at different times with reasonable explanations, the judge said. At the time of their testimony, Acosta also noted, many of these witnesses had an antagonistic relationship with Gable, including two who both believed Gables cooperation with police had led to their own arrests and another who claimed Gable owed him money. Two of the eight recanted their stories before his trial and three others had admitted to friends before the trial that their testimony against Gable would be false. -- The judge found a pattern of coercive interrogation tactics and excessive polygraph examinations to secure incriminating statements from the witnesses. He quoted, for example, one witness, Cappie Harden, who said, The police questioned and polygraphed me many times[.] I initially told the truth, which was that I was not an eyewitness to the Francke murder. However, after the police threatened me and my family I eventually adopted the false story to which I testified at grand jury trial. The judge relied heavily on a polygraph expert hired by Gables attorneys, David C. Raskin, who has taught university courses about polygraph techniques and trained government and law enforcement polygraph examiners. Raskin analyzed the records of the police interrogations and concluded that guilt presumptive police interview practices and giving people polygraph tests multiple times in a single day or multiple times over several days produced false testimony. The more someone is tested, the less reliable the results are, according to Raskin. The tests were used as a psychological club to pressure witnesses to change their accounts, he said. One witness, Jodie Swearingen, had 23 polygraphs, including nine by one detective from Jan.16 to Jan. 19, 1990. I have never seen this many tests administered to one person in the 43 years I have been working in this field, Raskin told the court, referring to Swearingens experience. The judge noted: Swearingen says she would tell them the truth and they would say she was lying, and that when she told them what they wanted to hear, they said she was telling the truth, when in fact it was a lie. Swearingen ended up being a defense witness for Gable at trial, but then was impeached by a state prosecutor during cross-examination, based on her prior statements to police. -- Then-Salem resident Johnny Crouse confessed to killing Francke but the trial judge wouldnt allow it to be admitted. Crouse, who was on parole for a robbery at the time, repeatedly confessed to murdering Francke, telling numerous law enforcement officers as well as his mother, brother and girlfriend that he stabbed Francke when Francke caught him burglarizing his car. Crouse's confession, Gables lawyers argued, was consistent with the crime scene and autopsy evidence, corroborated by eyewitness testimony and considered truthful by the one neutral polygrapher from the FBI who was flown in from out of state to test him. Crouse described the altercation in detail, including where he wounded Francke -- in the arm and chest -- a description consistent with the knife wounds on Franckes body, the judge said. Crouse also said he made a round house punch with his right hand and hit Francke on the left side of his face. That would account for abrasions to Franckes face that remained unexplained at trial, Acosta said. Less than three months after Franckes murder, before any witness accounts emerged which described the altercation, Crouse knew a plethora of physical details about events immediately before, during, and immediately following the altercation that he could not have known unless he killed Francke, the judge wrote. While the judge noted that Crouse gave conflicting statements to police and later recanted his confession, Acosta found others described Crouses initial confession as credible. He cited an investigators contemporaneous notes taken of Crouses interview that indicated Crouse was spontaneous and smoothly spoken when he confessed and didnt hesitate answering questions like he did at other times. In an April 5, 1989, phone call to his brother, Crouse confessed to killing Francke and described how the altercation unfolded, consistent with his confession to police. He also admitted to the murder on five separate occasions to four different people that same month. Gable has demonstrated that the exclusion of Crouses statements had a substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jurys verdict: evidence of Crouses confession would have filled a major gap in the defense case, and would have greatly increased the likelihood of the jurys entertaining a reasonable doubt of (Gables) guilt, the judge wrote. Yet while Acosta found Gables lawyers cast serious doubt on the states case, he stopped short of declaring Gable innocent. Although Gable has presented sufficient evidence of a constitutional violation that probably resulted in the conviction of someone who is actually innocent, Gable has not made the truly persuasive and extraordinarily high showing necessary to support a finding that he is actually innocent, he said. Acosta denied whats called a free-standing claim of actual innocence, which legal experts say rarely occurs unless theres some proof of exoneration through DNA evidence. In this case, ckes clothing was retested for any DNA evidence but it was too soaked with his own blood to turn up any useful information, according to federal public defenders. Oregon Federal Public Defender Lisa Hay credited the work of Brown and Ahlemeyer, and their investigators Wendy Kunkel and Brian Warner, who she said exhaustively researched, investigated, and briefed Gables case. Our arguments were grounded in longstanding constitutional principles and we relied on safeguards set out in federal law to protect people in Mr. Gables position, Brown said. -- Maxine Bernstein Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox. PacifiCorp ratepayers could save nearly $250 million if the utility shut four coal-fired units in Wyoming by 2022 and replaced them with other resources, including solar, battery storage, a natural gas-fired plant and wholesale market purchases, according to a new study of the companys coal fleet. PacifiCorp is Oregons second largest electric utility and still meets about 60 percent of its customers energy needs with electricity generated at coal-fired plants spread across the west, though none are in Oregon. Those plants are growing more and more uneconomical due to increasingly costly coal, expensive environmental upgrades required to meet haze reduction rules, and the availability of cheaper renewable and natural gas-fired power. For years, PacifiCorp has faced increasing pressure from ratepayer and environmental advocates to retire many of those plants early. That pressure is unlikely to abate, no matter the Trump Administrations efforts to prop up coal mining and coal-fired electricity. The Oregon Legislature passed a bill in 2016 that will prohibit utilities from recovering the cost of their coal-fired power plants from Oregon customers after 2030. Since Oregon customers currently pay 25 percent of the freight on PacifiCorps generation fleet, that essentially forces the utility to justify any new investment in coal will be cost effective by 2030, or pass those costs off on a much smaller base of customers in other states. Meanwhile, Oregon lawmakers are considering a carbon pricing scheme that would add another layer of operating costs on the plants after 2030, given their substantial emissions of carbon dioxide equivalents. The coal study released this week is in preparation for a new version of PacifiCorps long-term resource plan, which it updates every two years and will submit to Oregon regulators this summer. The plan will outline how it intends to meet power needs over the next two decades at the least cost and least risk to ratepayers. It will include an action plan for the next five years along with a preferred portfolio of resources. The company says it hasnt made any final decisions. But based on the results of the study, the action plan could include the closure of the remaining two coal-fired boilers at the companys Naughton Power plant, and two of the four coal units at its Jim Bridger coal plant both in Wyoming. Thats more than 1,000 megawatts of generation that PacifiCorp would need to replace, but the study suggests thats a far cheaper course than keeping them running. We continuously examine the costs and benefits of how the company generates electricity to ensure we are making the best decisions for customers, said Rick Link, PacifiCorp vice president of resource planning and acquisitions. The study reflects the ongoing changing economics for coal driven by market forces. In fact, the study suggests that a number of the companys other coal plants will be inefficient to operate before the end of their depreciable lives. But its not clear the PacifiCorp system can handle replacing them all at once, from a ratepayer or reliability standpoint. This is a tip off to where theyre going, said Bob Jenks, executive director at the Citizens Utility Board of Oregon, a ratepayer advocacy group. Its likely that these four units will happen in this (resource plan). But in each successive (plan), well take a look at the others and find benefits to shutting more. The story by Mahashweta Devi, Rudaali is all about the struggles of a woman. A Hindi play Rudaali was staged at Shaheed Bhavan auditorium here on Friday. Directed by KG Trivedi, the play is adopted from Mahashweta Devis story with the same name. The play was beautifully performed by the artists of Trikarshi Theatre Troupe. Sanichari, the protagonist, is an active Dalit widow who lives in a village of Bihar, reeling under the burden of earning for her family. Without any earning family member, she faces much difficulty, feeding his family as she was cursed as a 'witch' who has devoured the men of the house. Sanichari was alone and she finds a supporter in her long-lost friend Bikhni, another ill-fated Dalit widow who was left alone by her own son. The two form a deep bond and a partnership for survival as they discover financial help in an different occupation as hired mourners (Rudali) to add pretension to funerals of the feudal rich in their two-faced society. The new profession gave them their first sense of mastery. But then, Sanichari suffers another blow when Bikhni dies from dysentery as given lack of basic medical care. After facing this much of loss, Sanichari is, moreover, shocked. But she refused to take a break and emerges rebel against her isolation. She visits the brothel to recruit a band of Rudalis all by herself from among the prostitutes, where she encounters her fiercely defiant runaway daughter-in-law Parvatia. Wishing to free them from mistreatment of the flesh trade, Sanichari motivates them on how to surpass as false mourners at funerals of the rich landlords. The play culminates with these prostitutes faking loud mourning at the death of the very man who pushed them into the pyre of prostitution. There is a sense of freedom from their indignant life in this alternative profession that earns them cash, food grains and goodies without having to sell their bodies. LOS ANGELES Los Angeles County health officials told more than 900 college students and staff members who may have been exposed to measles to stay home this week, in one of the largest quarantine orders in state history. The declaration has raised questions about how exactly the orders will be implemented at the University of California, Los Angeles and California State, Los Angeles, where students have been diagnosed with the disease, and how effective the mandate will be. But there is one thing public health experts agree on: They dont envy L.A. Measles is one of the most contagious diseases in the world and a single case can lead to hundreds more. Banishing people to their homes becomes a necessary last resort in a measles outbreak, experts say, especially on college campuses where cases can rapidly spread. What else can you do? said Columbia University public health professor Dr. Stephen Morse. Its disruptive, its resource-intensive and it doesnt make people feel very pleased this is basically the measure youre left with. The five people diagnosed with measles so far in L.A. County this year include a UCLA student and a Cal State L.A. student. In total, health officials have told more than 900 people without proof of vaccination to stay home this week, though that number had dropped to around 700 by Friday afternoon as more people confirmed their immunization status, according to officials. The orders are a major undertaking for health officials. If more people do get measles on either of the campuses, even more students may have to be quarantined, possibly through the end of school year, officials say. Thank God were not confronted with this on my campus, said one East Coast university medical professor. Health officials in other parts of the country have also been turning to extreme measures to try to stop measles outbreaks from mushrooming, including barring unvaccinated children from public spaces and mandating vaccines under penalty of fines. The efforts are the result of public health officials desperation as 2019 shapes up to be the worst measles year in decades in the United States. So far this year, 625 people have been diagnosed with measles nationwide, the highest case count since the disease was considered eliminated in 2000. On Thursday evening, UCLA senior Johnny Schmidt was riding a city bus when he received an unusually long text message. It was from the UCLA dean of students. You may have been exposed to measles, which is very contagious, the text read. You are mandated to isolate yourself until you can provide proof of immunization. Schmidt panicked, unsure whether he needed to immediately get off the bus. But then he remembered he had been vaccinated against measles as a child. He asked his mother to scan his records and send them to him. A few hours later, officials freed him from quarantine. UCLA sent similar messages to more than 100 students who went to class in April in the same two buildings as a student sick with measles. Schmidt attended class in both buildings. Measles spreads through coughing and sneezing, but the virus can linger in the air for up to two hours after the sick person leaves the room. If a measles patient touched a desk or a doorknob, people can pick up measles that way, too. The order Schmidt received said he could not attend class or go anywhere else in the coming days. If he had roommates, he could not quarantine himself in his apartment, the order said. That part was confusing, he said. Schmidt said he likely would have quarantined himself in his apartment anyway and just informed his roommates and health officials. I dont know where else I would go, he said. As of Friday afternoon, the number of people quarantined at UCLA had dropped to 45, with only one student who lives on campus still under the quarantine orders, according to a county officials . Officials said they had made accommodations for that student to not stay in dorm buildings, but did not provide further details. In 2015, the University of California system approved a regulation requiring that students be fully vaccinated before enrolling at any campus. At California universities in the last decade, there have been outbreaks of mumps, meningitis and norovirus. But amid pushback, UC officials did not begin enforcing the regulation until fall 2018, the beginning of the current school year. Therefore, most students at UCLA enrolled before the requirement took effect. At Cal State L.A., an infected student earlier this month visited a campus library that typically has about 2,000 people in and out per day, according to county officials. The health departments investigation identified 660 students and 127 staff who were in the library on the same day and may have been exposed to measles and had not yet shown health officials proof of immunization, according to a statement from the university. As of Friday afternoon, the quarantine orders were in place for 550 students and 106 staff members. None of the roughly 1,000 students who live on-campus are under quarantine orders, according to campus spokesman Robert Lopez. Health officials said they would lift the quarantine orders as soon as people showed documentation that they had been immunized or had a lab test to verify their immunity. Without that proof, people exposed at UCLA could be quarantined until April 30 and those at Cal State L.A. until May 2. Really quarantine and isolation is the only thing at that stage, said Dr. Cameron Wolfe, an infectious disease specialist at Duke University. For each patient with measles, health workers have to track everywhere that person went while contagious and figure out who they may have come into contact with during an eight-day period when they are most infectious, Wolfe said. One sick patient could have come into contact with hundreds, if not thousands, of people, especially in a college campus, he said. Once health workers have identified those people, they need to figure out which ones of them were vaccinated. The ones who havent been immunized will likely need to be quarantined. People who develop measles can spread the disease to others four days before their symptoms show up, so officials cant wait to see if they develop symptoms, he said. Suddenly, thats a lot of people, he said. So you can see how the concentric circles of potential contacts get pretty large, pretty quickly, especially if youre in an environment like a college campus getting your arms wrapped around that many people so quickly would be incredibly challenging. Wolfe said that the vaccine can be administered in the first 72 hours after exposure, but it is difficult to catch people in that window. The exposures at UCLA and Cal State L.A. were on April 9 and 11, so the 72-hour window has passed. Such a large quarantine order is rare, in part because it is difficult to identify everyone a measles patient may have come into contact with on the subway or at a Starbucks. School rosters make that task easier. The California health department said in a statement that it is not aware of a recent instance of a quarantine of this size for measles in California. This year, officials in other parts of the country have also resorted to drastic measures to try to stop the spread of measles. In New York City, where nearly 400 people have come down with measles this year, officials earlier this month began requiring some unvaccinated individuals in Brooklyn to pay a $1,000 fine if they did not get their shots. The measure was challenged in court, but was upheld. In Rockland County, northwest of New York City and also the site of a major measles outbreak, officials issued an order last month banning unvaccinated children from public. That measure was overturned in court. Theres a big difference between what New York did and what theyre doing here, because the people in L.A. have been exposed to measles, said UC Hastings law professor Dorit Reiss. L.A. did not issue a blanket order affecting anyone in the city who is unvaccinated. States have the legal power to issue quarantines for people who have been exposed to contagious diseases such as measles, she said. Still, sometimes there are legal challenges against such quarantine orders, but those lawsuits typically fail, she said. Most of the time, people are asked to stay at home, she said. So its pretty run of the mill to do that for some people exposed. -- Los Angeles Times A committee of community leaders is working on a response to a study released last year that reported there's a need for more affordable housing in Midland, and a local waiting list has more than 200 applicants looking for assistance. The response to some studies in the 1990s led to the formation of the Affordable Housing Alliance (AHA) in Midland. Roger Mikusek has served as the executive director of the non-profit for the past 20 years. The retired banker credits Jean Popoff for encouraging the United Way of Midland County to address the ongoing issue for persons living with lower incomes. Popoff has been in involved in several philanthropic efforts. She's the wife of a former CEO of The Dow Chemical Co., Frank Popoff. United Way provided $40,000 in seed money to get the process started. AHA first worked with a developer, William C. Smith, of Mount Pleasant to construct an 11-unit complex at the corner of State and Grove streets near downtown Midland. Those units are called Grove Street Commons. AHA has now grown to provide 95 units in Midland County. The non-profit later built Granite Club Acres off of Bay City Road on the east side of Midland, Chippewassee Court along M-20, on the west side of Midland, and a 22-unit complex near the park in the center of Coleman. Brenda Green moved her family into one of AHA's three bedroom apartments in Coleman in 2012. Her husband, David, died in 2005, at the age of 44. The couple has four children, two sons and two daughters. Green, who cleans houses for a living, applied to get into the affordable housing complex after not being able afford the home she and David owned south of Coleman. AHA charges Green $560 for rent each month. That price includes water. The rate is based on Green's income. The townhouse style unit has a basement and a washer and dryer. "It's been wonderful to me. They've been wonderful to me," Green said. Green's daughters now live with her. Green is saving money to purchase a newer car. "If I was living anywhere else, it could take a lot longer," she said. "I'm just trying to make ends meet. It's still a challenge but it's a challenge for everybody." AHA also has partnered with many organizations. The Dow Chemical Co. donated six duplexes on East Ashman near the Juvenile Care Center. AHA worked with Shelterhouse through federal grants they received to acquire 12 rental homes around Midland to serve victims of domestic violence. Memorial Presbyterian Church donated money to build a duplex and Habitat for Humanity has built two homes for AHA. The organization eventually paid the $40,000 in seed money back to United Way. Many of AHA's tenants earn as little as 30% of the median income, which is $65,000 in the Midland area. Some earn just $13,000 to $14,000 per year. Rents can be as low as just over $308 and go up to over $500 depending on the size of the apartment and the tenant's income. About two-thirds of the units offer two bedrooms while the remainder have three bedrooms. There are two just one-bedroom units in the AHA system. AHA does not pay property tax to the City of Midland. Instead, the Alliance pays payment in lieu of taxes, or PILOT. That's equal to 4% of AHA's net income minus any vacancies. Mikusek said if AHA had to pay property tax, it would have to increase rents by around $100 per month, which he said would it make it very difficult for his tenants. AHA currently has a waiting list of 240 applicants. That list is reviewed every year. The typical tenant rents from AHA for about four years. AHA's office moved into a former Chemical Bank branch on M-20 last year. Mikusek said he is pleased with the service AHA provides. "We have so many single moms with one, two, three kids. They're trying to make do. " he said. "There is a dire need for safe, affordable housing for persons with low-income. ... For affordable housing to be successful, it has to be subsidized." A former Freeland priest accused of sexually abusing young men was sentenced to 2-15 years in prison and five years probation on Thursday. Robert Deland, 72, appeared in front of Judge Darnell Jackson in the 10th Circuit Court on April 25. Jackson sentenced DeLand to a minimum of two years in prison, with a maximum sentence of 15 years with the Michigan Department of Corrections. Scripture, song and prayer will be part of the local observance of this year's 2019 National Day of Prayer. The Midland event is scheduled for noon to 1 p.m. Thursday, May 2, on the front steps of First United Methodist Church, 315 W. Larkin St., which is across from the Midland County Courthouse. Prayers will be said for eight groups: government, military, media, business, education, church, family and society, said Peg Born, who is coordinating the event with Kurt Faust. Representatives from area churches will open each prayer section with an applicable Bible verse and say a prayer, she said. Participants then will be asked to divide into groups of two or three people and pray for that topic. Born said there are benefits to praying out loud in a small group. "What you pray about reminds me of something else," she said. "I stay well engaged when I pray with other people." She admits some people might be uncomfortable praying out loud and doesn't want that to keep them away. "Some people might choose to stand alone ... and just pray quietly by themselves. Or, if they come with friends and feel comfortable with praying with a friend, that's a group and is perfectly fine." The program will last an hour. Born said people, restricted by time, can arrive late or leave early. "It's open for people to come and just experience the love of the Lord," Born said. "I would encourage people throughout the community to come." The program will open with John 13:34, in which Jesus tells people to love one another. This is the verse associated with the national observance. The event closes with Philippians 4:6, which addresses worry, a verse Born chose. "Certainly a lot of people worry about our country, the circumstances in our lives," Born said. "We don't have to worry about anything. (God) invites us to pray about everything. He knows what we need. He wants us to come to him. It's just a reminder he is a very personal, loving God who desires a relationship with every one of us." In case of rain, the program will be moved inside the church. The Delhi Police has arrested two members of Thak Thak gang in national Capital on Friday. With their arrest police claimed to have solved 12 cases of robbery and snatching in city. Police have also recovered 49.5 lakh rupees from the possession of the accused. The accused has been identified as Vikash while another member of the gang is a Juvenile. According to Vijay Kumar, the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), South district, On April 18, a complainant reported to police that when he was going towards his home from his factory situated at Narayana industrial area in his car, when near Seema Sadak Bhawan on ring road, two persons on bike punctured his cars tyre. After some time three boys came on a scooty and pointed out towards deflated tyre of his car and when he along with his driver and servant was busy in changing tyre, one boy took away his bag containing cash Rs 51 lakh from his car and fled away, said the DCP adding that a case was registered under section 379/34 of Indian Penal Code (IPC) at Delhi Cantt police station and investigation was taken up. On April 25, specific inputs were received that two boys who had stolen a bag containing cash from a car were seen in the area of Madangir following which a team swung into action and a raid was conducted at the specific point which led to the arrest of the accused, said the DCP. During interrogation, the accused Vikash revealed that he along with his associates Sunil, Rohit, Deepak and a Juvenile used to roam in two groups on bike and scooty. They used to first randomly target luxury cars mainly at the time of office opening and closing. After selecting their target one group used to puncture tyre of the car with a sharp pointed object. As the driver or owner of the car got out of the car to check the tyre, the other group used to take away the valuables from the car, said the DCP adding that further investigation is going on. Videos Sorry, there are no recent results for popular videos. Contributed photo Forty fifth graders from Sharpe Elementary School took a week-long trip April 14-19 to Washington, D.C., with the help of the local Ronald McDonald House Charities and experienced much of the nation's capital. Students from Blair Mathis' and Jennifer McClard's fifth grade classes stand in front of the U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial. Tunis, Tunisia (PANA) - Twelve people were killed and 20 others wounded early on Saturday morning in Sidi Bouzid (central Tunisia), following the collision of two lorries, including the one carrying agricultural workers on their way to the fields, reliable sources said nBilaspur police on Friday rescued six-year-old Virat Saraf, who was abducted five days ago from a busy road in the city. Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel and Home Minister Tamradhwaj Sahu expressed their delight and relief over his safe return to home. Baghel, who was in Delhi on Thursday night, was in regular touch with Bilaspur police and was taking the updates of the rescue operation, police sources said. After Virats safe return, the CM also spoke to his father and mother over telephone. In a tweet, Baghel said he too was worried in the past five days for Virat as was his family members. He heaved a sigh of relief on his safe return, the CM said. I further assure the people of Chhattisgarh that there would be no compromise with the law and order situation in the state and the government stands with each and every citizen, he added. Home Minister Tamradhwaj Sahu in his tweet congratulated police for safe rescue operation. He further said the Chhattisgarh police was committed to maintain law-and-order situation in the state and for protection of the states 2.55 crore people. Notable, Virat was whisked away in a car by a Bihar-based gang when he was playing in front of his house on April 20. The abductors made telephone calls to his parents for ransom. Their location was traced based on call details and mobile location. According to police sources two of the accused are still absconding while three including a woman have been nabbed from their hideout in Jarhabhata locality of Bilaspur. Lome, Togo (PANA) - Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (ETI) recorded a profit of USD 322 million, officials told PANA at the end of the Ordinary General Assembly held Thursday in Lome, the Togolese capital Port Louis, Mauritius (PANA) - The Economic Development Board (EDB) of Mauritius, a government entity, in collaboration with the World Bank, on Friday, examined the demographic trends, the disparity between training and the needs of the labor market and the use of foreign expertise, in order to ensure the economic development and growth of Mauritius, PANA reported from the Mauritian capital, Port Louis Lome, Togo (PANA) Togolese president, Faure Essozimna Gnassingbe, has said before Parliament, on the eve of the celebration of the 59th anniversary of the country, that he wants to make permanent dialogue his best ally, official sources told PANA on Saturday New York, US (PANA) - The United Nations (UN) on Friday called on all parties in the conflict in the Libyan capital to protect civilians and give humanitarian partners immediate and unconditional access to the war fronts, expressing their concern over the deterioration of the situation, marked by uncontrolled bombing against civilian areas BLOOMINGTON A nonprofit organization has been formed to help with the housing needs of veterans, and it is having its first fundraiser on Sunday. The Central Illinois Housing Network is focused on working in the community to provide affordable housing for veterans or to keep elderly veterans in their homes. That's the 'north star' of the organization, said Mark Johnson of Normal, vice president of development for the group. Johnson, an Illinois Army National Guard veteran and former McLean County Board member, said some veterans don't realize the opportunities available to them, and others are still falling through the cracks because they make too much money to be eligible for certain programs yet still need help. We want to fill that gap, said Johnson. The group will have a pulled chicken barbecue sandwich fundraiser from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday at John Kraus Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 454, 106 E. Lincoln St., Bloomington. At 1 p.m., members of the group will discuss the details of how the organization will be moving forward for the rest of 2019. Tickets are $17.76 in advance through bit.ly/VFW_Fundraiser428 or $20 at the door. More information about the group can be found on its Facebook page, www.facebook.com/vetsneedhousing. Johnson said he started putting the idea together in August and September with the Gobtop family of rural Hudson. He said the organization will be working with social service agencies, Home Sweet Home Ministries, The Salvation Army and others to identify those in need. Members of the steering committee include John McIntyre, chairman of the McLean County Board; Don Knapp, McLean County state's attorney; David Paul Blumenshine, broker at Denbesten Real Estate; and Mike James, vice president of Marine Bank. Johnson said the offices of U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville, and state Sen. Jason Barickman, R-Bloomington, have been helpful in suggesting potential grants that can be used for the organization's work. Contact Lenore Sobota at (309) 820-3240. Follow her on Twitter: @Pg_Sobota Love 2 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. BLOOMINGTON When you visit an after-school art class with children from kindergarten through fifth grade, you expect a bit of chaos, questions, curiosity and chatter not a lot of deep thought and introspection. But sometimes the most insightful philosophers wear pink and white ribbon barrettes in their hair. As 9-year-old Micheri Seiller worked on a collage in the basement of the Boys & Girls Club of Bloomington-Normal, she said, My favorite thing about art is it feels like it makes anything possible. That's just the kind of optimism the Illinois Art Station is looking for as it presents programs like the one at the Boys & Girls Club. It's the same optimism the Illinois State University program needs as it runs the Illinois Art Station out of a brightly colored van and temporary quarters on campus, waiting for a permanent space. Our mission is to provide all children, youth and their families with transformative learning through hands-on experiences in the visual arts, said Isra El-beshir, director of the fledgling program since October 2017. Like young artist Micheri, Laura Berk of Normal also believes art makes things possible. Berk, distinguished psychology professor emerita and author of several books on child development, is founding donor of the Illinois Art Station. While meeting with one of her editors in New York, she visited the Children's Museum of the Arts and wanted to see something similar in Bloomington-Normal. I believe that the arts the visual arts, in particular have a unique power to support diverse aspects of development, said Berk. I envision it (the Illinois Art Station) as a place where all of this tremendous power can come together. The recent Illinois Art Station class at the Boys & Girls Club is among many that have been done in partnership with the Western Avenue Community Center, The Autism Place, public libraries and other organizations. From June to December 2018, the Illinois Art Station offered 40 classes through nine community partners, serving 1,246 children, youth and their families. One of its more visible projects is a mural painted last summer along Constitution Trail where it runs under Washington Street. Another mural project is planned this year, teaming with the city of Bloomington and Artolution, an international nonprofit organization whose co-founder and co-director, Joel Bergner, grew up in Bloomington-Normal. Bergner will lead the project. Berk is the Artolution board educational director. The mural will be painted at the corner of Market Street and Monroe Avenue. It will be unveiled to the public at noon June 9. Local artists and youths who would like to be involved can apply at bit.ly/MarketYouthMural or call Peggy Finnegan-Boyes at 309-438-0882. Graduate and undergraduate students teach the Illinois Art Station classes, gaining experience in their fields. Zoe Kollias, a senior in art education from Schaumburg, said she has observed students in school classrooms and they're hesitant, but at the Illinois Art Station classes, they go for it. That's one of the things art education major Micaela Bucci likes about teaching the class. They're so willing to experiment, said the senior from Lansing. Brooke Ball, a graduate assistant from New Lenox studying for her master's degree in art education, said the environment is different. We get the creativity and involvement of school but not the strict rules, said Ball. In fact, fellow graduate assistant Luke Lowers of Normal, studying art technology, said, We encourage them to make a mess. Last week's project was patterned after the work of African American artist Howardena Pindell, who uses images to draw people in and think about bigger issues. Ball had the students write I am statements on pieces of cardboard that were the base for their collage. The children's statements included: I am kind. I am brave. I am a leader. While some children chose favorite colors or random elements for their collages, Micheri created an elaborate backstory of a town with towers and bridges and stinky cheese. Jennifer Hall, director of operations for the Boys & Girls Club, said the Illinois Art Station program has been truly amazing. ... It brings in different people and different elements. El-beshir said she is pleased with the connections the Illinois Art Station has made so far. Five years from now, I see it being a community anchor an ambassador for visual arts education. Photos: Developing creativity at Illinois Art Station Contact Lenore Sobota at (309) 820-3240. Follow her on Twitter: @Pg_Sobota Love 1 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Want to see more like this? Get our local education coverage delivered directly to your inbox. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. NORMAL Artists have filed a lawsuit in hopes of preventing the destruction of a mural on the side of an uptown Normal building slated for demolition. Thirteen of the 30 local artists behind the work filed the lawsuit this week in federal court in Peoria. It claims federal copyright law grants them the right to prevent the destruction of their work, said William McGrath, the Chicago lawyer representing the artists. Because the artists had permission from the town of Normal to create the mural that has been on the west-side exterior wall of 104 E. Beaufort St. since 2011, they retain the right protect their work, even though they dont own the building, McGrath said. Under the Visual Artists Rights Act, the suit filed Wednesday asks for an injunction prohibiting the destruction, distortion, mutilation or other modification of their artworks. Although there has been some discussion about moving the mural, McGrath said it would be very difficult to remove it and relocate it to some appropriate place without if not complete destruction ... mutilating it or modifying it or causing partial destruction and so forth. The town is apparently looking into that. When plans for the five-story Trail East building were approved by the Normal City Council in October, McGrath sent the town and the developer, Bush Construction, a letter giving them notice that these artists have protective rights, but they dont agree with us. The town and Bush construction have been named as defendants in the lawsuit. Mayor Chris Koos said Friday he is not at liberty to comment on the lawsuit because it is a legal matter, adding City Manager Pam Reece and the City Council are evaluating the merits of the suit. "We will appropriately defend the town's position," Reece said. Both parties have discussed a settlement, but McGrath said it hasnt resulted in any action yet. The reason we filed the suit now is because we havent been able to achieve a settlement yet, he said. Hopefully thats still something that might be achieved, but in the meantime as we understood, demolition was being mentioned as starting in mid-May as soon as Illinois State Universitys semester was over so we didnt want to wait any longer before filing the suit. The demolition scheduled to begin in May will include 104 and 108 E. Beaufort St. on the northeast side of Uptown Circle. If an injunction cannot be achieved, the artists will seek compensation for the violation of their right to prevent destruction, McGrath said. According to the suit, the artists want to be awarded damages to compensate for their financial losses and for the damage to their honor and reputation and for their humiliation, mental anguish, emotional distress and any other physical and mental injuries. The plaintiffs are identified in the suit as Janean Baird, Lianna Bankord, Elizabeth Beran, Erin Burnison, Brent Goken, Dick Goken, Ralston Scott Jones, Ed Madison, Brad Mosby, Lizbeth Ogiela-Scheck, Blair Valentine, Natalie Wetzel and Savannah Wetzel. Contact Kelsey Watznauer at (309) 820-3254. Follow her on Twitter: @kwatznauer. Get Government & Politics updates in your inbox! Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Sebastian Jurczak took his first machine shop class during his freshman year at East Leyden High School in Franklin Park, Ill. It sparked an interest in manufacturing classes, and he expanded his skills with CAD courses and other electives. The manufacturing and design trade "was something I really enjoyed," said Jurczak, now 24 and working in the field as he pursues certifications and an associate's degree, all while supporting himself and avoiding student loan debt. High school administrators say more students are considering options outside of four-year degrees, which are financially out of reach for many. With some of the fastest-growing fields attainable without a university education, students are pursuing a variety of career routes, including technical training for skilled trades that sometimes begins in hands-on high school courses. Matt Liberatore, director of professional learning and student services at Arlington Heights, Ill.-based Township High School District 214, said students now are "much more in tune to the finances and what that degree is going to cost." He said counselors and teachers work with the students to understand what's right for them. "Is the place you're going to go going to be the most economically affordable for what you want to do? I think there are many ways to get to the end point." In recognizing college isn't right for everyone, and in some cases isn't necessary for a well-paying job, District 214, through a partnership with Bosch Group _ the parent company of Mount Prospect-based Robert Bosch Tool Corp. _ recently announced a scholarship for students looking to pursue certificates in trades like welding, HVAC, plumbing and carpentry. Students are increasingly more realistic when it comes to post-high school plans, said Matt Kirkpatrick, interim assistant principal for student learning at Oak Park River Forest High School. A recent internal survey at the school revealed "far more than 10 percent" of students weren't sure if they would go on to college _ a number that surprised administrators. And it wasn't because of their grades, Kirkpatrick said. "A lot of it had to do with the idea of (college) being a real investment, and being sure that investment was going to pay off," he said. The school has tried to further develop its curriculum to include a variety of classes to give students a sense of career possibilities. Like other Chicago-area high schools, OPRF offers courses with dual credit, so students can work toward college or certification program credit. This can lead to quicker, well-paying jobs that could fund a more advanced degree, Kirkpatrick said. Jurczak, who came to the United States at age 12 when his family moved from Poland, said he knew language and financial barriers meant a traditional four-year university immediately after high school graduation might not be his path. But he still wanted a career and to eventually further his education. In the classes through his school's Career Pathways curriculum, Jurczak gained skills that set him up for employment even before his graduation in 2013. During his junior year, he was an apprentice at a tool and dye company, and by his senior year, he was earning $13 an hour _ a well-paying job compared with typical part-time gigs for students. Jurczak now works as a product development specialist at a manufacturing company and will soon complete a certification in mold-making, as well as his associate's degree at Harper College. He said he will likely then finish his bachelor's degree in business but wants to stay in the manufacturing sector. In the years since high school, he said he's never had trouble finding a job and never had to take out a loan. "Many (students) think in order to be successful and make a good living ... you have to go to a university" right away, he said. "I know many people who go to a university and they don't have a job, or they have to start at the bottom. I feel really secure." At Leyden High School District 212, the curriculum is designed to "respect all pathways," said Frank Holthouse, director of careers and community outreach. That includes manufacturing courses like the ones Jurczak took, and several other fields, including construction, business, health science, early childhood and culinary skills. Local employers provide input on the courses, so they best fit what is needed to get jobs, Holthouse said. Jarrod Nagurka, advocacy and public affairs manager at the Virginia-based Association for Career and Technical Education, said there's a growing need for workers in these skilled trades _ jobs that require more than a high school diploma but not a bachelor's degree. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the top four fastest-growing occupations do not require a bachelor's degree: solar panel installer, wind turbine technician, home health aide and personal care aide. But often people don't understand what that work entails or the pay it offers, Nagurka said. "Sometimes people think of a dirty factory floor, and that's really not what these programs are like anymore," he said. "We're talking about jobs that require serious skills and training ... in today's digital and tech world." A wind turbine technician, Nagurka points out, is a field that is predicted to grow by 96 percent by 2026, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. And the median salary for those jobs in 2017 was nearly $54,000 a year, data shows. "Four-year institutions are important and, for some students, will be very beneficial," Nagurka said. "But it's not the only option." Still, a path other than traditional college "is still sort of a hard sell" to parents and students, said Cindy Stover, executive director of the Illinois Association for Career and Technical Education. "There's still a mindset that a four-year university is the way to go." And so many jobs go unfilled "because no one has the skills to do them." In Illinois, she said, that includes many jobs in the construction trades. The Village of Park Forest developed the South Suburban Trades Initiative in partnership with two local community colleges as a way to build interest in the construction trades, while also fixing up foreclosed homes abandoned after the housing market crash, said David Tracy, village project manager. Work on the first home started in August, with much of it completed by students in building trades classes at Prairie State College in Chicago Heights and South Suburban College in South Holland. Tracy said that once the renovation is complete this spring, the village will sell it and use the proceeds to fix more village-owned abandoned homes with the students. Eugene Damiani, instructor at South Suburban College, said interest in the building trades slowed after the housing crash affected job prospects in those fields. Prior to 2008, the college had a waiting list for these hands-on classes. "It's starting to pick back up," he said. "Everybody's noticing you can make a livable wage doing construction." Keyanna White, 23, of Harvey, Ill., is a South Suburban student working on the home in Park Forest, Ill. She said she enrolled in the community college's construction courses after earning a bachelor's degree in communications that didn't leave her with many job prospects. White said she pursued college mostly to fulfill her family's wishes, but when she couldn't find a job in radio broadcasting, "I started asking myself, what exactly do I want to do? What will make me happy?" As a kid whose love of playing in the dirt grew to a love of building things, White decided to pursue a certificate in construction and hopes to someday own her own business. She said she knows she can make a good living as a contractor, and doesn't have to pay much to earn a construction trade certificate after "already growing broke for four years." "School isn't for everyone, but it is highly pushed upon the youth," she said. "I got the bachelor's degree for my family to make them happy. Now I'm going to make me happy." Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 SPRINGFIELD Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzkers pension proposal is not sitting well with state lawmakers, an adviser to the Illinois Teachers Retirement System told its Board of Trustees this week. The governors plan is to reduce payments to the various pension systems by $850 million next year, while extending by seven years the time it will take to pay off $134 billion in unfunded liabilities. While the plan appears unpopular now, Andrew Bodewes, the boards legislative liaison, said that could change as the end of the session draws near and lawmakers have to consider the other options. I dont want to suggest that the majority of the General Assembly could ever get to a place where theyre OK with reducing pension payments by $850 million, Bodewes told the board during its annual retreat Thursday in Springfield. But when they start looking at, Were going to cut schools by this, were going to close these parks; Were going to reduce these services to children with learning disabilities, it starts to get real. Those conversations get very real. So Im always sympathetic to the members. Pritzker made that proposal as part of the budget package he submitted to the General Assembly earlier in the session, and it was only one part of a multi-pronged proposal to address the states long-term unfunded pension liability. Reducing payments into the systems is intended to free up general revenue funds for other purposes such as increasing funding for K-12 and higher education, hiring more social workers for the Department of Children and Family Services, and increasing reimbursement rates for certain Medicaid providers. But he has also proposed issuing what are called pension obligation bonds to pay down part of the unfunded liability, transferring surplus state assets to the pension funds and earmarking a portion of the revenue the state would receive from his proposed graduated income tax to pay down pension debt. The Teachers Retirement System is the largest of the states pension funds, with $52 billion in assets and 417,000 members. Under current law, the state is responsible for paying just more than $4.8 billion into the fund this year. That would be about 12 percent of Pritzkers entire general revenue fund budget proposal for the upcoming year. Currently, though, it has only about 40 percent of the assets it would need to pay off all of the obligations it has already accrued. Current law calls for gradually paying down the unfunded liabilities through 2045, when the systems are expected to be 90 percent funded. In March, the TRS board unanimously approved a statement urging lawmakers to reject any proposal to reduce scheduled payments or lengthen the schedule for paying down the liabilities. The system is at a growing risk of insolvency in the event of an economic downturn, the board said in the statement. This danger is the direct result of eight decades of state contributions that always have fallen far short of actuarially based funding. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 ASHLAND, Ohio House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has endorsed a proposal to lower the legal voting age from 18 to 16 in federal elections and several Democratic presidential hopefuls also are touting the idea. Whatever you might think initially of the concept, its important to consider it against the following backdrop. In 2014, a nationally representative sample of 9,100 eighth-grade students were administered a test designed to measure the civics knowledge and skills that are critical to the responsibilities of citizenship in America. Only 23 percent of the students answered enough questions correctly to demonstrate proficiency in the subject and just 2 percent scored at the advanced level. A similar test part of the quadrennial National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), Americas so-called Nations Report Card was given in U.S. history. This test was taken by 11,200 eighth-graders. The scores were even worse, with 18 percent of the students judged to be proficient and just 1 percent scoring at the advanced level. Those former eighth-graders will be eligible to vote for the first time in next years elections. This was not a one-off bad year for U.S. students. It was part of a consistent, ongoing pattern, and theres little reason to believe that 2014s eighth-graders learned much more about our countrys government and history in grades nine through 12. In fact, the last time these tests were given to high school seniors in 2010 just 12 percent scored at or above the proficient level in history and just one in four or 24 percent performed at that level in civics. Eighth-graders that year were equally clueless. For example, when asked to identify a purpose of the Bill of Rights, fewer than half came up with the correct answer. When asked to choose the definition of our governments system of checks and balances, only 10 percent made the right choice. And this was a multiple-choice question; one of the choices was the correct answer. The reason we find ourselves in this situation has nothing to do with the quality and dedication of Americas teachers or the ability of American students. We work closely with high school and middle school history and civics teachers from around the country and find them, as a group, to be able, dedicated and genuinely enthusiastic about these subjects. As are their students, when theyre exposed to the exciting story of America and the well-thought-out and vigorously debated architecture of our government. The trouble is: Most students are not exposed to such details in their schools. Little more is required of them in most states than cursory knowledge of these important topics. For example, California, the nations most populous state, requires just a half year of civics and a year of U.S. history and no exam in either for students to graduate from high school. According to an October 2018 survey by Education Week, only eight states require a full year of civics, 31 states require a full year of U.S. history, 19 states require students to take a civics test and 15 states require a U.S. history exam. But, Education Week cautions, students are not necessarily required to pass some of these exams. Fifteen states have no specific requirement for any civics classes at all; 11 have no history requirement. Regardless of the legal voting age, we do our students a disservice by not giving them the knowledge and skills necessary to be responsible citizens and our country suffers because of it. Rather than focusing on changing the voting age, which has the appearance of legislating for political gain, lawmakers should instead commit themselves to reinvigorating civics and history education, which would benefit all of us. Patrick Maloney is deputy director of the Ashbrook Center at Ashland University, Ashland, Ohio. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The Aska police on Friday rescued a contractor, who had allegedly been abducted along with one of his associates at gunpoint from Alipur village in Ganjam district on Thursday. The contractor identified as Prasanna Gouda and his associate Kalu Jena were rescued from the Putibadi-Pathara road. Earlier, the family members of Gouda had lodged a police complaint in connection with the incident. According to reports, four miscreants had allegedly kidnapped the contractor and his associate at gun point near Alipur village when the duo was returning home. A police probe is now underway about the motive behind the abduction of the contractor and his associate. Besides, there is no consistency in the statements of Gouda and Jena, police sources said. Meanwhile, the duo was taken to the police station for questioning to unearth information under what circumstances they were kidnapped. There were hopes -- maybe not high hopes, but some optimism -- when a Legislative Inspector General was finally appointed in late 2017. The General Assembly had gone more than three years without someone in that post. Perhaps allegations made against lawmakers would finally be taken seriously. We should know better than to have faith in politics. Julie Porter, who was the acting inspector general from November 2017 through Feb. 28, said this week that the Legislative Ethics Commission, which oversaw her work, refused to publish one of her reports that concluded a legislator had engaged in wrongdoing. She said she wanted to publish another report but Carol Pope, the former Illinois judge and state's attorney who replaced her, closed the case instead. "The office of the legislative inspector general in Illinois is broken," Porter wrote in an op-ed published online Tuesday by the Chicago Tribune. "... But the legislative inspector general is not independent," she continued. "Unless and until the legislature changes the structure and rules governing the LIG, it is a powerless role, and no LIG -- no matter how qualified, hardworking and persistent -- can effectively serve the public." The op-ed went on to say lawmakers have not done much to address long-standing issues in the Statehouse. Porter wrote that the "key one is that the legislative inspector general cannot perform basic functions without permission from the Legislative Ethics Commission -- a body made up entirely of Illinois legislators who have inherent conflicts of interest in serving on the commission." The op-ed from Porter is disturbing on many levels, not the least of which is the troubling history of legislators' seeming disregard for the importance of having a watchdog over them. Thomas Homer, who left the post in June 2014, said as he was departing that major changes needed to be made in the state's ethics law so lawmakers could actually be held accountable if found in the wrong. He advocated for transparency in the process because "reports finding lawmaker misconduct are unlikely to ever see the light of day," the Tribune reported. His parting words clearly had no effect, as the job remained vacant until November 2017, when Porter was hired. That only happened because activist Denise Rotheimer testified during a House hearing that she was sexually harassed in 2016 by state Sen. Ira Silverstein, D-Chicago, and her complaint had gone unaddressed for almost a year. (Silverstein was cleared of the sexual harassment allegations, although Porter did say he behaved "in a manner unbecoming a legislator."). During that House hearing, it was revealed that more than 25 complaints against members of the General Assembly had been filed, but had been essentially ignored, because legislative leaders hadn't hired anyone for the inspector general post since Homer left. Porter was quickly appointed to the job. Lawmakers changed the law so that the LIG could investigate sexual harassment complaints without getting permission from the Legislative Ethics Commission. Perhaps future allegations would be treated more seriously and in a more transparent manner? Porter's op-ed suggests that is wishful thinking unless the ethics commission's members aren't lawmakers. She also advises that the inspector general be allowed to publish reports on founded allegations without the approval of the commission. State Rep. Avery Bourne, R-Raymond, chairs the ethics committee. She told the Tribune the bipartisan commission unanimously voted to not release the report. She also said the commission provides a "check and balance" on the work of the inspector general and Porter's ability to investigate was never hindered. The whole point of a legislative inspector general is to hold lawmakers accountable when needed -- which means removing them from the process of determining when that is warranted. Porter is correct in that lawmakers have an inherent conflict of interest. Lawmakers -- not all of them, but some -- continue to break the public's trust in a variety of ways. Restoring trust is going to take some bold actions. Legislators could start by allowing the legislative inspector general to decide which reports the public needs to see. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 In a report earlier this month it was noted that "Apple supply-chain executive Tony Blevins said in his testimony in a Qualcomm-Apple trial that the company had looked into 5G chipsets produced by Samsung and MediaTek as part of an initiative called 'Project Antique' because it didn't want to rely on a single vendor. "The entire concept of Project Antique was to find a second supplier," Blevins testified. "No offense to [Intel] but we don't want to be single-supplier with them." Yet shortly after Apple signed an exclusive deal with Qualcomm for 5G chipsets. What ever happened to we don't want a single supplier for 5G modems? I guess it only applied to Intel: Sllll-ap! It was a vote of no confidence in Intel. While a rumor surfaced in February from Reuters that Apple was beginning to build a team to develop its own 5G modems, we're now learning from CNBC that Apple may have actually been in talks with Intel to acquire their 5G modem division so that they would be able to control the direction of their future 5G modem architecture, and more importantly, its scheduling. For me at least, the Wall Street Journal's report sounded rather wishy-washy and read more like they were trying to help Intel save face because there wasn't much meat on the bones of that rumor. In the bigger picture, consumers are also frustrated with how Intel has been unable to keep their promises of delivering a 10nm chip for desktop computers. Years have gone by and while we wait for Intel to finally deliver, AMD will be delivering their new 7nm processors late next month. One talks while the other delivers. To make matters worse, Intel was supposed to deliver its long delayed 10mn chip for desktops in Q4 and now Wccftech reports that the delay could now extend to 2021-2022. PC fans are hoping that the reporter got the story wrong. While Intel is reportedly still on track to deliver a 10nm chip for notebooks later this year, desktop users are going to be out of luck again. If AMD doesn't drop the ball next month, there could be a new sheriff in town by the end of the year on the desktop front. About Making Comments on our Site: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit any comments. Those using abusive language or negative behavior will result in being blacklisted on Disqus. I had forgotten that this lecture was available online, and only came across it again just now by sheer coincidence. The sound quality isnt quite ideal, but its not altogether terrible, either. Each recording is about an hour long. I call attention to it here not only because there might be somebody, somewhere, who will find it of at least slight interest, but also for my own base autobiographical agenda: Daniel Peterson Muslims & Mormons, part 1 Part 1 of BYU professor Daniel Petersons fireside at Vastra Frolunda Ward, Sweden, 19 June 2016. In light of the recent wave of refugees coming to Sweden (and Europe) bringing a different culture and religion with them, what can we learn about Islam that could help us better understand and integrate with our fellow muslims. And what do we have in common? Daniel Peterson is currently a professor of Islamic Studies and Arabic at Brigham Young University. Daniel Peterson Muslims and mormons, part 2 (Q&A) Part 2 of BYU professor Daniel Petersons fireside at Vastra Frolunda Ward, Sweden, 19 June 2016. This session focuses on questions from the audience. Ive still only listened to the first few minutes of the first recording, just to hear how it sounded. (The idea of listening to myself let alone watching myself makes me feel somewhat queasy.) I can only hope that I didnt say anything too outrageously false or offensive or embarrassing. *** Im really sorry that I cant recall who it was that brought this to my attention I failed to make a note of it but heres a congenial voice from The American Conservative: The Other Side of Allahu Akbar: In his travels through the Mideast and Africa, our writer found mostly peaceful Muslims, kind to a fault and proud of their religion. This resembles my own experience. Its one of the reasons that I really object when I see people demonizing all Muslims for the sins of a very small minority. I see it as one of my responsibilities in this life to try to build a bridge between Muslims and non-Muslims, and especially between Muslims and the members of my own Latter-day Saint community. I was pleased, accordingly, when I was asked to write the following: https://www.lds.org/study/ensign/2018/04/understanding-islam?lang=eng *** Heres an interesting article from about three years ago by Dr. Furqan Shaikh, a physician and writer based in Toronto, Canada. The nature and location of the places that hes chosen one in Massachusetts and four in the District of Columbia might surprise you, as it did me: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/altmuslim/2016/05/five-great-places-of-islamic-history-in-the-u-s/ Patna: Communist Party of India (ML) general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, with the Lok Sabha elections in full swing in the nation, ripped into the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) saying besides flaring communal fear and hatred, the saffron party had no other agenda in this election cycle. Contradicting the predictions by BJP's mouthpieces like Baba Ramdev and Ravi Shankar Prasad who see a 'Modi Tsunami' headed their way, Bhattacharya said that the NDA, based on the reports from the three phases of the poll that have already been completed, was headed for the biggest electoral disaster it has ever seen. "People have noticed that Narendra Modi never talks about real issues that affect most people of India. When a film based on him was banned by the Election Commission, he decided to propagate his vicious agenda through friendly interviews," he said. Condemning the elevation of controversial leader Pragya Thakur in the BJP, the CPI-ML leader demanded to know if she could get bail in terrorism case, why couldn't Lalu Prasad Yadav, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief who is currently languishing in a Jharkhand jail in fodder scam cases, also get bail. "They used health reasons to get bail for RSS terrorist Pragya Thakur which is in direct violation of many of the nation's and electoral laws. Lalu Prasad Yadav, who is in fact suffering from many illness and ailments, meanwhile, continues to rot in the jail as he is denied bail over and over again. Not only that, his family members are not allowed to see him in the prison," the leftist leader rued. Bhattacharya also accused the Election Commission (EC) of showing favoritism towards the NDA candidates saying someone like BJP candidate from Begusarai Giriraj Singh can get away with all sorts of hateful comments but others are being barred from campaigning or even arrested for the smallest of code violation. He accused Chief Minister and Janata Dal U leader Nitish Kumar of insulting the mandate of the people of Bihar and also blamed him for encouraging and supporting mob lynching, communal flare-ups, and other similar tactics to gain votes. Patna: Baba Ramdev who does not mind blending his spiritual self to the political or business side of his personality when the situation demands, at a press conference in Patna on Friday, said that the result of this year's Lok Sabha election would determine the future of India for the next 20-25 years. The yoga guru who was in Patna to lend support to the candidacy of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) nominee from Patna Saheb Ravi Shankar Prasad, said that it was a shame that some people were casting doubts on the character and integrity of the 'Chowkidar' who, he said, was pure in his heart. Of course, Baba Ramdev was referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has called himself the 'Chowkidar', or the sentry, of India. Rhyming 'pure' with 'sure', the yoga expert, while talking to reporters at Nala Road, said that the PM's heart was pure and his re-election was a sure thing. 'Prime Minister Narendra Modi has raised the profile of India on the world stage. Every country is looking at India now. He has no agenda except the agenda of development. He doesn't have a family, or a wife, or any children. He works 18-20 hours a day to make the country stronger and prosperous and that is all he cares about. The opposition is taking help from foreign countries to remove Modi from power but if 2014 was the time of Modi wave, 2019 is the time of Modi tsunami," the Baba said amid applause from the audience. Taking a shot at leftist candidate and former JNU students' union president Kanhaiya Kumar who is going against BJP's Giriraj Singh in Begusarai, Ramdev said that while Kumar was quite adept in hurling abuse, in the end it will be Giriraj Singh who will prevail. On the issue of Pragya Thakur, the BJP candidate from Bhopal, Baba Ramdev said that she was a nationalist and had been implicated in a made-up case of terrorism. "She was brutally tortured in the jail that led to cancer in her body. You have to understand her state of mind in order to understand why she said what she said about Maharashtra IPS Hemant Karkare," he said. The yoga guru, who has had cordial relationship with Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president Lalu Prasad Yadav in the past, avoided a question on whether Yadav was a victim of the NDA's politics of vendetta and if he believed he was being tortured in the prison as alleged by his family members. WILLIAMSPORT A man whose mother was among his victims in a nearly $1.5 million investment scam has been sentenced to 17 years in prison. James E. Hocker, 49, spread a web of lies over nearly 10 years while engaging in a pattern of fraud and deceit, U.S Middle District Mathew W. Brann said Friday. The judge questioned whether he could believe anything Hocker said during the more than two-hour proceeding. Hocker solicited victims claiming he could get them 25 to 30 percent return on their funds but never invested the money. Brann described it as a lavish scheme in which the money was placed in bank accounts and used for personal expenses including legal fees, spousal support, trips, prostitution, gambling and credit card bills. Hocker provided investors with false statements on the status of their accounts and employed delaying tactics when clients sought to make a withdrawal. A number of victims, all of whom are elderly, described in testimony or letter how the loss of their savings ruined their retirement plans. I never knew a man who could lie so much, said Ira Lutz of Bellefonte who lost about $250,000. Many of the victims were friends of Hocker, who was licensed to sell insurance but not annuities and other investment products. Assistant U.S. Attorney Alisan V. Martin called the scheme a self-serving fraud and said Hocker showed no mercy. Hocker, who in October had pleaded guilty to a securities fraud charge, is required to make restitution of $1,495,782 minus any amount he already repaid. Between July 2013 and October 2018 he returned approximately $236,000 to investors by using money others had entrusted to him. Brann directed the restitution be prorated among individual victims before organizations and businesses are paid. Hocker when charged, expressed remorse and said he had no excuse for telling lies. Defense attorney Leonard G. Ambrose III called his clients behavior inexcusable but attributed it to mental health issues and alcohol and cocaine addiction. Hocker has four DUI convictions in Pennsylvania and one Maryland but since May 2018 had been in a recovery program. Ambrose urged Brann not to impose a sentence greater than what was given Trumps former personal lawyer Michael Cohen and campaign chairman Paul Manafort in Mueller investigation in Washington. The defense lawyer acknowledged Hocker put his victims in a terrible, terrible situation, but argued what the Trump aides did affected all citizens. Hocker, who has a high school education, worked for a reputable insurance business in Bellefonte from 2001 to 2007 before going out on his own. He lived in Centre County at the time. Some of his clients followed him to James E. Hocker & Associates and beginning in 2009 he began soliciting them to invest in various products. Hocker, whose address now is listed as Shirleysburg, Huntingdon County, will be on supervised release for three years when he completes his prison sentence. During that time he may have no contact with any of his victims without his probation officers approval. Prior to being charged criminally, Hocker was accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission in a civil suit of running an investment scam bears the hallmarks of a Ponzi scheme. The agency accused him of converting for personal purposes between 2013 and 2017 funds from investors who he promised returns of between 10 and 30 percent. The SEC last year obtained a default judgment because Hocker never responded to the suit. SUNNYVALE, Calif. A driver who used his car to intentionally run down pedestrians earlier this week apparently was targeting a family he thought was Muslim, police said Friday at a news conference held shortly after the suspect in the attack was arraigned in court. Police are now treating the crash as a hate crime. They said they believe the driver, Isaiah Joel Peoples, targeted the family, believed to be South Asian, purely based on their appearance. Three family members the father, a 13-year-old daughter and her 9-year-old brother were among the eight people injured in the crash. The daughter was the most severely hurt. She is in a coma and fighting for her life, police said. New evidence shows that the defendant intentionally targeted the victims based on their race, and his belief that they were of the Muslim faith, Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety Chief Phan Ngo said. He declined to say whether Peoples, 34, had followed the family or whether his attack was a spur-of-the-moment decision. Chief Assistant District Attorney Jay Boyarsky said there was very appalling and disturbing evidence that the family had been targeted based on religion. Ngo said of the injured 13-year-old girl, who in an investigative summary submitted to the court was identified only by her first name, Dhriti, Our hearts are with her and her loved ones as we pray for her recovery. Friday afternoon, Peoples, a Sunnyvale resident who worked as a government defense auditor, was arraigned in Santa Clara County Superior Court in San Jose on eight counts of attempted murder. Four of the counts come with enhancements for causing great bodily injury. Were he to be convicted, Peoples would face life in prison. Friday, he appeared in the courtroom in a high-security red jail jumpsuit, entered no plea and remained in custody, with his next hearing scheduled for May 16. Peoples mental state will be the battleground of the case, said Attorney Chuck Smith, who appeared on Peoples behalf. He said they will dispute that the crash was intentional, and argued that the tragedy was a product of possible post-traumatic stress syndrome afflicting a man who otherwise led an honorable and blameless life. This act was clearly the result of a mental disorder or defect, Smith said. But Boyarsky said the attack itself inflicted severe trauma. There are eight people who were seriously injured as a result of this mans actions, he said. Its traumatizing to these victims, its traumatizing to the police officers who had to see the carnage, its traumatizing to all members of the community who wonder about whether these people were targeted because of their race and religion. A man who identified himself as Peoples cousin, and would give his name only as Tom, was one of two family members who came to court to support him. Tom said he grew up with Peoples in their native San Francisco. Hes a good kid, the cousin said. Hes never been in trouble before. Theyre treating him as guilty until proven innocent. Were here just to make sure he has family members he can see. Zahra Billoo, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, San Francisco Bay Area, said that after 9/11, Muslims questioned whether it was safe to go to a mosque. This attack, she said, makes members of the Muslim community question whether its safe to go into the street. Billoo said many members of the local Muslim community are shocked and terrified that this could happen in a place known for being diverse and progressive. That fear is particularly acute as families prepare, just a month after the attacks on Muslims in New Zealand, to enter the month of Ramadan. These incidents will have many of us looking over our shoulders and urging mosque leaders to assess security plans, said Billoo, who regularly shops at a Sprouts store near the scene of the attack. Two victims being treated at Valley Medical Center in San Jose are now listed in fair condition. Other victims are being treated at Stanford Hospital. The teenage girl, a seventh grader at Sunnyvale Middle School, suffered bleeding and swelling of the brain, and the left side of her skull was removed to relieve pressure, according to the court summary. The girls father and 9-year-old brother, Prakhar, who was also identified only by his last name, also were hurt when the car hurtled into the busy intersection at El Camino Real and Sunnyvale Avenue, but the boy was not hit by the car. The summary identified the other injured victims as Marina Reimler, 32; Soeren Reimler, 33; Ping Lu, 51; Rajesh Narayan, 45; Eric Nava, 24; and Miguel, 15, who was identified only by his first name. It was not clear which of the adults was the father of the 13-year-old girl and her brother. Investigators are still trying to track Peoples movements before the Tuesday attack. Before the crash, he was delivering food to a Bible study group he attended, but police did not release any other information about where Peoples might have gone or what he might have done, except to say that he had a disassembled shotgun in his car. Ngo had said earlier that Peoples told detectives that he meant to hit the victims, but did not offer a motive or exhibit any remorse for his alleged acts. He was described in multiple witness accounts as saying, I love you, Jesus, Thank you Jesus, and Praise Jesus, or words to that effect after the crash, language that continued as he was being removed from the scene in handcuffs. Peoples father was a nondenominational Christian pastor, his older brother, Joshua Peoples, said earlier this week. Peoples brother and mother have told reporters that he had shown signs of post-traumatic stress disorder after returning from Iraq and had at one point been hospitalized for psychiatric issues. The brother said that their mother had spoken to Isaiah the day before the attack and said he seemed about to have another one of those episodes. Peoples served more than five years in the Army in the mid-to-late 2000s, including 11 months in Iraq, and rose to the rank of sergeant. By Robert Salonga, The Mercury News (TNS) When the flags from every state in the union went up in Liberty State Park Friday as part of an annual tradition, one is missing: Mississippis. Gov. Phil Murphy ordered that states flag not to be raised because of its nod to the Confederacy, NJ Advance Media has learned. The flag has the Confederate battle emblem on it, which has sparked a movement from some in Mississippi to change the states flag. The Confederate symbol displayed on the Mississippi State flag is reprehensible and does not reflect our values of inclusivity and equality, Murphy said in a statement. The governor argued New Jersey is rooted in our diverse communities and said the United States flag will fly in Mississippis place. The flags are raised in Liberty State Park, which has a clear view of the Statue of Liberty, every spring. State Sen. Sandra Cunningham, D-Hudson, who has long opposed allowing a flag that prominently displays the Confederate battle emblem, praised Murphys action Friday. The Confederate flag symbolizes an era of hate, violence, and division, Cunningham, D-Hudson, said. I thank Gov. Murphy for his commitment to tolerance and equality and for the decision to remove this hateful symbol from Liberty State Park. Hate has no home in New Jersey. Murphy, in his statement, thanked Cunningham for bringing this issue in her district to his attention. Mississippi is the last state in the nation with the Confederate emblem. Mississippians decided in a statewide election in 2001 to keep its flag, but several Mississippi cities and counties have stopped flying it in recent years. Supporters, meanwhile, have argued it represents history. The flags are going up Friday and will be taken down in the fall. Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MatthewArco or Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. Police arrested Harrisburg man Francis Anthony Hutchinson Thursday afternoon, accusing him of supplying drugs that caused a fatal overdose. Hutchinson, 29, is charged with drug delivery resulting in death, possession with intent to deliver, criminal use of a communication facility and possession of drug paraphernalia, according to court documents. Police did not provide much information about the case, other than to say it was related to a fatal overdose that occurred in the 600 block of Blue Eagle Avenue, Lower Paxton Township on Feb. 8, 2019. The victim was not identified. Police worked with the Dauphin County Drug Task Force, the Dauphin County Coroners Office and the Pennsylvania Attorney Generals Office on the investigation. Hutchinson was arraigned Thursday and incarcerated in Dauphin County Prison on $100,000 bail. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for May 16. Everyone eligible should be vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition of long-distance travel or employment. Vaccination should be voluntary but those who don't get vaccinated should be frequently tested for COVID-19 as a condition of long-distance travel and employment. Both vaccination and testing should be voluntary and not required as a condition of long-distance travel or employment. I defer to the judgment of lawmakers as long as they base their decisions on a consensus of medical professionals. Vote View Results Urging Delhiites to consider air pollution and climate change while casting votes in ongoing general elections, Green activists expressed concern over evasive behavior of political parties towards on environmental issues. Pertinently, concentration of pollutants have been recorded high on Air quality Index (AQI) in winters. We want clean air, safe food and clean energy--jal, jungle aur zameen (water, forest and land), was the slogan raised by the activists who held a discussion on climate change with residents of Shrinivaspuri in south Delhi. Organised by NGO Greenpeace India and YMCA, the talk called Climate Samvad saw participation from various environmental NGOs and local residents, who signed a document called the Green Charter to demand clean air from the new government. Delhi will vote on May 12 in the Lok Sabha elections. Residents said they will urge, whoever they vote for, to fulfil the demands listed in the charter to ensure clean air, safe food and clean energy access. Recently, a report released by the Greenpeace said Delhi is the most polluted capital city in the world. It also highlighted that 15 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world are from India. Residents must demand that the newly-formed government commit to conserving the environment as well as the lives, livelihoods and health of all Indians. The Government must have a concrete plan in place that ensures sustainable development. Pollution in general costs India as much as 8.5 per cent of its GDP, Abhishek Chanchal of Greenpeace India said. The impact of climate change on agriculture leads to a loss of 1.5 per cent of our GDP every year. We simply cannot afford to overlook environmental concerns, he said. Dunu Roy, a social activist from NGO Hazard Center, said climate change is impacting peoples lives and is a big threat to public health. We need to understand climate change and its politics and then be prepared to fight against its impacts, he said. Another activist Alok Ranjan said, There is threat to jal, jungle aur zameen. To save forests, rivers and our farmlands, measures in line with social justice and equality must be taken. The Harrisburg School District will allow state auditors access to its financial systems, according to a letter send to the state Department of Education Friday by district solicitor James Ellison. The letter comes just days after the state Department of Education informed the district that because it refused to provide auditors access to its eFinance system, $10.9 million in federal grants to the district had been suspended. The development comes after Mayor Eric Papenfuse, spurred in part by the districts refusal to comply with auditors, called on the state to place the district in receivership, which would essentially turn control of the district operations over to a state-appointed receiver. When reached Friday night, Papenfuse reiterated his call fro a state takeover. The dysfunction extends well beyond the issue of the audit, Papenfuse said. Most importantly our youth are not learning or being prepared to compete in the current economy. He also said Harrisburgs own financial recovery is jeopardized by the districts sad state of affairs. Ellison said in the letter that Superintendent Dr. Sybil Knight-Burney submitted answers to 13 informational requests from the department as promised, and had conversations with unions representing district employees to see if they would support giving auditors access to confidential information. Leadership expressed surprise and concern about the confidential information which could be accessed, and advised that their memberships would be consulted and surveyed to determine if they would consent to disclosure, Ellison wrote in the letter. The union leaders gave their consent, which Ellison said in the letter would relieve the district of liability. Such authorization by our entire staff affords the District an opportunity to reach an accord with the auditor and PDE, and agree to provide read-only access to our eFinance system, Ellison wrote. Ellison, in his letter Friday, asked that the funding be reinstated in view of the districts agreement to provide that access. The department of education announced the performance audit in October after a series of financial scandals, including a transportation supervisor accused of embezzling $180,000, the over-hiring of 37 teachers for unbudgeted positions and the continuation of health care coverage for 54 employees who had resigned from the district, and years of annual audits that showed red flags. Professional auditors told PennLive that remote access to an electronic financial system is a routine first step for an audit, and that a complete audit could not be performed without such access. UPDATE: Harrisburg School District agrees to give auditors access to financial systems Employees of the Harrisburg School District on Friday said they had no concerns about their personal information being shared with state auditors, even though district officials are citing that as a reason to refuse electronic access to financial records. Leaders of the three unions that represent teachers, principals and all other employees issued a joint statement Friday that gave their permission for the district to cooperate with Wessel & Company, the auditing firm hired by the state department of education. Superintendent Sybil Knight-Burney, her new solicitor James Ellison, and interim business manager Bilal Hasan met with union leaders Thursday to ask them if their members would approve of the district sharing their personal information, including social security numbers and bank-routing numbers, with state auditors. During the meeting, district leaders said auditors wanted personal information that could be misused in the wrong hands. Ellison emphasized how hard it would be to trace back a breach by a third party, said Jody Barksdale, president of the teachers union. But union leaders discussed the issue with their attorneys and members and reported back to Knight-Burney on Friday that they didnt share district leaders concerns. We have considered your request and have all agreed to cooperate with the auditors on the release of E-Finance information to the Pennsylvania Department of Education-appointed auditors Wessel & Company, said the joint statement by the Harrisburg Education Association, Act 93 and AFSCME . Our position is that the district should be completely transparent with the Department of Education and the auditors, as it is vital to the health and welfare of the district and its students. The statement noted that union attorneys advised them that there is no reason to believe that a state-appointed auditor would not follow accepted practices regarding confidentiality of employee information. Auditors routinely see a wide variety of confidential information which they keep confidential. We do not see how this would be any different. Therefore, we request the district provide whatever documentation Wessel & Company deems necessary to perform the audit. Union leaders said they were deeply concerned about the loss this week of $10.6 million in federal grants because of the districts refusal to cooperate with state auditors. We hope any disputes between the district and PDE are resolved shortly for the sake of our students, who benefit from these programs, the statement said. Also, we would welcome a public response regarding your plan for moving forward with these programs in light of this suspension of revenue. The department of education announced the performance audit in October after a series of financial scandals, including embezzlement, and years of annual audits that showed red flags. The audit was supposed to begin last month but auditors quickly ran into a brick wall when Hasan said the district would not allow unfettered access to the districts electronic financial system. Professional auditors told PennLive that remote access to an electronic financial system is a routine first step for an audit, and that a complete audit could not be performed without such access. Personal information also is necessary for auditors to detect ghost employees, double payments and other fraud, the auditors said. A forensic manager is part of the audit team for Wessel & Company, according to a cost matrix obtained by PennLive. The department of education set a deadline on Tuesday for school officials to provide access to the information they need to conduct the audit. Meanwhile, three locally-elected leaders this week called for the state to take over the district. Harrisburg Mayor Eric Papenfuse, Rep. Patty Kim (D-Harrisburg) and Sen. John DiSanto (R-Dauphin, Perry) said they would like for the department of education to petition the Court of Common Pleas to appoint a receiver. A felony rape charge has been filed against a Shippensburg University student, who police said wrote the words I raped you in a text message to a woman who accused him of sexual assault. Joshua M. Koumaras, 22, is accused of raping the woman in early March of 2018, according to charging documents filed this week by state police. In the complaint, police said the woman contacted them earlier this year, reporting that she attended a party last March, where she drank alcohol, and the next morning she woke up naked from the waist down. Police noted that the woman told them she would not typically sleep that way. The woman said she was later told that Koumaras, a friend, had accompanied her home, according to the complaint, which points out that the woman could not remember returning home with him. The woman also told police that she would never have sex with Koumaras, but when she confronted him, Koumaras admitted they had sex, according to the complaint. Koumaras later admitted to rape in a November texting conversation that he had with the woman, police said. Koumaras sent a message to the woman that read: We also only [had sex] when I raped you, police said, adding that he made a reference to her being unconscious at the time. Koumaras told the woman, I could literally be in jail," police said. Last spring, Koumaras also texted the woman to let her know that he updated his fraternity to tell them about the accusations, according to the complaint. On Friday, a Shippensburg University spokeswoman confirmed that Koumaras is a student at the school, but she could not confirm whether he is a fraternity member. She also said she could not comment on the accusations against him. Police interviewed Koumaras in February, when he admitted that he had sex with the woman but said he asked her for consent, according to the complaint. Eventually, an officer asked Koumaras if he believed the woman thought she was raped, and he replied, Yes," according to the complaint. Online court documents show that Koumaras faces felony charges of rape of an unconscious person and sexual assault, as well as a misdemeanor charge of indecent assault of an unconscious person. Koumaras was arraigned Thursday before Magisterial District Judge H. Anthony Adams, and he is scheduled to appear for a preliminary hearing at 10:30 a.m. May 13, online court documents show. As of Friday afternoon, online court documents showed that Koumaras remained free from prison on $50,000 unsecured bail. This is the second time that sexual assault charges with ties to Shippensburg University were filed this week. Both reported assaults took place in 2018, according to charging documents. The child of a Pennsylvania Turnpike employee died in a crash Thursday in Westmoreland County while spending the day with his father for Take Your Child to Work Day. 11-year-old Hayden Field was killed in a collision when his father, Harvey Denny Field, rear-ended a tractor trailer, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports. Jerry Lucia, fire chief of Mount Pleasants volunteer fire department, told the news agency Hayden had to be extricated from his fathers pickup truck. He was then pronounced dead at the scene. Harvey Field was ejected through the front windshield and was transported to UPMC Presbyterian. He had surgery for a head injury on Thursday night, but his condition is not currently known, Lucia told the news agency. A person in the tractor trailer had to be a flown to a Pittsburgh hospital, but Turnpike Commission spokeswoman Renee Colburn didnt know the extent of that persons injuries. Jordan Mantilla, 22, who is accused of stabbing another man to death late Tuesday, has been arrested by York police, officers announced in a news release. Mantilla is accused of killing Jason Markley, 27, Tuesday night on the 500 block of Wallace Street. There, Markley was stabbed multiple times in the chest, according to authorities. Markley was transported to York Hospital, where he later died from his injuries, according to the York County Coroners Office, which ruled his death a homicide. Markleys cause of death was "stab wounds to the chest, the corners office reported. NEWS UPDATE: @YCoCoroner is confirming that todays autopsy on stabbing victim, 27 yo Jason Markley, determined the cause of death to be stab wounds to the chest; manner is homicide. NOK has been updated. (1/2) York County Coroner (@YCoCoroner) April 26, 2019 Through their investigation, police said they were able to identify Mantilla as a suspect, and a warrant was issued for his arrest. In a Saturday news release, police announced that Mantilla of York was arrested as part of a Group Violence Initiative detail. Online court documents show that Mantilla faces a felony charge of criminal homicide. He was arraigned on that charge Saturday morning, and he is scheduled to appear for a preliminary hearing at 9 a.m. May 10 before Magisterial District Judge Linda Williams. Mantilla has been denied bail, online court documents show. Shelly A. Dreyer-Aurila, director of the Perry County Family Center in New Bloomfield, has been indicted by a federal grand jury and charged with embezzling $220,000 from the nonprofit over an eight-year period, according to a statement from David J. Freed, U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. Between 2010 and 2017, Dreyer-Aurila allegedly took the money from the center to convert it to personal uses, according to Freeds announcement. The center annually receives more than $10,000 in federal grants from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services through the state. It operates programs such as Maternal, Infant & Early Childhood Home Visiting and Child Abuse Prevention programs. According to the U.S. Attorneys office, Dreyer-Aurila would be issued a summons to appear in federal court to answer the charges. A guilty verdict in such a case carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in federal prison as well as fines. On April 22, Perry County commissioners voted to indefinitely suspend Dreyer-Aurila without pay from her position on the countys part-time cleaning staff. The commissioners had muted comment on the matter at the meeting. Paul Rudy declined to comment and Brenda Benner was on an approved absence. It was a shock and we were caught off guard on this, Commissioner Stephen Naylor said. Dreyer-Aurila, 53, of New Bloomfield has worked for the family center for about 20 years, in close concert with other community and social services organizations. The reaction of her peers was one of shock. Im sick over it, said Kathleen Bentley, director of the Perry County Literacy Council in Newport. I never wouldve thought she would be accused of something like this. The literacy council, which provides youth and adult literacy programs as well as workforce development and financial literacy programs, partnered with the center to offer services to parents of children enrolled in programs it managed, Bentley said. It did not finance the centers programs directly. It also provided books and other educational materials to the center. Dreyer-Aurila was really good at working with families in need of help, Bentley said. Shes an extra-friendly and positive person, Bentley said. She has a way to say, Im not criticizing your parenting. Im here to help you. People often thanked Bentley for referring them to the family center and to Dreyer-Aurila, she said. Dreyer-Aurila was highly involved in the broader Perry County nonprofit and social services community, too. She chaired the Family Partnership Board, a group that brought together all the social service groups in the county to coordinate efforts and stay on top of emerging issues affecting families. Bentley feared the charges against Dreyer-Aurila would have negative reverberations through the community. Others felt the same way. I hope the services of the family center can continue, said Jeannine Matulevich, director of the Perry Housing Partnership, a nonprofit that helps people in the county on limited incomes to find housing, or to fix and repair housing through state and federal programs. Matulevich said shes worked with Dreyer-Aurila for at least two decades and the charges took her by surprise. It seems really out of character for her in my mind, she said. Jim T. Ryan can be reached via e-mail at jtryan@perrycountytimes.com One year later, more than 129,000 COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in region As of December 18, the Health Department of Northwest Michigan has given 61,424 of COVID-19 doses across its service area of Antrim, Charlevoix, Emmet and Otsego counties. Agents from the Pennsylvania SPCA along with Philadelphia Police broke up a cockfight early Saturday morning in Kensington, arresting 21 people and seizing more than 100 birds, alive and dead. The cockfighting operation, involving roosters and hens, was interrupted about 12:30 a.m. on the 2100 block of East Ann Street, according to a statement by the PSPCA. Cockfighting paraphernalia also was recovered. Those arrested face felony charges for animal fighting, as well as charges stemming from a bill passed in 2015 that makes possession of animal-fighting paraphernalia a misdemeanor, the PSPCA said. Though even the possession of fighting paraphernalia carries a misdemeanor charge, these horrific practices continue to occur in Philadelphia and throughout the state, said Nicole Wilson, the PSPCAs director of humane law enforcement. We hope that by shining a light on this case and bringing the offenders to justice, we can deter the commission of future crimes. Any live birds will remain in the custody of the PSPCA until their owners relinquish them or pending resolution by the courts. Anyone with information about instances of animal cruelty is urged to call the PSPCAs hotline at 866-601-SPCA, where tips can be left anonymously. Volunteer firefighters Dora Giannakarios Preston, left, and Ellen Yarborough, after driving their truck to a fire call at Strath Haven Middle School in Wallingford, Pa., as members of South Media Fire Company the morning of Wednesday, April 24, 2019. Read more The emergency call came in around 7:30 as Ellen Yarborough was in her Wallingford kitchen getting ready for work Wednesday morning. Something was wrong at Strath Haven Middle School a report of an odor, smoke, and a fire alarm. Yarborough sprang to action. The Ivy League-educated single mother rushed to the South Media Fire Co. station house two minutes away and into a garage full of monstrous fire trucks that, just a few days earlier, shed finally been cleared to drive after becoming a volunteer firefighter a year earlier. Only one other person was there. A woman who, like Ellen, also had recently followed her teenage son into the firefighting ranks. Its just us, Dora Giannakarios Preston told Ellen. Lets go. Ellen, 49, and Dora, 54, threw on bunker gear, grabbed their helmets, and climbed into Squad 51. Ellen, a teacher with two degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, turned on the flashing lights and drove that baby out for the first time in her life. Dora, a Drexel University graduate and mother who runs her own business, worked the siren from the passenger seat. The 37-year-old captain who had helped train them both, NASA computer guy Marc Huffnagle? He was home getting his 9-month-old daughter, Talia, ready for day care. But he monitored it all as it unfolded the ladies coming to the rescue in a Philly suburb. I texted my wife! he said. I was so proud. It was a minor call but history in the making for one of Pennsylvanias many on-the-ropes volunteer fire companies. It appeared to be the first time that two women, exclusively, handled an emergency call out of Wallingfords century-old, all-volunteer fire company. Were happy that we went out on that call together, the two of us, Ellen said. The ladies high-fived. When youre able to pull up and theres females in the truck, to be able to say to the guys, We got this. " Its an exhilarating anecdote, and one I giddily took in as the three of them recounted it. But its too bad the milestone came amid a sobering reality about just who is and isnt keeping our communities safe in these work-crazed times. These women are filling in where few others are anymore. Statewide, there is a dire staffing crisis at the volunteer companies that for decades have spared their fellow neighbors hefty tax bills. Volunteers have vanished, and no one knows who will protect these towns. My colleague Michaelle Bond reported recently that communities save a total of nearly $47 billion a year by relying on volunteers. And yet, because people have far less time than ever to volunteer, no one quite knows how to fix the shortage short of hiring paid crews. These women are eager to recruit, if only on this message: The experience can be downright amazing. Im going through a divorce now, and this thing has been frigging empowering, Dora said with fist pumps while her markedly subdued partner that morning, Ellen, watched with a studied calm. "Theres nothing I cant do now. Dora was sitting in the fire station a few years back with her son as he filled out an application, when she got roped in. Marc, the captain, asked if shed want to join, too. He asks everyone this. All the time and anywhere. Not only did Dora go for it, she eventually found herself working a car fire with her boy, Harrison James Preston. Hes got the hose, and Im backing him, she said. It was awesome. Ellen and Dora are among about 14 active volunteer firefighters in a station that used to have at least 28 back when mostly blue-collar men ran fire companies with their sons and grandsons. In the 1970s, about 300,000 people volunteered as firefighters in Pennsylvania. Today? Fewer than 38,000, according to a report late last year out of Harrisburg. Ellen became a firefighter after a young man she knew was nearly killed in a fire. It inspired one of her two children, son Cameron, to join the company at age 14. She hung out with him there. And one day, the chief asked if shed like to hop along on a call. Yeah, said the Strath Haven High School teacher. Then join first, the chief said. Last April, Ellen completed 188 hours of training and became a firefighter. She is now so devoted to the mission she cant fathom doing anything but trying to keep it healthy. This is real, she said. As head of the gifted program at the high school, Ellen is designing and piloting a program enabling students there to earn non-school-hours academic credit in return for working at a volunteer fire company. She tested the idea this year with seniors and hopes to expand it to 10th graders. With any luck, the kids will be bitten by the same bug. Maybe theyll even bring more moms along for the ride, too. Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) East Delhi candidate Atishi has filed a criminal complaint against Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate from East Delhi Gautam Gambhir, alleging that he has two voter cards in the city. Following the development, a Delhi court on Friday said it will hear on May 1. Addressing media persons, Atishi said under section 155(2), a complaint has been filed at the Tis Hazari Court, seeking direction for police investigation into offences punishable under sections 17 and 31 of The Representation of the People Act, 1950 and section 125A of the same act, 1951. As per section 17 of The Representation of the People Act 1950, no person is entitled to be enrolled as a voter in more than one constituency, she said, adding that section 31 makes false declaration in the matter of inclusion or exclusion of voter rolls punishable with up to one year in prison. Consequently, any such declarations made in order to obtain registration as a voter in two or more constituencies is a criminal offence, punishable with imprisonment up to one year, or fine, or both, she added. My appeal to the citizens of East Delhi Lok Sabha pls dont waste your vote by voting for @GautamGambhir; he is going to get disqualified sooner or later for having two Voter ID cards!, Atishi said in a series of tweet. In another tweet, she said If this information had been revealed by us at the time of scrutiny, his nomination would have been cancelled. This is a disqualifiable offence that will lead to his disqualification sooner or later. Under Section 17, read with Section 31, false declaration in the matter of electoral rolls is punishable with jail time of up to one year, she said in a tweet. In his affidavit to the Returning Officer while filing his nomination, Gambhir concealed the information that he is also registered to vote in Karol Bagh, which is punishable under Sec 125A of the Representation of the People Act with up to 6 months jail time, she tweeted. Elaborating it further, she said Gambhir in his affidavit submitted to the Returning Officer at the time of nomination stated that he is only registered to vote in the Assembly constituency of Rajinder Nagar-39. However, it was later discovered that the BJP candidate was also registered to vote in Assembly Constituency Karol Bagh-23. Asserting that this fact was also deliberately and willfully concealed by Gambhir at the time of filing and scrutiny of his nomination, she said it was done presumably to avoid rejection of his nomination. The concealment of information provided in an election affidavit is also punishable under Section 125 A of the said act with up to six months jail time, she added. AAP national convener and Delhi Chief Minister also tweeted, Voters shud not waste their vote on someone who will get disqualified soon, AAP senior leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh sharing Saurabh Bhardwaj tweet, Will election commission be silent now? Will Gautam Gambhirs nomination be cancelled? How can a person contest election after having two voter cards? In a loud world where conversations routinely devolve and civility is severed, Krista Tippett is an anomaly. For starters, she has an indoor voice, a calm and steady cadence once compared to honey." But that doesnt mean Tippetts asking easy questions on her popular public radio program, On Being. Tippett, 58, wants to know what makes us human, what connects us, and what makes us hold fast to hope when troublesome news bombards us. Her show dates to the early 2000s when it was Speaking of Faith, but it evolved into something beyond religion, she told The UpSide. Guests have included the late poet Mary Oliver; conservative radio host Glenn Beck; and a slew of scientists, artists, psychologists, and musicians. In the early years, people would get an invitation to be on the show and say, Im not spiritual, I dont know what I have to offer, said Tippett in a phone interview. Often, I want people to comment on what it means to be human, about the connection between interior life and the outer world. Thats what were looking for. On April 28, the Peabody Award-winning broadcaster will be in Philadelphia to accept an award for her work from Interfaith Philadelphia as its yearlong Civil Conversations projects comes to an end. Tippett, whose own Civil Conversations project inspired Interfaith Philadelphia, will be given the 2019 Dare to Understand Award at the Episcopal Cathedral in University City. The following night, shell record an episode of On Being at Congregation Rodeph Shalom. Tippetts guests will be Omar Saif Ghobash, ambassador of the United Arab Emirates to France, and Shane Claiborne, leader of Red Letter Christians, which is based out of Kensington. Claiborne, 43, has been on Tippetts program several times. He calls Tippett a kindred spirit. She stirs peoples curiosity, and invites them to lean in," Claiborne said. One of the things we really need right now in America is spiritual conversation. Meanness doesnt have a political camp." Tippett grew up in Shawnee, Okla., and was raised in the Southern Baptist Church. She graduated from Brown University in 1983 with a history degree, then studied at the University of Bonn in West Germany on a Fulbright scholarship. She worked as a journalist and diplomat in Cold War Berlin and lived in Spain and England. Later, she earned a master of divinity at Yale University, a life-changing experience for her. I studied aspects of the human experience," she says. I was there to contemplate life and live the contemplative life, she said. You should have to go to divinity school. We should all be able to delve into this and experience this and investigate this in full. Tippett said Speaking of Faith began as an oral-history project for a Minnesota college, but in the years immediately after 9/11, talk of religion was often divisive. The language of faith was such a lighting rod, she says. What I wanted to do was open up imagination about all walks of life. I fell pretty quickly into the place were in now. " On Being was launched in 2003 as a weekly national public radio show. According to the shows website, it is broadcast on 400 public radio stations across the United States and has been downloaded more than 200 million times. Tippett has had many well-known guests, including authors Brene Brown and Ta-Nehisi Coates, but some are outside the mainstream, like Gordon Hempton, an acoustic ecologist who recorded the worlds last quiet places. Hemptons episode is full of lush sounds: the call of a loon, a rain shower, peeping frogs in a bog. As she does for every guest, Tippett opens with a question about the subjects spiritual tradition as a child. I really cant say that Im religious today, although I am spiritual. I dont go to church thats inside of buildings, but I do go to church thats outside, Hempton said. Tippett, who received a National Humanities Award from President Barack Obama in 2014, said listeners will recommend guests and often theyll find their way onto the show. When Tippett had the vociferous Glenn Beck on the show, she said, some listeners reacted badly, but she is not out to interview only people she agrees with. Discomfort is part of reality and teaching and learning, Tippett said. Im trying to make a different move when I interview more controversial, lighting-rod people. I want to create a space to try to understand where they are coming from." Tippett said radio lends itself to intimacy and she hasnt thought much of branching into television. Radio actually taps into your brain, she said. It helps paint pictures in your brain. It requires more of you, and I think thats a much more enriching experience." Krista Tippett will record a live episode of On Being on April 29 at 7 p.m. at Congregational Rodeph Shalom. For ticket information, visit www.interfaithphiladelphia.org/tickets. Two people hug as another talks to a San Diego County Sheriff's deputy outside of the Chabad of Poway synagogue, Saturday, April 27, 2019, in Poway, Calif. A man opened fire inside the synagogue near San Diego as worshippers celebrated the last day of a major Jewish holiday. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy) Read more POWAY, Calif. (AP) A 19-year-old gunman opened fire inside a synagogue near San Diego as worshippers celebrated the last day of a major Jewish holiday, killing a woman and wounding the rabbi and two others Saturday, authorities said. President Donald Trump and other elected officials decried what they called an anti-Semitic attack exactly six months since 11 people were killed at a Pittsburgh synagogue in the deadliest assault on Jews in U.S. history. An off-duty Border Patrol agent working as a security guard at the Chabad of Poway fired at the shooter as he fled, missing him but striking his getaway vehicle, San Diego County Sheriff William Gore said. The gunman, identified as John Earnest, used an AR-type assault weapon, Gore said. There were indications that the gun might have malfunctioned after firing numerous rounds inside the synagogue, the sheriff said. Shortly after fleeing, Earnest called 911 to report the shooting, San Diego Police Chief David Nisleit said. When an officer reached the man on a roadway, "the suspect pulled over, jumped out of his car with his hands up and was immediately taken into custody," Nisleit said. A girl and two men were wounded as the Jewish congregation gathered for Passover, a weeklong commemoration of the deliverance of the ancient Hebrews from slavery in Egypt. The three were in stable condition, authorities said. Earnest has no criminal record, but investigators were looking into a claim he made in an online manifesto about setting a fire at a mosque in nearby Escondido last month, Gore said. There was damage but no injuries. Gore said authorities were reviewing copies of his social media posts and were investigating the attack as a possible hate crime. A person identifying themselves as John Earnest posted an anti-Jewish screed online about an hour before the attack that contained some elements not to be believed, like an allegation a YouTube star helped plan and fund the shooting. The post says he was in nursing school and cited the suspects accused of carrying out deadly attacks on mosques in New Zealand last month and at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue Oct. 27. There was no known threat after Earnest was arrested, but authorities boosted patrols at places of worship as a precaution, police said. Minoo Anvari, a member of the synagogue, told media outlets that her husband was inside during the shooting. She said he called to tell her the shooter was shouting and cursing. She called the shooting "unbelievable" in a peaceful and tight-knit community. "We are strong; you can't break us," Anvari said. Donny Phonea, who lives across the street from the synagogue, turned off his power drill and heard someone shout, "Police!" Then he heard three or four shots. The 38-year-old bank auditor looked over his backyard fence facing the synagogue and saw people hiding behind an electrical box in the parking lot of a neighboring church. At that point, he knew something was "very, very wrong," went inside and closed his doors and garage. "I'm a little taken aback," said Phonea, who moved to Poway two weeks ago. "I moved here because safety was a factor. Poway is very safe." Trump offered his sympathies Saturday, saying the shooting "looked like a hate crime" and calling it "hard to believe." The mayor of Poway, who tweeted that he got a call from the president offering help, also denounced what he called a hate crime. "I want you know to you this is not Poway," Mayor Steve Vaus said. "We always walk with our arms around each other and we will walk through this tragedy with our arms around each other." Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom said he joins the community in grief. No one should have to fear going to their place of worship, and no one should be targeted for practicing the tenets of their faith, he said. Pennsylvania State Sens. Steve Santarsiero, left, and Art Hawood, right, inspect a rooftop solar installation along with Mark Bortman, the founder of Exact Solar, a Bucks County installer. Santarsiero and Haywood, along with State Sen. Tom Killion, are sponsoring a bill to increase renewable power incentives in Pennsylvania. Read more The debate over Pennsylvanias proposed $500 million nuclear rescue package pits the natural gas and nuclear industries in an epic struggle between the states two energy giants. But renewable power advocates believe they hold the swing vote in a tight battle, and they want a seat at the table. Several Philadelphia area legislators were set to introduce bills that will dramatically increase the share of solar and wind power included in any electricity sold in the state, which they say would strengthen support for green energy in the current Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards law (AEPS). The time is now, while youre talking about the nuclear bill, to start talking about where do we want to be by 2030 and 2050 in terms of solar and wind in Pennsylvania, because otherwise, were going to be left behind, said State Rep. Steve McCarter, (D., Montgomery), who is sponsoring a house version of the legislation. The green-power bills would require renewable energy to make up 30 percent of all power sold in the state by 2030, up from the current law that sets a target of 8 percent by 2021. That would put Pennsylvanias ambitions closer in line with other states that are leading the charge to reduce carbon emissions. Solar energy would get a carve-out of 10 percent, an ambitious goal that would require a dramatic ramp-up from the current mandate, which sets a target of 0.5 percent by 2021. Three-quarters of the solar energy would come from large grid-connected solar systems, rather than residential rooftop systems. Efforts to boost renewable energy mandates in Pennsylvania have stalled in recent years. But the composition of the General Assembly shifted leftward after the November elections. And divisions over a proposed nuclear rescue package that requires urgent action to avert a closure of Exelons Three Mile Island Unit 1 reactor create an opportunity for environmental advocates to leverage their power. We have a proposal thats out there now on AEPS, and well see if theres an interest on the part of folks who are putting out the nuclear subsidy bill to have some kind of discussion about that, said State Sen. Steve Santarsiero, a Bucks County Democrat who sponsored the proposal, Senate Bill 600, along with Art Hayward, a Democrat whose district includes Philadelphia and Montgomery Counties, and Tom Killion, a Delaware County Republican. Advocates of the nuclear rescue are unlikely to encounter unified support from Harrisburg Republicans, many of whom sympathize with the natural gas industrys call to allow power suppliers to compete unaided by ratepayer subsidies. They need Democratic votes, and there are enough Democrats who care deeply about environmental climate issues that I think they wont be willing to vote for something related to nuclear that doesnt do something meaningful on climate issues, said Mark Szybist, a clean-energy advocate for the Natural Resources Defense Council. Any negotiations over modifications to the Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards Act are more likely to occur closer to the June deadline legislators have set for a nuclear rescue. Exelon Generation says it will retire the 837-megawatt Dauphin County reactor, which employs nearly 700 people, if state support is not approved by June. Its all about timing," said Killion, the Republican sponsor of the renewable energy expansion." Sometimes if you merge different issues that bring legislators together somebody who may want a nuke bill but may not have been in favor of voting for an expansion of the AEPS all of a sudden the two are combined. Its all about math, getting the votes for passage. Under the 2004 AEPS act, alternative energy power generators are rewarded with an increasing number of credits each year based upon energy produced. Electric utilities and other retail power suppliers pass along the costs to consumers in their electric bills. The consumer cost of the proposed 30-percent renewable energy mandate is unclear because the prices are market-based. In 2017, the AEPS mandate cost consumers about $122.7 million, or 0.7 percent of the statewide customer cost of electricity, according to a Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission report. The PUC estimates that costs will decrease to $103.7 million by 2017 because more alternative generators will be producing. The cost is what the cost is going to be, said McCarter. The cost to do nothing is going to be a lot more, just in medical costs and the destruction of our state from climate. The current AEPS assigns 18 percent of the market to two tiers of power producers by 2021. The first tier reserves 8 percent of the market for renewable producers including wind, low-impact hydro, geothermal, biogas, and wood waste, and includes a 0.5 percent market share for solar photovoltaic producers. A second tier sets aside 10 percent of the market for alternative power producers, including large-scale hydro, waste-coal generators, and power plants that burn solid waste. The renewable energy proposals introduced this week would increase the share of Tier I power sources to 30 percent, but would not change the 10 percent share for the second tier. The law allows alternative power producers from outside Pennsylvania to get credits, so Pennsylvania generators actually received only 48.4 percent of the subsidies customers paid in 2017, according to the PUC. The law was changed in late 2017 to limit the solar credits to Pennsylvania producers, but out-of-state producers still qualify for other Pennsylvania renewable credits. As with the current law, the amount of renewable energy required would increase each year, and the market price for the renewable energy credits would fluctuate, depending upon the available supply of qualifying power produced. If supply is insufficient, the price of the credits rises, and incentivizes producers to erect more wind turbines or install more solar panels. The proposals to boost renewable energy mandates and its counterpart to subsidize nuclear industry are among several bills that would modify the AEPS. One proposal by State Rep. Jason Ortitay (R., Allegheny) would eliminate the AEPS subsidies altogether, and allow competition to determine which producers would prevail. The nuclear rescue bills, which are now undergoing hearings, would create a third category of energy credits amounting to about 50 percent of the states current power demand. The bills include upper and lower limits on the price of credits, which set the annual cost to customers at about $500 million, or $3 billion over the six-year commitment that power producers would make as part of the deal. The high cost of the nuclear subsidies, and the fact that much of the money would go to reactors that are currently profitable, has created considerable unease among legislators, according to discussions at public hearings on the proposals. Its kind of a hard sell in the legislature to get them to pay a half-billion of dollars of ratepayer money, said Rob Altenburg, director of the PennFuture Energy Center, an environmental advocacy group. To get something that passes, there would have to be some way of scaling down that ask, whether through a means test, or just a more limited support for nuclear plants. But the nuclear rescue bills sponsors, as well as the states three nuclear power generators, are adamant about framing the subsidies as a reward for nuclears zero-carbon production, not as a financial bailout for Three Mile Island and Beaver Valley Power Station, which owner FirstEnergy Corp. has promised to shut down by 2021 without state support. PITTSBURGH The 11-year-old son of a Pennsylvania Turnpike employee who died in a crash was accompanying his father during an unofficial Take Your Child to Work Day visit, officials said Friday. Hayden Field, of Connellsville, was killed when his fathers pickup truck rear-ended a tractor-trailer about 2 p.m. Thursday in the eastbound lanes of the turnpike in Mount Pleasant, according to the Westmoreland County Coroners Office. Jerry Lucia, chief of Mount Pleasants volunteer fire department, said Hayden had gone to work with his father, Harvey Denny Field, an employee of the Turnpike Commission. The Coroner's Office said Hayden was pronounced dead at the scene. His son was trapped in the pickup truck they drove, and we had to extricate him, Lucia said. Haydens father was ejected through the windshield, Lucia said, and was taken to UPMC Presbyterian in Pittsburgh. He had surgery last night, and I believe it was a head injury, Lucia said. His condition had not been released. A person in the tractor-trailer was flown to a Pittsburgh hospital, said Turnpike Commission spokeswoman Renee Colburn. She did not know the extent of that persons injuries. Rosanne Placey, another spokeswoman for the commission, said Field began working for the turnpike in July 2011 and is stationed at the Donegal maintenance facility. The commission does not host formal Take Your Child to Work Day events at field locations or maintenance facilities, she said. We believe that Harvey had taken a day off to show his son who also was off school for the day where he works, she said. We await information on how we may best serve Denny and his family and care for their needs at this time, Placey said. Lucia, the fire chief, said part of Fields job was to respond to incident calls that fire departments also go out on. I knew him because we answer fire and rescue calls on that part of the turnpike, so Im used to talking to him, Lucia said. He was called a first responder, so he would come out with a pickup truck and size up the situation and take it from there on what equipment he would need. What caused the crash remained under investigation. Hayden was a student at Connellsville Area Middle School, according to school district officials. Our community is in shock over this tragedy and the loss of such a vibrant young life, Bryan Kisiel, president of the Connellsville Area school board, said Friday afternoon. District Superintendent Joseph Bradley released the following statement: We extend our sympathy and condolences to the family. Our thoughts, prayers, and support are with them. lwimbley@post-gazette.com Andrew Jaffe, who goes by the name Tin Foil Man, celebrated with thousands of others at the Furnace Party, held on a vacant lot at 27th Street and Girard Avenue in Philadelphia's Brewerytown section. Read more As he stood with three friends and a few hundred strangers on an abandoned lot in Brewerytown Saturday, Michael Coad couldnt help but wonder about the mystery person who brought them all there. Was it a man or a woman who wrote the now viral letter prophesying that the only way to be saved was to become a solid steel statue or to seal yourself in cement? Was it someone in the crowd who photocopied the missive and dropped it in Philadelphia mailboxes, asking the recipients to gather on that very lot on April 27 at noon? Was it Tin Foil Man? Coad, 29, asked. He nodded toward the person a few yards away, sitting on the grass and methodically wrapping himself in sheets of crinkled aluminum. Oh no, no, Tin Foil Man, 22-year-old Andrew Jaffe, answered a few minutes later. Im just trying to find a way to procrastinate studying for finals. And $1.50 of aluminum foil, you know, its a way to spend a Saturday. Around him were others who heeded the nonsensical call: Come to the lot at 27th Street and Girard Avenue at noon April 27 to discuss building a steel furnace that would be used to mold people into solid statues. The writer who titled his request ABBA explained they were in danger because all the food they had eaten since first grade is alive in your body. Do attend, the author, politely, closed. Those who did attend packed backpacks and coolers of beer. One wore a yellow Hazmat suit and a gas mask, which he spoke through when a camera crew stopped him for an interview. A father and son from New Jersey prepared for the heat of the furnace with oven mitts on their hands. Flashes of silver were everywhere: a shimmering trench coat, hastily made aluminum hats, body glitter covering a mans bare chest. When ABBAs Dancing Queen blared through the speakers, the crowd broke into song. The letter had inspired countless internet memes, and Chris Barber on Saturday handed out copies of his own version: a 10-page essay exploring the letters meaning and message. Barber, a 30-year-old high school religion teacher, called it a meme to the extreme. If you really spend time with [the letter] you get a sense of an impending danger, a reason for that danger, what we need to do to get away from it, he said. It actually kind of holds together. And you have to fill in a lot of the blanks. But thats kind of the fun of philosophy and religion in general. Its worth reading, he added, even just for the fact that it brought together this community. Others in the crowd said the same, enjoying a reason to gather with people they might not have otherwise ever met. Still, some had mixed feelings, even a discomfort, worried that the writer of the letter might suffer from mental-health issues. In anticipation of the party, nearly $2,000 was raised for charity through a GoFundMe campaign titled Do Attend. Help a Friend. A man in the crowd Saturday selling $20 T-shirts commemorating the day also planned to donate part of the proceeds to a group that works with those suffering from mental illness. To the surprise of many, the man who wrote the letter did take part in the gathering. According to a reporter from PhillyVoice, who shared the exchange on Twitter, the writer, identified as Milton Jackson, arrived a few hours after the first attendees. In a wheelchair, he was accompanied by a friend from the neighborhood who said she had distributed the letter for him. We had no idea the letter was going to go viral, she said, according to the video. Its unbelievable," she added, looking out at the lot of people. "Its beautiful, bringing people together. For youngsters ages 2 to 4, the U.N. health agency said daily sedentary screen time should be limited to no more than one hour, and preferably less. Read more Toddlers of the world, your screen time has just been cut to the bone, if the World Health Organization (WHO) has anything to say about it. The U.N. health agency issued guidelines this week that call for drastically curtailing the amount of time the youngest spend in front of a screen. That goes for televisions, tablets, smartphones, video games, and other devices. The recommendations call for no screen time for children in the first two years of life. For youngsters ages 2 to 4, the WHO said, daily sedentary screen time should be limited to one hour, and preferably be less. The recommendations by a panel of global health experts are aimed at getting kids to be more physically active and to increase the quality and quantity of their sleep. Improving physical activity, reducing sedentary time, and ensuring quality sleep in young children will improve their physical and mental health and well-being, and help prevent childhood obesity and associated diseases later in life, said Fiona Bell, program manager for surveillance and population-based prevention of noncommunicable diseases at WHO. WHO said over 23 percent of adults and 80 percent of adolescents are not physically active enough for good health. The agency estimates that a lack of adequate physical activity is responsible for five million deaths a year globally. The panels hope is for the youngest kids to get into healthy habits early. According to the global health organization, children ages 1 to 4 should spend at least 180 minutes daily in various types of physical activity throughout the day. When children are sedentary, the agency encourages them to engage in reading and storytelling with a caregiver. The guidelines also said young children shouldnt be restrained think strollers, highchairs, carriers for more than an hour at time. Donna Cooper, executive director of Public Citizens for Children and Youth, a Philadelphia-based advocacy group, said the recommendations underscore the need for greater investment in early childhood programs, including adequately trained child-care staff. These WHO recommendations are more evidence that we must radically overall our childcare systems so that every childcare program caring for babies and toddlers is using the power of play and activity to build the brain of babies and toddlers, Cooper said. Some, however, may find aspects of these guidelines a bit hard to live up to. Charlotte H. Markey, a professor of psychology at Rutgers-Camden, said getting kids moving is a good goal, as is not allowing little ones to spend too much time in front of a screen. But, she added, families need flexibility to find their own balance. Raising a kid is a lot of work, and balancing kids needs with family needs is very important, Markey said. We know there is a lot of benefit, for example, to family meal time, but if you feel like you cant let your child watch that show so you can make that meal, youre in a conundrum. Valundra Pollard, 59, a beloved storyteller who read to children at the Ardmore Free Library for two decades, died of a heart attack on Tuesday, April 16. Ms. Pollard retired in 2010 from her role after 17 years at the Ardmore library, but then she returned to storytelling there and elsewhere more recently, said her sister, Captola Evans. A typical story time begins with a song, the Main Line Times newspaper reported in a 2010 article. Then, children recite numbers 1-10 in English, Spanish, and French; the same with days of the week and colors. Peggy Newman, who was the librarys director at the time, described Ms. Pollard as a Renaissance woman for the way she included Spanish and French lessons and brought different cultures into her story times, the Main Lines Times reported. We are deeply saddened by the passing of our dear friend, Ms. Val, the Ardmore library said in an April 23 Facebook post. She has been an important member of Ardmore Library for many years. We will miss her terribly. Ms. Pollard was born in Philadelphia and graduated from Lower Merion High School in 1977. She took courses at Smith College in Massachusetts and then moved on to a career in market research. Besides being a library storyteller around the Main Line, she taught kindergarten and Spanish at Overbrook Presbyterian Churchs nursery school. Ms. Pollard hosted annual Kwanzaa and Easter events at her home and had friends from many faiths, races, and countries, her family said. She liked to travel and her journeys took her to Pakistan, Israel, and Peru among many destinations. She was an animal lover and had a parrot named Pablo for more than 30 years. She also had two cats, Onyx and Inky, and five parakeets. Her sister said new homes would be found for the animals. In addition to her sister, Captola Evans, Ms. Pollard is survived by two brothers, Franklin and Cyrus; and an aunt, NaImah Asari. She also is survived by her former husband, Fida Sheik, and four stepchildren, Khadija Fida, Asma Fida, Rahat Fida, and Wajahat Fida. There will be a memorial service for Ms. Pollard on May 2 at 10 a.m. at Siloam Baptist Church, 1329 Willow St., Norristown. This article has been changed to show the correct time of the memorial service. Installers from Solar States LLC attach solar panels to the roof Bill and Yolanda Hopping's house on Oct. 22. Read more Bill Hopping watched a work crew on Monday install solar panels on his Birmingham Township home, taking a small measure of satisfaction at the end of a year-long struggle with local authorities over renewable power. The crew scrambled for footholds on the slick, pitched metal roof, not unlike the slippery slope that Hopping and his wife, Yolanda, embarked on in 2017 when the Chester County town's zoning board rejected their proposed system. It did not comply with rules prohibiting rooftop solar panels from being visible from the street. "They kind of lifted a middle finger at me," said Hopping, 56. "That just made me a little more stubborn. I had to get to the bottom of this." Hopping, a former corporate lawyer who now has a part-time private practice, sued the township, saying it could not constitutionally prohibit rooftop solar panels on purely aesthetic grounds. Both sides dug in for a long battle. But last month the township conceded and let the Hoppings install their $60,000 rooftop solar system on their Radley Run house, facing the street. "I think they were generally shocked and embarrassed they were sued," said Hopping, who said he was prepared to push the litigation further. Hopping's case is not unusual, solar experts say. As the popularity of renewable power grows, homeowners eager to install solar systems are encountering a host of obstacles: cumbersome municipal permitting processes, inhospitable utilities, and homeowners associations firmly opposed to any exterior alterations. "Some people don't like the look of solar systems, and they think it will change the character of a neighborhood," said Zachary Greene, a program director for the Solar Foundation in Washington, which aims to advance the adoption of solar energy. "You see this in historical areas where the architectural consistency is something they might want to maintain." Birmingham Township, population 4,200, is clearly a place where appearances are important: It is manicured and affluent, and tends to vote Republican, except in the 2016 presidential race, where voters crossed over and supported Hillary Clinton. It is also steeped in history. The main clash of Colonial and British forces in the pivotal 1777 Battle of Brandywine occurred across its rolling landscape. But Birmingham's solar zoning ordinance makes no distinction between the historic district and newer developments such as Radley Run, where the Hoppings four years ago moved into a contemporary house built in 1987. The zoning ordinance simply prohibits all rooftop solar installations that are visible from the street. Though more than 45,000 Pennsylvania homes have solar power compared with 394,000 in New Jersey very few are located in Birmingham Township. Hopping argued that his house, which is partially shielded from the street by trees, was appropriate for solar. He replaced the shingle roof with a gray metal roof to better match the solar panels. "I'm hoping with the metal roof and the contemporary house, it won't look too out of place," he said. As the popularity of residential solar power began to grow about a decade ago, some municipalities adopted rules to encourage renewable energy. But others enacted restrictions, sometimes in reaction to early installations that went awry, said Greene, who manages a program called SolSmart, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy to help local governments simplify the solar permitting process. Indeed, there are plenty of online images showing ugly rooftop solar installations. Some municipalities require flush-mounted panels on pitched roofs, and forbid installments that are higher than the roofline. Some solar skeptics say the glare from photovoltaic panels might be a nuisance. Planners dismiss the fears, saying that solar cells are designed to absorb light, not reflect it. "We don't encourage municipalities to regulate for glare," said Elizabeth Compitello, manager of local initiatives for the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission. "It's a very difficult thing to regulate for, and costly if you require a glare study." There is also sometimes an unspoken political undercurrent to the renewable energy issue a partisan debate over climate change. One homeowner's patriotic effort to reduce greenhouse gases is another's state-subsidized eyesore. "Beauty is in the eye of beholder," said Jon Lesher, an environmental planner and solar expert for the Montgomery County Planning Commission. "Some people see solar panels and say, `That's awesome, that's progressive.' Others might see it and say, `Wow, you've just slapped a piece of technology on our beautiful historic, quaint downtown.'" The aesthetic issue may recede in the future as solar panel manufacturers improve early versions of photovoltaic systems that are designed to look like roofing materials. Tesla unveiled a line of solar roof shingles and tiles in 2016, but the systems are still expensive and inefficient compared with conventional solar panels. "They don't make economic sense yet," said Lesher, who has advised about 30 Montgomery County towns on drafting solar-friendly regulations. "Hopefully, in the near future, the technology gears up." Hopping said he was motivated to install his 42-panel solar system he chose high-efficiency LG panels that boosted the project cost partly out of concern for the environment but also a desire to increase his independence from the electric grid. He calls himself a progressive, nonpartisan libertarian. "I'm not a nut about solar panels," he said. "Whatever you think about global warming or over-dependence on fossil fuels, it just makes financial sense." He expects that the 15.1-kilowatt system, installed by Solar States LLC of Philadelphia, will pay for itself in eight years, generating 80 percent of his electricity needs. Hopping said the 30 percent federal tax credit, which is scheduled to begin winding down in 2020, was also a strong incentive, although he acknowledged that some of his friends who call solar subsidies "idiotic tax policy" may have a point. "Even if I'm philosophically opposed to using the tax law to effect social change doesn't mean I won't take advantage of them if they're there," he said. "It's all perfectly legal and transparent." Hopping said he can only speculate about what motivated Birmingham Township to enact an ordinance in 2010 requiring a homeowner to file for a special zoning exception to install a rooftop solar system. "I could never get anybody to engage on this before we got in front of the judge," he said. Hopping supplied statements from six neighbors who did not object, although two noted that his roof was visible from the street, General Sullivan Drive. He also submitted a legislative history on Birmingham's ordinance to the zoning hearing board, and compared Birmingham's zoning ordinances with those in other Chester County communities. But the board declined to approve it, saying the proposed installation on the front roof, which faces south toward the sun, is also in full view of the street. Hopping said his case did not gain traction until it went to a hearing this summer before Chester County Common Pleas Court Judge David F. Bortner. The judge, a former Birmingham Township supervisor, who also lives in Radley Run, offered to recuse himself, but Hopping and the township solicitor agreed to let him hear the case. At a hearing, Bortner suggested to the township solicitor, Kristin S. Camp, that the township likely would lose if Hopping challenged the validity of the ordinance. That initiated negotiations, leading to a Sept. 19 settlement in which the township agreed to let the Hoppings install their system in exchange for dropping the lawsuit. The township "agreed that if he had filed a substantive challenge, he most likely would prevail," Camp said in an interview. "That was where we said, we're not going to make him go through all those hoops, we'll recognize when something's at fault here." Camp said she would advise the town to get rid of the solar restrictions when it conducts a review of all its ordinances pertaining to alternative energy systems. "I don't think you can't have something that is purely based on aesthetics," she said, though she believes the township could devise more rigid restrictions in Birmingham's historic district, which is protected under state laws. As for Hopping, he is relieved the ordeal is over. "I don't want them to feel like I'm doing an end-zone dance," he said. "I just want my solar panels in." WASHINGTON - Rod Rosenstein, again, was in danger of losing his job. The New York Times had just reported that - in the heated days after James Comey was fired as FBI director - the deputy attorney general had suggested wearing a wire to surreptitiously record President Donald Trump. Now Trump, traveling in New York, was on the phone, eager for an explanation. Rosenstein - who, by one account, had gotten teary-eyed just before the call in a meeting with Trump's chief of staff - sought to defuse the volatile situation and assure the president he was on his team, according to people familiar with matter. He criticized the Times report, published in late September, and blamed it on former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe, whose recollections formed its basis. Then he talked about Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Russia's interference in the 2016 election and told the president he would make sure Trump was treated fairly, people familiar with the conversation said. "I give the investigation credibility," Rosenstein said, in the words of one administration official offering their own characterization of the call. "I can land the plane." The episode illustrates the political tightrope Rosenstein has had to walk in his two years as the Justice Department's second-in-command. To keep his job, the deputy attorney general has worked to mollify an often angry Trump, while at the same time protecting the special counsel's investigation of the president and his campaign. Rosenstein's actions have come under renewed scrutiny, as he has played a key role in releasing Mueller's findings in a way even some of his supporters say has been overly favorable to Trump. In a statement for this article, Rosenstein said: "The only commitment I made to President Trump about the Russia investigation is the same commitment I made to the Congress: so long as I was in charge, it would be conducted appropriately and as expeditiously as possible. Everyone who actually participated in the investigation knows that." He added: My relationship with the President is not one-dimensional. The Russia investigation represents only a fraction of my work and the work of the Department of Justice. I talk with the President at every opportunity about the great progress we have made and are making at the Department of Justice in achieving the Administrations law enforcement priorities and protecting American citizens. A person familiar with Rosensteins account said the deputy attorney general disputes that he was teary-eyed in the meeting before the call with Trump. He was reacting appropriately given the circumstances, which was a discussion about his forced resignation, the person said. But Rosenstein - whose representatives were approached for comment for this report earlier in the week - acknowledged in a combative speech Thursday night in New York that there were times during his tenure as deputy attorney general that he grew upset. "One silly question that I get from reporters is, 'Is it true that you got angry and emotional a few times over the past few years?' Heck yes! Didn't you?" Rosenstein said, deviating from his prepared script. Trump ended the call with Rosenstein thinking he was "on the team after all," one senior administration official said, adding that the president has been further swayed by Rosenstein's deference in meetings and other settings. On multiple occasions, according to people familiar with the matter, Rosenstein told Trump he was not a "target" of Mueller's investigation - using law enforcement jargon that can refer to people about whom the Justice Department has gathered substantial evidence of criminal wrongdoing. Mueller's report makes clear that investigators focused on Trump; his attorneys were informed he was a "subject," a different bureaucratic term meaning his conduct was being investigated. And Mueller's report details conduct that legal observers have said could constitute obstruction of justice. Rosenstein also told the president more than once that he agreed Trump was being treated unfairly - though one person familiar with the matter said Rosenstein was probably referring to media coverage rather than the investigation itself. That person, like others in this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal government deliberations. In his speech Thursday, Rosenstein launched a blistering attack on the media, an offensive likely to hearten Trump. "Some of the nonsense that passes for breaking news today would not be worth the paper it was printed on, if anybody bothered to print it," he said. He also criticized the Obama administration for not publicizing the "full story" about Russian hacking and social media influence operations and cited a quote from Trump to make a point about the rule of law. My job is to stand here Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller as special counsel after Comey's firing, is no stranger to political blows - from the right, from the left and from the man who nominated him for the job. At the end of Mueller's probe, though, Rosenstein might have been able to avoid some punches, since the ultimate decisions would be up to Attorney General William Barr. Instead, he leaned in. In rare public comments in recent weeks, Rosenstein has lauded Barr to Time magazine and derided as bizarre allegations that Barr was trying to mislead the public about Muellers work by glossing over the most serious findings about Trumps behavior, as Democrats have argued. Rosenstein stood behind the attorney general when Barr held a news conference to assert that the president had not colluded with Russia and that there was not a prosecutable case against Trump for obstruction of justice. The deputy attorney general's unmoving gaze sparked speculation that he felt uncomfortable with what was happening; Barr, after all, was going further than Mueller had and repeatedly uttered one of the president's preferred expressions - "no collusion." But Barr had written in a letter to lawmakers that he and Rosenstein had decided together there was not a prosecutable obstruction case, and a Justice Department official noted Rosenstein stepped away from a family vacation in Florida to be at the news conference. He flew back to Florida later that day, the official said. Rosenstein said in his speech Thursday: "Last week, the big topic of discussion was, 'What were you thinking when you stood behind Bill Barr at that press conference, with a deadpan expression?' The answer is I was thinking, 'My job is to stand here with a deadpan expression.' " "Can you imagine if I did anything other than stand there at the press conference?" he added. "Imagine the reaction and the commentary if I had smiled or grimaced." Defenders of the special counsels probe had long viewed Rosenstein as one of the last bastions guarding the investigation. But Barrs comments, in their view, misrepresented Muellers full report and seemed designed to protect the president. And Rosenstein was at least willing to go along with them. Former U.S. attorney Barbara McQuade, who served with Rosenstein when he was a U.S. attorney in the Obama administration, said she considered Rosenstein "honorable." But she said she was mystified that he would sign on to Barr's decision that there was not a prosecutable obstruction case against Trump when Mueller pointedly would not say that. "His name is included in the letter, and he stood by his side at the press conference, so somehow he got on board with that decision," McQuade said. "It seems really strange to me." Others were more critical. "I think Rod's intentions were largely in the right place, but he was weak too many times when the country needed him to be strong," said Matthew Miller, a Justice Department spokesman during the Obama administration. "He didn't have to allow the attorney general to use his name in his letter and the press conference, but he has too often been willing to sacrifice his reputation to please people above him." A person close to Rosenstein said the deputy attorney general - in his dealings with Trump and others - sought to protect the investigation. I dont want to go out with a tweet Rosenstein's status in the eyes of the White House has been fluid, but it was perhaps never more tenuous than after the New York Times reported he had suggested wearing a wire to record Trump. After the article was published, Kelly summoned Rosenstein to discuss it. The deputy attorney general would not address specific details of the article but told Kelly he was willing to step aside, two people familiar with the matter said. He talked about his long career at the Justice Department and his reputation, which he did not want Trump to tarnish, the people said. "I can go. I'm ready to go. I can resign. But I don't want to go out with a tweet," the deputy attorney general said, according to one person's account. Trump routinely makes significant personnel announcements via Twitter. The person said Rosenstein left for another, regularly scheduled White House meeting but soon had a call with Trump. Even in the days that followed, his departure seemed so certain that the Justice Department lined up a succession plan. But Rosenstein ultimately met with Trump aboard Air Force One a few weeks later and remained at the Justice Department. He might do so almost up to the point his successor is confirmed. Trump has nominated Deputy Transportation Secretary Jeffrey Rosen to replace Rosenstein. Rosen must still be confirmed by the Senate - which could happen next month. Rosenstein's defenders say he is a prosecutor at heart, guided by doing what he thinks is right rather than which side of the political aisle will support him. They note that he has faced criticism from politicians of both parties, and the same people who now worry about him praised him for appointing Mueller. "You had people drawing a red line around him to protect him in the beginning. Now those same people are going to say, 'Oh, he's a conservative hack,' " said James Trusty, a partner at Ifrah Law and a friend of Rosenstein's. "In the future, as people look back, there's lots of room for criticism on lots of things at the FBI and DOJ, but I think he'll be acquitted nicely." The firing of Comey Rosenstein was installed as the deputy attorney general in April 2017, and only a few weeks into his tenure, he confronted the crisis that would come to define it. Trump, upset over the Russia investigation, wanted to fire Comey, who would not say publicly that Trump was not a target of the Russia probe. After having advisers draft a letter firing Comey, the president was persuaded to talk to Rosenstein and then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, according Muellers report. In a May 8 meeting with White House lawyers, Rosenstein and Sessions criticized Comey and did not raise concerns about replacing him, according to Muellers report. Later that day, in front of the president, Rosenstein described his concerns with Comeys handling of the investigation of Hillary Clintons use of a private email server while she was in government, according to the report. Notes from one participant in the meeting say that Trump told Rosenstein to draft a recommendation about the firing and to include in it that Comey had refused to say Trump was not personally targeted by the Russia investigation, according to Mueller's report. Rosenstein, according to the notes, said that was not the basis for his recommendation, so he did not think Russia should be mentioned. According to Mueller's report, Rosenstein left the meeting and told others his reasons for replacing Comey were not the same as Trump's. The next day, he turned in a memorandum saying the FBI was "unlikely to regain public and congressional trust" with an unrepentant Comey at the helm. Though the memo did not mention Russia, it offered Trump some political cover. The president fired Comey, and White House aides berated reporters who suggested the move was based on anything other than Rosenstein's recommendation. The White House released Rosenstein's memo to support Trump's action. Comey's termination sparked a crisis at the FBI and Justice Department. The deputy attorney general believed the White House was misstating his role in the decision. FBI leaders - acting director McCabe in particular - grew distrustful of Rosenstein. At a meeting that month, according to McCabe's recollection captured in contemporaneous memos, Rosenstein suggested he could wear a wire to surreptitiously record the president and talked in passing of using the 25th Amendment to oust Trump from office. Rosenstein has generally disputed that account. But on May 17, he took the dramatic step of appointing Mueller as special counsel - giving the Russia investigation some measure of independence. McCabe remained worried. At a meeting shortly after Mueller's appointment, he and Rosenstein each suggested the other should recuse himself from the case, though neither did, people familiar with the matter have said. Mueller's report says the special counsel's team interviewed Rosenstein on May 23 - making it one of the earliest conversations the team had with a witness. Kerri Kupec, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said career ethics officials at the department determined he did not need to recuse. Trump was already incensed at Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia case, and he would soon turn his ire on the deputy attorney general - deriding him as a "Democrat from Baltimore." Rosenstein had been the U.S. attorney in Maryland during the Obama administration, but he is a Republican and lives in Bethesda, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C. Conservative allies of the president, led by Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., pushed Rosenstein to turn over information on the Russia investigation and last April drafted articles of impeachment against him. Meadows and others also privately complained to Trump about his deputy attorney general. For his part, Rosenstein publicly fought back, declaring at an event last May that the Justice Department was "not going to be extorted." But while he was sparring with Trump's allies, the deputy attorney general was also maintaining the kind of workplace diplomacy that wins bosses' favor. He frequently called and wrote letters to White House aides when they were in the news, or when they celebrated their birthday, people familiar with the matter said. He was recently spotted hugging the president's personal assistant and other aides at the annual Gridiron Club dinner, and on Monday he was photographed at the White House Easter Egg Roll, waiting in line to greet one of the president's closest advisers, Kellyanne Conway. The Washington Posts Philip Bump in New York contributed to this report. Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel started a whirlwind campaign tour of Uttar Pradesh addressing series of rallies for the party candidates there. Baghel, who is also the Chhattisgarh Pradesh Congress chief, addressed three public rallies in Amethi on Friday seeking vote for his party President Rahul Gandhi. Later, he proceeded for Sarawan in Raibareli constituency to campaign for Sonia Gandhi, the chairperson of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA). Speaking at a public rally in Amethi, Baghel said by electing Gandhi the people there would elect not only a Member of Parliament (MP) but Prime Minister of the country. He appealed to the people of Amethi to make Gandhi victorious with a record vote. The affection the Gandhi family and Rahul Gandhi had received from people of Amethi is unprecedented. The people here have elected Rajivji, Soniaji and now in past three general elections they showered blessings to Rahul Gandhiji, he said. In Raibareli he said the people there were standing beside Soniaji like firm rock and are going to make here victorious with more than 5 lakh votes. Official sources in the Congress informed that Baghel would tour Jharkhand on Saturday. The state has a number of immigrants from Chhattisgarh. He would also try to woo for the party Sahu and Kurmi population of the state, being a Kurmi himself. The Bharatiya Janata Party state president Ajay Bhatt has formed a three-member committee to probe the dispute between two BJP MLAs from Haridwar district- Pranav Singh Champion of Khanpur and Deshraj Karnwal of Jhabreda. Incidentally, on the same day, a video also went viral on the social media of Champion lambasting his Jhabreda counterpart for being deceitful and not honouring the compromise arrived at in the presence of chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat. The BJP State media in-charge Devendra Bhasin informed that the partys state president has taken serious cognisance of the dispute between the two MLAs from Haridwar district and the statements being made by them in the media. Bhatt has formed a three-member committee to probe this. The partys state general secretary and MLA Khajan Das has been made coordinator of this committee with State minister rank position holder Vishwas Dawar and BJP state minister Kuldeep Kumar as members. Bhatt has directed the committee to investigate the matter and submit its report soon so that further action can be taken. Incidentally, a video of Champion also spread on the social media in which he is seen stating that he had learnt from newspapers that a person considering himself to be clever is acting foolish and deceitful. I had lodged a complaint in the false caste certificate case on April 7 and now he has approached the high court in the case and also made me a party. The Khanpur MLA further says in the video, A talk was held in front of the chief minister and the party organisation and he (Karnwal) is dishonouring that. So now I am free to send him to jail, the party cant tell me to not take any action. Now I will not say anything but take action, he said. It will be recalled that Karnwal and Champion had been levelling allegations at each other for some time. While Champion had alleged that Karnwal had used a false caste certificate,Karnwal had questioned Champions qualifications. The BJP State unit had also issued notices to the two MLAs but their dispute was recently resolved after the intervention of the chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat. The situation appeared to have returned to normal until Tuesday when the Jhabreda MLA filed a petition in the high court. Considering the latest developments, the situation is likely to escalate in the coming days. Joe Stapleton: Then and Now on the EPT (Part Two) April 27, 2019 Paul Seaton The PokerStars European Poker Tour has grown up with poker just like poker has grown up with the EPT. Last time out, we spoke to comedian, writer, and broadcaster Joe Stapleton about his time back then in the comfortable middle seasons of the worlds most famous European poker tournament. But how has the EPT changed to what it has become today? Society has, of course, changed markedly since the 2013 EPT Monte Carlo Main Event. There was a different U.S. President for one thing. Since then, Donald Trump has taken office, and Stapleton has become a vocal activist on social media in decrying the current regime. He doesnt, however, take his feelings onto the stage when hes in stand-up mode. It occupies a lot of my time, thinking about it, raging against it, being saddened by it. Thats part of the reason I dont talk about it on stage. Its too personal to me; I dont find it very funny, says Stapleton, deadly serious. There are 10,000 Twitter comedians doing Trump material non-stop. Its easier for me to tackle other subjects. He does, however, tackle politics on his social media pages, something he admits has questionable value. But while he doesnt mind his fans asking him to get back to the jokes, he sees a vivid difference between an audiences preference for comedic material and ostracizing his voice from the discussion entirely. "You dont have to be a politician to have an opinion on politics. Were voters, and its a democratically representative government." For me, I couldnt sleep at night not saying, This is wrong. We all learned about World War Two at school, and we all raised our hands to say, Why didnt people do anything, how did this happen? Im not going to be one of those people - speaking up is the first step. Speaking up Stapleton does, not just because he cares, but he considers it his duty to do so. Plenty of his fans on social media agree with him, but he gets haters too. Im perfectly fine when people say get back to the jokes. They mean We want more of you doing the thing we love but if theyre saying get back to the poker because you do not belong in this area... on that, they can fuck off. Stapes doesnt believe people should be compartmentalized; from poker presenters, to players, fans, or anybody. You dont have to be a politician to have an opinion on politics. Were voters, and its a democratically representative government. Saying stick to poker is like me asking someone for a glass of water and them replying stick to oxygen. Its reasonable for me to have both things. Stapleton lived in London at the time of ODwyers quads in 2013 but has since moved to New York City and now finds himself in Hollywood, Los Angeles. Just as the EPT has moved on, so has he. I knew I didnt want to live in London for the rest of my life and it was an easy sell to go to New York. I figured I could work at stand-up there, and it would be a quick hop back and forth to London. Stapleton did just that, honing his skills on both sides of the pond. His love of stand-up, that rawest of comedic forms, is long-founded. Saturday Night Live is the reason I got into comedy in the first place. I still watch it every week, albeit not always live. Saturday Night Live is the reason I got into comedy in the first place. I still watch it every week, albeit not always live. Within five or six months of being in New York, Stapleton had a management company in Los Angeles reach out to him. Now hes on the same books as people like Seth Rogan, artists he admires. Hes recently headed to Phoenix, Arizona to perform stand-up with legendary comedian Norm Macdonald. Its a reverse situation of the PCA earlier this year when Stapes roped Macdonald into performing at Atlantis. I got Norm that gig, but Norm getting me gigs is much more important for my career. Hes an all-time great as far as Im concerned. Norms got the face, the posture, the voice, the cadence; hes a legend. I cannot think of a comedian who has influenced me more than Norm Macdonald. Joe Stapleton hosted a comedy night at this year's PCA with Norm Macdonald headlining The level of respect Stapleton has for great comedians is clearly what motivates him. It burns within him to make people laugh. He sees the medium as one he has wanted to move towards for many years. Stand-up has been a great outlet for me. When Im on a poker show, I try to inject as much humor as I can, but I have to amplify and accentuate the poker. Understandably, that can be frustrating, but I get it. Its a poker show; its not the Joe Stapleton Comedy Hour. When hes unleashed on stage, Stapleton can be hundred percent himself. Its a freedom that he embraces, even as recently as in 2015, when he performed in front of Team PokerStars Pros, telling jokes to avoid being hit by tomatoes: Stand-up is a lot more of what I want to say. There are certain jokes I cant pull off; I dont get political in my act. I feel like theres so much out there for people who want to listen to jokes about whatever awfulness is going on, that unless I have a really brilliant take on it, I tend to leave it out. Stapleton now has a very different career within poker than he has ever had before. Stapleton, however, is looking to branch out beyond poker. I want a bigger audience; I want to talk to more people. If I can take a very narrow subject matter of poker, and make people laugh, then Id love to have a bigger audience and a wider subject. If somebody handed me the keys to a comedy sketch show, Id be fucking thrilled. Stapleton will always be associated with the European Poker Tour. Just as the memory of any comedy show or TV drama is stirred by the biggest characters, its impossible to think of the EPT without thinking of Joe Stapleton. But as Stapes himself describes, now hes in Los Angeles, his business is one of rotation. Im like a plate-spinner at the circus, youre spinning plates, running back and forth, keep this one going, keep that one going. Oh shit, that one almost fell!... you do that for as long as you can until something works out. In poker, as in comedy, writing and presenting, success can often come when you least expect it. Extremely hard work is an edge that Stapleton has pressed for years. For a man so in tune with his audience for so many years, it seems like only a matter of time before the European Poker Tour becomes one of the many gigs Joe Stapleton has had that keep getting bigger. The Stars Group owns a majority shareholding in iBus Media. Sylvain Loosli Reigns Victorious in EPT Monte Carlo 10,300 High Roller April 27, 2019 Adam Lamers It took quite the effort from Frenchman Sylvain Loosli, but he managed to rise to the top of the 2019 PokerStars and Monte-CarloCasino EPT 10,300 No-Limit Hold'em High Roller. Loosli outlasted a total of 70 entries and defeated Georgios Kitsios to claim the 198,610 first-place prize. It was a back and forth heads-up battle that saw both players hold serious chip leads at different points. Loosli's Greek counterpart was willing to push the action but it was the Frenchman who got paid off in two critical pots. The ladder came when Loosli went for value with second pair and it worked out for him, earning him the chip lead again. In the final hand of the evening, Kitsios risked his 15 big blind stack with king-five but Loosli had him dominated with ace-five. Kitsios could not hit a three-outer and by the river, Loosli made a flush and closed out the tournament in roughly six hours on Day 3. Loosli has been a force on the high roller scene as of late and now he is finding success close to home. Born in France but now living in London, England, Loosli has over $7.1 million in career tournament earnings and his resume continues to grow. Final Table Results Place Player Country Prize (EUR) 1st Sylvain Loosli France 198,610 2nd Georgios Kitsios Greece 142,590 3rd Seth Davies United States 92,680 4th Charlie Carrel United Kingdom 69,940 5th Erik Seidel United States 54,320 6th Joao Vieira Portugal 42,100 7th Ole Schemion Germany 33,270 8th Thomas Muehloecker Austria 25,800 9th Pablo Melogno Uruguay 19,690 Day 3 Summary Only six players returned to the felt for the final day and Charlie Carrel came in as the overwhelming chip leader. Loosli, on the other hand, was the short stack but still had enough chips to remain patient. Joao Vieira was the first player to be eliminated when he ran his ace-jack into the ace-king of Carrel. Erik Seidel soon fell to the shortest stack and also succumbed to the ever-growing stack of Carrel. Seidel's king-jack was not good enough to win a flip against Carrel's pocket nines and the field was quickly down to just four. That sparked the first of Loosli's double ups and he would go on to find plenty more of those - five in total on the day to be precise. It also turned the tide for Carrel who sent a couple of big pots to Kitsios, relinquishing the chip lead. Carrel was unable to stop the downward spiral as he eventually got all of his chips in the middle after flopping the nut flush draw. Unfortunately for him, Kitsios held pocket aces and Carrel was unable to come from behind. Charlie Carrel The final three players were left to battle it out and it continued for nearly three hours. Even without any eliminations for quite some time, the chips were still flying around the table as each player grabbed the chip lead at some point. Loosli was forced to double up a couple of times to make it a three-way push to the finish. Once he managed to grab a sizeable lead over his two competitors, Kitsios and Seth Davies got involved in a large pot. Kitsios was able to disguise the strength of his hand by his aggressive play style and it worked in his favor. Kitsios turned a king-high flush and Davies turned top pair into a straight on the river. All of the chips got in the middle and Davies was barely covered, forcing him to exit in third place. That made room for the rollercoaster heads-up battle between Kitsios and Loosli. While only six players returned for the final day, a total of nine players made the money. Ole Schemion (7th Place - 33,270), Thomas Muehloecker (25,800), and Pablo Melogno (19,690) were all eliminated in the last level of Day 2. Philipp Gruissem was the unfortunate soul to be eliminated on the money bubble and left the tournament with nothing. The opening high roller event was a great introduction to the 2019 PokerStars and Monte-CarloCasino EPT festival, allowing many players getting their feet wet before the larger buy-in tournaments unfold. Many of the participants were quick to jump into the 100,000 Super High Roller that began earlier today and will continue over the next couple of days. Be sure to follow the PokerNews live reporting team for all of the updates throughout all of the PokerStars and Monte-CarloCasino EPT events. The Stars Group owns a majority shareholding in iBus Media. After two days of competition, only six players will return to the felt in the hunt for a title in the 10,300 No-Limit Hold'em High Roller. The 2019 PokerStars and Monte-CarloCasino EPT is hitting its full stride on the first weekend of the festival and today another winner will be crowned. A dominating Day 2 performance from Charlie Carrel sees him carry an overwhelming chip lead into the final day with 1,499,000 chips. Carrel entered the final table with the chip lead and continued to assert his dominance over his opponents, eliminating two of them in quick succession. Carrel has had plenty of success at the Monte Carlo Bay Resort and Casino and is looking to continue his strong play for at least one more day. It won't be an easy road to the first-place prize of 198,610 as the other five players at the table have plenty of accomplishments among them. Seth Davis currently has a firm grasp on the second position with 791,000 and is no stranger to the high roller scene. Erik Seidel (337,000) is also still in the mix after holding the chip lead for nearly a day and a half already. Seat Draw Seat Player Country Chip Count Big Blinds 1 Georgios Kitsios Greece 433,000 36 2 Sylvain Loosli France 182,000 15 3 Charlie Carrel United Kingdom 1,499,000 125 4 Joao Vieira Portugal 258,000 22 5 Erik Seidel United States 337,000 28 6 Seth Davies United States 791,000 66 The cards will be back in the air at 12:30 p.m. local time with the blinds resuming at 6,000/12,000 and a 12,000 big blind ante. The levels will continue to be 60 minutes in length and there will be a 20-minute break after every two levels. With a large portion of the chips being spread among the top two players, it could lead to some quick eliminations, barring some early double ups. The 100,000 Super High Roller also kicks off today in the same room and some of the remaining players are expected to jump into that prestige event as soon as this one ends. Will that have an impact on the pace of play today? Follow along with the PokerNews live reporting team to find out this one will play out along with many other events. 953 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll showed that a majority of Americans dont support impeachment, but other parts of the poll show a nation that wants to vote Trump out. A Majority Says No To Impeachment, But They Look Ready To Vote Out Trump The Washington Post reported: Thirty-seven percent of Americans favor starting the process that could lead to impeachment, a slight dip over the past month, while 56 percent say they oppose the idea, about the same as a month ago. . Trump has declared total exoneration by the Mueller report, despite the clear statement in the report that investigators did not reach that conclusion. Asked their view of whether the report cleared Trump of all wrongdoing, 53 percent of Americans say it did not while 31 say it did. . 58 percent majority of Americans say the Mueller report has not changed their impression of the Trump administration. Among those whose views have changed, 23 percent say they view the administration more negatively while 11 percent view it more positively. Slightly more than 1 in 3 Americans say the Mueller investigation makes them less likely to support Trumps reelection in 2020, while 14 percent say they are more likely and a plurality of 46 percent say the findings are not a factor in their choice for the next election. Voters Dont Want To Impeach Trump. They Want To Do The Job Themselves The American people seem to be saying that they arent ready to through a messy and unsuccessful impeachment process. Instead, they are ready to vote Trump out themselves. People see Trump as a liar, who wasnt cleared by Mueller, and the Mueller report made those who were influenced by his findings less likely to reelect the president. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi understands that Democrats cant move forward with impeachment without the country on board. House Democrats can investigate Trump to expose his lies and crimes, which could change public opinion on impeachment. It is wise for House Democrats to keep impeachment in their back pockets. They should conduct their investigations and build the case against Trump. A majority of Americans look ready to move on from Trump, and they would prefer to wait on impeachment. For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group. Follow Jason Easley on Facebook 1.5k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard A series of leaked emails show Fox News reporters rushing to Trumps defense after Joe Biden nailed him for Charlottesville. Leaked Emails Show Fox News Reporters Discussing How To Defend Trump FTVLive obtained the emails and reported, Fox News Reporter Doug McKelway sent an email to his colleagues that basically said that Biden was lying and he quoted Winston Churchill. McKelway was joined by Fox News reporter Cody Derespina who posted a sympathetic story of one of the Charlottesville white supremacists. Foxs Jon Decker emailed them both and told them that white supremacist they were sympathizing with was caught on camera holding a tiki torch and chanting Jews will not replace us. Decker said that the two reporters should apologize to their Fox News colleagues and that they sounded like a white supremacist chat room. Fox News Is White House Run TV The leaked emails come on the heels of the Mueller report detailing how the White House told Fox News what to add and remove from their interviews. The emails also come at a time when there is an open civil war at Fox between actual journalists who want to do their jobs, and the White House mouthpieces like Sean Hannity. Fox News has always maintained that news and opinion were separate entities at the network, but the emails show otherwise. People who were supposed to be news reporters were discussing how to defend Trump from Biden. That is not what real journalists do. The facade has been shattered. The charade is over. All the media bias that the right has whined about for decades has been found, not on the left, but at Fox News trying to help Donald Trump. Things are getting ugly at Fox, as the curtain is being pulled to show another enterprise that is meeting its demise thanks to the election of Trump. For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group. Follow Jason Easley on Facebook Chhattisgarh Director General of Police (DGP) DM Awasthi talking to The Pioneer informed that he had personally briefed Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel on the development in the case before the latter left for Delhi on Thursday night. During the night he was in constant touch with us and we kept on updating him about every details and development in the case, he said. 748 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard By Makini Brice WASHINGTON (Reuters) U.S. President Donald Trump denied on Thursday that he had ordered then-White House counsel Don McGahn to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller from the Russia investigation, moving to undermine McGahns credibility ahead of a possible congressional testimony. Trumps move appears to be part of an effort by the White House to push back on attempts by congressional Democrats to pursue investigations related to Muellers probe into Russian election interference in 2016 and possible obstruction of justice by Trump. As has been incorrectly reported by the Fake News Media, I never told then White House Counsel Don McGahn to fire Robert Mueller, even though I had the legal right to do so. If I wanted to fire Mueller, I didnt need McGahn to do it, I could have done it myself, Trump wrote on Twitter. A redacted version of Muellers report released last week mentioned conversations in June 2017, when Trump called McGahn to tell him he should direct Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who was overseeing the special counsels probe, to remove Mueller because of conflicts of interest. The report cited McGahns clear recollection that the president directed him to tell Rosenstein that Mueller has to go. McGahn did not carry out Trumps order, the report said. Trump also tried unsuccessfully to get McGahn to dispute media reports that the president had attempted to fire Mueller, the report said. Muellers report uncovered numerous links between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, and described how Trump tried to impede the Russia investigation. But it said there was not enough evidence to establish that the Trump campaign engaged in a criminal conspiracy with Moscow, and did not reach a conclusion on whether Trump committed the crime of obstruction of justice. MCGAHN ATTACKS A lawyer for McGahn declined to comment on Trumps tweet. Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani has repeatedly attacked McGahns veracity since the reports release. Giuliani has called the former White House counsel hopelessly confused and said his account may be the product of an inaccurate recollection. The Democratic chairman of the House of Representatives judiciary panel has issued a subpoena for McGahn to testify and provide documents to the committee. But it is not clear whether the White House would try to stop him from testifying by claiming executive privilege, a legal doctrine allowing the president to withhold information about internal executive branch deliberations from other branches of government. Trump has vowed to fight every subpoena from House Democrats probing his administration and has ordered officials not to obey legal requests for cooperation from the Democratic-led House. In response, Democratic House Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings has accused Trump of an unprecedented, and growing pattern of obstruction. (Reporting by Makini Brice; additional reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Alistair Bell) 1.5k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard The White House implemented a new system to keep Trumps private schedule secret so that the American people cant find out how little he works. The New York Times reported: There are no more email attachments, according to two officials. Instead, the presidents daily private schedule is now shared on SharePoint, a Microsoft product that allows an administrator to monitor who has viewed the document. Based on how often people view the schedule, and when its contents become public, the White House has narrowed down its search for the schedule leaker to three potential culprits, a person familiar with the matter said. . But most of Mr. Trumps day, according to the internal schedules, has been defined by executive time, a term pulled from the private schedules that has become shorthand for the hours Mr. Trump spends watching television and responding on Twitter to the coverage. Most days, the schedule showed that Mr. Trump began his day at 8 a.m. with a three-hour block dedicated to that time. On Wednesday, Trump called himself the most transparent president in history. By Friday, it was reported that he is trying to hide his private schedule. The leak of the schedule has been a constant headache for this White House because it reveals how little time Trump spends doing his job as president. There are many days on the schedule where Trump spends more time watching TV than he spends in official meetings. The important distinction is that Trump isnt watching TV on his own time. Television watching is built into his daily work schedule. None of this would be necessary if Trump would do his job as president. Trump would rather hide the truth than do any work, which is why the absentee president must be sent packing in 2020. 1.9k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the House Intelligence Committee chairman, called Trumps beliefs on collusion with Russia scummy and thought that a president could be indicted. Adam Schiff Calls Trumps Russia collusion scummy and un-American Rep. Schiff said on Real Time with Bill Maher, This has been reaffirmed now by Giuliani and the rest of the crowd. They think its perfectly fine to take help from a hostile foreign power, to welcome it, to build it into their communications plan. They do view that as collusion. They view that as just smart politics. I think its unpatriotic. I think its scummy and wrong. Scummy and un-American doesnt just describe Trumps collusion with Russia. It also sums up how many Americans feel about Trump himself and his presidency. Later, Schiff discussed the potential indictment of Trump, Look, I was always of the opinion that the Office of Legal Counsel opinion that you cant indict a sitting president is wrong that you can indict a sitting president. I think there are potential reasons not to try someone whose the President Of The United States, but particularly when there is any risk of the statute of limitations running, the president should be indicted, and you should stay prosecution. Video: Indictment is what Trump fears the most It has been reported that Trump is only running for reelection to avoid indictment. He views the presidency as a get out jail free card that gives him the power to do whatever he wants with zero consequences. Trump has convinced himself that the voters are stupid and he can con his way to reelection. Trump needs to win reelection because the statute of limitations clock is ticking. If the president loses reelection, it becomes a matter of when not if Donald Trump is indicted. Adam Schiff was right. The smart move would be to seal the indictment until Trump is out of office. A president cant be indicted for being a scumbag, but he can be voted out of office, and the reckoning at the ballot box can lead to the indictment that Trump fears becoming a reality. 5.4k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Former Watergate prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks called Donald Trump far more dangerous than disgraced former president Richard Nixon because Trump doesnt even remotely believe in the rule of law. In a discussion with MSNBCs AM Joy on Saturday, Wine-Banks explained that even though Nixon was part of a massive criminal cover-up, he ultimately believed in the rule of law enough to comply with court orders. This is the beginning of the end of democracy if we do not have three separate but equal branches, if Congress doesnt have the power to enforce, the former Watergate prosecutor said. In the end during Watergate, Richard Nixon did actually believe in the rule of law, and when ordered by courts to comply, he did. Wine-Banks added, This president has said he will not, and it is a very scary thing. Video: .@JillWineBanks says there is one key difference between Donald Trump and Richard Nixon and it could mean the end of democracy. #ctl #p2 #amjoy pic.twitter.com/z9t3z5coLp PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) April 27, 2019 Wine-Banks said: This is the beginning of the end of democracy if we do not have three separate but equal branches, if Congress doesnt have the power to enforce. In the end during Watergate, Richard Nixon did actually believe in the rule of law, and when ordered by courts to comply, he did. This president has said he will not, and it is a very scary thing. That leads us to what can Congress do. Obviously, impeachment is one thing they can do, and I would say in terms of the process its not a binary choice for them between impeach now or never. Its not a binary choice between how they do it. It is not a binary hoice between their constitutional obligation, between their moral imperative to take action against a lawless president, and between the political reality that he will not be convicted even though he would be impeached. It is a choice of process. So we need to have the fact-finding hearings to educate the public and then we can move to what is the next step? Is impeachment the right thing? Even if he wont be convicted, he would have that asterisk after his name saying that he had done something wrong. We cant let this go unpunished. We cant let him skate away and get no consequences. The beginning of the end of democracy When someone so involved in the Watergate saga sounds the alarm bell and calls Donald Trump more dangerous to Americas democratic institutions than Richard Nixon, the public should listen. So far, Democrats in Congress appear to be listening as they step up their efforts to follow Trumps finances and call on former and current White House officials to testify on the Mueller report. But if Donald Trump follows through on his commitment to not comply with these lawful inquiries, it will put America in a far more dangerous position than Richard Nixons Watergate ever did. Democrats in Congress need to prepare for that eventuality and act accordingly. Follow Sean Colarossi on Facebook and Twitter 5.3k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard I wrote about this last month as more Democratic candidates were filling up an already crowded primary field, but it has only become worse as the number of declared Democrats has swelled to 20 with this weeks entry of former vice president Joe Biden. Progressive purists, whether theyre activists or political pundits, seem more motivated to tear down some Democratic candidates for not being liberal enough than they are to defeat Donald Trump, who continues to wreak havoc on our institutions with his increasingly authoritarian behavior. But heres the deal and where every 2020 discussion should begin and end: No matter who the Democrats nominate, progressive primary voters must unite behind them to defeat this president. Dont repeat the mistakes of 2016 There appears to be a major distinction between supporters of Bernie Sanders and those who prefer another Democratic primary candidate. Sadly, its a difference that could help Trump win again in 2020. Those who support a non-Bernie candidate, from Joe Biden to Kamala Harris, are quick to say they will vote for the eventual Democratic nominee, no matter who it is even if its Sen. Sanders. Too many Sanders supporters, however, dont play that way. They treat the other Democratic candidates with almost as much contempt if not more than Trump himself. They hurl mud at the non-Bernie candidates because they only align with the Vermont senator on 80 to 90 percent of his priorities. They call them DNC hacks or corporately-owned shills. In other words, they seem hell-bent on tearing down any eventual Democratic nominee that isnt named Bernie Sanders. The end result, of course, could be the same thing we saw in 2016: Enough angered progressive purists either dont vote at all falsely thinking Trump and the Democrat are equally bad or they pull the lever for Trump. That cannot happen in 2020. Save the party purity fight for after Trump is defeated Democrats have always prided themselves on having a large tent. In the Trump era, that tent has only become larger as moderates and even some Republicans look for an escape from Trumpism. This dynamic opens the door to some good old fashioned family fights over which policy direction the party should take. Its a debate we will see play out over the next year. But we also have to recognize the urgency of this specific moment. Donald Trump isnt just the biggest threat to the country, but another four years of him in the Oval Office will make any purism fight we have right now seem pretty meaningless and counterproductive. Yes, Democrats will put out a mountain of policy proposals over the next year and a half. Sen. Elizabeth Warren seems to have done so all on her own over the past couple months. There will be debates over which of these Democratic policies are best for the country. But we cant let these quibbles over details lead us to an all-out brawl that ends up damaging whoever becomes the party nominee. Because if we keep having these out-of-control fights over purity right now if we keep trying to divide up the party in irreconcilable ways its not progressive priorities that win. Its Trump. At the end of the day, the country has a ten-alarm fire raging in the White House. If the most liberal voters in the Democratic Party care about achieving any of their priorities from universal health care to the Green New Deal then they should recognize that the biggest fight right now is replacing Donald Trump with a Democrat any Democrat in 2020. Follow Sean Colarossi on Facebook and Twitter 693 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Lately Ive been reflecting on the way Franklin Delano Roosevelt defined freedom in his January 6, 1941 address to Congress. While Roosevelts purpose in that address was to move Congress from its foreign policy position of neutrality, he did so by enumerating what he understood as the four pillars of freedom to which, in his view, Americans were entitled and exhorting Congress to endorse entering World War II to spread these freedoms around the globe. It is well worth remembering how Roosevelt so astutely identified the core essentials of freedom, those being freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. The first two of these, freedom of speech and religion, are perhaps widely recognized among Americans, even if not always honored. Trumps Muslim ban and his endorsement of anti-semitism implicit in his refusal to condemn the protestors in Charlottesville chanting Jews will not replace us have become such controversies precisely because most Americans value and understand these basics of freedom. Freedom from want and freedom from fear, which bear some relation to one another, strike me as much less understood, intuitive, and accepted, and maybe even less orthodox. Im not sure most Americans, if polled on the street and asked to identify the fundamental characteristics of freedom, would think of freedom from fear and want as essential bases of their freedom. One would be hard-pressed to argue that the United States has a glorious history, as a ridiculously wealthy and powerful nation, of making a serious effort to eliminate poverty, ensuring people have access to healthcare, decent housing, employment, and so forth; that is, it would at best be a stretch to say Roosevelts definition of freedom as freedom from want is even on the radar of how Americans think about freedom. And Im not sure the freedom fear is anywhere in the detection range of that radar either. And yet, in this particular historical moment, they strike me as distinctly worth remembering and considering as we think about what it means to live in a free country and measuring whether or not our values, practices, and institutions are realizing and protecting the standards of freedom we set. At this moment when national security issues have come to the fore because of debates over immigration policies and practices at our borders and also because of revelations of Russian interference in our elections, the issue of what it means to enjoy the freedom from fear, to live with a feeling of safety and security is of prominent and palpable importance. This sense of insecurity is redoubled when we think about the more than a million people losing health insurance since Trump took office and the many more feeling threatened. The relevance and forgotten-ness of Roosevelts vision of freedom visited me recently with a renewed intensity when I was listening to an online forum with South Bend, Indiana Mayor and Democratic Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg. When asked why he didnt support a secure southern border, his response made me think about the need to achieve a freedom from fear but also how this freedom isnt really given priority or even recognized in our political discourse about freedom. He responded first by asking, Does anybody really think that a fellow American is not interested in us having a secure country? And then he re-figured the question to analyze a more poignant and urgent reality: But the very real walls that are being built by this President, and by this moment are around us, in between us and each other, and those walls are getting worse. And trying to caricature the motivations of fellow Americans who have policy agreements as though somebody like me, who put my life on the line to defend this country, is any less patriotic than the questioner . . . . thats the sort of thing that frays at the security of our country, and in my view, is frankly much more dangerous than a terrified Central American family coming to plead for asylum, through a process that is by the way perfectly lawful, at the southern border. We live under the leadership of a President who does nothing but create divisions that foster fear, that internally fray at the security of our country. Keep in mind that the best-selling book legendary journalist Bob Woodward penned about the Trump administration is titled Fear, portraying an incompetent and erratic President riddled with and leading from his own fears and insecurities and constantly peddling these fears to the American people as well as cultivating the conditions that create fear. For example, studies show that the among the top fears Americans experienced in 2018, in addition to the number one fear of political corruption, is fear of a medical disaster that will wipe them out financially. And yet the Trump administration has filed a legal brief in hopes of invalidating the Affordable Care Act that makes healthcare accessible for millions, and we have seen no proposal for a workable replacement. Anecdotallyand Im guessing Im not aloneI have friends who live in terror of the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, knowing it will mean most certainly either financial ruin or the death of a loved one for whom they cannot afford necessary medical care. These friends are free from neither fear nor want, and the two go hand in hand. It is this destruction of relationships of mutual care and responsibility and this cultivation of mutual hostility that Buttigieg is astutely and poignantly talking about when he talks about national securityabout our feeling safe and secure, meaning free from fear. For all the horrors that Trump has visited on us, Im not sure weve recognized that he has taken our freedoms from us. Recalling Roosevelts four freedoms helps us realize exactly the damage Trump is doing but also helps us keep our eyes on the prize of what we need to correct, restore, and achieve to enjoy Roosevelts ideals of freedom. 244 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard At a recent CNN town hall, Anderson Cooper asked the juggernaut Democratic candidate Pete Buttigieg if he supported the rights of incarcerated people to vote. His response that he did not inspired cheers and applause from the mostly white audience, while the lone expression of dissent was an audible gasp from Kenya Hunter, an African American graduate student in journalism at Emerson College. Hunters gasp speaks volumes not just about the abiding racial divide in this country but also about the stubborn obstacles to democracy that are particularly tenacious and dangerous precisely because they are largely unrecognized. My guess is that if Buttigieg had been asked if he supported the disenfranchisement of African Americans and the continuation of Jim Crow policies in the United States, he would not have answered affirmatively. And if he had, I find it hard to believe even the mostly white audience would have cheered and applauded, unless it was a white nationalist town hall in some place like Charlottesville. After all, voter suppression, particularly targeting African Americans and people of color as a whole, is exclusively a Republican agenda, right? Not so fastand Im not going back to the 1990s to discuss the racially problematic crime bill Joe Biden and other Democrats supported, fomenting fear of people of color, indeed criminalizing people of color in particular in deploying racially charged terms like super-predator. Im talking about something that is clearly more implicit. If my guess here is accurate, that Buttigieg would not have affirmatively answered the question as I posed it, we can begin to see the conundrum, or rather the blind spot, not just for progressive democrats but for all in our nation trying to pull the magical levers of policy and political action that lift us toward, transform us into, a fully-realized democracy, a government of, by, and for all the people. You see, the question Cooper posed to Buttigieg and the one I re-formulated are really the same question. How is this so? Well, take compelling studies such as those we find in Michelle Alexanders 2010 book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness or Ava DuVernays 2016 documentary film 13th. These works detail the extent to which the contemporary prison industrial complex sustains racial oppression and exploitation and thwarts democracy for all with its attendant policies and practices of mass incarceration which disproportionally and intentionally target African Americans. DuVernay titles her documentary 13th after the thirteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution, passed in 1865, which states, Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. For DuVernay, it was this phrase except as a punishment for crime, carefully formulated with an eye toward maintaining a system of racial exploitation, which explains our nations contemporary practices and politics of mass incarceration as it evolved from Reconstruction when freedmen were criminalized and subject to random arrest and thus to convict leasing that forced them to work for the state. Just think of the chain gangs as another name for slavery. Charting the history of African American disenfranchisement, Jim Crow segregation, the terror inflicted on African America through mass lynchings, up to the war on drugs and the plague of mass incarceration with the rise of the prison industrial complex, DuVernay underscores how the thirteenth amendment enabled the perpetual political disempowerment and super-exploitation and oppression of African Americans since slavery. Indeed, as Alexander explains, the politics of racial oppression were, simply put, re-ritualized into the politics of mass incarceration such that race didnt even have to be talked about, enabling Americans to cling to the belief that U.S. society had overcome racism, was indeed a post-racial society, even while supporting a society of racial hierarchy and white supremacy. She writes, Rather than rely on race, we use our criminal justice system to label people of color criminals and then engage in all the practices we supposedly left behind. Today it is perfectly legal to discriminate against criminals in nearly all the ways that it was once legal to discriminate against African Americans. Once youre labeled a felon, the old forms of discriminationemployment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, denial of educational opportunity, denial of food stamps and other public benefits, and exclusion from jury serviceare suddenly legal. As a criminal, you have scarcely more rights, and arguably less respect, than a black man living in Alabama at the height of Jim Crow. We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely re-designed it. To be sure, the language of criminality, even if it had a powerful racist tinge, even extended these politics of disenfranchisement and discrimination to other groups of people. Kenya Hunters gasp of shock and dismay was the audible encapsulation of the very analyses of Alexander and DuVernay I have presented here in greatly condensed form. We can only hope that Buttigieg and that largely white audience heard it at all and, if they did, had the wherewithal and patience to translate that gasp into the analysis it contained in its greatly abridged shock. MiddleEastEye correspondent Ali Harb captured the gasp in a tweet that quickly went viral. Will Americans, especially progressives, be able to interpret the multitudes contained in that gasp? Recognizing that granting imprisoned people voting rights is essential to challenging racism and achieving democracy stands as a key and crucial challenge for progressives if we are to approach the achievement of democracy. Indeed, recognizing that imprisonment is an intentional practice of disenfranchisement and enslavement would be the ultimate removal of this blind spot. Turning the applause of Buttigiegs audience to a gasp shared with Hunter would be a start, though. , Cookies . cookies. A scuffle broke out between villagers and officials of the district administration when the latter went to Devnagar Panchayat to prevent child marriage, officials informed on Friday. According to official sources district administration on Thursday got information about the wedding of a 17-year-old boy at Devnagar Panchayat. When the officials reached the wedding venue and tried to stop the marriage function, some inebriated villagers attacked the team. Immediately, a police team was called and the function was halted. When the parents of the minor boy were told about the Child Marriage Prohibition Act 2006, they agreed to stop the wedding. Likewise, in Saraipali of Ramanujnagar town wedding of a 17-years-old girl was schedule to happen on Thursday. However, after the intervention of district administration the marriage was stopped, and the girls family members agreed to marry the girl after she attains 18 years of age. Mary Katherine, who also goes by MK, covers health care for The Post and Courier. She is also pursuing a master's degree in data science. She grew up in upstate New York and enjoys playing cards, kayaking and the Blue Ridge Mountains. Adam Parker has covered many beats and topics for The Post and Courier, including race and history, religion, and the arts. He is the author of "Outside Agitator: The Civil Rights Struggle of Cleveland Sellers Jr.," published by Hub City Press. Andrew Whitaker is a staff photojournalist at The Post and Courier. Previously, he's worked at The Southeast Missourian, The Daily Hampshire Gazette, The Hutchinson News, The Saginaw News and The Holland Sentinel. Gregory Yee covers the city of Charleston. He's a native Angeleno and previously covered crime and courts for the Press-Telegram in Long Beach, CA. He studied journalism and Spanish literature at the University of California, Irvine. Columbia/Myrtle Beach Managing Editor Andy Shain runs The Post and Courier's newsrooms based in Columbia and Myrtle Beach. He was editor of Free Times and has been a reporter and editor for newspapers in Charlotte, Columbia and Myrtle Beach. Nurses at Orangeburg hospital feared for their safety before shooting. They still do. 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. Chatra Lok Sabha Constituency, going to polls on April 29 in the first phase of election in Jharkhand will witness a tough triangular fight between the candidates of BJP, Congress and RJD. The seat has been a major reason for the rift in the Grand Alliance, as RJD fielded a separate candidate Subhash Yadav against Mahagathbandhans selection from Congress, Manoj Kumar Yadav. This election, a total of 26 candidates are contesting from the constituency, seven of whom are independents. However, fight is likely to be interesting as it does not just witness a tough competition but also a friendly fight between RJD and Congress. Being the RJD's stronghold, the party was determined to get the seat. However, when Mahagathbandhan decided to give only one seat, Palamu, to RJD, the party decided to field their own candidate. Meanwhile, BJP has fielded Sunil Singh, who is the sitting MP in the constituency. Singh, in 2014 received 2,95,862 votes defeating Congress candidate with a margin of 1,78,026 votes. The seat was won by RJD's Dhirendra Agarwal in 2004, who defeated JDU's candidate Inder Singh Namdhari. In 2009, Namdhari contested as an independent candidate sweeping away the seat by defeating Congress candidate Dhiraj prasad Sahu. Chatra constituency, comprising six assembly constituencies including Simaria, Chatra, Manika, Latehar and Panki in three districts namely Chatra, Latehar and Palamu is geographically, the largest LS Constituency with an area of 9163.58 sq km. The constituency has a total of 14,22,805 electors as compared to 13,11,721 electors in 2014. The voters' turnout percentage in LS 2014 election in Chatra constituency was 54.37 per cent. Of the total electors this year, 7,48,595 are men, 6,74,206 women and four third gender electors. Also, this year, a total of 22,207 first time voters of age 18 and 19 years, has been added to the voting list of which 13,420 are men, 8786 women and one third gender. The constituency has a total of 5581 persons with disability who would be casting their votes this election, 836 of whom are visually impaired, 530 are speech or hearing impaired, 3497 are loco-motor disabled and 718 have other kind of disability. The total number of booths in the constituency is 1899 of which 62 are urban while 1837 are rural. Deputy Commissioner cum district electoral officer of Chatra, Jitendra Kumar Singh said, In Chatra district we have 33 model booths and six all women booths. We are making all possible arrangements in the model booths to make the voters feel like privileged citizens. The booths will be decorated with balloons, carpets being installed and facility of drinking water will be made available. We are following all the directions of ECI to conduct a peaceful election." Accepting extremism to be a problem in the area, Chatra DC said, "Extremism is definitely a problem but we are taking adequate security measures to ensure that the polls are peaceful." The constituency suffers with several major issues, right from left wing extremism to opium farming and migration. Kumar Dinanath, a social activist working in the area said, LWEs are a major issue in the constituency and the villagers live in constant fear. The private constructions are forced to pay them levy to continue work. Despite crackdowns by the police, the problem does not seem to end. Opium farming is another major issue being faced by the constituency. A number of farmers are involved in opium farming as it is quick money. They do not think about its impact on the health or the legal implication of being involved in such illegal activities, said Santu Mishra, a local activist. The Chatra police have set up a separate cell to deal with the issue under which constant drives are organized to destroy opium farming and nab the smugglers. SDPO Tandwa and nodal officer of narcotic cell at Chatra, Ashutosh Kumar Satyam said, We cannot deny that opium cultivation is being done but the regular destruction of poppy fields is leading to reduction of the farming. The SDPO further informed that in 2018, 467 acres of poppy fields were destroyed which doubled this year to more than 800 acres. Also, around 50 FIRs were registered this season between December and February, in which around 300 persons were named. A huge quantity of opium was also seized by the police this season. There has been a reduction in farming in areas like Pratapput, Sadar and Kunda but the farming still continues in Kunda-Lawalong region. However, we are hoping that after such huge destructions this year leading to losses, people would be deterred from opium cultivation the next year, Satyam said. Migration and child labour also remain a major issue in the district as acute poverty forces families to migrate to other States. Villages after villages migrate post the harvest season as they are left with no source of income. The easiest option for them is to migrate and work at construction sites or brick kilns or even as domestic helps, Dinanath said. He added, Child labour is another major issue as one can see a minor working at every other dhaba or shop, without any objection from the administration. Aman Kumar Pandey, a resident of Chatra pointed out that with most of the booths being in rural areas, these are some of the major issues which affect the locals. The people are likely to vote such a candidate who assures them of solving these problems, he said. 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. ELCA women put focus on human trafficking Women of the ELCA at St. Johns Lutheran Church of Kasson will be holding their annual "Birthday Party," 7 p.m. May 2. The event will include a presentation on preventing human trafficking. All are welcome. The church is at 301 Eighth Ave. NW., Kasson. Harmony women host May Fair ADVERTISEMENT Harmony United Methodist Women will host a May Fair, 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. May 4 at the church. Browse a selection of baked goods, crafts, cards and planets. Food will be served in the dining room hot turkey and BBQ sandwiches, potato salad, fresh fruit salad, baked beans and pie. Carry-outs are available. The church is at 60 Main Ave. S. More information: 507-886-4181, or www.facebook.com/HarmonyUMC1 . Eyota church putting on bell concert Are you feeling "wrung out" by the recent snowstorm and cold weather? Then come to the Spring Bell Concert at Eyota's Faith United Methodist Church, and help ring in spring. The concert is at 1:30 p.m. May 5. The church is at 27 Fourth St. SW, Eyota. Wayne Vehrenkamp, bell choir director, and the whole bell choir invite you and your friends to come! It will be a happy way to celebrate spring and Gods gift of New Life! A free-will offering will be received. ADVERTISEMENT Join the fold for National Day of Prayer Join in National Day of Prayer with the theme "Love One Another," noon Thursday at the city-county Government Center, and in an evening event at Autumn Ridge Church. The government center is at 151 Fourth St. SE. Remember to bring change for parking meters. The evening event begins at 6 p.m. at Autumn Ridge, 3611 Salem Road SW. It starts with a social hour, followed by a prayer program at 7 p.m. Also, join a 'Parade of Prayer' May 4 A parade of prayer will proceed from Saint Marys Hospital to the Peace Plaza next weekend. The Miracle Prayer Walk begins at 3 p.m. Saturday, May 4, in front of the hospital. From there, it will move to stops including the Ronald McDonald House, Gift of Life Transplant Houses, Pathway Houses, and Methodist Hospital, praying as we go. The event winds up in Peace Plaza, where there will be a rally. The length of the march is about one mile, and will take about an hour. Meet at Saint Marys at 2:45 p.m. There will be free parking across from the hospital in the Canadian Honker parking lots. A city bus will return participants from the Peace Plaza to Saint Marys. ADVERTISEMENT The event is part of a series of prayer opportunities links to the May 2 National Day of Prayer. 'Prayer warrior'? Attend May 6 summit A prayer summit retreat, "Heavy Rain Revival," will be held at Camp Victory in Zumbro Falls May 6. The day-long event, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., is for pastors, church staff, and "prayer warriors." It will include small-group prayer sessions, worship, fellowship and alone time. It costs $15 per person to attend, and lunch will be provided. Pay at the retreat. Register by May 1; email Richard Gillis, gillisrj@aol.com. Prepare yourself for end-of-life issues Being present at the bedside, and even at the moment of death, can become an experience embedded in the minds and souls of family members for generations. It is a deeply emotional time, one of relief and sadness. Anyone who has ever taken the final journey with a loved one will never forget those moments. Prepare for it by attending an upcoming presentation at Assisi Heights in Rochester. "Farewell: Vital End-of-Life Questions with Candid Answers" will be presented at 6:30 p.m. May 6. The focus of this presentation is about navigating those last days at the bedside, and saying farewell with hope, love, and compassion. Dr. Edward T. Creagan has dedicated his life to death. Now this esteemed medical doctor examines death, not only from a medical standpoint, but also from an acutely emotional perspective as these events, which are beyond our control, unfold. Admission is $10 preregistered/prepaid, or $15 at the door. Register online, tinyurl.com/yygcozhp , or call 507-280-2195. Assisi Heights is at 1001 14th St. NW. Get lost in a meditative labyrinth The labyrinth is an ancient symbol and purposeful path. It represents a journey to our own center and back into the world. It has long been used for meditation and prayer. Learn more about labyrinths at a World Labyrinth Day event, noon to 1 p.m. May 4 at Assisi Heights. Veriditas is an organization that promotes labyrinths worldwide. Labyrinths are used to quiet the mind, recover balance in life and encourage meditation, insight, self-reflection, stress reduction and to discover innovation and celebration. Labyrinth usage is open to all people of any faith as a cross-cultural blueprint for well-being. Join us on World Labyrinth Day as we walk and experience the beautiful outdoor labyrinth on the grounds at Assisi Heights. Donations appreciated. Learn more and register online, tinyurl.com/y4xob6v5 , or call 507-280-2195. Assisi Heights is at 1001 14th St. NW. Register now for Mother's Day brunch Assisi Heights will host a Mother's Day brunch event, 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. May 11. Celebrate the day with your mother or a significant mother figure to enjoy brunch in the serene setting at Assisi Heights. Leave behind the cares of the world for a few hours as you enjoy each other's wisdom. The day will include a perfect cup of coffee/tea and assortment of tasty culinary treats. The morning includes live music and a short program retelling some of the lessons taught by most every mother. Come prepared to smile. Admission is $28 preregistered/prepaid. Brunch included. Registration required by May 4. Learn more and register online, tinyurl.com/y2ju7bln , or call 507-280-2195. Assisi Heights is at 1001 14th St. NW. As lawmakers design and debate the path to sustainable, clean energy for Minnesota by 2050, state utility companies are already charting a course. Minneapolis-based utility Xcel Energy announced late last year that it plans to go carbon-free by 2050. Southern Minnesota Municipal Power Agency, which provides Rochesters power up to 216 megawatts, generates about 17 percent of its power from renewable sources. When power demand exceeds 216 megawatts, Rochester Public Utilities draws from hydroelectric generation at the Lake Zumbro dam. RPU is finalizing a plan for 100 percent renewable energy generation by 2030. That plan is expected to be brought before the RPU board and later the city council this spring, said RPU spokesman Tony Benson. Austin Utilities also generates 17 percent of its electricity via renewable sources and has a plan in place to increase that to 20 percent in 2020 and is on track to be 30 percent carbon-free by 2025, according to a statement released for Earth Day by Austin general manager Mark Nibaur. ADVERTISEMENT With two small solar farms, the entirety of Peoples Energy Cooperative generation capacity is renewable. However, as an electric distribution cooperative, it doesnt generate much of its own electricity. Most of that comes from Dairyland Power Cooperative in La Crosse, Wis., and Interstate Power and Light, of Spring Valley a subsidiary of Alliant Energy. Dairyland plans to up its wind and solar from 19 percent in 2017 to 21 percent in 2027. Alliant plans to phase out coal from its generation capacity by 2050, and to reduce overall carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050. Although 100 percent renewable sounds like a lofty goal, lawmakers note the changes that have happened in the last decade to bring the state close to that goal. "We know how to get to 80 to 90 percent right now with the technology we have," said Rep. Jean Wagenius, DFL-Minneapolis, who chairs the Energy and Climate Policy and Finance Division. The DFL-controlled Minnesota House introduced a jobs and energy omnibus bill Tuesday that calls for 100 percent renewable energy by 2050. The 2050 goal and the ability to close the 10 to 20 percent gap are closer than some might think, Wagenius added. "Thats 31 years away and technology is moving so fast that things people were saying about solar, about wind 20 or 30 years ago arent true any more," Wagenius said. ADVERTISEMENT Building new wind generation capacity is now cheaper than coal, Wagenius said, adding that solar generation costs are projected to be lower than wind in about five years. "Economics are driving a lot of whats getting ready to happen," she said. "Minnesotans will be saving money." Sunny weather, beautiful scenery, spectacular sunrises and sunsets, and fun traveling companions are great ways to describe our recent trip to Greece, Turkey and three Greek islands, namely Crete, Mykonos and Santorini. My nephew, Mark Erickson, and his wife, Sue, accompanied me on our 10-day adventure, planned by Trafalgar Tours. Our flight from Minneapolis to Amsterdam included a breathtaking view of Greenlands mountains and snow. From Amsterdam to Athens, Greece, we flew over the Alps a view I tried to enjoy even though the little boy sitting behind me kicked the back of my seat all the way! Athens is the capitol of Greece, and the countrys largest city, with a population of 5 million people. A sight-seeing tour of Athens started with a visit to the ancient Acropolis and the Parthenon. We also visited the Temple of Zeus, Hedrons Arch, and the Olympic Stadium, which is made of marble and holds 60,000 people. ADVERTISEMENT From Athens, we drove to Delphi, Greece. We saw jumbo cement factories, windmills and solar farms, olive groves, cotton crops, oranges, peach and watermelon farms on our ride through the countryside. In Delphi, we walked on the Sacred Way to the ruins of the Temple of Apollo, dated from the fourth century. One of the highlights of our tour was a visit to Meteora, Greece, home of several Eastern Orthodox Monasteries, built on sandstone rocks above the towns. Some monasteries date back to the 14th century. Today, six monasteries survive four for monks and two for nuns. Five monks lived in the monastery that we visited, and we were privileged to visit with one of them. We enjoyed a three-day cruise from Athens to Ephesus, Turkey. We disembarked on the islands of Crete, Mykonos and Santorini. When the cruise ships anchor a short distance from shore, passengers are tendered to shore on tender boats. All three islands are a shoppers paradise. Tourism dominates the culture. Mykonos Island is famous for its white-washed houses and churches, and a maze of narrow cobbled streets. Their windmills were used to grind wheat and barley to feed the sailors. Crete is the largest island in Greece and fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Here we visited the ancient Palace of Knossos. Knossos is the largest Bronze Age archeological site in Greece and has been called Europes oldest city. The volcanic island of Santorini, located in the southern Aegean Sea, sits halfway between Athens and Crete. Ninety percent of its industry is tourism. The island has a population of 95,000 residents, and its crops include pistachio trees, cherry tomatoes and vineyards. Santorini is famous for its cliff-side homes and churches, which are painted white with deep blue colored roofs and domes, the same colors as the Greek national flag. The blue and white hues stand for the blue sea and white country. In the evening we witnessed a most spectacular sunset. What a beautiful way to end our visit to Santorini Island. ADVERTISEMENT Ephesus is located on the southwest coast of modern Turkey. Ankara is the capital of Turkey. Turkey is slightly larger than Texas. In Ephesus, we visited the great Temple of Artemis. For more than 1,000 years, this Greek goddess, with her temple, provided religious, economic and cultural life for her worshipers. We visited the ruins of the amphitheater where St. Paul the Apostle spoke to the people of Ephesus. He also spoke to the Greeks on the hilltop near the Parthenon. The road we walked on had carvings and designs from several past buildings that were destroyed by earthquakes. We also walked the streets of Patmos, a small Greek island in the Aegean Sea, most famous for being the location of the vision given to the disciple John in the Book of Revelation. NEW YORK When small business owners hire their teenagers, they should be ready to treat their new staffers like any other employees. Here are three things owners should do when their teen comes to work: Create a plan.Just as owners should do when they hire interns, they should have a plan for what their teens are going to be doing. It needs to be communicated to the teen, and to managers and co-workers who will be working with the young staffer. Set expectations.Owners need to speak with their children so they know what to expect, and whats expected of them. Mike Young, owner of seven Freddys Frozen Custard & Steakburger stores in Iowa, told his teens, "their last name would not be helpful to them, and in fact would make their jobs harder." Co-workers would be looking to see if the bosses kids had to follow the same rules and standards as employees did. "If they were not, then our kids, the managers, and my wife and I would all lose credibility," Young says. Teens also need to know that at work, their mothers and fathers are first and foremost their bosses. Owners also need to prepare managers and other employees, informing them that the bosses children shouldnt get special treatment, and that if there are problems, the owner needs to be told, says David Lewis, CEO of OperationsInc, a human resources provider based in Norwalk, Conn. "There needs to be a level of communication up front that explains what the expectations are," Lewis says. ADVERTISEMENT Check in with your teens supervisors and co-workers.When Laura Smith didnt ask her employees how her son, Jordan, was doing, she didnt know that he wasnt able to do the work as well as she expected. Smith, owner of All Star Cleaning Services in Fort Collins, Colo., trusted that staffers would tell her, but they didnt. Even when employees have been told to inform the boss about any problems, some may not want to get the young person in trouble. Democratic Sen. Tina Smith says it is premature to consider impeaching President Donald Trump for allegations outlined in special counsel Robert Muellers report, but does favor continued congressional investigations, particularly into obstruction of justice allegations against the president. "I think its really important to hear from Mueller in more detail in his thinking about the obstruction issues," the Minnesota senator said. "I think Congress does have an important role to provide oversight over what happened here." The DFL senator was in Rochester Thursday, touting her legislation to boost mental heath services for students during a visit to Ben Franklin Elementary School. Smith also stopped by the Rochester Post Bulletin to talk on a range of issues, including her reaction to the Mueller report, which she said she had read last Friday. But since reading it, Smith said she was struck by the "pervasive and systemic" nature of Russias interference into the 2016 presidential election and how it was aimed at helping Trump and hurting Hillary Clinton. ADVERTISEMENT "There is just no way of looking at all of that evidence and coming to any other conclusion," Smith said. Smith also said she favored creating a 9/11-type commission that would make policy recommendations for safeguarding the U.S. election system and to make sure there is no repeat of what happened in 2016. Smith said she was bothered by reports that the president is unwilling to hear anything about the role the Russians played in interfering in the election "for fear that it would undermine the legitimacy of his presidency." That attitude is harming congressional efforts aimed at bolstering the U.S. electoral system as Republican senators take their lead from the president. She said a proposal developed by Sen. Amy Klobuchar and other senators would direct resources to states and help protect the integrity of the ballot box, but the bill is stuck in a rules committee because of the sense that the president doesnt "want to do anything like that." "To me, that is just unacceptable," Smith said. Asked about the upcoming 2020 election, in which she will be seeking re-election, Smith predicted that health care would continue to be a dominant concern of voters. The issue will remain a high-profile one as long as people worry that they wont be able to afford health care and prices for drugs, such as insulin, continue to skyrocket. "(People feel) there is something fundamentally unfair about how this is all working. I heard that so much in rural parts of the state," Smith said. ADVERTISEMENT Smith said she did not support Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders Medicare-for-all bill, but instead favored a proposal that would allow people as young as 55 to opt-in to Medicare. "I have a high regard for the challenges of implementing a massive systems reform, having lived through the implementation of the Affordable Care Act," Smith said. "Im very interested in approaches that are going to create universal health care." Smith said her mental health bill would direct services to students. One in five young people struggle with mental health problem, but often have a hard time getting services. Schools are an ideal setting to recognize students who have mental health needs and connecting them with services. Her legislation provides $200 million in grant dollars to local agencies, tribal schools ad community-based organizations to forge partnerships and train teachers and others to recognize when a student is experiencing a mental health crisis. Smith was elected to her senate seat last November in a special election to complete the term of Al Franken, who resigned in the wake of sexual assault allegations. She is up for re-election in 2020. Before 21-year-old Mohammed Ali joined the Minnesota Law Enforcement Explorer program, he had thoughts of one day becoming a police officer. Now, he says its the only thing he wants to do. Ali and nearly 500 other young adults are in Rochester this weekend as part of the annual Minnesota Law Enforcement Association state conference. Groups from 46 posts across Minnesota, North Dakota and even one from New York are in town testing the skills theyve learned, from how to handle a traffic stop to conducting a high-risk search warrant. "We want to give the kids information about what a career in law enforcement is like, so we do everything we can to make our scenarios as realistic as possible," said Michael Peterson, chairman of the Minnesota Law Enforcement Explorer Association. "That is really what the emphasis of exploring is all together expose the kids to career fields where they can make the determination without spending $30,000 in college and suddenly turning around and going, Yeah, law enforcement isnt for me or Firefighting is not for me." The association is a sister organization of the Boy Scouts of America and is open to youths age 14 to 21. The program runs September through May, although some posts in the state do have summer programs. Conferences are held throughout the year and culminate in the state conference, which has been held in Rochester for about a decade. Peterson said that many who go through the law enforcement program dont end up pursuing careers as police officers so they also focused on teaching them to be "good citizens, to be good people, to be community-oriented in their thought process." ADVERTISEMENT "Our focus is career education and making sure we are developing good, responsible, young adults," he said. "The real emphasis isnt to get kids to be cops. The program offers so many opportunities for life experience that they may not get in another program." A fun time In Rochester, the explorer program has the capacity for 25 kids and is almost full. Eighteen-year-old Aleya Noben joined the Rochester post about a year and half ago for a chance to get more hands-on experience to expand her interest in law enforcement. The Stewartville resident is studying law enforcement in college and said the program has given her more confidence. She is a sergeant with the Rochester Post. "It makes it easy to learn, and its fun," she said. Makenna Huemann, 19, of Elgin, said the program has taught her to "always be respectful, responsible and to just have fun." She is also majoring in law enforcement in college. Rochester resident Spencer Peterson, 17, serves as a captain for the Rochester post of explorers. Petersons dad is in law enforcement so the thought of becoming a police officer one day wasnt a foreign idea to him. The Mayo High School junior said that as he is getting prepared to go into the next part of his life, he is considering becoming an officer or a pilot and the program has been a good way to get leadership experience and also learn about career possibilities. Practice raid ADVERTISEMENT On Friday afternoon, explorers of the Rochester Police Departments "A Team" were sent to search and arrest at the Kahler Grand Hotel. Standing outside of a suite on the sixth floor, the four-member team got a debrief of the scenario from a retired St. Paul Police Officer. It would be a high-speed, high-risk call as they executed a search warrant for a man suspected of selling drugs. With a heavy-handed knock on the door, Ali led the group into the room with their fake service weapons drawn. The four-member team went around the suite, locating the suspect as well as evidence of drug sales. The simulation took about 30 minutes and, following a quick debriefing, the group got ready to head off to another task. Over the course of the annual conference, attendees will hear presentations, participate in training exercises and compete in events ranging from simulated police work to a footrace. Law enforcement exploring is the largest explorer program in the nation. Ali said he learned about the program after meeting the resource officer at his school. "I did that. It was really cool," Ali said. "I liked everything they did, and I decided to join." ADVERTISEMENT The Jharkhand High Court on Friday rejected the bail plea filed by former State Minister and Congress leader Yogendra Sao. The High Court upheld the lower courts decision, in which it sentenced two and half years jail to Sao. The single bench of Justice Rajesh Shankar upheld the decision related to a case of extortion and mob instigation. On April 15, following Supreme Courts directive former Minister Yogendra Sao surrendered before the Additional District Judge SS Prasads court in a case of mob instigation. The Apex Court had rejected Saos bail plea and had asked him to surrender before Ranchi court by April 15. The Apex Court order had come on a plea of Sao seeking explanation and modification of the order on the place of his surrender. The SC had on April 4, refused Saos plea demanding for campaigning in the LS poll for the Congress and had cancelled his bail, saying he has violated the bail conditions. A Rochester man arrested for his alleged involvement in a shooting was charged with seven felonies Friday morning in Olmsted County District Court. Iman Abucar-Hagi Iman, 25, is charged with possess ammo/any firearm with a conviction or adjudicated delinquent for a crime of violence, two charges first-degree attempted murder with intent, two charges of second-degree assault and two counts of dangerous weapons-drive by shooting. Judge Jeffrey Thompson ordered $500,000 unconditional bail or bond. No conditional bail or bond was set, according to court records. Rochester police were called around 10:50 p.m. Wednesday to the 3100 block of Oxford Lane Northwest, where there were reports of multiple gunshots. Police found a 22-year-old male and an 18-year-old male outside the home. The 22-year-old had been shot in the leg twice and the 18-year-old once. None of the wounds were considered life-threatening. Police found eight .40 caliber casings located out of the Oxford Lane residence, according to court records. ADVERTISEMENT Police spoke with the injured men at the hospital. One reported seeing a silver sedan circle the residence and when the pair went out to look for the suspicious sedan a black sedan quickly pulled up, a man got out and started shooting at the residence, according to court records. Surveillance footage of the incident caught a man jumping out the front passenger door of a vehicle, raise both hands while holding a gun and fire multiple shots before the video stopped, according to court records. On Friday morning, Rochester police stopped a black 2008 Cadillac CTS in the area of Assisi Heights Drive that they believed was used in the shooting, Lt. Mike Sadauskis said. Police seized the vehicle from the driver, the vehicles owner, and applied for a warrant to search it. The woman was cooperative with officers and police believe she was not directly involved with the shooting, Sadauskis said. The shooting is believed to be part of an ongoing dispute between two groups of people. The incident is also believed to be connected to an incident at a gas station in Rochester on April 11. In that case, Iman was charged with gross misdemeanor third-degree riot and misdemeanor disorderly conduct. In that case, unconditional bail or bond was set at $6,000 and conditional bail or bond was set at $1,000. Imans brother, Ayub Abucar-Hagi Iman, 22, is facing the same gross misdemeanor and misdemeanor charges. In Ayubs case, Thompson set unconditional bail or bond in the amount of $5,000. The Consolidated Commission on Utilities has yet to discuss a proposed shift in Guam's renewable energy portfolio, but CCU Chairman Joey Duenas said he personally believes the proposed standards are appropriate. Sen. Amanda Shelton recently submitted a bill seeking to raise the island's renewable energy target from 25% to 50% by 2035, noting upcoming solar energy projects would meet the previous goal more than a dozen years ahead of schedule. "I think that's a good thing," Duenas said. "I don't know what the rest of the commission is going to say yet, I haven't talked to them ... but as for myself, the renewable portfolio standards she's trying to put forth in this bill is appropriate." Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Error! There was an error processing your request. The first utility-scale solar farm on Guam was constructed by NRG Renew LLC, a subsidiary of one of the largest U.S. solar businesses, NRG Energy Inc. The solar farm can output about 25 megawatts at a cost of 20 cents per kilowatt-hour. The Guam Power Authority signed contracts with two other companies in August 2018 for 120 MW of combined solar capacity. GPA initially will pay about 8 cents to each company for every kilowatt-hour produced by their respective facilities. "The new solar farms opening by 2022 will produce solar energy 58.75% cheaper than the previous solar farm. Raising the goal to 50% would eventually save ratepayers $10.4 million a year in the fuel surcharges that show up on ratepayer bills," a news release from Shelton stated. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is building its first temple in Micronesia. A groundbreaking ceremony marking the start of the construction will be held May 4 at the new site in Yigo, according to a release from the church. The Yigo chapel was closed in February for demolition. The project will include a temple and an adjacent meeting house, according to the church's website. The project is expected to take two years. Church officials said the temple will be open for guided tours before it is dedicated, the dates for which will be announced. Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Error! There was an error processing your request. There are currently 162 Latter-day Saints temples around the world, with 39 under construction or, as is the case on Guam, recently announced. Meeting houses Guam has three meeting houses where church members gather on Sundays one in Yigo, Barrigada and Santa Rita. There are no temples in Micronesia. The nearest temple in operation is in the Philippines. Church missionaries first arrived on Guam in 1957, and membership has since grown to more than 2,500, according to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints website. Writings on the Wall Following the end of World War II, there were a lot of positive moves to politically develop Guam. The Guam Congress was able to accomplish se Read more Call it a battle of guns and apples in Himachal Pradesh. The fight between arch rivals Congress and BJP in the state's apple-growing belt of Shimla is over the use of anti-hail guns that are used to save the crop from hailstorms. Himachal Pradesh's fruit economy is pegged at Rs 3,500 crore. However, the Horticulture Department estimates that 20-30 per cent of the state's vegetable and fruit crop is damaged by hail every year. After last week's seasonal rain and hail damaged the fruit crop for the third time this year, the Congress accused the present Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government of not doing anything. BJP legislator and former Horticulture Minister Narendra Bragta told IANS that he had asked Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur to provide technical assistance and funds to growers who have installed anti-hail guns in their orchards. It was on Bragta's suggestion that the party's Prem Kumar Dhumal government in 2011 installed three guns in Baraonghat, Deorighat and Batargalu villages as a pilot project. The guns were to be operated by the Horticulture Department. The state-of-the-art acetylene-fired anti-hail gun covers an aerial distance of around 80 to 100 hectares and a weather radar area of 25 km. It sends shock waves into pressure areas where hail clouds are formed and punctures them, resulting in rain instead of the damaging hail. Costing Rs 1.20 crore, the guns, imported from New Zealand, are beyond the reach of individual growers and have been adopted by some panchayats through collections supported by subsidy. "The farmers are facing problems in operating these guns due to lack of technical expertise and shortage of gas cylinders. The Horticulture Department should train them. The government should also provide subsidy on gas cylinders and spare parts to operate the guns," said Bragta, a prominent apple grower himself. Former Congress MLA and another big apple grower Rohit Thakur, who was defeated by Bragta in the 2017 Assembly elections, questioned the success of project. "The anti-hail gun is an outdated technology that damages the environment. It has been banned in developed countries. The BJP installed three guns with political motives. Our government promoted the eco-friendly anti-hail nets by giving 80 per cent subsidy to the growers," Thakur told IANS. Bragta, who lost the Jubbal-Kotkhai Assembly seat to Thakur in 2003, pointed out that the subsidy outlay on hail nets too had been increased to 100 per cent with a budgetary provision of Rs 20 crore from this fiscal. Lambasting the BJP and the Congress, which ruled the state in turns, Communist Party of India-Marxist's (CPI-M) lone legislator Rakesh Singha said that both regimes had cheated the fruit growers. "April 21 was the darkest noon in recent years when they became victims of a hailstorm for the third time in a year," he said. The Horticulture Department on Thursday admitted that the apple crop this month had suffered a heavy damage due to hailstorms in Shimla district, Ani in Kullu district, Karsog, Seraj, Gohar and Sundernagar in Mandi district. It has told insurance companies to assess the loss. However, apple grower Singha picked holes in the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, saying that the weather-based crop insurance scheme did not cover crop damaged by hailstorm. "Then what use is this insurance scheme to the farmers?" he asked and added that it was aimed at profiting insurance firms rather than the farmers. Himachal Pradesh's four Lok Sabha seats -- Shimla (reserved), Kangra, Hamirpur and Mandi -- will vote on May 19. The BJP has fielded its legislator Suresh Kashyap against two-time Congress MP Dhani Ram Shandil from Shimla. LOWER POTTSGROVE Police have identified a man they say eluded police and escaped in a stolen vehicle earlier this month. Police are looking for a man theyve identified as John Anthony Harris, 32, in relation to an incident that occurred on April 16. According to a recent post by Lower Pottsgrove Police, officers were detailed to 3000 E. High Street, #97, at Hilltop Estates for the report of a black male who was passed out in a vehicle for about 45 minutes. When Officers arrived, the male was still in the vehicle, passed out, and the vehicle was running with the headlights on. Officers were able to wake him up, but immediately observed that his eyes were bloodshot, his speech was slurred, and he made no sense. Police say the man, who has been identified by officers as Harris, was evasive with questioning, was having difficulty turning off the vehicle and then kept shifting the car in and out of gear. Police say the officer had to instruct him several times to get out of the vehicle until he complied. Police said they observed a handgun in the car after Harris exited the vehicle and that he then repeatedly attempted to get back into the vehicle. He then allegedly started struggling with another officer who was trying to take him into custody. Harris was able to get back into the vehicle and police allege he then accelerated with the officer still clinging to him, dragging the officer across the ground and nearly striking the other responding officer with the car door. He then allegedly struck two parked vehicles before fleeing the area. The officer then fell free from the moving vehicle, at which time police say Harris then stopped his car and ran from the area on foot. Police said it was revealed during the investigation that the recovered firearm had been stolen from Colebrookdale Township. After obtaining a search warrant for the suspects vehicle, officers also recovered suspected drugs and drug paraphernalia. The injured officer was treated for minor injuries at a local hospital and released. Police allege Harris later broke into an occupied home on High Street, damaging a rear door while entering the home. He then chased the owner of the property through the house until he was able to steal her car keys and leave in her vehicle, police said. Charges listed in the warrant include aggravated assault, burglary, possession of a firearm prohibited, trespassing, theft, receiving stolen property, firearms not to be carried without a license, eluding an officer, simple assault, resisting arrest, recklessly endangering another person, accidents involving damage, disorderly conduct, reckless driving, public drunkenness, careless driving and failing to stop and give information or render aid. Anyone with information on Harris whereabouts is requested to contact police at 610-326-1508. The Trump administration has proposed a new hiring rule under which federal job applicants would have to disclose whether they went through a criminal diversion program. Currently, applicants are asked about criminal convictions and periods of incarceration, but some criminals avoid prison and a criminal record through pretrial diversion. Under the proposed new rule, they would be asked about this. The proposed rule is sensible. The federal government ought to know about past criminal conduct by job applicants even if they escaped punishment via diversion. Its the conduct, not the punishment, that matters most to potential employers. Disclosing participation in a criminal diversion program doesnt mean automatic disqualification from employment. Its just another potentially relevant piece of information the federal government can use in assessing the fitness of an applicant. If the crime wasnt a serious and/or recent offense, and/or is not particularly relevant to the job in question, the government is unlikely to disqualify the applicant. Nonetheless, the usual congressional suspects are crying foul. Sens. Charles Grassley, Mike Lee, Dick Durbin, and Cory Booker complain that the proposed policy is flatly at odds with the goals of the leniency for felons legislation they guided through Congress. It may well be at odds with the goals of Grassley, Lee, Durbin, and Booker. However, executive action need not be consistent with the goals of particular legislators, or even with the general purposes of the legislation. It need only be consistent with what the legislation actually provides. President Trump has issued many executive orders that are inconsistent with the goals of legislation passed by Congress. Regulations pertaining to Obamacare are the best example, but not the only one. Its true that Trump neither signed nor supported Obamacare, but did sign and support jailbreak legislation. However, this doesnt mean hes bound by the Grassley-Lee-Durbin-Booker vision of how to treat criminals who arent in jail. The legislation speaks only to the treatment of prisoners. It may also be worth pointing out that the vastly oversold evidence-based rehabilitation programs that the jailbreak legislation relies on to justify letting felons out of jail early (despite their high recidivism rates) are available to those who have been sent to prison. Those who avoid prison thanks to diversion programs presumably receive some rehabilitation, but dont necessarily participate in the same allegedly wonderful rehabilitation programs as those available to federal prisoners. Thus, the alleged tension between the proposed hiring rule and the leniency for federal felons legislation may be more imagined than real. In any event, if Sens. Grassley, Lee, Durbin, and Booker wanted to prevent employers from learning about the criminal past of those who participate in criminal diversion programs, they should have included a provision in their leniency legislation that bars this practice. Mike Lee, in particular, should understand that its whats in a piece of legislation, not the general aspirations of the legislators, that matters. Its questionable whether the proposed rule will be adopted, though. Theres a chance that Jared Kushner will intervene and block it. I suspect Kushner and his wife want to know about any past criminality by candidates for jobs in their household and orbit, regardless of whether the candidates were punished or, instead, diverted. But they may not be averse to denying other employers such information especially if Kushners pal Van Jones lobbies him. Veteran actor and scholar, Sola Fosudo, a professor, has decried the prevalence of violence and sex scenes in Nigerian movies in recent times. Mr Fosudo flayed the trend on Saturday in Lagos during his presentation at a capacity building workshop for members of staff of the National Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB), South-West Zone. The event with the theme, Film and Video Works in the New Horizon, had in attendance stakeholders from the academia as well as seasoned industry practitioners who held training sessions for participants. Fosudo, acclaimed for his roles in Glamour Girls and True Confession, spoke on General Principles and Criteria for Film Classification at the event. He said the violence scenes in our films today have become more gruesome and sex scenes have become increasingly detailed. Use of vulgar language on screen has also increased over the years along with disregard for moral values, family values, and religious tolerance. We rarely get to watch movies that are purely serene and meaningful and lacking violence and obscenity. Todays generation would consider such movies of those days to be lame or boring because they are so used to seeing and hearing the violent and the obscene. He said the moral decadence and increased aggressive behaviour among juvenile were largely traceable to films they watch. He, therefore, urged filmmakers to place societal values, culture and national interest above personal pecuniary interests. The professor of Theatre Arts, however, commended NFVCB for its role in steering the nations evolving motion picture industry. He urged the board to be more stringent in handling filmmakers who breach its classification guidelines. Extensive research has shown that higher levels of childrens exposure to media violence correlate with increased acceptance of aggressive attitudes and increased aggressive behaviour. Hence, there is a need for proper and diligent classification of our films in order to protect the young and the vulnerable in our society. Basically, there should be guidelines that reflect National Policy, Community Standards and other factors such as the content of the film, its artistic, educational, social, cultural and literary merits. Adedayo Thomas, the Executive Director of NFVCB, in his opening remark, said the workshop was part of efforts by the board to reposition itself for efficient service delivery. He added that the board under his watch was keying into the Ease-of Doing-Business mantra of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led federal government. The NFVCB is serving the largest film industry in Africa, therefore, its workforce needs training and re-training, and I am committed to doing just that. This workshop is designed to be held in the six geo-political zones for our officers across the 36 states. In doing the censorship, licensing and classification job, every member of staff of the board needs good human and public relation skills, and we have relevant experts here to address that as well, he said. NAN reports that over 100 officials of the board as well as veteran filmmaker, Tunde Kelani; and Olu Obafemi, a professor; among other scholars were present at the event. (NAN) Nigerias electricity generation dropped further last Tuesday by 312 megawatts (MW) after the Nigerian Gas Company (NGC) reported a cut in gas supply to four key power plants in the country. The gas supply company said the cut followed the emergency maintenance works it was carrying out on the pipeline supplying gas to Egbin, Omotosho, Olorunsogo and Papalanto power stations. The NGC said the development resulted in a reduced power generation in the national grid from about 3,231 MW last Wednesday to 2,919MW. More than a week earlier, the TCN also reported a system collapse, which cut electricity generation from about 4,338.9 MW as at April 20. The Nigeria electricity system operator, an arm of the TCN, said the collapse was the sixth recorded since the year began. The transmission company said the cut in gas supply was caused by a leakage discovered on the Escravos-Lagos pipeline system. According to the TCN, the leakage forced a total shutdown of the four power generating plants late on Thursday to forestall the escalation of the impact. The General Manager Public Affairs of TCN, Ndidi Mbah, said prior to the incident, Omotosho and Olorunsogo national independent power plants were already out of operation due to gas supply issues. Mrs Mbah said the NGC tried to repair the leakage on the gas pipeline to restore normal gas supply to the affected power plants. At the moment, repairs have been completed and the pipeline is currently being pressurised prior to the resumption of gas supply to the affected power stations, Mrs Mbah said. To make up for the reduced supply, she said TCN was compelled to divert about 312MW electricity load from the Benin-Egbin 330kV transmission line. The TCN said supply from the line to OmotoshoIkeja West and Ayede-Ikeja 330kV transmission lines tripped off at about 23.14hours last Tuesday duel to on-going repair works on the Benin-Egbin 330kV transmission line. Mrs Mbah said the tripping off was caused by a line cut between Ofofu and Okada Towns in Benin City, Edo State. She said TCN engineers were making efforts to complete repair works on the transmission line, despite the very difficult terrain at that location. Due to the diversion of the load from this line to the two transmission lines equally feeding Lagos axis, load shedding in Lagos axis was minimised to about 280MW at the first instance, she said. With the attendant gas supply issues and sudden gas leakage problem, load shedding has increased considerably, she added. While expressing regrets for the inconveniences the development will cause, Mrs Mbah assured Nigerians of TCNs commitment to restore normal power supply as soon as possible. TCN is working hard to ensure normal power supply is restored as soon as gas supply is restored to the affected power stations and transmission repair work is completed, Mrs Mbah said. The bulk of electricity generation in the country is from the gas-fired power plants. The output from hydropower plants accounts for about 30 per cent of the total generating capacity. Electricity supply has been irregular in recent times, with most consumers resorting to alternative measures to contain the attendant discomfort as a result of increasing heat and rising temperature. PREMIUM TIMES reported how the irregular electricity supply and increasing heat triggered increased patronage of generators and rechargeable fans among Abuja residents. The Nigerians Citizens Association in South Africa (NICASA) says another Nigerian, Tony Elochukwu, from Nnobi Anambra State has been killed by an unidentified gunman in South Africa. The president of NICASA, Ben Okoli, said this in a letter sent to the Consular General, Nigerian Consulate in Johannesburg. Three Nigerians were killed between April 6 and April 9 at different locations in the country. In the letter, obtained by News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Saturday, Mr Okoli decried the death and continued killings of Nigerians in South Africa. We received yet again the sad news of the death of another Nigerian in Witbank Mpumalanga province. Mr Tony Elochukwu from Nnobi Anambra State was shot twice in the head by an unidentified Nigerian gunman on April 24 at around 2:45 pm, he said. Mr Okoli said that a lone Nigerian man walked to some Nigerians at a restaurant and inquired from them where to get some weed to smoke. He said those standing, however, told him that they did not know where since they do not smoke. Mr Okoli said the man then pulled out his gun and shot Mr Elochukwu on the head and sped off in a car parked down the street. He added that a case of murder had been opened at the police station by NICASA Chairman in Mpumalanga, Obeji Chukwuma. This looks like another case of Nigeria killing themselves. This ugly trend of Nigerians killed by fellow Nigerians is on the increase and is disturbing to our community. NICASA is deeply worried over the death and continued killings of our citizens in South Africa. People are worried and scared since none of the perpetrators had been arrested or charged over it, he said. He appealed to the consulate to pressure the South African police to pursue the case of death of any Nigerian with seriousness. The South African police must stop attempting to encourage these killings by lack of investigation and prosecution with aim of bringing to justice every criminal involved in these heinous crimes, he said. The Consul General, Nigerian Consulate Johannesburg, Godwin Adama, had condemned the killing of Nigerians at different locations in the country. It is clear that as much as any form of criminality and xenophobic attacks against foreigners, including Nigerians in South Africa is condemnable, the killings do not fit into xenophobic attacks. The cases are the stabbing of a Nigerian, Mr Bonny Iwuola, in Turfontain in Johannesburg on April 6 at about 23:30 hours in front of his house, by unknown assailants, and more of crime related murder. Another Nigerian, Gozien Christian, from Agbor in Delta State, was stabbed to death by three unknown assailants. No arrest has been made but cases were opened and police are investigating the murders, he said. The third case of murder which happened on the night of April 8 at Sunnyside in Pretoria happened at the usual place of cult-related murders by Nigerian cult groups. This particular case had more connection with business-related disagreement that turned sour. Investigations are on but eye witness accounts indicated that he was killed and his new Mercedes car-2019 model was snatched and driven away. All these cases do not appear to be xenophobic. They are part of the usual crime-related killings in South Africa. Police statistics in South Africa indicate that over 18,000 murders take place in South Africa in a year, he said. (NAN) Advertisements There was chaos in Gombe Metropolis on Saturday following clashes between some youth and members of the Boys Brigade who were retrieving the remains of their members killed during Easter. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that trouble started when members of the Boys Brigade who were coming out of the specialist hospital in a procession, were stoned by some youth at Jekafari. The attack prompted the members of the group to retaliate, NAN reported. The fight led to the destruction of cars of innocent motorists. The situation was however put under control with the swift intervention of security personnel in the area. When contacted, Gombe State Police Command Spokesperson, Mary Malik, said although she heard about the issue, no formal report was made at the command. NAN reports that eight people were killed during Easter procession when a vehicle driven by an officer of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps, Adamu Abubakar, rammed into a procession by members of the group. (NAN) Delhi Customs official have arrested a man from Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport for allegedly smuggling gold into the Country. Police have also recovered gold worth about Rs 79 lakh from the possession of the accused. According to a senior Customs official, acting on inputs, the customs department intercepted the accused after his arrival at the airport from Abu Dhabi on Tuesday. During enquiry, he admitted to have brought gold to India. The passenger informed that he had hid the gold in one of the washrooms at the airport. Based on his information, 20 gold bars, collectively weighing 2.49 kg, were recovered, said the senior customs official. The passenger, aged 21 years, has been arrested and the gold valued at Rs 78.85 lakh was seized, the senior Customs official added. The remains of the youth who died when a car ploughed into an Easter procession were on Saturday buried in Gombe, amidst tight security. On April 22, a car driven by a member of Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) ran into the youth while they were on a procession. The Gombe State Police spokesperson, Mary Malum, had confirmed the death of 10 persons from the incident, comprising eight members of the Boys Brigade, the NSCDC officer, and his friend. NAN reports that prayers were offered for the souls of the deceased at the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) centre in Gombe, venue of the funeral. Charles Iliya, the deputy governor of Gombe State, and other CAN executives led by Ibrahim Jodah, a Reverend and CAN chairman, Gombe State chapter, were present at the service. Nine corpses, comprising six boys and three girls, were laid at the funeral venue for burial. The police command had on April 22 confirmed the death of eight members of Boys Brigade while 30 sustained various degrees of injuries from the accident. However, there were reports that one of the injured died in Kano and was added to the eight for burial. The youth were aged between 11 and 21 and were members of Boys Brigade of ECWA Church in Bogo, Barunde, Tabra, and Madaki in Gombe state. Earlier, there was pandemonium at Gombe Specialist Hospital when members of Boys Brigade went to retrieve remains of the youths and were stopped by youths at Jekadafari area of Gombe Metropolis. The situation delayed the funeral service as security operatives had to clear the road for the corpses to be convened to CAN centre for the funeral service. As at the time of filing this report, the metropolis is calm as security operatives were seen patrolling major streets of the metropolis. (NAN) The police in Lagos have arrested a woman, in whose freezer a six-year old boy, Treasure Akinsohun, was found dead, hours after he was declared missing. The freezer was normally used to sell water and soft drinks. The commands spokesman, Bala Elkana, confirmed the arrest on Friday to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), saying that the corpse had been deposited at the mortuary, while investigation was ongoing. According to Mr Elkana, on April 23, at about 8.30 p.m., one Eunice Akinsohun of Oyedele Street, Alapere, ketu, reported her six-year old son, Treasure, missing from about 9 a.m. He said the corpse of the boy, a day later, was found in a freezer, inside the shop owned by Eunices neighbour, one Patience Odowo. The shop was at 12 Orisigun Street also in Alapere. Mrs Odowo was promptly arrested. Sources had earlier told NAN that Treasure and his mother lived in Ikorodu and had gone to Ketu to celebrate the Easter holidays with his mothers younger sister. NAN gathered that Treasure and some children in his aunts compound were playing when he suddenly disappeared, but his body was later found inside the freezer at Orisigun Street, about five streets from where his mothers younger sister resides. The bereaved mother, Eunice Akinsohun, told journalists that she noticed her son was not among the other children playing in the compound. She said when she asked for his whereabouts, the other children could not give an answer, forcing her to raise an alarm. After a frenetic search for the boy was fruitless, she reported the boy missing to police at Alapare Police Station. I also called my husband on the phone to inform him of the development. Before I got back home, a crowd had gathered at my sisters house at Alapere to help in the search for my son. Throughout that day we couldnt locate the exact place where he was. When my husband eventually arrived, he also tried his best with my sisters husband and some elders in the community. He was still not found. That was how we went back to Ikorodu that night in anguish, she said. The woman said she and her husband were on their way back to Alapere from Ikorodu when they received a phone call that her son had been found in a womans freezer at Orisigun Street. Immediately I saw the corpse of my son, I fainted. I was later revived at the hospital. What surprised me was how my son got into a freezer at another street. I still dont understand how he got into the freezer as I speak with you. But it is left for the police to investigate, she said. The father of the boy, Ojo Akinsohun, said he was preparing to go out when he received a phone call from his wife that their son was missing. I heard that the night my son was missing, the daughter of the freezers owner was sent to bring sachet water from the freezer, but she didnt find the boy inside. I was surprised how the boy got into the freezer. I want police to investigate it and get to the root of the matter. I cant allow my son to die in vain, he said. (NAN) Security operatives in the United States of America have arrested nine Nigerians for allegedly defrauding individuals and businesses of more than $3.5 million. This was disclosed in a statement published on the website of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Geoffrey Berman, and Homeland Security Investigations (HIS) Special Agent-in-Charge of the Tampa, Florida, Field Office of U.S., James Spero, on Thursday. The suspects are Oluwaseun Adelekan, 36; Olalekan Daramola, 35; Solomon Aburekhanlen, 32; Gbenga Oyeneyin, 32; Abiola Olajumoke, 46; Temitope Omotayo, 36; Bryan Eadie, 35; Albert Lucas, 29; and Ademola Adebogun, 38. According to the statement, the suspects are charged with one count of conspiring to commit wire fraud. Each defendant faces a maximum potential sentence of 20 years in prison. The defendants are accused of participating in a scheme to defraud businesses and individuals through several categories of false and misleading representations. The US official said some of the suspects were arrested for allegedly posing as oil workers in Russia. As alleged, these defendants deployed three different email schemes to defraud their victims. The common denominator in all three schemes was the defendants alleged fleecing of their victims through fictitious online identities, Mr Berman said. The schemes allegedly earned the defendants $3.5 million and also arrests on federal felony charges. Mr Spero reportedly said: A transnational criminal organisation allegedly conducting illicit domestic and international wire fraud has been dismantled thanks to the hard work of HSI Tampa and Special Agents from the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Southern District of New York. This case illustrates the unique investigative authority and international reach of HSI, he said. He also spoke on the specifics of the case against the Nigerians. Sending email messages that appeared to be, but were not, from legitimate business counterparties that included instructions to the victims to wire payment to those seemingly legitimate business counterparties into bank accounts that were actually under the control of, and/or maintained by, Adelekan, Daramola, Aburekhanlen, Oyeneyin, Olajumoke, Omotayo, Eadie, Lucas, and Adebogun (the Business Email Compromise Scam). Sending email messages and text messages to at least one victim offering an opportunity to invest in oil stored in Russian oil tank farms conditioned on that victim wiring upfront payments into bank accounts purportedly affiliated with the purported oil investment but actually opened by and under the control of Aburekhanlen, Olajumoke, and Oyeneyin (the Russian Oil Scam). Sending email messages and text messages to at least one victim from an individual (or individuals) purporting to be a female with romantic intentions toward the victim requesting, further to establishing a romantic relationship, the wiring of payment into a bank account under the control of Omotayo (the Romance Scam). The federal government has given a directive for the overhaul of all unity schools, otherwise known as Federal Government Colleges across Nigeria. The permanent secretary of the federal ministry of education, Sunny Echono, said this during the monitoring of the 2019 National Common Entrance Examination (NCEE) in Abuja on Saturday. The NCEE is an entrance examination into the unity schools. Mr Echono said President Muhammadu Buhari gave the approval to the ministry of education to rehabilitate dilapidated structures and construct new classrooms in Unity Schools to accommodate more pupils. We are pleased that Mr President graciously approved that we should begin to rehabilitate many of these unity colleges, he said. According to him, there is a challenge of access to education in Nigeria. He said part of the schools intervention is to bring more children into the school system. We are improving our libraries, the laboratory and other amenities, said Mr Echono. We are also recruiting additional teachers. Both the regularisation of PTA teachers and new equipment are ongoing. The minister of power, works and housing, too has come to our aid in Abuja, and he approved some interventions to rehabilitate classrooms in Abuja unity schools. Mr Echono was accompanied by the Acting Registrar of NECO, Abubakar Gana and other officials. They monitored the examination at Model Primary School, Maitama, and Government Day Secondary School, Wuse 2. NECO speaks Also speaking, Mr Gana attributed the drop in the numbers of candidates who sat for the 2019 national examination into Unity Schools to lack of political sponsorship. He said the state with the lowest number of application for the 2019 NCEE examination is Zamfara State with 59 candidates. Lagos is the state with the highest number, with over 23, 000 applications. So far, this year, we registered 75, 635 as at yesterday which is a drop (compared to 2018). He said the number of applications dropped because of the politics in the country. Politics in the sense that everyone is struggling to ensure that his candidates are admitted in federal school because of the quota system, he said. He said the council deployed its staff over the country to serve as providers in all the 457 centres and one in Benin Republic. According to him, the number of candidates to be admitted will be based on the carrying capacity of the schools. The process is being handled by the ministry. The result will be ready by Wednesday. Merit is 60 per cent and quota and others, 40 per cent. There will not be any other screening after the examination, he said. A parent, Zuerat Ajan, commended the ministry for adequate arrangements for a hitch-free examination. But they can do more, they need to improve the facilities in the schools too, she said. Background Currently, Nigeria has 104 unity schools across the country. News reports show that 79,878 pupils sat for the examination into federal government colleges in 2018, while 78,378 sat for the exams in 2017. The first set of unity schools was set up by the British, before independence. Three new ones were established in Warri, Sokoto, and Enugu in 1966 while Yakubu Gowon, in 1973, established the schools in all the 12 states that existed then. Advertisements NECO is an examination body in Nigeria that conducts the Senior Secondary Certificate Examination and the General Certificate in Education in June/July and November/December/ respectively. NECO was created by the regime of former Head of State, Abdulsalami Abubakar, in April 1999. The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has assured candidates of the 2019 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) that results would be ready from April 29. The Boards Head of Media and Publicity, Fabian Benjamin, disclosed this in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Saturday in Bwari. Mr Benjamin said that screening of the results would soon be over and the result released. We are still screening but hopefully, anytime next week, the results will be ready, he said. Speaking also on the boards readiness to screen results of UTME candidates from 2009 to 2018, Mr Benjamin said this would begin after the release of the 2019 results. He said this was part of the boards effort to address the issues of malpractice in the system. The board had stated that it would only release the 2019 UTME results after undergoing thorough screening to identify and apprehend examination cheats. The process would identify those involved in multiple registration through biometric capturing and also address group registration by some elite schools, who end up mixing candidates data. The board said: Normally, results are expected to be out within 24 to 48 hours as obtained in previous examinations held in 2017 and 2018. However, the board does not want this to be business as usual. Hence the programmed delay, which is part of its deliberate effort to properly scrutinize, identify and address all forms of examination malpractice. The board will continue to act decisively with regards to any irregularity discovered even after results are released. However, the board has made it a point of duty to screen all activities at all centres via CCTV recordings, to ensure that it does not release results of compromised examinations. The board, while regretting all inconvenience caused in the process, reaffirmed its commitment to providing equal opportunity to all candidates in order to articulate their aspirations. JAMB said that effective from when it would officially release the results, all candidates can simply send RESULT, via SMS, to 55019 using the same number that was used for registration. The result, it said, would be replied as an SMS shortly after. This process, the board explained, was simplified to eliminate exploitation by business centres and cyber cafes who often take advantage of candidates. It also urged candidates to ignore all messages in circulation on how to check the results as they were all products of deceit. The 2019 UTME was conducted from April 11 to April 18 and over 1.8 million candidates registered for it. (NAN) The Governing Council of the University of Maiduguri has announced the appointment of the Aliyu Shugaba, a professor, as the next Vice-Chancellor of the institution. Mr Shugabas appointment takes effect from June 3, 2019, when the current vice-chancellor (VC), Ibrahim Njodi, a professor, is expected to end his tenure. The contest for the new university head was heralded by a controversy that attracted intervention from outside the university community. According to a statement released to the press by the governing council, Mr Shugaba scored the highest points in the selection process. The statement was signed by one Biodun Adekanya on behalf of the pro-chancellor and chairman of the council. It indicated that Mr Shugaba, who is currently the Deputy Vice-Chancellor Academics in the university, beat 14 other contestants to emerge the winner. The council said 18 contenders earlier applied to vie for the position but four were disqualified for inappropriate submission of their application forms. Mr Adekanya said the selection board considered the verbal interaction and scrutiny of the candidates resume to reach the final decision on who is the best amongst the 14 candidates. At the time of the interactions, the candidates were scored and the final scores were recorded, the two-page statement reads. In accordance with Sub-section 3 (C) of the Universities Miscellaneous Provisions (Amended) Act 2012, the Council hereby pronounce the first candidate, Professor Aliyu Shugaba who scored the highest, as the Vice-Chancellor, University of Maiduguri with effect from 3rd June 2019. The Universities (Miscellaneous Provision) Act, 2003 and Universities (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Amended) Act 2012 empowers a governing council to initiate the process of selecting a new vice on the expiration of the tenure of an incumbent by advertising the vacancy of same office to the members of the public. It was based on that note, that the UNIMAID governing council advertised the vacancy of the VCs office calling on interested Nigerian academics to send in their applications. Following that, the governing council constituted a search team and the Joint Council/Senate Selection Board which coordinated the entire exercise that led to the appointment of the new VC. Heated Contest During the build-up to the final selection, the university was thrown into controversy as the contest divided the academic environment into factions that cut across three major contenders. The three contenders comprised Professors Isa Marte, Bulama Kagu and Aliyu Shugaba. Mr Shugaba will be recorded as the first head of the university to come from the Southern part of Borno State. He is of the Babur tribe from Biu Local Government Area of Borno State. His main challenger, Mr Marte, a Kanuri man from Borno State, had in 2014 contested the same seat but lost to the outgoing VC. He was another strong contender, but his candidacy did not excite a section of the varsity who see him as a new face in the campus. A graduate of Ahmadu Bello University, Mr Marte is said to have lived most of his life abroad as a university don before coming to UNIMAID some years ago. It is rumoured that his uncompromising stance on how an ideal varsity should be ran did not make him a popular candidate. He is credited for setting up the department of pharmacy in the university. Mr Kagu, a former dean of the school of postgraduate studies, was also amongst the top contenders. Many said he was a second option for those supporting the VC-elect, Mr Shugaba. He is also a Kanuri from Borno State. How Borno Governor-Elect Waded into the VC crisis The Borno State Governor-elect, Babagana Umara, also a professor, had to join other concerned citizens to wade into the controversy. Advertisements In a letter addressed to the members of the university community, he cautioned the contenders not to allow the contest to destroy the peace and harmony of the university. Mr Umara, a graduate of UNIMAID, implored his colleagues that the ongoing controversy surrounding the appointment of the Vice Chancellor was unnecessary. In a letter titled Re: Appointment of Vice Chancellor for the University of Maiduguri; Allow Rationality to reign the governor-elect it was his candid opinion that the unwarranted controversies over the appointment of a Vice-Chancellor will negatively impact upon good governance and an unnecessary distraction from the goals and objectives set for University. He said the focus of the leaders of the university, including himself, as academics in the selection of a Vice-Chancellor, must be on the standpoints of competence, merit and intellectual integrity. As key stakeholders and members of the respected academic community, we must stand together to safeguard the high quality of governance and academic delivery in our university. We need to look ourselves straight in the eye and tell ourselves the home truth that the system can never make headway if we continue to think of achieving the set goals of University education when we create unwarranted divisions within, ourselves. Let us all support the due process as laid down in the selection of our Vice-Chancellor and at the end, let us all join hands to support whoever that emerges as the new Vice-Chancellor for the benefit of our dear state and our country, Mr Umara wrote. The Jigawa State Hisbah Board said it has annulled no fewer than 312 underaged and forced marriages in the last four years. The board, which is also referred to as the Sharia police, also said it has successfully reunited 25 street children, known as almajiri, with their parents. Ibrahim Dahiru, the head of of the states Hisbah Board, told PREMIUM TIMES his organisation discovered that the parents of the street children were capable of taking care of the children but chose to allow them to roam the streets, begging for food and alms. Mr Dahiru added that the underaged marriages were annulled and the street children united with their parents amicably without recourse to a court. In any reported case of forced marriage, the board do invite the parents/guardians of the victim because the children are underage, thus cannot comprehend the message, Mr Dahiru said. A victim of force marriage at office We parley with both the parents and the victims of the child marriage, we preach to them and inform them about the right of the girl child, as well as the right of parents on their children. We reconcile them. We succeeded by preventing the parent from conducting the forced marriage, and urged the parents to take them to school, he added. According to a United Nations survey, 43 per cent of Nigerian girls are married before they are 18. The problem of early marriage is particularly endemic in the North East and North West regions. With more than 80 per cent of girls being married off before their 18thbirthday, Jigawa State has one of the highest prevalence of child marriages in the country. Under the Child Rights Act 2003, the minimum legal age of marriage is 18 years. However as of May 2017 there were still 12 Nigerian states yet to include the Childs Rights Act in their internal legislation. Jigawa State domesticated the Child Rights Act in 2012 but later repealed the law the same year. The deputy speaker of the state legislature, Ahmad Garba, told PREMIUM TIMES last October that the law was repealed because it did not follow due process before it was enacted. Hisbah officials ready for recounliation Also speaking about the prevalence of underage marriages, Aminu Waziri, the Chief Iman of of Takur-Adua Mosque, said educating the girl child instead of marrying them off was imperative. According to Mr Waziri, forced marriages are alien to Islam. He said parents must seek the consent of their daughters before giving them out to marriage. He added that parents who give their children good education and upbringing would be rewarded with paradise in the hereafter. Islam teaches parents to seek the consent of their daughters before giving them out to marriage. And the husband must be a responsible adult that will value the lady. Marriage must not be a reason to truncate the girl childs education. So also, education must not be a reason for parents not to give out their daughters in marriage once theyre matured for that. Some parents are ignorant of Islam by giving out their daughters in marriage at a tender age, saying that its the teaching of Islam. Its not. Theres no specifications on age when it comes to marriage, parents should marry their daughters off in marriage when theyre matured for that. Its unfortunate that some parents see their girl child as a burden on them. They hurriedly give them out in marriage because they want to ease up themselves from the girls responsibilities, which at the end, the girl child ends up being a victim, the cleric said. The danger of almajiri Mr Dahiru said his organisation, apart from reuniting street children with their parents, also takes time to educate the parents about the dangers of allowing underage kids to roam the streets begging for food and alms. He said many of such children will end up being nuisances to the society. He added that there is no Islamic law that gives parents the right to do so. He said children at a particular stage of their life need the protection and guidance of an adult. They need care and love, which will later manifest in their later life, if we dont care about their right and well-being. Similarly, the Head of Department of Sociology at the Federal University, Dutse, Ali Siro, said the rampant cases of child abuse in the North West was as a result of poor governance, corruption and non-existence of laws to protect the childrens welfare. Underage children roaming begging for food in Dutse, Jigawa State. Mr Siro said children roaming the streets begging for food are supposed to be with their families for proper upbringing. He said children need parental guidance, love and caring, with these they will grow to be a responsible adult. The government needs to establish more schools that will cater for the growing population. If the government is committed to the well-being of the children, they should hold erring parents responsible for the cases of child abuse. If proactive measures are not taken, those children will grow heartless to become hardened criminals. They will see any member of the society as an enemy because they lack the proper parental upbringing, he added. Advertisements The Federal Polytechnic Nasarawa (FPN) in Nasarawa State on Saturday matriculated over 3,681 students, comprising 2,361 National Diploma and 1,320 Higher National Diploma students for the 2018 and 2019 academic session. Delivering his speech at the venue of the 35th Matriculation ceremony, the Rector, Abdullahi Ahmed, enjoined the students to endeavour to live in accordance with the rules and regulations of the Polytechnic. He urged the students to tolerate each other and live peacefully among themselves, warning that no one would go scot-free if found wanting at any point in time. As you all know, you cannot strive for excellence if you are not disciplined. We live in a civilized society, and civility and decency must reflect in all our actions. The Polytechnic is governed by rules and regulations and there are procedures for engaging in various activities. I, therefore, urge all students to carefully read the regulations and follow the procedures accordingly. I assure you that if you do this, your days in the Polytechnic shall be happy and fruitful, Mr Ahmed said. The rector urged the students to shun anti-social activities such as occultism, examination malpractice, and use of narcotic drugs. He advised them to study diligently towards achieving excellence. He said the institution had not lost focus towards achieving its mission of moulding students to become disciplined, skilled and innovative for self-actualisation and national development. Mr Ahmed disclosed that the management was working towards a conducive environment for teaching, research and learning. This would ensure successful accreditation and reaccreditation of its programmes. Recently, many structures and facilities in the school were rehabilitated, including classrooms and students hostels, while some of the ongoing projects (Lecture Halls, Office Complex, ICT Complex, and Auditorium, etc.) were either completed or nearing completion to cater for our expansion. More importantly, all our programmes were accredited and or reaccredited and our carrying capacity increased. We are making effort to introduce more programmes, especially in the fields of Science, Technical and Vocational programmes. At the moment, the facilities for Mechatronics Department have been supplied, installed and staff trained. This is giving a signal to the commencement of National Diploma in Mechatronics Engineering very soon. Mr Ahmed said efforts to commence degree programmes in affiliation with some top-ranking Nigerian Universities received a boost. This happened with the Approval-in-Principle granted by one of the Universities to commence the Degree programmes in 10 different courses. We hope to finalise all the formalities with the view to commencing from the next Academic session. He, therefore, solicited the support, loyalty, commitment, and cooperation of all staff and students to make the Polytechnic a world-class institution of higher learning. (NAN) The Akwa Ibom State government has urged the Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited (MPN) Joint Venture to increase its budgetary allocation for Community Investment Programme (CIP) in the state. The state commissioner for transport and petroleum resources, Orman Esin, made the appeal at the opening ceremony of NNPC/MPN Joint Venture CIP in Eket Local Government Area of the state on Saturday. He said ExxonMobil should review the budgetary provision for the community investment programme because of its huge benefits in the state. We are calling on MPN to review the CIP upward because the results you get from the programme, money cannot buy, he said. He appealed to the youth of oil communities to always use dialogue to resolve crisis that could cause conflict between them and the joint venture operators in the area. Mr Esin, however, regretted the harassment caused by the youths but appealed to the Joint Venture to engage the youths in capacity, skills, and employment to put an end to the kidnapping of contractors. We will dialogue with ExxonMobil till we get what we want. Dialogue is the only way out of crisis and we need the ExxonMobil to do what should be done, he said. Also speaking, Nigel Cookey-Gam, the General Manager, Public and Government Affairs ExxonMobil, said that the total investment by the Joint Venture in the CIP) in Akwa Ibom was N170 million. He noted that the CIP was one of the NNPC/MPN Joint Ventures several initiatives dedicated to positively engage the youths, re-orientate and inculcate virtues other than adopting confrontation as the only mode of engagement. The Joint Venture is here for long haul and is repositioning to deliver greater value to the community, Akwa Ibom and Nigeria, Mr Cookey-Gam said. He said the event marked the formal commencement of the implementation of the five programmes under CIP such as Peace and Conflict Resolution Workshop (PCRW), Clean and Green Environment Project (CGEP). Others, according to him include Community Safety Awareness Campaign (CSAC), Upgrade/Beautification of Market Stalls and Community Beach Party. He said that their partners were indigenous Non-Governmental Organisation (NGOs) namely Community Partners for Development, Art and Skills Development Initiative and Foundation for Peace Studies and Human Development. The general manager explained that their partners were all from the four core oil communities of Ibeno, Eket, Esit Eket, and Onna LGAs and they are working in conjunction with the youths of the communities. Mr Cookey-Gam thanked the state government and people of the state for the peace and enabling environment provided for the Joint Venture Operations. Tom Benjaminsen, general manager, Joint Venture Operations, also expressed optimism that the executive partners would implement the programmes with the active collaboration and partnership of youths of the communities. He, however, said that a chain of events, which are solely constraining our effort to successfully sustain NNPC/MPN Joint Venture Operations as well as deliver critical economic lifeline to the communities and state. Mr Benjaminsen also decried what he called unprecedented harassment, badge seizures and attacks on the companys contractors by a handful of individuals in the communities. He said these constituted major impediment to the continued survival of the business in the area. He said the company had recorded over 25 of such cases from January to date. He appealed to the community leaders to continue to mentor the youths to explore peaceful avenues for resolution of issues. Nsekpong Udoh, Executive Director, Community Partner for Development (CPD), handling the peace and conflict resolution component, speaking for the NGOs said participants were expected to acquire skills of arbitration, mediation, and conciliation at the end of the programme. Mr Udoh said the overall goal of the programme was to help the youth in ExxonMobil host communities to respond peacefully in conflict situation through dialogue. Advertisements He said the workshop could inculcate the spirit of negotiated settlement of conflict to enhance the smooth operation of ExxonMobil and community development. (NAN) Some hoodlums on Thursday stabbed to death Aderibigbe Oshin-Adisa, the public relations officer of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), joint campus committee, Lagos State chapter. Mr Oshin-Adisa, a fresh graduate of the Federal College of Fisheries and Marine Technology, Lagos, was attacked at the Okokomaiko area of the Lagos-Badagry expressway. Bleeding profusely from the stab wounds, Mr Oshin-Adisa managed to get to the police station at Okokomaiko and was rushed to the Badagry General Hospital by the police officers, PREMIUM TIMES learnt. He died the next day. Yusuff Abdulrasaq, the NANS Lagos State Secretary, said the rising state of insecurity in their area is becoming unbearable and the students would demand justice for Mr Oshin-Adisa. The same road (Lagos-Badagry expressway) harbours two tertiary institutions, Lagos State University and Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education, if the students spokesman can be attacked and eventually lost his life, definitely many of the students and commuters are not safe, Mr Abdulrasaq said in a statement. We call on all security agencies to investigate this matter and bring all culprits to justice, the students will not hesitate to choose a date to protest against the insecurity in our vicinity. An injury to one is an injury to all. Phone calls and text messages to Bala Elkana, the police spokesperson in Lagos State, were not responded to. Mr Abdulrasaq told PREMIUM TIMES on Saturday morning that the students association would go to the police station on Sunday to get full report about the case which might lead to peaceful protest as the case may be. Accusing the Congress of corruption, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said the Congress party committed the Tughlaq road election scam, whose money was being used for the poll campaign of its chief Rahul Gandhi. Addressing an election rally at Sidhi, Modi said that in the Congress culture, corruption was the only protocol. He also stressed that the law was equal to all and that even his residence should be raided by Income Tax department if he was involved in any wrongdoing. Modi said, "The food meant for children and pregnant women under a Government scheme was snatched from them...The money was siphoned off to Tughlaq Road residence of a Congress leader in Delhi. That money is being used for the poll campaign." Notably, The Income Tax Department had recently conducted raids on close aides of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister and Congress leader Kamal Nath. The Central Board of Direct Taxes had said the department has also detected a trail of Rs 20 crore suspect cash allegedly being moved to the "headquarters of a major political party in Delhi" from the house of an important person who lives on Tughlaq Road, home to many VIPs. Modi further said that money disbursed by the Central Government for farmers in Madhya Pradesh under its schemes was yet to reach the beneficiaries. He accused the Kamal Nath dispensation in the State of not sharing with the Centre the list of farmers requiring the help. Taking a jibe at the MP Chief Minister, Modi said perhaps Kamal Nath was too busy to share the list with the Centre due to his Switzerland visit and political grooming of his son. Modi said Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy had insulted soldiers with his reported remark that only those who cannot manage two square meals a day seek jobs in armed forces. He also took potshots at those from the opposition parties aspiring to become the next Prime Minister. They have already ordered their tailors for new attires, he added. Modi asked the people who from among the opposition wanting to become the PM can wipe out terrorism. When they replied chanting his name, he said it not him but their one vote that would combat terrorism. PLEASE BE ADVISED: Soon we will no longer integrate with Facebook for story comments. The commenting option is not going away, however, readers will need to register for a FREE site account to continue sharing their thoughts and feedback on stories. If you already have an account (i.e. current subscribers, posting in obituary guestbooks, for submitting community events), you may use that login, otherwise, you will be prompted to create a new account. Last year, the high school was named a finalist in the competition and was awarded $10,000 for the districts art program. +3 Middle Twp. High School students compete in Vans art contest for $75K Middle Township High School students are asking the public to go online and vote for their The $10,000 prize has been used for new supplies, including paint, pottery wheels, high-quality drawing pencils, visiting artists and field trips. If we were to win the $75,000 prize, we would be able to invest in technology, programs like InDesign, Photoshop and more resources, senior Julia Mallett wrote in the districts impact letter, a requirement of the contest. Mallett said becoming a finalist last year had a positive community impact and created a sense of togetherness. In our small town, success like this does not happen often, and when it does, it really matters. Winning would give our team, school and the community a sense of pride and validation, as well as the resources to help our art program grow, Mallett wrote. They were also able to add an Advanced Placement art class to the districts offerings. +7 Egg Harbor Township middle school students showcase STEAM education EGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP Sixth-grade students from Fernwood Avenue Middle School showcased thei In addition to Mallett, students Gia Conte, Emmy Clarke, Bella DiPasquale, Rachel Williams and Hailey Urbaczewski also worked on the sneakers. Carmichael said he didnt have a strategy but was told to not eat a lot at each stop. Im at the whim of my stomach, he said. If I feel awful at the end of it, thats my fault. After Three Brothers, the group walked to Manco & Manco, but it was closed, so the group pivoted and went to Tony Ps House of Pie. They ordered two pizzas, one plain and one that was half The Jersey Shore and half the Tony Ps Special. Tony Polcini, the owner, said the crawl was an awesome idea and added that they were hitting good spots in the city. Theres enough on this Boardwalk for everybody to do well, he said. You guys are going to be able to taste it for yourselves, and I want your honest opinion. Cornelius husband, Robert, described the plain pizza as buttery with a crispy crust, adding that he prefers his crust like a bread stick. After pulling a slice, Sara Cornelius made her way to the front of the restaurant to grab a photo before eating and setting out for the next stop. We realize at the end of the day, youre not sick of pizza, she said. This is our love story with pizza. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. MAYS LANDING A Camden man was sentenced to 15 years in prison Friday after he pleaded guilty last month to aggravated manslaughter in the 2017 death of an Atlantic City man, Atlantic County Prosecutor Damon G. Tyner said. Johnny Morgan, 34, must serve 12 years and 6 months before he is eligible for parole, Tyner said in a news release. Upon release, Morgan will be subject to five years of parole. Andrew McGarrigel, 53, died Nov. 23, 2017, as a result of injuries sustained Nov. 3, 2017, on North Virginia Ave in Atlantic City, Tyner said. During an altercation with McGarrigel, Morgan punched him once in the head, and he fell to the ground and was unconscious, Tyner said. +2 Two men sentenced in 2015 fatal shooting at Atlantic City hotel MAYS LANDING Two men were each sentenced to more than 60 years in prison for the murder of McGarrigel never regained consciousness and died from his injuries at AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center, City Campus, a few weeks later. The cause of death was determined by the Southern Regional Medical Examiners Office to be head injuries with complications, and the manner of death was homicide, Tyner said. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Prettyman, Ella May (Hulse), - 58, of Athens, passed away peacefully in her home in Athens, GA on April 18, 2019 after a courageous battle with Spina Bifida. She was born to her late parents Robert Lee Hulse, Sr and Jeannette Ann Wilson on June 6, 1960 in Somers Point, NJ where she attended Mainland Regional High School. She is survived by the love of her life, Stephen Prettyman whom she married on June 20, 1987, they lived together in Egg Harbor Township for over 20 years before relocating to Georgia. She is also survived by her son, Michael Faunce, her "daughta" Sassy Tumblin, stepchildren Stephen and Jennifer Prettyman along with her sisters Darlene Hartman, Jeannette Bradford, Tammy Faunce, Meloney Hulse Shaw, Teresa M. Behl, Terry DeMatte and brothers Robert L. Hulse Jr, Jimmy and Bryan Prettyman (and a host of "adopted" sons and numerous nieces and nephews whom she loved dearly). Ella is predeceased by her sister Penny Faunce. Ella had a heart of gold, wanting the best for everyone she encountered and always leaving her door open for anyone in need, especially family. She will be remembered for her spirit, her fight and her oft unfiltered comments that made everyone around her laugh. Above all things, her love and adoration for her husband and son were abundantly clear to those around her. Her memory will live with us all forever. "How lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard" A.A Milne. A private service will be held with family. In lieu of sending flowers please consider making a charitable donation to Big Brothers Big Sisters of Atlanta in Memory of Ella Prettyman: (https://www.classy.org/give/224230/#!/donation/checkout). Bernstein Funeral Home is in charge of the arrangements. ATLANTIC CITY Since buying Gem Liquor Store at Atlantic and North Indiana avenues last month, Dharam Patel has put in a half-dozen security cameras, but he said he still needs to install more outside to watch for loitering and other illicit behavior on the street. He had no idea that just a few days earlier city police hosted a breakfast with business owners like him about tapping into their surveillance camera feeds in real time. Its a partnership between the owners and law enforcement that police have been working on for two years through social media and community meetings, saying it will increase security, reduce response times and create a safer environment for customers. I understand why the police would want to do something like that, but you have to get the people together, Patel said, explaining that, like in many places, there is a gap between law enforcement and business owners in the resort that needs to be bridged with effort from both sides. Several resort business owners said the camera-sharing program Project PACT, or Protecting Atlantic City Together helps deter crime. And experts say surveillance cameras get results when it comes to investigations. But it only works if businesses know about it and get involved. Business owners need to take the initiative, Patel said. Its good to be involved. Then tourists can come here and feel comfortable walking down the street. Currently, Tanger Outlets The Walk, Bass Pro Shops, Stockton University and the citys Housing Authority contribute part of the approximately 1,500 total city- and privately owned cameras retired police officers virtually patrol in the Atlantic City Headquarters for Intelligence Logistics Electronic Surveillance, or ACHILES, Deputy Chief James Sarkos said. About 22 resort businesses are part of Project PACT. The cost for the business owners varies based on the type of cameras they want, but the police do not charge anything to be part of the program. To get Genetec, the same system city police use, costs range depending on how many cameras are included, from $369 for three to $449 for four. Both packages carry a monthly fee of $160 and $199 for internet storage and service, respectively, according to the companys pricing sheet. We feel that it gives a feeling of comfort to their patrons, Sarkos said. And, if there happens to be a call for service, we would have real, live, situational awareness of whats happening, allowing us to give an appropriate response. City police were inspired by Detroits Project Green Light, another camera-sharing program that started in 2016 and recently signed its 500th partner. The Michigan city has seen a 23 percent year-to-date decrease in violent crime at the sites that participate, according to the departments website. Detroit police did not respond to a request for comment. Police here have been advertising the program for two years through social media, community meetings and even having officers go into stores. During a breakfast this month at the Gilchrist restaurant at Tropicana Atlantic City, police partnered with Supreme Security Systems and Genetec to educate business owners about the project, but only one showed up. Anthony Mack, owner of the McDonalds on South Arkansas Avenue, said he didnt know about the program but was interested in learning about it. Although he has security cameras all over the property to watch for loiterers, drug use, petty theft and panhandlers, he said having the police watching would be an added benefit. J.C. Lore, a clinical professor of law at Rutgers Law School in Camden, said cameras work as a deterrent for crime as well as an investigatory tool for police. Cameras are efficient, in terms of not requiring boots on the street, and they create generally reliable information, or evidence, so they are effective law-enforcement tools, Lore said. Police get an advantage in aiding their investigation. Jeff Price, the property manager of Renaissance Plaza at Atlantic and North Kentucky avenues, said Friday he is in the process of signing up for Project PACT. We think this is a fantastic concept and a fantastic idea, he said. It displays just how much the city officials really want to do everything they can to make Atlantic City a great place to be, and we are actively reviewing the proposals in order to implement it at our property. Price said he hopes the cameras work as a deterrent, which would in turn reduce crime in the area. And if you reduce crime, you reduce arrests and you reduce costs, Price said. It can have a very, very good domino effect in the right direction. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Prime Minister Narendra Modi here on Friday said the Congress was targeting him over demonetisation as the adversity suffered by people close to it in the realty sector, which was hit hard due to the note ban. He claimed that the realty sector was booming and with the note ban, housing prices fell drastically, leading to the devastation of people close to the Congress who had invested in the sector, Modi said, addressing a rally here. Modi said a majority of Indians supported his move despite the difficulties which it entailed. He said a campaign was launched when he started acting against black money and corruption and public was instigated by showing videos of people standing in queues outside banks. A few people sitting in AC rooms of Delhi celebrated the decision, saying 'Modi's fate is sealed', but the majority countrymen have proved them wrong, he said, adding, "Note ban led to a reduction in house prices, but those close to the Congress who had invested in the sector are devastated. The Congress is at pains because 3 lakh companies were sealed following note ban." Modi said no one blames him for the note ban decision and added that there are only 15 lakh peopleassuming five in each of the three lakh companieswho are his enemies. The Prime Minister appealed people to help him against the dishonest and also decried Congress' attempts at finding fault with the Swachh Bharat campaign. He also attacked the Congress over its record of Governance in Madhya Pradesh in a short span of just a few months and also made a reference to recent tax raids in Delhi, which he has been terming as the "Tughlaq Road election scam". Dacoits and kidnappers have got a new energy after Congress came to power in Madhya Pradesh last year, he said. 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. RUSSELLVILLE, Ala. and TALLASSEE, Ala., April 24, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- CBS Banc-Corp, Inc. ("CB&S"), headquartered in Russellville, Alabama, and PrimeSouth BancShares, Inc. ("PrimeSouth"), headquartered in Tallassee, Alabama, today jointly announced the signing of a definitive merger agreement whereby PrimeSouth Bank will merge with and into CB&S Bank. The merger will create the largest privately held and the fourth largest Alabama-based financial institution. The merger is subject to customary closing conditions, including approval from PrimeSouth shareholders and bank regulators. The transaction is expected to occur in the third quarter of 2019. Upon completion of the merger, the combined company will operate under the CB&S Bank brand, have over 50 locations in Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee, and have total assets in excess of $1.9 billion. Under the terms of the merger agreement, shareholders of PrimeSouth will receive 100% cash for each share of the company's common stock. Other financial terms were not disclosed. "We are excited to combine with such a strong bank as CB&S Bank," stated Dave Baggett, President and Chief Executive Officer of PrimeSouth. "We are pleased that our companies possess a similar culture and commitment to our customers and the communities we serve. This is a win-win for both companies' shareholders, customers, and employees." "We cannot think of a better banking partner than Dave Baggett and his team at PrimeSouth. As a native of the River Region, I am thrilled to be able to do business where I was born and raised," stated Mike Ross, President and Chief Executive Officer of CB&S. "This combination also allows CB&S Bank to further expand in the Birmingham market, one of the key growth markets in Alabama. We have wanted to expand in central Alabama for some time so it was the perfect fit to partner with a high-quality community bank like PrimeSouth." CBS Banc-Corp, Inc. was advised by Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP as legal counsel. PrimeSouth BancShares, Inc. was advised by Jones Walker LLP as legal counsel and Porter White Capital, LLC as financial advisor. About CBS Banc-Corp, Inc. CBS Banc-Corp, Inc. is a bank holding company headquartered in Russellville, Alabama. The company's banking subsidiary, CB&S Bank was founded in 1906 and is one of the largest community banks headquartered in Alabama with over 50 offices in Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee. The company offers a complete line of full-service banking products and other related financial services to retail and commercial customers through its subsidiaries. Additional information about the bank can be found at www.cbsbank.com. About PrimeSouth BancShares, Inc. PrimeSouth BancShares, Inc. is a bank holding company headquartered in Tallassee, Alabama. The company's banking subsidiary, PrimeSouth Bank, was established in 1958 as The Peoples Bank and later changed its name in 2004. PrimeSouth operates five locations in Tallassee, Birmingham, Pike Road, and Wetumpka. Additional information about the bank can be found at www.primesouthbank.com. SOURCE CBS Banc-Corp, Inc. Related Links https://www.cbsbank.com BOYERTOWN, Pa., April 25, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- ClimeCo Corporation (ClimeCo) is pleased to announce its selection as Project Developer of the Year by the Climate Action Reserve (CAR), in recognition for the Most Registered Carbon Offset Projects in 2018. ClimeCo is Selected as Project Developer of the Year by CAR. In picture: Andy Kruger, Sr Director, Environmental Markets; William Flederbach, President and CEO; Derek Six, Chief Business Officer CAR, North America's premier carbon offset registry, presented the award to ClimeCo Corporation during CAR's North American Carbon World (NACW) 2019 annual conference, which is currently being held in Los Angeles, CA, through April 26. Award recipients are nominated based upon their demonstration of leadership in advancing climate solutions and strengthening carbon markets through the development of successful carbon offset projects that achieve real, quantifiable, verifiable, additional, and permanent emissions reductions. "ClimeCo is celebrating ten years in business this year and to receive an award like this from CAR is a great gift," said Bill Flederbach, President & CEO of ClimeCo. "I am very proud of the team we have built over the last 10 years, our culture, our clients, the incredible volumes of greenhouse gases that we've reduced, and us being the leading producer of carbon credits within CAR." ClimeCo has worked with CAR for the past 10 years and has registered more than 16 million carbon offsets. Their offset volume stems from reducing greenhouse gas emissions through several project types, including N 2 O Abatement, Destruction of Ozone Depleting Substances, Agricultural Methane Capture, and Organic Waste Composting. It is the combination of their clients, their diversification, and the dedication of their project team that has allowed them to be the leader in carbon offset project development. "CAR has been a tremendous partner for ClimeCo over the years," said Derek Six, Chief Business Officer of ClimeCo. "Their dedication to creating high-quality protocols and ensuring a crediting program of the utmost integrity aligns well with ClimeCo's core values. We are proud to be implementing creative and innovative emission reduction projects, and very much appreciate this recognition for our efforts." ClimeCo is an advisor, broker, and developer of both voluntary and compliance grade environmental commodity market products, with specialized expertise in California cap-and-trade, market advisory, transactional services, and project financing. To learn more about ClimeCo, how you can be a part of this growing business or how your company can benefit, visit us at www.climeco.com. SOURCE ClimeCo Corporation Related Links http://www.climeco.com INDIANAPOLIS, April 25, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY) today announced that the company has been working to facilitate the withdrawal of Lartruvo (olaratumab) from the market for the treatment of advanced soft tissue sarcoma (STS). Lilly's actions to withdraw Lartruvo from the market follow the failure of the Phase 3 ANNOUNCE clinical trial, in which Lartruvo did not improve survival for patients. Lilly is establishing a program to ensure current patients will have access to Lartruvo with limited interruption after it is withdrawn from the market. The program will be established as allowed by local country regulations. Lilly is working to ensure that patients who are currently receiving Lartruvo may, in consultation with their physician, continue their course of therapy if they have been informed of the risks of Lartruvo and the results of the ANNOUNCE study and wish to continue, subject to local laws and regulations. No new patients should receive Lartruvo outside of participation in ongoing clinical trials. Lilly also is working to establish a program to allow patients who are currently receiving Lartruvo to continue treatment with limited interruption after Lartruvo is withdrawn from the market, subject to local laws and regulations. More information regarding this program will be provided directly to healthcare professionals in the coming weeks. "Lilly wants to ensure that patients and physicians feel supported during this important time," said Anne White, president, Lilly Oncology. "Advanced soft tissue sarcoma is a rare and difficult-to-treat cancer. Establishing this program will give patients who are currently taking Lartruvo the opportunity to continue their treatment program uninterrupted." Lilly plans to present the ANNOUNCE data at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) 2019 annual meeting and will publish the results in a medical journal. About Soft Tissue Sarcoma Sarcomas are a diverse and relatively rare type of cancer that usually develop in the connective tissue of the body, which include fat, blood vessels, nerves, bones, muscles, deep skin tissues and cartilage. Soft tissue sarcoma (STS) is a complex disease with multiple subtypes, making it hard to diagnose and difficult to treat. According to the American Cancer Society, in 2019, an estimated 12,750 new STS cases will be diagnosed, and more than 5,000 people will not survive their disease in the U.S. alone. For decades, there have been no first-line therapeutic advancements for STS that have improved overall survival (OS). About LARTRUVO (olaratumab) LARTRUVO is a platelet-derived growth factor receptor alpha (PDGFR-) blocking antibody that specifically binds PDGFR- and prevents receptor activation. LARTRUVO exhibits in vitro and in vivo anti-tumor activity against selected sarcoma cell lines and disrupted the PDGFR- signaling pathway in in vivo tumor implant models. About the ANNOUNCE Trial ANNOUNCE was a randomized, double-blind, Phase 3 study of LARTRUVO in combination with doxorubicin, followed by LARTRUVO monotherapy, versus doxorubicin plus placebo followed by placebo, in patients with advanced or metastatic STS. The two primary endpoints were OS in the intent-to-treat (ITT) population and OS in the leiomyosarcoma (LMS) sub-population. Patients with locally advanced, unresectable or metastatic STS not amenable to curative treatment were enrolled and were eligible with any prior number of treatment regimens, provided they had not previously received treatment with an anthracycline. LARTRUVO was administered at a loading dose of 20 mg/kg on days 1 and 8 of cycle 1 and 15 mg/kg on days 1 and 8 of all subsequent cycles in combination with doxorubicin 75 mg/m2 administered on day 1 of each cycle. Placebo was administered in combination with doxorubicin for 8 cycles. LARTRUVO was continued as monotherapy until disease progression. Key secondary endpoints included safety, progression-free survival, objective response rate, and patient-reported outcomes. INDICATION LARTRUVO is indicated, in combination with doxorubicin, for the treatment of adult patients with soft tissue sarcoma (STS) with a histologic subtype for which an anthracycline-containing regimen is appropriate and which is not amenable to curative treatment with radiotherapy or surgery. This indication was approved under Accelerated Approval. Continued approval for this indication was contingent upon verification and description of clinical benefit in the confirmatory trial. IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION FOR LARTRUVO Warnings and Precautions Infusion-Related Reactions Infusion-related reactions (IRR) occurred in 70 (14%) of 485 patients who received at least one dose of LARTRUVO across clinical trials. For 68 of these 70 patients (97%), the first occurrence of IRR was in the first or second cycle. Grade 3 IRR occurred in 11 (2.3%) of 485 patients, with one (0.2%) fatality. Symptoms of IRR included flushing, shortness of breath, bronchospasm, or fever/chills, and in severe cases symptoms manifested as severe hypotension, anaphylactic shock, or cardiac arrest. Infusion-related reactions required permanent discontinuation in 2.3% of patients and interruption of infusion in 10% of patients. All 59 patients with Grade 1 or 2 IRR resumed LARTRUVO; 12 (20%) of these patients had a Grade 1 or 2 IRR with rechallenge. The incidence of IRR in the overall safety database (N = 485) was similar (18% versus 12%) between those who did (56%) and those who did not (44%) receive premedication. Monitor patients during and following LARTRUVO infusion for signs and symptoms of IRR in a setting with available resuscitation equipment. Immediately and permanently discontinue LARTRUVO for Grade 3 or 4 IRR . Embryo-Fetal Toxicity Based on animal data and its mechanism of action, LARTRUVO can cause fetal harm when administered to a pregnant woman. Animal knockout models link disruption of platelet-derived growth factor receptor alpha (PDGFR-) signaling to adverse effects on embryo-fetal development. Administration of an anti-murine PDGFR- antibody to pregnant mice during organogenesis caused malformations and skeletal variations. Advise pregnant women of the potential risk to a fetus. Advise females of reproductive potential to use effective contraception during treatment with LARTRUVO and for 3 months after the last dose. Most Common Adverse Reactions/Lab Abnormalities The most commonly reported adverse reactions (all grades; grade 3-4) occurring in 20% of patients receiving LARTRUVO plus doxorubicin versus doxorubicin alone were nausea (73% vs 52%; 2% vs 3%), fatigue (69% vs 69%; 9% vs 3%), musculoskeletal pain (64% vs 25%; 8% vs 2%), mucositis (53% vs 35%; 3% vs 5%), alopecia (52% vs 40%; 0% vs 0%), vomiting (45% vs 19%; 0% vs 0%), diarrhea (34% vs 23%; 3% vs 0%) decreased appetite (31% vs 20%; 2% vs 0%), abdominal pain (23% vs 14%; 3% vs 0%), neuropathy (22% vs 11%; 0% vs 0%), and headache (20% vs 9%; 0% vs 0%). The most common laboratory abnormalities (all grades; grade 3-4) occurring in 20% of patients receiving LARTRUVO plus doxorubicin versus doxorubicin alone were lymphopenia (77% vs 73%; 44% vs 37%), neutropenia (65% vs 63%; 48% vs 38%) and thrombocytopenia (63% vs 44%; 6% vs 11%), hyperglycemia (52% vs 28%; 2% vs 3%), elevated aPTT (33% vs 13%; 5% vs 0%), hypokalemia (21% vs 15%; 8% vs 3%), and hypophosphatemia (21% vs 7%; 5% vs 3%). Use in Specific Populations Lactation: Because of the potential risk for serious adverse reactions in breastfeeding infants, advise women not to breastfeed during treatment with LARTRUVO and for at least 3 months following the last dose. For more information about LARTRUVO, please see full Prescribing Information at http://pi.lilly.com/us/lartruvo-uspi.pdf. About Lilly Oncology For more than 50 years, Lilly has been dedicated to delivering life-changing medicines and support to people living with cancer and those who care for them. Lilly is determined to build on this heritage and continue making life better for all those affected by cancer around the world. To learn more about Lilly's commitment to people with cancer, please visit www.LillyOncology.com. About Eli Lilly and Company Lilly is a global healthcare leader that unites caring with discovery to create medicines that make life better for people around the world. We were founded more than a century ago by a man committed to creating high-quality medicines that meet real needs, and today we remain true to that mission in all our work. Across the globe, Lilly employees work to discover and bring life-changing medicines to those who need them, improve the understanding and management of disease, and give back to communities through philanthropy and volunteerism. To learn more about Lilly, please visit us at www.lilly.com and http://newsroom.lilly.com/social-channels. P-LLY Lilly USA, LLC 2019. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. LARTRUVO is a trademark owned by or licensed to Eli Lilly and Company, its subsidiaries, or affiliates. Lilly Forward-Looking Statement This press release contains forward-looking statements (as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995) about LARTRUVO (olaratumab) as a treatment for patients with advanced soft tissue sarcoma and reflects Lilly's current belief. As with any pharmaceutical product, there are substantial risks and uncertainties in the process of development, commercialization, and in this case, product withdrawal from the market. For further discussion of these and other risks and uncertainties, see Lilly's most recent Form 10-K and Form 10-Q filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as required by law, Lilly undertakes no duty to update forward-looking statements to reflect events after the date of this release. SOURCE Eli Lilly and Company Related Links http://www.lilly.com Poll workers were given the option of attending the two-hour training in either the morning, afternoon, or evening session. An estimated 300 poll workers attended the mandatory training. At least three representatives from each of the county's 91 precincts were required to attend. "The new system that we are implementing on May 21 is an upgrade to our existing optical scan system we have had since 2008," Centre County director of elections Joyce McKinley said. "Overall, our poll workers have been very happy with the new system features." At one training session, attendees cheered when they learned of the new automated process for voters to record write-in candidates. McKinley said she expects that poll workers and voters alike will find the new voting process to be very user-friendly. The county has one of the new voting machines set up in the lobby of the elections office, 420 Holmes St., Bellefonte, so voters can view and try out the system. The public also is invited to test the new machines at the elections office at 10 a.m. on May 16. Centre County voters will have the option to use a hand-marked paper ballot or a ballot marking device that is compliant with the Americans With Disabilities Act. Voters who use the ballot marking device will receive a printed copy of their ballot which they will use to verify their choices before inserting it into a scanner. Individuals in any county who are interested in becoming a poll worker should contact their county board of elections. In April 2018, the Pennsylvania Department of State informed counties they have until the end of 2019 to select new voting systems that provide a paper record. The new systems are to be in use no later than the 2020 primary, and preferably by the November 2019 general election. Systems with paper trails allow for more accurate and reliable post-election audits. Nationwide, there is bipartisan and near universal agreement that all voters should be voting on paper ballots they can verify. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Senate and House Intelligence Committees, and many security and elections experts are urging states to switch to new systems that produce paper records. In Pennsylvania, every voting system and paper ballot must include plain text that voters can read to verify their choices before casting their ballot. Election officials will also use the plain text to perform pre-election testing and post-election audits and recounts. Governor Wolf is seeking state funding for at least half of the counties' cost for new voting systems. He will continue to work with the General Assembly to implement a plan for state funding and financing. The governor has already committed $14.15 million in federal and state funding to counties for the new voting systems. So far, 28 counties have approved purchases or leases of new voting systems throughout the commonwealth. Centre is one of nine counties planning to use new systems in the 2019 primary. MEDIA CONTACT: Wanda Murren, 717-783-1621 SOURCE Pennsylvania Department of State Related Links http://www.state.pa.us NEW ORLEANS, April 26, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- ClaimsFiler, a FREE shareholder information service, reminds investors that they have until May 31, 2019 to file lead plaintiff applications in a securities class action lawsuit against AT&T, Inc. (NYSE: T), if they purchased the Company's 1) securities between October 22, 2016 and October 24, 2018, inclusive (the "Class Period") and/or 2) shares issued in connection with its June 2018 acquisition of Time Warner. This action is pending in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Get Help AT&T investors should visit us at https://www.claimsfiler.com/cases/view-atampt-inc-securities-litigation or call toll-free (844) 367-9658. Lawyers at Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC are available to discuss your legal options. About the Lawsuit AT&T and certain of its executives are charged with failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws. On October 24, 2018, following AT&T's June 2018 acquisition of Time Warner, the Company disclosed its 3Q2018 results for the first full quarter post-Acquisition that included significant decreases in traditional DirecTV and DirecTV Now subscribers, despite its prior statements touting the expected subscriber growth potential. On this news, the price of AT&T's shares fell nearly 12%. The case is Gross v. AT&T Inc. et al, 19-cv-2892. About ClaimsFiler ClaimsFiler has a single mission: to serve as the information source to help retail investors recover their share of billions of dollars from securities class action settlements. At ClaimsFiler.com, investors can: (1) register for free to gain access to information and settlement websites for various securities class action cases so they can timely submit their own claims; (2) upload their portfolio transactional data to be notified about relevant securities cases in which they may have a financial interest; and (3) submit inquiries to the Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC law firm for free case evaluations. To learn more about ClaimsFiler, visit www.claimsfiler.com. SOURCE ClaimsFiler Related Links http://www.claimsfiler.com Prime Minister Narendra Modi may not visit the Ram Janmabhoomi complex when he addresses an election rally in Gossaiganj town of Ambedkarnagar which is very close to Ayodhya on May 1. A senior BJP leader said that there was no confirmation that the Prime Minister would visit Ram Janmabhoomi complex when he tours this region. The rally will be held at Gossaiganj which lies between Ayodhya and Ambedkarnagar. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and other senior BJP leaders are expected to accompany the Prime Minister during the rally. The BJP leader said that ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Modi had addressed a rally near Ayodhya but the place came in Basti region. Then too he had not visited the Ram Janmabhoomi and this time also he would not pay obeisance to the Ram Lalla, the BJP leader added. He gave the argument that if the Prime Minister addresses rally in Ram Janmabhoomi complex, the national and international media would highlight how Ram Lalla is living in tattered tents. This will present a bad picture of the country and therefore the PM will not address any rally in Ayodhya, he said. This argument looks very flimsy as the opposition has been asking what happened to the PMs assurance on construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya. They have even asked when Modi is visiting temples after temples why has he not visited Ram Janmabhoomi in the last five years. The Prime Ministers rally on May 1 aims to address voters of Ambedkarnagar, which goes to poll in the sixth phase on May 12, and Faizabad which will vote in the fifth phase on May 6. Ayodhya falls in Faizabad constituency. The rally is also likely to set the tone for the BJP in the other constituencies going to polls in UP on May 6. These constituencies include Dhaurahra, Sitapur, Mohanlalganj, Lucknow, Rae Bareli, Amethi, Banda, Fatehpur, Kaushambi, Barabanki, Faizabad, Bahraich, Kaiserganj and Gonda. NEW ORLEANS, April 26, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Former Attorney General of Louisiana, Charles C. Foti, Jr., Esq., a partner at the law firm of Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC ("KSF"), announces that KSF has commenced an investigation into DaVita Inc. (NYSE: DVA). On December 25, 2016, an article by the New York Times highlighted the relationship between the American Kidney Fund ("AKF"), a charity that helps patients pay for kidney dialysis, and its largest donors, including DaVita, suggesting that the AKF had denied charitable premium assistance ("CPA") to patients of dialysis companies who did not donate to it. Then, on January 6, 2017, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Company had received subpoenas from federal prosecutors seeking "the production of information related to charitable premium assistance" in connection with its ties to the AKF. On February 1, 2017, a securities class action lawsuit was filed against the Company alleging that it made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose its scheme to steer patients into unneeded insurance plans in order to maximize profits, using the AKF to facilitate the improper practices. Recently, the court presiding over the case denied the Company's motion to dismiss, allowing the case to move forward. KSF's investigation is focusing on whether DaVita's officers and/or directors breached their fiduciary duties to DaVita's shareholders or otherwise violated state or federal laws. If you have information that would assist KSF in its investigation, or have been a long-term holder of DaVita shares and would like to discuss your legal rights, you may, without obligation or cost to you, call toll-free at 1-877-515-1850 or email KSF Managing Partner Lewis Kahn ([email protected]), or visit https://www.ksfcounsel.com/cases/nyse-dva/ to learn more. About Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC KSF, 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 Lewis Kahn, Managing Partner [email protected] 1-877-515-1850 1100 Poydras St., Suite 3200 New Orleans, LA 70163 SOURCE Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC Related Links http://www.ksfcounsel.com NEW ORLEANS, April 27, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP) met in New Orleans, Louisiana to explore the critical role nurse practitioners play in meeting the need for high-quality, patient-centered health care. The meeting of community leaders and stakeholders took place on Wednesday, April 24 at Andrea's Restaurant in Metairie. AANP CEO David Hebert, JD, led the discussion with health, government, business, civic and faith-based organizations focused on the shifting health landscape and potential solutions for strengthening patient access to high-quality health care in Louisiana. Participants included Slidell Mayor Greg Cromer and New Orleans Chamber of Commerce CEO Ben Johnson who participated in a roundtable discussion following remarks by Hebert and AANP President-elect Sophia Thomas, a native Louisianan and former president of the Louisiana Association of Nurse Practitioners. Louisianans, along with many Americans, struggle for access to quality health care. According to US News & World Report's 2018 Best State Rankings, Louisiana ranked 47th in the nation on measures of healthcare access and quality. Each community across the state is dealing with the situation. While this is not a new issue, it's important for community leaders to work together in finding a solution. "While there are many contributing factors to Louisiana's health care situation, we believe an ongoing dialogue about ways NPs can help improve access to high-quality care is critical," Hebert said. "As we've seen in 22 states and the District of Columbia, granting patients full and direct access to NP care is a no-cost, no-delay solution to addressing Louisiana's health care challenges." The American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP) is the largest professional membership organization for nurse practitioners (NPs) of all specialties. It represents the interests of the more than 248,000 licensed NPs in the U.S. AANP provides legislative leadership at the local, state and national levels, advancing health policy; promoting excellence in practice, education and research; and establishing standards that best serve NP patients and other health care consumers. As The Voice of the Nurse Practitioner, AANP represents the interests of NPs as providers of high-quality, cost-effective, comprehensive, patient-centered health care. For more information and to locate an NP in your community, visit WeChooseNPs.org. SOURCE American Association of Nurse Practitioners Related Links http://www.aanp.org SINGAPORE, April 27, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Ontology has announced its plans to launch Paxos Standard (PAX) a regulated USD stablecoin, on the Ontology blockchain. With this news, Ontology will work to explore application scenarios on Defi (Decentralized Finance, another Ontology partner project) beyond exchanges and are expected to launch the PAX token on Ontology in May. Based on Ontology's OEP-4 token standard, the token (PAXO) will continue to use PAX as its ticker. PAX will enable atomic swaps between the Ontology-based main blockchain and blockchain network and make it easier for individuals and institutional partners to do business pegged to fiat in the Ontology ecosystem. PAX was launched on September 10, 2018, with the approval of the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS). It is the first regulated USD stablecoin that ensures open auditing, asset safety, and is supported by a large number of exchanges, making it a stable "digital dollar" in every sense of the term, unlike Tether, which cannot guarantee its token is always worth $1. All the deposits in USD are kept in independent accounts of FDIC insured banks registered in the US to ensure the safety of PAX tokens. Monthly audits of PAX are done by top US audit firms to ensure the amount of USD in the accounts is consistent with the PAX in circulation. Since the release of the Ontology MainNet in June 2018, much progress has been made in scaling up and realizing business applications. Ontology also boasts rapid product iteration, community growth, and offers a customized and intuitive development platform for blockchain developers. Rich Teo, Co-Founder and Head of Asia for Paxos Trust, said, "We are pleased to announce that the Ontology Foundation has chosen PAX as the stablecoin to launch on their chain, and we believe we can offer more business application scenarios for Ontology. This news shows how PAX can continue to meet the ever-changing needs of digital asset communities and Paxos' dedication to advancing innovation in virtual currencies". Andy Ji, Co-Founder of Ontology, said, "the launch of PAX on the Ontology blockchain will greatly accelerate real business applications on Ontology, create more success stories of traditional businesses shifting to distributed businesses, and provide enterprise partners and institutional investors with a regulated, reliable, and safe gateway to the world of digital assets". SOURCE Ontology IRVINE, Calif., April 26, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Herbalmax Inc. is pleased to announce the upcoming release of its refortified line of bio-available nutraceuticals led by its leading NMN (nicotinamide mononucleotide) product, Reinvigorator. In addition to select supplements such as the popular Natural Sleep and Menopause Support Formulas, the Company has redefined its product line to help the consumer find added answers to their difficult health concerns. Herbalmax scientists have set the gold standard in a crowded nutraceutical industry before, with high-grade, science-based proprietary and targeted blends like their Immune Support Formula, Blood Pressure Formula, Heart Health and Anxiety & Stress Formulas. With new branding, refortified manufacturing processes, and a completely streamlined product line, Herbalmax is perfectly situated to take new and bold steps into home health solutions. "As an established and trusted company in the Health and Wellness biotech design and manufacturing space for 20 years, we believe our brand is now well positioned to secure an important market share in the online nutraceutical industry," affirms Dr. Mohamed Shaharuzzaman, Ph.D., Senior Research Scientist at Herbalmax Inc. Using only 100% native-earth ingredients, Herbalmax products have been consistently safe and specifically designed to meet the real expectations of the customer looking to fill the gap in their healthcare. Herbalmax biotech scientists engineer smart, inventive solutions of unsurpassed quality, keeping the customer firmly at the center of their focus. One of the stars of the Herbalmax product range, NAD+ (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide) precursor enzyme supplement, Reinvigorator, launched in 2018, has grown from strength to strength. Dr. Shaharuzzaman continues, "We are thrilled by the success our premier NMN product, Reinvigorator, has had over the last year and look forward to its continued popularity with the consumer. The positive feedback from our customers includes a notable yet stable energy boost throughout the day, better sleep quality, clearer thinking, and an overall brighter outlook. "Still, our greatest challenge will always be to strive to perfect our technologies, lower production costs and to meet, with a hyper-focus, the continued health needs of our customers." Herbalmax Inc. and its employees look forward to setting the pace for continued success as a global provider of home health care solutions. Website: www.herbalmax.com Related Links: https://blog.herbalmax.com/ https://blog.herbalmax.com/why-is-seattle-buzzing-about-plant-based-foods https://blog.herbalmax.com/running-aging-and-living-in-space Like us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter Follow us on LinkedIn SOURCE Herbalmax Related Links http://www.herbalmax.com NASHVILLE, Tenn., April 26, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis, LLP has announced the addition of attorneys Andrea Rigali Cunha and Molly A. Huffman to the firm's nationally recognized healthcare department. Cunha and Huffman will focus on healthcare transactions, operations and regulatory compliance matters involving investor-owned and not-for-profit healthcare providers and organizations. "Andrea and Molly bring more than 30 years of combined experience that will benefit our healthcare clients immediately," said Ken Marlow, chair of Waller's 190-attorney Healthcare Department. "We are very excited to be joined by these talented attorneys who understand the challenges that providers face in an increasingly complex business and regulatory environment." Andrea Rigali Cunha joins Waller as a partner in the firm's Austin, Texas office. Cunha is a key member of Waller's multidisciplinary Healthcare Department, with particular emphasis focused on the challenges facing distressed hospitals. Cunha combines years working as a bankruptcy partner in a well-known Florida law firm with hands-on experience at a growing health system, where she took a lead role driving transformative acquisitions and advising on regulatory and operational matters. Cunha negotiated joint ventures for the development of an ambulatory surgery center and the acquisition of two hospitals, while also having responsibility for HIPAA and HITECH Act compliance, contract management, clinical laboratory compliance, CLIA licenses and Medicare and Medicaid provider numbers. She also led a rural healthcare provider through chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. Earlier in her career, Cunha served as General Counsel at a tech startup that successfully monetized a mobile application. She was also the youngest partner ever elected at a Miami bankruptcy and restructuring boutique, where she operated and restructured business organizations in chapter 11 cases. Cunha is licensed in Florida and Texas, two states seeing particularly high rates of healthcare growth spending. Cunha earned her J.D. from Stetson University College of Law and her MBA from Stetson University in 2007. She earned her B.A. in 2004 from the University of Florida. Molly A. Huffman joins Waller as a partner working remotely from Virginia. Fully integrated with Waller's Healthcare Department, Huffman is a trusted advisor to hospitals, health systems, behavioral services providers and other healthcare organizations. Huffman has earned a national reputation for her work related to the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005 (PSQIA). She has assisted many of the nation's largest healthcare systems in the creation and development of Patient Safety Organizations (PSOs), and she continues to help providers expand their participation within various PSOs to foster environments of increased quality and improved patient safety. Additionally, Huffman provides advice regarding hospital safety, security, EMTALA, HIPAA, the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB), reporting requirements, electronic health records, risk management, internal investigations, guardianships, judicial authorizations for treatment, scope of practice requirements and other regulatory compliance matters. She also advises healthcare organizations on medical staff issues ranging from privileging, peer review and disciplinary matters to the revision of medical staff bylaws and staff training. Additionally, Huffman is licensed in Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia, and she advises healthcare clients operating throughout the United States. She earned her J.D. in 2002 from the University of Richmond School of Law. Huffman earned her B.A. in 1999 from the University of Virginia. Media Contact: Sarah Brawner Phone: 615.610.0323 Email: [email protected] About Waller With more than 250 attorneys in Nashville, Austin, Birmingham, Chattanooga and Memphis, Waller assists clients in complex transactional, regulatory and litigation matters. The firm has built a national reputation for its work in the healthcare and financial services industries, and Waller boasts robust and growing practices in private equity and real estate. The firm also has extensive experience in retail and hospitality, technology, manufacturing and other industries. Waller has been named one of the top law firms for women by Working Mother magazine and has been named a Best Place to Work among top employers in Nashville and Birmingham. For more information, please visit www.wallerlaw.com. SOURCE Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis, LLP Related Links http://www.wallerlaw.com Washington, April 27 : The US Treasury Department said it has imposed sanctions on Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza and a Venezuelan judge. Jorge Arreaza and the female judge, Carol Padilla, were put on the blacklist of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), Xinhua reported on Friday, citing a statement issued by the US Treasury department. As a result of the sanctions, all property and interests in property of those sanctioned targets that are subject to US jurisdiction will be blocked, and US persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with them, the statement noted. The US has been pursuing a policy of economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation against the Venezuelan government in support of the opposition leader Juan Guaido. The OFAC last week targeted Central Bank of Venezuela and its director Iliana Josefa Ruzza Teran. In response, Arreaza called US economic and financial sanctions that impact the whole nation represent human rights violations on a grand scale. The US administration recognised Guaido as the nation's "interim president" on Jan 23, days after Nicolas Maduro was inaugurated for a second term. In response to Washington's support for Guaido, Maduro announced that he was severing "diplomatic and political" ties with the US. New Delhi, April 27 : For the ruling BJP, the general election of 2019 jump-starts now. This is where the BJP takes the knife to the prison yard fight, for in 2014, it won 161 of the 240 seats on view. As middle and north India goes to the polls over the next four phases, the BJP's resolve gets emboldened further for it knows that to retain power, it has to convert these seats into victories. In 2014, even as the BJP won 161 seats, Trinamool Congress won 30 and the Congress won nine while the rest were shared by the splinter parties. Imagine the BJP's total tally of 282, the final four phases contributed the steroid bulked 161 seats. However, in a straight fight in many constituencies, the Congress came second in 96 while the BSP came number 2 in 20, SP in 18, RJD in 17 and CPI(M) in 22. But, there is every possibility that 2019 will witness a change for while the BJP will try and carve a larger share of seats for itself, the Congress, RJD, BSP and SP too will try and make inroads into BJP territories. Modi, in many ways a human metronome, has been assiduously assuming the role of a hegemon in Indian polity, his cult is the only one that matters, larger than life as he strides forward like a Colossus. Since 2014, barring the reverses in Bihar and Delhi till the recent losses in the three states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, he has taken the BJP to the absolute zenith of unparalleled power. Modi's personal equity has not suffered despite Notebandi and Gabbar Singh Tax or widespread rural distress as his opponent Rahul Gandhi assails him publicly from pit stop to pit stop. In many ways, the BJP has assumed the role of a dominant political force under his stewardship, one that is reminiscent of Mrs Gandhi's Congress in the early 1970s. Closer scrutiny of the 2014 election data will reveal that the BJP's seats came from eight states in north-central India which accounted for 75 per cent of its parliamentary tally. With the Hindu vote consolidating behind Modi after years of minorityism and appeasement, the BJP and its allies won 104 out of 120 seats in the populous Hindi heartland states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Normally, the states are seen as fragmented, multi-party states unlike Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, or Rajasthan, which feature bipolar competition between the Congress and the BJP. In both Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, powerful regional chieftains always go toe-to-toe with the Big Two. Modi's landslide broke that political calculus and rewrote a new power algo. Further, the BJP ramped up its presence in India's northeastern states - consisting of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, and Tripura - where it has traditionally had a modest presence. In 2014, the BJP earned an average vote share of 28 per cent in these states, notching eight seats (out of 25 on offer). Compared to the previous election in 2009, the BJP doubled both its vote and seat shares. Two decades ago, the Congress earned 40 per cent of the vote and held 13 seats in this region; in 2014, its share had dwindled to 30 per cent and eight seats (virtually identical to the BJP's position). In the coming days, Modi's Hindu 'asmita' of chauvinism factor will be a vote catcher, for this newly acquired machismo with a strong undertone of Hindu nationalism and poplulist development can be the differentiator. Under Modi's power play a distinct systemic partisan tilt has been seen with the Hindu vote aggregating behind him breaking the caste faultlines that normally exist in Indian politics. So, while the BJP is expected to fall short of a simple majority on its own, it will have to engage with regional bosses to construct a new right wing coalition, one that will have to be more accommodating of their aspirations and ambitions. The break down on the next four phases is as follows: Phase 4 - 71 seats - BJP 45, Trinamool 6, Congress 2, LJP 2 Phase 5 - 51 seats - BJP 39, Trinamool 7, Cong 2 Phase 6 - 59 seats - BJP 44, Trinamool 8, Cong 2 Phase 7 - 59 seats - BJP 33, Cong 3, SAD 4, Trinamool 9 If one revisits the jousts of 2014 when the Modi tidal wave crushed all adversaries, there were several close contests too. Let us start with Bihar and Nalanda where Kaushlendra Kumar of JD(U) vanquished LJP's Satyanand Sharma by a small margin of 9,627 votes, in Hoshiarpur SC seat BJP's Vijay Sampla defeated Congress's Mohinder Singh Kaypee by 13,582 votes. Incidentally, Sampla has not been given a ticket again. Similarly, from Anandpur Sahib SAD's Prem Singh Chandumajra defeated Congress heavy hitter Ambika Soni by only 23,697 votes. Again, staying with Punjab in Bathinda Harsimarat Kaur Badal beat Manpreet Singh Badal of the Congress by 19,395 votes. And AAP's Dharamvira Gandhi defeated sitting Union Minister Preneet Kaur by 20,942 votes in Patiala. Punjab saw another tight contest in Ferozpur where SAD's Sher Singh Ghubaya beat Sunil Jakhar of the Congress by 31,420. This time, the Congress is expected to do much better in Punjab and reverse the trendline of 2014 under CM Capt Amrinder Singh. From Ghazipur, UP Manoj Sinha of the BJP defeated SP's Shivkanya Kushwaha by 32,452 votes. IN UP, as the needle moves towards the eastern part of UP - Purvanchal, the BJP is expected to do much better. From Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana in the north to Rajasthan in the west and Delhi in the centre and UP, Bihar, MP and Jharkhand in the middle of India, the BJP was galvanised under the inspired leadership of Narendra Modi to wreak havoc on the opposition. In a multi-phased election of this magnitude, the ruling party always has an advantage, more so if it has a charismatic leader like Modi who can sustain his campaign by breathing life into every single phase. This is true of 2014, and though 2019 may see an erosion in the big number of 161 out of 240, the BJP is expected to seize the majority out of the 240. In Bihar through an alliance and in UP it swept the states, ditto in Himachal, Delhi and Rajasthan where it blanked the opposition, Madhya Pradesh where it lost only two seats, Maharashtra where its coalition with Shiv Sena was incomparable. Even in traditional bastions of the Congress like Haryana and Assam, it managed to breach the defences. The final four phases are the BJP's to lose and while the Congress is expected to chip away at BJP in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, MP and Jharkhand, the BJP may well use its polarising campaign in Bengal and even Odisha to make startling gains. Colombo, April 27 : Fifteen bodies were recovered after a fierce gun battle between Sri Lankan forces and an armed group near Batticaloa, police said on Saturday. Officers acting on a tip-off had launched a raid on Friday night in Ampara Sainthamaruthu and the armed group set off an explosion which triggered the gun battle, the BBC reported. When troops moved in after dawn on Saturday, they found the bodies of 15 people. In another raid in the same town, the police found Islamic State (IS) flags, 150 sticks of gelignite, thousands of steel pellets and a drone camera, a military spokesman said. On Friday, 10 people were arrested from across the country bringing the number detained since the Easter Sunday bombings to 80. Sunday's explosions killed 253 people and injured over 500 in one of the bloodiest days in Sri Lanka since the civil was ended a decade ago. United States President Donald Trump speaks at the annual meeting of the National Rifle Association on Friday, April 26, 2019. He announced that the US was pulling out of the Arms Trade Treaty. (Photo: White House/IANS) Image Source: Sandeep Mahankal/IANS United Nations, April 27 : Continuing Washington's drift from multilateralism, US President Donald Trump has announced that he was withdrawing the country from the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). At a meeting of the National Rifle Association in Indianapolis on Friday, he dramatically pulled out a letter for ending US participation in the treaty and signed it on stage to a standing ovation by the audience of weapons control opponents. He called the ATT "badly conceived" and said: "The UN will get notice that we are formally rejecting this treaty." The US signed the treaty in 2013 but has not ratified it. Trump said that he was withdrawing it also from the Senate. Advancing his America First policy, he has already withdrawn the US from UNESCO, the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INFT), which bans nuclear-tipped missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 km, and the agreement on denuclearising Iran that was made by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, Germany and Tehran. Adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2013, the ATT covers all types of weapons and seeks to stop them from reaching regimes abusing human rights or parties in civil wars, armed and terrorist groups. Democrats denounced Trump's decision. "Pulling the US out of yet another arms control treaty undermines our national security and makes for a more dangerous world," Speaker Nancy Pelosi tweeted. By pulling out of the ATT, the US joins India, which has not signed the treaty. One of the arguments made by India in 2013 against the treaty was that New Delhi had "strong and effective national export controls" on military hardware to ensure they don't fall into the wrong hands. A senior US administration official echoed it on Friday during a briefing on Trump's decision saying: "The US already has significant controls in place to regulate our conventional arms transfers." The official pointed out that neither have Russia and China, which are major arms exporters, signed it. The official said that while the US has rules in place to govern its arms transactions, those countries did not have any and would not be governed by the treaty either. Only 130 of the 193 members of the UN have signed the treaty, and of them only 101 ratified it putting it just over the threshold of 100 to come into effect. The official said the British government is being sued by an NGO, Campaign Against Arms Trade citing the treaty to stops arms sales to Saudi Arabia, a Washington ally, and implied that the US could face similar challenges if it continued to be a part of the ATT. Trump chose the NRA, a conservative bastion of his support, to make the announcement playing on the group's fears of weapons controls. The politically powerful NRA takes an absolutist stand on the US Constitution's Second Amendment that guarantees Americans the right to bear arms and its opposition to restrictions on weapons, including machine guns and automatic rifles, is blamed for gun violence, particularly mass shootings, in the nation. Even though the ATT does not deal with domestic gun sales, Trump told the NRA: "We will never allow foreign bureaucrats to trample on your Second Amendment freedoms." "Leaving the Arms Trade Treaty that limits global trafficking in lethal weapons to get applause from the @NRA is reckless and shameful", Pelosi tweeted. (Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in and followed on Twitter @arulouis) Mumbai, April 26 : Salman Khan-starrer "Dabangg 3" has been locked for release on December 20, and it may clash with the first part of Karan Johar's mega trilogy "Brahmastra". Salman made the announcement via social media in style by sharing a cropped photograph in which he is seen sporting a police uniform, and a badge that reads 'Chulbul Pandey' -- the name of his popular character from the franchise. "Chulbul is back.... 'Dabangg 3'," wrote Salman. The action comedy has begun its shoot at various locations of Madhya Pradesh. Being helmed by Prabhudheva, the film marks the second collaboration of Salman and the director. The two have previously worked together in "Wanted". The film, being produced under the banner of Salman Khan Films and Arbaaz Khan Production, also stars Sonakshi Sinha, reprising her role of Rajjo. While the makers of "Brahmastra" are yet to reveal a release date, producer Karan Joas saying. Hafza, a Christian from predominantly Muslim Pakistan, moved to Sri Lanka to start a new life after suffering persecution there. After the bombing of Negombo's St. Sebastian's Church, some devastated Sri Lankan Christian families started attacking the asylum seekers and forced them to leave the area. "I was cooking when a group of people arrived and shouted at us to leave. Then, the house owner said if we don't leave, he would also be attacked by them. We just had to leave with our kids," Hafza recalled. All the refugees had been living in Negombo, north of Colombo, with the assistance of UNHCR in rented houses for years, without facing any problems. Once the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the Sri Lanka carnage, everything changed. The Mirror said that amng the asylum seekers were those from the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, who face persecution in Pakistan. After they vacated the houses, they were sent in a group to a mosque for safety. Another group of people was provided with security inside a police station, the daily said. "When we visited them, infants were sleeping on a thin bed sheet on the floor while adults were sitting on some plastic chairs and dozing off," the report said. Raja Kamran, a Pakistani who came to Sri Lanka in January 2018, said he had thought he would have had a great future ahead. "But now all our hopes are shattered." "House owners have already closed the doors on us. There is no guarantee for life outside," he added. And the UNHCR, he says, does not seem to care. Congress candidate from Hisar parliamentary constituency, Bhavya Bishnoi, a Bhajan Lal family scion, is often heard making vitriolic attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party during his election speeches. Be it accusing the BJP of betraying his father Kuldeep Bishnoi or not delivering on its poll promises, Bhavyas speeches tell a tale of friends turn foes and alliances turn bitter. The political equation in Haryana has completely changed since the last general elections in 2014. This time, the political parties have got new partners as erstwhile coalition partners have apparently turned foes. In general elections 2019, the state is witnessing a multi-cornered contest with BJP, Congress, Indian National Lok Dal, Jannayak Janta Party-Aam Aadmi Party combine, Loktantra Suraksha Party-Bahujan Samaj Party combine, flexing muscles to win the 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana that goes to polling on May 12. The BJP, which had contested the 2014 Lok Sabha polls in an alliance with Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) of Kuldeep Bishnoi, now has a new partner - Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) while HJC has merged with the Congress. The saffron party had in 2014 general elections contested eight seats out of 10 in Haryana and had left Hisar and Sirsa to its alliance partner at that time, HJC. While the HJC had lost both seats to the Indian National Lok Dal, the BJP had won seven seats, losing the Rohtak seat to Deepender Hooda of the Congress. The equation between the BJP-HJC had nose-dived post the outcome of Lok Sabha polls, which gave confidence to the BJP. Later that year, when Haryana headed towards assembly polls, the HJC had broken ties with BJP accusing the saffron party of betrayal and ending their three-year old alliance in Haryana. Kuldeep Bishnois son Bhavya, who is among youngest candidates in the fray, is now contesting from Hisar seat to take revenue of his fathers defeat in 2014 polls from the same constituency. After shifting political loyalties to the Congress, former Chief Minister Bhajan Lals grandson Bhavya is this time pitted against candidate of erstwhile partner, BJPs Brijendra Singh. The BJP, on the other hand, is getting support from its long-time ally SAD. The two parties already have alliance in neighboring states of Punjab, Delhi and Uttarakhand. The SAD led by the Badals father-son duo of Parkash Singh Badal and Sukhbir is a key ally of the BJP-led NDA at the Centre. The SAD in an alliance with the BJP had ruled Punjab for a decade till 2017 and is now looking for political expansion in Haryana. In the ensuing Lok Sabha polls, the SAD has extended support to BJP candidates while the two parties will contest the Haryana Assembly polls due to be held later this year in an alliance and would work out a seat-sharing arrangement later. Interestingly, the SAD, for a long time, had been supporting the INLD in Haryana despite its alliance with BJP in Punjab and at the national level. Even in 2014 Lok Sabha and assembly elections, SAD patron Parkash Singh Badal and party president Sukhbir Singh Badal had addressed rallies in support of the then undivided INLD candidates, thereby drawing flak from the saffron party. While Badals and Chautalas have shared close family ties for over several decades, their political partiesINLD and SAD-- had parted ways in 2016 over the contentious issue of Sultej Yamuna Link (SYL) canal. Although SAD had no seat-sharing arrangement with the INLD for parliamentary polls 2014 and only supported it through its party network, it had got two out of total 90 seats to contest in the 2014 assembly elections. In the past elections, the SAD had used its influence on the Sikh Jat voters in Sirsa, Ambala, Panchkula, Kurukshetra, Karnal and Panipat to help INLD, a traditionally Jat-centric party in Haryana. This time, the SAD, a panthic party, has thrown its weight behind BJP candidates. The development has however upset the INLD, once a major political player in Haryanas political arena. Peeved with the dwindling fortunes of his party, INLD secretary general, Abhay Chautala has, on several occasions, attacked the BJP-SAD alliance on the issue of Sutlej Yamuna Link canal. SAD is against the construction of SYL canal and by joining hands with them, the ruling BJP has made its anti-SYL stand clear, Chautala has said. After its break-up with SAD in 2016 and Bahujan Samaj Party earlier this year, the INLD has not been able to find an alliance partner and contesting on its own on all 10 Lok Sabha seats in the state. Notably, the political scene in the state had taken an interesting turn last year with the split of INLD and formation of Jannayak Janta Party led by Dushyant Chautala, grandson of INLD chief OP Chautala. The JJP has forged an alliance with Aam Aadmi Party, which had unsuccessfully contested on all 10 parliamentary seats in last general elections in the state. After its good performance in Jind bypolls, the JJP is contesting on seven Lok Sabha seats while AAP is fighting on three seats in Haryana. The state has another alliance partners contesting the general elections. Mayawatis BSP has tied up with the newly formed Loktantra Suraksha Party formed by Raj Kumar Saini of the BJP. The BSP and the LSP are contesting on eight and two seats each in the elections. Political analysts feel that division within the INLD and lack of opposition unity in Haryana may sprung up surprises on May 23 when the results of Lok Sabha polls will be announced. The Lok Sabha poll results will also set the tone for the Haryana Assembly elections due later this year. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP had won 7 seats, INLD wrested two seats and Congress could retain only one seat. HIGH STAKES BATTLE BJP, Congress, INLD, JJP-AAP and BSP-LSP are the main players in the fray for May 12 Lok Sabha polls BJP is banking on Modi factor and split in votes of opposition due to a multi-cornered fight Congress is presenting itself as the only alternative to the BJP besides relying on anti-incumbency factor and the failures of BJP to deliver on poll promises While INLD is fighting a battle of survival, JJP-AAP are eying Jat and youth voters in the state BSPs alliance with LSP is eyeing to consolidate Dalit and backward classes voters. Seoul, April 27 : The leader of North Korea returned to Pyongyang following his "successful and historic" summit with the President of Russia, state media reported on Saturday. Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin met in the Russian city of Vladivostok on Thursday in what was the first ever summit between the two leaders. Kim arrived back in the North Korean capital in his special armored train and was received with a welcome ceremony attended by senior officials of the regime, the Workers' Party and the army, the KCNA news agency reported. The North Korean news agency did not specify the exact time of Kim's return, after leaving Vladivostok on Friday following his meeting the previous day with Putin to discuss the process the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula as well as bilateral ties, reported Efe news. It also marked Kim's first visit abroad since the Hanoi summit in February with the President of the US, Donald Trump, which ended abruptly without an agreement on the denuclearization process that was underway. On Friday, KCNA published comments made by Kim during the meeting with Putin in which he blamed the US for the failure of the summit at Hanoi for maintaining a unilateral position and warned that his country was prepared for any possible situation. Putin expressed his support for the need to offer security guarantees in exchange for disarmament by Pyongyang, consistent with the position of another important partner of the North Korean regime. Putin said that Pyongyang only needed security guarantees, and that it would require the US to show its desire for a constructive dialog. Putin is an advocate of reviving six-party talks - consisting of China, North Korea, South Korea, the US, Japan and Russia - to ensure Pyongyang gets security guarantees in return for disarmament. New Delhi/Mumbai, April 27 : National carrier Air India expects operations to normalise by Saturday night after its flights were delayed due to a software glitch which hindered essential services like check-in, baggage handling and boarding. Briefing the media in New Delhi, Air India Chairman Ashwani Lohani said that 85 flights were delayed till 10 a.m. on Saturday. According to Lohani, the ripple effect of the initial cancellations will continue throughout the day on the domestic network, while the international flights will mostly operate on time. The airline operates 470 flights per day while the Air India Group provides 674 flight services. Lohani said the system has been restored and passengers are being informed well in advance about the status of their flights. He added that some flights have also been rescheduled. Early Saturday morning, flight operations were hit for over five hours after the glitch was reported in the SITA server. SITA is the IT provider for the air transport industry. At Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, ranked among the busiest airports in the world, thousands of passengers were stranded and many flights were affected since 3.30 a.m. "Due to a breakdown in our server system some of our flights are getting affected all over the world. Work is on in full swing to restore the system," the airline said in a statement earlier. In response, SITA said that it experienced a complex system issue during server maintenance, which resulted in the operational disruptions. "We have now fully restored services at all airports where Air India was affected. Our priority remains, as always, to ensure a stable system where customers can conduct business efficiently and effectively, and we are undertaking a full investigation to understand the root cause and prevent a recurrence. "We deeply regret the inconvenience this has caused to the airline and their esteemed customers owing to this disruption," it added. Patna, April 27 : This is for the first time that Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) President Lalu Prasad is not taking active part in the general elections. But his party is leaving no stone unturned to keep the RJD patriarch connected to the Lok Sabha polls in some form or another. Ironically, the man who used to spearhead his party's election campaign till sometime back is now languishing in jail 300 km from here. Lalu Prasad has been sentenced in four fodder scam cases by different special CBI courts in Ranchi and is in prison there from December 2017. However, the convicted RJD leader is now admitted to the paying ward of the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) there for various ailments. While filing her nomination on Friday, Misa Bharti, the RJD chief's daughter and the grand alliance candidate from the Patliputra Lok Sabha constituency, clutched on to a photograph of Lalu Prasad right through the nomination process. She said she was feeling the absence of his father, whose ideals were still conveyed to the party workers and voters alike. A few days back, Lalu Prasad even conveyed his thoughts through an open letter to lift the morale of the party workers. He is also keeping a close connect with them via social media being operated by his team. The RJD supremo is also not missing any opportunity to target the opposition leaders via Twitter. Just before the Lok Sabha elections, Lalu Prasad's autobiography, "Gopalganj to Raisina: My Political Journey," was released, helping him stay in the thick of discussions. The co-author of the book and journalist Nalin Verma said: "Lalu Prasad knows the value of time. Since he has been put behind the bars, RJD is lacking a strong leader. While the party workers are trying hard to convey his message to the people, it remains to be seen how effective there efforts would be." Lalu Prasad's son Tejashwi Yadav and wife Rabri Devi have been busy on Twitter, trying to garner sympathy for the jailed RJD chief. "The BJP government wants to poison Laluji at the hospital. They are not allowing any family member to meet him for months now. The government of India has gone mad. If the people in Bihar take to the streets, the consequences will be very bad," Rabri Devi had tweeted. While Tejashwi Yadav is driving the RJD ship this time in the absence of his father, he had to face difficulty in distributing tickets as well as arriving at a seat-sharing arrangement with the party's allies. It is said that while the top leaders of the party assembled at former Chief Minister Rabri Devi's residence at 10 Circular Road here to finalise the candidates, the final approval came from Lalu Prasad. According to RJD spokesperson Mrityunjay Tiwari: "It's not just the party, but the whole of Bihar is feeling the absence of Lalu Prasad. His being in jail is a big political loss for the scores of party workers functioning at different levels." The opposition, however, denied the existence of the old "Lalu magic." Janata Dal (U) spokesman Neeraj Kumar said: "Bihar's politics has changed no matter how hard the RJD tries to keep Lalu Prasad connected to the elections. The voters here know why Lalu Prasad is lodged in jail." New Delhi, April 27 : "Lion" actress Priyanka Bose, who had accused filmmaker Sajid Khan of sexual misconduct when the #MeToo movement was at its peak in India, says speaking out made her feel free. Did life change for her in any way after she came out about her unsavoury experience with Sajid? Priyanka told IANS: "Oh, I am over it. It better have changed for him. We are surrounded by perpetrators. My speaking out frees me, other people chose not to. It's a choice one takes. I felt judged and humiliated, and I don't at all anymore." The actress, who has been balancing her Indian and international projects, recently featured in the H&M Conscious Collection Spring campaign 2019. It explores the healing power of nature, while also embracing innovation with sustainable materials and processes for a more sustainable fashion future. In her day-to-day life, Priyanka says she supports sustainability by not buying junk anymore. "I shop vintage a lot. There's no looking down on things that can have a second life. I try and incorporate sustainable fashion as a part of my daily life. When H&M contacted me, I was seriously going through a process where a lot of my things had no value after a point and I was like, 'Okay, where does it go now?', I really needed information about how I could stop being a big buyer and more mindful of waste so I started looking into it a lot. Which meant this campaign was such a good fit." On the work front, she is looking forward to some projects reaching fruition. One is Prakash Jha's next film "Pareeksha", which is around the education system. "'Pareeksha' is a film about a parent's dream and struggle to educate their son in an English medium school. India is a place where the class system is imbibed in the education one can get and cannot get, if you belong to a certain caste. The family bread-earner is a cycle rickshaw puller. As an actor we get to bridge the gap, telling a story like this," Priyanka said. There's also "The Odds", directed by Megha Ramaswamy. The series, which brought down the curtains on the International Film Festival of Los Angeles recently, is a coming-of-age tale about two teens who skip school on an important exam day and go on a fantastical journey in Mumbai. It also features Abhay Deol, Yashaswini Dayama and Monica Dogra. Priyanka said: "It's a whimsical story about two individuals who are the young adults, representing the India I grew up in. I play a scientist, and it is said to be the first of the series it's going to become. I just look forward to more stories like these." But we see less of her on the big screen. Why is that? "I have been working non-stop the past two years. I actually just filmed an exciting show for Apple (Apple TV+ video streaming service). When things release though it is not up to me. I have been learning so much... I am putting in a lot of work and my agents and my manager support me and my vision. I'm learning how to bridge the gap between two worlds, the work I get here and the work I get there (internationally)," added the actress. Chennai, April 27 : The US-Indian joint venture Carr Lane India will start shipping out aerospace tooling components to the US once it starts its operations in July, company officials said on Saturday. Carr Lane India is a 70:30 joint venture between US-based $50 million Carr Lane Manufacturing and Rialto Enterprises, part of the Rs 600 crore Rayala Group. "With the aerospace sector expanding in India, we decided to have a production base here and cater to the demands than sending the products from the US," Carr Lane's Chief Operating Officer Colin Frost told reporters here. "During the first three years of operations of the Indian company, exports will be more than the domestic sales," he added. Carr Lane has customers like Boeing, Lockheed Martin and other majors in the global aerospace sector. "Initial investment will not be high as we will be using our existing facilities to for making the aerospace tooling components. The investments will be gradually increased based on the needs," Rialto Enterprises' Managing Director Ranjit Pratap said. The joint venture company plans to make tooling components and special alignment devices for the start. Plans are afoot to produce very niche products which are in great demand by the aero industry. Pratap said Rialto's engineering division already makes press components for auto component major Wabco. In its oral care Division, Rialto manufactures Oral B tooth brushes under license from Procter & Gamble. Currently, the company manufactures around 30 million tooth brushes per month. Hyderabad, April 27 : The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) on Saturday celebrated its 18th foundation day on a subdued note in view of the model code of conduct for the Lok Sabha elections. TRS Working President K.T. Rama Rao led the celebrations by hoisting party flag at the Telangana Bhavan, party headquarters here. Ministers, legislators and other senior party leaders participated in celebrations across the state. Rama Rao had appealed party functionaries to organise celebrations in a simple manner in view of the EC code of conduct. There was no fanfare and celebrations were confined to hoisting party flag at the party offices. Speaking at the TRS headquarters, Rama Rao exuded confidence that the TRS would win all 16 Lok Sabha seats. The party had left Hyderabad for its ally, the All India Majlis-e-Itthedaul Muslimeen (AIMIM). KTR, as the TRS leader is popularly known, urged leaders to ensure the party's victory in the ongoing local body elections. KTR, son of Telangana Chief Minister and TRS president K. Chandrashekhar Rao, claimed that in the last 18 years the TRS had become unassailable political force. He recalled on this day in 2001, KCR had resigned as the Deputy Speaker and quit the Assembly and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) to float the TRS with the goal to achieve statehood for Telangana. "He had told people if he betrayed them by giving up the movement, they could stone him to death. That was his conviction and commitment to the cause," the TRS leader said. KTR said the party had seen many ups and downs, but under KCR's leadership and hard work of 13 years it succeeded in achieving Telangana state. After achieving the goal of Telangana state, the party embarked on a mission to turn it into a golden state with the twin strategy of welfare and development, he said. In the recent elections, the people once again gave a massive mandate to the TRS as they believe this party alone could take Telangana ahead on the path of progress, he added. New Delhi, April 27 : Claiming that sitting Chandni Chowk MP and Union Minister Harsh Vardhan was not "approachable" for the last five years, Pankaj Gupta, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate from the seat, is telling the electorate that he would be "always reachable." Gupta is contesting from the Chandni Chowk Lok Sabha constituency against senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Harsh Vardhan and Congress veteran Jai Prakash Agarwal. Besides being a sitting MP, Harsh Vardhan (64) is also a five-time MLA from Krishna Nagar. Agarwal (74) too is a three-time Lok Sabha MP, having won twice from Chandni Chowk. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Harsh Vardhan had got 4,37,938 votes (44.81 per cent) while AAP's Ashutosh managed 3,01,618 votes (30.86 per cent) and Kapil Sibal of the Congress got 1,76,206 votes (18.03 per cent). Despite being pitted against two big names from the Congress and the BJP, Gupta, an information technology (IT) professional and entrepreneur, is 100 per cent confident of winning from Chandni Chowk, which goes to the polls in the sixth phase on May 12. Gupta -- whose nomination was announced by the AAP much before the BJP and the Congress named their respective candidates -- said he was working on the ground even before his name was declared. "I have been interacting with the people of the constituency for the past seven-eight months. People here know that there is someone from the AAP who is working on the ground," Gupta told IANS. Claiming that there is a culture in every political party, Gupta said: "Our culture is that people know that we are reachable. Look at our MLAs. All the AAP MLAs can be found in their offices. They meet and talk to the people. "If the MLAs can be reached at all times, why can't the Mps be approachable? Unlike the sitting MP (Harsh Vardhan), I will be reachable to the people after getting elected," said the nominee of the AAP, the ruling party in Delhi. Gupta, who holds an electronics engineering degree from the Motilal Nehru Regional Engineering College in Allahabad, jumped into politics in 2012 when the AAP was formed. He left his IT career behind to join the party. Gupta had worked for various software companies for 25 years before quitting his job to work for the education of the underprivileged children. He was one of the key members who worked from behind the scenes during the Jan Lokpal movement. On being asked where Harsh Vardhan had failed, Gupta said: "You can only fail if you do something. There is no scope of failure if you don't work. He (Harsh Vardhan) has not done any work, so there is no scope of failure." Gupta also claimed that the sitting MP was never present in the area. "He (Harsh Vardhan) never tried to go to the constituency and find out what the people needed or what were their issues. People were suffering due to the sealing (drive). They were losing jobs. There was no source of income left for them. But he never tried to be with the people or think for/about them," he said. Attacking the BJP in general and Harsh Vardhan in particular, Gupta said they didn't have any idea how many people lost their employment due to the sealing drive. "There could have been some other solution instead of sealing. Had they thought about the public, they could have brought in an ordinance to stop the sealing drive. But they were never interested in dealing with the issues faced by the public. They were full of arrogance and so could not see the sufferings of the people," he said, adding: "What is the point of having an MP who never gave priority to the issues faced by the people?" Gupta also said the BJP was using the model code of conduct (MCC) as an excuse now. "The MCC was not in place during the last few years. They could have done something then," said the AAP candidate. Speaking about the local issues, Gupta said sealing, security and lack of basic facilities have been troubling the people in the Chandni Chowk area. "Security has been a major issue in the area apart from sealing. People, particularly women, do not feel secure while going out. The parents are scared to send their daughters out," he said. Gupta also said the police were of no use to the people. "The police are not accountable to the people. Instead of filing a complaint, the police tell the people that they will end up going to the court, after which a common man gets scared and comes back without filing a complaint. Harsh Vardhan never asked the police to be sensitive to the people," he added. Gupta also said the area needed land for hospitals, more schools and other facilities for the people. "People across the world praised the AAP government's 'mohalla' clinics. But none of the opposition MPs came forward to say that they will help the city government with land so that more such clinics can be built. They could have taken the initiative thinking about the people, but they did not do anything." Chandni Chowk is one of the seven Parliamentary constituencies in Delhi, which will go to polls on May 12 in the sixth phase of Lok Sabha elections. The BJP had won all the seven seats in 2014. (Nivedita Singh can be contacted at nivedita.singh@ians.in) Patna, April 27 : A Bihar court, here on Saturday, issued a summon to Congress President Rahul Gandhi in connection with a defamation case filed by Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi. Chief Judicial Magistrate Sashikant Rai summoned Gandhi on May 20 for his statement that "all thieves have Modi in their surnames". The Deputy Chief Minister had filed a defamation case against Gandhi last week and on Friday he appeared before the court in pursuance of his case. The senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader said his image had been tarnished by the Congress chief's remark. The court took cognisance of the statement under Section 500 of the Indian Penal Code, which relates to defamation. New Delhi, April 27 : India on Saturday issued an advisory asking its nationals to avoid "non-essential travel" to Sri Lanka where the situation continues to be precarious in the wake of last Sundays terror attacks. "In view of the prevailing security situation in Sri Lanka in the aftermath of terror attacks on 21 April 2019, Indian nationals intending to travel to Sri Lanka are advised not to undertake non-essential travel," the advisory issued by the External Affairs Ministry said. "The Government of Sri Lanka has beefed up the security in the country. A nation-wide emergency including night time curfew is in place at present which may also affect travel within Sri Lanka," it added. Sri Lanka was hit by multiple blasts on Easter Sunday which claimed the lives of 253 people and injured over 500, in the bloodiest attacks in Sri Lanka since the civil war ended a decade ago. Last night, 15 people, including six children, were killed in a gunfight when the Sri Lankan security forces raided a hideout of suspected terrorists, three of whom were suicide bombers who blew themselves up, according to the local authorities. The Indian advisory added: "In case of those undertaking essential/emergency travels, they can contact the High Commission of India in Colombo or the Assistant High Commission in Kandy/Consulates in Hambantota and Jaffna in case of requirement of any assistance." The advisory said the helpline numbers of the Indian High Commission are available on the mission's website. Srinagar, April 27 : Jammu and Kashmir Police on Saturday ordered a probe into the use of a security vehicle for distributing food packets among Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) supporters in the state's Anantnag district. "Today a video surfaced on social media wherein one police vehicle is being seen being utilised for distribution of food items in a political party rally in Anantnag," a police statement said. "The vehicle in question was deployed for ferrying escort personnel of a protected person. The vehicle has been withdrawn from said protected person and driver of the vehicle has been attached. "Enquiry into the matter has been ordered under rules," it added. The three-phased Lok Sabha poll in Anantnag constituency began on April 23 and will end on May 6. Among others, BJP's Sofi Yusuf is contesting the poll from this constituency against former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti of the Peoples Democratic Party, Ghulam Hassan Mir of the Congress and Justice (retd) Hasnain Masoodi of the National Conference. The strike of Patwaris and Lekhpals in the plain districts of Uttarakhand has adversely affected functioning of revenue department in the districts of Udham Singh Nagar, Haridwar and Dehradun. On the call given by their association, more than 450 Patwaris and Lekhpals are on the path of work boycott from February 4. The common public is bearing the maximum brunt of the agitation as the process of land mutation in revenue records has virtually come to a standstill. The Patwaris are also not making the income certificate which is needed for loans, jobs, grant of pension and many other things. According to an estimate, applications of more than 8600 persons for income certificate are gathering dust in various offices of the state. Similarly 4500 cases of land mutation are pending. The agitating Patwaris are opposing the Special Investigation Team (SIT) constituted by the government in the land fraud cases. The Patwaris claim that false cases against many of them have been slapped by the SIT in land fraud cases. On the income certificate, the Patwaris want that clear guidelines for making the income certificate should be formulated and proper Government Order ( GO) should be issued for it. The President the state President of Uttarakhand Lekhpal Sangh, Tara Chand Ghildiyal told The Pioneer that the state government should release a GO on the basis of the guidelines proposed by the revenue board for the income certificates. He said that the state has no guideline or policy for preparing income certificates of unsalaried people. Ghildiyal said that the Lekhpals should be provided with legal protection in the GO for income certificate. He clarified that the association is not against the SIT probe in the land fraud cases but protests the process followed by the SIT in these cases. Chennai/New Delhi, April 27 : The Madras High Court's suggestion to exclude consensual sex with girls above 16 from rigours of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act has been welcomed by legal experts. The Madras High Court on Friday suggested that consensual sex, physical contact or allied acts after the age of 16 be excluded from the ambit of POCSO Act and the definition of "child" under Section 2(d) of the Act be amended and reduced to 16 instead of 18 years. "On a profound consideration of the ground realities, the definition of 'Child' under Section 2(d) of the POCSO Act can be redefined as 16 instead of 18. Any consensual sex after the age of 16 or bodily contact or allied acts can be excluded from the rigorous provisions of the POCSO Act," Justice V. Parthiban said. As per Section 2(d) of the POCSO Act, "child" means any person below the age of 18 years. Senior Advocate Vikas Pahwa expressed his agreement with the observation of the Madras High Court on the need to amend the definition of "child" and reducing the age of consent from 18 to 16 years. But, he said: "However, this will also require a corresponding change in the Indian Penal Code, where the definition of 'kidnapping' would also require the change from 18 to 16 years." "Considering the innovation in digital technology, the children are exposed to so much of information that they get matured much earlier and thus are in a position to give consent for any relationship even at the age of 16," Advocate Pahwa said. He also opined that this will also reduce significant number of criminal cases pending in various courts, where the provisions of the Act are grossly misused as even when a girl in the intermediate age of 16-18 gives consent, it is treated as invalid in view of the provisions of the POCSO Act. Alok P. Kumar, a senior resident fellow at Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, said that "the court's suggestion to amend POCSO is well intentioned idea and deserves serious consideration". "The court has raised a very valid issue as the present legal framework of POCSO and sexual assault is being used to prevent inter-caste marriages and consensual relationships between young people," Kumar said. "The court has rightly expressed anguish about the judicial system being misused to cover up elopement and consensual relationships rather than deal with crimes against children. The court's suggestion to amend POCSO is an idea with a good intent and deserves serious consideration." Welcoming the suggestion, Senior Advocate Geeta Luthra said that these days adolescents above the age of 16 years are capable of taking a call as far as physical contact is concerned. "Study should be conducted to redefine the age limit as people these days are maturing much earlier. Sometimes, some innocents are not treated as innocent due to certain legal provisions," Luthra said. In its Friday's ruling, the Madras High Court said: "...such sexual assault [i.e. sex with a person between 16-18 years], if it is so defined can be tried under more liberal provisions, which can be introduced in the Act itself and in order to distinguish the cases of teenage relationship after 16 years from the cases of sexual assault on children below 16 years." The court also suggested some measures including "the Act can be amended to the effect that the age of the offender ought not to be more than five years or so than the consensual victim girl of 16 years or more, so that the impressionable age of the victim girl cannot be taken advantage of by a person who is much older and crossed the age of presumable infatuation or innocence". The court recommendation came while allowing a criminal appeal filed by Sabari alias Sabarinathan challenging his conviction in a minor's kidnapping and rape case. The court acquitted him on the victim's statement, saying that she had consented to go with Sabari. It was alleged that Sabari was in relationship with a minor girl and had kidnapped her on June 28, 2014 from the lawful custody of her grandparents and thereafter committed sexual assault on her on several occasions. Sabari was convicted by a Fast Track Mahila Court in Namakkal, Tamil Nadu, in June 2018 and was sentenced to 10 years' rigorous imprisonment under the POCSO Act. The high court observed that the prosecution had failed to prove its case against Sabari as several witnesses turned hostile including the victim. The court said: "It was only a case of presumption on the part of the relatives of the victim girl that the accused could have kidnapped her and committed sexual assault on her." The court in its ruling also observed that when the girl below 18 years is involved in a relationship with a teenage boy or a little over the teenage, it is always a question mark as to how such relationship could be defined since "such relationship would be the result of mutual innocence and biological attraction". The court noted that such relationship cannot be construed as an unnatural one or alien to relationship between opposite sexes. "But in such cases where the age of the girl is below 18 years, even though she is capable of giving consent for relationship, being mentally matured, unfortunately, the provisions of the POCSO Act get attracted if such relationship transcends beyond platonic limits, attracting strong arm of law sanctioned by the provisions of POCSO Act, catching up with the so-called offender of sexual assault, warranting a severe imprisonment of 7/10 years," the court said. The court also emphasised on the need to create awareness regarding the POCSO law. (Amiya Kumar Kushwaha can be reached at amiya.k@ians.in) New Delhi, April 27 : The Delhi Police and the intelligence agencies are investigating the suspected passport fraud as several cases of people travelling on fake documents from Jordan to India have surfaced. Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Sanjay Bhatia said, "Earlier, two men travelling to Punjab at airport claimed their passports were retained by their employers in Jordan. We are investigating the network of these fake passports and visa makers. Earlier, we arrested persons who prepared fake documents from Karnal (Haryana) and Punjab." As per the previous one month police record, six passengers were caught travelling on same passports at the IGI Airport here. In some cases, passengers were found travelling without passport from Jordan to India when they were checked by security officers, a police officer said. Jordan offers Indian workers with valid passports visa amnesty to travel back to India when their visa lapses. There has been a rush to return home and laxity in the process of checking due to the rush, police said. In one case, Punjab resident Gurvinder Singh was caught using passport of another person Gurjeet Singh who returned home three months ago. When Gurvinder was questioned, he disclosed about the illegal practice. Officials said the security agencies and the police will raise this issue with the Ministry of External Affairs. Two persons, Javed Ali and Manoj Kumar Sharma, were arrested for their involvement in preparing fake passports and visas for people travelling from Jordan, the UAE and other countries. Chandigarh, April 27 : The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Saturday urged the Election Commission (EC) to register a case against Bathinda Congress candidate Amarinder Singh Raja Warring and cancel his nomination for allegedly trying to bribe voters. A SAD delegation led by party's Senior Vice President Daljit Singh Cheema submitted a formal representation to Punjab's Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) S. Karuna Raju in this regard, along with a video evidence. "The SAD represented that Warring has not only violated the model code of conduct but also indulged in corrupt practices as per Section 123 of Representation of People Act 1950 and Representation of People Act 1951. It said in the light of this fact, he should be arrested immediately after registration of appropriate cases against him," Cheema said here. "In the alleged bribery video, social worker Tinku Punjab of Budhlada town tells Raja Warring to take back Rs 50,000 given to him. Warring forces Tinku to keep the money and then rushes out of his residence," Cheema said. Raja Warring is a sitting legislator of the ruling Congress in Punjab. Punjabi Ekta Party (PEP) chief Sukhpal Singh Khaira also demanded cancellation of Raja Warring's candidature and registration of a case against him. Mangaluru : , April 27 (IANS) Global software major Infosys has transformed a barren land into a rain forest in its 360-acre sprawling campus in Karnataka's port city on the west coast. "As part of our commitment to environment conservation for creating a better world for present and future, we have decided to make our campus to be intrinsically green," said a company spokesman in a video that depicts the metamorphosis of a dry land into a green forest. As safeguarding nature is a fundamental responsibility of everyone, the company decided to make its campus intrinsically green. "We believe whatever we strive to do has to be done with due respect to what surrounds us. When we built the campus over a decade ago, we promised to transform the vast land into a living rain forest". Through rainwater harvesting, the IT behemoth made water walk through the campus and not run out of it. The port city, about 350 km west of Bengaluru, receives about 80-100 inch rainfall every year during the south-west monsoon from June to September. "We planted native trees in high densities from an open exposed landscape and let nature take its own course. As a result, the campus has become a home amidst a forest, with trees that are so rare and wildlife that flourishes as in a pristine rain forest. The water the company has strived hard to preserve has returned to flow through the campus and goes even into the neighbourhood. The campus is located about 20km from the city centre at Kamblapadavu in Bantwal local body near Pajeeru hamlet. Rae Bareli, April 27 : Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Saturday slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi over demonetisation and the faulty implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), saying that in the last 70 years, "the foolishness of demonetisation and Gabbar Singh Tax" was not done by anybody. Gandhi made the remarks while addressing an election rally in Uchahar in Rae Bareli, the parliamentary constituency of his mother Sonia Gandhi. In an interview to a television channel on Friday, Modi had dismissed the economists' speculation that demonetisation led to a rise in unemployment. "People are looking for excuses to discredit the huge decision of demonetisation," the Prime Minister had said. Gandhi also said that there was only one Prime Minister who stole from the poor and his name was Narendra Modi. "Modi had lied to the country by dubbing the note ban as a fight against black money and corruption. If it was a fight against black money, why didn't any thief stand in the queues outside the banks and the ATMs following the implementation of demonetisation in 2016," Gandhi asked. Accusing the Prime Minister of not filling the 22 lakh government vacancies, the Congress President said, "If the Congress comes to power, it will fill the posts within one year." Gandhi also promised that if his party formed the government in Uttar Pradesh, it will waive farm loans. After addressing the rally, Gandhi also interacted with the media and accused Modi of not fulfilling his promises of providing jobs and waiving farmers' loans. "Modiji only lied to the nation in the last five years. The rate of unemployment is at a 45-year high and the entire youth of Uttar Pradesh know that. In all his speeches, Modiji talks about giving employment to 2 crore people. But today farmers are committing suicide as the promise of waiving their loans has not been fulfilled," Gandhi said. "When we came to power in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, we waived farmers' loans in just two days," he claimed. The Congress President also took a jibe at BJP's promise of depositing Rs 15 lakh into the bank account of every citizen. "Modiji doesn't talk about employment to the youth or the Rs 15 lakh promise. He has nothing left to speak. There is a teleprompter from which he reads his speeches and that controls him," Gandhi said. New Delhi, April 27 : Aam Aadmi Party's South Delhi candidate Raghav Chadha on Saturday moved the Delhi High Court, seeking disqualification of his BJP rival and sitting MP Ramesh Bidhuri's candidature. "He has concealed an FIR pending against him in the affidavit. Concealment of a criminal case is serious offence and I am sure his nomination will be rejected as soon as the court looks into the matter," Chadha told the media here after filing a writ petition. Saying Bidhuri's candidature likely to be disqualified within 30 days, he appealed to the voters of South Delhi to "not waste their vote by voting for Bidjuri". Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said the incident of some BJP leaders beating, abusing and harassing members of the Purvanchal Morcha from their own party had recently come to light, "which exposed the strong anti-Purvanchal sentiment harboured by the BJP". "An FIR was thereafter lodged against Bidhuri in Bihar. Fearing a backlash over the anti-Purvanchal face of the BJP, Bidhuri purposefully refused to mention the FIR in his affidavit," he alleged. Chadha had also approached the Election Commission regarding the serious and criminal offence of a candidate omitting information about pending FIRs against them. "Any person who is unable to furnish true details about themselves and seeks to hide crucial information is not fit to be a Member Of Parliament as per the Election Commission Protocol," Sisodia added. In response to Chadha's objections, Bidhuri told the EC that he had no prior information regarding the said FIR. However, the AAP dismissed his defence. "News of the FIR in December 2018 was published in several newspapers and his personal Facebook page had also been tagged with this information. "Further, the information regarding the FIR against him was also brought to his notice by an advocate of AAP during the court proceedings of a defamation case that took place several months back," Chadha said. Sisodia said Bidhuri tried to withhold this crucial information from his affidavit and then pressurise the Election Commission to accept his nomination and it was against this, they moved the court and were hopeful it would act to reject Bidhuri's nomination. Delhi Chief Minister and AAP Convenor Arvind Kejriwal also said, in a tweet, that South Delhi's voters should not waste their votes on the BJP and its candidate. Mumbai, April 27 : In a shocking pre-poll development, the Maharashtra Congress on Saturday alleged that Poonam Mahajan, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate from Mumbai North-Central was "a wilful bank defaulter" and had reportedly concealed this fact in her affidavit submitted to the Election Commission of India. Addressing a press conference here, state Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant and other party leaders said that Mahajan was a "wilful defaulter of bank loans worth at least Rs 67.65 crore." "Mahajan and her husband (Anandrao Vajendla) have cases against them for not returning Rs 67.65 crore to the Punjab National Bank and the Indian Overseas Bank. This information is missing form her election affidavit which is a very serious matter," Sawant said. Despite repeated attempts by IANS, Mahajan, who is pitted against Congress' Priya Dutt in Mumbai North-Central, couldn't be contacted for her comments on the charges levelled against her by the opposition party. However, later in the evening, she released a brief statement on the allegations, but didn't clarify whether everything was mentioned in her affidavit. "As stated before, my husband's business failed and we have earnestly paid back all the banks by selling all of my and my family's personal assets, including my house and jewellery. Due process has been followed while doing the same," said Mahajan, who is the daughter of former Union Minister, the late Pramod Mahajan. Giving details supported by documents, Sawant said Mahajan was a guarantor in a Rs 11.40 crore loan given to her husband's company Phoenix Auto Private Ltd (PAPL), and that the concerned bank had filed a case against them for recovering the amount. While Anandrao Vajendla is a director in PAPL with 51 per cent stake in the firm, Poonam Mahajan was also a director in the company and a sister concern, Aadya Motor Car Co., from March 30, 2011 till December 7, 2015, Sawant said. "The PNB and the State Bank of India (SBI) have extended loans worth Rs 196.74 crore to Aadya Motor Car Co., of which Rs 67.63 crore is in default. Mahajan has also not mentioned that her husband has 51 per cent stake in Aadya Realtors & Estate Pvt Ltd. We shall move the court in these matters," Sawant warned. The Congress also sought a probe into how Mahajan's property, which stood at Rs 12 crore in 2014 (when she first became the MP), grew to Rs 108 crore in 2018 but is now just Rs 2 crore in 2019. "It needs to be probed whether the banks have written off any/some of the amounts due to them. Not mentioning all these details in the EC affidavit is a crime under Section 123 of the Representation of Peoples Act, 1951. We shall initiate appropriate legal proceedings in the matter against her," Sawant told IANS. The Congress leaders further pointed out that Mahajan has now joined the long list of wilful defaulters, contrary to the tall claims made by the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of curbing corruption. Of the total 48 Lok Sabha constituencies in Maharashtra, 17 seats, including 6 in Mumbai, go to the polls in the last phase of polling in the state to be held on April 29. New Delhi, April 27 : The second season of F1 in Schools India, Worlds largest STEM challenge for students in the 9-19 years age group, came to end with finale at Amity University campus, Noida, on Saturday. Orion Racing from Scottish High International School, Gurgaon, won the first place, followed by the Matadors, Amity International School, Saket, and the Stallion, The British School, New Delhi, at the third place. The winning teams would be representing India at the World Finals at Abu Dhabi in November where teams from 49 countries will compete for the title. To felicitate the winning teams, Country Chief for F1 in Schools India Yashraj Sing and its chairperson, Dr. Amita Chauhan of Amity International & Global Schools, were present at the occassion. Speaking after conclusion of the event, Yashraj said: "When the India chapter of F1 in Schools was formed, we had not perceived such an overwhelming response and participation from all over India. We are thrilled to see so much latent talent in these teenagers. It was an adrenalin rush to see participants learning from this unique competition and innovating themselves to be ready for future challenges." Before the final, F1 in Schools had regional round, which included schools from Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi NCR. 80 teams qualified for the finale. The initiative throws a challenge at students to come up with a car out (miniature of an actual Formula One racing car) and make it race on a 24 metres race track. New Delhi/Mumbai, April 27 : Thousands of passengers were inconvenienced as national carrier Air India faced a massive glitch in passenger services system forcing network-wide delays and rescheduling of flights. The trouble began after Air India's passenger services system server operated by global airline IT major SITA, was affected with a glitch while undergoing scheduled maintenance early Saturday. As many as 149 flights of the airline group operated by Air India, Air India Express and Alliance Air were delayed. However, the airline said that services will run smoothly from tomorrow and that no flight cancellations took place. Earlier in the day, the system glitch hindered essential services like check-in, baggage handling and boarding. Briefing the media in New Delhi, Air India Chairman Ashwani Lohani said that 85 flights of Air India Group were delayed till 10 a.m. on Saturday. Lohani said the ripple effect of the initial cancellations continued throughout the day on the domestic network. The airline operates 470 flights per day while the Air India Group provides 674 flight services. Lohani said the system has been restored and passengers are being informed well in advance about the status of their flights. He said some flights have also been rescheduled. Early Saturday morning, flight operations were hit for over five hours after the glitch was reported in the SITA server. At Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, ranked among the busiest airports in the world, thousands of passengers were stranded and many flights were affected since 3.30 a.m. "There is total chaos and confusion here, long queues of passengers," said a passenger, T. Choudhary. Most passengers travelling from Delhi on Air India's domestic flights at the IGI airport had a similar experience. In response, SITA said that it experienced a complex system issue during server maintenance, which resulted in the operational disruptions. "We have fully restored services at all airports where Air India was affected. Our priority remains, as always, to ensure a stable system where customers can conduct business efficiently and effectively, and we are undertaking a full investigation to understand the root cause and prevent a recurrence. "We deeply regret the inconvenience this has caused to the airline and their esteemed customers owing to the disruption," it added. Kolkata, April 27 : Admitting that the rhythm of forming the "grand alliance" of opposition parties against the BJP is lost at times in some places, Trinamool Congress senior leader and West Bengal Minister Partha Chatterjee on Saturday said the process of creating the front is on. By organising the January 19 mega rally at historic Brigade Parade Ground here and bringing leaders of opposition parties on one stage, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee has "demonstrated" that it can be done, he said. "The efforts, which were started by Mamata Banerjee, are on for forming the alliance of opposition political parties against the BJP even though the rhythm of bringing anti-BJP powers on one stage is lost at times in some places," said the party's Secretary General at 'Meet the Press' organised by the Press Club, Kolkata. "It (formation of a grand alliance) is a continuous process and one may stumble in order to keep the continuity of the process. We are continuing with our efforts," he said. Twenty-three political parties, including the Congress and major regional parties like SP, BSP and DMK, had come together at the 'United India' rally in Kolkata, organised by Banerjee to throw the gauntlet at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for defeating him in the general election. Chatterjee said the party supremo had called for the alliance of opposition parties based on a common minimum programme and mooted the idea of the "collective leadership". Taking a dig at Modi's jibe about the proposed opposition front, Chatterjee said that PM has attended maximum number of rallies in Bengal, besides touring 90 countries in past four-and-a-half years. "This indicates the importance of Mamata's call for the anti-BJP government," he said. Responding to a query about poll officials' demand for deploying Central forces at polling stations for their security in the state and their threatening not to take part in the electoral process without Central troopers, Chatterjee said, "These agitations are politically motivated." Chatterjee also attacked both Congress and CPI(M), for rise of the saffron party in the state. "With the loss of acceptability and existence of CPI(M) and Congress, the BJP has gained in strength in the state," Chatterjee said. He also alleged some heavyweight CPI(M) leaders are keen to join the BJP which became clear with leaders like Khagen Murmu and Mafuza Khatun joining the saffron party. Meanwhile, criticising the Election Commission, Trinamool's senior leader said the BJP led by 'Bada Chowkidar' and 'Chota Chowkidar' are "frustrated about their existence in the state". "Like other agencies, the ECI is also being controlled by the BJP," he stated. Explaining that the party is not against the deployment of Central forces, Chatterjee said, "We have started questioning since this deployment is only restricted to non-BJP ruled states and not in those where BJP is running the state government such as in Gujarat." Rajya Sabha MP Mahesh Poddar on Friday appealed to the business community in Jharkhand to help Prime Minister Narendra Modi retain his seat in the upcoming elections and ensure the betterment of the business community. Modi, he said, has been vocal about his impetus on promoting trade and business. He has made the country proud on an international platform by standing shoulder to shoulder with world leaders. The Prime Minister openly says that businessmen are greatest contributors to our economy. This is the first Government in which the Finance Minister thanks taxpayers for paying taxes regularly. The business community must unite to bring Modi to power again for better business prospects in future, Poddar said in a press communique issued from his office on Friday. Several instances in the past five years have proved that the BJP government at the centre stands in support of the business community, he added. Modiji has said that businessmen are the backbone of our countrys economy, he said. The Congress party, during the past 70 years, failed to provide the support that the business community needed in India in order to grow, Poddar said, adding that the businessmen should vote for the BJP in the 17th General Elections to witness greater thrust to their dreams and aspirations. New Delhi, April 27 : The Congress on Saturday complained to the Election Commission that during commissioning of EVMs at West Bengal's Barrackpore parliamentary constituency on Friday, the Bharatiya Janata Party's symbol was different from the one notified with the poll panel. "It was found that the initials 'BJP' were written under the symbol of the Bhartiya Janta Party, i.e. lotus. The same is highly objectionable and in blatant violation of the Election Conduct Rules, 1961 and Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968," said the its memorandum. The Congress also said the ballot papers issued for other constituencies in West Bengal including Raiganj do not contain the initials of the BJP. It is clear that the symbol approved for the BJP is "Lotus" and does not contain its name in any iteration, it said. Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said the handbook for Returning Officers mandates that the impressions of symbols in the ballot paper should exactly confirm to as approved by the EC. New Delhi, April 27 : After personalised letters from Rahul Gandhi, the Congress plans to use Priyanka Gandhi's audio messages to explain to the voters the Nyay (Nyoontam Aay Yojana) scheme under which 20 per cent poorest Indians will receive Rs 72,000 per year. The Nyay aims to remove poverty through minimum income guarantee to the poor and was conceptualised by Priyanka who is the Congress star campaigner for the 2019 polls. Sources said Priyanka's audio messages in Hindi are being sent to over 40 lakh beneficiaries in Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan which will go to the polls on April 29. Earlier Rahul's letters were dispatched to the beneficiaries. Sources said the party strategists had to take help of Priyanka's messages to add more appeal to the reach-out. Sources said feedback over the Nyay scheme showed voters were largely unaware about the welfare plan. Even in areas like Amethi, booth-level party workers had no clarity about the scheme. This made the managers worried. Recently during her campaign in Uttar Pradesh, Priyanka has been highlighting the scheme saying women were at the centre of it and would get the funds directly in their bank accounts. Sources said Priyanka's messages lacked in appeal and sounded bland. Party leaders refused to respond over the issue. New Delhi, April 27 : In a novel move, Congress nominee from Haryana's Hisar Lok Sabha seat Bhavya Bishnoi has come out with a constituency-specific manifesto, in which he spells out his plans for its development. New Delhi, April 27 (IANS) In a novel move, Congress nominee from Haryana's Hisar Lok Sabha seat Bhavya Bishnoi has come out with a constituency-specific manifesto, in which he spells out his plans for its d witnessing the most prestigious poll battle in Odisha. BJP Vice President Baijayant Panda, who won the seat on a BJD ticket in 2014, and Odia film star Anubhav Mohanty are fighting for the seat. It also gave a chance to the people to get a glimpse of their favourite artistes, who managed to pull them out of their houses in the sweltering summer. Lucknow, April 27 : Bahujan Samaj Party President Mayawati on Saturday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of claiming to be an OBC only for electoral gains. "He was an upper caste when he was Gujarat Chief Minister. Later he got his caste included in the OBC (other backward class) category," she said at a hurriedly-convened press conference here. Mayawati further denied that she, as Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, had any role to play in the sale of sugar mills which is being currently probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The CBI was being used by the centre to target the opposition, she alleged. The BSP chief also said that the "achche" din of BJP would soon vanish because the Samajwadi Party-BSP-Rashtriya Lok Dal alliance would demolish saffron power in UP. Colombo, April 28 : Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has banned the National Thawheed Jammath (NTJ) and another radical group suspected to be behind the Easter Sunday explosions, which killed over 250 people and injured 500, the President's Office said in a statement. Under the emergency regulations, President Sirisena has taken steps to declare the NTJ and Jamathei Millathu Ibraheem (JMI) in Sri Lanka as banned organisations, the statement said on Saturday. "As such, all activities of those organizations as well as their property will be seized by the government. Steps are being taken to ban other extremist organizations operating in Sri Lanka, under Emergency Regulations," the statement added. President Sirisena declared a conditional state of emergency last Tuesday to arrest all the suspected terrorists who were behind Sunday's attacks which targeted churches and luxury hotels. The police said over 100 suspects had been arrested so far and a massive search operation was underway to detain more suspects, linked to the NTJ and other radical groups operating in the country. President Sirisena said on Friday that there were about 140 people in Sri Lanka suspected to have links to the Islamic State group and assured all would be arrested in the coming days. NuVerge announced the addition of Timothy (Tim) Scott to its executive leadership team as Senior Vice President, Professional Services. In this capacity, Mr. Scott will be responsible for establishing all aspects of NuVerges professional services business encompassing Nextworld, Nextbot No-Code Platform, Nutanix Hyper-converged Software, and Scratch Datas Big Data and analytics platform. Tim will work directly with Mark Goedde, President and CEO, & Bill Hylton, EVP and COO. Tim has more than 25 years of experience managing enterprise consulting teams as well as working in software and business development organizations in the high-tech industry. In his most recent role at a global enterprise consulting firm, Tim was responsible for professional services and all technical cloud-related consulting services. Before that, Tim served in a strategic and thought leadership role on cloud technologies and enterprise software at Oracle Corporation. In his 19 years at Oracle, Tim worked closely with various executive leadership teams to help launch and deliver several new enterprise applications, along with SaaS and PaaS products, and worked closely with early adopter customers. Tims experience in professional services and next-generation software and technologies brings a unique and forward-thinking perspective into the dynamics of NuVerges business. Tim has been successful in increasing organization performance for his clients through a hyper-responsive customer experience philosophy. His successful career is the result of a commitment to developing successful high-performing cultures within his organizations and a steadfast commitment to his clients. Tim has always believed in the philosophy of committed relationships through honesty and transparent communication, resulting in long-term loyalty for both parties. I am pleased to welcome Tim Scott to our senior leadership team, said Mark Goedde, NuVerges President and CEO. Tim is an outstanding cultural fit for our company! He brings to NuVerge an ideal blend of exceptional customer service and industry leadership that will continue to accelerate NuVerges business in the areas of next-generation software and technologies. Bill Hylton, EVP and COO added, Tims technical knowledge and industry experience will provide NuVerges senior leadership team a market advantage over our competitors who have not adopted next-generations tools for their clients. His insight and practical application of software and technology bring a unique and valued expertise to NuVerge. I am very excited to have Tim as part of our senior team!. I look forward to working alongside NuVerges senior leadership team to provide industry direction and an unmatching next-generation service platform for our clients. Businesses are constantly seeking more affordable ways to drive digital transformation. I am confident that I can help shape NuVerges expanding portfolio to help organizations achieve the organizational value through next-generation software and technologies., said Tim Scott. As an early innovator of next-generation solutions, NuVerge offers clients No-Code enterprise-grade software solutions, multi-cloud management, and data analytics solutions. NuVerges leadership and critical partnerships in digital transformation allow NuVerge to solve clients legacy issues while moving them into the future with speed and agility. NuVerge creates a digital posture for their clients that will future proof their investments and keep them on the forefront of innovation, creating real organizational value for their end customers. About NuVerge Established in 2018, NuVerge LLC is a Next Generation Software and Technologies firm focused on digital transformation and creating organizational value for their clients. NuVerge is committed to next-generation enterprise software solutions, data management solutions, and cloud management solutions that accelerate the displacement of legacy business software and systems. The untethering of legacy software and technologies allows NuVerge clients to improve their organizational performance and grow their business at an unprecedented pace. Their professional services team has extensive expertise in strategizing, optimizing, adopting, managing and deploying next-generation enterprise software solutions using HPaPaaS tools (Low-Code/No-Code) in private, hybrid and public cloud platforms. As a Nextworld Reseller and Software Development Partner, NuVerges professional services team support clients in a wide variety of commercial markets with the use and deployment of Next Generations Software and Technologies. NuVerge also has partnerships with Nutanix for multi-could management and Scratch Data for Big Data and analytics. NuVerge is headquartered in Longmont, Colorado and serves their North American client base from its East and West regional offices. Please visit http://www.nuverge.com for additional information. Contact: Press(at)nuverge.com Trademarks: Nextworld and Nextbot are registered trademarks of Nextworld and/or its affiliates. Nutanix are registered trademarks of Nutanix and/or its affiliates. Scratch Data are registered trademarks of Scratch Data and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. Mark Schneider, CEO of Vizion Health, LLC (Vizion) announced today that Fort Behavioral Health, a 133 bed behavioral healthcare facility located in Fort Worth, Texas received accreditation from The Joint Commission on April 14th, 2019. Mr. Schneider reported that, Getting a three-year accreditation on your first try is a tremendous accomplishment. The team at Fort, under the leadership of Deana Wilson, is to be commended for meeting and exceeding the standards of excellence set by The Joint Commission." This newly renovated, state-of-the-art behavioral health facility is housed in a former medical-surgical hospital located on a 12-acre site at 7140 Oakmont Boulevard in Fort Worth. Fort opened its doors on March 4th, 2019. Forts CEO, Deana Wilson stated, We are thrilled to have received the gold seal of approval only 37 days after opening. The facility has 5 separate, self-contained treatment units. Four of these units will provide specialized treatment for substance abuse disorders including women with trauma, adolescent, and adult male, as well as a 15-bed medically supervised detoxification unit. In a separate wing comprised of 40 beds, Fort Behavioral will also provide residential treatment services for autistic children ages 11-17 years. Dr. David Henderson serves as Forts Chief Medical Officer. Vizion Health LLC is a privately-owned healthcare company located in Charlotte, NC. Vizion brings a seasoned behavioral healthcare team with decades of experience to Fort Behavioral. Mark Schneider has over four decades of experience operating a broad spectrum of behavioral health facilities. Stephen Chesney, Vizions Chief Operating Officer, brings more than 30 years of experience operating multi-site and multi-state psychiatric businesses. Dr. Ann Miller, a recognized national expert in the substance abuse treatment industry, is Vizions Chief Development Officer. Aaron Kneas, a Vizion Partner and Managing Director with New Century Capital Partners (NCCP), supports the Vizion Team on structuring transactions and securing the capital for the Companys growth. The strength of the core Vizion team enables us to grow quickly while continuing to ensure quality programming throughout our system, says Mark Schneider. Vizion currently owns Willow Crest Hospital and Moccasin Bend Ranch in Miami, Oklahoma. Willow Crest is a 50-bed acute care psychiatric hospital and Moccasin Bend Ranch is a 28-bed residential treatment center for children and adolescents. For more information on Fort Behavioral go to their website at http://www.fortbehavioral.com or call 817-678-7428. Vizion Healths management team can be reached at 704-626-2448. Further information on Vizion can be found at http://www.vizionhealth.com. "We look forward to a great event that educates women on the variety of preventative health measures that we offer at Womens Excellence!" Womens Excellence in Obstetrics and Gynecology is pleased to invite the community to the Grand Opening of the Womens Excellence Mammography office in Lake Orion, Michigan. This event also highlights an important preventative health measure called hereditary cancer testing sponsored by Myriad Genetics. Hereditary cancer testing is a simple, in-office blood test that identifies if a woman has certain gene mutations that can cause cancers like breast and ovarian cancer. Guests can tour the facility, take a free hereditary cancer risk assessment, learn more from hereditary cancer risk specialists, and receive testing on-site. Thats not all, Womens Excellence has received tremendous community support for this event and is excited to offer complimentary food, drinks, and a variety of raffle prizes. Raffle prizes include gift cards and prizes from: Hamlin Pub Leo's Coney Island Bordine's Nursery LaVida Massage Tiffany's Tumblers Meld Studio Lashes by Carol MG Photography Honchos of Clarkston Uniquely Yours Card Design Fuzzies Pet Food Supply Etched in Glass Lake Orion Nutrition Womens Excellence Guests must be present to enter for raffle prizes. The event is on Thursday, May 2, from 4-7pm at 1410 S. Lapeer Road in Lake Orion, Michigan. We look forward to a great event that educates women on the variety of preventative health measures that we offer at Womens Excellence! Come learn more about usand have a little fun too! Dr. Jonathan Zaidan, MD, FACOG, President of Womens Excellence. For more information about Womens Excellence or to schedule an appointment, visit http://www.WomensExcellence.com. Online Patient Support Specialists are available Monday through Friday from 8am-5pm to assist new, current, and prospective patients. The chat is located at the bottom right corner of your computer or mobile device screen at http://www.WomensExcellence.com. Womens Excellence is the most comprehensive obstetric and gynecologic office in Michigan. Additionally, they specialize in menopause, weight control, bladder control, endometriosis, robotic surgery, oncology, and midwifery services. Womens Excellence is committed to staying at the forefront of innovation with cutting edge technologies utilizing robotic surgery and minimally invasive surgical options when possible. The knowledgeable, compassionate physicians and healthcare providers of Womens Excellence focus on patient-centered processes to deliver the highest quality of care. They are affiliated with most insurances. They offer seamless medical record access via a state-of-the-art patient portal and use the latest technology for record keeping and sharing, making the patient experience easier and more efficient. Womens Excellence is taking new patients and is conveniently located throughout southeastern Michigan in Birmingham, Lake Orion, Clarkston, Rochester, and West Bloomfield. Coming soon, Womens Excellence will open locations in Royal Oak and Lapeer, Michigan. For more information, visit http://www.WomensExcellence.com. The long-awaited Mueller Report was released last week, and this week came the first commercially published editions, both print and digital. At Publishers Weekly, we took a look at how the various editions are faring, or are expected to fare. Of the bestselling editions so far, Big Five publisher Scribner (part of Simon & Schuster) partnered with the Washington Post for its edition. Skyhorse chose Alan Dershowitz to write a foreword for theirs. Melville House, meanwhile, took a more direct approachjust the report. Melville House publisher Dennis Johnson calls it "the peoples edition. As a government report prepared at taxpayer expense, the text of the report is free for anyone to read, republishand to profit from, as Ian Bogost writes in The Atlantic. Bogost offers a biting take on various efforts to use the report for commercial gain. "The end result of an investigation into the possible corruption of the highest U.S. office by a foreign power, cut apart and sold off for scrap," he writes. I take Bogost's point, but I don't buy that commercializing public domain documents is necessarily a bad thing. Readers seeking a good, readable print book of the report should have that option. And I think its good that The Mueller Report gets a jolt of marketing and visibility in the nations bookstores and libraries, too, which publishers can reach far more efficiently than the federal government can. The problem I do see, however, is that the digital version freely available for the public to download is simply too challenging for most citizens to read. Its a low-quality PDF that renders poorly on phones and other digital devices, which is surely how most people who download the report will want to read it. In an interesting analysis that focuses on the technical aspects of the DOJ's digital file, the PDF Association this week concluded that it was interestingand deeply unfortunatethat the DOJ clearly used advanced redaction software, but nonetheless chose to deliver a paper-age image only' PDF. After struggling with the DOJ's PDF for three days, I went ahead and paid $7.99 for the Scribner e-book edition, which is by far a better option for actually reading the report. And though critics like Bogost focus on the "government for sale" angle, my experience speaks to another criticism increasingly leveled at government these days: basic fairness. I had the $7.99 needed to get The Mueller Report in a readable edition. Not everyone does. Of course, the DOJs decision to make The Mueller Report available as a PDF is not surprising. In fact, this is often how government reports are released to the public these days. But it is disappointing that not even the Government Publishing Office is making a public edition of the report available in a real, readable e-book format. GPO is selling print copies of the report, so clearly they've invested some effort here. But when asked why GPO hasnt prepared a version optimized for digital reading, or whether such an edition may be forthcoming, GPO officials punted the question back to DOJ. GPO was not involved in the production, replied a spokesperson. That's true, of course. The DOJ is listed as the "publisher" of The Mueller Report. Still, the GPO response is not exactly satisfactory. After all, in 2014, Congress officially changed the GPO from the "Government Printing Office" to the "Government Publishing Office" in an effort to get with the digital times. The press release from 2014 explains that the change was made to reflect the increasingly prominent role that GPO plays in providing access to Government information in digital formats through the agency's Federal Digital System, apps, eBooks, and related technologies. Yet with The Mueller Report, perhaps the most highly anticipated government release in memory, funded by taxpayer dollars, a report we should want as many citizens as possible to read for themselves, the public version is available only as a low quality PDF? When it comes to important public releases like The Mueller Report, what would it take for Congress to ensure that such information is not only available to the public, but readable, too? This is the information age, after all. We have the technology. We have the resources. And we've been living in a consumer e-book world for well over a decade. The idea that Congress in 2019 would authorize tens of millions of dollars to compile The Mueller Report, only to make it available to the public in the least readable digital format possible doesn't make much sense. Coming on the heels of last week's DPLAfest, I wonder, too, if there is a role here for libraries. Certainly libraries are going to be buying copies and offering patrons print editions of the report. But could a library coalition, like the Digital Public Library of America, which has committed to expanding access to e-books, pick up the federal government's slack and produce a real e-book edition of The Mueller Report, optimized for today's digital devices, and make it freely available to citizens perhaps via library websites or the expanding SimplyE app? I reached out to DPLA officials this week, who suggested it was a possibility. Of course, none of this is intended to diminish the efforts of publishers working in good faith to put out their own editions of The Mueller Report. These editions can and do offer readers real value. If we've learned anything from the first years of the e-book era, it's that many readers still prefer the print reading experience. For readers who want a bound edition (or feel they need Alan Dershowitz's commentary) they should have options. At the same time, Congress must raise the bar when it comes to digital public releases. One shouldnt need a credit card to participate in our democracy. At the very least, a library card should do the job. Reserve Reading The Mueller Report isn't the only important government report, of course. In November of last year Melville House took note of the rather quietly released United States Global Change Research Program's Fourth Climate Assessment. An example of what publishers can bring to the table with government documents, Melville House not only published a full-color paperback edition, they started The Melville House Climate Projectan effort to connect readers, booksellers, and librarians, with experts in climate science, public policy, and grassroots organizing. This week, Melville House's Simon Reichley blogged about "a major milestone" for the effort: the first meeting of The Climate Change Reading Group, an ongoing partnership with the New York Public Library. The group will meet monthly at NYPL's Stephen A. Schwartzman Building. The first meeting featured Todd Tif Fernandez of 350NYC, and archivist and librarian Meredith Mann of the NYPL, who shared archival materials, including items from the first Earth Day, in 1970. Interested in learning more? You can contact organizers by email here, or check out The Climate Project site online. Back to The Mueller Report, Washingtonian weighs in on the various editions, which includes a free 19-hour audiobook edition via Amazon's Audible service. MarketWatch this week noted that Amazon had listed Scribner's audiobook edition at a curious price point: $19.84. "That pointed price tag appears to be a reference to George Orwells seminal novel, 1984." The Mueller Report details the alarming extent to which outside actors sought to interfere in the 2016 election. But a report this week from NBC News suggests that such efforts are still ongoing, and perhaps growing more insidious with the rise of for-profit trolling operations. "A network of more than 5,000 pro-Trump Twitter bots railed against the 'Russiagate hoax' shortly after the release of special counsel Robert Muellers report last week," NBC reports. "As social media platforms continue to prepare for the 2020 election, efforts to spread disinformation and sow discord remain an ongoing issue. And while operations sponsored by foreign countries are still a threat, the rise of for-profit trolling operations, which may include the new bot network, have added a new element for companies to counter." Too big to regulate? The New York Times reports that regulators around the world are wrestling with how to handle Facebook. The social media giant is facing a fine of $3 billion to $5 billion for "violations of a privacy settlement from 2011, the highest penalty in the United States against a tech company," the Times notes. But will it matter? Also from The New York Times, the Supreme Court appears ready to allow the Trump administration to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. The Library Community has been part of an effort to keep the question off the census, arguing that it would make the count less accurate. And another from Washingtonian, a fascinating report on The Folger Shakespeare Librarys Project Dustbunny, which is looking for "human DNA and proteins harvested from dirt inside the Folgers old books." The project's principals insist it's about more than determining whether Shakespeare or other famous people actually held the books on the Folger's shelves. What would you do with the information in the genome of a dead genius? Whats the impact of that? Whats the reason to try and find that information, and whats the reason not to? We need to prepare for a future in which its possible for people to ask those questions and face those choices, which is why this little experiment with a cute name actually points us at profound issues that were going to need to wrestle with as custodians of a very important historic collectionand also just as human beings. From The City, it appears that a Queens Public Library branch may be swept up in the fallout from Amazon's decision to bail on its plans for Long Island City. Has the open access ice finally broken? Elsevier and a consortium of Norwegian institutions this week announced a two-year "read and publish" deal. Framed as a pilot, the deal will enable researchers at participating Norwegian institutions to access Elsevier content and will cover their costs for publishing open access articles in Elsevier journals. The news comes as support continues to build for open access, and with a number of research institutions around the world threatening to walk away from their subscription deals, including in the U.S., where the University of California walked away from its Elsevier deal earlier this year. Inside Higher Ed offered its take on Elsevier's deal in Norway: "This new kind of 'big deal' is a big deal because there are a growing number of librarians and negotiators who believe this model will reduce subscription costs while boosting open-access publications. Eventually, some believe, the model could eliminate paywalls altogether." The Stanford Daily reports that Stanford University Press has been denied additional funding it was seeking. "Comparative literature professor David Palumbo-Liu argued that the value of a Stanford-branded publishing company could not be reduced to a mere dollar sign. 'At stake is our intellectual identity,' said Palumbo-Liu. 'University presses perform both an institutional and public good. They are not judged by an economic calculus, but by an intellectual value, and the value to the intellectual mind and the reputation of a University.'" Via the Berkeley Library News, the University of California Library has launched an initiative "to boost data science expertise, services at UC Berkeley." From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the FBI says that a Geneva Bible, one of 321 rare items stolen from the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, has been recovered in the Netherlands. And, a Bustle contributor this week discussed what she's learned from working in a library. Including this: "Anyone who says libraries are dying hasn't been inside one recently. If they had, they would seeon any given daya bustling playgroup in the children's room, an adult book group talking literature in the study room, a knitting circle crafting and laughing in the community room, or an organization hosting a blood drive in the lobby." As per High Court orders, Uttarakhand Police are installing CCTV cameras in all police stations of the state. In the first phase of this project 132 police stations have been chosen out of which 19 are in Dehradun. Inspector General (IG), Police HQ, GS Martolia informed, Out of 158 police stations in Uttarakhand, two police stations in Laksar and Haldwani already have CCTV cameras installed as part of pilot project. Of the remaining 156 police stations, 132 have been chosen for the first phase of the project which has started from Dehradun. We are planning to get every police station covered by end of June. Each police station will have four CCTVs cameras to cover the entire premises, especially the entrance and the exit. He further added, This whole project will cost about Rs 1.27 crore. The idea is to prevent possibility of any unlawful activity that might happen in police stations, any type of misbehaviour done by citizens or the police- basically to protect human rights. Although serial entrepreneur Rufus Griscom has a background in booksincluding writing reviews for PWhe had no intention of getting into the book business when he launched his newest venture, Heleo, in 2015. The plan, Griscom said, was to help nonfiction authors, particularly business book authors, take advantage of various digital platforms to broaden their brands by delivering their ideas in different formats to consumers, which in turn would create new revenue streams. As part of the startup process, Griscom said he surveyed authors about what their biggest pain points were. So, after trying a number of business models, he settled on an approach that addresses authors biggest frustrationsnamely, generating sales in the first few weeks books are available. We didnt intend to deliver physical books, Griscom saidbut, in response to his research, he started the Next Big Idea Club with books as a fundamental part of the offering. Though he still sees the NBICs primary function as providing people with greater access to renowned thinkers, the company now offers two books per quarter as part of its overall package. Customers can either choose two hardcovers or two e-books. The books are selected by Susan Cain, Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, and Daniel Pink, whom Griscom called cofounders of NBIC. In addition to the books, members receive access to exclusive video insights, reading guides, and author interviews breaking down the key concepts of each featured book. To facilitate interaction, each author of a featured title does two live q&as on Facebook and Zoom plus one live event. Our goal is to encourage as much interaction between the authors and the members as possible, Griscom said. He considers this approach helpful in building long-term ties between authors and their readers. The hardcover option costs $20.75 per month and e-book is $16.58 per month. A third option, Express Membership ($8.25 per month), allows subscribers to forgo the books while still receiving access to the video insights, reading guides, member forums, and author interviews. About one-third of the NBICs 8,000 subscribers have chosen that option, according to Griscom. We really see this as a new type of publishing, with our core mission being to provide members access to authors no matter the format, he said. But books have certainly helped the club gain traction. One of its March selections was Loonshot by Safi Bahcall, which hit the Wall Street Journals bestseller list the week it was sent to NBIC subscribers (the companys book orders are fulfilled by 800-CEO-READ). Since NBICs launch, its selection process has evolved. Originally, only two books per quarter were chosen, but now there are six finalists, from which the four judges choose the two selections. The broadened offering gives members the opportunity to buy books that arent part of the quarterly packages. Between its launch in early 2018 and the end of 2019, the NBIC, Griscom said, will feature about 40 books. Griscom and his team (there are eight employees) are considering moving into categories beyond business books and are working on NBICs first original title. Although he wouldnt discuss details, Griscom said the short-form book will likely run 50100 pages (his research shows most business book readers read 50100 pages of each title). The new book will be available exclusively to club members, and more original works are likely to become part of the NBIC mix. Griscom said publishers were initially cool to his ideauntil he started placing orders for several thousand copies of their books. Now, he said, he is receiving lots of pitches. Another sign of publisher support is that Penguin Random House parent company Bertelsmann is one of seven companies that just invested $1.2 million in Heleos latest round of financing. Other investors include the New York Times Company and Axel Springer, owner of Business Insider, which NBIC members receive a free one-year subscription to upon joining. Griscom is counting on membership growth coming from authors reaching out to their personal mailing lists to alert them that their newest books are part of NBIC, as well as from existing NBIC members forming their own clubs. Griscom started Heleo shortly after he sold Babble to Disney. Having experience in the startup world, he is confident in his concept. Heleo turned cash flow positive recently and broke $1 million in revenue for 2018. He projects revenue of $3 million for 2019 and $8 million by 2020. The real product, Griscom said of the NBIC, is less about what gets mailed in a box and more about the community were building around life-changing ideas. Its practically in an artists job description: see the world differently. As forthcoming art and photography titles show, these altered perspectives can convey a variety of meanings and take many formsrethinking long-held beliefs, for instance, or approaching a subject from, literally, a different angle. John Parton, commissioning editor at Laurence King, says that a new vantage point, such as the one offered by the aerial photography in From Above (Oct.), can offer a broader sense of scale and, in some cases, a better idea of what it means for people to come together. At ground level you dont get such a feeling of mass unity, he says. Aerial images of an event give you a much more real idea of just how many people were there and experiencing similar emotions. Sometimes an artist trains a metaphorical lens on a single person, yielding multitudes. In Children of Grass (Schaffner, Sept.), photographer B.A. Van Sise offers a window onto the modern relevance of Walt Whitman, born two centuries ago. When Whitman produced Leaves of Grass in 1855, we were in a run-up to a terrible, violent, but necessary civil war, Van Sise says. Now were in a lead-up, perhaps, to a cultural conflict where we need to talk about who we are as a people. The book includes the portraits and work of a diverse group of 80 contemporary U.S. poets, each of whom Van Sise considers a direct literary descendant of Whitman. The black is beautiful movement of the 1960s celebrated diversity and encouraged African-Americans to embrace their appearances rather than conform to white ideals. Tanisha C. Ford and Deborah Willis, in Kwame Brathwaite: Black Is Beautiful (Aperture, May), examine the way Brathwaite, a photographer who documented life in Harlem, helped popularize the slogan. Aperture magazine editor Michael Famighetti, who edited the book, says Brathwaite and other black is beautiful proponents had a strong idea of what we now call branding, the way they were really creating an identity for the movement, fusing the politics of jazz as a form of radical expression, the politics of fashion, and a deep understanding of the power of self-representation. The titles discussed here are a kaleidoscopic take on politics, the arts, and the human form, each offering the opportunity to reconsider the familiar. Seeing the World In the foreword to Marvin Heifermans Seeing Science (Aperture, May, $39.95), astronaut Scott Kelly recalls what President Barack Obama told him in 2015, just before Kelly left for a year aboard the International Space Station: Good luck, Captainand make sure to Instagram it! Heiferman, who has curated projects for the Smithsonian, the Museum of Modern Art, and other major institutions, includes one of Kellys thousands of celestial images in the book, as well as some 300 more that make visible the previously unseen. Photos depict the brains neural network and offer a close-up view of a snowflake; even a bodys movement is better understood under the scrutiny of a lens. Heiferman quotes physicist Lawrence M. Krauss, who wrote in the New York Times: Every time we have built new eyes to observe the universe, our understanding of ourselves and our place in it has been forever altered. In From Above (Laurence King, Oct., $55), journalist Gemma Padley and six-time Guardian picture editor of the year Eamonn McCabe chronicle the history of aerial photography from its 19th-century beginningswhen the earliest aerial photographers used hot air balloons and strapped cameras to kites and pigeonsthrough modern drone and satellite imagery. The photos demonstrate what a new angle grants a viewer: perspective on how a person appears when one of a multitude in a slum, or on a crowded beach, or at a presidential inauguration; the immensity of a geographic area such as a desert; what unreachable and therefore untouched terrain looks like; oras in a 1906 photograph by Philip Henry Sharpe, a lieutenant with the Royal Engineers Balloon Sectionhow Stonehenge is actually configured. The photos in L.A. River (George F. Thompson, July, $40) depict the urban waterways range of moods, from a temperamental force periodically destroying its surroundings to a shy trickle encased in concrete. Michael Kolster, a 2013 Guggenheim fellow, used a laborious 19th-century photographic technique that kept him by the river for days at a time. The process afforded me the chance to watch the river change with Earths rotation as I worked, he writes, and because the resulting images often were streaked with solution, they invoke the look and feel of a river, especially one as elusive as the Los Angeles. Essays by cultural historian D.J. Waldie and photographer Frank Gohlke lend additional context to a geographic feature that Kolster found surprisingly in need of documentation: Many of the Angelenos I spoke with, he writes, were surprised to hear that L.A. has a waterway, let alone one that inspired its First People to settle there thousands of years ago. Seeing Ourselves For those who prefer to trust their own eyes, ears, and memories, the presentation of an optical illusion or a claim of communication with the spirit realm tends to draw skepticism. But according to the highly illustrated Spectacle of Illusion by Matthew Tompkins (DAP, out now, $35), its that very trust in self that makes magic possible and enjoyable. Tompkins, an experimental psychologist and magician, uses rare archival illustrations, photographs, and reproducible optical illusions to detail the work of spirit mediums, magicians, and skilled tricksters dating to the early 18th century. Photos portray, for instance, a blindfolded girl operating an automatic writing device used in seances, and illustrated advertisements tout late-19th- and early-20th-century magicians such as Howard Thurston, depicted pondering a human skull while surrounded by cartoonish, arrow-tailed demons, accompanied by the tagline Do the spirits come back? Tom Sanders showcased the faces of elderly WWII veterans in 2010s The Last Good War, the cover of which alone, PWs starred review said, can break your heart. With Vietnam Portraits (Casemate, Oct., $37.95), he provides a similar forum for 113 men and women whose service in that country ended more than 40 years ago, photographing them against what the publisher calls a surreal jungle environment. The portraiture, combined with the veterans recollections, allows readers to experience the war through an unmediated primary source. Unlike those who returned from WWI and II, Vietnam veterans were often treated with disdain. One veteran discusses the first time someone thanked him for his service, in 1991: I was numb and unfortunately emotionally unable to respond. For the 40th anniversary of New York Citys Public Art Fund in 2017, Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei and his team mounted an exhibition that spanned all five boroughs, installing 323 works intended to bring attention to the global migrant and refugee crisis. The city itself became a museum to the increasing numbers of barriers being built at political boundaries. In the exhibition catalog, Ai Weiwei: Good Fences Make Good Neighbors (Yale Univ., June, $50), Nicholas Baume, director and chief curator of the Public Art Fund, shows not only the works, which took the form of physical barriers, banners, and posters of the faces of immigrants, but also viewer reactions. He did not want fences to obstruct or divert people, Baume writes, but rather wanted to find ways of inserting them seamlessly into the built environment, calling attention to both our freedom and its vulnerability. This thought is evident in the freestanding Gilded Cage sculpture installed at an entrance to Central Park; visitors could choose whether to walk through or around to access the park. Photographer Kwame Brathwaite and his like-minded circle worked in the late 1950s and 60s to sell their vision of blackness to an international audience, cultural critic Tanisha C. Ford writes in Kwame Brathwaite: Black Is Beautiful (Aperture, May, $40), which she coauthored with curator Deborah Willis. Brathwaites group, the African Jazz-Art Society and Studios, comprised African-Americans in New York Citys arts community who wanted to determine their representation to the rest of American culture. In addition to celebrities (such as Stevie Wonder and Muhammad Ali), Brathwaite photographed the Grandassa Models, an agency AJASS started to celebrate the natural beauty of African-American women. In Braithwaites introduction to the book, his first monograph, he says hes been called Keeper of the Images. The 40 mostly full-page shots feel like archived glimpses into a bygone time, as if Brathwaite kept them until the moment was right to share. Photography critic Vince Aletti, who worked for many years as a contributing writer for Rolling Stone and, later, the New Yorker, has collected fashion magazines since 1965. He writes in the introduction to Issues (Phaidon, May, $95) that the enormity of his collection gave him a sense of individual and collective development that broad overviews of fashion photography had glossed over. The book distills his library to 500 pages culled from 100 issues of Details, Harpers Bazaar, Vogue, W, and others, dating from 1910 to 2018. The selected images push the culture forward, he writes, challenging conventions and offering an entirely new way of seeing, as in a 1985 issue of The Face that upended gender norms by dressing men in skirts and women in the butchest menswear. The magazines addressed international politics and human rights as well, as in an issue of American Vogue published just after the end of WWII that featured on its cover a drawing of a bayonet wrapped in flowers; its interior included war correspondent Lee Millers photographs of piles of Holocaust victims in Buchenwaldespecially challenging material to encounter in a fashion magazine. We Are Everywhere by Matthew Riemer and Leighton Brown (Ten Speed, May, $40) presents queer history under the premise that visibility is a sign of revolt. Photos dating to the 19th century depict activists, marches, 1920s drag shows, and newly married same-sex couples just after legislation permitting their legal unions passed. Ultimately, we think queer history is about the fight to be, and the celebration of being, seen. We dont choose to be queer, but we do choose to be visible in whatever way possible, Riemer and Brown write in the introduction. The couple, who are lawyers in Washington, D.C., also run the LGBT History Instagram account, which has 376,000 followers. The notion of ones body as an advertisement of ones self isnt new. But as Nathalie Herschdorfer writes in the preface to Body (Thames & Hudson, June, $65), societal shifts around beauty standards and gender identity allow each person more control over that advertisement than ever before. The book collects 369 photographs taken by 175 photographers, mostly in the 21st century. Herschdorfer, director of the Museum of Fine Arts in Le Locle, Switzerland, introduces each sectionheadings include Physique and Alter Egowith an essay, grappling with body as subject versus body as object, and what role the selfie plays in seeing and presenting the body. Never before in human history has it been so easy to manipulate our flesh, to create new identities for ourselves and to disseminate images so widely, she writes. And never before in human history have we been exposed to so many photographs depicting magnified, scrutinized, restructured, modified or enhanced bodies. Seeing Art, and Artists Special makeup effects artist Rick Baker sees potential monster-building material everywhereeven, as a child, in his mothers pie crusts. The work of the seven-time Academy Award winner has been ubiquitous in American cinemaStar Wars, An American Werewolf in London, Men in Black, and many others. The two-volume retrospective Rick Baker: Metamorphosis (Cameron, Oct., $250) begins with his childhood creations (masks and body parts) and continues through his four-decade Hollywood career. In the book, Baker recalls learning about makeup art in a magazine when he was nine years old: It was like an atomic bomb had detonated in my psyche. I had never seen anything like itphoto after photo of my favorite monsters right there in my hands. The volumes include family photos and behind-the-scenes set peeks, with text by J.W. Rinzler, a writer and editor at Lucas Licensings book division. In Shadows I Boogie (Phaidon, May, $100) showcases the work of contemporary British artist Harland Miller, best known for his large-scale paintings of the tattered jackets of imaginary Penguin books of fiction, poetry, plays, and self-help texts. Sample titles include Murder: Weve All Done It and Tonight We Make History (I Cant Be There). The book quotes Miller as being an admirer of artists such as Andy Warhol, who made their names for reworkings of things already in the public domain or consciousness. The monograph includes essays by critic Martin Herbert, V&A East chief curator Catherine Ince, and novelist and cultural critic Michael Bracewell; the latter describes Millers work as deadpan, punkish and aphoristic as well as confrontational and compelling. B.A. Van Sises work has appeared in more than 250 publications, and a number of his photographs are in the permanent collection at the Smithsonians National Portrait Gallery. In Children of Grass (Schaffner, Sept., $35), Van Sise views Walt Whitmans legacy through the work of 80 contemporary poets, whom he photographed in the spirit of the poem each contributedfor instance, he pairs Douglas Kearneys New Parents with a portrait of Kearney in a field, leaning on a bookshelf lined with doll heads. Van Sise writes that when Whitman released Leaves of Grass, every well-known U.S. poet was white and from north of the Mason-Dixon line, whereas today, American poetry is a landscape as diverse as the land that gives birth to it, a cacophony of voices from persons of all colors, genders, religions, backgrounds, loves. The enduring fascination with snooping on other peoples personal livessocial media, tabloids, tell-all memoirssparked The Art of Love by Kate Bryan and illustrator Asli Yazan (White Lion, July, $27), which profiles art-world couples. Bryan, head of collections for Soho House, writes that something as commonplace as a romantic relationship is especially interesting when it is happening to an artist, a person who traditionally sits outside the normal spectrum of society. The book details relationships that were often professional as well as personal, few of which ended happily. Yazan, an illustrator in Istanbul, portrays the couples in digital drawings on solid field backgrounds; subjects include Pablo Picasso and Francoise Gilot, and Georgia OKeeffe and Alfred Stieglitz, as well as contemporary artist pairs. David Schulson collected and sold autographs from the late 1960s through the early 2000s. His children, Caren, Todd, and Claudia Strauss-Schulson, gathered 104 illustrated letters from their fathers personal collection for Scrawl (Rizzoli, May, $39.95). The illustrations in this book are an intimate window into the playful, whimsical, almost childlike side of the artists, writers, scientists, and politicians who shaped the world and culture we live in, Todd Strauss-Schulson writes in the foreword. For 40 years, no one outside of Schulsons family had seen the pictures, which include Queen Victorias adolescent sketches of horses and donkeys, George Washington Carvers depiction of a diseased peanut, and Mark Twains take on Jonah and the whale. Produced in conjunction with the spring 2019 Met Costume Institute exhibition of the same name, Camp: Notes on Fashion by curator Andrew Bolton (Metropolitan Museum of Art, May, $50) explores, over two volumes, a concept thats notoriously difficult to pin down. To wit: Camp, as one of the contributors, Fabio Cleto, writes, is a metaphysical country of fabulous unsettlement and amazing splendor. The first volume, which includes Susan Sontags 1964 essay Notes on Camp, delves into the term as an adjective, verb, and noun, using 17th-century paintings, and photos and drawings of Oscar Wilde, among other graphics, as evidence. The second volume focuses on new work by fashion photographer Johnny Dufort: mannequins bedecked in swanlike plumage, plain shifts inked with illustrations that suggest ball gowns, and snack wrappers sewn into party attire, designed by a high-wattage roster that includes John Galliano, Miuccia Prada, Yves Saint Laurent, Elsa Schiaparelli, Anna Sui, and Vivienne Westwood. In 1994, Dane Shitagi began photographing ballet dancers in settings where they typically dont wear their toe-shoes, such as at subway stations, in parks, and under waterfalls. Hes since taken pictures of some 100 dancers and shared 3,600 images on social media; one million people follow his Ballerina Project account on Instagram. His forthcoming book of the same name (Chronicle, Sept., $40) showcases 54 dancers detached from stages and studios, capturing their balletic forms and personalities in unexpected ways. The projects goal, Shitagi writes, is to depict the ballerinas emotions, their aspirations, and the place they are present in their lives. Anne Kniggendorf is a freelance writer for outlets including KCUR in Kansas City, Mo., and the Kansas City Star. MELBOURNE, Australia the first of a new class of guided missile destroyer from China made an appearance at a naval review to mark the 70th Anniversary of the country's navy. The Type 055 destroyer, named the Nanchang, was among several ships of the People's Liberation Army Navy or PLAN that took part in the naval review held off the northern Chinese city of Qingdao with Chinese President Xi Jinping in attendance. Despite a diplomatic row between China and the Philippines, U.S. and Philippine military officials denied that their recent military exercise was a response to Chinese threats. Philippine presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo insisted on April 15 that U.S.-Philippine naval drills were part of the long-scheduled Balikatan 2019 exercise and not due to the so-called present conflict between China and the Philippines. Balikatan is an annual U.S.-Philippine exercise that concluded its 35th iteration on April 12. This year's exercise included a scenario in which U.S. and Philippine forces repelled a foreign power that had captured a Philippine island. It also coincided with increased tensions around the contested island of Thitu (Tagalog: Pag-asa; Chinese: Zhongye). Great Power competition is back and with it the requirement that the U.S. Army be able to deter heavily armed peer adversaries. In Europe, the Army found itself outnumbered, outranged and outgunned. One of the few steps it could take immediately was to put a bigger gun on its thousands of Stryker Infantry Fighting Vehicles. As an experiment, it added a new gun and turret to a handful of vehicles in one brigade. This effort proved so successful both in speed and outcome that now the Army intends to up-gun the remaining eight brigades. When Russia invaded Crimea, the U.S. Army was shaken out of its near-reverential fixation with counterinsurgency operations. It faced the prospect of a high-end conventional conflict with two near-peer competitors who had spent decades designing and building military forces intended specifically to defeat U.S. forces. In the likeliest theaters of confrontation, Eastern Europe and the Western Pacific, U.S. forces were at a disadvantage. Years of relative peace had encouraged successive U.S. Administrations to withdraw most Army combat forces from Europe, leaving behind a corporals guard consisting of two light brigades: one, a two- battalion airborne unit, and the other a lightly-armored Stryker formation. The Army now is pursuing a multi-faceted effort to transform its concept of operations, force structure and capabilities to meet the challenges of Great Power competition and, potentially, high-end conflict. Additional forces, particularly heavy armor, had to be returned to the European theater. In addition, existing platforms, from Abrams tanks to self-propelled artillery and Stryker vehicles, needed to be rendered more lethal. Finally, the Army needed to jump start modernization, designing and acquiring advanced long-range fires, air and missile defenses, aviation platforms and communications systems with which to prevail in a high-end conventional conflict. When the shift to Great Power competition occurred, the Army faced possibly the most challenging acquisition environment. There were virtually no new programs that could be accelerated. In many areas, such as long-range fires, mobile tactical air and missile defense, and electronic warfare, the Army was technologically behind its competitors and needed to come up with new capabilities, fast. Moreover, the Army faces a broad array of immediate challenges, what it called warfighting gaps, which need to be addressed quickly and economically. One thing the Army could do relatively rapidly is upgrade existing fleets of combat vehicles. A poster child for fast acquisition of relevant capabilities for the Army is General Dynamics Stryker Combat Vehicle. The Stryker was initially intended as an interim solution to the need for a light armored vehicle that could be rapidly deployed around the globe, particularly to places without massive logistics and transportation infrastructure. When the Future Combat System was canceled, the Stryker became the long-term solution. The Stryker Brigade Combat Teams (SBCT) are fast-moving, infantry-oriented units with additional firepower, including a mortar vehicle and a mobile gun system. The largest number of Stryker vehicles, the infantry carriers, mount a turret armed with a fifty-caliber machine gun. Today, there are eight SBCTs, including one in the National Guard. Stryker units have performed superbly in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hard on the heels of the Russian seizure of Crimea and invasion of Eastern Ukraine, The Second Cavalry Regiment, a Stryker-equipped formation based in Europe, sent out an Urgent Operational Need Statement for a more lethal weapon for its infantry carriers. Rather than going back to the drawing board to invent a new ground combat vehicle that would not be available for twenty years, the Army wisely decided to upgrade its existing fleets of armored fighting vehicles. Part of the solution was to replace the Stryker infantry vehicles standard 50 caliber machine gun with a longer-range, highly lethal 30-mm cannon. General Dynamics and its partners, Orbital ATK and Konigsberg, took the Dragoon variant of the Stryker from an idea on paper to the first new model delivered in only 18 months. Now the Army has decided to up-gun the rest of its Stryker brigades. This is an important initiative. Stryker brigades can be deployed more rapidly than armored brigade combat teams but are more mobile and lethal once on the ground than traditional infantry brigades. With a new 30-mm gun and, possibly, anti-tank guided missiles, Stryker brigades would be a potent force with which to deter Russian or Chinese aggression. Unfortunately, the Armys acquisition system is likely to turn this into a long and expensive process. When the Army gave General Dynamics the job to find an appropriate turret for the Dragoon variant, the company took about three months to conduct the necessary evaluations and get the winner in production. The Army's current acquisition plan is first to conduct a design integration study with up to eight competitors providing turrets and fire control systems. Sometime in 2020, the Army will initiate a second phase with the release of a competitive production solicitation. If all goes well, a single award will be made the next year and the first up-gunned vehicle delivered in 2022. That is three years for an upgrade that has already been developed and fielded. So much for rapid acquisition. The current lethality program is but one of several where the Stryker vehicle is serving as the basis for the rapid deployment of new or enhanced capabilities. The Stryker has been chosen as the platform to carry the Armys Interim Mobile Short-Range Air Defense System. This system deploys a 30-mm gun along with both Hellfire and Stinger missiles. The Army could soon deploy a Mobile High-Energy Laser on the Stryker, along with small vertical-launched drones. The Army has pinned all its hopes in achieving success with its six modernization priorities. But even if wildly successful, it will be decades before existing fleets are fully replaced. In the meantime, it makes eminent sense to enhance the effectiveness of existing main battle tanks, self-propelled howitzers, attack and lift helicopters and, of course, the Strykers. Dan Goure, Ph.D., is a vice president at the public-policy research think tank Lexington Institute. Goure has a background in the public sector and U.S. federal government, most recently serving as a member of the 2001 Department of Defense Transition Team. You can follow him on Twitter at @dgoure and the Lexington Institute @LexNextDC. Read his full bio here. By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 04/27/2019 ADVERTISEMENT So what has happened since viewers last saw Colt and Larissa on ? Are they still together and married? ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade. couple Colt Johnson and Larissa Christina Dos Santos Lima will be one of the couples viewers will see on Season 4 of : Happily Ever After? when it premieres Sunday on TLC, but what's their status now?Prior to filming the new season of the spinoff, Colt and Larissa appeared on Season 6 of , which finished airing on TLC in mid-January.Colt, a software engineer from Las Vegas, NV, and Larissa, who is from Brazil, met online when Colt decided to look overseas for love because he wasn't having much luck with American women. According to Colt, U.S. women didn't seem to like that he lived with his mother, Debbie Johnson.After communicating online, Colt and Larissa decided to met in person in Cancun, Mexico.It only took five days for Colt to realize he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Larissa, and so he proposed marriage to her, and sixth season of featured Larissa moving and getting settled into the home Colt shared with Debbie, and their cats.Despite getting into frequent fights when Larissa would cop an attitude over Debbie's involvement in their lives or their less-than-stellar lifestyle, Colt and Larissa filed for their marriage license in Clark County, Nevada on June 11, 2018.And then Colt and Larissa got married on June 24, according to Clark County Clerk records obtained by Reality TV World.Their ceremony was shown on the finale of 's sixth season, with Colt telling the cameras he wanted to spend forever with Larissa.However, viewers then saw a clip of Larissa locking herself in the bedroom and yelling about being "emotionally exhausted" shortly after tying the knot.Larissa had been charged with domestic battery in the state of Nevada following a June 2018 altercation in which Colt called the police but ultimately regretted doing so.The pair, however, got through that difficult situation, and the case was dismissed in October 2018.The short answer is a whole lot has happened since then, and Colt and Larissa are no longer together and are finalizing their divorce.The pair's relationship started to go downhill late last year when Larissa was arrested for domestic violence again in November 2018.The arrest occurred after Larissa posted a series of troubling comments and Instagram Stories on her Instagram account that culminated with the star asking her followers for help and claiming she had locked herself in a bathroom after Colt took her phone when the couple had an argument.According to Larissa, the incident occurred because Colt didn't want her to post anything about him online so "girls" would think he is still single.The Clark County District Attorney eventually declined to pursue charges against Larissa.However the following month, Larissa took to Instagram several additional times and claimed Colt was still flirting and texting with other women and posted examples of numerous photos and text exchanges she had found on Colt's phone.According to Larissa, Colt now believed he could find "someone new" and "better" that would be able to handle his close relationship with his mother Debbie, who was still living with the couple despite 's broadcasts showing the three adults discussing getting separate homes."Colt is cheating [on] me with this girl!" Larissa captioned one screenshot of a text-message exchange between Colt and the woman. "And [he has] plans to use me until he finish Happily Ever After."As shown in the screenshot, Colt texted the woman, "We need to stop talking for a bit."After the woman asked, "Why?" Colt allegedly responded, "Because she's violent... I just need to deal with her. Can you just not talk to her?"The woman apparently replied, "Yeah that's fine... Talk to you whenever," prompting Colt to issue an apology."I'm sorry honey," Colt allegedly told the woman in the screenshot. "I just have to deal with her then I'll be free."The couple stayed together, however, because Colt allegedly owned up to his mistakes and claimed he was going to try to be a better man and fight for his marriage.But the drama didn't stop there, as Larissa was subsequently arrested for the third time in January 2019.Colt and Larissa's relationship reached a disturbing new low when they had their argument back in January, as it escalated into bloody injuries -- including a gash on Larissa's cheek and cut on the inside of Colt's lip.According to Larissa, the fight sparked when she allegedly found email receipts for pornographic videos Colt had allegedly purchased in their Las Vegas home.Larissa was ultimately taken into custody and charged with misdemeanor domestic violence.Hours after the incident, Colt filed for divorce from Larissa on January 11 to end their seven-month relationship.After Colt filed for divorce, Larissa responded to the petition on February 8 and requested Colt pay her $1,000 per month in spousal support.Later that month, the TLC stars hosted separate divorce parties at a Las Vegas club, where both individuals celebrated with friends and strippers and made it clear they were emotionally done with each other.Larissa also publicly debuted her new boyfriend Eric, who is a 26 year old Italian man she gushes is "handsome," "special," and "gentlemanly."Then on April 1, Colt's lawyer released a statement saying Colt and Larissa had reached a divorce agreement and it was the process of being written up to be signed and submitted to the judge overseeing the case. Colt Johnson and Larissa dos Santos Lima have settled their divorce. The motion has been taken off the calendar and an agreement has been reached," said Johnson."Lawyers are in the process of finalizing the written stipulation to sign and submit to the judge."Although the former couple's breakup was nasty, Johnson told E! News at the time the "matter was settled amicably between the parties and each party will walk away and bear their own costs and fees."Colt's attorney added, "The motion for temporary orders and gag order was vacated today by agreement of the attorneys in anticipation of submitting the final settlement and order to the judge."Colt even reportedly "wishes Larissa the best in her future endeavors," according to Johnson.Later in April, Colt and Larissa each shared Instagram postings in which they said they were preparing to sign their divorce papers."Feeling cute... might sign divorce papers today. idk," Colt captioned a smiling selfie.And Larissa shared a brief video of herself posing and modeling, writing, "Ready to sign the divorce papers with my lovely lawyer William."Want more spoilers? Click here to visit our Spoilers webpage! In the run up to Lok Sabha election, National president of Indian National Congress, Rahul Gandhi, is scheduled to hold a rally on May 2 in the State. The State Congress Committee has decided that the national president will address a public meeting in Simdega under Khunti parliamentary constituency. May 2, will be first public rally of Rahul in State after the election dates were announced. Earlier, on March 2 he had addressed Parivartan Ulgulan Maha Rally in Ranchi along with JVM (P) president Babulal Marandi, JMM senior leader Simon Marandi and other senior leaders of Grand Alliance. State Congress Spokesperson, Lal Kishore Nath Shahdeo said, Congress National president is reaching State on May 2 where he will address a rally in the tribal dominated constituency. Sources said that Gandhi scion visit is assumed to be important, as through the rally, the Congress leadership will try to give a message of Grand Alliance unity. The State Congress Committee is upbeat on Gandhis visit. The JPCC has chosen Khunti as best suitable seat for the rally of the Rahul Gandhi because it is tribal dominated constituency and it is near to Ranchi and Hazaribagh constituencies. The party is targeting mostly tribal votes as the community has been traditionally voted to Congress. The party is trying to hold old relation with the community once again through this rally, said Shahdeo. Second phase of polling is scheduled on May 6 in the State. Four parliamentary constituencies -- Khunti, Ranchi, Hazaribagh and Koderma -- will witness polling on the day. Kalicharan Munda is party candidate from Khunti, Subodh Kant Sahay from Ranchi, Gopal Sahu from Hazaribagh and Koderma seat the party has given to Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (JVM) under the alliance and JVM Supremo Babulal Marandi is candidate from the seat. Shahdeo said that the State party workers and the leaders were demanding since a very long time for Rahul and Priyankas visit. Earlier the schedule of the public meeting was April 26 but due to some unavoidable reasons it was not materialised. The party will try to boost workers confidence through this rally, he added. Despite the Jharkhand State Congress Committee demanding visit of another star campaigner of INC Priyanka Gandhi for a long time, the date of her visit is yet not decided. , We're sorry, this article is not currently available Porterville, CA (93257) Today Periods of rain. Low 48F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall around a half an inch. Locally heavy rainfall possible.. Tonight Periods of rain. Low 48F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall around a half an inch. Locally heavy rainfall possible. The driver said the pedestrian darted out in front of his vehicle while he was heading north on Lumpkin Street, according to the University of Georgia police report. BJP national president Amit Shah on Saturday said that the BJP will withdraw Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir, if the party is voted back to power. Addressing a rally in Daltonganjs Shivaji Maidan for party candidate and former DGP, VD Ram, he said, The people of this country have not forgotten, how our soldiers were killed and beheaded by Pakistani army during the UPA tenure 2004 to 2014. The Government at that time used to send only dossiers to Pakistan. Shah was refereeing to January 2013 incident when Pakistani rangers had killed and beheaded an army man. In January, 2013 Lance Naik Hemraj of 13 Rajputana Rifles, was killed and later he was beheaded by Paksitani rangers in Poonch sector of Jammu & Kashmir. The BJP, then in Opposition, and its prime ministerial candidate had picked the issue targeting Congress for having a soft approach of terrorism. The BJP national president, who has been carrying out rallies across the country, was holding the first rally in State. Shah was soliciting support for BJP candidate VD Ram who is pitted against RJDs Ghuran Ram. Slamming National Conference (NC) leader and former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Omar Abdullah for his remark seeking separate Prime Minister for Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), Shah said that Kashmir is inseparable part of country. He said, For India Kashmir is like a crown and nobody can snatch the crown from countrys head. He said, As long as BJP exists, Jammu and Kashmir will remain integral part of India. The problem in Kashmir lies with Article 370, through which the State has got some special rights. Once the Article 370 is removed the entire problem in Kashmir will go. Shah, who is known for reading the mood of public in the rally, questioned, should there be two prime ministers for one country? The question evoked a deafening no from the crowd. The BJP national president also mentioned about the Pulwama terrorist attack and later surgical strike carried out by Indian Air Force in Balakot. He said, When the entire nation was rejoicing with distributing sweets following February 26, Balakot air strike a pall of groom descended on the Congress and Pakistan. Shah also attacked the Congress and Mahagathbandhan leaders alleging them that whenever they are in power they had indulged in massive corruption and even made an Independent MLA (Madhu Koda) chief minister of Jharkhand in 2006. Shah also questioned Congress and Mahagathbandhan partners about their PM candidate mocking that on every day there different Prime Minister as Congress and Mahagathbandhan leaders will chose the PM on rotation basis with Sunday being holiday. According to BJP sources as electioneering in Jharkhand progress after April 29, Shahs will regularly visit State. Shahs next rally is on May 3 at Harmu Maidan in Ranchi. 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. With lyrics, any college student can relate to and simple chords that had heads bobbing in the crowd, Caroline Rose lit up the Georgia Theatre Irami Osei-Frimpong, a PhD student at the University of Georgia, thanks the crowd of supporters before his hearing with the University. Protestors supporting Irami Osei-Frimpong gathered in front of the Miller Learning Center in Athens, Georgia on April 26, 2019. They not only showed support Osei-Frimpong, but also rallied for academic freedom, free speech and free inquiry. (Photo/Daniela Rico) IMAGE: Jet Airways employees and their families stage a protest at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on Saturday. Photograph: ANI A senior technician with Jet Airways allegedly committed suicide in Maharashtra's Palghar district due to depression as he was suffering from cancer, police said on Saturday. Shailesh Singh, 45, jumped off the terrace of his four-storeyed building in Nalasopara East on Friday afternoon, an official said. As per functionaries of Jet Airways Staff and Employees Association, however, Singh was facing 'financial constraints' as employees of the grounded airline have not got salaries for a long time. "He was suffering from cancer and was undergoing chemotherapy. Prime facie, it seems he was suffering from depression due to the ailment," the police official added. It was the first suicide of an employee since the airline suspended operations, these functionaries claimed. The deceased's son is also working in the operations department of the airline, they added. Singh is survived by his wife, two sons and two daughters. An accidental death case has been registered and a probe was underway into the incident, the police official said. Congress president Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who are on the campaign trail for the Lok Sabha polls, met each other at the Kanpur airport in Uttar Pradesh and shared a few light-hearted moments. Posting a video of their meeting on Facebook, Rahul Gandhi wrote: "Was nice meeting Priyanka at Kanpur Airport! We're headed to different meetings in UP." WATCH: What happens when Rahul and Priyanka meet each other "Let me tell you what it means be a good brother. What it means is that I am doing these massive long flights and I am going in a little helicopter squeezed up. And she is doing short flights and going in a big helicopter," he says in the video, with Priyanka Gandhi laughing and saying "that is not true". But, I love her, the Congress chief added. The two also posed for photographs with pilots and the airport ground staff. While Rahul Gandhi was in Raebareli and Amethi on Saturday, Congress general secretary in-charge Uttar Pradesh (East) Priyanka Gandhi was in Unnao and Barabanki. BJP banks on Modi, Congress on its candidate Manvendra Singh in Barmer, India's largest constituency by area after Ladakh. Arup Roychoudhury reports. IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi, right, with Kailash Choudhary. Photograph: Kind courtesy Kailash Choudhary/Facebook Outside the Barmer railway station, there are two huge hoardings. One features the Congress's Manvendra Singh with various local party leaders -- none of the Gandhi family scions are there. Right next to it features one one person -- Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi with the slogan 'Modi hain toh mumkin hain'. Another smaller hoarding a few metres down the road does feature the face of BJP's Barmer candidate Kailash Chaudhary, dwarfed by a larger picture of Modi. Barmer is India's largest constituency by area after Ladakh. Home to important military installations like the Jaisalmer air force station, the Uttarlai air force station, and the Pokhran test range, Barmer has the longest continuous border with Pakistan among all constituencies. Among the older generation, caste loyalties run deep in this vast dry, desert region. According to regional Congress and BJP workers, the breakdown of the main voting blocks are as follows: There are about 350,000 votes each from the Jat, Muslim and scheduled caste communities, around 500,000 other backward classes voters, approximately 250,000 Rajput voters, and around 70,000 scheduled tribe voters. IMAGE: Congress President Rahul Gandhi, left, with Manvendra Singh. Photograph: Kind courtesy @INCIndia/Twitter In the 2014 general election, Barmer recorded the second highest turnout in Rajasthan, with nearly 73 per cent of the 1.68 million eligible voters casting their vote. The incumbent BJP candidate Colonel Sona Ram, who has previously represented the constituency in the Lok Sabha for Congress as well, hasn't been considered this time. Kailash Chaudhary is said to have support of his community, the Jats. "I will vote for the BJP and Kailash Chaudhary. Caste matters here. Had the Congress fielded a Jat candidate, I would have considered. But then, too, Modi has achieved more than past prime ministers," says Dilip Chaudhary, a 24-year-old wedding DJ in Barmer city. Kailash Chaudhary, currently a member of the Rajasthan assembly, rose through the ranks of the BJP from grassroots and is said to be approachable and affable. His own people, however, admit he is a relative lightweight. "On our own, we will find it difficult to compete with legacy and the grassroots network of the Jaswant Singh and his son Manvendra," says a BJP campaign manager who handles Barmer and three other constituencies. "However, we have Modi. His popularity is un-paralleled and our messaging is focused around his achievements and the issue of nationalism." The campaign manager agreed to speak on condition of anonymity. Indeed, at a rally in Samdari village near the textile town of Balotra, various BJP and BJYM (Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha) leaders were sticking to the script. They talked about the rural roads and electrification programmes, the LPG scheme for rural women, and about how Modi taught Pakistan a lesson. "Every vote for Modi will be equal to a bullet against terrorism," Chaudhary said on the dais. He was constantly being mobbed by younger BJP supporters for selfies. IMAGE: Former Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje with Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi at a rally in Jaipur, October 6, 2018. Photograph: PTI The only leader who did not directly attack the Gandhi family and did not resort to nationalism was star speaker Vasundhara Raje, the former chief minister of the state. The crowd of about 1,200 villagers did not respond to slogans regarding the Modi government's achievements as much as they responded to chants of 'Bharat Mata ki Jai'. In fact when one of the local BJP leaders spoke about the LPG scheme, a quick survey of the women in the crowd revealed that most of them hadn't got their gas connections. This was markedly different from Manvendra Singh's rallies and interactions. At the courtyard of his rented bungalow on the outskirts of Barmer, a crowd of around 50 people had gathered with various requests, waiting for Singh to listen to them. His interactions throughout the time that I spent with him were much smaller, more on the lines of sabha meetings. "A Lok Sabha election is a mix of local and national factors. The combination between the two is what the clincher is. I am keeping it as local as I can. For me, it is a matter of personal contract built over the years, a personal network, the friendship built over the years," Singh says on the way to another campaign stop. Not once does he say 'Bharat Mata ki Jai', instead it is the shorter 'Jai Hind'. Singh is said to have the support of most Rajputs and Muslims. His votebank is loyal to his family and not to any party. Mohammad Haroon, a 53-year old vegetable wholeseller, said he voted for BJP earlier when Singh was its member. Now, he will vote for Congress. "The BJP openly threatens our community. Why should we vote for them? Hum party nahi, insaan dekhte hain." The EC limits campaign expenses incurred by a candidate to Rs 50 lakh to Rs 70 lakh. But there is no such limit on spending for parties. The vendors aren't complaining. Ritwik Sharma and Dhruv Munjal report. IMAGE: Main Bhi Chowkidar t-shirts. Photograph: @namomerchandise/Facebook Far from the hurly-burly of election campaigning that is the source of his bread and butter, Gulshan Khurana leans back on a leather chair and stares into his smartphone at his tiny office in New Delhi's Sadar Bazar. The cramped room is stacked with stickers, caps, flags, garlands, badges, sashes, cutouts, T-shirts and pamphlets of various political parties. A TV set and pictures of Khurana and his daughter posing with political bigwigs separate the mounds of display material. This is a hectic time for Khurana, who is among the dozens of suppliers of election campaign material in what is one of Asia's largest wholesale markets. Photograph: @namomerchandise/Facebook His shop, Krishna Printers, has been in business since the 1950s. Back then, his father sold tin badges to politicians. In this election season, he reckons, vendors like him would easily surpass the Rs 200 crore business they did five years ago. Khurana is part of a subcontracting economy; he buys the material from factories and sells it to political parties. He is also a senior member of a lobby group that has fought off Election Commission guidelines that tried to curb the use of campaign material -- a trade of cheap items that relies on high volumes. Photograph: Kind courtesy Laggar Industries As India votes in what could well be the world's costliest election -- the Centre for Media Studies estimates it to be a Rs 50,000 crore ($7 billion) affair -- an opaque system riding on money power has thrown up opportunities for a range of businesses: from those supplying campaign material, tents and mics to those selling or renting out armoured vehicles and helicopters to political parties. The scene outside the Bharatiya Janata Party headquarters on Ashoka Road in Delhi offers a tiny peek into this unorganised but thriving economy. Around midday on April 11, the first day of polling, 22-year-old Shah Rukh -- he goes only by his first name -- announces enthusiastically: "Modi will come back." IMAGE: NaMo Again Mugs. Photograph: Adnan Abidi/Reuters Shah Rukh and his subordinate, Shankar, are in charge of a mini-truck selling official NaMo merchandise across the street from the BJP office. The vehicle, painted saffron and blue, stocks a host of products: Key rings, diaries, pens, caps, coffee mugs, party badges and T-shirts bearing the ubiquitous electoral cry of Main Bhi Chowkidar. A cutout of Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi keeps vigil from the top. IMAGE: NaMo Again wristbands! Photograph: Adnan Abidi/Reuters Business has been brisk since the duo set up shop over a month ago, with sales touching Rs 5,000 on average days and Rs 10,000 on good days -- impressive returns considering that the most expensive item is a T-shirt worth Rs 300. Modi personally endorsed the merchandise on Twitter last month, a move for which he faced widespread flak on social media. Expectedly, the Main Bhi Chowkidar tee is a rage; the NaMo Again cap is another bestseller. There are four other such mini-trucks vending BJP merchandise across the capital. The proceeds from sales, it is claimed, will go to the Namami Gange Programme, a central government conservation project for the rejuvenation of the Ganga. Photograph: Kind courtesy Laggar Industries Over at the Congress headquarters, Lokesh Guraiya has seen his share of electoral battles. For 20 years, Guraiya, 35, has been selling merchandise outside the party's office at 24 Akbar Road. "Is baar, Modi ki hawa kam hai (There's less of a Modi wave this time)," he declares confidently. At Guraiya's pavement store, which has a variety of promotional goods spread across a white sheet, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is a clear favourite among merchandise seekers. At Rs 100, a sash with her beaming face plastered on it is the costliest item on offer. IMAGE: What time is it? According to this one, it's time for NaMo again.... According to reports, funds from the sale of the merchandise would be used for cleaning the Ganga. Photograph: Adnan Abidi/Reuters "When the tickets were being distributed, a lot of politicians used to stop by and buy sashes in bulk -- plain ones are available for as little as Rs 8," says Guraiya. Sales were rocketing till last month, when Guraiya was comfortably doing business worth Rs 2,000 every day. For aspiring politicians seeking essential election material, his is a one-stop shop -- he even sells khadi at Rs 200 a metre. "In Chandni Chowk, they say 'hum dulhe banate hain' (we help make grooms). Yahan, main neta banata hoon (Here, I help make politicians)," he quips. IMAGE: #NationFirst. Party Next. Self Last. Lotus Reusable Stickers. Photograph: @namomerchandise/Facebook The festival of democracy is a profitable time for tent-wallahs too, says BJP leader Sudhanshu Mittal, who runs a family tent business. From staging conventions for various political parties, his company, Delhi Tent and Decorators, has moved on to putting up infrastructure at the counting centres and polling booths, at Modi's rallies and at big-ticket events such as the recently concluded Kumbh Mela. Mittal claims that medium and small businesses could witness up to a 100 per cent jump in revenue during the general election. At the average public meeting in localities, a tent supplier makes Rs 8,000 to Rs 10,000. Yograj Bagga, 64, who provides tents and the accompanying paraphernalia including tables, chairs, acoustics and lighting on rent, is expecting 10 to 15 such orders during this election. Photograph: Kind courtesy Laggar Industries Another important cog in this giant wheel is the audio contractor. Days before Modi's rally in Dehradun earlier in April, the city's Parade Ground was given a makeover. Among the embellishments were more than 500 speakers and a handful of sound boxes. The audio contract was given out to Lucknow-based Tayal Sound, a veteran of sorts when it comes to supplying acoustics for election rallies -- its reliability dates back to the days of Indira Gandhi. Given the high security, preparation for Modi's address was tougher than usual, says Nirmal Agarwal, who handles the Uttarakhand operations for the company. "We spent almost three days setting up the equipment. We had to work with the SPG (Special Protection Group) and many security drills had to be followed." The acoustics employed were state-of-the-art; the microphone on the dais alone ran into a couple of lakh rupees. Interestingly, Tayal Sound was once a fixture at all of Mayawati's rallies. Since 2014, however, when it bagged a contract for Modi's debut rally in Ranchi, it has become a regular feature at most BJP events in the region. Its presence, though, cuts across party lines: it was Tayal Sound that did the acoustics at Rahul Gandhi's Dehradun rally last month. While Agarwal refuses to disclose figures, one rally is estimated to cost a party Rs 10 lakh to Rs 15 lakh. IMAGE: A BJP keychain. Photograph: @namomerchandise/Facebook Over in Jalandhar, Punjab, mechanics at Sunchit Sobti's workshop have spent the last six months retrofitting cars -- mostly SUVs -- with bullet-proof glass and armoured steel plates. Campaigning during election time, after all, calls for special security measures -- last fortnight, a BJP MLA in Chhattisgarh was killed when an improvised explosive device ripped through his convoy. This election season has been particularly busy for Sobti, whose Laggar Industries has been supplying armoured vehicles for nearly three decades. Orders for customisation started piling up as early as the middle of last year. "The run-up to campaigning is the most hectic for us. We've customised more than 200 vehicles in the last eight months. We just have five or so more to go," says Sobti. The level of ballistic sophistication varies, he explains. Some like to go for just the basics -- bullet-proof glass with blast-resistant doors -- while others opt for roof protection and advanced features such as explosive-resistant fuel tanks. In rare cases, Sobti has even fitted cars with a mine protection system, the kind that armed forces use in highly militarised zones. IMAGE: Different kinds of diaries from the BJP -- from the NaMo Beti Bachao Beti Padhao notebook to the Modified India spiral notebook to the Swachch Bharat Swasth Bharat diary. Photograph: @namomerchandise/Facebook Sobti, whose father first started supplying armoured cars to local politicians during the days of insurgency in Punjab in the mid-1980s, understands the enormity of what's at stake. Precision is key at his workshop, with one vehicle sometimes taking as many as three months to get battle-ready. "It's a long process that requires a lot of elements to come together. We can't take chances," he says. Sobti's customer base has expanded to big builders and businessman in recent years -- he is almost never out of work. The cost of protecting the vehicle from gun fire, grenades and shrapnel can be steep. A fairly rudimentary safety pack for the car at Laggar comes with a price tag of Rs 700,000. With some vehicles, it can go up to Rs 60 lakh. Without getting into the specifics, Sobti says orders have been trickling in from political parties across the state. "Even with police protection available, people want to be doubly sure," he says. IMAGE: Make in India magnets! Photograph: @namomerchandise/Facebook Come election time, political parties also vie for choppers, which help star campaigners flit from rally to rally, covering the remotest parts of the country. Both industrialists and politicians own aviation companies that rent out these choppers and chartered planes. According to reports, the number of civilian helicopters with charter companies is well below 100, which isn't commensurate with their growing demand. This election season, the allegation from Opposition parties is that the BJP has booked most of them, leaving very few for the others. Ashish Bhushan, who retired as squadron leader from the air force and runs an aviation and charter company, says, "Political parties are very good paymasters. They pay in advance unlike regular clients. It also helps that their schedules are confirmed." With rates and utilisation up during elections, charter companies catering to political activity see a sizeable increase in revenue. "Parties typically commit to fly the machine -- chopper or jet -- exclusively for a couple of months. In normal circumstances, people seek 40 to 50 hours of fly time a month, but during election time parties look for up to 90, 100 or even 120 hours," adds Bhushan, who does not want to reveal the name of his company. Rates vary according to the aircraft. A single-engine helicopter spikes fare from Rs 80,000 to Rs 85,000 to Rs 100,000 to Rs 110,000 an hour during elections. High-end chopper rates can exceed Rs 300,000 an hour, and carriers on average clock up to 75 hours a month for parties, says Bhushan. The EC limits campaign expenses incurred by a candidate to Rs 50 lakh to Rs 70 lakh, depending on the state one is contesting from. But there is no such limit on spending for parties. The vendors aren't complaining. 'From Doklam to Wuhan and the return of the India-China relationship to its previous equilibrium is indeed a major contribution of President Xi and PM Modi. Without any doubt they deserve the kudos for their sagacity and their wisdom,' says Ambassador Gautam Bambawale, India's envoy to China during the Wuhan summit. IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Wuhan, April 27, 2018. It is exactly one year since the India-China Informal Summit between Prime Minister Modi and President Xi Jinping which had taken place at Wuhan on April 27-28, 2018. Long enough for some of the results of that summit meeting between the leaders of two ancient civilisations, which are also re-emerging on the world stage to recapture their pre-eminence in the global scenario, become apparent. The following paragraphs will attempt an analysis of the Wuhan meeting. First, India and China, have contributed the concept of 'informal summits' to global diplomatic practice. The seminal Wuhan Informal Summit showed that leadership interaction between two countries could be entirely at the informal level without necessitating any of the bells and whistles that international protocol demands. Such informal meetings have, in the recent past, been a small part of a larger formal visit by a State leader. However, the meeting in Wuhan, was one of the first which was entirely informal in its setting, in approach and in its implementation. The reason the two countries agreed to such an 'Informal Leaders Meeting' was to give ample time and space to the leaders to talk to each other on topics which they decided themselves. Naturally, there was some coordination on the broad subjects to be covered beforehand, but the leaders were free to decide how long to dwell on any one subject or in what direction a particular conversation was to be taken. While this can even be true of more formal meetings with a set agenda, it is the hallmark of an informal meeting. Hence, India and China, which gave the world the Panchsheel or Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence in the 1950s, have once again contributed to diplomatic practice in the 21st Century. The Wuhan Informal Summit between the Indian prime minister and Chinese president was also strong on what is described by some as 'strategic communication'. It was an exercise in understanding the other side's point of view, its dreams, its goals and objectives, its assessments and its strategies. Starting with each country's civilisational ethic, norms and traditions which shape the reality of today, the two leaders also spoke to one another of the hopes, ambitions and desires of their people. This translated into mutual understanding of the other's policies, both domestic as well as foreign, the nature of geo-economics and geo-politics, how the two can work together in larger multilateral forums as well as an acknowledgement of the areas where the two sides have differences of opinion and positions. Such a clear, frank and direct exchange of views would perhaps not have been possible in more formal settings where leaders normally speak from prepared texts and talking points. Informal settings are more amenable to producing candid views and sharing of confidences. So, President Xi and Prime Minister Modi have been trailblazers in setting new diplomatic precedents and norms. That the India-China Wuhan Informal Summit has been successful in returning the bilateral relationship to an even keel has become increasingly obvious over the past year. Therein lies its significance as well as its success. Readers will recollect the ill-temper and fiery rhetoric from China during and in the immediate aftermath of the Doklam incident. From the Indian side was a relatively cool but firm response with the Indian media playing a particularly important role in keeping things in perspective. From Doklam to Wuhan and the return of the India-China relationship to its previous equilibrium is indeed a major contribution of President Xi and PM Modi. Without any doubt they deserve the kudos for their sagacity and their wisdom. What have been the results following the Wuhan Informal Summit? First, ministerial meetings have resumed between the two countries with India's external affairs and defence ministers having visited China and in return China's defence, public security and foreign ministers having been to India in 2018. While our ministers went to China mainly for SCO meetings, both had an important bilateral segment to their visits. In fact, the Wuhan summit was formally announced to public opinion by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at their interaction with the media following their bilateral interaction in Beijing. Raksha Mantri Nirmala Sitharaman too had a very important bilateral with her counterpart Chinese minister which led to a thaw in defence and military cooperation between our countries. The visit to India of China's public security minister and interaction with Home Minister Rajnath Singh has led to new grounds for cooperation between India and China in law enforcement, counter terrorism and intelligence sharing. This will prove to be of particular significance in the years ahead. In December 2018, the foreign ministers of India and China held their first meeting of the High Level Mechanism on People-to-People Exchanges which has been identified as the weak link in our bilateral ties. Good political and economic exchanges need to be backed up by higher flows of ordinary citizens between our countries. We need to continue working on this aspect of the relationship. Second and very significantly, military exchanges too have resumed with interactions between our Eastern Army Command and China's Western Theater Command. Since these are the commanders and troops which man significant sections of our common frontier, it is important for them to meet each other and attempt to understand the workings of the other side including how they react to situations on the ground. What is even more important is the resumption of naval cooperation as was seen recently with the visit of two Indian Navy ships to Qingdao this April to participate in China's International Fleet Review. Defence exchanges should not merely be limited to study visits, attending courses in the military schools of the other side and perfunctory port calls by naval ships. They need to go beyond such symbolism and aim at getting a better understanding of the doctrines, practices and assessments of the other side. Naturally, this will not be immediately possible but a start has to be made somewhere. On the border itself, there is a need for new Confidence Building Measures which will aim at defusing the increasing close proximity situations that have been witnessed in the recent past. Additional Standard Operating Procedures may also have to be put into place. Third, India's trade deficit with China has narrowed even while trade has continued its expansion. This is heartening news even if it does not signal any structural change in two-way commerce. It is the result of great effort on both sides, including at the official and political levels. However, more needs to be done especially in the export of Indian pharma products and software to China. If we are able to sell these items to China, only then will there be a basic change in the deficit picture. To tackle the trade imbalance, India must focus on getting more Chinese tourists to India as well as on ensuring that Chinese firms invest in greenfield ventures in our country. Fourth, readers must have taken note that the India-China boundary has been relatively quiet this summer as a result of the understanding between PM Modi and President Xi. This has enabled India to focus on our domestic politics of a general election even though our western borders have been challenging. Finally, India has become an active member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation participating in all its activities including joint military exercises. This provides India with strategic and diplomatic space even as we strengthen our cooperation with the United States and Japan. That Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has already announced to the media that his country is looking forward to a second Informal Summit later in 2019 indicates that China too feels that this format has proved successful. It is very likely that Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale discussed this matter during his just concluded visit to Beijing. However, a precise date can only be worked out once the newly elected Government of India takes office. Be that as it may, it appears to most observers that the Informal Summit option for leadership level meetings seems to be here to stay. Gautam Bambawale has served as India's Ambassador to Bhutan, Pakistan and China. He was present at Wuhan in the capacity of Indian Ambassador to China. He is currently Distinguished Professor, Symbiosis International University, Pune. Views are personal. Crime Investigation Agency (CIA), Palam Vihar of the Gurugram police arrested six members, including wanted criminals of the Kushal gang on Thursday. Four of the accused were arrested from Dehradun and the other two were nabbed from Gurugrams Manesar. The accused were involved in dozens murder cases, attempt to murder, extortion, kidnapping, loot, dacoity and activities violating the Arms Act in Gurugram and adjoining states. Those arrested have been identified as Ranbir Saini (35) of Jhajjar, Ashu alias Hukka (26) of Pataudi, Gurugram, Sushil alias Malinga (30), Satish alias Pouva (27) of Gautambudh Nagar, Uttar Pradesh, Sumit alias Babua (23) and Gaurav alias Chintu (19) of Farrukhnagar, Gurugram. Ranbir, a wanted criminal and was carrying a bounty of Rs 6 six lakh of which five lakh was announced by the Haryana police and 1 lakh by the Delhi police in relation to a murder case. Saini was a parole jumper since 2009 and Ashu was also carrying a bounty of Rs 25,000 announced by the Delhi police. According to the police following a tip-off, a team of the CIA, Palam Vihar headed by Inspector Bijendra Hudda came to know about the movements of the criminals in Dehradun and Manesar area. With the help of technical information and human intelligence a team of CIA Palam Vihar dispatched Dehradun to nab the alleged criminals and arrested them successfully. We had informed the local police about the hideouts of the criminals. Another team nabbed their two accomplices from Manesar. Ranbir, Ashu, Sumit and Gaurav were arrested from Dehradun while Sushil and Satish arrested from Manesar, Muhammad Akil, Commissioner Gurugram police said. The culprits allegedly threatened several businessmen in the city and adjoining state to extort money from them. They had opened fired at Harish Bakery to extort money from the owner. The accused had also threatened the owner of Pushpanjali hospital in Rewari to extort money from him, he said. Before their arrest, the culprits had uploaded a video on Facebook which went viral on the social media platform in which they pleaded for their life. They alleged that they wanted to surrender but the police team rounded them up and want to eliminate them. Sources claimed that the probe team has also detained a woman who was also present in the video for further investigation. A father of the woman has also filed a kidnapping case in Muzaffarnagar police station in Uttar Pradesh against an unknown person, police said. The alleged gang members came in contact with another criminal of the Kaushal gang and joined the group to eliminate their opponents. Our different teams of CIA on their task to catch more members of the gang, said the commissioner. The probe team is also scanning the video which was uploaded by the criminals on the social media platform. It is being investigated whether the video was new or old. The accused were produced before the court on Friday which sent them to police custody. Further probe into the matter is underway, said Inspector Bijendra Hooda, in charge CIA, Palam Vihar. SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal and his Union minister wife Harsimrat Kaur Badal together have assets worth Rs 115.95 crore, according to their election affidavits. Sukhbir Singh, who is in fray from the Ferozepur Lok Sabha seat, has moveable and immovable property worth Rs 75.88 crore. His wife and Union minister Harsimrat Kaur, who is contesting from the Bathinda Lok Sabha, has assets worth Rs 40.07 crore. Before filing nomination papers on Friday, the couple paid obeisance at the Golden Temple in Amritsar. Both the candidates along with their supporters took out road shows in Ferozepur and Bathinda. Sukhbir Singh, who is an MLA from Jalalabad, owns horses worth Rs 95.82 lakh while his wife possesses paintings worth Rs 3.40 lakh. He has two weapons worth Rs 4 lakh and his wife has a weapon worth Rs 1.25 lakh, according to their affidavits. He has moveable assets worth Rs 23.12 crore while his wife's moveable assets are valued at Rs 24.17 crore. Harsimrat Kaur owns jewellery worth Rs 7.03 crore and Sukhbir Singh has gold jewellery worth Rs 9 lakh, their affidavits stated. Sukhbir Singh's immovable assets are valued at Rs 52.76 crore and his wife has immovable assets worth Rs 15.90 crore. He has agricultural land, non-agricultural land, shops, residential property in Muktsar, Sirsa (Haryana), Ganganagar (Rajasthan), Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Jalandhar. He has a 2,225 square yard house in Chandigarh's Sector 9 which has a market value of Rs 22.81 crore. Sukhbir Singh and Harsimrat Kaur have cash worth Rs 33,936 and Rs 16,424, respectively. The former Punjab deputy chief minister possesses two tractors worth Rs 2.38 lakh but Harsimrat Kaur has no vehicle in her name. Both have investments in shares, bonds and debentures. According to his affidavit, Sukhbir Singh's liabilities are worth Rs 43.67 crore while his Hindu Undivided Family's (HUF) liabilities are worth Rs 51.81 crore. He has an outstanding income tax demand of Rs 6.69 lakh (year 2002-03) and an appeal in this case is pending before Income Tax appellate Tribunal. He has wealth tax penalty of Rs 2.13 lakh and an appeal against it is pending before the commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals), Bathinda. He is facing trial in four criminal cases in different courts of Punjab, according to the affidavit. PRENEET KAUR OWNS PERSONAL ASSETS WORTH RS 5.13 CR Congress candidate from Patiala Preneet Kaur has declared assets worth Rs 5.13 crore while filing nomination papers on Friday for the Lok Sabha elections. The 74-year-old former Union minister is the wife of Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh. She is pitted against sitting MP and Nawan Punjab Party (NPP) nominee Dharamavira Gandhi, SAD candidate Surjit Singh Rakhra and AAP's Neena Mittal. According to the affidavit, Preneet declared movable and immovable assets of Rs 3.37 crore and Rs 1.76 crore respectively. Her husband's assets were worth Rs 6.13 crore, while assets of Amarinder Singh HUF (Hindu Undivided Family) were valued at Rs 63.17 crore. Among movable assets, Preneet Kaur owns Innova worth Rs 11.62 lakh, while her husband does not have a vehicle. She has declared gold jewellery and precious stones worth Rs 33.18 lakh and the chief minister has gold jewellery worth Rs 36.11 lakh, stated the affidavit. Preneet Kaur, Amarinder Singh and Amarinder Singh HUF have immovable properties in Shimla, Haridwar, Mohali and Moti Bagh Palace in Patiala. The former minister has a Bachelors in Arts (BA) degree that she completed from St Bedes College, Shimla in 1964. JAKHAR HAS ASSETS OF RS 4.41 CRORE Punjab Congress chief and sitting MP Sunil Jakhar ON Friday also filed his nomination papers from Gurdaspur parliamentary constituency. The 65-year-old Congress leader declared total assets to the tune of Rs 4.41 crore in his affidavit. He was accompanied by the chief minister and local Congress leaders while filing his papers. He also declared his spouse's assets worth Rs 20.75 crore. Having shown himself as an agriculturalist, Jakhar disclosed cash in hand, bank deposits, gold jewellery and investments worth Rs 1.53 crore. He has immovable assets of Rs 2.88 crore. Jakhar is pitted against Bollywood actor and BJP candidate Sunny Deol from Gurdaspur seat. Armenia is celebrating its newest holiday after a bill designating the last Saturday in April as Citizen's Day was adopted by the Armenian parliament earlier this month. Events were held throughout the country on April 27, with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian attending festivities in Yerevan. Citizen's Day marks the anniversary of the nationwide protest movement in April 2018 that ousted longtime leader Serzh Sarkisian and swept Pashinian to power. Opposition and rights groups have objected to state money -- around $255,000 -- being spent to celebrate a political victory. YEREVAN -- Armenians rallied in the capital, Yerevan, and throughout the country to celebrate the countrys newest holiday, amid criticism from opposition groups that the government was improperly spending state money. Citizen's Day, marked on April 27, became the newest holiday after Armenias parliament passed legislation earlier this month. The day celebrates the anniversary of nationwide protests in 2018 that ousted longtime leader Serzh Sarkisian and swept Nikol Pashinian to power. Pashinian, who joined supporters in eating Armenian barbecue cooked over a fire in one Yerevan square, said in a message on Facebook that the holiday was a victory for all Armenians. Opposition and rights groups have objected to spending public funds to organize the holiday festivities. They say the holiday is essentially a celebration of a political victory. An estimated $255,000 was earmarked for the celebrations. Reports from eastern Ukraines Luhansk region say the death toll from an underground coal-mine explosion has been raised to 17, with Russia-backed separatist leaders who control the mine saying all the bodies of missing miners have been recovered. The revised death toll was announced on April 27 after search-and-rescue workers recovered the miners' bodies from beneath debris inside the mine in the village of Yurivka, which is in territory controlled by Russia-backed separatists. Russias Emergency Situations Ministry says it sent mine rescuers to the Skhidcarbon mine at the request of separatist leaders who control the mines operations. Rescue workers from the Ukrainian government did not have official access to the area. A methane gas explosion ripped through the mine on April 25, reportedly causing parts of the mine to collapse. The Skhidcarbon mine had been closed in 2014 due to the conflict between Ukrainian government forces and the Russia-backed separatists. But it was reopened in 2018. Based on reporting by AFP and dpa WASHINGTON -- FBI Director Christopher Wray has warned that Russia is continuing its attempts to meddle in U.S. elections, saying it is a malign foreign influence that poses a significant counterintelligence threat to the United States. In an April 26 speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, Wray warned that Russian operations under the direction of President Vladimir Putin are likely to intensify during the 2020 presidential campaign. We recognize that our adversaries are going to keep adapting and upping their game, Wray said. I do think that Russia poses a very significant counterintelligence threat, certainly in the cyber arena, certainly what we call the malign foreign influence territory, certainly in their presence of intelligence officers in this country. Wray described how the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and U.S. intelligence agencies created task forces to coordinate their efforts to confront interference in the 2018 U.S. midterm elections -- a move that followed Russia's attempts to manipulate U.S. public opinion during the 2016 presidential race. We are very much viewing 2018 as just kind of a dress rehearsal for the big show in 2020, Wray said. Wray also said that countries like China, Iran, and North Korea have attempted foreign influence in the United States. He said those countries have been watching and taking note of what the Russians attempted to do in 2016 and since. I think we expect that this is going to become a phenomenon were going to have to contend with, with a lot more than just Russia, he said. President Vladimir Putin has criticized a decision by a U.S. court to sentence Russian citizen Maria Butina to 18 months in prison after she pleaded guilty of acting as a Russian agent without registering. Putin told journalists on the sidelines of a summit in Beijing on April 27 that the U.S. court decision was "arbitrary" and that Russian authorities "don't understand why she was sentenced." "There is nothing we could accuse her of, but to make this case not look completely ridiculous, she was sentenced to 18 months in prison," Putin said. Putin's remarks came a day after the U.S. court issued its sentence against Butina, who admitted she had tried to infiltrate conservative U.S. political circles and promote the interests of the Russian state before and after the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Earlier on April 27, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in Moscow that Butina's jail sentence was "unacceptable. We believe that the Russian national was not, and could not, be involved in what she is accused of, Peskov said. Butina has been jailed since her arrest in July 2018 and will receive credit for the nine months she already has served. The U.S. court ruled that after completing her prison sentence in January 2020, she will be immediately deported back to Russia. Butina pleaded guilty to charges of not registering as an agent of the Russian government and carrying out activities on behalf of the Russian state while she was a university student in the United States. Defense lawyers had argued that Butina was merely eager to build connections with U.S. political activists, particularly conservatives, and that her failure to register with the Justice Department was an oversight on her part. But U.S. Judge Tanya Chutkan rejected those arguments on April 26. This was not a simple misunderstanding by an overeager foreign student, Chutkan said. The case against Butina was separate from the now-concluded investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. But it touched on many of the same issues related to how and why Russia sought to interfere in U.S. politics ahead of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Prosecutors say that before and during her studies at American University in Washington, she sought to build relationships with conservative groups like the National Rifle Association on behalf of at least one powerful Kremlin-connected lawmaker. Shortly after her sentencing, the Russian Embassy in Washington called Butina a "political prisoner" and demanded her immediate release. The Foreign Ministry said she had pleaded guilty to avoid a longer prison term. It called the sentence "a shameful stain on the American judicial system" and claimed it was "the result of a blatant political order." That kind of criticism is frequently made against Putins government by Kremlin opponents, human rights groups, and Western countries who say Russian courts are routinely used as political instruments. Acquittals are very rare, and critics say suspects and convicts are often kept behind bars groundlessly. With reporting by Reuters, AP, AFP, TASS, and Interfax It started with rumors of children fainting or vomiting after they received a vaccination against the polio virus in a village in Pakistan's northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Then clerics at local mosques in the region blared warnings through loudspeakers, ordering parents not to let health workers immunize their children against the deadly disease. Meanwhile, anti-vaccination propaganda videos rapidly went viral on social media, with one claiming children had been "poisoned" by the drops. Rumors originating from a suburb of the provincial capital, Peshawar, then claimed that children were dropping dead after receiving the vaccine. As the rumors spread, thousands of panicked parents rushed their children by car, motorcycle, and foot to major hospitals in the city, forcing the stunned health facilities to declare emergencies. Panic then turned into anger, with one mob burning down a local medical clinic in a Peshawar suburb. The rumors turned out to be wildly exaggerated. Health officials said only several children out of the 25,000 rushed to hospitals were suffering from vomiting or stomach pain; there were no deaths. The dramatic events of April 22 highlighted the major obstacles to eradicating polio in Pakistan, one of only three countries, along with Afghanistan and Nigeria, that suffer from the disease, a childhood virus that can cause paralysis or death. Authorities arrested members of the mob that burned down the clinic and detained those behind the propaganda videos. The health minister went on television in a plead to parents to convince them that the vaccines were safe. But the damage was done. The mass panic halted the April 23-25 immunization drive in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, dealing a fresh blow to ongoing efforts to finally eliminate the disease from the deeply religious and conservative South Asian nation. Many residents of the poor, largely rural Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have long been suspicious of the vaccine, with conservative Islamic clerics and militants claiming it is a Western conspiracy to harm or sterilize children. Meanwhile, on April 27, Pakistani health officials announced they had suspended the anti-polio drive across the entire country following the killings of a health worker and two policemen escorting vaccination teams. 'A Nightmare' Riaz Khan was at work in Peshawar when he received a call from friends living in the Mashokhel suburb of the city. "They said some children have died there after taking the vaccine," he said. "I got so scared for my children that I couldn't even think about the authenticity of the news." The 35-year-old hurried home to his children, who had received the vaccination that day, and rushed them to the hospital. "At the hospital, the doctors told me that there was nothing wrong with my kids," Khan said. Muhammad Asim, an official at the Lady Reading Hospital, one of three major health facilities in the city, described what he said was "a nightmare." "For the last 15 years, we have been through many emergencies because of bomb blasts and terrorism-related casualties, but this was a nightmare," he said. Asim said the 500-bed hospital was overwhelmed with around 5,000 children and their families in the first 12 hours after the rumors spread. "They literally choked our system," he said, adding that the three major hospitals in Peshawar were flooded with more than 25,000 children within 24 hours. "All our doctors and nurses were trying to assure the worried parents that nothing had happened to their kids," he said. "We put announcements by well-known doctors on social media to calm the people, but it was like no one was ready to hear or believe it. I personally asked hundreds of kids and they told me that they are feeling just normal." 'It Backfired' Dr. Shabeer Ahmad, a coordinator of the anti-polio campaign at the provincial health department, said they had decided to add Vitamin A to the polio vaccine to help malnourished children. He said if taken on an empty stomach, Vitamin A can cause vomiting or stomach pain. Ahmad said this happened to a few children in Mashokhel, where he said angry parents set fire to a local health clinic that was administering the vaccines. Nobody was hurt in the blaze. "We added Vitamin A because it strengthens the immune system and helps the vaccine to be more effective," said Dr. Akram Shah, the director of the Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI), a provincial body. "But it backfired. We had to stop the campaign in many areas." Shah said Pakistan has had a history of opposition to immunization efforts and "propagandists utilized the situation and took it to a new level." Despite the obstacles, Pakistani health workers, together with the World Health Organization (WHO) and other international aid groups, have immunized millions of children across the country since 2012 with more than 100 rounds of the vaccination drive. The effort has brought the number of polio cases to eight, compared to more than 300 in 2014. Extremist Propaganda Public health studies in Pakistan have shown that maternal illiteracy and low parental knowledge about vaccines -- together with poverty and rural residency -- are factors that most commonly influence whether children are vaccinated against the polio virus. Another factor is that conservative Islamic clerics and militants in the region have spread propaganda claiming the vaccine sterilizes young boys. Anti-vaccination propaganda has also been fueled by distrust of Western governments who fund vaccine programs -- particularly after the CIA reportedly staged a fake hepatitis-vaccination campaign in 2011 to confirm the location of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who lived in and was killed by U.S. SEALs in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Since then, some clerics have even issued fatwas saying that children who become paralyzed or die from polio are "martyrs" because they refused to be tricked by a Western conspiracy. Pakistani militants have also propagandized that Western-made vaccines contain pig fat or alcohol, which are both forbidden in Islam. Militants have kidnapped, beaten, and assassinated dozens of vaccinators or their armed police escorts in recent years in a bid to stop local anti-polio campaigns. A police officer was shot and killed by gunmen on April 23 while on his way to join a polio team in the northwestern district of Bannu. A day later, gunmen shot and killed another police officer guarding a polio-eradication team in the remote Buner district. A female polio worker was shot dead by gunmen in the neighboring province of Balochistan on April 25. Dismissing the possibility of any threat to Congress sitting MP and party contender Sunil Jakhar from the BJP candidate in fray from Gurdaspur constituency, Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Friday said that Sunny Deol was just a filmy fauji with no ground support in the constituency. He (Sunny Deol) is a filmy fauji, while I am a real fauji...We will defeat him, he is no threat to Sunil or the Congress, quipped Capt Amarinder while talking to mediapersons after accompanying Jakhar for filing his nomination papers. Describing Sunny Deol as an ageing actor whose acting career was over, Capt Amarinder said: He (Sunny) will come and go. Sunny might have played 23 Punjabs Brigadier Kuldip Singh Chandpuri in Border movie but that does not make him a real fauji, he said. When a journalist pointed out that Sunny Deols latest movie Blank was set for release, Capt Amarinder further retorted: He will draw a blank (in the elections). Expressing confidence that the Congress will win all 13 seats in the state including Gurdaspur, the Chief Minister reiterated that he will go all out to ensure the complete rout of SAD president Sukhbir Badal and his wife Harsimrat Badal in these Lok Sabha elections. Captain Amarinder said he had gone through Punjab and the mood across the state was upbeat, and totally in favour of the Congress. There was absolutely no competition to the party, he asserted, in response to a question. NO MODI WAVE, CONGRESS WILL MAKE CLEAN SWEEP: CAPT Patiala: Confident of a clean sweep for the Congress in Punjab, Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Friday said that in the absence of any Modi wave, and with no achievements to boast, BJP was in a state of complete regression and would be ousted from power. We will win for sure, we will win all the 13 seats, including Bathinda (from where Harsimrat Badal and Ferozepur from Sukhbir Badal are contesting for SAD), said Captain Amarinder while talking to the media-persons after accompanying his wife and Congress candidate from Patiala Preneet Kaur to the Deputy Commissioner office for the filing of her nomination papers for the Lok Sabha elections. He said that the mood in Punjab was completely changed from what it was in 2014, and the Congress in the State was going all out to deliver on its Mission-13 and give all the 13 seats to Congress national president Rahul Gandhi. Capt Amarinder maintained that Rahul would definitely be campaigning in Punjab, though the dates and venues were yet to be decided. NO DIFFERENCES WITH JAKHAR OVER MANSAHIAs INDUCTION Patiala: Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Friday made it clear that there were no differences with the state Congress president Sunil Jakhar over the joining of Aam Aadmi Partys MLA Nazar Singh Mansahia in the party. Reacting on the reports that Jakhar was not kept in the loop about Manshahia joining the state Congress, the Chief Minister said that all issues were discussed with the PPCC president while categorically denying any differences in the matter with Jakhar. Russia has accused the United States of the "politics of blackmail" after Washington imposed sanctions on Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza as part of efforts to force embattled Moscow ally Nicolas Maduro to step down from the presidency. "We exhort the United States to return to the realm of international law, end its politics of blackmail, and stop provoking tensions in Venezuela from abroad," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on April 26. It added that "Washington has repeatedly displayed a categoric refusal to adopt the method of negotiation to resolve the situation." Washington and Moscow are facing off with increasingly vocal statements concerning activities in the South American nation. Russia, along with Iran, China, and Cuba, is among countries supporting Maduro in his tense battle for control of the Venezuelan government with opposition figure and self-declared interim President Juan Guaido, who is backed by Washington and more than 50 other countries. Maduro, who took office in 2013, was sworn in for a second term in January following an election in May 2018 that was marred by an opposition boycott and claims of vote-rigging, leading to mass street protests. Under the new sanctions, Arreazas U.S. assets will be blocked and U.S. citizens will be prohibited from dealings with the top Venezuelan diplomat. Also designated on April 26 was Judge Carol Padilla, who has ruled against Venezuelan opposition figures. They join a growing list of Venezuelan officials designated to face U.S. sanctions. "The United States will not stand by and watch as the illegitimate Maduro regime starves the Venezuelan people of their wealth, humanity and right to democracy," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on April 26. Based on reporting by AFP, AP, and Interfax Russias Defense Ministry said on April 27 that General Valery Gerasimov, the head of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff, spoke by telephone with NATOs Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Curtis Scaparrotti, about relevant international security issues. The ministry said in a statement that Gerasimov and Scaparrotti also exchanged views on the current state of Russian-NATO military interaction." Scaparotti is due to hand over his post as NATOs top commander in Europe in May to U.S. Air Force General Tod Wolters, who currently heads NATOs Allied Air Command. With reporting by Interfax and TASS Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan renewed his criticism of his French counterpart, days after France held its first national commemoration of the World War I-era massacre of Armenians. French leader Emmanuel Macron in February decided to formally mark the anniversary of the mass killings, and on April 24, the country held its first "national day of commemoration of the Armenian genocide. Erdogan has criticized the French remembrances in the past, saying Macron should examine alleged crimes by French troops in Africa and elsewhere. On April 27, Erdogan sniped at Macron again, saying he was pandering to the country's sizable Armenian population. "Delivering a message to 700,000 Armenians who live in France will not save you, Monsieur Macron," Erdogan told a gathering of his ruling party. Around three dozen countries and a growing number of historians have concluded that the killings, which began in 1915, constituted genocide. As many as 1.5 million Armenians are believed to have died. Ankara has long rejected the term genocide, saying the deaths occurred on both sides and were a result of the chaos of war. Armenians commemorate the massacres annually on April 24. Based on reporting by AFP and Reuters The Richmond regions residential market remains hot, spurred by high demand and low inventory. Sellers are getting multiple offers, sometimes cash offers, and some homes are selling above asking price. Thats good news for sellers, but its often frustrating for buyers. More homebuyers are returning to an urban environment either in the city of Richmond or in new developments in the suburbs that look like villages of yesteryear. The apartment boom continues. And the Richmond area is seeing a burst of activity in the condo market after it had slowed for years as a result of the housing downturn a decade ago. Baby boomers are looking at moving into a growing number of age-restricted communities that are being built while developers plan and build continuing care and retirement communities. What are the trends driving the residential real estate market in the Richmond region? That is the topic for the next Metro Business Live event on Tuesday, June 25. A panel of experts will discuss the regions strong residential real estate market and the trends that are affecting it now and in the future. Our Hormel rep came to us and told us that Hormel was no longer going to be making the natural-casing hot dogs, said Todd Goldman, owner of Southern Packing Corp. in Chesapeake, which supplies the Hormels to just about every old-time shop in Hampton Roads. Reason being, those hot dogs are only sold in the Hampton Roads area. The sales didnt justify it. Goldman tried to keep it quiet at first, and so did the hot dog shops. I didnt want to cause chaos, he said. But word has traveled through an underground network of hot dog fans. At Tonys, Phillip Mirabile just plain doesnt want to talk about it. When Goldman got word last fall that the hot dog would disappear, he asked the Hormel rep to break the news to Mirabile personally. My first thought was, What are we gonna do? Then it was, I hope your next stop is going to Tonys to tell Phillip. But Goldman has been busy hatching a backup plan. The first thing he did was stash away every natural-casing hot dog he could get from Hormel. He hopes the supply will last through Memorial Day. Immigration enforcement agents cannot be sued over their actions, a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday, because they are not dealing in criminal law. Eight residents of Northern Virginia sued Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who detained them while searching for two men who had previously lived in the area. Seven of the eight men were subsequently put into deportation proceedings. The Legal Aid Justice Center argued that the agents went rogue, violating the mens constitutional protections in a way that stripped the agents of immunity from a lawsuit. A federal judge in Alexandria had let the case move forward. The Richmond-based 4th Circuit disagreed, saying the only avenue to contest such interactions is immigration court. Immigration enforcement is by its nature addressed toward noncitizens, which raises a host of considerations and concerns that are simply absent in the majority of traditional law enforcement contexts, the judges wrote. One of the men is a U.S. citizen, but the government argued, and the court agreed, that he is also barred from suing ICE for damages. Out of three students who had gone to bathe at Kaliasot Dam, two drowned in the afternoon on Friday. The incident took place at around 1 in the afternoon . In-charge of Chunabhatti police station, Bharat Singh Thakur, said that the two were identified as Sprash (18) of Indus Town Misrod and Rithik Billore (17) of Gopal Nagar Piplani while the third who escaped drowning was identified as Sumit. Sparsh was a class 10 student of Carmel Convent School while Rithik was a student of class 9. Sparsh and Rithik were cousins. The parents of two deceased had gone to attend a wedding ceremony and in the absence of family, they went out, he added. The bodies were fished out by local divers and later handed over to police for further investigation. The bodies were sent for the post-mortem after the preliminary investigation. The police have registered a case under section 174 of the CrPC and have started further investigation. Meanwhile a 26-year-old MBBS student died who met an accident near Bhopal Guest house on April 17. The bike of the student was hit by a speeding car. The deceased, identified as Krishna Chouhan, died during treatment at Hamidia hospital in the night of Thursday. He was a student of Gandhi Medical College and used to live at F Block hostel. After the preliminary investigation, police have registered a case under section 304 A of the IPC and started search for the errant driver. We were dismayed to read about state Sen. Amanda Chases unfortunate incident with a Capitol Police officer over a parking issue in downtown Richmond. According to police records, Chase, R-Chesterfield, became very rude and irate when told she couldnt park her vehicle in the pedestrian plaza between the Capitol and the Pocahontas Building. The language that the legislator reportedly used was offensive and uncalled for. On her part, Chase has denied using foul and denigrating language during the encounter. But the veracity of the officers written report was confirmed by Col. Steve Pike, chief of the Capitol Police. Chase says it was impractical and embarrassing to be expected to wait for the officers superior to arrive. I was not a security threat, Chase told the RTD. Probably not but nor was she acting in the professional, genteel manner known as the Virginia Way that citizens expect of state legislators. In 1997, I addressed this question while back at Sweet Briar to accept a Distinguished Alumna Award. Of course, there was only one right answer in such a setting. But, as I wrote my speech, I understood that I had not made a mistake in the slightest. I had gone from being a shy girl to the president of our Student Government Association, from a mediocre student to a good one. I learned how to learn. Perhaps its an overused phrase, but its true: I found myself. Sweet Briar provided me with all the tools I needed to have a successful career and happy life. As it turns out, I didnt need an undergraduate degree from Princeton to graduate first in my class at a top-ranked law school. I didnt need Ivy League connections to get a job as a federal judicial law clerk or as an attorney at a major New York City law firm or to be asked to serve as the chair of the $3.2 billion Dalkon Shield Claimants Trust, and I now proudly serve as the chair of my alma maters Board of Directors. The entire Sweet Briar experience made me the person I am today, as it has for 14,000 other exceptional alumnae of the college. You may have heard of us. Elsewhere, in Asia and Africa, Christianity is growing and, as we saw in Sri Lanka, is increasingly under attack. But in the West, modern secularism is slowly accomplishing what the totalitarian ideologies of the 20th century tried and failed to do: eradicate God from society. We are seeing the triumph of what Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, in a homily a day before becoming Pope Benedict XVI, called the dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of ones own ego and desires. Young people are putting off or forgoing marriage, and having fewer children because a culture of self runs counter to the sacrificial love at the core of marriage and family. The exclusion of God paves the way for a culture of death. Christianity teaches that every life has dignity and worth, because we are all created in Gods image. But if God does not exist, then inconvenient lives become expendable. The result is abortion, euthanasia, sex trafficking, the dehumanization of refugees, the destabilization of the family and the destruction of moral order. Attacks on the inherent dignity of the human person are not only tolerated, but also held up as necessary or even good. By Samuel Asher and Karen L. Berman What makes up the foundation of most Americans knowledge about the Holocaust? In some instances, they derive a general knowledge of the Holocaust from watching a film like Schindlers List or reading a random news story. We are not belittling those sources of information; we are merely saying they are far from a comprehensive solution. According to a Schoen Consulting survey released last year, 41% of Americans cant identify Auschwitz, the largest of the Nazi death camps, and while there were more than 40,000 concentration camps and ghettos, 45% of Americans cannot name a single one. Equally alarming is that nearly one-third of all Americans (31%) and slightly more than 1 in 10 millennials believe 2 million or fewer Jews were killed in the Holocaust, not the actual figure of 6 million. The same study raises another concern: fear. Fifty-eight percent of Americans believe something like the Holocaust could happen again. Air Canada begins additional flights for Mexican travelers to Canada Cancun, Q.R. For the fifth year in a row, Air Canada Rouge will add their seasonal summer flights to various parts of Canada for its Mexican passengers. The airline says the additional routes will begin May 1 and offer Mexico-Canada routes from Mexican cities such as Puerto Vallarta, Huatulco, Cozumel, San Jose del Cabo, Zihuatanejo and Cancun. Luis Noriega, director of Air Canada for Mexico, Central America and Cuba explained Opening for the fifth consecutive year, this seasonal route represents a great opportunity for Mexico and Air Canada to help meet the increasing demand of Mexican travelers to the country of the maple leaf. These routes will operate in conjunction with the other destinations we offer such as Cancun, Puerto Vallarta, Huatulco, Cozumel, San Jose del Cabo and Zihuatanejo to the main Canadian cities such as Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Montreal and Halifax, he noted. The additional seasonal flights will operated seven-days-a-week beginning May 1 and end October 25. Noriega says that the flights will operate via Airbus 319-100 with capacity for 136 passengers. Noriega explained that last year alone, more than 413,000 Mexican nationals visited Canada, representing an increase of 5.1 percent over the previous year. He added that these additional flights allow Mexican travelers to attend Canadas main events. Cancun short-listed as urgent for National Guard implementation Chetumal, Q.R. During his recent speech about the National Guard, Mexicos president Lopez Obrador said that Cancun was part of the initial handful of cities in need of additional security. During his Friday media presentation, the president explained that Cancun was part of the short-list for cities in urgent need of additional security, adding that the city will have the National Guard in force soon. He said that the implementation of the Guardia Nacional in the municipality of Benito Juarez was needed. Where it is needed most urgently is Benito Juarez, Cancun, which where soon, the National Guard will begin to operate. Head of the Public Security Secretariat in the state of Quintana Roo, Jesus Alberto Capella, said that the arrival of the Guardia Nacional would represent an incentive for the state, which is positive to strengthen work on security. Other cities considered urgent included the municipalities of Minatitlan and Coatzacoalcos in the state of Veracruz and the municipality of Salina Cruz in Oaxaca. On Friday, the Guardia Nacional was implemented in Minatitlan. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath asserted that no force in the world could stop Narendra Modi from becoming Prime Minister again because the people of India wanted to see him as the prime minister for the work he has done during the last five years. He also declared that the medical college in Deoria would named after Devraha Baba. Addressing rallies in Deoria and Kushinagar on Friday, Yogi said five years ago India was caught in a mire of confusion because the then government was corrupt and almost everyday there were news of some new skeleton tumbling out of the closet of the then UPA government. Compare the Congress-led government with the present Narendra Modi government. During their (Congress) regime over 270 districts were Naxal or terror-affected and the then Congress government did not take action against the Naxals. Pakistan used to behead our soldiers. The scenario has changed now. Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi has made it clear that every action from Pakistan will have a bigger and fierce reaction from India. The result is that Naxalism is now confined to just five districts and Pakistan does not have the might to meddle in Indias affairs, he said. Elaborating the achievements of the Modi government, Yogi said during the last five years, the NDA government had given houses to over 1.50 crore poor people, and provided assistance to over 12 crore farmers under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Yojana and also opened over 37 crore bank accounts of poor people. He predicted that the BJP would win over 400 seats because a wave in favour of BJP was sweeping across the country. WASHNGTON President Donald Trump said Friday that the United States did not pay any money to North Korea, which had issued a $2 million bill for the hospice care of American Otto Warmbier, the comatose University of Virginia student sent home from Pyongyang in 2017. No money was paid to North Korea for Otto Warmbier, not two Million Dollars, not anything else, Trump said in a morning Twitter post in which he suggested he has taken a different approach to hostage negotiations than his predecessor. Later, Trump told reporters at the White House: We did not pay money for our great Otto. There was no money paid, the president said. There was a fake news report that money was paid. I havent paid money for any hostage that Ive gotten. We dont pay money for hostages. The Otto case was a very unusual case. But no money was paid for Otto. The Washington Post reported Thursday that North Korea presented an invoice for Warmbiers care in an extraordinarily brazen act even for a regime known for its aggressive tactics. Warmbier, a student at UVa, died in June 2017 shortly after he was flown home comatose after 17 months in captivity. He had been seized from a tour group while visiting North Korea in January 2016 and convicted on charges of trying to steal a propaganda poster and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor. North Korea, which has denied accusations by relatives that it tortured Warmbier, has said he was provided medical treatments and care with all sincerity. The main U.S. envoy sent to retrieve Warmbier signed an agreement to pay the medical bill on instructions passed down from Trump, according to two people familiar with the situation. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. The bill went to the Treasury Department, where it remained unpaid throughout 2017, the people said. Prior to Trumps tweet, the White House had declined to comment on whether the bill was paid or whether the issue came up during preparations for Trumps two summits with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. We do not comment on hostage negotiations, which is why they have been so successful during this administration, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders wrote in an email. The Associated Press contributed to this report. By Cara Haskins and Patricia Miller Haskins and Miller are Jefferson College of Health Sciences Masters Nursing Students in Family Nurse Practitioner. Nurses and other health care workers are on the forefront of a battle that too often takes place in emergency rooms, intensive care units, and other units within hospitals. They face aggression from those whom they are attempting to provide care. In recent years, there has been a dramatic increase in the occurrence of workplace violence in hospital settings, making it one of the most dangerous places to work. Until recently, it has been a problem that has mostly been tolerated, underreported, and ignored. According to the Joint Commission, the accrediting body of hospitals, workers in health care environments are four times more likely to be a victim of workplace violence than those who work in the private setting. Seventy-five percent of the 250,000 workplace assaults in the US occurred in a health care or social service setting. However, only 30% of nurses report acts of violence because most believe that it is part of the job and that the perpetrators are not responsible for their actions due to their medical or mental conditions. How is it somehow tolerable for a drunk patient to hit a nurse, but it is a felony when he hits a police officer? Between the two of us, we have more than 25 years of experience working mostly on in-patient units in the hospital. We have had patients or family members verbally abuse and make sexually inappropriate comments, kick, punch, pinch, bite, push, grab, spit upon, and throw objects at us. Amazingly, we have never been seriously harmed. Other nurses have not been so lucky. Nurses who are attempting to provide care for others in need have been seriously injured, disabled, raped, and murdered in their line of duty. Between the years 2013-2015, the Joint Commission investigated 33 homicides, 38 assaults that resulted in permanent disability, and 74 rapes in health care workplaces. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Joint Commission are drafting plans to hold hospitals accountable for providing a safe work environment for their employees. OSHA suggests that hospitals post signage notifying patients and visitors of the hospitals zero-tolerance stance on violence. Following the Veterans Affairs Hospitals example, a patient who has past violent occurrences in the hospital setting should have his chart flagged. Improved staffing, decreased wait times, panic buttons, mandatory reporting, and staff education regarding de-escalation techniques are measures that some institutions have initiated to address this problem. The Virginia General Assembly recently passed Senate Bill 1395 addressing violence in the health care setting. Its original version sought to add health care providers to the list of service personnel that now includes law-enforcement officers, firefighters, search and rescue, and EMS personnel, making it is a Class 6 felony to maliciously or unlawfully cause bodily harm. A felony is considered more serious than a misdemeanor with stricter fines and longer jail time. However, as the current bill passed through the legislature it was amended and weakened to a Class 1 misdemeanor for anyone who makes threats of death or bodily injury against a healthcare provider. This is a step in the right direction, but it does not go far enough to protect health care workers. As we face the impending shortage of nurses and other health care providers, it is imperative to provide a safe environment in which they can work and provide care. Violence against health care professionals should never be accepted as just part of their job! Capt's Income Increase on Account of Salary & Perquisites Chandigarh, April 27: The seven-fold increase in Captain Amarinder Singhs income after becoming Chief Minister was attributable directly to his salary and perquisites, as well as sale of certain properties, for which there was no provision to mention in the form 26 affidavit submitted by his wife, Preneet Kaur, with her nomination papers as Congress candidate from Patiala. Clarifying this, a spokesperson said on Sunday that while Captain Amarinders individual income in 2016-17 was Rs. 12.14 lakhs, his HUF income was nil. At the end of fiscal 2017-18, the chief minister had earned Rs. 81.43 lakhs as monthly salary and perquisites resulting from his position, which included yearly salary of Rs 72 lakhs and interest from banks and other financial institutions shown in his income tax returns. Advertisement Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh Further, he had earned Rs. 9.72 lakhs as Karta of Hindu Undivided Family (HUF) during 2017-18, on account of difference of capital gain by sale of property. As far as increase in value of assets was concerned, the same had gone up from Rs. 48.29 crores to Rs. 58.40 crores in the last two years, said the spokesperson, adding that the increase was the result of sale of certain properties/land. The details of these sales were Rs. 4 crores as advance received against sale of land in Himachal Pradesh, Rs 5 crores from sale of HUF land in village Bahadurgarh Patiala, Rs 1 crore against sale of land in village Marzi and Rs. 1.25 crore from sale of Dubai flat. Out of the sale proceeds, Rs 3.71 had gone into purchase of land in village Siswan, with another Rs. 4.71 crore incurred on construction of a house on this land. Advertisement Preneet Kaur While all these details had been furnished in the previous IT returns filed for year ended March 2018, these could not be provided in the affidavit submitted by Preneet as Form 26 affidavit regarding Moveable and Immoveable properties of the spouse requires only declaration of total assets, with no column to depict the sale of properties and assets. Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh Chandigarh, April 27: The appointment of a wanted Khalistani terrorist to spearhead the `Khalistan Referendum 2020 campaign has further exposed the true motive and intent behind the separatist movement, Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh said on Saturday, urging the central government to press the global community to join India in cracking down on this grave threat to its peace and security. Reacting strongly to media reports to the roping in by Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was on the list of wanted persons he had shared with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during their meeting in Amritsar in February 2018, Captain Amarinder expressed concern over the Canadian governments covert and overt support to the hardliners operating from its soil to create disturbance in India. Advertisement Even as he urged Trudeau not to play with fire by allowing such elements to use Canadian territory to disrupt Indias peace and stability, the Chief Minister called upon the Indian government to take a more proactive stand in dealing with these forces trying to unleash trouble in the country, particularly Punjab, from other parts of the world. The Chief Minister also expressed concern over Canadas failure to rein in such hardline elements seeking to disturb Indias peace and security, and posing a grave threat in particular to Punjab. It was in the interest of any administration in Canada to check the spread of such forces on its soil, he added, warning that allowing the perpetuation of such elements would be detrimental to Canadas own safety and security in the long run. Captain Amarinder pointed out that Nijjar was accused by India of running a terror camp in British Columbia, also accused of target killings in India and conducting weapons training for anti-India terrorists in the west. Said to be close to the legal advisor of secessionist organization Sikhs For Justice, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, Nijjars taking over of the Khalistan Referendum 2020 campaign was a clear sign of the movement assuming even more diabolical proportions, he added. Advertisement The Referendum 2020 had never been the peaceful movement it claimed to be, but by roping in Nijjar, it was clear that SFJ had given up all pretensions of steering a non-violent campaign, said the Chief Minister. Given that the movement was openly supported and backed by Pakistans ISI, which had been pushing terror into India directly and indirectly for decades now, it was blatantly clear that the so-called Referendum campaign was nothing but a front for the agency to boost its anti-India agenda, he added. He further said that Referendum 2020 was nothing but a front for the ISI and its Agents of Interest (AOI), such as Pannun & Nijjar, to promote & execute terrorist acts in Punjab and India. By bringing Nijjar into the mainstream of the movement, SFJ and ISI had well and truly shown their hand, and their intention of creating trouble for Punjab in any which way, said Captain Amarinder. With the Sikhs in India rejecting outright the divisive propaganda of SFJ and Islamabad, Nijjar was clearly a last-ditch resort to breathe some life into the campaign, but, like all their previous efforts, this will also fail, he added. Captain Amarinder Singh Chandigarh, April 27: Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh today made it clear that he had not `backed (Prime Minister) Modis hardline, but had always taken a hardline stand against terrorism and threats to Indias security, as propounded by every government at the Centre since 1947. The Chief Minister asserted that there was no `Modi hardline stand to be emulated or backed, as sought to be projected by a TV channel, but `a national hardline stand that the Congress had always taken against Pakistans attempt to foment terror and unleash war on Indian soil. Nowhere in his interview with the said channel had he said he was a supporter of `Modis hardline or stands with NDA against terror, said Captain Amarinder in a statement, soon after the telecast of the TV interview, in which he had clearly and vehemently lambasted the prime minister and the BJP for trying to take credit for the victory of the defence forces in Balakot. The interpretation sought by the channel to be given to his statements was ridiculous, said Captain Amarinder in his statement, trashing the suggestion that it was Modis and BJPs hardline stand that he was favouring. Advertisement Prime Minister Narendra Modi On the contrary, what he had said in his interview, while taking strong exception to the BJPs claims, was, The Prime Minister has no business claiming this victory.these kinds of operations have been happening at the Pak border for the last 50 years. Who says this has not been done before. It was done in 1947, 1965, 1971 and during the Kargil operations, he had further stated, pointing out that the government of the day had taken the decision in the interest of the nations security. Just because Modi is in office, he cant go around flexing his muscles for an action of the armed forces, said the Chief Minister. In his interview, Captain Amarinder also demolished the theory that the Congress was favouring talks with Pakistan even though terrorism was still being unleashed from across the border. The Congress had spoken of talks only on the issue of military de-escalation post the Balakot operation, he said, completely delinking the matter from terrorism. Advertisement Priyanka Gandhi Vadra Responding candidly to some tough questions, the Chief Minister said withdrawal of AFSPA, as promised in the Congress manifesto, was linked with peace. On the dilution of the Sedition Law, he backed the Congress manifesto promise saying there was any number of laws already available in the country to deal with such situations. We have to de-escalate somewhere, as he put it. On the so-called denial of ticket for Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to fight against Modi from Varanasi, the Chief Minister said she already had a load of responsibilities, which she could not do justice to if she chose to enter the electoral fray. There was plenty of time still for Priyanka, who had just entered active politics, he said, describing her an intelligence and perceptive lady. Captain Amarinder trashed the dynastic politics charges against the Gandhi family, saying the people of India were free to vote for whom they liked. Rahuls performance had been improving by the day and the Congress was clearly well positioned to win the election, he asserted. A youth was found in a pool of blood with his genitals chopped off at Sarapasi village under the Patna police station in the district on Friday. The critically-injured youth was identified as Deepak Mahanta (28), son of Rahidas of the village. Sources said Deepak went outside to defecate but did not return home till the morning. Later, his family members found him in a critical condition in an abandoned room of a residential school in the village. It is suspected that some miscreants hacked the genitals of the youth with sharp weapons over some old enmity. A tent house owner, Deepak was rushed to a hospital in Patna and later shifted to the District Headquarters Hospital (DHH) as his condition deteriorated. In a role-reversal of sorts about a dozen supporters of the ruling Trinamool Congress and their families have fled the Hanskhali village bordering Bangladesh after hundreds of armed BJP supporters attacked ransacked their houses. The incident took place at Choto Bridge area of Hanskhali a block bordering Bangladesh. We had to run with our lives even leaving back the boiling rice on the oven, Sima Das the wife of Mintu Das a TMC worker said. Even my old father in law and my toddling child was not safe at their hands as they were charging menacingly at us threatening to burn us alive, said Arati another woman and the wife of a local TMC tough. The whole CPI(M) workers and many TMC and Congress men had changed sides joining the BJP and are now being backed by the CAPF, the TMC sources said, adding If the State Government fails to protect us then we will also have to join the BJP. Though the BJP leadership denied the charges a local BJP leader from Nadia district said, these people are being paid back in their own coins. When these hapless people were in the CPI(M) they were subjected to inhuman torture, their lands were snatched, they had to pay survival taxes and they were not allowed to vote. Now they think that the CPI(M) has no Government in the Centre so only the BJP which is ruling Delhi will be able to save them. Now they are taking their revenge. In fact a good many number of TMC leaders have also switched sides to the BJP following the murder of a local party strongman and MLA Satya Biswas whose wife Rupali is contesting from the TMC. Though the locals say that CPI(M)s Rama Biswas is the best person and best candidate she may not get the votes considering the wave in favour of the BJP which has fielded Jagannath Sarkar a school teacher. Though the Congress has Minati Biswas in absence of any alliance with the Left most of the workers are either sitting idle or working for the BJP. The main anger in the region even among the TMC voters they were not given to vote in the panchayat elections. Booths after booth the voters were not allowed to vote or even beaten back if they resisted. So in the presence of the CAPF they are seeing their chance to vote this Government our, Swapan Bhowmick Hanshkhali Congress secretary said. On the other hand CPI(M)s leadership said, Wait for the results and you will see everything for yourself. LF candidate Rama Biswas said Nadia barring for a pocket of Krishnagar where the BJP had a traditional stronghold the Left supporters are very conscious and if they get a chance to vote the result will be different. A California jury ordered billionaire hologram producer Alki David and two companies he founded to pay $11.1 million in a sexual harassment and battery trial involving a former employee who said she was fired after she refused to have sex with the executive. The jury found that David, 51, committed sexual battery against Chasity Jones, 42, when she worked for FilmOn.TV Networks, an online television service, and for Hologram USA, which famously produced holographic images of rapper Tupac Shakur and pop star Michael Jackson and operates a hologram theater in Hollywood. On Friday, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Rafael Ongkeko ordered jurors to reconsider their initial $4.6 million compensatory damages verdict which covered lost wages, medical expenses and non-economic losses, such as emotional distress after they mistakenly included punitive damages. The panel deliberated for less than an hour before announcing the lower amount of $3.1 million. Because jurors found the defendants acted with malice, the second phase to determine whether Jones should be awarded punitive damages was triggered. The panel heard evidence and ordered David to pay $8 million in punitive damages for committing sexual battery. Advertisement During the two-week trial, Jones testified that David inappropriately touched her and showed her a pornographic video on her work computer. She also said the defendant brought a male stripper into the workplace to celebrate the birthday of one of his executives. She said she found the strippers appearance offensive and considered it sexual harassment. Jurors found that Jones, who was hired in January 2015 and fired in November 2016, was subjected to unwanted sexual harassment and battery. They agreed that she was wrongfully discharged after refusing the executives advances. The jury also deemed that workplace management knew or should have known about the harassment and hostile environment but failed to address it. Davids attorney could not be reached for comment. Fridays verdict brought an end to a tense trial that included an outburst from David during his testimony Tuesday in which he verbally attacked Jones attorney, Lisa Bloom, and left the courtroom under the escort of a sheriffs deputy. This is my beautiful, brave client Chasity Jones. It has been my great honor to fight for her for 2.5 years. Today we WON her sexual harassment and sexual assault trial against Alki David, https://t.co/9MRnbq1Rqt, and Hologram USA. Verdict is $4.6 million. Tomorrow, punitives. pic.twitter.com/H73fnQ8nur Lisa Bloom (@LisaBloom) April 26, 2019 It has been one of the great moments of my life to deliver justice to Chasity Jones, who the jury found was sexually harassed and sexually assaulted by Alki David, and fired from her job for opposing his advances, Bloom said. It took 2- years for us to get to this point. [This] is a huge verdict for us and for all victims. Jones and former co-worker Elizabeth Taylor, who also alleges sexual harassment and wrongful termination, filed the lawsuit in February 2017. Taylors claims will go to trial in July. David is an heir of the Leventis-David Group, which made its fortune bottling Coca-Cola. City News Service contributed to this report. A driver in Silicon Valley intentionally plowed his car into a crowd of people because he thought at least some of them were Muslim, authorities said Friday. New evidence shows that the defendant intentionally targeted the victims based on their race and his belief that they were of the Muslim faith, said Phan Ngo, chief of the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety. Eight people were injured in the crash Tuesday in the Santa Clara County suburb of Sunnyvale, including a 13-year-old girl who remains in critical condition, and three adults who suffered major injuries and are in stable condition. The suspect, Isaiah Joel Peoples, 34, has been charged with eight counts of attempted murder, with four of the charges also alleging that they caused great bodily injury. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. Advertisement There is very appalling and disturbing evidence that at least one or two of these victims were targeted based on the defendants view of what their race or religion may have been, said Jay Boyarsky, Santa Clara County chief assistant district attorney. When a crime is committed because of someones nationality or their race or their religion, its not that individual victim that is hurt, its our entire community. And our entire community stands united against hatred and bigotry, Boyarsky said. This article will be updated. The Associated Press contributed to this report. ron.lin@latimes.com @ronlin The worshippers at Chabad of Poway were nearing the end of Passover, a sacred Jewish celebration steeped in ancient freedom, when a modern terror walked in the door. A man armed with an assault-type rifle opened fire Saturday, killing one woman and injuring three other people, including an 8-year-old girl, in what authorities described as a hate crime. The alleged shooter, John T. Earnest of Rancho Penasquitos, 19, was arrested after fleeing the synagogue amid a hail of bullets from a security guard. Earnest is the apparent author of a long, anti-Semitic open letter detailing his disgust for Jews and his admiration for the perpetrators of other mass shootings, including the gunman who killed 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue six months ago to the day. Advertisement Friends identified the woman killed as Lori Kaye, 60, of Poway. Witnesses said she jumped in front of the synagogues founding rabbi, Yisroel Goldstein, who was wounded in the index fingers on both hands. Lori Kaye (left) and Noya Dahan (Courtesy photos) Also injured was a Noya Dahan, 8, hit with shrapnel in the face and leg, and Almong Peretz, 34, who was shot in the leg as he scooped up children in an adjacent playroom and ushered them to safety. Sadly, were seeing these things happen all over the country, Sheriff Bill Gore said. And now even in our backyard. President Donald Trump offered condolences from the White House. My deepest sympathies go to the people that were affected, he told reporters. At this moment, it looks like a hate crime. Hard to believe, hard to believe. The shooting came on the last day of Passover, one of the most important holidays on the Jewish calendar. It commemorates the freedom of the Israelites from slavery in ancient Egypt and is typically observed over eight days with a number of rituals, including Seder meals, the removal of leavened products from the home, and the sharing of the exodus story. The worshippers were about 20 minutes into a celebration that began at 11 a.m. and was supposed to last until 7 p.m. when the gunman walked in. Witnesses said he was dressed in a green military vest, wore glasses, and carried what Gore called an AR-15 style assault rifle. Some said he was cursing. Danny Almog, 40, had just arrived at the synagogue when he heard six loud bangs noise he thought might be a chandelier falling or chairs crashing. Screams followed: Hide yourself. Shooting! Shooting! Shooting! Almog said he dropped to the floor and started crawling to find to his kids. He saw that his father-in-law had thrown his body over the Almogs 2-year-old son so he ran to grab his 4-year-old daughter Yuli, who had been in a childrens play room with perhaps a dozen other kids. He screamed Yuli, Yuli, where are you? A friend, Peretz, had her. He had scooped up several kids and ushered them to safety. As he fled, he was hit in the leg by shrapnel. He is a hero, Almog said. Authorities said the gunmans rifle apparently jammed during the shooting, preventing further casualties. About 100 people were inside the synagogue. As he fled in his car, an off-duty Border Patrol agent working as a security guard at the synagogue fired several shots, hitting the vehicle. The suspect called 911 shortly after and told a California Highway Patrol dispatcher that he had been involved in the shooting. Around the same time, a San Diego police K9 officer was racing to the scene after hearing about the shooting on the police radio. The officer was monitoring the CHP radio as well and stopped where the suspect had pulled over, at Rancho Bernardo Road and Interstate 15. He jumped out of the car with his hands up, San Diego police Chief David Nisleit said, and was taken into custody without incident. Authorities said Earnest has no prior criminal record. 1 / 37 Hannah Kaye and is comforted by her father Howard as Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, right, speaks at the burial of her mother Lori Gilbert-Kaye, 60, on April 28, 2019 in San Diego, California. Gilbert-Kaye was killed by a gunman at the synagogue. (K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune) 2 / 37 Hannah Kaye, left, scoops dirt during the burial of her mother Lori Gilbert-Kaye, 60, on April 28, 2019 in San Diego, California. Gilbert-Kaye was killed by a gunman at the synagogue. (K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune) 3 / 37 Hannah Kaye and is comforted by her father Howard as Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, right, speaks at the burial of her mother Lori Gilbert-Kaye, 60, on April 28, 2019 in San Diego, California. Gilbert-Kaye was killed by a gunman at the synagogue. (K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune) 4 / 37 Hannah Kaye, center, kneels with her father Howard at the burial of her mother Lori Gilbert-Kaye, 60, on April 28, 2019 in San Diego, California. Gilbert-Kaye was killed by a gunman at the synagogue. (K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune) 5 / 37 Mourners gather outside of Chabad of Poway for a memorial service for Lori Gilbert Kaye on April 29, 2019 in Poway, California. Kaye was killed on Saturday when a gunman opened fire inside the synagogue. (Sam Hodgson/The San Diego Union-Tribune) 6 / 37 Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein is seen on a screen to an overflow crowd of mourners gather outside of Chabad of Poway for a memorial service for Lori Gilbert Kaye on April 29, 2019 in Poway, California. Kaye was killed on Saturday when a gunman opened fire inside the synagogue. (Sam Hodgson/The San Diego Union-Tribune) 7 / 37 Mourners gather outside of Chabad of Poway for a memorial service for Lori Gilbert Kaye on April 29, 2019 in Poway, California. Kaye was killed on Saturday when a gunman opened fire inside the synagogue. (Sam Hodgson/The San Diego Union-Tribune) 8 / 37 Hundreds of people attended a service for Lori Gilbert-Kaye, 60, at the Chabad of Poway on April 28, 2019 in Poway, California. Gilbert-Kaye was killed by a gunman at the synagogue. (K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune) 9 / 37 Oscar Stewart, left, who was called a hero in the Poway shooting, is hugged by Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein as Poway Mayor Steve Vaus, left, looks on during a service for Lori Gilbert-Kaye, 60, at the Chabad of Poway on April 28, 2019 in Poway, California. Gilbert-Kaye was killed by a gunman at the synagogue. (K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune) 10 / 37 Howard Kaye speaks about his wife Lori Gilbert-Kaye, 60, during a service for her at the Chabad of Poway on April 28, 2019 in Poway, California. Gilbert-Kaye was killed by a gunman at the synagogue. (K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune) 11 / 37 Oscar Stewart, left, who was called a hero in the Poway shooting, was called up by Poway Mayor Steve Vaus to lead God Bless America during a service for Lori Gilbert-Kaye, 60, at the Chabad of Poway on April 28, 2019 in Poway, California. Gilbert-Kaye was killed by a gunman at the synagogue. (K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune) 12 / 37 Looking over at a picture of her mom, Hannah Kaye speaks about her mother Lori Gilbert-Kaye, 60, during a service at the Chabad of Poway on April 28, 2019 in Poway, California. Gilbert-Kaye was killed by a gunman at the synagogue. (K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune) 13 / 37 Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein hugs a member of the congregation of Chabad of Poway the day after a deadly shooting took place there on April 28, 2019 in Poway, California. (K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune) 14 / 37 Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, center, meets with members of the congregation of Chabad of Poway the day after a deadly shooting took place there on April 28, 2019 in Poway, California. Goldstein was shot and lost a finger on his right hand. (K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune) 15 / 37 Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, center, meets with members of the congregation of Chabad of Poway the day after a deadly shooting took place there on April 28, 2019 in Poway, California. Goldstein was shot and lost a finger on his right hand. (K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune) 16 / 37 Members of the St. John of Damascus Orthodox church bring flowers to the Chabad of Poway the day after a deadly shooting took place at the synagogue on April 28, 2019 in Poway, California. St. John of Damascus is located across the street from the synagogue. (K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune) 17 / 37 Poway residents walk to leave flowers at a memorial near the Chabad of Poway, where a deadly shooting took place the day before on April 28, 2019 in Poway, California. (Photo by K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune) (K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune) 18 / 37 A memorial of flowers lays across the street from the Chabad of Poway the day after a deadly shooting took place at the synagogue on April 28, 2019 in Poway, California. (K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune) 19 / 37 Leslie Gollub, left, and Gretchen Gordon comfort each other as they support the Jewish community at a rally not far from the Chabad of Poway, where a deadly shooting took place the day before on April 28, 2019 in Poway, California. (K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune) 20 / 37 Poway residents leave flowers at a memorial across the street from the Chabad of Poway, where a shooting took place the day before on April 28, 2019 in Poway, California. (Photo by K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune) (K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune) 21 / 37 Mike Sakasegawa, left, of Mira Mesa and Penny Ribnik of Poway hold signs at a rally in support of the Jewish community not far from the Chabad of Poway, where a deadly shooting took place the day before on April 28, 2019 in Poway, California. (K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune) 22 / 37 Members of the Chabad synagogue hug as they gather near the Altman Family Chabad Community Center where a man with a gun shot multiple people inside the community center, killing one, in Poway on Saturday, April 27, 2019 in Poway, California. (Hayne Palmour IV/The San Diego Union-Tribune) 23 / 37 Two men and woman, who appeared to have come out of the the Altman Family Chabad Community Center, walk in front of the community center where a man with a gun shot multiple people inside, killing one, in Poway on Saturday, April 27, 2019 in Poway, California. (Hayne Palmour IV/The San Diego Union-Tribune) 24 / 37 Brady Fox, 4, with his dad Kyle attend a rally not far from the Chabad of Poway, where a deadly shooting took place the day before on April 28, 2019 in Poway, California. (Photo by K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune) (K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune) 25 / 37 Members of the media and the surrounding community gather near the Altman Family Chabad Community Center where a man with a gun shot multiple people inside the community center, killing one, in Poway on Saturday, April 27, 2019 in Poway, California. (Hayne Palmour IV/The San Diego Union-Tribune) 26 / 37 With the Chabad of Poway synagogue behind them, where a man with a gun shot multiple people inside the synagogue, killing one, San Diego Sheriff Bill Gore takes questions about the shooting from the media on Saturday, April 27, 2019 in Poway, California. (Hayne Palmour IV/The San Diego Union-Tribune) 27 / 37 Poway Mayor Steve Vaus speaks to the media during a press conference on the synagogue shooting in Poway, California on Saturday, April 27, 2019. (Hayne Palmour IV/The San Diego Union-Tribune) 28 / 37 A view up the cul-de-sac in the Rancho Penasquitos neighborhood of San Diego where the house thought to be the home of 19 year-old John Earnest, is located. Earnest is a suspect in the shooting of four people in a Poway synagogue, killing one, on Saturday April 27, 2019 in San Diego, California. The house is on a cul de sac in the Rancho Penasquitos neighborhood in the north part of the city. (John Gibbins/The San Diego Union-Tribune) 29 / 37 Heavily armed San Diego police officer retreated from a house thought to be the home of 19 year-old John T. Earnest, who is a suspect in the shooting of four people in a Poway synagogue, killing one, on Saturday April 27, 2019 in San Diego, California. The house is on a cut de sac in the Rancho Penasquitos neighborhood in the north part of the city. (John Gibbins/The San Diego Union-Tribune) 30 / 37 People from the community, many of them of various faiths, join members of the Rancho Bernardo Community Presbyterian Church in a candlelight vigil for the Chabad of Poway synagogue shooting victims. (Hayne Palmour IV/The San Diego Union-Tribune) 31 / 37 People from the community, many of them of various faiths, join members of the Rancho Bernardo Community Presbyterian Church in a candlelight vigil for the Chabad of Poway synagogue shooting victims. (Hayne Palmour IV/The San Diego Union-Tribune) 32 / 37 Reverend Dr. Bryan Stamper leads people from the community, many of them of various faiths, along with members of the Rancho Bernardo Community Presbyterian Church in a song during a candlelight vigil for the Chabad of Poway synagogue shooting victims. (Hayne Palmour IV/The San Diego Union-Tribune) 33 / 37 A couple attends an interfaith vigil for the Chabad of Poway synagogue shooting victims at the Rancho Bernardo Community Presbyterian Church in a candlelight vigil at the Rancho Bernardo Community Presbyterian Church in Rancho Bernardo on Saturday, April 27, 2019 in San Diego, California. (Hayne Palmour IV/The San Diego Union-Tribune) 34 / 37 People of various faiths attend an interfaith vigil for the Chabad of Poway synagogue shooting victims at the Rancho Bernardo Community Presbyterian Church in a candlelight vigil at the Rancho Bernardo Community Presbyterian Church in Rancho Bernardo on Saturday, April 27, 2019 in San Diego, California. (Hayne Palmour IV/The San Diego Union-Tribune) 35 / 37 A woman leaves flowers at small memorial near Chabad of Poway, where a man with a gun shot multiple people inside the synagogue, killing one, in Poway on Saturday, April 27, 2019 in Poway, California. (Hayne Palmour IV/The San Diego Union-Tribune) 36 / 37 Stacey Cavalieri places a sign near Chabad of Poway, where a man with a gun shot multiple people inside the synagogue, killing one, in Poway on Saturday, April 27, 2019 in Poway, California. Summerfield is the name of the neighborhood adjacent to the synagogue. (Hayne Palmour IV/The San Diego Union-Tribune) 37 / 37 A young girl places a heart shape note, similar the one in the foreground, on a light pole near Chabad of Poway, where a man with a gun shot multiple people inside the synagogue, killing one, in Poway on Saturday, April 27, 2019 in Poway, California. (Hayne Palmour IV/The San Diego Union-Tribune) A rifle was found on the passenger seat of the car. Police later swarmed Earnests north San Diego neighborhood, blocking off streets and telling residents to shelter in place, as they prepared to search his home on Freeport Court. Investigators remained there late into the night. An open letter attributed to Earnest circulated on social media Saturday. In it, the writer describes himself as a man of European ancestry and details a deep hatred and disgust for Jews. He lists among his inspirations the Pittsburgh synagogue gunman and the one who killed 50 people at two New Zealand mosques in March. The writer said he is a nursing student who plays the piano. I am a testament to the fact that literally anyone can do this, he wrote. A separate social media post attributed to Earnest indicated he had planned to live-stream the attack. That apparently did not happen. The author of the open letter also took credit for attempting to burn down a mosque in Escondido last month. There were seven people inside the Islamic Center of Escondido when it caught fire at about 3:15 a.m. One person was awake and alerted the group, who put out the blaze. The arsonist left a note on the mosques driveway referencing the New Zealand massacres. Escondido police Chief Craig Carter said Saturday that detectives were investigating the claim. Friends and family gathered at Kayes home to grieve Saturday afternoon, as stories emerged about her heroic act inside the synagogue. Dr. Roneet Lev said Rabbi Goldstein told her that Kaye had thrown herself in front of him, possibly saving his life. Kayes husband, a physician, was in the synagogue when the gunshots started. Worshippers called him over to help victims, and he began to do CPR on one until he realized it was his wife, Lev said. He then fainted. Kaye had gone to the synagogue to say Kaddish, a Jewish prayer for the dead, for her mother, who had recently passed away, according to Lev. The irony is people will be saying it for her now, Lev said. Lev, director of emergency operations at Scripps Mercy Hospital, said Kaye was a people person, someone who rushed to do good deeds. God picked her to die to send a message because shes such an incredible person, Lev said. He took her for a higher purpose to send this message to fight anti-Semitism. Friends said the San Diego native is also survived by a 22-year-old daughter. Kaye worked at Pro Specialties Group, a promotional goods and sports memorabilia company. Dr. Michael Katz, the associate trauma director for Palomar Medical Center, said the other three victims are doing well with their injuries. He described Goldsteins injuries as most likely a defensive wound and said the rabbi would probably lose his right index finger. He was in surgery Saturday afternoon and will probably be in the hospital for a couple of days. Noya, the elementary student, was injured in the leg and face, Katz said. A small piece of shrapnel was also pulled from her hair. She was transferred to Rady Childrens Hosptial. Her family moved to the area from Mira Mesa a few years ago after swastikas were painted on their home, according to friends. Peretz, wounded in the leg, will probably be hospitalized overnight. Katz said he had spoken with the rabbi about the attack. He spoke about how, not only in 2019, but also on the last day of Passover, to have such a tragedy as this happen in America, and in California, is unspeakable and I agree with him, Katz said. Law enforcement officers said they had heard of no threats against other local synagogues, but they would be providing extra patrols as a precaution. Cantor Caitlin Bromberg of the Ner Tamid synagogue in Poway said, Were feeling fear. It could have just as easily been our service. It hits close to home. Tammy Gillies, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League in San Diego, said, Its not just the victims that were hurt. Its everyone that was in that room and its everyone in the Jewish community that feel that they cannot be safe. Thats what hate crimes do. They affect everyone. Community members vowed not to let the shooting shatter their faith. One message from all of us in our congregation is that we are standing together, we are getting stronger, said Minoo Anvari, whose husband was inside the synagogue when the shooting started. Never again. You cant break us. We are strong. Why? The question is, why? People are praying. Poway Mayor Steve Vaus, noting that the city recently held a successful interfaith gathering, said, We always walk with our arms around each other, and we will walk through this tragedy with our arms around each other. Vaus said hed spoken by phone with President Trump, who offered any federal resources needed. The shooting occurred at a synagogue that dates to 1986, when it was founded by Rabbi Goldstein. The Chabad is affiliated with Lubavitch, a branch within Orthodox Judaisms Hasidic movement. It bills itself as a place where Traditional Jewish values are brought to life in a joyous, non-judgmental atmosphere. It grew quickly, attracting families to a congregation modeled on the bustling Jewish enclaves that existed in New York City and Eastern Europe, including several dozen people who moved close by so they could walk to the sanctuary and follow the requirement to avoid operating machinery on the Sabbath. It the mid-1990s, it underwent a $1.7 million expansion, turning a collection of temporary buildings into a 13,000-square-foot facility with a sanctuary, meeting hall, a school and offices. Were trying to create a Jewish community, Goldstein said at the time. In 2015, in an effort to start fresh again with new and young energy, the Chabad brought in Rabbi Mendel and Shterna Goldstein from Brooklyn. Theyve introduced a variety of programs, including a lecture series featuring Holocaust survivors such as Anne Franks sister, who appeared there in February. Theyve also hosted Chanukah at the Mall, a menorah workshop at Home Depot, and a model matzah bakery at Albertsons. Like many synagogues around the country, Chabad of Poway responded to earlier mass shootings by increasing its security through grants from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security $81,000 in 2006 and $75,000 in 2010. Among those reaching out to the congregation Saturday were members of the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, site of the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history last October. It was only six months ago to the day that we became members of that tragic club of community-based shootings to which no one wants to belong, the synagogue said in a statement. We know first-hand the fear, anguish and healing process such an atrocity causes, and our hearts are with the afflicted San Diego families and their congregation. Other faith leaders, elected officials and civil-rights leaders condemned the attack. Our hearts go out to everyone at Chabad House Poway for the senseless violence that took place earlier today, Bishop Robert McElroy of the San Diego Roman Catholic Diocese said in a statement. Houses of worship should be places of peace. Know that the entire Catholic Community of San Diego and Imperial Counties is keeping you in our prayers. This Passover shooting at Chabad of Poway synagogue is heartbreaking, said Farhana Khera, executive director of Muslim Advocates, a Washington D.C. group. This is an attack on us all. Staff writers Wendy Fry, J. Harry Jones, and Pauline Repard contributed to this story. A transgender woman who broke boundaries with a speech in Armenias parliament says she has received death threats and is avoiding leaving her home in the backlash to her three-minute address. Lilit Martirosian told members of parliaments human rights committee on April 5 that the group she founded, Right Side, had recorded 283 cases of transgender rights violations. For me, that means that there are 283 criminals in Armenia living next to me and you, Martirosian said during her speech. And who knows, maybe a 284th will commit a crime tomorrow. Some lawmakers immediately expressed their offense. The head of the human rights committee complained Martirosian disturbed a hearing agenda and disrespected parliament. Advertisement The next day, hundreds of people protesting outside the parliament building demanded to have the podium Martirosian used fumigated. One protester brandished a knife at cameras and said he would use it against transgender people. A priest from the dominant Armenian Apostolic Church said gay sex should be considered a crime punishable by prison. Armenia decriminalized homosexuality in 2003, but many in the country resist recognizing LGBT rights. I received many calls with threats directed against me personally. People would say I needed to be murdered, butchered, Martirosian told The Associated Press on Friday. Martirosian says she reported the threats to police. Some people in Armenia see her experience as a test of the government that came to power last year following widespread demonstrations calling for an end to corruption and respect for human rights. LGBT people face problems in every sphere of life -- they can be violated physically, sexually, psychologically, Mamikon Hovsepian, executive director of the LGBT rights group PINK Armenia, said. They can be refused in police stations or they can face double discrimination, refused health care services. Since taking office, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has tried to keep a distance from the issue of LGBT rights, calling it an unnecessary headache to deal with in 10, 20, 30 years. But Pashinian has criticized the Republican Party that dominated Armenian politics before he came to power over Martirosians treatment. He noted that the previous government issued her a passport in 2015 with the first name Martirosian took as a woman but had the sex marked as male. The moment the (Republicans) gave this person a passport of an Armenian citizen, they included this person in the electoral lists and bestowed the person with all rights of an Armenian citizen, he said. Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Search teams in Cyprus located two suitcases at the bottom of a lake where a detained military officer who allegedly confessed to killing seven foreign women and girls told investigators he dumped some of the bodies, officials said Saturday. Officers spotted the possible evidence with a robotic camera that will be used to keep scouring the man-man lake for a third suitcase suspected to be under water, Fire Service Chief Marcos Trangolas said. The suspect, a 35-year-old National Guard captain, said under questioning he put the bodies of three victims inside luggage that he ditched in the lake, a police official told The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose details of an ongoing investigation. Advertisement The lake, located some 32 kilometers (20 miles) west of Cyprus capital of Nicosia, is part of an abandoned copper pyrite mine where a womans body was found in a flooded shaft on April 14. The discovery triggered a homicide investigation that led to the captains arrest before a second womans body was found in the mineshaft on April 20. Police said the suspect admitted killing them both. But police said the scope of case sickeningly expanded when the suspect told them Thursday about four more victims, bringing the total to five women and two of their daughters. The suspect has not been named because he has not been charged yet. He faces charges including premeditated murder and kidnapping for alleged crimes dating back to September 30, 2016. Police told a judge at a court hearing on Saturday the suspect gave details of the slayings in 10 handwritten pages. The judge ordered him held for eight more days. The Cyprus News Agency reported that he is married with two children but separated from his wife. The news agency said investigators found photos of the mineshaft where the in his possession. Shocked Cypriots are grappling with the mounting evidence from police that a serial killer was in their midst preying on women who came to work on the east Mediterranean island nation. Hundreds of people turned up for a protest vigil outside the presidential palace Friday to mourn the victims and to question if authorities failed to adequately investigate when women who worked as housekeepers or in low-paying jobs were reported missing. In a poignant moment, a group of tearful Filipino women held lighted candles and bowed their heads in prayer for the three women and one girl of Filipino descent who are believed to be among the dead. The child is the 6-year-old daughter of the first woman found at the mine, Mary Rose Tiburcio, 38. Both had been missing since May of last year. Investigators zeroed in on the captain as a suspect based on online chat communications between him and Tiburcio during a six-month relationship. Cypriot media have identified the other victim from the mineshaft as 28-year-old Arian Palanas Lozano, also from the Philippines. During the Thursday interrogation that produced four more potential victims, the suspect provided directions to a military firing range where police found decomposed remains in a pit within hours. The captain thought the woman he killed and discarded in the pit was of Nepalese or Indian descent, according to police. At Saturdays court hearing, an investigator said she might have been Ashita Khadka Bista, from Nepal. Cypriot police think the other three victims they know about so far are a 31-year-old Filipino woman who has been missing since December 2017, Maricar Valtez Arquiola, and a Romanian mother and daughter. Cypriot media identified the mother as Livia Florentina Bunea, 36, and her 8-year-old daughter as Elena Natalia Bunea. The two are believed to have been missing since September 2016. 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. Had the DMK leader Muthuvel Karunanidhi been more broadminded, GK Moopanar, the founder of the Tamil Maanila Congress, would have been the Prime Minister of India in 1996, with the latter being the clear choice of all major Opposition parties, writes Kumar Chellappan. The Tamils are known for their passion towards everything that is Dravidian, a term inculcated in them by the British, the colonial masters of modern India. Much has been written about Dravidian nationalism and politics by historians, especially Indologists. The concept of Tamil as a different and distinct entity was brought into the subcontinent by Robert Caldwell, an Irish evangelist who came to India in 1838 as a missionary. Caldwell was intelligent enough to understand that he could proselytise the Hindus only through Tamil, the native language. He learnt the local language and propagated the message that Tamil was not a part of the Indian system of languages that included Hindi and Sanskrit. A missionary proposing a thesis, which was given instant approval by the then British Government, facilitated in convincing the gullible population that they were Dravidians, who were driven away from the fertile Gangetic plain by the Aryan invaders from the West. Though it was proved by genetic scientists, molecular biologists, and literary figures through scientific research that the Aryan-Dravidian division was bunkum and there was no scientific basis for the Aryan invasion theory, the Dravidian fanatics refused to see the writing on the wall and still go by their belief that they are Dravidians and do not have anything to do with the great Indian culture. They described the scientific investigation carried out by the international team of researchers drawn out from the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad, and the Estonian Biocentre in Tartu, Estonia, as a handiwork of the Sangh Parivar! This intransigent attitude among the Dravidian politicians has cost the Tamils big. The selfishness of a Dravidian politician from the State cost Tamil Nadu a Prime Minister. Had the DMK leader Muthuvel Karunanidhi been more broadminded, GK Moopanar the founder of the Tamil Maanila Congress (a breakaway faction of the Congress) would have been the Prime Minister of India in 1996. Moopanar, a landlord from Thanjavur, was a close confidante of late K Kamaraj, the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu as well as the president of the Indian National Congress. Like his mentor, Moopanar preferred to be a kingmaker than a king. The 1996 General Elections ended in a split verdict with no political formation getting absolute majority. The Tamil Maanila Congress-DMK-CPI alliance had swept the 39 seats in the State, obliterating the AIADMK. Interestingly, the Tamil Maanila Congress was formed by Moopanar by revolting against the then Congress president PV Narasimha Rao over the latters decision to forge an alliance with the AIADMK for the 1996 elections. Voters in Tamil Nadu were upset over the influence wielded by the Mannargudi mafia led by VK Sasikala, Jayalalithaas aide, at Veda Nilayam in Chennai. The Sasikala family, which included her nephew TTV Dhinakaran, had become a law unto themselves and the level of corruption reached sky high. Despite Moopanars word of caution, Narasimha Rao chose to go with Jayalalithaas AIADMK in the General Elections and thus the rebellion in the Congress. The people of Tamil Nadu had been disenchanted as well as fed up with Karunanidhi because of the massive corrupt practices under his regime, and hence voted for MG Ramachandran in 1977. When MGR died in 1987, Karunanidhi was elected because there was no other option before the electorate. But the DMK Government led by Karunanidhi was dismissed by the Centre in 1991 because of the free run enjoyed by the LTTE in the State. When Moopanar formed the Tamil Maanila Congress, Karunanidhi did not waste a second and forged an alliance with the new political outfit. People in Tamil Nadu had respect for Moopanar despite his image as a benevolent landlord and a man who enjoyed all good things in life. It was Moopanars public image and the push given by film actor Rajinikanth that led to the obliteration of the AIADMK in the 1996 Assembly Elections. The AIADMK could win just four seats, with Jayalalithaa getting defeated from the Bargur constituency. Sources close to Moopanar said Cho Ramaswamy, Tamil Nadus greatest political commentator and thinker, had suggested the former not to align with Karunanidhi and asked him to contest independently in the next elections. But Moopanar, who was bowled over by Karunanidhi, joined the DMK camp. While the DMK romped home with 173 seats, the Tamil Maanila Congress won nine of the 41 it had contested. In the Lok Sabha Elections, that were held simultaneously, the DMK-led front won all 39 seats from the State. The Tamil Maanila Congress walked away with the 20 seats it had contested, while the DMK won all 17 from where it had fielded the party candidates. Moopanar was the real hero of that election, reminiscences S Rameshan, the then Chennai bureau chief of the United News of India. With no party getting absolute majority at the Centre, efforts were on to find a suitable candidate for the Prime Ministers post. The first name that cropped up was that of Jyoti Basu, the then Chief Minister of West Bengal. Though Basus name was accepted by all major political outfits in the Opposition as well as the Congress, his own partymen, particularly Prakash Karat, got the proposal spiked. Basu said later that the decision of the CPI(M) not to accept the proposal was a Himalayan blunder. Later events proved that the veteran Marxist was on the dot. Harkishan Singh Surjeet the then CPI(M) boss, who was behind the Basu for Prime Minister campaign was disappointed and suggested Moopanars name for the top job. Moopanars name was acceptable to all major parties in the Opposition, except to Karunanidhi. Even 10, Janpath Road, had expressed happiness over his name because of his close ties with the Nehru-Gandhi clan. But Karunanidhi remained non-committal as well as incommunicado throughout the time when Moopanars name was under consideration, said N Kalyanasundaram, chronicler of Tamil Nadu politics. Rameshan said there was anticipation in Tamil Nadus political circles about the possibility of Moopanar becoming the first Tamil to get the top chair in the country. We do not know what happened in Delhi, the centre of all political drama. When I spoke to him over the phone, Moopanar assured me that he would call me first to tell me the news. But the phone call did not materialise. When I asked him later about it, he just smiled and changed the topic, said Rameshan. A close aide of Moopanar, who was a prominent Congress leader, also substantiated what Kalyanasundaram said. The latter was seen in Tamil Nadu as the conscience keeper of Moopanar. Another Congress heavyweight, who is contesting this election as a party candidate, also said it was Karunanidhis indifference that cost Moopanar the top job. The Congress leader told The Pioneer that while Moopanars name was being discussed, Karunanidhi was lobbying with Chandrababu Naidu for pushing HD Deve Gowda (who did not figure in the discussion) as the Prime Minister. Even P Chidambaram changed tact and started lobbying for Gowdas name, he said. Moopanars name was proposed again after the fall of Deve Gowda. At that time also, Karunanidhi played a strange game of indifference and this resulted in Moopanar losing it to make it to the then 7, Race Course Road residence of the Indian Prime Minister. Interestingly, IK Gujral, who succeeded Gowda as the Prime Minister on April 21, 1997, wrote in his autobiography, Matters of Discretion, about a meeting he had with Chidambaram on April 17. I asked him (Chidambaram) if Moopanar was an aspirant for the Prime Ministers office. Here I suspect that Chidambaram was not so candid. He told me that he had talked to Moopanar, but being a cautious person, he did not really make any clear statement. Gujral also wrote that in spite of losing the vote of confidence in Parliament on April 11, 1997, Gowda tried in vain to regain the prime ministership by ensuring discord among high-profile individuals such as Ram Vilas Paswan, SR Bommai, and Sharad Yadav. He also wrote about how Karunanidhi, with the help of his nephew Murasoli Maran, the then Industries Minister, persuaded Lalu Prasad Yadav to back him (Gujral) for the office of the PM. This proves that Karunanidhi had played spoilsport on both the occasions (prior to the election of Gowda as well as after his fall) to derail Moopanars dreams, said the senior Congress leader. Moopanars friendship with Karunanidhi did not last long afterwards. He was disappointed but did not show it in the open. Though the DMK-Tamil Maanila Congress alliance continued in the 1998 election, the fire in Moopanar was missing. Since then, he kept away from Karunanidhi and the DMK, said Moopanars aide. Gujral said the relationship between Chidambaram and Moopanar was no longer close or intimate. The growing rift between the two leaders had been brought to my notice the previous day by Jayanthi Natarajan, a former Congresswoman, who too had joined the TMC, wrote Gujral. Gujral listed a lot of details in his memoir, which substantiate the charges made by MGR and Jayalalithaa that the grand old man of Tamil Nadu was cunningly corrupt. We had appointed M Kalaivananm, an IAS officer, as the Chairman of the Chennai Port Trust purely on the basis of merit. On November 7, Karunanidhi sent his Law Minister Aladi Aruna to meet me, ostensibly to ensure the enforcement of the Supreme Court award regarding the Kaveri river water dispute (basically between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka). But the real motive was to seek a change in appointment of the Chennai Port Trust Chairman. I explained to Aruna that it would be highly embarrassing for the Government to revise such an order within a matter of days... Karunanidhi, to my surprise, then approached Chandrababu Naidu to persuade me to change my decision, Gujral wrote in his book. The same day saw Karunanidhi issuing a press statement threatening that the DMK would withdraw its ministers from the United Front Government. The reasons given pertained to the Central Governments handling of the Kaveri river dispute and a vague charge that the Centre is unhelpful. Jayanthi Natarajan (Minister of State for Civil Aviation) felt that the Chennai Port Trust had a lot of patronage, both financial and political, and Karunanidhi wanted to keep it under his control, Gujral further stated. Tamil Nadu is agog with news of the shipping and logistics companies owned by one of the many wives of Karunanidhi. There was nothing surprising in his fight with the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2004 for the Ministry of Shipping and Surface Transport, which was initially allocated to K Chandrasekhar Rao. Maybe because Rao had no ships of his own, the Telangana strongman was willing to settle for the Labour Ministry and did not utter a single word against the move to shift the Shipping Ministry to TR Baalu, a Karunanidhi supporter. The DMK wants the Centre to bestow the nations top civilian award, Bharat Ratna, to Karunanidhi. The powers that be may just glance across Matters of Discretion before taking a decision. What happened later was interesting. Moopanar joined hands with Jayalalithaa for the 2001 Assembly Elections while Chidambaram floated the Congress Jananayaga Peravai and fought as part of the NDA! The AIADMK-Tamil Maanila Congress alliance swept the election. Moopanar, too, had his own problems. His name was dragged into the Indian Bank scam in which one of his confidantes played a major role. The man is reported to have swindled the bank to thousands of crores of rupees because he was holding the portfolio of finance, which upset the patron of arts from Thanjavur. Moopanar, whose health deteriorated since he was cold-shouldered by Karunanidhi in 1996, did not live for long. He breathed his last on August 31, 2001, at the age of 70, as the unsung hero of Tamil Nadu politics. SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. Saratoga Hospital officials are seeking a zoning change needed for a proposed new medical building they say is needed to ensure the facilitys long-term financial health. But neighbors who live near the roughly eight-acre site, at the north end of Myrtle Street, say it would create major negative impacts such light, noise, and traffic, decrease property values and detract from their areas residential character. The property is currently zoned UR-1 for residential use. The proposed change (OMB: office-medical-business) would allow for a medical office building. The ultimate decision rests with the City Council, which is seeking an advisory opinion from the city Planning Board, whose next meeting is 6 p.m. Thursday at the Recreation Center, at 15 Vanderbilt Ave. However, an opinion might not be rendered then because the site is just one of 18 where zoning changes are proposed throughout the city, requiring a great deal of study. Zoning changes are needed to bring the city into legal compliance with a 2015 Comprehensive Plan update, Mayor Meg Kelly said. Its a big process, she said. This is the beginning. There will be a lot of debate. Hospital officials say the proposed medical building is an opportunity the organization cant afford to miss, and that the time to move forward is now. We are really at a critical juncture, said Dr. David Mastrianni, Saratoga Hospital Medical Group senior vice president. We have just gotten the momentum going here over the last seven to 10 years. From a medical point of view and the good of the community, this is the best answer. Hospital President and Chief Executive Officer Angelo Calbone said, This is what our physicians are saying they need to get to the next level. Plans under consideration call for a three-story, roughly 75,000-square-foot building and a 300-space parking lot on vacant property currently owned by D.A. Collins Construction Company. The hospital expects to spend $20 million for the land, site work and fitting up office space for the first 20,000 square feet. During the next four years, an additional $13 million would be invested to complete the project, for a total of $33 million. Officials said the building would house surgeons who deal with specialized types of care, such as stroke, heart and kidney problems. At present, many of these doctors are using numerous leased sites throughout the city, according to officials. The new facility would bring such physicians together under one roof, closer to the hospital and save money by eliminating costly rental agreements, Calbone said. The property is near the corner of Morgan Street and also borders the dense Birch Run housing development. Those opposed to the plan say the hospital has other options and have created a group called, Keep Morgan Street Residential. If anyone stood on my back porch, they would know this is an insane proposal, said Dave Evans, of Morgan Street. When we bought our house, we assumed the property in question would be used for residential development. Its really nestled into a residential neighborhood. Its unprecedented for there to be a change like this. Its an incredible disruption, said Tim Holmes, a Birch Run resident. There have been proposals to break up residential zones with commercial-industrial scale development. This downward trend should be halted. Recently, the City Council also sought an advisory opinion from Saratoga County Planning Board, which supported the 18 proposed zoning changes including one for the Myrtle Street property. The 2015 Comprehensive Plan changed the propertys designation from residential to institutional. When the Comprehensive Plan changed, the assumption was that the underlying zoning would be changed to reflect that, said city Planning Director Brad Birge. Several years ago, the hospital sought the zoning change needed to build a new medical building. But because of strong residential opposition, a super-majority vote of the City Council was required. However, Accounts Commissioner John Franck and former Mayor Joanne Yepsen both recused themselves, citing business-related conflicts of interest, so a vote wasnt taken and the zoning change didnt occur. Calbone said the project is desperately needed to retain and continue attracting high-caliber physicians who can provide the best level of care possible, which in turn strengthens the hospital fiscally. Some residents say the new building could be constructed on the site of an existing large parking lot on the west side of Myrtle Street, almost directly opposite the hospitals Emergency Department. But to use this space, the project would have to include a parking garage, which would add at least $10 million to the final price tag, Calbone said. The hospital also owns a large property near Northway Exit 12 in Malta. But this would inconvenience surgeons who need to get to the hospital quickly. In addition, the hospital would lose considerable Medicare reimbursement revenue if the new building isnt near the hospital, Calbone said. What people need to remember is that even if [the] zoning is changed, it doesnt mean the hospital has automatically gotten approval for a new medical building, Birge said. They would still have to bring new plans before the city Planning Board for approval. The board would look at a long list of things such as noise, traffic, lighting, parking and stormwater impacts and the size and mass of the building itself. But residents are concerned that a zoning change is the biggest hurdle the hospital needs to clear, which would lead to the medical buildings ultimate construction. This is not what the Comprehensive Plan called for, said Claudia Braymer, an attorney representing residents opposed to the project. The Sudanese Professionals Association, which led months of protests that eventually forced Sudans President Omar al-Bashir one of Africas longest-ruling leaders from power says its revolution is far from over. The umbrella group of unions succeeded where war and sanctions failed in ending President Omar al-Bashir's three-decade rule. This week the protesters scored another victory by forcing three figures seen as too close to the ousted regime to resign from the military council that assumed power after overthrowing al-Bashir on April 11. On April 27, the organisers of the protests met with the ruling military council for talks on forming a transitional government. The protesters had agreed to resume talks with the military on Wednesday, after a temporary break. The protesters fear the Army, dominated by al-Bashir appointees, will cling to power or select one of its own to succeed him. They also fear Islamists and other factions close to the deposed leader, who is now jailed in the capital, Khartoum, will be granted a role in the transition. The Sudanese Professionals Association is demanding a civilian government. They have proposed that a sovereign council, which would include limited Army representation, hand over full powers to civilians during a four-year transitional period. Army leaders have called for a two-year transition during which the generals would retain sovereign power and give only executive authorities to civilians. The military also agreed on Wednesday to recognise the Forces for the Declaration of Freedom and Change, a coalition of Opposition groups led by the Sudanese Professionals Association, as the uprisings only legitimate representative, in a move widely seen as a victory for the protesters. The council has met with a wide range of political parties about the transition, including those formerly close to al-Bashir. Shams al-Deen al-Kabashi, the spokesman for the council, said late Friday that it had completed a review of proposals. He didnt elaborate. The Opposition has meanwhile vowed to continue protests, centered on a sit-in outside the military headquarters in Khartoum. The Umma party of former Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi, a leading Opposition figure, said the protesters will not break up the sit-in until a full transfer of power to civilians. The Sudanese Professionals Association says around 100 people were killed by security forces since December, when a failing economy and a spike in the prices sparked protests. The Vice President of the Republic, Dr. Mamahudu Bawumia, on Wednesday, 24th April 2019 launched the first ever medical drone delivery service in Ghana, and the largest such drone delivery network in the world, at Omenako, near Suhum, in the Eastern Region. The 'Fly-To-Save-A-Life Project', a collaboration between the Ministry of Health and Zipline Technologies, will provide a rapid response to medical emergencies, especially in hard to reach areas, through the flying of unmanned drones to supply 12 routine and emergency services as well as 148 lifesaving medical products selected by the Ministry of Health. The Omenako Service Centre, the first of four planned centers, will supply these products to facilities located in the whole of the Eastern Region, and parts of the Volta, Ashanti, Central and Greater Accra Regions. Three other centers are expected to be completed this year to cover most of Ghana. The service will operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Each center will be 100% staffed by Ghanaian engineers, health care professionals and logistics personnel, and paid for by the private sector through their corporate social responsibility obligations with no cost to government. Speaking almost a year to the day since the possibility of setting up a medical drone service in Ghana was broached to him, an elated Vice President Bawumia said the successful launch of the service is yet another example of the triumph of innovation, especially in the use of technology, being championed by the Nana Akufo-Addo government. Vice President Bawumia was especially delighted that such innovation was being applied to improve access to health care to deprived and hard-to-reach communities, as it forms part of Government's strategy to reduce inequality and hardships by ensuring the inclusion of every Ghanaian irrespective of status in national development. "One of the biggest pillars of this government has been how to grow this country without leaving anyone behind; inclusiveness. And one of the ways we are working on is how to use technology to advance our development, improve the ways we do things in our offices, and how to improve citizens' access to and delivery of the public services they need no matter where they live in this country. The Zipline project has already attracted international attention and major players like Pfizer, NOVARTIS, GAVI, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and UPS have already engaged Zipline to deliver medicines and other supplies in Ghana on their behalf using drones. The launch ceremony was attended by the Okyenhene, Osagyefo Amoatia Ofori Panin II; Minister of Health and MP for Dormaa Central, Hon Kwaku Agyemang-Manu; Keller Rinaudo, CEO of Zipline International; Dr Anthony Nsiah-Asare, Director General of the Ghana Health Service; Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Health, Dr Kwabena Twum-Nuamah; Eastern Region Minister Hon Eric Kwakye Darfuor, and other senior government and health officials. LAKE CITY, S.C. Rejection can be a reoccurring refrain for artists, but when the constant submissions end in acceptance, it makes the good news sweeter. Such is the case with Bryan Wilson, an artist and teacher from North Carolina who said he was ecstatic to learn of his first-time acceptance to ArtFields. It came on the heels of several devastating Nos throughout 2018, Wilson said. It was a great pick-me-up going into the New Year. Wilsons ArtFields piece is an oil portrait of Black Linen, a songwriter and rapper based out of Charlotte, North Carolina, which is also where Wilson currently lives. The piece, also titled Black Linen, is the first in a series of works highlighting black males. This is an extension of a current series on natural hair that I am doing, Wilson said in his artist statement for the piece. Initially the series focused on black women, but this is the first piece in my exploration of black males' hair and how it is symbolic, not merely cosmetic. Black Linen is painted on aluminum, which emphasizes the strength of the subject, Wilson said. When we added a post-consumer recycled PET resin to our portfolio of products, our value-added position to our customer base was greatly enhanced, said Ryan Nettles, vice president of operations for PolyQuest. Brand owners and plastic converters are in need of recycled content for their products, and we help deliver a very high-quality, food-contact-approved resin to meet their requirements. The recycled plastics made in Darlington are shipped to the converter, and then turned back into a variety of new products including beverage and personal care bottles, cups, fiber for automotive parts and film for food packaging. PolyQuest has also established a laboratory to test the products manufactured at the location to insure the products meet the technical specifications of customers. In 2015, the site gained ISO 9001 and 14001 certification from ABS Quality Evaluations Inc., an independent, accredited, third-party registrar. The number of PolyQuest employees in Darlington has grown to just under 100, and the company relies on people from the local community as well as surrounding areas to make up a skilled and dedicated work force. However, moisture is also causing challenges for farmers, especially in the Pee Dee region. Dillon farmer Fitzhugh Bethea said that although corn planting intentions are high, wet conditions have limited planting. Since corn must be planted by April 30 to qualify for crop insurance, it is typically planted the last half of March and most of April. Weve had seven months of unbelievable moisture in the Pee Dee, and corn planting has been difficult so far, Bethea said. Most farmers I talked to last week were halfway through planting when they are usually almost finished by now. Also, crops like soybeans and peanuts that are harvested later in the fall have been hurt by hurricanes and wet weather over the past few years. Lee Rogers with Rogers Brothers Farms in Darlington County said his farm will not plant any beans this year and will instead increase cotton production. The rally will take place eight days before the end of the legislative session. OMalley said in his statement to district staff that many teachers have requested this day as a personal day of leave, and the district is granting them the opportunity to take the day to advocate for public education and their students. As long as our educators have days available to them, they are free to use them for this purpose, the statement said. However, any incentives or other benefits granted to our educators will count against this day. OMalley said it is the districts top priority to make sure students are safe and supervised during the school day. So, as we begin to plan, we recognize the limited number of substitutes that may be available and we will do our best to ensure that a regular school day is afforded to all of our students, OMalleys statement said. It is unclear how many teachers have requested a personal day of leave at this point. The school district is on spring break and will return on Monday. OMalleys statement comes two weeks after the district approved a teachers' bill of rights during the April 11 board meeting. A Delhi court on Saturday issued summons to Lok Sabha MP and Congress leader Shashi Tharoor in a defamation complaint filed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Rajeev Babbar over his scorpion remark against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal asked Tharoor to appear before him on June 7. The court was hearing a criminal defamation complaint against Tharoor for his comment that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is "a scorpion seated on a Shiv-ling". Babbar filed the complaint alleging Tharoor made the statement with mala fide intention, which not only denigrated the Hindu deity but was also defamatory. Babbar requested the court to initiate proceeding against Tharoor under Section 499/500 (defamation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Speaking at the Bangalore Literature Festival on October 28, 2018, Tharoor had said: "Modi is like a scorpion sitting on a Shiv-ling. You cannot remove him with your hand and you cannot hit it with a 'chappal' (slipper) either." Babbar said he was hurt by the comment as it was not only baseless, but also misleading and defamatory. He also told the court he considered Modi as an inspiration and had the highest regards for the Prime Minister. Hong Kong: CE attends women's federation forum Chief Executive Carrie Lam today delivered a speech at an exchange session organised by the All-China Womens Federation and met the Palace Museums new Director Wang Xudong in Beijing. Continuing her visit to the capital, Mrs Lam gave a speech at the exchange session in the morning, and answered questions from the 300 participants. She told leaders and staff of the federation, female university students and grassroots womens representatives, the vision and actions of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government. The Chief Executive also introduced the HKSARs unique advantage under one country, two systems and its strengths. Mrs Lam pointed out that the city will actively participate in the Belt & Road Initiative and the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. She shared her experience in participating in the second Belt & Road Forum for International Cooperation in the last two days and spoke about promoting the Greater Bay Area in Japan with Guangdong and Macau leaders in early April. The Chief Executive also briefed the participants on womens education, employment and public office appointments in Hong Kong, as well as the support and family-friendly measures implemented by the current-term HKSAR Government. Mrs Lam met the federations President Shen Yueyue after the exchange session and attended a lunch hosted by Ms Shen. During her meeting with the Palace Museums new Director Wang Xudong in the afternoon, Mrs Lam said she looked forward to the museums continuous support for the establishment of the Hong Kong Palace Museum. She also hoped the Palace Museum will continue collaborating with the Leisure & Cultural Services Department to launch more projects on heritage conservation, research, exhibitions and education. Mrs Lam invited Mr Wang to visit Hong Kong to learn about the citys latest development in arts and culture. She also met the museums retired Director Shan Jixiang to thank him for his support for Hong Kong during his seven-year tenure. Accompanied by Hong Kong delegates, the Chief Executive attended the opening ceremony and the high-level meetings of the forum yesterday. She also went to a welcome dinner hosted by President Xi Jinping and his wife for state leaders and senior officials with Financial Secretary Paul Chan and Secretary for Commerce & Economic Development Edward Yau. In the last two days, Mrs Lam met a number of participating leaders of the central ministries, regional governments and international organisations. This story has been published on: 2019-04-27. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. The Trump administrations planned restrictions on federal family-planning funding would force medical providers to give incomplete and misleading information to women seeking to terminate their pregnancies and would damage public health in California, a federal judge said Friday in barring enforcement of the cutbacks in the state. The injunction by U.S. District Judge Edward Chen of San Francisco comes a day after a federal judge in Washington state issued a nationwide injunction blocking the same restrictions on the program known as Title X. The rules, which were scheduled to take effect May 3, would prohibit public and private agencies receiving the funds from referring women for abortions and would bar them from telling women which facilities provide abortions. They would also include a requirement that federally funded family-planning providers house abortion clinics in separate facilities, a high-cost provision that Planned Parenthood has said would drive it out of the program. Chen limited his ruling to California, where state officials say about 1 million low-income patients use Title X services, one-fourth the nations total. The same rules had already been halted by the Washington judges injunction on Thursday, but advocates for the California patients said the new ruling details the impacts to Californians that could strengthen their case before the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where the Trump administration is expected to challenge both rulings. We will have the opportunity to tell the Ninth Circuit of all harms that will befall Californians, said Michelle Ybarra, a lawyer for Essential Access Health, a nonprofit that administers the program statewide. Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who challenged the restrictions in a separate lawsuit on behalf of the state, said the ruling blocks the Trump administration from yet another attempt to roll back womens health. U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman Kelly Laco, in a statement after Thursdays ruling, said the proposed Title X changes were supported by long-standing Supreme Court precedent and should be upheld. Title X, enacted in 1970, provides $286 million this year for birth control and reproductive care, including screening for cancer and sexually transmitted diseases, to low-income patients. It does not fund abortions. 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. The new rules by the Department of Health and Human Services would require Title X recipients to refer pregnant women to a provider for medically necessary prenatal health care, even if the woman has made it clear she wants an abortion. The agency would not be allowed to encourage or promote abortion, could not refer a woman to an abortion provider, and would be allowed only to provide a list of health care providers, of which more than half would not offer abortions and none could be identified as an abortion provider. Chen said the proposed changes would violate numerous federal laws, including provisions of the 2010 federal health care law forbidding government regulations that create unreasonable barriers to the ability of individuals to obtain appropriate medical care or interfere with communications regarding a full range of treatment options between the patient and the provider. Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Bob Egelko A gunman was arrested in Nevada Friday evening after killing a family member in Oakland earlier in the day, then heading to San Francisco and killing another relative in the Bayview district hours later, authorities said. Stefon Jefferson, 43, was taken into custody Friday night in Douglas County, Nev., according to the San Francisco Police Department. Jefferson was found after authorities released photos of him and his vehicle, a black Toyota Camry with the California license plate 7WVY390. In San Franciscos Bayview district, Jefferson is believed to have opened fire about 1:30 p.m. on the 2600 block of Arelious Walker Drive near the new Alice Griffith public housing development. Laron Davis, 49, of San Francisco was killed in the shooting, according to the San Francisco medical examiner. Hours earlier in Oakland, Marcus Jackson was shot and killed outside his home on the 4100 block of Market Street, police and witnesses said. He was pronounced dead at the scene. An Oakland officer said both victims were relatives of the suspect. Jacksons neighbors, Calvin Douglas and Deshaon Douglas, said they were in their kitchen when they heard up to six gunshots. They immediately dropped to the floor and called 911, they said. Jackson lived with his adult son in one unit of his property, while the suspect and his mother live in another unit on the same property, they said. Marcus was coming to check on his son, and then that happened, Calvin Douglas said. Something happened last night between the guy that did the killing and (Marcus Jacksons) son, and Marcus was coming to check on his son and the guy was waiting for him. When Calvin Douglas looked out his window, he said, he saw the mother of the suspect standing over Jacksons bloodied body. She laid there with his body. She told the police, My son did this, and that is my nephew, Calvin Douglas said. Deshaon Douglas said her 30-year-old daughter saw Jefferson outside waving his gun around after the shooting. He lived there with his mom, Deshaon Douglas said. But apparently he has some mental health issues. ... Marcus was a good man that did not deserve this at all. He was trying to protect his son. 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. On Friday night, police tape was wrapped around the driveway of a multiunit residential building where Jackson was killed. An officer in a car parked outside the building said he was keeping watch over the home because of the familys fear that Jefferson would return. UC Berkeley police were also on the hunt for a suspect in a fatal shooting at Peoples Park on Friday afternoon. Lt. Bill Kasiske said the department is aware of the Oakland and San Francisco shootings and has not confirmed or eliminated the possibility of a connection to the Berkeley slaying. The Berkeley shooting occurred at 3:30 p.m. at the park, which is part of UC Berkeleys property. Police were looking for the suspect who fled the scene in a car. Police declined to release details about the car. The victim, whose identity was not immediately available, was taken to a hospital, where he later died. We have some leads, but were not releasing the information yet, Kasiske said. Sarah Ravani, Evan Sernoffsky and Trisha Thadani are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com; esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com, tthadani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SarRavani, @EvanSernoffsky, @TrishaThadani A gunman sought in the shooting deaths of family members in Oakland and San Francisco shot and injured a sheriffs deputy in Nevada before being taken into custody, authorities said Saturday. Stefon Jefferson, 43, is also a suspect in a separate fatal shooting Friday in Berkeleys Peoples Park, UC Berkeley police said Saturday. Jefferson, whose hometown was not released, was arrested Friday in Douglas County after a shootout with police and was booked at the jail in Minden, according to the county Sheriffs Department. He was charged with attempted murder of a police officer, assault with a deadly weapon, battery on an officer and eluding an officer. Jefferson is also facing charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm and multiple traffic-related offenses. The deputy, who was not identified, was shot in his left hand and had surgery overnight, said Sgt. Jeff Schemenauer, a spokesman for the Douglas County Sheriffs Department. Jefferson received a superficial injury from a ricocheting bullet. It was more of an exploratory surgery to clean things up and remove shrapnel from the bullet, Schemenauer said. He has feelings in all his fingers. He will be having additional surgeries with the hand specialist probably within the week once the swelling goes down. In the Berkeley shooting, the suspect fled the scene in a vehicle. The victim, whose identity was not immediately available, was taken to a hospital, where he later died. Authorities in San Francisco and Oakland released photos of Jefferson and his vehicle, a black Toyota Camry with the California license plate 7WVY390, after they say he shot and killed two people within hours. A South Lake Tahoe officer first spotted Jefferson in his black Toyota Camry about 9:45 p.m. He drove at dangerous speeds over Highway 207 into Carson Valley, and the Sheriffs Department took over the pursuit, authorities said. The deputy was shot during the chase and was taken to Renown Regional Medical Center in Reno. Jefferson crashed his vehicle on Highway 207, less than a quarter mile from where the shooting took place, authorities said police used their vehicle to push him off the road in a safe manner, Schemenauer said. Jefferson surrendered to police without further incident, authorities said. In San Franciscos Bayview district, Jefferson is believed to have shot and killed Laron Davis, 49, of San Francisco at about 1:30 p.m. Friday on the 2600 block of Arelious Walker Drive near the new Alice Griffith public housing development. Earlier that day, Jefferson allegedly shot and killed Marcus Jackson outside the mans home on the 4100 block of Market St. in Oakland, according to police and witnesses. Jackson was pronounced dead at the scene. An Oakland officer told The Chronicle that both victims were relatives of Jefferson. 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. A neighbor, Calvin Douglas, said he was standing in his kitchen when he heard gunshots. When he looked out his window, he said, he saw the mother of the suspect standing over Jacksons bloodied body. She laid there with his body. She told the police, My son did this, and that is my nephew, Calvin Douglas said. Neighbor Deshaon Douglas said her 30-year-old daughter saw Jefferson outside waving his gun around after the shooting. Marcus was a good man that did not deserve this at all, she said. Jefferson will remain in Douglas County to face charges before being extradited to San Francisco and Oakland, said Officer Adam Lobsinger, a San Francisco police spokesman. Sarah Ravani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SarRavani Alameda County Sheriff Greg Ahern is officially closing the Glenn E. Dyer Jail in downtown Oakland, Ahern told The Chronicle on Friday. Officials may start transferring prisoners as early as next week, and the process would take place in stages over the next several weeks. The announcement comes just days after sheriffs officials confirmed they were considering the move as a cost-cutting measure amid declining inmate populations and rising incarceration costs. The jail is equipped to hold more than 800 people, but its current head count hovers around 400, officials said. Glenn Dyer inmates will be moved to Alameda Countys other facility, Santa Rita Jail in Dublin. The facility is built to hold well over 3,000 people, but its population as of late barely tops 2,100, officials said. Until recently, Santa Rita Jail didnt have the bed space to house the maximum-level and high-security inmates it would need to absorb Glenn Dyers population, Ahern said. The move will save at least $6 million, he said, mostly in staff overtime costs and combining kitchen and medical units. The restructuring could potentially save millions more, Ahern said, adding that no layoffs will occur. This is a very positive development for the safety of our staff and our inmates, and, financially, its a cost savings, he said. Ahern said the consolidation will be a boon for inmate rehabilitation efforts as well. Theyll be able to attend more programming and classes provided by inmate services, he said. We also will be able to have them available to work in re-entry (programs) in a higher number. The transfer has disadvantages as well, though, mostly stemming from Santa Ritas location. While the Glenn Dyer facility is just steps away from the Oakland Police Departments downtown headquarters, the drive to Santa Rita from Oakland is a minimum of 30 minutes. Officers will have to spend more time transporting detainees, which takes away from their time on the streets. The Oakland location is also convenient for many family and attorney-client visits, while Santa Rita is nearly 2 miles from the closest BART station. Ahern said the decision to shutter Glenn Dyer was partly due to a recent federal court order that limits when jail officials can interrupt inmates sleep and extends lights-out hours. The order stemmed from a federal class-action lawsuit by prisoners who alleged extreme sleep deprivation. Because the order delays breakfast by an hour on court days, jail officials now have two hours to do the work they typically did in three, said Sheriffs Office spokesman Ray Kelly. The extra staffing in one location will ensure the Sheriffs Office complies with the courts order and can get medication, food and court transportation out on time. Ahern said he couldnt yet comment on what the county will do with the shuttered jail. The facility, located at 550 Sixth St., is 234,000 square feet, and there are 20 levels in the high-rise portion. 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. Alameda County Supervisor Wilma Chan said she was unaware of Aherns decision to close the facility until informed by The Chronicle on Friday afternoon. I would have preferred if he had discussed it with us, but if hes gone ahead and done that, then its a done deal, she said, adding that she had no idea how empty the jail was. Alameda County Public Defender Brendon Woods said he was shocked by the development, after jail officials said days ago they would conduct a feasibility study with parties who do business at the jail before making a decision. Woods said he wished jail officials would have conducted this study and gathered input from the community. I have not heard anything about it except from the press, he said. Woods said the transfer will add an extra trip for prisoner families and public defenders whose clients would have otherwise been down the street. I think I would have preferred that it gone in reverse, he said. That they would have housed more in the north county (Glenn Dyer) jail as opposed to Santa Rita. Megan Cassidy is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: megan.cassidy@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @meganrcassidy A homicide suspect that was sought following two fatal shootings in Oakland and San Francisco Friday also injured a sheriff's deputy in Nevada before being arrested, authorities said. San Francisco police identified the suspect as 43-year-old Stefon Jefferson, who was found after photos of him and the black Toyota Corolla he was driving were released to the public. San Francisco Chronicle food writer Jonathan Kauffman was awarded the prestigious James Beard Foundation media award Friday. Kauffman, who will be leaving this week after five years at The Chronicle, was recognized for his project Many Chinas, Many Tables, an in-depth look at the rich array of Chinese cuisine served in restaurants across Northern California. Kauffman managed about two dozen writers, photographers, editors and interactive designers to create a curated guide to some of the best Chinese restaurants in the Bay Area, with reviews and stories highlighting chefs from Richmond to San Jose and the many Chinese cuisines. Jonathan brought to our readers a look at those kinds of exceptional local restaurants that no one pays attention to often, said Kitty Morgan, deputy managing editor of The Chronicle. The foundation named after the famed American cook, author and television personality James Beard recognizes culinary media across three categories: books, broadcast and journalism. Kauffman pulled together several experts in Chinese cuisine, eating with some at restaurants over the course of six months, and enlisting writers whose Chinese heritage added context to the reporting, according to Morgan and Kauffman. This is something that not only we had not done, but no other newspaper in the country had done, said Kauffman from New York City, where the foundation announced its winners Friday. To be able to comprehensively look at the range of communities and cuisines and to look at all the waves of immigration that have shaped this amazing diversity of Chinese food in the area was fantastic. Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more. Kauffman worked as a cook in Minnesota and San Francisco for several years before pursuing journalism. He reviewed restaurants for 11 years before joining The Chronicle in 2014. His first book, Hippie Food: How Back-to-the-Landers, Longhairs and Revolutionaries Changed the Way We Eat, was published in 2018. Tatiana Sanchez is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: tatiana.sanchez@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @TatianaYSanchez POWAY, San Diego County A 19-year-old gunman opened fire inside a synagogue near San Diego as worshipers celebrated the last day of a major Jewish holiday, killing a woman and wounding the rabbi and two others Saturday, authorities said. President Trump and other leaders decried what they called an anti-Semitic attack exactly six months since 11 people were killed at a Pittsburgh synagogue in the deadliest assault on Jews in U.S. history. An off-duty Border Patrol agent working as a security guard at the Chabad of Poway fired at the shooter as he fled, missing him but striking his getaway vehicle, San Diego County Sheriff William Gore said. The gunman, identified as John Earnest, used an AR-type assault weapon, Gore said. There were indications that the gun might have malfunctioned after firing numerous rounds inside the synagogue. Shortly after fleeing, Earnest called 911 to report the shooting, San Diego Police Chief David Nisleit said. When an officer reached the man on a roadway, the suspect pulled over, jumped out of his car with his hands up and was immediately taken into custody, Nisleit said. A girl and two men were wounded as the Jewish congregation gathered for Passover, a weeklong commemoration of the deliverance of the ancient Hebrews from slavery in Egypt. The three were in stable condition, authorities said. Earnest has no criminal record, but Gore said authorities were reviewing copies of his social media posts and are investigating the attack as a possible hate crime. A person identifying himself as John Earnest posted an anti-Jewish screed online about an hour before the attack. The post says he was in nursing school and cited the suspects accused of carrying out deadly attacks on mosques in New Zealand last month and at Pittsburghs Tree of Life synagogue Oct. 27. There was no known threat after Earnest was arrested, but local authorities boosted patrols at places of worship as a precaution, police said. Other police forces also increased their patrols, including in San Francisco and Oakland. Minoo Anvari, a member of the synagogue, said her husband was inside during the shooting. She said he called to tell her the shooter was shouting and cursing. She called the shooting unbelievable in a peaceful and tight-knit community. The mayor of Poway denounced what he called a hate crime. I want you know this is not Poway, Mayor Steve Vaus said. We always walk with our arms around each other and we will walk through this tragedy with our arms around each other. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom said he joins the community in grief. No one should have to fear going to their place of worship, he said. Elliot Spagat and Daisy Nguyen are Associated Press writers. Henry Bloch, who founded the tax preparation company H&R Block with his brother and was its folksy pitchman in television commercials for decades, helping to establish it as one of the most recognizable brands in American business, died Tuesday in Kansas City, Mo. He was 96. His death, in hospice care, was announced by the company on its website. He was a lifelong resident of Kansas City. After eight years of nearly profitless struggle, Henry and Richard Blochs company began thriving in the mid-1950s as they transformed a tiny bookkeeping operation in Kansas City into the nations dominant income-tax concern, preparing at its peak 1 in every 6 U.S. returns. In the process, they not only essentially created an industry but were also among the nations franchising pioneers, with thousands of H&R Block offices springing up across the United States and abroad. For decades, H&R Blocks TV commercials became tax-season fixtures, often featuring the soberly attired, gray-haired Henry Bloch as chief pitchman. Dont face the tax laws alone, he said after one particularly intimidating Washington tax-code overhaul. Our people will get you the maximum refund youre entitled to. (A frequent catchphrase was What can we find for you?) Henry Wollman Bloch was born in Kansas City on July 30, 1922, the middle son of Leon E. Bloch and Hortense (Bienenstok) Bloch, who was known as Horty. His father was a prominent lawyer in the city; his mother was a homemaker who read philosophy avidly and whose ancestors were among the first to settle Kansas. Henry graduated from the University of Michigan in 1944. After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, he enlisted in the Army Air Forces and served as a B-17 navigator, flying 31 combat missions over Germany, three over Berlin, and winning the Air Medal and three oak leaf clusters. The Army later sent him to the Harvard Business School to study statistics. But by then he had been nurturing entrepreneurial ambitions. My brothers and I were always thinking up different businesses we could start, he once recalled, but none of them felt right. A turning point came when he read the transcript of a speech by the noted economist Sumner H. Slichter, who taught at Harvard, arguing for the importance of the small business sector to the health of the postwar American economy. Bloch soon envisioned one day starting a firm that would supply a broad menu of financial services to small businesses, including accounting, bill collection, temporary employment and tax preparation notwithstanding the fact that he had taken only one semester of accounting in college. I just hated it, he said. At 24, after a brief stint as a stockbroker and with $5,000 borrowed from a great-aunt in New York City, he and his older brother, Leon Jr., established the United Business Co. in a storeroom office that they rented for $50 a month. (The great-aunt was Kate Wollman, who lived in the Waldorf-Astoria hotel and had donated the Wollman ice-skating rink in Central Park, later refurbished by Donald Trump, to the city.) The brothers soon landed bookkeeping jobs for small accounts, including a hamburger stand. But growth was slow, and Leon left to return to law school. Henry, however, held on and took out a help-wanted ad to find someone to replace his brother. It drew a response from his mother, who suggested that he team up with his younger brother, Richard, a graduate of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. By 1954, Hank and Dick Bloch had built a thriving 12-employee business in bookkeeping. Tax preparation was provided mostly as a courtesy to a few customers and friends, but it produced so little revenue that the brothers decided to discontinue it just before the 1955 tax season, when they were already working seven days a week. They alerted The Kansas City Star, where the brothers had been advertising their services. But an ad salesman there had a different thought: Instead of abandoning tax preparation, he said, promote it. The brothers agreed, and took out a small ad depicting a man behind an eight-ball. Taxes, $5, the headline read. The first day the ad ran, in late January 1955, it touched off a near stampede. Henry had been out visiting clients at the time when his brother called him. Hank, get back here as quick as you can! Richard said. Weve got an office full of people. Not only had taxpayers recently received their W-2 forms; the brothers also subsequently learned that the Internal Revenue Service was in the process of ending its long-standing practice of preparing tax returns free of charge. The service in Kansas City had just been halted. Henry and Richard promptly organized a tax-specialist firm to replace United Business and named it H&R Block (using their first initials but turning the h in their surname into a k, for fear that the firm might otherwise be mispronounced as H&R Blotch). It flourished, generating more than $20,000 (almost $200,000 in todays dollars) within weeks nearly a third of what United Business had been earning annually. The firm was also aided by the IRSs decision to discontinue free tax preparation in New York City, leading the Bloch brothers to open seven offices there in 1956. To oversee the New York operation, the brothers would spend alternate two-week shifts in the city while renting a house in suburban Scarsdale, New York. That arrangement, however, separated them unduly from their families and put a strain on their ability to supervise the entire enterprise. The brothers soon put the New York business on the market and found two accountants who wanted to buy it. But when the prospective purchasers could not meet the Blochs asking price, negotiations led to a fee and royalty agreement in 1957, launching what became the firms franchise network. The company says it now has about 12,000 tax offices in the United States and other countries and had annual revenues of more than $3.1 billion in fiscal 2018, when it prepared 23 million tax returns worldwide. In 1962, with Block offices numbering 206, the company made an initial public offering of its shares: 75,000 at $4 each, or about $34 today. (It was trading at $26.44 on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday.) Bloch, who had once been barred from a Kansas City country club because he was Jewish, became a wealthy man and eventually a philanthropist in his native state. A particular beneficiary was the University of Missouri, Kansas City, where the School of Business and Public Administration and the School of Management bear his name. His brother Leon also gave money to the university for a law library, which is named after him. Richard retired in 1971 to support research and education on cancer. He had survived lung cancer, after receiving a terminal diagnosis, and then colon cancer. He sold his interest in the company in 1982 and died of heart failure in 2004 at 78. Leon died at 91 in 2012. H&R Block, as a diversified financial services company, lost some its luster after 2000, when Henry stepped down as chairman and retired (though he remained as an active unofficial overseer). It suffered heavy losses in the mortgage market in the 2000s and from lawsuits alleging that it had taken advantage of poor people in extending loans in anticipation of tax refunds. It was also forced to restate earnings to correct accounting errors in its own tax returns. Henry was succeeded by series of chief executives from outside the Bloch family. The current president and chief executive is Jeff Jones. In recent years, Block has been challenged by new competitors and has closed thousands of offices with the rise of online do-it-yourself tax preparation, though the company has built a solid software business as well. Henrys wife, Marion, died in 2013 after a 25-year struggle with brain cancer. He is survived by two daughters, Mary Jo Brown and Elizabeth Uhlmann; two sons, Robert and Thomas; 12 grandchildren; and 19 great-grandchildren. His son Thomas M. Bloch is the author of Many Happy Returns: The Story of Henry Bloch, Americas Tax Man (2011). Beginning in the 1970s, Henry Bloch and his wife became avid art collectors, amassing a collection of two dozen impressionist and post-impressionist paintings by, among others, Manet, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne, Bonnard, Seurat, Pissarro, Matisse and Monet. He had said that all would eventually go to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. I think the paintings are lonely in our house, Bloch was quoted as saying in Many Happy Returns. Theyll be much happier in the museum. Robert D. Hershey Jr. is a New York Times writer. SANTA BARBARA A pipeline company has been fined nearly $3.35 million for causing the worst California coastal spill in 25 years. A judge issued a fine and penalties Thursday against Plains All American Pipeline for a 2015 spill that sent 140,000 gallons of crude oil gushing onto Refugio State Beach in Santa Barbara County, northwest of Los Angeles. The spill from a corroded pipeline blackened popular beaches for miles, killed wildlife and hurt tourism and fishing. Federal inspectors found that Plains had made several preventable errors, failed to quickly detect the pipeline rupture and responded too slowly as oil flowed toward the ocean. Plains operators working from a Texas control room more than 1,000 miles away had turned off an alarm that would have signaled a leak and, unaware a spill had occurred, restarted the hemorrhaging line after it had shut down, which only made matters worse, inspectors found. Last year, a jury found the Houston company guilty of a felony count of failing to properly maintain its pipeline and eight misdemeanor charges, including killing marine mammals and protected sea birds. Plains apologized for the spill and paid for the cleanup. The companys 2017 annual report estimated costs from the spill at $335 million, not including lost revenues. The fine was well short of the more than $1 billion in penalties prosecutors had sought. However, additional damages could be levied at a July restitution hearing. We take our responsibility to safely deliver energy resources very seriously, and we are committed to doing the right thing, the company said in a statement. As UCSF seeks to expand its partnership with a Catholic hospital chain, a national civil rights group says the affiliation violates the First Amendments prohibition against government endorsement of religion. The admonition from Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, sent to UCSF and the University of California regents Monday, comes three weeks after 1,500 doctors and hospital employees signed a petition demanding that UC sever ties with Dignity Health, which operates religious hospitals around the state. UCSF has affiliated with three Dignity Health hospitals since 2017: St. Marys and St. Francis in San Francisco, and Sequoia in Redwood City, as a way to increase capacity. Now it wants to add a fourth, Dominican in Santa Cruz. Dignity spokesman Chad Burns has said the Catholic hospitals require UCSF doctors to sign God-affirming agreements that prohibit medical care that violate the hospitals religious beliefs. He said these include the Statement of Common Values or the more restrictive Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, which characterizes certain procedures, including sterilization, as intrinsically evil. Depending on the hospital, prohibited care can include abortions, tubal ligations, hysterectomies, sterilizations, miscarriage care, gender surgery and contraceptive counseling. On Thursday, UCSF spokeswoman Jennifer OBrien said the medical centers physicians are not required to sign those precise documents. But they do commit to provide care consistent with those value statements as part of their credentialing and privilege application to practice in Dignity Healths hospitals. This does not impede our physicians ability to prescribe contraception medications at any Dignity Health hospital, regardless of its Catholic sponsorship. Lawyers for Americans United said the church/state problem remains. The University of California cannot legally enter into an agreement that binds the university, its employees, or its medical students to conform to religious doctrine in either the services that they provide or the information that they present to patients, says the letter to UCSF chief executive Mark Laret and the regents from the groups legal director Richard Katskee, and Ian Smith, a staff lawyer. They asked the regents to deny UCSFs expansion request, and to end the Dignity partnership altogether or alter the affiliation so that UCSF neither agrees to abide by nor enforces the religious practices. Laret told the regents health care committee this month that UCSF needs the partnership for three reasons: to provide relief for its overcrowded hospital sites, to bring UCSFs expertise to more patients, and to replenish the money it loses by treating Medicare and MediCal patients. And in a memo to dissenting doctors acquired by The Chronicle, Laret and other administrators said doctors who treat patients at Dignity Health hospitals have full latitude to discuss all evidence-based options for services, including reproductive and end-of-life care, and can help more patients access any of our nationally renowned programs and services. But they also have to be upfront (with patients) about what services are available in different medical facilities, the administrators wrote. Dignity Health hospitals do not perform elective abortions, reproductive health procedures such as IVF, or physician-assisted suicide. 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. UCSF is still negotiating with Dignity Health. When a proposal is ready, it will go to the regents, a spokeswoman said. Even so, the regents expect to discuss the expansion proposal at their May meeting in San Francisco, Chairman George Kieffer told The Chronicle. We certainly will consider this input along with all the other input we have received and required, he said. Nothing has been finalized at this point. Nanette Asimov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: nasimov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @NanetteAsimov Years into a ruinous housing and homelessness crisis, Californias paleolithic housing politics have at long last begun to shift. But Marin Countys refusal to join the lurch toward reality, like much of the county itself, might as well be encased in amber. A key committee this week approved legislation by state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, to legalize apartment buildings near mass transit and job centers in cities and suburbs that effectively outlaw them. The bipartisan vote was a high-water mark for the most ambitious legislative response to the housing shortage. But the price of passage through the Governance and Finance Committee, led by Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, was a carve-out for Marin and other counties he represents not the first time the area got special dispensation from the threat of affordable housing. The latest iteration of Wieners SB50 exempts from its core provisions counties with fewer than 600,000 residents, including Marin, Sonoma, Napa, Solano, Santa Cruz and Monterey. The rest of the Bay Area San Francisco and San Mateo, Santa Clara, Alameda and Contra Costa counties and most of Southern California would have to allow four- or five-story residential development regardless of local zoning near rail, ferry and high-frequency bus lines. They would also have to abandon density restrictions and lower parking requirements in other areas with abundant jobs but scarce housing. The compromise tempers some restrictive zoning in smaller counties such as the North Bays, allowing another story and less parking near mass transit. It would also broadly legalize multifamily housing up to four units, ending exclusionary single-family zoning. Since a version of the bill was dispatched at its first hearing last year, as SB827, other amendments have reduced the allowed building heights, increased affordable-housing requirements, added protections for rental housing and gentrification-prone neighborhoods, and extended its scope to high-employment, housing-scarce areas that arent near transit. In another encouraging development for housing this week, Assemblyman Richard Bloom, D-Santa Monica, withdrew a bill to allow more local rent control, which tends to diminish the supply of apartments. Legislators advanced a more moderate measure, by Democratic Assemblyman David Chiu of San Francisco, to curb extraordinary rent increases statewide, suggesting potential for a package of housing legislation that protects renters and encourages desperately needed urban and suburban construction. Its an unfortunate irony that Wieners newly amended legislation would enshrine some of the parochial obstructionism it was designed to prevent. That could embolden the powerful anti-housing lobbies in San Francisco, Los Angeles and other cities and suburbs that would prefer to kill the bill entirely. If the legislation survives and reins in those forces, the compromise will have been worth making. 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. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who devoted half of his recently released report to President Trumps strenuous efforts to undermine his investigation, observed that this was an atypical obstruction-of-justice case in a few ways. Among them: The suspect was the president of the United States, and many of the presidents acts ... occurred in public view. The presidents response to evidence that he openly obstructed investigations was telling: He continued to openly obstruct investigations. Trump spent the past week building a stonewall, making obstruction his administrations guiding philosophy. Were fighting all the subpoenas, he declared Wednesday. After the conclusion of the Mueller investigation, he told the Washington Post, there was no reason for current and former aides to cooperate with Congress apart from, you know, the Constitution. The White Houses former director of personnel security, Carl Kline, failed to show up for scheduled testimony before the House Oversight Committee Tuesday, defying a subpoena on White House orders. Kline, now a Defense Department official, was to be questioned about security clearances Trump granted over official objections to his consigliere and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, among others. The following day, Attorney General William Barr announced that he had ordered a subordinate to ignore the committees subpoena to testify about the decision to add a citizenship question to the census. The planned change to the decennial population count, which is under Supreme Court review, could discourage participation in California and other Democratic-leaning states, diminishing their clout. The White House also turned down the committees request for voluntary testimony from its mephistophelian anti-immigration adviser, Stephen Miller. The administration further threatened to assert executive privilege to prevent former White House Counsel Don McGahn from testifying before the House Judiciary Committee, which subpoenaed him on Monday. The special counsels report details McGahns mutiny in the face of Trumps orders to fire Mueller and deny being told to do so. A claim of executive privilege, which protects certain administration deliberations, could be hampered by Trumps failure to object before McGahn spoke to Mueller. The wagon-circling went beyond congressional testimony. The past week also saw Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin blow a deadline to provide Trumps six latest tax returns to the House Ways and Means Committee, which is unambiguously authorized by law to review any taxpayers records. Trump broke with a custom dating to Richard Nixon in refusing to release his returns during the campaign. In another recent bid to block disclosure of information about his finances, Trump sued his own accounting firm, Mazars, and the chairman of the Oversight Committee, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, to block a subpoena seeking records from the firm. Former Trump fixer Michael Cohen has told lawmakers that Trump presented Mazars disputed statements of his finances to banks and insurers. A Trump Organization spokesman has said the presidents company also could fight the House Intelligence and Financial Services committees subpoena seeking documents from Deutsche Bank, a prolific Trump lender tied to Russian money-laundering. The administrations obstructionism extends to a refusal to acknowledge the Russian election interference documented at length in the other half of Muellers report. Kushner has opined absurdly that investigating Vladimir Putins attack on the election did more harm than the attack itself, shrugging off a Russian operation that reached 126 million Americans as a couple of Facebook ads. Still, he conceded more of a sliver of truth than his father-in-law: Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was reportedly advised not to even mention Moscows meddling in Trumps presence. If the administrations tactics prevent or more likely given the weakness of its legal arguments forestall further scrutiny, it will be at considerable cost. House Speaker Nancy Pelosis argument against immediate impeachment proceedings rests on the premise that Democrats can examine Muellers findings and more without taking that step. Thwarting them vindicates the special counsels findings and strengthens Congress motives for invoking its ultimate powers against wayward presidents. Obstruction has figured prominently in the history of impeachment; Trumps obstructionism could make him part of that history. 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. On an unusually clear day in 1954, Chronicle photographer Art Frisch took the Mark Hopkins Hotels elevator to the 19th floor, walked toward the windows and started taking photos of San Francisco. That journey is just about identical today; the Nob Hill hotel and its Top of the Mark nightclub still have an aggressive old-school vibe. But a recent trip to the Mark Hopkins to duplicate the photo session shows that the city especially downtown is barely recognizable after 65 years of growth. After discovering Frischs photos in The Chronicle archive, we took some now photos last week. The citys development is striking from the perspective of one of the greatest man-built views in the Bay Area. Use the Knight Labs Juxtapose sliding tool to drag the photo left and right and see the results. Our first photo proves that San Francisco has become a magnificent and unapologetic narcissist. The purpose of Frischs exercise was to highlight the wonderful views beyond the city. In 2019, its clear, San Franciscos best views are of San Francisco. Eighteen downtown buildings taller than the Montgomery towers were built in the 1960s and 1970s, including the Transamerica Pyramid (853 feet high) in 1972. They form a wall now, recently joined by Salesforce Tower and its Rincon Hill sidekicks, all but blocking the once-unimpeded view of the Bay Bridge and Yerba Buena Island. A red crane looms on the bottom of this frame, preparing to make the 1954 view even more unrecognizable. It would be ideal to have a few photos of Rincon Hill, then filled with small buildings, warehouses and open space, so we could include Salesforce Tower in the project. The farthest south Frisch pointed his camera was the ferry building. The number of things that have radically changed and stayed the same are about equal in this image. The piers have mostly been saved, although their purpose has shifted in the past 65 years from fishing and imports to restaurants, museums and tourism. Another random thought, thats no surprise if you follow Chronicle urban design critic John King: The buildings in downtown San Francisco get extremely ugly once you travel north of California Street. Were imagining building rage at the Mark Hopkins Hotel in the 1960s as the Fairmont hotel tower was built, obscuring the Top of the Marks stellar Coit Tower view. But its really the only major change in the skyline, as we begin pointing the camera away from the Financial District. More from the Archive The Vault Home of the San Francisco Chronicle's archive and more than 150 years of journalism covering the Bay Area and beyond. Saints Peter and Paul Church in Washington Square stands out on the middle left quadrant of these images, looking exactly the same as it did 65 years ago, as we suspect it will in 65 more years. Other than a couple of residential towers in Russian Hill and the Pier 39 buildout still monstrous from this distance the view gazing north from the Top of the Mark is almost identical. The scene looking farther east with Huntington Park below and Golden Gate Bridge in the distance, was also very similar. Thats our main takeaway from the exercise. From the ultimate perch, with the ultimate set of archive photos, San Francisco is whatever you want it to be. Manhattanized mass of skyscrapers that has rendered the view unrecognizable? Residential neighborhoods that seem to be frozen in time? The answer is yes. Peter Hartlaub is The San Francisco Chronicles pop culture critic. Email: phartlaub@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @PeterHartlaub SACRAMENTO Half a dozen high-level employees helped the former director of the California Department of Industrial Relations fraudulently hire and promote her daughter and a friend and should be subject to potential discipline, according to a state investigation. The employees were identified only by their initials and job titles in a 34-page report released Friday by the State Personnel Board, a month after the state auditor published findings of gross misconduct by the former department head, Christine Baker, who allegedly helped her daughter obtain jobs improperly over nearly seven years. In a letter to the board and the office of Gov. Gavin Newsom, state Labor and Workforce Development Secretary Julie Su said she had hired a team of retired state workers to conduct a review and determine appropriate disciplinary action. One of the Department of Industrial Relations employees, the human resources chief, has already been removed from that position, Su said. I am committed to ensuring that appropriate action is taken and the proper infrastructure is in place to prevent any such violations from occurring again, Su said in a statement. She called the violations a systemic breakdown. Baker was appointed in 2011 by then-Gov. Jerry Brown to lead the Department of Industrial Relations, which enforces state employment law. She retired abruptly in March 2018, shortly after the state auditor presented her preliminary report to the Brown administration. Just before leaving office in January, Brown appointed Baker to the California Fraud Assessment Commission, which allocates funding for insurance-fraud prosecution. The position pays $100 per day of meetings plus travel expenses. Baker told The Chronicle last month that most of the allegations in the auditors report were untrue and were driven by a band that wanted to make me look very bad, take me down. Its complicated. According to the personnel board, Baker enlisted the Department of Industrial Relations hiring manager to help her daughter get a job there beginning in September 2011. You need to be her angel on her shoulder helping her. She had a rough year. I know you know, because I remember when you went through the very same thing and now look at you, Baker wrote in an email to the hiring manager, according to the report released Friday. The daughter, Julianna Baker, did not qualify for several positions where her mother sought to place her, so the hiring manager ultimately appointed her to a job as though she was an employee transferring within the department, the personnel boards report said. Industrial Relations administrative chief and the head of human resources helped expedite the appointment, even before Julianna Baker had taken the civil service exam required for the position, the report said. As I said to your mom, Ill take care of you as she did with me over the years, the hiring manager said in an email to Julianna Baker, according to the report. Within months, and twice more over the next five years, Julianna Baker was illegally promoted outside of the competitive state process, the report said. One of those involved a transfer to the departments information technology office, which was overseen by Christine Bakers brother James Culbeaux. During two years there, the state auditor alleged, Julianna Baker submitted fraudulent time cards, receiving $129,329 in pay for work she did not perform. The state is trying to force her to repay the money. Both Culbeaux and Julianna Baker left the Department of Industrial Relations after Christine Baker retired. As she was helping her daughter get a job, the personnel board report said, Christine Baker also directed her administrative chief and a special assistant to hire a woman who worked at a nonprofit where she served on the board of directors. In December 2011, the Department of Industrial Relations posted an application specifically for this woman, according to the personnel board. She took the civil service exam for a higher-ranking classification as she interviewed for the job and began work less than a month later in the better position, the boards report said. Twice within a year, she was also illegally promoted to positions created for her by Christine Baker, according to the personnel board. After the woman resigned in 2013 to earn a doctorate, Baker helped her retroactively change her file to a leave of absence so she could be rehired without going through the competitive state process, the boards report said. Alexei Koseff is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: alexei.koseff@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @akoseff The Sharks avoided an emotional letdown to deny a rested Colorado team and take Game 1 of their Western Conference second-round series with a 5-2 win at SAP Center on Friday. The hosts, just two days removed from a dramatic Game 7 overtime victory against Vegas, twice rallied from a one-goal deficit to win a fourth straight playoff game. Game 2 is set for Sunday. We were a little bit tired, Sharks forward Kevin Labanc said. It was a long series with Vegas but we kind of got going as the game went on. When we did we were hard to play against. The Sharks took control with a three-goal second period and goalie Martin Jones was superb, continuing his remarkable turn-about since the middle of the first round with 26 saves. Im just trying to play my game and not overthink it, Jones said. Ive got a great team in front of me and we defend hard and they make my job easy on a lot of nights. Timo Meier scored his second of the playoffs into an empty net at 19:31 to cinch it. Series schedule Sharks lead series 1-0 Game 1: Sharks 5, Avalanche 2 Sun.: at SAP Center, 4:30 p.m. Tuesday: at Colorado, 7 p.m. Thursday: at Colorado, 7 p.m. May 4: at SAP Center, TBA* May 6: at Colorado, TBA* May 8: at SAP Center, TBA* * if necessary TV: First four games on NBCSN; others TBA Radio: All on 98.5 See More Collapse The first period was a struggle to be honest, Sharks forward Joe Thornton said. I dont think we had too much energy early on. But we sort of found our groove as the game went on. The second period started inauspiciously for San Jose as Colorado took a 2-1 lead when Colin Wilsons perfect redirection slipped past Jones at 70 seconds into Dylan Gambrells tripping minor of Tyson Jost. It was after the Sharks killed both ends of Brenden Dillons double high-stick minor early in the period that the hosts came alive. That probably won us the game, Thornton said. Thornton lumbered up the ice toward the end of a long shift and positioned himself for a one-time feed from Marcus Sorensen on a 2-on-1 for a 2-2 tie at 10:05. Marcus made a great play, thats all Marcus, Thornton said. Great little saucer pass and all I had to do was hit the net. Kevin Labanc stickhandled through Mikko Rantanen while just inside the Colorado blue line, curled to the slot and pick the far top corner for his third goal of the playoff season for a 3-2 lead at 16:02. I saw Rantanen try to take the body and not the puck, Labanc said. He left a little opening between his legs and I got it through. I faked the shot a little bit, make the D bite and went high glove. And Brent Burns capped the three-goal outburst with a wrist shot from the right boards that fooled goalie Philipp Grubauer and settled into the net at 19:00 for a 4-2 lead. Burns also had three assists as was a plus-4. The Sharks escaped the first period with a 1-1 tie despite allowing the first goal and getting outshot 13-9. Jones was solid in net, stopping two mini-breaks and another in-close one-on-one. The Avalanche cracked the scoreboard early when third-liner Gabriel Bourque scored from the slot at 2:10. He knocked in a short rebound off the right pad of Jones, who had denied rookie defenseman Cale Makar from the right circle. Later in the period, Logan Couture won an offensive zone draw to Burns, who made a move to get a shooting angle. His drive from inside the right circle was stopped by Grubauer, but the fat rebound was gobbled up and lifted over the twisting netminder by Gus Nyquist at 14:44 for a 1-1 tie. The rebound came out and it was nice to be able to put it home, Nyquist said. Colorado had a potential go-ahead goal erased after a video review showed Rantanen kicked the puck over the goal line at 16:25. We kept it in their end, limited their chances and did a good job, Sharks defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic said. Ross McKeon is a freelance writer. Twitter: @rossmckeon. TOKYO Lost data. Emails that disappear into the ether. Servers that never connect. All thanks to the ascension of a new emperor to the Chrysanthemum Throne. Japan is scrambling to update software, revise forms and print new calendars before May 1, when the worlds third-largest economy begins a new imperial era. For most of the rest of the world, it will remain the year 2019 when the clock strikes midnight. Across Japan, which relies internally on an ancient calendar that honors a reigning emperor, it will be the first day of the first year of the age of Reiwa. The new era, christened just weeks ago, will force the countrys sprawling bureaucracy to literally turn back the clock to Year 1. Experts compare it to Y2K, the digital threat in the lead-up to the year 2000, if on a much smaller and less consequential scale. The change of the era name will have a huge effect on big companies that have complicated systems, said Gaku Moriya, deputy director of the information technology innovation division at Japans Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, or METI. Major companies with relatively modern systems will most likely handle the shift with aplomb. Still, the full consequences are not entirely clear, and for many the change will not be cheap. Every government form, including tax returns and marriage registrations, uses the imperial-style calendar, making it impossible for government workers and companies to avoid. Already the tally is mounting. The city of Nagoya, an industrial center in central Japan, estimates it alone will spend about $4.3 million preparing for the new era. In the city of Koga, employees preparing for the changeover accidentally erased 1,650 water bills. Scam artists have sent out letters that target older people, telling them to submit personal information to ensure that their bank accounts make the transition, according to national broadcaster NHK. For those companies that cannot get their paperwork in order by the deadline, METI recommends a distinctly old-school solution: correcting documents with rubber stamps bearing the Japanese characters for the new year. At a small factory in the outskirts of Tokyo, just three days after the Reiwa name was announced, Osamu Takiguchi and a crew of about 20 worked overtime to rush out orders of the distinctly Japanese product. We ran out of rubber in the first three days, said Takiguchi, managing director of Hanko 21, an office supply chain that owns the factory. He said he was considering hiring temporary staff to help with the last-minute rush he expected at the end of the month. The headaches have prompted a national conversation over whether it is finally time for Japan to move entirely over to the Gregorian calendar. The country uses the Gregorian calendar when dealing with other countries and to coordinate global events, such as the 2020 Olympics. Most people here have also already adopted it in their personal lives. One lawyer, Jiro Yamane, has even sued the government over the change, arguing that forcing people to measure time by the life of the emperor violates their constitutional right to individual dignity. Only Japan exists in this different space and dimension of time, said Yamane, who is scheduled to argue his case in front of a Tokyo district court at the end of May. Its incompatible with international society. Why are the Japanese so hung up on it? he added. It may just be that Japan has a hard time letting go. The country still depends on fax machines. It is one of the last places in the world where Tower Records, once a leading music store, has stayed open, still selling CDs. The new era, to many, is symbolic of a fresh start. Government offices expect couples will rush to register their marriages on the first day of the new era. The Japanese adopted the imperial calendar from the Chinese in the seventh century, and government agencies have been required to use it since the late 1970s. Other countries in the region, including China itself, have moved on and adopted the Gregorian calendar for official business. Japan hasnt had to face a calendar change for a generation and that was before the hyper-speed computer era. In 1989, when the calendar switched to the Heisei era from the Showa, the announcement was made the same day that Emperor Hirohito died. Within 24 hours, much of the initial work of replacing signs and updating forms was done by hand. This time, the transition has been more orderly. The abdication date for the current emperor, Akihito, was announced in late 2017, giving the nation nearly 18 months to get ready. Many did not. As of March, one-fifth of over 2,700 companies polled by METI had not taken steps to prepare for the switch, the agency said. Officials compounded the problem by keeping the new eras name secret until April 1, just one month before the transition. Government offices and domestic financial institutions, some of which rely on outdated computer systems, are the most likely to encounter problems, according to Moriya of METI. Some private companies may not be sufficiently aware of the issue, and dont know what kind of problems they will have, he said, adding that the agency had been holding private seminars to raise awareness. Microsoft has said that it will push updated software to its clients via its cloud computing systems. The vulnerable ones will probably be those who run older versions of Microsoft Windows or those that have not updated their systems. In some cases, system administrators may have to update operating systems almost as old as the Heisei era itself. Though the shift could be awkward or costly, it could also force more companies to get with the times, Moriya said. Some Japanese companies have used the same system for two or three decades, he said. The inside of the system has turned into a black box. Ben Dooley, Makiko Inoue and Hisako Ueno are New York Times writers. SAN FRANCISCO They all tell a similar story: They ran apps that helped people limit the time they and their children spent on iPhones. Then Apple created its own screen-time tracker. And then Apple made staying in business very, very difficult. Over the past year, Apple has removed or restricted at least 11 of the 17 most downloaded screen-time and parental-control apps, according to an analysis by The New York Times and Sensor Tower, an app-data firm. Apple has also clamped down on a number of lesser-known apps. In some cases, Apple forced companies to remove features that allowed parents to control their childrens devices or that blocked childrens access to certain apps and adult content. In other cases, it simply pulled the apps from its App Store. Some app makers with thousands of paying customers have shut down. Most others say their futures are in jeopardy. They yanked us out of the blue with no warning, said Amir Moussavian, chief executive of OurPact, the top parental-control iPhone app, with more than 3 million downloads. In February, Apple pulled the app, which accounted for 80 percent of OurPacts revenue, from its App Store. They are systematically killing the industry, Moussavian said. The screen-time app makers are the latest companies to suddenly find themselves both competing against Apple and at the mercy of the tech titan. By controlling the iPhone App Store, where companies find some of their most lucrative customers, Apple has unusual power over the fortunes of other corporations. Executives at the app makers believe they are being targeted because their apps could hurt Apples business. Apples tools, they add, arent as aggressive about limiting screen time and dont provide as many options. Their incentives arent really aligned for helping people solve their problem, said Fred Stutzman, chief executive of Freedom, a screen-time app with more than 770,000 downloads before Apple removed it in August. Can you really trust that Apple wants people to spend less time on their phones? Tim Cook, Apples chief executive, said at a conference this month that Apple had added screen-time tools to help people monitor and manage their phone use. We dont want people using their phones all the time, he said. This has never been an objective for us. On Thursday, two of the most popular parental-control apps, Kidslox and Qustodio, filed a complaint with the European Unions competition office. Kidslox said business had plummeted since Apple forced changes to its app that made it less useful than Apples tool. Apple also faces an antitrust complaint in Russia from Kaspersky Lab a Russian cybersecurity firm that American security officials claim has ties to the Russian government which said Apple had forced it to remove key features from its parental-control app. The company is exploring a similar complaint in Europe, a Kaspersky spokeswoman said. We treat all apps the same, including those that compete with our own services, said Tammy Levine, an Apple spokeswoman. Our incentive is to have a vibrant app ecosystem that provides consumers access to as many quality apps as possible. She said Apple removed or required changes to the apps because they could gain too much information from users devices. She added that the timing of Apples moves was not related to its debut of similar tools. Apple is facing other accusations that it is abusing its dominant position to lift itself and bury rivals an issue that has become more important as the iPhone maker expands into new markets like television, news and gaming. Spotify complained to European regulators last month that Apple used the App Store to give its Apple Music service an unfair advantage over Spotifys competing app. Dutch regulators announced this month that they would investigate whether Apple abused its control of the App Store. In the United States, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a Democratic candidate for president, recently suggested separating the App Store from Apple as part of her proposal to rein in the American tech giants. An Unhappy Parent In early 2018, two prominent Wall Street investors urged Apple to address concerns that people were becoming addicted to their smartphones. In June, the company announced plans for tools to help iPhone owners track and limit their and their childrens phone use. It began offering the tools in September, tucked into the phones settings menu. Shortly after announcing its new tools, Apple began purging apps that offered similar services. Apple told the companies that their apps violated App Store rules, like enabling one iPhone to control another, although it had allowed such practices for years and had approved hundreds of versions of their apps. Apple allows corporations to use such software to control employees phones. But last year, the company stopped apps from using the software to enable parents to control their childrens devices. The Apple spokeswoman said Apple had blocked the practice because app makers could gain access to too much information on the childrens devices. Unlike apps such as OurPact, Apples tools dont allow parents to schedule different times throughout a day when an app is blocked for school or family dinner. And Apples tool blocks adult content only on its Safari web browser and some apps, not on other browsers or many popular apps, like Twitter, YouTube and Instagram. Bruce Chantry, a 47-year-old father of two outside Cleveland, said he had used OurPact and Mobicip for years until Apple forced them to gut key features. He has found Apples tool more complicated and less restrictive. His children have already found workarounds to Apples web-filtering tool and, unlike the apps he had used, it has no kill switch to quickly disable certain apps on their phones, Chantry said. It didnt make managing these new digital threats any easier, he said. It actually made it more difficult. Apples tool has another shortcoming: It requires the whole family to own iPhones. Many apps removed by Apple allowed parents with iPhones to control their childrens Android devices. Apple has also limited the options for adults who want to fight their own phone addiction. In August, it abruptly pulled down the Freedom app, which allowed users to temporarily disable certain apps and websites. Stutzman, Freedoms chief executive, said that to return to iPhones, he was forced to stop blocking apps and to block sites only on Apples Safari browser. Apples tool now appears to be one of the few ways to disable apps, if not the only one. Yet when a user hits an apps time limit on Apples tool, it provides a single option: Ignore Limit. No Reason, No Detail The app makers said they were most frustrated by the process of meeting Apples sudden demands. In many cases, Apple alerted them that their apps would be removed and their businesses crippled via a short note, according to correspondence viewed by The Times. When app makers asked for more information, responses were often perfunctory and slow in coming. As a developer whos been on the App Store for 10 years, I would expect some courtesy from Apple of at least a phone call to explain what were doing wrong, said Suren Ramasubbu, the head of Mobicip, a parental-control app that had about 2.5 million downloads this year, about 70 percent of them on iPhones. On Jan. 19, Ramasubbu received a message from Apple that said he had 30 days to change the Mobicip app or it would be removed from the App Store. If you have any questions about this information, please reply to this message to let us know, the note said. Best regards, App Store Review. Over the next 27 days, Ramasubbu responded four times seeking more information. He eventually resubmitted the app with changes he hoped would satisfy Apples demands. Then, with Mobicips deadline just a few days away, Apple responded three times to his earlier detailed questions with virtually the same message: Your app uses public APIs in an unapproved manner, which does not comply with guideline 2.5.1 of the App Store Review Guidelines. We hear you loud and clear, Ramasubbu responded on the morning of Feb. 19, Apples deadline. He begged for answers: Could Apple tell him what he needed to do to keep Mobicip on iPhones? Any general direction, clue or specific guidance will be deeply appreciated. We have been one of the pioneers among parental control apps on the App Store over 10 long years and have always been playing by the rules, he wrote. Please point us in the right direction and we can take it from there. Five hours later, Apple responded with a 14-word message: Your app has an unresolved issue and has been removed from the App Store. No reason, no detail, Ramasubbu said. Suddenly we dont have a business anymore. This article originally appeared in The New York Times After languishing for a few years, support for teaching money-management skills to high school students has reignited, financial literacy advocates say. They attribute much of the newfound interest to worries about mushrooming student debt. High school students are asked to make a consequential decision, said Annamaria Lusardi, founder and academic director of the Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center at George Washington Universitys School of Business. Whether or not to go to college, and how to finance that decision. The Council for Economic Education, which promotes economic and financial instruction, reported last year that just 17 states required high school students to complete a course in personal finance unchanged from the councils report published two years earlier. But a recent flurry of mandates and proposals in more than a dozen states suggests that efforts to formally include money matters in high school classrooms are gaining traction. There was a lull, said Nan Morrison, the councils chief executive. But now were seeing movement. Iowa, for example, passed a law in 2018 requiring all high school students, beginning with the class of 2020, to complete a half-year personal finance course as a graduation requirement. And Kentucky passed a law last year requiring students to take courses or programs that meet state financial literacy standards as a graduation requirement, starting with the class of 2025. Earlier this year, laws were proposed in several states to boost financial education. They include a bill introduced in Florida that would require high school students to take a course to learn about credit scores and other money management topics. And a measure introduced in Rhode Island would require all public high schools to offer a class that includes personal finance beginning in the upcoming school year. The measure would also require students to demonstrate proficiency in personal finance by the 2021-22 school year. Lusardi, at George Washington University, said research showed that 1 in 5 American high school students lacked even basic financial skills such as the ability to interpret a pay stub to determine how much money will be deposited into their bank account or the savvy to avoid being tricked into sharing an online bank account logon. The average student debt in 2017 was about $29,000, according to the Institute for College Access and Success. About 1 million borrowers default for the first time on their federal student loans each year, a report from the Urban Institute found. The latest steps taken by various states may help their financial literacy report cards, said John Pelletier, director of the Center for Financial Literacy at Champlain College in Vermont. Under Pelletiers oversight, the center compiles a periodic report that assigns each state a letter grade, based on its commitment to financial literacy instruction. Just five states earned an A grade in the centers most recent analysis, which was issued early last year and included data as of mid-November 2017. But Pelletier said that he expected several states may improve their grades in his next report, due at the end of this year. Theres been movement, for sure, Pelletier said, adding that whether all the proposals become law remains to be seen. Here are some questions and answers about financial literacy efforts: Q: How can I find out if my school district offers personal finance instruction? A: The JumpStart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy, a nonprofit group that promotes financial education in schools, recently started the Groundswell initiative with the aim of increasing financial literacy programs by 25 percent by 2025. The programs new website, CheckYourSchool.org, lets users search by their local school district to see what sort of personal finance instruction is offered. The program also provides suggestions for parents and families to push for adoption of new courses. Q: What topics should a high school personal finance class cover? A: Several groups, including the Council for Economic Education, publish standards along with benchmarks for each grade level. The councils benchmarks advise that by grade 12, for instance, students should be able to calculate how much a 10-year-old would need to save today to pay one year of college tuition eight years in the future. Pelletier said the instruction should include bedrock financial concepts, like the effect of compound interest on savings and investments, and lessons on how your credit score affects borrowing costs over time. Q: How can parents encourage financial literacy at home? A: Many parents are uncomfortable talking about money, advocates say, or dont know where to start. Fast Lane, a new initiative of the Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center that seeks to expand financial education in high schools, offers free, research-based resources not only for educators, but also for parents of high school students. The site includes suggestions for online money games that families can play together to help break the ice. Also, JumpStart offers a clearinghouse of resources online, searchable by age and topic, to help generate conversation; some are free. Ann Carrns is a New York Times writer. TALLINN, Estonia Uber used to dominate ride-hailing in Poland and Kenya. Over the past two years, that started to change. In Poland, a small competitor opened a rival service and began winning customers with cheaper fares and attracting drivers by charging lower commissions. In Kenya, that same upstart grabbed business by offering motorbike rides and letting passengers pay using a popular mobile payments provider. In both countries, Uber responded by spending more money on new incentives to entice customers and drivers. The rival that put Uber on the defensive is called Bolt. Based in Estonia, it was founded six years ago by a 19-year-old college dropout, Markus Villig. Since then, the company has turned into an unexpected success story by becoming Ubers most formidable challenger in Europe and Africa. Transportation is a completely different space, Villig said at Bolts offices inside a former furniture warehouse in Estonias capital. You will have these regional champions. He added that Uber did not make Eastern Europe and Africa a priority because they have bigger battles elsewhere. Bolt is an example of a troublesome trend for Uber, the worlds largest ride-hailing company, which is set to go public next month at a valuation of as much as $100 billion. Everywhere the San Francisco company turns, a conveyor belt of new antagonists keeps emerging around the globe. In India, Uber is battling a service called Ola. In Brazil, it is dueling Didi Chuxing, a Chinese company that bought the local ride-hailing operator 99 last year. (Uber owns a stake in Didi.) And newfangled transportation companies, such as electric scooter providers, have popped up. The multifront battle means that Uber, which is already spending billions of dollars to compete in 700 cities around the world, cannot afford to relax and cut back on costs as its opponents chip away at its growth. The company, which lost about $1.8 billion and spent about $14.3 billion last year, is set to continue losing money for the foreseeable future. That may be compounded as Ubers rivals become more aggressive. Bolt is now planning to confront Uber in one of its most lucrative cities: London. The smaller firm is reapplying for a taxi license to operate in the British capital after regulators there rebuffed it in 2017. A prolonged battle in London, which is Ubers biggest market in Europe and one of the few places it has been profitable, could be financially bruising. The problem that Uber or any other incumbent faces is that the barriers to entry are very small, said Bob Hancke, an associate professor of political economy at the London School of Economics. Hancke said that ride-hailing customers were fickle and that companies were largely battling over recruiting passengers and drivers. Can they out-recruit Uber and can they charge a lower price? Thats the big question, he said. Uber declined to comment. The company has retreated from some highly competitive markets, including China, Southeast Asia and Russia. In the Middle East, it recently bought Careem, the biggest competitor, for $3.1 billion. But Uber has also argued that ride-hailing is a battle of attrition and that it can outlast rivals. Our scale and platform provide us with important advantages, it said in its public offering prospectus this month. If Bolt appears as if it came out of nowhere, that is partly because the company and its founder were under the radar for years. Villig grew up on Saaremaa, a sparsely populated island in the Baltic Sea, and moved to the capital, Tallinn, when he was 7. By age 10, he said, he knew he wanted a career in technology. In high school, he built websites for local businesses. Villig drew inspiration from the success of Skype, the internet-calling service now owned by Microsoft, whose original engineering team was in Estonia. One member of that team was Villigs older brother, Martin, who now works at Bolt. In 2013, Villig started Bolt, initially named Taxify, after dropping out of college and mustering the courage to ask his parents to let him use the few thousand euros that had been saved for his tuition. He had been frustrated by Estonias taxi service and didnt expect Uber to become available anytime soon in a country that some Americans cannot find on a map. (Estonia is west of Russia, south of Finland.) Raising money from his parents turned out to be easier than persuading venture capitalists to invest in Taxify. A few local investors, including alumni from Skype, ultimately backed the new firm. But Villig was rejected by dozens of others who figured Uber would squash him. It was just a taxi app in Tallinn; you couldnt see it was going to be big, said Rain Rannu, an investor in Estonia who was one of the first to put money into Bolt. As for Villig, Rannu said, he was just out of high school. Bolt focused on working with taxi companies before switching to a business more like Ubers: offering rides through a smartphone app and using unlicensed drivers. The company homed in on markets in Eastern Europe, the Baltics and Africa where Villig felt Uber wasnt making a big effort. The company struggled until business in Africa began to grow. The continent now makes up about half of Bolts business. Today, Bolt operates in more than 100 cities and 30 countries. It opened in Sweden, Croatia and Finland in the past six months, and will soon be available in Russia. More than 25 million passengers have used Bolt to take a ride since it was rolled out. Villig said raising money for Bolt had been difficult: He pulled together less than $5 million over the companys first five years, while Uber has raised more than $24 billion. Then last year, investors including carmaker Daimler and Chinas Didi put $175 million into Bolt. It is now working on a new round of funding. Bolts long-term success is far from assured. Like Uber and Lyft, it loses money. For every $10 it makes in fares, Bolt loses about $1 because of the cost of expanding to new markets and offering incentives to riders and drivers, Villig said. But that is less than Uber and Lyft, he added. He said Bolt was on a pace to have more than $1 billion in total bookings this year and could break even if it slowed down its expansion plans. He hopes to take the company public in three to five years. Bolt also is more frugal than Uber, Villig said. The company spends about half as much on an engineer who works in its offices in Estonia and Romania than it would in California, he calculated. The company also saves money by forgoing a large research department. Instead, it posts Facebook ads for drivers to help it decide which cities to open in. Bolt focuses on areas that get big responses. The company keeps most support operations centralized in Estonia and hires just three to five employees in each country it operates. And Villig said he had no interest in spending on autonomous vehicles. Even so, Bolt faces challenges. Uber has vanquished many rivals and will add as much as $10 billion to its coffers from its initial public offering. Bolt also has many of the same labor and regulatory challenges that Uber has grappled with over the past decade. In Africa, payment fraud has been a consistent problem. Yet Villig said that even if Bolt disappeared, new rivals to Uber would emerge. Ubers becoming more dominant is not going to happen, he said. There isnt any geography in the world where they will have a monopoly. Adam Satariano is a New York Times writer. LOS ANGELES A Los Angeles County program that uses electronic bracelets to find missing people with dementia or autism was launched partly in response to the death of Nancy Paulikas, a 55-year-old woman with Alzheimers disease who wandered away from her husband during a visit to a museum. During the desperate search for his wife that began in late 2016, Kirk Moody grew increasingly frustrated by the lack of communication between law enforcement and other agencies. I called every county office there is, Moody said Wednesday. And I found myself explaining things over and over because it was clear they werent talking to each other. With Moodys input, the county started L.A. Found with the goal of establishing procedures to help police, sheriffs, fire departments, nursing homes and hospitals coordinate during a search. The cornerstone of the program is a system of bracelets voluntarily worn by vulnerable people that can be located using electronic receivers carried in Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department squad cars and helicopters. More than 250 residents have been outfitted since October with the bracelets maintained by Project Lifesaver, a public safety nonprofit. At least four missing people have been located thanks to the technology, including a 53-year-old woman with dementia who wandered away from her family around Christmastime, said Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn. Wandering is a common problem associated with dementia and autism. According to the Alzheimers Association, 60% of people with dementia will wander at some point while a study by the Interactive Autism Network found that 49% of children with autism will engage in wandering behavior. While the vast majority of these individuals are recovered, wandering cases can end in tragedy. Paulikas remains were discovered on a hillside in March 2017, five months after she walked away from Moody while the couple explored the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. To prevent similar tragedies, L.A. Found seeks to have the countys thousands of employees be the eyes and ears during a search, said Hahn, who authored the initiative eventually passed by the Board of Supervisors. The county has law enforcement, we have our transit systems, we have our county hospital and nursing facilities. We have the coroner on the lookout for a Jane Doe or a John Doe, Hahn said Wednesday. And were making sure that theyre all talking to each other. Moody, 60, said he considers the renewed collaborative efforts a huge victory and hes gratified that Paulikas has become the face of the new program. Initial money for the bracelets came from the county, but funding has grown through donations from various state and local organizations. Hahn said she believes the program is the first of its kind in the nation. She said officials from Colorado and other California counties have called expressing interest in replicating it. Christopher Weber is an Associated Press writer. An Army veteran who faces eight counts of attempted murder after plowing his car into a crowd of people in Sunnyvale, critically injuring a 13-year-old girl, targeted the victims because he thought some of them were Muslim, police officials said Friday. Isaiah Joel Peoples, 34, was ordered held without bail Friday at his first appearance in court since being arrested and charged with steering his black 2010 Toyota Corolla into eight pedestrians Tuesday evening. The defendant said nothing during the brief appearance in Judge Richard Loftus courtroom at the Santa Clara County Hall of Justice in San Jose. Based on our investigation, new evidence shows that the defendant intentionally targeted the victims based on their race and his belief that they were of the Muslim faith, Sunnyvale Police Chief Phan Ngo said outside court. The chief didnt explain what evidence led police to believe this and did not say whether any of the victims are Muslim. The Santa Clara County district attorneys office charged Peoples with eight counts of attempted murder, four of which have enhancement for causing great bodily injury. Prosecutors have not filed hate crime enhancements in the case, but are prepared to do so if the investigation yields enough evidence, Chief Assistant District Attorney Jay Borarsky said. There is very appalling, disturbing evidence that at least one or two of these victims were targeted based on the defendants view of what their race or religion may have been, Borarsky said, adding that we have zero tolerance for any sort of hate crime. Sunnyvale police Capt. Jim Choi said Peoples has made no statements of remorse since his arrest Tuesday evening. Peoples attorney, Chuck Smith, challenged the accusations and said his client did not intentionally run down anyone and has been praying for the victims injured from his actions. This act was clearly the product of some mental disorder or mental defect, Smith said after the hearing. There is no explanation for this other than his service, the things he saw, and what happened to him mentally while serving our country. Peoples served in the U.S. Army from 2004 to 2006 and was honorably discharged before joining the Army Reserve in 2008. He was a civil affairs specialist who retained the rank of sergeant and was deployed to Iraq from June 2005 to May 2006, officials said. His brother has told The Chronicle that Peoples was struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder after his return from the Middle East. He was on medication and spent nearly a year in a mental institution in 2015, his brother, Joshua Peoples, said. Before he ran down the crowd, Peoples picked up food and was heading toward a Bible study group, police said. One witness told The Chronicle that he reached speeds up to 60 mph before striking the victims. Police later found a disassembled, inoperative shotgun in the Toyota, they said. Peoples hit seven of the eight victims he targeted, police said. One of the victims pushed his 9-year-old son out of the cars path. The father, however, was hit, along with his 13-year-old daughter, who authorities said is the most severely injured victim. She remains in critical condition in a coma with swelling to her brain, police officials wrote in court papers. Doctors removed the left side of her skull to relieve pressure. She also has a broken pelvis. Our hearts are with her and her loved ones as we pray for her recovery, Ngo said. The six other victims have injuries ranging from broken bones to minor scrapes. After crashing into the crowd at the intersection of El Camino Real and Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road, a witness said, Peoples got out of his car and repeatedly mumbled, Thank you, Jesus, before police came to the scene and arrested him. The attack comes as many local Muslims have grown fearful and frustrated over recent anti-Muslim rhetoric and attacks around the country and world. Last month, a man suspected of having white nationalist ties gunned down 49 people at two mosques in New Zealand during Friday prayer. In the United States, Muslims were the target of nearly 19% of religiously motivated hate crimes, according to FBI data released in 2018. My heart breaks for anyone who is an innocent victim of hate, said Samina Sundas, founder of the American Muslim Voice Foundation, a Bay Area Muslim advocacy group. People are just killing right and left. I dont know when it will stop. Sundas said people shouldnt focus on divisiveness when tragedies like the one in Sunnyvale happen. More of us need to dedicate ourselves to love, not hate, she said. Lauren Hernandez, Tatiana Sanchez and Evan Sernoffsky are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: lauren.hernandez@sfchronicle.com tatiana.sanchez@sfchronicle.com esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @LaurenPorFavor @TatianaYSanchez @EvanSernoffsky The car that drove off of a cliff in San Mateo County Thursday may have belonged to a San Jose man who went missing around the same time. A red sedan was seen heading north on Highway 1 in Montara when it swerved towards another car, according to the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office. The driver of the other car contacted authorities after they saw the red sedan drive off of a cliff somewhere between La Costanera Restaurant and the Tom Lantos Tunnel. RELATED: Bay Area double homicide suspect arrested in Nevada On the day of the crash, the San Jose Police Department had contacted the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office and stated they were looking for a missing San Jose man who was last seen driving a red 2010 Toyota Camry. The San Jose Police Department said they had information from the missing man's family and cell phone data suggested he may have been in Montara. Deputies found a sedan undercarriage panel at a spot near Montara State Beach that was overlooking a cliff. On Friday, the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office, the Pillar Point Harbor Patrol and the US Coast Guard conducted a search in the water for the vehicle, and were able to recover numerous vehicle parts from a 2009-2010 Toyota Camry. ALSO: Friday Muni subway disruption caused by failure of overhead wire The driver and the actual vehicle were not recovered, however, and deputies were not able to confirm that the driver was the missing man. Anyone who has information regarding the crash is encouraged to call 1-800-547-2700. Eric Ting is an SFGATE staff writer. Email him at eric.ting@sfgate.com and follow him on Twitter Start receiving breaking news emails on floods, wildfires, civil emergencies, riots, national breaking news, Amber Alerts, weather emergencies, and other critical events with the SFGATE breaking news email. Click here to make sure you get the news. You dont have to look very hard in the Bay Area to see devastating examples of economic inequality. Often, the uber wealthy and the homeless live on the same street. Billion-dollar tech companies in San Francisco shoo homeless residents from their vicinity, and people living in RVs are met with No Parking notices in Berkeley. The wealthy have nowhere to go but up, and the poor have nowhere to go. Were here to say enough is enough. This year, the festival celebrates its most extensive children, youth and young adult programming ever. The programs aim to inspire a future generation of readers through author talks, storytelling and shows on three family-friendly outdoor stages in the festivals free Outdoor Fair, DIY and STEAM activities in the interactive Family Fun Zone and free admission for youth (under age 18) to all ticketed indoor events featuring popular authors. Sparking lifelong readers has long been a focus of the festival, said Samee Roberts, the festivals managing director. The weekend is jam-packed with fun and exploration including meeting favorite authors, discovering new reads, catching live performances and crafting your own books, journals and bookmarks. Bring the little ones to the StoryTime Circle for read-alouds with beloved authors, including Nidhi Chanani (I Will Be Fierce!), Mylo Freeman (Princess Arabella series), Tania de Regil (A New Home) and Rana diOrio (What Does It Mean to Be American?). Children of all ages can head over to the festivals new Young Readers Stage for author talks, illustrator duels, Book Club for Kids Podcast and much more. Writers like Annie Barrows, Mac Barnett, Tim McCanna, Gennifer Choldenko, Ben Costa and James Parks will be in conversation throughout the weekend. Children also can attend, for free, all ticketed indoor events featuring popular authors. Family-friendly poetry, author duels and two live performances by Oaklands beloved Alphabet Rockers will highlight the festivals new Word Power Stage at the La Cocina Food Court. Gather friends and family for a picnic and theater-style seating to watch Literary Death Match a thrilling competition between established and emerging authors making its young adult and middle grade debut at the festival. While there, festivalgoers can also catch a live taping of the Book Club for Kids podcast where middle grade author J.C. Cervantes will be interviewed by Albany Middle School students, hosted by award-winning journalist and writer Kitty Felde. Other highlights include recitations of winning essays by Native middle and high school students from Sonoma (full story on page 18) as well as students from a host of Bay Area high schools who participated in the festivals annual Young Authors Writing Contest in association with Writopia Lab (see story on page 18). Between shows, children and their families can imagine, immerse, create and craft to their hearts content in the dynamic Family Fun Zone, jam-packed with enriching activities for the young and young at heart. There will be plenty for teens, too, with popular YA authors featured in indoor sessions throughout the weekend. See the full story on page 16. For full stage lineups, performance times and family activities, see Free Outdoor Fair page 29. Food for thought has always been plentiful at the Bay Area Book Festival, now in its fifth year. Similarly, its programming has always been paired with responsible food vendors, with relatively high quality food, according to Cherilyn Parsons, the festivals executive director. But after last years festival, an observation by Alice Waters, the renowned Berkeley chef and restaurateur, ultimately led organizers to create a new way to satisfy participants appetites both for community as well as for sustenance, Parsons noted. This year, four new lounge areas and five food booths, the latter run by immigrant women, will take it to another level, Parsons said. Alices concept of slow food and communal experience is centered around quality, Parsons explained. She noted that books are the equivalent of slow food, in terms of what we consume in our minds. We have our screens, which give us short cuts and clips, but books are a high-quality, long-form, slow-food type of experience. She drew this connection, which I really appreciate, and asked if there was a way we could make the outdoor festival reflect that books are slow food for the mind. The new lounges including covered space at the German Pavilion and outdoor spaces at the Alibris Alcove (serving coffee), an area sponsored by Beneficial State Bank and comfy outdoor chairs contributed by REI will encourage festival participants to relax together, Parsons said. Its about taking a breath, enjoying book reading and connecting book lovers, she added. Adding immigrant women vendors who graduated from the nonprofit La Cocina restaurant incubator program will also help the festival represent its values in a different form, Parsons said. You can look at our programming and see what we think is important, such as immigration, race and inclusiveness, she said. Food-themed literary sessions include interviews with celebrated chef Kwame Onwuachi, author of Notes From a Young Black Chef, and A Brown Table food blogger, Nik Sharma, who shares recipes from India to California in his James Beard Award nominated book Season. Likewise, all the (new) vendors have stories, Parsons said. We reflect in food what were doing in our programming. Three of their booths Old Damascus Fair, Noodle Girl and El Meson de Violeta will be familiar to patrons of the Berkeley Student Union, where La Cocina runs the dining hall, according to Caleb Zigas, executive director of the San Francisco-based nonprofit agency. Of the others, Los Cilantros has had a business on Berkeleys Shattuck Avenue for five years, Zigas said, while Reems California in Oakland won a best new restaurant award from Food & Wine in 2017. I really love all of their food, he added. You have a really good breadth of options there. Although hes reluctant to name a favorite dish, Zigas said Dilsa Lugos Los Cilantros serves locally sourced, seasonal, vegetable-forward Mexican food with really delicate flavors that you dont get anywhere else, while Carmen Maturana, the owner of El Meson de Violeta brings an artists soul to her empanadas. At Reem Assils Middle Eastern booth, Zigas said, look for the hot, fresh bread coming off the sajj ... the warm bread being slathered with California olive oil is amazing. Hang Truong, the owner of Noodle Girl, is renowned for kelp noodle salad. She comes from a small island in Vietnam and shes cooking the same food that her family restaurant there cooked, Zigas said. Thats really special. The family of Batool Rawoas, proprietor of Old Damascus Fair, left everything behind when they emigrated from Syria. Now their rich, hearty food is the only connection with the land they left unwillingly, he noted. According to Samee Roberts, the festivals managing director, their booths will be at the center of the festival, at the corner of Allston and Milvia, next to the Word Power Stage. The latter will host poetry readings, Literary Death Match events and social justice-oriented childrens hip hop by the Alphabet Rockers, and offer a combination of theater-style seating and picnic tables, so you can grab delicious food thats right there and watch the performances, Roberts said. Its going to be wonderful. In addition, the Berkeley Ecology Centers farmers market will continue to host food vendors during the day on Saturday, Roberts noted. On both days, a handful of additional local vendors will augment with crepes, ice cream, kettle corn, and other delights to satisfy the sweet tooth. But the La Cocina purveyors, some of whom hail from families of readers and participate in community activism, bring a new dimension to the festival. These women are not just cooks theyre thinkers, theyre leaders so its nice to be included in that conversation, Zigas said. The City of Berkeley welcomes you to the fifth annual Bay Area Book Festival. Since its launch in 2015, the festival has established itself as a premier event for authors and book lovers from around the region, a place where ideas are discussed, challenged and dissected. This years line-up features a diverse group of 250 authors and speakers from around the world. They cover a wide variety of topics, with notable emphases this year on social issues such as race and immigration with other sessions exploring food, childrens literature, and the pleasures of the imagination across many literary genres. Dear friends, Welcome to the Fifth Anniversary edition of the Bay Area Book Festival! Actual Facts. Real Conversation. Slow Food for the Mind. Weve used this tagline to describe the festival this year. The fast food that passes as public discourse today tweets, listicles and sound bites creates a dumbed-down, polarized society. Theres enormous value and pleasure in long-form work, a book, that explores an idea thoroughly. For an intelligent community like the Bay Area, books are vital nourishment. Books also matter for social progress. In 1962, Rachel Carsons Silent Spring woke the world to the dangers of pesticides and ushered in the modern environmental movement. An inheritor is David Wallace-Wells with The Uninhabitable Earth, a wake-up call on the dire impacts of climate change. (See him Sunday, May 5, 10 a.m.) Decades ago, James Baldwin wrote into being a new level of public consciousness and pride around Black experience (gay and bisexual, too). Today we read writers of color such as Ishmael Reed and younger poet Morgan Parker (in conversation Saturday, May 4, at 3:15 p.m.), along with Kiese Laymon, Tayari Jones, Esi Edugyan, Carmen Maria Machado, Franny Choi, Tommy Pico and many others at this years festival. In the second half of the 19th century, the freed slave Frederick Douglass wrote, The soul that is within me no man can degrade. A century later, the American prison system held Albert Woodfox, one of the Angola Three, in solitary confinement for 43 years for a crime he didnt commit. In his memoir Solitary, sure to become a classic, Woodfox writes, Their main objective was to break my spirit. They did not break me. I have witnessed the horrors of mans cruelty to man. I did not lose my humanity. Hear Woodfox interviewed by Shane Bauer (author of the award-winning American Prison) in our closing keynote on Sunday, May 5 at 5:00 p.m. As for Douglass, his biographer David Blight author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom just won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for that book. Hear him Saturday, May 4 at 11:45 a.m. Literature and books might seem ordinary; we all use language, after all. But they are not. As Joan Didion famously said, We tell ourselves stories in order to live. Come to the festival to be sustained. Our menu for the mind is vast. After you attend a program, enjoy the Outdoor Fair, featuring literary exhibitors and a vibrant food court, and take a break in lounges and reading nooks. Enjoy browsing this Guide and finding what satisfies your hunger. Cherilyn Parsons, To our readers: Welcome to the San Francisco Chronicles comprehensive guide to the fifth annual Bay Area Book Festival. The Chronicle is proud to be a sponsor of this major event that has become a mainstay of literary life in Northern California. The festival is a two-day takeover of downtown Berkeley that brings together an unprecedented collection of writers and attracts tens of thousands of Bay Area residents. Next weekends event reflects the Bay Areas important literary tradition as well as our center stage role in global culture and the marketplace of ideas. For more than 150 years, Chronicle writers have played a key role in that heritage from Mark Twain to Herb Caen to the talented writers on our staff today. A host of Chronicle writers, editors and contributors are bringing their keen observations and writing to many of the programs throughout the weekend. The San Francisco Chronicle Stage in the Park an outdoor, free venue seating nearly 600 people in the heart of the festival will showcase discussions about well-being, food, politics, social good and more. The Chronicle has also added a new columnist, Barbara Lane, who will cover the local publishing scene every other week in Datebook. I hope you take the time to visit Berkeley, see your favorite authors and enjoy the food and activities that the city has to offer. Bill Nagel, Teen and Young Adult readers with their voracious reading habits and ability to voice opinions via social media are actively shaping the next generation of literature. This years festival captures a whole range of topics relevant to todays teens, including virtual reality and coming of age in times of extreme political turmoil. Young Adult programming kicks off Saturday morning with zombies, planet hopping and more. Powerhouse author Justina Ireland, whose novel Dread Nation uses science fiction to illustrate issues of race, class and technology, will talk Facing the World Through Fantasy at 11 a.m. in the Florence Schwimley Little Theater. At 12:30 p.m. on the outdoor Word Power Stage, hear from teen immigrants for whom the political is deeply personal. Rachel Neumann, editor of I Am Home: Portraits of Immigrant Teenagers, will be there, and students from Oakland International High School will speak about belonging. Novelists Cindy Pon and Lee Wind are paving the way for more inclusive YA lit with their new books. Pons fantasy novel features an Asian protagonist, making it the first of its kind on the U.S. market, and Winds queer history book almost wasnt published at all. Dont miss Someone Like Me: Seeing Ourselves in the Books We Read at 12:45 p.m. at the Florence Schwimley Little Theater. Four Authors. Three Judges. Two Finalists. One Champion! The Literary Death Match: Young Adult Edition is the perfect place for teens to get in on the action. At 2:30 p.m. on the Word Power Stage, four YA authors will compete for the crown, and teen judges decide who makes the cut. Ready for a new twist on the books versus e-books debate? Hear from creatives, writers and journalists entrenched in the world of virtual reality talk how these technologies may impact the future of reading. New Dimension: The Radical Power of Virtual Reality Storytelling will take place at 5 p.m. at the Brower Center, Goldman Theater (ticketed; free for youth under 18). Its well-known that the genre of science fiction was invented by a teenage girl in fact, Mary Shelley would have felt right at home in todays generation of pioneering teens. Sci-Fi lovers wont want to miss this tribute to another icon of the genre. Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin: Film and Conversation will include a showing of the recent documentary about Le Guin and a discussion between those who knew her best (ticketed; free for youth under 18). Start off Sunday morning with a celebration of Fierce Femmes. At 11 a.m. at the Florence Schwimley Theater, authors Anna-Marie McLemore, Cindy Pon and Zoraida Cordova will discuss crafting the new wave of hard-core leading ladies. Follow up that discussion with a presentation by the strong women in charge of Poetry For The People at UC Berkeley. They and some current and former students of the program will take the stage at the Florence Schwimley Little Theater at 12:45 p.m. Head to The Marsh at 1:30 p.m. to hear another powerful performance, this one featuring the Native youth of Sonoma County. With the help of Word for Word Performing Arts Company, theyll put on Rattlesnake Wins Hummingbirds Heart from Greg Sarriss How a Mountain Was Made. Experience the Bay Area Book Festival The entire festival is FREE for youth under 18! Visit baybookfest.org. See More Collapse At 2:15 p.m. at the Florence Schwimley Little Theater, Atia Abawi and e.E. Charlton-Trujillo present War Zone: Coming of Age in Times of Conflict, a conversation sure to empower audience members of all ages. The festival rounds out with another inspiring program: Youth Power! With the International Congress of Youth Voices at 4 p.m. at the Florence Schwimley Little Theater. Immigration activist Jose Antonio Vargas will talk with youth delegates about everything ranging from incarceration to youth participation in activism. Teens in the audience are encouraged to jump in. All Young Adult sessions are free for everyone and all ticketed sessions are free for everyone 18 years and under, so be sure to take advantage of the opportunity to be entertained, awed and inspired. Sisterhood is powerful and literary. Women Lit, a year-round program of the Bay Area Book Festival, has exploded onto the Bay Area literary scene. Its the only major event series focused on elevating the voices of female authors and fostering literary community among Bay Area women. (By women, Women Lit means anyone identifying as such.) Festival Director Cherilyn Parsons launched Women Lit in early 2018, initially as a way to raise funds to bring more female writers to the annual festival. There were writers I wanted but simply couldnt afford, she said. Women in the community stepped up to help. The momentum surprised her. When I began presenting some of these writers in public events year-round, that was at first simply a way to thank our donors. But suddenly the demand was huge, Parsons said. Women really wanted to hear female authors and come together around books. While juggling the demands of the main festival, Parsons began to plan additional Women Lit events around the Bay Area. Since Women Lit isnt tied to a particular venue, it can produce events wherever a publisher, author or audience is interested. She also started planning more of the special receptions and salons, held in private homes, accessible to higher-level donors. Journalist Rebecca Traister sold out a large venue in Berkeley for a Women Lit event just days after the Kavanaugh hearing. Pakistani activist and memoirist Khalida Brohi spoke at the Womens Building in San Francisco and dined intimately with a smaller group the next night. Recently, preeminent novelist Rachel Cusk appeared in Berkeley (some attendees also shared a high tea with her before the event). Receiving two standing ovations, Gloria Steinem appeared with Women Lit at a sold-out event at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco in February. Steinems conversation with activist Favianna Rodriguez was moderated by Lauren Schiller, host of Inflection Point, the PRX podcast and national radio show produced out of 91.7 KALW, which is Women Lits media sponsor. Inflection Point has been a partner for many of Women Lits public programs, which can be heard at inflectionpointradio.org. Upcoming Women Lit Events Eve Ensler, creator of "The Vagina Monologues," speaking about her memoir "The Apology" on June 13 in Berkeley, with a reception beforehand. Jennifer Weiner, author of numerous bestselling novels, discussing her new novel "Mrs. Everything," in a special Girls' Night Out Women Lit event (add-ons include cocktails and dinner) on Saturday night, June 23, in the East Bay. See womenlit.org for details. See More Collapse Videos and complete audio of all Women Lit events are at womenlit.org. Publishers are taking notice, Parsons said, and beginning to reach out to us. So are sponsors, excited about reaching many women in thoughtful, female-centric ways. EO Essential Oils, Kikoko teas, Hello!Lucky and She Writes Press have been among sponsors. Parsons notes that the basic membership level of Women Lit will drop from $100 to $50 in recognition that Women Lit has surged far beyond its original fundraising purpose. Women Lit is becoming its own force, she said. I absolutely love bringing truly special female authors to other women and creating magical experiences for both. For information and membership, go to womenlit.org. SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) -- An all-day disruption involving San Francisco's Muni subway system Friday was caused by a failure of an overhead wire splice, according to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. Around 6:30 a.m., a train traveling to the Civic Center Station tore down more than 1,000 feet of wire and supporting hardware, according to SFMTA officials. A 24-year-old Chinese national was arrested at San Francisco International Airport last week and pleaded not guilty Thursday to child pornography charges, San Mateo County prosecutors said. Minghong Xia, a San Francisco resident, was arrested on April 17 after an investigation that began when the San Francisco police Internet Crimes Against Children unit learned of possible distribution of child pornography via peer-to-peer software at an apartment in the city. Investigators executed a search warrant at the apartment but found that no one was home and no child pornography was found, according to the district attorney's office. However, police learned the resident, Xia, was in Seattle for work and was in possession of his digital devices. They later learned he was on his way back to San Francisco and obtained a search warrant for him and his belongings, prosecutors said. When he landed at SFO, officers detained him and examined his laptop, which was found to have hundreds of images of child pornography, including ones of children under 10 years old, prosecutors said. Xia is a Chinese national in the U.S. on a work permit that is set to expire in the near future. He pleaded not guilty Thursday to child pornography possession charges and remains in custody on $100,000 bail, with his potential release on the condition that he not try to obtain a replacement passport or leave California without a judge's permission, prosecutors said. Xia is set to return to court on May 9. 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. DANVILLE (BCN) The Danville Police Department is teaming up with the United States Drug Enforcement Administration Saturday to host a Drug Takeback Day in which Danville residents can dispose of unused or expired prescription drugs. During the event, officials will accept pills and other solids such as patches and liquids in consumer containers. Participants are asked to place medications in a sealed bag for drop-off. Officials will not accept illicit drugs, intravenous solutions, needles or other sharp objects. Citizens can bring the prescription drugs to the Danville Town Offices at 510 La Gonda Way from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Individuals who are not able to participate in the Saturday event can still drop off pharmaceuticals in bins at the front desk of the Danville Police Department during regular business hours on Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. 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. A homicide suspect is being sought following a killing Friday afternoon in San Francisco, police said. A search was on and a Bay Area wide alert issued as of 4:08 p.m. PEOPLE'S PARK SHOOTING: Suspect at large following afternoon shooting at Berkeley park Police said the suspect may be driving a black, 4-door Toyota Corolla with California license plate No. 7WVY390. Anyone who sees the car or driver is urged to avoid approaching either and call 911 immediately. MORTON Delaware Countys first medical marijuana dispensary will open on May 6 at 409 Baltimore Pike, site of an old auto body repair shop. Representatives of Herbology, operators of the dispensaries at 10 locations in Pennsylvania, presided at a public meeting Tuesday at borough hall to answer questions from residents and borough officials on how the dispensary will operate in the community and the various products that will be available. And most importantly, they talked of the strict rules involved in operating the dispensary, which is not at all like your typical pharmacy. The dispensary will be located next to the shuttered Burger King restaurant and near the Kohls department store. The panel of speakers included Jordan Brown, operations manager at Herbology, Sarah Locklund, manager of outreach education, and Mahja Sulemanjee, director of community outreach. Locklund said the first order of business is to become familiar with the 21 qualifying conditions in the state under which licensed physicians can OK a patients participation in the medical marijuana program. Next, a patient must be certified that he or she suffers from one of the conditions that qualifies them to receive a medical marijuana ID card, which costs $50. At that point they are ready to obtain medical marijuana from an approved Pennsylvania dispensary under the jurisdiction of the Department of Health. Locklund told the audience that medical marijuana is available as tinctures, topicals, concentrates and as vaporizers. You start with the smallest amount possible and if you find you need more, you can take more, she said. There is no overdose danger. It is not possible to take enough cannabis (medical marijuana) that would kill you. Locklund stressed that edible forms of marijuana is not approved for use in Pennsylvania. Access to the dispensary is for medical marijuana patients who carry their ID card. Many questions from the 45 people who attended the meeting centered around security at the facility. We are being held to have very robust security systems, Brown said. There are cameras inside and outside the building and we have bullet-proof windows and walls. All deliveries are taken internally. A delivery driver notifies the dispensary of an impending delivery and security personnel meets the delivery vehicle. In an earlier informational session at a council meeting in January 2018, Matt Darin, chief operating office of Grassroots of Highland Park, Ill., the wholesale part of Herbology, said deliveries are made in unmarked vehicles. Products come to the dispensary pre-packaged and there is no manufacturing on site. Sulemanjee told the audience that Herbology has spent time educating physicians in the community on what products will be available to patients. Jordan said the dispensary will have about 15 employees. Also explained was the method of payment at the dispensary. Cash only will be accepted and there is no medical insurance coverage because of the federal status of marijuana. The federal status also applies to no acceptance of credit, debit or check as payment. Hours of operation for the dispensary will be 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday. National Drug Take Back Day is Saturday and municipalities all over the Bay Area are encouraging residents to drop off unused, unwanted and/or expired over-the-counter and prescription drugs at drop-off centers. In Alameda County drugs can be dropped off in Alameda at the Alameda Hall of Justice at 2233 Shoreline Drive, in Oakland at the Alameda County Family Justice Center at 470 27th St., in Dublin at the East County Hall of Justice at 5151 Gleason Drive and in Fremont at the Fremont Hall of Justice at 39439 Paseo Padre Parkway. The service is free and no questions are asked. Pet medications are accepted too. Safe disposal of medications is important to prevent misuse of them and to eliminate the harmful effects they can have on the environment. A man wanted in connection with two fatal shootings in the Bay area was taken into custody in Nevada Friday evening. Stefon Jefferson, 43, was arrested in connection with a shooting Friday morning in Oakland and another Friday afternoon in San Francisco's Bayview District. Jefferson was taken into custody Friday evening by members of the Douglas County Sheriff's Department in Nevada, according to the San Francisco Police Department. No other details about the arrest were immediately available Friday night. Oakland police said Jefferson was wanted in connection with a shooting in the 4100 block of Market Street in Oakland. Officers responded to the scene at 10:14 a.m. and located a man suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. The man died at the scene. At 1:27 p.m., officers with the San Francisco Police Department responded to the 1100 block of Donner Avenue in San Francisco on a report of a shooting and located a man suffering from a gunshot wound. The victim was transported to the hospital and later died. Investigators determined Jefferson was a suspect in that homicide as well. The suspect who drove into eight people in Sunnyvale Tuesday evening may have targeted some of them because he believed them to be Muslim, Santa Clara County officials said Friday. Isaiah Peoples, 34, was charged Thursday with eight counts of attempted murder in connection with a collision on El Camino Real that left a 13-year-old girl in critical condition and injured seven others. On Thursday, police discovered evidence that Peoples "intentionally targeted the victims based on their race and his belief that they were of the Muslim faith," Phan Ngo, chief of the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety, said. Ngo declined to provide further details on the evidence, citing an ongoing investigation. The crash happened at El Camino Real and Saratoga Sunnyvale Road around 6:40 p.m. Tuesday. According to police, Peoples had picked up food and was taking it to his Bible study group when he drove a black, four-door sedan into a group of pedestrians at a crosswalk and sidewalk. After the crash, a witness said she heard Peoples say, "Thank you Jesus, praise Jesus," and that he appeared to be completely coherent. A man died after he was shot at People's Park in Berkeley Friday afternoon, University of California at Berkeley police said. City of Berkeley and university officers responded at 2:40 p.m. to the park at 2556 Haste St. to investigate a shooting. Officers found out that the victim was shot by a male suspect who left the area in a car. Police said the victim was taken to a hospital where he died. Police believe the shooting was not a random act and that neither person is affiliated with the university. Anyone with more information is asked to get in touch with police as soon as possible, police said. A woman was rescued without injuries from a fire Friday morning in Antioch, according to the Contra Costa County Fire Protection District. The fire was reported at 9:48 a.m. in the 500 block of Texas Street. Fire spokesman Ryan Bain said the first unit on the scene found a fence, car and garbage cans on fire as flames extended to a duplex. Firefighters started extinguishing the blaze and also called for a second unit to rescue the woman. The second unit completed the rescue and the first unit extinguished the blaze. Bain said the cause of the fire is under investigation and it's not considered suspicious. Five people were displaced and the American Red Cross was called to help them. A SWAT team standoff with two barricaded suspects ended peacefully early Friday evening in Fremont, police said. The suspects, who police thought were armed, left a hotel room at the Mission Peak Lodge at 43643 Mission Blvd. at 5:30 p.m. and officers took them into custody. In all, four people were arrested. Events unfolded starting at about 12:30 p.m. when police made contact with two individuals who officers believed were connected with a stolen car. Both individuals were near the vehicle, police spokeswoman Geneva Bosques said. Both people were arrested and one had a loaded gun in a backpack. Then officers learned that two others inside the hotel were affiliated with the two people who were arrested. Bosques said officers tried several ways to communicate with the suspects in the room, including knocking on the door, but the suspects barricaded themselves inside and were thought to have multiple guns. The California Highway Patrol has identified a woman who was critically injured in a hit-and-run collision Saturday in unincorporated Sonoma County as Alisa Renee Anders, 45, of Santa Rosa. Anders was found around 11:20 p.m. lying on Old Redwood Highway south of Shiloh Road north of Santa Rosa. She suffered major injuries and is in critical condition at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, CHP Officer Juan Leon said. Anders lived near the Homeless Services Center on Morgan Street in the downtown Santa Rosa area, Leon said. Some broken lighting assembly pieces from a vehicle were left at the collision scene, Leon said. Saturday will be mostly cloudy with patchy fog in the morning before becoming partly cloudy. Highs will be in the 50s to the upper 60s. Southwest winds will be 10 to 20 mph. Saturday night will be mostly cloudy with lows in the lower 50s. Southwest winds will be 10 to 20 mph. Sunday will be partly cloudy with highs in the 50s to the upper 60s. Southwest winds will be 10 to 20 mph. 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. Apparently the same man is wanted by police for two killings Friday in the Bay Area. Oakland police said a man named Stefon Jefferson, 43, is wanted for a slaying Friday morning in Oakland. San Francisco police on social media said a man with the same name killed someone early Friday afternoon in San Francisco's Bayview District. The slaying in Oakland was about five blocks northwest of the MacArthur BART station. 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. A man wanted in connection with two fatal shootings in the Bay area was taken into custody in Nevada Friday evening. Stefon Jefferson, 43, was arrested in connection with a shooting Friday morning in Oakland and another Friday afternoon in San Francisco's Bayview District. Jefferson was taken into custody Friday evening by members of the Douglas County Sheriff's Department in Nevada, according to the San Francisco Police Department. No other details about the arrest were immediately available Friday night. Oakland police said Jefferson was wanted in connection with a shooting in the 4100 block of Market Street in Oakland. Officers responded to the scene at 10:14 a.m. and located a man suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. The man died at the scene. At 1:27 p.m., officers with the San Francisco Police Department responded to the 1100 block of Donner Avenue in San Francisco on a report of a shooting and located a man suffering from a gunshot wound. The victim was transported to the hospital and later died. Investigators determined Jefferson was a suspect in that homicide as well. 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. SUNNYVALE (BCN) The suspect who drove into eight people in Sunnyvale Tuesday evening may have targeted some of them because he believed them to be Muslim, Santa Clara County officials said Friday. Isaiah Peoples, 34, was charged Thursday with eight counts of attempted murder in connection with a collision on El Camino Real that left a 13-year-old girl in critical condition and injured seven others. On Thursday, police discovered evidence that Peoples "intentionally targeted the victims based on their race and his belief that they were of the Muslim faith," Phan Ngo, chief of the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety, said. Ngo declined to provide further details on the evidence, citing an ongoing investigation. The crash happened at El Camino Real and Saratoga Sunnyvale Road around 6:40 p.m. Tuesday. According to police, Peoples had picked up food and was taking it to his Bible study group when he drove a black, four-door sedan into a group of pedestrians at a crosswalk and sidewalk. After the crash, a witness said she heard Peoples say, "Thank you Jesus, praise Jesus," and that he appeared to be completely coherent. Jay Boyarsky, chief assistant district attorney in Santa Clara County, said Peoples has not been charged with a hate crime, but said the evidence that he may have targeted "one or two" of the victims based on their race or religion was "disturbing and appalling." "If there is evidence that warrants the filing of a hate crime enhancement ... I guarantee you that we will file such a charge," Boyarsky said. Ngo said the FBI is assisting Sunnyvale officers to determine whether Peoples committed a federal crime. Investigators are also looking at whether his actions were influenced by post-traumatic stress disorder he suffered as a result of his Army service in Iraq from 2005 to 2006. Peoples' defense attorney, Chuck Smith, said, "this act was clearly a product of some mental disorder or mental defect," and disputed that Peoples drove into the victims intentionally. "There's no explanation for this other than his (Army) service, what happened to him while serving our country," Smith said. Smith added that he will push for a resolution that provides mental health treatment for Peoples "rather than simply locking this good man up." Peoples faces a maximum sentence of life in prison for each charge filed against him, according to Boyarsky. Peoples made his first appearance in court Friday, and his arraignment was postponed until May 16, when he is expected to enter a plea. 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. BCN31) By Bay City News Service Apparently, the same man is wanted by police for two killings Friday in the Bay Area. Oakland police said a man named Stefon Jefferson, 43, is wanted for a slaying Friday morning in Oakland. San Francisco police on social media said a man with the same name killed someone early Friday afternoon in San Francisco's Bayview District. The slaying in Oakland was about five blocks northwest of the MacArthur BART station. Apparently, Jefferson is wanted in connection with a shooting in the 4100 block of Market Street where officers were dispatched to at 10:14 a.m. and arrived to find a man with multiple bullet wounds. The man died where he was found. San Francisco police Officer Joseph Tomlinson, a spokesman, said officers in San Francisco were dispatched at 1:27 p.m. to the 2600 block of Arelious Walker Drive after someone reported a shooting. Witnesses told police that they heard a pop and saw a man lying on the ground. The victim died later at a hospital, Tomlinson said. Police in both departments said Jefferson may be driving a black four-door Toyota Corolla with California license plate No. 7WVY390. Oakland police said the Toyota may be a 2015 model. Oakland police consider Jefferson armed and dangerous and are asking for help finding him. Anyone who sees Jefferson is asked by both Police Departments to call 911. Anyone with information about the Oakland killing is asked to call the Police Department's homicide unit at (510) 238-3821. 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. When a weeks-old male harbor seal pup was spotted alone on a beach at Fort Ross State Historic Park in Sonoma County this spring, well-meaning beachgoers surrounded, petted and tried to feed it. The pup was rescued by the Marine Mammal Center and taken to the center's Marin Headlands hospital for rehabilitation. It was diagnosed with malnutrition and maternal separation. The pup, named Boulders, is now responding well to treatment and has a second chance at life. The Marine Mammal Center recounted the story to remind beachgoers to keep their distance from and resist taking a selfie with their cameras and smartphones of the northern elephant seals and harbor seals that are giving birth to pups in rookeries along North Coast beaches. Marine Mammal Center spokesman Giancarlo Rulli said it's the busiest rescue season of the year. Last year 86 seals, sea lions and sea otters were rescued from negative human interaction across the center's range between San Luis Obispo and Mendocino counties. The 86 rescues are significantly higher than the average of 40-60 rescues a year, Rulli said. The Marin Mammal Center currently has 150 patients on site at its hospital. A great wildlife viewing experience starts with giving the animals the safe distance to be wild, Rulli said. The moms and pups are not keen on selfies and are not good playmates for visitors' dogs or children. "The pups are at the most vulnerable stage of their life and easily become stressed, separated or abandoned by their mothers if humans or dogs get too close," Rulli said. To safely view the pups, keep a safe distance on land or water, use a zoom lens and call the Marine Mammal Center at (415) 289-SEAL if you see a seal or sea lion in distress. "Please save the SEAL-FIE for later and remember sometimes long distance love can be a beautiful thing," Rulli said. Copyright 2019 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. DARBY BOROUGH Quick, isolated storms that brought ravaging floods from Radnor to Darby last summer destroyed cars and damaged homes and businesses in the eastern side of the county. Darby is the epicenter of major flood activity in the county when a strong storm comes through. All of the water that builds up on the Darby Creek travels all the way down to the historic neighborhood and overflows onto borough streets, damaging homes and business on the major roads that run along the creek. Many in the borough were not compensated for their losses. It was one of a number of weather-related incidents last August that brought widespread damage across the state that include flooding and landslides in what Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency Acting Director David Padfield said resulted from more significant rainfalls throughout the commonwealth. But despite the destruction, there was not $19 million in cumulative damages to trigger public assistance help at the federal level. With that comes a slew of paperwork for people to get individual assistance for federal grants or federal low interest loans from the U.S. Small Business Administration to provide aid to people. Even then, what if a person doesnt qualify to try to mitigate their damages? Obviously, today is a beautiful day, but in August 2018 this was a much different place, said Padfield Thursday morning just across the street from where the Darby Creek overflowed onto the streets of Darby. It was significantly impacted by flash flooding. From the state perspective, weve been seeing there have been challenges with trying to get the funding we need for hazard mitigation and disaster recovery for the folks who have been most severely impacted by these types of events. Hazard mitigation and disaster recovery are two areas Gov. Tom Wolf is targeting in his Restore Pennsylvania plan, which he announced in late January. It will fund flood control infrastructure, stormwater infrastructure, and establish a trust fund to assist individuals that are not compensated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Wolfs plan would be funded by a natural gas extraction severance tax which will create $4.5 billion fund to be used over four years for infrastructure and compensation relief. Padfield said the governors actions come from many stops to weather-ravaged area, like Darby last year, and offering hope and words of sorrow, but not much else. There are significant gaps in the recovery process, said Padfield. The money in the Restore PA program would go to directly benefit those individuals most impacted by these types of situations. The program is key to provide effective recovery. Delaware County Emergency Services Director Tim Boyce said communities like Darby hit time and again by floods where the boroughs median household income is $38,000 according to the U.S. Census dont have the means that others do to recover. Its elaborate, the paperwork, said Boyce. You ask them to fill in forms and documents and theyre mixed families and it just doesnt work for them. These really are the people who need it the most. Boyce later added that people trying hardest to rebuild their communities are often left out. When a person in some of our neighborhoods loses their school books, they lose their uniforms to go to work, theyre losing the whole fabric thats holding them together, he said. A lot of these families that are blended families so these institutional barriers that are successful at the small business level really dont meet the needs of our local people. How many times can you take the same punch and put that burden back on the local taxpayers? Helping the residents after a weather-related incident will be compounded by improving infrastructure to prevent damage-inducing events on the front end. Its designed two-fold from an emergency management perspective, said Padfield. In a press release from the governors office outlining the program, critical flood control infrastructure, will provide funding for flood prevention that will protect against severe weather and save homes and businesses in flood prone areas across the state. Restore Pennsylvania will provide funding to help towns and cities prepare for flooding and severe weather, upgrade flood walls and levees, replace high-hazard dams, and conduct stream restoration and maintenance. On beautiful days like this, said Padfield, the agency can get out into communities and work to flood-proof homes, infrastructure and do buy-backs in flood-prone areas. For every $1 that is spent on a hazard mitigation project, we save about $6 or $7 in the recovery and response phase. It is really paying that money forward and is a really good investment when we look at it. Boyce said the first line of defense is the borough and then up to the state, but the burden has fallen on very few. We just dont have the means at the local level to take these things on, he said. Thats really what this program is based on. How can the benefits, the generosity of the whole commonwealth help those that are most dramatically in need, whether its here, or another part of the state. Restore Pennsylvania is also looking to expand high speed internet access across the state, business development and energy infrastructure related to the natural gas sector, cleaning up brownfields and transportation capital projects. According to Padfield, PEMA has received over 100 letters of interest in the program for projects totaling $59 million. State Sen. Tom Killion, R-9 of Middletown, has issued his support such for the program We can no longer afford to lose billions of dollars by not having a sensible severance tax on drillers, he stated in a late January press release. I thank Gov. Wolf for his strong leadership on this issue. I am proud to work with Senator (John) Yudichak on passing the governors proposal in the senate. Lets finally get this done for Pennsylvanias families. 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. Yosemite's celebrated waterfalls are putting on a glorious show. After a winter of relentless storms, the massive snowpack is beginning to melt; the upcoming weeks will be a great time to catch the spectacle before the rush of summer crowds. "I think one thing people don't realize is not all these waterfalls are there year-round," says Phil Torres, a photographer and TV host who was in the park shooting footage for a PBS series called "American Spring Live." "The waterfalls were incredible and the rivers were full. It's incredible. Your jaw is dropping the entire time." Yosemite's waterfall season typically runs spring through early summer with the peak occurring in May or June. Many cascades run dry by later summer and it's not unusual for the park's largest falls, Yosemite Falls, to be a mere trickle by August. DEADLY SELFIE: He dangled from the top of Yosemite's Nevada Fall for a selfie, but couldn't hang on With the snowpack in the region well above average, the water supply could carry the falls into late August or early September. The length of the waterfall season will be dependent on temperatures and how quickly the snow melts. If you go, Torres recommends getting up early to beat the rush and view the falls in the morning sunlight. He arrived at the lower section of Yosemite Falls by 7 a.m. this week, and was rewarded with the perfect Instagram moment. "Because we got there so early, the sun was at an angle where we could see this massive rainbow in the mist of the falls," he said. "All the people there couldn't believe they were seeing this. It was spectacular. I was with someone who has lived there for well over a decade and she said she has never seen a rainbow like that." Yosemite Falls is the highest waterfall in the park, dropping a total of 2,425 feet from the top of the upper fall to the base of the lower fall. Other popular falls include Sentinel (2,000 feet), Vernal (318 feet), Bridalveil (620 feet) and Nevada (594 feet). For a rundown of Yosemite's most famous waterfalls, click through the gallery at the top. After a wet winter, California is stunning this spring and SFGATE wants to spread the word. Share your anecdotes and photos of the spring beauty at agraff@sfgate.com and we may write a story. BEIJING President Xi Jinping called for more countries to join Chinas sprawling infrastructure-building initiative as other leaders expressed support Saturday for a project Washington worries is increasing Beijings strategic influence. Xi spoke at a gathering of leaders to celebrate the multibillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative, his signature foreign project. The upbeat tone of the two-day forum, at which Russian President Vladimir Putin and other leaders praised the initiative, is a setback for the Trump administration, which is trying to discourage other countries from participating. Xi promised to promote high financial, environmental and other standards in response to complaints about debt and other problems. That has the potential to heighten tensions with Washington by making the initiative more attractive to additional participants. We need to encourage the full participation of more countries and companies, the Chinese president said at the event at a conference center outside Beijing. Xi tried to dispel complaints Belt and Road does little for developing countries that have borrowed from Beijing to build ports, railways and other facilities. Xi said his government wants to deliver benefits to all. Additional agreements worth a total of $64 billion were signed during the forum, Xi said. He gave no details of what those agreements covered or who signed them. A joint statement issued by leaders at the meeting expressed appreciation for the important opportunities created by Belt and Road and said it offers potential for economic and social development. Participants included the presidents of the Philippines, Kenya and Egypt, prime ministers of Italy, Greece and Pakistan and officials from Indonesia, Germany and other countries. Other governments welcomed the initiative launched in 2013 to increase trade by building ports, railways and other infrastructure across Asia, Africa and the Middle East. But some are struggling to repay Chinese loans, which has fueled complaints about a possible debt trap. Critics also complain too much of the work goes to Chinese state-owned companies and the initiative might lead to corruption and environmental damage. American officials have warned other governments about potential debt problems and Chinas possible political motives. Xis government is trying to revive momentum for Belt and Road after the number of new projects slumped last year. Joe McDonald is an Associated Press writer. PEMBA, Mozambique Mozambiques government urged many people to immediately seek higher ground on Saturday in the wake of Cyclone Kenneth, fearing flooding and mudslides in the days ahead as heavy rain drenched the region. At least five people were killed, the government said. Mozambiques disaster management agency said one person had died in Pemba city and another in the hard-hit Macomia district, while residents on Ibo island said two people died there. Details on the fifth death were not immediately available. Nearly 3,500 homes in the countrys northernmost Cabo Delgado province were partially or fully destroyed, with electricity cut, some roads blocked and at least one key bridge collapsed. Some schools and health centers were damaged. Nearly 700,000 people could be at risk, many left exposed and hungry as waters rise. Theres a very intense strip of destruction where the wind first made impact in coastal districts, Nicholas Finney, response team leader with the aid group Save the Children, said after visiting Macomia district. Terrified children and traumatized parents face a huge task to start to rebuild, he said. Rain is forecast over the next several days, and Mozambiques meteorological authority said the storm could potentially move back out to sea and intensify again, Finney said. As water levels rose, Mozambican authorities asked residents of Mecufi and Chiure districts and parts of Macomia and Muidumbe districts to immediately seek higher ground. Cyclone Kenneth arrived late Thursday, just six weeks after Cyclone Idai ripped into central Mozambique and killed more than 600 people. This was the first time in recorded history that the southern African nation has been hit by two cyclones in one season. Some forecasts warned of as much as 9 inches of torrential rain, or about a quarter of the average annual rainfall for the region. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies reported heavy damage to Cabo Delgado province, with the communities of Macomia, Quissanga and Mocimboa da Praia of highest concern. Communications remained challenging in some areas as authorities and aid groups scrambled to assess the damage. The situation wasnt worse thanks to awareness-raising work by local authorities, Mozambiques disaster management agency said. Farai Mutsaka is an Associated Press writer. COLOMBO, Sri Lanka While monitoring the usual channels, Indian police stumbled upon something extraordinary: a detailed plot for what would become the bloodiest Islamic State group-linked attack in South Asia. Police were investigating suspected sympathizers of the withered caliphate in southern India when a name they had no record of surfaced National Towheed Jamaat, the Sri Lankan Islamic State-backed militant organization that authorities say conducted the coordinated Easter Sunday attacks on churches and hotels in Sri Lanka that killed more than 250 people. Indian police managed to break into the groups communications and began tapping into the plot, according to Ajai Sahni, executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi. That is why the kind of detailing of the incident they received was very, very specific, Sahni said. They knew the group, they knew the targets, they knew the time, they knew the whereabouts of the suicide bombers, and all of this was communicated to the Sri Lankan government. Top Sri Lankan officials have acknowledged that some of the island nations intelligence units were given advance notice about the attacks but that little was done to prevent them. Both President Maithripala Sirisena, who is also Sri Lankas minister of defense and in charge of national police, and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who has been kept out of high-level security meetings since Sirisena tried to oust him last fall, said they only learned about the plot after it was carried out. The fact is, its very, very specific information and that has been conveyed to everyone in writing. ... Thats what were investigating, Wickremesinghe said. The first intelligence brief from India arrived April 4, more than two weeks before the bombings. It said a suicide terrorist attack was planned against some important churches and listed six people likely to be involved. The deputy inspector of police shared the report with at least four security unit directors, along with a memo urging the directors to pay extra attention to the places and people in their care. Indias final intelligence warning came just before the Easter morning blasts, Sahni said. Why the warnings went unheeded is the subject of intense public debate, with some blaming the dismantling of a system built by former strongman President Mahinda Rajapaksa for rapid response to rebel activity during Sri Lankas long civil war. For 26 years, the Tamil Tigers militants from Sri Lankas minority Tamil ethnic community fought for independence from the Buddhist, ethnically Sinhalese-majority state. Military forces under Rajapaksas brother, then-Secretary of Defense Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, brutally crushed them in 2009. The current state minister of defense, Ruwan Wijewardene, said weakness within Sri Lankas security apparatus led to the failure to prevent the Easter bombings. Some experts believe Sri Lankan security forces may not have given much credence to Indian intelligence because of its controversial role in the civil war. Indias Research and Analysis Wing, the countrys intelligence group, initially supported Tamil separatists. But after the groups terrorist activities in the 1980s, RAW withdrew its support. Emily Schmall and Bharatha Mallawarachi are Associated Press writers. She walked to the lectern in Armenias National Assembly to denounce the crimes committed daily against her community. The woman, Lilit Martirosyan, 28, said she embodied those people who are tortured, raped, kidnapped, subjected to physical violence, burned, immolated, knifed, subjected to murder attempts, killed. The presentation this month, less than three minutes long, seemed pertinent on a day in which the assembly had convened hearings on human rights. But Martirosyan was speaking of transgender people, and the backlash was sudden and fierce. You have violated our agenda, shouted Naira Zohrabyan, who leads the assemblys committee on human rights. Zohrabyan had given the floor to Martirosyan just moments earlier, but it appeared she was unaware that Martirosyan was transgender and was going to speak about gender-based violence and discrimination. Zohrabyan, a member of the conservative opposition Prosperous Armenia party, accused Martirosyan of disrespecting the assembly and the defense of human rights. Since then, Martirosyan and her organization, Right Side, which campaigns for the rights of transgender people in Armenia and the Caucasus region, have received dozens of death threats by telephone and in person, according to Max Varzhapetyan, a Right Side activist. Our community is living in fear. They dont go out to walk, to shop, Varzhapetyan said. In abusive videos posted online, Varzhapetyan said, people dressed in military uniforms declared they would find transgender activists and kill them. Local news media published home addresses for Martirosyan and her co-workers. Someone attached an Armenian flag to Martirosyans home. She has reported the threats to the police, and the group has deleted most of its social media presence. The U.N. office in the capital, Yerevan, which had co-sponsored the human rights hearing, called on Armenian authorities to investigate and prosecute all crimes and harassment, saying it was concerned about the recent rise in hate speech and threats of violence against human rights and LGBTI activists. Martirosyan, believed to be the first transgender woman to have spoken in the assembly, told the lawmakers that transgender people were subjected to discrimination in nearly every aspect of their lives. Vartan Ghukasyan, another member of Prosperous Armenia, told reporters later that his party wanted females to be females and males to be males. You cant mix female with male. Its shameful, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Nikol Pashinyan, the leader of a nonviolent protest movement, was elected prime minister last year on promises of sweeping change. Pashinyan has publicly denounced any threats of violence and hate speech on numerous occasions, a spokesman said in an email. Palko Karasz is a New York Times writer. A man from west Indonesia named Afrizal carves up coconut and wood waste from the sea into unique and valuable works, as seen in this amazing video from April 24. The man, Afrizal, is a resident of Padang in West Sumatra and creates works like replica wall hangings of people's and animals' faces out of washed up coconuts and driftwood. Afrizal's desire to deal with waste on the coast has led to his his works selling for hundreds of thousands of Indonesian rupees. Some works have even sold for millions of rupees internationally to European and Middle East markets. Afrizal has a craft counter located at Jalan Dobi, Padang City which he has been operating for three years. 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Through the process of cross-referencing in Advance archives, utilizing Archdiocese data, other media outlets and accessing databases of accused priests, the Advance confirmed that 15 of the deceased priests had served on Staten Island at some point in their career. Fourteen of the 15 clergy who were credibly accused of abuse, or who were the subject of a claim made to the Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program (IRCP) that was deemed eligible for compensation, were never previously connected to a sex scandal, according to Advance archives. Names on the list include archdiocesan bishops, priests and deacons who have been credibly accused of sexually abusing a minor or possessing child pornography, or who were the subject of a claim made to the Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program (IRCP) that was deemed eligible for compensation, according to a statement by the Archdiocese. The deceased clergy on this list had already died or left ministry when claims about them were made to the IRCP; however, the programs independent administrators determined that claims against them were eligible for compensation, the Archdiocese said in the statement. The compensatory program is not an adjudicatory body, and therefore is not required to adhere to the same standards as a court of law, the statement explained. Cardinal Timothy Dolan stressed that inclusion on the list does not state or imply that he is guilty of a crime or liable for any civil claim. That list is now public at archny.org/letter. Along with those clergys names, the list also includes their dates of ordination and current status. "Please be assured there is not a single priest or deacon of the Archdiocese of New York against whom there has been a credible and substantiated claim of abuse against a minor currently in ministry, Cardinal Dolan said. Monsignors Gaffney and Ansaldi The Advance has previously reported that Monsignor Thomas Gaffney and Monsignor Joseph C. Ansaldi appear on the list of priests where at least one claim was deemed eligible for compensation by the IRCP. Monsignor Gaffney and Monsignor Ansaldi, and the other priests on that list, did not have the opportunity to respond to the allegations made about them or provide a defense, the Archdiocese said. Ordained in 1950, Monsignor Gaffney died in 2004 while embroiled in a legal battle after a New Jersey man went public in January of that year with allegations that he was abused by Monsignor Gaffney, then the pastor of St. Charles R.C. Church in Oakwood. Monsignor Gaffney was widely credited for keeping St. Joseph by-the-Sea High School in Huguenot open after he became principal in 1973 during a financial crisis that could have shuttered the school. He was assigned to head St. Charles in 1982, and he focused his attention on the school and boosting its enrollment. Dan ODougherty said in 2004 that he was abused for three years while he was an altar boy and student at the parish school. At the time, many parishioners and clergy on the Island rallied around Monsignor Gaffney. Monsignor Ansaldi, former vicar of Staten Island and principal emeritus of St. Joseph by-the-Sea High School, Huguenot, was 79 years old when he was found unresponsive in November 2015 in his room in the rectory of St. Charles R.C. Church, where he had been a longtime weekend associate. This is the first time Monsignor Ansaldis name as been publicly cited by the church in connection with the abuse scandal. No information was provided by the archdiocese about the circumstances of the accusation against him. Ordained in 1962, Monsignor Ansaldi was principal for 27 years at St. Joseph-by-the-Sea High School where he also served as assistant principal and teacher. He was elevated to monsignor in 1990 by the late Pope John Paul II. The following year he was named as co-vicar for Staten Island by the late Cardinal John J. OConnor, a position he maintained until 1998. He stepped down as vicar to devote more of his time to Sea. After reaching the mandatory priest retirement age of 75, Monsignor Ansaldi served as a chaplain at St. Peters Boys High School, New Brighton, and St. Joseph Hill Academy, Arrochar, and as a chapel assistant at Monsignor Farrell High School, Oakwood. In addition to Monsignor Gaffney and Monsignor Ansaldi, the following is a list of priests found by the Archdiocese of New York to be credibly accused of sex abuse that, as confirmed through Advance research, served on Staten Island during their careers. It is not clear when the alleged abuses occurred, or if the abuses occurred on Staten Island. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A Staten Island jury has awarded $6 million to the wife of a New Dorp man who spent the last three years of his life confined to a wheelchair after breaking his hip in a fall at a Castleton Corners nursing home, her lawyer said. James Romano, then 84, fell out of a wheelchair on April 14, 2011, inside the Clove Lakes Health Care and Rehabilitation Center, attorney Jason T. Herbert said. Romano had been brought to the facility a week earlier to undergo short-term rehabilitation for a back fracture suffered when he fell at home on April 1, 2011, Herbert said. He was supposed to remain for about three or four weeks and then be released home in ambulatory condition, said the lawyer. Romano was using a wheelchair while at Cloves Lakes, the attorney said. He fell while attempting to stand up out of the wheelchair, said Herbert, a partner in the Manhattan-based law firm Krentsel Guzman Herbert. Romano suffered a left hip fracture, resulting in partial hip-replacement surgery at Staten Island University Hospital on April 15, 2011, the lawyer said. He remained at University Hospital until April 26, when he was returned to the nursing home. Romano stayed there for about three more years, confined to a wheelchair due to the hip fracture, until his death at age 87 on March 22, 2014, said the attorney. Delores M. Romano, the victims wife, sued the nursing home in state Supreme Court, St. George. She alleged Clove Lakes was negligent in failing to take preventive measures, such as using a seat belt, restraining belt or a table tray, to prevent Romano from falling out of the wheelchair, Herbert said. In addition, she alleged there wasnt sufficient staff on duty, and Romano wasnt properly supervised. Herbert said the nursing home contended the hip fracture actually was a pre-existing condition. Romano had been taken to Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn on April 3, two days after his fall at home, according to Herbert. While at the hospital, he fell out of bed on April 6, the lawyer said. Cloves Lakes contended Romano suffered the hip fracture in the hospital fall, Herbert said. However, while his hip was mentioned in Romanos Maimonides records, he did not complain of pain in the hip, according to those documents, said Herbert. Consequently, hospital doctors released him to Cloves Lakes for short-term rehabilitation for his back, said Herbert. Romano was brought to the nursing home on April 7, where he remained in a wheelchair for the rest his life due to the April 14 fall, Herbert said. It made the last three years of his life very difficult, said the lawyer. It stole time from his wife and family. Herbert said the trial began with opening statements on April 11, and the jury reached a unanimous verdict on April 17. The panel deliberated about two hours before finding in favor of the plaintiffs, he said. The lawyer for Cloves Lakes did not immediately respond to an email and a phone message seeking comment on the verdict. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. Its one of the biggest selling points of the weed-legalization movement: Make recreational weed legal, and well eliminate the marijuana black market. Its a crime-fighting strategy. It may not be that cut and dried, if you look at whats happening in states that have already legalized. The Boston Globe had a story earlier this year that said that three years after Massachusetts voters approved legalizing weed, the vast majority of marijuana sales are still occurring under the table. Citing statistics from BDS Analytics, which tracks marijuana retail sales, the Globe reported that 75 percent of Massachusetts marijuana sales would take place on the black market in 2019. Marijuana consumer Jennifer Dudley told the Globe that buying weed legally in Massachusetts was simply too inconvenient. The few stores that are open are in the middle of nowhere, she said, and the lines are long. I kept the black market alive instead, Dudley is quoted as saying. The Boston Herald in April reported that heightened demand, sparse supply and high prices for legal marijuana had combined to create a great opportunity for continued illegal weed sales. And its not just Massachusetts. Again citing BDS, the Globe said that 78 percent of weed sales in California would be on the black market this year. None of which is too surprising. Massachusetts and California each legalized weed for recreational use only in in 2016. It takes a while to put a whole new industry in place. But heres the thing: According to those BDS stats cited by the Globe, even states that legalized a while ago are still seeing significant black market weed sales. In Oregon, which legalized in 2014, about 41 percent of weed sales this year will be under the table. In Washington, which legalized in 2012, the number is 35 percent. In Colorado, which also legalized in 2012, its 34 percent. So much for eliminating the black market. It should give pro-weed advocates pause. One of the big sticking points about legal weed is the cost. There are taxes on growers. Taxes on the retail shops. Taxes on the weed purchases themselves. Its all served to drive up prices, to the point that buying on the legal market is often more expensive than getting it from your regular weed connection. Never mind the fact that the illegal product can also be of higher quality. So heres the great paradox: States want to legalize weed for the tax revenue. But the taxes can make the product too expensive. That means less money in public coffers. If were not making money off weed, and were not eliminating the black market, then why are we looking to legalize? Cost isnt the only concern weve seen with legal weed. Police departments in states that have legalized are grappling with how to deal with the problem of weed-intoxicated motorists. States where weed isnt legal have to deal with residents bringing back product from neighboring states where it is. The New York Post reported this month that New Yorkers are flocking to Massachusetts to buy weed. And even in states where weed is legal, a number of cities have opted out of the program, not wanting to have weed sold in their communities. Others have voiced concerns about having weed farms or head shops near residential communities. And probably the biggest concern: How do we keep weed out of the hands of youngsters? Age limits havent prevented underage drinking or cigarette smoking. Weed will likely follow suit. Can we endorse legalizing without fully knowing the effects that todays more powerful weed will have on still-developing brains and psyches? New York is still looking to legalize. Everybody should be paying close attention to how legalization has worked in other states. There are red flags everywhere. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The 74-year-old man accused of striking a woman with his vehicle last week had no idea he hit anyone, his lawyer said during his arraignment Friday in Criminal Court in St. George. He had no knowledge a person was hit, lawyer Gillian Kress said of her client, Johnson Kim of West Brighton. After all the evidence comes to light, it will show that his was just a tragic accident and that no crimes were actually committed. Kim was arrested Tuesday in connection with the hit-and-run death of 89-year-old Anastasia Diaz in Meiers Corners. Authorities say Diaz was crossing the street at the corner of Bradley and Purdy avenues at around 10:30 p.m. Saturday when Kim struck her as he was driving his two-tone Toyota Sienna. Diaz was coming home from an Easter vigil with her sisters at the time of the incident. I was screaming a lot, said Isabel Diaz. My [older sister] was on the floor. She was not screaming. Diaz was in cardiac arrest by the time emergency crews responded, according to a written statement released by the NYPD. Prosecutors said Friday that Diaz died as a result of the injuries she sustained in the crash. Investigators with the NYPDs Highway Patrol undertook a lengthy process of stitching together surveillance footage from multiple sources to locate the vehicle. A source said investigators used several cameras from the site of the incident to approximate where the driver ended up that night. The day after the accident, Kim took his car to a body shop in New Jersey to have the damaged parts repaired, prosecutors alleged during his arraignment Friday, adding that he did not voluntarily surrender to authorities. Kress said that Kim took his vehicle to be repaired after inexplicably noticing the sideview mirror was damaged the next day. Kress said that her client, who is an American citizen, had trouble communicating with police after his arrest because his first language is Korean. She added that an interpreter was not immediately provided to him. Kress added that Kim, who has been living on Staten Island with his wife since 1992, does not have a criminal record. Kim was arraigned Friday on two counts of leaving the scene of an incident with personal injury without reporting it, as well as one count of tampering with physical evidence. Judge Gerianne Abriano set bail at $25,000. Kim is due back in court Monday. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - The New York City Police Department is asking for the publics assistance in locating two people reported missing. The missing persons are Hanna Nartynyk, 60, who resides in Brooklyn and Kaylah Jackson, 14, of Queens. Nartynyk was reported missing on Thursday. She was last seen on Monday, April 22, 2019 at 8 p.m., at 50 Murray Street in Manhattan, according to police. She is described as white, 58 and 200 pounds. She was last seen wearing orange/red jacket, black pants and white sneakers, police said. Hanna Nartynyk was reported missing on Thursday. She was last seen on Monday, April 22, 2019 at 8 p.m., at 50 Murray Street in Manhattan, according to police. Jackson was last seen on Friday, April 26, 2019 at 1 p.m. in her Queens residence, according to police. She is described as a black, 56 and 120 pounds, said police. She was last seen wearing sweatpants, white t-shirt and green jacket. Anyone with information regarding the missing persons should 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 Crime Stoppers website at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM, on Twitter @NYPDTips or by texting their tips to 274637 (CRIMES) then enter TIP577. All calls are strictly confidential. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. Shoppers at three Staten Island ShopRite locations might see a familiar face smiling back at them when they take their favorite breakfast cereal off the shelf. Associates from the Staten Island stores in New Dorp, Graniteville and Charleston were honored this month by having their picture placed on special-edition Cheerios boxes for their efforts to raise money for the fight against hunger on Staten Island. Thousands of ShopRite associates across hundreds of stores in the northeast compete each fall in the ShopRite Partners in Caring Cheerios Contest, a friendly competition sponsored by ShopRite and General Mills -- raising money to fight hunger with collections and by holding in-store events. Together, the annual event raised $1.5 million to support regional food banks in communities served by ShopRite stores. ShopRite of Forest and Richmond associates Donnamarie Hughes, left, and Alicia Troiani pose with their Cheerios boxes during a special Cheerios box unveiling event on April 1. The three Island stores each finished in the top 20. And each chose two ShopRite associates to be featured on the back of a special-edition Cheerios box. ShopRite of Forest and Richmond avenues, located in Graniteville, selected Donnamarie Hughes of Queens and Alicia Troiani of Port Richmond. ShopRite of Hylan Boulevard, located in New Dorp selected Maritza Albert of Brooklyn and Kathleen Dario of Brooklyn. And ShopRite of Veterans Road, Charleston, selected Margaret OConnell of Huguenot and Joanne Soldano of Great Kills. Each will be featured on 150,000 special-edition Cheerios boxes sold exclusively at ShopRite. The boxes were unveiled during in-store ceremonies on April 1. The prize money ($3,000 for the top five stores, and $500 for the remaining winning stores) was presented to local food pantries chosen by the respective stores. This year, the Hylan Boulevard location raised $21,273, the Veterans Road store raised $16,297 and store on Forest and Richmond avenues raised $15,066. Donations from the event will be sent to the following Staten Island charities: JCC of Staten Island Food Pantry, Council of JewishOrganizations, New Direction Services, First United Christian Food Pantry, Richmond Senior Services Food Pantry, Community Health Action of Staten Island, Meals on Wheels of Staten Island, St. Mary of the Assumption Church, Salvation Army, Project Hospitality, Christian Pentecostal Church, Stapleton UAME Church, Trinity Lutheran Church, Our Lady of Good Counsel Church, Oakwood Heights Community Church, Woodrow United Methodist Church, St. Edward Food Pantry, All Saints Episcopal Church, Mission of the Immaculate Virgin and The Church that Never Closes/Reformed Church of Princes Bay. The employees always enjoy participating in fundraisers like hot dog sales, raffles and car washes each year, said Tim Mannix, vice president of Mannix Family Supermarkets, a member of Wakefern Food Cooperative, which owns the three stores. The winners from each store were each given a protected, sealed collector box to keep and others are on the store shelves for purchase. "They love it,'' Mannix said. "Our associates always want to do it and we truly feel its the right thing to do for our community.'' Mannix proudly added that the three stores have finished in the top 20 every year since his father, Kevin Mannix, purchased the stores in 2007. The three stores participate in additional fundraisers during the year and also donate perishables like baked items and produce to several Staten Island food pantries each week, said the younger Mannix. And last year, more than 3,000 turkeys were donated by the stores, as well, he said. "Being involved with the community is very important to my family,'' Mannix said, "It always has been and and it will always continue to be so.'' ShopRite Partners in Caring is a year-round, community-based, hunger-fighting initiative that works with more than 50 food industry manufacturers to provide $3 million annually to qualified charitable agencies in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania -- all the states where ShopRite stores operate. Since its inception in 1999, ShopRite Partners in Caring has donated $46 million to more than 2,200 charities. The proposal to build a 200-person homeless shelter at 44 Victory Boulevard has taken a familiar, ugly turn: Residents are demanding, with varying degrees of tact, why our community is being burdened by these people. That sentiment may be ugly, but its reasonable to question where, how, and at whose expense we care for those in need. Rather than allow the discussion to devolve into not-in-my-backyard hostility, the conversation has to be reframed -- How is it that we can house our neighbors in their hour of need while also creating a valuable asset for the community? How can this serve as an opportunity to enrich the neighborhood rather than (yet again) saddle it with another citywide burden? What we need is to think bigger and demand more. We need to develop the site in a manner that provides both housing and a community asset -- a design challenge we can and should meet. The top-down approach of the de Blasio administration has been rightly rejected by our representatives. As a community, we can use this opportunity to develop a vibrant center for Tompkinsville along its central corridor, Victory Boulevard. We could thread together a new shelter plus this proposed community asset, the currently-under-renovation Tompkinsville Park, the new retail spaces on Minthorne Street and Lyons Pool. Maybe this is a chance to replace some of the space lost when the Cromwell Center (literally) fell into the harbor, or maybe sorely-needed cultural space, maybe add a playground, or all of the above. The point is, the community deserves a seat at the table in envisioning Tompkinsvilles future. It requires architects and urbanists who can help realize and develop that vision. And it requires political leadership on the part of the de Blasio administration, Jimmy Oddo, Debbi Rose, and Charles Fall. We should not roll over and allow a mass of careless housing to ruin this opportunity. We and our new neighbors deserve better. (Dr. David Le is a resident of Tompkinsville.) 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! Elon Musk can't duck behind an "imaginative insult" defence to escape a lawsuit by a British cave rescuer who took offense at being called a "pedo guy' after he had ridiculed Musk's mini-submarine. A federal judge in Los Angeles on Friday denied the Tesla chief executive officer's request to dismiss Vernon Unsworth's defamation complaint. The judge said a written ruling explaining his order will come later. Elon Musk can't escape the British cave rescuer's lawsuit seeking damages for his "pedo guy" tweet. Credit:AP The news came on the same day that the Tesla CEO and the US sharemarket regulator said they were settling their legal dispute over how Musk posts news about his electric-car company, avoiding a decision by a federal judge in New York on whether the billionaire should be held in contempt of court. The spat with the British cave rescuer erupted after Unsworth pooh poohed the mini-submarine Musk had built to assist in the rescue of a group of Thai boys that were trapped in a flooded cave last year. Pub owner, property developer, adman and horse racing owner John Singleton has expanded his footprint on the NSW central coast after snapping up the popular Elanora Hotel for a suggested price of $25 million. It marks a return to buying pubs for the businessman, who has been slowly selling down the former $300 million portfolio. Last November he was beaten to the Bells Hotel at Woolloomooloo by fellow publican Arthur Laundy. The Elanora Hotel had been owned by the Cusick family for more than 50 years. Mr Singleton has ear-marked Gosford as a growth centre and has been steadily increasing his exposure to boost what he says is the area's food and pub sector. Fashion designer Kym Ellery: "Unfortunately, running the production out of Australia proved to be commercially unsustainable." Credit:Nic Walker After closing her two Sydney boutiques and making 22 staff redundant, fashion entrepreneur Kym Ellery announced her Australian operation is ending. Ms Ellery and her fellow director, dad Bruce Ellery, appointed Bentleys Corporate Recovery to liquidate Ellery Land, which was 100 per cent owned by Ms Ellery through a holding company. On Friday the liquidators filed a notice to wind up the company with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). Emerald City understands former employees will have to apply to the government under the Fair Entitlements Guarantee for their redundancy pay, which can take up to 16 weeks to process. Millions of dollars from a federal government program for capital projects at under-resourced schools have been directed to facilities at elite private institutions, prompting claims from the public school teachers union about unfair funding levels in the education system. The Australian Education Union criticised the newly revealed grants for the construction of drama, art and sport facilities at a series of schools that are well-funded and serve relatively well-off communities. The union used the examples to hit out at a 2017 decision by the Coalition government to exclude public schools from federal funding for capital works. So-called "elite" schools have benefited from millions of dollars in capital grants. Credit:Arsineh Houspian Under the capital grants program, $3.6 million went to construction of art, music and drama facilities and further refurbishments at St Scholasticas College in Sydneys Glebe. The school enjoys educational advantage significantly above average with a majority of students in the top cohort. The capital grant is in addition to the schools annual income of $19.6 million. Just over $800,000 went to the refurbishment of a library and education centre at Alphington Grammar School in Melbourne. The school ranks highly on educational advantage, with 53 per cent of students in the top cohort. The capital funding is on top of $11.7 million in recurrent income, or $22,000 per student. Late on the night of releasing it all on Twitter, knowing it was out there and copies would have been made, and that powerful forces wanted her shut down, she deleted the thread and deactivated her own account. She only re-emerged late last week, but says she will never identify herself publicly, nor her Deep Throat not even to me. She believes Taylor to be extremely sensitive to his connection to the Cayman Islands, noting how in 2013, a mere letter to the editor to the Goulburn Post that asserted among other things that Angus Taylor had an investment company registered in the Cayman Islands was met with such a strong Taylor reaction that the paper followed up a couple of days later with a formal apology saying the letter about his personal financial affairs was incorrect, and should not have been run. Taylor has always maintained he had no financial interest in EAA or EAI. Salt also asserts and has sent me screen shots showing that Taylors wife Louise Clegg has been discussed on Wikipedia forums for trying to change her husbands entry on his Wikipedia entry. She also sent screen shots showing that someone, not Clegg, did succeed in removing a reference to Eastern Australia Agriculture, just weeks before the $79 million transaction went through. When The Project asked Taylor last week if he was still a part of EAI, he responded with a very terse No, and declined to say why it was set up in the Cayman Islands. Energy Minister Angus Taylor. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer Whatever else, it really is beyond doubt that Taylor regards his own involvement in the whole affair as very sensitive. In 2016 when Aoife Champion, the ALP candidate standing against him in Hume for both that years election and this one, referenced at an event Taylors involvement with Cayman Islands-registered EAI and water licences, she received a strong phone call the next day from a Taylor staff member who threatened defamation action if it was not removed from the video hosted on the events Facebook page. I repeat: this is a very strange tale, a complicated saga. And it needs, urgently, more light. A large part of the complication is Taylor declining to give a full and frank account of the whole thing. This is a serious matter, of great public importance. As Michael West so eloquently put it, Australias water buybacks scheme was designed to help drought-stricken farmers and our vital ecosystems, not to deliver a large profit for investors in a Caribbean tax haven. Whos looking forward to heading back to a full week of work? If youre one of the lucky people who enjoy their job, you could be champing at the bit to clear your inbox and download the thoughts youve had over the break about the things youre working on with your team. Good for you. Being happy at work isnt as uncommon as you might think. And given an average Australian man can expect to spend half of his waking life at a paying job and an average Australian woman about 40 per cent, its an important thing in many people's lives. Is the boss monitoring your emails? Credit:Tamara Voninski A recent HILDA report (thats Household, Income, Labour Dynamics in Australia for the uninitiated) says were doing OK. Overall, 82 per cent of us are satisfied or very satisfied with work. The thing were most happy about is job security with 78 per cent of us satisfied or very satisfied with that. But reading The Australian Financial Review this week, I was reminded of one of the factors that made my jump from stable employment in the corporate world to take a chance on starting my own business a whole lot easier. Elizabeth Hetherington sounds remarkably calm for someone who says her property has dropped an estimated $700,000 in value because of a heritage order placed on it by Ku-ring-gai Council. I feel like Ive been put in prison here in my own property, and theyve almost taken it away from me, she said. Elizabeth Hetherington said the value of her property had been dramatically reduced after Ku-ring-gai Council listed it as a heritage item. Credit:Louie Douvis Ms Hetherington and her family say the heritage listing of her Pymble home is questionable and has devalued the property. The value of an individual property is determined by a multitude of factors and council is not in a position to comment on these, a spokeswoman said. A man who "snubbed his nose" at the law by continuing to defame a high-profile Sydney surgeon with claims of a botched surgery has had a warrant issued for his arrest and will be jailed for at least 18 months when he is found, a court has ruled. Gerardo Mazzella, also known as Gerard Duncan, lost a defamation case in 2017 after he published websites and videos alleging he lost sensation in his penis after a hip operation performed by pioneering orthopaedic surgeon Dr Munjed Al Muderis in 2010. A court found Dr Munjed Al Muderis had an 'extraordinarily good reputation". Credit:Tim Bauer In the defamation case, the court found that Mr Mazzella launched a "vicious and vituperative series of publications" alleging negligence, starting in December 2014. The same year, proceedings for medical negligence had been dismissed by a court and a negligence complaint was dismissed by the Health Care Complaints Commission. According to the defamation judgment in the NSW Supreme Court, which awarded Dr Al Muderis $480,000 in damages in 2017, the operation was successful and there is no evidence of any negligence or wrongdoing by the surgeon, who has an "extraordinarily good reputation". Residents of Brisbanes southside are most at risk of having their homes and businesses broken into, according to 10 years' worth of Queensland Police Service data. Brisbane Times has compiled police data from the past 10 years to discover which areas have the highest rates of break-ins across the city. Stradbroke Island is home to the most unlawful entries in the greater Brisbane area. Credit:Ken Irwin The areas with the highest and lowest rates of break-ins Last year there were 11,077 break-ins across Brisbane, more than one every hour on average, with more than half of those taking place south of the river. Forensic police are searching a park in Melbourne's inner south after a man was shot and killed on Friday night. Police originally reported that a man had died after being stabbed about 7.40pm at Fawkner Parkin South Yarra. SES officers perform a line search in Fawkner Park, where a man was shot and killed on Friday night. Credit:AAP However, police said on Saturday morning that the man had been shot. Homicide Squad detectives are investigating and on Saturday morning the area remained a crime scene. In 1899, 24 year old Poon Kee said goodbye to his wife and left his home in southern China for Australia. It was the last time he would see her. His grocery shop where he sold produce grown from his garden stood out on Lilydale's Main Street, an area with few Chinese residents. Sunny Duong, vice-president of the Victorian Chinese Memorial Foundation. Credit:Jason South But with Poon Kee's easy-going manner, he integrated into the community well, so much so that when the World War II broke out and all foreign-born residents had to be registerd with the government as "aliens", the local constable vouched that he was highly respected. When he died of pneumonia in 1943, with no family in Australia, his goods were sold and the funds used to purchase a grave at Fawkner Memorial Park. Two people arrested by counter-terrorism officers in North Melbourne on Friday were released without charge on Saturday. Police say the dramatic arrests of a man and a woman on Friday afternoon was "intelligence gathering" and not related to a specific incident. The Joint Counter Terrorism Team arrested a man and a woman on the footpath out the front of St Mary's Anglican Church in North Melbourne about 2pm, Friday. In a statement, police described the arrests as a "routine operation", that two people were still being questioned and no one had been charged. The fatal shooting of a man in Melbourne's Fawkner Park on Friday night was not a random attack, police confirmed on Saturday. Two passers-by found the victim, a 41-year-old Carnegie man, in the busy South Yarra park about 8.40pm. They called emergency services who tried to revive the man but he was declared dead at the scene. State Emergency Service officers perform a line search in Fawkner Park, where a man was shot dead on Friday night. Credit:AAP Homicide squad detectives are investigating and on Saturday morning the area remained a crime scene. Police have charged a 23-year-old man in relation to the alleged Mount Lawley home invasion on Friday in which one intruder was stabbed to death. It will be alleged about 1.45am two people entered a home on Guildford Road via separate doors, the click of a gate alerting one of the four people inside, all of whom were awake. The crime scene stretched for about 100m along Guildford Road. Credit:Radio 6PR / Lisa Barnes Its believed a violent encounter ensued involving weapons including a sword. The two alleged offenders fled the scene, one collapsing 100 metres away, having suffered stab wounds. The state governments war on single-use plastic continues as it bans straws from one of Western Australias favourite tourist destinations. Plastic straws are being phased out on Rottnest Island to help eliminate single-use plastic waste at the eco-tourism destination. Rottnest Island will become a plastic straw free zone as of May 1. Credit:Alamy The move comes after state government announced WAs landfill rates would be partly determined by a community online survey and discussion paper to find out what changes people want to see. Rottnest Island Authority, in consultation with island businesses and the community, made the decision to phase out the straws, with only biodegradable paper straws available on request from May 1. CCTV footage has emerged of a foolhardy ram raid in Perths northern suburbs overnight. Police released the vision on Saturday morning showing two offenders in a white four-wheel-drive utility ramming their way into The Gate Shopping Precinct in Alkimos. The ute can be seen ramming its way up the stair entrance and smashing through the glass doors before an ATM is pulled out from the wall and loaded on the back of the ute. It takes the driver two attempts before successfully reversing the vehicle back out the centre. Poway, California: One woman has died and three other people are injured after a shooting at a synagogue in San Diego County, authorities said. A 19-year-old man is in custody, US police said. Multiple people were wounded at the Chabad of Poway Synagogue, near San Diego. Credit:AP County Sheriff William Gore said a man opened fire on worshippers at Chabad of Poway with an AR-type assault weapon just before 11.30am local time on Saturday. San Diego Police Chief David Nisleit said the suspect called police to report the shooting, and was subsequently arrested by a California Highway Patrol officer. Nisleit said the suspect got out of his car with his hands up and was taken into custody without incident. Scientists may have a new way to peer into physics' "dark world." In a new paper, theoretical physicists say they have a new plan for searching for theoretical particles that, so far, have never been observed. These particles, dubbed long-lived particles, or LLPs, could be a window into dark matter and dark energy, which together make up 95% of the universe. Dark matter exerts a gravitational pull on ordinary matter, and dark energy is thought to cause the universe's expansion to accelerate. But neither can be directly observed, because any interactions they have with the luminous matter of the universe are feeble, said Zhen Liu, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Maryland. "They don't talk to us," Liu, one of the researchers who is working on the new plan, told Live Science. But LLPs might provide a way for that dark world to communicate with the lighter one. And Liu and his colleagues believe that by tweaking some of the detectors in the world's largest atom smasher, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, Switzerland, physicists might be able to find them. [The 11 Biggest Unanswered Questions About Dark Matter] Parallel worlds The "dark world," also known as the "hidden sector," describes a set of hypothetical particles that would go beyond the Standard Model of physics. (The Standard Model explains protons, neutrons, electrons and all the strange subatomic particles that go along with them, such as quarks, muons, neutrinos and the Higgs boson.) If all the "normal" matter is in one valley, the dark world is in a parallel valley one ridge over, Liu said. It takes a tremendous amount of energy to climb that ridge, so particles in the dark world valley interact strongly with each other, but only slightly with those on the other side of the mountain. But some particles might be able to pass through that energy barrier from the dark world into the one we normally encounter via a process called quantum tunneling. These particles probably wouldn't be the dark-matter equivalents of stable particles like protons or neutrons, Liu said, but would perhaps be more akin to more unstable Standard Model particles. It's those tunneling particles that the researchers are interested in finding. But these particles, if they exist, are rare, said Liantao Wang, a theoretical physicist at the University of Chicago. The LHC flings protons at one another at a dizzying pace, producing 1 billion collisions per second. Those collisions shatter the protons into massive numbers of known, Standard-Model particles. For scientists looking for the hidden sector, all those particles are mere noise. The particles they're interested in, Wang said, might appear only a few times a decade. A new path Wang, along with Liu and their colleague, Jia Liu, are the authors of the new paper, published April 3 in the journal Physical Review Letters, suggesting a way to catch a glimpse of these rare particles. It all comes down to timing. LLPs, Wang said, should be massive and lumbering compared to the Standard-Model particles that the LHC creates in bulk. Their slowness is because of the big energy hurdle they have to overcome just to make an impression on the world of normal matter, Liu said. But their snail's pace is also a useful feature for physicists. Most of the elementary particles in the LHC travel at the speed of light and decay rapidly. The Higgs boson, for example, is gone in a mere 10 to the minus 22 seconds, transforming into a set of more stable particles. [Photos: The World's Largest Atom Smasher (LHC)] LLPs, though, should live slow up to a tenth of a second, Wang said. They also travel slower than the speed of light. Therefore, adjusting the LHC's detectors to look for particles that arrive late to their sensors should be the key to detecting them. "It's a very simple idea," Wang said, "but it turns out to be surprisingly effective." Some of those adjustments will come naturally with the LHC's upgrades, which are ongoing now, Liu said. The particle collider will open again in 2021, with detectors that will be able to measure the timing of a particle's arrival 10 times more precisely than it currently can, he said. From there, he said, it's just a matter of a few software tweaks to take advantage of the LHC's capabilities, and making sure that the experimental physicists that use the collider prioritize the search. Now, Wang and Liu said, they and their experimentalist colleagues are having a series of meetings to make sure everyone's on the same page. "It's going to happen," Liu said. Originally published on Live Science. GREENWICH Fleeing violence in Eritrea, Marwa and her family came to the U.S. in 2016. When she arrived in Fairfield County, Marwa didnt speak any English. She is now fluent in English, graduating in June and will be attending Fairfield University in the fall, Claudia Connor, president and CEO of the Connecticut Institute for Refugees and Immigrants, said at the Stand Against Racism event held Friday by the YWCA Greenwich. Pushed inside by the rain, over 100 people gathered inside Greenwich Town Hall for the 11th annual event. Connor also spoke about Angel, a client who fled Venezuela and recently had his asylum approved by the U.S. government. She talked about Faith, a single mother who left the Republic of the Congo to raise three children in Bridgeport. Faith had a green card approved on Monday, Connor said. Angle, Faith, Marwa - theirs are the faces of determination and hope and human dignity, she said. They are proof that adversity is a catalyst for positive change. The advocate also talked about the positive impacts immigrants have on communities. In 2017, immigrants in Connecticut paid $5.9 billion in taxes and $14.5 billion in spending power, she said. 95,100 employees in Connecticut work for immigrant-owned businesses. In Connecticut, a state that many residents have left to seek better economic opportunities, Conner said immigrants help to offset the population decline. Immigration prevented population loss in Fairfield County and cut population loss by at least 10 percent in every other county in the state, she said. The Bridgeport-based organization helps immigrants and refugees overcome the many obstacles they face in becoming members of their communities, she told the large crowd gathered inside Town Hall. In our work, everyday we see how racism, ethnic discrimination, fear and hatred impact the people we serve, she said. Connor also went through a brief history of past racist and exclusionary federal policies in the U.S. From the earliest articulation of immigration policy in the United States, deeply held racist views were incorporated into legal structures, tried to ensure that not all people are created equal and that they have the power to determine who else is allowed into our country, she said. The first naturalization law in the U.S. in 1790 offered citizenship to any white person of good moral character. When the law was revised in 1870, it included people of African descent but excluded Chinese and Asian immigrants from citizenship. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 expressly excluded a single group of Chinese workers because of their race and class, Conner said. More than 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry many of whom were U.S. citizens - were imprisoned in internment camps on U.S. soil in 1942. And the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the act as constitutional. So where are we today? Conner posed to the crowd. Things are not how wed like them to be, to say the least. The anti-immigrant and anti-refugee sentiment that we have today is at an unparalleled high and our policies at the federal level reflect that. Conner cited the 2017 travel ban that excludes Muslims from certain countries from entering the U.S. She also talked about family separation at the Mexico border and the automatic criminal prosecution of all who cross the border illegally even asylum seekers. Reduced refugee admissions are the lowest theyve been in decades. said Conner. Under President George H. W. Bush, we received close to 200,000 refugees. Last year, we received about 22,000. And that is with the unprecedented number of millions of refugees in the world today. The crisis isnt people seeking safety and protection at the border, Conner said. Its the human rights catastrophe that is unfolding at detention centers across the country, she added. Immigration enforcement is not about keeping us safe, or the rule of law, or protecting children, she said. Immigration policies today are designed to be exclusionary and have an undeniable disproportionate impact on immigrants of color. Mary Lee Kiernan, president and CEO of YWCA Greenwich, said signs of bigotry and hatred have increased in recent years. Hate crimes jumped 17 percent in 2017, which is more than three times the rate of increase the prior year, Kiernan said, citing statistics released by the FBI. There was a 23 percent increase in religion-based crimes, which is the highest increase since 9/11. There was an 18 percent rise in race-based hate crimes and a 23 percent rise in hate crimes against Latinos. Its essential for society to pushback on hate, said Conner. We have to counter the belief of supremacy that my race or nationality are better than yours. We are all created equally, she said. We have to be vigilant against the normalizing of racism. We can't allow that to become the new normal. With facts, Conner said false narratives can be disseminated. Together, we can reclaim and reframe this narrative using facts to dispel fear, fight hatred and restore hope, she said. STAMFORD For more than 20 years the highest-paid employees on the annual list of city salaries have been police. The 2018 list was no exception. Last years payroll records, released this month, show a first for municipal salaries two people, both police captains, broke the $400,000 mark. They did it with the help of the extra-duty program, which is unique in the city to the Police Department. The program exists through a memorandum of understanding attached to the citys contract with the police union. It says all jobs controlling traffic at road work sites and providing security at public gatherings shall first be offered to police officers. The program has been under scrutiny since the Police Department announced April 12 that four officers were relieved of duty pending an investigation into whether they manipulated extra-duty rules regarding late project cancellations. The rules say officers who sign up for extra duty get four hours pay if a job is canceled after 10 p.m. the previous day. The officers who are under investigation, unnamed so far, worked in the Central Hiring Office, which parcels out extra-duty jobs. It is alleged that they finessed records to get themselves four hours pay for many canceled jobs they were not due to work, in an amount that could total $100,000 to $200,000, police sources have said. The extra-duty program, which started about 50 years ago, is complex, Mayor David Martin said. Who pays? The city processes extra-duty earnings and collects a 16 percent administrative fee, but does not pay the officers to work the jobs. They are paid by utility companies, contractors, corporations, the mall, charitable organizations, neighborhood groups, even citizens anyone who needs traffic control or security. It is an office in the Police Department that determines which construction jobs or events require police officers, and how many. Police officials have long said that residents benefit from the program because it places officers in the streets and at events where they may be needed at no cost to taxpayers. But sometimes municipal departments, such as highways, engineering, recreation and the school district, hire extra-duty officers. In those cases, taxpayers do cover the cost of the officers. The same is true when the city hires private contractors to pave roads, repair catch basins and do other work. The contractors pay the officers, but the city pays the contractors, so taxpayers cover those costs, too. Utility companies that hire officers pass the cost on to ratepayers, so residents also pay that. There are issues The system is meant to give the public access to police officers when needed. This system makes it mutually beneficial for the city and police to provide security and enforcement during events held at parks or other locations around town, Martin said. The extra-duty program likely began in the late 1960s, he said, but the city has been involved only about half that time. The current formalized system was implemented 25 years ago, partly to ensure appropriate withholdings were made, Martin said. There was a concern about whether taxes were being deducted from the earnings officers received from private entities. Martin said extra duty serves an honest purpose, and I generally support the system. However, there are issues. These issues are difficult to resolve, as many of the practices within the system are the result of union agreements. His administration has successfully negotiated positive change in extra duty which benefited city taxpayers, Martin said, but more significant change is very difficult because of State of Connecticut municipal labor laws. Wage booster Beyond that, police have come to expect the opportunity to enhance their earnings through the extra-duty program, which pays officers $68 an hour. Supervisors earn $79 an hour. The union contract mandates that a supervisor be hired for any job that requires three or more officers. The program is run by the Police Departments Central Hiring Office, which fills shifts for on-duty work as well as extra duty. It is staffed by a sergeant, three police officers and a clerical person. The program can be lucrative. Payroll records show that officers earned a total of $10.6 million in extra-duty pay last year. Ten officers earned extra-duty pay in the six figures. Those officers, who comprised about 3 percent of the police force last year, took home 10 percent of the total extra-duty earnings. The program is particularly good for officers who rank lower on the pay scale. Because their base pay is less, they dont earn as much working overtime hours on-shift. They earn more per hour doing extra-duty work. In fact, a review of the payroll shows that 27 police earned more in extra-duty pay than base pay last year. One was a sergeant and 26 were officers. Not all officers take part in the program. Payroll data shows that 46 officers had no extra-duty earnings last year, and 49 earned less than $10,000. The two groups comprised about a third of the police force. The program has its devotees. According to the payroll, 81 officers, about 27 percent of the police force last year, earned nearly two-thirds of all the extra-duty pay. Details needed Not all information about the program is readily available, Public Safety Director Ted Jankowski said. Records show the number of extra-duty jobs worked on a given day, and whether they were hired by a private entity, the city or the school district, but it doesnt give specifics as to location of the jobs, Jankowski said. The department could find out the locations, but they would have to go back into the archives and look at the forms and the paperwork related to the jobs. A random sampling indicates that 94 percent of extra-duty work comes from private entities, 5 percent from the city, and 1 percent from the Board of Education, Jankowski said. Private contractors who hire extra-duty officers to do city work are counted in the city category, he said. Martin said the Highway Departments budget shows that roughly 15 percent of the cost of city road maintenance work goes to extra-duty pay. According to the operating budget, projected expenditures for the extra-duty program for fiscal 2018-19 are $13.4 million, and the projected revenue is $13.9 million. Jankowski said the program benefits citizens. Extra-duty officers are a police force multiplier, providing an additional police presence on city streets, which is a crime deterrent and also improves our community policing efforts, he said. Extra-duty officers also intervene in responding to criminal acts, Jankowski said. An example occurred during a shooting homicide incident last year. The extra-duty officer intervened and was key in the apprehension of the people who perpetrated the crime. acarella@stamfordadvocate.com; 203-964-2296. Gov. Ned Lamonts push for highway tolls has entered a new and critical phase: The administration rebooted its lobbying team two weeks ago, and they are talking to legislators about a series of tweaks intended to increase the consumer and political appeal of the governors top priority and biggest challenge. With less than six weeks until the Legislatures constitutional adjournment deadline, the administration and lawmakers are trying to settle on a legislative draft specific enough to assure them of what they are buying, but flexible enough to enable Lamont to negotiate a final tolls plan with the Federal Highway Administration. A small reduction in the gasoline tax, cheaper inner-city bus fares, ways to provide discounts for drivers who lack the credit or checking accounts necessary for an E-ZPass, a list of specific transportation improvements, and limits on pricing and the number of tolling gantries are among the items sources say are under discussion. This opportunity to truly transform the transportation system and therefore Connecticuts economy for decades to come doesnt come along every year, and we dont intend to waste that opportunity, said Colleen Flanagan Johnson, the governors senior adviser who is now overseeing a staff of a half-dozen aides working on the tolls campaign. House and Senate Democratic legislative leaders say they welcome a new lobbying effort that includes two administration officials: Marc Bradley, who ran the governors winning campaign in 2018 and now oversees external and constituent services; and former state Sen. Jonathan Harris, an undersecretary at the Office of Policy and Management. I think theyre bringing in people who have a good relationship with the Legislature, said Senate President Pro Tem Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven. Jonathan, having served in the Senate, is very well regarded in this chamber, and Marc Bradley is someone enormously well-respected for the role he played in the campaign. Legislators generally panned the administrations rollout of the tolls proposal in February, complaining it lacked details about how it would work or a strategy for passage. The administrations pitch has been the state needs tolling revenue to maintain and modernize infrastructure, while offering few specific ideas that would spark the imagination about faster commutes worth the price of tolls. Looney and House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz, D-Berlin, were among a small group of Democratic lawmakers to meet Wednesday with Lamont and his transportation commissioner, Joseph J.Giulietti, about the still-evolving tolling legislation and what it could mean for Connecticut commuters. As long as were having this open dialogue, I think we can get there, Aresimowicz said of getting tolls to a vote. I cant say if its going to be three weeks from now or if its going to be on the last night. But Im feeling more confident we can get to a deal that allows us to fund our infrastructure. Two weeks ago, Lamont and the Democratic co-chairs of the Legislatures Transportation Committee tried to reframe the issue in terms of specific rush-hour commutes, assuming 4.4 cents a mile with discounts for state drivers: from New Haven to Hartford on Interstate 91, $1.72; from Stamford to New Haven on I-95, $1.80; from Danbury to Waterbury on I-84, $1.28. Lamont said last week he saw no need for more details about his plan: He already had spelled out there would be no more than 50 tolling gantries on the states four most-congested highways, Route 15 and interstates 84, 91 and 95. But his staff already was at work with lawmakers to add details to a tolls bill. Flanagan Johnson declined to confirm whether a gas-tax reduction would be an element of a tolls deal, but she acknowledged an emphasis on trying to mitigate the impact of tolls on lower-income commuters. The administration was looking at discounts for those who most need them, as well as the mechanics of how to provide EZ passes to drivers without credit or bank accounts. The discounts are a major issue for my caucus, Aresimowicz said. An issue that has proven harder to resolve are the limits a bill would place on pricing. How much flexibility would the legislature entrust the state Department of Transportation? Connecticut is being permitted to devise a tolling system without losing federal highway revenue under a specific program that calls for peak and off-peak prices to discourage driving at peak times. A challenge for state officials is the lack of guidance from the Federal Highway Administration on the pricing differential desired for peak and off-peak trips. There is no hard and fast number, said Thomas J. Maziarz, the state DOTs chief of policy and planning. The state will try to make the case that data shows even a modest difference in pricing will result in less traffic, and that revenue from the tolls will permit projects that could make significant improvements, especially on the often gridlocked stretch of I-95 in Fairfield County. One potential project would be expanding the exit lanes from I-95 onto Route 8 in Bridgeport, a major bottleneck in the afternoon commute north from Stamford, he said. The administration is working on a vote count, a task complicated by the lack of a finished piece of legislation. Sen. Gary Winfield, D-New Haven, said he is a strong supporter of tolls in concept, but needs more details. What are you asking us to do? said Rep. Jeffrey A. Currey, D-East Hartford. Flanagan Johnson said her staff knows the questions, and the bill must provide answers. What do the rates look like? What kind of certainty can we give, not only to residents but to legislators who are taking this vote? There will be some more structure around that. What we want to make sure we do is provide information to legislators who are taking the vote to help them fully understand the opportunity they have to make a true difference in Connecticuts economy. The give-and-take with legislators is constructive, she said, with lawmakers learning more about the process and the administration seeing the issues that must be resolved before commitments are made. That process takes time. People want to know what the bill is before they say hard yes, hard no. And thats more than fair, Flanagan Johnson said. So were working through that. On the other end, we dont want to rush it to simply get a bill. We want to get the right bill. In separate interviews, Looney and Aresimowicz said the first vote by the House or Senate on tolls must come no later than June 3. The session ends two days later. WASHINGTON - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and U.S. President Donald Trump concurred on accelerating new bilateral trade negotiations in a bid to reach an agreement at an early date at the summit talks held in the White House on Friday. Regarding the issue of abductions of Japanese nationals by North Korea, Trump promised to thoroughly cooperate in resolving it. The U.S. president also confirmed his visit to Japan to attend the summit meeting of the Group of 20 major economies, slated for June in Osaka. At their first summit meeting since November last year, Abe and Trump held one-on-one talks for about 45 minutes, accompanied only by their interpreters. It was followed by a meeting of a small number of officials, including Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Taro Aso and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and then an expanded meeting. The latter two meetings lasted about an hour and 45 minutes. At the beginning of the talks, Trump showed his willingness to agree on a trade pact before his state visit to Japan from May 25. Trump said, "Japan puts very massive tariffs on agriculture - our agriculture - going for many years. And we want to get rid of those tariffs." Abe explained that Japanese companies have invested $23 billion (about 2.568 trillion yen) in the United States since the inauguration of the Trump administration, resulting in the creation of 43,000 new jobs. His remarks are apparently aimed at bolstering Japan's position in the trade negotiations. "I'd like to discuss the trade talks so that economies of both countries will grow further," Abe said. The two leaders agreed that Japan and the United States will aim to reach an agreement at an early date, based on what was discussed at the talks between Toshimitsu Motegi, minister for economic revitalization, and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, who were both present at the expanded meeting. Regarding North Korea, Abe expressed appreciation to Trump for bringing up the abduction issue twice during the U.S.-North Korea summit meeting in Hanoi in February. Abe and Trump affirmed close cooperation to work toward realizing an early resolution of the abduction issue. At Friday's summit talks, Trump reportedly gave Abe a detailed explanation about how the abduction issue was dealt with in the U.S.-North Korea talks. "Next time, I will face Kim Jong Un, chairman of the Workers' Party of Korea, and resolve the issue. I received a strong message from President Trump in which he said he will thoroughly cooperate [in resolving the abduction issue]," Abe said after the summit meeting. The two leaders also confirmed close cooperation between Tokyo and Washington, as well as trilateral cooperation with Seoul, to work toward achieving the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. In regard to the G20 summit in June in Osaka, the two leaders agreed to closely cooperate to work toward building consensus on main agendas. "I'd like to work together and cooperate with President Trump to make it successful," the prime minister said. Trump in his visit in May will become the first state guest after Crown Prince Naruhito becomes emperor. "It will convey a strong message that the Japan-U.S. alliance will remain firm in the new era, Reiwa," Abe said. President Trump has been nothing if not consistent in his approach to the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller. From the outset, he's repeated a few key phrases meant to cement his position in the minds of Americans. No collusion. No obstruction. And, at times, no votes affected by Russia. This last point has a very specific purpose. In the days after the election, as vote totals in the upper Midwest were finalized, it became obvious just how narrow his victory was. In Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin he won by a combined 78,000 votes while losing the popular vote by millions nationally. His campaign transitioned from warning about voter fraud to defending against allegations that the vote had been tainted. When media outlets began reporting on Russia's efforts to aid his candidacy, he was quick to dismiss the idea that Russian actors had, as some theorized, gone into state voting systems and affected the tally. He wanted his victory to be his, not Russia's. The release of a redacted version of Mueller's final report on his investigation into Trump's campaign and possible coordination with Russia's interference efforts included a brief section addressing that specific claim. Mueller's team, it states, didn't actually investigate whether Russian attempts to access voting systems, which occurred, were successful. (Outside of the Mueller investigation, there hasn't been much evidence that it was.) One of several tweets from the president addressing the report's release included a mention of vote manipulation. "Anything the Russians did concerning the 2016 Election was done while Obama was President. He was told about it and did nothing! Most importantly, the vote was not affected," Trump wrote. It's true, definitionally, that anything Russia did in 2016 occurred while Barack Obama was president. It's not true that he did nothing about it, though. He pushed for a sweeping statement addressing the Russian effort, but couldn't get agreement from Republicans in Congress to do so. His Homeland Security director and director of national intelligence did release a report specifically warning state elections officers against the threat of being hacked by Russia. Unfortunately for its impact, it was released on Oct. 7, 2016, right before The Post published the "Access Hollywood" tape and WikiLeaks began releasing emails stolen from Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta. Which brings us to the last, critical part of Trump's tweet from Thursday evening. "Most importantly, the vote was not affected," he writes. What Mueller showed is that this claim is entirely wrong. It may be - and appears to be - true that Russia didn't manipulate actual voting results, changing a county's pro-Clinton votes into pro-Trump ones. But Russia's efforts absolutely affected the vote, as they were intended to - and as Trump and his campaign hoped they would. How? Well, those Podesta emails for one. Mueller's indictments against a number of alleged Russian intelligence agents details how they accessed the Democratic National Committee network and Podesta's email account (among other targets) and transferred the data to WikiLeaks. There, the stolen material became a central component of the election coverage for much of the last month. In October 2017, we measured often WikiLeaks was mentioned on cable news, compared to former FBI director James Comey (whose last-minute announcement about Clinton's email server certainly affected the results) and to "Access Hollywood." All of that conversation during the course of that month certainly had some effect. That's a point that Mueller makes explicitly. When Attorney General William Barr released a brief letter last month providing an overview of what he said Mueller's report contained, he quoted Mueller as writing "the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities." The full quote, though, says something slightly different. "Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome," the report states, "and that the campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities." The campaign "expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts," it says. The campaign knew that WikiLeaks was releasing material damaging to Clinton, prompting Trump to praise the organization frequently that October. (It was also known by then that Russia had a hand in the hacking of the Democratic Party material.) It - and Trump - tried to get more information about what WikiLeaks had, dispatching the candidate's longtime ally, Roger Stone, to try to learn more. Why? Because they believed it would help their campaign. There's certainly an indication that such a belief would be warranted. In late October, Suffolk University and USA Today asked Americans if emails stolen from Podesta that included excerpts from speeches which might contradict Clinton's policies would affect their vote. Ten percent said that WikiLeaks releases would make them more likely to support Clinton. Thirty-seven percent said they'd be less likely too. That was one part of one of the two major WikiLeaks releases that year. The other came in July, aimed at sowing dissension among Democrats by boosting the idea that Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., was treated unfairly in the election. Assuming that Russia didn't affect the 2016 election means assuming that no part of the July release of material stolen from the Democratic Party and no part of the steady trickle of releases in October had any impact on any voter's decision. That no voter, say, opposed Clinton because they thought the DNC had tried to position her over Sanders - a belief that became tightly tied to WikiLeaks releases. Clearly, the WikiLeaks releases had more than zero influence. How much influence it had is hard to ascertain. FiveThirtyEight tried in December 2016. The closest it came was to determine that voters who made up their minds in October preferred Trump by a 14-point margin according to exit polls. This was the period when interest in WikiLeaks was near its peak. But it's simply indefensible to say that Russia didn't affect any votes. If WikiLeaks affected the vote and if, as Mueller's evidence shows, it got that material from Russia, then Russia affected the vote. The claim is particularly indefensible coming from Trump, who celebrated WikiLeaks publicly precisely because he knew it would help his candidacy. He knew it and Mueller knew it. It was, after all, one of the key reasons that Russia was interfering in the election in the first place. KIEV, Ukraine - Comedian Volodymyr Zelensky swept to victory in Ukraine's presidential election Sunday, an exit poll showed, as millions of voters weary of war and economic hardship rebuked the ruling elites and ushered in fresh uncertainty for their geopolitically pivotal nation. Zelensky, a 41-year-old TV star with no political experience, won 73% of the vote in the runoff election, according to national exit poll results broadcast by Ukrainian television. President Petro Poroshenko, who was running for his second five-year term, accepted defeat in a speech soon after the polls closed. Zelensky walked onstage at his election-night celebration to the theme song from "Servant of the People" - the popular sitcom in which he plays the president of Ukraine.. "To all Ukrainians, no matter where you are, I promise that I will never let you down," Zelensky said after the results came in. "Though I'm still not president, I can say as a Ukrainian citizen to all the countries of the former Soviet Union: Look at us. Everything is possible." The comedian had been heavily favored going into the election, holding a decisive lead in the polls in recent weeks. His surge to the top of a crowded field of candidates in the presidential campaign's first round, and his apparent landslide win on Sunday, reflected the disdain with which many Ukrainians see their political establishment five years after their pro-Western revolution. "Next month, I will leave the post of the head of state," Poroshenko said in his concession speech, pledging that he would remain in politics. "That's how the majority of Ukrainians decided, and I accept this decision." Amid a continuing war in eastern Ukraine, economic travails and popular revulsion over allegations of government corruption, Zelensky's anti-establishment, antiwar and reformist message captured the support of a wide cross-section of the country. "I voted for Zelensky because everything he said is true," said Viktoriia Bengalska, a 45-year-old secretary in Kiev. "It's impossible to survive on this salary, prices have increased like crazy, and we were promised something totally different." Zelensky's apparent victory is the latest in the global trend of political outsiders harnessing TV and social media to outmuscle the unpopular establishment. It is likely to reverberate in Russia and elsewhere across the former Soviet Union, where few other countries can claim a democratic system that would allow a comedian to unseat the sitting president. And it prompts questions about Ukraine's strategy in its conflict with Russian President Vladimir Putin - with whom Zelensky has promised to negotiate while not detailing how. "Zelensky doesn't have experience, and Putin is a very dangerous adversary," said Volodymyr Fesenko, a political analyst in Kiev. "There's a lot of risk here." Ukraine, a country of more than 40 million people, is pivotal to Putin's effort to maintain a sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. Putin annexed Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula and backed separatists in eastern Ukraine after popular protests toppled a Moscow-friendly president in Kiev in 2014. A successful democracy in Ukraine - which shares deep historic, linguistic and cultural links with Russia - could also energize opposition within Russia to Putin's autocratic rule. In Russia, both pro-Kremlin and independent news media broadcast live feeds of Friday's stadium debate between Poroshenko and Zelensky, a spectacle offering a striking contrast to the lack of a domestic challenge to Putin. "We want it like in Ukraine," said a headline in the Russian business newspaper Vedomosti. Zelensky has said he will maintain Ukraine's pro-Western course, and he has pledged not to give away any territory in negotiations with Putin. But he has signaled greater flexibility than Poroshenko in potential negotiations over the war in eastern Ukraine, sparking optimism as well as concern that he could be outmatched by the Kremlin. "We would not advise him to talk to Putin alone," a Western diplomat in Kiev said. But many voters brushed those fears aside on Sunday amid intense dissatisfaction with their current leadership. The war in eastern Ukraine has killed about 13,000 people, according to the United Nations. Sporadic, deadly shooting continues to occur, and Russian-backed rebels occupy a swath of territory around two major cities near the Russian border. Poroshenko, whose confectionery business makes him one of the country's richest men, took office in 2014 in the wake of Ukraine's pro-Western revolution. He built his campaign around the theme of independence from neighboring Russia - strengthening the military, promoting the Ukrainian language over Russian, and forming a Ukrainian Orthodox Church separate from Moscow. His slogan: "Army! Language! Faith!" In his last-ditch appeal before the runoff, Poroshenko told voters that handing the presidency to Zelensky would imperil the very existence of the country. Zelensky's slick, social media and TV-driven campaign masked the influence of the Kremlin and of unscrupulous billionaires, Poroshenko alleged. "This is a bright candy wrapper," Poroshenko said in the debate in Kiev's Olympic Stadium on Friday, referring to Zelensky. "There are Russians inside, and fugitive oligarchs." Those concerns echoed among Poroshenko's supporters, a sign that one of Zelensky's most difficult tasks will be to bring together a divided country. At a polling station set up at a Kiev public school, Inna Dzhurynska, 52, pointed at her traditional Ukrainian embroidered shirt when asked whom she was voting for. "Who do you think I will vote for?" Dzhurynska said. "We'll lose Ukraine with Zelensky," she added, and broke into tears. During his campaign, Zelensky largely eschewed traditional advertising and unscripted interactions with journalists. Instead, the entertainer relied on social media and his television shows to reach voters. On his sitcom, Zelensky plays a simple, morally upright schoolteacher who is elected president after his rant of outrage over corruption is caught on camera and goes viral. He then takes on Ukraine's entrenched business and political elites, refusing to be bought. The third season of Zelensky's show, "Servant of the People," aired this spring and includes scenes of a prosperous, corruption-free Ukraine in the aftermath of the Zelensky character's presidency. "I'm not a politician," Zelensky said in Friday's debate, channeling his character in his show. "I'm just a simple person who came to break the system." To be sure, his real-life political rise isn't quite the Cinderella story told in his sitcom. The long-popular entertainer has benefited from his business partnership with Ukrainian billionaire Ihor Kolomoisky, who controls the television channel that airs Zelensky's shows and gave largely positive coverage to his candidacy. Both men deny that Kolomoisky is behind Zelensky's political ambitions. Zelensky's most powerful advantage in the runoff may have been simply that he was not Poroshenko. Many voters blame the incumbent for the failure to end the war in eastern Ukraine and for allowing corruption to fester at the highest levels of government. Poroshenko countered that it's Russia's fault that the war lingers and that he did what was possible to reform governance in Ukraine. Poroshenko "could have made it into history, but he was only protecting his interests and not the state's," said Valentyn Rudenko, 70, a pensioner and Zelensky voter in Kiev. "I just don't want Poroshenko to be president." On the popular messaging app Telegram, Zelensky's campaign distributed an image for supporters of the candidate holding two automatic guns. It's a frame from a graphic dream sequence in "Servant of the People" in which Zelensky's presidential character comes to parliament, grabs his bodyguard's weapons, and massacres the lawmakers in front of him. "End of the old era," the text under the image says. --- Oksana Parafeniuk contributed to this report. Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump's personal attorney, said Sunday that there is "nothing wrong" with a campaign accepting information from Russians, defending the Trump team's efforts to obtain damaging material about Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton during the 2016 race. "There's nothing wrong with taking information from Russians," Giuliani said in an interview on CNN's "State of the Union." "It depends on where it came from." His comments prompted a rebuke from House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif. "I said it before and I'll say it again: It's not ok to seek Russian help in your campaign," Schiff said in a tweet. "It's not ok to use materials they stole from your opponent, or to make it part of your campaign strategy. Sadly, my GOP colleagues do think that's ok. The American people know better." Giuliani was speaking three days after the release of special counsel Robert Mueller III's report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. According to the report, Trump sought ways to turn leaks of stolen emails to his advantage during the campaign. At a rally in July 2016, Trump expressed hope that Russia would find about 30,000 emails that Clinton had said she deleted because they were of a personal nature. After that, "Trump asked individuals affiliated with his Campaign to find the deleted Clinton emails," Mueller's team found. The report also states that Trump repeatedly directed aides not to disclose emails about the now-famous June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower attended by a Russian lawyer offering negative information about Clinton. In Sunday's interview, Giuliani told host Jake Tapper that "any candidate in the whole world" would accept negative information on an opponent. Pressed by Tapper on whether that includes information "from a hostile foreign source," Giuliani replied, "Who says it's even illegal?" Campaigns are not allowed to solicit or accept foreign contributions, which is defined as "anything of value" under campaign-finance laws and regulations. Federal campaigns can hire foreigners to conduct opposition research, as long as they pay a fair-market fee. There is no explicit ban on opposition research provided free by foreigners to campaigns. But in his report, Mueller wrote that "candidate-related opposition research given to a campaign for the purpose of influencing an election could constitute a contribution" that is prohibited under the ban on foreign contributions. Despite finding that the opposition research could have been considered an illegal foreign contribution, Mueller decided not to pursue criminal campaign-finance charges for other reasons. This has led to officials like Giuliani "offering a green light" for campaigns to accept in-kind contributions from foreign governments, which is "troubling," said Richard Hasen, election law expert at the University of California, Irvine. "In terms of good campaign practice, as soon as a campaign hears that a foreign government or a foreign entity wants to give help to the campaign, the appropriate thing to do is to go straight to the FBI and to decline that offer," Hasen said. Giuliani acknowledged during his interview Sunday that he probably would not have accepted information from Russians about an opponent during his own presidential campaign in 2008. "I probably wouldn't. I wasn't asked," he said. Lanhee Chen, who was the policy director of the 2012 Romney presidential campaign, said the standard for whether campaigns should accept information from foreign sources should not just be about legality - but whether it is appropriate. "I can tell you, pretty firmly, that we certainly would have been deeply suspicious, at the very least, of any information coming from a foreign source - let alone a Russian source," Chen said. "If anyone in our campaign team had come across any foreign actor trying to provide information or influence our thinking, we certainly would have reported it to proper law enforcement right away. That's how you generally handle these things," Chen added. The details contained in the Mueller report prompted an onslaught of criticism from Democrats. But Republicans largely either stayed quiet or defended Trump - with the exception of Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, who criticized the president and his campaign aides in a sharply worded statement posted Friday on Twitter. "I am sickened at the extent and pervasiveness of dishonesty and misdirection by individuals in the highest office of the land, including the President," Romney said. The 2012 GOP presidential nominee said he was "appalled" that associates of Trump's campaign had "welcomed help from Russia," and he called the report a "sobering revelation of how far we have strayed from the aspirations and principles of the founders." Romney's reaction was far more critical than statements by some of his Republican colleagues, including Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio. In a statement Friday, Portman said that he was "pleased" that the report was made public and that it "confirms several key facts consistent with the summary findings by Attorney General William Barr." Portman said that although the report "documents a number of actions taken by the president or his associates that were inappropriate, the Special Counsel reached no conclusion on obstruction of justice." Collins expressed concern with Trump's attempts to fire Mueller, as documented in the report, which she called "a very thorough undertaking." "He was not only very upset by the special counsel's investigations, but tried several times through intermediaries to end it, and it is an unflattering portrayal of the president," she said Friday in an interview with Maine Public Radio. Asked about Romney's criticism of Trump on Sunday, Utah's senior Republican senator, Mike Lee, notably made no mention of the president in his initial reply, pivoting instead to criticize former President Barack Obama's handling of the U.S. relationship with Russia. "Well, first of all, I think Senator Romney has some credibility with regard to Russia," Lee said on CBS News's "Face the Nation," pointing to Romney's warnings about Russia during the 2012 presidential campaign. "Sadly, his warnings went unheeded. And under President Obama's leadership over the next four years, Russia's activities, its nefarious efforts to undermine our system, continued." Asked whether he agreed with Romney on Trump in light of Mueller's findings, Lee said there was "nothing in this report that changes my view of this president." --- The Washington Post's Shane Harris and Tom Hamburger contributed to this report. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Wang Huning, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau and member of the Secretariat of the Communist Party of China (Photo: VNA) Meeting with Wang Huning, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau and member of the Secretariat of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in Beijing on April 25th, PM Phuc expressed his pleasure at the positive development of relations between the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) and the CPC as well as between the two nations over the recent past. The Vietnamese PM said the CPV and CPC set up effective and diversified cooperation mechanisms, which help the two sides realise the common perceptions reached by their senior leaders. Cooperative ties and exchanges between the National Assembly of Vietnam and the National Peoples Congress of China as well as between the Vietnam Fatherland Front and the Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference, and important ministries and sectors such as defence, public security, and foreign affairs, have been stepped up, he said. The practical development of the bilateral collaboration in the fields of economy, trade, investment and tourism has become a spotlight in Vietnam-China relations, PM Phuc noted. He went on to say that friendly exchanges and cooperation between Vietnamese and Chinese localities, especially those along the shared borderline, have been continuously strengthened. The sharing of experience in national construction and development as well as in the Party building is of important significance, contributing to the enhancement of the bilateral friendship, win-win cooperation and mutual assistance and support, he said. PM Phuc congratulated China on its remarkable achievements in the Party building and anti-corruption, and expressed his wish to exchange experience with China in this field. The Vietnamese leader believed that China will implement successfully the goals set at the 19th National Congress of the CPC in the cause of national construction and development. For his part, Wang welcomed PM Phuc and the Vietnamese delegations attendance at the upcoming second Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, saying this showed that the Vietnamese Party and State treasured Vietnam-China relations, thus contributing to the success of the event. He affirmed that the Chinese Party and State have also attached importance to relations with Vietnam and agreed to work with the Southeast Asian country to maintain high-level meetings, increase political trust, and promote cooperative fields, including cooperation through the Party channel. The Chinese official applauded the enhancement of trade and economic ties, helping to develop the Vietnam-China comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership in a stable, healthy and sustainable manner./. For decades, President Donald Trump has styled himself as a master negotiator - someone who knows the art behind every deal. Since entering office, his administration has led a number of negotiations to free Americans imprisoned around the world. It's a record that the president is keen to highlight. "We've had 17 released, and we're very proud," Trump said in May after the release of Josh Holt, a U.S. citizen held in Venezuela for two years. Last month, as he greeted Danny Burch, an oil-company engineer held captive in Yemen for 18 months, Trump offered an updated scorecard for his administration's results. "Well, I will say, Danny, we're 20 and 0," the president beamed. "We've gotten a lot of them out." Freed U.S. citizens, along with their friends and families, have often welcomed Trump's publicity-friendly approach. But some experts worry that, by putting his personal stamp on the issue, Trump could potentially put Americans abroad in more danger. "The risk is that you increase the value of hostage taking," said Joel Simon, the executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists and author of a book on hostage negotiations. "You know it will get the president's attention." Even though the president likes to keep score when talking about Americans freed abroad under his watch, the evidence that Trump is freeing more hostages than his predecessors is scant. James O'Brien, a special presidential envoy for hostage affairs between 2015 and 2016, said the Obama administration freed roughly a hundred Americans abroad during that time. "I find the boasting odious," O'Brien said of Trump's comments about hostages. "Every day an American is held abroad is a loss." Trump's transactional view of negotiations faced renewed scrutiny this week, when The Washington Post reported that the president authorized a U.S. official to sign a pledge to pay $2 million in medical fees for Otto Warmbier, a University of Virginia student imprisoned in North Korea, before the comatose 22-year-old could be released. Warmbier died shortly after he returned to the United States in June 2017. There is no evidence that the North Korean bill was ever paid, but the revelation of its existence drew a critical response. Fred Warmbier, Otto's father, told The Post that it sounded like a "ransom" for his son. Trump, who has made outreach to North Korea one of his signature foreign policies, tweeted on Friday to say that "no money" was paid for Warmbier's release. In a second tweet, the president suggested he was the "greatest hostage negotiator" in the "history of the United States." The United States has a long-standing policy against paying ransoms to free hostages taken by terrorist organizations. The issue is not the cost - the U.S. government has funded rescue operations that were likely more expensive than a ransom payment - but the worry that the money could be used to harm Americans. The policy was formalized in 2015 by the Obama administration after a government review was prompted by the kidnapping of U.S. citizens by the Islamic State and other nongovernmental extremist groups. It is not clear whether it would directly apply to a case involving a foreign government like North Korea. In an interview with CNN on Thursday, Joseph Yun, the State Department's point man on North Korea during Warmbier's release, did not confirm that he had signed the North Korean document but said that freeing hostages was always a "tough question" for the U.S. government. "There have been cases when money was paid to a national government who held American citizens," Yun said, without elaborating. In 2011, the government of Oman reportedly paid a $1 million bail fee to release two American hikers who had been imprisoned in Iran. O'Brien said he was not aware of any comparable instances where the United States had signed a document that promised to pay money in a similar manner to that of the Warmbier case. "I never had a government ask for money and wouldn't have agreed to pay it," he said. Signing the document made the United States look "anxious and weak," O'Brien said; conversely, refusing to pay it afterward made the United States look unreliable. Trump's emphasis on hostage negotiations initially came as a relief to some families who felt that the Obama-era attitude was too procedural and not open to improvisation. When Warmbier was first detained, his family had sought a more assertive U.S. government response but were rebuffed by officials. There is no clear evidence that North Korea imprisoned Warmbier deliberately in a bid to extract cash or force diplomatic talks with the United States. But many adversarial countries who imprison American citizens appear to have noted that the new U.S. president is more open to deals than his predecessor. "I put this offer on the table publicly now: exchange them," Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said when asked about the fate of foreign and dual nationals imprisoned in Iran on Wednesday, suggesting a swap for Iranians held in the United States. The detention of American citizen Paul Whelan in Russia on espionage charges has also been widely interpreted through the lens of tit-for-tat political measures, with negotiation experts like former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson suggesting that Moscow was seeking a "quid pro quo" in relation to the U.S. case against Maria Butina, a Russian gun-rights activist. The tactic may not necessarily be unwise. Speaking to the National newspaper about the American journalist Austin Tice, who has been missing in Syria since 2012, Trump's special envoy for hostage affairs suggested that freeing hostages was one route to better relations with the United States. "The president has made it very clear that if you want to have better relations with the U.S., if you want the atmosphere for better relations," said Robert O'Brien, no relation to James O'Brien, "then don't hold our hostages or help us find our hostages if they're missing in your country." For now, Trump is keen to keep negotiating. "I love doing it because I love the end result," he said as he greeted Burch in March. WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump's defiance of congressional attempts to investigate his administration has put new pressure on the legislative branch's ability to serve as a constitutional check on a president who sees few limits on his executive power. Since taking office, Trump has consistently treated Congress as more of a subordinate than an equal - often aided by the tacit approval of congressional Republicans who have shown little interest in confronting the president. But tensions between Trump and Capitol Hill have escalated in recent days as the White House refuses to comply with subpoenas from newly empowered House Democrats eager to conduct aggressive oversight of his administration. Trump's decision not to cooperate with House committees, coupled with reluctance from Republicans in control of the Senate to cross him, has left Congress struggling to assert itself as a coequal branch of government - most likely leaving it to the courts to settle a series of power struggles that could define the relationship between the executive and legislative branches for years to come. "A respect for the limits of your branch of government, a respect for the role of other branches of government is sort of the oil that makes the machinery work," said Rep. Gerald Connolly, D-Va., a member of the House Oversight Committee. "Absent that, things break down. And I think we're definitely seeing that with this administration in unprecedented ways." This week alone, the White House and top Trump administration officials have resisted subpoenas issued by Democrats on at least three fronts - limiting how much oversight Democrats can exert as both sides prepare for a potentially protracted standoff. First, the White House directed a former personnel security official to not appear at a scheduled deposition as part of the House Oversight Committee's investigation into the administration's security clearance practices. The official, Carl Kline, could now be held in contempt of Congress. The House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed former White House counsel Donald McGahn, prompting administration officials to indicate they would assert executive privilege to block his testimony as Democrats seek more information about special counsel Robert Mueller III's Russia investigation, including whether the president obstructed justice. And on Wednesday, the Justice Department said it will not comply with a bipartisan subpoena from the Oversight Committee that sought testimony for its ongoing investigation of the addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. The Treasury Department this week also blew through another House-issued deadline, though not technically a subpoena, to turn Trump's tax returns over to the Ways and Means Committee. "We're fighting all the subpoenas. These aren't, like, impartial people," Trump told reporters Wednesday, charging Democrats are motivated solely by politics. "The Democrats are trying to win 2020." Democrats, determined to punch back harder with every rejection from the administration, warn that Trump's attempts to resist congressional oversight could set a dangerous precedent. "If Trump is allowed to get away with ignoring Congress, then, in effect, we no longer have a representative system of government," said Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., a member of the House Judiciary Committee. "We have more like a monarchy. That's exactly what our framers wanted to prevent." The president and his allies have dismissed these complaints, noting he is not the first president to go around a recalcitrant Congress or to clash with lawmakers eager to investigate an administration. His defenders also argue Democrats are overreaching in their probes, which launched shortly after the party took control of the House on Jan. 3. "He obviously wants to work with Congress because he has an agenda that, most of it, doesn't go anywhere without Congress," said a former senior White House official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the president's views. "But I also think he looks at Congress in the way he looks at all of Washington. . . . These people were sent here to do specific things they ran on and they don't do a whole lot." The former official added: "America's general scorn toward Congress . . . I think that's pretty widely shared in the West Wing." While Trump's subpoena fights with Democrats are new, his lack of deference to Congress has been a theme throughout his presidency, when for the first two years a Republican-controlled Congress rarely challenged him. He continues to brush aside some concerns voiced by Senate Republicans over nominees, his assertion of executive power and trade policy. Trump has openly expressed his preference for acting Cabinet members, even while vacancies persist at the highest levels of the administration, despite senators' argument that senior officials who don't go through the confirmation process can be less accountable to lawmakers and the public. Several key Cabinet posts are filled by acting officials, including the secretaries of defense and homeland security. The year began with a historically long partial government shutdown that ended only after Trump issued an emergency declaration to circumvent Congress to secure funding that lawmakers would not provide for his border wall - despite early warnings from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., that such a move would be unpopular with GOP senators. The administration has also blown off some requests from powerful Republicans, such as a demand from Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, in February that he be provided with a copy of a Commerce Department report examining whether tariffs on foreign-made cars and auto parts could be imposed on national security grounds. As of this week, he hasn't been provided one. "The Finance Committee is the committee of jurisdiction for trade policy," said Michael Zona, a Grassley spokesman. "So there's no good reason the Commerce Department shouldn't share an official trade policy report with the chairman." A bipartisan investigation requested by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last fall into the death of Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi called on the administration to send a report to Congress required under a law aimed at combating human rights abuses. But in February, the Trump administration declined to do so. A senior administration at the time said Trump has discretion to "decline to act on congressional committee requests when appropriate." Senate Republicans have shown more willingness to break with the president - if gently - in recent weeks. Opposition from at least four Senate Republicans doomed any prospects of former GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain getting nominated to the Federal Reserve. And GOP leaders are urging Trump to get input from their members earlier and more often in the confirmation process - a tacit acknowledgment that their constitutional role and influence has been shrinking under Trump. "He seems to be comfortable with people in an acting role," said Senate Majority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., the No. 2 Senate Republican. "I think it's better for the process, for him, and for the people that are being nominated to these positions if they go through a full confirmation process and get the validation of the United States Senate under the advise and consent requirement in the Constitution." The dynamic between the White House and House Democrats is becoming increasingly bitter, even as leaders in both branches continue to hold out some hope that bipartisan deals might be possible in the second half of Trump's first term. The president and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., are scheduled to meet next week about infrastructure, although the specter of congressional investigations will almost certainly hang over the discussion. "They're supposed to be talking about infrastructure," counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway said. "If she's coming here under the ruse of infrastructure and wants to talk about subpoenas, I'll let you know." And on Wednesday, Trump suggested he would go to the Supreme Court to stop any attempt by Democrats to impeach him, despite legal scholars saying that power is clearly given to Congress in the Constitution. "I DID NOTHING WRONG," Trump wrote in a tweet. "If the partisan Dems ever tried to Impeach, I would first head to the U.S. Supreme Court. Not only are there no 'High Crimes and Misdemeanors,' there are no Crimes by me at all." BERLIN - When Denis Mukwege, a Congolese gynecologist, and Nadia Murad, an Iraqi Yazidi were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last October for their work to stop the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war, there was widespread praise from all parts of the world, including the United States. But when the Trump administration was asked this month to do its part, and to pass a United Nations resolution to end sexual violence in war, things suddenly looked a bit more complicated. Until the end, international politicians and celebrities urged the United States to "stand on the right side of history," as actor George Clooney said, and to "ensure [victims'] voices are at the center of our response," as German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and actress Angelina Jolie wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Post. But to no avail. On Tuesday, the U.N. Security Council finally passed that resolution, but only in a watered-down version, diluted by the Trump administration. European allies are furious. France's U.N. ambassador, Francois Delattre, lashed out at the United States for what he called an "intolerable and incomprehensible" stance. U.S. allies abroad have grown accustomed to a U.S. administration with interests that are often diametrically opposed to theirs, including on trade, Iran and the European Union. But sexual violence in war? Really? The move to water down Tuesday's resolution followed weeks of U.S. objections to remove all references in that paper to reproductive and sexual health, which the U.S. delegation feared would be understood as support for abortions. Like prior Republican administrations, the Trump administration has rolled back much of the support granted to nongovernmental organizations for projects that support or facilitate abortions. In the Security Council, the United States wasn't alone in its opposition to the original resolution: Potentially encouraged by the U.S. move, China and Russia threatened to join the protest, even though both had previously supported or abstained from similar resolutions in the U.N. General Assembly. In the Security Council, China and Russia also opposed parts of the resolution that would have made it easier for international organizations to track perpetrators of sexual violence in war. After the references to reproductive health were removed at U.S. request, both nations abstained on Tuesday, and the resolution passed 13-0. The approved resolution still supports measures to end the use of sex as a weapon of war, and Maas, the German foreign minister, carefully worded his response on Tuesday. "The resolution calls on all U.N. member states to support victims through better access to justice, medical and psychological assistance and reintegration into society," he said. But other U.S. allies were more blunt in their responses, suggesting that the U.S. objections were threatening the dignity of women worldwide. "Women and girls who suffered from sexual violence in conflict, and who obviously didn't choose to become pregnant, should have the right to terminate their pregnancy," said Delattre, the French ambassador. The initial version of the draft resolution had stated that victims of sexual violence should be able to access services, which specifically included "sexual and reproductive health." Amid objections, a subsequent version referred only to "comprehensive health services" for victims of sexual violence. But for the Trump administration, even offering vaguely defined "comprehensive health services" for sexual violence victims went a step too far. In the end, the Trump administration's opposition to abortions trumped other countries' determination to offer support to victims of sexual violence. In practice, the watering-down could give nations accused of committing or backing such violence a pretext to justify a lack of progress in supporting victims. Also removed from the final resolution were references to expanded U.N. monitoring that would keep track of violations of the resolution. That, in practice, could mean that perpetrators will have to fear less international scrutiny than originally planned. To avert a U.S. veto, the passed resolution included only watered-down references to the work of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is supposed to prosecute war crimes but has recently found itself in a clash with the Trump administration after it considered investigating U.S. troops over the war in Afghanistan. Unlike most of the world, the United States never ratified the Rome Statute, the ICC's founding treaty. For advocates dedicated to ending sexual violence in conflict, the U.S. resistance appeared especially contradictory for an administration that has often portrayed itself as championing the rights of Yazidi women, who have faced sexual violence by the Islamic State in recent years. Human rights groups argue that the U.S. move sends the wrong message, after decades in which sexual violence has become a more systematically used weapon of war. Whereas rape has often accompanied conflict in history, the use of sexual violence as a systematic intimidation tool mostly emerged in the 20th century. Between 1992 and 1995, Serb troops systematically raped at least 20,000 girls and women, according to the European Commission, which in a 1996 report detailed that "impregnated girls have been forced to bear 'the enemy's' child," thus exposing them to lifelong psychological scars. "Sexual violation of women erodes the fabric of a community in a way that few weapons can," the United Nations' State of the World's Children concluded the same year. By 2008, U.N. member states had acknowledged in a landmark resolution that sexual violence in conflict had "become systematic and widespread, reaching appalling levels of brutality." Last year, Burmese troops systematically raped Rohingya women, which Human Rights Watch said was part of a campaign to spread fear and terror. Amid that context, any attempt to water down a resolution to address this situation - for whatever reason - would be exposed to harsh criticism. In Britain, the fury of allies stunned by the U.S. stance turned against President Trump himself on Tuesday. "It beggars belief that on the very same day Donald Trump is threatening to veto a United Nations resolution against the use of rape as a weapon of war, Theresa May is pressing ahead with her plans to honor him with a state visit to the U.K.," said Emily Thornberry, a member of Parliament and shadow foreign minister with the opposition Labour Party. The U.S. role in diluting Tuesday's resolution is now likely to feature prominently on posters and in anti-Trump slogans during the mass protests expected against Trump during his London visit in June. Former vice president Joe Biden launched his presidential campaign with a message steeped in idealism. He was aiming for American voters, of course. But his words resonate around the world during a time when democracy and its ideals are under assault, steadily losing ground to authoritarian nationalism on every continent. Biden's urgent, piercingly effective argument - that we face a transcendent "battle for the soul of this nation" - deserves to be heard as something even larger. The U.S. election is the key contest in a campaign to return the world to its democratic path. Hundreds of millions of people around the globe will watch the U.S. election, because American voters may determine how far this challenge to democracy goes. The notion that "all men are created equal . . . with certain unalienable rights," as Biden noted, is not unique to America. But it was the United States that promoted and defended this proposition with the greatest determination. Over the years, proponents of democratic principles have looked to the country for inspiration and support. While the United States has not always lived up to its ideals, as Biden rightly noted, it took President Donald Trump to remove it from the fight. Biden's campaign video uses images from an event that still makes many of us catch our breath in horror and disbelief. American Nazis marched in Charlottesville, Virginia nearly two years ago, carrying flaming torches against the dark sky and chanting a slogan that echoed their ideological forebears of the 1930s: "Jews will not replace us!" But even more shocking than the march itself was Trump's uttering of a phrase that will forever cast a shadow on his character. There were some "very fine people" on both sides, he said. As Biden rightly notes, Trump's remark signaled a profound change. The president has turned the United States into one of the battlegrounds in the global war over liberal constitutional democracy, attacking the press, calling for the imprisonment of political rivals, politicizing what is supposed to be an independent judiciary, rejecting the authority of a co-equal branch of government and even half-joking about remaining president for life. In the wider world, Trump has enthusiastically embraced the populist leaders who have been steadily undercutting democracy and rights in their own countries and among their neighbors. His State Department made it clear early on that it would set aside efforts to defend human rights. Washington no longer speaks out for the cause of human freedom or those who would defend it. To be sure, the United States has been historically inconsistent in its promotion of human rights and democracy, at times compromising its principles for the sake of its security interests. But it was never quite like this. Trump has criticized rights abuses in Venezuela and Iran, but that's a geopolitical calculation that amounts to an exception. Few believe his interest is grounded in concern for democracy. He has made countless remarks showing that he views democracy as an inconvenience at home. Abroad, it's barely a consideration. According to Freedom House, democracy has been in retreat around the world for more than a decade. Year after year, democratic principles fall by the wayside in one country after another. The losses have not yet outweighed the huge advances of freedom that came after the Cold War. But the trend is deeply disturbing. Freedom has been losing ground in countries where it was well established and in countries where it was just taking root. And even in places devoid of democratic institutions, such as China, repression has intensified. To Trump, China is all about trade. Human rights are not part of the conversation. Elsewhere, as in the Philippines, Trump has praised President Rodrigo Duterte and his war on drugs, which has led to the assassination of thousands of people without a trace of due process, even as he relentlessly persecutes journalists who shine a spotlight on the violations. Trump has found a soul mate in Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who is systematically dismantling democratic institutions in his country after building support for his authoritarian policies on the strength of anti-immigrant rhetoric. Trump has declared his enthusiasm for North Korea's Kim Jong Un, one of the most brutal dictators of our time. And he has given effusive backing to the leaders of Saudi Arabia and the president of Egypt, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who engage in brutality shocking even by their dismal standards. To the extent that U.S. diplomats and other officials still speak out against repression, it happens quietly, as if trying to prevent Trump from finding out. Biden is right to sound the alarm. Whether he is the best man for the job, he is correct in his analysis of what's at stake. The next U.S. election could mark a reversal of the global drift toward autocracy. Or it could accelerate the loss of personal and political freedoms around the globe, making the world safe for torch-bearing nationalists and their ideologies. Hair scarves have been a versatile summer accessory for decades. And no one wears one better than Her Majesty The Queen. The fashion set agrees, and vintage-inspired silk head scarves tied under the chin appeared on many of the major catwalks in 2018 and again in 2019. Versace, Gucci, Balenciaga, Stella McCartney and Richard Quinn, whose show the Queen herself attended in February 2018, have all championed the trend. Unsure of how to wear the accessory? Grab a pair of sunnies and throw on one of these tried and tested looks... Pair With All-White Denim Kendall Jenner leaves Versace Fashion Show during Milan Fashion Week / SplashNews.com Schooling us on how to wear the retro accessory in 2019, Kendall Jenner effortlessly pulled off the look during Milan Fashion Week as she left the Versace show in an all-white denim outfit and bright contrasting scarf. Exuding Hollywood glamour with a streetwear edge, if you want to put a cool girl stamp on the trend this season, this is the way to do it. Get The Look: Bright monogram scarf by ASOS, 7.50 | Shop it here All Floral Everything Doina Ciobanu during New York Fashion Week / Christopher Peterson / SplashNews.com If you're brave enough, fully embrace those granny vibes and pair a trusty summer floral dress with a matching scarf. It's easy, effective and, as influencer Doina Ciobanu proved at New York Fashion Week, fuddy-duddy it ain't. 85 non-boring ways to wear beige in 2019 1 /113 85 non-boring ways to wear beige in 2019 IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree Bettina Looney wears head-to-toe beige at London Fashion Week IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree IMaxTree Get The Look: Cameo rose scarf by Liu Jo, 47 | Shop it here Prairie Style Anna Rosa Vitiello with Bettina Looney at Milan Fashion Week / SplashNews.com Not all silk scarves have to make a statement. Influencer Anna Rosa Vitiello put a minimal spin on the trend at Milan Fashion Week by pairing a prairie-style crop top with a simple slate grey scarf loosely knotted under her chin. Tres chic, non? Get The Look: Frayed edge scarf by Mango, 12.00 | Shop it here Matchy-Matchy German fashion blogger Xenia Adonts during Milan Fashion Week / MCFR / SplashNews.com To really commit to the trend, take note from blogger Xenia Adonts, who wore the same Versace print from scarf to skirt. It's dedication, but sure to be a head-turning look. A 35-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after a woman was stabbed in north-west London and left with potentially life-changing injuries. Police scrambled to Church Road, in Brent, at around 11.40am on Friday after reports of a stabbing. A woman, thought to be aged 35, was found injured in the street and was rushed to hospital. Her injuries are not thought to be life-threatening but are possibly life-changing, police said. Shortly after, a man in his 30s was found with non-life-threatening injuries in a house nearby. He was then arrested on suspicion of attempted murder. The man and woman are believed to be known to each other, police said. Police are not looking for any other outstanding suspects. A man has been arrested after a broad daylight knife attack next to a west London university campus. Police were called to Kingston Lane in Uxbridge, near the site of Brunel University London, just before 8.30am on Saturday. The suspect, aged in his 30s, attempted to escape on a bus. However, he was detained and arrested on suspicion of grievous bodily harm with intent, possession of an offensive weapon and affray. The victim, aged 28, left the scene in a vehicle before police arrived. He was later located and taken to hospital, where his injuries were assessed as non life-threatening. He has since been discharged. T wo women who were abducted in north London and raped managed to escape by smashing a glass bottle over his head, according to reports. Police are continuing to hunt for a suspect after the women were snatched at random in separate abductions - one of them in broad daylight - on Thursday. The first happened shortly after midnight in Chingford and the second at about 12.15pm in Edgware. The pair, both aged in their 20s, escaped the suspect after a struggle in Osborn Road, Watford, at about 2.30pm on the same day. And one witness, named Matthew, told The Sun: "The two girls managed to escape from the car and hit their attacker over the head with a glass bottle. "There was glass and blood all over the floor, one of the girls ran over into Top Build [a nearby tool shop] for help." The suspect is described as white and having a muscular build. Det Ch Insp Katherine Goodwin, who is leading the investigation, had said on Friday: "This was a terrifying ordeal for both women who were abducted by the suspect in separate areas. "At this stage there is nothing to suggest either victim were specifically targeted for any reason, but both appear to have been selected at random. W ith the UK's Brexit impasse still unresolved, the UK is set to take part in elections for European Parliament on May 23. Between then and May 26 all EU nations will vote for their representatives with more than 700 people being elected in total, 73 of which will be from the UK. Members are voted in for five year terms, with those involved in this years election set to be in place until 2024. Following Theresa Mays latest extension request, Britain is expected to participate, even though it is set to leave the bloc within months making it uncertain how long the UKs MEPs would sit for. Below, the Standard looks at key details of the vote. TODO: define component type apester When will the vote take place? The UK will go to the polling booths on Thursday, May 23, and its citizens as well as those of other EU states are entitled to vote if they are 18 or over. They must be registered by May 7 to do so. The UK will vote on May 23 / PA Wire/PA Images Votes can be made in person, by post or by proxy. Other EU nations voting times may differ. What is the European Parliament? The European Parliament is part of the legislative body of the European Union. It works alongside the European Council to decide on the budget and new proposals. The European Parliament building in Strasbourg / AFP/Getty Images It describes itself as being "a unique example of multinational and multilingual democracy at work". It is a transnational directly elected group and in 2014 the votes for it "were the largest transnational elections ever held at the same time". What parties are taking part in the UK? All the UKs major parties are taking part as well as some other smaller groups. Conservatives have not released their list yet and is not set to until the deadline, however a number of its MEPs have said they will stand again. Theresa May's Conservatives will field a number of candidates / REUTERS The Labour party has fielded 66 candidates while the Liberal Democrats have 69. The Green Party has 63, the SNP six and Plaid Cymru four, while in Northern Ireland the DUP and Sinn Fein will both field candidates. Nigel Farage's new Brexit Party is taking place / AP Change UK, the new party of Labour and Tory defectors, has 70. Ukip and the newly formed Brexit party are also fielding candidates. UKIP won the most seats last time out but former leader Nigel Farage will hope his new Brexit Party group will be able to win some of these places, having exuded confidence when talking about the votes. How are votes allocated? In the UK the votes are split across 12 regions; nine in England then Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Results are dictated using proportional representation. Voters select one party when they take to the polls. The EU often sits in Strasbourg / REUTERS In the first round of vote counting, the party with the most votes wins a seat for whoever tops the list. The leading number of votes is then halved and the list then rearranged, with whoever comes out on top getting the second seat. This process is then repeated until all seats for each region are allocated. The system is named the DHondt system after the Belgium mathematician who developed it. The UK will take part due to the Brexit extension / AFP/Getty Images In Northern Ireland, the system used is the single transferable vote and those taking to the booths rank their candidates in order of preference. Votes are totalled then the number of votes needed for a seat are worked out. The candidate who receives this quota then gets a seat and the surplus votes for them are transferred to other candidates based on the preferences. This is repeated until the seats are filled. What happens when the UK leaves? The UK is set to leave the EU bloc just months after these elections and the date could be sooner if a deal is approved. There is the chance Brexit could happen prior to May 23, in which case the PM said the UK will not take part. The EU already plans to reduce its number of seats to 705 when the UK leaves and a number of these will be reallocated once the UK leaves, while others set aside for potential new members in future. There is a potential of the MEPs not taking their seats. L eading Labour MPs David Lammy and Emily Thornberry have launched blistering attacks against US president Donald Trump as the backlash against his state visit to the UK continued to grow on Saturday. Mr Lammy spoke out against the horrible white supremacy that he seems to stand for and questioned why the misogynist had been granted the visit when numerous other presidents hadnt. And Ms Thornberry, who called Mr Trump a disgrace to his office, said he did not deserve the honour. It comes after Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Commons speaker John Bercow, Lib Dem leader Vince Cable and SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford all said they will not attend the banquet at Buckingham Palace. Donald Trump gestures as he walks on stage at the annual National Rifle Association (NRA) convention in Indianapolis on Friday. There is a growing political backlash in the UK against his state visit / Bryan Woolston/Reuters Mr Trump is set to visit the UK on a three-day trip in June. Since the trip was announced earlier this week, thousands have said they will attend a London protest against the president. David Lammy: 'Why is Theresa May putting Donald Trump in this position?' / LBC And Tottenham MP David Lammy gave his backing to the campaigners, saying on his LBC radio show: If you care about climate change, if you care about the future of this world, then you must stand against Donald Trump. This is a man that is someone who thinks it's OK to describe women in the most horrendous of ways. To speak about them in a misogynistic and deeply offensive fashion. This is the Donald Trump that we are rolling out the red carpet for. TODO: define component type apester We dont always give a state visit to American presidents Lyndon Johnson, [Gerald] Ford, [Jimmy] Carter did not get one. So why, why is Theresa May putting Donald Trump in this position? Having him alongside the Queen? And after Mr Trump moved to pull the US out of the international Arms Trade Treaty, shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry said: Donald Trump's statement on the Arms Trade Treaty is the final confirmation that he is not the Leader of the Free World, he never has been, and he does not deserve the honour of a State Visit to Britain. Emily Thornberry: 'Trump is a threat to our world order' / EPA He is nothing but a disgrace to his office and a threat to our world order. The growing backlash came after Mr Corbyn said on Friday: Theresa May should not be rolling out the red carpet for a state visit to honour a president who rips up vital international treaties, backs climate change denial and uses racist and misogynist rhetoric. 2018 Trump Protests in London - In pictures 1 /54 2018 Trump Protests in London - In pictures Demonstrators gather in Trafalgar Square, London during a 'Stop Trump' march as part of the protests against the visit of US President Donald Trump to the UK. PA Tens of thousands of people take part in a Stop Trump Coalition - Stop the War Protest against the US President Donal J. Trump visit at Trafalgar Square in London EPA 'Stop Trump' demonstrators gather in Trafalgar Square after marching through London PA Tens of thousands of people marched today in protest at Donald Trump's UK visit Reuters 'Stop Trump' demonstrators gather in Trafalgar Square after marching through London PA 'Stop Trump' demonstrators march through Regent Street in London PA The protesters took to the streets in anger at the US president's controversial visit PA 'Stop Trump' demonstrators gather in Trafalgar Square after marching through London PA Protestors hold banners during the 'Stop Trump' Women's March in London AP Donald Trump earlier gave a bombshell interview with the Sun in which he criticised the Prime Minister's approach on Brexit Reuters 'Stop Trump' demonstrators march through Regents Street in London PA Demonstrators also inflated a blimp effigy of Donald Trump PA An aerial view of the women's march in progress AP Donald Trump will meet the Queen later on today Getty Images Protesters for the 'Stop Trump' Women's March hold banners in London AP Thousands more people are expected to march later on Reuters As many as 70,000 people took to the streets Getty Images People held aloft placards that read: "Trump Not Welcome" Reuters Bianca Jagger joins protesters for the 'Stop Trump' Women's March in London PA The protesters hold balloons with anti-Trump messages on them Reuters Trump's visit was criticised heavily PA 'Stop Trump' demonstrators march through Oxford Circus PA Tens of thousands of people take part in a Stop Trump protest EPA Protesters gather in central London to demonstrate against President Trump's visit to the UK Getty Images A drag queen joins protesters against the UK visit of US President Donald Trump AFP/Getty Images Huge crowd: a bigger protest is due later today AP Protesters for the 'Stop Trump' Women's March pass along Whitehall in London PA Protesters against the UK visit of US President Donald Trump hold up placards as they take part in a march and rally in London AFP/Getty Images James O'Brien sells Donald Trump toilet paper, as part of the protests against the visit of US President Donald Trump to the UK PA Demonstrators protest against the visit of US. President Donald Trump Reuters A man dressed as President Trump poses for a photograph as protesters against the UK visit of US President Donald Trump AFP/Getty Images Protesters for the 'Stop Trump' Women's March pass along Whitehall in London PA Protesters for the 'Stop Trump' Women's March pass near to Trafalgar Square in London PA Protesters join a Women's march in central London to demonstrate against President Trump's visit to the UK Getty Images Tens of thousands of people take part in a Stop Trump Coalition - Stop the War Protest against the US President Donald J. Trump visit in London EPA Drag queens take part in the Drag Against Trump protest in Piccadilly Circus EPA Drag queens take part in the Drag Against Trump protest in Piccadilly Circus EPA The "Trump Baby" balloon joins demonstrators as they march to Parliament Square in London PA Demonstrators protest against the visit of US President Donald Trump REUTERS Tens of thousands of people take part in a Stop Trump Coalition - Stop the War Protest against the US President Donal J. Trump visit in London EPA Tens of thousands of people take part in a Stop Trump Coalition - Stop the War Protest against the US President Donal J. Trump visit in London EPA "Maintaining an important relationship with the United States does not require the pomp and ceremony of a state visit. "It is disappointing that the Prime Minister has again opted to kowtow to this US administration." E co-warriors are camping out in trees in the Colne Valley to the north-west of London to prevent them being felled for the HS2 development despite strong winds brought on by Storm Hannah. Twelve Extinction Rebellion members have scaled the trees on Harvill Road in the London Borough of Hillingdon close to the nature reserve to protect them from the chainsaw. The felling had been due to take place between 8am and 6pm on Saturday and Sunday, but could not commence due to the presence of the protesters and strong winds. The climbers are due to descend after 6pm today and return tomorrow morning. Jo Rogers, spokeswoman for Extinction Rebellion, said: "Given strength of wind, (we're) beginning to be concerned for climbers. So far they're all happy and warm in blankets." Extinction Rebellion activist during the climate protests in London. / Jeremy Selwyn She said the group are concerned about the scale of tree-felling in the Colne Valley while the future of the HS2 rail project is still in doubt. "(HS2) hasn't even got planning permission for the whole line. We're concerned that they are doing these things far sooner than they should be." Sarah Green, of local campaign group Save Colne Valley, said it would take at least 20 days for further road closures to be approved to allow the felling to take place. "There's no talking to HS2. They're carrying on with no planning permission and no real plan." Extinction Rebellion protest in London. / PA She estimates at least 2,000 trees have already been cleared from nearby sites by subcontractors to HS2 in the last month. Save Colne Valley also fears that the process of pile driving deep holes into the aquifer risks contaminating the water supply for 3.2 million Londoners. Ms Green said: "We the customers must become the custodians in the absence of responsibility by our elected representatives. "Pure water supplies for life and a sustainable future are essential. We have to act now." Extinction Rebellion protests in London. / Getty Images In a statement, a spokesman for HS2 said: HS2 aims to be one of the most environmentally responsible infrastructure projects ever delivered in the UK, and managing our impact on the environment during construction is a high priority. "HS2 will create extra capacity on our transport network, taking cars and lorries off the road. The project will also deliver a new green corridor made up of more than 650 hectares of new woodland, wetland and wildlife habitats alongside the line. More than seven million new native trees and shrubs will be planted to help blend the line into the landscape and leave a lasting legacy of high quality green spaces all along the route. HS2 Ltd is working closely with the Environment Agency and Affinity Water to ensure construction activities do not adversely affect the flow, level or quality of surface waters and groundwater in the Chilterns-Colne Valley area. The national park itself encompasses 43 square miles stretching from Rickmansworth in Hertfordshire to Staines, Surrey, and the banks of the Thames in the south, Uxbridge and Heathrow, in Hillingdon, in the east and Slough, Berkshire, in the west. It has 200 miles of rivers, canals and over 60 lakes, according to its website. The protest comes as Extinction Rebellion staged two weeks of action throughout central London, resulting in more than 1,000 arrests and major travel disruption in the capital. Sian Cox, 54, from Brecon, said: "Extinction Rebellion was the first time I was arrested and this is my first time at a protest site. Extinction Rebellion Tree Protestors - In pictures 1 /16 Extinction Rebellion Tree Protestors - In pictures A climate change protester in a hammock hanging from the trees at Parliament Square, London Jeremy Selwyn PA Jeremy Selwyn Jeremy Selwyn Jeremy Selwyn Jeremy Selwyn Jeremy Selwyn Jeremy Selwyn Jeremy Selwyn Jeremy Selwyn Jeremy Selwyn Jeremy Selwyn "The fight we have on our hands is to change the system that puts short-term economic growth ahead of the health of the biosphere we all rely on for life. We are killing our host, and this tree is a symbol of that for me. "The only thing that works in a system that does not want to change is non-violent action like this." Danielle, a mum in prison I was taken without warning, no time to prepare me, to prepare you Wrenched screaming from court, you not knowing, blissfully unaware Youre staying with friends, taken in, in pity, the outsider We connect after days of mutual torture, fast words, anger, recrimination, loss Pain You hate me, I love you, a few short months, Im sorry, driven by desperation Every day, I heard your pain, you were adrift, untethered, a boat with no anchor Drifting further away The day came and went, no call, no you, where were you, the late-night knock on my door? You were missing, they didnt want to worry me, they found you In the woods, you left a note, it was too much, you are sorry, you felt lost You drifted away Im still here, now Im lost, Im drifting too, I never want to leave I dont want to be in the world outside, not without you But I will. I owe you to live my life and yours and to live it well No more drifting, but anchors, a mooring, a safe crossing In your honour A gunman has opened fire at a synagogue outside San Diego where worshippers were celebrating the last day of Passover has injured four people. Those who were injured are being treated in hospital, according to Derryl Acosta, a spokesman for Palomar Health Medical Center Hospital. San Diego County sheriff's office said on Twitter that a man has been detained in connection with the shooting at the Chabad of Poway synagogue on Saturday. San Diego Police Chief David Nisleit said there was no known threat however, authorities had stepped up patrol at places of worship in the area as a precaution. A handful of police cars were parked outside the synagogue in the city of Poway, just over 20 miles north of San Diego. Crime tape surrounded the street in front of the building. Officials say deputies were called just before 11.30am local time. The shooting came on the last day of Passover and exactly six months since a shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue killed 11 people. A truck driver who authorities said expressed hatred of Jews has been charged in the deadliest attack on Jews in US history. R etired US Marine Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North appeared to be forced out of the National Rifle Association amid a dramatic power struggle within the organisation. Mr North made the announcement during the annual NRA meeting in Indianapolis adding he had been told he could not seek re-election as president, ending his one year tenure. It comes less than 24 hours after reports that long-serving NRA executive vice-president Wayne LaPierre were locked in conflict over the groups future direction and a swirl of legal troubles. Mr North, a conservative commentator best known for his central role in the 1980s Iran-Contra affair, said he had hoped to stand for re-election when his term ends on Monday. Wayne LaPierre, NRA vice president and CEO attends the NRA annual meeting of members. / Getty Images "I am now informed that will not happen," he said in the letter read out at the meeting. NRA Chief Executive Wayne LaPierre accused Mr North of trying to oust him by threatening to release "damaging" information about him, according to a letter from Mr LaPierre to NRA board members that was published by the Wall Street Journal on Friday. NRA officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. US President Donald Trump shows a signed order rejecting the 2013 Arms Trade Treaty as he speaks at the National Rifle Association annual meeting. / AFP/Getty Images The news follows President Donald Trump announcing at the same conference that the US is withdrawing from a United Nations treaty that regulates the multi-billion dollar arms trade. Mr Trump told a cheering audience that the Arms Trade Treaty, which regulates the international weapons trade, was "badly misguided" and said that the US was withdrawing its signature. The US signed the treaty in 2013 under then-President Barack Obama, but never ratified it. The treaty has been ratified by by 101 countries. Mr North, 75, who was named by the NRA as its president in May 2018, was a pivotal figure in the Iran-Contra affair involving secret sales of arms to Iran by Republican President Ronald Reagan's administration and the unlawful diversion of the proceeds to Nicaraguan rebels. The NRA, with more than 5 million members, is by far the most powerful and well-connected gun lobby in the United States. T ear gas has been used on yellow vest protesters trying to march towards the European Parliament building in Strasbourg on the 24th consecutive weekend of action against French President Emmanuel Macrons policies. Thousands of people were back on the streets across France two days after the president outlined policy proposals including tax cuts worth around 5 billion euros (4.32 billion). Around 2,000 demonstrators gathered near EU institutions in the eastern city of Strasbourg, with organisers hoping to make the protest international by marching to the parliament building a month ahead of EU elections. Police fired several canisters of tear gas to push back the demonstrators, a Reuters witness said. A demonstrator avoids smoke canisters during the protests. / AFP/Getty Images French television showed some hooded protesters throwing stones and other objects back at the police. The Interior Ministry said around 23,600 protesters took part in marches across the country, including 2,600 in Paris, compared with around 28,000 a week earlier. It was the second lowest turnout since the protests started in November. Riot policemen run in a street past a rubbish container burning during the demonstrations. / AFP/Getty Images The protests, named after motorists' high-visibility yellow jackets, began over fuel tax increases but morphed into a sometimes violent revolt against politicians and a government they see as out of touch. Many in the grassroots movement, which lacks a leadership structure, have said Macron's proposals this week did not go far enough and lacked details. Protesters from the 'Gilets Jaunes' movement hold a banner reading 'Medias Big Liars' as they gather in front of Radio France headquarters. / EPA Saturday's protests in Paris, which has seen some of the worst violence in past demonstrations, was jointly organised with the leftist trade union confederation CGT and was mostly calm. Protesters also gathered in Lyon and Bordeaux. I love these girls and they make it fun, said Garwood. I love the thought of brightening someones day. Connie McDonnough fills a basket with chocolate that will be distributed to local seniors on May 1. She has volunteered for a number of years to make the baskets partly as a fun activity with friends and partly to give back to others. It helps you to remember there are other people in the world that dont get a chance to get out and do these kinds of things, McDonnough said. Its fun to be with fellow Soroptimists and doing something that is for someone else. The women all said it was a joyful task and one they look forward to doing each year. McDonnough lives at The Residency and said she appreciated the kindness shown to her fellow residents. Its whats in our heart, McDonnough said. Its such a wonderful thing to do. When the Soroptimists were finished with their work, they divvied up the task of delivering the candy around the area, which will bring smiles to faces and memories to mind. The local Soroptimists club was chartered in 1958, and meetings are held in the Scotts Bluff Country club at noon on the first and third Thursdays of each month. Further information may be obtained on Facebook by going to Soroptimists International of Scotts Bluff County. Submit Your News We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form SCOTTSBLUFF Randy Scott, SBPS Director of Facilities and Maintenance, reports that changes in utility usage have alerted the district to significant water leakages in the Splash Arena indoor pool. Through further investigation, it has been determined that the pool has been leaking at a rate of approximately 7.5 gallons per minute (or est. 10,000 gallons per day) above and beyond normal evaporation. This seepage requires the closure of the pool until repairs are made per Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services regulations. The district has consulted with Associated Pool Builders and Baker and Associates to receive an evaluation of necessary repairs and associated costs. This problem was not anticipated and is above and beyond the numerous issues that threaten the pools viability. Estimates to address the leakages only are $350,000-$550,000. Collaboration between the School District, the Splash Foundation and the YMCA will preserve both the high school Seacats and Torpedoes programming over the short term. Tentative plans are now in place, with the generous support of the YMCA and the Splash Foundation, to accommodate both programs for the coming year. While no action was taken at the April meeting, the board may make a determination regarding the potential repair or closure of the Splash Arena facility as early as the May regular meeting. Submit Your News We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form The Japanese market has been especially important for Nebraskas beef sector. In 2003, the states beef sales to the Asia country were abruptly halted due to concern over mad cow disease. Starting in 2007, Nebraska beef exports there resumed and since have increased strongly, year to year, climbing from just over $50 million in 2008 to $398 million in 2017. From 2016 to 2017 alone, Nebraska boosted its beef sales to Japan by 26%. When the Nebraska Farm Bureau recently calculated that current U.S. trade frictions with China and Europe would cost the states ag sector an estimated $1 billion in damage, the bureau cited the states strong beef exports to Japan and South Korea as a bright spot in terms of export strength. But now Nebraska beef producers are at a significant price disadvantage in Japan, as it reduces its tariffs for countries covered by its new trade agreements but not for the U.S. In December, Japan lowered its beef tariffs to 27.5% on sales from its Pacific-area and EU trading partners, and on April 1 it reduced the rate further, to 26.6%. Additional reductions lie ahead, set by the trade agreements. The rate for U.S. beef producers, meanwhile, remains unchanged at 38.5%. MULTIPLE CALLS Houston said a number of 911 calls have been made regarding that area in the past six months. He cited one incident where people reported seeing a plane crash into the river. Houston explained that investigators found no crash and the plane was simply doing aerial maneuvers. Houston added there have been multiple calls about items seen in the river; an uninhabited boat was flooded and overturned while tied up to a dock and another was mistaken for a car in the river. No one was found injured after either call. First responders also arent in position to discredit the 911 callers. Until you know more about it, I wouldnt call it fake, misleading or anything else, Carver said. He also said that the amount of calls in that area didnt seem unusual considering the length of time covered. Both Houston and Carver called the reported area for these calls remote and difficult to access. Its a dangerous area to have to deal with, Houston said. State and local elected officials, in collaboration with Iredell County government leaders, have invited residents to a Community Meeting on May 9 at 6 p.m. at South Iredell High School at 299 Old Mountain Road, Statesville. The purpose of the meeting is to inform the public about the work being done related to elevated thyroid cancer diagnoses in the southwestern and southeastern part of the county and to share information related to the regulation of coal ash facilities. The program will include presentations by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Service, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality and researchers from Duke University and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. During this event, citizens will have an opportunity to ask questions related to these two topics. Due to limited seating, people are encouraged to pre-register by visiting: https://thyroidandcoalash.eventbrite.com . On-site registration will begin at 5 p.m. for additional seating on a first-come, first-serve basis. The program will begin promptly at 6 p.m. To see the most updated thyroid cancer information, please visit the Iredell County Health Department website: https://www.co.iredell.nc.us/1255/Thyroid-Cancer-Information . On Friday, Duke Energy filed an appeal to the N.C. Department of Environmental Qualitys April 1 order to excavate all coal ash basins in the state, including the one at the Marshall Steam Station in Sherrills Ford. The appeal stated the department made the order without corrective action plans required by the Coal Ash Management Act that must be submitted by December 2019. Corrective action plans would include methodology to help groundwater meet DEQ standards. According to the Coal Ash Management Act, corrective action plans are required for any closure method, including excavation. Other methods are capping in place, where an impermeable barrier is put over a basin, or hybrid, which is a mixture of excavation and capping in place. According to a Duke press release, all methods require some corrective action and would result in similar lingering contamination. Misenheimers research shows that there are three known Revolutionary War battlegrounds in Iredell County. All three events took place Feb. 1, 1781. The Battle at Beatties Ford took place at 6 a.m. Feb. 1, 1781 when British Artillery on the west side of the Catawba River fired grapeshot from cannons on patriot soldiers for 30 minutes, killing several soldiers including a father and son. At the time the British cannons had a range of 600 yards while the Catawba River was 450 yards across. Both the Revolutionary War Papers of General Joseph Graham and the Revolutionary War Pension Application papers from soldiers there confirm this. The Battle or Skirmish of Sherrills Ford took place from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. Feb. 1, 1781. Greene orders the Continental Army to march from the Catawba River toward Salisbury when they are attacked under one mile or 5/8th of a mile from the Sherrills Ford crossing on the Iredell County side. The attack came from British Loyalist Militia hiding on the north side of the road and fired into the Continental ranks. The location of the attack would now be on April Road in the Fallstown area. Two soldiers from the Maryland Continental Line were killed and are supposed to be buried at Sherrills Ford. The Continental Army returned fire chasing the Loyalist Militia away. Blog Archive Apr 2010 (22) May 2010 (25) Jun 2010 (8) Jul 2010 (12) Aug 2010 (18) Sep 2010 (19) Oct 2010 (29) Nov 2010 (30) Dec 2010 (18) Jan 2011 (13) Feb 2011 (21) Mar 2011 (23) Apr 2011 (19) May 2011 (31) Jun 2011 (36) Jul 2011 (46) Aug 2011 (26) Sep 2011 (12) Oct 2011 (15) Nov 2011 (17) Dec 2011 (7) Jan 2012 (18) Feb 2012 (4) Mar 2012 (12) Apr 2012 (18) May 2012 (10) Jun 2012 (21) Jul 2012 (8) Aug 2012 (15) Sep 2012 (7) Oct 2012 (17) Nov 2012 (20) Dec 2012 (10) Jan 2013 (58) Feb 2013 (59) Mar 2013 (60) Apr 2013 (98) May 2013 (135) Jun 2013 (204) Jul 2013 (293) Aug 2013 (351) Sep 2013 (363) Oct 2013 (348) Nov 2013 (374) Dec 2013 (442) Jan 2014 (547) Feb 2014 (476) Mar 2014 (526) Apr 2014 (527) May 2014 (469) Jun 2014 (408) Jul 2014 (472) Aug 2014 (522) Sep 2014 (443) Oct 2014 (472) Nov 2014 (497) Dec 2014 (536) Jan 2015 (539) Feb 2015 (520) Mar 2015 (582) Apr 2015 (658) May 2015 (679) Jun 2015 (673) Jul 2015 (728) Aug 2015 (803) Sep 2015 (923) Oct 2015 (924) Nov 2015 (802) Dec 2015 (791) Jan 2016 (782) Feb 2016 (835) Mar 2016 (929) Apr 2016 (866) May 2016 (947) Jun 2016 (1044) Jul 2016 (882) Aug 2016 (1035) Sep 2016 (967) Oct 2016 (918) Nov 2016 (854) Dec 2016 (885) Jan 2017 (879) Feb 2017 (777) Mar 2017 (896) Apr 2017 (872) May 2017 (850) Jun 2017 (851) Jul 2017 (971) Aug 2017 (1040) Sep 2017 (998) Oct 2017 (1144) Nov 2017 (1046) Dec 2017 (838) Jan 2018 (873) Feb 2018 (769) Mar 2018 (885) Apr 2018 (809) May 2018 (827) Jun 2018 (820) Jul 2018 (840) Aug 2018 (854) Sep 2018 (844) Oct 2018 (851) Nov 2018 (870) Dec 2018 (912) Jan 2019 (919) Feb 2019 (827) Mar 2019 (957) Apr 2019 (913) May 2019 (1007) Jun 2019 (935) Jul 2019 (950) Aug 2019 (936) Sep 2019 (910) Oct 2019 (920) Nov 2019 (874) Dec 2019 (908) Jan 2020 (941) Feb 2020 (849) Mar 2020 (898) Apr 2020 (848) May 2020 (822) Jun 2020 (789) Jul 2020 (819) Aug 2020 (858) Sep 2020 (841) Oct 2020 (873) Nov 2020 (812) Dec 2020 (780) Jan 2021 (765) Feb 2021 (716) Mar 2021 (819) Apr 2021 (805) May 2021 (815) Jun 2021 (824) Jul 2021 (830) Aug 2021 (832) Sep 2021 (791) Oct 2021 (754) Nov 2021 (683) Dec 2021 (480) The Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ is the absolute light of the Holy Eucharist and of the entire Christian life, Patriarch Daniel of the Romanian Orthodox Church says in his Pastoral Easter Letter. "As the Resurrection of Christ is the absolute light of the Holy Eucharist and of our entire Christian life, it calls upon us today to understand the blessings of participating in the Holy Liturgy and the communion with the Body and Blood of Christ, the Crucified and Risen. Through the Holy Eucharist we receive: "the good and sanctification of our souls and bodies; let them be for the healing of our soul and body, the repelling of every adversary, the illumining of the eyes of my heart, the peace of my spiritual power, a faith unashamed, a love unfeigned, the fulfilling of wisdom, the observing of Thy commandments, the receiving of Thy divine grace, and the attaining of Thy Kingdom," as it is written in "The first thanksgiving prayer after the Divine Communion," says the Patriarch. His Beatitude Daniel goes on to explain that "when Our Lord Jesus Christ celebrated the Last Supper, He prayed first by blessing God and thanking Him," "And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to His disciples (Luke 22:19-20)," " this thanksgiving prayer of Christ being called in the Greek language of the New Testament: the Eucharist." "Saint John Chrysostom, explaining the connection between Easter and the Last Supper or the Holy Eucharist, says: "Why did He (Christ) perform this mystery during the Easter celebrations? For you to find out that He is the lawmaker of the Old Testament, and that those in the New Testament were announced by the ones in the Old Testament. The evening hour only means that time has come and that all things must come to an end (...). He (Jesus) demolishes their main feast (the Jews') and take them to a new and fearsome Passover. 'Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you' (cf. 1 Corinthians 11, 24) (...). He calls this blood, the blood of the New Covenant, that is, the promise of the New Law (...), and adds: Do this in remembrance of me.' (cf. Luke 22:19). These words show how much He wants to steer away His disciples from the Jewish customs. As once, says He, you spent Passover in remembrance of the miracles of Egypt, do this in My remembrance. Yesterday, that blood was only to save the firstborns of Egypt, but this blood is spilled for the forgiveness of the sins of the whole world," His Beatitude Daniel explains. The Romanian Patriarch shows that "this new Passover, established at the Last Supper, anticipates the Passion, Burying and Resurrection of Christ as His passing to a new life, to eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven." "Through Resurrection, the human body of Christ, the Crucified, does not return to earthly, cruel and transient life, as was the case with Lazarus of Bethany, for example, but the risen body of Christ becomes immortal, unspoiled and eternal. (...) Therefore, 'death has no control over Him', as Saint Paul (Romans 6, 9) says. "In the risen Christ, death itself was killed." Therefore, we sing, "Christ is risen from the dead! Trampling down death by death!," he says. The high Orthodox hierarch reminds that the year 2019 is dedicated to the homage to the Romanian village, faithful keeper of the Christian tradition and of the national culture. Patriarch Daniel points out that "in the Romanian villages that have preserved the Orthodox faith, from the christening of our ancestors, through the sermon of Saint Andrew the Apostle until this day the performance of the Holy Eucharist has never been interrupted." "No matter how much the Orthodox Romanians were persecuted and oppressed by foreigners, by different religions or confessions, or by promoters of totalitarian ideologies, the Holy Eucharistic Sacrifice continued to be celebrated, because through it, Orthodox Christians receive the power of sacrificial love, the power to be at all times confessors of Christ and the joy of remaining united with Him in history and eternity. Born from the love for Christ,, The Crucified and Risen, were philanthropy or the helping of the neighbor, religious or sacred art, namely, religious music, poetry and literature, miniature, calligraphy, church printing, church architecture and sculpture, iconography, embroidery, and others. All these artistic creations inspired by faith then lighted the culture of the Romanian people from towns and villages," says the Patriarch. He urges that on Easter, "through good word and deed, we "bring joy and light into the souls of the orphans, the sick, the old, the poor, the mourners and the lonely." "Let us not forget the Romanians who are among foreigners, let us pray for their joy, health and salvation, to enhance the brotherly communion and to cultivate more the love for the Romanian people and Romania," emphasizes His Beatitude Daniel. On Easter, the Patriarch wishes everyone peace and joy, health, and salvation, addressing the Easter salutation "Christ is risen!". AGERPRES The electoral campaign for the elections to the European Parliament begins on Saturday, with 13 political parties and three independent candidates will compete in the race for a seat in the EP to convince voters that they deserve to represent them in the European fora in the next five years. On May 25, at 7:00, the election campaign will end and more than 18,949,141 voters will be called to the polls on May 26. As many as 1,269 polling stations are organised in the country, while Romanians in the diaspora can vote in the European Parliament elections in 441 stations opened abroad. *** The start of the election campaign The election campaign starts 30 days before the reference day and ends on the morning of the Saturday before the reference day at 7:00 hrs. In the electoral campaign, candidates, political parties, political alliances and electoral alliances, citizens' organizations belonging to national minorities participating in the elections, as well as citizens have the right to express their opinions freely and without discrimination meetings, public gatherings and marches, and through the media. Authorizations stipulated by the laws in force are necessary to set up meetings, gatherings and marches. According to legal provisions, the means used within the election campaigns cannot be contrary to legal order. All the campaigning activities are prohibited in military units, in educational units during the education process, on the premises of diplomatic representations, and in prisons. During the electoral campaign, mayors must allocate to all candidates, in a non-discriminatory manner, appropriate locations to meet voters. Local police must protect the integrity of the legally displayed electoral panels and posters, the Central Electoral Bureau (BEC) informs. In the administration and territorial units where local police does not exist, the integrity of the aforementioned advertising means is secured by the public order forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. After the end of the electoral campaign, it is mandatory to solely remove electoral materials of any kind from the inside and outside of the polling stations' premises. BEC has decided that the president of the electoral bureau of the polling station must order the removal of the propaganda materials by staff assigned for this purpose by the mayor. The continuation of electoral propaganda after the campaign is closed refers to displaying, launching or distributing any kind of electoral items and the broadcast of audio, visual or mixed electoral messages on screens placed in public or private places or from special purpose vehicles, after 7 a.m. on May 24. The use of special places for electoral posters is allowed only to the political parties, the organizations of ethnic minorities' citizens, to their political and electoral alliances participating in the elections, and to independent candidates. *** Each electoral competitor can place a single electoral poster on each electoral panel. An electoral poster placed in the designated places shall not exceed 500 mm one side and 300 mm the other side and the one by which an electoral meeting is convened, 400 mm one side and 250 mm the other side. Electoral posters combining the colours in a sequence that reproduces Romania's or other countries' flags are prohibited. The application of electoral displays on the walls and pillars of bridges, tunnels and viaducts, on traffic signs, and on electronic traffic lights is prohibited.. Electoral propaganda activities cannot damage in any way the green areas, natural reserves and environmentally protected areas in accordance with laws. Using minors under 16 years of age to distribute or place electoral propaganda items is prohibited. After the end of the electoral campaign, it is forbidden to broadcast electoral messages in audio, visual or mixed form on digital screens located in public or private places, as well as through specially designed vehicles. The mayor, with the support of the public order bodies,must ensure the integrity of the billboards, electoral posters and other electoral propaganda material placed in authorized places. Local councils may approve the setting up on the public domain by candidates, political parties, political alliances, and electoral alliances of provisional arrangements for the distribution of electoral propaganda material if there are no restrictions on road or pedestrian traffic. The electoral campaign can unfold in other countries than Romania only in compliance with the laws thereof. *** Exercising the vote in the May 26 elections Romanian citizens aged 18 and up to the reference day have the right to elect members from Romania to the European Parliament. Mentally challenged people under the ban and offenders who, on the reference day, are convicted by a final court decision to the loss of electoral rights, do not have a voting right. Romanian citizens who have the right to vote and have reached the age of 23 until the reference date have the right to be elected to the European Parliament. Community voters who wish to vote at another polling station on the reference day than the one where they are listed on the copy of the special electoral roll vote only if the county electoral bureau or the electoral bureau confirms, at the request of the president of the electoral bureau of the polling station that they were included on the special electoral lists. Community voters who are abroad on the reference day vote for the election of Romanian members to the European Parliament only if they appear in the table drawn up by the Permanent Electoral Authority, which includes the electors registered on the special voting lists. The Romanian citizens who are listed in the voting lists of other member states cannot vote for the election of the Romanian representatives to the European Parliament. They can only vote lists/candidates in the respective state. Voters vote individually, in enclosed cabins, by applying the rubber stamp reading 'VOTAT' (Voted) inside the rectangle with the list of candidates or the given name and family name of the independent candidate of their choice. The size of the stamp reading 'VOTAT' must be smaller than the rectangle. *** Only one voter enters the voting cabin The presence of any other individual than the voter in the voting cabin is prohibited. Voters who due to justifiable reasons confirmed by the president of the electoral bureau of the polling stations cannot vote on their own are allowed to ask an assistant of their choice to accompany them in the voting cabin to help them. The assistant cannot be chosen among the observers or the members of the electoral bureau of the polling station. After voting, the voters must fold the ballot papers so that the blank side with the control stamp is on the outside and insert them in the ballot box, avoiding the opening of the papers. The incorrect folding of the ballot paper is not a reason for its cancellation. Upon the voters' request, if they have applied the stamp reading 'VOTAT' incorrectly, but have not yet inserted the ballot papers in the ballot box, the president of the electoral bureau of the polling station can hand each voter another ballot paper, only one time, while withdrawing and cancelling the original ballot paper. Voting begins at 7:00 hrs and ends at 21:00 hrs. Electors who are in the voting room at 21:00 hrs may exercise their voting rights. *** Special ballot boxes The requests of non-transferable voters due to illness or disability for the special ballot box to be brought to them are to be submitted at the latest the day before the elections, according to a decision of the Central Electoral Bureau. Written requests drafted by non-transferable voters due to illness or disability, accompanied by copies of medical records or other official documents showing that the persons concerned are non-transportable and requesting the dispatch of the special ballot box, shall be submitted at the latest a day before the election . According to the BEC, request to vote through the special ballot box, made by the voter, must be dated and signed, and will include the name, surname, date of birth, personal identification number, address, serial number and number of the valid identity document, as well as the address where they live. According to Law 33/2007, republished, with subsequent amendments, persons held under a preventive arrest warrant or persons who are serving a custodial sentence but who have not lost their electoral rights may vote through the special ballot box . *** Order of candidates on the ballot paper The top three spots on the ballot paper in the May 26 elections to the European Parliament, are occupied by the Social Democratic Party (PSD, major at rule, ed.n), the opposition 2020 alliance of Save Romania Union (USR) and PLUS, and the Pro Romania Party. Next follow the Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania (UDMR), the National Liberal Party (PNL), the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE), the PRODEMO Party, the People's Movement Party (PMP), the Romanian Socialist Party, the Independent Social Democratic Party, the United Romania Party, the National Union for Romania's Progress (UNPR), and the National Unity Bloc (BUN). The last positions on the ballot are independent candidates - Gregorian-Carmen Tudoran, George Nicolae Simion and Peter Costea. *** Time to communicate turnout BEC, the county electoral bureaus, the electoral bureaus of the Bucharest municipality, and the electoral bureau for the polling stations from abroad will daily provide partial results, starting with 09:00 hrs, Romania time, as of May 27. The time at which the information will be available and will be released is 11.00 hrs, 15.00 hrs, 17.00 hrs, 20.00 hrs for the time reference of 9:00 hrs, 13:00 hrs, 15:00 hrs, 18:00 hrs. AGERPRES But the timing of those future phases will depend on the availability of low-income housing tax credits. Missouri Gov. Mike Parson called for reform of the program in the Legislature before issuing more state credits. The Missouri Senate passed a plan to lower the state issuance to 72.5 percent of what it receives from the federal government. It makes it a much more complicated project if the state programs are not available, but our hope is we can find other sources to get the project done for our residents, McCormack Baron Salazar spokeswoman Cady Seabaugh said. The construction delay did cause some residents to become disenchanted, said Shin, the Urban Strategies president working with Preservation Square families. But now, some people are already moving to the Brewery apartments to make way for construction in Preservation Square, a complex developed almost 40 years ago. Research shows quality housing can promote better health and other benefits, she said. Folks sometimes dont realize just how much the housing will change and how much it will improve, Shin said. SEATTLE Looking back at her time as an early Microsoft employee, Melinda Gates said the brash culture at the famously tough, revolutionary tech company made her want to quit, but that she didnt discuss it with her boyfriend, and later her husband, Bill Gates, the company CEO who embodied that culture. That wasnt my job to do that at the time, Gates said in an interview, adding that she drew bright lines around the office and home in order to work there for nine years before she left to have children. Her new book, The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World, is a memoir and manifesto on women and power from the former tech business executive, outspoken feminist and public supporter of the #MeToo movement. All book proceeds will be donated to charity. Missing from the memoir is how her relationship with Gates affected her experience at Microsoft. And she said its difficult to look back to 30 years ago to say how things might be different today if he had made a move on an employee at work, back when the company was 1 percent of its current size. Its impossible to project how that was different, she said. Tony Messenger Tony Messenger is the metro columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Follow Tony Messenger Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today John Gaskin III will get his due process. That bit of serendipity is apparent in the penultimate paragraph of a letter he received from national NAACP president and CEO Derrick Johnson on Thursday. The letter suspends Gaskin as president of the St. Louis County Branch of the NAACP pending further action by the NAACP Board of Directors. Johnson said he suspended Gaskin for his decision to offer the county NAACPs support for legislation pending in the Missouri Legislature which would weaken Title IX protections for women on college campuses, and also for a conflict of interest in taking a paid consulting job from the nonprofit group Better Together or its campaign arm while asking fellow NAACP members to endorse the measure which could merge the city and the county. Several black elected officials called for Gaskins resignation after the Post-Dispatch reported that Gaskin announced support for the ballot initiative at a news conference before letting both the NAACP and the public know that he was being paid by the sponsors of the proposal. ST. LOUIS The Board of Aldermen banned on Friday special-interest lobbyists from the aldermanic floor but dropped a plan that would have required members of the public to get a pass before they could sit in the gallery overlooking the chamber. The board voted 22-2 for the compromise after approving on a voice vote an amendment scrapping the proposed pass system. We wanted to make it very clear that these meetings are open to the public, and we dont want anyone not showing up because they might not have access, the amendments sponsor, Alderman Heather Navarro of the 28th Ward, said after the vote. Alderman Jack Coatar of the 7th Ward, who had proposed the overall rules change, said it was designed to bring some order and decorum to this chamber and based on U.S. House practices. But he said in debate that his key goal was limiting floor access and that he wouldnt object to deleting the gallery pass requirement. Among those concerned that the pass system might limit access of average citizens was Alderman Shane Cohn, 25th Ward. Under rules posted on the boards webpage, the board is supposed to meet quarterly with justice services officials and make annual reports to the county executive and council. But no one in the county seems to know where that language came from. Its not in an ordinance or the charter. And neither Stengers office nor the council had any reports from the board on file. Stengers staff found a total of 17 miscellaneous pages dating back to 2003, mostly agendas from meetings long ago. His office put out a brief statement: The Justice Services Advisory Board has been inactive since at least 2003. Thats not exactly true. The board has met sporadically with senior jail staff, two members said. It receives information, said longtime member Alberta S. Murstein. She insisted that a reporter call jail supervisors for information. Were not people who come in and say, You do this and you do that. We are people from the community and with backgrounds in different areas, social work, education, and they keep us up to date on whats happening. The latest data for the St. Louis area from real estate brokerage website Redfin shows the median time on market for a single-family home is 63 days. In two north St. Louis ZIP codes, the median days on market is twice that number. Those ZIP codes include the 10 city neighborhoods that together account for more than half of all vacant buildings in the city. In four other ZIP codes north of Delmar Boulevard, houses were listed on median between 38 and 60 days. While theres interest in north St. Louis real estate, it hasnt exactly been an easy sell for Realtors when they know clients will struggle to get financing. Gail Brown, real estate agent and owner of Brown-Kortkamp Realty and at-large member of the Affordable Housing Commission, said the Gateway Neighborhood Mortgage can help her sell homes. Though agents cannot steer interested buyers to one neighborhood or another, the program will have the best chance of succeeding with clustered investments. In the same area, police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara said officers acting on information from intelligence officials found 150 sticks of blasting gelatin and 100,000 small metal balls, as well as a van and clothing suspected to be used by those involved in the Easter attack. Suicide bomb vests often are packed with such balls to increase the shrapnel in the explosion, making them even deadlier. Officials from the police to the prime minister say militants remain on the loose and have access to explosives. That has led to increased security at shrines, churches, temples and mosques across the multiethnic country of 21 million off the southern coast of India. Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith told journalists Friday that church officials had seen a leaked security document describing Roman Catholic churches and other denominations as a major target. Ranjith, who is the archbishop of Colombo, asked the faithful across Sri Lanka to stay home for their own safety. "We don't want repetitions," Ranjith said. BOISE, ID, UNITED STATES 02.15.2019 - Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 116th Cavalry Regiment, conducts platoon live-fire gunnery qualification Feb.14, 2019, at the Orchard Combat Training Center.The Idaho Army National Guard Soldiers are preparing for the 116th Cavalry Brigade Combat Teams upcoming rotation at the National Training Center, Fort Irwin, Calif., later this year. X 0 20 Help Keep Us Soaring We need your help! Our subscription base has slowly been dwindling. We need your help in reversing that trend. We would like to add 20 new subscribers this month. Each month we count on your subscriptions or contributions. You can support us in the following ways: TICKERS: ZON Source: Ron Struthers for Streetwise Reports (4/27/19) Ron Struthers of Struthers' Resource Stock Report reviews results from drilling at the company's project, including a drill hole that intersected significant mineralization. I am very surprised at these great, high-grade results for the first drill pass on the first target at Zonte's Cross Hills. Before seeing more details below, or if you skip down lower, come back for some detail on IOCGs. What is an Iron Oxide Copper Gold (IOCG) mine? That is a very good and very important question that I have been grappling with and learning about for over a year. IOCGs are rare and often massive in scale. There are not any IOCG mines in Canada, but a few prospects exist. Therefore, junior mining investors have little knowledge about these. What I have learned, with some help from Zonte Metals Inc.'s (ZON:TSX.V) exploration, is that there never seems to be two alike. An explorer cannot use a known deposit effectively as a model, except as a general concept. Some deposits are located in magnetic highs and others peripheral to the magnetic highs. Each IOCG seems to have a different mixture of metals. With Zonte's Cross Hills it looks like mineralization is around or near the oxide zones and contains copper (Cu), silver (Ag) and gold (Au). This is the technical geological definition, as provided by Natural Resources Canada: "IOCG deposits are polymetallic hydrothermal mineral occurrences that contain Cu and economic Au concentrations with potential enrichment in Ag, uranium, rare earth elements, bismuth, cobalt, nickel, niobium, etc., set in abundant low-titanium iron-oxide (magnetite, hematite) gangue minerals or associated alteration sulphide. The sulphide-deficient ore includes native elements and low-sulphur base-metal sulphides and arsenides, such as chalcopyrite, bornite, chalcocite, pyrrhotite and arsenopyrite (Corriveau, 2007; Corriveau and Mumin, 2010). All IOCG deposits are enclosed within regional scale-alteration haloes of intensely iron oxide-alkali-altered metasomatized rocks and breccias." The most well known IOCG example is Olympic Dam in Australia, operated by BHP. It is simply the most massive mineral system in the world. In the past BHP has stated there are 500 years of mining life left and new discoveries could add centuries to this. Currently its proven reserves make it the largest uranium deposit in the world and fourth largest copper deposit, and they have only scratched the known system. These are regional-scale systems and we know that Cross Hills has several more anomalies that exemplify this. For that reason and the large-scale potential of these systems, I am certain the majors are going to soon rush into the Cross Hills area. The best know occurrences in Canada, before Zonte's Cross Hills, are in the Northwest Territories/Great Slave Lake region. It is remote and reserves defined to date are small. Fortune Minerals Ltd.'s(FT:TSX) NICO has 33 million tonnes at 1.02 g/t Au, 0.12% cobalt and 0.04% copper. Sue-Dianne is only 8.4 million tonnes at 0.80% copper with 0.07 g/t Au and 3.2 g/t Ag. There is also the Michelin project in Labrador. These deposits could be bigger, but in recent years it has been difficult to raise exploration funding for projects like these inremote areas. Read more in a 2018, 154-page IOCG publication. Cross Hills is different. It can be worked year-round, has road access, a high-voltage power line through the property and is close to a sea port. The major miners are very aggressively looking for copper and I expect that, before the end of the year, one or more of them will be all over Zonte and the Cross Hills region. Mining giant BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP:NYSE; BHPLF:OTCPK) made a decision in 2016 to raise its annual exploration spending by 29%, allocating nearly all of its $900 million budget to finding new copper deposits to add to a portfolio that includes Escondida in Chile, the world's biggest copper mine, and the Olympic Dam. Zonte Metals: recent price $0.33; entry price $0.15; opinion = strong buy Zonte released the first drill results from the Cross Hills project in Newfoundland, and they definitely surprised me and came back way better than my best expectations. I was expecting lower grades over longer widths, and that any high grade would maybe be 5% or 6% copper and 2 or 3 g/t gold. Zonte expedited assays on parts of drill hole 19-004 based on visual observations in the drill core. Here is a pic of the high-grade intersect. This ran 14.0% Cu, 15.8 g/t Au and 352 g/t within a 0.43 m interval sitting in a 2.76 m interval that averaged 2.89% Cu, 2.65 g/t Au, 73.3 g/t Ag. This drill hole also had some more low-grade intercepts from 204.41 meters to 243 meters. In first pass drilling the idea is to test different parts of the target and different theories. Drill holes 19-001 and 19-002 tested the magnetic highs in the anomalies and only intersected some anomalous copper values. It appears thus far that mineralization is in the transition zone from high to moderate magnetics. Drill hole CH-19-004 was set up to test the eastern side of the Dunns Mountain magnetic anomaly, aiming to pass under the magnetic high, in the 'transition' from high to moderate magnetics. This was the only drill hole targeting the transition zone in the magnetic profile. The company noted a number of discrete visually mineralized intervals were noted throughout a 70-meter interval, between 168 and 243 meters, sitting directly below a magnetic high. The hole was initially drilled to a depth of 204 meters and later deepened to 283 meters copper mineralization was discovered in the last meter of core. This graphic shows the orientation of drill hole 19-004. It went under the small anomaly, the larger one was not tested in this fashion. This high-grade intersect is narrow at just under a half-meter but you don't get numbers like this in the drill cores unless there is a very significant source for this mineralization. This drill program has gone a long way in aiding Zonte in finding this source in the next drill round. Key Points Waiting on results for drill hole 19-003 and 19-005; Very high grade for first results: 14.0% Cu, 15.8 g/t Au and 352 g/t within a 0.43 m interval; Drill sample much higher than any surface samples and system hidden at depth; Fertile IOCG system represents the early stages of defining a new copper belt in Canada; A new copper belt will get the attention from major miners; Zonte controls 25 kilometers of strike length in this new copper belt; Fertile IOGC system means other anomalies yet to be drilled are likely mineralized; Planning for a phase 2 drill program is underway and program expanding; Phase 2 drilling, further testing at Dunns and initial drill tests at Carols Hat or K6 or both; Planned gravity surveys will help pinpoint targets outside and near the magnetic highs. "This is an exciting new discovery for Zonte Metals, adding to our growing portfolio of large- scale mineral opportunities. Early indications show a discovery that has all the geologic signatures of a copper-rich fertile IOCG target and possibly a new copper belt in Canada. The Company controls 25 kilometre strike length of the belt with the Dunns Mountain target located at the northern end. In light of these results Zonte will increase its exploration and drilling program at Cross Hills," states Terry Christopher, president and CEO of Zonte Metals. On the drill map above, drill hole 19-005 looks like it might be crossing some magnetic transition zones and might see some decent numbers. Having been to the property and the Dunns target I can appreciate the sophistication of Mother Nature and her secrets. Hole 19-004 was on the other side of the large Dunns hill from where I looked at the target, and at the time it was not considered an area of interest. My, my, how things can change. The press release also stated: "In preparation for phase 2 drilling at Dunns Mountain, additional geophysics will be carried out including ground magnetics, Induced Polarization (IP) and a gravity survey to first define the area to be tested around drill hole CH-19-004 and secondly aim to identify additional targets along the periphery of the magnetic anomaly. These surveys will also cover the anomalies 2.5 km to the south in the Carols Hat target area. In addition, the Company will complete a deep penetrating IP and gravity surveys, over the K6 target in preparation for phase II drilling. The K6 target sits 12 kilometres south of Dunns Mountain." On the chart, I have been watching the wedge pattern and today we can clearly see a breakout from the wedge to the upside. I expect the stock will move much higher. Normally on breakouts with good news, a stock will go up 3 or 4 days in a row before consolidating. Ron Struthers founded Struthers' Resource Stock Report 23 years ago. The report covers senior and junior companies with ample trading liquidity. He started his Millennium Index of dividend stocks in 2003 - $1,000 invested then was worth over $4,000 end of 2014 and the index returned 26.8% in 2016. He retired from IBM after 30 years in customer service, systems and business analyst, also developing his own charting software. He has expertise in junior start-ups and was a co-founder of Paramount Gold and Silver. [NLINSERT] Disclosure: 1) Ron Struthers: I, or members of my immediate household or family, own shares of the following companies mentioned in this article: Zonte. I personally am, or members of my immediate household or family are, paid by the following companies mentioned in this article: None. My company currently has a financial relationship with the following companies mentioned in this article: None. Additional disclosures below. I determined which companies would be included in this article based on my research and understanding of the sector. 2) The following companies mentioned in this article are sponsors of Streetwise Reports: None. Click here for important disclosures about sponsor fees. 3) Statements and opinions expressed are the opinions of the author and not of Streetwise Reports or its officers. The author is wholly responsible for the validity of the statements. The author was not paid by Streetwise Reports for this article. Streetwise Reports was not paid by the author to publish or syndicate this article. The information provided above is for informational purposes only and is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Streetwise Reports requires contributing authors to disclose any shareholdings in, or economic relationships with, companies that they write about. Streetwise Reports relies upon the authors to accurately provide this information and Streetwise Reports has no means of verifying its accuracy. 4) This article does not constitute investment advice. Each reader is encouraged to consult with his or her individual financial professional and any action a reader takes as a result of information presented here is his or her own responsibility. By opening this page, each reader accepts and agrees to Streetwise Reports' terms of use and full legal disclaimer. This article is not a solicitation for investment. Streetwise Reports does not render general or specific investment advice and the information on Streetwise Reports should not be considered a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Streetwise Reports does not endorse or recommend the business, products, services or securities of any company mentioned on Streetwise Reports. 5) From time to time, Streetwise Reports LLC and its directors, officers, employees or members of their families, as well as persons interviewed for articles and interviews on the site, may have a long or short position in securities mentioned. 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. As of the date of this article, officers and/or employees of Streetwise Reports LLC (including members of their household) own shares of Zonte, a company mentioned in this article. Charts and images provided by the author. Struther's Resource Stock Report: All forecasts and recommendations are based on opinion. Markets change direction with consensus beliefs, which may change at any time and without notice. The author/publisher of this publication has taken every precaution to provide the most accurate information possible. The information & data were obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but because the information & data source are beyond the author's control, no representation or guarantee is made that it is complete or accurate. The reader accepts information on the condition that errors or omissions shall not be made the basis for any claim, demand or cause for action. Because of the ever-changing nature of information & statistics the author/publisher strongly encourages the reader to communicate directly with the company and/or with their personal investment adviser to obtain up to date information. Past results are not necessarily indicative of future results. Any statements non-factual in nature constitute only current opinions, which are subject to change. The author/publisher may or may not have a position in the securities and/or options relating thereto, & may make purchases and/or sales of these securities relating thereto from time to time in the open market or otherwise. Neither the information, nor opinions expressed, shall be construed as a solicitation to buy or sell any stock, futures or options contract mentioned herein. The author/publisher of this letter is not a qualified financial adviser & is not acting as such in this publication. (c) Copyright 2019, Struther's Resource Stock Report And when we have two or three minutes silence we can lower the flag to half mast and pay our respects Mick, 70, who served in the Royal Navy for 12 years and the Royal New Zealand Navy for 34 years, retired to Papamoa three years ago and was instrumental in getting a war memorial erected in the suburb last year. While war memorials honour those who lost their lives at war, there was nothing to recognize those servicemen who had suffered the ill effects of nuclear bombs, says Mick. Theres a few of the sailors and soldiers who have had related cancers. We need to remember what theyve done. One of the key sponsors of the $20,000 project was Farmer Autovillage, which provided both financial support and helped coordinate contractors who donated their time. The flag itself has been donated by Nga Potiki, a Tamapahore trust. The pole was around $10,000 and the groundworks were the same. We managed to get to get it done through peoples generosity, says group managing director Mike Farmer. Farmer Autovillage has a history of donating flagpoles in the city, having also sponsored the city centre and Gate Pa flagpoles. Its all about pride in our city and pride in our country. A lot of other countries are very, very patriotic about their flags and recognition of it. I think its very important we have an identity as well. Papamoa/Mount Maunganui ward councillor Steve Morris says the memorial and flagpole give the community somewhere they can come together and pay their respects. Were the largest suburb in Tauranga by a country mile theres 27,000 people living here and we had nowhere to gather as a community to reflect. And now we do. The next phase of the project is to landscape the area. The design is to include seating with a replica WWI trench configuration, and a concrete path in the shape of a koru, for those in wheelchairs or who are unsteady on their feet. Already $8,600 has been raised towards the $21,000 needed to complete the landscaping. The memorial and flagpole come under the auspices of the Mount Maunganui RSA. Club support manager Peter Moss says there are a lot of younger returned servicemen who live at Papamoa, who have served in more recent conflicts, like Afghanistan and Iraq. Anzac Days really important, but it will also be a place to go and reflect during the year a place to sit and meditate. Omanu Surf Club is hosting Bay of Plenty's first Wahine on Water IRB day on Sunday April 28. Wahine on Water aims to get more females involved, competent and confident in IRBs, which are surf lifesaving's key rescue and response craft. Surf lifeguards from around the Bay of Plenty and Coromandel areas made waves at one of the first Wahine on Water Events, held at Whangamata Beach over the weekend of April 13. As part of a BP Leaders for Life Project, young volunteers Phoebe Havill, Phil Pirie, Paul Hardy and Julia Conway formed Wahine on Water after exploring ways to get more female lifeguards keen and confident to crew and drive IRBs (Inflatable Rescue Boats). Surf lifeguards training using Inflatable Rescue Boats. Photo: SLSNZ Fifty per cent of surf lifeguards are female, yet only 28 per cent of our IRB drivers are female. This is something the group want to address through pairing less experienced lifeguards with an experienced female IRB mentor. The intention of the Wahine on Water day is to give women an opportunity to expand their boat experience, in a supported and relaxed environment. The first Wahine on Water training day gained a lot of attention throughout the country with other regions including the Bay of Plenty looking at hosting their own training days. "It was a great day out on the water with lots of young women taking part and getting involved!" says Event Manager Phoebe Havill. It's a big weekend for IRBs in the region, with the Bay of Plenty Long Haul stage race taking place today Saturday April 27 from Ohope Beach to Mount Maunganui's Main Beach. Julia Conway will be racing for a Mount Maunganui team in the Long Haul, then will help with the Wahine on Water day tomorrow, Sunday April 28. Wahine on Water timeline: 8:30am Breakfast 9:30am - Introductions, setup of boats 10:30-1pm IRB skills and driving 1-2pm Pack up IRBs 3pm Debrief Details on how to get involved with this camp can be found on the Surf Life Saving New Zealand website. Surf lifeguards training using Inflatable Rescue Boats. Photo: SLSNZ Incredible homes throughout New Zealand will be under intense scrutiny, as judges travel the country to determine New Zealands best builds. The process is all part of this years Registered Master Builders 2019 House of the Year competition. More than 340 homes will be assessed as the judges travel to every region, with regional award-winners announced at 10 events during July and August. The team of industry experts are tasked with finding the best builds in the country, ranging from new homes and show homes to renovations and builders own homes, as well as multi-units and apartments. Registered Master Builders Chief Executive David Kelly says House of the Year is the leading house building and renovation competition in New Zealand and has been celebrating quality and innovation in New Zealand residential building for more than 25 years. House of the Year reflects how the building and construction sector is interwoven into New Zealands social fabric. We are responsible for building the communities where we all live, work and play, says David Kelly. MBIE forecasts show sustained construction sector growth for the next six years with between $35-$40 billion dollars of construction per annum. The residential sector will underpin this growth, with over 40,000 dwelling consents per annum by 2020. We need to ensure we build quality homes at the scale our communities and cities need. While the competition showcases luxury builds, the lower price categories demonstrates a high level of innovation from our builders with regards to the materials and techniques used. The houses entered into House of the Year are examples the industry and the public look to for inspiration. David says House of the Year sets the standard of quality for the entire building sector, showcasing emerging trends and innovative building techniques. The industry needs to be innovative in both how we are building and what we are building if we are to meet demand. The entries in this competition reaffirm our members commitment to ensure a better built New Zealand. ASB Baypark Arena in Tauranga is hosting the Bay of Plenty and Central Plateau Region House of the Year competition on Friday, July 5. Each property is judged against a scorecard of 2000 points, based on workmanship, design, style and functionality. There are 15 categories in this years competition, as well as separate awards for four lifestyle categories outdoor living, kitchen, bathroom and sustainability. The Awards are made possible through the support of Atlus, Bunnings Trade, CARTERS, GIB, Master Build 10-Year Guarantee, PlaceMakers, Plumbing World, and Resene. For more information about the competition, visit www.houseoftheyear.co.nz About the Registered Master Builders 2019 House of the Year Judging Process The competition is divided into two parts the first is at a regional level, the second at a national level. Gold, Silver and Bronze Award winners are determined using a points-based system. These award-winners are announced at 10 regional events held throughout New Zealand during July and August. The top 100 Gold Award winners from around the country become the Top 100 Gold Reserve National Finalists. The National finalists are then re-judged by a panel of judges who determine the overall National winners, which are announced at the National event in Auckland in November. Police have this evening recovered a body near Mayor Island in the Bay of Plenty. The body was located and reported to Police by people out on a recreational boat at around 3.30pm today. While formal identification is still to be carried out, Police believe it is missing man Gordon Nicholson. NZ Police wish to express their thoughts are with Mr Nicholson's family and loved ones at this time. On Monday, we named the Creekside Inn in Oneida as the judges winner of the Best of CNY chicken riggies. Thousands of syracuse.com readers picked Francescas Cucina in Syracuse as their favorite in online voting. On Wednesday, we returned to the Creekside to give them their award. (See above video) The judges were journalists Charlie Miller and Sunny Hernandez from syracuse.com and Chef Mary Kiernan, an American Culinary Federation-certified chef de cuisine and certified professional chef who is an associate teaching professor at Syracuse University. We were blown away when we found out we were in the top four. I still cant believe we won, said Creekside owner Kelly Miller. We have such a good vibe here. Our customers, our staff, everyone, are so happy. And our chef is the best. They made this happen. Thank you, Central New York. You can see more from each visit on our search for the best riggies here: SENECA FALLS, N.Y. -- A registered sex offender threatened to set off an explosion in a Seneca County courthouse, deputies said. Jayson R. Hall, 34, of Ovid Street, Seneca Falls, was charged Friday night by the Seneca County Sheriffs Office with making a terroristic threat. He was arrested after numerous witnesses heard him threaten to cause an explosion at Seneca Falls Town Court, deputies said. Hall was upset with a judges recent decision, deputies said. Hall is being held in the Seneca County Correctional Facility in lieu of $5,000 cash or a $10,000 bond. The Seneca Falls Police Department assisted with his arrest. According to the state Sex Offender Registry, Hall was convicted in 2011 of raping a 16-year-old girl when he was 25 years old. He is registered as a level-two sex offender rated to pose a moderate risk of reoffending. Roy S. Gutterman is an associate professor and director of the Tully Center for Free Speech at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. If the past couple weeks has taught us anything, it is the value government records play in discussion of public issues. From the highest levels of government, such as with the Mueller report, to small city, town or village halls, public information provides not only a window into the operations of government, but an important check on that power through public review of those operations. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously wrote that sunlight is the best disinfectant, an homage to the role of public scrutiny in government affairs and public information. This mantra has been an underpinning of our freedom of information laws federally, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA); in New York, the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL). Since 1974, New York has been one of the countrys leaders in open records and open government meetings. New York, though, is taking a step toward secrecy with the passage of the most recent budget package which includes a provision that will allow law enforcement agencies to withhold arrest booking photos, commonly known as mug shots. New York is not alone in taking this step, joining more than a dozen states which have passed similar bans in the past five-plus years. Politicians, including Gov. Andrew Cuomo, have argued that this ban is intended to protect people from unscrupulous websites that obtain the mugshots, which are considered public records, post the photos and then extort fees for removal. Though there might be some laudable intentions behind this change in public policy, the results not only punish these commercial websites, but also mainstream journalistic operations newspapers, television and news sites, particularly local news operations. The ban does allow law enforcement to release photos to the media when that release would benefit a law enforcement purpose, such as a manhunt or other public safety concerns. But this changes how these matters are handled. Instead of a presumption of release, it leaves the decision to the whim and caprice of local law enforcement officials during some sort of breaking crisis. Reporters frequently contend with this vague standard when seeking information from government sources in the first place. With this mugshot ban, New York could have taken a narrower approach. The California law, passed in 2014, specifically addresses media that solicit, require, or accept the payment of a fee or other consideration from a subject individual to remove, correct, modify, or to refrain from publishing or otherwise disseminating that booking photograph. Singling out those types of entities saves the law from a constitutional failure because it would be reasonable to consider those sites commercial operations, and subject to a lower level of First Amendment protection. New York is not taking that step, however. The news media has been critical but, more importantly, so has the public. According to a recent Siena College Research Institute poll, 58 percent of the New Yorkers it polled think the ban is bad, compared to 31 percent who thought it was good for the state. New Yorks announcement was not made in a vacuum. Freedom of Information challenges are not unusual. In some ways, it is part of the natural tension between the media and government. The media, however, is not the only entity that seeks government information lawyers, researchers and ordinary citizens often invoke freedom of information laws, too. But it really comes down to the press, seeking public records, to investigate and tell stories of all types. Freedom of information laws serve an important public interest in allowing citizens, often through the media, to keep tabs on a broad range of government action. On Monday, lawyers for a South Dakota newspaper reiterated this before the United States Supreme Court in an argument over the interpretation and application of an exemption to the federal FOIA. How the government spends its own money is critical information that the press and the public need to know, Robert Loeb, the lawyer for the Argus Leader newspaper told the Supreme Court Monday. The case before the Supreme Court deals with an interpretation of one of the nine exceptions to FOIA which allows the government to withhold release of information regarding trade secrets. There might be legitimate grounds to keep some information secret. But the presumption of openness should predominate. Whether it is information about public spending or raw data or even mugshots, the presumption should be to release the information rather than conceal it. At a time when the public needs more information and access to government information, New York is taking a step backward. Withholding public information, even mug shots, is clouding things up the opposite of sunshine. Read more from our guest columnists. Students of Christian Brothers Academy celebrated Friday, April 26, 2019, at their junior prom. The event was held at the DoubleTree Hotel in East Syracuse. See photos from the event. Our gallery of photos can be found above. Want to buy a photo? As youre browsing the gallery, look for the BUY IMAGE link to order high-quality reprints and other products. More prom photos See all photo galleries from proms, senior balls, and other formals around Central New York. The primitive years of the solar system is shrouded in mystery, but could life have existed back then, even when there were no planets? Scientist Suggests Existence Of Life In Planetesimals During the Breakthrough Discuss conference at the University of California, Berkeley, on April 11, planetary scientist Lindy Elkins-Tanton from the Arizona State University brought up the suggestion that life may have been around before the planets have finished forming. After all, Elkins-Tanton pointed out, planetesimals contained all the ingredients necessary for life to flourish even back in the days when the solar system was still forming. It's possible that clement conditions persisted in these planetesimals for millions and millions of years, allowing life to develop. Planetesimals are the building blocks of planets. It's possible that these small objects may have even made its way to planets such as Earth to seed life that already existed in their cargo. After all, previous research has already theorized that space rocks brought life-giving elements to Earth by crashing on the planet. "Not all planetesimals are going to be involved in the kinds of catastrophic collisions that would cause them to go into a plasma or otherwise completely denature anything that was created," explained Elkins-Tanton. "Some things are going to fall like Chelyabinsk, for example back onto the surface of a temperate planet." Building Blocks Of Life Elkins-Tanton, co-author Stephen West, and her students at ASU explored the possibility of life emerging from smaller cosmic bodies. All three ingredients of life are present in planetesimals: liquid water, organic molecules, and energy. For instance, the radioactive decay of particles inside planetesimals may have provided a heat source that could lead to liquid water and a habitable environment within the rocky object. These environments could persist for millions of years, which is potentially ample time for life to emerge. Of course, Elkins-Tanton says that her team isn't arguing that life on Earth originated from planetesimals but is simply saying that the possibility exists. It is, as she describes, a thought problem that's worth considering, since even just exploring the potential could give rise to new knowledge about the early stages of solar system. "Could life actually have arisen on planetesimals? Could there be evidence for life in meteorites that we have not known to look for?" Elkins-Tanton asks. "And if this is so, how could they have been spread through the solar system and many, many unanswerable implications of that possibility." As the building blocks of planets, planetesimals are unique cosmic bodies that are of particular interest to scientists like Elkins-Tanton, who also leads the NASA mission to explore the metallic asteroid Psyche, according to Scientific American. NASA's New Horizons spacecraft completed a flyby of the Kuiper Belt planetesimal Ultima Thule in March. This pristinely preserved rock offers the best opportunity that scientists have ever had to study a planetesimal. Along with many other features of Ultima Thule, its surface feature evidence of methanol, water ice, and organic molecules. The mission could potentially provide the ideal window for astronomers to understand planetesimals better and consequently understand early life in the solar system as well. 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Walmart finally opens its concept store, called the Intelligent Retail Lab, to the public, calling it a new "store of the future" and a test ground for future technology. The IRL comes equipped with artificial intelligence-powered cameras and interactive displays and is one of the retail chain's busiest Neighborhood Market stores, with more than 30,000 items. Walmart Opens Intelligent Retail Lab IRL resembles Amazon Go to an extent, but there are very important distinctions. Much like Amazon's cashierless stores, IRL has a suite of cameras mounted in the ceiling. But these aren't being used to determine which items customers are buying to automatically charge them once they hightail out the store. Instead, these cameras are monitoring things such as the status of stock, the number of items currently on a shelf, and others. When a shelf is out of a particular item, for example, the AI cameras will determine as such and signal the staff to bring out more from the stock room or, in the case of cold meats, back-room refrigerators. They may also be notified if some fresh items have been out for too long on the shelf and need to be whisked away. In other words, AI in this case helps store associates know more precisely when to restock products, as TechCrunch reports. In turn, this assures customers that items are always fresh and in stock when they pay a visit to the store. The technology underpinning this system is complicated, according to Walmart. The automated system needs to be able to detect products on the shelf, recognize exactly what it is down to how many pounds, if a package of meat and then compare the quantities on the shelf with forthcoming sales demand. Thanks to this system, employees don't need to be roaming the store all the time to replace stock. They'll know precisely which items to restock and when, even before the doors open to let customers in. AI And Shopping There are informational stations available in the store so interested customers can learn more about the technology in use. There's also an interactive wall that captures body positioning and displays it in the form of abstract colors. That might seem a small and wacky addition, but it's supposed to make the technology less intimidating. Walmart also says that AI shouldn't replace actual labor. Whereas Amazon Go erases the need for humans inside its Go outlets, IRL frees up a chunk of the staff's laborious tasks to make more time for interacting with customers. "The technology has been built to improve associates' jobs, to make their jobs more interesting, to help them alleviate some of the mundane tasks," said IRL CEO Mike Hanrahan. "AI can enhance their skill set in a very rapidly changing world." 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Workers at a lumberyard in Cloverdale, California made an extraordinary find on Monday. They found a perfectly intact prosthetic leg with a blue Nike shoe. Prosthetic Leg From The Sky They reported the discovery to the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office, which conducted an investigation and solved the mystery of where the object came from. It turns out the prosthetic limb belongs to 39-year-old Dion Calloway. He said he lost his artificial leg while he was skydiving 10,000 feet in the air on Sunday. After landing, Calloway and his friends tried to look for the $15,000 prosthetic around the area but did not find it. "I've jumped with the prosthetic before, but a rush of air got inside this time and it just flew off," Callaway said. "I tried to watch where it was falling, but I was so overwhelmed in that moment I could not keep track." Calloway was eventually reunited with his leg, which he picked up from the Sheriff's Office in Santa Rosa on Monday afternoon. The artificial limb did not appear damaged at all even after the 10,000-foot fall. Calloway told the deputies he was glad his leg did not land on anyone and damage things. He also said he will be taking precaution on his next jump to prevent the incident from happening again. "He promises to make a tether and learn from this but fully plans to stick with his passion," the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office said in a statement. Lost Natural Leg During Skydiving Incident Calloway has performed nearly 500 jumps since 2003 and, in fact, lost his natural leg during a skydiving event. He said that while he was attempting a high-speed landing two years ago, he came in too low to the ground and ended up shattering his heel. He went through physical therapy and medical procedures for over a year and later opted to have his leg amputated below the knee. The accident, however, did not deter him from pursuing his passion. "Skydiving is my everything and the people I do it with are my family," he said. "I always seem to come back to it." 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Verizon has confirmed that the next Samsung Galaxy Note is going to support 5G. Presumably, the device in question is going to be called the Galaxy Note 10, if history is anything to go by. Galaxy Note 10 5G Edition As reported by The Verge, Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg has said that there's a Galaxy Note 10 5G in the pipeline during the carrier's quarterly earnings call for the first quarter of 2019. "The Note and the Galaxy coming this year will both have 5G," he said. Out of all the reports about a Galaxy Note with 5G capability, this is the best one yet. Other 'Evidences' The rumor mill has been churning out a lot of details regarding the next-generation Galaxy Note. Particularly, there was one that said Samsung would roll it out in two sizes: one that measures at 6.28 inches and another at 6.75 inches. That's not the only important part here. It also said that there would be LTE and 5G versions of the two models, meaning there could be a total of four options to choose from. At any rate, it's not a stretch to believe. The South Korean brand did launch the Galaxy S10 in four variants: the standard model, Galaxy S10E, Galaxy S10 Plus, and Galaxy S10 5G. On top of that, the Galaxy Note has traditionally been Samsung's smartphone with all the bells and whistles it has to offer, and as part of the "bells and whistles," 5G capability could be included in the mix. Verizon's 5G Phones Big Red already has a 5G phone in store, and it even scored an exclusivity deal on it with Samsung. For those who don't know, it's the Galaxy S10 5G, and the carrier recently revealed its details, from its release date to its pricing. That said, it's set to ship out on May 16 with a whopping $1,300 price tag. Verizon does have some promos to cut down the cost, such as a trade-in offer of up to $450 for eligible phones. Vestberg also mentioned that it also has a 5G device from LG, and he could be referring to the LG V50 ThinQ 5G, which has an optional second screen attachment. 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Austrian scientists have successfully observed evidence of the paradoxical state of matter known as supersolidity through the help of atomic gases. Francesca Ferlaino, a professor at the University of Innsbruck and the Austrian Academy of Sciences, led two separate teams of researchers in looking for clues about supersolidity. The phenomenon has been predicted as early as 50 years ago, but no one has exactly seen an object enter this exotic state before. A supersolid is a counterintuitive phase of matter that roughly combines the properties of solids with those of superfluids. Recent studies have resorted to using atomic gases, especially those with strong dipolar interactions, in the hopes of observing a supersolid matter in action. Erbium And Dysprosium For their experiment, Ferlaino and her colleagues focused on quantum gases of erbium and dysprosium. Lauriane Chomaz, one of the authors of the study, explained why they chose these two elements exactly. "Recent experiments have revealed that such gases exhibit fundamental similarities with superfluid helium," Chomaz noted. "These features lay the groundwork for reaching a state where the several tens of thousands of particles of the gas spontaneously organize in a self-determined crystalline structure while sharing the same macroscopic wavefunction -- hallmarks of supersolidity." By tuning the strength of an interaction between the particles within erbium and dysprosium quantum gases, the researchers were able to produce states that manifest some characteristics of supersolidity. The behavior of the supersolid in erbium was only transient, which was consistent with results of earlier experiments in Pisa and in Stuttgart, according to Ferlaino. However, they observed unprecedented stability when it came to dysprosium. In the dysprosium realization, the researchers saw that the supersolid behavior of the element had a longer life. The phenomenon was also directly achievable through evaporative cooling, beginning with a thermal sample of dysprosium. This could be likened to blowing over a cup of tea. If researchers were to remove the particles of the element with the most energies first, it would allow the gas to become cooler. It would also let the element reach a quantum-degenerate stationary state with properties of supersolidity at thermal equilibrium. The discovery opens the door for new theories and experiments to be carried out regarding supersolidity. The supersolid state observed in the study was not affected much by excitations or dissipative dynamics. This suggests that the excitation spectrum and superfluid behavior of elements could be worth exploring. Similar Experiments On Supersolidity In 2017, a research team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States and another at ETH Zurich in Switzerland conducted two separate experiments on supersolidity. Both were able to create supersolids using a certain type of gas called Bose-Einstein condensate or BEC. A BEC is the supposed fifth state of matter that often appears when elements are exposed to ultra-cold temperatures, which causes their atoms to behave much like waves. It is believed to be the most suitable form to use to create supersolids because it already has properties of superfluids. The findings of the University of Innsbruck and Austrian Academy of Sciences study are featured in the journal Physical Review X. 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Scientists found that like people, perovskite solar cells, an alternative to traditional silicon-based solar cells, enjoy a little caffeine boost. A team from the University of California, Los Angeles and the China-based firm Solargiga Energy demonstrated how the substance, which is found in cups of coffee and tea, can improve the thermal stability of perovskite solar cells. They believe that the findings could make perovskite solar cells commercially viable one day. Caffeine Makes Solar Cells Withstand Heat From The Sun Perovskite solar cells are being tagged as the future of solar cells. Experts believe that they will replace traditional solar cells that are made from silicon because they would eventually cost less to produce. However, perovskite solar cells are currently not as efficient as the silicon-based solar cells. "Solar cells need high thermal stability since they are constantly exposed to sunlight, which warms up the devices," explained Yang Yang, a professor of material science and engineering at UCLA. "While perovskites are an attractive option for solar cells, the materials degrade and become less stable over time. We need them to last 20 to 30 years like traditional solar cells." The idea to use caffeine to improve the thermal stability of perovskite solar cells came from Rul Wang, a graduate student at UCLA while drinking coffee with some colleagues in March 2018. He wondered how caffeine, which has a boiling point of 300 degrees Celsius, would interact with the materials used in perovskite solar cells. He and the team then made a perovskite film from dimethylformamide, methylammonium iodide, and lead iodide. They added the caffeine and poured the liquid solution on top of an indium tin oxide glass. They incorporated the perovskite film into a solar cell and placed it on a plate that is heated to 85 degrees Celsius. The researchers conducted the test for two months, measuring its energy output every four days. The team also tested a perovskite solar cell without caffeine. They reported in the journal Joule that the caffeinated perovskite solar cells were able to maintain a thermal stability for more than 1,300 hours or 55 days. It also preserved 86 percent of its power conversion efficiency. Meanwhile, the perovskite solar cells without caffeine and found that it maintained thermal stability of 175 hours or seven days and retained 60 percent of its power conversion efficiency. What Caffeine Improves Thermal Stability The researchers also investigated why caffeine improved the thermal stability and power conversion efficiency of perovskite solar cell. They looked at the film infused with caffeine under a transmittance electron microscope and found that there was a strong interaction between the chemical and the perovskite cells' lead ions. "Parts of caffeine's chemical structure were forming very strong binding with the lead ions and stabilizing the crystals," explained Jingjig Xue, also a graduate student at UCLA and an author of the study. He added that the interaction also slowed down the growth of perovskite crystals that helped with the alignment and orientation that improved electric charge transfer. The discovery might just be the key that would make perovskite solar cells commercially viable. While caffeine is the only substance now that is known to improve thermal stability, the researchers hope that further studies will be done to find other chemicals that work better with perovskite solar cells. 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Throughout the world, patches of coral reef are seen surrounded by "halos" of bare sand that could stretch from hundreds to thousands of square meters. Beyond these halos are dense fields of seagrass or algae, which makes the presence of the bald rings even stranger. It has long been observed, but until now, scientists have not been able to make sense of it. According to the University of Hawai'i News, scientists generally attribute reef halos to marine life who live in the patches of coral and venture out to eat the surrounding seagrass and algae. New research detailed in two published studies led by Elizabeth Madin of the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology in the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology sheds more light on this mysterious phenomenon that's visible from space. Ultimately, these coral reef halos could even provide scientists a new way to monitor the health of the reef and marine life from the cosmos. Marine Reserves Influence Coral Reef Halos In the first study published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Madin and her team observed no-take marine reservations where fishing is not allowed to determine whether predator presence affect reef halos. Small fish consume the seagrass and algae surrounding the coral reefs. However, scientists believe that their fear of predators keep their eating ground to a limited area and prevent them from wandering too far away from the reef. Thus, the researchers predicted that the number of predators around could influence the size of the reef halos. "With fewer predators, you would expect the grazing fish to be less fearful and so venture further from the reef, resulting in wider halos," explained Madin in a report from New Scientist. However, when the team used satellite imagery to measure and compare sizes of reef halos, they found that there is no difference between the sizes of the rings around reefs in marine reservations and those that are in fishing zones. Still, findings show that halos are more likely to occur in no-take marine reserves. Another Way Marine Life Create Halos Besides plant-eating fishes eating the seagrass and algae around the reefs, Madin's team revealed that other types of fishes also affect the halos in the second study published in the journal Frontiers. It turns out, fishes that eat invertebrates scour the reef halos' edges, digging the sand, pushing the algae further, and ultimately making the expanse of bare sand bigger. In both of the published work by Madin and her team, halos are shown to be a potential indicator of certain aspects of reef ecosystem health, since it is an indirect effect of healthy, balanced fish populations. Furthermore, the researchers made use of freely available satellite imagery along with traditional field-based experiments and observations, showing a growing need for cost and time-efficient techniques of monitoring. "This will therefore pave the way for the development of a novel, technology-based solution to the challenge of monitoring large areas of coral reef and enable management of healthy reef ecosystems and sustainable fisheries," said Madin. 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The health workers at the frontlines of the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo continue to face the threat of violence from armed militiamen. After repeated attacks that injured their colleagues, the doctors and nurses in affected areas in eastern Congo warned that they will go on strike if the government fails to protect them. Health Workers March To Demand Protection On Wednesday, April 25, dozens of Congolese health workers marched in Butembo, the biggest city affected by the outbreak, to demand that the authorities add security measures to guarantee their and their patients' safety. "If our security is not guaranteed, we will go on strike from the first week of May," said Dr. Kalima Nzanzu in a memo addressed to Butembo Mayor Sylvain Kanyamanda. The Ebola outbreak in Congo is the second worst in the history of the world. Around 1,340 probably and confirmed cases have been reported since August 2018. Over 800 people have died from the disease. While there have been aggressive efforts from local and international health workers to contain the outbreak, armed conflict in the region and misinformation about the disease have hampered any progress. Dozens of militia are fighting against each other for land, ethnicity, and mineral resources in eastern Congo. Meanwhile, among the public, rumors are spreading that Ebola is a scam ran by foreigners to make money off of the local population. Kanyamada responded to the protesters, saying that he understands the frustration of the health workers and assured that the government is determined to protect them. Militiamen Target Ebola Centers The protest took place a week after armed militiamen attacked a hospital in Butembo, killing an epidemiologist from the World Health Organization and wounding two others. "It's going from bad to worse right now," stated Jean-Philippe Marcoux, country director of Mercy Corps for DRC. "This is symptomatic of the deficiencies of the response in terms of community engagement and communication." The military prosecutor's office in North Kivu reported that the authorities have captured the ringleader of the attack and a dozen other suspects. They identified the Patriotic Union for the Liberation of Congo, an armed group, to be responsible for the attack. 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. What is dark matter? There's still no definitive answer, but now scientists can say what it's not: a bunch of primordial black holes, as theorized by the great Stephen Hawking. Dark matter is the mysterious substance that makes up 85 percent of the material universe. While its gravitational force is present throughout the cosmos, dark matter is unseen and undetectable. For years, scientists have been trying to learn more about this elusive substance that's holding the galaxies together. So far, all efforts and instruments to find dark matter have come up short. Hawking's Famous Theory Hawking is one of these scientists, coming up with the famous theory that dark matter is made up of primordial black holes. Shortly after the birth of the universe, the Big Bang may have created large amounts of miniscule black holes in regions that were dense enough for a gravitational collapse. Still, even ultra-tiny black holes have great mass. According to Science Alert, a black hole with an event horizon of 0.1 millimeters in diameter would have a mass of more than 67 quintillion metric tons. If plenty of these tiny primordial black holes exist in the universe, they could account for the great amounts of mass that's out there. Additionally, if super-small black holes are zipping around in space, it would cause an effect known as gravitational lensing, which means the powerful gravitational field of black holes would bend the light of the objects that they move in front of. It's this phenomenon that the new study uses to test Hawking's theory. Astronomers Debunk Hawking's Dark Matter Theory In new research detailed in the journal Nature Astronomy, an international team used the Hyper Suprime-Cam digital camera on the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii to hunt for primordial black holes in the neighboring Andromeda Galaxy. If these primordial black holes were to move between Earth and a star in the nearby galaxy, the scientists would be able to spot the stars brighten and flicker in a quick "flash" as an effect of gravitational lensing. The smaller the black hole is, the faster the flash would be. For these primordial black holes to produce dark matter, the scientists predicted that there would have to be enough black holes less massive than the moon to result in about 1,000 gravitational lensing events. The team was only able to spot one potential event out of 190 consecutive images over seven hours. This single event is an achievement in itself, as Live Science notes that it is potentially the first ever detection of a primordial black hole. It is a huge blow to Hawking's theory of dark matter being made up of these ancient black holes, though. Lead author Masahiro Takada stresses that their research doesn't completely rule out the possibility of dark matter being made up of primordial black holes. However, they would have much, much smaller than expected. "Our physicists are very excited because there is still a window," Takada told Live Science, adding that their data can't rule out the ultra-miniscule black holes whose flashes are much too short to detect. "So we need to think of another method to do it." 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Authorities are now looking into moving giraffes from being categorized as vulnerable to being endangered under the Endangered Species Act. This is in response to the species continuously dwindling numbers. Petition For Endangered Species Act On April 25, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that it has reviewed the petition to add four species to the Endangered Species Act. Included in the petition are giraffes, the San Gabriel chestnut snail, and two plant species, the Refugio manzanita and the Arizona eryngo. According to the announcement, the petitions for the San Gabriel chestnut snail and the Refugio manzanita did not come with substantial information to warrant them to be listed, and therefore no further action will be taken. This is because while both species occur in limited areas, there are adequate protected areas for both species. However, the petitions for the Arizona eryngo and the giraffes are being considered. As such, the agency will conduct its own investigation, followed by a public comment period before they will announce whether the species will be protected under the law. This process may take up to 12 months to complete. Giraffes Giraffe populations have been steadily dwindling for years, with mining, agriculture, and development as some of the most common threats to the species. They are also threatened by commercial trade, poaching, recreational hunting, disease, smaller populations, and genetic isolation. According to International Union for Conservation of Nature, since 1985, giraffe populations have dwindled by 36 to 40 percent, and unfortunately, U.S. trade is one of the significant contributors to the decline. In fact, from 2006 and 2015, nearly 40,000 giraffe specimens, both live and dead, have been brought into the United States. These include thousands of bone carvings, skin pieces, and hunting trophies, and so far there are no restrictions regarding the trade of giraffe parts. Should giraffes be approved to be listed under the law, even if they are not native to the United States, restrictions may be placed regarding the trade of giraffes and giraffe parts in the country. 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. American road safety advocates believe sitting in the front seat of a vehicle is a lot safer for passengers than in the backseat. A study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) highlighted how much the safety standards for the front passenger side of cars improved over the past few years. Features such as specially designed seat belts and airbag systems have helped keep riders protected from potential injury due to collisions. However, the same cannot be said about the rear passenger side, which has largely been left behind in terms of safety. People sitting in the backseat only have seat belts to protect them from impact during a car crash. The IIHS is calling on car manufacturers to address the discrepancy in safety standards for front-seating and back-seating passengers. "It's not that the rear seat has become less safe, it's that the front seat has become more safe over time," said David Harkey, president of the IIHS. "We hope a new evaluation will spur similar progress in the back seat." Car Safety Technologies Car makers have incorporated several new features to improve the safety of their vehicles. Some of these were developed to prevent car crashes, such as forward collision warning systems with automatic emergency braking and electronic stability controls. Meanwhile, other technologies were meant to improve the survivability of passengers in case of collisions. Seat belts and airbags are just some of the most popular and effective examples of these devices. They have helped saved the lives of tens of thousands of people involved in vehicular accidents. In the United States, car makers are required by federal law to add frontal airbags to their vehicles. This eventually led to the development of various airbag systems capable of automatically deploying during car crashes. However, these designs mostly protect front-seat passengers, leaving those sitting in the back vulnerable to injuries. In some cases, the seat belts that were meant to keep back-seat passengers safe during frontal collisions actually did more harm than good, according to the IIHS study. The report reviewed 117 front-end crashes, where back-seat passengers aged 6 or older were killed despite wearing seat belts. The results were supported by data taken from the group's own collision tests. The IIHS said a number of accidents saw people dying due to chest injuries, something that could have been prevented if vehicles had better designs and used reliable safety equipment. Jessica Jermakian, a senior research engineer at the IIHS and lead author of the study, said their sample involved mostly survivable crashes, which underscore the need for safety experts to do a better job at restraining back-seat passengers. Dangers Of Sitting In The Back Seat People sitting at the back-seat do not have the benefit of having front-mounted airbags. They also cannot rely on rear seat belts so much since not all of them use pre-tensioners. These devices automatically tighten around passengers during a crash, keeping them from hitting other objects in the car such as another seat. Rear seat belts also rarely include force limiters, which are designed to reduce the pressure on passengers' chests during an aggressive collision by allowing the device's webbing to slightly stretch. Jermakian noted how crash tensioners work best when partnered with force limiters. The IIHS report also suggests adding frontal airbags for back-seat passengers. These could be deployed from the roof of vehicles. 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. A district judge Friday rejected the first challenge filed over East Baton Rouge's jury rolls since the state Supreme Court declared them improperly constituted, but rather than imposing a life term on a 21-year-old convicted of second-degree murder, the judge gave the mans lawyers 15 days to file an appeal. The Louisiana Supreme Court ruled last week that the parishs jury pool was flawed because, since 2011, it has excluded everyone under age 26. Attorneys for David Bueso asked for a new trial last Monday, saying the jury that found him guilty two months ago did not represent the entire community. District Judge Richard Anderson had been scheduled to sentence Bueso on Friday to a mandatory life-in-prison term. He rejected the lawyers request for a new trial but delayed sentencing to May 24. Bueso maintains his innocence. After an hourlong hearing, Anderson said Buesos trial attorneys were provided jury questionnaires from every prospective juror called for his case, and those questionnaires contained the age of each potential juror. Convicted killer seeks new Baton Rouge trial, cites flawed East Baton Rouge Parish jury pool The first of what is expected to turn into a flood of requests for new trials in East Baton Rouge Parish was filed by defense lawyers in a 201 Kyla Blanchard-Romanach, one of Buesos appellate attorneys, had argued during the hearing that no one in the East Baton Rouge Parish criminal justice system from the parishs District Attorneys Office to the 19th Judicial District Court judges to the courts jury management coordinator to local defense lawyers noticed that 18- to 25-year-olds have been excluded from jury service. Blanchard-Romanach called the error a monumental defect that was unknown at the time of Buesos trial in the 2017 beating death of Jhoel Tercero Brisuela, 22, at the victims Coy Avenue apartment in the Gardere area. Bueso was formerly Brisuelas roommate. 'Mammoth' error: Young Baton Rouge residents, newcomers left out of jury pool since 2011 Ann McCrory, the judicial administrator in East Baton Rouge Parish, acknowledged on the witness stand Wednesday that the buck stops with her. 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 She said Buesos jury was devoid of his peers. Administrators in the 19th JDC have said a computer glitch caused persons under age 26 to be excluded from East Baton Rouge Parish's jury pool starting in mid-2011. Prosecutor Morgan Johnson argued Friday that Bueso received a full and fair jury selection process, and that the age of every potential juror was provided to both sides. Johnson said an unintentional computer glitch is hardly fraud and asked Anderson to deny Buesos motion for a new trial. She said granting Buesos request would be an injustice. The state Supreme Court's April 18 ruling came in a Caddo Parish capital murder case that had been moved to East Baton Rouge for purposes of jury selection only. The justices said the exclusion of 18- to 25-year-olds from East Baton Rouge's jury pool was reason to start the jury selection process over with a new jury pool. Immediately after that ruling, East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore III said his office had halted jury trials until June, when a new jury pool is expected to be in place. Blanchard-Romanach also argued Friday, as part of Buesos bid for another trial that Anderson denied, that Bueso should be retried because the jurys verdict was not unanimous. The jury vote was 11-1. Louisiana residents voted overwhelmingly last fall to adopt a new rule requiring unanimous verdicts. The change, however, only affects cases stemming from crimes that occurred on or after Jan. 1 of this year. Blanchard-Romanach noted, though, that the U.S. Supreme Court decided last month to reconsider nearly a half-century of precedent allowing split-jury convictions. She asked Anderson to withhold ruling on Buesos motion until the high court issues a ruling, but the judge refused. McKinley High School started this school year with a staff of 125, one of the largest of any public school in Baton Rouge. Next year, that staffing level likely will be much smaller. Esrom Pitre, who took over as principal of McKinley High last summer, said he recently handed out at least 18 "impact letters." Those on the receiving end have to look for other jobs in the East Baton Rouge Parish school system. It was extremely difficult process giving out those impact letters, Pitre said. It was probably the most difficult thing Ive had to do as a principal. The final list of affected employees wont be finalized until Monday, but school system officials say 190 employees have already received impact letters. These impact letters are part of an annual budget process in which school principals figure out the number of staff members they will have the following school year. Some employees have mistaken the letters for the potential layoffs that school system leaders have also been talking about. Changes in student enrollment largely determine how many employees get impact letters, and enrollment at many schools in Baton Rouge has declined. For instance, McKinley High still has about 1,150 students, but its enrollment is down from its 2015 peak of more than 1,400 students. Also, the high schools prominent gifted program is losing kids, particularly to nearby Lee High, which was rebuilt and expanded in 2016. Pitre said McKinley High once had about 350 gifted students but thats down to 190. Recruiting efforts to reverse that trend have fallen short so far, he said. Gifted students receive additional state per-pupil funding so losing them hurts schools more than the loss of regular education students. Ten of the 18 positions being cut at McKinley High serve gifted students: Six of those positions are science teachers, an area that has a relative glut of teachers, Pitre said. Pitre said a few of the displaced teachers likely will be rehired for other jobs at the 800 E. McKinley St. campus. And he said he is still negotiating with the school system's Human Resources department to add back one or more of those positions. +2 Layoffs might be in store for Baton Rouge public schools; Supt. Warren Drake explains why For the first time since he took over as superintendent in 2015, Warren Drake is asking the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board to give him a Layoffs may be coming as well to McKinley High and other schools as the school district tries to find $20 million to $30 million in savings in advance of the 2019-20 fiscal year, which starts July 1. Any layoffs, however, wouldnt start until May 26 at the earliest. The School Board on Thursday narrowly agreed to let Superintendent Warren Drake invoke its reduction in force policy if he feels its necessary. Drake, however, said hes hopeful layoffs wont be necessary because between 250 and 300 employees leave each year via retirement or other forms of attrition. The impact letters, however, dominated the debate Thursday. Drake said this years staffing process is a bit different. Given the need for budget cuts, the school system is being stricter in following its various staffing formulas, meaning more positions are being cut, he said. For instance, gifted classes have smaller class sizes, with 23 students per teacher the maximum. But many gifted classes in Baton Rouge are much smaller than that. If you have a gifted teacher that teaches 50 kids in a day and they can teach up to 23 kids (per class), then (that teacher) ought to have closer to 100 students per day, Drake said. Many of the speakers Thursday were connected to McKinley High. Several questioned the cuts in science teachers. 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 Ashanta Gleason, a senior and president of McKinley Highs student government association, said since first grade shes never had a math teacher the entire school year until this year. She said her weakness at math and science is making it hard for her to get a high enough ACT score to get into college. And now shes worried her younger siblings will face similar difficulties due to the cuts at McKinley. I have a brother who wants to be an engineer. How is he going to be an engineer if the math and science teachers arent here? Gleason said. Jaidyn Bryant, a senior at McKinley High School and the 2019 student of the year for the school system, wondered why a high school that lack resources now is making things worse by cutting teachers. A lot of the teachers who are being given impact letters in my school I know them to be every effective teachers, Bryant said. Theyre part of the reason I got to be student of the year. Millie Williams, chief human resources officer, said schools are using performance, attendance and certification status to decide which employees get impact letters. This year, principals were also asked to attach documentation explaining why they chose who they chose. We do that because were trying to keep politics out of it and really use criteria and information that they have documented, Williams said. Teacher layoffs on East Baton Rouge School Board's agenda; unions remain suspicious of changes With the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board scheduled to vote Thursday whether to give Superintendent Warren Drake authority to lay off empl Leaders of local teachers unions, however, continue to express concern that some principals are targeting teachers they dont like and say the process so far has not been transparent. The teachers and employees were never told the criteria that Miss Millie told you about, said Gretchen Lampe, UniServ director with the Louisiana Association of Educators. Lampe also questioned why some teachers are landing on the list. They had all been highly effective over a long period of time, and a lot of them were in the science and math area, Lampe said. Pitre said he had a team of administrators at McKinley High helping him. They relied on aspects of the Louisianas teacher evaluation process, including classroom observations by administrators, district-level standardized test results, teacher attendance and whether the teacher have been fulfilling their various professional responsibilities. Even so, because of the number of cuts and where they fell, Pitre said, he was forced to get rid of good teachers. Pitre, however, acknowledged that hes limited his judgments to data from the current school year. For instance, he did not use teacher evaluations from past years, meaning he did not look at teacher-level results from ACT and other state-mandated standardized tests. He said he did not have ready access to those files when he arrived at McKinley and would have had to go to Central Office to get them. Barbara Araneda, a science teacher at McKinley High, said she wants to know exactly why she was placed on the impact list so she can challenge the decision. I got a 3.8 (on a 4-point scale) on my formal evaluation this year, Im never late to school, and all my lesson plans are in on time, so Im really confused, Araneda said. Were in the midst of an important debate in New Orleans. How should we spend tax dollars generated by visitors to the city? Theres no question tourism is vital to New Orleans. What is under question is how much New Orleans & Company contributes to the citys economic success. As we face urgent infrastructure challenges that affect the quality of life of both residents and visitors, the people of New Orleans deserve answers. It's time to change how New Orleans' tax dollars are spent, distributed, nonpartisan group says The Bureau of Governmental Research is once again calling for changes in the way taxes are distributed in New Orleans, issuing a new report ju Visitor counts are the primary metric used to determine the economic impact of the tourism industry and to justify the millions of tax dollars that are spent on marketing. In 2010, the New Orleans Hospitality Strategic Task Force invested $250,000 to create a long-term tourism plan for the city, which included a forecast of 13.7 million visitors to New Orleans in 2018. After years of working with the University of New Orleans Hospitality Research Center, in 2017 New Orleans & Co. switched vendors and changed the definition of visitors. The outcome: a 2017 visitor count of 17.7 million. UNOs count for 2017, consistent with New Orleans & Co.s original methodology: 11 million. The composition of the New Orleans & Co. board also presents questions. The board includes no one from Jazz Fest or Essence Fest, two of the citys top tourist events. Geographic diversity is also lacking no representation from the rapidly growing businesses in the Bywater, for example. Theres also a gap when it comes to policy and academic expertise, with no one from the UNO Hospitality Research Center or the Bureau of Governmental Research. Most troubling is the overlap between New Orleans & Co.s board and the Convention Center board. It puts into question their endorsement of the Convention Centers expansion plan. Convention-goers account for just 16 percent of our citys visitors and the national convention center market is widely viewed as saturated on the supply side. Yes, it makes sense to update the current facility, but whats been proposed is a risky, radical reimagining that would leave taxpayers holding the bag if it doesnt work out. We also need transparency on the marketing strategies used by New Orleans and Co., which operates 9 satellite offices, including 6 in foreign countries. New Orleans and Co. should clarify how many visitors were seeing from these markets and make a case for our return on this investment in office space and staff. No one should deny that New Orleans and Co. plays an important role marketing our city. But now more than ever, we need to be strategic about how we invest the tax dollars generated by tourism. Revenues created in New Orleans must adequately and fairly benefit the people who live and work in this great city. Danah Fisher former tourism executive New Orleans Gov. John Bel Edwards addresses members of the Louisiana Justice Reinvestment Task Force at their meeting at the State Capitol on Friday, June 17, 2016. The task force led ways of bringing down the state's prison population. The three teenagers were all strangled within a 21-month span. Though their lifeless bodies were discarded in rural areas miles from New Orleans, each had lived in the gritty French Quarter of the late 1970s, and police believed all three had worked as hustlers there, trading sex acts for money. Police have long suspected the three murders were committed by one person. But the trail went cold, and no one was ever identified as the killer. Recently, however, investigators with the Louisiana State Police and the St. Tammany Parish Sheriffs Office, along with authorities in Mississippi, have begun re-examining the slayings of Dennis Turcotte, 19; Raymond Richardson, 17; and Daniel Dewey, 17, who were all found dead between February 1978 and November 1979. A State Police spokesman late Friday confirmed that troopers and other local law enforcement agencies are involved in the new investigation. Turcottes body was discovered on Feb. 3, 1978, in woods between the St. Tammany Parish communities of Talisheek and Abita Springs. Richardsons was found the next month in a deserted area near Interstate 10 in Pass Christian, Mississippi. Deweys body, which was unidentified for years, turned up Nov. 12, 1979, on a road running alongside a garbage dump in Greensburg, in St. Helena Parish. The agencies involved in the inquiry have been tight-lipped about what prompted their renewed interest, or exactly which aspects of the case will be scrutinized anew. Often, renewed investigations of cold cases start with reprocessing physical evidence, such as fingerprints or DNA, using technology and databases that may have not existed when the items were first collected. Turcotte, Richardson and Dewey all died just a few years before the discovery, in the Mississippi River, of the corpse of Edward Wells, another 17-year-old boy who spent much of his time in the French Quarter and was thought by police to dabble in prostitution. Though Wells 1982 death was classified as a drowning, New Orleans police said six months ago that a detective specializing in cold homicide investigations was re-examining the case, which remains shrouded in mystery. That separate inquiry began after New Orleans police received a new allegation about disgraced former New Orleans cop Stanley Burkhardt, who had investigated Wells death while largely running the citys child-abuse investigations in the 1970s and 80s, before he was unmasked as a pedophile himself and imprisoned. The new allegation was that Burkhardt, decades ago, had bragged about murdering a teenager who matched the description of Wells. The man who made that accusation, Richard Windmann, has previously testified to being sexually abused as a teen by Burkhardt. He said Burkhardt would threateningly ask him if he wanted to end up like Eddie going so far as to show him the picture of a boys body as it was pulled from the river. One law enforcement source familiar with the probe stressed that Burkhardt is not considered a suspect at this point in the deaths of Turcotte, Richardson and Dewey. Also, the recent re-examination of Wells death has not yielded criminal charges against Burkhardt whos been released from prison or anyone else. Homophobic violence Perhaps it is not surprising that the Turcotte, Richardson and Dewey murder investigations went cold. Detectives believe all three were French Quarter-based male sex workers. And French Quarter denizens who knew Turcotte, of Slidell; Richardson, of Biloxi; and Dewey, of Oklahoma, may have been reluctant to admit it in the 1970s, when the gay dating and sex scene there was very active but still very closeted, said Frank Perez, a longtime neighborhood resident and historian of the neighborhoods LGBT community. Perez said it was also disturbingly common for gay people in the French Quarter to die violently in those days. One apparent serial killer fatally stabbed a number of gay men in the Quarter while another bludgeoned them to death with a hammer, said Perez, adding that he was never aware of any suspects being arrested. 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 Meanwhile, Perez said, police couldnt arrest the man suspected of setting the June 24, 1973, fire that killed 32 people at the UpStairs Lounge, a gay bar in the Quarter, before the man took his own life the following year. Taken together, those sorry episodes left many in the citys gay community skeptical about the criminal justice system. Not only was there a lot of ... violence (against homosexuals), but the police didnt give a (expletive)," Perez said. Still, by October 1997, State Police had made it a priority to solve the deaths of Turcotte, Richardson and Dewey whose name at that time was still unknown. A trooper named Dennis Stewart sat down with a Times-Picayune reporter and disclosed that all three teens had been tied up and strangled, their hands, feet and neck bound with a rope or cord that would tighten the more they fought to free themselves a major reason why the slayings were thought to be the work of a serial killer. They all shared slight builds and similar hairstyles, and they hung out and worked at the same restaurant in the French Quarter, Jimmys Coney Island Hot Dog Stand, Stewart said in the Oct. 7, 1997, article. The hot dog stand on Royal Street now closed figures prominently in Windmanns account of meeting Burkhardt as well. Windmann says he met the cop in the late 1970s when he was about 13, working at Jimmy's Coney Island as a dishwasher and busboy. Promising leads Stewart said there were promising leads, but all crumbled. A suspect was booked in Turcottes murder the same year his killing was reported, but the St. Tammany Sheriffs Office said prosecutors regarded the case as weak and dismissed the charges. Focus later turned to a serial killer on Californias death row who claimed to have murdered dozens until investigators confirmed he wasnt in Louisiana at the time Turcotte, Richardson and Dewey died, the Times-Picayune article said. Stewart at the time said he was optimistic that better technology and techniques to process evidence would help crack the case, and the State Police asked the public to call in tips. Nothing came of it, Stewart, now retired, said in a recent interview. But he didnt give up. Mainly working on the case during his own time, he managed to identify the body in Greensburg as Dewey in 2008. He took a colleagues suggestion to run fingerprints from the body through an FBI database that wasnt available years earlier and they matched those of Dewey, taken for a misdemeanor traffic arrest in Texas shortly before his death. Stewarts discovery allowed Deweys family to hold a memorial service in his honor before cremating his remains and giving them to his brother, an Associated Press article at the time said. Recently, Stewart said he was still hopeful that improved technology would lead to the most important breakthrough of all for Dewey and the rest: the arrest of whoever killed them. I didnt have a lot to work with, said Stewart, who grew up near Greensburg. But the good thing is that crime-scene and forensics (processing technology) was not then what it is today. This post was updated to correct the spelling of Jimmy's Coney Island and more precisely describe when Windmann worked there. Who says you cant teach an old dog new tricks? When mining lobbyist Mick Crowe asks the 250 pro-coal protesters gathered in Mackay's central square whether this is their first ever rally, almost every hand shoots up. This regional city of almost 80,000, about 1000 kilometres north of Brisbane, doesn't really do demonstrations. Neither did Mr Crowe, until Saturday. "I went into the bookshop and looked for 'Rallies for Dummies' - I couldn't find anything," he tells his giggling audience. "You know why we're an easy target? Because we haven't done this before." Mick Crowe urges the crowd of pro-coal protesters to win over opponents using logic rather than facts. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer As director of the Resource Industry Network, an industry-funded lobby group, Mr Crowe's newest job is to lead and amplify a groundswell of support in favour of coal mining. In his telling, this silent local majority has been overshadowed and out-campaigned by loud and powerful blow-ins from down south - the environmentalists determined to stop the Adani Carmichael coal mine. "I think overall we're getting smashed," he says at Saturday's rally. Hermes CEO Axel Dumas told the Financial Times last month that at the French luxury house, founded in 1837, craftspeople were its most important staff members. A Tod's artisan at work. For me, the first employee in Hermes is the craftsman, he said. Then the second is sales associate and then there are the people like me in the office. In other companies you will see the marketing department being first ... The concept I try to have for the company is to remain a craft shop. Next week, luxury Italian brand Tods will send one of its artisans to set up shop in the brands new Australian boutique in Melbourne's Chadstone from May 1 to May 5 (and later its Sydney store from May 9 to May 12) to demonstrate how its"D-Styling" bags (an update on the iconic D bag named after, and worn by, Princess Diana) are made. This follows Italian fashion house Bottega Venetas Masters of Craft exhibition at Melbourne's Australian Centre for Contemporary Art last year. There, guests could see live demonstrations of its Milanese artisans making the brands unmistakable bags with their intrecciato weaving technique. As we reach the tail-end of Fashion Revolution Week, an event that aims to bring a focus on buying less and buying better, this appreciation seems particularly apt. Just as the arts and crafts movement first gathered momentum in the late 19th century as people questioned the way products were being made, so too are consumers now questioning the pace of fast fashion, its impact on the world and its people, and stopping to ask: well, who made my clothes? A man in his 20s who was hit in the head by a large pulley attached to a crane on a cargo ship has been transferred in a critical condition to a Brisbane hospital. An RACQ LifeFlight Rescue spokeswoman said the man was working on board a dry bulk carrier, which was at anchor approximately 10 kilometres off the Sunshine Coast, when he was injured. The rescue helicopter flew to the ship's location just before 2.30pm on Friday. A man was winched from a cargo ship on Friday after he was hit by a large pulley. Credit:RACQ LifeFlight Rescue The patient was winched up to the helicopter and flown to Sunshine Coast University Hospital under the care of the LifeFlight critical care doctor. Detective Inspector Steve Wilson said there were some "disturbing escalations" in the Nunawading assault. This time the men asked the victim her name, where she lived and threatened to murder her. At about 9.30pm on the night of March 26, 1986, 19-year-old Debbie* was walking along the footpath on Ashwood Drive. She was heading to the house of the parents of her then-boyfriend. He had a car and the plan was he would drive Debbie home later that evening. "I didnt even think that it would be an issue," Debbie said of her decision to walk a quiet suburban street at night. "I quite like I used to quite like walking anyway, so it wasnt something that I even worried about it. And I was just excited to be going to see him." But Debbie said that she remained "terrified" by the memory of what happened next, a heinous assault which would have a profound impact on the rest of her life. A vehicle, described as being possibly a white or silver Holden sedan, pulled up alongside her and she was pulled into the car with four men. The victim was threatened with a knife, blindfolded and gagged. She was driven a short distance to an unknown property and then sexually assaulted over a number of hours by at least three men whilst still blindfolded. The woman was then dumped under a parked vehicle on Mariana Avenue in Ringwood East sometime around midnight. Despite giving the men a false name, Debbie moved interstate after the attack. "I built a whole identity under a different name, just to make sure that I wouldn't be found," she said. "I wouldn't even talk to people for months and months." Despite being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, Debbie held down a highly paid, professional job which saw her travelling across Australia. But it was a position which required her to be called out to work at night. One evening this occurred at about the same time she had been assaulted years earlier on Ashwood Drive. "Every time I would go to work after that I remembered that I could be in danger at any moment," she said. "I couldn't do my work anymore ... I ended up giving it away." The trauma of the assault also derailed her personal life. Debbie's boyfriend at the time of the attack became her husband and "went to great lengths" to help her recover. But despite her "respecting him forever for that" he was a "constant reminder". Debbie said she "get the guilt" over the breakdown of that relationship. Debbie said she still gets flashbacks and has trouble forming relationships and trusting people. "It impacts on everything," she said of the attack. But Debbie hopes going public will be a positive move for her and other victims. An out-of-controlled bushfire in the Shire of Gingin that had previously put lives and homes at risk has been contained. Local residents had been urged to leave their homes as the bushfire threatened lives and homes about midday Saturday. A bushfire emergency warning was issued for people in parts of Woodridge, Caraban and Wilbinga between King Drive and Moore River, west of the Woodridge Estate. The bushfire was reported around 11am Saturday. The Department of Fire and Emergency Services advised people to leave the area immediately, warning they were in danger and needed to act immediately. Colombo, Sri Lanka: Catholic leaders cancelled Sunday Masses indefinitely across Sri Lanka and officials urged Muslims to stay home for Friday prayers in an extraordinary call by the clergy to curtail worship as fear of more attacks plagued the island nation after the deadly suicide bombings on Easter. A bird flies over St. Sebastian's Church, where a suicide bomber blew himself up on Easter Sunday in Negombo, north of Colombo. Credit:AP Shops were closed, streets were empty and heavy security patrols continued across the country despite police saying the alleged mastermind of the attacks that killed over 250 people had died in one of the suicide blasts. Those Sri Lankans who did venture out spoke about the fear encompassing daily life at a level unseen since a long civil war ended a decade ago. Many are angry that the government, paralysed by internal disputes, hadn't acted on intelligence obtained weeks before Easter that warned of the attacks. On Friday night, Sri Lanka's military said its soldiers in the eastern part of the country engaged in a gunbattle with suspects believed to be linked to the attacks, and police announced a 24-hour curfew until further notice in the Muslim-dominated area where the shooting took place. At the talks (Source: VNA) PM Phuc appreciated active cooperation across fields between the two countries ministries, sectors and localities in recent times, affirming that Vietnam attaches importance to the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership with China and wishes to promote the bilateral relations in a stable and sustainable manner. He expressed his support for China to uphold its increasing important role for peace, stability and development of the region and the world, saying that he applauds and supports the implementation of the Belt and Road initiative (BRI) PM Phuc suggested the two sides maintain high-ranking exchanges and meetings, enhance political trust, and improve practical and effective cooperation in all fields. He valued Chinas effort to open its market for Vietnams dairy products and mangosteen, asking the Chinese side to open door for other Vietnamese farm produce, especially pork and swallow nest, as well as facilitate rice trade between the two nations. PM Phuc applauded Chinas implementation of projects using modern and environmentally friendly technologies in Vietnam, while asking for coordination from the Chinese side to handle a number of problems related to payment procedures, capital increase, slow construction progress, and low efficiency, in cooperation projects between the two parties; and give suitable take-off and landing time for Vietnams airlines. The two sides need to accelerate the signing of the agreement to connect the railway route between Lao Cai province of Vietnam and Hekhou of China, and create favourable conditions for Vietnamese and Chinese firms to effectively join the Chongqing-Singapore transport route, he said. The Vietnamese leader also underlined the necessity for the two sides to boost and improve the efficiency of cooperation in the spheres of agriculture, culture, education, tourism, environmental protection and climate change adaptation, sustainable use of Mekong river water, and nuclear safety monitoring; well implement the three documents relating to land border between the two countries; and enhance coordination at regional and international forums. Regarding the issues at sea, PM Phuc proposed to strictly implement the common perception of the high-ranking leaders, Agreement on basic principles guiding the settlement of sea-related issues, well control differences, and have no actions to complicate the situation and increase disputes; promote negotiation mechanisms relating to the sea to achieve real progress; and achieve progress in the demarcation of waters off the mouth of the Tonkin Gulf in 2020. He also asked for efforts from the two sides for handling fisheries and fishermen-related issues in a humanitarian spirit; soon signing the Vietnam - China search and rescue cooperation agreement and extending the bilateral agreement on the sea fishing hotline; fully and effectively implementing the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC); and promote substantive negotiations towards an effective and substantive Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC) in line with the international law, to maintain peace and stability in the East Sea. For his part, Premier Li affirmed that China attaches importance to developing relations with Vietnam; and persists the guideline of good neighbourliness, friendship, comprehensive cooperation and long-term stability with Vietnam. Agreeing with major directions and measures proposed by PM Phuc, Li said China does not pursue trade surplus to Vietnam but encourages Chinese enterprises to strengthen trade cooperation and expand investment in Vietnam. China will join Vietnams efforts to well control the differences in order to maintain peace and stability in the East Sea, he said. After the talks, PM Phuc and Premier Li witnessed the exchange ceremony of the three documents on economic and technological cooperation, veterinary and public health requirements for Vietnamese dairy products exported to China, and cultural and tourism cooperation between the two countries. On the occasion of PM Phucs attendance in the Belt and Road Forum, the two countries ministries and sectors signed other agriculture cooperation agreements./. Indianapolis: Oliver North says he will not serve a second term as the National Rifle Association's president, deciding to step down as the organisation grappled with a bitter dispute over its future and its worst leadership crisis in decades. He made the announcement on Saturday, local time, as the NRA faced a challenge from New York Attorney-General Letitia James, who had opened an investigation into the US gun group's tax-exempt status. President of the National Rifle Association Oliver North says he will not serve a second term in the job. Credit:Bloomberg The NRA, with more than 5 million members, is by far the most powerful and well-connected gun lobby in the United States. On Friday, Ms James' office sent letters instructing the NRA and affiliated entities, including its charitable foundation, to preserve relevant financial records. Some of the NRA's related businesses also received subpoenas, according to people with knowledge of the inquiry. A lawyer for the NRA confirmed the investigation. Lagoudas said she looks forward to seeing what the future holds for the students who present at the showcase, calling them all innovative. With more judges and students participating this year than previous years, she said, it gives the college the opportunity to explore ways to work together with industry. When I look at the students, the students are excited to solve problems that are difficult problems, she said. The range of activities here is just extraordinary, judge John Cavolowsky, director of the Transformative Aeronautics Concepts Program at NASA, said. Theres no way I could possibly have the expertise to see them all, so the kinds of things that I look for and have been seeing in spades with all these teams is their ability to come together as a team, to understand that these are problems that are not narrow in their scope. They require multidisciplinary capabilities and multiple elements of engineering mechanical and electrical and computer science to solve, so you need to find a way to pull that team together. Ten people missing from the Brazos Valley with one case almost 40 years old were spotlighted Friday during a news conference, and authorities are hopeful members of the public may have a missing piece of the puzzle to help bring them home. College Station Police Department Assistant Chief Charles Fleeger, who serves as president of the Amber Alert Network of the Brazos Valley, hosted the news conference at the Brazos Valley Council of Governments, where he stood at a lectern flanked by two posters bearing images and descriptions of nine adults and a teenager who are missing. With him were law enforcement officers representing the agencies investigating these cold cases. At the end of the day, even though these people are much older, everybody is somebodys child, he said. Everybody is special to somebody, so its important for us to do everything we can to bring them home. ... I think theres always a chance for cases to be cleared. You just have to look at the Virginia Freeman case the Brazos County Sheriffs Office solved last year, almost 20 years after her killer was executed. Theres always a chance for the truth to come out. Technology is always changing, and somebody, somewhere, knows something about these cases. Franklin residents and leaders continue to recover from damage caused by the EF-3 tornado that destroyed more than 55 homes, places of worship and businesses on April 13. A toy drive begins Sunday, and SouthStar Bank pledged $25,000 in matching contributions, two of many relief efforts for affected Robertson County residents and structures. The cleanup work is ongoing, but groups like the Texas Baptist Men have been incredible, Robertson County Sheriff Gerald Yezak said in a phone interview Friday. Groups like them have provided a remarkable amount of labor and assistance. Yezak also praised the Red Cross and said that the green Franklin Strong T-shirts sold to raise funds carry an apt message, We are one, on the back. The town looks different with buildings destroyed and trees downed, but the people of Franklin are a wonderful small-town USA community. They are resilient in how they come together, he said. Yezak said that South New Hope Missionary Baptist Church has operated as a home base for a variety of relief efforts, including donations. Wrong. The recommendations going before the city council in no way reflect the wishes of residents. This disregard for the wishes of the community with regard to Thomas Park cannot be allowed to happen. It sets a precedent that we cannot afford. Today it is the College Hills neighborhood's desires that are ignored. Eventually all neighborhoods in College Station will become older. Do you want the city officials to ignore your wishes for your neighborhood? DIANE DAVIS College Station No valid reason College Station can't have four pools I have lived in College Hills since I was 3 years old -- 24 years now. This has been and is my home. This is where I am raising my 1 1/2 year old daughter. One of the best features of the College Hills neighborhood is Thomas Park pool. I remember many summers growing up where my friends and I hung out most days at the pool. Those are fond memories -- memories that I want that for my daughter and for others. 19-Year-Old With Brain Tumour Managed to Stay Alive to Give Birth: Death Happens in the Blink of an Eye A 19-year-old woman with a malignant brain tumor who managed to stay alive long enough to give birth died on April 21, her family said in a Facebook post. This morning shortly before 4 a.m., Dana left us to be with the lord, Dana Scattons family said on the Facebook page, Pray for Dana. She inspired us all to be better than who we are and to keep God in our focus at every moment. She faced the greatest fear of all, death, and smiled back with a grin only God can instill. She fought harder than the toughest warriors known to man and did it with grace and valor, the family wrote. This morning shortly before 4am, Dana left us to be with the lord. We may never have the right things to say to truly Posted by Pray for Dana on Monday, April 22, 2019 Scatton, from Pennsylvania, was 17 years old when she was diagnosed with a brain tumor after she was struggling to swallow or speak and even walk. I was really overtired, she said, according to The Advertiser. But things kept getting worse. I was forgetting to swallow, and my speech got weird. Then my legs started not responding to thingswhen I would walk, my legs would drag. Thats when I really got concerned, she said. Scatton was diagnosed with DIPG (diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma), in 2017, a type of disease that has no cure and almost no survival rate, reported the Advertiser. DIPG tumors start at the brain stem just above the back of the neck. She was seven and a half months pregnant at the time. Dana taking a nap with Aries Dana is finally home as of Friday afternoon. The transport from the hospital went Posted by Pray for Dana on Monday, April 15, 2019 Dr. Jean Belasco, a pediatric oncologist at the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia, told Scatton that there was no hope of survival. Her condition only worsened and the next day after Christmas, doctors decided to give her radiation without delivering the baby. I feel like God just directed the doctors to help decide what I should do, Scatton said. I wasnt sure if I wanted to start radiation without having the baby because I didnt want it to hurt her. But I couldnt decide what to doit was too hard. Doctors reassured Scatton that the radiation wouldnt harm the baby and on Jan. 4, after several rounds of radiation on Jan. 3, she gave birth to her daughter, Aries Marie, through C-section. The baby was born in good health at 4 pounds and 6 ounces. She was crying and once they put her on Danas chest, she stopped, Scatton brother, Josiah Gundry said. The baby is doing really well I told my boss about the birth, and he said, One miracle down one to go. When Dana was going in for the C-section, we were all anxious and stressing, he said. And she was just calm. She told us, Listen, its gonna be fine. I said to her, I dont know how youre doing this. And she said to me, I just try to trust in God. Scattons Death Her funeral service was held overnight on Friday and was live streamed to the 49,000 fans of the Pray for Dana community on Facebook. Thank you to everyone who joined us tonight in person and online to celebrate Dana. We feel very blessed that Dana was loved and supported by so many, from all over the world, her family said in a recent post. The family thanked everyone for the cards, letters, and prayers, writing, Thank you for the support youve given Dana over the last 16 months. Thank you for never giving up on her and her fight. Thank you to everyone who joined us tonight in person and online to celebrate Dana. We feel very blessed that Dana was Posted by Pray for Dana on Friday, April 26, 2019 In her interview with the Advertiser, Scatton had said that death made her realize that this world is temporary. It was such a wake-up call, she said. Getting death thrown in your face its so real. It really shows you whats true. This world doesnt matter, its temporary, you know? When I found out, I immediately let the world go. Its like, that doesnt matter anymore. We have to look at the eternal life. We all think we have so much time honestly, I feel thankful that I have this time to wake up and realize whats right. And I want everybody to see that. Even though others didnt get the news that I did, I want them to wake up. I feel blessed that I have this time to make things rightothers dont get that timedeath happens in the blink of an eye. Police stand guard after the Confederate statue known as Silent Sam was toppled by protesters on campus at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C. ,on Aug.20, 2018. (Gerry Broome, AP Photo/File) 2 Guilty for Toppling N Carolina Campuss Confederate Statue HILLSBOROUGH, N.C.Two men face a day in jail after being found guilty of rioting, damaging property and defacing a Confederate monument that had stood for a century on the campus of North Carolinas flagship public university. The News & Observer of Raleigh reports that the state district court judge on Thursday found Raul Arce Jimenez and Shawn Birchfield-Finn Jimenez guilty in the toppling of the University of North Carolina monument nicknamed Silent Sam. They also were assessed a $500 fine and community service. Faculty members at North Carolinas flagship public university say a statue of a Confederate soldier torn down from its prominent spot on the Chapel Hill campus shouldnt be put back. https://t.co/R52q8hVWMR WDBJ7 (@WDBJ7) October 13, 2018 Jimenez was previously found not guilty of toppling a Confederate statue in Durham in 2017. Eleven others have been convicted in the August melee in which the Chapel Hill statue was toppled. The monument was derided as defended as a Southern heritage memorial. 5-Year-Old Child Dies After Falling From Scooter and Is Hit by Car Evelyn Ortiz-Luevano was charged with negligent homicide and child neglect in the death of her 5-year-old boy while riding a scooter on April 23. The deceased child, Caiden Reyes-Ortiz, was hit by Renier Davison, who fled the scene and turned himself in on Wednesday, admitting that he had been driving the Honda that fatally hit the boy. He was charged with leaving the scene of a fatal accident and causing an accident without a valid drivers license, as well as driving with a suspended license, reported Fox 23. As stated on court documents, Ortiz-Luevano crossed both lanes and recklessly rode the scooter into oncoming traffic, and in an attempt to veer out of the path of the vehicle, caused her son to fall from the scooter and then to be hit by that vehicle, causing his death. MOTHER CHARGED, WARRANT ISSUED: The mother of 5-year-old Caiden Reyes-Ortiz who died Tuesday night after being hit by a car while riding a scooter near the Gathering Place now has a warrant out for her arrest. DETAILS: https://t.co/nRLZrtxsWF pic.twitter.com/mXbpQqDhZG Tulsas Channel 8 (@KTULNews) April 26, 2019 A Tulsa police officer stated in the affidavit that Evelyn Ortiz-Luevano broke several traffic laws as she was riding the scooter with her son on board, NewsOn6 reported. She crossed both lanes and recklessly rode the scooter into on-coming traffic, and in an attempt to veer out of the path of a vehicle, caused her son to fall from the scooter and then to be hit by that vehicle, causing his death. Police said that Ortiz-Luevano and a friend both rented scooters and were going to a park. According to NewsOn6, a witness said he saw the women going southbound in the northbound lanes of traffic. He heard more cars honking as they were irresponsibly driving against the traffic. Another witness said Ortiz-Lurevano veered to avoid one of the upcoming vehicles, and thats when Caiden fell off the scooter and the northbound car hit and killed him. The vehicle was coming towards them, so the mother could see the vehicle, said Tulsa Police Officer Jeanne Pierce. There was a piece of the vehicle that was left on the scene so we had an idea of the color of the vehicle, said Pierce. The Police searched around the neighborhoods and apartment complex nearby until they saw the car. They had a witness say, yes the owner of that vehicle lives in this apartment. We heard some banging earlier, we heard some crying earlier, said Pierce. The police didnt find anyone in the apartment until Davidson turned himself in the next day. The thing for me is- just staying on the scene. We have done I dont know how many interviews about hit-and-runs.we say every time stay on scene. Talk to the officer, said Pierce. Caidens family started a Gofundme page. Where it states: Our Family is asking for your prayers and asking for any donations is greatly appreciated. In these hard times that nobody is ever ready for. He was always happy and smiling. He was always making everyone and anyone laugh. The funds are being collected for Funeral Services. The DAs Office says Evelyn Ortiz-Luevano is being charged with one count of child neglect and one count of negligent homicide @KTULNews https://t.co/H5FHOfqrDK Ethan Hutchins (@ehutchinsnews) April 26, 2019 Traffic Deaths Traffic deaths fell 3.1 percent in the first six months of 2018, according to preliminary figures released in October 2018, Reuters reported. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said that 2017 traffic deaths fell by 1.8 percent to 37,133 after traffic deaths rose sharply in the previous two years, according to final figures. The traffic fatality rate fell to 1.08 deaths per 100 million miles traveled for the first half of 2018. The fatality rate in 2017 was 1.16 million deaths per 100 million miles traveledthe second highest rate since 2008. This is good news and bad news, said Deborah Hersman, CEO of the National Safety Council, told CNBC. The total number of fatalities is not getting worse, but the situation is not getting better. Hersman cited distracted driving and higher speed limits for the number. There are a number of states that have raised speed limits, some now have stretches at 80 or 85 miles per hour, she said. In Texas, for example, she estimated that traffic fatalities jumped 7 percent from 2015 to 2017, in part due to higher speed limits in the state. We know its happening even though distracted driving data is hard to come by, she said of drivers using smartphones while behind the wheel. Police reports on accidents often dont report if the driver was distracted and in many accidents, people dont self-report themselves. Adam Schiff Tones Down Impeachment Talk, Admits It Will Likely Fail Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) quelled the talk of President Trumps impeachment, saying that hes not there yet, on Friday, April 26. Im not there yet on impeachment. I may get there. He may get me there, he said. The House Intelligence Committee Chair made the comments during an interview with HBOs Real Time with Bill Maher. Schiff also admitted that the impeachment will likely fail. If we do impeach him, and he is acquitted, as he would likely be acquitted, then the message is, those are not impeachable offenses, he told Maher. He concluded that the only way to deal with the problem is to vote Trump out of office in 2020. Theres a lot at stake in this fightits over whether we have a system of checks and balances that still works. Watch Rep. @AdamSchiff join @BillMaher and the #RealTime panel on #RTOvertime: pic.twitter.com/L71dFg2ut6 Real Time (@RealTimers) April 27, 2019 Schiffs remarks come as House Democrats debate the merits of impeaching Trump after the release of Mueller report. In a report released on April 18, special counsel Robert Mueller had concluded that there was no collusion between Trump or his campaign and Russian actors who sought to influence the 2016 presidential election. Attorney General William Barr said that he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had concluded that theres no obstruction of justice, The Epoch Times reported. After carefully reviewing the facts and legal theories outlined in the report, and in consultation with the Office of Legal Counsel and other Department lawyers, the deputy attorney general and I concluded that the evidence developed by the special counsel is not sufficient to establish that the president committed an obstruction-of-justice offense, he announced in a press conference before releasing the Mueller report to Congress committee and the public. However, some Democrats in the House keep trying to seek grounds for impeachment despite the idea being constantly toned down by top Democrats in the Capitol. Using the Mueller report as a basis for impeachment would be an unhinged act of political retribution. Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) April 23, 2019 Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the House Speaker, has stayed wary of the impeachment roadmap and believes it will divide the country. I do believe that impeachment is one of the most divisive forces, paths that we could go down to in our country, but if the facts, the path of fact-finding takes us there, we have no choicebut were not there yet, she told USA Today. We shouldnt impeach for a political reason. We shouldnt not impeach for a political reason, she added. Trump slammed the Democrats for ignoring the fact that he did nothing wrong and are seeking groundless impeachment. The Mueller Report, despite being written by Angry Democrats and Trump Haters, and with unlimited money behind it ($35,000,000), didnt lay a glove on me. I DID NOTHING WRONG. If the partisan Dems ever tried to Impeach, I would first head to the U.S. Supreme Court. Not only Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 24, 2019 ..are there no High Crimes and Misdemeanors, there are no Crimes by me at all. All of the Crimes were committed by Crooked Hillary, the Dems, the DNC and Dirty Cops and we caught them in the act! We waited for Mueller and WON, so now the Dems look to Congress as last hope! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 24, 2019 He vowed he will take it to the Supreme Court if theres an impeachment battle. The Mueller Report, despite being written by Angry Democrats and Trump Haters, and with unlimited money behind it ($35,000,000), didnt lay a glove on me. I DID NOTHING WRONG, he said in an April 24 Twitter post. If the partisan Dems ever tried to Impeach, I would first head to the U.S. Supreme Court. Alleged Killer Who Shot His Girlfriend and Fled to Mexico Brought Back to US to Face Charges A California man who allegedly shot and killed his girlfriend in broad daylight before fleeing was arrested in Mexico and brought back to the United States on April 24 to face murder charges. Thalia Flores, 25, was in a car in the parking lot of a discount store in Chino with another unidentified male when Julio Cesar Rocha, 25, allegedly shot both of them at about 2:43 p.m. on March 21, the City of Chino Police Department said in a statement on Facebook. The accompanying male suffered non-life threatening injuries and walked to a nearby hospital and is recovering. His name has not been released. Rocha fled the scene before the police arrived. He is considered armed and dangerous, police said in the statement. The police had sought public help in apprehending Rocha, and Chino police Lt. Bill Covington told KTLA that the shooting was witnessed by many people. Seeking Publics Help With Locating Homicide SuspectDetectives have identified the outstanding suspect that shot and Posted by City of Chino Police Department on Friday, March 22, 2019 Julio Rocha was located in Mexico and subsequently booked at the West Valley Detention Center last night, the police said in another Facebook post. A resident of Montclair, Rocha was arrested south of the border and was returned to San Bernardino County to face charges of murder and attempted to murder. Julio Cesar Rocha, 25, of Montclair was apprehended in Mexico and returned to San Bernardino County to face charges of murder and attempted murder on Wednesday, police said. https://t.co/gy17dBh2cZ KTLA (@KTLA) April 26, 2019 The formal arrest took place on Wednesday after he arrived at LAX, county booking records show, according to KTLA. Thalia Floress Relationship With Julio Cesar Rocha Flores and Rocha were in a relationship for seven years and separated just two months before he shot her. Floress sister, Berenice Flores, told the Daily Bulletin in a telephone interview that their relationship was abusive and her sister lived in constant fear. He said himself so many times to other people, If I cant have her, no one will. Berenice Flores told Daily Bulletin. By Brian Rokos Woman shot to death in Chino feared ex-boyfriend, sister says https://t.co/nu0PzilccZ Ruby Gonzales (@RubyGonzales2) March 27, 2019 Berenice said after the couple broke up, Rocha was leaving letters for Flores and she feared that if she ended the relationship he would hurt her family. He was a creep. He wouldnt respect the fact that she wanted to leave him, said Berenice. She described Flores was a fun-loving and joyous person. I want my sisters story to be heard. I want other girls or men or kids in violent relationships to look for help and not be scared, she said. Domestic Violence in the United States More than 12 million people in the United States victims of rape, physical violence or stalking by an intimate partner24 people per minute, according to the National Domestic Violence Hotline. You have the right to be safe in your relationship. If you have questions or concerns about your partner or partners contact an advocate by call (1-800-799-7233 or 1-800-787-3224 (TTY) or chat online at https://t.co/ayj7ex0GRa. #DV National Domestic Violence Hotline (@ndvh) April 27, 2019 1 in 4 women (24.3 percent) and 1 in 7 men (13.8 percent) aged 18 and older in the United States have been the victim of severe physical violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime, it reported. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey speaks during a rally for President Donald Trump at the International Air Response facility in Mesa, Arizona on Oct. 19, 2018. (Ralph Freso/Getty Images) Arizona Governor Fires Back at Secular Group for Demanding Him to Remove Easter Facebook Post Republican Arizona Governor Doug Ducey has resisted demands from a secular group to take down a Facebook post where he sent Easter greetings and cited a Bible verse to celebrate the religious event. Earlier this week, the Secular Communities of Arizona, who describe themselves as an organization to ensure secular government, called on Ducey to remove the postwhich says, He is risen! Have a happy and blessed Easter! and includes an image of a cross and bible verseand claimed the post was unconstitutional as it had allegedly breached the church and state separation. He is risen! Have a happy and blessed Easter! Posted by Governor Doug Ducey on Sunday, April 21, 2019 To send a government greeting on religious holidays, the government must send to every single religion, the groups attorney Dianne Post wrote in a letter (pdf). She added, elected officials should not use their government position and government property to promote their religious views, while adding that the courts have struck down symbolism that unites government with religion. Ducey, who is a practicing Catholic, did not agree with the groups reasoning and fired back saying, We wont be removing this post. Ever. Nor will we be removing our posts for Christmas, Hanukkah, Rosh Hashanah, Palm Sunday, Passover or any other religious holiday. We wont be removing this post. Ever. Nor will we be removing our posts for Christmas, Hanukkah, Rosh Hashanah, Palm Sunday, Passover or any other religious holiday. We support the First Amendment, and are happy to provide copies of the Constitution to anyone who hasnt read it. https://t.co/UzZpLAzzuW Doug Ducey (@dougducey) April 25, 2019 He even offered to provide copies of the Constitution to his critics. He wrote, We support the First Amendment and are happy to provide copies of the Constitution to anyone who hasnt read it. The post has generated a debate among his constituents, with many praising the governor for standing up for what he believes is right, despite the pressure. This is why I voted for you, Doug! Keep it up, we support you! one social media user wrote. We may have our differences, but I applaud my Governor DougDucey and The Governors Office in Defending and Supporting Everyones Constitutional Rights, including Religion. Mutual Respect Equals Tolerance, Understanding, And Civility. God Bless Governor Ducey! another wrote. Kudos to dougducey for speaking up. Lets celebrate ALL people and OUR constitutional rights, another social media user wrote. Keep it up Doug! Im not a Christian myself, but I support everybodys First Amendment right, one person wrote. Along with the Easter post, the governor also posted a Passover greeting and a less religious Easter greeting post. Wishing all Arizonans a #HappyEaster! May you have a wonderful day surrounded by friends and loved ones. Posted by Governor Doug Ducey on Sunday, April 21, 2019 Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige, from left, poses with members of the cast of "Avengers: Endgame," Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner and Mark Ruffalo at a hand and footprint ceremony at the TCL Chinese Theatre on April 23, 2019, in Los Angeles. (Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP) Chinese Student Hospitalized After Hysterical Crying at Avengers: Endgame A college student in China was so overwhelmed by the ending of Avengers: Endgame that she had to be rushed to the hospital after her uncontrollable crying caused her to hyperventilate, according to Chinese media. The 21-year-old unnamed female watched the midnight premier of the film with her friends on April 24 in the city of Ningbo in east Chinas Zhejiang Province, local media The Sound of Zhejiang reported. Most of the 3-hour long movie went by without a hitch for the college student, until it rolled towards the closing scenes. While movie-goers around her were quietly sobbing at the end of the movie, the student started bawling uncontrollably. She cried so muchand so hardthat she started feeling chest pains, and she became numb in her hands and feet. Her fingers also became stuck in a clawed position. She was later rushed to hospital by ambulance after her friends called emergency services. At the hospital, doctors managed to calm her down and also gave her oxygen to steady her breathing. She eventually recuperated and was discharged from the hospital on the same day. A doctor who treated the 21-year-old told the outlet that the hyperventilation was caused by excessive panting from the students unrelenting sobs. Avengers: Endgame, the final installment of the hugely popular Marvel franchise, opened in China on April 24, two days ahead of its release in the United States. Its already broken the record for highest box-office debut in China, raking in $107.2 million on opening day. Even before its release, the movie was making waves in China, generating $90 million in pre-salesan all-time record. Users on Weibo, Chinas version of Twitter, reacted to the womans extreme response to the movie with both mockery and sympathy. One commenter quipped, [Shes] definitely a real fan, while another said, Sister, you got in way too deep into the drama. Others identified with the students pain. My heart was also in pain after the end of the movie, but I managed stay strong and avoid being hospitalized, a user said. In a popular comment, one user trying to avoid spoilers wrote: She definitely reacted that way after seeing that scene. At that point, I also really wanted to cry. I wished that so-and-so could do so-and-so, and continue so-and-so. Galina Barinova saw Shen Yun Performing Arts with her family at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, California, on April 26, 2019. (Linda Jiang/The Epoch Times) COSTA MESA, Calif.As a formally trained classical ballet dancer with an extensive repertoire, Galina Barinova appreciates the hard work dancers go through to make sure every movement down to the tiniest details is perfect on stage. She said, once a performer is on stage, everything is under the microscope. When Barinova experienced Shen Yun Performing Arts, she was impressed by the dancers flexibility, control, and artistry; but in particular, she was impressed by their ability to move on stage as a single organism. When you do something on stage it shows every single thing, you cannot cheat on stage. There is no way to hide on stage, once you get on, youre under a microscope, she said. Originally from Russia, Barinova has toured many countries across Europe and Asia, and throughout the United States performing in popular productions such as Swan Lake and The Nutcracker. She is currently teaching ballet at Southland Ballet Academy as well as figure skaters on and off the ice, according to her profile. After seeing Shen Yun perform at the Segerstrom Center on April 26, Barinova praised the choreography and the dancers synchronicity. The choreography is actually pretty fascinating to me because I love the unison, to the littlest detail. Everybody moves like a single person. Thats what I teach my students in the class every single time because its absolutely one of the most important things when you perform on stage, to do something together and create that amazing feeling of moving as a single organism, she said. And then the choreography is interesting. I love the patterns. I love the acrobatics, she added. An Ancient Dance Form New York-based Shen Yun is a traditional Chinese dance and music company with the mission to bring Chinas 5,000 years of civilization and history to the modern world. The performance primarily uses classical Chinese dance as its foundation and incorporates ethnic and folk style dances from regional and minority groups in China. Classical Chinese dance has a history of thousands of years and was passed down continuously within the imperial palace and ancient Chinese theater and opera. It absorbed wisdom from every era and dynasty before becoming a complete system of dance embodying traditional aesthetic principles with its unique dance movements, rhythms, and inner meaning, according to the Shen Yun website. Through watching Shen Yun, Barinova developed an appreciation for this traditional style of dance, describing it as unique. Its very different. Its very fresh to me because Im a formally trained classical ballet dancer. So seeing something so unique in my perspective is very interesting, she said. From Within She added that many of the stories came through to the audience due to the performers ability to express their inner motivations through their movements and body language. In terms of interpretation, the stories come across as very much, its like they have the inner motivation. Its like its coming from within, she said. And it really shows I think, and the hard work of every single individual dancer actually, I think, that actually has that foundation in Chinese culture. And I think it has very deep roots as well. So its very interesting, she said. Classical Chinese dance movements are unique, as it can bring out the inner meaning of intrinsic thoughts and feelings, reflecting the peculiarities of human nature, the standard for human conduct, moral concepts, mental state, and ones value system. Chinas deep cultural traditions are contained in classical Chinese dance, allowing its movements to be richly expressive. Inspiration Barinova said after seeing Shen Yun, she plans to go back to the dance studio and tell her students to experience the performance for themselves. Im going to say, you guys have to see it, first of all. Second, you will understand how important it is to dance together, she said. Then I hope they get the chance to see it at some point; maybe not this visit but some, Im sure [Shen Yun is] going to be coming back, so itll be wonderful. Ill definitely tell them, she said. With reporting by Linda Jiang. 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. Father Ran Over and Killed 3-Year-Old Son, Within a Month Another 1-Year-Old Drowned Parents with seven children in Florida lost two toddlers within a month. A 3-year-old was accidentally run over and killed by his father and less than a month later a 1-year-old drowned in a family swimming pool. The father accidentally ran over his 3-year-old son with the family SUV at a Waffle House parking lot in Brandon on March 12. The accident inflicted severe head injuries on the child and he was pronounced dead shortly after at the Brandon Regional Hospital, according to Tampa Bay Times. Jeremiah Rioss parents were leaving the Waffle House at 1412 State Road and each of them wrongly thought that they had put Rios in their 2007 Chevrolet Tahoe. Hillsborough County Sheriffs Office said at about 9:45 p.m. the front right tire of the Tahoe hit the toddler as his father, Guillermo Junior Montoya Rios, 29, started to drive. The parents of the 3-year-old each thought the other had placed the boy in the familys vehicle.https://t.co/hWi6PL0oNo Tampa Bay Times (@TB_Times) March 13, 2019 The incident report mentions that the family generally does a headcount of their seven children whenever they travel in a vehicle together but that day it was not done. Deputies said the father wasnt driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. The death was considered an accident and Rioss name was cleared by the Sheriffs office. The family met another tragic loss when their youngest 1-year-old son accidentally drowned in a swimming pool in his maternal grandparents home on April 5, the Tampa Bay Times quoted the Florida Department of Children and Families incident report. The family, with their six children aged 1-11, was at their grandparents home in Hillsborough County for a holiday. The mother and her children were present at the house when the drowning happened. I cant imagine how devastating this must be for this family. Hug your kids tight when you get home tonight.https://t.co/64Icysl6dX Chris Tisch (@christisch1) April 26, 2019 On the afternoon of the tragic incident, the two oldest children were playing at the swimming pool while the younger ones were playing with a water hose near the house, reported the Tampa Bay Times. At about 7 p.m., everyone except the youngest child came inside the house to change into dry clothes. Shortly after, the mother found him unresponsive in the pool. The family gave him CPR before the paramedics arrived but he was pronounced dead at the hospital. The childs heart had stopped beating before the paramedics arrived. Surveillance footage showed him walking on the pools deck and then jumping or falling into the water. The deaths of the two sons are being investigated by the Hillsborough Sheriffs Office. The investigations are undergoing and the Department of Children and Families declined to comment to the media. Tragic Backover Accidents Thousands of children die every year or get badly injured as drivers backing up dont notice them. In the United States, 50 children get backed over every week, according to Kids and Cars, an organization that advocates for injury control and child safety. The organization was created to protect children in and around motor vehicles on private properties. In over 70 percent of these unspeakable tragedies, a parent or the direct relative of the child is behind the wheel. There is an imminent need to change current behaviors and the attitudes of parents and caregivers about this fatal practice, it said on its website. The organization has documented 42 cases of backover tragedies and six near misses. According to the organization, on March 31, 2014, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) issued an auto safety standard to improve vehicles rear visibility and prevent deaths that occur when drivers back into people whom they cannot see. Fatal Child Drowning Incidents Florida and Texas each experienced 40 fatal child drowning cases, California 29, Arizona 24, and Georgia 14 in 2016, according to poolsafety.gov 500 children drown annually in home swimming pools. Plz. check http://www.poolsafety.gov/ & http://tinyurl.com/lb4rt5 to protect your child. Pool Safety Activist (@SafetyTurtleUSA) July 11, 2009 The website lists organizations working to stop these tragic losses. These family foundations can be contacted for help and information: Abby Graces Hope in Auburndale, Florida. Colins Hope in Austin, Texas. G.I.L.L.S. in Atlanta, Georgia. High School Girl Fatally Shot While Saving Sister High school junior Marilyn Cotto Montanez saved her sister by pushing her away to protect her from a man opening fire with a handgun. The man was firing at two other men who were running to attack a possible friend of the gunman in Yonkers, New York, at 6:30 pm on April 25. UPDATE Police have now identified the victim in this shooting as Marilyn Cotto Montanez of Yonkers. @News12WC #Yonkers #YonkersPD #News12WChttps://t.co/SQ9pY8yO1K Lisa Salvadorini (@LisaSalvadorini) April 26, 2019 Marilyn, 18, and her little 9-year-old sister were walking down the street near Morningside and Lake Avenues to get art supplies for school homework as the violent incident broke out. She took a bullet to the head and was then transported to a local trauma center, but they could not save her, officials said, reported the New York Post. Marilyns older brother Julian Cotto said, She was an angel watching over us. She proved that when she pushed our sister out of the way she gave her life for our little sisters life. In my book, shell always be my hero. Marilyn wanted to go study medicine and was an honor-roll student. She was about to go to college to be a doctor, said a relative, She was that good with her grades. She was honor roll three times in a row. Last night, we experienced a tragic event where a young person lost their life due to gun violence, said police commissioner Charles Gardner in a statement. The Yonkers Police is dedicating every available resource to apprehend the person responsible for this heinous act. He added, First and foremost, our thoughts and prayers are with the family of the victim, reported NBC New York. Theyre killing people for no reason, Montanez sister Celimary Ramos said, Little girl didnt have nothing to do with it and you all took my sisters life for no reason. The suspects escaped from the scene, two people were taken later to police custody and an investigation is ongoing. Gun violence victim. Family members identify Yonkers murder victim as 18 year old Marilyn Cotto Montanez. She was a junior at Lincoln high school in Yonkers and fatally shot in the head near her home last night. @PIX11News @YonkersPD pic.twitter.com/sMZO9oDXff Anthony DiLorenzo (@ADiLorenzoTV) April 26, 2019 Police have identified the victim in Thursdays fatal shooting in #Yonkers as Marilyn Cotto Montanez, 18, of the neighborhood where the shooting occurred. Police ask anyone with information on the shooting to call them at 914-377-7724. https://t.co/BKE2Tt4ASW lohud.com (@lohud) April 26, 2019 I Was Really Afraid of My Fellow Americans After 9/11 : Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) said she was really afraid of my fellow Americans after the Islamist terror attack on the twin towers on 9/11. She revealed her feelings in an interview filmed for Makers, a feminist media brand. Tlaib described how she felt after the terror attacks: I was probably my second year in law school when 9/11 happened. And I wasI was really terrified of what was going to happen to my husband, whos only a green card holder at the time, she said, I immediately called my brothers and told them to be very careful who you hang out with, telling my sisters, you know, just be real careful out there, and being really afraid of my fellow Americans. It really pushed me to be more involved, and I got really curious and really angry. And I think that combination got me, you know, in front of a number of issues in the city of Detroit. Palestinians were dancing in the streets on 9/11 @AP has the video but refuses to release it and @RashidaTlaib is afraid of Americans? https://t.co/f1dxUPzc2a Arthur Schwartz (@ArthurSchwartz) April 27, 2019 Tlaib has been under scrutiny for backing Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) after her some people did something, comments made about 9/11 during a CAIR conference. However, Tlaib stood up for Omar during an appearance on MSNBC, according to The Blaze. [People] do that all the time, especially women of color, they take our words out of context because theyre afraid because we speak truth, we speak truth to power. This is just pure racist act, said Tlaib. My sister, Ilhan Omar, what she was talking about, was uplifting people by supporting their civil liberties and civil rights, she added. She has always, always condemned any strategy, especially of a person directly impacted by a refugee herself. Tlaib said that the backlash made her very angry. The fact that people are taking [Omars] words out of context and endangering the life of Rep. Omar is immoral, its wrong, and it needs to be called out by many colleagues in saying they need to stop, stop targeting her this way, she said. Its absolutely putting her life in danger. Extremist Connections Also, its been noted that she has made anti-Semitic utterances, and has ties to extremists, according to The Daily Wire. Rashida Tlaib: I Was Really Afraid of My Fellow Americans After 9/11 Terror Attacks https://t.co/LqmVR6wGmj The Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) April 27, 2019 Refugees and some of their Canadian supporters mingle outside Olympic Stadium in Montreal, Quebec, Aug. 5, 2017. The stadium has been turned into a shelter for hundreds of refugees who have flooded across the Canada/US border in recent weeks. (GEOFF ROBINS/AFP/Getty Images) Immigrants and Refugees Are Vital to Canadas Success Canada, like the United States, is an immigrant nation, with waves of newcomers predating Confederation (1867) and many millions more arriving in the 20th and 21st centuries. Indigenous peoples probably came first over the land bridge from Asia, followed millennia later by fishermen and fur traders from todays northern Europe. Read More Challenges From Legal and Illegal Immigration After 1845, for example, immigrants came from the Irish potato famine and its aftermath; farmers from todays Britain and Ukraine began arriving in the 1880s. Myriad families from numerous nations devastated by World War Two chose Canada. Hungarians were welcomed after their 1956 uprising against the Soviet Union, with Vietnamese joining us often from boats after the fall of Saigon in 1975. Ugandans expelled by Idi Amin arrived between 1972 and 1974 and many Syrians came in 2015. Two former Governors General and the current Immigration minister came as refugees respectively from Hong Kong, Haiti, and Somalia. Conspicuous and humiliating exceptions to this admirable record occurred in 1914 when 376 passengers arriving from India on the Komagata Maru were not permitted to disembark in Vancouver, and in 1939 when the St. Louis was refused permission in Halifax harbour to unload 900 Jewish refugees from Hitlers Holocaust. Public opinion surveys have long indicated majority support across Canada for continuing high levels of immigrationno doubt based on pride in diversity and a well-substantiated view that newcomers enrich our national life enormously, boost our economy, and replace an aging population with young families. Understandably, they also show that many Canadians of all ages and backgrounds oppose admitting or re-patriating persons brainwashed into committing violence outside Canada by ISIS or other terrorist organizations. With refugees around the world today at an all-time high, exceeding 50 million, it is important for all to respond to the horrors faced by most displaced families in their own or in other lands, especially in the Middle East, or suffering from bombings or starvation in Yemen and elsewhere. Human dignity advocates, such as Amal Clooney and 2018 Nobel Peace Prize co-winner Nadia Murad, a Yazidi enslaved for a period by ISIS, continue to attract attention and interventions by responsible governments and persons. Some Canadians judge that Canada has done its fair share for now in accepting refugees. For many years, successive national governments in Ottawa of differing political stripes have favoured independent immigrant applicants with high educational and work skills judged useful to our evolving economy. Most apply under national or provincial assessment criteria, which require them to obtain 67 of 100 points in six categories: work experience, age, languages, education, arranged employment and adaptability. In recent years, it has become easier to obtain immigrant status for Quebec, which sets its own immigration policies, for most occupational groups than for Canada as a whole. One consequence is that about 22 per cent of Canadas 36.5 million population today were born outside the country. Paradoxically, most Canadians appear now to favour both generous entry for immigrants/refugees and secure borders. This probably reflects the reality that during the past two years an estimated 40,000 persons have walked across the Canada-U.S. border at a point where New York State and Quebec province meet. Many of them allegedly entered the United States on tourist visas for the purpose of making a refugee claim in Canada. This phenomenon violates our decades-old policies, which included making it very difficult to obtain visitor visas if there is any risk an applicant might attempt to stay in Canada as an asylum seeker or illegal immigrant. The situation has become even more complex because the Trudeau government in a recent budget bill has proposed a new tougher line on refugees. The government would enact a measure seeking to ensure that asylum seekers who have already made such a claim in the United States, Britain, Australia or New Zealand would be barred from having access to a full refugee hearing by our Immigration and Refugee Board (I.R.B). Such applicants could access only a pre-removal risk assessment by the Immigration department. In practice, asylum seekers have a better chance of challenging successfully a rejected application with the I.R.B. than they do with the departmental risk assessment. True, they can seek leave to appeal a negative ruling to the Federal Court, but the rejection rate there is in the 80 per cent range. Pollster Darrell Bricker says Canadians seem more concerned than ever before about the process by which immigrants are admitted to Canada. He adds, In Canada the focus doesnt seem to be on the immigrants themselves, more about the process of how someone gets into the country, The reality is that Canadas immigration and refugee policies probably lead the world today. David Kilgour, a lawyer by profession, served in the House of Commons for almost 27 years. He is the author of several books and co-author with David Matas of Bloody Harvest: The Killing of Falun Gong for Their Organs. Kilgours experience as Crown counsel before going to Parliament was with the City of Vancouver (1967-1968); Dept. of Justice, Ottawa (1968-1969); Government of Manitoba (1971-1972); Government of Alberta (1972-1979). Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Former Vice President Joe Biden speaks at a rally organized by UFCW Union members at the Stop and Shop in Dorchester, Massachusetts on April 18, 2019. (Joseph Prezioso/AFP/Getty Images) Joe Biden Raises $6.3 Million in First 24 Hours of Campaign Former vice president Joe Biden raised $6.3 million in the first 24 hours of his 2020 presidential campaign, providing a stronger showing than any of his current rivals. Biden, 76, brought in the bulk of that haul through smaller contributions, his campaign spokesman TJ Ducklo wrote on Twitter, with 97 percent of those donations under $200. He bested other candidates, including self-described socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who raised $5.9 million, and Beto ORourke, who brought in $6.1 million. Before entering the race on April 25, Biden faced speculation that he was going to be unable to raise small-dollar donations via the internet. To qualify for the first debate in June, candidates need to receive donations from 65,000 different donors. Biden reached that mark in the first 12 hours of his campaign, Ducklo said. Biden has joined most of the rest of the Democratic field in swearing off donations from Washington lobbyists and PACs associated with corporations. But he did hold a fundraiser on the first day of his campaign at the Philadelphia home of David Cohen, a Comcast executive. His campaign has been marred by recent allegations from women who said that Biden made them feel uncomfortable when he allegedly touched them inappropriately at political events in the past. At least four women have since come out with accusations. Political observers in recent weeks had wondered if Biden delayed his decision to run due to the allegations. On April 3 Biden responded with a two-minute video to the allegations he inappropriately touched a number of women. While he never explicitly apologized for his actions, Biden did address the growing criticisms of his past behavior in a video, saying he would pay more attention to not invading peoples personal space. He also defended his behavior, describing it as just who I am while adding that times have changed. Biden now faces a crowded field of at least 19 others seeking the Democratic presidential nomination to face off against President Donald Trump next year. In his two previous presidential runs, Biden failed to develop a strong base of political support, dropping out of the race both times. If he were to be elected this time, he would be 78 years old when taking office, which would make him the oldest president-elect in U.S. history. For weeks Biden has been the clear front-runner in all major polls tracking actual and possible 2020 Democratic presidential contenders including Morning Consult, Monmouth, Harvard-Harris, and Emerson. According to a RealClearPolitics average, Biden leads at around 30 percent, as self-described socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) trails behind at roughly around 22.5 percent. The president, on April 25 retweeted a Twitter post from GOP chairwoman Ronna McDaniel that criticized Bidens economic track record and compared him with Trumps. If Joe Biden wants to keep score: In 8 years, Biden & Obama had a net loss of 193,000 manufacturing jobs, McDaniel wrote. In just over 2 years, @ realDonaldTrump has created 453,000 manufacturing jobs. Dont let Biden take us backwards! If Joe Biden wants to keep score: In 8 years, Biden & Obama had a net loss of 193,000 manufacturing jobs. In just over 2 years, @realDonaldTrump has created 453,000 manufacturing jobs. Dont let Biden take us backwards! Ronna McDaniel (@GOPChairwoman) April 25, 2019 Trump said recently he believes Biden and Sanders will be the final candidates vying for the partys nomination in 2020. I believe it will be Crazy Bernie Sanders vs. Sleepy Joe Biden as the two finalists to run against maybe the best Economy in the history of our Country (and MANY other great things)! Trump wrote on Twitter on the evening of April 16. Reuters contributed to this report. Man Accused of Killing Infant After Learning He Wasnt His Dad; Was Deported Five Times A man accused of killing a 4-month-old boy after finding out the child wasnt his son reportedly had been deported five times from the United States. It was reported that Carlos Zuniga-Aviles, of Honduras, has used several fake names, including the alias Jose Agurcia-Avila. He used that name when he spoke to police in Memphis, Tennessee, following his arrest in the childs death. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials confirmed to WMC5 that he has been deported at least five times. Man accused of killing infant over paternity had been deported 5 times: ICE https://t.co/VjcYgRQmpw pic.twitter.com/STHdR89qwS New York Post (@nypost) April 26, 2019 Zuniga-Aviles, 33, faces charges of first-degree murder in perpetration of aggravated child abuse. According to WMC5, ICE officials filed an immigration detainer on him, adding that he was in the U.S. illegally. The agency said in a statement that it has lodged an immigration detainer on unlawfully present Honduran national Carlos Zuniga-Aviles AKA Jose Avila-Agurcia following his arrest for murder in Shelby County, Tennessee. Hes accused of killing a four-month-old boy upon learning he was not the childs father. Posted by WMC Action News 5 on Thursday, April 25, 2019 ICE will seek to take him into custody to reinstate his removal order following the resolution of the criminal charges he currently faces, the agency continued, according to the news outlet. Mr. Zuniga-Aviles has been removed from the U.S. five prior times; his most recent removal by ICE to Honduras took place in December 2016. Mr. Zuniga-Aviles subsequently illegally re-entered the U.S. after removal, which is a felony act under federal law. He was deported back to his native Honduras in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2015, and most recently, in December 2016. In the 2016 deportation, Zuniga-Aviles was removed by ICE in Salt Lake City, Utah. Zuniga-Aviles later returned to the U.S. after he was removed, which is a felony under federal law, WREG reported. Its not clear when he returned. He was living with his girlfriend and her infant son when he was arrested in Memphis, said officials. Alexander Lizondro-Chacon, the baby, was pronounced dead at a hospital due to blunt force trauma, reported the Memphis Commercial Appeal, which said his mother, Mercy Lizondro-Chacon, called the police on April 12 to report that the boy was having difficulty breathing. The boy had pneumonia, a fractured skull, and a broken rib, the Appeal reported. Lizondro-Chacon later told detectives that Zuniga-Aviles admitted hitting the baby several times in the head after learning he wasnt the father. A medical examiner said the boys death was a homicide. Zuniga-Aviles is expected to go back to court next week. Facts About Crime in the United States Violent crime in the United States has fallen sharply over the past 25 years, according to both the FBIs Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). The rate of violent crimes fell by 49 percent between 1993 and 2017, according to the FBIs UCR, which only reflects crimes reported to the police. The violent crime rate dropped by 74 percent between 1993 and 2017, according to the BJSs NCVS, which takes into account both crimes that have been reported to the police and those that have not. From 1993 to 2017, the rate of violent victimization declined 74 percent, from 79.8 to 20.6 victimizations per 1,000 persons age 12 or older, the U.S. Department of Justice stated. Both studies are based on data up to and including 2017, the most recent year for which complete figures are available. The FBI recently released preliminary data for 2018. According to the Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report, January to June 2018, violent crime rates in the United States dropped by 4.3 percent compared to the same six-month period in 2017. The sign over the west entrance of the New York Times building at 620 Eighth Ave in New York on April 28, 2016. (Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images) New York Times Under Fire for Printing Anti-Semitic Cartoon Depicting Trump, Netanyahu The New York Times opinion section is facing backlash after running a political cartoon depicting President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the newspaper admitted contained anti-semitic tropes and was offensive. The cartoon, which was printed in the opinion section of its international edition of the paper on April 25, shows Trump wearing sunglasses and a kippah being led by a dog with a Star of David for a collar and Netanyahus face. The image appeared next to a column penned by Thomas Friedman, according to screengrabs of the page. In the NYTimes international: Bibi Netanyahu characterized as a dog leading a blind, Jewish Trump. When did the @nytimes hire David Duke as an editor? pic.twitter.com/7bGf1jLrri Harry Khachatrian (@Harry1T6) April 27, 2019 Many social media users and commentators have condemned the political cartoon. Moreover, the Jerusalem Post reported that Ambassador Dani Dayan, Consul General of Israel in New York even reached out to the Times to express his outrage for running the cartoon and calling it unacceptable. The op-ed editor for the Jerusalem Post Seth Frantzman wrote a series of posts to criticize the Times. Its not enough to just remove the cartoon and be like whoops, there need to be answers and also a deep reflection on why and how this happened. The public should be involved. This is not an Israel issue; its much larger, Frantzman wrote. Its not enough to just remove the cartoon and be like whoops, there need to be answers and also a deep reflection on why and how this happened. The public should be involved. This is not an Israel issue; its much larger. Seth Frantzman (@sfrantzman) April 27, 2019 He pointed out that the cartoon was antisemitic because the cartoon 1. [Put] a yarmulke on the US President in negative way 2. [Put] the face of the PM of the Jewish state on a dog 3. [Used] a Star of David on the collar 4. [Implied] the US is blindly led by Jews and/or Israel. The NYT #antisemitic cartoon numerous clear antisemitic elements: 1. Putting a yarmulke on the US President in negative way 2. Putting the face of the PM of the Jewish state on a dog 3. Using a Star of David on the collar 4. Implying the US is blindly led by Jews and/or Israel pic.twitter.com/kLjlLYddrB Seth Frantzman (@sfrantzman) April 27, 2019 Joyce Karam, The Nationals Washington Bureau Chief, called the cartoon disgusting and sloppy and alarming. The cartoon is disgusting and sloppy, more so for being printed in NYTimes. Good that they issued a statement, retracted it but this is alarming. Many publications peddle anti-semitism, racism, Islamophobia in Middle East but they are not the New York Times. Unfortunate, Karam wrote. Erielle Davidson, a senior contributor to The Federalist, also made a series of posts to condemn the cartoon. Pause to consider that the same reason the anti-Semitic cartoon in the international New York Times made it past several editors is the same reason the Left loves Ilhan Omar. They dont care about anti-Semitism. They condone it, she wrote. Pause to consider that the same reason the anti-Semitic cartoon in the international New York Times made it past several editors is the same reason the Left loves Ilhan Omar. They dont care about anti-Semitism. They condone it. Erielle Davidson (@politicalelle) April 27, 2019 The New York Times Opinion tweeted an editors note calling the cartoons publication an error of judgment on April 27. It added that the statement will appear in the papers international edition on April 29. The statement read, A political cartoon in the international print edition of The New York Times on Thursday included anti-Semitic tropes, depicting the prime minister of Israel as a guide dog with a Star of David collar leading the president of the United States, shown wearing a skullcap. The image was offensive, and it was an error of judgment to publish it. It was provided by The New York Times News Service and Syndicate, which has since deleted it. An Editors Note to appear in Mondays international edition. pic.twitter.com/1rl2vXoTB3 New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) April 27, 2019 Previous Criticisms President Trump has repeatedly criticized the Times for what he says was inaccurate and biased reporting, in particular, related to the special counsel Robert Muellers Russia collusion investigation. At the end of last month, the president said the staff of The New York Times should have their 2018 Pulitzer Prizes rescinded in light of the result of the Mueller probe, which cleared the president of the allegation that his campaign colluded with Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. So funny that The New York Times & The Washington Post got a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage (100% NEGATIVE and FAKE!) of Collusion with Russia And there was No Collusion! So, they were either duped or corrupt? In any event, their prizes should be taken away by the Committee! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 29, 2019 So funny that The New York Times & The Washington Post got a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage (100% NEGATIVE and FAKE!) of Collusion with Russia And there was No Collusion! Trump said in a March 29 tweet. So, they were either duped or corrupt? In any event, their prizes should be taken away by the Committee! Then earlier this month, he criticized the Times for only printing the story about the indictment of former Obama White House counsel Greg Craig on page 16. President Obamas top White House lawyer, Gregory B. Craig, was indicted yesterday on very serious charges, Trump said in an April 12 tweet. This is a really big story, but the Fake News New York Times didnt even put it on page one, rather page 16. President Obamas top White House lawyer, Gregory B. Craig, was indicted yesterday on very serious charges. This is a really big story, but the Fake News New York Times didnt even put it on page one, rather page 16. @washingtonpost not much better, tiny page one. Corrupt News! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 12, 2019 Corrupt News! Trump added. The Epoch Times reporter Petr Svab contributed to this report. NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre, Legislative Director Chris Cox and President Oliver North displayed during the National Rifle Association (NRA) annual meeting at the Indiana Convention center in Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S., on April 27, 2019. (Bryan Woolston/Reuter) Oliver North out as NRA President After Leadership Dispute INDIANAPOLISRetired Lt. Col. Oliver North announced Saturday that he wont serve a second term as president of the National Rifle Association after he lost the support of the gun-rights groups leadership. Norths announcement came after his failed attempt to force out NRA chief executive Wayne LaPierre, who has been the public face of the group for decades. In a statement read to NRA members at the groups annual convention, North made it clear he was pushed out by the NRAs board of directors. Please know I hoped to be with you today as NRA president endorsed for reelection. Im now informed that will not happen, North said in his statement, which was read by Richard Childress, the NRAs first vice president. North, who is nearing the end of his first one-year term, did not show up for the meeting, and his spot on the stage was left empty, with his nameplate still in its place. The announcement came after LaPierre sent a letter to board members Thursday saying that North was trying to push him out by threatening to release damaging information about him to the board. Taking the stage later Saturday, LaPierre got two standing ovations from the crowd of more than 1,000 NRA members before giving a scheduled speech in which he did not mention his feud with North, the Marine at the center of the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s. Their dispute erupted after the NRA filed a lawsuit against Ackerman McQueen, the Oklahoma-based public relations firm that has earned tens of millions of dollars in the decades since it began shaping the gun lobbys fierce talking points. The NRAs lawsuit accuses Ackerman McQueen of refusing to hand over financial records to account for its billings. In 2017 alone, the NRA paid the firm $40 million. North has a $1 million contract with Ackerman McQueen, raising alarm bells with the NRA about conflicts of interest. He was at odds with LaPierre and some board members who believe the groups media operation and messaging have strayed too far from the NRAs original mission of gun safety and the outdoors. Of particular concern to some board members and rank-and-file is the fiery tone of NRATV, the media arm of the NRA created and operated by Ackerman McQueen. The NRA has faced some financial struggles in recent years, prompting some to question whether the millions spent on public relations and NRATV is worth the money. In his statement, North said a committee should be set up to review the NRAs finances. There is a clear crisis and it needs to be dealt with if the NRA is to survive, the statement said. In his speech later Saturday, LaPierre discussed standard NRA talking points, going after the mainstream media and lawmakers who seek to restrict gun rights. Our enemies have sunk to new lows, LaPierre said, blasting Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York, where regulators have scrutinized NRA operations. The NRA has sued the state, claiming its rights under the U.S. Constitutions First Amendment are being violated. In an unusual pairing, the American Civil Liberties Union has joined the NRA in its fight. NRA officials are concerned that regulators in New Yorkwhere its charter was filedare attempting to strip the group of its nonprofit status. LaPierre told the crowd that efforts to strip away the Second Amendment right to bear arms will fail. We wont accept it. We will resist it. We wont give an inch, he said. North, 75, was a military aide to the National Security Council during the Reagan administration in the 1980s when he entered the spotlight for his role in arranging the secret sale of weapons to Iran and the diversion of the proceeds to the anti-communist Contra rebels in Nicaragua. He was convicted in 1989 of obstructing Congress during its investigation, destroying government documents and accepting an illegal gratuity. Those convictions were overturned in 1991. Embraced by many on the right, he went on to run for office, write several books and serve as a commentator on Fox News. By Lisa Marie Pane John Robert Broomfield enjoyed Shen Yun at the Eventim Apollo in London on April 27, 2019. (NTD Television) LONDONFor John Robert Broomfield, Shen Yuns many different vignettes were surprising, as were the dancers immaculate costumes. But what really surprised the retired president of a management consultancy firm was the performances underlying message. In his words, there was a longing for the overthrow of communism. Speaking after the matinee performance at Londons Eventim Apollo on April 27, Broomfield said this message was very clear and that he totally agreed with that sentiment. Because communism is inherently evil, Broomfield said. It deprives the individual of their freedom and dictates how they act and think. I was in Tiananmen Square and I could see the members of the Communist Party keeping an eye on things. It was scary and theres no need for it. I think people dont need that sort of regime, he said. Shen Yun, through its stories and songs, retells the values and ideas lying at the heart of traditional Chinese culture, which ultimately revolve around a belief in the divine. Indeed, China was at one stage called Shen Zhou, meaning divine land. For thousands of years, Chinese people have observed values and principles stemming from this belief, including benevolence, truthfulness, righteousness, and propriety. These traditions continued uninterrupted in China from generation to generation up until it was almost decimated during the Cultural Revolutiona campaign launched by the Chinese Communist Party in the late 1960s to destroy traditional Chinese ideas and beliefs to cement its authoritarian atheistic rule. Universal Message Broomfield said the Shen Yun performers had an undying faith in a better way. As a Christian, he could see commonality in what was presented on stage with his own faith. You know theres a supreme being and theres a force greater than you that you are living your life for. And that force is not the Communist Party, he said. He said the performance as a whole was enough to melt the heart of Party members. Shen Yun depicts the devastation wrought by communist rule through its stories about the persecution of practitioners of the spiritual discipline Falun Dafa in China. However, Shen Yuns stories of persecution ultimately end in a message of hopethat of goodness overcoming evil and suffering. Broomfield said this message appeals to anyone who has spirituality in their hearts, regardless of their religion. Its a universal message. He added: Its the only way really and ultimately were put on this earth to help each other, to serve each other. Its the responsibility of the government to serve the people and not to serve the Party. With reporting by NTD Television and John Smithies. 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. Two people hug as another talks to a San Diego County Sheriff's deputy outside of the Chabad of Poway Synagogue in Poway, Calif., on April 27, 2019. (Denis Poroy/AP Photo) Shooting Reported at San Diego Synagogue, 1 Dead 3 Injured, 19-Year-Old Man Arrested One person has died and three others were injured after a shooting incident took place at a Southern California synagogue, according to police. A 19-year-old man has also been arrested in connection with the shooting. During a news conference on April 27, San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore said one woman died from her injuries, while two men and a female juvenile were injured in the incident, reported Fox News. Update #5 @SDSheriff Bill Gore confirms one person was killed and three others were injured in the #synagogueshooting at Chabad of Poway. Our hearts go out to those affected by this incident. 19-year-old man was arrested in connection with the shooting by @SanDiegoPD. San Diego Sheriff (@SDSheriff) April 27, 2019 Earlier, police said in a statement that they were called to Chabad of Poway synagogue just before 11:30 a.m. in response to a shooting incident. A man has been detained for questioning in connection with a shooting incident at the Chabad of Poway synagogue. SDSOPoway Deputies were called to Chabad Way just before 11:30 a.m. There are injuries. This is a developing situation, the police department wrote in a post. Update #1: A man has been detained for questioning in connection with a shooting incident at the Chabad of Poway synagogue. @SDSOPoway Deputies were called to Chabad Way just before 11:30 a.m. There are injuries. This is a developing situation. Poway Station (@SDSOPoway) April 27, 2019 The police department did not identify the man as the suspect or provide any further details about the incident. A Palomar Medical Center Poway spokesperson told CNN earlier that they were receiving one trauma patient from a shooting at a synagogue. The spokesperson added that they were expecting as many as four patients, reported the news broadcaster. The nature of their injuries is not immediately known. San Diego police sheriff Bill Gore also confirmed on Twitter that the wounded have been taken to the medical center. Those wounded in the Chabad of Poway synagogueshooting were taken to Palomar Medical Center PalomarHealth. Please respect the medical privacy of victims & their families during this difficult time, he wrote. Update#2 Those wounded in the Chabad of Poway #synagogueshooting were taken to Palomar Medical Center @PalomarHealth. Please respect the medical privacy of victims & their families during this difficult time. Remain clear of the area as this investigation will take several hours San Diego Sheriff (@SDSheriff) April 27, 2019 He also urged people to stay clear from the area as authorities investigate the incident. According to the Chabad of Poway Facebook page, the synagogue had planned an event to celebrate the Passover holiday at 11 a.m. The police department said they have established a Family Assistance Center at Poway High School to assist relatives looking for loved ones. Update #4 The Family Assistance Center will be at Poway High School @PowayHighTitans 15500 Espola Road. Relatives looking for loved ones from the synagogue can proceed here for information. San Diego Sheriff (@SDSheriff) April 27, 2019 Renowned comedian Jeffrey Gurian saw Shen Yun Performing Arts at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, New Jersey, on April 26, 2019. (Yawen Hong/The Epoch Times) NEWARKDentist and comedian Dr. Jeffrey Gurian had wanted to see Shen Yun Performing Arts for years. When he finally had the opportunity to see it, he was blown away by the grand splendor on stage. The best show Ive ever seen. Ive been waiting for years to see this show. And its beyond my expectations, its just simply fantastic, Gurian said. He saw Shen Yun Performing Arts at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark on April 26. The performance is nearing the end of its 2019 tour where it performed hundreds of sold-out shows across the globe. Gurian is well known for being a comedy writer who has authored for stars like Jerry Lewis, Rodney Dangerfield, Joan Rivers, and Robin Williams. He has also authored several books and an award-winning short comedy film, I am Woody. Prior to his comedy career, Gurian was a practicing dentist in the field of cosmetic dentistry with his own dental practice in New York City. He said he was amazed by many elements of the performance, especially the performers artistic level and synchronicity. What Im amazed is that the beauty of the costumes, and the synchronicity of the dancers, how everything is so exact, its almost impossible to get to that level of accuracy but yet theyve done it, the comedian said. The music is beautifulits as beautiful as the costumes. I love everything about it, its so beautiful, he added. Gurian said when the curtain rose for the first piece, he was struck by the colors. There was one combination of color, the orange scarves and the teal blue outfits were spectacular, he said. Just amazing, the whole thing is amazing to me. New York-based Shen Yuns mission is to bring back the genuine Chinese culture that was nearly lost after seven decades of communist rule. Over the past several decades, China has experienced many movements aimed at dismantling 5,000 years of civilization and traditional culture. From cultural sites and temples to ancient relics and peoples beliefs, much of Chinas history and spirit were destroyed after the Chinese regime seized power in 1949. Seeing that genuine Chinese culture was at the brink of being wiped out, a group of overseas artists was determined to bring back everything that truly defined the Chinese people. Their performance, Shen Yun, is like a window into a cultural treasure that is nearly lost. Gurian said he appreciates the performers efforts to bring back the culture and that more people should experience it. I think its a fascinating thing and I think the Chinese culture is ancient and more people need to see this, it needs to go all over the world to bring everybody together, he said. With reporting by Yawen. 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. US Air Strike Kills Three ISIS Fighters in Somali Region BOSASOA U.S. air strike killed three ISIS terrorists in Somalias semi-autonomous Puntland region on Friday, April 26, a U.S. military official said, two weeks after the groups deputy leader was killed in a strike. A witness said missiles struck two wells on the outskirts of Timirshe village, some 60 kilometers (37 miles) southeast of Puntlands commercial capital Bosaso. The U.S. military has sharply stepped up its campaign of air strikes in Somalia since President Donald Trump took office, saying it has killed more than 800 terrorists in two years. This air strike eliminated ISIS-Somalia members staged in a remote location in northern Somalia, Maj. Gen. Gregg Olson, U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) director of operations, said in an emailed statement on Saturday. AFRICOM also claimed responsibility for the killing of ISIS deputy Abdulhakim Dhuqub on April 14. Somalia has been riven by civil war and extremist terrorism since 1991 when clan warlords overthrew a dictator before turning on each other. We heard the crash of four missiles on the outskirts of Timirshe village, resident Ahmed Nur told Reuters by telephone. He said the wells were used by both ISIS and their more powerful rivals al Shabaab, an al Qaeda affiliate who has been fighting Somalias U.N.-backed government for years. Somali Forces & U.S. Africa Command Conduct Airstrike Targeting ISIS-Somalia https://t.co/hQ1THDfm2Z pic.twitter.com/o9WLfMfJDo US AFRICOM (@USAfricaCommand) April 27, 2019 Al Shabaab was pushed out of the capital Mogadishu in 2011, but retains a strong presence in parts of southern and central Somalia. It has frequently clashed with the much smaller ISIS force in the north who are thought to number fewer than 200 terrorists. A Puntland intelligence official said the airstrike targeted both groups. There are casualties and we are investigating. In recent battles al Shabaab captured three bases from ISIS, he told Reuters by telephone, requesting anonymity. By Abdiqanai Hassan Whitey Bulger Died of Head Injuries, Death Certificate Says BOSTONA death certificate confirms that notorious Boston crime boss James Whitey Bulger died of blunt force injuries to the head in prison last year. The document obtained by NBC Boston says the 89-year-old Bulger was assaulted by other(s) and was found in his cell at 8:21 a.m. Oct. 30. Bulger was serving a life sentence for 11 murders and other crimes when he was beaten to death in his prison cell, hours after he was transferred to a West Virginia prison. No charges have been filed in Bulgers death, but officials have said two Massachusetts mobsters are under suspicion in his killing. Bulger ran a largely Irish mob in Boston in the 1970s and 80s and ratted on members of the New England Mob to the FBI. He spent 16 years as one of Americas most wanted fugitives until he was found in 2011, living with his girlfriend in a rent-controlled apartment in Santa Monica, California. Bulger was sentenced to life in prison in 2013 for 11 murders and numerous other crimes. Hed been assigned to prisons in Arizona and Florida specializing in sick inmates before he arrived at Hazelton prison in Bruceton Mills in October 2018. He was found bloodied and wrapped in a blanket on Oct. 30, 2018 after apparently being beaten with a lock stuffed in a sock. Bulger Hoped for Peaceful Death Months before he was bludgeoned to death by other inmates, Bulger expressed hope for a peaceful death, newly disclosed letters show. The 89-year-old described his declining health and his hopes for his demise in several letters to a friend, The Boston Globe reports. I prefer to stay here and hope to get a peaceful death, Bulger wrote last summer, according to the newspaper. One of those he Died in his Sleep kind. Florida resident Charlie Hopkins said he shared the letters with the Globe to show his friend wasnt healthy enough to be transferred from a Florida prison to a West Virginia one that offered fewer medical services. The two had connected because theyd served time in Alcatraz penitentiary in San Francisco in the 1950s, though not at the same time. Hopkins told the Globe he wanted to get justice for Whitey because he believes prison officials knew hed be killed if placed among the general inmate population. The prison houses other Massachusetts gangsters and two other inmates had been killed in the months prior to Bulgers arrival. They knew what would happen if they put him in a place like that, and I think that was the sole purpose of transferring him, Hopkins told the paper. An assistant band director has been arrested for allegedly pawning over $10,000 in musical instruments that belonged to a Texas middle school, according to the Laredo Independent School District. Antonio Roberto Alvarez, 43, turned himself in Tuesday morning to LISD police. He was served with an arrest warrant that charged him with theft of property. Alvarez was later released on bond, according to Webb County Jail records. He resigned in January, which is when the investigation began. On Jan. 10, the school district's fine arts director learned from there was a trumpet at a local pawn shop that belonged to LISD, authorities said. LISD officials said they confirmed the trumpet belonged to Christen Middle School. An LISD police officer went to Buffalo Pawn and obtained the pawn ticket. Police said the ticket showed that a person by the name of Antonio R. Alvarez had pawned the trumpet on Aug. 15, 2018, for $120, the arrest affidavit said. An officer later asked the assistant band director at Christen Middle if he knew who the trumpet was assigned to. The band director looked flustered and nervous and was unable to provide the information, the affidavit said. The officer said he told him not to worry because he had the suspects name on the pawn ticket. The band director asked the officer if he knew the name of the person who pawned the trumpet. I told him Sure, and I opened my file and said the name of Antonio Roberto Alvarez. At this point, I did not know that the band directors name was Antonio Alvarez, the officer wrote in the affidavit. Police said Alvarez told the officer, Thats me. I am the one who pawned the trumpet. When the officer asked why he had pawned the trumpet, he stated that he was waiting for his income tax to buy the trumpet back and that people make mistakes, the affidavit said. According to police, officers then learned that Alvarez had gone to the LISD human resources department and informed them he had also pawned a snare drum and another trumpet at a different pawn shop. Alvarez allegedly pawned the trumpet for $300 and the snare drum for $165. With the assistance of Laredo police, authorities discovered that Alvarez had pawned three Stradivarius Back Trumpets, one Pearl Philharmonic snare drum with a Ludwig stand, one Yamaha yellow Saxophone and one Harmony Instrumental Keyboard at five local pawn shops, according to the affidavit. Authorities said the musical instruments had an estimated value of $10,459. Craigslist "for sale" ads are full of surprises, and in one recent case, the nature of a listing's contents came as a surprise even to the seller himself. A California man was startled to learn a piece of military material from the Vietnam War he had put up for sale on the website was not inert, as he had thought, but was in fact still a live explosive, according to the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office. NORWALK Two Antiguan police constables and third person were caught trying to steal items from a local Costco. Monya Roberts, Robert Dyer and Janice Gittens were taken into custody on April 13 after store employees allegedly caught them in the act of stealing from the store. A Wisconsin church is using and distributing marijuana as a sacrament, and some city officials are trying to stop it. To most people, it's weed, but church co-founder Jesse Schworck considers it a religious sacrament and part of the worship at a Rastafarian church in an old storefront near the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. Its members use and distribute marijuana freely. That's really the only requirement for membership. "We all have to agree that we all break bread and use this one sacrament: cannabis," Schworck said. The church doesn't try to hide the marijuana use there. It is very open about it, even smoking right in the window for anyone on the street to see. Anyone can sign a card to become a church member and walk out with marijuana. "I stand with Rastafarian religion all the way," church member Jerry Sersch said. Schworck accepts donations but doesn't require payment. "This is no different than a shop distributing marijuana." WISN 12 News reporter Kent Wainscott said to Schworck. "Sounds like someone that would be selling cannabis or giving it to the public -- two things we don't do," Schworck said. Wainscott was unable to reach the city attorney for comment, but city officials have reportedly ordered the church's landlord to put a stop to the marijuana use. But Schworck argues this is a fight for religious freedom. "It's not even an argument. It's just reality," he said. Schworck said he will ask a federal court for an injunction to stop what he describes as harassment from the city of Madison. The winners have been crowned. Some of the areas most impressive oaks, elms and pines have been recognized as the best around after being entered into the Hall County Champion Tree Program. Ten of the tallest and biggest trees in the first-ever contest were announced Friday during an Arbor Day celebration at Sucks Lake. The Grand Island Tree Board hosted the event. The group started the champion tree program in 2018 to promote awareness for Nebraskas forest and resources. We want to advocate for trees. We like to see these big trees and we think they do a lot of good, said Barry Burrows, citys parks superintendent. The winning trees were determined by species and official measurements by a tree board member. A scoring system was used that combines the trees height, crown spread and circumference. Trees that accumulated the most points was determined the winner for that species. A total of 20 nomination forms were submitted. The program will be held annually. Winners will remain champions until a new one is declared. On Friday afternoon, Hall County Supervisor Gary Quandt made the first donation to the newspaper digitization project by presenting Setlik with a check for $150 at Pioneer Park, the site of the first Hall County Courthouse. Setlik said Quandt agreed to donate the funds on the condition that she tell him a story about the first Hall County building. Setlik said she went to The Independent and found several articles about the first county office building: the Hall County Courthouse. She said in 1872, a $20,000 bond issue was passed to build the first official courthouse. All the county buildings were spread all over the place and were in desperate need of repair, including our leaky jail, Setlik said. Prisoners were escaping all the time from the jail and it was not very secure. One gentleman escaped twice from the jail. The second time, he imprisoned the jailer in the jail as he made his escape. The county was wanting to build a courthouse to house all the county buildings, including the jail. Setlik said once she found the story, she told it to Quandt and informed him he could write his check to the historical society, which he did Friday. A woman from Bartlett, Ill., died from injuries she suffered in a single-vehicle crash on Interstate 80 Friday morning near Grand Island. Allyssa Wiebel was ejected from a Honda sedan that drove into the northbound ditch near exit 318 at about 7:05 a.m. Wiebel was a backseat passenger in the westbound vehicle. The vehicle was driven by Tony Trujillo, 20, of Cicero, Ill. After the car headed into the ditch, the driver then overcorrected, drove over the on ramp and the vehicle rolled twice, according to the Nebraska State Patrol. When a trooper arrived on the scene moments later, a witness was performing CPR on Wiebel. The trooper assisted with CPR efforts until paramedics arrived on scene, at which time Wiebel was transported to CHI St. Francis Hospital. She was pronounced dead upon arrival. Trujillo and a front seat passenger, an 18-year-old male from Illinois, were both transported to the hospital for minor injuries. The crash investigation is ongoing. None of the occupants was wearing a seat belt at the time of the crash. GLEN CARBON Even though most of them were absent from Tuesdays meeting, Fairfield Subdivision residents opinions were heard as Glen Carbon will likely change its construction phases for the remainder of the Old Troy Road project. About 100 people attended a public information meeting April 15 and shortly after it began, they peppered Village Administrator Jamie Bowden with questions about reversing the construction phases and raised concerns about longer drive times and getting their children to schools on time. Bowden met with the contractor, Juneau and Associates Inc., last week and Tuesday, he and Juneaus Brian Kulick unveiled two new plans for the rest of the project. In the new Option 1, or the Tee, there would be two stages, one for revamping Bouse Road between just east of Chamberlain Drive in Liberty Place to 736 feet west of Fairfield plus Old Troy Road between Glen Crossing and Bouse, which forms an inverted T on a map. In the second stage, the rest of Old Troy south of Bouse to 250 feet north of Route 162 would be reconstructed. The Tee plan, with the option of concrete shoulders, carries an anticipated cost of $138,099, about $4,600 more than if it used asphalt shoulders. Asphalt is a season-contingent item, as the village learned last year on the north part of the project. In the new Option 2, or the Split, the work would be divided into three phases. First, Bouse Road would be rebuilt, just like in Option 1, including the intersection with Old Troy. Second, Old Troy Road between Glen Crossing and Bouse would be redone and third, the rest of Old Troy south of Bouse, would be rebuilt down to just shy of Route 162. The Split option has an anticipated price tag of $225,913. Bowden reminded everyone again that this project is highly weather-dependent. He pointed out the weather forecast for the week of April 29 currently calls for a chance of rain almost every day, which, if accurate, would delay moving utilities along Bouse in preparation for the project. Mayor Robert Jackstadt asked Bowden and Kulick which of the two plans is the preferred one and Kulick replied Option 1 with concrete shoulders. This one takes into account a lot of the different comments we received from the farming community and from Fairfield residents, Kulick said. This gives them the access they were looking for. Keeping the weather in mind, Bowden said the first stage of the new Option 1 should be done by early fall while the second stage should be completed by Jan. 1, 2020, if approved. A bypass will be constructed south of Bouse Road to facilitate access to Fairfield during construction and Juneau made changes to that aspect based on resident feedback, too. Originally, the plan was to build a single, 12-foot wide lane with three passing areas or bump-outs. Residents were not fans of this idea, so the contractor came back with a new bypass plan two, eight-foot-wide lanes with three bump-outs and a geogrid underbase. The geogrid is a honeycomb-like, plastic support layer that slots between the soil and the aggregate (crushed rock or gravel) on top, so the bypass would better withstand passage of fire engines, ambulances, school buses and delivery trucks. Bowden noted that even with the dual lanes, cars will still need to use a bump-out to yield to larger, wider vehicles. Bowden said Bouse Road west of Old Troy will remain open until the bypass is built and weather permitting, Bouse Road construction is scheduled to begin in about two weeks. An idea was discussed April 15 for a bypass running north-south along the eastern edge of Fairfield between Bouse and Glen Crossing but Bowden said the property owner was not amenable to that request. Trustee Ben Maliszewski asked why Juneau could not do Bouse west of Old Troy and Old Troy north of Bouse first, then Bouse east of Old Troy and Old Troy south of Bouse last. Bowden replied that would cost more than $225,000. Maliszewski said Fairfields single access point should be a lesson learned for the village board regarding approval of any future subdivision plans. We may not have had these issues if Fairfield had a second access point, he said. The mayor and village will vote on a plan during its next meeting, May 14 at 7 p.m. in the village hall, located at 151 N. Main St. In other village action, the council unanimously approved: Buying a 2019 Chevrolet Tahoe Police Interceptor for $41,590 to replace one of the villages two canine units. The new SUV will replace a 2011 Tahoe that has almost 114,000 miles on it and has cost the village more than $11,000 in non-routine repairs in the past three years Approved an ordinance for a leveraged local fund match for a Madison County grant application. The village will apply for $100,000 in community development block grants for public improvements to the Cottonwood Five area Approved a salary schedule of non-bargaining unit base salaries that are effective May 1 Reach reporter Charles Bolinger at (618) 656-4700, ext. 31 In May 2016, Id been feeling sick for a few days. My doctor diagnosed strep and sent me home with antibiotics. But this wasnt like any strep Id ever had before. My sore throat and fever kept getting worse, and I developed a rash on one of my arms. Then, one morning, I collapsed onto the floor of my apartment. The emergency room doctors took blood and ruled out strep. Maybe it was scarlet fever? Then someone thought to ask: Were you vaccinated against measles? In my haze, I realized that I wasnt sure. I texted my mother the question. She responded with a thumbs-down emoji. When, concerned, she asked why I wanted to know, I informed her that I was in the hospital. Measles was like the worst flu Id ever had, combined with the worst hangover Id ever had. It flattened me. Mentally, I was disoriented. Id gone to a teaching hospital, Northwestern Memorial in Chicago, so medical students would come to my bedside and ask if they could take photos of my rash, which at this point had spread in pronounced, red blotches. None of them had ever seen this disease in person before. The United States had declared measles eliminated in 2000. Recommended Video Once my temperature fell and blood oxygen levels rose, the hospital released me with strict instructions to stay home. But before Id become ill, Id gone to a tech conference in Las Vegas, with tens of thousands of attendees. I had no idea how many people Id met, shaken hands with or brushed up against. Measles is so contagious that if one infected person is in a room, 90 percent of the unvaccinated people around him will also become infected. The live virus can linger in the air for two hours after a cough or sneeze. Officials from the Illinois Department of Health got in touch. They established that Id caught the measles at a graduation ceremony Id attended before the conference, at Northern Illinois University, where someone visiting from another country had brought the disease. They then interviewed me about my whereabouts, and followed up with loved ones, acquaintances and anyone else Id been in contact with to check if they were immunized. Fortunately, I hadnt passed the disease onto anyone else. It took me months to feel even close to normal: My heartrate was unusually elevated and I was fatigued. During that slow recovery, I had a long talk with my parents to try to understand my medical history. It turned out that I had never been vaccinated against any infection - not measles, not polio, not tetanus - in my thirty trips around the sun. Its hard to draw out the specifics of their beliefs, or drill down to the root cause of their immunization denial. They dont believe that some vast conspiracy is imposing vaccines on us; theyre just predisposed to be suspicious of unnatural medical intervention, and they stand behind their decision. I love them, and I try not to judge them too harshly: Medical information is much more widely accessible now than it was in the 1980s, when they were raising us and the measles vaccine became widely available. Still, people with that attitude have put their childrens lives at risk. I felt a little dumb for not realizing sooner. My parents held all kinds of alternative beliefs. When someone in our family got sick, they turned to home remedies. They home-schooled my seven siblings and me, and after that, I took college classes remotely. I never passed through any of the usual institutional checkpoints, where some authority would ask for health records, so the subject never came up. I was just lucky that I hadnt gotten sick (or stepped on a nail) before this. As soon as I could manage it, I called my doctor, and we drew up a six-week schedule to catch me up on my immunizations. In the first few months of 2019, the United States has had its highest number of measles cases in the past five years: 673 reported in 22 states. That total may rise, especially because the number of people claiming vaccine exemptions for nonmedical reasons has increased over the past decade. Vaccine skeptics brush off measles as a once common childhood illness, making it sound like a manageable nuisance - a rite of passage, even. But they forget that it can lead to serious complications, including pneumonia and meningitis, and that it can be fatal. I contracted the disease as an adult in good health, and it landed me in the hospital. To this day, I still feel its effects. Years after people seem to recover, measles can suppress the immune system, effectively creating an immune amnesia that leaves them more vulnerable to other infections. When someone close to me gets the sniffles, I end up coughing for weeks. Worry about panencephalitis - in which virus lingering in the brain triggers a deadly immune response - also weighs on me. Ive tried to make vaccines an ongoing topic of conversation with my siblings, discussing the science and current medical consensus, in the hopes that theyd become more comfortable with the idea. A few are vaccinated, but it may take time for the gravity of the danger to fully sink in, and for everyone to take action. They dont seem opposed to it, but the risk of infection doesnt feel urgent. Everyone is healthy, so everything is fine - until its not. As told to Washington Post editor Sophia Nguyen Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Eriz Wicaksono (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, April 27, 2019 There is a bit of a myth about how Brussels was made the de facto capital city of the European Union. Post-establishment of the European Economic Community, its member states could not reach a consensus on who should host its institutions. Then, in 1958, a meeting in Paris between the then-six member states concluded that the institution would be chaired in turns in alphabetical order. Coincidentally, based on this agreement, Belgium was first. As the year followed, Brussels realized that it was ever expanding to accommodate many of the organizations growing list of bodies. At the same time, member states were still unable to decide which city should serve as the permanent host, voila Brussels remained the host up to this day. 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 Tequila Bester (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, April 27, 2019 09:28 971 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa873512e34 3 Opinion business,CSR,corporate-social-responsibility-programs,health,investment,public-health Free That business originated to serve basic community needs is reflected in the origin of such English names as Baker, Butcher, Miller and the like. Similar patterns could doubtless be traced elsewhere, but from the earliest of times it was established that business was dependent on the goodwill of the people, while all looked to government to provide leadership in matters of protection. The growth of communities has seen this tightly knit relationship largely dissipate, however. Free-flowing lines of communication along which information once sped back and forth have become clogged with intolerance and apathy. With business more concerned over the balance sheet and government in attracting business investment, the needs of the public are not necessarily prioritized in their minds. While the media tries to fulfill its role in providing information to the public, this is not always easy as transparency is not necessarily a prime attribute of government, and with some businesses having grown to be larger than sovereign states, they tend to treat society as subjects rather than customers. Accurate information is thus often hard to obtain. In January this year, for instance, the United States Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal by Exxon Mobil Corporation against a Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling that the company could not withhold information on certain business practices that had been requested in a case before the Massachusetts courts. In a classic who knew what and when scenario, this information is believed to be indicative of the companys knowledge of the impact its main products have on global warming and climate change. Moreover, some of the records date back decades. Such moves to delay the release of possibly damaging information to the public have been attempted, but today tobacco products come labeled with graphic warnings on the potential dangers of smoking. The public doesnt need an exhaustive list of the more than 7,000 chemicals found in cigarette smoke; all they need to know is that smoking can be harmful to health and 214,000 Indonesians die each year from smoking related illnesses. Even faced with those facts the choice is not that simple, for tobacco contains the alkaloid nicotine and, unlike in tea for example, at addictive concentrations. Partially, in efforts to mitigate past harms to society, but also maybe for its survival, the tobacco industry has undertaken exhaustive research to develop alternative products that it claims are less harmful to health. There are now various products to feed the nicotine habit while seeking to reduce the negative side effects of smoking. It will be decades, however, before there will be any definitive evidence on their long-term effect on health, although initial results do appear to support the prognosis that the products make quitting smoking easier. As with the breaking of any addiction, though, this is very much dependent on the individual. This attempt to mitigate past harms is largely aligned with corporate responsibility as defined under the United Nations guiding principles on business and human rights, which exist over and above compliance with national laws and regulations protecting human rights. Yet the company obligation to prevent and mitigate harm is a broad mandate, for we are not just talking about immediate or foreseeable injury, but the mitigation of all harms in a transparent manner regardless of nature, timeliness or foreseeability. The health sector is certainly an area where there is an onus to educate the public about the latest innovations, as scientific research is leading to new approaches on almost a daily basis. Its also a sector where the government has striven to meet its responsibility to protect its citizens from adverse human rights impacts as per the guiding principles, through the introduction of the national health insurance. Its an area where both government and business have a coordinated role to play. Business must undertake research on new products and approaches independent of government pressure, plus be willing to share the results of such research so that any potential benefit to the public can be independently verified. For its part, meanwhile, the government should not unduly delay the introduction of new, less harmful products to the market. Moreover, both must work in tandem to ensure effective regulation is introduced to protect the public from any harm suffered through use of the product. That health care should be viewed from a preventative rather than curative aspect is illustrated by the approach of PT Garam, a salt producer, in recognizing that high sodium intake can lead to hypertension. Yet many Indonesians, regardless of socioeconomic status, are blissfully unaware of how high their daily salt intake actually is. In response, the company markets a less harmful low sodium salt product, Lososa, to help address the increasing prevalence of hypertension among Indonesians. The state-owned company understands that taste does not have to be sacrificed in the pursuit of health. The media too has a role to play in providing the public with reliable information of the benefits of following a healthier lifestyle, particularly in what they eat and drink. For many are not really aware of the risks they take in consuming saturated fats, salt and heavily sweetened beverages on a regular basis. Encouraging business to act in a responsible manner is just part of the governments duty for it must also liaise in facilitating the spread of information and licensing of new products as swiftly as possible following their approval for public consumption. After all, information about and access to these products is the right of society, particularly those that can enable people to actively protect their own health. *** The writer is program coordinator at the Foundation for International Human Rights Reporting Standards (FIHRRST). 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 Ni Komang Erviani (The Jakarta Post) Denpasar, Bali Sat, April 27, 2019 16:02 970 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa873518924 1 Art & Culture Ngerebong,bali,Law-and-Human-Rights-Ministry Free Ni Komang Erviani The Jakarta Post/Denpasar, Bali A sacred Balinese Ngerebong ritual has been registered as a communal intellectual property right with the Law and Human Rights Ministry. The official registration letter was handed over by Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly to Bali Governor Wayan Koster during the Indonesian Intellectual Property Awards (IIPA), an event that celebrated World Intellectual Property Day in Kuta, Friday. Ngerebong is a magical ritual held at the Petilan temple in Kesiman subdistrict, East Denpasar, every six months. The ritual falls eight days after Kuningan. Kuningan is celebrated as part of Galungan, which are a series of Balinese Hindu celebrations of dharma winning over adharma. Ngerebong comes from two words: ngerehan (calling on a supernatural power) and bengong (amazement). During the ritual, some participants torture themselves with a kris to show the eternal spiritual protection from the gods for the land and people. The ritual aims to achieve harmony between humans, nature and gods. Wayan Koster warmly welcomed the ministrys decision to register the ritual as a communal intellectual property right. It is a good move to register all cultural and traditional assets that are owned by our nation, Koster said. Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly said intellectual property rights played a strategic role in boosting the national economy through the creative economy. Intellectual property rights and creative economy practitioners can actively build synergy, Yasonna said. He added that intellectual property rights protection could give the country a competitive advantage. It has been proven that most developed countries are countries that appreciate the importance of intellectual property rights in developing their economy, Yasonna said. Read also: The magic of the Ngerebong ritual During the event, Yasonna also granted "Permainan Sapi Sonok" from East Java intellectual property rights. At least 92 brand certificates were handed over to the East Java administration. Balis Law and Human Rights office was also given an award for initiating the development of intellectual property rights centers in nine regencies and cities across Bali. (mut) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Bandung, West Java Sat, April 27, 2019 18:08 970 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa87351d388 1 Entertainment K-pop,hallyu,Korean-Cultural-Center-Indonesia Free ALZY dance group from West Java's Bekasi earned a win at the K-Pop Cover Dance Festival on Sunday at the Bandung Creative Hub, Bandung, West Java. ALZY beat 14 other finalists by covering a dance routine by ITZY, a rising K-Pop star. As a part of the prize, ALZY will be flown to South Korea to represent Indonesia in the competition's international level, which is scheduled for late September or early October. The competition was organized by Korean Cultural Center Indonesia, Republic of Korea Embassy and Korean newspaper The Seoul Shinmun Daily. Nathan Moon, a spokesperson for The Shinmun Daily, said Indonesia had significantly contributed to the excitement over the competition, as more than 200 participants registered annually. Read also: Korean culture event in Palembang draws thousands of K-pop fans One of our purposes in organizing KCDF is to reciprocate the love given by Hallyu (Korean pop culture wave) lovers, Moon said. Korean Cultural Center Indonesia director Chun Youngpoung said he was grateful for the enthusiasm shown by K-Pop lovers in Indonesia. The Korean Cultural Center will always be a Hallyu promotion vehicle so it can be enjoyed by a wider audience, Chun Youngpoung said. The Korean Cultural Center Indonesia also organized an illustration and poster exhibition showcasing artwork from the competition, titled Commemoration of 100 Years of March 1 Movement and Creation of Korean Temporary Government. The exhibition was held at the Bandung Creative Hub on the same day. (gis/wng) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ranjeetha Pakiam and Joyce Koh (Bloomberg) Sat, April 27, 2019 17:09 970 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa8735190a2 2 Lifestyle Marquee,Marquee-Singapore,Tao-Group Free Tao Group, the U.S.-based nightlife and restaurant company, this month opened Singapores biggest night club -- with an indoor ferris wheel and three-story slide -- as its partner Las Vegas Sands Corp. gears up to invest more than $3 billion in the city-state. The 2,300-square meter club located at the iconic Marina Bay Sands resort is Taos attempt to establish itself in a country thats seen record tourist numbers boosted by the Hollywood blockbuster Crazy Rich Asians. With its carnival theme and gilded cage bars, the venue can accommodate about 2,000 party-goers. This is a booming country in so many ways, we should be here, Jason Strauss, Taos co-founder said in an interview on Friday at the new Marquee club in Singapore. Its a big plus too to have a partner like Marina Bay Sands to give us the support to enter a new market. Marquee is the second of Taos four planned ventures in Singapore, after opening Italian restaurant Lavo on the rooftop of the Marina Bay Sands in January last year. Next will be Avenue, a speakeasy-style lounge and Koma, a Japanese eatery and sushi bar. Earlier this month, Las Vegas Sands and Genting Singapore Ltd. pledged to invest S$9 billion ($6.6 billion) in Singapores tourist attractions. Las Vegas Sands is planning to add a fourth tower to the Marina Bay Sands hotel while Genting will expand Resorts World Sentosa over five years. Read also: Tiesto, Afrojack to spin at opening weekend of Marquee Singapore Tao, whose U.S. nightclubs and high-end restaurants were said to once be frequented by the fugitive Malaysian financier Jho Low, is now focused on building its brand in Singapore. In the Asia Pacific region, the city state is its only presence outside of Sydney and the one place, according to Strauss, where its expanding. Weve had incredible energy in here, he said. To build our most dramatic, our most beautiful and our most technologically-advanced nightclub in the entire portfolio, that was super exciting for us. Japanese Emperor Akihito, 85, is ending his three-decade reign on April 30, voluntarily stepping down due to health concerns. It is the countrys first abdication of the Chrysanthemum Throne since 1817. His 31-year imperial eraknown as Heisei, which can be translated as achieving peacecomes to an end with a ceremony at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. A day after the abdication, his son, Crown Prince Naruhito, 59, ascends the throne in ceremonies at the same location. Akihito helped to modernize the worlds oldest hereditary monarchy by bringing the imperial family closer to the public. He and his wife, Empress Michiko, have taken on gentle public personas and were seen as helping the nation through catastrophic natural disasters with displays of compassion that included visits to evacuation centers to speak to survivors. His landmark apologies for the wartime aggression launched in the name of his father, Hirohito, helped ease often fraught relations with neighbors China and South Korea, which bore heavy blows from Japans militarism. Akihito spoke in ordinary Japanese, rather than the formal grammar employed by his father, the last emperor regarded by prevailing custom to be a living deity. Akihito is an emperor of firsts. He was the first emperor to reign entirely under the U.S.-drafted pacifist constitution after World War II, the first to marry a commoner and, along with his wife, the first to raise his children at home. Read also: Tokyo Olympics ceremony, chance for new emperor to strike back The public reacted sympathetically when he made a rare televised address in 2016 telling of his intention to abdicateciting his advanced age and poor health. The government then passed a special one-time law to allow for him to step down. The emperor and empress have made official visits to 28 countries, according to the Imperial Household Agency. They have been at the forefront of relief efforts after major disasters, consoling victims and offering support to relief works. They have toured every part of Japan and made more than 500 visits to facilities for children, the elderly and people with disabilities. A new imperial eraReiwa, meaning auspicious calmbegins under his son Naruhito on May 1. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) - Sat, April 27, 2019 20:07 970 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa87351f106 1 Lifestyle Lady-Dior,Dior,accessories,handbag,iconic-bag Free Lady Dior is high up on the list of bags many fashion-loving women feel they must have in their wardrobes. It is a timeless classic with architectural lines and signature metallic charms, creating a powerful yet elegant statement. The first Lady Dior bag was made in 1995, debuting on the arm of Lady Diana, Princess of Wales, hence the name. The bag then gradually claimed its place on an exclusive list of iconic bags. Along with the houses recent Spring/Summer collection, the savoir-faire video of the Lady Dior bag is also introduced. The video highlights how Lady Dior is made in the houses leather working ateliers. Lady Dior Nature Ballet Bag from the Dior Spring/Summer 2019 collection (Dior/File) EMBED A statement sent to The Jakarta Post said that the hand of the artisan and its medley of actions, its poetry, its nobility, were indispensable. Read also: Dior unveils capsule collection in first Dubai show The impeccable process of making a Lady Dior starts with the selecting of the skin, according to a standard ritual that includes touching, feeling, examining, observing and scrutinizing. Following the selection of skin, the stitching must be done with flawless precision, forming the pattern. It is then assembled around a made-to-measure wooden form and finally shaped by hand. Christian Dior was quoted as saying, the hand of man has a value that is irreplaceable, because it gives to everything it creates that which no machine can: poetry and life. Lady Bird by Kum Chi Keung, at a traveling exhibition titled 'Lady Dior As Seen By' (Dior/File) Lady Dior is believed to carry the quintessence of the houses spirit, as well as an ability to adapt into daring artistic variations. A traveling exhibition titled Lady Dior As Seen By, along with the Dior Lady Art project, has allowed sculptors, designer, painters and plastic artists to put artistic twists on the timeless accessory. (sop/mut) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (Agence France-Presse) London, United Kingdom Sat, April 27, 2019 19:07 970 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa87351df66 2 Art & Culture Stanley-Kubrick,The-Shining,Barry-Lyndon Free Iconic props from "The Shining" and "2001: A Space Odyssey" that detail the single-minded perfectionism of US filmmaker Stanley Kubrick are among the highlights of a new London show dedicated to the late artist. Visitors can discover Kubrick's universe and special relationship with Britain through some 700 objects, film clips and interviews, which are arranged according to the 13 films he made over a 50-year career. The show coincides with the 20th anniversary of Kubrick's death, and is somewhat of a homecoming for the director, who moved to Britain in the early 1960s, shooting classics "Lolita" (1962), 2001: "The Space Odyssey" (1968), "Dr. Strangelove" (1964) and "Full Metal Jacket" (1987). The exhibition's most famous items include Jack Nicholson's axe from The Shining, the disturbing costumes from "A Clockwork Orange" (1971), the "Born to Kill" helmet worn by character "Joker" in Full Metal Jacket and Tom Cruise's Venetian cape and mask from "Eyes Wide Shut" (1999). Other exhibits detail his obsessive attention to detail, including a photograph of the snow-covered hotel in Oregon that would eventually be used for the outside shots of The Shining. Labels stuck on the image include instructions for how the path should appear in the shot, adding "THERE IS NO OTHER WAY TO DO IT, REPEAT NO OTHER WAY." The 2001: Space Odyssey section includes a model of the 12 metre "hamster wheel" used by astronauts in the film to simulate gravity. The story of the filming of Vietnam war epic Full Metal Jacket forms another part of the show, which will run at London's Design Museum from Friday until September 15. Items detail how Kubrick recreated Vietnamese city Hue in a deserted gas plant in Beckton, south east London, through dynamiting and importing 200 palm trees from Spain and 100,000 tropical plastic plants from Hong Kong. Others reveal the complicated, and often fractious relationship between Kubrick and his audience and the critics, starting with 1962 classic "Lolita", which details a middle-aged man's obsession with a 12-year-old girl. "We believe that any such film must have a deleterious effect upon our society (...) and therefore ought not be made," Reverend John Collins wrote in a 1961 letter to Kubrick. The legendary director died on March 7, 1999 in his mansion in Childwickbury, north of London. Read also: Stanley Kubrick auction in Italy fetches 90,000 euros In addition to the exhibition, a hunt through the archives of A Clockwork Orange author Anthony Burgess have unearthed a never-before-seen unfinished "sequel" to the 1962 dystopian novel, it emerged Friday. The manuscript was written by the British author, who died in 1993, in response to the moral panic surrounding Kubrick's ultra-violent 1971 adaptation of the novel, which was blamed for copycat crimes. "The Clockwork Condition" describes 1970s society in terms of humans being reduced to cogs in a machine, "no longer much like a natural growth, not humanly organic." Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Marlowe Hood (Agence France-Presse) Zavada, Slovakia Sun, April 28, 2019 03:06 970 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa87352082b 2 People Monsieur-Tussaud,Milan-Rastislav-Stefanik,Roman-Bajzik Free The bald head of Slovak general Milan Rastislav Stefanik is pierced before hairs are inserted into his skull. Stefanik's face remains motionless, his blue eyes do not even blink. The late founder of the former Czechoslovakia is the latest figure to get the wax treatment from Roman Bajzik, a 48-year-old opera teacher who moonlights as Slovakia's very own Monsieur Tussaud. "I began creating wax sculptures back in 2002 as I wanted to see what my great-grandfather looked like," Bajzik said, at his two-room gallery in what was once the family mill. "I only had an old photo of him and was curious if I could turn him into something three-dimensional," he told AFP in Zavada, a central village of 600 residents, about 150 kilometres (around 90 miles) from the capital, Bratislava. Two decades later, there are now 23 motionless family members, royalty, folklore characters and important figures for tourists and schoolchildren to view. Figures on display past the creaky wooden front door at the mill-turned-gallery include the vampire Nosferatu, pope John Paul II and a mermaid from Slovak mythology. The wax museum is open by appointment only for an entry fee of two euros ($2.2). 'Mute' An experienced tenor who once sang at Austria's prestigious Salzburg Festival, Bajzik studied opera directing and now teaches operatic acting at the state conservatory in Bratislava. He likes silence when he sculpts though, usually at night to relax. "I have enough singing during the day. I'm pleased to be surrounded by my mute figures," he said. He lives alone in a high-rise flat in the capital where he has turned one room into a tiny studio whose shelves are filled with chicken mesh, cornstarch, construction foam, silica gel -- all used for wax modelling. Currently he is working on two figures: Stefanik is getting his hair done, while Empress Elisabeth of Austria, better known as Sissi, is undergoing some facial work. Bajzik consulted available photos and busts of Sissi to get her facial measurements just right. Once the clay head is done, he casts it in plaster and then pours hot wax in the mold before fine-tuning the details. Read also: Bollywood actress Kajol unveils wax figure at Madame Tussauds Singapore 'Lend a hand' Wax is ideal for models because it looks similar to human skin, said Bajzik, whose mix notably includes beeswax and paraffin. "It has to be carefully blended as wax tends to crack when inserting hairs into the skull," he said. The hair comes from discount store wigs. Using a long needle, he attaches each hair into the wax skull. It is time-consuming, meticulous work. "It took me a while to investigate how to make a hole that isn't too large but could secure the hair. I watch instructional videos," he said with a laugh. Bajzik often transforms everyday items into the props he needs. When one of his kings required an imperial orb, Bajzik bought a Christmas bauble and added a small cross. He opens a drawer full of semi-finished hands, waiting for their turn to become the appendages of a king or queen. "Hands are finicky. I usually ask someone to 'lend a hand' and I mold it for a figure," Bajzik said. "John Paul II, for example, has my hands." Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Hong Kong Sat, April 27, 2019 12:05 970 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa8735158c9 1 Lifestyle Gemma-Chan,St-Regis,St-Regis-HongKong,Hotel,travel,destination Free British actress Gemma Chan was among celebrities and socialites who attended the opening of The St. Regis Hong Kong on April 11. Chan is already familiar with the St. Regis brand, which is part of Marriott International, Inc. During her role in Crazy Rich Asians, her character Astrid Teo was featured in a scene located at the Astor Bar at the St. Regis Kuala Lumpur, which at the time had been turned into a jewelry store. I am honored to be part of this special Midnight Supper event celebrating the first St. Regis hotel opening in Hong Kong and to have the chance to have a firsthand experience of its exceptional service, said Chan in a statement. Read also: Marriott Bonvoy lures travelers with Asia-Pacific lifestyle experiences Curated by award-winning French chef Olivier Elzer, the Midnight Supper featured a signature menu of beef jelly and horseradish water cress emulsion, poached Brittany blue lobster with hazelnut butter and French milk-fed veal fillet cooked in lime-tree. The St. Regis Hong Kong itself was designed by Andre Fu, who envisioned a Hong Kong mansion that blended the brand's elegance and the territory's diverse architecture and culture. In addition to 129 rooms and suites that come with St. Regis butler service, the property also boasts LEnvol French and Run Chinese restaurants as well as The Drawing Room, which caters to afternoon tea and live jazz music fans. (sop/kes) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Maggy Donaldson (Agence France-Presse) New York, United States Sun, April 28, 2019 01:08 970 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa873520298 2 Entertainment Wu-Tang-Clan,hip-hop,music Free A quarter century ago a ragtag group of New York kids that would become the iconic Wu-Tang Clan banded together, betting that mainstream music might just embrace hardcore hip hop from the streets. Gifted with an ear for raw, menacing lyrics and fueled by a desire to rise above their poverty-mired peers, the nine-member collective ascended from New York's then particularly rough outer boroughs to become one of the most influential rap acts in history. Their hardscrabble journey that paved the way for dozens of successful hip hop artists is the subject of the four-part docu-series "Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics and Men" -- a riff on the American classic "Of Mice and Men," the story of itinerant workers seeking financial stability -- set to air on the US cable network Showtime next month. "To see where they came from, how they did it, is no small feat," said director Sacha Jenkins at the production's New York premiere Thursday night at the Tribeca Film Festival, after it screened at Sundance earlier this year. "Now more than ever, people need to pay attention to what's been going on in the inner city," Jenkins told AFP. "It's 25 years later and not much has changed. And that's why Wu-Tang's music still resonates." 'Our heroes' Interspersing interviews with rare early footage, the series chronicles their origins as hustlers and drug dealers for whom music ultimately offered an escape from the revolving door of incarceration. For RZA -- Wu-Tang's mastermind and de-facto leader -- the deep relief of being cleared at trial of attempted murder opened his eyes to a different path. In 1992 he formed the group with his two cousins and a handful of other friends, who claimed Staten Island as their territory and named themselves the Wu-Tang Clan after the 1983 kung-fu movie "Shaolin and the Wu Tang," from which they drew samples for their landmark first album. "For us, high school dropouts, guys that was forced to be street pharmacists... this is all we wanted," RZA told AFP. "Instead of our kids being those kids that's out there causin' crime, and shooting -- no, no. Our kids are out there making the world more positive." For civil rights activist Al Sharpton, the Wu-Tang Clan is emblematic of struggles faced by minorities and the impoverished, offering hope in divisive times. "Their story is our story. Ain't nobody manufactured them, nobody created them. They came from the bottom and represented the bottom," Sharpton told AFP. "These are our heroes." Read also: New York City to name streets for Biggie Smalls, Wu-Tang Clan, Woody Guthrie 'Wu-Tang is the world' In one endearing scene the docu-series watches Method Man -- considered the brain behind some of the group's catchiest lines -- take the ferry back to his former job cleaning at the Statue of Liberty, where he catches his boss up on his success. "I worked here for years and never went to go see this woman!" the 48-year-old performer says as he marvels at the monument. "I guess we got lucky," he says later on in the show, his quivering voice betraying emotion. "I guess we all did." Speaking to AFP on the red carpet before the screening, member U-God noted the significance of the docu-series' prominent spot at Tribeca, a quintessentially New York festival that has long aimed to promote diversity. "I've spilled my blood in New York City," the 48-year-old rapper known for his brusque yet smooth flow said. "I am New York City. We were all born in New York City, we all raised in New York City, most of us will probably die in New York City." "But when we go we gonna take New York with us." Thursday night saw a rare gathering of the complete Clan, with all living members along with the rapper son of the Ol' Dirty Bastard -- who died of a drug overdose in 2004 -- following the screening with a raucous performance including hits from their iconic breakthrough album "Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)." "They're everything, Wu-Tang is the world," another venerable New York rapper, Nas, told AFP on the red carpet. "I've always been a fan, so I'm just blessed to be here and to see this happen." The crowd roared as the group performed its hit "C.R.E.A.M" -- short for "cash rules everything around me" -- in which members narrate their journeys from delinquency-by-necessity to fame. Asked by AFP if cash still rules everything around him, RZA didn't miss a beat. "It rules everything around me," the rapper laughed. "But it don't rule me." Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, April 27, 2019 09:01 971 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa873511a9a 4 City Central-Jakarta,murder,self-immolation,Criminal-Code,crime,suicide Free The Media Hotel and Towers in Sawah Besar, Central Jakarta, was in the spotlight last week -- for all the wrong reasons. Last Thursday, a fire broke out in a change room in the hotels basement killing a security guard, while a woman was found dead in her car in the underground parking lot. The dead woman, identified as IC, was found by her husband in her unlocked car after he became worried that she had not arrived home at her usual time. Some of her belongings were reported to be missing. After ICs body was found, the security officer, who was identified as DHP, was found dead. The police said the two incidents were related. Based on our investigation, we believe that the security guard killed IC. He then set himself on fire, Central Jakarta deputy police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Arie Ardian said on Thursday as reported by kompas.com. Arie added that DHP had strangled IC with a rope, saying the motive for the murder was theft. He said DHP was one of the hotels workers who were questioned by the police after the murder. When we questioned him, he was drenched in sweat. We wondered what was going on with this guy, Sawah Besar Polices criminal investigation unit head, Adj. Comr. Ade Chandra, told kompas.com. After he was questioned, DHP reportedly sent a text message to his wife admitting that he had murdered IC and that he was going to kill himself. Instead of you being ashamed of having a husband who is a murderer, it is better for me to die. Please take care of mother and our child. Bury me near my fathers tomb, the text message said. Nineteen fire trucks were deployed to the scene by the Central Jakarta Fire and Rescue Agency to put out the fire. Firefighters managed to bring the blaze under control at around 11:10 p.m. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Stefanno Reinard Sulaiman (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, April 27 2019 The government needs to be careful in offering projects to Chinas investors as part of the trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) financing program as there are risks of falling into a debt trap, economists have warned. They also called for transparency in everything related to the financing for BRI-related projects. Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (INDEF) economist Zulfikar Rachmat said the risk of a debt trap was real as China is believed to have long-term goals of spreading political influence, not simply looking to make a profit. 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 Dinuka Liyanawatte (Reuters) Colombo, Sri Lanka Sat, April 27, 2019 18:06 970 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa87351c3a6 2 World #SriLanka,#ChurchAttack,Islamist-militants,killed,bombing,US-citizen Free The bodies of 15 people, including six children, were discovered at the site of a fierce overnight gun battle on the east coast of Sri Lanka, a military spokesman said on Saturday, six days after suicide bombers killed more than 250 people on the island. The shootout between troops and suspected Islamist militants erupted on Friday evening in Sainthamaruthu in Ampara district, to the south of the town of Batticaloa, site of one of the Easter Sunday blasts at three churches and four luxury hotels. A police spokesman said that three suspected suicide bombers were among the 15 dead after the shootout. Islamic State claimed responsibility for last Sunday's attacks, all but one of which were in the capital, Colombo. The government has said they were carried out by nine well-educated Sri Lankans, eight of whom have been identified. Authorities have warned there could be more attacks targeting religious centres following the bombings, which shattered the relative calm that Buddhist-majority Sri Lanka had enjoyed since a civil war against mostly-Hindu ethnic Tamil separatists ended a decade ago. The US State Department, warning that terrorist groups were continuing to plot attacks, urged citizens to reconsider travel to Sri Lanka. It ordered the departure from the country of all school-age family members of US government employees and also authorised non-emergency employees to leave, it said in a statement. Britain has also warned its nationals to avoid travelling to Sri Lanka unless absolutely necessary. ISLAMIC STATE BANNERS AND UNIFORMS The east coast battle broke out when troops heading towards a suspected militant safe house were repulsed by three explosions and gunfire, military spokesman Sumith Atapattu said. "Troops retaliated and raided the safe house where a large cache of explosives had been stored," he said in a statement. He said the militants were suspected members of the domestic Islamist group National Towheed Jama'at (NTJ), which has been blamed for last Sunday's attacks. Bomb-making materials, dozens of gelignite sticks and thousands of ball bearings were found in a search of a separate house in the same area along with Islamic State banners and uniforms, the military said. Police said on Friday they were trying to track down 140 people they believe have links with Islamic State. Sri Lanka's president said on Friday some Sri Lankan youths had been involved with Islamic State since 2013 and that there were links between drug trafficking and Islamic State. "There is a close relationship between religious extremism and illegal drug trade. Our efforts to eradicate the drugs menace from the country could have advanced the ISIS attack," said President Maithripala Sirisena. Nearly 10,000 soldiers have been deployed across the Indian Ocean island state to carry out searches and provide security for religious centres, the military said. Authorities have so far focused their investigations on international links to two domestic groups they believe carried out the attacks, NTJ and Jammiyathul Millathu Ibrahim. They have detained at least 76 people, including foreigners from Syria and Egypt, in their investigations so far. Twenty were arrested in the past 24 hours alone, they said. In a separate raid on a mosque in Colombo, a suspect was arrested and a haul of 40 swords and kris knives were seized from under the bed of the chief cleric, police said. INTELLIGENCE FAILURE Islamic State provided no evidence to back its claim that it was behind last Sunday's blasts. If true, it would be one of the worst attacks carried out by the group outside Iraq and Syria. The extremist group released a video on Tuesday showing eight men, all but one with their faces covered, standing under a black Islamic State flag and declaring their loyalty to its leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. Muslims were urged to pray at home on Friday after the State Intelligence Services warned of possible car bomb attacks, amid fears of retaliatory violence. Many have fled their homes amid bomb scares, lockdowns and security sweeps. Archbishop of Colombo Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith told reporters he had seen an internal security document warning of further attacks on churches and said there would be no Catholic masses this Sunday anywhere on the island. Officials have acknowledged a major lapse in not widely sharing intelligence warnings from India of possible attacks. President Sirisena said on Friday that top defence and police chiefs had not shared information with him about the impending attacks. He blamed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's government for weakening the intelligence system by focusing on prosecution of military officers over alleged war crimes during a decades-long civil war with Tamil separatists that ended in 2009. Sirisena fired Wickremesinghe in October over political differences, only to reinstate him weeks later under pressure from the Supreme Court. But a rift remains between factions aligned to the prime minister and president, sources say. Sri Lanka's 22 million people include minority Christians, Muslims and Hindus. Until now, Christians had largely managed to avoid the worst of the island's conflict and communal tensions. Most of the victims of the Easter Sunday suicide bombings were Sri Lankans, although authorities said at least 40 foreigners were also killed, many of them tourists sitting down to breakfast at top-end hotels when the bombers struck. They included British, US, Australian, Turkish, Indian, Chinese, Danish, Dutch and Portuguese nationals. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Gemma Holliani Cahya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, April 27, 2019 17:45 970 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa87351b2f4 1 National gender-equality,women-empowerment,womens-march-jakarta,kartini,Kartini-day Free Thousands of people marched from Jl. Sudirman to the National Monument (Monas) in Jakarta on Saturday for the 2019 Womens March to support women's rights and commemorate the birthday of Kartini, the countrys national heroine and women empowerment icon. People of different genders, occupations and religions gathered to show their support for better protection and empowerment of women amid rampant violence perpetrated against them. This is an everyday struggle for all of us, to fight for justice and gender equality. Many problems that we are facing are because the political elite is trying stop us from seeking justice and equality. Dont let them silence us, the marchs field coordinator, Ririn Sefsani, told the crowd. This year is the third celebration of the annual march and the crowd is getting bigger each year. Womens March Jakarta recorded that in 2017, when it was first held, only 800 people took part. The number increased to 2,000 participants last year and 4,000 today. The Womens March committee said it did not expect such a massive crowd to show up this year. For safety reasons, it changed the marchs schedule -- which is usually held in the first week of March -- because of the general election this year. This is a political year and we just had legislative and presidential elections a week ago, so at first we thought that some people might be afraid to speak up about these issues, but apparently it didnt affect them. The crowd is really great today, we saw so many new faces, spokesperson Skolastika Lupitawina told The Jakarta Post at the event. The march was held under the theme of the global womens march movement, which is Women in Politics. Activists gave the government 10 demands that cover various topics, including the long-awaited sexual violence and domestic worker protection bills, the elimination or revision of discriminative laws and by-laws as well as social protection for every gender and social group. The march was also held in celebration of Kartinis birthday on April 21. Coming from a noble family in the 19th century, she was forced into an arranged marriage to a regent in Java. Her concerns about the poor living conditions of women around her drove her to open a school for them. She also spoke out against gender injustice at the time through letters to her friends in the Netherlands. Her letters, which were later disclosed to the public, reflected an early awakening of Indonesian women amid a patriarchal society in pre-independence Indonesia. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, April 27, 2019 17:19 970 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa873519e05 4 City Women,birth,Train,commuter-line,commuter-trains,KCI Free Two women have given birth on commuter trains within the last five years, according to train operator PT Kereta Commuter Indonesia (KCI) records. The first incident took place in 2015, while the second one occurred on Thursday. Passengers on the Bogor-Jakarta Kota line were surprised to see a 21-year-old woman, PN, moaning in pain at 12:20 p.m. on Thursday when the train was passing Depok, West Jakarta. Passengers and train security personnel quickly sprang into action and helped to deliver the baby. Train officials then immediately took PN and her baby to the University of Indonesia Hospital for medical treatment. The hospitals obstetrician-gynecologist, Vita Silvana, said the baby unfortunately died. When they were brought here, the baby only weighed 500 grams and did not survive, she added as quoted by kompas.com. The incident in 2015 took place on June 8 on the Tangerang-Duri line, when a woman gave birth with the help of train security officers and passengers. When the train stopped at Duri Station, the mother, 29-year-old Sarmunah and her baby were immediately rushed to Krendang community healthcare center in Tambora, West Jakarta, for medical treatment. (vla) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Muthi Achadiat Kautsar (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, April 27, 2019 08:08 971 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa873511700 1 News Alila-SCBD,hotel-review,Alila-Hotels Free A boutique hotel at the heart of the citys retail and business district, Alila SCBD, has opened. The abbreviation SCBD after the name Alila that means "surprise" in Sanskrit, stands for Sudirman Central Business District, referring to a 45-hectares business district in South Jakarta with well-maintained infrastructure and lush greenery. Prior to its official opening in early February, Alila SCBD introduced itself through its two restaurants that opened in advance, namely Vong Kitchen and Le Burger. Guests who have dined at Vong Kitchen and Le Burger are likely to have been exposed to the large living room styled lobby. Its contemporary feel, largely reflected by Birds, Bats and Butterflies installation mounted on the wall and suspended from the ceiling, may serve as a teaser to the experience of staying in one of the hotels 227 studios and suites. Tucked discreetly next to the lobby is the newly introduced event space Artisian Bar. Spanning 512 square meters with a high ceiling, the space is adorned with artwork from across Indonesia, celebrating the artistic heritage of such regions as South Sulawesi and East Java. The Artisian Bar, an event space at Alila SCBD, Jakarta (Alila Hotels/Files) True to its name, although there are no bar stools around, Artisian Bar also serves signature beverages including espresso tonic (bitter tonic paired with a shot of espresso made from medium-dark roasted beans) and JKT Confidential (butterfly pea flower-infused mango vodka, tequila and lime cocktail). Read also: Five-star Alila SCBD Jakarta hotel to open on Feb. 6 A team of youthful hotel staff in smart casual dress greeted The Jakarta Post when checking in on the invitation of the establishment. The process was fast and smooth and the Post was soon whisked to an XL Studio King room. The entrance of the Posts room opened to a spacious bed and living room area beside a tall picture window. A desk was not in sight and it felt rather disappointing. However, a corner across from the door opens to a small hidden area where the desk is placed. Alas! We found the sweet little secret workplace with a big view, which is that of the bustling road between the Indonesia Stock Exchange and Pacific Place Mall. The unique configuration of many rooms in Alila SCBD, apparently, is an effect of the hotels dynamic architecture dubbed the diamond-shaped tower. While spending hours in the room splitting time between the indulgent bathtub overlooking the skyscrapers, enjoying room service in bed watching TV and being productive on the writing desk- sounds like a plan, the temptation to indulge in quality time with friends at Le Burger, Vong Kitchen or Hakkasan, each equipped with its own bar, is too high. During the daytime, however, lounging by the catwalk pool or taking a dip into it and the jacuzzi is hard to say no to. Alila SCBD's 'catwalk pool' with the hotel's main building, dubbed the 'diamond-shaped tower' in the background. (Alila Hotels/File) The reason behind the nickname catwalk pool is the layout of the pool area, where two long and narrow pools are placed across each other and a "runway" cut in between. While the catwalk pool and the jacuzzi on the fifth floor meet the requirements of an urban resort, Alila SCBD undoubtedly makes a good business hotel as its location is in close proximity to Jakartas business district. The well-maintained infrastructure, including the wide and clean sidewalks are a rarity in Jakarta making walking from one building to another within the SCBD comfortable. One of the most interesting things about staying in this hotel is, however, how its main entrance is located just across from Pacific Place Mall. It means if a guest ever needs to do last minute shopping or grooming for a sudden fanfare at Hakkasan or the bar at Vong Kitchen, he or she will conveniently be in good hands. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) - Sat, April 27, 2019 22:03 970 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa87351f725 1 News Eastern-and-Oriental-Express,Belmond,Tiger-Express,Train,luxury,tiger,conservation Free The Eastern and Oriental Express of the Belmond Company and Save Wild Tigers, a global tiger conservation charity, have partnered up to launch the Tiger Express. To commence on Sept. 7, the railway route aims to raise awareness of the plight of the worlds few remaining wild tigers. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), there are now only 3,800 wild tigers left in the world. The six-night itinerary takes passengers on a luxury train from Bangkok to Singapore through historic tiger habitats in Malaysia and Thailand. During the journey, passengers visit the River Kwai and Malaysias Kuala Kangsar. Before departing they stay at the Siam Bangkok and at the end of the trip they stay at Raffles Singapore. Save Wild Tigers founder Simon Clinton said, With potentially as few as 10 years left to save this iconic species from extinction, the clock really is ticking. We are really proud and grateful to be working with the Eastern and Oriental Express once again in providing passengers a chance to experience a trip of a lifetime. Profits from our all of our campaigns go toward creating global awareness campaigns for the cause and funding targeted tiger conservation projects. Read also: How you can help conserve Indonesia's endangered species The exteriors of the Tiger Express trains cars are to feature tiger elements curated by Chinese artist and Save Wild Tigers ambassador Jacky Tsai. The designs are to be revealed ahead of the journey in September. Ping Coombes, winner of MasterChef UK 2014, is to act as chef for the trains passengers. Prices start from 3,724 (US$4,873) per person. That includes meals, accommodations, three nights on board the train, two excursions and transfers to and from the train. Up to 20 percent of the ticket price goes directly to Save Wild Tigers. For more information, visit Belmond.com. (wng) A team of Indonesian students scored gold and silver medals at the 26th International Conference of Young Scientists (ICYS) in Kuala Lumpur. The team, which consisted of eight junior and high school students, presented its research findings in seven academic fields including computer science, mathematics, physics, life sciences and environmental sciences on Thursday. Felicia Angie Hosea, a student at SMA Cita Hati high school in Surabaya, East Java; and Avriza Devano Bestafa who studied at SMP 5 junior high school in Yogyakarta; each took home a gold medal for their research in environmental science. Meanwhile, Viona Setiawan, a student of SMA Aloysius in Bandung, won a silver medal for her research in physics, in addition to a best poster award. Read also: Students find that charity begins online In life sciences, Fiona Terianto from SMA St. Laurensia in Tangerang won a bronze medal, as well as a best poster award. The rest of the team scored best poster awards. Center for Young Scientists (CYS) director Monika Raharti said the students who represented Indonesia at the 26th ICYS in Kuala Lumpur had competed in last years Young Scientist Competition (LPB) at the provincial and national levels. The winners of last years national-level LPB received training from CYS earlier this year in preparation for the international competition, Monika said on Thursday as quoted by tempo.co. Congratulations to the boys and girls of Indonesia who have made the country proud, she added. The 26th ICYS, which ran from April 19 to 25 at the Mandarin Court Hotel in Kuala Lumpur, was attended by participants from 26 countries. (rfa/kes) 11 hours ago Tesla Dips Into Year End - Whats Next? It wouldnt be like Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) to keep their investors guessing would it? After rallying more than 100% from July through the start of November, the brakes were firmly applied when CEO Elon Musk announced his intention to start unloading huge portions of his stock holdings to meet his tax obligations. Read Article The maps opened the door for a rising Los Angeles County Democratic political star amid a generational shift among the region's elected leaders. They also put a dent in the chances for a Republican favorite in one of the nation's most hotly contested races. Bonn inner city : First shops open in Maximilian Center Bonn The project manager says it was a record construction time, with Maximilian Center finished after only one year. While businesses on the lower level open this Saturday, Irish fashion retailer Primark will open in autumn. Teilen Teilen Weiterleiten Weiterleiten Tweeten Tweeten Weiterleiten Weiterleiten Drucken The Maximilian Center opposite Bonn Central Train Station was completed in a record time of just one year. The first shops on the lower level open this Saturday. Moritz Tank is project manager of Ten Brinke, the firm which built the Maximilian Center and sold it to the Bayerische Versorgungskammer (BVK) based in Munich. He calls it a "quiet opening", since the clothing retailer Primark, which will be the main tenant, will not open its doors until autumn. The completion of the structure with around 9,000 square meters of retail space is on time and on budget, Tank says and laughs. "Many tenants probably didn't expect this. Now they are lagging behind with the outfitting of their stores." The demolition of the former structure which had previously occupied the site - at the edge of the "Bonner Loch" - started at the beginning of 2017, and was particularly challenging. There were problems because of the narrow construction site, and the building process there also had to be coordinated with ongoing construction of the Urban Soul project nearby. Add to that, Tank says that considerably more asbestos had been found during the demolition than had been anticipated. As he explains, Ten Brinke invested around 100 million euros in the project. 24 tenants are to move into the building, with Primark taking over four floors, leaving only the lower basement level to other tenants. Starting this Saturday, eating establishments, a dm drug store, a smaller Rewe supermarket and a pharmacy will open on the lower level. "We want to offer a pleasant area inside, especially for bus and train passengers," explains Tank. Not all citizens like the new building, as they have already made clear in many letters to the GA. Some of the unhappiness has to do with the architecture and others would have preferred not to have had any building on the site at all. They would have wished for an open space in front of the historically listed Bonn Central Station. Tank is not happy with the wooden fence erected a few days ago around the so-called roundabout at the rear of the building opposite the central bus station. "We erected the fence as a temporary measure for optical reasons," he explains. Originally, there were considerations to demolish the roof over the roundabout, but that would have caused big problems with the drainage. "All the water would have gone down to the basement. But the wooden fence is only a temporary solution. The city and municipal utilities company SWB want to improve this, explained city spokeswoman Monika Horig, but it will not be resolved by this Saturday. As reported, the alcohol and drug scene has shifted from the roundabout to the Kaiserbrunnen, which has caused displeasure among passers-by and residents. National Labour Day to be celebrated in Phuket PHUKET: Government offices will remain open but many businesses will close this coming Wednesday (May 1) as the nation celebrates the annual May Day holiday. tourismeconomics By The Phuket News Saturday 27 April 2019, 11:08AM This time workers get the day off while the government offices stay open. Image: Class Act Media Every first day of May (May 1) is celebrated in Thailand as in many countries around the world as National Labour Day. It is an official holiday for employees, and so many businesses will be closed for the day. National Labour Day celebrates the inauguration of Socialist International in Paris in 1889 when socialist, communist and anarchist political groups and trade unions came together in an effort to form a bloc that would stand up for labourers. In Thailand, National Labour Day has been celebrated since 1956 when it was declared a holiday by the government of Field Marshal Plaek Phibunsongkhram. The objective of this day is to recognise the employees duty and responsibility they show every day of the year. Main bank branches, apart from those in shopping malls, will be closed. However, government offices will be open and functioning as normal. All Royal Thai Police, Tourist Police stations, hospitals and shopping centres will remain open and some local consulates will remain open to serve their respective citizens. There will be no ban on alcohol sales as this holiday is not a major Buddhist holiday. The Class Act Media office will be closed on Wednesday, May 1 and will re-open on Thursday, May 2. Patong Mayor to discuss underground cable plan with businesses, residents PHUKET: Patong Mayor Chalermluck Kebsup has announced that meetings will be held with local residents and businesses ahead of the project, commencing in July, to move power lines and fibre-optic cables underground. constructionpatongtourismtechnologyenvironment By Waranya Prompinpiras Saturday 27 April 2019, 04:20PM The construction work will be separated into three sections to minimise congestion. Image: Waranya Prompinpiras On Monday (Apr 22), Mayor Chalermluck held a meeting with Patong Police and the project contractor to discuss the management of traffic flow during the construction work which is expected to last until March 2020. Photo: Patong Police Work is scheduled to commence in July to install power lines and communications cables underground along three kilometres of the Patong beach road. Photo: Patong Police Work is scheduled to commence in July to install power lines and communications cables underground along three kilometres of the Patong beach road. Photo: Patong Police On Monday (Apr 22), Mayor Chalermluck held a meeting with Patong Police and the project contractor to discuss the management of traffic flow during the construction work which is expected to last until March 2020. The mayor ordered the contractor to compile a report outlining plans regarding traffic and parking during the scheduled eight-month period to be able to inform local residents and business owners of the impact the project will have on the area. Mayor Chalermluck told The Phuket News yesterday (Apr 26), The project will start from Pak Bang Canal at the southern end of the beach to Loma Park. The contractor will start drilling the road on July 1, 2019, and the project is scheduled to be completed by March, 2020. Construction work will only take place during the day from 9am to 5pm so as to avoid causing traffic during busy times, she confirmed. After the Royal Coronation in May, I will invite residents and business owners located on the beachfront road (Thaweewong Rd) to discuss construction, traffic and parking plans. Now, the contractor is preparing to provide facilities such as lights and signs for the construction area. We will ensure that residents and businesses are not heavily impacted by the work, the mayor insisted. The project entails moving power lines and fibre-optic cables underground along Thaweewong Rd, from Khlong Pak Bang to Laem Phet Circle intersection. The total distance is approximately three kilometres. (See story here.) Mayor Chalermluck revealed that the construction work will be separated into three sections. (See image.) Section one is from the Laem Phet Circle intersection to Loma Park, which will be done simultaneously with section three which is from the entrance to Bangla Rd to Khlong Pak Bang. Section two the road between sections one and three will be done last to minimise congestion. The contractor will dig approximately 50 metres each day, the mayor explained. Once the digging is complete, work will commence in December laying pipes and cables underground. Next, I will set up a budget for 2020 to the repair roads and pavements on Thaweewong Rd, she added. Royal Rainmakers on standby in Phuket despite three failed attempts PHUKET: After three failed attempts, Royal Rainmakers will again be deployed in Phuket as soon as the required weather and air traffic conditions coincide, according to Wiraphon Sudchada, Director of the Southern Royal Rainmaking Operation Center in Surat Thani. agricultureenvironmentmilitarynatural-resourcespoliticsweather By Waranya Prompinpiras Saturday 27 April 2019, 01:45PM Mr Wiraphon said that further cloud seeding is planned but can only be done when two key factors coincide; clouds must be present and air traffic must be such that it permits the Royal Rainmakers to undertake the operation. Air traffic is a major factor as Phuket and Krabi airports are very busy and therefore the window of opportunity is small, Mr Wiraphon said. We monitor both the weather and air traffic every day to find the right opportunity to carry out the cloud seeding. Kancharee Simueang, Officer at Phuket Provincial Agriculture and Cooperatives Office, told The Phuket News yesterday (Apr 26), We have been coordinating with the Southern Royal Rainmaking Operation Centre in Surat Thani since March 22. Since then I have been providing them with weather reports each day which they assess to determine the right time to begin cloud seeding. The Royal Rainmakers have already attempted to induce rain in Phuket three times this year but the attempts failed, she confirmed. The first failed attempt was on March 29 when the rain fell in Phang Nga instead of Phuket. We attempted again on March 31 but that time the rain fell in the Andaman Sea. The third attempt was on Tuesday (Apr 23) which did not induce any rain at all. The Phuket News spoke with Phuket Public Relations Department Chief Bussaya Chaipeum yesterday (Apr 26), who said, We decided to request the help of Royal Rainmakers because we think that the ongoing water shortage in Phuket may lead to a crisis. Meanwhile Phuket Governor Phakaphong Tavipatana contacted Dr Surasri Kidtimonton, Director General of the Department of Royal Rainmaking and Agricultural Aviation (DRRAA), to expedite the rainmaking process. Back in February, Gov Phakaphong lifted planned water restrictions on the island when he agreed to call in the Royal Rainmakers, ordering water officials to find another way to resolve the islands water shortages. (See story here.) On Tuesday (Apr 23), just hours after the Gov Phakaphong held a press conference to specifically explain that Phuket is not suffering a drought crisis, about 80 residents from Rassada staged a protest in front of Phuket Provincial Hall over the lack of water supply to their community. News of the situation reached Lt Gen Pornsak Poonsawat, Commander of the Fourth Army Region base in Nakhon Sri Thammarat the leading Army base in all of Southern Thailand who then ordered his troops to provide emergency relief water to water-starved communities across Phuket starting with an initial delivery of 45,000 litres that arrived the following day. (See story here.) Songkran tourism revenue jumps 15% BANGKOK: The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) has revealed that tourism revenue earned from international visitor arrivals to Thailand and domestic trips during the 2019 Songkran holidays all showed year-on-year increases over the same period in 2018. tourismcultureeconomics By The Phuket News Saturday 27 April 2019, 10:00AM Songkran celebrations this year brought a welcome boost in tourism arrivals and spending. Photo: TAT Songkran celebrations this year brought a welcome boost in tourism arrivals and spending. Photo: TAT Songkran celebrations this year brought a welcome boost in tourism arrivals and spending. Photo: TAT Songkran celebrations this year brought a welcome boost in tourism arrivals and spending. Photo: TAT Songkran celebrations this year brought a welcome boost in tourism arrivals and spending. Photo: TAT Songkran celebrations this year brought a welcome boost in tourism arrivals and spending. Photo: TAT Songkran celebrations this year brought a welcome boost in tourism arrivals and spending. Photo: TAT Songkran celebrations this year brought a welcome boost in tourism arrivals and spending. Photo: TAT Songkran celebrations this year brought a welcome boost in tourism arrivals and spending. Photo: TAT Songkran celebrations this year brought a welcome boost in tourism arrivals and spending. Photo: TAT Songkran celebrations this year brought a welcome boost in tourism arrivals and spending. Photo: TAT Songkran celebrations this year brought a welcome boost in tourism arrivals and spending. Photo: TAT Songkran celebrations this year brought a welcome boost in tourism arrivals and spending. Photo: TAT Songkran celebrations this year brought a welcome boost in tourism arrivals and spending. Photo: TAT Songkran celebrations this year brought a welcome boost in tourism arrivals and spending. Photo: TAT Songkran celebrations this year brought a welcome boost in tourism arrivals and spending. Photo: TAT Songkran celebrations this year brought a welcome boost in tourism arrivals and spending. Photo: TAT Songkran celebrations this year brought a welcome boost in tourism arrivals and spending. Photo: TAT TAT Governor Yuthasak Supasorn said that during the holiday period of Apr 12-16, total revenue from the international arrivals and domestic trips amounted to B22.07 billion, an increase of 15% year-on-year (y-o-y). The number of international arrivals reached 543,300 (+8% y-o-y) and generated revenue of B10.23bn (+14%). There were 3.27 million trips by domestic tourists (+3%) generating B11.84bn (+7%). The domestic market also performed close to the expectation. To showcase local traditions of the annual Thai water festival, TAT staged Songkran 2019 festivities in the three emerging destinations of Tak, Mukdahan and Ranong. The agency also supported activities in 10 other provinces: Bangkok, Ayutthaya, Chachoengsao, Chon Buri, Chiang Mai, Sukhothai, Lampang, Udon Thani, Songkhla and Phuket. While the Songkran or traditional Thai New Year holiday normally takes place from Apr 13-15 every year, there are some locations that stage unique local festivities a little later, the TAT noted in its release announcing the figures. These include in Samut Prakans Phra Pradaeng district in the Central Thailand region, where the local Monpeople observe New Year traditions from Apr 19-21. In the Na Haeo district of Loei in Northeastern Thailand, locals celebrate the Thai New Year with a procession of flower trees the only tradition of its kind in the country. This year the procession was on Apr 19 and 27. In the Eastern region, Chon Buris Pattaya-Naklua districts celebrated Wan Lai (water day) on Apr 18-19, Map Ta Phut in Rayong celebrated Songkran from Apr 19-21 (with Apr 21 being Wan Lai), and the countrys easternmost Songkran celebration took place at Laem Ngop in Trat on the last Friday of April, this year Apr 26, the TAT report explained. TCEB inks MoU with four foreign Chambers of Commerce BANGKOK: The Thailand Convention & Exhibition Bureau (TCEB) is leveraging the development of Thai MICE business in long-haul markets in collaboration with foreign chambers of commerce representing Australia, the UK, the US and Germany. By Andrew J Wood Saturday 27 April 2019, 02:00PM TCEB President Chiruit Isarangkun Na Ayuthaya explained at the signing of an Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Thursday (Apr 25) , The signing of this MoU The Development and Promotion of MICE between the TCEB and the Foreign Chamber Alliance (FCA), comprising four chambers of commerce representing our main target countries, which are Australia, UK, USA and Germany, is considered another remarkable step of TCEB in altering our role to leverage MICE by serving as a business partner who joins hands with foreign organisations to promote the development of Thai MICE in international markets, as well as to penetrate into long haul MICE markets in Oceania, Europe and the USA, side by side with our main short haul target markets in Asia. Indeed, the collaboration is a new dimension of promoting Thai MICE business in long-haul markets with concentration on Oceania, Europe and the USA. This is the very first time that the Foreign Chamber Alliance has signed an MoU with a Thai government agency. Interestingly, the FCA has more than 20,000 members that include businessmen, investors, entrepreneurs from business, industrial and service sectors, such as Minor Hotels Group, AccorHotels Group, Marriott Hotels Group, convention centres business, as well as oil, mining, pharmaceutical, automobile and other industries, he added. These are considered high-potential business groups for propelling the national economy and are included among the targeted industries that the Thai government is keen to encourage in line with the 4.0 Policy. For this reason, this is a lucrative opportunity for us to collaborate to develop and raise the competitiveness of Thai MICE. The four chambers of commerce have recognised the importance of using MICE as the gateway to the development of commerce and investment in Thailand and Asean, he said. With this MoU, the framework for the development of MICE business will embrace five dimensions of operation: The sharing of MICE statistics and events MICE business development MICE market promotion MICE business research MICE personnel development Mr Chiruit further said, The initial collaboration to mutually promote MICE business will mainly focus on hospitality service, because members of the FCA have long records of investment in Thailand, which have been running alongside their nationwide service businesses. Hence, they have eyed to extend collaboration with Thai government agencies, as they believe the endeavour will open a new door to operate MICE business in Thailand and Asean. This, in turn, will allow them to study about the dynamics and direction of the Thai MICE market. By joining with TCEB in formulating a marketing development scheme, the synergy will open a new door to connecting with other alliances who relate with the promotion of Thai MICE business in targeted countries. Moreover, there will be co-operation in drawing international events into Thailand, marketing promotion and provision of support for events previously held in Thailand. Target groups and alliances will be invited to participate to strengthen the potential of MICE events held here in Thailand. The FCA will join with us in the exchange of marketing information related to targeted industries held by allied chambers of commerce and TCEB will exchange information on Thai MICE business, including statistics and events, to fully bolster mutual MICE business development, said the TCEB President. Nevertheless, the FCA expects the Thai government to leverage the competitiveness of Thai MICE business in order to serve global competition. For example, facilitation of customs and immigration procedures; development of infrastructure and transportation; construction of convention centres; development of MICE personnel that meets international standards, and establishment of One-Stop-Service MICE centres. All of which will open a new door to the holding of MICE events in Thailand by efficiently offering enhanced convenience for MICE entrepreneurs and organisers, he declared. Proposals to establish MICE service centres has been included in TCEBs earlier strategic plan, and the Ease of Doing Business project as well as the draft of a national strategy of NESDB (National Economic and Social Development Council). Mr Chiruit went on to explain, After the completion of MoU signing, TCEB is set to discuss with the FCA on the preparation of Phase I work plan, which lasts two years. Both parties will encourage practical co-operation in a rapid and consistent manner. Initially, we have planned to attract events and provide support to the holding of events that relate to targeted industries according to the governments 4.0 Policy, particularly in the provinces governed by the administration of EEC (Eastern Economic Corridor), he said. The TCEB expects that the collaboration will not only leverage the competitiveness of Thai MICE in long-haul markets in Oceania, Europe and the USA, but will also help to attract international events into several regions in Thailand, especially those considered main markets in MICE City project, which are Bangkok, Pattaya, Phuket, Chiang Mai and Khon Kaen. Definitely, we believe the rapport will encourage transfers of technology and knowledge of each industry among one another, and thus will promote advancement in all regions and stimulate income distribution to communities nationwide. Benjamin Krieg, Vice President, Austcham, explained, The role of the Foreign Chamber Alliance (FCA) in Thailand and the purpose of signing the MoU combines key Foreign Chambers and their members through this important collaboration, we provide a common voice on advocacy to develop and grow opportunities that can benefit our members and the country of Thailand, he said. The MICE industry is growing, and will also continue to grow in importance and contribution to the overall tourism sector within Thailand, and of course the greater Thai economy. Our primary aim is to continue to increase and grow the competitiveness of Thailand as a leading destination for MICE not only within Asia, but the world, further complimenting the amazing tourism industry that we already are so fortunate to be a part of, he concluded. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc receives leaders of leading Chinese energy companies (Photo: VNA) PM Phuc made the pledge during his meetings with representatives of leading businesses of China and the world in the fields of infrastructure, energy, and finance-technology-telecommunications. The PM, who is in Beijing to attend the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, said Vietnam has great demands for the development of infrastructure, energy, technology, and finance-banking. He told the businesspeople that during his meeting with General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and President Xi Jinping earlier the same day, the two sides discussed a range of issues regarding the promotion of Vietnam-China cooperation in the time ahead. The bilateral cooperative ties have developed strongly over the past time, he said, stressing that China has remained Vietnams largest trade partner while Vietnam is Chinas biggest trade partner in Southeast Asia. The two countries have substantial potential for commercial collaboration and they are big, important markets of each other, he said. Vietnam has become an attractive destination for global investors, attracting 28,000 projects worth more than USD350 billion from 130 countries and territories across the world, PM Phuc said. He highly valued quality and efficient projects by Chinese investors in Vietnam. However, the leader said, the implementation of some projects, including those in steel production and railway building, has remained sluggish. With a small-scale economy, Vietnam needs more resources from the private sector, domestic and foreign enterprises under the public-private partnership (PPP) model and other investment forms, including projects within the link of the Two Corridors, One Belt and Belt and Road initiatives, PM Phuc said. This is an opportunity for Chinas good investment projects, he said, noting that Vietnam considers infrastructure development a strategic breakthrough and the country needs investments in road, railway and airport infrastructure. In the sphere of energy, he said Vietnam wants to mobilise a lot of resources for the sector, particularly clean energy projects, under the PPP form. PM Phuc expressed his hope that Chinese technology and telecoms companies will step up their production in Vietnam instead of only supplying equipment, components and spare parts. He also showed his support for further cooperation between the China Development Bank and Vietnams aviation firms to increase flights as well as the quality of direct air services between the two countries. The Chinese enterprises are all in the worlds top 500 largest companies, and they operate in the fields of railway, construction, industrial park, production of electricity and electrical equipment, insurance, telecommunications and technology. Renowned names include Alibaba, Huawei, ZTE, China Railway Construction Corporation Limited, China Energy Development Holdings Limited, China Development Bank and Ping An Insurance, many of whom have poured investment in Vietnam. At the meetings, Chinese corporations expressed their impression on the robust socio-economic development of Vietnam in recent years, saying that this is a golden opportunity for foreign investors, including those from China, to boost investment in infrastructure, energy, telecommunications and finance and banking in the country. They believed that Vietnam, with the strongest economic growth in the region, will become an attractive destination for Chinese businesses, who want to step in energy infrastructure development, wind power, solar power, smart healthcare and smart agriculture in Vietnam. Meanwhile, telecommunications firms said they were impressed by Vietnams IT and telecommunications development. They spoke highly of the Vietnamese Governments policy to promote digital economy, the fourth industrial revolution, and 5G technology in socio-economic development, and said that they want to join efforts to implement the policy./. City council grants Need-a-Ride taxi license during special meeting After receiving a letter from the Institute of Justice stating ordinance was unconstitutional, the council approved the taxi license for Need-A-Ride. TOKYOToyota Motor Corp. plans to begin building two more Lexus SUVs in Canada, according to people familiar with the matter, a major win for the nations otherwise-struggling auto sector. The Japanese automaker will produce the Lexus NX crossover and three-row version of its luxury brands top-selling RX sport utility vehicle in Cambridge, Ont., starting in 2022, according to one of the people. They asked not to be identified ahead of an official announcement the company has said its making at the plant on Monday that will further reaffirm its commitment to manufacturing in Canada. A Toyota Canada spokesperson declined to comment. Toyota is delivering a much-needed boost to Ontario after the blows General Motors Co. and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV have dealt to plants in the country since late last year. GM has said it has no future product planned beyond this year for its Chevrolet Impala and Cadillac XTS sedan factory in Oshawa that employed almost 3,000. Fiat Chrysler has said it plans to cut a production shift and about 1,500 workers at its minivan plant in Windsor this fall. Passenger-vehicle production in Canada is projected to drop by 20 per cent this year as GM winds down operations in Oshawa, Fitch Solutions Macro Research said in December. Production in Oshawa fell to about 148,000 vehicles in 2017 from a peak of 940,000 in 2003, a drop of about 85 per cent, according to Dennis DesRosiers of DesRosiers Automotive Consultants Inc. A year ago, Toyota announced it would invest $1.4 billion to build gasoline and hybrid versions of the RAV4 crossover at its plant in Cambridge, about 100 kilometres west of Toronto. Its pivoted from that plan somewhat, deciding to instead build the gas-electric RAV4s in Georgetown, Kentucky. That shift is opening up room in Cambridge for Toyota to build SUVs that, to this point, have only been built in Japan, the people familiar with the companys plans said. The Ontario factory was built in 1988 and employs more than 8,000, according to the companys website. President Donald Trump last month linked Toyotas announcement of the RAV4-related investment in Georgetown, along with spending on several other U.S. plants, to the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, the still un-ratified deal intended to replace NAFTA. Jim Lentz, the chief executive officer of Toyota North America, said the decision to further amp up U.S. investment plans last month reflected Toyotas credo to build cars where theyre sold, as well as increasing U.S. demand for its vehicles. But he also said a new North American trade deal and tariff threats also contributed to the moves. Id be disingenuous if I said we didnt have an eye on trade, he said. The RAV4 ascended to the top of Toyotas U.S. sales chart in 2017. The crossover extended its edge over the companys No. 2 model, the Camry sedan, last year to almost 84,000 units. The RX is the longtime leading model in Lexuss lineup, and the NX became the brands second-best seller in the U.S. in 2017. AIRDRIE, ALTA.The mother of injured Humboldt Broncos player Ryan Straschnitzki has shed a lot of tears over the past year and that didnt change as the family finally returned to its newly renovated home Saturday. Michelle Straschnitzki was handed a box of tissues by her husband Tom as the entire clan walked into the family home in Airdrie, just north of Calgary. But this time it was tears of joy. It is. Its been a heck of a year and a bit, but were going to celebrate this moment and keep in mind why were here now and everybodys still in our hearts. Were grateful to be home, she said wiping away tears. Ryan Straschnitzki was paralyzed from the chest down in the April 6, 2018, crash between a bus carrying the Humboldt Broncos and a semi-trailer. Sixteen people died and 13 others, including Ryan, were injured. The family has been living in hotels since July while the home was renovated. It now includes an elevator down to his new man cave in the basement and a separate heating unit for his bedroom because hes unable to sense when his body is too hot or too cold. Read more: Humboldt Broncos families support hockey assistance program after criticism Younger brother of injured Humboldt Bronco in weekend crash Good must continue to come from this: Humboldt community gathers on one-year anniversary of Broncos crash It also includes hockey memorabilia including a framed jersey from his favourite player, Jonathan Toews of the Chicago Blackhawks, his number 10 Broncos jersey and a big-screen TV and sound system. Awesome. This is too good to be true. Its amazing. Wow, he said beaming. Im like speechless. Everything has just been amazing and you saw my mom with the tears going on. Just her reaction shows what this house is like and its like a whole new house and Im really excited. Straschnitzki intends to have his friends over to watch the rest of the NHL playoffs and hes thrilled to have his life return to a bit of normalcy. It gives me more independence with the laundry room and the open bedroom. Even having all the controls here I can do it on my own and dont have to depend on other people. Her sons smile prompted more tears from Michelle Straschnitzki. Its been a long time and that was a genuine smile. Also, knowing Ryan can do what he wants now. He can live his life the way he needs to and he can come and go as he pleases, more or less. Father Tom said Ryans smile has only been this bright once before since the accident. The last time he lit up like that was last July when he first got back on the ice, he said, referring to his sons new sport of sledge hockey. A lone hockey stick was propped up at the front door. Neighbours turned out to welcome the family, and many sat in lawn chairs across the street before the beginning of what appeared to be a huge block party. Its not going to end. I think its going to go until next Saturday probably, said Michelle. Read more about: George Smitherman and Christopher Peloso first met in Toronto in the 1990s. George was Toronto-born and -bred; Christopher was a relative newcomer to the city from Sudbury. An on-again, off-again relationship ensued until, on Christmas Day in 2006, George, by then Ontarios minister of health and deputy premier, made a proposal of marriage. Christopher said Yes, and they began making preparations for their wedding in the summer of 2007. They called it a Stephen Harper Shotgun Wedding, as they wanted to get it done before the then prime minister made good on his threat to overturn the Supreme Courts sanctioning of same-sex marriages. The ceremony took place in Elliot Lake in northern Ontario and was designed to pay respect to First Nations culture, in which two-spirited people are given special status. For the ceremony, Christopher took an Anishinaabe name that translates as little yellow bird. The two supported each other while pursuing their own careers George in politics (including an unsuccessful run for the Toronto mayoralty against Rob Ford), and Christopher in the retail chocolate business. They also adopted a son, Michael, in the middle of the mayoral campaign. Soon after that campaign, they adopted a daughter, Kayla. Now with two young children to care for, Christopher left his job to become a full-time parent. In this excerpt from his soon-to-be-published memoir, Unconventional Candour, George relates the tragic events that followed. We had heard from the nice staff at CAS that Michaels mom had had another baby a little girl and that mother and child were doing well. Of course, knowing that historically the mother had struggled to maintain connections despite her obvious love meant we might be called upon to expand our circle of love. What hit me about Christophers response to the opportunity to adopt Kayla (we dropped several other names she had been given but we liked the name Kayla a lot) was his insistence that, rather than take another leave from Lindt, he should quit altogether. I wish I could say I reluctantly went along with this, but I didnt put up the least resistance. Rather, I concluded that if there was a point in our life where I could afford to carry us, it was then. The part I was slow to get, and that Christopher discounted or missed entirely, was the extent to which his condence was tied to his mastery of the retail chocolate environment. Oddly enough, his prior promotion meant that when he returned to the workplace his job had shifted from operationalizing the frontline to presenting the budget and plans for the frontline back at headquarters. Or, put another way, Christopher was shifting from day-to-day interaction with retail employees to a results-driven executive leadership team at head office. The latter was a tougher t for Christopher. Now I would like to say to anybody with one kid who is feeling pressure to acquire another: think about it long and hard. Because what seemed like more than ample resources for one kid quickly became a stretch to manage two. The added pressure seemed to create an uptick in Christophers alcohol consumption. To try to spread the burden, I adjusted my own sleep and work patterns. I often exercised at 6 a.m. before heading to work early enough to allow me to get back and take the kids to the wading pool late in the afternoon. The deterioration of Christophers mental health in this period was a real challenge, and his history of attempts at taking his own life resurfaced. Before eventually succumbing to his own devices, Christopher made two bold efforts to accomplish the same pain-ending feat. One of those, his disappearance and eventual discovery in a clump of bushes along a railway line, is well-known. As is my memory of sitting down on my deck to pen some remarks that Barbara Hall was to deliver soon after to searchers on my behalf, only to have my privacy interrupted by a helicopter hovering directly overhead. It was as if they could see what I was writing. Frankly, the stigma Christopher suffered in realizing that he had created such a circus was nearly impossible for him to get over. Sad as it is to say, it was pretty much clear that at some point he would take his own life, and we had this conversation very openly in the company of his (and later my) psychiatrist. She reminded us that, if a person wishes to die, we are quite powerless to stop it. After an earlier overdose attempt where his cellphone gave him away, Christopher expressed dismay that he had left his phone on. In the latter case, he did not share my enthusiasm, or that of the kids, that Ranger the police dog had found him where he lay after bouncing off a slow-moving freight train. That same meeting with the psychiatrist was our only real conversation about the underlying trauma that made Christophers life so tormented. He conrmed that he had been sexually abused at the hands of a trusted gure in his youth, but he delved no further. Around mid-afternoon the day before Christopher died, I pretty much knew the show was over when I received an email from him promising a nal result. He asked us not to sound the alarm as precautions on his part were going to make this a recovery, not a rescue, mission. My fervent efforts to trace debit and credit card transactions were fruitless but an outlet for my energy during a period that felt a lot like the nal hours on election day when the outcome is in doubt. Tick tick tick. My mother had swooped in and picked up the kids Sunday afternoon, and their ability to roll with the situation was tested once more. By 5 a.m. the next day, I got a conrming word from the coroner that Christopher had died. I spread the word to close family, dictated the fateful tweet, and called my mother for my childrens return. By 9 a.m., I squeezed my children tightly and told Kayla, then age three-and-a-half, and Michael, 5, that Dada wouldnt be coming home. That he was dead. Their grasp was at rst limited to the practical with Michael asking, Who is going to feed us? From that day until now, my crew of two hugs-and-cuddles have lled the void and saved the day. People have different strategies about how to approach the complicated matter of death with children. While I didnt then explicitly tell Michael and Kayla that their father had taken his own life, I did tell them that his brain let him down, not his body. Its not my style to bull---t around subjects to begin with, and so I have been gripped with fear trying to balance my need to be the rst to tell them, with the attendant reality that another kids Google search could lead to schoolyard humiliation. Get the spelling of the family name right and its not too many clicks before you nd the full story about Michael and Kaylas Dada. Only more recently have I explained to Michael and Kayla that Dada took his own life because he was in pain and sometimes our brain can send us the wrong messages. How did he die? they asked. He stopped breathing, I said. The real details of his death are left to be a burden shared between me and very few others, and I repeat what I said at Christophers memorial about the good fortune I experienced by actually knowing the deputy coroner who attended to Christopher. About Christophers taking of his own life, Kayla recently said as we crossed the street to school: Its sad and its a little bit mean. In organizing the memorial for Christopher, I unearthed the really sad reality of his life: the underlying unwillingness on the part of his parents to let him be who he was and truly respect him for that. Dont bother going to Toronto for his memorial, his parents told everyone in Sudbury. We will do something for him here in Sudbury. And what they did for him in Sudbury was hold a Catholic funeral mass. This for a man who had a pronounced and undisguised disdain for the Catholic Church and was notably an atheist. I protested to his mother, who in the same sentence blamed me for his death and proclaimed that he was baptized with his god and that he shall be with his god in death. To say any more about the matter would not shed any more light on it. Christophers Toronto memorial was attended by hundreds, including dignitaries and, especially, the many he had touched professionally over the decades. Our yellow bird was free, but his ock was deeply burdened by the events. I dont really know how we have survived. The depth of despair I felt was intense, but the saving grace was the pitter-patter of feet on the oor. Because my kids are such good cuddlers, they wore my sadness away in the comfort of love. We headed for Florida. Our customary 24 hours of driving put some real distance on the pain. Anxious as I was to get there in my stepmothers Chrysler 300, we attracted attention from two separate representatives of the constabulary. One, an OPP ocer near London, took a look at my drivers licence, offered condolences on our loss, and wished us a good day. Not sure how exactly, but about 10 hours later a similar courtesy was offered by the police as we slipped from Tennessee into Georgia. Perhaps my sadness was etched in my face. My best advice to anybody facing the devastating impacts of trauma is to respect it for what it is, and I hope you have kids. The former is to help people escape the guilt they feel from having no motivation to do anything. The latter having kids is because, no matter how sh---y you might feel, you cant just climb back under the duvet, or in my case chase a longish high down a funnel of self-fullling despair. The emotional needs of the kids forced me to adjust my work away from the oce and toward home. The ideal of everyone nishing a nights sleep in his or her own bed was shattered, and despite the annoyance I needed the comfort as much as they did. Our language has taught us to say things like, We will be there for you and Anything we can do? and Dont worry. Almost all of those expressions are sincerely uttered but largely unfulllable. I have personally skipped many funerals since Christopher passed because my trauma quotient has remained so high. But when I do attend, I try very hard to tell people: Respect the trauma. Its been tough on my little people. Michael quite understandably suffers from fears of abandonment, and Kayla longs for more attachment. For all that we have been through, however, we get stronger and better every day. But not a day goes by that we dont make note of Christophers presence or sometimes moan about how different things would be if Dada were still with us. He found his peace, and everywhere we see yellow birds we feel his presence. There are just so many music anthems to rely upon, each one a soundtrack for my life inside and outside politics. The great gay anthem, Gloria Gaynors I Will Survive, comes to my mind often, especially the lines, Did you think Id lay down and die? / Oh no not I / I will survive. Also Kanye Wests Stronger, which paraphrases Friedrich Nietzsches famous dictum, N-now th-that that dont kill me / Can only make me stronger. Michael certainly seems to identify with Shawn Mendess song Theres Nothing Holdin Me Back. At various times, I have had people tell me how great a man I am for sticking it out and not walking away from Michael and Kayla. It is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. The truth is that Christophers death revealed to me that, without Michael and Kayla, I am nothing. Their existence is my sole purpose in life. Others have told me that it is remarkable I dont view Christopher as having been selsh. Of course, in quiet moments of anger and despair, some of this sentiment might take hold, however briey. But I love Christopher and I will forever hold him in that special place that views him as a great partner, lover and father. As for his brain and the terrible tricks it played on him, it reminds me always of our need not to judge others too harshly. Not everyone is capable of processing the same facts and drawing the same conclusion. FUENTECAMBRON, SpainAt 48, Ignacio Sotillos Garcia has the dubious distinction of being the youngest inhabitant of his village in Soria, a province of northern Spain. He shares a home with his elder brother and their parents, who are both in their 80s. Only four other houses remain occupied. Still, his village, Fuentecambron, is doing better than neighbouring Cenegro, which lost its last resident three years ago. Withering as they may be, provinces like Soria, which has 88,000 inhabitants half of what it had 60 years ago will be critical to the outcome of Spains national election Sunday, its third since 2015. These emptying hinterlands are where Spains changing demographic and political landscapes collide, making for an utterly new and volatile dynamic that will determine the countrys future. Spain is being hollowed out. The populations of its inner provinces are shrinking and aging so quickly that Spain is on course to overtake Japan as the country with the longest life expectancy in the world. Overall, more than half of Spains municipalities are at risk of extinction, having already fallen below the threshold of 1,000 inhabitants. They are feeling cut off and demanding fresh attention. In late March, with the election approaching, Sotillos Garcia joined tens of thousands of protesters who went to Spains capital, Madrid, to start what they called the revolt of emptied-out Spain. It cannot be that we live less than 150 km from Madrid but feel here as if were at the end of the world, Sotillos Garcia said. We dont have the protest culture of France, and were not the Yellow Vests, but its time to make our voices heard. But even if voters like him feel marginalized, they punch above their weight politically in a party system that has severely fractured in recent years. Under Spains system of representation, about 100 of the 350 seats in Parliament are occupied by politicians from thinly populated provinces. The system guarantees each of Spains 50 provinces at least two seats in Parliament. Otherwise, a province like Soria, which is Spains least populated province would get no seats at all. The anomalies have given rise to a growing debate in Spain over electoral reform, similar to that about the Electoral College in the United States. But that will not change the results Sunday, when for the first time since the end of Gen. Francisco Francos dictatorship in the 1970s, at least five parties will be vying nationally, including a new ultranationalist party, Vox. When you switch from a relatively predictable two-party system to one in which five parties are each expected to win more than 10 per cent of the votes, you find that the swing seats in empty Spain could really become decisive, said Rafael Rubio, professor of constitutional law at the Complutense University in Madrid, who has been advising the conservative Popular Party. Before Sundays election, all the main parties offered pledges to rescue inland Spain, where many residents have left for larger cities. In March, the embattled government under Socialist leader Pedro Sanchez approved 70 measures to help abandoned Spain, including relocating military bases to the most vulnerable provinces, to boost their local economies. In the televised debates featuring the main candidates, the discussion was peppered with references to Spains low birthrate and its neglected interior. Pablo Iglesias, leader of the far-left Unidas Podemos party, argued that there is a territorial problem in Spain, not only Catalonia, where a secessionist push in 2017 set off the countrys biggest political crisis. Ciudadanos, another party, wants a 60 per cent cut in income tax for residents of towns of less than 5,000 inhabitants. The discontent has presented a particular challenge for the conservative Popular Party, which has counted on the support of a conservative heartland that is the cradle of Castilian Spain. The Popular Party has promised more spending on technology and transport infrastructure in rural areas. But it also sought to persuade Vox not to field candidates in provinces like Soria, to avoid a fragmentation of the right-wing vote. That effort failed, leaving Vox as a potential kingmaker in any coalition-building after the vote. Vox, too, has tried to tap into the discontent by appealing to nationalist feeling in the hinterland, as well as to the specific needs of rural areas. For instance, animal welfare activists recently challenged in a regional court the practice of hunting, but Vox has vowed to defend Spains nearly 1 million hunters as part of a broader pledge to protect Spanish traditions, including bullfighting. If theres a big surprise on Sunday, it will come from Vox, said Maria Luisa Aguilera Sastre, the Socialist mayor of San Esteban de Gormaz, a town in Soria. Even if people here now feel abandoned, they also feel very strongly Spanish, and hunting is also a big business here. Still, the more common complaint in Spains rural provinces is that they missed out on the countrys transformation to a modern economy, particularly following its membership to the European Union in 1986. For instance, after Spain started operating a high-speed train network in the 1990s, national and regional legislators decided to circumvent Segovia, a province neighbouring Soria, deepening its isolation. It is a decision residents there are still fighting. This month, however, both the governing Socialist party and the opposition Popular Party promised to reopen the disused local railway line, at least to transport goods. We once had a great railway line, but at some point Spain decided to modernize without us, said Jesus Lopez, president of Codinse, an association that uses public subsidies from the European Union and Spain to sustain 119 villages in northeastern Segovia. The villages have a combined population of 10,500 people, about 60% of whom are older than 60. Fernando Arevalo, an activist from an association that fights depopulation in Soria, said voters should be wary of empty promises by politicians before elections. But he also acknowledged that his association was struggling to mobilize older, traditional-minded voters. People talk about the need for change, but then they mostly dont vote for change, he said. Antonio Arribas, 84, a former shepherd, lamented that health problems recently forced him to move from his village home to a residence for the elderly a few kilometres away. He said he would stick with the Popular Party on Sunday, but I cant really tell you why. In any case, he said, I dont think any politician is going to save our villages. Read more about: CARACAS, Venezuela - The government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Saturday staged a rally to celebrate its split with a key regional forum, the Organization of American States. Supporters of Maduro attended the demonstration in the Venezuelan capital to denounce the 35-member OAS, whose council voted this month to recognize an envoy selected by opposition leader Juan Guaido. A minority of countries voted against the resolution. In 2017, Maduro started a two-year process to abandon the OAS, but Guaido this year asked the group to ignore the socialist leader and instead designate Gustavo Tarre as his own envoy. The U.S. and most other OAS member states recognize Guaido as Venezuelas interim president, saying Maduro wasnt legitimately re-elected last year. Maduro says the OAS is violating Venezuelas sovereignty. Also Saturday, ambassadors appointed by Guaido to represent him in the region gathered in Colombia to discuss ways to increase diplomatic pressure on Maduro, who retains the support of Venezuelas military leadership and counts Russia and China among his allies. One of Guaidos envoys, Julio Borges, said they planned to hold a similar event for opposition envoys in Europe in May. The Venezuelan opposition is preparing for nationwide marches on May 1 that it hopes will weaken Maduros hold on power in a country whose economy has been shrinking for years. The opposition blames Venezuelas problems on corruption and mismanagement under Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chavez; supporters of Maduro say U.S. sanctions and other measures to isolate them are driving the crisis. TOKYO - Japanese police are investigating a knife that was placed on the school desk of Emperor Akihitos grandson, according to media reports Saturday. The incident Friday involving 12-year-old Hisahito, who is in succession line for the Chrysanthemum Throne, comes as Japan prepares for ceremonies marking Akihitos abdication on April 30. Kyodo News said police are investigating security camera footage. The Metropolitan Police Department declined comment and Ochanomizu University Junior High School did not answer calls. Akihitos son, Crown Prince Naruhito, is set to become emperor May 1. Hisahito is Naruhitos nephew. The emperor, revered as a god during World War II, now holds no political power and serves as a national symbol. Akihito and his family are generally popular but have been targeted in attacks in the past. JERUSALEM - An Israeli official said Saturday that Israel will free two prisoners as a goodwill gesture following the repatriation of a soldiers remains from Syria, over 35 years since he went missing in action. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, said the release of the prisoners was not a condition for this months return of the remains of soldier Zachary Baumel. He said the decision was only made in recent days. The official did not reveal the identities or nationalities of the prisoners. But Russia, which secured the return of Baumels remains from Syria, said they were Syrian. Baumel went missing during the Sultan Yacoub battle between the Israeli army and Syrian forces during Israels 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Later on Saturday, the Arabic service of Israels Kan radio identified the two prisoners as Nashit Ahmed, 35, and Zidan Tawil, 57. The first was arrested 14 years ago when he was trying to infiltrate an Israeli army base, and the second is a resident of a Golan Heights village who was arrested on drug charges, the radio said, citing security sources. On Friday, the Russian envoy to Syria, Alexander Lavrentiev, said the return of Baumels body was not a unilateral step. A decision was made by the Israeli side and implementing it might take some time and there will be a release of some Syrian citizens held in Israeli jails. Therefore we should not explain this as a unilateral act, Lavrentiev said in an interview with a Russian broadcaster. DETROIT - Prosecutors on Friday asked a judge for a six-month timeout in the criminal case against Michigans former health director after finding a trove of documents related to the Flint water crisis in the basement of a state building. The 23 boxes included a file titled phones/wiped with the names of eight state employees, prosecutors said. Only within the past few weeks did the People learn of a trove of documents and other materials that should have been, but was not, provided to it months or even years ago, the attorney generals office said in a court filing. Its unclear what connection, if any, the boxes have to former health chief Nick Lyon, who is charged with involuntary manslaughter in an outbreak of Legionnaires disease. Hes accused of failing to timely warn the public about the disease while Flint was using water from the Flint River in 2014-15 . The water wasnt properly treated, which caused lead to leach from old pipes, among other problems. Lyon has been ordered to trial , but Genesee County Judge Joseph Farah is considering an appeal. He planned to release a decision no later than May 17, more than three months after hearing arguments. We were in full overdrive working to get this done, the judge told The Associated Press. But prosecutors now want him to suspend the case for six months. Farah said hell hold a hearing on May 3. We will vigorously oppose it. This is another stall tactic by the prosecution, said Lyons attorney, Chip Chamberlain. Prosecutors didnt suddenly stumble upon the documents and computer hard drives. They said they were informed in February by Peter Manning, a division chief in the attorney generals office, that the boxes were languishing in the basement of a state-owned building. Other attorneys in the office were aware of the records because they were defending state officials in civil lawsuits related to the Flint water scandal, Assistant Attorney General Daniel Ping said. They indicated that the records were duplicates of what already had been given to prosecutors, but investigators said that wasnt true, Ping wrote. The criminal investigation was led by a special prosecutor, Todd Flood, until earlier this year when Dana Nessel, the new attorney general, brought the cases into her office and formed a new team. Flood charged 15 people; so far seven have pleaded no contest to misdemeanours. This week was the fifth anniversary of Flints switch to the Flint River. The city used the river for 18 months until fall 2015. ___ Follow Ed White at http://twitter.com/edwhiteap NASHUA, N.H. - New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is shrugging off her states governors endorsement of former Vice-President Joe Bidens 2020 presidential campaign over her own. Speaking to reporters after an event Friday at a bar in Nashua, New Hampshire, Gillibrand said, Our governor can endorse whoever he likes, but I am the best candidate to defeat President Trump, and I will. Fellow Democrat and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said hes supporting Biden, who formally launched his White House bid Thursday. Gillibrand said, The truth is, this presidential election will not be won on the endorsements of powerful people. She later briefly played beer pong, successfully tossing a pingpong ball across a table and into a plastic glass of water, making her opponents take long swigs of beer. HUGO, Okla. - The Latest on a police shooting in Oklahoma that left a suspect and three children injured (all times local): 10:35 p.m. Authorities in Oklahoma say three children were wounded in a police shooting when an officer fired at a man who was suspected of robbing a restaurant. Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Brook Arbeitman says gunfire broke out Friday when detectives with the Hugo Police Department in southeastern Oklahoma were trying to approach the suspect, 21-year-old William Devaughn Smith. Arbeitman says Smith was in a truck with four children. The agency initially said two children were shot but later learned a third child was shot. Officials did not immediately release the names, ages and conditions of the children. Arbeitman says its not clear if Smith fired at police or what prompted the shooting. He was treated and released from a hospital in Paris, Texas, and booked into jail there. ___ 9:30 p.m. Authorities say a man wounded in a police shooting in Oklahoma that also injured two children is now in custody in Texas after being treated and released from a hospital. The police chief in Paris, Texas, says his department arrested 21-year-old William Devaughn Smith on Friday after he was released from a hospital there. Smith is a suspect in the April 11 armed robbery of a Pizza Hut in Hugo, Oklahoma, about 30 miles (48 kilometres) north of Paris. Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Brook Arbeitman says Smith and the two children were shot Friday when Hugo police detectives tried to make contact with Smith. Arbeitman says its not clear if Smith fired on the officers or what prompted the shooting. She says Smith and the two children were taken to a hospital. Officials did not immediately release the names, ages and condition of the children. ___ 8:50 p.m. Oklahoma authorities say a police officer has shot and injured two children along with a man who is suspected of robbing a restaurant earlier this month. State Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Brook Arbeitman says gunfire broke out Friday when detectives with the Hugo Police Department in southeastern Oklahoma were trying to make contact with the suspect, 21-year-old William Devaughn Smith. Arbeitman says Smith is suspected in an armed robbery at a Pizza Hut in Hugo, which is near the Texas state line. Arbeitman says its not clear if Smith fired on the officers or what prompted the shooting. She says Smith and the two children were taken to a hospital. Officials did not immediately release the names, ages and condition of the children. WASHINGTON - The U.S. State Department has issued a heightened travel warning for Sri Lanka after last Sundays suicide bombings that killed more than 250 people. The department is urging Americans to reconsider travel to Sri Lanka due to terrorism. The U.S. has also ordered the departure of all school-age family members of U.S. government employees. And it has authorized the voluntary departure of nonemergency U.S. employees and family members. Friday nights advisory warns, Terrorist groups continue plotting possible attacks in Sri Lanka. Sri Lankan authorities have blamed a local Muslim militant group for the Easter attacks on churches and hotels. The Islamic State group has also claimed responsibility, though officials are still investigating the extent of its involvement. PHILADELPHIA - Authorities say they broke up a cockfighting ring when they raided a Philadelphia home, making nearly two dozen arrests. Roughly 40 roosters and chickens were found in the home Friday night, including some that were dead. Authorities say officers chased down several suspects who tried to flee the scene on foot. Four suspects suffered broken ankles when they tried to climb over a 30-foot wall. The Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals will care for the surviving birds. Further details about the ring and those arrested were not disclosed. Its not clear how long the ring may have been operating at the home. ANCHORAGE, Alaska - The U.S. Department of Defence announced Tuesday that it has awarded a Mississippi-based shipbuilder a roughly $745.9 million contract to construct a Polar Security Cutter to bolster the defences Artic presence. The department announced that VT Halter Marine Inc. will construct one of three ships intended to revitalize the U.S. Coast Guards fleet of heavy icebreakers, KTVA-TV reported on Friday. The PSCs (Polar Security Cutter) mission will be to ensure continued access to both polar regions and support the countrys economic, commercial, maritime, and national security needs, Department of Defence officials wrote. Alaskas congressional delegation says the Coast Guard has just two icebreakers: the medium icebreaker Healy and the heavy icebreaker Polar Star. The Coast Guard plans to acquire three new medium icebreakers as well as the three heavy icebreakers in the Polar Security Cutter contract. The United States cannot realize the potential of the Arctic both for our national security and for the people who live there without the technology necessary to protect our national interests in the far north, said U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska. Today, the Coast Guard has taken another vital step toward securing our countrys place in this strategically-significant region with a contract award for a new polar security cutter. The contract includes options which, if exercised, would bring the cumulative value of this contract to more than $1.9 billion, according to the Department of Defence. ___ Information from: KTVA-TV, http://www.ktva.com New Yorks Madison Avenue was awash with live Indian music, food and dancing as it hosted the citys annual Sikh (SEEK) Day Parade. Saturdays celebration came with an effort to raise funds for a national TV ad campaign aimed at combating what organizers say is the bullying of Sikh children, especially those wearing the turban that is their traditional headwear. The hourslong Manhattan parade is hosted by the New York-based Sikh Cultural Society. The Sikh religion was born more than 500 years ago in Indias Punjab region. After a 1984 genocide, many left. In New York, Sikhs are most visible in the borough of Queens, though the parade was held in Manhattan. CINCINNATI - The Nagels home is a house divided. Mindy Nagel usually votes Democratic, while husband Tom usually goes Republican. But thats only part of it their bedroom is in Ohios 2nd congressional district, while their garage is in the 1st. They say theyve voted in both districts within the last three years. They were in House 1 until Ohio lost two seats in Congress because of U.S. population shifts recorded in the 2010 census. Republican-controlled redistricting followed for the 2012 elections, and the Nagels started voting in House 2, held by Republican Brad Wenstrup. Until 2018, when the ballots at their polling place were again for House 1, Republican Steve Chabots seat, the Nagels said. Confused? The Nagels were, too. What didnt change is that they and everyone else in Democrat-dominated Cincinnati have a Republican representative in Congress. Redistricting yielded a statewide map that has produced both an unbending 12-4 Republican advantage in the traditional swing states delegation, and an ongoing court battle that could affect the 2020 U.S. elections. As a Democrat in a city that similarly votes blue, Mindy Nagel sees the map as absurdly unfair. Its so clear that they (Republican mapmakers) wanted to divide up the city of Cincinnati so we wouldnt have a Democratic congressman, the 39-year-old physical therapist said, sitting in her living room that straddles districts in the College Hill neighbourhood. A three-judge panel could rule soon on arguments made by voter rights and Democratic Party groups in a March federal trial that Ohios map is unconstitutionally partisan, violating voters rights to democratically choose their representatives. Whatever the panels decision, the case will likely be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which is already considering challenges to congressional maps in North Carolina, drawn by Republicans, and Maryland, drawn by Democrats. In a case similar to Ohios, a three-judge panel ruled Thursday that Michigans congressional and legislative maps are unconstitutionally gerrymandered, and ordered the state Legislature to redraw some districts for 2020. The judges wrote that GOP mapmakers in 2011 drew maps with the goal of ensuring durable majorities for Republicans. An appeal is likely. In the Ohio case, defence attorneys pointed out the map will change again after the 2020 census, and that Ohio voters have already passed a bipartisan ballot initiative to reform the mapmaking process. Anyone who thinks that federal courts can fix political polarization by injecting themselves into the most highly political disputes in the nation is sadly mistaken, attorney Phil Strach said in the Cincinnati trial, which ran on an accelerated schedule. Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups, however, say voters shouldnt have to wait until after 2020 for fair districts. Newly competitive congressional races would likely energize Democrats in 2020 as they try to win back Ohios 18 electoral votes in the presidential race Republican Donald Trump carried Ohio in 2016, after Democrat Barack Obama twice won the state. Congressional Democrats nationwide had a good year in 2018, gaining 40 seats. But Republicans held fast with 75% of Ohios House seats, despite winning only 52% of Ohios congressional vote total. Not a single seat has changed hands, said David Niven, a University of Cincinnati political scientist who testified for those challenging Ohios map. Not a single seat. The point of this map was to build a seawall against the storm, and it has held. Attorneys for Republican state officials and House members countered that the map had Democrats input and some bipartisan support. This is called democracy in action, Strach, based in Raleigh, North Carolina, told the judges. He said incumbency protection gives all Ohioans more clout in Washington as representatives build seniority. As for oddly shaped districts, the defence said keeping district populations even trumps neatly drawn boundaries. Longtime Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur has held onto the redrawn northern Ohio district dubbed the Snake by the Lake for its shape. She testified that splitting communities to create safe seats has hurt America by making House members less responsive to minority-party constituents and less willing to seek bipartisan compromise in Washington. Critics of the existing map also say dividing communities into districts with unclear boundaries leads to confusion among voters and even poll workers. Sherry Poland, director of Hamilton Countys board of elections, said its records show the Nagels voting precinct hasnt changed, though she acknowledged rare cases in which voters have been redirected since the map changed. In Franklin County, which includes the state capital Columbus, elections board spokesman Aaron Sellers said nearly 2,700 voters House districts were corrected in 2018, after a review found some werent voting in the right district. Columbus is divided into three districts, with two held by Republicans. Kenny Burck, 71, a Republican in a northwest Cincinnati suburb, said he expected to be in Chabots westside Cincinnati-based district, House 1, forever. But to get the numbers right, they had to carve us out and put us on the other side into the east, he said. So he now hes represented by Wenstrup, which is OK by him, although he agrees redistricting produced some strange lines. First elected in 1994, Chabot himself is a key beneficiary of the remapping. He has expressed gratitude to mapmakers for adding the Republican-dominated Warren County to his district. Its a gift to have Warren County and Hamilton County. And the city of Cincinnati, as far as Im concerned, Chabot recently said, after a town hall meeting in Harrison Township, west of Cincinnati. He insisted the districts are fairly drawn, and benefit Cincinnati by giving residents of the one city two representatives in Congress. He said the lawsuit was wasting ... the courts time. Mindy Nagel disagrees: In a healthy democracy, voters choose their representatives. Our representatives are choosing their voters. She got another reminder of her homes unclear political terrain after querying Chabots office about a pending bill this week. She received an automatically generated response: It appears that you live outside of House 1. The official www.house.gov site places the Nagel home back in House 2. __ Associated Press journalist Angie Wang in Cincinnati contributed to this report. __ Follow Dan Sewell at https://www.twitter.com/dansewell . ST. PAUL, Minn. - From third-floor offices at the Court International Building along University Avenue in St. Paul, Ewnetu Bilata Debela helps serve Ethiopians in diaspora families displaced by decades of border wars and government crack-downs on political dissidents, including many young people. Debela assumed the position of consul general of the Federal and Democratic Republic of Ethiopia to Minnesota and the Midwest last month. Ethiopia is now the only African nation represented in Minnesota by a fully-functioning career consulate with full diplomatic powers, as opposed to an honorary consulate. The only other Ethiopian consulates and embassies in the U.S. are located in Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and New York City. Debela, who was once chief of staff to former Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, spent nearly two years under his countrys old and new governments representing Ethiopia in Brussels. In St. Paul, the new consulate has a broad range of powers and responsibilities, from granting travel visas and passports to promoting tourism and trade, the Twin Cities Pioneer Press reported. Dawit Jida, proprietor of the Demera Restaurant on University Avenue, said it was a relief to finally have an Ethiopian consulate in St. Paul. Until now, Ethiopians had to travel to the embassy in Washington, D.C. to resolve visa and passport issues face-to-face, or seek help with others matters requiring government documentation. Now, you can talk to somebody firsthand, Jida said. Its a very good service for the Ethiopian community. Debela recognizes that he has his work cut out for him. His biggest challenge has little to do with administrative paperwork. The looming question is one of trust: Some 80 ethnic groups call Ethiopia home, and of them, the Oromo are the largest, though federal police and other government institutions were long dominated by a smaller ethnic group, the Tigray. Ethnic divisions have long spilled over into the work of Ethiopias 100 consulates and embassies around the world, which have sometimes been accused of favouring one group over another. Hes hoping to change that perception, in part by surrounding himself with a diverse staff of 12 workers. At least four different languages are spoken throughout the office, including English. Favoritism has been a weak point of other consulate generals. This consulate general belongs to all 80 ethnic groups, said Debela, who pledged to serve everybody without any prejudice to their ethnic background. Trust will also be key in tackling one of Ethiopias largest challenges unemployment. We had two universities 20 years ago. Now we have more than 50 state universities, and some 20 private universities, said Debela. He noted education has progressed faster than job growth, fomenting street protests in recent years led by students and other young people. Were really doing good as a prerequisite for development, but the problem is theres a gap between the demand and supply of jobs. The solution may be found, in part, in Minnesota. At least, thats the hope of Abebe Lema, the Consulate Generals investment, trade and tourism promotion officer. Ethiopia, which once spurned foreign influence in its economy, is now courting it in hopes of growing targeted industries. The government is opening up economic sectors for foreign investors, including airlines, shipping and telecom, which were previously restricted to domestic investors, Lema said. It will be a while before the Consulate General gets up and running with its investment outreach, but that and tourism promotion are somewhere on the horizon. We are focused on diaspora services right now, but as time goes by, we will focus on outreach to the chambers of commerce, find a venue to organize our trade (fairs), network with corporations, Lema said. He foresees hosting an investment forum, perhaps within the next year, featuring business leaders from Minnesota and Ethiopia. Tensions between ethnic groups remain in Ethiopia, even as a once-centralized government authority opens itself up to more democratic institutions. Teshite Wako, a leader in Minnesotas Oromo community and chief financial officer of St. Pauls Neighborhood Development Center, who spent long hours in recent years travelling to Washington, D.C. to raise awareness of human rights abuses. Wako said he believes economic opportunity and political stability will grow hand-in-hand. How much has changed in a year, for the Ethiopian government to open a consulate here, said Wako, marveling at the arrival of the 5,000-square-foot mini-embassy along St. Pauls Green Line light rail corridor. Thats really a testament to how much the government has changed from the inside to respond to human rights demands. Following a peaceful transition of power within the Ethiopian government in April 2018, the East African nation of 100 million people has ended a 20-year war with neighbouring Eritrea and granted amnesty to thousands of newly-freed political prisoners, including students and journalists. The government of new Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has also loosened trade and travel restrictions, opened key sectors of the economy to foreign investors, and extended new outreach to Ethiopians living around the world, including the estimated 100,000 Ethiopians in Minnesota. Challenges remain, including high unemployment, and the growing privatization of state-owned businesses has drawn attention around the world. But to Wako, these are better days for Ethiopians in Minnesota, and for their relatives back in his country of origin. We have to focus on economic diplomacy to bring more jobs to the country, Wako said. ___ Information from: St. Paul Pioneer Press, http://www.twincities.com An AP Member Exchange shared by the Twin Cities Pioneer Press. LOS ANGELESA gunman opened fire in a synagogue in Southern California on Saturday, authorities said, killing one person and injuring three others during a religious service on the last day of Passover, a holiday that celebrates Jewish freedom. Officials said the assailant had been taken into custody and identified him as John Earnest, a white 19-year-old man armed with an AR-15-style weapon. The shooting, at Chabad of Poway, about 25 miles north of San Diego, is the most recent in a series of high-profile acts of violence at houses of worship, including the mass shooting at a mosque in New Zealand last month and the church bombing in Sri Lanka last week. It came exactly six months after one of the worst attacks against the U.S. Jewish community left 11 dead in a Pittsburgh synagogue. Local officials called the California shooting a hate crime. The gunman shouted that Jews were ruining the world as he stormed the synagogue, according to a government official with knowledge of the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly about it. The synagogue did not have a guard at the time, the official said, and there were about 40 to 60 people there at the time of the shooting. An older woman died in the shooting, and a young woman and two adult men were in stable condition at a hospital. Derryl Acosta, a spokesman at Palomar Medical Center, confirmed that the rabbi, Yisroel Goldstein, was among those being treated. Goldstein had tried to speak with the gunman before he was shot in the hand, the government official said. At a news conference Saturday, Sheriff Bill Gore of San Diego County said that the suspects gun may have malfunctioned, cutting the attack short. The San Diego police chief, David Nisleit, said that after the shooting, the gunman called the California Highway Patrol to report his location on Interstate 15 in Rancho Bernardo. A police officer who was responding to the synagogue attack exited the freeway and saw the gunman in his car. The man pulled over, jumped out of his vehicle and put his hands up, Nisleit said, and the officer saw a rifle on the cars front passenger seat. Nancy Levanoni, 80, who has been going to the synagogue for 17 years, said, Apparently, God was looking after us because we got there a little later than normal. Services started at 10 a.m., and Levanoni and her husband, Menachem Levanoni, 81, the former president of the synagogue, got there closer to 11:15 a.m. As we were getting out of the car, we heard gunshots, she said. I thought maybe someone was stepping on those little plastic bubbles. They headed toward the synagogue, where Nancy Levanoni saw the rabbi bleeding from a finger where he appeared to have been shot. One of her closest friends was on the floor, she said. Levanoni learned that her friend had been shot and was seriously injured. The pair had been friends for 17 years and the victim was very active in the synagogue, she said. She cant do enough for people around her, Levanoni said. If you are sick, she brings you food. Shes a wonderful, wonderful person. On Saturday, for the last day of Passover, there was a special service known as Yizkor to remember deceased family members. Walter Vandivort, who lives in the neighborhood of the Poway synagogue, said he had heard gunshots while he was indoors. He said he was unsure how many he had heard. He described the neighborhood as a peaceful, middle-class area that had never seen this kind of violence in the decades he has lived there. I see the Orthodox Jews walking to their synagogue and weve never had a problem, he said. The community, which describes itself as the city in the country, is both rural and urban, a place where sports stars have made their homes but where horse trailers are parked in front of many houses. Neighbors gathered on the sidewalks near the synagogue as police officers taped off and closed major roads. I thought I heard shots, but I thought maybe it was a car, a resident, Jake Padilla, said. Then I heard it again and I heard people screaming. I started to run outside, and my wife yelled at me to call the cops instead. This kind of thing is getting too common. Theres too much hate in the country right now. President Donald Trump offered his sympathies from Washington, saying, obviously looks right now based on my last conversations looks like a hate crime. Hard to believe, hard to believe, he continued. With respect to the synagogue in California near San Diego. Were doing some very heavy research. Well see what happens, what comes up. At this moment it looks like a hate crime. But my deepest sympathies to all of those affected. And well get to the bottom of it. Rep. Jimmy Gomez said on Twitter: Another tragedy in a place of worship ... Another instance in America where people went to pray and find peace, only to be met with violence and bloodshed ... My heart goes out to the victims of the Chabad of Poway shooting today. Rep. Mike Levin said in a tweet that he was closely monitoring the situation. We must do more to address the hate behind this attack and end the epidemic of gun violence in this country, he wrote. The Chabad of Poway was established in 1986. It approaches the Torah in a modern, relevant context, according to its website. Police are investigating a possible connection between the gunman and a manifesto that was posted before the shooting on the online message board 8chan. The document, an anti-Semitic screed filled with racist slurs and white nationalist conspiracy theories, echoes the manifesto that was posted to 8chan by the gunman in last months mosque slaying in Christchurch, New Zealand. The documents author, who identified himself as John Earnest, claimed to have been inspired by the Christchurch massacre and motivated by the same white nationalist cause. The author also claimed responsibility for a fire at a mosque in Escondido, California, last month. Police are looking into whether there is a connection between the two episodes. The 8chan post also referred to a live video stream and linked to a Facebook page, an indication that the author of the post may have tried to stream the shooting in real-time. The Facebook page was removed shortly after the post appeared, and no video of the shooting has yet materialized. The 8chan post was also removed, although the materials it contained have since been reposted on other sites. As helicopters flew overhead, Judith Zimmer, a member of Chabad of Poway, stood outside of nearby Poway High School, which was being used as a meeting place for synagogue-goers. Zimmer was trying to call her daughters in San Diego to tell them that she was fine and had not been at the service at the time of the shooting. I was going to go with a friend, but she hurt her foot and I decided to stay home, Zimmer said with tears in her eyes. Were a close-knit group here and Poway is a wonderful place to live, but hate happens all over San Diego. Im sad and disappointed, but Im not afraid. As people walked into the high school, they held hands, and one man was holding a teenage girl tightly, his arm wrapped around her. Most of them looked down at the ground as they went inside. As palm trees swayed in the soft breeze under a bright blue sky, traffic was being diverted by police and drivers looked out of their windows trying to see past the yellow tape that was blocking the main thoroughfare. I heard what happened and had to come over and see if I could help, said Avi Edberg, who lives in Poway but attends Temple Adat Shalom, another Poway synagogue. My friend is still being interviewed by the police. Im going to wait for her. I know shes not at the hospital, so thats a good thing, right? This is so horrible. Just horrible. LAS VEGAS - The Latest on the Democratic campaign for president (all times local): 6 p.m. Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren says Democrats have not paid enough attention to organized labour. The U.S. senator from Massachusetts was among 2020 hopefuls attending a union forum Saturday in Las Vegas. In response to a question, she said she agrees that the GOP has focused more on tearing down unions than Democrats have on building them up. Warren says Democrats and unions have not done enough to protect each other. She proposed implementing a method of streamlining union elections called card check. She also called for more pro-labour voices on the National Labor Relations Board and in the Labor Department to ensure businesses treat unions fairly. Warren detailed her plan to tax the wealthy and fund universal child care and student debt forgiveness as well as require 40% of corporate boards members to be representatives of employees. ___ 2:45 p.m. Democratic presidential candidate John Hickenlooper is calling for taking action against a key Supreme Court decision that hobbled unions last year. The former Colorado governor told a union forum Saturday in Las Vegas that if hes elected president hell reverse the Janus decision, which prevents unions from automatically deducting dues from the paychecks of government workers. A campaign spokeswoman says this could be done legislatively through Congress. An Illinois state employee named Mark Janus successfully challenged a 41-year-old Supreme Court ruling that allowed states to require public employees to pay some fees to unions that represent them, even if the workers chose not to join. Hickenlooper also said he supports greater funding of child care and a $15 minimum wage phased in depending on the cost of living in local areas. ___ 2 p.m. Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro wants the federal government to encourage companies to treat workers and labour better. Castro is running for the Democratic presidential nomination. He suggests that local governments only offer development incentives to businesses with good records of treating workers and organizing drives. He says the federal government could do the same sort of thing. Speaking Saturday during a union forum in Las Vegas, Castro says a message should be sent to companies that allowing workers to organize is the right thing to do and that some pressure should be put on them. Castro also called for better housing, recounting a Friday tour of maintenance tunnels where some homeless people live underneath Las Vegas glitziest casinos. He says housing is a human right. ___ 12:01 p.m. Democratic presidential contender Beto ORourke is betting that he can sell Republicans on the virtues of a $15 minimum wage. That could be a tough sell: It would mean more than doubling the current federal minimum, $7.25 an hour. The former Texas congressman says hed tell conservative business leaders that a higher floor for wages enables workers to avoid taking multiple jobs and makes them loyal employees. He says: When everyone can just work that one job, theyre going to be better at it. ORourke is among a half dozen Democratic presidential hopefuls addressing a Las Vegas forum organized by the liberal Center for American Progress Action Fund and the Service Employees International Union. ___ 11:30 a.m. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar is pitching the renewal of infrastructure in her comments to a union-sponsored forum in Las Vegas for Democratic presidential contenders. She says the money for roads, bridges, public transit and the like should come from reversing President Donald Trumps tax cuts and using the revenue from those higher taxes. Klobuchar pitched her plan as form of racial justice, noting that people in Flint, Michigan, which has a majority black population, still cannot safely drink lead-tainted city water. She says infrastructure may sound like a wonky Washington concern but its really about getting people to work. She says spending more money on roads and public transit could cut commute times that make it impossible for some people to hold down regular jobs. ___ 11 a.m. Kamala (KAH-mah-lah) Harris says that if she becomes president, shed be happy to call the chief executive officer of McDonalds to urge better treatment of workers. The Democratic senator from California was asked what shed do to help workers pushing for better treatment from the fast food giant by an employee who is part of a union campaign to raise wages there to $15 an hour. Harris and several other Democratic presidential hopefuls are speaking at a union-sponsored forum in Las Vegas Saturday. Harris says that shed tell the executive that McDonalds cant be an icon of whats right with the United States if it doesnt treat its workers well. ___ 7:50 a.m. Six Democratic presidential candidates are vying to promote their solidarity with workers. And theyre focusing on wages and other issues of importance to labour in hopes of winning support from one of the countrys major unions. A forum in Las Vegas organized by the liberal Center for American Progress Action Fund and the Service Employees International Union comes as union leaders and their backers worry the field of at least 20 Democratic contenders isnt spending enough time on bread-and-butter concerns. Labour is a pillar of the Democratic Party, but many white working-class voters and union members in swing states voted for Republican Donald Trump in 2016. Democrats are trying to win back those voters. Party leaders and union members are telling candidates they need to talk about issues that matter to working families. HUGO, Okla. - The Latest on the shooting and wounding of three children by police in Oklahoma (all times local): 4:30 p.m. The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation says three children wounded when a police officer fired at a robbery suspect suffered non-life threatening injuries. OSBI spokeswoman Brook Arbeitman said Saturday that the 5-, 4-, and 1-year-old children were taken to a Tulsa-area hospital following Fridays shooting in Hugo. Their names and conditions were not released. Olivia Hill, the childrens mother, told KXII-TV that the 4-year-old was shot in the head, the 1-year-old in the face and that the 5-year-old has a skull fracture. Her 2-year-old child was uninjured. Arbeitman says Hill and the 4 children were in a truck with 21-year-old robbery suspect William Devaughn Smith when gunfire broke out as officers approached him. ___ 11:25 a.m. The mother of three children wounded when an Oklahoma officer fired at a robbery suspect says two suffered head wounds and the third was shot in the face. Olivia Hill told KXII-TV that her 4-year-old daughter was shot in the head and her 1-year-old daughter was shot in the face. Hill said her 5-year-old child has a skull fracture. Her 2-year-old child was uninjured. The childrens names were not released. Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Brook Arbeitman said Hill and the children were in a truck with 21-year-old William Devaughn Smith when gunfire broke out as officers approached Smith in Hugo southeastern Oklahoma. Arbeitman said Saturday that investigators have not determined whether Smith was armed or what led to the shooting that also wounded Smith. Hes in custody in a Texas jail on a robbery warrant. ___ This story corrects that the man is suspected of robbery. WASHINGTONPolitical nerds, start your streaming devices. Youve got a big Saturday night of programming ahead. First, U.S. President Donald Trump rolls out his complete and total exoneration tour in battleground Wisconsin, his first campaign rally since the release of the Mueller report and an early look at his 2020 re-election strategy. Next up is the annual White House Correspondents Association dinner, which strained what remained of civility between the press corps and the administration a year ago and now is designed to be a decidedly more scholarly affair. Boring is how Trump describes it, one reason why hes never attended the event as president. But the dinner is apparently interesting and politically profitable enough for Trump that hes mocked it from the rally pulpit the past two years. Heres a look at what to watch from Trumps rally at 8 p.m. EDT and the correspondents dinner at 9:30 p.m. EDT, both expected to be carried by C-SPAN: The State of Things On the night of the press dinner in 2017, Trump mused from a rally stage in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, that he might consider attending the event the next year. It was not to be. Ditto in 2018, from the dais in Michigan. But Trump said no thanks for the third time. The dinner is so boring and so negative that were going to hold a very positive rally instead, he said earlier this month. Trump also told members of his administration not to attend. Boring isnt what the correspondents association is aiming for. But the organizers are shifting the tone this year after a sharply anti-Trump comic, Michelle Wolf, delivered a performance last time that some thought was too harsh against White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, who was seated onstage at the time. Instead, the featured speaker will be historian Ron Chernow, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author. Chernow, like many of his fellow historians, strongly opposed Trumps candidacy in 2016 and labeled him a demagogue. Association President Olivier Knox said in a statement: Were looking forward to an enjoyable evening of celebrating the First Amendment and great journalists past, present, and future. 'A Big One' The release of the redacted Mueller report seemed to have infused Trump, at first, with triumph. He declared America the greatest place on Earth, and tweeted: No Collusion, No Obstruction, Complete and Total EXONERATION. He promised the Saturday rally in Wisconsin would be a big one and began testing messages and slogans in a possible preview for the rest of his 2020 re-election bid. The special counsel found no evidence that Trump or his campaign conspired with Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election. But it did reveal details of the presidents efforts to thwart the investigation, fire Mueller and get other people to lie for him. Democrats are agitating for more investigations and a few want to begin impeachment proceedings. Trump vowed to not let any aides testify to Congress. He turned some of his anger on The New York Times, suggesting they get down on their knees & beg forgiveness. Post Mueller Message Trumps darker tone signals an approach to the rally thats different from the positive plans he had described. Trump has issued clues to his approach all week, including a trimmed-for-Twitter version of the Mueller reports findings: NO C OR O! Thats shorthand for no collusion or obstruction. In fact, Mueller did not make a recommendation on obstruction, instead laying out what many Democrats see as a road map of evidence and anecdotes to build their own case. Look, too, for Trump to describe the Mueller investigation as an attempt to destabilize the administration. On Friday, speaking to the National Rifle Association in Indianapolis, Trump said his political enemies tried for a coup, didnt work out so well. And I didnt need a gun for that one, did I? The friendly audience applauded the quip, but Trump wasnt done. He said hes seen corruption at the highest levels. A disgrace. Spying. Surveillance trying for an overthrow. The 2020 presidential campaign and his need to energize his core supporters and convince wobblers to vote for him again is very much on his mind. You better get out there and vote, he told the NRA. It seems like its a long ways away. Its not. Why Wisconsin (and Michigan)? The numbers tell the story of how Trumps rally at the Resch Center in Green Bay is designed to reach two states that he swiped for Republicans in 2016 after solid Democratic wins since the Reagan Administration. In Wisconsin, Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton by less than 1 percentage point. But the rally is in Brown County, which Trump won by more than 10 percentage points. And the Green Bay media market stretches to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where Trump won by tenths of a percentage point. The Resch Center seats as many as 10,500 people, according to its website, creating the potential for the crowded visual Trump loves. Bernie, Trolling Sen. Bernie Sanders isnt expected to campaign in Wisconsin on Saturday, his campaign says. But his supporters, like other Democrats in the race, are determined not to take the state for granted as many believe Clinton did. Earlier in the week, Sanders supporters took out a front-page ad that ran in Fridays Green Bay Press-Gazette that says Trump lied to Wisconsin voters about bringing back jobs amid layoffs at big companies. The ad also promotes 52 Sanders campaign organizing events around the state on the day Trump speaks. Associated Press writers Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, and Juana Summers contributed to this report. Havent we seen this movie before? Are those pictures of flooded homes from last week, last year or the year before that? It all seems to run together. In fact, thats the point. The parts of Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick that were inundated by overflowing rivers in the past week have been hit time and again, and it keeps getting worse. Once-in-a-lifetime floods now seem to come along like rush-hour buses. And if it isnt floods, its fires and killer heat. The wildfire season in western Canada last year was the worst on record, with dense smoke choking even downtown Vancouver. Much of Europe and Quebec suffered through a heatwave that killed hundreds. Torrential downpours flooded parts of Toronto. This is, the experts now tell us, the new normal. The effects of climate change are no longer a threat for the future; theyre the here and now. Of course, scientists cautious about being accused of climate alarmism are quick to stress that they cant link any particular weather event to climate change. But theyre almost certain that rising global temperatures are creating the conditions that lead to more extreme weather. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau certainly made that link this week as he toured an evacuation centre for people forced out of their homes by flooding near Gatineau, Que., across the river from Ottawa. Were going to see more and more of these extreme weather events more regularly, he said. It means we have to think about adaptation, mitigation and how were going to move forward together. Mitigation, i.e. taking action to slow the effects of climate change, is of course key. But, increasingly, so is adaptation. Its clear we can no longer avoid the effects of climate change; its already here so well have to do more and spend more to cope with it. Right now that means taking a harder line with homeowners who continue to live on floodplains and turn to the government with depressing regularity to bail them out. Canadas public safety minister, Ralph Goodale, signalled a welcome new approach earlier this month when he told cities, businesses and homeowners not to expect federal aid if they keep building in flood-prone areas. At some point the taxpayers patience runs out, he said. Quebec Premier Francois Legault had a similar message this past week: future help in flood zones will be much more limited. Both are right. Theres no point in throwing good money after bad. Toronto set a good example decades ago after Hurricane Hazel when it forced residents in flood-prone areas to move. The same areas keep flooding to this day, but no one is at risk and the city isnt on the hook for damages. Somehow we forgot that lesson, but its high time to relearn it now on a national scale. Nor should more emphasis on climate adaptation be seen as raising the white flag on the main battle the fight to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and actually head off the worst effects of future climate change. That must continue, but at this point the two approaches must go hand-in-hand. It wont be cheap. The Insurance Bureau of Canada reports that insurable property losses averaged $1.8 billion a year for the past decade, more than four times the rate of previous years. The biggest single factor is flooding. And on a global scale, the United Nations Environment Program says adapting to climate change could cost as much as $500 billion U.S. a year by 2050 in the developing world alone. That would include major measures like moving people out of flood-prone areas, a so-called retreat from the coasts, given that ocean levels are projected to rise significantly by the end of this century. Millions could be forced to move in low-lying countries like Bangladesh; closer to home, in Atlantic Canada, coastal buildings and transport links will have to be protected as sea levels rise as much as one metre. Agricultural practices will have to change to adapt to a hotter world. New crop varieties may have to be developed to deal with more frequent droughts, for example. The consumption of water-intensive meat may decline, while palatable meat substitutes come on the market. Major infrastructure must be rebuilt with the effects of climate change in mind. Some will be as mundane as more robust roads, sewers and bridges. Others will be more innovative, like a $200-million flip-up wall being designed in New York to protect Lower Manhattan from more intense storm surges expected in the future. There are encouraging signs that governments and global organizations are doing more on this front. A Global Commission on Adaptation was launched last fall, and the World Bank committed $200 billion over five years to finance climate-related projects. Thats at the highest level. The real work will be done closer to the ground, by governments at all levels, businesses and other organizations. Theres no escaping the reality that we are living through the early effects of climate change and that must be baked into policies and practices in all areas. Weve seen the start of the movie, but it has a long way to run. Read more about: The Big Debate: Should Pickering Airport be built? Opinion, April 23 Shame on Pickering Mayor Dave Ryan and senior city staff for promoting their pet project and doing so with misinformation and alternative facts, such as a recent city Facebook post stating there has been no farming on the federal lands in more than 40 years. The fact is that the lands have never ceased to be farmed and new 10-year agricultural leases began on April 1, 2018. For the mayors project to move forward, he must then support the termination of those duly signed contracts. Also absent in the mayors musings is the fact that about 5,000 acres of the Rouge National Urban Park are inside Pickering and his aerotropolis would be cheek by jowl against the park. He fails to mention that 70,000 homes in Seaton would be just four kilometres from a runway. I wonder how those residents feel about this? And, most important, a decision of any kind rests solely in the hands of the federal government, which manages the lands on behalf of the people of Canada. Ryan and the aerotropolis experts have pitched the idea of flying food 4,000 kilometres, instead of growing it just four kilometres from Seaton. This is Ryans idea of innovation? Ryan remains bereft of new vision, stuck in the 70s with nothing to offer except more of the same sprawl that has been plaguing us for two generations. After tens of thousands of tax dollars spent promoting his scheme, the only thing he and his experts have managed to do is coin a new oxymoron: green airport. Joe Bezubiak, Brougham The presenters were acting as if: The site in question wasnt still owned by the federal government. A solid business case and federal approval were a given. Transport Canada and the GTAA had no long-term ground lease agreement that prohibited major competition within 75 km of Pearsons fence. Pearson wasnt bent on cementing its pre-eminent position as the GTAs alpha airport. (Why give that up to be half of a dual economic engine?) The site wasnt adjacent to a national wildlife sanctuary, Rouge National Urban Park. ALPA, the Air Line Pilots Association International, hadnt voiced grave concerns about any airport so close to a wildlife preserve. Climate change doesnt exist. It was barely mentioned, unlike in John Kasardas column in the Star.) Instead, we were told that Pickerings aerotropolis would contribute such an infinitesimal amount to the worlds CO-2 emissions that, hey, no worries. Think of that added connectivity. The message was business as usual but a lot more of it. Thousands of jobs. Billions of dollars. Not one word about the catastrophe that awaits us if we keep doing nothing to stop it. Not one word about the need to get off fossil fuels, and fast. The climate-change denial in the room was palpable. In a blunt and moving speech to the U.K.s Houses of Parliament on April 22, Swedens Greta Thunberg said of her generation that we probably dont even have a future any more. Because that future was sold so that a small number of people could make unimaginable amounts of money. It was stolen from us every time you said that the sky was the limit, and that you only live once. Land Over Landings, Pickering After Mirabel, the airport planning division of Transport Canada needed to build another airport to justify its continued existence. Pickering was the targeted site. Unfortunately, Pickering did not fit the desired location specifications. So airport planners kept changing the criteria. Stewart shone the spotlight on massive deception by the federal and Ontario governments. In the chapter Who Picked Pickering? he quotes the announcement by these governments about the site selection: The choice of a site northeast of Toronto has come after an exhaustive federal-provincial evaluation since 1968 of 59 potential airport sites within a fifty-mile radius of Metropolitan Toronto. Stewart concludes, This left the impression that Pickering was one of the 59. It was not. Pickering was not among any of the 59 considered sites. As the debate over Pickering proceeds, Paper Juggernaut should become required reading by all those who are interested in how disaster projects are foisted on the public. Garfield Mahood, Toronto Ricardo Di Cecca, Burlington While cropland was up slightly in Durham Region and southern Ontario from 2011 to 2016, this is but a subset of farm data over a very short period and reveals the squeezing of the last drops out of our remaining, precious and non-renewable farmland. Indeed, farmland continues its precipitous decline, as total farm area and cropland in Durham declined by 10.37 and 5.6 per cent, respectively, between 2006 and 2016. The Greater Golden Horseshoe lost about 32,000 acres per year between 2006 and 2011, with another 300,000-plus acres approved for urban use. The region already has two other international airports, in Hamilton and Waterloo, which is the key reason Pickering has yet to establish a supportable business case despite well over 15 years of trying. Victor Doyle, Toronto, Ontario Read more about: OTTAWAIntergovernmental and Northern Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc has been diagnosed with cancer for the second time in less than two years, and will step away from cabinet as he undergoes a new round of treatment. The Liberal cabinet minister and longtime MP from New Brunswick revealed the diagnosis in a joint statement with his oncologist Friday afternoon. LeBlanc, 51, said he went to the doctor with flu-like symptoms a few weeks ago, and was diagnosed with a form of non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, a type of cancer in the blood. I will be temporarily stepping away from my cabinet duties to focus on my health, LeBlanc said. I have begun my treatment and it will last several weeks. Once I have concluded my treatment, I look forward to returning to my role in cabinet. He also said he will run in the federal election on Oct. 21. In the meantime, other ministers will fill in for LeBlanc in cabinet. Finance Minister Bill Morneau will assume LeBlancs direction of intergovernmental affairs and internal trade, while Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett will take over the northern affairs portfolio, the Prime Ministers Office said Friday. LeBlanc was appointed to intergovernmental and northern affairs in July 2018, when he took the helm as Ottawas point man for provincial relationships just weeks after Doug Fords Progressive Conservatives won power in Ontario. Animosity with certain provinces has percolated since then, with a string of Conservative governments lampooning the federal carbon price and filing court challenges to spike the climate change policywhich includes what Ford calls a job-killing carbon taxthat was imposed in their jurisdictions. LeBlanc, like other Liberal cabinet ministers, has criticized the Ford governments position on the carbon price and other issues, such as Fords willingness to use the controversial notwithstanding clause of the constitution to slash Torontos city council. At Queens Park last October, LeBlanc said Ford should set aside his national ambitions and focus on issues like education and health care in Ontario. Morneau takes over as Ottawas ambassador to the provinces at time when the fall federal election promises to exacerbate those squabbles some of it openly stoked by the federal Liberals themselves. Lets face it, this relationship, its not peace time or regular time. Its election time, Jason Lietaer, president of the communications firm Enterprise, said in an interview Friday. Theyre looking to pick a fight with Doug Ford. Lietaer said there is the public side to the relationship between Queens Park and Ottawa, with the two sides trading shots over Ottawas carbon pricing. But there are also ongoing discussions on issues of immigration and infrastructure spending, a few of the shared issues where they have to co-operate. Morneaus roles as a senior Toronto minister in charge of the finance portfolio makes him well-placed to deal with Fords priorities of Toronto transit and the provinces economy. They do have things they can work together on if theyre able to set aside the guns, Lietaer said. Bill Morneau can be effective at those if they use him the right way. He does have a lower temperature than some of the other people you could put in charge. LeBlanc was diagnosed with leukemia in December 2017, and told the Stars Susan Delacourt last October that the cancer was in complete remission. He said at the time that he had undergone six treatments of intravenous chemo-immunotherapy at the Dr. Georges-L. Dumont University Hospital Centre in Moncton. His oncologist there, Dr. Nicholas Finn, said in his joint statement with LeBlanc on Friday that the new cancer is a treatable condition and that the MP for Beausejour had a positive response to the initial treatments. In a statement from his office, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addressed LeBlanc directly. Dominic, you are a trusted cabinet minister and a close friendand Im happy you made the decision to focus on your health and your family during this difficult time, he said. You have our full support, and we look forward to having you back at the cabinet table soon. Ford, whose brother Rob Ford died of cancer in 2016, sent LeBlanc encouragement in a statement to the Star on Friday. This is absolutely devastating news, Ford said. My heart goes out to Dominic and his family as he steps away from cabinet to focus on his battle with cancer. As hes shown throughout his entire political career, Dominic is a fighter and I have no doubt that he will come out of this stronger than ever before. LeBlanc has also served as fisheries minister in Trudeaus cabinet, and was the Liberal House leader in the Commons after the 2015 election. He was first elected in 2000. Read more about: VANCOUVERWhen Sadaf Abdul was young, she liked going to work with her dad. Abdul Salam Rahimi had been a professional painter ever since the family immigrated to Canada in 2003. On some weekends hed bring Abdul, his only daughter of four children, and give her some money and a lunch at McDonalds to help with small jobs, like taping up corners. It was a good deal, and she enjoyed the quality time with her dad. On Jan. 19, 2010, when Abdul was 14, Rahimi invited her once more to come along to work, but she declined because she had to study for her exams. She got a call that afternoon: Her dad was badly hurt. He had been painting a 40-foot ceiling, and a friend who was holding the scaffolding went for a smoke break. The scaffolding began to roll, fell into a hole and tipped, launching him into a wall. At the hospital Abdul found her mom, looking defeated, and her dad, unrecognizable from his injuries. I just sat there and I held his hand; I kept thinking this isnt real, Abdul recalled in an interview with Star Vancouver on Friday. I just kept praying that he would wake up in a few minutes, but he didnt. And I thanked him and I had to say goodbye to him. Abdul is scheduled to speak about her dad Saturday at the Vancouver Day of Mourning ceremony the one day a year the public recognizes those who have died or been injured as a result of workplace injuries or illnesses. My dad himself, going into work and seeing it was unsafe, should have refused to do that, Abdul said. Everyone should know they have a right to refuse unsafe work. Though they often go unnoticed, people die in workplace accidents and as a result of work-related illnesses every week in British Columbia. Last year, WorkSafeBC accepted claims for 131 work-related deaths. In 2017, it was 158 deaths, and 144 in 2016. Many of those deaths involved physical injuries: 40 involved trauma in 2018, and 25 involved motor vehicle accidents. But Al Johnson, vice-president of prevention services at WorkSafeBC, said the factors are becoming more and more complicated. Today were challenged more than ever before, because our workforce is changing. Were looking at chemical, biological and psychological stressors, he said. Today were looking at bullying and harassment in the workplace, violence, discrimination, fatigue and mental-health issues. Its part of a sea change throughout the country as people look more closely at mental health, violence and harassment as workplace health and safety concerns. On the 2018 Day of Mourning list, detailing how each of the fallen workers died, at least four had deaths related to mental trauma. Two had taken their own lives. There are different dynamics in todays workplace: shift work, multiple jobs, work from home, work from other peoples homes, Johnson said. All those could lead to unique occupational risks, he explained, and workplaces need to have strategies for all circumstances. Abdul hopes her dads story will help others see that even experienced workers can lose their lives on the job, and its always worth it to prioritize safety. Now 24, she often thinks of her most cherished relationship cut short. The night before her father died, she went to talk with him for hours about her upcoming birthday, boys and her education. Just about life in general, she said. It was really weird because we hadnt had that deep a conversation for so long. Day of Mourning ceremonies take place across B.C. over the weekend. Read more about: Pat Brown, right, is the CEO of Rent Sons, a company that hires young people to help others with odd jobs such as painting, yard work and moving. Mansfield native Collin Gallagher, sitting, is the companys community builder for the Hockomock/Bristol County area. Also pictured is Gallaghers stepfather, Tom Sheehan. Seventeen students from a single Cincinnati high school earned a perfect score of 36 on the ACT, a standardized test used for college admission. Walnut Hills High School reported near-record numbers for the 2019 testing season. "I have never heard of so many students in one school earning a perfect score," said Ed Curry, spokesperson for ACT. One of the students, Nick Deck, said he was shocked when he found out the news. "It was definitely surprising because it was just an exorbitant amount of people, 17 in our top two classes," Deck said. Curry told officials with Cincinnati Public Schools that ACT does not keep records of students with perfect scores, and could not verify if this was the largest number of students from one high school. Principal John Chambers said each student took the exam at different times throughout the year. He said different versions of the ACT are administered each time. "It's all the students, it's their work and their work ethic and I would give credit to their teachers, because their teachers prepare them extremely well," Chambers said. Powers Educational Services in Hyde Park tutored two of the students. Co-founder Mark Powers said the test relies heavily on strategy, and he's not surprised Walnut Hills kids were able to master it. "Sure, that's a huge number and statistically improbable, but it is such a rigorous academic environment there," Powers said. The 17 Walnut Hills students hitting the high mark are seniors Nolan Brown, Raymond Conroy, Matthew Dumford, Peter Hattemer, Antoine Langree, Nathan Miller, Milan Parikh and Naomi Stoner, as well as juniors Suvan Adhikari, Meoshea Britt, Gabrielle Chiong, Nickolas Deck, Bridget Fuller, Evan Peters, Mohit Pinninti, Dhruv Rungta and Alan Zhang. Another 23 Walnut High School seniors just missed a perfect score, earning 35 out of a possible 36, said Principal John Chambers. ALTON A Riverbend resident all of her life, Candice L. Wallace, a third-grade teacher at East Elementary, said she had an amazing experience growing up in the area, and she and her husband, Germaine, are happy to give their four daughters the same experience. And I have been extremely blessed to be part of numerous projects and organizations within this community, Wallace said. As an educator, I know firsthand how detrimental summer break is in reference to summer learning loss, so I created a program called Community Tutoring. Under the program, which is approaching its third summer, students within Madison and surrounding counties receive six weeks of instruction in math and reading from certified teachers during the summer months. Students also receive lunch and educational resources to use at home, and it is free of cost for participants. Wallace also formed and facilitated the girls mentoring group, Youre Fabulous Inc., which addressed issues that teens and pre-teens face, such as self-esteem, bullying, fitness and wellness, etc. She also organized an empowerment luncheon for women, where keynote speakers provided encouragement and information, and participants engaged in activities, as well as networking. Funds generated from the luncheon were used to host a girls luncheon, which followed the same format as the adults, with inspiring speakers and activities, and opportunities for them to connect with girls their age. Most recently, Wallace organized a mother-daughter luncheon that helped mothers and daughters create closer bonds, learn effective communication, and enhance their relationship. I have a passion for inspiring and empowering females, and I am honored to serve as a mentor for young ladies in the community, Wallace said. My mom, Michele Harris, is my role model and biggest inspiration. She said one of her biggest accomplishments is being the first person in her family to graduate with a bachelors degree. As a teen mom, it was important for me to overcome the statistic that came with being a young mom, Wallace said. I am proud to say that I also earned a masters degree. To God be the glory. Another accomplishment she is proud of is writing and publishing the Christian, inspirational book, Faithisms: A Guide to Finding Faith. As a child, my hobbies were reading and writing, and I dreamed of becoming an author. It is a blessing to live my dream, she said. And last, but definitely not least, my family is one of my greatest accomplishment. They make me so proud. Wallace said she is not someone who strives for perfection, but seeks God to help her improve from her imperfections. My relationship with God is important to me, and I would be nothing without him, she said. Being selected as a Women of Distinction honoree is a great blessing and honor, she said. The things I do within my community are done from the heart, and though I do not expect to be recognized, it feels good, but more importantly, this recognition can also help bring attention to initiatives such as Community Tutoring, Wallace said. There are so many amazing women who are part of the academy, and I am humbled to be among them. I thank God for blessing me with this opportunity. This is one part of a 10-part series introducing this years YWCA of Alton Women of Distinction honorees. The YWCA of Alton will host the 29th annual Women of Distinction recognition ceremony at 6 p.m., Thursday, May 2, at the Commons at Lewis and Clark Community College. Tickets are $60 per person, $480 per table of eight or $600 for table of 10. Reservations can be made at altonywca.com, at the YWCA at 304 E. Third St., or by calling 618-465-7774. EDWARDSVILLE Water is a unifying, life-giving resource and is something everyone needs to survive. This underlying message was the reason that Southern Illinois University Edwardsvilles Environmental Resources Training Center (ERTC) held its inaugural Water Symposium on Wednesday, April 24 at the Morris University Center. Regardless of how you look at water, whether its from the perspectives of supply, water treatment, wastewater treatment, surface water run-off or infrastructure, the need to address these issues is important for the overall sake of water preservation and supply, said Matthew Maas, ERTC director. The idea of a water symposium came after speaking to School of Engineering (SOE) Dean Cem Karacal and SOE Associate Dean Christopher Gordon, according to Maas. We had originally talked about having a conference on World Water Day, which is March 22, but after talking to Dr. Connie Frey Spurlock, making the symposium part of the Earth Day events seemed to fit, as well, continued Maas, who is a Sustainability Action Group (SAG) steering committee member. Frey Spurlock, associate professor in the Department of Sociology, is the SAG chair. The goal of the Water Symposium was to bring all the stakeholders together, let them speak on their areas of expertise and network for the purposes of collaborative problem solving and gaining more knowledge, Maas explained. We did just that, he added. The symposium was a success. Besides Maas, other speakers included: Rohan Benjankar, PhD, assistant professor in SIUEs Department of Civil Engineering, spoke about his research on water resources engineering, floodplain physical habitat, aquatic and riparian ecosystems and river restoration. Pat Gleason, of American Water Works Association, discussed his work as an e-Learning/Engagement specialist and his previous work as the State Rural Development Coordinator for the Illinois Association of Community Action Agencies, where he led the Rural Community Assistance Program (RCAP). Vic Hamer, founder of the non-profit Christian organization Give Me Water Lord, discussed his work drilling water wells for people in Kenya and shared the great need for clean water in desperate areas of the East African country. Nina Kshetry, founder and president of Ensaras Inc., shared her experiences in process engineering, project management and business development. She spoke about her work with municipal, industrial and agricultural wastewater treatment projects, including projects that involve recycle and reuse of wastewater and energy recovery from wastewater. Zhi-Qing Lin, PhD, professor in SIUEs Department of Environmental Sciences, shared his research related to the biogeochemistry of environmentally important trace elements, phytoremediation and constructed treatment wetlands. Kevin Tucker, PhD, assistant professor in SIUEs Department of Chemistry, presented some of his research that deals with analytical and environmental chemistry, and his tracking of pharmaceuticals and personal care products in their journey through the environment using field research and laboratory modeling. ALTON The production crew from Deluxe Corporation is returning to Alton to film the progress of the six businesses featured last year on Season 3 of the Hulu show Small Business Revolution. A block party will be held on Wednesday from 5-7 p.m. outside of Todays Beauty Supply, located at 1415 Central Ave. The street will be closed to traffic for the event. WOOD RIVER A woman arrested and charged in an April 18 raid on a reputed drug house at 711 Rice Street is facing an additional charge of unlawful possession of a weapon by a felon. Debbie J. Knight, 53, of 711 Rice Street, is accused of possessing a switch-blade knife during the arrests in the drug raid. She is accused of possessing the weapon after being convicted of a felony charge of driving on a revoked or suspended license in 2008. Bail was set at $20,000. The police department has received numerous complaints about this home and the activities occurring in and around the home. During the April 18 enforcement detail, one additional person was taken into custody away from the residence in reference to the ongoing federal investigation. He is Bradley N. Boswell, 30, of the 700 block of Wood River Avenue, Wood River. He allegedly, stole 135 military style weapons and parts from Benbow City Sports, operated by Madison County attorney Thomas G. Maag. Maag reported Feb. 27 that a building he owns in the first block of Ferguson Avenue was burglarized. Maag submitted a list of the stolen items, including three machine guns, including a British submachine gun, a grenade launcher, nine 5.56 mm rifles, several weapon parts, known as receivers, nine shotguns, pistols, revolvers and other items. The indictment also charged Boswell with possessing the same firearms after being convicted of a felony, according to Steven D. Weinhoeft, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Illinois. LONDON When Munira Abdulla had last been fully awake, the first George Bush was Americas president and the Soviet Union was nearing its demise. It was the year the Persian Gulf war ended. In 1991, at the age of 32, Abdulla, from the oasis city of Al Ain in the United Arab Emirates, suffered injuries in a road accident that left her in a state of reduced consciousness for most of the next three decades. After 27 years, she awoke last June at a clinic near Munich, where doctors had been treating her for the complications of her long illness. I never gave up on her, because I always had a feeling that one day she will wake up, said Omar Webair, her 32-year-old son, who was just 4 when the accident happened. He shared his mothers story with Emirati news website The National Monday. Dr. Friedemann Muller, the chief physician at the Schon Clinic, a private hospital with campuses around Germany, said that Abdulla had been in a state of minimal consciousness. He said only a handful of cases like hers, in which a patient recovered after such a long period, had been recorded. Patients in a state of reduced consciousness are usually classified into three categories. In a full coma, the patient shows no signs of being awake, with eyes closed and is unresponsive to the environment. A persistent vegetative state includes those who seem awake but show no signs of awareness, while a minimally conscious state can include periods in which some response such as moving a finger when asked can be noted. Colloquially, all three categories are often described as comas. Signs that Abdulla was recovering started to emerge last year when she began saying her sons name. A couple of weeks later, she started repeating verses from the Quran that she had learned decades ago. We didnt believe it at first, Muller said. But eventually it became very clear that she was saying her sons name. Muller said he had not expected such a recovery from Abdulla. She had been at the German clinic for treatment for seizures and contorted muscles that made her body hard to handle and that kept her from being able to sit in a wheelchair safely. Part of the treatment was to install a device that delivered medication directly into her spine, a factor that Muller said could have brought on her recovery. Only a handful of people are known to have made similar recoveries. Terry Wallis, from Arkansas, was 19 when he skidded off a bridge in a pickup truck. He uttered his first word since the accident, Mom, nearly two decades later, in 2003. His recovery was so unusual that scientists used it as an opportunity to study how the brain functions and to help determine which patients with severe brain damage had the best chance of recovering. The issue is often of vital importance. In a landmark ruling in 1976, the New Jersey Supreme Court found unanimously that the father of Karen Ann Quinlan had the right to decide to forgo life-sustaining treatment on her behalf. Quinlan died in 1985, a decade after she slipped into a coma. The case of Terri Schiavo, a Florida woman who spent 15 years in a persistent vegetative state before her feeding tube was removed in 2005, stoked further debate in the United States and beyond about a persons right to live or die. With medical care, some can stay in a state of reduced consciousness for decades. Aruna Shanbaug, an Indian nurse, spent more than 40 years in such a condition until her death at age 66 in 2015. She had been left in a permanent vegetative state after being strangled with a metal chain during a sexual assault. Webair, Abdullas son, said he had avoided serious injury in the accident in 1991 because his mother had seen the crash coming and managed to embrace him before the impact. To me she was like gold; the more time passed by, the more valuable she became, he told The National. According to the newspaper, Abdulla, who has returned to the United Arab Emirates, is being treated at a hospital in Abu Dhabi. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. The Love Story of Our Evolving Universe Dear reader, I hope you believe in evolution. It is already a proven fact but there are some folks who cannot accept it. I invite everyone to keep reading this letter anyway. Christianity is an evolutionary religion no doubt about it. Thanks to the majestic energy of evolution and the wisdom of church leaders, our churches are beginning to co-create a new world with God. Our best theologians, Protestant and Catholic, are calling the movement The New Universe Story. It is just getting recognized and, I think, we need to know about it. It was Albert Einstein who said, Science without religion is lame, and religion without science is blind. There is finally an effort today by our scientists and theologians to work together and cooperate. With their belief in the revealed Word of God and their knowledge of the scientific process of evolution certain strides are being made that will affect the lives of us all. Something beautiful is happening; changes are being made across the cosmos without us. We need to take responsibility and get on the bandwagon. First of all, people today should have no need to be afraid by the results of scientific research. It took a paleontologist and priest theologian, Fr. Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955), to declare that Science does not disturb our faith; it helps us to know God better. To reject evolution (the process by which all species develop from earlier forms) is like rejecting God. For Chardin the world in its deepest roots is penetrated with Jesus Christ. The universe is evolving in ways that make us more aware of Christs freedom to cause new things to blossom. People of faith are becoming more conscious of Christs overwhelming power to mold creation, by means of evolution, into the magnificent living organism beyond our dreams which his Father desires for us. None of us knows what God has in mind; but we know that he always works for our good. In Philippians 3: 20 we learn that, the saving power of the Risen Savior brings all things into subjection to himself. Christ sacrificed himself on the cross for sinful humans and for the whole universe. That is why Jesus Christ surely merits the title King of the Universe. Christ became incarnate for the salvation of his Fathers creation. He will draw humanity and the entire cosmos back to order and beauty. For the whole cosmos is charged with the fire of Christs tremendous love. So, what are we to do? We are to harness the energies of our own fire of love and reach out to the stars and planets with faith, hope and trust in Gods presence everywhere. Protect the diversity of life here on Earth, and develop connections with all creatures in order to mingle together as family. We need to keep better care of our home planet, Earth. This is Gods home too. Dirty polluted rivers, lakes and oceans are unacceptable to Him. God deplores the earths defaced mountains, demolished forests, the enormous greed and selfishness of some foolish bigshots, as well as the outright disregard for millions of the poorest people whose lives are being sadly wasted. God knows we can do better; and of course, we can. Then Gods beauty-filled Spirit, the life-giving energy of God, will surely welcome us one day, each one of us, into Gods faithfully evolving universe. Are we convinced that there is a spiritual power at work in our daily lives and in the evolution of our planet? Alton native Father Jerry Wickenhauser has Masters degrees in spirituality from St. Louis University and sacred theology from the Gregorian University in Rome. He is a Maryknoll missionary. British tourists are being bullied into paying more for food, drink or accommodation abroad by retailers insisting they pay their bills by card in pounds rather than the local currency. It is the latest twist on a currency conversion con that experts believe will cost holidaymakers 1.7million a day between now and the end of September. When paying by card at a cafe or shop, tourists are usually given a choice between paying in pounds or the overseas currency (typically euros). Millions opt for the familiarity of dealing with sterling. 'Dynamic currency conversion' catches out one in five travellers Yet it is a more expensive option, adding around 7 per cent to the overall bill. This is because the retailer's bank chooses the conversion rate, rather than the cardholder's own bank. The trick, known as 'dynamic currency conversion', catches out one in five travellers. But The Mail on Sunday has learned that even the most financially astute tourists who demand to pay in local currency are now being routinely refused this option and told they must pay in pounds instead. This is even though such a refusal is against European rules and the terms and conditions that foreign banks abide by with card issuers Visa and Mastercard. EU law stipulates that merchants must disclose charges and give customers a choice but some are failing to do so. Even worse, customers are being handed receipts claiming they were given a choice and opted to pay in pounds despite this not being the case. One tourist, who last week contacted The Mail on Sunday, said he insisted on paying in euros at a restaurant in Bilbao, northern Spain. But he was told by a waiter that staff had received a memo from management insisting they charge customers in this way. Experts say this is not allowed, but incidents like this are now happening regularly. Alana Parsons, from travel money card provider Caxton FX, says: 'While customers should always be given the right to choose the currency they want to pay in, they are frequently faced with no choice and forced into dynamic currency conversion. 'It is common for restaurants, hotels and shops to sneakily over-ride the option to pay in local currency and present a final bill only in pounds.' Sven Schindele is banking products director for Tandem, which does not charge fees when its credit cards are used abroad. He says: 'There are always those looking to profit off people visiting from overseas. 'UK holidaymakers waste as much as 100 a year each from transaction fees and costly exchange rates. This is per customer so costs rack up on family holidays and extended trips.' HOW CAN YOU FIGHT THE FEES? Paying in cash helps customers to swerve this problem. Caxton FX's Alana Parsons adds: 'It is worth carrying some local currency in cash. We might be moving towards a cashless society, but cash is still king in some places.' The cash should also be converted before travelling while still in the UK, because rip-offs extend to cash machines at the destination too. Some cashpoints are charging additional fees if a customer refuses to allow the ATM provider to carry out a conversion to pounds. If this happens it is worth seeking an alternative cash machine. But physical currency won't be the practical solution every time, especially for those who do not wish to carry large sums of cash on holiday. Schindele says: 'Anyone who travels abroad regularly should use a card that doesn't charge them fees to spend overseas and offers them a good exchange rate.' When using a card, ask to pay in the local currency at the same time you request the bill When using a card, ask to pay in the local currency at the same time you request the bill and be present when the card is used at the payment terminal so you can see what currency has been selected. If the receipt shows the payment has been made in pounds, be prepared to fight back. Ian Strafford-Taylor, of currency exchange company FairFX, says: 'If you're not asked which currency to pay in, then insist on paying in local currency. Remember, dynamic currency conversion is optional and you always have a choice. If you are billed in pounds you should refuse it and ask for the bill to be amended.' However, some customers will find themselves in a sticky situation if staff at a cafe or hotel refuse to void the previous transaction and charge in the local currency instead. In this case, be ready to escalate the fuss. Experts recommend that customers make it clear it is their right to pay in local currency and that they write 'DCC rejected' (for Dynamic Currency Conversion) on the receipt. Strafford-Taylor adds: 'There are many instances where people believe they have rejected DCC but it is done anyway. Writing 'DCC rejected' allows customers to have some sort of recourse with their card provider. Although not legally binding it does show the customer's intent for the transaction.' Using prepaid cards with Mastercard and Visa logos also affords some protection. This month both companies announced they have banned the use of dynamic currency conversion on any prepaid card bearing their brands, including at foreign cashpoints. This is because these customers have already decided the currency they wish to pay in by pre-loading travel money cards with euros or dollars before departing the UK. Strafford-Taylor adds: 'The new rules don't apply to credit or debit cards which means holidaymakers using these methods of payment are still at risk of falling into the trap and should stay vigilant.' Some restaurants are still likely to flout rules and apply their bank's own conversion even on prepaid cards. In this instance customers should raise a dispute with their prepaid card provider. Most prepaid cards for travel bear the Mastercard logo and include those from WeSwap, Caxton FX and FairFX. Have you been prevented from paying for holiday spending in the local currency? Email laura.shannon@mailonsunday.co.uk Some of the countrys biggest managers of our Isas and pensions continue to play hardball when it comes to fully revealing how they make money on our behalf. Our survey among 25 top investment managers including many household names such as Fidelity, Jupiter and Invesco confirms that only a handful (without prompting) are currently prepared to reveal to investors up-to-date details of all the shares they hold in their investment funds or trusts. This is despite the fact that such disclosure is mandatory in other parts of the world such as the United States. Fund disclosure: Only a handful of funds (without prompting) are currently prepared to reveal to investors up-to-date details of all the shares they hold in their investment funds or trusts Typically, a fund or trust will hold anything between 30 and 100 plus stakes in individual companies. It then (hopefully) makes money for investors by buying and then selling these company shares at a profit as well as receiving the dividends from them and passing the income on to investors by way of their own dividend. Consumer champions argue the refusal of the investment industry to be fully transparent does it no favours. They say it perpetuates the view that the funds industry is more interested in making billions of pounds a year in profits for itself and in the process giving fund managers lavish lifestyles than it is in building long-term wealth for investors. It also enables the industry they argue to foster an aura of sophistication and hence makes it easier for them to maintain fund charges that many investment experts believe are too high and indefensible. Annual charges on many actively managed funds run by investment professionals are routinely in excess of one per cent and often treble those levied on a fund that uses computer programmes to track specific stock market indices (so-called index-tracking funds). The higher an annual charge that a fund levies, the more any investment returns generated by a manager are eroded. In addition, experts believe this lack of transparency allows some active investment managers to run portfolios that are little different to the stock market they tell investors they are striving to beat. In other words, they promote themselves as active fund managers and levy premium fees but are little more than closet index trackers. Campaign: Gina Miller, co-founder of wealth management firm SCM Direct Gina Miller, co-founder of wealth management firm SCM Direct, believes investors have a basic right to know where their hard-earned money ends up being invested. Without this, she argues, they are unable to make fully informed decisions. Seven years ago, along with husband Alan Miller (a former successful fund manager with investment houses Jupiter and New Star), she launched a true and fair campaign aimed at getting the investment funds industry to become 100 per cent transparent. On Friday, she told us: The excuse we keep hearing being spouted by the investment industry is that information on fund holdings is commercially sensitive. But this is an intellectually dishonest argument that weve heard for far too long. In the United States, investment companies must publish their full holdings within 60 days of each quarter end. This has not been a problem for the US investment funds industry, so why is it a problem for the UK investment industry? Miller believes full transparency would rid the investment funds industry of scandal and provide investors with better value for money. She asks: Why cant the industry and the regulator do what is morally and ethically right, rather than defend the indefensible? In recent years, the Financial Conduct Authority has issued a series of proposals designed to increase competition in the funds industry, but full fund disclosure has not been one of them. Millers is not a lone voice. Andy Agathangelou is founder of the Transparency Task Force, an organisation set up to agitate for greater disclosure across the financial services industry. On Friday, he told us that it was no longer acceptable for fund managers to argue that transparency would give away their secret sauce (the ingredients that enable them to make money on behalf of investors). He added: It is crystal clear that investment offerings reliant on opacity and obfuscation are heading for obsolescence. Many investors are no longer prepared to invest in mysterious black boxes that may contain assets they dont want such as shares in companies that have poor corporate governance records or whose business activities harm the planet. Although the results of our survey show that some fund groups especially those owned by an American parent company are embracing greater transparency, others argue that a requirement for funds to disclose all shareholdings on a regular basis would not be in the best interests of investors. Fundsmith is one of the countrys most successful fund management groups, headed by investment guru Terry Smith. It makes available details of all holdings in its 17 billion Fundsmith Equity fund when it publishes interim and annual accounts for it. In addition, it publishes on a monthly basis any new holdings the fund has, as well as any outright disposals. But it told us: We are selling a fund, not a list of company names. We dont believe that knowing what a fund owns helps investors. THE SURVEY We asked 25 investment groups, between them managing billions of pounds of our long-term savings, a simple question: Do you publish full up-to-date details of all your investment fund portfolios, including all company holdings? As a bare minimum, most (we label them the conformists) confirm they include full company holdings in the interim and year end accounts published for individual funds. These accounts, they say, are accessible via their websites although there is often a time delay between the accounts being drawn up and then made available. For example, JP Morgan Asset Management says accounts are released within four months of the accounting year end for a given fund. In addition, investors can obtain monthly details of a funds top ten holdings by visiting the investment managers website or using a funds data website such as Trustnet. Request: Some funds will provide details if an investor requests them Again, there is often a delay between the data being taken and publication typically between ten and 15 days. So a top ten fund holding as at the end of this month will not usually be published until the middle of May. Some fund management groups do go the extra mile (we believe they are reformists). Liontrust runs a range of socially responsible or sustainable funds where full portfolios are disclosed quarterly. Guinness Asset Management discloses full fund portfolios within ten days of a month end while Woodford Investment Management makes its portfolios available to registered users of its website every month. Franklin Templeton discloses full portfolio details for its funds, either monthly or quarterly. Among its funds providing full portfolio details is the popular Templeton Emerging Markets Investment Trust. Currently, its portfolio as at the end of 2018 is available via Franklins website, with the number of shares held, their market value and percentage of portfolio given. Investment trust Foreign & Colonial, the countrys oldest, publishes details of all its 450 investments on its website. The 4billion portfolio as at the end of February is currently available with the trust now run by international asset manager BMO Global Asset Management. Janus Henderson publishes portfolio holdings for its investment trusts on a quarterly basis, with a time lag of one month. The exceptions are The City of London and Henderson EuroTrust where portfolio information is published monthly, but one month in arrears. Some of the views of conformists and reformists are shown opposite. DISCLOSURE ON REQUEST Although some fund groups keep fund portfolio disclosure to a minimum, some will provide details if an investor requests them. Fidelity says it will disclose full holdings to clients on an ad hoc basis. BNY Mellon, JP Morgan, Investec and Octopus say they will do the same while Kames Capital will disclose holdings in alphabetical order with no information on the size of position. Axa Investment Management will make available a full list subject to a five-day time lag while Aviva says it will provide full portfolio holdings on request but embargoed for one month. Invesco and Royal London do the same, but with a three-month time lag. Some groups will only release information on a case by case basis (Legal & General and Crux). THE VIEW OF ADVISERS We spoke to a number of investment advisers about the merits of full fund disclosure. Most agreed with Gina Miller that it was a good thing. Mark Polson, of financial services consultancy The Lang Cat, says: Transparency is good and anyone who says otherwise is either misguided or has something to hide. A typical Isa investor probably neither wants nor needs such detailed information but its good to know its there and there are some investors who would like it. Ben Yearsley of Shore Financial in Plymouth says: Fund managers should be more open about what they own and list all holdings more than twice a year. Justin Modray, of Candid Financial Advice, says the argument tips towards full disclosure. Yet it would only work, he says, if any new rules (set by the Financial Conduct Authority) ensured managers were consistent about how up-to-date such information was. OUR VERDICT Easy! Publish and be damned. Do you think asset managers should disclose their fund holdings? Drop me an email at: jeff.prestridge@mailonsunday.co.uk In August 2008, just weeks before the collapse of Lehman Brothers sent the world into a tailspin, Oil and Natural Gas Corp of India agreed to buy UK-listed Imperial Energy for around 1.4billion. The transaction earned chairman and founder Peter Levine a reputation for smart dealmaking. It also made shareholders substantial sums of money, including Levine himself, who walked away with some 90million. Levines current oil and gas venture, President Energy, has been less successful to date. Having initially invested in the company in late 2009, 63-year-old Levine seen the shares fall from a high of 93p in 2010 to just 6.95p today. Pumping in cash: President Energy founder Peter Levine The current price undervalues the business and the stock should recover as the company expands and profits increase. Oil prices are rising too, as President Trump extends sanctions on Iran, a key oil producer. Over the past ten years, Levine has invested around 45million of his own money in the company, he remains a 29.9 per cent shareholder and has become progressively more involved moving from an investor to chairman and chief executive. If anyone is motivated to make this business work, its Levine. President was originally focused on oil wells in Louisiana and South Australia. Then it moved into exploration in Paraguay and Argentina, spending considerable amounts of money in the process. Levine candidly admits this was a mistake. Over the past 18 months however, the group has been transformed from a loss-making enterprise with negligible turnover into a profitable, cash-generative business. The company still owns a couple of productive oil wells in Louisiana but its main assets are in Argentina, where it has recently acquired two oil fields, two gas fields and a pipeline to transport its gas and those of other operators to the main gas network. Looking ahead: Oil prices are rising as President Trump extends sanctions on Iran, a key oil producer These Argentinian purchases have made a serious difference to Presidents production volumes, profitability and prospects. Back in 2017, the company was producing 500 barrels of oil a day. By January of this year, that had increased to 3,000 barrels a day and by early next year, production should have risen to around 5,000 barrels a day, doubling to 10,000 by 2021. The increase in production will come from exploiting the assets that President already has, and acquiring new ones, where appropriate. Any purchases will come out of the companys existing cash resources as Levine has no intention of going to the stock market for money. A cash-raising exercise this year was disappointing. The firm tried to raise 6.5 million by offering new shares on the market at 8p, but take-up was limited, the group raised just 3.5million and the shares have fallen since. There are several factors behind Presidents lacklustre market performance. First, it has changed strategy several times and investors want to see that the current approach really is working. Second, small energy firms have been out of favour generally. Third, around 70 per cent of the stock is owned by Levine and institutional investors, so minor sales by individual investors can have a disproportionate effect on the shares. And fourth, President is in Argentina, a country associated with instability and crises. Looking ahead, these issues are likely to become materially less important. Results for 2018 come out next month and are expected to show a more than doubling of revenues from $18million to more than $45million, rising to almost $80million in the current year. In 2017, President made a loss of almost $12million. Figures for last year should deliver core profits of almost $10million, soaring to $20million this year. Argentina: The country has serious economic problems but it has been involved in oil and gas for years and major international groups operate there efficiently (Pictured: Buenos Aires) Levine is ploughing money back into the business, upgrading existing wells and investing in infrastructure to drive productivity. Within a couple of years, however, the company should be in a position to start paying dividends. The Argentina bias is almost certainly overdone as well. The country has serious economic problems but it has been involved in oil and gas for years and major international groups, such as Chevron, Shell, Total and ExxonMobil, all operate there efficiently. In fact, local costs and taxes are lower than in many other parts of the world, allowing President to generate high margins. The firm has ditched its London office, the headquarters are in Buenos Aires and most workers are Argentinian, driving down its expenses still further. Midas verdict: President has made mistakes, overspent and drilled in the wrong places and the share price has suffered in response. Looking ahead, however, the business is stronger, more focused and, crucially, profitable. Having done so well with Imperial, Levine is determined to show that he can also deliver with President. Oil companies are never riskfree, but at 6.95p, these shares are a buy for adventurous investors. Every week we give the low-down on the value of forgotten treasures that may be gathering dust in your attic. Margaret Thatcher is one of the most iconic politicians of the 20th Century and her place in history is reflected in the rising value of related collectables. To mark the 40th anniversary of her becoming Britains first female Prime Minister, a sale of her famous handbags, jewellery and clothes is taking place at the auction house Christies from Thursday. Auction: A navy Asprey handbag is up for grabs with an estimated value of 1,200 A navy Asprey handbag is up for grabs with an estimated value of 1,200. While a typed engagement list drawn up for her tearful last day in power November 28, 1990 that started at 7.45am with a hair- do and ended at 6pm with a proposed dinner at the Savoy Grill with husband Denis, is valued at 500. Recent sales of Iron Lady memorabilia have seen prices far exceed expectation. Baroness Thatchers parliamentary robes sold for 81,700 four years ago against an 1,800 estimate. At the same sale, a pearl necklace valued at 800 went under the hammer for 62,500. With Ross McEwan heading for the exit at Royal Bank of Scotland, the question now is whether Antonio Horta-Osorio could do the same at Lloyds Banking Group. The Portuguese chief executive has run Lloyds since 2011. Having offloaded the last of the Governments shares following the taxpayer bailout a decade ago after the financial crisis, he is surely thinking of his next step. The banks first-quarter results are on Thursday. Analysts are expecting underlying pre-tax profits of just over 2billion, while the net interest margin the key performance metric as it measures the difference between the rates the bank pays on savings and earns on loans is set to remain pretty constant at around 2.91 per cent. Heading for an exit? Antonio Horta-Osorio, chief executive of Lloyds Number-crunchers at City stockbroker Numis say: Given the lack of any real profit and loss momentum, the balance sheet will likely be a particular focus. With that in mind, risk-weighted assets are estimated to be around 208billion for the end of March, a slight rise on a few months earlier. Another solid performance and Horta-Osorio could feel its job done. Persimmon Away from what could be a fiery annual meeting based on its bumper bonuses, housebuilding giant Persimmon will give a clue on the state of the UK housing market this week in its first-quarter trading update. Last week, rival Taylor Wimpey warned that it was costing more to build homes, hitting profit margins, which dragged down shares in the sector. Any similar noises from Persimmon could send them lower still amid concerns about a cooling in the market. Analysts say the pay scandal means it is unlikely to ramp up returns to shareholders but that could also help the company if there is a real downturn coming. London Stock Exchange The first few months of the year have been subdued for the stock market no major swings up or down to speak of, but a slow and steady rise overall. This may be good for long-term investors, but not quite so good for the London Stock Exchange Group, which thrives on volatility. That said, the company is still expected to post income growth of around 5 per cent at 545million for the first quarter. That is reflected in the share price, which is at an all-time high of over 50. Not a bad note for the departing chairman Donald Brydon to bow out on. The London Stock Exchange Group thrives on volatility EVR Holdings AIM fanatics will be keeping a close eye on EVR Holdings tomorrow as the company reveals its annual results. Most companies talk about revenues and profits, but like many firms listed on the junior market, losses are likely to outstrip revenues at EVR, whose MelodyVR platform allows music fans to enjoy gigs from their home on virtual reality headsets. The size of the loss and the amount of cash it has left in the bank will hint at how long it can carry on without going cap in hand to investors again for more funds to keep the lights on. Lavish: Tim Steiner with his girlfriend Patrycja Pyka Anger at the 'extraordinary' bonuses being dished out to Britain's top bosses is set to boil over at a string of annual meetings at firms including Ocado, Melrose and Persimmon over the next fortnight. Investors have been told to reject executive pay proposals worth tens of millions of pounds at high-tech delivery firm Ocado, controversial engineering group Melrose and Persimmon, the construction firm that became infamous for the 75million bonus it paid its chief executive over two years. The backlash at blue-chip company excess comes as new figures seen by The Mail on Sunday show that investor revolts against pay have been growing across the FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 in 2019. According to Proxy Insight, the average level of votes approving executive pay has fallen nearly three percentage points to 92 per cent since 2016. It has plunged thanks to sizeable votes against pay at tech giant Micro Focus, banking group CYBG and gold miner Centamin despite improvements in approval voting at many firms. Proxy Insight managing director Nick Dawson said investors 'are finally losing their patience' with mind-bogglingly large incentives, which seem to be on the rise. Ocado chief executive and co-founder Tim Steiner will receive 100 million if he can triple the company's share price over the next five years. That does not include separate incentive bonuses and pay. Shareholder advisory body ISS said Steiner's reward, called the 'Value Creation Plan' and which investors will be asked to support on Wednesday, could 'transfer a significant equity value' to him even though he is 'already a significant shareholder in the business'. His 3.4 per cent stake is valued at around 340million. Steiner sold shares last year, reputedly to cover the cost of his divorce. He now lives with girlfriend and former lingerie model Patrycja Pyka and has bought a 25million superyacht Silver Fox. Melrose, the corporate raider whose four top executives collectively took home nearly 170million last year, is also in the firing line. Big delivery: The 25million superyacht Silver Fox owned by Ocado boss Tim Steiner It controversially bought engineer GKN last year and could face more opprobrium at its investor meeting on May 9 after advisory body Glass Lewis told investors to reject its pay report and oust the remuneration committee, which includes company chairman Justin Dowley, for failing to address concerns over last year's package. Glass Lewis said it had 'severe reservations' because Melrose had given an 'inadequate response to prior year dissent' over the awards. But ISS has told investors to vote in favour of Melrose pay after chief executive Simon Peckham's total package fell from 42.8million to 1million this year. Melrose and Ocado declined to comment. Luke Hildyard, executive director at corporate watchdog The High Pay Centre, said the 'sums of money involved' were 'extraordinary', adding: 'Pay increases this year aren't expected to be as dramatic as they have been. But there are still a lot of cases where executives are being given these massive incentive schemes so they and a few investors can rake in all the cash from the success of the operation.' Barclays boss Jes Staley, whose pay is worth 3.4million He said giving executives such as Steiner, who has previously sold a large chunk of his stake, large tranches of shares as incentives was 'a question of proportionality'. 'When you sell out your stock to investors, that is when you transfer the risk. But then being paid in this way seems a bit like wanting to have your cake and eat it,' he said. Persimmon chief executive Jeff Fairburn resigned after last year's revolt over his 75 million bonus. His replacement, Dave Jenkinson, has been awarded 25million in pay and bonus. The firm hosts its investors on Wednesday, and shareholder group Pirc has recommended a vote against the pay report, citing concerns over the controversial bonus scheme. Persimmon said it understood 'the need for pay restraint and spent 2018 working to ensure Persimmon's future remuneration is clearly aligned with best practice'. Persimmons Dave Jenkinson has been awarded 25million in pay and bonus Barclays boss Jes Staley, whose pay is worth 3.4million, also faces a revolt this week. ISS has urged investors to vote against executive pay to register concerns over a long-running probe into Staley's pursuit of a whistleblower. A spokesman said the bank had adjusted his pay in recognition of the inquiry, for which he was fined 642,000 by regulators. This week could also prove embarrassing for City fund manager Schroders, which holds its annual meeting on Thursday. Both Glass Lewis and ISS have recommended votes against its executive pay. In its report, Glass Lewis noted that chief executive Peter Harrison had received bonuses in excess of 5million each year since he was appointed in April 2016. Schroders said: 'We have a clear and thorough process which we have followed rigorously and which has served the firm and all its stakeholders well over many years.' British banking giant Standard Chartered could face a new 1.5billion fine for breaking US sanctions against Iran after a civil case was filed by whistleblowers, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. The revelation comes just weeks after the FTSE 100 bank agreed to a $1.1billion fine for the breaches. Standard Chartered agreed to the settlement earlier this month after a US criminal investigation found it had been conducting business with people linked to Iran and other nations, including Sudan and Cuba, which had been outlawed. Standard Chartered has already been fined $1.1billion for breaking US sanctions against Iran In a statement, chief executive Bill Winters claimed to have put these historical issues behind us. It has since been reported the bank could be priming a $1billion share buyback a way of boosting its share price to appease disgruntled investors and a signal it wants to draw a line under the debacle. But now two whistleblowers who claim to have prompted the criminal investigation have launched a civil case against Standard Chartered in the US. They could win millions of dollars in payouts. According to files seen by The Mail on Sunday, a judge has agreed to make available papers detailing the civil case. These are expected to be online within days. Under US law, Standard Chartered could be fined three times the damages awarded to the US Government, which received $639million of the $1.1billion fines. The bank could also be fined for each transaction that broke US sanctions against Iran adding $100million to the costs, say the whistleblowers. That means if Standard Chartered opts to fight the civil action and loses, it faces a potential penalty of up to $2billion. One of the whistleblowers is a Briton who was a senior executive at Standard Chartered. He says he flagged up concerns about the banks Iranian clients and its client monitoring systems in 2011, shortly before he left the bank. In 2012, he went to the US authorities with an American whistleblower and handed over details. Then the pair filed an application under the US False Claims Act, which allows whistleblowers to receive a share of the damages awarded against a company. After an investigation, Standard Chartered in 2012 agreed to pay 415million in penalties to the US over allegations it had broken sanctions on Iran and left the US financial system vulnerable to terrorists ... and corrupt regimes through its flagrantly deceptive actions. However, in 2013 a criminal investigation was launched on the back of fresh evidence the bank had continued to trade with Iranian firms. That case was settled two weeks ago with the $1.1billion fine. The whistleblowers have not received any money. The civil case offers them a chance of getting up to 25 per cent of any new damages Standard Chartered is ordered to pay. The whistleblowers had filed their case against Standard Chartered previously, but withdrew it voluntarily in 2017. Emails seen by The Mail on Sunday show they have chosen to revive the action. A spokesman for Standard Chartered said: We have not been served with any lawsuit similar to what youve described. However, we are aware of a previously dismissed lawsuit that made apparently similar allegations. That complaint, which was filed by a private company, was without merit and the plaintiff dismissed it voluntarily. The federal authorities declined to join that suit. Some of Britains biggest companies have come under fire for making late payments to suppliers. Seventeen companies have been removed or suspended from the Prompt Payment Code during the last three months for failing to meet standards set by the Chartered Institute of Credit Management. FTSE 100 mining giant BHP has been removed while housebuilder Persimmon, engineer Rolls-Royce and energy firm SSE have all been suspended. Suspended: Engineer Rolls-Royce was suspended from the PPC for failing to meet standards Transport company Go-Ahead Group was reinstated to the code after proving it was meeting requirements. Thousands of companies are signed up to the code, which includes a commitment to pay 95 per cent of supplier invoices within 60 days. CICM chief executive Philip King said: The board is disappointed with the actions of a minority who continue to treat their suppliers unfairly. In the eyes of Prince Charles and his other well-to-do fans, Sanjeev Gupta is Britain's saviour of steel an entrepreneur whose investments will revitalise swathes of the nation and put us back on the global metals map. To his critics, Gupta's belief in British industry is too good to be true and they fear his complex, hastily assembled business empire could turn out to be a house of cards. For better or worse, Gupta, a 47-year-old born in India and primarily based in the UK since secondary school, is likely to claim a major part in Britain's modern industrial history. Vision: Liberty House chief Sanjeev Gupta believes that rebuilding industry will make society less divided In the course of a six-year buying spree, Gupta's Liberty House which he set up in 1992 as a commodity trading firm from his bedroom at Cambridge University has revived several historic metal plants across the country. He now commands a UK workforce of 5,000, has earned the nickname 'Man of Steel' and was recently appointed by Prince Charles as the heir to the Throne's industrial ambassador. 'I don't want to put it in this context, but most of those people wouldn't have a job today if it wasn't for the fact that we believed in them and in this industry,' says Gupta, leaning forward on a shiny grey sofa in Liberty's Mayfair headquarters, a converted townhouse that once served as his London home. Gupta, who also owns a 4.5million country mansion in Wales, bought into British steel at a time when other big companies were pulling out. Demand was falling and China's grip on global production was rising. Days after 2,000 Teessiders lost their livelihoods as Redcar's coke ovens and blast furnaces were switched off in October 2015, Gupta then a little-known businessman restarted production at Newport's steel plant, which had been closed two years before. In the following years, he purchased numerous other metal sites that had either been given up on or were being wound down, including Tata Steel works in Hartlepool and Rotherham. He says production is up significantly at both, which are now profitable and employ more than 2,000 people collectively. Every developed country has turned its back on industry and we are paying a price for that now Liberty has also been busy buying up plants in continental Europe, the US and Australia currently an area of particular focus for Gupta, who is reportedly based in a 16,000-a-week Sydney apartment once occupied by pop star Bono. Gupta's investment thesis? 'We think it is time for industry to return to developed countries,' he says. 'Every developed country where industries started, prospered, flourished has turned their back on industry in the past 20, 30 years. And we're paying a price for that now.' The UK economy has become too service-focused, he says, and the switch to importing industrial materials has driven up costs. 'The biggest thing it has done is divide society between the haves and have-nots,' he pontificates. 'Cities are prosperous and people are well-to-do. In industrial towns, or large parts of the country, people are disenchanted because industry has declined, there are less opportunities, less prosperity... I think it's time for that to be rectified.' Gupta, a non-campaigning Brexiteer, believes 'strongly that industry can be prosperous', albeit with a twist. His vision is for steel to be made from recycled scrap which he believes will be plentiful in the coming years rather than from scratch. Sanjeev Gupta, 47: workaholic who lives on five hours' sleep Lives: Sydney. But plans to soon move back to the UK, where he has a 4.5million country home in Wales and another in Mayfair. Family: Wife Nicola, and three children aged seven, five and four. Favourite film: Dead Poets Society. Film Dead Poets Society (1993), starring Robin Williams as John Keating Book: 'I haven't read any fiction for a long time. I read a lot of biographies.' Music: 'I can't answer favourite music, favourite clothes, favourite food it's very difficult. I like 1960s music, I like Indian music, I like classical music, I like jazz. Virtually everything. Even parts of so-called modern music like House and so on.' Average day: 'I'm a workaholic, there's no denying that. I spend most of my waking time working.' Has around five hours of sleep and starts work straight away. He returns home between 7 and 8pm to bid his children good night before doing some more work. But despite winning political plaudits Gupta's office is decorated with photographs of himself with both Prime Minister Theresa May and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon he is increasingly having to contend with naysayers who doubt his ability to succeed where others have given up. 'I don't remember a time since I started the business 26 years ago that I've not been questioned on what we're doing, how we're doing it,' he retorts. 'All throughout the investment journey, starting when I bought the steel business in the UK it was the height of the steel crisis, Redcar just closed every meeting I went to, the first question was: 'Are you crazy? Why do you think steel in the UK can be profitable?' And time after time it's not just one asset we've bought dozens and dozens of assets and turned them around.' Above Liberty House, Gupta a workaholic who admits to only having taken two proper holidays runs the GFG (Gupta Family Group) Alliance, an empire comprising energy giant Simec, financial services arm Wyelands and real estate investor Jahama. Sprawled across five continents, GFG currently has 15,000 staff and annual revenues approaching 12billion thanks to a recent spending spree. Gupta was recently appointed by Prince Charles as the heir to the Throne's industrial ambassador Gupta admits his firm has become 'a bit less wieldy' because of its rapid growth and says he has come under pressure from 'bankers, customers, suppliers, media' to simplify and consolidate the group. He is also aiming to take parts of the business public 'the next evolution of the journey is definitely capital markets' in Australia and possibly the UK in the future. He hopes this will help the reputation of his business. 'We don't have accountability at the moment which is part of the problem,' he says. 'I would like to have more accountability. So having external stakeholders i.e. external capital, whether it's debt or equity means you have more accountability, more transparency, more governance. 'It's basically evolution. We've grown largely through inorganic means. We've acquired businesses at pace I can't think of any other group that's done so as fast as us in the past few years. And now it's time to consolidate them to their full potential.' And if things don't go according to plan? How ruthless is Gupta who admits he has never 'actually sacked anybody' willing to be if his operations in the UK and beyond flop? 'It's not in our DNA [to make ruthless cuts],' he says. 'That's not to say that if really faced with this we wouldn't have to take some corrective action. But it would be the last thing I do. 'We're not in a rush to exit something just because it's tough. But that doesn't mean that I will not be willing [to make cuts], if there is an insurmountable problem, if there is no future for something. 'But almost all the time in life there is a way to find a future for everything. It's just a question of how long are you willing to endure, how long are you willing to wait for your investment to turn.' If Gupta's grand plans do go awry, there will be a queue of critics waiting to tell him they told him so. If he makes a success of steel, he will have surpassed expectations. And he admits this is part of what motivates him. 'To be honest, it's a satisfaction in itself to prove people wrong,' he says. 'That challenge in itself is an attraction.' Vauxhall is recalling hundreds of thousands of Zafira people carriers over fresh fears the vehicles could catch fire. The British carmaker has been forced into a third recall after at least one vehicle reportedly exploded due to overheating. Another 11 vehicles in the Zafira B range, built between 2005 and 2014 also showed signs of overheating. According to The Sun, as many of 235,000 of the Zafira B vehicles could be affected by the latest move. Firefighters extinguish a Vauxhall Zafira which caught light near a level crossing in Manor Road, south west London, in November 2015 Company boss Stephen Norman is said to have admitted 'huge regret' over the third recall in four years. A pin in the car's wiring is said to need replacement in the latest recall. A similar number of Zafira B vehicles were recalled in two stages in 2015 and 2016 after fears of a fire risk. Vauxhall, who were investigating 161 Zafira B fires, called back 234,000 models in two separate recalls due to rising safety concerns. The company wrote to 234,000 owners in December 2015 to ask them to arrange for their car's heating and ventilation system to be inspected by a local dealer. The initial recall came following reports of nearly 200 of the model bursting into flames. The British carmaker has been forced into a third recall of the Zafira B range (stock photo) after at least one vehicle reportedly exploded due to overheating Subsequently all Zafira B owners were offered a free safety inspection in light of the fires. A report by the Commons Transport Select Committee in April 2017 accused Vauxhall of showing a 'reckless disregard for safety' by not stopping motorists driving Zafira B vehicles it knew were a fire risk. The manufacturer was too slow to begin a full investigation, according to the cross-party committee. Vauxhall was also accused of acting prematurely in attributing the problem to improper repairs by third parties, according to the cross-party committee. Concerns that there was a distinctive pattern of fires were first raised within Vauxhall in 2014, but it did not begin an investigation until August 2015. The departing boss of bailed-out Royal Bank of Scotland has insisted that fraud victims should not be entitled to automatic compensation. Ross McEwan said that customers must take more responsibility for their actions if tricked into giving their savings to a conman. He warned that it is not RBSs job to give a refund to those who are reckless. His comments infuriated campaigners who believe many vulnerable individuals get scammed after they have been forced online because their local branch has closed. Ross McEwan insisted that RBS already refunds victims of the most sophisticated frauds. Each scam is assessed case by case, he added. But campaigners last night declared this is not good enough and said that NatWest owner RBS must do more Mr McEwan who this week said he is standing down as chief executive said his priority is to educate customers, rather than automatically compensate them. He said: At this stage were thinking about how we work with customers. Weve got a big programme of education. We, including the media, have a major job to do of educating people not to give details away. We have to do this with customers they cant just say Oh, it was the banks fault I gave my details away. This is a collective responsibility. Mr McEwan insisted that RBS already refunds victims of the most sophisticated frauds. Each scam is assessed case by case, he added. The largest High Street banks, including RBS, have pledged to introduce a compensation fund. However, this is only guaranteed until the end of the year while a permanent solution is sought [File photo] But campaigners last night declared this is not good enough and said that NatWest owner RBS must do more. Gangs typically have highly-sophisticated methods and in-depth knowledge of the banks procedures, making them seem very credible. Ross McEwan warned that it is not RBSs job to give a refund to those who are reckless. His comments infuriated campaigners who believe many vulnerable individuals get scammed after they have been forced online because their local branch has closed Critics also argue that large banks are responsible for the fraud epidemic because they have shut hundreds of branches and launched aggressive marketing campaigns to persuade customers to go online. It can mean that older people who are not used to the internet have little choice other than to open a digital account making them easier targets for the con artists. RBS alone has axed around 1,400 branches across Britain since it was rescued with 46billion of taxpayers money in 2008. The Mail is campaigning for compensation for fraud victims. James Daley, of consumer group Fairer Finance, said: Ultimately I dont think its acceptable to allow individuals to lose everything because of a scam it undermines confidence in the whole system. Lets hope Ross McEwans replacement has more progressive views on this. Scam victims lost a total of 345million to so-called authorised push payment fraud last year, where a customer is tricked into transferring the money to a criminal. Only 83million of this money was recovered, according to trade body UK Finance. The crooks often pose as respectable figures such as a policeman or member of the banks staff. They often use legitimate accounts to receive the money. Campaigners say these accounts should be rigorously policed and shut down if suspected of accepting the proceeds of fraud. TSB earlier this month became the first bank to guarantee it will refund those hit by fraud in almost all cases, and the rest of the industry is under heavy pressure to follow suit. My 9-month fight for 17k Gemma Church has been battling with RBS-owned NatWest for nine months Gemma Church has been battling with RBS-owned NatWest for nine months after fraudsters stole 17,600 from her account. Last July Miss Church who works for a housing association began receiving calls from fraudsters posing as NatWest. They told her that there had been unusual activity on her account. They said she would need to move her savings to new accounts. Miss Church, 30, asked why the caller was using a private number. The fraudsters rang back from a number matching that on her debit card. Miss Church, from Birmingham, said: NatWest has not been sympathetic at all. NatWest said it would revisit Miss Churchs case as a matter of priority. Advertisement The largest High Street banks, including RBS, have pledged to introduce a compensation fund. However, this is only guaranteed until the end of the year while a permanent solution is sought. Gareth Shaw, of Which?, said: TSB has rightly recognised that the industry is far better placed to spot scams than customers, and that victims deserve refunds. Other banks must now follow their lead. RBS said it is concerned that automatic compensation could lead to payouts for customers who are negligent with their bank details. Sources said it did not want to stop victims of complicated scams from having redress. OTTAWA, April 26, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Canadian Steel Producers Associations (CSPA) President, Catherine Cobden, issued the following statement today following the Governments decision on steel safeguards: Canada's steel industry is disappointed with the governments announcement to not take decisive action to put safeguards in place for all 7 products. Steel producing nations around the world are implementing these trade measures and Canadas failure to do so means we are more dangerously trade exposed than ever before. Without safeguards, there will be significant negative impacts on the steel industry in Canada, and will lead to the loss of thousands of jobs, put $1.1 billion in planned investments at risk, and see the erosion of our competitiveness. Our industry is in crisis driven by global overcapacity, US 232 actions, and safeguard measures put in place in other jurisdictions. Job losses are taking place and investments are going elsewhere. The government must act now to support our workers and ensure our ongoing economic viability. We stand ready to work with the Government to find ways to address the immediate challenges we face. Media Contact Catherine Cobden President, Canadian Steel Producers Association 613-884-4856 c.cobden@canadiansteel.ca Financial Bank of America Ted Janicki was named vice president, Upstate New York market manager for the small business banking team. Janicki leads a team of 11 professionals across the Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany and Hudson Valley markets. Nonprofits Capital Roots Shauntay Brandon joined as a mobile market assistant. Brandon has a BA in performance and communications arts. Leah Faustel joined as outreach and Squash Hunger coordinator. Faustel previously worked as an office assistant for New York State Assemblyman Angelo Santabarbara. Scott Fuller joined as a farm to school coordinator. Fuller previously served as a program coordinator at CLEAResult. Sarah Heikkinen joined as a development writer. Heikkinen previously worked at a local nonprofit as a marketing and social media coordinator. Columbia-Greene Hospital Foundation Barbara Klassen was appointed executive director. Klassen, who previously served as executive director at the Benedictine Health Foundation in Kingston, has more than two decades of experience in health care fundraising, community relations and marketing. The American Contract Bridge League's Educational Foundation E. Kristen Frederick joined as executive director. Frederick is responsible for bringing in larger gifts to support more programs and eventually, research into the benefits of playing bridge. Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. Professions Bond Schoeneck & King Paul J. Buehler III joined as an associate in the Albany office. Buehler, who previously served as an associate at Whiteman Osterman & Hanna LLP, serves in the labor and employment practice, focusing primarily on employment, separation, restrictive covenant and other employment-related agreements. Javid Afzali joined as a senior counsel in the Albany office. Afzali, who previously worked at Whiteman Osterman & Hanna LLP, serves in the litigation, property, environmental and energy practices, focusing primarily on corporate boards, commercial dispute resolution and litigation, land use, construction and environmental permitting. Real Estate Sterling Homes Inc. Lisa M. Licata joined as director of sales and marketing. A licensed associate broker, Licata has more than 25 years of sales, customer service and management experience. Jennifer Patterson Nick Suits never planned to go to college. His parents didn't go, and he didn't much care for school when he was younger. Suits was always planning on finishing high school and going to work as soon as he could. But now, Suits, 18, has completed high school and is two weeks away from attaining an associate's degree and going on to work full time at the GlobalFoundries Fab 8 Malta computer chip plant, where he's been interning since last summer. Once he starts working, Suits said he's also planning on getting his bachelor's degree online through Excelsior College, and GlobalFoundries is going to pay for it, he said. This all came together after Suits chose not to attend his local high school, Canajoharie High, instead attending the Hamilton Fulton Montgomery P-Tech program, or Pathways in Technology Early College High School. P-Tech is one of several "early college" programs around the state, and it allows students to receive an associate's degree and high school diploma on an accelerated timeline, and at no cost to the student. Students typically graduate within five years, but can complete the program in anywhere from four to six years. Students join P-Tech following eighth grade, and have to submit applications and get references to be accepted requirements not dissimilar to the collegiate application process. But the program also provides students with exploratory career "pathways" that allow them to study different career paths before deciding which one to pursue. HFM P-Tech offers paths in advanced manufacturing, which Suits chose, as well as information technology, health sciences and business. Students are also taught professional skills, with an emphasis on job preparation. "I had no idea what I wanted to do," Suits said. "P-Tech is definitely beneficial. It definitely gave me a lot of skills, not only the hands-on knowledge stuff to work, but the professionalism. That really helps." The ultimate goal of P-Tech is to address a growing skills gap in the workforce, particularly in areas where employers have difficulty finding skilled, qualified workers to hire. "We knew that there were jobs available in our area and just a lack of skilled workers for those jobs, so lining up this education workforce initiative made perfect sense," said Nicole Walrath, the director of workforce development with the Fulton Montgomery Regional Chamber of Commerce. Walrath works closely with the HFM P-Tech program to find local businesses willing to partner with the program to offer internship and job shadowing opportunities for students. P-Tech is heavily focused on "project-based learning," where students are presented with a problem and work together to come up with a solution. Walrath brings in business owners to present problems their business might have that need solving, and students will work to come up with solutions. Starting their junior and seniors years, students attend classes at partnering colleges, like Hudson Valley Community College and Fulton Montgomery Community College, for example. HFM P-Tech has around 200 students now, and was one of the first P-Techs to come upstate in 2013, after the program expanded beyond New York City, where it was first adopted in 2011. Capital Region P-Tech is in its first year, but has partnered with the Capital Region Chamber of Commerce, as well as employers and organizations like Albany Can Code, Dell, and MVP Healthcare, among others, that help provide mentorship and relevant job opportunities for students. "It's about gaps in the workforce," said Joseph Dragone, senior executive officer of Capital Region BOCES, which runs the P-Tech program. "P-Tech as a structure or framework was about combining K-12 and higher education through the associates degree...How can we get kids associate's degrees in an expedient way and get them to the workforce?" There are 36 P-Tech schools around New York state, and five in the Capital Region. That includes programs in Troy, Ballston Spa and Saratoga Springs, as well as the Capital Region P-Tech and the Hamilton Fulton Montgomery program. Each individual program partners with local businesses and colleges, and graduates are promised a "first-in-line" spot for jobs with the partnering businesses and employers. The jobs and career pathways offered at the various P-Techs are typically geared towards technology and today's relevant occupations. Capital Region P-Tech, for example, offers career pathways in cybersecurity and computer science, while the Ballston Spa Clean Technologies Early College High School offers paths in computer science, mechatronics multidisciplinary engineering combining mechanics and electronics and entrepreneurship. Jennifer Drake works for HFM P-Tech, and spends most of her time at FMCC helping students with their transition to taking classes at the college. Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. She said the students typically undergo significant growth over the time in the program. With around 50 students per cohort, or grade level, the program can have a familial feel as students work through the rigorous, accelerated workload. "The transition is neat, seeing them. We really build up the family dynamic," Drake said. "We have a few (students) that hadn't even planned on graduating high school. Because they're like 'My parents never graduated high school, and they're kind of surviving.' "And then, (students) say 'I graduated high school and I'm a semester a way from graduating college,'" Drake said. "That's when they say 'I didn't even realize this was going to be an option for me.'" And while the program is still relatively young, with only one class of graduates to draw data from, statistics from the New York State Department of Education show that, statewide, of the 533 students in the first cohort who started in P-Tech in the fall of 2013, 506 met the requirements for high school graduation. That's nearly a 95 percent graduation rate higher than the statewide 80 percent graduation rate and students on average obtain 21 college credits by the end of their fourth year in P-Tech, according to J.P. O'Hare, a a state Education Department spokesman. P-Tech is funded through an amalgam of awarded state grant money, as well as money the students' districts pay to have them attend the program's required college classes. It's unclear what the long-term state funding plan for P-Tech is, and programs like the ADK P-Tech program in the town of Peru, near the Canadian border, folded due to a lack of funding and low enrollment. But O'Hare said New York state is "committed to providing full funding for all students...under any existing NYS P-Tech program. This includes not only funding for projects during the seven-year grant cycle, but also funding...through completion of the two-year degree for all students recruited during the awarded grant cycle." And while several students said that they plan on continuing to pursue a four-year degree rather than immediately entering the workforce upon completion, Walrath said the goal is for students to use the connections they've made through the program to come back to the area and join the workforce. "From day one, we've submerged them with partners," Walrath said. "Our hope and goal is that when they finish their degree they will come back, tap into those resources and those business professionals they met throughout their P-Tech career." Nick Brasmeister also attends HFM P-Tech. and is weeks away from completing high school, with just a few credit hours left before he gets his associate's degree. Brasmeister wants to become a professor of engineering, and avoid the career of physical labor his father experienced. But without P-Tech, Brasmeister also said he may never have even considered pursuing higher education in the first place. "I would have never had the funds," Brasmeister said of going to college. "I would've done an office job or something. But (P-Tech) gives me a really good opportunity to do what I want." Albany When the investigation went in directions he didn't like, he did his best to hobble and block its work. He meddled and interfered. Then, he stopped the investigation cold. Donald Trump? Nope. Andrew Cuomo. The investigation was the Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption, the high-powered group created to dive into New York's deep plume of governmental slime. Cuomo vowed the special commission would have the authority and independence it needed, because New York's embarrassing corruption could no longer be tolerated. It all sounded so promising. Cuomo even said New Yorkers should sleep better with the Moreland Commission at work. But it wasn't long before commissioners began looking under rocks the governor didn't want lifted. Many commissioners and investigators, as the New York Times reported, soon concluded that the governor, with his roadblocks and constant interference, was trying to compromise the investigation. Nine months after the Moreland Commission was launched, Cuomo abruptly disbanded it. The commission did not get to finish its work. It had little real impact on state-government corruption. In its too-brief life, the commission indicted nobody. Fast forward to last week's release of the long-awaited Mueller report, in which the special prosecutor exhaustively details the many ways President Trump interfered with the investigation Russian collusion. To many Democrats, Trump is guilty of obstruction of justice, and certainly there's evidence to make that case. Nevertheless, Mueller's team was at least allowed to complete its investigation. Trump meddled, certainly, but never fired Mueller. As a result, 34 people have been indicted or convicted, including many associates of the president. A question: If Trump obstructed justice for impeding a Mueller investigation that was ultimately completed, didn't Cuomo obstruct justice for shutting down the Moreland Commission when it started to investigate him? Preet Bharara, then the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, looked into that question and concluded, after a long investigation, that there was "insufficient evidence" to charge the governor with a federal crime. Fair enough. Still, what's remarkable from our Trump-era perspective is how similar Cuomo's arguments against obstruction are to those being made by Rudy Giuliani and other supporters of the president. It is as if they're working from Cuomo's playbook. Amid the blowback over his Moreland Commission shutdown, Cuomo and his team argued it was never actually autonomous of him, despite his pledges that it would be independent. Cuomo had created the commission and it was "a pure creature of the executive," they said. Its authority to issue subpoenas even derived from executive branch authority. "No Moreland Commission can be independent from the governor's office," Cuomo said in a written response to questions from the New York Times. "It is purely a creation of the Governor's power under the law." In other words, a governor can't obstruct an investigation that he ultimately oversees. Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. Years later, Bill Barr would make a similar argument in a letter he wrote to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. While Trump didn't directly launch Robert Mueller's investigation, it originated from the executive branch and its authority, and that, to Barr's way of thinking, means the president can't obstruct justice while exercising his powers. "The Constitution vests all federal law enforcement power, and hence prosecutorial discretion, in the president," Barr said in the letter written before he became Trump's attorney general. "The president's discretion in these areas has long been absolute." In other words, a president can't obstruct an investigation that he ultimately oversees. Given that belief, it isn't surprising Barr did not believe that all the presidential misbehavior outlined in the Mueller report justified an obstruction of justice charge. Cuomo must have forgotten about his prior argument, or maybe he has decided it's politically prudent to ignore it. Either way, he doesn't seem to agree with Barr's opinion. "When you read the Mueller report, it's damning to this president," Cuomo said in an interview with WAMC's Alan Chartock. "There is a case for impeachment from that report and I think Democrats are right to explore that avenue." Cuomo is correct that Mueller's investigation is damning to Trump. It shows a president with little integrity or regard for the truth. It paints a disturbing portrait of his character. More Information Contact columnist Chris Churchill at 518-454-5442 or email cchurchill@timesunion.com Contact columnist Chris Churchill at 518-454-5442 or email cchurchill@timesunion.com See More Collapse How damning would the Moreland Commission's work have been to Cuomo? We will never know. The governor made sure of that. cchurchill@timesunion.com 518-454-5442 @chris_churchill AMSTERDAM - Ladan Alomar, the 30-year director of Latino immigrant organization Centro Civico, announced she will resign from her position at the end of June. "After 30 years being in the organization and building so much and giving so much, you get to a point, there is a time for someone coming for a new energy and a new vision to take it to the next step. I always hear that if you love something, you have to let it go," Alomar told the Times Union. "At the same time, I have other passions, and I want, before I get too old, to be able to have another chapter in my life." Alomar said her future plans are not set but she is considering business ventures and will spend more time with her family. A naturalized immigrant from Iran, Alomar came to the U.S. as a tourist in 1981, earned her bachelor's and master's degrees at University at Albany, and joined Centro Civico in 1989. She started at the organization as a student family counselor in a program to reduce the number of high school dropouts and rose quickly to become executive director in 1994. "I came to this country with a dream of getting an education as an immigrant woman and that's why I love this country so much," Alomar said. "I never imagined that as a non-Latina I would become the executive director of this wonderful Latino organization." Centro Civico is a non-profit organization with offices in Amsterdam and Albany that administers funds, delivers vital services, housing initiatives and community economic development to the Latino community. Under Alomar's leadership, the organization purchased an entire city block in downtown Amsterdam in 1999. This development, known as La Segunda Casa, provides space for the agency's programs and rental space for other organizations. ""I'm very proud as running the organization as a concept of la familia - we are all family and one community,"said Alomar. "What stands out among all of them would be the building a community one block at a time concept and creating a center that every human being that walks through the door is treated in their second home with love and respect and no judgment." Centro Civico has also supported 9/11 first responders, hurricane victims in Puerto Rico and people affected by mudslides in Peru. Alomar said it has not been an easy journey. "The organization has gone through a lot of ups and downs. I can remember moments I could not make the payroll and the moment that I got the news that we got the largest grant ever - $1.25 million," Alomar said. Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. During her tenure, Alomar led the organization's exponential growth from 12 employees to 35 employees and an annual budget from $250,000 to as much as $2.5 million a year. In a recent interview, Alomar expressed her passion for protecting undocumented workers from exploitation and supporting immigrants on the path to citizenship - especially in the current political climate. "It seems like it's not an environment that is not friendly and supportive of immigrants even though the foundation of this country is based on people coming from all over the world and that has been the strength of this country," she said. Alomar said she wanted to work toward comprehensive immigration reform. "This crisis is all the way at the federal level a lack of developing immigration policies that are acceptable and appropriate," she said. "We don't discuss why people immigrate because there are two sides to every story. We can as Americans say this is our country and we need to set up policies of people coming in, but in no way do we talk about the impact of foreign policy on their country's economy, and as a result, their need to flee." The organization's board will now begin an extensive search for Alomar's successor. "We want to thank Ladan for her tremendous work in leading Centro Civico to where it is today," said Dr. Roberto Ochoa, president of the organization's board. "Although we are sad to see her go, we know she will continue to serve the community." When I first read Pope Emeritus Benedict's April 10 essay on the sex abuse crisis, my immediate reaction was that the media must have put their own spin on it. Though Catholic, I do not always agree with Benedict's theology or liturgical form, but he is a respected theologian. The media quotes from his essay were clearly absurd; I could not believe he actually wrote: "Among the freedoms that the Revolution of 1968 sought to fight for was this all-out sexual freedom, one which no longer conceded any norms. The mental collapse was also linked to a propensity for violence. That is why sex films were no longer allowed on airplanes because violence would break out among the small community of passengers... And since the clothing of that time equally provoked aggression, school principals also made attempts at introducing school uniforms." I found and read the entire essay online. Media spin is not the culprit. Sadly, the media quoted Benedict's essay accurately. As a Catholic with a master's in counseling and theology, I can say that to attribute the crisis in the church to the sexual revolution of the 1960s shows ignorance of both history and the sexual abuse crisis itself. It boggles the mind, especially since the words come from a man as well-educated as Benedict. He actually makes this statement: "The question of pedophilia, as I recall, did not become acute until the second half of the 1980s." While the crisis may have come to light in the 1980s, much of the abuse goes back way before the 1960s. Horrific incidents reported internationally occurred in the 1940s and 1950s. Benedict also writes that the "Revolution of '68 was that pedophilia was also diagnosed as allowed and appropriate" Where was pedophilia ever "diagnosed as allowed and appropriate?" Part II of the essay is equally problematic. Benedict writes: "In various seminaries homosexual cliques were established, which acted more or less openly and significantly changed the climate in the seminaries ... At the common meals, seminarians and pastoral specialists ate together ... laymen sometimes accompanied by wives and children, and occasionally by their girlfriends. The climate in this seminary could not provide support for preparation to the priest's vocation." Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. The idea that priestly formation was contaminated (my word) by seminarians eating meals with lay ministers and their families is blatantly absurd. Seminarians should be learning to relate to both genders in a healthy wayit makes them better priests. You might be tempted to ask why I stay Catholic. Since the abuse crisis came to light, many left and continue to leave. I stay primarily for two reasons. The Roman Catholic Church is in my blood; the connection is as much cultural as religious (I am Italian American). The Roman Catholic Mass is the way I learned to worship God, and it is the form of worship with which I am most familiar and most comfortable. I was fortunate in my Catholic high school education to have teachers (mostly nuns) who were open, down to earth, and able to explain church teachings in ways that made sense. My study of church history taught me that God and the Church are not the same. Unless one's belief about the nature of God changes, to switch from one religion to another isn't the answer. That is why I stay. Rebecca Pool Button, the former wife of a congressman and newspaper editor, who was active in the Albany community for two decades, died Thursday at her home near Wilmington, Del., at the age of 96, family members said. Read her obituary here Button had been married to Daniel E. Button, a Times Union executive editor who quit to run a surprisingly victorious congressional campaign. He died in 2009 at the age of 91. While living in the Albany area through much of the 1950s and 1960s, Rebecca Button was active in the public school community and in other children's issues as she raised the couple's five children. She was also a newspaper columnist who contributed to the Times Union. According to the family, the University of Delaware graduate met her future husband after college when she was a reporter for the Wilmington News Journal. He was also a reporter. They married in 1945 and moved to Albany in 1952, when he became assistant to the president of the State University of New York system. In 1966, Dan Button, 48, quit his newspaper job to run, and win, the Albany-area congressional seat as a Republican in a heavily Democratic district, but was defeated after two terms in 1970 by Democrat Samuel S. Stratton of Schenectady. Rebecca Button moved back to Delaware in 1969. Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. In Delaware, she taught a current events discussion course for 20 years at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, a continuing education division of the University of Delaware, from the early 1990s. She was a magistrate in New Castle County (Del.) for a six-year term, 1977-83. In her 80s, she wrote five novels. Rebecca Button is survived by son Daniel E. Button Jr., of Florida; daughters Mary B. Hopkins, of Delaware, Sarah B. White of Massachusetts and Nancy B. Nathan of Maryland, and seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Her former husband died at 91 in 2009. She will be interred at Old St. Anne's, Middletown, Del., next to her son, Jefferson F. Button, who died in 1986. A memorial service will be held at Cokesbury Village, Hockessin, Del., on May 4. During a traffic stop or police encounter, do not consent to a search of your person or your property. Respectfully ask police if you're free to go, and then leave if you are. If served with a search warrant, check the document to ensure a judge signed it. Don't feel compelled to answer an officer's questions without a lawyer. Assert your rights. Those were just some of the tips local advocates and legal professionals gave to a crowd during a "Know Your Rights" event at the Grand Street Community Arts Center Saturday morning. Tensions between police officers and Capital Region residents have increased following the First Street police beatings that took place last month. A group of Albany Law School students organized the panel discussion Saturday to discuss how citizens should handle police encounters. Albany Police Chief Eric Hawkins was at the event, and fielded questions about the culture he's working to develop at the department following the arrest of Luke Deer, the Albany police officer who was charged with felony assault following the March 16 incident. Hawkins repeatedly stressed that the "overwhelming majority" of police officers "are doing the right things for the right reasons" but said he supports officers wearing body cameras, and is working to improve his officers' handling of situations having to do with mental health and addiction. "For us to heal, for us to move forward, we've got acknowledge the...police officers that are not interacting in the way that they're supposed to," Hawkins said. "But we also have to acknowledge the overwhelming number of those officers who are out there really doing this for the right reasons." Fabrice Michel was the central organizer of the event, and is in his second year at Albany Law School. He said he's been wanting to plan this event since January, and will likely try to organize "Know Your Rights" events annually. The panel consisted of Hawkins, as well as five other local legal professionals and advocates. Donna Young, a professor of law and public policy at Albany Law School, said people should have a certain level of skepticism towards police. She stressed that the criminal justice system is geared towards targeting people of color, and that the most important thing for people to do is avoid the first "point of contact" with police. "There has to be healthy distrust of the police. That doesn't mean that you fight back, that you're impolite," Young said. "The police, in general, haven't earned our trust yet. This system is not fair." Young pointed out that inner-city neighborhoods are typically more highly-policed than suburban towns, which makes minority children more likely to have that point of contact with police. Amy Jones is a community organizer with Citizen Action of New York, a progressive advocacy group that pushes for social and racial justice, among other things. Jones said she's been arrested 23 times, and spent two years incarcerated at the Albany County Correctional Facility. Since being released in 2001, she's gone on to focus on criminal justice reform. She said socioeconomic conditions are the primary reason people are driven to commit crimes. Jones said she grew up in a foster home, and was dropped off at a homeless shelter following her high school graduation something that made her "ill-equipped" to deal with day-to-day life, and led to her breaking the law. Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. Young also pointed out that police officers may be acting without malice, but personal stereotypes or prejudices still often come to light in tense situations. "Good people also operate on their own stereotypes, they also make mistakes," Young said. "Even if (police officers) are acting in good faith, they are bound to draw from their own experiences, from their own understanding, which might be partial and not fair." Recorded police encounters have frequently gone viral on social media, often bringing to light or substantiating claims of misconduct against police much like it did following the First Street incident, when a City Hall employee sent Albany PD a video of the beatings, which prompted Hawkins to initiate an investigation. Hawkins said he supports citizens recording police encounters, so long as they don't interfere with police activity. He said video recording is a "behavior modifier" for both police officers and citizens, too. "We train our officers to behave and perform as if they're being recorded. Assume you're being recorded. We instill this in our officers," Hawkins said. Mayor Kathy Sheehan spoke at the end of the event, and pointed out that any time systems relating to mental health, addiction, healthcare and housing fail, police bear the burden of the failure. She said she's hoping community advocates will "insist that we are helping people before they reach the crisis situation, before they're in a position where they're now having an encounter and you're calling the police to come and solve what is a social issue where some other system has failed." Sheehan said efforts to address the racial and social tensions between police and the community will help achieve Hawkins' vision for the department as one that "all of us can respect and be proud of, and understand that we are in this together." Notre Dame Cathedral catches fire in Paris on April 15th Officials believe the fire was possibly caused by a short circuit linked to renovation work underway before the fire. Authorities in Paris are still trying to piece together exactly what happened before Notre Dame Cathedral caught fire, which officials believe was an accident. The cathedral will remain closed to the public for years after the fire destroyed its roof and knocked over its spire. A huge fire engulfed Pariss Notre-Dame, the world-famous, 850-year-old cathedral, damaging much of the structure and causing its iconic spire to fall on April 15th. Images have shown the upper parts of the gothic cathedral engulfed by flames. The 90-metre-high spire and parts of the roof completely collapsed, and the fire spread to the bell towers. The fire started at approximately 19h00 local time and has brought hundreds of people out into the street of Paris. The French Interior Ministry said on Twitter that over 400 firefighters were mobilized to the location to battle the blaze. French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to rebuild Notre Dame with help from the international community. Notre Dame donations now stand at over EUR1 billion, or about three years of France's national restoration budget. One of the most popular tourist destinations in Paris, the cathedral attracts more than 10 million visitors each year./. NEW ORLEANS, April 26, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC (KSF) and KSF partner, former Attorney General of Louisiana, Charles C. Foti, Jr., remind investors that they have until June 24, 2019 to file lead plaintiff applications in a securities class action lawsuit against Indivior PLC (OTC: INVVY), if they purchased the Companys securities between March 10, 2015 and April 9, 2019, inclusive (the Class Period). This action is pending in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. What You May Do If you purchased securities of Indivior and would like to discuss your legal rights and how this case might affect you and your right to recover for your economic loss, you may, without obligation or cost to you, contact KSF Managing Partner Lewis Kahn toll-free at 1-877-515-1850 or via email (lewis.kahn@ksfcounsel.com), or visit https://www.ksfcounsel.com/cases/otc-invvy/ to learn more. If you wish to serve as a lead plaintiff in this class action, you must petition the Court by June 24, 2019 . About the Lawsuit Indivior and certain of its executives are charged with failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws. On April 9, 2019, the U.S. Department of Justice filed an indictment against the Company for engaging in an illicit nationwide scheme to increase prescriptions of Suboxone Film, an opioid drug used in the treatment of opioid addiction, including conspiracy to commit mail, wire, and health care fraud, one count of health care fraud, four counts of mail fraud, and twenty-two counts of wire fraud. On this news, the price of Indiviors shares plummeted. The case is Van Dorp v. Indivior Plc, et al, 1:19-cv-10792. About Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC KSF, whose partners include former Louisiana Attorney General Charles C. Foti, Jr., is a law firm focused on securities, antitrust and consumer class actions, along with merger & acquisition and breach of fiduciary litigation against publicly traded companies on behalf of shareholders. The firm has offices in New York, California and Louisiana. To learn more about KSF, you may visit www.ksfcounsel.com . Contact: SCHUYLERVILLE U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik said she is taking steps to ensure the country's elections will be free from foreign interference. Yet on Friday, the Republican wouldn't go as far as saying that President Donald Trump should take responsibility for any part he played in what she called "a wide swath" of Russian meddling in the 2016 election. "The Mueller Report was clear," Stefanik said just before her Saratoga Town Hall "Coffee with the Congresswoman" appearance -- one that was at times downright combative. "There was no conspiracy. As a country we should focus on strengthening our cyber-security and countering Russia." She said she would like to see Special Counsel Robert Meuller testify before Congress because "that would be helpful to answer questions that my colleagues and I have." But Stefanik, who represents the 21st district, stopped short of saying that Trump should take any responsibility for his actions, only admitting he showed "bad judgment for taking those meetings" with Russians. She said she is focused on election security including legislation to require disclosures on digital ads, a ban on foreign money in campaigns and a requirement that the FBI brief Congress on counterintelligence investigation involving candidates. At the Town Hall she answered questions from about 100 constituents on national and local issues ranging from her continued support of Trump and the National Rifle Association as well as efforts to protect the Hudson River from PCBs and immigrant workers at Saratoga Race Course. She started off by calling the district a bellwether, saying as the country goes so will the district. Judging by the crowd, the country is divided, as she inspired equal parts cheers and jeers mainly on controversial issues including her 'no' vote on the Violence Against Women Act because she said, "it included Second Amendment violations" and her call for the resignation of U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff as chair of the House Intelligence Committee who has accused the President of collusion with Russia. One man accused her of "standing up for the party and not the county." However, Stefanik doesn't fully embrace all things Trump. In a split with many of her colleagues, she called on Trump to release his taxes. "I release my taxes every year, so should he," she said. Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. The Coffee with a Congresswoman started off on a combative note with members of the public angry that they couldn't carry in signs. Once inside, the hall, which was not full, Supervisor Tom Wood had to bang the gavel several times to try to get the crowd to be more civil and less confrontational toward Stefanik. People were especially agitated by a question from one of her volunteers who asked about demanding U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar to resign from Congress for comments that some deemed anti-Semitic. Stefanik said she should resign, which inspired shouts from the crowd that Trump is a racist. Among those who were able to speak up unencumbered when their names were drawn from a basket, was Kate Morse of Hudson Crossing Park who wanted to know what Stefanik would do about the GE's Hudson River cleanup that she said never reached Schuylerville's waterways. Stefanik promised to monitor it with the Environmental Protection Agency because she understands the river and the canal are important to the area's economy. She also made promises to help efforts to aid historic parks in the region with more funds and help veterans who are having difficulty securing benefit from the Veteran's Administration. "Call my office," she said. New York One of the primary questions hovering over the coming sexual assault trial of Harvey Weinstein is whether the court will let women aside from the two mentioned in the indictment testify about their experiences with the movie producer. But a state court judge in Manhattan ruled Friday that hearings to determine what evidence of uncharged crimes might be allowed at trial would take place in a sealed courtroom with the public and the press excluded. The ruling by Justice James Burke in state Supreme Court meant the list of other witnesses prosecutors want to call to testify against Weinstein and what they might say will remain secret a little longer, perhaps until his trial starts Sept. 9. Both the prosecution and the defense had asked for the hearing to be held behind closed doors, arguing that allowing it to be public could make it harder to find an impartial jury. Burke agreed with them, ruling this month that closing the courtroom was "the only means available to avoid tainting the jury pool." Still, before the hearing started Friday, a lawyer for several news organizations, including The New York Times, argued that access to judicial proceedings and records is protected by the First Amendment. The lawyer, Robert Balin, urged Burke to unseal all court filings in the case and allow the press and the public to attend. Burke quickly turned down the request. He noted what he called Weinstein's "celebrity status" and said a continued high level of attention from reporters could jeopardize Weinstein's right to a fair trial. "The publication of the information at this time would serve no purpose other than to arouse public sentiment against the defendant," he said, before ordering the courtroom cleared. Robert D. Balin said he would immediately turn to an appeals court to ask for a stay. The indictment against Weinstein, 67, charges him with raping one woman at a Manhattan hotel in 2013 and forcing another to let him perform oral sex on her at his town house in 2006. Weinstein, who pleaded not guilty and was released on $1 million bail, has denied the charges, saying the encounters were consensual. Dozens of other women have said publicly that they, too, experienced highly inappropriate behavior at his hands, ranging from sexual harassment to rape. The Manhattan district attorney's office has sought permission to put some of those other accusers on the witness stand, perhaps to establish a pattern of behavior. Prosecutors in Pennsylvania employed the same tactic in convicting Bill Cosby last year on three counts of sexual assault. Weinstein, who became a powerful figure in Hollywood while running Miramax, has been the subject of intensive reporting since 2017, when stories in The New Yorker and The New York Times detailed allegations of his sexual misconduct against multiple women, and reported that he had paid off several accusers. Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. The lead prosecutor, Joan Illuzzi, argued in a letter to the court that the hearings should be secret not just to avoid publicizing more allegations that might prejudice potential jurors but also to protect the privacy of witnesses who have been victims of sexual assault. "Not every person we have listed that we are asking to call has been made public," she told the judge Friday. Ronald S. Sullivan Jr., a lawyer for Weinstein, wrote in a court filing that a "sensationalized media environment" justified excluding the press and public from the hearing. In court Friday, another lawyer for Weinstein, Marianne Bertuna, said news coverage of the case had already harmed her client. "Let's limit the damage that has been done here in the midst of an insatiable media frenzy," she said But Balin countered that there was a significant and legitimate public interest in the hearings and that the prosecution and defense had not met the high legal burden to justify sweeping restrictions. "What I've heard is that somehow it is improper for the press and public to sit here and report news in real time," he told Burke. "That is what our Constitution envisions." Balin argued in an earlier court filing that most of the information that was to be discussed during the hearing had was already public, thanks to thorough reporting. He also questioned the assertion that news reports about the hearings would harm Weinstein. The jury pool had already been exposed to highly-publicized allegations in the press and on social media from more than 80 women, he noted. Weinstein was indicted in 2018 on six criminal charges including two counts of predatory sexual assault. A Costa Mesa, Calif. woman who was kidnapped while on vacation in Uganda and held captive alongside her tour guide is now sharing details of the horrifying ordeal. Kimberly Endicott and her Ugandan guide, Jean Paul Mirenge Remezo, were taken from the Queen Elizabeth National Park by four armed men on April 2. The two wound up being taken hostage for almost five days before being freed by their captors after a ransom was paid for their release. Endicott recalled the moment that the men ambushed her group, telling "CBS This Morning" the men had emerged from a bush and she had at first mistaken them for armed rangers. Upon a closer look, however, she realized the men were not rangers. In fact, the "ragtag" group of men were not in uniforms of any sort and wound up pointing their guns at Endicott and Remezo, along with an elderly couple from Canada who were also on the tour with them. It was then that Endicott felt "pure fear," but admitted even that phrase "doesn't do it justice." Endicott and Remezo were then taken captive by the group, while the couple who Endicott guessed were in their later 70s were allowed to stay behind. Endicott and Remezo were later moved from Uganda into the Democratic Republic of Congo. MORE SURVIVAL TALES: Lost in Yosemite's snows for 11 days in 1946, biologist ate lichen to survive During those nearly five days of captivity, Endicott said she tried coming up with ways to ensure a quick death, if that was where things were headed. "How do I get them to shoot me?" Endicott recalled thinking. "And just shoot me, instead of dismembering me or raping me? How do I do that? What can I do that will actually create that and I could never actually come up with a strategy for that. "If I ran, well, that would just make them angry," Endicott added. "And I think I would get treated pretty badly if I tried to run." Despite the nightmarish situation, Endicott tried humanizing herself to her captors and even found herself feeling empathetic to their situation. "I just start talking to them like I'm talking to you," Endicott told journalist Gayle King. "But all the while I'm watching these young men drink water, not from the river, but from a hole in the ground. But they have bottled water for me." Endicott recalled that the men even made a tent for her out of tarps and a mosquito net after a particularly exhausting day. MORE: Kidnapped American tourist and her driver have been rescued, Uganda says Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. When asked how she could feel compassionate towards the men, Endicott replied, "How could I not? 'Cause that's their life. It's not really above living like an animal ... If I survive this, I have a life to go back to. That's their life. "That does not condone what they did," Endicott added. "Not even close." The kidnappers demanded $500,000 for Endicott and Remezo's release, but it's unclear how much was actually paid to the captors. Endicott and Remezo were released after a woman with the Ugandan Wildlife Authority handed over the money. Despite the ordeal, Endicott said she felt Uganda is still a safe place to visit and that her kidnapping was an unusual occurrence. Read more about Endicott's experience here on CBS News. Read Dianne de Guzman's latest stories and send her news tips at dianne.deguzman@sfgate.com. Start receiving breaking news emails on wildfires, civil emergencies, riots, national breaking news, Amber Alerts, weather emergencies, and other critical events with the SFGATE breaking news email. Click here to make sure you get the news. [April 26, 2019] Second Leading Independent Proxy Advisory Firm Supports Medison and Recommends Change and a New Strategy at Knight Therapeutics Medison Biotech (1995) Ltd. ("Medison"), which together with its affiliates owns more than 10.4 million shares or 7.3% of Knight Therapeutics, Inc. (TSX:GUD) ("Knight" or the "Company"), today announced that Glass Lewis & Co., LLC, a leading independent proxy advisory firm, has noted the underperformance of Knight, severe conflicts of interest among the directors, management and the Goodman family and the need for change to the Knight Board of Directors. Glass Lewis recommends that shareholders vote for change by using the GOLD proxy card and vote FOR the election of Medison nominees Michael Cloutier and Bob Oliver. Institutional Shareholder Services ("ISS") has also recently recommended Knight shareholders support change and vote using the GOLD proxy card to elect Elaine Campbell and Christophe Robert Jean. Commenting on the report, Medison said, "The Glass Lewis report exposes the severity of the issues at Knight - inferior returns, lack of an operating business, a failed strategy, conflicted directors and a campaign to try to fool shareholders. The independent report also calls on Jonathan Goodman to divest his conflicted holdings or resign immediately as CEO. In addition, Knight's Chairman, James Gale, is exposed for related party transactions and conflicts of interest." Added Medison, "We are very pleased that shareholders are finally able to see, in detail, the issues with this board, but to also have the opportunity to vote for new, skilled directors that have a real plan to create value for all. This is an important time for Knight and we urge shareholders to vote FOR all of the Medison nominees on the GOLD proxy today." In its recommendation, Glass Lewis stated:* "Ultimately, giving full consideration to the factors discussed above, the entirety of the materials released by the Company and the Dissident, and our engagement meetings with the principal parties and investors, we are of the opinion that Knight's public shareholders would be best served by supporting Medison's campaign for board change." "In our view, this action is justified due to the combination of several factors: (i) Knight's poor absolute and relative performance over the last three years, (ii) the lack of significant progress in the last five years toward building a lasting specialty pharmaceutical business of scale and value (the reason shareholders invested in Knight in the first place), (iii) the unwillingness or inability of management and the board to deploy the significant capital that the Company has raised from shareholders (even if that requires modifications to the strategy or an increase in risk tolerance in order to adapt to the current environment), or else to return capital, (iv) multiple governance concerns, most notably with respect to the CEO's conflict of interest due to his larger economic stake in the family business which recently became a direct competitor of Knight, and (v) the current board's rigidness, defensive posture and generally dismissive tone with respect to taking action to address what we consider to be valid and serious concerns, which in our opinion are likely to continue to impair the Company's ability to maximize value for shareholders if they are not resolved." In its report, Glass Lewis discussed the severity of the Goodman family conflict: "In addition to Medison's criticisms of Knight's business strategy and performance, the Dissident's campaign has brought renewed attention to several corporate governance issues at Knight, on the board level and in the executive suite. Chief among them is what appears to be a serious conflict of interest for Knight's CEO, Jonathan Goodman." "The new reality that Mr. Goodman has a much larger economic interest in a competitor than he does in Knight came as a concerning revelation to some Knight shareholders we spoke with. Their newfound concern is completely understandable, in our view." "The Company now argues that shareholders have long known about this issue and that nothing has really changed, despite the [recent] developments. [W]e find his latest explanation far less plausible or comforting." "Given the stark differences between past and current circumstances, we don't agree with the Company's and the board's stated position that nothing has changed with respect to Mr. Goodman's conflict of interest." "Pharmascience's recent move into Knight's primary area of focus, together with the recent disclosure of the size of Mr. Goodman's economic interest, has made this an entirely different situation than it was 20 years ago at Paladin, or even five years ago when Knight was founded. The implications for Knight's shareholders should not be dismissed or taken lightly, in our opinion." "Therefore, as Medison argues, we believe it's reasonable and justified for shareholders to demand that Mr. Goodman divest his stake in Pharmascience in order to remain the CEO of Knight. Alternatively, we believe it would be acceptable from a corporate governance perspective for Mr. Goodman to relinquish the role of CEO of Knight, but to remain on the board where his conflict would be more manageable and less likely to impact day-to-day operations or execution of Knight's strategic priorities." "[W]e note that while Knight has justified its low level of deal activity in recent years by pointing to high valuations in the specialty pharmaceutical market, the timing of Pharmascience's entry into Knight's market segment raises questions as to whether this has also made Mr. Goodman even more reluctant to pursue potential acquisition targets as of late." "Ultimately, placing Mr. Goodman's stake into a blind trust simply doesn't address the issue because, as Medison points out, even without managerial or voting control over Pharmascience, he knows Pharmascience is broadening its scope and activities into Knight's market and that his stake in Pharmascience is worth much more than his stake in Knight." "[W]e see only two ways for Knight to fully address the issue: he should divest his Pharmascience stake or resign as CEO of Knight, whch we again clarify does not necessarily mean he has to resign from the board of Knight." "Furthermore, the board of directors, which has a fiduciary duty to represent the interests of all shareholders, including by addressing any serious conflicts of interest of its executives and directors, especially the founder and CEO, is ultimately responsible for holding Mr. Goodman accountable on this issue, by forcing one outcome or the other. To date, the board has not shown a willingness to step up in this regard." In its report, Glass Lewis highlighted the lack of independence on the Knight Board : "The board's unwillingness to hold Mr. Goodman accountable for Knight's recent performance, or to meaningfully address his significant conflict of interest, is likely the result of the long-standing personal and business ties Mr. Goodman has with several members of the board, including the chairman, Mr. Gale, who also chairs the corporate governance and nomination committee, and the other two members of that committee, who have served on the board for five years." "One of the greater concerns, in our view, is that the chairman does not appear to be fully independent . Specifically, Mr. Gale's investment management business, Signet, has partnered with the Goodman family, including Jonathan and other members, in funding other pharmaceutical companies and serving on the boards of those companies." In its report, Glass Lewis highlighted the following on Knight's shareholder returns: "over the last one, two and three years, Knight's shareholder returns have not only been flat or negative, but they have in general significantly underperformed the average returns of both peer groups and all three indexes included in our analysis, save for a few periods where Knight's performance was, at best, in line with certain of these benchmarks." "We believe our analysis further supports the Dissident's main contention that, rather than building a specialty pharmaceutical business over the last five years, Knight has raised hundreds of millions in capital and engaged primarily in investment and lending activities to generate income and returns, building only a small operating business that has declined significantly in value over the last three years, as measured by Knight's share price ex-cash/investments." "[T]he implied market value of Knight's operating business has declined by more than 80% over the last two years, while two of the Canadian pharmaceutical peers we selected saw the market values of their business skyrocket more than 300% and 1,400%" "All told, our TSR (News - Alert), adjusted market value and enterprise value analyses lend broad support for the Dissident's critique and central thesis that, after five years, Knight has not executed its stated strategy of deploying capital to build a leading specialty pharmaceutical company in Canada and international markets in order to deliver healthy returns for its shareholders." "Further, we believe the Dissident's share price analysis and our analyses refute the board's claim that Knight has outperformed Canadian pharmaceutical and global specialty pharmaceutical peers, particularly over the last one, two and three years." In its report, Glass Lewis highlighted the following on Knight's failed strategy: Knight has failed to execute its strategic plan, and arguably has made little progress toward its stated mission. [T]he Company has generated scant revenues to date and operating losses every quarter, focusing on what the Dissident considers to be non-innovative, low-economic-value products, while also acting like a financial intermediately by engaging in non-strategic, illiquid and risky lending and venture investing activities." "In the last few years, Knight's lending program and venture investing have not merely been supplementary, but instead have accounted for the bulk of the Company's activity. We doubt that this is what shareholders, including CI Investments, bought into when they invested in Knight." "Shareholders invested in Knight primarily due to Paladin's track record in executing such a strategy and the expectation that Knight would replicate that success, but that has not been the case five years in at Knight." "Knight also states that analysts and shareholders have expressed 'overwhelming support' for Knight's disciplined strategy, and that shareholders have expressed privately the same supportive views as the analysts who follow the Company. Yet, the only shareholder who has expressed its views publicly, CI Investments, has endorsed Medison's alternative strategy and director slate." In its report, Glass Lewis highlighted the following on Medison's "Diamond" strategy: "In our opinion, Medison's alternative plan seems to address the capital allocation and strategic issues that have prevented Knight from building a meaningful pharmaceutical business in the last five years and from delivering adequate returns for shareholders." "Perhaps the most important distinction between the two plans: Medison and its nominees seem intent on actually deploying Knight's significant cash balance to generate returns and value for shareholders, and to return excess capital back to shareholders." Medison encourages shareholders to view new profiles of its director nominees and read its Information Circular at www.NewDayForKnight.com for the complete, truthful story about Knight's failure to create value for shareholders, Medison's highly qualified and independent nominees, and the best way forward for Knight and its shareholders. TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE VOTE ONLY GOLD TODAY If you have any questions and/or need assistance completing your GOLD form of proxy or VIF, please call Shorecrest at 1-888-637-5789 (toll-free) or 647-931-7454 (collect calls accepted), or e-mail [email protected]. *Permission to use quotations neither sought nor obtained. About Medison Medison is one of the world's largest commercial partners of leading global biotech companies. Backed by three generations of experience in the healthcare industry since 1937, Medison is uniquely qualified to provide the complete spectrum of integrated services for international companies looking to enter or expand their presence in Israeli and selected ROW markets. Over the years, Medison has become the partner of choice for biotech companies that produce highly innovative, cutting edge therapeutics for commercialization in the Israeli market and is currently the second largest pharmaceutical company in Israel, with over CAD 250 million in revenues annually and over 270 employees. Medison runs a corporate venture arm with a dedicated research and evaluation team boasting deep scientific and commercial backgrounds. Medison also operates a scouting program to cater to its partners and is an active investor in life science projects around drug development and digital health. Additional information can be found at www.medison.co.il. Forward Looking Statement This news release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including, without limitation, Medison's and Knight's respective priorities, plans and strategies. 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 Medison expects or anticipates may occur in the future. These forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking words such as "may", "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 risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual performance, events or results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These factors include: changes in Knight's strategies, plans or prospects; general economic, industry, business, regulatory and market conditions; actions of Knight and its competitors; conditions in the pharmaceutical industry; risks relating to government regulation and changes thereto, including in respect of the regulations concerning board composition, proxy solicitation and shareholder meetings; the state of the economy including general economic conditions globally and economic conditions in the jurisdictions in which Knight operates; the unpredictability and volatility of Knight's share price; and dilution and future sales of securities of the Company. These factors should not be construed as exhaustive. 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. Future oriented financial information and financial outlook contained herein about prospective financial performance, financial position or cash flows are based on assumptions about future events, including economic conditions and proposed courses of action, based on the applicable management team's assessment of the relevant information available to them at the applicable time, and to become available in the future. In particular, the information contains projected operational information for future periods which are based on a number of material assumptions and factors. The actual results of the applicable operations for any period could vary from the amounts set forth in these projections, and such variations may be material. Further, there is no assurance or guarantee with respect to the prices at which any securities of Knight will trade, and such securities may not trade at prices that may be implied herein. See above for a discussion of the risks that could cause actual results to vary from such forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned that all forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, including those risks and uncertainties detailed in the continuous disclosure and other filings of Knight, copies of which are available on the System for Electronic Document Analysis ("SEDAR") at www.sedar.com. 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 the date of this news release and Medison disclaims any obligation to publicly update such forward-looking statements, except as required by applicable law. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190426005637/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] "Never Settle" has been the mantra at OnePlus since the very beginning, when the company introduced its OnePlus One smartphone to the world in 2014. Priced at $299 yet powered by a then-top-of-the-line Snapdragon 801 chipset and 3GB of RAM, this OnePlus handset was the flagship killer at a time when flagship killers were few and far between. The Chinese startup has certainly come far in the last five years, with eight subsequent phone releases from highs like the gorgeous Sandstone White OnePlus 5T, to the polarizing yet still pretty OnePlus X. Now, it's on the brink of yet another milestone: On May 14, OnePlus looks to launch not one, but two new phones simultaneously and at different price points for the first time in its short history. OnePlus 7 vs. OnePlus 7 Pro Based on everything we know to date, the OnePlus 7 is shaping up to be a relatively straightforward spec upgrade over last year's OnePlus 6T, which currently rates among the top smartphones you can buy right now. As with all the company's previous phones, the OnePlus 7 will incorporate high-end Qualcomm silicon the Snapdragon 855, to be precise as well as dual cameras on the back, a 6.4-inch OLED display and an optical fingerprint sensor baked right into the screen. (Image credit: Waqar Khan) However, it's the more expensive OnePlus 7 Pro that has captivated fans' attention, with its pop-out selfie camera, rumored 6.7-inch, 90Hz display and optional 5G connectivity. And all these extra amenities won't be cheap, as OnePlus is reportedly considering a price of around 749 (roughly $835, though OnePlus will adjust the price for local markets) for the configuration of the Pro with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage about 200 more than where the 6T starts today. MORE: OnePlus 7 vs OnePlus 7 Pro: Leaked Specs Reveal Key Differences In all likelihood, the standard OnePlus 7 won't be as pricey. In the past, the company has typically increased the cost of its phones by $20 to $40 from generation to generation, and the non-Pro model will likely keep that tradition alive. But one has to wonder if the introduction of a more premium device, contending with the Galaxy S10 and iPhone XS within the $800 to $1,000 range, is an indication that OnePlus has lost the plot. On that front, it seems OnePlus' dedicated community is split. What OnePlus fans think "Honestly, if you want a cheap phone with great specs I think we're back to the days of installing custom ROMs on imported Chinese midrangers again," said loercase, a commenter on the OnePlus subreddit. "That said, if you have the financial means for it, I think the newest OnePlus phones will be very competitive with flagships from Google, Samsung and LG." Others are fine with the price hike, so long as the Pro model punches above its weight to justify the added expense. (Image credit: Tom's Guide) "If they can improve the camera sensors and image processing software, then I'm OK with the price bump," another Reddit user, Mathlete86, said. "The camera on the 6/6T is a big improvement but they still have a long way to go if they're going to justify a price that's similar to the S10e or Pixel 3. Improving specs is good but I don't think it's enough to keep justifying price increases." OnePlus handsets have always been much better than their bargain prices would lead you to believe. However, people become accustomed to the status quo. Once customers get used to getting a lot for a little, it might not be quite as easy to sell them a lot for a lot. Then again, that all depends on the strength of the OnePlus brand. Right now, it's easy to assume the company's boosters only buy its products because they're of comparable quality to premium mainstays, and that if OnePlus' products actually were as expensive as the latest wares from Apple, Samsung or Google, that same user base would choose a rival's product instead. Yet that'd be a disservice to OnePlus' sacred place in the Android ecosystem. How the OnePlus 7 Pro can win over skeptics Hardcore Android fans have championed OnePlus from the very beginning for its dedication to offering an almost Pixel-like stock software experience in its phones, devoid of gimmickry. OnePlus handsets are shipped with borderline excessive amounts of RAM to ensure a "fast and smooth" experience above all else. (The McLaren Edition of the OnePlus 6T, for example, offers nearly three times the memory inside the Pixel 3 and 3 XL.) And what features OnePlus does add to the equation like Reading Mode, intuitive gesture controls and the Shelf home screen pane are typically cleverly implemented and rarely detract from the overall experience. (Were looking at you, LG.) Some Android flagships cost far more than OnePlus' and still can't quite compete in swiftness. In that context, you'd have to imagine OnePlus would be foolish not to nudge itself upmarket, and claim a slice of that premium pie a space in which it already competes from a performance standpoint. (Image credit: Tom's Guide) Still, OnePlus will have to make its case to consumers that the existence of the Pro model is justified. And the primary way it can do this is by playing catch up in the one area in which its phones are still deficient: photography. By all accounts, the OnePlus 7 Pro reportedly won't be short on cameras. Rumors point to a triple-lens arrangement, comprising a 48-megapixel main sensor with a 16-MP wide-angle shooter and an 8-MP telephoto for dramatic, shallow depth-of-field portraits. Then again, multiple lenses alone don't guarantee imaging prowess. Previous OnePlus hardware has incorporated dual-lens systems, though the results have historically been either good for the price (at best), or downright mediocre (at worst). If OnePlus can close the gap to industry leaders like Huawei and Google with a combination of upgraded hardware and savvy software, it might legitimize the whole super-premium experiment. MORE: OnePlus 7 Rumor Roundup: Everything You Need to Know Thats not to say there aren't other areas in which OnePlus could improve. IP-rated water resistance and Qi wireless charging are two features OnePlus has serially ignored over successive release cycles. And as other premium phone makers have moved onto Quad HD resolution screens, OnePlus has never delivered a panel beyond Full HD in one of its devices. In the past, the company could always make its low prices the scapegoat, claiming it had to economize somewhere. That excuse won't be quite so convincing with the OnePlus 7 Pro. Additionally, OnePlus will have to be careful not to detract too much from the core models development in pumping up the Pro version. One rumor last week claimed the standard OnePlus 7 will continue OnePlus' 20-watt fast-charging spec, while the company's new 30W Warp Charge protocol introduced in the McLaren Edition 6T will be exclusive to the Pro. That kind of snub is not going to sit well with the brands longtime fans, many of which likely chose OnePlus from the get-go precisely because it was a stickler for offering groundbreaking features for less. Outlook "OnePlus has been a brand that's built its reputation on providing the best value to its customers, not necessarily the best of the best but the best for the price," Hydra Bob, a user on the official OnePlus forums, said in response to the Pro's rumored high price. "I'd be interested to see how many people will follow them into the 'premium' market. The competition is much stiffer and far less forgiving at the top of the food chain." Perhaps OnePlus' gambit will pay off, perhaps not. Either way, the company has grown to the point where it needs to give it an honest shot. Let's just hope they don't completely forget the mantra that got them here in the first place. NEW ORLEANS, April 26, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ClaimsFiler, a FREE shareholder information service, reminds investors that they have until May 7, 2019 to file lead plaintiff applications in a securities class action lawsuit against Conduent, Inc. (NYSE: CNDT), if they purchased the Companys shares between February 21, 2018 and November 6, 2018 (the Class Period). This action is pending in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. Get Help Conduent investors should visit us at https://www.claimsfiler.com/cases/view-conduent-inc-securities-litigation or call toll-free (844) 367-9658. Lawyers at Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC are available to discuss your legal options. About the Lawsuit Conduent and certain of its executives are charged with failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws. On November 7, 2018, the Company disclosed negative Q3 and Q4 projected operating results due to continued suboptimal performance from an inherited legacy technology vendorstem[ming] from the vendors inability to deliver on service level agreements, lack of responsiveness to Conduents needs, and poorly structured contract which we inherited Further, an outdated and historically under-invested legacy IT infrastructure has caused major disruptions to our operations and impacted clients and delivery performance. On this news, the price of Conduents shares plummeted. About ClaimsFiler ClaimsFiler has a single mission: to serve as the information source to help retail investors recover their share of billions of dollars from securities class action settlements. At ClaimsFiler.com, investors can: (1) register for free to gain access to information and settlement websites for various securities class action cases so they can timely submit their own claims; (2) upload their portfolio transactional data to be notified about relevant securities cases in which they may have a financial interest; and (3) submit inquiries to the Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC law firm for free case evaluations. Kansas City Wife Killer Convicted Man will die in prison for killing his wife KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A man who killed his wife and left her to be found by a child will spend the rest of his life in prison. A Jackson County judge Friday sentenced Benjamin Byers, 46, of Kansas City, Missouri, to life in prison for the stabbing murder of Melissa Byers, 47, in their home in 2017. Cowtown Medical Drama KC woman pleads guilty to Medicaid fraud, drug charges KANSAS CITY, KS (KCTV) - Last week, a Kansas City woman last week pleaded guilty to Medicaid fraud and related charges according to Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt. Jennifer Lynn Jones, 28, pleaded guilty in Wyandotte County District Court to one count of Medicaid fraud, one count of felony possession of a controlled substance and one count of making false information. Tragic JaxCo Youngster Beat Down KC man sentenced for beating his 6-month-old JACKSON COUNTY, MO (KCTV) - On Friday, a Jackson County judge sentenced Joshua Sims to 18 years in prison for beating his 6-month-old baby and causing significant injuries. Joshua A. Sims, 27, was sentenced to 18 years on for first-degree domestic assault causing serious injury. JoCo Run-In Tonight Olathe police investigating after child hit by car OLATHE, Kan. -- Olathe police are investigating after a child was hit by a car Friday afternoon. Officers were called to the 12800 block of S. Arapaho Drive shortly before 4 p.m. on a report of an injury crash. According to police, a 6-year-old boy was hit by a car when crossing the street. NextGen Crime Progress Kansas juvenile arrests drop as reforms get underway A study shows that fewer juveniles have been arrested and held in the Kansas juvenile justice system while the state has been investing in alternatives to incarceration. Show-Me Tragic Lack Of Lady Prison Supplies In Missouri Inmates have to buy their own tampons, but Missouri prisons provide pads for free JEFFERSON CITY * The Missouri Department of Corrections currently supplies female offenders with one size of menstrual pads for free, but if they want tampons, they have to buy them. That has left many of the inmates to make their own tampons out of materials available to them - shirts, bed sheets and the pads themselves. Local Crime Lit Excerpt: "Furious Hours," about Harper Lee's true crime investigation For years Harper Lee, the author of "To Kill a Mockingbird," and a best friend of "In Cold Blood" author Truman Capote, had researched and worked on a true-crime novel of her own based on a series of deaths in Alabama, for which a small-town preacher had been rumored to be responsible. Crime & Punishment Overview Number of prisoners hits 9-year low, but some states are resisting the trend The number of people in U.S. prisons fell to a nine-year low of just under 1.5 million last year, a 1.3 percent decrease, according to a report released recently by the nonprofit Vera Institute of Justice. The prison population declined in 31 states last year, bringing the number of people in state custody down to about 1.3 million. Quick listing of crime news links, police action and stories of local misdeeds tonight . . .Developing . . . NEW ORLEANS, April 26, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ClaimsFiler, a FREE shareholder information service, reminds investors that they have until June 10, 2019 to file lead plaintiff applications in a securities class action lawsuit against Orion Group Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: ORN), if they purchased the Companys securities between March 13, 2018 and March 26, 2019, inclusive (the Class Period). This action is pending in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas. Get Help Orion Group investors should visit us at https://www.claimsfiler.com/cases/view-orion-group-holdings-inc-securities-litigation or call toll-free (844) 367-9658. Lawyers at Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC are available to discuss your legal options. About the Lawsuit Orion and certain of its executives are charged with failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws. On March 26, 2019, the Company disclosed a 4Q 2018 net loss of $94.4 million due to certain non-cash charges, including a goodwill impairment charge of $69.5 million. On this news, the price of Orions shares fell, injuring investors. The case is Heck v. Orion Group Holdings, Inc., 4:19-cv-01337. About ClaimsFiler ClaimsFiler has a single mission: to serve as the information source to help retail investors recover their share of billions of dollars from securities class action settlements. At ClaimsFiler.com, investors can: (1) register for free to gain access to information and settlement websites for various securities class action cases so they can timely submit their own claims; (2) upload their portfolio transactional data to be notified about relevant securities cases in which they may have a financial interest; and (3) submit inquiries to the Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC law firm for free case evaluations. To learn more about ClaimsFiler, visit www.claimsfiler.com . monicakchauhan@gmail.com Ahmedabad, April 27 Terming as "brazenly wrong" PepsiCo's legal action against Gujarat farmers for growing a variety of potatoes "registered" by the company, senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel Saturday said corporate interests cannot dictate what farmers must or must not cultivate. He also said that the state government should not keep its eyes "shut" to the development. Nine farmers from Sabarkantha and Aravalli districts of Gujarat were sued by food and beverages giant PepsiCo for allegedly growing a variety of potatoes for which it has claimed Plant Variety Protection (PVP) rights. Pepsis decision to take Gujarat's potato grower farmers to court is ill-advised & brazenly wrong. It is in violation of the farmers right under PPVFR Act. The state govt shouldn't keep its eyes shut. Corporate interest cannot dictate what our farmers must or mustn't cultivate," Patel said on Twitter. The Congress leader was referring to the Protection of Plant Variety and Farmers Right Act, 2001. PepsiCo has said that it obtained Plant Variety Protection (PVP) rights over the potato variety under thePPVFR Act, 2001 and that the farmers were growing the potato in violation of its rights over the seed variety. While four farmers have been sued with damage claim of Rs 1 crore each, five others have been sued with damage claim of Rs 20 lakh. During a hearing of the case at a commercial court on Friday, PepsiCo had offered to settle the lawsuits against four potato farmers of Gujarat provided they gave an undertaking that they will not use the patented variety of potato seeds in the future. Activists in Gujarat have objected to PepsiCo's action and even threatened the company of consequences if it did not withdraw the case, arguing that farmers are protected to use PVP protected seed varieties under the PPVFR Act. Over 190 activists Wednesday requested the Union government to ask PepsiCo India to withdraw its "false" cases against Gujarat farmers for allegedly illegally growing a variety of potatoes "registered" by the company. In a statement, PepsiCo said on Friday that it was "compelled" to take the legal path to safeguard the interests of farmers associated with its "collaborative potato farming programme". PTI ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM Panchkula, April 26 With the arrest of a dhaba owner and a head constable, the Punjab and Haryana High Court Bar Association, along with the Bar associations of Chandigarh, Mohali and Panchkula districts, today ended the four-day strike. The special investigation team of the police had arrested dhaba owner Ravi Tiwari and Head Constable Sunil Kumar late last evening after the High Court took suo motu cognisance of the lawyers' strike and sought a reply from the police. Panchkula Bar Association secretary Luvish Arora said the decision to end the strike was taken at a general house meeting of the HC Bar Association today. He said members of the Bar expressed satisfaction over the police action of arresting the main suspect last night. Meanwhile, Sunil Kumar and Ravi Tiwari were produced in the court today, which remanded them in three-day police custody. Two other suspects, Vijay and Suraj, who were arrested earlier, were also produced in the court, which remanded them in two-day police custody. TNS ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM Tribune News Service Mohali, April 26 The local police today took the rape victim to the Ropar jail for a test identification parade of the taxi driver, who was sent to judicial custody by a local court in the case yesterday. The police today revealed the identity of the cabbie as Lucky Singh (32), a resident of Azad Nagar in Balongi. Sources said a police team, led by Superintendent of Police (Detective) Varun Sharma, accompanied the rape victim and a 13-year-old girl, who was kidnapped by the suspect earlier, to the Ropar jail. Only the victims were allowed to enter the jail premises for the test identification parade, conducted in front of the magistrate. Mohali SSP HS Bhullar said the victim was taken to the Ropar jail as the suspect had been lodged in judicial custody by a local court. However, he refused to give details, citing court proceedings. He said the rape victim, along with the police team, returned from the Ropar jail around 4 pm. Bhullar said the suspect had been identified as Lucky Singh. He had studied till Class X and was unmarried. He was also running a tour and travel agency and owned two vehicles -- a Tata Indigo and an Etios Liva, which was used in the crime. Bhullar said Lucky revealed that earlier he was running a dhaba with his father Balbir Singh at Baddi in Himachal Pradesh in 2013 and later changed his business. He was also involved in a molestation case, but was acquitted. He said the suspect had confessed to having raped four girls in broad daylight in the district during the past 10 months in a similar fashion. None of these crimes was reported to the police. Lucky Singh was arrested yesterday by the Mohali police 10 days after the rape in the cab. He was also involved in the kidnapping of a 13-year-old girl from Phase 5. A case in this connection was registered at the Phase 1 police station on October 12 last year. The SSP said they were also trying to contact the police in Baddi to ascertain whether any such cases had been registered against him while he was running an eatery there. Cops plead for speedy trial The police have urged the judicial authorities to hold a speedy trial in the case and appoint a dedicated special prosecutor so that justice can be delivered. Use app for security The Mohali police have asked women to download the Shakti app on their mobile for security. The app, which was launched in Punjab in April last year, is available for free on Play Store for Android users and on App Store for iPhone users. The police said after downloading it, a user has to register herself by providing personal information like name, mobile number and email. The user can also add the contact numbers of 10 friends or family members. In case of an emergency, the user needs to touch the app help button to notify the Punjab Police (control room, nearest police station SHO and the DSP concerned), besides the added family members. The police can see the users location and rush for help. M Sridhar Acharyulu & Yashovardhan Azad M Sridhar Acharyulu & Yashovardhan Azad Former Central Information Commissioners IN an important ruling with long-term implications, the Supreme Court recently set aside the Attorney Generals objections and declared the documents relating to the Rafale deal, published in The Hindu, as admissible. The government pleaded that the matter related to national security and the documents, which were privileged, were stolen. Later, it was submitted that the documents were photocopied, but still attracted the Official Secrets Act (OSA), 1923. Waving aside the objections filed on behalf of the government, the court emphasised the supremacy of the citizens right to know in public interest under the Right to Information (RTI) Act over other considerations. The documents disclosure drew the governments ire since these were used by the press to allege that: (a) The Prime Ministers Office (PMO) was running parallel negotiations on the deal, with separate meetings held by some PMO officials; (b) Three members of the team had recorded their disagreement over some important aspects of the deal; and (c) Necessary financial requirements like sovereign guarantee were waived to secure the deal. The Attorney General (AG) relied upon Sections 3 and 5(1) of the OSA, Sections 8(1)(a) of the RTI Act and Section 123 of the Evidence Act. The OSA is used against spies as it was conceived to deal with acts of espionage. Section 8(1) (a) of the RTI Act prohibits disclosure of information if it is prejudicial to the sovereignty of the State. The Chief Justice of India (CJI) made a notable observation that Parliament has legislated nothing to the effect that prevents publishing of a secret document or prohibited it from presenting it in a court of law. There is great significance attached to Justice KM Josephs observations on the RTI, the OSA and the freedom of the press. Joseph has made out a strong case for freedom of information as opposed to the archaic OSA. The new norm is transparency and open governance, thus making the OSA redundant in view of public interest. Section 22 of the RTI Act referred to by the judge overrides all other Acts. A public query for information has to be weighed against the touchstone of transparency and accountability, as laid down in the preamble of the RTI Act. It would certainly be no ones case that the information published in The Hindu would affect the sovereignty of our country. Matters of public interest need to come out in the open, which is the hallmark of a thriving democracy. The published documents would unleash a healthy debate on the procedures adopted for defence deals and set the norms for the future. Justice Josephs judgment sends out a powerful message to all stakeholders that the press ought to remain free and forthright while reporting on matters of national interest. The government shifted its stand frequently. First, it threatened to prosecute journalists and lawyers for using these stolen documents, then it was announced it would not do so. Later, the AG said it was a mistake to say that the documents were stolen as the files were intact and it could be a case of photocopying without permission. The AG contended that the documents published by The Hindu and used by the petitioners were privileged. The government argued that the courts should not admit such documents at all. Had the plea been accepted, it would have had an adverse impact on freedom of information and expression. The CJI, who drafted the order for himself and another judge, significantly observed that the government had not questioned the correctness of the contents of the document. Thus, the apex court cleared major hurdles placed by the government to the judicial process of review of its earlier verdict giving the clean chit. The SC verdict has also dented the governments stand of relying on privilege and secrecy under the Evidence Act and the OSA. Privilege cannot be invoked in the face of public interest and a mere executive classification of documents as secret cannot prevent the courts from examining them. In effect, the right of citizens to seek information about a public deal such as the purchase of Rafale jets cannot be discounted. Public interest and freedom of the press obviously outweighed the governments claim of privilege. Section 123 of the Evidence Act states, No one shall be permitted to give any evidence derived from unpublished official records relating to any affairs of the State, except with the permission of the officer at the head of the department concerned, who shall give or withhold such permission as he thinks fit. The section mentions unpublished records. The court stated that The Hindu papers had already been published and read by the people. In SP Gupta vs Union of India, the apex court had said that a claim of immunity against disclosure under Section 123 had to be essentially adjudged on the touchstone of public interest, and to satisfy itself that national interest was not put to jeopardy by requiring disclosure, the court may even inspect the document in question, though this power had to be sparingly exercised. The apex court reiterated its judgment in Pooran Mal vs Director of Inspection (Investigation) of Income Tax, New Delhi, stating that test of admissibility of evidence lies in its relevance, unless there is an express or necessarily implied prohibition in the Constitution or other law, evidence obtained as a result of illegal search or seizure was not liable to be shut out. The question is whether these documents were part of the sealed cover given to the Supreme Court during hearing of the PIL for a probe. This question arises because of the vehement opposition by the government and the AG, who contended that the petition for review was mainly based on the leaked documents. The SC judgment has given a major boost to the media, firmly establishing its right to freedom in publishing information without fear or favour. It has also stamped its whole-hearted approval of the transparency law, which overrides all other laws, enabling all information in public interest to be given to the public. Lt Gen PK Grover (retd) Lt Gen PK Grover (retd) Former State Information Commissioner, Punjab WATER is perhaps the most coveted resource in the world today. With a burgeoning world population and consistently increasing demand, it is also becoming a highly scarce resource, especially in the developing countries. Its misuse, overuse or wastage is a matter of global concern. After Independence, the Indus Waters Treaty was negotiated at Pakistans insistence to allay the fear of water insecurity in the lower riparian state. The treaty was signed with the World Bank as facilitator on September 19, 1960. The spirit of the treaty, as stated in the preamble, included three essential parameters optimum utilisation of all available water in the Indus basin; to maintain goodwill and friendship; and to cooperate in future for further exploitation which were also to be taken into consideration while approving loans to Pakistan for replacement and developmental works. For the past over 58 years, Pakistan has been the beneficiary of 80 per cent of the water available in the Indus basin. Pakistan had also received financial assistance in creating/developing the best canal and irrigation system in the world. This amount included 62 million paid by India. Water is becoming an existential issue for Pakistan. As per a recent report, the United Nations has estimated that Pakistans water supply has dropped from about 5,000 cubic metres per person in the 1950s to about 1,000 cubic metres. It is expected to fall below 700 cubic metres (international marker for water scarcity) by 2025. Pakistan is the third most water-stressed country in the world. Pakistan has been attributing its water scarcity to Indian action of constructing hydroelectric power projects on the western rivers, a situation that would jeopardise economic growth and prove to be a health hazard for Pakistan. Broadly, the problems may be attributed to Pakistan having drawn limited benefit of Indias benevolence, despite the fact that it has been receiving more than its authorised share. As per the treaty, Pakistan was to receive 136 MAF (million acre feet) of water annually, but as per a recent report it is getting about 154 MAF. The treaty was signed with undivided Pakistan to provide requisite food security. Thus, the interests of erstwhile East Pakistan were also part of this agreement. Even though India has a separate treaty with Bangladesh, Pakistan continues to get more than its authorised share of water under fundamentally changed circumstances and with no justification for declining per capita water availability. It can be inferred that optimal utilisation of water has been overlooked. This is most evident in the case of inefficient use of water for irrigation by Pakistan as almost 80 per cent of the water is used for low-value agricultural production. Moreover, for an irrigated agricultural area of 36 million acres, out of an average 104 MAF of river flows diverted for canal irrigation, a considerable amount of water is lost in conveyance and in its field applications. Water loss in field applications is due to lack of coordination between agriculture and irrigation departments. Incidentally, Pakistan is also permitting about 39.4 MAF of fresh water, worth approximately $25 billion, to flow into the Arabian Sea annually as it does not have enough reservoirs or dams to store water. Views regarding mismanagement of water have been expressed on the floor of Pakistans Senate on a number of occasions. The treaty had been worked out on the assumption of 75 per cent cropping intensity. However, Pakistan has crossed 160 per cent in 2018, resulting in utilising about 95 per cent of the available water for agriculture alone. Further, the continued use of traditional and antiquated agricultural techniques has also led to the non-judicious use and excessive loss of water. As a result, the yield per hectare of cereal crops continues to be consistently low even when the most fertile lands are available in the interfluves (doabs) of the rivers. Another vital use of the waters is for hydroelectric power generation, but here too Pakistan has lagged in optimal and judicious utilisation. Globally, most countries generate 80 per cent of their power requirements from their installed infrastructure, but Pakistans generation capacity only meets 65 per cent of the needs due to old plants, poor maintenance and circular debt. As per the World Energy Council Report 2016, Pakistan has an installed capacity of 6,481 MW of hydropower from all plants on the Indus, Jhelum, Chenab and Kabul rivers. The overall power deficiency of about 3,000 MW is made up by importing power from Iran, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. There is great reduction (about 33 per cent) in the storage capacity at the facilities developed at Tarbela, Mangala and Chasma for 17.79 MAF. This is primarily on account of excessive sedimentation. Pakistan has water storage capacity just for 30 days (indicating a paltry 150 cubic metres per person) against the minimum requirement of 120 days, while most of the developed countries have one-two years water storage capability. It is apparent that this situation is now being exploited by Pakistan by approaching various world forums. India has all along adhered to the provisions of the treaty in letter and spirit. Although the lesser beneficiary, India has never deprived Pakistan of its share of water under the treaty, even when there is ample evidence to suggest that Pakistan continues to waste it, which can be stopped by being sensitive to the need of achieving optimum level of utilising this fast-depleting resource through improved infrastructure, better management and awareness. The question remains: should Pakistan be allowed to continue wasting the Indus waters and converting a renewable resource into a non-renewable one? Claire Williams has denied that the famous F1 team she leads is in negotiations to be sold. We reported this week that Dmitry Mazepin, a Russian billionaire who runs the fertiliser company Uralkali, opened talks recently in Shanghai. Uralkali, having last year tried to buy Force India, denied it. And now Claire Williams, whose father Sir Frank Williams founded the once-great F1 team, has added her denial to the story. "I haven't met Mr Mazepin to talk about that," she said in Baku. "We had a brief conversation in the mid-part of last year, but subsequent to that there have been no conversations. "I'd just like to be really categorical about it -- Williams is not for sale," Williams said. "I have no intention of putting Williams up for sale." Claire said it is natural that amid Williams' current performance crisis, there will be "rumours". "But when your team isn't doing well, selling at this juncture wouldn't be the right time to do so," she insisted. "But Williams has been in this sport for more than four decades and we've never wanted to sell." On Friday, it was another fraught day for Williams. A loose manhole cover destroyed George Russell's chassis, and on the way back to the pits, the truck carrying the car struck a bridge. "I'm sure we'll have a lot more stuff thrown our way, like we've had today, like we've had this year, like we had last year," said Claire. "But you don't give up when times get tough. For me it's a test of your character that you continue and to prove to everybody that you can do it." (GMM) Vivek Katju Vivek Katju Ex-secretary, ministry of external affairs The Trump administration has decided to deny further exemptions from sanctions to India and a few other countries for the purchase of Iranian oil. It has tried to cushion the decisions adverse impact on the global oil market by encouraging higher production. The Modi government has, in response, stated publicly that it will ensure that supplies from other countries are tied up so that Indias oil needs are secured. Its comment indicates that India would accede to US sanctions. In this context, four points may be made: First, Indias national ethos, since Independence, not only reflexively reacts against foreign pressure, it also wants it to be publicly condemned. This is especially so if it comes, or is perceived to be coming, from the West, especially the US. This attitude stems from Indias socialist past and the desire for a foreign policy rooted in principles and moral imperatives. Idealism is fine, but the fact is that interstate relations are essentially transactional. Major states accept this more easily than developing countries. It is time that India does so too, for it is now acknowledged as a power that has emerged to global status. It should not be reluctant to play the diplomatic game without posturing. A decision on import of Iranian oil has to be taken in this light and not blindly standing on principle. Second, the Congress criticism of the governments quiet approach is largely election-related. It has overlooked its own conduct. In September 2005, and later too, it stood with the US and other Western countries in voting against Iran at the International Atomic Energy Commission for its N-programme. Iran threatened a fallout on Indo-Iranian economic ties. However, the UPA government continued to vote against Iran on this issue and Iran, too, did not disrupt bilateral economic ties. Importantly, the UPA government had also reduced oil imports from Iran during its term. They rose after the Iran nuclear deal during the Obama administration to reach their highest around 27 million tonnes; consequently, Iran became the third largest source for Indias oil imports. Third, some American sources have indicated that as their country has shown sensitivity to Indian interests in taking on China regarding the listing of JeM chief Masood Azhar as a designated terrorist, India must pay back through stopping Iranian oil imports. The Azhar listing will objectively constitute an Indian diplomatic success, even if it will not materially impact Pakistans sponsorship of cross-border terrorism. If such a listing comes during the election campaign, as is likely, it may give the BJP an occasion to project Modis diplomatic prowess. However, if there was a choice between avoiding sanctions and the Azhar listing, the latter should not obviously prevail. There is perhaps no choice because of Trumps Iran obsession. In such a situation, Indian diplomacy should obviously try to find a way to keep the Iranian oil purchase going, but that cannot be at the cost of Indian oil companies that have big stakes in maintaining links with the US oil industry and also avoiding constraints on their international financial transactions. Fourth, Iran has always pursued a calibrated and transactional policy with India. During the Shahs period, it tilted towards Pakistan, for the two countries were part of the America-led alliance. Later, it sought to balance India and Pakistan, but on J&K its position is closer to Pakistan. During Pakistan PM Imran Khans official visit to Iran last week, the Iran-Pakistan joint statement noted that both sides wanted the J&K issue to be resolved on the basis of the will of the people of that region and in line with the resolutions of the UNSC. This is far from Indias standpoint. India has successfully avoided getting entangled in the internecine quarrels of West Asia. By maintaining excellent bilateral ties with individual West Asian states, which may be mutually antagonistic, India has built productive ties with Saudi Arabia, Iran, the UAE, Qatar and Israel. It has maintained its position on Palestine. There is an alignment between the major Arab peninsular states, Israel and America against Iran. But India has not got in the crossfire. Indian diplomats will now have to make it clear to Iran that they will do their utmost to cushion the impact of US sanctions on Indo-Iran cooperation in the oil sector, but they will look for Iranian understanding where Indian energy security and wider economic interests are concerned. Certainly, it can be expected that India will enhance its relations with Iran in all fields, including the security sector, despite US sanctions against the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Particularly important is progress in connectivity cooperation. Thus, India must redouble efforts to make progress in the Chabahar Port project, even though Iran wishes to develop strong links between this port and Gwadar and looks favourably towards Chinas Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Iran is no doubt aware of Indian sensitivities on both the BRI and the development of Gwadar, which is the lynchpin of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Is it forgoing its interests because of Indian concerns? Iran is an important regional country and its influence is felt in the region as a whole. It is a player in Afghanistan and Indo-Iran-Russian cooperation in the 1990s helped prevent the Taliban from taking over the entire country. That is now a matter of the past, for Irans Afghan approach has changed. Significantly, even in the 1990s Iran did not hesitate, despite the cooperation on Afghanistan, to ruthlessly secure its interests in other areas of bilateral cooperation. That is how the diplomatic game is played. Iran knows this better than most countries. harinder@tribunemail.com IN what lends an impressive patina to the progressiveness of our defence forces, the Army has decided to unlock its glorious doors to allow women in the role of a jawan in select non-combat streams, like the Corps of Military Police. The Navy, too, will follow along by recruiting them in the Provost wing and its band, hitherto a male preserve. In December, Army Chief Bipin Rawat had indicated that the forces were keen to expand the induction of women into other cadres, and take them in as cyber specialists, interpreters, and in accounts and audit services and information warfare domain. Traditionally, women in the armed forces were confined to the medical services and auxiliary branches. It changed in 1992, when the Army made way for women officers beyond medical roles such as Judge Advocate General (legal), education and engineering wings. In 2015, the Air Force charted a fresh course by giving a leg-up to women officers from the humble helicopter cockpit to the mean fighter jet. At every stage since, the women have established their professional acumen and proved themselves worthy of the confidence placed in them. The Navy inducts women as officers into logistics, architecture, armament inspectorate and as reconnaissance pilots. Recently, the six-member all-women crew of INSV Tarini demonstrated its mettle by triumphantly circumnavigating the globe. In step with the times, the move constitutes a welcome advance on the older order of things and negates any proclivity to assume women in inferior, less-challenging roles. While they are posted in forward areas, combat duties remain out of bounds, not because they wont shine here too, but due to the ruthless realities of hardcore warfare. The Army, long known for its brotherhood and institutional integrity, has embraced sisterhood at its core. It is obligatory for the forces to keep high the confidence of the women, who have chosen a life less ordinary. Safe working conditions must be ensured to them, as they march together with men, as one, shoulder to shoulder, to defend the countrys borders. harinder@tribunemail.com Taking exemplary action, the Punjab government has dismissed a former Superintendent of Central Jail, Patiala, two Assistant Jail Superintendents and a Head Warder on the charges of violating the jail manual and abetting extortion and torture in league with gangsters. The preliminary report of the Jails Department has shocking details. An inmates mother alleged that he was tortured for three days by a gangster, even as jail officials switched off the CCTV cameras to ensure that no footage of the goings-on was recorded. The erring staffers are also accused of allowing gangsters to sexually assault inmates and videograph the incident so as to make their family members cough up lakhs of rupees. It is an open secret that Punjabs jails are dens of vice, going by the frequent seizure of drugs and mobile phones. In May last year, the Vigilance Bureau had arrested the then Mansa Jail Superintendent on the charge of taking bribe from inmates for providing them facilities they were not entitled to. The same month, the police had recovered several mobile phones hidden under bathroom tiles at Central Jail, Gurdaspur, leading to the suspension of the Jail Superintendent and his deputy. The state government has rightly adopted a zero-tolerance approach to corruption and dereliction of duty by jail officials, but punitive action alone cannot guarantee deterrence. Ensuring foolproof security is a must not only to stop gangsters from running their racket behind bars but also to curb custodial violence and jailbreaks. Officials known for their integrity should be preferred for prison duty and duly rewarded if they are able to keep the premises crime-free. The situation can also be improved if the core issues of overcrowding and understaffing are addressed. According to Prison Statistics-2015, the occupancy in the countrys jails is as high as 114 per cent. Only one-third of these inmates are convicts. The rest are undertrials, whose cases are at different stages of pendency in various courts. Reducing the backlog of cases through faster delivery of justice can help to lessen the burden on the prisons. laxmi@tribune.com Sushil Manav Tribune News Service Chandigarh, April 26 Like in the rest of the country, the ruling BJP has been trying hard to make the Balakot airstrikes carried out by the Indian Air Force after the Pulwama terrorist attack on CRPF jawans the key election issue in Haryana, and seems to be succeeding to an extent in its endeavour. At election meetings, the BJP candidates as well as campaigners are portraying this as one of the biggest achievements of the Narendra Modi government. To counter the claim, the candidates from the Opposition parties, particularly the Congress, accuse the BJP of trying to gain electoral benefits out of sacrifices of the martyrs. Be it BJP candidate Rattan Lal Kataria from Ambala, Nayab Saini from Kurukshetra, Sanjay Bhatia from Karnal, Ramesh Kaushik from Sonepat, Arvind Sharma from Rohtak or Sunita Duggal from Sirsa, all have been speaking on similar lines on this issue, as if following written text. When terrorists from Pakistan entered Mumbai and killed so many, the Congress government did nothing. But when the terrorists from across the country attacked our soldiers at Pulwama, it was due to PM Modis stern policy on national security that the IAF conducted airstrikes. Now, the terrorists know if they make the mistake of entering Indian territory for mischief, they will not be allowed to return alive and if at all they manage to return, our forces will kill them by entering Pakistan, is Sanjay Bhatias pitch at election meetings. It was Modis fear that Pakistan had to return Wing Commander Abhinandan within 24 hours. Had it not done so, India would have wiped off Pakistan from the worlds map the next day, he adds, amidst applause. The BJP candidates also accuse the Congress of speaking the language of Pakistan by asking IAF to provide proof of destruction of terror camps. The Congress leaders, on the other hand, are left to defend themselves by accusing the BJP of politicising the armed forces and using the sacrifices of soldiers to garner votes. The BJP ploy is working to some extent as people, even in rural areas, are talking about this. Modi has proven himself to be a strong leader and that is the reason why Pakistan is so afraid of India, says Satyawan Goswami outside a grocery shop at Kalampura village of Karnal. Confront him with the Oppositions allegations that the government has not provided proof that the bombs actually hit the target, and his friend Neetu Sharma replies, Our forces at least entered Pakistan. Tomorrow, if my neighbour does some mischief and my son enters his house and merely fires a few shots in the air, I will be happy that he has at least shown courage. In Assan village of Rohtak, villager Shamsher Singh says he knows that Modi is a dramebaaz and is trying to use the valour of soldiers for his own electoral benefits, but he is still better than the other alternatives available. The Congress, however, says the strategy will boomerang on the BJP. What is BJPs role in the airstrikes conducted by the IAF? We are proud of our forces, but the BJP is shamelessly trying to cash in on the sacrifices of soldiers, says Congress candidate from Karnal Kuldeep Sharma. The BJP leaders are today accusing the Congress of speaking the language of Pakistan and terrorists. Our two PMs sacrificed their lives fighting terrorism. Does the BJP have any example of the fight against terrorism? Sharma asks. The Congress, on the other hand, is trying hard to make NYAY (Nyunatam Aay Yojana), a scheme announced by Rahul Gandhi that envisages Rs 72,000 per annum to poor families, during these elections, but without much success. editorial@tribune.com Sunit Dhawan Tribune News Service Rohtak, April 26 Kishan Lal Panchal, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)-Loktantra Suraksha Party (LSP) candidate from Rohtak, landed in a controversy by reportedly seeking votes of Muslims here on Friday. As per a press statement issued on behalf of Panchals media in-charge on Friday evening, the BSP-LSP nominee toured all mosques of the town and appealed to Muslim voters to vote for him by selecting elephant, his election symbol. The Muslim community feels neglected as their concerns have not been addressed by any government. They are anguished. If we (the BSP-LSP alliance) win the elections, we will give due regard to all sections of society, Panchal was quoted as saying in the press statement. The press release further stated that Muslims had assured Panchal of full support. When contacted, Panchal denied having made any such statement or issuing any press release. He admitted to have toured local mosques though. A Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court had, in January 2017, ruled that seeking votes in the name of religion, caste or community amounted to corrupt practice and that the election of such candidate could be set aside. Panchals media incharge, who identified himself as Sunil in the press release and whose mobile phone number was mentioned, said he had asked a PRprofessional to mail the release to journalists. Additional Deputy Commissioner (ADC) Ajay Kumar conceded Panchals reported statement amounted to the violation of the model code of conduct. He, however, refused to reply on being questioned about the action taken in the matter. Nominee refutes When contacted, BSP-LSP candidate Kishan Lal Panchal denied having made any such statement or issuing any press release He, though, admitted to have toured local mosques Panchals media incharge, who identified himself as Sunil in the press release, said he had asked a PR professional to mail the release to journalists What SC has to say editorial@tribune.com Bhartesh Singh Thakur Tribune News Service Chandigarh, April 26 After complaints, Director General of Police (DGP) Manoj Yadava has passed instructions to IPS officer Rajesh Duggal that his official residence shouldn't be used for political purpose as his wife Sunita Duggal is contesting from the Sirsa parliamentary seat on BJP ticket. Rajesh Duggal is posted as Commandant, 3rd Battalion, Haryana Armed Police, Hisar. The complaints were received against Rajesh that he had been influencing voters, as he was posted in Hisar, which is adjoining Sirsa. After complaints, we have got an inquiry conducted from the IG, Hisar Range. We have given an opportunity to complainants to provide evidence for any misuse of official resources but they havent. We have instructed the officer that any official resources, including telephone, vehicle, manpower and residence, shouldnt be used for political purpose. They could be used only for personal or official purpose, said Yadava. He said, Personal security officers (PSOs) were attached with her as she was the chairperson of the Haryana Scheduled Castes Finance and Development Corporation. Before contesting the elections, she had resigned from the post, but we didnt get to know. So for two to three days, the PSOs remained with her. They were withdrawn as soon as we got to know about it. While the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) had accused Rajesh of deputing police officers to assist his wife in the elections, the Congress had submitted the complaint that there was a blatant attempt by Sunita to take help of her IPS husband. He has also been instructed that none of his staff, whether on duty or on leave, should help Sunita, said Inder Jeet Singh, joint chief electoral officer. laxmi@tribune.com Sumedha Sharma Tribune News Service Gurugram, April 26 The Gurugram police have nabbed 14 shooters of the notorious Kaushal gang. While the police have so far officially confirmed the arrest of only six from Dehradun and Delhi, sources claim that eight other shooters have also been picked up and their arrest would be declared soon. Among those arrested is Ranbir Saini, for whose arrest Haryana and Delhi governments had announced Rs 5 lakh and Rs 1 lakh awards, respectively. He had been staying with four others in a rented accommodation in Dehradun and would visit Gurugram to execute orders of gangster Kaushal. Kaushal, who is believed to be hiding in Thailand, reportedly communicated with him through WhatsApp calls. According to Commissioner Mohammad Akil, they had been on the trail of the accused for two months. We have given the Kaushal gang a big blow. Now, the only thing left is to nab Kaushal. The arrests have solved many heinous crimes. The other shooters arrested have been identified as Aashu, Sumit and Gaurav, who then led the police to Satish and Sushil in Manesar. The gang is wanted in over two dozen incidents of murder and extortion, including threatening shootings. Rap song did them in Sources claim the police had got a video of a rap song glorifying gangster Kaushal. Through it, they managed to put the mobile phone of shooter Ranbir Saini on surveillance editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service Karnal, April 26 Family members of Karishma, the first beneficiary of the Ayushman Bharat Scheme in the country, blamed doctors and staff members of Kalpana Chawla Government Medical College and Hospital (KCGMCH) for not attending to and giving proper treatment to Karishma, who visited the hospital on Thursday with the complaint of fever and chest congestion. She was treated at the Indri community health centre (CHC) on Friday after the intervention of the higher authorities. Amit, her father, alleged Krishma, who is around eight months old, was suffering from fever and chest congestion for several days. They went to the KCGMCH on Thursday, but were not attended to by staff members and doctors. We requested that Karishma be admitted, but they refused. They only took samples and sent us back, he said. She was admitted to the Indri CHC today after the intervention of the higher authorities and media, he said. Dr Ramesh Kumar, Civil Surgeon, said she was undergoing treatment in Indri. I have deputed a team of doctors for her treatment, he said. On the other hand, Dr Surinder Kashyap, Director, KCGMCH, denied the allegations levelled by the family members and said proper attention and treatment was given to Karishma. He said they visited the hospital around 1 pm on Thursday complaining about fever. Our ayushman mitra assisted the family and she was examined by a department head. Blood and urine samples were also taken and sent to laboratory. Admission was not required that time and it was informed to the family members also. The doctor prescribed the required medicine. About the Central scheme The NDAs flagship Ayushman Bharat Scheme is the worlds largest financial health protection programme that guarantees cashless and paperless hospitalisation cover to 50 crore members of 10 crore poor and vulnerable families. These families are classified under the Rural Development Ministrys Socio Economic Caste Census. Was examined by dept head "Our ayushman mitra assisted the family and she was examined by a department head. Blood and urine samples were also taken and sent to laboratory. Admission was not required that time and it was informed to the family members also. The doctor prescribed the required medicine." Dr Surinder Kashyap, Director, KCGMCH editorial@tribune.com Sunit Dhawan Tribune News Service Rohtak, April 26 Silence of the electors, coupled with the absence of a clear sweeping wave in favour of or against any political party in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections in the state, is giving sleepless nights to the aspiring MPs whose prestige is at stake. Hence, nominees of different political outfits and alliances are slogging it out, touring their respective constituencies and holding public meetings despite the scorching heat in a bid to reach out to the maximum voters and convince them to vote in their favour. While the staunch supporters of certain parties and candidates are pro-actively participating in their rallies, public meetings and roadshows, etc, a major chunk of electors prefers to keep their cards close to their chest. These silent voters will play a key role in the poll results, observes Prof Rajender Sharma, head of the department of political science at Maharshi Dayanand University (MDU), Rohtak. Political analysts maintain that especially the non-Jat voters, who seldom come out openly in support of any political party or group, may tilt the poll balance towards a candidate or an outfit of their choice, provided they come out and cast their vote. Voters belonging to different castes and sub-castes have their own viewpoint and way of looking at things. They take their political decisions on the basis of considerations like weightage given to their communities by the regime in power and other such things, notes Professor Sharma. He states that if the members of the downtrodden communities, especially those residing in the rural areas, are pressurized by the dominant community to vote for a particular party or candidate, they may register their protest silently by voting against that party. RTI activist and Haryana Soochna Adhikar Manch state coordinator Subhash, who is also a keen political observer, points out that the poll campaign is in the initial stage and many voters are yet to make up their mind. The scenario will become clearer in about a week or so, he says. Non-Jat voters may sway results Political analysts maintain that non-Jat voters, who seldom come out openly in support of any political party or group, may tilt the poll balance towards a candidate or an outfit of their choice, provided they come out and cast their vote. pardeepdhull@gmail.com Satya Prakash Tribune News Service New Delhi, April 27 The Supreme Court has paved the way for promotion of 44 Haryana state civil servants as IAS by dismissing a petition challenging a Punjab and Haryana High Court verdict that had cleared their seniority for promotion. In an order dated December 19, 2018, the High Court had upheld seniority list dated December 12, 2006, and dismissed petitions challenging it. It had also quashed seniority list dated April 16, 2010, which had placed Sandeep Singh and others of his batch above Virender Singh Hooda who was appointed before them. Advocate Jasbir Malik, who represented Hooda and his batchmates, said, This is perhaps the largest group of Haryana Civil Service officers getting promoted to IAS. The state government had also told the court that it was facing shortage of IAS officers in the state. The High Courts verdict was challenged in a special leave petition by Surender Kumar Setia before the Supreme Court which dismissed it on April 22. The special leave petition is dismissed, said a Bench of Justice Ashok Bhushan and Justice KM Joseph in a one-line order. Setia had contended that the High Court miserable failed to consider that the state of Haryana was bound to uniformly apply the statutory provisions contained in Rule 20 of the 1930 Rules for fixation of inter se seniority among the members of Haryana Civil Service (Executive Branch). Respondents Virender Singh Hooda and others (HCS) could not be placed over and above him (Setia) in view of Rule 20 of the 1930 Rules as they were born in cadre much later than him, the petitioner had argued. He had sought to highlight that the High Court failed to consider the recruitment process initiated on November 24, 1992, was not mentioned by Hooda in his 1994 petition and nor was any claim made against those vacancies advertised for direct recruitment. Setia also contended that the High Court failed to appreciate the law laid down by the Supreme Court in Union of India versus SS Uppal (1996), according to which the question of seniority had to be determined by the rules in force on the date of appointment. Malik said Rule 20 would not apply to this case as Hooda and his batchmates were appointed following a Supreme Court verdict in 1999. F1 commercial boss Sean Bratches has written to Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro in support of moving the Brazilian grand prix to Rio. O Globo newspaper reports that Bratches also sent the letter to Rio de Janeiro governor Wilson Witzel and mayor Marcelo Crivella asking for meetings "in person or by telephone". Apparently, moves are afoot to build a circuit in Rio that could replace the ageing Interlagos track in Sao Paulo. The newspaper also said contact with the Rio authorities has been made by Dorna, the MotoGP owner, as well as F1 circuit architect Hermann Tilke. The circuit is proposed for Deodoro, a neighbourhood in Rio's west zone. Bratches said in Baku: "I can confirm the letter." O Globo also quoted an official of a company called Rio Motorsports as saying: "If construction works are completed by September 2020, formula one competitions can take place there in November." F1 chief executive visited Rio de Janeiro and met with city officials in November last year. (GMM) editorial@tribune.com Lalit Mohan Tribune News Service Dharamsala, April 26 The BJP welcomed its rebels back during the rally organised here today as party candidate from Kangra parliamentary constituency Kishan Kapoor filed his nomination from the constituency. Former BJP MLA from Palampur, Parveen Sharma and party leader Baldev Thakur, both Shanta Kumar loyalists, were re-inducted into the party in the presence of entire state BJP leadership. Parveen Sharma and Baldev Thakur had contested as Independents during the last Assembly elections after they were denied party ticket from Palampur and Fatehpur Assembly constituencies, respectively. As they contesting as independents, official party candidates, Indu Goswami from Palampur and Kirpal Parmar from Fetehpur, were defeated. Though Shanta Kumar had been pushing for re-induction of these leaders back into the party since long, it was only today that they were allowed back in view of the parliamentary elections. The rally was attended by the entire senior leadership of the BJP. Those present included Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur, former CMs Prem Kumar Dhumal and Shanta Kumar, state party president Satpal Satti and other ministers and MLAs from Kangra and Chamba district. Jai Ram Thakur, while addressing the rally, supported Satti for his volatile remarks against the Congress for which the Election Commission had issued him notice. The Chief Minister said that when Congress leaders were using unparliamentary language against the Prime Minister the sentiments of BJP leaders are bound to flare up. Hence, there can be an angry reaction. The Chief Minister said Modi has already made the dream of Congress-mukt Bharat look true. Now the idea of Gandhi-mukt Bharat would also be realised. The BJP was heading for a landslide victory on all the four parliamentary seats in the state, the CM said. Former CM Prem Kumar Dhumal attacked the Congress for proposing to remove Armed Forces Special Protection Act (AFSPA) in its election manifesto. Dhumal said Kangra is a land of servicemen and ex-servicemen. Hence, the soldiers should give a befitting reply to the Congress for making the move. While Dhumal was addressing the rally, BJP rebel Baldev Thakur came to the rally venue with his supporters amidst drum beating. Interrupted in his speech, Dhumal asked Thakur and his supporters to join the rally peacefully. Former CM Shanta Kumar flayed the Congress slogan Ab Hoga Nayai. He said that the party that had ruled the country for the past 60 years could not give people nayai. People should, in fact, seek justice for lack of development in the country during the Congress rule. Shanta Kumar also expressed satisfaction at the return of party rebels, Parveen Sharma, Baldev Thakur and Mohinder Singh Sofat into the BJP fold. He said all these leaders had worked hard for the BJP in Himachal. Satpal Satti, while welcoming the rebels into party, said that even Congressmen should join the BJP. He said people are committing sin by working for the Congress. They should join the BJP and atone for their sins. The BJP leaders paid obeisance to former minister from Kangra, Vidya Sagar Chowdhary who passed away today. Vidya Sagar was a former BJP MLA from Kangra. editorial@tribune.com Lalit Mohan Tribune News Service Dharamsala, April 26 Former Assistant Commandant, ITBP, Om Prakash on Friday joined the BJP in the presence of Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur in full uniform, courting controversy. Om Prakash came to the BJP rally in full dress wearing stars on his shoulders and medals on his chest. When asked if he had not flouted norms by wearing full uniform while joining a political party, Om Prakash said he had obtained permission from the Chief Minister in this regard. However, the act of Om Prakash has attracted criticism from the Congress. CLP leader Mukesh Agnihotri, while talking to The Tribune, said it was against the rules for any paramilitary force officer to join a political party in full uniform. In fact after the retirement of officials from paramilitary forces, they were not allowed to wear full uniform with stars indicating their rank. Agnihotri alleged that BJP leaders were already misusing the achievements of the Army for their publicity during the elections. The Election Commission had barred BJP leaders from listing the achievements as their own. He said a retired ITBP official joining the BJP in full uniform was against the norms and the Congress would complain to the Election Commission in this regard. Had sought permission from Chief Minister When asked if he had not flouted norms by wearing full uniform while joining a political party, former Assistant Commandant, ITBP, Om Prakash said he had obtained permission from Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur in this regard. editorial@tribune.com Our Correspondent UNA, April 26 Co-convenor of the state Congress Campaign Committee and former BJP MP Suresh Chandel today said that a large cross section of the people from Hamirpur parliamentary segment bear anger against BJP MP Anurag Thakur. They would get vocal as the election campaign progresses. He was addressing media persons here. Chandel said people were angry because Anurag Thakur had failed to establish rapport with them after winning the elections. Besides, he said the MP had over enthusiastically made a number of announcements which could not be materialised. Chandel said rail line to Hamirpur and the national highways had failed to see the light of the day, while health institutions and the Himachal Pradesh Central University had seen two foundation stones without a brick being laid. He added that when politicians make false promises, people are bound to get angry. He said Anurag Thakur has yet not given his report card for the last 12 years during which he represented Hamirpur segment in Parliament. When asked whether the 2005 Operation Duryodhan, which saw his ouster from the Lok Sabha, will put a credibility question mark on him as a Congress campaigner, Chandel said since the matter was sub judice, he will not make any comment. He, however, said the sting was a planned conspiracy hatched by insiders to check his strides in politics. He said time will come when people will know the truth. To a question that the Congress leaders portray RSS as an anti-nationalist organization, Chandel said he has remained a part of the RSS, which has given several good things to the nation and the people. He said he has learned a lot from the organization. He pointed out that former President Pranab Mukherjee was all praise for the RSS, adding that whenever he gets a chance, he will speak about RSSs good things with Congress leaders. Congress candidate from Hamirpur segment Ram Lal Takur, Leader of Opposition Mukesh Agnihotri and Una MLA Satpal Rizada were also present. uttara@tribuneindia.com Shimla, April 27 Himachal Pradesh Congress has written to the Election Commission of India demanding strict action against a former Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) officer who joined the BJP wearing his full uniform. "We have written to the ECI today to take action under Section 123 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 against BJP leaders and retired ITBP assistant commandant Om Prakash who joined BJP wearing his full uniform in a public meeting in Dharamshala on Friday," state Congress president Kuldeep Singh Rathore said Saturday. Rathore asked what message the BJP wants to convey to the public by doing so. "This is nothing but defiance of EC directions and an unsuccessful attempt by BJP to use central armed police force (CAPF) uniform for getting political mileage in the Lok Sabha polls," he said. The state Congress president said the uniform of the CAPF is our nation's pride and it should not be used by any political party for seeking votes. He claimed that when asked by media, the retired ITBP officer said he had been allowed by Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur to wear his uniform while joining the BJP. "If the chief minister allowed him to do so, he should clarify under which law and rules he permitted him to wear the uniform while joining BJP," Rathore said. PTI laxmi@tribune.com Arteev Sharma Tribune News Service JAMMU, April 26 The much awaited elections to the J&K Legislative Assembly are likely to be deferred till September after the state administration, headed by Governor Satya Pal Malik, expressed its inability to hold elections in June in view of the annual Amarnath Yatra and start of the tourist season. At a meeting at the Election Commission of India in New Delhi today, top officers of the state administration and police expressed their reservations over the conduct of state Assembly poll in June. The meeting, chaired by Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora, was called to discuss possibilities of a feasible time for holding poll. J&K Chief Secretary BVR Subrahmanyam, Chief Electoral Officer Shailendra Kumar, DGP Dilbag Singh and Home Secretary Shaleen Kabra attended the meeting. Sources said it was just a review meeting called by the ECI with regard to the ground situation in the state. The chances of holding Assembly poll in June are bleak and the elections are most likely to be deferred till September-October. There are several issues attached to these polls, including security concerns, the holy month of Ramadan, annual Amarnath Yatra starting from July 1, and tourist season in Kashmir valley, sources said. Time constraint for deployment of security forces for the Amarnath pilgrimage is one of the major issues involved in deferring poll. The deployment begins 15 days ahead of start of the yatra on July 1, sources said, adding though the final decision has to be taken by the ECI in consultation with the MHA, the possibility of deferring polls till September-October is quite high. Another ECI meeting is likely on April 30. 3 options given Three special observers appointed by the ECI, in their report, recommended three options to hold Assembly polls in J&K, which has been without an elected government for 10 months hold elections in June, or after September 15, or delay it to November-December when they were held in 2008 and 2014 editorial@tribune.com Dinesh Manhotra Tribune News Service Jammu, April 26 The Jammu and Kashmir High Court on Friday rejected Yasin Maliks two petitions to shift cases registered against him from the TADA court in Jammu to the TADA court in Srinagar. The Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front chief is facing charges of kidnapping and murder. He was allegedly involved in the abduction of Rubaiya Sayeed, daughter of then Union Home Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, in 1989, and the killing of four Indian Air Force personnel in 1990. Malik is in jail in a case related to the funding of separatists and terror groups in J&K. Both petitions of Yasin Malik to shift his cases to Srinagar from Jammu have been dismissed by the court, said Monika Kohli, who appeared for the CBI to oppose the separatist leaders application. Now, the trail of both cases abduction of Rubaiya Sayeed and the killing of four Indian Air Force officers will be held in Jammu, Kohli said. After hearing the lawyers on both sides, Justice Sanjay Gupta rejected Yasin Maliks petitions. On Wednesday, a Delhi court sent him to judicial custody till May 24. He was brought to Delhi after a court in J&K granted his transit remand to the National Investigation Agency. On March 7, Malik was booked under the Public Safety Act (PSA) and was brought to Jammu from Srinagar. He was arrested on February 22 and was taken to the Kothibagh police station in Srinagar from where he was shifted to Kot Bhalwal Jail in Jammu on March 7. After booking Malik under the PSA, the Centre banned the JKLF on March 22 under the anti-terror law. The outfit was banned for alleged promotion of secessionist activities in the state. Within days after banning his organisation, Malik was shifted from Jammu to Tihar Jail on April 10. Malik faces charges of abduction, murder editorial@tribune.com Amir Karim Tantray Tribune News Service Jammu, April 26 The Durbar move employees travelling in private or commercial vehicles will not be allowed to move on the Jammu-Srinagar national highway from Udhampur onwards on Sunday and Wednesday, when only the security forces convoys are allowed to ply. Only those Durbar employees, who would be travelling in the J&K State Road Transport Corporation (SRTC) buses which have official letters, will be allowed to move on Sunday and Wednesday. Other officials will have to either fly to Srinagar or embark on the journey on the five days of the week when the civilian traffic is allowed on the highway. This was decided by the state administration at a meeting recently. During the meeting conveyed to discuss the shifting of the Durbar from Jammu to Srinagar, the ban on the movement of civilian traffic on the highway was also discussed. It was decided that the ban will continue, but the official vehicles, including SRTC buses, carrying records and employees, will be allowed. But no employees will be allowed to move on the highway on Wednesday and Sunday in private vehicles, said an official who attended the meeting. The Durbar move offices closed in Jammu on Friday and will shift to Srinagar for the next six months. The practice is on in the state since 1872. All employees are given 10 days to shift their belongings to the summer capital. Most of the employees belonging to the Kashmir valley prefer to leave for their homes in the first couple of days and those belonging to the Jammu region leave on the last day so that they can spend time with their families. This time, however, the move employees will have to schedule their travel to Srinagar keeping in mind the ban on the movement of civilian vehicles on the highway. Administrative Secretary, general administrative department, Farooq Ahmed Lone said: The traffic department and all the other departments concerned have been given necessary directions to facilitate the movement of the Durbar employees. Durbar closes in Jammu editorial@tribune.com Samaan Lateef Tribune News Service Srinagar, April 26 Heavy rain and hailstorm wreaked havoc on apple orchards in north Kashmirs Baramulla district, which makes up 25 per cent of the states apple industry, officials said on Friday. Apple trees and vegetables were damaged by hailstorm and rain in Baramulla, Sopore, Wagoora, Rafiabad and Zaingeer on Thursday evening. The state administration has asked the Chief Horticulture Officer, Baramulla, to assess the damage and submit a report within a week, Horticulture Director, Kashmir, Aijaz Bhat said. The Horticulture Director said the preliminary report revealed that the damage to apple orchards was not more than 2 per cent. Locals, however, contested the claims of the official, saying the damage was severe and apple buds and blossoms were torn apart by the hailstorm. The administration had issued a warning on Thursday that moderate rain with hailstorm and gusty winds were likely to hit some places in Baramulla, Sopore, Kupwara and Srinagar. Bhat said nearly two dozen villages in Baramulla were hit by the hailstorm. We were expecting a bumper apple crop this year but it seems the nature wants to punish us. We are yet to recover from the losses suffered last year, said Ghulam Hassan Rather, an orchardist in Wagoora. Affected farmers and apple growers have demanded compensation for the losses and requested Governor Satya Pal Malik for a quick assessment of the crop damage. The Kashmir valley produces nearly 20 lakh metric tonnes of apple every year from 1,46,016 hectares. Around 95 per cent of the produce is sent to various parts of the country. Some varieties are exported to Bangladesh. The Rs 8,000-crore apple industry, which is Kashmirs biggest economy, is in tatters as the governments apathy and changing climatic conditions have adversely affected the crop production. Due to the lack of demand in the market, at least 10 per cent of the apple boxes produced in Kashmir last year were lying at Kashmirs biggest apple market at Sopore in north Kashmir. President of the Sopore Fruit Mandi Fayaz Malik said the government had not introduced the crop insurance scheme, which was the long-pending demand of the growers. Despite being the backbone of Jammu and Kashmirs economy, the government has added to the miseries of the horticulture sector instead of promoting it, said the president of the Sopore Fruit Mandi. Growers demand compensation laxmi@tribune.com Mukesh Ranjan Tribune News Service New Delhi, April 26 With the Indian Army and other security agencies going all out against terror outfits and terrorists in the Kashmir valley, intelligence agencies have sent a report to the government indicating that Pakistans ISI is now targeting those Jammu and Kashmir students who have gone to Turkey on scholarship to brainwash them against India. Sources in the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said both internal and external intelligence agencies have confirmed that Pakistans ISI has set up a cyber cell in Turkey with an aim to target Kashmiri students. Sources also said that the ISI has hired a few Turkish nationals, funded them to set up an online portal and provide anti-India content to Kashmiri students. As the security agencies have started eliminating leading terror operatives in Kashmir, the top functionaries of the terror factories across the border are finding it difficult to get local recruits. Therefore, with the help of the ISI, they are focusing on Kashmiri students in Turkey and trying their best to brainwash them with anti-India content, a senior MHA official said. This year, Indian forces have neutralised around 70 terrorists in the Valley so far. Govt scholarship rchopra@tribunemail.com Patna, April 27 Facing flak from the BJP for having recounted Mohd Ali Jinnah among the stalwarts of the Congress party at an election rally, Patna Sahib candidate Shatrughan Sinha on Saturday asserted that he saw nothing to be apologetic about slip of the tongue. Sinha said he wished to speak about Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad, but due to the slip of the tongue ended up saying Mohd Ali Jinnah. The actor-politician had made the faux pas at a rally at Chhindwara in Madhya Pradesh the previous night while he was rattling off the names of towering personalities associated with the Grand Old Party. As news channels beamed the relevant excerpt, the BJP with which the actor-turned-politician had severed his three-decade long ties recently mocked the former Union minister for speaking of the founder of Pakistan in the same breath as Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel. Shatrughan Sinha has just gone to the Congress. When he was in BJP he used to talk about nationalism. Now, he says that Jinnah was also a great leader like Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel. Congress leaders are praising Jinnah, who has divided the country, BJP president Amit Shah tweeted. Talking to PTI, Sinha said, It was an ex tempore speech, highly appreciated and applauded. I was talking about Congress being the Grand Old Party, a nationalist party in the true sense and its glorious past....people of stature, stalwarts associated with the party and their contribution towards the progress, prosperity and development of the nation. I was speaking about great people like Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru but had a slip of the tongue when I had wished to speak about Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad. Though I am not apologetic about that, Sinha said. Instead of Maulana Azad, I ended up saying Mohd Ali Jinnah and, in the flow, went on to speak about other leaders like Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and post-Independence figures like Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, he said. I was speaking with conviction and hence people clapped animatedly after my speech. Slips of tongue do happen. Our Prime Minister Narendra Modi has spoken of Alexander having come to Bihar and confused the ancient seat of learning in Taxila with Nalanda. He once even said that China spent 20 per cent of its GDP on education. He has been able to speak as he pleases and nobody dares to question him, Sinha, who had been critical of both Modi and Shah calling them one-man show and two-man army, said. Now that something came out of my mouth unintentionally, the cheerleaders who have been living in fear got an opportunity to pounce on a shareef (sober) and gareeb (poor) man, he alleged. Sinha added: Having said that I must say there is nothing to be apologetic if anybody praises Jinnah. Let us not forget that he too was a stalwart of the pre-Independence era and though he ended up playing a lead role in the Partition of India, we cannot deny that he too had made his contributions in the national movement, his ideological differences notwithstanding. A second-term MP from Patna Sahib, Sinha is now contesting on a Congress ticket and locked in a straight contest with Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad who has been fielded by the BJP. PTI editorial@tribune.com Aditi Tandon Tribune News Service Barmer, April 26 Located along the western border with Pakistan, Barmer, one of Indias largest constituencies, presents fertile ground for ruling BJPs hyper-nationalism pitch this election season. So locals were not amused when Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his maiden rally here on April 21 said: We are not afraid of Pakistans nuke button. We have our own. Have we kept it for Divali? Post Pulwama turn of events are dominating the campaign of the BJP in this desert land where the party nominee is a Jat leader and ex-MLA Kailash Choudhry. With his task cut out, retaining the segment currently held by BJPs Col Sonaram, Choudhry is banking heavily on Prime Minister Modi and his aggressive Pakistan stance to get home. On the other end is Congress candidate Manvendra Singh, the son of estranged BJP founder Jaswant Singh who was denied the saffron nomination from Barmer in 2014. A former NDA minister, Jaswant Singh contested as an Independent and lost. His son Manvendra is now itching to settle old scores with his parent party by playing on slighted Rajput pride in Barmer. His mission has remained unaccomplished since he switched sides to the Congress on the eve of Rajasthan Assembly elections last September. Fielded opposite then CM Vasundhara Raje of the BJP in Jhalrapatan Assembly segment, Manvendra Singh lost. He now has another chance to redeem family reputation in this parliamentary constituency where caste equations dominated by Jats, Muslims, SCs and STs have traditionally favoured the Congress. The Congress has won most of the recent LS elections in Barmer from 1991 up to 2009 barring in 2004 when Manvendra, a BJP candidate at the time, stormed this Jat bastion. He was the first Rajput to be fielded by the BJP from this seat. The move effectively altered local caste equations. Thats not to say the contest is easy for the Congress this time considering Manvendra has contested three LS polls from Barmer and lost two (1999 and 2009). Adding to Singhs woes are emotionally surcharged pro-nation appeals Choudhry is making to the voters in his rallies. Ground sentiments appear to side with the nationalist pitch as Nainu Bai, a resident of a border village here says: PM Modi attacked Pakistan. He has raised our stature. Otherwise we were meek spectators as Pakistani terrorists attacked our men. Other villagers too reflect a similar sentiment with Joinji Godara noting: Modi has taught us how to live - with our heads held high. Apart from the fact that Barmer is witnessing a Jat-Rajput clash, its also witnessing the bitter consequence of an old squandered friendship between the Jasols of Rajasthan whom Manvendra represents and the Scindias of Madhya Pradesh whom Vasundhara Raje represents. It is common knowledge here that Manvendras father was denied the 2014 LS nomination of BJP at Rajes behest. That was ironical considering Jaswant Singh founded the BJP in Rajasthan along with Vasundharas mother Vijayraje Scindia and was great friends with her. Bygones are bygones now and its over to the voters of Barmer to see how the story of Manvendra Singhs rivalry with Vasundhara ends. The segment votes on April 29. Congress plays on water woes monicakchauhan@gmail.com Daltonganj (Jharkhand), April 27 Slamming National Conference leader Omar Abdullah for his statement seeking a separate prime minister for Jammu and Kashmir, BJP president Amit Shah on Saturday said J&K is an inseparable part of the country. As long as the BJP exists, Jammu and Kashmir will continue to be an integral part of India, the BJP president said while addressing an election rally here. "Kashmir is Maa Bharats 'Mukut' (crown of India) and nobody can snatch it," he said. The BJP president also said, "We will remove Article 370 from J&K, if you make Narendra Modi the prime minister again." Article 370 of the Constitution grants special status to Jammu and Kashmir. Shah's question, "Should there be two prime ministers for one country?", evoked a deafening 'no' from the crowd. The BJP has given the nation Modi as prime minister and the security of the country has been strengthened ever since, he said. During the UPA government's 10-year rule, terror groups from Pakistan used to target India continuously, the BJP chief said. Under former prime minister Manmohan Singh, Pakistans alia, malia and balia (referring to terrorists) used to come and take away the heads of jawans after killing them, Shah claimed. "Even today I cant forget Hemrajs beheading and the disrespect shown to him. But 'Mouni Baba' Manmohan Singh had not even uttered 'ohh'!" he said. Lance Naik Hemraj of 13 Rajputana Rifles was killed and beheaded by Pakistani soldiers on January 8, 2013, in Poonch Sector of Jammu and Kashmir. "We cannot compromise with the security of the nation. Pakistan wants to separate Kashmir from India. We will not allow it. Pakistan se goli aayegi to yahan se gola jayaga (if a bullet comes here, a shell lands there)," the BJP president said. "When the nation rejoiced with sweets following the February 26 Balakot air strike, a pall of gloom descended on the Congress and Pakistan," Shah said. He ridiculed Congress leader Sam Pitroda for saying that "some boys" had committed a mistake and dropped bombs, and there should be talks between the two neighbouring countries. When terrorists from Pakistan struck the CPRF convoy in Pulwama killing 40 personnel, the country was seething with anger, Shah said. Aware of the 2016 surgical strike conducted by India, Pakistan had deployed personnel and tanks on the borders with India, "But Modi ji... instructed our Air Force on the 13th day (of the Pulwama attack) and our brave Air Force personnel entered Pakistan territory targeting terrorists," Shah said. Criticising the opposition alliance, Shah alleged that whenever they were in power, they had indulged in "massive corruption" and even made an independent MLA (Madhu Koda) chief minister of Jharkhand in 2006. Seeking to know from Congress president Rahul Gandhi, RJD president Lalu Prasad and JMMs working president Hemant Soren about their PM candidate, Shah said each day they will have a different prime minister, with Sunday being a holiday. "Jharkhand is endowed with rich mineral resources, but the people were poor. In the last five years, the BJP governments at the Centre and the state have ushered in development in rural and urban areas, uplifted the poor, farmers, dalits and tribals," Shah said. In Jharkhand, the condition of roads has improved, electricity has been provided to people and work on Mandal dam is on, he said. The Mandal dam, work on which began in 1972 but was stalled since 1993, is now being built on North Koel river under Barwadih block in Latehar district. Outlining the other welfare measures, the BJP leader said cooking gas and ovens, housing and toilet facilities have also been given to the poor, he said. The BJP leader was here to campaign for the party's sitting MP Vishun Dayal Ram, the former state police chief. PTI rchopra@tribunemail.com New Delhi, April 27 The 52-year-old wife of a former IAF wing commander was found dead at her house in Dwarka, police said on Saturday. The deceased had been identified as Neenu Jain, they said. According to a senior police officer, the father of the deceased called her on Thursday night and asked about her health as she was not well. He wanted to visit her but she refused, he said. On Friday morning, he again called her but she did not pick up the phone. Thereafter, her father and brother came to see her but noticed that the gate of the house was locked from outside, police said. They entered the house from her neighbours side and saw Jain lying on floor unconscious, they said. They called the police and rushed the woman to a nearby hospital where she was declared brought dead, police said, adding that the call was received at around 9 am. A mobile phone, some cash and jewellery was found missing from the house, following which a case under Sections 302 (murder) and 392 (robbery) of the Indian Penal Code had been registered and investigation initiated, police said, adding that the cause of the death is yet to be ascertained. Neenus husband is a retired Indian Air Force Wing Commander and currently working as a commercial pilot with IndiGo. The couple has a son and a daughter. While the son, who works in an MNC in Noida, visits his parents on weekends, the daughter is a doctor in Goa, police said. PTI editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service Chandigarh, April 26 As the sub-continent remains strategically volatile and political fervour grips the nation amidst a general election, former General Officer commanding- in- Chief, Northern Command, Lt Gen DS Hooda cautioned against military operations being increasingly influenced by political context. The political context has always been there, but it is now weighing increasingly over the military and strategic perspective, Gen Hooda, who had overseen the surgical strike across the Line of Control in 2016, said while speaking at a seminar on New Frontiers in Future Conflict today. The seminar was organised by Western Commands Gyan Chakra Think Tank and Chitkara University. Touching upon the influence of public perception and popular outpourings and their ability to drive political decision making, he warned against the danger of long-term strategic plans being sacrificed at the altar of quick and visible actions. Stating that the nature of conflict and the manner in which these are fought will keep changing, General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Command, Lt Gen Surinder Singh stressed that the country possessing larger resources and having better innovations would emerge as the winner. At present our country is lagging behind in food availability and infrastructure and hence there is a need to have a grand strategy and define long-term goals to develop our country, he said. We must focus on economic development and consequently other problems like insurgencies or social unrest will gradually do away, he added. Former Vice-Chief of the Army Staff Lt Gen Vijay Oberoi said the nature of warfare was changing at a fast space due to several factors such as proliferation of technology, economic development, globalisation, rise of religious fundamentalism and terrorism. Pointing out that today, conflict is largely between states and non-state operators who have access to political, economic and social media networks, he opined that globalisation seems to have aided non-state actors more than the states. Stressing the need to be proactive, Air Marshal JS Chauhan, former Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Central Air Command called for strengthening and synergising cyberwarfare and space warfare capabilities amongst the three services and more acquiring potent assets in these domains. Giving an overview of the maritime challenges facing the country, Commodoer BR Singh cautioned against the possibility of refugees or other undesirable elements from the Indian Ocean rim settling on some of Indias island territories. Prof Rakesh Datta from Panjab Universitys Department of Defence and National Security Studies delved upon non-military aspects of future conflicts. He pointed out that while India has been good tactically, it has been poor strategically. laxmi@tribune.com Tribune News Service New Delhi, April 26 The Supreme Court on Friday directed the Reserve Bank of India to disclose information with regard to its annual inspection report of banks under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, unless they were exempted under the law. A Bench headed by Justice L Nageswara Rao directed the RBI to review its policy to disclose information relating to banks under RTI, saying it is duty-bound under the law. Acting on a contempt petition filed by RTI activist Subhash Chandra Agrawal, the top court had in January issued contempt notice to the RBI for its refusal to disclose the annual inspection report of banks under RTI. Sparing the central bank of contempt proceedings, the Bench gave it the last opportunity to comply with provisions of the RTI Act. Any further violation shall be viewed seriously, it added. The respondents (RBI) are duty-bound to furnish all information relating to inspection reports and other material, apart from the material that was exempted. Any further violation shall be viewed seriously by this court, the Bench said. The court had earlier upheld a Central Information Commission verdict that said the RBI cant deny information to an RTI applicant under the Act unless the information sought was exempt from disclosure under the law. The RBI had contended that it cant disclose information as the annual inspection report of the bank contained fiduciary information as defined under the RTI Act. Agrawal had sought complete information, including related documents, from RBI on imposition of fines on some banks for violating rules. He had demanded the list of banks and the default for which show-cause notices was issued to them before the fine was imposed. But despite a 2015 verdict of the top court for disclosure of such information, the RBI had issued a Disclosure Policy under which it had listed certain information as being exempted from being disclosed on RTI queries. The RBI had refused to disclose such information on the ground of economic interest and holding such information in fiduciary relationship with these individual banks. In 2015, the top court had said the RBI cannot withhold information under the guise of confidence or trust with financial institutions and is accountable to provide information sought by public. The RBI should take rigid action against financial institutions which have been indulging in disreputable business practices and cannot withhold information on defaulters, it had said. Meant to ascertain lenders compliance uttara@tribuneindia.com New Delhi, April 27 India on Saturday issued an advisory asking citizens not to undertake non-essential travel to Sri Lanka in view of the recent wave of bombings in which over 250 people were killed. In the advisory, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said those making emergency trips to the country should contact the High Commission of India in Colombo, the Assistant High Commission in Kandy as well as Consulates in Hambantota and Jaffna for any assistance. "In view of the prevailing security situation in Sri Lanka in the aftermath of terror attacks on April 21, Indian nationals intending to travel to Sri Lanka are advised not to undertake non-essential travel," it said. "In case of those undertaking essential/emergency travels, they can contact the High Commission of India in Colombo or the Assistant High Commission in Kandy / Consulates in Hambantota and Jaffna in case of requirement of any assistance," the MEA added. The MEA said Sri Lanka has beefed up security in the country but a nation-wide emergency, including night-time curfew, has been in place which may affect travel within Sri Lanka. Nine suicide bombers carried out a series of devastating blasts that tore through three churches and three luxury hotels on the Easter Sunday, killing 253 people. The Islamic State claimed the attacks, but the government has blamed local Islamist extremist group National Thowheeth Jamath (NTJ). Sri Lankan security forces are continuing their hunt for members of the NTJ. On Friday night, six children and three women were among 15 people killed when militants linked to the bombings opened fire and blew themselves up during a fierce gun battle with security forces in Sri Lanka's Eastern province. PTI editorial@tribune.com Ajay Banerjee Tribune News Service New Delhi, April 26 Six months after the ousting of the Maldives pro-China President Abdulla Yameen, India has resumed its work of installing a chain of radars on the islands that will link up with the existing naval radar chain in India to provide live feed. The islands of Maldives located some 700 km south-west of Kerala are an important part of the seagoing traffic monitoring system that India is building. India is to set up 10 coastal surveillance radars made by public sector giant Bharat Electronics Limited. Work has resumed full steam after political uncertainty ended in the Maldives. Yameen was ousted in September 2018. Currently, phase-II of the coastal surveillance radar project is under way during which seven radar stations are being installed and three existing radar stations of phase-I are being upgraded. All 10 radar stations will be linked to a central control station at the Maldives Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre at Vilingilli island near Male to give the Maldives Coast Guard an integrated maritime picture. The project would be completed within this year, sources said. India is setting up the chain of radars to link it up with the 46 coastal surveillance radars installed all along its 7,519 km coast. Sri Lanka will host six radars, Mauritius eight, Seychelles one and Maldives will have 10. These will present comprehensive live feed of ship movements in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). This feed will then be used by the Indian Navy and its allies through the Indian Information Fusion Centre Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR). The new generation of radars for Maldives will enable relay of location information, videos and images of ships to a central command unit. Eye on coast India is setting up the chain of radars to link it up with the 46 coastal surveillance radars installed all along its 7,519 km coast. Sri Lanka will host six radars, Mauritius eight, Seychelles one and Maldives will have 10 uttara@tribuneindia.com Satya Prakash Tribune News Service New Delhi, April 27 Amid allegations of sexual harassment against Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, a PIL has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking guidelines to protect the identity and reputation of those accused of sexual offences till completion of probe. Filed by Youth Bar Association of India through its National President Sanpreet Singh Ajmani, the petition sought to highlight that a person is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt. Noting that currently protection of identity, reputation and integrity was only available to the victim of a sexual offence, the petition pointed out that an accused might have been falsely or maliciously implicated in a case and it was important to have some safeguards until the probe into the "truthfulness" of such allegations was over. Maintaining that right to reputation was an integral part of right to life and liberty guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution, the PIL said baseless allegations of sexual harassment tarnished the image, repute and goodwill of a person in the society, adversely affecting his life in all terms even if he later was found to be innocent. Ajmani requested the top court to frame certain guidelines like it did in Vishaka and others versus State of Rajasthan (1997) to protect the integrity of victims of sexual harassment and social stigma. "It is true that the Constitution of India has guaranteed its citizens the right to free speech but it doesn't mean that it shall be misinterpreted and consequently anyone can be defamed," he contended. Citing the case of scientist S Nambi Narayananwho was falsely implicated in an espionage case and was later given a clean chitthe petitioner said the ISRO scientist had to fight a protracted legal battle to salvage his reputation. Narayanan was awarded Rs 50 lakh as compensation by the Supreme Court and awarded Padma Bhushan by the Government/ But the petitioner said no amount of compensation could restore what he had lost in the process. uttara@tribuneindia.com Tribune Web Desk Chandigarh, April 27 Reserve Bank of India will soon release new notes of Rs 20 into the marketthe first new note to be introduced since the change at the central banks helm four months ago. Bearing Governor Shaktikanta Dass signature, the new note is 63 mm x 129 mm, greenish-yellow with the usual photo of Mahatma Gandhi in the front, and a motif of rock cave temples Ellora on the reverse side. The older Rs 20 notes however will continue to be used. Here are some salient features of the new note. Front See through register with denominational numeral 20 Denominational numeral in Devnagari Portrait of Mahatma Gandhi at the centre Micro letters 'RBI', ', INDIA' and '20' Windowed demetalised security thread with inscriptions and RBI Guarantee Clause, Governor's signature with Promise Clause and RBI emblem towards right of Mahatma Gandhi portrait Ashoka Pillar emblem on the right Mahatma Gandhi portrait and electrotype (20) watermarks Number panel with numerals growing from small to big on the top left side and bottom right side. Reverse harinder@tribunemail.com Chandigarh: As many as 91 nominations for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections were filed on the fifth day on Friday. Polling for 13 constituencies in Punjab is scheduled for May 19. Adding Friday's figures, the total number of nominations in the state now stands at 198. tns Sunny Deol to file papers on Monday Chandigarh: Bollywood star Sunny Deol will file his nomination papers for contesting the Lok Sabha polls from Gurdaspur on April 29, sources in the state unit of the BJP said on Friday. Marking the ceremony along with a roadshow, Sunny Deol is also likely to address an election rally. Prominent Bollywood figures, including his father Dharmendra and brother Bobby Deol, will also accompany him, the sources added. tns AAP candidate served notice Bathinda: AAP candidate Baljinder Kaur was on Friday issued a notice by the assistant returning officer (ARO) after some party workers allegedly distributed forms to the people, asking them to fill in the name of the candidate for whom they will vote in the Lok Sabha elections. Talking to The Tribune, ARO Amarinder Singh Tiwana said the notice was issued as nobody could be forced to reveal as to for whom he/she would vote when there was a practice of secret ballot in the poll process. He said they had sought her reply in the next two to three days.tns Tript Bajwa a troubleshooter for CM Chandigarh: To quell dissidence and win over leaders, Tript Rajinder Bajwa, a close aide of the Chief Minister, is playing a key role. Sources in the party said Bajwa played a key role in placating Amargarh MLA Surjit Dhiman and his son Jaswinder Dhiman, who had earlier announced to contest against party nominee Kewal Dhillon. Bajwa brought Dhiman and his son to the CM's residence, before they called a truce with Dhillon. Bajwa is often seen accompanying the CM, accomplishing one or the other task. In the joining of dissident AAP MLA Nazar Singh Manshahia too, Bajwa played a crucial role. He is in touch with other dissident AAP MLAs. The Fatehgarh Churian constituency of Bajwa falls in Gurdaspur parliamentary segment, from where Sunil Jakhar is contesting the elections. tns editorial@tribune.com Fatehgarh Sahib, April 26 Karamjeet Singh Dhindsa, district president of AAP, along with his supporters, joined Congress on Friday in the presence of Bassi Pathana MLA Gurpreet Singh GP during a public meeting. Subhash Sood, DCC president, and MLA GP welcomed them into the party fold. Addressing the gathering, Sood and the MLA lashed out at the Union Government for failing on all fronts. They said the government did not fulfill even a single promise made during the last elections. No loans of farmers were waived, no employment was provided to youths and the promised Rs 15 lakh never reached peoples accounts. Black money was not brought back, rather every section of society, except top industrialists, had to suffer due to demonetisation and farmers were fleeced on the name of crop insurance. OC monicakchauhan@gmail.com Prateek Chauhan Tribune News Service New Delhi, April 27 With tears in her eyes on the second death anniversary of Bollywood star and four-time MP from Gurdaspur Vinod Khanna, his wife Kavita Khanna feels let down by the BJP. I feel betrayed. I also feel that the wishes of people who wanted me as their MP were ignored by not fielding me for the Gurdaspur constituency in the ongoing Lok Sabha election. Feeling dejected with the BJP decision, she, however, said she will not fight election from any other party. She claimed that she had been approached by various parties but didn't show interest in joining them. When asked will she campaign for actor Sunny Deol, the BJP nominee from the constituency, she said, I have not been approached by anybody for the campaign. Asked will she campaign if the Bollywood actor asks her to, she replied I can't say. She also said she was promised the ticket from Gurdaspur by senior leaders in the BJP. They had told me to be ready to fight the election. Gurdaspur people saw in me their favourite leader Vinod Khanna, but I was denied the ticket at the last moment. The local people felt bad too and approached me to fight as an independent candidate.... I want to be honest to say I felt hurt. The party has the right to do so but the way it has been done I feel abandoned and rejected, she said. She said she knew PM Modi since 1999 and had high admiration for him. I would like to be part of his vision for the nation and believe I can contribute to BJP and support the Prime Minister, she added. Currently, the Gurdaspur constituency is represented by Congress MP Sunil Jakhar who won the seat in the 2017 bypoll after the death of Vinod Khanna in April that year. Kavita was among the frontrunners for the BJP ticket during the 2017 bypoll too, but the party chose businessman Salaria over her. editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service Jalandhar, April 26 Dalbir Kaur, sister of slain Pakistan prisoner Sarabjit Singh, on Friday said she would not undergo a DNA test until the court presents a proof on false claims about her not being the real sister of Sarabjit. Days after reports began circulating that the Punjab Police might legally examine the complaint of a Maharashtra resident seeking a DNA test of Dalbir Kaur, she said stories were being spread about her by Baljinder Kaur, who was making false claims of being the sister of Sarabjit Singh. A Latur-based organisation, Bhrashtachar Nirmulan Sagharsh Samiti Janmorchas president Pardeep Patil Khandapurkar had written to the Union Home Ministry, raising questions on Dalbirs relations with Sarabjit. The Centre had forwarded the complaint to the state, which reached the DGP on April 21. Speaking in Jalandhar, along with Sarabjits wife Sukhpreet Kaur and daughter Poonam, she said Never has this woman (Baljinder) met Sarabjit, nor does she have any evidence. She has formally stated that she received the news of Sarabjit being caught through media. On what basis is she making these claims? Backing Dalbir, Poonam said Through the time when my father crossed over, when we fought for him, Baljinder never met us nor came to us. It was Dalbir who took care of us. How will we not know our own relative? rchopra@tribunemail.com Tribune News Service Chandigarh, April 27 Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Saturday said the appointment of a wanted Khalistani terrorist to spearhead the Khalistan Referendum 2020 campaign had exposed the true motive and intent behind the separatist movement. He urged the Centre to press the global community to join India in cracking down on this grave threat to its peace and security. Reacting strongly to the media reports of the roping in by Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was on the list of wanted persons he had shared with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during their meeting in Amritsar in February 2018, Amarinder expressed concern over the Canadian governments covert and overt support to the hardliners operating from its soil. Even as he urged Trudeau not to play with fire by allowing such elements to use Canadian territory to disrupt Indias peace and stability, the CM called upon the Indian government to take a more proactive stand in dealing with these forces trying to unleash trouble in the country, particularly Punjab. He expressed concern over Canadas failure to rein in such hardline elements seeking to disturb Indias peace and security. He warned that allowing such elements would be detrimental to Canadas own safety and security in the long run. Amarinder said Nijjar was accused by India of running a terror camp in British Columbia, besides being accused of target killings in India and conducting weapons training for anti-India terrorists in the West. The Referendum 2020 had never been the peaceful movement it claimed to be, but by roping in Nijjar, it was clear that SFJ had given up all pretensions of steering a non-violent campaign, the CM said. harinder@tribunemail.com Deepkamal Kaur Tribune News Service Jalandhar, April 26 In Hoshiarpur today for party candidate Som Parkashs nomination, Union Minister Mahesh Sharma, Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar, general secretary Dinesh Kumar, Punjab in-charge Capt Abhimanyu, national secretary Tarun Chugh and Punjab chief Shwait Malik made it to the Adampur airport, minutes before Union MoS Vijay Samplas plane landed there. Holding a meeting, they tried to placate Sampla. Angry over denial of nomination, Sampla is reported to have especially targeted Shwait Malik. Khattar, Sharma and Chugh later left, leaving it to the rest to speak with Sampla at his residence, where hundreds of his supporters had gathered to greet him. Capt Abhimanyu, who was the first to reach Samplas house, faced hostile workers, who raised slogans such as Dhake-shahi nahi chalegi, Shwait Malik murdabad and Sampla ji tum aage badho, hum tumhare saath hain . As Dinesh Kumar arrived there too, he was pushed around. His security personnel hurriedly took him inside, even as Sampla repeatedly urged his supporters, most of them young boys, to exercise restraint.This had little impact with workers accusing the leadership of having sold the seat and only sycophants being rewarded. At this, Capt Abhimanyu promised the workers that Sampla would be compensated with an even higher responsibility at the national organisation level. I understand your sentiments. But you must dissuade your leader from taking any step which may harm his political career. You must work as a team and bury all issues till May 19, he pleaded. Sampla is reported to have told the leaders: I was reluctant to take on more responsibilities, yet you insisted on it. I asked if you wanted to change the candidate but was told I was firmly in the saddle. When I took over the reins of campaigning, I was dislodged without any reason. The ticket was allotted to a person at whose behest 38 FIRs were lodged against BJP workers in Phagwara. If Som Parkash wins, he will claim credit for it and if he loses, he will blame me. I want all issues sorted out. Malik and Som Parkash arrived at Samplas house after most workers had left. They asked Sampla to reach Delhi for a meeting with party chief Amit Shah tomorrow. rajivbhatia82@gmail.com Chandigarh, April 27 BJP candidate and Bollywood actor Sunny Deol Saturday paid tributes to late Gurdaspur MP and actor Vinod Khanna on his death anniversary and said he will get the works initiated by him completed. The BJP has fielded Deol from the Gurdaspur Lok Sabha seat which had been represented by Khanna for four-times in 1998, 1999, 2004 and 2014. "Tributes to Vinod Khanna ji on his death anniversary. Coming to serve Gurdaspur and complete the works started by him (Khanna). I seek blessings of everyone," 62-year-old Deol tweeted. Khanna died of bladder cancer at a hospital in Mumbai on April 27, 2017. He was popularly known as "Sardar of Bridges" for connecting remote villages in his constituency. However, Deol's nomination from the seat is being seen as setback to Khanna's wife Kavita Khanna, who was hopeful of getting a BJP ticket from this seat. On Saturday, Kavita in Delhi said she "felt abandoned and rejected" as she was denied a ticket at the last moment. Remembered her husband, Kavita tweeted,"Two years today since you passed on. Still following your path of celebrating life, of progress, your belief in the ultimate truth and your undying commitment to India and its people. Yours always, Kavita." Deol will file his nomination papers for the Gurdaspur seat on April 29, which is the last date for filling of nominations. Deol, who has won national film awards for 'Ghayal' and 'Damini', is pitted against sitting MP and Congress leader Sunil Jakhar and AAP's Peter Masih. PDA's Lal Chand is also in the electoral fight from the seat. Sunil Jakhar had won from the seat in a bypoll in 2017. It was necessitated after the death of Vinod Khanna. He had defeated BJP candidate Swaran Salaria by a whopping margin of 1,93,219 votes. Kavita was among the frontrunners for the BJP ticket during the 2017 by-poll, but the party chose businessman Salaria over her. - PTI editorial@tribune.com Ravi Dhaliwal Tribune News Service Gurdaspur, April 26 Punjab Congress chief and sitting MP Sunil Jakhar today filed his nomination papers. He was accompanied by Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh and all seven MLAs of the Gurdaspur parliamentary constituency, including ministers. Capt Amarinder, when asked about the challenge from BJP candidate Bollywood actor Sunny Deol, said, He has been fielded by the BJP as a parachute candidate without providing him any sort of ground support. The actor will draw a blank in the polls. The CM drew parallels with four-time MP Vinod Khanna. Did anybody from the constituency ever see Khanna after he used to win? Likewise, Deol too will fly back to Mumbai, if elected. If you want your constituency to see development, do not commit the mistake of voting for an outsider. Instead vote for Jakhar who has always been at your beck and call and will remain so, he claimed. Two senior leaders of Gurdaspur district, Rajya Sabha MP Partap Singh Bajwa and former Union minister Ashwani Kumar, were conspicuous by their absence. On the other hand, Bajwas younger brother and Qadian MLA Fateh Jung Singh Bajwa was present. I have already urged upon the Union government to explore the possibility of finding oil and natural gas reserves in Gurdaspur. Pakistan has already tapped oil on its side of the border, barely 20 km from here. If they can find oil there, why cannot we find it here? After being elected I will take the issue to its logical conclusion. I will also follow up my proposal submitted to the Union government to give special fiscal package to industries located in the border areas, particularly in Batala, said Jakhar. vinaymishra188@gmail.com Raaja Bhasin Of the many unusual characters to come out of Shimla, one of the more remarkable ones was Charles William de Russet. His architect and contractor father owned a building on the towns Ridge, when the main bazaar was located there in the 19th Century. The fathers imposing rotundity was reason enough for him to be remembered, when the story of the son was first written around a century ago. As often happens in tales like these, there are variations and occasionally, contradictions. The boy Charles, studied at Shimlas Bishop Cotton School and it is believed that it was after his fathers death that he drifted away from Christianity and joined a fakir at Jakhoo. Expectedly, this conversion of sorts created a minor furore. While many contemporaries glossed over it, George Ryall, Judge of Shimlas Small Cause Court, called him and tried to reason with the 18-year-old to return to his own people. Ryall spoke kindly but Charlie was determined to stick to his role. Russet is believed to have undergone the severe rigours of a novice for two years. He lived under a tree and the attendant who brought him food was his only human contact. He made over the property, he had inherited, to his sisters and was uncommunicative on his reasons for abandoning his former religion. John C Oman, a professor of natural science at the Government College, Lahore, met him in 1894, and recorded: Judging from outward appearances, the man had not suffered any such physical inconveniences, as would affect his health and he was particularly well-clothed, though not in any sadhu style I have ever seen. A year later, Babu Balgobind, who was to retire as an oriental translator in the service of the government of India, also met Russet and that was the start of a long and admiring connection. By then, Russet was known as Baba Mast Ram. He was something of a curiosity for Shimlas European residents and known as the leopard fakir on account of the leopard skin he wore. He soon came to be accepted into the priesthood and became a venerated figure. On the Babas death, Balgobind wrote a little booklet titled The Life and Teachings of Baba Mast Ram and gushed: ...to know him was to love him, and to pass a few days in his holy company under the sparkling sunshine of his smiling eyes and lips, in the fragrant aroma of his saintly and celibate life was to be suffused with a subtle intoxication of exalted enthusiasm and transported into the iridescent realm of peace ineffable! The teachings, as they were, were simple and Russet found parallels between Jesus and Krishna and Arjuna and John. The rest of the little volume was on the 10 avatars of Bhagwan Vishnu. In his years as a mendicant, Russet travelled to different parts of India and at Dwarka, the symbols of Bhagwan Vishnu the discus, the conch, the club and the mace were stamped on his arms with red-hot metal. This may have been the time, when one source mentions Russet as leaving Shimla with a band of sadhus and was never heard of again, while another declares that he began living in seclusion at a temple some distance from Simla in the valley below Annandale, where he avoided recognition, shunned Europeans and seemed to have forgotten his mother tongue. Yet another mention in 1925 says he occupied a temple in Chhota Simla. This last, was at least a phase in Russets life. The story goes that when Raja Sir Daljit Singh of Kapurthala purchased Strawberry Hill just below Chhota Simla in 1921, Mast Ram occupied a room in the servants quarters. The Raja allowed the French fakir to stay on. An apocryphal tale is added to this, that the Raja was disgusted with the destructiveness of the monkeys and his son, Padamjit Singh, who was still a child, spoke to Russet, who persuaded the monkeys to stay away from Strawberry Hill and for several years, the simian bands would sit on the boundary wall, but not enter the estate. In June 1927, with the rare approval of the local Hindu assemblies, the Hindu hill chiefs and Hindu residents of Simla, Russet was appointed Mahant, manager and guardian of the temple dedicated to Hanuman ji at Jakhoo. He died on December 28 the same year and was cremated near the temple. Somewhat by way of an obituary, on April 4, 1928, The Canberra Times carried a piece on Russet, where his ancestry is mentioned. Russetss father claimed to be the grandson of the barber to the last nawab of Awadh. There was also the possibility that he was connected with a family from Northampton. This was hotly denied by the son, who said they were French. One way or another, this would make Charles de Russet the only person of European descent to have become the mahant of a Hindu temple. (The writer is an author, historian and journalist) vinaymishra188@gmail.com Pratibha Chauhan Valiant soldiers from the state have been making supreme sacrifice for the nation. Himachal is also known as Veer Bhoomi and more than 3 lakh retired and serving defence personnel constitute a sizeable chunk of the electorate. The state has had the tradition of senior Army officers making successful political careers, be it from the BJP or the Congress. It is for this reason, that the two main political players have decided to play the fauji card in the Lok Sabha poll and fielded Solan MLA Col Dhani Ram Shandil (retd) from the Congress and sitting MLA Suresh Kashyap, who has retired from the Air Force, from the BJP. Whether it was Capt Somnath Sharma, the first recipient of the highest gallantry award Param Vir Chakra (PVC), or the heroic Capt Vikram Batra, a youth icon whom the nation reveres, the men in olive green from Himachal have always done the nation and the state proud. Despite there being conflicting opinions on whether or not to raise the issue of Armys action in the elections, there seems to be a political slugfest on it amid the poll din. BJP leaders are openly taking claim for the Armys action and crediting PM Modi to be a strong and able leader. On the other hand, the Congress leaders are condemning the BJP for politicising the Army, while arguing that such action was taken even during the Congress regime, but the issue was never highlighted and no effort made to seek credit for it in the political arena. The districts of Kangra, Hamirpur, Mandi, Bilapsur and Una have a huge population of retired and serving officers and soldiers in the Army, Navy and Air Force. The mood among them would, to a great extent, decide the fate of the two main political parties BJP and Congress who are slugging it out in the political arena. The fact that at least one member from each family in the districts of Kangra, Hamirpur, Bilaspur, Una and Mandi are serving in the armed forces or have retired, enhances the appeal of a fauji candidate. However, no former Army man is in the fray from either Kangra, Mandi or Hamirpur. The focus of the political discourse in the backdrop of Pulwama attack and surgical strikes brings spotlight on the serving and retired soldiers. It is probably with this calculation in mind that both BJP and Congress have fielded retired soldiers from the Shimla Lok Sabha seat. Himachal has a population of almost close to 3 lakh serving and retired Army personnel. The Election Department will electronically be sending the ballot papers of 62,131 serving defence personnel on May 2 to enable voting by the men in uniform. In fact, Hamirpur was often referred to as money order economy as a large number of Army personnel would send money orders back home while being on a posting. During the Kargil War, Capt Vikram Batra from Palampur and Rifleman Sanjay Kumar from Mandi were honoured with the Param Vir Chakra. Besides, Capt Saurabh Kalia from Palampur and Capt Anmol Kalia from Una made supreme sacrifices during the Kargil conflict, making the nation proud. He was awarded the Vir Chakra posthumously for the exemplary valour that he exhibited. It is these real heroes, who inspire thousands of youths from Himachal to dedicate their lives in the service of the nation by joining the armed forces. Brig Kushal Thakur (retd) is a decorated Kargil hero, who fought in Dras sector and was instrumental in capturing Tiger Hill and Tololing, which was a turning point in the conflict. Brig Thakur was keen to contest the elections on the BJP ticket from Mandi Lok Sabha seat, but did not find favour with the saffron party. He is spearheading the fight of the four-lane affected land owners, seeking higher land compensation. It is wrong for any political party to take claim for the Armys action yet I cannot deny the fact that when it comes to the issue of national security, PM Modi stands tall, he said. He said if Indira Gandhi as PM could take credit for the 1971 victory, then it would not be fair to deprive Modi of taking the credit for Pakistan. Talking of his own experience in the Army, he maintains that even during the Kargil aggression, the Indian Army maintained the sanctity of the Line of Control (LOC). The doctrine of not crossing the LOC and maintaining its dignity has changed and there is a perceptible policy change. From not crossing the LOC to now penetrating 80 to 100 km inside the LOC clearly indicates the political will, which PM Modi has exhibited, which the nation is lauding, he said. Fauji candidates in the fray Col Dhani Ram Shandil (retd), Congress candidates from Shimla Lok sabha seat: Col Dhani Ram Shandil (retd) (78) has represented the Shimla Lok Sabha seat earlier, from the Congress as well as Himachal Vikas Congress (HVC), a political outfit floated by former minister Sukh Ram. Shandil won the Shimla Lok Sabha seat on the HVC ticket in 1999 and on the Congress ticket in 2004. He has won two consecutive Assembly elections from Solan Assembly segment. Shandil fought the 1962, 1965 and 1971 war while being in the Dogra regiment. Army is a very glorious institution and to politcise it is an outright insult to the sacrifice made by our valiant soldiers in various wars, says Shandil. He said seeking credit for the Armys action amounts to taking away the glory of the armed forces and insulting the bravery of our uniformed men. He also takes strong exception to the fact that the Prime Minister and BJP is trying to take credit for the surgical strikes, which no other regime had ever done in the past. I am proud to be a soldier, who has fought at the front in three wars the nation has witnessed, but I also take strong exception to politicising the Army, he says. He is well-educated and has done a PhD besides having done many courses during his 34-year service in the Army. He remained Congress General Secretary, in-charge Mizoram, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh, and also a member of the Congress Working Committee from April 2011 to September 2013. He made his entry into the Assembly for the first time, when he won the 2012 Assembly poll and remained the Social Justice and Empowerment Minister in the Virbhadra-led Congress regime. He repeated the feat in December 2017 poll, when he again won, and has now been nominated as the member, Welfare, Public Administration and Ethics Committees of the Vidhan Sabha. Suresh Kashyap, BJP candidate from Shimla Lok Sabha seat Suresh Kashyap (48) joined the Indian Air Force in April 1988 and served for more than 16 years. It was after retiring from the air force in 2004 that Kashyap started taking keen interest in politics. The nation has got a strong and stable government under Narendra Modi and we are proud of the fact that he has dealt with the situation along the border with Pakistan with firmness and decisiveness, which the electorate understands and appreciates, he said. He denied that the BJP had in anyway politicised the Army or tried to take credit, but people could discern the difference during the UPA and NDA regime. He remained member, Block Development Committee (BDC), Pachhad, from 2005 to 2010 and was president, BJP Scheduled Morcha (DC) of District Sirmaur from 2006 to 2009 and general secretary of the state BJP SC Morcha from 2009 to 2012. He was elected to the State Legislative Assembly in 2012 and remained the member, Welfare, Subordinate Legislation and Ethics Committees, 2013-17. He was re-elected to the 13th Vidhan Sabha in December 2017 and nominated as chairman, General Development Committee; and member, Welfare and Ethics Committees. Kashyap is a well-qualified MLA, who has done M Phil (Public Administration), Post-Graduation in English and Tourism. He also holds a Post-Graduate Diploma in Public Relations and Communication Management and has also done B.Ed. Fauji turned netas Himachal has produced some very senior Army officers, who later chose to try their luck in politics, especially from the Hamirpur and Kangra Lok Sabha seats. The fact that at least one member from each family in the districts of Kangra, Hamirpur, Bilaspur, Una and Mandi are serving in the armed forces or have retired, enhances the appeal of a fauji candidate. In the past, Maj Gen Bikram Singh (retd) had won the Hamirpur Lok Sabha in 1996 on the Congress ticket. Similarly, Gen DD Khanoria (retd), won the Kangra Lok Sabha seat on the BJP ticket in 1991. Maj Vijai Singh Mankotia, former Congress minister and MLA from Shahpur in Kangra, dominated the Kangra politics for almost three decades. Col Inder Singh, is a sitting BJP MLA from Sarkaghat in Mandi, who has won three consecutive elections in 2007, 2012 and 2019. "It is wrong for any political party to take claim for the Armys action, yet I cannot deny the fact that when it comes to the issue of national security, PM Modi stands tall. If Indira Gandhi as PM could take credit for the 1971 victory, then it would not be fair to deprive Modi of taking the credit for Pakistan. The doctrine of not crossing the LOC and maintaining its dignity has changed and there is a perceptible policy change. From not crossing the LOC to now penetrating 80 to 100 km inside the LOC clearly indicates the political will, which PM Modi has exhibited, which the nation is lauding." Brig Kushal Thakur (retd), A decorated Kargil hero, who was keen on contesting from Mandi Lok Sabha seat on BJP ticket " Army is a very glorious institution and to politcise it is an outright insult to the sacrifices made by our valiant soldiers in various wars. Seeking credit for the Armys action amounts to taking away the glory of the armed forces and insulting the bravery of our uniformed men. I am proud to be a soldier, who has fought at the front in three wars, the nation has witnessed, but I also take strong exception to politicising the Army." Col Dhani Ram Shandil (retd), Cong candidates from Shimla Lok Sabha seat "The nation has got a strong and stable government under Narendra Modi and we are proud of the fact that he has dealt with the situation along the border with Pakistan with firmness and decisiveness, which the electorate understands and appreciates. The BJP has not in anyway politicised the Army or tried to take credit, but people can discern the difference during the UPA and NDA regime." Suresh Kashyap, BJP candidate from Shimla Lok Sabha seat Poll stats The ballot papers would be electronically transmitted within 24 hours of the final day of completion of electoral rolls on May 2. The withdrawal of nominations will be over by May 2 and then the ballot papers would be sent to the Defence Ministry, from where they would be forwarded to the place of posting of the defence personnel and those in foreign services, posted within India and abroad. 62,131Total defence personnel in Himachal, who would be casting their vote through postal ballot 61,401 Male personnel Male personnel 730 Women personnel Women personnel 62,105 Armed forces (Army, Navy & Air Force) Armed forces (Army, Navy & Air Force) 0 Central Police Forces Central Police Forces 26 Foreign Service 1,52,997(1.52 lakh) Total ex-servicemen registered with Himachal Ex-servicemen Corporation 1,10,427 Army Army 2,376 Air Force Air Force 3,965 Navy Navy 1, 16, 768 Total War widows 931 In Army In Army 02 In Air Force In Air Force 15 In Navy In Navy 948 Total Widows rchopra@tribunemail.com Peshawar, April 27 Two security personnel were killed and two others were injured following an IED blast at a check post in northwest Pakistan on Saturday, sources said. The explosives, which were planted close to the check post in Sheva tehsil of North Aaziristan district bordering Afghanistan, went off when the levies personnel reported for duty, eyewitnesses said. The deceased, identified as Ameer Zaman and Abdul Wali, were locals, they said. PTI monicakchauhan@gmail.com United Nations, April 27 Continuing Washington's drift from multilateralism, US President Donald Trump has announced that he was withdrawing the country from the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). At a meeting of the National Rifle Association in Indianapolis on Friday, he dramatically pulled out a letter for ending US participation in the treaty and signed it on stage to a standing ovation by the audience of weapons control opponents. He called the ATT "badly conceived" and said: "The UN will get notice that we are formally rejecting this treaty." The US signed the treaty in 2013 but has not ratified it. Trump said that he was withdrawing it also from the Senate. Advancing his America First policy, he has already withdrawn the US from UNESCO, the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INFT), which bans nuclear-tipped missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 km, and the agreement on denuclearising Iran that was made by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, Germany and Tehran. Adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2013, the ATT covers all types of weapons and seeks to stop them from reaching regimes abusing human rights or parties in civil wars, armed and terrorist groups. Democrats denounced Trump's decision. "Pulling the US out of yet another arms control treaty undermines our national security and makes for a more dangerous world," Speaker Nancy Pelosi tweeted. By pulling out of the ATT, the US joins India, which has not signed the treaty. One of the arguments made by India in 2013 against the treaty was that New Delhi had "strong and effective national export controls" on military hardware to ensure they don't fall into the wrong hands. A senior US administration official echoed it on Friday during a briefing on Trump's decision saying: "The US already has significant controls in place to regulate our conventional arms transfers." The official pointed out that neither have Russia and China, which are major arms exporters, signed it. The official said that while the US has rules in place to govern its arms transactions, those countries did not have any and would not be governed by the treaty either. Only 130 of the 193 members of the UN have signed the treaty, and of them only 101 ratified it putting it just over the threshold of 100 to come into effect. The official said the British government is being sued by an NGO, Campaign Against Arms Trade citing the treaty to stops arms sales to Saudi Arabia, a Washington ally, and implied that the US could face similar challenges if it continued to be a part of the ATT. Trump chose the NRA, a conservative bastion of his support, to make the announcement playing on the group's fears of weapons controls. The politically powerful NRA takes an absolutist stand on the US Constitution's Second Amendment that guarantees Americans the right to bear arms and its opposition to restrictions on weapons, including machine guns and automatic rifles, is blamed for gun violence, particularly mass shootings, in the nation. Even though the ATT does not deal with domestic gun sales, Trump told the NRA: "We will never allow foreign bureaucrats to trample on your Second Amendment freedoms." "Leaving the Arms Trade Treaty that limits global trafficking in lethal weapons to get applause from the @NRA is reckless and shameful", Pelosi tweeted. IANS rchopra@tribunemail.com Washington, April 27 The US has imposed sanctions on Pakistan after Islamabad refused to take back its citizen deportees and visa over-stayers from America, warning that it might withhold visas of Pakistanis beginning from its senior officials. The State Department on Friday said consular operations in Pakistan remained unchanged as of now but as a result of such a sanction mentioned in a Federal Register notification dated April 22, the US might withhold visas of Pakistanis beginning with its senior officials. Pakistan is the latest to join the list of 10 nations that have been imposed with sanctions under a US law according to which countries refusing to take back deportees and visa over-stayers will be denied American visas. Notably, eight of these countries have been slapped with such visa sanctions under the Trump administration. Two of them Ghana and Pakistan have been included in the list this year. The other countries include Guyana in 2001, the Gambia in 2016, Cambodia, Eritrea, Guinea, and Sierra Leone in 2017, Burma and Laos in 2018. Under Section 243 (d) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the Secretary of State is required to discontinue granting immigration or non-immigrant visas to a nation upon receiving notice from the Homeland Security Secretary that the country has denied or is unreasonably delaying accepting a citizen, subject, national or resident of that country. The State Department tried to downplay the impact of the sanctions on Pakistan. Consular operations in Pakistan remain unchanged, a State Department Spokesperson told PTI when asked about the federal register notification. This is a bilateral issue of ongoing discussion between the US and Pakistani governments and we are not going to get into the specifics at this time, the spokesperson added. Former Pakistan Ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani, feels this will make things difficult for Pakistanis. This measure will create hardship for Pakistanis who want or need to travel to the US and could have been avoided if Pakistani authorities had not ignored American requests to respect their legal requirements for deportation, Haqqani told PTI, days after the federal register notification. He said Pakistans refusal to accept its citizens deported from the US is not new. Pakistans refusal to accept every Pakistani citizen deported from the US is not new. It seems the US is no longer willing to overlook a wide range of official Pakistani behaviour. Bonhomie has been replaced by sanctions and restrictions based on Islamabads policy decisions, Haqqani said. While the law in this regard has been under existence since 1996, it is only in the last several years that there had been increasing demand from lawmakers towards its enforcement against countries that had refused to accept deportees and visa over-stayers. In the last few years, India has been taking such deportees on special planes at regular intervals. The Trump administration after coming to power had said that it would strictly enforce such provisions by denying visas to people from those countries that refuse it accepting deportees and visa over-stayers. While section 243 (d) of the Immigration and Nationality Act was used only twice before 2017, the Trump Administration has been effective in using this provision on many countries, including Pakistan. However, the State Department federal register notification indicates that the number of visa denial under this sanction is far less. Since the law was modified to cover non-immigrant visas in 1996, 318 visa applicants had been affected, the notification said. During this same time period, tens of millions of aliens have received non-immigrant visas, including collectively, millions of applicants from the 10 countries affected, the notification said. The Federal Register notification said there is no set formula, though, notably the state has never issued a blanket refusal for visas from the country in question. For some countries, sanctions begin by targeting officials who work in the ministries responsible for accepting the return of that countrys nationals with escalation scenarios that target family members of those officials and potentially officials of other ministries and then other categories of applicants if initial sanctions do not prove effective at encouraging greater cooperation on removals by the targeted government, the notification said. PTI ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM Beijing, April 26 Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday sought to allay the debt diplomacy concerns raised by India and the US over his trillion dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), promising transparency, sustainability and zero tolerance to corruption in the costly infrastructure projects being funded by Beijing, specially to smaller countries. The BRI is President Xis signature global infrastructure policy. First announced in 2013, the project promises to build ports, roads and railways to revive the ancient Silk Road and create new trade corridors linking China to Asia, Africa and Europe. Addressing the Second Belt and Road Forum (BRF) attended by 37 heads of state and governments, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan besides officials from 150 countries and international organisations, Xi said China wants to build the BRI projects based on open, green and clean cooperation. India, like the first BRF meet in 2017 has skipped the Friday meeting as protest over the $ 60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) being laid through Pakistan- occupied Kashmir. The CPEC, which connects the strategic Gwadar Port in Pakistans Balochistan with Chinas Xinjiang province, is the flagship project of the BRI. This time, the US also joined India in skipping the BRF.The Trump administration has been extremely critical of the BRI and is of the view that Chinas predatory financing is leaving smaller counties under huge debt and endangering their sovereignty. Notwithstanding the global concerns, China has mobilised by far larger gathering of heads of state and government this time compared to the first BRF meeting held in 2017 during which 29 heads of state attended. PTI What is BRI The BRI is President Xi Jinpings signature global infrastructure policy. It was first announced in 2013, the project promises to build ports, roads and railways to revive the ancient Silk Road and create new trade corridors linking China to Asia, Africa and Europe India protests CPEC India, like the first BRF meet in 2017 has skipped the Friday meeting as protest over the $ 60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) being laid through Pakistan- occupied Kashmir. The CPEC, which connects the strategic Gwadar Port in Pakistans Balochistan with Chinas Xinjiang province, is the flagship project of the BRI Why US has given it a miss The Trump administration has been extremely critical of the BRI and is of the view that Chinas predatory financing is leaving smaller counties under huge debt and endangering their sovereignty What China vows to do Xi vowed to abolish subsidies to firms that impede fair competition He promised to prohibit forced technology transfer China will be protecting legitimate rights and interests of foreign owners of intellectual property rights. China will allow foreign investors to operate businesses in more sectors with controlling or full stake Pak pm for more cooperation among BRI countries Pakistan PM Imran Khan on Friday called for greater cooperation among the China-backed Belt and Road Initiative member countries to promote tourism and combat climate change, corruption and poverty. Pakistan will partner with all those who share the vision for a peaceful and prosperous world, he said . - Jonathan Moi died at a Nakuru hospital on Friday, April 19 - A public funeral service that was attended by at least 10,000 mourners was held at Kabarak University - Retired president Moi described his son as a gentle soul who attracted people through his humility Retired president Daniel Moi has penned down an emotional sendoff message to his son Jonathan Totoitch Moi who he described as a person of the earth whose love for farming did not surprise him. Mzee Moi who did not attend the funeral service at Kabarak University grounds will reportedly attend the private burial event at Kabimoi where Jonathan will be interred. READ ALSO: Jonathan Moi's children born out of wedlock not recognised at his funeral service Baringo Senator Gideon Moi greets DP William Ruto at Kabarak University grounds during the funeral service of Jonathan Moi. Photo: Ben Kerich Source: Original READ ALSO: Jonathan Moi's twin sons born out of wedlock demand recognition In a speech that was read by his last born son and Baringo Senator Gideon Moi, the former president expressed sorrow in burying his son saying he was grateful to have been his father. "I have lived a full life and my only sadness is that my son did not. No father should have to bury their child...Fathers should be buried by their children and not the other way round. A son should never be buried by his father. But Jonathan's departure is God's will," he said. He said Jonathan was a down to earth gentle soul with a great sensitivity of the world around him that made people feel more comfortable to interact with him. Jonathan Toroitich Moi died at a Nakuru hospital where he was receiving treatment on Friday, April 19. Photo: The Standard Source: UGC READ ALSO: Kiambu: Sarakasi yazuka harusini baada ya mwanamme kufumaniwa akifunga ndoa na mke mwengine "The greatest joy any parent can experience is knowing that their child has accepted Christ into their life. It took Jonathan sometime but like many of his greatest rally victories he pulled it off at the last minute and gave his life to Christ," said Mzee Moi. The 94-year-old man said he was grateful that his son had made peace with his maker and that was his greatest joy as he will be received in heaven by his mother Lena Moi and other relatives. The remains of the former Safari rally champion who died at a Nakuru Hospital on Friday night on the Easter weekend is set to be laid to rest at his home in Kabimoi. Among other leaders who attended the funeral service at Kabarak University grounds included Deputy President William Ruto, Senate Speaker Kenneth Lusaka and Senate Minority Leader James Orengo among many other leaders. Additional Reporting By: Ben Kerich, TUKO Correspondent, Nakuru. Do you have an inspirational story you would like us to publish? Please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690. Follow us on Telegram: Tuko news Source: Tuko Kenya Two years ago, both the Senate and the House unanimously approved my legislation eliminating the state-mandated to eliminate U.S. History End of Instruction (EOI) Exam. Despite the overwhelming legislative support, Governor Fallin vetoed it because she claimed the test grounded students in the nations founding principles and the Constitution. The problem is this particular test only covers American history starting at the end of the Civil War. There are, however, numerous tests given to students throughout the year in all their classes, including U.S. History, to measure their knowledge. This EOI exam adds nothing to our students educational experience, but it does take time and resources away from actual teaching and learning. Nevertheless, a single person was able to block the elimination of this unnecessary test. Beason, a father of three, calls himself a blue collar guy. He said the thing he doesnt understand is that a jury has been given the confidence to determine the fate of an accused murderer, which can include the death penalty. But under the system he had to navigate, lawmakers didnt put that same faith in his jury. It is impossible to put a cap on noneconomic damages, Beason said. Each case, each situation is different. So how can a politician step in and say, well, regardless of your injury, regardless of what has happened to you regardless of what you did before, your pain and suffering is only worth $350,000. I feel very strongly about this. It is just morally not right for any politician or individual to step in and put a cap on somebodys livelihood that has been taken away. Beason, who grew up in Hugo in southeastern Oklahoma, said that before his accident, he and his family were active in the outdoors, camping and going to the lake. He was an avid bow hunter and enjoyed fishing. All of that has been taken away, he said. He went on to single-handedly take out four bunkers of enemy troops. He was shot three times in the process, but he successfully brought back the fallen soldier. All these years later, Morris tries to keep his distance mentally, he said, from that experience and the 42 months he spent in combat. I try not to relive it, he said. If you do, it starts to work on you. You never get rid of it. I still have my moments. Its not curable. But you dont have to dwell on it. Trials and tribulations Morris, who joined the Oklahoma National Guard in 1959 before moving on to the Army, retired from the military in 1985. The welfare of his fellow veterans was already a subject close to his heart. Around 1997, Morris said, I wrote an angry letter to the Department of Defense. The DoD needed to do a better job, he told it, of educating people about the trials and tribulations that soldiers face in war and in coming back home. Vaping is a gateway to later tobacco use. About 90% of adult smokers got addicted as teenagers. Smoking is the No. 1 cause of preventable death and disease in the U.S. and Oklahoma. The law will keep vaping products away from schools, whether used by students or adults on campus in attendance for events or meetings. This is in line with the tobacco-free campus laws. This is an important first step but more can be done: Tax e-cigarettes at the same level as tobacco. The state sales tax applies to vaping products, like food or candy. The much higher state tobacco tax should be used instead. It has been effective in reducing smoking and preventing future smokers. The Legislature and Stitt did the smart thing in banning vapor products at schools; now, its time to take the next step. Subscribe to Daily Headlines Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Introduction & Pricing NVIDIA really silently launched the GeForce GTX 1650 a few days ago, the first graphics card launch that I can remember (if not ever) that didn't see reviewers have pre-release drivers. This meant I had to wait until the announcement to get drivers, severely cutting down the time I had to prepare for this review. This isn't MSI's fault whatsoever and has no bearing on my final thoughts on the card, so this is more of an FYI if anything. VIEW GALLERY - 45 IMAGES Anyway, the new GeForce GTX 1650 is here and the first card we have is the MSI GeForce GTX 1650 GAMING X 4G which is powered by the Turing TU117 GPU that has been crafted for the ultimate in performance, power, and cost. TU117 has all of the goodies that the Turing GPU architecture brings to the table, and is one of the best graphics cards on the market for 1080p gaming. MSI as always has a great custom card on its hands, but we don't have a Founders Edition to compare it against. Let's dive right into the review, shall we? Pricing & Availability NVIDIA's new GeForce GTX 1650 is rolling out starting from $149, with MSI's new GeForce GTX 1650 GAMING X 4G costing $155 or so. MSI GeForce GTX 1650 GAMING X 4G Today Yesterday 7 days ago 30 days ago $489.95 $519.00 $449.00 $536.34 Buy * Prices last scanned on 12/22/2021 at 6:19 pm CST - prices may not be accurate, click links above for the latest price. We may earn an affiliate commission. Specs: TU117 Specs: TU117 GPU NVIDIA did some more chopping down of the GPU on the new TU117, where it doesn't even require a PCIe power connector as its TDP is just 75W. The custom GTX 1650s on the market, like the MSI GeForce GTX 1650 GAMING X 4G, can make use of a PCIe power connector. The MSI card we have here today has a single 6-pin PCIe power connector. Inside, the TU117 has 896 CUDA cores, 4GB of GDDR5 on a 128-bit memory bus with 128GB/sec of memory bandwidth. The TU117 GPU itself is clocked at 1485/1665MHz for base and boost, respectively. Specs: TU116 GPU NVIDIA launched the mid-range TU116 GPU with the release of its GeForce GTX 1660 Ti, and uses the same TU116 for its new GeForce GTX 1660 graphics card. There are some changes to the CUDA core count, GDDR memory used, and more. The slightly higher-end GeForce GTX 1660 Ti rolls out with 1536 CUDA cores while the new GTX 1660 packs 1408 CUDA cores, but the GTX 1660 has higher GPU clock speeds of 1530/1785MHz compared to 1500/1770MHz of the GTX 1660 Ti. Remember this is from a reference standpoint (and there is no Founders Edition card) while MSI has its custom cards overclocked out of the box. One of the largest differences between the GeForce GTX 1660 and the higher-end GTX 1660 Ti is that the new GTX 1660 has 6GB of GDDR5 memory, versus the 6GB of GDDR6 on the GTX 1660 Ti. Specs: MSI GeForce GTX 1650 GAMING X 4G MSI GeForce GTX 1650 GAMING X 4G Specs: Detailed specs, everything you need to know. Because this is a GAMING X variant, the GTX 1650 GAMING X 4G runs silently until the card gets hot enough to spin the fans up. As with the other GAMING X cards, we have MSI's in-house TWIN FROZR 7 cooler. Detailed Look I say it in all of my reviews of MSI's graphics cards -- the company knows how to make a great looking box that'll attract eyes on shelves and e-tailers online. Let's dive in and take a closer look. The front of the box. The back of the box shows you that you've got a TWIN FROZR 7 cooler keeping things under control on the GTX 1650 GAMING X 4G. Not much going on with the side of the box, but how good does this shot look! The MSI GeForce GTX 1650 GAMING X 4G in all its glory. This is a lower-end card so no backplate is included. The display connectivity set up changes with the GTX 1650, with MSI offering 2 x DP and 1 x HDMI. Only a single 6-pin PCIe power connector is required keeping power consumption (and heat) numbers at a minimum. Test System Specs Our New GPU Test Rig Welcome to the latest revision of our GPU test bed, with our system being upgraded from the Intel Core i7-7700K to the Core i7-8700K. The CPU is cooled by the Corsair H115i PRO cooler, with the 8700K overclocked to 5GHz. We've stayed with GIGABYTE for our motherboard with their awesome Z370 AORUS Gaming 7. We approached our friends at HyperX for a kit of their kick ass HyperX Predator DDR4-2933MHz RAM (HX429C15PB3AK4/32), with 2 x 8GB sticks for a total of 16GB DDR4-2933. The RAM stands out through every minute of our testing as it has beautiful RGB lights giving the system a slick look while benchmarking our lives away, while the Z370 AORUS Gaming 7 motherboard joins in with its own array of RGB lighting. Detailed Tech Specs CPU : Intel Core i7-8700K @ 5GHz Cooler : Corsair Hydro Series H115i PRO MB : Z370 AORUS Gaming 7 RAM : 16GB (2x8GB) HyperX Predator DDR4-2933 SSD : 1TB OCZ RD400 NVMe M.2 SSD : 512GB OCZ RD400 NVMe M.2 PSU : InWin 1065W PSU Chassis : In Win X-Frame OS: Windows 10 Pro x64 Additional Images Benchmarks - Synthetic Heaven - 1080p Heaven is an intensive GPU benchmark that really pushes your silicon to its limits. It's another favorite of ours as it has some great scaling for multi-GPU testing, and it's great for getting your GPU to 100% for power and noise testing. Heaven - 1440p Heaven - 4K Benchmarks - 1080p 1080p Benchmarks Respawn's new battle royale shooter is one of the hottest games on the market right now and is the perfect game to play on lower-end cards as it runs on a highly modified Source engine. Ubisoft and Massive Entertainment have crafted one of the best-looking games ever with The Division 2, stretching graphics cards to their limits. It is one of the newest and most-loved members of our GPU benchmarking suite. Hitman 2 is another new entry into our GPU benchmarks, with some great graphical effects and a built-in benchmark makes it an easy game to test to show a widespread look at performance into the Glacier 2 engine powered game. EA and DICE put everything they had into Battlefield V which runs the latest version of the Frostbite engine, and really stretches its legs in terms of graphics quality and squeezing the most from our cards. It's one of the best looking engines and best looking games on the market, until the new slew of games launches over the coming months, that is. Overwatch is one of the most popular games on the market, from legendary game developer Blizzard. It's a game that looks great but doesn't require a huge amount of GPU grunt, but it's tested for another reason: high-FPS for enthusiast/professional gamers. Overwatch in our testing is to provide a two-fold result: first, it's a popular esports title and second it gives us a look at what we need to run it at 1440p for 144/165Hz displays and at 4K on those new 144Hz HDR G-Sync displays. Middle-earth: Shadow of War is a sequel to the popular Shadow of Mordor, which was powered by the Lithtech engine. When cranked up to maximum detail, it will chew through your GPU and its VRAM like it's nothing. You can buy Middle-earth: Shadow of War at Amazon. Rainbow Six: Siege has been a strong entry into the franchise, popular for its realistic feel and great graphics. Stable as a rock for benchmarking, right up to 3440x1440 and 4K. Metro Exodus is one of the hardest tests that our graphics cards have to go through, with 4A Games' latest creation being one of the best looking games on the market. It is a serious test that pushes GPUs to their limits, and also features RTX technologies like DLSS. Far Cry New Dawn was developed by Ubisoft, and is powered the Dunia Engine, an engine that has been modified over the years for Far Cry and last used in Far Cry 5. Dunia Engine itself was a modified version of CRYENGINE, scaling incredibly well on all sorts of hardware. Shadow of the Tomb Raider is one of the latest games to join our graphics card benchmark lineup, with the game built using the Foundation engine as a base, the same engine in Rise of the Tomb Raider. Eidos Montreal R&D department made lots of changes to the engine during the development of Shadow of the Tomb Raider to make it one of the best-looking games out right now. Thermals, Power, Noise Thermals MSI's new GeForce GTX 1650 GAMING X 4G is a cool operating card, and as with other TWIN FROZR 7 cooled graphics cards the fans will only spin up when the card reaches 60C or more. Power Power consumption is low thanks to the single 6-pin PCIe power connector. Noise Since the card barely gets above 60C, it doesn't make that much noise -- and even when the fans crank up, the noise doesn't. Performance Thoughts & Final Thoughts Performance Thoughts If you are in the market for a new graphics card and have a budget of under $200 then you should definitely consider the GeForce GTX 1650, but there are some great alternatives on the market with better features like more VRAM. The main competitor of the GTX 1650 from AMD would have to be the Radeon RX 570 which you can get with 8GB of VRAM, which is on Amazon right now for $150. The custom GTX 1650 cards sell for between $150 and $180 or so, but the big draw card here is the super low TDP on the GTX 1650. Offering this type of performance with a 75W TDP is impressive, especially when you can handle esports titles and popular games like Apex Legends and Overwatch at 1080p and 60FPS without a problem. Final Thoughts MSI has yet another great card in its GAMING X family with the GeForce GTX 1650 GAMING X 4G, offering great 1080p gaming performance in a silent card that has some overclocking headroom for additional performance. Not only that, but the TWIN FROZR 7 cooling technology on the GTX 1650 GAMING X 4G is a great addition for the price. If you are buying the GeForce GTX 1650 for an HTPC then you have a great card on offer here, especially considering its feature set and low power consumption. Throwing the MSI GeForce GTX 1650 GAMING X 4G into an SFF HTPC would be perfect, and it could also kick some ass playing games as well, all without breaking the budget. The price on the GeForce GTX 1650 is a bit high, but that isn't MSI's fault nor is it under their control. If the GTX 1650 was a little cheaper, it would knock the socks right off the RX 570. However, the Radeon RX 570 is getting a bit old now and still requires PCIe power connectors, versus the crazy low 75W TDP on the GTX 1650. Even an OC-friendly card in the MSI GeForce GTX 1650 GAMING X 4G has just a single 6-pin PCIe power connector. Once again, MSI adds another great card to its growing family of Turing-based graphics cards with the GeForce GTX 1650 GAMING X 4G. But buyer beware: MSI also offers custom Radeon RX 570s that you should take a look at, but also remember Navi is right around the corner. Joe Biden announces 2020 run for President (Source: AP) Mr. Biden announced his bid in a video released on social media. He is expected to hold a fundraiser in Philadelphia and hold his first formal campaign event in Pittsburgh on April 30th. In his appeal to voters, Biden recounted the President's response to the violent white supremacist protests in Charlottesville, Virginia two years ago. One of the most recognizable names in politics, Biden becomes an instant front-runner alongside Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who is leading many polls and has proved to be a successful fundraiser. Among Democrats, Biden has unmatched international and legislative experience, and he is among the best-known faces in U.S. politics. Joe Biden, born in 1942, was a longtime senator who served as Vice President for eight years under Democratic President Barack Obama. He represented Delaware in the U.S. Senate from 1973 to 2009. He served as the 47th Vice President of the United States from 2009 to 2017. Mr. Biden becomes the 20th Democrat to enter the 2020 race, and enters as a high-profile candidate, with decades of experience./. Please enter a valid keyword with 2 or more characters / numbers. Confirm The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM) recorded the presence of more than 50 tanks in three training areas near the occupied Luhansk. The OSCE SMM informed this in a report, based on information received as of 19:30, April 25, 2019. "On April 18, aerial imagery available to the SMM revealed the presence of 13 tanks in a training area near Shymshynivka (27km south-west of Luhansk), 23 tanks in a training area near Kruhlyk (65km south-west of Luhansk), 21 tanks, 15 pieces of towed artillery or mortars (type undetermined) and six self-propelled howitzers (type undetermined) in a training area near Myrne (28km south-west of Luhansk), reads the report. In addition, on April 25, the SMM saw six surface-to-air missile systems (9K35 Strela-10) and seven tanks (T-72) at the former Luhansk international airport about 10km south of Luhansk city. All these weapons were located outside a heavy weapons permanent storage site in a non-government-controlled area of Luhansk region. ish Ukrainian farmers sow spring grain, leguminous crops on 94% of planned area 16:18, 27.04.19 1481 Some 156,000 hectares have already been sown with wheat crops, which is 95% of the target. A vigil was held for those who died in the devastating accident or its aftermath. Overnight Friday, April 26, a flower-laying ceremony was held near the memorial mound to the Heroes of Chornobyl at the Memorial complex to Chornobyl Victims in Kyiv. Accident liquidators and those affected by the Chornobyl disaster marched to the memorial mound in a mourning procession and lit symbolic candles. A vigil was also held for those who died in the terrible accident or its aftermath. Read alsoUkraine marks 33rd anniversary of Chornobyl tragedy On Friday, April 26, at 10:00, the Kyiv city authorities also laid flowers to the Heroes of Chornobyl memorial mound and the "Soldiers of Chornobyl" monument. As UNIAN reported earlier, activists organized a memorial event in the abandoned town of Prypiat (Pripyat) to mark the 33rd anniversary of the Chornobyl tragedy. He will speak with Szijjarto at a ministerial meeting on Eastern Partnership in Brussels in two weeks. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin plans to discuss the draft law on ensuring the functioning of the Ukrainian language as a national language, adopted by the Verkhovna Rada on April 25, with Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto. "I believe that our Hungarian partners deliberately chose a line of confrontation. I will speak with Szijjarto about this in Brussels in just two weeks, during a ministerial meeting on Eastern Partnership," Klimkin said at a joint briefing with Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius in Kyiv, according to an UNIAN correspondent. "I repeat once again, first of all, this law is important, but it must be understood in the sense of supporting the Ukrainian language, and in no case should it be seen as a restriction of someone's rights," Klimkin said. "And secondly: everything that will be done, as you see, is determined by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine. And now the work should begin, very public, very open one, on how the law should be implemented," he said. Read alsoRada Speaker sets date for final battle for blocked language law "I also believe we need to go further and have a separate law on minority languages. We need to help our citizens, and we don't want Hungarians, Romanians or anyone else to become less Hungarian or Romanian. They belong to our political nation. They should have the right to receive education in their own languages, of course, their rights should not be limited, but they should get a real chance to learn the Ukrainian language," Klimkin said. At the same time, Klimkin is confident Ukraine and Hungary will find a common language. "The political message, I was waiting for it. We will have a difficult, but, nevertheless, I think, productive discussion with Hungary," Klimkin added. Read alsoHungary to keep blocking Ukraine-NATO talks over language law media As UNIAN reported earlier, the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, on April 25 adopted the draft law on ensuring the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the national language. The law is not applicable to the sphere of private communication and religious ceremonies. This law comes into force one month from the date of its publication, except for a number of provisions whose entry is postponed for several years. The law provides that every citizen of Ukraine is obliged to speak Ukrainian as the language of his or her citizenship. It is noted that the state shall organize Ukrainian language courses for adults and provide an opportunity for citizens of Ukraine to learn the national language free if they had no opportunity. According to the law, a person seeking Ukrainian citizenship is obliged to pass a Ukrainian language test. However, individuals who perform military service in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and are given a state award and those whose citizenship of Ukraine is of state interest for the country have the right to acquire Ukrainian citizenship without taking the language test, but are obliged master it within one year from the date they are granted Ukraine's citizenship. He assured that all social obligations to Russian citizens would be fulfilled. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia may start granting Russian citizenship, under a simplified procedure, to all Ukrainians, not only to those living in Russia-occupied Donbas, eastern Ukraine. Read alsoKlimkin: No dual citizenship with aggressor state Russia possible "We even think about granting our citizenship to [all] Ukrainian citizens under a simplified procedure," he said at a press conference on April 27 following his Beijing trip, according to an UNIAN correspondent in Russia. Putin says all social obligations to Russian citizens will be fulfilled, despite the decision to provide Ukrainians living in Russia-controlled Donbas, with Russian citizenship, using the expedited procedures. "Regarding the fulfillment or non-fulfillment of our social obligations to Russian citizens: No doubts all social obligations, absolutely all social payments, pensions, and their increase will be fulfilled. There's no doubt about it," he said. As UNIAN reported earlier, on April 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on the simplified procedure for issuing Russian passports to residents of the temporarily occupied Donbas. The Kremlin explained that Putin made such a decision "to protect human and civil rights and freedoms," on the basis of "generally accepted principles and norms of international law." In this regard, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko has called on the European Union to step up sanctions against Russia during the next review of the existing regime scheduled for June. The law on the state language, among other things, directly affects media operations. The new legislation's norms on the Ukrainian language in print media deserve special attention. UNIAN contacted the editors of several Russian-language publications in Ukraine to find out their opinion on and readiness for innovations. On April 25, the Verkhovna Rada finally adopted an important law on the state language, which, among other things, regulates the print media market. The law says all print media in Ukraine shall be published in the state language, which is Ukrainian. In each print media distribution spot, the share of Ukrainian-language newspapers and magazines must be no lower than 50%. A newspaper or magazine can be published in two or more language versions, one of which must be in the state language. Head of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine, Serhiy Tomilenko, emphasizes that, of course, journalists favor measures aimed at supporting the Ukrainian language. At the same time, in his opinion, the norms of the new law concerning the print media require further extensive discussions in publishing circles. UNIAN contacted editors of several Russian-language publications of various levels from different regions across the country to find out their opinion on the law and their readiness for innovations. For example, the editorial staff of Focus magazine are still studying the details of the document, because there were a lot of amendments to it. However, Chief Editor Yevhen Hordeychyk believes that, in general, the transition period provides an opportunity to prepare for the shift to the Ukrainian version of the publication as its main one. "However, the release of the bilingual version will require a significant increase in the cost of editing and printing services. Now we are calculating all this," he says. According to the editor, he personally supports strengthening the role of the Ukrainian language in Ukraine. But to this end, it is necessary to stimulate the media to use it instead of applying prohibitive methods: "I think if the press were offered some kind of stimulating conditions, at least a reduction in VAT for the Ukrainian-speaking product, of which Zelensky spoke, it would be a much more correct move than the 'obliging' step." The editorial board of the Zaporizhia-based newspaper, Subota Plus, is calm about innovations. Editor-in-Chief Oleh Loktev noted that the publication, on principle, had been declared as bilingual. Therefore, the materials are already published both in Russian and in Ukrainian anyway. "But, of course, the transition to the Ukrainian could affect the circulation and purchasing power in a negative direction, because the region is mostly Russian-speaking," Loktev argues. A similar opinion is shared by Chief Editor of Kherson's Novy Den newspaper, Anatoly Zhupyna. He notes that the publication has long been publishing two versions in Ukrainian and in Russian. And even the transition to the Ukrainian language should not be a problem. "Indeed, in the south of Ukraine there is more Russian-speaking population, but I don't think there will be an outflow of the audience if we publish fully in Ukrainian. Still, the population understands both languages," he says. At the same time, Chief Editor of Dnipro Vechirniy, Iryna Avramenko, draws much gloomier prospects for her publication. According to her, her publication is both a website and a newspaper. The site is a developing project with a rather young audience, which, according to Avramenko, sooner or later, adapt to the Ukrainian version. Pretty much, just like journalists. It is worth noting that, according to the law, sites shall be loaded in Ukrainian by default, but they may have other versions. At the same time, the volume of the Ukrainian version shall not be lower than that in another language. "That is, there is no global problem with the site even in such mostly Russian-speaking region as Dnipro. But it is much more complicated with the newspaper. Here, I see great difficulties," says Avramenko. According to her, the newspapers audience is over 70 years of age. And every year the age of this audience only increases. Moreover, there's the same situation across Ukraine, not only in Dnipropetrovsk region. "And this audience is not ready to rebuild. It doesn't feel comfortable. This does not mean that they are not patriots or anything. They help the Army, bring posters and postcards to the editorial office, and send money to the front line. But it is difficult for them to adapt due to the fact that they are no longer young," the editor-in-chief explains. In the conversation with UNIAN, Iryna told how three years ago she decided to make a "gift" to her readers. On Day of Ukrainian language, November 9, the volume was entirely in Ukrainian. After that, the newspaper saw a 20% drop in circulation. "You know, if there was such an outflow even after a single issue, then the newspaper will be buried once we switch to Ukrainian completely," she complains. Head of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine, Serhiy Tomilenko, emphasizes: if the state limits itself to the requirements for publishers and does not stimulate citizens' demand for the Ukrainian-language press, we will only get a general reduction in circulation and bankruptcy of editorial boards. "After all, the reader votes with their hryvnias, while the publishing process is an independent market business. Insufficient demand for the publication, the unwillingness of the market to pay for the production of copies in two languages, will lead to the extinction of print media s as such rather than to what the authors of the law hope for," he explains. "I also note that the proposals of the core committee on freedom of speech are completely ignored. And it was through this committee that the publishers suggested introducing a model for phased quoting of volumes of Russian-language content in print media." It should be reminded that in the fall of last year, Rada freedom of speech and information policy committee chief Viktoriya Siumar noted that the introduction of quotas for print media should be gradual so that "the industry has the opportunity to survive, and journalists, layout designers and editors do not lose their jobs." "As an option, two or three years can be given, during which the publication will be made switch to the Ukrainian language, or a phased introduction will be offered (25% of Ukrainian content in the first year, 35% in the second year, and then 50%," the deputy suggested. In turn, member of the board of the International Union "Institute for National Policy," Maryna Bahrova, believes that the implementation of these laws in the media is unlikely to affect the economy of publications. "Now the print media have actually been pushed out by the Internet. As a result, print media, even without the law on the state language, already struggle to survive," she says, adding that it is only a matter of time. The issue of introducing certain norms of the new law for print media should not be reduced only to the issue of greater workload of editors who will have to spend more time translating texts from Russian into Ukrainian. The problem is actually wider. Today the question is once again being voiced on whether the print media (in particular, the regional ones) are able to remain afloat, or will they be forced into oblivion. Iryna Shevchenko Two invaders were killed and another four were wounded on Friday, intelligence reports say. Russia's hybrid military forces in the past 24 hours mounted 23 attacks on Ukrainian army positions in Donbas, with two Ukrainian soldiers reported as wounded in action. Read alsoUkrainian officer posts raw video of double strike on enemy positions in Donbas "Russian proxy forces 23 times attacked Ukrainian positions, including nine times using 120mm and 82mm mortars proscribed by the Minsk Agreements," the press center of Ukraine's Joint Forces Operation said in an update published on Facebook as of 07:00 Kyiv time on April 27, 2019. Russian occupation forces opened fire from cannons of infantry fighting vehicles, antitank missile system, grenade launches of various systems, heavy machine guns and small arms at Joint Forces positions near the towns of Avdiyivka, Maryinka, and Svitlodarsk, as well the villages of Pavlopil, Pisky, Opytne, Chermalyk, Hnutove, Shyrokyne, Luhanske, Krymske, and Stanytsa Luhanska. No enemy shelling was left without an adequate response on the part of Joint Forces, the press center said. According to intelligence reports, two invaders were killed and another four were wounded. The Ukrainian Joint Forces also destroyed a military truck of the Russian proxy forces. Militants wounded one civilian while shelling Chermalyk, the report said. Since Saturday midnight, Russia-led forces have attacked Ukrainian positions twice: near the villages of Novoselivka Druha and Shyrokyne. No Ukrainian army casualties have been reported from the start of the day. Russia-led forces mounted five attacks on the Ukrainian army's positions in Donbas, eastern Ukraine, on April 27. Read alsoTwo Ukrainian soldiers wounded in Donbas amid 23 enemy attacks in past day "There have been no Ukrainian army casualties. Information on the enemy's losses is being clarified," the press center of the Joint Forces Operation (JFO) said in an evening update on Saturday. In the zone of responsibility of the Skhid [East] Operational-Tactical Grouping, militants fired at the strongpoints of the Ukrainian troops from tripod-mounted man-portable antitank guns near the village of Novoselivka Druha; from hand-held anti-tank grenade launchers on the outskirts of Krasnohorivka; and from heavy machine guns and small arms outside the villages of Shyrokyne and Lebedynske. Ukrainian positions near the village of Luhanske in the Pivnich (North) sector came under fire from tripod-mounted man-portable antitank guns. "To hostile provocations, JF units gave an adequate response," the press service said. As UNIAN reported earlier, on April 26, Russian proxy forces 23 times attacked Ukrainian positions, including nine times using 120mm and 82mm mortars proscribed by the Minsk Agreements. Bomb-making materials, dozens of gelignite sticks and thousands of metal balls were found in a search of a separate house in the same area, the military said. The bodies of 15 people, including six children, were discovered at the site of a fierce overnight gun battle on the east coast of Sri Lanka, a military spokesman said on Saturday, six days after suicide bombers killed more than 250 people. The shootout between troops and suspected Islamist militants erupted on Friday evening in Sainthamaruthu in Ampara, to the south of the town of Batticaloa, site of one of the Easter Sunday blasts at three churches and four luxury hotels, Reuters said. Read alsoAt least 49 killed, 20 seriously wounded in New Zealand mosque shootings media A police spokesman said that three suspected suicide bombers were among the 15 dead after the shoot out. One child caught in the crossfire was admitted to hospital. Military spokesman Sumith Atapattu said in a statement that as troops headed towards the safe house three explosions were triggered and gunfire began. "Troops retaliated and raided the safe house where a large cache of explosives had been stored," he said in a statement. He said the militants were suspected members of the domestic Islamist group National Towheed Jama'at (NTJ), which has been blamed for last Sunday's attacks. Bomb-making materials, dozens of gelignite sticks and thousands of metal balls were found in a search of a separate house in the same area, the military said. The government has said nine homegrown, well-educated suicide bombers carried out the Easter Sunday attacks, eight of whom had been identified. One was a woman. Police said on Friday they were trying to track down 140 people they believe have links with Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for the suicide bombings. Police have detained at least 76 people, including foreigners from Syria and Egypt, in their investigations so far. Twenty were arrested in the past 24 hours alone, they said. A switch to permanent daylight saving time will undo any positive effects on sleep of delaying school start times, according to researchers from the University of Surrey. Writing in the journal Current Biology, Professor Anne Skeldon and Professor Derk-Jan Dijk discuss proposals by the California state legislature to introduce permanent daylight saving time (DST) and how this switch could undermine a 2018 vote in the state to delay school start time for teenagers. The vote last year in the California legislature, currently vetoed by the State Governor, prohibited the start of schools before 8:30am in a bid to improve student health and boost graduation rates. Delaying school times has been a contentious issue in North America and Europe with proponents arguing that such a postponement would enable teenagers, who typically go to bed later, to get the recommended amount of sleep, whilst opponents point to the logistical problems that would arise from such a change. DST, the practice of setting the clocks forward one hour from standard time (ST) during the summer months in order to make better use of natural daylight, is also a divisive issue. In March, the European parliament voted to stop changing the clocks, with European Union member states required to decide whether to stay on permanent DST or permanent ST by 2021. California, Florida and Washington are all due to vote on whether to stay on permanent DST. Skeldon and Dijk point out that a switch to permanent DST is incompatible with the aims of delaying school times. They note that a later biological wake time under permanent DST undermines the benefits of delaying school start times on the sleep of teenagers. For example, from a biological perspective, teenagers would find it as hard to get up at 7am under DST as getting up at 6am during. Skeldon and Dijk conclude that the introduction of permanent DST and delaying school start times are contradictory, as teenagers would, on average, lose any sleep benefit gained from a later school start time as a result of the shift to permanent DST, meaning they'd still be getting inadequate levels of sleep. Professor Skeldon, from the Department of Mathematics, said: "Each spring, altering the clocks prompts debate. We enjoy the sudden change to lighter evenings, but we do not find the shift to our schedules easy. However, for our sleep, permanent DST is not the solution. Setting our clocks to DST during the winter month's means that the sun will appear to rise one hour later, leaving even more of us to get up in the hours of darkness. Of course, for those who live predominantly inside, rarely experiencing natural light, a switch to permanent DST will have less of an impact. But these people will also only see limited benefits from delaying school/work start times. "It is complicated, but the impact of switching to permanent daylight saving time on adolescent sleep appears to have been neglected in these considerations." Professor Dijk, Director of the Surrey Sleep Research Centre, commented: "Many of us are confused about clock and circadian time, but for the sake of our health and well-being it is about time we get our heads around it." MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 27th April, 2019) Paraguay is beginning its defense industry cooperation with Russia, the country's Deputy Defense Minister Gladys Ruiz Vda De Pecci told Sputnik. "The current state of the defense industry cooperation with Russia is in its budding stage. We are just beginning. And I believe it will strengthen in the future because the Russian government is inclined [to boost it]," Pecci who participated in the Moscow Security Conference earlier this week, said on Friday. Such Paraguayan-Russian cooperation might first be focused on training of personnel, Pecci added. The deputy defense minister also did not rule out peacekeeping cooperation in various regions of the world. Paraguayan Defense Minister Bernardino Soto Estigarribia had been unable to arrive in Moscow for attending the conference this time, but he might visit Russia in the near future, Pecci suggested. The eighth Moscow Conference on International Security was held from Tuesday to Thursday. It was attended by over 1,000 guests from 111 countries, including major experts, 35 delegations led by defense ministers and 19 delegations headed by chiefs of staff. (@FahadShabbir) Abu Dhabi Fund for Development, ADFD, the leading national entity for development aid, signed a US$10 million (AED36.7 million) concessionary loan agreement with the Government of Burkina Faso to fund that countrys Rural Electrification Project ABU DHABI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 24th Apr, 2019) Abu Dhabi Fund for Development, ADFD, the leading national entity for development aid, signed a US$10 million (AED36.7 million) concessionary loan agreement with the Government of Burkina Faso to fund that countrys Rural Electrification Project. In the presence of Roch Marc Christian Kabore, Burkina Faso President, Mohammed Saif Al Suwaidi, Director General of ADFD, and Alpha Barry, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of Burkina Faso signed the loan agreement at the ADFD headquarters in Abu Dhabi. Other senior representatives of the two entities attended the signing ceremony. The 3.6 MW solar energy venture is part of the third cycle of the IRENA/ADFD Project Facility, a joint undertaking of ADFD and the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) that supports renewable energy projects in developing countries. Expected to supply 42 villages in rural Burkina Faso with mini-grids, grid extensions and solar home system technologies, the project will benefit more than 73,000 people through electricity provision for households, businesses, health and education facilities. Speaking on the occasion, Mohammed Saif Al Suwaidi said: "ADFDs funding mechanisms are designed to foster sustainable growth in key socio-economic sectors that help elevate living standards in developing countries. To deliver on that promise, the Fund views the advancement of renewable energy as a top priority." He added: "We are proud to work together with the Burkina Faso government to bring the crucial Rural Electrification Project online. Through revolutionising agriculture, this venture will go a long way in supporting the local economy, in addition to generating jobs and improving livelihoods." Alpha Barry commended ADFD for its role in supporting the national priorities outlined by the Government of Burkina Faso. He added that as a key component of the countrys development plans, the project will help the West African country mitigate its dependence on diesel fuel, safeguard the environment through preventing the emission of 2,500 tons of CO2 per year, and provide people with access to electricity. Since 2012, ADFD has committed US$350 million in concessionary loans over seven annual funding cycles to renewable energy projects recommended by IRENA. To date, the Facility has provided ADFD-funded loans with a total value of US$245 million to 24 projects over six cycles. Its worth mentioning that ADFD activities in Burkina Faso backdated to 1998, since then ADFD has financed two development projects with a total value of approximately AED53 million, spanning crucial sectors, such as energy, water and agriculture. Prime Minister Imran Khan Friday reiterated the importance Pakistan attached to the closer ties and enhanced collaboration with Tajikistan in diverse fields BEIJING, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 26th Apr, 2019 ) :Prime Minister Imran Khan Friday reiterated the importance Pakistan attached to the closer ties and enhanced collaboration with Tajikistan in diverse fields. In a meeting with President of Tajikistan, Emomali Rahmon on sidelines of the Second Belt and Road Forum, the two leaders also discussed matters relating to connectivity and energy cooperation. Both leaders exchanged views on political relations, high-level exchanges, trade and economic interaction and regional situation. They also reviewed the progress of CASA-1000 project and resolved to ensure its timely completion. The two sides agreed to intensify bilateral exchanges to further boost bilateral collaboration in the field of energy and other areas. Minister for Foreign Affairs, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Minister for Railways Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, Minister for Water Resources Muhammad Faisal Vawda, Minister for Planning, Khusro Bakhtiar, Advisor on Finance Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh and Advisor on Commerce Abdul Razaq Dawood were present during the meeting. The Vice-President of the Episcopal Conference of Angola and Sao Tome (CEAST) has reiterated his concern that certain "religious sects" and "Kimbandas" (traditional healers) in Angola exploit and are fueling false hopes by promising to cure all diseases including HIV/AIDS. Anastacio Sasembele - Luanda, Angola The Archbishop of Saurimo, in the capital of the Lunda Sul province, Jose Manuel Imbamba, has urged Angolan authorities to urgently take adequate and effective measures to thwart the spread of HIV/AIDS by increasing public awareness of the pandemic. False promises of cures for HIV / AIDS The Archbishop has said part of this awareness must be the condemnation of the behaviour of some "religious sects" and "Kimbandas" (traditional healers) who make false promises of being "empowered" to cure HIV / AIDS with only water, oil, or by word of prophecy. Action to combat the pandemic should also be accompanied by increased free distribution of drugs and awareness of the causes, prevention methods and effects of HIV / AIDS, especially in schools, military units and centres of higher population concentration, says the Archbishop. The Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Cardinal Angelo Becciu, presides over the beatification in Argentina of Bishop Enrique Angelelli, Fr Carlos Murias, Fr Gabriel Longueville, and lay catechist Wenceslao Pedernera. All were assassinated in 1976 during Argentinas dirty war. By Sean-Patrick Lovett The first person to call them martyrs was the then Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Bergoglio, when he celebrated a memorial Mass for them in the Cathedral of La Rioja. Bishop Angelelli shed his blood for preaching the Gospel, said the future Pope Francis in his homily, and the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. The meaning of martyrdom On Saturday morning, Cardinal Angelo Becciu, returned to the meaning of martyrdom when he celebrated their Beatification Mass in La Rioja City Park. Their witness frustrates the claim to live selfishly or to build a model of society that is closed and without reference to moral and spiritual values, he said. The Martyrs exhort usto be heralds of peace, agents of justice, and witnesses of solidarity. Who are these modern martyrs? Bishop Enrique Angelelli was the son of Italian immigrants. His pastoral work, first in Cordoba and later in La Rioja, always focused on the poor and the oppressed. This was Argentina in the mid-1970s, the start of what came to be known as the dirty war, when right-wing death squads kidnapped, tortured and assassinated anyone suspected of being a political or ideological threat. 30,000 people disappeared, mostly students, trade unionists, journalists, artists, and sometimes priests. Conventual Franciscan, Fr Carlos de Dios Murias, and French missionary, Fr Gabriel Longueville, worked together in the same rural parish, championing issues of social justice. In July 1976, they were tortured to death and their bodies left mutilated. A week later, a lay catechist, Wenceslao Pedernera, was shot to death in front of his wife and three daughters. Its my turn next Bishop Angelelli understood he was on a death squad list and would often say: Its my turn next. On 4 August 1976, he was driving back home after celebrating Mass for the two murdered priests, when his truck was overturned and he was murdered at the side of the road. In 2014 an Argentine Court confirmed that his assassination was a premeditated act and the result of State-sponsored terrorism. In his homily at the Beatification Mass, Cardinal Becciu added that all four men were killed because of their active efforts to promote Christian justice. At the time of their murder, he continued, civil authorities did all they could to obstruct commitment to social justice and to promoting the dignity of the human person. Models of Christian life The Cardinal called these four Blesseds models of Christian life. The example of Bishop Angelelli, he said, teaches today's pastors to exercise their ministry with burning charity, remaining strong in faith. The example of the two priests, he added, exhorts today's priests not to compromise, to remain faithful at all costs. The father of the family, he concluded, teaches the laity to distinguish themselves by the transparency of their faith, letting themselves be guided by it. Migrants will go on hunger strike as pressure for the US grant asylums (ANSA) Thousands of Central American migrants in Mexico are in need of assistance. By Vatican News Pope Francis has donated 500,000 dollars to assist migrants in Mexico. The funds, from the Peters Pence collections, will be distributed among 27 projects promoted by sixteen Mexican dioceses and religious congregations, which requested assistance in continuing to provide food, lodging, and basic necessities to the migrants. US border closed According to a statement from Peters Pence, In recent months, thousands of migrants have arrived in Mexico, having travelled more than 4,000 kilometres on foot and with makeshift vehicles from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. Men and women, often with young children, flee poverty and violence, hoping for a better future in the United States. However, the US border remains closed to them. Diminished aid and media coverage In particular, the aid is intended to assist the more than 75,000 people who arrived in Mexico in 2018, in six migrant caravans. All these people were stranded, unable to enter the United States, without a home or livelihood, the statement reads. The Catholic Church hosts thousands of them in hotels within the dioceses or religious congregations, providing basic necessities, from housing to clothing. Although a great deal of attention was focused on the caravans at the time, the Peters Pence statement notes that media coverage of this emergency has been decreasing, and as a result, aid to migrants by the government and private individuals has also decreased. Transparent use of donations The statement from Peters Pence insists that a regulated and transparent use of the resources, which must be accounted for, is required before the aid is assigned. It notes that thirteen projects have already been approved, with another fourteen currently being evaluated. Thanks to these projects, the statement concludes, and thanks to Christian charity and solidarity, the Mexican Bishops hope to be able to continue helping our migrant brothers and sisters. To contribute to the projects with your donations, please click on the following link: http://www.peterspence.va/en/dona.html Pope Francis on April 27 received in audience in the Vatican some 100 presidents and representatives of the Union of the Provinces of Italy (UPI). By Robin Gomes Pope Francis on Saturday encouraged public authorities in their commitment to the common good working for a truly sustainable development and caring for our common home, the Earth. Roads and schools You are well aware of the importance of safe schools and roads for regular civil life and as an indispensable background for any orderly development, the Pope told some 100 representatives of the Union of the Provinces of Italy (UPI) on Saturday. The Pope noted that the union that brings together all the provinces of Italy are committed to the common good, largely through safeguarding the soil, especially in risk-prone areas, maintaining road networks that link small towns with large cities, and managing secondary schools and their safety and operation. Investing money and human resources wisely in order to prevent disruption, dysfunction and degradation, he pointed out, can lead to substantial saving and economic advantage. These tasks carried out through various sectors should ensure that environmental conditions, such as of roads and schools, dont deteriorate through neglect or, lack of necessary maintenance or measures. Science and technology, not enough The Pope noted that we could be made to believe that rapid progress in technology and science, together with the free initiative of individuals, can help meet the various needs of individuals and of society, leading to a harmonious society where there is no marginalization, poverty and exclusion. Rather, he pointed out, alongside benefits and positive developments, there could also be imbalances and marginalization, which at times even increase, and which need to be addressed with the intelligent commitment and solidarity of all. This calls for action from civil society groups and associations and the conscious and constant action of public authorities at various levels. Environment and our common home The Pope underscored the need for the promotion and dissemination of a more urgent and conscious awareness for the environment. The importance of caring for the common home in all its aspects, he said, needs to be increasingly felt by both individuals and their representatives in institutions. While thanking the provinces for their donation to his charity, Pope Francis encouraged them in their task of a truly sustainable development. Panchos Mexican Restaurant, located in Downtown Summerlin, will honor all veterans and active-duty service members with special discounts throughout the month of May (Pictured: Panchos Chile Poblano del Mar Photo credit: Chris Wessling). To kick off the month, veterans and active-duty military service members who present a valid military ID will receive a 20 percent discount on Wednesday, May 1, as well as a 10 percent discount throughout May. Guests can enjoy Panchos signature creations including Chile Poblano Del Mar, a green chile poblano stuffed with crab meat and shrimp, sauteed with garlic, onions and tomatoes, and topped with green tomatillo sauce and melted cheese, served with Mexican-style rice and black beans; and Beer-Battered Fish Tacos, two corn tortillas filled with crispy Mahi-Mahi, shredded cabbage, pico de gallo and chipotle sour cream, served with Mexican-style rice and beans. An apartment building in the Nam Trung Yen Urban Area in Cau Giay District's Trung Hoa Commune. - VNS Photo Doan Tung The HoREA also proposed the rate should be reduced to 37 per cent starting from January 1, 2021; 34 per cent from July 1, 2021; and 30 per cent from July 1, 2022. The moves were announced after the SBV released a draft circular stipulating that the maximum ratio of short-term funds used for medium- and long-term loans at banks would be reduced from the current 45 per cent to 40 per cent from 2019 to June 30, 2020. Under the SBVs draft circular, the rates of 37 per cent and 30 per cent will be applied from July 1, 2020 and July 1, 2021, respectively. According to the HoREA, the amendments will damage the real estate market as property enterprises are in dire need of medium- and long-term loans. It explained that due to the large proportion of short-term capital in banks total mobilised capital, banks will find it difficult to meet the demands of the real estate market. The HoREA said real estate firms in developed countries have raised capital from investment funds and stock markets. Bank loans are mainly provided to homebuyers. However, in Vietnam, property companies are dependent on bank loans and capital mobilised in advance from homebuyers, while most homebuyers also take loans from banks. The local stock market has yet to become a major channel of capital access for real estate enterprises as the number of listed property firms is small. Only some 65 out of more than 1,000 real estate firms are listed on the stock market, the HoREA said. Real estate investment funds and the stock market are unable to meet the high demand for capital in the property sector. Vietnam currently has only one investment fund for the sector, Techcom Vietnam Real Estate Investment Trust, an arm of Vietnam Technological and Commercial Joint Stock Bank, with charter capital of only VND50 billion (US$2.14 million). The foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow to the local real estate market is also limited and does not meet capital demands, though it accounts for some 21 per cent of the countrys total FDI value, the HoREA said. It expects the application of the amended Law on Securities this year to create favourable conditions for the establishment of real estate investment funds and trusts to provide capital for the local market. According to the Law on Real Estate Business, investors in property projects must provide at least 15 per cent of the equity or 20 per cent of the investment capital. The remaining 80-85 per cent of capital can be mobilised from banks or customers. Overview of the conference (Photo: VNA) At the meeting, themed Nghe An-Japan Meeting: Cooperation and Development, Chairman of the provincial Peoples Committee Thai Thanh Quy reported that total Japanese-funded programmes and projects in the province has reached 44 with a combined investment of nearly 5.1 trillion VND (219.3 million USD). Currently, the province is hosting seven Japanese FDI projects with a total capital of 72.19 million USD, mostly in limestone mining, food processing, and garment and textile, he said. The provincial leader called on Japanese businesses to strengthen investment in tourism, industry, agriculture, trade, services, education and training, and health care. Japanese Ambassador to Vietnam Umeda Kunio said that in the future, Japan will support and invest in Nghe An in tourism and education-training. He expressed his hope that Nghe An will create optimal conditions for partnership between the two sides. Addressing the event, Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue said that the conference is a chance for the two sides to seek measures to boost their collaboration in economy, trade, agriculture, education-training, and culture. The Vietnam-Japan relationship is now in the best period since the two sides set up their diplomatic relations, with strong partnership from central to local levels, he noted. He said he hopes that through the conference, Japanese investors will get a better understanding of Nghe An and promote their investment and operation in the province, while making plans for long-term operation in the locality. Hue asked leaders of Nghe An to work harder to improve its business and investment environment, speed up administrative reform at all levels, design policies to attract resources, and promote the transformation of economic structure and growth model. Local firms should be more creative and strengthen their connections to meet the demand of Japanese investors, while popularizing the potential for cooperation and business in their locality, he said. Hue suggested that Nghe An should organise the event twice a year to deal with obstacles facing bilateral affiliation in a timely manner. Solar power panels. Illustrative image (Photo: VNA) Built by the Thien Tan investment construction JSC with an investment of nearly 900 billion VND (38.66 million USD), the Mo Duc solar power plant has a capacity of 19.2 MW. It uses the advanced FTC Solar technology of the US. Vice Chairman of Quang Ngai provinces Peoples Committee Nguyen Tang Binh said the plant will supply clean power for the national power grid, helping ease the pressure of rising power demand. He instructed the provinces departments and agencies to implement policies and legal documents on developing the abundant solar power source, contributing to local socio-economic development. Workers install solar pannels on rooftop of a residential house. The HCM City Power Corporations subsidiary, Sai Gon Power Company, has signed contracts with households installing solar power panels on their rooftop in districts 1 and 3 to buy electricity from them.-VNA/VNS Photo Thanh Tan Contracts will be signed in other districts in future, the company, a subsidiary of the HCM City Power Corporation (EVNHCMC), has said. Under a 2017 Prime Ministerial Decision on incentives for solar power projects, EVNHCMC has provided assistance and encouragement to people for installing solar panels. Lingering problems related to buying and selling solar power as well as tariffs seem to be solved thanks to a new circular to be issued next month by the Ministry of Trade and Industry, according to EVNHCMC. It will buy electricity from households at VND2,134 (US$0.09) per kilowatt hour. The price will be fixed every year. The payments will start in May and be done via their bank accounts. As of now, 1,432 households with rooftop solar panels with a combined capacity of 17.46MWp have connected to the city grid. At VND2,134/kWh, EVNHCMC will have to pay more than VND8.5 billion ($369,565) a month. It seeks to increase the capacity to 50MWp to 80MWp this year, Nguyen Ngoc Tuong Vi, acting head of its trade board, said. More than 18,000 potential customers are likely to install solar panels. Besides, according to the World Bank, there is potential to install 150-200MW of solar systems along the citys highways. EVNHCMC has promised to assist everyone who wants to install solar panels by simplifying administrative procedures to connect to the grid and making payments in time for the power it buys. It has called on banks, manufacturers and international and domestic organisations to encourage more people to install solar panels. Dang Ngoc Quoc Bao of EVNHCMC told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that before installing solar panels, people should contact the local office of the power utility for assistance. There is a fear that too many households in an area could install them while the cable network and transformer stations there are unable to handle them, leading to overloading, he said. Nguyen Thanh Vinh who installed solar panels on his roof said he is happy to be paid for power and the tariff is clear. His company also uses solar power, he said. In the Central Highlands and central regions, 330 families have installed solar panels with a total capacity of more than 2.1 MWp and connected to the grid, according to Vietnam Electricity's Central Power Corporation. Director General of the Foreign Investment Agency Do Nhat Hoang speaking at the Symposium. Photo: MPI Speaking at the Symposium, Director General of the Foreign Investment Agency Do Nhat Hoang said that 2018 marked a tremendously significant milestone - 30 years of attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) in Vietnam and 45 years of establishing Vietnam-Japan friendship. The relationship between the two countries has been constantly developing, becoming strategic partners in all fields, especially in economy, trade and investment. Japan is the country with the largest official development assistance (ODA) for Vietnam, the second largest foreign investor, the third largest partner in tourism and the fourth largest trading partner of Vietnam. Director General Do Nhat Hoang said that, for three consecutive years (2016-2018), SMRJ has collaborated with the Ministry of Planning and Investment to successfully organize business delegations to visit and attend exhibitions in fields of information technology, transportation, electronics, auxiliary industries which were held in Japan. According to the Foreign Investment Agencys statistics, by the end of 2018, Japan is the second-largest investor over 130 countries and territories investing in Vietnam with 3,996 projects and a total investment of 57 billion USD that mainly concentrated in fields of manufacturing and processing industries, real estate and services, etc. It can be said that the investment capital flow from Japan into Vietnam has contributed significantly to the socio-economic development of Vietnam in a sustainable way. Many Japanese corporations have been present in Vietnam with reputable products with high technology and skill, contributing to the replacement of imported goods, enhancing exports, boosting growth and Vietnams position in the world. At the Symposium. Photo: MPI Speaking at the Symposium, Head of SME Support Department, SMRJ, Mr. Higuchi, said that this is a meaningful event for sharing information about the need to find partners of some Japanese enterprises and introducing J-Goodtech - an online business matching platform. This is an effective connection channel, saving time, cost as well as human resources between the foreign small and medium enterprises in general and those of Vietnam in particular, from that, we will boost the connectivity between Japanese and Vietnamese enterprises, the two sides will become partners of each other. At the Symposium, a number of discussion sessions took place, such as: sharing some information, business sectors that are currently trading, operating, the targets when cooperating with Japanese enterprises, the achievements of successful connection and cooperation with Japanese enterprises through participating in connection activities, advantageous and disadvantageous points in the process of cooperation and connection, etc. Grains by the lb can generally be had for a reasonable price. They also generally qualify for free and flat rate shipping when a retailer offers that. Full 50 or 55 lb sacks of malt are another story altogether. The per lb price of sacks can be tempting, but shipping charges can be confiscatory. Limited Time Deal, Article Continues Below: Great Fermentations is discounting select items by up to 50% off as part of a short holiday sale. Great Fermentations Holiday Sale Briess 2 Row Malt is included in the mix and on sale for $1.39 per lb. Shipping is free with a $55 order to addresses in the contiguous US. Order 40 lbs and youll qualify for free shipping. This is a big savings when it comes to bulk grain. BRIESS 2-ROW MALT 40 lbs for $55.60 with free shipping! Bulk Malt Deal Tips and Tricks Look at Total Cost Price per lb delivered to your door is the most important thing when it comes to value. Biting on a low cost sack of grain with high shipping is equally as bad as biting on a high cost sack of grain with free shipping. Compare total cost. If free or flat rate shipping is an option always makes sure to put together an order that qualifies for discounted shipping. Deals can periodically found on Amazon Offerings and prices can vary wildly, but its worth a quick look when it comes time to buying grain. Buy Local-ish Look for a shop in the same general geographic location. It makes sense that shipping from one state away would cost less than shipping across the country. This isnt always the case, but its a good place to start. Try the following shops, each has general geographic area to help 10 lb Bags at Williams Brewing Williams Brewing has select malt available in 10 lb bags. These qualify for their free or flat shipping. Buy 5 x 10 lb bags and you have the equivalent of a sack of grain. Base Malt in 10 Pound Bags Deal on All Grain Kits Adventures in Homebrewing discounts seasonal homebrew beer recipe kits by 20%. Selections include both all grain and extract options. Shipping is free to many US addresses with a qualifying order. 20% Off Seasonal All Grain Kits | 20% Off Seasonal Extract Kits Make a Friend, Get a Great Deal on Grain Make friends with your local brewery or brew pub and they just might let you purchase grain from them a great price. Bulk Grain Storage Options Vittles Vault Review! Grain Mill Reviews All Grain-Related Reviews: A collection of reviews that weve tagged as directly or indirectly related to all grain brewing Hands on Review: Vittles Vault Stackable Storage Bins for Homebrew Grain Storage! Make sure the components you use are compatible and rated for your intended application. Contact manufacturer with questions about suitability or a specific application. Always read and follow manufacturer directions. top:bulkgrain tag:itsapage tag:tpr About 600 mostly Cuban migrants who were part of a mass escape from a southern Mexico immigration detention center a day earlier remained at large Friday evening, immigration authorities said. Mexicos National Immigration Institute said in a statement that rather than the 1,300 escapees it reported Thursday night, only 645 migrants had actually fled. It said only 35 of those who escaped had returned without explaining why it had lowered its figures. The center was holding 1,745 people at the time, nearly double its capacity, the statement said. The escape began with Cuban migrants escaping their holding area into an area reserved for women, who were mostly Honduran. That caused a commotion and migrants gained access to other parts of the detention center before eventually making it to the main entrance. Immigration agents were unarmed and unable to intervene. Demand for better conditions Hours after the mass escape, throngs of detained migrants raised their fists in the air Friday and chanted, We want food! We want out! It was the largest mass escape from a Mexican immigration center in memory and the latest example of how the government has become overloaded by a flood of Central American, Cuban and Haitian immigrants. Residents of Tapachula, a city on Mexicos southern border with Guatemala, reported seeing hundreds of migrants running through the streets late Thursday, some only half dressed, some cramming themselves into passing minivans to escape. Laisel Gomez Cabrera, a Cuban who now lives in Texas, was worried about his wife, Anisleidys Sosa Almeida, who has been held at the center for weeks. Gomez Cabrera said he suspected authorities may have opened the gates Thursday night to let migrants flee as a way of reducing pressure on the system, knowing that those who left would no longer be allowed to apply for any kind of humanitarian visa, asylum or residence permit in Mexico. All the ones who left are going to get put on a red list, Gomez Cabrera said. If they catch them again, they are going to be subject to automatic deportation. Women, children transferred Buses arrived Thursday and Friday apparently to take women and children out of the overcrowded facility. But while conditions may improve somewhat, the prospect of deportation drives the Cuban families to despair. In January 2017, the outgoing administration of U.S. President Barack Obama scrapped longstanding rules under which Cubans who reached American soil were automatically allowed to apply to remain. The end of the so-called wet-foot, dry-foot policy means U.S. immigration authorities now treat Cubans more like immigrants from other countries, although Cubans still are more likely to be granted asylum. Cubans also still retain the right to apply for residency after a year in the U.S., a privilege other nationalities do not receive. Aid groups scrambled Saturday to assess the damage in northern Mozambique as heavy rains fueled fears of flooding and mudslides two days after the second cyclone hit the southern African country within six weeks. Cyclone Kenneth made landfall Thursday, with sustained winds of 220 kilometers per hour, prompting aid group warnings of massive flooding and mudslides that could put nearly 700,000 people in southern Africa at risk. Emergency workers arrived Saturday morning in Pemba, a port town and the capital of the country's Cabo Delgado Province, to assess the damage. Authorities said almost 3,500 homes in the most northern part of the province were damaged or destroyed. After an assessment was done in the province's Macomia district, Daw Mohamed of the global humanitarian aid group CARE said, "The entire area is a scene of vast destruction," and that people were in need of food, water and shelter. In addition to heavy damage in the Macomia community, aid groups said the communities of Quissanga and Mocimboa da Praia were also of great concern. Aid agencies said they continued to struggle to reach victims amid the heavy downpours and that rescuers were hindered by damaged infrastructure, poor communications and the lack of transportation. "We need a lot of support," said Captain Kleber Castro, who is with a Brazilian team assisting with the rescue efforts. "If you can help us, we need support from helicopters." The government said Kenneth claimed the lives of at least five people including a woman in Pemba, who was killed by a falling tree. Before reaching Mozambique, Kenneth swept over the island nation of Comoros, killing three people. Information about the fifth death was not immediately available. The government also said about 90 percent of the homes on the island of Ibo, home to about 6,000 people, were destroyed. Kenneth pounded Mozambique barely a month after Cyclone Idai struck the country, killing more than 1,000 people in Mozambique and in neighboring Zimbabwe and Malawi. The U.N. labeled Idai as "one of the deadliest storms on record in the southern hemisphere." This is the first time in recorded history that Mozambique was hit by two cyclones in one season, further raising concerns about climate change. As communities in Mozambique are still reeling from Idai, residents and emergency workers are bracing for remnants of Kenneth, which could continue to dump twice as much as rain as Idai did in the coming days, the U.N. said. Some forecasters warn as much as 250 millimeters (10 inches) of rain, about one-fourth of the average annual rainfall for the region, could deluge the region. The assault on Tripoli launched April 4 by Libya's would-be strongman Khalifa Haftar, a Gadhafi-era general, and his self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) appeared Friday to be flagging, with his forces withdrawing from some of the capital's southern suburbs amid heavy clashes. Leaders of the country's beleaguered, internationally recognized government are dismissing a behind-the-scenes effort by the U.N. special envoy, Ghassan Salame, for a cease-fire, suggesting they are more confident now of retaining their hold on the Libyan capital. "It felt like thunder was going to split my house," Libyan-American Holima El Haj, a mother of two, told VOA by phone. "I was crying, and I don't normally do that." Muhanad Younis, the spokesman for the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA), told reporters there's no question of a cease-fire. He said Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj was determined to thwart the assault on the capital led by Haftar, who's allied with a rival government in the east of the North African country. There will be "no negotiations or dialogue until after defeating the aggressors," al-Serraj said. Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, told reporters in New York that there's "grave concern" about "the indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas in Tripoli" and urged all parties to protect civilians. According to the International Organization for Migration, more than 39,000 people have been displaced by the clashes. Much of the fighting now, according to government military officials who discussed the flow and ebb of the battles, has been focusing on the suburb of Ain Zara in southern Tripoli. There have also been reports of fierce fighting around Wadi Rabea and Tripoli International Airport. GNA officials say Tripoli forces have been gaining ground and threaten to cut off LNA supply lines running from Gharian, a town 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of Tripoli, which is serving as the LNA's forward headquarters for the assault on Tripoli. "We won't agree to a cease-fire," Abdulraham El Mansouri, an adviser to the GNA, told VOA. "If we agree to one, Haftar will only use the time to regroup his forces, and we won't allow that." He said the forces loyal to the GNA, which are made up mainly of an assortment of fighters drawn from the powerful and battle-hardened militias of Tripoli and Misrata, won't stop fighting during the holy month of Ramadan, due to start on the evening May 5. "We won't stop until we have driven Haftar all the way back to Benghazi and Tobruk, and we'll finish him there." Some independent analysts agree that Tripoli now may be beyond Haftar. His forces are "dangerously stretched," said Federica Saini Fasanotti, an analyst with the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank. She said LNA soldiers captured by forces loyal to the Tripoli government "are very young and clearly not up to the task." Many of the fighters the LNA is battling are veterans of the 2011 uprising against Col. Moammar Gadhafi. Haftar's forces are also drawn from less cohesive groups, including mercenaries from Chad and Sudan. The edge Haftar does have, say analysts, is in the backing he's receiving from Egypt and the United Arab Emirates in terms of supplies, which appear to include armed drones. "Haftar definitely overestimated his strength and underestimated his adversary," said Karim Mezran, an analyst with the Atlantic Council's Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East. His offensive prompted the country's most powerful western militias from Tripoli, Misrata and Zintan frequently at odds with each other in the past to join forces in support of al-Serraj, he said. But Mezran and other analysts say the GNA forces are probably incapable of capturing the LNA loyalist cities of Benghazi and Tobruk if Haftar is forced to withdraw from around Tripoli. "The United States, so far, along with Italy and Britain, has had a very straightforward position: There is no military solution possible in Libya, only a U.N.-backed negotiations process," said Mezran. Last week, it emerged that U.S. President Donald Trump might be considering reversing Washington's position. In a phone call with Haftar, the U.S. leader praised the general for his fight against the Islamic State and other jihadists. Bloomberg News reported Trump told Haftar he supported an attack on Tripoli. But State Department officials told VOA that U.S. policy remains the same: Only a negotiated settlement can end conflict in Libya. The U.N.'s special envoy to Libya, Salame, told reporters in Rome on Friday that he was exploring ways "to convince the parties to the conflict to stop fighting and resume the political process." He added: "The U.N. continues its role in Libya. We have been providing assistance to thousands of families affected by the fighting to be relocated to safer areas. The mission continues efforts to bring together the various parties in hope that they can recognize, before Ramadan, that it is better to stick to the political process than further fighting where there is no winner while the country is losing." With the Islamic State's physical caliphate destroyed, the next challenge for many countries is what to do with hundreds of children of IS militants stranded in Kurdish-held refugee camps of northeastern Syria. Those born to IS foreign fighters and Syrian mothers face the most uncertain future of all, according to local rights activists and experts. The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced the final victory over IS in March after weeks of clashes in the eastern Syrian town of Baghuz. The operation brought many thousands of people to a makeshift refugee camp called al-Hol, consisting of fleeing civilians, arrested IS fighters and their family members. The camp managers are holding 10,000 women and children with ties to IS foreign fighters in a separate area of the camp, with children under 12 accounting for about 65% of this group, according to the International Committee for the Red Cross. Hannah Grigg, a researcher at the Syria Justice and Accountability Center, told VOA those in the group who are born to IS foreign fighters and Syrian mothers could end up stateless as it remains uncertain which parent's nationality each can obtain. "That is a huge challenge going forward for these children added to the social stigma because they are associated with IS," Grigg said. She noted that many of these children do not have strong claims to citizenship in their patriarchs' home countries. Similarly, Syrian nationality laws do not allow citizenship claims based on mother's nationality. Even if the Syrian state amends its rules to grant them citizenship, Grigg argued, many of the children are carrying their fathers' physical features, making them stand out as foreigners with little hope of making their way into the society. Grass-roots campaigns Many activists in Syria are organizing initiatives to face this problem among many other issues left behind by IS. One of the campaigns "Who is Your Husband?" is trying to help reintegrate the Syrian women and children born to IS foreign fighters to the society by helping educate communities. The group, based in the northwestern governorate of Idlib, has documented more than 1,700 women married to foreign fighters, who joined IS or al-Qaida-aligned militants. It vows to continue its efforts, despite threats from the Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group. Naseeb Abdul Aziz, the manager of the campaign, told VOA his team also is investigating the reasons that pushed Syrian women to marry the foreign fighters sometimes despite their families' strong objections. They also work on raising women's awareness about the perils of such marriages and the consequences for their children. "Many of these foreign fighters either fled or were killed without knowing their real identities, leaving these women and children to deal with their families, societies and fate," said Aziz. "These children remain without any civil rights. They will be deprived from their rights of having an identity, going to school and finding a job," he said, adding that will be just one dimension of the difficult challenges facing Syria in the future. In addition, Aziz pointed to dealing with undocumented marriages and unregistered children, along with the deradicalization of women and children brainwashed by extremist ideology. Pressure on camps Officials in the Kurdish-controlled northeast region say an immediate solution for the detained IS relatives is necessary, particularly for the children who are facing diseases caused by poor living conditions. WATCH: Thousands of Children Face Peril in Syrian Camps Recent figures by the United Nations show that since December 2018, 211 children have died at the al-Hol camp or en route to it because of malnutrition or illness. Samar Hussein, the co-chair of the Social Affairs and Labor Office of the Kurdish self-proclaimed administration in northeastern Syria, said many children and their mothers at the camp are sleeping in the open air without enough food or water. He pledged to seek international assistance to address the humanitarian needs of the refugees and their ultimate evacuation. "We are in the process of discussing their fate with the Committee of Foreign Affairs in the self-autonomous region and also with the international coalition," Hussein told VOA. Both the U.N. and the U.S. government have repeatedly asked that other governments take responsibility for repatriating IS foreign fighters estimated to be 1,000 jihadists from more than 40 countries, along with their relatives. Many countries remain reluctant to take them back, however, citing the difficulty of prosecuting the suspected fighters because of the hurdles involved in gathering battlefield evidence. Myanmar's defacto leader and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi is welcoming businesses to invest in Rakhine State, more than a year and a half since a brutal military crackdown forced hundreds of thousands of minority Rohingya Muslims to flee into neighboring Bangladesh. Despite the push for investment, many residents in Rakhine State worry they will not see any of the benefits. Libby Hogan has this report from Kyaukpyu Beach in Rakhine State. Hundreds of people turned up for a protest vigil outside Cyprus presidential palace Friday to mourn seven women and girls who police say a military officer confessed to killing and to question if authorities failed to adequately investigate when foreign workers were reported missing. The protests organizer used a bullhorn to read out the victims names as well as those of other missing women, and others at the memorial shouted Where are they? in response. Some participants held placards decrying sexist, misogynist and racist attitudes about women who work as housekeepers or in low-paying service jobs. What everybody wants is justice In a poignant moment, a group of tearful Filipino women held lighted candles and bowed their heads in prayer for the three women and one child of Filipino descent who are believed to be among the victims. A 35-year-old Cypriot National Guard captain is in custody facing multiple homicide charges. I felt obliged to do something for these women, all the missing women, all the killed women, protest organizer Maria Mappouridou said. I think deep down, all that we want, what everybody wants, is justice. Federation of Filipino Organizations in Cyprus chair Ester Beatty said she hoped the event, and the tragedy of the deaths, raise public awareness about migrant workers. Right now, its really difficult for us to accept what has happened, what is going on. Beatty said. We still need a lot of answers. Cases go back years Beattys group held a silent prayer vigil last Sunday, a week after the discovery of a Filipino womans body in an abandoned mineshaft triggered the investigation that led to the captains arrest. Police identified her as Mary Rose Tiburcio, 38. Tiburcio and her 6-year-old daughter had been missing since May of last year. Investigators zeroed in on the captain as a suspect and arrested him after scouring Tiburcios online messages. While investigating her death and searching for Tiburcios daughter, police found another body in the flooded mineshaft 32 kilometers (20 miles) west of the capital, Nicosia. Cypriot media have identified the victim as 28-year-old Arian Palanas Lozano, also from the Philippines. Investigators now think the missing 6-year-old was killed, too. On Thursday, the suspect told them while under questioning about four more victims and gave directions to a military firing range. The body of a woman, who according to the suspect was of Nepalese or Indian descent, was found buried there. From the suspects statements and information from the investigation, Cypriot police think the other three victims they know about so far are a 31-year-old Filipino woman who has been missing since December 2017, Maricar Valtez Arquiola, and a Romanian mother and daughter. Cypriot media identified the mother as Livia Florentina Bunea, 36, and her 8-year-old daughter as Elena Natalia Bunea. The two are believed to have been missing since September 2016. Cyprus horrified Police said the suspect will appear in court Saturday for another custody hearing. He cant be named because he hasnt been charged with any crimes yet. The scale of the ones he allegedly committed has horrified people in Cyprus, a small nation with a population of just more than a million people where multiple slayings are rare. President Nicos Anastasiades said Friday that he shared the publics revulsion at murders that appear to have selectively targeted foreign women who are in our country to work. Such instincts are contrary to our cultures traditions and values, Anastasiades said in a statement from China, where he was on an official visit. As the president spoke, investigators intensified the search for bodies of victims at the firing range, a reservoir and a man-made lake near the abandoned copper pyrite mine. Five British law enforcement officials, including a coroner, a psychiatrist and investigators who specialize in multiple homicides, were coming to Cyprus to help with the investigation. VOA's Steve Herman contributed to this report from the White House. One person is dead and three others wounded by a man who entered a synagogue Saturday in Poway, California and opened fire. At a news conference, San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore said a white male entered the synagogue shortly before 11:30 a.m. PDT and opened fire with an AR-type assault weapon that may have malfunctioned after the first several rounds. He said four people - a woman, a girl and two men, one of them the synagogues rabbi, were shot. "Sadly, one of the individuals succumbed to their wounds," Gore said. He added that the other three victims, including the rabbi, are in stable condition. The other victims are two Israelis -- an eight-year-old girl and her 31-year-old uncle. They moved to San Diego a few years ago from a town near the Gaza Strip that was repeatedly pelted with rockets. Gore said an off-duty border patrol agent who saw the man fleeing the scene fired on the suspect. The suspect was not hit but his car was struck. San Diego Police Chief David Nisleit said the suspect apparently contacted police and later surrendered to a San Diego police officer who was en route to the scene of the shooting. He said the suspect was 19 and lives in San Diego. Nisleit tweeted earlier that his department is assisting in the investigation, and that while there are no known threats "in an abundance of caution, we will be providing extra patrol at places of worship." Saturday is the final day of the Jewish Passover holiday. Poway is about 25 kilometers north of San Diego. Kevin McAleenan, the acting secretary of Homeland Security, said his agency will take every appropriate action to assist the investigation and ensure that those affected by this tragedy receive the closure and justice they deserve. President Donald Trump, speaking to reporters on the south lawn of the White House, said, "My deepest sympathies go to the families who were affected." He added that the attack "Looks like a hate crime." About an hour before the shooting, an anti-Semitic screed was posted online by a person claiming the same identity as the shooter. In it, he praised the New Zealand mosque attacks in March and claimed responsibility for an arson attack on a mosque in Escondido, California in March. Authorities are investigating that claim. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Attacks by two jihadist groups killed at least 17 Syrian government troops and militiamen in the northern province of Aleppo early Saturday, a war monitor said. Thirty others were wounded in the assaults by al-Qaidas former Syria branch, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), and its ally Hurras al-Deen, which remains affiliated to the global jihadist network, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The attacks in the southern and southwestern countryside of Aleppo province were launched shortly after midnight and triggered clashes that continued until dawn, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said. He said the fighting subsided after Russian aircraft struck jihadist positions in the area, prompting the fighters to pull back. Eight jihadists were killed, he added. Russia aircraft also carried out strikes in neighboring Hama province early Saturday, killing five civilians, the Observatory said. On Friday, Russian strikes killed 10 civilians in Idlib province, the hub of territory held by the jihadists of HTS in northwestern Syria. Russia and rebel-backer Turkey in September inked a buffer zone deal to avert a massive government offensive on the Idlib region, but the deal has never been implemented. The region of some 3 million people has come under increasing bombardment since HTS took full control of it in January. The latest Russian air raids came after two days of talks on the Syrian conflict between Turkey, Russia and fellow government backer Iran in Kazakhstan earlier this week. The three governments expressed concern over the growing power of HTS in Idlib and parts of adjacent provinces, and determination to cooperate to eliminate the jihadist group. The civil war in Syria has killed more than 370,000 people and displaced millions since it began with the bloody repression of anti-government protests in 2011. Russian President Vladimir Putin says his administration is considering a plan to ease the process of granting Russian citizenship to all Ukrainians, not only those in war-torn parts of eastern Ukraine. Putin made the remark on April 27 at an infrastructure development summit in Beijing. On April 24, Putin announced a presidential decree that eases the process of granting Russian citizenship to anyone living in parts of Ukraines Donetsk and Luhansk regions that are under the control of Russia-backed separatists. That decree drew a swift and angry response from Kyiv, the United States, Britain, the European Union, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the international organization tasked with monitoring compliance with the 2015 Minsk agreements on eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said Putin's decree "is actually about the Kremlin's preparations for the next step of aggression against our state the annexation of the Ukrainian Donbas or the creation of a Russian enclave in Ukraine." The OSCE said in a statement on April 25 that its chairmanship believes that this unilateral measure could undermine the efforts for a peaceful resolution of the crisis in and around Ukraine. It said it was reiterating its call for a sustainable, full and permanent cease-fire and its firm support for the work of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine, which plays an essential role in reducing tensions on the ground, and in fostering peace, stability and security. In a joint statement on April 25, France and Germany the European guarantors of the Minsk agreements said Putin's decree "goes against the spirit and aims" of the Minsk process, which aims to establish a stable cease-fire in the conflict in parts of eastern Ukraine's Donbas region and then proceed to a political settlement. "This is the opposite of the urgently necessary contribution toward deescalation," the statement said. European Commission spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic said the decree was "another attack on Ukraine's sovereignty by Russia." "We expect Russia to refrain from actions that are against the Minsk agreements and impede the full reintegration of the nongovernment-controlled areas into Ukraine," she said. Ukraine's foreign minister called Putins decree a form of "aggression and interference" in Kyiv's affairs, while a Western diplomat told RFE/RL it was a "highly provocative step" that would undermine the situation in the war-ravaged region known as the Donbas. The U.S. State Department also criticized Russia's move, saying Moscow "through this highly provocative action, is intensifying its assault on Ukraines sovereignty and territorial integrity." Critics point to other frozen conflicts in former Soviet republics where Russia has granted citizenship to residents of separatist-held territory in order to choreograph demographic changes over time and justify future military operations. In 2002, the Kremlin began granting Russian citizenship to residents of Georgias breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia a policy that helped raise the number of Russian passport holders there from about 20 percent to more than 85 percent of the population. Then, when Russia went to war against Georgia in August 2008, the Kremlin justified its deployment of Russian military forces in Abkhazia and South Ossetia by saying those forces were needed to protect Russia citizens in the separatist regions. Russian media reports say Russia also has issued its passports to nearly half of the residents of Moldovas Moscow-backed breakaway region of Transdniester. That policy has raised concerns in Chisinau that the Kremlin may use a similar argument of defending its citizens in order to justify future Russian military operations in Transdniester. With reporting by RFE/RL's Ukrainian, Georgian, and Moldovan Services, Reuters, and AP DCR officials show state Sen. Adam Hinds how they inspect the roots while planting to make sure the tree will grow properly. Pittsfield Plants New Tree in Tucker Park For Arbor Day Yoni Glogower discusses the tree planting program. PITTSFIELD, Mass. Three years ago Reid Middle School students joined city and state officials to plant one new tree in front of the school. That was just the start. Since then, the Department of Conservation and Recreation has planted more than 2,000 trees in the city and looks to reach the goal of 2,400 this year. "Since that humble beginning three years ago, we've planted almost 2,000 trees throughout the planting zone in the city," said DCR Urban Forester Yoni Glogower, who served as the keynote speaker for Friday's Arbor Day ceremony. The "Green the Gateway Cities" program was developed in 2014 and the state put more than $12 million over the last three years toward planting 20,000 trees in eight gateway cities with the hope of increasing the urban canopy by 10 to 15 percent. The program was first piloted in 2014 in Chelsea, Holyoke, and Revere and then rolled out to Pittsfield in 2016. But the beginning of the program as pre-dates that, according to Glogower. In 2008, state officials recognized an issue with the Asian long horn beetle destroying trees throughout the state. Glogower said in Worcester some 28,000 were destroyed. An eradication program began then which also included the cutting and replanting of infected trees. But that later expanded and the gateway cities, which Glogower said tends to have an older housing stock and thinner tree density, to increase the total number of trees. Glogower said trees play a significant role in reducing temperatures through share and water circulating in the tree, which reduces energy usage. He said preliminary data is showing a decrease in energy uses in those cities. DCR staff is planting new trees on municipally-owned property, commercial property, and private residences. "Greening the Gateway Cities is just one of a suite of efforts aimed at investing in the future of these communities," he said. State Sen. Adam Hinds also noted that Western Massachusetts serves an important role in sequestering carbon emissions from the eastern part of the state because of the number of trees. The ceremony was held at Tucker Park and Hinds highlighted other improvements to the park. Hinds previously worked with at-risk youth in the area and said investments in parks improves neighborhoods. Becky Manship highlighted investments made in Tucker Park recently. "The value of parks for sending a signal when they are in good shape, when they are demonstrating the city and the state is paying attention is really important," Hinds said. "We're investing neighborhood by neighborhood." Recreation Coordinator Becky Manship read a proclamation from Mayor Linda Tyer, who was originally planned to speak but couple make it at the last minute because of a "time sensitive matter." Manship also highlighted the investments made in Tucker Park. "This park has seen and will continue to receive significant and noteworthy improvements. Tucker Park recently received a new playground in the fall with the assistance of Roots Rising. Tree work has been done to open the park and let more light in. New benches will be installed next Tuesday and the new sign will be installed soon," Manship said. After the rainy ceremony, DCR went back to work and planted a new tree in Tucker Park, honoring Arbor Day and continuing its efforts to reach the 2,400 goal. Voters in Spain will go to the polls Sunday in national elections in which no one party is expected to win a majority in parliament. The race pits the incumbent Socialist Party against four others, including the new far-right Vox Party that is aligned with other far-right movements that have emerged across Europe. Leaders on both the left and the center-right have urged voters to keep the far right at bay. On Friday, incumbent Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, said he was open to the possibility of a coalition with the left-wing United We Can Party, raising the possibility of a center-left governing deal. On the political right, the conservative Popular Party has splintered into three main groups, with Vox making inroads with the electorate. The third right-leaning group, Citizens, said it would join a governing coalition only with the Popular Party. The Popular Party has alternated in office with the Socialist Party since Spain's return to democracy in the 1970s. Lengthy bargaining With no one party expected to win a majority Sunday, speculation has centered on which of Spain's top five parties will join together after the vote to create a governing coalition. A close election could result in weeks of political bargaining that could include smaller parties favoring Catalan independence, a hugely polarizing topic in Spain. Analysts warn of the possibility of a deadlocked parliament and a second election. The latest surveys, published Monday, showed that a third of Spain's nearly 37 million voters still had not decided whom they would vote for. Under Spanish law, no further surveys were allowed before the election. The final El Pais survey predicted the Socialists would win about 30% of the vote, making them the front-runners to win the most seats in parliament. Sri Lanka's president on Saturday outlawed two Islamist groups suspected to be behind recent suicide bombings on churches and hotels, while the wife and child of the suspected ringleader were wounded during a military raid in safe house, his family and police said. The National Towheed Jamaat (NTJ) and Jamathei Millathu Ibrahim were banned under his emergency powers, President Maithripala Sirisena said in a statement, nearly a week after the Easter Sunday attacks that killed more than 250 people. Authorities could not act earlier to ban the two little-known groups because the law required them to show firm evidence against them, officials said. Police believe the suspected mastermind of the bombings, Mohamed Hashim Mohamed Zahran, led either the NTJ or a splinter group. Less is known about Jamathei Millathu Ibrahim, whose members are also believed to have played a role in the bombings. Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attacks. Soldiers spread out Nearly 10,000 soldiers have been deployed across the island to carry out searches and boost security since the bombings in three churches and four hotels, most of which were in Colombo. Security forces have detained 100 people, including foreigners from Syria and Egypt, police said. A gunbattle erupted on Friday evening during a raid on a safe house in Sainthamaruthu in Ampara district on the island's east coast, killing at least 15 people, including three people with suicide vests and six children, a military spokesmkan said. The wounded included the wife and a daughter of Zahran, his family said. "Yes, the wife and daughter were injured in the attack," said Mohamed Hashim Mathaniya, sister of Zahran. "I was asked to come to identify them but I am not sure I can go," she told Reuters from the town of Kattankudy in the east, where Zahran was originally based. Zahran's driver was detained in a separate raid, according to a police statement. Bomb-making materials, dozens of gelignite sticks and thousands of ball bearings were found in a search of a separate house in the same area, along with Islamic State banners and uniforms, the military said. Zahran appeared in a video released by Islamic State days after the bombing, the only one showing his face while seven others were covered. In the video the men stand under a black Islamic State flag and declare their loyalty to its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Authorities have said there could be more attacks against religious centers. Government criticized Last Sunday's bombings shattered the relative calm that the Buddhist-majority country has seen since a 26-year civil war with mostly Hindu ethnic Tamil separatists ended a decade ago. Sirisena and the government of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe have faced strong criticism after it emerged that India had repeatedly given warnings of the possibility of attacks. Both Sirisena and Wickremesinghe have said intelligence was not shared with them, exposing rifts at the top of the government and raising questions about its ability to deal with the security crisis. The national police chief had refused to accept Sirisena's request to step down, two sources told Reuters on Saturday, a further embarrassment for the president. The U.S. State Department said terrorist groups were continuing to plot attacks and cautioned its citizens against traveling to Sri Lanka. The department also ordered the departure of all school-age family members of U.S. government employees. India and Britain have also warned their nationals to avoid traveling to Sri Lanka. The security forces' response has included raids on mosques and homes of people in the town of Negombo, where scores died in the bombing of a church. Police said on Friday that they were trying to track down 140 people they thought had links to Islamic State. The president said some of the country's youth had been involved with the group since 2013 and that there were drug-trafficking links. Warning of retaliation Muslims were urged to pray at home on Friday after the State Intelligence Services warned of possible car bomb attacks, amid fears of retaliatory violence. Many have fled their homes amid bomb scares, lockdowns and security sweeps. The archbishop of Colombo, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, told reporters he had seen an internal security document warning of further attacks on churches and said there would be no Catholic Masses celebrated anywhere on the island this Sunday. Sri Lanka's 22 million people include minority Christians, Muslims and Hindus. Until now, Christians had largely managed to avoid the worst of the island's conflict and communal tensions. Most of the bombing victims were Sri Lankans. The dead also included 40 foreigners, including British, U.S., Australian, Turkish, Indian, Chinese, Danish, Dutch and Portuguese nationals. Sri Lankan security forces have exchanged gunfire with an armed group in Kalmunai in the eastern region of the country. A military spokesman says 15 bodies, including those of six children, were found in the house where the gunbattle took place late Friday. The Associated Press later reported that a girl and a woman survived an explosion at the suspected militant safe house during a raid linked to the Easter bombings. Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara said Saturday that the woman and girl are critically injured and are being treated at a nearby hospital in Ampara District. Sri Lankan security forces have been clearing the safe house following a Friday night gunbattle between soldiers and suspected militants. Authorities say the militants set off three explosions and opened fire. The Daily Mirror, a Sri Lankan newspaper, reported there was an explosion when the forces attempted to search a suspicious man. The military found a cache of 150 sticks of gelignite (an explosive jelly), an Islamic State uniform, steel pellets, and a drone, according to the newspaper. A laptop and a van were also found. Meanwhile, a curfew has been imposed on Sri Lanka from 10 p.m. Friday to 4 a.m. Saturday. Catholic leaders cancel Masses Catholic leaders in Sri Lanka canceled Sunday Masses across the country as officials cited the possibility of more attacks on the island, nearly a week after the deadly Easter suicide bombings in churches and hotels blamed on Muslim extremists. Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith asked the faithful throughout Sri Lanka to stay home for their own safety, saying We dont want repetitions. The U.S. State Department Friday raised the travel advisory level for Sri Lanka to three out of four, meaning visitors should reconsider traveling to the country. It said Terrorist groups continue plotting possible attacks in Sri Lanka and that terrorists could again target places of worship as well as other public areas, including shopping malls, hotels, restaurants, sporting events and parks. The U.S. Embassy in Colombo urged people to remain vigilant and avoid large crowds, on its official Twitter account. On Friday, thousands of Sri Lankan security personnel were deployed across the country to places of worship, as Muslims answered the call to prayer. Everyone is nervous, 48-year-old Abdullah Mohammed told the Associated Press, before prayers. Not just the Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, Hindus everybody's nervous. The warning comes days after a devastating attack on churches and hotels on Sunday in the capital, Colombo, in which suicide bombers killed more than 250 people. Officials had earlier set the death toll at more than 350 but revised the number on Thursday, saying some of the bodies may have been counted twice. Sri Lankan officials say the suspected mastermind of the attacks, Zahran Hashim, was killed in the attack on the Shangri-La Hotel. Catholic leaders in Sri Lanka canceled Sunday Masses across the country as officials cited the possibility of more attacks on the island, nearly a week after the deadly Easter Sunday suicide bombings in churches and hotels blamed on Muslim extremists. Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith asked the faithful throughout Sri Lanka to stay home for their own safety, saying, We don't want repetitions. The U.S. State Department on Friday raised the travel advisory level for Sri Lanka to three out of four, meaning visitors should reconsider traveling to the country. It said, Terrorist groups continue plotting possible attacks in Sri Lanka, and that terrorists could again target places of worship as well as other public areas, including shopping malls, hotels, restaurants, sporting events and parks. The U.S. Embassy in Colombo, on its Twitter account, urged people to remain vigilant and avoid large crowds. On Friday, thousands of Sri Lankan security personnel were deployed across the country to places of worship, as Muslims answered the call to prayer. "Everyone is nervous," Abdullah Mohammed, 48, told The Associated Press before prayers. "Not just the Muslims. Buddhists, Christians, Hindus everybody's nervous." Security forces combed the country, tracking down what they say are dozens of local militants with links to the Islamic State terror group, which claimed responsibility for the Easter attacks. A military spokesman said a gunbattle erupted Friday in Sri Lanka's Eastern Province during a search operation. Suicide bombers killed more than 250 people Sunday in the devastating attack on churches and hotels in Colombo. Officials had earlier set the death toll at more than 350 but revised the number on Thursday, saying some bodies might have been counted twice. Sri Lankan officials say the suspected mastermind of the attacks, Zahran Hashim, was killed in the attack on the Shangri-La Hotel. The Daily Mirror, a Sri Lankan newspaper, reported that Hashim's sister said her parents, brothers and a sister have been missing since April 18. President Maithripala Sirisena said Sri Lanka's police chief, Pujith Jayasundara, resigned Friday because of the security failures around the attacks. A day earlier, Defense Secretary Hemasriri Fernando quit in the wake of the bombings, heeding calls from Sri Lanka's president for his resignation. Sirisena had called on Fernando and Jayasundara to step down after he promised in a televised address to take stern action against officials who did not share with him the intelligence alerts that came from India days prior to the bombings. As the government faces an outpouring of public anger over the failure to heed the warnings, senior officials admit it was a major lapse. Fernando said that there had been no failure on his own part, but he resigned to take responsibility for the failures of some institutions he headed, Reuters reported. Reports say Indian intelligence agencies sent out several warnings to Sri Lanka, and that Indian security agencies had gathered details about Islamic militant group National Towheed Jamaat, which is suspected of carrying out the attacks. The URL has been copied to your clipboard The code has been copied to your clipboard. At the annual meeting of the National Rifle Association, the nation's most powerful gun rights lobbying group Friday, President Donald Trump declared that the United States is withdrawing from the 2013 United Nations Arms Trade Treaty, which sought to prevent illicit arms transfers to overseas conflicts. Patsy Widakuswara reports. Shelley Berkley spent 14 years in Congress representing the western swing state of Nevada. The lifelong Democrat is worried about her partys ability in next years presidential election to maintain the traditional support of her fellow Jews. Growing up, I didn't know anybody that was Jewish who wasn't a Democrat. The two went hand in hand. If you're Jewish, you're a Democrat. Things have changed dramatically, according to Berkley. The partys rising left wing is less inclined to reflexively support Israel, while President Donald Trump has decisively aligned with Israels right-wing president, Benjamin Netanyahu. Theres a lot of folks like Congresswoman Berkeley increasingly concerned about the direction and tone the Democratic Party is taking as it relates to the Jewish community and Israel, says Matthew Brooks, national executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition. Staunch democratic Throughout most of the 20th century, Jews were staunch Democrats, traditionally allied with the labor movement and religiously coming out to vote in force. As important, according to American University professor of history Alan Kraut, is the influence that Jews wield as opinion leaders, journalists, contributors and activists as a people basically who are never afraid to raise their voices one way or another. Pollster Mark Mellman contends data show that has not changed, with the Jewish community remaining strongly Democratic to this day, and certainly anti-Trump, even though some are appreciative of some of the things that Trump has done vis-a-vis Israel. Both Berkley and Mellman say most Jewish voters detest Trumps policies in general, as well as his behavior and lack of intellectual curiosity. But Trump is trying hard to woo them, portraying the Democratic Party as anti-Israel and anti-Jewish. The reality is, the American Jewish community is not going to be voting for Donald Trump. And for him to invest so much time, effort, energy, in trying to create a wedge between the American Jewish community and the Democratic Party isn't really a very good use of his time, says Mellman, who heads one of the most prominent Democratic marketing research and polling firms. But he acknowledges there are some increasing doubts and concern. Berkley says her children remain strong Democrats but are concerned about whether they can continue to support their own party. Now that doesn't mean they are embracing the Trump revolution. Hardly. But people like us, pro-Israel moderate Democrats, where do we go? she asks. At the RJC, Brooks is looking to lure those disaffected Democrats. He contends the rival party is overconfident about the Jewish vote. Its going to be very hard for any of the Democratic candidates to have, like President Trump, an unvarnished pro-Israel agenda, because the grassroots in the base of the Democratic Party won't allow it, Brooks predicts. Battleground states If we move 5% of the Jewish vote in Los Angeles or New York, it's not going to make a difference," Brooks says. "There's no chance we're winning New York state or California. So, our focus is very strategic and very targeted in the battleground states. At the forefront are Ohio and Florida, both with significant Jewish populations. Also seen in play: Arizona and Nevada out West, as well as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in the Midwest. Since Trump has been in office, has he been able to attract and to peel away Jewish support from the Democratic Party? I believe the answer to that is yes, says Brooks. The head of the Republican Jewish Coalition says American Jews look not just at a candidates stance on Israel, but also at economic issues. I think that's one of the reasons we've been able to make these incremental gains, Brooks tells VOA. Mellman says Brooks and other Republicans are overly optimistic when you have a community that has consistently voted Democratic for many years. And right now, even after all these things, hates Donald Trump. Now, could that turn around in 17 months? It's possible. But there's never been that kind of wholesale turnaround in public opinion. Kraut sees the best opportunity for Republicans with older Jewish voters, men and women, who lean toward Trump because of Israel. And because he does seem to them to fly in the face of what they regard as the left wing of the Democratic Party that's taking shape around congressional first-termers such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, according to Kraut. They don't like these people. They don't trust these people, says Kraut of the older Jewish voters. Berkley agrees. Im apoplectic about my partys response to the comments Omar and others have made, she tells VOA. Members of the Democratic caucus have made anti-Semitic statements that were no accident. They actually believe what they're saying. Jewish populations This sentiment likely will be more of a factor prior to the general election as Jews could have an outsized role in selecting the Democratic Partys nominee. While early voting states such as Iowa and New Hampshire have negligible Jewish populations, the big and solid Democrat states - New York and California - do. Former Vice President Joe Biden is viewed by much of the Jewish bloc as stable and predictable with foreign policy, respected around the world, and representing their core social and moral values, according to Kraut. If I were a betting man, I would say that if Biden is the candidate of the Democratic Party, the Jews are going to flock to him in the general election against Trump, Kraut says. He sees Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont as struggling for Jewish votes, despite him being the only Jew running for president. Some may find that ironic. It's worse than ironic. It's very unfortunate, actually, laments Berkley, who says she opposes Sanders candidacy because of his lack of support for Israel. Mellman says Sanders has stated he is 100% pro-Israel, that he believes Israel has every right to exist in peace and security without being subject to terrorism. Jewish leaders acknowledge Trumps embrace of Israel may also be motivated by his desire to retain the support of Christian evangelicals (who believe that Israel must continue to exist as a harbinger for the return of Christ as the Messiah). Being good to Israel has many, many political advantages in the United States, notes Kraut. The Jewish vote alone isn't going to put Trump over the top. President Donald Trump says he welcomes Russia and China's help with North Korea, after a summit this week in Russia between President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. But with negotiations between North Korea and the United States stalled, analysts say Kim may have used the Putin summit to show that he has other powerful friends and allies, and is not dependent on his ties with Trump. VOA's Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from the State Department. Rahim Gul Sarwan of VOA's Afghan service contributed to this report. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Zalmay Khalilzad, chief U.S. negotiator with the Taliban, emphasized the importance of an intra-Afghan dialogue in a meeting Saturday evening between the two in Kabul. A statement released by Ghani's office also called for "a future direct meeting with the Taliban led by the Afghan government." The Taliban have been negotiating directly with Khalilzad and his team since last September but have so far refused to include the Afghan government in that process or to engage with the government in any official capacity. The insurgent group participated in an "intra-Afghan" conference in Moscow in February, which included dozens of Afghan politicians and other stakeholders, on the condition that Ghani's administration would not be invited. Under intense pressure from several regional countries and the United States, the Taliban agreed to include some officials from the Ghani administration in the next intra-Afghan conference on the condition the officials participate in their personal capacity. The conference, scheduled for April 20-21, was canceled at the last minute because the Taliban said the government was insisting its delegates were official representatives of the Kabul regime. 'Bizarre meetings' "Just as all the arrangements for the conference were finalized, the Kabul administration officials launched their own bizarre meetings inside the Arg palace [presidential palace], announcing their red lines and conditions, claiming host status for the conference," a statement from Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said. "Despite tireless and well-intentioned efforts of all parties, a shared understanding on how to achieve inclusivity couldn't be reached," tweeted Sultan Barakat, the director of the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies that was helping organize the conference. Khalilzad is on his seventh trip to the region to continue his diplomacy to try to find a negotiated end to the Afghan conflict. He has held five direct meetings with the Taliban since September, and he is expected to hold another during this trip. His last meeting in Doha, Qatar, where the Taliban maintain an unofficial political office, lasted 16 days. The one before that continued for eight days. Both sides have decided in principle the U.S. will withdraw its troops from Afghanistan, and in return, the Taliban will ensure that Afghan soil is not used by any terrorist group to carry out activities against any other country. However, details remain unsettled, and Khalilzad repeatedly has said "nothing is agreed to unless everything is agreed to," including a cease-fire in Afghanistan and inclusion of the Afghan government in the negotiations demands the Taliban have resisted. Meanwhile, former Afghan President Hamid Karzai has asked Ghani to delay the Loya Jirga, or grand assembly of Afghans, scheduled for Monday, saying it might slow down the negotiations with the Taliban. Karzai had initially welcomed the initiative to convene a Loya Jirga when Ghani announced it in February. "The jirga should be convened once the peace process reaches a milestone," Karzai said in a statement issued through his political office. "At that time, the jirga should be conveyed to sign off on the developments." Thousands of delegates from around the country already have arrived in Kabul to participate in the event, which is expected to last several days. Of the 3,000 expected delegates, at least 30 percent will be women. Lack of consensus Karzai's statement also said the jirga did not have the requisite consensus that was traditionally accorded to such gatherings in Afghan culture. Even the Unity government, the statement pointed out, was not on the same page. Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah is boycotting the jirga, saying his office was not properly consulted in the planning and the delegate election process was not transparent. Abdullah is one of 12 presidential candidates boycotting the jirga. Analysts say other candidates fear Ghani might use this assembly to gain political mileage ahead of the election, set for Sept. 28. Ghani and his spokespeople say the objective of the gathering of Afghans was to prepare for an eventual negotiation with the Taliban, and for the people to decide the boundaries the government should respect. "Even if the U.S. makes a deal with the Taliban to have peace in Afghanistan, the responsibility for implementing that deal will fall on the Afghan government," said Ziaul Haq Amarkhel, a senior adviser to Ghani. On Thursday, Khalilzad met with his Russian and Chinese counterparts in Moscow to discuss the Afghan peace process. "The three sides encourage the Afghan Taliban to participate in peace talks with a broad representative Afghan delegation that includes the government as soon as possible," said a joint statement issued at the end of the meeting. U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) this week announced the establishment of a new force made up of ethnic Armenians. The SDF is a Kurdish-led multiethnic military alliance that played a key role in the fight against the Islamic State (IS) terror group in Syria. The SDF liberated the last IS stronghold of Baghuz in eastern Syria last month and now controls more than one third of Syria's territory. "We will follow the path of our martyrs and resist until all the [ethnic] components of the north and east of Syria are free and build a decentralized Syria," said Masis Mutanian, commander of the new Armenian force, during remarks at the announcement ceremony on Wednesday. "It is time to form a real Armenian military force in Syria," Mutanian added. First Armenian force This is the first all-Armenian military force in Syria since the beginning of the country's civil war in 2011. Ethnic Armenians made up nearly two percent of Syria's prewar population of 23 million, with a significant percentage living in the Kurdish-majority northeast. Their number, however, has dramatically declined since the beginning to the Syrian war as many fled the violence to resettle in Armenia and European countries. Throughout the war, Syrian Armenians have largely remained neutral. But some sided with the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, arguing that al-Assad is better than other alternatives. Signal to Assad Forming an official Armenian force is a signal the SDF is sending to the Syrian regime, some analysts said. "By mobilizing an Armenian brigade, the SDF is pronouncing to Assad that it is here to stay and that one of Syria's most vulnerable communities recognizes that fact by joining up with the SDF," said Nicholas Heras, a Syria expert at the Center for a New American Security in Washington. He told VOA that "Syria's Armenians are part of a vulnerable community that goes with the status quo to protect itself, which for most of the war has meant going with Assad." 'Terrorist organization' The new Armenian force was launched on April 24, the day Armenians throughout the worlds commemorated the 104th anniversary of the massacre of 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks. Some pro-government media outlets in Turkey described the new force as a terrorist organization.' Turkey views the People's Protection Units (YPG), the main force within SDF, as part of the Turkey-based Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been engaged in deadly conflict with Turkish military for more than three decades. Ankara also opposes Washington's continued partnership with the SDF, demanding the U.S. stop supporting the Kurdish-led group. Safe zone U.S. and Turkish officials have been holding talks on a proposal for a safe zone along Syria-Turkey border. But there remains major differences over the details according to a Washington Post report Thursday. "The U.S. effort to get Turkey to reach an arrangement with the SDF in northern and eastern Syria is moving at a glacial pace," analyst Heras said. Turkey has repeatedly threatened to carry out an offensive in SDF-held territory, particularly after the U.S. declared that it would withdraw most of its 2,000 troops from northeast Syria. "For now, the U.S. team cannot get concessions from either side because both Turkey and the SDF view the situation as a zero-sum, existential battle," said Heras. The U.S. Defense Department said Friday that it expected to send about 300 additional troops to the U.S. border with Mexico in roles that could allow them to come into contact with migrants, breaking past policy against interaction with them. The Pentagon said the additional troops would include about 100 military cooks who would hand out meals to migrants, as well as troops performing other support roles, including driving buses with detained migrants. "We will have some of our troops handing out meals. Therefore, [they] would come in contact with migrants," Pentagon spokesman Charlie Summers said. He said acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan had not yet signed the request for additional troops from the Department of Homeland Security, but that he was expected to do so. Summers said the proposal included an amendment to the current policy on avoiding contact with migrants. Earlier this month, President Donald Trump said he would seek to move more military members to the border with Mexico. Trump sent U.S. troops to the border last year to assist border personnel in responding to several caravans of Central American migrants seeking to reach the United States. There are about 5,000 active-duty and National Guard troops near the U.S.-Mexico border assisting Border Patrol agents who are trying to deal with a surge of migrants seeking asylum. By law, the military is not allowed to be involved in civilian law enforcement on U.S. soil unless approved by Congress. However, the military can provide support services to law enforcement, including Border Patrol agents. Trump has made reducing illegal immigration a priority in his administration, including declaring a national emergency earlier this year to allow military funding to help build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. The U.S. State Department on Friday said American citizens should reconsider travel to Sri Lanka because of the threat of terrorism after more than 250 people were killed in suicide bombings Sunday. In a statement, the department also said it had ordered the departure of all school-age family members of U.S. government employees. Terrorist groups continue plotting possible attacks in Sri Lanka, it said. VOA U.N. correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this report. The second powerful cyclone to hit Mozambique in six weeks has left at least one person dead, destroyed homes and knocked out power, authorities said. Cyclone Kenneth made landfall Thursday evening in the north of the country with sustained winds of 220 kilometers per hour, and the United Nations warned Friday of massive flooding ahead. The storm followed Cyclone Idai, which hit Mozambique in mid-March and was labeled by the U.N. as "one of the deadliest storms on record in the Southern Hemisphere." Idai caused devastating flooding and killed 1,000 people in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi. The World Food Program warned Friday that Kenneth could dump 600 mm (more than 23 inches) of rain on the region over the next 10 days, twice the amount of rain brought by Idai. Mozambique officials said Friday that a woman in the city of Pemba was killed by a falling tree. They said the storm had destroyed about 90 percent of the homes on the island of Ibo. Many homes in rural areas of Mozambique are made of mud. The cyclone also cut off electricity on the island and toppled a mobile phone tower, cutting off communications. Authorities said Pemba, the largest city in the cyclone-hit region, also had significant power outages. "Cyclone Kenneth may require a major new humanitarian operation,'' even as post-Cyclone Idai relief operations are continuing, U.N. humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock said. Antonio Carabante, relief delegate with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said the organization was very concerned about the expected heavy rainfall. "While attention is often given to wind speed, we know from experience that it is rainfall and subsequent flooding and landslides that can be even more dangerous from a humanitarian perspective," he said. This was the first time on record that Mozambique had been hit by two cyclones in one season, U.N. officials said. Before reaching Mozambique, Kenneth swept over the island nation of Comoros, killing three people. The free event will feature information about community health and resources. There will also be food, raffles and activities for kids. For more information, call 512-947-0403. Mamma Mia! benefit All proceeds from a Mamma Mia! dress rehearsal event starting at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the Waco Civic Theatre, 1517 Lake Air Drive, will benefit Friends for Life. The event will include food and drinks before the performance starts at 7:30. Tickets are $20 for general admission, $40 for premium seating and $1,000 for whole sections. To buy tickets, call 772-7600. Diabetes program A 12-month YMCA Diabetes Prevention Program will start June 17 and meet from 6 to 7 p.m. Mondays at the Waco Family YMCA, 6800 Harvey Drive. The program uses a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-approved curriculum to help reduce a persons risk of developing type 2 diabetes. The program is designed for those who have been diagnosed with prediabetes by a doctor, those with a qualifying score on the American Diabetes Association or CDC risk assessment, or those with a previous diagnosis of gestational diabetes. Registration is required, and space is limited. For more information, contact Crystal Hernandez at 776-6612 or crystal.hernandez@ymcactx.org. Submit items in printed or typed form to Briefly, P.O. Box 2588, Waco 76702-2588; fax 757-0302; or email goingson@wacotrib.com. Asked if her sales of physical comics, those not digitized or available by other means, have dipped as those nationally have sagged, Carroll said, Yes and no. We have seen changes in the industry and the habits of those who collect comics. So many people are involved in their phones and computers. Thats why this Free Comic Book Day has become so important, exposing younger people to comics. Ive had a school teacher tell me she has no problem with kids reading comics as it means they are reading something. Meanwhile, Carla Pendergraft, who markets the Waco Convention Center, said the Dream Con 2019 event, now in it second year, should generate reservations for local hotels. It does use hotel rooms and draw from out of town, but we also expect a lot of Wacoans to attend, Pendergraft said in an email. H-E-B Women of Distinction Grocer H-E-B honored 24 employees from Central Texas during its Women of Distinction ceremony last week at Ridgewood Country Club. Those from Waco receiving recognition were Annette Jones, Gloria Wilson, Lacee Fowler, Victoria Keating and Terri Fowler, according to a press release. She cared about her community, she cared about her neighbors, Williams said. We always saw that in her, so all of us have gone down the road of service to a community. We saw that, and it just permeated our being. When she first became a public health nurse, the district offered prenatal care, child health care and home health care along with the tuberculosis treatment and immunizations it offers today. In the late 80s, they incorporated HIV testing, prevention and education. I really enjoyed taking care of the patients and clients, Williams said. I think we gave some of the best care in the city, because we took the time to talk to them, listen to them and work with them. However, Medicaid requirements changed in 2000, and the district shifted its focus to other services, hiring its first epidemiologist in 2001 and starting a new health education program soon after. Williams was promoted to director of nurses, a role she held until she became director of the district. I have seen so many nurses come through and have enjoyed working with the staff, and even just seeing the changes in how we provide those public health services, Williams said. Three months after first questioning the citizenship status of almost 100,000 registered voters, the Texas secretary of state has agreed to end a review of the voter rolls for supposed noncitizens that was flawed from the start. The deal was announced Friday as part of an agreement to settle three legal challenges brought by more than a dozen naturalized citizens and voting rights groups against the state. The groups alleged that the voter citizenship review, which was launched in late January, was unconstitutional and violated federal protections for voters of color. Secretary of State David Whitley who has yet to be confirmed by the Texas Senate amid the fallout over the review agreed to scrap the lists of registered voters his office had sent to county voter registrars for examination. Whitleys office will instruct local officials to take no further action on the names of people it had classified as possible non-U.S citizens, and county officials will be charged with notifying voters who received letters demanding they prove their citizenship that their registrations are safe. The state is also on the hook for $450,000 in costs and attorney fees for the plaintiffs lawyers. According to Diep Thanh Kiet, a member of WEC Saigons board of directors, Vietnam is second only to China in terms of footwear export volume, with roughly 1 billion pairs each year. However, in the long term, Vietnams footwear industry can still compete with China in terms of labour costs, income per capita, economic policies and export market. Furthermore, the CPTPP trade agreement is expected to help Vietnamese footwear makers to enhance their competitiveness thanks to tariff preferences in the final months of 2019. Kiets expectations are also echoed by many other footwear producers as the ministries concerned are working hard to formulate directives and circulars guiding the implementation of the trade pact, fully known as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. Phan Thi Thanh Xuan, General Secretary of Lefaso, an association of leather and footwear companies, stated that, among the CPTPP members, Vietnam has yet to sign a bilateral agreement with Canada and Mexico, while trade pacts have been inked with Japan and Chile. Therefore, the CPTPP is a great opportunity for Vietnamese producers to boost their exports to these markets. In addition, the interest of a number of Canadian and Mexican importers in Vietnamese footwear and handbag products is a favourable factor for Vietnamese producers to explore the new markets. In fact, Vietnamese footwear and leather products are already exported to these markets but the revenues are relatively low, earning approximately US$100 million in the Canadian market, for instance. Revenues from footwear exports to Mexico are even much lower.More importantly, most of the products were imported to the United States and then distributed to Canada and Mexico. However, due to obstacles in re-negotiating the NAFTA, Canadian and Mexican importers have become more active in approaching other markets without relying too much on the US market. According to Ngo Chung Khanh at the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the CPTPP will bring significant value to Vietnamese producers when opening the three new markets of Canada, Mexico and Peru at the same time. Khanh emphasised that Canada is a market with great potential because it has a strong demand for products which are Vietnamese strengths, especially footwear items, adding that Canadian consumers can pay for more expensive products and Canada could act as an important bridge for Vietnamese exporters to expand to other countries in the Americas. Xuan stated further that, in the second half of 2019, when the guiding documents are issued, enterprises will be trained to take better advantage of opportunities from the trade agreement. In order to capitalise on the opportunities provided by the CPTPP, many enterprises, especially foreign-invested companies, have made active preparations and requested their suppliers to provide all the necessary documents to prove the origin of their products. Enterprises have also added the stage of producing soles into their production chain so that their shoes will be able to meet the requirements set out in the trade agreement. In order to support enterprises, in the first quarter, Lefaso worked with the MOITs Department of Export-Import to organise training courses on the CPTPP for enterprises. Xuan stated that, in the near future, Lefaso will step up providing information and work with the specialised agencies in order to organise training sessions for enterprises, adding that the association will also collect enterprises feedback on the obstacles they face during the implementation of the trade pact so that they can be promptly addressed by the MOIT. She also advised enterprises to stay fully updated with the relevant information, not only the CPTPP regulations but also the specific technical standards of each country that must be met if goods are to be exported to these markets. The Texas House voted Thursday to extend beer and wine sales on Sundays and to let craft breweries sell beer to go. Those new expansions of alcohol sales were amendments to a broader bill regarding the efficiency and operations of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission that must pass this legislative session in order to avoid shutting down the agency. Both amendments were opposed by the bills author, state Rep. Chris Paddie, R-Marshall. Paddie still cast a vote for the legislation, which received preliminary passage along a 135-0 vote, though he noted that the bill was no longer "completely clean." The bill will still need a final stamp of approval in the House before it can head to the Senate for consideration. Once its in the upper chamber, members there can tweak the legislation. That means the upper chamber could strip those two new amendments from the legislation. (Update: The House passed the bill on third reading Friday morning, sending it to the Senate.) Sammy McLarty, in his latest Trib column, labels me a minister, czar and celebrity. By applying the term minister, McLarty highlights his misunderstanding of the scientific process. Since I have no government position and derive power only from speaking scientific truth, I cannot qualify as a czar. And as I have never appeared in People or the National Enquirer, its doubtful I am a true celebrity. Humor aside, climate change is an extremely serious topic, so I will respond to McLartys criticisms as space allows. Ignoring those realities, activists spin a web of misinformation to support policies based on their failed ideology. Consider their claims about systemic pesticides known as neonicotinoids. Activists have been pushing bans and have succeeded in Europe largely based on unfounded claims about the impact on pollinators, particularly bees. Yet as the U.S. Department of Agriculture explains on its website, these products were developed in the mid-1990s in large part because they showed reduced toxicity to wildlife compared to traditional pesticides that require regular spraying. In fact, systemic pesticides can be applied to seeds or roots where they are absorbed into the plant. Because they do not require regular spraying, these products greatly reduce environmental exposures to non-target species, such as bees and butterflies. They mostly affect pests that bore into or chew on the plant. In agricultural fields, bees might be exposed to tiny traces of systemic pesticides sometimes found in pollen and nectar. Greens largely acknowledge that such tiny exposures dont immediately kill bees. Instead, they claim that small amounts end up in bee hives, causing bees to abandon them and basically disappear. In the filing, Uber set a target price range of $44 to $50 per share for its IPO. The company will sell 180 million shares in the offering to raise up to $9 billion, with a further 27 million sold by existing investors for as much as $1.35 billion. Not the White House Correspondents Dinner (TBS at 10) A comedy special aimed at raising money and awareness for the Committee to Protect Journalists. I watched the video on social media just as many of our residents did, and I have many of the same questions that the community has, Kevin Donahue, deputy mayor for public safety and justice, said in a statement. Thats why this incident is being investigated thoroughly by MPD. That is also why we are working with the Office of the Attorney General to review MPDs policies, procedures, and training, as well as looking across the country at other police departments so our practices always reflect DC values. Jose Manuel Lujan Jr. was born on a farm near San Ildefonso Pueblo, N.M., on May 12, 1928, and completed high school in Santa Fe. His mother was a teacher who also served as the county clerk in Santa Fe County. His father, initially a teacher, who started an insurance agency and was mayor of Santa Fe in the 1940s, made unsuccessful bids for Congress and governor. Several times in the 1990s, according to state records documenting that suspension, female patients reported that Pole touched them in sexual ways, including unnecessary and unusually long breast examinations when he was on a fellowship at Georgetown Universitys oncology department. According to the board review, in 1997 one of his patients died of a heart attack after Pole failed to do proper testing and evaluation for the patients chest and abdominal pain. Pole had also been reprimanded and fined by the Virginia Board of Medicine in 1996 for making false claims about his Georgetown record when trying to become licensed in Florida. Metzl said that when the protesters walked in, he was talking about a man in the bookstore audience who had helped his father and grandparents escape the Nazis in Austria. I was saying how much stronger America is when we think about our responsibility to people in need. At that point, the Nazis walked into the talk. It is wonderful to know how much our neighbors care about our store associates, Goldberg said in a statement of the event the community held for employees. The good news is we will be able to place everyone in jobs at other stores (based on their preference), including our nearby Georgetown and Bethesda locations, so customers can still shop at stores where their favorite employees will work. Grace Abong, 48, said she wouldnt want to lose any of her yard, which backs up to the highway in Lanham. But shes also tired of having to allow an hour to get to her caregiving job in Bethesda a drive that she said would take no more than 30 minutes if traffic didnt grind to a halt so frequently. The unusually large economic incentive grant will go to the landlord, CSHV Lincoln Place LLC, which owns the office space leased to the DEA at 600 and 700 Army Navy Drive. The deal is expected to generate net tax revenue of more than $31 million over the next 15 years, as well as indirect revenues through meals, sales and hotel taxes of about $450,000 per year, local economic development officials said. The 22-to-18 vote in favor of the bill came two days after the Florida House approved its version of the legislation. The two chambers will now try to reconcile their respective bills before the scheduled end of the legislative session next Friday. The archdiocese released the name of each accused clergy member, the year he was ordained and whether he had been removed from the ministry. It also included year of death if the person was deceased. The list did not contain information about the accusations. Although the book was one of the first to attempt a complete portrait of an indigenous peoples rituals and knowledge, much of Boass fieldwork took place among the Kwakwakawakw who were living on display at the 1893 Chicago Worlds Fair. (They were paid to live in a re-created village on the fairgrounds where they essentially became a living exhibit. For the performers, it was a deal worth making at their village at the fair, they could perform songs and dances that had been banned by Canadian government officials who disapproved of their traditions.) Air cleaners can remove particulate matter from the air inside your home. There are two basic setups: a portable appliance or adapting a house- or building-wide HVAC system. The stand-alone appliances, also called air purifiers, circulate the air in a room and trap particles. If you have a forced air system of heating and cooling, that system does the same thing for all your rooms, and you can upgrade the systems filter to improve particle removal. Multiple recent studies have identified how climate change is already affecting the United States and the globe. In the western United States, for example, regional temperatures have increased by almost 2 degrees Fahrenheit since the 1970s, and snowmelt is occurring a month earlier in areas, extending the fire season by three months and quintupling the number of large fires. Another scientific paper, co-authored by EPA researchers, found that unless the United States slashes carbon emissions, climate change will probably cost the United States hundreds of billions of dollars annually by 2100. The Chief Minister said that the appointment of a wanted terrorist to spearhead the `Khalistan Referendum 2020 campaign exposed the true motive and intent behind the separatist movement and urged the Central government to press the global community to join India in cracking down on this grave threat to its peace and security. Reacting strongly to media reports to the roping in by Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was on the list of wanted persons he had shared with Mr Trudeau during their meeting in Amritsar in February 2018, Capt Amarinder expressed concern over the Canadian governments covert and overt support to the hardliners operating from its soil to create disturbance in India. Even as he urged Mr Trudeau not to play with fire by allowing such elements to use Canadian territory to disrupt Indias peace and stability, the Chief Minister called upon New Delhi to take a more proactive stand in dealing with these forces trying to foment trouble in the country, particularly Punjab, from other parts of the world. Hardline elements Capt Amarinder also expressed concern over Canadas failure to rein in such hardline elements seeking to disturb Indias peace and security, and posing a grave threat in particular to Punjab. It was in the interest of any administration in Canada to check the spread of such forces on its soil, he added, warning that allowing the perpetuation of such elements would be detrimental to Canadas own safety and security in the long run. He pointed out that Nijjar was accused by India of running a terror camp in British Columbia, target killings in India and conducting weapons training for anti-India terrorists in the west. Said to be close to the legal advisor of secessionist organisation Sikhs For Justice, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, Nijjars taking over of the Khalistan 'Referendum 2020' campaign was a clear sign of the movement assuming even more diabolical proportions, he added. The Referendum 2020 had never been the peaceful movement it claimed to be, but by roping in Nijjar, it was clear that SFJ had given up all pretensions of steering a non-violent campaign, said the Chief Minister. Given that the movement was openly supported and backed by Pakistans ISI, which had been pushing terror into India directly and indirectly for decades now, it was blatantly clear that the so-called Referendum campaign was nothing but a front for the agency to boost its anti-India agenda, he added. Fomenting trouble By bringing Nijjar into the mainstream of the movement, SFJ and ISI had well and truly shown their hand, and their intention of creating trouble for Punjab in any which way, said Captain Amarinder. With the Sikhs in India rejecting outright the divisive propaganda of SFJ and Islamabad, Nijjar was clearly a last-ditch resort but this will also fail, he added. It may be recalled that on 23rd June 1985, Canadian Sikh terrorists had blown up an Air India flight operating on the TorontoMontrealLondonDelhi route.The bombing of Air India Flight 182 was the largest mass killing in Canadian history, and was also the world's most destructive act of aviation terrorism until 9/11. The latest controversy erupted on 21st February, 2018, over a dinner invitation to convicted Khalistan terrorist Jaspal Atwal by the Canadian High Commissioner to India during Mr Trudeau's visit to the country. Moving swiftly to control damage, high commissioner Nadir Patel cancelled the invite for the dinner, hosted on that Thursday night for Mr Trudeau, while the external affairs ministry said it will ascertain" how Atwal entered India. Reacting to the controversy, Trudeau had said, Obviously, we take this situation extremely seriously. The individual in question never should have received an invitation and, as soon as we found out, we rescinded the invitation immediately... The member of Parliament who included this individual has, and will, assume full responsibility for his actions." THE UNITED STATES has a clear interest in punishing and deterring Iranian aggression across the Middle East, much of which is aimed at Israel and other U.S. allies. The Trump administration also wants to force Tehran to accept far more stringent controls on its nuclear activity than those negotiated by the Obama administration. Economic sanctions offer a nonmilitary means to those ends, and past experience shows they can work, up to a point. The danger is that they will provoke actions by Iran, such as the resumption of large-scale uranium enrichment or attacks on Americans, that would demand a U.S. military response and perhaps escalate into another of the Middle East wars President Trump has vowed to avoid. Christine Embas April 22 op-ed, Georgetown backs reparations. What about the nation?, reflected poorly on Southern universities. I grew up in the District and am a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. There is no discussion of reparations for the descendants of the slaves who built UNC, one of the more liberal universities in the South. Many of the original structures at UNC were built by enslaved people. Enslaved people also made repairs and attended to both students and faculty. A common view at my university seems to be that slavery happened long ago and the blame does not lie on current students. This harmful message extends beyond issues of diversity and inclusion. The news that Ms. Whittakers role would be overhauled came right after Google disbanded its external ethics review board, and at her NYU institute and elsewhere, she has agitated for safeguards around nascent technologies such as facial recognition. Of course, objections to a companys decision to, say, reenter the Chinese market amid censorship concerns may not enjoy the same legal protections as sexual-harassment complaints. But something similar is at stake: the ability of employees, in a business that prides itself on openness, to speak freely about the workplace and world they want to help their companies build. But for all the damage Trump has done, and will do, the United States remains a better place today than it was. My family began our tour of the South in downtown Birmingham, Ala., where in 1963 a bomb killed four girls at the 16th Street Baptist Church, and where Eugene Bull Connor turned his dogs and fire hoses on children. We stood at the cell door that confined Martin Luther King Jr. when he wrote his immortal Letter from Birmingham Jail (Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere) 56 years to the day earlier. You will be expected to answer all of the committees questions, including questions about specific White House officials and allegations of retaliation against the whistleblower, Cummings said. If you answer all of these questions, there would be no need for the committee to pursue contempt against you in the future. Outside, the body of the man shot by the security forces identified only as Niyaz by a local police official still lay face down on the cobbled pavement as flies buzzed around the corpse. Ripped pieces of clothing were scattered on the ground together with bullet casings. Torn sheaves of paper with the hadith the sayings of the prophet Muhammad were strewn in two places. UNI Anantnag, Apr 27 (UNI) National Conference (NC) Vice President Omar Abdullah on Saturday said that J&K does not face as much threat from neighboring country Pakistan or the muzzle of gun as it faces from the forces that are hell-bent to destroy the special status of the state. He said that keeping the challenges the state is facing in view the people have to make a right choice in the ensuing elections while choosing their representative for Lok Sabha. Addressing a public meet in Kund valley, Devsar, Mr Abdullah, who is the former chief minister of the state, said, Any one holding a public post whether a governor or a chief minister in our state has to take oath on state constitution. However anti-state forces are not able to digest that realism. This has become a scorn in the eyes of those forces as have revived their vows to destroy the special constitutional position of our state in their manifesto. He said, however, they fail to understand that the erstwhile Dogra ruler Hari Singh didnt merge with the union, he had only acceded with the dominion of India on three subjects. While as the rest of princely states subsequently merged with the union, the state of Jammu and Kashmir chose not to sign the merger papers. Our leadership had long drawn discussions with the GOI; the outcome of the negotiations came forth in the shape of Delhi Agreement. Our state under the undisputable leadership of Sher- e- Kashmir was able to secure itself a state flag and a special status within the union of India, he said. Today we see forces as are hell-bent to destroy the states special position contrive hard to do away with the constitutional provisions of Art 370, Art 35-A that confer special status to our state. The fact remains that Maharaja would not have signed Instrument of Accession had New Delhi not taken an undertaking to protect the individual character of the state. Those who are questioning the vitality of Art 370, Art 35-A, are unwaveringly questioning the rudiments of accession of the state with the union of India. Any assault on the special status of our sate will without doubt cast a shadow on the fundamentals of accession, he added. Underscoring the need of sending a credible and strong voice to Lok Sabha, he said, The ensuing elections provide us an opportunity to send a person to parliament who could debate on the issues pertaining to our state, the one who could fight for our unique identity and special status within the union. Keeping in view the challenges our state is facing we chose to field retired Justice Hassnain Masoodi from the Anantnag Parliamentary seat. He has the necessary political acumen, to fight for our state. A legal luminary, Masoodi sahib is the most suitable person to represent us in Parliament. Abdullah said that the others who are in the fray of Anantnag parliamentary election lack on all fronts to take on the challenges the state is facing. On one side we have a Congress candidate, who if elected to Parliament cannot take on the forces as aggressively as NC candidate Masoodi can. The Congress candidate would obviously be bound by the partys dictate. Moreover much of the states special status was obliterated by the Congress party, and what was left was subsequently surrendered by PDP before BJP for the lust of power. We have Mehbooba in the fray as well, whose political slyness and bankruptcy is known to all. How can she raise voice for state in parliament when she couldnt do that in 2008, when the sate was in flames because of Amarnath Land agitation? he alleged. At an intimate dinner with members of the RBS board and a handful of institutional investors in 2013, shareholders made one request: please don't hire a "dull, run-of-the-mill" banker as chief executive. Sir Philip Hampton, RBS's chairman at the time, was urged to think outside the box and consider those who might at first seem an unlikely choice. New Zealander Ross McEwan, who ran its retail bank and previously worked at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, emerged as an early favourite. "It was important after the financial crisis to have senior bankers who were untainted by the crisis. Australian banks had not at that time had any material problems," says one executive who was involved in the process. The timing of Ross McEwan's exit at RBS has triggered speculation about his next move. Credit:Bloomberg The British government, RBS's main shareholder, wanted McEwan to take the taxpayer-controlled bank into a new era after it was rescued at the height of the 2008 financial crisis. He shrunk its international operations and in 2017 led RBS to its first profit after almost a decade of losses. Uber Technologies, the world's largest ride-hailing company, plans an initial public offering that values the company lower than the startup's insiders had hoped, between $US80.5 billion ($114 billion) and $US91.5 billion. The valuation, outlined in a regulatory filing on Friday, is less than the $US120 billion that investment bankers told Uber last year it could fetch, and closer to the $US76 billion valuation it attained in a private fundraising round in 2018. Uber's lower than expected IPO price range reflects the poor stock performance of its smaller rival Lyft following its float last month. Credit:AP This reflects the poor stock performance of its smaller rival Lyft following its IPO last month. Lyft shares ended trading on Thursday down more than 20 per cent from their IPO price, amid investor skepticism over its path to profitability. Lyft completed its IPO at a valuation of $US24.3 billion, which corresponded to around 11 times its 2018 revenue. By comparison, the top end of Uber's valuation target is around 8 times revenue last year. It has been three years since an Australian prime minister strode the red carpet at the Great Hall of the People. Neither Malcolm Turnbull nor Morrison were able to secure an invitation to visit Australia's largest trading partner last year, in the wake of a diplomatic rift blamed on the Turnbull government's sharp rhetoric. Chinese President Xi Jinping. Credit:Bloomberg Former ambassador to China and coal company director, Geoff Raby, says he would be "most surprised" if a swift invitation was issued to the next prime minister. "The Chinese have a pattern when a new government is elected, to wait and see how it settles in," he says. "They know Labor governments are more sensitive to human rights issues, Tibet and Xinjiang." Chinese coal traders, for their part, have speculated the slowdown in unloading Australian coal at Chinese ports which they believed is linked to Australia banning Huawei from 5G - will end after the election. "Beijing would like to reset relations with Australia by revisiting the Huawei decision and the South China Sea issue. But Labor has made it clear that there's no going back on those policies," says the Lowy Institute's Richard McGregor. "So in that respect, I don't expect a Labor victory, if that's what happens, will offer a clean slate on relations with China. There will be lots of inbuilt tensions straight off the bat." Labor's foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong will give her first foreign policy speech of the election campaign next week at the Lowy Institute. Raby says: "My concern is Penny Wong and Labor see the problem as more about messaging and underestimate the substantive challenges facing the China relationship." He says it is a "much more challenging world" than any an incoming Labor government has faced. "China is stronger and less susceptible to international pressure" around issues such as the Uighurs, the Muslim ethnic minority in China's western Xinjiang province who are being detained en-masse. Loading Peter Drysdale, from ANU's Crawford School of Public Policy, puts it this way: "More of even the same good stuff will no longer suffice." He says the bilateral relationship needs reframing and he is concerned that Australia is not prepared to do this. "The real test is, are we a hare in the spotlight? Immobilised and incapable of reacting to the circumstances we find ourselves in." Most analysts who spoke to The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age for this story expressed their belief that it won't be enough for a new government to simply revert to the old formula of dealing with China, that is, avoid megaphone diplomacy, and silo Australia's economic engagement with China from its military alliance with the United States. The world has changed. The geopolitical rift between Washington and Beijing is sharpening. Diplomats say their Chinese counterparts have become more vocal in pressing Beijing's world view. China's aggressive move to "hostage diplomacy", detaining two Canadians in retaliation for the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, shocked middle powers. Not only has Washington labelled China's rise a national security threat, but the strategic rivalry has spilt beyond naval close encounters in the South China Sea and into the trade and technology spheres. Universities geopolitically uncontentious in the past - have been swept up Washington's national security blitz. US visas for Chinese PhD students are being blocked and visiting academics told by the FBI to "Go back to China", The New York Times has reported. Educating Chinese students has been one of Australia's largest export earners, after selling coal and iron ore to China. A push for greater Defence Department control over universities collaborating with international researchers was rejected in Australia. One of the most commonly sold mobile phones in Australia, the Telstra-badged but Chinese made ZTE smartphone, was pulled off shelves after ZTE was hit with a sudden US export ban - which was just as abruptly lifted. Even the world's largest gay dating app has been caught in the crossfire. The Los Angeles-based Grindr was put up for sale in March after the US government declared its Beijing owners a national security risk. China's President XI Jinping with his US counterpart Donald Trump in 2017. Credit:AP There is high anticipation that Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping will reach a trade deal next month to end the crippling tariff war between the world's top two economies. But such a deal is likely to include multibillion-dollar pledges for China to buy US energy and agricultural products. The IMF is among the onlookers expressing alarm at the return of "managed trade" and the potential impact of such government-mandated supply deals on free trading countries like Australia. Australian gas, coal and agriculture sales to China could be reduced. Director of the East Asian Bureau of Economic Research at the Australian National University, Shiro Armstrong, says: "How to prosecute Australia's interest in a world of managed trade between China and the US is complex." Even if a trade deal is struck between China and the US, many analysts believe it is unlikely the Trump administration will stop actively trying to decouple the US technology industry from China. Australia's ban on Huawei participating in the 5G network, a decision strongly supported by the US, has set a precedent for other western nations considering a ban. The new Australian government may face a formal challenge by Beijing at the World Trade Organisation. Cui Fan, director of research for the China Society for WTO Studies in Beijing, says China has complained about the Australian Huawei ban multiple times in WTO meetings. First in October, then November, and last month when the third complaint was reported by Reuters. "China believes that such a ban is discriminatory and inconsistent with WTO rules and it has brought a significant loss of commercial interest of China," he says, expressing personal views. "The possibility of further action, such as a request for consultation, which is a more formal complaint under the dispute settlement mechanism of the WTO, cannot be excluded." The Morrison government has argued the Huawei ban is justified on national security grounds. Loading Drysdale says the China's complaint at the WTO "is serious" and the result could go either way. James Laurenceson, acting director of the Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology in Sydney, says China could become less irritated about Australia's Huawei ban if Britain and Germany allow the Chinese company to participate in their more lucrative 5G markets. British Prime Minister Theresa May this week was reported to have overruled her security agencies and decided Huawei would not be banned from 5G and could bid for "non core" roles. As tension in the South China Sea between the US and Chinese navies rachets up, Professor of Asia-Pacific security studies at Macquarie University, Bates Gill, can see "little detectable difference" in Coalition and Labor policy. "The US has increased the tempo of freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs) and the Chinese side has stepped up its response, both verbally and militarily," he says. "The two sides are heading into a far more intense period, though it is unclear whether President Trump himself wants to escalate tensions with China in this particular area." But Dr Gill says it seems unlikely the next Australian government would change its policy and jointly conduct FONOPs with the US "let alone conduct them within 12 nautical miles of Chinese-claimed islands". More broadly, areas for cooperation with China will narrow, he predicts. "That said, Labor, like the Coalition, will avoid most activities and especially those undertaken with other governments which China would find troubling. While the room for engagement is narrowing, Australia will still need to pursue a constructive relationship with China." Coalition MP Kevin Hogan has left the door open to sitting on the crossbench if Bill Shorten wins the May election, turning him into a key figure in the event of a hung Parliament. Mr Hogan, who is under threat from Labor in the northern NSW seat of Page, said he would "review his position" if he was re-elected. Pressed repeatedly on whether this meant he could support a Shorten Labor government through confidence and supply, Mr Hogan insisted he would review his position after the election. Nationals MP Kevin Hogan. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen He later added that this did not mean he would guarantee confidence. "Im not guaranteeing them anything," he said. A former Coalition MP for the seat devastated by Clive Palmer's business record has slammed Prime Minister Scott Morrison's preference deal with the "vacuous" mining magnate, and says he is shocked and disgusted Australians are considering voting for him. Ewen Jones, who held the Townsville-based electorate of Herbert when the city's nickel refinery collapsed, warned the government could not trust the billionaire businessman and said the United Australia Party should be placed at the bottom of how-to-vote cards, below Pauline Hanson's One Nation. Former Liberal MP Ewen Jones in Townsville on Friday. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer The Prime Minister on Friday praised the controversial businessman's economic judgment, paving the way for the announcement of a preference deal that will bolster the Coalition's chances in marginal Queensland seats and give Mr Palmer a strong chance at entering the Senate at the May 18 election. Brian Burston, a United Australia Party senator for NSW, has already talked up the party's hopes of winning up to six Senate seats across the nation. The deal will also assist the Coalition to defeat Labor in marginal seats such as Flynn, Capricornia and Dawson in north Queensland. New Delhi, Apr 27 (IBNS): The Ministry of External Affairs on Saturday advised Indians not to undertake 'non-essential travel' to Sri Lanka where eight blasts killed over 200 people on Easter Sunday. "In view of the prevailing security situation in Sri Lanka in the aftermath of terror attacks on 21 April 2019, Indian nationals intending to travel to Sri Lanka are advised not to undertake non-essential travel," the Ministry said in a statement. "In case of those undertaking essential/emergency travels, they can contact the High Commission of India in Colombo or the Assistant High Commission in Kandy / Consulates in Hambantota and Jaffna in case of requirement of any assistance. The helpline numbers of the Indian High Commission are available on the Missions website," it said. The Ministry said in the statement further: "The Government of Sri Lanka has beefed up the security in the country. A nation-wide emergency including night time curfew is in place at present which may also affect travel with in Sri Lanka." Eight blasts rocked the Island Nation and disrupted peace in the country on Sunday. The blasts claimed 253 lives. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks. Sri Lanka had witnessed violence in the past when the country was facing civil wars. Labor has launched a full-frontal attack on Prime Minister Scott Morrison, claiming a preference deal between the Coalition and Clive Palmer would deliver the most "extreme right-wing" government in Australian history. Campaigning in Tasmania, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten accused Mr Morrison of being a "sneaky operator" who was willing to tell voters in Melbourne and Sydney one thing about a preference deal but another to voters through northern Queensland. The Coalition is poised to do a preference deal with Mr Palmer's United Australia Party despite the businessman's controversial history, including the collapse of his Queensland Nickel refinery in Townsville which left hundreds of employees out of work and owed millions in entitlements. Mr Shorten said a deal with Mr Palmer, along with a decision by The Nationals to preference One Nation ahead of Labor in some Queensland electorates, showed the "true colours" of the Coalition. The stranglehold has frustrated some, including former Nationals voter and farmer Norm Deaches. "We need some independent policemen there," he says. Inverell farmer Glenn Morris is on a five day horse trek to raise awareness about climate change. Credit:Eryk Bagshaw Inverell cattle farmer Glenn Morris has taken to his horse to try and draw attention to climate change. He is spending five days riding around the electorate wearing a Driza-Bone coat emblazoned with the words "Climate Action Now". "Plants are at tipping point for survival, we are at real risk of losing our vegetation," he says. Business is hurting too. Two years ago Teamo coffee shop had six staff members. Now it has two and a part-timer. Across the road Ashley Hawken runs Capitol Music Tamworth: "There are a lot of ukulele clubs around here. Almost every town has one. A lot of ladies in particular who are into the ukulele thing might have come and bought a new $300 or $400 uke," he says. "Now they come and buy a packet of strings." Ashley Hawken says sales have slowed at his music store. Credit:Eryk Bagshaw But if locals are frustrated with their MP, it's not showing up in the polling or at the bookie's office. Joyce is an almost unbeatable favourite to retain the seat - which he holds by a margin of 16.4 per cent - on May 18. Hes not taking anything for granted. "I'm campaigning like I'm on 1 per cent," Joyce said when The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age caught up with him in Tamworth on Friday. In the second week of the campaign Joyce should have been spruiking the Nationals message of putting rural communities first and talking up the benefits of being a partner in a Coalition government. Instead he faced questions about his role in an $80 million water purchase made when he was agriculture and water minister in 2017. The water was bought under the Murray Darling Basin Plan from two Queensland properties owned by Eastern Australia Agriculture. A parent company, Eastern Australia Irrigation, was domiciled in a known tax haven, the Cayman Islands. Energy Minister Angus Taylor co-founded the parent company and directed it until he was elected to Parliament in 2013, but denies benefiting from the transaction. Loading Eastern Australia Agriculture made a $52 million profit on the water purchase, and transferred much of it to the Caymans. Critics say the water was bought for as much as double the market price and has little environmental value. The complexities of the water market are such that the news - in a week of public and school holidays - might have dropped off the agenda. But Joyce agreed to an interview on Monday night with ABC Radio National host Patricia Karvelas. The interview lasted nearly half an hour as Joyce admitted he signed off on the deal without questioning key details because, he said, it was "not my job". Loading Joyce grew angrier throughout the interview and said criticism of the deal was "horse crap". Speaking to the Herald and the Age, Joyce acknowledged his performance in the interview possibly poured oil on the fire. "I was incredibly angry at the assertion that was made that I used my piggy bank to pay money to my mates," he said. "That is a statement of corruption and it is absolutely utterly bull." He concedes his manner in the interview was "over the top" but maintains his motivation was correct. "I had to knock it on the head straight away," he said. Joyce has come through worse before - he had to fight a byelection in late 2017 when the High Court held he was a dual New Zealand citizen. Joyce was returned with an increased margin. New England doesn't seem to be for turning. And it would be a huge change if it did. Joyce holds the seat with a more than comfortable margin of 16.4 per cent. Only 10 Coalition-held seats have larger margins. In neighbouring Cowper the story is similar but its cast is very different. There, high-profile former independent MP Rob Oakeshott seeking to make a comeback. The seat is held by the Nationals by a margin of 12.6 per cent but the long-serving member Luke Hartsuyker is retiring and Oakeshott sees his moment. "The government is cooked," he says. "People forget the fact that in a dry continent, water matters, and it is essential to everything we do. There is a clear sense that it hasn't been treated with the respect it deserves by policymakers and they will be punished at the ballot box," he says. "It's not a conservative area but it has been owned by the conservative party." Cowper is one of the seats people will be watching on election night. It's unlikely the same attention will be paid to New England which lacks a strong contender to take on Joyce. Still, those running against him are not shy about playing the man rather than the issues facing the electorate. "Scandal is his shadow," says Clive Palmer's United Australia Party candidate Cindy Duncan of Joyce. Loading Adam Blakester is crowdfunding his campaign and positioning himself as economically centrist but environmentally focused. It's a play voters in city electorates such as Warringah and Wentworth are by now familiar with. "[Joyce] has to have honestly one of the worst rap sheets of any parliamentarian since federation," Blakester says. Both candidates are speaking at the Tenterfield School of the Arts, the same hall in which Henry Parkes gave his address calling for an Australian federation. Movement is at the core of how Spender designs and produces her clothes, joking that skirts must pass the Martin Place test, named after the notorious wind tunnel in the Sydney CBD. Since becoming a mother to two sons, now aged seven and 10, those tests have expanded to include the carrying the baby test to determine dress lengths (Spender doesnt own a pair of jeans). Costume collaborators ... Spender with Sydney Dance Company's Rafael Bonachela. Credit:Louise Kennerley Spenders obsession with movement was put to the ultimate test recently, when she designed the costumes for the Sydney Dance Companys 50th-anniversary production of Cinco, under artistic director Rafael Bonachela. Some of the dance movements were so physical that three costumes ripped during rehearsals, and there were many repairs required. Each [costume] fitting, the scope of movement was amazing and even if I had mimicked it I couldnt mimic what would happen to the costume when it was on [the dancers], she says. Fregola, calamari and mussels at Totti's. Credit:Wolter Peeters Spender said the project, even if it has forced her to sacrifice other work this year, was a dream come true for the one-time ballet student. Every family photo from the age of five to 11, I am in my ballet costume. I loved it so much I wouldnt take [my costume] off, she says. I call myself the tortoise. My mum loves running fast and loves winning. Bianca Spender Spender's gazelle-like physique and flowing strawberry blonde hair means she could easily pass as a professional dancer, although she admits age and the way she moves has taken its toll on her body. I only recently realised at the physio when he asked how I move everything is always very extended, I am not holding my core very much," she says while demonstrating how she would pick up a vase off a table, arm outstretched. "I love how everything looks when its long but then you dont protect your body. Grilled whiting fillets at Totti's. Credit:Wolter Peeters Spender grew up in Sydney the middle of three children to fashion icon Carla Zampatti and John Spender (her parents separated in 2010). She recalls living in big, spacious houses where classical music was often playing and small talk was non-existent, the family preferring to tackle politics or business at the dinner table, sometimes to the bemusement of Spenders classmates. At school she would demonstrate her eccentric fashion taste on mufti days, but it wasnt until Spender reached adulthood that she truly understood her familys notoriety in Sydney's cultural scene. Bianca Spender has formed a reputation at fashion week for her non-linear catwalks. Credit:AAP Only years after I left school and I [reflected on] certain conflicts with certain kids that Id never understood. People would say, Well your mum is Carla Zampatti, and I was just like, Oh. The Zampatti-Spender family on the steps of their Sydney home in 1986. Clockwise from left: John Spender, Carla Zampatti, Alex Schuman, Allegra Spender, Bianca Spender. Credit:Ian Charles Cugley/SMH My mum is pretty normal, shes a postwar immigrant. What that means to me is you have to finish all your food, you live in a beautiful house but you understand the value of money. For a pre-teen Spender, that meant school holidays spent working at her mothers inner-city office, doing every job from tea lady to banking clerk. I am the most ridiculous jaywalker because I have been walking around the city since I was eight, Spender jokes. A firsthand apprenticeship in the Carla Zampatti offices, coupled with her familys work and social ethic, meant Spender had quite a feminist upbringing. I never felt the need to answer to a man, dress for a man, or been dependent on a man for anything. They dont have to approve of how I talk, what I wear, what I earn, what I spend my money on. Last year, Spender reached another milestone when she and Zampatti divided their businesses into separate entities, including a new head office in Rushcutters Bay for Spender. The pair are clearly close, often travelling together overseas or to fashion shows in Australia (both brands are carried at David Jones, for example). But when it comes to their work practices, Spender admits they are quite different. Loading I call myself the tortoise. My mum loves running fast and loves winning. She has racing car blood in her family (both Zampattis brothers were race-car drivers) but I am about the journey. Its not that I dont want the end result to look great. You can get a good result and have a terrible journey but that doesnt mean the same to me. I am [about] the long game. Which comes back to Spenders Fashion Week dilemma. She has a big vision of a project involving 10 women who have influenced her, dressing 10 other women, using her carefully archived collections. Its still morphing but she knows it wont be ready by mid-May, when fashion week takes place. I am probably being too ambitious in what I want to achieve out of it. But at least if I am pushing myself to strive for something. I wont do what I expect and Ill find that new form. (A week after our lunch, Spender phones to say she has decided to sit out of Fashion Week and will instead stage a solo, more intimate event in early May.) Recently, Spender has experimented with salon-style showings, where she revels in getting up close with the clothing and the customer. As someone whos more comfortable at a dinner party for 10 than a cocktail function for 300, Spenders aversion to big-production shows is understandable. At least if I am pushing myself to strive for something. I wont do what I expect - and Ill find that new form. Bianca Spender At a big party, my partners wings will get bigger. Whereas if you have me at a dinner party, I am passionate put me around lots of people and they are asking, Whats wrong with you? I am so not a show pony I find shows an incredible creative process but the way you only get eight to 10 minutes to present your world I remember once saying 12 [seconds] to [stylist] Mark Vassallo and he said, No, 12 is way too long. And I said, That dress took 12 weeks to get right and I cant have it on stage for eight seconds. I want to challenge that. The bill at Totti's. One point on which Spender and her mother are in lockstep is on the retention of Australian fashion talent (Zampatti funds a scholarship for a UTS graduate to study overseas, with the intention of them returning home). Unlike some of her peers, Spender, who worked in France and Italy in fashion for four years after completing a commerce degree, has resisted aggressively chasing sales or the limelight overseas. We know we [Australia] are leaders in sport compared to our population ... in fashion theres still a, Whats everyone else doing? attitude. New Zealand has a very strong vision for its fashion with a small population but Australia is often very outward looking. We need to find a bit more confidence in ourselves and our own vision and our own style. Our need to be revered by overseas comes from our lack of supporting ourselves and our culture Whenever [a journalist] writes on a designer, its X is stocked on [e-tailer] Net-a-Porter. Do they need to be stocked there for you to love them? A lot of people go bankrupt trying to catch the overseas dollar. I am focused on building my Australian market. If my international market comes quicker, great, but I am not running after it. I dont need it to prove to myself that what I do is unique and has a strong vision. I thanked her for her company, and excused myself. When I returned to the bench she'd gone, but walking across the grass towards me was a tall, red-haired, red-bearded man wearing a green velvet cloak embroidered in gold, and a small gold crown. He paused. At his feet I saw a woman seated on sumptuous fabric spread across the grass and two small children, both red-haired. The vision lasted less than a minute. I returned to my busy life but, two years later, while having an ordinary massage, the idea popped into my head that I would like to write about the grief I'd felt over the death of my mother. On returning home, I found an email from a publisher asking if I'd write a 10,000-word essay: I could choose the topic. The business was well-established and I had stopped my exhaustive work travel, so I accepted the publisher's challenge and suddenly found myself mad with excitement from the pleasure of writing again. Grief can be a great medicine and is the inspiration for much writing. Then another strange thing happened: on the recommendation of a Melbourne friend, I joined a meditation group that was struggling to establish itself in Sydney. It was led by a kindly gentle giant, a former policeman, who was now a "trance medium". I've always enjoyed acquaintance with those who stand apart from the herd; I've known European clairvoyants, Chinese qigong masters, mystics, Javanese pawangs (who would associate with wild animals such as tigers or crocodiles), Malay dukuns, energy workers, and many others who dance to a different drum. The meditation leader, Ian Rogers, told me I would write about Henry II. (He did not mention Henry's spouse, Eleanor of Aquitaine.) I began to research and became hooked. I read an immense number of books and made two trips with historians to both England and France for research, but there were frustrating gaps in the record. Ian, whose trance medium sessions in Sydney I found not to my liking, offered to help. I would prepare a list of questions; he would grow silent and, after a while, give answers I tape recorded. Some information I accepted, much I did not, but always the sessions were engaging. I always thought that healthcare was the No. 1 priority for humanity, because you can't educate a person if they're dead. But I was wrong: we are all screwed without a healthy planet. The spectacular point of difference that some of us benefit from is the simple location of our birth. To be born in Australia, Canada, Japan or the Netherlands offers a very different set of opportunities compared with being born in Madagascar, Bolivia or Iran. The basic human rights, healthcare and education on offer in rich countries give their residents a leg-up I have never taken for granted. When I use the word "ordinary", I mean normal, human, grounded, real. I don't mean average, mediocre or dull. Remembering how ordinary we all are is humbling and encouraging at the same time. It keeps your feet on the ground when you remember you're just as ordinary as all the other humans on earth and it's enormously motivating to think you're as ordinary as people who've had a huge impact. You are just as ordinary as Richard Branson, Oprah Winfrey and Bill and Melinda Gates. We're just as ordinary and human as each other. How cool is that? We are all ordinary. Every single one of us is an ordinary person who has a set of talents, opportunities, challenges and experiences to work with. Whether we turbocharge those into greatness or lie on the couch is usually entirely up to us. But to start with, we are all ordinary to the core. I've been fortunate to know some magnificent people during my life, people who have achieved amazing things: miraculous recoveries, stratospheric financial successes, inspirational renewals, gobsmacking humanitarian achievements and brilliant discoveries. But they're still ordinary people. They still enjoy a nice cup of tea and a biscuit. They're still irritated by a manspreader on the bus or when someone steps on the back of their thongs. They still dye their roots and get lippy on their teeth. But something about how they use their talents, opportunities, challenges and experiences moves them to pull off great things not the least of which is having a wonderful, enriched life. It's not always perfect, but it's never boring. At the time of writing this book, Dr Catherine Hamlin is 95. I've known Dr H well since my first trip to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 2007. After she appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2004, every dag and his dog (including me) wanted in on the doctor's foundation [established with her surgeon husband Reginald] to set up hospitals to help women suffering with obstetric fistulas. For more than four decades she'd been quietly working away in Addis Ababa, but after she'd been on the biggest talk show in the world, she was suddenly the duck's nuts. The cause of almost all obstetric fistulas is a lack of access to obstetric services. If we could pump billions of dollars into hospitals all over Africa, Asia and parts of the Middle East such as Iran and Afghanistan, this problem would pretty much vanish. It has nothing to do with child marriage or female genital mutilation; it's all about access to a decent hospital. About 5 per cent of women worldwide no matter what colour they are, no matter how snazzy their obstetrician is will have an obstructed labour where the baby gets stuck. Catherine's husband Reg used to say it's either the passage or the passenger that causes the blockage: the baby's head is too big, or there's something in the way such as an arm next to the head, or the umbilical cord holding the baby back. Without a nice, clean, quick caesarean, the passenger puts too much pressure on the passage. After 10 or more hours, the tissue under pressure dies for lack of oxygen. The resulting holes aren't usually rips but dead-tissue defects from vagina to bowel, and vagina to bladder. Great interviewers can cut to the core of an idea or an issue with just one question. I was reminded of that this week when I appeared on Richard Fidlers Conversations program discussing my latest book, Australia Day. Conversations has become an ABC radio institution because it is that rare program that isnt afraid to discuss big ideas, that eschews the cheap gotcha moment to open up discussion rather than shut it down. It is a program essential to our democracy. After everything that has happened to Aboriginal people in Australia, Fidler asked, why do you still believe in liberalism? Well do I? Hasnt liberalism been the handmaiden of empire? Isnt it complicit in racism and colonisation? Yes, but that doesnt tell the full story. Liberalism is also a liberating idea; an idea of emancipation and freedom, of individual liberty and universal human rights emerging out of the 17th century Enlightenment that gave shape to the modern world. The changing birthplaces of people at the top of Australia's migration tree since 1901 reflect international conflicts, changed political boundaries and the end of racially-biased policies, new Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows. Stimulated by the gold rushes of the 1800s, Australia's early population was a strange mix with nearly 2000 Australians registered as born at sea by 1891, outnumbering migrants born in Italy and Holland combined at that point. By the time Federation came in 1901, the population was almost four million and people from Britain and Ireland made up over three-quarters of Australia's overseas-born population. But more migrants were born in Syria than Greece and South Africa combined at that time. A little over a century later the trend has reversed with 10-times more people born in South Africa living Down Under than have come from Syria. A Perth woman has failed in her bid to sue a Margaret River bed and breakfast after she slipped on wet floor in the bathroom and hurt her shoulder. Goran and Amanda Nikolich visited Aquatic Visions studio apartments over Valentine's Day weekend in February, 2014. The woman slipped on the wet bathroom floor following a spa bath. (file picture) On their first night, the pair lit tea candles and had a spa bath in the apartment's bathroom, staying in the tub for around one-and-a-half hours. During the evening, the smoke alarm outside the bathroom went off three times, causing Mr Nikolich to get out of the bath and turn it off, dripping water onto the floor each time as he did. New York: A New York jury has convicted an extravagant socialite who bank-rolled an implausibly lavish lifestyle with tens of thousands of dollars she swindled from banks, hotels and friends passing for a wealthy German heiress. Anna Sorokin has been found guilty on eight counts related to bilking banks and businesses. Credit:AP On Thursday the Manhattan jury found Anna Sorokin guilty of four counts of theft of services, three counts of grand larceny and one count of attempted grand larceny following a month-long trial that attracted international attention. She was acquitted of one count of grand larceny and one count of attempted grand larceny. She is to be sentenced May 9. Sorokin also faces deportation to Germany because authorities say she overstayed her visa. Using the name Anna Delvey, Sorokin deceived friends and financial institutions into believing she had a fortune of about $US67 million ($95 million) overseas that would cover her high-end clothing, luxury hotel stays and trans-Atlantic travel. April 26, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - The veteran politician is the latest in a number of MP's to snub the US president, including Commons Speaker John Bercow and Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable. Mr Corbyn argued the "pomp and ceremony" of an official state visit was not needed and criticised Theresa May, who he said had "again opted to kowtow to this US administration". The Labour leader said: "Theresa May should not be rolling out the red carpet for a state visit to honour a president who rips up vital international treaties, backs climate change denial and uses racist and misogynist rhetoric. Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get our FREE Daily Newsletter "Maintaining an important relationship with the United States does not require the pomp and ceremony of a state visit. It is disappointing that the prime minister has again opted to kowtow to this US administration. "I would welcome a meeting with President Trump to discuss all matters of interest." A spokeswoman for the Speaker's Office said: "Mr Speaker has been invited to the banquet, but he will not be attending." Mr Trump's visit is due to take place from 3 June to 5 June. The White House has already confirmed that the president will meet with the Queen and hold talks with Mrs May. The prime minister and Mr Trump will then attend the D-Day events in Southsea Common, Portsmouth, before going to Normandy for further commemorative events. Such occasions often include visiting the head of state and addressing both Houses of Parliament, but Mr Bercow said in 2017 that Mr Trump should not be allowed to make a formal address. Mr Trump held talks with Mrs May when he made a working visit to the UK last year. Lord Fowler, Mr Bercow's counterpart in the House of Lords, has said there is a "strong case" for the US president being afforded such an honour. This article was originally published by " Sky News " - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy April 26, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - For more than two years, leading US political and media voices promoted a narrative that Donald Trump conspired with or was compromised by the Kremlin, and that Special Counsel Robert Mueller would prove it. In the process, they overlooked countervailing evidence and diverted anti-Trump energies into fervent speculation and prolonged anticipation. So long as Mueller was on the case, it was possible to believe that The Walls Are Closing In on the traitor/puppet/asset in the White House. The long-awaited completion of Muellers probe, and the release of his redacted report, reveals this narrativeand the expectations it fueledto be unfounded. No American was indicted for conspiring with Russia to influence the 2016 election. Muellers report does lay out extensive evidence that Trump sought to impede the investigation, but he declined to issue a verdict on obstruction. By contrast, the report shows no evidence that the Trump campaign conspired with the Russian governments alleged effort to defeat Hillary Clinton, and renders this conclusion: Ultimately, the investigation did not establish that the [Trump] Campaign coordinated or conspired with the Russian government in its election-interference activities. As a result, Muellers report provides the reverse of what Russiagate promoters led their audiences to expect: Rather than detailing a sinister collusion plot with Russia, it presents what amounts to an extended indictment of the conspiracy theory itself. 1. Russiagate Without Russia The most fundamental element of a conspiracy is contact between the two sides doing the conspiring. Hence, on the eve of the reports release, The New York Times noted that among the outstanding questions that Mueller would answer were the nature of contacts between Kremlin intermediaries and the Trump campaign. Muellers report does answer that question: There were effectively no Kremlin intermediaries. The report contains no evidence that anyone from the Trump campaign spoke to a Kremlin representative during the election outside of conversations with the Russian ambassador and a press-office assistant, both of which were ruled out as elements of a conspiracy (more on them later). It should be no surprise then to learn, from Mueller, that when Russian government officials and prominent Russian businessmen began trying to make inroads into the new administration after Trumps election victory, they did not know who to call. These powerful Russians, Mueller noted, appeared not to have preexisting contacts and struggled to connect with senior officials around the President-Elect. If top Russians did not have preexisting contacts and struggled to connect with the people that they supposedly conspired with, perhaps that is because they did not actually conspire. To borrow a phrase from Nation contributing editor Stephen F. Cohen, when it comes to the core question of contacts between Trump and the Russian government, we are left with a Russiagate without Russia. Instead we have a series of interactions where Trump associates speak with Russian nationals, people with ties to Russian nationals, or people who claim to have ties to the Russian government. But none of these links, ties, or associations ever entail a single member of the Trump campaign interacting with a Kremlin intermediary. They have nonetheless fueled a dogged media effort to track every known instance where someone in the Trump orbit interacted with the Russians, or someone who can be linked to them. There is nothing illegal or inherently suspect about speaking to a Russian nationalbut there is something xenophobic about implying so. Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get our FREE Daily Newsletter 2. Russiagates Predicate Led Nowhere The most glaring absence of a Kremlin intermediary comes in the case that ostensibly prompted the entire Trump-Russia investigation. During an April 2016 meeting in Rome, a London-based professor named Joseph Mifsud reportedly informed Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos that the Russians had obtained thousands of emails containing dirt on Hillary Clinton. That information made its way to the FBI, which used it as a pretext to open the Crossfire Hurricane probe on July 31, 2016. Papadopoulos was later indicted for lying to FBI agents about the timing of his contacts with Mifsud. The case stoked speculation that Papadopoulos acted as an intermediary between Trump and Russia. But Papadopoulos played no such role. And while the Mueller report says Papadopoulos understood Mifsud to have substantial connections to high-level Russian government officials, it never asserts that Mifsud actuall y had those connections. Since Mifsuds suspected Russian connections were the purported predicate for the FBIs initial Trump-Russia investigation, that is a conspicuous non-call. Another is the revelation from Mueller that Mifsud made false statements to FBI investigators when they interviewed him in February 2017but yet, unlike Papadopoulos, Mifsud was not indicted. What is not a mystery is whether the supposed spark for the Russia collusion probe revealed collusion: It did not. 3. Sergey Kislyak Had Brief and Non-Substantive Interactions With the Trump Camp Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyaks conversations with Trump campaign officials and associates during and after the 2016 election were the focus of intense controversy and speculation, leading to the recusal of Jeff Sessions, then attorney general, and to the indictment of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. After an exhaustive review, Mueller concluded that Kislyaks interactions with Trump campaign officials at public events were brief, public, and non-substantive. As for Kislyaks muchballyhooed meeting which Sessions in September 2016, Mueller saw no reason to dispute that it included any more than a passing mention of the presidential campaign. When Kislyak spoke with other Trump aides after the August 2016 Republican National Convention, Mueller did not identify evidence in those interactions of coordination between the Campaign and the Russian government. The same goes for Kislyaks post-election conversations with Flynn. Mueller indicted Flynn for making false statements and omissions in an interview with the FBI about his contacts with Kislyak during the transition in December 2016. The prevailing supposition was that Flynn lied in order to hide from the FBI an election-related payoff or quid pro quo with the Kremlin. The report punctures that thesis by reaffirming the facts in Flynns indictment: What Flynn hid from agents was that he had called Kislyak to request Russian restraint in response to sanctions imposed by the outgoing Obama administration, and that Kislyak had agreed. Mueller ruled out the possibility that Flynn could have implicated Trump in anything criminal by noting the absence of evidence that Flynn possessed information damaging to the President that would give the President a personal incentive to end the FBIs inquiry into Flynns conduct. 4. Trump Tower Moscow Had No Help From Moscow The November 2018 indictment of Trumps former lawyer, Michael Cohen, was widely seen as damning, possibly impeachment-worthy, for Trump. Cohen admitted to giving false written answers to Congress in a bid to downplay Trumps personal knowledge of his companys failed effort to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. To proponents of the collusion theory, Cohens admitted lies were proof that Trump is compromised by Russia, full stop. But the Mueller report does not show any such compromise, and, in fact, shows there to be no Trump-Kremlin relationship. Cohen, the report notes, requested [Kremlin] assistance in moving the project forward, both in securing land to build the project and with financing. The request was evidently rejected. Elena Poliakova, the personal assistant to Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov, spoke with Cohen by phone after he emailed her office for help. After their 20-minute call, the report says, Cohen could not recall any direct follow-up from Poliakova or from any other representative of the Russian government, nor did the [Special Counsels] Office identify any evidence of direct follow-up. 5. and Trump Didnt Ask Cohen to Lie About It The Mueller report not only dispels the notion that Trump had secret dealings with the Kremlin over Trump Tower Moscow; it also rejects a related impeachment-level bombshell. In January, Buzzfeed News reported that Mueller had evidence that Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress about the Moscow project. But according to Mueller, the evidence available to us does not establish that the President directed or aided Cohens false testimony, and that Cohen himself testified that he and the President did not explicitly discuss whether Cohens testimony about the Trump Tower Moscow project would be or was false. In a de-facto retraction, Buzzfeed updated its story with an acknowledgement of Muellers conclusion. 6. The Trump Tower Meeting Really Was Just a Waste of Time The June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower was widely dubbed the Smoking Gun. An email chain showed that Donald Trump Jr. welcomed an offer to accept compromising information about Clinton as part of Russia and its governments support for Mr. Trump. But the pitch did not come from the meetings Russian participants, but instead from Rob Goldstone, a British music publicist acting on their behalf. Goldstone said that he invented publicist puff to secure the meeting, because in reality, as he told NPR, I had no idea what I was talking about. Mueller noted that Trump Jrs response showed that the Campaign anticipated receiving information from Russia that could assist candidate Trumps electoral prospects, but the Russian lawyers presentation did not provide such information [emphasis mine]. The report further recounts that during the meeting Jared Kushner texted then-Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort that it was a waste of time, and requested that his assistants call him to give him an excuse to leave. Accordingly, when Veselnitskaya made additional efforts to follow up on the meeting, after the election, the Trump Transition Team did not engage. 7. Manafort Did Not Share Polling Data to Meddle in the US Election In January, Mueller accused Manafort of lying to investigators about several matters, including sharing Trump polling data and discussing a Ukraine peace plan with his Ukrainian-Russian colleague, Konstantin Kilimnik, during the 2016 campaign. According to Mueller, the FBI assesses that Kilimnik has unspecified ties to Russian intelligence. To collusion proponents, the revelation was dubbed the closest weve seen yet to real, live, actual collusion and even the Russian collusion smoking gun. Mueller, of course, reached a different conclusion: He did not identify evidence of a connection between Manaforts sharing polling data and Russias interference in the election, and moreover, did not establish that Manafort otherwise coordinated with the Russian government on its election-interference efforts. Mueller noted that he could not reliably determine Manaforts purpose in sharing the polling data, but also acknowledged (and bolstered) the explanation of his star witness, Rick Gates, that Manafort was motivated by proving his financial value to former and future clients. Mueller also gave us new reasons to doubt the assertions that Kilimnik himself is a Russian intelligence asset or spy. First, Mueller did not join media pundits in asserting such about Kilimnik. Second, to support his vague contention that Kilimnik has, according to the FBI, ties to Russian intelligence, Mueller offered up a list of pieces of the Offices Evidence that contains no direct evidence. For his part, Kilimnik has repeatedly stated that he has no such ties, and recently told The Washington Post that Mueller never attempted to interview him. 8. The Steele Dossier Was Fiction The Steele dossiera collection of Democratic National Committee-funded opposition research alleging a high-level Trump-Russia criminal relationshipplayed a critical role in the Russiagate saga. The FBI relied on it for leads and evidentiary material in its investigation of the Trump campaign ties to Russia, and prominent politicians, pundits, and media outlets promoted it as credible. The Mueller report, The New York Times noted last week, has underscored what had grown clearer for months some of the most sensational claims in the dossier appeared to be false, and others were impossible to prove. Steele reported that low-level Trump aide Carter Page was offered a 19 percent stake in the state-owned Russian oil company Rosneft if he could get Trump to lift Western sanctions. In October 2016 the FBI, citing the Steele dossier, told the FISA court that it believes that [Russias] efforts are being coordinated with Page and perhaps other individuals associated with the Trump campaign. The Mueller report though could not establish that Page coordinated with the Russian government in its efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election. The Steele dossier claimed that Michael Cohen visited Prague to meet Russian agents in the summer of 2016. In April 2018, McClatchy reported to much fanfare that Muellers team has has evidence that placed Cohen in Prague during the period in question. Cohen later denied the claim under oath, and Mueller agreed, noting that Cohen never traveled to Prague. After reports emerged in August 2016 that the Trump campaign had rejected an amendment to the Republican National Committee platform that called for arming Ukraine, Steele claimed that it was the result of a quid pro quo. The Mueller report did not establish that the rejection of the Ukraine amendment was undertaken at the behest of candidate Trump or Russia. 9. The Trump Campaign Had No Secret Channel to WikiLeaks In January, veteran Republican operative and conspiracy theorist Roger Stone caused a stir when he was indicted for lying to Congress about his efforts to make contact with WikiLeaks. But Muellers indictment actually showed that Stone had no communications with WikiLeaks before the election and no privileged information about its releases. Most significantly, it revealed that Trump officials were trying to learn about the WikiLeaks releases through Stonea fact that underscored that the Trump campaign neither worked with WikiLeaks nor had advance knowledge of its email dumps. Muellers final report does nothing to alter that picture. Its sections on Stone are heavily redacted, owing to Stones pending trial. But they do make clear that Mueller conducted an extensive search to establish a tie between WikiLeaks, the Trump campaign, and Stoneand came up empty. New reporting from The Washington Post underscores just how far, and how farcically, their efforts went. The Mueller team devoted time and energy to determine whether far-right conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi, best known for promoting the false claim that Barack Obama was born outside the United States, served as a link between Stone and WikiLeaks. Muellers prosecutors spent weeks coaxing, cajoling and admonishing the conspiracy theorist, as they pressed him to stick to facts and not reconstruct stories, the Post reports. At times, they had debated the nature of memory itself. It is unsurprising that this led Muellers prosecutors to ultimately declare, according to Corsis attorney, We cant use any of this. 10. There Was No Cover-Up The release of Mueller report does not just dispel the conspiracy theories that have engulfed political and media circles for two years; it puts to rest the prevailing one of recent weeks that Attorney General William Barr engaged in a cover-up. According to the dominant narrative, Barr was somehow concealing Muellers damning evidence, and Mueller, even more improbably, was staying silent. One could argue that Barrs summary downplays the obstruction findings, though it accurately relays that Muellers report does not exonerate Trump. It was Muellers decision to leave the verdict on obstruction to Barr and make clear that if Congress disagrees, it has the power to indict Trump on its own. Muellers office assisted with Barrs redactions, which proved to be, as Barr had pledged, extremely limited. Despite containing numerous embarrassing details about Trump, no executive privilege was invoked to censor the reports contents. In the end, Muellers report shows that the Trump-Russia collusion narrative embraced and evangelized by the US political and media establishment to be a work of fiction. The American public was presented with a far different picture because leading pundits, outlets, and politicians ignored the countervailing facts and promoted maximalist interpretations of the remaining ones. Anonymous officials also leaked explosive yet uncorroborated claims, leaving behind many stories that were subsequently discredited, retracted, or remain unconfirmed to this day. It is too early to assess the damage that influential Russiagate promoters have done to their own reputations; to public confidence in our democratic system and media; and to the prospects of defeating Trump, who always stood to benefit if the all-consuming conspiracy theory ultimately collapsed. With Muellers report, the collapse has now arrived, and the scale of the wreckage may prove to be the ultimate Russiagate scandal. Aaron Mate is a Brooklyn-based journalist and former host/producer for The Real News and Democracy Now! This article was originally published by " The Nation " - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy Venezuelan opposition reps throw temper tantrums when confronted about lack of legitimacy, interventionist plans at OAS At the OAS, two top representatives of Juan Guaidos US-backed shadow government Gustavo Tarre and David Smolansky lost their cool when confronted with critical questions. Both recently attended a closed-door DC meeting on a US military assault. By Anya Parampil April 26, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - On April 23, the Venezuelan lawyer and opposition activist Gustavo Tarre stood outside the Simon Bolivar room inside the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington DC and fielded friendly questions from reporters. It was a rare day of celebration for the Venezuelan opposition, which had been deprived of concrete victories since launching their coup with US backing in January. Having just been installed with as Venezuelas ambassador at the OAS, Tarre controlled little more than the chair he sat in. But as he was trotted out into the hall by a young handler in order to hold his first press-conference as ambassador, he beamed with pride. As soon as I approached Tarre and another key figure in Juan Guaidos coup administration with critical questions about their legitimacy and about their apparent participation in a closed door meeting to discuss a US military assault on Venezuela their ebullience turned to rage. In an exclusive report on April 13, The Grayzone exposed a private roundtable that gathered a whos who of Trump advisors, right-wing Latin American officials, and Venezuelan opposition figures to discuss Assessing the Use of Military Force in Venezuela. The meeting was hosted on April 10 at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington-based think tank where Tarre had been employed as a fellow. And the newly installed ambassadors name appeared on the meeting check-in list. .@AnyaParampil asked questions the new OAS rep for Venezuela's US-backed coup regime, @TarreBriceno, is not used to hearing. He took off his glasses and tried to give them to her, claiming "You did not see anyone in the streets [of Venezuela]!" (where he has not been in 5 years) pic.twitter.com/Hh8ZzPgc57 The Grayzone (@GrayzoneProject) April 24, 2019 When I asked Tarre if he had participated in the roundtable, and if he thought it was normal for an ambassador to discuss a foreign invasion of his own country, he pivoted to a familiar opposition talking point: [Venezuela] is a country invaded by foreigners. Invaded by Russian agents. Invaded by Cubans. Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get our FREE Daily Newsletter I countered that any Russian and Cuban officials currently in Venezuela had arrived at the invitation of the internationally recognized Maduro government. To this, a visibly riled Tarre offered up a strange historical analogy: No! he barked at me. Any government that will help is invited. When the Soviet Union was invaded by Hitler, help from the Allies was fundamental; if not, there would be defeat at the beginning. The same with us! In twisting the history of World War Two into an unrecognizable jumble, Tarre wound up conceding that the Venezuelan oppositions hopes for regime change were entirely contingent on US military support. I followed up by asking which institutions the shadow administration of National Assembly President Juan Guaido currently controlled, questioning the legitimacy of Tarre and other figures who were essentially playing government under Guaidos watch. The street, girl! The street! Tarre snapped, condescendingly addressing me as nina. I replied that during my three weeks in Caracas this February, I witnessed massive street mobilizations in support of President Nicolas Maduro. When I provided him with my eyewitness account, he whipped off his glasses, shaking them in my face to imply that vision problems accounted for my assessment. No, there are many paramilitaries, many colectivos, much killing, Tarre exclaimed, I am giving you a gift so you can see well. So when were you last in Venezuela, I asked him. Five years ago, came his reply. Smolansky blows his top when asked about CSIS meeting David Smolansky, a former Caracas mayor and prominent figure in Guaidos US-backed Popular Will party, fell into a similar fit of petulance when I asked him about his participation in the April 10 CSIS meeting to assess the Use of Military Force in Venezuela. I asked @dsmolansky about his participation in a @CSIS meeting assessing military options for VZLA & if it was appropriate for someone working on migrant issues at the OAS to attend such an event. He replied by accusing me of supporting Cuban agents torturing Venezuelans pic.twitter.com/cn0dJLWwQh Anya Parampil (@anyaparampil) April 23, 2019 You know that because you were the one that published that, the clearly annoyed Smolansky replied. Do you think its appropriate for someone working on migrant issues at the OAS to be advocating for or meeting about war in Latin America? I asked, pointing out Smolanskys role as OAS Coordinator on the Venezuelan migrant and refugee issue. By all accounts, a US military invasion of the country would only create more migrants, and possibly destabilize Venezuelas neighbors. Dismissing my characterization of the meeting as opinion (though the check-in list obtained by The Grayzone clearly outlined its disturbing agenda), Smolansky whipped out a familiar talking point. What a shame you support Cuban agents that are torturing people in Venezuela, he snapped before walking away to greet friendlier media. What a shame! For Smolansky and Tarre, the true shame may prove to be that neither of them were prepared to answer critical questions about their authority or lack thereof to officially represent Venezuela. Anya Parampil is a Washington, DC based journalist. She previously hosted a daily progressive afternoon news program called In Question on RT America. She has produced and reported several documentaries, including on the ground reports from the Korean peninsula and Palestine. This article was originally published by " Gray Zone " - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy PM Phuc asked the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic to maintain efforts to help boost the European Unions signing and ratification of the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) and the EU-Vietnam Investment Protection Agreement (EVIPA). He suggested both sides step up the exchange of experience in legislative affairs, strengthen cooperation between the Vietnam-Czech Republic, and Czech Republic-Vietnam Friendship Parliamentarians Groups, and bolster collaboration in education-training, science-technology, environment, agriculture, labour and between their localities. The Vietnamese Government leader requested the lower house to continue creating favourable conditions for the Vietnamese community in the country. He also forwarded National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngans invitation to visit Vietnam on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic ties in 2020 to Radek Vondracek. The host spoke highly of PM Phucs visit, saying that it demonstrates an important development step in bilateral relations. He affirmed the Chamber of Deputies attaches importance to Czech Republic-Vietnam traditional friendship, and totally supports the early signing and ratification of the EVFTA and the EVIPA. He voiced his belief that the early opening of a direct air route connecting Prague and Hanoi will contribute to fostering bilateral cooperation in trade, investment and tourism. He also affirmed to continue facilitating the lives of over 65,000 Vietnamese people in his country, and said he will arrange to visit Vietnam at his convenience. By Brett Wilkins April 26, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - During his regular Sunday school lesson at Maranatha Baptist Church in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, Jimmy Carter revealed that he had recently spoken with President Donald Trump about China. Carter, 94, said Trump was worried about Chinas growing economy and expressed concern that China is getting ahead of us. Carter, who normalized diplomatic relations between Washington and Beijing in 1979, said he told Trump that much of Chinas success was due to its peaceful foreign policy. Since 1979, do you know how many times China has been at war with anybody? Carter asked. None, and we have stayed at war. While it is true that Chinas last major waran invasion of Vietnamoccurred in 1979, its Peoples Liberation Army pounded border regions of Vietnam with artillery and its navy battled its Vietnamese counterpart in the 1980s. Since then, however, China has been at peace with its neighbors and the world. Carter then said the US has been at peace for only 16 of its 242 years as a nation. Counting wars, military attacks and military occupations, there have actually only been five years of peace in US history1976, the last year of the Gerald Ford administration and 1977-80, the entirety of Carters presidency. Carter then referred to the US as the most warlike nation in the history of the world, a result, he said, of the US forcing other countries to adopt our American principles. Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get our FREE Daily Newsletter Chinas peace dividend has allowed and enhanced its economic growth, Carter said. How many miles of high-speed railroad do we have in this country? he asked. China has around 18,000 miles (29,000 km) of high speed rail lines while the US has wasted, I think, $3 trillion on military spending. According to a November 2018 study by Brown Universitys Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs, the US has spent $5.9 trillion waging war in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other nations since 2001. Its more than you can imagine, Carter said of US war spending. China has not wasted a single penny on war, and thats why theyre ahead of us. In almost every way. And I think the difference is if you take $3 trillion and put it in American infrastructure youd probably have $2 trillion leftover, Carter told his congregation. Wed have high-speed railroad. Wed have bridges that arent collapsing, wed have roads that are maintained properly. Our education system would be as good as that of say South Korea or Hong Kong. While there is a prevalent belief in the United States that the country almost always wages war for noble purposes and in defense of freedom, global public opinion and facts paint a very different picture. Most countries surveyed in a 2013 WIN/Gallup poll identified the United States as the greatest threat to world peace, and a 2017 Pew Research poll found that a record number of people in 30 surveyed nations viewed US power and influence as a major threat. The US has also invaded or bombed dozens of countries and supported nearly every single right wing dictatorship in the world since the end of World War II. It has overthrown or attempted to overthrow dozens of foreign governments since 1949 and has actively sought to crush nearly every single peoples liberation movement over that same period. It has also meddled in scores of elections, in countries that are allies and adversaries alike. Brett Wilkins This article was originally published by " Common Dreams " - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy Photographer Mark Weiss has created iconic images of rock and rolls elite, including Bon Jovi, Freddie Mercury, Bruce Springsteen, Ozzy Osbourne and dozens more. Recently, Steve Lacy, Fox 5 New York City anchorman, has taken images from Weiss legendary photo archive and turned them into signature, one-of-a-kind screen-printed canvas artworks. These works will be a part of Weiss Good Times, Big Hair exhibit of 80s rock photography at Greenwichs C. Parker Gallery. The opening reception is Thursday, May 16, and the exhibit runs Friday, May 17, through Sunday, June 2. With Gov. Ned Lamont expected to roll out a more detailed tolls proposal next week, Republican legislative leaders broadened their sales pitch Friday on the alternative. GOP leaders in the House and Senate effectively turned the first two hours of a Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee hearing into a press conference for Prioritize Progress, the GOP plan to rebuild Connecticuts aging infrastructure without tolls. Sen. Len Fasano, R-North Haven, and Rep. Themis Klarides, R-Derby, still focused on the lack of tolls in their plan. But they placed equal emphasis Friday on the huge head start their approach would bring to rebuilding the states highways, bridges and rail lines. We dont have to wait to begin construction. We dont have to wait to see what the (toll) numbers are, Fasano said. We have an alternative that is more responsible and immediately funds transportation in this state, Klarides added. The Department of Transportations capital program currently pairs about $750 million per year in state borrowing with $750 million in matching federal grants about $500 million less than DOT officials want. Republicans would reassign another $600 million in annual borrowing currently dedicated to non-transportation programs. Between now and 2024 the year Lamont projects toll revenues would become available the GOP plan would invest a whopping $2.4 billion more in transportation than the Democratic governors plan, Fasano said. That will give this state what they havent had for a long time, Klarides said, an end to a transportation system thats woefully under-funded year after year. But the Lamont administration fired back Friday, saying the GOP plan is no transportation panacea. Melissa McCaw, Lamonts budget chief, said the Special Transportation Fund which pays off the principal and interest on state borrowing is headed for insolvency by 2025, absent more revenue, even under the Republicans proposal. And using borrowing usually reserved for school construction and economic development to instead fix highways and bridges would exacerbate another huge problem, she said. Surging pension and other debt costs already consume nearly 30 percent of the budgets General Fund, compared with 10 percent two decades ago. This is siphoning resources away from education, health care, social services and municipal aid. Prioritize Progress issuing bonds for transportation projects that are paid off with General Fund resources only would intensify this budget squeeze, McCaw said. The Lamont administration has said it is open to compromise with the GOP, and would consider increasing resources for transportation work between now and 2024 provided toll revenues could take over from that point. The finance committee is expected to vote next week on a tolls bill that includes some new elements from the administration, including a plan to smooth the transition until toll receipts arrive. The Democrats plan focuses on a reliable, sustainable revenue source, 40 percent of which will be paid for by out-of-state drivers, and offers discounts to in-state drivers, as well as ways to mitigate the impact on low-income individuals and families, said Colleen Flanagan Johnson, Lamonts senior advisor. Weve heard of the Bridge to Nowhere, but Prioritize Borrowing, in reality, represents the Highway to Hell. But Klarides said Lamont and his fellow Democrats who back tolls fail to see the big picture, and their proposals bear that out. Besides tolls, the administration also backs a gradual increase in the minimum wage from $10.10 per hour to $15 per hour. Critics argue either could drive up business costs, and inflate prices of basic goods such as groceries and clothing. What happens if both are approved at the same time? We happen to be in a very dire fiscal time, Klarides said. When are we in this legislature going to give taxpayers a break? When are we going to give businesses a break? BRIDGEPORT The anxiety police officers felt safeguarding the city for three years without a contract has been transferred to the City Council members who have to find the money to pay for the new pact. When Mayor Joe Ganim in a prepared statement Wednesday night announced he and Bridgeports Finest reached a five-year agreement, hizzoner did not mention the five years of pay raises: 1 percent, 2.5 percent, then 2 percent for the balance. And three of those wage hikes are retroactive to July 1, 2016, when the police unions last collective bargaining deal expired, adding up to a total 7.5 percent pay increase come the start of the new fiscal year this July and 9.5 percent by July 1, 2020. In contrast, the police union in January 2018 voted down a four-year contract that had a pay freeze in the first year and salary increases in years two, three and four. Its a fair contract for both the members and our city, Police Sgt. Chuck Paris, the union president, said Friday after releasing the details of the raises to Hearst Connecticut Media. Its really tough to be a police officer at this period of time. It helps. ... It is a morale boost. But that deal comes as the councils Budget Committee holds its final meetings on Ganims proposed 2019-20 budget and the election-year tax cut the mayor built in. Ganims budget also flat-funded for the fourth year in a row the struggling Bridgeport Public Schools. Educators said they would have to close schools because of an $11 million shortfall among other cuts. The full council is expected to vote on a final fiscal plan the first full week of May. Council President Aidee Nieves and Council member Maria Zambrano Viggiano, a budget committee co-chair, indicated Friday the police pact puts the mayors proposed $150-per-household tax break at risk. This will create the framework for the next week and a half for the budget committee to decide whether we keep the tax cut the mayors proposed or keep the tax rate the same, Nieves said. Nieves and Viggiano expected to learn the cost of the raises from the Ganim administration Saturday. Viggiano anticipated the amount will easily be several millions of dollars. Meanwhile the cost of the mayors tax break, proposed as he seeks another four years in office and council members another two, is known: $4.5 million. At this point its looking unrealistic in terms of the tax cut, said Viggiano, whose committee was already under pressure to find more dollars for education, police overtime and other departments needs. Viggiano noted the mayors budget also assumed $8 million in state aid and were not sure thats all going to come in. Viggiano also expected the retroactive raises for the police will result in retroactive overtime payments. This (police contract) has a ripple effect in many directions we may not fully understand yet, she said. Concessions Ganim Wednesday called the proposed agreement fair compensation for the police officers and in the best interests of the city. The contract is intended to save the administration money and increase budget revenues. Ganim said he prevailed in convincing the union to curtail overtime by reducing from eight to four the mandatory hours an off-duty officer called in on a day off must be paid. And while officers working outside overtime for construction contractors or utility companies working in Bridgeport will see their hourly $56.23 rate rise by $1, the proposed contract simultaneously ups what those contractors and utilities reimburse the city for use of those cops by $6 an hour, Paris said. Back in January 2018, Paris attributed the defeat of the four-year contract to newer recruits frustration with health costs. The city has been asking new officers to increase their contributions currently around 32 percent by 1 percent per year, capping off at 50 percent. The proposed five-year pact would freeze that climb from July of this year until July 1, 2020. I know from our experience and speaking with officers, thats one of the main reasons they are considering leaving or perhaps not even applying, because of the high cost of health care, Paris said. Also the contract limits the amount of time officers under investigation can be placed on leave to 180 days unless there is an agreement with the city. The union pushed for this to expedite months-long internal probes that leave their targets in limbo. (Currently) theres no limitation for administrative status, Paris said. Certain individuals have been out two years or longer. Addressing Nieves and Viggianos concerns about the budget impact of the raises, Paris said, Our officers are still in the low percentage of what other police officers get across the state. While the Budget Committee tries to factor in the contract to its deliberations, the full council will eventually vote on it. Councilman Peter Spain, who represents the high-taxed Black Rock neighborhood and has been calling for more education spending, said Friday, How can the mayor agree to millions in raises and offer a $4.5 million supposed tax cut when his budget leaves a $11.5 million hole for our schools and the 20,500 children they serve? If the Council doesnt fix this, then it will be left to the voters to replace them and the mayor, Spain said. Ganim, who was elected in 2015 with help from Paris, then-police-captain-turned-Chief Armando Perez, and the cop union, faces re-election challenges from fellow Democrats state Sen. Marilyn Moore and state Rep. Charlie Stallworth. Asked if the police will back Ganims re-election, Paris said it was too soon to commit. But, he added, It helps we have a contract (and) he always was open to talk about and discuss these (contract) issues. The Weight Band, led by Jim Weider, a 15-year former member of The Band and the Levon Helm Band, will be at the Fairfield Theatre Company Saturday, April 27, performing songs from their 2018 release, World Gone Mad, as well as classic songs of The Band. Click here for tickets and more details. The Weight Band originated in 2013 inside the famed Woodstock, N.Y., barn of Levon Helm, with Helm inspiring Weider to carry on the musical legacy of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame group. The Weight Band maintains that famed Woodstock Sound, keeping the spirit of Americana/Roots Rock alive. Their live set features Weight Band songs from the new album as well as fan favorites from The Band, including Up On Cripple Creek, The Weight and The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. The Weight Band includes Brian Mitchell (The Levon Helm Band), Michael Bram (Jason Mraz), Matt Zeiner (Dickey Betts Band) and Albert Rogers (The Jim Weider Band). Fairfield Theatre Companys StageOne, 70 Sanford St., Fairfield. Saturday, April 27, 8 p.m. $45. 203-259-1036. Peggys caring nature shone through in everything she did Evaluate Wars True Costs, Including Massive Debt By Ed Flaherty April 26, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - Have we become a welfare state for the military-industrial complex? In August, 2018, Congress passed the Fiscal Year 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) with overwhelming bi-partisan support. It authorized a whopping $717 BILLION in military expenditures, a $98 Billion increase over the 2017 NDAA. Only ten senators voted against this bill, and neither of Iowas two senators was among the ten. Why is this important? First, and most easily understood, is that the FY 2019 military budget translates into about $2,200 per person in the United States. Repeat, $2,200 per person. Of course, that is not proportionally reflected in the taxes that we pay. This gargantuan expenditure is mostly funded by new Federal debt. The deficit for FY 2018 was $782 billion, and is projected to be over $1 trillion in FY 2019. So, we will let our grandchildren carry that burden. Second, with funding for the military consuming 58% of total Federal discretionary spending, all other programs are suffocated. For example, military funding is 81.5 times more than the budget for the Environmental Protection Agency. Funding for transportation, mental health, food safety, education, and many other programs are cut, while the Pentagon goes unaudited and military contractors get rich. (Most generals, when they retire, go to work for military contractors or consultants and get richer.) Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get our FREE Daily Newsletter Third, the only possible legal and moral justification for our huge military establishment would be that it is defending our country from enemies outside our borders. However, we have not fought a war of defense since World War II. In the past 18 years we have spent six trillion dollars on our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and numerous other conflicts. All of those were wars of intervention in the affairs of other countries, where the safety of this country was not under threat. Rather than a defender of freedom, the United States has become the bully of the world. That is immoral and un-American. All of the above is history. We cant undo unnecessary wars, we cant get the six trillion dollars back, and we cant take back the $717 Billion military budget for FY 2019. So, what shall we do about the Trump administrations proposal for a $750 Billion military budget for FY 2020? First of all, we must become informed. As Thomas Jefferson said, an informed citizenry is at the heart of a dynamic democracy. Next, we ought to become angry very angry and we must focus our anger on change rather than let it fester. We in Iowa have the unique opportunity to influence whether our country takes the direction of peace or war. Presidential candidates are streaming through Iowa, and each should be confronted with the hard questions we have raised here. With only a couple exceptions, they will avoid the issue, unless pressed. In addition, each of our two senators in Washington, D.C., has a powerful voice and unique background in military waste. We must tell them that NOW is the time to rein in military spending and to begin encouraging peaceful solutions. We have become a welfare state for the military-industrial complex. We must not silently entrust our financial and moral capital to the tools of war, and we must not ignore our better angels calls for personal and societal investment in peace. Ed Flaherty is a member of Veterans for Peace in Iowa City. This article was originally published by " Eurasia Review " - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House. The widespread impact of domestic violence By Cesar Chelala April 26, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - Maria Salguero knows how to leverage her background as a geophysical engineer on behalf of women. Since 2016, she has been tracking cases of femicide (also known as feminicide) all over Mexico. Femicide is the deliberate killing of a woman or girl because of their gender. Every year, there are tens of thousands of missing women, men, and children in Mexico, most of whom are believed to have been tortured and killed. According to government figures, there were more than 38,000 desaparecidos in 2018. Salguero has been building a database with information about women who have been killed because official figures tend to minimise the problem. The women killed are at the end of a tragic spectrum of abuse of women at the hands of men. Intimate partner violence is the most common kind of aggression experienced by women worldwide, both in developing and in industrialised countries. A great number of women suffer physical violence and a significant proportion among them is also victims of psychological violence. However, many women do not report the abuse they suffer because of cultural norms and fear of retribution. Economic cost Violence against women has a high economic cost for society. According to the United Nations, the cost of domestic abuse in the US exceeds $5.8bn per year: $4.1bn for direct medical and health care services and nearly $1.8bn for productivity losses. This kind of violence results in almost two million injuries and nearly 1,300 annual deaths. These costs are considered an underestimate since they dont include those figures associated with the criminal justice system. Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get our FREE Daily Newsletter In addition, victims of domestic violence lose nearly 8m days of paid work this is equivalent to more than 32,000 full-time jobs- and almost 5.6m days of household productivity annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the US. Extent of this phenomenon The extent of this problem is equally serious in most countries around the world. According to recent research carried out by James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University and PhD student Emma Friedel, after almost four decades of decline, homicide among romantic partners is now on the rise. While 1,875 people were killed by an intimate partner in 2014, there were 2,237 such deaths in 2017, of which the majority of the victims were female. According to their research, four women a day are killed by domestic violence in the United States. They also found that since 2010, gun-related murders by intimate partners have increased by 26%, particularly since 2014. However, those kinds of murders involving other weapons, such as knives, have continued to decline. In Russia, for example, more than 14,000 women are killed every year in acts of domestic violence. And in China, according to a national survey, one-third of the countrys 270m households cope with domestic violence. Domestic violence is also rife in most African countries. According to a United Nations report, domestic violence in Zimbabwe accounts for more than six in ten murder cases in court. In Kenya and Uganda, 42% and 41% respectively of women surveyed reported having been beaten by their husbands. Domestic violence is widespread in Arab countries as well. Studies carried out in the Arab world show that 70% of violence occurs in big cities, and that in almost 80% of cases those responsible are the heads of families, such as fathers or elder brothers. Both fathers and elder brothers, in most cases, assert their right to punish their wives, children, and other members of the family in any way they see appropriate. Physical and mental effects Female victims of violence suffer a wide variety of health problems, such as organ and bone damage, miscarriage, exacerbation of chronic illness, gynaecological problems, and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS,. Often, they also suffer long-lasting psychological problems including depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, sleep and eating disorders, emotional distress, and suicide. Often, abusers prohibit their victims, mostly women, from pursuing career opportunities and other education and personal empowerment activities. Organisations such as Sanctuary for Families in New York City are training gender violence survivors to find living wage jobs in the competitive New York City market. Over the past five years, for example, the organisation Sanctuary for Families has trained over 560 survivors of gender violence, of whom 88% have graduated and secured a living wage job. To better protect women, efforts like this should be replicated throughout the country. Effect on children and the family Worldwide, the percentage of women who are battered during their pregnancy is 25% to 45%. Domestic violence by a partner has been associated with higher rates of infant and child mortality and morbidity. Because children often are in the middle of such disputes, they are also affected by domestic violence. A government survey found that 27% of those surveyed said that their children had also been victims of violence, particularly of a psychological nature. According to the CDC, there is a 45-60% chance of co-occurring child abuse in homes where violence between partners occurs. Children who grow up in families where there is domestic violence are prone to a wide range of behavioural and emotional disturbances. One of three abused children becomes an adult abuser or victim. Often, the psychological scars on children who have seen their mothers beaten last for several years. Among those effects are excessive worry or sadness, guilt, frequent lying, shame, and fear of harm or abandonment. Moving forward Because of the extent of this phenomenon, global momentum for more effective action is building. However, at the global level, the response is still inadequate. In the US, for example, there are more animal shelters than shelters for battered women. Ending global violence against women requires passing and systematically enforcing appropriate legislation for the protection of women. It also demands that we assess the real magnitude of the problem and educate our societies on the value and rights of women and girls. Actively promoting gender equality may be the best prevention against future violence. Cesar Chelala, MD, Ph.D., is the author of Maternal Health, Adolescents Health, and Violence in the Americas. These are publications of the Pan American Health Organization. Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== Human - Must Watch: Please take a moment to watch this Video. It will enhance your life and that of those who you will meet on life's journey. Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy Procurement Associate, Ankara, Turkey Organization: WFP - World Food Programme Country: Turkey City: Ankara, Turkey Office: WFP Ankara, Turkey Closing date: Monday, 6 May 2019 . Are you dedicated to work in WFP Emergency Social Safety Net (ESSN) programme, the largest humanitarian deal in European history? Join us to make a difference ! The United Nations World Food Programme is looking for a Procurement Associate in Ankara. If you have 2 years of relevant working experience and speak Turkish & English, apply by the 6th of May, 2019 ABOUT WFP The United Nations World Food Programme is the worlds largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide. The mission of WFP is to help the world achieve Zero Hunger in our lifetimes. Every day, WFP works worldwide to ensure that no child goes to bed hungry and that the poorest and most vulnerable, particularly women and children, can access the nutritious food they need. In September 2016, WFP signed the largest humanitarian deal in European history: a 348 million contract with the European Union to roll out a programme known as the Emergency Social Safety Net (ESSN). ESSN programme in Turkey contributes of the goals laid out in the Grand Bargain. Partnering with the European Commissions Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid department (ECHO), WFP has joined forces with the Turkish Red Crescent and the Government of Turkey to lessen the suffering of over a million refugees in Turkey. STANDARD MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS Education: Completion of secondary school education. A post-secondary certificate in the related functional area. Language: Fluent (level C) in written and spoken English and Turkish. Experience : At least 2 years of relevant work experience. JOB PURPOSE To provide coordination, administrative services and research to support the efficient and effective procurement services. KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES (not all-inclusive) 1. Provide operational coordination and administrative services, to support procurement projects and activities, following standard processes and contributing to the effective procurement of goods and services. 2. Identify and recommend potential suppliers, and compile data/documents to support the selection of suppliers, ensuring standard processes are followed. 3. Review, record and prioritise purchasing requests, and provide support to requisitioners, in order to support the procurement of appropriate goods and services, at lowest cost to WFP. 4. Contribute to negotiations with new suppliers on terms and conditions of orders, alongside a senior officer, in order to obtain the best terms and lowest costs for WFP. By Elijah J Magnier April 26, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - In recent years, Israel has proved capable of reading between the lines to assess accurately the politico-military situation in the Middle East, exploiting timely opportunities to hit targets of its enemies in Syria and Iraq. Domestic, regional and unlimited US support for far-right Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu permitted his military machine to close in on his nearby opponents in the region, i.e. Syria, Iraq, Hezbollah, and Iranian targets in Syria, at moments of weakness without triggering much of a response from their side. Today more than ever, the possibilities of war are increasing, a war that may be triggered by Israel and the US due to the consequences of the harsh sanctions on Iran and its partner the Lebanese Hezbollah that will be certainly end up weakening the local Lebanese and Iranian economies. Moreover, and most importantly, any sign of weakness on the part of Israels opponents, if analysed inadequately, could push Israel to provoke Hezbollah in Lebanon and its allies to a war. The history of Israeli aggression towards Lebanon is long. Lebanese domestic reaction to the report of last weeks meeting of the Hezbollah leadership and the analysis of the situation may yet again give wrong signals to Israel, signalling that it can attack neighbouring countries in what it perceives as a moment of weakness. However, if these signs and signals do indeed lead to war, that will certainly be devastating to Lebanon, more than the 2006 war, and most likely also destructive to Israel at a level it has not experienced since 1973. Lebanese reaction to the prospect of a war this summer despite the personal evaluation of Hezbollah leader who said otherwise, opposing his military commanders assessments according to what he said during his speech could be significant. The Lebanese people are no longer ready to pay the price of another war (after the 2006 war and the eight-years of war attempting to impose regime change on Syria). Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get our FREE Daily Newsletter Indeed, the popular reaction revealed many other crucial, underlying issues: the number of casualties Hezbollah has suffered and is not enthusiastic to go through the same losses; the current poor relationship between Hezbollah and the oil-rich countries which will reduce tourism and prevent any investment in reconstructing the country if it is devastated by a war initiated by Israel (as in 2006); the harsh sanctions on Iran imposing a tight budget now mostly allocated domestically, thereby limiting support to its partners overseas to cover the costs of Israeli-caused damage in case of war; the impossibility of resupplying Hezbollah with weapons at the same speed Iran was capable of between 2006 and 2018; the superiority of the Israeli war machine in inflicting great damage on Lebanon, considered by the US and Israel as responsible as a whole for embracing Hezbollah; and the ability of Israels friends and allies to resupply Tel Aviv with weapons and financial support to reconstruct any heavy damage Hezbollah could inflict in the unlikely event of a future war. All these factors do not decrease the likelihood of a future war in the Middle East; they are portents of danger and potential escalation. The Hezbollah leaderships personal assessment of the unlikelihood of a war this summer may be correct regarding the timing because the initiative has always been in the hands of Israel. Nevertheless, every military and political leader takes into consideration the worst-case scenario. Saying otherwise or spreading optimism may serve to promote an inaccurate feeling of well-being. On the other hand, it might indeed help avoiding domestic bickering, but would also represent an evasion of tangible concerns and the prospect of an even bleaker reality. Part of Lebanese are already labouring under heavy sanctions and the US is taking every possible opportunity to increase these sanctions on Hezbollah and on its rich and generous donors and businessmen. The report of the outline of Hezbollahs commanders gathering with their chief was not well-received by local society. This reaction illustrates how sharply the country is divided between supporters and opponents of Hezbollah. It also indicates how powerful is the effect of local and regional media on decision makers when they attack Hezbollah and its view of current politico-military affairs- and how fragile is the alignment behind Hezbollahs readiness to respond to any future war. And lastly, it gives a clear warning that Hezbollah supporters are not ready to accept the loss of their leader in case of war, a destiny no-on have a say in it. These messages are read by friends of Hezbollah, its members and commanders, but also by the enemies of Hezbollah. Israel the country responsible for initiating every single war inflicted on Lebanon is also reading the flow of information provided unwittingly by the reaction of the population and that of Hezbollah leadership. Nevertheless, the Israeli leadership needs to consider that, if cornered, Hezbollah can empty every silo and rain down on Israel and every single missile and rocket in its possession- abandoning the Rules of Engagement tacitly agreed between the two parties in case of war. Because Hezbollah will have nothing to lose in case of war, it can empty its arsenal against Israel and play its cards right to the end. The question is: even if Israel enjoys the support of the world media, financial and many militarily powerful friends, is it ready to go through a long and horrific war just to empty Hezbollahs missiles and rocket stock? If that is the Israeli objective, its chances of success are slim. Hezbollah is part of the society and cannot be removed unless several hundred thousand people are eliminated from Lebanon, the number that represents the society protecting and part of Hezbollah. Why would the US and or Israel declare a general war when financial sanctions are much more effective at little or no cost? Iran, Hezbollahs main partner and ally, is headed towards the unknown. The US has announced its intention to reduce Irans oil exports to zero, ending Iran oil waivers to US partners. Although it is virtually impossible to reach this desired and strict level of sanctions because many countries mainly China, Iraq and Turkey will not abide by the USs will at this first stage, it is certain that Iran will not be capable of exporting all of its two million barrels of oil daily (Iran produces 3.45 million b/d). The US is not imposing an explicit embargo on Iran, otherwise, it would be considered an act of war and would spark an immediate warlike retaliation by Iran and its allies. The US is seeking to impose economic sanctions on the countries who buy Iranian oil, thus cornering Hezbollahs main financier. It is a war of strangulation that in the short and medium term is showing itself effective. Although this kind of efficient war was run in Syria on a micro level, will it work on a wider level- and what will be the reaction of Iran and its allies if cornered? A difficult question to answer today as the clouds gather above the Middle East. Elijah J. Magnier is a veteran war-zone correspondent and political analyst with over 35 years of experience covering the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). He specialises in real-time reporting of politics, strategic and military planning, terrorism and counter-terrorism; his strong analytical skills complement his reporting. His in-depth experience, extensive contacts and thorough political knowledge of complex political situations in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Sudan and Syria make his writings mandatory reading for those wishing to understand complicated affairs that are routinely misreported and propagandised in the Western press. Please visit his website https://ejmagnier.com Proof-read by Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy Economic Development Winnipeg (EDW) has landed a federal government grant to produce a much-needed labour skills assessment to help attract highly skilled labour to the city. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 26/4/2019 (971 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Economic Development Winnipeg (EDW) has landed a federal government grant to produce a much-needed labour skills assessment to help attract highly skilled labour to the city. EDW is going to do a deep-dive scan of the labour market and current industry demands to figure out where the gaps are in the talent pool and to better understand how to address those gaps. "One of the things we have been pushing on is access to talent, and so we need to ensure that we know what gaps exist and where we go to find those opportunities," said Dayna Spiring, EDWs CEO. "We are working to become the one-stop shop for talent." The $126,000 in new funding for EDW is part of an expanded $100-million commitment to the CanExport Community Investments program by the newly created department of International Trade Diversification. The minister of that department, Winnipeg MP Jim Carr, said the funding is to help more local businesses reach their global ambitions. "This will help more Canadian communities attract, retain and expand foreign investment," he said. EDW has already identified third-party experts who will help produce the required information. Spiring said the study will provide a baseline understanding of the skills that are going to be needed. 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. "Once we know the gaps, we can try to recruit internationally to fill them and also engage with post-secondary institutions so they will know better where they need to focus their efforts," she said. In addition to the $126,000 for EDW, smaller grants were also distributed to Brandon and Beausejour. Meanwhile, Carr, who is one of the leads for the federal governments efforts to negotiate with China over its revoking of the export licences of a couple of major Canadian canola exporters, said Canada has still not received an "invitation" to send a high-level scientific delegation to China to inspect canola shipments the Chinese say were contaminated. "We have found no such impurities, so we want to be able to send a delegation to China to look at the problem scientifically with our Chinese counterparts," Carr said. "We await that invitation." Carr said the federal government will continue to engage the Chinese on the scientific level and, at the same time, he said, a support package is being put together for canola producers and efforts are being made to open other foreign markets to Canadian canola. martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca April 26, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - A federal judge has dismissed a long-running lawsuit over President George W. Bushs warrantless wiretapping program, ruling that allowing the case to go forward would create an unacceptable and exceptionally grave danger to the country. The Court cannot issue any determinative finding on the issue of whether or not Plaintiffs have standing without taking the risk that such a ruling may result in potentially devastating national security consequences, U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey White wrote in his ruling on Thursday. The suit, filed in 2008, alleged that the snooping eventually named the Terrorist Surveillance Program by the Bush administration violated the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution as well as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The effort is known to have included a massive database of telephone calls placed and received by Americans, although the full scope of the surveillance remains classified. The Bush, Obama and now Trump administrations have all invoked state-secrets claims to try to shut down the litigation. The case has a long and circuitous history in the courts. Brought by the digital-rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, or EFF, the suit was dismissed in 2009 by a previous judge who said the plaintiffs lacked sufficient proof to establish that they were surveilled. The case was later reinstated by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get our FREE Daily Newsletter White previously ruled that the plaintiffs were unable to prove standing to pursue their Fourth Amendment claims without exposing state secrets. In the ruling Thursday, he said the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act claims also could not proceed because there was no way to publicly discuss the way the program might have affected the plaintiffs without getting into highly classified information. White received extensive secret briefing and evidence from Justice Department attorneys before issuing his ruling Thursday, which included a classified section that was not released. Lawyers challenging the surveillance hoped their case would be buoyed by a ruling from the 9th Circuit in February in another long-running suit related to an undercover FBI operation focused on Southern California mosques. But White, who was appointed by Bush, ruled that case was not of much relevance to the one over the warrantless wiretapping. The Ninth Circuit was not presented with the issue of what to do when, as here, the answer to the question of whether a particular plaintiff was subjected to surveillance is the very information over which the Government seeks to assert the state secrets privilege, the judge wrote. The Court finds that because a fair and full adjudication of the Plaintiffs claims and the Defendants defenses would require potentially harmful disclosures of national security information that are protected by the state secrets privilege, the Court must exclude such evidence from the case, White added. The Court finds that it has reached the threshold at which it can go no further. EFFs executive director, Cindy Cohn, vowed to appeal. We are disappointed that the case was dismissed on the basis of the governments state secrecy arguments, Cohn said in a statement. The American people deserve to know whether mass surveillance is legal and constitutional. Instead of proceeding to the legal merits of the governments programs, the Court deferred to the governments state secrecy arguments. We look forward to seeking review in the Ninth Circuit. A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment on the decision. This article was originally published by " Politico " - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy THE activist investors in Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. say the retailer could unlock about US$1.9 billion of value if it were to hire a new chief executive officer, improve inventory and explore selling non-core assets. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 27/4/2019 (970 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. THE activist investors in Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. say the retailer could unlock about US$1.9 billion of value if it were to hire a new chief executive officer, improve inventory and explore selling non-core assets. Legion Partners Asset Management, Macellum Capital Management and Ancora Advisors proposed those changes and others on Friday in a 168-page report with their diagnosis of Bed Bath & Beyonds problems from stagnant sales to "excessive" pay of the CEO along with their solutions for fixing them. These include a 100-day plan to improve retail performance and replacing chief Steve Temares, who they argue has overseen an underperformance relative to peers since he was appointed in 2003. The company this week named an independent chairman and replaced five directors. It also said it would form a committee to review its transformation strategy and structure. The company has previously said it invited the activists to participate in a board refreshment program, which they turned down. Bloomberg News AUGUSTA, Maine - Soon after taking office, Maine's Democratic Gov. Janet Mills announced renovation plans for the governor's mansion. She wanted to add solar panels. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 27/4/2019 (970 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. This Tuesday, March 19, 2019 photo shows a wind farm atop a hill behind a large tree in Canton, Maine. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, the state is among 11 that either flipped the governorAos seat from Republican to Democrat or saw Democrats win newfound control over the Legislature in the 2018 elections. All have passed or are weighing legislation that would expand renewables in their states, the Associated Press found. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty) AUGUSTA, Maine - Soon after taking office, Maine's Democratic Gov. Janet Mills announced renovation plans for the governor's mansion. She wanted to add solar panels. The move was seen as a rebuke to her predecessor, Republican Gov. Paul LePage, whose administration put a moratorium on new wind turbines and enacted policies that critics say stymied solar energy in the state. Mills has moved quickly to scrap the turbine moratorium and signed a bill that would eliminate a LePage-era policy that put a fee on power generated by residential solar panels. Maine is among 11 states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, that either flipped the governor's seat from Republican to Democrat or saw Democrats win newfound control over the Legislature in the 2018 elections. All have passed or are weighing legislation that would expand renewables in their states, The Associated Press found. Driven by concerns about rising global greenhouse gas emissions , President Donald Trump's rollback of the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan and his plans to pull the United States out of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, some states are turning to renewable energy targets and energy efficiency programs in hopes of addressing climate change. State legislatures have introduced at least 329 climate change bills this year that address greenhouse gas emissions, up from 188 in 2018 and 255 in 2017, according to an AP tally of energy legislation monitored by the New Energy Economy at Colorado State University. About 30% of the bills come from states with new Democratic governors or legislative majorities such as Illinois, New York and Connecticut, the AP tally found. "There's definitely a lot of push following the elections of folks wanting to really pursue renewable portfolio standards as a way to expand renewable energy and reduce carbon emissions," said Michael Bueno, energy and climate co-ordinator at the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators, a non-partisan network of over 1,000 state legislators nationwide. Maine's new governor, for example, has vowed to get 100% of the state's energy from renewables by 2050 and has announced subsidies to put 1,000 more electric vehicles on Maine roads. In New Mexico, Democratic Gov. Lujan Grisham signed legislation requiring the state to get all of its electricity from carbon-free sources by 2045. California and Hawaii were the first states to commit to such carbon-free goals. In Illinois, one of the nation's top producers of emissions , lawmakers are considering a bill to bring the state to 100% renewable energy by 2050 a target Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker endorsed on the campaign trail. The Democrat-controlled House and Senate in New Hampshire passed bills allowing towns and other entities to build larger solar projects and shifting more than $12 million from a regional cap-and-trade program into energy efficiency programs. A separate bill requiring utilities to procure 60% of their power from renewables by 2040 passed the Senate. New York, where Democrats now wield large legislative majorities for the first time in a decade, is considering several initiatives to reduce climate-changing carbon emissions, including Gov. Andrew Cuomo's proposal to move to 100% renewables by 2040. Renewable consumption nationwide reached nearly 11.5% in 2018, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and is projected to grow slightly over the next two years. However, experts warn that a push at the state level to embrace clean energy is likely to run up against challenges. These include scaling up fast enough to meet these ambitious goals, upgrading the grid to accommodate more renewable energy and building the infrastructure to move green energy from remote areas to cities. Overcoming community opposition to large solar and wind farms is also an obstacle. "It's not as easy to say 100% renewables. Job done. There is a lot of work, a lot of investment, a lot of physical construction that is going to be needed to make that happen," said John Quigley, director of the Center For Environment, Energy and Economy at Harrisburg University. "Too many advocates gloss over the challenges." The push for renewables and limiting greenhouse emissions has also run up against stiff opposition from the fossil fuel industry, some utilities and Americans for Prosperity, the conservative advocacy group backed by billionaire brothers David H. Koch and Charles Koch. Many critics argue a shift to renewables only increases energy prices for consumers and costs jobs. So far this year, the American Petroleum Institute has reported spending nearly $100,000 to lobby lawmakers in New Hampshire, New York, Colorado and Maine as those states debate bills addressing carbon pricing, higher renewable energy goals and emissions from oil and gas production, according to state lobbying reports. API has reported spending hundreds of thousands more dollars on ads fighting Colorado's sweeping climate change bill targeting the oil and gas industry, according to reports filed with the Federal Communications Commission. "Any proposal that would fundamentally reorder American energy and the way of life in this country should first be measured by its impacts on American consumers, the economy and the country's opportunity for future prosperity," API spokesman Reid Porter said in a statement. Bills around the country go beyond renewables. There's legislation in Connecticut to help communities adapt to rising sea levels. And a bill in Illinois would address the disproportionate impact of climate change in low-income communities. Vicki Arroyo, executive director of the nonpartisan Georgetown Climate Center, which works with states to address climate change, said initiatives at the state and local level can drive investment in the renewables industry and prompt consumers to buy electric cars and make their homes more energy efficient. 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. "There's a sense of increasing urgency to tackle this problem and they're not seeing the leadership out of Washington that we need," Arroyo said. But Arroyo acknowledges state measures would still fall short of what the U.S. had promised under the Paris agreement, which has a goal of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit). Other energy experts said the state efforts are a poor substitute for a global effort to transition to low-carbon energy systems for billions of people. They also doubted state efforts could influence a change in federal policy, as long as the Trump administration is in charge. "State and local jurisdictions just don't have the policy levers that can do much," Case Western Reserve University law professor Jonathan Adler said. ___ Casey reported from Concord, New Hampshire. AP writer David Klepper in Albany, New York, contributed. Follow Marina Villeneuve on Twitter at @marinav13 and Michael Casey at @mcasey1 . A megaproject to hook up Manitoba First Nations to high-speed internet with fibre optic cable is set to begin this summer. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 26/4/2019 (971 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. A megaproject to hook up Manitoba First Nations to high-speed internet with fibre optic cable is set to begin this summer. The laying of about 400 kilometres of fibre optic cable is for three northern First Nations, running off the "backbone" of Manitoba Hydro sites with high-speed internet. The project, the ambition of which is to connect most of Manitobas more than 60 First Nations, has been delayed countless times, to the point where federal funding commitments are set to expire. Currently, there are 34 First Nations signed up to be part of the venture. The first connection to three First Nations is expected to cost $8 million to $10 million, but sending fibre optic cable to all First Nations will cost several hundred million dollars. The First Nations do not have the funding in place for the larger expansion. "Its a challenge because its so huge. Its never been done before," said Lisa Clarke, CEO of Clear Sky Connections, a First Nation entity that is driving the project. Funding for connectivity beyond the initial three First Nations is a question mark. "Were saying, Lets just get started. The board has given us that direction," Clarke said. The three First Nations being connected are Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation (Nelson House), Norway House Cree Nation and Pimicikamak (Cross Lake). They are strategically located to be gateways to send fibre off to other northern First Nations. They also have the means to put up about $1 million each towards the cost, Clarke said. Norway House Cree Nation Chief Marcel Moody said current internet service is "unpredictable and unreliable" and stymies economic development. Northern First Nation communities mostly rely on satellite service, and theres not enough bandwidth. 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. "Right now, you never know what kind of speed youre getting, or else the internet goes down," Moody said. Its difficult to use the new TVs, too, because they frequently buffer. "I never thought internet service would be so essential to our daily lives. Its so amazing how impacted we are by poor internet service," Moody said. Moody was wary of making predictions, considering how often the project has been delayed, but said Nelson House could be connected by the end of the year. Homes on First Nations are often spread well apart, increasing the cost of infrastructure. Moody said probably just the school, health station, band office and store would have fibre optic cable hookup, and the rest of the community would get internet service off a tower. Clear Sky Connections will contract with Crown Pipeline Ltd., which does extensive work with Manitoba Hydro, to lay down the cable, Clarke said. bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca LULULEMON, the purveyor of US$100 yoga pants, is setting its sights on a growing market: men. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 27/4/2019 (970 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. LULULEMON, the purveyor of US$100 yoga pants, is setting its sights on a growing market: men. The Vancouver-based chain said this week it plans to double its mens business in the next five years as it looks beyond its womens and accessories business for growth. Lululemon is also adding travel and office products, starting a "self care" line and opening an "experiential store" in Chicago with yoga studios, meditation space and a juice bar. "Were ready to build upon our success and embark on the next phase of growth at Lululemon to realize the full potential of our brand," chief executive Calvin McDonald told analysts on Wednesday. "We believe Lululemon has a unique opportunity to push beyond traditional expectations." Increasingly, that means winning over men who shop at competitors like Nike and Under Armour. Lululemon recently introduced two styles of boxers priced between US$28 and US$38 and plans to expand its lineup of mens running gear in the coming months. The company, which last year had US$3.3 billion in revenue, says it expects mens business to become a US$1 billion-a-year business by 2020. "Mens is one of our largest and most exciting areas of future growth," McDonald said in an earnings call with analysts last month. The company, he said, wants to help customers "achieve their goals of living the Sweatlife." Executives say men are looking for well-fitting but comfortable pants they can wear to the office. Lululemon promotes its ABC pants, which are made with moisture-wicking, stretchy materials and designed to give men a little more room in the crotch. The products arent the only attraction. Unlike some of its larger competitors, analysts said, Lululemon makes shopping simple by offering a limited number of products. "Shopping at Lululemon is quick and easy, and that is often very attractive to men," said Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail. "Its not like walking into a Nike store, where youre overwhelmed by lots of different products for lots of different sports." That was certainly the case for Raj Nijjer, vice-president of marketing for tech startup Yotpo, who says he was tired of sifting through racks of workout wear at Nordstrom. He happened into one of Lululemons 440 stores last fall, "tried on a bunch of stuff and bought it all at full price." His favourites, he said, are the companys pants and polos, which fit well and dont wrinkle. "Its great because its not a giant hodgepodge of options," said Nijjer, 41, who lives in New York. "After a long day, the last thing I want to do is make another freaking decision." Nijjer said some of his friends are still skeptical of the brand, which rose to popularity for its womens clothing, but hes slowly starting to see more men wearing Lululemon at the Manhattan Equinox where he works out. "Theres an amazing community of folks who like Lululemon," he said. "It sounds cliche, but we really do high-five each other when we walk by in our Lululemon. Its beyond gender at this point." 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. Sales of mens pants and shorts at Lululemon rose 28 per cent last year, compared to 21 per cent growth for womens bottoms. Even so, its still women who are doing much of the buying: "About 40 per cent of our mens product sales today are to women," Stuart Haselden, Lululemons chief operating officer, told Quartz in January. "Its an important catalyst for our mens business, and has been in building it to where it is today." Lululemon has become a retail darling in recent years by tapping into North Americans growing love for "athleisure." Annual revenue grew 24 per cent to US$3.3 billion last year, while profit rose 30 per cent to US$1.8 billion. Earlier this week, McDonald told the Wall Street Journal he has no plans to mark down the companys US$100 yoga pants to compete with lower-priced retailers. The company is also rapidly expanding into Asia and Europe, and said it expects international revenue to quadruple by 2023. Its success abroad, the company said, "demonstrates that the sweatlife translates across cultures and geographies." Washington Post A regulatory fight over Elon Musks tweeting habit may be over at least for now. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 27/4/2019 (970 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. A regulatory fight over Elon Musks tweeting habit may be over at least for now. Tesla Inc.s chief executive officer and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said in a court filing Friday they are settling a legal dispute over how Musk posts news about his electric-car company, avoiding a decision by a federal judge in New York on whether the billionaire should be held in contempt of court. The stock rose in extended trading, gaining as much as 1.4 per cent to US$238.50 in New York. The SEC has argued a Feb. 19 tweet by Musk violated an October settlement that ended an earlier brouhaha over his proclamations on Twitter. Musk said he hadnt violated the agreement. Had Musk been found in contempt, the judge had the authority to impose hefty fines and new controls on how he communicates with the public. At an April 4 hearing, U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan urged both sides to "put on your reasonableness pants" and gave them two weeks to work something out. She extended the deadline to April 25. Musk and the SEC, on that date, then asked for five more days to continue discussions. Meanwhile, Musk has continued to tweet. The judge had urged both sides to try to eliminate ambiguities in the earlier settlement, which required Musk to get internal approval before issuing some tweets. By reaching a compromise, Musk would avoid more penalties while the SEC would affirm the Tesla CEOs obligation not to release misleading information on social media. Musk and the SEC have been fighting since the CEO tweeted Aug. 7 that he had "funding secured" to take Tesla private, sending the shares surging. After an investigation, the regulator sued, saying Musk had misled investors. Musk and Tesla ended that dispute by agreeing to each pay US$20 million, without admitting wrongdoing. 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. As part of the October deal, they also agreed that any future social media posts by the CEO would be reviewed by a lawyer known as Musks Twitter sitter for any information that might affect investors decisions. The SEC said Musk violated that agreement when he tweeted in February that Tesla would make about half a million cars in 2019. He corrected that a few hours later, after consulting with the internal lawyer, with a tweet saying deliveries would reach only about 400,000. The regulator argued Musk was required to have his tweet approved in advance under the terms of the settlement. Musks lawyers countered the post wasnt material and that the Tesla CEO has been complying with the accord. This past weekend, Musk repeated his February claim, responding to another Twitter users post by tweeting "Tesla will make over 500k cars in next 12 months." Bloomberg News She was a humanitarian force to be reckoned with, helping thousands find refuge in Canada. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 27/4/2019 (970 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. She was a humanitarian force to be reckoned with, helping thousands find refuge in Canada. Generations of Winnipeggers with roots in the Horn of Africa were impacted by Sister Aileen Gleason, who died April 4 at the age of 94. SUPPLIED Sister Aileen Gleason at final vows in 1952. The street-wise nun born in Watson, Sask., founded Hospitality House Refugee Ministry one of Canadas largest private sponsors of refugees. "Sister Aileen is the reason we came to Canada," said Daniel Awshek, a pallbearer at her funeral. "Im one of the last people she sponsored." He met Gleason in the streets of Nairobi in 2004, after theyd both travelled far from home on paths they couldnt have foreseen. In 1943, Gleason felt the call to religious life and entered the novitiate of the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions at Sacred Heart College in Regina. She made her perpetual vows in 1952. Her parents, John and Josephine, were both teachers and Gleason, the second-oldest of six children, knew the value of education. She became a teacher, a principal and a life-long learner. SUPPLIED Sister Aileen Gleason (right) in 1999, receiving the Citation for Citizenship from the Chief Citizenship Judge of Canada, Elizabeth Willcock. After 20 years in elementary and secondary school classrooms in Saskatoon, Regina, Brandon and supervising as a principal in Fort Frances, Ont., Gleason took a sabbatical in 1973. After earning a theology diploma, she went to work for her religious congregation in Rome, where she met refugees from Ethiopia. They were mostly young men whod fled violence in their country. Their lives were on hold, with no place to call home, so Gleason went to work looking for friends and family in Canada to sponsor them. When she returned to Canada in 1986, the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions asked her to co-ordinate the communitys work with refugees and develop a comprehensive program. She started with a recipe-card filing system and a hunger to help. She worked on refugee applications and replied to a growing number of letters, then e-mails, from people asking for help. Gleason raised funds and worked with other organizations to raise awareness and support. SUPPLIED Aileen Gleason in 1943. By 1991, with 1,000 refugee sponsorships in the works, Gleason began planning for a home to receive refugees. In 1992, the Anglican Diocese of Ruperts Land offered the use of a parish house in Winnipeg. It was named Hospitality House, reflecting its mission to welcome and provide a safe haven to people whove experienced little of either. In 1998, Gleason was recognized by Citizenship and Immigration Canada and granted the Citation for Citizenship for her outstanding work on behalf of refugees. In 2002, at 78, Gleason retired as Hospitality Houses refugee co-ordinator and went to Nairobi in an effort to expedite applications of refugees stuck in camps, waiting to come to Canada. She wound up staying in Kenya until 2007, and changed many lives. SASHA SEFTER / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Elim Daniel, (from left), Simret Daniel, Eliora Daniel, Daniel Awshek and Yishai Daniel in their River Heights home. Sister Aileen is the reason we came to Canada, Awshek says. "I was in a very difficult situation," Awshek said, recalling his arrival in Nairobi. Hed just escaped dictatorship and oppression in Eritrea, before crossing into Kenya from Ethiopia. "I had no safety, there was no hope on the horizon and no way I could go back to my country," he said. "I had no status in Kenya," which meant he couldnt legally work and had to take "under-the-table" jobs with horrible conditions and poor pay. "I was looking for anyone who could help me to resettle in a place where I could work." He found Gleason. SUPPLIED Sister Aileen Gleason as a child in 1927. "She was elderly and very kind, loving and smart," Awshek said. "When I spoke to her about my story she was very moved." She was sympathetic and pragmatic, warning him Nairobi, home to many refugees, has many residents eager to exploit them. "She gave me a lot of advice on how to stay safe," said Awshek. "She gave me tips on how to not be taken advantage of by different people who seem to be helpful but take all your money, and how to be safe from the human traffickers." Gleason helped him navigate the bureaucracy so he could prove he was a bona fide refugee and eligible for sponsorship in Canada. WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Sister Aileen Gleason in her apartment at St. Benedicts Monastery in 2016. "She promised me she would do everything she could to help," Awshek said, his voice breaking with emotion. "Sure enough, she followed through." In 2007, he and his wife pregnant with their first child arrived in Winnipeg. "When we came here, she was at the airport to welcome us... She helped me set short-term goals and long-term goals and plan how to pursue my profession," said Awshek, who works as a nurse. He and his wife have four children born in Winnipeg. They stayed close to Gleason, visiting her when she lived at St. Benedicts Place through to her final days at Holy Family Home. "They called her our grandma in Canada. They were very sad at her passing," said Awshek. "She was so good to us and so many people. Were here in a safe country with all our rights, our children have a future and weve been able to help a lot of our family and our community." Awshek now serves as a board member and treasurer of Hospitality House Refugee Ministry. He estimated thousands of refugees and their descendants have Gleason to thank for being in Canada. "She has a legacy of touching thousands of people who were influenced by her life," he said. "Hopefully, we can hold on to her legacy and impact the world in a positive way." On June 4, during a ceremony at 2 p.m., Gleasons ashes will be interred at Assumption Roman Catholic Cemetery (3990 Portage Ave.). carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca STARS air ambulance is to receive a $1-million boost from Winnipeg-based agriculture giant James Richardson & Sons, Ltd. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 26/4/2019 (971 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. STARS air ambulance is to receive a $1-million boost from Winnipeg-based agriculture giant James Richardson & Sons, Ltd. "Weve had personnel in life-threatening situations, and theyve been there, so it is a very natural thing for us to support," said Hartley Richardson, the companys president and chief executive officer. "I dont really look at it as a donation, I look at it as an investment in the well-being of people across Western Canada." Shock Trauma Air Rescue Service (STARS) is a non-profit air ambulance organization which operates in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and eastern B.C. Its bright red helicopters are kept in flight by grants and private donations. STARS will receive a one-time grant of $1 million over four years; the funds will go toward day-to-day operations across Western Canada, STARS president and CEO Andrea Robertson said. Richardson owns agricultural and oil and gas companies operating and employing people in rural areas. "Knowing that a STARS air ambulance is at the ready, should the unimaginable occur, provides us an immeasurable degree of peace of mind," Hartley Richardson said. RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS STARS CEO Andrea Robertson. At a news conference Friday to announce the funding, Chris Elliot told media how STARS flew him to crucial care after he crashed his dirt bike last May. Elliot, a father of two who works for Richardson subsidiary Tundra Oil & Gas, was competing in a motocross event in Oxbow, a small town in the southeast corner of Saskatchewan. It was the first race of the year and everyone was gunning to finish strong, he said. He came out of the first corner of the track in third place and put the race leader in his sights. As they approached a high-speed section of the track, Elliot hit a short jump and lost his grip on the handlebars. He crashed, winding up unconscious in the corner of the track. 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. Elliot was rushed to the hospital in Oxbow with a collapsed lung and a "laundry list" of injuries. Staff at the small hospital realized, with his injuries, that he needed to be transported to Regina, 250 kilometres away. STARS was called in. "I never thought I would ever need this service," Elliot said. "Not all heroes wear capes. Sometimes, they wear blue." (STARS crew wear blue coveralls.) "The community owns STARS," Robertson said. "When you see us flying overhead, please know that you put us there." Since its start in 1985, STARS has flown about 42,000 missions in Canada, and 230 missions this month alone, Robertson said. geralyn.wichers@freepress.mb.ca The signage above BerMax Caffe + Bistro was stripped down Friday as a bailiff evicted the Berent family for failing to pay rent yet another sign of the financial struggles facing three co-owners accused of peddling a hate-crime hoax. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 26/4/2019 (971 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The signage above BerMax Caffe + Bistro was stripped down Friday as a bailiff evicted the Berent family for failing to pay rent yet another sign of the financial struggles facing three co-owners accused of peddling a hate-crime hoax. A letter posted to the door addressed to Oxana Berent says the landlord has terminated the lease and any further occupancy will be considered trespassing. "You have not made any response to the landlords demand for rent of April 3, 2019, and the deadline set for your response has passed," the letter reads. A source familiar with the situation told the Free Press the Berent family has struggled to consistently make rent at the building on the 1800 block of Corydon Avenue theyve occupied since May 2014. The eviction comes days after Winnipeg police charged Alexander Berent, 56; Oxana Berent, 48; and Maxim Berent, 29, with public mischief for allegedly staging an April 18 hate crime at the River Heights cafe. The incident included anti-Semitic graffiti, damage to the restaurant and an alleged assault on Oxana Berent. In the wake of Winnipeg Police Service Chief Danny Smyth publicly denouncing the Berents at a news conference Wednesday, the incident has been seized upon in certain dark corners of the internet as evidence that falsely, advocates say reinforces anti-Semitic and far-right conspiracy theories and tropes. Barbara Perry, director of the Centre on Hate, Bias and Extremism in Oshawa, Ont., said its common for hate-crime hoaxes to be picked up and amplified by agenda-driven individuals with axes to grind. "The unfortunate thing is these rare hoaxes become fodder for the far right and all these elements that take it as an example of hate-crime hoaxes being a big problem," Perry said. "In reality, theyre quite rare. "I know of far more cases of hate crimes not being reported, as opposed to hate crimes that dont really exist but have been reported." Police-reported hate crime rose sharply in 2017 (the most recent year data is available for), according to Statistics Canada. That year, Canada experienced 2,073 hate crimes an increase of 664 from 2016. Perry said research suggests those figures represent only a small portion of the hate crimes that transpire in the country each year. 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 most generous estimate has it that about 25 to 30 per cent of hate crimes are reported. From my own work, I believe its closer to 15 to 20 per cent," she said. That comment was echoed by Terry Wilson, a retired police officer and former lead investigator for the RCMPs hate crime team in B.C., who says even when hate crimes are reported, they can get miscategorized. Wilson said he believes the WPS handled the BerMax incident perfectly, since its important for law enforcement to state publicly it is investigating a case as a possible hate crime early in the process. "They absolutely did the right thing. In the initial stages, if there is evidence to suggest it was motivated by hate, you make that clear. You come out and say, Were looking at this as a potential hate crime," Wilson said, adding the strategy lets targeted communities know its being taken seriously. "In this case, given the outcome of the investigation, the good thing is that it seems there wasnt someone out there randomly attacking Jewish people." The Berent family has not responded to multiple requests for comment. They have denied the charges against them and are scheduled to make their first court appearance May 29. ryan.thorpe@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @rk_thorpe Late one December evening, nearly 20 years ago, Cindy Skanderberg and her husband, Bill, got the call that is every parents nightmare. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 26/4/2019 (971 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Late one December evening, nearly 20 years ago, Cindy Skanderberg and her husband, Bill, got the call that is every parents nightmare. It was from a doctor in Beausejour, who informed them their 19-year-old son, Michael, was dead. He had been killed on the job while working for a company replacing the lighting system in the local school. Fred Greenslade / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Bill and Cindy Skanderberg (seen in 2001) are reflected in Michaels graduation portrait. His employer was found guilty of negligence in his death, but paid only part of the fine imposed. "It wasnt an accident. Accidents are preventable. This was no accident," Cindy Skanderberg told a sombre crowd gathered Friday in the rotunda of the Manitoba Legislative Building to mourn those who have died from workplace illnesses and incidents in Manitoba in the past year. Michael had completed his electrical training in June 1999, and had landed a job with Clearwater Electric in Winnipeg. He wanted to become an apprentice and eventually receive his journeymans papers. He had only been on the job a couple of months when he died. Clearwater did not employ proper safety procedures, lacked proper schematics for the school and didnt supervise its young helper properly. Unbeknownst to Michael, the wires in the fluorescent fixture he was working on in the schools photocopying room were live. "One loud scream was heard and Michaels life was over. It was done," Skanderberg told an audience of labour officials, politicians and families who have lost loved ones in workplace tragedies. Justice Minister Cliff Cullen, who represented the government at the ceremony following the annual Day of Mourning walk from the Union Centre on Broadway to the legislative building, said 25 Manitobans died from workplace illnesses or events in 2018. Between 150 and 200 union leaders and workers, accompanied by elected officials of all political stripes, made the annual pilgrimage to the legislature on a chilly Friday morning. No Manitoban should have to sacrifice their life for the work they do, Cullen said, uttering the mantra spoken each year at the event. "Part of honouring our lost workers is renewing our commitment to keep Manitobans safe and healthy in the workplace," he said. "I encourage all of us, including government, business and labour, to honour the lives we have lost by renewing our commitment to safety above all else." Michael Werier, chairman of the Workers Compensation Board of Manitoba, said there are signs of progress. The number of workplace injuries is down and lost time due to workplace injuries is falling, he said. But Manitobans cant rest on their laurels. "The significance of this day cannot be overstated because of the devastating effects of workplace fatalities," he said. Werier and other speakers referenced the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike, a seminal event that helped shine a spotlight on workplace safety. Werier also mentioned the Humboldt Broncos bus crash, which killed 16 people and injured 13 in April 2018. He said it illustrated the devastating effects of such tragedies on family members and sparked initiatives to enhance training for truckers and improve road signage. Skanderberg responded to her sons death by becoming an ardent advocate for workplace safety, speaking to companies and schools. Workers aged 19 to 25 are among the most vulnerable to workplace injuries. 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. "Every time I did a presentation, I felt the death of Michael happening all over again," she confided to the crowd. Her sons tragic death sparked safety improvements enshrined in Manitoba law in 2006. Clearwater Electric was prosecuted for negligence in Michaels death and was fined $27,500 a significant penalty at the time, although only a fraction of the $150,000 requested by the Crown, Skanderberg said. The company closed its Winnipeg business and set up shop in Ontario after paying only a small portion of the total, she said, calling for new interprovincial rules that would ensure offending companies are forced to meet court-ordered obligations. Cullen, who gave Skanderberg a big hug after her talk, later promised to look into the issue. larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca The parents of teen Jaime Adao, slain last month in a violent home invasion, are grateful another person has been arrested in their son's death but no longer feel safe in their own home. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 26/4/2019 (971 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The parents of teen Jaime Adao, slain last month in a violent home invasion, are grateful another person has been arrested in their son's death but no longer feel safe in their own home. "There's some relief. We feel relieved that another person (is in custody). "We always believed there was not just one person," Imelda Adao said Friday from Jimel's Bakery, her family's business. "It just hurts so much. It doesn't bring him back but there's a chance our son didn't die in vain. "We are very much grateful for what they (the police) are doing to look after our son's death. They are very co-operative and very much supportive. We just want the people to pay for the crime they did and so it does not happen to anyone else." Geordie Delmar James, 34, of Winnipeg, was charged Wednesday with manslaughter and is in custody. "The homicide unit continues to investigate the homicide of Jaime Adao. We have no further comment," said Winnipeg Police Service Const. Jay Murray. The 17-year-old Grade 12 student at Tec Voc High School and his 76-year-old grandmother were in their home in the 700 block of McGee Street when a break in was reported at about 9 p.m. on March 3. The teen was attacked with a weapon while he was calling 911; officers arriving on the scene shot a male suspect to stop the attack, police said. Imelda Adao and Jaime Adao Sr. with their family. From left to right: Granddaughter Kristlyn Cain Parayno, daughter Germelyn, son Michael and daughter Emerald. (Ruth Bonneville / Winnipeg Free Press) Police have not publicly identified the type of weapon, but Imelda Adao said Jaime was fatally stabbed. Court records viewed by the Free Press show James had a long list of previous convictions dating back to when he was 18 years old. Since 2003, he has been convicted of myriad crimes, including theft, breaking and entering, robbery, assault and weapons offences, as well as failing to comply with curfews, recognizances and court orders. Ronald Bruce Chubb, 29, who was on probation at the time of the slaying and also has a lengthy criminal record, was taken to hospital in critical condition. He was charged on March 16, after his recovery in hospital, with second-degree murder and attempted murder. "We just want the people to pay for the crime they did and so it does not happen to anyone else." "We were insisting there was someone else because if there was only one person, he could not do all of those things," Imelda Adao said. "They ransacked our basement, they took some of our stuff and the person they caught (attacking Jaime) was upstairs. In the period of time (police said officers arrived within four minutes of the 911 call) one person could not do all of those things." She said she and her husband found a white hoodie with blood on it under their dining table. At first, they thought it was their son's because he owned a similar piece of clothing. Imelda said police told them what the man first charged in Jamie's killing was wearing, so they know the white hoodie belonged to a second attacker. A memorial of flowers and a teddy bear sit on the steps to the gate of home where 17-year-old Jamie Adao was killed. (Ruth Bonneville / Winnipeg Free Press files) "That's when we had big faith that there's not only one person who broke in," she said, adding she and her husband Jaime Sr., think the suspects knew their schedule. "We are always out of the house at the same time. In the morning, when Jaime would go to school, we would go out all together, before nine o'clock and we're coming home late because we're working, so we never had a chance to see those people. "We know we are being watched because they know what time we are leaving. That night, we went out and they thought that Jaime and my mom was with us so they forcibly came in." 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. She said they have taken security precautions at their house. "On Monday, our neighbour called and said somebody was opening our gate again," she said. "The gate was open (when they came home)." Their other five children, who all live in the Philippines, are in Winnipeg to support their parents and help out in the two locations of Jimel's Bakery. Their other two sons Michael and Dharen, and daughters Germelyn, Emerald and Jamie will be staying for six months but had to leave their families behind in the Philippines. "It's so difficult to express our feelings," Imelda said. "Without them, I don't know how we will survive. And God. I think He (God) will not give us this kind of trial if we cannot survive." ashley.prest@freepress.mb.ca For Edith Kimelman, the annual Shoah Week in Winnipeg is both a time of pain and hope. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 27/4/2019 (970 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. For Edith Kimelman, the annual Shoah Week in Winnipeg is both a time of pain and hope. "Every year when it comes along, I relive my experience," said Kimelman, a child survivor of the Holocaust. PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Holocaust survivor Edith Kimelman says Shoah Week is a good time to set an example for younger generations, including her grandson Ari. At the same time, the April 28-May 4 commemoration gives her hope in seeing people pausing to remember the genocide against the Jews during the Second World War. "Its very important to remember what happened to the Jews so we work against hatred and racism today," she said. Kimelman, in her early 80s, was just six when her father was murdered by the Nazis in Poland in the early 1940s. She remembers seeing him being led away by soldiers, later finding his body in a field. Her mother died of injuries suffered during a beating. Kimelman escaped with relatives, hiding in forests, barns and other makeshift shelters until being liberated by the Russians in 1944. The deaths of her parents and many relatives still haunt her, but she will join members of the Winnipeg Jewish community next week in remembering them and other victims of the Holocaust. "Even though it is painful, it is important to remind people of the atrocities committed back then, and to make sure nobody else needs to go through my experiences," she said. Kimelman expects to attend some of the events planned for the week. "I want to set an example for the younger generation," she said, noting there are fewer survivors of the Holocaust each year. "We only have a short time left. We need to carry the torch so that other terrible genocides dont happen." Kimelman, who came to Winnipeg 70 years ago, will be joined in remembrance by her children and grandchildren, including grandson Ari Kimelman, 17. "Shes truly an inspiration to me," Ari said of his grandmother. For him, remembering the Shoah "is tremendously important to our Jewish identity. If we forget it, then it is meaningless." "I know the week isnt easy for her," added the Grade 12 student at Gray Academy. "Ive promised her to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive. Its very important to me." Another youth planning to take time to remember the Shoah is Sydney Newman, 18. 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. "Its an important week of reflection and remembrance for me," said the University of Manitoba student, a grandchild of Holocaust survivors.. For her, the week is a way to "remember their legacy" and share a universal message against hate and racism. Its a message "for all young people," she said. "We need to keep the memory alive for the future." For Kimelman, its important for her to know young people are keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive and she hopes all Winnipeggers will join the Jewish community in the remembrance. "Please dont forget what happened," she said. "Learn from it, pass the lessons on to your children. Lets all work together to make a better world." For years, Molly McCracken knew about the book manuscripts her late mother had left, though she'd never had time to read them. They were tucked away safely in the University of Manitoba's archives where Melinda McCracken had placed them, along with some of her diaries, short stories, and letters from notable people. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 26/4/2019 (971 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. For years, Molly McCracken knew about the book manuscripts her late mother had left, though she'd never had time to read them. They were tucked away safely in the University of Manitoba's archives where Melinda McCracken had placed them, along with some of her diaries, short stories, and letters from notable people. The manuscripts might have stayed there, mostly forgotten. But in 2017, the labour community in Winnipeg began talking about plans to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the 1919 general strike; as Manitoba director for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Molly often found herself at the heart of those discussions. SUPPLIED Melinda McCracken circa 1966 at the lake. Her thoughts turned to one of the unpublished books her mother, a prolific writer, had left behind. Papergirl, it was called, and she knew it was centred around the strike. So she went to the U of M to look at the manuscript, and as she started to read, echoes of Melinda's unmistakeable voice came rushing back into her mind. "She just springs right off the page," Molly says, chatting at a Portage Avenue cafe earlier this month. Now, nearly four decades since Melinda started writing Papergirl, and 17 years since she died, the book is at last coming into the public light. In collaboration with Halifax writer Penelope Jackson, and published by local imprint Roseway Publishing, the book will hit store shelves next month in time for the anniversary of the strike. The book, which is targeted at middle-grade readers, explores the strike's history through the eyes of Cassie, a spirited 10-year-old girl who volunteers to distribute the strikers' newspaper at Portage and Main. (There's also a companion teacher's guide, for educators who wish to use the book in their classrooms.) As Cassie navigates the surging strike movement, she also faces the hunger that gnawed at poor workers, and mounting pressure from authorities. It is a story about working-class life in Winnipeg, and about justice. It is also a labour of love -- both by the woman who first wrote it, and the daughter who helped give it renewed life. "My grandmother was a very good storyteller, and she would talk about the horses bringing the ice for the icebox, and the milkmen, and the baking powder biscuits that were my grandmother's specialty. That's what they talked about with me around." Molly McCracken Melinda started writing Papergirl in 1980. She was an accomplished writer by then, having written for the Globe and Mail, Maclean's Magazine and Chatelaine. Her debut book, Memories Are Made of This, had been published in 1975 to some acclaim; it captured her impressions of growing up in the Winnipeg of the 1950s. PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Molly McCracken, director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, is spearheading the publication of Papergirl, her mother Melinda's previously unpublished manuscript about the 1919 strike. For two years, Melinda worked on Papergirl, fingers clacking away at the typewriter she kept in the basement of the Riverview home she shared with her parents and daughter. Today, Molly can still remember how her mother would pepper her grandmother with questions about what everyday life was like in the early 20th century. "My grandmother was a very good storyteller, and she would talk about the horses bringing the ice for the icebox, and the milkmen, and the baking powder biscuits that were my grandmother's specialty," says Molly, who was about seven years old when her mother was writing the book. "That's what they talked about with me around." Those little details, passed from mother to daughter, made Papergirl sing. The protagonist is named after Molly's great-aunt; those baking powder biscuits make an appearance early in the book, when Cassie's mother bakes massive batches to feed striking workers at a soup kitchen run out of the Strathcona Restaurant downtown. Despite the care she took in writing it, the book never took off. After finishing Papergirl in 1981, Melinda shopped the book to publishers, but found no takers; she tucked their rejection letters next to the manuscript. Eventually, she set it aside and turned her focus to shorter pieces, including columns for the Winnipeg Free Press. Two years before she died of breast cancer in 2002, she donated the Papergirl manuscript to the U of M, along with 20 boxes of correspondence, clippings and other material. It remained there until Molly unearthed it; what struck her most, she says, is that even though so much time had passed, the book's message remained timely. SUPPLIED Melinda McCracken at the Winnipeg Free Press circa 1962. For instance, she points to how the book centres on strong female characters. In the book, Cassie looks up to Helen Armstrong, who led the Women's Labour League and was famed as a fearless orator and organizer. (Armstrong was the subject of a 2016 documentary by local filmmaker Paula Kelly, called The Notorious Mrs. Armstrong.) And in the 10-year-old protagonist herself, Molly sees echoes of modern youth leaders such as 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, a Swedish activist who turned her school strike for climate action into a global phenomenon. Papergirl may be historical fiction, and written decades ago, but its spirit hums in tune with today's pressing issues. "Theres a thread of girls leading climate action movements and other movements in our world today, and we need their leadership and their voices, so I think it hopefully inspires other girls to get involved," Molly says. "Girls voices, theres more space for them and were listening more, and thats really exciting." Now, Molly is looking forward to having that new generation of readers discover her mother's voice. Writers put so much of themselves into their work, and it's rare to have a piece that languished for so long get its chance to shine. Not long ago, she dreamed that her mother came to give her a hug. In the dream, Melinda was beaming. "I think she felt a little under-appreciated in her lifetime, so its nice to have her work come to light," Molly says. Melinda McCracken's family will host a book launch for Papergirl on at 2 p.m. on Sunday, May 5, in the atrium of McNally Robinson Grant Park. melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca 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. Winnipeg police charged two young people with second-degree murder on Friday, in two unrelated cases that left two men dead this spring. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 27/4/2019 (970 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Winnipeg police charged two young people with second-degree murder on Friday, in two unrelated cases that left two men dead this spring. In the first case, 22-year-old Christopher Tristan Keith Atkinson was arrested Friday in the Regent area and charged with second-degree murder in the March 16 stabbing death of 38-year-old John Robert Gabriel on Salter Street, near Selkirk Avenue. Police dont believe the two men knew each other. Atkinson was also charged with breaching a probation order. Winnipeg Police Service spokesman Const. Jay Murray said he couldnt provide further details of the charges against Atkinson, as the homicide investigation has not yet been closed. A 16-year-old boy, a suspect in the killing of 53-year-old Joselito Fernandez, was arrested Friday in the vicinity of Redwood Avenue and Battery Park. Police say Fernandez was walking along a rail line in the 1000 block of Selkirk Avenue on April 18 when he was robbed and shot. Police dont believe the accused knew Fernandez. Murray said he couldnt comment on whether the young suspect was previously known to police, citing provisions of the Youth Criminal Justice Act. In addition to second-degree murder, the youth was charged with failing to comply with a probation order, and two counts of possessing a firearm contrary to a prohibition order. Both victims families helped with police investigations, Murray said. 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. "In both of these cases, members of the victims families came forward to the media and issued a plea for information, and we believe information that we got as a result of that, and these press releases, seriously helped both investigations." Robbery appears to be the motive in both cases, Murray added. "That means that these deaths were absolutely senseless," he said. "Youve got friends and family in both cases that are absolutely devastated by the loss of a loved one." Winnipeg Police Service statistics show a 21 per cent increase in robberies between 2016 and 2017. Police crime statistics for 2018 have yet to be published. solomon.israel@freepress.mb.ca @sol_israel As is his style, Sen. Don Plett did not mince his words when it came to H. Sanford Riley. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 27/4/2019 (970 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Opinion As is his style, Sen. Don Plett did not mince his words when it came to H. Sanford Riley. As most political observers are aware, Riley, a longtime provincial Progressive Conservative supporter and fundraiser, recently delivered a rebuke to his party and its leader, Premier Brian Pallister, by donating $5,000 to the Manitoba Liberal Party. In the context of internal party politics, this was the equivalent of delivering an unannounced, unwelcomed cannonball into a community swimming pool while flashing everyone the middle finger. Riley has not commented publicly on his decision to divert his traditionally robust support to the Liberals. In an email exchange, Riley said that "my actions and past comments will have to speak for themselves." However, the lingering resentment about how he was treated while serving as chairman of the Manitoba Hydro-Electric Board which ended with Riley and almost the entire board resigning en masse is a likely motivator. And thats where Plett, a former chairman of the provincial PC election campaign, comes in. "Its disturbing and troublesome that someone like Sandy Riley would behave this way," the senator said in an interview. "Jumping ship just because you had a dispute with the leader is not the way to do this. You dont fix things by running away. You fix things by staying in the tent and working to find a solution." Plett rejected the suggestion that Rileys donation to the Liberals the maximum amount allowed under provincial law was the beginning of a mass exodus of deep-pocketed Tory opinion leaders. It is, Plett said, a sign that there are still a lot of people in politics who believe that their money should give them preferential treatment in a political party. It is true that there are no tangible signs of an exodus of donors. Recently released political party financial returns, filed with and published online by Elections Manitoba, show that the Tories enjoyed another banner fundraising year in 2018. The Tories raised $1.95 million in total last year, more than three times what the New Democratic Party raised, and 10 times the fundraising total for Rileys new party of choice, the Liberals. What is notable is the absence of a handful of longtime PC loyalists who, like Riley, are charter members of the so-called "Tuxedo Tory" wing of the party, and who became embroiled in conflict with Pallister over the management of Crown corporations. Along with Riley, also missing from the 2018 donor roll was Dayna Spiring, the CEO of Economic Development Winnipeg and another longtime opinion leader in the provincial Tory party. Spiring was on the Hydro board with Riley and resigned along with others to protest, among a long list of grievances, Pallisters decision to veto a lucrative resource development settlement with the Manitoba Metis Federation. Since her resignation from the Hydro board, sources say Spiring has been increasingly concerned about Pallisters leadership style. She and her husband, financial services guru Charlie Spiring, were significant donors and are well respected in Tory circles. There are many, particularly in Winnipeg, who view her as a possible future leader of the party. Although the amounts they contributed pale in comparison with the total the Tories are taking in at the moment, the apparent loss of their support is still significant. The same could be said for Polly Craik, another well-respected Winnipeg Tory who had her own battle with Pallister earlier this year while serving as the chairwoman of Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries. Pallister derailed Craiks plan for a significant expansion of the MLLs Club Regent casino. She also accused the Pallister government of bypassing the MLL board and issuing directives to management, a no-no in Crown governance. Many party sources contacted about the apparent loss of prominent donors adopted a similar tack: the loss of Riley is regrettable, even a bit embarrassing, but it has no bearing on the direction or operational capacity of the party. "Sandy is making a point," one longtime Tory party official said. "Nothing more. Nothing less. The Tories will still bring in a lot of money." And yet, when pressed, the sources had to admit that they would rather not have to deal with the spectre of infighting at any time, let alone when Pallister seems determined to call an early election at some point this year. "The timing is not good," another source said. "But in politics, the timing is rarely good for stuff like this." So what does the apparent defection or estrangement of formerly high-profile supporters and donors do to Pallisters tenure as party leader? Right now, not much. Pallister may not be the most popular guy his personal popularity rating in opinion polls still runs a few points behind the support his party receives but he is also not facing any immediate threat from Manitobas opposition parties. And he has certainly checked off enough traditional conservative boxes in his first three years in government to earn broad approval by those who self-identify as PC supporters. There is also the fact that every time he scraps with a prominent Tuxedo Tory, Pallister becomes all the more beloved in the ranks of rural party members. Such is the nature of the rural-urban split in the PC party. Rather than teaching Pallister a lesson in picking his fights more carefully, former titans of the party like Riley may be learning that as influential as they are within a small inner circle of party officials and opinion leaders, that influence does not extend to the rank and file. Dan Lett | Not for Attribution A weekly look at politics close to home and around the world that is sent every Tuesday. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. If one were to use the magnitude of both the number of individual donors and the amounts they are donating as a barometer for Pallisters popularity among his own party membership, it would be hard to make the case that hes got much to worry about. Riley and others could simply be learning that the changes to political financing over the past couple of decades have really undermined the influence of smaller clutches of deep-pocketed donors. Although the exact rules differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, in general Canada has seen a movement to make large donations whether by organizations or individuals unfashionable. In Manitoba, unions and corporations are no longer allowed to write cheques of unlimited value, forcing political parties to go out and cultivate donors who can afford to give, but only in small amounts. Supporters like Riley still have a role to play in this new legal landscape. Every party needs so-called rainmakers, people who can pick up the phone and convince others to donate, and to go out and find other donors. Riley served that role for a very long time, and the fact that hes not doing it now is certainly not a benefit to the party. But Pallister is demonstrating rather clearly that he doesnt need Riley to lead the party and the province. At least not now. dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca There was a time not that long ago, actually when governments in this country would use signature infrastructure projects to help mark milestone anniversaries. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 26/4/2019 (971 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. There was a time not that long ago, actually when governments in this country would use signature infrastructure projects to help mark milestone anniversaries. Sports and recreation facilities, temples to arts and culture, elaborate green spaces or major capital investment projects such as bridges. The bigger the anniversary, the bigger the project. Premier Brian Pallister and the provincial government released an underwhelming list of Manitoba 150 infrastructure projects. (Mike Deal / Winnipeg Free Press) What, then, you might ask, is the Manitoba government planning for this provinces arguably significant 150th anniversary, which will be officially celebrated next year? Heres a hint: concrete and asphalt play major roles. On Tuesday, Premier Brian Pallister unveiled a $45-million Manitoba 150 infrastructure initiative that "will leave a lasting legacy and help provide a brighter future for Manitobans to look forward to." The signature project, as highlighted in the premiers speech and an accompanying news release, is a restoration of Memorial Park and the fountain directly north of the Manitoba Legislative Building. This will include upgrades to the mechanical, electrical and structural components of the parks aged fountain, along with improvements to the parks lighting and seating around the popular water feature. Its a small project the province declined to say how much money it will spend on Memorial Park but somewhat appropriate for sesquicentennial celebrations. Beyond that modest effort, however, it appears the premier has dedicated the rest of the Manitoba 150 infrastructure investment to repaving roads and shoring up highway shoulders. Want more great journalism? Get our best news and features delivered in your inbox every weekday evening. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. The government released a list of Manitoba 150 infrastructure projects that includes 17 road rehabilitation or reconstruction projects across the province. From a brand-new concrete reconstruction of Memorial Boulevard between Broadway and York Avenue, to paving the access road to the Brandon Airport, to improving gravel roads in provincial parks, it appears the near-entirety of Mr. Pallisters "celebratory" infrastructure investment will be spent on projects which the province was likely going to do anyway. Manitoba Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont nicely summed up the underwhelming and uninspired nature of the infrastructure projects. "Nothing brings people together like an intersection, Madam Speaker," Mr. Lamont said in the legislature. "And who doesnt love drainage? I know its a passion for many Manitobans." While there might be little passion in these projects, they might garner support among some Manitobans who applaud that Mr. Pallister is being pragmatic by not using infrastructure money on amenities or projects that fall outside the definition of "core" infrastructure. However, if he does not support the idea of hallmark celebratory infrastructure, he should not attempt to convince Manitobans that his collection of mundane infrastructure obligations translates into some sort of "lasting legacy" for the province. The fountain in Memorial Park will be completely overhauled in honour of Manitoba's sesquicentennial. (Trevor Hagan / Winnipeg Free Press files) Repaving or reconstructing roads is necessary and noble work for a provincial government. But there is no legacy left behind by these projects, and no brighter future to be realized upon their completion. It is exactly the same kind of work the province will be funding this year, and the year after the 150th anniversary and, hopefully, every year after that. Mr. Pallister has invested a lot of energy into promoting the Manitoba 150 celebrations. Hes been so distracted by next years events, in fact, that he has even suggested he may need to call an early election to avoid the prospect of a campaign disrupting the sesquicentennial revelry. In the meantime, Mr. Pallister seems to have decided that instead of an elaborately constructed birthday cake with streamers and balloons or some infrastructural equivalent that befits a milestone of this magnitude the provinces birthday-spending menu will instead feature plain old meat and potatoes. Huzzah. NEW YORK With its mountains and desert, beach resorts and Berber villages, Morocco is a feast for travellers of all kinds, including those who want to explore the kingdoms deep Jewish roots. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 27/4/2019 (970 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. NEW YORK With its mountains and desert, beach resorts and Berber villages, Morocco is a feast for travellers of all kinds, including those who want to explore the kingdoms deep Jewish roots. The presence of Jews in Morocco stretches back more than 2,000 years. Before the founding of Israel in 1948, estimates put their number as high as about 275,000, which was considered the largest Jewish community in the Muslim world, said Roy Mittelman, director of the Jewish studies program at The City College of New York. Today, after vast waves of departures over the years, only about 2,000 Jews remain in Casablanca and about 500 elsewhere in Morocco, but the Jewish presence is still alive in a variety of sites. The Museum of Moroccan Judaism in suburban Casablanca, for instance, is the only museum on Judaism in the Arab world. Jews of Moroccan descent, in Israel and around the globe, return to the North African kingdom often and some maintain second homes in familial regions. Jewish heritage tours to Morocco are abundant and easy to track down. Most cities have a mellah, which is an old Jewish quarter, along with Jewish cemeteries and synagogues. Mittelman, who has spent 40 years absorbing the history, culture and religious practices of Jews in Morocco, leads groups of students on tours of Jewish sites as part of an advanced seminar. He said theres plenty to read ahead of a visit. He recommends Shlomo Deshens The Mellah Society: Jewish Community Life in Sherifian Morocco for more on pre-colonial Morocco, based on the writings of 18th- and 19th-century Judeo-Moroccan sages. To learn more about the spiritual history of the Jewish quarter in Marrakech, he recommends the travelogue of Bulgarian Jewish writer Elias Canetti, The Voices of Marrakesh: A Record of a Visit. Mittelman has honed his travel itineraries over the years. Here are some of his favourites and other sights: CASABLANCA The last Moroccan Jewish day school, Neve Shalom, is in Casablanca, which is the economic and business centre of the kingdom. Watch the children playing outside in the yard, enjoy them singing Jewish songs and learn more about the schools Hebrew classes and Bible studies, Mittelman said. Visit the Tahiti Beach Club, once a local Jewish hangout. Among Mittelmans walking tours of Jewish residential areas in Casablanca are stops at the Beth El and Em Habonim synagogues. Theres also a newer synagogue, David HaMelech, in the tony, beachside Corniche quarter not far from the beach club. Casablanca has a traditional kosher bakery and kosher restaurants, as do other cities. The city is a good place to start for a grounding in Jewish heritage and history. MARRAKECH Just over 100 Jews remain in Marrakech, including a handful who live in the old Jewish quarter, Mittelman said, but the mellah is bustling. Among the synagogues that remain is the tiny blue-and-white Lazama, along a narrow street. Ask a local how to find it. Visitors may enter for a small fee. Theres an inviting riad-style courtyard with a fruit tree and a few chairs for weary travellers. The original synagogue dated to 1492 but it was later rebuilt. The mellah isnt the only place for synagogues. Head to the citys newer section of Gueliz, with a heavy European influence, for shabbat services at Temple Beth El Synagogue. Any taxi driver should know how to get there. For a day trip out of Marrakech visit the Jewish heritage sites at Essaouira, once a thriving Jewish centre and a former Portuguese fishing town. It was also a stop for 1960s and 70s rock stars who made pilgrimages to Marrakech. The town, dating to the 1700s, has a synagogue, cemetery and mellah, with plaques indicating buildings where ancient, long-gone synagogues once stood. FES The city had a large Jewish community in the 17th century and has a well-known Orthodox synagogue, Ibn Danan. Once crumbling, it was refurbished in the 1990s with help from the World Monuments Fund and American Express. King Mohammed VI has committed to reviving Jewish sites around Morocco. The mellah here is a maze within walls. You WILL get lost and thats half the fun. It was the first mellah in Morocco, dating to around 1438. In addition to a Jewish cemetery, where a couple of eminent medieval rabbis are buried, theres a site in Fes that is considered sacred among women, the Tomb of Solika. With a last name that varies, Solika as one retelling goes was a Jewish woman of great beauty who was beheaded in 1834 for refusing to convert to Islam. 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. Maimonides, one of the most prolific and influential Torah scholars in the Middle Ages, lived in Fes from 1159 to 1165. His stone home, with weathered engraving marking the location, is worth a stop. Walk a few steps and youre bound to find somebody willing to guide you in Fes and elsewhere, but one who knows "Jewish Morocco" is harder to come by, Mittelman said. Do some research beforehand to find just the right drivers and guides if youre travelling independently. OFF THE BEATEN PATH If you favour this style of travelling, Mittelman said you should have no trouble in small towns and villages tracking Jewish influences and history. "Find yourself the first 80-year-old and say, Do you remember Jews here? Chances are theyll say, Yeah and here are their names and that crumbling house over there is where they used to live." The Associated Press Kigali is the cleanest capital Ive seen. No trash littering the streets not one plastic bag blighting the landscape (they were banned in 2008). From our perch on the deck at Repub Lounge, we can take in views of the lush hills shrouded in bougainvillea. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 27/4/2019 (970 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Kigali is the cleanest capital Ive seen. No trash littering the streets not one plastic bag blighting the landscape (they were banned in 2008). From our perch on the deck at Repub Lounge, we can take in views of the lush hills shrouded in bougainvillea. The restaurant is packed. We pop tiny fried fish in our mouths, washed down with urgwagwa, the local banana beer. Laughter fills the room. The live bands upbeat jazz drifts into the night, mingling with the birdsong. I had come to Rwanda with my college roommate to celebrate a big birthday on a trip years in the making. We had dreamed about venturing to Volcanoes National Park to see the endangered mountain gorillas munching on wild celery stalks and bamboo shoots in their high-altitude realm. Swept up in Rwandan music and coffee-fuelled optimism, we find that the country has much more to offer than the famous gorilla treks. In vibrant Kigali, we cant get enough of the local coffee, cultivated in the rich volcanic soil around Lake Kivu. Rwanda is developing a reputation as "the Switzerland of Africa," not just because of its rolling and landlocked geography but also its safeness and economic growth. The government has encouraged entrepreneurs by facilitating business registration (it takes just six hours) and the "Made in Rwanda" strategy, launched in 2016, has reduced the trade deficit while increasing exports. Along these lines, were smitten with the handicrafts and find lovely boutiques like Abraham Konga Collections, brimming with the colourful baskets found in trendy American stores. Gahaya Links, a handicraft company dedicated to womens economic empowerment, has a beautiful showroom and its goods are also found at Macys. Much of the population still lives in extreme poverty, and companies such as Gahaya Links have a profound social impact. These scenes are a far cry from the Rwanda of April 1994. Twenty-five years ago, this small, Massachusetts-size country experienced a horrific genocide that left more than 800,000 people slaughtered, largely by machete, their corpses left to rot in the mud and float in rivers. This atrocity took place over 100 days. Half a century after the Holocaust, the unspeakable had happened again. The United Nations and the United States failed to intervene in the attack on the Tutsi minority by Hutu militias. Former U.S. President Bill Clinton has called that inaction one of the deepest regrets of his tenure. A stop at the Kigali Genocide Memorial is a necessary, sobering reminder. The museum explains the genesis: colonial "race science" imposed "class" differences between the Tutsi and Hutu people, dividing a nation that had existed peacefully, spoken the same language and practised the same religion for generations. Outside, the remains of 250,000 victims are buried beneath a rose-filled terrace. In his book We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families, the New Yorkers Philip Gourevitch describes not just the barbarity of the genocides political machine, but also the sheer scale of devastation in the aftermath. The country was annihilated. No schools, no water, no electricity, let alone formal courts to try the guilty. Rwandas comeback demonstrative of an African-led solution to "reconciliation" and reconstruction is nothing short of miraculous. Rwanda now is one of the most talked-about tourist destinations in Africa. Manzi Kayihura, managing director of the travel company Thousand Hills Africa, says Rwanda has sought a sustainable tourism strategy by limiting mass-market tourism and focusing on projects that will generate more revenue. Public and private investment is paying off: Rwanda is now also one of the top conference destinations in Africa. The gorilla trek has become a bucket list item for travellers particularly Americans. We also see Rwandas rebirth in game-rich Akagera National Park in the east, touching the Tanzania border.This vast expanse of savanna and wetlands was almost lost in the 1990s when it was crowded with fleeing refugees and grazing cattle. Today, this unique ecosystem is managed by African Parks, a non-governmental organization presided over by Prince Harry. Tourism is on the rise, particularly among Rwandans themselves. The parks revenue directly benefits the neighbouring communities. Our park guide Justice, who hails from a nearby village, tells us how he used to stalk birds with a slingshot as a boy. Now hes a keen birder, showing us species like shoebills, African fish eagles and the iconic gray crowned crane. Were so intrigued by the rambunctious antics of a baboon troop that we fail to notice the ominous clouds; the sky opens with a torrential downpour and we high-tail it to camp. Akagera can be accessed on a day trip from Kigali, but we choose to overnight at Ruzizi Tented Lodge, a solar-powered camp at the edge of Lake Ihema. (The lake is named "tent" in Kinyarwanda after famous British explorer Henry Morton Stanley set up camp on the western shore in 1876.) In this wild primordial domain of hippos and crocodiles, the sounds of the jungle are symphonic. Meals are served next to a fire pit on a deck raised above the water. Cup of coffee in hand, we greet the morning orchestra of grunting hippos and calling kingfishers. We cross the park in a magnificent day-long game drive. Its hours before we encounter another vehicle. We spy vervet monkeys hanging from trees. Elsewhere, we see zebras, giraffes and herds of elephants. (The lions and rhinos remain elusive.) Crocodiles cruise through the papyrus-edged lakes while hippos bask in the shallows with birds on their backs. The price, which doubled to about US$1,500 per person in May 2017, is a means of generating government revenue, with 10 per cent going back to local communities in the form of schools and infrastructure projects. Permits are limited to 96 a day. This cash influx aids gorilla conservation by financing the national parks expansion; the park will grow by 25 per cent within the next five years. On the two-hour car ride we listen to songs by Gael Faye, the French Rwandan musician whose poetic novel, Small Country, was awarded the Prix Goncourt des Lyceens 2016 in France. (The best-selling debut novel, which is being adapted for a screenplay, tells the genocide story through the eyes of a 10-year-old narrator, heightening its senseless horror.) As we head north, Rwandas pristine landscape morphs into an undulating canvas of forest, farms and fields of pyrethrum flowers, a cash crop sold as a natural insecticide. The Virungas are a chain of ancient volcanoes stretching across the borders of Rwanda, Congo and Uganda. Rising to nearly 15,000 feet, these misty mountains are draped in bamboo belts and rain forest the worlds only habitat for the estimated 1,000 mountain gorillas left. Our base for gorilla trekking is Bisate Lodge, opened in 2017 by ecotourism operator Wilderness Safaris. The accommodations are beautifully designed as "nests" crafted from recycled plastic. But we more appreciate the focus on conservation. The firm is reforesting a large area around the property while removing invasive species such as Eucalyptus trees. (The wood is burned in the fireplaces.) From park headquarters in the early morning, small groups (limited to eight people) are allocated to guides based on ability and difficulty of trek. To minimize disturbances, visitors are allowed a one-hour interaction a day with each habituated gorilla group. Expert trackers locate the groups and share tales of how gorillas can recognize them individually and even hold grudges for days if they mess up the protocol. 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. Our tete-a-tete with the gorillas of the Amahoro, or "Peace," group is even more rewarding after we endure a steep hike through slippery mud and waist-high stinging nettles. (Bisate Lodge provides gaiters and protective gloves.) After breaking through the overgrown vegetation, we are treated to vistas sweeping across to Congo. Here, the gorillas bask in the sun on the mountainside. We watch a female plucking leaves from a stalk and are reminded that humans share 98 percent of their DNA with these awesome primates. Were struck by the gorillas curiosity a youngster shows off by swinging from a vine and their family dynamics. The enormous silverback gently plays with a baby, illustrating what renowned primatologist Dian Fossey said "dispels all the King Kong mythology." Its a moment charged with spirituality. A peaceful, meditative hour in the Jurassic-like jungle passes like a dream. Fosseys Gorillas in the Mist published in 1983, two years before her mysterious murder stresses the urgent need for "active conservation" as she continuously fights with poachers. The book is infused with a foreboding for the species she fears might be "doomed to extinction in the same century in which it had been discovered." Now despite Ebola outbreaks in nearby Congo, the biggest threat to the growing gorilla population is gorilla-on-gorilla conflict a situation mitigated by the national parks expansion. Before leaving Bisate Lodge, we are each invited to plant an African redwood tree. Jimmy, one of the lodges resident agronomists, leads us to the area where theyve already planted more than 25,000 seedlings. We plunge our hands into the rich, volcanic earth and dig. The Washington Post When heavy snow whipped by 55-mph winds left more than 100 motorists stranded across Winona County this February, Amanda Jonsgaard and Cindy Huggenvik were among the first to know about it. During their 12-hour shifts, the two Winona County dispatchers each fielded more than 300 calls, many from stranded motorists waiting for help to arrive. With each call, they answered, 911, whats your emergency, their voices always calm, collected and without a trace of fear or apprehension. Its a day still fresh in Jonsgaard and Huggenviks memories and certainly one of their busiest in a long time. The storm one of the worst in southeast Minnesotas history prompted newly elected Gov. Tim Walz to declare a state of emergency and deploy the U.S. National Guard to help stranded Minnesotans dig out. And at the center of that effort, dispatchers like Huggenvik and Jonsgaard were tasked with coordinating the rescuers. Jonsgaard described the onslaught of frantic motorists whod disregarded warnings to stay off the road only to find themselves trapped by the snow, some of whom were calling for the second, third or fourth time, scared theyd been forgotten. I had a lady run out of gas in the middle of Hwy. 14, she said. Thankfully there was a MnDOT plow that was stuck a little ways ahead of her. Jonsgaard remembers checking in with the woman three, maybe four times, scared for her wellbeing. I was worried sick, she said. And it wasnt just motorists unprepared for the sheer quantity of snow, it was emergency personnel, plow drivers and firefighters tasked with carrying out rescue efforts, too. We had an ambulance get stuck three times, Jonsgaard said. A state trooper fell and broke her arm and a fire truck got stuck in a driveway for hours. For Jonsgaard and Huggenvik, every day is different, but they all start a little before 4:30 a.m. when they arrive at the dispatch center to relieve the night shift and get the lowdown on whats been afoot. Seated in their heavily bolstered chairs, their eyes dart between a panoramic array of monitors while scanning for radio chatter from any one of a dozen or more agencies in and out of the county. Thats because Jonsgaard and Huggenvik arent just taking calls for the Winona Police or Sheriffs departments. During their shifts, theyre in charge of dispatching, police, fire and ambulance service for the entire county. And if that werent enough, theyre also in charge of locking and unlocking the bevy of doors in and out of the Winona County Jail. Dispatchers have to be able to multitask, said dispatch supervisor Jenifer LaValla. Perhaps, more importantly, no matter what happens, whether its a noise complaint, domestic assault or high-speed chase, its absolutely essential they stay calm. You have to remain calm, Jonsgaard said. You have to be the calm voice on the line. You cannot lose it, she added. If youre frantic, youre just adding to the chaos. Its not an easy job, but its an absolutely essential one, said Deputy Chief Tom Williams of the Winona Police Department. Its an extremely important job and they take it incredibly seriously, he said, adding that theyre the ones working behind the scenes enabling officers to do their jobs. For Jonsgaard, who spent years working in Olmsted County as a jailer, its both the most challenging and stressful job shes ever held and at the same time its also the most rewarding. But for her, the knowledge shes helping people is enough to make even the most stressful days worth it. Youre helping others. Helping officers get home safe, she said. Theres a satisfaction to knowing youre making a difference. According to Huggenvik, who has trained countless dispatchers during her 20 years with the department, it not a job that everyone is cut out for. Becoming a dispatcher takes months of training and observation. Some people dont make it a week, Huggenvik said. They cant handle it. She said the stress of the job can really take a toll not only emotionally, but physically as well. Sworn to strict confidentiality agreements, details of a dispatchers day cant leave the building. You dont talk about this at home, Huggenvik said. Worse, dispatchers rarely get closure. Once the call is over its on to the next one, and unless the responding officer stops in to let them know what happened, they may never find out. Its like the last chapter is missing, Jonsgaard said. This can be especially hard with it comes to talking people off the ledge. And unfortunately, theyre not always successful. The hardest is 16-year-old kids, Huggenvik said. Winona County Sheriff Ron Ganrude said the job dispatchers do is absolutely vital to ensuring not only the publics safety but that of the officers as well. They are so important. They give us an idea of what were going into, he said. They are our lifeline. But while Ganrude, Williams and LaValla stressed the dispatchers importance to modern law enforcement, it remains an under-appreciated job that in Minnesota is still considered clerical. The biggest disservice to this industry is that were classified as clerical, LaValla said. It would seem others would agree. A bill currently working its way to the U.S. Congress called The 9-1-1 SAVES Act would reclassify dispatchers as first responders. Tobias Mann covers crime and government in Winona County. He can be reached at 507-453-3522 or at tobias.mann@winonadailynews.com Love 3 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 If you could talk to the president about anything, what would it be? I recently had the presidents ear while he was visiting Minnesota and used the opportunity to advocate for southern Minnesotas farmers. After all, its what I promised to do. Our economy is at a historic high, but far too many of our farmers still face significant economic headwinds. They face low commodity prices, high input costs, excessive regulations and too many barriers to free trade. For me, farming isnt politics. Its personal. My father, grandfather and great-grandfather were all southern Minnesota farmers. Growing up on our familys grain and livestock farm near Truman, walking the bean fields and working the land instilled in me a deep appreciation for agriculture and rural life. All this is what helps motivate me to sustain farming and our way of life. Shortly before I arrived in Congress a new five-year Farm Bill was enacted into law. The bills provisions help farmers maintain operations when times are tough. I support the Farm Bill and as a member of the House Committee on Agriculture Ill keep working closely with my colleagues to make sure it is properly implemented. To be successful, farmers need fewer trade barriers and new global markets. Ive petitioned U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, Under Secretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs Ted McKinney and President Trump himself to break down trade barriers. Based upon my conversation with President Trump, I can assure you he understands the critical importance of expanding trade opportunities making a great deal with China, Japan and other nations. I also strongly support the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement negotiated by the administration. The deal will boost opportunities for Minnesotas exporters, especially agri-businesses. International trade supports 750,000 Minnesota jobs and in 2017, our state exported $8.2 billion in goods and services to Canada and Mexico. Trade solutions, with Mexico, Canada, Japan, China and others, will give southern Minnesota great economic stability for the future. Im also advocating for farmers in other ways. When Secretary Perdue came before the Agriculture Committee this spring I urged him to remove the red tape affecting ethanol production. Year-round E15 would positively affect numerous farmers and hundreds of southern Minnesotans who perform high-wage jobs at ethanol plants. In February, I joined 43 of my colleagues in writing House Leadership about renewable fuels. We strongly advocated for a multi-year extension of biodiesel and renewable diesel tax incentives to give certainty to this industry and support commodity prices. We must also keep pushing for regulatory reform. Our farmers shouldnt be saddled with burdensome regulations written by some bureaucrat in Washington who has never set foot on a farm. I support the REINS Act, which would require congressional approval for major rules written by the executive branch. Finally, health care premiums are crippling farmers. Ive talked to families paying more than $15,000 a year in premiums, with deductibles so outrageous the underlying insurance is virtually worthless. That is simply unacceptable. I support patient-centered care that prioritizes the relationship between doctor and patient. Prior to Obamacare, over 90 percent of Minnesotans enjoyed insurance coverage. We had a high-risk pool, paid for by insurance companies, to cover pre-existing conditions. I am fighting for health care solutions to require price transparency, encourage nationwide competition, reduce the cost of prescription drugs and cover patients with pre-existing and expensive medical needs. Thank you for the honor of serving you in Congress. Rest assured, I will always work hard and champion solutions to sustain agriculture and our southern Minnesota way of life. Jim Hagedorn, a Republican from Blue Earth, represents Minnesotas 1st Congressional District. Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 MONTELLO A woman was arrested Thursday in connection with a fatal house fire that occurred last week in Montello. Marquette County Sheriff Joseph Konrath said Frances E. Rittmann, 42, of Montello was taken into custody Thursday night. He said Friday that medical examiners still were analyzing DNA evidence collected from a deceased body that was severely burned and unrecognizable. But Konrath said investigators are confident they have determined the identity of the deceased person through interviews. He said Daniel R. Gilmartin, 43, of Montello, died in the house fire that is being investigated with aid from state fire marshals. Formal criminal charges are expected to be filed Monday, when Rittmann is due for an initial appearance in Marquette County Circuit Court, Konrath said. No further details were available Friday afternoon. Follow Brad on Twitter @BradMikeAllen or call him at 608-745-3510. Sign up for our Crime & Courts newsletter Get the latest in local public safety news with this weekly email. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Chris Evans "really wants kids" after watching his 'Avengers: Endgame' co-stars become "parents". The 37-year-actor - who is currently single - has enjoyed watching his Marvel Cinematic Universe colleagues, including Scarlett Johansson, Chris Hemsworth and Jeremy Renner, "evolve" and "go on" to welcome children into their lives. And Chris - who has completed his Marvel movie contract that started with his 2011 debut in 'Captain America: The First Avenger' - has revealed that he would love to experience becoming a father himself. Opening up to PEOPLE, Evans said: "But honestly, I really want kids, and between Hemmy [Chris], Scarlett and Renner, it's been really cool watching them turn into parents and watching them be parents. It's nice watching your friends evolve and go on that journey." This news comes as the action hero previously opened up about his bachelor lifestyle and admitted he still wants to have time to do his own things when he's in a relationship, describing himself as an "autonomous guy". Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, he said: "I'm the one who fears being enveloped. I was always a really autonomous guy my whole life. Camping by myself is one of my favorite things. I really like to be with someone who also has their own thing to do as well, you know? If I'm with someone who just kind of adopts my life, that can feel a bit suffocating." Chris was previously in a relationship with his 'Gifted' co-star Jenny Slate but the couple split up in March 2018. Despite their break-up, the Hollywood hunk admitted he would be "endlessly grateful" for having met Jenny, 37, and insisted she will always be part of his life. He said: "You find that you cannot help to have respect for her. You spend five minutes with her and you cannot find something bad to say about her if you tried. You know, relationships are tricky, there are lot of moving pieces. But I am endlessly grateful for having met her. She will be in my life always." Centre of Excellence Schools Boys & Girls Jobs 2019 Latest Centre of Excellence Schools Management Posts Muzaffargarh 2021 Government of The Punjab Centre of Excellence Schools Boys & Girls requires the services of highly qualified and experienced persons for the posts of Pakistan Studies Teacher, Mali & Sweeper in Muzaffargarh. How to Apply on Centre of Excellence Schools Job Advertisement Apply as per details in job advertisement. In some cases, you may apply online at vacancies after registering at https://www.jobz.pk online. Note: Beware of Fraudulent Recruiting Activities. If an employer asks to pay money for any purpose, do not pay at all and report us at contact us form. Apply as per instuctions & dates mentioned in official job ad. Govt jobs may not be applied online here. Human typing error is possible. Error & omissions excepted. iShares Russell 1000 Value ETF's stock was trading at $108.64 on March 11th, 2020 when COVID-19 (Coronavirus) reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, IWD stock has increased by 51.6% and is now trading at $164.71. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. Antofagasta plc, through its subsidiaries, primarily engages in the exploration, evaluation, development, and mining of copper properties in Chile and internationally. It operates through Los Pelambres, Centinela, Antucoya, ZaldAvar, Exploration and Evaluation, and Transport segments. The company explores for copper concentrates containing by-products, such as molybdenum, gold, and silver; and copper cathodes. It holds a 60% interest in the Los Pelambres mine; a 70% interest in the Centinela mine; a 50% interest in the ZaldAvar mine; and a 70% interest in the Antucoya mine located in Chile. The company also provides rail and road cargo, and other ancillary services. In addition, it offers rail and truck services to the mining industry in the Antofagasta Region. The company was incorporated in 1888 and is based in London, the United Kingdom. Antofagasta plc is a subsidiary of Metalinvest Establishment. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Boston Scientific: 34 Biomedical Merger Corp., 9357-1867 Quebec Inc., Acurate Industria e Comercio Ltda., Advanced Bionics, Advanced Stent Technologies, American Medical Systems, American Medical Systems Europe B.V., Apama Medical, Apama Medical Inc., Asthmatx, Atritech, Augmenix, Augmenix Inc., Augmenix K.K., BSC International Medical Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., BSC Medical Device Technology (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., BTG, BTG Australasia Pty Ltd, BTG Europe B.V., BTG IM Holdings Ltd., BTG International (Holdings) Limited, BTG International Asia Limited, BTG International Canada Inc., BTG International Germany GmbH, BTG International Healthcare Inc., BTG International Healthcare LLC, BTG International Healthcare Limited, BTG International Inc., BTG International Limited, BTG Limited, BTG Management Services Limited, BTG Medikal Limited Sirketi, Bard Electrophysiology, Barosense, Biocompatibles Inc., Biocompatibles International Limited, Biocompatibles UK Limited, Boston Scientific (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Boston Scientific (South Africa) Proprietary Limited, Boston Scientific (Thailand) Ltd., Boston Scientific (UK) Limited, Boston Scientific AG, Boston Scientific Argentina S.A., Boston Scientific Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Boston Scientific Benelux NV, Boston Scientific Canada Limited, Boston Scientific Ceska republika s.r.o., Boston Scientific Chile SpA, Boston Scientific Colombia Limitada, Boston Scientific Comercial de Costa Rica BSCR S.R.L., Boston Scientific Far East B.V., Boston Scientific Gesellschaft m.b.H., Boston Scientific Group plc, Boston Scientific Hellas S.A., Boston Scientific Hong Kong Limited, Boston Scientific Iberica S.A., Boston Scientific India Private Limited, Boston Scientific International B.V., Boston Scientific International Finance Limited, Boston Scientific International S.A., Boston Scientific Israel Ltd., Boston Scientific Japan K.K., Boston Scientific Korea Co. Ltd., Boston Scientific Lebanon SAL, Boston Scientific Limited, Boston Scientific Ltd., Boston Scientific Medical Device, Boston Scientific Medical Device Limited, Boston Scientific Medizintechnik GmbH, Boston Scientific Middle East FZ-LLC, Boston Scientific Middle East SAL, Boston Scientific Nederland B.V., Boston Scientific Neuromodulation Corporation, Boston Scientific New Zealand Limited, Boston Scientific Nordic AB, Boston Scientific Peru S.A.C., Boston Scientific Philippines Inc., Boston Scientific Polska Sp. z o.o., Boston Scientific Portugal - Dispositivos Medicos Lda, Boston Scientific Pty Ltd, Boston Scientific Romania S.R.L., Boston Scientific S.A.S., Boston Scientific S.p.A., Boston Scientific Scimed, Boston Scientific Scimed Inc., Boston Scientific Services Private Limited, Boston Scientific TIP Gerecleri Limited Sirketi, Boston Scientific Technology & Engineering Services Private Limited, Boston Scientific Uruguay S.A., Boston Scientific Vietnam Company Limited, Boston Scientific de Costa Rica S.R.L., Boston Scientific de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Boston Scientific del Caribe Inc., Boston Scientific do Brasil Ltda., Bravo Bidco Limited, BridgePoint Medical, Cameron Health, Cardiac Pacemakers Inc., Cardiac Pathways Corp, Catheter Innovations, Claret Medical, Claret Medical Inc., Cosman Medical, Cosman Medical LLC, CryoCor, Cryterion Medical, Cryterion Medical Inc., Cryterion Medical Ireland Limited, EKOS LLC, EMcision, EMcision International Inc., EP Technologies, EP Technologies Inc., Electron Acquisition Corporation, EndoChoice, EndoChoice Holdings Inc., EndoChoice Inc., EndoChoice Innovation Center Ltd., EndoChoice Israel Ltd., Endotex, Enteric Medical Technologies, Galil Medical Inc., Galil Medical Ltd., Galil Medical UK Limited, Guidant, Guidant Delaware Holding Corporation, Guidant Europe NV, Guidant Puerto Rico B.V., Hong Kong Medtech Trading Limited, Intelect Medical, Millipede, Millipede Inc., NXT Merger Corp., Notebook Merger Sub Ltd., Novate Medical Limited, NxThera, NxThera Inc., PT Boston Scientific Indonesia, PneumRx GmbH, PneumRx LLC, PneumRx Liimited, Protherics Medicines Development B.V., Protherics Medicines Development Limited, Protherics UK Limited, Provensis Limited, RMI Acquisition Corp., Remon Medical Technologies, Rhythmia Medical, Robert S. Smith M.D. Inc., Roxwood Medical Inc., SNS Merger Corp, Sadra Medical, Sadra Medical Inc., Securus Medical Group, Securus Medical Group Inc., Special K Merger Corp., StarMedTec, Stream Enterprises LLC, Symetis, Symetis SA, Target Therapeutics, Target Therapeutics Inc., The LumenR Tissue Retractor System, Veniti, Veniti Inc., VertiFlex, Vertiflex Inc., Vessix Vascular, Xlumena, Zuma Investment Pty Ltd, iogyn, nVision Medical, and nVision Medical Corporation. Cenkos Securities plc, together with its subsidiaries, provides corporate finance, nomad and broking, and research and execution services to small and mid-cap growth companies and investment funds in the United Kingdom. The company offers technical advice on various forms of corporate transactions, including IPOs, fundraisings, mergers and acquisitions, disposals, restructurings, and tender offers. It also provides transactional advice, strategic advice, and regulatory guidance services, as well as assistance with investor relations and research; and execution services comprising liquidity and facilitate institutional business, as well as making markets in small and large cap equities and investment funds. The company was incorporated in 2004 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom. Read More Devops Engineer Job 2019 in Karachi Latest TPS Pakistan Pvt Limited IT Posts Karachi 2021 Technical and hardworking person for the position of Devops Engineer required urgently for a leading and well known TPS Pakistan Pvt Limited in Karachi Sindh 2019. How to Apply on TPS Pakistan Pvt Limited Job Advertisement Apply as per details in job advertisement. In some cases, you may apply online at vacancies after registering at https://www.jobz.pk online. Note: Beware of Fraudulent Recruiting Activities. If an employer asks to pay money for any purpose, do not pay at all and report us at contact us form. Apply as per instuctions & dates mentioned in official job ad. Govt jobs may not be applied online here. Human typing error is possible. Error & omissions excepted. iShares MSCI EAFE ETF's stock was trading at $56.05 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since then, EFA stock has increased by 39.3% and is now trading at $78.05. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. Enbridge Inc. operates as an energy infrastructure company. The company operates through five segments: Liquids Pipelines, Gas Transmission and Midstream, Gas Distribution and Storage, Renewable Power Generation, and Energy Services. The Liquids Pipelines segment operates pipelines and related terminals to transport various grades of crude oil and other liquid hydrocarbons in Canada and the United States. The Gas Transmission and Midstream segment invests in natural gas pipelines, and gathering and processing facilities in Canada and the United States. The Gas Distribution and Storage segment is involved in natural gas utility operations serving residential, commercial, and industrial customers in Ontario, as well as natural gas distribution and energy transportation activities in Quebec. The Renewable Power Generation segment operates power generating assets, such as wind, solar, geothermal, and waste heat recovery facilities; and transmission assets in North America and Europe. The Energy Services segment provides energy marketing services to refiners, producers, and other customers; and physical commodity marketing and logistical services in Canada and the United States. The company was formerly known as IPL Energy Inc. and changed its name to Enbridge Inc. in October 1998. Enbridge Inc. was founded in 1949 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada. Read More Rogers Communications Inc. operates as a communications and media company in Canada. It operates through three segments: Wireless, Cable, and Media. The company offers mobile Internet access, wireless voice and enhanced voice, device and accessory financing, wireless home phone, device protection, text messaging, e-mail, global voice and data roaming, bridging landline, machine-to-machine and Internet of Things solutions, and advanced wireless solutions for businesses, as well as device delivery services; and postpaid and prepaid services under the Rogers, Fido, and chatr brands to approximately 10.9 million subscribers. It also provides Internet and WiFi services; smart home monitoring services, such as monitoring, security, automation, energy efficiency, and smart control through a smartphone app. In addition, the company offers local and network TV; on-demand television; cloud-based digital video recorders; voice-activated remote controls, and integrated apps; personal video recorders; linear and time-shifted programming; digital specialty channels; 4K television programming; and televised content on smartphones, tablets, and personal computers, as well as operates Ignite TV and Ignite TV app. Further, it provides residential and small business local telephony services; calling features, such as voicemail, call waiting, and long distance; voice, data networking, Internet protocol, and Ethernet services; private networking, Internet, IP voice, and cloud solutions; optical wave and multi-protocol label switching services; IT and network technologies; and cable access network services. The company also owns Toronto Blue Jays and the Rogers Centre event venue; and operates Sportsnet ONE, Sportsnet 360, Sportsnet World, Citytv, OMNI, FX (Canada), FXX (Canada), and OLN television networks, as well as 55 AM and FM radio stations. Rogers Communications Inc. was founded in 1960 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada. Read More Factory Workers Jobs 2019 For Malaysia Latest Al Mughal Travel & Tours Agency Labor Posts Malaysia 2021 Experienced, strong and energetic personnel for the positions of Factory Workers & Factory Helpers required urgently for a large and known Factory in Malaysia. How to Apply on Al Mughal Travel & Tours Agency Job Advertisement Apply as per details in job advertisement. In some cases, you may apply online at vacancies after registering at https://www.jobz.pk online. Note: Beware of Fraudulent Recruiting Activities. If an employer asks to pay money for any purpose, do not pay at all and report us at contact us form. Apply as per instuctions & dates mentioned in official job ad. Govt jobs may not be applied online here. Human typing error is possible. Error & omissions excepted. Thomson Reuters Corporation provides business information services in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. It operates in five segments: Legal Professionals, Corporates, Tax & Accounting Professionals, Reuters News, and Global Print. The Legal Professionals segment offers research and workflow products focusing on legal research and integrated legal workflow solutions that combine content, tools, and analytics to law firms and governments. The Corporates segment provides a suite of content-enabled technology solutions for legal, tax, regulatory, compliance, and IT professionals. The Tax & Accounting Professionals segment offers research and workflow products focusing on tax offerings and automating tax workflows to tax, accounting, and audit professionals in accounting firms. The Reuters News segment provides business, financial, national, and international news to professionals through desktop terminals, media organizations, and industry events, as well as directly to consumers. The Global Print segment offers legal and tax information primarily in print format to legal and tax professionals, governments, law schools, and corporations. The company was formerly known as The Thomson Corporation and changed its name to Thomson Reuters Corporation in April 2008. The company was founded in 1851 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada. Thomson Reuters Corporation is a subsidiary of The Woodbridge Company Limited. Read More Greene King plc operates as a pub retailer and brewer in the United Kingdom. The company operates through three segments: Pub Company, Pub Partners, and Brewing & Brands. Its brands include Greene King Local Pubs, Hungry Horse, Flaming Grill, Farmhouse Inns, and Chef & Brewer. The company is also involved in brewing, marketing, and selling beer under the Greene King IPA, Old Speckled Hen, Abbot Ale, and Belhaven Best brands. In addition, Greene King plc engages in the employment, financing, pension trustee, and property businesses. As of April 30, 2018, it operated 2,855 managed, tenanted, leased, and franchised pubs, restaurants, and hotels. Greene King plc was founded in 1799 and is headquartered in Bury St Edmunds, the United Kingdom. Read More 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 TalkTalk Telecom Group PLC provides telecommunications services to consumers and business to business customers in the United Kingdom. It offers fiber, broadband, landline, TV, and mobile services under the TalkTalk and TalkTalk Business brands. Its products include HomeSafe, a home filtering service for residential customers; WorkSafe that provides protection for internet devices to business customers; SuperSafe, which offers protection from viruses and malwares; CallSafe, a security feature that screens inbound calls; and TalkSafe, a way of identifying a customer when they call using their voice. TalkTalk Telecom Group PLC was founded in 2002 and is based in Salford, the United Kingdom. Read More Legal & General Group Plc provides various insurance products and services in the United Kingdom, the United States, and internationally. It operates in four segments: Legal & General Retirement (LGR), Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM), Legal & General Capital (LGC), and Legal & General Insurance (LGI). The LGR segment offers annuity contracts with guaranteed income for a specified time; longevity insurance products for company pension schemes; lifetime mortgages; lifetime care plans; and retirement interest only mortgages. The LGIM segment provides index fund management; active fixed income funds and liquidity funds; active equity management; solution and liability driven investment; multi-asset funds; corporate pension scheme solutions; and real estate funds. The LGC segment offers investment strategy and implementation, and direct investment and structuring services. The LGI segment provides protection products, such as health, disability, critical illness, and accident; individual term assurance; reinsurance; savings and death benefits; and annuities. The company is also involved in the unit trust and institutional fund management, mortgage finance, treasury, building project and modular housing development, general insurance, and open-ended investment businesses, as well as manufacture of sheds. It also engages in the real estate investment, operation, management, and trading, fund general partner, fund trustee, commercial lending, venture capital investing, contractual scheme, management, pension tracing and transfer, investor alternative investment fund, collective asset-management, and investment management activities; and provision of investment advisory, business information consultancy, and technology services. The company was founded in 1836 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom. Read More The delegation, led by NA Vice Chairman Uong Chu Luu, had a meeting on April 24 with President of the Brazilian Senate Davi Alcolumbre, who said their visit will help bring bilateral ties to a new level. The host also expressed his admiration for late President Ho Chi Minh and the Vietnamese people and their struggle for national independence. He said he looks forwards to visiting Vietnam in the near future to implement cooperation activities between the two legislative bodies. For his part, Vice Chairman Luu affirmed that despite geographical distance, the Vietnamese and Brazilian peoples boast long-standing friendship and have always supported each other, especially Brazils support for Vietnam during the fight for national independence in the past and present development efforts. The Southeast Asian nation wishes to strengthen links with Brazil in a comprehensive manner and bring partnerships in economy, investment, trade, defence and security on par with the two sides political relations, he added. At talks with First Vice President of Brazils Chamber of Deputies Marcos Pereira, Luu congratulated the country on its achievements and briefed his host about Vietnams socio-economic situation and external relations. The official highly valued the sound relationship between the two parliaments while suggesting plans for stepping up cooperation. He proposed Brazil consider becoming an observer of the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA) to boost cooperation with parliaments in ASEAN and Asia-Pacific. The two sides highlighted the wish to intensify cooperation between their countries, including between the parliaments. As Chairman of the Vietnam Peace Committee, NA Vice Chairman Luu met with Chairwoman of the Brazilian Centre for Solidarity with Peoples and the Struggle for Peace Sorroco Gomez, who is also President of the World Peace Council (WPC). During their stay in Brazil, the Vietnamese delegation also had working sessions with head of the Labour, Administration and Public Service Committee of the Chamber of Deputies Professora Marcivania ; Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply Tereza Cristina; and the Brazil-Vietnam Parliamentary Friendship Group, which debuted in March this year. Senior Software Engineer C & C++ Jobs 2019 For Karachi Latest TPS Pakistan Pvt Limited IT Posts Karachi 2021 Qualified and motivated individuals for the positions of Senior Software Engineer, C Developer, C++ Developer required urgently for TPS Pakistan Pvt Limited in Karachi. How to Apply on TPS Pakistan Pvt Limited Job Advertisement Apply as per details in job advertisement. In some cases, you may apply online at vacancies after registering at https://www.jobz.pk online. Note: Beware of Fraudulent Recruiting Activities. If an employer asks to pay money for any purpose, do not pay at all and report us at contact us form. Apply as per instuctions & dates mentioned in official job ad. Govt jobs may not be applied online here. Human typing error is possible. Error & omissions excepted. The following companies are subsidiares of Molina Healthcare: Aetna & Humana - Medicare Advantage, Affinity Health Plan, AmericanWork Inc., Better Health Network, Camelot Care Centers Inc, Children's Behavioral Health Inc., Choices Group Inc., College Community Services, Dockside Services Inc, Family Preservation Services Inc., Family Preservation Services of Florida Inc., Family Preservation Services of North Carolina Inc., Family Preservation Services of Washington D.C. Inc., Family Preservation Services of West Virginia Inc., Florida NetPASS LLC, Hclb Inc., Magellan Complete Care, Maple Star Nevada Inc., Maple Star Oregon Inc., Mercy CarePlus, Molina Clinical Services LLC, Molina Healthcare Data Center Inc., Molina Healthcare of Arizona Inc., Molina Healthcare of California, Molina Healthcare of Florida Inc., Molina Healthcare of Georgia Inc., Molina Healthcare of Illinois Inc., Molina Healthcare of Iowa Inc., Molina Healthcare of Louisiana Inc., Molina Healthcare of Maryland Inc., Molina Healthcare of Michigan Inc., Molina Healthcare of Mississippi Inc., Molina Healthcare of Nevada Inc., Molina Healthcare of New Mexico Inc., Molina Healthcare of New York Inc., Molina Healthcare of North Carolina Inc., Molina Healthcare of Ohio Inc., Molina Healthcare of Oklahoma Inc., Molina Healthcare of Pennsylvania Inc., Molina Healthcare of Puerto Rico Inc., Molina Healthcare of South Carolina LLC, Molina Healthcare of Texas Inc., Molina Healthcare of Texas Insurance Company, Molina Healthcare of Utah Inc., Molina Healthcare of Virginia Inc., Molina Healthcare of Washington Inc., Molina Healthcare of Wisconsin Inc., Molina Holdings Corporation, Molina Hospital Management LLC, Molina Information Systems LLC dba Molina Medicaid Solutions, Molina Medical Management Inc., Molina Pathways LLC, Molina Pathways of Texas Inc., Molina Youth Academy, NextLevel Health Illinois, Pathways Community Corrections Inc., Pathways Community Services LLC, Pathways Community Support of Texas Inc., Pathways Health and Community Support LLC, Pathways Human Services LLC., Pathways of Arizona Inc., Pathways of Delaware Inc., Pathways of Idaho LLC, Pathways of Maine Inc., Pathways of Massachusetts LLC, Pathways of Oklahoma Inc., Pathways of Washington Inc., Providence Community Services, Providence Human Services, Raystown Developmental Services Inc., The Game of Work LLC, The RedCo Group Inc., Total Care Medicaid plan, Transitional Family Services Inc., Unisys -Health Information Management, and YourCare Health Plan. The following companies are subsidiares of Procter & Gamble: "Procter & Gamble Services" LLC, "Procter & Gamble" LLC, Agile Pursuits, Agile Pursuits Franchising, Arbora, Arbora & Ausonia, Arborinvest, Billie, Braun (Shanghai) Co., Braun GmbH, Braun-Gillette Immobilien GmbH & Co. KG, Celtic Insurance Company, Compania Procter & Gamble Mexico, Compania Quimica S.A., Corporativo Procter & Gamble, Cosmetic Products Pty. Ltd., Detergent Products B.V., Detergent Products SARL, Detergenti S.A., Eurocos Cosmetic GmbH, FPG Oleochemicals Sdn. Bhd., Fameccanica Data S.p.A., Fameccanica Industria e Comercio Do Brasil LTDA., Fameccanica Machinery (Shanghai) Co., Fater S.p.A., Fountain Square Music Publishing Co., Gillette (China) Ltd., Gillette (Shanghai) Ltd., Gillette Aesop Ltd., Gillette Australia Pty. Ltd., Gillette Canada Holdings, Gillette Commercial Operations North America, Gillette Diversified Operations Pvt. Ltd., Gillette Egypt S.A.E., Gillette Group UK Ltd, Gillette Gruppe Deutschland GmbH & Co. oHG, Gillette Holding Company LLC, Gillette Holding GmbH, Gillette India Limited, Gillette Industries Ltd., Gillette International B.V., Gillette Latin America Holding B.V., Gillette Management LLC, Gillette Nova Scotia Company, Gillette Pakistan Limited, Gillette Poland International Sp. z.o.o., Gillette Poland S.A., Gillette U.K. Limited, Gillette del Uruguay, Giorgio Beverly Hills Inc., Hyginett KFT, Industries Marocaines Modernes SA, LLC "Procter & Gamble Novomoskovsk", LLL "Procter & Gamble Distributorskaya Compania", Laboratorios Vicks, Liberty Street Music Publishing Company, Limited Liability Company 'Procter & Gamble Trading Ukraine', Limited Liability Company with foreign investments Procter & and Gamble Ukraine, MDVIP, MERCK KGAA NPV, Marcvenca Inversiones, Modern Industries Company - Dammam, Modern Products Company - Jeddah, New Chapter, New Chapter Canada Inc., Olay LLC, Oral-B Laboratories, P&G Distribution Morocco SAS, P&G Hair Care Holding, P&G Industrial Peru S.R.L., P&G Innovation Godo Kaisha, P&G Israel M.D.O. Ltd., P&G K.K., P&G Northeast Asia Pte. Ltd., P&G Prestige Godo Kaisha, P&G Prestige Service GmbH, P&G South African Trading (Pty.) Ltd., PGT Health Care (Zhejiang) Limited, PGT Healthcare LLP, PPI ZAO, PT Procter & Gamble Home Products Indonesia, PT Procter & Gamble Operations Indonesia, Phase II Holdings Corporation, Procter & Gamble (Chengdu) Ltd., Procter & Gamble (China) Ltd., Procter & Gamble (China) Sales Co. Ltd., Procter & Gamble (East Africa) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Egypt) Manufacturing Company, Procter & Gamble (Enterprise Fund) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Guangzhou) Consumer Products Co. Ltd., Procter & Gamble (Guangzhou) Enterprise Management Service Company Limited, Procter & Gamble (Guangzhou) Ltd., Procter & Gamble (Health & Beauty Care) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Jiangsu) Ltd. China, Procter & Gamble (L&CP) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Procter & Gamble (Manufacturing) Ireland Limited, Procter & Gamble (Shanghai) International Trade Company Ltd., Procter & Gamble (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Procter & Gamble Acquisition GmbH, Procter & Gamble Administration GmbH, Procter & Gamble Algeria EURL, Procter & Gamble Amazon Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Amiens S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Argentina SRL, Procter & Gamble Asia Pte. Ltd., Procter & Gamble Australia Proprietary Limited, Procter & Gamble Azerbaijan Services LLC, Procter & Gamble Bangladesh Private Ltd., Procter & Gamble Blois S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Brazil Holdings B.V., Procter & Gamble Bulgaria EOOD, Procter & Gamble Business Services Canada Company, Procter & Gamble Canada Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Chile , Procter & Gamble Chile Limitada, Procter & Gamble Colombia Ltda., Procter & Gamble Commercial LLC, Procter & Gamble Commercial de Cuba S.A., Procter & Gamble Czech Republic s.r.o., Procter & Gamble DS Polska Sp. z o.o., Procter & Gamble Danmark ApS, Procter & Gamble Detergent (Beijing) Ltd., Procter & Gamble Deuttschland GmbH, Procter & Gamble Distributing (Philippines) Inc., Procter & Gamble Distributing New Zealand Limited, Procter & Gamble Distribution Company (Europe) BVBA, Procter & Gamble Distribution S.R.L., Procter & Gamble Eastern Europe, Procter & Gamble Ecuador Cia. Ltda., Procter & Gamble Egypt, Procter & Gamble Egypt Distribution, Procter & Gamble Egypt Holding, Procter & Gamble Egypt Supplies, Procter & Gamble Energy Company LLC, Procter & Gamble Espana, Procter & Gamble Europe SA, Procter & Gamble Export Operations SARL, Procter & Gamble Exportadora e Importadora Ltda., Procter & Gamble Exports, Procter & Gamble Fabricacao e Comercio Ltda., Procter & Gamble Far East, Procter & Gamble Finance (U.K.) Ltd., Procter & Gamble Finance Holding Ltd., Procter & Gamble Finance Management S.a.r.l., Procter & Gamble Financial Investments LLP, Procter & Gamble Financial Services Ltd., Procter & Gamble Financial Services S.a.r.l., Procter & Gamble Finland OY, Procter & Gamble France S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Germany GmbH, Procter & Gamble Germany GmbH & Co. Operations oHG, Procter & Gamble GmbH, Procter & Gamble Grundstucks-und Vermogensverwaltungs GmbH & Co. KG, Procter & Gamble Gulf FZE, Procter & Gamble Hair Care, Procter & Gamble Hellas Ltd., Procter & Gamble Holding (Thailand) Limited, Procter & Gamble Holding France S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Holding GmbH, Procter & Gamble Holding S.r.l., Procter & Gamble Holdings (UK) Ltd., Procter & Gamble Home Products Private Limited, Procter & Gamble Hong Kong Limited, Procter & Gamble Hungary Wholesale Trading Partnership (KKT), Procter & Gamble Hygiene & Health Care Limited, Procter & Gamble Inc., Procter & Gamble India Holdings, Procter & Gamble Indochina Limited Company, Procter & Gamble Industrial - 2012 C.A., Procter & Gamble Industrial Colombia Ltda., Procter & Gamble Industrial S.C.A., Procter & Gamble Industrial e Comercial Ltda., Procter & Gamble Interamericas de Costa Rica, Procter & Gamble Interamericas de Guatemala, Procter & Gamble Interamericas de Panama, Procter & Gamble International Operations Pte. Ltd., Procter & Gamble International Operations SA, Procter & Gamble International Operations SA-ROHQ, Procter & Gamble International S.a.r.l., Procter & Gamble Investment Company (UK) Ltd., Procter & Gamble Investment GmbH, Procter & Gamble Italia, Procter & Gamble Japan K.K., Procter & Gamble Kazakhstan Distribution LLP, Procter & Gamble Kazakhstan LLP, Procter & Gamble Korea, Procter & Gamble Korea S&D Co., Procter & Gamble Lanka Private Ltd. Sri Lanka, Procter & Gamble Leasing LLC, Procter & Gamble Levant S.A.L., Procter & Gamble Limited, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing (Thailand) Limited, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Belgium N.V., Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Berlin GmbH, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing GmbH, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Procter & Gamble Manufacturing SA (Pty) Ltd, Procter & Gamble Marketing Romania SRL, Procter & Gamble Marketing and Services doo, Procter & Gamble Maroc SA, Procter & Gamble Mataro, Procter & Gamble Mexico Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Mexico Inc., Procter & Gamble Middle East FZE, Procter & Gamble Nederland B.V., Procter & Gamble Netherlands Investments B.V., Procter & Gamble Netherlands Services B.V., Procter & Gamble Nigeria Limited, Procter & Gamble Nordic, Procter & Gamble Norge AS, Procter & Gamble Operations Polska Sp. z o.o., Procter & Gamble Overseas India B.V., Procter & Gamble Overseas Ltd., Procter & Gamble Pakistan (Private) Limited, Procter & Gamble Partnership LLP, Procter & Gamble Peru S.R.L., Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals France SAS, Procter & Gamble Philippines, Procter & Gamble Polska Sp. z o.o, Procter & Gamble Portugal - Produtos De Consumo, Procter & Gamble Product Supply (U.K.) Limited U.K., Procter & Gamble Production GmbH, Procter & Gamble Productions, Procter & Gamble Productos de Consumo, Procter & Gamble RHD, Procter & Gamble RSC Regional Service Company Ltd., Procter & Gamble Retail Services BVBA, Procter & Gamble S.r.l., Procter & Gamble SA (Pty) Ltd, Procter & Gamble Satis ve Dagitim Ltd. Sti., Procter & Gamble Seine S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Service GmbH, Procter & Gamble Services (Switzerland) SA, Procter & Gamble Services Company N.V., Procter & Gamble Services Ltd., Procter & Gamble Share Incentive Plan Trustee Ltd., Procter & Gamble South America Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Spol. s.r.o. (Ltd.), Procter & Gamble Sports and Social Club Ltd., Procter & Gamble Sverige AB, Procter & Gamble Switzerland SARL, Procter & Gamble Taiwan Limited, Procter & Gamble Taiwan Sales Company Limited, Procter & Gamble Technical Centres Limited, Procter & Gamble Technology (Beijing) Co., Procter & Gamble Trading (Thailand) Limited, Procter & Gamble Tuketim Mallari Sanayii A.S., Procter & Gamble UK, Procter & Gamble UK Group Holdings Ltd, Procter & Gamble UK Parent Company Ltd., Procter & Gamble Universal Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Verwaltungs GmbH, Procter & Gamble Vietnam, Procter & Gamble d.o.o. za trgovinu, Procter & Gamble de Venezuela S.C.A., Procter & Gamble de Venezuela S.R.L., Procter & Gamble do Brasil S/A, Procter & Gamble do Brazil, Procter & Gamble do Nordeste S/A, Procter & Gamble-Rakona s.r.o., Progam Realty & Development Corporation, Redmond Products, Richardson-Vicks Real Estate Inc., Richardson-Vicks do Brasil Quimica e Farmaceutica Ltda, Riverfront Music Publishing Co., Rosemount LLC, SPD Development Company Limited, SPD Swiss Precision Diagnostics GmbH, Scannon S.A.S., Series Acquisition B.V., Shulton, Surfac S.R.L., Sycamore Productions, TAOS - FL, TAOS Retail, Tambrands Inc., Temple Trees Impex & Investment Private Limited, The Art of Shaving - FL, The Dover Wipes Company, The Gillette Company, The Gillette Company LLC, The Gillette co., The Procter & Gamble Distributing LLC, The Procter & Gamble GBS Company, The Procter & Gamble Global Finance Company, The Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Company, The Procter & Gamble Paper Products Company, The Procter & Gamble U.S. Business Services Company, This is L., US CD LLC, Vidal Sassoon (Shanghai) Academy, Vidal Sassoon Co., WEBA Betriebsrenten-Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, Walker & Company Brands, and iMFLUX Inc.. The following companies are subsidiares of Stryker: ActiViews, Aimago SA, Alcott Indemnity Company, Arrinex Inc, Arrinex Inc., Ascent Healthcare Solutions, Berchtold, Berchtold + Fritz GmbH, Berchtold Consulting GmbH, Berchtold Corporation, Berchtold GmbH & Co. KG, Berchtold Holding Switzerland GmbH, CHG Hospital Beds, Cactus LLC, Cardan Robotics, Changzhou Orthomed Medical Instrument Company Limited, Concentric Medical, Concentric Medical Inc., Entellus Medical, Entellus Medical Europe Ltd, Entellus Medical Inc., GYS Tech LLC, Gaymar Industries, Gongping (Shanghai) Medical Devices Trading Co. Ltd., Groupe Bertec, HeartSine Technologies LLC, HeartSine Technologies Limited, Howmedica International S. de R.L., Howmedica Osteonics Corp., Hygia Health Services, Hygia Healthcare Services Inc., HyperBranch, HyperBranch Technology Inc., ITAPCo Limited, Image Guided Technologies, Imorphics Limited, Infinity MSD Corp., Infinity MSE Corp., Infinity MSF Corp., Infomedix Communications, Instratek, InstruMedics L.L.C, Invuity Inc., Ivy Sports Medicine, Ivy Sports Medicine LLC, Jiangsu Chuangyi Medical Instrument Company Limited, Jolife AB, K2M Germany GmbH, K2M Group, K2M Group Holdings Inc., K2M Holdings Inc., K2M Iberia Medcomtech S.L.U., K2M Inc., K2M Solutions Australia Pty Ltd, K2M Spine Solutions (Schweiz) GmbH, K2M UK Limited, Loon Intermediateco LLC, MAKO Surgical, MAKO Surgical Corp, Memometal Technologies, Mobius Imaging, Mobius Imaging LLC, Muka Metal, Muka Metal Ticaret ve Sanayi Anaonim Sirketi, NV Stryker SA, Nettrick Limited, Novadaq Corp, Novadaq Hong Kong Ltd, Novadaq Technologies, Novadaq Technologies ULC, OOO "Stryker", Orneo Ozel Saglk Hizmetleri Medikal Ticaret Anonim Sirketi, OrthoSpace, OrthoSpace Ltd., OrthoSpace US Inc., Orthomed (Hong Kong) Medical Instrument Company Limited, Orthovita, Orthovita Inc., OtisMed, P.C. Sweden Holding AB, Patient Safety Technologies, Patton Surgical, Pficonprod Pty. Ltd., Physio-Control, Physio-Control (Shanghai) Sales Co. Ltd., Physio-Control Brazil Vendas Ltda., Physio-Control Czech Sales s.r.o., Physio-Control Holdings Cooperatief U.A., Physio-Control Holdings Inc, Physio-Control Hungary Sales Kft, Physio-Control Inc., Physio-Control India Sales Pvt. Ltd, Physio-Control Investments LLC, Physio-Control Lebanon Sales Offshore s.a.l., Physio-Control Manufacturing Inc., Physio-Control Operations Netherlands B.V., Physio-Control Sales Limited Liability Company, Physio-Control Singapore Pte. Ltd., Physio-Control South Africa Sales Pty. Ltd., Physio-Control UK Sales Ltd., Pivot Medical, PlasmaSol, Porex Technologies, SSI Divestiture Inc., SYK Costa Rica Services Sociedad De Responsabilidad Limitada, SafeAir AG, SafeWire, Sage Products, Sage Products Coperatief U.A., Sage Products Holdings II LLC, Sage Products Holdings III LLC, Sage Products LLC, Scopis GmbH, Sightline Technologies, Small Bone Innovations, SpineCore, Spirox Inc., Stanmore Implants Worldwide, Stanmore Implants Worldwide Limited, Stanmore Inc., Stryker (Barbados) Foreign Sales Corporation, Stryker (Beijing) Healthcare Products Co. Ltd., Stryker (Shanghai) Healthcare Products Co. Ltd., Stryker (Suzhou) Medical Technology Co Ltd, Stryker (Thailand) Limited, Stryker AB, Stryker Acquisitions BV, Stryker Asia Holdings CV, Stryker Australia LLC, Stryker Australia Pty. Ltd., Stryker Austria GmbH, Stryker B.V., Stryker Berchtold BV, Stryker Beteiligungs GmbH, Stryker Canada GP ULC, Stryker Canada Holding Company, Stryker Canada Manufacturing ULC, Stryker Canada ULC, Stryker Canadian Management ULC, Stryker Canadian Sales Holding Company ULC, Stryker Capital BV, Stryker China Limited, Stryker Colombia SAS, Stryker Communications Inc., Stryker Corporation (Chile) y Compania Limitada, Stryker Corporation (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Stryker Customs Brokers LLC, Stryker Czech Republic s.r.o., Stryker Delaware Inc., Stryker EMEA Supply Chain Services BV, Stryker Employment Company LLC, Stryker European Coordination Center BV, Stryker European Holdings Cooperatief U.A, Stryker European Holdings I LLC, Stryker European Holdings II LLC, Stryker European Holdings LLC, Stryker European Holdings V LLC, Stryker European Operations B.V., Stryker European Operations Holdings I BV, Stryker European Operations Holdings II BV, Stryker European Operations Holdings III BV, Stryker European Operations Holdings LLC, Stryker European Operations Limited, Stryker European Technologies C.V., Stryker Far East Inc., Stryker Foreign Acquisitions Inc., Stryker France Holding SNC, Stryker France MM Holdings SAS, Stryker France SAS, Stryker Funding B.V., Stryker GI Services CV, Stryker Global Technology Center Private Limited, Stryker GmbH, Stryker GmbH & Co. KG, Stryker Grundstucks GmbH & Co KG, Stryker Grundstucks Verwaltungs GmbH, Stryker Holdings BV, Stryker IFSC Designated Activity Company, Stryker Iberia SL Unipersonal, Stryker India Private Limited, Stryker International Acquisitions BV, Stryker International Holdings BV, Stryker Investment Holdings B.V., Stryker Ireland Holding Unlimited Company, Stryker Ireland Limited, Stryker Italia S.r.l. S.U., Stryker Japan Holdings BV, Stryker Japan K.K., Stryker Korea Ltd., Stryker Lebanon (Offshore) S.A.L., Stryker Leibinger GmbH & Co. KG, Stryker Luxembourg Holdings S.a.r.l., Stryker Luxembourg Sarl, Stryker Manufacturing S. de R.L. de C.V., Stryker Mauritius Holding Ltd., Stryker Medical London LP, Stryker Medtech K.K., Stryker Medtech Limited, Stryker Mexico Holdings B.V., Stryker Mexico SA de CV, Stryker NV Operations Limited, Stryker Nederland BV, Stryker New Zealand Limited, Stryker Osteonics AG, Stryker Pacific Limited, Stryker Performance Solutions LLC, Stryker Polska Sp.z.o.o., Stryker Portugal - Produtos Medicos Unipessoal Lda., Stryker Professional Latin America S. de R.L. de C.V., Stryker Puerto Rico Limited, Stryker Romania SRL, Stryker Sage Inc., Stryker Sales Corporation, Stryker Servicios Administrativos S.de R.L. de C.V., Stryker Singapore Private Limited, Stryker South Africa (Proprietary) Limited, Stryker Spine SAS, Stryker Spine Sarl, Stryker Sustainability Solutions Inc., Stryker Tibbi Cihazlan Sanayi ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Stryker Trauma GmbH, Stryker Turkish Holdings BV, Stryker UK Ltd, Stryker Verwaltungs GmbH, Stryker Vietnam Company Limited, Stryker do Brasil Ltda, Surpass Medical, Synergetics, TG SP Holdings Corp, TSO3 Corp, TSO3 Inc, Trauson, Trauson (China) Medical Instrument Company Limited, Trauson (Hong Kong) Company Limited, Trauson Holdings (BVI) Company Limited, Trauson Holdings (Hong Kong) Company Limited, Trauson Holdings Company Limited, VEXIM SA, Vexim, Waterloo Bedding Co., Wright Medical Group, ZipLine Medical Consulting (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ZipLine Medical Hong Kong Limited, ZipLine Medical Inc., and eTrauma.com. The following companies are subsidiares of Waste Management: 635952 Ontario Inc., 8242348 Canada Inc., Acaverde S.A. de C.V., Access Computer Products, Advanced Environmental Technical Services L.L.C., Akron Regional Landfill Inc., Alliance Sanitary Landfill Inc., Alpharetta Transfer Station LLC, American Landfill Inc., American Oil Recovery LLC, Ameriwaste LLC, Anderson Landfill Inc., Anderson Rubbish Disposal, Antelope Valley Recycling and Disposal Facility Inc., Arden Landfill Inc., Atlantic Waste Disposal Inc., Automated Salvage Transport Co. L.L.C., Avalon South LLC, Azusa Land Reclamation Inc., B&B Landfill Inc., Big Dipper Enterprises Inc., Bluegrass Containment L.L.C., Burnsville Sanitary Landfill Inc., CA Newco L.L.C., CR Group LLC, CWM Chemical Services L.L.C., Cal Sierra Disposal, California Asbestos Monofill Inc., Canadian Waste Services Holdings Inc., Capels Landfill LLC, Capital Sanitation Company, Capitol Disposal Inc., Carolina Grading Inc., Cedar Ridge Landfill Inc., Central Disposal Systems Inc., Chadwick Road Landfill Inc., Chambers Clearview Environmental Landfill Inc., Chambers Development Company Inc., Chambers Development of Ohio Inc., Chambers of Georgia Inc., Chambers of Mississippi Inc., Chemical Waste Management Inc., Chemical Waste Management of Indiana L.L.C., Chemical Waste Management of the Northwest Inc., Chesser Island Road Landfill Inc., City Environmental Services Inc. of Waters, Cleburne Landfill Company Corp., Coast Waste Management Inc., Coastal Recyclers Landfill LLC, Connecticut Valley Sanitary Waste Disposal Inc., Conservation Services Inc., Coshocton Landfill Inc., Cougar Landfill Inc., Countryside Landfill Inc., Curtis Creek Recovery Systems Inc., Cuyahoga Landfill Inc., DHC Land LLC, Dafter Sanitary Landfill Inc., Dauphin Meadows Inc., Deep Valley Landfill Inc., Deer Track Park Landfill Inc., Deffenbaugh Disposal Inc., Deffenbaugh Group Holdings Inc., Deffenbaugh Industries Inc., Deffenbaugh Recycling Company L.L.C., Deffenbaugh of Arkansas LLC, Del Almo Landfill L.L.C., Delaware Recyclable Products Inc., Dickinson Landfill Inc., Disposal Service Incorporated, Dolphin Services & Chemicals LLC, Dolphin-One LLC, ELDA Landfill Inc., Earthmovers Landfill L.L.C., East Liverpool Landfill Inc., Eastern One Land Corporation, Eco-Vista LLC, Elk River Landfill Inc., Energy Injection Services of Mississippi LLC, EnviroSolutions Dulles LLC, EnviroSolutions Holdings Inc., EnviroSolutions Real Property Holdings Inc., Envirofil of Illinois Inc., Evergreen Landfill Inc., Evergreen Recycling and Disposal Facility Inc., Finch Waste Co LLC, Firetower Landfill LLC, Fred J. Eckert Sanitary Service Inc., Furnace Associates Inc., G.I. Industries, GA Landfills Inc., Gallia Landfill Inc., Garnet of Maryland Inc., Gateway Transfer Station LLC, Georgia Waste Systems Inc., Giordano Recycling L.L.C., Glades Landfill LLC, Glen's Sanitary Landfill Inc., Grand Central Sanitary Landfill Inc., Greenbow LLC, Greenleaf Compaction Inc., Greenstar Allentown LLC, Greenstar Georgia LLC, Greenstar LLC, Greenstar Managed Services - Connecticut LLC, Greenstar Managed Services - RLWM LLC, Greenstar Mid-America LLC, Greenstar New Jersey LLC, Greenstar Ohio LLC, Greenstar Paterson LLC, Greenstar Pittsburgh LLC, Greenstar Recycled Holdings LLC, Greenstar Recycling LLC, Guadalupe Mines Mutual Water Company, Guadalupe Rubbish Disposal Co. Inc., Ham Lake Haulers Inc., Harris Sanitation Inc., Harwood Landfill Inc., Hedco Landfill Limited, High Mountain Fuels LLC, Hillsboro Landfill Inc., Holyoke Sanitary Landfill Inc., IN Landfills L.L.C., Illini Disposal, International Environmental Management Inc., Jahner Sanitation Inc., Jay County Landfill L.L.C., K and W Landfill Inc., Keene Road Landfill Inc., Kelly Run Sanitation Inc., King George Landfill Inc., King George Landfill Properties LLC, Kirby Canyon Holdings LLC, L&K Group Holdings LLC, LCS Services Inc., Lakeville Recycling L.P., Land South Holdings LLC, Landfill Services of Charleston Inc., Laurel Highlands Landfill Inc., Liberty Landfill L.L.C., Liquid Logistics, Liquid Waste Management Inc., Longleaf C&D Disposal Facility Inc., Looney Bins Inc., Mac Land Disposal Inc. II, Mahoning Landfill Inc., Mass Gravel Inc., Mc Ginnes Industrial Maintenance Corporation, McDaniel Landfill Inc., McGill Landfill Inc., Meadowfill Landfill Inc., Michigan Environs Inc., Midwest One Land Corporation, Modesto Garbage Co. Inc., Moor Refuse Inc., Mordell, Mountain Indemnity Insurance Company, Mountainview Landfill Inc., Nassau Landfill L.L.C., National Guaranty Insurance Company of Vermont, New England CR L.L.C., New Milford Landfill L.L.C., New Orleans Landfill L.L.C., North Manatee Recycling and Disposal Facility L.L.C., Northwestern Landfill Inc., Nu-Way Live Oak Reclamation Inc., OAKLEAF Waste Management LLC, OGH Acquisition Corporation, Oak Grove Disposal Co. Inc., Oakleaf Global Holdings Inc., Oakleaf Waste Management Inc., Oakridge Landfill Inc., Oakwood Landfill Inc., Okeechobee Landfill Inc., Ozark Ridge Landfill Inc., P & R Environmental Industries L.L.C., Pacific Waste Management L.L.C., Pappy Inc., Peltz H.C. LLC, Pen-Rob Inc., People's Landfill Inc., Peterson Demolition Inc., Phoenix Resources Inc., Pine Grove Landfill Inc., Pine Tree Acres Inc., Prime Westport LLC, Quail Hollow Landfill Inc., Questquill Limited, R & B Landfill Inc., RAA Colorado L.L.C., RAA Trucking LLC, RCI Hudson Inc., RTS Landfill Inc., Recycle America Co. L.L.C., Recycle America Holdings Inc., Redwood Landfill Inc., Refuse Inc., Refuse Services Inc., Reliable Environmental Transport, Reliable Landfill L.L.C., Remote Landfill Services Inc., Reno Disposal Co., Resco Holdings L.L.C., Resource Control Composting Inc., Resource Control Inc., Richland County Landfill Inc., Riverbend Landfill Co., Rust Engineering & Construction Inc., Rust International Inc., S & J Landfill Limited Partnership, S & S Grading Inc., S&T Materials LLC, SC Holdings Inc., SF Land Acquisition LLC, Sanifill de Mexico (US) Inc., Sanifill de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Shade Landfill Inc., Shawnee Rock Company, Sierra Estrella Landfill Inc., Southern Alleghenies Landfill Inc., Southern One Land Corporation, Southern Waste Services L.L.C., Spruce Ridge Inc., Stony Hollow Landfill Inc., Suburban Landfill Inc., Summit Energy Services Inc, Swire Waste Management Limited, TN'T Sands Inc., TX Newco L.L.C., Texarkana Landfill L.L.C., Texas Pack Rat - Austin #1 LLC, Texas Pack Rat - Dallas #1 LLC, Texas Pack Rat - Houston #1 LLC, Texas Pack Rat - Houston #2 LLC, Texas Pack Rat - Houston #3 LLC, Texas Pack Rat - San Antonio #1 LLC, Texas Pack Rat Service Company LLC, The Peltz Group LLC, The Waste Management Charitable Foundation, The Woodlands of Van Buren Inc., Thermal Remediation Solutions L.L.C., Trail Ridge Landfill Inc., TransAmerican Waste Industries, Transamerican Waste Central Landfill Inc., Trash Hunters Inc., Twin Bridges Golf Club L.P., USA South Hills Landfill Inc., USA Valley Facility Inc., USA Waste Geneva Landfill Inc., USA Waste Landfill Operations and Transfer Inc., USA Waste Services of NYC Inc., USA Waste of California Inc., USA Waste of Texas Landfills Inc., USA Waste of Virginia Landfills Inc., USA Waste-Management Resources LLC, USA-Crinc L.L.C., USB LIHTC Fund 2010-1 LLC, UWS Barre Inc., United Waste Systems Leasing Inc., Valley Garbage and Rubbish Company Inc., Vern's Refuse Service Inc., Vickery Environmental Inc., Vista Landfill LLC, Voyageur Disposal Processing Inc., WM Avon Inc., WM Bagco LLC, WM Billerica Inc., WM Biloxi Hauling LLC, WM Biloxi Transfer Station LLC, WM Boston CORE Inc., WM CCP Solutions LLC, WM Conversion Fund LLC, WM Corporate Services Inc., WM Curbside LLC, WM DC 1 LLC, WM Emergency Employee Support Fund Inc., WM Energy Resources Inc., WM Energy Services Holdings LLC, WM Energy Services of Ohio LLC, WM Energy Solutions Inc., WM GTL Inc., WM GTL JV Holdings LLC, WM GTL LLC, WM Green Squad LLC, WM GreenOps LLC, WM Healthcare Solutions Inc., WM Illinois Renewable Energy L.L.C., WM Intellectual Property Holdings L.L.C., WM International Holdings Inc., WM KS Energy Resources LLC, WM LNG Inc., WM LampTracker Inc., WM Landfills of Ohio Inc., WM Landfills of Tennessee Inc., WM Leasing Services of Texas LLC, WM Leasing of Arizona L.L.C., WM Leasing of Texas L.P., WM Logistics India Private Limited, WM Logistics LLC, WM Mercury Waste Inc., WM Middle Tennessee Environmental Center L.L.C., WM Mobile Bay Environmental Center Inc., WM ND Energy Resources II LLC, WM ND Energy Resources LLC, WM Nevada Renewable Energy L.L.C., WM North Broward Inc., WM Organic Growth Inc., WM PA Holdings LLC, WM PRG L.L.C., WM Pack-Rat LLC, WM Pack-Rat of California LLC, WM Pack-Rat of Illinois LLC, WM Pack-Rat of Kentucky LLC, WM Pack-Rat of Maryland LLC, WM Pack-Rat of Massachusetts LLC, WM Pack-Rat of Michigan LLC, WM Pack-Rat of Nevada LLC, WM Pack-Rat of Ohio LLC, WM Pack-Rat of Rhode Island LLC, WM Partnership Holdings Inc., WM Phoenix Energy Resources LLC, WM Propane LLC, WM Quebec Inc., WM RA Canada Inc., WM Recycle America L.L.C., WM Recycle Europe L.L.C., WM Recycling Latin America LLC, WM Refined Coal LLC, WM Renewable Energy L.L.C., WM Resource Recovery & Recycling Center Inc., WM Resources Inc., WM Safety Services L.L.C., WM Security Services Inc., WM Storage II Inc., WM Storage Inc., WM TX Energy Resources II LLC, WM TX Energy Resources LLC, WM Texas Pack Rat LLC, WM Trash Monitor Plus L.L.C., WM WY Energy Resources II LLC, WM WY Energy Resources III LLC, WM WY Energy Resources LLC, WM of North Dakota Energy Disposal Solutions LLC, WMI Mexico Holdings Inc., WMNA Container Recycling L.L.C., WMRE of Kentucky LLC, WMRE of Michigan LLC, WMRE of Ohio LLC, WMRE of Ohio-American LLC, WMSALSA Inc., WTI Air Pollution Control Inc., WTI Rust Holdings Inc., Warner Company, Waste Away Group Inc., Waste Management Arizona Landfills Inc., Waste Management Buckeye L.L.C., Waste Management China Holdings Limited, Waste Management Collection and Recycling Inc., Waste Management Disposal Services of Colorado Inc., Waste Management Disposal Services of Maine Inc., Waste Management Disposal Services of Maryland Inc., Waste Management Disposal Services of Massachusetts Inc., Waste Management Disposal Services of Oregon Inc., Waste Management Disposal Services of Pennsylvania Inc., Waste Management Disposal Services of Virginia Inc., Waste Management Energy Services of Texas LLC, Waste Management Holdings Inc., Waste Management Inc. of Florida, Waste Management Inc. of Tennessee, Waste Management Indycoke L.L.C., Waste Management International Inc., Waste Management National Services Inc., Waste Management National Transportation Services Inc., Waste Management Partners Inc., Waste Management Recycling and Disposal Services of California Inc., Waste Management Recycling of New Jersey L.L.C., Waste Management Service Center Inc., Waste Management of Alameda County Inc., Waste Management of Alaska Inc., Waste Management of Arizona Inc., Waste Management of Arkansas Inc., Waste Management of California Inc., Waste Management of Canada Corporation, Waste Management of Carolinas Inc., Waste Management of Colorado Inc., Waste Management of Connecticut Inc., Waste Management of Delaware Inc., Waste Management of Fairless L.L.C., Waste Management of Five Oaks Recycling and Disposal Facility Inc., Waste Management of Georgia Inc., Waste Management of Hawaii Inc., Waste Management of Idaho Inc., Waste Management of Illinois Inc., Waste Management of Indiana Holdings One Inc., Waste Management of Indiana Holdings Two Inc., Waste Management of Indiana L.L.C., Waste Management of Iowa Inc., Waste Management of Kansas Inc., Waste Management of Kentucky Holdings Inc., Waste Management of Kentucky L.L.C., Waste Management of Leon County Inc., Waste Management of Londonderry Inc., Waste Management of Louisiana Holdings One Inc., Waste Management of Louisiana L.L.C., Waste Management of Maine Inc., Waste Management of Maryland Inc., Waste Management of Massachusetts Inc., Waste Management of Metro Atlanta Inc., Waste Management of Michigan Inc., Waste Management of Minnesota Inc., Waste Management of Mississippi Inc., Waste Management of Missouri Inc., Waste Management of Montana Inc., Waste Management of Nebraska Inc., Waste Management of Nevada Inc., Waste Management of New Hampshire Inc., Waste Management of New Jersey Inc., Waste Management of New Mexico Inc., Waste Management of New York L.L.C., Waste Management of North Dakota Inc., Waste Management of Ohio Inc., Waste Management of Oklahoma Inc., Waste Management of Oregon Inc., Waste Management of Pennsylvania Gas Recovery L.L.C., Waste Management of Pennsylvania Inc., Waste Management of Rhode Island Inc., Waste Management of South Carolina Inc., Waste Management of South Dakota Inc., Waste Management of Texas Holdings Inc., Waste Management of Texas Inc., Waste Management of Tunica Landfill Inc., Waste Management of Utah Inc., Waste Management of Virginia Inc., Waste Management of Washington, Waste Management of West Virginia Inc., Waste Management of Wisconsin Inc., Waste Management of Wyoming Inc., Western One Land Corporation, Western Waste Industries, Western Waste of Texas L.L.C., Westminster Land Acquisition LLC, Wheelabrator Technologies, Wheelabrator Technologies International Inc., White Lake Landfill Inc., Willow Oak Landfill LLC, and eCycling Services L.L.C.. ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - Hundreds have turned out to honor a decorated World War II Marine in New York after a young friend ensured the 97-year-old's death did not go unnoticed. Bob Graham had no living relatives when he died this month. He was awarded Bronze and Silver stars fighting in an elite unit in the Pacific. Twenty-seven-year-old Beth Regan befriended Graham as a volunteer at his nursing home. Worried that his funeral would be sparsely attended, she used the internet to get the word out. As a result, Friday's service in Westchester attracted firefighters, a police honor guard, veterans and hundreds of others eager to celebrate a life well lived. Regan says Graham was a humble man who adored his wife of more than 60 years. She died two years ago. (Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.) Senior Technical Writer Job 2019 in Karachi Latest TPS Pakistan Pvt Limited Engineering Posts Karachi 2021 Technical and hardworking person for the position of Senior Technical Writer required urgently for a well known and reputed TPS Pakistan Pvt Limited in Karachi Sindh 2019. How to Apply on TPS Pakistan Pvt Limited Job Advertisement Apply as per details in job advertisement. In some cases, you may apply online at vacancies after registering at https://www.jobz.pk online. Note: Beware of Fraudulent Recruiting Activities. If an employer asks to pay money for any purpose, do not pay at all and report us at contact us form. Apply as per instuctions & dates mentioned in official job ad. Govt jobs may not be applied online here. Human typing error is possible. Error & omissions excepted. UTICA -- The Mohawk Valley Health System Foundation and F.X. Matt Brewery held their 11th annual Prohibition Party Friday. The event took place at the Saranac Brewery on Varick St. in Utica. People came out dressed in 1920s attire and enjoyed music and food. The theme of the party celebrates the end of prohibition. The Saranac Brewery was the first local brewery to sell alcohol after the prohibition. A favorite part of the event for many is dressing up and giving back to the community. "We love dressing up, getting in costume," said Cherie Grant. "You can just feel the 1920s vibe going on." "I like the fact of supporting the foundation first of all," said Shawn Stephenson. "Second of all, I like the fact that we're free to drink now and this is history." All proceeds raised from the event go towards St. Elizabeth Medical Center. LAFAYETTE, Ind (WLFI)The third annual 'Laces for Lisa' 5K run/walk was held today at McCutcheon High School. 'Laces for Lisa' is a non-profit organization against drunk driving. The 5K commemorates the life of Lisa Strueh. She was killed by an impaired driver on April 6th, 2017 in Avon, Indiana. Strueh was 26 years old. A graduate of McCutcheon High School and Purdue University, a member of the Tippecanoe County 4-H fair, and a nurse at Community Hospital East in Indianapolis. After her passing, the Strueh family began spreading awareness about drunk driving. The family also continues to keep Lisa's spirit alive through the four things she held dear to her heart: faith, fitness, family, and fellowship. "We just really hope that by doing this event we're spreading awareness to make sure people think before they get behind the wheel," said Lisa Strueh's sister Denise Niblick. "Use those appropriate things like Uber and Lyft, you know, get rides home, be responsible." Nearly 200 participants came out today to run in her honor. All proceeds will go to projects such as Lisa's Faith and Fitness Trail at Immanuel United Church. Laces for Lisa 5K had a record-breaking turnout every year. The non-profit organization, Laces for Lisa, also supports other organizations against drunk driving such as: MADD- Mothers Against Drunk and Drugged Drivers Lisa's Acts of Caring at Community East Hospital Merom Conference Center To learn more about Lisa's legacy and the impact she left on many people, click here. INDIANAPOLIS (WLFI) The President of the United States is no longer in Indiana but his words are still buzzing in the minds of supporters and protestors who heard him speak Friday. President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence spoke at the National Rifle Association conference in Indianapolis. Trump signed a letter to reject the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty. The NRA and others opposed to the treaty say it was a threat to American's second amendment rights. "We had no idea, especially being so close it was great to see the opportunity of him actually make change," said Purdue student James Donaghy. After signing it, trump threw his pen to the audience. Donaghy was sitting close to the person who caught it. "It was really cool," said Donaghy. During his speech, Vice President Mike Pence said the NRA stands for freedom. However, local Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America leader Kathy Parker says the NRA stands for gun sales and doesn't do anything to save lives. "There are some sensible laws that as a country, we could pursue, that would save lives while preserving the second amendment," said Parker. Donaghy disagrees. "Anything that is written into law that takes away my right to bear arms is unconstitutional and eventually shall be overturned," said Donaghy. Donaghy also enjoyed listening to some of Trump's guests who shared specific stories about how their right to bear arms saved lives. "Not everyone knows that the second amendment really does protect Americans," said Donaghy. "It's amazing that he (Donald Trump) knows that too." Trump and VP Mike Pence said they'll continue fighting for the second amendment. They claim the stakes have never been higher. "You let these maniacs get into office, they will take that right away," said President Trump. When it comes to school safety from guns, Trump showed his support for hiring more officers, addressing mental health and arming trained teachers. "Who is better to protect our students than the teachers that love them?" said Trump. However, Parker said she would rather schools invest in mental health services. She's a teacher and fears allowing teachers to have guns would lead to accidental shootings. Overall, Donaghy was pleased with the President's visit and his support for the second amendment. "The NRA obviously has a very strong position and I'm glad that the president stands with that position," said Donaghy. Mads stberg was cruising to victory in WRC 2 Pro at Xion Rally Argentina on Saturday night after further stretching his already comfortable lead. The Norwegian won five of the seven speed tests to end the penultimate leg with a massive 21min 07.4sec advantage in his Citroen C3 over Gus Greensmith. His almost five-minute lead became a gulf when second-placed Marco Bulacia rolled heavily in this mornings opening speed test. His badly-damaged Skoda Fabia came to rest blocking the road (below) and the test was halted for the following competitors. Bulacia and co-driver Fabian Cretu were unhurt but will not restart tomorrow. Greensmith won the final two tests in his Ford Fiesta but a relaxed stberg was focused on driving to the finish to secure maximum points. The weather was better today and the grip was more predictable. The challenge was lower than in yesterdays mud and we didnt push to the same level because of our lead, said stberg, whose only concern was a broken intercom this afternoon. WRC 2 Pedro Heller will carry a WRC 2 lead of almost 10 minutes into Sundays final leg after a much quieter day for the support category drivers. The Chilean, driving a Ford Fiesta, restarted with almost six minutes in hand over Paolo Nobre and steered clear of trouble in the fast pampas stages of the Punilla Valley to extend that to 9min 34.4sec. Nobre conceded second to Benito Guerra, but the Mexican dropped back again with a puncture in this afternoons opening test after struggling with a pop-off valve problem. Guerra attacked again and the Fabia pair were separated by only 12.6sec tonight. Alberto Heller was fourth in a Fiesta after a morning puncture, with Takamoto Katsuta fifth in a similar car after limping through much of the morning with broken power steering. Head to WRC+ to watch All Live from Xion Rally Argentina, including every stage broadcast live, breaking service park news and expert studio analysis. VIDEO More News Amazon announced record first quarter profits on Thursday, more than doubling the amount made during the same period last year. The international e-commerce and tech company is controlled by CEO Jeff Bezos, the wealthiest person in modern history, with a net worth that currently exceeds $150 billion. It pulled in $3.6 billion in profit in the first three months of the year out of $60 billion in global sales. This was up from $1.6 billion in profits out of $51 billion in sales in the first quarter last year. While Amazon retail sales are growing more slowly than in the past, the company was able to increase its profit margin by increasing the exploitation of employees and expanding sales of its cloud computing and advertising services. Right now, we are on a nice path where we are getting the most of out of the capacity we have, Brian Olsavsky, Amazons chief financial officer, boasted in a conference call with investors. He was referring to a four percent fall in the cost for fulfilling orders, due to declines in the number of new warehouses and fewer new workers. Costs declined despite a much-heralded increase in the minimum wage for all Amazon workers in the US last year to $15 an hour. This wage increase, praised by Senator Bernie Sanders, turned out to be an accounting trick that has allowed Amazon to claw back stocks and other benefits from workers. Despite these massive profits, Amazons accounting department has been able to utilize a variety of tax credits and tax breaks on executive stock options to pay no federal income taxes for the last two years. In 2018, Amazon received a rebate of $129 million, for an effecting tax rate of -1.2 percent. In 2017, Amazon received a rebate of $140 million, making its then effective tax rate -2.5 percent. Since 2009, the second largest private employer in the United States has paid just 3 percent in income taxes on $27 billion in profits, well below the 21 percent corporate tax rate signed into law by President Donald Trump in 2017. With its record breaking first quarter, Amazon is on track to top the $11.2 billion in profits that it made in 2018. However, this is not enough for Wall Street, which responded to the earnings report by holding the companys stock steady for the day Thursday. The message is clear: the exploitation of workers in the US and around the world must be increased ever further to ensure an even bigger haul next quarter and every quarter thereafter. Amazon has promised that the pressure on its already hyper-exploited workers will increase with the announcement that it will transition from free two-day shipping for its Prime service subscribers to free one-day shipping. The one-day free shipping will come at a price to the employees, Amazon whistleblower Shannon Allen told the World Socialist Web Site. Coming soon to an Amazon [fulfillment center] near you: increased employee injuries, suicidal thoughts, increased anxiety and depression. And for the confident workerisolation, increased productivity for the same amount of pay, less bathroom breaks, less water breaks, all while watching from your front-row station as your fellow employees get hauled away in the ambulance. Speak up, have a backbone, Allen appealed to Amazon workers. That quote is written on the walls at Amazon. You have nothing to lose but your chains. Amazons workers are already among the most physically exploited, with warehouse workers in the US earning an average annual salary of $28,000 while being expected to sort and pack products and boxes at extraordinary rates. Many workers have suffered debilitating injuries due to broken equipment, strain from repetitive movement and heat exhaustion. Workers report urinating in bottles at their work stations rather than miss time sorting packages by walking to and from the bathroom. An analysis by The Verge of documents submitted by Amazon in a labor dispute with a former worker found that the company has established an almost entirely automated system for tracking and firing workers who fail to make rate. More than ten percent of the workforce at one warehouse in Baltimore, about 300 full-time employees, were fired simply for missing package quotas. Extrapolated to the entire workforce across the United States, this implies that thousands lose their jobs every year for not moving quickly enough. Out of the sweated labor of hundreds of thousands of workers around the world, Bezos added $50 billion to his net worth in 2018, making more in one second, $2,950, than the average Amazon worker in India made in an entire year, $2,796. If Bezos $150 billion fortune were divided up equally among his employees, each one would get a bonus of $232,000. Bezos used his fortune to purchase the Washington Post for $250 million cash in 2013, giving him a critical tool for influencing national politics and developments in the nations capital. Shortly after his purchase of the paper, Amazon won a $600 million contract with the CIA. The company is currently bidding for a $10 billion contract to provide cloud computing services to the Department of Defense and is planning to open its second headquarters in northern Virginia, just five minutes from the Pentagon. With its ability to extract massive profits from a highly exploited global workforce, Amazon is becoming the model for companies around the world. Last month, Amazon and automaker Volkswagen announced a partnership to create an industrial cloud to reinvent [VWs] manufacturing and logistics processes. The joint venture promises the Amazonification of the auto industry, with the further casualization of labor and the implementation of technologies that allow for ever more precise tracking and control of workers every movement. Held amid the May 18 federal election campaign, Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Labor leader Bill Shorten used the annual Anzac Day ceremonies to pledge their fealty to the Anzac spiritthat is, to reactionary patriotism and militarism. Both parties of big business are committed to accelerating the US-led war drive against China and Russia. Anzac Day venerates the April 25, 1915 invasion by Australian, New Zealand, French and British troops at Gallipoli Cove of Turkey during World War I, and is exploited to glorify all of the imperialist wars in which Australia has participated over the past 100 years. The media and political establishment has transformed the event into a quasi-religious affair; any criticism being treated as tantamount to treason. Morrison and Shorten called a truce for the day, suspending all election attack ads and political statements, and came together to hail the Anzac traditions of militarism. Both leaders offered their condolences to the fallenthe saccharine phrase used to hide the horror and barbarity of a century of imperialist wars. They called for young people, in particular, to honour the selfless devotion of military veterans and prepare to do the same. Other politicians chimed in with the lie that the Australian military forces fought to defend democracy and freedom. This is a blatant lie. Australian soldiers have been sent off to kill and be killed as junior partners of the major powersfirst Britain, then the USin the bloody struggle for profits, raw materials and markets. Australias defence of the British Empire in WWI was bound up with its own long-held imperialist ambitions to secure German colonial territories in the South West Pacific. Its alignment with the US in WWII was to block Japanese imperial ambitions and expand Australian influence in the Asia-Pacific. Canberra's involvement in every US-led war in the past 50 yearsfrom Korea and Vietnam to the ongoing occupation of Afghanistan and the invasions of Iraqhas been to further Australian capitalisms economic and geo-strategic interests in Asia and internationally. Morrison and Shorten separately addressed soldiers in northern Australia's military bases at Townsville and Darwin during Anzac Day. These bases are on the frontline of Washingtons war planning against China. Morrison boasted that the number of US Marines based in Darwin, as part of the 2011 agreement reached by Labor prime minister Julia Gillard with US President Obama, will reach 2,500 by July. In the course of the election campaign the Liberal-National Coalition, Labor Party and the Greens have all maintained a conspiracy of silence about the advanced US-led preparations for war against China. They all fear that any discussion of the issue will unleash the deep-seated anti-war sentiment that exists among workers and youth. These pro-war parties are committed to the military alliance with the US. Labor, backed by the Greens, signed up to Obamas aggressive pivot to Asia against China which has included a massive US military build-up throughout the Indo-Pacific. Subsequent Coalition governments have maintained that commitment as the Trump administration intensified the confrontation with Beijing. The Pentagon regards Australia as an essential base of operations in any war with China, in particular the major spy and communications base at Pine Gap in Central Australia. Australia is part of the US-led Five Eyes intelligence network. While governments declare there is no money for welfare, health and education, more than $37 billion will be spent this year on military hardware to enhance interoperability with US forces. The media and politicians have over the past two years whipped up a hysterical campaign against Chinese interference in Australian politics which has set the stage for unprecedented, draconian laws against foreign interference. This campaign is aimed at conditioning the population for war with China and establishing the means to suppress any criticism and opposition. This takes place amid a creeping militarization of society which is epitomized by the appointment of former defence force chief Peter Cosgrove as governor-general, who has wide-ranging reserve powers in times of emergency. At the same time, military call-out powers have been put in place so the army can be mobilized to deal with domestic crises. The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) is the only party warning that the world stands on the brink of a catastrophic global conflict. Last year, the Trump administration threatened North Korea and Iran and withdrew from nuclear weapons treaties setting a new nuclear arms race in motion. The Pentagon issued documents outlining its plans for total war, including the use of nuclear weapons against Russia and China. The headlong drive to war can only be prevented by a unified movement of the international working class on a socialist and antiwar policy to put an end to the capitalist system and its outmoded nation state system that is the root cause of war. This is the perspective fought for by the Socialist Equality Party in Australia and its sister parties of the International Committee of the Fourth International. In Germany, the SEP is campaigning for the same policies in the European Parliamentary elections. The struggle against war will be central to the ICFIs annual International May Day Online Rally on May 4. Workers and young people seeking a way to fight militarism and war should register here and make contact with the SEP and get involved in its election campaign. Authorised by James Cogan for the Socialist Equality Party, Suite 906, 185 Elizabeth Street, Sydney, NSW, 2000. Directed by Matteo Garrone; written by Garrone, Ugo Chiti and Massimo Gaudioso Dogman is the most recent work by Italian filmmaker Matteo Garrone (The Embalmer, Gomorra). The film, received favorably at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, has now opened in the United States. It is a serious attempt to deal with a difficult, and in the present climate not particularly promising subject. Although it departs from the facts of the original case in significant ways, Dogman is based on a horrific murder that shook the city of Rome and made national news in February 1988. Dogman The killer Pietro De Negri subsequently became known as the Dogman of the Magliana, the latter at that time being one of the roughest working class neighborhoods on the outskirts of Rome. He committed his deed after being repeatedly subjected to intimidation and abuse by a local hoodlum, Giancarlo Ricci. Having trapped his tormentor by a ruse in one of the cages in his dog grooming shop, De Negri then proceeded to torture and kill Ricci in an exceedingly brutal fashion. The actual details of the story remain somewhat murky and controversial. In response to renewed attention to the case due to the release of Garrones film, the mother of the victim has stated the dog coiffeur was merely a patsy who took the blame for a crime committed by others. Nonetheless, the story powerfully affected the consciousness of a certain generation of Italians, particularly in Rome. The murders shockingly sadistic elements, salaciously reported by the press at a time when such stories were perhaps not as commonor, for that matter, as commonly portrayed on filmno doubt played a role. More fundamentally, the story resonated and was deliberately presented as one of righteous revenge, tapping into the frustrations and anger of ordinary people. Marcello Fonte in Dogman The incident took place in the period of the notorious Banda della Magliana, an organized crime group with extensive links to the neo-fascist right, which ran roughshod over the city, and which was lionized in the cult film and then television series Romanzo Criminale (Criminal Novel, 2005 and 2008, respectively). More broadly, this was also a period of rampant political corruption (the clean hands scandal blew the lid on such practices in the early 1990s), rising unemployment rates and a wave of right-wing reforms, including the slashing of redundancy fund benefits the same year as the murder. All of this contributed to enormous frustrations, certainly in working class neighborhoods in cities like Rome. When the dogman carried out his revenge, for a misguided section of the downtrodden population, at last the little guy had stood up to intimidation and abuse. Graffiti praising the dogman appeared on the streets of Rome following the crime. One might have imagined, considering the current cultural atmosphere, that such a story could have attracted exactly the wrong kind of artistic interest. A film about the dogman could have slipped almost seamlessly into the grooves of the well-established torture and porno-sadistic tendencies in contemporary film. Garrone could just as easily have ridden the wave of the often uncritical fascination with criminality and gangsterism in contemporary film, having already done so to a considerable extent in his previous film Gomorra. Instead, Dogman displays unusual and, frankly, unexpected sensitivity, approaching its difficult subject humanely and with considerable restraint. Garrone (born in 1968), who is from Rome and was a young man at the time of the murder, stated that he began working on this project 13 years ago, but could not shoot the film until he found a suitable actor to play the protagonist. Significantly, the director added that what he found in Marcello Fonte, the actor who gives a powerful performance as the dogman, was his great humanity, which enabled the director to finally deal with the story in an appropriate manner. Marcello Fonte and Edoardo Pesce in Dogman Visually and narratively sparse, Dogman relies on the ability of the main actor. There are few characters, saying little to each other and operating in a forlorn setting. In fact, there is a certain artificiality to the unspecified seaside location chosen by Garrone. Everything is a bit too neatly run down and desolate. But when the camera is on Fonte, who could conceivably have been asked to portray a monster, the viewer feels his humanity in its emotional complexities, and sympathizes with the impossible conditions in which he finds himself. Marcello is a physically weak man, on that score totally incapable of handling the intimidation and abuse dished out by Simoncino (Edoardo Pesce), his tormentor. Yet long before the horrific denouement, Marcello takes a stand courageously in his own way, and tries to salvage a dignified existence. He deals drugs on the side, and participates more or less unwittingly in petty crimes in the wake of Simoncino. But Marcello loves his job and through it, and his relationship with his daughter, is shown repeatedly to be a decent human being. His relationship with Simoncino is moreover not simply based on violence and crime, bullying and intimidation, but also contains elements of friendship in a setting where it was impossible for it to find anything resembling a productive or healthy channel. Marcello at one point saves Simoncinos life, even though his death would have been convenient. At another point he takes the fall for Simoncinoone suspects not simply because he fears the consequences of crossing himand as a result is sent to jail for a year. Dogman merely hints at whats in store for Marcello, in a remarkable scene showing his long walk before entering his cell. One senses the brutality that awaits in the faces of the unsavory fellow prisoners he passes by. But they, too, look like human beings rather than cartoon characters. The face of the last man shown in the scene stays with the viewer. Even Simoncino, while far from a well-rounded character, is not a monster either. He bullies his way around town, at the mercy of his drug cravings and, in a sense, his own physical might, which allows him to get his way too easily. His physical presence is genuinely frightening, and the director is able to make it linger by more subtle means even when he isnt there, such as the dreadful roaring of his bikes engine, first getting fainter, indicating he is leaving, then closer. Simoncino is sadistic and cruel, but here and there one sees glimpses of genuine affection for Marcello. All this is done convincingly and in a manner that actually departs substantially from the real story of the dogmanat least from the manner in which it was reported. This is particularly true of the murder carried out by Marcello. The event featured monstrous acts of mutilation and torture which the actual dogman, Pietro De Negri, apparently freely confessed to without any sign of remorse. These were perhaps made even more disturbing when the autopsy revealed they were carried out for several hours, mostly after the victims death. In the film, Marcello begins to treat Simoncino as he does his dogsslowly gaining his trust, coaxing him with treats in the form of cocaine rocks, and finally succeeding in getting him to grudgingly enter into a cage. But there is a flip side to this, because the dogman actually loves and cares for his dogs, once going to extraordinary lengths to rescue one that had gotten in the way of a criminal effort. In any case, Dogman significantly blunts the element of vengeance that was apparently so central to the story it is inspired by. Marcellos stated motivation is not revenge, but getting his cut of the money from the robbery for which he did time. He needs it, we surmise, to repair the damage his time in prison did to his relationship with his daughter. Marcello then asks Simoncino for an apology, and demands respect. In Garrones Dogman, the murder is not the result of a calculated plan. Virtually every act of violence that follows Simoncinos entrapment is forced upon Marcello by the circumstances and by his victims sheer physical strength. It is not a question of morally and factually sanitizing an otherwise unspeakable event, but of extracting its essential human content. The people involved did in reality do terrible things, but were themselves the contradictory products of immense social degradation and of a system they did not control. It is rarely reported that Pietro De Negri served 16 years of a 24-year prison sentence, with time off for good behavior, which included helping to care for prisoners suffering from AIDS and assisting foreign prisoners with bureaucratic matters. Upon release in 2005, he returned to his wife and daughter, started working as a delivery man, asking the media to be left alone. Garrones film avoids the low-hanging fruit of mindless violence and revenge, and tries to get a deeper truth. There are problems, to be sure, including a disappointing conclusion that muddles the crucial question of Marcellos motivations. It should also be said that Garrone seems to understand human beings far better than the social conditions that produce them. Yet in Dogman he has made a serious film while swimming against a strong current. The US military is preparing to approve a new request from the Department of Homeland Security that will loosen rules that bar troops from interacting with migrants crossing the border with Mexico. According to a report Friday in the Washington Post, Senior Defense Department officials have recommended that acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan grant waivers for more than 300 troops from a long-standing policy prohibiting military personnel from coming into contact with migrants. The requests from the Department of Homeland Security frame the measure as part of a humanitarian effort, claiming that it would allow the government to provide military lawyers, cooks and drivers to assist in handling a surge of migrants along the southern border. In reality, it will facilitate the implementation of President Trumps illegal and unconstitutional plans to use active duty soldiers to build and run new migrant detention camps. The plans for such camps, outlined in an NBC report based on information from three unnamed Pentagon officials and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials, include using troops to conduct land assessments before the construction of new tent cities in El Paso and Donna, Texas and a new central processing center for migrants in El Paso. The El Paso center is to be similar to one currently operating in McAllen, Texas, where children were held in cages last summer while the administrations family separation policy was in effect. These plans are being made amidst a vast escalation of the attack on immigrants and massive militarization of the US-Mexico border: Last week, videos and photos emerged of armed right-wing militias systematically detaining asylum-seekers at gunpoint along the US-Mexico border in operations that the militias assert are coordinated with the federal Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agency. In a visit to the border in the middle of the month, Trump reportedly told the director of the CBP to bar asylum seekers from entering the US, a violation of international and US law, and promised that he would pardon him if he encountered any legal issues. On April 16, US Attorney General William Barr ordered immigration judges to deny bond to all asylum seekers who are not part of family groups that include children, essentially eviscerating the right to asylum. On April 3, in a raid on CVE Technology in Allen, Texas, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested 280 employees. Trumps fascistic persecution of immigrants and open calls for illegal policies to create a system of internment centers poses an immense danger for the working class, immigrant and native born alike. The Trump administrations increasingly dictatorial measures and reliance on the military are setting the stage for using the armed bodies of the state against all workers. The vast majority of the population is horrified by Trumps vicious persecution of immigrants, the militarization of the border and his moves toward authoritarian rule. However, this opposition finds no expression in official establishment politics. The Democratic Party is virtually silent on Trumps increasingly dictatorial maneuvers. When forced to discuss the issue, leading Democrats accept entirely the fundamental framework of Trumps anti-immigrant campaign: that there exists a crisis at the border of undocumented immigrants entering the country. The line of the Democratic Party is perhaps most explicitly expressed in a New York Times column written by Thomas Friedman on April 23, Trump Is Wasting Our Immigration Crisis. Friedman bases his reactionary musings on a ride he took with the Border Patrol along the busiest port of entry on the borderSan Ysidro, San Diego. Friedman spends the bulk of the column outlining the immigration crisis, painting the Border Patrol agents in the most favorable light. If these noncriminal illegal entrants have a young child in their group, the Border Patrol is obligated to get a car seat If they are sick, the border agents are obligated to take them to a local hospital. Indeed, if you are pro-immigration he writes, as I am, you have to acknowledge that this haphazard system has overwhelmed the Border Patrol and our immigration courts and contributed to Trumps election. Friedmans self-described pro-immigration policy in the final analysis arrives at all of the same fundamental conclusions as the Trump administration. This includes plans for a border wall and merit-based immigration reform. Friedman explicitly calls for building a wall, writing, The whole day left me more certain than ever that we have a real immigration crisis and that the solution is a high wall with a big gatebut a smart gate. Friedmans disagreements with Trump on the question of immigration are not over the actual content of his proposals, but rather his approach: What a terrible waste of a crisis he laments at one point. The line advanced by Friedman is echoed by nearly every single Democratic presidential candidate, with only minor differences in tactics. Bernie Sanders recently made a point at a campaign event in Iowa of declaring his opposition to open borders and warning that such a policy would open the floodgates to impoverished foreigners, echoing Trumps efforts to pit US workers against their class brothers and sisters around the world. The intense conflicts within the ruling establishment are not being fought out over any of the fundamental issues motivating tens of millions of workers, such as the fascist attacks on immigrants and the militarization of the border. On these questions, they agree. Rather, the conflicts between the two parties are over differences in foreign policy. The UK is one of the most unequal societies on the planet. The scale of this is effectively documented in new research revealing that one half of all the land in England is the private property of less than one percent of the population. This equates to just 25,000 people. England accounts for just over half (53 percent) of the total area of the UK. The research is available in a new book by Guy Shrubsole, Who Owns England?: How We Lost Our Green and Pleasant Land and How to Take It Back. Shrubsole is a writer, campaigner and investigator at Friends of the Earth. Although it was broadly understood that the ruling elite owned much of the land, this reality has generally been shrouded in secrecy. New developments in digital mapping, however, as well as the work of campaign groups enabling the release of data under Freedom of Information legislation (FOI), made possible the research that revealed the following statistics: The aristocracy and gentry still own 30 percent of the land. 18 percent is owned by corporations. 17 percent is in the possession of oligarchs and bankers. The crown and royal family own 1.4 percent and the Church of England 0.5 percent. Therefore, this tiny stratum of society owns nearly 70 percent of all land privately. Moreover, it should be noted that the percentage attributed to the aristocracy is likely a vast underestimation, according to Shrubsole. The ownership of 17 percent of the land remains undeclared at the Land Registrya database that registers property and land sold in England and Walesbecause it has not been sold on the open market. This is most likely the property of the aristocracy, passing down the generations. This percentage has barely changed for centuries. Among the pieces of land owned by the monarchy is the Crown Estate, the Queens personal estate at Sandringham, Norfolk. The land within the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster also provides vast amounts of income to Royal family members. The public sector owns just 8.5 percent of English soil, followed by home owners who own just five percent. Two percent is owned by conservation charities, including the National Trust. Shrubsole lists the top 100 corporations that possess the most land in England, including some based abroad or offshore to avoid tax liabilities or for money-laundering purposes. The Land Registry, reportedly by accident, sent Private Eye investigative journalist Christian Eriksson, after a FOI request, a huge database of offshore companies that had purchased land in England and Wales from 2005 to 2014. This comprised 113,119 hectares of land worth an astonishing 170 billion ($US 220 billion). At the top of the list of landowning companies is United Utilities, formed when the Tories privatised the water industry in 1989. Much of the land surrounding its reservoirs is owned by the firm. Pro-Brexit businessman Sir James Dyson is high on the list. He owns several large grouse moor estates and Beeswax Dyson Farming. Other household names owning vast swathes of land are Tesco, the UKs largest supermarket chain, Tata Steel and housebuilder Taylor Wimpey. In an extract from Who Owns England? published in the Guardian, Shrubsole discusses the extensive interests of landowning company Peel Holdings and its many subsidiaries. The company owns up to 1,000 tracts of land nationally totaling around 13,000 hectares. Just in the northwest of England its land interests spread from Liverpools John Lennon airport, through fracking country in Lancashire, to one of the largest wind farms in the UK, taking in shopping centres and ports, including the Port of Liverpool. Peel was the developer behind the 15-hectare MediaCityUK in Salford, the main northern hub of the BBC and ITV. It is based on land next to the 36-mile Manchester Ship Canal that Peel bought in 1993. Shrubsole searched for Peel Holdings and its subsidiaries on the Companies House website. This revealed a systematic lack of transparency with one holding company owned by another, like a series of Russian dolls, one nested inside another. Peel Holding s is also illustrative of corporate landowners everywhere, continues Shrubsole, adding that [c]ompanies with big enough budgets can often ride roughshod over the planning system, beating cash-strapped councils and volunteer community groups. The public sector, which includes central and local government as well as universities, is less secretive about the land they own. This is because they are compelled to advertise land for sale on the open market to offset austerity cutsand in the process transfer even more land into private hands. The sale of public land means it cannot be used for housebuilding or environmental improvements. In the last period, vast amounts of public spaces and parks in towns and cities have been hoovered up by the private sector. These landscaped areas are then out of bounds to the general public and especially public protests. In 1980, Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher introduced the sale of public housing under right to buy and council house building began to drastically decline. Britain was apparently to become a nation of home owners. However, most such housing consists of tiny shoebox units, as is indicated by the fact that all the 15.1 million homeowners in Britain own just 5 percent of the land. The Guardian noted that figures show that if the land were distributed evenly across Englands population, each person would have just over half an acre [0.2 hectare]an area roughly half the size of Parliament Square in central London. Those who can afford to buy their own home may not necessarily own the land it stands on, but only lease it, which ensures not ownership but long-term tenancy. Leasehold properties comprise 27 percent of properties in England and Wales. An annual ground rent is paid to whoever owns the freehold for the length of the lease. After the lease runs out the freeholder becomes the owner of house and land, lock stock and barrel. Developers are raking in a huge revenue stream in building leasehold properties. A House of Commons Library report revealed an increase in leasehold new builds, from seven percent in 1995 to 15 percent in 2016with clauses in leases doubling the ground rent every ten years, which are sold on to speculators. One of those companies that makes its money from the ground rents market is Wallace Estates, which possesses thousands of freehold properties, selling long leases for the annual rents. Wallace Estates is the company with the third-highest number of land titles, possessing a property portfolio worth 200m, the details of which are in the public domain and owned by an elusive Italian count. The buying up of land is also a convenient investment to avoid paying inheritance or capital gains tax. Speculation in land has led to parasitical land banking. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Tesco, for example, purchased huge land banks for the future construction of out-of-town shopping complexes. The Guardian estimates that in 2014 the supermarket was sitting on enough land to accommodate 15,000 homes. Some land promotion companies specialize in preparing land sites for development by doing the leg work of gaining planning permission for developers and then taking a cut from the final sales. The Gladman company made a pretax profit in 2016 of 11.6 million, while in the same year Gallaghers raked in 79 million. The Shelter housing charity revealed last month that almost of third of sites approved for building on five years ago have still not been completed. The top ten housing developers have land banks with space for more than 400,000 homes. UK pension funds and insurance companies commonly buy land as a long-term investment. For example, Legal and General is in possession of 1,500 hectares stretching from Luton to Cardiff. The Telegraph revealed that close associate of former Tory Prime Minister David Cameron, Tony Gallagher, head of the aforementioned company, sold his land promotions company after three decades for 250 millionlucrative indeed. This wealth propelled his total fortune to 850 million, but such is the enormity of the wealth of the richest of the rich in Britain that Gallagher was only able to place 52nd on the Sunday Times Rich List. A Massachusetts judge and a former court officer are being charged by federal authorities for allegedly helping an immigrant flee Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) by letting him slip through a rear courthouse door. They were indicted on Thursday for obstruction of justice and other federal charges which carry a sentence of up to 20 years in prison. Newton District Court Judge Shelley Richmond Joseph and former trial court officer Wesley MacGregor are accused of helping the defendant, an undocumented immigrant, escape from the Newton District Court while an ICE agent waited in the lobby to arrest him on a federal detainer in April 2018. The episode is the latest effort by the Trump administration to punish state and local governments that have refused to cooperate with the White Houses war on immigrants. In a 2017 report by ICE, Boston was listed as a jurisdiction that limits its cooperation with the agency. Joseph and MacGregor now face three obstruction charges including: conspiracy, aiding and abetting, and obstruction of a federal proceeding. MacGregor, a trial court officer from 1993 until his retirement last month, was also charged with lying to the grand jury for saying he was unaware there was an ICE agent in the courthouse that day. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ordered Joseph suspended without pay until further order of this court. The court wrote, This Order is based solely on the fact that a sitting judge has been indicted for alleged misconduct in the performance of her judicial duties. It in no way reflects any opinion on the merits of the pending criminal case. In a statement, US Attorney Andrew Lelling hypocritically declared, This case is about the rule of law, adding, We cannot pick and choose the federal laws we follow or use our personal views to justify violating the law. He continued, Everyone in the justice systemnot just judges, but law enforcement officers, prosecutors and defense counselshould be held to a higher standard. The people of Massachusetts expect that, just like they expect judges to be fair, impartial and to follow the law themselves. In response to questions from reporters about bringing charges against a sitting judge, Lelling said, We did not bring this case in response to the public debate over immigration enforcement. There are reasonable arguments on both sides of that debate. But this isnt a policy seminarits a law enforcement action. Republican Governor Charlie Bakers office also chimed in with a statement saying he believes no one should obstruct federal law enforcement officials trying to do their jobs and supports the Supreme Judicial Courts decision to suspend Judge Joseph without pay. The ACLU of Massachusetts executive director Carol Rose denounced the charges as preposterous, ironic and deeply damaging to the rule of law, which have everything to do with enforcing the presidents anti-immigrant agenda. The defendant in the case has been identified as Jose Medina-Perez, 38, from the Dominican Republic, who in April 2018 was facing drug charges and a fugitive warrant from Pennsylvania for drunk driving. He had been deported from the US in 2003 and 2007 was banned from reentry until 2027. A plainclothes ICE officer was sent to the Newton courthouse to arrest the defendant in April 2018. The officer was instructed by the court clerk to wait in the lobby. During the case, Judge Joseph, the defendants attorney and the prosecutor discussed the ICE detainer at sidebar. The conversation was captured by a court audio recording. The defendants attorney denied that his client was the same person ICE was looking for in the fugitive warrant. The attorney told Joseph his client would be detained by ICE if he walked out the door, to which Joseph replied, ICE is going to get him? What if we detain him? The judge then allegedly turned off the audio recording for 52 seconds according to the indictment. When it was turned on again, Joseph said she would release the defendant. The defense attorney asked to speak with his client but was reminded by the clerk that there was an ICE agent waiting in the courthouse. Joseph then said, Thats fine. Im not going to allow them to come in here. But hes been released on this. According to the indictment, MacGregor then escorted the defendant, his attorney, and an interpreter out of the courtroom and used his security access card to open the rear exit door to release the defendant. Joseph would later tell a senior district court judge the courtroom recorder was turned off because of her unfamiliarity with the courtroom recording equipment. For this she was indicted for making false and misleading statements. MacGregor allegedly told a federal grand jury in July he did not know there was an ICE agent in the courthouse. The indictment referenced a guidance issued by the Executive Office of the Massachusetts Trial Court in November 2017, which stated that DHS (Department of Homeland Security) officials may enter a courthouse to perform their official duties. The Trump Administration has gone on the offensive against cities and states that have declared themselves to be sanctuary cities and do not cooperate fully with federal governments war on immigrants. Earlier this month, President Trump proposed dumping undocumented migrants stopped at the US-Mexico border on sanctuary cities as a means to punish and overwhelm local governments that refused to fully cooperate with ICE. The efforts of Judge Joseph and MacGregor to help Medina-Perez evade capture by federal officials recalls the broad opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 in the lead-up to the Civil War. Across the US brave abolitionists aided runaway slaves evade capture by federal agents who were seeking to deliver them back to the grips of their slave masters. Countless individuals violated the law by spiriting slaves to freedom in Canada via the network of safe houses and churches which made up the Underground Railroad. Nearly 300 students and employees at two Los Angeles universities were under quarantine Thursday due to possible exposure to the measles virus. The news comes as the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports the number of measles cases has spiked to at least 695 so far this year, the highest number since the disease was declared eliminated in 2000. The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) said that 76 students and six faculty members remained quarantined as of Thursday afternoon after a student infected with measles attended classes on three days this month, the last on April 9. The quarantine was expected to last between 24 and 48 hours for most, but a few might need to remain in quarantine for up to seven days. A California State University, Los Angeles spokesman also reported that 127 staff employees and 71 student employees had been sent home under quarantine orders after a measles exposure was thought to have occurred April 11 in a campus library. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health believes additional exposures may have occurred in April at Los Angeles International Airport. According to the CDCs new report, new cases of measles in New York, New Jersey and California the previous week have brought the total number of infections in the US to at least 695 so far this year. On Wednesday, New York City and suburban Rockland County confirmed an additional 37 cases of the potentially deadly disease. Most of the cases are among unvaccinated children, although adults are also at risk. Cases in New York include two pregnant women diagnosed in mid-April. Measles during pregnancy can be dangerous for both the woman and her developing fetus, with a high risk of miscarriage, stillbirth, prematurity and low birthweight. President Donald Trump felt obliged to urge parents to get their children vaccinated after the CDC announced the record number of measles cases across 22 states. They have to get the shot, the president told reporters Friday on his way to Indianapolis to address the National Rifle Association. This is really going around now; they have to get their shot. Trumps statement was at odds with earlier comments he has made on vaccinations. In a March 2014 tweet, he questioned why a child gets pumped with massive shot of many vaccines adding, Healthy young child goes to doctor, gets pumped with massive shot of many vaccines, doesn't feel good and changesAUTISM. Many such cases! During a Florida fundraiser in 2016, Trump spoke with a group of donors who are prominent proponents of the discredited link between vaccines and autism, including disbarred British physician Andrew Wakefield, the senior author of a now retracted 1998 Lancet study linking autism to the MMR vaccine. The current measles cases can be traced to travelers returning to the US from countries where measles is still common. The virus can then spread rapidly, especially in a community with a high rate of unvaccinated individuals. The majority of cases in New York, for instance, are traced to individuals returning from Israel and spreading the virus, particularly in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, where there is an insufficient vaccination rate to cause herd immunity. The CDC says herd immunity comes when the vaccination rate is about 95 percent. This means that the disease cannot spread very easily, even among those who cant be vaccinated, like newborns and those with vaccine allergies. The measles virus is airborne, transmitted by respiratory droplets from the nose, mouth or throat of an infected person. These small-particle aerosols from an infected person can remain suspended in air for long periods of time after a person has left a location. The virus can incubate in a person four days before the onset of the rash associated with measles, so people carrying the virus can spread it to others before even knowing they have the disease. US health officials believed that the disease had been effectively eradicated in the US, because the vaccination rates were sufficiently high and no cases had been reported. The measles virus is given as part of the combination MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) injection. The CDC recommends that a child receive two doses: one at 12-15 months of age, and the second at four-six years. However, the fractured state of the US public health system in the US allows millions of parents to be granted exemptions by states from having their children immunizedfor medical, religious and personal belief reasons. In 2015, California outlawed all but medical exemptions after an outbreak of measles linked to the Disneyland amusement park. A small but vocal group of parents across the countryclinging to debunked, antiscientific viewsbelieve that vaccines, including MMR, cause autism, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and other developmental problems. In California, parents have sought and received exemptions for conditions from eczema to medical fragility. This places children with legitimate reasons for exemptionincluding newborns, those undergoing chemotherapy, the immuno-suppressed, those with life-threatening allergiesat danger. Unscrupulous doctors have signed off on such exemptions. The Voice of San Diego reported last month that a single physician had written one-third of all medical exemptions from vaccination for children in the San Diego Unified School District. With the measles outbreak spreading across the country, many people who previously never gave the disease a thought are trying to determine if they are at risk. The CDC considers an individual protected if they have written documentation that either (1) they are a school-aged child who received two doses of a measles-containing vaccine, (2) they are a preschool child who received one dose of the vaccine, (3) a laboratory confirmed that they had measles at some point in their life or that they are immune to measles, or (4) they were born before 1957 (when they most likely came in contact with the virus). Finding these records, however, may be difficult, as there is no national organization that maintains vaccination records. The CDC makes some not-so-helpful recommendations on how to find them, including: Asking your parents or caregiver if they have your records; Looking through baby books and other filed-away documents; Checking with your high school and/or college health services. Keep in mind, the CDC notes, that generally records are kept only for 1-2 years after students leave the system. Checking with previous employers, including the military; Calling your doctor or public health clinic (who may have shut down, or not kept records); Contacting your states health department, where some states have Immunization Information Systems including adult vaccine registries. The lack of a national public health entity to track all vaccinations, and a vigorous nationwide campaign to counter the pockets of the unvaccinated, poses the necessity of freeing the health of the population from the grips of the for-profit health system. This includes the pharmaceutical giants who develop and produce vaccines based on profit and the private insurers who determine how much out of pocket must be paid to receive them. Before the measles vaccine was introduced in 1963 in the US, there were 4 million measles cases with 48,000 hospitalizations and 500 deaths in the US every year. It cannot be dismissed cavalierly as an innocent childhood disease. Children under age 5 have the highest probability of death from measles, with pneumonia being the most common cause. Other less common complications include blindness, croup and severe diarrhea. Some children develop encephalitis, or swelling of the brain, which can lead to convulsions, mental retardation, or death. Figures in the political establishment like Trumpwho has courted the anti-vaccine zealots and spread their unsubstantiated and antiscientific claims while only commenting briefly when measles cases soared to record numbersare placing the population in danger of the reemergence of measles and other diseases long thought to be eradicated in North America. The hideous public beheadings of 37 men in a single day in Saudi Arabia last Tuesday have provoked scant protest from Western governments or the corporate media. The same newspapers and broadcast networks that have summoned up their moral outrage over abuses, both manufactured and real, by governments in Russia, China, Iran, Syria and Venezuela are clearly unmoved by these criminal executions. They maintain their stony silence even though those who were decapitated with swords included three young men who were arrested as minors, tortured into signing confessions and convicted of terrorism for daring to join protests against the countrys monarchical dictatorship. One of those beheaded was Abdulkarem al-Hawaj, arrested when he was just 16 by Saudi security forces for attending a protest in the countrys Eastern Province, home to most of Saudi Arabias Shia minority population. Beginning in 2011, the oil-rich province has seen protests over the systematic discrimination and oppression against Shias at the hands of a monarchy whose rule is bound up with the official state-sponsored religious doctrine of Wahhabism, an ultra-conservative Sunni sect. Abdulkarems real crime was apparently the fact that he used social media to encourage participation in a demonstration. He was held in solitary confinement, beaten, tortured with electric cables and hung in chains by his wrists until he submitted to signing a false confession. Also murdered in the barbaric execution spree was Mujtaba al-Sweikat, who was 17 when he was arrested at an airport as he was about to board a plane to the United States, where he was to become a student at Western Michigan University. His crime was also daring to demonstrate against the Saudi royal dictatorship. His father, who represented him at his sham trial, accused the state of creating the illusion of a terrorist cell where none existed. He was subjected to psychological and physical abuse which drained his strength, Sweikats father told the court. The interrogator dictated the confession to Sweikat and forced him to sign it so that the torture would stop. He signed it. As in all the other cases, the court ignored the evidence of torture and forced confessions and imposed the sentence of death by decapitation already dictated by the House of Saud. The US government has said next to nothing about these atrocities. A State Department spokesman issued a boilerplate statement allowing that We have seen these reports. We urge the government of Saudi Arabia, and all governments, to ensure trial guarantees, freedom from arbitrary and extrajudicial detention, transparency, rule of law, and freedom of religion and belief. During the same two days after the Saudi public beheadings, which included the crucifixion of one of the victims and the display of a severed head on a pike to intimidate anyone thinking of opposing the kingdoms de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the US State Department managed to churn out statements condemning Russia for gross human rights violations in Chechnya; Venezuela for use of intimidation and imprisonment against the US-funded right-wing opposition; and Havana for acting to suppress the human rights of the Cuban people. Washingtons patent indifference to the mass executions in Saudi Arabia exposes the cynicism and hypocrisy of all of US imperialisms human rights pretensions and its feigned outrage over alleged crimes carried out by governments it views as strategic rivals or ones it is seeking to overthrow. The United States has long counted Saudi Arabia as a pillar of imperialist domination and reaction in the Middle East, and the Obama administration exhibited a similar reaction to the mass execution of 47 men in January 2016. But just as blatant as the complicity of the US government with the crimes of the Saudi regime is the embrace of the bloody monarchical dictatorship by Wall Street and global finance capital. In October of last year, a significant number of Wall Street moguls and chiefs of international finance houses canceled their trips to an annual Saudi investment conference known as Davos in the Desert. The gatheringwhich was attended by lower-ranking operatives of their firmscame just weeks after the brutal murder and dismemberment of the well known Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at Saudi Arabias consulate in Istanbul. A regime insider who had served as an aide to the Saudi intelligence chief and a semi-official interlocutor between the House of Saud and the Western media before falling out with Riyadh, Khashoggis grim fate at the hands of a Saudi military and intelligence death squad was traced by the CIA and other intelligence agencies directly to an order given by Crown Prince bin Salman. While the death of the well-placed journalist, who had been given a column in the Washington Post after going into self-exile in the US, elicited a brief period of attention and protests from the US media and politicians, six months have passed, and the crime has largely been forgotten. US officials speak vaguely about the need for accountability while studiously ignoring that the author of the grisly assassination is none other than their closest ally, bin Salman. Six months was more than enough time for Wall Street to cast aside any inhibitions and jump with both feet into the latest Saudi Financial Sector Conference, which convened at the King Abdul Aziz International Conference Center. While its opening came in the immediate wake of the mass executions, the conference center is miles away from Riyadhs Deera Square where the executioners hack off heads with swords, so the Wall Street CEOs did not have to worry about staining their Prada shoes with blood. The mood at the conference was a reprise of the giddy reception that bin Salman received during his visit the US just a year ago, when he was embraced as a visionary and reformer by billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Oprah Winfrey. We are excited about the role that we can play here, HSBC CEO John Flint told this weeks Riyadh conference. This is an economy we have a lot of confidence in. I think the future is bright. He boasted that a number of former HSBC bankers had joined the head-chopping Saudi regime. Thats been a privilege of ours, to see so many of our ex-colleagues actually in the audience and serving their country now. Among the others attending at the conference were BlackRock Incs CEO Larry Fink, JPMorgans chief executive officer Daniel Pinto, the World Banks vice president for development finance Akihiko Nishio, as well as representatives of various other banks and hedge funds. BlackRocks Fink was among the most effusive. He brushed aside any qualms about the hideous crimes of the Saudi regime, which include not only this weeks mass executions and the assassination of Khashoggi, but the near-genocidal US-backed war that has killed tens of thousands of Yemenis and brought millions to the brink of starvation. The fact that there are issues in the press does not tell me I must run away from a place. In many cases, it tells me I should run to and invest because what we are most frightened of are things that we dont talk about, he stated, uttering not a word more about the things we dont talk about. The magnet pulling in all of the finance capitalist parasites is Saudi Arabias state-run oil company, Aramco, whose income equals that of the five biggest energy conglomerates in the world and tops the combined net profits of Apple and Google. Many of the banks and finance houses represented in Riyadh, including JPMorgan, HSBC, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, participated this month in Aramcos floating of $12 billion worth of bonds. Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih told the conference in Riyadh that Aramcos bond sale was only the beginning, holding out the prospect that the oil giant may go for an initial public offering (IPO) as early as next year. There will be more, he added. I wont tell you what and when, and it wont be bonds only. Aramco sooner than you think will be accessing equity markets. Blackrocks Fink, who described reforms by the Saudi monarchy as amazing, said he saw very large opportunities across the Middle East, insisting that the region is becoming more secure. To describe the Middle East, after a quarter-century of US imperialist wars that have killed millions and shattered entire societies, as more secure is delusional. No doubt for Fink and his fellow financial oligarchs the mass beheadings of terrorists--a synonym for agitators, troublemakers and dissidents--is not a problem, but rather an attraction. They feel that the defense of their vast wealth under conditions of unprecedented social inequality and an increasingly combative working class will require similar measures at home and abroad. On Thursday afternoon, the Polish Teachers Union (ZNP) declared that it was calling for educators to return to work beginning Monday, and shutting down the powerful 17-day nationwide strike by more than 300,000 teachers, without achieving any of their demands. The ZNPs actions are a naked sellout. The far-right Law and Justice Party (PiS) repeatedly declared that it would not negotiate on the teachers main demand for a 30 percent wage increase, now offering only a paltry 10 percent wage rise tied to increases in working hours. Teachers in Poland earn poverty wages of 1,800 to 3,000 zlotys (US$470 to US$780) per month, and many are forced to work second jobs to make ends meet. A protest in support of teachers in the city of Koscian Such is the anger and determination to fight among teachers that the ZNP knew it could not agree to this rotten deal, as did the Solidarnosc union. Instead, ZNP president Sawomir Broniarz released a statement Thursday afternoon, declaring, We are suspending the strike, but the fight is going on and will last until the end! The union is claiming that it is giving time to the government until September, and that if there is no better offer, it may call a strike once again. In the meantime, teachers are being instructed to proceed with baccalaureate examinations before the end of semester at the beginning of June, handing all of the initiative to the government. Presenting its return-to-work order as a militant maneuver, it declares that from today we are entering a new, much more important stage of the struggle. Deputy Prime Minister Beata Szydo, who was in charge of the talks with the union, praised the ZNP for shutting down the strike, stating in a press conference: Id like to thank ZNP for this decision pupils and teachers needed it. The ZNPs announcement provoked anger and denunciations from teachers on social media. I have a strange feeling that the ZNP had the same contempt towards our strike [as the government], said one teacher, in a Facebook comment liked by 18 others. The governments strategy from the outset has been to wait out the strike and count on the union to prevent any expansion of the struggle. Its vicious hostility to the most elementary demands of workers was expressed in its ministers denunciations of the teachers as akin to the Nazi Wehrmacht, which invaded Poland in 1939 and was responsible for the death of 20 percent of the population. In response to the language and policy of open class warfare by the government, the union has worked to isolate teachers, refusing to provide any strike pay and assisting in the governments policy of starving them into submission. It is still unclear what, if any pay the teachers, who have lost thousands of zloty throughout the strike, will receive for the duration of the strike. While some local city councils have declared their readiness to pay the teachers out of local budgets, the PiS government has intervened, arguing that doing so would be illegal. Under these conditions, to the extent that some teachers see no way forward in a continuation of the strike, it is a result of the scabbing policies of the union, and an expression of the total lack of confidence among workers that the union would wage a genuine struggle in their bitter confrontation with the government. The ZNPs decision to shut down the strike was above all motivated by the extreme fears of both the unions and the government that the strike was winning growing support from broad sections of the working class, and signs that other sections of workers would join the strike. On Tuesday, a public-sector union, seeking to maintain control over 40,000 social service workers, declared that it may be joining the strike. A leading liberal newspaper warned the following day that this is already a rebellion, not an average strike. In total, 15,000 schools and kindergartens were closed, and teachers have been joined by numerous demonstrations of thousands of university and school students The ruling class knows that it is sitting on a social powder keg. The restoration of capitalism in Poland in 1989 unleashed three decades of social attacks on workers conditions and a rapid growth in poverty and social inequality. The share of wealth going to the richest one percent of Poles has doubled over this period, and the bottom 20 percent of households possess just one percent of all household wealth. The union has sought to argue that teachers could not continue the strike because they were isolated and lacked public support. But this is a lie. In fact, it is the unions that have worked to isolate the strike. They have opposed making an appeal to other sections of the working class to broaden the struggle, including healthcare, social services and other public sector workers, and link the struggle of teachers to the fight for higher wages and an improvement in public services for all workers. They have also deliberately blacked out all political issues confronting the teachers from the major war preparations of the Polish bourgeoisie, for which the workers are made to pay, to the assaults on democratic and social rights under the PiS and preceding governments of the opposition parties. The international media and trade unions throughout Europe have imposed a near-total blackout on the strike in Poland. This underscores the deep fears in the ruling class that such a strike could rapidly expand throughout eastern and western Europe. In neighboring Germany, the teachers unions suppressed any discussion of the strike in Poland, fearful of the widespread support for a united struggle among teachers. Certain basic conclusions must be drawn from the experience of the past 18 days. First, it is impossible to conduct any struggle within the framework of the trade unions. These organizations are not workers organizations, but labor-management businesses, whose role is to suppress opposition among workers, and enforce cuts by employers and governments. The World Socialist Web Site urges teachers to form their own workplace committees in schools and neighborhoods, independent of the unions, to organize opposition to the return-to-work order, and establish contact with teachers and other workers. Second, the strike in Poland is part of an international process. It takes place amidst an upsurge of working-class struggle that has developed on an international scale since the beginning of 2018, including the Yellow Vest protests in France, a series of state-wide teachers strikes across the United States throughout 2018, and strikes by teachers across northern Africa, in Europe and in Asia. This raises the critical necessity for workers to consciously unite their struggles across national borders. Third, workers must take up a political struggle, based on a socialist program. The class war policies of the ruling class, including austerity and the attacks on public education, are inseparably linked to the bourgeoisies advanced drive to war. Workers cannot defend the right to education or the right to decent salaries, without taking up a fight against imperialist war and its root cause, the capitalist system. This fight requires the development of a new socialist and revolutionary political perspective and leadership, which bases itself on the essential political lessons of the 20th century: above all the struggle waged by the Trotskyist movement in defense of the program of world socialist revolution against the nationalist policies and betrayals of Stalinism. We urge all workers and youth in Poland who are ready to discuss these issues to contact us. This author also recommends: The resurgence of the class struggle in Poland [11 April 2019] Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher, a US Navy SEAL awaiting a court-martial for war crimes charges, was systematically protected by his SEAL superiors for a year, a Navy investigation report covered by the New York Times reveals. Gallaghers trial begins May 28 for premeditated murder, attempted murder, obstruction of justice and other crimes related to war crimes in Iraq, and there is an ongoing investigation into similar actions in Afghanistan. The war crimes described in the 439-page report and the subsequent cover-up by Gallaghers superiors highlight the toleration and promotion of deranged and fascistic elements within the military. The SEALs, which stands for Sea, Air and Land Teams, are the US Navys special operations force. They are closely tied to the Central Intelligence Agency, going back to SEAL-CIA operations during the Vietnam War and CIA recruitment from the SEALs today. The central allegation against Gallagher, who also goes by the nickname Blade, is that he murdered a captive Iraqi teenager while deployed to Mosul. SEALs told investigators that on May 4, 2017, Gallagher heard that an Islamic State fighter had been wounded and was in custody. According to the Times, Chief Gallagher responded over the radio with words to the effect of hes mine. A medic was treating the youth on the ground when Chief Gallagher walked up without a word and stabbed the wounded teenager several times in the neck and once in the chest with his hunting knife, killing him, two SEAL witnesses said. Gallagher then gathered SEALs for a gruesome reenlistment ceremony over the teenagers body, complete with an American flag and photos. That night or the next day, SEALs reported the incident to Gallaghers immediate superior, a troop chief, as well as Lieutenant Jacob Portier, the platoon commander. Portier has been charged separately for allegedly covering up the stabbing because he lied to his own superior, Lieutenant Commander Robert Breisch, who asked if there was anything criminal associated with the reenlistment ceremony. SEALs also describe Gallagher shooting his sniper rifle about ten times as often as other snipers, including shooting a young girl and an unarmed old man (both incidents have two witnesses). A message in a Mosul sniper nest read, Eddie G puts the laughter in Manslaughter. The Times describes how one senior SEAL alleged that Gallagher routinely parked an armored truck on a Tigris River bridge and emptied the trucks heavy machine gun into neighborhoods on the other side with no discernible targets. One SEAL told investigators that other snipers began shooting warning shots at any civilians they saw on the battlefield so that the civilians would run away and [Gallagher] could not kill them. A separate investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) is looking into Gallagher allegedly killing a goat herder in Afghanistan in 2010. Gallaghers alleged crimeswith most of those publicly cited in the press backed up by multiple witnesses and photo or video documentationare an indictment of the American military. The SEALs have such a reputation for brutality, including against their own members, that Rear Admiral Collin Green, the SEALs top commander, ordered a 90-day review of the forces culture and training, according to the Times. Despite beginning in January, any findings or conclusions of the review have not been made public. However, there is much more involved here than one war criminal. When SEALs attempted to report Gallaghers actions, they were warned against it. Breisch and Master Chief Petty Officer Brian Alazzawi met with seven SEALs in March 2018, during which Breisch told SEALs that while the SEALs were free to report the killings, the Navy might not look kindly on rank-and-file team members making allegations against a chief. Their careers could be sidetracked, he said, according to the Times. Alazzawi, perhaps saying more than he intended, warned SEALs that their allegations would have a wide frag [fragmentation] radius and could implicate many other SEALs. One of the seven rank-and-file SEALs who attended the meeting described the message from Breisch and Alazzawi as Stop talking about it. A few days after this meeting, Gallagher was awarded a medal for his conduct in Iraq. It took another month for the SEALs to force their commanding officers to report Gallaghers war crimes, including the stabbing of the teenager and the shooting of two unarmed civilians, to NCIS. The SEALs had threatened to go up the chain of command or directly to the press. Either through being told by Breisch or Alazzawi or through some other means, Gallagher himself found out about the March 2018 meeting and set about turning other SEALs against those who had told officers about his crimes. He texted another SEAL chief, I just got word these guys went crying to the wrong person. To a different SEAL, he texted: The only thing we can do as good team guys is pass the word on those traitors. They are not brothers at all. After the internal cover-up failed, various reactionaries have lined up to defend Gallagher. Fox News has given extensive air time to Gallaghers wife and brother. A letter calling for Gallagher to be freed pending trial was signed by 40 Republican members of Congress. President Donald Trump, clearly seeking to mobilize fascistic elements in his base, tweeted, In honor of his past service to our Country, Navy Seal #EddieGallagher will soon be moved to less restrictive confinement while he awaits his day in court. Process should move quickly! The individual crimes committed as part of the wars and occupations of American imperialism are the product of the more fundamental crime, the launching of the wars themselves. The architects of these crimes, including George W. Bush and Barack Obama, have gone unpunished after ordering aggressive military action in contravention of international law and the Nuremberg principles. The only person who faced charges related to the CIAs torture program has been whistleblower John Kiriakou. The upcoming general election in Spain on Sunday sharply expresses essential political issues facing workers across Europe and internationally. The election campaign was a degraded spectacle, dominated by the financial aristocracys promotion of fascistic forces. Throughout the campaign, the the pro-austerity Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) government organized a show trial of Catalan nationalist political prisoners who called peaceful protests amid the brutal police crackdown on the 2017 Catalan independence referendum. The other major campaign issue was the emergence of Vox, a far-right party hailing Spanish fascist dictator Francisco Franco, as a potential party of government. Vox leader Santiago Abascal praised the record of Francos army, which launched a coup in 1936 leading to a three-year civil war that ended in Francos victory and the mass murder of 200,000 political oppositionists and left-wing workers. Abascal called for banning Marxism and separatism, saying Vox alone could stop a popular front of the PSOE, Podemos and Catalan nationalists. Right-wing Popular Party (PP) leader Pablo Casado responded by asserting that he wanted to unite all of Spanish politics to the right of the PSOEthat is, including Vox. It is impossible today to predict the election outcome. Two-fifths of voters are undecided. With Podemos and the PSOE at 14 and 29 percent, and the right-wing PP, Citizens and Vox at 20, 15, and 11 percent respectively, a hung parliament could emerge. Two such indecisive elections took place in 2015 and 2016. Various government coalitions (PSOE-Podemos-Catalan nationalist, PSOE-Citizens, PP-Citizens-Vox) are possible. All of them would, however, continue the rapid shift to the right that unfolded under the current PSOE government. Millions of workers in Spain and internationally are disgusted by this election. With 14 percent of workers and 34 percent for youth still jobless after a decade of draconian European Union (EU) austerity since the 2008 crash, polls found 61 percent of Spaniards believe the key election issue is unemployment. Amid mounting social anger, they cited corruption and Spains political parties as the next most serious problems. Only 10 percent saw the Catalan issue as a serious problem. Official anti-Catalan hysteria and the rise of Vox, which has run six retired generals in the elections, does not reflect mass support for neo-fascism. Rather, in Spain as across Europe, it reflects the promotion of the far right by the media, the political establishment, and the repressive apparatus of the state. As German right-wing extremist professors rehabilitate Hitler to justify remilitarizing Berlins foreign policy, and French President Emmanuel Macron hails fascist dictator Philippe Petain and represses yellow vest protests, the entire European bourgeoisie aims to keep power despite growing social opposition by turning to fascistic and authoritarian forms of rule. The turn is to the international working class. After decades of austerity and imperialist wars since the 1991 Stalinist dissolution of the Soviet Union, anger at social inequality is reaching levels at which the class struggle cannot be suppressed. As militant strikes spread from US schools to the civil service and plantations of the Indian subcontinent, the European working class is entering into action. The simultaneous eruption of Polish teachers strikes, French yellow vest protests, mass strikes in Portugal, and protests against Algerias military regime point to the objective potential for the revolutionary unification of struggles of the working class across Europe. Within Spain, growing layers of workers are coming into struggle. According to the Spanish Confederation of Business Organisations, the hours of work lost due to strikes in Spain stood at 13,369,478 in the first quarter of the year, up 163 percent from the same period in 2018. The number of workers involved728,186went up by 54 percent. The key issue facing workers is that this struggle can only proceed by building a new revolutionary leadership in the Spanish and international working class. It requires a ruthless political break with petty-bourgeois parties, based on the postmodernist left populist theories of Chantal Mouffe, like the pro-austerity Syriza government in Greece and Podemos in Spain. These elections highlighted the bankruptcy of Podemos. Founded in 2014 as an alliance of Stalinist professors, army officers and members of the Anticapitalistas party linked to Frances Pabloite New Anticapitalist Party, it promised radical change. Starting in the 2015 elections, however, it pushed for alliances with the PSOE, the Spanish bourgeoisies preferred party of rule in the post-Franco era. Podemos insisted that this nationalist, pro-capitalist strategy would block the rise of a far-right party: in Inigo Errejons words, its popular and patriotic discourse meant that Podemos occupied the same political space as the far-right. The bourgeoisies promotion of Vox, even as Podemos deputies backed Sanchezs minority PSOE government and gave it a majority in the Congress, refuted this complacent view. Powerful forces in the ruling class seized upon the 2017 Catalan referendumitself a maneuver by pro-austerity Catalan nationalist parties to divide the working class, and negotiate better terms in their financial relations with Madrid and the EUto shift official politics far to the right. The PSOE lined up behind the Catalan crackdown organized by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoys PP government. After taking power last year with Podemos support, the PSOE continued its march to the right. As it voted austerity and spent billions of euros on the army, it held show trials of Catalan nationalists and supported Vox officials role as prosecutors in these trials. In the 2019 elections, PSOE Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez again hailed Rajoys sense of duty to the state, claiming that Catalonia united usthat is, around the attack on Catalan voters. Finance capital recognizes the PSOE as its own. Britains free-market and pro-EU Economist called on voters to give the Socialists a governing majority, predicting the PSOE would make cuts to Spains schools system, its pensions, its complicated political structure and the labour market, building on [former PP Prime Minister] Mr Rajoys useful work. History shows that the only way to defeat the European bourgeoisies turn towards fascistic politics is to mobilize the working class in a struggle to take power and expropriate the capitalist class. This requires building a Trotskyist vanguard in the working class, to overcome the counterrevolutionary role of parties like Podemos, the PSOE and their allies, including the union bureaucracies, and offer workers revolutionary leadership. As the Civil War becomes the basic reference point of Spanish politics, Leon Trotskys words written in response to Francos 1936 coup take on intense contemporary relevance. He stressed the unbridgeable gulf separating the Marxist perspective of world socialist revolution that underlay the October 1917 revolution in Russia, from the Popular Front perspective of the social-democrats, Stalinists and anarchists. The Popular Front governments failure to foresee and halt Francos coup, Trotsky wrote, was not at all a question of the perspicacity of this or that minister or leader, but of the general direction of the policy. By running the capitalist state, Trotsky noted, the Popular Front protected the fascist officers until they were ready to launch the coup: The Peoples Front government, that is to say, the government of the coalition of the workers with the bourgeoisie, is in its very essence a government of capitulation to the bureaucracy and the officers. Such is the great lesson of the events in Spain, now being paid for with thousands of human lives. While the social democrats and Stalinists have lost the working class base they had in Trotskys time, this analysis still illuminates the role of Podemos, which is in full retreat. Despite winning over 5 million votes in 2016, it organized no mass protests against the Catalan crackdown or show trials. Having issued an election manifesto hailing the 1978 constitution agreed by the Francoite fascists, the PSOE and the Stalinists, it serves not as a force for change but to defend the existing social order. It faces the loss of up to half its seats in these elections. The decisive issue now is building the Trotskyist revolutionary vanguard of the working class. At the heart of the International Committee of the Fourth Internationals (ICFI) campaign in the 2019 European elections is the fight to build sections of the ICFI in Spain and across Europe as the political leadership of the working class. In this way, workers will be able to counterpose to the EUs drive towards fascistic-authoritarian dictatorship a revolutionary struggle of the working class for the United Socialist States of Europe. An all-party conference (APC) convened by Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena on Thursday centred on strengthening an island-wide military-police crackdown in the wake of last Sundays terrorist bombings. Sirisena informed the meeting that he was going to open a security operational centre to co-ordinate all military operations. According to the presidential media report, all party leaders attending the APC extended [their] fullest support to the steps taken by the president to eradicate this threat of terrorism and to ensure national security, as well as to detain the suspects. According to the brief report, the opposition Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna led by former president Mahinda Rajapakse, put forward 11 proposals, including strengthening the military intelligence wing. The entire political establishment has seized on Sundays terrible tragedy to ram through police-state measures in the name of fighting terrorism that will be used to suppress the emerging struggles of the working class. All the parties present at the all-party conference bear responsibility for the draconian measures being put into force. These include the parties of the ruling coalitionSirisenas Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), the United National Party (UNP) of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, Rajapakses Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), as well as two Muslim communal parties, Sri Lanka Muslim Congress and the All Island Muslim Congress. Last Sundays terrorist bombings targeted three prominent Christian churches and three high profile hotels. Without providing any explanation, officials yesterday substantially revised the death toll down from over 350 to 253 men, women and children. Hundreds were injured, some critically. Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack, but analysts have pointed out that no direct evidence has been provided. The government blames National Thowheeth Jammaath, an Islamic extremist group in Sri Lanka, for the massacre, but claims it had international connections. The government and security agencies received a warning from a foreign intelligence agency with details of a possible attack on April 4. However, the warning was only sent to police officers on April 11, and then only to a few high-ranking police officers in charge of elite security. The warning identified National Thowheeth Jammaath as preparing to carry out suicide attacks on prominent Christian churches. No-one has given an adequate explanation as to why no action was taken prior to the attack. Instead the government is looking for scapegoats. On Wednesday, Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando resigned on the presidents request. Sirisena has also asked Inspector General of Police Pujitha Jayasundara to resign. On Wednesday, all the parliamentary parties backed the presidents proclamation of emergency regulations giving sweeping powers to the military. These include the power to ban processions and meetings, prevent or restrict publications for creating disturbance to public order or disaffection, impose curfews, seize property, including vehicles, and maintain essential services. The military and police now have the power to arrest persons without a warrant and detain them without trial for one year on the order of the defence secretary. Confessions, which in the past have included the use of torture, can be used as evidence in court. In an extraordinary move, Sirisena announced yesterday at a media conference that the army was carrying out a major search throughout the entire island. Every household in the country will be checked. The lists of permanent residents of every house will be established to ensure no unknown persons could live anywhere. Army spokesman Brigadier Sumith Atapattu said that over 10,000 personnel have been deployed across the country. The air force has deployed over 1,000 soldiers for security duties while the navy has put its forces on active service. This is in addition to the deployment of 70,000 police, including its notorious special task force units. This makes clear that the government and security forces are not simply targeting a small Muslim extremist group but the entire population. Sirisena justified the step by saying that similar methods had been used during the fight against LTTE [Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam] terrorism. The three-decade communal war against the separatist LTTE was a culmination of decades of anti-Tamil discrimination which was used to suppress Tamils and divide the working class. Now the methods of that bloody and brutal war are revived in the name of fighting terrorism. The government is whipping up anti-Muslim hysteria under conditions of a resurgence of working-class struggles. Asked if he would be proscribing the Islamic militant groups responsible for terror attacks, the president said that if they were proscribed under the state of emergency, the ban would lapse when it was lifted. Sirisena said that he had asked for new legislation to be drafted to enable the permanent proscription of organisations. He added that officials were studying the laws of countries such as Singaporea one-party police statefor a model to follow. Sirisena also said the government was also taking the advice of foreign anti-terrorist experts. The US already has teams from the FBI and the militarys Indo-Pacific Command on the ground in Sri Lanka as advisers to local security forces. Washington is exploiting the tragedy to strengthen its military and political relations with Colombo, as it has been doing over the past four years, at the expense of Beijing. Sirisena also made clear that the government is not about to lift the nationwide ban imposed on social media including Facebook and YouTube on April 21. He said any lifting of the ban was delayed due to the lack of positive behaviour in the social media without providing any information of what constituted negative behaviour. Amid a deep political crisis in Colombo, every faction is clamouring for tough police-state measures. Last October, Sirisena removed Wickremesinghe as prime minister and replaced him with his arch rival Rajapakse. Sirisena was compelled to reappoint Wickremesinghe as prime minister under pressure from the US after the countrys Supreme Court ruled his dissolution of parliament was unconstitutional. The political infighting continues, however. Yesterday Sirisena blamed the UNP-led government for weakening military intelligence which he claimed to have opposed. For his part, Wickremesinghe accused the president did not inform the cabinet of the advance warning of the bombings. Yesterday, Gotabhaya Rajapakse, the brother of the former president Mahinda Rajapakse and the SLPPs aspiring presidential candidate, said he would tackle radical Islam. He accused the government of not giving priority to national security, adding that there was too much talk of human rights and individual freedoms. Gotabhaya Rajapakse, who was defence secretary during the final phase of the war against the LTTE, is responsible for the killing of tens of thousands of civilians in the final army operations, as well as the military-aligned death squads that abducted and disappeared hundreds of Tamils and anti-government critics. These comments are just one more sign that what is underway is the rapid imposition and strengthening of the war-time police-state apparatus in preparation to brutally crack down, not on terrorists, but on the mounting struggles of the working class and rural poor. The US Supreme Court heard 80 minutes of oral arguments Tuesday over the proposed move by the Trump administration to include the question of citizenship in the 2020 US Census. If introduced next year, it would represent the first time in over 50 years that the census questionnaire would request information regarding the citizen or non-citizen status of respondents. The decision to request information regarding citizenship on the census is designed to intimidate immigrants and ultimately to divert resources from working class areas. It represents the latest maneuver by the Trump administration in its campaign to whip up racist anti-immigrant chauvinism. The Trump administrations campaign against immigrants has featured the demand for the construction and expansion of walls along the Mexican border, massive police raids to terrorize immigrants, the deployment of military troops along the border, the deliberate abuse of immigrant children by separating them from their parents, and the housing of immigrants in degrading and unsafe conditions in internment camps. Accurate responses to census questions are required by law, so the introduction of the citizenship question would force undocumented immigrants either to expose themselves and their family members or break the law. While the proposed census question will target millions of non-citizens currently living in the country, it was designed by the Trump administration as an attack on the working class as a whole. The inclusion of citizenship information in the census questionnaire will reduce the response rate among undocumented immigrants, due to the fear of the consequences of providing truthful responses. This under-counting of population levels, in turn, will serve as a pretext for reducing the level of resources and services provided to working class areas where undocumented immigrants reside. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross announced the change to the census form last year. Ross, who was appointed by Trump, oversees the Department of Commerce and its Census Bureau. The announcement by Ross prompted a lawsuit by a coalition of states, other government entities, and civil rights groups last November, which was filed in federal district court in Manhattan. On January 15, a federal district judge decided that the inclusion of the citizenship question in the census was unlawful on multiple grounds, including because it would result in degradation of data quality and was arbitrary and capricious, ordering the Trump administration not to include it. The US census originated in the late 18th century as a simple head count every ten years. As it developed into the early 20th century, the census expanded to include questions of social interest beyond a simple enumeration of the population. However, the citizenship question was removed from the census in 1960, on the grounds that it would result in inaccurate data regarding non-citizens. The census after 1960 was limited to questions deemed relevant for enumeration, while all of the other data-gathering was conducted with respect to sample subsets of households. All of the available statistics, including multiple scientific studies, confirm that including the citizenship question in the census in 2020 will result in a lower count of non-citizens. In enacting the change, Ross disregarded the findings and opinions of his own advisers and staff in the Census Bureau. The Trump administration requested the Supreme Court take the case immediately, without waiting for a decision in the intermediate federal appellate courts, in the hopes of an expedited ruling. On February 15, the Supreme Court decided to take up the case. The Trump administration contends that the decision by Ross was a proper exercise of his discretion and cannot be overturned in court. In the Supreme Court on Tuesday, Trumps Solicitor General Noel Franciso asserted various pretexts for including the question on the census, including that it is designed to protect voter rights and was somehow calculated to increase the accuracy of the responses. In contrast to the various technical arguments asserted by the Trump administration, the proposed measure in reality will accomplish two things. First, it will contribute to efforts to create a climate of fear and scapegoating with respect to undocumented immigrants. Second, it will generate, by design, inaccurate population figures for working-class areas. According to the governments own analysis, the inclusion of the citizenship question will cause an estimated 6.5 million fewer people to be counted by the census. In addition, an estimated 9.5 million people will give responses that will conflict with information contained in other government records. Certainly, there are immediate partisan calculations behind this maneuver for the Republican Party. In the federal and local legislatures, where the official population figures that are used to determine representation are expected to drop in areas that have historically elected Democrats, the new census data would provide the opportunity for redrawing districts in a manner that would strengthen the position of the Republican Party. The states of California, Texas, Arizona, Florida, New York, and Illinois all face the possibility of losing a seat in the House of Representatives. However, massively inaccurate and conflicting population figures will have implications far beyond these political machinations. The federal census provides population data that is used to measure and assess how resources are allocated across a broad swath of social, civil and technical infrastructure. A friend-of-court brief filed by a national coalition of school boards pointed out that the census data was important not only for electoral reasons, but is also the fulcrum for the allocation of hundreds of billions of dollars of funding for vital governmental programs. And countless public and private institutions rely on an accurate census to shape policy, set priorities and distribute resources ... [E]ven relatively small errors in the census count can have far-reaching effects on tens of millions of individuals. The brief continued: In the area of public education alone, an inaccurate census count could impact billions of dollars flowing to vulnerable population groups in the parts of the country most in need. Another friend-of-court brief by a coalition of minority and other community nonprofit organizations observed that inaccurate census data will affect the distribution of financial assistance to schools in low-income areas, special education grants, child development assistance, foster care programs, nutrition programs, school lunch programs, programs for pregnant women, housing assistance programs, medical coverage assistance for seniors and children, and other public programs. Census data is relied upon to determine how grocery stores are stocked with merchandise, what types of doctors are needed in a particular area, and planning for natural disasters. A coalition of charitable organizations similarly opposed the change to the census, on the grounds that it would produce inaccurate data that would disrupt their operations. While the outcome of the case in the Supreme Court is not certain, a number of legal commentators have indicated that, in light of the oral arguments, the Trump administration is likely to prevail. The courts so-called liberal wingElena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyerlargely permitted the Trump administration to frame the debate, which centered around whether the introduction of the citizenship question would result in less accurate data. Its a technical case, Justice Breyer said, addressing Trumps Solicitor General. The Supreme Courts liberal wing is in alignment with the Democratic Party establishment as a whole, which has not put forward any principled opposition to the Trump administrations anti-immigrant witch-hunt. Instead, the position of the Democrats is that the campaign against immigrants (euphemistically termed immigration reform) should be prosecuted in a smarter way. On Tuesday, the same day as the oral arguments were taking place in the Supreme Court, the New York Times published an opinion piece by columnist Thomas Friedman titled, Trump Is Wasting Our Immigration Crisis. Invoking the specter of drug smugglers, asylum seekers and illegal immigrants who were flocking to open borders, Friedman declared that we need new walls, but that the demand for a wall is only part of the solution. According to Friedman: the solution is a high wall with a big gatebut a smart gate. For the first three decades of his career, Abel Ferrara was a seminal New York filmmaker whose gritty tales of furious pariahs, addicts, and rebels made Martin Scorseses Mean Streets look like Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. But Ferrara fled New York after 9/11 and found a new life abroad. On a recent evening in Rome, he stood on the porch of his home, thousands of miles from the city that put him on the map, and contemplated his history of battling for final cut. You cant paint a mustache on a Mona Lisa just because you fucking buy it, he said, wearing a pair of scruffy headphones as he stared into a Skype session on his laptop. His leathery features and wisps of long white hair gleamed against a shadowy backdrop. You dig what I mean? Im working in my own language. Related stories Rising Horror Filmmaker Roxanne Benjamin Doesn't Want Audiences to Fear 'Flawed Female Characters' Abel Ferrara's 'Pasolini' Finally Gets a Release May 10 After Festival Debut in 2014 With Ferrara, meaning can be an elusive thing. The heated 67-year-old talks in sharp bursts of vulgarity, half-formed philosophies, and profound cultural inquiry, but if you roll with his rhythms they start to take on a poetry akin to his distinctive filmography. From the early B-movie offerings of Driller Killer and Ms. 45 through the morally complex character studies of Bad Lieutenant and The Funeral, Ferrara excels at digging into the psychology of deeply troubled urbanites, and mining the pathos within. After a drug-fueled meltdown, countless burned bridges, and a fresh start in Europe, Ferraras still at it. While many of his movies have been embroiled in controversy, deemed unreleasable in the U.S., or gone out of print, he has barreled ahead. His 2019 slate might be his most prolific year ever four movies on the horizon, and a major new retrospective of the achievements that put him on the map in the first place. Story continues At the Tribeca Film Festival, hes premiering The Projectionist, an amiable documentary about Cyprus-born theater manager Nick Nicolau, whose New York journey stretches back to running adult film houses and exploitation showcases in the early 70s, when Ferraras career first took root. On May 10, his 2014 biopic Pasolini, which stars his best friend and regular collaborator Willem Dafoe as the late Italian filmmaker, will finally receive a U.S. release after buyers passed on its steep price tag years ago. A week after Pasolini opens, Ferraras low-budget narrative feature Tommaso, a semi-autobiographical drama also starring Dafoe opposite the directors real-life wife and infant daughter, will screen out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival. And Ferrara has already wrapped production on another long-gestating project with Dafoe, which co-stars Nicolas Cage and Isabelle Huppert in a surreal journey inspired by Carl Jung, Jack London, and who knows what else. In any case: Abel Ferrara is back, baby. Its funny how all the shit happens at once, he said. As long as somebodys watching the films, I can live with it. It all seems like a lot, everything at once, but were always doing the same thing. Regardless of how he chooses to characterize it, theres no question that Ferrara has reached a measure of stability after several rocky chapters. After his gruff Harvey Keitel vehicles Dangerous Game and Bad Lieutenant, he fought with top studio brass on his ambitious 1993 remake Body Snatchers, then drifted back to low-budget efforts like his Christopher Walken vampire thriller The Addiction. He blamed 9/11 on ruining New York for him, both financially and culturally, but the drugs didnt help, either. When I first got sober, I had to stay away from New York, he said. I wasnt going to risk it. Even Italy wasnt totally safe. Im not going to Napoli for a long time, he said. These are cities that are very interconnected with my drug use. Ferrara kept making New York movies while living abroad, but they often hit snags that kept them out of theaters: His Cannes-acclaimed Go Go Tales, a Frank Capra-meets-strippers crowdpleaser that should have been a comeback story, ran into rights issues that screwed its domestic release; a few years later, he got into a public spat with IFC Films over the R-rated cut of Welcome to New York, his bawdy take on the Dominique Strauss-Kahn saga. Ferrara still winced at the decision by his sales agent and longtime confidant, Wild Bunchs Vincent Maraval, to side with IFC. Vince is a big supporter and a very good friend, but when we came to that film, it was like he was stepping into the place where they wanted me to make a change that I wasnt going to make, Ferrara said. For 10 years, he never crossed that line. It was shocking. You cant have final cut of my movie, because thats the only gig I got. Ferrara faced similar challenges in the studio arena at a trepidatious moment for Hollywood productions: He signed on to Body Snatchers while Spike Lee made his own studio foray with Malcolm X and Oliver Stone directed JFK. All three directors fought with executives over their singular visions, but for Ferrara, it cemented the idea that he belonged in a different arena. I would definitely not go through what I went through to make that film, he said. It was a miracle that I survived that thing. He shrugged. What does Biggie say? Bigger the money, bigger the problems. He almost got it. All money comes with strings attached, you know? These days, Ferrara lives within his means. He gestured at the living room adjacent to his porch, where a guitar was propped up on an unkempt couch. This is what you get for like a normal rent in fucking Italy, as opposed to living in a 12 by 12, he said. He doesnt miss New York. I just dont want to kill myself morning, noon and night, live in a box, eating poison food, he said. Everybody I see in New York is just working around the fucking clock just to fucking pay the rent. I mean, the quality of life in that town is fucked, man. Maybe it always was. Or maybe he outgrew it? Yeah. With Tomasso, Ferrara has crafted what may end up being the closest he comes to a cinematic confession. He has produced several scrappy documentaries like The Projectionist over the years, appearing on-camera to interrogate his subjects while interjecting with his own experiences, but Tommaso is poised to explain how he wound up with his wife, Christina, with whom he shares a four-year-old. Or maybe not. Were creating this kind of new character whos an interesting guy, said Ferrara, who shot the movie at home. Its not really me and its not really not me. Its more specific to me, but once Willem starts playing, its a dangerous game. Dafoe lives next door to Ferrara and they often trade ideas. There is an element of oneupmanship to the way they compare New York bonafides. I was in Union Square, so Willem and the Wooster Group seemed like they were in fucking Miami, Ferrara said, referencing the experimental theater collective where Dafoe got his start. I lived around where Andy Warhol was, and that was like the artistic center. When Ferrara circles back on his glory days, his tough-guy exterior gives way to a wistful air. Considering the MOMA retrospective, he said, It seems like one long home movie to me. But its funny. Im just thinking how the new stuff is going to click. He made peace with the inaccessibility of his work long ago, at one point joking that anyone interested in his work could just download illegal torrents. If a guy likes to sit home in his own house, he has OCD, he dont like people, he loves movies, what do you do? Ferrara said. Pick him up and sit him with 500 people and give him some stale popcorn and say, Here, this is a great experience? Ive been in some of these theaters! Ive been in crack houses that had better projection! Ferrara cackled. Making The Projectionist led him to remember his formative years at New York arthouses, where provocative movies like Ken Russells The Devils and Fellinis Satyricon inspired him. Youve got to get out of your house, too, he said. I wanted to go to the fucking movies just to be with a girlfriend. These days, I cant even go to the movies, because Im a 42nd Street kind of spectator, he said. Im screaming and yelling and talking. I get thrown out of most theaters. Ferraras spiky demeanor and turbulent storytelling has always made some viewers uneasy, but current standards for political correctness havent exactly changed him. When youre a filmmaker, youve got to be totally free and youve got to express yourself, he said. Youve got to be into your unconscious. Youve got to start by respecting yourself, and then youve got to respect everybody else. But there cant be any restrictions. Ferraras work has a unique identity in todays cultural landscape at once problematic and socially conscious to a degree that puts much of his output ahead of the curve. Though his 1981 rape-revenge thriller Ms. 45 was a seminal work of feminist ire, Bad Lieutenant included a disturbing scene in which the main character masturbated in front of two helpless women that its hard to imagine passing muster today. This attitude of political correctness I mean, I lived through womens liberation in 1973, he said, as if referencing time spent in the armed services. One day, our girlfriends all just moved out on us because of Betty Friedans book [The Feminine Mystique]. I went through the womens revolution, and the idea of oppression, and, yeah, I get it. He wasnt quite sure what to make of #MeToo, Times Up, or really any other effort to instigate systematic change. Every other revolution of my generation, in the late 60s and 70s, it just kind of disappeared, he said. Now, maybe its back. Power corrupts us, so youve got to be careful. Youve got to be on guard. He looked restless as he considered his rate of production in the last few years. You dont have to be on your knees waiting for anyone to accept your movie, he said. Just show the fucking thing! Abel Ferrara Unrated runs May 1 31 at MOMA. The Projectionist premieres at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 28, 2019. Sign up for Indiewire's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Like the stories its mother characters pass on to their daughters, its time for The Joy Luck Club to be shared with another generation. Amy Tans bestseller turns 30 this year, and Penguin Random House is celebrating the milestone with a special edition of the novel, including a new preface by Tan. The anniversary reminds me of the passage of time, the author tells EW. Its endurance is remarkable to me. The beloved book revolves around four Chinese women, immigrants to the U.S., whose deeply held values and dramatic personal histories have a profound impact on their complex relationships with their Chinese-American daughters. Structured as sixteen vignettes (four about each mother-daughter pair), the now-classic novel marked Tans debut and was adapted for the screen in 1993. The composition of the anniversary editions preface gave Tan a chance to reflect on the reasons why it has endured, and a lot of that is based on what [people have] said to me at readings or lectures, that it struck a chord because of their relationship with their mother or daughter, she says. Even though the characters are Chinese mothers and Chinese-American daughters, the gist of it [is about] this gulf between people, between generations and cultures. When you can get people to feel the emotions of the story, it becomes universal. It doesnt matter what the culture is. That response, to the feeling over the details, speaks to Tans approach in writing it. While many readers assume the novel is based on the authors own family history, these are not stories that are biographically factual, Tan clarifies. Rather than being literally accurate, though, the tales are emotionally truthful: They have to do with the emotions between these mother-daughter pairs. That was something I was going through. That was about my emotional relationship at that time with my mother. The authors mother has died since the initial publication, but, as Tan writes in the new preface, she loved her daughters debut novel. She loved that the feelings in [it] were absolutely true, and she believed that I had listened to her and that I appreciated what she was trying to teach me, Tan tells EW. And that was the best review I could have gotten for that book. It was the best, the absolute best that I got. Story continues That one might never be topped, but the raves have continued for three decades. I [am] very grateful but also surprised that this book has lasted so long, the author says. It was not a book that I thought would, first of all, get published, let alone be read by more than a few people when it was first published. A lot of things in the creation of the novel came as a surprise. The first was when an agent approached Tan asking to send the writers work out to publishers. I said Yeah, well, youre going to go make any money off me, Tan recalls. Even more astonishing, [the agent] went to New York and she sold this thing. And I thought she was a scam artist! the author laughs. I [said], You sold this book? About Chinese-American characters, by me, a total unknown? And she said, Yes, you have four offers! The final surprise came once the book was finished. I didnt think I was writing a novel, Tan admits. The Joy Luck Club was originally planned as a short story collection, but an advance review referred to it as a novel, and the publisher decided to run with that and take the word stories off the title page. I completely had no idea how to structure a novel, Tan recalls. It [all] just kind of came together, just gradually, through happenstance. I am not a good model when people say, Well, whats a good way to get published? Penguin Books Tans singular path to publication is all the more remarkable considering how much the market has opened up for diverse perspectives in the decades since the late 80s. At the time The Joy Luck Club was published, it was one of the very few booksthat was about Chinese characters and had something to do with Chinese culture, the author says. But look at all the books that have come out since then and are coming out now and we had that blockbuster film, Crazy Rich Asians! Last years summer smash the first American studio film with an all-Asian cast since the 1993 adaptation of The Joy Luck Club broke down barriers for Asian representation onscreen and, hopefully, opened the door for more stories of its kind to reach a mainstream audience. I hope it continues to blow out the stereotype that films about Asian-Americans cant make money, Tan says of the blockbuster (which is now the sixth highest-grossing rom-com of all time). Thats what its going to require. It requires, to make a change in publishing, in film, in all of these forms, requires that they make money, not simply that they receive literary accolades. The other significant difference is that, because of all these books out there by a number of Asian-Americans, were finally able to see that there are different stories to be told, Tan continues. One book doesnt have to represent everything about a culture. Which, in the beginning, I think that was the case. If [we] were the only one we had a burden placed on us to represent all of the culture, all of the positive parts of the culture. The Asian experience in Crazy Rich Asians, for example, differs significantly (an understatement) from that of The Joy Luck Club which is part of the pleasure and power of the film. Not very many of us have the lives that were depicted in the movie. [Still] there were things about it, situations we could identify with, Tan says. You just go with it and say this is hilarious; you dont have to believe all Asians are like this. But the depiction of that lavish lifestyle is also a representation victory in itself. There are still some people who think China or anything Chinese is still this backwater. That people are poor, theyve never seen a car, they dont have electricity, theyre riding bikes to get to work, Tan says. It [shows] how far people in China and Asia have come economically, and in terms of their awareness of whats techie, cool, and all of that. But again, Im not saying [that] the values of being crazy rich nobodys looking at it as a model of how Asians should be! The crowd-pleasing rom-com is, however, absolutely a model of how movies should be. I saw Crazy Rich Asians three times because I loved it so much, Tan enthuses. And god, that lead! Constance Wu and Henry Golding I mean, adorable! They can be leads for any movie and thats what I hope happens. Related content: Arnold Schwarzenegger couldnt be prouder! The 71-year-old actor celebrated his son Joseph Baenas college graduation from Pepperdine University on Saturday and shared a photo to commemorate the occasion. In the father-son picture, the Terminator actor holds the 21-year-olds hand while smiling at the camera. Congratulations Joseph! Four years of hard work studying business at Pepperdine and today is your big day! Schwarzenegger wrote in the caption. You have earned all of the celebration and Im so proud of you. I love you! Schwarzenegger and Baena share a close bond, with the college graduate recreating his fathers classic pose after the former California governor won Mr. Olympia for the sixth consecutive time in 1975. The actor has also shared some tips with Baena while lifting weights in January in a photo Baena, who was born to the action star and his former housekeeper Mildred Baena, shared on his Instagram Story. RELATED: Arnold The Boss Schwarzenegger Gives Son Joseph Baena Tips as He Lifts Weights: Always 100% Hulton Archive/Getty; Joseph Baena/Instagram Always 100%, Baena wrote. Especially when the boss is around, he added with a sweat drop emoji. In November, Baena shared another look at his physique while at the gym. Wearing a yellow cutoff shirt and black shorts in the video, he flexed his muscles and hinted that his progress at body lifting was just the start of his fitness routine. Its only the beginning ]]> (Note: Major spoilers ahead for Avengers: Endgame and the future of the MCU) Well, if youve seen Avengers: Endgame, then you know its one gut-punch moment after another. Bring tissues, people. But one moment at the very end of Endgame involving Falcon and another character hits particularly hard. You know the one we mean. In comic books, retirement never lasts and death is often just a minor inconvenience. Characters die and come back to life so often the afterlife is practically a suburb of New York, and bouncing back from something as permanent as old age is a simple matter of finding the right magic potion. But in a film franchise like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, if a character definitively leaves especially if their actor is ready to move on to other roles chances are that character is gonna stay gone. Which means that moment right at the end of Endgame? It unambiguously spells out the permanent exit of one of the series most beloved and prominent heroes. But where the Marvel gods taketh away, they also giveth back in abundance. Because Endgame also sets up that characters replacement in a very cool way drawn straight from the comics. MAJOR spoilers from here out. Seriously, stop reading if you dont want to know. Also Read: 'Avengers: Endgame' - That Last Scene Makes No Sense In the final moments of Avengers: Endgame, Steve Rogers, AKA Captain America (Chris Evans), travels back in time to return the six Infinity Stones to the time periods from which the Avengers stole them during the amusing time heist in the films second act. Though his mission is supposed to last however long he needs, to his friends waiting for him in the present day hes only supposed to be gone for a few seconds. Except he never appears back inside the time machine. Instead, as Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Bucky (Sebastian Stan) and Falcon, AKA Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) stand around confused, they notice something new: nearby, an old man is sitting on a park bench overlooking a serene lake. Yep, its Steve. It seems that after he returned the Infinity Stones, he decided to retire from superheroics, and went back in time to have the kind of life he always wanted before getting frozen in the ice at the end of Captain America: The First Avenger. Story continues Its a bit weird see more about the films confusing time travel rules here but basically Steve went back to the 1940s and then took the slow route back to the future, otherwise known as aging normal. And now, as a 100-something year old man, he returned to where he left his friends behind, for him all those years ago and for them a couple of minutes, to say goodbye. But Cap also brought a gift his original vibranium shield (please dont ask how he saved it without changing the timeline, we dont know) and he gives it to Falcon. Hows it feel? Cap asks. Like somebody elses, says Falcon. It shouldnt, Steve replies. And with that, its Sams shield now; yep, Falcon will be taking up the mantle of Captain America, and in a way almost exactly like he did in the comics. Also Read: How 'Avengers: Endgame' Sets Up the MCU's Future on Disney+ In 2014s Captain America Vol 7 #21, Cap lost his powers after the villain Iron Nail stabbed him with a dart that neutralized the super-soldier serum and caused Cap to rapidly turn into an old man, reflecting his actual chronological age. Though he was able to stop Iron Nails evil plan, he was almost killed, and was barely saved by his best pal Sam Wilson. Four issues later, after learning hes pretty much going to be stuck in his aged form, Steve accepts reality and names Sam the new Captain America. Sam holds on the the Captain America moniker throughout the comics for a few years, even after Steve manages to get his super-soldier powers back. But he doesnt just roll as a continuation of Steves approach to being Cap. For one thing, Sam adopts an extremely cool, personalized Captain America uniform that incorporates elements of his Falcon uniform. But more importantly, Sam also stakes out an openly-activist stance as Cap. Shouldnt Captain America be more than just a symbol, he asks himself in the first issue of his stand-alone comic series. If I really believed I could make a difference if I really believed I could change some minds, do some good then wasnt I obligated to try? Sam eventually stepped down as Captain America in 2017, after reaching a breaking point due to a combination of bad actions by the government (and an impostor, fascist Steve Rogers), and years of grief from right wingers who called him Captain Socialism. But in resigning and returning to his Falcon persona, he doubled-down on his personal ideals. Also Read: 'Avengers: Endgame' - Everything You Need to Know About the Asgardians of the Galaxy This is a stand I need to take. This time, no compromises, Sam said in Captain America: Sam Wilson issue #21. If Steves Captain America is a symbol of a great country pushing forward then let Sam Wilsons Captain America have been a reminder of the people its leaving behind. This is my protest This is my goodbye. It remains to be seen how Sam will carry Steves legacy in the Marvel Cinematic Universe of course. For one thing, we have no idea if hell be in any future films. For another, as far as we know, MCU Sam hasnt been given any super soldier serum to make him as resilient as Steve. And perhaps most importantly, the upcoming Disney+ series set in the MCU and starring Mackie and Stan is officially titled Falcon and the Winter Soldier, indicating at least whenever the show takes place, Sam Wilson is still going by his original nom de superheroism. Then again, Sam isnt the only person to fill in as Captain America after Steve Rogers. One notable person to wear the mantle is James Buchanan Bucky Barnes, better known as The Winter Soldier. He took over after the apparent death of Steve during the Marvel Comics version of Civil War. Maybe their show could end up getting a name change even if Captain America and Captain America is kind of a mouthful. Either way, heres hoping we get Sams Falcon-infused version of Captain American sooner rather than later. Read original story Avengers: Endgame Lets Talk About Captain America and Falcon At TheWrap Its hard enough when Mary Margaret Connolly passes away in the sleepy Maine fishing town of Easter Cove, leaving behind two shell-shocked daughters, a house they can no longer afford, a fish shop no one seems to patronize, and enough secrets to keep the Connolly sisters scrambling for the foreseeable future. And then one of them goes and kills a guy. Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudys feature directorial debut lays out plenty of familiar beats in their Coen brothers-esque crime comedy, from a bloody murder to a bag of cash, all enlivened by some wonderfully distinct accents, but the pair also find their way to a unique new story that signals their arrival as a filmmaking duo to watch. Related stories 'Good Posture' Review: Dolly Wells' Charming Directorial Debut -- Tribeca 'You Don't Nomi' Review: Disjointed 'Showgirls' Doc Won't Reach Cult Status -- Tribeca Priscilla (Sophie Lowe) and Mary Beth Connolly (Morgan Saylor) have long occupied different stations in their small family Pris has always been the stable, grownup one, while Mary Beth seems secure in her more flighty nature and while the year-long illness of their mother has only further crystallized those roles, its also unearthed some long-simmering irritations. On the night of their mothers funeral, while Pris toils in the kitchen, Mary Beth flees to a local watering hole to let off a little steam, and thats where she meets the alluring but also deeply creepy Gorski (Ebon Moss-Bachrach). That a tiny town like Easter Cove, filled with people who have known each other for decades and have nursed their own resentments for just as long, would have some weird stuff going on underneath the surface isnt surprising. And yet the way Savage Cole and Krudy nimbly reveal whats really going on in the fishing hamlet and the part that the Connolly sisters, their dead mother, and flashy bed and breakfast owner Nora (the always wonderful Margo Martindale) all play in it isnt initially expected. Thats not to say that it doesnt grow satisfying over the course of the 90-minute pitch black comedy. Story continues Though Blow the Man Down is primarily fixated on the Connolly sisters, Savage Cole and Krudys script steadily introduces other players, including Gayle Rankins outsider Alexis, a pair of not-quite bumbling cops (Skipp Sudduth and Will Brittain), and Mary Margarets dearest friends (a snappy Annette OToole among them). While Pris and Mary Beths accidental foray into violent crimes could fill its own feature quite handily, Blow the Man Down uses it as a wily entry point for exploring the dark comedy of an idyllic town that has one hell of an underbelly. Primarily led by a female cast, the film is generous with its large assortment of characters, allowing Martindale to predictably shine alongside rising stars like Saylor (who becomes more child-like as the story spins into wild new corners) and Lowe (who makes off with the films most poignant performance). On occasion, a Greek chorus-like cadre of local fishermen arrive to sing some local sea shanties, a risky proposition that Savage Cole and Krudy pull off: Its weirdly funny and specific in all the right ways. Bolstered by an off-kilter but amusing score from Jordan Dykstra and Brian McOmber and razor-sharp editing from Marc Vives, the film is smartly assembled, making the most of a limited indie budget and building a compelling world to boot. While a second act attempt to introduce still more players into a criminal enterprise doesnt click, Savage Cole and Krudy quickly revert back to whats working, smart enough to know exactly what that is and recognizing why theyre such a crack team at making it. Grade: B+ Blow the Man Down has its world premiere at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution. Sign up for Indiewire's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The sibling of two teenagers, whose American dad was forced to choose which one of them to save in Sri Lankas Easter bombings, is speaking out about the haunting moment he learned of their deaths. I was woken by screaming chaos, David Linsey told the Daily Mail of the phone call his mom received from his father Matthew Linsey, explaining his brother Daniel, 19, and sister Amelie, 15 had not survived. My bedroom is in the basement. I went upstairs. My little brother Ethan and my mother were hysterical with grief. My brother told me what happened. My mother couldnt speak. He said they were gone, David said to the outlet. Matthew, 61, and his two children were on vacation, enjoying the breakfast buffet in the Shangri-La Hotel in Colombo when the attacks began, according to The Times. I called my father, David recalled to the Daily Mail. He was at the hospital. Hed lost his voice. He was clearly very distressed. He had marks all over his face blood, shrapnel, but he was thinking clearly. David who is both a dual citizen of the U.S. and U.K. like his late siblings explained to the Mail that his dad couldnt quite wrap his head around what happened. He told us exactly what had happened and kept saying how sorry he was. It wasnt his fault but he felt he could have done things differently. They were only going for breakfast, David said. David admitted he too struggled to come to terms with the death of his siblings and wanted to confirm it on his own. My 11-year-old brother and mother were in hysterics. I wanted to establish what had happened, David told the Daily Mail. Matthew Linsey | CNN Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter. I spoke to a guy who confirmed it. It still doesnt sink in. It still hasnt really. Maybe its beginning to for me but not for my mother, David explained. Amelie was always there for all of us, Davids mother Angelina said to The Mail. Story continues Ethan would go and talk to her about his day at school if he was worried about anything, Angelina said of her 11-year-old son and Amelie. My children are my best friends. We do everything together, Angelina said. Angelina went on to share that Matthew wanted to take Amelie and Daniel to Sri Lanka because Danny was starting university. Matt wanted to spend that extra time with him before he started, Angelina explained to the Mail. Angelina, David and Ethan stayed back in London because Ethan wanted to celebrate Easter at home. Although they were apart, Angelina said she spoke with her family every day of their trip. I FaceTimed them every day. They were going to markets and doing cooker classes. They went to an elephant sanctuary. They went to a tea plantation and there was a lot of shopping because Amelie loved clothes, Angelina shared with the Mail. Matthew, a former New York investment banker, previously opened up about the bombing and the painful decision he had to make. You cant describe how bad it was. People were screaming. I was with my children. I couldnt tell whether they were all right, it was dark, Linsey told The Times. Injured himself, Linsey said he did his best to sift through the rubble to get to his kids. I couldnt move them, they were both knocked out, Linsey said to The Times. My son looked worse than my daughter. I tried to revive him, Linsey told the outlet. A lady said shed take my daughter. I carried my son downstairs to an ambulance, we took him to the hospital. I yelled, Please help my son! Please help! Please help! Linsey said. I thought my daughter was better off. I couldnt find her because I was with my son. They sadly passed away, Linsey revealed to The Times. RELATED: Washington, D.C. Fifth-Grader Among American Victims in Sri Lanka Terror Attacks Amelie and Daniel are two of the four confirmed American deaths, according to The New York Post. Daniel was a student at Westminster Kingsway College and was deciding between attending university at Manchester or Leicester, according to The Times. His daughter Amelie was studying at Godolphin and Latymer School in Hammersmith. [She] was beautiful inside and out, Linsey told the outlet. After the bombing, Linsey traveled back to his home in London, with the help of the US embassy. At this time, Linsey is trying to get the remains of his children home, according to The Times. The Linseys are also setting up a foundation to help fund medical equipment for the hospital in Sri Lanka where his children were taken, according to the Daily Mail. My dad suggested calling it Love Is The Answer after his and my sisters favorite song,' David told the Mail. Throughout it all, David said his father has remained remarkably strong. I think hes doing as well as one can in these circumstances. His bond with my siblings was so close, David said of Matthew to the Mail. My dad has survivors guilt 100 percent. The rest of us to a lesser extent but really my dad because he was right behind them, David explained. Six blasts went off simultaneously on April 21, targeting Easter mass attendees at St. Anthonys Shrine in Colombo, the St. Sebastian Catholic Church in nearby Negombo, and the Protestant Zion church in the town of Batticaloa, as well as three luxury hotels, according to CBS News. RELATED: Asos Billionaire Fashion Mogul Loses 3 Children in Sri Lanka Terror Attacks The Shangri-La said in a statement on Facebook that the explosion went off in its Table One Restaurant around 9 a.m. We are deeply saddened and shocked by the incident and our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the casualties and those who have been affected, the statement read. We are working closely with local authorities and emergency services to provide our fullest assistance and support to the affected staff and guests. More than 320 people were killed and 500 injured in the string of attacks, police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara said, according to TheTimes. The Associated Press reported that a Sri Lankan government official said the bombers were part of a domestic militant group named National Thowfeed Jamaath. CBS News reports that at least 40 suspects, all Sri Lankan nationals, have been taken into custody for questioning. Like any good Jewish mother, Karen Mason has a lot of opinions. Specifically, opinions about why her daughter is making a movie about her. What are you gonna do with this? she asks skeptically, as she tosses around boxes of gay porn magazines and DVDs with the workmanlike nonchalance of any small-business owner. Later, when she drops off a donation at USCs National Gay & Lesbian Archives, she will marvel over a zine display: You should be doing the documentary about this. Of course, Karens dogged pragmatism, and her complex relationship to the smut that provided her familys livelihood for thirty years, is why Circus of Books is such a rare delight and a nearly perfect documentary. Documentaries in which the filmmaker plays a part pose a particular challenge; they can elevate the form, but must be undertaken carefully. Circus of Books doesnt mine the meta-theatrical depths of Sarah Polleys Stories We Tell did (that wouldnt fit here), but it does benefit from the personal touch of a filmmaker bringing her family secret out of the closet. Masons film has more in common with last years Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood, an entertaining sex comedy that shed light on what might otherwise have become a forgotten chapter in gay history. Unlike that good-time film, however, Circus of Books leaves no loose ends, and makes its many points with just the right finesse. Related stories Tribeca 2019: 12 Must-See Films at This Years Festival, From Danny Boyle to a Wild 'Showgirls' Doc 'Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice' Review: Grammy-Winning Trailblazer Gets Her Own Shallow Doc Mason begins by introducing her subjects, Barry and Karen Mason, loving parents of three and purveyors of the finest gay smut. From Honcho to Handjob to Rimnastics Gold Part II you name it, Barry and Karen Mason sold it. A former courtroom reporter and an observant Jew, almost everyone interviewed agrees that Karen wears the pants in the family. Barry, on the other hand, is described by his son Micah as one of the few people whose default state is happiness. Story continues After Barrys ingenious medical patent no longer supported them, Karen and Barry responded to an advertisement from Hustler founder Larry Flynt looking for independent distributors to carry his magazines. Honest, hardworking, and conveniently located in the Los Angeles area, the Masons quickly fell into the lucrative business of supplying explicit magazines to their eager customers. Most eager of them all? Gay men. Porno always had a place in the gay community, former customer Don Norman says. Because we didnt see anything like that. To see men naked and unafraid. That gave us a lot of pride. When a prime West Hollywood location right on Santa Monica Boulevard suddenly became available, the Masons jumped at the opportunity, changing the name from Book Circus to Circus of Books so they could salvage the old sign. They employed many gay men, and the store became a popular cruising ground and community space. Circus of Books was my first glimpse of the fact that I wasnt alone as a gay person, says one former employee. Mason keeps a thread of tension taut throughout, never losing sight of the contradictions between her parents work and their home life. The kids didnt know the true nature of the family bookshop until they were teenagers, partly due to Karens religious beliefs. The family attended a conservative Jewish synagogue, and Karens closeted son internalized the congregations negative views on gayness. Funnily enough, Karen had a hard time accepting his sexuality at first. Mason pushes her mother firmly on this point, and Karen is honest about her former beliefs, her change of heart, and her regrets that she even needed one. The film is engaging from start to finish, with a rotating cast of bright and eloquent speakers. The wonderfully subversive drag queen Alaska Thunderfuck offers thoughtful insights in his distinctive timbre. Before becoming a RuPauls Drag Race legend, Alaska worked at Circus of Books. At one point, he describes Karen and Barrys attitude toward the store as like selling apples in an apple cart. Larry Flynt appears to offer insight into the legal dangers he and the Masons faced due to strict obscenity laws during the Reagan and Bush eras. The Masons even got into producing their own porn at one point, and connoisseurs will no doubt enjoy seeing their frequent collaborator and former porn star Jeff Stryker interviewed. Circus of Books is chock full of entertaining characters, but Karen ultimately emerges as the films complicated and fascinating heroine. Her journalism career, her forthright nature, and her skepticism at the films very premise that her lifes story is actually quite remarkable make her an endlessly intriguing subject, lovingly but truthfully rendered by her filmmaker daughter. In the films funniest scene, she hurries through an adult merchandise expo stocking up on inventory. After hurriedly ordering a bucket of anal lube from a butch in a fedora named Ellen, she happens upon a wall full of flesh-colored dildos. This wall would probably do well for us, whatever it is, she says, averting her eyes. Grade: A Circus of Books premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 26. Netflix bought the rights to film ahead of its premiere. Sign up for Indiewire's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. UPDATED with AT&Ts response. Another cable network group is facing a potential blackout on AT&T platforms, including DirecTV. A month after Viacom was able to hammer out a new carriage agreement with AT&T after very tough negotiations, averting a blackout, A+E Networks find itself in a similar position. In an internal memo sent today, Paul Buccieri, President of A+E Networks Group, which includes A&E Network, History and Lifetime, gives his team an update on the talks with AT&T. We are in the midst of (a) negotiation with AT&T, which owns DirecTV, and with our contract deadline approaching, we are still far apart from reaching a deal. Related stories AT&T Chief Randall Stephenson "Impressed" By Disney Streaming, Says NFL Sunday Ticket Will Stay On DirecTV The two companies current carriage agreement expires Tuesday. In his letter, Buccieri accuses the newly bulked-up AT&T for the impasse. While I have respect for them and our long-standing relationship, AT&T has not demonstrated a willingness to negotiate reasonably, Buccieri wrote. The deal we are seeking is based on the same fair market terms that have allowed us to reach deals with numerous other providers. AT&T simply has not yet demonstrated that they recognize the value of our programming and the high regard we have for our viewers including AT&Ts own customers. This is the second very difficult carriage negotiation AT&T is conducting with a cable group since the company closed its acquisition of WarnerMedia. The first one with Viacom went though an extension as a deal could not be made by the original deadline. Buccieri raised concern about AT&T using its size as an unfair advantage over smaller cable groups. Having recently acquired WarnerMedia, AT&T appears intent on using their new position to gain an unfair advantage for their own channels, Buccieri said. Many, including the U.S. Department of Justice, were concerned that AT&T would have the ability and incentive to discriminate against programmers like A+E Networks and others like us. It seems that concern has become a reality. Story continues In response to A+E Networks letter, AT&T issued a statement: Were disappointed to see A&E put our customers in the middle of their negotiations. We are on the side of customer choice and value and want to keep these channels in our customers lineups. We hope to avoid any interruption to these channels that some of our customers care about. Our goal is always to deliver the content our customers want at a value that also makes sense to them. Weve always fought to get the best deal for our customers, delivering the content they want at a great value. Well continue to fight for that here. Here is Buccieris full note: Dear Team, Sorry to interrupt your weekend, but, I wanted you to hear this from me directly. Every day, thanks to your creativity, talent and dedication, our networks deliver some of the best programming on television and serve audiences in unique and thoughtful ways. Whether its giving women a voice like the recent Surviving R. Kelly; building transparency around law enforcement through Live PD or any number of the groundbreaking HISTORY serieslike The Curse of Oak Island or Project Blue Bookthe A+E Networks brand of storytelling is distinctive for our viewers. Consumers have more options than ever, and they choose us by the millions because they find programming and community around our content that is meaningful and original. It is a privilege to create content for our viewers. It is our passion. It is also our business. As a business, content has value. We have a responsibility to our stakeholders to get equitable value for our content, for your efforts and the creative community. Now more than ever, we must protect the value of creativity and content. Most of all, we owe it to our viewers to ensure we are here for them, investing in the programming they love and rely on us for. Running our business the right way requires negotiating fair deals with distributors that deliver our programming into viewers homes. We have done this without our portfolio being removed from any distributors platforms. Few of our peers can make the same claim. Right now, we are in the midst of one such negotiation with AT&T, which owns DIRECTV, and with our contract deadline approaching, we are still far apart from reaching a deal. While I have respect for them and our long-standing relationship, AT&T has not demonstrated a willingness to negotiate reasonably. The deal we are seeking is based on the same fair market terms that have allowed us to reach deals with numerous other providers. AT&T simply has not yet demonstrated that they recognize the value of our programming and the high regard we have for our viewers including AT&Ts own customers. Having recently acquired WarnerMedia, AT&T appears intent on using their new position to gain an unfair advantage for their own channels. Many, including the U.S. Department of Justice, were concerned that AT&T would have the ability and incentive to discriminate against programmers like A+E Networks and others like us. It seems that concern has become a reality. Millions of households could be impacted and deprived of their favorite programming if AT&T does not carry our networks on their platforms. Therefore, we will soon start communicating with all of our stakeholders about this situation, including our viewers. For the last 35 years, the A+E Networks brands have played a significant and influential role in American popular culture from the vital perspective found on HISTORY, to the ever enduring and iconic Lifetime movie to reimagining reality and reinventing live storytelling on A&E. We remain hopeful that, at the end of the day, AT&Ts focus like ours will put their consumers first. I realize that many of you, as well as your families and friends, may be AT&T or DIRECTV subscribers. Please feel free to share a link to http://www.keepmychannels.com, which will be updated with relevant news and information. We will continue to keep you apprised of any updates. In the meantime, the executive team and I ask that everyone remain laser focused on doing what you do best: delivering amazing stories, told with the kind of heart and passion that is definitively A&E, HISTORY, Lifetime and all of A+E Networks. Sincerely, Paul Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. South Africa: Use your freedom to the benefit of other women Deputy Minister of Communications, Pinky Kekana, has challenged women of all colours and creed to use their democracy and freedom to collectively advance the struggle of women. When some amongst us, women in particular, refer to other human beings as monkeys or use other profanities to dehumanize humans, it should unsettle all of us, not just one racial group. When academics amongst us start to question the intelligence of women of a specific race, we women of all races, must ask ourselves in what way does this advance our democracy and the spirit of non-racialism, Kekana said. The Deputy Minister said women need to be there for other women like Cheryl Zondi, who are victims of sexual abuse even in the church. We all need to be there because we know that patriarchy knows no race, women black and white, suffer from its destructive and possessive character, she said. Kekana was speaking at the launch of Bloss Africa Magazine at the Market Sheds in Pretoria on Saturday. The new magazine is an international media platform for South African women living all over the world. Kekana said she hoped that Bloss Magazine will encourage robust debates about democracy and be a platform for all South African women, like the Drum Magazine which held up an image of black consciousness and portrayed the Sophia Town generation in a dignified light through the likes of Dolly Rathebe, Can Themba, and Nat Nakasa. Kekana said Bloss can be a catalyst for South African women from all walks of life. Even though today South Africa celebrates democracy and freedom there was still a need for a voice that speaks for all of us. The media can do that, the media should do that, and it is the only way for our democracy to blossom. This should be a platform for women old and young to share their perspectives on society. With platforms like these we should no longer see women being written out of history like Phila Ndwandwe and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. Instead her story should rise, her story should be the narrative, Kekana said. SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2019-04-27. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Congratulating the Cuban people on their recent achievements in legislation, particularly the approval of the new Constitution in February, NA Vice Chairman Uong Chu Luu stressed that Vietnamese people always remember the valuable support of Cuban people during Vietnams struggles for liberation. To foster the bilateral legislative ties, he called on the two sides to maintain regular visits and information and experience exchange while working out more cooperative projects in agriculture, biological technology, medicine, tourism, and consumer goods production. He also voiced his hope for intensified collaboration and mutual support between the two countries at multilateral and international forums. For his part, Cuban NA Chairman Esteban Lazo Hernandez reviewed the historic relations between Vietnam and Cuba two nations which shared a common aspiration for independence and freedom. He expressed his admiration for Vietnamese peoples achievements in national development and defence and conveyed his thanks for Vietnams continuous support to Cuba in the fight against embargoes. He highly valued the exchange of experience and collaboration between Vietnamese and Cuban legislative bodies and reaffirmed the determination to elevate the bilateral economic and trade ties. The same day, NA Vice Chairman Uong Chu Luu and the Vietnamese NA delegation had separate meetings with Cuban Attorney General Yamila Pena Ojeda and the Head of the Department of Culture under the Communist Party of Cubas Central Committee, Roberto Montesino Perez, during which the two sides briefed each other on their socio-economic situations and discussed solutions to boost cooperation between the ministries and sectors of the two countries. Huda Kattan is opening up about her childhood, the barriers she broke to be a "she-E-O" and her journey to self confidence for ET's Unfiltered series. The beauty mogul came onto the scene in 2010, when she started her blog, Huda Beauty, after quitting her finance job to focus on her passion for makeup. Three years later, Kattan expanded into products and launched her beauty brand of the same name, which she runs with her sisters. Her Instagram account also became the number one beauty page, now boasting 36.2 million followers. The collection first started out with false lashes and now offers a full range, including everything from eye shadow palettes to foundations to lip colors and fragrances. Kattan resides in Dubai, where Huda Beauty is based, with her husband Chris and 7-year-old daughter, Nour. She and her family currently star in the docuseries Huda Boss on Facebook Watch. What most don't know is that Kattan is a Southern girl at heart. The Oklahoma-born daughter of Iraqi immigrants grew up in Tennessee, where she lived for over 12 years. "It was interesting growing up there, because I was, you know, one of the only brown people in my whole entire school," Kattan told ET. "But also I wasn't in touch with my culture and my heritage and I feel like, because of that, I was maybe a little bit confused about who I was as a child." The 35-year-old entrepreneur explained it was a challenge for her to feel a sense of belonging growing up in a community where there were few who looked like her. She even went by the name "Heidi" in an effort to try and fit the mold. But she found solace in makeup as a way to transform herself and gain more confidence. "I felt like I was not a cute kid, and I remember seeing people transform," Kattan said. "It was actually when my sister was in the beauty pageants and I was in some pageants. I didn't win any. I always got that like, participant trophy, but I fell in love with the way makeup could transform people. You could be just a basic human being and then all of a sudden look like a doll and this beautiful creature." Story continues "I mean, I still struggle with all these issues to date. I was just, you know, I started realizing I've had a lot of issues with self love. And I didn't realize it because I always felt like I wasn't good enough," Kattan emotionally admitted. Despite the challenges, Kattan pushed through to build her billion-dollar beauty brand, breaking barriers as a female entrepreneur in the Middle East. "I definitely think when I first started it was really challenging, 'cause we were starting our beauty brand from the Middle East and it wasn't common to do that. And it was almost like we were pioneering. I remember saying to my husband so many times like, I don't know what I'm doing." Kattan credits following her intuition and separating herself from outside noise and the strengths that have helped her in developing her business. "There's not a blueprint for me to follow, but I've always trusted my intuition and I made decisions," she shared. "And I do feel that any time I've ever made the wrong decision it's because I allowed somebody to interfere and override my intuition. Sometimes, you really need to trust your gut." She also spoke to the preconceived notions of being a female CEO and coming to the conclusion that she can be both assertive and nurturing at her job. "For the longest time, I just felt like I had to be really, really harsh to be taken seriously as a CEO," she reflected. "When I understood that women can be both sides of it, it was really beautiful. And don't get me wrong, I can be an alpha female in a board room, but I also want to be loving and nurturing with my daughter as well. I want to remain that sexy -- that part of being a woman as well. I've finally learned that I can be all of those things and it's awesome. And a man should also be able to be all those things as well." Watch Kattan's full interview in the video above. RELATED CONTENT: 'The Perfect Date's' Laura Marano Talks Breaking Out of the 'Disney' Mold and Into Adult Stardom (Exclusive) Patrick Starrr Opens Up About Shaving His Head and His Life Mantra for Tackling Negativity (Exclusive) Heather Dubrow on Owning 50 and Leaving Her 'Housewives' Persona Behind (Exclusive) Related Articles: After 10 years of dating, Real Housewives of Dallas star LeeAnne Locken and Rich Emberlin got married on Saturday, PEOPLE can exclusively report. The Texas twosome said their I dos at the Cathedral of Hope the worlds largest inclusive church in front of a sprawling crowd of family, friends, and Lockens Bravo costars. Guests cheered on Locken, 51, as she walked down the aisle in a custom white gown by Texas-based designer Nardos Imam of NARDOS Design. Emberlin, 56, also wore a custom outfit by a local craftsman. He was dressed in a black tux by Don Morphy Prive Clothiers. This is Lockens first marriage and Emberlins third. He has a 20-year-old daughter, Elise, from a previous relationship. RELATED: How Real Housewives of Dallas Star LeeAnne Locken Knew Fiance Rich Emberlin Was The One PEOPLE first broke the news of their engagement back in September 2017. Emberlin had popped the question back Texas State Fair in Dallas last October, where Locken discovered a ginormous 10 carat ring (a marquise cut diamond with two diamonds on either side to symbolize each of their hearts) behind a red balloon in a balloon pop game. It was the happiest carnival prize ever, Locken told PEOPLE at the time. I had no clue. Honestly, Rich surprises me every single time that he does something over-the-top, romantic and kind. Im always like, Wow your heart has such a huge capacity for love. The whole thing really just blew me away. Im incredibly lucky. RELATED: LeeAnne Lockens Getting Married! Get a Preview of the RHOD Stars 12-Foot-Tall Wedding Cake Since then the two have been furiously prepping for their big day, with the aid of wedding planner extraordinaire Steve Kemble. Story continues Locken even lightened her hair for the occasion. I want to look soft for my wedding, she told PEOPLE in February. I want to look angelic. Now that the ceremony is behind her, Locken is prepped for an over-the-top, crazy fun party. The wedding, Im going to keep simple in the cathedral. Because I want to be respectful. But then the reception, I want to be a big celebration, she told PEOPLE in February. I want to do flower walls with neon signs in them for social media pictures. Weve started going through a bunch of stuff. Napkins, silverware, personalized wine bottles just different stuff. I want it to be such a fabulously fun party. And starting that next chapter with Emberlin is part of the reason she chose April. It signifies rebirth. Its when spring comes and all of the flowers are blooming. Its when all the dogwoods are in bloom. To me its a signal of God saying, Life goes on. Heres the beauty of life, Locken explained. So Aprils a month thats always been precious to me. Former ABC News reporter and White House correspondent Sam Donaldson just shredded Donald Trump and his press secretary, Sarah Sanders.On Fridays AC360, Donaldson and host Anderson Cooper accused the administration of transparent lying. Donaldson ran through his working relationship with every White House press secretary since John F. Kennedys.Except for Ron Ziegler, who lied for Richard Nixon, Ive never seen anything like this with Sarah Sanders, Donaldson said. And theres a difference. Ziegler lied about one thing: the question if the president of the United States was covering up the Watergate burglary.Donaldson said if you asked Ziegler a question about policy, he would stick to what he thought the facts were, and that those would often be truthful.Were in a different world now, Donaldson opined.Also Read: Trump Says Media Owe Him 'Big' Apology Over Russia Coverage - and Owe Hannity One TooSarah Sanders simply lies about everything, taking a cue from her boss, Donaldson said. Shes had a lifetime achievement Oscar for lying.I dont know her, he continued. I feel a little sorry for her because its the boss who does it.Later, Donaldson said that Sanders lies are more than innocuous they fester, and that they serve the publics disinterest in learning the truth.So yeah, hes not a fan.Also Read: Fox News' Andrew Napolitano Calls Trump's Behavior 'Immoral,' 'Criminal,' 'Defenseless' and 'Condemnable'Watch Donaldsons CNN appearance below.President Trump claims he's the most transparent president in history, but the White House has not held a press briefing in a record-breaking number of days"Sarah Sanders simply lies about everything, taking a cue from her boss." Former White House correspondent Sam Donaldson pic.twitter.com/HWccmTsbaZ CNN (@CNN) April 27, 2019Read original story Sam Donaldson Says Sarah Sanders Deserves a Lifetime Achievement Oscar for Lying (Video) At TheWrap Former ABC News reporter and White House correspondent Sam Donaldson just shredded Donald Trump and his press secretary, Sarah Sanders. On Fridays AC360, Donaldson and host Anderson Cooper accused the administration of transparent lying. Donaldson ran through his working relationship with every White House press secretary since John F. Kennedys. Except for Ron Ziegler, who lied for Richard Nixon, Ive never seen anything like this with Sarah Sanders, Donaldson said. And theres a difference. Ziegler lied about one thing: the question if the president of the United States was covering up the Watergate burglary. Donaldson said if you asked Ziegler a question about policy, he would stick to what he thought the facts were, and that those would often be truthful. Were in a different world now, Donaldson opined. Also Read: Trump Says Media Owe Him 'Big' Apology Over Russia Coverage - and Owe Hannity One Too Sarah Sanders simply lies about everything, taking a cue from her boss, Donaldson said. Shes had a lifetime achievement Oscar for lying. I dont know her, he continued. I feel a little sorry for her because its the boss who does it. Later, Donaldson said that Sanders lies are more than innocuous they fester, and that they serve the publics disinterest in learning the truth. So yeah, hes not a fan. Also Read: Fox News' Andrew Napolitano Calls Trump's Behavior 'Immoral,' 'Criminal,' 'Defenseless' and 'Condemnable' Watch Donaldsons CNN appearance below. President Trump claims he's the most transparent president in history, but the White House has not held a press briefing in a record-breaking number of days "Sarah Sanders simply lies about everything, taking a cue from her boss." Former White House correspondent Sam Donaldson pic.twitter.com/HWccmTsbaZ CNN (@CNN) April 27, 2019 Read original story Sam Donaldson Says Sarah Sanders Deserves a Lifetime Achievement Oscar for Lying (Video) At TheWrap The United States was really onto something when it established Mothers Day well, the holiday as we know it in the early 20th century. Thanks to Anna Jarvis, who was devoted to celebrating her late mother, and all mothers, Mothers Day became a nationally recognized holiday in 1914. From invaluable advice to their quality company, we have an unending list of things for which to thank our moms. Although Jarvis later disavowed Mothers Day due to its heightened commercialism, its no surprise that the rest of the world had already joined in or kept up their long-standing traditions. After all, motherly love is pretty universal. Here are five other countries own twists on the beloved tradition. mother's day 1. Finland: Finns also celebrate Mothers Day on the second Sunday of May. And the celebrations similarities to the United States dont stop there. Like American mothers, Finnish mothers find themselves being showered with gifts, flowers, and the rest. But the Finnish president does his or her part too. Each year, the leader honors a group of exemplary mothers who have been nominated by their families or communities. Last years picks included single moms, foster moms, and moms who raised children with special needs. 2. China: The regions of Hong Kong and Macau were the first to adopt this tradition, but by 1979, the Chinese mainland had begun to embrace Mothers Day. And, as is the trend, the holiday is typically celebrated on the second Sunday of May. Interestingly, although carnations have gotten a bit of a bad rep at least for Valentines Day (take note, S.O.s!) these dainty flowers have become internationally synonymous with Mothers Day. And while some Chinese celebrants still prefer this bloom, China as a whole has strayed and established its own floral tradition with the ever-vibrant tiger lily. 3. Mexico: Unsurprisingly, the historically matriarchal culture of Mexico makes a big to-do of Mothers Day. Celebrated on May 10 every year, the holiday leaves restaurants packed, floral shops emptied and, most importantly, mothers loved even more so than usual. According to tradition, the festivities begin in the morning outside bedroom windows when families serenade Mom with the song Las Mananitas. Professional mariachi bands are also known to bellow this song all day long. Story continues 4. Ethiopia: In Ethiopia, the mothers are so deserving of gratitude, they get three whole days devoted to them. (Not a bad idea!) And during the multi-day feast, known as Antrosht, which occurs when the rainy season ends (some time in mid-fall), people celebrate by preparing traditional Ethiopian hash and its a joint effort. Girls provide the spices and dairy, and boys fetch the meat, which is either lamb or bull. Then, the mother cooks up the massive meal, which is followed by singing and dancing. 5. Serbia: Serbian mothers dont catch much of a break on their special day. In the southeastern European country, Mothers Day is called Materice, and it is celebrated on the second Sunday before Christmas. Mamas are awoken to their children gently binding their feet with ribbon or string, and she must remain tied up until she gives them small presents and treats. The only vindication? She and the kids get to do the same thing to her husband the next weekend in exchange for all their Christmas presents and a feast. RELATED: 9 Adventurous Mothers Day Getaways at Home and Around the Globe (Photo via Getty) You dont have to live in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, or Sweden (or the surrounding territories) to reap the benefits of 2019s hottest beauty trend. Often referred to as lagom beauty, which translates to moderation, the Scandi skincare category is as far from Korean beauty that you can get. It has a less-is-more mindset when it comes to your beauty routine, and focuses on utilizing natural ingredients (think plants that thrive in harsh weather and pure water). Nordic-derived ingredients are incredibly potent and active due to the harsh climate they come from, says NYC-based plastic surgeon Yael Halaas. The plants, roots, and algaes that grow there have learned to adapt to a general lack of sunlight. They absorb high amounts of nutrients from the intense short-lived sunlight which allows for antioxidant-packed ingredients. That, coupled with a minimalist approach (both in packaging and formulation) delivers glowing skin. Keep reading to learn about five Scandi brands all about that lagom life. 1. Verso: The Swedish skincare line touts its Retinol 8 as its raison detre. While performing clinical tests at Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm, Lars Fredriksson discovered a formulation of the vitamin A derivative that went on to be his brands foundation. Retinol 8, included in many of the products, is just as effective as retinol with about half as much of the irritation. Brit + Co Pick: Verso Super Eye Serum ($85) 2. skyn ICELAND: The Icelandic skincare brand relies on the countrys plants and marine elements to fuel their products. Iceland specifically has volcanic soil, which is rich in minerals that also add to the potency of the plants that grow indigenously, she says. Icelandic waters are amazingly pure and mineral rich and are incredible for skin. Brit + Co Pick: skyn ICELAND Arctic Face Oil ($35) Story continues 3. Lumene: At Lumene, its all about harnessing the hydrating properties of Finnish spring water and organic birch sap to create products that nourish, according to Tiina Isohanni, Lumenes vice president of research and development. The spring water is naturally filtered through a layer of gravel which ensures purity and results in a natural pH that is gentle on human skin. Organic birch sap is very rich in minerals and amino acids, which hydrate and protect the skin. It also contains malic and citric acids that help to brighten the skin, she says. Brit + Co Pick: Lumene Lahde Arctic Dew Quenching Aqua Serum ($25) 4. Blue Lagoon: The Blue Lagoon in Grindavik, Iceland is a geothermal spa supplied by water used in the nearby Svartsengi geothermal power station. And while not everyone can book a stay at the spa retreat, lagoon-sourced silica and algae are the primary ingredients in the signature skin care line. Silica strengthens the skins barrier function, which is one of the key components in maintaining healthy and radiant skin, says Blue Lagoons director of research and development Asa Brynjolfsdottir. Brit + Co Pick: Blue Lagoon Silica Mud Mask ($115) 5. Eleni & Chris: Founders Inger Ellen Nicolaisen and daughter Christinah Nicolaisen looked to Scandinavian glacier water sourced from the Svartisen glacier as the basis of every skin care product in their Norwegian beauty brand. Pure spring water contains potent minerals and electrolytes that have extraordinary benefits on skin physiology, explains Sadick. For example, electrolytes in the water play a critical role in maintaining the skin optimal pH and hydration. Brit + Co Pick: Eleni + Chris Hydrating Day Cream ($57) Related: Why Australian Beauty Is Everywhere Right Now Brit + Co may at times use affiliate links to promote products sold by others, but always offers genuine editorial recommendations. HILLSBOROUGH, N.C. (AP) In a story April 25 about the toppling of a Confederate monument, The Associated Press reported erroneously that 11 other people besides Raul Arce Jimenez and Shawn Birchfield-Finn have been convicted in connection with the August melee in which the statue was toppled. At least seven other people besides those two men have been convicted in connection with various protests over the statue. The Associated Press also reported erroneously that one of the defendants is named Shawn Birchfield-Finn Jimenez. His name is Shawn Birchfield-Finn. A corrected version of the story is below: 2 guilty for toppling N Carolina campus's Confederate statue Two men face a day in jail after being found guilty of rioting, damaging property and defacing a Confederate monument that had stood for a century on the campus of North Carolina's flagship public university HILLSBOROUGH, N.C. (AP) Two men face a day in jail after being found guilty of rioting, damaging property and defacing a Confederate monument that had stood for a century on the campus of North Carolina's flagship public university. The News & Observer of Raleigh reports that the state district court judge on Thursday found Raul Arce Jimenez and Shawn Birchfield-Finn guilty in the toppling of the University of North Carolina monument nicknamed "Silent Sam." They also were assessed a $500 fine and community service. Jimenez was previously found not guilty of toppling a Confederate statue in Durham in 2017. At least seven others have been convicted in connection with various protests over the Chapel Hill statue, which was toppled in August. The monument was derided as a symbol of white supremacy and defended as a Southern heritage memorial. 3 children shot as Oklahoma police open fire on alleged robbery suspect originally appeared on abcnews.go.com Three children were injured as police in Oklahoma opened fire on a robbery suspect Friday evening. The suspect was also shot in the incident. William Devaughn Smith, 21, was located in Hugo, near the Texas-Oklahoma border, where police attempted to take the man into custody, according to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation. Smith is suspected of robbing a Pizza Hut in Hugo on April 11. While attempting to "make contact" with Smith, police officers opened fire and shot him, as well as three children, the OSBI said in a statement. Smith and four children were in a vehicle when the detectives from the Hugo Police Department opened fire, Brook Arbeitman, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, told The Associated Press. PHOTO: Police were searching for William Devaughn Smith, 21, of Hugo, Okla., in connection with the alleged robbery of a Pizza Hut when they opened fire on a vehicle he was driving with four kids inside on Friday, April 26, 2019. (Hugo Police Department) (MORE: Former police officer sentenced to 25 years in killing of black man) Three of the four children were shot, police said. They were rushed to the hospital, where their injuries were described as non-life threatening. The injured children are ages 1, 4 and 5. Smith, who was also struck by gunfire, was taken to the hospital, treated and released into the custody of the Paris, Texas, Police Department. Paris is located just across the border from Hugo. PHOTO: Police were searching for William Devaughn Smith, 21, of Hugo, Okla., in connection with the alleged robbery of a Pizza Hut when they opened fire on a vehicle he was driving with four kids inside on Friday, April 26, 2019. (Hugo Police Department) (MORE: Bodycam footage released from police-involved shooting) At this time, the suspect is being held on charges related to the robbery from earlier this month. It is unclear if additional charges will be filed. In the robbery, Smith allegedly entered the pizza shop's back door and pressed an object against an employee's back before making off with an unknown amount of money, police said. The suspect's wife was also in the car, but uninjured, police said. It is unclear if those injured were the suspect's children. ABC News' Matt Foster contributed to this report. By Sanjana Shivdas and Tracy Rucinski (Reuters) - American Airlines Group Inc cut its 2019 profit forecast on Friday, blaming an estimated $350 million hit from the grounding of Boeing's 737 MAX planes during its busiest travel season, but said it was confident the aircraft would start flying by mid-August. American, the No. 1 U.S. carrier by passenger traffic, said earlier in April that it was extending the grounding of its twenty-four 737 MAX jetliners until Aug. 19, leading to about 115 daily cancellations during the peak summer travel season. No. 3 U.S. carrier United Airlines also said it expects to cancel hundreds of flights during the peak summer season due to the groundings. While the cancellations only represent about 2 percent of American's daily summer flight capacity, the financial impact is disproportionate as revenue during lost while the vast majority of costs remain in place. The airline said its employees were working overtime to accommodate some 700,000 summer travelers and thousands of crew affected by 15,000 MAX cancellations through Aug. 19. As a result, Fort Worth, Texas-based American said it now expects its 2019 adjusted profit of $4.00 per share to $6.00 per share, from a previous forecast of between $5.50 per share and $7.50 per share. Analysts on average were expecting 2019 earnings of $5.63 per share, according to Refinitiv data. American also said it expects fuel expenses for the year to be about $650 million higher than its earlier forecast, citing a recent run-up in oil prices. Shares were down 2 percent at $32.77 in morning trading. IF FAA APPROVES, WE'LL FLY Following the worldwide grounding in March of the 737 MAX after two fatal crashes, Boeing Co is developing a software fix and new pilot training for regulatory approval. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration is under scrutiny for its original certification of the airline and has said it will work with regulators worldwide to recertify the aircraft. Story continues In the event that the FAA approves the 737 MAX before other regulators, American Chief Executive Doug Parker said, "we will absolutely fly the airplane. That's our regulator." Parker said pilots will play a critical role in helping rebuild public trust in the aircraft, and that his decision to remove the planes from American's schedule through Aug. 19 was based on 95 percent certainty that they would be ready to fly by that date. United Airlines, which is part of United Continental Holdings Inc, said it expects to cancel about 35 to 40 flights a day during the month of June. In April, it expects cancellations of about 130 flights and 900 in May. American reported first-quarter net income of $185 million, or 41 cents per share, compared with $159 million, or 34 cents per share, a year earlier. Excluding items, the airline earned 52 cents per share, compared with the average analyst estimate of 51 cents per share. Total operating revenue rose 1.8 percent to $10.58 billion. American said it expects unit revenue, a closely watched performance measure that compares sales with flight capacity, to rise between 1 percent and 3 percent year-on-year in the second quarter. Southwest Airlines Co, the world's largest MAX operator with 34 jets, said on Thursday it sees unit revenue growing by 5.5 percent to 5.7 percent in the second quarter. (Reporting by Sanjana Shivdas and Arjun Panchadar in Bengaluru and Tracy Rucinski in Chicago; Editing by James Emmanuel and Steve Orlofsky) Jeff Bezos' space venture Blue Origin tweets a cryptic photo of Ernest Shackleton's ship "Endurance." One likely explanation is the possible connection between Shackleton's expedition and Blue Origin's bid to send astronauts back to the surface of the moon. Bezos has said there should be "a permanent human settlement on one of the poles of the moon" and that it's not just time for humans to return to the moon, it's "time to stay." Blue Origin, the space company founded by Amazon AMZN chairman Jeff Bezos, shared a cryptic photo of famed explorer Ernest Shackleton's expedition in a tweet on Friday. But, with only the date of May 9 in the photo's caption, the company left the context for the post unexplained. One likely meaning is the possible connection between Shackleton's expedition and Blue Origin's bid to send astronauts back to the surface of the moon. @blueorigin tweet The photo is of Shackleton's ship "Endurance" during the explorer's attempt to make the first land crossing of the Antarctic more than a century ago. But Shackleton is also the name of a crater on the moon's surface. And it's not just any crater. NASA named the crater for the famed explorer in 2006 due to its potential as a lunar outpost. Located at the moon's south pole, the Shackleton crater is believed by many to have deposits of frozen water. The presence of "water ice," as NASA calls it, is key to any plans of returning to the moon. Bezos talks often about how he wants to return human beings to the surface of the moon and, like NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine also says, do so with a permanent presence. NASA's 2020 budget request in March revealed new opportunities for private space companies such as Blue Origin to earn lucrative future awards. Key within that request was the Advanced Cislunar and Surface Capabilities (ACSC) program . The NASA program aims to award billions of dollars in contracts over the next five years so companies will develop spacecraft capable of flying humans to and from the moon. Story continues Bezos pours about $1 billion of his Amazon stock into Blue Origin each year. He has said there should be "a permanent human settlement on one of the poles of the moon" and that it's not just time for humans to return to the moon, it's "time to stay." More From CNBC Montreal (AFP) - The Canadian city of Montreal on Friday declared a state of emergency over the threat of flooding following a similar decision by the capital Ottawa. Water "is continuing to rise and we are concerned. After discussions with rescue services, I made the decision to declare a state of emergency," Mayor Valerie Plante told reporters. The measure will allow the city of around two million to seize land, initiate mandatory evacuations and frees up funding. West Island neighborhoods are particularly affected by the spring flooding associated with melting snow and heavy rainfall. More than 1,100 people have so far been evacuated in Quebec, two years after eastern Canada saw its worst flooding in half a century. On the other side of the Ottawa River, which separates Ontario from Quebec, a small dam threatened to give way under the pressure of the water that kept rising on a tributary of the river, warned Quebec authorities, who have since evacuated dozens of people. A thousand soldiers remained mobilized in Quebec, where more than 3,100 residences were flooded, according to a provisional count by officials. (The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters) By Peter Apps LONDON, April 24 (Reuters) - When Pariss Notre-Dame cathedral caught fire on April 15, it was only a matter of minutes before conspiracy theories were swirling across social media. Some were from far-right accounts and outlets desperate to blame the blaze on some kind of Islamist attack. As the inferno was broadcast worldwide, websites such as U.S.-based Infowars pushed out reams of unverified and often false information, speculation and rhetoric. "The West has fallen," tweeted right-wing documentary filmmaker https://twitter.com/Cernovich/status/1117840292986490880 Mike Cernovich. According to the European Unions specialist disinformation monitoring unit https://euvsdisinfo.eu/building-blocks-of-disinformation-case-notre-dame, these messages were then further picked up, amplified and spread by a host of Russian-linked accounts, platforms and automated trolls. They added new, often deeply implausible theories. As well as blaming Islamists, some suggested Frances yellow vest protesters might be responsible. Others suggested unlikely Ukrainian links to the fire, while one completely without evidence speculated the pope himself would call for a mosque to be built on the medieval cathedrals ruins. The latter claim came from the website of the Kremlin- supporting Tsargrad TV which pushes a relentlessly nationalist pro-Russian Orthodox Church line highly supportive of President Vladimir Putin. Its sheer implausibility points to a growing trend in the growing ideological battles on social media and the Internet in which the truth can appear increasingly irrelevant. How to handle this and whether, when, how, and if to exploit it is a growing challenge for almost every country. In the aftermath of last weekends Easter bombings that killed more than 350, Sri Lanka imposed an outright if not always effective block on multiple https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-48022530 social media platforms including Facebook, WhatsApp and Snapchat. That follows widespread condemnation of social media platforms after the New Zealand mosque shooting the previous month, when unedited footage streamed by the gunman was widely distributed. Story continues CRISIS How effective such restrictions are remains in question. Indeed, they may be counterproductive, simply adding to the air of crisis. In Sri Lanka, many users were able to find ways around the block, not least to reassure friends and family they were safe. Indeed, by activating a function whereby users could mark themselves unharmed after attacks and disasters, the tech firm may well have contributed to the bans failure, whether willingly or not. Such draconian action can also simply reinforce the narrative that a government has something to hide particularly in Sri Lankas case, where warnings of an imminent attack from other intelligence services may have been ignored. What does appear increasingly clear is that the Internet and social media platforms have become something of a cesspool for hatred and conspiracy, and that powerful forces wish to use that to their advantage. What is equally clear is that those who wish to stop them have yet to find a truly workable strategy. Getting moderators to review and remove potentially harmful content has been the preferred route of many platforms. But it is, those involved in the process say, often a losing battle. Newspaper comments sections can remain full of racist, misogynist and similar comments. So does Facebook, despite hiring an army of often poorly paid contractors to remove material it says breaches its ever-evolving terms of use. Those who have done https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18229714/cognizant-facebook-content-moderator-interviews-trauma-working-conditions-arizona the job describe it as an unending nightmare of pornography, violence including beheadings, child abuse and more along with sexist, racist, and brutally misogynist rants. Contractors are timed to make fast decisions, and report horrific mental health issues in consequence. Without them, even more of that material would doubtless reach a wider audience but even stopping that would only tackle the tip of the iceberg. In many ways, of course, these problems are not new. Sectarian, racist, and divisive language and rumour have long been a potent tool for populists, xenophobes and anyone else seeking to foster division, fear and distrust to entrench their own control. Indeed, in many locations for example, the Indian subcontinent things used to be much worse. In 1983, a much smaller attack by Tamil Tiger rebels on government troops triggered massive ethnic riots against Tamils in the capital, killing hundreds and jump-starting a quarter century long war. Indias Sikhs suffered similar attacks the next year following the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Much worse communal violence was orchestrated during Indias 1947 partition by radio, leaflet and rumour, long before the advent of the Internet. MEMES The effect of social media can be rapid but it can also be slower and even more insidious. In private Facebook and WhatsApp groups, truth often does not matter, and conversations and memes can swiftly prove self-reinforcing. In Western politics, that increasingly includes Islamaphobia, anti-Semitism, or both, often couched as part of a wider backlash against liberal multicultural elites and norms. This is a world created by modern technology and political frustration, particularly amongst the perceived losers of globalisation. But it is a situation some actors in particular Russia, the far right, and Islamist groups such as Islamic State have learned to exploit. A study this year https://www.stratcomcoe.org/robotrolling-20191 by the NATO Strategic Indications Centre of Excellence found a majority of accounts on Russian social media site VK that were trolling against Western military activity in Eastern Europe were automated and robotic. Such tools are increasingly for sale. A separate report by the same centre identified an increasingly lucrative black market in often illegal social media manipulation software, data and other products, allowing users to buy likes, comments, ads and fake personas. Many are easy to spot but improved artificial intelligence and machine learning may soon make that more difficult. Perhaps the best pointer to how to tackle this comes from the Christchurch mosque massacre in New Zealand. While still criticizing social media firms, Prime Minister Jacinda Arden spent most of her time on more practical solutions introducing gun control and pushing forward a more inclusive vision of the country that blunted the attackers message. Whether that will be enough is another question. Because if the West ever genuinely falls, it is as likely to do so through social media-fuelled bigotry, division and deceit as any physical attack. *** Peter Apps is a writer on international affairs, globalisation, conflict and other issues. He is the founder and executive director of the Project for Study of the 21st Century; PS21, a non-national, non-partisan, non-ideological think tank. Paralysed by a war-zone car crash in 2006, he also blogs about his disability and other topics. He was previously a reporter for Reuters and continues to be paid by Thomson Reuters. Since 2016, he has been a member of the British Army Reserve and the UK Labour Party, and is an active fundraiser for the party. (Editing by Giles Elgood) By Mariya Gordeyeva ALMATY (Reuters) - Beset by economic hardship, enterprising Turkmens have found a way to supplement their incomes - smuggling towels and bed linen into neighboring Kazakhstan. Moving hundreds of items every trip in trademark Chinese plaid bags which at times have clogged airport luggage belts, informal traders - mostly women in their late forties and fifties - hand them over to relatives or local partners to be resold for up to five times the purchase price. Dressed in traditional Central Asian garb such as headscarves and long skirts, these women arrive on almost every flight from Ashgabat to Almaty, Kazakhstan's biggest city. Textiles are among the few items manufactured domestically from local feedstock and prices for items produced by state-owned companies have remained stable for years even as the Turkmen manat lost four-fifths of its value on the black market due to Turkmenistan's falling gas export revenue. A deal to resume gas exports to Russia this month brought hope, but turned out to be small and short-term. Turkmenistan, where president Kurbanguly Berdimukhamedov rules with an elaborate personality cult, is one of the world's most closed countries. There are no opposition parties or media critical of the government and Berdymukhamedov, often referred to as Arkadag (Protector), wields sweeping powers. Turkmenistan rarely allows visits by foreign journalists and the textile trade offers a glimpse into the depth of its economic problems. INDUSTRIAL SCALE The trade attracted the attention of Almaty airport officials this year when luggage from Turkmenistan started clogging its belts. The planes, it turned out, were stuffed with textiles. "My daughter trades at a bazaar (in Kazakhstan) and I bring her goods little by little... which I buy from our (Turkmen) stores," said a Turkmen woman picking up bags from the luggage belt in Almaty, Kazakhstan's commercial hub. Like all other people involved in this informal textiles trading, the woman spoke on the condition of anonymity because traders like her dodge customs duties by claiming their goods are personal belongings not meant for resale. These de facto smuggling operations reached industrial scale in early 2019, prompting the Almaty airport to lodge an official complaint with the Turkmen flag carrier. "There were parcels weighing over 50-60 kilograms (110-130 pounds) each," said Marina Zabara, a complaints inspector at the airport. Oversized parcels have since disappeared but the flow of textiles continues. A Reuters reporter saw Turkmen travelers pick up parcels of textiles upon arrival in Almaty this month. "A woman from Turkmenistan moved to our village last year and offered us to sell their textiles," said a Kazakh trader working at a market on the outskirts of Almaty. "Her mother brings the goods as luggage, as many items as she can." At Almaty's biggest market, traders display Turkmen bedding - often with traditional patterns based on deer and sheep horns or abstract human figures - from fully-packed cargo containers. "The demand is good, with the most expensive bedding set priced at 10,000 tenge ($26)," said one trader. Some hotels have also become wholesale buyers, Turkmens say. The official exchange rate of the manat is 3.5 per dollar, but on the black market a dollar fetches 18.6 manat. A Kazakh citizen who used to live in Turkmenistan told Reuters that by buying out luggage allowances from other travelers and bribing airline officials, a "shuttle trader" can move up to 200 kilograms (441 pounds) in one trip. (Additional reporting by Olzhas Auyezov in Almaty and Marat Gurt in Ashgabat,; Writing by Olzhas Auyezov, editing by Ed Osmond) Algiers (AFP) - Abassi Madani, founder of Algeria's banned Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), was buried Saturday in Algiers in front of thousands of supporters after his death in Qatar where he had long lived in exile. Madani's body was carried from his family home to Ennadi mosque, where believers recited the Islamic funeral prayer, ahead of his transportation to a cemetery. Cries of "God is greatest" and slogans used by the FIS in the 1990s rang out. Mourners had gathered well in advance of the arrival of the remains of Madani, who called for armed struggle in 1992 after Algeria's military scrapped the country's first multi-party parliamentary election. The FIS won that election, and pushed for the creation of an Islamic state in the North African nation. He died in a Doha hospital on Wednesday from a "long illness" at the age of 88, FIS co-founder Ali Belhadj said. The FIS had been on track to win an absolute majority in the 1991-92 parliamentary election when the army cancelled the second round, triggering a decade of civil war that left 200,000 dead, according to official figures. Madani had been living in Qatar since 2003. He had fled into exile after serving a 12-year prison sentence in Algeria for charges that predated the election. For many Algerians, Madani remained most associated with the bloodletting during the civil war that pitted the security forces against sometimes feuding Islamist armed groups. He was imprisoned in 1991 and only called for an end to the violence in 1999, when his group said it was laying down its arms. The UNHCR said on April 24 that 325 refugees and migrants trapped by fighting in Libya were evacuated from the Qaser Bin Ghashir detention center in southern Tripoli amid a worsening security situation and escalating violence. The refugees were transferred to Zawiyah, a town west of Tripoli, where, the UNHCR said, they would be at reduced risk of being caught up in the hostilities. UNHCR expressed concern for about 3,000 refugees and migrants that they said remained in detention centers in Tripoli. The International Organization for Migration (IOM), who carried out the evacuation along with UNHCR, said on the same day that the emergency relocation came as a lifesaving measure while advocacy efforts continue to end arbitrary detention. Credit: UNHCR via Storyful Joe Biden raised $6.3 million in the 24 hours since announcing his presidential campaign, a haul that topped all of his rivals in the Democratic race. The former vice presidents campaign said Friday that more than 96,000 people sent money with an average contribution amount of $41. Of those who contributed online, 97 percent gave less than $200. Most of the top candidates have been touting their first-day contributions as a show of their support from voters. The biggest previous totals came from former Texas congressman Beto ORourke, who totaled $6.1 million, and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who took in $5.9 million. After months of preparation and speculation, Biden formally announced his campaign Thursday and started out with a lead in most polls, followed closely by Sanders. First-day fundraising has become an important benchmark for the top tier candidates. Bidens total may help quiet doubters in the party who questioned his ability to raise money and sustain his front-runner status over the 10 months until the first actual nominating contest. Bidens haul is all earmarked for the nomination race, according to TJ Ducklo, a spokesman for the campaign. Ducklo tweeted that 65,000 donations were new donors whose names were not on the campaigns existing email lists. Within 90 minutes of announcing his candidacy by video, the campaign received contributions from all 50 states, Ducklo said. Like most of his rivals, Biden took a pledge to refuse contributions from corporate political action committees and registered lobbyists. Sanders and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren have vowed not to attend big-dollar fundraisers where donors who can write bigger checks have a chance to interact directly with candidates. Philadelphia Fundraiser Biden, 76, attended a fundraiser in Philadelphia Thursday night hosted by Comcast Corp. executive David Cohen and his wife Rhonda, and has an event planned on May 8 in Los Angeles with former Google chairman Eric Schmidt, movie mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg and Rufus Gifford, who served as finance director of former President Barack Obamas reelection campaign, among the organizers. Story continues But with such a wide field vying for support among donors, both big and small, it could be difficult for Biden to build the kind of financial advantage that normally goes with being an early front-runner. Many big donors are waiting for the field to eventually shrink before committing to a candidate. Others have opened their checkbooks to multiple candidates. Katzenberg, among the earliest Hollywood heavyweights to back Obama in 2007, gave $2,800 apiece to three White House hopefuls during the first quarter of the year: Senators Kamala Harris of California, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York. Schmidt donated $2,800 to Booker. Bidens late entry into the race has given his opponents a leg-up in assembling the war chests theyll need heading into 2020s compressed primary schedule, with just four weeks separating the Iowa caucuses in early February and the multi-state Super Tuesday contests. Eight candidates reported to the Federal Election Commission that they ended March with at least $6 million in the bank. Sanders topped the list with $15.7 million. MEXICO CITY (AP) Mexico's new militarized police force known as the National Guard has been deployed for the first time to the Gulf coast state of Veracruz even before the country's congress has passed its supporting legislation. During an event Friday in Minatitlan, where 13 people were gunned down at a party a week ago, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and his defense secretary said the National Guard was already at work. Earlier this month Lopez Obrador named an active duty army general to command the new security force. Human rights groups criticized the decision and have opposed giving the military more responsibility for domestic policing. Last year saw the highest number of murders in at least 20 years. The military is generally seen as less corrupt than the police in Mexico. Beirut (AFP) - Air strikes by Syrian regime ally Russia killed 10 civilians in the jihadist-held northwestern region of Idlib on Friday, a monitor said, as unsuccessful peace talks ended in Kazakhstan. The raids killed three civilians including a boy on the outskirts of the town of Kafranbel, and seven including a girl in the town of Tal Hawash, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Syria's civil war has killed more than 370,000 people since it started in 2011, and endless rounds of negotiations have failed to stem the bloodshed. The Damascus regime has won back large parts of the country from rebels and jihadists since Russia intervened in the war in 2015. But several key areas remain beyond government reach, including Idlib, which is controlled by a former Al-Qaeda affiliate. Russia and rebel-backer Turkey in September inked a buffer zone deal to prevent a massive regime offensive on Idlib and nearby regions, close to the Turkish border. But the area, currently home to some three million people, has come under increasing bombardment since jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham took full control of it in January. The latest air raids came as two days of talks on ending the war in Syria -- sponsored by Russia, fellow regime ally Iran, and rebel backer Turkey -- concluded in Kazakhstan. In a statement released after the meeting, the three countries expressed concern about HTS extending its influence in Idlib. They stressed their "determination to continue cooperation in order to ultimately eliminate" HTS and the Islamic State group, the statement said. US-backed forces expelled IS from the last patch of their 2014 "caliphate" last month, but the jihadists still have a presence in the Syrian desert and sleeper cells elsewhere. - '200 dead since February' - The United Nations has expressed worry over the new wave of bombardment on the Idlib region, around which a buffer zone was never fully implemented. Story continues "I am alarmed by the recent escalation of violence and hostilities in and around the demilitarised zone in north-western Syria," the UN regional coordinator for Syria, Panos Moumtzis, said Thursday. "Since February, over 200 civilians have reportedly been killed in Idlib," he said. The fighting had also resulted in 120,000 people fleeing to areas closer to the Turkey border, he added. Syria's war has displaced millions since it began with the repression of anti-government protests in 2011. The talks in Kazakhstan Friday ended without notable progress on forming a committee to draw up a post-war constitution for the country. The meeting had broached the issue with UN Special Envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, but further talks in Geneva would be needed, the joint statement said. The parties were committed to "the establishment and the convening of the Constitutional Committee at the earliest in Geneva, holding the next round of consultations in Geneva" and supporting UN efforts, it read. But talks in Kazakhstan would also continue, with Syria's neighbours Iraq and Lebanon to be invited to the next round of talks in July. Jordan and the United States have observed the talks in the past. After years of failed UN-led negotiations to end the war, Russia has taken a lead role in diplomatic efforts through the so-called Astana process. The capital of Kazakhstan was called Astana until last month, when it was renamed Nur-Sultan after the country's outgoing president. AMPARA, Sri Lanka (AP) Militants linked to Easter suicide bombings opened fire and set off explosives during a raid by Sri Lankan security forces on a house in the country's east, leaving behind a grisly discovery Saturday: 15 bodies, including six children. The gunbattle that began Friday night and the carnage that followed come amid widespread fear of more attacks as officials hunt for militants with explosives believed to still be at large after the coordinated bombings of churches and luxury hotels that killed more than 250 people last weekend. Raids and police curfews have shut down areas of eastern Sri Lanka, and Catholic leaders have canceled Sunday Masses indefinitely. Officials also urged Muslims to stay home for prayers in an extraordinary call by the clergy to curtail worship. The government on Saturday also formally banned two extremist groups purportedly linked to the attacks, allowing officials to confiscate their property, presidential spokesman Dharmasri Ekanayake said. The U.S. Department of State, citing terror groups plotting more possible attacks, urged Americans to reconsider travel to Sri Lanka and ordered the school-age children of government workers to leave the country. The U.S. Embassy in Sri Lanka has previously warned the public to stay away from places of worship over the weekend, a stark alert underlining that authorities believe some attackers remain at large. The gunfight Friday came after police tipped off soldiers about a suspected safe house near the town of Sammanthurai in Sri Lanka's Ampara District, where authorities said the militants set off three explosions and opened fire. Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara said some of the dead likely were militants who blew themselves up in suicide bombings. Earlier, the military said at least one civilian had been killed in the attack. A girl and a woman survived the explosion at the suspected safe house but were critically injured and being treated at a hospital, Gunasekara said. Story continues Photographs taken by The Associated Press show the charred remains of one child and the body of another wearing a green T-shirt with the words "good boy" written on the back. The bodies of an adult woman and man were found after the explosion with their clothes burned off. Meanwhile, the military said security forces had recovered explosives, detonators, "suicide kits," military uniforms and Islamic State group flags in the ongoing raids. Gunasekara said officers acting on information from intelligence officials also found 150 sticks of blasting gelatin and 100,000 small metal balls, as well as a van and clothing suspected of being used by those involved in the Easter attacks. Suicide bomb vests often are packed with such balls to increase the shrapnel in the explosion, making them even deadlier. Fear of more attacks has led to increased security at churches, shrines, temples and mosques across the multiethnic island nation of 21 million off the southern coast of India. Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the archbishop of Colombo, told reporters Friday that church officials had seen a leaked security document describing Roman Catholic churches and other denominations as a major target. He asked the faithful across Sri Lanka to stay home for their own safety. "We don't want repetitions," Ranjith said. It was an extraordinary request for a Catholic clergyman to make, as churches often remain a refuge. Giovanni Maria Vian, a church historian and emeritus editor of the Vatican newspaper, said he believed it was the first time the church had canceled Masses across a country for security reasons. In Galle Face, a normally crowded ocean side park in Colombo near some of the hotels that were bombed, only a few people could be seen Saturday. Kiosks were closed and traffic was lighter than usual, with security officials blocking streets and checking vehicles at barricades. Yashwant Kumar Singh, 23, a worker from India, said he wants to go back to his homeland because he fears another attack. "If it only happened on one day, then that wouldn't have been so difficult, but bombs are going off here every day. That is why there is an atmosphere of fear. We are feeling very scared," he said. Meanwhile, cleaning crews worked at St. Anthony's Shrine in Colombo, the capital, where broken glass still littered a blood-stained floor, the remnants of one of the Easter attacks. They collected debris, tossing it into a truck parked outside as a heavy contingent of security forces stood guard. Authorities told Muslims to worship at home rather than attend communal Friday prayers that are the most important religious service of the week, but several mosques held services anyway. At a mosque in Colombo, police armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles stood guard outside for hundreds of worshippers. The Easter attackers are "not Muslims. This is not Islam. This is an animal," said Akurana Muhandramlage Jamaldeen Mohamed Jayfer, the chairman of the mosque. "We don't have a word (strong enough) to curse them." There were also reports by some Muslims of harassment because of their religion. A local television channel showed people on a bus asking a Muslim woman wearing a traditional burqa to either remove it or leave the bus. She later left the bus. Abdul Azeez Abdul Sattar, 63, an auto-rickshaw driver, said a man in his neighborhood refused to hire him, telling him, "You are a terrorist; you have a bomb. I won't take your auto." There were several armed police officers guarding the Holy Cross Church in Gampaha, a predominantly Buddhist town. "People are shocked, because this came years after the war ended, and after all these years, we have been living in peace," said Pradeep Kumara, 36, a clerk at a private company, referring to Sri Lanka's long civil war, which ended in 2009. "This has disrupted our work, and our ordinary and normal life. We don't want to go back to that troublesome period." Sri Lanka's government, crippled from a long political crisis between the president and prime minister last year, promised swift action to capture militants still at large. President Maithripala Sirisena said about 140 people had been identified as having links to the Islamic State group. A "major search operation has been undertaken," Sirisena said. "Every household in the country will be checked." On Friday, police confirmed that the leader of the local militant group blamed for the attack, Mohamed Zahran, died in the suicide bombing at the Shangri-La Hotel, one of six hotels and churches attacked. Zahran appeared in an Islamic State video claiming responsibility for the coordinated assault, and authorities in both Sri Lanka and Australia confirmed links between IS and the attack. ___ Mallawarachi reported from Colombo, Sri Lanka. ___ Associated Press journalists Rishabh Jain, Emily Schmall and Foster Klug in Colombo, Sri Lanka, contributed to this report. Fifteen people including six children died in a battle between Sri Lankan security forces and suicide bombers who blew themselves up in the latest fallout from the Easter attacks, police said Saturday. Three men set off explosives that killed themselves, three women and six children inside what was believed to be a jihadist hideout near the eastern town of Kalmunai. "Three other men, also believed to be suicide bombers, were found dead outside the house," police said in a statement. They were shot dead by security forces, police officials added. Security forces tried to storm the house late Friday and a one-hour long gun battle ensued before the explosions, a military official said. A civilian was also killed in the crossfire during the raid near the predominantly Muslim town. Hundreds of families later fled their homes. Police and troops have stepped up searches after the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attacks on three churches and three luxury hotels, which killed least 253 people and injured 500. Kalmunai is in the same region as the home town of the jihadist Zahran Hashim who founded the group accused of staging the attacks. Police and officials said a series of tip offs after the arrest of Hashim's driver, Mohamed Sharif Adam, in Hashim's home town of Kathankudy led them to the safe house. Officials said the driver provided information leading to a raid on Friday on a hideout south of Kathankudy where they believe Hashim and other bombers recorded a video pledging allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi before carrying out the Easter attacks. - Islamic State flag - Video on state television showed explosives, a generator, a drone and a large quantity of batteries inside the converted studio. An IS flag and uniforms similar to those worn by the eight fighters in the video were also found, police said. That in turn provided a tip off about the hideout in Kalmunai, 370 kilometres (230 miles) east of the capital. Story continues Authorities named Hashim's group, National Thowheeth Jama'ath (NTJ), as the perpetrators of the attacks. They announced Friday that he had been killed in the bombing of the Shangri-La hotel in Colombo. President Maithripala Sirisena used emergency powers to ban the NTJ and a splinter group identified as Jamathei Millathu Ibraheem (JMI), his office said in a statement Saturday. "All movable and immovable property of these two organisations will be confiscated," the statement said. The government is on the defensive over its failure to heed a foreign intelligence warning that NTJ was planning suicide bombings on churches. Police chief Pujith Jayasundara became the second high-ranking official to resign over the blunders Friday, after top defence ministry official Hemasiri Fernando stepped down. - Private prayers - Sri Lanka's Catholic leader, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the archbishop of Colombo, has said he felt "betrayed" by the government's failure to act on the warnings. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe apologised on Friday. "We take collective responsibility and apologise to our fellow citizens for our failure to protect victims of these tragic events," he wrote on Twitter. Amidst fears of new attacks, the Roman Catholic church has suspended all public services across the country until security is guaranteed by the government. The archbishop, who has appealed to Catholics to stay home and say private prayers, is to hold a special mass at his official residence Sunday which will be broadcast live on television. Some groups were expected to hold public vigils in Colombo and Negombo, where St Sebastian's Church suffered some of the worst casualties in the bombings. The military have poured troops onto the streets to back up police as they search for suspects using newly granted powers under a state of emergency. At least 94 people are in custody, including a man believed to be the father of two of the bombers. Authorities warned the hunt would continue. "We now have info that there are about 140 people in Sri Lanka linked to the Islamic State. We can and we will eradicate all of them very soon," Sirisena said Friday, when he announced the new legislation to tackle extremist groups. - Tourism hit - Dozens of foreigners died in the attacks and the government has said it expects the number of overseas tourists to fall by 30 percent this year, at a cost of $1.5 billion in revenues. Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera said the island -- which depends on tourism as a cornerstone of its economy -- could take up to two years to fully recover. The United States, Israel, Australia, India and Britain have all warned their citizens against visiting Sri Lanka. Ramesh Raju has become a hero to the shell-shocked congregation of the Zion evangelical church in Batticaloa after he died stopping a suicide bomber who was bent on killing hundreds of people. Nearly a week after the bombing, the road leading to Raju's house in the eastern city is flanked by posters and photographs of the 40-year-old father of two who blocked the attacker at the church door. A stream of well-wishers queue to express condolences to his widow, a Sunday school teacher. Raju was one of 29 people, including 14 children, that media reports say died in the blast at Zion, one of three churches and three hotels targeted by Jihadist bombers. But about 600 people who were inside at the time escaped the human bomb. The dead from the other two churches make up the majority of the 253 overall death toll. "When he felt suspicious about the bomber he could have run away to safety but I think he chose to scuffle with him in order to stop him from entering the church," his father Velusami Raju told AFP. "I feel very proud that he saved so many lives, especially so many children," he added. - Jihadist target - The east coast city is thought to have become a target as the National Thowheeth Jamaath (NTJ) blamed for the attacks came from the region. Zion church was packed at the time and there were dozens of children fresh from Sunday school. Raju had volunteered to help manage the crowds, according to witnesses. When he spotted an unfamiliar man carrying two huge bags, Raju confronted him and asked him to leave them outside. The bomb went off during the argument. A number of other children and parents who were outside at the time were killed along with him. "He was a very good man," said Raju's father, who described his eldest son as the "pillar" of their large family. "Every memory we shared is so precious... He was the main support for our family, for his three younger sisters and younger brother," the 63-year-old said. Story continues Father and son spoke just minutes before the explosion, Velusami said. Raju promised to call him back once the service was over. The next time his phone rang, it was a parishioner calling to tell him his son had been killed in a blast. Raju's younger sister also died in the bombing, along with her husband and 20-month-old son. "I have lost my grandson but at the same time I feel so proud that my son saved so many children, so other families don't have to go through what we are going through," the retired mill worker said, choking back tears. - Services halted - Tucked away on a leafy street, the church is now surrounded by heavy security and investigators comb the premises for evidence. The congregation does not know when a service will be held there again. The other two churches attacked were Roman Catholic and the church's leaders have suspended all services across the country until Sri Lankan authorities can guarantee security. Raju was a success story in the Muslim-majority town, setting up his own company at the age of 28 and raising a family with his high school sweetheart. To his loved ones, the moments leading up to his death serve as yet another reminder of the scale of their loss. "A lot of army men came to the funeral and saluted his coffin because of his courage. I hope my son's actions inspire others to be brave," Velusami said. "Now that he's gone, I have no idea how we will go on but I am praying and asking God for help." The Hill Rep. Madison Cawthorn and his wife are divorcing after less than a year of marriage, with the North Carolina Republican citing his job in Congress as part of the reason for the split."When my wife Cristina and I were engaged, I was not a member of Congress," Cawthorn, 26, said in a statement posted by his spokesman on Wednesday. "I felt called to serve and we both agreed that I should run. Our victory was unprecedented. But overnight, our lives... LONDON (Reuters) - British culture minister Jeremy Wright said on Thursday he could not rule out a criminal investigation over the "unacceptable" disclosure of confidential discussions on the role of China's Huawei Technologies in 5G network supply chains. Huawei, the world's biggest producer of telecoms equipment, is under intense scrutiny after the United States told allies not to use its technology because of fears it could be a vehicle for Chinese spying. Huawei has categorically denied this. Sources told Reuters on Wednesday Britain's National Security Council (NSC) had decided to bar Huawei from all core parts of the country's 5G network and restrict its access to non-core parts. The leak of information from a meeting of the NSC, first reported in national newspapers, has sparked anger in parliament because the committee's discussion are supposed to be secret. "We cannot exclude the possibility of a criminal investigation here," Wright said, speaking in response to an urgent question on Huawei in parliament. "I do not think that the motivation for this leak matters in the slightest. This was unacceptable and it is corrosive to the ability to deliver good government." Wright said that such leaks endangered the ability of the committee, made up of senior ministers and which hears regularly from intelligence agency bosses, to get unequivocal and frank security advice from experts. "Decisions will get less and less properly-based if we can't trust people to keep private what should be kept private," he said. A spokesman for Prime Minister Theresa May, who chairs the NSC, declined to comment upon leaks or questions on leak enquiries, but said: "The prime minister is clear that the protection of information on matters of national security is of the highest importance." Wright said that he would report to parliament the conclusions of a government review of the 5G supply chain once they had been taken. (Reporting by William James, Elizabeth Piper and Kylie MacLellan. Editing by Andrew MacAskill) Beijing (AFP) - Chinese President Xi Jinping said Saturday $64 billion in deals were signed at a summit on his Belt and Road Initiative and more nations would join the global infrastructure programme as he sought to ease concerns over the colossal project. Xi and 37 world leaders wrapped up a three-day forum in Beijing with pledges to ensure that projects on the new Silk Road are green and financially sustainable following concerns about debt and environmental damage. "We are committed to supporting open, clean and green development and rejecting protectionism," Xi told journalists at the end of the forum, without taking questions. His signature foreign policy aims to reinvent the ancient Silk Road to connect Asia to Europe and Africa through massive investments in maritime, road and rail projects -- with hundreds of billions of dollars in financing from Chinese banks. But critics say the six-year-old project is a plan to boost Beijing's global influence, riddled with opaque deals favouring Chinese companies and saddling nations with debt and environmental damage. The US, India and some European nations have looked at the project with suspicion. Washington did not send any representatives to the meeting. "This year's forum sends a clear message: more and more friends and partners will join in the Belt and Road co-operation," Xi said. A document released after the meeting showed that Equatorial Guinea, Liberia, Luxembourg, Jamaica, Peru, Italy, Barbados, Cyprus and Yemen were the latest countries to join the club. Xi said enterprises will be the main driver in all Belt and Road projects and market principles will apply, with governments providing a supporting role. "This will make the projects more sustainable and create a fair and non-discriminatory environment for foreign investors," Xi said. Xi said that business leaders meeting at a side event signed some $64 billion worth of deals during the forum, without providing details. Story continues At the picturesque Yanqi Lake outside Beijing, leaders from Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America gathered to issue a joint communique. The gathering included Russian President Vladimir Putin, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, whose nation became the first G7 member to join Belt and Road, and Pakistan's Imran Khan. - Project 'sustainability - The massive projects, financed mainly through Chinese bank loans and investments, have raised concerns that poorer countries are being saddled with debt -- Sri Lanka turned over a deep-sea port to China for 99 years after it was unable to repay loans. A communique released at the end of the meeting said leaders encouraged multilateral development banks and other international financial institutions to support projects "in fiscally sustainable ways" and mobilise private capital in line with local needs. "We emphasise the importance of economic, social, fiscal, financial and environmental sustainability of projects," it said. The draft communique says BRI will welcome developed countries and international investors to participate in the projects. "Faced with this rising resistance for the past year and a half and this debt image ... China is trying to reposition (BRI) and send a reassuring message," said Nadege Rolland, a senior fellow at the National Bureau of Asian Research, a US-based think tank. But "let's see how it is put into practice", she said. China's finance ministry released guidelines Thursday for assessing financial risk and debt sustainability to apply to projects in BRI countries. But the document notes that countries already facing payment problems or in the process of restructuring payments "does not automatically mean that debt is unsustainable in a forward-looking sense". - 'Civilised and soft' - Beijing also published a list Saturday of 283 "deliverables" that bore the Belt and Road brand name, including agreements between museums and art festivals, and even cooperation on space -- a clear sign that BRI is a major soft power tool for China as well. Russian President Vladimir Putin praised China for acting in a "civilised and soft manner" and he took a veiled swipe at the United States. "Nobody wants sanctions, nobody wants trade wars, except those who start them. These sanctions harm the world economy," Putin said, adding that China "currently defends liberal values". BRI projects have faced pushback in some countries. In Malaysia, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad cancelled some planned works and renegotiated a rail project, cutting 30 percent off the price tag. But Mahathir and other leaders attending the summit had fulsome praise for BRI. COLOMBO, Sri Lanka -- Militants linked to Easter suicide bombings opened fire and set off explosives during a raid by Sri Lankan security forces on a house in the country's east, leaving behind a grisly discovery Saturday: 15 bodies, including six children. The gunbattle that began Friday night and the carnage that followed come amid widespread fear of more attacks as officials hunt for militants with explosives believed to still be at large after the coordinated bombings of churches and luxury hotels that killed more than 250 nearly a week ago. Raids and police curfews have shut down areas of eastern Sri Lanka, and Catholic leaders have canceled Sunday Masses indefinitely. Officials also urged Muslims to stay home for prayers in an extraordinary call by the clergy to curtail worship. The gunfight came after police tipped off soldiers about a suspected safe house near the town of Sammanthurai, where authorities said the militants detonated three explosions and opened fire. Israel will release two prisoners in return for the remains of an Israeli soldier missing since 1982 which were recovered by Russian special forces in Syria, an Israeli official said. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter Russia this month handed over the remains and personal effects of Zachary Baumel, who was 21 when he was declared missing in action along with two other soldiers in the Battle of Sultan Yacoub during the First Lebanon War. Zachary Baumel (Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit) "Israel has decided to release two prisoners as a goodwill gesture," the Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Saturday. The official did not provide details about the identity of the prisoners and said that the decision to release them was made after Baumel's remains were recovered. Russia said Saturday that the prisoners were Syrian. Russian envoy to Syria, Alexander Lavrentiev, said the return of Baumel's body was not a "unilateral" action. Zachary Baumel's body returns to Israel after 37 years (Photo: IDF) The official was responding to reports by Israeli media that said the prisoners were Syrian. There was no immediate comment from Syrian or Russian authorities. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a memorial service for Zachary Baumel in Moscow (Photo: GPO) A spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declined to comment. Baumel was laid to rest at the military cemetery on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem earlier this month, a day after his remains were returned to his family and 37 years after he went missing. The funeral for Zachary Baumel in Jerusalem (Photo: EPA) The funeral was attended by many high-profile Israeli officials, including President Reuven Rivlin and Prime Minister Netanyahu, as well as members of the soldier's family. Baumel's family received his remains after forensic scientists in Tel Aviv confirmed by DNA test that the body belonged to the Brooklyn-born soldier. A young Zachary Baumel with his father, Yonah (Photo: Courtesy) The soldier's remains were repatriated to Israel after Russian troops located them in the Palestinian refugee camp Yarmouk in Syria. According to IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, the body was returned to Israel on an El Al plane and identified after years of "significant intelligence operations." Israel on Saturday named the two Syrian prisoners it will release in return for the remains of fallen IDF soldier Zachary Baumel, which were recovered by Russian soldiers in Syria earlier this year. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter Hamis Ahmed, 35, is a Fatah activist from the Yarmuk refugee camp in Syria. He was caught in 2005 as he plotted to infiltrate an IDF base in the southern Golan Heights in order to harm and possibly kidnap soldiers. He was initially set to be released in 2023. Hamis, L; Tawil (Photo: Amit Magal) The second prisoner is Zeidan Tawil, 57, a resident of Khader, Syria, who was imprisoned in 2008 for drug smuggling. He was to be released in July. The security establishment maintained that there was no deal between Israel and Syria, but since the return of Baumel to Israel, with the assistance of Russian intelligence, Damascus has expressed outrage at the move and the regime demanded something in return for what was seemingly concocted by Israel and Russia right under their noses over the last two years. Funeral of Baumel (Photo: EPA) Russia applied pressure on Israel to pacify Damascus and deliver Syrian President Bashar Assad some sort of goodwill gesture. Russia also acted a mediator to secure the release of the two Syrians. Meanwhile, Israeli strikes on Iranian targets in Syria have continued, according to foreign news sources. Baumel's sister Asna Haberman eulogizes her brother (Photo: Jorge Novominsky) In any case, as far as the Defense Ministry is concerned, in principal there is no change in its original policy regarding providing anything in exchange for the missing soldiers and a source said that the decision was taken after Baumel was returned as a "goodwill gesture." The Security Cabinet did not discuss the issue and Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit agreed that government authorization is not a necessary requirement in this case. The matter was handled by the Justice Ministry and President Rivlin who granted the two prisoners a pardon. 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. 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Even in the scorching heat, the actress wants to complete the shoot of her film. The actress has a huge fan-following which is why a huge crowd gathered to catch a glimpse of the actress as she shot some scenes in Bihar. The actress took a selfie with the immense pool of fans who had come just to see her act. Rani took to Instagram and shared her look from the film. Check it out here The film also stars Yash Kumar and Sushil Singh. Rani interacted with journalists on sets and revealed that 'Chotki Thakurain' is a different kind of film. The best part, Rani said, is that the shooting is being carried out in Bihar. The actress further said that the temperature is indeed too much in Bihar but it is also the ideal location to shoot. ''Being an artist, it is my duty to give my 100 percent. I won't compromise on my work. There is a lot of heat but my fans are giving me the energy to work by being on sets.", added the actress. The Bengaluru police on Saturday arrested retired army personnel for making a hoax call to police control room saying 19 terrorists had sneaked into Karnataka. 65-year-old Swamy Sundara Murthy, retired army personnel, works as a lorry driver. Live TV After receiving the call, Kolar and Bengaluru rural police formed a special squad and traced the call location and immediately swung into action. He was arrested from Avalahalli, in the outskirts of Bengaluru. Murthy's son was in the Indian Army and was martyred in the Kargil war. Murthy, son of Raj Gopal, is a resident of Munivenkatappa Layout in Avalahalli. After his arrest, he said that he had guessed that the terrorists might have sneaked in after the Easter Sunday blast in Sri Lanka. The blast killed 253 people and injured another 500. Earlier on Friday, Karnataka DG-IGP Neelmani N Raju had written to his counterparts in six states and a Union Territory after receiving a warning of terror attacks. According to the letter by Raju, he received an anonymous phone call, in which the caller, a man, claimed to have information about terror attacks in cities in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra, Telangana, Puducherry, Goa and Maharashtra. The caller according to the Karnataka DG-IGP, further claimed that the attacks will take place in trains. The letter by the Karnataka police official also intimated the presence of 19 terrorists in Tamil Nadu's Ramanathapuram. The Karnataka DG had also alerted his counterparts, asking them to take immediate necessary action to prevent any untoward incident. Several suicide bombers, members of the terrorist group, National Tawheed Jamath (NTJ), carried out a series of devastating blasts that tore through three churches, two of them Catholic, and three luxury hotels packed with Easter worshippers on Sunday. Himachal Pradesh: Dalai Lama returned to Dharamshala yesterday. He was admitted to a hospital in Delhi earlier this month, due to a chest infection. He said, "Fully recovered. No problem. The illness was a little serious, but now I have fully recovered." Tibetan spiritual leader, Dalai Lama, returned to Himachal Pradesh's Dharamshala, after over more than two weeks of being hospitalised, as reported by news agency ANI on Saturday. He returned to Dharamshala on Friday after he was released from the Delhi hospital. Live TV The Buddhist monk was hospitalised on April 9 following complaints of chest infection. Speaking to news agency ANI, he said, "I've fully recovered. No problem. The illness was a little serious, but now I have fully recovered." The 83-year-old Nobel peace laureate fled to India in early 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule lives in exile in the northern hill town of Dharamshala. Many of his supporters had posted messages on social media wishing him a speedy recovery. "Concerned that he has been hospitalised," Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had tweeted. "The world needs him." About 100,000 Tibetans live in India and many worry that their fight for a genuinely autonomous homeland would end with the Dalai Lama. He told Reuters in March his incarnation could be found in India after he dies and warned that any other successor named by China would not be respected. China, which took control of Tibet in 1950, brands him a dangerous separatist and has said its leaders have the right to approve his successor, as a legacy from China`s emperors. But many Tibetans, whose tradition holds that the soul of a senior Buddhist monk is reincarnated in the body of a child on his death, suspect any Chinese role as a ploy to exert influence on the community. In Beijing, foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a regular news briefing he was not aware of the Dalai Lama`s physical condition, but added, "The reincarnation of the Dalai Lama should follow the relevant Chinese laws, regulations and religious rituals." A higher secondary school in Sugnu town of Kakching district in Manipur was burnt down after the school administration had taken disciplinary action against some students, as reported by news agency ANI on Saturday morning. Live TV The St Josephs Higher Secondary School was burnt down on April 25 (Wednesday). The school principal, Rev Fr Dominic, said it is suspected to be done by local student organisations as they didn't like that action was taken against the students and wanted that the punishment is squashed, reported ANI. "We suspect it could be by local student organisations. They didn't like the action against students," ANI reported quoting the school principal on Friday. A total of 10 rooms have been destroyed of which two of them had documents, files and equipment. Manipur: St. Josephs Higher Secondary School, in Kakching's Sugnu was burnt down on 25 Apr after the school admn had taken disciplinary action against some students. Principal says, "We suspect it could be by local student orgs.They didn't like the action against students"(26.4) pic.twitter.com/xUqDKlohO8 ANI (@ANI) April 27, 2019 "We've been discussing that the reason could be negotiated with a local student organisation. They didn't like the correctional measure we had taken. They wanted the punishment quashed. 10 rooms have been destroyed, 2 of them had documents, files and equipment," added the Principal. Rev Fr Dominic, Principal: We've been discussing that the reason could be negotiation with local student org. They didn't like the correctional measure we had taken. They wanted the punishment quashed. 10 rooms have been destroyed, 2 of them had documents, files&equipment (26.04) pic.twitter.com/tZHBbbYWlz ANI (@ANI) April 27, 2019 National People's Party leader and state minister, Letpao Haokip, called it "an act of extremists". He assured assistance in the reconstruction of the school, adding that those behind the act shall be punished. Manipur Minister Letpao Haokip: This is an act of extremists, A students org is burning down a school!. I condemn the act. Whoever is involved in this act will be booked & punished. I'll help in the reconstruction of school so that students don't lose an academic year. (26.04) pic.twitter.com/Q4ET1C4yde ANI (@ANI) April 27, 2019 "This is an act of extremists. A students organisation is burning down a school. I condemn the act. Whoever is involved in this act will be booked & punished. I'll help in the reconstruction of school so that students don't lose an academic year," said Haokip. New Delhi: India has issued an advisory for citizens travelling to Sri Lanka after the deadly terror attacks in the island country on Easter Sunday. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Saturday issued a statement in which it said that Indians are advised to avoid any non-essential travel. "In view of the prevailing security situation in Sri Lanka in the aftermath of terror attacks on April 21, 2019, Indian nationals intending to travel to Sri Lanka are advised not to undertake non-essential travel," read the statement. "In case of those undertaking essential, emergency travels, they can contact the High Commission of India in Colombo or the Assistant High Commission in Kandy / Consulates in Hambantota and Jaffna in case of requirement of any assistance. The helpline numbers of the Indian High Commission are available on the Missions website," it added. Last Sunday, at least nine suicide bombers rocked Sri Lanka, killing 253 people and injuring over 500 others. Ten Indian nationals and at least 38 foreigners died in the attacks. Live TV Owing to the blasts, the Sri Lankan Government has beefed up security in the country. The statement released by MEA also said that a nation-wide emergency including night curfew is effective in Sri Lanka which may also affect the travel. Earlier this week, the Islamic State claimed the responsibility of the attacks. However, the Lankan government blamed the local Islamist extremist group called National Tawheed Jamath (NTJ) for the attacks. The police have so far arrested over 70 people in connection with the case. On Friday night, in a joint operation, Sri Lankan Army and Police raided a hideout in Sammanthurai, Ampara district, which lead to a gunbattle with a group of extremists, suspected to be linked to the attacks. Seven people were arrested by the security forces after the gunbattle. New Delhi/ Indore: Apoorva Shukla, in custody for allegedly murdering her husband Rohit Shekhar Tiwari, has been framed, claimed her family members. Rohit had relations with another woman. There was nothing between husband and wife, Apoorva's mother Manjula Shukla told Zee News. My daughter has been framed in the case. She claimed both Apoorva and Rohit Shekhar were suffering from serious diseases. Few days ago they organised a puja in the house for Rohit's well-being. This is a conspiracy. Apoorva and Rohit had serious illnesses, she said. Manjula further said Rohit and his mother Ujjawala Tiwari were involved in some property dispute. Rohit Shekhar, son of the late Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand ND Tiwari, was smothered to death on the intervening night of April 15-16, an autopsy report revealed. Apoorva, a practising lawyer in the Supreme Court, was arrested on April 26 on charges of murder, with police citing a "turbulent and unhappy" marriage as the motive. A Delhi court sent her to 14-days judicial custody on Friday. During her four-days of police interrogation, Apoorva displayed conflicting behaviour, an officer told news agency PTI.. She did not break down once but seemed to be regretting her decision of killing Rohit. On the night of the murder, Rohit had teased her claiming he had been drinking alcohol with his sister-in-law from the same glass. This enraged Apoorva so much that she attacked him violently. Police suspect she strangulated Rohit with bare hands and then used a pillow to smother him so that he could not shout for help. The police also found in CCTV footage that Apoorva, who lived in a separate room on the same floor, entered Rohit's room a couple of times after a murder. The police suspect that there are high chances of evidence being destroyed by her. New Delhi: The UK has expressed optimism that Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) chief Masood Azhar will be soon listed as an international terrorist at the United Nations. Speaking to reporters in Delhi, British High Commissioner Dominic Asquith said, "We are strong supporters of listing of Masood Azhar for a decade. So that we will get to that conclusion shortly. I do remain optimistic that it will be resolved and very much it will be." Without taking China's name he said, "We are waiting to see whether the country that is so far been resisting agreeing to its listing will lift that objection. Hoping, that we will get to that conclusion of listing Azhar." Live TV China had put a hold on the listing of Masood Azhar as an international terrorist on March 13 at the 1267 sanctions committee of the UNSC. JeM has taken responsibility for the February 14 Pulwama terror attack that killed 40 CRPF personnel. The UK, along with US and France has put a proposal for listing of Masood Azhar as an international terrorist in the aftermath of Pulwama. A resolution was also proposed by the US at UNSC after China put a hold in March. China in the past few weeks has been giving positive comments on the listing of Azhar, with China MOFA saying, "things are moving towards a settlement". The Indian foreign secretary was in China on Monday and gave evidence regarding JeM's involvement in terror attacks in India during his meetings with Chinese officials, including foreign minister Wang Yi. A statement from India's external affairs ministry said, "We have shared with China all evidence of terrorist activities of JeM and its leader, Masood Azhar. It is now for the 1267 Sanctions Committee and other authorised bodies of the UN to take a decision on the listing of Masood Azhar." 'Pakistan must act on terror' Asked, if the UK played a role in defusing tension between India and Pakistan after Pulwama, the high commissioner said, "We were very actively involved. We were certainly talking to a variety of key actors in Pakistan to make it clear on what we expected in terms of Pakistani action against terrorist groups who are operating around the line of control." Calling for a "verifiable" and "irreversible action" against terror groups, the British HC said, "don't mistake natural British modesty with what we say in public with a lack of activity". MORADA: BJP president Amit Shah on Saturday said made a scathing attack on former party leader Shatrughan Sinha, who recently joined Congress, for his remarks praising Mohammad Ali Jinnah. ''Shatrughan Sinha recently joined Congress and now he says Jinnah was as great as Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress. These Congress leaders are praising Jinnah, the man who divided the nation. This is his character,'' Shah said while addressing a rally here. Shatrughan Sinha had courted controversy by saying that Mohammad Ali Jinnah was a Congress leader who played a crucial role during independence. Sinha made these remarks while addressing a rally in Madhya Pradesh's Sausar on Friday. Sinha, however, dismissed his Jinnah remark as a slip of the tongue in an effort to defuse the controversy surrounding it. Whatever I said yesterday was a slip of tongue. I wanted to say Maulana Azad but uttered Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the actor-turned-politician said. The BJP resident also attacked what he termed a ''corrupt government'' in Odisha led by BJD supremo and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to ensure all-round growth in the state. Addressing a rally in Morada, the BJP chief said, ''Odisha can develop only if the "corrupt and inefficient" BJD government is thrown out in the state.'' Live TV Shah, who also addressed a rally in the tribal-dominated Mayurbhanj Lok Sabha constituency, stressed that the people across the country have resolved that Narendra Modi will become the Prime Minister again. "I have already addressed election meetings in 261 Lok Sabha constituencies. From east to west and north to south, I could hear people chant Modi, Modi,'' Shah said. "It is clear that the whole country has resolved to make Modi the prime minister once again," the BJP chief claimed. Shah claimed that the rising popularity of his party was giving sleepless nights to the BJD, which must be voted out of power in Odisha. People of Odisha must vote BJP to power both at the Centre and in the state for speedy development,'' Shah said. Referring to the multi-crore chit fund scams unearthed in Odisha, Shah alleged that the leaders of the ruling party duped hundreds of crores of hard-earned money belonging to the poor and the downtrodden. He promised that if BJP government comes to power in Odisha, all those linked with chit fund scam will be put behind bars within 90 days. Shah further alleged that more than 20 BJP workers and functionaries have been attacked and killed in Odisha. ''There is be no place for violence,'' he said. During his speech, the BJP president also hit out at the previous Congress-led UPA Government and accused it of adopting a soft approach towards Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. It is to be noted that assembly and seven-phased Lok Sabha election 2019 are being held together in the state. The fourth phase is scheduled to be held on April 29. (With Agency inputs) BARMER: Silver screen actor Sunny Deol, who recently joined the BJP, held his first roadshow in Rajasthan's Barmer on Saturday during which he campaigned for party candidate Kailash Choudhary. According to news agency ANI, Deol's roadshow was a major crowd puller as hundreds of people gathered to see Bollywood's most popular action hero. Barmer: Sunny Deol holds his first roadshow after joining BJP, campaigns for BJP LS candidate from Barmer, Kailash Choudhary. Manvendra Singh is the Congress candidate for the Barmer LS constituency. #Rajasthan #LokSabhaElections2019 pic.twitter.com/mqIooCybgI ANI (@ANI) April 27, 2019 Deol is campaigning for Kailash Choudhary, who has been pitted against Congress candidate Manvendra Singh from the Barmer Lok Sabha constituency in Rajasthan. Live TV Manvendra s the son of BJP veteran and former union minister Jaswant Singh. While Deol campaigned for his party candidate, dialogues from his blockbuster movie 'Gadar', "Hindustan zindabad tha, zindabad hai, zindabad rahega" were being played in the background. #WATCH Barmer: Sunny Deol holds his first roadshow after joining BJP, campaigns for BJP LS candidate from Barmer, Kailash Choudhary. Dialogue from the movie 'Gadar', "Hindustan Zindabad tha, zindabad hai, zindabad rahega" heard in the background #Rajasthan #LokSabhaElections2019 pic.twitter.com/OjVXPJRJkU ANI (@ANI) April 27, 2019 Deol has been declared as the BJP candidate from the Gurdaspur Lok Sabha seat a move which reportedly irked late actor Vinod Khanna's family since he had represented the party for many years in Lok Sabha. However, Khanna's wife Kavita later said that she will not make the ''denial of ticket to her by BJP'' a personal issue and will support PM Narendra Modi in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. ''It is my decision that I'm not going to make this a personal issue and make a personal sacrifice and put my entire might and support with Prime Minister Narendra Modi,'' Kavita said. BJP had on Tuesday released its 26th list of candidates for three parliamentary constituencies in Chandigarh and Punjab. It fielded Sunny Deol from the Gurdaspur and another actor-turned-politician and sitting MP Kirron Kher from Chandigarh. The saffron party also fielded Som Prakash from Hoshiarpur Lok Sabha seat. Talking to media after formally joining the BJP, Sunny Deol hailed Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said that he has decided to join the BJP as he wants to work for the welfare of the country with PM Modi. "I am here to work with and support Modi Ji. My work will do the talking," Sunny told reporters. It may be recalled that Sunny, 62, had recently met BJP president Amit Shah at Pune airport and the meeting had sparked speculations that the Bollywood star would join the BJP soon. NEW DELHI: The BJP on Saturday appealed to the Election Commission to bar AAP convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal from campaigning for alleged violation of the Model Code of Conduct by making a provocative statement on a tweet by party president Amit Shah. BJP has complained to the apex poll body that Kejriwal has violated the MCC through his statement on a tweet by Shah where the BJP president had stated, "we will remove every single infiltrator from the country except Buddh, Hindus & Sikhs". The BJP alleged that Kejriwal has reportedly said that the BJP considers "Muslims, Christians, Jains, Parsis and other minorities in India as" infiltrators ". Live TV The AAP convenor allegedly made these remarks in a press conference in the national capital. "... the manifesto of BJP only talks about illegal infiltrators and no one else," the memorandum submitted by the BJP leaders to the apex poll panel said. It said that Delhi CM's intention was to create panic and mutual hate among communities by misleading people. In view of the matter, the BJP leadership urged the poll panel to censure Kejriwal and bar him from the campaigning and media interaction during the Lok Sabha poll. While, all this happened, a senior AAP party leader filed a complaint against PM Narendra Modi for exceeding Rs 70-lakh limit on Varanasi roadshow. The complaint was filed by senior AAP leader Sanjay Singh with the Election Commission (EC). In a letter to the election officer of Varanasi, Singh claimed that total expenditure of Rs 1.27 crore was incurred to take out the roadshow on Thursday. He has also given the break-up. "The expenses incurred on the private jets used by various BJP leaders to reach Varanasi were Rs 64 lakh. Over 100 BJP leaders took commercial flights to reach Varanasi at a cost of Rs 15 lakh. The hotel expenses were around Rs 8 lakh, while the expenditure on vehicles was Rs 6 lakh," Singh has said in the letter, according to PTI. Besides, Rs 5 lakh was spent on food, Rs 5 lakh on poll accessories, Rs 2 lakh each on the social media campaign, sound system and stage, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader has claimed. He has also mentioned that Rs 20 lakh was spent to ferry BJP workers by train. Singh has alleged that the total expenditure crossed the limit of Rs 70 lakh set by the EC for a roadshow and sought action against Modi. (With Agency inputs) LUCKNOW: Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati hit out on Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday by claiming that the BJP leader had converted to the backward category during his tenure as Gujarat chief minister for political gains. "Like Mulayam Singh Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav, Narendra Modi was not born in backward caste. When he was the chief minister of Gujarat, he got his upper caste included in the backward category to derive political benefit during elections," the BSP chief said while addressing a press conference in the state capital Lucknow. Mayawati, BSP: In this election PM Modi tried his best to get votes in the name of backward classes. PM always belonged to upper caste but during his tenure in Gujarat he included his community in the OBC category for political gains. pic.twitter.com/Nscp9otNNV ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) April 27, 2019 The BSP supremo also denied calling the PM ''neech'' (from low caste). ''Today in Kannauj, PM Modi said that we (Mayawati and Akhilesh) had called him 'neech' but we never said so. His accusations are baseless. With due respect, we had always considered him someone belonging to the upper caste,'' Mayawati said. Mayawati, BSP: Today in Kannauj PM Modi said that we (Mayawati and Akhilesh) had called him 'neech' but we never said so. His accusations are baseless. With due respect we had always considered him someone belonging to upper caste. https://t.co/DAtO94ol2i ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) April 27, 2019 The BSP chief further claimed that PM Modi is trying hard to get votes in the name of caste, but BJP's Dalit-backward card has failed miserably in this election in Uttar Pradesh. Live TV The remarks from Mayawati came hours after PM Modi slammed the SP-BSP-RLD alliance in Uttar Pradesh, saying the tie-up of "opportunists" wants a ''helpless government'' because its mantra is "jaat, paat japna; janata ka maal apna". PM Modi made these remarks while addressing election rallies in Kannauj, a Samajwadi Party stronghold, Hardoi and Sitapur. Dubbing the alliance as 'mahamilavati (highly adulterated) opportunists', PM Modi said in Kannauj that he doesn't believe in politics of caste. "Mayawatiji (BSP chief), I am most backward... I request with folded hands not to drag me into caste politics, 130 crore people are my family," he said. "This country didn't know my caste till my detractors abused me... I am thankful to Mayawatiji, Akhileshji (SP chief), the Congress people and the 'mahamilavatis' that they are discussing my caste...I believe that taking birth in a backward caste is an opportunity to serve the country," the PM said. The accusations and counter-accusations came on a day when the high-decibel campaigning for the fourth phase of the ongoing 2019 Lok Sabha election in 72 parliamentary constituencies across nine states ended on Saturday. Polling for the same will be held on Monday, April 29 under the watchful eyes of the Election Commission of India. Voters in 13 Lok Sabha constituencies in UP will also vote on April 29. Uttar Pradesh sends 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha. Over 12 crore 79 lakh voters will cast their votes to decide the fate of 961candidates at over 1 lakh 40 thousand polling booths across nine states on April 29.. Srinagar: Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti on Saturday hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his statement on abrogating Article 370. Addressing the media, she said that if PM Modi thinks that "Articles 370 and 35A have done maximum damage to J&K, then why don't they leave Kashmir?" Articles 370 and 35A provides special status and rights to Jammu and Kashmir. The BJP has said that if the party is voted to power again, they will withdraw Article 370 from the state. Live TV Meanwhile, Mehbooba also talked about PDPs former alliance with Congress and the National Conference (NC) and accused the parties of "weakening Article 370." When Ghulam Nabi Azad became the chief minister of the state, he allotted kanals of land to the Shrine Board. Did he not think of Article 370 at that time? Mehbooba said. The PDP president also launched a scathing attack on NC founder Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah and said that he became the chief minister after signing the Accord in 1975 with the then prime minister Indira Gandhi. However, he did not think about Article 370. She further added that for two years, when the PDP was in alliance with BJP, she fought to save the Articles and had made it clear if the Narendra Modi-led government tinkers with the special status, her party will withdraw their support. Mehbooba is contesting the Lok Sabha election from Anantnag constituency, where the first phase of the three-phase voting was held on April 23. The second phase of voting in Anantnag is scheduled for April 29 and the last phase on May 6. Mehbooba Mufti is fighting against Ghulam Ahmed Mir of the Congress and Justice (Retired) Hasnain Masoodi of the NC among other candidates. Mumbai: The Mumbai Police has prepared a comprehensive report on the preparations the department has done for the Lok Sabha election 2019 for the six Parliamentary constituencies in the city - Mumbai North, Mumbai North-West, Mumbai North-East, Mumbai North-Central, Mumbai South-Central and Mumbai South. According to a statement released by the Mumbai Police, a total of 10,0073 polling booths have been set up at 1,492 locations - 2601 booths at 527 locations in Mumbai City district and 7,472 booths at 965 locations in Mumbai Suburbs district. There are four constituencies in Mumbai Suburbs district and two constituencies in Mumbai City district. There are no Vulnerable booths in Mumbai city, though 325 polling booths have been declared as critical. Approximately, 40,400 security personnel have been deployed for the election in Mumbai City, which includes 14 Coys of CPMF, 12 Coys of SRPF and approximately 6,000 Home Guards. Training of all the officers and staff who will be on election duty is complete. Live TV The Lok Sabha election 2019 is being held in seven phases, out of which three phases are already complete. The fourth phase is scheduled to take place on April 29 and Mumbai will vote in that phase. For smooth and fair conduct of polls in Mumbai, the city police have implemented a deployment plan for officers and staff and adequate preventive actions have been taken. All the history-sheeters have been verified and a total of 391 illegal weapons have been seized so far during the period of Model Code of Conduct (MCC), the statement said. In addition to this, 4,833 Non-Bailable Warrants have been executed already and 510 Cases under the Prohibition and NDPS Act have been registered. Two thousand six hundred and forty eight litres of illegal liquor worth Rs 10 lakh has been seized, along with illegal drugs over Rs 40 crores. Total of 18 electoral offences are registered so far and 17 cases of MCC violations are reported so far. Meanwhile, in the wake of Sri Lanka blasts, security has been beefed up in the city and all officers and staffs have been sensitized. Force One, QRT, Assault Teams, ATC have been briefed and intelligence team has also been put on the task, said the statement released by Mumbai Police. The Mumbai Police will exercise their franchise through postal ballot for which over 17,000 officers and staff have registered themselves. Jaipur: General VK Singh (retd), Union Minister of State for External Affairs, said on Saturday that Pakistan can never be a friend of India. Addressing a press conference at the state BJP headquarters here, the former Chief of Army Staff said if India ever considered Pakistan as its friend, it would be the biggest weakness of the country. "I was informed about opposition candidates in the border areas of Rajasthan claiming that Pakistan was not a threat to India and hence it should not be treated as an enemy nation. But a country which has been triggering proxy wars against India besides being a terrorist hub can never be treated as a friend. Treating Pakistan as a friend will be the biggest weakness of India," Singh said. Live TV The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader further said that people in Rajasthan wanted to elect a strong and stable government at the centre for the country`s benefit and for its secure future. "I have toured four Parliamentary constituencies in the state, namely Jodhpur, Barmer, Udaipur and Rajsamand. I can feel the undercurrent which is the same as that in Uttar Pradesh," Singh said. Of the 25 Lok Sabha constituencies in Rajasthan, 13 go to the polls in the fourth phase on April 29 while polling in the remaining 12 seats will be held in the fifth phase on May 6. Singh further said that he wanted to clarify certain statements made by the opposition in the last few days. "The Congress is saying the BJP is politicising the armed forces. However, as a former soldier who has served the Indian Army for several years and whose previous generations too have served the army, I can say it with surety that the Indian Army has never been trapped in politics. "The soldiers of our nation perform their duties with honesty and the government is just praising their valour. If discussing the bravery and valour of our armed forces is politicisation, then it seems they (Congress) don`t know what politicisation is," Singh said. On Congress` claims that surgical strikes were conducted earlier also, he said: "A lot many things keep happening on the Line of Control because both sides on either side of the fence want to dominate each other. "However, there are times when the government comes to the support the Indian Army and says `if you (the army) want to take any action, we are with you.` Being a former army chief, I can tell you that our armed forces have been receiving such support from the government for the last four-and-a-half years." Commenting on BJP President Amit Shah`s claims that 250 terrorists were killed in the Balakot air strike, Singh said: "They weren`t the actual figures, but only estimated numbers based of different reports. "According to the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), around 300 phones were active in the area at the time of the air strike. Assuming that 250 of the cellphone users were terrorists, we estimated that around 250 militants were killed." Jajpur: BJP president Amit Shah on Saturday claimed that the "biggest work" Prime Minister Narendra Modi has done is to secure the country. "The biggest work that PM Modi has done is to secure this country. Prime Minister ordered our Air Force and they bombed terrorists in Balakot," Shah said while addressing a string of election rallies in Jajpur and Mayurbhanj in Odisha. Taking a dig at Congress president Rahul Gandhi, Shah alleged, after the Balakot airstrikes, "Rahul and his company appeared so sad as if they had lost their cousins.'' Live TV "Referring to National Conference leader Omar Abdullah`s comments on a separate Prime Minister and President for Kashmir, Shah said, "Right now, Narendra Modi is the Prime Minister. He is returning again. I assure you that someday even when BJP is not in power, as long as BJP workers are alive, no one can separate Kashmir from India." Earlier, while addressing a rally in Odisha's Mayurbhanj, Shah slammed Congress leader PC Chacko for his comments on separatist leader Yasin Malik. "PC Chacko said Narendra Modi government should not act tough on Yasin Malik. Stringent action is necessary because Yasin Malik wants to separate Kashmir from the rest of the country. Whatever PC Chacko says, I am saying that no one can separate Kashmir from India," he said. He also took a jibe at Congress leader Shatrughan Sinha for his remarks over Mohammad Ali Jinnah. Amit Shah attacks Shatrughan Sinha for remarks praising Jinnah, says 'this shows his character' "Shatrughan Sinha has just gone to Congress. When he was in BJP, he used to talk about nationalism. Now he says that Jinnah was a great leader like Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel. These Congress leaders are praising Jinnah who divided the country," the BJP president said. In Odisha, PM Modi and BJP president Amit Shah crisscrossed the poll-bound segments campaigning for BJP candidates. Union Ministers Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari and others also hit the campaign trail for the saffron party. The Congress campaign was buoyed by party president Rahul Gandhi's rally in Balasore in the last leg. Besides, senior party leaders like Ghulam Nabi Azad, Susmita Deb, Raj Babbar and TS Singhdeo toured the poll-bound areas. It is to be noted that assembly and seven-phased Lok Sabha election 2019 are being held together in Odisha. The polling for the fourth phase is scheduled to be held on April 29. (With Agency inputs) Shahjahanpur/Bahraich: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday accused the Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and the Congress of working on the "agenda to save terrorists". "On one hand, we (BJP) are working on development schemes, while the SP, BSP, Congress and others are working on the agenda of saving terrorists," UP CM Adityanath said at rallies in Shahjahanpur and Bahraich districts. "When Modi ji speaks on terrorism, it is the Pakistani Prime Minister who sweats," the Bharatiya Janata Party leader claimed. Live TV Adityanath alleged that "misgovernance" during the previous UPA rule led to an increase in Naxalism and terrorism, adding that they are at their "lowest" under the BJP government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The firebrand UP Chief Minister asked the crowd if they would vote for those who "hampered" the growth of the state and "forced" the youth to migrate. "Firstly, our government waived off loans of farmers. The other thing that we did was to close down illegal slaughter houses. And the third big work we have done is constituting anti-Romeo squads for the safety of our daughters and sisters," Adityanath said. "We have said that there will be only two places for criminals in the state -- one in jails and the other 'Ram naam satya yatra' (funeral procession), he added. Yogi Adityanath said efforts had been made to implement welfare schemes for women, farmers and the youth. Kannauj: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday termed the SP-BSP-RLD alliance as an "alliance of opportunists" while addressing an election rally in the Kannauj district of Uttar Pradesh. During his speech, the PM said that the opposition alliance in Uttar Pradesh wanted a ''helpless government'' at the Centre and not a strong one. "The mantra of this alliance is 'Jaat paat japna, janta ka maal apna' and it keeps attacking the` chowkidar` because he has checked corruption. This alliance is `mahamilavati`," the PM said. Live TV The PM further said, "Whatever efforts the opposition makes, the result will be 'Phir ek baar','' and the crowd responded with "Modi Sarkar". #WATCH Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Kannauj says, "Mahamilavat ke logon, saari koshish karlo lekin, ayega to......" People respond "Modi!" pic.twitter.com/tuBwQC9c0E ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) April 27, 2019 The Prime Minister also attacked the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief, Mayawati, for seeking the support of the Samajwadi Party (SP) "just for the sake of power". Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Kannauj: 'Behenji' is happily asking for votes for the Samajwadi Party (SP), just for power, just to defeat Modi, you are hugging the people who abuse Babasaheb? pic.twitter.com/l6Dvkfu6wz ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) April 27, 2019 PM Modi said, "These parties are the ones which seek evidence of the Balakot air strike and shed tears for the Batla House encounter in which terrorists are killed." Later addressing a rally in Sitapur, the PM attacked Congress by saying, ''Congress is saying that they will reduce the presence of armed forces in Jammu and Kashmir. Congress wants to repeal sedition law too. Can people with such mentality remove terrorism and Naxalism?'' He also blamed the Congress for showing scant regard for Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar and pointed out that his NDA government has dedicated cashless payments app BHIM in his name. PM Modi appealed to voters to support the BJP and said, "Your every single vote will directly come into the account of Modi." Referring to the present row over his caste, the PM said, "Mayawatiji (BSP chief), I am most backward...I request with folded hands not to drag me into caste politics, 130 crore people are my family." Sharpening his attack on the Congress, PM Modi claimed that the grand old party was ''invisible'' in the country now. Addressing a rally at the Bandra-Kurla Complex on Friday, Modi had said that since 1947, the Congress had fallen to its lowest tally in 2014. "The Congress is fighting the least number of seats in 2019. It`s invisible anywhere now," the Prime Minister said. Taking a dig at Congress, the Prime Minister said the grand old party was another name for ''confusion.'' Claiming that corruption has disappeared from the country in the last five years, PM Modi said that those indulging in corrupt practices were either in jail or were out on bail. "In the last 5 years, we have increased the number of taxpayers, not tax. Our policies are 180 degrees different from those of the Congress, which the country has witnessed in the last five years," the Prime Minister said. It may be recalled that PM Modi filed his nomination papers for the Varanasi Lok Sabha seat on Friday. Modi won the Varanasi seat in 2014 with a massive margin of 3.37 lakh votes. In an impressive show of strength, the entire top leadership of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was present at the nomination. BJP president Amit Shah, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Union Ministers Rajnath Singh, Nirmala Sitharaman, Sushma Swaraj, Nitin Gadkari, Ram Vilas Paswan and Piyush Goyal, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Assam Chief Minister Sarvanand Sonowal and Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray were among those present. AIADMK leader M Thambidurai and Tamil Nadu Deputy Chief Minister O Pannerselvam were also present. The Prime Minister, in a touching gesture, touched the feet of Akali Dal leader Prakash Singh Badal, one of the senior-most politicians in the country, and sought his blessings. (With Agency Inputs) Ballia: Those accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast case were tortured at the "behest" of senior Congress leaders, Maj (retired) Ramesh Chandra Upadhyay, who is also an accused in the case and contesting the Lok Sabha polls, has alleged. His remark came days after BJP's Bhopal Lok Sabha seat candidate Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, who is also an accused in the case, had claimed that IPS officer Hemant Karkare died in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack as she had "cursed" him for "torturing" her. She later apologised for her comment. Live TV Investigations in the blast case were led by Karkare, who was the then chief of the Maharashtra anti-terrorism squad. Upadhyay also claimed that the term "saffron terrorism" was coined by the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). "We were tortured at the behest of the then Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, Ahmad Patel, P Chidambaram, Sushil Kumar Shinde and Digvijaya Singh...The word 'saffron terrorism' was coined by the Congress and the NCP," Upadhyay, who is contesting the Ballia Lok Sabha seat on an Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha ticket, told reporters here Friday. "Wherever a policeman dies, he does not attain martyrdom. Martyrdom is attained only by freedom fighters and soldiers," he said. Upadhyay alleged that Thakur was stripped and beaten up by Karkare. "All of us were extremely tortured. Because of torture, out of the 12 accused persons, 11 persons could not walk properly. Now, Pragya moves on a wheelchair. Karkare had tortured her," he alleged. He also termed the BJP a "selfish party". Upadhyay Friday filed his nomination papers from Ballia. New Delhi: Bollywood actress Alia Bhatt has shared a glimpse of her upcoming song from Student of the Year 2 with Tiger Shroff, titled Hook Up. The complete video will be unveiled on Tuesday. In the short clip, Alia and Tiger can be seen dancing flirtatiously with each other. Hook up tu kar le na," Tiger tells Alia in the video. Sharing the video, Alia wrote, "This one got me hooked! The song and this hashtag - #Talia! #HookUpSong #SOTY2." Both Tiger and Alia had previously shared stills from the song, which was announced on the launch event of Mumbai Dilli Di Kudiyaan, another dance number from the film. Talking about his dance number with Alia, Tiger had said during the song launch, "Personally, I have never done a dance number like that. Working with Alia was an amazing experience. Though she is such a big star, she was open and cooperative on set while shooting the song. 'SOTY 2' is directed by Punit Malhotra and is backed by Karan Johar's Dharma Productions. The movie will introduce two fresh female facesAnanya and Tara to the showbiz world. SOTY 2 is the sequel to 'Student Of The Year' which released back in 2012 was a big hit and marked the debut of three newcomers thenVarun Dhawan, Alia Bhatt and Sidharth Malhotra. Marrakesh: Actor Idris Elba, 46, exchanged wedding vows with longtime girlfriend Sabrina Dhowre, 29, in a three-day ceremony in Morocco. In images captured by British Vogue, the couple, who got engaged last year, looked smitten as they wed at the Ksar Char Bagh hotel in Marrakesh on Friday, reports dailymail.co.uk. Dhowre opted for two exquisite dresses by Vera Wang for her big day -- a bardot style gown for the ceremony and a pearl embroidered number for the reception -- while Elba, 46, looked dapper in a bespoke suit by Ozwald Boateng. An image from the fashion magazine shows Dhowre looking ravishing in her form-fitting A-line white gown, while her make-up is executed by Charlotte Tilbury and her hair by Luana Babbi. In another, Elba cuts an incredibly dapper figure in his slick suit as he is seen gazing adoringly at Dhowre. Another photograph shows the pair just after they exchanged their vows, as they passionately embrace while the former beauty queen flashes her dazzling ring. "Congratulations to newlyweds Idris Elba and Sabrina Dhowre who exchanged vows in Morocco on April 26 2019. Celebrations were spread over three days in Marrakesh," the caption read. With a 'colours of the Souk' themed dinner on Thursday night, and their extravagant nuptials on Friday, the three-day celebrations will culminate with an all-white party at a hotel. In March, Dhowre took to her Instagram with fun-filled snaps from her wild Utah bachelorette bash. In February last year, Elba, known for projects like "Legacy", "Thor", "Prometheus", "Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom" and "Luther", was seen getting down on a knee to pop the question to Dhowre. Elba met Dhowre in her home country of Canada in 2017, and became acquainted on the set of the drama film "The Mountain Between Us". New Delhi: Actress Shweta Tripathi, who finds showbiz "hero-driven", says writing good roles for women is the first step towards gender equality. "Gender equality will happen when the roles are also equal. There is no point fighting for things when you don't have a standing as your co-actor," Shweta told IANS. "And we are very hero-driven society... Once that changes, we can expect gender equality and other changes. Pay should be decided based on the role in the project... It is getting better now," she added. From "Masaan", "Haraamkhor", "Zoo", "Mirzapur" to "Gone Kesh" that dealt with alopecia -- Shweta has stepped into a different zone with each project. She is getting lauded for essaying Dr. Shreya in Amazon Prime Video's "Laakhon Mein Ek Season 2" with conviction. The show exposes the dark underbelly of the medical world -- be it black marketing of medicines or the inefficiency of the system as a whole. Talking about her role in the series, she said: "I did a lot of workshops with doctors before we started shooting the project, and even during the shoot, there were a lot of workshops. One thing I did on my own was to speak to a girl who was Shreya's age. I tracked her day-to-day life -- what she wore, nail paint to the food she would eat because that helped me understand the world better. I think it helped me a lot." For Shweta, her career graph is just like a report card, and she is very proud of her performance. "There are no regrets. I wouldn't do anything differently because it has made me who I am. It has shaped my career. I really think that all the characters I do, take a bit of me and I take a bit from all the roles. I love all the characters that I have done. "I see my career as a report card and I am very proud of everything that is in there from my co-actors to the kind of projects I have done to the stories." The actress has taken a vow to never let down her fans. "I don't mind I have a smaller audience...Recently, my doctor said that 'let me know what your next project will be. we are looking forward to it'. And this is what makes me happy," she said, adding that people should follow their dream "even if it is difficult or heartbreaking". "It will be all kind of things, there will be people who will pull you down...Your family might tell you 'Beta chalo how long' but you need to believe in yourself," added the actress, who is busy working on the second season of "Mirzapur". Kota: Four men were killed and a woman was injured Saturday when the car they were travelling in was hit by a speeding truck in Rajasthan's Jhalawar district, police said. The deceased -- Pankaj, Ritesh, Sumit Shukla, Parvez Khan -- and the injured woman, Monika Pandaya, are natives of Indore in Madhya Pradesh. Live TV They had come to the state to visit Ajmer and Khatushyamji temple in Sikar district. They met with the accident on Jhalawar- Indore highway while returning back to Indore, SHO Raipur police station Babulal said. Two of the men died on the spot while the other two succumbed to injuries en route to the hospital, the SHO said, adding the woman has received multiple fractures and is undergoing treatment at a government hospital in Jhalawar, he added. The bodies have been sent to the mortuary and post-mortem will be carried out after the family member of the deceased reach here, he said. The truck driver managed to escape from the spot after the incident but efforts are on to nab him, the SHO said. Hyderabad: A seven-year-old girl survived for five days on water after falling into the bathroom of her neighbour`s house while playing, police said. The startling incident took place in Makhtal town in Narayanpet district of Telangana, about 160 km from Hyderabad. The house owner was shocked to see the girl trapped lying in his bathroom after he returned home on Thursday from a tour. With no food for five days and surviving only on the water available in the bathroom, the girl had turned very weak and was in a state of shock. The police investigation revealed that Kuravakacheri Akhila, a class II student, accidentally fell onto the bathroom of a house while playing on the terrace of an adjacent building on April 20. As the roof had an opening fitted with plastic net, she fell through into the bathroom but sustained no injuries as a rope with clothes on it took the impact. The bathroom was bolted from outside and as the inmate was away, her cries for help went unanswered. Police said there was nobody in the adjacent house who could hear her cries. Her parents Suresh and Mahadevamma lodged a missing complaint the next day after their search yielded no result. According to sub-inspector of police B. Ashok Kumar, the parents suspected she went missing from a local fair. The police had formed a team and alerted police in adjacent districts and Hyderabad but found no clue. It was on Wednesday that, the owner of the house returned from Hyderabad, where his family lives. Venkatesh, a teacher, said he was shocked to see the girl lying in bathroom. He alerted the neighbours, who identified her as the daughter of tenants behind their house. Akhila, who was not even able to speak, was rushed to a local hospital, where she was administered saline. Though schools have summer holidays, Venkatesh had returned to attend a marriage in the town. Colombo: Sri Lanka on Saturday banned National Thawheed Jammath (NTJ) and Jamathei Millathu Ibrahim (JMI), two terror groups responsible for Easter attacks. The decision was taken by the President of Sri Lanka Maithripala Sirisena, in terms of powers vested with him under emergency regulations, a statement issued by the President's media division said. "All activities of the organisations as well as their property will be seized by the government," a statement said. It also added that "steps are been taken to ban other extremist organisations operating in Sri Lanka under Emergency Regulations." The Easter Day bomb blasts (April 21) at three Sri Lankan churches and four hotels killed at least 253 people and wounded more than 500. Earlier this week, the Islamic State claimed the responsibility of the attack. However, the Lankan government held NTJ responsible for it. The police have so far arrested over 70 people in connection with the case. Meanwhile, India has issued an advisory for its citizens travelling to Sri Lanka. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Saturday said that Indians are advised to avoid any "non-essential travel." At least four gunmen and a civilian were killed when a special search operation was launched by Sri Lankan troops in Ampara district's Sainthamaruthu city on the eastern coast of the South Asian nation. In another incident, an explosion took place inside a house in the same city, parallel to the operation, killing 15 civilians, according to the police. Live TV The raid was carried out on Friday at 7 pm by the police and the Special Task Force (STF). The security forces managed to find the flag used to make the statements before the Easter Sunday attacker left for their targets. They also found 100,000 balls used in bearings, the material used for suicide vests, different types of fuel, gelatin sticks, detonators, pipes, and ISIS uniforms. Due to the explosion, three males, six females, and six children were killed. An injured woman and a child were found inside the house that had exploded. They were immediately hospitalised. A curfew has been imposed within Kalmunai, Chavalakade and Samanthurai areas with immediate effect until further notice. During a raid carried out in Wellawatta's Colombo 6, forces found 1kg of C4 explosives along with a three-wheeler. At least three individuals were arrested and were later handed over to the police for investigations. They are residents of that area. Sri Lankan Minister Rishad Bathiudeen's brother who was arrested on Friday was released within an hour after obtaining a statement. The minister has denied any involvement in terrorist activities or having connections with National Tawheed Jamath (NTJ). On Easter Sunday multiple blasts in the Sri Lankan capital city of Colombo killed 253 people and injured another 500. Nine suicide bombers carried out a series of devastating blasts that tore through three churches, two of them Catholic, and three luxury hotels packed with Easter worshippers on Sunday. The Islamic State claimed the attacks, but the government has blamed local Islamist extremist group NTJ for the attacks. NEW YORK: Tesla Inc Chief Executive Elon Musk has reached a deal with the US Securities and Exchange Commission to settle a dispute over his use of Twitter, agreeing to submit his public statements about the company`s finances and other topics to vetting by its legal counsel, according to a court filing on Friday. If it is approved by a judge, the deal means the Tesla founder no longer faces the prospect of being held in contempt for violating an earlier settlement with the agency, which had required him to submit statements "material" to investors for prior review. Live TV The new agreement, disclosed in a filing in Manhattan federal court, lays out in more detail exactly what kinds of statements must be reviewed. Shares of Tesla rose 1.4 percent to $238.50 in after hours trading. The agreement lifts a cloud that has hung over Musk as Tesla tries to ramp up production of its most important vehicle, the Model 3 sedan, and make a profit at the same time. "It could really have turned out far worse for him," said Stephen Diamond, a professor of securities law at Santa Clara University. "The consequences of thumbing his nose at the SEC could have been far worse for him and the company." Tesla has struggled with logistics difficulties in delivering its Model 3 to global customers, a declining share price and lingering questions about the sustainability of demand. Earlier this week, the electric vehicle maker posted a $702 million loss, and warned of a loss in the second quarter. Musk`s lawyer did not immediately return a request for comment. TWEET APPROVAL The SEC sued Musk last year after he tweeted on Aug. 7 that he had "funding secured" to take Tesla private at $420 per share. The agency said the tweet, which sent Tesla`s share price up as much as 13.3 percent, violated securities laws. Musk`s privatisation plan was at best in an early stage and financing was not in place. Musk settled the lawsuit, agreeing to step down as chairman and have the company`s lawyers pre-approve written communications, including tweets with material information about the company. In February, the SEC accused Musk of violating that settlement by sending a tweet about Tesla`s production numbers that had not been vetted by the company`s attorneys, and asked U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan in Manhattan to hold him in contempt. At an April 4 court hearing, the judge declined to rule on the contempt motion and told the SEC and Musk to work out their differences and come to a settlement. Musk`s lawyers have argued that the February tweet did not contain new information that was material to investors, and that Musk did not need pre-approval for all tweets about Tesla under the settlement. They also argued the settlement was too ambiguous for Musk to be held in contempt. The new agreement unveiled Friday addresses that ambiguity by listing what kinds of statements must be vetted. They include statements about Tesla`s financial condition, proposed or potential deals, production numbers, performance projections, financing or lending arrangements and Musk`s own transactions in the company`s securities. It also gives the company`s board of directors the right to seek preapproval about additional topics if they believe doing so would protect shareholders` interests. Diamond said the new language adds clarity to the original agreement and places significant restraints on Musk`s use of Twitter. "Any attempt by Musk to circumvent the process will be much more easily policed," he said. Musk has been an outspoken critic of the SEC throughout his legal dispute with the SEC, which he once dubbed the "Shortseller Enrichment Commission." In the early morning of Feb. 26, after the regulator filed its contempt motion, Musk tweeted: "Something is broken with SEC oversight." Musk has been CEO of Tesla since 2008 and has more than 25 million followers on Twitter. New Delhi: Several countries continue to warn their citizens in Sri Lanka even as the United States has asked family members of its diplomats to leave the country. In a release, the US embassy in Sri Lanka said, "Department of State ordered the departure of all school-age family members of US government employees in Kindergarten through 12th grade." The US State Department also authorized the "voluntary departure of non-emergency US government employees and family members". Live TV Washington has warned that terror groups are plotting a possible attack in the island country. The possible location could be "tourist locations, transportation hubs, markets, shopping malls, government facilities, hotels, clubs, restaurants, places of worship, parks, major sporting and cultural events, educational institutions, airports, hospitals". France has issued an advisory for its citizens. Belgium has also asked its citizen to "avoid gatherings, worship services and public places" and limit "movements and stay indoors where possible". The UK has already updated its travel advisory to the country. UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has advised "against all but essential travel to Sri Lanka" due to the situation in the aftermath of the multiple terror attacks which took place on Sunday in which 253 people were killed. The UK govt, quoting Sri Lankan authorities, warned that mosques may be targeted by attacks, "specifying Aulia Mosques connected with the burial sites of Muslim Saints". Indian mission hasn't issued an advisory but is making sure that all Indian citizens are safe and is working overtime to make sure of it. The mission has also facilitated Indians, who in the aftermath of the terror attack, wanted to leave the country. Security of the Indian mission has been beefed up as it was also on the target by the terrorist. The neighbouring, Maldives, advised its citizens in Colombo to cooperate with the Police and Army as they conduct the searches and remain indoors during curfew hours. It also asked them to stay away from gatherings. This year, the main category of the Ta Quang Buu Award, named after the famous scientist Professor Ta Quang Buu (1910-1986), was presented to Dr. Pham Duc Chinh from the Institute of Mechanics under the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology; Associate Prof, Dr. Nguyen Le Khanh Hang from the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology; and Dr. Le Trong Lu from the Institute for Tropical Technology under the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology. According to the Ministry of Science and Technology, the annual award aims to acknowledge the efforts and success of scientists who have made significant contributions to national socio-economic development. Since its launch in 2014, the prize has received positive recognition from the scientific community as a prestigious and quality award. It has encouraged and motivated scientists and scientific and technological organisations towards high quality research in Vietnam, fostering the development of an academic, creative and innovative environment to promote the development of strong research teams to undertake research at an international level. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has returned home from a trip to Russia after his first summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. AP North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has returned home from his trip to Russia following his first summit with President Vladimir Putin, the North's state media reported Saturday. Kim's special train returned earlier in the day, and was greeted by people in the country's northeastern province of North Hamkyeong, according to the Korean Central News Agency. It did not specify exactly when and where the train arrived The North Korean leader departed Vladivostok, Friday afternoon, a day after the summit with Putin at which they discussed the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and bilateral ties. U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the annual meeting of the National Rifle Association in Indianapolis, April 26. AP U.S. President Donald Trump denied Friday a news report claiming his administration promised to pay North Korea US$2 million for the release of an American prisoner in 2017. The Washington Post reported Thursday that Pyongyang had asked a U.S. envoy to sign a pledge agreeing to the payment before it released American college student Otto Warmbier Warmbier had been hospitalized in the North for more than a year after falling into a coma. He died shortly after he was flown back to the U.S. in June 2017. The North demanded the money to cover medical costs, according to The Post. President Moon Jae-in expressed optimism Saturday that the two Koreas will achieve "irreversible peace" and co-prosperity on the basis of his summit deal with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un a year earlier. Celebrating the first anniversary of the signing of a set of summit agreements at the truce village of Panmunjom, Moon called it a "dramatic day." "(The agreements in) the Panmunjom Declaration are being implemented one by one," he said in a video message for an official ceremony held on the southern side of Panmunjom. He pointed out that South and North Korea have pulled guard posts out of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and that the excavation of war remains is under way there. Tensions have eased in fishing zones near the Yellow Sea border and a joint liaison office is in operation in Kaesong, a North Korean border town, he added. "Preparations have been finished as well to connect (inter-Korean) railways and roads," Moon said. His remarks came amid growing concern about stalled nuclear talks and slower-than-expected progress in inter-Korean economic cooperation. Critics of the liberal president's approach toward Pyongyang question the secretive communist nation's commitment to denuclearization, especially as its Hanoi summit with the U.S. in February abruptly concluded with no deal. Apparently mindful of such public worries, Moon stressed, "In the face of the difficulties (we) meet at times, (we) should take a breather and find a way together." Because it's a new path South and North Korea are traveling together, it's necessary to wait for "those who come slowly," he added. Moon had three rounds of summits with Kim last year and he's pushing for another meeting in a bid to help revitalize the denuclearization process. (Yonhap) By Hwang Jae-ho Vinod Anand, a Senior Fellow at the Vivekananda International Foundation. One of the most notable traits of the current Moon administration in terms of diplomatic policy is the strengthening of relations with India. The sense of sympathy and active interaction between President Moon Jae-in and Prime Minister Narendra Modi make us feel that Korea and India are closer than ever. Indeed, India's support for Korea's plans and policies regarding peace building and stability on the Korean Peninsula is a source of great strength for Korea. However, it is not widely known domestically how India is promoting its own diplomatic, security and defense policies. To seek an answer to our query, Professor Hwang Jae-ho of Hankuk University of Foreign Studies sat down with Vinod Anand, a Senior Fellow at the Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF), visiting Korea for the 2019 Korea Foundation Invitation Program for Distinguished Guests in Foreign Policies and Security, in the second week of April. Q1) What is the purpose of your visit to Korea? The aim of my visit to South Korea was to interact and engage with scholars and experts from think tanks and the strategic community and also government officials to better understand South Korea's foreign and security policies. The interactions at the Korea Foundation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Korean National Diplomatic Academy and Korean Institute of Defense Analyses provided me with better insights into the South Korean perspective on a variety of strategic and security issues. Q2) What is the priority of the Indian security policy? The main objective of India's security policies is to support peace and stability efforts in the region and world at large in order to enhance prosperity and economic growth. In terms of security threats and challenges, dealing with terrorism remains the top priority. India has been facing the scourge of terrorism from across its borders since almost its inception in 1947. Further, India has a tough neighborhood wherein its borders with nuclearized China and Pakistan remain unsettled. While there is firing across the Line of Control between India and Pakistan almost on a daily basis, not a single shot has been fired on the Line of Actual Control between India and China since 1986. Q3) How is the modernization of Indian defense forces progressing? The modernization of Indian defense forces is progressing at a steady pace. Though there is a need to increase the defense budget, the government has to be judicious in allotting funds to other competing sectors, e.g. health, education and many other infrastructure and developmental plans. However, the government is paying particular attention to the development of the indigenous defense industry and transfer of technology from abroad. While India has been importing a variety of defense weapons and systems from abroad, it has also gone in a big way for the "Make in India" program. There are a number of areas where both India and South Korea can cooperate in defense manufacturing for mutual benefit. India has good capabilities in space, cyber and special forces operations; cooperation between both sides would result in exploiting the synergies. Over the year, Indian armed forces have modernized their doctrinal concepts and precepts and also added to their deterrent capabilities with a view to meeting the challenges from potential adversaries. Q4) How would you evaluate India's Act East Policy? Since the unveiling of India's Look East Policy in 1992 and now its transformation to the Act East Policy in November 2014, it has undergone many iterations. While the original objective of the policy was to reintegrate with the neighborhood and extended neighborhood through a variety of connectivity efforts and economic initiatives, the policy has now acquired a certain degree of strategic orientation. The Act East Policy also chimes very well with South Korea's New Southern Policy, which was ushered in by President Moon Jae-in. Thus, South Korea's efforts to reach out to ASEAN and beyond to India and South Asia complement New Delhi's objectives of strengthening relationships with ASEAN and East Asian nations. It can be easily said that India has been able to achieve a considerable degree of success in its engagement with ASEAN, South Korea and Japan. The Act East Policy also pre-dates many of the other connectivity and other initiatives in the region. Thus, it cannot be said that India's Act East Policy is counter to or in response to any other policy initiatives promoted by other countries in the region. Vinod Anand and Hwang Jae-ho From left, Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte, Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and Xi's wife Peng Liyuan line up for a photograph at a welcoming banquet for the Belt and Road Forum at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Friday. EPA President Xi Jinping called for more countries to join China's sprawling infrastructure-building initiative Saturday in the face of U.S. opposition to a project Washington worries is building Beijing's strategic influence. Speaking at a gathering of leaders from three dozen governments to celebrate his signature project, Xi tried to dispel complaints the Belt and Road Initiative does too little for developing African and Asian countries that have built ports, railways and other facilities with Chinese loans. Xi said his government wants to "deliver benefits to all." The upbeat tone of the two-day forum, at which leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin praised the Belt and Road, was a setback for the U.S., which is trying to discourage other governments from participating. On Friday, Xi promised to improve financial and environmental standards in response to complaints about debt and potential corruption and environmental problems. He pledged to work more closely with multinational institutions and to open projects dominated by Chinese state-owned companies wider to private and foreign contractors. "We need to encourage the full participation of more countries and companies," Xi said at the event at a conference center outside Beijing. Developing countries welcome the initiative launched in 2013, but some governments are struggling to repay Chinese loans. That has fueled complaints about a possible "debt trap." Critics also complain too little work goes to local companies, too little financing and other information is disclosed, and the Belt and Road might lead to corruption or environmental damage. The United States, Russia, Japan and India worry Beijing is eroding their strategic influence by building a political and trade network centered on China, the world's second-largest economy. Despite that, Putin said Friday that the Belt and Road fits with Moscow's initiative to develop a common market with three of its neighbors. Beijing says the number of governments that have signed agreements to support the project has risen to 115 from 65. China scored a diplomatic coup in March when Italy, a member of the Group of Seven major economies, signed on. The Chinese president repeated his promise to adopt global standards for project development, purchasing and operations. "We welcome the participation of multilateral and international financial institutions in Belt and Road investment and financing, and we encourage third market cooperation," said Xi. "With the involvement of multiple stake holders we can surely deliver benefits to all." (AP) VLADIVOSTOK, Russia, April 26 (Xinhua) -- Top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Kim Jong Un wrapped up his first three-day trip to Russia and left here for home on Friday. At 3 p.m. local time (0500 GMT), Kim's train left Vladivostok and headed toward the border with the DPRK, the regional government of Russia's Primorsky Territory said in a press release. Kim had his first meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin here on Thursday and the two leaders discussed a range of topics, including the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, bilateral relations, the United Nations and relations with the United States. Putin said at a press conference following the talks that there is no alternative to the peaceful solution of the nuclear and other issues of the Korean Peninsula, adding that Russia is ready to contribute to reducing tensions in the region. According to the press release, the DPRK delegation also met with Russian businessmen, and the two sides agreed that the most promising areas of cooperation are tourism and cultural exchanges. After meeting Putin, Kim laid flowers at the Eternal Flame in the Hall of Military Glory to honor the Soviet heroes who died in World War II. Dangers in the US Real Estate Market Theres been a lot in the news lately about a slowing U.S. property market, with San Francisco a particular worry. According to Reuters, home sales fell more than expected last month. The National Association of Realtors said that existing home sales dropped 4.9%. Im, in fact, in Australia for the next two weeks my third visit in 14 months because real estate prices are cratering. Everyone seems shocked. Ive been warning of this for a long time now. While scanning headlines at 2 a.m. local time (4 p.m. Eastern jet lags a *****), I saw several articles about trouble brewing in the San Francisco real estate market. Again, not surprised. One piece in particular caught my eye: San Francisco at boiling point over tech, houses, homeless. What lights me up like a firework show on Independence Day is that this is news to anyone. Since 2014, Ive warned that San Francisco is a ticking time bomb. Several times this year alone Ive pointed out how San Francisco starter home prices are utterly unaffordable. Dumb rich people And its not just windy city that has this problem. Dozens of cities across the country have nose-bleed real estate prices that only the wealthy can afford. The rest of us suckers are left out in the cold. And up and coming Millennials? They can just forget owning a home in some of those areas. San Francisco and Manhattan Vancouver Sydney Singapore Shanghai Theyre all poster cities for how rich people can also be dumb people, blinding throwing millions into real estate in the mistaken notion that property prices always go up. Ha! Little do they realize that the bubbles theyre inflating will burst from their own extremes and thats where we are today. You practically have to be a millionaire to afford a trailer in San Fran and parts of Palm Beach and other areas. Bursting the Housing Bubble But, as over inflated as real estate prices are in places like San Francisco and Manhattan, as ready to burst as they are, they may not be the trigger for the pain that awaits property owners and investors ahead The subprime lending crisis in the U.S. burst the last U.S. real estate bubble. People who had no business financing McMansions started to default on their mortgages. But these werent rich people living in LaLa land. No. The people losing their homes (and families) were those who lived in areas that werent benefiting from the bubble boom in investments and new technologies. Living largely in the Midwest and inland Southeast, they werent in the bubbliest areas. They were ordinary, hard working Americans who had their asses handed to them when the subprime house of cards collapsed. Were seeing a similar trend this time around While this current bubble has concentrated even more in the most urban and hi-tech cities like San Francisco and Manhattan, LA, Seattle, Boston, Washington D.C., Vancouver, Toronto, Sydney, Melbourne, Singapore, and Shanghai and while were already seeing slowing or price declines on the high-end in those cities there is a bigger problem brewing in middle class cities. Mortgage Stress Prevalent We are witnessing growing signs of mortgage stress, as Martin North calls it. Just look at those numbers. Detroit continues to lead the mortgage stressed pack with 34.4% of its mortgages underwater. That after a 10-year-plus recovery? In what was once King City, leading the auto and mass manufacturing revolution in the 1900s? That level of financial distress speaks volumes about the Economic Winter Season weve unknowingly endured since 2008. Notice how all the other mortgage-stressed cities are in the Midwest, Northeast, and Southeast. All solid, blue-collar cities. Even the national average is still 8.4% underwater mortgages, for crying out aloud. Clearly much of the country didnt recover from the Great Recession of 2008 to 2009. Just imagine how theyll fare in the next Great Depression ahead? Still, while Average Joe will be brought to his knees as the latest real estate bubble bursts, the people who stand to lose the most are those dumb millionaires throwing good money after bad on overpriced property in places like San Francisco. Theres truth to the saying, the bigger they are, the harder they fall. Dont pin your financial hopes and dreams to real estate. The foundations are crumbling. Rather, grab the Dark Window opportunities available right now. And prepare for the Sale of a Lifetime after the Great Crash of 2020. Harry http://economyandmarkets.com Follow me on Twitter @HarryDentjr P.S. Another way to stay ahead is by reading the 27 simple stock secrets that our Seven-Figure Trader says are worth $588,221. Youll find the details here. Harry studied economics in college in the 70s, but found it vague and inconclusive. He became so disillusioned by the state of the profession that he turned his back on it. Instead, he threw himself into the burgeoning New Science of Finance, which married economic research and market research and encompassed identifying and studying demographic trends, business cycles, consumers purchasing power and many, many other trends that empowered him to forecast economic and market changes. Copyright 2019 Harry Dent- 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. Harry Dent Archive 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication. From Saturday 27th of April, the ZNP (Teachers Union) suspends the national strike. It suspends it, but it does not end it! I shall add: Starting today, we are entering a new, much more important period. With these words, Sawomir Broniarz, the leader of the ZNP, has bent to the pressures of bourgeois public opinion and put a lid on the cauldron of struggle that has been developing over the past three weeks. For this, the government representatives in the dispute, led by ex-PM Ewa Kopacz, thanked him warmly. The mood among teachers is radically different. Following another series of enormous demonstrations (in fact the biggest yet) in support for the strike in all cities and towns on Tuesday and Wednesday, this decision was met with a mixture of shock, disappointment and frustration from the teachers and everyone who supported them. Further, in his statement, Broniarz did announce that the strike will be continued in September if the government doesnt meet all of his demands: I will tell you this, as a trade unionist who remembers the 1980s. Back then it also began with individual struggles. But each such battle, such as the great teachers strike, gives the people strength. It begins to form a massive snowball, which cannot be stopped by propaganda And I will tell you this: with this power, with the power of the people united, [the government] will not win. If we have to, we will be back in autumn, before your offices, all of us. Hundreds of thousands of teachers, nurses, parents, students, patients, disabled carers, women and men. We, the people. You will not be able to ignore us. This is a poor attempt to sugar-coating the strike suspension by Broniarz, who has been facing intense pressure from the teachers throughout the strike. The mood for mass struggle doesnt have to wait until September, it is manifesting right at this very moment. If Broniarz wanted to, he could have organised the solidarity around this strike of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of workers. If the strike was conducted correctly, the reactionary PiS government would now have to choose: either concede all the legitimate demands advanced by the teachers or be booted out of power. Either way, it would have been a fundamental victory, showing that militant struggle can achieve its aims. Instead, we are witnessing to what can be described as an open capitulation by the leadership, which threatens to demoralise and frustrate the teachers, and all those who have mobilised in their support of and sympathised with the strike. Already in the first and second week of the teachers strike, there were rumblings for an immediate strike from the postal workers, healthcare workers, supermarket workers, social workers and others. The trade union leaders used all the pages of obscure rulebooks to drag their feet and delay these strikes. In the end, the PiS emerged victorious (for now) precisely because of the cowardly, treacherous behaviour of the trade union leaders across the board, who have been revealed as afraid of their own shadows. The teachers strike proved to be yet another tragic example of lions led by donkeys. However, in this defeat, there exists also an element of hope. This strike has become hitherto the most important school of class struggle in decades. What Marxists expected for years became a concrete reality for everyone to see. On the basis of the experience of the past three weeks, the consciousness of millions of Polish workers and youth was completely transformed. The teachers flexed their muscles, and therefore showed workers across Poland and beyond that it is possible to organise and fight back. It furthermore showed that in order to win, the workers need leadership and organisations that can be held to account by the workers. In our previous article, published on 16 April, we pointed out the following, in relation to the Solidarnosc leadership which now is relevant for the leadership of the whole trade union movement: Some important lessons can be drawn from these events. The class struggle reveals the faults and deficiencies of all the current leadership and shakes to the core all organisations that have roots in the working class. The crisis in Solidarnosc shows that the mass awakening of the teachers, combined with the open betrayal of the leadership, showed them the need for accountability of the trade union leaders. As Marxists, we support the decision of the Solidarnosc teachers to join the strike and move towards ousting their leadership, while uniting in the strike movement with the ZNP ranks. We add that the only way the striking teachers can be sure that what they are fighting for is achieved is for the movement to be directed by strike committees under the control of the workers, regardless of their trade union membership. Delegates for strike committees should be elected with the right of recall at any time by teachers in every school. Any deal with the government should be thoroughly discussed by the mass of the striking teachers and their delegates up to a national level. No deal should be signed without the approval of a democratically elected national strike committee. Some of these measures were implemented spontaneously by the teachers in the course of the strike, and had there been enough time for an alternative leadership to emerge, it would have been impossible for Broniarz to call the strike off without being replaced, and the outcome would have been very different. The tenacity, sacrifice and energy shown by the teachers makes it clear to everyone that Poland is not immune from the class struggle. This carries revolutionary implications. The first pages of an entirely new period of militant mobilisation of the Polish working class have been written. The next period will represent a qualitative change in the struggle. Lions led by donkeys Sawomir Broniarz, ZNP leader / Image: ZNPbiuro The immediate aftermath of the decision to suspend the strike has been coloured with confusion, anger and despair. Underneath the Facebook announcement of the strikes suspension by the ZNP leaders on the unions page, the comments were full of bitterness and frustration directed at the leadership. One of the teachers, Daria, said: I feel cheated What was all this for? What was the point of the past three weeks? We will not be able to get the same numbers in September This is a defeat for us. We became a laughing stock and are returning to work without gaining anything. Another teacher, Anna, commented: I expected everything, but definitely not this. I am saying straight away: me and all my coworkers are leaving the ZNP. And we will not go on strike again! We risked everything: our relations with the parents, our salaries, everything! Weve had enough of this! The teachers were betrayed by Solidarnosc, today weve been betrayed by the ZNP! I believed in you! The disappointment is enormous! Im at loss for words! The decision has been announced by the leadership of the ZNP, without a hint of democratic discussion or any vote involving the striking teachers. It came after intense pressure from the government, the capitalist media and others lackeys of the ruling class, who shamed the teachers for conducting a strike during important exams, which will now be continued as normal in May. The labour leaders could have easily explained that it is the government and the system as a whole that jeopardises education, not the striking teachers fighting against years of mismanagement and neglect of the public education. Overcrowding and cuts are stopping the students from achieving their full potential, not the strike. It is the ongoing chaos in the education system and cuts to schools that make it difficult for teachers to help the students in their learning, not the strike. In fact, the strike is the only weapon in the hands of teachers and students with the power to change this. Broniarz, Proksa and other trade union leaders are not able to understand and explain this, because they are not willing to change society. They proved to be nothing but careerists who made for themselves cushy careers on the back of the organised labour movement. A leadership able to organise the struggle for workers demands, when attacked, could have tipped the balance of forces even more in favour of the teachers struggle. A militant appeal to the parents, students, and all sections of the working class would have transformed the situation entirely and the government could do nothing about it. Indeed, this cowardly behaviour is not an accident Sawomir Broniarz has been the ZNP leader for 24 years. Many others on the executive have also been in their positions for the entire period of relative class peace over the past period. As they grew used to their prestigious positions, powered by impressive salaries and lavish expenses bills, they were taken completely off guard by everything that happened in the past two-and-a-half weeks of the strike. They attempted to let off the steam that has been building from the bottom up for months. But they were not prepared to lead a struggle, which inevitably raised the fierce resistance of the ruling class and the system under which they receive their privileges. This is something that the teachers, in the course of the strike, became acutely aware of. The ferment within Solidarnosc following its leaderships betrayal at the beginning of the strike showed that. The passive suspicion within the ZNP ranks towards the leadership has also been transformed into a feeling of open dissent. Teachers will now have to return to work. However, many of them (and with them all those who mobilised and supported them have gained an enormous amount of experience), which they will put to use in the future struggles. As Marxists, we will support any attempt by the workers to carry out a full transformation of their organisation, beginning by replacing those local, regional and national leaders who, in their conduct during the strike, proved that they dont deserve their positions. The power of the working class Neither the government and bourgeois commentators, nor the trade union leaders expected the teachers strike to go as far as it did in the past weeks. The opportunist labour leaders, used to the previous period of relative class peace, were scared by the radicalism of this strike, which was spiralling out of their control. The Liberals, who expected this to be a petty squabble against the PiS that they could use for their own political gains, also withdrew their support as soon as they realised its true character. For example, Tomasz Lis, one of the most prominent Liberal commentators, joined ranks with the PiS when he was forced to admit he agreed with the PiS lie that there is no money, and that the strike should be ended. This attitude is not surprising the PO, when in power, was notorious for brutal cuts to the education system. It was just a matter of time before the Liberal politicians responded to their real class interests and withdrew their support or openly played an antagonistic role towards the strike. The strike unleashed forces that laid bare the class content of all organisations, and which put to the test all their leaders. It shattered many illusions that the PiS or the Liberal opposition are able to solve anything for working-class people. The class struggle swept away all that is alien to the working class including the middle-class liberals, the sectarians and ultra-lefts, who convinced themselves that the Polish workers were too backward to fight, viewing them with nothing but contempt. But they too were left with their jaws wide open. Many of them were nowhere to be seen during the movement. The last three weeks shook the country from top to bottom, because a mass movement was spearheaded by an important section of the working class, which after years if not decades of passivity, humiliation, exploitation and hopelessness, had finally stood on its feet and said: Weve had enough!. The best creativity, spontaneity, and the belief that things can be changed were delivered by the best proletarian methods of struggle that are part of the traditions of the Polish working class. The ZNP leaders became a fetter on the development of the strike immediately after it started. They opposed forming picket lines, occupations, and they allowed a return to work on an individual basis for invigilation of the middle school exams. Some teachers were pressured heavily to return to work for the exams, and due to a lack of leadership and out of an honest concern for students, some of them did, especially in smaller towns and villages. Where the teachers stood their ground, they were forced to watch government sponsored scabs, often without any qualifications, do their job for them. With even more important exams coming up at the beginning of May, they were not going to allow this another time. On Wednesday 17 April, an Inter-School Strike Committee (MKS the acronym is a reference to workers councils in the 1980/81 revolution) was formed in Warsaw. In the next days, similar MKS committees were formed in Wrocaw, Krakow, Poznan, odz, Gdansk, Gorzow, Biaystok and Szczecin. Very soon, this spread to the smallest cities and towns throughout the country. This remarkable development was achieved without any organisation, or call from above. It was the spontaneous creation of Polish teachers who were prepared to fight until victory. The local MKS then linked together on a national scale to form the All-Polish Interschool Strike Committee. This organ, directly representing the teachers, sat alongside the ZNP in the talks against the government, in which no compromise was reached by either side. They then pressured the ZNP to prepare mass demonstrations in all cities, which were attended by tens of thousands. Squares of the smallest towns were filled with unprecedented crowds of people expressing their solidarity. Many MKS voted to prepare the sharpest tools of struggle to ensure victory in the wake of the May exams. The largest demonstration in support of the teachers was held in Warsaw, the day before Broniarz announced the strike suspension. It is no wonder that almost all MKS are unhappy with Broniarzs decision to suspend the strike. Many, such as the one in Poznan, decided to ignore the suspension and carry on striking, although this is unfortunately an isolated example. The teachers were prepared to fight to the end, but they are also tired. There is only so long you can fight for without victory in sight. With hopeless leadership that conceded on every important question, and which refused to extend the struggle to other sections of the working class, the majority will most likely return to work. The Warsaw MKS states: We deplore the suspension of this strike. The government has not conceded a single one of our demands. We are thoroughly bitter and disappointed We are aware that the Polish education system will never be the same again. Our protest will continue. The role of structures, which arose spontaneously from the bottom, is not yet finished. General strike looming ahead Demonstration in support of striking teachers called by the Warsaw MKS and ZNP / Image: fair use The scale and scope of the teachers strike has hit Poland like thunder from a clear, blue sky. The teachers were regarded with scepticism by all the pessimists, but, along with students, parents and supportive workers, they overcame a thousand and one barriers imposed upon them by the PiS, the capitalists, the state and the trade union leaders. The strike showed the workers in all corners of Poland that it is possible to group together and fight back. Although the labour leaders did their best to prepare defeat, the war is not lost by any means. The teachers are currently disheartened, but conditions have not changed and they will be forced to return on the path of struggle. The movement will erupt again once they see a chance of success. Broniarz announced that the struggle will continue in September if the demands are not met. But the teachers will not move again in the same way until the question of leadership accountability is resolved and they are confident they can win. This is why the next upsurge of struggle necessarily will come back on an even higher level. In the coming months, the most-advanced workers must seek to involve as many sections of the working class as possible to strike at once. The need for a general strike is already being discussed among a layer of workers, who have learned from this strike that there is widespread discontent among the Polish working class, who all share the same problems. The emergence of the MKS is the consequence of a natural yearning of the teachers to express themselves as a section of the working class. These committees must not be disbanded, but strengthened until September and beyond, and if any other section of the working class mobilises in the meantime, they should be involved in these organs of workers power. A general mobilisation of the working class will naturally come back to this experience. The Interschool Strike Committees will become Interdistrict and Interfactory Strike Committees. As they strive to link up on a national scale, the question of which class holds power in society will become the burning question of the day. A National Council of Workers Delegates will become the embryo of a new power in society, if it develops a mass base of support. This perspective is entirely possible. The most important task, which will be the result of the future struggles, is that of building a revolutionary leadership that will lead the working class to power. An entirely new period has opened up in Poland. The Polish working class is learning that, when mobilised, they are a powerful force. The main weakness of this movement has been the trade union leadership. Polish workers are also realising that they cannot expect the PiS or the capitalists to solve their problems, and that the struggle against the capitalist ruling class is not only necessary, but will be much harder than they initially expected. Armed with this understanding, they will enter the future struggles with even more determination. The confidence of the ruling class, who now rejoice of their petty victory will be then shattered to pieces. Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) holds talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing, capital of China, April 26, 2019. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi) BEIJING, April 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping Friday held talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing. Xi said the relationship between China and Russia has become a major-country relationship featuring the highest degree of mutual trust, the highest level of coordination and the highest strategic value since the two countries established diplomatic ties 70 years ago. "We should always regard each other as important development opportunities, support each other and draw on each other's strength to achieve revitalization together," he said. Stressing that Russia is an important partner in the joint development of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Xi said the alignment of the BRI with the Eurasian Economic Union is a model of regional economic cooperation. The two sides should continue to promote cooperation in economy and trade, energy, science and technology, aerospace, connectivity, as well as cooperation at sub-national level and people-to-people and cultural exchanges, Xi said, adding that China will send a pair of giant pandas to Russia for joint research. Xi also noted that China and Russia should enhance coordination in international affairs, jointly defend the authority of the United Nations and the UN Security Council, uphold the international law and universally recognized norms governing international relations, firmly promote multi-polarity and democracy of international relations, and uphold multilateralism. The BRI, proposed by President Xi, has provided an important platform and set a successful example for expanding international cooperation, and won increasing support from the international community, Putin said, adding that the presence of so many state leaders and representatives at this forum is a proof. On the occasion of celebrating the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations, Russia is willing to enhance high-level contacts with China, and deepen bilateral exchanges and cooperation in various fields, such as doing well in exemplary major projects in energy and connectivity sectors, he said. The two leaders also exchanged views on issues including the situation on the Korean Peninsula and Venezuela, and agreed to communicate and coordinate closely in international and regional affairs and multilateral institutions. Also on Friday, President Xi attended a ceremony at which Tsinghua University awarded Putin an honorary doctorate. Tsinghua University is a world-renowned university and the alma mater of President Xi, Putin said. "In the presence of my good friend President Xi Jinping, Tsinghua University conferred an honorary doctorate on me and held a grand ceremony. I feel honored and deeply touched." "President Putin is a good friend and old friend of the Chinese people, and has made historic contributions to deepening political mutual trust between China and Russia and promoting bilateral cooperation in various fields," Xi said, extending congratulations to Putin. Xi said he hopes young Chinese and Russian students will contribute to China-Russia friendship for generations to come. Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) meets with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras who is attending the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing, capital of China, April 26, 2019. (Xinhua/Zhang Ling) BEIJING, April 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday met with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who is attending the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing. Xi said that Greece sets a model for European countries to carry out mutually beneficial cooperation with China and joint development of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). China is willing to maintain high-level exchanges and mutual respect and trust with Greece, fully tap the value of profound historical and cultural heritage of the two countries, promote dialogue among civilizations, and strengthen coordination and cooperation in international affairs, Xi said. China is also ready to strengthen the alignment of the BRI with Greece's strategy to build an important international logistics hub, Xi noted. Tsipras described the BRI as a great proposal which reflects the wisdom of ancient Chinese philosophy and embodies deliberation on the future of the world, thus serving as a bridge between East and West and an opportunity for all countries to develop. Greece has actively supported and participated in the BRI development from the very beginning because the country, like China with a long history of civilization, is able to understand the initiative from the perspective of history. The Greek side is glad to take advantage of the BRI and the cooperation platform between China and central and eastern European countries to develop strategic relations with China, and support deepening cooperation between Europe and China, he added. Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) meets with Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, who is here to attend the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, in Beijing, capital of China, April 26, 2019. (Xinhua/Zhang Ling) BEIJING, April 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday met with Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, who is here to attend the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. Xi said China and Thailand are close neighbors, and the joint development of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) makes the already amicable bilateral relations even better. The two countries should carry forward the traditional friendship and enhance high-level contacts, so as to guide the sound development of the bilateral ties, he said. China will continue to support Thailand's efforts in maintaining domestic stability and promoting national development, and is willing to strengthen the alignment of the two countries' development strategies and advance high-quality BRI cooperation, to give a strong boost to the bilateral ties, Xi said. China supports Thailand's role as the rotating chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) this year, Xi said, adding that China is willing to deeply align the BRI with the ASEAN's connectivity plan. Prayut spoke highly of China's achievements in fields including economic growth, poverty relief and environmental protection. He said Thailand benefited greatly from the infrastructure and data connectivity since the inception of the BRI almost six years ago, adding that Thailand will continue to support and actively engage in the BRI cooperation. NORRISTOWN Montgomery County gained more than 1,500 COVID-19 cases and five deaths since Saturday as the pandemic continues to remain a presence locally. Figures obtained from Montgomery Countys COVID-19 Data Hub reported 942 COVID-19 cases from Dec. 18 to Dec. 20, and 604 cases were counted Wednesday afternoon for the period of Dec. 21 and Dec. 22. Thereve been... Beijing, April 26 (People's Daily Online) -- Australian State Premier of Victoria Daniel Andrews praised the progress of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and stressed the importance of a mutual relationship, saying a strong relationship with China is about prosperity, jobs, economic opportunities and more. Andrews made the remarks in an exclusive interview with Peoples Daily Online at the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF), currently ongoing in Beijing. The three-day forum gathers some 5,000 participants from more than 150 countries and 90 international organizations. On Chinese President Xi Jinpings keynote speech at this years BRF, Andrews noted he was particularly impressed at the reference to quality and significance of further reform in regards to Chinas economy, foreign investment, trade and tariff barriers, and the further expansion of special free trade zones. From the Victoria point of view, [we will] have more products coming into China, more capital coming into China, as well as partnerships, not just trade but better trust and friendship as well, he explained. (Photo: Wang Tianle/People's Daily Online) Andrews was elected the State Premier of Victoria in 2014, only one year after the BRI was first proposed. In his opinion, over the last five years the partnership between China and Victoria has become stronger and broader. During the interview, Andrews pointed out that in the past few years, since the two parties created a plan for better connection and partnership, we have seen the total amount of direct foreign investment that comes to our part of Australia go from around 7 or 8 percent to over 25 percent, and the total export volume grow from about 6 billion dollars to more than 10 billion dollars." According to Xinhua, since President Xi proposed the BRI in 2013, 126 countries and 29 international organizations have signed BRI cooperation documents with China. Last year, Victoria signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with China on the Belt and Road Initiative, becoming the first among all Australian states to do so. A real partnership is built on trust, Andrews said, explaining that Victoria is honored to be involved in the BRI and is always looking forward to further opportunities. He noted that Chinese experience and the Chinese community in Victoria have made a profound contribution to modern Victoria. Everyone is very hopeful and broadly optimistic about what the future holds. When Andrews was re-elected on November 24, 2018, he promised the biggest road and rail infrastructure agenda in the states history, worth 100 billion dollars. The whole project is linked to the BRI, he said, expressing high hopes for China, Chinas involvement in getting the construction completed, both investment and capital, is very important to us. We welcome that. In addition to trade and infrastructure, cultural partnership also plays an important role. The number of tourists from China and Victoria has increased year by year. The two sides conduct cultural exchanges through galleries, ballet, symphony orchestra and more. What builds the strong partnership is more than just one deal or product, it has resilience and strength to it that can get stronger and even more prosperous. Andrews concluded that any valuable and meaningful partnership requires the efforts of both parties, as well as consistency and investment in people-to-people relationships. Such effort underpins mutual benefit and understanding that further strengthen the partnership. This year celebrates the 40th anniversary of the sister-state relationship between Victoria and east Chinas Jiangsu Province. Andrews schedule includes getting more partners and bringing further investment back to Victoria. Sports Injured Osaka pulls out of Stuttgart Open STUTTGART, Apr 27 (Agencies) | Publish Date: 4/27/2019 11:47:09 AM IST World number one Naomi Osaka has pulled out of the WTA tournament in Stuttgart due to an abdominal injury. The 21-year-old Japanese was scheduled to play a semi-final tie against Estonian eighth seed Anett Kontaveit on Saturday evening but announced in the afternoon that she would be unable to play. Osaka said that she had to roll out of bed on Saturday morning after picking up the injury during her quarter-final win over Donna Vekic on Friday. I couldnt lift my upper body. I dont expect that I will be able to serve, she said. Its an ab strain, something that Ive had before. Thankfully, because Ive had it so many times I am able to tell what it is and I know what to do. I never want to withdraw, especially in a semi-final, so I am sad, she said. Osaka said she had broken the news that she was in pain to her team after her dramatic comeback against Croatias Vekic on Friday. We were in the gym to cool down and they were all happy. she said. I was like er, I have some bad news, and sort of sprung it on them that I was in pain. They were cool about it, so I am grateful to them. Osaka, who reached her first semi-final on clay in Stuttgart, said that she might have jinxed herself by talking about injury ahead of the tournament. They say you can speak things into existence. I feel like I do that a lot. Yet having reached the last four of a WTA tournament for the first time since winning the Australian Open last January, Osaka said she was happy with how things had gone in Stuttgart. International US slaps sanctions on Venezuelan minister, judge Washington, April 27 (IANS) | Publish Date: 4/27/2019 11:37:20 AM IST The US Treasury Department said it has imposed sanctions on Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza and a Venezuelan judge. Jorge Arreaza and the female judge, Carol Padilla, were put on the blacklist of Treasurys Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), Xinhua reported on Friday, citing a statement issued by the US Treasury department. As a result of the sanctions, all property and interests in property of those sanctioned targets that are subject to US jurisdiction will be blocked, and US persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with them, the statement noted. The US has been pursuing a policy of economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation against the Venezuelan government in support of the opposition leader Juan Guaido. The OFAC last week targeted Central Bank of Venezuela and its director Iliana Josefa Ruzza Teran. In response, Arreaza called US economic and financial sanctions that impact the whole nation represent human rights violations on a grand scale. Li Zhanshu (R), a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, meets with Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who is attending the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, in Beijing, capital of China, April 26, 2019. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu) BEIJING, April 26 (Xinhua) -- Li Zhanshu, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), on Friday met with Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who is attending the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing. The proposals and measures for deeper cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), put forward by President Xi Jinping in his keynote speech at the forum Friday, could guide the efforts to enhance mutually beneficial cooperation between China and Uzbekistan, said Li. The NPC would like to work with the Legislative Chamber of Uzbekistan's Supreme Assembly to create a favorable legal environment for deepening friendly and mutually beneficial cooperation between the two countries, he said. Noting that President Xi's speech has rich content and is of great significance, Mirziyoyev said that Uzbekistan firmly supports and will continue to deeply engage in the development of the BRI. By Express News Service NEW DELHI: Faced with bumper production of wheat in an election year the Government has raised the import duty on wheat to 40 per cent from an already high 30 per cent to discourage millers from buying wheat from abroad. Indias wheat production is estimated at a record 99.12 million tonnes in 2018-19 crop year which runs from July to June, about 2 per cent higher than last years. Governments wheat stocks held by the Food Corporation of India stood at 16.99 million tonnes as of April 1. Government is expected to buy another 35-40 million tonnes of wheat this year, after which stock with could touch 57 million tonnes by the end of May. The higher duty will force milers who import a trickle of wheat to buy locally and help protect farm prices, said Prof. Biswajit Dhar of the Jawaharlal Nehru University. The Government had in a bid to improve farm incomes raised the minimum support price of wheat or the rate at which its arm the Food Corporation of India - buys from farmers by 6 per cent to Rs 1,840 rupees per 100 kg for 2019. This acts as a benchmark for the open market in wheat. This being an election year, we had to take permission from the Election Commission before the duty hike was announced. However this increase was necessary to protect local farm interests, said officials. Last year too the Government had increased import duty on wheat from 20 per cent to 30 per cent after a similar bumper crop, resulting in a sharp drop in wheat imports to 1.65 mt in 2017-18 from 5.7 mt in 2016-17. Food Corporation of India is likely to offload stocks before buying more wheat say officials and the duty hike will help them get a better price from Indian millers. India has in the past imported wheat from Australia, Ukraine and Russia. However global prices plus a 40 per cent duty would make it virtually prohibitive t ship in wheat into India. At this high duty rate imports will be impossible, Dhar said. Though Australia has in the past taken India to WTO arbitration panel on its farm duty rates as well as on subsidies it gives to farmers, it is unlikely to move as India by right can raise duties on wheat up to 80 per cent under a bound rate agreement it has made at the WTO. By PTI NEW YORK: US authorities have opened a criminal probe into Ford's emissions certification process, the automaker said Friday. Ford "voluntarily disclosed" to US and California regulators in February a "potential concern" with the program to certify the amount of pollutants emitted by its vehicles. "Subsequently, the US Department of Justice opened a criminal investigation into the matter," the automaker said in a securities filing, stressing that is it did not involve "defeat devices" that have cost German automaker Volkswagen billions of dollars. Ford also notified additional state and federal agencies and is cooperating with officials, but the automaker could not yet make an estimate of any cost to the company as a result of the investigations. "Because this matter is still in the preliminary stages, we cannot predict the outcome, and we cannot provide assurance that it will not have a material adverse effect on us," Ford said in the filing. The disclosure came after Ford reported USD 1.1 billion in first-quarter profits, a drop of 34 per cent from the comparable period of last year, but better than analysts expected. Volkswagen has paid some USD 33 billion in fines, compensation and buybacks due to its "dieselgate" scandal, which continues to reverberate. Earlier this month, German prosecutors charged Volkswagen chief executive Martin Winterkorn and four other managers of fraud. Shares of Ford rose 8.9 per cent to USD 10.24 in early trading. By Express News Service NEW DELHI: Chinese phone maker Xiaomi retained its top slot with 29 per cent market share during the first quarter of this fiscal, though its shipments declined by 2 per cent year-on-year (YoY), reveals a report by Counterpoint Research. Second largest, Samsungs market share also declined further to 23 per cent YoY in the quarter under review as against 26 per cent in corresponding period last year. In the third place was Vivo, whose market share doubled to 12 per cent during the first three months this year. Xiaomi remains the market leader mainly due to new product launches. However, it faced strong market competition as compared to a year ago, while Samsung did a major refresh in its product portfolio, launching a new online-only M series, said Anshika Jain, research analyst, Counterpoint Research. Overall, the countrys smartphone shipments grew 4 per cent YoY to 31 million units. While the market started off to a slow start post record festive season, demand started picking up only later in the quarter. The overall growth was slower than expected as some of the major brands were sitting on inventory after a stock build up during the festive period last quarter. This quarter, we have seen all major brands expanding their footprint in offline channels to gain market share, said Jain. The report also finds that Chinese brands controlled a record 66 per cent of the smartphone market in the first quarter. Volumes for the Chinese brands grew 20 per cent YoY mainly due to the growth of Vivo, Realme and Oppo, it said. While Vivos volume grew 119 per cent YoY, Oppo grew 28 per cent YoY. Vivos expanding portfolio in the mid-tier (Rs 7,000-Rs 14,000) drove its growth along with aggressive IPL campaign around its flagship V-series. Oppo, on the other hand, focused on expanding its portfolio in the less crowded Rs 15,000 - Rs 25,000 segment, the research firm said in its report. Data consumption is on the rise and users are upgrading their phones faster as compared to other regions. This has led to users spending more on their purchase, which is driving up the overall average selling price in the market, said Tarun Pathak, associate director at the firm. By Express News Service BENGALURU: Police on Friday night arrested a 65-year-old retired army man for making a hoax call to the police control room around 5.35 PM stating that the call was meant to alert the police about possible terror attacks targeting trains in South India, Maharashtra and Goa. According to a senior police officer, the caller, Sundar Murthy, is a resident of Avalahalli who has been working as a truck driver for the past five years. Murthy was arrested late on Friday night at Avalahalli and was later handed over to city police for further interrogation. The caller had created panic by also claiming that a group of 19 terrorists were placed in Tamil Nadu's Ramanathapuram. Police stated that the caller pleaded guilty and said he didnt think it would create large scale panic. "He has been handed over to Vidhana Soudha police station for further investigation. He was working as a driver in the army and when enquired he says he got the vision as he claims to do meditation on a regular basis," said DCP Girish. Siva Sekaran By Express News Service CHENNAI: Consensual sexual acts performed with a girl over 16 years of age can be excluded from rigorous provisions on the POCSO Act, the Madras High Court suggested on Friday. The court said that more liberal provisions can be introduced, within the Act, to deal with such cases. The suggestion was made in a bid to distinguish teenage relationships from the sexual assault of children below the age of 16. The observation was made by Justice V Parthiban while allowing a criminal appeal filed by Sabari aka Sabarinathan aka Sabarivasan. Sabari was sentenced by a sessions court in June, 2018, to undergo 10-year jail time. According to Belukurichi police, he abducted a 17-year-old school girl and married her. Later, he took her to Bengaluru where they indulged in sexual intercourse. The girl, however, denied the charges against Sabari. Justice Parthiban said the Act can be amended to the effect that the age gap between the offender and the girl is not more than five years with the boy being older for liberal provisions to be enacted. This is to ensure that the impressionable age of the victim is not taken advantage of by a person much older and beyond the age of presumable infatuation or innocence. Vidya Reddy, the co-founder of Tulir, said she was in favour of the redefinition. The move was suggested in the fourth draft when POCSO was being framed. It was removed from the final Act on moralistic grounds. When they say the age has been lowered to 16, there is a qualification as to how the consent was obtained. However, some activists are concerned that the move may be detrimental in cases where the intent of deceit is clear. There are chances that cases like Pollachi gang-rape where there seems to be a clear intention of deceit -- may be closed by concluding the relationship was consensual, says Andrew Sesuraj of TN Child Rights Observatory. Back in the courtroom, the judge noted that a majority of cases in this category are to do with teenage relationships. ...The relationship invariably assumes penal character by subjecting the boy involved to rigours of POCSO Act. Once the age of the girl is established as below 18 years, the boy involved is sure to be sentenced to seven years or 10 years, the Judge said. Such relationship cannot be construed as an unnatural one or alien. But, in such cases where the age of the girl is below 18 years, though she was capable of giving consent for relationship, being mentally matured, unfortunately, provisions of POCSO Act get attracted if such relationship transcends beyond platonic limits, attracting strong arm of law sanctioned by the provisions of the Act. The judge acquitted the accused in the case. By Express News Service CHENNAI: The Chennai city police arrested two men on Friday who allegedly kidnapped a 28-year-old man for not repaying the money he had borrowed. The alleged kidnappers had taken the victim in a two-wheeler to Vellore and the police tracked the men with the help of mobile signals on Friday. Police said Sathish Kumar (28), a resident of Porur, was working in Singapore a year ago before he returned to the country and started working in a private company in Sriperumbudur. Sathish Kumar, who was in contact with a woman through social media and wanted to meet her, went to Porur on Thursday night along with his friend Prakash. When they were near the Porur bus-stop, two men came on a motorbike and attacked the duo and took Sathish Kumar forcibly at knife-point and sped away, said Inspector Sankara Narayanan of SRMC police station. Prakash told the police Sathish Kumar taken forcibly was seated in between the two unidentified men on the motorbike. The SRMC police registered a case and started tracking the mobile number of Sathish Kumar. Police investigations revealed that the men had reached Vellore, and with the help of the local police, the Chennai city police team nabbed the suspects on Friday evening. The accused were identified as P Rahul (20) and P Ajith Kumar (23), both natives of Vellore. Preliminary investigations revealed that Ajith Kumars brother Nandakumar was the mastermind behind the kidnap. They had kidnapped Sathish Kumar since he did not repay Rs 34,000 which he had borrowed from Nandakumar, said the police officer. Nandakumar and Sathish had worked together in Singapore when the latter had borrowed `34,000 a year ago. After Sathish Kumar reached Chennai, Nandakumar had tried to contact him through phone but he did not pick the mobile, said the police. Later, to trap Sathish Kumar, Nandakumar devised a plan. His younger brother Ajith Kumars wife texted Sathish Kumar through social media for over a month by disguising herself and wooed him stating that she was in love with him. On Thursday night, the woman asked Sathish Kumar to come to Porur to meet her, said the police. Believing the woman, Sathish reached the spot from where Ajith Kumar and Rahul kidnapped him and sped away. The SRMC police, who registered a case, arrested the duo. Police said Sathish had promised to repay the debt to Nandakumar. Wooed on social media by creditors sis-in-law As the victim failed to repay the debt, the creditor devised a plan and made his younger brothers wife contact the victim on social media. The woman, who did not reveal her identity, successfully wooed him saying that she was in love with him. On Thursday night, she asked the victim to come to Porur to meet her. When he reached the spot, the two accused persons kidnapped him Siddhanta Mishra By Express News Service NEW DELHI: AAPs South Delhi candidate Raghav Chadha, 30, is the youngest candidate in the poll fray in the national capital. A Chartered Accountant by profession, Chadha spoke to Siddhanta Mishra on a range of topics related to the election. Excerpts: Why does the AAP think that a full state status is a solution to all the problems of Delhi? Statehood is the solution to major problems that Delhi faces. All provinces in India have full statehood, practically even Goa and Puducherry. Statehood is required so that the elected government can function as per the wishes of the people of Delhi. Critical subjects like land, policing, sanitation and cleanliness will become part of the subject of administration of the elected government, which will have more power. Regularisation of unauthorised colonies, creation of jobs, economy, and law and order situation all of these will become very smooth. Aam Aadmi Party candidate from South Delhi constituency, Raghav Chadha, during a roadshow at Dwarka in New Delhi. | Express Photo Services What is the main issue of South Delhi? For the past 70 years, BJP and Congress governments have kept entire South Delhi away from basic amenities. In the past four years, the Arvind Kejriwal government has been able to provide basic amenities like electricity, sewage drains, roads, lanes and, particularly, water to each and every household. We will regularise every unauthorised colony and provide pukka houses to slum-dwellers. Transport and traffic problems will be solved by augmentation of public transport like metro, buses and autos. FOLLOW OUR FULL ELECTION COVERAGE HERE The BJP says Central schemes are not being implemented in Delhi purely because of political reasons. Why is that? State heads of more than six countries have come to India to study the mohalla clinics. The world is copying the development and welfare schemes of the Arvind Kejriwal government. I think the Modi government needs to come and learn from Delhi. The Delhi government is augmenting the health care system in such a manner that quality healthcare is accessible and cheap. The Ayushman Bharat is a bankrupt scheme that will actually harm Delhi, rather than benefitting the people. Why should people vote for the AAP? In South Delhi, this election is about the people of South Delhi versus Ramesh Bidhuri (the BJP candidate). The people are perturbed by the fact that politics of hooliganism, gundaism has dominated. Goons of the BJP have assaulted their own Poorvanchal wing members on the streets of South Delhi and said Bihari, tu wapas chale ja. These BJP goons are vitiating the atmosphere of brotherhood in South Delhi. The people want to get rid of goons and hooligans and wish to choose intelligent, educated and leaders with good intention. Alliance talks with the Congress did not work out. AAP is also accused of splitting the anti-BJP votes. Congress says why should they only think about opposition unity. Well, AAP is the biggest and most formidable challenger to the BJP in Delhi. Congress is an arrogant party that does not understand that it is important to get rid of Modi-Amit Shah by defeating the BJP. They have no representative in the Vidhan Sabha, none in the Rajya Sabha from Delhi. It is non-existent. The Congress is only fighting the election to benefit the BJP, as they are doing in Bengal and Uttar Pradesh. Voters are intelligent they know that voting for the Congress is tantamount to wasting the vote. Therefore, the people will vote for AAP to defeat the BJP. Sabyasachi Roy Chaudhuri By Express News Service HYDERABAD: In our city, we have quite a few good restaurants offering traditional Hyderabadi food. However, food lovers now have many more choices as far as the local cuisine is concerned. A breed of food entrepreneurs known as home chefs is becoming a rage offering a comprehensive range of Hyderabadi delicacies including quite a few uncommon dishes. On a daily basis for your home or for special occasions and parties, you can now turn to these home chefs to dish out some delectable fare, often incurring a fraction of the cost compared to the restaurants. Most of the home chefs rely on word-of-mouth publicity and social media like Facebook and Whatsapp for promoting their business, and many of them have developed a large fan following over time. Here are some of the leading ones to whom you can turn to for ordering Hyderabadi food during functions and other special occasions at your home. Naaz Anjums Anjums Kitchen started around four years back when appreciation for the desserts supplied by her during Ramzan, turned into a business opportunity. The quick acceptance saw her move on to biryanis, curries, and other Hyderabadi specials. Today apart from servicing orders from home, she also undertakes catering for events like marriages and baby showers. Double ka meetha and shaadi ka red chicken are some of the dishes she is known for apart from the Hyderabadi biryani. Naaz acknowledges that the social media food groups as well as word-of-mouth publicity, have come handy in promoting her food. She also organizes sit-down dinners at her home for groups. One of the oldest in the business, Moms Home Made Food run by Zarina Sha initially flourished only through word-of-mouth references from customers. Operating for more than ten years, Zarina now runs a large team catering to events, festivals, and office parties. Her popularity went up even more when Hyderabad Literary Festival provided her an opportunity to put up a stall during the event exclusively offering Hyderabadi food. Some of her popular dishes include paya, marag, kheema biryani, tahari and varieties of kheer and phirni. The demand for her food has reached such a level now that you need to order them at least a week in advance. Zarina recommends her Hyderabadi chicken 65 which is prepared without any coating. She even sends some of her items abroad using dry ice packaging. Nizams Flavour, the brand of home chef Farha Sultana differentiates itself by the special dishes offered. Farha, who picked up cooking from her grandmother during her childhood has worked with a chain of restaurants for a few years. Pasinde ka salan is one dish from her which is not available in commercial establishments. Dum ka kheema and marag are some other favourites of her customers apart from sutriyan, an authentic Hyderabadi wholesome dish which has wheat chapatti pieces and mutton in it. As per Farha, the business of home chefs in Hyderabad has gone up significantly due to social media marketing, though competition has also increased over time. As a homemaker, Sara Ansari used to post pictures of her cooked food in foodie groups. Soon, she started getting requests for supplying Hyderabadi food, and over a period of time Ansaris Kitchen became a popular choice mainly through social media and word-of-mouth. Apart from the usual Hyderabadi dishes, she excels in dishes like Nihari and Paya. Her non-vegetarian pickles are also much in demand, with varieties such as mutton, chicken, and beef. One of her specialities is the superfood panjiri prepared with wheat flour, seeds and dry fruits, a dish which keeps you warm during the winter. However, being a successful home chef is not just a domain of the fairer sex. Noor Sahil serves special dishes such as Nizami and Sofiyani Biryani, as well as desserts such as Badam ki Kund and Lichi Rabri. Noor had been preparing Hyderabadi food from his childhood but had never planned to become a home chef. At a food lovers meet, he tried out pot biryani from a well-known and popular chef and realized that he could serve much better food. His dishes are in demand for parties too. Sabyasachi is a food enthusiast and blogs at www.foodaholix.in Merin Mariya By Express News Service THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With hacking, fake identity and sextortion on the increase, cybersecurity is a serious concern. According to the Cyber Cell Wing of the city police, social media platforms provide a pool of personal information about individuals which attract hackers. While poor content safety and unprotected data are said to be the reasons behind, police also say that hackers have become more efficient and have mastered the art of hacking using even a single link from anywhere in the world. The Cyber Cell petition data received in the month of March revealed a total of 99 hacking cases on Facebook, offensive posting, abuse and fake account cases, among which 38 petitioners were females. Other social media (Instagram, Twitter, ShareChat) petitions disclosed a total of 100 cases among which 12 are female petitioners. A total of 470 petitions were received alone in the month of March which shows the severity of the issue and the need to reconsider cyber safety. According to the city police commissioner, every individual should follow cyber hygiene especially while active on multiple social media platforms. "Studies reveal 54 per cent of Indian teenagers using the internet and social networking sites are harassed. The most common online cases reported include cyber-bullying, predators targeting kids, online frauds and technical hacking into user accounts, accessing e-mail address books and posting fake pictures," said Kori Sanjaykumar Gurudin, the city police commissioner. He said the increase in online abuse cases are mostly because the awareness regarding online safety is limited among victims as well as caregivers and service providers. Awareness generation is the ultimate solution referred by the city police. Creating a cyber hygiene policy can bring down the number of hacking and sextortion cases as per the cyber police officials. "Monitor the content that goes online from your private account. Keep changing the password and do not download fewer security apps on the mobile phone as you are giving them a direct entry to use all the data on your phone," said an official in-charge, Cyber Wing, city police. Revenge hacking must also be seriously considered, said Cyber Wing officials. Case Studies A complaint from a lady was received alleging that someone has created a fake ShareChat account in the name Kurumbi ammuzzzz using the particulars of the complainant and shared her personal mobile phone number along with obscene contents. Cyber cell located the culprit using the information collected from ShareChat account. It was found out that he was a student of the complainant and the petition disposed of by IOP Women Cell. An 18-year-old girl filed a complaint saying that she has been threatened and blackmailed on Instagram by a girl. When traced, it revealed that the person on the other side was a boy pretending to be a girl. The person was tracked down and police initiated legal action.A 22-year-old man registered a complaint against a woman on his Instagram friend list and claimed she blackmailed him with their video chats and pictures if he doesn't send her money. The man went through serious mental pressure and was taken to a counselling session. The girl was traced down and it was revealed that an entire sex racket was involved and was operating from abroad. By Express News Service VIJAYAWADA: Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) Commissioner M Rama Rao on Friday said that the civic body had drafted a Summer Action Plan for the city at an estimated cost of Rs 2.19 crore to ensure uninterrupted drinking water supply to the public during the summer months. In a press release issued here on Friday, Rama Rao said that the corporation had been supplying 72,022 kilo litres of drinking water to above 12 lakh people twice a day for an hour from 67 reservoirs across 59 divisions of the city. Apart from that, officials concerned were also instructed to supply drinking water to the residents by getting defunct handpumps repaired. Estimates in this regard were sought from the officials who were asked to ensure the completion of repair works on war footing. The VMC Commissioner also said that drinking water tankers were being procured to supply water to the city suburbs. Disclosing the details of amount being spent for summer action plan, the civic body chief said, Rs 14.50 lakh was allocated to carry out repair works for the motors at Head Water Works, Bhavanipuram, Rs 44.5 lakh for digging new bores at various localities, Rs 37.50 lakh for purchasing electrical materials and Rs 12.75 lakh for purchasing handbore materials.Also, Rs 52.25 lakh will be spent for maintenance of drinking water supply, Rs 24 lakh for repairing the defunct water pipelines, Rs 15 lakh for motor repair works in Circle III limits and Rs 2.06 lakh for supplying drinking water through tankers. The VMC chief further called upon the public to contact the corporation officials at their respective divisions if they face any difficulties in getting the drinking water during summer. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (R) meets with Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, who is attending the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, in Beijing, capital of China, April 26, 2019. (Xinhua/Liu Weibing) BEIJING, April 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Friday met with Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, who is attending the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing. Li said China supports Thailand following a development path suited to its own national conditions, and is willing to strengthen political mutual trust, increase high-level contacts, deepen pragmatic cooperation, and enhance alignment of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) with Thailand's development strategy. China is glad to see Thailand play an more important role in regional cooperation, Li said, adding that China is willing to enhance coordination with Thailand to well organize a series of East Asia cooperation meetings and lift China-ASEAN relations to a new level. China stands ready to deepen cooperation with Thailand under the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation mechanism to promote peace and stability as well as mutual development in the region, said the Chinese premier. Prayut said Thailand is willing to align its national development strategy with the BRI and learn from China's experience in economic development and poverty reduction. By IANS NEW YORK: "Game of Thrones" star Emilia Clarke transformed into Jon Snow to prank unsuspecting members of the public here. The actress, who essays the role of Daenerys Targaryen in the fantasy series, was unrecognisable as she donned a bushy beard and moustache paired with a raven curly wig to get into the character of her on-screen lover and nephew, played by Kit Harington, reports etonline.com. With the activity at the Times Square, she was promoting her new Omaze experience, which will let one lucky fan watch the HBO series' final episode with her. Taking Jon Snow's signature northern accent, she sang: "New York, New York. King of the North! Jon Snow loves New York, oh yeah!" Emilia Clarke takes New York City as Jon Snow #GameofThrones pic.twitter.com/OmDGAgfcby Game of Thrones Facts (@thronesfacts) April 26, 2019 "Since this is the 'Game of Thrones' experience to literally end it all, I thought what better way to spread the word than to hit the streets of Times Square undercover as -- drumroll, please -- Jon Snow!" she said. "The shop was out of Daenerys costumes, because they're sold out. I am Jon Snow, and I'm going to go into Times Square now." Clarke approached a member of the public who failed to recognise her. She said: "Do you want to watch the final episode of 'Game of Thrones', with Emilia Clarke?" The woman responded: "I'm a Walking Dead fan so..."; to which Clarke said: "Christ, I'll tell you how it ends you could put it on the Internet?" The woman responded: "No". The final season of "Game of Thrones" is creating quite a frenzy in the virtual world. It is aired in India on Star World. By Express News Service Actor Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who was last seen in Netflixs Love, Sex, and Robots, will now headline Kate, an action-thriller that will be out on the streaming platform. Directed by Cedric Nicolas-Troyan, Kate is based on a script written by Umair Aleem. Winstead will play a female assassin who, after being poisoned and given less than 24 hours to live, must go on a manhunt through the streets of Tokyo to take vengeance on her murderer before she dies. The film is likely to begin production this year. Netflix landed the project in 2017 after winning an aggressive bidding war for the highly coveted venture. Winstead has gotten comfortable with action-heavy roles after starring in 10 Cloverfield Lane. By Express News Service Filmmaker Pa Ranjith is making his Hindi debut with a biopic on tribal freedom fighter Birsa Munda. Producer Shareen Mantri reveals that the historical epic is in the latter stages of scripting and will go on floors by the end of the year. We are getting the script ready and will be locking it soon. A lot of research has been done. We are thinking about the locations. Parts of it will definitely be shot in Ranchi, since thats where the character is from. Most of the film will be set in the forests, says Shareen.Born in Ulihatu in 1875, Birsa Munda led a series of guerilla uprisings against the British rule who were trying to usurp land from the Munda community. Shilajit Mitra By Express News Service Thirteen years after launching Deepika Padukone in his Kannada film, Aishwarya, director Indrajit Lankesh is making his Hindi debut with a biopic on actor Shakeela Khan. The film stars Richa Chadha in the titular role. Hailing from Nellore, Shakeela had her breakthrough role at the age of 20 in the 1995 Tamil film, Playgirls. She achieved fame for her appearances in Malayalam softcore and B-movies through the 90s, being hailed as one of the first adult superstars of Indian cinema. However, Shakeelas road to stardom was straddled with difficulties and discrimination, not to mention a steady backlash of social and moral outrage, and these are the themes that Indrajit hopes to highlight in his new film. ALSO READ | Calling an adult film actor a porn star a sign of patriarchy: Richa Chadha Cinema Express spoke to the director about his decision to make a film on the veritable South siren, the relevance of her story in the MeToo era, and his experience of working with Richa Chadha and Pankaj Tripathi. Excerpts from the conversation: What pushed you to make a biopic on Shakeela? I was interested in the story of a Muslim minority woman coming to a male-dominated industry and becoming a superstar. Hers is an unprecedented rags-to-riches story. But even after becoming a star maybe because of her own mistakes or the industrys ego and hazards she kept facing problems. Its a story that can inform a lot of youngsters who dream of joining the film industry but only see the glitz and glamour. What was your research process for the film? Ive known Shakeela since 2003, when I cast her for the first time in Kannada cinema. By then she was out of the Malayalam industry and was doing character roles. I eventually came to understand the magnitude of her life and stardom. For the biopic, I conducted extensive personal interviews with her. I also read media reports from her heyday and spoke to industry veterans. The film sticks close to reality. It does not try to justify or glorify Shakeelas choices. Richa Chadha and Indrajit Lankesh Theres a lot of conversation surrounding gender discrimination and harassment in light of the MeToo movement. Does your film touch upon these topics? Discrimination, certainly. The Malayalam industry has always been dominated by male heroes. Theres a huge pay disparity between male and female actors. In such a scenario, the idea of a woman superstar was unheard of. Shakeela not only headlined her movies but also created a profitable market for her films. Her movies were dubbed in Nepalese, Sinhalese, Chinese, and Japanese in the 90s. She also made a splash on the European market. So naturally, there was a lot of shock and resistance. Her religious identity and upbringing were also a factor. How was the experience of working with Richa Chadha and Pankaj Tripathi? When Richa read the script, she immediately agreed that this story had to be told. She is a talented actor and a thorough professional. She got into the skin of the character and worked hard on minute details. She is a complete directors actor she cares more about the larger product than her own scenes and dialogues. Pankaj Tripathi is playing a popular actor in the film. Its a combination of two people. When he came on board and got into costume, he told me that if he was directing this film, he too would have cast himself for the role. I was delighted to hear that from him. Given your family heritage (Indrajit is the son of journalist P Lankesh and brother of Gauri Lankesh, who was assassinated in 2017), how do you feel about the rise of so-called propaganda films and biopics in India? I feel to each his own. Any director will make the film he or she wants to make. Its up to the people of this country to accept or reject their stories. I think Indian audiences are smart enough to dismiss a dishonest film. I respect and appreciate the democracy of this country. By Express News Service NEW DELHI: Thousands of passengers had a harrowing time Saturday early morning as flight operations of Air India were hit for over five hours after a software glitch was reported in its main server. The national carrier said that a "breakdown" in its server from 3:30 am to 8:45 am affected its flights all over the world. As a result, 150 AI flights are likely to face delays of about two hours till 8.30 pm today. During the shutdown, the airline said its PSS (passenger service system) software, which looks after check-in, baggage and reservation, failed to function. The software is handled by SITA, an air transport IT and communications specialist. Incidentally, SITA said that the snag happened during system maintenance and affected only Air India. After supervising the situation at Delhi Airport, AI Chairman Ashwani Lohani said that the system has been restored but warned of delays as it will take time to normalise the situation. "The SITA system resumed at 8.45 am. Up to 10 am, 85 of our flights were delayed. The ripple effect of the delays will be felt mainly on domestic flights till Saturday night." #AirIndia passenger system server operated by #SITA affected due to difficult system issue while undergoing scheduled maintenance. Due to technical glitch in server, Flight operation will be affected through out the day.#Report: Shiela pic.twitter.com/d4Zy4wGJaI All India Radio News (@airnewsalerts) April 27, 2019 As of now, the airline has rescheduled 18 flights for Saturday and cancelled some more. "International flights will not face much impact barring a few like the Shanghai departure being delayed by 1.5 hours. The afternoon departures for Europe will leave with a delay of 15 to 30 minutes," Lohani added. "SITA experienced a complex system issue during server maintenance early this morning, which resulted in operational disruption to AI flights. We have now fully restored services at all airports where Air India were affected," affirmed SITA spokesman Julius Baumann, adding that it is undertaking a complete investigation to understand the root cause and prevent a recurrence. The airline operates 470 flights per day while the Air India Group provides 674 flight services. Rajesh Asnani By Express News Service JODHPUR: Chetan Das Meghwal, who worked as a teacher in Pakistan, got Indian citizenship after a 19-year-long wait. The citizenship, however, came too late. Unable to get a job after completing graduation from a college in Hisar, Devi, his daughter, committed suicide in Jodhpur. I am happy to be an Indian citizen but its incomplete without my daughter. Devi was an engineer but she could not get a job because of her Pakistani passport, said Chetan wiping tears. Thousands of Hindu migrants from Pakistan are waiting for citizenship. The lucky ones who have got the prized document in the border districts of Rajasthan are gearing up to vote for the first time. Politicians campaigning in Rajasthan have been trying to get their support. PM Narendra Modi had recently spoken about giving Hindu migrants citizenship during his rallies in western Rajasthan. Criticising the PM, the Congress blamed the BJP for using this tactic to garner votes. Dr Rakumar Bheel received his citizenship papers in August last year. Hailing from Pakistans Sindh province, he waited for 16 years for it. This is bigger than Diwali for me because Diwali comes every year but this happiness has come to me after 16 years of wait, he said. FOLLOW OUR FULL ELECTION COVERAGE HERE Poorn Das Meghwal, who crossed the border with nine members of his family 22 years ago, said he understands the pain of not being able to vote. Even after living for so many years (in India) we cannot vote and cant avail any government facilities. His children, who were born in India, are called Pakistanis. According to the Seemant Lok Sangathan, which raises the voice of Hindu migrants from Pakistan, there are some 35,000 people in Rajasthan who are in the queue for citizenship. Hindu Singh Sodha, president of the organisation, said, Two years ago, the government gave rights to the district authorities to process citizenship papers, but the progress was painfully slow. Only a thousand got citizenship cards. A big chunk of Hindu migrants live in Barmer and Jodhpur. In western Rajasthan, migrant Hindus and their relatives have a strong presence in these seats. Migrants will vote for parties which take care of them, said Dr Rajkumar Bheel. By IANS NEW DELHI: India on Saturday issued an advisory asking its nationals to avoid "non-essential travel" to Sri Lanka where the situation continues to be precarious in the wake of last Sundays terror attacks. "In view of the prevailing security situation in Sri Lanka in the aftermath of terror attacks on 21 April 2019, Indian nationals intending to travel to Sri Lanka are advised not to undertake non-essential travel," the advisory issued by the External Affairs Ministry said. ALSO READ: Sri Lanka's pain fuels ugly debate in India "The Government of Sri Lanka has beefed up the security in the country. A nation-wide emergency including nighttime curfew is in place at present which may also affect travel within Sri Lanka," it added. Sri Lanka was hit by multiple blasts on Easter Sunday which claimed the lives of 253 people and injured over 500, in the bloodiest attacks in Sri Lanka since the civil war ended a decade ago. VIEW GALLERY: Multiple blasts in Sri Lankan churches, hotels kill several people Last night, 15 people, including six children, were killed in a gunfight when the Sri Lankan security forces raided a hideout of suspected terrorists, three of whom were suicide bombers who blew themselves up, according to the local authorities. The Indian advisory added: "In case of those undertaking essential/emergency travels, they can contact the High Commission of India in Colombo or the Assistant High Commission in Kandy/Consulates in Hambantota and Jaffna in case of requirement of any assistance." The advisory said the helpline numbers of the Indian High Commission are available on the mission's website. By PTI MUMBAI: An initial probe by the apex aircraft investigation body AAIB has found that one of the Pratt & Whitney-powered engines of the A320 Neo flight of IndiGo, which had made a turn back to Pune early this month, stalled mid-air with a loud bang, according to sources. The investigation into the incident that took place on April 2 were handed over to the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), after a preliminary probe by the aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). The bureau has the mandate to investigate all serious incidents/accidents involving aircraft. The Pune-Nagpur flight being operated by an A320 Neo plane (VT-ITG) was later grounded at the Pune airport as it required a major engine overhaul. "While climbing out of FL150 (15,000 ft), a loud bang was heard by the crew which was followed by one engine stalling and high EGT (exhaust gas temperature) going over the limit," the AAIB said in its initial probe. The report has been shared with the French aviation authorities. The preliminary report also found damages to the engine's low-pressure turbine (LPT), which forced the pilot to return to Pune. Significantly, IndiGo spokesperson on April 2 had termed the incident only as an 'engine caution message," while the incident was a grave safety risk as per the bureau report. "After take-off from Pune for Nagpur, the pilot observed engine caution message in the flight (6E-134) operated by an A320 Neo plane. Following this the aircraft returned to Pune," the spokesperson said even without admitting that the plane was a P&W-powered A320 Neo. When reached for comments on the AAIB probe, the airline Friday said as a "matter of policy" it does not comment on an on-going investigation and parried a query on why such a serious incident was dubbed as simply engine 'caution" message. "We immediately reported the occurrence as per the laid down SOP to the DGCA. Subsequently, the matter was also referred to the AAIB, whose investigation is still on," Indigo said in the statement. The US engine-maker Pratt &Whitney, which has been assuring DGCA of fixing the numerous issues its engines face for the past three years now, did not respond to a PTI query on the issue. The A320 Neos of IndiGo and GoAir, which are fitted with P&W engines have been facing glitches intermittently, including mid-air engine shut-downs since their induction in the fleets of these carriers over three years ago. The DGCA only recently conducted a special safety audit on IndiGo for alleged several lapses, non/ irregular reporting of incidents and had issued show-cause notices to its chief operating officer and the head of its engineering. IndiGo, however, claims that its "operations are run more stringent than the prescribed regulatory framework." Significantly, the now grounded Jet Airways, as also SpiceJet and Vistara had flagged serious concerns over the data on technical snags faced by them since 2017, which was provided by the government in Parliament. "The number of technical snags being reported by various airlines is inaccurate. This discrepancy and misreporting of data is leading to false illusion of the relative safety of some airlines over other,' the troika had said in a letter to ministry in March 2018. It came after IndiGo with a fleet size of 151 and over 1,000 daily flights, at that time, had reported only 340 technical snags, of the total 24,700 glitches reported by all carriers for in 2017. Later in July 2018, the airline revised these numbers by a manifold to 14,628 from just 340. Rajesh Asnani By Express News Service JODHPUR: The majestic Umaid Bhawan Palace stands in stark contrast to the objective it basically fulfilled to provide employment to thousands during a period of famine. Its the soul of Jodhpur. Right outside its gates is the Circuit House Circle, agog with political activity. Vaibhav Gehlot, the Chief Minister's son is up and about as he prepares to take on the sitting MP Gajendra Singh Shekhawat. Chandresh Kumari of the Congress was beaten by Shekhawat in 2014 and he became the Union Minister in the Narendra Modi cabinet. Chandresh is from Jodhpur' s royal family. She is the sister of Maharaja Gaj Singh and married in Himachal Pradesh. "It's not easy to win here. There is a lot of respect for the Royal family and she is the daughter of Jodhpur," said a local CM Gehlot knows it and thats why he conducted seven rallies in eight hours across six Assembly segments of Jodhpur last Saturday. Jodhpur 300 km from Jaipur is the heart of Marwar region comprising Jalore, Sirohi, Pali, Jodhpur, Barmer and Jaisalmer LS constituencies. Congress, which has done well in the Assembly and won the LS seat eight times in the past to the BJPs four, believes it has a fair chance this time. FOLLOW OUR FULL ELECTION COVERAGE HERE A walk through the Jalori Gate and into the bustling narrow lanes leads one to Nav Chowkiya Chowk. Ashok Gehlot took an auto to traverse the lanes to address a meeting at the chowk. His father belonged to a family of magicians till he won the first election 38 years back and stayed the course. There is pro-BJP sloganeering as he appeals for votes for Vaibhav. He magnanimously acknowledges it and moves on. The party has given a ticket to Vaibhav. You may consider him your son, your brother or your grandchild but I have put him in your care, he said. At the Jalori Gate, Sudhir Bhati, a worker from Sardarpura said, We voted for Ashok Gehlot five months ago. Now, we will vote for Modiji. He has taught Pakistan a lesson. However, Ajay Parmar in Soorsagar sounded miffed. Because of their animosity with Ashok Gehlot, BJP did not allow Jodhpur the smart city tag. The pungent smell of spice-laced food attracts one to Pokar Sweets. Owner Om Prakash said, Its a close contest. Gehlot has done a lot of work but Modi has made a strong impression on peoples minds. Post-surgical strikes, BJP has pinned its campaign on nationalism and security. Arun Bohra, who said that he voted for the Congress last time, said he will vote for Modi. This election is for the country and there is nobody better than Narendra Modi, he said. But not all are happy. Jodhpur Handicraft Association president Nirmal Bhandari said, In the last five years our MP Gajendra Singh hasnt done anything for the handicraft industry. The industry employs over three lakh people. Sheesham is an agricultural product but he did not represent it in the WTO so it got banned. Now, to export it we have to obtain licences every time, which costs Rs 6,000. According to him, handicraft businessmen have benefitted through the implementation of GST. Gehlots work speaks and Modis name is a big factor. Whoever wins, it will just by a difference of 20,000 votes, he said. Once you tread into the rural environs, the Modi factor eases out. At Pokhran, the site of the Indian nuclear tests, Narayan Das looks away from his cards, and said, BJP hasnt heard our pleas to bring railways closer. A retired soldier, Sharvan Singh is happy. We benefited from One Rank One Pension scheme. When I retired I had a pension of Rs 2,500. Now, its Rs 29,000. Umar Khan, a taxi driver, however, was adamant. Narendra Modi has done a lot but we will vote for the Congress. We might die of hunger but its Congress, he said. Shergarh Assembly segment of Jodhpur is famous as the soldiers cradle for most Army men from Rajasthan hail from the area. In 1996, Jaswant Singh promised us a Kendriya Vidyalaya. Wheres it? said Bagh Singh, an ex-army man. RSS is fully mobilized to canvass for Gajendra Singh. Caste too will play a key role. Jat and Vishnoi communities always play a decisive role. Whoever gets their votes will win Jodhpur, said Lalit Parihar a local journalist. Marwar is known as the heartland of the Thar and also a politically significant region along the borders with Pakistan. The dominant castes were for once stilled during the Modi wave, which swept all before it in 2014 but this time, it seems different. A much more confident Congress is working on the back of its Assembly victory to match the BJP for which nationalism and national security are the rallying cries. By PTI MUMBAI: A senior technician with Jet Airways allegedly committed suicide in Maharashtra's Palghar district due to depression as he was suffering from cancer, police said Saturday. Shailesh Singh (45) jumped off the terrace of his four-storeyed building in Nalasopara East on Friday afternoon, an official said. As per functionaries of Jet Airways Staff and Employees Association, however, Singh was facing "financial constraints" as employees of the grounded airline have not got salaries for a long time. "He was suffering from cancer and was undergoing chemotherapy. Prime facie, it seems he was suffering from depression due to the ailment," the police official added. ALSO READ | Jet Airways pilots accuse SpiceJet official of humiliating them at job interview It was the first suicide of an employee since the airline suspended operations, these functionaries claimed. The deceased's son is also working in the operations department of the airline, they added. Singh is survived by his wife, two sons and two daughters. An accidental death case has been registered and a probe was underway into the incident, the police official said. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (R) meets with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who is attending the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, in Beijing, capital of China, April 26, 2019. (Xinhua/Liu Weibing) BEIJING, April 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Friday met with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who is attending the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing. Li voiced China's support for aligning the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) with Greece's development strategy and strengthening cooperation in finance, technology and digital economy, adding that China is willing to expand import of Greek quality produce. China is always committed to supporting the European integration process and willing to see a united, prosperous and stable Europe, which not only benefits China and Europe, but also the rest of the world, Li said. Tsipras said China is not only a growth engine for the global economy, but also a huge market, noting that Greece is willing to develop more balanced trade relations with China and welcomes Chinese enterprises to expand investment in Greece. By Express News Service KOLKATA: The BJP candidate from West Bengals Purulia Lok Sabha constituency had a narrow escape after a youth ran out of a lane and attacked him with a knife. Jyotirmoy Mahato ducked and dodged the attack. The attacker missed Mahato and the knife injured another local BJP leader Shaligram Mahato, who was walking beside the candidate. Mahato alleged the attacker was sent by the Trinamool leaders because they realised the BJP would bag a victory in Purulia. But, Trinamool secretary Nabendu Mahali said the attack on Mahato was masterminded by the CPI-M. In this area, the CPI-M and the BJP are fighting to defeat each other. The saffron brigades prime enemy is the CPI-M in the area, he said. FOLLOW OUR FULL ELECTION COVERAGE HERE The incident took place around 10.30 am when Mahato was campaigning at Kotshila area. I was walking along the road as part of Janasampark Yatra. I saw a youth running towards me with a knife. He was about to pounce on me. Sensing trouble, I ducked and dodged him, said Mahato. Shaligram, the member of local panchayat samity, was walking beside Mahato. As I ducked, the knife hit Shaligrams neck, said Mahato. Shaligram was taken to a local healthcare centre from where he was shifted to the district hospital. The BJP supporters caught hold of the attacker and thrashed him before he was handed over to the local police. Namita Bajpai By Express News Service KANNAUJ: It could be an exaggeration but Kannauj is known in these parts as the Paris of Asia not for its infra, but its perfume. Cross the Lakhan gate into town and the invigorating smell of rose petals wafts into the nostrils. The imperial glory of Kannauj under emperor Harsha Vardhan is long gone; today the all intrusive city life hits one on the face, almost immediately. However, the usual hustle and bustle of a poll season is nowhere to be seen even in the bylanes, which hoard attar bottles. Yet, that Kannauj is at the epicentre of UP politics is clear from the fact that Mulayam Singh Yadavs daughter in law Dimple is in the fray in the Socialist bastion, where party ideologue Ram Manohar Lohia won an election in 1967. Like in 2014, its a straight fight between SPs Dimple Yadav and BJPs Subrat Pathak who lost last time narrowly by 19,000 votes. FOLLOW OUR FULL ELECTION COVERAGE HERE By logic, with support from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and the Congress deciding not to field a candidate, Dimple should have an easy run. But the ground realities are different. Caste dynamics are a major factor in the constituency, which has elected both SP patriarch Mulayam and his son Akhilesh Yadav to Parliament earlier. Additionally, Kannauj has been an SP bastion since 1999, with the Yadav, Muslim and Dalit support base further bolstering the party cushion this time. Dimples rival Pathak rides on his personal popularity, besides the Modi factor which is evident in both the rural and urban segments. Farmers of Tirwa Anuj, 35 and Bansi, 39 feel that though stray animals are giving them sleepless nights, its an issue for Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to handle, not the PM. We want to give Modi a second chance, they say in unison. Yet, there are issues which come to the fore during discussions. The recession-hit perfume industry, a potato glut and unemployment, being the major ones. Kannauj has over 200 small, medium and large manufacturing units of perfume. Traders, who export Attar worth Rs 100 crore annually, claim that the trade could not soar owing to government apathy. We dont want loans, but facilities, says Pawan Trivedi, secretary of the Attar and Perfumers Association. Non-availability of raw materials and a lack of support from an administration led the likes of Ram Sanehi to close down units in 2015. But despite all hardships, Nishish Tiwari, a perfume trader in the city, finds the ensuing battle in the constituency tightly poised between the BJP and the mahagthbandhan. On one hand, Modiji is popular, on the other, the SP has to save its bastion, he says. What do voters want? The question is mostly met with a cautious silence. No one speaks of support to one or the other party but Deshdeepak, 27, of Makrand Nagar, a suburb of Kannauj, feels cheated. Everyone promises jobs but no one delivers. Joining the conversation, trader Rajnarain Gupta says: The election is for the country and not for Kannauj. Only this government has the courage to hit at terrorism. However, pitching for the mahagathbandhan, Ratan Lal a contract farmer says: the Mahagathbandhan is putting up a good fight. Akhilesh has done a lot. He has ensured that this region gets uninterrupted power supply. For us that is a big relief. Jalalabad, some 20 km away from Kannauj city, has a population of around 1200, most of whom are potato growers. Kush Har, who owns six bighas of land, has his own woes to relate. The government has announced that it will purchase our potato stocks. But they grade it before we can sell it, which hardly helps retrieve the input cost. We dont want to sell to the government. The issue of paucity of cold storage units to store the produce also comes up. In case of a glut, farmers are forced to leave the produce in the open. However, non-availability of the sitting MP is a common refrain, which goes against Dimple. The BJP has done good work and will reap benefits. They have fielded a local candidate who is available. He may have lost the previous election but is putting up a good fight this time, says Mukesh Tiwari, 38, a dhaba owner. Anurag Arora, vice president, UP Cold Storage Association, aptly summarised the dilemma of the Kannauj voter. Nearly 80% people of Kannauj are either dependent on the Attar business or are farmers. The electoral battle here is evenly poised because on one side, the SP has done good work here, on the other BJPs Subrat Pathak is popular. While caste arithmetic favours Dimple, young voters and the chemistry seem to favour the BJP candidate. By PTI MYSURU: Mysuru chapter of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind has appealed to Muslims to stand outside a church here while Sunday service is underway to offer solidarity to Christians following the terror attacks in Sri Lanka that killed over 250 people. President of JeIM, Mysore, Munawwar Pasha, said the appeal has been made to convey the message that the Muslims and other communities stand by the Christians at this hour of grief. "I am sending this message to ask the Muslims to stand outside the main church of Mysuru, St Philomena, this Sunday to extend solidarity and show that we stand united and hate cannot divide us," he said. ALSO READ: Political rivalry seen as factor in Easter blasts In the audio message, circulated through social media, Pasha said when New Zealand had faced the terror attack at a mosque last month, the Muslims were overwhelmed with the amount of support received from various communities. "We saw thousands stand together in solidarity with us against the far right attack," he said. Pasha said mosques in various parts of the world saw Christians, Jews, Sikhs, etc offering protection and in solidarity with the Muslims. ALSO READ : 15 people, including six children dead as Sri Lanka forces raid Islamist hideout "Sri Lanka suffered an appalling attack on Easter Sunday. Churches were attacked while their congregation was in worship, just as those in New Zealand were," he said. Serial bomb explosions at churches and hotels on Easter Sunday killed 253 people in Sri Lanka. Fifty people were killed when a gunman fired at two mosques at Christchurch in New Zealand during Friday prayers on March 15. ALSO READ: High alert in Bengaluru, Mysuru after Sri Lanka serial blasts Following the attacks in New Zealand, people from all sections of the society came forward to extend their support to the Muslims in that country. Prasanta Mazumdar By Express News Service GUWAHATI: Paresh Baruah, the self-styled commander-in-chief of the banned insurgent group United Liberation Front of Asom-Independent (ULFA-I) on Saturday denied media reports about fratricidal killings in the organisation. He, however, admitted that some members of the outfit were awarded capital punishment as they were found fleeing with weapons and acting as informers of the enemies. His assertion comes in the wake of media reports that at least three rebels were awarded capital punishment by the outfit in its Myanmar camp. The Army had on Thursday apprehended a ULFA-I militant, Mridul Mahanta aka Nibir Asom, who disclosed the killings. Baruah was not specific about the exact number of the rebels killed. He said the punishment meted out was not unprecedented. They were punished as according to our constitution. It has prescribed death penalty for any of our members if found fleeing with weapons or sharing classified information of our organisation with the enemies, Baruah told an Assamese news channel. He added: During trial in the court of our organisation, they were found guilty on both counts and as a result, awarded capital punishment. The elusive Baruah said a number of rebels in the outfit had been awarded capital punishment since 2012-13 for such crimes. None among us is above our constitution. We hail those who die fighting for our cause as martyrs. However, we view those who are killed for fleeing with weapons or acting as informers of the enemies as criminals. We dont remember them nor do we inform their families of their death, Baruah said. He confirmed the recent offensive by Myanmar Army against militants of Indias Northeast holed out in the jungles of Myanmar but said such incidents are common in an armed conflict or revolution. In the offensive carried out two months ago, the Myanmar Army, officially called Tatmadaw, had dismantled a number of camps of the militants from Northeast. The militants operate from Taga in Myanmar. By PTI AHMEDABAD: Terming as "brazenly wrong" PepsiCo's legal action against Gujarat farmers for growing a variety of potatoes "registered" by the company, senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel Saturday said corporate interests cannot dictate what farmers must or must not cultivate. He also said that the state government should not keep its eyes "shut" to the development. Nine farmers from Sabarkantha and Aravalli districts of Gujarat were sued by food and beverages giant PepsiCo for allegedly growing a variety of potatoes for which it has claimed Plant Variety Protection (PVP) rights. "Pepsi's decision to take Gujarat's potato grower farmers to court is ill-advised & brazenly wrong. It is in violation of the farmers right under PPVFR Act. The state govt shouldn't keep its eyes shut. Corporate interest cannot dictate what our farmers must or mustn't cultivate," Patel said on Twitter. ALSO READ: 'Buy Lay's potato seeds from PepsiCo, sell produce to firm': MNC proposes a settlement to farmers it sued The Congress leader was referring to the Protection of Plant Variety and Farmers Right Act, 2001. PepsiCo has said that it obtained Plant Variety Protection (PVP) rights over the potato variety under thePPVFR Act, 2001 and that the farmers were growing the potato in violation of its rights over the seed variety. While four farmers have been sued with damage claim of Rs 1 crore each, five others have been sued with damage claim of Rs 20 lakh. Pepsis decision to take Gujarats potato grower farmers to court is ill-advised & brazenly wrong It is in violation of the farmers right under PPVFR Act The state govt shouldnt keep its eyes shut Corporate interest cannot dictate what our farmers must or mustnt cultivate Ahmed Patel (@ahmedpatel) April 27, 2019 During a hearing of the case at a commercial court on Friday, PepsiCo had offered to settle the lawsuits against four potato farmers of Gujarat provided they gave an undertaking that they will not use the patented variety of potato seeds in the future. Activists in Gujarat have objected to PepsiCo's action and even threatened the company of consequences if it did not withdraw the case, arguing that farmers are protected to use PVP protected seed varieties under the PPVFR Act. Over 190 activists Wednesday requested the Union government to ask PepsiCo India to withdraw its "false" cases against Gujarat farmers for allegedly illegally growing a variety of potatoes "registered" by the company. In a statement, PepsiCo said on Friday that it was "compelled" to take the legal path to safeguard the interests of farmers associated with its "collaborative potato farming programme". Mihir Sharma By Bloomberg It is increasingly clear that the Easter Sunday blasts in Sri Lanka could and should have been prevented. Warnings about the group responsible, their intentions and even specific attackers were delivered well in advance. Both President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe have acknowledged that the information did not reach them and wasnt acted upon. The two men and their respective parties are still at loggerheads after a months-long constitutional crisis last year in which the former tried and failed to fire the latter. The president has attempted to exclude the prime minister from decisions over most national-security issues; a divided and confused Colombo establishment clearly contributed to the security breakdown. No doubt this will become a factor in elections later this year: Former Defense Minister Gotabhaya Rajapaksa whose family, led by former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, dominated Sri Lankan politics till a few years ago recently insisted in an interview with Bloomberg that the government was never serious about security and was more concerned about reconciliation after Sri Lankas decades-long civil war. Fair enough. In the elections already underway in next-door India, though, the attacks are adding more fuel to an already ugly politics of patriotism and national-security. And accountability is the last thing being discussed. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was swift to bring up the Sri Lanka attacks as a reason to vote for his Bharatiya Janata Party: A vote for the BJP, he said, was a vote to destroy terrorism of the sort Sri Lanka had suffered. This feeds into the Modi campaigns ongoing efforts to exploit high-octane nationalism. The BJP seized upon a confrontation with Pakistan in February to turn the national conversation away from its spotty economic record. FOLLOW OUR FULL ELECTION COVERAGE HERE Since the BJP is actually in power, though, it cant snipe from the outside as the Rajapaksas are doing. So BJP figures have essentially resorted to calling the opposition terrorist sympathizers. The Congress Partys fairly detailed election manifesto could have served to open an argument on the most effective way to balance welfare and economic growth. Instead, the BJP has zeroed in on the Congress proposal that some particularly draconian and illiberal laws be diluted. Modis finance minister, who youd think would have had plenty to say regarding the oppositions lack of fiscal mathematics, instead focused on calling their manifesto a charter to weaken India and an agenda for balkanizing India. Other rhetoric has been much harsher than that to which Indians are accustomed. Modis right-hand man, BJP President Amit Shah, said this week that after an Indian air strike on Pakistan there was mourning in just two places: Pakistan and the Congress. This is a familiar charge: Before elections in Modis home state of Gujarat a couple years ago, Modi accused his predecessor as prime minister Manmohan Singh of a secret meeting with Pakistani diplomats, implying that the latter were seeking to influence the election results. It has been absurdly easy for Modi and the BJP to make security into a major, if not the primary issue in the election. Unfortunately, this heated rhetoric seems to be considered an adequate replacement for any more rational response. Indias February air strikes into Pakistan in retaliation for an attack on an Indian paramilitary convoy in troubled Kashmir were seen in many quarters as influenced by electoral considerations. Crucially, there has been no accountability for the security failures that led to the convoy bombing. Kashmir is so heavily militarized that a sophisticated attack of that sort should have been prevented. Unlike in Sri Lanka, nobody in New Delhi has taken responsibility for the original failure. Its fine to talk about national security during a campaign. But the most important questions arent being asked: Why did the attack happen? Which group organized it and how did they build up their strength? How can other such attacks be prevented? The coarseness of the current debate in India is not just a betrayal of the large part of the electorate that wants a clear discussion of bread-and-butter issues. It is frankly dangerous for national security itself. One hopes Sri Lanka will, over the next few months, have a more productive political dialogue than India has had. Namita Bajpai By Express News Service KANPUR/UNNAO : Kanpur, the largest hub of leather products and a huge export base has been in the doldrums for long. On the one hand, the business community is confronted with issues such as the closure of industries, especially tanneries, on the other denizens complain of unmet aspirations. We dont want loans but we expect better facilities to promote trade and industry so that Kanpur can regain its lost glory, said Hemant Gupta, a trader dealing in textiles. Kanpur, which produced leaders revolutionaries like Nana Saheb Peshwa and Tantiya Tope, besides Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi, has produced leaders like Dr Murli Manohar Joshi of BJP and Congresss Shree Prakash Jaiswal. In 2014, Joshi won beating Jaiswal by over two lakh votes. FOLLOW OUR FULL ELECTION COVERAGE HERE This time, voters are reluctant to name the candidate of their choice. However, many extend vociferous support to national issues, especially, the way the Modi government handled terrorism post-Pulwama. The issue of security is of utmost importance and should be a priority. If we are secure and at peace, then we can have solutions to all our problems, said GC Shukla, 75, a retired bank manager. At Birhana Road, Ram Kishore Agarwal, a jeweller, too felt that national security is the most important issue though Ramesh Dixit,48, a teacher, believes that all parties come with slogans, which dont serve the common man. At a food joint at Badshahi Road, Dinesh Awasthi failed to control his agony over unemployment. They claim they have given crores of jobs. Where are the jobs? If so, people like me would have had something to do after completing education instead of becoming part of this discussion here, he said. The common refrain at tea stalls and market places is the need for action against corruption plaguing the country. While Congress leader and former Union minister Sriprakash Jaiswal is vying to regain this crucial seat he lost to sitting BJP MP M M Joshi in 2014, BJP candidate Satyadev Pachauri is hoping to win it, riding on what he claims a bigger Modi wave this time. Jaiswal, who comes from the traders community and has represented Kanpur thrice since 1999 till 2009. At the same time, Ram Kumar of SP-BSP alliance is confident of his caste arithmetic of Dalit-Muslim-Yadav combine. Three-time Kanpur MP Jaiswal and Pachauri both have campaigned extensively in the past few days and exuded confidence of winning the polls. Pachauri, an MLA from Govind Nagar, said he might have lost the 2004 polls marginally to Jaiswal, but with the 2014 elections and the Modi factor coming into play, his fortunes will be reversed this time. Atul Seth, the vice-president of Provincial Industrial Association and a diehard Congress supporter does see a chance for Jaiswal but condemns Congressmen for not looking beyond dynastic politics. Congress sitting MLA from Kanpur Cantt, Sohil Akhtar Ansari believes that Priyanka Gandhis entry has tilted the election in Congress favour in Kanpur. While Pachauri is banking on 23% upper caste votes and support from backwards and non-Jatav Dalits, Jaiswal claims the same vote share along with an edge of Muslim votes. However, Pachauri is eyeing a division of Muslim votes between the alliance and Congress to sail through. With sundown, as the scene shifts to Unnao, the poll landscape here seems set for a tight triangular with issues such as nationalism, caste calculus coming into play. People in Unnao are not shy of criticizing BJPs Sakshi Maharaj, who is seeking re-election. On the other, strong support base has emerged in favour of Congress candidate Anu Tandon owing to her popularity among both rural and urban voters. Meanwhile, Gathbadhan candidate Anna, a Brahmin, is depending purely on caste equations while also eyeing upper caste votes. Sakshi Maharaj doesnt deserve a second term. He did nothing for Unnao in the last five years. But those who will vote using common sense, will do so for Modi, said Gudia Tiwari, 31, a primary teacher at Dahi Chowki. However, Santosh Sahu, Dharampal and Kaushal Sahu all back Anu Tandon in one voice. She is a messiah for the poor. She will get votes on her personal popularity. She is easily accessible, unlike any other leaders, said Sanjeev Kumar, 50, who owns a grocery shop in Unnao. On the contrary, Santosh Sahu has a different reason to back Tandon. No government should be repeated. Change brings development, he said. Tanneries closure rules discourse The issue of tanneries lying defunct and closed for the last six months is dominating poll discourse in Kanpur. With Rs 12,000-crore industry in tatters with over five lakh people involved in it losing their livelihood, the shutdown on government orders since November 18 to allow for Kumbh has made for universal anger. This is resulting in loss of major consignments worth crores and the leather market is being captured by countries such as Brazil, China, Pakistan and Bangladesh, said Saud Ahmad, a tanner. According to data, the six-month closure has led to a loss of Rs 6,000 crore. The tanners have also lost manpower as a majority of labourers involved in over 249 units producing leather products have either taken up other occupations or migrated to metros such as Kolkata in search of livelihood, according to Small Tanners Association. Namita Bajpai By Express News Service LUCKNOW: Kannauj witnessed a crucial caste battle with a major face-off between ruling BJP and SP-BSP mahagathbandhan on the final day of campaign for fourth phase of Lok Sabha elections, voting for which will take place on Monday, April 29, 2019. The political temperature soared as the bigwigs from both the sides including PM Narendra Modi and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav accompanied with wife and party candidate Dimple landed in Kannauj on Saturday. By the end of the day, even BSP chief Mayawati also jumped into the controversial discourse joining issue with the PM. Addressing a poll rally in Kannauj, PM Modi took on BSP chief Mayawati and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav over their comments on his caste. I would like to thank Mayawati ji, Akhilesh ji and Congress for reminding me of my caste. I hail from an Extreme Backward Caste, my caste is so small that there are only two-three houses of my caste in my village, claimed the PM in a bid to respond to the questions raised by the alliance leaders saying the PM had allegedly fudged his caste details to claim that he belonged to backward caste whereas he belonged to upper caste. Further asking the SP-BSP alliance not to drag him into caste politics, PM Modi said, I request Behenji (Mayawati) please dont drag me into caste politics. I never indulge in it. Backward caste might be a matter of politics for SP-BSP but for me, its an opportunity to serve my country, said the PM countering the claims of his rivals. The PM expressed regret that the mahagathbandhan was focused only on caste completely ignoring the crucial issues. I have never spoken about my caste, but mahamilawati people are forcing me to speak about it. I am not backward but was born in extreme backwardness. Dont drag me into this caste politics, said PM Modi. The statement came days after BSP Supremo Mayawati had alleged in a joint rally that PM Modi did not belong to backward class and it was Akhilesh Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav who was from backward class and have been working towards the development of the backward people. Slamming the BSP chief Mayawati for seeking the support of Samajwadi Party (SP) "just for sake of power", Modi said "Mahamilavatis" could only think of the future of their own dynasty and they were not concerned about the future of the country. FOLLOW OUR FULL ELECTION COVERAGE HERE The PM coined the slogan --- Jaat Paat Japna, Paraya Maal Apna and accused the opposition of attacking chowkidar and Ram Bhakts as the only agenda of opposition. Meanwhile, responding to the PMs attack, BSP chief Mayawati convened a press conference on Saturday evening to clarify her position over the PMs jibe regarding his caste. The BSP chief once again renewed her attack on the PM over his caste. She reiterated that Modi got himself registered as backward to get political gains out of it. She even denied calling PM neech ever and accused him of trying to polarise the poll narrative. I have always extended respect to him by calling him to be of upper caste, said the BSP chief with a tinge of sarcasm. In a bid to address the minorities and keep them in good humour, the BSP chief even charged the BJP with calling minorities with different names if they ever expressed their opinion. They are even branded as terrorist, she claimed advising the ruling party to treat all the citizens equal. In a hurriedly called press conference to minimise the possible damage to her clout due to PMs caste jibe, the BSP supremo claimed it to be a misguiding notion and a tactic to influence the dalit voters. Responding to the FIR registered by the CBI in the sugar mill sale case on Friday, the BSP chief said she had no problem with the probe but the timing raises the eyebrows. The BJP has proved yet again that it is using CBI as a caged parrot to intimidate its political rivals, she said claiming that as UP CM she had no role to play in the sale of 21 sugar mills during her 2007-12 tenure. Pradip Phanjoubam By The recent weeks have been packed with news of sensational developments from different corners of the globe, all with profound implications for the growing dangers that press freedom faces. There was the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on April 11 in London on charges of stealing and exposing dark secrets of many Western governments. The arrest, and his possible extradition to the US where he faces trial for espionage among others, has been condemned worldwide and many are of the opinion that this might be one of the greatest blows to the democratic ideal of media freedom yet. In India too, developments have been grave, but fortunately, even as the juggernaut of polls to the largest democracy in the world began rolling, the looming dark clouds were given some semblance of silver linings with the countrys judiciary stepping in. In Delhi, on April 10, the Supreme Court overruled government objections and said that journalists have the right to access and publish government information in public interest as a newspaper has done in the Rafale case, and that official investigations into the charges based on these leaked information are legitimate. Two days earlier, in a much-less publicised case in Manipur, the High Court quashed an atrocious unwritten government diktat that those in power cannot be criticised, in the process freeing a journalist jailed under the draconian National Security Act (NSA) for defying the decree. There are no dearth of well-informed commentators on the two earlier cases, so I will concentrate on this last case. As per the Manipur HCs ruling, Kishorchandra Wangkhem was released from jail on April 10 and united with his wife and two young daughters after over four months of internment at the Sajiwa Central Jail. The courts verdict is clear: His arrest under the NSA by the BJP-led state government is a gross abuse of power. Indeed, the indignity and trauma Kishorchandra and his family have been made to go through is beyond imagination, and should outrage anybody with even a miniscule sense of justice. This is especially so now, as it is clear the man was punished for no cognisable or punishable offence at all, but as a result of mean vindictiveness of small men in positions of power. At one point the journalist became very ill and had to be hospitalised. In all likelihood, the illness, with a dangerously rising blood sugar level, is related to the excruciating psychological torment he was put through. A young mid-career professional, outspoken though irreverent, has been made to pay far more than his due. Four months of detention for someone innocent of the commission of any cognisable crime cannot be a joke, and no amount of monetary reparation, even if the court were to make the government pay, can balance off the injustice done. In any rights-conscious society, prolonged wrongful detention such as Kishorchandra was made to go through, and the unfair damage to his health, income and reputation thus inflicted, would have meant millions in reparation. The judgment was welcomed widely though for some reasons best known to itself, the court kept the pronouncement of its verdict reserved for almost a month. The matter should have been arbitrated and disposed of much earlier, and if the law was adhered to in letter and spirit, the arrest should not have happened at all. It may be recalled that Kishorchandra was arrested under NSA on November 27 for posting a video on Facebook calling the BJP Chief Minister N Biren Singh a puppet of his party bosses in New Delhi, for celebrating the birth anniversary of Jhansi Rani allegedly neglecting the states own freedom fighters. He also dared the government to arrest him. Kishorchandra had been booked earlier on November 20 for the same post on sedition charges but was set free on November 27 after a chief judicial magistrates court ruled that the post was just an expression of private opinion in street language, and there was no seditious content in it. Then, in vengeful overkill, the government rearrested him, in spirit overruling the judicial magistrates ruling, this time under the NSA. How the mans criticism of the government and his foul language are a threat to national security has not been explained. This is a happy ending to a sordid drama. But let it be remembered also that all who treasure media freedom have something to be thankful to Kishorchandra. The man did not bend under any coercive pressure, including imprisonment. This is not about any grudging admiration of the mans cocky temerity. It is instead an assessment of how his resolute stance against the gross misinterpretation of law by those in power saved others in the media from being silenced. Had he been brought to his knees and begged for mercy just to be spared, the message from the power corridors would have beenas in George Orwells classic 1984 where Big Brother is always keeping watch of every move of every citizenany voice raised against the regime on any forum, trivial or otherwise, can attract imprisonment. All in the media would have been made a little more vulnerable and insecure for it would then have meant whatever happened to him could happen to anybody who dares criticise the regime. Now, with Kishorchandra emerging victorious after having resolutely stood his ground, all governments would think twice before assuming they can trample on the freedom of expression of even the most ordinary citizen. What has ended up vindicated therefore, is that in the eyes of the law, everybody is equal. Nobody, absolutely nobody, is above the law. Pradip Phanjoubam Senior journalist and author of The Northeast Question: Conflicts and Frontiers Email: phanjoubam@gmail.com Jayanth P By Express News Service VIJAYAWADA: In what could give a breather to the cash-strapped State government, the Ministry of Water Resources has agreed to release Rs 2,000 crore as interim funding for the execution of the Polavaram Irrigation Project (PIP). The State government had sought release of Rs 10,000 crore as the final clearance for the Revised Cost Estimates (RCE), which is essential for the release of the approved funds, is expected to take some more time. Even though the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) of the Central Water Commission (CWC) cleared the RCE of Rs 55,548 crore of the project in February, it is yet to get the financial concurrence. The State government has already spent close to Rs 4,550 crore over and above the approved costs (as per old detailed project report), and has been waiting for reimbursement. At this juncture, the State Water Resources Department had sought release of Rs 10,000 crore to expedite the ongoing project works. The Ministry of Water Resources has sent a file to the Ministry of Finance seeking release of Rs 2,000 crore for Polavaram Irrigation Project about 15 days ago. We are expecting that these funds will be released soon, Secretary of State Water Resources Department Shashi Bhushan Kumar told TNIE. The release of funds has become crucial as the State government is working with a deadline of July to release the Polavaram water by gravity into the canals. Unless a continuous flow of funds is available, it is unlikely that the officials can meet the target as several components of the project, including rehabilitation and resettlement (R and R) and civil construction, remain pending. Sources in the Water Resources Department said that even though the interim funding would not solve the entire problem, it was definitely a relief considering the grim financial position of the State government. According to information, besides the Rs 4,550 crore, which is yet to be reimbursed by the Centre, the State has put on hold payments to be made to the contractors working on the national project. For the record, the State government is spending for the construction of the national project, which is being reimbursed by the Centre. Bills worth Rs 300 crore are pending with the State government as its financial situation is bad. Keeping this in mind, we asked Rs 1,000 crore - Rs 4,850 crore towards reimbursement and the remaining as interim funding till the RCE is cleared. But, the Union ministry recommended release of Rs 2,000 crore, which would help us a bit, if not provide a relief, a senior official explained. Win McNamee/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Donald Trump's approval rating is essentially unchanged at a historically weak 39 percent after the release of the Mueller report, just three in 10 Americans accept the presidents claim to have been exonerated and 58 percent in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll say the president lied to the public about the matters the special counsel investigated. Nonetheless, support for impeachment is at a new low, 37 percent, in the national survey, albeit not significantly different from earlier this year. It rises to 62 percent among Democrats but falls sharply to 36 percent among independents and just 10 percent among Republicans. And while nearly six in 10 overall say Trump lied, theres a closer division 47-41 percent on whether or not he obstructed justice. The public overall appears cautiously supportive of the Mueller report, which Trump has characterized as a total hit job. Fifty-one percent in this survey, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates, call the report fair and even-handed just a bare majority, albeit far more than the 21 percent who say its unfair. Still, that leaves many, 28 percent, who are withholding judgment on whether Muellers report is fair or not. While criticizing the report, Trump has claimed complete and total exoneration in its findings. Again the publics response differs: Thirty-one percent say the report cleared Trump of all wrongdoing, almost entirely an ingathering of his political supporters. Many more, 53 percent, say the report did not exonerate Trump. An additional 16 percent have no opinion. Theres evidence beyond his approval rating that the Mueller report isnt moving many people off their preexisting political positions. Americans are twice as likely to say the report makes them think more negatively than more positively of the Trump administration, but the numbers are relatively low, 23 and 11 percent, respectively. Instead, 58 percent say their opinion of the administration is unchanged. Looking ahead to 2020, nearly half the public, 46 percent, say the report wont be a factor in their vote for president. Of the rest, many more say it makes them more likely to oppose Trump for re-election than to support him, 36 vs. 14 percent. Thats a broad 22-point net negative for Trump, although demographically many in this group look unlikely to support him anyway. Election integrity is a substantial concern. Forty-two percent say Russian interference undermined the legitimacy of the 2016 election, although 49 percent think it didnt rise to that level. And more, 53 percent, say possible interference by Russia and other countries threatens the legitimacy of the 2020 election. Approval Thirty-nine percent of Americans approve of Trumps overall performance as president, a number thats been essentially steady across his presidency, ranging narrowly from 42 percent just after he took office to 36 percent on multiple occasions. His career average approval rating remains the lowest on record for a president at this point in office in polls dating to the Truman administration in the mid-1940s. Disapproval of the presidents job performance, at 54 percent, likewise is not significantly different from his career average, 57 percent. That said, its down from its peak, 60 percent last August and 59 percent in November 2017. Trumps approval rating is sharply partisan, peaking at 78 percent among Republicans, 83 percent among highly conservative Americans and 77 percent among evangelical white Protestants, a core Republican group. Those compare with 6 percent among Democrats and 9 percent among liberals. But its the political middle that turns the tide against Trump: Among independents, 40 percent approve of his job performance; among moderates, 30 percent. That said, 40 percent approval from independents is a numerical high for Trump in that group, and up 8 percentage points since January. That increase has been counteracted by a 6-point decline among Democrats. These divisions are apparent across other population groups. A wide gender gap remains, with Trumps approval rating 15 points higher among men than among women, 47 percent vs. 32 percent. His 51 percent approval among whites drops to 20 percent among nonwhites overall, including 20 percent among Hispanics and 10 percent among blacks. Strong criticism of the president continues to outpace strong support: Forty-five percent of Americans strongly disapprove of his work in office while 28 percent strongly approve. That 17-point gap in intensity of sentiment is near the average, 22 points, since he took office. Impeachment and partisanship Support for impeachment proceedings against Trump is down from a peak of 49 percent when first asked in an ABC/Post poll last August; it was 40 percent in January and, as noted, is 37 percent now. A slightly different question on Bill Clinton whether he should be impeached and removed from office peaked at 41 percent support in September 1998 and averaged 31 percent from August to December that year. Support for impeachment is down since August across demographic and ideological groups. Most striking is a 28-point drop among college-educated white women, from 54 percent support to 26 percent. Support among women overall has dropped 16 points, from 57 to 41 percent. Its been steadier among men, 34 percent now compared with 40 percent last summer. Notably, intensity of sentiment on impeachment runs in the opposite direction as intensity in Trump approval. In this case, more strongly oppose beginning impeachment proceedings, 43 percent, than strongly support it, 29 percent. That reflects a 10-point rise in strong opposition since August, and an 11-point decline in strong support. As with Trumps approval rating, sharp partisanship marks views on impeachment. Support for starting impeachment proceedings is highest among blacks (69 percent), Hispanics (64 percent), Democrats (62 percent) and liberals (60 percent), while opposition peaks at 87 percent among Republicans. The difference in strength of sentiment is stark 53 percent of Democrats strongly support impeachment, while 78 percent of Republicans are strongly opposed. Similarly, 47 percent of liberals strongly support it, while 65 percent of conservatives are strongly opposed. Further, 59 percent of independents and 55 percent of moderates think Congress should not begin impeachment proceedings. As noted, theres a closer split on whether Trump tried to interfere with the Russia investigation in a way that amounts to obstruction of justice, 47-41 percent. Again, sharp party lines are drawn. Eight in 10 Democrats and 73 percent of liberals see obstruction. Three-quarters to eight in 10 in Trumps core support groups dont 80 percent of strong conservatives and 77 percent of Republicans and evangelical white Protestants alike. Political divisions, naturally, also mark responses to the Mueller report. Eighty-seven percent of Democrats dont think it cleared Trump of all wrongdoing; this drops to half of independents and a quarter of Republicans. Six in 10 Republicans and three in 10 independents think the report exonerated Trump; just 6 percent of Democrats agree. Those divisions exist despite similar confidence in the report across party lines 56 percent of Republicans, 53 percent of Democrats and 51 percent of independents call it fair and even-handed. Partisan divisions reemerge when it comes to Trumps response to the investigation. As noted, 58 percent overall think he lied to the American public about the matters under investigation by Mueller; this rises to 61 percent including those who volunteer that he lied some and told the truth some. Ninety percent of Democrats think he lied, while 69 percent of Republicans think he told the truth. Among independents, 28 percent think Trump told the truth, while 61 percent say the president lied. Methodology This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by landline and cellular telephone April 22-25, 2019, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 1,001 adults. Results have a margin of sampling error of 3.5 points, including the design effect. Partisan divisions are 29-26-36 percent, Democrats-Republicans-independents. The survey was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates of New York, N.Y., with sampling and data collection by Abt Associates of Rockville, Md. See details on the surveys methodology here. Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. Chinas artificial sun in Hefei, Anhui Province. (Photo by Ge Yinian from Peoples Daily Online) Chinas artificial sun will achieve nuclear fusion by the middle of this century, one of the project leaders said on April 24. HL-2M Tokamak, the modified Chinese-designed artificial sun and a device to harness energy from fusion, will be completed this year. It is expected to increase the electricity intensity from one mega amperes to three mega amperes, an important step to achieve nuclear fusion, a spokesperson surnamed Liu with the press office of the Southwestern Institute of Physics (SWIP), affiliated with China National Nuclear Corporation, told the Global Times. An ampere is a standard measurement of electric current. For instance, the deuterium (also known as heavy hydrogen) extracted from one liter of seawater releases the energy equivalent of burning 300 liters of gasoline in a complete fusion reaction, Liu said. The artificial sun aims to release nuclear fusion in the same way as the sun by using deuterium and tritium (radioactive hydrogen-3), and finally generate electricity. It is clean energy that will not generate waste, which makes it ideal for people to use in the future, Liu said. The shape of the current artificial sun looks like one of the imagined planetary engines in Chinese sci-fi blockbuster The Wandering Earth, and its core device is a red rectangle, The Beijing News reported on Wednesday, April 24, saying this was the first time that the picture of an artificial sun had been published. Conditions inside the nuclear fusion device are displayed on a large screen in the central control hall. The screen showed an image that looks like a letter S next to two connected dots with reddish light. Xu said the temperature of the device can be estimated to go higher if the brightness of the items in the image becomes weaker, according to a video by The Beijing News. By Express News Service VISAKHAPATNAM: Visakhapatnam Port Trust (VPT) Deputy Chairperson PL Haranadh accorded a warm welcome to Thailand delegation, headed by Port Authority of Thailand Assistant Director General Somchai Hemthong and his team, when they visited the port on Friday. The Thailand delegation made a PowerPoint presentation on ports perspective plan of Port Authority of Thailand. Hemthong said Thailand was anxious of inking an MoU between the two countries business of export and import. Haranadh briefed the Thailand delegation, about the infrastructure facilities available, capacities in handling of cargo, modernisation etc. Arunkumar Huralimath By Express News Service KARWAR: With just four days to go for an Indo-French naval exercise, questions are being raised on the participation of the host countrys only aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya in it. Though highly placed sources in the Indian Navy told TNIE that the vessel will participate in Varuna exercise, insiders in the INS Kadamba Naval Base in Karwar said it is doubtful, after Fridays fire accident in the aircraft carrier in which a naval officer died and nine others suffered injuries. ALSO READ | Naval officer dies while fighting fire on board INS Vikramaditya, nine injured After participating in Operational Sea Training off Kochi coast, INS Vikramaditya was returning to its base in Karwar to take part in the joint exercise with France slated from May 1-6 off Karwar and Goa coasts, when the accident took place. The 17th edition of Indo-France naval exercise features INS Vikramaditya with MiG-29K and FNS Charles de Gaulle of France with Rafale-M naval fighter jets. Sources in the Indian Navy told TNIE that the fire accident damaged a compartment of the vessel. Though it may not affect its operations, sources said it could take a month to rectify it. India will deploy its destroyers including INS Chennai, stealth frigate INS Tarkash, auxiliary ships, submarines, helicopters and more with its hundreds of crew in the joint exercise. Along with its nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, France will deploy some of its destroyers and nuclear attack submarines. The exercise will be conducted as per scheduled. Whether INS Vikramaditya participates or not will have no effect on other exercises and activities. Under the bilateral agreement, both the countries have planned to expand their maritime collaborative efforts and this years exercise will be the largest so far under Varuna edition, a Navy official said. By Express News Service BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court on Friday asked the authorities to deport an overstaying Pakistani couple immediately, as otherwise, it would amount to spending the taxpayers money on illegal entry. It ordered the Foreigner Regional Registration Office (FRRO) and the Ministry of Home Affairs to deport the couple who have completed their sentence for illegally staying in India, by May 5. The couple had obtained Aadhaar cards by providing forged documents. Kasiff Shamshuddin had eloped with his lover Kiran Gulam Ali from Karachi as their parents had opposed their marriage and entered India illegally in 2014. Later, he married her. Allowing an appeal filed by the 30-year-old couple seeking directions to the authorities to run their punishment (21 months) awarded by a trial court in two different cases concurrently, the court said it is not good in the interest of this country to allow them to stay further. The state authorities shall coordinate with FRRO and ensure that the petitioners are handed over to the custody of Pakistan officials and render all assistance in this regard, Justice Aravind Kumar said. The court waived their fine of Rs 64,000 after Wasim Pasha, the couples counsel, drew its attention to their poor financial condition. With this order, the term of the sentence came to an end on March 8, 2019. Earlier, while turning down the request of Additional Solicitor General Prabhuling K Navadgi that FRRO needs a weeks time as he could not proceed in the matter till he receives a communication from the Embassy of Pakistan, the court said that even after the order of the magistrate, allowing such persons to continue to stay in jail or outside amounts to recognising their stay indirectly. Therefore, it will be against the tenor and spirit of Section 14 of the Foreigners Registration Act, it said. The couple, who entered India with the hope of eking out a livelihood without any valid travelling documents, resided in Kumaraswamy Layout in the city. Their illegal stay was not detected for three years. On August 25, 2017, the jurisdictional police nabbed them and initiated prosecution. After the couple sought for plea bargaining and pleaded guilty, the trial court sentenced them to undergo 21 months imprisonment for the offences punishable under Foreigners Registration Act and IPC. Shan A S By Express News Service THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: For the state that is yet to recover from the shock of kids being fatally attacked by their immediate relatives, there is one more distressing news awaiting. Around 3,168 minors were subjected to sexual abuse in the state during 2018. A departmental data accessed by Express from the Police Department revealed 3,168 children were sexually abused last year, almost 17 per cent more than the number of children abused in 2017. The numbers in this regard for the year 2017 stood at 2,690. The police data is based on the number of cases registered under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. Malappuram, which was once notoriously known for conducting child marriages, witnessed the most number of POCSO cases at 411. This is double the figures in 2017. In 2017, Malappuram had witnessed 219 POCSO cases. Thiruvananthapuram district had the second most number of cases registered for child sexual abuse. Pooled together, Thiruvananthapuram city and Thiruvananthapuram rural witnessed 385 cases, a marginal increase from 361 cases in 2017. Kannur saw a spike in POCSO cases as 243 cases were registered last year compared to 143 in 2017. In six police districts, the number of cases found a decline compared to 2017. Of this, Idukki fared well the most as the number of cases fell from 161 to 128. A senior cop dealing with cases connected to atrocities towards children said the rise in numbers is a positive sign as far as policing is concerned as more and more victims are coming forward to register their complaints. The number of cases is on the rise because people are more aware of what to do if a crime is committed against their kids. The Police Department is proactive while dealing with cases of abuse of children. However, the numbers should not mislead forcing people to think the state is a bad place for children. Its not. Because we have got a robust policing mechanism these cases are coming to the fore, he said. By Express News Service KOZHIKODE: Perhaps in the first such suicide attack, a man walked into his alleged lovers house with a country-made bomb fastened to his body and detonated it while hugging her, killing both in the blast. The incident occurred at Naykkatti near Sultan Bathery in Wayanad on Friday afternoon. The deceased are Benny, 45, from Moolankavu and Amala, 38, wife of Ilavana Nasar of Naykatti. The blast occurred on the verandah of Nasars house around 1.30 pm when he was out for Friday prayers. The police said the deceased were allegedly having an extra-marital affair. Amalas three-year-old daughter, who was present on the house premises, escaped unhurt. The couples two elder daughters, aged 17 and 16, were at their native place Muttil in Wayanad, during the incident. Nasar and Amala were running an Akshaya Centre and Benny a furniture shop, both at Naykatti. Benny, whose house is around 4 km away from that of the victim, was also married. The pair reportedly were family friends and knew each other for nearly eight years. Sultan Bathery police, who said the duo was having an affair, registered a case on Friday and began an investigation. The house is completely under police protection. Forensic authorities will examine the place on Saturday, said an officer at the Sultan Bathery police station. By Online Desk DINDIGUL: Police solved the mystery behind the sexual assault and murder of a 12-year-old girl at Kurumpatti village near Vadamadurai in this district with the arrest of a teen-aged boy on Friday night. A special police team headed by Vedasandur Deputy Superintendent of Police Shivakumar, after a thorough investigation, arrested the teen-aged boy of the same village. Investigation revealed that the boy under the influence of alcohol sexually assaulted the girl, when she was alone in the house on the fateful day. As the girl fainted, the culprit electrocuted her and made it look like a suicide. He was subsequently remanded to judicial custody. Police sources said on Saturday that the girl, a class seven student was found lying unconscious with an electric wire stashed in her mouth in a suspicious manner in her house on April 16. Several injury marks were also found on the body. The body was sent to government hospital morgue for an autopsy to find out whether she committed suicide by electrocuting herself. The post-mortem report suggested that the girl was sexually assaulted before being electrocuted to death. It was a cold-blooded murder pretend to look like suicide, the report said. (With agency inputs) By Express News Service TIRUCHY & ARIYALUR: Police have arrested one more person in connection with the derogatory audio clip about the Mutherayar community that triggered violence in Ponnamaravathi. M Sathiyaraj (30) was arrested in the wee hours of Saturday, when he landed at the Tiruchy airport from Singapore. A resident of Nerinjipatti, in Ponnamaravathi, Sathiyaraj is the third accused in the case. The other accused, Selvakumar (34) and Vasanth (30), were arrested on Thursday. The police said the audio clip had been made in Singapore. CCTV in Ponparappi In an unrelated development, four CCTV cameras were fixed at Ponparapi, the village in Ariyalur district where violence erupted and Dalit houses were damaged on the election day. All the damaged houses were repaired by the district administration. The camera were installed near the panchayat office and on Colony Street. The control rooms are in the panchayat office and a students hostel. Donita Jose By Express News Service HYDERABAD: The first high-level committee meeting to look into sexual harassment in the Telugu movie industry witnessed the representatives from the latter trying to be defensive about their workplace while those outside their circle wanting to further dissect and investigate into the matter. The government mandated high-level committee started off on a rather inconclusive note on Friday -- at its first meeting held in the Telangana Film Development Corporation at Masab Tank, where about 20 to 21 members of the 25 appointed by the GO turned up. Among them were police commissioner from Hyderabad and Rachakonda, representatives from the Labour, Women and Child departments, SHE Teams, MAA secretary and others. Express spoke to several members who attended the meeting and most of them described it as vague. Some of the crucial points that were raised in the meeting included the need for a detailed report on the structure of the film industry. The chairperson of the committee, however, agreed to the terms in principle, said sources. We asked the members of the film industry to come out with a comprehensive document on the structure, unions, committees, agencies within the industry. Only then can we design a proper redressal mechanism, said a member who attended the meeting. Regardless, people within the industry seemed rather elusive to the idea with its members only agreeing to it partially. There were suggestions that a third party, possibly an academic institution or the Women and Child Department, must take up an extensive academic research on the spread of the industry, said the member. Another critical argument raised was the need to have a public hearing to gather the testimonies of stakeholders and victims and not make official decisions based on limited perspectives. It is a big committee. As a result, there were several voices raised through the course of the meeting. However the main point that we stressed on was the need to have a public hearing where the testimonies of all the stakeholders and victims can be recorded, said Vasanthi N, Professor at the NALSAR. Though the meeting managed to raise these points, the terms of reference of the committee, its time line to come out with a report, and its objectives and duties remained undecided. The FDC chairman P Ram Mohan Rao, while speaking to Express, said that the committee would only be functioning for three to four months with one sitting per month, before formulating the set of rules and regulations for the industry. We need to strictly spread awareness about the legal provisions available for women, said Ram Mohan. Jeevitha attends TSFDC meeting Raking up a controversy, the High-Level Committee meeting that was held at the TSFDC office was attended by Tollywood Movie Artists Association (MAA) general secretary Jeevitha, along with the nominated member Dr Gopala Krishna Paruchuri. The move has already generated criticisms, especially from the women activists and PIL petitioners. They are raising questions on why a member not mentioned in the original GO attended the meeting when MAA had already sent a representative. By PTI PESHAWAR: The death toll in the IED blast at a check post in northwest Pakistan on Saturday rose to three after one of the two injured security personnel succumbed to his injuries in a hospital, sources said. The explosives, which were planted close to the check post in Sheva tehsil of North Aaziristan District bordering Afghanistan, went off when the levies personnel reported for duty, eyewitnesses said. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister K P K Mehmud Khan strongly condemned the blast, saying that the resolve of the government against terrorism can not be suppressed through such acts of cowardice. China has vowed to enhance international cooperation to fight corruption, improve the business environment and build a road of clean governance with countries along the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), said a top official in the Communist Party of China (CPC) discipline watchdog on Thursday, April 25. China has signed 120 agreements with 77 countries to snare fugitives abroad and confiscate ill-gotten gains, 55 extradition treaties and 64 mutual legal assistance treaties, and concluded multiple international conventions including the United Nations Convention against Corruption, to build a road of clean government, said Li Shulei, a deputy secretary of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, at a Thursday forum. The forum is part of the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, which starts on Thursday in Beijing. Representatives at the sub forums of the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation on April 25. (Photo by Han Xiaoming from Peoples Daily) Establishing an international anti-corruption mechanism will effectively curb potential corrupt elements and ensure that funds and resources will be implemented in reality, which will also help China build a positive image among foreign countries, Deng Lianfan, a deputy director of China against Corruption Law Association, told the Global Times on Thursday. A worldwide crackdown on corruption is absolutely necessary, but some people are able to evade being brought to justice due to different national legal systems. Countries need to cooperate in case investigations and information sharing, Chen Wenhao, a professor from anti-corruption research center of Tsinghua University, told the Global Times on Thursday. China launched the Sky Net 2019 in January, a campaign that targets fugitives suspected of involvement in graft and prevents corrupt officials from fleeing abroad. In 2016, Yang Xiuzhu, a former Chinese official who was on the run for 13 years, arrived back at Beijing Capital International Airport from the US to turn herself in. In June 2014, China notified the US of Yangs entrance to the country, and Yang was detained shortly after US Immigration and Customs Enforcement accused Yang of "violating the terms of the Visa Waiver Program," and requested that the immigration court deport her. By PTI DUBAI: An Indian man who lived in the UAE has been killed in the massive Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka, officials here said. At least 253 people were killed and over 500 others injured when suicide bombers blew up churches and luxury hotels in Sri Lanka on April 21, the country's worst terror attack claimed by the ISIS terror group. Juno Srivastava, 42, the General IT Manager of Al Futtaim Group, was last seen having breakfast along with his colleagues before a blast ripped through the Cinnamon Grand Hotel on April 11, Khaleej Times reported. ALSO READ| Sri Lanka: Political rivalry seen as factor in Easter blasts India's Consul General to Dubai Vipul said that officials from the Indian High Commission in Colombo have confirmed that Juno was killed in the blasts. He said that a total of two Dubai-based Indians -- Razeena Kukkady, 58, and Juno -- were killed in Sri Lanka. Another Dubai expat from the UK was also killed at the Cinnamon Grand Hotel. Juno's brother Jugnu and wife Rachna, who visited Colombo after the blasts, recognised his mortal remains, the report said. ALSO READ| Sri Lanka blasts: 60 Malayalees under scanner for alleged connection with Thowheeth Jamaath His mortal remains will be repatriated to India on Thursday. Juno's two children study in Dubai.The family, originally from Uttar Pradesh, is settled in Delhi. He completed his MSC in Computer Science and worked in Egypt before moving to Dubai in 2011, according to his Facebook profile. Juno checked into the Cinnamon Grand Hotel on April 20 along with his British colleague Lorraine Campbell, who also died in the attack. ALSO READ| Sri Lanka serial blasts: Island nation's pain fuels ugly debate in India According to a statement by Sri Lanka's Foreign Ministry, the number of foreign nationals who have been identified as killed remained at 40. "One from Bangladesh, two from China, 11 from India, three from Denmark, one from Japan, one from the Netherlands, one from Portugal, two from Saudi Arabia, two from Spain, one from Switzerland, two from Turkey, six from the UK, one from USA, two holding US and UK nationalities, one holding Swiss and Dutch nationalities, one holding Dutch and Sri Lankan nationalities, and two holding Australian and Sri Lankan nationalities," the statement added. By AFP BEIRUT: Attacks by two jihadist groups killed at least 17 Syrian government troops and militiamen in the northern province of Aleppo early on Saturday, a war monitor said. Thirty others were wounded in the assaults by Al-Qaeda's former Syria branch, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), and its ally Hurras al-Deen, which remains affiliated to the global jihadist network, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The attacks in the southern and southwestern countryside of Aleppo province were launched shortly after midnight and triggered clashes that continued until dawn, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said. He said the fighting subsided after Russian aircraft struck jihadist positions in the area, prompting the fighters to pull back. Eight jihadists were killed, he added. Russia aircraft also carried out strikes in neighbouring Hama province early on Saturday, killing five civilians, the Observatory said. On Friday, Russian strikes killed 10 civilians in Idlib province, the hub of territory held by the jihadists of HTS in northwestern Syria. Russia and rebel-backer Turkey in September inked a buffer zone deal to avert a massive government offensive on the Idlib region, but the deal has never been implemented. The region of some three million people has come under increasing bombardment since HTS took full control of it in January. The latest Russian air raids came after two days of talks on the Syrian conflict between Turkey, Russia and fellow government backer Iran in Kazakhstan earlier this week. The three governments expressed concern over the growing power of HTS in Idlib and parts of adjacent provinces, and determination to cooperate to eliminate the jihadist group. The civil war in Syria has killed more than 370,000 people and displaced millions since it began with the bloody repression of anti-government protests in 2011. Express News Service By Jihadists suspected to have links to the Easter attacks opened fire and finally blew themselves up late Friday night during a raid by Sri Lankan security forces in Kalmunai in the countrys east, leading to the death of 15 people. Three men set off explosives killing themselves, three women and six children in a house serving as a terrorist hideout. Three other men, also believed to be suicide bombers, were found dead outside. The raid in the predominantly Muslim town is part of a continuing hunt for the accomplices of the Easter suicide bombers, in which around 100 suspects have so far been arrested. Meanwhile, Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena used his emergency powers to ban local Islamist outfits National Thowheed Jamath and a splinter group, Jamathei Millathu Ibraheem, for their role in last Sundays attack. READ HERE | Sri Lanka serial blasts: Island nation's pain fuels ugly debate in India A girl and a woman, who survived the massive explosion after the hour-long gun battle in Kalmunai, are critical and being treated at a hospital, police said. According to Reuters, they are the wife and daughter of jihadist Zahran Hashim, the suspected mastermind of the April 21 Lanka terror attacks in which over 250 died after churches and high-end hotels were targeted by suicide bombers. ALSO READ | Had prior intelligence warnings about terror attacks in country: Sri Lanka PM on deadly bombings In a video circulated on pro-Islamic State social media groups, three alleged suicide bombers at the Kalmunai raid site are seen proclaiming allegiance to the terror group. Kuffar (infidel) dogs have neared us, one of them says and adds, We will teach Christians and non-believers a lesson and spill their blood all over Lanka. Children can be seen in the video, with a kid crying in the background. ALSO READ | Sri Lanka releases pictures of six suspects, including three women, as police intensify search ops India had given specific alerts to Lanka about the possibility of suicide attacks, weeks before the Easter massacre. The warnings were based on videos and other Islamic State-influenced material that were seized during raids in Tamil Nadu. India warns against trips to SL As security forces hunt suspects linked to the Easter attacks, India and the US warned their citizens Saturday not to undertake non-essential travel to Sri Lanka. Those undertaking emergency travel can contact Indian missions in Colombo, Kandy and Jaffna for assistance, the MEA said. The UK, Australia and Israel had issued travel warnings earlier. By UNI MOSCOW: Sri Lanka arrested 20 suspects in coordinated bombings over the past 24 hours, local media reported, citing police, on Saturday. The New 1st outlet reported, citing a police spokesman, that the apprehensions took place as part of a nation-wide security operation. Sri Lanka serial blasts: CLICK HERE to read more Moreover, the outlet wrote on Twitter that the police had recovered bodies of four suspected perpetrators of three bombings that rocked the city of Kalmunai on Friday. The three new explosions occurred in the wake of a series of coordinated blasts throughout Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday that left more than 250 people dead and more than 500 others injured. The Islamic State (IS, a terror group banned in Russia) reportedly claimed responsibility for the attacks. By PTI LONDON: The UK's National Audit Office (NAO) has launched an investigation into the government's handling of a visa row involving thousands of overseas students, many of them from India. The NAO confirmed the investigation on Friday, days after a migrant group lobbying the UK Home Office in favour of the students, "wrongly" accused of cheating in a compulsory visa-related English language exam, had renewed its call for justice. The NAO, which functions as the UK government's spending watchdog, has linked the crisis involving an estimated 36,000 student visa cancellations with the Windrush scandal, in which thousands of Commonwealth migrants were wrongly denied their British citizenship rights. "In 2014, a BBC Panorama documentary drew attention to the fraud in the UK student visa system, including widespread cheating in English Language tests. "The Home Office revoked student visas where there was evidence of cheating, but its decisions have come under renewed public and parliamentary scrutiny in the wake of the Windrush scandal," the NAO said in a statement. "The NAO is looking at the information held by the Home Office on the number of people alleged to have cheated and the action the Home Office has taken to date," it said. Migrant Voice, which has been lobbying parliamentarians over the issue, believes while many students were wrongly deported on false cheating charges following the BBC television investigation nearly five years ago, thousands remain in the country in an attempt to clear their name. "The core demand is for the UK Home Office/government to allow the students to re-sit the test and those who pass should be given their visa back, allowed to return to study or work and to drop the criminal allegation against them," said Migrant Voice Director Nazek Ramadan. The group had found the backing of many British MPs last year, who set up an All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) to mount pressure on UK home secretary Sajid Javid to rethink the government's handling of the issue, which dates back to when British Prime Minister Theresa May was the home secretary. "The Home Office's handling of this issue has been spectacularly unfair and opaque, and it's high time the truth was brought to light," Migrant Voice said in a statement welcoming the NAO's probe. The issue dates back to when the BBC aired an investigation into colleges offering the government-mandated Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) exams and revealed some cases of cheating. The UK Home Office responded by launching an investigation and concluded that 33,725 of the test results were invalid and 22,694 questionable. Those with questionable results were given the chance of review but the others were made to abandon their courses and, in many cases, deported to their countries of origin. Migrant Voice released the 'I want my future back' report last year to highlight the plight of many who claim to be wrongly clubbed in the invalid category. The group believes UK home secretary Sajid Javid, who had sought a fresh look at the issue, has reviewed the various representations and is expected to announce his decision on the plight of the students soon. The UK Home Office has confirmed the minister is looking into the issue but has not laid out any time frame for a resolution to the dispute. The scandal involves the requirement for some UK visa applicants to pass a test of proficiency in written and spoken English. One of the approved tests, TOEIC, was provided by US-based firm ETS at a large number of test centres across Britain. Campaigners have questioned the software used to ascertain the cases of cheating in the spoken module of the test in the wake of the BBC TV expose in 2014. The bird view of 78,000 square meter LHAASO-WCDA. ( Photo: Courtesy of IHEP ) China's Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO), a cosmic ray detection facility located in the high mountains of Southwest Chinas Sichuan Province, has recently begun scientific observation of very high energy cosmic rays as it launched its first set of detectors, the project's chief scientists told the Global Times on April 26. The goal of LHAASO, a basic scientific research project to be completed in 2021, is to discover high energy gamma ray sources, and precisely measure the radiation spectrum of very high energy gamma ray sources and energy spectra of various cosmic ray species over a wide range, according to a press release the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences sent to the Global Times. The project is expected to make breakthroughs concerning the origin of cosmic rays, Cao Zhen, the projects chief scientist and an astrophysicist with the IHEP, told the Global Times. Cao noted that the origin of cosmic rays has puzzled the world for over a hundred years. Wang Yifang, IHEP director, said that astronomical observation has entered the era of combining multi-wave length observations and multi-messenger studies together. He emphasized that LHAASO would enhance major international astronomical observation efforts and boost the progress of such research. LHAASOs Phase One detectors include the No. 1 Water Cherenkov Detector Array (WCDA-1) with an active area of 2.25 hectares, as well as two wide-field Cherenkov telescopes and 80 muon detectors and 180 electromagnetic detectors. The full scale WCDA, which will eventually comprise three ponds, is designed to survey for gamma ray sources above 100 billion eVs, according to the IHEP. The reason why the scientists picked the 4,400 meters above sea level site is because such a height would enable the facility to receive the richest physics information in the most effective way, Bai Yunxiang, a member of the research team, told the Global Times. Assisted by the rotation of the Earth, the WCDA will be able to scan over 60 percent of the sky each day. It won't be affected by the light of the sun, moon or stars or by the weather, thus ensuring round-the-clock observation. In the future, the WCDA will be able to record 5 trillion cosmic ray detections each year and obtain more than 4PB of data. LHAASO is one of China's major national science and technology infrastructure projects and is located in the Mountain Haizi National Reserve at 4,400 meters above sea level. Since detectors are being distributed across a wide area, LHAASO has begun observation even as construction continues elsewhere on the site, according to the IHEP. One of Editor & Publishers 10 That Do It Right 2021 Home affairs requested that all the three people who use the same IDmeet with them in order to verify how this came to pass. They will be requested to bring documents so that it can determine how this happened, Mathe told the court. Fairbanks, AK (99707) Today Snow this evening will taper off to light snow late. Low -8F. Winds light and variable. Chance of snow 80%. Snow accumulating 1 to 3 inches.. Tonight Snow this evening will taper off to light snow late. Low -8F. Winds light and variable. Chance of snow 80%. Snow accumulating 1 to 3 inches. Entrepreneurs have business negotiations at the Belt and Road CEO Conference during the 2nd BRF. Photo by Meng Xianglin, Peoples Daily The 2nd Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF), which opened on April 25 at the China National Convention Center in Beijing, has sparked lively discussions and reaped fruitful results. Twelve sub-forums were held during the 2nd BRF, twice that of the first forum. The Belt and Road CEO Conference, which was the first time be included in the BRF, was attended by around 900 representatives from home and abroad and held nearly 1,000 business matching meetings. So far, a number of positive results have been released at the forum, including the signing of inter-governmental agreements and that on projects between Chinese and foreign enterprises. People have reasons to believe that the 2nd BRF is a successful one. The topics for discussion at the forum ranged from policy coordination, innovation, people-to-people bond, green development, exchanges between think tanks, and economic and trade cooperation. The participants conveyed a common message that the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has changed the worlds landscape of development since it was initiated 6 years ago. As former Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz expressed, the joint construction of the BRI, which connects various countries across the world with each other, is changing peoples views about the development of the world. With many developing countries having already benefited from the BRI, the world is ready to fully embrace this ambitious initiative, said Aziz. Many participants expressed that it is the principle of extensive consultation, joint contribution, and shared benefits that makes the BRI unique, and that the key point of the initiative is that all the endeavors under its framework aim for shared benefits, so that inclusive economic development could be achieved and a community with a shared future for mankind could be built. The BRI is a project of the century that came at the moment when people are still tapping into the potential of the fourth industrial revolution, said Iqbal Surve, executive chairman of South Africa-based Independent Media, comparing the con-construction of the Belt and Road, which is proceeding smoothly, to the fifth industrial revolution. Africa is ready for further endeavors under the BRI, Surve said. During the forum, many participants talked about how the BRI has helped build emotional bond around the world. Indeed, the BRI construction featuring boosting connectivity is not merely aimed at delivering material prosperity and benefits to the world, but more importantly intensifying people-to-people exchanges and bonds. With pragmatic cooperation, the BRI has created great opportunities for the people along the BRI routes, forging closer ties among people of different cultural backgrounds. Over the past 6 years, the world has given more praise to the BRI, precisely because the latter has yielded tangible achievements. As facts have explicitly demonstrated, the construction of the BRI is not only about common prosperity, but also emotional bond, which is the special charm of the BRI. A female police officer resigned Friday after it was revealed that shead been driving patrol cars around the city of Kawagoe since November despite the fact she didnat have a driving license. aI thought Iad be forced to resign from the Criminal Investigations Bureau if I admitted I didnat have a license,a the Saitama Prefectural Police quoted the 22-year-old as saying. The police said earlier Friday that the officer, who belonged to the Kawagoe Police Stationas Criminal Affairs Division, had been referred to prosecutors and suspended for six months. Her referral was based on the allegation that she drove police cars four times in Kawagoe from Jan. 10 to 15. The deceptive officer, however, apparently got behind the wheel of Kawagoeas police cruisers some 10 to 20 times before she was found out. Her secret came to light when she was questioned after an accident in the Kawagoe Police Stationas parking lot on Jan. 16. That forced her to reveal that she had been driving with only a motorcycle license. Passengers board a train at the Nairobi South station of the Mombasa-Nairobi Standard-Gauge Railway. Photo by Li Zhiwei, Peoples Daily The 2nd Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF) kicked off in Beijing on April 25. Nearly 5,000 participants from more than 150 countries and 90 international organizations gather at the three-day event to cement people-to-people bond and build splendid dreams. In the past 6 years, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has been translated from an envisioned concept into real action and progress on the ground. This March, the Boten Tunnel of the China-Laos Railway was dug through, which marked a key progress for the railway project. Many young people of Laos dressed up and posed for pictures at the construction site to witness this significant moment. The villagers along the railway were also frequent visitors of the project site. They expressed their hope on an earlier operation of the railway, as the trains can bring their fruits and rubber to China and more countries. The railway, which carries the dream of the Lao people, is a result of the strategic alignment between Chinas BRI and Laos strategy to convert from a landlocked country to a land-linked hub, and also a miniature of the BRIs implementation to improve infrastructure and enhance people-to-people bond. With the proposal of BRI initiative, the total trade volume between China and the BRI countries has exceeded $6 trillion, and the 82 cooperation parks jointly built by China and other participation countries have created nearly 300,000 jobs for local communities. In addition, progress has been made in education cooperation, culture, tourism and medical aid, bringing not only development opportunities, but also a sense of participation, a sense of gain, and happiness to the people. Friendship, which derives from close contact between the people, holds the key to sound state-to-state relations. During the implementation of BRI, China has always adhered to the livelihood-oriented international cooperation, and is dedicated to building more and more projects to bring benefits to the people. BRI has created tangible welfare to the people of related countries. Local people in Kyaukpyu, Myanmar were always unwilling to go out at night in the town used to be shrouded in darkness. Thanks to the China-Myanmar natural gas pipeline, Kyaukpyu is illuminated at night, and now the streets are lighted with lamps. The project has won high appraisal from local residents. From the operation of the Stung Russei Chrum hydropower station in Cambodia, the Belo Monte ultrahigh voltage power project in Brazil, and the power projects in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, to the China-Thai Railway, the Jakarta-Bandung High Speed Rail, and the Belgrade-Budapest Railway that are under construction, the BRI projects are bringing benefits to more and more people. The construction of the MombasaNairobi Standard Gauge Railway created over 40,000 jobs for Kenya. It was common to see young Africans lining up and looking for jobs at the industrial parks built and operated by Chinese enterprises in Africa. Thanks to the BRI and the China-Europe freight train, the Kazakh woman surnamed Anita who came to China to study Chinese met her other half and started her own e-commerce company. With the construction of a Chinese car factory in South Africa, an employee surnamed Patrick has become a skillful technical worker after receiving training from the Chinese side. The decent job enabled him and his family to move to a big house near the factory. The BRI turns the dreams of the participating countries and their people into common aspiration, and is making efforts to make these dreams come true and ensure happiness of the people. That is why the BRI is receiving increasing global recognition. The initiative is welcomed by the Lao people who specifically composed a song for it.A female German driver has also made promotion pamphlets to spread the ideas of the BRI. The initiative is making a symphony of people-to-people bond along the Belt and Road routes. Ana Jovanovic is a Chinese teacher at the University of Belgrade, Serbia. When she was a college student, Chinese language was still an unpopular major. But nowadays, the Chinese major is very much welcomed, and its recruitment is also expanding by times. Not only in Serbia, today, learning Chinese and Chinese songs has become a fashion in many BRI countries. The passion for Chinese reflects the demand for economic and trade exchanges, and is also a result of cultural exchanges. In the recent six years, cultural exchanges and activities have been held frequently along the Belt and Road, such as Silk Road cultural years, tourism years, art festivals, think tanks and dialogues. The frequent exchanges are drawing closer the hearts of the people, becoming a bridge that promotes their friendship. The exchanges are laying solid foundation for the implementation of BRI. As a Chinese old saying goes, good friends feel close even when they are thousands of miles apart. Earlier this year, the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation launched an international campaign to deliver care packages to elementary and middle school students in the developing countries along the Belt and Road. Upon receiving a package, a Nepalese child said she wanted to visit China. Mountains and seas cannot separate the people if their hearts are close. The Belt and Road is a road full of hope along which the world can reach a brighter future. The government of Gombe state has imposed curfew on the state capital following a breakdown of law and order in the metropolis in the ... The government of Gombe state has imposed curfew on the state capital following a breakdown of law and order in the metropolis in the aftermath of the Easter killings. Nine members of the Boys Brigade and Girls Brigade were rammed to death during procession on Easter day by an official of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Adamu Abdullahi. He was then killed by a mob. James Pisagih, the acting secretary to the state government, announced the restriction in a statement issued on Saturday. He said the government ordered the restriction of movement in the metropolis after consultations with the heads of security agencies in the state. Pisagih added that only security agencies and other workers on essential services are allowed any form of movement during the duration of the curfew. After due consultations with the Heads of Security Agencies in the state in response to the prevailing security situation in the state, especially Gombe metropolis, His Excellency, Dr Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo OON (Talban Gombe), the Governor, has approved the imposition of curfew in Gombe metro with immediate effect (3pm) today 27th April 2019 to 6am tomorrow 28th April 2019. The situation will be reviewed after the restoration of normalcy, the statement read. By my Paragraph I above, therefore, only officials on essential services are allowed any form of movement, and must produce evidence of such. There was violence in the state capital while the remains of the slain nine members of the boys and girls brigade in the state were about to be given a mass burial. A funeral procession had been staged in the metropolis by some members of the brigade and other youths to honour their slain colleagues. Despite the heavy gridlock that ensued from the procession, the youths were said to have brandished weapons and threatened to deal with anybody who attempted to open the roads. The incident turned violent but was later brought to calm due to the intervention of security operatives. The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has assured candidates of the 2019 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTM... The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has assured candidates of the 2019 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) that results would be ready from April 29. Fabian Benjamin, the boards head of media and publicity, disclosed this in an interview with NAN on Saturday in Bwari. Benjamin said that screening of the results would soon be over and the result released. We are still screening but hopefully, anytime next week, the results will be ready, he said. Speaking also on the boards readiness to screen results of UTME candidates from 2009 to 2018, Benjamin said this would begin after the release of the 2019 results. He said this was part of the boards effort to address the issues of malpractice in the system. The board had stated that it would only release the 2019 UTME results after undergoing thorough screening to identify and apprehend examination cheats. The process would identify those involved in multiple registration through biometric capturing and also address group registration by some elite schools, who end up mixing candidates data. Normally, results are expected to be out within 24 to 48 hours as obtained in previous examinations held in 2017 and 2018, he said. However, the board does not want this to be business as usual. Hence the programmed delay, which is part of its deliberate effort to properly scrutinize, identify and address all forms of examination malpractice. The board will continue to act decisively with regards to any irregularity discovered even after results are released. However, the board has made it a point of duty to screen all activities at all centres via CCTV recordings, to ensure that it does not release results of compromised examinations. The board, while regretting all inconvenience caused in the process, reaffirmed its commitment to providing equal opportunity to all candidates in order to articulate their aspirations. JAMB said that effective from when it would officially release the results, all candidates can simply send RESULT, via SMS, to 55019 using the same number that was used for registration. The result, it said, would be replied as an SMS shortly after. This process, the board explained, was simplified to eliminate exploitation by business centres and cyber cafes who often take advantage of candidates. It also urged candidates to ignore all messages in circulation on how to check the results as they were all products of deceit. The Bade Emirate in Yobe, on Saturday appealed to Senators Ali Ndume and Danjuma Goje, both of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to ... The Bade Emirate in Yobe, on Saturday appealed to Senators Ali Ndume and Danjuma Goje, both of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to step down for Sen. Ahmad Lawan in the contest for the seat of the Senate President. The duo of Alhaji Mamman Suleiman and Alhaji Mohammed Gagiyo, who are both prominent title holders in the emirate made the call while speaking with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in separate interviews. They said the recent endorsement of Lawan by the national leadership of the APC was in the interest of the North East and the entire country. Suleiman said: as compatriots of the region, we expect the two senators to support the senate leader following his endorsement by the All Progressives Congress (APC). Nigeria in the last four years had suffered from unnecessary political conflicts between the executive and National Assembly which must not be repeated in the ninth assembly. The two king makers of the emirate, therefore, urged all APC senators to remain united, adding that they must try and subsume their personal interests for the peace and stability of the assembly. Gagiyo, also said Lawans experience as the senate leader made him more prepared and qualified for the office. As a region, we should exhibit the spirit of unity we are known for by supporting Lawan to succeed. Paul Pogba has asked Manchester United to sell him this summer, after provisionally agreeing a whopping 10.3million-a-year deal wit... Paul Pogba has asked Manchester United to sell him this summer, after provisionally agreeing a whopping 10.3million-a-year deal with Real Madrid, AS reports. Pogba has grown tired of life with the Premier League giants and is determined to move on in the summer. He is keen to link up with compatriot Zinedine Zidane, who has since returned the Santiago Bernabeu. It is understood that Pogba has now decided to force the issue and has asked Manchester United chiefs to sell him this summer. The 26-year-old will pocket a cool 10.3m every year if United agree to let him leave, although Ed Woodward and co. are set to play hardball with the Spanish giants over a fee. Passengers queue up to board the train at Guiyangbei Railway Station in Guiyang, capital of Southwest China's Guizhou province, April 28, 2018. [Photo/Xinhua] More Chinese will take medium- and short-distance trips during the May Day holiday after it was extended to four days and travel time by high-speed train was shortened, according a travel report released recently. The Labor Day holiday this year has been extended from one to four days, according to the State Council's response to an appeal from the public in March. The news came as a surprise and has led to a number of travel plan changes, as many choose new destinations a short or medium distance away instead of suburban trips, said Feng Rao, data research center manager of Mafengwo, a major online travel service provider and tourist information-sharing platform in China. Travel plans to Sanya, Luoyang and Enshi, three Chinese tourist cities, grew most rapidly by 15.4%, 13.6% and 11.6% respectively due to the extended holiday, according to a report from Mafengwo. With a new railway operating plan put into use from April 10 offering more high-speed train routes, high-speed train trips are easier and more convenient. Take Luoyang in Henan province as an example. People living in Suzhou, Xuzhou and Jiaozuo, places where travel time to Luoyang by high-speed train is five hours or less, have turned their eyes to the city. In terms of transportation methods, high-speed train is preferred by travelers for the four-day vacation. In most cases, it takes travelers under five hours to get to their destinations. In addition Shanghai's Disney theme park, Guangzhou's Chimelong Safari Park and Chongqing's Hongyadong were predicted to be the hottest three tourist attractions on the Chinese mainland. New Chinese Ambassador Hu Zhangliang has given his first insight into the relationship between China and Sierra Leone, saying that he is delighted to be back in Sierra Leone during this beautiful mid-spring season, bringing his wishes from the Chinese Government. First of all, I would like to convey the cordial greetings and best wishes from H.E. Xi Jinping, President of China to his counterpart Julius Maada Bio of Sierra Leone. At the same time, I bring with me good wishes from the Chinese government and people to the government and people of Sierra Leone. Hu said China and Sierra Leone enjoy a deep friendship. On July 29, 1971, the two countries formally established diplomatic ties, and over the past 48 years, bilateral relations have been developing smoothly with high-level exchanges, deep political mutual trust, and fruitful cooperation in economic, social and cultural fields. He said in 2016, China and Sierra Leone established a comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership. Over the years, China has been contributing what she can to help promote peace and stability in Sierra Leone, as well as help Sierra Leone in achieving independent and sustainable development without interfering in their internal affairs. In 2014, China was among the first to assist their Sierra Leonean brothers and sisters in the fight against Ebola, demonstrating the true spirit of sharing wealth and woe. The new ambassador said that Sierra Leone has always firmly supported China on issues related to its core interests and major concerns. The Chinese people will never forget that it was Sierra Leone and other friendly countries that helped China resume its legitimate seat in the United Nations in 1971. 2018 has been a vital year in the development of the Sino-Sierra Leone relationship. In late August and early September last year, President Bio paid a state visit to China and attended the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Beijing Summit at the invitation of President Xi Jinping. The two heads of state held friendly and in-depth talks and reached important consensus on major bilateral issues, which provided political guidance and set out the blueprint for the development of China-Sierra Leone relations," he said. He added that during the visit, the two sides signed several important cooperation documents including the Memorandum of Understanding on the Belt and Road Initiative, laying a solid foundation for the broadening and deepening of cooperation in the future. Ambassador Hu has a sense of great responsibility in his new role, following the direction set out by the two heads of state, to work with his colleagues in the Embassy and friends from all walks of life in Sierra Leone, to make new progress in China-Sierra Leone friendly cooperation and produce more benefits for the people of both nations. He said the following three tasks would be his top priorities. Firstly, I want to continuously enhance the sincere friendship and political mutual trust between our two sides to make the foundation of our bilateral cooperation as solid as ever. The Chinese side will continue to follow the two major principles laid down by President Xi Jinping, namely, the principle of honoring sincerity, real results, amity and good faith and that of pursuing the greater good and shared interests among countries. Secondly, the Ambassador said they would jointly implement the outcomes of 2018 FOCAC Beijing Summit to bring more benefits to the two peoples. In September last year, FOCAC Beijing Summit was held with great success, lifting China-Africa relations to a historic high. He noted that during the summit, President Xi Jinping announced Eight Major Initiatives for China-Africa cooperation in the coming three years, namely, industrial promotion, infrastructure connectivity, trade facilitation, green development, capacity building, health care, people-to-people exchange, and peace and security. The Eight Major Initiatives highly correspond with Africa's current and future development needs, and for that reason, many Africans have likened it to a timely rain in supporting Africa's independent and sustainable development. Thirdly, we will jointly promote the building of the Belt and Road, build an even stronger China-Africa community with a shared future for humanity. As stressed by President Xi Jinping, the BRI is a significant move China has taken to open itself under the new conditions fully, and it embodies Chinas commitment to sharing development opportunities and outcomes with more countries in the world." He noted that since its inception six years ago, the BRI has received warm support from the international community. So far, a total of 126 countries and 29 international organizations have signed BRI cooperation documents with China. Ambassador Hu Zhangliang said although certain countries and people have misunderstandings, misjudgments or even prejudices in regards to the BRI, the international communitys enthusiasm for this initiative will not be hampered. The BRI, he said, is a new headstream of fresh water for China-Africa cooperation that will bring more development resources and create greater room for collaboration from both sides. China and Sierra Leone have already made strides under the initiative, including, but not limited to, the exchange of development experiences and admission of a large number of Sierra Leonean students to study in China with an increase in scholarships. He said the construction of part of the Freetown Ring Road (From Limkokwing University to Regent Village) funded by a Chinese government grant, and the development of the Lumley Market Second Juba Bridge, co-funded by the two governments, are examples of the great cooperation potential between China and Sierra Leone within the framework of the BRI. I worked in Sierra Leone for three years from 2002 to 2005. Fourteen years later I am back again and find out that there have been so many important positive changes in this country, which fully demonstrate that the government and people of Sierra Leone are on the right path towards development and revitalization. I sincerely wish that Sierra Leone and its people will continue to make even greater achievements under the leadership of President Bio. I am full of confidence in the broad prospects of Sino-Sierra Leone friendly cooperation," he concluded. The US Department of Commerce (DOC) has announced its final decision of the DOCs 14th Period of Review on anti-dumping tariffs on Vietnams tra fish batches imported into the country during the period from August 1, 2016 to July 31, 2017. Under the decision, the anti-dumping tariffs are much higher than the preliminary rates it announced last September, according to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP). Specifically, the official tariff on Hung Vuong Groups products is 3.87 USD per kg, compared to the preliminary level of zero USD per kg. That on NTSF Seafood is kept at 1.37 USD per kg. Four other tra fish exporters, namely C.P Vietnam, CL-Fish, Green Farms Seafood and Vinh Quang Corp, are imposed the tariff of 1.37 USD per kg, up 0.96 cent per kg. Meanwhile, the general tariff on products of other Vietnamese exporters is maintained at 2.39 USD per kg. VASEP said in the first three months of 2019, the country shipped 71.16 million USD worth of tra fish to the US, down 5 percent year on year. The tra fish export to the US market is forecast to continue declining in the second quarter under the impact of the official anti-dumping tariffs.-VNA The grand imam of Egypts Al-Azhar mosque, Sheikh Ahmed El-Tayyeb, visited Cairos Coptic Orthodox cathedral on Saturday to offer greetings to Pope Tawadros II on the occasion of Coptic Easter, which falls on Sunday. El-Tayyeb affirmed during the visit that Egypts values of coexistence reflect the real meanings of religions that have brought peace to their followers, Al-Azhar said in a statement on its official website. The imam, who was accompanied by a high-level delegation of senior Al-Azhar clerics, said religions are being misused to fuel wars and conflicts around the world, referring to recent deadly attacks targeting mosques and churches in New Zealand and Sri Lanka. He called on clergymen to promote the correct understanding of religion, which he said would be the only way to confront what he called a criminal scheme against humanity. Easter in the Coptic Orthodox Church falls on Sunday; it was celebrated by Western churches on 21 April. The day is a public holiday in Egypt - a predominantly Muslim country where Christians make up some 10 percent of the 98 million population. Muslim and Christian leaders in Egypt often exchange visits on major religious festivals. Search Keywords: Short link: Osama El-Abd, head of parliament's religious endowments and affairs committee, told Ahram Online that the committee is highly appreciative of a new anti-atheism initiative launched by Al-Azhar. El-Abd said the Bayan ("Statement") initiative, annouced on 22 March, comes in response to growing reports that the number of atheists in Egypt is increasing. "We strongly support this initiative because Al-Azhar is the institution most capable of standing up to atheist thoughts and irreligious beliefs," said El-Abd, adding that "while we - parliament and official religious institutions - are keen to move together to fight extremist and radical Islam ideologies, we are also keen that we join hands to contain atheist thinking." He said that the initiative also comes after Al-Azhar's clerics said they had become worried about the spread of the phenomenon of atheist beliefs on social media. "As this has become a phenomenon, it was important that the institution responsible in this respect moves quickly to ring alarm bells and takes an organised reaction," said Al-Abd. Momtaz El-Dessouqi, an MP from the upper Egyptian governorate of Assiut and a member of parliament's constitutional and legislative affairs committee, also told Ahram Online that "there are reports that Egypt now ranks first among Arab countries in terms of the number of atheists." "A report by the International Global Institute said Egypt includes 866 atheists, but I think that the number is far much more than this," said El-Dessouqi, adding that "it is a shame that the country with the most prestigious religious institutions the Sunni Islamic Al-Azhar and the Coptic Orthodox Church has such a large number of atheists." Omar Hamroush, deputy chairman of the religious affairs committee, said Al-Azhar's investigation of social media showed that the number of atheists in Egypt has reached 2 million (or 3 percent of the total population). "This is one of the reasons which prompted me to draft a law aimed at fighting atheism," said Hamroush, adding that "when atheism takes the form of a growing phenomenon, all should move to take all possible means, particularly legislation, to fight it." Hamroush said Al-Azhar's Bayan initiative is mainly focused on fighting atheists and atheist beliefs and ideologies on the internet. "The initiative aims to build contacts with young people who espouse atheist beliefs on the interest, build a dialogue with them, and respond to their anti-religious ideas," said Hamroush. Hamroush indicates that "most of the atheists raise sceptical questions on issues related to Islamic sharia and fundamental beliefs and the responsibility of the Bayan unit is to respond to these questions and refute any claims on Islamic sharia and the religion of Islam in general." Al-Azhar's International Centre for Online Fatwas has said that since it launched the Bayan initiative it has received many atheist young people and held a fruitful dialogue with them. "We cant say that they are atheist youth, but they have sceptical questions about their religion (Islam), while some of them made contacts via the internet with some irreligious currents in the West," said the centre, adding that "it will continue holding such dialogue with many others, providing them with important books on moderate Islam and other religions." Search Keywords: Short link: Egypt aims to become a regional digital centre for the transfer of data between Asia, Africa and Europe, President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi said in a speech at Chinas Belt and Road Initiative forum in Beijing on Saturday. Speaking during a roundtable event, El-Sisi explained that Egypt is among the top countries worldwide in the number of submarine cable crossings, and is making efforts to attract more direct investments in the field. MENA agency reported El-Sisi as saying that direct investments will help make use of the field at the economic level, and will utilise the chances provided by the digital economy, one of the main elements bridging the digital gap between developed and developing countries. The Egyptian president also pointed at Egypts exception number of national infrastructure megaprojects in recent years, which he said would contribute to growth and provide new job opportunities. El-Sisi highlighted the close relationship between developing infrastructure and achieving comprehensive development for the member countries of the Chinese Belt and Road project. The interlinking of this relationship has increased as the transboundary interests interconnectedness grew, and with the acceleration of technological development, he said. He cited Egyptian plans to develop the strategic Suez Canal through its economic zone, saying this would integrate with the Belt and Road initiative. El-Sisi also met with Italian PM Giuseppe Conte in Beijing, expressing his full support for the joint cooperation between Cairo and Rome to unveil the mystery behind the 2016 murder of Italian student Giulio Regeni, and present the culprits to justice. According to a statement from El-Sisis office, he received Conte at his residence in Beijing on the sidelines of the forum, where they discussed a number of issues related to the two countries ties. They included terrorism and illegal migration, as well as the Libyan crisis. The Egyptian president stressed the importance of a comprehensive political resolution in Libya, to preserve the unity of the country and its territorial integrity. Search Keywords: Short link: Egypts flagship carrier EgyptAir will start flying to Rwandas Kigali twice weekly, it said on Saturday. The national carrier of Egypt has put in place ambitious plans to expand to the strongly rising countries in Africa, such as Rwanda, one of Africa's new hubs, Ahmed Adel, the chairman and CEO of EgyptAir Holding, said in a press release. EgyptAir said it will be using the latest types [of planes], featuring personal screens in business and economy, according to the chairman and CEO of EgyptAir Airlines Ashram El-Kholy, quoted in the release. The carrier said the flights from Cairo to Kigali would run on Thursday and Saturday, while flights from Kigali north will be on Friday and Sunday. Search Keywords: Short link: To say that the former President of the Republic, John Dramani Mahama and his NDC are bent on crumpling President Akufo-Addo's Free Senior High School policy would be an understatement of the century. As a matter of fact, the NDC flagbearer intends to quarantine Free S.H.S to the detriment of the millions of Ghanaians whose wards are benefitting and will benefit from the pro-poor programme. His posturing in relation to the policy evidently points to a man who execrates Ghanaian children being educated at the expense of the state. Unable to contain the raging storms arising out of his constant and wayward criticisms of President Akufo-Addo's flagship programme, Free S.H.S, former President and NDC flagbearer is in town with a statement meant to control the damage his utterances have done to his chances and that of his party, the NDC. Trying effortlessly to writhe himself out of the quagmire his posturing has landed him, the NDC flagbearer has caused for a statement to be written by his special aide, Joyce BawaMogtari in which grueling efforts are made to discount the widely held belief that Mahama and his party are bent on killing the ongoing education policy. However, facts gathered so far point to the irrevocable fact that former President Mahama and his NDC would not hesitate to retire Free S.H.S if they are given the mandate to rule Ghana again. Mahama, on November 23, 2012 told the people of Okere that ''Free S.H.S will collapse S.H.S education system'' Mahama on October 1, 2018, reiterated his aversion to Free SHS saying that it would undergo a review and hinted of the possibility of the policy being scrapped. Mahama, on February 24, 2o18, said that Free SHS's implementation was rushed and it is constricting government's budget, and, therefore, needs to have a review. Mahama at their Tarkwa unity walk had this to say ''It is unwise to implement Free SHS policy at all cost'' Mahama in his Central regional tour on September 28, 2018 had this to say ''I would not have done Free SHS now'' Mahama on November 25, 2017 said ''Lalasulala Free SHS will fail'' Mahama to Akufo-Addo ''Free SHS is not working'' Mahama-owned Herald newspaper on September 10, 2018 published the headline ''Akufo-Addo gets cooked Free SHS award'' Minister of Education, Lee Ocran, on 10th September, 2012 said ''Free SHS can only be possible in 2032, in 20 years time'' AsieduNketia, on October 1, 2018, described Free SHS as shambolic and that it will have to be scrapped. NDC MP for Adaklu, Kwame Agbodza, on June 19, 2018 said ''Over concentration on Free SHS stifling funds meant for flood prevention'' OfosuAmpofo on 18th December, 2018 said ''Double track system causing teenage pregnancies. Alban Bagbin on 26th July, 2018 said ''Free SHS is not sustainable'' Adam Mutawakilu, NDC MP for Damango said ''Blame the mysterious deaths at KUMACA to overcrowding as a result of Free SHS'' Felix KwakyeOfosu on May 14, 2018, had this warning for the government ''You can't use oil money to fund Free SHS'' UCC branch in 2016 said this ''The Free Senior High School by the NPP is a political gimmick. MahamaAyariga, on September 26, 2016, said ''Choose Mahama's education policy, it is better than Akufo-Addo's Free SHS. Hajia Joyce Zeinabu, then National Women Organizer of the NDC in 2016, November 20, had this to say, ''Free SHS will breed teenage pregnancies'' Joshua Akamba to Tempane SHS students ''Reject Akufo-Addo for implementing such a shambolic education system'' Besides these pronouncements, the NDC, in 2012, sponsored 37 anti-Free SHS adverts aimed at telling the electorate that Free SHS was a very bad policy. The former President's anti-Free SHS lamentations have reached a crescendo and there is no shred of doubt that if given the mandate to rule, he and his party would make Free SHS an extinct policy. A cursory look at the above facts would prove to even the doubting Thomases that Mahama finds it abhorrent for the state to sponsor the education of Ghanaians and would not hesitate to cancel the policy. A vote for Mahama and his NDC spells doom for the education of Ghanaian children as Free SHS will no longer be a living organism. Source: P.K. Sarpong / [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 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. Dr. Steve Manteaw, the Chairperson of Public Interest and Accountability Committee has called on the government to stop deepening the tax woes of few Ghanaians. Instead, they should broaden the tax net to incorporate more individuals, businesses and especially the informal sector in reaping more for development. Dr. Manteaw, a member of the 'Tax Justice Coalition Ghana' said this during a two-day workshop at Dodowa for Coalition members on the need to build their advocacy skills in the area of taxation to enable members better to advocate an equal, fair and transparent tax regime. He stated that the government must, therefore, put in place strategies and policies that would enable many more people to pay their taxes to mitigate the burden of just a fragment of society who continue to pay but don't actually benefit. The member also discussed progressive, regressive and proportional tax paying models to ensure maximum tax returns that brought happiness and relief to both the rich and the poor. The Tax Justice Coalition is a nonpartisan, independent and voluntary association of individuals and civil society organizations to advocate against tax injustice systems in Ghana and abroad. The Coalition exists to also promote transparency, integrity and accountability at both local and national levels to complement regional and continental efforts to deliver tax justice. Dr. Manteaw said it was imperative that those who benefited from taxes paid more especially those in the informal sector adding," the government can use the free senior high school as a test case to ascertain the real taxpayers or an avenue to roll in more taxpayers". "Such a social protection strategy, policies and intervention are critical to getting people to pay taxes to mitigate the suffering of those burdened with taxes", he added. Mr. Vitus Azeem, Chairman of the Coalition said mobilizing for domestic revenue for national development must be carried out in a way that would avoid overburdening the poor and thereby create significant unfairness in the system. "We need not to unduly penalise those already paying with more taxes", he added. Mr. Azeem said the government and allied institutions must therefore effectively carry out their fiduciary role in the management of tax revenues in a just, coherent and honest manner. The Coalition members were taken through courses such as; the Basic Principle and definition of taxation, Tax Equity, Tax Policy and Governance and challenges to the tax system. The rest are advocacy and objectives and developing campaign messages. 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 As part of activities marking this years Earth Day celebration, the Association of Spouses of Heads of Mission (ASOHOM) is helping raise awareness of the need to protect the environment. The event, which comes off Saturday, April 27, is being organized by Jamestown Cafe and the environmental group Plastic Punch. ASOHOM, an organization of the spouses of ambassadors and heads of other foreign missions in Ghana, advocates for the introduction of environmentally sustainable measures in the community, setting examples for best practices at embassies and official residences. This year, ASOHOM is supporting the Earth Day programme put together by Joe Addo and Allotey Bruce-Konuah at the Jamestown Cafe and Plastic Punch. Plastic Punch is an international team of dedicated Ghanaian professionals aimed at protecting the environment from plastic waste, providing better waste management solutions, while improving peoples living conditions. There will be a programme for the local Usshertown/Jamestown children which will include a talk from the Wulomo about the sacred nature of the Korle Lagoon and other Ga waterways. There will also be a video footage with environmental messaging by Plastic Punch, and arts and crafts activities to educate members of the Jamestown community. There will be a tour by local fishermen of the Jamestown fishing village and coastline for dignitaries, including government representatives and diplomats including the EU, UK, Australian and Norwegian Ambassadors. Many of the foreign missions represented by ASOHOM have established Green Teams to find ways to reduce the environmental foot print of the missions. Some of the measures introduced include going totally solar, eliminating the use of plastics particularly single-use plastics and ensuring all waste is segregated and either composted, recycled, or reused. As spouses of heads of missions here in Ghana, we believe it is important to lead by example and to try and raise everyones level of awareness about the need to protect the environment, Teresa Barnes, President of ASOHOM and spouse of Australian Ambassador Andrew Barnes noted. The first Earth Day was held on 22 April 1970, and is considered to be the birthday of the modern environmental protection movement. Since then, Earth Day has been celebrated annually on 22 April with events in support of the environment to raise awareness about environmental issues and to encourage environmental protection and greater care of planet Earth. This year 22 April fell on Easter Monday so it has been celebrated on a range of other days around 22 April. 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 investigator has expressed worry over the uncertainty of the Ghana Police Service, particularly the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), on the whereabouts of the kidnapped girls of Takoradi. Richard Kumadoe described the stance of the police on the girls as ridiculous. On Wednesday, April 24, some media organisations reported that the three kidnapped girls have been rescued and are receiving treatment at a BNI health facility ready to be handed to their families. But the police later that day issued a statement to deny the claims and said the girls have not been found yet. The Service, however, assured that efforts have been intensified to rescue them and hand them safely to their families. It is ridiculous, described Mr Kumadoe, who was contributing to discussions of the issue on TV3s The Key Points on Saturday, April 27. By now, heads should be rolling, he called. He bemoaned the way the Service is being run, saying it leaves much to be desired. A former Chief of Defence Staff, Brigadier General (rtd) Joseph Nunoo-Mensah, who was also on the programme, expressed shock at the temerity of the Director General of the CID, COP Maame Yaa Tiwa Addo Danquah, over the progress report one of assurance she had given the family of Priscilla Koranchie, one of the victims. We know where the 3 kidnapped girls are; theyre safe Police CID reveals I am surprised that the Commissioner of Police came out with this statement, he observed. The former senior military officer said kidnapping issues are not easy to resolve and so the police must be circumspect in pronouncements they make in connection to progress they have made. A childrens rights advocate, Bright Appiah, demanded proper coordination between the police and worried families of the victims. Mr Appiah, who is also the Executive Director of Child Rights International, said a representative should be appointed to brief the families on each step made by the police in investigations before going to press. Source: 3news.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Gloria A. Akuffo, has taken exception to the handling of the case of kidnapping of the three Takoradi girls by the security agencies. The Attorney-General took exception to the disclosure by COP/Ms. Maame Yaa Tiwaa Addo-Danquah, the Director-General of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service, close to a month that her outfit knows the whereabouts of the kidnapped girls. The Attorney General told Joy FM, an Accra-based radio station, that the disclosure could further endanger the lives of the girls. She said it was wrong for the investigating authorities to make that announcement, noting that when those keeping the girls know their whereabouts are known they would change the location. That signals those who have them and they could change their location, she told the radio station. She went on you could even endanger their livesand I find it even regrettable that the information went out that they have been found. During the April 2 press conference hosted by the CID, COP Tiwaa left nobody in doubt about the investigators being on top of the security jigsaw puzzle with her information. With many days elapsing, questions began pouring in concerning the authenticity of her claim. Her refusal to address concerns of journalists at the conference compounded agitated minds at the time. At the end, she was at the receiving end of a series of flaks from both the media and general public. We know where the girls are, they are safe very soon they will be brought back home, she claimed. They are not yet home though and the anxiety of the parents of the girls and indeed the general public is nearing the end of the dashboard. The parents of the girls charged on the CID for not disclosing details about the status of their daughters before going public in the manner they did. Ruth Quayson, Priscilla Blessing Bentum and Priscilla Koranchie were kidnapped between August 2018 and January 2019. Their story has so far attracted a national conversation with sometimes dramatic twists and turns. 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 One of the suspects named in the NDC shooting is suffering life-threatening wounds after some thugs believed to be part of a vigilante group, the Hawks stormed his residence and stabbed him in the process. The gang numbering about 20 who were at his Kenyasi-Abirem residence Thursday in a Rambo style subjected Hussein to severe beatings stabbing him in the process. It is believed that one West, who sustained gunshot wounds during the ensuing melee at the party office some months ago was also spotted at the scene. Family members who were stunned by what was happening rushed to the police who consequently rescued the suspect. The family is shocked over the development. They tortured my brother. We dont know where he is now so I am going to the Police headquarters to find out where my brother is. He is innocent, Samira Hussein, a sister of the victim, said in an interview. A video circulating on social media saw Akon, as he is affectionately called lying helpless with knife wounds at his back and thighs. It is believed that the armed gang committed the crime in retaliation to the shooting incident that occurred at the NDC party office in Kumasi. The suspect who was handed over to the police has since been transferred to the Ashanti Regional police headquarters. Meanwhile, family of the suspect is outraged over the incident as police is tight-lipped about the whereabouts of their son. The police is yet to officially comment over the issue. 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 Two female cashiers of the Ejisu branch of the Multi Credit Savings and Loans Limited, on Wednesday appeared before a Kumasi Circuit Court, for allegedly stealing a total sum of GH274,355.50, belonging to customers. Rita Asieduwaa 33, and Mercy Nketia 30, pleaded not guilty to the charges and were granted bail totaling GH330,000.00, with three sureties. The Court presided over by Mrs Lydia Osei Marfo, ordered them to reappear on May 29, this year. Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Felix Akowuah, prosecuting, told the Court that the complainant was the General Manager of the company, which has its head office in Kumasi, while the suspects were cashiers at the Ejisu branch. He said a routine audit check conducted by management during the month of January this year, into the records and transactions between October, 2016, and December, 2018, uncovered the thefts. The Prosecution said the audit revealed that Asieduwaa and Nketia, had misappropriated cash sums of GH223,127.80 and GH 51,227.70 respectively, in respect of the susu and savings accounts of their customers. ASP Akowuah said management found out that Asieduwaa did not credit the customers accounts with the deposits they made, while Nketia, a field cashier also failed to hand over monies collected from clients to the office, to be credited into customers accounts in the system. He said management then confronted the two ladies who admitted the offence and were handed over to the Police, for further investigations and subsequent prosecution. Source: Graphic Online 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 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Friday signalled its readiness to sanction individuals and firms who flout environmental laws as well as those operating without permits. The Agency has, therefore, put in place proactive, effective and efficient systems including the training of senior officers on prosecution to deal with offenders. Mr Kingsley Ekow Guray-Sey, the EPA Chief Programme Officer, announced this at a two-day training the Agency organised for Environmental Journalists in Accra. The participants would be schooled on the EPAs Mandate, Regulations on Waste, Chemicals, Mining and Climate Change to enable them to understand and better educate the public on the need to protect the environment. Mr Guray-Sey said as part of the systems to ensure compliance was a proactive monitoring of companies in the country, especially those in the big cities. In the past, we have sanctioned culprits in the districts now we are in the process of prosecuting persons and companies, he said. Mr Guray-Sey recounted that prosecution in the past had not been as expected due to challenges including the lack of technical personnel. The Agency, he said, was teaming up with the various metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies and the Ghana Police Service to form a tax force to deal with industrial effluent and noise pollution. Mrs Angelina Ama Tutuah Mensah, the Head of Public Relations, EPA, said environmental protection was a shared responsibility and the public needed to support the Agency by volunteering information to the appropriate officers. She noted that even though it was EPAs statutory function to co-ordinate the activities of bodies concerned with the technical aspect of the environment, the public had a role to play in making this a success. Mrs Mensah said the Agency would continue to initiate and pursue formal and non-formal education programmes for the creation of awareness on the environment and its importance to the economic and social life of the citizenry. 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 Vice President Alhaji Dr. Mahamud Bawumia has described late Chairman of the Council of Elders for the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mr. C.K Tedam as a source of inspiration to him and the party. He says he served Ghana and the New Patriotic Party with dedication, dignity, and zeal. In a statement, he noted that he has received with sadness the death of their father and venerable statesman Mr. Clement Kubindiwor Tedam affectionately called C.K Tedam. "He epitomised honesty, loyalty, humility, wisdom and was a source of inspiration to me and anyone who was privileged to know him. "He served Ghana and the New Patriotic Party with dedication, dignity, and zeal," he said. Mr. Tedam served as a Member of Parliament during the colonial era and was a founding member of the Northern People's Party. He was appointed the Minister of Local Government under Supreme Military Council junta. With the return to democracy in 1992, Mr. Tedam became a founding father of the New Patriotic Party and later a member of the Council of State under former President John Agyekum Kufuor. Until his demise, he was the Chairman of the NPP's Council of Elders. "Samira Bawumia and I condole with his family, the New Patriotic Party and Ghana at large for the demise of this great man. "This is a life to be celebrated," the statement added. 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 Attacks by two Islamist militants groups killed at least 22 Syrian government troops and militiamen in the northern province of Aleppo early on Saturday, a war monitor said. Thirty others were wounded in the assaults by Al-Qaeda's former Syria branch, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), and its ally Hurras al-Deen, which remains affiliated to the global jihadist network, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The attacks in the southern and southwestern countryside of Aleppo province were launched shortly after midnight and triggered clashes that continued until dawn, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said. He said the fighting subsided after Russian aircraft struck jihadist positions in the area, prompting the fighters to pull back. Eight jihadists were killed, he added. Russia aircraft also carried out strikes in neighbouring Hama province early on Saturday, killing five civilians, the Observatory said. On Friday, Russian strikes killed 10 civilians in Idlib province, the hub of territory held by the jihadists of HTS in northwestern Syria. Russia and rebel-backer Turkey in September inked a buffer zone deal to avert a massive government offensive on the Idlib region, but the deal has never been implemented. The region of some three million people has come under increasing bombardment since HTS took full control of it in January. The latest Russian air raids came after two days of talks on the Syrian conflict between Turkey, Russia and fellow government backer Iran in Kazakhstan earlier this week. The three governments expressed concern over the growing power of HTS in Idlib and parts of adjacent provinces, and determination to cooperate to eliminate the jihadist group. The civil war in Syria has killed more than 370,000 people and displaced millions since it began with the bloody repression of anti-government protests in 2011. Search Keywords: Short link: The Energy Minister, Mr. John Peter Amewu, says the analysis of public advocacy think-tank IMANI Ghana in respect of the plan of development submitted by Aker Energy and on behalf of all the contracting parties in the Petroleum Agreement (PA) covering the Deep Water Tano/Cape Three Points (DWT/CTP) contract area, was simply meant to alarm Ghanaians that the country risk losing a potential of $30 billion failure to negotiate a new petroleum agreement. According to the Energy Minister, IMANI Ghana simply multiplied the assumed price of $65 per barrel by the estimated discoveries to contain gross contingent resources of 450 million barrels of oil equivalent (mmboe). This exposes the weaknesses in IMANIs analyses as well as its poor understanding of petroleum economics. IMANI wants us to believe that all the 450million barrels of oil equivalent will be produced but fails to explain how that can be, he chided. Mr. John Peter Amewu explained that the 450 million barrels of oil equivalent are gross contingent resources, which are the potential resource available all of which cannot be recovered under current technology. He reiterated that in Ghana, our average crude oil recovery rate is 25%. At this rate, the field value will be estimated at $7.3 billion assuming a price of $65 per barrel; thus it cannot be $30 billion as estimated by IMANI. IMANI tried to alarm Ghanaians about a potential loss of $30 billion to the country if the government failed to negotiate a new petroleum agreement with new terms with the DWT/CTP partners. This is absolutely false, he stressed. The Energy Minister again mentioned that President Akufo-Addo and his government mentioned that they are working with Aker Energy to enhance oil recovery mechanism to achieve a recovery rate of 40%, which will be the highest in Ghanas oil and gas history and which occurrence will appreciate the value to $11.7 billion. This will be a significant gain for both Ghana and the partners, he stated in the media briefing at the Ministry of Information Conference room on Friday 26th April 2019. He added that the Aker Energy, on behalf of its partners announced after a successful appraisal of the Pecan Field discovery, a significant oil find as captured below: based on existing subsurface data from seismic, wells drilled and an analysis of the Pecan -4A well result, the existing discoveries are estimated to contain gross contingent resources (2C) of 450 550 million barrels of oil equivalent (mmboe). IMANI at a recent public advocacy program challenged what it says were various acts of omissions on the part of the Government of Ghana in respect of the plan of development submitted by Aker Energy and on behalf of all the contracting parties in the Petroleum Agreement (PA) covering the Deep Water Tano/Cape Three Points (DWT/CTP) contract area. But the Energy Minister John Peter Amewu on Friday April 26, 2019 described the claims by IMANI as total falsehood. In providing some background information on the agreement, Mr. Amewu said the PA covering the DWT/CTP contract area operated by Aker Energy was executed on 8thFebruary, 2006 between the Government of Ghana -GNPC, AMERADA HESS Corporation, Lukoil and FUELTRADE subsequently farmed in 2015. He announced that there was no basis for a new petroleum agreement as claimed by IMANI because the work that was done by Aker Energy formed part of an appraisal programme based on the existing petroleum agreement. Source: Daniel Adu Darko/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 It is the last day of campaigning for legislative elections in Benin where voters will head to the polls on Sunday. But the process has been marred with controversy as no opposition party will be on the ballot. The electoral commission blocked five opposition parties from taking part in Sundays polls on a technicality. The two parties that met the criteria are loyal to President Patrice Talon, who has been in power since 2016. The opposition have held demonstrations in the city of Cotonou, which have featured two former presidents. There are fears that with no opposition parties in parliament, the countrys democracy could be weakened. 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 One of the suspects declared wanted by the police in connection with the recent killing of Wasiru Iddrisu at the Ashanti Regional office of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has been arrested. Identified as Sulemana Fuseini alias Akon, he was arrested by a mob in Kumasi on Thursday at Kenyasi Abirem.This brings to four, the total number of suspects who have been arrested by the police in connection with the killing. The mob, which traced Akon to his hideout in their attempt to arrest him reportedly stabbed and injured him. He was said to be returning to the area after he went into hiding elsewhere. Akon, under police guard was sent to the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) for medical attention after which he has been placed in police custody pending his appearance in court next week. Three other suspects who earlier reported themselves to the police and have since been arraigned at the Asokwa Magistrate Court are on remand. Wasiru, also known as Aboabo Gyata, was shot dead by persons suspected to belong to the Hawks, a pro-NDC group. The three out of 12 suspects who earlier reported themselves to the police are Dauda Ibrahim alias 'Wayo', 40; Samuel Agyin alias 'Rock', 32 and Abdul Ganiyu, 37 alias 'Petit'. On February 18, 2019, Wasiru Iddrisu, a member of the Ashanti Regional Taskforce of the National Democratic Congress was shot and killed in a scuffle with members suspected to belong to the Hawks, another pro-NDC group at the Ashanti Regional office of the party. Another, Abdul Rahman also sustained gunshot wounds. Below is a video at the scene where Akon was arrested- Source: Daily Graphic 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 Presidency has denied reports circulating on social media that President Akufo-Addo has donated $2million towards the reconstruction of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France. Fire engulfed the medieval cathedral, one of Frances most famous landmarks, last Tuesday. The 850-year-old Gothic building's spire and the roof collapsed but the main structure, including the two bell towers, was saved in the fire that took nine hours and 400 fire firefighters to put out. In the aftermath, French President, Emmanuel Macron appealed for support to rebuild the iconic structure and since then millions of dollars have been pouring in by way of donations from across the world. Ghana has yet to make any such donations, but there are suggestions on social media that President Akufo-Addo has made a $2million donation. In a disclaimer, the Communications Director at the Presidency, Mr Eugene Arhin asked that a video report especially on YouTube suggesting Ghana has made the $2million donation should be disregarded. He said the assertions being made on social media to the effect that President Akufo-Addo has donated $2 million to the rebuilding of the Notre Dame Cathedral are not true. No such thing has been done. We urge all to disregard this false news, the disclaimer urged. 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 Madam Lucy Animwaa Anin, a leading member of the Convention Peoples Party (CPP), on Friday, commended the Government, led by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, for keeping Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumahs Vision of using farming to drive export and development. The 80-year-old politician said it was pleasing to be alive to see Dr Nkrumahs Vision, as the First President of Ghana, being revisited by the current Government through the Planting for Export and Rural Development (PERD), launched not long ago. Madam Anin, a former Member of Parliament for Bechem, said Dr Nkrumahs Government introduced the planting of palm and rubber in the state farms through the Workers Brigade, which provided employment for many youths at the time. Speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency after fraternising with some Editorial Staff, she said: If previous presidents had held on to the Vision of the countrys First President, job creation would have been rampant and unemployment non-existent. She said under Dr Nkrumahs Administration, the country was into massive palm plantation in the state farms, which led to Ghana having the privilege to teach Malaysia the technics of palm plantation and giving that country seedlings to commence its farming. Madam Anin said the project was abandoned by successive governments and that it would be a great relief to the soul of Osagyefo Dr Nkrumah as his Vision would live on, which would accumulate foreign exchange for the nation. Nkrumah never dies because his Vision for Ghana, Africa and the world will live on, she said. Government seeks to use the PERD programme to promote the development of selected export tree crops including cashew, coffee, oil palm, coconut, mango and rubber. Madam Anin is the only surviving member, and the youngest of the first 10 female MPs, under the CPP Administration. She entered Parliament at age 22 and represented the then Brong Ahafo Region. 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 Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta has signed into law a controversial marriage bill legalising polygamy. It brings civil law, where a man was only allowed one wife, into line with customary law, where some cultures allow multiple partners. Controversy surrounded an amendment to the bill, supported by many male MPs, allowing men to take more wives without consulting existing spouses. Traditionally, first wives are supposed to give prior approval. 'Demeaning' Last month, female MPs walked out of parliament in disgust after their male counterparts voted through the amendment. They argued that a decision to take on another wife would affect the whole family, including the financial position of other spouses. The bill was also opposed by Christian leaders who urged the president not to sign it into law, saying it undermined Christian principles of marriage and family. "The tone of that bill, if it becomes law, would be demeaning to women since it does not respect the principle of equality of spouses in the institution of marriage," Archbishop Timothy Ndambuki, from the National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK), was quoted by Kenya's Standard newspaper as saying. The marriage legislation has been under discussion for several years and some initial proposals were scrapped at committee stages. It has abolished the practice of unofficial traditional marriages which were never registered and could be ended without any legal divorce proceedings. But plans to ban the payment of bride prices were dropped - although a person must be 18 to marry and this now applies to all cultures. Inheritance chaos? MPs did reject the committee amendment which said a woman should only be entitled to 30% of matrimonial property after death or divorce.The law now allows for equal property and inheritance rights - previously a woman had to prove her contribution to the couple's wealth. However, the BBC's Frenny Jowi in the capital, Nairobi, says this aspect of the legislation could create chaos in polygamous marriages. The law stipulates that a wife is entitled to an equal share of whatever the couple acquired during their marriage but in the case of multiple partners it is going to be difficult to determine what each spouse is entitled to if one of them divorces or their husband dies, she says. There had also been a proposal to recognise co-habiting couples, known in Kenya as "come-we-stay" relationships, after six months, but this too was dropped. It would have allowed a woman to seek maintenance for herself and any children of the union, had the man left. 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 U.S. President Donald Trumps proposals on nuclear arms disarmament is not serious, a Kremlin spokesman said on Saturday. Trump has ordered his administration to prepare a push for a new arms-control agreements with Russia and China citing the cost of the 21st-century nuclear arms race, The Washington Post reported on Thursday citing administration officials. It would be ideal to clean up the whole world from the nuclear weapon...but on the other hand we would have been deprived from the deterrent factor, Dmitry Peskov told reporters on the sidelines of a summit on Chinas Belt and Road plan. Dont forget about the deterrent factor, about the deterrent parity, he said. Peskov also said Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping held substantial talks and exchanged views on Syria, Venezuela and Libya when they met on Friday. Search Keywords: Short link: LOME, Togo Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (ETI), parent company of the Ecobank Group, announces that its Chief Financial Officer, Greg Davis, is leaving his post so that he can spend more time with his young family who are in the United Kingdom. At a meeting of ETIs Directors yesterday, the Board accepted the resignation of Greg Davis as Chief Financial Officer, and Group Executive, Finance. In line with ETIs established executive succession plan, the Board has appointed Ayo Adepoju, Vice President, Group Finance as acting CFO. Greg was a key member of the team, closely supporting the Group CEO, Ade Ayeyemi, in implementing the Roadmap to Leadership strategy of the Group since joining in 2016. One of Gregs enduring successes has been building the quality and depth of the finance team across the Group and making significant enhancements. Mr. Ade Ayeyemi, Group Chief Executive Officer said, Greg and I have worked very closely together, and I have great admiration for his well-grounded financial acumen, sound judgement and focused commitment and dedication to Ecobank. His strong financial management skills have played a key role in the execution of our Roadmap to Leadership strategy. I am sad to see him leave but recognise the importance of family life and he has my very best wishes for his next challenge. The Board has every confidence in Ayo Adepoju stepping into his new role and he has our full support. Ayo Adepoju has worked closely with Greg, performing the role of Group Head of Business Performance and Analytics for the Group for the last two years. He has worked on the strategic aspects of the financial management of the Group, including close equity investor interaction. Ayo has built up significant experience within the Group and has a deep understanding of the underlying drivers of the business across Africa which are imperative for the next stage of the Groups growth. Before Ayos current role as Group Head of Business Performance and Analytics, he was Ecobanks Group Financial Controller, where he was responsible for financial and regulatory reporting for the Group. Prior to joining Ecobank, he had a career at PricewaterhouseCoopers in London and Lagos as an Assurance Manager in the financial services practice. He is an Accounting graduate of the University of Lagos, Nigeria, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree with First Class Honours and has an MBA from Warwick Business School, United Kingdom. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) with national overall best prize awards at two consecutive stages of the ICAN examinations. He has attended executive education courses at both the Harvard Business School and the London Business School. About Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (ETI or The Group): Incorporated in Lome, Togo in 1988, Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (ETI) is the parent company of the leading independent pan-African banking group, Ecobank. It currently has a presence in 36 African countries, namely: Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo (Brazzaville), Congo (Democratic Republic), Cote dIvoire, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The Group employs 16,386 people in 40 different countries in over 888 branches and offices. Ecobank is a full-service bank providing wholesale, retail, investment and transaction banking services and products to governments, financial institutions, multinationals, international organisations, medium, small and micro businesses and individuals. Related 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 Scandinavian airline SAS canceled hundreds of flights scheduled for Sunday as a pilot strike entered its second day, disrupting the travel plans of tens of thousands of passengers. SAS pilots went on strike on Friday as wage talks broke down, grounding around 70 percent of the airlines flights and hitting some 170,000 people over the weekend alone. We deeply regret that our customers are affected by the ongoing pilot strike, SAS said in a statement on Saturday outlining its flight cancellations for the rest of the weekend. Due to the strike another estimated 64,000 passengers will be affected (on Sunday) when 587 flights are canceled across Scandinavia. The stand-off showed little sign of nearing a resolution on Saturday. We believe the unions have to face reality and resume talks, Torbjoern Lothe at the Norwegian Confederation of Enterprise, an employers association involved in the negotiations with the unions last week, told Reuters. Norsk Pilotforbund, one of two SAS pilot unions in Norway, said it had had no contact with the airline, as did Rawaz Nermany, chairman of the Swedish Airline Pilots Association. We are waiting for SAS to get in touch and show a real will to discuss the issues that are important to us, he said. So far, they have not wanted to do that. A spokesman for the Swedish National Mediation Office, whose proposed deal the pilots rejected late on Thursday, said there were no immediate plans for contacts between the parties in Sweden. SAS has taken steps such as offering free food to passengers waiting to find alternative flights at airports across Scandinavia, but several travelers complained on social media that they were unable to reach the airlines customer services. Hey SAS Ive been trying to contact you for a day now, one wrote on Twitter, to which SAS responded: Our customer service is answering the phone as fast as they can. Try again. The flag carrier, which is part-owned by the Swedish and Danish governments, has said it is prepared to resume negotiations but warned that meeting pilots demands would have dire consequences for the company. The aviation industrys employer body in Sweden has said pilots demanded a 13 percent wage hike, despite what it called already high average wages of 93,000 Swedish crowns a month. The SAS Pilot Group, a union body representing 95 percent of the airlines pilots in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, says that the dispute concerns more than simply wages, pointing to demands for more predictable and transparent working hours. Analysts at Sydbank have estimated that the strike is costing SAS 60-80 million Swedish crowns ($6.3 million to $8.41 million) per day, which would effectively wipe out the airlines expected net profit for the year were it to last two weeks. The strike at SAS does not affect flights operated by its partners, which make up roughly 30 percent of all departures. The airline said it was offering passengers booked on flights through May 1 to reschedule free of charge. Search Keywords: Short link: Unlike many other young women dreaming of having their wedding photos taken at one of Cairos famous hotels, Asmaa Mahmoud, a 32-year-old business analyst, was dreaming of the top with her life partner Mohamed Selim, a 36-year-old software engineer. They thought of doing an extraordinary thing they both love and enjoy and decided to hike all the way to the top of Mount Sinai (Mount Moussa) in Sinai accompanied by 25 siblings and friends to have their photo shoot 2,200m above sea level. It all started when we were chatting with friends and explaining that we wanted to do a different photo shoot and that we were already thinking of a mountain as a destination. A lot of suggestions were put forward, and we decided on Saint Catherines, specifically Mount Sinai, as one of our favourites, Selim said. We are a group of mountain hiking lovers, and we used to hike a new mountain every two months. It wasnt difficult for most of us to go on this adventure: its the 15th time I have been up Mount Sinai since I began in 2003. The mountain has so many ways to hikeit, and the view is really awesome. We love to travel in general, and we have visited most of Egypt to get away from Cairos hustle. The closest places to our hearts are Saint Catherines and Dahab where we first met, he continued. A first glance at the photos gives you the impression that the wedding ceremony took place on the mountain, but in fact it did not. The wedding ceremony was celebrated in Cairo. But they took into consideration the fact that Mount Sinai is a holy mountain where there is a church and a mosque at the top, and most visitors hike all the way up to pray. Thus, the couple and their group packed after the wedding ceremony on 15 March and started their journey on the 21st. We left Cairo at midnight and arrived at Saint Catherines at 7am. There was a lot of us, and we were divided into two camps, Moonland and Masoudi. We were supposed to rest so we could start the next day. But Mohamed and the others went for a six-hour hike, and I stayed at the camp cooking for almost four hours, Mahmoud said. Cooking is Asmaas passion, and she cooked a whole lamb before hiking up the mountain for the photo session, said Mai Fathi, a 32-year-old banker and one of the bridesmaids. When the idea was first mentioned, all 25 of us were extremely excited. I recall that nobody hesitated or made a reluctant comment. We went right away to buy the dress fabrics and decided to make something we could separate so it would be easy to put on the upper part under a thermal jacket and take only the skirt in our backpacks in order to save time. But for Asmaa, there was no escape from carrying her wedding dress up 2,200 metres. The trip up started the next day at 2am and took four hours. On the way up, Selim rented a camel to carry the gowns so he could save some energy for the shoot. My biggest fear was not being able to find a camel. Also, it was supposed to be a rainy day, but thankfully I found a camel and it only rained for five minutes, he said. The adventure was not without its challenges, the most prominent of which was that I had to carry a bag of Asmaas and my suit and some of the camera equipment on the mountains 750 stairs as camels couldnt go up there. That was in addition to the riskiness of hiking after it had rained and the rocks had got slippery, he added. When we arrived before dawn, we caught a view of the sunrise from the top. It was very cold, maybe five degrees, and it was a little bit windy. We stayed to rest and warm up for a while and waited until all the visitors up there had finished their visit so we could have our photo session, said Yehia Al-Zeini, the photographer and a friend of the bride and groom. Its my sixth or seventh time to hike this Mountain, one of the best and easiest to climb in the area. We waited until 7 am to start the photo shoot. The bride took her dress to one of the toilets on the Mountain to change, and of course there were no mirrors or lights. She and the girls succeeded in putting on their makeup and dresses, which I considered to be a kind of miracle. The groom changed his clothes behind some rocks and made up his hair with hair cream without a mirror. The photo shoot lasted until 9 am, then we took the route down the mountain for another two hours to reach the base by 11 am, Yehia commented. Yehia is a really creative and talented photographer. He knew how to illuminate the beauty of the mountain range and showed us looking very elegant despite our tiredness and the hiking shoes we were wearing. He even chose the colour of the dresses to make a contrast with the mountains. Yehia was keen to show the spectacular view of the Saint Catherines range and how it embraced the bride, Mai added. The couple didnt then seek some rest, however. After they had got home at 11pm, they slept for a few hours before waking early to catch a flight to Lebanon to spend their honeymoon. If we were to repeat this experience, we would maybe choose a harder mountain, such as Abbas or Bab Al-Donia, Selim said. While the couple received very nice comments on their adventure, such as praising the idea of doing whatever they loved to do on their special day and documenting it in a unique way, they also received some disappointing ones. Some comments on Facebook accused us of wasting money, when actually we didnt pay a penny. Saint Catherines is one of the cheapest destinations in Egypt. The average cost for accommodation is about LE80 to LE120 with meals per night, Selim said. I guess spending LE100,000 on a wedding ceremony at a five-star hotel is the real waste of money. Each of us only had to pay LE600, and our friends paid that for us as a gift, he said. *A version of this article appears in print in the 25 April, 2019 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Wedding at the top Search Keywords: Short link: President hails national stances of Hajjah sheikhs in confronting Saudi-led aggression coalition [27/April/2019] SANAA, April 27 (Saba) President Mahdi al-Mashat on Saturday hails national stances of Hajjah province's sheikhs and residents in confronting Saudi-led aggression and its plots. The move came during his meeting with the member of Shura Council for Hajjah province Darham al-Zakari. The officials discussed aspects related to sheikhs' role to mobilize fighters to the battle fronts.The meeting stressed on the importance of enhancing cohesion and the internal fronts to thwart the Saudi-led aggression's plots that target Yemen and its sovereignty. Ali Ahsan saba President, official of Yemen Thabat Foundation discuss foundation's humanitarian activities [27/April/2019] SANAA, April 27 (Saba) - President Mahdi al-Mashat met on Saturday with the executive director of Yemen Thabat Foundation, Mr. Hassan al-Badri. During the meeting, the Yemeni Foundation's activities and projects in relief and humanitarian arena, during the past period were discussed , especially with regard to the care of families of fighters in fronts who defend the Homeland. The meeting touched on the Foundation's plans and projects for the coming period to promote steadfastness and social solidarity and mobilize humanitarian efforts to implement its programs and activities to serve the community. AA Saba Parliament listens to reply from British House of Commons' Speaker [27/April/2019] SANAA, April 27 (Saba) - The Parliament in its meeting on Saturday listened to reply from Speaker of the British House of Commons John Bercow to its letter addressed to speakers of parliaments of Arab, Islamic and foreign countries, including Britain. Bercow's reply included thanks to the Parliament's Speaker for his letter, dated April 15, on the situation in Yemen, which confirmed that British MPs follow-up the developments of events in Yemen. The Speaker of the House of Commons pointed out that the Parliament's letter touched on the tragic situation experienced by Yemen and, as an urgent matter, he referred the topic to the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the body responsible for the foreign policy of security in the United Kingdom to brief them on what is happening to be aware of it. The Parliament's letter directed to the world's parliaments stated that Saudi Arabia and the UAE had gathered some members of the parliament from capitals of Saudi-led coalition countries to convene a meeting of the so-called Yemeni parliament, which represented an aggression and a flagrant interference in internal affairs of Yemen and violation of Yemen's sovereignty and independence. The letter stressed that the Parliament in the capital Sanaa is the only legislative institution that represents the Yemeni people with all its political, social and cultural components. It also touched on the aggression war that has been waged by Saudi-UAE-led coalition countries on Yemen since March 2015, which resulted in the killing of tens of thousands of civilians due to the coalition airstrikes, as well as the disastrous effects of the aggression coalition on millions of Yemenis. BA Saba HIDDEN KILLER...! [27/April/2019] SANAA, Apr.27 (Saba) - Cholera epidemic is the hidden killer that swept the Yemeni provinces very quickly, it did not have mercy on the children or old neither man nor woman. Cholera isnt new to Yemen, like many countries in the Middle East and South Asia, cholera has historically been endemic in Yemen. It is currently facing the largest documented cholera epidemic in modern times. This kind out outbreak is new, though. Infectious disease modeling techniques estimate that until 2016, Yemen had approximately 17,546 cases of cholera per year, the Yemeni revolution began and 30,000 cases of cholera were reported, more than 13 million and 800,000 Yemenis are at risk, putting 8 million to 400,000 of them on the brink of cholera. A study arrived at its analysis "the small first cholera epidemic wave in 2016 had a key role in seeding the bacteria across Yemen during the dry season. When the rains returned in April, 2017, they triggered widespread cholera transmission that led to the large second wave observed during the following months. This conclusion is further supported by our microbiological analyses, which suggest that the resurgence of the epidemic in 2017 is unlikely to have resulted from the introduction of a new Vibrio Cholerae strain. the rapid epidemiological invasion of cholera and the increase in the number of cholera to 162 thousand and 463 people from January to the beginning of April, 327 of them died and more than 1 million and 500 thousand of the epidemic since 2016 died of them more than 3000 people, according to recent statistics of the Ministry of Public Health and Population, Prompting intensified government and organizations efforts to curb the spread of the epidemic. According to statistics of the Ministry of Health recorded during the period from 14/3/2019 to 27/4/2019"1,493,828 cases, and 2,919 deaths". Most deaths among older persons over 60 years are 53% and 15% are under-five mortality. 138 thousand cases of suspected cholera rate of more than 40 thousand cases per month and about 1,300 cases a day in different governorates of the Republic. The Ministry of Public Health and Population recorded the first invasion of cholera since late September 2016 until February 2017, and the second began in late April 2017 and continued until the beginning of November of the same year, while the third pandemic appeared at the beginning of this year. Role of government and international organizations: they open more than 600 camps in all provinces; close the canteens in all schools and some restaurants. - prevent the entry of vegetables from some areas and governorates where vegetables are irrigated with wastewater. - The emergency committee formed a technical committee that works to raise awareness among the community in ways to prevent cholera and focus on cleaning campaigns, where detergent was distributed and explained how to use it. - Treatment of hospital waste in special units, incinerators and sewage cases, and some farmers diverting them to irrigation before they reach the treatment plants, in addition to increasing the efficiency of the centers. - Sewage treatment and sterilization of reservoirs. - An agricultural technical team of Plant Protection the level of implementation of the campaign of spraying and field control of the carriers of the cholera epidemic, Where the team sprayed in the foci and marshes as well as the sewage treatment plant, which is concentrated in the presence of flies and insects carrying the epidemic ,and make them water suitable for irrigation of various agricultural crops. - Now a group of volunteers are vaccinating the people in houses, works, and schools in three areas Wahda, Shoaup and Sebeyen in the capital Sanaa. Where cholera is known as an infectious disease that causes severe watery diarrhea, which can lead to dehydration and even death if untreated. It is caused by eating food or drinking water contaminated with a bacterium called Vibrio Cholera. Symptoms of Cholera: Diarrhea, Nausea and vomiting, Dehydration, Irritability, lethargy, sunken eyes, a dry mouth, extreme thirst, dry and shriveled skin. Some causes for cholera invasion: war, poor sanitation, crowding, poverty, famine, rainfall, displacement and economic collapse. While the Cholera found: the cholera bacteria spread through contaminated food or water, in places with inadequate water treatment, poor sanitation, inadequate hygiene, refugee camps, crowded cities, anywhere people cluster together without a good way to dispose of human waste and the war made the Sanaa wastewater plant without power so untreated wastewater began to leak out into irrigation canals and drinking water supplies. Treatment: Antibiotics and compensations of fluids in the body, medicine, vaccine and the important things are hygiene, lunch and liquids. In the cholera' camp the Patients take some of antibiotics and perfusion solutions. Difficulties which face the camps: Lack of treatment centers, a lack of medicines, intravenous solutions, oral rehydration salts and other essential medical supplies, no water to wash these blankets, which is a carrier of the disease, also there is no running water in the bathroom and few numbers of bathrooms. Because of the poor most patients cannot afford to help themselves to go to the hospital or buy medication, also lack of medical laboratories. Cholera epidemic is killed millions of Yemeni people but the government with helping with UNCEF and other International and local organizations offered everything they could to eradicate this deadly disease. Written by Amal Bahakim saba Pune, Maharashtra -- (SBWIRE) -- 04/26/2019 -- Facilitating connectivity among various regions and countries, construction of roads has gained significant traction with increasing domestic and national trade. This aspect has driven the need for dumpy level, it being a vital component in determining height and relative distance. The growth of the dumpy level market is largely influenced with increasing road construction projects worldwide. According to the analysis carried out by Global Road Map, an alliance of scientists, environmentalists, planners, agricultural specialists and geographers focused on enhanced road planning, unparalleled expansion of roads has been observed in the 21st century. This factor is likely to facilitate a meteoric demand for dumpy, in turn boosting dumpy level market in the forthcoming years. That said, emerging economies are likely to be at the vanguard apropos of use of dumpy level owing to stellar road construction projects. For instance, in India, government is planning to increase highway network of the country by 50,000 kilometers in the next two years, exclaims NHAI (National Highway Authority of India), making it a lucrative market for dumpy level. Additionally, new construction projects are also expected to auger well for dumpy level market. High government spending on construction activities has accelerated the use of dumpy level for levelling. For example, in United States, a 4% increase in construction spending was witnessed in 2017, which is expected to touch 8% in 2018. That said, a significant boom is in the offing and dumpy level manufacturers can expect a steady stream of opportunities in the coming years. Request Free Sample Report@ https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=S&rep_id=552 Global Dumpy Level Market: Introduction In today's fast growing global economy, the dumpy level is the most adaptable instrument as it is essential for infrastructure, road and building construction. As the population increases, the construction market grows simultaneously, which ultimately drives the growth of the dumpy level market. A dumpy level is a type of leveling instrument used to determine relative distance and height among various locations of a surveying land. The instrument is also used for designing sewers, railways and highways and to determine the volume of earthwork. A dumpy level consists of a telescope tube firmly held in two collars fixed by adjusting screws to the stage by the vertical spindle. Dumpy levels consist of different components, including a tripod stand, a leveling head, foot screws, a telescope, bubble tubes and a compass. In addition, a dumpy level is simple, has a compact design, and is shock resistant, light weight, moisture proof and stable. Global Dumpy Level Market: Market Dynamics Drivers: Increasing construction activities across the globe are anticipated to be drive the growth of the dumpy level market over the forecast period. Moreover, increasing urbanization is also expected to give traction to the growth of the market during the forecast period. Furthermore, dumpy levels have high optical power and require fewer adjustments at the time of survey. This is also expected to add to the growth of the dumpy level market in the near future. That apart, the different benefits of dumpy levels, such as simpler construction with fewer moving parts and longer life of adjustments will also add to the growth of the dumpy level market over the forecast period. Restraints Dumpy levels are restricted to only measure horizontal angle, which is anticipated to be a deterrent to the growth of the dumpy level market over the forecast period. Moreover, the angles obtained by dumpy levels are not accurate. This is also anticipated to act as a restraining factor to the growth of the dumpy level market in the near future. Furthermore, dumpy level instruments are difficult to use, which will also hinder the growth of the dumpy level market over the forecast period. A dumpy level is an older style instrument for leveling and require skill to set accurately. This will further expected to restrain the growth of the dumpy level market in the near future. Request/View TOC@ https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=T&rep_id=552 Global Dumpy Level Market: Segmentation The global dumpy level market can be segmented on the basis of sales channel and end user. By sales channel, the dumpy level market can be segmented into: Distributor Retail Outlets Online By end-user type, the dumpy level market can be segmented into: Construction Others (Highways, Sewers, etc.) Global Dumpy Level Market: Region-wise Outlook Asia Pacific and North America are expected to witness massive growth in the dumpy level market due to estimated growth in the construction sector in emerging economics, such as China and India. Western Europe is estimated to grow with a substantial CAGR during the forecast period, owing to the high demand for dumpy levels in the growing construction sector in the region. Latin America, in particular, is projected to support growth in the dumpy level market due to the increasing usage of dumpy levels in construction activities and infrastructure in the region. Japan, the Middle East and Africa are expected to support the growth of the dumpy level market over the forecast period, owing to the growing construction activity in countries, such as UAE and Saudi Arabia. Global Dumpy Level Market: Market Participants Examples of some of the market participants identified across the value chain of the global dumpy level market include: Jafri Survey Instruments Robert Bosch Tool Corporation New Technolab Instruments Zenith Survey Equipment Ltd Umar Survey Engineering Works Entek Instruments India Pvt Ltd Maruti Sagar Engineering Edutek Instrumentation Geo-Allen Co., Ltd. Micro Teknik Eco Tech Solution Ansari Precision Instruments Private Limited Shambhavi Impex This analytical research study imparts an all-inclusive assessment on the market, while propounding historical intelligence, actionable insights, and industry-validated & statistically-upheld market forecast. Verified and suitable set of assumptions and methodology has been leveraged for developing this comprehensive study. Information and analysis on key market segments incorporated in the report has been delivered in weighted chapters. A thorough analysis has been offered by the report on Market Dynamics Market Size Market Segments Demand & Supply Trends Current Issues and Challenges Companies and Competitor Landscape Value Chain Technology Regional Segments Analyzed Include North America (U.S., Canada) Latin America (Mexico. Brazil) Western Europe (Germany, Italy, France, U.K, Spain) Eastern Europe (Poland, Russia) Asia Pacific (China, India, ASEAN, Australia & New Zealand) Japan Middle East and Africa (GCC, S. Africa, N. Africa) Compilation of authentic and first-hand intelligence, insights offered in the report are based on quantitative and qualitative assessment by leading industry experts, and inputs from opinion leaders & industry participants around the value chain. Growth determinants, macroeconomic indicators, and parent market trends have been scrutinized and delivered, coupled with the market attractiveness for each market segment encompassed. Qualitative impact of growth influencers on the market segments across regions has also been mapped by the report. Highlights from the Report Elaborated scenario of the parent market Transformations in the market dynamics Detailed segmentation of the target market Historical, current and forecast market size based on value and volume Latest industry developments and trends Competition landscape Strategies adopted by the market players and product developments made Potential and niche segments, along with their regional analysis Unbiased analysis on performance of the market Up-to-date and must-have intelligence for the market players to enhance and sustain their competitiveness Report Analysis@ https://www.factmr.com/report/552/dumpy-level-market 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/ Blog: https://factmrblog.com/ The Minister of Industry and Foreign Trade issued a decree on 15 April imposing temporary customs duties on imports of semi-finished products of iron or non-alloy steel and steel rebar (bars, rods and coils) for six months. According to the decree, the Ministry of Finance has started collecting 25 per cent customs duties on steel rebar in all its forms and 15 per cent on semi-finished iron products such as billets. The duties will be calculated according to the average international price of steel, which will be announced monthly by the Ministry of Industry and Foreign Trade. The decision is aimed at protecting the local steel industry against dumping. The proceeds from the duties will be directed to the account of the Export Development Fund at the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE). The decree was taken in response to a complaint by three local steel factories, Ezz Steel, Suez Steel and Al-Marakby Steel, requesting that duties be imposed on imported steel because of the negative impacts on local production and harm to sales. The complaint said that steel imports had increased during the first half of 2018 by 31 per cent compared to the same period in 2017. Moreover, it explained that a clear difference in prices between locally produced steel and imported steel, averaging $80 per ton, had led to the accumulation of large amounts of local steel, averaging around 500,000 tons. In reaction, the government notified the World Trade Organisations (WTO) Committee of Safeguards on 2 April that it had started a safeguard investigation on semi-finished products of iron and steel rebar being used for construction purposes. Under WTO rules, a safeguard investigation seeks to determine whether increased imports of a product are causing, or are threatening to cause, serious injury to a domestic industry. A WTO member may take a safeguard action, such as restricting imports of a product temporarily, only if the increased imports of the product in question are found to be causing, or threatening to be causing, serious injury. However, this safeguard action should be for a limited time. Following a preliminary investigation, the Ministry of Industry and Foreign Trade said that the imports had a negative impact on the local industry and issued a decree imposing tariffs temporarily for six months until the investigations end. While the decision was welcomed by the steel factories which presented the complaint and a few others producing billets and steel rebar, it was problematic for other factories depending on the use of imported billets to manufacture steel rebar. They said the local production of billets did not cover the manufacture of the total annual consumption of steel rebar. In 2018, Egypt imported three million tons of billets to cover the gap between production and consumption. Tarek Al-Gioshi, a member of the Chamber of Metallurgical Industries and CEO of Al-Gioshi Steel, said that imposing tariffs on steel rebar as finished products was a good thing as it protected the local industry from the dumping of imports. As for billets, he believed that a 15 per cent duty was exaggerated and that it would be better if the government reduced it to five per cent. He added that imposing 15 per cent duties on billets, a raw material for manufacturing steel rebars, meant an increase in the total cost price. The market would never accept such a high increase, so this could mean losses that could lead to closing businesses, he said. Factories harmed by the decision had presented complaints to the Federation of Egyptian Industries, the ministry of industry and foreign trade, and the prime minister requesting the cancelation of duties on billets until the investigation was finished. According to Al-Gioshi, the share of these factories represents 20 to 25 per cent of market needs. Mohamed Eleiwa, managing director of Misr Steel and Iron Industries, agreed with Al-Gioshi that imposing 15 per cent duties on steel billets for six months would mean the closure of 22 factories or rolling mills. Eleiwa asserted that the data concerning the volume of steel imports included in the complaint were unclear and inaccurate, and that the customs and tax authorities had been asked to send documented figures showing steel imports during the past two years. Factories that have been harmed have the right to file a suit or introduce a complaint within 35 days after the issuance of a decree. We will do our best to clarify the information and reach a settlement to continue our business in an environment that allows for fair competition, Eleiwa said. Total investment in these factories is around LE3.5 billion, and they employ 150,000 workers and represent 55 per cent of total production capacity for steel rebar in Egypt, according to Eleiwa. If the 22 factories close, steel rebar production will be monopolised by a few giant factories, causing an increase in steel prices for development and construction projects in Egypt. Moreover, Eleiwa said that the sudden application of the decree had been a blow to the market as well as the factories and had resulted in an increase in prices. Steel rebar prices have already increased after the application of the decision from LE1,150 to LE1,450 per ton, he said. Egypt took out a partial-protection procedure in December 2017 when the ministry of industry and foreign trade decided to impose tariffs ranging from between 17 to 25 per cent on steel rebar from China, Turkey, and Ukraine for five years. *A version of this article appears in print in the 25 April, 2019 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Steel Problems Search Keywords: Short link: 'We're happy. Very happy. It was a massive project,' Robin Lindsay, EVP vessel operations, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, told Seatrade Cruise News Friday on board. Restaurants, bars replace retail, gaming areas 'For China, the ship had a huge amount of retail and casino space. That was reduced and we created bars, lounges and restaurants that didn't exist,' Lindsay said. Making Joy more relevant to the Western market and as close as possible to 2018's wildly successful Norwegian Bliss were the drivers. During the just-completed work, an observation lounge was added, requiring the removal of 22 of the 95 concierge-level rooms. (The concierge accommodations are unique to Joy.) Replacing a retail area and the tearoom with The Local Bar and Grill, a casual 24-hour restaurant on Deck 7, meant installing a galley with all its needs such as power, extraction fans and A-60 boundaries. The 'Q' The 'Q' Texas Smokehouse 'very popular' on Norwegian Bliss, according to Mark Kansley, SVP hotel operations for Norwegian Cruise Linereplaced Norwegian Joy's Supper Club, with the space gutted and rebuilt and a bar added. As on Bliss, it features the banana pudding made to Lindsay's Aunt Julia's recipe (direct from Elysian Fields, Texas). Norwegian Joy was built with an American Diner. That remains. The spa and fitness area were enlarged, with the number of treatment rooms dramatically increased by moving the gym equipment into the space originally occupied by the Noodle Bar and its galley. Nearby, Serenity Park, an open deck area for tai chi and yoga with artificial grass and trees, was transformed for sunbathing with lounge chairs. Improved racetrack The go-kart racetrack was lengthened by 20 meters and widened to make it 'more interesting,' as Lindsay put it, with a passing area that enables cars to overtake the ones ahead. In the Galaxy Pavilion, the bumper cars area was removed to make room for additional virtual reality games. A teen club, Entourage, was built next door. New production shows are debuting, headlined by 'Footloose.' An area where Norwegian Joy remains different from other NCL ships is the lack of studios (for singles). Typically there would be about 82 of those. Overall the ship has 1,902 passenger accommodations. One of the biggest tasks of the refurbishment, Lindsay said, was replacing carpet throughout the ship. 'Almost a twin to Bliss' Following all this work, NCL President and CEO Andy Stuart called Joy 'almost a twin sister to Bliss.' The vessel left China March 11 and spent 47 days at Sembawang Shipyard in Singapore, departing from there April 6. It made stops in Taiwan and Yokohama, Japan, to offload trash from the work, before arriving at Seattle April 20. There, at Vigor Shipyards, the final touches were completed. In China, Norwegian Joy carried 60% Chinese crew, Kansley said. For its North American service, that shrunk to 5% to make the typical NCL crew demographic of some 60 nationalities. For the past few days, some 200 NCL shoreside staff have been aboard, busily preparing for the first (non-revenue) travelers stateside. Some 2,500 travel partners and media embarked Friday at Vancouver's Canada Place for a preview sailing down the coast to Los Angeles. There, a second preview will take place before the first revenue cruise from Seattle to Alaska on May 4. Sailings from Seattle, Los Angeles, Miami and New York The ship will spend a full year on the West Coast, sailing to Alaska from Seattle, then from Los Angeles to the Mexican Riviera and Panama Canal and back to Alaska. Joy will reposition to Miami for Caribbean service in winter 2020/21. This month NCL announced Joy will head to New York in April 2021 for Bermuda and Canada/New England cruises. Press Release April 26, 2019 Filipinos should heed Morales' call to weaponize truth - De Lima Opposition Senator Leila M. de Lima has urged the Filipino people to heed former Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales' call to weaponize the truth by exposing the lies and deceptions of certain senatorial candidates and their enablers. De Lima, the first prominent political prisoner under the present administration, underscored the need to stop tolerating the Duterte administration and its puppets from undermining the rule of law by demonizing critics, distorting facts and peddling lies. "What a powerful and relevant message coming from former Ombudsman Morales. Sadly, we have a government now with a propensity to weaponize the rule of law against its critics and dissenters. Lies, distortion of facts and alternative truth are an anathema to efficient functioning of the rule of law," she said. "Truth ought to be the very foundation of the rule of law. Let us weaponize the truth against those who arrogantly and deceptively assert their innocence from wrongdoings, including some senatorial candidates," she added. In a forum held last April 22, Morales said that truth "should be weaponized" to prevent candidates and their supporters "from running if the wheels of justice seem derailed or too slow to catch them." According to her, Filipinos should not hesitate to shame candidates who "remain scot-free" "in spite of their mayhem" - evidently alluding to former senators Ramon Revilla Jr., Jinggoy Estrada and Juan Ponce Enrile - if it means revealing their true intention in running for senators. In June 2014, plunder and graft cases were filed by the Office of the Ombudsman, then headed by Morales, before the Sandiganbayan against Revilla, Estrada, Enrile and other lawmakers for their involvement in the multi-million-peso pork barrel scam. As then head of the Inter-Agency Anti-Graft Coordinating Council (IAAGC), Morales oversaw the investigation on the anomalies involving the three senators and other lawmakers in 2013 based on the evidence forwarded by then justice secretary De Lima and the National Bureau of Investigation's Special Task Force. It was during De Lima's stint as justice secretary during the Aquino administration that a fact-finding probe on the alleged misuse of their Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) by lawmakers, in connivance with Janet Napoles, was made. Revilla, Estrada and Enrile were part of the first batch of cases endorsed by the DOJ/NBI to the Office of the Ombudsman. "Mr. Revilla and Estrada are classic examples of individuals who continue to preach about their supposed innocence. But if we go by facts, I doubt that anyone will still accept their lies as truth," said De Lima. De Lima, a vocal critic of the Duterte administration's human rights abuses, called on every Filipino to work together in weaponizing the truth to ensure that more Filipinos will see through the lies of dubious officials and senatorial candidates. "As the election day nears, let's do our best to uphold the truth and expose the lies of individuals, especially senatorial candidates who continue to sow mistruth to sway the Filipino public to vote for them," said the former justice secretary. "Let us reject dishonest and corrupt candidates by weaponizing the truth against them," she added. Revilla was acquitted in a 3-2 decision by the Sandiganbayan, while Estrada and Enrile are on bail pending the charges against them in connection with the pork barrel scam. Sen. Ejercito wants a Senate probe on sugar price rise in Metro Manila REELECTIONIST Senator JV Ejercito wants officials of the Department of Trade and Industry, Department of Agriculture, and the Sugar Regulatory Board to explain in a Senate investigation the "highly irregular" sugar price increase in Metro Manila and other parts of the country. This developed as Ejercito, author of the "Sugar Cane Industry Development Act" law, is set to file a resolution calling for a Senate probe on the rising price of sugar. "I will file a resolution urging the Senate to investigate the increase of sugar price, especially here in Manila. One of the directions of this investigation is to unmask the people behind this," he said in a statement. He added: "But what is important and urgent right now is a quick government intervention to lower the price and protect the consumers and end-users as well as the sugar farmers and producers." Ejercito suspected that some "dirty hands" were manipulating the market price, whether wholesale or retail, since the production was high and the supply was adequate. "The prevailing farmgate price of raw or brown sugar, I was told by sugar farmers themselves, is P30 per kilo lang, pero dito sa Metro Manila at iba pang lugar, marami ang umaangal na namamalengke dahil mahal ang asukal. Unfair naman ito sa mga magsasaka dahil sila ang talagang nagtatrabaho 'tapos ang nakikinabang ng husto ay iba. At unfair din sa mga consumers," he said. He stressed: "We will see where will the Senate probe will lead us to. Ang mahalaga, una, dapat maibalik agad and asukal sa dating mas mababang presyo, at pangalawa, maprotektahan ang sugar farmers. Kasi, sila na nagpapagod halos pangkain lang ang kinikita, tapos may iba na nakikinabang ng husto na baka iligal pa ang ginagawa." Press Release April 26, 2019 Koko Pimentel to COMELEC: Provide 100% Postage Funding to DFA for the Overseas Absentee Voting "The 2019 midterm elections for the overseas absentee voting has kicked-off last April 13, 2019, Saturday, but not all registered Filipino voters who were supposed to receive mailing packets containing their ballots have received the same even to this date," declared Senator Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III, Chairman of the Senate Electoral Reforms and People's Participation Committee. "Many voters, especially in Washington, DC, USA, are complaining that they have not received their ballots yet. I have information that this is because the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) has remitted only fifty percent (50%) of the postage funding requirements to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) consulates in some regions. Thus, consulates would even advance their own funds just to cover their mailing expenses for the elections," added Pimentel. According to him, voting is a fundamental right of every citizen wherever they are. "This is not acceptable as Filipino voters abroad went out of their way to register for the elections, only to be deprived of their voting right because of lack of funding by the COMELEC." "COMELEC should provide 100% postage funding to all DFA consulates and embassies so all registered OFWs can participate in this election," he said. Egypt has signed a deal with Beijing-based automaker Foton Motor to manufacture electric buses in Egypt, the Ministry of Military Production said in a statement on Saturday. The deal will see the manufacture of 2,000 electric buses over the course of four years, with 45 percent locally sourced components, the statement added. The buses will be manufactured by a major military production ministry plant which provides armoured vehicles and armaments for Egypts armed forces. The move is part of a general drive by the ministry to work with global companies to transfer modern technologies to Egypt, including in the booming electric-vehicle industry, the ministry said. It added that Foton Motor has gifted Egypt a 180-seater electric bus for trial purposes. The number of electric vehicles on roads worldwide rose to a record high of 3.1 million in 2017, an increase of 57 percent from 2016, according to a report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) published in May 2018. The deal between the Chinese company and Egypts Ministry of Military Production and Ministry of Trade and Industry came during a visit by a delegation of top Egyptian officials, including President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, to the Chinese capital for an international summit on Chinas Belt and Road infrastructure initiative. Search Keywords: Short link: Actress Kareena Kapoor Khan recently opened up about her struggling days and how her husband and actor Saif Ali Khan's support changed her outlook towards life when she was dealing with a rough professional phase. "It started out great. I did amazing films. But then for a year, I didn't work. I felt like my career was over. I was told to 'reinvent', become size zero. Everyone goes through a lull in the career. But as an actor, it's worse - there are so many eyes on you!? "Somehow through my life, I've been blessed with people who have supported me thoroughly! Just when I thought I was falling, Saif caught me. I'd met him before, but while we were filming Tashan, something changed," Kareena said in an interview to social media portal Official Humans of Bombay. Sharing how her love story with Saif started on the sets of Tashan, Kareena said: I wore my heart on my sleeve! He was so charming; I fell for him hook, line and sinker. I remember while shooting in Ladakh and Jaisalmer, we'd go on long bike rides for some alone time. We'd enjoy the beauty, have great conversations and just bond." The Veere Di Wedding actress married Saif in 2012. Saif was previously married to actress Amrita Singh and they had two children -- daughter Sara Ali Khan and son Ibrahim Ali Khan. "He's 10 years older than me and has two kids. But for me, he was just Saif who helped me heal and love myself. Maybe it was the fact that we're so different - he's more private and not 'Bollywoodised'. I imbibed that from him. I learnt to balance things and not let them get to me," she said. The couple was blessed with a son, Taimur, in 2016. "Taimur is a part of me. I can't go an hour without him. He's always with me wherever I am. He makes me want to work harder every day," she said. Kareena is gearing up for the release of Good News and will also be seen in multi-starrer Takht. During an election rally in Jalore on Friday, Shah said his party's policy is to reply with a bombshell if Pakistan fires a bullet, while the Congress just plays Ilu-Ilu with terrorists. Ilu is an abbreviation for 'I love you', and was popularised by a Bollywood song. The Congress on Saturday condemned BJP president Amit Shah's remark: "Rahul Baba, you do Ili-Ilu with terrorists." The party lashed out by saying that it was the BJP government that had freed terrorists and taken them to Kandahar in a plane in 1999. "Who released terrorists and took them to Kandahar in a plane?" Congress general secretary in-charge of Rajasthan Avinash Pande asked in response to Shah's comment. "There is no single instance where Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah or any top leader or their family members even got their finger cut in the fight against terrorism but in Congress there are examples of former PMs Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and others," he told PTI. Three most-wanted terrorists were released in return for the safety of passengers in an Indian Airlines plane which was hijacked to Afghanistan's Kandahar in 1999. Pande said when the prime minister mentions martyrs in his speeches, he should take the names of Congress leaders who had lost their lives for the country. He also accused the prime minister and the BJP of misusing social media platforms to "spread lies" in a strategic manner to influence voters, especially the youngsters. The Congress leader said there is an unsaid emergency in the country and under Modi rule the Constitution and democracy are in danger. "There is an unsaid emergency in the country and the environment for positive planning is completely lacking. The BJP is spreading lies to divert attention from real issues," Pande said. "The PM and the BJP are misusing social media platforms and misleading people particularly young voters through lies and distorted historic facts. The young generation has not seen much and is stuck on social media. Young people should think what PM Modi will give to them but it will be very late before they awaken," he said. Accusing the government of weakening constitutional institutions, Pande said it will take a lot of time for the institutions to recover. "Now they are saying that they will rule for 50 years if they win this election. It is apparent that the Constitution is under threat," he said. On Friday, top officials from the Jammu and Kashmir government, including Chief Secretary B V R Subrahmaniam, Home Secretary Shaleen Kabra and DGP Dilbagh Singh, met the Election Commission, including the chief election commissioner, in Delhi to discuss the poll preparedness in the state, officials said. : The Election Commission officials will meet in the national capital on April 30 to discuss the possible dates of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly polls, official sources said on Friday. Sources said, the J and K administration had sought the meeting with the EC through the ministry of home affairs. "Now we have asked them to given in writing what they have said so that full Commission can consider it on April 30," said a senior functionary. However, the Jammu and Kashmir governor is not in favour of holding polls to the state legislative assembly in the near future in view of the ongoing tourist season and the forthcoming Amarnath Yatra in the Valley, which will begin on July 1, they said. The sources said the 'full commission' comprising the chief election commissioner and two fellow commissioners will meet on April 30 to discuss the possible dates of the Jammu and Kashmir assembly polls. The officials said the EC, during the meeting, rejected the assertion of the officials from Jammu and Kashmir that the situation in the state needs to be assessed before conducting the assembly polls. They said said the Commission was of the view that if the Lok Sabha polls could be held, there should be no issue in holding the elections to the state assembly. The meeting took place days after the three special observers appointed by the EC submitted their report on the possibility of holding assembly polls in the state after the Lok Sabha polls. The state chief electoral officer had met the deputy election commissioner concerned on Thursday, ahead of Friday's meet. On Friday, the election authorities in Jammu and Kashmir had written to district election officers to submit list of district level nodal officers within two days for assembly polls in the state. However, the order was withdrawn within hours of it being issued. Jammu and Kashmir has not an elected government since the People's Democratic Party-Bharatiya Janata Party coalition government fell apart in June 2018. The state was placed under Governor's Rule, as provided by the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir, on June 19, 2018, after the BJP withdrew from its coalition with the PDP. As mandated by the Constitution, the state was brought under President's Rule on 19 December 2018, which will have to be extended for a period of six months on May 19, 2019, or till an elected government is put in place, whichever is earlier. 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The settlement between Musk and the Securities and Exchange Commission sets out clearer guidelines on topics Musk should avoid on Twitter or other social media, including statements about acquisitions, mergers, new products and production numbers. Musk would have to adhere to Tesla rules regarding potentially significant comments by executives, and have tweets or other social media posts pre-approved by "an experienced securities lawyer employed by the company," according to the proposed settlement. "The parties have reached an agreement to resolve the commission's pending contempt motion," a joint court filing said. A Friday deadline set by US District Judge Alison Nathan was extended until April 30 after Musk and the SEC asked for time to have a final version of the settlement ready to submit for court approval. The SEC said in the filing that the settlement "is fair, reasonable, and in the interest of the parties and investors because the proposed revisions will provide additional clarity regarding the written communications for which the defendant is required to obtain pre-approval." SEC officials had originally argued Musk should be held in contempt of court for allegedly violating an earlier settlement on tweeting potentially market-sensitive information without having it reviewed by counsel. At a hearing earlier this month, Nathan ordered both sides to try to work out their differences, suggesting she could rule on the case if the talks failed. The judge appeared sympathetic at times with some of the government's arguments, but she also expressed significant reservations about finding Musk in contempt, which she said was "serious business" and a ruling that placed a "significant burden" of proof on the government. - Truce? - If approved, the settlement would mark a truce in Musk's dispute with the SEC after an October agreement required him to step down as chairman and pay $20 million to settle charges he defrauded investors with false claims on Twitter in August about a possible bid to take the company private, which was quickly aborted. The settlement, which allowed Musk to remain as CEO, required him to obtain pre-approval from Tesla counsel before making written communications "that contain, or reasonably could contain, information material to Tesla or its stockholders." The SEC cracked down after Musk tweeted on February 19 that Tesla would make 500,000 cars in 2019 -- up from the 400,000 that the company had estimated until then, an apparent increase on a benchmark tied to profitability. Musk corrected himself four hours later, saying that Tesla would indeed produce about 400,000 cars this year. SEC attorney Cheryl Crumpton argued that the February 19 tweet and the fact that Musk had not submitted any tweets for pre-publishing review showed he had made no serious effort to follow the requirement. John Hueston, an attorney representing Musk, had countered that Musk's February 19 tweet was not consequential to investors, and that the language in the settlement was ambiguous on what types of information needed to be reviewed prior to publication. He also argued that the SEC had been hasty in seeking a contempt ruling without first trying to confer with Musk. - Sputtering deliveries - Word of a settlement came just days after Tesla disclosed a heavy loss in the first quarter as car deliveries sputtered overseas and a US tax credit that made its prices more attractive was reduced. The California-based company reported a loss of $702 million in the first three months of this year after two consecutive quarters of profit. Tesla produced about 63,000 Model 3 vehicles in the period, an increase of three percent from the same quarter a year earlier but fewer than had been anticipated. The company attributed its disappointing financial results to Model 3 shipping delays, particularly in Europe and China. Overall company revenue in the period rose 33 percent to $4.5 billion in a year-over-year comparison, but fell far short of Wall Street forecasts. Tesla was confident it would get past the financial speed-bumps and into a smoother road to improved fortune. The company expected to remain on course to deliver between 360,000 and 400,000 vehicles in total this year, topping 2018 numbers by at least 45 percent. Tesla shares that finished the official trading day down five percent regained a little ground to $237.31 in after-market trading. Woman war pilot shot down in Iraq returns -- as US senator Washington, April 26 (AFP) Apr 26, 2019 Tammy Duckworth, the helicopter pilot who lost her legs when she was shot down over Iraq 15 years ago, returned to the country for the first time this week as a US senator, her office said Friday. The decorated US Army veteran led an official congressional delegation to Baghdad, Taji and Arbil, where they sat down with Iraqi leaders, received intelligence briefings from American diplomats and met with US troops. "Fifteen years ago I deployed to Iraq as an American soldier to fly helicopter missions. This week, I returned in a role I never expected: as a United States senator leading a bipartisan delegation to show our support for the people of Iraq," the Illinois Democrat said in a statement. "I was proud to join Senators (Johnny) Isakson and (Angus) King representing our nation on this important trip -- and I was even prouder that I was able to leave Iraq under my own power this time." The senators met with Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi and Kurdistan Regional Government Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani, among other officials, according to Duckworth's office. The trip was not publicly announced until after its completion for security reasons. The 51-year-old Duckworth, who was born in Thailand, is the first female amputee elected to the US Congress. She almost never got that opportunity. Her life very nearly ended in Iraq on November 12, 2004, about 120 combat hours into her tour there, when the Black Hawk helicopter she was co-piloting was struck by an insurgent's rocket-propelled grenade. As a fireball tore through the cockpit, Duckworth tried to help land the chopper, but was unable to use its foot pedals. King said he was moved at seeing his colleague return to Iraq. "To witness Senator Duckworth flying once again over the site where she was shot down in 2004 was a moment I'll never forget," King said. Duckworth's military experience has informed much of her work as a legislator. She has sought to help disabled veterans and ensure payment of troops during federal shutdowns. She also has been outspoken about the importance of defending members of the Kurdish minority who fought alongside US military forces against the Islamic State. In January 2018, when President Donald Trump accused Democrats of holding the military hostage over immigration, Duckworth delivered a withering Senate floor speech, saying "I will not be lectured about what our military needs by a five-deferment draft dodger." Colombia peace tribunal orders capture of ex-FARC leader Bogota, April 27 (AFP) Apr 27, 2019 A Colombian tribunal on Friday ordered the capture of a senior former FARC guerilla commander for violating a peace treaty that ended half a century of armed conflict. It follows President Ivan Duque's election last year on a pledge to roll back some aspects of the 2016 peace deal that saw FARC transformed into a political party -- which he sees as too soft. The Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) was set up to try former combatants and hand out alternative sentences to prison time if they confess their crimes, compensate victims and pledge never to resort to violence again. But in a shift away from leniency, it revoked the parole granted to Hernan Dario Velasquez Saldarriaga -- also known as "El Paisa" -- and ordered his detention. Velasquez, who headed the former rebel group's main elite force, is the first rebel leader to be sanctioned by the tribunal. It canceled his parole after he failed to appear before the tribunal three times, including to answer over kidnappings. The JEP also notified Interpol of its ruling, as Velasquez's whereabouts have been unknown since last June. Facing accusations of several murders and kidnappings, Velasquez left the southern jungle area where he was supposed to be re-entering society. He left the area with FARC's former chief peace negotiator Ivan Marquez. Both distanced themselves from the deal after rebel leader Jesus Santrich, wanted on drug trafficking charges in the US, was captured for extradition last April. El-Aaiun (Occupied Territories), April 27, 2019 (SPS) - Various formations of Moroccan forces on Thursday used excessive force against peaceful Sahrawi demonstrators in the occupied capital of Western Sahara, El-Aaiun. The Moroccan occupation forces accelerated siege of the streets and alleys leading to the neighborhood of Maatullah since the early hours of Thursday morning, before Smara Street was closed to passers-by and cars, a measure that was parallelized with violent intervention against Sahrawi demonstrators in the center of the occupied city in which excessive force was used, resulting in many casualties. The occupation forces then arrested political activist student Abidine Bounaaj, after he was forcibly intercepted at Smara Street, where he was taken to an unknown destination. In the same context, the Moroccan police arrested militant and human rights activist Sultana Khaya, 40 km south of El-Aaiun, and she was prevented from completing her journey towards the occupied the city, where she planned to take part in the event called for by Coordination of Human Rights activists in Western Sahara, to demand enabling the Sahrawi people to the right of self-determination. (SPS) 062/SPS/TRA Bir-Lahlou (Liberated Zones), April 27, 2019 (SPS) - President of the Republic, Secretary-General of the Polisario Front Brahim Ghali, called on the Security Council to "condemn in the strongest terms" the violations of the ceasefire by Morocco which may compromise the path for political solution to Western Sahara conflict. "On the eve of the Security Council's meeting on the renewal of the MINURSO mandate, it is my duty to draw your attention to the escalation of the cease-fire violations by Morocco and the urgent need for Council security to condemn such acts," wrote President Ghali in a letter sent Wednesday to President of the Security Council, Christoph Heusgen. President Brahim Ghali added that "it is time for the Security Council to put an end to Morocco's intransigence" by condemning its "destabilizing actions". "Not condemning with the utmost firmness such an intransigence sends a dangerous signal, according to which, new violations will be committed with impunity," stressed the Sahrawi president. Referring to the major violations of the military agreement N 1, mentioned by the UN Secretary-General in his latest report on Western Sahara, Brahim Ghali denounced "a series of acts of bad faith" in which the Morocco, which exacerbated tensions and destabilized the situation on the ground. Guterres denounced in this report the construction by Morocco of a new wall of sand near the occupied territory of Mahbes he described as a "major violation" of the military agreement N 1. The UN chief has demanded the dismantling of this barrier as well as all the military posts illegally deployed in the restricted areas, reinforcement of the military infrastructures is prohibited. (SPS) 062/SPS/APS Browns Hospitals to offer NITF members access to healthcare services View(s): Browns Hospitals, recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the National Insurance Trust Fund (NITF) which provides NITFs 2.5 million members and their families access to Browns Hospitals state-of-the-art facilities and services at a concessionary rate. The MoU was signed by Sanath C. De Silva Chief Executive Officer, NITF, and Charitha Jayasingha Chief Operating Officer, Browns Hospitals, according to a media release from Browns Hospitals. As the cost of everything continues to rise the barrier to quality healthcare increases as well, said Sanath C. De Silva Chief Executive Officer, NITF. But partnerships like this help curtail those costs and give everyone equal access to a high standard of care that may help extend their lives and give peace of mind to their loved ones. That is why we are glad that Browns Hospitals has chosen to come on board as a partner. Their patient-centric approach to healthcare and investment in the latest technologies have made them a highly reputable name in the industry in a very short time. Commenting on this new partnership, Charitha Jayasingha, Chief Operating Officer of Browns Hospitals, said, As one of Sri Lankas premier healthcare providers we see it as important for the development of our nation that everyone has easy access to world class healthcare solutions. We believe that this partnership with the National Insurance Trust Fund takes us a step closer to that goal. And in the years to come we look forward to growing this partnership further for the benefit of our nation. The NITF was established in 2006 as a statutory body to offer a unique benefit scheme and provide protection to all segments of the general insurance industry. The NITF ushered in a new era for the local insurance industry by serving all government servants through their Agrahara medical insurance scheme. Today, the NITF has adopted new technology that is designed to make people and organisations more knowledgeable, efficient and profitable. Browns Hospitals, a fully-fledged 70 bed hospital in Ragama, is a subsidiary of local conglomerate Browns Group. The multi-specialty hospital is equipped with the latest technology in medical diagnostics comprising of a modern endoscopy unit; ultrasound scanning; CT and MRI scanning; and advanced medical and surgical therapeutic technology. It is the first in a chain of secondary care general hospitals and diagnostic centres which are dedicated to provide high quality and personalised care to every patient through a comprehensive and integrated clinical practice. Businesses will fight back By Duruthu Edirimuni Chandrasekera View(s): View(s): The recent inhuman terror attacks have crippled all types of businesses with owners and managements of these institutions uncertain about the immediate future, but vowing to fight back. For starters, some of them will be meeting state authorities to devise action plans for the way forward. This will be done through the chambers who will meet with the government authorities to propose and discuss action plans to address the setback created by recent terror attacks. Shiham Marikar Secretary General//CEO, National Chamber of Exporters (NCE), representing local exporters, told the Business Times that NCE will meet with two ministries next week to propose some action plans in order to help exporters us to overcome this situation. We will be meeting with the Ministry of Development and International Strategies to build a public private partnership programme with them and other stakeholders to engage in an aggressive promotional activity to uplift confidence of the overseas buyer, he said. He added NCE has called a meeting with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well. We want to propose that damage control should be carried out by foreign missions, Mr. Marikar noted adding that now is the time to fight back and regain the lost confidence. According to some exporters, their buyers had called them to inquire about the security situation of the country at present and to ask if they can supply the goods without a break. They informed that they would be looking for alternatives if we cant meet the timelines to export, an exporter told the Business Times. Mostly exporters in ceramic and porcelain and fruit and vegetable suppliers to resorts in Maldives saw an immediate concern, he said. Exporters trading with West Asian retailer Lulu Groups hypermarket in Dubai and Tesco plc trading as Tesco, a British multinational groceries, said its important that trade counsellors in these stations meet up with these businesses to communicate that exporters are regrouping. Almost all major construction sites are closed due to the prevailing situation, the Business Times learnt. Chairman, Chamber of Young Lankan Entrepreneurs (COYLE) Aminda Rodrigo highlighted the importance of the government ensuring national security. We are also trying to let this week past and analyse from next week how we can continue, he told the Business Times. There were openings in this whole tragedy to uplift this situation. Certain insurance firms were offering terrorism cover for customers. Some have sent messages noting that considering the prevailing situation, they recommend it is obtained for the insurance policy. Manjula de Silva, Chairman of National Insurance Trust Fund (NITF) said the NIFT has decided to provide Rs. 25 million in advance insurance claims to The Kingsbury and Cinnamon Grand hotels each following terror attacks across eight locations in the country on Easter Sunday. The assessment process has started, he said noting that each hotel has a terrorism policy cover capped at Rs. 250 million. He said the hotels will have to bear 10 per cent or Rs. 25 million of this total. According to him now many are requesting for terrorism cover policies. He said it is expected that many will apply for terrorism, for their vehicles. Now what has been promoted is the riot cover, but after this incident we expect terrorism coverage policies to increase. Thursdays share trading was centered around John Keells Holdings (JKH), which was bought by foreign institutions, trading nearly US$10 million which added to 90 per cent of the total trading on the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE). Foreign buying in this share was $7 million. Ray Abeywardena, Chairman CSE told the Business Times that Sri Lanka has been resilient so far, which is a plus pint. The stock market has been resilient through such dark periods before too. We are confident that not only as a market, but as a nation, we will rise above terrorism and become a strong nation once again. We pray that God will console and strengthen them. Jetwing Hotels Chairman issues heart-warming message after the Easter Sunday tragedy View(s): Shiromal Cooray, Chairman and Managing Director Jetwing Travels (Pvt) Ltd and Chairman Jetwing Hotels Ltd, on Monday sent out a heart-warming message of concern and comfort to the groups partners and friends after the Easter Sunday tragedy, and also focusing on tragedies experienced within the Jetwing family itself. You have been with us at our worst and seen us through very difficult situations, I ask you again on behalf of all Sri Lankans and especially, our team at Jetwing, please continue in the same spirit, we cannot and must not let these incidents rule our lives. Thank you again for your concern and kind words. We assure you our best as always and will send you information as and when we receive same, she said in a widely-circulated message. It said: It is with profound sadness and a very heavy heart that I write this message to you. I did not in my wildest dreams imagine that terror will strike my beautiful and peaceful island home just a decade after we ended a senseless war. It appears that sinister forces were at play and we are confident that our intelligence and defence personnel will do what needs to be done, to continue that peace and tranquility that attracted and continue to attract many visitors to Sri Lanka. Father, forgive them for they know not what they do, it appears that the risen Lord is urging us to move on and to bring in love and compassion amongst so much anger and hatred. What else can prompt someone to kill innocent worshippers on Easter Sunday, or those tourists who are enjoying a well-earned break from their hectic lives back home? But, as we know, the human spirit is strong, and we will get through this and of course we count on your support as we have always done in the past to help us through this tragedy. This unfortunately, is very personal to all of us at Jetwing too. We lost a young couple, a telephone operator and her fiance, a steward from our team at Jetwing Blue in Negombo. They were planning to get married this year and were at prayers at the Katuwapitiya church, when the coward carried out the deadly act. At Jetwing Travels, we lost one of our guests at the Kingsbury Hotel in Colombo. He and his wife were married just a week before and were on their honeymoon. They finished the first leg of their tour and were all packed and ready to fly to Male and were breakfasting when this happened. Yes, we are very sad and ask God to grant them eternal rest and strength to their loved ones to bear the loss. Please pray for them. Of course security has been increased around the country and all hotels and public places are being guarded. We will share with you as and when more information surfaces about the incidents. At present, we are rising above the carnage and grouping together to provide security and comfort to all Sri Lankans and visitors from overseas who are continuing their visits to Sri Lanka and all others who are coming to our shores in the days ahead. We will do our utmost to be extra vigilant to ensure the safety of our guests. The police curfew has been lifted now and life is getting back on track. Kelani Cables employees recognised with CEOs Awards for Sales Excellence View(s): Kelani Cables PLC, that produces Sri Lankas top electrical and communication cables, honoured its outstanding sales persons with the CEOs Award for the sixth consecutive year at the Waters Edge with the participation of Mahinda Saranapala, Director/CEO, Kelani Cables PLC. Roshan de Silva was adjudged the Best Ares Sales Manager. Shanaka Athukorala was conferred with the Best Sales Executive of the Year award. Nalin Samantilleke and Chinthaka Rajapakshe secured the second and third places of that category, the company said in a media release. CEOs Award winners, Mr. de Silva and Mr. Athukorala for becoming the best performers of the year were offered with cash awards and foreign trips in recognition for their achievements. They have exceeded sales targets of the company set for 2017/2018 to bring in record sales volumes. Mr. Saranapala, Director/CEO, Kelani Cables PLC said Kelani Cables does business with the theme; 480 Hearts, One Beat and the backbone of the company is its sales force. Employees are the backbone of our company. Hence our foremost responsibility is to recognise efforts of these employees annually who contribute towards the success of the company. A socially responsible organisations duty is to recognize its employees who contribute towards the betterment and sustainability of the organisation, he said. Kelani Cables PLC is a wholly Sri Lankan company serving the nation for 50 years manufacturing electrical and communication cables. The company achieved Super Brands status in the electrical and telecommunication sector in 2008 for professional supremacy it demonstrated in the electrical and communication cables sphere. Kelani Cables PLC is one of the first companies in Sri Lanka that is signatory to the National Green Reporting System. Owing to its health and safety oriented culture and environmental stewardship, Kelani Cables PLC has been certified globally recognised Responsible Care charter. Sri Lankas business community condemns attacks, urges calm, unity View(s): An outpouring of grief, anger and bitterness tinged with a call for calm, unity and peace was evident this week as several business chambers and associations expressed their views and concern in the aftermath of probably, Sri Lankas worst single-most terrorist attack. Several chambers of commerce, including Sri Lankas main Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, in a joint statement last Sunday said it was shocked and deeply saddened by the multiple explosions that occurred this morning. Seven chambers, in the joint statement, strongly condemned the attacks and said: Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their families and all those affected by the explosions. It urged the authorities to maintain law and order and call for speedy action to investigate and bring the perpetrators before the law. It is vital at this point that the nation stands united and not be misled by unverified reports/information. We call upon all Sri Lankans to act in a responsible manner and assist the authorities to restore normalcy, the statement said. Joining these business chambers who expressed concern, the National Chamber of Commerce strongly condemned the attacks on religious locations, and hotels that are connected more with businesses. We urge the authorities for a speedy investigation to the matter and have law and order in place without allowing other groups to take advantage of the situation. The entire country should be united at this moment and support the authorities to maintain law and order, it said. Womens chamber The Womens Chamber of Industry and Commerce on Tuesday urged all Sri Lankans to stand united, to act responsibly and to support all authorities to restore law and order in the aftermath of the Easter Sunday atrocities. As women entrepreneurs and professionals, we condemn this senseless act and condole with everyone who was impacted. We feel the agony it has caused to the families of those who suffered, directly and indirectly, both local and foreign nationals. It is extremely disheartening to note that the fundamental rights of the nation, the right to safety, have been taken away from us ruthlessly. The impact this will have, on the economy in the near future will be unmeasurable, said Chamber Chairperson Chathuri Ranasinghe in a media statement. She said that on behalf of the members of their organisation, the chamber was committed to supporting all initiatives that are taken nationally to support those who were impacted. Our sincere thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their families, all others affected and for our country Sri Lanka, the statement said. The American Chamber of Commerce in Sri Lanka also strongly condemned the attacks while extending its deepest condolences to the families of the victims and all those affected. We stand united with our fellow Sri Lankans and look to our leaders and the authorities concerned to swiftly enforce law and order whilst upholding the principles of democracy and the stability of the nation, it said. SLASSCOM says The Sri Lanka Association of Software and Services Companies (SLASSCOM), while expressing shock and sadness, said it was confident that the authorities will maintain law and order, investigate and bring these perpetrators before the law. It is vital at this point that the nation stands united and not be misled by unverified reports/information. We call upon all Sri Lankans to act in a responsible manner and assist the authorities to restore normalcy, the association said thanking member companies who provided uninterrupted services and support to global clients. Members of the Sri Lanka Start-up Community, a group of industry professionals, said on Tuesday they were traumatized and deeply saddened with the recent attacks in the country. Many of us have spent our formative years in the shadows of a 30-year long civil war that scarred our lives forever. Some of us lost loved ones, some were harmed and all of us lived under the constant fear of paying the ultimate price for a crime that we did not commit. Since the war ended in 2009, we faced a diverse set of challenges in our lovely island nation. Thankfully, terrorism was not one of those challenges. This changed on April 21. Once again, we are forced to live in a state of terror because a small group of people decided that intimidation through terrorism is the way to resolve problems, the group said in a media statement. It said the Sri Lanka Start-up Community is a vibrant group of hard-working people who have been building entrepreneurial ventures to move Sri Lanka forward, economically. We speak different languages, wear different clothing, come from different places, worship different Gods, and some no God at all. The one thing that brings us together is our country. As a group of people, we aspire to do great things and we dream of a flourishing Sri Lanka, it said. The group vehemently condemned these attacks and urged the relevant authorities to take all necessary actions immediately to bring the situation under control. In this difficult time, we request our brothers and sisters to remain calm and not engage in spreading hate. We have a lot to look forward to. We urge all Sri Lankans to stay strong and aspire to be ambassadors of goodwill, empathy and tolerance. We offer our deepest sympathies to all those who have lost loved ones in these attacks and we pray for those who are injured a speedy recovery. We also appreciate and acknowledge the sincere work carried out by the members of the tri-forces, Police, emergency services, medical services, blood donors and everyone else who provided help whatever the way they could. Because of you, we truly believe that we are standing on the shoulders of giants, it said, adding: Let us stay united. Let us emerge stronger than ever. FITIS The Federation of Information Technology Industry Sri Lanka strongly condemning the attacks, expressed its deepest condolences to the families of the victims and all those affected. During this tragic time and in this hour of need, FITIS extends its fullest support to the Government to ensure the law and order and to investigate and bring the perpetrators before the law, it said. EFC view The Employers Federation of Ceylon and its membership condemned the terrorist attacks that were carried out on Easter Sunday targeting civilians at places of worship and at several member establishments. While extending its deepest condolences to the families who lost their loved ones and pray that those who were injured will make a full and speedy recovery, the countrys main employers trade union said: We call upon state authorities responsible for law and order to ensure that investigations are carried out thoroughly and that the perpetrators of these heinous crimes are brought to justice without delay. Similarly, we appeal to the relevant authorities to assist employers and provide information as appropriate in order that they could secure their establishments and carry on day to day business without interruption. Sri Lankas public sector vehicle expense rises dramatically View(s): At a time when the public finances of the government is facing challenges on many fronts, Sri Lankas capital expenditure for the procurement of vehicles for public sector institutions has increased dramatically during the past two years, an official report revealed. According to available official data, while the outlay for public vehicle acquisition was about Rs.1.4 billion a year in 2015 and 2016, it has increased to over Rs.16 billion in 2017 and Rs.9 billion in 2018, an increase of 12 and 9 times, respectively. The 2019 budget allocation for this purpose has shot up to Rs.17.43 billion. This was despite the increase in expenditure on the Operational Leasing Method as well; a senior Finance Ministry official said adding that it constituted a worrying increase in what was allocated to the acquisition of vehicles. In the aftermath of the recent terror attack, the Treasury is now saddled with additional defence expenditure amidst low growth, debt increases, high interest costs and lack of budgetary space for developmental activities. Therefore, improved informational standards and due diligence along with a necessary cut in public expenditure including expenses for public vehicle procurement have become the order of the day, he added. However when the Committee on Public Finance (COPF) noted this anomaly of extra spending on public vehicles and asked for a response, the Ministry of Finance explained that in 2017 and 2018 a large number of utility vehicles was procured, mainly for the defence and railway sectors. The handling of costs was affected by the exemption and reinstatement of excise duties on vehicles procured through the Consolidated Fund, the Ministry said. These explanations themselves helped to illustrate one of the entrenched problems of budget information provided to Parliament, COPF said. According to Finance Ministry data, in 2017 a sum of Rs.1.23 billion was spent to purchase ambulances, Rs.4.25 billion for boats and vessels for the defence sector, Rs.7.6 billion for locomotives, Rs.100 million for Police and STF vehicles, Rs.615 million for water bowsers and boats and Rs. 2.58 billion for other public vehicles. In 2018 the Treasury has spent Rs.2.67 billion on navy vehicles, Rs.6.1 billion for locomotives/compartments, Rs.200 million for health sector vehicles, Rs.53 million for Police and STF vehicles and Rs.28 million for a Parliament bus. The COPF has directed the Ministry of Finance to exercise due diligence in ensuring that the summary estimates are broken-down/aggregated in a more intelligible manner, and reported/aggregated in sensible categories that enable Parliament to make better decisions. (Bandula) Tourism industry braces for tough times By Sunimalee Dias View(s): View(s): The tourism industry in Sri Lanka was caught unawares on Easter Sunday morning when blasts ripped through churches and hotels, sending the industry back to an era of armed sentries posted around the city and outside. This is the first time that tourists and hotels were a target by terrorists in Sri Lanka. Forty tourists were killed while about 14 were unaccounted for by the blasts at the Shangri-La, the Cinnamon Grand and The Kingsbury. Except for the Shangri-La, the other two hotels have resumed normal operations including accepting reservations and banquet facilities. Authorities and the industry were in discussions to work out a plan to rebuild the image Sri Lanka had gained through a worldwide publicity campaign to tell tourists they can holiday here again. The publicity campaign will initially be handled by the ad agency JWT; Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLTPB) Chairman Kishu Gomes told the Business Times, adding that they would later hire the services of a global advertising company to carry out the campaign. In this respect, the global promotion campaign would take a step back for the moment. Sri Lanka has been in the news and been remembered in a number of worldwide commemorations held to mark the attacks with iconic buildings including the famous Burj Khalifa highlighting the Sri Lanka flag while the Eiffel Tower turned off its lights. Sri Lanka will get an opportunity now to ensure support from around the world to revive the tourism industry and in this respect, Sri Lanka Association of Inbound Tour Operators President Harith Perera, said that they were working out a three month, six month and an extended plan of action. Cancellations continued to take place while some have shortened their stay and others have even turned back after they heard of the attacks while in transit in Doha. Cinnamon Grand too had about 15 per cent of cancellations from the bookings for May but interestingly there were other travellers that continued to arrive given the current situation in the country, the Executive Vice President John Keells Sector Head and General Manager for Cinnamon Grand Rohan Karr said. He noted that the guests continued to show their support evident in that they preferred to continue to stay at the Cinnamon Grand without leaving for other accommodation when asked by the hotel authorities in the aftermath of the blasts. Terrorists wanted to shut our hopes, Mr. Karr said but they were not to be deterred since after carrying out the burials, and after attending to the funerals of five of their staff the Cinnamon Grand remained upbeat and continued their operations. The main aim of the terrorists was to disrupt lives, so we opted to stay open. Fifteen guests died, eight sustained injuries and nine staff were also injured at the Cinnamon Grand. Thursday and Friday weddings continued to take place and the events are continuing as scheduled and the hotel is continuing to accept bookings for room reservations while about three of their 14 restaurants will remain open. Security checks are carried out by the security forces at the main entrance to the hotel with all other entrances closed and further checks will be carried out from Tuesday with a walk-in x-ray machines and bag checking machines, he noted. Additional security has also been posted to all resorts of the John Keells Hotels and they were also working with the local area police to maintain security as well. Most hotels were to position scanning machines similar to those in use in countries like India and Bangladesh as precautionary measures to overcome any future terrorist attack. While some hotels like the Taj Samudra, Galadari, The Galle Face and the Hilton hotels were open and they did not accept any bookings and all restaurants remained closed as well as a precautionary measure since Sunday, others like the Best Western and Ramada remained open and said they continued to accept bookings. In a statement, a Hilton spokesperson said, Our thoughts are with all those affected by the attacks in Sri Lanka. As always, our priority is the well-being, safety and security of our guests and Team Members and we continue to closely monitor the situation. Anyone with questions regarding a future booking at either of our hotels in Colombo should contact the property directly. Hoteliers Association Chairman Sanath Ukwatte said the government would continue to provide security for their tourists and authorities were working with the international security personnel to ensure the bodies lying in the morgue unaccounted for could be ascertained through DNA samples. Tourists are continuing to receive treatment in government and private hospitals at present. Hoteliers are working together with their resort hotels to ensure they upgrade security and act more proactively, Mr. Ukwatte said. The PR strategy needs to be worked out and plans are worked out to ensure that with a whole world sympathising with the country the industry wants to build up on this support to welcome people to visit Sri Lanka as a show of solidarity, the industry pointed out. Meanwhile, another requirement was for the airport to provide less inconvenience to travellers and another concern was those staying in informal accommodation units who might be unaware of the current situation. In this respect, the government needs to be in touch with these tourists as well to ensure their safety and security. The industry expects a dip for the next three months which was likely to extend further as well. In the meantime, in the East most have witnessed a large number of tourists leaving the area in the wake of the attacks that also struck a Christian church in Batticaloa. Meanwhile, the biggest event this year is the UN-supported International Wildlife Conference CITIES, and the Director General of its Secretariat in Colombo Trevine Gomez told the Business Times that all plans are scheduled to get the conference underway in end May but under the current situation they were in touch with the UN officials in Geneva to ascertain the security concerns as some of the delegates were from countries that had already issued travel warnings to Sri Lanka. A number of countries like the US, UK, China, Canada, Spain, Israel and Australia issued travel advisories informing their citizens of precautions to take and giving details of the situation in Sri Lanka. City Hoteliers President M. Shanthikumar said that they would also be discussing concerns of the proposed ban of the burqa and take a decision on that matter accordingly. The government has raised concerns about the donning of the burqa that is said to cause security concerns among the public. He noted that the current 15-20 per cent occupancy in city hotels are all gone and that a significant amount of cancellations have happened already with a lot of functions getting cancelled or postponed. We have experienced this situation during the war and we will come back, he said adding that the need of the hour is to be vigilant. A bloody Easter Sunday and political prevarications View(s): There is a special kind of atavistic horror when terrorists attack places of worship. These strikes aim at decimating not only the life and limb of innocents but also destroying a communitys faith and spirituality, the very qualities that distinguish human beings from barbarians. As bombs ripped through churches and top end hotels on Easter Sunday and small children were killed while saying their prayers, Sri Lankans entered into their own interpretation of living hell. Christians could only echo the anguished words of Jesus Christ when he said, forgive them for they know not what they do A treacherous quicksand of political lies But let us step back apace. Forgiveness aside, this nation is not comprised of idiots to accept this I did not know explanations proffered unblushingly by the President, the Prime Minister and Ministers. The great efficacy with which the police and intelligence services acted in the wake of the Easter Sunday attacks suggests that there was no intelligence failure as touted. It was simply that political pressure coupled with stupidity held preventive concrete action criminally in abeyance. Put bluntly, this atrocity happened because of Sri Lankas politicians, no more and no less. Clueless, bumbling and grossly ignorant, they stumbled their way into a treacherous quicksand of lies, prevarication and infamy. Each manifest absurdity suceeded another. Grinning Ministers informed us on national television in the first press conference after the attack that Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had not been invited to the National Security Council meetings since the October coup last year. But that is no excuse whatsoever. This problem did not come about during the past six months; it had a far longer gestation period. And indeed, jihadist radicals in the East and elsewhere were being closely monitored for years by Sri Lankan intelligence. In the aftermath of the Easter Sunday attacks, a veritable arsenal of weapons is being recovered by police commandos and intelligence who obviously know exactly where to go and what safehouses to pinpoint. Sheer commonsense would tell us that much of this was known beforehand. No other explanation is conceivable. Yet no preventive action was taken. Why? Was the impunity attached to a few politicians courted by both the Government and the Opposition for their vote banks in the East, the answer? The go slow to act of Sri Lankan intelligence monitoring coupled with the brushing aside of specific warnings by Indian intelligence speaks to far more than mere carelessness. The President and the Prime Minister owe this country an explanation, beyond their asinine I did not know stories. The resignation of a horrendously inept Defence Secretary and calling for the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to step down will not do. Dealing with uncomfortable realities In fact, the last two days have been particularly excruciating as those in command wilted under extraordinary pressure. President Maithripala Sirisena lost himself in a morass of unconvincing explanations, culminating in a ridiculous claim that all this would be dealt with in a few days. The Prime Minister could only say that Sri Lankas law did not give the power to deal with those having links to foreign terrorist organisations. This explanation is as false as it is silly. I do not propose to enumerate the laws that could be used for this purpose. But self-evidently and on the Prime Ministers statement itself, narrowly tailored laws or amendments to existing laws could have been brought in upon intelligence disclosures of jihadi extremism, if the Government felt that it lacked the needed legal force. Why was it not done? This weeks tragic events puts the inevitable seal on the argument that Sri Lanka should not have counter-terrorism legislation at all. What is called for is a more measured and strategic approach. A harsh counter-terror law following Western models is not the answer. If that heedless way is chosen, we will be thrust into a playground for global forces of terror and counter-terror compared to which, previous domestic conflicts will be a walk in the park. Emergency regulations currently in force must be examined when space permits. However at least here, there is periodic parliamentary control of the state of emergency and the Supreme Court has the benefit of excellent cursus curiae requiring emergency regulation to conform to constitutional safeguards, provided judicial fortitude is shown. There are lessons for others as well. It is a trite truth that just as all Tamils are not terrorists, all Muslims are not Salafi-inspired jihadists. But the spread of Wahabism had been an open secret from the Rajapaksa years, to the extent that the non-Wahabist dead were not allowed to be buried in Kattankudy and jihadists in that area had spread their tentacles elsewhere. Yet critiques of this phenomenon were met by cries of victimhood. Pundits claiming exclusive analytical perspectives through funded projects on reconciliation questioned opinions of ordinary residents of multi-ethnic communities in Mawanella and elsewhere who complained of increased conservatism in their Muslim neighbours. I have experienced this reaction myself, when briefly touching on the responsibility of Muslim politicians in the radicalisation of their voter bases. Email responses have asked why there is no focus on Sinhala Buddhist majoritarianism as impetus for this radicalisation, even though this factor had been repeatedly acknowledged in these columns. But the point is that one wrong cannot be justified by another. Now we are in undeniably new terrain. Islamic State jihadism which inspired the Easter Sunday attacks must be placed in its own and deeply frightening context of a monster, born at least in part out of the Wests historical transgressions in the Middle East. The remarkable resilience of a nation So as Sri Lanka becomes engulfed in grotesquely unfamiliar religious extremism, the one comfort has been the exemplary behaviour of affected communities since that bloody Easter Sunday. Wise preachings by Catholic and Christian clergy that meeting violence with counter-violence is not the Christian way were taken to heart even in Negombo whose residents are not particularly famed for their restraint. Despite isolated incidents, the resilience of a shocked and angry nation has been remarkable. The courage of police officers and security forces conducting relentless investigations, despite loss of lives, has been commendable. This exemplifies the best of Sri Lanka but does not excuse the criminal behaviour of the political command. If political negligence was at heart here, (taken at its best possible meaning), and if intelligence had warned of an attack on the Presidential Secretariat or on Temple Trees, would similar apathy have prevailed? This is all of a piece with how the police responded or more accurately, did not respond to the attack on the Methodist Prayer Centre in Anuradhapura earlier this month when a provincial councilor of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) ran amok. This responsibility of properly addressing religiously motivated attacks lies equally on both the Government and the Opposition. With chilling presentiment, it was questioned in these column spaces last Sunday as to whether the State would be called upon to provide security to all Sri Lankas churches? Those words have proved to be sadly and forebodingly true. And now, in the wake of unforgivable political failures, we are left with grievous loss, as individuals, as families, as communities and as a nation. Who will atone for this? A pathetic House belittles a national tragedy with its finger-pointing By Sandun Jayawardana View(s): View(s): If the countrys citizens were looking to their elected representatives to project a unified front and reassure them of their security, they were bitterly disappointed, as this weeks special Parliamentary sessions, called in the wake of the barbaric Easter Sunday terrorist attacks, saw accusations and counter-accusations from both sides. Parliament was originally due to convene only on May 7, after the 2019 Budget was passed on April 5. The Easter Sunday attacks prompted the Government to call for an emergency session on April 23. Only Prime Minister (PM) Ranil Wickremesinghe, Opposition Leader Mahinda Rajapaksa and State Defence Minister Ruwan Wijewardene spoke on Tuesday. In his address, PM Wickremesinghe said Sri Lanka had now become part of a global community faced with terrorism, but the Government was capable of wiping it out. The international community has pledged their support to us. We will not allow another 30 years of war to occur in this country, he insisted. Minister Ruwan Wijewardene acknowledged to Parliament what the entire country and the world already knew that there was a monumental failure to act on specific intelligence about a planned attack. Information related to the planned attacks was only circulated among a small group of officials and neither the Prime Minister nor I, the State Minister of Defence, were briefed about it, he claimed. Opposition Leader Mahinda Rajapaksa insisted that the Government should accept full responsibility for the Easter Sunday attacks, noting that it had failed to act on specific intelligence warnings of an imminent attack. Mr Rajapaksa claimed there were now attempts to make some security officials the scapegoats for the failure to stop the attacks. But, if anyone is to resign over this, it should be the Government. On Wednesday (24), Parliament held a day-long debate on the new regulations gazetted under the state of emergency imposed following the terror attacks. Prior to the commencement of the debate, Speaker Karu Jayasuriya appealed to MPs to help conduct a productive debate, without blaming each other, and to work together to promote cooperation and understanding over confrontation and division. Many MPs, however, failed to heed his appeal. Finger-pointing started almost immediately, when Leader of the House Lakshman Kiriella accused the National Security Council (NSC) and some officers of the intelligence agencies of playing politics. He said that neither the PM nor the State Defence Minister had been invited to NSC meetings since last October, and noted that even after the attacks took place, those of the NSC refused to attend a meeting of the NSC summoned by the PM. Mahajana Eksath Peramuna (MEP) Leader Dinesh Gunawardena, however, argued that both the PM and State Minister of Defence are leaders of the Government and hence, could not claim ignorance of advance warnings about an impending attack. Amid the many speeches casting blame on one side or the other, two speeches, by UNP MP Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka and United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) MP Kumara Welgama, stood out. Mr Fonseka did not mince words, when he severely criticised both the Government and the Opposition, accusing them of allowing the intelligence services to deteriorate. Governments that have been in power during the past 10 years need to take responsibility for this failure. Immediately after the war, the then Government used intelligence services as instruments of political revenge. They used them to spy on us and our children. Even the new Government did not do what should have been done, he stressed. Mr Welgama, meanwhile, said all 225 MPs in Parliament should take full responsibility for what happened, adding that it was wrong to point fingers at each other after such a tragedy. He noted that the intelligence agencies had sent out warnings to the police, who in turn conveyed them to the Personal Security Officers of all MPs. So, they knew. There is no point now in engaging in a blame game and doing politics with such a national tragedy. He appealed to Government and Opposition MPs and their supporters to forget their political differences and unite, to eliminate this threat to the countrys security, and rebuild the nation. The Emergency Regulations were passed without a vote. Parliament will reconvene on May 7. Death strikes on the holiest day View(s): Improvised white flags hang along the streets where last weeks dead once lived. Families grieve for fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters who only a week before brought joy and laughter to their homes. Now they have nothing but tears to offer. The nation mourns for its people snatched away on the holiest day on the Christian calendar. Last week mass burials marked the end of their journey as the country bowed its head in three minutes of silence for those who were killed two days before in an act of infamy. Who should share the blame for this act of shame is a question that is being persistently asked by the people who live. As I write the death toll has been revised downward to slightly over 250 while some others lie wounded. The dead and the wounded are not all Sri Lankan. In nations across the world families and relatives are grieving for their loved ones lost on that day of madness. The government and its leaders might try to provide answers for their failure to protect the people. But could they answer for those who were beckoned to this land like no other with glorified scenes of a new Eden, only to die? This is not the worst single disaster that Sri Lanka has faced. Forty thousand or so people died in the December 2004 tsunami. But that was a natural phenomenon over which Sri Lanka had little control. The Easter catastrophe was man-made, orchestrated and engineered by a group of religious fanatics in Sri Lanka and abroad, used as a single instrument of death. The difference is that while little could have been done to mitigate the worst effects of the tsunami even if the authorities had very early information of the impending disaster, Sri Lankas law and order authorities were well-aware of the possible terrorist attacks. Indian intelligence began feeding Sri Lankan counterparts with the original snippets and later detailed intel starting months back. While Sri Lanka continues to be on high alert for more terrorist attacks and braced for possible retaliatory violence against innocent local Muslims one should not lose sight of our failure to act on information received and ask, as it is being asked right now by an angry and emotionally distraught public, why it was allowed to happen. It is easy to point the finger of accusation at officials. It is right they should be severely castigated for treating intelligence received from a neighbouring country so cavalierly. Hemasiri Fernando, defence secretary until his resignation last week was quoted as saying they did not expect an attack of such magnitude. What did they expect? Firecrackers to be thrown at congregations! Mr Fernando should have been asked, if it has not already been done, who it is that decided to take the information that was sent to them on April 4th and then again on April 9th and 11th so lightly that they did not consider it necessary to alert the countrys political leaders. If churches were to be targeted why was not the Archbishop Malcolm Cardinal Ranjit not privy to such information as he could have acted to even cancel Sunday services, as he has mentioned? Who are the masterminds besides Fernando who came to such a weighty conclusion while heaps of intel from foreign sources were staring them in the face yet concluded this not important enough to pass on to the countrys leadership. Of course, the highest in the land was sojourning in Singapore and did not seem to have thought, like his officials, bombs exploding and killing people in churches and hotels, sufficient cause to return immediately to the country though he was both defence minister and minister of law and order, the latter portfolio he had grabbed under dubious circumstances. If these are the officials well one has mercifully fallen on his sword, belated though it was on whom this country depends to keep it safe from violent extremists of different religious and ideological persuasions, then the sooner the officials and their political masters committed hara kiri, the safer the people would feel. While the country is trying to recover from last Sundays tragedy the wider public is beginning to raise vital questions from their political leadership that has turned its promise of yahapalanaya to nopalanaya and betrayed the people who voted it to power. As the public well know, some of our politicians and a clutch of officials are more accustomed to pocketing the buck than passing it. But when lightning strikes and crisis confronts the country they are the first to pass the buck and wash their hands of responsibility. That should not be allowed to happen especially by those who are at the top of the leadership pole. They are eager to grab power once more while four years ago they were so ready to repudiate a long stay at the top and urged that the presidency be abolished. Last Monday Sky News which was trying to rush a team down to Colombo invited me to its studios for a discussion. Unfortunately I could not make due to a leg injury. But I suspect that some of the questions those journalists were keen to ask were what Sri Lankans at home and abroad have been asking for months and years and are repeating more stridently today. I have been peppered with questions by persons of Sri Lankan origin and foreigners. Some of the Sri Lankans do not live in the UK but abroad elsewhere. But their anger and anguish are as genuine as that shown by those at home who seem increasingly disgusted at the political manouevring, the jostling for power by all sides while the coalition government continues its infighting at unbelievable cost to the country. A plague on all your houses would be their curse with a slight twist to Shakespeares words at the sight of crime and corruption spread like some dangerous infection. Not surprisingly most of the questions concern the President as head of state and the minister in charge of defence and law and order. My attention was drawn to the Presidents claim that he did not know of the Indian security alerts sent to Sri Lanka before the bombers struck. So when did the President first know? Is it only after the bomb blasts on Sunday morning? Who informed him and when? If he knew on Sunday or before it happened why did he wait till Monday night to return to Colombo when Singapore is only a few hours away and flights are available as Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka mentioned in Parliament. Only Sirisenas closest circle would have answers to that, specifically to the question whether the President thought spending another day in Singapore was more important than taking command at home as defence and law and order minister as it was his responsibility? I was asked to roll back news reports and note how many times Sirisena has said I did not know of it, nobody told me, I read it in the newspaper when questioned about some developments. If his officials do not keep him informed should he not have got rid of them long time ago which he can do even now. Since this crisis in Sri Lanka, foreign government and the international media are wondering, we are told, how a country can function when its own President wallows in ignorance of critical matters of state. But this is not all. At a sitting of Parliament last week Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said he is not invited to meetings of the National Security Council, the highest decision-making body on state security. State Minister of Defence Ruwan Wijewardene was to add that the prime minister and he have not been invited to the NSC since October last and the Indian alerts not passed on to them. This surely is a strange situation. The prime minister and state defence minister are being excluded from important discussions and denied what could be vital information. But it seems their exclusion has happened since October last when President Sirisenas attempted political/constitutional coup backfired and he ended up with egg all over his face. This is not all. Sarath Fonseka said in Parliament that an opposition MP dealing with horse racing is attending Security Council meetings. The finger seems to point to Thilanga Sumathipala, who has no official position that permits him to be present at NSC meetings except by invitation from somebody. If true these are surely extraordinary happenings for which the public would expect answers, and immediately, too, from the President. For if Sumathipala has attended highly confidential meetings then the responsibility lies with Sirisena. Just the other day Ukraine elected a professional comedian to lead the country. How nice. He will surely want some company. Bureaucratic inefficiency, political mishandling and lack of action on intelligence reports led to the deaths of more than 250 people Sirisena further isolates himself by hitting out at the UNF government and Rajapaksas SLPP Overall Muslim community gripped by fear over the actions of a small group; widespread belief that ISIS chose Sri Lanka because of growing military links with US Gross bureaucratic inefficiency, scant disregard for intelligence warnings, mediocre and pathetic mishandling by the political leadership caused the deaths of 359 people, revised dramatically to 253, during last Sundays Easter massacre. If the injured toll was around 600, it was also lowered officially to 149 on Thursday night reflecting the tragi-comedy that is being played out in the aftermath of one of the worst massacres. That is not all. Police Chief (Pujith Jayasundera) is staying put in his office despite a call by President Maithripala Sirisena to resign immediately. He was to nominate a successor to be confirmed by the Constitutional Council. The choice appeared to be between Senior DIGs D.M. Wickremesinghe (Central Range) and C.D. Wickramarathne (Southern Range). Heads of Police divisions countrywide were double checking their instructions after they learnt the quit order on Police Chief Jayasundera who survived hopping from one controversy to another. The Police media spokesperson issued a news release about wanted suspects. One of them was a photograph of a Muslim woman living in the United States. She issued a social media statement that she had no links with the suspects here. The blunder was later corrected. Sri Lanka is still without a Defence Secretary after the last controversial incumbent, Hemasiri Fernando, was asked to quit. This brings to five the number of Defence Secretaries who have served so far under President Sirisena since he took over in January 2015. None of them had any past experience in running the defence and security establishment. They were blissfully unaware of the various nuances that go with their positions. Ironically, the selections have been based largely on political considerations. One of the qualifications was that they should not have been associated with the previous Rajapaksa administration or his family. This was also the criteria even for the top most slot in the intelligence community the Chief of National Intelligence (CNI) -where a criminal investigator with little or no knowledge in intelligence gathering was foisted after his retirement. His term was extended annually. Now, purported top secret reports they and others had sent warning the authorities over a period of time have been leaked to the social media. This, no doubt, is a last-minute effort to save their own skins. Of course, there is also a predicament for those in the national intelligence network. They lament that they are often forced to go after political opponents turning the agency into an arm for witch-hunts instead of collecting intelligence on national security issues. President Sirisena told local media heads on Friday that both Defence Secretary Fernando and Police Chief Pujith Jayasundera looked down at the floor when he questioned them this week over intelligence failures. In the case of former Defence Secretary Fernando, it was worse. Months ago, President Sirisena had met a delegation from the All Ceylon Jamiathul Ulema, the largest body of Muslim clerics, to warn the governmetn of the impending danger from terrorist groups backing the ISIS. This terror group is referred to in Arabic as Daesh and the English acronym stands for Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.They named Mohamed Cassim Mohamed Zahran, as the leader of the local group and gave a detailed memorandum listing their activities. Sirisena in turn handed it over to Fernando and that was the end of the tale. Nothing happened. The Police chief apologised he could not telephone me. I learnt of the news (of the Easter Sunday attacks) from others in Singapore, President Sirisena revealed. As far back as January 27 this year, it was reported in these columns that that some deeply worrying developments were taking place on the national security front. This is what was said: This is at a time when the Police have been placed under the Ministry of Defence and the entire security apparatus in the country is in one hand the Secretary to the Ministry of Defence, Hemasiri Fernando. He has generated controversy by remarking that war heroes or ranaviruvos are those who have won medals and not others. Those remarks have created some consternation within the tri-forces. There are thousands of soldiers who have died, unsung and unheard without mention and without medals. The Defence Secretary, once a Navy officer, is being accused of hurting those who lost their limbs in the near three-decade-long separatist war and their beloved families. President Sirisena, as Commander-in-Chief, could set the record right. This has continued to reflect former Defence Secretary Fernandos lack of depth and understanding of the defence and security establishment. Just this week, he told BBC that the government was not responsible for providing security to hotels. It was the responsibility of the hotel owners and they should look after, he said. Would such remarks by a Defence Secretary inspire confidence in the outside world and draw tourists to the country? Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera has already declared that since last Sundays attack, the tourism sector has lost US$ 1.5 billion. This has done no good to either Sri Lanka or the government. It is likely an official in the Ministry of Defence will act until a suitable candidate for the post of Defence Secretary is found. On Friday, Suhada Gamlath, a former Secretary to the Ministry of Justice and Solicitor General was offered the job. He politely declined it. Earlier, the name of former Army Commander, Gen. Daya Ratnayake was mentioned, but he has not been accepted. There is a bitter irony in this. The State Intelligence Service (SIS), the national intelligence arm, was unable to convince the authorities, despite three different warnings from their Indian counterparts, to take prompt preventive action. The authorities had also relegated the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI), now a highly professional entity, to a virtual secondary role. It is no secret that their work was a major component in the military defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in May 2009. They had systematically built a treasure trove of information. According to a security source, the Army Commander Lt. Gen. Mahesh Senanayake had proposed, at successive meetings of the National Security Council, the setting up of a joint intelligence apparatus for unified intelligence gathering. He, however, refused to comment saying I cannot discuss such issues. It was only after the dastardly incident by pro-ISIS terrorists that it had received acceptance. It will now function under a newly established Joint Operations Command (JOC). Even those from the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) will be included to ensure prompt probes. Its task would be to deal with the threat of this new form of religious terror. It will also have a two-fold objective prevent any attempts of elements causing racial or communal tensions and a full-frontal offensive against the terrorists. They will be empowered for these purposes by the new regulations under the Public Security Ordinance (Part II). President Sirisena has already promulgated a state of emergency from April 22. It was endorsed unanimously by Parliament on Wednesday. Another source said that the NSC meetings did not see the participation of political leaders until sessions were concluded. More often than not, they would sit for ten minutes or so and leave saying they had another engagement, the source pointed out. At the last NSC meeting (held after the Easter carnage), President Sirisena who chaired the meeting, directed Justice Minister Thalatha Athukorale to ensure that the Attorney Generals Department formulates regulations (under the Public Security Act Part II) to give effect to measures to be taken by the new joint command. That will include the proscription of the National Thowheed Jamaath (NTJ) and its partner group Jamiathul Millathu Ibrahim (JMI). They together carried out Sundays attacks. The JMI, which is also a backer of the ISIS, has been divided over issues and only a section was involved, Military Intelligence Director Brigadier Chula Kodituwakku told the media at Fridays news briefing held by President Sirisena. Details of the Easter Sunday massacre and the ongoing probe have been playing out in the local and almost every foreign media this week. They are continuing to shock not only Sri Lankans but those in other parts of the world. What has been appalling for most is that the government and its agencies were not responsive despite positive warnings. They also missed out detailed preparations that were being made for the attacks. Investigations by local teams are being supplemented by teams from the Interpol, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in India. A salutary feature is that the Military Intelligence has identified the network of the pro ISIS terror groups, their leaders and areas of operations. In 2015, the Directorate of Military Intelligence set up a separate ISIS Cell to monitor activities of those backing the terrorist movement in Sri Lanka. It came after they noted an increase in the Facebook posts. They now possess a detailed list of local operatives. We will not disturb the net until we are legally empowered. We will strike hard, very hard, said a senior intelligence source. A matter that has been made clear to those who will be involved in operations is not to take into account any political considerations but to deal firmly with those who violate the emergency laws, the source added. President Sirisena told Fridays media briefing that the extremist pro-ISIS NTJ leader, Zahran Cassim, (see photograph on this page) is dead. Confirming the statement, Brigadier Kodituwakku said that a DNA test was being carried out on the remains of his body. Zahran Cassim has been the mastermind of all the attacks. Some of the leaders have been trained in Syria. Training other recruits had taken months and this has gone on under a shroud of complete secrecy. First to a chronology of how the Easter Sunday carnage took place: St. Sebastian Church, Katuwapitiya (near Negombo): 8.25 a.m. Mohamed Cassim Mohamed Zeini (brother of Zahran Cassim, leader NTJ terror group) exploded a suicide bomb. St Anthonys Church, Kochchikade: 8.45 a.m. Alaudeen Ahmed Muath of the Jamathul Millathu Ibrahim (JMI) exploded a bomb. Zion Church, Batticaloa: 9.05 a.m. Mohamed Cassim Mohamed Rilwan (also a brother of Zahran Cassim) exploded a suicide bomb. He is known to be a member of the National Thauheed Jamaath (NTJ). Cinnamon Grand Hotel: Between 9.15 and 9.20 a.m. Mohamed Ibrahim Insaf Ibrahim (Brother of Ilham), suspected to be a JMI a member, exploded a suicide bomb. Shangri La Hotel: Between 9.15 and 9.20 a.m. Mohamed Cassim Mohamed Zahran (Zahran Moulavi) and Ilham Mohamed Ilham Ibrahim carried out suicide bomb attacks. This was an NTJ and JMI joint exercise. Kingsbury Hotel: 9.15 to 9.20 a.m. Mohamed Azam Mohamed Mubarak of the NTJ exploded a bomb. New Tropical Inn, Dehiwala: 2.00 p.m. Jamil Mohamed Abdul Latheef was the bomber. There is strong intelligence to confirm he made a failed bid to join the ISIS in 2016. Mahawela Housing Scheme, Dematagoda: 2.15 p.m. Fathima Jiffry (Wife of Ilham) exploded herself. Two more females and two children were killed in the bomb explosion. Investigations have revealed that the Taj Samudra Hotel was also a target a fact which debunks claims that the attackers avoided Indian hotels. Jameel Mohamed Abdul Latheef, it has come to light, wore a suicide jacket to be exploded there. However, the triggering mechanism had malfunctioned. He was then returning to the New Tropical Inn at Dehiwala. He had wanted to stop at St Marys Church there. When he alighted from a vehicle, he had found that there were Police personnel standing by. They had been deployed after those at the church complained of the loss of money from the till the previous day. He had then gone to the Inn. Investigators believe his attempts to remove the suicide bomb triggered an explosion. That killed him as well as a couple who were at the next room. Investigators have confirmed that the explosive used by the terrorists was Triacetone Triperoxide or TATP the same material used in terrorist bombing attacks mounted by ISIS and Al-Qaeda. The white crystal powder (TATP), reports say, have been referred to as Mother of Satan by terrorist organisations which have used it in deadly attacks around the world. The most important question that begs answer in the near simultaneous attacks in different locations is over the time taken to mount surveillance, make plans and execute them. It also requires a large team. Such a process would have taken several months and despite claims of awareness by intelligence agencies, none of them was in the know that such plans were under way. Intelligence estimates place the suicide cadre strength at around 170, a larger number. In predominantly Muslim Malaysia, the strength is said to be 400 whilst in Libya it was 600. In addition, at least five foreign trained cadres have been assigned to each suicide cadre. That included an electronics expert, a chemical expert and a bomb maker. Though how large stocks of explosives were smuggled to Sri Lanka is yet to be conclusively established, it is believed that they were smuggled in through the Mannar coast. It is believed that, in the Mannar area, several influential persons have helped in this exercise, often talking to the Police when arrests or inquiries are made. They have also provided assistance to family members of Insaf (one of the bombers of Shangri La Hotel) in business-related matters even granting exclusivity for export of copper. Investigators have found that the Easter Sundays massacres were linked with the three-day long incidents that occurred in Mawanella area from December 23 last year. Buddhist shrines and Buddha statues were damaged in four different places in Mawanella Randiwela Junction, Miriskudu Handiya, Hingula (on the Colombo-Kandy Road) and Lindulawatte in the Pahala Kadugannawa region. This was after Zahran and another had preached hate and exhorted those who attended Fridays Jumma prayers to attack Buddha statues in temples and cross signs in churches. Villagers apprehended one of two attackers in one instance. On questioning him six more suspects were arrested. They are now in remand custody facing charges in courts. It was revealed that they were members of an extremist Islamic group and were being trained to carry out violent attacks against those of other faiths too. The Mawanella group had been led by two brothers identified as Siddiq Abdulla and Shahid Abdul Haq. Both are now missing. Their father, Fazir Mohamed Ibrahim, was later arrested and is now in remand. Police have found that Fazir Mohamed Ibrahim has been working for an unidentified organisation with links to the ISIS. This was in the eastern Muslim town of Kalmunai. It had come under Cassim Mohamed Zahran who was giving leadership to spread extremist Islamic ideology in Sri Lanka. They had cells in Mawanella, Anuradhapura, Trincomalee, Polonnaruwa and Puttalam. Police then received reports that Zahran is hiding in Kalmunai. A search then proved futile. Police thereafter raided the house of the two brothers Abdulla and Haq in Hingula on the Colombo-Kandy road. There they found the receipt for the purchase of an air rifle used to teach recruits on firing. It was handed over to CID detectives who took over the probe. They arrested seven suspects and interrogated them. This led detectives to find 150 kilogrammes of explosives and 100 detonators in a coconut estate at Wanathavillu in Puttalam. Further investigations then established that Zahran was the leader of the National Thowheed Jamaath (NTJ). Why did small Sri Lanka become a target for ISIS and its proxy groups in Sri Lanka? I spoke with several members of Muslim organisations which abhor violence, but were very familiar with the activities of local pro-ISIS groups. In some areas, they co-existed. Some have even been making representations to the defence authorities and expressed frustration that their appeals for action were overlooked. Almost all of them (barring a few who did not know) said that the local terror groups were angry over the increasing American involvement in military activity in Sri Lanka. The ISIS had also been alerting them to the so-called dangers. Thus, a two-pronged assault one targeting Christian places of worship and the other leading hotels. The first, as is well known is a standard ISIS tactic. The second is, without doubt, to hit at the heart of the economy, the tourist industry. Hotels are virtually empty and the number of visitors to Sri Lanka is dwindling. It did not take hours for the impact to be felt. A SriLankan Airlines flight from Hyderabad (India) was full and was due to head for Colombo when news reached the passengers. A good number abandoned their flights. Cancellation of hotel bookings flowed. It is widely known that the US is also talking to the government over different forms of military co-operation and offering training facilities. Paradoxical enough, the attacks by the pro-ISIS groups may sometimes consolidate the US position since the government would need US help in combatting the mounting terror. This in itself has been cause for concern among senior military professionals. So much so, there was one instance when a politician who takes part in the National Security Council meetings asked some military top-rungers what do you want from the United States? There was stoic silence after the question with some aghast top brass looking at each other. For reasons of national security, details cannot be elaborated but the remarks underscore concerns in the military, too. On one occasion, a top US diplomat told me, We know that the present government is not coming to power the next time. So, what we want to do is get the best from the present regime. It seems that they have got what they wanted, backed unhesitatingly by grossly ignorant bureaucrats who have delivered bonus after bonus. If that is ironic, what is tragic is the fact that even the formal military agreements with the US have not even been presented in Parliament, leave alone being debated. What has Sri Lanka gained in return? One is reminded of the lament of the present government leaders after they won both the presidential and parliamentary elections. As the economy took a downward slide, they blamed our western friends and complained they have let us down by not helping us. They also complained that there was no foreign investment prompting diplomats of one leading country to say they do not control private enterprise in their country. It is for your government to ensure that for such activity, the climate is conducive, one of them told a government minister. The countrys predicament has been worsened by the fact that the two former partners who were once in a so-called national government are now bitter enemies. Even a national tragedy which took a heavy toll of human lives has not moved them to talk in one voice, if not on their behalf, for the benefit of all Sri Lankans. After the Easter Sunday massacre, the first special cabinet meeting saw some heated exchanges between President Sirisena and Premier Wickremesinghe. The President named some newspapers of supporting Wickremesinghe. In the process, he named the Political Editor of the Sunday Times and said he (the Political Editor) was angry with him for the President did not leak secret information. Very strange indeed. One would have to be insane to ask the President of any country, leave alone Sri Lanka, to leak secret information. Moreover, I had met him periodically and placed on record faithfully all what he has said. However, I did tell President Sirisena on a few occasions that he should have some mechanism through a confidant, so I may check on the veracity of information I receive about him and his activities. He agreed to do so but it never happened. What prompted me to say this was the numerous telephone calls the President would give me to complain after my accounts appear on Sundays. This is particularly when there was criticism against him. I believed such an arrangement would obviate accusations. Of course, there are other related far more serious issues which I do not want to delve into and cause embarrassment all round. Public remarks by Prime Minister Wickremesinghe, in addition to what he said at the cabinet meeting, made clear that he and State Defence Minister Ruwan Wijewardene have not been attending NSC meetings since October last year. This was since President Sirisena removed Wickremesinghe and foisted Mahinda Rajapaksa as Premier. With that move he dissolved Parliament a move which the Supreme Court held to be unconstitutional. The debate is not whether Wickremesinghe should have attended the meeting or not. It was President Sirisena who is constitutionally the Minister of Defence. In addition, he also has the Police department directly under him. That meant he has singularly presided over the security and defence establishment since October last year. Naturally that enhances his responsibility. After last Wednesdays delayed cabinet meeting, Premier Wickremesinghe accompanied by Minister Kabir Hashim met President Sirisena. Wickremesinghe requested that the Police department be brought under the purview of the United National Front (UNF) government. Sirisena flatly refused the request. There were also other moments of friction after Wickremesinghe sought to meet the armed forces commanders. They replied that they would have to seek the permission of the President before they accepted his invitation. Quite rightly so, since the Defence Ministry does not come under the Prime Minister. At the ministerial meeting, Sirisena also gave a lengthy account about his perceptions on the Easter Sunday massacre. He said he would summon an All-Party conference the next day (Thursday). He would appeal to all political parties to put off their May Day rallies. Then began a heated debate when the All Party Conference was held on Thursday. Mahinda Rajapaksa, the de facto leader, represented the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) together with Basil Rajapaksa. He placed a ten-point request and said that there should be professionalism in the intelligence community. Basil Rajapaksa said the SLPP would support any measures to ensure unity among communities. Earlier, Sirisena said that until he left Sri Lanka (to Tirupathi and later from Bangalore to Singapore) he had not been aware of the intelligence warnings. Even the incidents became known to him only after a member of the Sri Lankan community had conveyed it. He had wanted to hire a private jet and return. However, after getting in touch with Colombo, he felt he could leave Singapore on the scheduled flight that arrived in Colombo at night. For the Easter Sunday massacre, Sirisena pinned the blame on Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando and Police Chief Pujith Jayasundera. Communist Party leader former Parliamentarian, D.E.W. Gunasekera, launched a scathing attack on the intelligence services. He said that in other countries, brilliant products from universities, excelling in different fields were recruited and trained. He said Sirisena could not exculpate himself by placing the blame on those below him. The people gave him a mandate to be President and he owed it to the country to ensure nothing went wrong. A.L.M. Athaullah MP asked, Who is the President of this country? a remark which suggested no one appears to be in full control. There were participants who said he may have been alluding to President Trumps telephone call to Premier Wickremesinghe. Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leader Rajavarothayam Sampanthan and Minister Mano Ganesan both said the Muslims were now facing the same woes they had faced for a longer time. The Parliamentary Select Committee on National and Religious Harmony convened a special meeting on Friday. Chaired by Speaker Karu Jayasuriya, the meeting was attended by two former Presidents Chandrika Kumaratunga and Mahinda Rajapaksa. A Diyawanna Resolution was adopted, calling upon the government to set up a separate interior ministry, incorporating the police. The same (Thursday) night, President Sirisena also chaired a meeting of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party parliamentarians. He was unhappy about the presence of a member of the Buddhist clergy and asked aides why he was invited. He said he had not wanted to invite him. Then he began to explain himself. Also present at the meeting were Eelam Peoples Democratic Party Leader Douglas Devananda, and Muthu Sivalingam. This turned out to be a significant event. In his speech, he repeated many times that some people wanted him to resign. He said he would not do so but continue to fight. He said he had not been apprised of any intelligence warnings. He was in Sri Lanka from April 4 to 16 when the warnings came. This is why I want to remove the Defence Secretary and the IGP. They should have kept me informed, he said. President Sirisena said that the people have forgotten the LTTE atrocities in which thousands had died. In just one attack they had killed 700 police officers. He paid a glowing tribute to Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the Archbishop of Colombo for the exemplary manner in which he responded. President Sirisena charged that an orchestrated campaign was carried out in Parliament by speakers asking him to quit. He was alluding to the UNF speakers. He said Premier Wickremesinghe had asked for the Police department. When it was under them (the UNF), they have committed so many mistakes. He charged that the case involving the murder of national ruggertie Wasim Thajudeen was botched up. Sirisena said that when he refused to hand over the police department, Wickremesinghe and the ministers got up and left. He said under President Mahinda Rajapaksa, he had acted as Defence Minister on five different occasions. He asked SLFP parliamentarians to give him a list of ten names. Those persons will be given different tasks in assisting the proposed Joint Operations Command. He also made a scathing attack on the SLPP, raising serious doubts whether their next round of talks to form an alliance would materialise. President Sirisena said the recent massacre was a retaliation for the anti-drugs campaign he had launched. In other words, pro-ISIS groups were not happy that he was fighting drug abuse in Sri Lanka. He repeated these remarks again when he met the media heads on Friday. Earlier, Opposition Leader Mahinda Rajapaksa telephoned President Sirisena soon after his arrival from Singapore. He said he would extend his fullest support to ensure a peaceful situation in the country. He also asked Sirisena to address the opposition parliamentary group to explain what had happened. However, Sirisenas heavy schedule prevented it from taking place. On Wednesday night, President Sirisena addressed 300 senior Police officers at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute auditorium. Army Commander Lt. Gen. Mahesh Senanayake was invited by the President to explain the involvement of the ISIS and the groups actions. Sirisena also gave a briefing to Colombo-based diplomats. This weeks developments make clear that Sirisena is fighting on a number of fronts. Other than the growing menace of religious terrorism, backed only by a very small section of the Muslim community, he has fired new salvoes against the leadership of his government partner led by Premier Wickremesinghe. He has also done so with his would-be common alliance partner the SLPP whose de facto leader is Mahinda Rajapaksa. He is looking for a new Defence Secretary and a new Police Chief. That he is increasingly isolating himself is not good for the people or Sri Lanka. Quo vadis or where are you marching? Not only Sri Lankans but the whole world seems to be asking. So would the vast majority of innocent Muslims who are now gripped with fear and uncertainty. Political drama before curfew was declared View(s): It was Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe who persuaded President Maithripala Sirisena to impose a curfew after last Sundays Easter massacre, a UNF source said yesterday. The source described the sequence of events as follows; On Sunday at 9.05 am, the Prime Minister called his Secretary Saman Ekanayake informing him that he was returning to Colombo from Bentota to meet him at Temple Trees. At 9.15 am, Mr. Ekanayake called the Prime Minister and suggested they immediately call in the Inspector General of Police (IGP), the Defence Secretary and the heads of the armed forces. The Premier agreed. When called they said they were doing some work and would be there by 10.30 am. However, at 10.20 am when Mr. Ekanayake called again they said they were still doing some work and would come later. At that point, Mr Ekanayake informed the Prime Minister that he felt they were not going to come. The PM told him immediately to get his car ready, so that that they could go to the Defence Ministry and meet them there. When the PM arrived at the Defence Ministry at 10.30 am, they were informed that the National Security Council (NSC) was finishing some work and they would have to wait outside. Despite the Prime Ministers Secretary insisting that the PM be allowed inside, the security officers refused. The PM was escorted to the State Ministers Office where he was made to wait for twenty minutes. At 10.20 am, he was finally allowed to chair a meeting with the NSC; they briefed him on the current status after the massacres and outlined the security plans. The Council members did not discuss the prior warnings, saying that they would examine why there was a lapse in security. The PM returned to Temple Trees at 11.45 am and spoke to several senior Ministers. He suggested that the NSC be called to brief the Cabinet which was to meet at 3 pm that same day. When Mr Ekanayake called the Presidents Secretary, Udaya Seneviratne, informing him of the meeting, he responded that NSC members were busy with other work and would not be able to brief the cabinet. He also told Mr. Ekanayake that the President had insisted a curfew would not be implemented nor would social media be blocked until he returned to the country. However, following the Dehiwela and Dematagoda explosions that afternoon, the PM instructed the IGP to impose curfew immediately. Burqa panic Burqa-dressed men created panic at the BIA and in Wattala this week. On Tuesday, one such incident took place when a burka-dressed man was arrested at the BIAs arrival lounge. The man told police that he was from Colombo and he got dressed in a burqa to surprise his girlfriend who was returning from Qatar. However the man was arrested by the police for questioning. Another such incident took place at Hendala in Wattala when a burqa-dressed man was found walking on the street. The residents unmasked him and handed him over to the Police. The man had said he was going to meet a woman in the area. However the police claimed that the man was mentally unbalanced and was sent for treatment. Dont leave your vehicles unattended With heightened security concerns, some unfortunate persons had their cars forcibly opened or their motorcycles blown up after leaving them unattended for several hours. One of them was a Vavuniya doctor who had visited the Jaffna hospital for official duties. He has parked his vehicle outside the hospital and was inside the premises for the next three hours. Outside, the people had panicked and called the Police who were trying to find the owner. The car was forcibly opened and they found that it belonged to a doctor from Vavuniya. The Vavuniya Police were alerted in a team sent to the doctors house. When the doctor came out he found all his files pulled out and the vehicle opened while a large number had gathered and were watching. Near the Police headquarters in Colombo, a youth had parked his motorcycle and gone away. On return, he found that the Police had surrounded the bike. He was taken into custody. Another youth parked his bike at Wellawatte and, a short while later, a bystander had informed the police about the unattended bike. The STF had blown open his seat, damaging the bike. The youth who turned up a few minutes later was warned and released. In Negombo, there was confusion inside a restaurant when they found an unattended bag. Police and the bomb squad were alerted as in the nearby area funerals were taking place for those killed in the Easter Sundays blast. Probe on massacres: Blunders by Police Police made a shocking blunder when they wrongly fingered a young US woman as a suspect wanted in connection with the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks. It further dented the credibility of the authorities who are already accused of failing to heed intelligence warnings in the days leading up to the attack. On Thursday, Police released names and images of six suspects; three men and three women, wanted in connection with the attacks. They appealed for public assistance to find them. One of the names mentioned along with the photographs was Abdul Cader Fathima Khadiya. However, it was not long before local Twitter users pointed out that the photograph was that of Amara Majeed, a Muslim activist, university student and author in the United States. She was born to Sri Lankan parents. Police Media Unit subsequently issued a correction, apologising for the error and stating that the CID was seeking a female suspect named Abdul Cader Fathima Khadiya, but the woman in the photograph was not the individual they were seeking to arrest. The damage, however, had been done. Ms Majeeds Facebook page was flooded with hateful and racist comments, accusing her of being a terrorist. Ms. Majeed herself issued a statement on Twitter and Facebook: Hello everyone! I have this morning been FALSELY identified by the Sri Lankan government as one of the ISIS terrorists that have committed the Easter attacks in Sri Lanka. What a thing to wake up to! This is obviously completely false and frankly, considering that our communities are already greatly afflicted with issues of surveillance, I dont need more false accusations and scrutiny. Please stop implicating and associating me with these horrific attacks. And next time, be more diligent about releasing such information that has the potential to deeply violate someones family and community. The glaring error came on the same day authorities acknowledged they had overestimated the number of deaths from the attacks by about 100. It also came on the very day that the Government Information Department issued a statement telling the people to rely only on verified official information provided by the Police spokesman, Tri Forces spokespersons and the Information Department. Trumps terrible mistake on Lankan tragedy The heinous Easter Sunday terrorist attacks evoked worldwide condemnation, including from many Heads of State. United States President Donald Trump, too, took to his favourite medium, Twitter, to condemn the attack and offer assistance to Sri Lanka. He, however, made a characteristic typo, overestimating the casualty toll by millions. He tweeted: 138 million people have been killed in Sri Lanka, with more than 600 badly injured, in a terrorist attack on churches and hotels. The United States offers heartfelt condolences to the great people of Sri Lanka. We stand ready to help! The US President later deleted the tweet and posted the correct number of 138 deaths reported at the time. Twitter users though, continued to ridicule his ability to make laughable blunders even when referring to terrible tragedies. Why, why Mother Lanka? View(s): My dear Mother Lanka, It is with profound grief and sadness that I write to you as we try to recover from the horrors of the bloodbath last week and come to terms with the fact that this land of ours may not be a safe haven any more. As we do so, we have many questions for which we are struggling to find honest answers. Having blessed our land with peace after nearly 30 years of war, Mother Lanka, you kept us safe when terrorism was erupting elsewhere in the rest of the world. For ten long years, we enjoyed that peace. Why did you suddenly decide that we should return to an era of terror and fear, Mother Lanka? Even then, you gave our intelligence services warnings about last weeks attacks, with the names of the attackers being provided and churches being identified as targets. Yet, why did you ensure that no one took it seriously, when even a Grama Sevaka should have known better, Mother Lanka? Four years ago, when Aiyo Sirisena and the Green Man were chosen by voters to chart our destiny, most of the nation celebrated. Yet, how could you have chosen two people- who are so ignorant that they have both said that they knew nothing about the threats- to lead our nation, Mother Lanka? We thought we had a Security Council that had all the relevant people in it and that they discussed vital security issues. Why did you instead give us a Council to which the PM and the state ministers of defence were not invited but the Pala running betting centres was welcomed, Mother Lanka? When Aiyo Sirisena became our leader, we hoped we could trust him and that he would trust us. Why has he become so paranoid that he doesnt trust anyone, so much so that he endangers everyones safety by not appointing anyone to act as Defence Minister when he is overseas, Mother Lanka? We dont grudge Aiyo Sirisena his avurudu holidays because he too needs to get away from it all every now and then. Yet, when bombs were exploding in Colombo and elsewhere, why did it take 15 hours for him to return from Singapore which is only four hours away, Mother Lanka? We know that the Green Man is no public relations expert at the best of times. Still, why did you give us a PM and a set of ministers- who seem to grin and laugh when they are facing the cameras, forgetting the grief of hundreds of families who have lost their loved ones, Mother Lanka? We had a time when Gota was our Defence Secretary and there were those who argued that he overstepped his mark. Why did you replace him with someone who thought that an attack was imminent but forgot all about it because he thought it wouldnt be of this magnitude, Mother Lanka? First, we were told that no one- not even Aiyo Sirisena or the Green Man- knew about the warnings against the attacks. Then we had Harin and Mano proudly declaring that they were warned. Now that Hemasiri has resigned, should you not have Harins father as Defence Secretary, Mother Lanka? We still have among our midst the Field Marshall who knows a thing or two about fighting terrorism. Then, why is that, even in this darkest hour, Aiyo Sirisena refuses to appoint him to oversee Law and Order and the Green Man has still not spoken to him about the terror attacks, Mother Lanka? We always looked to our clergy for guidance. While giving us men of integrity and wisdom- like the Cardinal who acted with composure and compassion but also had the courage to condemn intelligence failures- why have you also given us those who incite racism like the Gnanasaras, Mother Lanka? After a disaster of this scale, when everyone has admitted to major blunders in our intelligence which has become the subject of ridicule the world over, why is it that not a single person has willingly resigned and the only chap who quit also did so only after he was asked to, Mother Lanka? Aiyo Sirisena told us many hours after Sundays blasts that he would change the heads of the defence establishment within 24 hours. That 24 hours have long since elapsed, so is it that Aiyo Sirisena cannot count properly or is this also like so many of his other promises, Mother Lanka? Many ministers are alleged to have had links with the bombers. Another minister says that one of the bombers was detained previously but was released due to political influence. Why have none of these ministers apologised to the nation and why are they still in their positions, Mother Lanka? With all these questions needing answers, it is difficult to say which is more: our distress at what happened or our disgust at the way it is being dealt with. Yet, we as a nation must unite. We must not identify every Muslim as a terrorist, just as much as every Sinhalese is not a racist, Mother Lanka. We defeated terrorism before. It was a different kind of terrorism which had global sympathisers. Last Sundays terrorists have no such sympathy, not because the world loves us more but because they too are affected by them. At least, let us hope that we can make use of that to defeat them, Mother Lanka. To do so, we need leaders who take difficult decisions, put the right men for the right job and then, do not interfere in their work. We need leaders who have courage and a vision, who think about the next generation and not just the next election. At this time, that is my fervent hope for you, Mother Lanka. Yours truly, Punchi Putha PS- In between reporting on all this mayhem, international media reported that a comedian was elected Ukraines President. Once again, they failed to give us due recognition. Judging by what happened on Sunday and what has happened since then, we did that four years ago, Mother Lanka! Lets resurrect ourselves from this catastrophe View(s): One week after the heinous bomb blasts that shattered the calm of an Easter Sunday, the pall of grief and anxiety that enveloped this country, has not lifted. The dastardly attacks by crazed religious bigots condemned by their own community were another sad chapter of contemporary Sri Lankan history, and compounded by the fact that it could have been avoided, or in the least, mitigated. Local Intel agencies had the ball, and dropped it. The chronic in-fighting within the Government led them to fall back on blame games and the pathetic I knew nothing excuses. The end result was a colossal loss of lives, sorrow and anguish, fear and unease among the people, and a dagger plunged into the tourism-driven economy. That the Police let the country down is clear. Despite the Constitutional Councils and the independent Commissions, top brass continue to be servants of the political leaders rather than of the people. And now, they have been sold down the river by the very politicians whom they stoop to serve. The President took over the Police Department last year partly because he wanted to directly supervise the investigation of an alleged assassination plot against him. But he, and those around him clearly did not have the capacity to handle the job. Last Sundays coordinated attacks were anything but unexpected to anyone with a semblance of knowledge on security matters. Here were the Indians who keep a closer tab of radical movements repeatedly telling Sri Lankan authorities almost on a daily basis to watch out, and more closer to the date of the massacres, giving specific information. Ask any Sri Lankan policeman who served in the Eastern Province and he would have referred to the increasing radicalisation of the population and the reluctance of politicians in the area to rub the radical leaders on the wrong side. Video tapes of the masterminds spitting venomous hate on non believers and the security forces have long been sent to Colombo. The writing was very much on the wall. Recent arrests of Bangladeshi drug smugglers should have raised concerns of the involvement of narco-terrorism proliferating in the region. The Bangladesh Government itself is having issues with its radical movements and set up a Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime Centre to fight moves to support an emerging Caliphate in this part of the world now that it is crumbling in Syria and Iraq. There were reports that a Sri Lankan had died in the fighting for the Islamic State (IS) in Syria. Others suspect that the puppeteers of the local suicide bombers came from Iraq or Pakistan or Qatar or London or Sydney no one still knows. Several mainstream Muslim politicians have moved in to protect those persons involved in extremist activities in the recent past be they in Kattankudy, Mawanella or Wanathawillu. These now show a nexus that led to last Sundays coordinated attacks. Unfortunately, they have not learned from the recent past. Back in November 1970, the then Jaffna SP, R. Sunderalingam, sent a report to Colombo of the political aspect of the illicit trade between Ceylon and South India. No one took notice. In the next few years, radical Tamil youth went to PLO and PFLP camps for weapons training and bomb making. Public receptions were held by TULF leaders for Tamil youth arrested for political violence, and they appeared for the accused in the murder of the Jaffna Mayor. In 1977, retired Supreme Court Justice M.C. Sansoni inquiring into that years communal riots referred to the encouragement the Tamil politicians gave the radical youth to indulge in violence, and to take up arms. The rest is history. The Tamil politicians who protected those radical youth were eventually consumed by them. Let not the present-day Muslim politicians, for short-term political gain, forget history unless they wish to repeat it. With the promulgation of a state of Emergency, the tri-forces and the police have been provided with the required legal provisions to go catch the remaining perpetrators of the inhumane crimes of Easter Sunday. In the pursuit of the existing cadres, and the sleepers however, they too must heed the lessons from the past. They must refrain from breeding more terrorists in the process. They cannot afford to make a bad situation worse. It is mandatory that they need the support of the people in whatever they do. They must not tar all and sundry with the same brush, rather, clinically identify the cells and isolate the culprits. The Muslim community is in a difficult situation; they cannot disown their faith or support terrorist activity in any form. Many have come forward to help in defusing tension and indeed all Sri Lankans need to do so, before it gets to a point of no return. The Easter Sunday attacks last week, 77 years after Colombo was bombed on a day like this during World War II, had all the hallmarks and imprint of an internationally motivated plan purely going by the targets chosen the Church, and the festivities of the day connected with the faith. The Islamic State (IS) took 48 hours to own up to its role in it. Initially, many bewildered by what had happened asked why the Christians? not realising the global war raging between Crusaders, Infidels, Jihadists and the Wests inhumane bombings of Islamic nations. Subsequently, however, with unverified reports of further attacks on targets other than churches, the question arose if the attacks were aimed at the Sri Lankan State. Why Sri Lanka?, was next on the lips of others. Theories abound. The Governments proximity to the West; retaliation for the war on drugs and so on. But the fact is that this is a terror outfit that can still be tackled with a fingernail before we need a machete, as the local idiom goes. The banning of the burqa is a minor issue, compared with the need to act decisively on intelligence reports and monitor the mushrooming madrasas in the country, which are funded from abroad and have foreign teachers. Security clearance for all schools before reopening- MoE View(s): The Ministry of Education (MoE) said that, in view of the present security threat in the country, all National and Provincial schools will be checked for parcels and bombs, before starting school on Monday. The MoE has requested the police and the Tri-forces to provide assistance in this exercise. It has also issued a circular to school authorities, requesting them to form security committees inclusive of the principal, administration personnel, teachers, parents and past pupils. Under this plan, all students who enter the school premises will be identified to belong there and their bags checked. Further, all equipment and vehicles entering the premises to be checked at all times. The hostels in schools will also come under tight security, with round-the-clock protection and controlled access. The committee will devise a mechanism to alert the school community in an emergency, and for the administrators to notify the parents . - CC Study Australian Hospitality Management Programme in Sri Lanka at a cost of less than 20% of Studying the programme in Australia View(s): Earn as you learn with paid internships in Leading Hotels in Sri Lanka and Overseas. Australasian Academy of Hospitality (AAH) the first 100% Australian Owned specialized hospitality Management Institution in Sri Lanka offers a unique Program in Hospitality Management at an affordable cost. In partnership with Evolution Hospitality Institute (EHI) a leading Hospitality Management Institution based in Sydney, Australia AAH offer globally recognized Australian Hospitality Management Programmes that will help young Sri Lankan School Leavers to join a lucrative career in the fastest growing industry in the world. Evolution Hospitality Institute (RTO # 91256) EHI has been in the Hospitality Management and Culinary Art training and education industry for over 15 years. With industry focus and skills development focus for the industry EHI has set itself apart from its peers in Australia and overseas for their quality of delivery learning outcome of their graduates and the success their alumni have achieved over the years. The number of International students enrolling at EHI programmemes in Sydney Australia exceeds 1200 per year which proves the quality of the programmes EHI offer. Advanced Diploma in Hospitality Management Australasian Academy of Hospitality in Partnership with Evolution Hospitality Institute offer Advanced Diploma in Hospitality Management programme in Sri Lanka. This two-year programme is a well-structured Australian Curriculum delivered by Australian and Sri Lankan panel of lecturers well qualified in their field and with industry experience. BBA in Hospitality Management Students who complete the Advanced diploma in Hospitality management can study for one more year and obtain a BBA in Hospitality Management from a Swiss University right here in Sri Lanka. Switzerland maintains an unparallel reputation as the best destination to study hospitality management in the world AAH and EHI partnership with the Swiss University will provide an opportunity for Sri Lankan students to obtain a Swiss qualification at a fraction of the cost of studying in Switzerland. 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If you are looking for a lucrative career in the fastest growing industry in the world with global opportunities Australasian Academy of Hospitality can help you achieve your career dream. Admissions for our April intake is on now, for more information and enrolments please call 0766 895 896 or 0773 22 77 95 The changing international legal landscape and new opportunities for young lawyers View(s): On the legal profession, a popular quotation is from Dick the butcher in William Shakespeares Henry VI, Part 2, Act IV, Scene 2: The first thing we do, lets kill all the lawyers. Legal institutions and lawyers form the ultimate bulwark against tyrannical rule. Prior to the enactment of the Republican Constitution of 1972, the then Minister of Constitutional Reforms, Dr. Colvin R de Silva, ensured the abolition of the appeals from Sri Lanka to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council to avoid the legality of the new Constitution being subjected to close scrutiny by the Privy Council (see, further Jayasuriya, Dayanath Mechanics of Constitutional Change: The Sri Lankan Style, 1981). With the recent announcement that some 600 new lawyers were admitted to the Sri Lankan Bar, students with an interest in pursuing a legal career as well as concerned parents have been wondering whether the domestic market has not reached its saturation point. The answer to this is not be found in a simple and straight forward yes or no. When I was enrolled as an Advocate of the Supreme Court in the 1970s, the same question crossed our minds. I believe none of my colleagues ever left the Bar solely because there was not much work for them. Many are still active in the Bar enjoying a lucrative practice and others have pursued a judicial career or entered the world of business. The international legal landscape has not remained static during the past three or four decades. Much water has since flown under the bridge. We now live in a highly globalized world. No longer is it necessary to use typewriters to type deeds; by the press of a button on the computer you can get a print out of a custom tailored deed. Technology has been the single most influential factor that has changed the international legal landscape. Document automation, e-discovery, artificial intelligence, block chain and data analytics, online dispute resolution, the development of online courts and examination of witnesses even in foreign jurisdictions through video teleconferencing etc. are all features of this centurys legal tools. In an article in Forbes entitled Modern Day Lawyer, Professor Mark Cohen aptly described the qualities which a modern day lawyer must possess: For a long time, simply knowing the law was the sole requirement for lawyers to deliver legal services. Those days are over. The future lawyer must augment core legal knowledge with other skills including: (1) understanding technologys application to and impact on the delivery of legal services (e.g. e-discovery, cyber-security, contract management, legal research, etc.); (2) project/process management; (3) basic business fluency; (4) client management; (5) collaboration; (6) sales and marketing; (7) an understanding of global legal marketplace developments; (8) cultural awareness for what has become a global profession; and (9) emotional intelligence/people skills. Emotional intelligence is widely overlooked as a critical legal skill. Top lawyers with high intellect (IQ) and people skills (EQ) will always thrive, no matter how pervasive technology becomes in legal delivery. Future lawyerslike physicians that have morphed from medical practice to the delivery of healthcare will return to the role of trusted advisers. They will interpret data and apply their professional judgment to solve client challenges. In some ways, future lawyers will be returning to basics and performing only those tasks that they are uniquely trained to do. Technology, process, and other paraprofessionals and professionals will liberate them to focus on these core tasks. The Nawaloka College of Higher Studies and the University of Ulster offers a 2 plus one LL.B. degree. During the first two years students will study in Sri Lanka and will then proceed to Ulster for the third and final year. This in itself is a unique arrangement which no other local entity now provides. Whilst closely following the teaching modules at Ulster during the first two years, students at NCHS will be exposed to additional short duration courses on I.T. and the law. Introductory lectures will also be offered on a variety of subjects such as competition law; international arbitration; letters of credit; project finance; environmental law; international joint ventures; health law; insurance law; privatization of public service functions; intellectual property law; technology law; international contracts; international agency and distribution agreements; international taxation; issues in international litigation; and, international capital markets. These introductory lectures will help students to broaden their horizons so that at some stage in their future career the fundamental principles to which they were exposed would become useful. Each subject-area will be an enriching experiencing. The Chinese One Belt One Road initiative as well as the new legislation for the Port City in Sri Lanka offer opportunities for lawyers with a broad background to take the lead and play a prominent role in advising U.K. or China based or local companies and law firms. NCHS-Ulster law graduates will definitely have a competitive edge over their peers. It is but fitting to end this piece with a quote once more from Mark Cohen: The legal vertical, long dominated by law firms, is undergoing a tectonic shift in its buy/sell dynamic. This is a result of remarkable advances in technology, globalization, and the aftermath of the global financial crisis that has radically transformed so many verticals. The legal guild is being replaced by a more client-centric, accessible (24/7/365), technology-enabled, process driven, knowledge management based, cost-effective, collaborative, agile, and global delivery model. This is the golden age of the legal entrepreneur. Regulatory barriers established by the self-regulated legal industry that frustrate competition are either being re-regulated or are being cast aside by clients that are migrating more- and more complex- work to providers other than law firms. -Dr Dayanath Jayasuriya 15 killed in explosion at terrorist safehouse Security forces thank Muslim civilians for providing information View(s): View(s): Additional troops were called in yesterday to support on going search operations and provide security after 15 people were killed in Sainthamaruthu when inmates of a house triggered off three explosions as STF and Army personnel tried to search the house, a senior military officer said. Last night, the search operation continued at a tsunami housing scheme in Sainthamurthu, where the explosions took place. In the police divisions of Kalmunai, Chavalakade and Samanthurai, the curfew clamped on Friday night continued throughout yesterday. Six children were among those killed, while a woman and a child who survived a string of explosions set off by one or more persons inside the house were found yesterday morning and taken to the Kalmunai hospital. The STF and Army personnel surrounded the area on Friday on a tip-off and had encountered gun fire while three explosions were reported inside the house. However, a search operation inside the house was carried out only yesterday. On Friday evening M.M. Mahir, the 55-year-old Grama Niladhari of Bolivia Village a 400-unit tsunami housing scheme, three Km west of Kalmunai had received a complaint from a man who had given his house on rent.The house had been rented out to an individual who had claimed he was a telecom engineer from Kattankudy. He and his family had moved in, after paying Rs 50,000 upfront as key money. The house owners complaint about an increase in irregular visitors to the house had prompted the Grama Niladhari to visit the house along with the owner and two other villagers. The chief occupant had argued with them, saying they had no business to check the property after it was rented out. Before the Grama Niladhari and others could make a counter argument, a man had emerged from a room at the back with an automatic weapon and fired in the air. After that he had thrown a packet of Rs 5,000 bills in to the air and it landed outside the house. The Grama Niladhari and others had then run towards the main road, while many of the neighbours also fled after the gunfire. The Grama Niladhari and his group then alerted a security forces patrol nearby. The troops then moved in to surround the house. The terrorists then detonated three bombs. These were later identified as suicide bombs. Some terrorists also opened fire at the security forces. The ensuing fire fight lasted a few hours. According to the Police, six men, three women and six children perished within the residence. A seriously injured woman and a child were rushed to hospital by the Police. The Army reported that four civilians were injured in the crossfire. One of them later died. In yesterday mornings search operation at Nindavur in Ampara, Police and STF personnel found explosive-layered sheets with ball bearings attached, equipment used to build improvised explosive devises (IEDs) and an unregistered van. At a safe-house which the security forces and police raided on Friday, they found more than 150 sticks of Water-gel (gelignite) explosives, urea fertilizer, a large quantity of ball bearings, a drone quad-copter and a large amount of yet-to-be identified acid. Two weeks ago, the security forces raised concerns about the leakage of water-gel explosives in significant quantities from quarry sites. Also, found at the location was a large ISIS flag, suspected to be the backdrop used by Easter Sunday suicide bombers video, pledging allegiance to the ISIS, and the clothes they wore on the occasion. Brigadier Sumith Atapattu said that at Kalmunai and Sainthamurthu the discoveries were the result of a wide security operation carried out with the police and STF. Six terrorists, including suicide bombers were killed while the security forces discovered a large quantity of explosives. The brigadier said this had averted a major disaster. He said that for the security forces, the priority was the safety and security of the people. Responding to a question about community driven intelligence, the military spokesman said, I would like to thank the Muslim community and others in the Kalmunai area for their support in identifying terrorist safe houses. He urged the people to remain vigilant and report any suspicious activity to the police or the security forces. Britains Govt, Opposition politicians convey their condolences By Neville de Silva in London View(s): View(s): Leading British politicians from the Government and Opposition conveyed their condolences, when they visited the Sri Lanka High Commission in London, to express their sympathies over the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks that killed several Britons, hundreds of Sri Lankans and other foreigners. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Mark Field MP, Minister of State for Asia and the Pacific, were met by High Commissioner Manisha Gunasekera and Deputy High Commissioner Sugeeshwara Gunaratna, when they arrived to sign the Condolence Book and convey their sympathies on behalf of the British Government. High Commissioner Gunasekera expressed her deep appreciation of the strong support of the UK and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Home Secretary Sajid Javid, who visited the Sri Lanka Mission to convey his condolence, began his message with the Sinhala words Mama bohoma kanagatuyi. Opposition leader and leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn visited the Mission accompanied by Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry. Mr Corbyn, who recalled fondly, the days he spent in Sri Lanka in the 1980s, welcomed the support to Sri Lanka extended by the British Government. Commonwealth Secretary-General Baroness Patricia Scotland, offering her condolences, urged Sri Lanka to have stronger ties with the Commonwealth, to combat what she called Violent Extremism and terrorist attacks of the magnitude that Sri Lanka faced. Also extending their sympathies were the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and former President of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Sri Lanka, Lord Naseby, and MPs among others. Countries support Lanka; issue travel warnings View(s): Several countries have expressed solidarity with Sri Lanka and offered support in the aftermath of the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks but some of these countries have also issued strict travel advisories, warning their citizens against travelling to Sri Lanka. The United States State Department has urged the departure of all school-age family members of US government employees here. The US has also authorised the voluntary departure of non-emergency US government employees and family members, the State Department noted on its website on Friday. Terrorist groups continue plotting possible attacks in Sri Lanka. Terrorists may attack with little or no warning, targeting tourist locations, transportation hubs, markets, shopping malls, government facilities, hotels, clubs, restaurants, places of worship, parks, major sporting and cultural events, educational institutions, airports, hospitals, and other public areas, the Department warns. Britains Foreign Office also has advised against all but essential travel, in the light of the ongoing security operation and heightened risk of terrorism in Sri Lanka following the attacks on Easter Sunday. The Canadian Government has also warned its citizens to avoid non-essential travel to Sri Lanka. So has China. Easter Sunday horror: How NHSL and Negombo Hospital worked with clinical precision By Kumudini Hettiarachchi View(s): View(s): Two major hospitals worked with clinical precision, at very short notice, in the wake of the Easter Sunday suicide bombings that shook the country. The call to the National Hospital Sri Lanka (NHSL) came just after 8.45 a.m. on April 21, about the Kochchikade Church and three five-star hotel blasts and into action they went, with all the key people of the Disaster Management Committee being informed immediately. I was in another part of the hospital though it was a Sunday and as soon as the operator informed me that the telephone exchange had got the alert, I put our plan into action, says the Deputy Director-General (NHSL), Dr. Kumara Wickremasinghe of this 3,500-bed facility. He was informed of multiple blasts and to expect a large number of casualties and so the emergency wheels began turning, with him at the helm as the casualties were brought in a rush to the NHSLs Accident & Orthopaedic Service which is considered the Level 1 Trauma Centre in the country. More operating theatres were opened up, additional Intensive Care Units (ICUs) made ready and the neuro-trauma teams brought in, he says, adding that resources such as sterile linen were reallocated from other parts of the NHSL. Later many outside donations flowed in. Initially despatching its own ambulances, he called for support from the Colombo South (Kalubowila), Colombo North (Ragama), Castle Street and Lady Ridgeway Hospitals in transferring the dead and injured from the blast site 20-25 ambulances plying back and forth with sirens screaming and red lights flashing. This was while casualties were also being brought in private vehicles. Pointing out that within a short time of about one hour, they received 267 people, Dr. Wickremasinghe explains that three weeks before, the NHSL had rehearsed the contingency plan as they usually do quite often. He explains how they dealt with this mass of casualties systematically as soon as a casualty arrived, he/she was tagged with a number, which number would later be on the Bed-Head Ticket (BHT). Thereafter, triaging took place to rush the severely injured to a resuscitation room, with the less severely injured (second level) being taken to a different area and those with minor injuries elsewhere. Those who were already dead were kept in a separate area, checked for lack of signs of life to confirm death and then sent to the mortuary and transferred to the police morgue for inquest. Of the 267 casualties (including 130 males and 86 females), 206 were admitted to the hospital. Among them were 21 foreigners. The death toll was 51 including 11 foreigners, the Sunday Times learns. Dr Wickremasinghe says that 75 casualties are still in hospital, of whom 20 are in the ICU and include four children. While stressing that he hopes that such unfortunate incidents will not take place again, he says that if regrettably they do occur, the NHSL is ready with its Emergency Response Plan. He is quick extend his appreciation to all the staff specialists, medical officers, nurses and paramedical and support staff who not only did their duty but also went beyond the call of duty to serve the country and its people in distress. It was a similar scenario at the Negombo District General Hospital. When the telephone operator informed Director Dr. Chandraguptha Ranasinghe, he had immediately contacted the Police to verify the bomb attack and get an insight into the number and type of casualties. The reply had been mass casualties. Quickly invoking the Disaster Management Plan, the relevant personnel had got into position quickly. Having six ambulances, Dr. Ranasinghe had requested institutions close by for support, mustering the services of 24 ambulances. By the time the casualties came in soon after 9 a.m., the Triage Area with a Consultant and his team had been in place, assessing them and transferring them to the Primary Care Unit, OT, ICU or wards. All the bodies were checked to confirm that there were no life-signs and sent to the temporary mortuary outside the OPD premises and kept for identification, says Dr. Ranasinghe, explaining that Consultant Judicial Medical Officers (JMOs) were rushed to the blast site to carry out analysis and secure evidence. He also alerted all nearby institutions such as the Chilaw, Marawila, Gampaha and Ragama Hospitals and the JMO offices of Mannar and Kurunegala as he realized that if there was a large influx of bodies, there could be a delay in their release if there was a shortfall of JMOs. I asked the JMOs to come with their teams, dissecting crews and equipment, says Dr. Ranasinghe who quickly got his staff to set up temporary dissecting rooms in four garages and also a temporary police post as well as a temporary magisterial post. The postmortems started around 3 p.m. on Sunday, as they had to await the holding of the magisterial inquiry at the blast site. With 11 JMO stations working from 3 p.m. on Sunday to 1 a.m. Monday, 84 bodies had been released. As a back-up plan, Dr. Ranasinghe had got in touch with the Defence Ministry and the Health Ministrys Disaster Management Centre to secure two mobile coolers (40-foot and 20-foot respectively) to store the bodies and prevent decomposition in case there was a delay. However, the JMOs had worked throughout and by 11 a.m. on Monday, the day after the bombing, more bodies had been released. The next difficult but essential task was to identify the human body parts, says Dr. Ranasinghe, explaining that as soon as the casualties were brought along with other body parts, the hospital took digital photographs. Each photograph was printed to the size of 8X6 and displayed at the JMOs Office lobby, for kith and kin to identify their loved ones. These are the photos we looked at closely on Tuesday and were able to match all the body parts to the bodies that had been brought in, he says. The Negombo Hospital Director appreciates the great help extended by many including the respective Medical Superintendents (MSs) and Directors of the hospitals such as Chilaw, Marawila, Gampaha, Ragama and NHSL; Health Ministry officials including Dr. Champika Wickramasinghe and Deputy Director-General (Planning) Dr. Sridharan Sathasivam; regional and provincial health officials and Gampaha District Secretary Sunil Jayalath. Donations of dry rations, clothes, water, medical equipment and consumables had flowed in from non-governmental organizations and private organizations. Post-disaster, the Negombo Hospital has held an in-depth debriefing to focus on any deviations from the recommendations and why and what the way forward should be, both immediate and long-term. Currently, about 15 casualties are at the Negombo Hospital of whom three are in the ICU, but their condition is stable, says Dr. Ranasinghe. Around 130 casualties had been brought here on Sunday, of which 44 had been transferred to Ragama Hospital and NHSL. The number of dead brought in had been 101 (61 females and 40 males), having mainly succumbed to mutilation and shrapnel and head injuries. Hi-tech facial recognition system at BIA By Asiri Fernando View(s): View(s): The Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) is to be equipped with a Facial Recognition System (FRS) as part of the heightened security measures in the aftermath of the Easter Sunday massacres by ISIS-linked terror groups. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has informed the Defence Ministry of an offer to donate an advanced Facial Recognition System to be installed at the BIA. The need for such a system has been highlighted by law enforcement and customs officers for several years. However, their requests had been ignored. Facial recognition technology will improve the capability of the law enforcement officers to identify suspects trying to flee through the airport. Recently information was received that several key drug kingpins had travelled overseas using forged passports. The system will be able to match and identify facial features of the person even if they are using a forged passport or a false name. This will also enable security officials to recognise terrorist suspects when they enter the country. The Sunday Times learns that the system will include 10 high resolution cameras linked to a software that can match facial biometric features of persons walking past each camera against a Police watch-list of persons of interest. The UN body will also provide guidance and training on the responsible use of biometric technology for law enforcement purposes. The system and training is estimated to cost half a million US dollars and is a donation from UNODC to the Sri Lanka Police. The UNDOC installed a similar face recognition system at Bangladeshs International Airport in Dhaka last year. Hindu Council condemns brutal Easter Sunday attacks View(s): The Hindu Council of Sri Lanka (HCSL) condemned the brutal Easter Sunday attacks, in a statement issued on Monday (22). The statement issued by HCSL President K. Ganaesgaram and Immediate Past President Ms Shivanandani Duraisami condemned the act while expressing their shock. The HCSL was founded 35 years ago as an umbrella organization consisting of Temple Trusts, Societies and members. They said bombs had been mercilessly detonated in several places when our Christian and Catholic brethren were at Easter Prayers, at a day that is sacred to them, when Lord Jesus Christ is said to have risen from the dead to save mankind. The HCSL, while condemning these beastly acts, conveyed their sincere sympathies to all the Christians and Catholics in Sri Lanka and pray that the Lord gives them strength and courage to bear the loss of life, he said. More than100 Govt., Opposition MPs seek additional security View(s): More than 100 Government and Opposition MPs have sought additional security, on the grounds that they are facing a security threat, a senior Police officer said. A few of them have also requested that security be provided to their immediate family members as well. He said some of the requests have already been approved and, therefore, additional policemen and vehicles have been provided to them. However, a threat assessment will be carried out to determine if additional security is actually required or, if the security already provided is sufficient, he added. He said that providing additional policemen was an issue, in view of the security situation in the country. Meanwhile, earlier intelligence reports had revealed there were names of 14 Government and Opposition politicians who were under threat. One of the new security measures taken is that, the MPs were now being provided with a daily report on the security situation. Muslim Media Forum decries terror attacks View(s): The Sri Lanka Muslim Media Forum has condemned the suicide attacks targeting three Catholic churches and star hotels on Easter Sunday The SLMMF expresses its deepest condolences and sympathy for the families of the brotherly Catholic community who have lost their near and dear ones in these brutal and horrific attacks that had caused damage to an unthinkable proportion, it said. The SLMMF said it urges the government to take all necessary action to bring the culprits and their partners before the law and give them the maximum punishment. In a message to Muslim parents, the Forum said, Parents should pay more attention to their childrens behavioral patterns. Parents are obliged to keep track of whom they are connected to, where they are going and what they are talking about. Muslim civil society, too, has the responsibility to prevent the youth from falling prey to terrorist thoughts and networks, the SLMMF said. While appreciating most media institutions for acting with responsibility in this crucial juncture, the Forum said it regretted the unethical practices of certain sections of the media. No Sunday Mass today in Churches islandwide View(s): In view of the current security situation in the country, Churches have decided not to conduct Sunday Services today. They said they are reviewing the situation until normalcy returns. The Catholic Archdiocese of Colombo said that, after consultation with the Vatican, all Catholic Churches have been informed to refrain from conducting Holy Mass today. However, for the convenience of the faithful, it has decided to conduct Mass via a private television channel. Malcom Cardinal Ranjith will celebrate Mass starting at 8 am. Also, the Archdiocese has directed Churches to avoid having large gatherings at Mass. Spokesman Rev. Fr. Edmund said they have advised Churches from conducting big Masses, even for weddings. He said that Catholics should understand and cooperate. In the meantime, he said the Western Provincial Council is providing security to all the Churches. There are police and army personnel in the premises and everybody will be checked when entering, he said. Also, Church groups will be called upon to be alert and identify suspicious persons coming into the Church. People have been asked to refrain from carrying huge bags and backpacks when entering Church premises. Meanwhile, Christian Churches across the country have also decided to cancel worship Services on Sunday, despite the security provided to all Churches by the Defence Ministry. They said that, despite the presence of security personnel in the premises of the Churches, Sunday Masses have been postponed indefinitely. A spokesman for the Anglican Church said they are reviewing the situation. The Methodist Church also has cancelled all Services in Churches across the country. Pro-ISIS terror groups to be banned soon Death penalty for terrorists; NTJ, JMI to be proscribed; no Burqa, no Niqab View(s): View(s): The Government will introduce tough new measures to curb activities of pro ISIS terror groups in Sri Lanka after last Sundays Easter massacre. Last night, the Presidents Office announced that the Government had taken measures to proscribe the National Thowheed Jamaath (NTJ) and the Jamiathul Millathu Ibrahim (JMI) and declare them terrorist organisations. Accordingly, the Government will take measures to freeze all moveable and immovable assets belonging to these organisations. Steps will also be taken to ban other extremist organisations operating in the country, the Presidents office added. The Emergency Regulations confer wider powers on the armed forces and the Police to deal with those engaging in terrorism. The regulations will deal with matters such as the issue or publication of statements or pictorial representations by terror groups and threats to cause death or bodily harm. The Emergency Regulations provide for the imposition of the death penalty on those found by the High Court to have committed terrorist offences. The government yesterday also appealed to Muslim organisations to persuade women to refrain from wearing the Burqa and the Niqab, the black attire which conceals their identity. A security official said this had become inevitable in the light of the need to conduct security checks on persons and the possibility that terror groups will use the religious attire to carry out attacks. The initiative to urge Muslim women to refrain from wearing Burqa and Niqab is being spearheaded by Justice Minister Thalatha Atukorale together with Muslim Affairs Minister Abdul Haleem. A Justice Ministry official said this was essentially a persuasive measure and added, We hope they will co-operate. Otherwise, we will have no option but to introduce legislation after consulting Muslim organisations. The question of wearing Burqa was taken up at a special meeting on Wednesday. The proposal was made to ban it under Emergency Regulations. However, the move was strongly opposed by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera. No decision was taken. However, the matter is to be discussed with the Muslim Affairs Minister and Muslim organisations. Minister Haleem told the Sunday Times that a discussion jointly chaired by Minister Atukorale and himself was held at the Justice Ministry last evening, with the participation of representatives of Muslim organisations. At the discussion, the Muslim leaders urged Minister Atukorale to give them a week to convince their community to stop wearing Burqa and Niqab, at least, for the time being, Mr Haleem said. He said Ms. Atukorale emphasised the urgency to stop the attire being worn, noting that was a serious security threat, with the possibility of more attacks. Ravi proposes power supplies from Turkish ships View(s): The Cabinet is expected to discuss next week a proposal by Power and Energy Minister Ravi Karunanayake to award a Turkish company a tender to provide electricity from two power-ships to be anchored in the Galle harbour and at Kerawalapitiya. Minister Karunanayakes proposal is backed by Turkish Ambassador Tunca Ozcuhadar. Mr. Karunanayake has informed his ministerial colleagues that it is unlikely that the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) can produce the 495 MW of power required in such a short period of time and avoid further power cuts the country is facing due to delays in obtaining the approval of the Cabinet Tender Board, the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL) and the Attorney General. The proposal comes in the wake of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghes letter to Minister Karunanayake and officials in the state power sector that the minister would be personally liable for any further power cuts. This was reported in the Sunday Times last week. The Turkish company, M/S. Karatdeniz Holdings is reported to have responded to the CEBs call for an Expression of interest (EoI) for alternate power generation solutions due to the prevailing power crisis in Sri Lanka. Mr. Karunanayake says the CEB is reluctant to recommend the Turkish company due to socio-political and legal issues. He adds that the Technical Evaluation Committee is also seeking time to evaluate the proposal. Promoting the Turkish company, the minister says the developer will connect and supply power within four weeks of the Government agreeing to the proposal. In what appears to be a move to bypass the CEBs reluctance to make quick decisions, Minister Karunanayake is seeking cabinet approval for his proposal to direct the CEB to issue a Letter of Interest to M/S. Karatdeniz Holdings of Turkey on the recommendations of the Turkish Ambassador and senior management of the CEB. He has also asked that the Finance Ministry grant exemptions on taxes, the Petroleum Ministry to issue the company a licence to request heavy fuel and for relevant government agencies to treat the matter on a priority basis. In addition to the Prime ministers warning to Minister Karunnayake last week, a member of the ministerial committee on the power crisis refused to sign their report accusing a Power and Energy Ministry official of tampering with their recommendations by typexing words (as reported in the Sunday Times April 14). A source familiar with the issues told the Sunday Times that the latest proposals to give the Turkish company several concessions would costs the CEB Rs. 48 billion. The source asked why the minister was proposing a Turkish company for emergency supplies when the CEB had given time until May 2 for the acquisition of further 100MW of grid-connected capacity. He said the concessions included tax reliefs; free usage of ports; the company levying a massive capacity charge; the CEB to be responsible for waste disposal; the lack of any performance bonds; the CEB to fully fund the letter of credit; and a government guarantee for all these. Strict security measures at BIA cause hardship and chaos By Kasun Warakapitiya View(s): View(s): Security at the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) has been stepped up for passengers departing the country The security plans that were visible at the entrance to the airport was the first checkpoint where vehicles were checked before entering the Departure terminal. At the checkpoint Air Force personnel with sniffer dogs, inspected baggage and vehicles. After which passengers were dropped off near a hut erected near the Departure terminal. A tourist, Gilion Campbell (43) who was leaving Sri Lanka with his wife and two sons, said they felt secure, as there are more security personnel deployed at the airport, and did not mind the security measures. He said the security situation did affect them, as they were unable to travel in the night during their stay, due to the curfew, but at Galle, they felt secure as they were far away from the areas that had bombs going off. Ruzenka Beskova (50) from the Czech Republic said she had been close to Kandy and was safe from the blasts, but stressed on the need for more security in the country. Meanwhile, vehicles that dropped off passengers, were diverted out of the terminal, away from the Arrivals area. The Arrivals terminal too, was heavily guarded by the Air Force, Airport security and Army Commandos. Meanwhile, Arrivals were not allowed to be picked up at the terminal by any vehicle, as vehicles were barred from doing so. This meant that the Arrivals had to push their trolleys of baggage up to the Airport gate and offload their baggage, where Air Force personnel took over the empty trolleys. There were long lines of traffic on the Katunayake Road with Arrivals vying to secure vehicles at the Airport gate. One of the affected was Ms Jeewani Dhanapala (42) who arrived from India. I am sleepless and even my children are tired after the flight, and now they are telling us to carry our luggage out of the airport, without even providing us trolleys, she said. She added that it took her over 20 minutes to hire a vehicle that could transport her group and their baggage, with taxi drivers charging Rs 3,000, instead of the Rs 2,000 charged earlier. Sarath Jayasooriya, an electrician, said that he had difficulty carrying his baggage and even damaged his wrist watch in trying to carry heavy bags. Mr Jayasooriya said that the Airport authorities should conduct security measures without causing inconvenience to the public. They can have measures to transport baggage in vehicles from the entrance of the Arrivals terminal, he said. Meanwhile, taxi drivers too said they are facing lesser hires as most foreigners hire airport taxis instead of their vehicles. M.H.M Riuas (37), a resident of Galle, said he took foreigners to Galle, after he took them to their lodgings. I am also scared to take foreigners with large baggage, as I too could be suspected of transporting bombs, he said. He too, said that his business has dropped, as foreigners hire vehicles parked away from the airport. The Day After: Nearer My God, to Thee View(s): With an open Bible on the Altar, priests, nuns and parishioners are seen at the Katuwapitiya St. Sebastians Church where about 100 people were killed in the Easter Sunday massacre by a suicide bomber. Pic by Amila Gamage Zion Church bombers initial target was St. Marys Cathedral By Chris Kamalendran View(s): View(s): The suicide bomber who attacked the Zion Church in Batticaloa had originally targeted St. Marys Cathedral located nearby, Batticaloa Diocese Bishop Ret.Rev. Dr Ponnaiah Joseph told the Sunday Times. Ret.Rev. Dr Joseph said the bomber had first been dropped off by someone in a car at St. Marys Cathedral in Batticaloa on that fateful Sunday. He had asked the gatekeeper whether mass was still on, but had been informed that it had already ended. Thereafter, he had got himself dropped off at the Zion Church. At the Zion Church, an assistant junior pastor had invited the bomber to come inside due to the hot and humid conditions outside. The junior pastor had then made his way to the mass and had asked one of the devotees, R. Ramesh to look after the suspect bomber. Mr Ramesh though, had grown suspicious of the man and asked him about why he was coming to church. The bomber had told him that he had a camera with him and wanted to film the worshipers. Mr Ramesh still was not convinced and had told the bomber he would need permission to do so. Mr Ramesh had thus prevented the bomber from entering the church. He had thereafter, gone outside and detonated his explosives at the main entrance to the church. Mr Ramesh, who has been hailed as a hero, was among those who died in the explosion. Police had reportedly been able to trace the mother of the bomber in Kaththankudy and she had been able to identify the remains of the man as those of her son. After the carnage; a time to heal By Kumudini Hettiarachchi Senior Consultant Psychiatrist Dr. Athula Sumathipala discusses the importance of helping survivors of the Easter Sunday tragedy cope with their grief View(s): View(s): Grief and depression mimic each other but there should be no compulsory counselling of the survivors of the Easter Sunday bomb blasts. This is the strong plea going out from Senior Consultant Psychiatrist Dr. Athula Sumathipala who is Director of the Institute for Research & Development. He is also Professor of Psychiatry, Research Institute for Primary Care & Health Sciences, Keele University and Emeritus Professor of Global Mental Health, Kings College London, United Kingdom. Pointing out that it would be natural for those who have experienced the Easter Sunday tragedy first-hand to feel sad, angry, that it is not worth living or face sleeplessness, he says these are normal feelings even when there has been a natural death of a loved one and more so in an unnatural and violent death. It will take about six months for these men, women and children to overcome these emotions. We need to remember that it is not pathological and certainly not Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). No one should jump to this conclusion and begin treating them for mental illness. Grief is often misdiagnosed as depression. If there is a doubt after about six months, then that person needs to be taken to a Psychiatrist for a proper evaluation and diagnosis, says Dr. Sumathipala. He is adamant that there is no need for compulsory counselling in the wake of such a tragedy. Compulsory counselling has been proven to be counter-productive. There is no scientific basis for such compulsory counselling as western scientific literature proves, this Psychiatrist says. The path away from such feelings for these people should be in our cultural context. They should be allowed to engage in the normal rituals of providing a dignified burial for their loved ones. If they wish to talk about their feelings, there should be friends or relatives who will listen to them and provide kind words. Even if they are uncommunicative, there should be strong social support, he adds. Meanwhile, focusing on why it is crucial to identify the dead and the missing following a disaster and the best way to do it, Dr. Sumathipala states: Identification of bodies and the missing, as well as providing a dignified burial is a vital part of the overall management of a disaster. This is because prolonged, unresolved grief comes about due to the failure to identify missing persons and the lack of information whether loved ones are dead or alive. The knowledge that a missing person is no more provides closure to loved ones, while helping to sort out long-term legal consequences. DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid) technology can be used in the identification of remains because 98% of the genetic make-up of humans is unique to each person. Using DNA technology is also less distressing to loved ones from a psychological perspective, rather than carrying out physical identification. Dr. Sumathipala adds that a comprehensive forensic service including modern genetic capabilities should be an integral part of the disaster response in Sri Lanka. For those between 12 and 20 its a new experience Try not to expose children below 12 years to graphic imagery linked to the recent bomb blast tragedies of Easter Sunday and treat any views expressed by those between 12 and about 20 with sensitivity.Urging that the impact of these terrible incidents on children and young people should not be treated lightly, this is the urgent request being put forward by Dr. Athula Sumathipala.These two groups have not been inoculated against this type of imagery, unlike older people who have lived through a 30-year war, according to him. For this group, it is a new experience.Children need to be allowed to ventilate their feelings and if they are inclined to, through techniques such as drawing and painting. The older group should be allowed to express their feelings of anger, hate and revenge. They need to be allowed to verbalize what they are feeling constructively, not destructively, without shutting them out as that would make them internalize their feelings, stresses Dr. Sumathipala. If young people internalize such feelings, those feelings may erupt in an extreme form later on, he points out, adding that this is why adults such as teachers should be guided and armed to allow young people to say what they have on their minds, followed by a constructive discussion and dialogue without emotion on the pros and cons of such feelings. Far from home, Lankans join hands By Sashini Rodrigo and Joshua Surendraraj View(s): View(s): The process of grieving is a difficult one that Sri Lankans would have to face as a country in the days and months ahead. Hearing the terrible news of a tragedy that wreaked unimaginable death and destruction, far from home, the hearts of many Sri Lankans were with their country at its time of sorrow. New Zealand Nearly 200 people living in Auckland, New Zealand stood out in the rain at the Aotea Square to comfort the grieving Sri Lankans in their community on Monday, April 22. The event was put together by Jason Lankino Bandara and Sandani Hiranya as soon as they heard of the attacks. The pair had reached out to senior members of the community and different Sri Lankan community organizations. They were fully supported by the New Zealand Police and the Auckland Council. We felt that following the shock, sorrow and confusion after the event, it is important for us Kiwi Sri Lankan families to unite and come together to comfort one another, Jason tells us. Both he and Sandani stood with the crowd holding a banner that read Kia Kaha Sri Lanka! (Stay strong Sri Lanka!) Russia In Russia, the Sri Lankan Students Union of Kursk State Medical University stood in solidarity at a candlelight vigil on Monday, April 22. President of the Union, Kasun Illeperuma tells us they felt helpless, as Sri Lankans living abroad. The day was heavy with grief and their minds were disturbed. We couldnt talk to our parents like before and we didnt know what to do, he said. But the students believe their strength comes from their unity. They decided to come together and pray for the victims. The United Kingdom Several Sri Lankan communities back in the United Kingdom also came together to show their support for the country. A candlelight vigil was held outside the Sri Lankan Embassy in London on Monday. The event was attended by several Sri Lankans, the Sri Lankan High Commissioner and staff. Senel Wanniarachchi, an attendee, tells us the atmosphere was heartfelt. Aside from the vigil, the Sri Lankan community of the University of Manchester had raised over 4000 GBP within 24 hours to help needy communities in the areas affected by the blast. The students had partnered with the Rotary Club of Colombo Centennial and are working on a plan as to how these funds could be used. United Arab Emirates Members from all religions had come together to pray for the people of Sri Lanka at a special service that was organised by the Holy Spirit Church in Oman on Tuesday (April 23). The Sri Lankan Muslim community living in Oman had also organized a special prayer service to pray for the victims, at the Sri Lankan embassy in Oman on Wednesday. Canada More than a hundred residents of Montreal, Canada also came together for the people of Sri Lanka. Candles lit the sidewalks, while a Sri Lankan flag was placed at the base of the George-Etienne Cartier Monument. Speaking to the Montreal City news, the organizer of the vigil Chanaka Harura stated the Sri Lankan communities cannot be divided anymore. He added the Sri Lankans have suffered enough in a 30-year war and are not ready for another. Meanwhile, several other vigils were also organized around Ottawa and Toronto as well. United States Vigils were also held across the US. In Pasadena, California, the Sri Lanka America Association of Southern California (SLAASC) drew a large crowd for the candlelight vigil at Pasadena City Hall on Monday (April 22). Representatives from all major religions in Sri Lanka spoke to the crowd about the need for unity and peace, the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) said. SLAASC is collecting donations to help the families of victims of the Easter Sunday attacks. All donations made will go to the Archbishops House in Colombo, for those in need. Australia Soon after Sundays attack, the Melbourne Arts Centre spire was lit up in the colours of the Sri Lankan flag. Melbourne resident Sharan Velauthan has organized a silent rally for Sri Lanka that will take place today, April 28 at the State Library of Victoria. The event has 620 confirmed attendees and 2000 people who are interested in attending, according to their Facebook event page. Good Samaritans of St Vincents Hospital, Sydney View(s): This is a partnership that was formed purely through friendship and trust based on the common values of love and compassion. A love that reached out thousands of miles and across oceans to give the needy, the sick and the dying, the most precious gift, the gift of life. Four years ago, a team of 16 medical staff from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), arrived in Sydney for a training on Bone Marrow Transplantation (BMT) at St. Vincents Haematology Department. Four years on, NCI has now celebrated their 50th successful Transplant in the presence of Dr. Samuel Milliken, Head of the Haematology Department, St. Vincents Hospital Sydney. In 2013, having seen the struggle of Sri Lankan cancer patients first-hand requiring BMT Procedure, a small group of Sri Lankan-Australians from Canberra and Sydney, decided to take some decisive action. They approached Assoc. Prof. John Moore of St. Vincents, seeking advice on the possibility of introducing BMT to Sri Lanka. Prof Moore undertook to canvass this proposal with his St Vincents colleagues. Critically, he was able to bring his colleague Prof. David Ma on board to play a major role in the programme. At the time in Sri Lanka some 50 cancer patients were referred every year for BMT, requiring them to travel to India for treatment. Since these costs (AUD 45,000 AUD 90,000) were unimaginable to most of the patients who were poor, the majority of patients were unable to afford treatment. Professors John Moore and David Ma visited NCI, Sri Lanka in 2014 for a preliminary assessment on setting up a BMT unit at NCI. Dr. Kanishka Karunaratne, then Director, NCI, committed to allocate two rooms in a modern seven-storey building complex that was already under construction, and provide funding for the equipment. St. Vincents Haematology Department committed to provide training for the staff and mentor the programme. Four Endeavour scholarships were secured from the Australian Government. Furthermore, generous donations from MAS Holdings and Maliban Biscuits of Sri Lanka, and a massive campaign by the small group of Sri Lankan-Australians involving the wider community in Canberra and Sydney helped raise the necessary funds (AUD 96,000) for the remaining 12 members, in a very short time. This allowed the training of the 16 staff from NCI (including four consultants, four medical officers, five nursing staff, two MLTs and one pharmacist) in Sydney for up to four months. A comprehensive programme put together by St Vincents staff to cater to individual training needs at various levels resulted in an extremely smooth and effective learning outcome. Since their return, Professors Ma and Moore held regular tele-meetings with the BMT team in Sri Lanka, providing them with advice including for preparation of patients for BMT. Consequently, the first ever BMT in the public system in Sri Lanka took place successfully at NCI in December 2016 under the supervision of the St. Vincents team. Since then, the skilled and committed Sri Lankan medical team headed by Dr. Prasad Abeysinghe, has gone on to complete 50 autologous transplants (using the patients own stem cells). Now, St Vincents team is looking forward to mentoring the Sri Lankan BMT team on performing Allogeneic Transplants (using donor stem cells) in the near future. Many forms of assistance were also received for this project from the Sri Lankan High Commissioner in Australia S. Skandakumar, the Deputy High Commissioner Mrs. Himalee Arunatillake, former-High Commissioner Admiral Thisara Samarasinghe and the Social club of Australian Public Service Commission. Letters to the Editor View(s): A tragedy that could have been averted The news reports on the most tragic incidents on Easter Sunday indicate that by April 11, 2019, through intelligence information, the Police Chief was made aware of possible attacks on churches in Sri Lanka and that in turn he passed the same to his deputies. It is now very clear that the Police Chief and his deputies took no action at all on this warning as no national alert was publicized. There was a time gap of almost 10 days till Easter Sunday, the D-day in this instance, and there was no follow-up action which should logically have been to first make the church authorities aware and then arrange for strong security around churches in consultation with Church authorities, during the Good Friday-Easter Sunday period when devotees throng these places for worship. Nothing of the sort happened and the bombers had a field day and easy access to their targets, sans any security checks as is usual in churches, to which there is free access for anyone. A CCTV recording at the St.Sebastians Church, Katuwapitiya, clearly showed the suspected bomber walking into the church through a side door with a heavy backpack which probably had the lethal bomb for detonation and the onlookers said that just after the entry of this man, the dreaded explosion occurred. Had there been tight security, this man could not have gained access to the church that easily. In fact, genuine worshippers never walk in like that to church with heavy backpacks and even the people in and around the church at that time would definitely have prevented him from walking in, had there been a national alert published well in advance. Based on the foregoing, it is most apparent that there has been a major lapse on the part of the Police Chief and his Deputies, as they have miserably failed to perform their relevant duties, either purposely or through negligence. Had they quickly acted on the advance information they had, at least the tragedy in the churches could have been avoided or minimized. Now in the aftermath of this tragedy when Sri Lanka is once again in the spotlight worldwide, for bombings targeting innocent civilians after a lapse of almost 10 years of calm and peace, it will be interesting to find out whether the Police Chief and his deputies will not be held accountable. Of course, given the fact that in this country, where people in authority boast of the responsibilities they hold, and accountability for lapses is mostly unheard of and passing the buck is mostly the order of the day, it is probable that the same situation will prevail with no change, unless there is a drastic change in the approach to administration, at least now. We have to only wait and see. A.Bedgar Perera Moragolla, Imbulgasdeniya NDT course: How many more lives have to be sacrificed before authorities open their eyes As a former staff member who taught on the N.D.T. Course for many years, I was not at all surprised to hear that a student had committed suicide after being severely ragged. This is because the authorities do absolutely nothing to stop this menace. The first years are made to undergo the most degrading, inhuman and perverse punishments. They are deprived of sleep, food and even face physical harm. In fact I heard that one student had fractured his legs due to ragging and now attends lectures in a wheelchair. The senior students the raggers see this as a part of the N.D.T. culture and the authorities are willing to turn a blind eye for the simple reason that they do not want to cross swords with the seniors. They are scared that there will be strikes. So is it necessary for more innocent students to sacrifice their lives before the authorities open their eyes? This menace can be eradicated to at least an extent, if the authorities are willing to take stern action against the culprits. Sack them or suspend them. It is better to close the Institution for sometime than seeing young children, our future generation, committing suicide. Former Staffer Those responsible must be brought to book The Presidential Commission of Inquiry appointed to probe the Easter Sunday terror attacks must include within its remit to find out the persons in authority who were negligent in not heeding the intelligence information made available to them. The persons responsible must cease to hold the positions they hold presently and they must be brought to book. Rohan Fernando Mount Lavinia Stop passing the buck: Its disgusting It is with deep regret that I write this. First and foremost my heartfelt condolences to the families of all those who lost their lives. So, it is a known fact that the government was informed beforehand that such monstrous incidents will take place. What action did they take to protect the common man ? We can already see that politicians have once again made this a platform to wash each others dirty linen in public as is always done. Disgusting. We, the people have had enough of this. At least for once why cant they sit at the table as a body and think of how to address this tragedy instead of passing the buck? We as a country were just beginning to take a step forward and now we have been pulled back ten-fold because of a bunch of lunatics with warped minds. We dont want to see any more of these gruesome incidents happening and personally I think those in authority have to take the responsibility for the lapse on their part and do something constructive. Otherwise sorry to say our beautiful island will not see the light at the end of the road and will get isolated once again from the rest of the world. A concerned citizen Via e mail Thoughts on banning the face veil As suggested by a reader in an English daily to ban the face veil, I think both Muslims and non-Muslims will endorse this under the prevailing situation in the country. But I am of the opinion that this ban should be a temporary one because of the divergent views of the Islamic theologians as to whether the face should be covered or not. As for those who abuse this attire I strongly feel that the culprits should be given the most stringent of punishment in order to prevent a recurrence. Legislation may have to be passed wherein the details of the punishment such as life imprisonment, people etc. could be stipulated. I also kindly request to refrain from referring to this as Ninja as it is tantamount to ridicule of a modest dress as done by some announcers over a few radio channels. Mohamed Zahran Colombo 14 Teenage Royalist granted a British royal patent 100 years ago By Senaka Weeraratna Bertram Elibank Dawapurarathna died tragically after developing a patent in England for improving steam engines in locomotives View(s): View(s): Bertram Elibank Dawapurarathna was the inventor of a mechanism that improved the Reversing Gear in Steam engines. His original design was patented and registered in London in 1910 (patent no. 6883). He also had a second patent in 1913 for a device that improved the valve mechanism of internal combustion Engines. After completing his studies at Royal College, he went to England to pursue higher studies in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Glasgow in 1912. He chose the University of Glasgow as this was where the famous mechanical engineer James Watt developed improvements to the steam engine, after whom the unit of power Watt was developed. Professor William Rankine who developed the complete theory of the steam engine and the Rankine Cycle also attended the University. Glasgow was also the home of the North British Locomotive Co, which was the largest locomotive manufacturer in Europe, and supplied many of the locomotives to the Ceylon Government Railway (CGR). On March 20, 1913, a few months after Bertram commenced his engineering studies in Glasgow, he applied for a patent for Improved Valve Mechanism for Internal Combustion Engines. He was granted Royal Patent No. 6883 exactly a year later on March 20, 1914. The most commonly used valves in four stroked internal combustion engines are poppet valves. The minimum number of valves is two per cylinder (inlet & exhaust). Some high performance engines have more than the minimum number. Dawapurarathna s patent was a proposal to reduce the number of valves from four to two, for two cylinders. The two cylinder A and B have a common valve chamber c in which there is a rotating tapered plug valve f rotating at half the crankshaft speed. The air/fuel mixture from the carburetor enters from the top through the passage h and is admitted to the cylinders when the gap g is in line with the ports a and b. Line up with the gap k, the exhaust gases leave the cylinder through the passage j to the exhaust outlet d. This was quite an ingenious idea to reduce the number of valves and cost of the engines. It is said that during the war he was flying a test plane which crashed. He was hospitalized, seriously injured. His Doctors thought that he stood a better chance of recovery if he were to return to Colombo to convalesce in a warm climate. He had by then graduated as a mechanical engineer. In 1917 he had embarked on a ship P & O Nyanza to return to Ceylon. On the way the ship had been attacked by a German submarine and badly damaged within 25 miles off the shores of England. Both Bertram Dawapurarathna and another Ceylonese passenger on the ship Walter de Silva, were seriously injured and both died in hospital after they were taken back to England in the badly damaged ship. Available records reveal that Bertram Dawapurarathna had died in 1918, when he was 22 years old, and his ashes were interred in a British cemetery. Together in tragedy By Kumudini Hettiarachchi Katuwapitiya weeps as one, says a resident as they lay to rest the victims of last Sundays bomb attack at St. Sebastians Church View(s): View(s): Where do we begin to tell the story of the tragedy, the anguish, the shock, the support, the strength and the reconciliation after the massive terrorist bomb blast on Easter Sunday in Katuwapitiya. Having walked the length and breadth of this mainly Roman Catholic village where they are still burying the dead or having buried their dead are in deep mourning, we will begin with two parallel roads. These two roads, both branching to the right off the main Negombo-Chilaw Road, are heavily decorated with white flags and bunting as also proclaiming through huge banners sympathy over those men, women and children who succumbed in this dastardly attack and empathy for those left behind, the survivors with physical and psychological scars. One road is the Katuwapitiya Road, leading to the Catholic village where there was a massacre of the innocents in their very own church and the other is the Jumma Masjid Mawatha, heavily populated by Muslims with two mosques off it, leading to Periyamulla. We see flowers all over. Not only the white, yellow and green arches which still stand in the forlorn altar of St. Sebastians Church before a congregational area where the pews are overturned on blood-splattered floors and bits and pieces of human remains still cling to walls; pots of white flowers bobbing up and down in funeral processions; white, purple and other wreaths atop coffins in hearses or graves at the cemeteries where 30 or 40 have been buried but also sheaves and pots placed at the gate of the Grand Mosque. We also hear echoes and re-echoes from the Catholics and the Muslims resonating loud and clear the thrasthawadi (terrorists) need to be hunted down, with the law coming down on them fast and hard, so that there will be no more deaths, injury, moaning and wailing. Both communities are adamant they have lived together for long years and there is no disharmony among them. The Muslims among us cannot be blamed for thrasthawadi violence, say the Catholics. The stories of the tragedy are similar but very personal as well. Every by-lane in Katuwapitiya has one, two or more homes where death through a suicide-bomber has paid a visit on Easter Sunday, the day Christians believe Jesus Christ rose from the dead, after his crucifixion on Good Friday. Some parents attended the Saturday night mass at 7 p.m. and escaped the hand of death, as did some children. But other parents and children went for the more colourful morning mass, for it was to be followed by a procession through the streets of the village, with the chariot carrying the statue of the Risen Christ. The whole village had laboured for this day having passed through 40 days of Lent, a time of reflection, sacrifice and preparation for Easter, considered the holiest festival in the Christian calendar. They had cleaned the church and decorated it..and the sprinkling of Muslim families in the village would also step out of their homes to see the procession pass-by. Now the church is shut and yellow crime-scene tape cordons it off, the gates are barred and little knots of priests and nuns speak in whispers. Just as we arrived on Wednesday morning on foot, having parked our vehicle a distance away, the Papal Nuncio Archbishop Pierre Nguyen Van Tot, the Ambassador of the Holy See, was just about to drive away, having paid a visit here. There is a heavy presence of armed security forces personnel and barricades everywhere. We trudge to a coconut estate, part of which is now a cemetery, as the cemeteries in the area cannot cope with the demand and there we see graves and more graves, all with simple wooden crosses and flowers. The crosses have a distinct number, and we count from 1 to 32, while people in white and black stream in, to be frisked at the entry point and later weep at the graves. It is not over yet the backhoes are ready, as are the shovels leaning against the side of a huge dug up area, awaiting more burials. Ranjith Jayawardena who had donated these 38 perches to the church a while ago and which have now become the resting place for the blast victims explains how Katuwapitiya is a big parish. There are three small and one large church and St. Sebastians Church which celebrated its 150th jubilee a few months ago on January 20, is the maha palliya. People from far and wide come for the Pasku Mangalya, he says sadly, looking at the graves. As we leave with heavy hearts, we meet a funeral procession. An adults coffin in the hearse, while the mourners hold high a tiny coffin and bystanders tell us in subdued tones that it is a grandmother and granddaughter. A family of five attended mass that fateful Sunday a mother, a daughter and the daughters three children. At communion time, the daughter handed over her baby to the mother and the baby remained with her. The blast left infant and grandmother dead. From a small hut by the roadside, we are handed bottles of water at no charge, for the noonday sun is unbearable. We also see donations being brought to the church. It was around 8.45 that the blast took place, says a young woman, who declines to be named or photographed, with the whole family inviting us into their home after checking our press identity cards. Loku Amma and I were together when there was a streak like lightning, she says, explaining that her two brothers had also helped in the service. One had gone to the rear of the church in preparation for the procession as the mass was drawing to a close. Dong-gala pipuruwa, one boy says. The whole family is relieved that they escaped unhurt, even though relatives rushed from their home close by and searched among the bodies thinking that they too had died. The young woman says the whole area was covered in smoke and the roof-tiles began raining down on them. Her heart was throbbing and her brother embraced her and they rushed out. Now in the village adiyen adiyata mala-geval, she says, pointing out that there are houses, every foot of the way, with funerals. Hondama aya giya (the best people are gone), she murmurs, as she gives us the toll a woman and her three children; a woman, her leli (daughter-in-law) and two grandchildren; a mother and daughter; two young people about to marry; and one twin, leaving the other in inconsolable grief. The image just before the blast is quite clear the mass had nearly ended, the priest had given the isthuthi kathawa, when someone wanted to thank the priest in return. The priest then made the sign for the people to sit, when the blast occurred. We need no directions to the other homes, but just follow the banners and the white flags. We have lost a bright little boy, says Suraj Fernando with much emotion. Easter Sunday morn saw his sister and brother-in-law, Manel and Callistus Fernando, going to church along with their daughter and son-in-law, Dilani and Ranjeeva Silva and their three sons, Dimitha (16), Enosh (11) and Gavin (6). Our chubby and intelligent boy is no more, says Suraj, explaining how his sister and her husband sat somewhere at the front of the church and her daughters family about four pews behind. Dilanis pew was a bit of a tight fit and they asked Enosh to sit with his grandparents. As fate would have it, that was the side from which the suicide bomber entered the church, taking the three lives, leaving behind an unbearable emptiness right in the middle of this young family, the other members of whom were also injured. Hema thenama mehemai. Mulu gamama andanava, says the older couples daughter-in-law, Sandamali, giving us another case where the husband is abroad and the wife and two daughters are dead, with no one even to identify their bodies. Others tell us of whole families arriving in church in their cars, with only the cars being left behind and homes where the gates are padlocked since Sunday and will remain so forever. Pathetic is the plight of S. Jude Prasad Appuhamy, who with such love and devotion prepared the chariot for the procession. Seven of his close family are no more, while his wife and one daughter sat in the podi palliya (wing), fortunately not the wing through which the bearer-of-death came. His other daughter was in the middle section but still a distance away. Judes elder brother, Dulip Shantha Kumara, and his son, Vimukthi, and daughter, Sajini, and his younger sister, Rashika Dilrukshi along with her two daughters, Sajini and Salome, and son, Shalom are all dead. We buried them this morning (Wednesday), he says tearfully. Families torn asunder and we hear from son and daughter, Malith and Roshica, how their parents, Rohan and Shanthi Wimanna, went to church that morning. While Malith and Roshica went for the Saturday evening mass and were sleeping that morning, Ammi came and got me to help her wear her chain, remembers Roshica. They were woken up by a batto saddayak and thought the procession was about to start. It was the bomb. Into their home, while we are talking walks a woman with her face lined with sorrow and hugs them close. That family lost their daughter who was in her 20s, says Roshica, while Malith tells us how the suicide-bomber had walked in and stood near his parents. You can see them in the video footage. Thaththi was wearing a dark blue long-sleeved shirt and Ammi was in a mal-mal (flowery) top, he says, adding, katha karala wedak ne. As this village buries its dead and attempts to limp back to a semblance of normalcy, what they seek is not revenge, for many mention the love and compassion of Christ and that they are His followers. But, Katuwapitiya does want answers from the authorities and they want justice and law and order to prevail, for those who have been left behind not only in their village but in the whole country. We have always lived in unity We stop by the two mosques along Jumma Masjid Mawatha. This has never-ever happened in this area and we have lived in unity, says the Moulavi of Negombos Grand Mosque, who has served the Maha Palliya for 40 long years. Reiterating that it is a thrasthawadi kriyawak and they condemn it wholeheartedly, he explains that nowhere in the Koran or any holy book is there mention of freedom to take the life of another. He urgently called for the identification of the thrasthawadi and their punishment. Meanwhile, Moulavi Tahir Ahmad of the Masjid Fazal stressing that all religions preach the need to do good to others, says that there is no religion which espouses hatred. Some people are trying to entangle thrasthawadaya with religion but there is no such mathayak in Islam. They are attempting to hide behind religion to commit heinous crimes and we can assure that Islam does not propagate such ideas, he said, adding that Muslims have always co-existed in peace and harmony with all Christians, Buddhists and Hindus. Sri Lanka attack is the wave of the future By Amy MacKinnon Returning Islamic State fighters are spreading a really viral ideology and looking for vulnerable countries to target, says terrorism expert Anne Speckhard View(s): View(s): Among those least surprised, perhaps, by the Islamic States claim of responsibility for the Easter Sunday suicide bombings that killed at least 259 people in churches and hotels in Sri Lanka was Anne Speckhard, the head of the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism think tank. During her career Speckhard has interviewed more than 600 terrorists and their associates, including dozens of Islamic State defectors and returnees. She said she was at a United Nations conference in Colombo, Sri Lankas capital, in February when a Sri Lankan intelligence officer approached her expressing concern about rising Islamist extremism in the island nation, which has been largely peaceful since a civil war ended about a decade ago. On Tuesday, in a statement issued on the social media app Telegram, the Islamic State said it had targeted Christians as well as citizens from countries involved in the coalition to fight the Islamic State. In the hours after the attack, the Sri Lankan government attributed blame to a little-known Islamist group, National Thowheeth Jamaath, but there was almost immediate suspicion that the nature of the bombings suggested the attackers had received guidance from elsewhere. The countrys junior defence minister also suggested that a second group, Jammiyathul Millathu Ibrahim, may have been involved. Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said that some of the people involved in Sundays attack had travelled to Syria, but he did not say whether they had fought for Islamic State, otherwise known as ISIS. In 2016, the Sri Lankan government acknowledged that 32 Muslims from well-educated and elite families had gone to Syria to join the Islamic State. In an interview with Foreign Policy, Speckhard said that while the caliphate may have been defeated, Islamic State ideology remains perilously potent. n Foreign Policy: Were you surprised this morning when you heard that the Islamic State had claimed responsibility? Anne Speckhard: Not at all. FP: What particular aspects of this, if you had to list them, signaled to you that this was not entirely homegrown? AS: The fact that its called Thowheeth Jamaath makes me think that its linked to ideology which is coming from outside the country [Thowheeth means oneness of god, and Jamaat means brotherhood]. That a Muslim group engaged in suicide terrorism. If it had been Tamils engaging in suicide terrorism, OK, it was the Tamil Tigers. And the fact that they did multiple attacks, and that they figured out to do it on Easter and to attack Western hotels. It just has all the hallmarks. They may not have been directed, but nowadays its such an interlinked world. In most attacks, you see someone talking to someone somewhere else in the world. n FP: The Sri Lankan prime minister has suggested that some of the attackers had traveled abroad before the bombings. What does this mean, were there Islamic State returnees involved? AS: People who have gone and lived under ISIS, the first thing they do with the men is put them under sharia training. Sharia and weapons training. So these are people that probably already had the ideology when they traveled to ISIS, but it just got strengthened. It doesnt get strengthened for everyonesome get disillusioned. But those that come back holding it are extremely dangerous. n FP: You have said that 45,000 people travelled from around the world to join the Islamic State. How many of them do we now have tabs on globally? AS: More than half have returned home. And in the beginning, most countries were extremely lenient on women, so most women didnt get charged. Theres a case in Kosovo, where an ISIS fighter we interviewed after hed been in prison for, I think, a four-year sentence told us in our second interview, I hope you get beheaded by Jihadi John. The tail of his prison sentence coincided with the start-up of a rehab program, and he mocked the rehab program. But his wife, who is said to be more extremist than him, was never charged. She wasnt a fighter, but she went with him. He also said he got more radicalized in prison. Whos to say that he wouldnt say to his wife, Hey honey, I think you should strap on a vest and go. And she kept in contact with people in ISIS when he was in prison. These people have returned, most of the womenin the pastwere not charged. Now they [European authorities] are starting to take women much more seriously. Europeans get really short sentences, and theyre really hard to convict, because its hard to prove. n FP: So theres potentially tens of thousands of people right now walking around who were part of the Islamic State, but who are at large basically? AS: In the world? Yes. I think its estimated that over half returned. The other half, a lot got killed. So a majority of the survivors are women and children, but theres men too. n FP: To that extent, do you expect that Islamic State will now look for these soft targets, countries like Sri Lanka that dont have a recent history of radical Islamic terrorism and may not be on the lookout for it? AS: I think its the wave of the future. I think that what our security systems have to really get on top of is that, if you have small groups, that they can mobilize quickly nowadays. Its such an interconnected world, and once they believe this poison, its very virulent. Because people who are willing to give their lives are extremely dangerous. And theyre dangerous in different ways in different places. Like in the U.S., what always worries me is how accessible guns are. Our FBI is fantastic, were really lucky for them. Theyre watching signals all the time and stopping people all the time before they even get on planes. But not every country has a robust FBI like we do. n FP: Some people were sounding the warning about this within the Sri Lankan intelligence community. Is this going to be viewed as an intelligence failure? AS: Its horrible, I feel really sorry for them, but I think that governments function that way. Different parts of governments talk to each other, they ignore each other, and the wheels spin slowly, while terrorist groups are adept and fast. n FP: At the conference you attended in Sri Lanka in February, was there any discussion of this group that carried out the attacks yesterday? AS: I think that the intelligence woman from Sri Lanka mentioned it. She was saying she was tracking this activity and she was worried about it, and she asked me, What do you think? And I said, Well, thats the profile, but are you following them? Are you watching them? And she said that from time to time they just disappear, they move. So they were aware that something was brewing. n FP: Did you get the sense that was just one concerned Sri Lankan intelligence officer? AS: Yes. And I told her, Well, jeez, it seems youll be much more likely to get a resurgence of the Tamil Tigers, you hit them so hard. And one of their generals came over and he kind of put her in her place and looked at me like what are you talking about, we never did anything except the right thing. He didnt really want to listen to her. And then later he left, and I talked to her some more. But she was obviously lower on the totem pole, but onto the right thing. Its a really viral ideology, and its dangerous, and weve seen how powerful it is. If you can attract 45,000 people, thats no small thing. And thats why when people ask, Is ISIS done? Im like, In your dreams. If you can attract that many people, and thats why we really have to delegitimize these groups. n FP: When youre talking to people in the intelligence community and the FBI, do they feel like Islamic State is done? AS: No, when I talk to people in the Defence Department they say theyre coming back. That were going to be back in Syria. Were out for a while, but were going to be back in a couple of years, if not sooner. n FP: Whats the way to combat this? Its a terrifying thought that you can have a group of 10 people in Sri Lanka be inspired by a group in Syria or wherever they were, and just chatting through social media apps that are readily available to everyone. How do you defend against that? AS: I think that we have to be as clever as them, and they use very emotionally evocative images. So, they get you the same way World Vision gets you to donate. You see a kid surrounded by flies in a famine, and you cant stand it, and you send money. And they show you atrocities against Muslims, and you cant stand it, it gets you crazy. So theyre really good with that, and then they pair it with music, with scripturesthey twist the scriptures so it doesnt even resemble mainstream Islam. But they use things which you value and which are sacred to you and are important to you, and they play on your values and your emotions. Instead of giving money, you give yourself. Its super smart, and we have to do the same thing: We have to fight back with things that are both rational and emotional. So thats what we do when we get an ISIS person to talk back, an insider. We figure thats somebody that theyll listen to, and we make it all emotional and we use their video to show scenes. But we frame it totally differently, we frame it with a person denouncing ISIS. And we have to be active on the internet just like them. But we always say we fail in our project in that we create good content, we can go toe-to-toe on content, but we dont follow up. When somebody responds to anything weve got, we dont have a little army that responds to them, that says, Hey, you liked our video. Were you watching ISIS videos? Are you OK? Whereas they are. Theyre saying, Hey, you liked our video. Can I send you more? Are you interested? Brother, you need to be a good Muslim. Let me be your friend. We subtitle them in 27 different languages, because we know that ISIS is recruiting in all those different languages. We dont have them in Tamil, but I guess we should. Courtesy foreignpolicy.com When Flight or Fight an essential human response becomes self destructive By Shehan Williams View(s): View(s): As Sri Lanka struggles to come to terms with the senseless attacks on Sunday, April 21, it is important that we are aware of the pitfalls in our response to this tragedy. An unexpected massacre of innocent civilians, perhaps the most noble and religious amongst us, is something incomprehensible to the human mind. It provokes fear and anxiety, the most basic and primitive response of all living beings programmed for self-preservation. The homeostasis of the mind is shattered as trust in fellow human beings built in to the neurons that facilitate the processes of the mind are sent in to disarray. The mind struggles to find coherence, an explanation and a framework in which to comprehend and reorganise itself. Fear mode In such situations, the mind goes in to a fear mode. The mind and the body activate the physiological flight or fight response to safeguard itself and respond to the real or perceived threat. It is a protective response that has safeguarded all living beings from the beginning of time. However, as with most bodily responses, an excessive or prolonged activation of this response can eventually be self-destructive. The classic example in medicine is the inflammatory response following a physical injury. When fear takes over, it does not rationalise or stop to think. Almost all logical processes shut down. An automatic default system takes over. What then are the components of this default network? Stereotyping In a heightened state of fear the brain focuses on any perceived threats which it has identified during the immediate process or from past experience. It clutches on to information that bring further threat whether visual, auditory or even cognitive. It ignores non threatful cues and seeks out the smallest threats to flee from or attack. Justifiably the brain manages risk by a quick overkill as opposed to rational thinking which is a slower process and may not be the best gamble in emergencies. We have to go with our instincts as they say. The mind tries to identify anything and everything that resembles the threat. It tries to predict who or what is harmful. It relies on a process we call stereotyping. In this specific case, what did the attacker look like, what was he carrying, what is his background, what was he travelling in, what is his race or religion. These mental stereotypes ring alarm bells. It is, nevertheless, a dangerous process. Innocent Muslims because of their faith, dress or background can become objects of fear. As highly intelligent beings we have to be conscious and fight these primitive instincts. Fear feeds in to fear To protect ourselves, we also seek like-minded people who reinforce our fears and stereotypes. We unconsciously fall black to our clans, as we feel vulnerable when alone. It is clear that the mind finds solace in shared emotions and thoughts, in this case heightening the resolve to fight these perceived threats due to our own fears. There is always more safety in a group, as the survival of an individual is dependent on the survival of the group. The escalation of fears within groups can be extremely destructive. When emotions are heightened it only takes a spark to set off a huge domino effect. The classic example in Sri Lanka being the kotiya day or black Friday in July 1983, when many Tamils were attacked and killed, as there was a build-up of hysteria that the Tamil Tigers had come to Colombo. Past memories Fear is also activated by past memories. The memory stores or our brain with the horrible bomb attacks and massacres of the past due to the separatist war are rekindled. It fuels the flames of fear. It is not surprising then that the most intelligent and rational minds, too, fall prey to these miscalculations of the mind. An appropriate national response To overcome this panic fuelled by rumours and social media and even mainstream media at times, rational minded slow thinking people need to come to the fore. The government has a responsibility to ensure the safety of the people by word and by deed. It does not help when the security forces in their enthusiasm to show that they are meeting the threats feed the fear. People should be given only appropriate information when it affects their safety. Sending messages of suspicious, vans, lorries and number plates may not be the best response. In the current context even a terrorist is a member of the public and will receive the same information and take action. Finally, law and order and normalcy have to be restored as soon as possible despite the magnitude of the tragedy. The minds of the people will only stabilise when the environment around them appears as before with normal memories being restored. (The writer is Professor in Psychiatry at the Kelaniya Universitys Faculty of Medicine.) June 15th 1977 was a turning point in Spanish history as the people went to the polls to vote for a government for the first time after a dictatorship that had lasted nearly 40 years. General Francisco Franco had ruled the country with an iron hand until his death in 1975, so the transition to democracy and restoration of the monarchy was an exciting but still very tense and uncertain period. This was the first democratic election since February 1936, before the Civil War, and it was difficult to tell in advance which parties would be given the most support. The three main parties were the centre-right UCD, social democrat PSOE, right-wing Alianza Popular (the forerunner to today's Partido Popular) and the Communist Party of Spain. A decree issued by acting prime minister Adolfo Suarez had established a proportional representation system corrected by the application of the d'Hondt Method for the Congress of Deputies, with two MPs for each province. A total of 350 seats were up for grabs. For the upper house, the Senate, there was to be a majority electoral system with open lists and 207 seats, of which up to 41 could be designated by the King. Turnout for this all-important election was 78.8 per cent, and would probably have been higher had there not still been fears about repercussions if it were discovered which way people had voted; the threatening shadow of the Franco dictatorship still hung over much of the population. Even so, that was still the second highest turnout in any general election in Spain since. When the results came in, Adolfo Suarez's UCD party had won the highest number of seats, 165 of the 350, and he became Spain's first democratically elected prime minister after the dictatorship. The second party was PSOE, led by a young and charismatic Felipe Gonzalez, with 118 seats, and third was the PCE, the Spanish Communist Party, with 20 seats. The AP party, led by former Franco minister Manuel Fraga, only won 16 seats, as Spain definitively turned its back on its decades of repression. Spain still had a long way to go. For example, after the 1977 election there were only 21 female MPs. Now there are 137, and new prime minister Pedro Sanchez Castellon has appointed 11 women and just six men to his cabinet. There were radical changes to everyday life after democracy was re-established. Society became more open and free, women were given back rights which had been taken from them by the Franco regime, and Spain began its other 'transition period', towards the modern country it is today. 15 killed in raid on Islamist hideout: Sri Lanka police Colombo, April 27 (AFP) Apr 27, 2019 Suicide bombers cornered by security forces in a hideout in eastern Sri Lanka blew themselves up killing 15 people, including six children, police said Saturday. A civilian was also killed in the crossfire during the night-time raid near the predominantly Muslim town of Kalmunai, with hundreds of families later fleeing their homes. Kalmmunai is in the home province of the jihadist suspected of organising the Easter Sunday attacks that left 253 dead. Three men set off explosives killing three women and six children inside the house on Friday night, police said. "Three other men, also believed to be suicide bombers, were found dead outside the house," said a police statement. Gunmen opened fire on troops when they attempted to storm the house under cover of darkness, military spokesman Sumith Atapattu said. An ensuing gun battle lasted more than an hour, a military official said, adding that the bodies were recovered following a search operation. Charred bodies and at least one gunman cradling an assault rifle, were seen in video footage shown on state television. Explosives, a generator, a drone and a large quantity of batteries were seen inside the house. Some 600 Muslims fled a neighbouring settlement built to house displaced survivors of the 2004 Asian tsunami because of the fighting and took shelter in a school, residents said. The civilian was hit in crossfire and died while a wounded woman and child were taken to hospital. The operation followed a tip off that extremists linked to the Easter suicide bombings were holed up in Kalmunai, 370 kilometres (230 miles) east of the capital. Zahran Hashim, founder of the National Thowheeth Jama'ath (NTJ) group blamed for the attacks and one of the Colombo suicide bombers, comes from the same province. The clashes came hours after security forces raided a nearby location where they believe Hashim and other suicide bombers recorded a pledge of allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi before carrying out the bombings of three churches and three hotels. Police said they found an IS flag and uniforms similar to those worn by the eight fighters in a video used by IS to claim responsibility for Sunday's attacks. "We have found the backdrop the group used to record their video," the police said in an earlier statement. The Islamic State group released their video two days after the bombings. Police showed the clothing, the flag, some 150 sticks of dynamite and about 100,000 ball bearings seized from the house on national television. Security forces armed with emergency powers have stepped up search operations for Islamic extremists since the bombings.